South Africa: Government reiterates support for media independence Government has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthen relations with media and support its independence. Government made the commitment at a webinar held on Thursday. The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) joined South Africas media industry in commemorating the 45th anniversary of Black Wednesday, to reflect on and discuss media freedom. GCIS Chief Director for Media Engagement, William Baloyi said South Africa has made huge progress under democracy in advancing media freedom, and the South African Government has interest to see their freedom, as it enshrines in our Constitution. Free media is integral part of our democracy and government is committed to press freedom. We value our regular interactions with the media formations, including South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF), Press Club, Press Gallery, Foreign Correspondence Associations, Association of Independent Publishers, and the National Community Radio Forum, amongst others. Media freedom is the architect of our democracy, especially the democratic dispensation that we are in now, insisted that media freedom be a fundamental feature of our new society. Media is playing a role that is being enshrined in Constitution and they are essential to us in building and open an exclusive information society, Baloyi said. Baloyi also noted that the media is a key player in assisting national dialogue, and social cohesion. He said government has begun a process of participating in conversations on media sustainability with other media organisations, including SANEF and its partners. We all have a responsibility to ensure that journalism strives. Government established the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) in 2002 because of a need to support vibrant community and small commercial media sector in a county to make sure we safeguard our democracy. We are working on a Print and Digital Media Transformation and Revitalisation Steering Committee [and] this shows us that we are committed to making sure that all instruments that are there safeguard the democracy that we have, that support from all sectors, Baloyi said. Government also expressed its appreciation the good work of the media during the COVID-19. Journalists work diligently to inform the nation about COVID-19 and helped citizens understand the spread and impact of the virus. Our journalists have been at the forefront in the fight against the virus and widely sharing our message to the public, Baloyi said. Editor of Sowetan Newspaper, Nwabisa Makunga appreciates the efforts made by government through dialogues with the media, and urged government to also include shop floors in the newsrooms when having such conversations. Pressures in newsrooms Makunga said economic pressure in the newsrooms and attacks on journalism, are some of the issues, which keep journalists awake at night. Theres a concerted efforts from some quarters of the country undermining and discrediting the craft of journalism. This largely manifests itself in the attacks on individual journalists in the work that they do when they demand accountability from powerful players. These attacks often [and] sometimes happen on social media, and they are often gendered. The question is what is it that we are doing as a society to be able to push back, to be able to protect the values of journalism but on a broader scale, values of transparency, accountability and prosecutional values, Makunga said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. * Over the past decade, the Chinese economy has sustained rapid growth and cemented its global status as a major growth contributor. * With a vast market of 1.4 billion people, solid economic growth, and an improving business environment, China has remained a favorite destination for foreign investment throughout the past decade. * Over the past decade, China has put innovation high on its agenda to boost competitiveness and invigorate the economy. * China's economic development has translated into a steady increase in resident income, improving people's livelihoods notably over the past decade. BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Through a decade of steady growth, China has evolved into the world's major economic powerhouse, with numerous milestone achievements made along the journey of high-quality development. Powering ahead on a development path that is innovation-driven, sustainable, and more open to the world, China has kept injecting momentum into the global economy. The following figures and facts provided by the National Bureau of Statistics shed some light on how the world's second-largest economy transformed and thrived over the past ten years. Aerial photo taken on July 23, 2021 shows the Yachihe Bridge of Guiyang-Qianxi Expressway in southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Xinhua/Yang Wenbin) DRIVING GLOBAL GROWTH Over the past decade, the Chinese economy has sustained rapid growth and cemented its global status as a major growth contributor. In 2021, China's gross domestic product reached 17.7 trillion U.S. dollars, accounting for 18.5 percent of the world's total. From 2013 to 2021, it grew at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent, beating the global level of 2.6 percent. With the rapid economic expansion, China has become a major driving force for global growth. During the 2013-2021 period, its contribution to global economic growth averaged 38.6 percent, higher than that of the Group of Seven countries combined. Agriculture, a pillar of the economy, has registered stable growth. Since 2012, the output of grain, meat, peanuts, and tea ranked first in the world, while rapeseed output placed second. On the industrial front, the country's main industrial product output has risen steadily. The output of crude steel, coal, power, cement, fertilizer, automobiles, micro-computers, and mobile phones led the world. Aerial photo taken on June 2, 2022 shows harvesters reaping wheat in the fields in Tancheng County of Linyi City, east China's Shandong Province. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei) OPENING WIDER Amid endeavors to open up wider to the world, China's foreign trade has seen a robust expansion in the past decade. In 2020, the country surpassed the United States to become the world's largest trading country for the first time, with a total foreign trade volume of 5.3 trillion U.S. dollars, up from 4.4 trillion dollars in 2012. Last year, China's foreign trade volume further expanded to 6.9 trillion dollars, continuing to take first place globally. Its foreign trade in goods rose from 3.9 trillion dollars in 2012 to 6.1 trillion dollars last year, accounting for 13.5 percent of the world's total. The country has also remained the largest trader in goods and second-largest trader in services in the world. With a vast market of 1.4 billion people, solid economic growth, and an improving business environment, China has remained a favorite destination for foreign investment throughout the past decade. Since 2020, China has remained the second-biggest recipient country for foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI into the country, in actual use, came in at 173.5 billion dollars in 2021, compared with 113.3 billion dollars in 2012, increasing by 4.8 percent on average each year. Aerial photo taken on May 6, 2022 shows a view of the Longtan Container Terminal of Nanjing Port in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Li Bo) INNOVATION-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT Over the past decade, China has put innovation high on its agenda to boost competitiveness and invigorate the economy. The country rose to 12th on the Global Innovation Index 2021, up from the 34th in 2012, said the World Intellectual Property Organization. It ranked first among middle-income economies. Amid the innovation drive, the number of Chinese companies on the Fortune Global 500 list has grown since 2012. In 2021, 145 Chinese companies made it to the list, climbing from 95 in 2012 and increasing for 19 consecutive years. In terms of telecommunication infrastructure, the country has built the world's largest 5G network, with a total of 1.43 million 5G base stations installed across the country by the end of 2021, accounting for over 60 percent of the world's total. Backed by technological advancement, China has accelerated the construction of high-speed transportation networks. The country boasts the world's most developed high-speed rail network, with high-speed railways stretching to a total length of 40,000 km by the end of 2021, up 330 percent from 2012. The extent of expressways in operation has also reached 169,000 km, an increase of 80 percent over the past decade, ranking first globally. A Fuxing bullet train runs on the Lhasa-Nyingchi railway in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, April 14, 2022. (Xinhua/Chogo) BETTER LIFE China's economic development has translated into a steady increase in resident income, improving people's livelihoods notably over the past decade. The gross national income per capita reached 11,890 U.S. dollars last year, doubling from the figure recorded in 2012. The expansion helped elevate China from 112th to 68th in the same timeframe as per a World Bank ranking. China eliminated absolute poverty in 2020, with 12.37 million rural residents lifted out of poverty on a yearly average between 2012 and 2020. This achievement enabled China to meet the poverty eradication target in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ten years ahead of schedule. Thanks to the income growth and improvements in education and health care, the average life expectancy of Chinese people reached 77.9 years in 2020, 5.2 years above the global average. (Video reporters: Zhao Xiaona, Wu Lu, Du Juan, Xu Feng, Luo Jingjing, Chen Haoquan, Kang Wenjun, Wang Ping, Ji Li, Wu Changwei, Jiang Lei, Xie Zhao, Wang Feng, Yao Bing, Yu Fuqing, Yang Yiran, Zhang Baoping, Guo Jun, Wang Jiangang, Xie E; Video editors: Chen Sihong, Li Qin, Mu Xuyao, Li Ziwei, Liu Ruoshi) Kristy has been scuba diving for 30 years, having dipped her fins in the waters of Belize, Mexico, Galapagos Islands, Cuba, Cayman Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. She is a seasoned diver who has met whale sharks, turtles, and many other creatures who call the ocean home. But until this moment, she had never had an encounter with a manta ray. It was on her bucket list to see these magnificent animals in the wild so she traveled to the island of Komodo in Indonesia. Kristy drifted along with her camera, 20m (60 feet beneath the waves, watching white tipped reef sharks and sea turtles glide by. Suddenly, out of the blue, an enormous manta ray appeared and headed straight for her. It changed its course to meet her face on, as if curious about this clumsy human. Just before colliding with her, it slowly banked to the left and passed almost directly over here head. Kristy was given a close look at the underside of one of the world's most majestic animals. and to make things even better, the first manta ray was followed closely by a second. The trailing manta passed by almost as closely, leaving Kristy astonished and thrilled with the encounter. Flooding continues to cause problems for people across Central Florida. >>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<< In Deltona, two large holes have formed- one on a road, and another in a persons yard. READ: 2 robbers shot dead at jewelry booth in Orlandos Magic Mall The city closed Salem Drive in the Hidden Lake Estates area Friday morning. Residents there say theyre confused about whats going on. They say they cant tell just how big the holes are because water keeps rising over them. Who knows? Who knows what it is honestly, neighbor Tracy Barbour asked. They told us it was a sinkhole. Barbour says shes been watching the hole in her yard grow larger each day. She says the Deltona Department of Public Works called it a sinkhole. When Channel 9 asked, a city representative first said they werent sure what it was because its on private property. Family Resource Centers, Volusia County residents may visit Lake County Disaster Recovery Center https://t.co/hCX3bZXHwN pic.twitter.com/rIT90KjWb2 Volusia EMER MGMT (@VCEmergencyInfo) October 14, 2022 Barbour says city staff came to see it after she called and put cones up several days later. READ: Robbie Coltrane, comedian and Harry Potter, James Bond actor, dies at 72 That same city representative later said a storm water pipe failed and it couldnt be repaired until the water lowers. However, the yard isnt Barbours only concern. Her mother-in-law Marilyn Barbour lives right next door. The section of Salem Road in front of her home is now closed. The city is calling that anomaly a depression. City leaders say they temporarily repaired it with what they called a cold patch. You can see it cracking and water coming up through the road, Marilyn Barbour said. Story continues The Barbours say theyre worried that if the water doesnt go down fast, theyre going to have a much larger issue. READ: 6 arrested in DeBary drug house raid They were just out here and they said the drains are flowing, and I said, yeah, its flowing into my back patio now, which is my living room just about, Barbour said. The city says theyre not officially referring to either hole as a sinkhole at this time. Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. CBS News Videos Janet Shamlian has an exclusive interview with a young woman who was raped and gave her DNA to San Francisco police to help find the man who attacked her. Six years later, SFPD used the DNA that they had stored to press charges against her for an alleged crime. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane will debut at its new home at the Palm Springs Air Museum on Oct. 15. Walt Disney Archives Walt Disney used the private plane to scout Disney World then codenamed Project X. The company flagship was affectionately known as Walt's Plane and The Mouse. The fully outfitted galley included a hot cup for heating Walt's favorite chili. The Walt Disney Company has reverentially restored the mothballed and neglected historic exterior of its famed founder's beloved Mickey Mouse One Gulfstream plane that was abandoned to rot in the Florida heat and humidity of a field in Walt Disney World. American film producer and studio executive Walt Disney (1901 - 1966) stands with a group of boys and others as they wait for a parade on Main Street USA at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, August 1962. Photo by Tom Nebbia/Corbis via Getty Images Walt Disney's Grumman Gulfstream I airplane will debut at its new home at the Palm Springs Air Museum on Saturday, October 15. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider The company flagship refurbished by Walt Disney Imagineering and the Walt Disney Archives was affectionately known throughout its storied history as Walt's Plane and The Mouse. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider Disney CEO Bob Chapek unveiled the restored Mickey Mouse One in its "full original glory" as the centerpiece of the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane will debut at its new home at the Palm Springs Air Museum on Oct. 15. Brady MacDonald/Insider "This little beauty has been basking in the Florida sun for about the last 40 years," Chapek said at the D23 Expo. Bob Chapek at D23 Expo 2017 in Anaheim, California. Image Group LA/Disney via Getty Images From his cabin window, Disney surveyed the scrub-filled Central Florida swamps in the 1960s that would become Walt Disney World then known by the code name Project X. Walt Disney's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider Walt made several trips to Florida to look at the property and fly his Imagineers back and forth, Walt Disney Archives Director Becky Cline said. It wasn't just Florida they were scouting with Project X. They wanted to do an East Coast Disneyland. They looked at a number of different places on the East Coast. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives A customized instrument panel with an altimeter, true airspeed indicator, and Mickey Mouse clock allowed the aviation enthusiast to monitor flight conditions from his favorite cabin seat. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives A nearby telephone handset gave him a direct line of communication to the pilot in the cockpit. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider Walt never became a pilot but that didn't keep him out of the cockpit. "Often he would go up and sit in the co-pilot seat and watch the plane being flown," Cline said during a phone interview. "He was fascinated by all modes of travel." Story continues Walt Disney prepares to board a helicopter bound for his theme park Disneyland, under construction in Anaheim, California, circa 1955. Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images The flight crew always kept a Mickey Mouse matchbook next to the plane's Duk-It ashtray for the boss a lifelong smoker. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Passengers flying aboard The Mouse were given a flight bag with a silhouette image of Mickey lounging on the tail of the Gulfstream. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Cocktail napkins featured pilot Mickey and stewardess Minnie flying on a patched-together cartoon plywood prop plane version of N234MM the same tail number as Mickey Mouse One. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Disney pilots often changed the Two, Three, Four, Metro Metro air traffic controller call to Two, Three, Four, Mickey Mouse on approach to an airport. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Disney Dining The 15-passenger plane with a 3-person crew featured a galley kitchen, two couches, two tables, a drop-down desk, and two restrooms one for the passengers and crew and another for Walt. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives It had a fully outfitted galley in the main cabin, which was special at that time, Cline said. It was capable of providing in-flight meals for all 18 people aboard. It had a sink, a warming oven, food storage, tray containers, and heating elements so they could heat up Walts chili and that sort of thing. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Walt Disney started shopping for his own plane in Summer 1960 after becoming disillusioned with commercial air travel. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Walt Disney Archives "They had a drop-down table so that they could have meetings and layout drawings and charts," Cline said. "Frankly, that's the main reason Walt wanted the plane. He wanted a private plane so that he could continue working, which is something he couldn't do when he flew commercial." Stewardess Izola Readle takes tickets from cartoonist Walt Disney, with his creation Mickey Mouse, in Newark, New Jersey as they board an airplane on their way to the World's Fair in Chicago. Credit: Bettmann / Getty A piston-engine Beechcraft Queen-Air 80 purchased in 1962 was quickly deemed inadequate for increasingly frequent trips from Burbank to New York in preparation for the 1964-65 World's Fair where It's a Small World and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln debuted. Walt Disney drives a red Autopia car with his daughter and grandson as passengers at Disneyland theme park, Anaheim, California. Photo by Gene Lester/Getty Images The new Grumman Gulfstream G-159 was purchased in late 1963 and outfitted with interior furnishings, cockpit avionics, and orange and black livery emblematic of the Walt Disney Productions logo. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Walt Disney Archives Walt and his wife, Lillian, offered input on the custom interior and exterior design of the undecorated aircraft that was delivered with an olive-green primer inside and out. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Walt Disney Archives The interior was outfitted in a rust, orange, brown, and gold color scheme that was popular in the 1960s. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives A clear divider filled with leaves and long grasses collected from the Disney family backyard separated Walt's private space on the plane from the rest of the cabin. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Walt Disney Archives "That was something Walt and Lillian added to the plane as a touch of home," Cline said. Walt's Plane Walt Disney Archives The N234MM registration number with the MM chosen to honor the mouse that started it all was ultimately transferred from the Queen-Air to the tail of the Gulfstream. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider The pilot's logbook from 1963 showed the Disney Gulfstream traveling from Burbank to Orlando, Key West, New Orleans, and New York. Walt Disney often read movie scripts on the short hops between Burbank and Palm Springs. Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives A 1964 Western Union telegram from St. Louis to Burbank sent by Walt Disney humorously referred to his brother Roy as "President of Fantasy Airlines" and offered "compliments on the fine airline you run." Walt Disney's Plane Walt Disney Archives Walt Disney praised his new Gulfstream in a 1964 letter to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. "Speaking strictly as one of the passengers, the comfort, the quiet, and the beauty of this plane makes it an outstanding one," Disney wrote. Walt Disney sits with his grandson at an outdoor patio table while visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Photo by Gene Lester/Getty Images After Disney's death in 1966, the plane was used for company business and made appearances in two long-forgotten Kurt Russell-starring Disney movies "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" (1969) and "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" (1971). Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Brady MacDonald/Insider The Burbank-based aircraft was moved to Orlando in 1985 and was eventually put on display as part of the Studio Backlot Tour at what is now known as Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider After the Disney World attraction closed in 2014, the "abandoned" plastic-wrapped plane sat in a field nearby. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Brady MacDonald/Insider During its 28 years of airborne service, The Mouse flew 20,000 hours and transported 83,000 passengers including Disney stars Julie Andrews and Annette Funicello and US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Walt's Plane Walt Disney Archives The plane was decommissioned in 1992 and the twin Rolls Royce engines and everything in the cockpit were sold. "There was a lot of material inside the plane that couldn't be salvaged," Cline said. "They replaced the windows and resealed everything to protect it, but pretty much everything was taken out of the interior at that point. What was salvageable was shipped to the Walt Disney Archives here in California." Walt Disney drives a miniature railroad with a line of passengers behind him at his home in the 1950s. Photo by Gene Lester/Archive Photos/Getty Images It was in this state that the decommissioned plane was part of the backlot tour from 1992 to 2014. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Brady MacDonald/Insider "By that point, the sealant around the windows had disintegrated and it definitely needed a paint job," Cline said. "It leaked, frankly, because of the humidity and everything in Florida. They get a lot of rain down there." Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider The aging and deteriorating Disney plane was reportedly offered to Florida air museums with no takers before the Palm Springs Air Museum agreed to become the new home of Mickey Mouse One. Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider "It's going to move on to the Palm Springs Air Museum close to the Smoke Tree Ranch, which is where Walt and his family spent some time in Palm Springs," Chapek said at the D23 Expo. "It's going to essentially go back to its roots." Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian, smiling at their home. Photo by Gene Lester/Getty Images Imagineering cleaned up the plane, replaced the windows, sealed the fuselage, added new wing edges, and painted the exterior with the original 1960s livery, including the Mickey Mouse registration number. Walt Disneys Grumman Gulfstream I airplane Brady MacDonald/Insider The plane was disassembled at Disney World and transported cross-country on four flat-bed trucks for the D23 Expo in California. After the convention, the wings, fuselage, and tail were taken apart and once again trucked to Palm Springs where the plane was reassembled. Walt Disney rides proudly January 1, 1966 as Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade with a character he made a household name, Mickey Mouse. Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images "There really isn't anything at all left inside," Cline said. "We're hoping that one day we might be able to restore the interior as well." Walt's Plane Brady MacDonald/Insider Read the original article on Business Insider A Massachusetts prosecutor has promised to review all cases handled by police Officer John Donnelly after a HuffPost report exposed Donnellys role in planning the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Middlesex County District Attorney Marina Ryan announced Friday that her office is now thoroughly reviewing any pending or closed cases in which Donnelly, a patrolman in Woburn, Massachusetts, was involved. We will be issuing a discovering notice disclosing this matter to defense counsel on those cases, Ryan said in a statement. That notice has already been added to our publicly available list of officers subject to exculpatory evidence disclosure. On Thursday, HuffPost published a report detailing how Donnelly, 33, was among hundreds of white supremacists who descended on Charlottesville in August 2017 for a Unite the Right rally, terrorizing the town while chanting slogans such as Jews will not replace us and violently attacking counterprotesters. The bloody weekend culminated with a neo-Nazi driving his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Donnelly attended the rally as a bodyguard for Richard Spencer, a prominent white supremacist. Leaked chat logs from a neo-Nazi Discord server show Donnelly played an integral part in planning the weekends events. The messages Donnelly posted on Discord show he may have belonged to the white supremacist group Identity Evropa. His messages were also full of racist and antisemitic slurs, and at times they advocated violence against leftists and minorities. After attending the Charlottesville rally, Donnelly returned to Woburn, where he continued to be a police officer for the next five years. HuffPosts report was based on research by a collective of antifascist researchers called Ignite the Right. We are acutely aware of the way in which these allegations tear at the fabric of trust which exists between communities and the police departments which serve them, District Attorney Ryan said in her statement. Story continues The New England Innocence Project, a civil rights group dedicated to preventing and correcting wrongful convictions, called on the district attorney to go further than just reviewing Donnellys cases. Every case this officer touched should be dismissed, every conviction vacated, the group said in a statement on Twitter. There is no integrity in a system that relies on his credibility, judgment, or fairness. Nothing he has said or done in the job can be sufficient to bring criminal consequences to someone else. Donnelly, the New England Innocence Project added, is likely a sign of a more systemic problem in the Woburn Police Department. This white supremacist officer had partners, supervisors, & trainers, the group said. If he made arrests, prosecutors and judges relied on his reports and testimony. Yet, NONE of these people recognized and exposed him; they enabled him to be in a position of power over our community. In anticipation of HuffPosts report on Thursday, the Woburn Police Department suspended Donnelly pending an investigation. The Charlottesville rally is a dark moment in our history, and deeply disturbing, Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin said in a statement. The City of Woburn is taking these allegations seriously by investigating the incident thoroughly, and I will move to terminate Officer Donnelly if the investigation concludes that the allegations are accurate. Donnelly was not only a cop; he was also the president of a back the blue nonprofit called Irish Angel, which raised money for law enforcement causes. He was an award-winning real estate agent in the Boston area. Irish Angel told HuffPost on Thursday that Donnelly had been removed as president of the organization. Century 21, the real estate agency for which Donnelly worked, confirmed on Friday that Donnelly had been fired. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Former President Donald Trump speaks at CPAC in Dallas, Tex., on August 6, 2022. Brandon Bell/Getty Images The DOJ asked a federal appeals court to reverse a ruling appoint a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case. Prosecutors said a lower court judge "erred in requiring the government to submit" to a special master review of seized records. "The court should now reverse the order in its entirety for multiple independent reasons," prosecutors said. The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal appeals court to end an independent arbiter's review of documents seized from Donald Trump's home and private club in South Florida, arguing that a judge should not have appointed a so-called special master as the former president confronts an investigation into his handling of sensitive national security information. In a 53-page brief, filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the Justice Department challenged a decision last month by Judge Aileen Cannon that blocked federal investigators from reviewing the thousands of records and appointed an outside arbiter to sift through the materials to determine if any are potentially covered by attorney-client or executive privilege. Former President Donald Trump's legal team requested the appointment of a special master after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club in West Palm Beach. Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed to the federal bench in 2020, granted the former president's request last month. But the DOJ quickly appealed the ruling and asked the 11th Circuit to issue a partial stay allowing the government to access roughly 100 classified records that had been seized from Mar-a-Lago a request the appeals court granted. "This court has already granted the government's motion to stay that unprecedented order insofar as it relates to the documents bearing classification markings," the Justice Department said in its Friday court filing. "The court should now reverse the order in its entirety for multiple independent reasons." Lawyers for the government went on to reiterate their argument that Trump cannot legitimately claim executive privilege over the records seized from Mar-a-Lago, or claim they were his "personal" records because they're government documents and are therefore the property of the United States. Story continues Prosecutors also noted that Trump is "not entitled to the return of evidence solely on the ground that the evidence belonged to him when it was seized." "If that were the case, evidence rooms nationwide would soon be emptied," the filing said. It added that by the time a district judge granted Trump's request for a special master in September, a government filter team had already reviewed the seized materials and sifted out records that may be protected by attorney-client privilege. And because Trump "did not demonstrate that the standard filter-team process is inadequate to protect his privileged attorney-client communications in the remaining materials, special-master review is unwarranted on that score as well," the filing said. This story is developing. Check back for updates. Read the original article on Business Insider WASHINGTON The appointment of a special master to review a cache of government documents seized from Donald Trumps Florida estate was "unwarranted," the Justice Department argued Friday, asking a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court's intervention in the federal investigation into the former president's handling of government records. Justice lawyers asserted that Trump has "no plausible claim of executive privilege as to any of the seized materials" and had not demonstrated that provisions to screen out documents that might involve attorney-client communications were "inadequate." "It follows that the district court erred in requiring the government to submit any of the seized materials for the special-master review process," the government argued in its filing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court had previously overturned part of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannons order for a special master to review the documents, which also would have temporarily halted the departments criminal review of the classified records. The new Justice filing requests that the appeals court conclude there is no need for the special master at all. Last month, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit agreed the department could continue its investigation and not submit more than 100 classified documents for review by the special master. "The United States argues that the district court likely erred in exercising its jurisdiction to enjoin the United Statess use of the classified records in its criminal investigation and to require the United States to submit the marked classified documents to a special master for review," the judges wrote. "We agree." Trump appealed, but the Supreme Court refused to intervene Thursday. Pages from a Department of Justice court filing on Aug. 30, 2022, in response to a request from the legal team of former President Donald Trump for a special master to review the documents seized during the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, are photographed early Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. Included in the filing was a FBI photo of documents that were seized during the search. The legal wrangling is part of the aftermath of the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, where FBI agents were looking for evidence of violations of the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice. Story continues This latest filing is part of a complicated legal case that reached through four venues of federal court including Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington, D.C. Lawyers for the government and Trump are filing arguments in preparation for a full hearing on the merits of the case. But the clock is ticking. Cannon set a Dec. 16 deadline for the special master, U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, to complete his review of all 11,000 documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. He is determining whether to deny the Justice Department access to any documents because they are personal or because they fall under attorney-client or executive privilege. Trumps lawyers have argued basically that Dearie should review the classified records as part of the entire collection of documents. But government lawyers argued Trump has no ownership claims over administration records, whether classified or not. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOJ argues special master review 'unwarranted' for Mar-a-Lago docs Special counsel John Durhams team on Thursday morning called longtime Democratic operative Charles Dolan to the stand at the trial of Igor Danchenko, the Russian analyst who the government alleges lied about Dolans role as a source for his contributions to the infamous Trump-Russia dossier. Danchenko is charged with five counts of lying to the FBI, all of which hes pleaded not guilty to. The trial, which is in its third day in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Va., is expected to be the final prosecution for Durham in his probe of the origins of the FBI investigation into Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election, known as Crossfire Hurricane. The government alleges that Dolan, a public relations executive, was a primary source of the information that Danchenko contributed to the Steele dossier a collection of reports compiled by a former British spy containing now-debunked salacious rumors and allegations about former President Donald Trumps ties to Russia. Prosecutors called Dolan to the stand on Thursday as their second witness in the trial, and the Democratic operative answered questions surrounding the nature of his relationship with the defendant. At one point during questioning, Dolan admitted to having lied to Danchenko in an email in the summer of 2016 about a GOP friend he claimed to have met with and who he said provided him with information about former Trump campaign chair Paul Manaforts resignation. Dolan told the jury that he had embellished that claim to Danchenko, and that he had actually obtained the information about Manaforts resignation from watching cable news, not from a Republican friend. I thought I would just embellish a bit to make it seem like his contacts were good, Dolan said. Prosecutor Michael Kielty pointed out similarities in the information Dolan provided Danchenko in that 2016 email with information that had ended up in a subsequent report from the dossier, dated just two days after Dolan sent the email. Dolan said that he never provided additional insights to Danchenko, and that he wasnt aware at the time of why Danchenko was seeking information from him. Story continues I just thought he wanted to know what the atmospherics were around the resignation, Dolan said. Dolan also said he called Danchenko the day that Buzzfeed published the dossier, on Jan. 10, 2017, to see if he knew where this came from. The witness said Danchenko claimed he wasnt sure where the dossier came from and would look into it and get back to him, but never did. In cross-examination, defense attorney Stuart Sears implied Dolan was being pressured by the special counsel to admit that the information in the dossier report came from him to which Dolan replied, I guess. I agree they were very similar, Dolan said of the information he gave to Danchenko in 2016 and the subsequent dossier report. Sears also established that the information Dolan had given Danchenko by email namely that Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski hated Manafort was common knowledge at the time. Dolan confirmed to the jury that he didnt have any inside information, and didnt have any additional email or phone exchanges with Danchenko in which he provided inside scoops about Trump campaign connections to Russia. You never talked with Mr. Danchenko about anything that showed up in the dossier, correct? Sears asked. Correct, Dolan replied. The government also called a third witness on Thursday, FBI agent Kevin Helson, the second bureau employee to testify after analyst Brian Auten took the stand during the first two days of the trial. Helson was Danchenkos handling agent from 2017 to 2020, when the defendant served as a confidential human source for the FBI. He revealed that Danchenko was a paid informant to the FBI. Durham led the prosecutions questioning of Helson, attempting to establish that Danchenko withheld information and records from the FBI during their Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Helson confirmed that Danchenko never provided any corroborative information for the dossier to the FBI. After playing an audio recording of one of Helsons interviews with Danchenko, Durham asked about a pause in the conversation when Danchenko was asked about his relationship with Dolan. To the best of my recollection, there was a bit of hesitation, like he was trying to recall, Helson said. Sears, in cross-examination, emphasized Danchenkos cooperation with Helson and the FBI, specifically the fact that he was being interviewed voluntarily and could have declined to answer questions but never did. Helson agreed with Sears that there was only one instance in their three- to four-year relationship in which Danchenko acted odd or erratically, and that was an instance where he was demanding more money for the information he was providing. Danchenko later explained the behavior, attributing it to his wife and lawyer at the time telling him he should be getting more money, and he apologized. Helson also confirmed that Danchenko didnt know at the time that a dossier was being created with the information he was providing to Christopher Steele, the British spy who authored the reports. Helson confirmed that Danchenko was upset that Steele had embellished information he had provided, especially when he had told Steele that some of it was rumor or speculation. Mr. Steele was willing to burn everyone around him to make the dossier true, Sears said. That is true, Helson replied. Sears also touched specifically on the lie Danchenko is charged with on count one, which is telling the FBI he hadnt talked to Dolan about any information in the dossier when in fact the two had exchanged emails. Sears asked Helson whether he had clarified to Danchenko during an interview what exactly he meant by talked, to which Helson replied that he hadnt. Asked whether Danchenkos answer was literally true, Helson replied, Yes. Helson said he never believed that Danchenko was lying to him, and confirmed that he had indicated in reports that the defendant was a reliable source. Danchenko provided information on at least 25 active FBI investigations while he was a confidential human source, Helson said. It was a big deal for the FBI to have access to someone like Mr. Danchenko, wasnt it? asked Sears. Yes, it was, Helson replied. Durham,taking a move from his Wednesday playbook, became confrontational with Helson on redirect over what he implied were missteps by the FBI during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Durham grilled Helson on not following recommendations from the FBIs validation unit when opening Danchenko as a confidential human source, such as not conducting a polygraph on him or backtracking his whereabouts from when his visa expired. Durham will continue his redirect on Friday, when he is expected to wrap up presenting evidence in the case. The goal for Princess Amalia of the Netherlands as she went off to college last month at the University of Amsterdam was for her to live life like a regular student as much as possible, moving into a house with other students and studying politics and law. The reality for the 18-year-old future queen turned out to be something altogether different. On Thursday, her parents, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, said that she had moved back home and was largely confined to one of the royal familys palaces in The Hague because of fears that she would be attacked or abducted. It has enormous consequences for her life, Maxima said at a news conference Thursday during a state visit to Sweden. It means that shes not living in Amsterdam and that she cant really go outside. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times It was a rare peek into life for the Dutch royals, who rarely share details about their private lives or matters of security, and represented something of a shock in the Netherlands, where high-profile figures can live their lives relatively unbothered. Amalia got a taste of life in the spotlight when her first day at the university caused a small press frenzy, with photographers snapping pictures of her walking into a building for her first class. The initial commotion after she arrived soon dissipated, but then came the threat to her security. Its not a student life like other students have, Maxima said. Im very proud of how she is persevering through all of this. The University of Amsterdam declined to comment about any potential changes to its security. The Dutch Government Information service, which handles press relations for the royal family, declined to elaborate on the remarks. In an earlier attempt at normalcy, the princess told Prime Minister Mark Rutte in a letter last year that she would decline an annual allowance of about $1.6 million from the government. I find that uncomfortable as long as I am not doing a lot in return and other students have it much harder, Amalia wrote. Her status as a member of the royal family, of course, means that money is not an issue. Story continues After finishing high school in June 2021, Amalia took a gap year that included some charity work. Her plans for that year were mostly kept private. But some details about her life have emerged now and then. A book that was published to mark the princesss 18th birthday talked about her stint as a bartender at a beach club, and her horse, Mojito. Its horrible that this is necessary, first and foremost for the crown princess, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, the Dutch minister of justice and safety, wrote on Twitter. I cant say anything about concrete threats or specific security measures, but I guarantee that the security agencies are working day and night to guarantee her safety. Public threats or attacks on the Dutch royal family are rare. In 2009, a Dutch man drove a car into a crowd during a Queens Day celebration, killing seven people. In the 1970s, a politically motivated plot to kidnap the then-queen, Juliana, was thwarted. Last month, newspaper De Telegraaf reported that security measures had been increased for the princess as well as for Rutte after authorities concluded they were at higher risk of an attack or kidnapping by members of organized crime gangs. Last year, security was temporarily increased for Rutte, and he halted his usual bicycle commute in The Hague after similar threats that were believed to have come from crime gangs. Jelle van Buuren, an expert in radicalism and terrorism who teaches at the University of Leiden, said the idea that the threat was coming from organized crime was credible. Organized crime in the Netherlands has hardened and become more brutal over the last decade or more, van Buuren said, partly fueled by recent high-profile killings, like that of celebrity crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. Crime gangs were also blamed for the killing of lawyer Derk Wiersum, who was involved in a trial in which multiple defendants, including Ridouan Taghi, described by authorities as the ringleader of a drug trafficking organization, were accused of involvement in six murders and four attempted murders between 2015 and 2017. The royal family is always protected by a security detail, van Buuren said, but that doesnt mean theres always an ongoing threat. Its just part of protocol. But, he added, its surprising that Maxima herself brought it up. During the kings annual budget speech last month, he said that eradicating organized crime had become the highest priority, and he announced plans for new policies and funding that would go toward that goal. In an interview with Dutch broadcaster NOS, Rutte called the developments regarding Amalia horrible news. It is not clear when Amalia might be able to leave the palace to roam more freely again. For now, she is allowed to attend classes, but thats all, her mother said. You can see its making me a bit emotional, Maxima said. Its not nice to see your child like this. 2022 The New York Times Company A teacher at a Catholic elementary school in East Chicago, Indiana, has been taken into custody following a disturbing admission. Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres, a 25-year-old who teaches 5th grade at St. Stanislaus School, has risen to notoriety following allegations that she made troubling statements involving her killing herself, students, and staff. On Wednesday, the East Chicago Police Department (ECPD) spoke on the situation in a social media statement, noting that a concerned student coming forward is how the case came to their attention. At approximately 12:45 p.m. a 5th grade student told his/her Counselor that their 5th grade teacher made comments to him/her about killing herself, students, and staff at St. Stanislaus School, the ECPD said in a Facebook post on Thursday. The teacher further told the student that she has a list and that he/she was on the bottom of that list. Authorities proceeded to note that Carrasquillo-Torres was swiftly called for a meeting with the school principal to discuss the allegation, and she admitted to the principal that she did in fact make those statements to the student and confirmed that she did have a kill list.' During the conversation the teacher named a specific student on her list but did not provide the list. The principal then advised the teacher to leave and not return to school pending an investigation, the ECPDs statement reads. Officers were informed about the situation a few hours later, and on Thursday, Oct. 13 they obtained an emergency detention order and took the teacher into custody at her home in Griffith, Indiana. No other details about the case have been made publicly available at this time. With the matter now under control, Portia Jones, one of Carrasquillo-Torress students, recalled the incident while speaking with CBS News. She said that she wanted to kill her middle school friends, her high school friends, and half of her family, she shared. Then she admitted that she had a kill list. Story continues The students father, Quiannis Jones, also spoke on the situation and expressed that school officials should have called the police right then and there. She said that these kids get on her nerves so much that she wanted to kill them. Like, what type of person says that? Jones shared, CBS News reports. She aint mental. Shes teacher. Come on now. You all did a background check unless you all didnt. We should also add that, while Carrasquillo-Torres was definitely taken into custody, its currently unclear if shes being formally charged with a crime. Multi-billionaire Elon Musks Starlink satellite internet will no longer be provided free to Ukrainians, and his SpaceX company has apparently asked the Pentagon to pay for it. Mr Musk suggested that he was pulling the free service after the Ukrainian ambassador was rude to him. The richest man in the world caused fury among many Ukrainians earlier this month with a proposal to end Russias war in their country by calling on Kyiv to cede territory gained by Moscow since its invasion in February. That prompted Ukraines ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, to angrily shoot back at Muskby telling him to f*** off after his proposal that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be ended by, among other things, formally allowing Russia to annex Crimea. Commenting on the latest development, Mr Musk has said he is just following [the] recommendation of the Ukrainian ambassador. The decision could have a major impact on the eight-month war. Starlink has been a vital source of communication for Ukraines military. Musk activated Starlink in Ukraine in late February after internet services were disrupted because of the invasion. Ukraines vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said this week that Starlink services helped restore energy and communications infrastructure in critical areas after more than 100 Russian cruise missile attacks. SpaceX has since given it thousands of terminals. around 20,000, at a cost of $80 million (71 million) and will exceed $100 million (88 million) by the end of the year, Mr Musk tweeted on Friday. CNN reported that SpaceX had requested the Pentagon pay for Ukraines use of Starlink - which could cost close to $120 million for the rest of the year. Were just following his recommendation Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time, SpaceXs director of government sales apparently wrote to the Pentagon. Story continues SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General [Valerii] Zaluzhniy [Ukraines commanding general], an external consultant wrote. SpaceX did not respond to The Independents request for comment before time of pubication. The United States has already paid for more than 1,330 terminals from SpaceX to send to Ukraine, with SpaceX itself donating 3,670 terminals. The terminals would come with three months of unlimited data. The latest development could prompt a further backlash against Musk, following his recent comments on the war. Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people, wrote Mr Musk recently. I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022 Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchevs mistake). Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral. This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end just a question of how many die before then. Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war. He later added: Russia is doing partial mobilization. They go to full war mobilization if Crimea is at risk. Death on both sides will be devastating. Russia has >3 times population of Ukraine, so victory for Ukraine is unlikely in total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace. Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelensky followed up with a Twitter poll of his own, asking his followers which Elon Musk they preferred, One who supports Ukraine or One who supports Russia. Re. Mathieu Nouquets letter Reason to be upset (Castanet, Oct. 13) and Bernie Smiths letter Make peace with Russia (Castanet, Oct. 12) Wow, welcome to Canadaliving in the clouds. Have either of these writers gotten up a 12 a.m., taken a small backpack, left everything behind because their friends and family have already been killed, crossed fields and hidden in the tress until finally, after days of walking and dodging the security and government police and just about anyone else and terrified of crossing paths with a Russian government official, finally reached the safety of a friendly border? (Have they) spent a number of years in a new set of government circles, praying daily they would not be sent back to almost certain life imprisonment or worse, in conditions extremely worse off than anything in Canada. Then the day comes when, thankfully, you know you are truly free. A police officer cannot demand identification and you can openly protest government officials, if you wish. You live finally in a world where (your protest) can be written, placed on a web site and not be subject to being traced and arrested. Tanks do not roll into your village and ignorant, rude soldiers drag you into the street, depose your own officials and place their own in positions of inconceivable power to even go as far as death, but hidden of course. There are reasons for NATO and the UN were set up, to hold a balance, allow freedoms and remove (them) within reasonable restrictions. Having that arch-enemy from another village, who you deeply disagree with works both ways and until you witness first hand how it feels, really can you comment? You can disagree with someone or something, but to begin killing and destruction, for what reason? De-nazification? And then to change the reason almost daily so it fits the latest agenda? No, writers, you wake up! Better still volunteer as an aid worker in the Ukraine. When the first missile that lands (near you) I bet you will be on a plane back to Canada. As for the Bosnian war, I volunteered to help my new country and saw first hand what went on. So, please, do not quote (former U.S. president Bill) Clinton and (Albert) Einstein, unless you were there. Be grateful the tanks and missiles are not landing here. Be grateful your countryand now minecan see this for what it is, an open act of aggression based on non-existent principles to show some a mighty power. For what? Be grateful there are countries willing to aid another from an aggressor. Yes, the world would be a much nicer place if weapons did not exist, if trade in and out of countries was straight forward and, just for once, every race, creed, religion and person could just get on, But it is never going to happen, so I am grateful for NATO, for the UN, for those who are trying to hold a balance of peace, because I have seen first hand what the other side is like. I am most grateful to be living, (breathing) free air and (have) a free government, with no guns at the next council election, no one banging on my door demanding my vote, no fear of the X in the wrong box and having a choice of many places to put that X. When you have lived it, you can comment. Until then, you are just arm chair voices. Simone Brian - Smith By Tom Hals and Sheila Dang WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) -Elon Musk is being investigated by federal authorities over his conduct in his $44 billion takeover deal for Twitter Inc, the social media company said in a court filing released on Thursday. While the filing said he was under investigations, it did not say what the exact focus of the probes was and which federal authorities are conducting them. Twitter, which sued Musk in July to force him to close the deal, said attorneys for the Tesla Inc CEO had claimed "investigative privilege" when refusing to hand over documents it had sought. In late September, Musk's attorneys had provided a "privilege log" identifying documents to be withheld, Twitter said. The log referenced drafts of a May 13 email to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). "This game of 'hide the ball' must end," the company said in the court filing. The court filing, which asked Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick to order Musk's attorneys to provide the documents, was made on Oct. 6 - the same day that McCormick paused litigation between the two sides after Musk reversed course and said he would proceed with the deal. Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, told Reuters that Twitter's court filing was a "misdirection" and asserted: "It is Twitter's executives that are under federal investigation." Twitter declined to comment on Spiro's statement. It also declined comment when asked by Reuters about its understanding of any investigation into Musk. The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the FTC declined to comment. The SEC has questioned Musk's comments about the Twitter acquisition, including whether a 9% stake he had built up before announcing his bid had been disclosed late and why it indicated that he intended to be a passive shareholder. Musk later refiled the disclosure to indicate he was an active investor. Story continues In June, the SEC asked Musk in a letter whether he should have amended his public filing to reflect his intention to suspend or abandon the deal. The Information, a tech news site, reported in April that the FTC was scrutinizing whether Musk failed to comply with the antitrust reporting requirement relating to an investor's intentions of being a passive or active shareholder. Twitter said in June, however, that the takeover deal with Musk had cleared an antitrust waiting period for review by the FTC and U.S. Justice Department. McCormick has given Musk until Oct. 28 to close the acquisition. If the deal does not get done by then, a trial date will be set for November. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Sheila Dang in Dallas and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Peter Henderson and Edwina Gibbs) King Charles III praised the importance of the countryside as he sent a special message to the Emmerdalecast and crew for their 50th anniversary at the National Television Awards. Host Joel Dommett surprised the soap cast with the pre-recorded speech during the annual ceremony on Thursday, which was held at the OVO Wembley Arena in London and aired live on ITV. Charles said he was delighted to be celebrating the milestone, noting that he is old enough to remember when the show was called Emmerdale Farm. He added: It is a testament to all the hard work of its production team that it has since become such an important British institution and a major British export with hundreds of thousands of fans from Scandinavia to New Zealand, all keen to follow the fortunes of what is left of the Sugdens and their new neighbours. What makes Emmerdale so special is that it has kept true to the vision of its original writer, Kevin Laffan, who wanted to demonstrate that farming is not just a job its a whole way of life. He continued: On a daily basis, Emmerdale continues to depict what life is really like for those who work the land and protect our precious countryside. It also stresses brilliantly something that concerns me greatly: the long-term sustainability of the way we produce our food. Im also heartened by the production teams efforts off screen. Their ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 has already made Emmerdale one of the first British programmes to be awarded Albert certification, recognising its efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its production process and to create content that stresses the importance of establishing a sustainable future. So it is only right that the National Television Awards acknowledge the enormous contribution Emmerdale has made and I hope those watching will join me in sending a warmest congratulations on its 50th anniversary. And wishing it an equally successful future. Story continues (Helen Turton/PA) (PA Media) ITV noted that the King recorded the message while he was still the Prince of Wales, before he ascended to the throne following the death of the Queen. After the speech, it was announced that Mark Charnock, who stars as Marlon Dingle in Emmerdale, had won the serial drama performance award. Later in the award ceremony, the soap opera picked up the serial drama gong, fending off competition from Coronation Street, EastEnders and Neighbours, which aired its final episode in July after 37 years on screen. The long-running soap was first broadcast in 1972 and was originally filmed in the real-life village of Arncliffe in the Yorkshire Dales before moving to Esholt in West Yorkshire. After 22 years, the production moved to the Harewood Estate, where a replica of Esholt was constructed, after the village became too busy to film, with congestion and disruption caused by visits from fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the soaps characters and locations. Emmderdale received a special message from King Charles III (PA Wire) The show will air a special hour-long episode on October 16, exactly 50 years to the day since the ITV soap first appeared on screens in 1972. NTAs executive producer, Kim Turberville, said: We were delighted to be able to surprise the Emmerdale team with such an important message. Fifty years of iconic television out of the North is a huge achievement and rightly deserves to be celebrated in the best way possible. It is with great thanks to His Royal Highness for delivering this message to pop the icing on their birthday cake ahead of their very special weekend. See the full list of winners at the 2022 NTAs here. Authorities accuse a 20-year-old Erie man of firing gunshots into a duplex on the city's west side in July 2021 that struck and killed an 18-year-old man who was sleeping inside. Erie police identified the suspect on Friday as Jamie D. Smith. He faces charges including criminal homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, aggravated assault and possessing an instrument of crime in the death of Kalvin Davis, Erie police Deputy Chief Rick Lorah said Friday. Authorities said Smith is in custody on an unrelated case. He was awaiting arraignment on the new charges late Friday morning. Shooting occurred at West 29th, Cherry streets Davis was pronounced dead at the scene inside the duplex at 559 W. 29th St., near Cherry Street, following a shooting that was reported on July 1, 2021, at about 3:50 a.m. Erie police reported at the time that someone fired numerous gunshots into a specific area of the duplex, with one of the bullets piercing an exterior wall and striking Davis in the head. The shooting appeared to be a targeted attack, according to authorities. More:Update: Motive remains unknown as Erie police review casings, video in probe of city's latest killing Davis was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom when he was shot, investigators reported. Other people were inside the duplex, but no others were wounded. Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook said Davis died of a gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a homicide. Officers who responded to the shooting found more than two dozen shell casings of at least two different calibers outside of the duplex, about 25 to 50 yards from the building, Erie police reported after the shooting. Erie police have charged a 20-year-old city man with homicide in a July 1, 2021, shooting at a duplex at 559 W. 29th St. that killed 18-year-old Kalvin Davis. DA has criminal complaint sealed over witness concerns Details on what led Erie police detectives to charge Smith in the fatal shooting were unknown on Friday. Authorities have sealed the affidavit of probable cause filed with Smith's criminal complaint, and police and the Erie County District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the investigation. Story continues District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz said Friday the affidavit was sealed to protect the identities of witnesses in the case. Erie police reported a day after the shooting that detectives were collecting surveillance video from security cameras in the area of the duplex and were examining the recovered shell casings. Authorities said detectives also interviewed the other occupants of the duplex. Erie police returned to the duplex in August to investigate another shooting, this time involving a 16-year-old boy who was wounded. According to police, officers who went to the area of West 29th and Cherry streets on Aug. 7 to investigate reports of shots fired found the 16-year-old inside the duplex with a gunshot wound to the right shoulder. The boy would not answer questions about what had happened, investigators reported. Investigators said they learned that the 16-year-old was with a group of people who were fired on by another group of people before the boy's group returned fire. Three days after the shooting, detectives charged 19-year-old Dacyree Lucas with firing gunshots during the shootout. Police said he was among the group who returned fire after the first shots were fired. More:Erie police charge two, seek other suspects in shootout that wounded teen at homicide site Lucas, who remains at large, faces charges including felony counts of discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure, carrying a firearm without a license, aggravated assault, and receiving stolen property. A 17-year-old boy also faces gun charges related to the investigation into the Aug. 7 shooting. Police said they found him near a stolen gun when they went to the duplex on Aug. 12 in an attempt to serve an arrest warrant on Lucas. More:Erie police detective to focus on unsolved homicides, other cold cases under grant program Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn. This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie man charged in '21 fatal shooting of 18-year-old asleep in duplex A man pretending to be related to a teen shot by police last week gave false statements about his condition. In a since-retracted story by local news station KENS5, a man by the name of Jesus Salazar said that he was the cousin of Erik Cantu, a 17-year-old shot by San Antonio Police while he was inside his car in a McDonalds parking lot on 2 October. Eriks mother and father do not know who this person is, Brian Powers, an attorney for the family, said in a statement to the San Antonio Current. We dont know this persons motives in passing himself off as a family member, but it has caused added stress to this familys life right now. The imposter gave several misleading statements in the KENS5 interview. He stated that Erik had brain damage and demanded an apology from former SAPD officer James Brennand, 27, who has been fired and charged with aggravated assault by a public servant after the shooting. KENS5 offered an apology to Eriks family, saying the story did not meet its editorial standards. The teens family declined to speak to the media, instead asking for prayers as he continues to fight for his life. Through Mr Powers, relatives of the teen have provided updates on his health, most recently telling NBC that although Erik remains on life support, his oxygen levels seem to be improving. The family has also created a GoFundMe page to raise funds for Eriks mounting medical bills. Wed like to correct any misrepresentations that Erik is in stable condition or he is going to be fine, the family attorney, Brian Powers, told The Associated Press. That is not true. Every breath is a struggle for Erik. We ask for everyones continued prayers for our son. Mr Brennards bodycam footage of the incident shows the teenager eating a burger and a 17-year-old girl sitting in the passenger seat as Mr Brennand instructed the pair to get out of the car. Erik was then ordered to exit his vehicle in the McDonalds parking lot. Story continues He began to back up with the car door still open, which San Antonio Police Captain Alyssa Campos said hit the officer, who fired several times, striking the teenager. The teen was taken to a hospital after he was stopped by officers at a separate location. Erik initially faced charges for evading detention in a vehicle and for assaulting a police officer, but the Bexar County criminal district attorney, Joe Gonzales, later announced they had been dropped. According to police, Mr Brennand was a newly trained officer still on probation when he shot Erik after attempting to gather information from witnesses in a parking lot about an unrelated disturbance. He was arrested on Tuesday and was later released after posting a $200,000 bond, court records show. LONDON (AP) The European Medicines Agency on Friday recommended the authorization of a dengue vaccine made by the Japanese pharmaceutical Takeda that could provide a new tool for millions worldwide against the potentially fatal disease. The EU regulator said in a statement the vaccine should be cleared for anyone aged four and over, to prevent the four types of dengue. The viral disease causes more than 390 million infections globally every year, including up to 25,000 deaths, mostly in children. The benefits and safety of the current vaccine have been evaluated in 19 clinical trials that enrolled more than 27,000 people aged between 15 months and 60 years, the EMA said. Studies showed Takeda's vaccine was about 84% effective in preventing people from being hospitalized with dengue and about 61% effective in stopping symptoms four years after getting immunized. The most commonly reported side effects included headaches and muscle pain. There is no specific treatment for dengue, which is a leading cause of serious illness and death in roughly 120 Latin American and Asian countries. While about 80% of infections are mild, severe cases of the mosquito-spread disease can lead to internal bleeding, organ damage and death. The green light for the Takeda vaccine comes after Sanofi Pasteur's dengue vaccine triggered a public health crisis in the Philippines in 2017. The Dengvaxia shot was found to increase the risk of severe disease in people who had not previously been infected with dengue and was linked to the deaths of more than 100 children. Critics charged that the Sanofi vaccine was rolled out prematurely to about 800,000 children across the Philippines. Numerous scientists and officials were indicted for introducing the vaccine with undue haste, that prosecutors said resulted in homicide. The World Health Organization had previously concluded the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine was safe, but later said children should only be immunized if they were tested first to ensure they had already had dengue. Story continues The EMA said its endorsement of the Takeda vaccine means that a global unmet public health need is being addressed, explaining that countries beyond the EU should have confidence that the shot is safe and effective. After malaria, dengue is the most diagnosed cause of fever in European travelers returning from developing countries. In September, Indonesia became the first country to license the Takeda vaccine. Police lights Police arrested a man wearing a ski mask Thursday in downtown Eugene after he handed a Downtown Ambassador a note that included an alleged bomb threat, according to Eugene Police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin. The note was handed to the ambassador at around 11:45 a.m. Thursday near the 100 block of East Broadway, according to McLaughlin. The 37-year-old male suspect, who did not have a known city of residence, then left the area headed west on Broadway. The ambassadors wear blue uniforms and walk through the city and act as a combination of visitor guide, social worker, behavior monitor, custodian, patient listener, and gentle rules enforcer, according to the city website. The man then reportedly waved a gun near a convenience store on Broadway, a few blocks west, at the corner of Olive Street, McLaughlin said. Multiple officers and detectives responded and found the man as he was exiting a store and detained him. The officers did not find a bomb, but he had a realistic-looking BB handgun, McLaughlin said. He was arrested and taken to Lane County Jail on police suspicion of first-degree disorderly conduct and trespassing. This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Police respond to downtown bomb threat, found to be a hoax The Lord Mayor of Liverpool said winning Eurovision was "bittersweet" and vowed to do his utmost to honour the Ukrainian sister city. Councillor Roy Gladden has written to the Mayor of Odesa after Liverpool secured the right to host the 2023 European Song Contest last week. The city won a competition to hold the event after it was decided last year's winner Ukraine was unable to host. He said it will celebrate Ukraine's culture with a "scouse twist". It comes as BBC director general Tim Davie praised Liverpool for its "energy" and "warmth" and "record of delivering great events", after meeting the city's culture team to discuss the forthcoming show. Ukraine's entrant Kalush Orchestra won May's contest and the winning country normally hosts the following year's contest. However, the event will not be staged in the country because of the war in Ukraine, so Sam Ryder's second-placed finish led the UK to step in. In his letter to Mayor of Odesa Gennadiy Trukhanov, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool said he was "proud" the city would host in Ukraine's place on 13 May, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service. "When it was announced that we were the winner, it was a bittersweet moment. "We know this is your event - it should be you and your colleagues across your country working together on plans to host the competition in 2023 - but sadly that is not to be. "Ukraine is at the heart of our Eurovision plans - we will do our utmost to celebrate your culture, your people and your country - giving it a scouse twist which we're sure you'll approve of." The BBC's director general spoke to the media in Liverpool on Friday Mr Davie said it was a "real honour" and "joyous" for Liverpool to be able to stage the contest on behalf of Ukraine. "Liverpool has a great record of delivering great events," he told BBC Radio Merseyside. "There is a soul to this place; the history of this place; the energy. "This is going to be a properly integrated production where we are doing real justice to Ukrainian culture," he added. Hosting Eurovision "truly is an honour", the Lord Mayor of Liverpool says "Warmth comes up a lot when you are talking about Liverpool and there is that sense of bringing people together and boy do we need it; these are not easy times. Story continues "Being part of something that brings us close to Ukraine is very, very important to this event," he added. During the bidding process, Odesa and its mayor gave their full backing to Liverpool, saying it "perfectly reflects the brightness of the event and demonstrates the true diversity within unity," adding: "Let the songs of the entire Europe ring over the River Mersey." Liverpool first struck up links with Odesa in 1957 when it was still part of the Soviet Union. City officials maintained an active policy of twinning with other cities following World War Two where links were forged with the Black Sea port. Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk NextShark Multiple Asian women have reportedly come forward to accuse a Chinese American cosplayer and her boyfriend of luring them into sexual relations through supposed opportunities for collaborative work. Cosplayer and influencer Kat Wong, who describes herself as just an Asian girl making silly content, came under fire on Twitter last week after actor, director and host Gina Darling revealed that multiple women have reached out to her with such allegations. Multiple women in the Asian community have reached out to me about @katkwo4tweets and her BF allegedly trying to trick them into having sexual relations with them under the guise of collaborating on cosplays, OF (OnlyFans) and modeling, Darling tweeted. GAYLORD A former Gaylord-area teacher was sentenced recently in a case involving the sexual assault of two students. According to the Michigan State Police, detectives from the Gaylord Post were contacted in 2018 by two former students at Grace Baptist School in Gaylord alleging they were sexually assaulted by one of their teachers. The assaults took place in 2002 and 2003. The victims identified the former teacher as Aaron Michael Willand, now 45. Willand worked for the Grace Baptist School from August 2001 until June 2003 before moving out of state. The victims were 12 and 14 years old at the time the alleged assaults took place. In 2019, then Otsego County Prosecuting Attorney Brendan Curran reviewed the case and arrest warrants were authorized. Willand, who now resides in Arlington, Washington, returned to Michigan in 2019 and turned himself in. He was arraigned in the 87th District Court in Otsego County and was charged with eight counts criminal sexual conduct (CSC) Third Degree (Person 13-15), a felony punishable by 15 years and mandatory AIDS/STD testing. This is also a Tier III Sex Offender Registration Act; four counts CSC Second Degree (Person Under 13, defendant 17 years of age or older), a felony punishable by 15 years and mandatory AIDS/STD testing, this is also a Tier III Sex Offender Registration; three counts CSC Fourth Degree (Victim between 13-16), a high court misdemeanor two years and/or $500 and mandatory HIV/STD testing, this is also a Tier II Sex Offender Registration. Willand was released on $20,000 or 10 percent cash bond. Willand was sentenced recently in the Otsego County 46th Circuit Court by Judge George Mertz. For count one criminal sexual conduct first degree victim under 13, 135 months to 40 years; for count two criminal sexual conduct second degree, 57 months to 15 years; for count three CSC third degree, 85 months to 15 years, and for count four CSC fourth degree, 17 months to two years. The sentences will run concurrently. This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Ex-Grace Baptist School teacher sentenced for sex crimes By Liz Hampton (Reuters) -Some of oilfield service firm Schlumberger's more than 9,000 Russian employees have begun receiving military draft notices through work, and the company is not authorizing remote employment to escape mobilization, according to people familiar with the matter and internal documents. Schlumberger's cooperation with authorities by delivering the military call-ups and its refusal to allow Russian staff to work outside the country has caused a backlash, according to the sources. They view the actions as tacit support for the war in Ukraine by Schlumberger. Human rights groups are watching how the company responds to the concerns. Russian law requires companies to assist with delivering a summons to employees and to conduct a military registration if at least one of its employees is liable for service, according to advocacy group Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which tracks corporate performance on human rights issues. In April, Schlumberger Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said the world's top energy services company was closely monitoring developments in Ukraine and at the time was "hopeful for a quick cessation of hostilities." Schlumberger suspended new investments and technology deployment in Russia, but unlike some of its peers and customers, decided to remain. "The local leadership team is managing an incredibly complex and difficult situation," a Schlumberger spokesperson said this week in an emailed statement, adding managers are obligated "to comply with local laws and regulations, especially when failure to do so could create additional risk for our local employees." Schlumberger leaves decision-making on Russia employment policies to local managers, the U.S.-based spokesperson said. International sanctions "do not permit U.S. or E.U. persons to provide consultation or instructions on employment practices to Russia," the spokesperson said. Story continues DEFERMENT REQUESTS Russian President Vladimir Putin last month issued a decree to add new troops to its military amid heavy troop casualties in Ukraine. The decree left the number of call-ups to be set by the defense ministry and led thousands of Russians to flee to avoid conscription. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre requested information from Schlumberger and other non-Russian companies with operations in the country on their handling of the mobilization. Schlumberger had not responded as of Thursday, the group said, but two of those that did - drug makers Roche Holding and Novo Nordisk - said they had requested military deferments for their employees. Roche, which employees over 800 people in Russia, said it had filed a request for exemptions from military service for its employees. It declined to comment on the draft status of any employee. Novo Nordisk also said it sought deferments through a pharmaceutical trade association and has not had any employees conscripted nor received any orders from authorities. A U.S. State Department spokesperson declined to comment directly on the military mobilization. However, the spokesperson said companies should expect their operations "to become increasingly difficult as conditions on the ground become less hospitable to western companies." While Schlumberger would not say how many people it employs in Russia, people close to the matter said its Russia Business Unit employs more than 9,000 people, representing around 10% of the company's global workforce. Dozens of its Russian workers have left the country, according to an internal document viewed by Reuters. Schlumberger said its "Russian management team is relentlessly working with clients and the government to evaluate all exemption opportunities for their employees within the existing legal framework." The company has disclosed past contracts with Russian state oil producers Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, and with Exxon Mobil Corp for work in Russia. Exxon has written off its investment in Russia and is trying to exit. Schlumberger rivals Baker Hughes and Halliburton are selling or have sold their oilfield services units in Russia. Weatherford International, which in March said the oil services company placed a hold on shipments to Russia and suspended new investments there, also maintains a presence in the country. A spokesperson declined to comment on how it is dealing with the military mobilization. (By Liz Hampton in Denver; Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington, Nikolaj Skardsgaard in Copenhagen and John Revill in Zurich; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Marguerita Choy) Photo: The Canadian Press Police vehicles at Calgary Police Service headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, April 9, 2020. The Calgary Police Service says a man accused of threatening staff and the congregation of a Russian Orthodox Church has been charged with hate-motivated crimes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh The Calgary Police Service says a man accused of threatening staff and the congregation of a Russian Orthodox Church has been charged with hate-motivated crimes. Police say they believe the suspect targeted the All Saints Russian Orthodox Church on Tuesday because of its Russian heritage. On the same day police say they received four other reports of threats and harassment against Russian-Calgarians. Police say they investigated all the reports and found them to be related. Christopher Duchaine, who is 36, has been charged with five counts of criminal harassment. Const. Matt Messenger of the police Hate Crime and Extremism Team says all five of the reports have been deemed hate-motivated crimes. "We would like to make it clear that hate-motivated crimes of any kind will not be tolerated in our city," Messenger said Thursday in a release. "We take these incidents seriously and recognize hate-motivated crimes have negative impacts on victims and in these cases have left victims feeling unsafe." The claim: Image shows BBC reporter pretending to be on the front line in Ukraine Scores of on-the-ground journalists have been covering Russias war with Ukraine since it started in late February, but some social media users are claiming one BBC reporter faked being on the front lines. BBCs Jeremy Bowen, pretends to be on the frontline, whilst a woman looks on, seemingly bemused, reads an Oct. 5 Facebook post that was shared more than 3,600 times in two days. The post includes a collage of four images, each taken from one of Bowen's video reports from Ukraine. Two of the images show Bowen lying on the ground while wearing a bulletproof "press" vest and holding a microphone. The other two are panned-out versions of the same shot that show a woman standing in the distance seemingly staring at Bowen. Other versions of the post received thousands of shares. Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks But a review of the full video the images are taken from reveals Bowen was indeed reporting from the front lines of the war. The Ukrainian city where the footage was shot was under constant barrage by Russian forces in the first few weeks of the war. USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the claim for comment. One user responded but provided no evidence Bowen was "pretending" to be under attack. Irpin attacked by Russia in first few weeks of the war The screenshots are taken from a March 6 BBC video report from Irpin, Ukraine. Text accompanying the video describes the city as being on the front lines of the war and notes that a woman and her two children were killed there by a mortar strike as they tried to flee. The nearly four-minute video shows civilians fleeing the city, which is a suburb of the country's capital of Kiev, as artillery can be heard landing in the area. Seconds before the part of the video the screenshots were captured from occurred, people behind Bowen can be seen crouching as explosions are heard in the distance. Story continues An aerial view, taken May 16, 2022, of the remains of the now iconic bridge over the Irpin River in Ukraine, where thousands of residents made their precarious escape from the Russian invasion. The bridge is now an official memorial to those who lost their lives in the battle for Irpin and Bucha. The New York Times described Irpin as one of the most fiercely contested areas during the first few weeks of the war. More: Ukraine regains more territory in east and south as counteroffensives continue One of the newspaper's front pages from that time featured a photo of the woman and her two children who were killed by the mortar strike lying dead on the streets of Irpin. In an Oct. 6 tweet, Bowen said the claim that he pretended to be on the war's front line was utterly false and an insult to Ukrainian refugees. The Associated Press, Full Fact and AFP Fact Check also debunked the claim. Ukrainian forces recaptured Irpin from Russian control in March, as reported by USA TODAY. Our rating: False Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that an image shows a BBC reporter pretending to be on the front line in Ukraine. A review of the full video the images are taken from reveals Bowen was indeed reporting from the front line. 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: BBC journalist reported from Ukrainian city under attack (AFP via Getty Images) An unofficial WhatsApp app has been stealing access keys for users accounts. The app, called Yo WhatsApp, was promoted through ads in other Android applications such as Snaptube, which allows users to download YouTube videos promoting itself with features Metas own client does not such as the ability to customise the user experience or individual chat room blocking. The fraudulent app was discovered by Kaspersky, who found that the app sent users WhatsApp access keys to the developers remote server. This could allow attackers to see conversations and steal data that could be used for phishing or other cyberattacks. Moreover, the attackers could use this access to add paid subscriptions without the users knowledge. A clone of that app, called WhatsApp Plus, also spread through the Vidmate app, with similar features and issues. Vidmate also lets users download YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok videos. Vidmate and Snaptube did not respond to The Independents request for comment before time of publication. Kaspersky suggests that the distribution channels will be closed soon, and says it is likely the companies were unaware malware was being shared. Cybercriminals are increasingly using the power of legitimate software to distribute malicious apps. This means that users who choose popular apps and official installation sources, may still fall victim to them, the Kaspersky researchers wrote. In particular, malware like Triada can steal an IM account, and for example, use it to send unsolicited messages, including malicious spam. The users money is also at risk, as the malware can easily set up paid subscriptions for the victim. Kaspersky has been investigating the Trida malware in WhatsApp clones over the past year and is especially difficult to detect for two reasons: firstly, the malware modifies a core process in the Android OS that is used as a template for every application, called Zygote. When the Trojan gets into Zygote, it becomes a part of every app that is launched on the device. Secondly, the app substitutes the phones system functions, concealing its modules from the list of the running processes and installed apps which stops its processes being detected and thereby stays unknown. Health officials in Washington and Oregon said Thursday that a fall and winter COVID surge is likely for the Pacific Northwest after months of relatively low case levels. The Seattle Times reports county Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said Thursday that virus trends in Europe show a concerning picture of what the U.S. could see in the next month or so. In the past, he says major surges in Europe have been a good predictor of what the U.S. can expect. Duchin and Oregon health officials on Thursday urged residents to get the updated COVID booster shot as soon as possible. More news from KIRO 7 DOWNLOAD OUR FREE NEWS APP A video that appears to show huge wads of cash being confiscated has been viewed thousands of times in Twitter and Facebook posts that claim it was filmed when authorities raided the house of a local opposition party leader in Gujarat in western India. This is false: Gujarat police told AFP no such raid has been recently carried out. The video actually shows a raid at the house of a businessman charged with mobile gaming fraud in Kolkata, local police separately told AFP. The video has been viewed over 2,500 times since it was shared here on Twitter on October 5. The video's caption sarcastically states the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) -- an Indian government body that investigates financial crimes -- raided the house of "Aam Aadmi Party leader Shekhar Agarwal". Keyword searches did not find an AAP party leader with the said name. The Hindi-language caption translates as: "In Gujarat's Surat, there has been a raid by ED at the house of an honest leader of the country's most honest party Aam Aadmi Party -- Shekhar Agarwal. "Seeing this amount, you will get an assessment of their honesty and their preparation for elections." The 36-second video shows several people counting notes with machines while a large amount of cash can be seen in a room. Screenshot of the false post, taken on October 10, 2022 The video surfaced ahead of state assembly elections in Gujarat in December. The local opposition AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal is vying to knock out Bhupendrabhai Patel from the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to become state chief minister. The video was shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here and here and on Twitter here. Some users appeared to believe the claim and accused the AAP of using the money to bribe voters. "And these people say that we have come to change politics and end corruption," one user commented. "All this money was deposited for buying votes, after all this party also became corrupt," another said. Story continues The claim, however, is false. A spokesman for the local police in Gujarat told AFP that authorities have not conducted a raid on the house of any AAP leader recently. "This video is being shared with a false claim," the spokesman said. Gaming app scam A reverse image search of the video's keyframes, followed by keyword searches on Google, found the video uploaded on the verified YouTube channel of CNN-News 18 on September 11. The video's description says it shows an ED raid in Kolkata. Responding to the posts, a representative for the Kolkata police told AFP the video shows an ED raid on the house of a Kolkata businessman on September 10. The representative said the businessman was charged with mobile gaming fraud. The ED also released a statement about the raid on Twitter on October 3. The agency said: "ED has carried out a search operation & freezed [sic] account balance of 5.59 Cr (US$ 680,000) of Aamir Khan & his accomplices under PMLA, in respect to an investigation being conducted relating to the Mobile Gaming App, namely E-nuggets. "So far, an amount of 36.96 Cr (US$ 4 million) has been freezed [sic] in this case." Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in one of the false posts (left) and the video in the CNN-News 18 report (right): AFP has previously debunked false claims related to the AAP and the upcoming Gujarat elections here, here and here. Leon County citizens lineup outside the Leon County Courthouse before the voting site opened for early voting Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. As many freshmen prepare to vote some for the first time Florida A&M University will also experience a first: serving as a polling place for a midterm. Students at both FAMU and Florida State are looking forward to exercising their right of casting votes, including FAMU freshman Sebastien Lacroix, whose midterm election vote will be a first. Lacroix, a Jacksonville native, said the 2016 presidential election between former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the highlight that made him realize the importance of voting. After that election, I told myself that when I vote on the local and national levels, I would vote for someone who knows the people they are addressing, said Lacroix, 18. Local candidate forums: With November election near, here's how to watch and send questions More FSU news: FSU drone team, FAMU faculty assist with Hurricane Ian search and rescue efforts Students vote at Florida A&M University's poll site in the Student Union Multi-Purpose Room. Polling sites on college campuses in Tallahassee include FAMUs site at the Student Union and FSUs site in the Student Services Building this year, a change from its previous location at the Tucker Civic Center since 2018. In the last midterm election, FSU had a 50.2% voter turnout as 3,023 out of 6,023 eligible individuals voted, according to records from Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley. Although the last day to register to vote was Tuesday, Earley expects to see more registrations come in from the college student demographic. He says that Florida law allows voters to update their address after the deadline, as long as they are already registered in the first place. "We often see a surge of younger voters updating their voter registration addresses into Leon County once early voting has started," Earley said in an email to the Democrat. Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley casts his ballot at the Leon County Courthouse on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. FSU student engagement in 2020 shows that 90.4% of voter-eligible students were registered to vote, and 84.8% of the ones who were registered went on to vote in the election, according to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement. Story continues The National Study is a service to colleges and universities interested in learning about the voting habits of their students while gathering data for research on college student voting trends. Out of all eligible students at FSU, 48.8% of them voted in the 2020 election compared to 39.1% of eligible students who voted across all universities that year. Florida State University students Adrianna Hernandez-Fernandez (left) and Kemely Napoles (right) help students register to vote on Landis Green Monday, October 10, 2022. Its important to get young people to vote because were generations that will be running things in the future, FSU sophomore and political science major Adrianna Hernandez-Fernandez, 19, said while at Landis Green Monday. Clipboard in hand, she encouraged students passing by to register to vote in Leon County if they had not done so already. Related news: I dont think that we have the right to complain about the government not working the right way if were not expressing our opinions about it when we have the chance through voting, Hernandez-Fernandez added. FAMU freshman and psychology major Aaron Jones from Atlanta also expressed his thoughts on the power of voting to work toward addressing concerns. I know that for Black people, were not always at the table where important decisions are being made, so I feel like the number one thing should be making sure we vote for people who understand where we come from and what were going through, said Jones, 18. We complain a lot, but voting is a way of doing something about it. Florida A&M University freshmen Aaron Jones (left) and Sebastien Lacroix (right), both psychology majors, pose for a photo at The Quad on campus Monday, October 10, 2022. Similar to Hernandez-Fernandez, second-year FSU student Kemely Napoles is also majoring in political science and accompanied her as they both spoke with students to ask them if they were registered. The midterm election will be Napoles's first time voting. I started getting involved in politics between 2016 and 2020, and I was always frustrated about not being able to vote, so I would just get on my parents to vote, said Napoles, 19. But now, this is my first chance to actually vote myself, so Im pretty excited. Early voting begins Monday Oct. 24, where the FAMU Student Union and FSU Student Services poll sites will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_. Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Elections 2022: FSU, FAMU students 'excited' to cast votes WASHINGTON A week after the Jan. 6 attack, an email landed in a top FBI officials inbox expressing concern that some bureau employees might not be particularly motivated to help bring to justice the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol and threatened lawmakers lives. Theres no good way to say it, so Ill just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol," and that it was no different than the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, the person wrote in an email to Paul Abbate, who is now the No. 2 official at the bureau. Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of political correctness. The email, recently disclosed publicly in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, reflects an issue thats been hanging over the Jan. 6 investigation since it began: the notion that there are some in the bureau who werent, and arent, particularly driven to bring cases against the Capitol rioters. The U.S. Capitol was placed under lockdown and Vice President Mike Pence left the floor of Congress as hundreds of protesters swarmed past barricades surrounding the building where lawmakers were debating Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College. (Erin Scott / Bloomberg via Getty Images file) The content of the full email, which includes a reference to my first unit, coupled with the fact that Abbate replied suggests that the sender, whose name is redacted, was likely someone plugged into the bureau or a former agent. The email was labeled external, indicating it was not sent from an active bureau account. I literally had to explain to an agent from a blue state office the difference between opportunists burning and looting during protests that stemmed legitimate grievance to police brutality vs. an insurgent mob whose purpose was to prevent the execution of democratic processes at the behest of a sitting president, the person wrote to Abbate. One is a smattering of criminals, the other is an organized group of domestic terrorists. The person also wrote that an official in one FBI office in a red state said that more than 70% of that office's counterterrorism squad and about three-quarters of its agent population disagreed with the violence, but could understand where the frustration was coming from. Story continues In his response, Abbate wrote: Thank you [redacted] for sharing everything below. When he received the email, Abbate was the associate deputy director in charge of all FBI personnel, budget, administration and infrastructure. The next month, he was named deputy director, the highest-ranking official under FBI Director Christopher Wray. The FBI declined to comment on the email. Brian OHare, president of the FBI Agents Association, said his organization does not comment on ongoing investigations, but added that, FBI Agents understand the importance of separating their own personal views from their professional work. Despite the apparent Jan. 6 tension in the bureau, the FBI has had major successes in what officials have repeatedly described as an unprecedented investigation. More than 850 defendants have been arrested on charges ranging from misdemeanor parading to felony seditious conspiracy. So far, the investigation has had a flawless track record before juries. FBI special agents have extracted confessions from rioters, including one who drove a stun gun into the neck of a police officer abducted by the mob, and have given compelling testimony about responding on Jan. 6 and escorting tearful lawmakers back into the building that evening. But sources close to the investigation have told NBC News that there have been some special agents in the country who have resisted Jan. 6 cases. Many special agents have been very proactive, while others in various field offices have engaged in half-hearted investigative efforts and seem content to let things peter out, the sources said. There are definitely varying degrees of enthusiasm from agents across the country, one source close to the investigation said. The source said it was disappointing to see a lackluster response from some special agents, while noting that there were many at the FBI who did their job regardless of politics. Some of the internal resistance at the FBI has gone public. Steve Friend, an FBI special agent from Florida, was praised as patriotic by Republican lawmakers after he was suspended not long after telling a superior he was going to refuse to participate in any J6 cases. As NBC News has reported, Friend chose to make his stand by objecting to the arrest of a member of a militia with ties to a former congressional candidate in Florida. After receiving support from 30 former FBI special agents, Friend joined Trumps Truth Social platform this week, where he was welcomed by Kyle Seraphin, another suspended FBI special agent who joined Truth Social and did an interview with conservative firebrand Dan Bongino after his suspension. Seraphin has written that the Jan. 6 cases keep him awake at night, and promoted a fundraiser for a Jan. 6 legal defense fund. Seraphin himself, in a video posted online, said that he was at a shooting range with local law enforcement officials when the Jan. 6 attack happened, and thought that a bunch of goofballs were behind the attack. We were laughing about it, and theres no other way to say it, he said. We were literally laughing, people were cracking up, you know, somebody has Nancy Pelosis podium. Is that the way that our country is supposed to act? No, but these were a bunch of clowns, thats not what an insurrection looks like to me. In another message on Truth Social, Seraphin said he had literally hundreds of employees standing behind him. Youll only see me. But you will hear them. And we arent happy. The email sent to Abbate was released the same day the House Jan. 6 committee held its ninth public hearing and shed light on some of the warning signs the FBI received ahead of the attack on the Capitol. The committee revealed the FBI had briefed the Secret Service on Jan. 5 that right-wing groups were establishing armed quick reaction forces and said groups like the Oath Keepers were standing by at the ready should POTUS request assistance. Those revelations line up with information that has come out in the ongoing Oath Keepers trial. A tip the FBI received about the Proud Boys ahead of Jan. 6, highlighted by the committee, was even starker. Their plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further, the December 2020 tip stated. Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI official and NBC News contributor, said on MSNBC on Thursday that it should be abundantly clear to FBI employees that the attack on the Capitol during the certification of the Electoral College vote was a very serious matter. If a FBI employee cant understand the difference between Black Lives Matter violence and an attempt to overthrow the government and stop a valid election, he said, then they need to find another job. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com The FBI paid Russian national Igor Danchenko more than $200,000 to serve as a confidential human source from 2017 to late 2020. FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson testified on day three of the trial of Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who served as the primary sub-source for ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his anti-Trump dossier. Special Counsel John Durham charged Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to the FBI. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty to all charges. DURHAM PROBE: FBI OFFERED CHRISTOPHER STEELE $1 MILLION TO CORROBORATE TRUMP ALLEGATIONS IN DOSSIER Durham, in a filing last month, revealed that Danchenko was paid by the FBI to be a confidential human source from January 2017 through October 2020. Russian national Igor Danchenko Helson testified Thursday that Danchenko was paid more than $200,000 by the FBI for his work over the three and a half year period he served as an FBI informant. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Helson testified that, at times, Danchenko was paid up to $3,000 by the FBI for conducting just one meeting. Helson testified that he put in a request for another $346,000 payment for Danchenko when he was closed as an FBI source, but said that request was rejected. If the final lump sum was approved, Danchenko would have been paid more than $500,000 by the FBI. But Helson defended Danchenko and his work for the FBI, saying he was a valuable human source, and affirmed that losing him as an informant harms U.S. national security. GRASSLEY, JOHNSON DEMAND ANSWERS ON WHY FBI PAID IGOR DANCHENKO AS A SOURCE DURING TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE Helson testified that Danchenkos source network was more impressive than any other informant he had encountered during his 20-year tenure at the FBI. Helson testified that from 2017 through 2020, Danchenkos information contributed to some 25 FBI investigations at risk of "potential threat to him and his family." During cross-examination, defense attorney Stuart Sears asked if Danchenko "re-shaped the way the U.S. government perceives threats." Story continues Helson testified that the FBI "stood up a new unit" because of what the bureau learned from its experiences with Danchenko. Fox News first reported in 2020 that Danchenko was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011. That FBI investigation into Danchenko focused on his contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers and reported attempts to facilitate payments for classified information. Special Counsel John Durham on Thursday asked Helson about the case, to which Helson fired back, defending Danchenko and saying it was "hearsay at best," and stressed that the case had been closed without any charges. But Durham revealed that the agent who brought that case had served as an Army counterintelligence officer in Europe for nearly two decades. IGOR DANCHENKO TRIAL: DURHAM HAMMERS FBI OVER LACK OF CORROBORATION OF STEELE DOSSIER USED FOR FISA WARRANT Helson countered that the same agent implied that Danchenko was an active Russian intelligence agent, "which simply wasnt true," and that her experience in Europe wouldnt necessarily qualify her to be an expert in Russian surveillance activity in the United States. Durham asked if Helson had given Danchenko a polygraph test to check on his motivations, but Helson said he had not. Danchenko served as the primary subsource for ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his anti-Trump dossier. The dossier was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie. The dossier served as the basis for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant and subsequent renewals against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who set-up Orbis Business Intelligence and compiled a dossier on Donald Trump, in London where he has spoken to the media for the first time. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in 2019 said the dossier was used to justify the initial FISA warrant and its three subsequent renewals. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee first said the dossier served as the basis for those warrants and surveillance of Page. IGOR DANCHENKO TRIAL: DURHAM HAMMERS FBI OVER LACK OF CORROBORATION OF STEELE DOSSIER USED FOR FISA WARRANT The Justice Department admitted in 2020 that the FISA warrants to surveil Page, when stripped of the FBI's misinformation, did not meet the necessary legal threshold and never should have been issued. During testimony this week, it was revealed that the FBI offered Steele $1 million in 2017 to provide corroboration to the information and allegations included in the dossier. Steele could not do so. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared a nationwide shortage of a medication commonly known by its brand name, Adderall, which is prescribed to tens of millions of people to manage attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, narcolepsy and other conditions. Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of the primary manufacturers of the drug, is experiencing ongoing intermittent manufacturing delays, the FDA said in a statement Wednesday. Although other manufacturers continue to produce amphetamine mixed salts the generic term for the medication there is not a sufficient supply to continue to meet U.S. demands, the FDA said. The number of Adderall and generic equivalent prescriptions has been on the rise over the past few years. In 2021, there were 41.2 million total prescriptions of the drug, a 16% increase from the 35.5 million prescriptions in 2019. Patients have been experiencing a shortage since August, with nearly two-thirds of community pharmacies struggling to order the medication at the end of July and beginning of August, according to CBS News. Adderall shortages can pose challenges for those who need it, including symptoms of withdrawal such as agitation, generalized slowing of mental and physical activity, increased appetite, and unusual tiredness or weakness, according to the Mayo Clinic. Teva Pharmaceuticals told USA Today that it has an active supply of both branded Adderall and its generic version and continues to produce and refill the channel regularly at levels above historical demand. It is possible that some people may encounter a backorder (intermittently) based on timing and demand, but these are only temporary, the company wrote in a statement. Teva Pharmaceuticals spokesperson Kelley Dougherty said Thursday the company expects its inventory to recover in the coming months, but that supply delays are likely to continue through the end of the year. The FDA said it will continue to monitor the supply and assist manufacturers with anything needed to resolve the shortage. Story continues A survey conducted earlier this year by the National Community Pharmacists Association, based on 358 responses from pharmacy owners and managers, found that 80% of community pharmacists reported supply shortages, and 64% reported having trouble getting the prescription stimulant. These challenges started after Teva Pharmaceuticals experienced labor shortages over the summer, according to the American Journal of Managed Care. The FDA recommended possible alternative treatments for those who need the medication until the shortage is resolved, such as extended-release versions of amphetamine mixed salts. The agency suggested that patients work with their health care professionals to determine their best treatment options. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Last weekend, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fettermans campaign issued a warning to donors about a purported scam. And for once, it wasnt Fettermans Republican opponent Mehmet Oz, at whom they were leveling the charge. On Twitter and over email, Fettermans campaign manager, Brendan McPhillips, laid into what he called a scam PAC that was using Johns name and likeness for their own fundraising. These people are only pretending that the money they raise goes to John and our campaign. In reality, they are tricking thousands of donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, McPhillips continued. Not only is this wrong, it also puts us at a major disadvantage. The object of McPhillips ire was an ad backing his candidate launched earlier that week by the Democratic Coalition, a progressive super PAC. Super PACs are barred by campaign finance laws from contributing directly to candidates like Fetterman or coordinating with their campaigns. Rare, however, is the occasion when a campaign would use its platform to call one out for soliciting donations. But the Democratic Coalition has ruffled feathers in Democratic circles before. McPhillips missive on Twitter was cheered by several progressive operatives who have previously accused the group of soliciting money from impassioned liberals only to spend it on its own operations. To which McPhillips replied: Fuck around and find out, grifters. But its a charge the group rejects, saying the super PAC has been transparent with donors, and is only looking to help elect Democrats. The Democratic Coalition has been around since 2016, when it launched as the Democratic Coalition Against Trump amid a wave of similar-minded organizations looking to harness the #Resistance energy that animated critics of the then-president. Rebranded as the Democratic Coalition, it is run by progressive consultant and fundraiser Scott Dworkin. The group bills itself as one of the largest grassroots Resistance operations in the country. One landing page for the group on the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue says the super PAC plans to produce ads to support Dems in competitive races, level hard-hitting opposition research against Republicans across the country, and lead an unmatched online organizing operation. Story continues Various social media feeds for the Democratic Coalition and Dworkin alike you name the platform, theyre on it resemble a progressive red-meat content farm, while Dworkins podcasts feature interviews with #Resistance-era heroes like former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, one-time Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas and recaps of Democratic candidates domination in election debates. The more recent content included a video portraying Fetterman as a champion of the working class who would act as a bulwark against encroachments on democracy, womens rights and health care. Dworkin said the near-constant stream of content pushed out by the group, as well as its Fetterman video, are part of our mission to reach as many voters as possible through organic social media every day of the year. The group has collected $350,000 this cycle, FEC filings show the vast majority of which has come from small-dollar donors giving less than $200. The committee has reported no independent expenditures either supporting or opposing federal candidates this cycle, compared with the $73,000 it dropped in the lead-up to the 2020 election and Georgia Senate runoffs. The roughly $20,000 the super PAC spent on Facebook ads through August amounts to just 6 percent of its total disbursements. The group has dropped another $900 on the platform in the past 30 days, according to Facebooks ad library, but those ads only began to mention specific candidates and target users in Pennsylvania and Ohio beginning in this month. By contrast, more than half of the super PACs $330,000 in disbursements has flowed to the committees employees or firms run by them, filings show. Nearly a fifth of the Democratic Coalitions spending this cycle, $65,000, has gone to Bulldog Finance Group, a fundraising firm founded by Dworkin. Thats lower than the amount the group sent to the firm in past cycles. But according to campaign finance filings, the Democratic Coalition has been the firms only client since 2017. The committees treasurer, Sonya McGrady, is its next highest beneficiary of its expenditures, taking in $50,000 this cycle through the end of August. The Democratic Coalition has also paid $41,000 and $37,000, respectively, to senior adviser Sam Jones for fundraising services and to the digital consulting firm of another senior adviser, Chuck Westover. Our group's modest fundraising has done nothing but help Democratic campaigns and causes, Dworkin said. Our groups messaging has driven billions of impressions over the years and we have built a massive megaphone to help amplify our allies, which we will continue to utilize for years to come. Dworkin argued that the nature of the Democratic Coalitions work doesnt translate well into FECs reporting requirements. Because we are active on social networks on a daily basis, it requires relentless activity from our team, and so most of our expenses are labor related, he said. Moreover, he added, generating organic activity for candidates doesnt meet the reporting requirement of buying a paid advertisement because it is based on earned social media reach. In the case of the Fetterman video, Dworkin said the objective was to fire up base voters in Pennsylvania, and that the videos accompanying hashtag, #VoteFetterman, peaked at #8 nationally on Twitter. It cost the Democratic Coalition $2,000 to produce the ad, he argued. He compared that to a campaign that would have likely paid six figures to have a Twitter takeover. Dworkin said the super PAC raised only $280 off the video, which asked viewers to donate today and help us show this awesome Fetterman ad to swing voters in Pennsylvania. He defended the solicitation by noting the group also fired off a tweet to its over half-million followers containing a link to donate directly to Fettermans campaign. That tweet came before McPhillips went after the group Though Fettermans campaign cast the group as a scam PAC, there are no legal requirements that spell out what percentage of a PACs spending must be put toward politicking or paying their employees. That ambiguity has allowed political action committees to engage in conduct ranging from apparent self-dealing to actual fraud, which the federal government has only recently begun to mobilize in earnest to combat. Such activity has flourished on both the left and right, growing serious enough to trigger a warning from the FBI in 2021 urging would-be donors to be on the lookout for such schemes, calling disbursements to vendors associated with a PACs operators a red flag. Still, for First Amendment reasons and others, PACs have a fair amount of flexibility in how they spend their money, said Erin Chlopak, senior director for campaign finance at the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, who pointed out that frankly, it does cost money to run ads and support candidates and so fundraising is a legitimate part of PAC activity. That makes it hard to police the issue, and means that its mainly up to donors to determine where they want to send their money. Last year, the FEC heard recommendations from a working group on how best to address the issue. Most of the proposals centered around ensuring donors are better informed about the political activities of the committee theyre interested in donating to. The campaign finance watchdog has yet to vote on any of the proposals. In the absence of regulation, politicians have sometimes taken it upon themselves to try and block other groups from trying to profit off their name and likeness even when the group in question is an ally. Just last year, the Republican National Committee rebuffed a cease-and-desist demand from former President Donald Trump to stop its unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trumps name, image, and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion, and/or issue speech. A senior Fetterman aide declined to comment on the record as to whether the campaign has any intention to issue such a request to the Democratic Coalition but said that weve been clear on telling this group to go fuck themselves. A fifth-grade teacher was arrested after Indiana police say she admitted to having a kill list that included the names of students and staff members. Charges against the 25-year-old teacher have not been announced, but the East Chicago Police Department said officers took her into custody on Thursday, Oct. 13, on an emergency detention order. She teaches at St. Stanislaus School, a Catholic school in East Chicago, the police department said. A student told their counselor on Wednesday, Oct. 12, that their teacher had made comments about killing herself, students and staff at the school, according to a police news release. The student also said the teacher had a list and that they were included on it, police said. The teacher was immediately taken to the principals office, where she admitted she made those statements and confirmed she has a kill list, the news release states. Students were safely dismissed at the end of the school day as the teacher remained in the principals office, according to the school. She was escorted off campus at 4:45 p.m. that day. Police were notified of the situation Thursday night, and officers took her into custody at her home Thursday morning. The school said classes are being held virtually on Friday and it is working closely with police. We are grateful for the teachers and staff who carefully and compassionately listen to the concerns of students, with respect for their well-being, the school said in a statement. We thank God for the family culture of St. Stanislaus that provides students with an environment where they feel safe sharing concerns and questions with teachers and staff. We thank God for guidance while the situation unfolded on Wednesday, bringing truth to light in a way that protected all involved. Photo: Jeremy Hainsworth. The Vancouver Downtown Community Court. A Surrey man who got drunk at a Vancouver restaurant and wound up spitting on a Vancouver Police Department officer will spend 12 months on probation after pleading guilty to assault. On the evening of Jan. 23, 2021, Sahil Rishi had gone to the Cactus Club restaurant in English Bay to celebrate, Crown prosecutor Karen Haughton told Downtown Community Court Judge James Behan Thursday. He became intoxicated and became argumentative despite being asked to calm down after which another patron intervened on behalf of staff. A consensual fight ensued. Rishi was knocked to the ground, seemingly unconscious and with goose egg on his head, court heard. Police arrived shortly after and escorted Rishi, who was having problems walking, out of the restaurant. He continued to be aggressive and was yelling. When he began spitting on officers, they put him on the ground. 'It is disgusting to be spit on, Haughton told the judge of what an officer had said. An ambulance arrived shortly after to deal with Rishi's swelling. After he got to Vancouver General Hospital, he was wheeled in, with officers holding him down. Behan heard Rishi has since been undergoing voluntary counselling and is also working on resolving his drinking issues. Behan gave Rishi a conditional discharged with a $100 victim fine surcharge. He must also write a letter of apology to the officer he spit on. DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday proposed sweeping changes in the way chicken and turkey meat is processed that are intended to reduce illnesses from food contamination but could require meat companies to make extensive changes to their operations. Despite decades of efforts to try and reduce illnesses caused by salmonella in food, more than 1 million people are sickened every year and nearly a fourth of those cases come from turkey and chicken meat. As it stands, consumers bear much of the responsibility for avoiding illness from raw poultry by handling it carefully in the kitchen following the usual advice to not wash raw chicken or turkey (it spreads the bacteria), using separate utensils when preparing meat and cooking to 165 degrees. The USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service wants to do something about it by starting with the farmers that raise the birds and following through the processing plant where the meat is made. Their food poisoning target: Of the more than 2,500 salmonella serotypes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified three that cause a third of all human illnesses from chicken and turkey products. The agency proposes limiting the presence of these on poultry products. The USDA estimates the total yearly cost for foodborne salmonella infections in the U.S. at $4.1 billion, which includes the cost of doctor and hospital visits, recovery and premature deaths. In 1994, the USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service took a similar step by declaring some strains of E. coli a contaminant in ground beef and launched a testing program for the pathogen which has significantly reduced illnesses from the meat. In an effort to curtail salmonella outbreaks in poultry, the agency is proposing a regulatory framework that would include testing incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys for the bacterial disease that commonly affects the intestinal tract and affects 1.3 million people annually with symptoms that may include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting which could last for several days. Officials hope testing chickens and turkeys before they enter the slaughterhouse will encourage farmers to adopt practices that reduce the bacterial infection on the bird before they reach the point of meat processing. Story continues A second measure would require enhanced monitoring for salmonella during processing by adopting sampling for the bacteria at multiple stages inside the processing facility. The third major change would be to establish a maximum level of bacterial contamination allowed and possibly limiting the three specific types of salmonella that can make people sick. Meat that would exceed the limits or that would contain the types of salmonella prohibited could be withheld from the market. The USDA says there are about 3,000 federally inspected plants that slaughter poultry but about 220 produce the vast majority of poultry products. The agency said it is difficult to say at this point how many would be affected by the future rulemaking. The FSIS will begin a lengthy process of proposing new rules by holding a public hearing on Nov. 3 to get input from the poultry industry and others. The governments goal is to come up with new rules and regulations that could be rolled out beginning next year and completed within two years. The agency said it is taking its time to roll out these ideas and get input before establishing firm regulations. The agency hopes to begin rulemaking in mid-2023 and complete it in two years, said USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety Sandra Eskin. We know this is quite a pivot from where the agency has been historically and for that reason were trying to be as transparent and deliberative and collaborative as possible, Eskin said. Consumer advocates have pushed for such action on poultry products for years. Eskin said the administration of President Joe Biden is pushing to make the changes. Seattle-based lawyer Bill Marler, one of the nations leading lawyers to represent consumers sickened by food sources applauded the agencys action which recognizes that controlling salmonella on animals before they reach processing plants is crucial to reducing meat contamination. He said FSIS should be bold and deem salmonella is a adulterant a contaminant that can cause food-borne illness in all meat as a starting point. What theyve outlined is something that's really unique that they have not ever done before but it doesnt have a time line and doesnt have regulations attached that would show its actually going to be accomplished. Thats my criticism, he said. The industry has been unable to meet government targets for reducing food-borne salmonella infections for a couple of decades. Meeting the new target set for 2030 of 11.5 infections per 100,000 people a year would require a 25% reduction, Eskin said. Eskin said the industry has managed to reduce the number of chicken samples contaminated with salmonella by 50% from 2017 to 2021, but the rate of salmonella illnesses over the last two decades has not significantly declined. More than 23% of foodborne salmonella illnesses are attributable to poultry consumption with nearly 17% coming from chicken meat and more than 6% from turkey meat. The North American Meat Institute, the trade association representing U.S. packers and processors of beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey said efforts to combat salmonella are a high priority. We are encouraged to see FSIS is going through the regular rulemaking process. We look forward to reviewing the proposal and providing comment from the industry, said Julie Anna Potts, the groups president and CEO. A spokeswoman for the National Chicken Council, which represents the companies that raise and process chickens for meat said they support efforts to reduce salmonella on chicken products. We are concerned that the proposed framework currently lacks industry input, research and data to support it, said Ashley Peterson, senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the group. "Glory" is the story of Black soldiers under Union arms enlisted to defeat the Confederacy during the Civil War. For many people, it is news that Blacks fought In the Civil War, much less died for the Union cause. By the end of the conflict, roughly 179,000 Black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war 30,000 of infection or disease. The film, featuring Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, was an enormous success. Costing only $18 million, it garnered Washington an Oscar for his supporting role as well as two other Academy Awards for cinematography and sound. Why does it appear in this column about movies shot in Georgia, more specifically about Savannah? More on Glory: Director of Savannah-shot 'Glory' reminisces on 'ghosts that summoned up' while filming Previous Filmed in Georgia: Stratton Leopold brought Hollywood, and a selection of stars, to Savannah Other Filmed in Georgias: Robert Mitchum's history with Chatham County law influenced 'Cape Fear' role Much of "Glory" was filmed here in our hometown. River Street was transformed into the street scene depicting the Black troops marching. If you review the film, youll see store fronts with signs doctored to reflect the Civil War era. Monterey Square is full of color in front of the historic Mercer-Williams House. Another prominent Savannah location used in "Glory" was the Mercer Williams House, also later used to great effect in the Clint Eastwood film, "Midnight in the Garden of God and Evil." Less obvious are the barracks scenes for the Black troops, converted on film from the Georgia State Railroad Museum in downtown Savannah. Beach shots for the final charge of the black Union troops on Fort Wagner near Charleston in South Carolina, were staged at Jekyll Island. 'It won't be the same city at all': Titan of Savannah knowledge John Duncan leaves mammoth legacy More interesting than the film locations are the facts behind their depiction. Colored troops, as they were then called, had been denied army participation from the outset of the war, despite avid attempts to join the fight to preserve the Union. President Lincoln was reluctant to change the rules forbidding such troops for fear of driving the border states Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia, which had legal slavery, into secession. Story continues Actor Denzel Washington, center, is flanked by Jihmi Kennedy, left, and Morgan Freeman, right, in Tri-star Pictures movie Glory about black soldiers of the 54th Regiment who fought in the Civil War. March 5, 1990. When recruitment became critical, Congress changed the rules and USCT were created US Colored Troops, actively seeking Black enlistees. The effort stalled until black leaders like Frederick Douglass encouraged Black men to become soldiers and in the process secure eventual full citizenship. Douglass backed up his words with action: His two sons joined the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, which eventually lost two thirds of their white officers and half their Black troops as dramatized in "Glory." One Black soldier, Sgt. William Carney, was awarded the Medal of Honor for carrying the fallen U.S. flag despite being shot in the thigh and only able to crawl forward. Sixteen Civil War Black soldiers eventually won this nations highest medal for valor. Sergeant William H. Carney If the desperate effort to wrest Fort Wagner from the Confederacy was a sacrifice and a failure, it was a success in proving the loyalty and courage of black troops and the leadership of their few white officers. Filmed in Georgia: First major Hollywood production rowed into 'dangerous' Okefenokee Swamp One poignant letter from a Black soldier, Samuel Cabble, a private in the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and former slave before joining the army, follows (quoted from the National Archives and Record Administration): Dear Wife i have enlisted in the army i am now in the state of Massachusetts but before this letter reaches you i will be in North Carlinia and though great is the present national dificulties yet i look forward to a brighter day When i shall have the opertunity of seeing you in the full enjoyment of fredom i would like to no if you are still in slavery if you are it will not be long before we shall have crushed the system that now opreses you for in the course of three months you shall have your liberty. great is the outpouring of the colered peopl that is now rallying with the hearts of lions against that very curse that has seperated you an me yet we shall meet again and oh what a happy time that will be when this ungodly rebellion shall be put down and the curses of our land is trampled under our feet i am a soldier now and i shall use my utmost endeavor to strike at the rebellion and the heart of this system that so long has kept us in chains . . . remain your own afectionate husband until death-Samuel Cabble. "Glory" can be found at your local library and is currently streaming on HBO Max and other on-demand platforms. This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Movies Filmed in Georgia: Glory 1989 with Denzel Washington NextShark A Chinese woman thought she was the victim of racism after receiving a letter from her alma mater addressed to a Ms. Ching Chong, but was shocked and relieved to learn the truth. Former University of Queensland student Sierra Chen took to the Facebook group UQ Stalkerspace, which is described as a platform for discourse about University of Queensland campus life, to share the letter she received from the university and to see if anyone could help her contact the addressee to verify whether the letter was sent maliciously. In her post, Chen said the contents of the letter were not unusual, but the name listed as the recipient concerned her, as ChingChong is a racial discrimination word against [sic] Chinese. Like most of the eight Iowans charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Kenny Rader of Sioux City wrongly believed that the 2000 election was stolen from President Donald Trump. Despite his conviction, Rader still does. After he was sentenced Sept. 29, he told the Des Moines Register he is "convinced more than ever that Trump won" the election. There is no evidence to support that allegation. In public statements in or out of court, many of the other Iowans facing charges have voiced regret and contrition, and some have disavowed their prior wrongful beliefs of a stolen election. Others have remained silent or, like Rader, appear unshaken in their belief. The eight Iowans are among the more than 900 people charged so far by federal prosecutors. Four of the Iowans have been convicted, and three sentenced. Twenty-one months after the Capitol was breached, here are where the cases against Iowa's accused rioters stand, and what those who have spoken have said about Jan. 6, 2021. Rader: 'I've lived a criminal life and I know what a burglary is' Rader, who was sentenced to 90 days in prison, was the latest Iowan to resolve his charges from the riot. Prosecutors said in court filings that he briefly entered the Capitol, but also made threatening statements about the 2020 election and against President Joe Biden on social media. In the interview with the Register, Rader said his motivation to attend the Stop the Steal rally President Donald Trump held near the White House preceding the attack was concern that left-wing groups might attack demonstrators. When word filtered through the crowd that the Capitol was being stormed, he went to look "How can you not want to go look?" he said before briefly crossing the threshold of a broken-down door, which he said he knew at the time was unwise. "I've lived a criminal life and I know what a burglary is," said Rader, who has served multiple prison terms for drug and property offenses. "If there's a home and the door's kicked in and in splinters, chances are the entry was unlawful." Story continues Rader's social media posts around the time of the riot, including one in which he called "dibs" on beheading Joe Biden, reflected a stream of escalating trash-talk with anti-Trump relatives on Facebook, he claimed. "I'm just coming out as extreme as I can, just doing anything to get under their skin," he said. "And it worked, obviously, because (they) turned me in to the FBI." Rader was allowed to remain free after his sentencing until ordered to report by the Bureau of Prisons. On Thursday, however, prosecutors asked the judge to order Rader detained immediately, alleging that Rader had made threatening statements to a family member he blamed for cooperating with the government. Rader, through his attorney, denied making any threats but assented to beginning his sentence immediately. On Friday, the judge ordered him to surrender to federal marshals in Sioux City. From January: Here's where the cases stand against 6 Iowans charged over participating in the U.S. Capitol riot First guilty pleas lead to range of sentences In this video screenshot included in court filings by federal prosecutors, Iowan Kyle Young can be seen in a throng of people grappling with a D.C. Metropolitan police officer during the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Rader is one of the three Iowans so far who have resolved their cases through plea deals. Daryl Johnson of St. Ansgar and Kyle Young of Redfield also pleaded guilty to reduced charges and have been sentenced. Video footage shows Johnson, like Rader, entered the Capitol during the riot, where he helped push through a line of officers who were trying to keep another entrance shut against the mob outside. Johnson, the first Iowan to resolve his case, was sentenced in June to 30 days in jail, while his son, who lives in Minnesota and accompanied him to the Capitol, was sentenced to four months. Young, by contrast, was heavily involved in pitched hand-to-hand fighting on the Capitol's west terrace, and was among those accused of assaulting a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who was dragged into the mob and badly beaten. His sentence of more than seven years is the fourth-longest for any rioter to date. One convicted at trial, and four still pending Doug Jensen of Des Moines walks through a smoke-filled hallway outside the Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol during the, Jan. 6, 2021, riot in Washington. In addition to the three who pleaded guilty, one Iowan has taken his case to trial. Doug Jensen of Des Moines was convicted in September of seven federal charges and is scheduled to be sentenced in December. Prosecutors are likely to seek multiple years in prison for Jensen, who received notoriety for widely viewed footage of him pursuing a U.S. Capitol Police officer inside the building during the riot. Who is Doug Jensen? Tracing a QAnon believer's path to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot Charges against four more Iowans remain pending. Leo Kelly of Cedar Rapids is charged with obstructing an official proceeding and other offenses, and is scheduled for trial in January 2023. In a media interview he gave immediately after the attack, attested to by an FBI agent in an affidavit, he admitted he and others had breached the Senate chamber and led prayers inside. Deborah Sandoval of Des Moines and her son Salvador Sandoval of Ankeny were charged a month after the riot with multiple offenses related to entering the building. Salvador Sandoval also is charged with charged with violence in a restricted building, violence in the Capitol building, and three counts each of civil disorder and obstructing or impeding officers. The two are scheduled for trial in December after the Sandovals unsuccessfully sought to have the trials separated and, like Jensen, failed in a bid to have the trials moved to Iowa from Washington. The most recent Iowan to face charges is Chad Heathcote of Adel, who is accused of forcing open a door guarded by several police officers. He was charged in May with two offenses, but court filings indicate prosecutors expect to file a superseding indictment in November. His trial is scheduled for June 2023. Why they went: anger over election, 2020 unrest While some of the Iowans facing charges have kept quiet in public, others have shed light on their motivations through court filings, media appearances and other channels. Many, like Jensen, shared the false belief that the 2020 election had been stolen. Kelly, in a video interview with an anti-abortion website, said he and others in the riot felt that "no one will even listen to us." Weve been betrayed by Congress," he said. "Weve been betrayed by the judicial branch. Weve been betrayed by our local governments, our mayors. Young's attorney also pointed to the 2020 election to explain his client's actions, saying Young "was injected with the claims and distortions touted by many in opposition to the election results." Others have pointed to the upheaval and unrest of 2020 as a factor in their decision to travel to Washington. Daryl Johnson, in court filings, said riots following George Floyd's death while in custody of Minneapolis police officers damaged several coin laundries and other businesses he owns in the Twin Cities, causing his family both financial and emotional strain. Rader said a turning point for him was the murder of a retired St. Louis police captain who was protecting a store during looting in June 2020. "I sat in 2020 and watch so many innocent people, old people ... get beat up, just trying to save their business and livelihood," Rader told the Register. "... It literally did something inside me to watch that." It was in that mind frame, he said, that he chose to travel to Washington to try to intervene in any similar violence by Black Lives Matter or related groups. No such violence occurred. Conspiracy theories including QAnon motivated rioters Numerous conspiracy theories have grown around the 2020 election, mixing with other beliefs, notably the QAnon conspiracy theory that holds Trump was leading a secret war against child sex traffickers who would be arrested in an event known as "the Storm." Jensen, who wore a Q shirt to the Capitol, told FBI agents in an interview at Des Moines police headquarters that he went to the Capitol believing the time for the Storm had come, and said he pushed up to the front of the crowd to ensure that Q got the credit for their actions. In subsequent court filings, his attorneys said Jensen, a father of two who grew up in an unstable household, found QAnon's concern for protecting children to be a compelling message. Read: 'I'm all about a revolution': Transcript reveals details of Doug Jensen's first interview with the FBI When Rader was charged in January 2022, prosecutors noted he also appeared to be a Q believer, posting pictures and slogans of the conspiracy on his Facebook page after the attack. In his interview, Rader claimed he wasn't aware of Q until after Jan. 6, but said once he discovered it online, he became a true believer. "I live and breathe (it) now," Rader said. "If you ask me, 'What do I do?' I say I'm a frontline soldier in the war on information." Asked why he has adopted the belief system despite its every prediction having failed to come true, Rader said he and others now believe they have discerned clues suggesting that many of Q's original predictions were actually meant to suggest dates four years in advance, and that he expects some of them to be fulfilled before the end of 2022. Many regrets, but some still believe election was stolen Those who have gone before judges for sentencing have expressed great regret about their actions at the riot. Johnson, at his sentencing, said he recognizes, looking back, that the stresses of 2020 had left him in an angry, emotional state. "For me to be part of something that caused that pain and anguish that (legislators and law enforcement) are going to have to deal with really causes me heartbreak, and Im really truly sorry," he told the court. Young also apologized to the officers he assaulted and said he's "very ashamed" of his actions. His attorney said at sentencing that his client is "not a lifelong political follower" and had no desire to engage in future political action. Jensen too claimed he had seen the error of his former beliefs. After saying in court filings that he recognized that he had "bought into a pack of lies" in believing in the Q conspiracy theory, he was permitted to leave jail and await trial on home detention under conditions that included staying offline and avoiding political news. Barely a month later, in August 2021, he was caught watching election conspiracy videos on a contraband cellphone and was sent back to jail. Jan. 6 rioter: 'I allow my emotions to control me' Rader, for his part, told the Register he realizes looking back that he allowed himself to get carried away. "I have to say that is my biggest regret. The whole thing is, I allow my emotions to control me more than my reason and logic," he said. He said he regrets some of the things he said online, but doesn't consider his actions in the riot to be all that culpable. And while he doesn't plan a repeat of his trip to the Capitol, he said, he remains convinced that Trump was wrongly attacked by Democrats and should have been declared the winner in the 2020 vote. William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris. Editor's note: This article has been updated with additional information from post-sentencing court filings against Kenny Rader. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Statements by Iowa suspects in Capitol riot show mix of motives Police have identified a fifteen-year-old suspect in the shooting spree that killed five people, including an off-duty police officer, in Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday evening. During a Friday press conference, Raleigh police chief Estelle Patterson identified the deceased victims as officer Gabriel Torres, 29, Nicole Conners, 52, Mary Marshall, 35, Susan Karnatz, 49, and James Thompson, 16. Patterson did not name the suspect, given that he is a minor, but said he remains in critical condition. The slain off-duty officer was on his way to work when he confronted the shooter, Patterson said. Were standing with you in this moment of unspeakable agony, Governor Roy Cooper said during the Friday press conference. No one should feel this fear in their communities. No one. As policymakers, we cannot, and we will not, turn away from what has happened here. Two other people were injured, including Raleigh K-9 unit officer Jerry Clark, who was treated at the local hospital and released, according to WRAL News. The other injured victim, Marcille Gardner, 59, remains in critical condition. The shooting spree took place at the Neuse River Greenway around 5 p.m., Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. The mayor said police told her around 8 p.m. that the suspect had been contained at a local home after an hours-long manhunt in the Hedingham neighborhood, roughly nine miles from Raleighs downtown. At 9:37 p.m., Raleigh police tweeted that the suspect was in custody. The search closed several roads for hours on Thursday evening and left nearby residents under instructions to shelter in place. This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh, Baldwin said. We must stop this mindless violence in America. We must address gun violence. Police are still investigating the incident. More from National Review A sheriff in Florida announced the arrest of seven men who were allegedly caught looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno announced that the seven men were arrested on Wednesday after allegedly being seen looting from various locations. Eli Francisco Acevedo Marin, 48; Eli Yadiel Acevedo Ayala, 19; Luis Enrique Cedeno Morales, 57; Axel Martinez Quiles, 18; and Benigno Ortiz Diaz, 40, were arrested near a Wyndham Garden Hotel in Fort Myers Beach. The sheriff's office said that the group's work van was located and "various items from recent thefts and several fire extinguishers stolen from the hotel and a nearby condo" were found inside. FLORIDA MAN CHARGED WITH KIDNAPPING AFTER ALLEGEDLY STEALING TRUCK WITH KIDS INSIDE: 'THAT'S NOT MY DAD' The five men are being charged with two counts of burglary during a state of emergency and two counts of grand theft of a fire extinguisher. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Another two people, Al King Chapman, 33 and Rodney Rogers, 59, were also arrested after they allegedly stole construction materials from a Hampton Inn parking lot in Fort Myers Beach. The men are being charged with grand theft. FLORIDA DEPUTY SHOT WHILE WEARING BULLETPROOF VEST RECOVERING, SUSPECT IN CUSTODY Marceno said that anyone who attempts to take advantage of others who were impacted by Hurricane Ian are "scum." "People who prey on others directly impacted by Hurricane Ian are the lowest form of scum," Marceno said. "There will absolutely be law and order in Lee County, and those who think they will commit crime are gravely mistaken." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa, Florida, on Sept. 28 as a Category 4 storm, and just 2 mph shy of a Category 5. Over 100 people have died as a result of the storm, according to Fox Weather. The Quabbin Reservoir, which supplies the MWRAs water system, remains over 90% full despite an ongoing drought. WEYMOUTH From projecting the impact on water rates to the cost of building the infrastructure, Mayor Robert Hedlund said his administration is still studying whether the town should join the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Hedlund and members of his administration went before the town councils public works committee this week to answer dozens of questions about the towns water supply and town officials' plans to address the need for more capacity. Weymouth recently told a developer looking to build a 99-room motel that the town would not supply water to the development. David Tower, business manager of the department of public works, said the town uses on average about 4.5 million gallons of day, though that number fluctuates and is at times higher. It is permitted by the state to use up to 5 million per day on average. Tower said about 22% of the towns water use is unaccounted for, meaning it is lost through things like water main breaks. He said the town could spend millions and millions on infrastructure work, but has been doing as much as possible, including using a leak detection system and improving mains with frequent breaks. September: Weymouth officials say they won't supply water for proposed 99-room hotel in Union Point Recent: MWRA waives fees for new town water hookups due to drought, bacteria levels The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has long been floated as a potential source of water to the redevelopment of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, now known as Union Point. The MWRA provides water from the Quabbin and Wachusett reservoirs to dozens of communities, including Quincy. The MWRA last month voted to temporarily waive the fee new communities pay to join the system, citing challenges including stressed river basins requiring water restrictions, rising concerns about PFAS chemicals and the limits that low water supply places on burgeoning development. Story continues Hedlund said the town is evaluating whether Weymouth should join the MWRA to provide water to the entire town, not just Union Point. "The more information we gleaned, we decided to expand to look at the whole town. (Water) is a dwindling resource for the region," Hedlund said, adding that the MWRA is "flush" with water. "It's the highest quality in the United States and it's in good shape, so the issue we're trying to vet is what it would mean for ratepayers if we went in that direction," he said. New: Former used car dealership in Weymouth to become apartments, kitchen showroom A 'poster child' for rising costs: Quincy police station price rises $23 million Tower said the average annual water bill in Weymouth is $840, compared to the average in the region of $947. Hedlund said the town could rely on agreements with developers, such as the master developer of Union Point, state and federal funding and debt service as ways to pay to join the MWRA. The town got state money to study potential routes for connecting to the MWRA system and to look at other factors, and chief of staff Ted Langill has been in talks with the agency. Planning Director Robert Luongo said the town will evaluate all potential routes to get the water to Weymouth. The town would then identify a preferred route through the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act permitting process. Hedlund said the town's water treatment plant would serve as a pump station and Great Pond would become a backup water supply. "If this wasn't something positive for the town potentially, I would not be wasting my time and the chief of staff's time to do this," Hedlund said. Weymouth Conservation Administrator Mary Ellen Schloss said joining the MWRA would allow the town to use its current water supplies as environmental and recreational resources. Herring could return to Great Pond, and the town could allow swimming and boating at both Whitman's Pond and Great Pond. A great blue heron stalks minnows in Whitman's Pond in Weymouth. "Not taking water from Whitman's Pond would be amazing, and the herring run could be restored to Great Pond if it wasn't a water supply," she said. "It could be a tremendous thing for Weymouth." This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Mayor Hedlund says MWRA could be best solution for more water capacity Atlanta police arrested a man accused of stealing from a home that belonged to former Atlanta Falcons receiver Julio Jones. Police said they caught the suspect wearing clothing and jewelry that he took from the property. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] On Tuesday, police responded to his home off W. Roxboro Road in reference to a residential burglary. Police learned the home belonged to Jones by the 911 caller. Through the course of their investigation, they learned clothing and jewelry was stolen from the resident by 31-year-old suspect, Martin Williams. TRENDING STORIES: Police said they put out a description of the suspect over the radio. An officer working an off-duty extra job on patrol observed a man, now identified as Williams, matching the description and was able to arrest him without incident. After his arrest, police discovered Williams in possession of stolen property from the residence and noticed he was also wearing some of the stolen clothing. Williams has been charged with first-degree burglary. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: A former McGuire Memorial direct care worker pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges Thursday and could face up to 17 years in prison after being accused of abusing patients under his care for more than a year. Zachary Dinell, 28, formerly of Freedom, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, 10 counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and one count of concealing material facts in a health care matter. In March, Dinell and Tyler Smith, 31, of New Brighton, were publicly named in a federal indictment accusing both McGuire Memorial workers of performing disturbing acts on at least 13 residents with emotional, intellectual and/or physical disabilities. More:Former McGuire Memorial workers face federal hate crime charges From June 2016 to September 2017, the then-employees reportedly took advantage of the victims' inability to defend themselves at the Daugherty Township facility, prosecutors said. Dinell and Smith were at the time responsible for providing daily assistance to residents, including bathing, feeding and using the restroom. During his plea hearing, Dinell admitted he and Smith assaulted residents in a variety of ways, including by punching, kicking and jumping on residents, rubbing and spraying liquid irritants in their eyes and mouths and, in one instance, removing a residents compression stocking in a manner intended to inflict pain. Several of these assaults were recorded on Dinells cell phone. Dinell acknowledged he and Smith exchanged text messages expressing their disdain for the residents and bragging about the assaults. In one late 2016 text, for example, Dinell bragged to Smith that he was about to suffocate one resident, with Smith responding "Hahahaha kill his [expletive] ass." In another message, Dinell claimed he considers patients less than people." More:Abuse, wrongful death suits filed against McGuire Memorial, former employees Story continues Dinell further admitted he and Smith were able to avoid detection by exploiting their one-on-one access to residents of the facility and the fact that the victims were nonverbal and could not report the abuse. McGuire Memorial leadership fired both men and cooperated with the federal investigation, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. Dinell worked at the facility from June 2016 through his June 2018 termination. Smith was hired in May 2015 and terminated in September 2017. As part of his plea agreement, and subject to approval, Dinell agreed to a term of imprisonment between 14 and 17 years. He is already serving 10 to 31 years in Fayette County state prison for related convictions. The case against Smith remains pending. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Former Beaver County health care worker pleads guilty to hate crime charges August 31, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; David DeLapa, a survivor of Boy Scout sex abuse, was photographed by the Statehouse in downtown Columbus.Mandatory Credit: Barbara J. Perenic/Columbus Dispatch David DeLapa first connected with his teacher and Boy Scout master over World War II memorabilia. The teacher brought different items into the classroom for show and tell, catching the attention of a young boy who played Army games and watched television shows about war. DeLapa would go up to his teacher's desk and ask to look at the hats and swords. Before long, their interactions lost any innocence. DeLapa said his teacher would hold him after class and spank him with a paddle for doing something wrong or simply for his own amusement. Paddling turned into fondling. The abuse extended beyond the school day and into events for an Akron-area Boy Scout troop led by the teacher. At camp, DeLapa said, his teacher and scoutmaster raped him. The troop leader pleaded guilty in 1979 to molesting another 10-year-old. When DeLapa's mom called to discuss a newspaper article about the case, he sensed she knew something, but couldn't bring himself to say it. He instead feigned shock, telling her how kind the man was to him in school. PREVIOUSLY: Boy Scouts plan to exit bankruptcy approved, signaling end to largest sex abuse case of its kind INVESTIGATION: Subject of USA TODAY investigation into child sexual abuse accused of sexual battery After the phone call, DeLapa hopped in his Ford Pinto and drove into the Nevada desert until he reached the base of a mountain. He climbed it with every intention of jumping to his death. But as he watched the sun set, he heard God's voice telling him to turn around and go home. So he did. "When you're held captive for two years ... you lose a lot of emotions," said DeLapa, of Tallmadge. "You get mad at life. You hate life. You think about killing yourself. There's such darkness, and you withdraw. You don't do the things you used to do." Nearly 2,000 Ohio Boy Scout sexual abuse survivors DeLapa is among nearly 2,000 Ohio survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Boy Scout leaders and volunteers. He's currently seeking financial relief from the Boy Scouts of America through its bankruptcy exit plan, which creates a $2.46 billion trust fund for survivors in exchange for no further lawsuits. Story continues The amount of money someone is eligible for depends on multiple factors, including where they live. Survivors in states such as Ohio, which has a stricter statute of limitations for child sex abuse, can only recover a percentage of what's owed to them. Ohio lawmakers are trying to change that with legislation that would scrap the statute of limitations for bankruptcy cases, allowing survivors to recoup the full amount for their claim. But the Legislature has less than one year to pass it. "How can just by the mere fact that one of us was born in Ohio and had the misfortune to be sexually abused here, why should we receive half or less of the same person who just had the misfortune of being sexually abused in a different state?" said Eric Palmer, a Cincinnati attorney who says he was sexually abused by an Ohio scout leader. Eric Palmer poses near his office on campus at the University of Cincinnati on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Palmer, a survivor of abuse during his time as a Boy Scout, is awaiting legislation that would allow survivors to recoup the full amount owed to them in the national bankruptcy settlement, instead of just a percentage currently allowed under state law. Boy Scouts settlement was years in the making The Boy Scouts' settlement is the culmination of years of scrutiny over the organization's handling of sexual abuse, beginning with the release of its so-called perversion files an internal list of ineligible volunteers. Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in 2020 as it faced hundreds of lawsuits across the country from former scouts who said they were molested and raped. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a path that's been pursued by several groups, including Catholic dioceses across the country, to blunt the financial impact of increased legal liability. But the Boy Scout case is the first with a national scope. "When the Boy Scouts first announced that they were declaring bankruptcy, I was outraged because I knew that they were using that as a mechanism to avoid greater liability for the things they covered up," Palmer said. CAMPS: Abuse happens at sleep-away camps. But parents are not powerless to prevent it. INVESTIGATION: Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy plan misses mark in vote by abuse claimants In a statement, Boy Scouts of America said the agreement will "provide survivors the opportunity be compensated efficiently and equitably." The organization also expressed support for the elimination of the criminal statute of limitations for sexual abuse. Survivors who want compensation from the Boy Scouts have a few avenues they can pursue. The simplest option is a $3,500 expedited payout that requires minimal documentation and a less strenuous vetting process. They can also go through a lengthy independent review or see where they fall on a matrix that doles out money based on the severity and frequency of abuse. For example, rape victims are eligible for more money than those with claims that involved forced masturbation. Palmer said he experienced multiple forms of abuse. The scoutmaster not his own troop leader was a longtime family friend who attended Palmer's church. One autumn day, Palmer said the man took him to a southern Ohio scout camp and began to wrestle with him on the front porch of a ranger's residence. The man then fondled and digitally penetrated him, Palmer said. Years later, the man would call Palmer and thank him for never telling anyone. Palmer sat on the phone in silence, eventually mumbling, "Okay," before the conversation ended. Eric Palmer is pictured during a camping trip in West Virginia with his Boy Scout troop when he was 11 years old. The scouts' settlement considers so-called "scaling factors" for each claim, such as the impact of the abuse and whether the perpetrator assaulted multiple victims. Among those factors: the statute of limitations in each state for child sexual abuse cases. In Ohio, criminal charges can be brought until the victim turns 43, with another five years granted if DNA is found after that. Current law caps the civil statute of limitations at age 30 and limits the damages someone can receive through civil claims. Advocates say these laws are unfriendly to child sex abuse victims, who often contend with memory loss and don't come forward until decades after the fact. "Ohio represents one of the backward states in terms of recognizing the dynamic of child sexual abuse," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who specializes in child sex abuse litigation. As a result, these laws limit what Ohioans can receive from the Boy Scouts. Per the settlement rules, survivors will get only 30 to 45% of what they're eligible for unless the Legislature acts before September of next year. And that's what Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Rep. Jessica Miranda, D-Forest Park, hope to do. Seitz is an unlikely ally for this endeavor. The high-ranking GOP lawmaker spearheaded the effort to cap civil damages and has consistently opposed efforts to expand the statute of limitations. After lawmakers introduced a bill aimed at helping those abused by former Ohio State University doctor Richard Strauss, Seitz admitted it was a negotiating tactic never intended to become law. Instead, lawmakers used it to pressure the school to make better settlement offers. For him, this legislation is different. It eliminates the statute of limitations just for bankruptcy claims, meaning its application is limited. And, crucial for Seitz, the Boy Scouts already agreed to a payment plan. "I dont like the fact that the Boy Scouts had to declare bankruptcy to get out of this," Seitz said. "I was never a Boy Scout myself, but the Boy Scouts have done a lot of good for a lot of years. Its a shame that they went bankrupt." 'The Boy Scouts knew about this' Others are less sympathetic to the Boy Scouts' plight. "The Boy Scouts knew about this they actually kept files on these guys, and they didnt fire them," said Janet Nash, who says she was raped by an Ohio scout leader when she was 15 years old. "They didnt get rid of them. They just moved them around and kept files on them. They didnt warn the scouts. They didnt warn the parents, and parents trusted these people." A high school yearbook photo of Janet Nash. A tomboy who longed to be part of the Boy Scouts, Nash joined the Exploring program in the 1970s the only part of the organization that accepted girls at the time. In the end, however, the experience derailed her life. She was a good student who enjoyed science until the trauma made it difficult to focus, she said. She felt abandoned and blamed by the people around her. Nash said she was initially hesitant to join the bankruptcy settlement, thinking no one would believe a young girl had been abused by the scouts. She later changed her mind after receiving encouragement to take action. "I hid from it for decades," said Nash, who now lives outside Ohio. "I stuffed it in the back of my head. Its so horrible because I wasnt a bad kid at all ... I was just this kid chasing frogs in the creek months before it happened." Mujaddid Muhammad also knows what it's like to have life forever changed by the Boy Scouts. Sep 6, 2022; Columbus, OH, United States; Mujaddid Muhammad poses for a portrait in the Columbus Dispatch studio. Muhammad is seeking to recoup the full amount owed to him through a lawsuit meant to compensate survivors of Boy Scout sexual abuse in the national bankruptcy case, instead of a partial amount currently allowed under state law Mandatory Credit: Brooke LaValley-The Columbus Dispatch The Columbus man said he was sexually abused over a period of a few months by an Ohio scout leader when he was about 9 years old. Muhammad was not a Boy Scout, but he attended camps as part of a program for low-income children. The man who forced Muhammad to perform oral sex on him was seen as an upstanding member of the community, he said. Muhammad's stepfather was skeptical of the troop leader, and the abuse ended when his family moved out of the area. But Muhammad said the experience sent him down a path of crime that started with juvenile breaking and entering and ended with a 32-year sentence for drug conspiracy as an adult. He didn't fully address the trauma from his childhood until he was in prison, with plenty of time to do what he called "introspective work." Now, Muhammad is starting over. Like other survivors, the settlement is not necessarily about the money. He instead sees it as part of his journey toward redemption, a way to rebuild what the Boy Scouts destroyed years ago. "I felt like the child in me that had been molested and abused had ran and hid in a cave," Muhammad said. "I was just living in that cave while someone else lived my life." To learn more about the Boy Scouts settlement, visit bsarestructuring.org. Survivors looking for assistance can also contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673. Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Boy Scout sex abuse survivors seek Ohio law change Photo: Contributed A sign greets people on the Siksika First Nation, east of Calgary near Gliechen, Alta. Representatives from three First Nations in southern Alberta have filed a complaint against the federal government for alleged discrimination against adults with developmental disabilities. The complaint from the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai or Blood Tribe First Nations, which was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, accuses Indigenous Services Canada of "systemic discrimination" against adult members with disabilities. Siksika Coun. Tracy McHugh said federal supports are available for children with disabilities who live on reserves until they turn 18. After that, families can stay on the reserves with no supports or they can access help through Alberta's Persons with Developmental Disabilities program. But in order to get those provincial supports, they would have to move off reserve. "Neither of those choices is ideal. Neither of those choices is something a parent or guardian should have to make," said McHugh. "They have to leave the reserve, and we come from a people that is predominantly under poverty, and ask them to uproot everything to move and leave family behind," she added. "You leave a whole lot of that culture behind ... to go and access funding. It creates isolation. It creates hardship." McHugh said her sister was injured in a horse riding accident as a teen, and the family has been fighting for supports for a long time. Since reserves are under federal jurisdiction, she said, it is up to Indigenous Services Canada to step up and establish stable and equitable funding for the creation of comprehensive and culturally appropriate programs, supports and services to meet the needs of the Blackfoot Nations. McHugh said Siksika council raised the issue in a private meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last June. "It's a long time coming. A very, very long time coming," McHugh said. "Every government has failed our people with developmental disabilities on the reserves. My sister was hurt when she was 14. She's 42 now. That's almost 30 years and the governments have changed out many times." Blood Tribe Coun. Tony Delaney said it's a matter of fairness and what's best for those with disabilities, without taking them away from their families or culture. "These are I believe our most vulnerable people. And at times they don't have a voice and we want to be that voice for all of them," Delaney said. "When they turn 18, they pretty much have to leave the reserve and move into surrounding towns to be able to get the services that every Albertan gets. We could do a lot better taking care of our own." Indigenous Services Canada said it is aware of the complaint but has not received the details. "The department takes allegations of discrimination very seriously. As details are received by the department, ISC will take the time to carefully review," spokeswoman Megan MacLean said in an email. "Supporting the health and well-being of First Nations communities and individuals is a top priority for Indigenous Services Canada. We remain committed to working with all partners in addressing gaps and improving access to the supports and services that people need." A Hagerstown woman was sentenced Thursday to 14 1/2 years in state prison in the March 7 assault of a 95-year-old woman for whom she was hired as a caretaker, and the theft of $10,000 in cash from the woman's home. Angel Marie Parker, 34, of Hagerstown, pleaded guilty in Washington County Circuit Court on Thursday to first-degree burglary and first-degree assault both felonies in what has previously been described as a home-invasion robbery of the Hagerstown woman in the city's West End. Parker's co-defendants Jacob Benjamin Kitch-Nordsick, 23, of Hagerstown, and Taylor Paul Alexander, 23, of no fixed address, have trials scheduled for next year. More:Last defendant sentenced in death of Maryland man dumped in Christmas tree bag Assistant State's Attorney Cyrus Jaghoory said Parker was the setup and lookout. While she didn't enter the victim's house, Parker has "accomplice liability" in the assault, he said. "Thank God it didn't end as horribly as it could," Jaghoory said. The victim, who was using a walker at the time of the attack, survived her injuries and is now 96. She continues to have difficulties with eating, hearing and mobility, according to a victim impact statement filed in court. She also doesn't like to drive anymore and is fearful and paranoid of strangers visiting her home, even for medical care. Judge Joseph Michael described the case as "very important" to a lot of people, including the victim and Parker's children. Michael acknowledged Parker's struggles in life, but asked how the community should address the issue of people who hatch a plan to sneak into a woman's house and steal $10,000 not even getting to the injuries yet. Then he reminded Parker she was informed outside the house that night by one of her co-defendants that the woman had been pushed down and attacked. Michael said Parker knew that, but "did nothing." He also noted that Alexander and Kitch-Nordsick would not have known about the victim and the cash in her home if Parker hadn't told them. Story continues The sentence for assaulting and burglarizing vulnerable adult Michael sentenced Parker separately on the two charges. For the burglary, he sentenced her to 20 years with all but 18 months suspended. For the assault, he sentenced her to 25 years to be served consecutively, with all but 13 years suspended. With the assault being a crime of violence, Parker must serve at least half of the 13 years. Parker gets credit for 217 days served in the Washington County Detention Center. Other charges, including attempted first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, were dropped as part of the plea agreement. When Parker finishes her prison sentence, she will be on supervised probation for three years, followed by another two years of probation to be supervised for restitution only, Michael said. Michael said there is a $10,000 judgment for Parker to pay separately, or jointly with Alexander and Kitch-Nordsick if they are convicted. The money is to go to the victim or her designee. Parker also is to complete 250 hours of community service upon her release, or some other acceptable service since she might not be permitted to participate in community service due to the crime of violence, Michael said. Jaghoory had asked for Parker to be sentenced to 15 years. Jaghoory told Michael the same plea offer was made to Alexander and Kitch-Nordsick. Parker was the only one who had agreed to it as of Thursday. The home invasion in the West End The woman told police she was sitting in a recliner in her Marshall Street home around 10:46 p.m. on March 7 when she heard the screen door opening. She got up and when she reached for the door it opened and a masked male entered, pushed her to the floor, got on top of her, and put both hands over her mouth, causing her to struggle to breathe and "making her feel as if he was trying to kill her," charging documents state. She woke up on the floor alone in the house and activated her Life Alert pendant, which summoned police and an ambulance. Police estimate she was likely unconscious for about 10 minutes, court documents state. Family members told police the woman had a medical issue for which she required home nursing care and identified Parker as a caretaker that made her feel uncomfortable. The woman told police that her caregivers might have seen her taking money out of a box. The victim was treated at Meritus Medical Center east of Hagerstown for lacerations, one of which required stitches, as well as scrapes and bruises "consistent with being strangled or suffocated," Hagerstown Police wrote in charging documents for the case. According to the victim impact statement, the woman got tangled up in her walker when she was attacked and knocked to the floor. The left side of her body was injured, including a fractured rib and injured femur. Kitch-Nordsick is facing charges that include attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and home invasion, according to court records. Alexander's charges include home invasion, first-degree assault and first-degree burglary, according to his case docket. Parker writes of 'regrettable choice' and prays for forgiveness Michael took time in court to read in silence a victim impact statement and 14 letters of support for Parker he'd just been handed. The letters for Parker included ones by her husband, children, other friends and family, and a former daycare employer. He learned of Parker's struggles through the letters and listening to Assistant Public Defender Loren Villa's comments. Those struggles included the stillbirth of one of her children and the use of drugs such as Percocet, crack cocaine and heroin. Villa also noted Parker gave birth to her first child at age 14. Parker didn't have a prior criminal record. Michael noted she had a history of breaking the law with her drug use, but "we take a different view of that than we once did." Villa read a letter from Parker out loud in the courtroom, with the victim's daughter sitting in the gallery. Parker, through the letter, referred to the "regrettable choice I made" and being "lost in my addiction." She was "lost in grief" over her daughter's stillbirth and looking to numb her pain by any means necessary, she wrote. "I inadvertently caused pain on people who did not deserve it," Villa said Parker wrote. Parker wrote she felt terrible about the emotional scars she left on the woman. Parker also wrote about the effect her actions had on her three surviving children and how this was "not the example I wanted to set for my children." Parker wrote that she deserved to be punished. She said she prays that through therapy and time her children and the victim will forgive her and that she will find a way to forgive herself. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Former caregiver sentenced in assault and burglary of 95-year-old Alex Underwood is now in federal prison, officials said Friday afternoon. This comes a decade after he was elected Sheriff of Chester County, S.C. It also marks the end of a career where the sheriff reached high acclaim before falling to criminal convictions. George Alexander Alex Underwood, 59, reported to federal prison at the U.S Penitentiary Big Sandy in Kentucky, according to an emailed statement to The Herald from Benjamin OCone, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons. The prison is in Inez, in eastern Kentucky near the West Virginia border. Underwoods lawyers had asked federal officials for Underwood to be placed in a prison outside of South Carolina because of Underwoods long law enforcement career. Underwood is appealing his 2021 conviction and 46-month prison sentence on eight felony charges. He had asked for bond so he could remain free during the appeal. But federal judge Joseph Anderson Jr. ordered Underwood to report to prison by Friday. Former Chester deputy Johnny Ricardo Neal also was in prison as of Friday, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Neal is in a federal prison in Ashland, Ky., prison officials said in a statement to The Herald. Neal also is serving a 46-month sentence. The convictions Underwood was convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program theft, falsifying records, and the attempted cover up and unlawful arrest of a Chester County man in 2018, court records show. The convictions were the result of Underwood misusing federal DUI checkpoint enforcement money that should have gone to deputies, and forcing deputies to work on a man-cave party barn at his home, William Miller, the assistant U.S. Attorney from Washington D.C. who prosecuted Underwood, said in court filings. When Underwood was sentenced in July, Miller said in court that the sheriff is powerful and a symbol. (Underwood) lied, he cheated, and he stole when he got into power, Miller said in July. Miller said Underwood was someone who should have stood for the rule of law but instead broke the law repeatedly. Story continues Prosecutors described Underwood as a crook and a bully. Underwood also was convicted of falsely arresting a man after the former sheriff confronted the man who was doing a Facebook Live video. The arrest was covered up with false reports and lies to the FBI, according to court testimony and documents. Neal and former chief deputy Robert Sprouse, were convicted at the same trial as Underwood in 2021. Sprouse was sentenced to 24 months. He reported to prison in September. Underwood has continued to maintain his innocence. He said at sentencing that his race was part of the reason he had been targeted by political enemies. Prosecutors denied that claim. Chester County is a largely rural county between Charlotte and Columbia with around 32,000 people. Chester Countys population is around 40 percent African-American Underwoods tenure as sheriff A former State Law Enforcement Division agent, Underwood, a Democrat, was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2016 as the countys first Black sheriff. Underwood, also is known as Big A. Over time, the nickname became a common identity because of his stature. Underwood stands around 6-foot-3, and weighs over 200 pounds. Underwoods early tenure was marked by successes in the 2014 arrest of gang members connected to the killing of Chester City Councilman Odell Williams. Underwood also gained national attention when he brought a Pennsylvania boy to Chester for a hunting trip. That happened after a mixup over an Underwood-sponsored outdoors activity. The boy thought the event was in Chester County, Pa. After The Herald covered the mixup and Underwood brought the boy to South Carolina, the story was covered as far away as England and Australia. Underwood appeared in national media for his relationship with the Chester, Pa., boy and for his tough stances on crime, gangs and drugs. Underwood was selected Sheriff of the Year for South Carolina during his term. When Underwood ran for re-election in 2016, he sent this statement to The Herald about himself: Known to many simply as Big A, Underwood is a trusted and well respected law enforcement veteran and legend in his own time. Indictment in 2019 But Underwood came under scrutiny in 2019 when the FBI began investigating the claims of Kevin Simpson, the Chester man South Carolina prosecutors said was wrongly arrested. FBI agents raided Underwoods sheriffs office in the Spring of 2019 and on May 7, 2019, federal prosecutors announced a grand jury had indicted Underwood and the two top deputies. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster suspended Underwood from office the same day in May 2019. McMaster appointed Max Dorsey as sheriff. Underwood ran for re-election in 2020 while suspended and under indictment, but was defeated by Dorsey, a Republican. Underwood, former Chester supervisor in prison same day Underwood reported to prison the same day that former Chester County Supervisor Shane Stuart pleaded guilty to drug and misconduct charges in Chester County. Stuart and Underwood were both charged by South Carolina prosecutors with corruption charges. Underwood was indicted by a South Carolina state grand jury and still faces South Carolina grand jury charges that are pending even with the federal conviction, state prosecutors said Friday. What happens now? Underwood s federal sentence is for 46 to 54 months. The appeal of his conviction and sentence continues in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. It remains unclear when that appeal will be heard. Everyrealm, a metaverse real estate company that spun out of Republics crypto arm in February, is facing two lawsuits first filed in August from former directors at the company who allege they each faced numerous, separate instances of discrimination and harassment while working there. In addition to the company itself, multiple Everyrealm executives are also named as defendants in the suit, including CEO Janine Yorio and co-founder Julia Schwartz. Today, Seppinni LLP, the employment law firm representing both plaintiffs, filed amended complaints on behalf of each in federal court in the Southern District of New York, where the case is being tried. The amended complaints, from ex-NFL player Teyo Johnson, who worked as Everyrealms director of strategic partnerships, and Katherine Yost, the companys former HR director, contain several new allegations of sexual harassment that they claim occurred at the company. If the judge overseeing the proceedings determines that these allegations constitute a sexual harassment dispute under a bipartisan law that President Biden signed in March to end forced arbitration for such cases, both lawsuits will go to trial despite Everyrealms push to compel arbitration. If that happens, these could be the first-ever cases in the U.S. to which the new law the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFA) is ever applied in court, the plaintiffs attorney Shane Seppinni told TechCrunch in an interview. The new allegations in Johnsons amended complaint state that he experienced unrelenting sexual harassment throughout his time at the company, including instances of sexually explicit remarks, jokes and tirades. Specifically, Johnsons amended suit claims that Yorio and Schwartz made unwelcome comments regarding his sex life and his then-girlfriends menstrual cycle and that Yorio pressured him to have sexual intercourse with coworkers and clients as part of a game employees referred to as Know Your Personnel. The amended complaints from both Johnson and Yost also include what Seppinni claims are screenshots of text messages between Yorio and an Everyrealm employee (who Seppinni declined to identify) that show Yorio allegedly referring to other employees by terms such as pussy and dolt. The plaintiffs included these images to support their allegation that Yorio created a hostile work environment at the company. Johnsons original lawsuit from August already included a claim that Yorio made inappropriate comments about his appearance, which his team is arguing constitutes sexual harassment. The full complaint also includes allegations separate from sexual harassment, such as that Johnson, who is Black, faced pay discrimination at the company and that Yorio made racist comments toward Johnson such as calling him a stupid Black person, the whitest Black person, and threatening to trade him if he did not perform in his role. A spokesperson for Everyrealm denied the allegations in an emailed statement to TechCrunch and pointed to the companys publicly filed legal motions in the case but did not provide further comment. Yorio, meanwhile, had not responded to TechCrunchs request for comment on the lawsuits by press time. Both Johnson and Yost were terminated from their employment at Everyrealm before they filed the lawsuits. Yosts suit suggests her termination was an unlawful act of retaliation from the company against her because she had spoken up about its leave policy, while Johnsons suit alleges he was terminated because of his race as a result of discrimination. Johnson also claims he faced retaliation from the company after he pointed out to executives that a proposed crypto gambling initiative they had wanted to undertake was potentially illegal. Everyrealms journey through the metaverse Everyrealm spun out of alternative asset crowdfunding platform Republics crypto arm in February, the company told TechCrunch at the time. The startup, which describes itself as building the gateway to the entire metaverse ecosystem, announced concurrently that it had raised $60 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) at what PitchBook data suggests was a $195 million valuation. The company purchases and develops virtual land properties, which are sold as NFTs, in metaverse worlds such as Decentraland and The Sandbox. It also runs a virtual educational academy in the Somnium Space metaverse, for which students pay $1,000+ each to learn about web3 concepts. Although Everyrealm is an independent entity separate from Republic, Republic and its subsidiary Republic Crypto are both named as co-defendants alongside Everyrealm in Johnson's and Yosts lawsuits. As of March, Andrew Durgee, head of crypto and tokenization at Republic, was also working as a managing director at Everyrealm and serving on its board of directors, an SEC filing shows. "OpenDeal Inc. dba Republic and its subsidiaries were improperly named in the Yost and Johnson lawsuits; the complaints and related pleadings and motions makes no specific allegations against any persons currently employed by, nor any entities under the control of, Republic, a spokesperson for the office of Republics general counsel wrote in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. The statement noted that Republic Crypto remains a service provider to numerous clients in the Web3 space, including certain affiliates of Everyrealm." Yorio, who began leading Republics metaverse real estate investing efforts in 2020, told TechCrunch in February that the Everyrealm fundraise was one of the largest Series A rounds ever raised by a company with a female CEO. Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed and Dapper Labs also participated in the round, as well as several celebrity angel investors, including Paris Hilton. In Johnsons amended lawsuit, he claims that Everyrealms general counsel, William Kerr, and other company executives, repeatedly referred to Hilton by the nickname A Night in Paris," which Johnsons team believes constitutes sexual harassment. The nickname, according to Johnsons complaint, refers to a revenge porn video of Hilton that was leaked online in 2004 without her consent. a16zs Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF), whose mission is to support Black employees in tech, allegedly played a key role in facilitating many of the introductions between Everyrealm and its celebrity investors, according to Johnsons suit. The venture firm has not publicly commented on any of the allegations made in Johnson's or Yosts lawsuits. Spokespersons for a16z and a16zs CLF had not responded to TechCrunchs requests for comment on the lawsuits by press time. Will the cases go to trial? After Johnson and Yost filed their lawsuits in August, Everyrealm responded by filing a motion and countersuits against both plaintiffs to compel them to drop their court cases and instead go through an external arbitration process, court records show. Everyrealm is arguing Johnson and Yost signed contracts agreeing to arbitrate any legal actions against the company when they were hired and that they are in violation of those contracts and therefore are obliged to go through the arbitration process. Johnson and Yost, for their part, are arguing that Everyrealm doesnt have the legal grounds to force them to go through the arbitration process because the instances of alleged sexual harassment they note in their lawsuits occurred after the EFA had already been signed into law and taken effect on March 3. On October 9, court records show District Judge Paul Engelmayer granted both plaintiffs a leave to amend their complaints to include more details around their sexual harassment allegations. Judge Engelmayer will then determine whether the cases in their entirety will go to trial or will be tried in arbitration, though the expected timing of that decision remains unclear. The former head of Planned Parenthood isn't sure what impact the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will have on the midterm elections, but Cecile Richards says the long-term abortion debate in a post-Roe world is still just at the "tip of the iceberg." "We will learn a lot," said Cecile Richards, now co-chair of the Democratic-aligned group American Bridge 21st Century. "The midterm election is only one measure of what's happening in the country. But I do think long term, [political momentum for abortion rights] is not going to wane." Richards led Planned Parenthood from 2006 until 2018 and spoke to CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett for the "The Takeout" this week. Richards frames the abortion debate in terms of the government's role in personal health care decisions. She points to the ballot amendment Kansas voters rejected in August that would have restricted abortion rights in the traditionally Republican state. "People across the political spectrum are saying, actually, that's regardless of my own personal feelings, I don't think government should be making those decisions," Richards said. Next week, Garrett speaks to longtime opponent of abortion rights, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Executive producer: Arden Farhi Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor Watson CBSN Production: Eric Soussanin Show email: TakeoutPodcast@cbsnews.comTwitter: @TakeoutPodcastInstagram: @TakeoutPodcastFacebook: Facebook.com/TakeoutPodcast Author Mike Rinder on new book "A Billion Years" documenting life after Scientology Breaking down the Jan. 6 committees final hearing Residential areas in Ukraine continue to be hit by Russian missiles A Fort Collins man has been sentenced to prison for a driving under the influence and crashing into another vehicle at a high speed, killing the driver and seriously injuring the passenger. Alana Thomas, 34, died from her injuries at the hospital five days after the "violent" crash in the 7000 block of North Garfield Avenue in Loveland just before midnight Feb. 26, police said in a news release at the time. Another woman was hospitalized with critical injuries but survived. Benjamin Eisenberg, now 27, pleaded guilty to all six charges against him in August: DUI-related vehicular homicide, a Class 3 felony Reckless-driving-related vehicular homicide, a Class 4 felony DUI-related vehicular assault, a Class 4 felony Vehicular assault resulting from reckless driving, a Class 5 felony Driving under the influence, an unclassified misdemeanor Reckless driving, a Class 2 traffic offense In an emotional court hearing Friday, Judge Daniel McDonald sentenced Eisenberg to 12 years in prison for the vehicular homicide of Thomas and an additional six years in prison for the vehicular assault of the passenger, who was Thomas's good friend. Those sentences will run consecutive to each other, for a total of 18 years in the Department of Corrections. "What you did is horrific," McDonald said to Eisenberg. "... The pain you have caused is irreparable." The passenger who was injured in the crash told the judge this incident not only cost her a good friend, but the traumatic brain injury she sustained from the crash will negatively impact her the rest of her life. "I still can't believe we were in the same car and I'm here and she's not," she said. She was so severely injured after the crash that she couldn't move without assistance from her husband, and even when she did move she felt severe pain and nausea, she told the judge. Her injuries were so severe she was unable to travel to Denver to say goodbye to Thomas when her family decided to take her off of life support. She and her husband had to record a voice memo to say goodbye instead, and Thomas's husband played it for her. Story continues "That's one of the worst things I've ever heard," McDonald said. She said their last conversation while driving back home from a girls night at a friend's house was about how Thomas didn't like hugging in social situations because it made her uncomfortable, and her friend promised not to hug her again unless she asked for one a promise she said she is "heartbroken" to be able to keep now. She isn't just living with grief, but with a traumatic brain injury that continues to make it impossible to live the life she used to, she told McDonald. She's sensitive to light and sound, has trouble multitasking, and can't do things like video call or talk on the phone with her family members in Australia for more than a few minutes. Her brain sends incorrect signals to her heart when she moves around, causing her increased exhaustion in addition to her daily and weekly occupational and physical therapy demands. She has also been diagnosed with PTSD. "I'm so frustrated and angry," she said. "None of this is my fault." Family and friends of both victims shared with the judge what else they lost because of Eisenberg's decision to drink and drive. The husband of the woman who survived said his wife's "light isnt what it used to be, her fire isn't as hot and her soul isnt as bright. Thomas's husband said in a written statement it was read by a friend because his grief made it impossible to attend that he's had trouble accepting "this devastating reality of living without her." "I have never met anyone who loved me like Alana did," he said. The two had a small wedding because of the COVID-19 pandemic and were planning on a larger one later in 2022. They were looking at buying a house and had future plans to travel and have children. "There are futures that will never happen now, there are children who will never be born," because of Eisenberg's actions, McDonald said. Eisenberg was driving between 111 and 133 mph when he hit Thomas's vehicle, according to the prosecution. His blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit about three hours after the crash. Eisenberg told the court he deeply regrets the decisions he made and the pain he caused that day. He had a problem with alcohol at the time and drank excessively during the day of the crash. His defense attorney said Eisenberg has always expressed remorse and a desire to take full accountability for his actions. "I've thought every single day I wish I could trade my life for hers," Eisenberg said. "I've always wanted to use my life to lift people up, not to destroy lives." Eisenberg, who was out on bond at the time of his sentencing, was taken into custody immediately after Friday's hearing. Because of the nature of the case, McDonald ordered Eisenberg to pay restitution to the victims on an ongoing basis. This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins man sentenced to prison in fatal Loveland DUI crash TotalEnergies is suspected of supplying fuel to Russian fighter jets Two organizations, namely The France-based Darwin Climax Coalition and Ukrainian group Razom We Stand, have lodged a legal complaint against TotalEnergies for complicity in war crimes with Frances national anti-terrorist prosecutor, who investigates war crime allegations. Read also: EU adopts eighth sanctions package against Russia, including oil price cap Justice should not be blind when faced with the indirect but essential support of multinationals to the war effort, and to the considerable benefits that they continue to enjoy after the invasion of Ukraine, lawyers said. According to the agency, the legal complaint accuses TotalEnergies of helping to provide the Russian government with the necessary means to commit war crimes by continuing to exploit the Termokarstovoye deposit in northern Russia. TotalEnergies until recently owned a 49% share in Terneftegaz, the company that extracts gas from the Termokarstovoye field. The other 51% was held by Russian company Novatek, in which the French firm also owns a 19.4% direct stake. Read also: Russia and Saudi Arabia agree to significantly cut oil production The French newspaper Le Monde in August said TotalEnergies held a stake in a company that extracted gas condensate from northern Russia, some of which was turned into jet fuel used by Russian air squadrons accused of war crimes in Ukraine. According to Le Monde, the jet fuel made by the companys gas condensate was transported to two Russian Air Force bases, namely Morozovsk and Malchevo. These military bases host a squadron of Su-type multipurpose combat aircraft. Amnesty International and other human rights groups reported that airstrikes on civilians, including on the port city of Mariupol, had likely been carried out by military aircraft from these two Russian military bases. Read also: Russia continues to export oil products to Europe, evading EU ban Skhemy The French government called for an investigation into the possible involvement of TotalEnergies in the supply of fuel for Russian military aircraft. In turn, TotalEnergies has contested the claims. It stressed that unstable condensates produced by Terneftegaz had been exported abroad and therefore could not have been used by the Russian army as fuel for its planes. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Heres your chance to step into the shoes of Ol Blue Eyes. A sleek glass-walled midcentury modern estate once home to Frank Sinatra is asking $12.75 million, reports Mansion Global. The six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house was previously listed at $21.5 million and sat on the market for over a year before being relisted at its new price. Securely set at the end of a gated nearly mile-long driveway on a hill in the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth, the landscaped eight-acre property offers ample living and entertaining space with 360-degree mountain, city, and nature preserve views. Photo: Scott Everts for Sothebys International Realty The 6,661-square-foot main house, known as Byrdview, was designed by prolific midcentury architect William Pereira and completed in 1951. Known for his futuristic design style demonstrated most famously by the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, Pereira was commissioned by New York bank heiress Dora Hutchinson, who went on to rent the compound to Sinatra through the mid-50s and 60s. The luxurious property has since served as a filming location for Mad Men, Dreamgirls, Six Feet Under, and Californication. Photo: Scott Everts for Sothebys International Realty See the video. Marble floors, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors, bespoke built-ins, chic multi-hued wood paneling, a wet bar, and a large fireplace lined in white brick are among the stylish amenities found inside the open-plan main house. In the backyard, a rectangular 50-foot pool bordered with natural stone paving is flanked by a 2,000-square-foot pergola-topped lounging and dining area and a detached cabana once lived in by Marilyn Monroe, now complete with a gym and massage area. A stones throw away, the guest house offers another 1,000 square feet of living space in addition to its own circular pool and yard. The current owner bought the property for $1.54 million in 1998 and has attempted to sell several times since 2011. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest More Great Stories From AD By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France's development minister is backing U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's call for the World Bank and similar institutions to vastly expand their lending, but said the United States needs to join France and other countries in channeling its IMF monetary reserves to poorer countries. Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Secretary of State for Development, Francophonie and International Partnerships, told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday that the world needs "to move on" from the old development financing model focused on individual projects to broadly increase support to African countries and other developing nations hit by global challenges. Last week, Yellen called on the World Bank and other multilateral development lenders to revamp their business models, stretch their balance sheets and harness more private capital to dramatically boost lending to address global needs such as climate change. Yellen asked for an "evolution roadmap" from the World Bank by the end of December. Zacharopoulou, who is attending the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington this week, said France was ready to help with the reforms. "Between the USA and France, we can work very well and maybe together propose something regarding the reform of the international financing system, so I totally agree in principle with the new ideas proposed by Secretary Yellen," the French minister said. Despite strong support for increasing resources to war-torn Ukraine at the IMF and World Bank meetings, Zacharopoulou said that countries also needed to keep up a strong focus on supporting other developing countries. "We need to avoid the division between North and South. All of us were impacted by this crisis and poverty is increasing everywhere," she said. "Populations want us to deliver. If not, there is a real risk of social discontent everywhere." Story continues She said wealthier countries, especially the United States, needed to contribute part of last year's $650 billion distribution of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR) monetary assets to trust funds for poorer countries. France has contributed about 20% of the $37.6 billion worth of SDRs that it received to IMF trust funds including the new Resilience and Sustainability Trust for vulnerable middle-income countries and island states, and it has pledged to increase that to 30%. The United States has not contributed any of its $101.5 billion share of the SDR allocation to the trust funds, a move that would require approval from Congress. "We need the USA" to join in the reallocation of its SDRs to countries that need them, Zacharopoulou said. "We have to deliver." Yellen told a news conference on Friday that the Biden administration is seeking congressional approval to lend $21 billion worth of SDRs to poorer countries through the IMF trust funds. The request was made as part of a fiscal 2023 appropriations bill. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao) BEIRUT (AP) French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Friday urged Lebanon to swiftly elect a new president or risk plunging the poverty-stricken country into a deeper political crisis. Colonna's remarks in Beirut came after Lebanon's divided parliament twice failed to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, with no majority candidate in the running. It took two years for lawmakers to reach a settlement and vote Aoun into power in 2016. Meanwhile, Lebanon's government has been functioning under a limited caretaker capacity for months as political parties struggle to agree on a new leadership lineup. Electing a president and appointing a new government amid one of the world's worst-ever economic spirals is a critical priority, Colonna said. Aoun's six-year term ends on Oct. 31. Lebanon cannot handle the danger of a vacuum in its political leadership, Colonna told reporters at Rafik Hariri International Airport after meetings with Lebanons leaders, including Aoun and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. In the current framework," she added, "it would be worrying and dangerous to impose a political crisis on the Lebanese people. The tiny Mediterranean nations economy over the past three years has spiraled, plunging three-quarters of its population into poverty following decades of corruption and financial mismanagement. While the country has reached a tentative agreement with the International Monetary Fund, Lebanon has struggled to implement a series of reforms that would ultimately improve transparency and restructure its bust banks. So dire is Lebanon's outlook that it's suffered a spate of raids by desperate depositors on their banks, which have imposed strict withdrawal limits on savings since late 2019. Aoun Thursday night announced that Lebanon had officially approved a U.S.-mediated maritime border demarcation proposal with Israel following months of indirect talks. The country hopes that delineating its disputed waters would pave the way for setting up an oil and gas industry to generate much-needed revenue for the economically-collapsed country. While Colonna celebrated the agreement, describing it as a historic deal, she said it should not overshadow the urgency of reaching an IMF-approved program to restructure its economy and regain investor confidence. In the two months before he died, Thomas Meixner's department hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona lost two doctoral candidates in August and September. As part of his role as department head, Meixner was the point of contact for the grieving families. Even so, Xenia De Garcia decided to return the kindness he gave her, and checked on him. The professor had done the same for De Gracia the last couple of years as she completed her masters in hydrology. Meixner routinely inquired about how she was acclimating to Tucson after moving from her native Panama and how her family was doing in the Central American country. Meixner confided in her, saying that acting as the point of contact for the students bereaved families was hard, but he was managing. He was really empathetic about everything. He cared about these details in the life of people, De Gracia said. It would be the last conversation the two would have. Only a few weeks later, Meixner, 52, was shot and killed while walking from a class to his office. The suspect, a former student of Meixners, was taken into custody. Tom was beloved because of his selfless devotion to his family, his community, his students and his colleagues, UA President Robert Robbins said during an Oct. 7 vigil. Fitting for Meixners interest in water, Robbins said the professor grew up playing in Maryland streams. He earned his doctorate in 1999 from UA, joining its faculty as an assistant professor in 2005 and becoming department head in 2019, according to a university obituary. He described his work as making the world better through biogeochemistry, but to us, he was trying to save the worlds most precious resource, his family wrote in a statement shared in the obituary. Mentor, colleague, friend Meixners loss is being mourned beyond his role as a professor. He mentored many, including De Garcia, she said. He was like a friend, De Gracia said. De Gracia, 29, recalls taking a field trip to Mount Lemmon with Meixners class. Since it was the first time she had seen snow, she made snow angels at Meixner's insistence. During an outing where another professor played the guitar during a musical performance, Meixner lent his vocals. Story continues He sang really bad. He just didnt care, she said, while laughing. He was also a supporter of women and minorities in science, she mentioned. Meixner was knowledgeable in a wide array of topics, from politics to investing to housing and chemistry. He was learning Spanish. Neha Gupta, 33, earned her doctorate in hydrology from UA in the spring after being closely mentored by Meixner for more than six years. As her dissertation chair, Meixner met nearly weekly with Gupta during this period. He was very committed to the science. But at the same time, he was very engaged in the world, so the science got out past the ivory tower. He was connected to a lot of people in the region, did a lot of collaborative work, Gupta said. As Gupta worked toward her degree, she faced many setbacks, including her fathers decline in health and his eventual death. She found inspiration in Meixner, who she said had survived cancer multiple times. He just really knew how to roll with the punches and get back in the saddle, she said of Meixner, noting he had been diagnosed with leukemia as a graduate student and was most recently diagnosed in 2018. Being confronted with his own mortality, Meixner really had a unique zeal and enthusiasm for how he lived his life and the kindness he brought into the world," Gupta said. Carmala Carmie Garzione, Dean of the College of Science at UA, reflected on Meixners stalwart leadership. Meixner, she said, was a problem-solver. He was never tearing things down. He was always thinking, OK, heres what we have. How can we build on it, make it stronger and do better? Garzione said, pointing to how his research focused on solutions to water resource issues. Garzione said that Meixner worked across the university at different colleges and centers. Many department heads give up teaching because their administrative duties are heavy, but he was the type of person who just loved being in the classroom and continued to teach, Garzione said, adding students absolutely loved working with him. Background: Former student arrested in death of UA professor had been expelled, threatened sta Memorializing Meixner UA established the Dr. Thomas Meixner Memorial Fund and a crowdfunding page. Meixners family will direct proceeds to a UA cause of their choosing. A GoFundMe has been set up by Meixners extended family to benefit his widow, Kathleen, and their two sons long term, as well as to cover funeral costs. Meixner's funeral was held Friday at St. Cyril of Alexandria Roman Catholic Parish. He will be interned at Holy Hope Cemetery. A remembrance for Meixner was held Thursday evening. What happened in the shooting Meixner was shot at 2 p.m. on Oct. 5 in the Harshbarger Building. Another person was injured by a bullet fragment. The former student, Murad Dervish, 46, reportedly made threats to staff after being expelled. Campus police began a search for the suspect that ended just after 5 p.m. with a traffic stop. With the help of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, police apprehended Dervish, UA campus police Chief Paula Balafas said. Meixner was pronounced dead after arriving at Banner University Medical System. Dervish was expelled from the university in February and barred from the property. Police said he had harassed and threatened staff members multiple times before, according to court documents. Dervish was prohibited from possessing a firearm because of a prior unrelated protection order and was charged on suspicion of first-degree murder and aggravated assault. Vic Verbalaitis contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: UA remembers Thomas Meixner, professor killed in shooting An accused killer is on the run five years after police said he shoved her down and she later died from the injuries to her head. Jonathan Bates, who is accused of killing 28-year-old Cynde Bates in 2017, never showed up for his scheduled court appearance last week. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Bates is accused of pushing his wife in front of their kids at their home in Dallas, which caused her to fall backward. She died from blunt force trauma to the back of her head. RELATED STORIES: Channel 2s Matt Johnson talked to Cynde Bates family members Friday, who said that at the time she was killed, she was preparing to leave her husband after years of abuse. The couples children were four and seven at the time. Cynde Bates sister, Stormie Dement said Jonathan Bates killed her sister because he couldnt stand the fact that she wanted to leave and take the kids. Dallas police charged Jonathan Bates with murder, two counts of cruelty to children and simple battery after doctors took his wife off of life support. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] But the charges were later thrown out by a judge who had ties to the Bates family. Judge Tonny Beavers recused himself from the case this year, but before Bates could face a new judge, authorities said he fled. Dement, wants to know why he was out of jail in the first place. How can somebody get out of jail on low bond for a murder? Dement asked. Hes going to do everything he can to avoid going to jail, because thats how he is. Now, once again, the family is waiting for justice. Bates first needs to go to jail and stay there until his trial, according to the family . Once he goes, and has his trial and he goes to jail, I think thats where my closure can come to an end, Dement said. BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government will resolve a dispute over nuclear power in the coming days, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday, after plans to delay the nation's nuclear phase-out beyond the end of the year exposed cracks in the coalition. "We have decided that we will continue to make it possible, particularly this winter, to use nuclear power, and this very specific practical question will be solved quickly and in a timely manner by next week," Scholz said in Berlin during a press conference with the Mongolian prime minister. The German government on Monday failed to approve a draft law to put on reserve two of the country's last nuclear power plants beyond their planned phase-out due to political disagreements. (Reporting by Andreas Rinke, writing by Rachel More, Editing by Miranda Murray) The 2020 election for Indianas 5th Congressional District saw its closest contest in the past decade. Outside groups put millions in Democrat and Republican war chests for the seat, which was beginning to look more purple than historically red. Republican Victoria Spartz won the race, but by less than 5 percentage points. More:What Hoosiers should know about packing, cracking and gerrymandering Two years later, Spartz is up for reelection in a district now gerrymandered in favor of Republicans after redistricting in 2021 removed all of Marion County while adding Delaware County and the majority of Howard County. But this years Democratic challenger, Jeannine Lee Lake, thinks that redistricting when paired with her stance on issues such as abortion could work in her favor. Lee Lake challenged and lost to Republican Rep. Greg Pence in 2018 and 2020 when Delaware County was part of the 6th Congressional District. Republicans are still likely to see success in the 5th District next month, said Chad Kinsella, an associate professor of political science at Ball State University. President Joe Biden's approval ratings are down and voters attentions are not as focused on abortion as they were in August when the Indiana legislature passed a near-total abortion ban, he said. "We started already to move on to other things, so I think the people who are the most happy or angry about it, they were probably going to vote anyway and they probably long ago decided who they were voting for," Kinsella said. Additionally, Spartz has out fundraised Lee Lake by more than 250 times as of financial records available through the end of June. Spartz raised more than $3 million where Lee Lake raised around $11,000. More:Where Indiana Senate candidates stand on abortion, the economy and other issues "I would say the odds are against her," Kinsella said. However the election turns out, both candidates say the other party takes things too far. "Victoria Spartz, to me, she represents extremism, and I don't think there's really a place on either side for extremism," Lee Lake said. Story continues Spartz said the election will be important and polarized. It's going to be a lot of drama, she said. Democrat Jeannine Lee Lake Lee Lake, 53, a Black woman and former journalist and community organizer, runs Elite Media Group, which publishes The Good News, a minority and religious news organization in the Muncie area. The Democrat has lived in Muncie for 30 years, which she hopes is a plus when it comes to the new makeup of the 5th Congressional District. The community knows Lee Lake in Delaware County, she said. Jeannine Lee Lake, candidate for U.S. Congress, speaks during the Reproductive Justice Rally, Wednesday, June 29, 2022 on the IUPUI campus. Lee Lake said she believes in abortion rights and has shared her personal abortion story on the campaign trail, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Lee Lake learned she was pregnant at age 18 after she said she was raped at a party. She was not ready to have children, she told IndyStar earlier this year. If elected, she would like to see Congress take federal action to codify Roe v. Wade. I feel like God has me in this position right now to be able to represent women that need to have their rights stood up for, Lee Lake said in an interview in late summer. Lee Lake said whether female voters are Republican or Democrat, men should not be making their healthcare decisions. Government shouldn't even be in this. This should not be a government issue at all," Lee Lake said. "This needs to be a personal issue between a woman, her family, her God, and you know, whoever she deems necessary to be able to help her make the best decision for her. On other issues, Lee Lake describes herself as in the middle. She is especially, very, very fiscally conservative, she said. Congressional Candidate Jeannine Lee Lake (D) speaks to Abortion Rights Supporters outside the Indianapolis State House Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in Indianapolis. Lee Lake has raised four children, including foster children. I know what it means to stretch a dollar, she said. She questions the funding of federal programs like former President Donald Trumps Space Force. That money should go toward teacher pay raises, she said. Lee Lake wants the government to fund police and law enforcement, but money also should be allocated to more community-based care. I think it's important that we allocate monies and resources in a way that best protects our law enforcement officers and the public and I think we can do that by getting social workers out there, Lee Lake said. I've seen more and more cities hiring social workers to handle certain issues. Lee Lake said she finds herself in the middle on gun policy as well. Her fiance owns an armory, she said. You have a right to protect yourself and your family. You also have a right to be responsible gun owners, Lee Lake said. Jeannine Lee Lake, candidate for U.S. Congress, speaks during the Reproductive Justice Rally, Wednesday, June 29, 2022 on the IIUPUI campus. Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz Ukrainian-born Spartz, 44, lives in Noblesville and immigrated to the U.S. after meeting her husband. She is a former Indiana state senator who, before her career in politics, started several businesses and worked in finance and accounting. Spartz is running for reelection to get more done in Washington D.C., she said. The freshman Congresswoman said she is approaching her campaign based on her track record, which she said includes bipartisan efforts, such as a recent antitrust reform package Spartz worked on with Republican senators and Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Spartz also said she is considering a run for Senate in 2024, which was first reported by Politico. Her team has to get through Novembers election first, she said. I like to do policies. I don't like politics as much, Spartz said. You know, but I have actually a track record. I've been working on issues. So I'm just saying what I've done and some things maybe that I still need to do because it might take a Republican legislature. Spartz, who has been endorsed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and received an A+ from the organization in her first term, said abortion rights have been politicized. The Supreme Court ultimately decided abortion rights are a state issue, she said. I think that is something that we as a country need to accept, Spartz said. During her first term, Spartz has voted against abortion access. Earlier this year, she was among House Republicans who all opposed a bill Democrats passed to codify rights ensured by Roe v. Wade. In 2021, she also voted against a bill that would prohibit government restrictions to abortion services. United States Representative Victoria Spartz, Friday, April 29, 2022, at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Tarkington Theater in Carmel. Spartz condemned threats to U.S. Supreme Court justices after Roe v. Wade was struck down and the overall politicization of social issues in elections. There is a very dangerous trend that is happening right now in the country where everyone tries to be forced into some opinion and if you depart or disagree, somehow you become an evil, she said. I experienced it in a lot of big-ticket items that I work with. Its healthcare, foreign policy where the establishment will come after you just because you questioned something. Just this year, Spartz has seen criticism for the work culture in her office and speaking against Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and members of his administration. Spartz said she wants the U.S. to be less reactive toward the war in Ukraine and manage resources more effectively. Spartz said energy policy and immigration are among topics she wants to work on if reelected. The United States has unsustainable, unrealistic policies when it comes to energy, she said. Congresswomen Victoria Spartz (R-IN) waves to the crowd Monday, July 4, 2022, during CarmelFest in Carmel. She also wants to secure the border and address illegal immigration. Republicans understand that we need to secure the border, but Democrats don't want to deal with that situation. And I think it's a national security issue, Spartz said. It's become a situation where it's, just we're so far apart. But we have to look at work visas and how we can have immigration policy and work visas better benefit our country. Spartz has additionally received endorsements from the Indiana Farm Bureau and the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The congresswoman points to accomplishments in her freshman term, such as working on a congressional healthcare policy group, the Healthy Futures Task Force. Spartz is one of three people on the task forces affordability committee. Shes authored legislation introduced this summer on topics including hospital ownership and oversight. I work with all of the community staff and legislative services and stakeholders that are about it and study committees, to really find some ways what will be the most impactful to do, Spartz said. One of the areas of healthcare is hospital competition, which is a really big problem for the state of Indiana. U.S. Representative Victoria Spartz speaks during a rally in support of Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022 on Monument Circle in Indianapolis. Spartz immigrated from Ukraine in 2000. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Election 2022: Victoria Spartz challenged by Jeannine Lee Lake John Fettermans wife blasted NBCs Dasha Burns for her portrayal of a recent interview with the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate, accusing the reporter of ableism and calling her behavior appalling. Speaking with Molly Jong-Fast on the Fast Politics Pod, Gisele Fetterman said she felt rage when she learned that Burns had revealed that her husband was unable to hold a conversation. The coverage did a disservice to not only my husband, but anyone facing a disability and working through it, she said. Since suffering a stroke in May, Fetterman has struggled with auditory processing. The candidates staff required that he be allowed to use closed captioning technology during the interview. While introducing the segment featuring Burnss interview with Fetterman, she noted that in small talk before the interview without captioning, it wasnt clear he was understanding our conversation. Fetterman supporters have called the observation unfair, including New York Magazines Rebecca Traister and Kara Swisher, as well as Jong-Fast herself, but Burns has stood by her words. On Twitter, Burns responded to Swisher by arguing that its possible for two different reporters to have two different experiences w a candidate. Our team was in the room w him & reported what happened in it, as journalists do. Before & after closed captioning was on. Then on NBCs Today, Burns told Savannah Guthrie that its important to note that according to the campaign itself, our team was first to be in the room with Fetterman for an interview rather than via video conference and myself, my producer and our crew did find that small talk before that captioning was difficult because of those auditory processing issues I mentioned. Stroke experts do say that this does not mean he has any cognitive impairment. Fettermans wife appears not to have accepted these explanations. During her conversation with Jong-Fast, she suggested that an apology should be issued and that Burns should face professional consequences. Story continues I mean, there are consequences for folks in these positions who are any of these isms. I mean, she was ableist. Thats what she was in her interview. It was appalling to the entire disability community and I think to journalism, she said. I havent heard an apology. It hasnt come, she went on to declare before saying she was hopeful that NBC would reflect on its handling of the situation. Fettermans performance in the interview itself has also raised questions about his ability to serve. Jonathan Martin, formerly of the New York Times, opined that its a rough clip for the candidate that would only fuel questions about his health, while a number of conservative commentators and Republican campaign accounts shared it on social media. The Democratic nominees once considerable lead 7.5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average on July 15 over his opponent, Mehmet Oz, has closed in recent days to just over three and a half points. More from National Review Despite the protracted crypto winter, Gitcoin continues to fund critical global projects for the public good. In March, according to Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation, Gitcoin Grants sent nearly $1 million in Ethereum donations to the Ukrainian government and NGOs operating in the region during the Russian invasion. "We need to almost reframe public goods," Gitcoin fundraising and partnerships lead Azeem Khan told Decrypt at Messari Mainnet. Gitcoin, Khan continued, imagines a world where Web3 allows people to own their financial transactions, search engines, and social media, replacing private companies that use people as the product. Ethereums Gitcoin Raises $11.3 Million, Spins Out of ConsenSys "For us to be able to do that, the infrastructure needs to be built," he said. "So instead of thinking about clean air and libraries and things like that, it's the roads, tunnels, and bridges of Web3 that will allow us to get to that place." To do this, Gitcoin utilizes quadratic funding. Quadratic funding was proposed in 2018 by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and economists Zoe Hitzig and Glen Weyl and promotes a democratic form of matching funding for public goods, services, or causes. With quadratic funding, any projects deemed valuable or worthwhile to a community receive funding through community voting. "The purpose of it is sort of an anti-whale mechanism," Khan said. "In traditional worlds, when capital is allocated, it goes to a venture capitalist or an angel, but it's usually a friend of a friend who ends up getting the money." While Gitcoin does support global events like the cause of Ukraine, its primary focus is providing funding mechanisms for Web3. In June, during its 14th grant round or GR14, Gitcoin announced the launch of the Lootverse Round, a $130k round funded by the Loot project to support projects in the Loot ecosystem. Gitcoin recently completed its 15th grant round, raising over $1 million from 390,000 contributors. Story continues Gitcoin is evolving Gitcoin Grants will continue to be a public good on which the web3 ecosystem can rely. Soon, though, well also be launching a concurrent offering: Grants Protocol https://t.co/sIKqbkLE0b Gitcoin - thank you for a magical #GR15! (@gitcoin) October 6, 2022 As Khan explains, quadratic funding makes it possible to make sure funds go to the projects that need them most and not just a small group of projects headed by "friends" of the investors. "As much as people want to talk about inclusivity and diversity," Khan continued, "the reality is the majority of capital ends up going to nepotism." Gitcoin Grants Have Raised More Than $1 Million in Ethereum for Ukraine Using the "it takes a village" way of funding, Gitcoin has prioritized underserved communities by funding grants for projects led by or supporting women, youth-focused groups, marginalized communities, and people of color. Traditionally, these groups have less access to funding from banks and venture capitalists. Some of these projects include the Dream DAO, a group that invests in web3 and social impact causes around the globe, 40Acres, a social DAO dedicated to creating self-sustaining communities of color using blockchain technology, and The Minority Programmers Association, an international network of developers that aims to build socially impactful software solutions and spread Web3 education to marginalized communities. "It shows that being able to get the community out there voting with their dollars, on the things they find important, we found it quite successful," he said. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Trying to navigate through global market stresses is like "whack-a-mole," Citigroup Inc CEO Jane Fraser said on Friday, as she added the bank is constantly stress testing scenarios. Wall Street banking executives said they were keeping a close watch on markets, after the volatility in the U.K., with liquidity a particular focus. The UK government's "mini-Budget" on Sept. 23 triggered some of the biggest ever jumps in UK government bond yields and triggered a crisis among pension funds needing to find cash. That shook broader markets with U.S. yields surging along with those on British government debt. "We're constantly doing different stress tests on the market, on clients on different areas," Fraser said on the bank's earnings call. Fraser said she was "more focused on the liquidity in the market at the moment and the impact on some counterparties much more than we are on our credit risk." Europe "is at the centre of the storm" with continued energy supply constraints impacting some clients, Fraser said. Some clients are being buffeted by intense volatility, for example in the UK pension trauma, she said, where so-called Liability Driven Investment (LDI) funds were at the center of the storm. "So, we look at what's the collateral behind different institutions, as we had done that with commodity players earlier this year and some of the LDIs and if we see different stresses we are jumping on it," Fraser said. JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon said the problems with LDIs could cause issues down the road but so far was "a bump in the road." However he said that JPMorgan monitors a range of metrics from U.S. Treasury issuance and mortgage issuance to bid-ask spreads in the treasury markets. "I do think you see volatile markets. You already see very low liquidity." However, Dimon said that the banking system itself is "extraordinarily strong." Story continues Fraser added that large global institutions like Citi had a role in supporting the market as it was in a strong capital position. "We're in a position to be able to jump in and play an important role," she said. "But it's a bit of whack-a-mole, I would say." (Reporting by Saeed Azhar, Mehnaz Yasmin and Megan Davies; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) A Lutheran pastor who died when a speeding driver ran a red light was remembered as a devoted father and an outgoing, deeply faithful person. The Rev. Aaron M. Strong, discipleship pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Milwaukee, was killed Wednesday morning when a driver T-boned his car at North 10th and West Wells streets, church leaders said. Strong, 40, had been headed to the church office. Jose M. Silva, 22, of Milwaukee, was charged Friday with second-degree reckless homicide. Authorities estimate he was going 74 mph seconds before the crash. "Pastor Strong was a person that was full of joy," said the Rev. Brian Hackmann, outreach pastor at Grace. "He was full of life. He had a smile on his face, an infectious laugh. He was a person that was pretty easy to get along with." Strong connected with people of all backgrounds, from college students to those in his adult education ministry, and greeted congregants by name. "He had the love of Jesus in his heart in a big way," Hackmann said. "He wore his faith on his sleeve." Started WELS church in Las Vegas The son of a pastor himself, Strong was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in both Kewaskum and the Twin Cities area. He attended Martin Luther College, also in Minnesota, and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. "He was just a gregarious, great guy. Super friendly, outgoing," said his friend, the Rev. Dustin Blumer of Amazing Love Lutheran Church in Frankfort, Illinois. "He loved the Lord, but he was just a real person who anyone would enjoy." As pastors in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, or WELS, Blumer and Strong were classmates in both college and seminary. After graduating from seminary in 2008, Strong was assigned to start, or "plant," a church in Las Vegas. He led a search for land and gathered people for the congregation. "He had a personality that seems to have drawn people in," said the Rev. Tom Unke, the church's current pastor. Story continues In this undated photo, Pastor Aaron Strong leads vacation bible school at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. Strong started the church in Las Vegas and served there until 2015. Strong led Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in its first service in 2009, operating out of a storefront, Unke said. The congregation began with 60 to 70 members and has since grown to close to 300. The church moved into its own building and is now planning another building project, Unke said. "He was the one who came along and got us started," Unke said. "And if it weren't for his efforts, starting this mission, we wouldn't be the large and growing congregation that we are today." One congregant told Unke of Strong's impact. Through conversations with Strong, the man turned around his life and now attends church weekly and runs the audio-visual system, Unke said. In 2015, Strong transferred from Las Vegas to Grace Lutheran in Milwaukee. There, he had big ideas about how to bring more people into the church, and he was willing to try things that hadn't been done before. "If there was a way that we could serve people, that we could get to a new group of people, he was willing to do it," Hackmann said. Strong also sang in the choir on his days off and had a knack for technology, Hackmann said. At home, he was a talented handyman who'd renovated his kitchen. Strong leaves behind a wife, a teacher at a local Lutheran school, and two children. "He loved his family like nothing else. It was Jesus first and family second," Hackmann said. The Rev. Aaron Strong preaches at Grace Lutheran Church in Milwaukee in this undated photo. Strong was killed in a car crash downtown on Wednesday, Oct. 12. Bauman: It could have been your loved one Just after 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Strong was driving northbound on North 10th Street with a green light when another driver heading eastbound on West Wells Street ran a red light and struck him, according to a medical examiner's report. The force of the collision moved both vehicles east, where they struck four parked cars, police said. Firefighters extricated Strong from the vehicle and took him to Froedtert Hospital, where he died, the report said. Investigators noted extensive damage to Strong's vehicle: crushed driver's side doors, multiple broken windows and damaged roof, hood and fender. Milwaukee Ald. Robert Bauman condemned the reckless driving that police say caused the crash. He said he encountered the crash scene and "the mangled pile of vehicles" about 15 minutes after it had occurred. "I have driven through that intersection thousands of times over the years, and that victim could have been me, one of my loved ones, or you or someone you love," Bauman said in a statement. "It is unconscionable that anyone can simply ignore a red light at high speed and play vehicular Russian Roulette." Those at Grace Lutheran are comforted by their steadfast faith and the outpouring of support they have received since the crash. "It's heartwarming to know how people loved him, and how he was able to reach people," Hackmann said. Funeral services will take place at Grace Lutheran Church, 1209 N. Broadway. Visitation will take place 5 to 8 p.m. Oct. 18 and the service is set at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 19, with a reception to follow in the Grace Center, 250 E. Juneau Ave. //A GoFundMe started by members of the church raised $60,000 within two days of launching. Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News. 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 Grace Lutheran pastor Aaron Strong remembered for deep faith Grindr Faces Boycott After Gay CEO's Right-Wing Tweets Are Revealed This article originally appeared in The Advocate. The right-wing political views of the new head of Grindr are causing some users to delete the popular gay dating and hookup app. The tag #DeleteGrindr is trending after news incoming CEO George Arison, 44, previously tweeted he was a conservative who supported some of the positions of then-President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Arrison, who is openly gay, starts his new job on October 19. FYI I am a conservative & agree with some Trump policies, Arison wrote in a since-deleted Tweet on February 28, 2020. Should totally run for President, he wrote of Youngkin in a retweet dated February 24 of this year. Arison appeared to express support for DeSantis in another retweet from January. In a retweet, he wrote the man who championed the recently passed dont say gay law was not ideal but agreed the Republican governor was better-suited to advance a new, more comabtive (sic) and populist party. Users on social media responded quickly, calling out the past statements from Arison. Another user called out Arisons support for Youngkin. Others indicated they were ditching Grindr completely. Arison came to Grindr from e-commerce marketplace Shift Technologies, Inc., where he was CEO and co-founder. In a statement to The Advocate about the issue, Grindr centered on Arisons sexual identity as a gay man, husband, and father. George is an out gay man, proudly married to his husband and the father of two children, a Grindr spokesperson said. George is passionate about fighting for the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ people around the world. Images that appear to show a flag made of human hair has been shared thousands of times in social media posts that claim it was made of the hair of Iranian women protesting the Islamic republic's ruling regime in September 2022. However, the claim is false. The images were stills of a video installation made by Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt in 2014 -- years before the protests in Iran. The artist previously said in an interview that her artwork was made on the French Caribbean island of Martinique to represent its colonial past. A picture of a flag made of black hair was shared here on Facebook on September 21, 2022. Its Hindi-language caption translates as: "Worlds most powerful image comes from Iran, where local women protesters have chopped off their hair and hoisted it as a flag." The post goes on to describe that the protests in Iran were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, after she was detained by the country's notorious morality police for "not wearing her hijab properly". Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on October 12, 2022 Iranian women, including university students and even schoolgirls, are at the forefront of the biggest wave of social unrest to grip Iran in almost three years -- they have been marching without the mandatory head covering, burning hijabs and cutting off their hair. Rights groups say at least 108 people, including children, have died in the continued crackdown on the demonstrations, AFP reported. The photo also circulated alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, as well as in an English tweet from Indian news site First Post, and in a Turkish post, which has been retweeted more than 5,500 times. A similar image also appeared on Facebook here on September 24, 2022, captioned: "Chopped hair as a flag of protest by Iranian women!!" Screenshot of the second misleading post, taken on October 14, 2022 It also circulated in similar Hindi posts on Facebook here, and on Twitter here and here. Story continues The claim about the "Iranian women's hair flag" was also tweeted by prominent figures, from artist Ai Weiwei to author Taslima Nasreen, garnering more than 1,000 shares. However, the claim is false. A Google reverse image search found that the pictures were taken from Belgian visual artist Edith Dekyndt's video installation titled "Ombre indigene" (Indigenous Shadow) in 2014. The first image appeared in a June 2020 interview with the artist here, captioned: "Edyth Dekyndt, Ombre indigene, video, 2014". The second image was published here, on the website of Wiels contemporary art centre in Brussels, on the occasion of Dekyndt's exhibition in 2016. The photo is captioned: "Edith Dekyndt, OMBRE INDIGENE Part.2, Martinique Island, 2014." On the page 31 of the exhibition catalogue, the artwork's description partly reads: "A flag made of hair was stuck in the ground and filmed on top of rocks on the Diamant coast, in Martinique. There, precisely, on the night of 8 April 1830, a clandestine slave boat transporting a hundred African captives washed up on the rocks before being entirely destroyed." The Caribbean island of Martinique is an overseas region of France and historically, a port of call for slave ships. In the 2020 interview, Dekyndt said the artwork was inspired by the work of author and philosopher Edouard Glissant, one of the most important writers of the French Caribbean and whose writings reflected on colonialism, slavery, racism and cultural diversity. Below are screenshot comparisons of the images shared in the misleading posts (L) and the genuine images of Dekyndt's artwork (R): Screenshot comparison of the image in the first misleading post (L) and the genuine image of the artwork published in an interview with Dekyndt (R) Screenshot comparison of the image in the second misleading post (L) and the genuine image of the artwork in Dekyndt's exhibition catalogue (R) Dekyndt's video installation can be seen in this footage of her 2016 exhibition at Wiels, uploaded on the artist's website. Magali Wyns, a spokesperson from Galerie Greta Meert, a Brussels art gallery which represents Dekyndt, confirmed that the piece was not related to the current protests in Iran. "The work entitled 'Ombre Indigene Part 2 (Ile de la Martinique)' is a video installation -- not an image -- created in 2014 by Edith Dekyndt," Wyns told AFP in an email. AFP has debunked other false claims about the 2022 Iranian demonstrations here, here and here. Oct. 13Harford County has awarded $1 million to eight recipients in the first year of its African American Heritage Grant program, which is dedicated to preserving African American history, according to a county news release. The awards were announced by Harford County Executive Barry Glassman at a reception Wednesday at Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air. "The people and places that came before us helped shape Harford County," Glassman said, according to the release. "African Americans are integral to our story and this program will raise up this heritage for future generations." Grant applications were requested in July "for projects that contribute to the research, preservation and interpretation of local African American history," the release said. The program was open to individuals, nonprofit organizations, businesses and local governments. The applications were reviewed by the county's historic preservation commission, which made recommendations to Glassman on which ones should be funded. Funding for this program was included in the fiscal 2023 county budget approved by the County Council. One of the grant recipients is the Harford Community College Foundation, which will receive about $11,958 to collaborate with the Harford NAACP to document the experience of African American civil rights in the county. This will help the foundation expand its work with the Harford Civil Rights Project, a website and mobile app detailing the 20th century African American civil rights experience in Harford County, which recently held its first tour of several sites. The project is led by James Karmel, a history professor at HCC. He said the grant money will help with projects such as community listening sessions and a community oral history workshop. "The idea is that we want people to get out into the community and do the oral history themselves," Karmel said. Karmel said the grant program will help benefit the citizens, especially young citizens, of Harford County, by educating them on African American history and heritage, including more sensitive topics such as Jim Crow laws and school desegregation. Story continues "An educated citizenry is always better than the other," Karmel said. "To me, being educated means some kind of historical awareness of your nation and of your community." Vicki Jones, president of the Harford NAACP, said learning about these topics can help bring about community understanding, tolerance and patience things that are especially needed now. "There are certain topics that seem to divide us, and they are being politicized when they shouldn't be," Jones said. "African American history is not something that should be politicized. It is something that should be celebrated as a part of American history." The Morning Sun Hosanna Community House, Inc. received the largest grant $397,427. Of that amount, $70,597 will fund an interactive experience to tell the story of the Freedmen's Bureau, which aided former slaves after the Civil War; $274,630 will fund capital improvements for the church and graveyard at the McComas Institute, which was constructed in 1867, and one of three Harford County Freedmen's Bureau schools; and $52,200 will fund capital improvements to the Hosanna School. In addition, Havre de Grace Colored School Museum and Cultural Center, Inc. was awarded $257,500 to continue rehabilitation work at the former school building. St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church Gravel Hill in Havre de Grace was awarded $115,000 to rehabilitate the church building and preserve its graveyard. The 173-year-old church is one of the county's oldest African American congregations. Janice Grant was awarded $107,201 to help stabilize Aberdeen's Johns-Turner House, which the release said represents nine decades of struggle by branches of an African American family to advance in society, for its conversion into the Aberdeen Center for Black History and Culture. The Historical Society of Harford County, Inc. was awarded $64,200 to assess its holdings that relate to African American history and to locate additional historical contributions from the community. The artifacts and archives that are found will help develop a traveling exhibition on the county's African American history. Fairview African Methodist Episcopal Church in Forest Hill was awarded $37,130 to rehabilitate the historical church building, as well as the former Fairview School. The school building, now used as a residence, was built in 1927 and was used to educate African American children until 1945. The Springhouse Family Farm, LLC, which owns the historic Woodview Farm, was awarded about $9,583 to hire a consultant to research Woodview's history of enslavement. The findings will later be part of a public presentation. Photo: The Canadian Press Chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre. The Canadian Armed Forces plans to press ahead with the forced expulsion of dozens of unvaccinated troops despite a new order from defence chief Gen. Wayne Eyre on Friday ending the militarys blanket COVID-19 vaccine requirement. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Eyre said that is because service members are expected to follow legal orders and that a refusal by some troops to get their shots "raises questions about your suitability to serve in uniform." "Its dangerous in the military to have legal orders disobeyed," he said. "Its a very slippery slope." The comments came as Eyre released a highly anticipated new vaccine policy that effectively suspends his previous requirement for all Armed Forces members to be fully vaccinated or face disciplinary action. Vaccines will no longer be required for all those serving in uniform, including as a prerequisite for joining the military, but will instead be based on the roles and responsibilities of individual service members. The defence chiefs new order includes a list of those who will still need two doses of a Health Canada-approved vaccine, with an emphasis on quick-response units such as special forces and the disaster assistance response team. There are also requirements based on deployments alongside specific allies or organizations, including those working with NATO or the United Nations, as well as all sailors on warships operating overseas. "Weve got to remember that a ship out in the middle of the ocean doesnt have access to intensive medical care," Eyre said, adding that some allies such as the United States and Japan require military members to have vaccines. Describing his order as an "interim policy," Eyre said he has ordered a review of the militarys overall approach to vaccinations. At the same time, he reserved the right to implement it again should the pandemic take another turn. "The medical advice is continuing to evolve," he said. "What is the bare minimum thats required to protect the force, to protect operational output, while at the same time respecting the individual decisions that members want to make." The new policy follows months of pressure and questions about the militarys vaccine mandate for as a condition of employment, particularly after most other federal mandates were suspended. The end of a vaccination requirement for international travellers prompted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre last month to call for an end to what he described as the militarys "discriminatory and unscientific vaccine mandate." While the vast majority of service members bared their arms for shots, with 96 per cent having attested to being fully vaccinated, briefing notes prepared for Defence Minister Anita Anand in June revealed that more than 1,100 had not. The Defence Department says about 300 service members have been told to hang up their uniforms, while another 100 have left voluntarily. Disciplinary proceedings, including warnings and marks on personal files, have been doled out to hundreds more. A number of serving members have unsuccessfully challenged the mandate in court, while some groups and individuals opposed to vaccine mandates, pandemic lockdowns and the Liberal government used the requirement as a rallying point. The Defence Department first reported that the mandate was being re-examined in June, and a draft copy of a revised vaccine policy obtained by the Ottawa Citizen in July suggested vaccine requirements for military personnel would be lifted. The draft document, which officials said was not approved by Eyre, noted potential legal difficulties ahead to deal with people who were kicked out of the military because of the vaccine mandate, suggesting they could be forced to apply for re-enrolment. The defence chief would not commit to any specific eligibility for re-enrolment, saying only that he would consider such requests on a case-by-case basis. Eyre also defended the fact the military is among the last to drop its blanket requirement, noting it was among the first to take dramatic steps such as suspending non-essential activities at the start of the pandemic to protect the force should it be required in an emergency. "So it would be the same on the far end as well," he said. "We would hold onto those measures a little bit longer." Vice President Harris met with actress Nazanin Boniadi on Friday to show her support for protesters in Iran. The vice president emphasized to Boniadi how the courage of these female activists has inspired her and the world, according to a readout from Harriss office. Boniadi, an Iranian-born actress and human rights advocate known for her role in Amazon Primes Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, has spoken out in support of the protesters. In the meeting, Harris commended those in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora who are giving a voice to the aspirations of a new generation seeking fundamental rights that Irans regime has for decades attempted to deny and suppress through repression and violence. She also underscored that the Biden administration will continue to support the protesters, including by working to make it easier for Iranians to access the internet and by holding Iranian officials accountable for their brutality. Biden earlier this month condemned the violence against protesters in Iran and warned that the U.S. would impose further costs on perpetrators of the violence. Iranian women have been protesting the government following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the countrys morality police a month ago. The White House has said that the U.S. is holding accountable Iranian officials and entities such as the morality police, the governments enforcers of the Islamic code of conduct. In September, the Treasury Department announced exceptions to Iranian sanctions to authorize tech companies to offer Iranian people more options for secure, outside platforms and services after Tehran cut internet access for most of the country. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty Royalist is The Daily Beasts newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday. King Charles likely wont invite Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to his coronation if Harry damagingly attacks wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, in his forthcoming book, a friend of the new queen has told The Daily Beast. Almost everything Charles has done over the past twenty years has, in one way or another, been about getting Camilla accepted by the public, the friend said, He loves her. He is incredibly protective of her and he couldnt do it without her. Even the queen finally accepted that. It is one thing for Harry to attack Charles, he can take it on the chin, but if Harry forces him to choose, by laying into Camilla in his book, I have no doubt he will choose Camilla. Harry and Meghan Are Not Making Big Changes to Netflix Reality Show, Report Says The palace declined to comment to The Daily Beast for this story. Sources in the palace say simply that the question of the guest list is on the tbc pile, pointedly leaving the door open for Harry and Meghan to get the call upor be excluded. Given that Harry has promised his still-scheduled memoir will be an entirely honest account of his life, it seems impossible to imagine it wont include a blow-by-blow account of the collapse of Charles and Dianas marriage, caused in part, as Diana herself clearly said, by Charles ongoing affair with Camilla. Diana made it clear to Andrew Morton, for his book Diana, Her True Story, that she considered Camilla far from an innocent bystander, and that she was just as responsible for the continuation of the affair as Charles. In one memorable encounter that Morton related in Diana: In Her Own Words, he said that Camilla invited Diana to lunch before her wedding and asked Diana whether she would go hunting with Charles after they were married. Diana said she wouldnt. Diana later realized that Camilla saw Charles love of hunting as a conduit to maintaining her own relationship with him, Morton wrote. Story continues The Daily Beast understands that there is tremendous nervousness in Charles circle about what the book might reveal, not least because a full throated attack on Camillas character would be devastating to Charles. While Harry has not yet rounded on Camilla in the same way as he has attacked his fatherwhom he has accused of cutting him off financially, not taking his phone calls and being indifferent to his suffering among many other alleged crueltieshe has notably failed to salute her elevation to queen. Katie Nicholl, author of The New Royals and Vanity Fairs royal correspondent told The Daily Beast: There is no doubt that Charles would like Harry and Meghan to be at his coronation. And to be fair to Charles, he has been magnanimous in terms of extending, very publicly, olive branches to the Sussexes, not only in his televised accession address but also putting them front and center at the funeral events. But he does expect respect in return, and a problem is going to arise if, between now and then, Harry repays him by attacking him, Camilla or the institution. He is not going to put up with inaccurate and unfair attacks. The queen was ruthless when it came to protecting the institution, and Charles will be too, and we are possibly seeing that in the lack of urgency around naming Archie and Lilibet prince and princess. My understanding is that Charles is not averse to granting them titles, but he expects to see respect from the Sussexes in return. The ball is in the Sussexes court. The royals, just like the rest of us, are waiting to see what they will do next. King Charles III walks with Prince Harry as they arrive at St. Georges Chapel inside Windsor Castle on Sept. 19. David Rose/Pool/AFP via Getty The question of what the Sussexes intend to dohow deep they will dish, how painful and damaging will be the secrets they reveal in their next salvos is the great known unknown preventing any true reconciliation, or a sense of arriving at a new, stable accommodation, however uneasy, between the two sides. While the queen was alive, the ambiguity, while not helpful, was something both sides could just about live with. In one version of events, Harry and Meghan intended to publish the book and stream their films this yearand then spend next year rebuilding burned bridges. The death of Queen Elizabeth blew the feasibility of such a strategy completely out of the water. But Windsor obstinacy is a powerful thing, and there has been no sign that Harry and Meghan even attempted to reconcile in any meaningful way while they were in the U.K. for the queens funerary rites. Despite a handful of carefully choreographed joint events with William, Harry was said to have been infuriated by a series of perceived sleights which included being seated in the second row during the funeral in Westminster Abbey, being allowed to wear uniform during a vigil for the queen but having the queens EIIR cipher, signifying his role as aide-de-camp, removed, being banned from wearing uniform at other times and Williams camp briefing journalists that their joint walkabout at Windsor Castle was all Williams idea. Duncan Larcombe, the royal author and former royal editor at the Sun, told The Daily Beast that if the Montecito-based couple were serious about making sufficient amends with the royals to secure an invite for the crowning of Camila and Charles, a good first move would be to wish William and Kate well when they visit Boston in December to promote the Earthshot prize. He added, What Harry and Meghan say and do in the next few months really matters. Their actions over the next few weeks could decide not just what relations with the royals will be like for the coronation in May, but what they will be like for the rest of their lives. Everything depends on what he, in particular, says in his book, which is, by some margin, the most eagerly awaited royal book of all time and the first to be written by a family member. Prince William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrive as the coffin bearing the body of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II completes its Journey from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall on Sept. 14 in London. Darren Fletcher/WPA Pool/Getty If the palace do decide not to invite Harry, one way around it is for them just to say the coronation is an institutional event, not a family event, and so it is for working royals only. While it will be an extraordinary snub for Harry if he is not invited to support his father on the biggest day of his life, it is equally hard to see how the king can invite him if the backdrop to the coronation is Harry sticking machetes in the backs of Charles and Camilla while promoting in his book. Charles appears to be keeping his powder dry until he sees what they come out with, Larcombe added. He has not yet made Harry and Meghans children prince and princess, although they are entitled to those titles as a matter of law and precedent. Thats a carrot that could be left out there for years to come. Charles is certainly not rushing to make a declaration one way or another, and he may be taking some comfort from the reports that Harry is desperately trying to rewrite the parts of the book that are most critical about his father. The reality for Harry and Meghan is that everything has changed. Sure, they need the money. But Harry must be asking himself how sustainable it is to go up against a man who is now one of the most powerful in the world, a monarch who has every lever of the vast machinery of the British state to pull at his whim. As the coronation will make abundantly clear, they are no longer in an argument with a meddling princeling. They are in an argument with a kingand that is a very different proposition. 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. The excitement of investing in a company that can reverse its fortunes is a big draw for some speculators, so even companies that have no revenue, no profit, and a record of falling short, can manage to find investors. Unfortunately, these high risk investments often have little probability of ever paying off, and many investors pay a price to learn their lesson. Loss making companies can act like a sponge for capital - so investors should be cautious that they're not throwing good money after bad. In contrast to all that, many investors prefer to focus on companies like Wynnstay Group (LON:WYN), which has not only revenues, but also profits. While this doesn't necessarily speak to whether it's undervalued, the profitability of the business is enough to warrant some appreciation - especially if its growing. View our latest analysis for Wynnstay Group Wynnstay Group's Earnings Per Share Are Growing The market is a voting machine in the short term, but a weighing machine in the long term, so you'd expect share price to follow earnings per share (EPS) outcomes eventually. That makes EPS growth an attractive quality for any company. Over the last three years, Wynnstay Group has grown EPS by 15% per year. That's a pretty good rate, if the company can sustain it. Top-line growth is a great indicator that growth is sustainable, and combined with a high earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margin, it's a great way for a company to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. Wynnstay Group maintained stable EBIT margins over the last year, all while growing revenue 30% to UK586m. That's encouraging news for the company! In the chart below, you can see how the company has grown earnings and revenue, over time. For finer detail, click on the image. The trick, as an investor, is to find companies that are going to perform well in the future, not just in the past. While crystal balls don't exist, you can check our visualization of consensus analyst forecasts for Wynnstay Group's future EPS 100% free. Story continues Are Wynnstay Group Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders? Prior to investment, it's always a good idea to check that the management team is paid reasonably. Pay levels around or below the median, can be a sign that shareholder interests are well considered. For companies with market capitalisations between UK88m and UK353m, like Wynnstay Group, the median CEO pay is around UK632k. Wynnstay Group's CEO took home a total compensation package worth UK356k in the year leading up to October 2021. That is actually below the median for CEO's of similarly sized companies. While the level of CEO compensation shouldn't be the biggest factor in how the company is viewed, modest remuneration is a positive, because it suggests that the board keeps shareholder interests in mind. It can also be a sign of a culture of integrity, in a broader sense. Does Wynnstay Group Deserve A Spot On Your Watchlist? As previously touched on, Wynnstay Group is a growing business, which is encouraging. To add to this, the modest CEO compensation should tell investors that the directors have an active interest in delivering the best for shareholders. So all in all Wynnstay Group is worthy at least considering for your watchlist. Before you take the next step you should know about the 2 warning signs for Wynnstay Group (1 is significant!) that we have uncovered. The beauty of investing is that you can invest in almost any company you want. But if you prefer to focus on stocks that have demonstrated insider buying, here is a list of companies with insider buying in the last three months. Please note the insider transactions discussed in this article refer to reportable transactions in the relevant jurisdiction. 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 Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse. So, the natural question for nanosynth group (LON:NNN) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway. View our latest analysis for nanosynth group When Might nanosynth group Run Out Of Money? A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. When nanosynth group last reported its balance sheet in June 2022, it had zero debt and cash worth UK1.8m. In the last year, its cash burn was UK2.8m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 8 months from June 2022. To be frank, this kind of short runway puts us on edge, as it indicates the company must reduce its cash burn significantly, or else raise cash imminently. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below. How Is nanosynth group's Cash Burn Changing Over Time? Although nanosynth group had revenue of UK86k in the last twelve months, its operating revenue was only UK86k in that time period. We don't think that's enough operating revenue for us to understand too much from revenue growth rates, since the company is growing off a low base. So we'll focus on the cash burn, today. With the cash burn rate up 26% in the last year, it seems that the company is ratcheting up investment in the business over time. However, the company's true cash runway will therefore be shorter than suggested above, if spending continues to increase. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of nanosynth group due to its lack of significant operating revenues. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth. How Easily Can nanosynth group Raise Cash? Since its cash burn is moving in the wrong direction, nanosynth group shareholders may wish to think ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn. nanosynth group's cash burn of UK2.8m is about 0.3% of its UK928m market capitalisation. So it could almost certainly just borrow a little to fund another year's growth, or else easily raise the cash by issuing a few shares. Is nanosynth group's Cash Burn A Worry? On this analysis of nanosynth group's cash burn, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Even though we don't think it has a problem with its cash burn, the analysis we've done in this article does suggest that shareholders should give some careful thought to the potential cost of raising more money in the future. On another note, nanosynth group has 5 warning signs (and 3 which are significant) we think you should know about. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts) 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 RYE A roof partially collapsed on a building toward the back of the Rays Seafood restaurant property Friday. The Seacoast was pelted with rain and high winds, resulting in downed trees and wires, and power outages. Rye Fire Chief Mark Cotreau said the damage at the 1677 Ocean Blvd. restaurant site had no impact on the main building of the restaurant where customers are served. The back building, however, had branches crash onto it and a live wire suspended above it, the chief said. No one was injured. The incident was one of a whole bunch of calls going on in town," the chief said. 'Giants of Rye': Meet the creator of two-story Halloween creatures on West Road Cotreau said a tree toppled onto a house at 80 Harborview Drive in Rye, and no one was injured. South Road near Maple Avenue is closed in Rye after trees fell Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. The chief said Ocean Boulevard was seeing some ocean splashover. We got a bunch of roads closed because of downed wires, Cotreau said. (Winds) were the highest Ive seen in a few years. Eversource, Unitil and Central Maine Power were all reporting early afternoon Friday that thousands of people throughout the Seacoast, Strafford County and southern Maine were without power. A tree fell on a home at 80 Harborview Drive in Rye during a storm Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Multiple trees were down in the roadways in Dover on Dover Point Road, Long Hill Road and at Pine Hill Cemetery. Similar reports were coming in from multiple communities in the Seacoast. At Pease: Million Air's plan for airport submitted. It faces opposition from competitor, community What is the National Weather Service predicting? National Weather Service meteorologist Nikki Becker, based in Gray, Maine, said two-and-a-half inches of rain had fallen in Portsmouth by mid-day. Wind gusts topped out at 47 mph in the city, she added. Traffic was diverted in Rye as a storm caused damage on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. The National Weather Service has received reports of thunderstorms in the Seacoast, Strafford County and southern Maine regions and had a wind advisory in effect, which was expected to end by 3 p.m. In Portsmouth: Wing-Itz closing original eatery. Owner hints at big plans to grow in Seacoast. Story continues On the Isles of Shoals at 10:30 a.m. Friday, thunderstorm-induced winds hit a high of 72 mph, Becker added. A huge tree fell across Pepperill Road in Kittery Point closing the road for a few hours Oct. 14, 2022. We are aware of some reports of trees down and wires down in the Rye, Newington, Greenland and North Hampton area, Becker said. Becker said two to three inches of total rainfall was expected before it ended in late afternoon. Becker said foggy conditions were expected to follow the rain. It might be an interesting drive home later for some people for sure, especially along the coast, she said. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast NH power outages: High winds bring down trees, wires picture alliance - Getty Images Sony and Honda are following up on their earlier announcement of an electric-vehicle partnership, saying the first EV from this deal will go on sale in the U.S. first and then in Japan. The two companies have now officially established Sony Honda Mobility, which has a stated mission to "move people through the pursuit of innovation with diverse inspirations." U.S. customers will be able to order the cars online in early 2025 for spring 2026 delivery. Honda's big electric-vehicle news week continues with a buzzword-filled announcement that the automaker and electronics giant Sony have officially established Sony Honda Mobility Inc., which will become a software-oriented mobility tech company, to sell a new electric vehicle in the U.S. and Japan in the coming years. As Reuters pointed out, it's very likely that some features will be subscription based, meaning owners will pay monthly fees to get some of the entertainment or tech choices available on the EV. SHM, which claims its purpose is to "move people through the pursuit of innovation with diverse inspirations," will start taking pre-orders for its EV in the first half of 2025. The EV will go on sale by the end of that year, with a focus on online transactions. The first deliveries of SHM's EV will take place in the U.S. in the spring of 2026 and in Japan in the second half of the year. Both companies are moving separately toward building EVs. Honda is fresh from showing off its latest zero-emission concept, the 2024 Prologue. Sony revealed a new EV concept called the Vision-S 02 at CES in January (that's its interior in the photo above). Honda and Sony publicly joined forces in an EV effort in March 2022 with a memorandum of understanding that they would create a 50/50 strategic alliance for mobility. In June 2022, the companies signed a joint venture agreement that they would establish SHM. The new announcement said SHM will be "actively building partnerships with other companies" as it works on its new EV. Story continues Seeking Honda Loyalists Honda has previously said it will rely on its loyal fans to stick with it as it shifts to electric vehicles. SHM said its target audience for the new EV will be similarly connected to the brand, even if they dont own the car. Sony Honda Mobility did not provide any technical or design details about its first EV, but did say that the concept would be defined by 3 As, which are Autonomy, Augmentation, and Affinity. SHM chairman and CEO Yasuhide Mizuno told reporters the future EV would be priced at "a reasonable amount." Adding some sort of autonomous technology to an EV launching in 2025 seems like table stakes at this point. To that end, SHM will develop Level 3 automated driving tech that works under "limited conditions" and will use Level 2+ driver-assistance features in situations, like urban driving, where the L3 tech can't operate. SHM plans to use a system on a chip that's capable of more than 800 tera operations per second (TOPS) to process these self-driving features. SHM is introducing something new when it comes to the augmentation and affinity aspects of this new EV. The early augmentation features build on tech available today, including cloud-based personalized information that will offer "entertainment beyond driving" that takes place in an "emotional space." Again, details are sparse, but SHM is already talking about using "digital innovations such as the metaverse" as it adds augmentation to its electric vehicles. Finally, the affinity aspect expands the emotional side of the new SHM EV. Sony Honda Mobility said it wants to move not just your physical body, but your emotions, as well. The upcoming electric vehicle could one day use digital tools to bridge the driving experience with the metaverse, whatever that means. Potentially tying the SHM announcement to Honda's big electric-vehicle plans in Ohio this week, SHM said it plans to manufacture its EV at a Honda factory in North America. Honda currently operates 12 vehicle and component plants in the U.S. and this week announced it is building a new production EV facility in Ohio with LG Energy Solution. The EV plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. You Might Also Like Oct. 14Honolulu police are investigating an attempted murder after a car was allegedly shot at in a Waianae neighborhood late Wednesday night. Police said the incident occurred at about 11 :40 p.m. at the intersection of Waianae Valley Road and Mill Street. Police reported no injuries, and offered no description of suspects or the car that was shot at. The investigation is still ongoing as of this morning, police said. Orange County families and individuals who suffered losses due to Hurricane Ian may be eligible for financial aid for food but the window for help is open only one week. Preregistration is required for the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as D-SNAP, intended to help people who suffered economic harm from the storm blamed for nearly $190 million in damage to properties in the county. Sign-up began Monday and runs through Oct. 23. Preregister online at MyFLFamilies.com/DSNAP or contact the D-SNAP call center at 850-663-1919. After applying online, applicants should call 888-348-0408 for a phone interview to speed up service. Phone interviews will be available beginning Thursday at 7 a.m. for applicants whose last name begins with the letters A through F; on Friday for applicants with a last name beginning with the letters G through N; and Saturday for those with the letters O through Z. Sunday is for any applicant. Phone lines close daily at 5 p.m. To find the latest details, visit MyFLFamilies.com/DSNAP. Households who normally receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP benefits are not eligible for D-SNAP. Those households should have received SNAP benefits earlier than usual to help them with storm preparation. The state Department of Children & Families is rolling the program out in phases, having started with Gulf Coast counties hit hardest by Ian, said Lauraleigh Avery, director of Orange Countys Division of Emergency Management. Orange County is one of six counties included in phase two, which begins Monday. Lake, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties are in phase three, for which sign up begins Oct. 24. Preregistration is only available for counties designated in each phase. Theres a seven-day window for this assistance, Avery said this week while briefing Orange County commissioners. After online preregistration is complete, applicants must complete a phone interview by calling the D-SNAP Call Center. Story continues Applicants may only call during the designated dates and operating hours for their county. Phone interview times are designated based on the first letter of the applicants last name. Storm survivors in Orange County who miss the sign-up deadline for their county may miss out on benefits, Avery said. Money will be paid though an electronic benefit transfer card, known as an EBT card, which works like a gift card. To qualify for D-SNAP, applicants must have been residing or employed in Orange County when the storm hit Central Florida and incurred a disaster-related loss, including home damage; spoiled food from flooding or power loss; or reduction in pay due to a business storm-related closing. Applicants also must meet financial eligibility requirements. Eligibility can be determined more quickly by providing a drivers license or state ID and a Social Security number. DCF also plans to open an assistance center in Orange County but has not yet chosen a location. Updated 4:59 p.m. Oct. 17 shudak@orlandosentinel.com The husband of one of the victims of the mass shooting where five people were killed and two others injured in a neighborhood and walking trail in Raleigh, North Carolina, described his wife of five years as a go-getter and caring person who always looked out for others. Nicole Connors, 52, was a caregiver who left a job in human resources after her mother had a stroke to look after her until she passed away a few years ago, her husband Tracey Howard told NBC News Friday morning. She always knew how to take charge of everything in order to help her loved ones, Howard said, his voice heavy with emotion. Howard, 57, said his wife always made sure I took care of myself and went to doctor appointments. I always thought it would be me to go before she went, he said. Connors love and care-taking also extended to the couples dog, Sami, a roughly 13-year-old Jack Russell mix who was killed alongside Connors. She knew everybody in the neighborhood, Howard said. She used to walk the dog with her friends in the neighborhood. I think if she would have survived and found out that the dog had died, that would have killed her, he said. The shooting unfolded in a neighborhood northeast of central Raleigh and prompted warnings for residents to stay inside. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called the shooting spree, the nightmare of every community. A 15-year-old suspect was taken into custody after a long standoff with police, officials said. Patterson said the victims who were killed ranged in age from 16 to 52. They were identified as: Connors, Susan Karnatz, 49, Mary Marshall, 35, off-duty Raleigh police officer Gabriel Torres who was on his way to work, 29, and a 16-year-old white male. In addition to the deceased, two people were injured in the shooting: Raleigh Police Officer Casey Clark, 33, who was treated and since released from the hospital, and Marcille Gardner, 59, who remains in critical condition.Related video: This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. This article was originally published on TODAY.com (Reuters) - Ukrainian engineers have restored "much needed" back-up power to a key Russian-occupied nuclear power plant after shelling robbed it of access to external electricity twice in the past week, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the operating staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, "working in very challenging conditions," were doing everything they could to bolster the plant's off-site power, essential for ensuring nuclear safety. "Restoring the back-up power connection is a positive step in this regard, even though the overall nuclear safety and security situation remains precarious," Grossi said in a statement released at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. He said an IAEA team at the site had reported back that two back-up power lines connecting the plant to switchyards at a nearby thermal power plant had been repaired in recent days. And on Friday, an external line connecting a thermal power plant switchyard to the electrical grid was also restored. Zaporizhzhia is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia has proclaimed as annexed but only partly occupies. This week Grossi shuttled from Moscow to Kyiv in an effort to establish a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the site. Grossi said having back-up, off-site electricity supplied through the thermal power plant switchyard gives Zaporizhzhia a buffer in the event its last remaining operating 750 kilovolt (kV) power line were cut again. When the high-voltage line was cut last Saturday and on Wednesday because of shelling, he added, "the plant had to rely on its emergency diesel generators for electricity until the line was restored". Concerns have mounted since August about the risks of shelling at or near Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear power station. Grossi noted there had been little shelling in the vicinity of the plant in recent days, though two landmine explosions occurred at the perimeter fence on Friday. Story continues He said he had raised concerns in Russia and Ukraine about "increasingly difficult" work conditions for the plant's Ukrainian staff. They were facing "unacceptable pressure" due to demands to sign a new contract with Russian state company Rosatom, he said, while Ukrainian operator Energoatom was urging them not to and to follow its instructions. "I made clear that the staff must be allowed to carry out their vital tasks without undue interference or pressure," the statement quoted him as saying. (Reporting by Elaine Monaghan and Ron Popeski; Editing by Marguerita Choy) Photo: VPD Earlier this week, a 93-year-old resident of Vancouver's Chinatown was knocked to the ground and suffered a broken hip. He was walking to a bakery on Main Street and East Pender on Tuesday afternoon when a stranger pushed him over. Several witnesses stopped to help him and he was rushed to hospital. Vancouver police are now asking for people to come forward with information. Our officers have been canvassing the neighbourhood since the assault, and we have now located video of the incident, says the VPD's Sgt. Steve Addison in a media release. Were still working to find people who witnessed the assault, as well as those who stopped to help. The suspect remains unidentified but the police say that the incident happened in an area with heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic. An Indiana Catholic school teacher was arrested Thursday after she was accused of threatening her students and making a kill list. Students at St. Stanislaus School in East Chicago, Indiana, reported Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres to a counselor on Wednesday, alleging that the fifth grade teacher threatened to kill herself, her students and her colleagues at the school, according to NBC Chicago. Carrasquillo-Torres also allegedly told the students about a kill list she had. Carrasquillo-Torres was escorted to the principals office after the counselor and two students reported the threats. Police said the teacher admitted to making the comments and confirmed she had a kill list. Carrasquillo-Torres didnt provide the list to the principal, but reportedly named a student who was on it. The principal told Carrasquillo-Torres to leave the school and not to return pending an investigation. Police were informed of the matter that evening. The teacher was removed from the classroom and escorted to the principals office, where she remained under supervision and had no further contact with students, read a Thursday statement on the schools Facebook page. The teacher was interviewed to further identify the details of the incident. Some parents are upset with how the school went about informing them of the incident. An email was sent out to parents, but didnt mention threats or a kill list. She said that these kids get on her nerves so much that she wanted to kill them, Quiannis Jones, a parent at the school, told CBS News. Like, what type of person says that? The police obtained an emergency detention order from prosecutors Thursday and arrested the teacher at her home that morning. As of Friday, charges against Carrasquillo-Torres were reportedly still pending. The school is working closely with local authorities and the Diocese of Garys Schools Office to ensure that St. Stanislaus students continue to have a safe and supportive environment in which they can learn, grow and prosper, the school wrote in its statement on Facebook. Story continues Police did not clarify if Carrasquillo-Torres was still in custody as of Friday. Parents want to know who was on the kill list and why, CBS News reported. The teacher was not listed on the schools staff directory as of Friday, but it was not clear whether she had been fired from the school. If you or someone you know needs help, dial 988 or call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also get support via text by visiting suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. My tribe is Absentee Shawnee the tribe of Tecumseh, says Henry Foreman. He created his own tribe among tribes, building a larger community. So this is my version of something thats deep in my history. Foreman is the founder of IndigiDAO, a new cryptocurrency education and development project that will be featured at CoinDesks IDEAS conference next week. In the late 18th and early 19th century, Tecumseh traveled widely from the Shawnees homeland in the Northeastern U.S., building an intertribal coalition to resist European incursions. That model remains a powerful inspiration for Native Americans and other Indigenous groups. IndigiDAO is a finalist in CoinDesk's Web3athon. The winners are announced at the I.D.E.A.S. conference October 18 and 19. IndigiDAO is Foremans effort to draw together a similarly scattered group: Indigenous artisans and entrepreneurs. Foreman launched the project as part of his role as program director at New Mexico Community Capital, where his focus is on business, finance, and technology education for aspiring Indigenous businesspeople. Though IndigiDAO has sprawling ambitions, its starting with two primary goals. On the one hand, Foreman says entrepreneurs in his community want more education on crypto. This is a form of digital financial literacy, he says. We want to meet entrepreneurs where theyre at. IndigiDAO is building a hands-on educational program that starts with basics like setting up wallets, and proceeds to more complex applications and concepts. At the same time, traditional craftspeople face a concrete problem that blockchain technology could help solve: authentication of handcrafted work, which is often imitated and undercut by non-Native interlopers. Its a big issue people making fake Indigenous art, jewelry, copying designs, says Foreman. Our traditional makers arent making enough income, arent being [properly] valued in the traditional marketplace. They gather the mud from the riverside and hand-fire it. Its hard for that to compete [on price] against someone whos buying a pot made in a factory and just painting it. Issuing non-fungible tokens to authenticate items created by IndigiDAO members could be one way to tackle fakes. Story continues But IndigiDAO wants to do more than solve one market problem. Its mission states it aims to advance Indigenous core values like collaboration, reciprocity, shared ownership and nourishment-based exchange without exploiting the communities and individuals involved. Thats particularly intriguing for Native American tribes, including the Absentee Shawnee, whose members receive basic income-like dividend payments from tribal enterprises such as casinos. Foreman believes a DAO could become a model for helping tribal members use those funds more effectively by coordinating even among members scattered across wide geographic areas just as Tecumsehs coalition did two centuries ago. Can you imagine a tribe that adopted a shared governance model? Foreman asks. That would be game changing. Every investor in Fletcher King Plc (LON:FLK) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are private companies with 43% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). And individual investors on the other hand have a 22% ownership in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Fletcher King. See our latest analysis for Fletcher King What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Fletcher King? Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. We can see that Fletcher King does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Fletcher King, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Fletcher King. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Chalet M Limited with 30% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 9.2% and 6.6% of the stock. David Jonathan Fletcher, who is the third-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Chairman of the Board. To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making. Story continues Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. We're not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held. Insider Ownership Of Fletcher King While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Fletcher King Plc. Insiders own UK60m worth of shares in the UK395m company. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public-- including retail investors -- own 22% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 43%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks for example - Fletcher King has 3 warning signs (and 2 which can't be ignored) we think you should know about. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. 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 While Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) shareholders have enjoyed a good week with stock up 3.3%, they need remain vigilant. Even though stock prices were relatively low, insiders elected to sell US$2.2m worth of stock in the last year, which could indicate some expected downturn. Although we don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. View our latest analysis for Northrop Grumman The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Northrop Grumman In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the insider, David Perry, sold US$1.2m worth of shares at a price of US$394 per share. That means that an insider was selling shares at slightly below the current price (US$501). As a general rule we consider it to be discouraging when insiders are selling below the current price, because it suggests they were happy with a lower valuation. While insider selling is not a positive sign, we can't be sure if it does mean insiders think the shares are fully valued, so it's only a weak sign. We note that the biggest single sale was only 25% of David Perry's holding. In the last year Northrop Grumman insiders didn't buy any company stock. 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! I will like Northrop Grumman better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. Does Northrop Grumman Boast High 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. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. It's great to see that Northrop Grumman insiders own 0.2% of the company, worth about US$144m. I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders. Story continues What Might The Insider Transactions At Northrop Grumman Tell Us? There haven't been any insider transactions in the last three months -- that doesn't mean much. While we feel good about high insider ownership of Northrop Grumman, we can't say the same about the selling of shares. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Northrop Grumman you should be aware of. But note: Northrop Grumman may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE 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 An Ankeny woman known as the Iowa Mama Bear was charged Friday with four counts of harassment and two counts of falsely reporting child abuse. Kimberly Reicks, 39, also was charged with making a false report to a public entity. All are misdemeanors. Reicks who founded Iowa Mama Bears, an organization that expresses views against masks, COVID-19 vaccines, LGTBQ content and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is accused of harassing her former business partner and fellow activist after the two had a falling out, according to criminal complaints. Police say Reicks falsely reported to the Department of Human Services that one of the former business partner's children had sexually assaulted their sibling, the complaint says. The family was interviewed by police and a DHS case worker, who determined the claim was false. More:Judge rules against Ankeny mom who sued school district over face mask mandate "The defendant was aware the information she provided DHS was false and was trying to harass the ... family and get law enforcement involved. The defendant is a mandatory reporter and knows the rules on reporting allegations in a timely and truthful manner," the complaint says. Police also say Reicks made a false claim about the former business partner's husband breaking a phone. Reicks was booked into and released from the Polk County Jail on Friday. She was ordered to have no contact with the family. Reicks did not immediately return a message from the Des Moines Register for comment. Reicks sued the Ankeny Community School District last year, claiming the district retaliated against her and her daughter after she spoke out against its COVID-19 mask policy. A judge ruled against Reicks in August, and her attorney filed a notice of appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. She has built a large online following for her sometimes controversial views, and has turned the attention into podcast appearances and speaking tours. Chris Higgins covers the eastern suburbs for the Register. Reach him at chiggins@registermedia.com or 515-423-5146 and follow him on Twitter @chris_higgins_. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Kimberly Reicks charged with harassing former business partner, family Russia's invasion of Ukraine is forcing Ireland to rethink its long tradition of military neutrality, the country's European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne has told AFP. Public opinion may not be ready for membership of the US-led NATO alliance yet, Byrne said in an interview during a visit to France, even though there is no doubt as to where Irish sympathies lie. "Russia invading Ukraine, totally against the UN charter, against the basic principles of territorial integrity, put the Irish people very firmly, instinctively on the side of right there," he said. "We're not neutral when it comes to an invasion like that, but we're neutral when it comes to joining a military alliance," he said. Irish neutrality has sometimes caused consternation among its EU allies and elsewhere, but Byrne said there were strong historic reasons for its stance. "For a lot of our history, as an independent country, we were overshadowed in our own minds by the British attempt at conscription in 1918," which sparked angry protests from Irish nationalists and became a factor for the country's independence in 1922. "I think that's partly where Irish neutrality comes from. Our neutrality has been characterised by non-membership of military alliances," he said. - 'Have to defend ourselves' - The US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq -- justified by false allegations of weapons of mass destruction being present in the country -- added to Irish scepticism about NATO membership, he said. "Public opinion is not in favour of Ireland joining military alliances. But also I think the public is seeing now that defence is different to offence," Byrne said. Ireland is currently concerned that submarine cables carrying trans-Atlantic internet traffic may be vulnerable to attack, which could cause havoc for European networks -- a worry exacerbated by recent explosions destroying part of the Nordstream pipelines for which Western governments have blamed sabotage. "We've seen what happened at Nordstream. The submarine cables are partly in Irish waters," Byrne said. "We have to defend our cables, we have to defend ourselves." Story continues "In Ireland we probably need a new conception of what defence is, a new concept," he said. One way forward could be submitting the neutrality question to a Citizens Assembly, an Irish institution where members of the public examine important issues together with experts, preparing legislative change. "The Taoiseach (Prime Minister Micheal Martin) has said he may decide to hold a Citizens Assembly on that issue so that the public can think things through," Byrne said. Although there are currently no concrete plans for such a move, it could become "part of a wider debate on how to defend ourselves". Previously non-aligned countries Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine, and their accession protocols were signed in July. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine itself have also applied to join the alliance. jh/js/gw JERUSALEM (AP) A line of cars snaked through the garbage-strewn streets of the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, as Palestinians waited to pass an Israeli checkpoint. Alaa Gharab was sunk down behind the steering wheel at an intersection that resembled a ragged war zone, littered with burnt tires, gutted appliances and the charred carcass of a car. It was the first time she could leave the camp since last Saturday night, when a Palestinian gunman fired at the checkpoint from close range, killing a 19-year-old female Israeli soldier and severely wounding a security guard before disappearing toward Shuafat. The attack prompted a large-scale and ongoing manhunt. As part of the search, Israeli security forces choked off the camps entry and exit points, bringing life to a standstill for its estimated 60,000 residents. The restrictions set off an explosion of anger in Palestinian neighborhoods across the city. Palestinian shops shuttered in protest by day and crowds of young men skirmished with Israeli troops by night the fiercest unrest in months. Clashes in Jerusalem, the holy and bitterly contested city, became a rallying cry last year that triggered a bloody 11-day Gaza war. No one could go to work, go to the hospital, get food, go out, Gharab, a 24-year-old nurse, said from her car window. Everyone was scared. Everything stopped. The restrictions eased on Thursday, allowing food and supplies to enter and residents to return to work in the city. But the outrage was undimmed in Jerusalems only refugee camp a neighborhood long left in a vacuum of governance. Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Jerusalem deputy mayor, described the closures as a matter of security. But to camp residents, it felt like a siege. It was like being in prison," said 14-year-old Sadeen Rajabi, who stayed home from school for the week because the difficulty of crossing and her parent's fears for her safety. Even in normal times, Shuafat is a lawless slum full of smoldering garbage heaps and lacks municipal services. The camp falls within the Jerusalem municipal limits, but outside the hulking separation barrier that Israel says it built to stem militant attacks from the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have decried the barrier, which often slices through communities, as a land grab. Story continues After the 1967 Mideast war, Israel annexed the eastern, Palestinian-populated half of Jerusalem and declared the entire city its capital in a move not recognized internationally. The government expanded the municipal limits far past the Old City, home to Jerusalem's holy sites, taking in far-flung Palestinian villages like Shuafat and the adjacent refugee camp. At the time, the camp had just a few thousand residents. Anger has been building across the Israeli-annexed sector of the city, where many Palestinians say they feel abandoned by Israel. Residents complain of home demolitions and the near impossibility of obtaining Israeli building permits. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem pay Israeli municipal taxes but receive a fraction of the services that Jewish residents do. The feeling of being in limbo is perhaps no more acute than in the Shuafat camp, one of several Palestinian neighborhoods that are formally part of Jerusalem, but are on the West Bank side of the separation barrier. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control in parts of the West Bank, has no jurisdiction. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees runs part of the camp, providing educational and sanitation services. Hassan-Nahoum acknowledged the challenges of providing services in the camp. She said the city fears attacks on its personnel working on the other side of the barrier. Its a very difficult thing to control, she said. Omar Sarhan, a shop owner restocking his shelves on Thursday for the first time this week, said the camp feels cut off from the city. We do not feel we're in Jerusalem, he said. We have nothing. Water and electricity shortages are frequent. Sewer services are unreliable. Roads are potholed. There's virtually no garbage pickup. High-rise apartments, some over 10 stories high, are built so close together in some areas as to be a fire hazard. Israeli police rarely enter to crack down on surging crime. The road into the rest of Jerusalem is both a lifeline and a potential chokepoint. Most residents have permanent residency in the city, meaning they have freedom of movement, unlike West Bank Palestinians who need special entry permits. But the access is strictly controlled. When Israeli security forces escalated searches at the main Shuafat checkpoint this week, residents said it upended their lives. Patients couldn't reach Israeli hospitals because of hours-long waits. Ambulances idled in snarled traffic. Deliveries of food and medicine stopped. Most of the camp's 15,000 children missed school. Residents shared stories of desperation. Yes, the attacker is from the camp, but why are tens of thousands of people held accountable?" said Hassan Alequm, a health official who reported that 50 patients with kidney disease missed their dialysis appointments at Israeli hospitals this week. Dr. Saeed Salameh said his medical center was flooded with requests to help patients who couldn't make it to hospitals. The clinic offered painkillers until it ran out IVs. Then it was struck by tear gas canisters and forced to close. Hiba, a 50-year-old hepatitis patient with diabetes who gave only her first name, hadn't received an insulin injection in five days. I couldn't leave my house because of the gas, she said, her face ashen. Many families stayed inside as tear gas veiled the camp. But thousands rushed into the streets to confront Israeli security forces in what residents described as the worst clashes in recent memory. Israeli forces unleashed rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas on young men hurling stones and firebombs. It was the first time I've seen that kind of violence in the camp, said Mohammed Salah, 32. On Wednesday night, clashes spread across east Jerusalem neighborhoods. The surging tensions in Jerusalem come as violence rises across the West Bank, where more than 120 Palestinians have been killed so far in 2022 the deadliest round of fighting in seven years. Confrontations have escalated since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel last spring. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others uninvolved in clashes have also been killed. Palestinians want the occupied West Bank and Gaza as territories for their future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. But adjacent to Shuafat refugee camp and other Palestinian enclaves neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israel has built Jewish settlements home to some 220,000 people. Israel's police said Friday it was calling up reserve units of the border police a paramilitary force known for using tough tactics to quell Palestinian unrest. The fighters will continue to act with a heavy hand, using all advanced means, against violators of public order, said Amir Cohen, the commander of the border police. The special committee investigating last years attack on the U.S. Capitol returned to the public square on Thursday after a long hiatus, unveiling damaging new evidence including fresh testimony and never-before-seen video footage linking former President Trump directly to the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. In its ninth, and likely last, exploratory hearing before the investigation dissolves, the committee released new details about Trumps plans to claim victory regardless of the election outcome; his refusal to accept defeat in the face of overwhelming evidence; and his failed effort to join thousands of his supporters on the march to the Capitol to block his election defeat. The panel also took the extraordinary, 11th-hour step of voting to subpoena Trump, who has been defiant throughout the investigation by continuing to praise the rioters who stormed the Capitol and to push false claims of a stolen 2020 election the same fabrication that led to the Jan. 6 rampage. The subpoena is unlikely to prompt Trumps cooperation, given both his defiance and the short window remaining before the select committee dissolves at the end of the current Congress. But leaders of the panel said they had no choice but to seek his testimony, since the central conclusion of their investigation has been to accuse Trump of being the ringleader of an effort to disenfranchise tens-of-millions of voters by overturning the election results. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the committee. And every American is entitled to those answers. To make its case, the committee leaned heavily on Trump administration officials and other allies of the former president who had appeared throughout the previous eight hearings, in June and July. Those figures presented a vivid picture of a president who had planned, even months before the election, to claim victory regardless of the results; ignored his aides and family members when they told him hed lost; went on a public campaign to promote false claims that rampant fraud had cost him the White House; and sent an armed mob to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to block Congress from certifying Joe Bidens victory. Story continues Theres no scenario where that action is benign, said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.). The cast of characters was familiar to anyone who had followed the previous hearings, featuring Cassidy Hutchinson, a former West Wing aide; William Barr, Trumps former attorney general; Bill Stepien, Trumps former campaign manager; and Jason Miller, a former Trump spokesman. That trend was no accident. The most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said. The damning portrait, coming less than a month before the midterm elections, adds fuel to the Democrats ominous warnings that Trump and his Republican allies who continue to push false claims of rampant fraud pose an ongoing threat to Americas democratic institutions. With the volatile economy top of mind for many Americans heading into November, however, its unclear if that message will sway voters in any significant manner. Some Democratic strategists are already warning that a focus on Jan. 6 will backfire, and Trumps allies are doubling down on their defense of the former president, particularly after Thursdays subpoena. The January 6th Committee is OUT OF CONTROL! tweeted Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who had refused a request from the committee to testify in the investigation. They want to DESTROY Trump and EVERY one of his supporters! Amid the political uproar, the committee has sought to allow the events of Jan. 6 to speak for themselves. And on Thursday, investigators presented a host of new evidence, testimony and video footage, much of it obtained since the panels last hearing on July 21. The new disclosures included significant new details from some 1 million electronic communications the panel received from the Secret Service in response to a subpoena. The vast trove of information exceeding what the committee asked for is still being reviewed by the panel but offers new details about agents fears that Trump would still push to go to the Capitol after being told by his security detail he could not join his supporters there and their concerns for Vice President Mike Pence. The panel showed intelligence reports, which corroborated earlier testimony from Hutchinson, showing that the Secret Service was well aware that Trump supporters gathered near the Ellipse prior to the attack on the Capitol were heavily armed, preventing them from entering the secure area where Trump was speaking. They also showed segments of an interview with an unnamed former White House employee who said there was [water] cooler talk of how angry the president was when they were, you know, in the limo and that he was irate on the drive back to the White House, but stopped short of repeating Hutchinsons second-hand account that Trump lunged at his driver. Other messages showed that even once Trump was back at the White House following his speech, he was insistent on joining the mob at the Capitol. A Secret Service memo noted he would be holding at the Capitol for two hours before heading to meet his supporters. It wasnt until shortly before 2 p.m. that the agency shut down such plans. Minutes later Trump would fire off a tweet criticizing Pence, alarming one agent who noted it was probably not going to be good for Pence, and another who expressed alarm that the tweet had gotten over 20,000 likes in just minutes. The panel also aired new evidence of Trumps plan to retain power even if he lost. That effort was laid out in a new draft memo floated days before the election by Tom Fitton, a conservative legal activist and informal Trump advisor. The memo, which the committee says it obtained from the National Archives, promoted the idea that Trump would claim victory immediately and refuse to honor votes counted after Election Day an illegal and unprecedented scheme that would have invalidated hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots around the country. Brad Parscale, President Trumps former campaign manager, testified that Trumps plans to claim victory prematurely stretched back much further, to July of 2020, the committee said. It was a premeditated plan by the president to declare victory no matter what the actual result was, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). The committee also offered new evidence showing that Trump admitted to staffers that he had lost the election, even as he was challenging his loss in court and fanning the flames with faulty claims of widespread fraud. Can you believe I lost to this effing guy? Trump said to Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House director of strategic communications, she said in a clip played by the committee. The Thursday hearing comes after the committee promised to delve into Trumps state of mind. The panel has no powers to bring criminal charges Our role is not to make decisions regarding prosecution, Cheney emphasized but at times the committee seemed to be whispering to the Justice Department, with members on the panel repeatedly referencing Trumps state of mind, motivation and intent. Offering those details could be key for an eventual Justice Department prosecution of Trump, as some of the crimes they could charge him with require more than just demonstrating illegal activity occurred, forcing them to demonstrate that Trump acted with corrupt intent. The Jan. 6 investigators think theyve done that already. Yes, the president knew the crowd was angry because he had stoked that anger. He knew that they believed that the election had been rigged and stolen because he had told them falsely that it had been rigged and stolen. And by the time he incited that angry mob to march on the Capitol, he knew they were armed and dangerous, all the better to stop the peaceful transfer of power, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said. As the investigation winds down, panel members must decide if theyll make criminal referrals to the Justice Department a process they havent ruled out. We have sufficient information to consider criminal referrals for multiple individuals and to recommend a range of legislative proposals to guard against another Jan. 6, said Cheney, without offering details. Meantime, the focus has shifted to the extraordinary legal battle likely to unfold over Trumps testimony. The violence and lawlessness of January 6th was unjustifiable, but our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol, Cheney said. Those who planned to overturn our election and brought us to the point of violence must also be accountable. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. TOKYO (Reuters) - Chubu Electric Power Co Inc said on Friday it would invest up to 5 billion yen ($34 million) in a Canadian geothermal venture, Eavor Technologies Inc, as it moves to expand its renewable energy portfolio and fight climate change. Within a few weeks, Chubu will invest between 1 billion and 5 billion yen ($7 million to $34 million) for a stake ranging from 10% to 20% in Eavor, according to its deputy chief executive of global business, Katsuji Sugimori. Eavor's technology circulates water in a closed loop underground to extract heat efficiently even in areas where sufficient amounts of hot water or steam cannot be obtained by conventional geothermal means. It can be used in a wide range of areas, and avoids the typical exploration risk stemming from a shortage of hot water or steam underground, Chubu said. "We want to apply the technology in Japan in the future," Sugimori told a news conference. The Canadian venture aims to commercialise two projects being developed, one in the United States and another in Germany, in 2024, Chubu said. Eavor's investors include venture funds owned by global energy and metals producers such as BP, Chevron, and BHP. ($1=147.4300 yen) (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) STORY: Police have blocked most of Western Jerusalem's central streets to allow the march to pass through, leading to long traffic jams in other parts of the city. The march was being held for the first time since 2019. Attendees flocked to Jerusalem from around the world, from West Africa to Canada, and beyond. People from around the world are visiting Israel to participate in this march. Photo: West Vancouver Fire Rescue Firefighters in West Vancouver are responding to a what they describe as a wildfire at the top of the Caulfeild neighbourhood on the lower slopes of Cypress Falls Park. West Vancouver Fire Rescue duty chief Matt Furlot says crews responded at around 7 a.m. He said they were trying to pinpoint the exact location of the fire and the best way to access to the flames. The neighbourhood is a heavily wooded area with many homes and businesses. Smoke from the fire could be seen across much of Vancouver. Conditions across the Lower Mainland remain extremely dry, with less than 20 millimetres of rain recorded in the area since early July. President Joe Biden condemned the shooting in North Carolina this week in which a gunman killed five people and injured two others. Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer, the president said in a statement on Friday. The shooting took place in a middle-class neighborhood in Raleigh on Thursday evening, killing people who ranged in age from 16 to 52. Police have taken a 15-year-old suspect into custody who is in critical condition, according to Raleigh Police Department Chief Estella D. Patterson. Authorities have not identified the suspect or released information about a motive or the suspects background, as the investigation is ongoing. The attack follows devastating mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 Black people, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. According to the Gun Violence Archives, nearly 35,000 people in the U.S. have died because of gun violence this year. Enough, the presidents statement read. Weve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever. The U.S. generally has far laxer gun laws than other countries, partially due to the right to own a firearm under the Second Amendment. Gun laws and regulations vary from state to state. Biden, who signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June, called it the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years in his statement on Friday, but added that we must do more. We must pass an assault weapons ban, he said. The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets. House Democrats have already passed it. The Senate should do the same. Send it to my desk and Ill sign it. Story continues Read Bidens full statement here. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... A composite of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, White House adviser Brett McGurk and U.S. President Joe Biden (Photo: Illustration: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost; Photos: Getty) A composite of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, White House adviser Brett McGurk and U.S. President Joe Biden (Photo: Illustration: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost; Photos: Getty) As President Joe Biden considers ways to punish Saudi Arabia for driving up global oil prices, he will continue to take advice from Brett McGurk the controversial White House official who encouraged Biden to court the Saudis, despite his campaign promises and most Democrats wariness of the kingdom. On Tuesday, Biden said he would impose consequences on Saudi Arabia over its oil market maneuver, which the White House sought to avoid. U.S. officials say the president plans to do that by working with lawmakers who have complained that his administration has been too soft on the Saudis. But when HuffPost asked if the president still has confidence in McGurk, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby responded Friday: Yes. Next question. A senior congressional aide blasted Biden over the news suggesting it could complicate the presidents bid to cooperate with Congress in adjusting his Saudi policy. It is absolutely ridiculous that the White House and the president himself still puts faith in Brett McGurk for a strategy and set of policies that have failed to deliver for the United States and its interests, said the aide, who requested anonymity to speak to the media. The idea that the U.S.-Saudi relationship not only needs to be reevaluated but significantly reset is now not only a progressive-left thing but Democratic Party orthodoxy. McGurk has fought this at every turn, is trapped in the past and should no longer be serving this administration. The latest crisis in the two countries relations began Oct. 5, when OPEC+ the international cartel of oil exporters in which Saudi Arabia is a key decision-maker said it would slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day. The plan is set to drive up gas prices worldwide and boost oil exporter Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. Story continues Since then, prominent voices in Washingtons debate over the kingdom have highlighted concerns with McGurk and demanded that Biden put pressure on the Saudis. On Oct. 7, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said he wants McGurk to testify before Congress to explain why he organized a disastrous visit for @POTUS with MBS over cabinet objections, referring to a summer meeting between Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Abdullah Alaoudh, a Saudi human rights activist, criticized McGurks advocacy for the trip, pointing to everything bad the Saudi ... [government] did in all fronts after Bidens visit. Why do they still see it as a success?! Alaoudh wrote in an Oct. 6 tweet. After Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities Monday, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced that he would not approve any U.S. cooperation with the Saudis, hinting at the Biden administrations policy of major arms sales to the kingdom. Either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him, Menendez said in a statement, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia chose the latter in a terrible decision driven by economic self-interest. The United States must immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia. Before McGurk took over the Saudi file for Biden, he worked on Middle East policy under every president since George W. Bush. Earlier this year, current and former officials who know McGurk told HuffPost that he is a talented bureaucrat and well connected in the region, but they questioned Bidens choice to empower someone associated with a controversial U.S. track record and choices like largely unchecked support to the Saudis. Heres the brilliance of Brett: The problem he helped create, he comes up again and again as the person to fix it, one former official, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said in May. He torched the fucking house and then showed up with a firehose. Citing Crown Prince Mohammeds responsibility for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a devastating military intervention in Yemen, Biden spent months pledging to show the Saudis that they must improve their behavior if they want to remain a close U.S. partner. The administration initially said Biden would not engage with the crown prince but instead deal only with his father and the Saudi head of state, King Salman. But once in office, the president resisted calls from leading Democrats and advocacy groups to limit weapons deals with the country, punish powerful Saudis involved in the Khashoggi killing and push the kingdom to release jailed dissidents. The soft touch was not enough for the Saudis, however. The crown prince and people close to him, including pro-Saudi voices in Washington, were dismissive toward Biden and his team in the fall of 2021 and earlier this year, saying the White House needed to do more to woo Riyadh. Then, following a plan largely crafted by McGurk, Biden visited the country in July and gave the crown prince useful photo-ops and the appearance that the relationship was as cozy as ever. It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking, said Fred Ryan, the publisher of Khashoggis former employer The Washington Post. After Bidens trip, the crown prince remained uninterested in a closer relationship, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the Saudis rejected private U.S. requests to delay the cut in oil production. With Biden and officials like Kirby, the spokesperson, now warning that the U.S. will push the Saudis to change course on oil, Riyadh appears unconcerned about any serious action. The Saudi government has issued repeated statements saying it views the OPEC+ decision as necessary, and it has highlighted that Saudi Arabia voted against Russia on the latest United Nations resolution regarding Ukraine and helped negotiate the release of prisoners of war, including some Americans. Meanwhile, Saudi commentator Mohammed Alyahya seen as close to Crown Prince Mohammed has published multiplearticles blaming Biden and the U.S. for alienating the Saudis. The president may soon take big steps to send a serious message to Riyadh. Biden could endorse a new bill from Khanna and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that would pause all arms sales to the kingdom, as well as crucial logistical and support services; advocate for bipartisan legislation that targets OPEC+; or re-deploy missile defense batteries from Saudi Arabia to Ukraine. But as long as McGurk is a major player, observers fear he might shield the Saudis. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Correction & clarification: A prior version of this column misspelled the name of MSNBCs Alex Wagner. The discussion about what it means and what it doesnt mean to be disabled has gained steam this week after Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, five months after a stroke, used an app version of closed captions to help him answer a journalist's questions. But this column isnt just about Fetterman, and its certainly not limited to politics. The bigger conversation, the one we need to be having, is about why we make accommodations for people with disabilities, both visible and invisible. As he continues to recover, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Fetterman used Google Meets to read the spoken questions of NBC News reporter Dasha Burns because he cannot always process what is being said to him. This auditory disconnect is not an uncommon response to a stroke in the early months and does not mean he can't do the job. He read the questions, and he answered them. Occasionally, he stumbled on a word. Unfortunately, Burns introduced the interview segment by saying this about Fetterman to NBC News anchor Lester Holt: In small talk before the interview without captioning it wasnt clear he was understanding our conversation. The campaign had requested closed captioning for a reason: For now, Fetterman uses it so he can understand people talking to him. He has made no secret of this. In pointing out, without confirmation, that he couldn't hear her, Burns centered herself as the standard when the accommodation was meant to make them equals. John Fetterman's use of technology is not an uncommon response to a stroke in the early months and does not mean he can't do the job. The initial broadcast of the interview began with this question from Burns: Can voters trust that you will be able to do this job on Day One? Ive known enough newly elected senators including my husband, Sen. Sherrod Brown to understand the folly of this question. Nobody is immediately ready for that job, or for any other job. Surgeons, teachers, journalists every endeavor is incremental and dependent on colleagues and staff. Story continues More from Connie Schultz: Knowing when it's time to say goodbye, not because I don't love but because I do The disappointing media coverage Reaction to Burns' interview with Fetterman was swift, with some journalists and pundits touting the segment as problematic, if not catastrophic, for the candidate. Just as rapidly, other journalists took issue with this framing of Fetterman, including Rebecca Traister, who wrote a recent, deeply reported profile of Fetterman for New York magazine. In her story, she criticized how the political press was parroting unfounded attacks on Fettermans health by the campaign of his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz. Watching tv/news online pundits leer over clips of an interview in which hes completely engaged and communicative is stomach-turning, Traister tweeted, and a super depressing example of what I was trying to describe. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Daily Mail columnist Meghan McCain offered one of the more egregious takes on Fettermans interview, in a tweet since deleted but destined to live on in screen captures: This is insane. How can someone be a Senator without being able to speak or understand small talk? This is the same Meghan McCain who, in the wake of her fathers diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, explained in an HBO documentary why it was important for Sen. John McCain to keep returning to his work in the Senate. Hes better in Arizona I think, health-wise, but we sort of collectively made the decision: If he doesnt work then he would probably get sick faster because work feeds him and its so much a part of who he is. So, Im very supportive of him being in D.C. Of course, she wanted that for her father. McCain understood what every family member of a senator knows. A political campaign is different from daily life in the Senate, and no senator navigates that job alone. Some of the most intelligent and talented people Ive met work for senators, including Sherrod. The most experienced of these people could easily make two and even three times their salaries in the corporate world, but they choose lives of public service. Not the first disabled person in Congress After the backlash, NBC News released Burns full interview with Fetterman. Burns devoted the first nine minutes to Fettermans stroke, including a belabored exchange about his use of the technology. She echoed the demand from a growing list of journalists who have pushed Fetterman to release his medical records. After seeing the ensuing hyperventilation over his use of closed captioning, I dont blame him for not trusting us with that information. As his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, tweeted, Yeah, accommodations are kind of a big civil rights thing. Yeah, and we should act like it. LGBTQ love is love: Happy wedding anniversary, my friends, out loud We dont know the timeline for Fettermans recovery. Like all stroke survivors, he is forced to work hard and wait. If he is elected, he will be able to do what all senators do, which is hire talented people to help him do his job. He would not be the first disabled person to serve in Congress. Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk had a stroke in 2012 but remained in the Senate until he was defeated by Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in the war in Iraq. An accidental shooting paralyzed Rhode Islander Jim Langevin when he was 16. In 2001, he became the first quadriplegic to serve in Congress and is retiring this year. More recently, Madison Cawthorn became the first person born in the 1990s to be elected to Congress, in 2020. Cawthorn lost his reelection bid in the Republican primary this year, but it wasnt because he uses a wheelchair. This is not a complete list. '10 times more empathetic' Too many of us have a two-tiered response to someone with a physical disability: We assume our superiority as if any accommodation renders a person diminished in some way. End the stigma: The time to end period poverty and the 'pink tax' is now We are also forced to consider the randomness of illness and infirmity, and that can scare us. We fear our future and prefer to look away, steeped in the myth of our own invincibility. Some are born lucky, but time catches up with everyone. As Fetterman told MSNBCs Alex Wagner, Before the stroke, I thought I was a very empathetic person and I really understood what it was like for people dealing with these kinds of challenges. But after it happened, it made me 10 times more empathetic. In his willingness to be public about his recovery, Fetterman proves he can do the job. With every speech and interview, he forces us to examine our own beliefs and biases about people with disabilities. This an important lesson for those whose only current affliction is the hubris of good health. Changed by talks with a friend As Ive monitored the Fetterman coverage, I keep thinking of my late friend and mentor Annie Glenn. She was known by most, perhaps, as the wife of astronaut and Sen. John Glenn, but she was revered as a hero to those who struggle with stuttering. From an early age and through her 40s, Annies stutter was so pronounced that her young daughter, Lyn, often spoke for her in public. As she and Lyn told me numerous times over the years, Annie was regularly mistaken for slow-witted, a harmful and unfounded assumption about such a bright and thoughtful woman. These conversations changed me, as they forced me to consider how my ability to speak gave me an unearned advantage. Connie Schultz is an Opinion columnist for USA TODAY. At 53, Annie enrolled in a new program for stutterers that changed her life and gave birth to her activism. Sometimes, late in the evening, she would still stutter. As she told me during one of our dinners, When I am tired, the words come more slowly, but my thoughts never slow down. USA TODAY columnist Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winner whose novel, The Daughters of Erietown, is a New York Times bestseller. You can reach her at CSchultz@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @ConnieSchultz You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fetterman's request for accommodations reveals our disability bias Oct. 13An Ector County District Court judge was recently admonished by the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct for referring to COVID-19 as the "China Virus" and a potential juror lodged a complaint. Judge Justin Low, who replaced John Smith as the 161st District Court judge in 2020, was also ordered to obtain an hour of instruction with an assigned mentor on courtroom demeanor. According to a commission report, Low was presiding over pre-qualification for jury duty on May 7, 2021, when Low spoke about the "China Virus" and stated "Yeah, I said it" and "The attorneys would be upset I said that" to potential jurors. Some of the potential jurors whooped and clapped their hands and Low encouraged them by laughing and nodding, the report stated. An Asian American potential juror reported she felt unsafe and uncomfortable after the comments were made, especially because there had been recent hate crimes committed against Asian Americans, according to the report. Low called some of the pre-requisite questions "stupid" and said, "I don't know why I have to ask this." Low testified before the commission he was trying to expose bias and/or prejudices among the potential jurors. He also told the commission he knew it would be offensive to some people, but he was "doing it for a higher purpose." The commission ordered Low to obtain additional education "for his unprofessional demeanor during jury selection, which demonstrated bias and prejudice against potential jurors through his words and actions," the report stated. A judge ruled Thursday that Hampton prosecutors can use as trial evidence the statements Cory Bigsby made to detectives about leaving his four young boys home alone when he was questioned about his sons disappearance. Circuit Court Judge James Hawks denied a motion by Bigsbys attorneys to toss the admissions he made while at police headquarters in the hours after he reported his 4-year-old son Codi missing in late January. Codi has never been found, and no charges have been filed in his disappearance and presumed death. But his father faces child neglect and child abuse charges, mostly related to other occasions his children were left unsupervised. A jury trial in the child neglect case with 30 counts pending against Bigsby is scheduled for Nov. 7. There were about 14 hours between Bigsbys arrival at police headquarters in the early afternoon of Jan. 31 and a heated argument he had with a Hampton detective at 4:13 a.m. on Feb. 1. During that time, police said, Bigsby made several statements about how hed often leave his four children ages 2 through 5 home alone for hours at a time. His admissions have formed the crucial part of the pending case. At the start of Thursdays hearing, Bigsbys attorney, Curtis Brown, asked Hawks to toss all the statements Bigsby made during his time with several detectives and three FBI agents. Im asking the court to suppress all the statements, every last one of em, Brown said. For the way they mistreated him, from the beginning to the end. Though detectives acknowledge Bigsby told them at least 20 times that he was tired sometimes adding that he wanted to go home Hawks pointed out that he didnt stop the conversations. He doesnt say Im not going to talk, the judge said. He doesnt say Its over. He doesnt say, Get me a lawyer. Though Bigsby was tired, Hawks added, fatigue is not sufficient to show that police overran his will in pressing him to give a statement. The judge also ruled detectives didnt otherwise coerce or threaten him to confess. Story continues About 14 hours into questioning, during an argument with a detective over the results of a lie detector test, Bigsby finally asked for a lawyer, saying Get me a (expletive) lawyer. He asked again about seven minutes later. But police detectives ignored that request, and Bigsby remained at the Hampton headquarters for another two and a half days before being arrested and charged Feb. 3 on several counts of felony child neglect. A few weeks later, Hampton Police Chief Mark Talbot said an internal investigation found that Bigsbys request for an attorney wasnt properly honored. Talbot also said he had removed lead detective Daniel Smith from the case. Hampton Commonwealths Attorney Anton Bell said Thursday that prosecutors would not be using at trial any of Bigsbys statements to police after he asked for a lawyer. Bigsby didnt say anything useful after that point anyway, the prosecutor said. Bigsby reported Codi missing from the Buckroe home Jan. 31. He told police he had last seen him in bed about 2 a.m., but that he was gone when he awoke seven hours later. Bigsby and his two other children came to the Hampton police headquarters voluntarily at about 1:30 p.m. that day, with Bell saying the family was free to come and go. Bigsby spoke with detectives for about an hour, but otherwise was mostly in a lobby with his children. The family was given snacks and pizza, and could use the bathroom unescorted. Bell said they could leave the building and go home if they wanted. Smith testified that he read Bigsby his Miranda rights at about 2:30 p.m., telling him he had a right to remain silent and to an attorney. Two FBI agents came in that afternoon. A third FBI agent, Liza Ludovico, came early that evening to administer a lie detector test. Ludovico said Thursday she administered a second Miranda warning before beginning the polygraph process about 9:33 p.m. Though police hadnt told Bigsby he was being detained, Hawks ruled Thursday that he considers Bigsby in custody from that point on. Smith testified that based on Bigsbys prior statements, police had enough evidence to charge Bigsby with felony child neglect if he tried to leave. But they held off on filing kept those charges for days, still hoping he would provide more information about Codis disappearance. The No.1 priority was finding Codi, Smith said. Ludovico testified that after she finished administering the lie detector test at about 1 a.m., she interviewed Bigsby for another few hours post-exam until about 4 a.m. Smith and two other FBI agents came in and out of the room during that time. After learning that Bigsby believes in God, Ludovico used that in the ensuing conversation, telling him in part that God sees everything that happens. Ludovico said she uses her Christian faith as a connection point with people shes interrogating. It gives perspective to whats really important, she said. When Bigsby brought up several times that he was tired, Ludovico said she replied that were all tired but they needed to keep working to find Codi. He agreed and said hed do whatever it takes, Ludovico testified, saying Bigsby told her he was committed to staying in the room the entire time with us. Part of her job, she acknowledged, was to get him to stay and keep talking. Ludovico also acknowledged telling Bigsby that in light of his admissions about leaving his young children at home alone, he might not be going home at the end of the interview. Just before 4:13 a.m., Smith and Bigsby got into a heated argument about the results of his lie detector test. I was frustrated because (Bigsbys story) didnt make sense with the facts we had at the time, Smith testified. Smith said he reflected for a moment about what happened, but did not take steps to allow Bigsby to get an attorney. Ludovico, who had briefly left the room, walked back in immediately after the tense discussion. That atmosphere was very different, she said. It was very silent. His arms were crossed. It was evident that there was tension in that room. Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com ALEXANDRIA, Va. A judge on Friday tossed out one of of five counts against a think-tank analyst charged with lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a flawed dossier about former President Donald Trump. The remaining four counts against Igor Danchenko will go to a jury Monday after prosecutors and the defense rested their cases Friday. But Judge Anthony Trenga reserved the right to toss out the other four counts regardless of what the jury decides. In the count that was tossed out, prosecutors alleged that Danchenko lied to the FBI when he told an agent that he never talked with a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan about the information in the dossier. As it turns out, there was evidence that Dolan and Danchenko had discussed the information over email. Defense attorneys argued that Danchenkos response was literally true because they did not talk orally, and the question the FBI agent asked specifically referenced talking. Trenga agreed, and he said that accepting the prosecutions argument that the question had a broader context than mere talking would result in divorcing words from their common meaning. In the remaining counts that will go forward, prosecutors argue that Danchenko fabricated interactions with a supposed source named Sergei Millian, who was a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of commerce. Defense lawyers say Danchenko received an anonymous call from a person he believed to be Millian, and that Danchenko was forthright from the beginning that while he suspected the call came from Millian he was not certain. Danchenko is being prosecuted by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate any misconduct in the FBIs investigation of the Trump campaign and its alleged ties to Russia. Danchenko is the third person to be prosecuted by Durham. It is the first of Durhams cases that delves deeply into the origins of the Steele dossier, which alleged connections between Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin. and which Trump derided as fake news and a political witch hunt. Durhams other two cases resulted in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation. Testimony this week at trial has highlighted Durhams difficulty in proving his allegations. Two key FBI witnesses for the prosecution ended up providing testimony that was highly favorable to Danchenko, resulting in the unusual spectacle of Durham seeking to eviscerate the credibility of his own witnesses on re-direct. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Public housing agencies in Tennessee can no longer include provisions in their leases that bar tenants from having guns in their homes, a state appeals panel has ruled. A three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Appeals made the unanimous decision Thursday, saying that the prohibitions in public housing violate the 2nd Amendment rights of its residents. In the ruling, the judges cited a prominent U.S. Supreme Court decision from June that expanded gun rights, while striking down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry a gun in a concealed way in public. The Tennessee decision could set up an appeal to the state Supreme Court, which has a majority appointed by Republican governors. The case centers on a lawsuit by Kinsley Braden, who signed a lease agreement with Columbia Housing & Redevelopment Corporation in April 2018 that barred him from having a gun on the premises. In November 2020, housing officials sought to evict Braden when they found out he had been keeping a handgun in his residence at the Creekside Acres low-income housing complex. Lower court judges ruled in favor of Columbia Housing in the initial case and an appeal, then Braden sought another review, the ruling states. In the latest decision, Judge Frank Clement wrote that a total ban on the ability of law-abiding residents like Mr. Braden to possess a handgun within their public housing unit for the purpose of self-defense is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The ruling reasoned that public housing is not similar to other types of sensitive government buildings where guns can be banned, including statehouses, polling places and courthouses. Clement also acknowledged that it is largely unsettled whether public housing developments could constitutionally prohibit firearm possession under both the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and nearly identical provisions of certain state constitutions. He wrote that states have come to different conclusions on whether such bans are allowed. The home of former Atlanta Falcons football player Julio Jones was burglarized Tuesday while he was in Florida playing in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In a news release, Atlanta police said officers responded to reports of a burglary at a residence in Buckhead. Upon arriving at the home, the officers were told the property belonged to Jones. Various clothing and jewelry items, including NFL apparel, a watch and Charles Barkley Nike shoes, were missing from the residence, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. "There were several items missing from the location which include clothing and jewelry, and also [the officer] did a great job taking a detailed description and providing a detailed description over the radio," Atlanta Police Capt. Ben Vayens told the outlet. BUCKHEAD SECESSION: LEADER IN RITZY ATLANTA SUBURB SAYS RESIDENTS NOT GETTING WHAT THEY 'NEED AND DESERVE' Atlanta police said officers used technology to gather the physical description of the male suspect and blasted the information over the radio. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Shortly after, an officer working an off-duty extra patrol job spotted a man matching the description. The man, later identified as 31-year-old Martin Williams, was reportedly wearing one of the stolen sweatshirts when the officer approached him. Bodycam footage released by Atlanta PD shows an officer telling Williams to get on the ground and asking if he has any weapons on him. Williams got on the ground and said he was not armed. He was taken into custody without incident. BUCS' JULIO JONES DEALING WITH WORSE KNEE INJURY THAN EXPECTED: REPORT Julio Jones #6 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers looks down the line of scrimmage against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Sept. 11, 2022, in Arlington, TX. Atlanta police said Williams was booked into the Fulton County Jail and charged with two counts of first-degree burglary. Vayens told Fox 5 he credits the "swift arrest" to the detailed descriptions given over the radio. He added he "wishes every burglary case could be like this one." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP When Jones returns to Atlanta, he will be able to retrieve the stolen items. One of the jurors who voted for life in the Parkland trial sent a letter to the judge, denying accusations from other jurors that she made her decision ahead of the trial. The juror, in the letter to Broward Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Scherer, said that another member of the 12-person jury heard others who voted for the death penalty stating that I had already made up my mind on voting for life before the trial started. This allegation is untrue and I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, she wrote. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life. I just wanted to make you aware of this matter. Judge Elizabeth Scherer reads the verdict in the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Cruz, who plead guilty to 17 counts of premeditated murder in the 2018 shootings, is the most lethal mass shooter to stand trial in the U.S. He was previously sentenced to 17 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for 17 additional counts of attempted murder for the students he injured that day. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool) READ NEXT: Jury recommended life for Parkland shooter. What are people saying about that? The jury on Thursday rejected the death penalty and instead recommended to sentence Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a decision that angered family members of the victims. Cruz pleaded guilty last year to killing 17 people in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Broward County. Its the deadliest school shooting in Florida history. Three people on the 12 person jury voted for life, and one of them was a hard no for the death penalty because of Cruzs mental illness, Benjamin Thomas, the foreman, told Miami Herald news partner CBS Miami. Florida and all other states in the U.S., except Alabama, require a unanimous verdict to sentence someone to death, as the Miami Herald has reported. Cruzs sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 1. READ MORE: After Parkland shooter gets life verdict, whats next for the death penalty in Florida? Re. Bernie Smiths letter Make peace with Russia (Castanet, Oct. 12) and Ricky Daytona's letter Blame Ukraine for war (Castanet, Oct. 13) I just had to write in response to a couple of (recent) letters on Castanet. First, thank you Mr. Daytona. Lets get back to blaming the victim shall we? When Stalin instigated the great famine of Ukraine, he needed some people to fill in for the millions who died. Who else was going to raise the crops needed except transplanted Russian citizens? If you think its bad in the U.S. with their immigration policies, imagine what it was like for the Ukrainians when they were first agriculturally devastated (see collective farms), then systematically starved to death, and then have the perpetrators just flood in and take over everything? As for the Minsk accord Mr. Daytona, did you miss the part where the Russian Army set up, managed the usual rigged elections and then sent military forces to back the separatists? It was in the Ukraine after all. Considering that the fall of the USSR allowed several independent (from Russia) countries to regain their freedom and territory (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland etc.), and those countries, including Ukraine, also had Russian minorities (see above) and have maintained their own democracies and not invaded Russia, why should the Ukraine be different? Or are you saying all of the former (Soviet Socialist Republics) should be allowed to be invaded or steamrolled by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin? (See Belarus, Chechenya etc.). Blaming Ukraine for Putins land grab is, as (former U.S. Army) General Arnold Schwartzkopf said, bovine catology. As for Mr. Smith, I believe you and Mr. Daytona must go to the same meetings. Or attend the same rallies. Sir, imagine if you will that you have a lovely home with many rooms and a large tract of land. Sometime in the past, you had squatters move in and claim substantial parts of your home as their God-given ethnocentric right. After all, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Then a new family head arrives and says Thanks for letting us stay here, and We want the rest.You demur, he threatens and brings in all his friends. Lucky for you, your neighbours help out by providing some tools and advice. But its up to you to do the dirty work, and force the squatters out. Or you can just say Keep it, its not worth fighting for. Mr. Smith would you fight for your home? For your inheritance for your children? Or would you say, stay, and try not to take too much more the next time you feel greedy? I think the Ukrainian people made that choice. Also remember, (former British prime minister Neville) Chamberlains famous saying Peace in our time. There was no consensus and no opposition then, and look at what happened. Gary Lynch Activists have thrown tomato soup over Vincent Van Goghs masterpiece Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. Two women wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts entered a gallery room in Trafalgar Square at about 11am on Friday morning (14 October) and threw two tins of Heinz at the painting, before glueing their hands to the wall. The painting, which has an estimated value of 72.5m and is made from oil on canvas, is protected by a glass cover. One of the activists, Phoebe Plummer, 21, shouted: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? She added: The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They cant even afford to heat a tin of soup. The soup-throwing came on the 14th day of demonstrations linked to the group, which is demanding that the government stop all new oil and gas licences. Demonstrator Anna Holland, 20, from Newcastle said: UK families will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter, as fossil fuel companies reap record profits. But the cost of oil and gas isnt limited to our bills. Somalia is now facing an apocalyptic famine, caused by drought and fuelled by the climate crisis. Millions are being forced to move and tens of thousands face starvation. This is the future we choose for ourselves if we push for new oil and gas. The Metropolitan Police said officers arrived quickly on scene and both protesters have been arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass. Officers are now de-bonding the activists. The moment the soup was thrown (Twitter) A National Gallery spokesperson told The Independent: There is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed. Just Stop Oil has been contacted for further comment. The groups activists have caused disruption in the capital every day since the start of October. Story continues Earlier this week, protesters were arrested while blocking emergency vehicles in west London. Others were removed using plastic syringes and arrested after gluing themselves to a road outside Buckingham Palace. Angry motorists dragged activists from a road near parliament at the weekend. Just Stop Oil has vowed to disrupt roads every day in October as part of its campaign against fossil fuels. Van Goghs Sunflowers was acquired by the National Gallery in 1924 with assistance from the Courtauld Fund. Former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Steve Helber / Associated Press) A special master review of documents seized from former President Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate should not have been approved, the Department of Justice argued in its first filing in the appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The department is asking the court to overturn U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannons decision to appoint a special master to review more than 13,000 records seized during the Aug. 8 search of the Florida property by the FBI and to block the department from using any of the documents for its investigation until the months-long process ends. The appellate court has agreed to expedite consideration of the case. Trumps lawyers must file their response by Nov. 10. The department argued in its filing that Cannon should not have entertained appointing a special master because Trump couldnt meet the standard for doing so, namely proving that the government showed a callous disregard for his rights in executing the court-approved search of the property, a fact she acknowledged in her order granting the special master. Cannon said that Trump met the other standards required of him in the matter. The records at issue here are the documents recovered pursuant to that court-approved warrant, after earlier attempts to retrieve them had failed. The district court accordingly determined that Plaintiff had demonstrated no callous disregard of his rights, the filing states, noting that the 11th Circuit pointed that out in an early decision in this case. And as the [11th Circuit] Court held, that by itself is sufficient reason to conclude that the district court erred in exercising jurisdiction over this action. In the filing, the department states that the seized documents are the very objects of an ongoing criminal investigation. The Court should therefore reverse the district courts injunction and end the special masters review, the filing states. The appellate court already granted the departments request to withhold about 100 classified documents from the special masters review and overturned Cannons order preventing the department from using those records as part of its investigation during the review. Story continues The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trumps request to intervene in the dispute over whether the special master should examine the classified documents. In Fridays filing, the department extensively quotes from the circuit courts previous opinion ruling that the government could use classified material found in the search in its criminal investigation. Cannon named Raymond Dearie, a senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, as special master, and the review of the more than 20,000 pages of documents has begun. The special master is supposed to set aside any materials that Trump says are protected from the investigation by claims of attorney-client or executive privilege, and recommend to Cannon how the documents should be categorized. The process is expected to be completed in December. The department repeated its assertion that "a former President cannot successfully assert executive privilege to prevent the Executive Branch from reviewing its own record," an argument Cannon has not resolved in her orders. The Justice Department used the filing to clarify that the search recovered about 13,000 documents totaling approximately 22,000 pages. Cannon used the Trump team's estimate of 220,000 pages as justification for extending by two weeks the timeline originally set by Dearie. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Kansas City police detectives were conducting a suspicious death investigation in the Eastern 49-63 neighborhood Thursday evening after officers responded to an emergency medical call involving a reported cutting in the 6200 block of Tracy Avenue. Officers were first called to the block around 5 p.m. as emergency medical personnel attempted to provide treatment to an unresponsive man, Sgt. Jake Becchina, a police spokesman, said in a statement. He was later pronounced dead at the scene. Homicide detectives were contacted to process the scene on Thursday night after circumstances surrounding the death were deemed suspicious, Becchina said. The cause of death was undetermined on Thursday night. Becchina said detectives and crime scene personnel would be working alongside the Jackson County Medical Examiners Office as part of their investigation. He added that it could take days for the medical examiner to make any preliminary determinations. People who were in the area when officers arrived were being interviewed by detectives, Becchina said. KCPD detectives investigating a suspicious death in the 6200 block of Tracy. Officers were dispatched on a cutting. Upon arrival a deceased male was located. No additional information available. Please call 816-474-TIPS with information. @KansasCity @JacksonCountyMO @kcpolice pic.twitter.com/p93RRLmiwr Darryl Forte' (@sheriffforte) October 14, 2022 Further information was not immediately available from police. Anyone with information was asked to contact the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. Update: At 11:20 p.m., Kansas City police said the 13-year-old was found safe. Kansas City police were asking for help Thursday night to find a 13-year-old boy from the citys Kirkside neighborhood on the South Side. Javontez Wilcox was last seen leaving his residence Wednesday morning around 8 a.m. near 117th Terrace and Food Lane, Sgt. Jake Becchina, a police spokesman, said Thursday night. Police were investigating his disappearance as a case of a runaway or endangered juvenile. Police say the boy suffers from a condition that requires daily medication. Wilcox stands roughly 5-foot-7 and weighs approximately 185 pounds, police said. He was wearing black sweatpants, a black T-shirt and white-and-orange tennis shoes at the time he was last seen. Police were asking anyone with information regarding Wilcoxs whereabouts to call KCPDs Juvenile Section at 816-234-5150. Looks like another baby could soon be on the way for Kate Middleton and Prince William! The royal couple currently have three childrenaka Prince George (heir to the throne, casual), Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louisbut apparently Kate wants a fourth and William's officially on board with the plan. Kate has been talking about wanting another baby for a while now," a source tells Us Weekly. "She has always wanted four children, and while William was originally happy with three, she has managed to twist his arm. [Their pals] wouldnt be surprised if well be hearing an announcement early next year." Photo credit: Pool/Samir Hussein - Getty Images TBD on what Kate and William's private/actual plans are, but Kate has opened up in the past about wanting another childand recently, she said she was feeling "broody" during a solo royal tour of Denmark. ICYMI, the Princess of Wales made the comment while visiting with researchers at the Copenhagen Infant Mental Health Project, reportedly saying working with kids makes me very broody. William always worries about me meeting under-one-year-olds. I come home saying, Lets have another one. And this isnt the first time Kates made comments about having another child. Back in 2019, she was asked about a potential "baby number four" and once again said she felt broody, joking, I think William would be a little worried. More recently (over the summer) she and William met a baby during a royal engagement and he joked, Dont give my wife any more ideas! Kate and William recently moved their family of five to a brand new home, Adelaide Cottage, and a friend told People, "They love that the kids can go out on their bikes and cycle around the estate, and they are all really excited to meet everyone. It's a real little community." Story continues The couple are expected to move to Windsor Castle proper eventually, where they'll definitely have more room for a growing family! You Might Also Like Kathie Lee Gifford (left) and Regis Philbin. (Photo: NBC via Getty Images) Kathie Lee Gifford (left) and Regis Philbin. (Photo: NBC via Getty Images) Kelly Ripas hotly anticipated memoir is finally out, but Kathie Lee Gifford is going to pass on picking up a copy. Appearing Monday on Fox 5s Good Day New York, Gifford said she was taken aback by reports of eyebrow-raising comments that Ripa made in the book about Regis Philbin, their shared talk show co-host. I was very sorry to see the headlines, Gifford said. I saw that, and I went: Oh, I hope this isnt true. I just hope it isnt. Because whats the point? I dont get it. She continued: Im not going to read the book. I havent read it. I dont even know if its out yet. I just know ... what Regis was to me. Gifford, an Emmy winner, worked with Philbin on ABCs Live With Regis and Kathie Lee from 1985 to 2000. In 2001, Ripa was named as Giffords successor, with the morning talk show renamed Live With Regis and Kelly. Watch Kathie Lee Giffords Good Day New York interview below. Gifford joined NBCs Today in 2008 and parted ways with the program in 2019. In Ripas book Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, released in September she said Philbins initial demeanor toward her wasnt the most welcoming. There were good and bad days, Ripa told People last month. I dont want to feel like Im slamming anyone or that Im being disrespectful. But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk. Philbin retired from Live With Regis and Kelly in 2011, after which he was replaced by a series of co-hosts, including Michael Strahan from 2012 to 2016 and Ryan Seacrest starting in 2017. He died in 2020 at age 88. As for Philbins 2017 suggestion that his relationship with Ripa became strained after his retirement, she told People, You cant make a person befriend you. Kelly Ripa (left) and Philbin in 2005. (Photo: James Devaney via Getty Images) Kelly Ripa (left) and Philbin in 2005. (Photo: James Devaney via Getty Images) In this weeks Good Day New York appearance, Gifford said she was concerned over how Philbins widow, Joy, would interpret Ripas remarks. She also stated that her own relationship with Philbin was a world away from Ripas. Story continues We were dear friends. And after I left the show, for the next 20 years, we became better friends, dearer friends, she said. We never had an argument, not an unkind word in 15 years. Im not going to say anything ugly about anybody, she continued. I never have, and Im not going to start now. Im just saying my reality is something completely different from that. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Kimberly Warmsley does not remember the last time a string of homicides so deeply affected her community as the seven slayings that have rocked the cities of Stockton and Oakland. Related: A shooting killed their student. Now two California teachers are educating kids about gun violence All of this keeps me up at night, said Warmsley, who serves as a city council member in the northern California city of Stockton. Its caused some of our residents, especially in our Hispanic community, to be a little disturbed and uneasy. Authorities said this month that a serial killer was probably responsible for the shootings of six people in Stockton and one in Oakland since April 2021. Ballistics tests and some surveillance video have linked the shootings nearly 70 miles apart and Stocktons police chief, Stanley McFadden, called the shooter mission-oriented. Officials have not said whether they believe theres a motive behind the killings or if victims had been targeted, and have not provided a detailed description of the shooter, but five of the victims were Latino men ranging from ages 21 to 54, which has left the community reeling. After reviewing surveillance footage, detectives located an unidentified person of interest in the killings. Photograph: AP The first known victim was Juan Vasquez Serrano, 40, who was shot and killed at 4.18am on 10 April 2021 in Oakland. Six days later, an unsheltered Black woman, 46, heard someone walking around her tent around 3.20am in Stockton. She told investigators a man about 6ft tall, wearing a black Covid mask, dark-colored hoodie and dark-colored pants, shot her multiple times. She is, thus far, the sole survivor, the only Black victim and the only female victim. The woman was able to defend herself by going toward the shooter, who lowered his gun, police have said. On 8 July, Paul Yaw, 35, was shot and killed around 12.30am in a park off Kermit Lane. He is the shooters only white victim and was also unsheltered. Since Yaws death, several other deaths have been linked to the killing spree: Salvador Debudey Jr, 43, and Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, in August; and Juan Cruz, 52, and Lawrence Lopez Sr, 54, in September. Story continues While the same gun has been used for all homicides, authorities have not ruled out multiple shooters. However, video surveillance released by the Stockton police department shows a single man who they have identified as a person of interest in the murders. Stockton police did not immediately respond to interview requests by the Guardian. Stanley McFadden, the Stockton police chief, updates reporters on the investigation into the killings. Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP This is pretty critical right now, Warmsley says. And people are afraid, as they should be. Victims of convenience Father Nelson Rabell preaches at Santa Maria Peregrina, Stocktons independent Lutheran Spanish-speaking church, where the majority of church members are in some way connected to farm work. Most families are from the Michoacan state in Mexico; many have mixed status. The shootings have occurred late at night or in the early morning, presenting a fear-inducing public safety issue for Stocktons large farm working population, who often wake up early to commute to the Central Valley, return home after dark and are largely Latino. Its caused some of our residents, especially in our Hispanic community, to be a little disturbed and uneasy Kimberly Warmsley Anxiety, yes. I cant deny it, said Rabell in response to how his congregation felt about the serial killer. He said mothers with young children had to drop off their children at friends houses during the dark, early morning hours, and then commute to work in the fields. As the days shorten and get darker, peoples concern about their exposure to a serial killer, who strikes at night and in darkness, is growing. [It is] no doubt inhumane, he said. I wouldnt venture to say what the motivation is. No doubt hate is behind it. Whatever form of hate it is. Its inhuman, and should not be tolerated regardless of motivation. Robert Schug, a California State University criminology professor, said the majority of the victims were homeless or people who were out in the middle of the night. The victims were vulnerable, he says, and the killer was going out and shooting whomever the person could find. Serial killers dont target 300lb linebackers, he said, adding that the Stockton victims were victims of convenience. Schug, a forensic psychologist, said the shooter appears to have his life set up to where he has a job that lets him be out in the middle of the night. Or, he doesnt have a job. He uses a gun, which Schug says represents a lack of physical investment, and proximity seems to be important due to the closeness of the Stockton crime scenes. He seems to know where the dark streets are, which might suggest some familiarity. Its also possible the killer lives in the area between Stockton and Oakland, and commutes into the city to commit murder, Schug said. We have to get over this notion that there is one singular mindset of a serial killer Robert Schug We have to get over this notion that there is one singular mindset of a serial killer, he said, calling such people a heterogeneous group with significant variability in their approaches and ideology. Officials comments on the shootings being mission-oriented signal there must be some evidence indicating the killer is targeting people specifically for being homeless or for their ethnicity, Schug suggested. Police have way more info than they are letting us know, he said. But crimes within and against unhoused populations are exceptionally hard to investigate, Schug says. Californias unsheltered are vulnerable and transient, he says. Some individuals dont necessarily want to cooperate with police for fear of being investigated for other crimes, he adds. Police are also walking a fine line between informing the public and not exposing investigative tactics. Warmsley said Stockton police were out communicating with the citys unsheltered communities, a daunting task considering the citys growing numbers of people who live in encampments. After San Joaquin countys most recent Point in Time Count, which attempts to quantify the number of homeless people in each city, ABC 10 reported that Stockton is home to two-thirds of the countys unsheltered people. At the end of the day, theres only one race and thats the human race, Warmsley argues. No matter what your living situation may or may not be, it can never mandate how people should treat you. The fact that individuals may or may not be targeted because of their living conditions or economic status doesnt mean they are less than a human being. Its totally unacceptable. Stockton police department is offering a $125,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer at-large. Kelly Ripa joked that husband Mark Consuelos was getting "attention on the street" during her show Thursday. Ripa just released her new book, "Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories," which landed her on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Despite the success, the memoir has received criticism over Ripa's portrayal of her working relationship with Regis Philbin. "Boy, are you getting attention on the street. That's all I know," Ripa joked at the start of "Live! with Kelly and Ryan." "Am I really?" Consuelos responded. KELLY RIPA SILENT AS MEMOIR RECEIVES CRITICISM FOR HER COMMENTS ABOUT REGIS PHILBIN "I've been noticing that. A lot of attention on the street." Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos leave their Upper East Side apartment Oct. 13. Ripa is drawing criticism after some say she disrespected Regis Philbin in her new book, "Live Wire." Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos in New York City. Kathie Lee Gifford has said she won't read Ripa's book due to her criticism of Regis Philbin. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Conseulos quickly changed the subject. "Before we start, I have to congratulate you. New York Times bestselling author two weeks in a row," he said as the audience applauded. The former "All My Children" star also shared her thoughts on Instagram. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would be possible," she wrote. "Thank you for loving Live Wire! You are the wind beneath my long winded ness! Thank you! Yes, YOU!" Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos KELLY RIPA CONTROVERSIES: REGIS PHILBIN WASN'T THE ONLY LIVE! CO-HOST IN TENSE RELATIONSHIP WITH TV ANCHOR Ripa revealed her rocky behind-the-scenes professional relationship with Philbin in the book. Philbin died in 2020 of a heart attack. The television actress wrote that she was not given the same benefits as the men she was surrounded by and claimed she had to "earn" her place at the television show. Ripa hosted the show alongside Philbin from 2001 until he retired in 2011. "I don't want to feel like I'm slamming anyone or that I'm being disrespectful," she told People magazine about working with Philbin. "But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk. It took years to earn my place there and earn things that are routinely given to the men I worked with." Ripa also told People that her agent warned her not to bring an entourage to the show. She says when she arrived with two people for hair and makeup, Philbin told Executive Producer Michael Gelman, "Uh-oh, Gelman, it's got an entourage." Ripa says his comment made her feel "horrible." Story continues The book has been met with criticism. Kathie Lee Gifford, another of Philbin's former co-hosts, noted she believes in "freedom of expression," but will not be reading Ripa's book. "Im a big believer in freedom of expression. I dont believe were supposed to cancel anybody. She has the right to tell her story as she remembers it," Gifford exclusively told Fox News Digital. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER " My experience with Regis was one of the greatest experiences of my entire life. I worked with him for 15 years. We never had one unkind word between us." Kelly's husband Mark has been subbing for Ryan Seacrest this week. Seacrest revealed he has COVID-19 for the first time. "I don't know how I avoided it for so long, but, unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID-19 a few days ago, and I'm currently in quarantine," Seacrest shared with his followers on Instagram. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "While I'm feeling the usual symptoms, I hope to make a quick recovery." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images In an unprecedented move, the Jan. 6 House panel on Thursday subpoenaed Donald Trump to testify. The nine-member panel only has two Republicans neither of whom were appointed by Rep. Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy's decision not to participate in the probe was ultimately a "mistake," a politics expert said. The January 6 House panel on Thursday closed what well may have been its final public hearing with an unprecedented conclusion: the congressional committee unanimously voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify. But the blockbuster finale, along with the panel's eight prior hearings, could have unfolded differently if not for the political makeup of the committee. The nine-member House Select Committee investigating the 2021 insurrection includes seven Democrats and two Republicans, all of whom were appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The only two GOP members, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, bucked party expectations to serve on the panel even after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opted not to appoint any Republican members to the committee during its formation last summer. It's a decision that members of the GOP started to publicly second-guess in June amid the peak of the panel's public hearings and one which looks even more foolhardy following Thursday's ninth hearing, which ended with a "blockbuster" subpoena, according to Asher Hildebrand, associate professor of politics at Duke University. "It's a huge tactical mistake in hindsight," Hildebrand told Insider. "In his heart of hearts, I think he would agree." McCarthy's resistance to participating in the investigation came in summer of 2021 after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected his first two choices Indiana Rep. Jim Banks and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, two tried and true Trump allies prompting the Republican leader to pull his party's support in full. His decision ensured that the bipartisan panel was staffed only by Trump critics and nary a sensitive vote for the former president. Story continues "Whatever opportunity he had to affect the narrative that the committee has very effectively presented or to disrupt its proceedings, he relinquished when he decided not to take it seriously," Hildebrand said of McCarthy. A representative for McCarthy did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. The makeup of the committee thus left the Republican party almost entirely in the dark as the panel issued hundreds of subpoenas and ultimately presented a slate of damning witness testimony about Trump's actions on January 6, 2021, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump himself even slammed McCarthy's decision earlier this summer. "Unfortunately, a bad decision was made," Trump told conservative radio host Wayne Allyn Root in June. "It was a bad decision not to have representation on that committee. That was a very, very foolish decision." And while the hearings have ultimately done little to sway public opinion in a meaningful way, the committee has effectively built a compelling case for further criminal action against Trump, Hildebrand said. "Maybe the committee's job was never to persuade Trump supporters to abandon him so much as it was to build the most effective case they could for additional criminal action," he told Insider. The former president already faces a slew of legal troubles, and recent reporting from The Atlantic suggests Attorney General Merrick Garland could be gearing up for further action. But whether the DOJ decides to bring criminal charges against Trump for his role in the January 6 attack remains to be seen. The committee's Thursday hearing came weeks before the tight 2022 midterm election where Democrats and Republicans are battling for control of Congress. But the panel's longterm, historical impact may not become fully clear until 2024, Hildebrand said. If Trump is legally disqualified from running in 2024, or politically disqualified meaning the committee's hearings or other cultural factors leave the door open for another GOP nominee to take his place then history will likely look back on the panel's work as helping to "prevent a grave threat to American democracy from happening again," Hildebrand said. But with Trump continually teasing a 2024 campaign, that's far from assured. Read the original article on Business Insider Donald Trump. Illustrated | Getty Images Throughout what was likely its final hearing, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack focused on former President Donald Trump's mindset and motivation leading up to the 2021 riot. During the Thursday proceedings, members presented new evidence showing how Trump planned in advance to declare victory on election night, then later voted unanimously to subpoena the former president. Here's everything you need to know: How did the hearing start off? The committee's chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), opened the hearing by noting that "when you look back at what has come out through this committee's work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans. The evidence that has emerged did not come from Democrats or opponents of Donald Trump. Instead, look at who has written and testified and produced evidence: aides who have worked loyally for Donald Trump for years; Republican state officials and legislators; Republican electors; the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; political professionals who worked at the highest levels of the Trump campaign; Trump appointees who served in the most senior positions in the Justice Department; President Trump's staff and closest advisors in the White House; members of President Trump's family, his own White House counsel." Not all of these witnesses "were thrilled to talk to us, some put up quite a fight, but ultimately the vast majority cooperated with our investigation," Thompson continued. The committee's investigation "is not about politics," he added. "It's not about party. It's about the facts, plain and simple, and it's about making sure our government functions under the rule of law as our Constitution demands." What new evidence was presented? It was known before Thursday that Trump allies like political operative Roger Stone and former aide Stephen Bannon had openly discussed Trump's intention to declare victory on election night regardless of the outcome. "He's not going down easy," Bannon said in a recording played during the hearing. "If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy s--t." The committee also shared an email sent on Oct. 31, 2020, by Tom Fitton, a conservative activist and head of Judicial Watch, to White House aides Dan Scavino and Molly Michael. The email included the line, "We had an election today and I won," and claimed, falsely, that there was an "Election Day deadline" to count ballots. Fitton sent a follow-up on Nov. 3 and indicated he had been in touch with Trump on the matter, writing, "Just talked to him about the draft below." Story continues Further, the panel played video testimony of former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin, who said she went to the Oval Office to see Trump in the week after the election. He was watching television, and when Biden appeared onscreen, Griffin said he told her, "Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?" It was also revealed that, after the election was called for Biden, Trump ordered the withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan before Biden's inauguration. In video testimony, military officials said it would have been disastrous had these orders actually been enacted. The committee said the order showed that Trump knew he had lost and was trying to tie up loose ends before leaving the White House. "Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defense," the committee's vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), said. "There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational." What other video was shown? The committee also shared new footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) working to coordinate a response to the riot mob, with Schumer at one point asking Jeffrey Rosen, the then-acting attorney general, to "get the president to tell [the rioters] to leave the Capitol." Pelosi, meanwhile, could be seen pushing to finish the certification of the election results amid the chaos; calling Virginia's then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to ask for help from the state's National Guard; and watching CNN's coverage of the attack while in a secure location. "It's just horrendous," she said. "And all at the instigation of the president of the United States." Did the committee present information from the Secret Service? Yes. Though the Secret Service deleted text messages sent around the time of the Capitol attack, some emails and documents were turned over to the committee, including a memo stating that the agency had received reports regarding "calls to occupy federal buildings" and conversations about "intimidating Congress and invading the Capitol building" prior to the riot. The panel also shared a tip forwarded by the FBI to the Secret Service in December 2020, in which a source warned that the far-right group the Proud Boys believed "they will have a large enough group to march into [Washington, D.C.] armed." "Their plan is to literally kill people, the source continued. "Please, please take this tip seriously and investigate further." Did the committee bring up its interview with conservative activist Ginni Thomas? No. The committee recently interviewed Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, about emails and text messages she sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Arizona legislators about efforts to challenge the election results. But investigators said there wasn't "significant enough evidence" to feature this interview during the hearing, The New York Times reports. Similarly, the panel also decided against bringing up discussions Cabinet members had about using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump. Was Thursday's proceeding considered a hearing? Technically, it was a formal committee business meeting, which gave the panel the opportunity to vote on whether to subpoena Trump. The committee members voted unanimously to do so, with Cheney saying, "We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, and every American is entitled to those answers so we can act now to protect our republic." What do people expect Trump will do about the subpoena? The reaction is mixed. It's likely Trump will resist an appearance before the committee, which would force the panel into "a lengthy process of trying to compel his testimony," writes The Washington Post's Aaron Blake. It will become a non-issue, however, if Republicans take control of the House in the midterm elections, since they will almost certainly put an end to the committee in January. The Times' Charlie Savage notes that while Trump has been highly critical of the committee and his lawyers may tell him not to testify "since answering questions under oath could risk perjury charges if he lies," the former president has reportedly been telling aides he would like the opportunity to speak to the panel as long as it's during an interview that is aired live on television. What are the committee's next steps? The panel must now present to Congress a report on what was learned during its riot investigation, influencing factors that contributed to the attack, and recommendations on how to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future. The report will draw from the more than 1,000 interviews conducted by the panel, and the millions of emails, text messages, photos, records, and other documents collected. The goal had been to get this report written in a narrative to make it engaging and easy to follow finished before the midterms, but it's unclear if the document will be ready in time. The Times says committee staffers have been "working around the clock" to finish the report, describing it as a "gargantuan and consequential document." You may also like 5 cartoons about Alex Jones' billion-dollar penalty Climate protesters throw tomato soup on Van Gogh painting Harvard's record endowment shrinks for 1st time since 2016 In Support of 'A Declaration for Orthodox Christian Unity in America,' No. 3 NEWS PROVIDED BY Orthodox Christian Laity Oct. 14, 2022 WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 14, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Peter Zarras, President, and George D. Karcazes, Secretary, Orthodox Christian Laity: To the Orthodox Christian Faithful in America: On July 5, 2022, A Declaration for Orthodox Christian Unity in America was published and widely distributed. It addresses the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America (ACOB) and solicits the signatures and support of all Orthodox Christians to reassure the Hierarchy of the rectitude of the call for a united, autocephalous American Orthodox Church. Concern: I am uncomfortable signing my name on a Declaration addressed to Hierarchs, who might view this as disrespectful. In America, the opportunity to inform and petition is part of our national character and identity. A close reading of the Declaration reveals that it is respectful in tone and content. The call for its endorsement by the entire body of the most informed and engaged clergy and laity is intended to assure the Hierarchs that the faithful in America support unity and autocephaly. Concern: I am afraid that an autocephalous American Orthodox Church could fall under the influence of Putin/Russia. The Declaration addresses the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the U.S., which is composed of 55 bishops from twelve jurisdictions: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America Orthodox Church in America (OCA) Moscow Patriarchal Parishes in the USA Serbian Orthodox Church in North, Central, and South America Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada, and Australia Georgian Apostolic Orthodox Church in North America Albanian Orthodox Diocese Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia As of September 14, 2018, the Moscow Patriarchate and the churches under its jurisdiction interrupted their participation in the Assembly due to the 2018 Moscow-Constantinople schism. While the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and the Moscow Patriarchate have some bishops and parishes in America, their ability to influence the direction of Orthodoxy in America, represented by the twelve jurisdictions that comprise the Assembly, is minimal. Moreover, because the Moscow Patriarchate supports the Russian Army's invasion of brother Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and due to other actions in Europe and America, Russian influence in American Orthodoxy is steadily diminishing. Concern: An autocephalous American Orthodox Church uniting the currently divided jurisdictions would be susceptible to becoming either more fundamentalist or more liberal, affecting its response to present-day social and cultural issues that the Church must address. The Orthodox Church is Synodal and Conciliar. Through its Synods and Councils, it seeks not only to preserve the doctrines and teachings of the Church but also to discern the mind (phronema) of the whole Church regarding issues that require attention, discussion and response. Unifying the jurisdictions represented in the Assembly into a single Synod is the proper canonical response to the present situation in America. It is the only way to prevent the ongoing decline and possible defection of some segments into the Fundamentalist or Liberal extremes that will further fracture the American Orthodox Church. We must trust that the 55 canonical bishops in the Assembly, together with theologians, scholars, and informed and engaged laity guided by the Holy Spirit, will have the collective wisdom to navigate the issues confronting the Church in America. Concern: A united, autocephalous Orthodox Church in America must include, at the very least, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese (GOA), the Antiochian Archdiocese, and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The Antiochian Archdiocese claims that it is autonomous. The OCA is already de facto autocephalous. Therefore, doesn't it make sense for the GOA to seek to become autonomous as a first step to autocephaly? The history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church in America, through the succession of charters from 1932 to date and more recent events, renders any autonomy in a new charter from the Ecumenical Patriarchate meaningless. Examples of those actions include the unilateral imposition, amendment, suspension, and reinstatement of charters and the forced retirement and removal of hierarchs. A universally-recognized self-governance is necessary for the proper organization, administration, and functioning of the Church in America. The leadership of the Mother Churches often argues that the Church in America is not mature enough to be self-governing. However, it is the refusal of the Mother Churches to allow their offspring in America to cooperate freely and work together that prevents the local Church from displaying this maturity and fulfilling the mandates of the Gospel. Without autocephaly, the bishops cannot act freely within their local Church. Instead, they remain subject to the foreign Synods that appoint and can remove them for any or no reason. By endorsing the Declaration, the faithful in America declare that they accept the call and responsibility to be the local Church and will continue to honor and support the ancient Patriarchates and the Mother Churches. The Mother Churches, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate that created the Assembly and exhorted it to do its work, must accept that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving the Church in America the blessing to self-govern and join the ranks of autocephalous Orthodox Churches. PUBLIUS OCL is a 35-year-old 501(c)(3) educational ministry advocating for the administrative unity, accountability, transparency and conciliar governance of all Orthodox Christian jurisdictions in America as one local, autocephalous Church. SOURCE Orthodox Christian Laity CONTACT: David Oancea, Executive Director, 517-795-7784 Related Links https://ocl.org bit.ly/declarationunity Photo: Visit Las Vegas The wife of an Alberta man who was fatally stabbed in a random attack on the Las Vegas Strip last week is remembering him as a kid at heart. Brent Hallett had been travelling the world with his wife Carmelita since April 2021 looking for their forever-home. Carmelita Hallett says her husband loved Disneyland and was a gregarious old soul. Another person was killed in the attack and six others were wounded by a man wielding a kitchen knife. The suspect has been taken into custody on two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder. Carmelita Hallett says she plans to organize a charity called "Jumpy" in honour of her husband's life and love for animals. By Soo-hyang Choi SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean police said on Friday they had detained two Liberian government officials over the alleged rape of two teenagers in South Korea. The men, in their 30s and 50s, respectively, were arrested on the spot at a hotel in the southeastern city of Busan on Thursday after a friend of the alleged victims reported the case to the police, Busan police said. A Seoul Foreign Ministry official said the ministry was reviewing whether the two Liberians were entitled to diplomatic immunity. Police said they planned to seek formal arrest warrants for the two men, which would allow them to hold the suspects in custody for up to 10 days. Reuters was not immediately able to contact the Liberian officials or their lawyers to seek comment. The Liberian embassy in Tokyo, which oversees Korean affairs, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. (Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Jon Boyle) Kristin Smart disappeared 26 years ago. (The Record / Tribune News Service) The jury considering the fate of Ruben Flores, who is accused of aiding his son Paul Flores in the murder of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Kristin Smart, must begin deliberations again after one of the jurors had to be replaced Thursday after talking to his priest. Monterey County Superior Court Judge Jennifer O'Keefe excused Juror No. 262 on the fourth day of deliberations after a female juror informed the court the man had admitted to speaking to his priest during confession about his struggles with the case. Chloe Jones of the San Luis Obispo Tribune broke the news of the juror's replacement. The juror said he did not discuss any specifics of the case but said he had to cleanse his body. "There's people's lives at stake," he told the judge, according to the podcast "Your Own Backyard." O'Keefe also heard from the female panel member, who had sent a note to the judge reporting the incident. She told the judge the male juror indicated to her he could only discuss the case inside the confessional. However, O'Keefe has warned both juries in the trial not to discuss the case with anyone, including spiritual advisors. Flores, 81, is being tried along with his 45-year-old son, Paul Flores, in the murder of Smart, who went missing after a Memorial Day party in 1996. Two juries heard evidence simultaneously during the 11-week trial before beginning separate deliberations last week. To find Ruben Flores guilty of accessory to murder, the jury must first find that his son committed first- or second-degree murder. O'Keefe said that the appearance of impropriety could be as bad as actual impropriety and that she needed to protect the record in the case. She opted to excuse the man and swear in an alternate a woman while directing the jury to begin deliberations again from scratch. San Luis Obispo County Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Peuvrelle told jurors during closing arguments that Ruben Flores helped his son conceal Smart's remains under the deck of his Arroyo Grande, Calif., house for decades. Story continues Peuvrelle said that when Paul Flores killed the college student in May 1996 inside his dorm, he made a call. "He knew the one person who would help with a dead girl on his bed was his father," the prosecutor said. "It was his version of a 911 call." Peuvrelle said Flores raped or attempted to rape and eventually killed Smart, 19, before hiding her remains with the help of his father. Although Smart's body has never been found, she was declared legally dead in 2002. The prosecutor said testimony from two women identified during the trial as Sarah Doe and Rhonda Doe who said Flores raped them decades after Smart vanished supports the prosecution's theory that he sexually assaulted Smart, then killed her and hid her remains. Her body was the key evidence of a crime, Peuvrelle said, noting: "Ruben Flores has been helping him for the last 26 years." But Harold Mesick, Ruben Flores' attorney, said Smart may still be missing. "The state has done a great job of demonizing Paul Flores and my client," the defense attorney said in his closing remarks. But "my client is absolutely innocent. He has not dug a grave in his life. I think this case screams reasonable doubt." Mesick called the prosecution's theory that Ruben Flores helped his then-19-year-old son move a body from his dormitory room and bury it beneath his deck where the remains were allegedly removed in 2020 "ludicrous." "There are no bones, no teeth, no body parts. Kristin Smart may be just missing," he said. "She was not happy at Cal Poly. It is reasonable to infer she is alive somewhere." Smart was last seen walking with Paul Flores near residence halls on campus on May 25, 1996, after attending a party. But Peuvrelle told jurors that Flores, a fellow Cal Poly student, had hunted her for months, frequently appearing where she was, including her dormitory. The night of the party, he appeared out of the darkness to walk her home after she had passed out on a lawn, the prosecutor said. Since the trial's start in July, Peuvrelle has sought to piece together a narrative of how during a four-day period when Flores was not seen on campus, he allegedly removed Smart's body with the help of his father and buried it beneath the deck of his father's Arroyo Grande house. Ruben Flores, the prosecutor alleged, kept people away from the deck for years. Then, in 2020, as police were zeroing in on the house, a neighbor testified that she saw a trailer back up to the property. Peuvrelle said that when officials eventually searched Flores' home after his arrest in April 2021, they found a "trophy room" with multiple items tied to the Smart investigation, including a note that stated, "Dig the yard." A soil scientist and archaeologist testified that ground radar readings showed an anomaly in the soil and indications of bodily fluids that were consistent with a body having been buried and removed, the prosecutor repeatedly reminded jurors. The hole was 6 by 4 by 4 feet. Archaeologist Cindy Arrington, Peuvrelle noted, said that the hole was dug by hand and that fluid had leaked into the soil slowly, creating a bath-like ring. Showing slides from a PowerPoint presentation, Peuvrelle said that a chemical test conducted by an independent lab showed "positive" for the presence of human blood in the soil, and that fibers recovered from the soil matched the colors of Smart's clothing. Mesick, however, said expert defense witnesses indicated the blood test that was used is invalid for soil. He said there would have been gallons of liquid had a body been there. "The amount of blood is so minuscule ... it could be anyone's blood. It could be Ruben Flores' blood," he said. "I am going to tell you it is not Kristin Smart's blood." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. (Janice Chang / For The Times) Just make sure not to order too much food, because I only brought a certain amount of money with me. My date said this to me after the waiter at Bossa Nova handed us our menus. It was a Saturday night in Hollywood, and this was my first date in Los Angeles after being offered a job at UCLA. I had been looking forward to a date with a hot new guy to celebrate my accomplishment and my impending move to L.A. I had lived in San Diego for 20 years. I moved there from Chino, my hometown, to attend San Diego State University, and I spent many years as an executive assistant in higher education. Over the years, most of my closest friends relocated to L.A., and life in San Diego became a lot lonelier. Between 2016 and 2018, I lost my father to Alzheimers, a boyfriend to drug addiction, and my confidence and enthusiasm for meeting anyone new and trustworthy. In 2021, after nailing my UCLA interview, I was finally ready to move to L.A. I was fully vaccinated and had stimulus checks saved in my bank account. But which L.A. neighborhood would I call home? I couldnt possibly afford the deluxe homes of Brentwood, but I also didnt want to spend hours in traffic trying to get to my preferred Eastside and Valley neighborhoods Eagle Rock, Glendale or South Pasadena. The week of my UCLA interview, I crashed at my friend Kims house in El Sereno. While at her place, I was chatting with Antonio on the dating app Hinge. He was of Brazilian descent, tall, dark and handsome, and he was a professor from Mid-Wilshire who was very charming via text. As the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants, I was excited to meet a fellow South American. Growing up Latina in Southern California but not of Mexican descent has always made me feel like an outsider. Living biculturally comes with many unique challenges, such as translating documents for your parents while trying to complete your Shakespeare homework and explaining to your parents what prom is and why its important. Story continues Then theres that extra feeling of not belonging to a specific culture or place (for example, telling my Mexican American college roommate that I grew up eating pan instead of tortillas and aji instead of salsa verde). This has been my lifelong struggle, and the possibility of finding a person who could empathize in my soon-to-be city excited me that afternoon in El Sereno as I exchanged messages with a handsome stranger. As I strolled the area behind Cal State L.A. with Kim, Antonio called and asked if Id want to meet for dinner that night. I live at Park La Brea. You know it, right? Umm, no, I said, but I can Google it. You can park at my place, and Ill drive us to the Grove. He seemed a nice enough guy, and I liked that he had a plan a rarity in the world of dating apps so I agreed. Turns out that Park La Brea is a behemoth of an apartment complex. It took me at least 15 minutes to figure out how to enter the complex itself, and then I drove around trying to find which building Antonio was in. I finally found him. He wore a flowing, button-up shirt perfect for the warm July night, and he had a giant smile on his face. He guided me where to park in that beast of a parking lot, and then we were on our way to the Grove. Although a native Angeleno, Antonio didnt realize that the Farmers Market next to the Grove closes early. After seeing the food stalls locked and the dimmed lights, he suggested we go to a Brazilian restaurant. Its really good. I think youll like it, he said. As we waited to get out of the Farmers Market parking lot, there was an idled black BMW in front of us blocking the exit. I figured the driver was on the phone. Instead of giving a light tap on his car horn, Antonio put his Jeep in park, jumped out of the drivers seat and walked up to the drivers side of the car. I should mention that Antonio was a little over 6 feet tall, with a muscular build and shaved head, and he had a bravado about him that would make anyone nervous, especially if he stood outside someone's driver's side window at night. The BMW sped off, and Antonio hopped back in the Jeep. What happened? What did you say? I asked. Aw, he just needed a little wake-up. At that point, I shouldve asked to be taken back to my car, but my desire to avoid conflict and my hunger outweighed my apprehension at Antonio's weird behavior. We arrived at Bossa Nova restaurant on Sunset Boulevard fairly quickly. While looking for parking, I noticed how nice some of the apartment complexes on Hawthorn Avenue were. I saw twinkling lights hanging from a balcony and giant blue and gold flags waving in the light summer breeze that announced "for rent" possibilities for buildings not normally known to have vacancies. I could smell jasmine in the air, and I saw the little white flowers bursting from the deep green bushes that adorned the front of the old Hollywood buildings. This is kind of a cute neighborhood, I said. Antonio gave a quick glance around and said, Eh, its kinda trashy. Once Antonio made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in spending more on me than you would at a Farmers Market stall, that he was an anti-vaxxer, wasnt really a professor but a karate instructor and was in between gigs, I called it quits with him but not with that neighborhood. Hollywood is a chaotic area, but my charming 1940s apartment with crown molding and wooden floors is walking distance to Bossa Nova. It has been a great first apartment in L.A. Its where I lived when I completed a long-distance masters degree and when I switched jobs from UCLA to USC. And it's where my current boyfriend snuggles with me on the couch as we browse Zillow listings for the next place I can call home. The author is a freelance writer and graduate of UC Riverside's low-residency MFA program. She is working on her first memoir and novel, and she proudly lives in L.A. Follow her on Twitter: @MichellePoveda L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $300 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A woman has been killed after she was dragged about a mile across Los Angeles while underneath her own vehicle following a carjacking, according to reports. Police said the woman died on Thursday following the carjacking, which was carried out by a murder suspect in an unrelated case, fleeing police, ABC 7 reported. The murder suspect had earlier fled from police after carjacking a vehicle in an area of south Los Angeles at 5pm, before crashing near Florence and Has Avenues, the citys police department was reported as saying by ABC 7. While police were able to take the driver and apparent accomplace of the murder suspect into custody, the murder suspect fled the scene on foot and carjacked a second vehicle, the report said. The woman driver of that car, which The Los Angeles Times reported was a grey SUV, ended up underneath the vehicle and was dragged during a police pursuit. She was pronounced dead after the vehicle crashed in Inglewood, and a two hour standoff then occurred before Los Angeles police were able to take the murder suspect into custody, The Los Angeles Times reported. The murder suspect refused to comply with officers instructions and exit the vehicle, said police spokesperson and officer Tony Im to the paper. SWAT and K9 were on scene and negotiated with the murder suspect to exit the vehicle for two hours. The murder suspect was ultimately taken into custody without incident. None of those involved have been named and, according to Mr Im, the Los Angeles police spokesperson, it was not clear if the accomplance and driver of the first crash had been arrested, or was injured. The murder suspect was meanwhile being evaluated for injuries as a result of the second crash, and he had not yet been arrested or charged on Thursday night. At what was likely to be the last January 6th Committee hearing on Thursday, the public found out how lawmakers were scrambling to restore order to Capitol Hill, even as they were forced to hide from the rioters. In addition, the committee showed just a small segment of the hundreds of thousands of pages of Secret Service communications that show their understanding of just what was going on that day. Three top officials at Facebook parent company Meta, including former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, were inadvertently accused in a federal lawsuit of taking bribes to sink competitors to OnlyFans, an online content-sharing site popular with adult entertainers. Since February, a group of adult entertainers have been suing Meta, its Facebook and Instagram sub-brands, as well as OnlyFans and its parent company, accusing the companies and a trio of unnamed Meta execs of using tools meant to screen out terrorist and other dangerous content to blacklist rival adult sites. In a Tuesday filing , attorneys for OnlyFanss parent company Fenix Internet, LLC, named the executives at issue as Nick Clegg, Metas VP of global affairs; Nicola Mendelsohn, VP of the companys global business team; and a third leader named Cristian Perrella, listed on a LinkedIn page as Facebooks trust and safety director, Gizmodo reports . In another document the following day, Fenix said it had inadvertently unredacted the names of the executives and asked the court to remove the document from the record. Previously, filings contained mention of three unnamed John Doe executives at Meta, who the suit accuses of taking bribes in the alleged scheme via offshore bank accounts. As we make clear in our motion to dismiss , we deny these allegations as they lack facts, merit, or anything that would make them plausible. The allegations are baseless, a Meta spokesperson told the site. In court filings, OnlyFans has called the action from entertainers Dawn Dangaard, Kelly Gilbert, Jennifer Allbaugh a meritless lawsuit. The redaction drama is the latest twist in a suit that reads like a spy novel for the social media age. Last week, a lawyer for the plaintiffs submitted a still-sealed filing containing copies of wire transfers involved in the alleged scheme, which they claim come from an anonymous tipster and show the Meta executives using Philippines bank accounts to accent the OnlyFans money. Story continues The social media has argued in court that the legal action doesnt meet the standard of plausibility to even bring a suit, and that even if the alleged scheme did occur, Meta itself wouldnt be liable for the actions of a rogue employee and would be protected from prioritising various content on its sites by the First Amendment and various federal laws. The highly charged lawsuit isnt the only challenge facing Mr Clegg. Missouri parents have filed a lawsuit alleging their 13-year-old child, who has autism and cannot speak, was repeatedly assaulted by teachers and staff at the Ozark Horizon State School. The civil lawsuit, originally filed in Howell County, was moved this week to the federal court in Springfield. The parents allege at least four employees assaulted their son in March 2022 and some of the incidents were reportedly caught on video. The alleged abuse included kicking and shoving the boy, striking the boy's head against a wall, hitting him in the face with a pillow, striking the boy hard enough to knock him out of his seat, yelling at the boy just inches from his ear and pulling his hair multiple times while saying "Yeah? That hurts a little, doesn't it?" Several employees also forcefully pinned the child by his head, neck and chest to a desk, the suit said. More:Willard district pays $90K to settle case of alleged sexual assault, failure to hotline The parents also allege in the suit that other employees witnessed the incidents or were aware of them and failed to stop the abuse or report the abuse to any appropriate law enforcement or child protective agency. Attorney Dayrell Scrivner, who represents the parents, said they were motivated to file the lawsuit to make the public aware of the situation and "get changes made." The boy, who has been diagnosed with severe developmental disabilities, was not able to speak, object to the abuse or report the abuse. He had attended the state school for "at least a couple years," Scrivner said. The parents said in the suit that they were not told about the abuse. Instead, they said they were told by employees that their child had "destroyed" a classroom and needed to be removed from the school. They were also told that even in-home educational services for their child were to be halted for the "safety of the school employees." According to the suit, the boy was not violent and it was employees at the state school who threw items on the floor and overturned furniture to stage the classroom they allege the boy had "destroyed." Story continues The parents met with law enforcement and were able to view video from the school showing the assaults, the suit said. They asked that charges be pursued against the employees. "They were called to remove him from the school. That is how they found out there were problems," Scrivner said. "They had been told it was him. It wasn't until later that the police saw the video ... that they were even aware that there was another side to it." Scrivner said corporal punishment of any kind is not allowed at the state school. He said the parents hope the suit will improve the hiring and training of future employees. The state school currently has fewer than 25 students. The suit alleges the actions of the employees and the state agencies violated the Missouri Human Rights Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. It also alleges negligence, negligent supervision, fraud, retaliation, infliction of emotional distress and civil assault and battery. The suit was filed against the state school in West Plains, the Missouri State Board of Education, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled. More:Springfield Public Schools has spent over $250K to defend against equity lawsuit, 4 others In response to a request, DESE, which oversees the state schools, said it does not comment on ongoing litigation. Seven employees were named in the suit including Sheryl Youngblood, Barbara Baker and Vernetta Burgess, all of West Plains; Karen Gore, Mountain View; Teresia Huddleston, Birch Tree; Cheryl O'Farrell-Silvia, Willow Springs; and Barbara Stark, Winona. Youngblood was the interim building administrator; Huddleston was a teacher; and Gore, Stark and O'Farrell-Silvia were teacher's aides. The website for the state school lists Youngblood as the area director. It is unclear if any of the other employees named in the suit still work for the school. The parents request a jury trial. Among other things, they ask the court to order the defendants to pay for the future care and treatment of the child, punitive damages, and legal fees. Scrivner said the boy's behavior changed after the incident. Since the boy left the school, the parents have adjusted their work schedules to care for him at home. "Someone has to be there 24/7 and they can't leave him," he said. The News-Leader left a message seeking comment from Joyce Ann Johnson, with the Missouri Attorney General's Office, who is the attorney listed for the defendants. A spokesperson for the office responded: We cant comment on our representation of state agencies in pending litigation. Separate from the civil lawsuit, several criminal charges have been filed against employees at the state school. Baker, Burgess, Gore, Huddleston, O'Farrell-Silva and Stark were charged last month with abuse or neglect of a child and endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted of either of the felony charges, the women face up to seven years in prison. All six are due in court in early November. Baker has a hearing Nov. 3. The others have a hearing on Nov. 10. Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email tips to criley@news-leader.com. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Lawsuit: MO teachers allegedly hit, kick nonverbal child with autism The trailer for Leonor Will Never Die, a wonderfully weird homage to 80s Filipino action flicks, was released on Wednesday. The film follows a once-celebrated action film director named Leonor Reyes (played by Sheila Francisco) who is inspired to finish an unfinished script after seeing a newspaper advertisement for screenplays. After she gets hit in the head by a television and falls into a coma, Reyes wakes up as the hero of the very story she sought to finish. Director Martika Ramirez Escobars debut feature-length film was screened at the Sundance International Film Flestival where it was awarded the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Innovative Spirit in January. It was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. More from NextShark: New documentary on Sihui Fang, Albuquerque spa owner who died fighting off robbers, in the works Escobar, who is a cinematographer by trade, was inspired to make the film after noticing the unforgettable natural fashion of her lecturers during her time at the Mowelfund Workshop. Our lecturers would come to class looking like action stars. Its their natural fashion: brushed up hair, sunglasses, boots, belt with a big buckle, Escobar told Filmmaker Magazine in January. I had this shallow realization that maybe its because they feel like theyre in a movie. More from NextShark: Ken Jeong to star in upcoming Chinese American comedy Tiger Mom This awareness prompted Escobar to consider the ways in which film has embedded itself into the fabric of Filipino society, especially with the influence of actors-turned-politicians like former Philippine president Joseph Estrada. So theres something about the movies that make us feel like were in them something makes us feel like we can be saved when action stars are elected as our leaders, Escobar added. So the film is asking, how does Leonor feel when shes in her own movie? More from NextShark: New Korean horror series Parasyte: The Grey underway at Netflix by Yeon Sang-ho of Hellbound, Train To Busan Featured Image via YouTube Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! Constance Wu says controversial Fresh Off the Boat tweets were in response to sexual harassment frustrations Jurors in Washington DC will determine whether the leader of a far-right anti-government militia and four others tied to the group are guilty of seditious conspiracy after plotting an attempt to violently disrupt Congress on 6 January, 2021. Stewart Rhodes and four other defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, while federal prosecutors argue that the Oath Keepers spent weeks organising their members and associates for an attack fuelled by baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Investigators and prosecutors have presented reams of evidence, including text messages and video, appearing to show Oath Keepers energising supporters with violent rhetoric, coordinating a cache of weapons and supplies, and preparing to use force while marching on the US Capitol. The trial marks the highest-profile proceedings and most significant charges yet in the aftermath of the attack separate from but parallel to a congressional investigation into the events leading up to and surrounding the assault. Here is what we have learned so far in the trial: Dozens of text messages used as evidence Mr Rhodes called on his allies to reject a potential Joe Biden presidential victory only hours after polls had closed in November 2020, kicking off the militia leaders campaign of amplifying unfounded election fraud claims to fuel plans for an attack in Washington, according to messages shown to the jury. The militia leader told defendants that patriots are taking matters into their own hands after determining that then-Vice President Mike Pence is doing nothing, according to messages shown to the court. Mr Pence ultimately certified the election results in the ceremonial proceedings after lawmakers re-convened at the Capitol hours after the attack. Patriots had sent a message, Mr Rhodes wrote to the group. You aint seen nothing yet. We are reloading! defendant Kelly Meggs replied. Story continues In audio of Mr Rhodes shared with jurors, Mr Rhodes said his only regret is that the group should have brought rifles to the Capitol. We could have fixed it right then and there. Video evidence shared with the jury included footage from The Independents November 2020 interview with Mr Rhodes in which he baselessly claimed Democrats stole the election and that Mr Bidens presidency is illigitimate. That interview was shared among members of the group, according to investigators. Jessica Watkins was sending an Independent story around that was republished on Yahoo in Nov. 2020. https://t.co/qEDqMD7rqf Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) October 11, 2022 Prosecutors have also presented evidence that the group sought an alliance with the far-right nationalist gang the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, another anti-government militia. Three days after then-President Trump told his supporters to join a wild protest on 6 January, Mr Meggs a leader of an Oath Keepers chapter in Florida began messaging potential allies. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! he wrote in a Facebook message days before the attack. Members of the Oath Keepers appear at the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021. (AP) The messages are among dozens shared with the jury, as prosecutors intend to link the defendants on- and offline coordination with the violence on 6 January. In his opening remarks, assistant US attorney Jeff Nestler told the jury that the defendants actually made it easy for you They said it out loud and in writing. Secret Service connections and attempts to reach Trump Following the 2020 election, Mr Rhodes urged Mr Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress what he characterised as a coup to unseat him. The act would allow the president to deploy military and National Guard to suppress civil unrest or insurrection. In letters shown to the jury, Mr Rhodes requested that the president mobilise the Oath Keepers, while he wrote messages to other group members claiming that he was working a back channel in an attempt to advise the president directly. Im working to get him to see other options and put them on the table, Mr Rhodes wrote in one message. Mr Meggs also asked Mr Rhodes whether the US Secret Service would allow the Oath Keepers to protect Mr Trump on 6 January. He suggested that the Secret Service would be happy to have us there, based on his alleged interactions with the agency. In another interaction, one person asked Mr Rhodes whether Mr Trumps use of the Insurrection Act would protect Oath Keepers from putting down leftists. Mr Rhodes replied: Only if he calls us up as the militia. Trump needs to know we support him in using the Insurrection Act ... and we will support him with our boots on the ground nationwide, Mr Rhodes wrote to a group chat with other Oath Keepers in December 2020. The only chance we/he has is if we scare the s*** out of them and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks if they dont do the right thing, he added. A Secret Service official confirmed that the agency did speak with members of the Oath Keepers in advance of protests in Washington in November and December as well as the Stop the Steal rally on 6 January, though law enforcement agencies typically do engage with groups ahead of planned protest activities to determine crowd sizes and assess risk. But the extent to which the agency, or the White House, was communicating with the Oath Keepers is unclear. Mr Rhodes, however, was in contact with longtime right-wing operative Roger Stone, who was protected by Oath Keepers members on 6 January. In evidence presented at the House select committees hearing on 13 October, Mr Stone is seen in videos telling supporters f*** the voting and lets get right to the violence. The committee also presented footage of Mr Stone during a separate testimony refusing to answer committee questions about whether he believed violence on 6 January was justified. The quick reaction force Neither Mr Rhodes nor defendant Thomas Caldwell are accused of entering the Capitol on 6 January, but defendants Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs and Jessica Watkins did. But central to the Justice Departments case against the Oath Keepers is a stockpile of weapons and supplies outside Washington allegedly used to evade the districts strict gun laws in advance of a potential planned attack at the Capitol. After bringing a weapon to a Comfort Inn hotel in Arlington, Virginia, the day before the assault, Oath Keepers member Terry Cummings saw a lot of firearms cases in a hotel room, according to his testimony, which was under subpoena. I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military, he said. Defence attorneys have not denied the existence of the quick reaction force or QRF stash but have argued that prosecutors have overblown its purpose, which attorneys claim was only to be used for defence or if the president invoked the Insurrection Act and needed the militias support. Remarks from Stewart Rhodes outside the court The Oath Keepers leader is set to appear on the stand in his own trial, but he has already raged against the prosecution and defended his actions in furious comments outside the courthouse. He called into the far-right conspiracy theorist network InfoWars to criticise the governments case against him and tell listeners that they should be willing to go to jail for their beliefs. During his appearance on 10 October, Mr Rhodes claimed that federal prosecutors are using the case to criminalise free speech by introducing mountains of text messages and other statements obtained by investigators. All you have to do now is allege a conspiracy a nonexistent conspiracy and then trod out your statements, your otherwise protected free speech statements, as evidence of your state of mind in support of the conspiracy charge, he said. Thats the Alice in Wonderland circumvention of the First Amendment. He appeared to compare himself to anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, telling the network that you have to be willing to take the hit if youre a person whos a freedom fighter and is standing up for rights. Because if you dont, then what you become is a slave, he added. An attorney for Mr Rhodes told NPR that his legal team has kindly asked him to stop doing interviews while the trial is underway. About 10.5% of people in Illinois eligible for new, updated COVID-19 boosters have received them in the month since they became available a percentage that worries some doctors who fear a winter surge. I think this is not top of mind for people anymore, but possibly when the fall and winter surge happens people will feel more urgency, said Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, a professor and vice chair of preventative medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Advertisement The updated boosters started going into arms in Illinois during the second week of September. The shots, made by Pfizer and Moderna, are called bivalent boosters because theyre designed to protect against COVID-19 broadly as well as against the omicron variants that are now dominant in the U.S. Eligible people, over the last month, included individuals ages 12 and older, who completed their original vaccine series, as long as it had been at least two months since their last dose or booster shot. Advertisement Of all Illinois residents, ages 12 and older including those who arent eligible for the updated boosters because they didnt get previous COVID-19 vaccines or its been less than two months since their last shot about 7.9% of the population has gotten bivalent boosters, according to the state health department. On Wednesday, bivalent boosters were authorized for children ages 5 to 11 as well. The 7.9% is a far cry from the number of Illinois residents whove received previous shots. Nearly 78% of Illinois residents ages 12 and older have completed their first two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or gotten one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, since those were authorized. Vials of the Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccine in Chicago on Oct. 6, 2022. (Michael Blackshire / Chicago Tribune) About 865,000 doses of the bivalent booster shots had been administered in Illinois as of Wednesday. Part of the reason more people arent rushing to get the boosters may be because theyre not as worried about COVID-19 as they once were. When mitigation measures faded earlier this year, many people began to feel more relaxed about COVID-19, Carnethon said. I think people think its not a big deal, she said. Much of that, really, is some false confidence because there are people who do get severely ill and there are people for whom you might not expect to have such a bad (illness) and they do. Its also possible not everyone understands how this booster is different from the last one, said Dr. Shikha Jain, an associate professor at the University of Illinois and CEO and co-founder of the Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team (IMPACT), an advocacy group of medical professionals. Jain, who is a medical oncologist, said shes seen many patients who didnt know why they might need the updated booster. Advertisement They were saying, I got a booster months ago, she said. Patients dont know exactly who is eligible or when a person is eligible, she said. People must have completed the primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine to get the updated booster. People who got the previous versions of the COVID-19 booster shot can still get the updated one, as long as its been at least two months since their last dose. If a person has just been sick with COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that person may (but doesnt have to) wait three months to get the updated booster. Jain said shed recommend a person who just had COVID-19 get it sooner than that after symptoms are gone and a rapid, at-home test shows a negative result. People also may think its not important to get the booster because COVID-19 isnt as prevalent as it once was. Cook County and its surrounding counties are all now at low COVID-19 community levels, according to the CDC. Unlike during previous stretches of the pandemic, COVID-19 doesnt seem to be sending nearly as many people to hospitals. As of Tuesday, there were 968 COVID-19 patients in Illinois hospitals far less than the more than 7,000 who filled beds during the surge last January. Jain, however, suspects that the number of overall cases may be higher than what the data shows because many people who have COVID-19 are likely testing only at home or not at all. I think, unfortunately, weve all gotten to a point now where we have COVID fatigue to the nth degree, Jain said. The thing that makes me the most sad is I see a lot of young healthy individuals that theyve gotten so fatigued that theyve stopped taking the precautions they were taking previously. They get COVID and they end up having symptoms for months. Advertisement I think a lot of people are just tired of talking about COVID, tired of thinking about COVID and would like to pretend its not here anymore, and unfortunately, thats not the way viruses and pandemics work, she said. Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said about two weeks ago he was encouraged by the number of people who had gotten bivalent boosters at that point. He cautioned people not to let their guard down, even though COVID-19 numbers were declining. As we head into fall and face a potential surge in new cases, I urge everyone who is eligible to contact their health care provider or local pharmacy to get the updated booster AND their flu shot, Vohra said in a news release. Doctors are hopeful that more people will get the bivalent boosters now that theyve been approved for children as young as 5. But, so far, children have been receiving COVID-19 vaccines at a lower rate than adults. About 39% of children ages 5 to 11 in Illinois are considered fully vaccinated, meaning they received the first two doses. Illinois seniors have proven the most eager for the bivalent boosters, with 22.3% of eligible people in that group having received them. Only 3.8% of eligible youth ages 12 to 17 have gotten the bivalent boosters. Disparities also exist between racial groups. About 6.7% of eligible Black Illinois residents have gotten the updated boosters, 4.3% of eligible Hispanic residents, 13.2% of eligible white people and 9.5% of eligible Asian residents. Advertisement lschencker@chicagotribune.com Leeds face Premier League leaders Arsenal at Elland Road on Sunday (Getty Images) Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch has described his support from the clubs hierarchy as better than anywhere Ive ever been in my life. Marschs side face Premier League leaders Arsenal at Elland Road on Sunday on the back of a five-game winless run, during which they have taken only two points. The American, 48, was asked about the pressure Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta came under last season and the value of the patience shown by his clubs board of directors. Marsch, who replaced Marcelo Bielsa in February, said: I think the support I have internally at this club is better than anywhere Ive ever been in my life. Now, I know that when you lose, questions arise. Thats normal. From you guys, from fans and everyone and I accept that. And its my responsibility to make sure we lose as little as possible and my goal is to never lose. So, thats the job. Im not afraid of that. I accept responsibility and I take it straight on. Marsch kept Leeds in the top flight by the skin of their teeth last season after inheriting a side which sat two points above the relegation zone in 16th place. The Whites made an encouraging start to the current campaign after integrating eight summer signings into their squad, by taking seven points from their first three league matches. But they have not won since beating Chelsea 3-0 at Elland Road at the end of August. Marsch added: Im here to do the job and believe Im the man to do the job. Im doing it with my staff, with my team, with the leaders in this club, with my ownership and I feel we are together. I feel incredibly supported and it empowers me to do the job I think is necessary to help us win. Leeds will be boosted by the return of Luis Sinisterra on Sunday after he missed last weeks 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace due to a one-game ban. Marsch must decide who will make way for the Colombia winger if he is to start, with Brenden Aaronson, Jack Harrison, Rodrigo and Patrick Bamford all starting at Selhurst Park. Junior Firpo is also in contention after a having minor setback on his return from a long-term knee injury, but Marsch confirmed Pascal Struijk will resume at left-back. Arsenal have dropped only three points from their first nine league games this season and secured their 11th win from 12 matches in all competitions on Wednesday night when winning 1-0 at Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League. Pigs are seen in a truck arriving at the Farmer John slaughterhouse in Vernon in 2018. (David McNew / Getty Images) To the editor: The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could decide the fate of California's animal welfare law for eggs and meat sold in the state. In reality, there is no animal, bred for people to eat, that is raised in a "humane" fashion. Breeding pigs, chickens cooped in impossibly small enclosures, cows that are inhumanely slaughtered the end result is animal torture. There's a simple (healthy, ecologically-sound, humane) way to address these inhumane activities: Stop eating meat. Alison M Grimes, Yorba Linda .. To the editor: How is California's "pig law," which forces hog farmers across the nation to change how they raise pigs, any different from the state's gas mileage rules or the eventual banning of internal combustion engines in new cars sold in California? Trent D. Sanders, La Canada Flintridge This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Looking for a holistic approach to cancer? Mexico has it Holistic medicine has been one of the sources of health and welfare throughout history; it is also part of not only body health, but it also contributes to extend and spread knowledge that is shared from generation to generation. Though organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have stated that holistic or alternative medicine is just a set of health practices that are part of the popular tradition of several countries, it is undeniable the positive effects they have had on patients who have looked for an alternative to traditional medicine. This has made people very interested in wanting to find out about this type of treatments; fortunately, Mexico has high-quality, certified medical centers that offer alternative medicine treatments. Due to the complex restrictions by the United States government in the health sector, it is hard to find medical centers that offer these services. This is why Mexico is a very attractive destination for tourists who are looking to receive treatments, especially for cancer, since these conditions tend to cause side effects on patients who have this terrible disease. The body suffers several kinds of damages when it undergoes chemical treatments, and though results can sometimes be favorable and sometimes patients are able to eradicate their condition, the damages and harm they suffer after the treatment make them victims of this chemical process. These procedures make them unable to have a good life. To schedule an appointment or learn more about alternative treatments at ITC, call MedBaja services at (619) 333-6066 or leave your information in the form down below: Immunity Therapy Center is located in Mexico, specifically in the city of Tijuana. Here, they have specialized treatments in alternative and holistic medicine that provide patients with an opportunity to face cancer, which is something that initially disheartens and demoralizes patients. Specialized treatments mean that the process is structured, not from medical processes but from the needs that each patient has; the therapy is conclusively based in adapting treatments to the levels or phases that the patient requires. That is why patients who have been treated at ITC facilities are so satisfied, as they are able to experience the care from the same doctors directly. This care is essential and is part of the alternative and holistic medicine treatment offered by ITC. From the moment the patient enters ITC facilities, doctors and all the staff in charge of the patients health, get to work. From the very first moment, they create a sense of comfort in patients, which is very important to improve their mood so that they can start recovering. Moments later, medical specialists will be in charge of analyzing every single thing about the patient and their condition. Among the many diseases that ITC treats, there are several cancer conditions such as stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, vulvar cancer, spinal cancer, etc. Infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, degenerative chronic diseases, and other conditions are also treated by ITC specialists. Find out more about a personalized treatment for your case by calling MedBaja services at (619) 333-6066, or leave your information in the form down below: Story continues Mexico has positioned itself worldwide as one of the main medical tourism destinations in the world for several reasons. One of them, besides the quality of its doctors, is the cost, compared to the costs in the United States. This is very attractive for tourists that are looking to get medical treatment, but especially for those who have tried traditional therapies, based on chemicals, and havent been able to heal completely and have run out of money. Immunity Therapy Center has several payment plans that are very affordable and take into account each patients situation. Something else that makes ITC very attractive is its geographical location. ITC is located in the city of Tijuana, a few minutes away from the San Ysidro port of entry. In addition, once patients schedule an appointment from the United States, a personal cab will wait for them at the border crossing, if it is a pedestrian crossing, or at the airport, if it is a long distance trip. This private taxi will take you to ITC facilities and will also bring you back to the airport or the pedestrian border crossing. Immunity Therapy Center has several different features besides therapies, so that patients can feel comfortable and safe once theyve decided to get treated with alternative medicine. ITC is a cancer treatment verified center, but its spectrum of therapies is wide and accessible for everyone. Find out more about alternative treatments at ITC by calling MedBaja at (619) 333-6066, or leave your information in the form down below: Learn More about Immunity Therapy Center Types of alternative cancer treatments More than 21 alternative therapies and natural treatments for cancer are combined with traditional treatments. Some of the options are: Enzyme therapy Vitamin and mineral therapies Oxygen therapy biomagnetic therapy Laser therapy HALO therapy Hyperthermia It is important to note that most stays are for six weeks, but depending on the patient and the progress of their condition, this period may be longer or shorter. Instructions are provided so that the patient can continue their treatment at home after leaving the center. This type of treatment is unique because of its use of alternative therapy, and therefore not covered by medical insurance, so each patient must pay for his or her own expenses. Patients can contact the center for help finding the best payment option. Most patients come to the center accompanied by a loved one, so that they have the support and company of someone they trust, which is crucial when undergoing treatment for disease. To learn more about the center and its therapies, visit the following link. This could be the life opportunity youve been looking for. Get in contact with a specialist and learn about Alternative Cancer Treatments in Tijuana, fill-out the contact form below: Alternative Cancer Treatment in Mexico | Survivor Testimonials Call us at MedBaja Services on (619)333-6066 to find out more about this cheap, revolutionary, and holistic approach to cancer treatment, or fill out the form below so we may contact you immediately. INDEX: CANCER TREATMENTS IN MEXICO Immunity Therapy Center focuses on the physical, spiritual, and mental health of their patients Is it safe to travel to Tijuana to receive cancer treatment? Personalized alternative cancer treatment in Tijuana What to expect from an Alternative Cancer Treatment in Mexico? What makes Tijuana a leader in alternative cancer treatments? Viral anti-cancer vaccine, an innovative alternative treatment in Tijuana Why is cancer treatment significantly more affordable in tijuana? Is it safe to receive cancer treatment out of the USA? Oxygen therapy can kill cancer cells available in Mexico How to choose a cancer center in Mexico? Where can I find a Cancer Tutor Verified Center in Tijuana? ITC: The best level of healthcare for cancer patients is in Tijuana Testimonial from a Cancer Survivor Treated in Tijuana, Mexico Guanabana: Why Fly to Tijuana, Mexico, For This Alternative Treatment? Anticancer Uses of Turmeric: Why Travel to Tijuana For This Asian Cuisine? 5 Safer Natural Alternatives to Chemotherapy Available in Tijuana, Mexico What is the Cost of Cancer Treatment in Mexico? 5 groundbreaking alternative cancer treatments in Mexico Third Space Brewing will be releasing One in Four Friday to raise awareness and funds for domestic violence organizations. Last October, the lead brewer at Milwaukee's Third Space Brewing and his wife lost their beloved niece to domestic violence. Karissa Peronto, 27, of Ashwaubenon was the victim of a murder-suicide. "She was just the kindest, sweetest soul," Matt Cisz said. "She would do anything for anyone. She was a nurse. (She was) always looking to go the extra mile to help anyone. It's tragic that ended up happening to her." Cisz was looking for a way to honor his niece's legacy and also raise awareness and funds for domestic violence prevention organizations both locally and beyond. Inspired by other national collaboration beers, he came up with the idea to create one of his own that would accomplish both of those missions. Third Space will be releasing the beer, called One in Four, on Friday to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. "It's clearly an overwhelming problem in our society," Cisz said. "One in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lifetime ... The one I've heard most recently for men is one in nine." He said he took the collaboration beer idea to his employer's leadership team late last year. Third Space is owned by Kevin Wright and Andy Gehl. "It's really amazing to have such an organization that understands how their employees are impacted in their personal lives, and are willing to not only support their vision and causes they believe in, but to get behind it and try to help in any way they can," Cisz said. Now, more than 50 breweries across the country have been inspired to join Third Space's initiative, according to a news release from the brewery. More: The cost of domestic violence in Wisconsin? A new study estimates annual economic losses at $657 million -- and growing. More: 'It is getting worse': New report shows domestic violence deaths rising in Wisconsin, highlights link between abuse and mass killings Friday release event to benefit Sojourner Third Space is hosting a One In Four release event from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday at the brewery's tap room, 1505 W. St. Paul Ave. Story continues The beer is an "approachable IPA," according to its recipe description. It's "not too bitter, and not too sweet, just good old fashioned midwestern nice." It features flavors of berry, stone fruit and citrus with subtle bready and nutty notes. Third Space will donate 20% of all draft beer sales from the Friday event and 100% of profits from the sale of cans and draft pours of One In Four to Sojourner Family Peace Center, a nonprofit provider of domestic violence prevention and intervention services in Wisconsin. Representatives from Sojourner and the brewery will be onsite to talk about the One In Four project and how individuals can help combat domestic violence in the community, the news release said. The event will also feature live music from Trapper Schoepp. Attendees are asked to bring cans of soup for Sojourner's shelter. Over 50 participating breweries Over 50 breweries nationwide have joined Third Space's effort. Third Space provides the beer recipe, label designs and marketing materials to participating breweries. In exchange, they're asking those breweries to donate a portion of proceeds to a local organization combatting domestic violence or to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, according to a news release. Malteurop Malting Company, Yakima Chief Hops and Blue Label Packaging have been offering discounts on materials for brewing and packaging the beer, a news release said. Then participating breweries brew their own One In Four collaboration beers, which are being released throughout the month. Additional breweries can still join. For more information or to sign up, they can visit oneinfour.beer. How to buy One In Four One In Four will be available in six-packs at Third Space starting Friday, as well as at several retail partners that sell the brewery's products. People can also purchase one of the over 50 other versions of One in Four that will be brewed by participating breweries. For more information on the project, visit oneinfour.beer. Where to find help The Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee operates a 24-hour confidential hotline at (414) 933-2722. Our Peaceful Home, which serves Muslim families and is a program of the Milwaukee Muslim Womens Coalition, operates a crisis line at (414) 727-1090. The Hmong American Womens Association, which serves the Hmong and southeast Asian community, has advocates available at (414) 930-9352 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Asha Project, which serves African American women in Milwaukee, provides a crisis line from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at (414) 252-0075. The UMOS Latina Resource Center in Milwaukee offers bilingual, bicultural, domestic violence, sexual assault and anti-human trafficking supportive services and operates a 24-hour hotline at (414) 389-6510. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233. Need more help with crime and safety questions? The Milwaukee Resource Guide is here to help. Have something you want answered? Submit a question. 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: Third Space One in Four beer supports domestic violence prevention Jean McGuire, the 91-year-old Boston civil rights and education activist who was stabbed multiple times Tuesday night while walking her dog in Franklin Park, issued a statement to the public on Friday through her family. McGuire, the longtime leader of Bostons Metco program and the first woman of color to be elected to the Boston School Committee was attacked by an unknown suspect near Playstead Road in the park around 8:30 p.m. McGuires sister told Boston 25 that her dog may have bitten the suspect during the encounter to help fight him off. 91-year-old civil rights pioneer stabbed multiple times while walking her dog in Boston She and her family issued a statement on Friday addressing the act of violence. We as a community can never forget that we need to stand together and continue working to empower our children through learning, McGuire said through her family. We are at our best as a people; when its about we not me. I love you all and I will see you soon. In their own statement, her family expressed thanks to all the doctors and healthcare workers helping the 91-year-old in her recovery. They also expressed appreciation for the outpouring of love and support theyve received since the stabbing. The family continued on by saying Jean has spent her entire professional life fighting for all families to have the best educational opportunities to achieve their dreams. If anyone is looking to support McGuires legacy, she and her family will ask people to direct donations to a nonprofit fund currently in development that will help promote the education of the children of greater New England, said the family. The family will make a formal announcement introducing the establishment of the fund in the coming weeks. So far, no arrests have been made and police are still trying to track down the suspect. Police are asking anyone who was in the area at the time and may have witnessed the incident or observed anything suspicious to call detectives at 617-343-4275. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or by texting the word TIP to CRIME (27463). Story continues 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 Military equipment of Belarus Read also: Russia moves 2,000 troops, warplanes, missile systems into Belarus Zerkalo said that if the bill is approved, the Belarusian KGB security service will be able to restrict citizens from leaving the country for six months if it contradicts the interests of the national security of the Republic of Belarus. It is not stated on what grounds Belarusian citizens might be judged to be acting against the national interests of Belarus. Read also: Zelenskyy responds to petition calling for introduction of visa regime with Belarus The regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko also said that members of the security forces will be allowed to leave Belarus only on agreement with the leadership, and civil servants will be able to leave the country only if the government decides accordingly. Read also: Lukashenko turns Belarus into bridgehead for Russian army, says Ukrainian government agency According to the document, citizens under the age of 27 who are enrolled in the reserve for health reasons without undergoing military service or service in the reserve will be able to leave for permanent residence outside the country with the consent of the military registration and enlistment office. At the same time, it is planned to force Belarusians who live abroad to register with Belarusian consulates. Earlier, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko said that his regime had agreed with the regime of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on the deployment of a regional group of troops on the border with Ukraine. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Matthew Lehigh, who was arrested Wednesday after allegedly driving his vehicle at two women and yelling a homophobic slur, will face at least one new charge after he admitted to taking several actions targeting the LGBTQ community. Lehigh, 31, was charged with felony arson Friday for allegedly burning a pride flag in the North End of Boise, Boise police spokesperson Haley Kramer told the Idaho Statesman. He also admitted to stealing various pride flags in the North End neighborhood and breaking a window at an LGBTQ community center, Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Michael Guy said in an arraignment Friday. He has behavior that is increasingly agitated, increasingly aggressive and culminated in the events that led to his arrest, Guy said. No charges have been added for his alleged vandalism of The Community Center, on North Orchard Street, as of Friday afternoon. The investigation into the vandalism is ongoing, Kramer told the Statesman. Lehigh charged with three counts of aggravated assault Lehigh was arrested on three felony counts of aggravated assault and a misdemeanor of malicious injury to property. Boise police arrested him after he allegedly yelled a homophobic slur at two women in a parking lot and drove his vehicle toward them. The women dodged his car, and he hit their vehicle and drove off, police said. It was the second reported incident of him yelling the homophobic slur and driving his vehicle toward someone. Police had been searching for him since Saturday. Boise police cannot pursue a hate crime case in an incident targeting the LGBTQ community, the Idaho Statesman previously reported. Idahos malicious harassment statute, commonly known as the hate crime law, refers to malicious harassment as the intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that persons race, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin. The definition excludes sexual orientation or gender identity. In an arraignment hearing Friday, Ada County Magistrate Judge Kira Lynn Dale signed a no contact order to prevent Lehigh from coming into contact with the couple whose pride flag was burned on their property. Story continues Lehigh is in custody at the Ada County Jail. His bond was set for $1.5 million $1 million for the alleged aggravated assaults and $500,000 for the alleged arson. Ada County court records showed he was ordered to undergo a competency evaluation. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 26. The Boise Police Department asks victims or anyone with information about the suspect to contact Ada County Dispatch at 208-377-6790 or contact LGTBQ Liaison Officer Dan Lister at dlister@cityofboise.org. To make an anonymous tip, call Crimestoppers at 208-343-COPS. The U.S. military was conned into buying $20 million worth of fake, unsafe uniforms and gear by a man who is now going to prison, prosecutors say. Tens of thousands of fake jackets, flame-resistant hoods that werent actually flame-resistant and more pieces of military apparel were issued to U.S. Air Force bases worldwide to be worn by deployed Airmen, according to the Justice Department. While the gear and uniforms were passed off as genuine American-made products, they were made in China and put the service members who wore them in danger, prosecutors say. Many of the products lacked safety features and were not up to U.S. military standards. Now a judge has sentenced the leader of the conspiracy, Ramin Kohanbash, 52, a Brooklyn wholesaler, to three years and four months in prison, according to an Oct. 13 news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Rhode Island. He previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and trafficking in counterfeit goods in 2019. Kohanbash was also ordered to pay back $20 million he made in sales, the release says. McClatchy News contacted Kohanbashs attorney on Oct. 14 and was awaiting a response. American servicemen and women risk their lives every day in defense of the nation, U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha said in a statement. But the risks they face should never come from the uniforms they wear, and the equipment they carry. Other victims of Kohanbashs conspiracy to sell counterfeit military apparel include several businesses that make clothing and gear for military clients, prosecutors say. One included a family-owned Rhode Island company that lost more than $639,000 after distributing fake military products that were initially distributed to the business by Kohanbash, according to the Justice Department. In court documents submitted ahead of Kohanbashs sentencing, his attorney wrote the unfortunate and harmful events that led him to a guilty plea are very much at odds with the honorable man described by his wife, children, friends and business associates. Story continues The case From 2013 to 2018, Kohanbash had counterfeit military gear created in China and imported into the U.S., court documents state. Among the fake gear given to the Air Force were at least 13,332 fake jackets detectable by enemies night vision goggles and 18,597 non-flame-resistant hoods, according to the release. Kohanbash worked with at least two other men Bernard Klein, 41, of Brooklyn and Terry Roe, 49, of Burlington, North Dakota and sent samples of real U.S. military uniforms and gear to makers in China so they could mass-produce the apparel as accurately as possible, prosecutors say. McClatchy News contacted attorneys representing Klein and Roe for comment on Oct. 14 and was awaiting a response. Chinese manufacturers copied the real military products, as well as tags and trademarks, and re-created them before shipping the pieces out to Kohanbashs warehouse in New Jersey where they would be stored, according to the Justice Department. Kohanbash and Klein came up with a strategy to fool Chinese and U.S. customs, allowing the fake gear to enter the U.S., prosecutors say. Then, the counterfeit garments would be sold to the U.S. military and its suppliers, including a North Dakota supplier where Roe was employed, the release states. Under U.S. law, products sold to the military must be made in the country or another country thats permitted to make them, according to the Justice Department. China is not one of those countries, the release says. In a letter submitted to court, Maj. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins, the Air Forces director of logistics, civil engineering, force protection and nuclear integration, wrote that he appreciates the court recognizing the Air Force as a victim and that he learned 30 different types of military gear given to the Air Force were fake. Hawkins said thousands of these items failed to protect deployed United States Airmen, according to his letter. These Airmen are our Nations fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, wives and husbands, Hawkins wrote. They deserve better than to be put at risk due to Mr. Kleins and Mr. Kohanbashs greed. Klein was sentenced to one year and six months in prison in April 2021 and was ordered to pay a fine of $15,000 and restitution of $400,000, according to the release. Klein paid $348,000 as part of a civil settlement agreement related to the case. Roes sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 20, according to the Justice Department. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and traffic in counterfeit goods in February. For them, it was just business. But it was much more than that to their victims, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. Air Force day care workers forced children to fight each other at Georgia base, feds say Civil War re-enactor plants bomb at battlefield after being removed from unit, feds say Soldier accused of sharing racist post, engaging in extremism while at NCs Fort Bragg Army vets scam caused $48 million in federal student loans to be wiped out, feds say Rome A musician had a brain tumor removed in Italy this week in a nine-hour surgery that he spent not only awake and fully conscious, but playing his saxophone. The 35-year-old male patient had the procedure at Rome's Paideia International Hospital on Monday and was discharged early Thursday morning. Dr. Christian Brogna, a neurosurgeon and expert in awake surgery, told CBS News the tumor was removed successfully, and that there were no negative impacts on the patient. Brogna led a highly specialized 10-member international team for the procedure, using state-of-the-art technology. A photo provided by the Paideia International Hospital in Rome, Italy, shows a 35-year-old male patient playing the saxophone as he has open brain surgery to remove a tumor, October 10, 2022. / Credit: Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital "The tumor was located in a very, very complex area of the brain," said Brogna. "Moreover, the patient is left-handed. This makes things more complicated because the neural pathways of the brain are much more complicated." The doctor said his patient, who has been identified only as C.Z., played the theme song from the 1970 movie "Love Story," and the Italian national anthem, at various times throughout the surgery. During the meticulous preparation for the surgery, C.Z. had told the medical team that preserving his musical ability was essential to him. It was also very useful to the surgeon, because his patient playing the sax during surgery allowed Brogna to map different functions of the brain as he operated. Neurosurgeon Dr. Christian Brogna operates on a male patient, who is fully awake, to remove a brain tumor at the Paideia International Hospital in Rome, Italy, October 10, 2022. / Credit: Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital "To play an instrument means that you can understand music, which is a high cognitive function. It means you can interact with the instrument, you can coordinate both hands, you can exercise memory, you can count because music is mathematics you can test vision because the patient has to see the instrument, and you can test the way the patient interacts with the rest of the team," he said. Brogna, who has performed hundreds of awake brain surgeries, said the key to pulling off such a complex operation, was preparation. "Every patient is unique, every brain is unique, so we really need to know the patient very well," he told CBS News. Story continues Over a period of about 10 days before the operation, the patient met with the medical team six or seven times. He said it was important to the surgeons to respect the patient's wishes as to which functions they felt were most important to preserve. The process led to what Brogna called "a massively tailored surgery." During the preparations for this and any other brain surgery, Brogna said the team looks at the entire person, not just the pathology. Dr. Christian Brogna, a neurosurgeon and expert in awake surgery, is seen outside Rome's Paideia International Hospital in a handout photo. / Credit: Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital "When we operate on the brain, we are operating on the sense of self, so we need to make sure that we do not damage the patient as a person their personality, the way they feel emotions, the way they get through life. The patient will tell you what is important in his life and it is your job to protect his wishes," he said. The preparation period also ensures the patient knows every detail of the procedure before it happens. During surgery, that helps ensure they remain quiet and collaborative, not scared, said Brogna, adding that that there is an atmosphere of "great calm, great silence" in the operating room during the procedure. Apart from the saxophone, of course, in this case. Brogna said he was proud that his patient had been able to go back to his normal life, and proud that with each operation, knowledge of this branch of medicine is advancing. "Every surgery is a window on the brain, on how it works, and while we are learning, we are taking the whole of the person his life, his passion, his hobbies, his job into account," said the surgeon. "That is the goal." Shooting near James Madison University wounds 8: CBS News Flash Oct. 17, 2022 Ben Bernanke awarded the Nobel Prize | 60 Minutes Deion Sanders: The 60 Minutes Interview A woman has died after storms in Tennessee knocked down a tree that landed on the car she was driving. A Tennessee Highway Patrol preliminary report says 22-year-old Laurel Flaherty from Massachusetts died after the incident Wednesday in Williamson County. Belmont University President Greg Jones says Flaherty was a first-year law student at the Nashville school after completing a bachelors degree in social work there in May. We are all devastated by todays news, and we have reached out to her family, faculty, and classmates to offer our support and deepest condolences, Jones said. In addition, support services and resources are being made available for our campus community. The National Weather Service in Nashville said parts of Williamson County reached 75 mph winds during the line of storms that crossed Middle Tennessee on Wednesday. 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 Regina Trillo, a former immigration lawyer, started Nemi Snacks three years ago wanting to elevate Mexican culture. Mellini Monique Bramlett, a Riverdale mom of six, took her family popcorn recipe and transformed it into the artisanal herbed popcorn brand Herby Pop in 2020. Advertisement And Genesis Bencivenga, proprietor of Lorenzos Frozen Pudding, went to work with her father to build a legacy in his namesake endeavor. But to take their businesses to the next level, each of the Chicagoland entrepreneurs needed money, and such capital has historically been denied to women, people of color, immigrants and other marginalized communities. Thats what programs like DoorDashs Accelerator for Local Goods look to address starting with Trillo, Bramlett, Bencivenga and 47 other business owners looking for a leg up. Advertisement Especially as a solo founder, it can be a very lonely journey, Trillo said. Being able to share our snacks and DoorDash helping us amplify our message and our products Im really appreciative of that opportunity. As part of the six-week business development course, the 50-member cohort discussed financial management, wholesale models and marketing focused on packaged goods. Each also received a $5,000 grant and sales support from DoorDash, in addition to the opportunity to sell their products on DashMart, the companys grocery and packaged goods delivery service. We wanted to make sure that were providing a way for them to implement the learnings from the accelerator, said Sueli Shaw, DoorDashs head of social impact. Organizations providing additional grant and incubator programs or other support for Chicago-area food businesses include DishRoulette Kitchen and The Hatchery. DoorDash, first launched in 2013, rose to become the largest food delivery company in the United States by 2019, outpacing competitors GrubHub and Uber Eats. But the company has also faced lawsuits, driver strikes, and accusations of tip withholding, menu markups and offering delivery for restaurants that never signed up for the apps. Chicago sued DoorDash and Grubhub in August 2021, alleging the companies violated its cap on fees and misled customers and restaurants. The DoorDash case has since moved to federal court and remains in progress. Bramlett said a good girlfriend of hers saw the DoorDash accelerator program and urged her to apply. Bramlett said being accepted into the initiative was a wonderful anchoring for a small business like Herby Pop. The guest teaching and speakers they brought in allowed us to see the gaps that we still had in our business, she said. Most importantly, the relationships that we formed with other cohort members and with some of the guest speakers have been invaluable. Advertisement Bramletts family chose popcorn as a business because its a food thats a blank canvas that one can explore with many different flavors, she said. Their focus is on eclectic flavors such as Sushi Pop (with Norwegian kelp), Mangonada Munch (with organic mango powder and guajillo chiles), and Jollof Pop, as in West African jollof rice. Mellini Monique Bramlett, left, of Herby Pop, talks with customers Samatha Thrower, right, and Hannah Williams at the Randolph Street Market in Chicago on Sept. 25, 2022. (Vincent D. Johnson / Chicago Tribune) With October being National Popcorn Popping Month, Mellini Monique Bramlett said Herby Pop is hoping to establish its first bricks-and-mortar spot on the citys South Side, hopefully in the Beverly neighborhood. (Vincent D. Johnson / Chicago Tribune) We branded ourselves as the other Chicago popcorn, Bramlett said. We are committed to health forward formulas that dont include anything artificial if it doesnt come from nature, we dont use it. We took popcorn and infused it with herbs, powerhouses for nutrition. Were really focused on bringing people together through herbs, flavor, culture and wellness. Amid National Popcorn Popping Month this October, Bramlett said shes hoping to establish Herby Pops first bricks-and-mortar location on the citys South Side, hopefully in the Beverly neighborhood. In the meantime, shes focused on doing a truffle-and-smoke popcorn, and experimenting with Ethiopian and Haitian flavors. She wants to see Herby Pop in boutique retailers in conjunction with its existing online presence. She said the idea of building generational wealth through popcorn is very attractive. As for Trillo, she said DoorDashs accelerator allowed her to meet a lot of other local business owners to network and share challenges, successes and resources to create a support system. My mission is to elevate Mexican culture through high-quality snacks with sombrero-free branding, she said. The more people that can see that modern Mexico, that elevated Mexico, is just really what our mission is all about. Regina Trillo, proprietor of Nemi Snacks, packs orders at her warehouse space on Sept. 26, 2022, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune) Trillo came to Illinois to attend law school, and when she couldnt find healthy food staples from her native Mexico City, she decided to create her own with Nemi Snacks, a chip made from nopal, aka prickly pear cactus a vegetable packed with fiber, antioxidants and minerals. Advertisement Since launching the company in mid-2019, Trillos business has grown to a team of 15 and upgraded from fulfilling orders from her home in Edgewater to getting a warehouse in Chicago to do so. She said working to get into more grocery spaces has been a key goal for Nemi Snacks, as well as creating other products from nopal and sharing modern Mexican culture with the consumer. To me, Mexican food is all about flavors and colors, Trillo said. The snack aisle just seemed like this perfect space to launch something that had a lot of flavor where I could use ingredients and turn it into a fun thing. A lot of people are familiar with nopal, but a lot of them havent tried it. Trillos business works directly with farmers in Mexico to pay them a dignified wage for their produce, she said, and shes working toward solely partnering directly with farmers for sourcing her ingredients. Trillo is also intentional about working with women of color; her team is currently 100% women. Even though its a small business, we can create the change that we want to see, Trillo said. It doesnt matter how small or big we think we are or what the business is, in the end it comes down to access and opportunity letting go of all these self-imposed limitations and being an example of where we can be and what we can do. Advertisement Bencivenga, owner of Lorenzos Frozen Pudding, knows the power of access and opportunity all too well. The company started in May 2011, selling banana pudding as a street vendor. Over more than a decade, it has expanded to 13 flavors and moved into local grocery stores. Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > But Bencivenga and her dad couldnt keep up with the store demand. So Lorenzos productivity and sales ebbed and flowed time and again. Genesis Bencivenga, owner of Lorenzos Frozen Pudding, center, is a guest on the Midday Live Show with Steve Micheas and Jasmine Bennett on Sept. 30, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Lorenzo's Frozen Pudding's three main flavors are banana, strawberry and Hawaiian pineapple, shown here. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Now the brands three main flavors are banana, strawberry and Hawaiian pineapple. The icy treats sold out at Lollapalooza this summer, Bencivenga said, and she hopes to continue adding flavors as they look to expand internationally. Already a national supplier to Walgreens, the mom of three is now working on a smores flavor with her Michigan-based co-packer. Other seasonal flavors include eggnog, lemon-lime, and orange with caramel. Im in a phase of learning now, Bencivenga said. I want to figure out our top seller, the velocity and what to do, things like that. DoorDash is trying to help work through this transition with us. We have a flavor for every season here in America. My international plan is to take whatever food or cookie that is specific to that region and put it into our product. Even though the accelerator is complete, Shaw said DoorDash will follow the programs participants to see how the company can support their continued growth on DashMart. Were really thrilled that all of the brands from our first cohort are live in the app for purchase through DashMart, Shaw said. Now that we have that ongoing relationship with them, I do think its a long-term investment in partnership that were excited to grow with them. Advertisement drockett@chicagotribune.com Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here. The front page of a Vogue magazine. (PHOTO: Reuters/George Georgiopoulos) SINGAPORE The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has shortened the permit of fashion magazine Vogue Singapore and issued it a stern warning, after repeated breaches of content guidelines. A ministry spoksperson told The Straits Times that it had revoked the magazine's one-year permit from Thursday (13 October). Vogue Singapore has since reapplied, and MCI has issued it a six-month permit instead. "(Vogue Singapore) had breached the content guidelines for local lifestyle magazines on four occasions within the past two years, for nudity and content that promoted non-traditional families," MCI said in its reply. The ministry added that during the period of Vogue Singapore's breaches, the content guidelines have remained the same, and the magazine is required to comply with these guidelines as part of its permit conditions. These conditions include not undermining prevailing social norms. MCI last shortened permit in 2014 According to The Straits Times, the last time a permit was shortened was when action was taken against local arts magazine Art Republik in 2014, for two severe breaches of content guidelines for religiously insensitive and denigrative content. There were two earlier cases - women's magazine Cleo in 2008 and men's magazine Singapore FHM in 1998 - where magazines had committed repeated breaches pertaining to content on sex, nudity and the promotion of promiscuity and a permissive lifestyle. Do you have a story tip? Email: sgnews.tips@yahooinc.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube. Photo of ash layers near boat ramp to what used to be Las Vegas Bay. The Ash is a thin layer of light colored-material within the beige/orange rock layer. Researcher Racheal Johnsen is in the foreground and research assistant Andrew Litto is in the background. Visitors to the Las Vegas Valley know that the only nearby volcano is at The Mirage hotel, so why did University of Nevada researchers find volcanic ash recently in Lake Mead? The ongoing-drought caused record-low water levels in the country's largest reservoir, which uncovered rock embedded with volcanic ash from distant volcanoes. "For the western US, there were two large eruptions in the last million years, just yesterday for geologists, that deposited ash over most of the western part of North America," Vulcanologist Eugene Smith said. "If another eruption of this magnitude were to occur again, most of the western US would be affected." A scalding hot pool of mineral water is viewed along Hot Creek at the Long Valley caldera in Central California near Mammoth Mountain, California. The hot springs, earthquake activity and forest-killing gas releases are evidence of the volcano and keep geologists concerned about another eruption. Smith referenced eruptions in Yellowstone and the Sierras in Central California as potentially being sources, if events were large in scale. "Although the Las Vegas Valley is currently very far away from any active volcanoes, we can and will have ash from these volcanoes fall over Southern Nevada in the future," Smith said in a news release. "Even a couple of millimeters of ash, when wet, is incredibly heavy and can take down power and telecommunications lines. It can block roadways. It is easily remobilized by wind and water. When inhaled, the incredibly tiny but sharp glass grains in the ash can cause significant, chronic lung conditions such as silicosis." LOOK WHAT THE DROUGHT TURNED UP: LOST CITIES, ANCIENT TREASURES AND FOREBODING SIGNS EXPOSED WORLDWIDE Washington State Police engineered devices to prevent volcanic ash from entering the engine during the Mount St. Helen's eruption. Smith believes even small amounts of ash can threaten air travel and would probably shut down airports. Cars and trucks can even become immobilized causing transportation to come to a halt. Smith authored a study with geologist Racheal Johnson and described the dangers of volcanoes even for distant cities. They tested the ash that has not seen the sun since 1935 when the government built the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and flooded the reservoir. HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER ON TV Usually underwater, layers of rock with volcanic ash becomes available to scientists to study, Smith said that current volcano emergency planning revolves around areas in the immediate area of a volcano and the path of lava. He hopes local government officials develop a plan of action similar to plans dealing with flood, earthquakes and tsunamis. Story continues "It is important that metropolitan areas like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix realize that the volcanic hazard may be more related to distant volcanoes rather than to local volcanic eruptions," Smith said. "Just because there aren't any local volcanoes with a high potential for eruption doesn't mean that there is no volcanic hazard." Visitors walk along a boardwalk at the iconic Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. The geyser sits atop an active volcano caldera. Experts said communities along the Cascade Range should also be well-prepared for an eruption. Smith points to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. He called it a geologically small eruption. Even so, it produced a cloud of ash that traveled as far as the Great Lakes. Idaho and Montana suffered infrastructure problems along with Washington. MOUNT ST. HELENS' ERUPTION: SURVIVORS RECOUNT THE DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT FURY IN 1980 Mount St. Helens erupting in 1980 in Washington. The volcanic material is the latest of a long list of discoveries made due to the falling water level of Lake Mead during the Wests megadrought. Police added evidence to a cold case when someone found a barrel containing a murdered corpse that the perpetrator felt would stay hidden beneath the waves for eternity. The shrinking lake is also an obstacle course for boaters as the boats in the underwater graveyard now tower over the surface. ONGOING 22-YEAR DROUGHT IN WESTERN US IS DRIEST PERIOD IN OVER 1,200 YEARS, STUDY FINDS This year, Lake Mead hit record low levels over the summer and is only a few feet higher right now. It is 184 feet below full pool which is only a quarter of its capacity, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. ROBBING LAKE MEAD OF WATER: THE EMERGENCY PLAN AIMED AT KEEPING WATER FLOWING TO THE WEST Lawrence Morningstar Gay adult film star and OnlyFans content creator Lawrence Morningstar died. He was 31 years old. In late September, Morningstars friend gay adult performer and go-go dancer Damien Cruz posted the news on Twitter. It gives me the utmost sadness to have to tell you all, my soulmate, my brother, and my best friend [Lawrence Morningstar]has passed away this morning, Cruz wrote on Twitter. Morningstar, whose real name was Lawrence William Tyler, died while in Hawaii, Cruz confirmed to The Advocate. He died on September 28, Cruz said. Cruz posted a GoFundMe to help Morningstars family with funeral costs as well as to help organize a memorial in West Hollywood where Cruz and Morningstar would often hang out. As of October 14, $4,570 has been raised. Morningstar was always a supportive, warm person, Cruz told The Advocate. He said that he and Morningstar would hang out at parties around West Hollywood to dance or as Morningstar liked to put it going to cha cha. It's very rare for anybody to really find somebody like Lawrence because of how passionate and loving and just unique he was, Cruz said. He said they had planned to spend New Years Eve in Mexico this year. He would buy last minute [tickets[ to go [on trips] with me because he knew I was going alone, Cruz said. He just lit up a room 100 fold and you could just feel his presence. A public memorial will take place at The Chapel at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., at 6 p.m. on October 15. Casey West left Michigan and headed into the Alaskan wild for an unforgettable adventure. He feels lucky to have gotten out alive after it ended in a plane crash. It was an experience, West, a 36-year-old Brandon Township resident, said. Hopefully I never have this exact experience again, but it was an adventure. West, a nurse at Ascension Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, was excited and worry-free as he set out on his lifetime dream of an Alaskan moose hunt. This was a stark contrast to his wife, Samantha, who increased her husbands life insurance policy ahead of the trip. She was concerned over the safety of a bush plane, the biggest risk of such a trip, with about 10 crashes per season. That is the only way to get around out there flying by bush plane, West said. Her fears were well-founded, although West noted that flying by a bush, or float, plane is the only way to get around Alaska, and a car accident would be more likely. Usually. The float plane carrying Casey West and Cal Stefanko crashed in Alaska on Sept. 18. The Michigan friends sustained minor injuries, while their pilot escaped with cuts to his head requiring 17 stitches. West and his two traveling companions arrived in King Salmon Sept. 11. The following day, a bush pilot flew them without incident to Unit 9E, a game management area in the Alaska Peninsula. The trio then hiked a half-mile to set up camp in tents. The next day, the hunt was on and West wasted no time getting his moose, described as the hardest hunt he's ever done. I was not prepared for how big these animals are, he said, noting that he had shot elk before, but the moose was twice as large. The moose was easy to spot from nearly 2 miles away, and West stalked the animal until he was within 140 yards, from where he got a clean shot. It took two full days to pack out more than 700 pounds of meat from the kill, carrying it in a backpack as he slogged miles through boggy terrain where he sank to his kneecap with each step. Casey West at camp in the wilds of Alaska during a temporary period of calm weather in September 2022. It was cold, wet and miserable, he recalled. Conditions were about to deteriorate dramatically with a tsunami and 50-70 mph winds forcing them to shelter in the tent for two days. Story continues Chaos would resume the next day when one of the hunters nearly got trampled by a bull moose that did two fake charges, coming within five feet. Due to hunting restrictions, the animal was not large enough to kill. The weather had turned again with pouring rain and low visibility, but then early that evening with visibility increased to about 4-5 miles and a 15 mph wind out of the north, two planes arrived to pick up the travelers and the moose meat, ensuring even weight distribution. West described what happened next as his plane rose from a lake with 15-foot embankments on three sides. We took off north because there was no bank were going, going, going, and all of a sudden, we got hit by a huge wind gust, he said. We werent high enough off the water and the wing hit the water and dragged and spun us to the left. The pilot was pulling at the lever to get the plane up, and I said, Oh my God, were gonna hit the bank. And we hit it so hard, we shot up into the air 70 to 80 yards, spinning and then nosedived right into the Earth. West had just enough time to put his right hand over his head and stick his left hand out to brace for impact, while yelling a few obscenities. Casey West's left hand is mangled after he used it to brace for impact during a plane crash in Alaska, Sept. 18, 2022. The entire episode was over in seconds as the crash flipped the aircraft upside down. West struck his head and would have bruises over an eighth of his body, but his left hand sustained the most visible damage with numerous cuts. Cal, you ok? he yelled, receiving an answer in the affirmative as he unstrapped his seatbelt and fell to the ceiling. The pilot, who sustained a head injury that would require 17 stitches, yelled at West to get out of the plane by the front window. The three ran from the wreckage to the shock and relief of those in the other plane who thought they had just seen a crash from which no one could have survived. West couldnt believe they were alive either as he sent an SOS text to emergency responders notifying them of the plane crash. National Transportation Safety Board Spokesman Peter Knudson said in any given year, there are on average around 1,100 aviation accidents in the United States. Nearly all of those, about 98 percent, are accidents categorized as general aviation (typically recreational flights and small planes) as opposed to involving the major air carriers. An aviation accident is defined as any event that involves substantial damage to an airplane. In 2019, there were 82 general aviation accidents in Alaska. Thirteen of those accidents involved fatalities with a total of 32 people dying. The causes of the crashes were found to be pilot error, equipment malfunction, weather conditions, or a combination of these factors. Casey West with Cal and Craig Stefanko in Alaska. The trio went on a moose hunting trip and got way more than they bargained for when their bush plane crashed. Knudson said that flight regulations are the same in Alaska as elsewhere, but the environment is more challenging, including infrastructure, weather, and terrain. It could be up to two years before the investigation into this most recent plane crash is completed, but West said the pilot, who he described as a very nice guy, admitted his error. The pilot didnt have too much to say other than I f****d up, and that he should have hit the kill switch and pulled up, West said. Its very unfortunate it happened to him. He said he is done. Hes retiring after 40 years and it was probably his last flight. It wont be the last for West, who came home to Michigan with a couple hundred pounds of moose meat after donating about 1,200 pounds to native Alaskans. He and Stefanko also gave some of the meat to the keepers of the Antlers Inn who showed great hospitality to them, and where they became local celebrities. He got a warm reception of smiles, tears, and many hugs when he came home as well. West took a lighthearted approach in recounting his adventure, telling his three young children that daddy hurt his hand punching the earth to stop the plane, and asking Samantha if she was happy or mad that she missed out on a $1.3 million life insurance pay-out. Still, he is deeply touched to learn how many people cared. He admitted he may have to butter up his wife to go out west on an elk hunt in October, and he hopes to return to Alaska, too. It was crazy, West said. But I cant wait to go back. Id do it again. Contact reporter Susan Bromley at sbromley@hometownlife.com or 517-281-2412. Follow her on Twitter @SusanBromley10. This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: Michigan man on Alaskan moose hunt adventure survives bush plane crash By Zeba Siddiqui SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A newly discovered hacking group has attacked transportation and logistics companies in Ukraine and Poland with a novel kind of ransomware, Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday. The attackers targeted a wide range of systems within an hour on Tuesday, Microsoft said, adding that it hadn't been able to link the attacks to any known group yet. Notably, however, researchers found that the hacks closely mirrored earlier attacks by a Russian government-linked cyber team that had disrupted Ukraine government agencies. Ukraine has been the target of numerous cyberattacks by Russia since the start of the conflict in late February, according to western security researchers and senior government officials. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and neither did the cybersecurity agencies of Ukraine or Poland. Victims of the new ransomware, named "Prestige," overlap with those of another data-shredding cyberattack that involved the "FoxLoad," or "HermeticWiper" malware, Microsoft said. That attack hit hundreds of computers in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "Prestige" ransomware works by encrypting a victims' data and leaving a ransom note that says the data can only be unlocked with the purchase of a decryption tool, Microsoft said. In several cases, the researchers noted that the hackers had gained administrator control of the victims' systems ahead of deploying the ransomware, suggesting they had stolen their credentials earlier and were waiting for the right moment. "The enterprise-wide deployment of ransomware is not common in Ukraine, and this activity was not connected to any of the 94 currently active ransomware activity groups that Microsoft tracks," the researchers said. (Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in San Francisco; Editing by Alistair Bell) Military leaders told lawmakers theyre concerned because theyre having trouble recruiting Americans to serve the country. By the end of 2022, the active duty military will be at its smallest size since the creation of the all-volunteer force, according to Congressional testimony. Leaders said thats partly because theyre in the most challenging recruiting environment theyve faced in that time. Unless we do things differently, do things for the better, I believe every service except for the Space Force is at risk of missing the recruiting mission, Sen. Thom Tillis (R) -- North Carolina said. Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: In the Armys most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force, we will only achieve 75% of our FY22 recruiting goal, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, said in a statement. Despite retaining 104% of our eligible to re-enlist population, we estimate we will fall 10,000 short of our 476,000 end-strength goal. Our final numbers will not be available until mid-October. At a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army officials gave some of the challenges they face. These unprecedented recruiting challenges are driven in part by a low national unemployment rate, a strong job market, intense competition with the private sector and a declining number of young Americans interested and qualified for uniform service, Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt explained. The Army has the largest force. Stitt said there are also several things that could disqualify a recruit. Obesity, addiction, conduct, test scores and medical or behavioral conditions are the top issues. The Department of Defense believes theres no one silver bullet here, but theyre working on it, and said Congress has a role to play, too. Congress can help our efforts by improving high school access, where high schools are incentivized to grant predictable and regular access to recruiters, and support to the career exploration program, updating authorities for targeting marketing and advertising, Stephanie Miller, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy said. According to officials, there could be consequences for the country if they dont turnaround the trends. Our perennial advantage remains our people and our sailors relentlessly pursue operational excellence, however, without a steady supply of new sailors, that could quickly wane, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Rick Cheeseman said. As the security environment becomes more unstable, its critical our military remains fully equipped to meet the challenges of our day, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) New York, said. Miss Universe Spain 2022 Alicia Faubel showcased her fluency in Filipino while visiting the Philippines. Faubel, 25, shared a video on Instagram on Tuesday of herself interacting with the locals. In the clip, she can be seen treating a boy to tusok-tusok, a type of street food that is eaten with a stick. During their pedicab ride, Faubel learns that the 11-year-old boys name is Patrick. She also asks him who his favorite Miss Universe contestant is. You, he replies in Filipino. More from NextShark: Netflix series Squid Game accused of plagiarizing parts of Japanese film As the Gods Will Kuya Patrick is so nice and sweet, Faubel wrote in her posts caption in Filipino, adding that next time they will make a mukbang video with tokneneng, a type of Filipino street food that consists of hard-boiled eggs fried with bright orange batter. Faubel recently returned to the Philippines after being away for two years to attend BYS Fashion Week, where Miss Universe Philippines 2022 Celeste Cortesi was also present. The event, BYS Cosmetics first-ever fashion week in the Philippines, was held from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8. Finally after two years of waiting I am back to the Philippines, Faubel wrote in a recent Instagram post. Manila was home for me for almost 3 years and even though I dont have Filipino blood my heart has always been part of the Philippines, and once again it doesnt fail to make me feel like its my own home. More from NextShark: 'The Joy Luck Club' Film Added to the National Film Registry 27 Years After Release Faubel had previously lived in the Philippines for three years to study acting and work as a model. She has notably appeared on the August 2015 cover of GADGETS Magazine, as well as the 2015 Steven Seagal action movie Captain Commander as Alicia DiSanto. Story continues Though she appears to be fluent in Filipino in her video, the Miss Universe candidate admitted in a MISSUUPDATES Instagram Stories Take Over that she is no longer as fluent as she once was while she still lived in the Philippines. Born on Jan. 9, 1997, in Alicante, Spain, Faubel was crowned Miss Universe Spain 2022 at the Los Olivos Beach Resort in Tenerife, Spain, on Sept. 10. She will represent Spain at the Miss Universe 2022 pageant, which will be held in New Orleans on Jan. 14, 2023. Featured Image via @alicia.faubel When one person makes it, the whole team eats especially when youre Missy Elliott. The legendary emcee took to social media to remind the world that she has always been one to carve her own lane and that she wasnt afraid to ensure that her friends were with her every step of the way. Always been a leader, wrote the Virginia native in a tweet. When I got signed I fought for my brothers Timbaland and Magoo. I took a chance and told the label I cant do a[n] album without themso they flew them up and they got signed and the world witnessed their greatness. The rest is HERSTORY. Always been a LEADER! When I got signed I fought for my brothers @Timbaland & Magoo. I took a chance & told the label I cant do a album without them so they flew them up & they got signed and the World witnessed their Greatness the rest is HERSTORY Missy Elliott (@MissyElliott) October 14, 2022 Missy Elliot's Rise to Fame In fact, Elliots rise to fame started thanks to another Virginia native Jodecis DeVante Swing. In 1991, Swing signed Elliotts Sista group to his Swing Mob Records label. Ultimately, due to financial reasons, the group was dropped from the label and later broke up. In a previous interview with Variety, she admitted to never wanting to be a solo artist. I was afraid, she shared with the outlet. I love being in a group because the pressure isnt on one person it probably dont seem like it, but Im super, super shy. Once I was no longer in the group, instead of being an artist I wanted a record label. Does Missy Elliott Own A Record Label? After signing with Elektra with then-CEO Sylvia Rhone, Elliott expressed her desire to own a label of her own. By that time I had done some [prominent] features, and Sylvia Rhone said, Well give a label if you give us an album. So when I went to Tim and said, Lets hurry up and do this album so they can give me my label, and we finished in two weeks.' Thanks to the success of her Supa Dupa Fly album, Elliotts label ownership dreams came true through her The Goldmind Inc., which is responsible for acts like R&B superstar Tweet. Gordon Weekes, the chief public defender for Broward County, speaks to reporters after Nikolas Cruz was sentenced to life without parole for the Parkland mass shooting, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/The New York Times) The jury weighing the Parkland, Florida, gunmans sentence had to decide which carried more weight: the aggravating factors, aspects of the 17 murders he committed that would justify imposing a death sentence, or the mitigating circumstances raised by the gunmans defense lawyers as they argued for life imprisonment instead. In a swift decision Thursday that stunned many of the victims families, the jury of seven men and five women sentenced the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for all 17 first-degree murder counts, after about seven hours of deliberations in a grueling and often emotional sentencing trial. Cruz carried out a massacre in the hallways of his former high school four years ago. In laymans terms, mitigating circumstances are reasons to show a defendant mercy. The Florida capital punishment statute lists eight kinds of possible mitigating circumstances, some in specific terms and others in open-ended language that offers defense lawyers broad latitude. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Two of the listed possibilities are that the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance when the crime was committed, and that the defendants ability to appreciate the criminality of his or her conduct or to obey the law was substantially impaired. And the eighth listed possibility is a catchall, allowing consideration of any other factors in the defendants background that would mitigate against imposition of the death penalty. Lawyers defending Cruz focused on aspects of his life that they said had left him a damaged person from birth, with a slew of developmental problems and sometimes violent behavior that overwhelmed his adoptive mother. Melisa McNeill, the lead public defender in his sentencing trial, told jurors during her closing argument Tuesday that he had been poisoned by his biological mothers heavy drinking while she was pregnant with him. That, McNeill argued, had led to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which was misdiagnosed by experts throughout Cruzs life. Story continues Were there things about Nikolas life that you wish hadnt happened? she asked the jury. Are there things that he didnt get that you wish he would have gotten? Was he missing people in his life that you wish he hadnt missed? If they answered yes, she said, Thats mitigation thats a reason for life. Other possibilities listed in the statute that did not figure in the Parkland case include whether the defendant was an accomplice rather than the main actor in the crime, acted under extreme duress or had no significant record of prior criminal activity. 2022 The New York Times Company A Christian Orthodox monk and his general counsel are accused of stealing millions in COVID-19 relief funding and spending it on travel and homes, according to federal officials. Brian Andrew Bushell, 47, and Tracey M.A. Stockton, 64, were arrested Thursday, Oct. 13, according to the District of Massachusetts United States Attorneys Office. Bushell, who goes by Father or Rev. Fr. Bushell, and Stockton were both charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions, officials say. They could spend over a decade in prison and be forced to pay up to $500,000 in fines based on the charges, officials say. The fraud started in April 2020, shortly after applications for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding became available, according to officials. Bushell controls several Marblehead-area organizations, and Stockton serves as each organizations general counsel. When funding became available, the pair began submitting applications to the Small Business Administration for COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans, officials say. Bushell lied on the applications, overstating each organizations operational expenses and submitting false documents to obtain more money, officials say. As a result, Bushell and Stockton received $3.5 million from the loan funding for four of their organizations. Bushells lawyer did not immediately respond to McClatchy News request for comment. Stockton did not have an attorney listed. Furthermore, the duo is accused of submitted false Paycheck Protection Program applications. Officials say Bushell and Stockton inflated the number of employees and the amount of payroll expenses that each borrower organization had on applications and in conversations with lenders. The two received an additional $146,608 through their PPP applications, officials say. Using the $3.6 million they earned in relief, Bushell and Stockton spent millions on home improvements, more residential properties, travel and luxury items, court documents say. Story continues We believe they clearly knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they did it anyway, spending tens of thousands of dollars on exclusive memberships, expensive wine, property, renovations, and even a $40,000 wristwatch, Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division, said. Their alleged greed is an affront to every hard-working taxpayer. Marblehead is about 20 miles northeast of Boston. Worker stole nearly $1 million and went gambling with school district money, feds say Woman got $267K in pandemic rental aid and paid for vacations, real estate, feds say Man stole nearly $600,000 in student financial aid through yearslong scheme, feds say Now in theaters, Till is the story of a mother, a mothers son and the horrific 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till, who was visiting relatives in Mississippi at the time of his murder. The killers were acquitted and lived as free men, long after confessing, proudly, to Look magazine the following year. The decision of Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmetts grieving, quietly galvanized mother, to hold an open-casket funeral for her son, and to allow Chicagos Jet magazine to publish photographs of Emmett Tills brutalized body, sparked a civil rights movement. Generations later, the murders of Black citizens continue, sometimes prosecuted, sometimes not. The events dramatized in Till point like an invisible arrow to where we are today. Advertisement But the movie does not work like a tract, or a polemic. Its not that kind of storytelling, and it shifts its perspective to pay careful, sensitive attention to Mamie, played with exquisite emotional insight by Danielle Deadwyler, before and after her sons abduction and slaughter. The events of Till, which have been adapted for television and depicted several times before, are awful to witness. But there is more than one way to handle this American history. In the hands of co-writer and director Chinonye Chukwu, whose previous feature was the 2019 prison drama Clemency, Till trades in deliberate aesthetic choices to convey what the Tills endured: silence and lingering, expressive close-ups without an overt sense of editorializing or amping-up feelings and actions that need no extra emphasis. Advertisement [ Review: Till is a compelling portrait of grief, resolve and the national impact of the Emmett Till murder ] Take, for example, the crucial scene where Mamie is shown the body of her son, at first from a calm remove, with the body itself just out of sight. As a director, Chukwu told me in a Chicago interview last week, Im thinking: What is this moment about? Its about Mamies emotional experience, seeing the body for the first time. Were taking the body in as Mamie is taking it in. In shooting and editing the scene, we needed to communicate the love and tenderness she has for Emmett. This is her child. We begin with the body obstructed from view by the table. Compositionally that lets us just be with Mamie, preserving the privacy she needs with her son. Then, we slowly move in toward the body, experiencing the sight of it as Mamie is experiencing it. Not in an objectifying way, but in a humanizing way. In her callback for the role of Mamie, Deadwyler worked through this scene with Chukwu in a directors session via Zoom, performing in a closet with actors virtual auditions, this is more common than it may sound at her Los Angeles residence. My son was sitting outside, playing Fortnite, she recalled in a separate interview last week. Im, like, Hey, Im about to go in and do this audition so if you hear some noises, dont worry, its OK, just doing my thing. So I go in the closet, we do our Zoom, and Chinonye and I are working it out together. Danielle Deadwyler, who plays Emmett Tills mother, Mamie Till in the film Till, in Chicago Oct. 6, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Her sister comes home mid-audition, and Im doing the scene in the closet, and she and my son hear a wail. She told me later they both looked at each other, in complete shock. And my son goes: Mom says shes on an audition! Shes OK! More than OK; Deadwyler got the role. I tend to cast actors for what they can give me here, director Chukwu says, finger-framing her face. Danielle gave me that, times 10. She can communicate the emotional complexities Mamies experiencing in Till in real time. Advertisement Chukwu wrote her draft of the screenplay using elements (credited) of an earlier version by Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp. The latter made the 2005 documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. The new films producing roster includes Beauchamp, Reilly and Whoopi Goldberg, who plays Alma Carthan, Emmett Tills grandmother. Deadwylers audition took place last year, and filming commenced later in 2021, in Atlanta (doubling for Chicago in some scenes), with a few days location work in Mississippi. In preparation for Mamie, Deadwyler used the nonfiction account Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America by Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson as her bible. The actor, 40, was taught about the Till lynching in elementary school, in an example of the sort of American history certain contemporary conservative forces want to sanitize or sideline altogether. Chinonye Chukwu, director of the Emmett Till drama "Till," in Chicago Oct. 6, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Im a child of Cascade United Methodist Church, Atlanta native Deadwyler says, and its spiritual leader, the late Joseph Lowery, worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I did volunteerism as a kid, along with my siblings here. It was a part of our civil rights legacy. So this story is part of my cultural and educational awareness. Earlier this year Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a development included in the final credits of Till. No one ever served time for Tills murder. No accountability, Deadwyler says, quietly. American today finds itself in what she calls a strange crux. This film is asking people to question it, and to challenge it. Advertisement Director Chukwu, who is 37, was born in Nigeria, raised in Oklahoma and Alaska. She did her undergraduate studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Her life in America has been marked by a series of dislocations. Her perspective on what America was, is and can be filters through both Clemency (starring Alfre Woodard) and now Till. I grew up going back to Nigeria often, she says. Most of my family is there, my parents actually moved back there soon after I went to film school. Ive been on a constant journey in my formative years figuring out my identity. Cause youre in this limbo. Right? I grew up in America; Im American; I go to Nigeria and see my cousins, we all look the same, but we dont really understand each other. At 16, she attempted suicide, and has dealt with depression much of her life, a subject she addresses in a 2015 TEDx Talk available on YouTube. This was several years before she pushed her first feature film, Clemency, into existence. Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley, left, and Whoopi Goldberg as Alma Carthan in "Till." (Lynsey Weatherspoon / Orion Pictures/AP) Finding who she was as a Black person in America, then in college finding who she was a Black woman, led to her coming into my own racialized consciousness. Im 37 now. I dont have the time for any more identity crises! She laughs, a huge and rollicking laugh. I really dont have the time! With Till, the creative collaborators hope to have created a drama light on the customary biopic sanctimony, and more closely drawn to Mamie in particular. I dont think about the message when Im telling a story, Chukwu says. If the storytelling and the filmmaking are done well, then the rest of it will become clear. Thats another reason I needed to humanize everybody, Mamie and Emmett most of all. If I can connect to the humanity, the emotional core then I got you. Till is now playing in theaters. Advertisement Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic. mjphillips@chicagotribune.com Twitter @phillipstribune Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here. Hailey Thomas was on the lake with her family, struggling to find many fish, when they began raising their boats anchor to find a better spot. As they did so, a heavy fish took Thomas bait, according to an Oct. 12 news release from Idaho Fish and Game. She quickly began reeling in the exciting catch from Henrys Lake. Hailey did a phenomenal job fighting the fish and keeping it out of the abundant weeds, notorious for knocking large trout off the line, her husband, Shane, told the state department. After a stressful minute or so, I reached out and scooped up the fish. The net I usually use for chasing carp looked so small, as the fish barely fit in! He began shouting with excitement, calling her catch the biggest trout Ive seen in my life! Knowing they landed something special, they used the boats live well to help the fish recover, Idaho Fish and Game officials said. Suspecting they might have caught a record, the angling pair got the measurement and photos needed to document the catch. The Rigby angler had reeled in a monster rainbow/cutthroat hybrid trout, officials said. It measured in at 36 inches long with a 21-inch girth, according to the release. Experts estimate it likely weighed between 17 to 20 pounds. Thomas posed for a couple of photos with her catch, then she released it back into the lake, officials said. Her Oct. 4 catch easily broke the existing state catch-and-release state record for rainbow/cutthroat hybrid trout, set by Ryan Ivy in 2018. He had caught a 30-inch long fish from the Snake River. Henrys Lake is in eastern Idaho, about 85 miles northeast of Rigby. Monster catfish caught in Tennessee river, photos show. It could be a new record World record may have been set by man who chased a large shape across Arkansas lake A record-breaking sunfish was caught at Missouri lake but not in the traditional way (Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc.s lawyers tried again last week to learn what Elon Musk had told federal authorities who were investigating his attempt to take the social media company private. Most Read from Bloomberg Attorneys for Twitter wrote to a Delaware judge on Oct. 6 saying they needed documents about the probes, according to a letter unsealed in court Thursday. Musk had by that point reversed himself on walking away from the $44 billion takeover, but he and the social media company were still adversaries in court -- and their fight had not yet been officially put on hold. Read the letter from Twitter attorneys Twitter officials had been pushing since July for their counterparts on the Musk side to turn over all communications with any governmental authority concerning the merger. The billionaires lawyers sought to limit their hand-over of files about contacts with the government, citing confidentiality rules around communications with attorneys. This game of hide-the-ball must end, Twitters lawyers said in the unsealed filing. Twitter therefore seeks the courts assistance in obtaining the files about the Musk sides contacts with government regulators. The letter referenced communications between Musk and the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. The SEC sent a query earlier this year to Musk over how he initially disclosed his major stake in Twitter. Musk disclosed on April 4 that he had acquired more than 9% of Twitter, a week later than regulations allow and by using a filing typically reserved for passive investors. He later embarked on a highly public on-again-off-again takeover bid. Story continues Read More: Musk Faces FTC Antitrust Review on Twitter Alongside Stock Probe The FTC was separately probing whether the 9% stake should have been disclosed, and also conducting an antitrust review of the proposed acquisition. Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, on Thursday called the letter a misdirection by Twitter. Its actually Twitters executives that are under federal investigation, he told Bloomberg News, without explaining further. Twitter officials denied Thursday that the company is under investigation by federal authorities. Also unsealed was an Oct. 6 letter by Twitter lashing back at Musks Oct. 3 claim that the company had a whistle-blower burn notebooks documenting its alleged misdeeds as part of a $7.8 million severance package it gave him. Twitter said in the letter it had no role in the supposed conflagration, saying that its former security chief apparently took it upon himself to burn what he described as his personal notebooks. Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick set an Oct. 28 deadline for the two sides to agree on terms, canceling an Oct. 17 trial date, but said she was ready to hold a trial in November if they cant close the deal. The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). (Updates with background on dispute) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. With trembling hands, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin stepped up to the microphone and announced that a shooting had killed five people in the city. On Thursday, just after 5 p.m., multiple people were shot and killed near near Osprey Cove and Bay Harbor drives in the Hedingham neighborhood of northeast Raleigh. Just after 9 p.m., Baldwin provided the first update to the public on the deadly shooting, surrounded by other city officials. This is a sad and tragic day, she said outside the Raleigh Muncipal Building, not far from a memorial for fallen police officers. Although Baldwin didnt provide any information on the victims identities, she said one of the deceased victims was an off-duty Raleigh police officer. A second Raleigh police officer, one with the K-9 unit, was also shot during the incident. The second officer did not sustain life-threatening injuries, Baldwin said. It is a tragic day because the Raleigh Police Department has lost one of their own, Baldwin said. Visibly upset, Baldwin urged citizens to unite during this difficult time. All of us must come together, she said. To all of you watching or listening, I would ask that you reach out to ones you love, Baldwin said. Let people know you care. She asked that the people of Raleigh do what they can to support the Hedingham community and all those affected by the shooting. We must do more, she said. We must stop this mindless violence in America. We must address gun violence. Police announced a suspect was taken into custody shortly after 9:30 p.m. We have much to do, Baldwin said. And tonight we have much to mourn. Raleigh mayor gives update on greenway shooting City Manager Marchell Adams-David and Raleigh Police Lt. Jason Borneo also were at the press conference. Heres are highlights of what they shared: Spanish army uses NASAMS during a military exercise with Nato countries in Lielvarde Air Base, Latvia, 27 September 2022. ( EPA/TOMS KALNINS) On the ground, Ukraines military has been clawing back swathes of territory from Russia in a series of blistering counteroffensives in recent months. It has demonstrated an ability to strike far behind enemy lines, most notably when it hit the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to the mainland. But despite those successes, it has remained vulnerable to attacks from the air. Russias response to the strike on the strategically important bridge was fierce and swift: it rained a flurry of more than 75 missiles on Ukrainian cities across the country, hitting both civilian and military targets. Although not all the missiles hit their mark , it was a painful reminder of that vulnerability. Speaking after the strikes, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky asked allies to step up their deliveries of advanced air defence systems. When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defence systems, the key element of Russias terror rocket strikes will cease to work, he told Zelensky told Group of Seven leaders this week. Now, Kyivs allies are doing just that. In the days since the missile barrage, which left energy infrastructure damaged and killed at least 14 civilians, the United States and its Nato allies have pledged deliveries of advanced air defence systems. At the top of that list was a pledge by the White House to speed up the delivery of sophisticated National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS a short to medium range ground-based air defence. The US had approved the delivery of eight NASAMS in August, following repeated requests from Zelensky. The first two of which were due to arrive in November, and the rest at a later date. But that order has been expedited following the Russian missile attacks, the White House said, and Ukraines defence minister now expects the first two to arrive before the end of October. The systems cost around $23m per unit , according to the Department of Defence. Story continues "Systems will be provided as fast as we can physically get them there," Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Tuesday . "Were going to do everything we can, as fast as we can, to help the Ukrainian forces get the capability they need to protect the Ukrainian people. So what are NASAMS? And will they be enough to protect Ukraine against further missile attacks? The NASAMS is a mobile, mid-range air defence system capable of identifying, engaging and destroying current and evolving enemy aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicle and emerging cruise missile threats, according to manufacturer Raytheon Missiles and Defense, which developed the system with Norwegian defence and aerospace firm Kongsberg. The systems have been used to protect the airspace around Washington DC and the wider Capitol region since around 2005 . A new era of air defence has begun in . IRIS-Ts from are already here. NASAMS are coming. This is only the beginning. And we need more. No doubt that russia is a terrorist state. There is a moral imperative to protect the sky over in order to save our people. pic.twitter.com/jvbXUwDjc8 Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) October 11, 2022 The system is armed with three launchers, each of which can carry up to six missiles, and can identify targets up to 25 miles away. Those launchers are capable of engaging 72 targets simultaneously in active and passive modes and, using active seeker missiles, can intercept targets beyond visual range, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance , a missile defence lobby group. Currently, Ukraine is using an existing stock of Soviet-made air defence systems, such as the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system. It has also made use of the SA-11 Buk mid-range system near front lines, according to the Financial Times . But most of those systems were designed nearly 40 years ago and have failed to fully protect Ukraines airspace, as the latest Russian missile strikes showed. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after the US agreed to expedite the delivery of its NASAMS, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Mark Milley said Ukrainians has used their current systems very effectively, but that they have been asking for more comprehensive protection in the form of an integrated air missile defence system that is a mix of systems with different ranges. That doesnt control all the airspace over Ukraine, but theyre designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect, Gen Milley said. It is not just the US that is bolstering Ukraines air defences. The NASAMS will be supported by Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) sent by the United Kingdom, the UK Ministry of Defence announced on Thursday. The rockets, which cost around $1.2m each , will be the first donated by the UK which are capable of shooting down cruise missiles, the MoD said in a statement. These weapons will help Ukraine defend its skies from attacks and strengthen their overall missile defence alongside the US NASAMS, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said. In addition, the UK will send hundreds of additional air defence missiles, of other types previously provided, will also be donated as part of the package, along with hundreds of additional aerial drones to support Ukraines information gathering and logistics capabilities, the MoD said in its statement. Some Nato allies have moved even faster than the United States. Four German-made IRIS-T Surface-Launched-Missile (SLM) systems, which can defend against missiles at a range of 25 miles , have already arrived in Ukraine this week. Like the NASAMS, their delivery was sped up following the Russian missile strikes. German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht told reporters in Brussels that a further three air defence systems would be delivered to Ukraine next year. Ukraine urgently needs air defence systems and artillery and this is exactly what Germany delivers, she said. Ukraines minister of defence Oleksii Reznikov heralded the arrival of the German systems and impending US delivery as a new era of air defence in Ukraine. A new era of air defence has begun in [Ukraine]. IRIS-Ts from [Germany] are already here. [American] NASAMS are coming. This is only the beginning. And we need more. No doubt that Russia is a terrorist state, he wrote on Twitter. There is a moral imperative to protect the sky over [Ukraine] in order to save our people, he added. The question that now remains is whether the new air defence systems will be enough to stop future Russian missile attacks. Some military analysts have suggested that even the most comprehensive defence systems in the world could not fully protect Ukraine and that its military leaders will still have to make critical choices about how to distribute the systems it has been given between civilian and military targets. But Tyler Rogoway, an aviation and defence writer, argued that the most important aspect of the NASAMS is the widespread availability of the ammunition needed to fire it. NASAMS primary armament is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). Yes, the exact same missile used around the world by fighter aircraft in air-to-air applications, he wrote in The Drive . This means NATO alone, which sits on an inventory of many thousands of AMRAAMs, can provide Ukraine with the ammo it needs to maximize the systems impact. There are few modern SAM systems that have enough ammunition sitting on the shelf to last over a sustained high-intensity conflict like the one in Ukraine, he wrote, describing it as an absolutely critical advantage. The most urgent task now for Ukraine will be learning how to coordinate the various different systems on the way to its armed forces, Gen Milley said in his briefing. The task will be to bring those together, get them deployed, get them trained because each of these systems is different make sure that they can link together with the command-and-control and communication systems and make sure they have radars that can talk to each other so that they can acquire targets on the inbound flights, he said. So its quite complicated from a technical standpoint. It is achievable, and thats what were aiming at, he said. When Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin and other Raleigh officials emerged from city hall to announce that a Raleigh police officer and four other people had been shot to death Thursday evening, they stood a few feet from a memorial to fallen police officers. The Raleigh Police Memorial was dedicated in 2014 to the eight officers who had died in the line of duty going back to 1922. Designed by Raleigh artist Thomas Sayre, the memorial consists of 21 granite columns at one end of a 64-foot-long water table that flows toward a single column that bears the names of the eight officers. Its not clear whether Officer Gabriel Torres will join them. Torres, 29, was off duty when he was shot in the Hedingham neighborhood near the Neuse River on the citys east side. He had worked for the department for 18 months and leaves behind a wife and child, according to Police Chief Estella Patterson. When the memorials design was unveiled, Sayre said the 21 granite columns were meant to speak to the interconnectedness of the police department. Each one is different, he said, but they have a family resemblance. Three of the officers honored by the memorial died of gunshot wounds. The five others were killed in car or motorcycle crashes while on duty, the most recent in 2002. Raleigh police and others gather at the memorial on the anniversary of each officers death for an end of watch ceremony, to lay a wreath and remember. Here are the eight officers: Detective Tom G. Crabtree was shot and killed on Sept. 1, 1922, after being confronted by an intoxicated 19-year-old man. He had been with the department for nine years and left behind a son. Officer Robert E. Sparks was killed in a motorcycle crash on Ridge Road while chasing a speeding motorist on March 8, 1968. He had been with the department for 15 months and left behind a wife. Officers James W. Allen and James G. Lee were both killed on Dec. 5, 1968, when their patrol car was hit by another vehicle and pushed into a utility pole. Allen had been with the department for two years, Lee for four years. Story continues Officer Delma D. Adams was shot and killed after arresting a woman suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 3, 1980. The woman was in the back seat of his patrol car when she pulled out a gun and shot Adams in the head as he sat behind the wheel. He had been with the department for 13 years and was survived by a wife and two sons. Officer Denise Holden was killed when her patrol car hit a telephone pole at the intersection of Hillsborough and Morgan streets on Aug. 4, 1995. Holden was responding to a call about another officer needing assistance. She had been with the department for seven months and was survived by her parents and a sister. Detective Paul A. Hale was shot and killed when he and his partner pulled over a homicide suspect. Hales partner returned fire, wounding the suspect. Hale had been with the department for seven years and had been promoted to detective only five days earlier. He left a wife and two daughters. Officer Charles R. Paul was killed when his motorcycle hit a guard rail on Interstate 40 as he attempting to catch up to a speeding vehicle on Sept. 10, 2002. Paul had been with the department for seven years and was survived by his wife and daughter. As she announced the death of Torres on Thursday night, a visibly shaken Baldwin offered solace and praise for the citys police department. At the time, officers had contained the 15-year-old suspect but had not yet arrested him. Its a tragic day because Raleigh police have lost one of their own, Baldwin said. I just want to thank the extraordinary officers of the Raleigh Police Department who even now, right now, are protecting us and putting themselves in harms way to arrest the suspect. They care about our great city. They care about the people who live here. And I just want to say that we really appreciate them. Story at a glance In a broadcast Monday night, the commentator criticized the National Football League for treating quarterbacks too softly. But his word choice sparked outrage on social media, with many calling the comment sexist. During a Dallas, Texas radio appearance Thursday, the Hall of Famer apologized for his remarks, calling them dumb. Commentator Troy Aikman issued an apology for a comment made during a Monday Night Football broadcast of the Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. During the game, a penalty was called on a Chiefs defensive lineman who sacked the Raiders quarterback. The roughing the passer call wiped out the sack and a fumble recovery. This followed another controversial roughing the passer call in a Sunday game that involved Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady. My hope is the competition committee looks at this in the next set of meetings, and you know, we take the dresses off, Aikman said during the broadcast, suggesting the rules were treating quarterbacks too softly. Many criticized the remark on social media, calling it sexist and dated as it equated wearing dresses with weakness. America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Aikman addressed the blowback during an appearance on the Dallas, Texas radio station 96.7 The Ticket Thursday, The Dallas Morning News reported. My comments were dumb, Aikman said. Just shouldnt have made them. Just dumb remarks on my part. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback continued, But the other part of what came from that, what I said was that it implied that Im not in favor of protecting the quarterbacks, which could not be further from the truth. Im totally in favor of the protection that the quarterbacks are afforded, and all players for that matter. But theres no question there has been over-enforcement of the protection for quarterbacks. Quarterback safety has also been in the news this year after Miamis Tua Tagovailoa re-entered a game after taking a hit and stumbling off the field looking off-balance. It was widely suspected that the Miami star was allowed to reenter the game after suffering a concussion. Miami has said the quarterback stumbled because of a back injury, but Tagovailoa did get a concussion in a subsequent game when he took a similar hit. Story continues Aikman was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2006 and joined ESPN as an analyst earlier this year. The commentator makes around $18 million each year and is joined in the booth by Joe Buck. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. IGBO-ORA, Nigeria (AP) Twins appear to be unusually abundant in Nigeria's southwestern city of Igbo-Ora. Nearly every family here has twins or other multiple births, says local chief Jimoh Titiloye. For the past 12 years, the community has organized an annual festival to celebrate twins. This year's event, held earlier this month, included more than 1,000 pairs of twins and drew participants from as far away as France, organizers said. There is no proven scientific explanation for the high rate of twins in Igbo-Ora, a city of at least 200,000 people 135 kilometers (83 miles) south of Nigerias largest city, Lagos. But many in Igbo-Ora believe it can be traced to women's diets. Alake Olawunmi, a mother of twins, attributes it to a local delicacy called amala which is made from yam flour. John Ofem, a gynecologist based in the capital, Abuja, says it very well could be that there are things they eat there that have a high level of certain hormones that now result in what we call multiple ovulation. While that could explain the higher-than-normal rate of fraternal twins in Igbo-Ora, the city also has a significant number of identical twins. Those result instead from a single fertilized egg that divides into two not because of hyperovulation. Taiwo Ojeniyi, a Nigerian student, said he attended the festival with his twin brother to celebrate the uniqueness of multiple births. We cherish twins while in some parts of the world, they condemn twins," he said. "It is a blessing from God. ___ Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) Nigerian lecturers have called off their 8-month-long strike to protest their conditions, the union's president told The Associated Press. The strike was suspended early Friday after a meeting of union leaders considered compromises agreed upon with the government, said Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. He did not give further details about the decision which came days after the union met with Nigerian lawmakers. The union, however, warned that its issues have not been resolved. While appreciating the commendable efforts of the leadership of the House of Representatives and other patriotic Nigerians who waded into the matter, NEC (national executive council) noted with regrets that the issues in dispute are yet to be satisfactorily addressed, the union said in a statement issued Friday. University strikes are common in Nigeria but the latest is one of the longer ones in many years. It disrupted learning in almost all of Nigerias more than 100 public universities with an estimated 2.5 million students. Most lecturers in Nigerian universities are members of the academic staff union, which meant no other teachers could be found for students. The lecturers embarked on the industrial action at a time when Nigerias education sector that is struggling to recover from a COVID-19 lockdown and after an earlier strike that lasted for most of 2020. They are demanding a review of their conditions of service including the platform the government uses to pay their earnings and improved funding for the universities. Not all the demands have been met, the union said, but two local courts have directed them to return to work while negotiations continue. The news of the suspension of the strike excited many students who are eager to return to classes. I am a little bit happy because I was not expecting to resume my academic session till next year, said Adenekan Ayomide, a second-year student at the University of Abuja who has been working as a taxi driver since the strike began. Students in Nigeria's public universities schools tend to spend at least an extra year on four-year courses Lecturers in Nigeria say they will go back to work on Monday after a strike that closed most of the country's universities for eight months, leaving hundreds of thousands of students angry and frustrated. "That's eight months wasted out of my life, and what did the strike achieve?" asked one student who did not want to be identified. The strike which began in February was the 9th in 13 years - the latest in a decades-long saga with the government about funding tertiary education in the country. The main lecturers' union - the Academic Staff Union of Universities (Asuu) - has been fighting for improved funding but the government says it can't meet all its financial demands. Asuu said it decided to call off the strike "as a law-abiding union and in deference to appeals" by Nigerians but that "issues remain unresolved". The lecturers stopped work at public universities to support their demands, but the prolonged strikes have caused widespread disaffection among students and families. "I did absolutely nothing in eight months," said another student, glad she was finally going back to school in Lagos. "[People] keep saying learn a skill, learn a skill. If I wanted to learn a skill, I won't go to the university," she said. It is not clear how the major sticking-point in negotiations since 2020 - the method of paying lecturers - was resolved, raising concerns that another strike may not be far off. Lecturers were protesting about a government payroll system they said did not capture certain allowances and led to discrepancies in salaries. The government, however, said the system helped it check the scourge of ghost-workers in the civil service and rejected an alternative payroll software developed by the lecturers as it did not pass its integrity tests. A previous nine-month strike ended in December 2020 after the government signed an agreement to look into the issues raised by Asuu, but it apparently reneged, leading to several warnings by the union before members eventually downed tools in February this year. Story continues Students who have now missed almost a full session of academic work, two years after a Covid-disrupted one, are now expected to resume classes on Monday and many are not pleased they will not be able to graduate when they ought to. "My mates in private universities have graduated and now have a two years' start in life," said a student at the University of Port Harcourt. The incessant strikes have eroded confidence in Nigeria's public tertiary education system, leaving people with the options of expensive private universities or migrating to countries with affordable tuition fees, such as in eastern Europe. Negotiations between the union and the government often drag on but this year's talks were even more rancorous, with the government taking the union to court, whose order to resume was ignored by lecturers. Children of many politicians, including those of President Muhammadu Buhari and senior professors, often attend school abroad, increasing frustrations that the government and universities' management are not invested in finding a solution to the crisis. Last week, President Buhari announced that the government would invest 470bn naira ($1.1bn; 960m) in the universities next year as part of the agreement reached with the union, which will also see an increase in lecturers' pay. But he warned that the government could not continue to finance tertiary education alone and that Nigeria needed to adopt successful models from other countries to fund the sector. How to fund tertiary education has been a big problem for years in Nigeria where low tuition fees mean many can access public schools. However, this has come at the cost of low salaries to lecturers and insufficient investment in the sector. Experts believe one solution would be to grant universities the autonomy to raise fees and attract funding. But in a country where many families are poor and there is a record population of out-of-school children, there are fears this could make matters worse. The idea of a low-interest loan for students has been mooted in the past, but that was rejected by the lecturers. "If we had accepted that students pay 1m naira (2,000; $2,300) as school fees, they would have increased our pay easily and who would the public and the students blame? It is Asuu," its chairman Emmanuel Osodeke said last year. Students blocked major roads in September to protest at the government's inability to reach a compromise with lecturers Asuu also wants the government to stop the creation of new universities until it can fund the existing ones and to release the report of a panel that investigated the top management of universities, which the union accuses of corruption. But many Nigerians feel the union is too quick to resort to strikes over its demands, and that some of them, such as telling their employer -the government - how to pay them, have gone too far. The government has also registered two new lecturers' unions, one of which said it will "work to ensure that this country is not traumatised again by strike", to weaken the power and monopoly of Asuu. It is a strategy that has been used to great effect in the past by the Nigerian government to break powerful unions and get them to negotiate separately. If it keeps the universities open, it is one many students and their families would take, even if it does not address the underlying problems. "I'm hoping this is the last strike I'll face till I graduate but I can only hope and pray," said one student in a text message. "The so called Asuu lecturers may come some other time and say they don't like their present salary that they want increment, what will we do ? Nothing," he added, using an emoji for helplessness. Trevor Milton, the founder and former executive chairman of Nikola, has been found guilty on three counts of fraud for misleading the electric vehicle companys investors about its business and technology. In total, he was found guilty on one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. He was acquitted on one charge of securities fraud. His sentencing has been scheduled for January 27th. He faces up to 20 years in prison. Milton was indicted by a federal grand jury on the charges last year, with prosecutors citing numerous alleged lies, including many made on Twitter, in podcast interviews and other media appearances. Prosecutors alleged he had lied about nearly all aspects of the business in an effort to boost the stock of the EV maker. The SEC began investigating the company in 2020, after Hindenburg Research publicly accused Nikola of staging an elaborate ruse to mislead the public about the status of its electric semi, Nikola One. While the company had published a video purporting to show the truck cruising on a road at a high rate of speed, Hindenburg said the truck had actually been towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill. The company ultimately paid $125 million to settle civil charges with the SEC in 2021. During the trial, Miltons defense lawyer argued that the video was merely special effects and that its certainly not a crime to use special effects. But prosecutors raised several other false claims by Milton, who was extremely active on Twitter. According to The Times, prosecutors said Milton also lied about having binding contracts with trucking companies that in reality were cancelable reservations for vehicles. Prosecutors also cited Milton's claims about making green hydrogen when the company had not yet produced any. In 1970, at a jazz festival in Poland, pianist Chucho Valdes life would change practically overnight. At that festival, he and his quintet unveiled an ambitious new work, Misa Negra, which married the percussion and musical idiom of traditional Yoruba religious masses with jazz. Back then, Cuban jazz had been built from the ground up after a one-time governmental ban on jazz music; the kind of Afro-Cuban jazz Valdes played, which deeply tapped into its West African roots, was even more of a novelty. Advertisement That day, Misa Negra went over many listeners heads. But the folks who mattered heard it loud and clear. Dave Brubeck, Valdes musical idol, caught him after the performance and encouraged the 27-year-old to keep spreading the gospel of Afro-Cuban jazz. Valdes quintet, at that time linking up on an ad hoc basis, decided to get serious. Within a few years, they would grow into Irakere, the blockbuster band that became an avatar for Cuban and Afro-Cuban jazz throughout the world. More than 50 years have passed since Misa Negra, and with them have come several Grammys and mononymous renown in the music world. But one of Valdess other major milestones has been more private: He was consecrated as a santero, or priest, in the Santeria (Regla de Ocha) faith, a syncretic religion combining Yoruba, Roman Catholic and Spiritist tenets. Advertisement Valdes returns to the spiritual ground he first tilled in Misa Negra with his new La Creacion suite, a Symphony Center co-commission performed here on Oct. 18. Mostly composed during the pandemic lockdown, La Creacion is written for a sprawling band of four trombones, four trumpets, five saxophones, two keyboards, bass, three bata players, drums, percussion, a vocalist and Valdes on piano one of the pianists most ambitious works yet. Chucho Valdes at the Monterey Jazz Festival. (Nic Coury / Monterey Jazz ) Valdes spoke to the Tribune about La Creacion the day after his 81st birthday. His son, Julian Valdes Salcedo, interpreted the conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length. Q: As I understand it, your grandmother was very Catholic, but your grandfather went to African Yoruba masses. How did that mix of faiths play out in your family, growing up in Cuba? A: The Cuban church at the time had a lot of Spanish influence. Cubas religious leader at the time transplanted the African saints into the churches (the religions) became almost the same thing. Thats how it happened with each and every one of the saints. It was accepted by the people, but many always retained their Yoruba beliefs. (My family) came out of the same fusion. My name, for example, is Jesus, but my roots are African! (Chuckles) Soy un mix. Q: You first explored the Yoruba mass more than 50 years ago in Misa Negra. That was a watershed work for you. Why did you write that piece, and why then? A: At that time, I already had a deep knowledge of the Yoruba religion, but I wanted to express with music how a Yoruba mass felt. In that piece, we only speak Lucumi, which is the Yoruba language, and we included bata (double-headed drum) touches to represent the Yoruba orichas (divine spirits). I had been to many Yoruba masses, but many people hadnt at that time. Q: What Santeria spiritual elements are in the work? And how did you approach them musically? A: Pretty much the goal of La Creacion is to show the history of each oricha and their function on earth. The creator, the most important god, is called Olodumare. I added the bata touches and singing for each saint. We also show how the religion expanded throughout the Caribbean. Advertisement Q: Youve also called it your most important work yet. Why? A: When I made Misa Negra, I was not consecrated as a santero. That happened many years later. Thats when I went more in-depth into my knowledge of the religion. That gave me the experience necessary to write the piece. Q: Again, you wrote this at a different time of your life, compared with Misa Negra. How would you describe your spirituality today? A: Its very deep. Ive studied more. Ive been to Africa. Im a santero, a son of Obatala (creator of human bodies and whose domain is the sky or heavens). Obatala is one of the most influential orichas in the Yoruba religion. He is my guardian angel. Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer. The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content. By Caroline Pailliez PARIS (Reuters) -The CGT union at the core of a weeks-long strike at oil major TotalEnergies slammed the door to talks on Friday, leaving more moderate unions to reach a wage deal as industrial action continues to leave French petrol stations short of fuel. Despite the government requisitioning key refinery staff to get petrol flowing again, nearly a third of gas stations still have supply problems. Energy ministry data show 28.5% of French petrol stations are facing supply problems, down from 29.1% on Thursday and 30.85% on Wednesday, when requisitioning started. At ExxonMobil, the hardline CGT union said it had ended its strike as other unions had signed a wage deal earlier this week, but at TotalEnergies the CGT vowed to continue strike action despite moderate unions agreeing a wage deal with management in the early hours of Friday. TotalEnergies' CFDT and CFE-CGC unions - which represent a majority of its workers - said they had agreed a 7% pay rise and a bonus payment from 3,000 euros to 6,000 euros ($2,921-$5,842). TotalEnergies confirmed the agreement on Friday. Though the deal is legally binding under French law, the CGT stand-off means strike action could continue for some time yet. CGT TotalEnergies representative Thierry Defresne tweeted the increase offered by the firm did not even cover inflation, which he said was a bad sign for wage negotiations in other industries. "If Total cannot do it, who will?" he said. The CGT previously said it wanted a 10% wage rise, citing inflation and the company's windfall profits from the global energy crisis. Another CGT representative at TotalEnergies told Reuters that all ongoing strikes, affecting four refineries and a depot, continued on Friday. The example at ExxonMobil, where strikes at two French refineries continued for several more days after a deal was reached with more moderate unions in the majority, showed that only government intervention ultimately allowed for the release of supplies, an industry source said. Story continues A court in Lille, northern France, on Friday rejected a CGT legal challenge against government requisitioning of staff at the TotalEnergies Dunkirk refinery. Transport Minister Clement Beaune told reporters on Friday it would take a few more days before the situation would return to normal. "The president has set a target for the middle of next week, we are working on that," he said. An ExxonMobil official told Reuters that at the Fos refinery loading and pumping had restarted, but that restarting the refinery would take time. The firm's Gravenchon refinery also remained offline. ExxonMobil's French business Esso later issued a statement saying it expected production to be back to normal at the two refineries "within two to three weeks". SPILLOVER EFFECT In the northern Hauts-de-France and Paris regions, parents could not drive their children to sports matches, employees struggled to get to work and people had to cancel planned trips. Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said that, at this stage, the government was not planning further requisitioning but added TotalEnergies bosses and CGT officials must resume talks despite the setback. The government has also urged TotalEnergies to raise salaries. "The company is in good shape and shareholders have been rewarded for a long time," Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT union, told franceinfo radio. As social tensions rise in the euro zone's second-biggest economy amid high inflation, there is a risk the petrol crisis, which is dominating news programmes, could spill into other sectors. The CGT, France's second-largest trade union, is seeking to scale up the movement and is calling for cross-sector nationwide industrial action. Strikes are already under way at some of state utility EDF's nuclear reactors, threatening power output. A union representative said that nuclear production was cut at two EDF power stations while two other sites are preparing for a strike over the weekend. Union branches in other sectors including the railway and automotive industries announced they would take part in a wider strike planned for next Tuesday. An escalation of industrial action could pose a threat to President Emmanuel Macron's reform agenda. The left-wing NUPES parliamentary coalition aims to capitalise on the situation with a march on Sunday. ($1 = 1.0270 euros) (Reporting by Caroline Pailliez, Tassilo Hummel, Forrest Crellin and Rowena Edwards; Writing by Geert De Clercq; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter) By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) -Five people including an off-duty police officer were shot dead in the North Carolina capital of Raleigh on Thursday, triggering a massive manhunt that shut down part of city for hours and resulted in the arrest of a juvenile suspect, officials said. Two people were wounded: a police officer who was treated and released and a person in hospital in critical condition, a police spokesman said. Multiple law-enforcement agencies took part in the manhunt, turning neighborhoods into crime scenes flooded with first responders. Citizens were told to shelter in place. The shooting broke out at or near the Neuse River Greenway, a trail that runs through part of the city. About three hours later, police said they "contained" the suspect in a residence near a wooded area, later reporting that the suspect, described only as a juvenile white male, was taken into custody. Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin decried the latest outbreak of gun violence in America, while North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper lamented that "terror has reached our doorstep." "The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh. This is a senseless, horrific and infuriating act of violence that has been committed," Cooper told a late night news conference. Media reported the shooter used a long gun. Police offered no details about how the shooting spree unfolded nor about the circumstances of the suspect's capture. Like others briefing reporters, Baldwin appeared pained and angry. "We must do more. We must stop this mindless violence in America. We must address gun violence," the mayor said. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler and Christopher Cushing) North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile, shot a barrage of artillery towards South Korea and flew warplanes close to its neighbours border in its latest show of force all in the span of a day. North Koreas latest military actions were in response to South Koreas provocative 10-hour-long artillery exercise near the border, it said in a statement through its state-run Korean Central News Agency. The actions will likely further heighten tensions with its regional neighbours and the US. Pyongyang issued a stern warning to the South Korean military inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action and defended its actions, saying it took strong military countermeasures. South Korea said it detected a short-range missile taking off from the Sunan area of North Koreas capital at 1.49am local time on Friday, flying towards its eastern waters. The ballistic missile travelled 650-700km (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 5km (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. Following the missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast, violating a maritime buffer zone agreed to in a 2018 inter-Korean agreement, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attending a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang on 13 October (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Images) South Korea also scrambled fighter jets after the North flew warplanes close to the border for the first time since 2017. Around 10 North Korean fighter jets crossed a reconnaissance line set by Seoul, prompting South Koreas military to undertake the automatic operational response required in the situation. North Korea has intensified tensions in the Korean peninsula as Kim Jong-un ordered a torrid run of powerful weapons tests while threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul. It was Pyongyangs 15th missile launch since 25 September when it resumed its testing activities. It was also the second time the North launched a ballistic missile at night in less than a week and follows tests of two long-range cruise missiles on Wednesday. Story continues North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un oversees a missile launch at an undisclosed location in North Korea (via REUTERS) In retaliation, South Koreas foreign ministry imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organisations for their suspected involvement in illegal activities of financing Pyongyangs recent launches and nuclear program. These were Seouls first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but they are seen as largely a symbolic step by observers as the two Koreas have little financial dealings. South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, who promised a tougher stance over Norths provocations, said Mr Kims incitement is becoming indiscriminative but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. The decision to attack cant be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome, Mr Yoon told reporters. The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North). Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi supported Seouls decision to impose the sanctions. Whatever the intentions are, North Koreas repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Japanese defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said. He said Fridays missile flew on an irregular trajectory - a reference usually made to describe Norths highly maneuvrable KN-23 weapon modelled on Russias Iskander missile. Condemning what it called as a barrage of hostile actions overnight, Seouls National Security Council warned that such provocations will bring consequences. The North said the action was in response to South Koreas artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border on Thursday. South Korean leadership later confirmed conducting the artillery training at a frontline area but said it did not violate the 2018 agreement. On Wednesday, Mr Kim said these recent missile tests were a simulation of a nuclear attack on the South. He expressed great satisfaction with the launches and said it shows its nuclear combat forces were at full preparedness for actual war. SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) North Macedonias state broadcaster MRT announced Friday that the country will not participate in next years Eurovision Song Contest in the English port city of Liverpool to save money on electricity bills. The decision is in the best interest of the public, given the increased costs due to the energy crisis, which take up a large part of the budget for public services, the broadcaster said in a message posted on its website. It said the savings would come from not paying the registration fee which was expected to be higher than the 39,143 euros ($38,100) charged last year. It was the first time North Macedonia will not take part in the televised event since its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The European Broadcasting Union, an association of public broadcasters in Europe, oversees the annual competition. This diagram provides a snapshot of where to go in a radiation emergency. FEMA The threat of nuclear war, though distant, is prominent thanks to the invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear weapons are deadly, but their worst effects are confined to a limited zone. Here is how to best protect yourself in case of a nuclear blast, according to trusted sources. With about 12,700 nuclear warheads spread across nine countries, the risk of nuclear war is always present. Though the risk remains low, tensions are running high around the Ukraine war. As Russia has struggled to make progress invading Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has hinted that he could deploy nuclear weapons in dire circumstances. Experts have previously told Insider that it is unlikely Putin would take that step. By doing so, Russia would risk alienating its allies and its own people. Still, world leaders are taking the threat seriously. In case the worst happens, there are easy tips to remember to minimise the risk. "Fallout casualties are entirely preventable," Brooke Buddemeier, a health physicist and expert on radiation and emergency preparedness at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told Insider in 2018. "Knowing what to do after an event like this can literally save hundreds of thousands of people from radiation illness or fatalities." Here are 17 tips to best protect yourself in case of an impact. A flash, a burst, and a blast According to FEMA, here are six important stages during a nuclear weapon impact: A bright flash caused by a huge fireball, which can cause temporary blindness A blast wave, which can flatten buildings and cause serious injury and death. This wave can take several seconds to reach you. A pulse of nuclear radiation. Fire and heat, which can cause out-of-control fires. An electromagnetic pulse, which can disable devices for miles around. Radioactive fallout, contaminated particles kicked into the air by the blast. It can take up to 15 minutes to arrive. High-altitude winds can make it sprinkle over hundreds of square miles, though it's most intense near the blast site. Story continues Nuclear weapons are deadly, and after an impact on a major city tens to hundreds of thousands would likely die. But the worst destruction, where the chances of survival are least likely, is confined to a "severe damage zone," Buddemeier said. For a 10-kiloton blast equivalent to two-thirds of the Hiroshima bomb blast that's about a half-mile radius. There are ways to enhance your chance of survival in the unlikely scenario a nuclear bomb were to hit your town. "There were survivors in Hiroshima within 300 meters [900 ft] of the epicenter," Buddemeier said. How to prepare The American Red Cross advises that you build an emergency preparedness kit. This is a kit that should keep you going in case of any emergency. It includes water, food, flashlight, medication, and other items (more information can be found here). It's also good practice to look out for fallout shelters available in your community and to build a plan for your family in case of disaster. Lastly, learn ahead of time which channels to use to get notifications from official sources, per the Red Cross. What to do if you get a notification of imminent attack If you receive notification of an imminent attack, your first priority is to seek shelter that will protect you both from bodily harm from the blast and from the radiation in the fallout that will follow. If you're driving, pull over, get out, and make your way into a building, Buddemeier said. Seek shelter indoors, preferably underground and in a brick or concrete building, per the Red Cross and FEMA. Go as far underground as possible, per the Red Cross and FEMA. If that's not possible, try to stay in the center of the building, for example in a stairwell. The deeper and lower in the building you can get and the farther from windows (which can shatter), doors (which can fly open), and exterior walls (which can cave in), the better your odds. "I think of the same kinds of things that we do for tornadoes," Buddemeier said. Don't look at the fireball, as the light could temporary blind you, per FEMA. Stay tuned for more instructions. Mobile networks may be interrupted, but radios should still function, per FEMA. Humans and pets should stay inside for at least 24 hours or until instructed otherwise by authorities, per the Red Cross. What to do if you're outside when the blast hits If you're outside, your first priority is to shelter from the blast wave. Take cover behind anything that could protect you and lay flat on the ground and cover your head, per the Red Cross. Don't assume the blast has passed you it could take up to 30 seconds for the wave to reach you, per the Red Cross. After the blast wave passes, you want to limit exposure to radiation. If you're still outside, cover your mouth with a cloth or a towel, which can reduce the amount of radioactive fallout you breathe in, per the Red Cross. Take shelter as soon as possible, regardless of how far you are from the impact. Radioactive fallout can travel hundreds of miles, per the Red Cross. As soon as you are safely inside, remove the outer layer of your clothing. What to do once you've found shelter If you were outside, you want to get the fallout as far away from your body as possible. Too much exposure over a short time can damage the body enough to limit its ability to fix itself, fight infection, and perform other functions, leading to a dangerous condition called acute radiation sickness. Typically, about 750 millisieverts of exposure within several hours can make a person sick. This is roughly 100 times the amount of natural and medical radiation that an average American receives each year. A 10-kiloton blast can deliver this much exposure within a radius of about a mile. Removing your outer layer of clothing can reduce the amount of contamination from fallout by up to 90%, per the Red Cross. If possible to do so safely, put all the contaminated clothing into a plastic bag that you keep far away from others and pets the clothes may still be emitting radiation. Wash your hair and skin with water and lots of soap and shampoo. Do not scratch the skin and do not use conditioner, which would bind any the radioactive material to your hair, per the Red Cross. Gently blow your nose and wash out your ears, where contaminated dirt may be trapped, per the Red Cross. A shower is best. If that's not available, a wet cloth wash will still help, provided the cloth hasn't been outside, per FEMA. If your pet was outdoors, they could also be covered in fallout which could expose you and them. Gently brush your pet's coat then wash then with soap and water, per FEMA. If you can, close windows and fireplaces, turn off fans, air conditioners, and forced-air heating units, per the Red Cross. Be prepared to shelter It's best to hunker down in your blast shelter if you're unsure whether it's safe to move. At this point, fires and obstructive debris are likely to be widespread, Buddemeier said. Eat and drink only packaged food items or items that were inside a building, per FEMA. Care for your emotional wellbeing and the wellbeing of your children. Focus on positive actions you can take, limit exposure of children to media reports that can be scary, remember to eat and drink, and be patient with others, per the Red Cross. "The most important thing in both cases is to be inside when the event occurs, either when the detonation occurs or when the fallout arrives," Buddemeier said. This article was first published in January 2018 and has been updated to reflect recent developments. Dave Mosher contributed to the earlier version of the story. Read the original article on Business Insider After spending a sweltering summer with a broken air conditioner, a Fayette County man worries that his family wont have heat in time for next weeks cold front. I used to have a countdown to Christmas, Joe Murray told FOX13. Now, I have a countdown to a working HVAC unit. In early June, Murray said his family noticed the air conditioning unit upstairs wasnt working. My expectation going into this was it was going to be a hot June, Murray explained. I figured if we made the claim in June, then probably by the fourth of July, it would be fixed. Over the next five months, he said First American Home Warranty Corporation sent three contractors to check out the problem. By mid-October, his HVAC unit was still broken. Its been over 124 days now, I think, since the claim has been entered, he explained. Were thinking its going to be Christmas by the time we get anything. Murrays biggest frustration was what he described as a lack of communication from the company and contractors. We never get phone calls returned, we never get emails answered, he said. Then we do, it usually just happens sporadically. On Friday, FOX13 asked the home warranty company about the delay. Within three hours, First American contacted Murray and authorized a local company to complete the repairs, according to an email he shared with FOX13. Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: Out of respect for the privacy of our customers, First American Home Warranty does not comment on the details of customer claims, a First American spokesman wrote to FOX13. However, we contacted this customer and are working towards an appropriate resolution. Murray just hopes his heating works before Christmas. Im hoping maybe that will be Santas gift to me, he explained. A functional HVAC unit that might not leak gas into our house. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on Thursday for being too scared to hold regular town halls after Boebert accused Ocasio-Cortez of rarely seeing her constituents. Hey Boebert, you seem to have us confused, Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. I: have attended & hosted 100s of community events, hold regular town halls, dont take a dime in corporate cash. You: are bankrolled by corporate PACs, Big Ag, & Oil, are too scared to hold regular town halls open to all. The latest series of jabs follows a video Boebert posted online of a man yelling at Ocasio-Cortez at a town hall over support for the war in Ukraine. On the rare occasions that @AOC actually spends time with her constituents, she is reminded that she has sold them out at every turn, Boebert said in the tweet. The two congresswomen who represent the most liberal and conservative wings of their respective parties have frequently feuded. Boebert trolled Ocasio-Cortez in November when she showed up to meet former President Trump in a red dress with the anti-Biden slogan Lets Go Brandon. Boeberts dress took inspiration from Ocasio-Cortezs Tax the Rich dress that she wore to the Met Gala in September 2021. Ocasio-Cortez criticized Boebert in December over a photo she posted of her children holding guns in front of a Christmas tree. Boebert in response accused Ocasio-Cortez of using her position as a Congresswoman to attack my boys with their Christmas presents. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By Stephanie Kelly NEW YORK (Reuters) -Oil prices plummeted more than 3% on Friday as global recession fears and weak oil demand, especially in China, outweighed support from a large cut to the OPEC+ supply target. Brent crude futures dropped $2.94, or 3.1%, to settle at $91.63 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell $3.50, or 3.9%, to $85.61. The Brent and WTI contracts both oscillated between positive and negative territory for much of Friday but fell for the week by 6.4% and 7.6%, respectively. U.S. core inflation recorded its biggest annual increase in 40 years, reinforcing views that interest rates would stay higher for longer with the risk of a global recession. The next U.S. interest rate decision is due on Nov. 1-2. U.S. consumer sentiment continued to improve steadily in October, but households' inflation expectations deteriorated a bit, a survey showed. The improvement in consumer sentiment "is being viewed as a negative because it means the Fed needs to break the spirit of the consumers and slow the economy down more, and that's caused an increase in the dollar and downward pressure on the oil market," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. The U.S. dollar index rose around 0.8%. A stronger dollar reduces demand for oil by making the fuel more expensive for buyers using other currencies. In U.S. supply, energy firms this week added eight oil rigs to bring the total to 610, their highest since March 2020, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said. China, the world's largest crude oil importer, has been fighting COVID-19 flare-ups after a week-long holiday. The country's infection tally is small by global standards, but it adheres to a zero-COVID policy that is weighing heavily on economic activity and thus oil demand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Thursday cut its oil demand forecast for this and next year, warning of a potential global recession. Story continues The market is still digesting a decision last week from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together known as OPEC+, when they announced a 2 million barrel per day (bpd) cut to oil production targets. Underproduction among the group means this will probably translate to a 1 million bpd cut, the IEA estimates. Saudi Arabia and the United States have clashed over the decision. Meanwhile, money managers raised their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions by 20,215 contracts to 194,780 in the week to Oct. 11, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said. (Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London, Emily Chow in SingaporeEditing by David Evans, Will Dunham and Marguerita Choy) Don Ford, a veteran Oklahoma educator who leads a rural schools network, initially thought state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister didnt understand the workings of schools outside the states major cities. But then Hofmeister, a former teacher and onetime owner of a Tulsa tutoring company, put half a million miles on her car traveling throughout the state. She listened as educators spoke of the challenges facing small-town schools. She was willing to listen and learn by getting out into our districts, Ford said. Educational options in those communities are now center stage as voters prepare to choose their next governor. Incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt is campaigning on a statewide fund-students-not-systems platform and promises to support any bills that would give parents and students more freedom to attend the schools that best fit their learning needs. No paywall. No pop-up ads. Keep The 74 free for everyone with a generous donation. A voucher plan that died in the Senate earlier this year would have opened them to children in families that earn roughly three times what it takes to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, with most awards ranging from $5,900 to about $8,100. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, a Republican, has pledged to introduce a similar bill if Stitt wins. Related: Heading into Midterms, GOP Finds All School Politics is Local But Hofmeister, who switched parties to challenge Stitt as a Democrat, has called the proposal a rural schools killer because it would pull funding from traditional districts. I have gone to those communities that have lost their school, and then they lose their town, Hofmeister told The 74. As the leader of one of the reddest states in the country, Stitt fully embraces the GOP education agenda, from restricting how teachers discuss race and gender to ending a policy that allowed students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. In his State of the State address this year, he said, God gave kids to parents not the government! He blames Hofmeister, who is finishing her second term, for a lack of improvement in Oklahoma schools, while she points to financial scandals under his watch. Story continues Recent polls show Stitts lead over Hofmeister shrinking a reflection, some say, of the power of her message about rural schools. Weve hit on an issue that strikes at the heart of a communitys identity, said Amber England, a public affairs and political consultant who previously ran an education nonprofit. A Hofmeister supporter, England said Stitt might roll into a rural town with a hat on and cowboy boots, but doesnt grasp that his proposal wont help students in remote areas without private schools. Rural schools depend more on state funding than those with a larger tax base, said Ford, executive director of the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools. Vouchers, he said, could translate to an annual loss of $350 million in funding for public schools. Were worried about money, he said. Anytime you take money out of the formula, how are you going to replace it? But Trent England, a fellow at the conservative Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, accused Hofmeister of seeking to preserve a one-size-fits-all system and trying to scare people by implying vouchers will shutter rural schools often the largest employers in these towns. There are serious problems in public schools, and thats not limited to urban areas, said England, who is not related to Amber England. Related: Oklahoma Bets on School Counseling Corps to Address Mental Health Deserts Hard feelings On his campaign website, Stitt said Hofmeister hasnt done enough to fix Oklahomas schools, which have ranked low for decades. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress put the state among those performing significantly below the U.S. average in math and reading. Hofmeister said one way she plans to improve schools is to address the states teacher shortage. She has proposed a $5,000 raise for teachers as part of a budget request for next years legislative session. Meanwhile, Stitt proposed a bill that would push some teacher salaries to as high as $100,000. But the only legislation that passed was a new incentive and scholarship program to push high schoolers to major in education when they go to college. Related: Why Are So Many Republicans Raising Teacher Salaries? Oklahoma teachers havent had a substantial raise since 2018, when the legislature passed a $6,100 increase, falling short of the $10,000 they asked for. They walked out for nine days, part of the wave of Red for Ed demonstrations across the country. Walking out even after lawmakers boosted their pay, Ford said, created hard feelings between the teachers and legislators that linger today. Our teachers dont feel respected, he said. Those feelings have only increased with Republicans efforts to clamp down on lessons and educator training that address institutional racism, some educators say. In July, the state board of education downgraded the Tulsa districts accreditation after a state investigation prompted by Stitt concluded the districts training materials violated the states law banning critical race theory. Related: Education is Key in Pennsylvania Governors Race But Not Always in the Usual Ways I firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide young Oklahomans by their race or sex, he said in a video on the audit. Lets teach students, not indoctrinate them. Ryan Walters the states education secretary, a new position created by the governor has tweeted videos from his car calling out teachers he says push far-left ideology. Walters, who is running for state superintendent, trails Democrat Jena Wilson, a middle school teacher in Oklahoma City, according to a poll released last month. Many teachers state they dont know how they will be able to remain teaching should the outcome of the race be a win for both men, said Stacey Woolley, president of the Tulsa Board of Education. Many have directly said they will resign immediately. EDlection 2022 The 74s rolling coverage of key 2022 candidates, races and votes that could shape the future of American education. Overseeing the money In addition to decrying Stitts culture war focus, his critics draw attention to the misuse of $650,000 in federal relief funds distributed through ClassWallet, an online payment system for educators. Walters oversaw the $8 million program, which offered $1,500 grants to low-income families for educational expenses. But some spent the money on video games, Christmas trees and cookware, a federal audit found. Local reporters obtained documents showing that in his role as executive director of an education nonprofit, Walters helped ClassWallet secure the contract. The state is suing ClassWallets parent company, Kleo Inc., for breach of contract. Stitts campaign did not respond to requests for comment. With Hofmeister and Stitt scheduled to debate on the 19th and the election still weeks away, the race is expected to be close. Kenneth Hicks, a political science professor at Rogers State University, said the results might hinge more on voter reaction to the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which took away the constitutional right to abortion and returned the decision to the states. It was easy as a campaign issue for Stitt to say he would sign any anti-abortion bill, Hicks said Republicans may be finding themselves regretting jumping on that issue with both feet. Regardless of the reason for the races narrowing gap, some of Stitts supporters are nervous. For Republicans, its certainly closer than it should be, Trent England said, but added Oklahomans are staunchly pro-life and support the governors opposition to transgender females using girls locker rooms. Related: School Choice Blurring Party Lines in Georgia Superintendent Race as Teachers Union Aims to Take Down Democrat In a state that was solidly Democratic until its Congressional delegation began to shift in the 1980s, Amber England is hoping for an upset. As someone who led a successful Medicaid expansion campaign in the state in 2020, shes seen surprises on Election Day. Voters dont get enough credit for making good decisions at the ballot box, she said. If were able to run a race in Oklahoma on the issue of protecting public schools, thats a game changer for our friends across the country. Olivia Wilde has responded to critics who claim she has abandoned her two children. On Thursday, the Dont Worry Darling director posed for Elles November 2022 cover story, in which she opened up about motherhood in the spotlight. Wilde, who shares eight-year-old son Otis and six-year-old daughter Daisy with ex Jason Sudeikis, acknowledged that people assume the worst when shes not photographed with her children. I share custody of my kids with my ex, she told the outlet. If Im photographed not with my kids, people assume I have abandoned them, like my kids are just somewhere in a hot car without me. The suggestion is that I have abandoned my role as a mother. However, according to Wilde, the reason people dont see the single mom with her children is because she prefers to keep them out of the public eye. You know why you dont see me with my kids? Because I dont let them get photographed. Do you know the lengths that I go to to protect my kids from being seen by you? she said. The 38-year-old actor, who is currently in a relationship with co-star Harry Styles, has previously spoken out against the shaming assumptions people have made, and the double standards she faces as a single mother. When people see me not with my kids, its always How dare she, Wilde told Variety in August. Ive never seen anyone say that about a guy. And if he is with his kid, hes a f**king hero. The Bones alum went on to call Otis and Daisy her world and her best friends, and revealed that she had recently taken time off work to be more present with her children. It became clear to me that this year was a time for me to be a stay-at-home mom, Wilde said. It was not the year for me to be on a set, which is totally all-encompassing. It was time for me to pause and devote myself to the kids when I have them. Wilde and Sudeikis, who got engaged in 2013, called off their relationship in November 2020. In April, the former couples custody battle took a turn when Wilde was served custody papers by her ex-fiance while on stage at CinemaCon. At the time, Sudeikis said he had no prior knowledge that she was going to be served during her presentation, saying he was deeply upset by the events and feels great distress at the manner in which service was made. Story continues While speaking to Variety, Wilde said it was deeply painful that the two children she shares with Sudeikis were involved in a public matter that should have been kept private. The only people who suffered were my kids, because theyll have to see that, and they shouldnt ever have to know that happened, she explained. For me, it was appalling, but the victims were an eight and five-year-old, and thats really sad. I chose to become an actress, she added. I willingly walked into the spotlight. But its not something my children have asked for. And when my kids are dragged into it, its deeply painful. Now, the former couple have needed to reshape their family as they continue to co-parent their two children from Los Angeles, New York, and London where Sudeikis films his show, Ted Lasso. During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show in September, Wilde described co-parenting with Sudeikis as tricky; although, she said she is grateful that its allowed deep conversations with her children about emotions, family, and love. My priority is them, she told Clarkson. Thats what it is. Its as long as theyre happy and theyre healthy then, my ex and I, we agree on that. They are everything to us. In August, Sudeikiss custody claim against Wilde was dismissed when a judge denied the actors petition for their children to live with him in New York, declaring that their home state is California. NEW YORK For anyone who knows how hard August Wilson once struggled to get his plays financed and produced on Broadway with mostly unknown actors from his informal repertory company from the hinterlands, the writers newly vaulted Gotham status is nothing short of amazing. Now comes a starry, enjoyable Broadway revival of The Piano Lesson at the Barrymore Theatre, one of the 10 plays in the late, great Bard of Pittsburghs famous cycle of Black American life in the 20th century, starring the Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson and directed by the actors wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson. The cast is further replete with Danielle Brooks from Orange Is the New Black and John David Washington, the son of Denzel Washington. Advertisement And the titular prop piano, which Wilson employed as a modest symbol for the ancestral sacrifices of those who perished on the Middle Passage and plantation fields beyond, has such elaborate and detailed carvings that you can imagine it being stored and later used on a soundstage for an upcoming movie, even if a modest one already was made. Ive seen The Piano Lesson several times, but never with such a grand upright piano, replete with the faces of long-dead enslaved people staring out at a Broadway audience. Wilson, of course, wrote a play for each decade of the Black experience and The Piano Lesson, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, covers the 1930s. A young man named Boy Willie (Washington) arrives in Pittsburghs Hill District (the site of all but one of Wilsons plays) with his countrified friend, Lymon (Ray Fisher) escaping the racist legal system of Mississippi. Boy Willie, who has learned under duress to be a schemer, intends to effect the sale of the family heirloom, as carved by an enslaved ancestor under the orders of a slave owner whose wife missed the enslaved people he had sold and wanted a reminder. A further family member even was killed for stealing, or rather returning, the piano to a family blown apart by the cruelty of slavery. Advertisement Boy Willie sees only money. Unfortunately for him, though, he owns the piano in tandem with his sister, Berniece (Brooks) and the siblings sure cant carve it down the middle. And Berniece sees the value of the piano differently. And thus Boy Willie has to learn one of Wilsons key lessons for young people, that it is folly to disrespect those upon whose shoulders you stand. And he also has to learn you sometimes have to break the law to do the right thing by your people. As Wilsons diversely structured plays go, The Piano Lesson is perhaps the most moralistic and melodramatic yet also the most fun to watch. (Preacher Avery, played by Trai Byers, and the sardonic Wining Boy, played by Michael Potts, add to the clash of Hill District characters toward the end of the first Great Migration.) As Boy Willie tries to sell the instrument, the entire house (designed here with a fractured flourish by Beowulf Boritt) creaks its disapproval as the ghosts of the past are awakened. And as the two siblings fight this out, the older and wiser uncle, Doaker (Jackson), watches in studied remove, alternately dispensing helpful wisdom and cynical acceptance. He knows the ghostly history of the ancestral piano and what it means to this family and, by extension, to Black America. Jackson is terrific, especially in Act 1, as he crackles with life and humor, sparring with Washington with a delicious kind of ease, even as the authentic Brooks, playing one of Wilsons strongest female characters, tries to build a home for her daughter and the next generation. Jackson has the kind of rhetorical vibe that works well with Wilsons naturalistic poetry and, especially for anyone over 50, he makes it very clear that his guy knows all about the follies and narcissistic tendencies of youth; Wilson wrote Doaker to know the end of the play even from the beginning and that is exactly as he plays him. Act 1 is far stronger here than Act 2; the first half of the show is filled with compelling staging ideas and rich, specific acting, whereas things fall off the boil considerably in Act 2, when the choices become more general and feel less distinct, as if the show ran out of time in rehearsal. Theres a desired climax here involving Boy Willies eventual understanding of his own lack of understanding and, with Washington, you never fully see the realization dawn, a key part of The Piano Lesson. Maybe in time Washington will find his way there. But when it comes to Wilsons poetry, visual metaphors and roiling ideas? All flowing here with eloquence and verve. At the Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., New York; pianolessonplay.com Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. Advertisement cjones5@chicagotribune.com As heavy rains soaked the grounds of Holy Cross Cemetery, Lebanon residents visited a hometown Vietnam-era helicopter pilot's grave to honor his sacrifice on a rescue mission 51 years ago. On Oct. 13, 1971, WO1 John Stephen Chrin was first pilot on a mission with air medics in far western An Giang Province. For reasons unknown, he and his crew were unaware they had drifted south and were dangerously close to the 2,330-foot mountain peak known as Dop Chompa. "Similar to this kind of weather I guess, (Chrin's crew) were first up on the evening shift and they noticed there was a causality who hadn't been picked up by the day shift 'cause of the rain," William Sypher, of Friends of Vietnam DUSTOFF, said at Thursday's informal ceremony. "So they decided they would go." Radar contact was lost approximately seven miles from a 2,000-foot mountain, official military records state. Chrin's aircraft hit the side of a mountain near Chau Lang. A fire was spotted by ground observers who were unable to reach the crash site until the following morning. Chin graduated from Lebanon Catholic High School in 1967. He was attending Mansfield State College when he enlisted with the U.S. Army in April of 1970. Phil Arnold would always pick up Chrin their senior year at Lebanon Catholic High School. A fellow Vietnam vet, Arnold said he came home not knowing Chrin was serving with him around the same time. "John was one of those good-hearted souls ... he was a mild-mannered, good person," he said at Thursday's service. After graduating with honors from flight school, Chrin volunteered for advanced training as a medical evacuation pilot at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In July 1971, he arrived in Vietnam as a member of the 57th Medical Detachment, 68th Medical Group. Flying came naturally for Chrin, according to Vietnam veteran Al Goss. Goss was in flight school with Chrin, learning how to fly before heading overseas in 1971. "When we were in flight school, we both soloed at the same time on the same day," he said. "It was quite an honor for me 'cause I thought I was never going to learn how to hover that helicopter. But John mastered it quickly." Story continues WO1 John Stephen Chrin While serving overseas, Chrin became a member of the DUSTOFF rescue team. DUSTOFF was the call sign used throughout South Vietnam, from the Delta to the DMZ, and in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, to request immediate evacuation of wounded troops. Flying in unarmed Huey helicopters, the volunteer DUSTOFF crews consisted of pilot, copilot, crew chief and flight medic, and they flew into the most dangerous battle zones to rescue injured soldiers. "DUSTOFF went on more than 490,000 missions and rescued over 900,000 wounded in the 11 years they were in Vietnam," Sypher said. "So you can imagine how many people who are alive today because of that, how many veterans got to be fathers and grandfathers." By Oct. 13, 1971, Sypher said Chrin had flown more than 120 Combat Medevac Missions in the Mekong Delta Area. Four others crewmen died in the crash with Chrin. WO1 John Stephen Chrin:Local Vietnam pilot honored 50 years after his death attempting to rescue injured soldiers Pfc. Donald Born:'To have them come home': Remains of Korean War soldier finally put to rest at the Gap In 2015, Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello proclaimed every Oct. 13 as John Stephen Chrin Day in the borough. Chrin was awarded the Purple Heart, six Air Medals, National Defense Medal, Vietnam Service Medal and Aviator Badge for his meritorious service. He also received the Vietnam Campaign Medal from the Republic of Vietnam. "It's extremely important to keep not only John's memory, but all of our veterans' memories alive," Goss said. "It's because of them we have our freedom today, and we can enjoy our families and keep our country strong." Residents wishing to learn more about the DUSTOFF rescue team can visit the DUSTOFF Association website at dustoff.org. Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on Twitter at @DAMattToth. This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Lebanon Vietnam helicopter pilot honored 51 years after his death Shakeemah Keem Smith a.k.a. The Passport Abuser is a travel influencer from East Orange, NJ. She has visited 62 countries solo and is the creator of the Travel Like A Bawse course, which has generated over $1.3 million in revenue to date. Prior to venturing off on her first solo trip, Keem traveled three times a year with friends. I always loved to travel because it provided such an adventurous escape from the everyday 9-5 rat race, she says. Little did she know, an incident that would take place on one of those girls trips would soon lead her to a life of solo travel as well as a new lucrative entrepreneurial endeavor. Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser How it all started: In 2016, while on vacation with two friends in Amsterdam for her birthday, Keem was left stranded without warning. I told a friend that I thought her boyfriend was using her. I noticed that for the rest of the night she didnt speak to me. When we arrived back at the hotel, she said she was gonna chill downstairs in the lobby while I went to the room. She then asked my other friend to stay downstairs with her for a drink. Keem woke up the next morning on her birthday and noticed that they werent in the room. When she called them to see where they were, they informed her that they had gotten a new hotel room somewhere else. Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser Learning from my mistakes I immediately hung up and blocked both of them on Instagram. I never spoke to either girl ever again. Waking up in the hotel room stranded on my birthday felt like it was the worst day of my life. I had no idea it would be the experience to push me over the solo travel fence. I didnt choose solo travel. Solo travel chose me. I started my solo travel journey the following year and never looked back. Keems first solo trip in 2017 was to Paris, France. Since then, she has traveled to 62 countries alone, including some of her favorite destinations like Antigua and Barbuda, the Maldives, Bali, and Thailand. Sharing photos and videos from her trips on social media, Keem began to receive many inquiries from other women asking about the ins and outs of solo travel. Story continues Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser Helping other women: So many women were reaching out on a daily basis about how they could achieve the same results. In 2018, while visiting my 34th country, South Africa, I decided to create my online solo travel course. When she first started traveling, Keem never imagined being able to monetize her travels. Now she has become a successful entrepreneur by doing what she loves and sharing insight on it. Travel Like A Bawse has helped 10,000 women from 14 different countries achieve their travel goals. Travel Like A Bawse is my nine-week online course that teaches women how to ace their first solo trip, and also how to master solo travel safely, confidently, and without draining their bank account. Everything that it took me 62 countries and years worth of experiences to learn, students can learn in just nine weeks, making their solo travel transformation a lot easier than mine. I teach women how to build the confidence to travel solo, how to do so affordably, safety tools, and even provide daily FaceTime calls on every womans first solo trip. Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser Debunking misconceptions One of the things Keem helps her students do is push aside the misconceptions and fears that have been instilled in them by the media and naysayers who have tried to dissuade them from traveling alone. A common misconception Keem commonly encounters is that travel has to be expensive and drain all your funds. In her course, she teaches various ways to save for travel and see the world affordably. One of the things I did when I had a 9-5 was put flights on layaway to stay within my monthly budget. I also made my own breakfast and lunch to save more money. Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser Making solo travel comfortable: Two other big misconceptions she often hears are that its unsafe to travel the world as a female solo traveler and that its lonely or boring to do so. Keem says that is far from the case as she has had some of the most epic experiences of her life during her solo travels. When it comes to safety, she offers several tips to help women stay safe while traveling alone: Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. This is a FREE service for U.S. Citizens to enroll with the local U.S. Embassy in every single country you visit. Send them a copy of your itinerary prior to arrival and store the U.S. Embassys number in your cell before the trip in case of emergency. Use ride-sharing apps whenever possible. No yellow taxis. Why? Because the activity of both you and the driver are being tracked. Otherwise, you will not have any reference info such as name, reviews, or license plate number at your fingertips. Keep ur stuff in the backseat with you when being driven around. Just in case the driver tries to overcharge or you start feeling uncomfortable, its easier to exit the car with your belongings. Ask your hotel staff or Airbnb host what the local scams are. In Brazil, we were told that kids will ask for $1, and when you pull out your wallet, they will snatch it and pass it off to an adult waiting nearby. Have a solid method of transportation when visiting another country. Taking the train in Paris is cute, but if you dont read French, or miss your stop, now youre lost, you probably look lost, and now youre just an easy target. Have multiple forms of communication with the hotel staff or Airbnb host. Lets say you lose your key while partying in Madrid, Or lets say your driver cant find the address, having an email address wont help you at that moment. Have another form of communication with hotel staff, such as a local number or Whatsapp. Photo courtesy of The Passport Abuser Learn more: These are just a few of the tips students learn in Keems class. To learn more about safe and affordable world travel, click here to attend her free masterclass or click the link in her Instagram bio at @thepassportabuser. Related: Pelumi Is The Solo Traveling Nigerian Woman Doing World Travel Her Way Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon speaks at a rally on Aug. 17 in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo, and Ron Herrera, the top labor leader in the county, made many horrific comments on the now infamous recording, which was revealed recently. But I cant say that they were wrong about me. I am, as Martinez said, with the Blacks. I am with the Blacks because in Los Angeles County, Black people are victims of crime disproportionate to their population size. Black people are 8% of the population of the city of Los Angeles, but were the victims in 24% of hate crimes, the largest group of any in Los Angeles. This year, that number is rising. Given what we have now heard elected City Council members say about Black people behind closed doors, the fact that hate crimes are committed disproportionately against Black people in Los Angeles now has a new context. If elected officials not only hold these racist views about Black people and Black children, but also feel free to share them with laughter in a meeting with colleagues, it is less surprising that other people act them out in our streets. While it may not be surprising, it is still shocking and unacceptable. I am also with the Blacks because I know that we have underinvested in all poor communities throughout this state, and our response to that radical defunding of schools, housing, parks, clean streets, healthcare and job training has been to rely on law enforcement to solve the resulting and predictable problems. Black people make up 9% of the countys population but 42% of the unhoused population. I have long argued that we will never, ever arrest and incarcerate our way out of homelessness. As a police officer for 28 years, including 22 in Los Angeles, I have spoken up about the fact that Black people are disproportionately subject to pretext stops by law enforcement in Los Angeles County. Black people are also disproportionately the victims of police violence in California and in Los Angeles. Thats why I fight against mass incarceration in California, where Black people make up 6% of the population but 30% of the state prison population. Story continues But Im not only with the Blacks. I am also with the Latinos. Im a Cuban American immigrant who still speaks with an accent. Im proud to be a Latino and to stand with my Latino and Indigenous brothers and sisters. Latinos are often stopped and searched by the police for no reason, which happens to Latinos in Los Angeles at greater rates than for white people, despite the fact that both Black and Latino people are less likely to have contraband than white people. We know that Latinos are targeted by ICE. I was with Latinos when I started an immigration escort policy that assigned victim advocates to escort fearful undocumented immigrants and witnesses through the courthouse. I was with Latinos when I sponsored a law that forbade the prosecution or defense counsel from asking about a persons immigration status when they testified, unless such a question had been approved by a judge. I stood up to Joe Arpaio when he conducted illegal deportation sweeps in Arizona. The disgraced former sheriff, Im sure, had words to say about me behind closed doors, just like the disgraced Los Angeles City Council members. But words wont stop me from doing the work needed to serve and to protect the people in this county. That means standing with the Black community, Latinos, Oaxacans, Armenians , the Jewish community , Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the LBGTQ community and with women. Supporting one group, particularly a group that has been marginalized, does not mean standing against another group. Elected officials who cant understand this basic idea have no business remaining in office. Surely, the residents of Los Angeles deserve better. George Gascon is the Los Angeles County district attorney. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images Saudi Arabia pushed other OPEC nations to support huge oil output cuts, the White House said. A feud has broken out between the Biden administration and the Saudis after the OPEC decision. There will be "consequences" for Saudi Arabia for aligning with Russia, the White House has said. Saudi Arabia put pressure on other OPEC members that opposed deep oil output cuts to back its plan, the White House reportedly said, as a war of words between the countries intensifies. John Kirby, a top spokesman for the US National Security Council, said Thursday the US had spoken to Saudi Arabia ahead of the decision, to say it would be a move in the wrong direction. "We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed," Kirby said in a statement posted to Twitter by a CNN reporter. "Other OPEC nations communicated to us privately that they also disagreed with the Saudi decision, but felt coerced to support Saudi's direction," he added. Countries that showed themselves uncomfortable with lowering production included the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Bahrain, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A feud has broken out between the White House and Saudi Arabia after OPEC+ and its allies last week agreed to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day. The move is to support crude prices, which have been hit by worries that global recession will harm demand. White House officials are worried the cut to production quotas could end up undermining the G7 effort to cap the price of Russian oil. The Biden administration has been trying to persuade countries to help it keep a lid on oil prices, which would hit Moscow's revenues and keep US gas prices in check. It has accused OPEC of "aligning with Russia", and President Joe Biden and other lawmakers have vowed there will be "consequences" for Saudi Arabia. Story continues Kirby said Saudi Arabia knew the reductions would increase Russian revenues and curb the effectiveness of Western sanctions on Moscow after it invaded Ukraine. His comments came after the Saudi foreign ministry posted a defense of the OPEC output cuts earlier Thursday. It said the move, meant to tackle volatility in the oil market, took the balance of supply and demand into account and was a consensus decision. Kirby pushed back against against that position. "The Saudi foreign ministry can try to spin or deflect, but the facts are simple," he said. "As the President has said, we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of these actions, and will continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression." The Biden administration has been trying to curb gas prices at the pump for American drivers in the lead-up to the November midterm elections. At last check Friday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 0.17% to trade at $94.70 a barrel. Read the original article on Business Insider The top prosecutor in Oregon's most populous county announced an immigration reform policy Thursday in an effort to protect non-citizens from being deported if they are charged with a crime. The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office said the new policy will balance the rights of American citizens and those living in the country illegally. It directs deputy district attorneys to consider immigration consequences in all phases of a prosecution, including when making charging decisions, plea bargaining and sentencing. It also allows for punishments to be restructured so that they don't result in deportation, as long as the changes dont reduce the severity of the sentence. "Prior to these reforms, non-citizens accused of a crime could be sent back to their country of origin and given a lifelong ban from re-entry for non-violent offenses, where a naturalized U.S. citizen charged with the exact same crime may only receive a few months probation," District Attorney Mike Schmidt said during a news conference. VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT THEY WILL BE RETURNED TO MEXICO UNDER NEW BIDEN ADMIN POLICY Mike Schmidt, Multnomah County district attorney, speaks to the media on Aug. 30, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. He said deportation doesn't make the community safe but instead breaks up families, threatens the local economy and further propagates generational inequities. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "These outcomes makes us less safe," he said. As an example, advocates used a hypothetical case of a barroom fight. Those involved could be charged with attempted assault, a minor misdemeanor could result in six months in jail but is often resolved with a fine, said Erin McKee, the co-director of the Oregon Justice Resource Centers Immigrant Rights Project. However, the incident could be considered a crime of "moral turpitude" by immigration officials and someone with a green card could face deportation, she said. PORTLANDS VIOLENT CRIME JUMP OUTPACED US, FBI DATA SHOWS "It would be better for him to plead to a different B misdemeanor, like harassment, or even to plead to a more serious offense," she said. "This new policy requires the prosecutor to consider the immigration consequences and provides guidance for structuring an immigration-safer outcome." Story continues CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Under the policy, prosecutors are barred from using a person's immigration status when negotiating plea deals or mentioning it in open court unless legally necessary, the Oregonian reported. Fox News has reached out to the DA's office. As voters begin to weigh in on the November election across the Sunshine State, the results of one Osceola County ballot referendum could be in jeopardy if a newly filed lawsuit prevails. The suit, filed by state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R) on behalf of a group of voters earlier this month, claims the county is misleading voters as it attempts to renew its infrastructure penny sales tax through 2045. The suit attacks the summary of the referendum, which guides voters before they mark their choice and says theyd be voting in favor or against a one-cent increase instead of one percent. Osceola County's sales tax referendum is in trouble. A newly filed lawsuit says it's misleading when it says the increase is "one-cent" instead of "one percent". Small wording difference, but two other attorneys I spoke to say it could be enough to have the results tossed. @WFTV pic.twitter.com/QPLL4domm2 Nick Papantonis WFTV (@NPapantonisWFTV) October 13, 2022 Its materially confusing to people. Its not right, Sabatini said in a video statement posted to Facebook. If they want to propose a tax increase, they should be very clear about the type of taxes and the rate of taxes that people are going to be paying. While it seems like a nitpicking attempt to throw a wrench in the political process, the ramifications are much greater. A one-cent sales tax on an item is just that: one penny. For discretionary sales taxes, Florida law allows purchases to be taxed up to the first $5,000 of their value, meaning a 1% sales tax would cost an additional $50 on large purchases. Read: Battle lines forming over Orange County transportation tax vote Thats why multiple other attorneys said Sabatinis lawsuit would not be waved off by a judge. Cliff Shepard, a longtime government and contracts lawyer at the Maitland-based Shepard, Smith, Kohlmyer & Hand, said he expected the county to lose. Story continues It is my opinion this is misleading, Shepard said. I think thats probably what a court will find. Osceola County also thinks its on solid ground as it prepares to defend itself. A county spokesperson said he couldnt comment on the lawsuit itself, citing a long-standing policy, but he pointed out that state law requires the county to use specific language where voters mark their choice: The following question shall be placed on the ballot: FOR the -cent sales tax AGAINST THE -cent sales tax Read: Seminole County using taxpayer pennies to widen county roads However, state law does not make any guidelines for the summary portion, which is what the lawsuit seeks. Supporters of Orange Countys ongoing sales tax referendum wrote in their summary that theyre asking for a 1% increase. A recent referendum in Seminole County called the hike one cent per dollar. (Cont'd from previous tweet): Here's how Orange County chose to do their penny sales tax proposal. The lawsuit uses this as an example in their filing. pic.twitter.com/ngLFM2GXkp Nick Papantonis WFTV (@NPapantonisWFTV) October 13, 2022 For that reason, Shepard said the countys explanation was misleading. He pointed to a recent lawsuit he was involved with in Jacksonville Beach, where backers of a referendum left the word Beach out of their petition as they collected signatures, even though the correct city was named in the referendum itself. That was enough for a judge, who ruled it couldnt appear on the ballot. Read: Orange County to give update on sales tax increase proposal No matter what, the Osceola County referendum will take place, since mail-in ballots have already been sent out. However, if the lawsuit prevails, the results will be nullified, forcing the county to hold a special election or try again during a future regular election. That would risk the surtax expiring for the first time in decades, potentially costing the county, its cities and the school district millions. It doesnt happen often that its severe enough to get it removed and again, well see if the court will ultimately determine that, Shepard said. In this case, I think that is a fairly likely event. Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. To get a sense of who is truly in control of Qualitas Limited (ASX:QAL), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 32% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Qualitas. Check out our latest analysis for Qualitas What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Qualitas? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Qualitas does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Qualitas' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story. Qualitas is not owned by hedge funds. Acs Qualitas Management Pty Ltd is currently the company's largest shareholder with 23% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Trawalla Group and Andrew Schwartz, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 23%. Andrew Schwartz, who is the third-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Member of the Board of Directors. Story continues To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company. While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage. Insider Ownership Of Qualitas While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Qualitas Limited. It has a market capitalization of just AU$673m, and insiders have AU$172m worth of shares in their own names. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership With a 13% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Qualitas. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership It seems that Private Companies own 29%, of the Qualitas stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Next Steps: It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Qualitas better, we need to consider many other factors. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph. If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. 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 Anne Marie Ramsay and Vincent Ramsay react as they hear that Cruz will not receive the death penalty as the verdicts were announced Thursday (VIA REUTERS) On Thursday, a Florida jury handed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz a life sentence without parole for killing 14 students and three staff in a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The verdict, which spared the 24-year-old a potential death sentence, outraged a number of Parkland families, and it exposed the challenges of a controversial practice known as death qualification, which is designed to insure opponents of capital punishment never make it on juries. Heres what you need to know about the controversy: What are Parkland families saying about the verdict? A number of families tied to the massacre criticised the final sentence as insufficient for the magnitude of the crime Cruz committed. Jail is about rehabbing someone. There is no rehabbing [Cruz], Ilan Alhadeff, father of slain student Alyssa Alhadeff, told reporters after the 12-person jury reached its decision. I pray that animal suffers every day of his life in jail. And it should be a short life, he continued. I dont know how this jury came to the conclusions that they did today, Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the shooting, said after the decision. But 17 families did not receive justice. Because of what happened to our families, we are all in this position now of doing the work that we do around this country to keep this from happening to another family, and this decision today only makes it more likely that the next mass shooting will be attempted. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis weighed in as well, saying the sentence stings. I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that this is a case where youre massacring those students with premeditation and utter disregard for basic humanity, that you deserve the death penalty, he said. Experts are skeptical the death penalty has much of a deterent effect on major crimes, but the criticism following the case illustrates the pressure on high-profile prosecutions to deliver death penalty convictionsand the controversy that can strike when they choose not to. Story continues How did the jury reach its decision? Shortly after the verdict was rendered, a juror informed a court staffer they felt threatened during deliberations, prompting prosecutors to ask Judge Elizabeth Scherer to investigate. Juror X spoke to a support staff member and informed the support staff member that during deliberations she received what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room, states the filing, obtained by CNN. The jury deliberation came under further scrutiny when foreperson Benjamin Thomas told WFOR of a supposed holdout whose opposition to the death penalty and executing mentally ill people prevented the unanimous agreement needed to order an execution. There was one with a hard no. She couldnt do it. And there was another two that ended up voting the same way, he told the station. The juror, identified in The Sun-Sentinel as Denise Cunha, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, has offered her own filing to the court, saying she didnt make up her mind until she heard all the evidence. I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, she reportedly told the judge. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life. How was the jury selected? Jury selection began this spring, whittling a pool of 1,800 candidates down to the seven men and five women ultimately selected to consider the case. They were asked about their opinions on law enforcement, guns, and, most crucially, their thoughts on capital punishment and whether their opinions about or opposition to the death penalty would sway their judgement. In May, the court temporarily postponed jury selection, after Judge Scherer first struck 11 candidates who opposed the death penalty, then called them back into consideration and allowed attorneys to ask follow-up questions about whether these jurors could set their opinions about executions aside. The confusion prompted the defence to seek a mistrial. The wrangling over the questioning is part of the process of making sure juries are whats known as death qualified, with all panelists open to potentially imposing a death sentence. The practice is a highly controversial one, with critics arguing that with declining support for the death penalty, and wide variations among racial and political groups support for executions, death qualification can end denying defendants of their constitutional right to an impartial jury of their peers. Death qualification is as sinister as it sounds, and its demonstrably racist, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in an article this August. Disproportionate numbers of Black jurors and jurors of faith, especially Catholics, are excluded from death penalty juries, it added. Combined with the prosecutors use of peremptory strikes or removing jurors without providing a reason death penalty juries end up being overwhelmingly white, male, and biased in favor of the prosecution and death. Courts, however, allow such questioning, part of a larger set of histories and legal precedents that have combined to make the death penalty apply disproportionately to people of colour in the US. From its inception, in this country, the death penalty and racism were inseparable, Elisabeth Semel, a law professor who heads University of California Berkeleys Death Penalty Clinic told The Independent last year. That history is defining. It just is defining. Does anyone support a life sentence for Nikolas Cruz? In addition to the three jurors, some of the Parkland families themselves agreed that Cruz, who the defence argued was severely mentally ill as a result of his mothers substance abuse while she was pregnant, should get a life sentence. Robert Schentrup, whose 16-year-old sister Carmen was killed in the shooting, told CNN last week he didnt support to the death penalty for Cruzor anyone. Logically, it doesnt follow for me that we say, Murdering someone is this horrible, heinous, awful, terrible thing, and in order to prove that point, were going to do it to someone else, he said. And I understood that if this is something that I felt that I believe that it needed to apply in my personal case and beyond, he said. I had to look deep into my values and say, is this something that connects with it? And if so, live through that. Others tied to horrific tragedies have said similar things. As The Independent has reported , the families of victims of some of the worst terror and hate attacks in US history are split on whether the perpetrators deserve the life sentence. In 2015, white supremacist Dylan Roof shot and killed nine people at a historic Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, after they had welcomed him into their Bible study session. The dead included Reverend Sharon Rishers mother, Ethel Lance, and her cousins Susie and Tywanza Sanders, as well as a number of dear friends. Tywanza, at 26 the youngest victim, died trying to shield Susie, the oldest at 87, from Roofs gun. In my heart, as my mothers child, I wanted him to be dead like her, she told The Independent. Going back to my Christian faith, I knew that I didnt want that. I realised that even though he had done this horrific thing, my faith tells me that God is a God of restoration and redemption. The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage. A juror in Nikolas Cruzs sentencing trial allegedly informed a court staffer that she was threatened by a fellow panel member during deliberation over the Parkland shooters fate. Prosecutors raised alarm about the perceived threat in a filing asking Judge Elizabeth Scherer to launch an investigation hours after the jury recommended a life sentence for Cruz on Thursday. Juror X spoke to a support staff member and informed the support staff member that during deliberations she received what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room, states the filing, obtained by CNN. The development comes as other members of the jury have spoken of their frustration at being unable to convince a sole holdout that Cruz deserved the death penalty. Foreperson Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that one juror had been adamant from the beginning of deliberations that Cruz should not receive capital punishment because he was mentally ill. That juror convinced two others to vote against imposing the death penalty, Mr Thomas told the station. Key points VERDICT: Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty and is sentenced to life Family members shake heads as jury recommends life sentence Verdict came down to a single juror Juror who voted for life imprisonment will 'regret that for the rest of his life What happened that day in Parkland, Florida? Prosecutors call for probe into juror threat' 13:25 , Megan Sheets Prosecutors who sought the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz have alleged one of the jurors felt threatened by a fellow panel member during deliberation. The state filed a motion shortly after Thursdays verdict asking Judge Elizabeth Scherer to compel authorities to interview the juror, who was not named. Juror X spoke to a support staff member and informed the support staff member that during deliberations she received what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room, states the filing, obtained by CNN. Story continues The filing does not indicate how the juror voted in the final sentence recommendation or any additional circumstances around the perceived threat. The deliberation process came under scrutiny almost immediately after the verdict was announced as the father of one of the Parkland shooting victims, Ryan Petty, claimed it came down to just one vote. Jury foreperson Benjamin Thomas later told CBS Miami that there was one holdout juror against the death penalty from the start of deliberation. Two others later joined that juror in voting for a life sentence without parole, Mr Thomas said. Parkland survivors demand Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School be torn down 13:00 , Bevan Hurley As families of the victims shared outrage at the verdict, survivors of the 2018 massacre took to Twitter to demand the demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which has sat vacant ever since. Gustaf Kilander has the full story. Parkland shooting survivors demand school be torn down after Nikolas Cruz verdict Families furious after Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty 12:00 , Bevan Hurley What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances, Ilan Alhadeff said after a jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Furious Parkland families hit out after Nikolas Cruz spared death penalty A timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting 11:00 , Bevan Hurley Nikolas Cruz was 19 when he arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February 2018 bearing a legally-purchased AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and gunned down 14 students and three members of staff in what proved to be one of the deadliest school massacres in American history. Here is a timeline of events. Timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Parkland survivor David Hogg: remember the victims 09:00 , Bevan Hurley Prominent gun-control activist and Parkland survivor David Hogg said in a tweet that the victims of the 2012 school shooting should remain the focus after Nikolas Cruzs life imprisonment verdict on Thursday. Who actually deserves your attention, Mr Hogg tweeted before naming the 17 victims of the 2012 shooting. Who actually deserves your attention: Alyssa Alhadeff Scott Beigel Martin Anguiano Nicholas Dworet Aaron Feis Jamie Guttenberg Chris Hixon Luke Hoyer Cara Loughran Gina Montalto Joaquin Oliver Alaina Petty Meadow Pollack Helena Ramsay Alex Schachter Carmen Schentrup Peter Wang David Hogg (@davidhogg111) October 13, 2022 Juror who voted for life imprisonment will regret that for the rest of his life 07:00 , Bevan Hurley The father of Parkland victim Alex Schachter said the sole juror who dissented from sentencing Nikolas Cruz to death would regret the decision. I think that that one juror who voted for life is going to regret that for the rest of his life, Max Schachter said outside court. Mr Schachter said the pre-meditated, calculating manner in which Cruz had executed 17 people and injured 17 at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in 2012 meant the death penalty was the only correct verdict. Prior to the shooting the Parkland murderer said he wanted to kill 20 people. He stopped after killing 17 including my sweet little boy Alex. Afterwards he didnt want to die. He wanted to live. Today he got everything he wanted. While our loved ones are in the cemetery. Max Schachter (@maxschachter) October 13, 2022 The key witnesses jurors didnt hear from 05:00 , Bevan Hurley In a move that caught the entire courtroom off guard, Nikolas Cruzs defence team announced it was resting its case in his sentencing trial after calling less than a third of its expected witnesses. The 23-year-old mass murderers legal team previously said it planned to call around 80 witnesses to the stand as they try to convince jurors to sentence him to life in prison instead of to death. But, at the start of the 14 September court session, Cruzs lead attorney Melisa McNeill suddenly revealed that the defence was resting after calling only around 25 witnesses. Nikolas Cruz trial: Key witnesses jurors wont hear from after defence rested case Who was the Parkland shooters biological mother Brenda Woodard? 04:00 , Bevan Hurley During opening statements and testimony from the defence witnesses during the sentencing trial, much of the blame for his troubled start in life was placed squarely on the shoulders of his biological mother Brenda Woodard. At the centre of their case was the argument that he is mentally ill and that his troubled origins are to blame for his actions which saw him lay siege to his former school with a legally-purchased AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle in one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. Who was the Parkland shooters mother Brenda Woodard? He should be afraid 03:00 , Bevan Hurley The mother of a geography teacher killed at Parkland in 2012 says Nikolas Cruz should be afraid every second of his life after a jury sentenced him to life imprisonment. Hes going have to look over his should every minute of rest of his life, said Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott Beigel died in the mass shooting. I hope he has the fear in him every second of his life, just the way he gave that fear to every one of our loved ones. Linda Beigel Schulman holds up a picture of her son Scott Beigel during the sentencing trial ( South Florida Sun Sentinel 2022) Nikolas Cruz defence refuses to share his reaction to life sentence verdict 02:00 , Bevan Hurley The defence team for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz refused to share his reaction to his life sentence verdict. When asked about Cruzs reaction, Public Defender Gordon Weekes simply ended the press conference, saying no further questions. Gustaf Kilander has the full story. Nikolas Cruz defence refuses to share his reaction to life sentence verdict Families furious after Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty 01:00 , Bevan Hurley What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances, Ilan Alhadeff said after a jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Furious Parkland families hit out after Nikolas Cruz spared death penalty Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? Friday 14 October 2022 00:00 , Bevan Hurley It began before he was even born: Nikolas Cruzs biological mother drank alcohol and abused drugs while he was still in the womb. At the age of five, his adoptive father suddenly collapsed and died in front of him in the family home. In his teenage years, he was allegedly bullied by his brother and sexually abused by a so-called trusted peer. At 19, he became an orphan when his adoptive mother died from pneumonia. And just three months later, he murdered 17 innocent students and staff in a shooting rampage at his former high school. Read Rachel Sharps full story below. Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? Nikolas Cruz verdict came down to single juror who voted against death penalty Thursday 13 October 2022 23:30 , Bevan Hurley Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told a press conference that a single juror had voted against the death penalty. One juror either didnt understand the facts in this case or was dishonest with themselves when they signed up to become a juror and would never have voted for the death penalty, he said. Jury foreperson Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that one juror was adamant Cruz should not be sentenced to death because he was mentally ill. That juror convinced two others to vote against the death penalty, Mr Thomas told the station. Full story below. Nikolas Cruz life sentence verdict came down to single juror Cruz verdict came down to a single juror Thursday 13 October 2022 23:00 , Bevan Hurley Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told a press conference that a single juror had voted against the death penalty. One juror either didnt understand the facts in this case or was dishonest with themselves when they signed up to become a juror and would never have voted for the death penalty, he said. Jury foreperson Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that one juror was adamant Cruz should not be sentenced to death because he was mentally ill. That juror convinced two others to vote against the death penalty, Mr Thomas told the station. Full story below. Nikolas Cruz life sentence verdict came down to single juror Jury member says one panelist was set in what she believed Thursday 13 October 2022 22:40 , Bevan Hurley One of the jurors in the Nikolas Cruz trial says a single panelist had made up their minds from the beginning of deliberations that they wouldnt sentence the Parkland school shooter to death. The former military member, identified only as juror number three, told Local 10 News he had voted for the death penalty. We did go back there and try to hash things out. There was one juror that was just very set in what she believed and that was the life (in prison). Victims families have spoken of their frustration at the life imprisonment sentence. Parkland survivors demand Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School be torn down Thursday 13 October 2022 22:30 , Bevan Hurley As families of the victims shared outrage at the verdict, survivors of the 2018 massacre took to Twitter to demand the demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which has sat vacant ever since. Gustaf Kilander has the full story. Parkland shooting survivors demand school be torn down after Nikolas Cruz verdict What we learned at the Nikolas Cruz sentencing trial Thursday 13 October 2022 22:00 , Bevan Hurley The Independents Rachel Sharp has a comprehensive wrap on the key revelations during Nikolas Cruzs sentencing trial. Key revelations from Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruzs sentencing trial A timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Thursday 13 October 2022 21:40 , Bevan Hurley Nikolas Cruz was 19 when he arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February 2018 bearing a legally-purchased AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and gunned down 14 students and three members of staff in what proved to be one of the deadliest school massacres in American history. Here is a timeline of events. Timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Parkland survivor David Hogg: remember the victims Thursday 13 October 2022 21:20 , Bevan Hurley Prominent gun-control activist and Parkland survivor David Hogg said in a tweet that the victims of the 2012 school shooting should remain the focus after Nikolas Cruzs life imprisonment verdict on Thursday. Who actually deserves your attention, Mr Hogg tweeted before naming the 17 victims of the 2012 shooting. Who actually deserves your attention: Alyssa Alhadeff Scott Beigel Martin Anguiano Nicholas Dworet Aaron Feis Jamie Guttenberg Chris Hixon Luke Hoyer Cara Loughran Gina Montalto Joaquin Oliver Alaina Petty Meadow Pollack Helena Ramsay Alex Schachter Carmen Schentrup Peter Wang David Hogg (@davidhogg111) October 13, 2022 Florida gubernatorial candidate weighs in on sentence Thursday 13 October 2022 20:59 , Bevan Hurley Democrat Charlie Crist, who is running to unseat Ron DeSantis, has commented on todays verdict. There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death, Mr Crist said on Twitter. The Parkland families and community deserved that degree of justice. There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death. The Parkland families and community deserved that degree of justice. I will continue to pray for healing for the families and every person impacted by this tragedy. Charlie Crist (@CharlieCrist) October 13, 2022 Families furious after Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty Thursday 13 October 2022 20:39 , Bevan Hurley What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances, Ilan Alhadeff said after a jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Furious Parkland families hit out after Nikolas Cruz spared death penalty Cruz verdict came down to a single juror Thursday 13 October 2022 20:09 , Bevan Hurley Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told a press conference that a single juror had voted against the death penalty. One juror either didnt understand the facts in this case or was dishonest with themselves when they signed up to become a juror and would never have voted for the death penalty, he said. Jury foreperson Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that one juror was adamant Cruz should not be sentenced to death because he was mentally ill. That juror convinced two others to vote against the death penalty, Mr Thomas told the station. Full story below. Nikolas Cruz life sentence verdict came down to single juror Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? Thursday 13 October 2022 19:50 , Bevan Hurley It began before he was even born: Nikolas Cruzs biological mother drank alcohol and abused drugs while he was still in the womb. At the age of five, his adoptive father suddenly collapsed and died in front of him in the family home. In his teenage years, he was allegedly bullied by his brother and sexually abused by a so-called trusted peer. At 19, he became an orphan when his adoptive mother died from pneumonia. And just three months later, he murdered 17 innocent students and staff in a shooting rampage at his former high school. Read Rachel Sharps full story below. Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? Nikolas Cruz defence refuses to share his reaction to life sentence verdict Thursday 13 October 2022 19:30 , Bevan Hurley The defence team for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz refused to share his reaction to his life sentence verdict. When asked about Cruzs reaction, Public Defender Gordon Weekes simply ended the press conference, saying no further questions. Gustaf Kilander has the full story. Nikolas Cruz defence refuses to share his reaction to life sentence verdict Jury foreperson says three voted against death penalty Thursday 13 October 2022 19:21 , Bevan Hurley The jury foreperson in the Nikolas Cruz sentencing told CBS Miami that three jurors had voted against the death penalty. Benjamin Thomas told the station that while he disagreed with the outcome, thats how the jury system works. Mr Thomas said one juror had been a hard no because Cruz had suffered from mental illness, and two others had gone along with the decision. Families have reacted angrily to the decision to sentence Cruz to life imprisonment. He should be afraid' Thursday 13 October 2022 19:02 , Bevan Hurley The mother of a geography teacher killed at Parkland in 2012 says Nikolas Cruz should be afraid every second of his life after a jury sentenced him to life imprisonment. Hes going have to look over his should every minute of rest of his life, said Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott Beigel died in the mass shooting. I hope he has the fear in him every second of his life, just the way he gave that fear to every one of our loved ones. Linda Beigel Schulman holds a picture of her son Scott while reading a victim impact statement ( South Florida Sun Sentinel 2022) Juror who voted for life imprisonment will 'regret that for the rest of his life Thursday 13 October 2022 18:54 , Bevan Hurley The father of Parkland victim Alex Schachter said the sole juror who dissented from sentencing Nikolas Cruz to death would regret the decision. I think that that one juror who voted for life is going to regret that for the rest of his life, Max Schachter said outside court. Mr Schachter said the pre-meditated, calculating manner in which Cruz had executed 17 people and injured 17 at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in 2012 meant the death penalty was the only correct verdict. Prior to the shooting the Parkland murderer said he wanted to kill 20 people. He stopped after killing 17 including my sweet little boy Alex. Afterwards he didnt want to die. He wanted to live. Today he got everything he wanted. While our loved ones are in the cemetery. Max Schachter (@maxschachter) October 13, 2022 A timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Thursday 13 October 2022 18:50 , Bevan Hurley Nikolas Cruz was 19 when he arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February 2018 bearing a legally-purchased AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and gunned down 14 students and three members of staff in what proved to be one of the deadliest school massacres in American history. Here is a timeline of events. Timeline of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Parkland victims remembered four years on Thursday 13 October 2022 18:40 , Bevan Hurley Debbi Hixon, who lost her husband Chris Hixon in the Parkland shooting, spoke to The Independents Rachel Sharp on the eve of the trial in July about keeping his memory alive. Parkland victims widow speaks out as victims remembered Parkland victims son storms out of court as Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty Thursday 13 October 2022 18:27 , Bevan Hurley Corey Hixon, whose father Chris was the athletic director at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, stormed out of court as the jurys verdict was read aloud. Read below for Gustaf Kilanders full story. Parkland victims son storms out of court as Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty Families furious after Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty Thursday 13 October 2022 18:15 , Bevan Hurley What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances, Ilan Alhadeff said after a jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Furious Parkland families hit out after Nikolas Cruz spared death penalty WATCH: Reaction as Nikolas Cruz sentenced to life in prison Thursday 13 October 2022 18:00 , Bevan Hurley After a three-month long trial, Nikolas Cruz avoided the death penalty when a jury ruled on Thursday he should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Watch live reaction from the courtroom. Watch as Nikolas Cruz sentenced to life in prison for Parkland school shooting Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? Thursday 13 October 2022 17:40 , Oliver O'Connell Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruzs defence at his sentencing trial centred largely around his early life - from his apparent exposure to alcohol in the womb, the deaths of his adoptive parents and his behavioural and emotional problems. But did those details make a difference in the jurys decision? Rachel Sharp reports Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had a horror start to life but did it matter at trial? The defense failed at mitigation' Thursday 13 October 2022 17:37 , Bevan Hurley Fred Guttenberg, who became a prominent gun-control advocate after his daughter Jamie was killed at Parkland, is also furious at the verdict. The idea that there was at least one juror, who I would have to imagine didnt tell the truth to get in that jury. The defense failed at mitigation. He said the first thing he would do after the verdict was go to visit his daughter at the cemetery, and then continue to try to prevent future school shootings. We do have the ability to do things in this country to reduce gun violence through our vote. Fred Guttenberg during the trial ( South Florida Sun Sentinel 2022) 'She should not have been extinguished by this monster Thursday 13 October 2022 17:32 , Bevan Hurley Tony Montalto, the father of Parkland victim Gina, said his daughter deserved better than she got - from the schools, and certainly from this jury. The families are in disbelief that the jury determined that mitigating factors outweighed the cruel and heinous aggravating circumstances. She should not have been extinguished by this monster, Mr Montalto said. Tony Montalto, seated with his wife, Jennifer Montalto, closes his eyes as Assistant State Attorney Mike Satz details the murders of the victims including his daughter Gina during the trial (AP) 'Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Thursday 13 October 2022 17:21 , Bevan Hurley The father of Parkland shooting victim Alyssa Alhadeff spoke a short time ago outside court where he blasted the jurys decision not to sentence Nikolas Cruz to death. What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances, said Ilan Marc Alhadeff, while flanked by his wife Lori Alhadeff. Hes not a human being. Hes an animal. Ilan Marc and Lori Alhadeff during the trial (South Florida Sun Sentinel) Sentencing scheduled for 1 November Thursday 13 October 2022 17:10 , Oliver O'Connell The formal sentencing of Nikolas Cruz will take place on 1 November. He will be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Judge Scherer cannot increase the sentence to death no matter what. Formal sentencing Nov. 1st for #NikolasCruz, #ParklandShooter. He will be sentenced to LIFE (there is no parole in FL). The judge cannot sentence upward to death. Jury came back with Life and therefore it's Life in prison w/o parole. Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 13, 2022 Family members shake heads as jury recommends life sentence Thursday 13 October 2022 17:05 , Oliver O'Connell Several family members of the victims of the 2018 Parkland school shooting shook their heads as the verdict was read out for gunman Nikolas Cruz. The jury recommended life in prison without parole for the 17 counts against the Florida shooter. Parkland victims family shake heads as jury recommends sentence for Nikolas Cruz Contrasting reactions from jurors Thursday 13 October 2022 17:00 , Oliver O'Connell Journalist Christina Boomer Vazquez notes the striking contrast in body language from the jurors as the verdicts were read out. It is astonishing - the striking contrast in body language as the Judge reads verdict forms that so far - have been a recommendation for life. While two young male jurors huddle over in the first row of the jury box looking visibly pained, an older female in the back is calm. Two other female jurors in the front row were tearing up. All this while the older female juror in the back row stretched her back, took a sip from an insulated coffee mug, looked over at the family members with ease, looks comfortable. The juror next to her has her dead down. Two other female jurors in the front row were tearing up. All this while the older female juror in the back row stretched her back, took a sip from an insulated coffee mug, looked over at the family members with ease, looks comfortable. The juror next to her has her dead down. Christina Boomer Vazquez, M.S. (@CBoomerVazquez) October 13, 2022 VERDICT: Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz avoids death penalty and is sentenced to life Thursday 13 October 2022 16:47 , Oliver O'Connell Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz has avoided the death penalty after a jury ruled he should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The verdict was delivered on Thursday morning to an emotionally-charged courtroom packed with survivors and families of the 17 students and staff killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February 2018. Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz sentenced to life in prison Families react as life in prison looks increasingly likely Thursday 13 October 2022 16:30 , Oliver O'Connell 11 of 17 counts have been read - all LIFE IN PRISON for #NikolasCruz . Families in the gallery are in shock, angry, disbelief. Heads shaking. Anger on some faces. pic.twitter.com/fjxOGEMHXx Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 13, 2022 Thursday 13 October 2022 16:27 , Oliver O'Connell The verdict sheets continue to be read out and still, there is no charge in which the aggravating factors have outweighed the mitigating factors. The jury is saying that while the prosecution has proven that the aggravating factors warrant the death penalty, Cruzs mental health issues outweigh that. There is still no death penalty possible at this point. Thursday 13 October 2022 16:14 , Oliver O'Connell The prosecution only needs the jury to recommend a death sentence for one of the 17 victims. So far the jury has not unanimously come to that decision MOMENTS AGO: Disappointing looks from the courtroom audience. Theyre mostly loved ones of #NikolasCruzs victims, and hoping for death sentence. So far, from jurys decisions read, thats not possible. https://t.co/BwEZUW1Y8k pic.twitter.com/fEeVOrlLuC WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) October 13, 2022 Thursday 13 October 2022 16:08 , Oliver O'Connell Parents in the gallery shake their heads in disgust as they listen to the LIFE sentences for #NikolasCruz. #ParklandShooter Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 13, 2022 Verdict forms being read Thursday 13 October 2022 16:07 , Oliver O'Connell As each of the 17 verdict forms is read out by Judge Scherer, it is so far looking as if the jury has not reached a unanimous decision on the death penalty. The jury so far has said the evidence of aggravating factors in his murders exist but did not outweigh the mitigating circumstances. This would indicate a life sentence with no parole. Court now in session Thursday 13 October 2022 15:50 , Oliver O'Connell Court is now back in session Judge Elizabeth Scherer presiding. Both sides agree they are ready to bring in the jurors for the verdict. MOMENTS AGO: Judge Scherer is in the courtroom for the #NikolasCruz sentence recommendation. She confirmed there is a decision. Jury to enter. https://t.co/BwEZUW1Y8k pic.twitter.com/z3S5faTOq1 WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) October 13, 2022 Thursday 13 October 2022 15:44 , Oliver O'Connell Reminder: The jury must reach a unanimous decision to recommend the death penalty. If not, their recommendation will be life in prison with no parole. Cruz enters court Thursday 13 October 2022 15:31 , Oliver O'Connell Nikolas Cruz, initially wearing a Covid-19 face mask, is brought into the courtroom by law enforcement. He is having a conversation with his defence counsel, Chief Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeil, before proceedings begin. The victims Thursday 13 October 2022 15:27 , Oliver O'Connell Nikolas Cruz killed 14 high school students and three faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentines Day 2018. Victims of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, high school massacre Thursday 13 October 2022 15:21 , Oliver O'Connell Family members of the victims of the shooting have packed into the public gallery ahead of the verdict. Lawyers for both sides are present, but Cruz is yet to be brought into the courtroom. Me, my husband, and my baby had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Tiffany Leigh I ate an expensive, five-course meal by Michelin-star chef Daniel Boulud and other culinary pros. Most of the food was gorgeous, elegant, and absolutely incredible to taste. The sea-bass course was smelly and quite mushy, but we had a good experience overall. I was thrilled to learn Chef Daniel Boulud was in my hometown to celebrate Four Seasons Hotel Toronto's 10th anniversary. The dinner took place in Cafe Boulud. Tiffany Leigh Dubbed "Four Seasons Hotel Toronto Celebrates a Decade of Luxury," the hotel spared no expense in terms of providing special offers, giveaways, and festivities for guests and visitors. For me, it was its unique one-night-only dinner at Cafe Boulud (the hotel's flagship restaurant) that was an absolute must-try for me, my husband, and my baby. Boulud has two Michelin stars and, for this special dinner, he'd be working with a team that also included two other Michelin-star chefs. We got all dressed up for the meal. My baby's sleep schedule got a slight adjustment. Tiffany Leigh My husband made a reservation because he knows how much I love Boulud. So on Tuesday, we bent the rules of my baby's sleep schedule a little in order to taste this incredible five-course meal as a family. Here's what our experience was like. Before even entering the restaurant, we were given fancy Champagne. The restaurant had moody lighting. Tiffany Leigh At around 6:45 pm, we were greeted at the lobby with a Champagne toast. It also turned out the Champagne was bottomless, as the staff kept returning to refill everyone's glasses throughout the evening. Before the first dish came to our table, our waiter asked if we wanted our meal with wine pairings. The wine pairings made my husband's meal pricier. Tiffany Leigh Since I was breastfeeding, I opted out. My husband opted in. As a result, my husband's meal came to 345 Canadian dollars, or about $250, before tax and tip. My meal was CA$265 before tax and tip. I fangirled a bit when I saw chef Boulud. Chef Daniel Boulud is incredibly talented. Tiffany Leigh The room was quickly filling up and just as we settled in, chef Boulud came out to welcome us. I must admit that even though I've met him twice before, the excitement of seeing him in person never gets old. After making his initial remarks, he promptly returned to the kitchen to prepare for service. Story continues The two amuse-bouche were dainty and delicious. The piece of shrimp had tons of flavor. Tiffany Leigh Two pre-dinner dishes were placed before us: The first was a poached shrimp dish and the second was a fried artichoke. The shrimp was so sweet and tender and nicely counterbalanced the fresh and zingy tomatoes on the plate. The artichoke dish was plated in a unique way. I was very impressed. Tiffany Leigh The artichoke was a cute one-biter that was crispy and warm on the tongue. It was a pleasant first impression to set the tone for the evening. The first dish was subtle yet thoughtful. On the plate, this dish looked simple yet elegant. Tiffany Leigh The first was saffron-cured hamachi (a younger version of yellowtail fish) with artichokes and aji dulce peppers. This dish was a joint effort between Boulud and chef Colin Henderson of the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto. Flavor-wise, it was very pleasing with the buttery fish, although the flavor of the saffron wasn't very detectable. The artichokes were a nice accompaniment and echoed the amuse-bouche. Interestingly, my favorite component was the peppers, found on the plate as dollops of sauce. They were a heavy hitter of spicy heat that lingered on my tongue and numbed it slightly. The surprising thing about this is that it didn't compete with the delicate hamachi. Instead, the sauce acted almost as a palate cleanser. The second course's risotto was the best I've had in a long time. The risotto had black-ink bread crumb. Tiffany Leigh The last risotto I can recall that wowed me was one I ate in Umbria, Italy, five years ago. This risotto is nearly on par with that dish in terms of its exceptional execution and flavor. The risotto, spearheaded by chef Massimo Mantarro, had tomato and black-ink bread crumb. Everything about the dish was perfect. The creamy risotto offered an al-dente bite with each mouthful and it was punctuated with pools of soft ricotta. The black-ink bread crumbs were buttery and lightly sweetened. Lastly, the tomato was just a wonderful acidic counterpoint to all the richness in the dish. I couldn't get enough and if I was at home eating this, I would have licked my bowl clean. We thought the third dish had an unappealing odor and taste. The sea-bass fillet disappointed me. Tiffany Leigh Conceived by chef Yoric Tieche, the third dish was a sea-bass fillet candied with olive oil, bouillabaisse, and rouille. Honestly, it was my biggest disappointment of the evening but I did appreciate what it offered in terms of creativity and quality. Conceptually, I understood what the chef was trying to achieve in terms of paying homage to a classic French seafood soup, but flavor-wise, neither my husband nor I enjoyed it. There was something unappealing about the fishy odor when it arrived at our table. I thought the sea bass was just a touch too soft and borderline mushy. It sitting in a ton of sauce did not help. As much as I tried to convince myself to like it, the flavors all just clashed on my tongue. Unfortunately, I left most of the dish untouched and hoped that the last main would be better. The fourth dish was tiny in size but mighty in flavor. My husband and I looked at each other and knew we tasted another decadent winner. Tiffany Leigh When the last savory main dish arrived at the table, my jaw almost hit the floor. The dish, stuffed quail breast with white alba truffles and porcini mushrooms, was created by Boulud and Henderson. The dish looked like an abstract work of art. Before I took a bite, I worried that the portion size was too small and I hoped it would be more filling than it appeared. The quail had a rich texture and mild gamey taste to it. You could taste the infusion of more truffles and toasted hazelnuts stuffed in the meat as well. I really loved this combination of earthy nuts, the pungent truffles, and assertive-tasting protein. I could feel myself smiling at this point. With each bite, you could literally taste the amount of care and commitment the chefs gave to every single ingredient. Even the porcini mushroom tasted otherworldly, as if it was infused with 100 times the amount of umami typically found in one small fungus. Again, it was another dish where I could have licked the plate clean. Dessert was almost too gorgeous to eat. The cake was a masterpiece and almost too stunning to ruin with my fork. Tiffany Leigh Devised by chef Yudith Bustos, the black-forest flourless chocolate cake came with a griottines (cherries in liqueur) compote, caramelized hazelnuts, and cherry ice cream. When this dessert arrived at the table, you could hear the audible "oohs'' and ''aahs" circulating the room. It was a literal showstopper. My favorite part was taking a crack at the chocolate curve to hear that snap the hallmark of perfectly tempered chocolate. The dish and its components were all in perfect harmony: the richness from the chocolate, the tang from the cherry ice cream, and the crunch from the caramelized hazelnut. The only thing I was sad about was when it was completely devoured and nothing was left on my plate except delicious memories. I was full after dessert, but the meal wasn't over. The meal had even more surprises. Tiffany Leigh After dessert, Boulud brought out his brigade and they gave every diner more sweets. We got a to-go box of treats and fresh, still-warm madeleines for the table. The little french cakes were soft, squishy, and incredibly addictive. It was an expensive meal but we got so many wonderful memories and tastes out of it. This experience was one I will never forget. Tiffany Leigh Undoubtedly, this was a pricey meal but a special treat. For us, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience we'll cherish for a long time. The service was stellar I especially appreciated the staff being so thoughtful when it came to my baby's needs. It was also cool we had an intimate opportunity to meet and chat with Boulud on our own. Best of all, we got to taste and enjoy dishes that were incredibly refined, thoughtful, and beautiful. Read the original article on Insider The New York Yankees display a tribute to Bristol, Conn. police Sgt. Dustin Demonte and officer Alex Hamzy before Game 2 of an American League Division baseball series between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in New York. Hamzy and Demonte were killed in the line of duty on Thursday in Bristol, Conn. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) (John Minchillo/AP) Two police officers were fatally shot and one was seriously injured during what police called an ambush following a 911 report of a domestic incident in Bristol late Wednesday night. Sgt. Dustin DeMonte, 35, and officer Alex Hamzy, 34, were killed in the shooting, according to officials. Officer Alec Iurato, 26, was severely injured. Advertisement Bristol police responded to 310 Redstone Hill Rd. for a reported possible domestic violence incident between two siblings before 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to Sgt. Christine Jeltema of the Connecticut State Police. When officers arrived, one suspect, identified as Nicholas Brutcher, 35, was outside of the residence with what witnesses were calling a semi-automatic weapon and shots were fired, fatally wounding Hamzy on the scene, while two other officers were also shot. DeMonte was taken to Bristol Hospital, where he died. Iurato was transported to Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford where he underwent surgery, according to the state police and Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould. Advertisement Brutcher died from a gunshot wound at the scene. The suspects brother, Nathan Brutcher, 32, was also shot and was transported to an area hospital for treatment of his wounds, according to the state police. Preliminary information appears to point to the 911 call being a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene, according to the state police. Nearly every member of the Bristol Police Department walked down Redstone Hill Road Thursday morning some stoically, some wiping away tears following a black vehicle that carried the remains of Hamzy. Lining the length of Emmett Street, officers from nearly every law enforcement agency in the state gathered for the procession. Today, our hearts are broken. We are united in immeasurable grief for those hero officers, for their families, and friends and for our all of our law enforcement personnel. Bristol and the entire nation needs to wrap our arms around them as well as our own loved ones, said Bristol Mayor Jeff Caggiano. Earlier, a large police procession with officers from around the state escorted DeMonte from Bristol Hospital to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington. Iurato has since been released from the hospital where he was greeted by Bristol officers who planned to escort him home. Hes coming home, Gould said on Thursday morning. Advertisement DeMonte is survived by his wife, two children, parents and two siblings. He has a third child on the way, Gould said. He won several awards in over 10 years with the department, including the Officer of the Year in 2019 and the Silver Star, Gould said. He was a school resource officer at Green Hills and West Bristol schools. He graduated from Central Connecticut State University with a degree in criminology and a minor in psychology, Gould said. Hamzy was born and raised in Bristol and graduated from Bristol Eastern High School. He spent eight years with the Bristol Police Department. He was a patrol officer and received numerous recognitions in his time with the department, Gould said. He is survived by his wife, parents and two sisters. Advertisement Iurato is a member of the departments central region emergency response team, Gould said. He holds a Bachelors degree in government, law and national security. Our community has been rocked, our police department has been rocked, Gould said earlier Thursday morning. Bristol residents left flowers, candles and balloons with messages in memory of the officers written in black ink around a police cruiser parked outside the Bristol Police Station Thursday. Hundreds of people turned out to a vigil to honor the fallen officers at Bristol Eastern High School on Thursday night, including Gov. Ned Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz. Officers representing nearly every department in Connecticut lined the entrance into the schools auditorium, which quickly filled to capacity. Additional people were moved to the schools cafeteria, where TVs were set up to broadcast the event. The community is in good shape at the moment. We have our brothers and sisters from different communities serving with us right now as we are dealing with this, Gould said at the vigil. According to Gould, the three officers that were shot were the embodiment of ideal police officers. All three absolutely loved policing, their families and the Bristol community. Advertisement Our men and women of the Bristol Police Department are privileged and honored to serve on the front lines, protecting and serving the community of Bristol. Thats what these heroes did last night. They answered a call to duty and they responded without hesitation. And thats what they did every night before that, said Gould. Anthony Rodriguez, a neighbor who lives in the apartment complex across the street from the scene, said that he was standing outside when he heard a neighbor across the street, now identified as Nicholas Brutcher, fighting with his brother. Rodriguez alleged that he heard Nicholas Brutcher who he described as a normal, family man tell his brother he was going to go shoot up a local bar. Nicholas Brutcher, Rodriguez alleged, was dressed in army fatigues and holding a large rifle with a high-capacity magazine attached to it. His brother told him he wouldnt let him do that and tried to hold him down, but Nicholas Brutcher shot him, he alleged. Rodriguez said he then watched Nicholas Brutcher sit down on the steps outside of his house. When the first police vehicle pulled up, Nicholas Brutcher fired as soon as the officer opened the door. The glass shattered on the window and the door was left open. Advertisement He ambushed them, they didnt even have a chance, he said. About 11 a.m. on Thursday, Ian Dunn hung his head outside the window of his apartment near the scene as he watched officers from nearly every law enforcement agency in the state line up on Redstone Hill Road to pay their respects to the fallen officers. Dunn was inside a basement-level apartment less than a block away from the shooting watching TV with his girlfriend when they heard what sounded like 10 loud pops, he said. At first, they thought maybe the sound was a car backfiring. But then we heard the second round and thats when we threw ourselves on the ground, he said. The couple lay on the ground in the apartment for about five minutes, he said. Thats when everyone started showing up. We heard the sirens and saw the lights. The couple ran around the apartment locking doors to keep themselves safe, he said. Once officers were on the scene, Dunn said that it was eerily quiet. Advertisement We could tell something bad happened, he said. At least a few times, they heard officers say: Where is he? Dunn said that the scariest part was not knowing whether or not a shooter was on the loose in their neighborhood. Ashley Salls, who works at a Dunkin Donuts on Middle Street in Bristol, brought doughnuts to officers on the scene. She said that Hamzy often stopped into the store for coffee. He was a regular, she said. Salls said that recently, after a string of robberies in Bristol, she was sitting in her car warming up after a late-night shift and Hamzy came up to check on her and make sure she was OK. Shell always remember that act of kindness, she said. Advertisement Lamont directed flags to half-staff in honor to honor the fallen officers, calling it a senseless tragedy. My prayers are with their families, loved ones, and fellow officers, Lamont said. I also ask the residents of Connecticut to keep in their prayers a third officer who was shot while responding to this emergency. ... This is a devastating reminder of the dangers that police officers face every day to protect our families and neighbors from all kinds of situations. These officers are heroes and will always be remembered for the honorable service they provided to their town and their state. Lamont said he learned about the shooting in a late-night text message from state public safety Commissioner James Rovella while he was asleep. In a time of mourning, he called Thursday for a renewed understanding of the sacrifices of law enforcement. I hope people have a strengthened appreciation for what our police do, Lamont told reporters in Southington. I hope when you see your policeman and policewoman on the street corner, you go up and say, Thank you for what you do. And I hope you remember that every day, theyre putting their lives on the line to keep you safe. Lamont said he could not confirm that there had been an attempt to lure police officers to the home in an ambush. Advertisement Theres been some hearsay to that effect, but rather than speculate, lets let the investigation go forward, Lamont said. Lamont declined to talk in detail about any potential response in changing any laws. There are too many guns out there, too many illegal guns, he said. He added, Sometimes when theres alcohol and guns, thats a pretty bad combination. What we can do, I think, is strengthen our police force, strengthen community policing, get more cops on the beat, and make sure that people know justice is right around the corner. Bristol Senator Henri Martin, R-Bristol, said in a statement: This is heartbreaking. Words cannot sum up our sadness and emotions. Our thoughts and prayers are with our Bristol Police Department, their families, and our entire law enforcement community. We will continue to pray for them all. Bristol Superintendent of Schools Catherine M. Carbone said in a letter to families, It is with a heavy heart that we share the news of this morning from Bristol. Three Bristol police officers were shot overnight, two fatally, after responding to a call for assistance. Advertisement As the details of this tragedy emerge, we will stand together in support of each other and our community at large. Over the coming hours and days, we will provide you with updates and additional information as it becomes available, she said. We offer our heartfelt thoughts and condolences to the victims families and friends and the entire Bristol Police Department during this very difficult time. Carbone said the district crisis team will continue to monitor the situation and support all students and staff. State police said this is an isolated incident and there is no threat to the community. Please keep the Bristol Police Department and their families in your thoughts and in your prayers. And of the law enforcement officers that serve this great state. Jeltema said. Connecticut U.S. Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery said the news of the deaths of the officers and injury was devastating and another tragic reminder of the potential danger that law enforcement officers face every day in their service to our communities. Advertisement I am praying for these officers and their families and loved ones, and every member of the Bristol Police Department and the Bristol community will remain in my thoughts, she said. Our office and our federal agency partners will support the Bristol Police and Connecticut State Police in any way we can. The incident is under investigation and the Connecticut State Police and municipal police agencies are offering mutual aid to Bristol Police. Residents may see neighboring agencies covering patrol functions as the Bristol Police Department begins to process this extraordinary loss, said the state police. Information from Courant reporters Taylor Hartz and Christopher Keating were used in this report. PATERSON Outraged over Passaic County Prosecutor Camela Valdes inaction on corrupt Paterson cops, local social justice activists say she has lost the publics trust and should resign. Activists said this weeks news that Valdes office dropped 10 investigations against five Paterson cops who ended up being convicted by federal authorities represents just the latest example of what they describe as the prosecutors ongoing failure to protect the community from rogue law enforcement officers. If she couldnt find enough evidence against these cops who the FBI arrested and convicted, then we need a new prosecutor, said Paterson activist Ernest Rucker. The community has no trust in her. What are we supposed to do, call the FBI every time we have a problem with one of our police officers? She should resign immediately, Rucker added. Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes and Passaic City Mayor Hector Lora were two of the dignitaries that spoke during Immigration Integration Day at Passaic City Hall where immigrants and their families can get help and information on legal and other issues to help the process of integration and inclusion. Seven of the 10 cases that Valdes office scrapped involved one Paterson police officer, Eudy Ramos, according to documents made public this week. Ramos eventually pleaded guilty to robbing and beating people he illegally stopped, admitting eight specific crimes that occurred after Valdes initial decision not to pursue a case against him. This just proved what people felt for many years, said Zellie Thomas, leader of Patersons Black Lives Matter group. There is very little faith in the Passaic County Prosecutors Office. Theres also very little faith in the Paterson Police Department. Thomas noted that the prosecutors office is supposed to be watching over Patersons police. But who is going to watch over the Passaic County Prosecutors Office? he asked. For subscribers:Why did the Passaic prosecutor decline to investigate Paterson's 'robbery squad?' That job falls to the New Jersey Attorney General. The attorney general's office did not respond when Paterson Press asked whether Valdes notified the state law enforcement agency at the time her staff decided not to seek prosecutions against Ramos and the other rogue cops. Story continues Valdes also has not responded when asked the same question. Nor has she provided any explanation for her offices decision not to pursue criminal charges against the five officers Ramos, Jonathan Bustios, Daniel Pent, Matthew Torres and Frank Toledo all of whom ended up being convicted in federal court. Paterson's 'robbery squad': FBI investigation leads to convictions, federal prison terms Im left to believe that the ball was dropped here, said Jason Williams, an associate professor of justice studies at Montclair State University and a Black Lives Matter activist. It almost puts me at a loss for words. Its mind-bending, really. Williams said prosecutors tend to go soft on local cops because of their partnership in fighting crime. He said he thinks the prosecutor may have made a political decision not to pursue the cases against the Paterson officers. It seems like she decided to let this go in anticipation of the feds coming in, said Williams, who has been closely following the Paterson police corruption scandal. If the feds could come up with this evidence against these cops, then state should have been able to do it, too. At the time of the first arrests, in April 2018, then-Paterson police chief Troy Oswald said the citys Internal Affairs Division spotted some troubling complaints about the rogue cops. He said he went to the prosecutors office asking for an investigation. Oswald who is now running for Passaic County Commissioner said the prosecutors office told him it lacked the resources to conduct such a probe, so he said he took the case to the FBI. People talk about the blue wall of silence, but thats not what happened here, Oswald said four years ago, on the day Ramos and Bustios were arrested. Our view:Camelia Valdes had a chance to stop Paterson's 'robbery squad.' She must resign The United States Attorneys Office declined to say exactly what prompted the FBI to begin its investigation of the Paterson police department. Its very scary, said Thomas, the Paterson BLM leader. If it wasnt for Troy Oswald going to the FBI, then these officers might still be on the street right now. Thomas said Valdes inaction regarding the self-proclaimed robbery squad of rogue cops echoes her offices handling of other high-profile cases, like the police-custody death of Jameek Lowery in 2019 and this years disappearance of Felix DeJesus after he was handcuffed and put in a patrol vehicle by two officers. Mayor Andre Sayegh did not respond when asked for his thoughts about Valdes decisions not to prosecute the crooked cops. Most members of the City Council and several Paterson clergy leaders also opted not to comment on the situation. I dont know the information the prosecutors had in front of them, said Paterson City Council President Shahin Khalique. However if they had all the information then shame on the prosecutors office. Under state guidelines, local police Internal Affairs investigators are supposed to refer to the county prosecutors office any complaints that may turn out to be criminal in nature. Thats what happened with the 10 investigations cited in the documents released last week. All of them had Paterson IA case numbers. This case is being returned to your department for whatever administrative actions are deemed necessary, unless additional investigation reveals further evidence of criminal wrongdoing, Valdes Public Integrity Unit told Paterson IAs division in letters saying there was insufficient evidence for criminal charges. The prosecutors letters do not provide any details of the allegations against the cops, just the names of the officer or officers targeted and the separate Paterson IA case numbers. The letters do not provide enough information to determine whether the prosecutors office opted to scrap investigations of the very same crimes that resulted in federal convictions of the cops. Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Passaic County Prosecutor must resign, Paterson activists say The Pentagon on Friday confirmed that the Biden administration was in talks with SpaceX over who will foot the bill for the critical internet service in Ukraine provided by the companys Starlink. The director of government sales for SpaceX, owned by CEO Elon Musk, reportedly sent a letter to the Pentagon last month stating it could no longer fund Starlink in Ukraine as it is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to keep it running for the next year, according to documents CNN said it obtained. I can confirm that the [Defense Department] has been in communication with SpaceX regarding Starlink, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday. Im not going to get into further details of this discussion just now. But were working with our partners and allies in trying to figure out whats best. Pressed repeatedly as to when the Pentagon first began communications with SpaceX, which was involved and the nature of the talks, Singh would not offer details. She added that officials understand the fragility of the Ukrainian communications system and are assessing our options and trying to do what we can to help keep these capabilities to ensure that these communications remain for the Ukrainian forces. There are certainly other [satellite communication] capabilities that exist out there, Singh said, when asked if there are any other commercially available alternatives to Starlink. Theres not just SpaceX, there are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what they need on the battlefield. Starlink services in Ukraine are critical to the country in its ongoing war with Russia, and losing such a communications system is likely to have a detrimental effect on its armed forces. The Ukrainian military has credited the reliable, lightweight and mobile internet terminals as crucial to military and civilian communication. Story continues Musk earlier on Friday seemed to confirm that SpaceX had reached out to the Pentagon regarding Starlink costs when he tweeted that his company must create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to Internet via gateways, as well as defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder. He claimed that was costing the company about $20 million a month. SpaceXs communications with the Pentagon come as Musk, the worlds richest man, has faced intense scrutiny over his suggestions for a negotiated settlement to end the war. He proposed that Russia keep Crimea in such a settlement, an idea that was roundly rejected by Ukrainian leaders. And though Musk initially received widespread acclaim for providing the Starlink service to Ukraine at the start of the war, it was revealed that most of the 20,000 terminals in the country are completely or partially funded by outside sources such as the U.S. government, the United Kingdom and Poland, CNN reported. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A person has serious injuries after a shooting in a New Hampshire neighborhood Thursday night. Goffstown Police say they responded to the Pinardville section of the city just before midnight for a report of a shooting incident. An adult victim was found suffering from a gunshot wound, according to officials. The victim is currently listed in critical but stable condition. No arrests have been made at this time. Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to come forward. No further information was made 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 Phoenix police. A juvenile was arrested Thursday after a loaded handgun was discovered in his backpack at Mountain Pointe High School, according to Phoenix police. An administrative search led to the discovery of the weapon within the school near 44th Street and Ray Road in Ahwatukee, police said. The on-duty school resource officer responded and completed a weapons investigation which led to the arrest of the student by Phoenix police. Phoenix police said no prior threats were reported to the school or police related to this incident. Reach breaking news reporter Ellie Willard at ellie.willard@gannett.com or on Twitter @EllieWillardAZ. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix police: Loaded gun found in student's backpack prompts arrest Who can forget Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal, that cheeky work of early-18th-century satire in which the author had the nerve to suggest cannibalism as a means of keeping Irelands unwanted kids from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick? In Plan 75, debuting director Chie Hayakawa floats an equally extreme idea of her own without so much as a glimmer of irony, and the suggestion is upsetting enough that the public will likely still be citing it decades down the road. Set in near-future Japan, where its a surplus of seniors versus an abundance of babies thats causing trouble, this chilling social drama takes its name from a hypothetical new legislation whereby an overtaxed government offers its elderly citizens an incentive to euthanize. Candidates, who must be at least 75 years of age, will be offered a modest compensation to smooth their exit, or pass along to their progeny. Meanwhile, they can presumably take comfort in the fact that they are no longer serving as a burden to society. Its a grimly pragmatic way of looking at old age and one that Hayakawa doesnt subscribe to herself: Shes too empathetic a director to insist that her idea actually be implemented, which Plan 75 makes clear by following this thought experiment to its natural conclusion. More from Variety Hayakawa approaches her subject with utter seriousness from the opening scene, which picks up right after a gunman has opened fire on a retirement home an extreme sign that public sentiment has turned on the countrys resource-draining oldsters. Getting down to the nitty gritty, as it were, the helmer aims to anticipate the logistics (how the deed is done, from counseling phone calls in the lead-up to the death wards where patients are gassed), as well as any real-world repercussions her proposal would have. Story continues Surely such a law would create new jobs, she figures. It might even spawn an entire death-in-dignity industry sayonara vacations, or resorts where seniors can cash in their stipends for a comfortable demise. But who would take these jobs? What becomes of the dead peoples affairs? Could the businesses be trusted to handle the corpses correctly? (Many funeral homes dont do so now, and people are always cutting corners in government work.) Perhaps most disturbing: If the public accepts Plan 75, would that make it easier to pass subsequent iterations where the minimum age is lowered? These are all compelling questions, though Hiyakawa rushes past the most obvious one: Would Japan or any country really embrace a program like Plan 75? Presenting that premise as a done deal is the one thing that qualifies this movie as science fiction; the rest amounts to a kind of melancholy realism, as Hiyakawa focuses on how shabbily many elders are already being treated: abandoned by relatives, ignored by social services, left to fend for themselves. At 78, Michi (Baisho Chieko) has reached the age where she should be able to relax and enjoy her sunset years. Instead, no one will rent an apartment to someone so old, and she has trouble finding a job to cover the basic costs of life. Tapping into a kind of collective guilt (as if Michi were real and the audience were responsible for her plight), Hiyakawa shows this kindly old woman wearing one of those fluorescent orange vests, reduced to directing traffic in the cold. Things arent much easier for Maria (Stefanie Arianne), the sweet Filipino nurse and young mother who assists Michi through the process. The world can be cruel and lonely, Hiyakawa reminds, while also embracing the small but significant reasons to live, like the bond that forms between these two characters. Another customer, widowed Yukio (Takao Taka), has fewer misgivings about the program. He feels hes lived a good life and seems ready to join his wife. But something unexpected happens at his preliminary interview: Yukios processing agent is none other than his nephew Hiromu (Hayato Isomura), whom he hasnt seen in years. With good reason, Hiromu is obliged to recuse himself, since the meeting gets him worrying about Yukios well-being. A few days later, behind his employers back, Hiromu tries to talk his uncle out of his decision. Cue the sad trombone when he arrives too late to save the mans life. Plan 75 might have been a risible exercise in emotional manipulation if not for the sensitive tone with which Hiyakawa approaches all of her characters. The films underlying agenda is hardly subtle, and yet, Hiyakawa leaves more than enough room for audiences to disagree that is, to consider the actual merits of deciding the hour and means of ones own exit. Though it remains taboo in many cultures, plenty of people already elect to die by assisted suicide (with Jean-Luc Godard being a prominent recent example and Alain Delon having revealed his intention). Still, its something altogether different for a society to encourage it. Depressing as her film can be at times, Hiyakawas not nearly as heavy-handed as professional miserabilist Alejandro G. Inarritu. Still, if Plan 75 which reps Japans submission to the Oscar international race gets too enthusiastic a reception in the States, that may only encourage her to make more wet-blanket dramas, whereas its the glints of sun that redeem the film. She should cling to those as certain of her characters do to life itself. 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. Orlando police are investigating a shooting that sent two people to the hospital Thursday evening. >>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<< Officers were called to the intersection of Fanfair Ave. and Edgemoor St. just before 7 p.m. for reports of a shooting. READ: Man shot after pointing gun at officer, security guard & tow truck driver at Cocoa apartment complex Investigators say two people were standing on the corner when someone shot at them from a passing car. Both victims were taken to the hospital and are expected to survive. So far, police say theyve only gathered very limited information on a possible suspect or suspects. READ: Raleigh shooting: 5 killed, mayor says; suspect still at large This story is developing. Please stay with WFTV as more information comes into our newsroom. Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. The Clovis police are thanking a member of the public for reporting suspicious activity that led to the arrest of a registered sex offender. John Grimes was arrested after police determined he had been living in a truck outside a Clovis home, in violation of his registration requirements with the state. Police believe the 71-year-old had been living at the home for four years while being registered as a sex offender in Fresno. Grimes was booked in Fresno County Jail and faces felony charges, police said. Officers were originally alerted to Grimes on Wednesday after someone reported a suspicious male in a private parking lot at Shaw and Clovis avenues. He was sitting in his truck, apparently watching females, according to a statement from the Clovis Police Department on Friday. It was during that investigation that officers learned Grimes had been living in Clovis. State police in Indiana County are warning owners of large vehicles to be on alert after the theft of a catalytic convertor from a vehicle in White Township. Police said the device was stolen from a Ford pickup truck Thursday at the Indiana County Community Action Program building at 1849 Sixth Street. Police said the theft was done by experienced thieves due to the location and cuts left behind on the vehicles exhaust system. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 724-357-1960. Catalytic convertor thefts are on the rise. There were 182 thefts this year in the city of Pittsburgh alone as of Sept. 15. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Pittsburgh police warn residents of increasing catalytic converter thefts at weekly briefing TRENDING NOW: About 8,000 items abandoned at Pittsburgh International Airport to be auctioned off Target 11 Exclusive: Man accused of raping foster child in Pittsburgh facing similar charges in Ohio Former Beaver County health care worker pleads guilty to federal hate crime charges VIDEO: Whats being done to make Pittsburgh safer? DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts A man is in critical condition after an assault in Pittsburghs Carrick neighborhood, according to police. Police said officers were dispatched to the 2100 block of Brownsville Road on Thursday night for reports of a man calling for help outside of an apartment building. Once on scene, officers located a male victim with multiple injuries to his head and face from some type of weapon. Medics transported the man to a hospital. There is no information on a suspect at this time. WATCH the video above for more details. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: About 8,000 items abandoned at Pittsburgh International Airport to be auctioned off Target 11 Exclusive: Man accused of raping foster child in Pittsburgh facing similar charges in Ohio Former Beaver County health care worker pleads guilty to federal hate crime charges VIDEO: Whats being done to make Pittsburgh safer? DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts A standoff with an armed man at an Oak Park apartment that began Thursday and lasted more than 18 hours was resolved with no injuries Friday morning, according to police. Advertisement The standoff ended around 5:20 a.m. when the man surrendered and was transported to a hospital for a mental health evaluation, police said in a tweet. UPDATE: A standoff that lasted more than 18 hours on the 1100 block of N. Harlem Ave. was resolved with no injuries at around 5:20 a.m. this morning when the subject surrendered and was transported to a local hospital for a mental health evaluation: https://t.co/3gaFFtkKjP Oak Park Police Department (@VOPpolice) October 14, 2022 Officers responded to the 1100 block of North Harlem Avenue shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday for reports of an individual armed and barricaded in his apartment, according to Oak Park police. Advertisement As of 6 p.m. Thursday, Oak Park police officers and officers from the Cook County sheriffs office were still on the scene working to resolve the situation. Traffic was being diverted and the public was asked to avoid the area Thursday, police said. Harlem Avenue reopened to traffic Friday morning as officers processed the scene of the incident. Charles Shapera, executive director of Har Zion synagogue, 1040 N. Harlem Ave. in River Forest, said police asked them about 3 p.m. to move the children from their preschool, located in the synagogue, to nearby Concordia University. Theres some standoff with police, Shapera said officers told them. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > None of the children were injured and they were not told of the situation. The children knew nothing. It was like a field trip, Shapera said. We have not experienced this in the past. Albert Popowits lives in a condo along Harlem in the blocked-off area. He said at about 9:15 p.m. that the situation remained ongoing. Everything is the same except now its dark out, said Popowits. Ive never seen so many police cars and ambulances in my life, Popowits said earlier. The cars had all their lights flashing and were parked end to end from Division to Augusta streets. Advertisement Popowits said he was not frightened at all and residents in his 30-unit condo building were not asked to leave. Its exciting not a boring day, he said. Chicago Tribune reporter Adriana Perez contributed. An ambulance believed to be carrying a shooting suspect arrives at Wake Medical Center Emergency Room in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 surrounded by police. AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker Police said the Raleigh, North Carolina, shooting suspect is a 15-year-old boy. He is in critical condition and is being treated at WakeMed in Raleigh, police said. Witnesses said the gunman was wearing camouflage and carrying a long gun. Police in Raleigh, North Carolina, said the suspect in the shooting that killed five people on Thursday night is a 15-year-old boy. He is currently in critical condition, Chief of Police Estella Patterson said at a Friday morning press conference. WRAL reported that he is being treated at WakeMed in Raleigh, though police have not said how the shooting suspect was injured. CBS 17 reported that the shooting suspect was wearing camouflage and carrying a long gun at the time of the shooting. No motive has been reported at this time. Police identified the five people killed in the shooting as 29-year-old off-duty police officer Gabriel Torres, 52-year-old Nicole Connors, 49-year-old Susan Karnatz, 35-year-old Mary Marshall, and 16-year-old James Thompson. Two others were injured, including one Raleigh police officer who has since been released from the hospital and Marcielle Gardner, 59, who is in critical condition, police said. The shooter opened fire in a Northeast Raleigh neighborhood at approximately 5:00 p.m., but authorities didn't contain the suspect until 8 p.m, officials said Thursday night. Witnesses described the shooter as a "child," with one telling WRAL that they watched the shooting unfold from the back window of their home. "He was a child. You just don't imagine things like that. You hear about school shootings and stuff, but to really see something like that in your neighborhood is just ..." one witness told WRAL. Another witness, who said he called 911 when he heard gunshots in his neighborhood around 5:00 p.m., told WRAL he saw a gunman pass his backyard. "He had a long-barrel shotgun," the witness said. "He was dressed in camo. He had a full backpack on that was also camouflage." Story continues One woman told WRAL that she saw the police officer, Torres, "bleeding out in the car." "I saw the shooter running through the park behind the house connected to the Greenway," she added. "He looked like a teenager. He looked like a baby." She continued: "It happened so fast. Like minutes." Read the original article on Insider Eat This, Not That! The beauty of eating seafood is tri-fold: There are tons of fish and crustaceans to choose from so you're never eating the same thing, they can be served simply or sauced up with almost any kind of seasoning, and they provide a wide range of nutritional benefits. For example, fish are the top food sources of omega-3 fatty acids: nutrients that are linked to brain health, lowering heart disease risk, and more. Typically speaking, seafood is a great addition to your diet. But, that's only if you k NextShark A 47-year-old Thai man is in critical condition after two Frenchmen assaulted him in an unprovoked attack caught on camera. According to Lakhana, Somkuan had said, That car is so beautiful, when will we get a car like this? They reportedly followed the Porsche to appreciate it for a bit longer before passing. The Porsche then allegedly began tailgating the couples motorbike and honked at them until they pulled to the side of the road in front of a grilled pork stall. WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's foreign ministry has summoned Israel's ambassador for Monday, a Polish deputy minister said on Friday, after the diplomat criticised the government for not allowing student trips from Israel to visit Holocaust memorial sites in Poland. In July, Poland and Israel vowed to improve relations that had deteriorated after Warsaw introduced a law last year limiting the ability of Jews to recover World War Two properties, saying they would mutually restore ambassadors. Holocaust education trips for Israeli students to Poland had been suspended earlier this year over the fact that armed guards accompanied the students on the trips, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Reuters. "I regret that Ambassador @YacovLivne has chosen to communicate with @MSZ_RP through the media and public speeches - in addition misleading the public as to why the trips are not taking place," Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski tweeted on Friday. "To clarify the situation, he will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday." Livne criticised the Polish government for not allowing the student trips earlier this week during a commemoration of an uprising at Nazi extermination camp Sobibor, according to Polish media reports. Jablonski added that Poland's position regarding the trips had not changed since August. "We are ready to welcome (Israeli) groups even from tomorrow. Security rules should be the same as in other similar countries, i.e. no armed protection. Poland should be treated according to the same standard," Jablonski tweeted. (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; Editing Mark Potter) By Casey Hall SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese consumers are typically known for lavish spending on high-end handbags, clothes and accessories that sustain Western luxury brands. This year, however, economic ill winds have sapped much of their urge to splurge and it's the littler luxuries in life - artisanal food and drinks as well as smart trendy appliances - that have caught their eye. Brands that have jumped on the trend include Kweichow Moutai, best known for $300 bottles of baijiu, the Chinese spirit popular at banquets. It debuted baijiu-infused ice cream at $10 a cup in May, racking up 2.5 million yuan ($350,000) of sales on the first day. Hong Kong-listed Budweiser Brewing Asia-Pacific, a unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev, notes that premium and craft beer as well as specially packaged gift boxes of beer priced at hundreds of dollars are selling unexpectedly well. Sales of gaming gear and home devices from water-saving shower heads to smart toothbrushes to printers surged as much as four times last year's levels during JD.com's mid-year 618 shopping festival, data from the e-commerce giant showed. Chinese consumers are "spoiling themselves with those little things and they're loving something novel," said Mark Tanner, founder of marketing agency China Skinny. The shift in consumer trends, one that has seen some segments of the population go ultra-frugal, comes amid much economic gloom. The country's COVID-zero policy and its resulting frequent lockdowns have put the brakes on business activity and normal outlets for spending such as tourism. The property sector is also in crisis while the tech and private tutoring industries have sharply reined in hiring after regulatory crackdowns, contributing to a spike in youth unemployment. The economy narrowly escaped contraction in the second quarter and retail sales grew a measly 0.5% in January to August from the same period a year earlier, a far cry from growth of around 8% to 9% seen in recent years. Story continues Western luxury brands, in particular, are hurting. Burberry Group and French conglomerate Kering, which houses brands such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, both reported 35% year-on-year declines for China sales in the April-June quarter. Lucy Lu, a 31-year-old Shanghai resident who works in marketing for a domestic fashion brand, says she is one of many consumers mending her ways. "Before, let's say with a handbag or cosmetics, if I liked it I would just buy it without a second thought, now I really double check with myself if I need something before I buy it." "Dining out is now my main treat," Lu added. For some artisanal food and drink sellers, this new shift in consumer behaviour represents a perfect moment to expand. Gerard Low, founder of Shanghai-based ice cream brand Dal Cuore where a scoop costs about 40 yuan ($5.60), plans to open a fifth store in the mega-city, encouraged by the quick return of footfall to normal levels after a draconian two-month lockdown was lifted earlier this year. He also notes that more families, instead of mostly young people, are heading to his shops for a treat. "When times aren't so good, people want to feel better, guilty pleasures like ice cream can help," said Low. ($1 = 7.1584 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Casey Hall; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) Hunter Biden. Illustrated | AP Images, Getty Images The feds might be coming for President Biden's son. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that federal agents believe they have enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax and gun crimes. Because of his father's position, any move against him could have political consequences. The president, meanwhile, has offered his son some public support. "I have great confidence in my son," the elder Biden said this week in a CNN interview. "I love him. He's on a straight and narrow, and he has been for a couple years now." The statement received pushback from conservatives: "That was a clear push for mercy from the ultimate boss of the Justice Department that's weighing charges against Hunter," the New York Post said in an editorial. What are the allegations facing Hunter Biden, and what might the fallout be? Here's everything you need to know. What did Hunter allegedly do wrong? The president's son, now 52, has had well-publicized troubles with drug addiction, which play a part in the potential charges. The gun charges, for example, stem from a period when he was, "by his own account smoking crack cocaine," the Post reports. That was 2018, when Hunter Biden purchased a handgun and allegedly answered "no" to a question about whether he had unlawfully used drugs. The younger Biden's taxes have also been under scrutiny for years, The New York Times reported in March. That investigation began during the Obama Administration, but "widened in 2018 to include possible criminal violations of tax laws, as well as foreign lobbying and money laundering rules." The paper reported that Hunter paid off his tax liability which he told friends amounted to more than $1 million but that might not save him from legal trouble: Prosecutors argue "that the crime happens when the return is falsely filed or not filed at all." Are there other problems? Hunter Biden has arguably been drifting toward trouble for much of his adulthood "the guy who even into his 40s keeps needing dad to send the search-and-rescue party," Matt Yglesias wrote for Vox in 2020. He has made a living as a lawyer and a lobbyist, and more recently as an artist, but it's not clear he could've done much work over the years without his dad's name and connections. In addition to his drug problems, he also attracted attention when in 2014 he joined the board of Burisma, a controversial Ukrainian oil and gas company. "Hunter had no apparent qualifications for the job except that his father was the vice president and involved in the Obama administration's Ukraine policy." When President Donald Trump was impeached in 2019, it was because he'd pressed Ukraine's president for dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden and withheld U.S. military aid to give him leverage. Story continues Hunter also made a cameo appearance at the end of the 2020 presidential campaign, when a Delaware computer shop owner emerged with a report that Joe Biden's son had abandoned his laptop computer at the shop which Slate's Mary Harris recently described as containing "a whole lot of selfies, some homemade pornography, and email messages hinting at cozy relationships between him and businesspeople from China and Ukraine." The circumstances seemed improbable enough that Twitter and Facebook put the kibosh on the story and Republicans have used that incident to suggest the media and "Big Tech" helped elect Joe Biden but it now seems likely to be legit. And it may also play a role in the federal investigation. What are Republicans saying? They're planning a Congressional investigation of Hunter, should they take over one or both houses of Congress in this fall's midterm elections. And it's clear they plan to use that investigation not just to take down Hunter Biden, but also his father. "I think the American people are going to be shocked with what they find out the Biden family's been doing to profit off Joe Biden's name over the past decade," Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) recently told Fox Business Network. For what it's worth, more than half of Democrats polled in August by Fox News said it is "somewhat important" for Hunter Biden's business dealings to be investigated. What's going to happen next? It's not entirely clear. "Prosecutions for false statements on gun-purchase forms are relatively rare, but they do happen," the Post reports. Tax prosecutions are more common, of course. But even if Hunter avoids charges, the promised Republican investigations mean this story probably isn't going to go away for the next few years. Charges against Hunter Biden could come with an odd upside for Democrats. Prosecuting the president's son "would demonstrate the integrity of the Justice Department, which its previous boss, President Donald Trump, politicized and continues to attack," Politico columnist Jack Shafer writes. That might be good for the country but small consolation to the president and his son. You may also like Herschel Walker is claiming to be quarter Cherokee, citing story his mother won't back up United Nations votes 143-5 to condemn Russia's 'attempted illegal annexation' of Ukraine provinces Climate protesters throw tomato soup on Van Gogh painting Social media posts claim PayPal is implementing a policy that will fine users who spread misinformation. This is misleading; the online payments platform said an update to its terms of service was released in error, that it was quickly corrected and that the company has no penalties for those who spread false claims. "#PayPal recently inserted a policy effective November 3rd to find its users $2500 for #misinformation," says an October 13, 2022 Instagram post. Screenshot of an Instagram post taken October 14, 2022 The post followed October 7 reporting from The Daily Wire on an update to PayPal's acceptable use policy. "Among the changes are prohibitions on 'the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials' that 'promote misinformation' or 'present a risk to user safety or wellbeing,'" the conservative news site said. The move drew fire from former PayPal president David Marcus, who tweeted October 8 that the policy "goes against everything I believe in." Billionaire Elon Musk, a founder of PayPal, replied in a tweet: "Agreed." And US Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, said on Twitter that PayPal was "censoring" speech. However, a spokesperson for the company said its policy was erroneously changed and then reversed to exclude the language on misinformation. "An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information," PayPal said in a statement released October 8 and later emailed to AFP. "PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused." The Daily Wire acknowledged the reversal of policy, but social media posts continued to criticize the fintech firm. "Paypal is COMING AFTER Your First Amendment Rights," said conservative activist Charlie Kirk in a Facebook video published October 11 and viewed more than 23,000 times. Conservative influencer Candace Owens also reacted to the news by urging people to delete their PayPal accounts. She later acknowledged the company's policy reversal but said it was "not good enough" because PayPal had become "too lefty." Story continues A PayPal spokesperson noted the company's terms do not call for "fines," but they do allow for "damages" to be assessed for the sale of illegal or counterfeit goods or other policy violations. PayPal's terms, which have been in effect since September 2021, ban the sale of illegal drugs, stolen goods and items that encourage "illegal activity ... the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime." AFP Fact Check previously reported on misinformation about how payments via apps like PayPal are taxed. In just over a month since a new COVID variant known as BQ.1 was first named, that strain and a descendant called BQ.1.1 have already grown to make up more than 10% of new infections across the country, according to updated estimates published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser, said in an interview with CBS News. It comes as federal health authorities have been bracing for a widely-expected resurgence of COVID-19 this fall and winter. BQ.1 variants have already outpaced many rival strains in European nations from England to Germany, which have already seen renewed waves begin. The CDC had previously bundled BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with their shared parent BA.5 in the agency's weekly "Nowcast" estimates. BQ.1 was first named by scientists in early September, based on sequences spotted across the U.S. and several other countries. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 each currently make up an estimated 5.7% of infections around the country, the agency said. The remainder of BA.5, which had dominated a wave of cases over the summer, has shrunk to 67.9% of circulating variants. "While BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. represent a small but fast-growing subset of the Omicron variant, BA.5 remains the dominant lineage in the United States," CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in a statement. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 also appear on track to overtake the only other strain that still outnumbers them: BA.4.6, which currently makes up 12.2% of infections. Nordlund said the agency had not listed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 separately in the agency's previous weekly variant reports because they "were circulating at less than 1% in the empiric data." Out of all regions, the New York and New Jersey area has the largest proportion of BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 infections. Around 20% of infections there are already from BQ.1 or BQ.1.1, the CDC estimates. Story continues News of the new variants' growth comes as COVID-19 metrics are still largely improving nationwide. Only around 1% of Americans live in counties seeing "high" COVID-19 Community Levels, where the CDC urges indoor masking and other steps to curb the virus. Less than half of counties are seeing community transmission bad enough to warrant requiring universal masking in hospitals and nursing homes, under recent federal guidance. But data from Health and Human Services Region 2, which spans New York and New Jersey, has also tracked a recent uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and nursing home infections. "As much as you want to feel good about the fact that cases are down, hospitalizations are down, we don't want to declare victory too prematurely. And that's the reason why we've got to keep our eye out on these emerging variants," Fauci said. Concerns about immunity and monoclonal antibodies Fauci also echoed worries that the variant's mutations might evade medications like Evusheld, which is a key antibody drug used to help protect immunocompromised Americans from the virus. "That's the reason why people are concerned about BQ.1.1, for the double reason of its doubling time and the fact that it seems to elude important monoclonal antibodies," said Fauci. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci / Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said they did not currently have data on how BQ.1 might impact its drug. The FDA warned doctors earlier this month of data suggesting other variants now on the rise around the country could threaten high-risk patients who had relied on Evusheld's protection. BQ.1 is one of a wide-ranging "soup" of new strains that scientists have been tracking, over concerns that their mutations at specific positions on the spike protein of the virus could fuel a surge. Experts have cited the "sizable number of unique mutations" in variants like BQ.1 in speculating that it could evade immunity people have from prior infections or vaccination. However, so far little is known about what impact these mutations might have in affecting the severity of the disease, which would require further studies in animals and humans. Fauci said he expected the updated COVID boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which were recently expanded to children as young as 5, would be able to help curb a potential surge fueled by BQ.1. "The bad news is that there's a new variant that's emerging and that has qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have. But, the somewhat encouraging news is that it's a BA.5 sublineage, so there are almost certainly going to be some cross protection that you can boost up," he said. More than 14.7 million Americans have so far gotten an updated COVID booster, which includes a component aimed at the BQ.1's parent BA.5. That works out to around 7% of the 209 million who were initially eligible for the shots when they were first greenlighted last month. However, after accelerating in the wake of the initial booster rollout, figures published late Thursday by the CDC show the daily pace of new COVID shots is now slowing. The shortfall between the pace of updated boosters and the typical uptake of the annual flu vaccine by this time of year has also widened. "That's the thing that's so frustrating for me and for my colleagues who are involved in this, is that we have the capability of mitigating against this. And the uptake of the new bivalent vaccine is not nearly as high as we would like it to be," Fauci added. Xi Jinping addresses Chinese Communist Party Congress April Ryan on why "Black women will save the world" Kindness 101: A lesson in tact PRINCE GEORGE The tractor-trailer driver who crashed his rig into a car Thursday at a county intersection, killing the car's driver, is now facing charges in the woman's death, county police said Friday. Marius Laslo, 33, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, was arrested on one count of involuntary manslaughter, Prince George Police Officer Alexis Grochmal said in an email. Laslo is being held at Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George. He's accused in the death of Kristina Bouzidoune, 37, of Prince George, that stemmed from a crash Thursday morning at the intersection of West Quaker and Wells Station roads in the county's New Bohemia area. According to police reports, Bouzidoune was driving on West Quaker Road when the tractor-trailer Laslo was reportedly driving on Wells Station Road hit the car as it was passing through the intersection. West Quaker Road traffic has the right-of-way through that intersection. The wreck happened around 10:45 a.m. Thursday. An 18-month-old child riding in Bouzidoune's car survived the crash. Grochmal said the toddler had been properly restrained in a safety seat in the rear of the car. The child did not appear to be injured, but was taken to a Petersburg hospital as a precaution to be checked out. Laslo was not injured in the crash. Police said an investigation into the wreck is ongoing. Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI. This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Prince George Police charge trucker in fatal accident Former Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan departs from his lawyers' office, March 9, 2022, after making his first virtual court appearance for his indictment. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) Telephone giant AT&T Illinois has agreed to pay a $23 million fine as part of a federal criminal investigation into the companys illegal efforts to influence former House Speaker Michael Madigan, according to court records made public Friday. Federal prosecutors also unsealed a superseding indictment against Madigan and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, adding allegations they participated in a scheme to funnel payments from AT&T to a Madigan associate in exchange for the speakers influence over legislation the telephone company wanted passed in Springfield. Advertisement The new conspiracy allegations against Madigan, which were added to the indictment Friday as Count 23, allege for the first time that a direct vote the speaker made on legislation was tainted by a scheme to influence him. Madigans attorney, Sheldon Zenner, had no comment. Also charged as part of the investigation was Paul La Schiazza, the former president of AT&T Illinois, who was accused of orchestrating and approving the payments. Advertisement La Schiazza, 65, who has homes in Rhode Island and Florida, is charged with conspiracy, corruptly giving something of value to reward a public official and three counts of using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful, and his lawyer, Tinos Diamantatos, declined to comment. The investigation of AT&T Illinois, which was reported by the Tribune earlier this year, is being resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement under which the company admitted its conduct. In exchange for admitting guilt and paying a $23 million fine, the charge will be dropped by the U.S. attorneys office in two years, according to the paperwork filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. AT&T has previously acknowledged it was under scrutiny by the U.S. attorneys office as part of the investigation into Madigans political operation. After the charges were announced, AT&T released a statement saying the company holds itself and its contractors to the highest ethical standards and is committed to ensuring that this never happens again. An arraignment for AT&T Illinois was set for Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Cox. Arraignments for La Schiazza on the new charges and Madigan and McClain on the superseding indictment had not been scheduled as of Friday. The charges against AT&T expanded upon the far-reaching allegations brought against the ex-speaker in a similar bribes-for-favors scandal involving Commonwealth Edison. The ComEd case against Madigan, who served a nationwide record 36 years as speaker before he was dethroned last year and quit, alleged the utility giant sought to win Madigans favor for its legislative agenda by steering no-work jobs and legal work to his political allies, giving college internships to students from his 13th Ward empire, and even appointing a Madigan-backed candidate to its board of directors. Advertisement AT&Ts $23 million fine follows the record $200 million fine that ComEd agreed to pay as part of its own deferred prosecution agreement. Prosecutors plan to dismiss a bribery count against ComEd if it cooperates in the ongoing probe. Both companies are publicly regulated. In February, AT&T disclosed in a regulatory filing that federal prosecutors had notified them they were considering filing criminal charges against its Illinois subsidiary, formally known as Illinois Bell Telephone Co. LLC, involving a single, nine-month consulting contract in 2017 worth $22,500. State records show the company that year had hired a stable of Madigan-connected lobbyists working for the Illinois subsidiary as AT&T was fighting for a controversial bill to end landline service for its 1.2 million customers. Critics of the landline bill, including AARP Illinois and the Citizens Utility Board watchdog group, were pushing back, saying the legislation would leave behind hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents, particularly seniors, who disproportionately rely on traditional landline telephone service for everything from connecting with family to monitoring life-threatening medical conditions, the Tribune has previously reported. House Speaker Michael Madigan confers with Rep. Edward Acevedo on the bench behind the speaker's podium in the House chambers in Springfield in 2010. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) The Tribune reported that investigators were specifically looking at thousands of dollars in payments allegedly passed to former state Rep. Edward Acevedo, a onetime member of Madigans leadership team whod recently left the General Assembly. The payments to Acevedo were made via a lobbying contract between AT&T and Thomas Cullen, a former Madigan staffer and longtime political strategist aligned with the speaker, two sources told the newspaper. Acevedo was a registered lobbyist at the time, state records show, but not for AT&T. Advertisement Neither Acevedo nor Cullen has been charged with any wrongdoing in the alleged scheme. Acevedo was not named in a statement of facts included in the deferred prosecution agreement filed Friday, but the payment amounts and circumstances described in the charges all match what was previously known, and sources said he was indeed the Madigan associate who received the payments. Thomas Anthony Durkin, Cullens attorney, had no comment on the matter Friday. Patrick Cotter, McClains attorney, also said he had no comment about the new allegations. Acevedos lawyer, Gabrielle Sansonetti, also had no comment. According to the statement agreed to by AT&T, in 2015, Madigans office had blocked the controversial landline legislation. After that defeat, an executive circulated a lessons learned memo that contained one section headed, Speaker Madigan. The memo stated that AT&T had not been as helpful as ComEd when requests were made from the speakers camp, according to the statement. The scheme to reward Acevedo, referred to in the court papers as FR-1, began in February 2017, after the company learned through McClain that the speaker was looking to kick Acevedo some money, according to the statement. Advertisement In an email exchange that March, AT&T Illinois director of legislative affairs asked two of the companys executives if they were 100% certain they would get credit from the powers that be if the payments were made to Madigans associate. I would hope that as long as we explain the approach to McClain and (the associate) gets the money then the ultimate objective is reached, one of the executives wrote back, according to the statement. The legislative affairs director responded, I dont think (La Schiazza) wants this based on hope. We need to confirm prior to executing this strategy, the statement said. In April 2017, La Schiazza approved a deal to secretly funnel $2,500 a month to Acevedo through a lobbying company already doing business with AT&T Illinois, according to the statement. The lobbying company was not named in the court filings. At McClains direction, AT&T employees then met with Acevedo to discuss a pretextual reason for the payments: to prepare a report on the political dynamics of the General Assemblys and Chicago City Councils Latino Caucuses, according to the statement of facts. Acevedo never did any real work for AT&T Illinois, however. In fact, according to AT&Ts admissions in court, he balked at first at the payments, saying they were too low. But Acevedo agreed to the deal after McClain stepped in and said the amount was sufficient. Advertisement From June 2017 to January 2018, Acevedo was paid a total of $22,500 in monthly installments. According to AT&Ts admission, the former representative did not complete the purported assignment on Latino politics, and no efforts were undertaken by AT&T to ensure work was being done in exchange for the money. Meanwhile, after a protracted fight, the landline bill passed during the final hours of the spring 2017 legislative session with Madigans direct assistance, according to legislative records and the statement of facts agreed to by AT&T. On June 29, 2017, Madigan permitted the bill to be brought to a vote and cast his ballot in favor of the legislation, records show. Two days later, after Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the legislation, Madigan and the Democrat-led General Assembly overrode him, with Madigan again voting for the override. The new allegations involving AT&T further punctuate a stunning downfall for Madigan, the longest serving leader of any legislative chamber in the nation who held an ironclad grip on the state legislature as well as the Democratic Party and its political spoils. He was dethroned as speaker in early 2021 as the investigation swirled around him, and soon after resigned the House seat hed held since 1971. Madigan, 80, and McClain, 75, were charged in March in the original 22-count indictment alleging they conspired to participate in an array of bribery and extortion schemes from 2011 to 2019 that allegedly leveraged Madigans elected office and political power for personal gain The indictment also accused Madigan of illegally soliciting business for his private property tax law firm during discussions to turn a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown into a commercial development. Advertisement Both Madigan and McClain have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys have accused prosecutors of trying to criminalize legal political actions such as job recommendations in a quest to bring down the once-powerful speaker. McClain, a former state legislator and lobbyist, is also facing separate charges stemming from the alleged ComEd scheme. Also indicted in that case, which is set for trial in March, are former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and consultant Jay Doherty, the former head of the City Club of Chicago. Acevedo, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to tax charges stemming from the ComEd investigation and was sentenced in March to six months in federal prison. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Though Acevedo was never charged with participating in the alleged bribery scheme, details of his alleged involvement in the ComEd scandal trickled out in hearings by a special House committee in 2020 tasked with investigating Madigans role with the power company after he was named Public Official A in federal court documents. Among the records ComEd turned over to committee was a January 2017 email in which McClain told Fidel Marquez, then vice president of governmental affairs for ComEd, about a frank conversation hed had with Acevedo about his shortcomings and an unflattering list of directives, including to watch the booze. Marquez, who cooperated with investigators and recorded conversations with McClain and others for the FBI, pleaded guilty in 2020 to bribery and is awaiting sentencing. Advertisement The McClain email went on to note whom Acevedo would be allowed to lobby, even though he was not registered as a ComEd lobbyist. At the end of his email, McClain thanked Marquez for letting him talk to Acevedo first and told Marquez, You may now talk to him. And in a reference he commonly used for Madigan, McClain wrote: I will tell our Friend to proceed. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com rlong@chicagotribune.com (POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin GOP senator who is frequently in the news for his repetition of conspiracy theories and disinformation, had audience members at his debate with Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes laughing out loud after he complained that the FBI had exhibited corruption by briefing him about being the target of a Russian disinformation campaign. After Mr Barnes, who is challenging the two-term senator in this years midterm elections, criticised Mr Johnson for praising Russian president Vladimir Putin as a smart guy and pointed out that the FBI had told the senator he was a target for Russian operatives, Mr Johnson lashed out at the federal law enforcement agency. The FBI set me up with a corrupt briefing and then leaked that to smear me, he said. The debate audience responded by breaking out into open laughter as Mr Johnson claimed the government advice that he was being targeted was part of FBI corruption he had been trying to expose. The briefing in question came in 2020 when Mr Johnson chaired the Senate Homeland Security Committee and led a probe into President Joe Bidens son, Hunter Biden. Johnson says the FBI set him up. The audience laughs at him pic.twitter.com/aVlYg0fk0z Acyn (@Acyn) October 13, 2022 The Senate investigation was a clear attempt to aid Mr Trumps re-election bid by targeting Mr Bidens family, and Mr Johnson made heavy use of dubious sources who had tied to the Kremlin. Prosecutors in the Nikolas Cruz capital sentencing trial have called for an investigation into claims a juror was threatened during deliberations by another juror. The state filed a motion with the court asking Judge Elizabeth Scherer asking for her to order law enforcement to speak to the juror at the centre of the claims, according to CNN. The jurors identity and which verdict they supported are not identified in the filing, but jurors have spoken of their frustration at a holdout panelist who rejected the death penalty verdict. The filing, obtained by CNN, states: Juror X spoke to a support staff member and informed the support staff member that during deliberations she received what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room. The State did not call Juror X back and instead, filed a Notice to the Court. After the jury returned a sentence of life imprisonment on Thursday, family members of the 17 students and staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2012 erupted in fury at the verdict. Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that one juror had been adamant from the beginning of deliberations that Cruz should not receive the death penalty because he was mentally ill. Mr Thomas told the station he was not happy with how it worked out. Another unnamed juror told 10 Local News: We did go back there and try to hash things out. There was one juror that was just very set in what she believed and that was the life (verdict). The juror who rejected the death penalty, identified as Denise Cunha, wrote a note to Judge Scherer in which she denied claims from other jurors that she had made up her mind before the trial started, Mediaite reported. This allegation is untrue and I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, the juror wrote. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life. The decision to spare Cruzs life stunned relatives of the victims. There are 17 victims that did not receive justice today, Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime, told a news conference. A Purdue University student who confessed to murdering his roommate last week has been charged with murder. Ji Min Sha, a 22-year-old cybersecurity major from Seoul, South Korea, was charged on Oct. 13 with one count of murder in the killing of his 20-year-old roommate Varun Manish Chheda. Sha, who goes by the nickname Jimmy, stabbed Chheda multiple times in the head and neck with a knife on Oct. 5 before he called the police to report the incident. Chheda, a 20-year-old senior majoring in data science, was found dead in a chair in their room at McCutcheon Hall. According to a preliminary autopsy report, the victim died of multiple sharp-force traumatic injuries. More from NextShark: Kelly Hu, Charlyne Yi and more hold virtual table read to raise $180K to build 3D printed school Sha was found in the same room with blood on his body and clothing when he was taken into custody. Although prosecutors have not released a motive in the killing, Sha told reporters, I was blackmailed, without elaborating at an initial hearing last week. He also apologized to the victims family and told reporters, I love my family, before he was brought into jail. He is currently being held without bail. More from NextShark: Asian Family Gets Eggs, Racist Notes Thrown at Home in SF If Sha is convicted, he could face between 45 and 60 years in prison, according to Tippecanoe County Magistrate Sarah Wyatt. Featured Image via ABC 7 Chicago More from NextShark: Racist Letters Sent to At Least 3 Asian-Owned Salons in California Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! New Mexico Official Blames 'Asians' for COVID-19 in Snapchat Post OLENA ROSCHINA FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 15:21 Moscow is again promoting the idea of negotiations with Kyiv, but Vladimir Putin is not going to give up on the continuation of the war, and hopes to use the desired "ceasefire" regime to prepare for a new offensive in February-March 2023. Source: Meduza, the Latvia-based news agency, described as a "foreign agent" in Russia Details: In the last few weeks, representatives of the Russian government have been increasingly talking about negotiations with Ukraine or Western countries. Meduza writes that Vladimir Putin is indeed thinking about resuming negotiations, despite Volodymyr Zelenskyy's refusal to negotiate with him after the annexation of 4 Ukrainian oblasts. However, the news agency indicates, Putin wants Russia to retain control over the territories in Donbas, and he "does not want to discuss Crimea[n issue] at all". According to three Meduzas sources close to the Kremlin, these positions have not changed. Quote: "Nevertheless, according to Meduza's interlocutors, the Russian authorities have developed a new "tactical option". It does not involve the conclusion of a full-fledged peace treaty, but the implementation of a temporary ceasefire regime. According to the Kremlin's plan, the Russian and Ukrainian military could agree on this without the involvement of the leaders of both states. According to Meduza sources close to the Kremlin, probably for the sake of this agreement, the Russian authorities are ready to withdraw troops from at least part of the occupied territory of the Kherson Oblast". Details: At the same time, one of Meduza's sources that was close to the Kremlin admitted: "Now it is very difficult to hold Kherson, and the withdrawal of troops from the Oblast can be done as a gesture of goodwill and a step towards Ukraine". Currently, the Kremlin is trying to "influence Western leaders" and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, so that they would "convince" Ukraine to get back to negotiations with Russia. Meduzas sources say that in these conversations with the leaders of other countries, Russian representatives give "a simple argument: it is necessary to avoid casualties among the civilian population". Story continues This sounds hypocritical against the background of the recent massive rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities, which started after the explosion at Crimean Bridge and the successful counteroffensive launched by Ukrainian forces. Details: Meduzas sources emphasised that Vladimir Putin is not going to give up the continuation of the war and hopes to use the possible ceasefire to prepare for a new offensive. According to one of sources, during this time, the Russian army will manage to train mobilised Russians and at least somehow compensate for the losses in equipment. The press secretary of the president, Dmitry Peskov, did not answer Meduza's questions regarding this. The Kremlin's plan foresaw, Meduzas sources explained, that "a new full-scale offensive" could begin around February-March 2023. Details: At the same time, Kyiv's position regarding negotiations with Moscow remains unchanged. "We will be ready for negotiations with Russia, not with Putin, but with whoever will replace him," the interlocutor in the Office of the President of Ukraine repeated Volodymyr Zelenskyy and suggested to the Russians: "Topple your unreasonable Putin". The source emphasised that Ukraine has long distrusted Russia's statements and "goodwill gestures". According to it, "there will be no ceasefire" until Ukrainian territories are liberated. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of Office of President of Ukraine, said that the Russian scenario is "absolutely definitely not in favour of Ukraine" and that only a military defeat of the Russian Federation will allow a real end to the war. Podolyaks quote: "What does a cease-fire give to Ukraine under the Russian scenario? Fixation of a de facto new line of demarcation and hasty entrenchment of the Russians in the temporarily occupied territories? Can we seriously assume that we will agree to this? Especially against the background of a counteroffensive... A clear operational pause for the badly damaged detachments of the Russians, in order to train at least some of the mobilised and hastily send a new number of suicide bombers to the battlefield? Why do we need this?". Background: Russia annexed Crimea and started an armed conflict in Donbas in 2014, and on 24 February 2022, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and seized another part of its territory. On 30 September, when Vladimir Putin completed the farce regarding Russia's annexation of four regions of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine stated that it was impossible to negotiate with Putin. Later, Zelenskyy announced that it was difficult to negotiate with "unreasonable people", among whom he referred to Putin. Kharkiv Oblast was almost completely liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in September, and the counteroffensive in the Kherson Oblast is progressing in October. Western military officials assume that the defenders of Ukraine can liberate Kherson from the Russian invaders in the second decade of October, the Financial Times wrote. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any direct clash of NATO troops with Russia could lead to a "global catastrophe". Speaking at a news conference in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday, Putin also claimed he had no regrets about invading Ukraine and that Russias partial mobilisation of troops should be completed within two weeks. He said a total of 222,000 reservists would be called-up, down from the 300,000 figure initially quoted by the defence ministry when the order was announced last month. In total, 33,000 of them are already in military units and 16,000 are involved in combat, Mr Putin said. Asked about the war expanding to become a direct clash between Russian and Nato troops, Putin said: The introduction of troops into a direct confrontation with the Russian army is a very dangerous step that could lead to a global catastrophe. He added: I hope that those who speak of this have enough sense not to take such steps. There have been growing fears that the war could escalate and claims it could even become a nuclear conflict. Putin also claimed that there was no need for further massive strikes on Ukraine, due to the fact that the majority of so-called designated targets had been hit. This comes following Russias Monday attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine, including parts of the capital Kyiv, where a missile landed in a playground. The attacks were apparently in retaliation by Russia for a truck bomb explosion which took place on a prized bridge linking Russia to Crimea. The Kerch Bridge explosion followed Ukraines recapturing of occupied areas in the countrys east and south in a series of counteroffensive that have restored Ukrainian confidence and embarrassed Russias military. The Kremlin is facing increased criticism from within Russia over its handling of the war with Ukraine. Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience, including those ineligible for service for medical reasons, and force them into signing up. In the wake of the presidents mobilisation order, tens of thousands of men left Russia, fleeing across the borders to neighbouring countries. David L. Rawlinson, president and chief executive officer of Qurate Retail Inc., continues to rebuild the management team at the video commerce company. On Friday, Rawlinson announced that Linda Aiello, who has 20 years experience leading people functions at technology businesses and luxury brands, has been appointed chief people officer, effective Oct. 31. She succeeds David Gerbitz, who stepped down in July. More from WWD Aiellos responsibilities include overseeing team member experience and talent management, diversity, equity and inclusion, people and organization. As we continue to execute against our strategic growth plan, Project Athens, we must enable our teams to deliver their best work, and part of this is continuing to strengthen our unique company culture, Rawlinson said in a statement. This starts with team member programs, policies and processes that are human-centered as well as best-in-class. Project Athens is the companys three-year turnaround plan geared to strengthen customer relationships, improve execution, reduce costs, optimize the brand portfolio and grow faster in streaming. Two weeks ago, Scott Barnhart was named chief operating officer, a new position at Qurate with a wide range of responsibilities. In September, Soumya Sriraman was named president of streaming for Qurate Retail Group, another new position, and Stacy Bowe was named chief merchandising officer of QVC U.S. Last March, Mike Fitzharris was named president of QVC U.S.; Rob Muller was named president of HSN, and Mary Campbell was named president of a new business unit created to accelerate Qurates efforts in streaming and other live video commerce initiatives. Rawlinson has led Qurate Retail since August 2021 when he succeeded Mike George. Aiello most recently was chief people and culture officer at Stitch Fix, the online personalized shopping and styling website, and earlier was an executive vice president at Salesforce. Before that, she held human resource roles at Uber Technologies, LVMH Fashion Group, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo and Bruno Magli. WARNING: THE FOLLOWING AUDIO IS DISTURBING IN NATURE RALEIGH, N.C. Police 911 call audio obtained by Fox News Digital sheds light on the horror that unfolded in Raleigh, North Carolina , on Thursday. "[UNINTELLIGIBLE] just came through with a shotgun and shot my buddy. Get here ASAP," a distraught man can be heard telling a police dispatcher, as screaming is heard in the background. "Its an officer he works for you." The dispatcher asks: "You said its an officer?" RALEIGH SHOOTING UPDATE: NORTH CAROLINA OFFICIALS IDENTIFY VICTIMS, INCLUDING POLICE OFFICER AND BOY, 16 Police cordoned off a section of homes in the Hedingham community of Raleigh, North Carolina, after a 15-year-old boy allegedly opened fire, killing five people and wounding two others on Thursday. The audio files were provided to Fox News Digital in response to a public records request. During the same 911 conversation, the caller adds: "Its an off-duty officer." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "He shot him for no reason," the caller says. "Active shooter. Active shooter." "Please, please, please," he tells the dispatcher. "The shooter? Hes all camo. The shooter has on all camo," the frantic caller goes on. "He looks like hes like 13." NORTH CAROLINA SHOOTING LEAVES 5 DEAD, INCLUDING OFF-DUTY POLICE OFFICER; SUSPECT IN CUSTODY A different 911 caller could he heard telling the dispatcher: "We heard some shots outside and I looked out my window and theres a the neighbor is on the ground, I think." Five people were killed and two others were wounded when a 15-year-old gunman opened fire in Raleigh's Hedingham neighborhood and an adjacent Greenway around 5 p.m. local time, police have said. He was taken into custody about three hours later after he was allegedly "contained" inside a nearby home. The crime scene spanned "over two miles," Raleigh Police Chief Estella D. Patterson said Friday. Patterson identified the deceased off-duty police officer as 29-year-old Gabriel Torres, who was on his way to work at the time. She said other victims include James Roger Thompson, 16; Nicole Conners, 52; Susan Karnatz, 49; and Mary Marshall, 35. Property records show at least two of the deceased victims, including the fallen officer, lived on Osprey Cove Drive, where some of the shooting occurred. Story continues NORTH CAROLINA SHOOTING LEAVES 5 DEAD, INCLUDING OFF-DUTY POLICE OFFICER; SUSPECT IN CUSTODY Two more victims were wounded but survived. They have been identified as a second Raleigh police officer, who has since been released from the hospital, and Marcille Lynn Gardner, who was shot just days before her 60th birthday, and remains in critical condition. The alleged killer is in critical condition at a nearby hospital. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Police are asking anyone with information related to the shooting to call 919-996-1193. Fox News Digital's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report from Raleigh, North Carolina. Five people were killed in a mass shooting in North Carolinas capital city Raleigh with the suspected gunman arrested after being contained in a house for hours. The shooter opened fire on Thursday evening at around 5pm along a walking trail in Raleigh city and killed five people, along with an off-duty police officer. The suspect eluded police for hours before he was cornered in a home and arrested at around 9.37pm, police said. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin confirmed the deaths at a news conference in the city hours after the violent incident on Thursday. The mayor also said that a second police officer from a Raleigh Police K-9 unit had been shot and was being treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh, Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin told reporters. Police said the suspected shooter is a white teenage male with a long gun wearing camouflage, according to initial reports. However, his identity and age werent released by officials. The Raleigh Police Department is currently on the scene of an active shooting in the area of the Neuse River Greenway near Osprey Cove Drive and Bay Harbor Drive. Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes, Raleigh Police had earlier tweeted. In another tweet, police confirmed taking custody of the suspect. An eyewitness told WRAL that he saw the gunman and heard gunshots in the neighbourhood. I heard two gunshots, and they were really loud so I knew something was close by and then I heard three other gunshots, the witness told the station. The Raleigh Police Department is currently on the scene of an active shooting in the area of the Neuse River Greenway near Osprey Cove Drive and Bay Harbor Drive. Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes. Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) October 13, 2022 I saw him basically pass my house in the backyard. He had a long-barrel shotgun. He was dressed in camo. He had a full backpack on that was also camouflage. Story continues Governor Roy Cooper tweeted that he has spoken with Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin and instructed state law enforcement to provide assistance responding to the active shooter in East Raleigh. WakeMed Health and Hospitals system told CNN that it was treating four victims at its trauma centre. No update has been given on their conditions. The Raleigh shooting is the 25th mass shooting in 2022 in which victims were fatally shot, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database. Competing criminal gangs have turned to sexual assault as a way to terrorize Haitians and consolidate territorial control, a UN report said on Friday. More than a half dozen armed gangs wage turf wars in Haiti, but battles in the capital Port-au-Prince are particularly intense, making crosstown journeys risky and leaving hospitals barely functioning. "Gangs use sexual violence to instill fear, and alarmingly the number of cases increases by the day," said Nada Al-Nashif, the acting UN high commissioner for human rights. The UN report said collective gang rapes have occurred of children as young as 10 and elderly women, often before aghast family members. It said men, women, girls and boys had all suffered the sexual assaults. The armed gangs use rapes to "punish, subjugate, and inflict pain" on the citizens and as a coercive tool to force cooperation, it said. In the past year, "gang violence has spiraled out of control" in Haiti's cities, the report said, noting that 60 percent of Port-au-Prince may now be under gang territory, accounting for at least 1.5 million people. The report, issued jointly by the UN office in Haiti and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said some victims are kidnapped and subjected to assault "over the course of several days or weeks." The motives for the assaults can be multiple, it said. Attacks are used to punish Haitians for living in or traversing areas under the control of rival gangs or to press the victims' families to pay a ransom. Sometimes the assaults are recorded and videos sent to families to pressure them to pay up, it said. In a spasm of violence in just a single week in July, rival armed gangs sexually assaulted 52 women and girls in the capital district of Cite Soleil as they fought for control, the report said. In one case, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, Rose, was beaten and raped by three heavily armed masked men in the presence of her children, it said. Nearly all such sexual assaults go unpunished, the report added, partly due to rampant insecurity. Story continues Gang violence fell in Haiti from 2004 to 2017, when UN peacekeepers were in the country, but has risen since. Gangs battle each other and oppress the populace with increasingly sophisticated weapons, including military grade sniper rifles, belt machine guns and semi-automatic pistols, the report said. It called on UN bodies, civil society groups and others to help Haiti bolster its police, health care and judicial systems to fight impunity. Without action, it added, the wave of rapes "risks further shattering the already deeply fragile social fabric... and may undermine prospects of... lasting stability." tjj/bgs ST. LOUIS (AP) When Abdul-Kaba Abdullah decided to sell his home two years ago, he listed the neatly-kept, four-bedroom house at $175,000 based on presale evaluations. But once a buyer made an offer, an appraiser valued the home at only $150,000, and the bank wouldnt give a loan for the original asking price. Curious, Abdullah looked at the appraisal report and found the photos werent even of his home in the predominantly Black area of north St. Louis. The photos had been pulled off the internet, and were not new photos showing updates he had made. I immediately knew, well, we have an issue here, Abdullah said. It's a struggle Black Americans have lived with for decades. Now, some leaders in the real estate industry are apologizing for past discrimination while promising to address problems that still remain. Last month, St. Louis Realtors the St. Louis areas largest real estate trade group issued a formal apology for past discriminatory practices. The National Association of Realtors issued an apology in 2020. Realtor groups in cities like Atlanta and Chicago have shown similar remorse. The discrimination to which the Black community was subjected to was part of a system designed to cause residential racial segregation, led by the federal government, supported by the banking system and the real estate industry, and driven by practices like redlining and the use of restrictive covenants, the apology from St. Louis Realtors states. St. Louis was notorious for housing discrimination in the mid-20th century, when Black applicants were frequently denied mortgages, white homeowners were encouraged by real estate agents to move once a neighborhood began to integrate, and certain areas of the region were redlined, meaning loans to buy homes in those areas were nearly impossible to get. Will Jordan, executive director of the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, said change is happening far too slowly. Story continues Redlining and those types of issues are still playing out in the St. Louis metropolitan area, Jordan said. Ive seen notes on appraisals that are written by banks saying, nothing north of Delmar can possibly be that much. Lets rewrite this. Delmar Boulevard is infamously known as the dividing line between predominantly white and Black areas of St. Louis. North of Delmar, its still very difficult to get any bank to finance something, Jordan said. Its part of the reason the citys once vibrant north side has struggled in recent decades with rampant crime, high vacancy rates and a dilapidated housing stock. Katie Berry, president of St. Louis Realtors, said past discrimination was no accident. Federal lending program maps used green lines to indicate places where loans would be approved predominantly white areas. Red lines indicated high risk, and those areas were Black communities or integrated communities because the theory was that once you integrated a community, the home values are going to drop, she said. Making matters worse, once integration began in a neighborhood, real estate agents would participate in what was known as blockbusting. An agent would help a Black family move into a white neighborhood, then start knocking on doors of the neighbors saying, Hey, did you know this Black familys moved in? Home values are going to plummet. You should go ahead and list your house with me. Hurry up and get out of here, Berry said. Meanwhile, a provision of the National Association of Realtors Code of Ethics from 1924 to 1950 instructed realtors to avoid introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood. A report released earlier this year by the National Association of Realtors showed that while 72.1% of white Americans own their homes, the rate for Black Americans is just 43.4%. The report also found that Black and Hispanic applicants for mortgage loans were far more likely to be rejected than white and Asian applicants. Bryan Greene, vice president of policy advocacy for the NAR, said apologies are important because realtors need to atone for our failures. The Atlanta Realtors Association apologized in 2021 for past discriminatory practices. We cant change our history but we can choose to learn from our past, make current powerful decisions, and act with intention to write future chapters that leave a positive legacy, then-President Cynthia Lippert wrote in a letter of apology. In 2019, Chicago Association of Realtors President Tommy Choi issued an apology on behalf of the organization for being on the wrong side of history. Lydia Pope, president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, which promotes Black homeownership, said the apologies are good starting points. Now show us that you want to do better, that you are willing to do more to help create an environment where everyone is treated equally, Pope said in a statement. Greene said the NAR has taken several steps, including creation of a Fair Housing Policy Committee. The national group also adopted an action plan in 2020 that emphasizes accountability, culture change and training local realtors in fair housing practices. As part of the effort to change, realtors in Atlanta have undergone unconscious bias training and are seeking relationships with diverse real estate associations such as the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals and the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, the group said. In St. Louis, the realtors association hired a director of diversity, equity and inclusion, is working with lawmakers to reduce barriers to homeownership for minorities, is seeking to address housing vacancies, and is pushing to bring in more Black real estate agents. Berry knows change won't happen quickly. People have been harmed for generations, she said. Abdullah, 44, is executive director of Park Central Development, a company that works to attract investment and keep people in their homes in St. Louis. So hes familiar with fair housing laws. From the outset, he questioned the appraisal of his home by an appraiser from a mostly-white neighboring county. When Abdullah filed a complaint with Jordan's office, the bank eventually agreed to increase the loan value to $160,000, and Abdullah sold. Still, he asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate. The case remains unresolved. Just because Im in this line of work, I didnt think I was exempt from these things happening to me, Abdullah said. People have a right to the American dream. One of two female southern sea otters peeks at animals in another room at the Shedd Aquarium on Oct. 13, 2022. The otters arrived at the aquarium as part of an innovative California program where rescued females that can't be released into the wild are raised to be surrogate moms to orphaned pups. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Otter 926 perched on a ledge in her new room at Shedd Aquarium, as close as she could get to the newspaper photographer on the other side of a built-in window. From there, she demonstrated her impressive grooming skills, pausing occasionally to look up at the photographer, as if ready for her close-up. Advertisement Not to be outdone, a second southern sea otter frolicked in the duos private pool, somersaulting four times in a row, flipping over on her back to do side rolls, and finally submerging so only her triangular tail could be seen, wagging triumphantly in the air. Sea otters can get by on looks and charm alone, but the two latest arrivals at Shedd Aquarium are marine mammals with a mission. Advertisement Otters 926 and 929 are two recruits in a pioneering California program in which young females are trained to act as surrogate mothers to orphaned pups, imparting the skills that allow the youngsters to be released into the wild. This is a step in a new direction and were all really excited about it, said Megan Vens-Policky, Shedd senior animal care specialist. Our mission here at Shedd is to spark compassion, curiosity and conservation, and this project really allows us to do all three of those things. The two otters, who have not received permanent names, arrived Wednesday from Aquarium of the Pacific, a partner institution in Monterey Bay Aquariums pioneering otter surrogacy program. Shedd staff will help the females hone skills such as diving, foraging and carrying pups. Then, the two otters will return to California home of the southern sea otter to be matched with motherless youngsters. One of two surrogate mother southern sea otters splashes in water at the Shedd Aquarium Oct. 13, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Once numbering roughly 150,000 to 300,000 worldwide, sea otters were hunted nearly to extinction in the 1700s and 1800s. By the early 1900s, fewer than 2,000 remained worldwide, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Numbers have grown since then, but the southern sea otter remains a federally threatened species, with only about 3,000 left in a small portion of the animals historic range. They face a lot of constraints that other endangered and threatened populations do, said Vens-Policky. They have to worry about oil spills, competition for food, pollution, (and) climate change. In a 2019 study in Oryx The International Journal of Conservation, the otter surrogate mom program reported on the release of 37 of its surrogate-raised orphans. Survival and reproductive rates were similar to those of wild otters, according to the study, and the surrogate-raised otters and their descendants contributed substantially to population growth in the area where they were released. Advertisement Sea otter moms care for their pups, teaching them vital survival skills, so when a pup is orphaned, its a challenge to prepare him or her for a return to the wild. Thats where the Otters 926 and 929 come in. Rescued orphans who received some surrogate mothering but were not suitable for release into the wild, the duo will hone their otter skills at the Shedd, Vens-Policky said. Staff will encourage the surrogate moms, both about 9 months old and about 30 pounds, to practice diving and foraging. A lot of their feeding will involve staff scattering and hiding food in their exhibit so the otters can practice searching for it. Staff will also teach the otters (currently housed behind the scenes) to retrieve objects, which should eventually translate to retrieving and carrying a young pup. We use positive reinforcement training, so if we see an animal doing something we like, we let them know to keep doing that, said Vens-Policky. We can do that in a number of different ways, so we might give the otters a toy item or an enrichment item and ask them to give it back to us. If an otter can return an item, she will move on to retrieving it from a greater distance. Teaching happens in baby steps that build up to bigger goals, Vens-Policky said. Advertisement Otters are very well-equipped for learning, she noted. Because they are so curious, that really lends itself to being a good learner. They will try new things. They explore. As they get more comfortable, well start to see more of that, and thats what will ultimately lead to the kind of training that were talking about. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Otter pups have to learn to groom themselves a skill that helps keep them warm and mother otters are the ideal instructors, although humans can step in when theres no alternative. Pups learn grooming skills by watching their mothers, and by being groomed by them. The surrogate moms who arrived this week know how to get the job done thanks in part to some limited surrogate parenting they themselves received and they can pass that knowledge on to pups. Otters have very dexterous paws, and they have additional vertebrae in their backs so theyre really bendy. They use those paws to comb through the fur, and then because theyre so flexible they can really twist and turn and reach every part of their body, Vens-Policky said. Otters also blow air bubbles into their lower layer of fur, which is very soft. The air gives the otters who have a dense outer coat but no protective blubber layer an additional layer of insulation against the cold. When the Chicago-trained surrogate moms are ready, they will be flown back to California, where they will each be assigned to a rescued pup. Advertisement Sometimes people think, well, we dont live near the coast, how can I make an impact? said Vens-Policky. I think bringing these surrogates in reminds us that you dont have to be on the coastline to make an impact. There are hundreds of different ways that you can support animals in the wild. nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com A new watchdog report is revealing insight on the effectiveness of federal grant money spent on charter schools. Charter schools are tuition-free, publicly funded, and independently run. The report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that overall, charter schools that received Charter Schools Program (CSP) grants to open or to expand from 2006-2020 were more likely to stay open compared to similar charter schools without that funding; but it also found around 14 percent failed even with the taxpayer money. The bottom line is, overall, there are few charter schools that are closing but there is funding available to those that are opening and that are expanding and those that have received that funding are staying open longer, said Cindy Brown Barnes, Managing Director of GAOs Education, Workforce and Income Security team. According to the report, within five years after receiving the CSP grants, charter school recipients were about 1.5 times less likely to close compared to similar charter schools without that funding. But around 14 percent of charter schools that received CSP grants, which comes out to 638 charter schools, still either closed or never opened their doors in the first place, according to the report. The report said the schools that ended up failing received around $152 million in taxpayer funding, which is out of a pot of roughly $2.5 billion in federal CSP funding. There are a number of reasons why charter schools dont stay open, said Barnes. That could be for low enrollment. Theres competition from other schools. Theres sometimes difficulty in acquiring facilities. This report did not specifically look into the reasons for the charter school failures. Charter schools have faced criticism from opponents who argue the schools take money away from public school districts. Charter school advocates argue the schools aim to expand opportunities for kids in underserved communities and offer alternative choices for parents. Story continues The bargain that charter schools make is were going to try something different and doggonit were going to do a good job at that and if we dont, you have the right to shut us down, said Debbie Veney, Senior Vice President of Communications and Marketing for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Theres going to be a certain amount of failure thats inherent in it, but the beautiful thing is that were held accountable. Veney said the organization has been pushing for Congress to invest more funding in charter schools. Every other pot of funding in K-12 education has seen a significant boost over the past few years and the Charter Schools Program is the only one that has remained flat, said Veney. Its time that we increase that funding so we can meet the demands of more families. The report comes after the Biden administration recently tightened the rules for charter school federal funding over the summer with the goal of making it harder for for-profit schools to receive taxpayer money. Ringo Starr wears a face mask as he celebrates his 82nd birthday in July Sir Ringo Starr has cancelled the rest of his North American tour after testing positive to Covid-19 again. The Beatles drummer, 82, had earlier cancelled some dates with his All Starr band after catching the virus, but returned after a negative test. On Thursday, he tweeted "the rest of the tour is off", signing off with his trademark "peace and love". Dates had been planned in California - including Los Angeles - and Mexico. Earlier this month Sir Ringo cancelled performances in several US states including Michigan and Minnesota, as well as Canada, after catching Covid. Days later he tweeted: "I am negative, peace and love everybody. Thanks for waiting. Ringo." In an interview with USA Today last year, he said he had only left the house a handful of times due to the pandemic. "You've got to help protect yourself if you can," he said, adding he had been vaccinated and was "feeling groovy". Im sure youll be as surprised as I was I tested positive again for Covid the rest of the tour is off I send you peace and love Ringo. pic.twitter.com/lmniGLE9dZ #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) October 13, 2022 The Liverpudlian rose to fame in the 1960s, quitting the Hurricanes to replace Pete Best as the Beatles' drummer in 1962 shortly before they met global success. He sang lead vocals on tracks including With A Little Help From My Friends, Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden. "Our appeal is that we're ordinary lads," Sir Ringo once said. After the band split in 1970 he launched a successful solo career, and in 1989 formed the All Starr Band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2015, and in 2018 received his knighthood for services to music. "I'll be wearing it at breakfast," he said of his medal, adding that he still missed his bandmates more than 50 years after they were all awarded the MBE. "I was a bit shaky today on my own," he admitted. Rob Schneider claimed that Bill Murray "absolutely hated" the "Saturday Night Live" cast when he guest-hosted the NBC comedy sketch series. The 58-year-old "SNL" alum recalled the 72-year-old actor's loathing for the show's cast members during an appearance on SiriusXMs "The Jim Norton & Sam Roberts Show" Thursday. "He wasnt very nice to us," Schneider said of Murray. "He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething." The "Grown Ups" star went on to say that Murray, who is also a former "SNL" cast member, particularly detested Adam Sandler and the late Chris Farley. Rob Schneider claimed that Bill Murray "absolutely hated" the "Saturday Night Live" cast when he guest-hosted the NBC comedy sketch series. BILL MURRAY SEEN OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR ALLEGATIONS "He hated Chris Farley with a passion. Like he was just seething looking at him," Schneider said. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP He speculated that Murray's hatred for Farley may have stemmed from his disapproval of the latter's lifestyle, which Schneider compared to that of the late John Belushi. Belushi and Murray were close friends and starred together during their runs on "SNL." Belushi and Farley both died of drug overdoses at the age of 33. He continued, "I dont know exactly, but I want to believe that its because Chris thought it was cool to be Belushi, who [was] his friend who he saw die, that he thought it was cool to be that out of control. Thats my interpretation, but I dont really know. I dont believe it. I only believe it 50 percent." "He wasnt very nice to us," Rob Schneider said of Bill Murray. "He hated us on "Saturday Night Live" when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething." Schneider added that Murray "just hated, like, all of us pretty much" but noted "the least of the hate was to me." "I took great pleasure in that he hated me less, because he's my hero," he said. The comedian said that he knew that Murray hated the cast because of the way that he looked at them. "It was just naked rage," he said. Schneider said that Murray was nice to his fans and "every common person" but not his fellow comedians. "The Animal" actor also told the hosts that Murray "really hated Sandler, too." Schneider said that he "couldn't say exactly what it was" but added that Murray "just wasnt into that groove of it, you know? Story continues "And Sandler was just committed to it, and just like, as soon as he would get on, you could see the audience just ate him up." Murray was a main "SNL" cast member in seasons two through five from 1977 to 1980. He served as a guest host of the show five times from 1981 to 1999. Rob Schneider said that Bill Murray might have "hated" Chris Farley because his "out of control" behavior reminded the actor of his late friend and "SNL" co-star John Belushi. Elliott Gould, left, Belushi, center, and Murray, right, are pictured in 1977. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Schneider, Farley and Sandler were all "SNL" cast members when Murray hosted the show during its nineteenth season in February 1993. Schneider's remarks come days after Geena Davis told The Times that Murray had been inappropriate with her during her audition for the 1990 movie "Quick Change." The 66-year-old actress also said that Murray had been cruel to her on the film's set after she had been cast. In April, production on Murray's Searchlight Pictures film "Being Mortal" was suspended after a female crew member accused the actor of "inappropriate behavior." Murray later addressed the allegation, telling CNBC that he and the unnamed woman had a "difference of opinion." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP A rep for Murray did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. "Harry Potter" actor Robbie Coltrane, pictured at the 2012 BFI London Film Festival, has died. He was 72. (Ki Price / Invision / Associated Press) Actor Robbie Coltrane, known for portraying the grizzly, but friendly half-giant wizard Rubeus Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" film franchise, has died, The Times can confirm. Representatives for Coltrane's talent agency WME told The Times that the actor died Friday at the at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Scotland. No cause of death has been revealed. He was 72. Coltrane was widely known for starring in the "Harry Potter" franchise, based on the books by J.K. Rowling, alongside Daniel Radcliffe in the title role. His first appearance in the book-turned-film series was in 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." His additional television and film credits include starring roles in British series "Cracker," "The Comic Strip Presents" and "Tutti Frutti" and in James Bond movies "Goldeneye" and "The World is Not Enough." He is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his children Spencer and Alice and their mother Rhona Gemmell. Social media tributes from Radcliffe, Rowling and others began rolling in shortly after Coltrane's death was announced. On Instagram, Radcliffe remembered Coltrane as "one of the funniest people I've met," and also shared an anecdote from their filming days. "I've especially fond memories of him keeping our spirits up on 'Prisoner of Azkaban,' when we were all hiding from the torrential rain for hours in Hagrid's hut and he was telling stories and cracking jokes to keep morale up," Radcliffe wrote. "I feel incredibly lucky that I got to meet and work with him and very sad that he's passed. He was an incredible actor and a lovely man." On Twitter, Rowling said she will "never know anyone remotely like Robbie again." "He was an incredible talent, a complete one off, and I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him," the author tweeted on Friday. Also paying tribute on social media were the Wizarding World and fellow British actors and former co-stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. Story continues Coltrane, ne Anthony Robert McMillan, was born on March 30, 1950, in the Rutherglen suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. The child of a general surgeon and pianist, the actor's affinity for arts and entertainment began at an early age. He pursued his passion for the arts at the Glasgow Art School, where he studied drawing, painting and film. His education also comprised of art studies at the Moray House College of Education and Sport at Edinburgh. Robbie Coltrane at UK Premiere of 'Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix' in 2007 (Ian West / PA Images via Getty Images) The Glasgow native dove into the entertainment scene in his 20s when he made the 1973 documentary "Young Mental Health." He soon found himself in the company of fellow artists, pursuing comedy and taking on the stage name Coltrane a tribute to musician John Coltrane. Among his early gigs was the Comic Strip Presents series, which also featured Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie. Throughout the '80s Coltrane went on to appear in a number of film and television projects, including Flash Gordon, Metal Mickey, Ghost Dance and A Kick Up the Eighties. Television comedies became Coltranes stomping ground, as he racked up additional credits in the sketch comedies Alfresco and Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee. In 1987, he appeared in the drama series Tutti Frutti as rocker Danny Big Jazza McGlone. He also met Gemmell, who was a student at the time. The following decade was a busy one for Coltrane. In 1992, Coltrane and Gemmell welcomed their son Spencer. Six years later, daughter Alice was born. Coltrane and Gemmell married in 1999. In 1994, he published the autobiography Coltrane in a Cadillac, in which he spoke about his passion for vintage cars, and starred in a series of the same name. Most notably that decade, he debuted as Dr. Edward Fitz Fitzgerald in the crime drama series Cracker. He told told The Times in 1995 that he attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings to prepare for the role. He is very intelligent and can finish most peoples sentences, Coltrane told The Times about Fitz. He needs some relationship with emergency and danger. Because he isnt a physical guy, gambling is a very, very good way to get the adrenaline going, particularly if you fake your wifes signature on a mortgage agreement for an extension. In 1996, Coltrane won the BAFTA Award for lead television actor for his work as Fitz. At the turn of the century came the film franchise that would make Coltrane one of the fantasy worlds most beloved figures. In 2001, he debuted as Rubeus Hagrid in the film adaptation of Rowlings Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. A husky, half-giant wizard, Hagrid brought Radcliffes titular character to the magical world of Hogwarts. Robbie Coltrane in London at the UK premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" in July 2011. (Paul Cunningham / Corbis via Getty Images) Hagrid was a role Coltrane reprised for each of the eight installments of the Harry Potter film franchise. The actor also voiced Hagrid in non-film Harry Potter projects in recent years. In December 2021, Coltrane revisited his time on the film franchise for HBO Maxs Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special. When he wrapped his final scene, he said it marked an end of an era. The legacy of the movies is that my childrens generation will show it to their children, he said. So you can watch it in 50 years' time, easy. Ill not be here, sadly, but Hagrid will. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Robbie Coltrane, known for his role in the "Harry Potter" film franchise, has died. The actor's agency WME confirmed to Fox News Digital that he died at the age of 72. Coltranes agent Belinda Wright said he died Friday at a hospital in Scotland. She did not give a cause. Actor Robbie Coltrane has died at the age of 72. JAMES BOND ACTORS OVER THE YEARS: WHERE ARE THE 007S NOW? Coltrane was born in Glasgow, and made his acting debut at the age of 12. He attended Glasgow Art School and eventually appeared on the television series "Flash Gordon," along with "Keep It in the Family" and "Blackadder." He continued to make a name for himself with roles in "Alfresco" and "The Comic Strip." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Coltrane landed a role on the British TV series "Cracker" in the 1990s. His performance earned him three BAFTA awards. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Robbie Coltrane and Daniel Radcliffe at the New York City premiere of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." The actor also had a successful film career. Coltrane appeared as Hagrid, a half-giant, in all eight "Harry Potter" movies. He also landed roles in the James Bond films "GoldenEye" and "The World is Not Enough." Wright said she was "proud" to be Coltrane's agent. "As well as being a wonderful actor, he was forensically intelligent, brilliantly witty and, after 40 years of being proud to be called his agent, I shall miss him," Wright said. Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his children Spencer and Alice and their mother Rhona Gemmell. Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint during a "Harry Potter" launch party. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Associated Press contributed to this report. ROCHESTER A Rochester man was sentenced this week to six years in federal prison for several drug-related charges, after two traffic stops led to thousands of dollars in cash being seized by police, along with weapons and more than 100 grams of fentanyl and other controlled drugs. William Hallinan, 36, of Rochester was convicted for possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and carrying a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, according to Jane Young, U.S. attorney for New Hampshire. On Feb. 2, 2020, Hallinan was stopped by Somersworth police during a traffic stop. A search conducted of his vehicle found a baggie of methamphetamine, a loaded 9 mm handgun, a digital scale, and multiple unused baggies, according to Young and court documents. In Rochester: What caused fire at Moe's Italian Sandwiches? When will it reopen? Here's what we know. More: Sports bar, restaurant and billiards hall coming to Rochester: Here's the owner's plan Young said Hallinan admitted to selling drugs, and explained he carried the firearm to protect his money. On Sept. 14, 2020, Strafford County sheriffs deputies conducted another motor vehicle stop of Hallinan's vehicle. During a pat check, deputies found a sheathed knife, a switch blade, $1,131 in cash, 5.4 grams of crack cocaine, and a handgun, they said in documents. A subsequent search of his vehicle resulted in seizure of roughly 100 grams of fentanyl, 27.5 grams of methamphetamine, 24.5 grams of cocaine, a .45 caliber handgun, and $12,371 in cash. According to court documents, a search of Hallinans phone revealed exchanges showing he conspired with his source of supply to purchase narcotics for distribution. Texts in his phone confirmed he was dealing drugs from February to September 2020. This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: William Hallinan of Rochester NH sentenced in fentanyl drug case Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in on the jury's verdict on the Parkland shooter. DeSantis said he did not think "anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence." The shooter was sentenced to life in prison for killing 13 students and three staff members. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says the Parkland shooter should have been given the death penalty and not a life sentence in prison. Speaking at an event in Cape Coral, Florida, DeSantis commented on the jury's verdict of the gunman who killed 14 students and three staff members at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. On Thursday, a jury recommended that the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 24, be sentenced to life in prison without parole. "I think that if you have a death penalty at all this is a case where you're massacring those students with premeditation, in utter disregard for basic humanity, that you deserve the death penalty," DeSantis said. Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas told CBS Miami that all but one of the twelve jurors thought the gunman should be given the death penalty. One holdout juror believed that Cruz was mentally unwell and that his mental illness should rule out capital punishment, Thomas said. All the jurors would have had to unanimously agree to recommend the death penalty. DeSantis expressed his disapproval at the holdout juror for "refusing to authorize the ultimate punishment." "I just don't think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence in this case, and so I was very disappointed to see that," DeSantis said. He also said it took "years and years" to bring the shooter to justice, whereas in the past, the shooter would have been "executed in six months." In a tweet on Thursday, DeSantis also called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice." The families of the Parkland victims were seen shaking their hands and dabbing their eyes after the jury's announcement that they would spare the gunman's life was announced. Some grieving families also criticized the jurors when speaking to the media after the verdict. Story continues "I am disgusted with our legal system. I am disgusted with those jurors. I am disgusted with this system that you can allow 17 dead and 17 others shot and wounded and not give the death penalty," said Ilan Alhadeff, the father of 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed in the shooting. "You set a precedent for the next mass killing," Alhadeff said of the jury, calling their decision to spare the gunman's life "a stain on this world." Read the original article on Business Insider Oct. 14Riding bikes and reading don't usually go together, but Saturday at Lake Thunderbird, the two will go hand-in-hand as biker riders and music lovers come together to raise money in support of Norman students at the Rotary Road Rally and Festival. The fifth outing of the annual bicycling benefit that supports reading education in several of Norman school district's at-risk elementary schools will be Oct. 22 at Little River Marina, 13801 Marina Road, with distances of 50 miles and 40 miles, following courses that tour rural east Norman and Lake Stanley Draper. Norman Rotary member Chip Minty said the fundraiser is an important part of what the group does for area children. "We use bicycles, helmets and other things as incentives for students to do reading exercises and focus on improving their reading skills," Minty said. "Every time they do something that is am accomplishment in reading, they increase their chances of winning a bicycle at the end of every nine weeks." After the ride, music will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., including performances by Norman's Mike Hosty and the Mystery Dates Band, as well as a food truck lunch from Midway Deli and the Meating Place. There also will be craft beer from Lazy Circle Brewing and BIG Brewing Company. Tickets for the festival, music and food trucks can be purchased for $15 "Regardless of who you are, there's something for everyone at the Rotary Road Rally & Festival," said Steve Morren, Norman Rotary Club president. "The best part about it is the good we're doing, helping young children to read through the involvement of our community sponsors, including the title sponsor, Norman Regional Health Systems." It's the first year Norman Rotary has teamed up with Norman Regional Health Systems, which will have booths there, a move that both sides say makes senses for an event that promotes healthy lifestyles. "The idea was we've been doing this for several years, and it goes along with a lot of things the Norman Regional Health System is doing and promoting," said Kyle Hurley, EMSSTAT director and Norman Rotary member. "And good healthy education is one of the things Rotary International promotes." Story continues Same-day registration for the bike ride opens at 7:30 a.m., and the ride begins at 9. Advanced registration costs $40. Same-day registration is $45. The cost covers a fully supported ride, a T-shirt, lunch and a craft beer for those over age 21. For more information and registration, visit normanrotary.org. Appalled and saddened by what GOP has become Laurie Meulder Although I am not altogether enthusiastic about the Illinois Democratic Party, their nominee is certainly preferable to the nominee of what is still called the Republican Party, although it now bears little resemblance to the party that formerly presented itself under that name. As someone who has actually voted for Republicans in the past, and who believes in a two- (or multi-) party system, I have been appalled and saddened by the devolvement of the Republicans into what the party has become. Like many others, I will be delighted to have the electioneering conclude, so we will all be spared the ads which hurl unpleasant (and unproven) accusations vilifying the other candidate in any given race. Unlike "originalists," I do not believe that any branches of our government should primarily serve the interests of white males with property. Therefore, I will vote for the party that, more than its opponent, represents the interests and welfare of the majority of us. Laurie Muelder Both crime and economy worsened under Pritzker Charlie Gruner There are two major issues in this particular race; crime and the economy. Under Gov. Pritzker crime is escalating and the economy is declining, both at an alarming rate. Check with your local chief-of-police or your local Sheriff. Ask how many officers they are short. Its the same everywhere. Those of us who have lived in the state for all or most of their lives know better than to believe that the election will be completely fair and honest. (Most of my time has been spent in or near Chicago. Think about it!) Nevertheless, there is another vote going on now and Illinois is losing. People are voting with their feet. Illinois has been losing population at an unprecedented rate. Corporations, the wealthy, jobs and workers are fleeing the state. With them is going a wealth of tax revenue. The rest of us will have to make it up. Charlie Gruner Story continues More:Roundtable: If Galesburg had a Mount Rushmore, who should be on it? Neither candidate seems prepared to tackle pension reform Stephen Podwojski The stake? Fiscal responsibility. I have had a wish list of four items for this state government for years. Only one has been granted: Get rid of Mike Madigan. The other three? Pension reform, term limits and non-biased gerrymandering. I will focus on the pension CRISIS. Pritzker gets the bigger picture on the pension crisis wrong. It would take someone with a big set to address the monstrous unsecured debt of the current 660 or so public pensions. The only way to do that is to address the state constitutional amendment and that pretty much guarantees that few are willing to step up. Some minor improvements have slowed the overall debt. Pritzker and the state legislature assisted in getting two small pension systems to combine which is a baby step at most. Bailey sees the problem as well but he isnt the one to carry the water to put out this fire. His persona would entrench the current state legislator lifers and moderate voters because he espouses some bat crap crazy ideas. This is where my wish number two could assist: term limits. I have always said that the only way to get Illinois on track is to turn the state capitol upside down, shake every politician out of those hallowed halls and have a new election with those that are not tainted by years of experience. Stephen Podwojski Bailey little to offer other than being a sycophantic Trump supporter John Hunigan Hours after the horrific Independence Day parade shooting in Highland Park, Darren Bailey made it clear to the people of Illinois what type of governor he would be. He said, "Lets pray for justice to prevail, and then move on and lets celebrate the independence of this nation." The outrage at his insensitive comments was immediate, causing him to issue an apology. He pivoted from the apology and said enforcing red flag laws, which he voted against as a state senator, would have prevented this tragedy. Bailey has little to offer voters besides being a sycophantic Trump supporter. Using the former president's playbook, he made outrageous claims devoid of fact as part of his campaign platform. He compared abortion to the Holocaust and stated that Jewish rabbis agreed with him though they denied the claim. Illinois voters must reject MAGA candidates who support extremist views and want to deny basic human rights. The fairness of elections and the protection of our most vulnerable citizens are at stake in these midterms. John Hunigan Permissive on crime, chasing businesses out same as the old boss Harry Bulkeley Nothing is at stake in the governors race. JB will spend a tiny fraction of his fortune, Darren Bailey will continue to make missteps and this bluest of blue states will re-elect our one party government. That one party government will continue to pass permissive criminal laws in the name of equity. Crime will continue unchecked as the ruling party revels in its wokeness. They will continue to tax business and job creators to chase them out of the state (can you say Boeing and Caterpillar?). We, the citizens of the Land of Lincoln, will be proud to live with our new motto Abortion Capital of the Midwest. The day after hes re-elected, JB will be looking for ways to use the power he grabbed during the pandemic- closing schools, churches and businesses when he feels like it. As the song says, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Harry Bulkeley More:Roundtable: One thing you'd like to improve in Galesburg A Republican governor means four years of political gridlock David Amor, Knox County Board District 2 Whats at stake? Competence. Governance in the public interest. Fiscal responsibility. Planning for the future. A state government that actually gets things done. Please, everybody who wants to second-guess Gov. Pritzkers actions in office, remember the Rauner years! Setting aside Darren Baileys far-right social agenda, do we really want to go back to four years of gridlock with the legislature? No state budget? No money for higher education? Payments to citizens and local government backed up for months and years? Legislators are elected based on population not square miles, so unless Chicagoland falls into Lake Michigan, the legislature will continue to be dominated by Democrats. The big money behind Bailey wants gridlock, thats the most they can hope for. A toothless Republican governor powerless to enact his agenda but ready to block anything coming from the legislature and eager to amplify the socio-religious craziness that has captured his party. This would mean dysfunctional government at a time when we need bold action to address climate change and economic decline. And it would further inflame the tribal hostilities dividing our political culture. David Amor Pretty much everything at stake in race for Illinois governor I am not trying to avoid answering this question, but what is at stake in the Illinois gubernatorial race in November is exactly the same things that are at risk in all of the other state (and many local races). The current political climate in both Illinois and the entire country is so divided that the two main parties cannot even attempt to see things in the way their competitors do. If JB Pritzker wins the office again, I am going to assume that things will move along much in the way they are now and that they have been for the past three years. If Darren Bailey overtakes him on Nov. 8, I would imagine that there will be many changes that will come very quickly from access to abortion to qualifications for state welfare benefits. To summarize, pretty much EVERYTHING is at stake in the race for Illinois governor. Jeannette Chernin For Pritzker this could be a step toward presidency William Urban For JB, this could be a step toward the presidency. Biden may be planning to run again, but he is getting slower every day. With a dearth of Democratic governors and senators who can appeal beyond the base, Pritzker has a chance. Its a slim chance, but he has money. Bailey should know that there is little a Republican governor can do if the legislature is determined to humiliate him moreover, he is the Republican candidate only because the Democrats saw that he was most easily accused of being extreme, then paid for pro-Bailey ads and encouraged the base to cross over and vote for him. That is an argument for closed primaries, restoring primaries to their original purpose for members of each party to pick their own candidates. The two candidates disagree on everything, but especially on whether Illinois should continue to be a one party state. William Urban The Community Roundtable runs each Sunday and is made up of local writers. Community writers answer one question each week in 150 words or fewer. This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Illinois governor race, what's at stake between Bailey and Pritzker Vietnamese Vice President meets with foreign leaders in Kazakhstan Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan met with the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan on October 13, as part of her trip to attend the 6th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Kazakhstans Astana capital. Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan meets with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev in Astana on October 13. (Photo: VNA) Welcoming the Vietnamese leader, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev highly valued Vietnams role and significant contributions within the CICA framework. He affirmed that Kazakhstan treasures the bilateral friendship and views Vietnam as an important partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Vice President Xuan expressed her delight that her visit coincides with the 30th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties. She affirmed Vietnam always attaches importance to the traditional friendship with Kazakhstan, agreeing to increase delegation exchanges via all channels and at all levels. The two leaders shared the view that there remains much room for bilateral economic partnerships, especially in such potential fields as tourism, logistics, agriculture, and construction. They agreed to further capitalise on advantages generated by the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), of which Kazakhstan is a member, and officially open a direct air route. They also concurred to raise the two-way trade turnover to 1.5 billion USD by 2030. At the meeting with Vice President Xuan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that Turkey considers Vietnam as the most important partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and wants to enhance bilateral cooperation and coordinate with Vietnam at international forums and organisations, especially within the United Nations framework. He underlined Turkeys support for Vietnam and ASEANs stance on the peaceful settlement of disputes on the basis of international law. He also agreed that both sides should work closely to develop connections in economy, trade, investment, tourism, infrastructure development, transport, and maritime economy on par with the potential and importance of the two countries relations. Describing Turkey as one of the leading trade and investment partners of Vietnam in the Middle East, Vice President Xuan called on both sides to continue coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums and international organisations while working to successfully hold people-to-people and cultural exchanges to mark the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2023. She also asked for close coordination to tackle bottlenecks and further facilitate exports to each others markets. Talking with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Vice President Xuan highlighted that Vietnam always treasures the two countries traditional friendship and hopes to step up bilateral cooperation in all aspects. She proposed the two nations further strengthen their political ties through all-level delegation exchanges, and maintain mutual support at international and regional forums. The Uzbek leader said Vietnam is an important traditional friend and a trustworthy partner of his country in Asia, adding that he is impressed with Vietnams considerable achievements in economic development, social security ensuring, poverty reduction, and international integration over the last three decades since the Doi moi (Reform) period began. The two leaders held that it is necessary to further promote economic, trade, and investment ties so that the relations match with the faithful and sincere political ties between the two countries. They also agreed to organise the 8th meeting of the Inter-Governmental Committee early; consider the establishment of partnerships in producing rice, textile - garment, cotton, electronic components, and household appliances; and consider the launching of a direct air route to facilitate transport, people-to-people exchange, and tourism cooperation. Todays headlines tell the story: Children everywhere may face the tragedy of sexual abuse, and every institution that cares for them must have responsible programs in place to protect the children they serve. This year, we mark the 30th anniversary of how one institution, the Archdiocese of Chicago, stepped forward to establish comprehensive policies to address the sexual abuse of children by its priests. As one who was there as these policies were being crafted, I believe it is important to review their impact and the hard work of protecting children still going on today. There is no avoiding the painful truth. For decades, the Catholic Church and many other institutions that cared for children failed to protect them from sexual abuse. Indeed, society as a whole lacked a full understanding of abusers and the grave harm to victims caused by abuse. Although the church apologized, it was clear more than an apology was needed. Advertisement In the early 1990s, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, then-archbishop of the Chicago Archdiocese, recognized that only by breaking new ground could progress be made in healing victims of abuse and holding offenders accountable. The Chicago Archdioceses trailblazing policies called for a review board consisting of a majority of laypeople with relevant expertise, including an abuse survivor or family member. The review board was designated as the principal adviser to the archbishop on the risk to children and fitness for ministry of any archdiocesan priest accused of sexual misconduct with a minor. The board was staffed to process and investigate allegations, and a hotline was established to receive reports. Equally important, the policies also created an assistance ministry to reach out pastorally to survivors of abuse to provide care and promote healing. Over the past 30 years, the archdiocese has welcomed reviews of its policies by civil authorities and experts in the field. As a human institution, the archdiocese made mistakes but repeatedly demonstrated a resolve to learn from those mistakes and improve and expand its policies to reflect a growing awareness of the nature of sexual abuse and the lifelong damage it causes. Advertisement In 2002, the archdioceses then-decade-old policies and programs served as a model for the U.S. bishops Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago led a delegation of bishops to Rome that secured the Vaticans approval of the U.S. Charter and Essential Norms as church law. In 2003,, the archdiocese established the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, or OPCY. To this day, the OPCY improves, expands and administers programs for the screening and training of every archdiocesan employee and volunteer involved in the care of children. It has screened 253,000 employees and volunteers and has held 8,000 training sessions in which 143,000 archdiocesan employees and volunteers have received training in meeting their responsibility as mandated reporters under the law and in identifying signs of abuse or grooming behavior. It administers an annual audit to ensure compliance. Perhaps most important, the OPCY created and still facilitates age-appropriate programs to teach children in archdiocesan schools and religious education programs to recognize, resist and report inappropriate behavior to a responsible adult. It has trained between 80,000 and 215,000 children each year in how to protect themselves from inappropriate and abusive adult behavior. In 2002, the archdiocese undertook a records review to ensure that every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by an archdiocesan priest had been reported to civil authorities and made its records available to then-Cook County States Attorney Richard Devine. In 2003, the archdiocese entered into written protocols with the states attorneys of Cook and Lake counties to ensure all allegations of sexual abuse of minors are reported. In 2006, the archdiocese entered into a joint protocol with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to report all allegations. Also in 2006, the archdiocese published the names of all archdiocesan priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors on its website, and in 2014, it published thousands of documents related to more than 65 such priests. Abuse can occur wherever there are children. When children are entrusted to institutions to assist in their educational or social development, those institutions must do their best to protect them. The long-standing sexual abuse policies of the Archdiocese of Chicago represent a sincere and good faith effort to deal with the societal problem of sexual abuse of minors. Today, these policies are administered by people of goodwill who work every day to safeguard children. They have been reaffirmed by the highest level of archdiocese leadership, Cardinal Blase Cupich, who views this work as a critical ministry. Always mindful of the horrific damage caused by the sexual abuse of children, all of us sincerely hope we have made a difference in reducing the risk of child sexual abuse, healing survivors and offering a policy framework to any institution that cares for children. We are firm in the belief that protecting these children is the responsibility of us all. John OMalley is a retired lawyer who serves as special counsel to the Archdiocese of Chicago on abuse-related matters after serving as its director of legal services for 22 years. Advertisement Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. By Yadarisa Shabong (Reuters) -Royal Mail could cut up to 10,000 jobs and warned of more layoffs if planned strikes go ahead, as the former British postal monopoly that is locked in a dispute with its largest union on Friday flagged even deeper losses this year, sending its shares as much as 17% lower. The Communication and Workers Union (CWU), representing 115,000 Royal Mail postal workers, held strikes in September and early October, and have threatened more strikes after months of failed negotiations over pay and operational changes. "Royal Mail urges CWU to immediately call off planned strike action and embrace our offer of Acas talks to urgently find a resolution to the current dispute," said parent company International Distributions Services, which was recently renamed from Royal Mail Plc. The Financial Times reported that Royal Mail had suggested cutting salaries for new employees by about a fifth, from roughly 25,000 pounds ($27,917.50) to 20,000 pounds and recruit more temporary staff. Its proposals last month to take the pay dispute to arbitration and change its policies had angered the CWU. The holding company said 5,000 to 6,000 jobs could be made redundant by the end of August next year, and up to 10,000 roles would be cut on a rolling 12 month basis, including reductions in overtime, temporary staff and natural attrition. "This announcement is holding postal workers to ransom for taking legal industrial action against a business approach that is not in the interests of workers, customers or the future of Royal Mail," CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said. "The CWU is calling for an urgent meeting with the Board and will put forward an alternative business plan at that meeting." Royal Mail has been working on a transformation plan to shift its focus to parcels amid sliding letter volumes, and while it got a boost from the online shopping boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now dealing with inflationary pressures, a cost-of-living squeeze and a fall in parcel volumes. Story continues Royal Mail swung to an adjusted operating losses of 219 million pounds in the first half of the year, and losses for the year is expected to be around 350 million pounds, it forecast. That could increase to 450 million pounds in losses this year if customers switch to other providers, and the company could go deeper into the red if more strikes are held during the holiday period. "The ongoing uncertainty means that the Board is unable to give a clear outlook for the full year," it said. Shares closed just over 10% lower after slumping as much as 17% to their lowest since September 2020. GLS, its international distribution network, has been performing in line with expectations, the company said. ($1 = 0.8955 pound) ($1 = 0.8944 pounds) (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Maria Ponnezhath; Editing by Savio D'Souza, David Evans) OLHA HLUSHCHENKO FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 07:54 Russian forces deployed various types of weapons to carry out attacks on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast throughout the night of 1314 October. A civilian sustained injuries as a result of the Russian attacks. Source: Valentyn Reznichenko, Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "Ukraines defenders from the Air Command Skhid (East) destroyed four kamikaze drones in the Dnipro and Nikopol districts soon after midnight [on 14 October - ed.]. The enemy carried out an attack on the Mezhova hromada [an administrative unit designating the town of Mezhova and its adjacent territories - ed.] in the Synelnykove district. A 51-year-old man sustained injuries. He has been hospitalised. An industrial facility and peoples homes have been damaged." Details: Russian occupation forces deployed heavy artillery, drones and Grad multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) to fire on the Nikopol district. Early reports indicate there are no casualties. Private houses, a power line and water mains in the Myrove, Chervonohryhorivka and Pershotravensk hromadas sustained damage. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 20:58 Employees of the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) are threatened with job cuts if they do not sign labour contracts with Rosatom [Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that specialises in nuclear energy, nuclear non-energy goods and high-tech products.] Source: An unnamed employee of the station in a comment to Suspilne Quote from the employee: "Rosatom representatives came to the meeting. They informed that those who refuse to sign new contracts will be laid off. Those who will sign the contracts are promised salaries that are one and a half to two times higher than the Ukrainian ones and some additional money." Russian passports are not yet required to apply for a new employment contract. Industrial personnel were given time to think until 3 November. Employee badges will be invalidated for those who do not sign new contracts." Details: The employee added that most employees are refusing to sign new contracts. Background: The Russian army occupied the ZNPP on 4 March. The situation at the occupied ZNNP came into focus in early August when the Russian military began attacking the plant. Russia rejected calls to demilitarise the nuclear plant under the pretext of "protecting it" from provocations, and blamed Ukraine for the shelling. On 25 August, for the first time in history, the ZNPP was completely disconnected from the power grid. Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of Enerhodar, said that it happened after firing, and Energoatom said that the cause was fires. On 5 October, the President of the aggressor country, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree according to which the ZNPP, captured by the invaders, will be given to Russia. On 14 October, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, after negotiations with Ukraine and Russia, reported on the progress in creating a protective zone for the ZNPP. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 18:31 Russian occupiers seized 13 out of 15 vessels in a river port of the temporarily occupied Kherson so as to transport personnel and equipment across the Dnipro River. Source: report by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of 18:00 on 14 October Quote: "The occupiers seized 13 out of 15 barge-type watercraft in the local river port of the temporarily occupied city of Kherson for transporting personnel and equipment across the Dnipro River." Details: The General Staff also reported that the occupying authorities of Crimea issued an order specifying the procedure for the "evacuation" of museums. In particular, internal [within the occupied region] and external [to the territory of the Russian Federation] evacuation plans have been approved for the museums of the temporarily occupied peninsula. Exhibits with the greatest material value are subject to priority evacuation. During the current day, Russians attacked infrastructure and peaceful citizens in the settlements of Kostiantynivka, Chumaky, Lebedynske, Zaporizhzhia, Davydiv Brid, Myrne and Ochakiv. The Russian forces used cruise, aviation, anti-aircraft guided missiles and strike drones of Iranian production. In general, during the current day, the occupiers launched three rocket attacks and ten air strikes, and fired from multiple launch rocket systems ten times. The situation on the Volyn and Polissia fronts has not changed significantly. Leaders of Belarus continue to provide assistance to Russia for carrying out military aggression on the territory of Ukraine. There are reports that another echelon with weapons, military equipment and ammunition arrived from Gomel, Belarus to the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea. The Russian army also attacked on the following fronts: On the Sivershchyna front, Russian forces deployed mortars and tubed artillery on areas in and around Ukrainske and Atynske (Sumy Oblast); Story continues On the Slobozhanshchyna front, the Russians used various types of artillery to fire on areas in and around Strilecha, Krasne, Ohirtseve, Vovchansk, Zelene, Starytsia, Dvorichna and Hrianykivka; On the Kramatorsk front, the Russians used various types of artillery to fire on areas in and around Pershotravneve, Nadiia, Novoiehorivka, Olhivka, Hrekivka, Yampolivka, Terny, Zarichne, Torske; On the Bakhmut front, Russian forces deployed tanks and artillery of various calibres to fire in and around fifteen settlements along the entire line of contact. The list includes Siversk, Bilohorivka, Hryhorivka, Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Kostiantynivka, Opytne and Ivanhrad; On the Avdiivka front, Russian forces deployed tanks and artillery of various calibres to fire on the areas of Berdychi, Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Vodiane, Opytne, Nevelske and Marinka. On the Novopavlivka and Zaporizhzhia fronts, the Russian forces have not conducted any offensive actions, as they keep setting up defensive positions. The Russian soldiers used mortars, tubed and rocket artillery to fire on more than twenty settlements. Novosilka, Vremivka, Novopil, Neskuchne, Zolota Nyva, Vuhledar, Kamianske and Bilohiria are among them. On the Pivdennyi Buh front, more than thirty settlements along the contact line were hit. Detailed reports say that the killing of a significant number of Russian personnel in the previous days has been confirmed. Thus, as a result of the effective actions by the defence forces in the areas of the settlements of Khlibodarivka (Donetsk Oblast), Tokmak (Zaporizhzhia Oblast) and Tokarivka (Kherson Oblast), the occupiers had up to 150 people killed and about 100 wounded. Three S-300 surface-to-air missile launchers and up to 10 units of other weapons and military equipment were destroyed. Preliminary information says that Ukrainian soldiers destroyed a lot of Russia's weapons and military equipment transported by railway transport near the railway station in the city of Antratsyt (Luhansk Oblast). The number and nature of injuries are being clarified. During the current day, the aviation of the Defence Forces landed thirteen strikes. It has been confirmed that twelve clusters of weapons and military equipment, as well as one anti-aircraft missile system of the Russian army, have been destroyed. Ukraines Rocket Forces and Artillery hit three control points, eight areas of concentration of manpower, weapons and military equipment, and three ammunition storage points. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! By Lena Masri and Charlie Szymanski LONDON (Reuters) - Women in Russia make up a rising proportion of those being detained in protests against President Vladimir Putin's mobilisation for the war in Ukraine, data show, as many Russian men fear being sent to the frontlines if they demonstrate. Court documents also show more women in Moscow being charged in relation to anti-war protests in February and March in the early weeks of the conflict than in anti-Putin protests in previous years. Among women protesters heading to central Moscow on the evening of Sept. 24 was 19-year-old Lisa. Before she joined the crowd a police officer in body armour grabbed her arm and threw her into a van. She spent a week in detention. Three days earlier Putin announced a partial mobilisation of reservists to fight in Ukraine, prompting tens of thousands of Russian men to flee abroad, often by circuitous routes. "When the war started, I felt like my future was not happening anymore," said Lisa, who asked to use only her first name for fear of repercussions. "But I also started feeling guilty for thinking about my own future when people in Ukraine felt much more fear every day." Lisa showed Reuters documents and photos related to her detention. Russian authorities say protesters are detained because unsanctioned rallies are illegal under Russian law, which also forbids any activity considered to defame the armed forces. Women made up 51% of 1,383 people arrested in the Sept. 21 anti-mobilisation protest and 71% of the 848 detained on Sept. 24, according to data from OVD-Info, a Russian group that monitors protests. The group, which described the Sept. 21 and Sept. 24 protests as the largest in a series of anti-mobilisation demonstrations, said the rising share of women detained on Sept. 24 came as some men feared being drafted if arrested. DRAFT PAPERS A Russian male journalist covering the demonstrations and two male protesters told Reuters they received papers summoning them to the military registration office after being detained. Story continues One of them, 30-year-old Vladislav Staf, a historian with no military experience, said he and a dozen men who were put in the same police van were handed draft papers after being arrested on Sept. 21. He was released from detention a week later and fled Russia. "It felt very dangerous to stay," said Staf, now in Montenegro. He showed Reuters a copy of his draft document. OVD-Info said male protesters were drafted in at least 17 police departments on Sept. 21 and at least 16 departments on Sept. 24. Reuters has yet to receive a reply to emailed questions about the OVD-Info figures and Staf's account, sent to the Russian interior ministry and its Moscow department on Thursday. A Reuters analysis of court documents showed women who protested in the early weeks of the war in February and March made up at least 30% of those charged, up from at least 11% in protests in 2021 and at least 6% in 2019 protests. Lisa protested for the first time in February, joining in with chants of "no to war". The proportion of women was likely higher in all three years because Reuters was only able to determine the gender in about 80% of cases from protesters' surnames. Typical Russian surnames have different endings for women and men. Reuters analysed cases of the most common charges used against protesters. FEAR OF CONSCRIPTION Ella Rossman, a researcher at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, attributed the rise in the share of women at protests to fears of some men of conscription and to a growing Russian feminist movement. Rossman, who is mapping out Russian feminist activism, counted 45 Russian feminist groups in 2021, up from about 30 in 2019. Female protesters in Russia are particularly vulnerable to the threat of sexual violence, said OVD-Info lawyer Daria Korolenko. The group documented about 200 cases of women threatened with sexual violence, deprived of food or sleep or subjected to other mistreatment while detained over protests between Sept. 21 and 26. Reuters has yet to receive a reply to emailed questions about the data on mistreatment of women, sent to the Russian interior ministry and its Moscow department on Thursday. Elizaveta, 27, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said she received a 12-day jail sentence after protesting in February. She spent nine of those days at a police station where she slept on the bare floor in a dark cell. There was no hot water and the only food was brought by friends. She showed Reuters documents and photographs relating to her detention. Reuters has yet to receive a reply to an emailed request for comment, sent to the Russian interior ministry and its Moscow department on Thursday. Elizaveta protested again on Sept. 22. Most of those with her that day were women, she said. Women have not only protested the war on the streets. Shortly after the conflict began Rossman formed a movement with other activists - the Feminist Anti-War Resistance. Its members post about the war on social media and distribute a newspaper in Russia, she said, adding that they also write anti-war slogans on rouble bank notes and on price tags in stores. (This story has been refiled to remove a picture) (Reporting and writing by Lena Masri in London; Additional reporting by Charlie Szymanski in Arizona and Jaimi Dowdell in Los Angeles; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Edmund Blair) The mayor of Melitopol called on parents to protect their children and leave the occupation The Gauleiters (occupation governors) of Melitopol and other temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts are going to take our children to the Crimea and Russia, Fedorov wrote on Telegram. Read also: Russia deports 2 million Ukrainians, Zelenskyy says So, the Kherson henchmen of Russia have already officially asked their Kremlin authorities to organize the departure and further education of (Ukrainian) children in Russian schools. Fedorov added that in Ukraines Crimea itself, the Gauleiters want to close local schools because of the supposed constant reports of the bomb threats in educational institutions. What fate awaits our children is unknown, Fedorov said. I can say one thing for sure the rashists (Russian fascists) are used to hiding behind them as a human shield and using them for their propaganda. Read also: Russia announces adoption of thousands of children deported from occupied Mariupol, Ukraine reacts Fedorov urged parents to protect their children and leave the occupied territories. Earlier, the General Staff reported that since the beginning of October, the Russians had abducted about 170 children from the city of Kherson. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 6 that the invaders had forcibly deported more than 1.6 million Ukrainians, who are now scattered across Russia and its remote regions. At the end of August, Russia announced the adoption of thousands of children deported from Mariupol. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed that the aggressor country was violating the GenevaConventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and must return the children to their parents. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Associated Press A shipwreck has emerged along the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as water levels plummet threatening to reach record lows in some areas. The ship, which archaeologists believe to be a ferry that sunk in the late 1800s to early 1900s, was spotted by a Baton Rouge resident walking along the shore earlier this month. During the summer, receding waters in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area revealed several skeletal remains, countless desiccated fish, a graveyard of forgotten boats and even a sunken World War II-era craft that once surveyed the lake. (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will provide $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Saudi state news agency SPA said, adding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday. The crown prince expressed the kingdom's readiness to continue efforts of mediation and support everything that contributes to de-escalation, SPA added. (Reporting by Yomna Ehab; Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Mark Porter) U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The spat between the United States and Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC members over the management of petroleum supplies intensified Thursday when Riyadh accused Washington of "politicizing oil" and declared it would not submit to "dictates" from supposedly friendly countries. The Biden administration, in turn, said it was reassessing its relationship with the desert kingdom, a longtime if often problematic ally, after its "shortsighted" decision on oil production. President Biden is under mounting pressure from Congress and others to take forceful steps against Saudi Arabia including possible suspension of weapons sales after it and Russia successfully pushed a move to reduce the production of oil by 2 million barrels a day, virtually guaranteeing higher revenue for Moscow that will help finance its war against Ukraine. This comes three months after Biden traveled controversially to Saudi Arabia to plead for cooperation in supplying enough oil to meet demand as prices at the pump in the U.S. soared. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Saudis have repeatedly indicated they wanted to reduce oil production, even though they knew it would benefit Russia and hurt Ukraine by weakening sanctions that the U.S. and Western powers have enacted against Moscow. "We made clear that that would be the wrong direction," Blinken told reporters in a news conference at the State Department in Washington. "The recovery is fragile," Blinken said. "We're dealing with head winds from COVID. We're also dealing with head winds from the Russian aggression itself. And so, now is not the time to take energy off the market." Saudi Arabian officials, meanwhile, are waging an all-out media counteroffensive. After several appearances of officials on U.S. television, a stern statement from the Saudi Foreign Ministry was released Thursday. It quoted an unnamed spokesperson saying the government expressed its total rejection of accusations that it was taking sides in international conflicts or that its decision was aimed at the U.S., as Washington has claimed. Story continues The Kingdom affirms that outcomes of the OPEC+ meetings are adopted through consensus among member states, and that they are not based on the unilateral decision by a single country, the statement said, adding that the outcomes were based purely on economic considerations, that its relationship with the U.S. was a strategic one based on mutual interest and that attempts to distort its position on Ukraine were unfortunate. (Saudi Arabia voted against Russias annexation of Ukrainian regions in a U.N. General Assembly meeting Wednesday.) The statement said the Biden administration had requested postponing the groups decision on the cuts for one month, presumably so as to avoid any fallout on fuel prices that would then affect Democrats chances in early November midterm elections. But such a delay would have had negative consequences, the statement said. Asked about the delay request, Blinken said the administration asked OPEC wait until its next meeting, in November, to assess how market prices were faring after the summer spikes. Earlier in the year, supply shortages as a result of the war in Ukraine had pushed oil prices to $120 per barrel. But they have been falling since June, with Saudi officials raising alarm when the price hovered around $85 amid fears that the downward trend would persist, said Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist with Bloomberg. The U.S. would like to see the market flooded with oil, in cooperation with Persian Gulf producers, to cause difficulties for Russia, as occurred during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, said Rami Khalifah Ali, a Paris-based political analyst specializing in Saudi Arabia and the gulf. The decision from the gulf was to take a neutral stance between the U.S. and Russia," Ali said. "Thats because now their priorities are their own economic considerations, especially when it comes to the U.S. facing Russia." Officials also took pains to tout OPEC+ as a stabilizing force in energy markets. Speaking to the Saudi state-run news channel Al Arabiya on Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said oil markets had shown far less volatility than those for gas, for example, which have recently witnessed significant price increases. But beyond the economics, the growing diplomatic fracas along with vows of reprisals from Democratic congressional leaders has aggravated a long-smoldering rift between Washington and Riyadh even as it speaks to a wider shift in the relationship between the two allies, analysts say. This has been going on since the beginning of the Biden administration. It was never repaired, and I think unfortunately the language the Biden administration is using it just debases the relationship and makes it harder to rebuild, said Karen Young, a gulf-focused senior research fellow at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. That could have consequences with the region heading toward economically turbulent times, when the U.S. would usually look to richer allies in the Middle East especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to deploy their coffers in the service of maintaining regional stability. We need to have the Emirates and Saudi Arabia to invest there, to give fiscal support, so weve kind of shot ourselves in the foot, whatever happens in the region, she said. The Saudis are asking for what theyve been asking for since 2016, which is respect. Thats the language they use in the statement. The last blowup between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was over the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Threats of paring U.S. support to Saudi Arabia come at a delicate time. Since 2015, the kingdom has relied on Washington's help in pursuing its war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed rebels who control large swaths of northern neighbor Yemen, including the capital, Sana. A cease-fire with the group came to an end this month. Blinken, however, made it clear that new calculations are being made within the Biden administration, although he continued to use the word "recalibrate" to refer to assessment of the relationship, instead of saying there was a rupture. "We have a multiplicity of interests with Saudi Arabia, and our policies need to reflect that," Blinken said. "We need to recalibrate the relationship with Saudi Arabia ... and that process is now continuing with one goal in mind, to make sure that the relationship ... more effectively addresses and advances our interests." Staff reporters Bulos reported from Beirut and Wilkinson from Washington. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Welcome to your weekly South Carolina politics briefing, a newsletter curated by The States politics and government team. Early this week the women running for lieutenant governor took the spotlight in the race for the states top executive. The first debate of the gubernatorial election between Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and challenger Tally Casey didnt include many fireworks, as the candidates sought primarily to tout their running mates. Still, here are five highlights from the debate, which touched on abortion, critical race theory, Medicaid expansion and the minimum wage. Ahead of the debate, The State Media Co. spent some time on the road with Evette and Casey to get a better sense of how they court voters and view the job of being second-in-command. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Democratic candidate for Lt. Gov. Tally Casey. SCS NEW US ATTORNEY FOCUSES ON GUN VIOLENCE South Carolinas new U.S. attorney Adair Boroughs recently sat down with The State at her Main Street office in downtown Columbia to discuss her priorities in office. Boroughs, a 42-year-old Democrat who was tapped by President Joe Biden and took office in July, said her top crime-fighting priority will be to address gun violence in the Palmetto State. Gun deaths have grown sharply in South Carolina in recent years from 889 in 2016 to 1,130 in 2020, according to the latest available state data. Boroughs, who is far from the first U.S. attorney in the state to make gun violence a priority, said her plan involves working with communities to come up with evidence-based solutions that will have an impact on the actual level of violence. We arent just doing something just to do something, she said. Its about our strategic enforcement of these laws to actually lower the amount of violence. Boroughs, a Barnwell County native who attended Furman University and Stanford Law School, is only the second woman nominated to serve as South Carolinas U.S. attorney. Prior to her appointment, she had been working in private practice after losing a 2020 congressional bid to longtime U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Springdale. Story continues In law enforcement, having a woman at the top is more rare, but its really important for the community, Boroughs said. Im a big believer in diverse perspectives, and thats the way I lead. Its not just because its something that makes me feel good and fuzzy. Its because the data shows you make better decisions when you have different perspectives at the table. In addition to curbing gun violence, Boroughs said she plans to focus on civil rights violations, public corruption, environmental justice and complex financial and white collar crimes areas where she said federal laws are pretty much the only protection people have. Adair Ford Boroughs is settling in as the new United States Attorney for South Carolina. U.S. Attorney Boroughs was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden in June, 2022. BUZZ BITES Former Vice President Mike Pence will speak at Wofford College in a lecture series focused on international affairs and national security. In a move intended to make South Carolina more attractive to electric vehicle manufacturers, Gov. Henry McMaster on Thursday signed an executive order establishing a one-stop shop at the state Department of Commerce for electric vehicle-related businesses interested in investing in the state and ordered seven state agencies to develop a plan to strategically place electric vehicle charging stations across South Carolina. The South Carolina Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments Dec. 13 on whether the firing squad and electric chair methods of execution are constitutional. The Horry County GOP has new leaders, though not everyone thinks the leadership matter is settled. Brandon Charochak is taking an unpaid leave of absence from the governors press office in order to work on the governors reelection campaign. State Sens. Brian Adams, R-Berkeley, and Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, said they were exploring bond reform legislation to address what Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott characterized as a crack in the criminal justice system. Their announcement came after a man charged with murder in 2018, who has remained free on bond despite three additional arrests, allegedly led police on a chase that seriously injured a Richland County sheriffs deputy. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo endorsed Congressman William Timmons for reelection in the 4th Congressional District. Concerned about a mass exodus of Black faculty and administrators, the University of South Carolinas Black Faculty Caucus is calling on USC to prioritize recruiting and retaining diverse hires. The double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, who is charged with killing his wife and youngest son, is scheduled to start in late January. Judge Clifton Newman has been assigned to the case, which is expected to last three weeks. A Pickens city councilman and former mayor pro tem has been charged with sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree, according to SLED. Gov. Henry McMaster has called for a review of the law enforcement response to hoax 911 calls last week that reported active shooters at more than a dozen schools across the state. A former Richland District 1 procurement manager has been indicted by the state grand jury on embezzlement and misconduct in office charges for allegedly using his position to embezzle school district funds, primarily through the misuse of P-cards for personal purchases. A 47-year old Charleston area man pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and three other South Carolinians were charged this week in connection with the insurrection, according to court records filed in U.S. District Court. Attorney Josh Kendrick shows a picture of South Carolinas electric chair as he questions South Carolina Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling during a trial concerning the constitutionality of South Carolina execution laws, on Tuesday, August, 2, 2022 in the Richland County Courthouse. MARK YOUR CALENDAR Oct. 18 SC Senate takes up abortion bill Oct. 19 Oral argument in SC Supreme Court challenge to fetal heartbeat law Oct. 24 Early voting for SCs general election starts Oct. 26 SC governors race televised debate, 7 p.m. Nov. 2 SC superintendent candidate televised debate, 7 p.m. Nov. 8 SC general election BEFORE WE ADJOURN Benedict College junior Rashonda Rhodes will join students from across the country at the White House Friday for a roundtable discussion with Vice President Kamala Harris about the Dobbs decisions impact on their campuses and attempts to restrict voting rights at the state level. Rhodes, a criminal justice administration major with plans to pursue a career in defense law, specifically death penalty appeals, said she was honored to represent Benedict at the White House. Ive always wanted to take political action on a big scale, and what better way than to physically step foot into the White House and engage VP Harris on the importance of voting, which affects us across the board, she said in a statement. Earlier this year, Rhodes participated in a bill signing at the State House to establish HBCU Day in South Carolina and also sat on the bench with Judge Jocelyn Newman during the recent death penalty case that resulted in South Carolinas execution methods of electrocution and firing squad being found unconstitutional. The death penalty case, which Gov. Henry McMaster and Corrections Director Bryan Stirling appealed to the State Supreme Court, will be heard in mid-December. Benedict College junior Rashonda Rhodes, a criminal justice administration major, will join students from across the country at the White House on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, for a roundtable discussion with Vice President Kamala Harris about the Dobbs decisions impact on their campuses and attempts to restrict voting rights at the state level. Who pulled together this weeks newsletter? This week it was reporter Zak Koeske, a member of The States government and politics team. Keep up with him on Twitter @ZakKoeske or send him story tips at zkoeske@thestate.com. To stay on top of South Carolina politics and election news, you can chat with us on Facebook, email us tips and follow our stories at scpolitics.com. Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, vice chair of the City Councils ethics committee, introduced a resolution at Septembers council meeting that would move him up to replace retired Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd, as committee chair. A vice chair stepping up after a chairs retirement might seem to outside observers like an uncontroversial routine bit of parliamentary housekeeping, but this is Chicago, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot had a classically mayoral response: Theres a process by which we do that, and the process is the mayor makes the final picks. Advertisement Thats been the Chicago Way for generations of mayors and aldermen. (Quite literally, in the case of the various dynasties that have made City Hall their family business.) Forget what you learned in school about separation of powers and for that matter what it says in the councils own rules: In practice, here in Chicago, the mayor decides whos in charge, and the council nods and says yes. Those leadership positions are big plums to hand out. Each committee controls its own budget, ranging from $117,000 for the refugee rights committee to the finance committees $1.15 million. Most of that goes to staff salaries, Balkanizing the vast majority of the councils resources across 19 offices with 19 different bosses. Advertisement For aldermen not blessed with a committee chairpersonship, theres a very small Legislative Reference Bureau, or LRB, that answers to the president pro tempore and a Council Office of Financial Analysis, or COFA, that answers to the chair of the budget committee. Neither has anywhere near the staffing or funding to meet the research and analysis needs of a 50-member legislature. The result is a council thats not set up to legislate. Most aldermen function first and foremost as local red-tape cutters and gatekeepers to the citys service departments. Theyre more a part of the administration than a separate and coequal branch of government. Aldermen who want to take a more active role in shaping policy are hamstrung by a lack of access to the kind of legal, financial and research teams required to put together substantive legislation. Thats especially clear at budget time, when the mayor lays out billions of dollars of taxpayer spending. Give or take some tweaks around the edges, the mayors proposal always passes because good or bad, its the only game in town. The council doesnt have the capacity to tear up the whole thing and write a new one. The legislative muscles at City Hall are so atrophied that aldermen dont even propose amendments on the floor, a routine parliamentary process theyre fully empowered to use. Instead, they use the budget hearings to ask the mayors staff to incorporate their preferred changes in the final version of the bill. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it doesnt, and its all up to the mayor. Turning the City Council into an independent body is going to require more than just breaking a habit of deferring to the mayor. Serious process and resource changes are needed to build a real legislative branch. Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, and Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, have put forward bills that would appoint an independent parliamentarian and legislative counsel, and the City Council should take those proposals and expand them further, consolidating the siloed committee, COFA and LRB staffs into a single policy shop overseen by a professional director and, critically, not gate-kept by or answerable to any single elected official. Taking ownership of their own staff and budget would require political courage, but theres no reason for the City Council to maintain its weird, unspoken power-sharing agreement with the mayor. Its a vestigial habit, a knee-jerk remnant of an age of political bosses and water carriers. Members of the City Council should do themselves a favor and treat Martins resolution like the common-sense piece of housekeeping that it is without waiting for approval from on high. Its a good first step in the long rebuilding process our legislative branch desperately needs. Geoffrey Cubbage is a budget and policy analyst for the Better Government Association policy team. Advertisement Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. Matter is spewing out of a black hole in a way that has never been seen before, scientists have said. The bizarre events began in 2018, when scientists saw a small star get ripped to shreds by a black hole roughly 665 million light years from Earth. Such spectacular and violent behaviour is relatively routine for scientists studying black holes, which have a tendency to rip apart other objects nearby, and so the black hole was seen an not especially interesting. But scientists were then shocked to find that three years on, the same black hole came back to life, throwing out material. Unusually, however, it has not devoured anything new. This caught us completely by surprise no one has ever seen anything like this before, said Yvette Cendes, the lead author of a new study on the strange black hole. The material appears to have been delayed in coming out of the black hole, scientists believe. They still do not know why that process was held back, but further research should allow a better understanding of black holes dramatic eating patterns, they hope. Researchers first spotted the strange behaviour in 2021, using the Very Large Array in New Mexico. Unusual readings suggested that the black hole appeared to have come back to life, unexpectedly. A team of international astronomers then rushed to find out what was going on. The surprise led them to apply for urgent time on telescopes to understand what was going on. As they gathered information, they found that the radio signature of the event was dramatic. It had gone silent for three years and then resumed, with a blast of radio energy that was one of the most powerful ever seen. Whats more, the material coming out of the black hole is going much more quickly than usual. It is traveling as fast as half the speed of light compared with 10 per cent of the speed of light for most such events. Scientists will now look to better understand that black hole and its behaviour, as well as trying to understand whether black holes have been doing this all along and they have missed it or whether it is truly as unusual of an example as it appears. Seattle police are seeking the publics help in identifying two of three people connected to a fatal shooting in the Chinatown-International District in April. Gibson Moore was shot and killed April 20 outside an apartment building in the 400 block of South Main Street, police said. According to police, Moore had come to help a friend who was involved in a verbal altercation around 12:30 a.m. One of the three people connected to the shooting grabbed Moore from behind and threw him to the ground, starting a fight. A gunman later ambushed and shot Moore. He died at the scene. Nearby surveillance cameras captured images of the people involved. Police are asking anyone who recognizes the two unidentified men for help leading investigators to them. If you have information about the case, police ask that you email Eliazabeth.Kennedy@seattle.gov or call the Seattle Police Department Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000. More news from KIRO 7 DOWNLOAD OUR FREE NEWS APP BERLIN (Reuters) - Serbia must adapt to European Union visa policy if it wants to join the bloc, Germany's interior minister said in Luxembourg on Friday. "I hope Serbia is acting fast now," Nancy Faeser said ahead of a meeting with her EU counterparts. "There are criteria for being a member of the EU, and part of that is a common visa policy." Serbia's visa-free policy with countries like India and Tunisia has been criticised for allowing an influx of migrants who can then try and enter the EU. Faeser said she would address the issue at the Western Balkan conference next week in Berlin with Serbia participating. (Reporting by Alexander Ratz, Writing by Rachel More, Editing by Kirsti Knolle) CHICAGO (CBS) -- Police in Stockton, California are working with Chicago Police to determine whether a serial killer in Stockton is the same man who shot and killed two people in cold blood in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood in 2018. CBS 13 in Sacramento first broke this story with the help of CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards, who confirmed this information with his police sources. The Stockton serial killer, who, according to police, has taken the lives of six people and injured a seventh in Stockton and Oakland, California, has a city on edge as they wonder who might be next. All of the victims were shot, and police say ballistics evidence linked the same man to the shootings. Stockton serial killer / Credit: Eric Howard Last week, police released video surveillance footage of the man they believe is the killer and asked residents to pay attention to his gate. His stride is uneven and walks with his hands in his pockets. After the surveillance video was released, Edwards called CBS 13 in Sacramento and told them about the Rogers Park murders. Two men Eliyahu Moscowitz and Douglass Watts were killed in a period of about 36 hours in the fall of 2018. Douglass Watts (left) and Eliyahu Moscowitz (right) were shot and killed blocks apart in a span of about 36 hours, and police have determined both men were killed with the same gun. (Photos supplied to CBS) First, Watts, 73, was shot and killed on the morning Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018, while walking his two dogs in the 1400 block of West Sherwin Avenue. On the night of Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, Moscowitz was walking down the bike path on the 1100 block of West Lunt Avenue when someone shot him. Moscowitz worked at an Evanston Jewel grocery store. Both victims had been shot in the head, and then-Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said in the days after the shooting that ballistics tests confirmed shell casings from both shootings came from the same gun. The masked gunman was caught on surveillance video, and police have said he has a distinct duck walk or limp. The suspect has been referred to as the Duck Walk Killer. Chicago police say this man is a suspect in the fatal shooting of 73-year-old Douglass Watts on Sept. 30, 2018. Ballistics tests have linked the shooting to another homicide one day later, the slaying of 24-year-old Eliyahu Moscowitz. (Credit: Chicago Police) He has not been seen since. "This double murder that happened struck a chord in Chicago -- no one's forgotten about it, and we have a lot of crime in Chicago," CBS 2's Edwards told CBS 13 Sacramento. Story continues CBS 13 compared surveillance videos of the suspects, and the similarities between the men are striking. Both were wearing all black, their heads and faces covered, and their walk is almost exactly alike. "Over and over and over we heard 'pay attention to the gate, the gate...the walk' and it struck a chord. This week, when detectives in Chicago saw the video out of Northern California, and again it was 'pay attention to the gate," Edwards told the station. Now, both police departments are trying to determine whether the killers are the same person. "My sources tell me high-level conversations are going on," Edwards told CBS 13. "There is an absolute open book sharing of information." Markets rally despite inflation report Parkland families stunned by jury's recommendation of life in prison for gunman Elaine Chao tells Jan. 6 committee why she resigned from the Trump administration Seth Green (left) and Bill Murray (Getty Images) Seth Green is the latest actor to accuse Bill Murray of inappropriate behaviour. Speaking on the Good Mythical Morning YouTube show, Green said he was nine when the Groundhog Day actor picked him up by the ankles backstage on Saturday Night Live and dumped him in a rubbish bin. When I was nine years old, I did a spot on Saturday Night Live when Mary Gross was one of the on-the-scene anchor people for the news, and she did a whole thing about what kids think about the Christmas holiday, Green recalled, adding that Murray was the shows host that weekend. [Murray] saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat, the Austin Powers actor said. And I was like, That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly eff off. And he was like, Thats my chair. Though his mother attempted to get the young actor to move, Green refused to do so, thinking: Are you this much of a jerk? This rude to tell a nine-year-old to get out of your chair. What is this power play? He picked me up by my ankles, Green explained. Held me upside down He dangled me over a trash can and he was like, The trash goes in the trash can. And I was screaming, and I swung my arms, flailed wildly, full contact with his balls. He dropped me in the trash can, the trash can falls over. I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room and just cried. The Independent has contacted Murrays representatives for comment. Greens anecdote comes days after Thelma & Louise actor Geena Davis reflected on a bad encounter she had with Murray early on in her career. Davis told The Times that Murray insisted on using a massage device on her despite her repeated protests. Earlier this year, production on Aziz Ansaris directorial film debut, Being Mortal, was suspended due to a complaint of inappropriate behaviour against Murray. In an April interview, Murray responded to the shutdown, saying: I had a difference of opinion with a woman Im working with. I did something I thought was funny and it wasnt taken that way. Story continues He added: The movie studio wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out and investigate it and so they stopped the production. As of now were talking and were trying to make peace with each other, he said. The film was originally scheduled for a 2023 release. By Robert Muller and Jason Hovet (Reuters) -Slovakia could treat the killing of two people outside a well-known gay bar in the capital Bratislava as an act of terrorism, a top prosecutor said on Friday, as investigators looked deeper into the shooting which has rattled the central European state. The killings, investigated as a possible hate crime although police have yet to determine its motives, have sparked outrage from politicians and rights groups, and prompted the president to call for reflection on the political climate in the country. Thousands gathered in downtown Bratislava later on Friday to show solidarity with the LGBT community, many waving the rainbow flags symbolising the movement for gay rights or carrying banners like "Stop the violence!". Police found the suspected killer dead on Thursday morning, after he shot his victims outside the Teplaren bar in the city centre on Wednesday evening. Police said they suspected the shooter then killed himself. Prime Minister Eduard Heger has called the shooter a "radicalised teenager", while President Zuzana Caputova said in a Facebook post the shooting was a hate crime. On Friday, police and judicial officials said investigations so far showed no indications the killer knew his victims. Police on Friday identified those killed as 23-year-old Matus H. and 26-year-old Juraj V. A third victim, Radoslava T., 28, was wounded in her leg. Police said the suspected killer was 19-year-old Juraj K. who had used a gun with a laser sight, registered to a relative. Slovak media reported the suspect had posted messages with the phrases "hate crime" and "gay bar" hashtagged on Twitter, and he had posted a manifesto against the LGBT and Jewish communities before the killings. Special Prosecutor Daniel Lipsic said the manifesto and more evidence were being examined. "The suspicion is that the motive of this act was to destabilise society," he told a televised briefing. "These points lead us to the possible consideration that we could classify this criminal offence as an act of terrorism." Story continues Several officials, including Heger and Caputova, joined the solidarity march in Bratislava. "A couple days ago, hatred deliberately hit straight at our hearts, it hit us all, because it hit very important values," Caputova told the gathering. Shortly after the shooting, Caputova accused unspecified politicians of "filling the space with hate". Her critique comes as far-right parties have made gains in recent years. The finance minister relied on lawmakers from a far-right opposition party in June to push through a bill aimed at helping people hit by high energy prices. That vote sparked a row in the ruling coalition that led a junior party to quit last month, leaving the government with a minority in parliament. (Reporting by Robert Muller and Jason Hovet in PragueEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter) Sminty Drop, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo Sad girl twerking is the new walking backwards. Sminty Drop was eliminated in the recent fourth episode of RuPauls Drag Race UK season four following her poor performance in the Catty Man improv challenge. During the maxi challenge, Drop played the character of a catfisher named Catty Fisher who went on to twerk very badly in the scene. After deliberations, RuPaul chose Danny Beard as the winner of the challenge, and Pixie Polite was a little pressed about that. In turn, Mama Ru had Drop, Baby, and Le Fil in the bottom three placements. Drop and Baby were ultimately chosen as the bottom two who had to lip sync for their lives to Mel and Kims Respectable. Baby won the lip sync, which meant that Drop had to sashay away. During her exit, Drop recreated her bad twerking from the challenge but this time added a crying face to it as well. Not a single word was uttered. On a meta level, this felt like the ultimate visual representation of a queen trying to entertain the judges and the viewers after her elimination despite this being the saddest moment of her entire journey on Drag Race. Many fans are already calling this the best and most hilarious Drag Race exit since Vanessa Vanjie Mateo walked backwards on season 10. The fans are also calling this the best exit in the herstory of the Drag Race UK series. During an interview with Gay Times, Drop admitted that her exit wasnt exactly planned. She explained: I was just like, Thank you so much for having me, and then I got to the back of the stage with nothing prepared. I wasnt expecting to go this early, so I hadnt thought of anything! I literally turned around, saw Ru and my knees started bending and my bum just started relatively moving more or less! Tears were falling off my face so I was just like It all happened so quickly, it was another blackout moment. I walked off like, What was that all about?! Story continues When it comes to comparisons to Miss Vanjies iconic exit, Drop feels shook, but also flattered. I was literally up until half five this morning, just reading through tweets, the queen revealed. Ive had two hours sleep because all I was doing was reading tweets of everyone like, This is the best exit since Vanjie! I was like, Guys, calm down, but also It was pretty hilarious. Sad girls deserve to twerk, too! RuPauls Drag Race UK season four airs Thursday on WOW Presents Plus. RELATED | Watch the Exclusive New Trailer for Call Me Mother Season 2 (Bloomberg) -- South Koreas trade minister said key chip producers Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. won approval from the US to keep operating in China, but that concerns remain over the impact of Washingtons sweeping new restrictions. Most Read from Bloomberg South Korea is fully cooperating with the US, Ahn Duk-geun said in an interview with Bloomberg News, explaining that the US decisions were based on an understanding that Korean chipmakers fabs in China are crucial in stabilizing the global supply chain. But were trying to ensure theres no unnecessary problem with purely commercial-scale, low-end chips like the automotive ones at the center of supply shortages, he said. Ahn was speaking after the US imposed drastic new curbs on the ability of chip companies to do business in China, actions that incensed Beijing and provoked accusations of unfair targeting. The measures announced Oct. 7 also affect American allies, effectively forcing them to comply or to defy Washington. South Korean memory maker SK Hynix said Wednesday it had received approval from the US Department of Commerce to supply equipment needed to produce DRAM chips in its Chinese facilities without additional licensing for one year. Samsung also received a reprieve, according to people familiar with the matter. Samsung declined to comment. The approvals are absolutely different from a grace period, Ahn said. South Korea finds itself caught between its biggest trade partner in China and its US security partner over the Biden administrations plans to secure supply chains for crucial components that steer clear of the government in Beijing. Story continues Korean chip companies operating in China might be doing their own calculations right now after the US export control measures were announced, Ahn said. The Biden administration measures erect barriers of entry to Chinas market by limiting the ability of US firms to sell equipment and tech to their Chinese counterpart. They led to a route of Asias top chip stocks this week, with more than $240 billion erased from the sectors global market value at one point. South Korea is finding it tough to keep pace with US plans for realignment of the semiconductor supply chains, Ahn said, adding: But our stance is to cooperate and were trying to adjust the pace by considering the circumstances of our industries. Rahm Emanuel, the US Ambassador to Japan, told Bloomberg Television that the Biden administrations moves present business opportunities for allies in line with US national security interests. The US measures seek to stop Chinas multibillion dollar drive to develop its own chip industry and advance its military capabilities. The impact could extend far beyond semiconductors and into industries that rely on high-end computing, from electric vehicles and aerospace to gadgets like smartphones. This will trigger Korean chipmakers changes in global operation strategy, said Jeff Kim, analyst at KB Investment & Securities. He noted that about 45% of Chinas memory chip demand is covered by South Korean semiconductors that are either imported from South Korea or made by Korean plants in China. The flareup over chips follows South Korean anger at new US rules for electric vehicle and batteries that could disadvantage major South Korean brands like Hyundai and Kia, which dont have operational EV plants in the US but are spending billions to do so in a matter a few years. Ahn said major South Korean manufacturers are taking a cautious approach as they look at steps to strengthen cooperation with the US. While South Korean chip companies may gradually phase out aspects of business with China that carry risks, it is too powerful economically to shun, he said. Its true China is no longer the cash cow it used to be that we couldnt do without, Ahn said. China and Korea are still very important trading partners to each other. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish authorities failed to uphold domestic and international law in returning to Morocco nearly 500 migrants following a mass border crossing in which at least 23 people died, the country's civil rights ombudsman said in an interim report on Friday. On June 24, the Spanish authorities said up to 2,000 migrants stormed the high fence that seals off Spain's North African enclave of Melilla and engaged in a two-hour skirmish with border officers. While scores succeeded in reaching the Spanish territory, Moroccan authorities said at least 23 people were killed in a crush after what they described as a stampede, and others died falling as they climbed. Local NGOs said the death toll could be as high as 37. Spain's national ombudsman Angel Gabilondo said Spanish police failed to process 470 migrants who sought to cross into the Spanish territory. "The institution concludes that 470 persons were turned back at the border without taking into account national and international legal provisions," he said in his review. The ombudsman's office said it has requested access to additional footage of the disaster, as its investigation was still ongoing. Depending on the final outcome, the ombudsman can seek further action such as requesting a parliamentary enquiry or filing a complaint before Spain's constitutional court. In response to the report, Spain's interior ministry said its border officials were guarding a European border from "violent assaults." "All border rejections that took place on June 24 at the border perimeter between Melilla and Nador were carried out within the strictest legality," the ministry said. Melilla and Ceuta, a second Spanish enclave also on Africa's northern coast, have over the past decade become popular crossing points for African migrants trying to enter Europe. Border security is one of several points of contention in Spanish-Moroccan relations, which saw a relative thaw in March when Spain adopted a pro-Morocco stance over Western Sahara, a territory that Rabat considers its own but where an Algeria-backed independence movement seeks to establish a sovereign state. (Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Peter Graff) By Alexander Villegas SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean authorities will beef up security on trains carrying cargoes of copper, a senior official said on Thursday, after a spate of violent heists that have been blamed on international organized crime gangs. FCAB, a major mining railway operator, suspended the transport of copper earlier this week following a series of attacks and thefts, forcing mines in the world's top copper producer to look for other transport routes. Chile's interior deputy secretary Manuel Monsalve announced on Thursday new measures to strengthen train security after meeting with the general manager of FCAB, the train freight arm of Chile-focused miner Antofagasta Plc. "Starting today, Carabineros (police force) will have specialized personnel to safeguard journeys that are considered high risk or more vulnerable," Monsalve told reporters in the northern mining city of Antofagasta. Monsalve said there would also be air support to provide security and improved communication to flag any threats. "We're not just interested in improving safety conditions," Monsalve said. "We want to identify and stop the criminal organizations behind these kinds of crimes." Long a beacon of stability in Latin America, Chile in recent years has seen a jump in organized crime, apparently related to the drug trade. FCAB said it had resumed shipments of copper cathodes on Thursday on the basis of the new protections. State miner Codelco and BHP Group have both recently said they were assessing transport options due to the train heists. Denis Varas, president of the National Union of FCAB Workers, said there had been about 70 train robberies in the last three years and that they have become bolder and increasingly violent. "The robbers are coming in armed, in off-road vehicles, with a system to attack a train, detain the operator, kidnap them, beat them," Varas told Reuters this week. Varas said robbers sometimes even use cranes and can steal up to 20 tonnes of copper at a time. He said that robbers in recent attacks appeared to have detailed information on the railway. Story continues "They know our operation so well that they know the areas that are most isolated, where we lose radio contact," Varas said. Varas said the union would monitor the new security measures and stop shipments again if workers felt unsafe. Mario Carrera, a regional prosecutor in the northern region of Arica y Parinacota, told reporters that the gangs were looking to take the copper overseas. "We're evidently in the presence of organized crime," he said. "In this (recent) case the copper was going to Peru, we think that after that, based on what we've investigated, it would go to Asia, China, Korea or other countries." (Reporting by Alexander Villegas; Additional reporting by Natalia Ramos and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Gov. J.B. Pritzkers extraordinary call last month that two fellow Democrats resign from the Illinois Senate one for alleged bribery and the other over accusations he acted inappropriately toward women underscores two major questions that for years have plagued Springfield. First, will corruption in Illinois politics ever reach an end point? And second, will the culture in the states capital that five years ago triggered a series of #MeToo scandals ever be fully addressed? Advertisement Raising the issues in an election year, Pritzker sought to use his influence to seek the resignations of state Sens. Emil Jones III, who is accused of taking a $5,000 bribe tied to a red-light camera firm, and Michael Hastings, who has faced accusations of domestic abuse from his then-wife. Neither man has stepped down. On corruption, both Pritzker and Republican challenger Darren Bailey suggested action next year might be taken in the General Assembly even though neither offered anything close to a substantive plan during their recent debate. Bailey said more transparency and cutting benefits for lawmakers when they are charged with crimes rather than convicted would solve it, and Pritzker offered even fewer specifics when he said more should be done while acknowledging three ethics reform packages hes signed into law havent been enough. Advertisement On addressing the lingering issues of harassment and bad behavior in Springfield, one veteran Chicago Democrat said this week shes pushing for an anti-bullying law that would be added to the ban on sexual harassment and mandated training for lawmakers, staff and lobbyists that were put in place following the #MeToo scandals that began in 2017. State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz said she intends to propose legislation as soon as the lame-duck period before a new legislative session begins in mid-January. She said bullying happens as much if not more than sexual harassment in Springfield, and that more needs to be done to address the statehouse atmosphere and workplaces throughout Illinois. It gets complicated under the dome, said Feigenholtz, pointing to the Capitol environment. It gets very complicated. Another Democratic senator said that since the #MeToo reckoning at the state Capitol there seems to be less actual sexual kind of aggression. But there is still bullying behavior, said the lawmaker, who asked not to be named. Its aggressive power behavior, and that definitely is directed more at women than it is at men. The two stubborn issues loom over the General Assembly despite warning signs that arose around House Speaker Michael Madigan for years, from conflicts of interest that the Tribune identified a decade ago in its Madigan Rules series to sexual harassment scandals that rocked the Chicago Democrat five years ago to the federal indictments against Madigan in the ComEd bribes-for-favors probe. While Pritzker magnified the political crisis by calling for the resignations, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park did not join the governor in asking the two members of his overwhelming 41-18 Democratic majority caucus to resign. The two senators did give up unpaid posts on Harmons leadership team. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 10 State Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, presents cemetery reform legislation before the Senate Executive Committee at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on Dec. 13, 2011. He has held his seat since 2009. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) Jones, the son of former Senate President Emil Jones Jr., is running unopposed for reelection. He allegedly accepted a $5,000 bribe from a red-light camera company executive in exchange for killing legislation that went against the firms interests. He has pleaded not guilty. Jones became the ninth recent member of the Illinois General Assembly to be charged with federal crimes in the past three years. That list includes five of Jones former colleagues in the Senate Democrats Martin Sandoval of Chicago, Thomas Cullerton of Villa Park, Terry Link of Vernon Hills, Annazette Collins of Chicago and Sam McCann of Plainview, a onetime Republican who ran for governor in 2018 under the Conservative Party banner as well as Madigan and ex-state Reps. Luis Arroyo and Eddie Acevedo, all of Chicago. The Tribune has also reported that Democratic state Rep. Thaddeus Jones of Calumet City is under federal investigation, and Democratic state Sen. Elgie Sims of Chicago was approached by federal authorities investigating potential influence peddling. Advertisement Sen. Michael Hastings speaks during a discussion on health care at a Senate hearing at the Illinois Capitol building in Springfield on April 7, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) Hastings, who faces Republican challenger Patrick Sheehan of Lockport, has disputed accusations of bad behavior and has not been charged with a crime. Separately, records from the Illinois comptrollers office show the state paid nearly $150,000 to settle and cover costs of a 2019 lawsuit brought by Hastings former female chief of staff, who alleged retaliation as well as race and gender discrimination. Hastings also has received criticism from longtime Springfield lobbyist Jennifer Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. She told the Tribune that during negotiations on several occasions over the last five years Hastings became extremely hostile and flashed hair-trigger anger. Hed be fine, hed be fine, hed be fine. Hed blow up, Walling recalled. He would do things like stand up, get in your face, pound on tables, etc. So it was a very uncomfortable negotiation. Hastings spokesman Ray Hanania said the senator denies such behavior with women, adding that the accusations are a cheap shot and that the use of allegations arising from his divorce proceedings amounted to playing politics. But the accusations against Hastings underscore concerns that a problem persists in Springfield despite all the talk in the Capitol about not tolerating behavior that some consider out of bounds. Feigenholtz said employees should be protected from non-sexual harassment and a hostile work environment harassment, problems she calls pervasive everywhere, including Springfield. Advertisement Perhaps most telling is that Feigenholtz still sees a need for more safeguards even as the General Assembly approaches the five-year anniversary of former Speaker Madigan holding a hearing on Halloween 2017 for the anti-sexual harassment bill that ultimately passed. [ Illinois general election 2022: A guide for voters on the midterms, including where to vote, key dates and highest-profile issues ] That hearing took place only days after an open letter began circulating around Springfield that outlined the Capitols often demeaning conditions for women. And during the hearing, a victims advocate accused then-Sen. Ira Silverstein, a Democrat from Chicago, of sexual harassment. Maryann Loncar, left, and victim rights advocate Denise Rotheimer hold a news conference in 2018 in Springfield during which Loncar alleged abuse by state Rep. Lou Lang. An investigation cleared Lang. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Denise Rotheimer, an activist for victims of violent crime, testified Silverstein made unwanted comments about her appearance, including describing her as intoxicating, called her at midnight and sent her hundreds of Facebook messages. The episode exposed how Rotheimers complaints, and those from dozens of others about bad behavior in Springfield, languished because lawmakers had allowed the legislative inspector general position to stay vacant for years. While a special legislative watchdog determined Silverstein did not engage in sexual harassment but did behave in a manner unbecoming of a legislator, Rotheimer charged that the system was rigged to protect lawmakers and feared women would be discouraged from turning in lawmakers if they only get a slap on the hand. Silverstein eventually lost his reelection bid. The #MeToo accusations got closer to Madigan in February 2018 when campaign worker Alaina Hampton accused Madigan lieutenant Kevin Quinn of sexual harassment and released to the Tribune a string of inappropriate text messages he sent during a period in which he was giving her political assignments. [ Speaker Madigan cuts political worker loose over inappropriate advances to campaign worker ] Madigan ousted Quinn, the brother of 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, but Hampton sued Madigans political organizations, charging she was blackballed for reporting the misbehavior. She later reached a $275,000 settlement the bulk of which went to lawyers. Weeks after Hampton first came forward, Madigan kicked out of his political organization a former legislative staffer who was accused by a female lawmaker of abusive behavior during campaign activities. Advertisement Even though Madigan acknowledged he should have done more to address the overall dynamics, he dismissed questions about whether a culture of inappropriate behavior flourished on his watch, saying at the leadership level we dont tolerate inappropriate behavior, we just dont tolerate it. But just before and after the spring legislative session ended in 2018, two others close to Madigan were hit with accusations. State Rep. Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie, was accused by a marijuana advocate of sexual harassment. Though Lang stepped down as a deputy majority leader, he denied the claims and later said an investigation by the legislative inspector general vindicated him. The IG closed the case, noting the preponderance of the evidence did not support the allegations. Langs accuser, Maryann Loncar, chose not to participate and called the probe a joke. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 14 Timothy Mapes, former chief of staff to House Speaker Michael Madigan, departs the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse after a hearing in his federal perjury case on Oct. 13, 2022. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) Less than a week later, Tim Mapes, one of Madigans closest aides, also was accused of sexual harassment after a clerk who helped track legislation, Sherri Garrett, said he oversaw a culture of sexism, harassment and bullying that creates an extremely difficult working environment. Mapes who was Madigans chief of staff in the House, the House clerk and the executive director of the state Democratic Party that Madigan headed was out of all three jobs within hours of the allegations even though Mapes denied them. Mapes appeared in court Thursday on unrelated charges of lying to a federal grand jury in the ComEd scandal. Hes pleaded not guilty. An outside investigation commissioned by Madigan and released in 2019 by former federal prosecutor Maggie Hickey found sexual harassment, bullying and fear of retaliation for speaking out was prevalent in the Capitol. While chastising Mapes, Hickey also uncovered a purported culture of negative treatment that faced people who were perceived to challenge Speaker Madigan on any issue. Advertisement Madigan, pointing to changes hed made, said he had improved protections for victims of harassment in both my office and across my political organizations and that he was committed to ensuring that anyone who reports a complaint is protected, they are treated fairly and that everyone has a safe and welcoming environment. But behind the scenes a starkly different narrative raised questions about Madigans sincerity. While Madigan publicly distanced himself from Kevin Quinn after he was ousted for his harassing texts to Hampton, Madigans allies were working to help raise money for Quinn by giving him contracts with utility lobbyists, the Tribune reported. A Madigan spokeswoman at the time said the speaker was not part of an effort to help Quinn, but federal prosecutors earlier this year released records that Madigan knew about the payments ahead of time. [ Feds investigating $10,000 in checks from ComEd lobbyists to ousted Madigan operative ] In an email this week, Hampton said Pritzkers decision to call for a resignation is an indicator that elected officials are being more proactive in taking harassment and bullying claims seriously, calling it a vast improvement from when Madigan was in power, and said Feigenholtzs anti-bullying proposal is a great start. However, said Hampton, who is now studying global affairs at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, there is always room for improvement. Often the changes made to legislation are only a Band-Aid when our legislators should be finding the root of the problem and demanding more ethical and appropriate behavior from their colleagues at all times. We shouldnt only be looking for solutions when serious allegations are made. We should constantly seek ways to improve workplace safety. In last weeks debate, Bailey and Pritzker acknowledged criminal cases and ethics questions continually dog Springfield. Advertisement We start electing honorable men and women, and we get rid of this problem, Bailey said. He blamed the Democrat-dominated Capitol with failing to act decisively: In a Democrat supermajority and under Gov. Pritzker, has anything been done? Nope. In turn, Pritzker said laws need improvement every year to prevent ethics violations but said Jones had been held accountable by the laws on the books, though not noting Jones was charged under federal, not state, law. Senate Republican leader Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods has called the governor hypocritical because his failure to lead enables corruption to permeate the state. His GOP troops have unsuccessfully sought to expand a series of state laws, including adding bribery and official misconduct to charges that could be incorporated in a racketeering case. Despite experiencing toxic and abusive behavior over the years, Walling said Springfields overall atmosphere is better than five years ago when the #MeToo movement first shook the Capitol. I do think that things are improving, Walling said, but it is still not where it needs to be. rlong@chicagotribune.com Advertisement dpetrella@chicagotribune.com @RayLong @PetrellaReports How can you spend 24 hours in Black-owned Cartagena? A trip to Colombia isnt complete without visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cartagena. Cartagena is a port city located on the northern coast of Colombia, facing the stunning Caribbean Sea. Known for its pristine beaches, historic landmarks, Caribbean nightlife, and mouthwatering cuisine, Cartagena is a popular destination for tourists and locals alike. Gone are the days when Cartagena was known for being the capital of a drug cartel today, the city is a thriving tourism hotspot. Another reason to visit Cartagena is its unique and vibrant blend of cultures. Cartagena was once the largest slave port in the Americas, which created an interesting Afro-Colombian mix of traditions and culture in the city. African influences run deep throughout Cartagena. So while youre there be sure to invest your time exploring the Black pride and magic of the city. From hotels to landmarks, Cartagena has its own unique flavor and its unique infusion of African culture has made it a must-visit for Black travelers all over the world. Here are some ways to embrace the Black culture prevalent in this Latin American city and how to spend 24 hours in Black-owned Cartagena. Stay at Downtown Cartagenas First Black-Owned Hotel As Travel Noire previously reported, Shawn Roseburgh is the owner of Casa Noirreportedly the first and only Black-owned hotel in downtown Cartagena. The Harlem native opened the hotel after falling in love with the vibrant city of Cartagena, where he wanted to bring more Black culture and heritage to the city. During your stay make sure to check out Roseburghs mural celebrating Cartagenas African roots. He commissioned local artists to create the stunning mural and he now has a website for selling and promoting local artists and their work. Take a Tour With a Local Black-Owned Tour Company Experience Cartagena the authentic way with the guidance of experienced tour guides. Taking a Black-owned tour while in this Colombian city is a great way to learn about and appreciate Cartegenas African history and culture. Story continues One of the more popular tour guide experiences is with the Black-owned travel agency, Experience the Real Cartagena. Alex Rocha, the owner of Experience the Real Cartagena, told Travel Noire that he launched the company after realizing that many locals and tourists didnt know about Black culture in Colombia. With nine different tours around the city, Experience the Real Cartagena has something to offer every traveler looking for a genuine way to spend time in Cartagena. Visit the Town Founded by Escaped Enslaved People Palenque de San Basilio is a town located about an hour from Cartagena that was founded by escaped slaves in the 17th century. Palenques historical roots have made it a unique destination full of African culture, traditions, music, art, food, and more. Walk the streets of Palenque and take in the vibrant colors of the citys buildings as well as the brightly-patterned clothing worn by the locals. Indulge your senses in the interesting language of Palenque, which consists of several influences like French, Spanish, English, Portuguese, and African Bantu languages. And while fewer than half of residents actually still speak Palenquero, there are efforts to preserve the language. Palenque was even named one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO because of Palenquero and the villages one-of-a-kind culture. Buy Tropical Treats From the Palenqueras While in Palenque, you must purchase something from the towns palenqueras. These are the women youll see balancing bowls of fruit, sweets, and other goods on their heads. Its not hard to spot these women as theyre often dressed in colorful skirts, dresses, and shawls. Palenqueras are an important fixture of Colombia and they work hard to preserve and share their history and culture with locals and visitors alike. Some local treats to look out for include fresh fruits, dried fruits, sugar cane, and cakes. Take an Afro-Colombian Drum Workshop Music and dance run through the soul of Cartagena. Youre bound to hear the sounds of instruments as you stroll the streets of the city, most notably the beat of a drum will captivate your senses. Drums are a huge part of Afro-Colombian culture, so what better way to get the full experience than by taking a drum workshop? You can find classes and tours all over Cartagena promising to teach you the rhythm and sounds of Afro-Colombian music. And if you can swing it, try to visit in October when the San Basilio de Palenque Drum Festival takes place. Also known as the Festival de Tambores, the event is held over a few days and celebrates the beauty of the region through live music, dancing, food, and cultural workshops. A group launched by Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams is doling out thousands in payments to its director's family and friends who do not appear to have political experience and maintain other full-time jobs, records reviewed by Fox News Digital show. The Abrams-founded Fair Fight PAC is funneling the cash to individuals close to her longtime aide Andre Fields, who acts as the PAC's political director. When reached for comment, a Fair Fight spokesperson said they are launching an internal investigation into the matter. "Fair Fight strives to operate with the utmost integrity, as is core to our values," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "We take these matters very seriously and have initiated a comprehensive investigation. Personnel will remain on leave pending the outcome." Fields' sister, Darius Faulk, is one of the cash recipients. The Fair Fight PAC has disbursed more than $120,000 to her for training consultant services since August 2021, Federal Election Commission records show. STACEY ABRAMS' CAMPAIGN HAS SPENT OVER $1.2M ON PRIVATE SECURITY SINCE DECEMBER Faulk appears to have practically no political experience. She's worked for Hofstra University's women's basketball program since 2017, serving as its director of operations before landing a promotion to assistant coach, according to the school's athletic website. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The Fair Fight PAC has also paid Fields' close friends. In a 2019 interview with Voyage Atlanta, Fields named Asa Fludd and Cruz Alvarado among his close confidants, and both have hauled in tens of thousands of dollars from Abrams' PAC. Fludd has collected $29,800 in training consulting payments from the committee since 2021, its filings show. Her LinkedIn indicates that she also does not have experience in the political world and works in computer systems training. Alvarado, meanwhile, has also pocketed around $29,000 for training consulting in 2021 and 2022 while working in the event industry, according to her LinkedIn profile. Story continues While the three combined to receive more than $178,000 from the Fair Fight PAC for training consulting services, a search of records shows that they have not received consulting payments from other federal political committees. Abrams founded Fair Fight Action a 501(c)4 nonprofit in 2018 to address voter suppression in the wake of her loss to now-Governor Brian Kemp. Fair Fight Action's operation expanded in 2019 to include a political arm in the form of Fair Fight PAC. GEORGE SOROS PROVIDES ANOTHER $1M BOOST TO STACEY ABRAMS' CANDIDACY Stacey Abrams, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, speaks during a campaign event in Reynolds, Georgia, US, on Saturday, June 4, 2022. Abrams will face Georgia governor Brian Kemp in the general election on November 8, 2022. Since 2018, the Fair Fight network has helped Abrams lay the groundwork for her second run against Kemp for the governor's mansion. The Fair Fight PAC paid Atlanta-based private security company Executive Protection Agencies (EPA Security) over $550,000 between July 2021 and November 2021 and more than $1.2 million over the course of the year, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Abrams faced some fire over the private security payments, with critics citing her opposition to the "privatization of justice" and past support for gun control and the defund-the-police movement. The campaign has been an uphill battle for Abrams as she trails behind Kemp in the polls, and the national attitude toward Democrats is sour. STACEY ABRAMS RECEIVED SIX-FIGURE INCOME FROM MYSTERIOUS CORPORATE ENTITY Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams speaks to supporters and members of the Rabun County Democrats group on July 28, 2022, in Clayton, Georgia. Abrams is running against current Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. The election is to be held on November 8, 2022. A September Fox News poll showed Kemp leading Abrams by seven points, with independent voters breaking for the Republican incumbent by 12 points. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Georgia Democrat refused to concede the race to Kemp and accused him of engaging in voter suppression while overseeing the election as secretary of state. However, Abrams has admitted she has "no empirical evidence" to prove the allegations. Stanford University is apologizing for its efforts to limit admission of Jewish students over 60 years ago. On Wednesday, university president Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced recent findings from a task force report showed "parents and friends of applicants, alumni, outside investigators, and trustees" were regularly misled when asked about the prestigious school's admission practices. A 1953 memo written by Fred Glover, the assistant to then-president Wallace Sterling, stated that accepting applicants from Beverly Hills and Fairfax high schools in Los Angeles would lead to "a flood of Jewish applications" the next admissions cycle. Both schools reportedly had Jewish student populations of 95% to 98% at the time, The report then stated that admissions director Rixford Snyder ended recruitment at the two high schools. It was not noted if the university took similar actions with other high schools. JEWISH GROUPS BLAST DC COUNCILMEMBER FOR PRAISING FARRAKHAN: SOUGHT TO 'HONOR' AN 'OUT-AND-OUT BIGOT' Tessier-Lavinge sent out a university-wide memo denouncing the former practices, calling them "saddening and deeply troubling." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "On behalf of Stanford University I wish to apologize to the Jewish community, and to our entire university community, both for the actions documented in this report to suppress the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s and for the universitys denials of those actions in the period that followed," the memo read. "These actions were wrong. They were damaging. And they were unacknowledged for too long. Today, we must work to do better, not only to atone for the wrongs of the past, but to ensure the supportive and bias-free experience for members of our Jewish community that we seek for all members of our Stanford community." STANFORD UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEE DRAGGED INTO BASEMENT AND RAPED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT The task force findings led to recommendations for the university going forward focusing on two categories: "acknowledge and apologize" and "explore, educate, and enforce." Story continues In conjunction with the task force recommendations, and as stated in Tessier-Lavignes letter, the university plans to "publicly acknowledge and apologize for actions to suppress Jewish admissions and mislead people who asked about them." The university also plans to enhance Jewish life on campus by doing the following things: conducting a comprehensive study to address the needs of the community, addressing bias against Jewish people through inclusivity trainings and programs, enforcing a 2019 resolution asking the university to recognize antisemitism on campus, aligning the academic calendar to accommodate Jewish holidays, accommodating students' religious and cultural needs in housing and dining, and clarifying the university's relationship with Stanford Hillel, which is the largest independent organization at Stanford that serves the Jewish students on campus. Stanford presented the complete findings of the task force's report during the History of Jewish Admissions and Experience on Thursday. A livestream of the event can be viewed here. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The task force was made up of faculty, staff, trustees, alumni, and students of Stanford University. Elon Musk at a press conference on August 25 The idea of deploying the Starlink network over Ukraine was not Elon Musks, but the Pentagons, Levin told Radio NV. The covered area was only the territory controlled by Ukraine, the Israeli officer said. Since Ukraine has been rapidly liberating large territories, which were controlled by Russias forces only yesterday, they simply dont have Starlink coverage. Thats it. The Americans did not want Russians to be able to use Starlink technology. Thats why its important to broaden the area of its coverage. How? I cant answer this from a technical point of view, I am no Starlink expert. This issue is in no way connected with any conspiracy or Musks delusions about Crimea, Levin added. Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder, published a series of tweets on Oct. 3, suggesting the most likely way to reach peace between Russia and Ukraine. He proposed his followers to vote on the following scenario: Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchevs mistake). Water supply to Crimea assured. Ukraine remains neutral. This caused a massive scandal, which followed by Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyys response on Twitter with another vote: Which Elon Musk do you like more? One who supports Ukraine One who supports Russia After backlash on Twitter, Musk tried to back down. In response to Zelenskyys tweet, he wrote: I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. Then, on Oct. 6, Musk caused outrage in Ukraine again when he tweeted a map of the electoral mood of Ukrainians based on the results of the 2012 parliamentary elections. According to it, the majority of districts, especially located in the east and south of the country, voted for the pro-Russian Party of Regions. A little less for the Motherland party, which won votes in the central and western regions. Story continues Musk implied that the decade-old election results indicated that there is now widespread support in Ukraine for parts of the country being annexed by Russia which is false. UK newspaper the Financial Times reported disruptions in Starlink work at the frontline on Oct. 7. Musk also rejected a request from Ukraine to connect the Starlink satellite Internet system to territories occupied by Russia, in particular in Crimea, Insider reported, citing analyst and president of Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer. Elon Musk's company SpaceX has now informed the Pentagon that it can no longer finance the critical satellite services of Starlink systems in Ukraine, CNN reported on Oct. 13. So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Oct. 14 that the operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year. In response to a tweet about this by political technologist and political analyst Jason Jay Smart, Musk said that he follows the advice of the former ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, Andrii Melnyk. In his response to Musks peace proposal for Ukraine, Melnyk said: F**k you my very diplomatic answer to you, Elon Musk. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Claret Asset Management, an asset management firm, published its third quarter 2022 investor letter a copy of which can be downloaded here. According to the fund, higher interest rates will eventually act as a brake to this economy on steroids that is mainly funded through extreme fiscal largesse and printed money by central banks. The fund invests in companies with real business models that are well-run, have great prospects, and generate positive cash flows for the foreseeable future. Try to spare some time to check the fund's top 5 holdings for you to have an idea about their best stock picks this 2022. In its Q3 2022 investor letter, Claret Asset Management mentioned Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1856, Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) is a Zurich, Switzerland-based investment banking company with an $11.7 billion market capitalization. Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) delivered a -53.01% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -57.14%. The stock closed at $4.53 per share on October 13, 2022. Here is what Claret Asset Management has to say about Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) in its Q3 2022 investor letter: "We also mention that before the bear market is over, we could witness some sort of credit event. Credit Suisse could be one of them. It is almost unthinkable that a Swiss giant in finance can manage to destroy itself through speculative and dumb decisions/acquisitions made by incompetent management throughout the 90s and the 2000s. Shareholders paid a hefty price, having witnessed a stock price of CHF 65 in 2007 diving toward todays CHF 4. Then again, anything can happen in finance, especially when stupidity is compounded by over Leverage and il Liquidity, the same L squared we mentioned in the last letter." pichetw/Shutterstock.com Our calculations show that Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) fell short and didnt make it on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) was in 9 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2022, compared to 10 funds in the previous quarter. Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) delivered a -13.88% return in the past 3 months. Story continues In April 2022, we also shared another hedge funds views on Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) in another article. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2022 Q3 page. Suggested Articles: Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Samir Hussein/Getty Bill Murray is an undeniable comedy legend. According to a bunch of disturbing stories emerging about him in recent days, weeks and months, he might also be an all-time terrible co-worker. The floodgates seemed to have opened following new revelations about what went down on the set of Aziz Ansaris directorial debut Being Mortal, which had its production shut down earlier this year after Murray allegedly sexually harassed a member of the production staff. The much younger woman reportedly received north of $100,000 in a settlement from Murray, who sources say got on top of her and started kissing her through their masks in what he considered to be a funny joke and she obviously did not. What I always thought was funny as a little kid isnt necessarily the same as whats funny now, Murray said in an interview at the time. Things change and the times change so its important for me to figure it out. Bill Murray on the Bright Side of the Pandemic and Inventing Shotgun Golf With Hunter S. Thompson But if the below stories from his co-stars and other celebrities who he interacted with over the years backstage at Saturday Night Live and elsewhere are to be believed, he has been making people uncomfortable for quite a long time. Dan Aykroyd didnt nickname him The Murricane for no good reason. Geena Davis: I Should Have Walked Out In her new memoir Dying of Politeness, Geena Davis recalls the traumatizing experience of working with Murray on 1990s Quick Change, including his insistence on using an electric massager called the Thumper on her during their very first meeting in a hotel suite for what was ostensibly her audition and later screamed at her for supposedly being late in front of the entire cast and crew. That was bad, Davis told The Times (London). The way he behaved at the first meeting I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldnt have got the part. I could have avoided that treatment if Id known how to react or what to do during the audition. But, you know, I was so non-confrontational that I just didnt Story continues Rob Schneider: He Hated Us You dont know who you're gonna get, which Bill Murray youre gonna get, SNL alum Rob Schneider said this week on SiriusXM's Jim Norton & Sam Roberts. The nice Bill Murray? Or youre gonna get the tough Bill Murray? He recalled the awful experience of being in the cast when Murray hosted around the release of Groundhog Day in 1993. Hes super nice to fans. He wasnt very nice to us, Schneider said. He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething." He hated Chris Farley with a passion, Schneider continued. "Like he was just seething looking at him. I dont know exactly [why], but I want to believe that its because Chris thought it was cool to be [John] Belushiwho [was] his friend who he saw diethat he thought it was cool to be that out of control. Thats my interpretation, but I dont really know. You just saw the way he looked at [Farley], and it was just naked rage, you know? he said later. I mean, he hated [Adam] Sandler. Really hated Sandler, too. Schneider also said that the least of the hate was to me, adding, I took great pleasure in that he hated me less, because hes my hero. How The Bear Helped Abby Elliott Leave SNL Pressure Behind Seth Green: I Was Horrified Actor Seth Green was just 9 years old when he said he encountered Murrays wrath. It was also backstage at SNL, where the young Green was making a guest spot, that he remembered Murray made a big fuss about him sitting in his seat. And I was like, That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly eff off, Green said. And he was like, Thats my chair. When Green stubbornly refused to get up, he said Murray picked me up by my ankles, held me upside down dangled me over a trash can and he was like, The trash goes in the trash can. And I was screaming, and I swung my arms, flailed wildly, full contact with his balls. He dropped me in the trash can, the trash can falls over. I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room and just cried. Lucy Liu: I Stood Up for Myself, and I Dont Regret It Last summer, Lucy Liu opened up about her confrontation with Murray on the set of their 2000 film Charlies Angels during an episode of the Los Angeles Times Asian Enough podcast. As were doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I wont get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on. I was, like, Wow, he seems like hes looking straight at me, Liu recalled. I couldnt believe that [the comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time? I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, Im so sorry. Are you talking to me? and clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication. Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it, she continued. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I dont regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, theres no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have. Despite their on-set fight, Liu said she has nothing against Bill Murray at all and was perfectly nice when they ran into each other years later at an SNL reunion. But Im not going to sit there and be attacked. How Many of Bill Murrays Urban Legends Are True? Damn Near All of Them. Anjelica Huston: He Was a Shit to Me Despite both being essential parts of Wes Andersons ever-evolving ensemble, Anjelica Huston and Murray did not get along on set. He was a shit to me on Life Aquatic, she told Vulture a few years ago. The first week I was there, we were all in this little hotel, and he invited the entire cast to go and have dinner, except me. And everyone came down for dinner, a little dog-faced about my not being invited, and they were all like, Oh, you know, we dont really want to go. That was worse than anything. She added, I was really hurt. And then I think we met again in Florence, because that movie was shot all over Italy, and we were doing a scene at Gore Vidals house in Ravello, and he said, Hey, howve you been? I missed you. I said, Youre full of shit. You didnt miss me. He looked all confused for a moment. Hes been a little nicer to me since. He showed up at my husbands funeral. He couldnt have been nicer that day. He showed up. A lot of people didnt. Lorne Michaels: They Got Into a Fight In a recent appearance on Dana Carvey and David Spades Fly on the Wall podcast, SNL producer Lorne Michaels confirmed the long-held rumor that Murray and Chevy Chase got into a fist fight backstage during the shows second season. They got into a fight. And John [Belushi] provoked it a little bit, Michaels said. It was probably my mistake because I was bringing Chevy back to host but it was just a season and a half after he left, but it just made sense. They got into a skirmish in front of the page desk, and then Chevy had to go out and do the monologue. Given Chases own controversial past, however, its hard to know whether Murray was really to blame for this one. For more, listen and subscribe to The Last Laugh podcast. 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. On Wednesday morning, Sandy Gilson noticed four political signs, including one supporting Senate candidate John Fetterman, missing from her front lawn the second time in two weeks this had happened. When Gilson, a longtime resident of Tredyffrin Township, an affluent Philadelphia suburb where she serves as a committee member for her precinct, drove around her neighborhood, she noticed more signs all supporting Democrats ahead of next months midterm elections gone too. But when she decided to file a report with the local police department, the cops already knew where her signs would be in a large commercial dumpster behind a strip mall in the area. How? Because someone had put an Apple AirTag on one of the signs. The signs were found after a resident notified our officers of the location of the AirTag, Lt. Tyler Moyer of the Tredyffrin Township Police Department told BuzzFeed News. The dumpster contained more than 100 stolen political signs, all supporting Democratic candidates or progressive causes like reproductive rights and Black Lives Matter. Police said they are combing through video footage near the dumpster but have yet to identify a suspect. AirTags, Apples tracking devices that look like small, white pucks, broadcast Bluetooth signals to nearby Apple devices, allowing owners to locate them (and anything they are attached to) on a map. Since Apple released AirTags in 2021, people have used the trackers to find missing bags, keys, and pets. AirTags have proved controversial, because they have also been used to stalk unsuspecting victims. Using AirTag technology on political lawn signs seems to be catching on. Earlier this year, a candidate in Florida tracked a stolen campaign sign to the house of a political rival thanks to an AirTag. Arlene Talley, Gilsons friend and a member of the Chester County Democratic Committee who also had signs stolen from her front lawn, was one of the first to show up at the dumpster after Gilson passed its location on to her. Inside, Talley found 118 signs. I just started taking them out and putting them in my car, Talley told BuzzFeed News. Story continues Among the candidates whose signs were swiped was Pennsylvania state Rep. Melissa Shusterman, who is running for reelection. Kudos to the technology of an AirTag! Shusterman told BuzzFeed News in a phone call, not long after tweeting a picture of the signs in the dumpster and accusing local Republicans of stealing them. Local Republicans thought they could throw away @JoshShapiroPA, @HoulahanForPa, and my signs without getting caught. Luckily a community member put an airtag in one the signs and it led us to this dumpster. 03:19 PM - 12 Oct 2022 When asked about her claim that Republicans were behind the thefts, Shusterman demurred. Right now its in the hands of our local police, she said. So I think its really up to them to figure that out. Its someone who is a cheater or someone whos not interested in doing things fairly. It is unfortunate that Representative Melissa Shusterman decided to try to score political points with this issue by using highly charged and divisive rhetoric and pointing blame at local Republicans, said Raffi Terzian, chairman of the Republican Party of Chester Country in a statement to BuzzFeed News. He condemned the thefts and added that the party had also received reports of stolen and vandalized Republican signs. Another fact of the case that isnt clear yet: exactly who put the AirTag on the sign. Police declined to disclose the residents identity to BuzzFeed News. This person obviously had signs stolen before, Gilson said. So putting an AirTag on was pretty smart. Talley, one of the first people who found the signs in the dumpster, uses AirTags herself. She has them on her keys and her dog, and said that she also throws one in her suitcase when she travels. Would she put one on a lawn sign? Frankly, I dont know, she said. Theyre $30 each. More on this UPDATE Oct. 14, 2022, at 19:25 PM The Daily Beast Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared Tuesday that there is no need to maintain a diplomatic presence in western countries, in the latest sign that Russia may be toying with the idea of completely severing diplomatic ties with western countries as its war in Ukraine nears the nine month mark.There is neither point nor desire to maintain the previous presence in Western states. Our people work there in conditions that can hardly be called human, Lavrov said, acco By Anna Ringstrom and Simon Johnson STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -The leader of Sweden's Moderates, Ulf Kristersson, said on Friday he aimed to form a three-party minority government with support from the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats after the right-wing bloc won a majority in last month's election. The new government plans to cut taxes, begin the process for building new nuclear power plants, cap benefits, tighten immigration rules and give police more powers as part of a policy deal with the Sweden Democrats. "Change is not only necessary, change is also possible, and we four parties together can offer that change," Kristersson, 58, told reporters . Now Sweden's largest right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats' ability to shape policy marks a huge shift in politics and would have been unthinkable less then a decade ago. Then, no party would have anything to do with the Sweden Democrats, which has its historical roots in the white supremacist fringe. But leader Jimmie Akesson's message that most of Sweden's ills are a result of decades of over-generous immigration policies and a failure to integrate "new Swedes" has struck a chord with voters, making it all but impossible for the right-wing bloc to govern without his party's support. "For us in the Sweden Democrats... a change of power also has to mean a paradigm shift regarding immigration and integration policy," Akesson told the news conference. The new government will make it harder for new immigrants to get benefits while the overseas aid target of 1% of gross national income will be replaced by a fixed sum. Police will be able to take tougher measures against criminal gangs and sentences for gang crimes will be longer. TROUBLE AHEAD? Kristersson will face a confirmation vote on Monday which he is almost certain to pass. But his party's junior status could make governing over the next four years extremely difficult. He will have to rely on both the Sweden Democrats and Liberals, who disagree strongly on many policies. Either could pull the plug on Kristersson's government. Story continues Measures to address climate change need to be thrashed and holes in the welfare system exposed by the pandemic need to be plugged. A planned surge in defence spending has to be financed. Sweden is in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and could be heading for recession next year, while Russia's war in Ukraine has destabilised the Baltic region - Sweden's backyard. Turkey could still block Sweden's application to join NATO. In the election on Sept. 11, the right-wing bloc secured a slim majority, winning 176 seats in the 349-member parliament. The Sweden Democrats won 20.5% of the vote in September, against 19.1% for the Moderates. (Reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Simon Johnson, editing by Terje Solsvik and Gareth Jones) (Bloomberg) -- Swedens nationalists won major concessions on crime and immigration from the countrys incoming minority government even after failing to secure seats in the cabinet unveiled on Friday. Most Read from Bloomberg Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the Moderates and incoming prime minister, said that the coalition taking over from Magdalena Anderssons Social Democrats will include ministers from his own and two smaller parties, relying on backing from the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats. The government will work closely with Sweden Democrats in parliament, and the party will have a coordination office that will allow its staff to work with government employees, he told reporters in Stockholm. The announcement caps weeks of negotiations within the four-party constellation that won a majority of seats in parliament in the Sept. 11 election, and is based on an agreement that promises the nationalists, the second-largest political group, considerable political concessions in exchange for their support. Kristersson managed to hammer out a deal after winning a two-day extension on Wednesday to wrap up the talks. Negotiations on the makeup and agenda of the new government have been complicated by tensions between the Sweden Democrats, led by Jimmie Akesson, and the smaller Liberal Party, which has sought to limit their influence. Still, the process was much faster than in 2018, when it took four months to form a government as Swedens traditional political blocs imploded following the emergence of the Sweden Democrats, which fragmented the electoral landscape. Shunned by all mainstream political groups until their showing in the election four years ago, the Sweden Democrats in September surpassed Kristerssons Moderates to become the second-largest force in parliament, after the traditionally dominant Social Democrats. Story continues In a 62-page document, the coalition parties laid out plans for seven policy areas, including immigration and crime. Even if we are not part of the cabinet, we will be part of the process on those issues, as if we were a government party, Akesson said. The agreement includes radical cuts to Swedens acceptance of quota refugees, as well as proposals that would make it easier to expel immigrants found guilty of crimes and limit access to welfare services for people migrating from countries outside of the European Union. Read More: Swedish Nationalist Set to Take His Party From Pariah to Power The nationalist partys emergence has tracked the Nordic countrys growing difficulties of integrating immigrants, with gang-related violence and crime taking over in past years as the driver of the Sweden Democrats support. The three government parties also agreed to implement a number of reforms on crime pushed for by the Sweden Democrats. They include allowing stop-and-frisk policing in designated areas, double sentencing for gang-related crimes and a new punishment without time limits for high-risk offenders. On security policy, Akessons party has largely mirrored the thinking of its more mainstream partners even as it was a late-comer to back Swedish NATO membership. The government plans to continue working with the opposition on the accession process, Kristersson said. Akesson, who touted the agreement as a paradigm shift for Swedens immigration policy, also told reporters that while he would have preferred to get seats in the cabinet, the deal entailed considerable wins for his party. We will be able to show our voters that their votes will make a real difference, and that has been crucial to us, he said. (Updates with comments from nationalist leader from eighth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. CHICAGO AT&T Illinois has agreed to pay a $23 million fine as part of a federal criminal investigation into the companys illegal efforts to influence former House Speaker Michael Madigan. The investigation of AT&T Illinois, which was previously reported by the Tribune earlier this year, is being resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement under which the company admitted it arranged for payments to be made to an ally of Madigan to influence the powerful speakers efforts to assist with legislation sought by the company in Springfield. In exchange for admitting guilt and paying a $23 million fine, the charge will be dropped by the U.S. Attorneys Office in two years. AT&T has previously acknowledged is under scrutiny by the U.S. attorneys office as part of the investigation into Madigans political operation. In February, AT&T disclosed in a regulatory filing that federal prosecutors had notified them they were considering filing criminal charges against its Illinois subsidiary, formally known as Illinois Bell Telephone Co. LLC, involving a single, nine-month consulting contract in 2017 worth $22,500. State records show the company that year had hired a stable of Madigan-connected lobbyists working for the Illinois subsidiary as AT&T was fighting for a controversial bill to end landline service. The Tribune reported that investigators were specifically looking at thousands of dollars in payments allegedly passed to former state Rep. Edward Acevedo, a onetime member of Madigans leadership team whod recently left the General Assembly. The payments to Acevedo were made via a lobbying contract between AT&T and Thomas Cullen, a former Madigan staffer and longtime political strategist aligned with the speaker, two sources told the newspaper. Acevedo was a registered lobbyist at the time, state records show, but not for AT&T, and the sources said the amount of work Acevedo actually did for AT&T is in question. ____ A Tallahassee woman charged with stabbing a stranger at a McDonald's was found not guilty by a judge for reasons of insanity. Alexis Cutler was found not guilty of attempted murder and kidnapping because a judge found she experienced a mental break at the time of the stabbing. Judge Kevin Carroll heard from a single witness, psychologist Dr. Gregory Pritchard during the hearing. Carroll has not yet issued an order finalizing the case which will also come with a treatment plan for Cutler. The finding on Oct. 4 is a relatively rare one. National data shows that that insanity defenses are used in about 1% of all criminal cases but is only successful in about 26% of those. What happened at McDonald's: LCSO: Off-duty worker said she stabbed stranger in McDonald's because she was angry The 24-year-old was arrested in November 2019 after stabbing Bradley Gauger inside the McDonald's at the corner of Capital Circle Southwest and Tennessee Street. She entered the restaurant and got into a verbal altercation with a manager before she began to throw furniture, according to the Leon County Sheriff's Office at the time of the incident. She stabbed Gauger in the back with a knife before leaving. She later told investigators she didnt know him and stabbed him because he was angry. Cutler was represented by criminal defense attorney Tim Jansen. "We believed from the very beginning that Mrs. Cutler had mental health issues," Jansen said. "After diagnosis and treatment, shes doing very well and living as a productive member of society on South Florida. We believe, as the court found, she was not responsible because she had a mental health breakdown on the day in question." Assistant State Attorney Jon Fuchs said Cutlers case was a pretty clear one of momentary insanity. She met the statutory definition and it was determined that her state of mind at the time of the stabbing was a clear break. She met the criteria for not guilty by reason of insanity, Fuchs said. It was three weeks until she started responding to the treatment she was being given. By all accounts she was productive person however there was an issue leading up this in the same week. Story continues Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter. Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee woman found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2019 stabbing Sen. Ted Cruzs latest attempt at owning those danged libs failed miserably on Thursday when the Texas Republican fell for a tweet of a nonexistent news story supposedly published in The Atlantic. Cruz tweeted a link to what looked like an Atlantic article headlined The Evolution of White Supremacy with this subhead: In Dearborn Michigan, Muslim parents who oppose teaching pornography to children become the new face of the far right. Later, after many people pointed out that there was no such Atlantic article, Cruz deleted his tweet. The story that was the supposed subject of the tweet does have a basis in reality. A group of Muslim parents recently did object to LGBTQ books being available to students, according to the Detroit Free Press. However, the Atlantic never wrote about the controversy, and the author credited with writing the nonexistent article, Abby Ohlheiser, hasnt worked for the magazine since 2014, according to WGHP-TV. Naturally, Twitter users fact-checked Cruz post and found it fact-free. So, someone created a fake story, slapped @abbyohlheiser's byline on it even though they haven't worked at The Atlantic since 2014, which has led to a bombardment of harassment, and now a U.S. Senator is sharing said fake article. pic.twitter.com/sKTS26ENd1 Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) October 14, 2022 The image posted by Cruz is fake, not a real Atlantic article. (So: parody the senator is citing as evidence the left is beyond parody.) pic.twitter.com/JdCO1USjz5 Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 14, 2022 Some people called out the senator for deleting his tweet of the fake article without publicly admitting his mistake. Story continues Ted Cruz still has not acknowledged that he posted a doctored headline after deleting it. https://t.co/u8txK06bkn No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) October 14, 2022 When Cruz finally fessed up, he blamed a familiar scapegoat: the media. Didnt know it was fake, he wrote. You guys are so insane, it could easily have been real. Didnt know it was fake. You guys are so insane, it could easily have been real. But it wasnt. And so I deleted the tweet as soon as I found out. https://t.co/5vD8OYJgDr Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 14, 2022 Some people decided Cruz needed to be reminded of other times he spread misinformation in his unending efforts to, yes, own those libs: Its your fault Im an idiot Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) October 14, 2022 Cruz's growing paper trail of Twitter misinformation Afghanistan helicopter: https://t.co/rVDKcwFUho Mixing up Washington state w/ W. Australia: https://t.co/Or117mCFw7 Nat Guard on Martha's Vineyard https://t.co/z92YMXPkrV Ottawa protester "trampled" https://t.co/bcabcjhBv0https://t.co/nlJtNIOkwM Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 14, 2022 Well, it's a good thing you don't have a job where having a critical eye toward sharing information and whether something is real or fake could have an outsize impact on a group or in this case an individual if you aren't careful. Take care, U.S. Senator Cruz. Steve Mullis (@stevemullis) October 14, 2022 Meanwhile, the journalist Ohlheiser said having their name falsely attached to a fake news story made for a challenging day. It's for sure good and normal to wake up to dms calling you a groomer because some maga shitposter photoshopped your byline onto a fake article for a publication you haven't worked for in a decade Abby Ohlheiser (@abbyohlheiser) October 13, 2022 This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... A 13-year-old boy has been arrested in the beating death of a Los Angeles liquor store clerk and authorities seeking three other suspects. Steven Reyes, 68, was killed on Oct. 6 following a robbery outside Tonys Market in the Highland Park neighborhood. Los Angeles police officers were called to the scene where they were told four minors tried stealing various items from the store, including a case of beer. They got into a struggle with a store clerk who was trying to stop them, police said. Reyes, who also worked at the store, attempted to help his co-worker when he was hit in the head with a scooter, the LAPD said. SUSPECT IN LOS ANGELES SEXUAL ASSAULT OF TEEN GIRL ARRESTED AFTER KIDNAPPING CAUGHT ON VIDEO, POLICE SAY He was taken to a hospital where he died. "To lose your life over a case of beerits like, try to wrap your head around that," Kaycie Reyes told FOX Los Angeles of her father. "He was just trying to do the right thing, and he was at the wrong place at the wrong time." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Family members told the news outlet that Reyes was a Filipino immigrant who worked at the store a couple of nights a week to help his mother. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP He left behind four children and a grandchild. Fox News has reached out to the Reyes family. The LAPD is asking for the public's help in identifying the additional suspects a male and two females. A Cypress man charged with robbery and the murder of a Good Samaritan in a Chinatown restaurant in Cypress, Texas, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Enzo Ubadimma, 24, was convicted of capital murder and received his sentencing on Wednesday following his five-day trial. Authorities believe Ubadimma was the mastermind behind a crime ring with at least two male members and two female members that targeted Huong Giang Hue, a Vietnamese restaurant in west Houston, on New Years Day in 2016. He was a ring leader who sent masked gunmen into a family restaurant, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said on Thursday. People deserve to be safe when they sit down to celebrate a holiday meal with the people they love. According to authorities, Ubadimma, who was 18 at the time, served as the driver of the two masked men who entered the restaurant and robbed the restaurant. More from NextShark: 'Loving, Kind, Generous, Unselfish': Community Remembers Spa Owner Murdered in Atlanta Shootings He reportedly drove around the area with other members several times before the day of the crime. The two female members pretended to use the restaurants bathroom earlier that day. Story continues Herman Ray Browning, a 58-year-old Marine veteran, was eating at the restaurant with his wife and 8-year-old son when the armed shooters came in at around 8:40 p.m. on New Years Day 2016. The armed shooters forced diners to get on the floor and took their belongings and money. It was reported that Browning tried to fight them, but he was shot and killed. More from NextShark: Man fatally shot by SF police allegedly told them hospital couldn't 'help' him, 'make sure you aim' This defendant was not just a getaway driver; he masterminded the entire robbery and was the brains behind it, Assistant District Attorney Megan Long, who is part of the District Attorneys Homicide Division, said in a statement. Meanwhile, Mr. Brownings family was there to celebrate his wifes birthday, and their hopes and dreams for the New Year turned into a nightmare. Ubadimma and the two masked shooters fled the scene in a car. The three were eventually arrested, with one of them identified as Telavell Coleman, 18, and the other one a juvenile. The two women, Dadriana Holmes, 19, and Tiala Alexander, 20, were also arrested. The suspects' ages were indicated as their ages at the time of the incident. Coleman, Holmes and Alexander are all charged with capital murder. Coleman was also sentenced to life in prison without parole, while the two women and the unnamed male members cases are still pending. More from NextShark: San Francisco Man, 53, Stabbed Multiple Times in Robbery Coleman and Ubadimma were reportedly seen waving and smiling at the media during their court appearance in January 2016. Featured Image via KPRC 2 Click2Houston migrants in Martha's vineyard photo Boston Globe / Contributor/ Getty Images Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, Texas, has declared the 49 migrants flown to Martha's Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) were victims of a crime. Salazar's declaration will allow them to apply for a special visa to remain in the United States, per the Texas Tribune. "Based upon the claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this case as possible Unlawful Restraint," Salazar said in a statement to radio station WGBH. Rachel Self, a Massachusetts attorney representing the mostly Venezuelan migrants, said Salazar's decision is critical to their applications for a U visa, an immigration status reserved for migrants who are either victims of or witnesses to certain crimes on U.S. soil. Applications for these visas need to be signed by a law enforcement officer before submission to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, per Politico. Salazar's office announced it would be opening an investigation into the flights DeSantis chartered out of San Antonio on Sept. 15. Migrants reported a woman named Perla convinced them to board the planes to Massachusetts by offering them employment, housing, and education resources if they complied, the Tribune reports. DeSantis received significant backlash for transporting the migrants, a move he made to protest Biden's immigration policy. Several politicians deemed it a political ploy and urged the government to investigate. The inspector general of the Treasury Department recently announced an investigation into whether DeSantis improperly used COVID relief funds to fund the planes to Martha's Vineyard. You may also like 5 cartoons about Alex Jones' billion-dollar penalty Harvard's record endowment shrinks for 1st time since 2016 Climate protesters throw tomato soup on Van Gogh painting Texas authorities nabbed 15 illegal immigrants during a recent attempt to smuggle them into the United States as they bailed out of the vehicle and tried to flee. Dashcam and bodycam footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows an Oct. 7 vehicle chase in Kingsville between the alleged smuggler in a work truck and DPS troopers. The truck stopped on the side of a rain-slicked road and the driver is seen running away. He was wearing a white construction hat in an effort to blend in as a construction worker, a DPS spokesperson told Fox News. ACLU, LEGAL GROUPS SUING BIDEN ADMIN FOR DENYING LEGAL REPRESENTATION TO DETAINED MIGRANTS In another portion of the dashcam footage, several people are seen exiting the truck from the roof and running away. Authorities said they fled into a nearby brush. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP TEXAS HUMAN SMUGGLING BY PLANE BECOMING MORE COMMON AS MIGRANTS TRY 'TO AVOID DETECTION': BORDER OFFICIALS The footage then shows several migrants being held by troopers near the trucks. Someone is heard telling them in Spanish not to move. In total, 15 migrants were apprehended and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. No one was reported injured, DPS said. The driver of the truck was not caught. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Earlier this week, border agents discovered a group of illegal immigrants hidden inside a grain hopper rail car in Texas. The discovery was made in Hebbronville, which is about an hour's drive from the Mexican border. Concord, California has a taco trail Getty Images If all you dream about is tacos, then it's time to head to Concord, California? Yes, you read that correctly. Tucked just northeast of San Francisco sits the small city of about 130,000 residents, which also happens to be one of the world's greatest taco hot spots. Concord doesn't shy away from its love of tacos. Instead, it leans all the way in, and even created the Concord Taco Trail so you can savor the nearly 40 unique taquerias in its town boundary. "Concord is home to nearly 40 deliciously authentic, family-owned taquerias and restaurants, so fire up your taste for adventure and let the Concord Taco Trail be your guide," the town explains on its rather in-depth Concord Taco Trail website. It also takes its selection of venues to feature on the trail rather seriously, too. To be an official Concord Taco Trail stop, the website explains, venues must meet three criteria: The primary business must be Mexican food, must be located within Concord city limits, and must be a single location or one of a small number of locations. Sorry, no national chains are allowed. It further notes that many of the trail's restaurants offer cuisine made from traditional family recipes from across regions in Mexico. It includes Tortilleria El Molino and Mercado Del Sol, which both serve Michoacan-style food, Taqueria Autlan offering Yucatan specialties, and Salsa Mexican Grill and El Yahualica, which both have Jalisco favorites on their menus. There are two ways you can explore the taco trail. The first is going old-school with a printed map of every location on the trail so you can create a self-guided tour. Map of the Taco Trail in Concord, California Visit Concord The other is by going high-tech and getting the Concord Taco Trail passport, which is sent directly to your phone after signing up for free. The passport is a curated collection of the best spots and those offering exclusive discounts to passport holders. And just by signing up you're entered into a weekly raffle for prizes. One grand-prize winner, the website adds, will be selected on (or just after) Oct. 16 from all Taco Trail Passport holders residing outside of Concord. The person will receive a "Stay and Play" package, including an overnight stay at Hilton Concord, so they can come to experience the trail in person. See more about every single one of the restaurants featured on the trail, and how you can start your taco-centric adventure, on the Concord Taco Trail website here. After parting ways with the Doom Patrol, Timothy Dalton is making tracks for Montana with a role in Paramount+s upcoming Yellowstone prequel 1923, our sister site Deadline reports. The next chapter of what Paramount+ is calling Yellowstones origin story which began with the wildly popular 1883 prequel spinoff will introduce viewers to a new generation of the series central family, the Duttons. Through them, per an official description, the series will explore the early 20th century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home. More from TVLine Dalton will play Donald Whitfield, described as a powerful, self-confident man who reeks of wealth and the lack of empathy it requires to attain it. He is intimidating and nefarious and is used to getting what he wants. Prior to playing Niles The Chief Caulder on Doom Patrol, Dalton held down memorable roles on Penny Dreadful, Chuck and Doctor Who, among other series. He was also the fourth actor to play James Bond on the big screen, starring in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989). The actor joins a stacked cast of previously announced actors, led by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren; Ford will play Jacob Dutton, brother of 1883s James Dutton, and Mirren will play Jacobs wife, Cara Dutton. The cast also includes Robert Patrick (Scorpion, The X-Files), (Darren Mann (Animal Kingdom), Marley Shelton (The Lottery), James Badge Dale (24), Brian Geraghty (Big Sky), Julia Schlapfer (The Politician), Michelle Randolph (A Snow White Christmas), Brandon Sklenar (The Offer), Jermone Flynn (Game of Thrones) and relative newcomer Aminah Nieves. Story continues Will you be traveling back to 1923 for Yellowstones next chapter, set to premiere in December? Drop a comment with your thoughts on this casting below. Best of TVLine Get more from TVLine.com : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter Click here to read the full article. Heather Hutt appointment as interim council member for the 10th District. Former Council President Nury Martinez motion to appoint Heather Hutt as an interim council member for the 10th District, failed to receive the 10 votes required for a public hearing at City Hall in Los Angeles, CA., on Aug. 30, 2022. Credit - Irfan KhanLos Angeles Times/Getty Images Leaked audio recordings of racist remarks made by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinezwho resigned this weekwere a shock to the L.A. political establishment, but for many Afro-Latinos and Indigenous people from Latin America, it was a grim reminder of racism in the Latino community. Martinez, a descendant of Mexican immigrants who became the first Latina to be elected as city council president three years ago, made inflammatory comments while discussing redistricting with two other council members, saying that fellow councilmember Mike Bonins son, who is Black, looked like a monkey. She also referred to Oaxacans, people from the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, as little short dark people and ugly. Oaxaca has one of Mexicos largest Indigenous populations. The comments struck a chord in a diverse community where Latino residents make up nearly half of L.A.s population. Martinezs colleague council members Kevin de Leon, Gil Cedillo and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Chief Ron Herrera were also heard laughing and seemingly agreeing with her words in the audio. Herrera has since resigned and all of them have since apologized. But these types of comments are not unique to Martinez. In fact, experts, like Tanya K. Hernandez, author of Racial Innocence, Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality, argues that the leaked conversation is part of an ongoing racist social structure that is deeply entrenched in Latin America, despite the Latino communitys denial of such. In the United States, we have this very narrow picture of what racism means and who holds racial bias, Hernandez tells TIME. So we have this vision that its only what white Anglo English speaking people do to African-American English speakers. But this could not be farther from the truth. Story continues A legacy of colonialism The term Latino is an ethnic category, meaning that people can also belong to any one or more racial groups. Afro-Latinos, people who share both Latin and African ancestry, for instance, make up about 12% of the U.S. adult Latino population. So while the Latino community faces discrimation in many forms, racism and colorism also exists within the community. The legacy of anti-Blackness and anti-Indigenousness in the Latino community begins with the history of colonialism across the Americas, UC Berkeley sociologist G. Cristina Mora tells TIME. To think that we are part of this similar system across the Americas and that it doesnt have vestiges today is folly. Indigenous and Black communities across the diaspora have often been at the brunt of racism, as Latinos with a darker skin color report higher rates of discrimination. A recent Pew Research Center report found that Afro-Latinos, for instance, are more likely to experience discrimination, like being unfairly stopped by the authorities, than other Latinos. And Indigenous people from countries in Latin America, many of whom do not identify as Latino because they speak a native language that is not Spanish, Portuguese or Creole, may additionally confront serious language barriers that prevent equal access to social services. This often manifests in a denial of adequate care because it is difficult to access interpreters as many falsely presume that indigenous people speak Spanish. Odilia Romero, executive director and co-founder of Comunidades Indigenas En Liderazgo (CIELO), a woman-led intergenerational organization that serves Indigenous people in L.A., has seen this sort of discrimination first-hand. Just as Romeros cultural customs as a Zapotec, an Indigenous group from Oaxaca, have been passed down for generations, so too does the prejudice against Indigenous people, Romero says. [Martinezs comments] continue the language violence that indigenous people enter across the nation, Romero tells TIME. She incites hate. And this hate leads to our human rights violations. Failing to address the problem Even though Martinez has adhered to calls for her resignation, her statement falls short of adequately addressing the larger issue with her comments, scholars and community leaders say. In it, she did not apologize directly to the communities she insulted, and ended her letter saying, And last, to all little Latina girls across the cityI hope Ive inspired you to dream beyond that which you can see. But this is not the type of representation community organizers are hoping for. Romero says that if that is the sort of inspiration Martinez gives Latinos, imagine whats going to happen to us as Indigenous people and Black people. For many, Martinezs comments serve as a reminder that no place, not even the state with the most socio-economic and cultural diversity, is exempt from racism. And despite calls for increased diversity in politics, that does not always translate to anti-racist policymaking. It is important to hold leaders accountable and question whether they are the right fit for the job, even if they hold similar prescribed identities. Is it only people that look like us that can bring true justice? Mora says. Or do we need people that hold our agenda, and that truly engage in politics for our betterment? Scholars and activists say that healing for the community should first begin with recognition that Latinos can contribute to racism while also being people of color in the United States. Martinezs resignation is not enough to reconcile with the reminder that discrimination exists, Hernandez says. But its important to remember that she is one of many people who express and manifest patterns of ideas that continue to exist across the community, and that need to be named, called out and addressed. She adds: Simply firing people removes those people, but it doesnt do anything to address the problematic attitudes which can exist amongst other people as well. Local community leaders, like Romero, say this is the time to better invest in communities that need it. If the city council truly wants to support Indigenous people, she suggests they provide greater funding to strengthen language access across the city. Others say that passing ethnic studies curriculums to help younger generations learn about the collective inequality and racial injustice that has plagued communities of color would help make amends. My greatest hope is that we will move forward in Los Angeles, Mora adds. Not through division, but through healing, and through intersectional forms of politics that center coalition building. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill unanimously voted on Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, escalating the panel's efforts to dig into the impetus and impacts of the insurrection. While there have been several judicial subpoenas for presidents before, congressional subpoenas for sitting or former White House occupants are rare -- but not unheard of. (Trump did not immediately say Thursday whether he would comply or fight once the subpoena was issued.) Separately, numerous presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but no sitting president has been forced to appear. Here are the other presidents, sitting or former, who have been subpoenaed by Congress. John Tyler and John Quincy Adams Congress subpoenaed the two presidents after they had already left office. The orders for testimony in 1848 stemmed from accusations by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that then-Secretary of State Daniel Webster misused money for a secret "contingent fund" used by presidents for clandestine intelligence operations. MORE: What we've learned from the Jan. 6 committee hearings Spending from the fund required presidential signatures, which led Congress to seek the testimonies of Adams and Tyler. In office at the time, President James Polk refused to provide detailed information to Congress out of deference to the prior administrations. The two former presidents still cooperated, with two select investigative committees questioning Tyler while Adams provided a sworn deposition to one of them. PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference 2022 (CPAC) in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 26, 2022. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE) Harry Truman The infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities, which reached its height during the Cold War-era Red Scare, subpoenaed former President Harry Truman to get information on his "Loyalty Program," which was intended to root out anyone loyal to the Soviet Union. The subpoena was issued after he left office and centered around Truman's appointment of an assistant treasury secretary who was rumored to have communist ties. Story continues MORE: Key takeaways and dramatic details from the latest Jan. 6 hearing Truman said in a letter that he would not accommodate the subpoena in spite of his "personal willingness" to cooperate, citing the Constitution's separation of powers. "If your intention is to inquire into any acts as a private individual either before or after my Presidency and unrelated to any acts as President, I shall be happy to appear," he wrote. Richard Nixon Nixon was actually subpoenaed twice by Congress, both in relation to the Watergate scandal. The Senate panel probing the Watergate break-in subpoenaed Nixon in 1974 for tapes and records on more than one occasion, though he declined, and the court ultimately rejected an effort by the committee to enforce one of the subpoenas. However, the House Judiciary Committee, which was also investigating the burglary that ended up costing Nixon his career, subpoenaed documents that Nixon did end up handing over -- though the committee didn't think he had turned over all he had. Trump isn't the first president to be subpoenaed by Congress: Here are the others originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A man who committed arson on his own home, and falsely claimed that he was a target of a hate crime because he was a Trump supporter, pleaded guilty earlier this week, as reported by the Department of Justice. Denis Vladimirovich Molla, better known as Dennis Molla, was charged with a count of wire fraud for collecting $17,000 in GoFundMe donations and insurance money after he started a fire on his own property. Molla has not yet been sentenced but according to the Department of Justice, he can spend anywhere from three and a half to almost four and a half years in federal prison. In September 2020, Molla told Law and Crime that he heard just a big, loud boom, or a bang, at his home and was concerned for his wife and kids. He shared that he believed he was attacked because he had Trump 2020 flags on his trunk in support of Donald Trump. Luckily, the damage to his house was minor and he was able to save the puppies he sheltered in his garage. On the outside of his garage, the words Biden 2020 and BLM were spraypainted along an anarchy symbol. At the time of the incident, he said he was shocked this happened and believed it was unfair that his personal beliefs were the cause of the malicious act. This kind of stuff should not happen, especially over beliefs of some sort, Molla said emotionally. According to prosecutors, he claimed that he noticed three men, not from the neighborhood, were nearby when he heard the loud noise at his home. In reality, as the defendant well knew, the defendant started his own property on fire, the defendant spray painted the graffiti on his own property, and there were no unknown males near his home, authorities wrote in the plea agreement, reported Law and Crime. Police shared that Molla was the one who set his camper on fire and submitted several insurance claims to cover the damage done to his cars, home, camper, and garage. When some of his claims were dismissed, Molla allegedly felt cheated by the insurance company. Story continues Molla reported $300,000 in losses but only received $61,000 when it was all said and done. Upset that he wasnt getting reimbursed for his losses, he sent an email to his insurance company with the subject line Dennis Molla Arson Hate Crime September 23, according to a document obtained by police. The plea agreement written by prosecutors said, the defendant also threatened to report Victim Insurance Company A to the Department of Commerce and the Attorney General. In addition, police stated that the MAGA fan let his supporters create two GoFundMe accounts where he left comments thanking his believers. The defendant withdrew thousands of dollars donated to the two GoFundMe accounts and deposited the donated money into his personal Wells Fargo bank account, the plea agreement read. Molla is now awaiting his sentencing but says hes sorry for his poor decision. Two supporters of President Donald Trump arrested after driving a Hummer with guns and ammunition to a Philadelphia site where votes were being counted in November 2020 were convicted of weapons charges Wednesday but acquitted of election interference. Prosecutors argued that Vets for Trump co-founder Joshua Macias and co-defendant Antonio LaMotta, both of Virginia, planned a mass shooting as the outcome of the presidential election remained uncertain. However, Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons rejected that theory, finding the men guilty only of bringing weapons to the city without a permit on Nov. 5, 2020. LaMotta is separately charged with federal misdemeanor offenses stemming from his alleged illegal entry of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Both men remain free on bail pending a scheduled sentencing in December, when they face a possible sentence of probation to 18 months in jail, defense lawyer William J. Brennan said. The commonwealth has presented no evidence to show that they came here to interfere with an election, Brennan, who represents Macias, said after the one-day, non-jury trial. They came, they stared at a building, they talked to some police officers, and they didnt bother anybody. The pair were arrested after the FBI in Virginia relayed a tip about their plans to Philadelphia police. Officers stopped the men, who had driven up from Virginia Beach, about a block from the vehicle. Each man had a handgun on him, while an AR-style rifle and ammunition were found inside the vehicle, which sported an American flag and a window sticker for the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon. District Attorney Larry Krasner had publicly labeled Macias a shark with ties to far-right extremist groups. The defense painted him as a veteran and active member of an evangelical church. Despite the judges verdict on Wednesday, Krasner held to his view that the pair drove to Philadelphia to disrupt the election. If you commit a crime while seeking to undermine peoples right to vote, and to have their votes appropriately counted, you will be held accountable, he said in a statement. Story continues LaMottas lawyer called the election charges unsubstantiated and based on nothing more than speculation. This is a gun case. While it may have been spun into a case of politics, it was always a gun case and the verdict reflects the same, lawyer Lauren Wimmer told The Associated Press. TRENDING NOW: About 8,000 items abandoned at Pittsburgh International Airport to be auctioned off Target 11 Exclusive: Man accused of raping foster child in Pittsburgh facing similar charges in Ohio Former Beaver County health care worker pleads guilty to federal hate crime charges VIDEO: Whats being done to make Pittsburgh safer? DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Video of former President Donald Trump is played during a hearing by the Select Committee in Washington, DC, on June 13, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump discussed the Jan. 6 committee subpoena with aides, a report said. He said he might do it, if it could be broadcast live on TV. Trump is likely to seek to spin the subpoena into propaganda victories. Former President Donald Trump has told aides he might comply with a subpoena to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, as long as he can do so live, The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reported. According to Haberman, Trump has told aides he's not opposed to the idea of testifying before the committee, as long as it's on his terms. The information was a contribution by Haberman to The Times's live coverage of Thursday's committee hearing. Some of his aides appear not to be enthusiastic about the idea. "He should not," a Trump adviser bluntly told The Daily Beast. Most witnesses has testified behind closed doors, with the committee presenting clips prepared in advance to play in live hearings. Those with particularly notable testimony, such as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, testified live after initially submitting evidence in private. If Trump testified he would have to do so under oath, risking perjury charges if were to lie. In a series of live hearings in recent months, the committee has argued that Trump was central to a plot to overturn his election defeat in 2020. This culminated in the chaos on January 6, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to halt Joe Biden's certification as president. "He is required to answer for his actions," Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee said in announcing the subpoena at Thursday's hearing. Trump has repeatedly characterized the committee as a partisan witch hunt, while continuing to praise the rioters and push the election-fraud conspiracy theories that inspired them. In a Truth Social Post on Thursday, he described the committee is a "a giant scam, presided over by a group of Radical Left losers, and two failed Republicans." Story continues GOP leadership turned down the opportunity to select members of the party to take part. Some analysts expect Trump to challenge the subpoena in courts, a process that could take months. The committee's power to seek legal penalties against a former president if he refuses to comply are unclear. If Republicans win back control of the House in November's midterms they are all but certain to annul the committee and cancel its subpoenas. Trump is under increasing legal pressure. There are multiple investigations around his bid to overturn the 2020 election, the New York attorney general is probing his business practices in the state, and the FBI is examining his retention of government records after leaving office. Read the original article on Business Insider LONDON (Reuters) - Large sections of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines built to supply gas to Europe might need to be replaced, the head of Gazprom said, while Turkey on Friday backed Russian proposals to build a gas hub there as an alternative supply route. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week proposed Turkey as a base for gas supplies after the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were damaged last month by blasts. The European Union, which previously turned to Russia for about 40% of its gas needs, is however seeking to wean itself off Russian energy following the invasion of Ukraine in February. Major EU importers such as Germany and Italy have found alterative sources and built up gas stocks ahead of a winter that is likely to be tough because of sky-high energy prices and the fear of rationing and power cuts. Both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, connecting Russia and Germany, were damaged last month, spewing out a large amount of gas. Russia and the West have blamed the damage on sabotage but have not identified a culprit. "Experts say that in order to restore work after such a terrorist act, it is necessary to actually cut off a very large piece of pipe, at a great distance, and in fact build a new section on this section," Alexei Miller, CEO of Russian gas company Gazprom, told Russia's state TV Channel One. With Nord Stream out of service, Miller said that Russia will start "concrete" talks with Turkey next week on proposals to route more gas their way. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the energy ministry to work on building a hub following talks with Putin on the issue, NTV and other local news channels reported. SECURITY FEARS The Nord Stream blasts have heightened concerns over energy security in Europe as the conflict rages in Ukraine. Norwegian police on Friday investigated reports of a drone spotted flying over the Kaarstoe gas processing plant in the southwest of the country in a potential violation of security protocols. Story continues Police also responded on Thursday to a threat made by telephone against the Nyhamna gas plant, which alongside Kaarstoe and a handful of other Norwegian sites rank among Europe's largest energy export facilities. Norway is now Europe's largest gas supplier after a sharp reduction in flows from Russia. Seeking to curb energy prices for consumers and industries, EU leaders may support plans to launch a new gas price benchmark at a meeting next week, a draft document showed. The leaders are set to meet on Oct. 20-21, days after the European Commission proposes measures to tackle the energy crisis. The benchmark for liquefied natural gas deliveries into Europe has historically been based on the price at the Netherlands' Title Transfer Facility (TTF) hub. Brussels says a new index is needed since the TTF is driven by pipeline supply and no longer represents a market that includes more LNG. It remains unclear if EU leaders will agree to a "temporary market intervention" - wording that could refer to a gas price cap that has proved divisive. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned a unilateral cap on electricity prices called for by the national opposition could lead to power being sold in other markets and blackouts in Belgium, the heart of the EU. British shoppers are meanwhile responding to the risk of power cuts by stocking-up on portable generators and torches, in addition to winter clothing, thermal underwear and candles. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Ece Toksabay in Anakra and James Davey in London,; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) By Mert Ozkan and Jonathan Spicer ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's main opposition group said on Friday it would ask the top court to throw out new media legislation that would jail people for spreading "misinformation", calling the measures unprecedented censorship. Parliament adopted the law late on Thursday after it was proposed by President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP), which says it aims to regulate online publications, protect the country and combat disinformation. The bill had drawn criticism from Turkey's Western allies and rights groups who said its vague reference to "false or misleading information" can be interpreted differently by courts to punish those critical of the government. The law's Article 29 says those who spread false information about Turkey's security to "create fear and disturb public order" will face a prison sentence of one to three years. The bill still needs to be approved by the president. "We are talking about a law that is the most oppressive in our history and the law that contains the most censorship," Burak Erbay, a member of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said. He said the party would file an application to the Constitutional Court as soon as the "Law on Amending the Press Law" was published in the Official Gazette. "We believe the biggest censorship law in history will be reversed by the Constitutional Court and this law will be annulled. It is a regulation that takes us down to the level of underdeveloped societies," Erbay told Reuters. The AKP's nationalist allies MHP joined it in voting to approve the bill, while opposition parties opposed it. The AKP has dismissed the criticism and says it opposes censorship, adding the law aims to protect everyone from false accusations on social media. The pro-government Sabah newspaper said a "safe era" in social media had begun. It said the regulations would improve national safety by allowing the immediate removal of content that would endanger public peace. Story continues TIGHT ELECTION Hundreds of journalists have been jailed in a crackdown following a 2016 coup attempt, mainly on terrorism charges. Ankara has defended the measures as a necessary response to the scale of the security threat facing Turkey. People have also been tried over social media posts including ones that criticise Turkey's incursions in Syria or are seen as insulting the president, considered a crime in Turkey. Ozgur Ogret, Turkey representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the new law poses a danger not only for journalists but all citizens and could increase self-censorship ahead of elections set for next year. "This law will hinder the free flow of information in the election atmosphere," he said after a press freedom event organised by the International Press Institute in Istanbul. "Freedom of expression is always important but in an election atmosphere, it is really crucial for everybody to speak their minds and voters to decide on solid information". Election polls show Erdogan could lose to an opposition candidate if a presidential election were held today - and that the opposition bloc would win a majority in parliament. Arda Guzel, a student in Ankara, said the new law aimed to stifle dissenting voices on social media and prevent the opposition from garnering more votes. "Because people nowadays look at social media more than mainstream media, they can access negative news about the government faster," he said. "They passed this law to counter these news stories." (Writing by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Andrew Heavens) (Reuters) - SailingStone Capital Partners, the fifth-biggest investor in Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd, said on Friday it will vote against Rio Tinto Group's bid to buy the company for $3.3 billion, during a shareholder meeting on Nov. 1. Rio's bid undervalues the Canadian miner, SailingStone said in a statement, adding that the offer attempts to take advantage of the "material governance failures" created by independent directors of both companies over the last decade. Mining giant Rio Tinto agreed on Sept. 1 to take over 49% it doesn't already own in Turquoise Hill after sweetening an initial offer by around 20%, as it sought to boost chances of gaining direct ownership of the massive Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mining project in Mongolia. SailingStone, a California-based fund manager specializing in resources companies, owns a 2.2% stake in Turquoise Hill. (Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V) Oct. 13WILLIAMSBURG Two individuals are facing multiple drug-related charges after the Williamsburg Police Department and Kentucky State Police jointly executed a search warrant last Saturday at a residence in eastern Whitley County. Jonathan Taylor, 42, of Williamsburg, was arrested on charges of enhanced trafficking in a controlled substance (first offense, heroin); convicted felon in possession of a handgun; enhanced possession of a controlled substance (first offense, methamphetamine); and endangering the welfare of a minor. Madison Jamey Miller, 20, also of Williamsburg, was arrested on charges of trafficking in a controlled substance (first offense, heroin); possession of a controlled substance (first offense, methamphetamine); and endangering the welfare of a minor. The charges stem from the search of a Louden Road residence, according to WPD. The investigation was conducted by WPD Officer Chad Foley, KSP Trooper Donnie Jones, and WPD Ofc. Eddie Cain with assistance from K-9 Sergeant Elijah Hunter and Ofc. Daniel Lovitt. Police say the search of the residence yielded suspected heroin, methamphetamine, a handgun, and $900. Three juveniles were present at the time the warrant was served. Taylor was still housed in the Whitley County Detention Center at press time, while Miller was released on Tuesday. Both are scheduled to appear in Whitley District Court next Monday for preliminary hearings. WASHINGTON The U.S. Air Force has started to return some of its 116 grounded C-130H mobility aircraft to flying status, but cautioned the process for getting the remainder back in the air will be slow going. So far, two C-130Hs have been returned to service since the grounding began Sept. 27, Air Mobility Command spokesman Maj. Beau Downey said in a Friday email to Defense News. One of those planes was returned to flying status after it was inspected and deemed airworthy, Downey said in a follow-up email. The second had one unserviceable 54H60 propeller that needed to be replaced with a working one of the same model, he said. Much of the Air Forces C-130H fleet, including variants, was grounded late last month after cracks were found in a few planes older propeller barrel assemblies. Those problems were uncovered after maintainers at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia were test-running the engine of a C-130H that had just undergone depot maintenance. They found a persistent leak and sent it for further examination at the complexs propeller shop, where the first crack was found. The groundings most heavily hit Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units. Downey said maintainers immediately began inspecting the planes, which have the older 54H60 model propeller installed, after the grounding and issuing of a time-compliance technical order. The inspection process includes figuring out if propellers have defects and, if they need to be replaced, installing unaffected 54H60 assemblies from the Air Forces existing supply, or speeding up the installation of the newer NP2000, which has eight propeller blades. We are looking at multiple avenues for accelerating the fixes, but anticipate the process to safely inspect, and if necessary, replace the affected propellers will take some time, Downey said. We are working closely with affected units, and we continue to have sufficient airlift to meet our global requirements. Story continues Downey said the Air Force is trying to increase propeller production and in the meantime balance the number of good propellers it has available. The Air Force is also trying to figure out how to physically centralize the inspection and repair process across commands to fix the planes more efficiently. This is a technically and logistically complex problem, Downey said. Right now, we are in the initial stage, focused on ensuring all functions addressing the fixes are aligned. While we expect the flow of inspections and fixes to increase in the near future, we are focused on safety and quality. The Air Force Reserve said earlier this month that Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia, which already had new propellers installed on most of its C-130Hs and was largely unaffected by the groundings, was planning to ship the handful of propeller assemblies it had in stock to other reserve units to help get their planes flying again. Collins Aerospace, which makes the propellers, said in a statement to Defense News earlier this month that the problems emerged after the company delivered them to the Air Force, following a maintenance procedure the company did not perform. The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office has reported two JSO vehicles crashing into each other and striking a civilian car during a pursuit of a stolen Ford F150. JSO reports that at around 2:00 p.m. on October 13 Detectives with JSOs gang activity were patrolling in the Paxton area where they spotted a white Ford F150 occupied by two men, both wearing full facemasks. The driving pattern of the vehicle also drew the attention of the Officers, who ran the tag to discover it was stolen. JSO reported that efforts were made to stop the truck and to prevent it from leaving the area, which ended up being unsuccessful leading to a pursuit. The pursuit traveled south on I-95 towards I-10 and south on Roosevelt Blvd. In the course of the pursuit, two JSO patrol vehicles struck each other causing them to cross the center median of the road. One of the patrol vehicles crashed into a nearby fence, with the second striking a black SUV being driven by a citizen head-on. The driver of the black SUV was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Neither Officer was taken to the hospital. The suspect driving the white Ford F150 continued south on Roosevelt Blvd. before crashing into a pole. One of the suspects in the car was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A firearm was recovered from inside the suspects vehicle and both passengers have been arrested. [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. Memorial for shooting victims outside Bratislava, Slovakia gay bar A gunman killed two people and injured another in front of the Teplaren bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, Wednesday night. The countrys prime minister said the suspect was a radicalized teenager. On Twitter, Prime Minister Eduard Heger wrote, I strongly condemn a murder of two young people shot dead in Bratislava last night by a radicalized teenager. He added, No form of white supremacy, racism, and extremism against communities, [including] LGBTI, can be tolerated. We will fight [disinformation] channels spreading hate [and] protect minorities. The suspect was found dead on Thursday. Police said he died by suicide, according to Reuters. Authorities explained that he had used a gun registered to a relative in the attack. The victims have been identified by authorities as 23-year-old Matus H. and 26-year-old Juraj V. Authorities have asked local communities to be patient as they investigate the motive behind the attack, including if it was a hate crime, Reuters reports. The third victim, thought to be a bar staff member, is recovering in the hospital, according to the BBC. Local media outlet Dennik N wrote that the attacker had published a screed against queer and Jewish people. Slovak media also reported that the suspect was identified as the son of a former political candidate for a far-right party. A prosecutor said on Friday that the attack may be considered a terrorist attack. "The suspicion is that the motive of this act was to destabilize society," Special Prosecutor Daniel Lipsic said at a briefing, Reuters reports. "These points lead us to the possible consideration that we could classify this criminal offense as an act of terrorism." While visiting the scene of the killings on Thursday, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova voiced support of the countrys LGBTQ+ community. "I want to say to the LGBT community, it is not you who don't belong here... It is hate that does not belong in Slovakia," she said. Story continues European LGBTQ+ rights group ILGA-Europe condemned the attack. We deplore the murder of two young people, and the injury of another, outside an LGBTI bar in Slovakia on [Wednesday], and express our deep sympathies to their families [and] the whole community in Slovakia, the organization wrote on Twitter. The group said the two victims were cut down in the prime of their lives simply for being who they are. ILGA-Europe further added, This kind of violence and destruction of life is what the instrumentalizing of LGBTI people as scapegoats for society by those who wish to remain in power leads to. The legitimization of hatred by any leader for any group of people cannot, and will not, be tolerated. By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday extended the COVID-19 pandemic's status as a public health emergency for another 90 days, thereby preserving measures like high payments to hospitals and expanded Medicaid. The extension was announced by U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday. Last month, President Joe Biden said in an interview that "the pandemic is over," which prompted criticism from health experts. The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has diminished significantly since early in Biden's term when more than 3,000 Americans per day were dying, as enhanced care, medications and vaccinations have become more widely available. But hundreds of people a day continue to die from the coronavirus in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Biden has asked Congress for $22.4 billion more in funding to prepare for a potential case surge. Former President Donald Trump had declared a national emergency in 2020 to free up $50 billion in federal aid. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis) A cardiologist from the United Kingdom says Covid-19 vaccines should be suspended because they pose a greater threat than the virus itself. This is false; experts say his research misleads on the risks of vaccination by cherry-picking evidence and relying on flawed studies, and public health authorities agree the benefits of the shots outweigh the risks. Cardiologist Aseem Malhotra appeared September 27, 2022 in a press conference with the World Council for Health -- a group that has previously spread vaccine misinformation -- to call for the "immediate and complete suspension of Covid-19 vaccine." Malhotra says he was one of the first to receive two doses of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine in January 2021. He appeared on "Good Morning Britain" in February 2021 to discuss how he convinced previously vaccine-hesitant film director Gurinder Chadha to receive the shot. But he now says his research shows there is "a greater risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines than being hospitalized from Covid-19." This screenshot taken October 10, 2022 shows a YouTube video from the World Council for Health Following the press conference, Malhotra tweeted about his paper, titled: "Curing the pandemic of misinformation on Covid-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine." Published in Insulin Resistance -- an open-access journal where Malhotra serves on the editorial board -- the article received thousands of interactions on social media, according to CrowdTangle, a monitoring tool. The findings were further amplified in articles and posts from organizations that AFP has previously found to spread vaccine misinformation, including Children's Health Defense, The Epoch Times and the Gateway Pundit. On October 3, 2022, Malhotra appeared on an online program hosted by Del Bigtree, CEO of the anti-vaccination Informed Consent Action Network. But Malhotra's paper -- which medical experts have refuted -- is based on previously released data and studies, several of which have been called into question. Story continues "Vaccines are the best way to protect people from Covid-19 and have already saved tens of thousands of lives," said Alison Cave, chief safety officer at the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), in a statement emailed to AFP on October 6. AFP examined some of the misleading evidence offered in Malhotra's article. P-hacking Malhotra highlights the findings of a study titled "Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults." The paper, published September 22, 2022 in the journal Vaccines, reanalyzed data from phase three of Pfizer and Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials. Health Feedback reviewed the paper when it was released as a pre-print, prior to undergoing peer review. The fact-checking organization found several flaws with the research and concluded it did not amount to proof that Covid-19 vaccines are more likely to lead to hospitalization than keep patients out of the hospital. Scientists also pointed to potential p-hacking, or misuse of data to make the evidence look statistically significant when it is not. "(P-hacking) has been a widespread problem even under normal circumstances in the scientific literature," said David Gorski, a professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, on the website Science Based Medicine. "But a less known aspect of it is that it can be weaponized in the service of portraying vaccines, in this case the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines, as more dangerous than they are." Data limitations Malhotra also points to data from the US Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS), saying "the level of reports -- including serious ones -- associated with Covid-19 vaccines is completely unprecedented." Anyone, from doctors and nurses to patients and parents, can submit reports of adverse events following vaccination to VAERS. Health care providers are required to report serious events, including death -- even if a vaccine link is not suspected. Things to know about the Covid-19 vaccines, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( AFP / Gal ROMA, Sophie RAMIS) While researchers use the database to detect potential safety signals with a vaccine, VAERS warns on its website that not all reports are verified. "The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted as evidence of a causal association between a vaccine and an adverse event, or as evidence about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines," VAERS says. "Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information." AFP has previously fact-checked numerous false and misleading vaccine claims that cite VAERS as evidence. Risk reduction In his paper, Malhotra takes aim at the ways Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness is measured. "To know the true value of any treatment one needs to understand for that person, by how much is their individual risk reduced by the intervention -- that is, the absolute individual risk reduction," he claims. He says the focus should not have been on the 95 percent relative risk reduction shown in Pfizer's clinical trials for the mRNA vaccines, but rather a different metric called absolute risk reduction -- which is far lower at 0.84 percent. Key facts on main authorised Covid-19 vaccines in Europe ( AFP / Jonathan WALTER, Paz PIZARRO) Comparing these numbers gives the impression that the vaccines are far less effective than they were shown to be in real-world settings, a notion that AFP has previously debunked. Contrary to Malhotra's assertion, the Covid-19 vaccines do reduce the risk of infection, though this varies by age and virus variant. Problematic papers Malhotra also references a peer-reviewed abstract published in the journal Circulation, which claimed to find an increased risk of cardiovascular problems among vaccinated individuals. He said: "Even if partially correct, that would mean that there would be a large acceleration in progression of coronary artery disease, and more importantly heart attack risk, within months of taking the jab." But the journal added an "expression of concern" which suggests flaws in the research. "It was brought to the American Heart Association Committee on Scientific Sessions Program's attention that there are potential errors in the abstract," the note says. Malhotra also points to a study from Israel that found increased cardiovascular events among vaccinated citizens under 40. A medic prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus at the outpatient clinics of the cardiovascular center at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, on December 31, 2021 ( AFP / JACK GUEZ) The study was published in Scientific Reports in April 2022, but its methodology was questioned. On May 5, 2022, the journal added a note saying the conclusions "are subject to criticisms that are being considered by the editors." MHRA's Cave said: "Following a careful assessment of the available data, we concluded that the evidence does not support an association between the Covid-19 vaccines and an increased risk of cardiac-related death." Myocarditis In discussing the harms of the Covid-19 vaccine, Malhotra particularly focuses on myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Myocarditis and pericarditis -- irritation of the tissue surrounding the heart -- are being monitored as adverse events of special interest in Canada and other countries, particularly in male adolescents and male adults under age 30. Canada's most recent data show that after the administration of more than 89 million vaccine doses, 1,127 myocarditis/pericarditis cases have been recorded. In the UK, the Yellow Card system monitors reported vaccine side effects. Based on the latest data, the MHRA said reports of myocarditis and pericarditis "are very rare, and the events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a short time with standard treatment and rest." Peter Liu, chief scientific officer and vice president of research at the Ottawa Heart Institute, previously told AFP that it is important to consider the risk of myocarditis following a Covid-19 infection. "If you compare to Covid-related cardiac complications, the vaccine-induced complications are way fewer," he said. This was confirmed by an analysis of 43 million people over the age of 13 who were vaccinated in the UK. "We found that across this large dataset, the entire Covid-19-vaccinated population of England during an important 12-month period of the pandemic when the Covid-19 vaccines first became available, the risk of myocarditis following Covid-19 vaccination was quite small compared to the risk of myocarditis after Covid-19 infection," the study's lead author, Martina Patone, told the American Heart Association. Health Canada, the UK's National Health Service and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend Covid-19 vaccination to protect against severe illness and hospitalization. AFP has fact-checked other false and misleading claims about vaccines here. (Reuters) - Ukrainian investigators have completed the exhumation of soldiers in one of two mass graves discovered after Russian troops retreated from the town of Lyman in eastern Donetsk region, police said on Friday. "Police have removed the bodies of 34 Ukrainian defenders from the mass grave," Donetsk regional police said in a statement. "Work continues at a second location where more than 120 civilians are buried. The fate of each person who died will be determined." The soldiers' bodies have all been transferred to a morgue and will be returned to their relatives for burial once identification has taken place and the cause of death is determined, the police said. Since Sept. 29, Donetsk police said they had found the bodies of 144 people, 85 of them civilians, with 108 exhumed from makeshift graves, and the rest found in buildings or on the streets. "Most of the dead -- 85 -- are civilians," they said. "Some of them have signs of violent death, in particular shrapnel injuries. Ukraine's top prosecutor told a joint news conference with International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan in The Hague on Thursday that Ukraine had 28 investigative teams on the ground in areas recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces. Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said retreating Russian troops had left evidence of illegal detention and torture of civilians and deportations. Khan, who opened an ICC investigation in March, would not be drawn on when his office might file its first case, saying he would move forward "when the evidence is sufficient". In Lyman, graves marked as holding the bodies of people killed in May, when Russians were battling to seize Lyman, include those for children as young as one, Reuters reported this week. Reuters could not independently determine the causes or timing of the deaths. Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies. (Reporting by Elaine Monaghan; Editing by David Gregorio) (Reuters) - Ukraine's armed forces have liberated more than 600 settlements from the Russian occupation in the past month, including 75 in the highly strategic Kherson region, Ukraine's Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories said. Some 502 settlements have been liberated in the northeast Kharkiv region where Ukrainian forces last month advanced deep into Russian lines, the ministry said late on Thursday. The ministry said 43 settlements were liberated in the Donetsk region and seven in the Luhansk region. "The area of liberated Ukrainian territories has increased significantly," the ministry said in a statement on its website. Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports and there was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine's military or President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office. Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, along with Zaporizhzhia, were 'annexed' by Moscow late last month as a counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces rapidly advanced in the northeast, east and south. The 'annexations' were denounced by Kyiv and the West as illegal. On Thursday, the Russian-installed governor of Ukraine's Kherson region appealed to residents to evacuate amid fighting between Russian and advancing Ukrainian forces. In late August, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces occupying the country since the start of their invasion in February. Russia calls it actions in Ukraine "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour. (Reporting in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Michael Perry) Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that there is no need for more massive strikes on Ukraine. He said that most of the designated targets had been hit and said that it was not his aim to destroy the country. Vladimir Putin also said on Friday that he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks. Speaking to journalists after a summit in Kazakhstan, Mr Putin said: Theres no need for massive strikes. We now have other tasks. It comes after a UN envoy said that Moscows forces are using rape and sexual violence as part of their military strategy. Speaking during an interview with AFP, Pramila Patten, UN envoy, said that Moscows forces were using a "deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims. The Independent reported in June that Ukraine claimed to have documented 15,000 suspected war crimes, including rapes by ill-equipped Russian soldiers who used sexual violence to strike fear into the local population. Key points Rape used in Ukraine as part of Russian 'military strategy': UN envoy Russia expects newly mobilised cannon fodder to last few weeks - Zelensky Ukraine recaptured more than 600 settlements from Russia last month Russias Wagner troops slowly making progress in Donbas - MoD Elon Musks SpaceX says can no longer pay for Starlink satellite services in Ukraine Putin: There is no more need for massive air strikes on Ukraine 19:41 , Holly Bancroft Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that there is no need for more massive strikes on Ukraine. He said that most of the designated targets had been hit and said that it was not his aim to destroy Ukraine. Vladimir Putin also said on Friday that he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks. Speaking to journalists after a summit in Kazakhstan, Mr Putin said: Theres no need for massive strikes. We now have other tasks. (via REUTERS) Mobilization of army reservists to end within weeks, Putin says 19:21 , Holly Bancroft Story continues Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and to solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory. Putin facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and did not set out to destroy Ukraine when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago. What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstans capital. But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, thats all. So my actions are correct and timely. Russias difficulties in achieving its war aims were becoming apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday. What is Elon Musk up to in Ukraine? 19:01 , Holly Bancroft Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest man in the world, has unexpectedly indicated that the latter company will no longer be providing its Starlink satellite internet service to Ukrainians for free. The service has proven invaluable in the country since Russias invasion began on 24 February, enabling the Ukrainian military to keep lines of communication open even when IT infrastructure has been destroyed by enemy missiles. The company first dispatched its terminals to the warzone just days into the conflict after Ukraines vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted Mr Musk directly asking for his help, returning to social media just two days later with a picture posted in gratitude to show the first shipment of Starlink equipment arriving. Read the full story here: Ukraine's Marchenko elected to chair the boards of World Bank, IMF in 2023 18:10 , Aisha Rimi The shareholders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have elected Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko to chair the boards of governors of both institutions in 2023. The unanimous decision, which came during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, means that Mr Marchenko will also chair next years annual meeting of the institutions, which is scheduled to be held in Morocco. It marks the first time that Ukraine will lead the institutions since it joined 30 years ago, Mr Marchenko said in a statement released by the Ukrainian finance ministry. (REUTERS) Ukraine wants global financial crime watchdog to expel Russia 17:51 , Aisha Rimi Ukraines central bank chief said he plans to ask the global financial crime watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to expel Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Newly appointed central bank governor Andriy Pyshnyi said on Facebook that he would make the request on behalf of the bank in a letter to the FATF before the organisations plenary session between 18 to 21 October. Russia is currently a member of FATF. Ukraine is not a member. Mr Pyshnyi accused Russia of creating serious threats to the security and integrity of the worlds financial system and demanded that Moscow be made to feel the price for its invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv vows to find solution to keep Starlink working in Ukraine 17:23 , Aisha Rimi Kyiv will find a solution to keep the Starlink internet service working in Ukraine, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said. Elon Musk said earlier today that his rocket company SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine. Lets be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies. Ukraine will find a solution to keep #Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations, Podolyak wrote on Twitter. Let's be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies. will find a solution to keep #Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations. (@Podolyak_M) October 14, 2022 Putin warns of global catastrophe if Nato troops clash with Russian forces 16:55 , Aisha Rimi Vladimir Putin has warned that any direct clash of NATO troops with Russia could lead to a global catastrophe. Speaking at a news conference in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday, Putin also claimed he had no regrets about invading Ukraine and that Russias partial mobilisation of troops should be completed within two weeks. He said a total of 222,000 reservists would be called-up, down from the 300,000 figure initially quoted by the defence ministry when the order was announced last month. Eleanor Sly reports: Putin warns of global catastrophe if Nato troops clash with Russian forces Ukraine war to slash European gas consumption almost 50 per cent by 2050 16:40 , Eleanor Sly Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine is slashing European countries gas use but will ultimately speed the transition to renewables, a new report claims. Projections of European gas use by the middle of the century have tumbled from 310 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year predicted one year ago, to 170 bcm now. This represents a fall in demand by 2050 of 45.2 per cent, according to the report by Norwegian consultancy group DNV. Harry Cockburn reports: Ukraine war to slash European gas consumption almost 50 per cent by 2050 US will impose sanctions on those supporting Russia 16:15 , Eleanor Sly The United States on Friday warned it can impose sanctions on anyone - people, countries and companies - that provide ammunition to Moscow or support its military-industrial complex, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, at a gathering of officials from 32 countries to discuss sanctions on Russia, said the department will issue guidance on Friday and made it clear that Washington is willing and able to impose such a crackdown. This morning, Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control is issuing guidance making clear that we are willing and able to sanction people, companies, or countries that provide ammunition to Russia or support Russias military-industrial complex, MrA Adeyemo said in remarks ahead of the meeting, Belarus says Russian troops to arrive in coming days 15:54 , Eleanor Sly The Belarus defence ministry has said that Russian troops will start arriving in the country in the coming days as part of its joint force, reports Reuters. Clash between NATO and Russian troops would lead to global catastrophe, says Putin 15:33 , Eleanor Sly Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that any direct clash of NATO troops with Russia would lead to a "global catastrophe". "I hope that those who are saying this are smart enough not to take such steps," Mr Putin said at a news conference in the Kazakh capital Astana. We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine, says Putin 14:45 , Eleanor Sly Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there was no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia was not aiming to destroy its neighbour. Speaking to a news conference at the end of a summit in Kazakhstan, Mr Putin said that his call-up of Russian reservists would be over within two weeks, adding he had no plans for a further mobilisation. He also said again that the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said that they would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part. Taken together, Mr Putins comments appeared to suggest a slight softening of his tone as the war nears the end of its eighth month, after weeks of Ukrainian advances and significant Russian defeats. But he was speaking just a week when Russia has staged its heaviest missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since the start of its invasion in February - an action that Mr Putin has said was retaliation for an attack that damaged a Russian bridge to occupied Crimea. We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not, Mr Putin said. He said there was no need for massive strikes now, due to the fact that most designated targets had been hit. Russian army using rape as a deliberate strategy in Ukraine, claims UN envoy 14:30 , Eleanor Sly Rape and sexual assaults have been used as a deliberate part of Russian military strategy in Ukraine, according to a UN envoy. UN envoy Pramila Patten said that Moscows forces were using a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims. When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, its clearly a military strategy, she told news agency AFP. Eleanor Sly reports: Russian army has used rape as a deliberate strategy in Ukraine, claims UN envoy Ukraine: Boy, 11, rescued after being trapped under rubble for six hours amid Russian shelling 14:10 , Eleanor Sly An 11-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble of a five-story building, after Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. Regional governor Vitali Kim said the child was trapped for six hours before being rescued by emergency services on Thursday morning (13 October). Footage shows the boy being pulled out of the rubble before he is taken to hospital in an ambulance. Watch more here: Boy, 11, rescued after being trapped under rubble for six hours amid Russian shelling 'No waiting': Turkey, Russia to act on Putin's gas hub offer 13:40 , Eleanor Sly Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Turkey and Russia have instructed their respective energy authorities to immediately begin technical work on a Russian proposal that would turn Turkey into a gas hub for Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has floated the idea of exporting more gas through the TurkStream gas pipeline running beneath the Black Sea to Turkey after gas deliveries to Germany through the Baltic Seas Nord Stream pipeline were halted. Erdogan said Russian and Turkish energy authorities would work together to designate the best location for a gas distribution center, adding that Turkeys Thrace region, bordering Greece and Bulgaria, appeared to be the best spot. Read more here: 'No waiting': Turkey, Russia to act on Putin's gas hub offer Read our report from June - 100 days of Ukraine invasion: How Russian soldiers weaponised rape in war with Kyiv 13:10 , Eleanor Sly When Natalia* was escaping the drunk Russian soldiers who had raped her for several hours, she clutched her four-year-old sons hands and walked past her husbands corpse in the pitch-black night. She told her son they had to run very fast because just hours earlier, the Russian soldiers who terrorised her and shot her husband down in the familys yard before raping her had threatened to show the toddler her scattered brains if she did not undress. The invasion had entered its fourth day when this happened in Kyiv. Arpan Rai wrote in June: 100 days of Ukraine invasion: How Russian soldiers weaponised rape in war Rape used in Ukraine as part of Russian 'military strategy': UN envoy 12:41 , Eleanor Sly Rape and sexual assaults have been used as part of Russian military strategy, said a UN envoy. UN envoy Pramila Patten said that Moscows forces were using a "deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims." Speaking with AFP in an interview, she said: "When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, its clearly a military strategy. According to Ms Patten, the UN has verified over one hundred cases of rape and sexual assaults in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February. Russian man suspected of flying drones near Norwegian oil and gas platforms arrested 12:35 , Eleanor Sly A Russian man has been detained in Norway, suspected of flying unmanned drones in the country. The fifty-year-old was found with two drones, following a number of drone sightings near to Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms in recent weeks. The Russian citizen was detained on Tuesday but has not been identified. Eleanor Sly reports: Russian man suspected of flying drones near Norwegian oil and gas platforms arrested Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant working to Russian standards, says Russian official 12:05 , Eleanor Sly A Russian-installed official in southern Ukraine said on Friday that the towns Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has begun working according to Russian standards, state-owned news agency TASS reported. Russia declared Zaporizhzhia region a part of its territory last month in a move rejected by Kyiv and unrecognised internationally. Elon Musk confirms pulling SpaceXs Starlink satellite internet service on Twitter 11:45 , Eleanor Sly Elon Musk confirms reports that funding is being pulled from SpaceXs Starlink satellite internet service provision in Ukraine on Twitter. He replied to a tweet by a journalist from the Kyiv post, writing tweeting Were just following his recommendation. This was in reference to Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melnyk having said F**k off is my very diplomatic reply to you to Mr Musks Twitter poll which he published 3 October. Were just following his recommendation Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 Ukraine demands Red Cross visit notorious prison 11:19 , Eleanor Sly Officials in Ukraine have urged the Red Cross to conduct a mission to a prison camp located in the Russia-occupied east of Ukraine. The Ukrainian presidents chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, called on the Red Cross (ICRC) to the Olenivka prison, which is located in Donetsk. We just cant waste more time. Human lives are at stake, he tweeted. Last month, the Red Cross attempted to access the camp, but said it they were denied access to it by Russian authorities. In a statement on Friday, the ICRC said: We want to stress that our teams are ready on the ground - and have been ready for months - to visit the Olenivka penal facility and any other location where POWs are held. However, beyond being granted access by high levels of authority, this requires practical arrangements to materialize on the ground. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted. Orphan watched dad die, now awaits future in Ukraine shelter 11:00 , Eleanor Sly One building in the recaptured but devastated Ukrainian town of Izium is filled with those at the end of their lives. It reeks of unwashed sheets and unbathed skin and needs more heat to fend off the approaching winter. Despair weighs on its occupants like a blanket and the sound of weeping echoes in its rooms. Now an orphan wanders the cold hallways among the elderly and infirm, his eyes firmly upon the phone in his hand. Until a few days ago, 13-year-old Bohdan had a father. Now he has no one. Read more: Orphan watched dad die, now awaits future in Ukraine shelter German economy ministry acknowledges Rosneft lawsuit against Berlin 10:31 , Eleanor Sly Germanys economy ministry said on Friday that it had taken note of a lawsuit by Russian state energy giant Rosneft against the government for taking control of its German unit but that it was yet to recieve any documents related to it. The ministry said the conditions for Germany imposing trusteeship over the company were met according to the Energy Security Act. The reason for this is the endangerment of energy supply operation and an impending impairment of the security of supply, the spokesperson added. Rosneft argued that Berlins move last month was unjustified given that the firm had always upheld its oil delivery commitments, newspaper Handelsblatt reported, citing the law firm hired by Rosneft, Malmendier Legal. Reuters I wont turf out Ukrainians despite my soaring winter energy bill 09:39 , Eleanor Sly A Briton hosting four Ukrainians said his monthly 350 payment is failing to cover the increase in the bills this winter and called for further support and clarity from the government regarding its plans. Several groups, including the Refugee Council, have expressed concerns over the Homes for Ukraine scheme potentially being quietly phased out although the Government said the scheme is continuing. However, a new refugees minister has yet to be appointed following Lord Harringtons departure and the cost-of-living crisis is set to bite this winter for hosts like Steve Dury. Read more: I wont turf out Ukrainians despite my soaring winter energy bill Gazprom says gas shipments to Europe via Ukraine to remain stable on Friday 09:17 , Eleanor Sly Russias Gazprom have said that shipments of gas to Europe, via Ukraine, remain stable. The company will ship 42.4 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Friday, unchanged from recent days, it revealed. Elon Musk suggests he is pulling internet service from Ukraine because ambassador was rude to him 08:39 , Eleanor Sly Elon Musks Starlink satellite internet will no longer be provided to Ukrainians for free, and has apparently asked the Pentagon to pay for it. The news comes days after Ukrainian ambassador Andrij Melnyk shot back at the multibillionaires proposal that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be ended by, among other things, formally allowing Russia to annex Crimea. Mr Musk has said he is just following [the] recommendation of the Ukrainian ambassador. Read more: Elon Musk suggests he is pulling Starlink from Ukraine because ambassador was rude Russia will evacuate Kherson region 07:44 , Eleanor Sly Russia said they will give free accommodation to residents of Ukraines partially occupied Kherson region who want to evacuate in the face of continuing and sustained Ukrainian military gains along the southern front. Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin made the announcement after the Russia-backed leader of Kherson - one of four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Moscow last month - asked the Moscow to organise an evacuation from four cities in the region. In a video posted online, Vladimir Saldo said: Cities of the Kherson region - Kherson and Nova Kakhovka, Hola Prystan and Chornobaivka - are subject to daily missile strikes. These missile strikes cause serious damage, first and foremost to the residents. Among targets missiles hit are hotels, residential buildings, markets - [places] where there are lots of civilians. Mr Saldo said a decision has been made to evacuate Kherson residents to the Russian regions of Rostov, Krasnodar and Stavropol. They will also be evacuated to the annexed region of Crimea. I would like to ask you to help organise this process, he said. We, residents of the Kherson region, of course know that Russia doesnt abandon their own, and Russia always offers a hand. Reports of missile falling near railway in Belgorod region. 07:50 , Eleanor Sly Train operations came to a halt in the early hours of Friday near Novyi Oskol, a town in Russias Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, when the remains of a missile fell near the railway, according to Reuters. According to Vyacheslav Gladkov, on the Telegram messaging app, anti-craft defences shot down missiles near Novyi Oskol, a town of about 18,000 people which lies about 90 kilometres (56 miles) to the north of the border with Ukraine. Power lines are damaged. Trains are temporarily suspended, Mr Gladkov said, before adding that there were no casualties. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. There also apparently no immediate reaction from Kyiv. Can Putin survive or will he be overthrown? 07:03 , Arpan Rai What appears to be a string of recent setbacks for Russia in Ukraine has fuelled speculation about whether Vladimir Putin can survive as countrys leader. And even if he can, for how long. Not all autocrats lose power after a failed military campaign Saddam Hussein survived even after Iraqs disastrous war with Iran but sooner or later many do, as their authority is so entwined with their nations battlefield prowess. But, the fiercest public criticism of the war in Russia is coming not from the liberal left, but from the nationalist right, writes Mary Dejevsky in Voices. Read it here: Can Putin survive or will he be overthrown? | Mary Dejevsky Russias Wagner troops slowly making progress in Donbas amid severe manpower shortages - MoD 06:59 , Arpan Rai The British defence ministry has claimed tactical advances by pro-Russian forces towards the centre of the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast in the last three days. Elements of 2nd Army Corps, the pro-Russia militia of the Luhansk region, likely advanced into the villages of Opytine and Ivangrad to the south of the town, the ministry said in its latest intelligence update on the Ukraine war. It added that there are few, if any, other settlements seized by regular Russian or separatist forces since early July. However, forces led by the private military company Wagner Group have achieved some localised gains in the Donbas: Wagner likely remains heavily involved in the Bakhmut fighting, the British MoD said. According to the defence ministry, Russia likely looks at seizing Bakhmut as a preliminary to advancing on the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk urban area which is the most significant population centre of Donetsk oblast held by Ukraine. Russia continues to prosecute offensive operations in central Donbas and is, very slowly, making progress, the ministry added. However, its overall operational design is undermined by the Ukrainian pressure against its northern and southern flanks, and by severe shortages of munitions and manpower, it said. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 14 October 2022 Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/ZWBawudl8j #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/nHC771PHQo Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) October 14, 2022 What weapons has the UK sent to Ukraine? 06:11 , Arpan Rai Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February this year, the UK and its western allies have provided Kyiv with a huge quantity of military hardware to help with the defensive effort. Here is an overview of some of the key equipment dispatched from Britain to the frontline so far, which has included 6,900 anti-tank missiles, five air defence systems, 120 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,360 anti-structure munitions, 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosives and 400,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, according to the Ministry of Defence. Read the full story here: What weapons has the UK sent to Ukraine? Russia expects mobilised men as cannon fodder to last a few weeks in Ukraine war - Zelensky 05:31 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russia is dispatching mobilised men to the wars frontlines and expects them to be a cannon fodder surviving the war for at least few weeks. Now Russia is sending thousands of its mobilised men to the front. They have no significant military training, but their command does not need it at all, Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address. He added: They expect that the mobilised Russians will be able to survive in the war for at least a few weeks, then they will die, and then new ones will be sent to the front. But during this time, such use by Russian generals of their people as cannon fodder makes it possible to create additional pressure on our defenders, the war-time president said. Elon Musks SpaceX says can no longer pay for Starlink satellite services in Ukraine 05:02 , Arpan Rai Elon Musks SpaceX has told the Pentagon it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink satellite internet terminals, asking that the service providing a vital source of communication for Ukraines military will now have to be paid for by the US, CNN has learnt. The spacecraft engineering firm has donated around 20,000 Starlink satellite units to Ukraine as the besieged country lost cellular phone and internet networks in the Russian invasion since February. According to a report by CNN, SpaceXs director of government has told the Pentagon in a letter in September that they are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time. Additionally, SpaceX owner and billionaire Elon Musk has said that the operation has cost it $80m & will exceed $100m by end of year. SpaceX claims that the transfer of its charitable services to the war-hit country would cost the US more than $120m for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400m for the next 12 months. Russia tells civilians to evacuate annexed Kherson as Ukrainian forces advance 04:57 , Arpan Rai Russia has told residents of illegally annexed Kherson to evacuate as Ukrainian troops approach, raising fears the region could become the new frontline in Vladimir Putins war. Moscow-installed governor Vladimir Saldo told Khersons civilians to take their children and flee in a video statement on Telegram on Thursday. Every day, the cities of Kherson region are subjected to missile attacks, Mr Saldo said. As such, the leadership of Kherson administration has decided to provide Kherson families with the option to travel to other regions of the Russian Federation to rest and study. Read the full story here: Russia tells civilians to evacuate annexed Kherson as Ukrainian forces advance Ukraine recaptured more than 600 settlements from Russia last month - officials 04:29 , Arpan Rai Ukraine has retaken more than 600 settlements from Russian forces in the past month, its ministry for reintegration of the temporary occupied territories said. These also include 75 settlements from the recently annexed Kherson region which serves as a highly strategic region in the south of the besieged country and claimed by Russia. Around 502 settlements have been freed and retaken by Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv which lies in the northeast Ukraine and was heavily battered in the Russian invasion. However, Ukrainian troops advanced deeper into the Russian lines last month. A total of 43 settlements have been recaptured in the Donetsk region and seven in the Luhansk region, the ministry said. "The area of liberated Ukrainian territories has increased significantly," the ministry said in a statement. Russia warns of World War Three over Ukraine Nato bid as alliance says it will not be intimidated 04:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Russia has warned Ukraine that joining Nato could trigger a third world war as alliance members consider Kyivs application. A senior Russian official claimed Ukraine knew the severe consequences of joining, as he reiterated his countrys opposition to Ukraine becoming part of the military alliance. Kyiv is well aware that such a step would mean a guaranteed escalation to a World War Three, Alexander Venediktov, deputy secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, is reported as saying by the Tass news agency. Apparently, thats what they are counting on to create informational noise and draw attention to themselves once again. Russia warns of World War Three over Ukraine Nato membership bid Putins Ukraine war is a crusade against democracy, warns Germanys Scholz 03:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has claimed that Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine is a crusade against democracy. Mr Scholz also pledged to keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes while speaking at a summit in Berlin. Vladimir Putin and his enablers have made one thing very clear: this war is not only about Ukraine. They consider their war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy, said Scholz. He added that Germany will continue our support for as long as it takes, for as long as that support is needed to fend off Russias abhorrent aggression. It followed up an attack last month by Scholz on Russia, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly. Putins Ukraine war is a crusade against democracy, warns Germanys Scholz Kremlin says its goals in Ukraine can be achieved through talks 02:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Thursday that the goals of Moscows special military operation in Ukraine were unchanged, but that they could be achieved through negotiations. The comments to the Russian newspaper Izvestia were the latest in a series of statements this week stressing Moscows openness to talks - a change of tone that follows a run of humiliating defeats for Russian forces as the war in Ukraine nears the end of its eighth month. The direction has not changed, the special military operation continues, it continues in order for us to achieve our goals, Peskov was quoted as saying. However, we have repeatedly reiterated that we remain open to negotiations to achieve our objectives. Peskov added, however, that he did not see any prospects for talks with the West in the near future because of its hostile attitude towards Russia. It takes two sides to have a dialogue. As the West is now taking a very, very hostile stance towards us, its unlikely that there will be any such prospect in the near future, - Peskov told Kazakhstans Khabar 24 TV channel, according to the Russian news agency TASS. Nevertheless, Turkey, as well as a number of other countries, continue to try to mediate in some way. While Russia has said before that it is prepared to negotiate, the repeated references this week to the possibility of dialogue are striking. Russian border region says Ukraine shelled it, Kyiv blames stray Russian fire 01:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain The governor of a Russian border region accused Ukraine of shelling an apartment block there on Thursday but a Kyiv official said a stray Russian missile was to blame, in only one of a series of apparent strikes on Russian border towns. Vyacheslav Gladkov said a school had been damaged in a village close to the border, and that the top floor of an apartment block had been struck in the city of Belgorod. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter that Russia had launched a missile towards the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv but something went wrong and it hit (a) residential building. Video showed rubble next to a 16-storey apartment block with a large rupture near its roof. Reuters could not independently establish who was to blame. Gladkov said no one had been hurt. Separately, Gladkov said that a border post in the frontier town of Shebekino, which adjoins Ukraines eastern region of Kharkiv, and an ammunition depot near Belgorod city had been destroyed in Ukrainian strikes. He said that there had been no casualties in either strike. Video, apparently of the ammunition depot, shared on social media showed a major fire illuminating the night sky. CEO says Gazprom may need to replace big part of Nord Stream -TASS Thursday 13 October 2022 23:45 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Russias State TV Channel One on Thursday that a big section of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines might need to be replaced, TASS news agency said. A section of the pipeline was now filled with water across a significant distance, TASS paraphrased Miller as saying, in a series of bullet points on the agencys Telegram channel. Separately, Prime news agency paraphrased Miller as saying the affected length covered hundreds of kilometres on the Russian side of the pipeline. On Wednesday, Miller, head of the Russian state-controlled natural gas monopoly, said repairs to the damaged Nord Stream pipelines would take at least a year. IAEA's Grossi: Need quick solution on Ukraine nuclear plant Thursday 13 October 2022 23:10 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Talks on demilitarising Europes largest nuclear plant in Ukraine need a rapid solution to eliminate a precarious situation amid continued shelling, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was speaking after a day of talks with Ukrainian officials. He also said he had told Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin that the continued detention of the deputy director of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station was unacceptable. We need to continue working to protect the plant. As I told (Putin), it continues to be extremely fragile, extremely precarious, Grossi told a news conference after the day of talks in Kyiv. I am trying to have this wrapped up as soon as possible ... it is of course counter-intuitive to talk about protecting something that is being shelled, Grossi said. ...there are days when it seems to be more calm, but then the next day we are again on a blackout and the external power lines are completely cut and we dont know whether it is going to be an emergency... So these things continue. It hasnt improved in any tangible way. Ukraine gets more air defence pledges as Russia hits cities Thursday 13 October 2022 22:01 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraines allies vowed Thursday to supply the besieged nation with advanced air defence systems as Russian forces attacked the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones and fired missiles elsewhere at civilian targets, payback for the bombing of a strategic bridge linking Russia with annexed Crimea. Missile strikes killed at least five people and destroyed an apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while heavy artillery damaged more than 30 houses, a hospital, a kindergarten and other buildings in the town of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russia has intensified its bombardment of civilian areas in recent weeks as its military lost ground in multiple occupied regions of Ukraine that Russian president Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed. Kremlin war hawks have urged Putin to escalate the bombing campaign even more to punish Ukraine for Saturdays truck bomb attack on the landmark Kerch Bridge. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.We need to protect our sky from the terror of Russia, Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky told the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation. If this is done, it will be a fundamental step to end the entire war in the near future. Residents advised to flee occupied area as Ukrainian army attacks Thursday 13 October 2022 19:50 , Jane Dalton The Russian-installed governor of the southern Kherson region has told residents to take their children and flee, in one of the starkest signs yet that Moscow is losing its grip on territory it claims to have annexed. In a video statement on Telegram, Vladimir Saldo publicly asked for Moscows help transporting civilians to safer regions of Russia. Every day, the cities of Kherson region are subjected to missile attacks, Saldo said. As such, the leadership of Kherson administration has decided to provide Kherson families with the option to travel to other regions of the Russian Federation to rest and study. We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if they wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes... go to other regions, he said, advising people to leave with their children. Kherson is one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed this month, and arguably the most strategically important. It controls both the only land route to the Crimea peninsula Russia seized in 2014. War is crusade against democracy, says Scholz Thursday 13 October 2022 19:42 , Jane Dalton German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has claimed that Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine is a crusade against democracy and pledged to keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. David Harding reports: Putins Ukraine war is a crusade against democracy, warns Germanys Scholz Nato will watch Russian nuclear exercise closely Thursday 13 October 2022 19:15 , Jane Dalton Nato will monitor an expected forthcoming Russian nuclear exercise very closely, the alliances chief has said, in particular in the light of Moscows latest nuclear threats. We have monitored Russian nuclear forces for decades and of course we will continue to monitor them very closely and we will stay vigilant - also when they now start a new exercise, secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. What I can say is that this exercise, the Russian exercise, is an annual exercise. Its an exercise where they test and exercise their nuclear forces, he added, apparently referring to Russias annual Grom exercise that normally takes place in late October and in which Russia tests its nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles. We will monitor that as we always do. And of course we will remain vigilant, not least in light of the veiled nuclear threats and the dangerous rhetoric we have seen from the Russian side, Mr Stoltenberg said. What weapons has the UK sent to Ukraine? Thursday 13 October 2022 18:38 , Jane Dalton Liz Truss has vowed to keep up British support for Ukraine, telling the UN General Assembly that 2022s 2.3bn spending would be matched again or even exceeded next year despite the countrys current economic woes. Key equipment dispatched from Britain to the frontline so far has included 6,900 anti-tank missiles, air defence systems, armoured fighting vehicles and anti-structure munitions, according to the Ministry of Defence. Joe Sommerlad reports: What weapons has the UK sent to Ukraine? Analysis: Can Putin survive? Thursday 13 October 2022 18:06 , Jane Dalton Increasingly forthright criticism of Russias war is coming from the Russian right - people who supported Putins decision to go to war, but who are now losing faith in how it is being fought. And there are reports of dissent in the Russian ranks and claims that Russia is running out of crucial equipment and munitions. But even if the prospects for Russias defeat and Ukraines victory have been exaggerated, this still does not mean that Putin is safe in his Kremlin, writes Mary Dejevsky: Can Putin survive or will he be overthrown? | Mary Dejevsky Unrepentant Merkel defends her decision to rely on Russian gas Thursday 13 October 2022 17:45 , Jane Dalton Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed she has no regrets about the energy policy her government took despite its reliance on Russia. You always act in the time in which you find yourself, she said. Emily Atkinson reports: No regrets: Unrepentant Angela Merkel defends her decision to rely on Russian gas Russian border regions say Ukraine shelled buildings Thursday 13 October 2022 17:04 , Jane Dalton Authorities in two Russian regions near the Ukrainian border say they have been shelled by Ukraine, damaging buildings and disrupting electricity supplies. The governor of Belgorod region said a school had been damaged in a village close to the border and that an apartment had been struck in Belgorod city. Video seen by Reuters showed rubble next to what appeared to be an apartment building with a large rupture near its roof. An electricity substation in the Kursk region was damaged by a shell, knocking out power to two settlements, the regions governor said. Prosecutions start over Russian missile strikes Thursday 13 October 2022 16:40 , Jane Dalton Ukraines top prosecutor says his office has opened criminal proceedings relating to Russian missile strikes that struck Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine this week. Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin described the strikes since Monday as a classic act of terror by Russia. Speaking alongside International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan in The Hague, he said the more than 112 Russian missile strikes, Moscows biggest aerial offensive, had killed 17 people and injured 93. The goal of Russias deliberate attacks is to cause civilian deaths and to destroy civilian infrastructure, (and) by shortage of electricity and heating, provoke a humanitarian catastrophe, Mr Kostin said. Coupled with the intimidation tactics against civilians, its a classical act of terror prohibited under international law. Every death and injury or damaged building will be documented and criminal proceedings opened, he said. Russia denies violating international law and has dismissed allegations that Russian soldiers have carried out war crimes. In the recently liberated Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine prosecutors have found at least 11 burial sites, including one mass grave near the town of Izium, and have exhumed 457 bodies across the sites, Mr Kostin said. An additional two mass graves were found in the Lyman region with some 154 people, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, buried there, he added. The prosecutors office has 28 investigative teams on the ground in the recently liberated regions, where Mr Kostin said retreating Russian troops had left evidence of illegal detention and torture of civilians and illegal deportations. Angela Merkel says she has no regrets on energy policy with Russia Thursday 13 October 2022 16:05 , Emily Atkinson Angela Merkel has no regrets about the course her government took with its energy policy and relations with Russia while she was Germanys chancellor. Ms Merkels comments come as Germany and other European countries are trying to end their reliance on Russian oil and gas after Putin sent troops into Ukraine as part of what he calls a special military operation. Last year, 55 per centof German gas imports came from Russia, partly the result of Merkels pursual of trade ties with Russia and backing the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. You always act in the time in which you find yourself, she told reporters in Lisbon when asked about her governments approach to Russia. Nato warns Russia nuclear threats wont intimidate it Thursday 13 October 2022 15:50 , Emily Atkinson Western allies will not been intimidated by president Vladimir Putins nuclear threats, the Nato secretary-general has declared. Speaking at the meeting of Nato ministers of defence in Brussels, Jens Stoltenberg described the Russian leaders nuclear rhetoric as dangerous and irresponsible, and warned of severe consequences should Russia attempt to unleash such an attack. Putin knows a nuclear war cannot be fought, he told reporters. Mr Stoltenberg also touched on the new military support the alliance would be sending to Ukraine, including four Spanish Hawk launchers and counter-drone equipment. He also urged Nato allies to continue to stand up for Kyiv. Russias goals in Ukraine unchanged, but could be achieved through negotiation, says Kremlin Thursday 13 October 2022 15:20 , Emily Atkinson The Kremlin has been quoted as saying that the goals of its special military operation in Ukraine are unchanged, but that they may be achieved through negotiations. In comments to Izvestia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was open to negotiation. The direction has not changed, the special military operation continues, it continues in order for us to achieve our goals, he reportedly said. However we have repeatedly reiterated that we remain open to negotiations to achieve our objectives. Iranian drone sales to Russia would violate UN resolution' Thursday 13 October 2022 14:59 , Emily Atkinson Any sale of Iranian drones to Russia would be a violation of the UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, Frances foreign ministry has warned. The ministry added that it was coordinating with its EU partners on how to respond. Three drones operated by Russian forces attacked the small town of Makariv, west of Ukraines capital, early on Thursday, with officials saying that critical infrastructure facilities were struck by what they said were Iranian-made suicide drones. Ukraine war to slash European gas consumption almost 50 per cent by 2050 Thursday 13 October 2022 14:38 , Emily Atkinson Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine is slashing European countries gas use but will ultimately speed the transition to renewables, a new report claims. Projections of European gas use by the middle of the century have tumbled from 310 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year predicted one year ago, to 170 bcm now. This represents a fall in demand by 2050 of 45.2 per cent, according to the report by Norwegian consultancy group DNV. Our environment correspondent Harry Cockburn reports: Ukraine war to slash European gas consumption almost 50 per cent by 2050 Erdogan and Putin do not discuss Ukraine war resolutions Thursday 13 October 2022 14:18 , Emily Atkinson President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine during a bilateral meeting on Thursday, according to the Kremlin. The topic of a Russian-Ukrainian settlement was not discussed, news agency RIA cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. Moscow claims several arrested in foiled attack on TurkStream pipeline Thursday 13 October 2022 13:56 , Emily Atkinson Several people hved been arrested during a foiled attack on the TurkStream gas pipeline on Russian territory, the Kremlin has claimed. Russia said it is stepping up security on the TurkStream pipeline, which carries Russian gas to Turkey, amid unexplained ruptures on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and an oil leak on the Druzhba pipeline in Poland. Kherson residents told to flee as fighting advances Thursday 13 October 2022 13:35 , Emily Atkinson Residents in Ukraines Kherson region have been urged to evacuate by its Russian-installed governor amid fighting between Russian and advancing Ukrainian forces. In a video statement on the Telegram app, Vladimir Saldo also publicly asked for Moscows help in transporting civilians into Russia. Kherson is one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia formally incorporated into its territory this month, a move denounced by Kyiv and the West as an illegal annexation. Iodine tablet stocks run out in Finland amid nuclear incident warnings Thursday 13 October 2022 13:07 , Emily Atkinson Swathes of pharmacies across Finland have seen their stocks of iodine tablets run dry after health officials recommended people stock up amid fears a nuclear incident could occur due to Russias invasion of Ukraine. The Nordic countrys health ministry announced the new recommendation on Tuesday that households buy a single dose of iodine which can protect the thyroid from radiation in an oblique acknowledgement of a potential nuclear event in Ukraine, to the nations south. When announcing the new recommendations, however, it did not mention the ongoing Russian invasion, nor did it disclose where such nuclear accidents could potentially take place. Lavrov calls UN stand against Moscow annexations anti-Russian Thursday 13 October 2022 12:47 , Emily Atkinson The UN resolution condemning Moscows annexation of four Ukrainian territories was anti-Russian and achieved using diplomatic terror, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has declared. On Wednesday, the UN general assembly overwhelmingly condemned Russias move to annex four partially occupied regions in Ukraine, calling on all countries not to recognise it. Putins war on Ukraine part of larger crusade against liberal democracy, says Scholz Thursday 13 October 2022 12:27 , Emily Atkinson The war in Ukraine is part of a larger crusade by Russia against the west and liberal democracy, German chancellor Olaf Scholz in a speech on Thursday. (Russian President) Vladimir Putin and his enablers have made one thing very clear: this war is not only about Ukraine. They consider their war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy, he said in a recorded speech at the Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin. Turkey most reliable route for gas to the EU, says Putin Thursday 13 October 2022 12:07 , Emily Atkinson Turkey is the most reliable route to deliver gas to the EU, president Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, before proposing to build a supply hub there. Speaking at a bilateral meeting with Mr Erdogan, Mr Putin said energy supplies from Russia to Turkey were in full flow and in accordance with requests. Belgorod governor says building damaged by Ukrainian shelling Thursday 13 October 2022 11:42 , Emily Atkinson A multi-storey residential building in the Russian city of Belgorod has been damaged by shelling from Ukrainian armed forces, the regions governor said on Thursday. He said an apartment had been struck and shared a picture appearing to show rubble next to a partially collapsed portion of a building. There has been no information about casualties or injuries, so far, he added. Belgorod is about 40 km (25 miles) away from the Ukrainian border. Russia summons European diplomats over Nord Stream pipeline rupture investigation Thursday 13 October 2022 11:25 , Emily Atkinson Diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden have been summoned by Russia to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved, Moscows foreign ministry said. The cause of the ruptures in the Nord Stream pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea, remains unclear, but European Union countries have pointed to sabotage. Zelensky hints at further war crimes Thursday 13 October 2022 10:50 , Emily Atkinson The situation in the liberated Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine was just as terrible as it was in the reclaimed towns of Irpin and Bucha, president Volodymyr Zelensky has said hinting at evidence of more Russian war crimes. Russia was accused of genodical intent after images and footage emerged documenting the killing and abuse of Ukrainian civilians from the northern town of Bucha in April. International outrage over the so-called Bucha massacre was reignited several weeks later after terrifying accounts of underground confinement, violence, shootings and summary executions against civilians in Irpin, another Kyiv suburb, began to dominate headlines. Mr Zelensky gave no further details in comments made in a video link with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Russia has vehemently denied its forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine. Ukrainian military on the front line in Kharkiv Oblast ISW analysts based their conclusions on reports by the Ukrainian General Staff that, particularly in Donetsk Oblast, certain Russian units are receiving orders from commanders to temporarily halt offensive operations due to extremely low morale, psychological conditions, high rates of desertion, and the non-execution of combat orders. The General Staff statement is likely a reflection of the fact that Russian detachments are becoming increasingly degraded as they impale themselves on relatively small and insignificant settlements throughout Donetsk Oblast, especially around Bakhmut and the Donetsk City area, ISW said. As these units become more degraded, they are likely reconstituted ad hoc with disparate combat elements, which leads to further demoralization and incoherence in the conduct of offensive operations. Read also: Liberation of Kherson a matter of time says Israeli military expert However, the apparent suspension of offensive operations in areas of Donetsk Oblast, nearly the only areas in Ukraine where Russian troops are engaged in offensive operations, will further complicate Russian efforts to take additional territory and likely further contribute to poor morale and overall attrition of combat capabilities. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have likely moved forward in the directions north and east of Svatove of Luhansk Oblast. On geolocated video posted on Oct. 13, Ukrainian troops can be seen capturing Russian soldiers who voluntarily surrendered near the N26 highway in Krokhmalne, about 20 kilometers northwest of Svatove. The footage likely indicates that Ukrainian troops have also taken control of the surrounding settlements of Pischane, Berestove, and Tabaivka. According to Russian open sources, Ukrainian troops conducted ground attacks further north of Krokhmalne and attempted to attack Orlyanka and Kotlyarivka, both within 30 kilometers northwest of Svatove. Public reports of the first deaths of ill-prepared mobilized Russian troops in Ukraine have sparked renewed criticism of the Russian military command. Russian media reported that five mobilized men from Chelyabinsk have already died in combat in Ukraine just three weeks after Russian dictator Vladimir Putins declaration of partial mobilization on Sept. 21. The report led many Russian pro-war milbloggers to claim that the number of dead and wounded among mobilized servicemen is likely higher than this due to lack of promised training, equipment, unit cohesion, and commanders, as well as repeated instances of wrongful mobilization. One of those Russian milbloggers complained on Oct. 13 that newly mobilized men are being deployed in a haphazard way that will lead to 10,000 deaths and 40,000 injuries among them by February 2023. Story continues Read also: Ukrainian army repels enemy attacks in Donetsk and Kherson sections of front General Staff ISW said it cannot independently verify such claims, but the Russian pro-war community has been proactive in highlighting the mobilization since the day of its announcement by Putin, hoping it would improve the prospects of the Russian war against Ukraine. Constant complaints in these circles about lack of equipment and deployment to the front lines without proper training corroborate ISWs assessments that the mobilization campaign will not produce enough combat-ready Russian personnel to affect the course of the war in the short term, ISW said. The Kremlin continues to struggle to message itself out of the reality of mobilization and military failures. This in part explains the recent campaign of missile strikes on Ukraines territory. However, renewed milblogger critiques about mobilization again show how ephemeral the Kremlins successes are at deflecting attention from them, ISW experts say. Russian forces are likely continuing to use Iranian Shahed-136 drones to support massive strike campaigns against critical Ukrainian infrastructure due to their low efficacy in active combat situations. The spokesperson for Ukraines Southern Operational Command, Natalia Humenyuk, claimed on Oct. 13 that Russian forces are employing Shahed-136 drones primarily to strike buildings and infrastructure because the drones have limited efficacy against troop concentrations. This supports ISWs previous assessment the use of the Iranian drones in such a manner will not generate asymmetric effects for Russian forces because they are not being used to strike areas of critical military significance in a way that directly influences the frontline. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin is likely continuing efforts to distinguish himself and Wagner Group forces from more conventional Russian and proxy troops. The statement he made on Oct. 13 that Wagner Group forces allegedly single handedly took control of Ivanhrad, a settlement just south of Bakhmut (which contradicts to statements of the Donetsk and Luhansk puppet administrations), points to such assumption. It is consistent with ISWs previous observations that Prigozhin is jockeying for more prominence against the backdrop of his recent harsh criticism of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Key Conclusions: Russian forces continued to launch strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure on Oct. 13; Russian forces are continuing defensive operations in anticipation of potential Ukrainian attacks towards Kreminna; Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that Russian troops are attempting to recapture positions in northern and northwestern Kherson Oblast; Damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge continues to impede the movement of Russian supplies and personnel to southern Ukraine; Russian forces continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast and claimed to make marginal advances south of Bakhmut; Increasingly degraded morale, discipline, and combat capabilities among Russian troops in combat zones in Ukraine may be leading to temporary suspensions in offensive operations in limited areas; Russian officials are likely increasingly limiting freedom of movement in Russia to preserve additional mobilizable populations and prevent them from fleeing the country; Russian occupation officials called for the evacuation of civilians from occupied Kherson Oblast. ISW Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine OLEKSANDR SHUMILIN FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 10:51 A soldier from an Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile brigade destroyed four cruise missiles belonging to the Russian invaders with high-precision shots from an Igla man-portable air defence system (MANPADS) on 10 and 11 October. Source: Ukrainian Air Force, on Telegram Quote: "During two days of heavy missile attacks on Ukraine on 10-11 October, Yaroslav destroyed four cruise missiles belonging to the occupiers with high-precision shots from an Igla MANPADS. He is a soldier from the Hetman Pylyp Orlyk anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Air Command Pivden (South). Background: In his address on 12 October, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy commended another soldier, Dmytro Shumskyi, for shooting down Russian cruise missiles on the Chernihiv front. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! The University of Miami fraternity that was shuttered Friday after a video surfaced of members singing a disturbing chant about women has run into trouble at least two other times once after two frat brothers were arrested on felony charges of making fake drivers licenses and the second for hazing allegations. Different chapters of the same fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon, or SigEp for short have also been suspended or shut down completely at the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida and Florida State University over the years. Sigma Phi Epsilons most recent UM suspension, which happened late Friday, stemmed from an Oct. 1 pool party at a home about 15 blocks west of the schools Coral Gables campus. A video surfaced showing frat brothers leading a chant about having sex with a dead woman. A screengrab from the video of the Oct. 1 pool party hosted by the University of Miami fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon. The video led to the national fraternity suspending the UM chapter on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. READ MORE: University of Miami frat shut down after video surfaces of frat chants about having sex with dead woman UM received a video Friday morning and ordered the chapter to stop operating, university officials said. They forwarded the video to the fraternitys national headquarters, which suspended the chapter late Friday afternoon. Last Friday at Noon, we received a video that showed SigEp members violating alcohol policies and chanting a deeply misogynistic song, Heather Matthews, national chapter spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement to the Herald. The national Fraternity felt the video provided enough information to make the determination that chapter closure was the best course of action. We informed the chapter that afternoon. Neither UM nor the fraternitys national headquarters said how long the suspension would last or whether it would be temporary or permanent. The red door leading to the Sigma Phi Epsilon campus headquarters inside the Panhellenic Building at the University of Miami on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in Coral Gables, Fla. On Friday, Oct. 7, the fraternitys national board suspended the UM chapter after a video surfaced where fraternity members chanted about having sex with a dead woman. Arrests on felony charges in 1990s This is not the first time UMs Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter has been reprimanded. In 1993, the national organization revoked the fraternitys charter after two fraternity brothers were arrested and charged with 14 felony counts related to making false drivers licenses, unlawful possession of fraudulent drivers licenses, counterfeit drivers license equipment and possession with intent to sell or deliver a controlled substance, according to Miami-Dade court records and an article in the March 12, 1993, edition of the UM Hurricane. Story continues The March 12, 1993, edition of the UM Hurricane announcing the suspension of SigEp at UM after two members were arrested on charges of making counterfeit drivers licenses in the 1990s. All of the charges except one against one of the students were dropped or prosecutors declined to press charges, Miami-Dade court records show. One charge of possession and unlawful use of a drivers license resulted in a withheld adjudication and three years probation, meaning there was no conviction. Miami-Dade court records did not have a record of the other students charges. The national organization suspended UMs SigEp chapter; the fraternity did not return until 2000. The alumni expressed extreme concern because the chapter had members arrested that the organization wasnt being effective, Richard Walker, UMs associate dean of students at the time, said in the Miami Hurricane article. When the Herald asked UM on Monday about the 1993 incident, Jacqueline Menendez, a UM spokeswoman, said in an email that their files went back to only 1998. At the time of the 1993 suspension, the chapter was on probation. UM suspended the fraternity in 1991 after hazing allegations arose, according to an Oct. 11, 1991, article in the UM Hurricane. Hazing allegations have beset Sigma Phi Epsilon chapters at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida State University in Tallahassee and the University of Florida in Gainesville. Hazing has also led to sanctions at other Florida fraternities over the years, including prison terms for some members. Problems at UCF, FSU and UF In 2007, UCF suspended its Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter after a student told his father that pledges were required to roll around on the ground and jump into a pile of garbage that included food, Tom Evelyn, the UCF spokesperson at the time, told the Orlando Sentinel. The UCF chapter has been closed since that year, said Matthews, the spokeswoman for the national organization. She did not respond to questions from the Herald about the reasons for the closure or why the chapter has remained closed since. Within a few weeks of UCF suspending the fraternity, two Sigma Phi Epsilon members of the FSU chapter, along with two Tallahassee Community College students, were arrested in January 2007 on misdemeanor hazing charges. Police found 31 Sigma Phi pledges in the crawlspace of an off-campus home, the Tallahassee Democrat reported at the time. The pledges were covered in raw eggs, catfish-stink bait, flour and vinegar, and they were shivering from the 30-degree temperatures outside, the newspaper reported. The police who investigated heard what seemed like screaming from the back of the house, Maj. Jim Russell of the FSU Police Department told the Tallahassee Democrat at the time. An FSU spokesperson said Wednesday the university had no comment about the case. Leon County court records show the cases were dismissed for three students, with a fourth student getting an adjudication withheld followed by probation. More recently, in 2012, SigEps national board suspended its University of Florida chapter pending multiple investigations into conduct violations related to hazing, theft and alcohol consumption by minors, The Gainesville Sun reported. A University of Florida spokeswoman called the recent UM incident distressing. ... UF does not believe there is any correlation between the operations of this South Florida chapter and the one in Gainesville, spokeswoman Cynthia Roldan Hernandez said. UF will continue to work with the organizations that comprise the Florida Greek community to ensure Gainesville-based chapters adhere to the values expected from all. Sanctions of other fraternities Besides Sigma Phi, several fraternities at Florida universities have been disciplined over the years, especially after a 2005 state law made it a felony, with a five-year maximum sentence, if convicted of a hazing that resulted in serious injury or death. Previously, hazing was a misdemeanor. The University of South Florida in Tampa shut down its Lambda Chi Alpha chapter in November 2006 over allegations of hazing and alcohol violations. Around the same time, the University of Florida suspended its Pi Kappa Alpha chapter after news reports said three women, including a 17-year-old high school student, were drugged at a party at the chapters frat house, the St. Petersburg Times reported. In the most severe hazing cases, prison sentences have been meted out. In January 2007, two Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity members at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee Michael Morton of Fort Lauderdale and Jason Harris of Jacksonville were sentenced to two years in prison for severely beating a fraternity pledge with wooden canes. Three other Kappa Alpha Psi brothers pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor hazing charge and received probation and time in a work camp. Miami Herald research director Monika Leal contributed to this report. Yao Debo, a 34-year-old craftsman, is the first generation of inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage item, clay whistle. Yao fell in love with clay whistle when he first saw it in 2019, and after studying the skill for two months, he began making them. Tongzi clay whistle is a popular toy in Tongzi county, the northern part of Guizhou province. To make the toy, more than 10 steps, such as choosing and shaping suitable clay, creating the mouth hole and sound hole, baking and painting, are needed. The clay whistle can be as small as around 5 centimeters. When a clay whistle is blown, a joyful sound is heard. Based on the basic technique of making clay whistle, Yao continued to dig into it and bring forth new ideas. Taking subjects as an example, Yao not only makes traditional figures such as 12 Chinese zodiac signs, but has also expanded to human figures and plants. Under the background of combating the COVID-19, he also created vivid medical workers to show his respect. Tongzi clay whistles he makes have more vibrant colors and styles and are more solid. Yao has also developed a kind of clay whistle with multi-holes, which can produce more rhythm than those with just single hole, winning more fans. In order to promote this intangible cultural heritage item, Yao always teaches the making process and shows the skill of blowing through live streaming. He also goes to several schools regularly in Tongzi county to instruct students in making clay whistle. Support from both the internet and local students encourage Yao to pass this technique on. Yao believes that letting more people know this heritage is the best way to inherit it. EUROPEAN PRAVDA, UKRAINSKA PRAVDA WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2022, 23:35 At the meeting on Wednesday, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the illegal referendums that Russia held in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts of Ukraine. Source: European Pravda Details: The resolution was supported by 143 out of 193 members of the UN General Assembly, five states (Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Nicaragua) voted against, the remaining 35 abstained from voting. Thus, the overwhelming majority of the Organisation's members, which is even larger than those condemning the Russian invasion in Ukraine in March, condemned the illegal actions of the Russian Federation in the annexation of Ukrainian territories. #UN General Assembly vote - #Ukraine and its allies will be very happy. Even greater support than March. pic.twitter.com/aMK35RrEQA JAMES BAYS (@baysontheroad) October 12, 2022 The document prepared by Albania, in addition to condemning the so-called referendums, contains a call to states, international organisations and specialised UN agencies not to recognise any changes in the status of those oblasts of Ukraine, as well as a demand that Russia cancel the annexation and withdraw all its troops from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders. It also contains a call to "support the de-escalation of the current situation and a peaceful resolution of the conflict through political dialogue, negotiations, mediation and other peaceful means", but on condition of observing the principles of sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Story continues Quote from Volodymyr Zelenskyy: "We are grateful to the 143 states that supported the historic resolution of the UN General Assembly "Territorial integrity of Ukraine: defending the principles of the UN Charter". The world had its say; the Russian attempt at annexation is worthless and will never be recognised by free nations. Ukraine will recover all its lands". Background: Russia strongly opposed the adoption of the resolution, and on 30 September, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it vetoed it. Moscow later tried unsuccessfully to have a closed-door vote on the resolution, arguing that the open vote was politicised. The vote in the UN General Assembly was another defeat for Russia, which claims that its annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts complies with international law and the UN Charter. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! CHICAGO (AP) A United Airlines flight from Chicago to Miami had to return Friday to Chicago OHare International Airport when the aircraft struck a bird shortly after takeoff, the airline said. United Airlines said in a statement that Flight 1930 returned safely to Chicago O'Hare International Airport after experiencing a bird strike shortly after take-off." No one aboard the Boeing 737-900 aircraft was injured, the airline said. The passengers later boarded another aircraft that was expected to depart OHare early Friday afternoon bound for Miami International Airport. United Airlines provided no other details on the incident, including when it occurred, but a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation said a stand by alert" was issued for Flight 1930 at 11:14 a.m. The spokeswoman said the situation was secured" about 15 minutes later. A US Marine and Thai troops train for landmine disposal in February 2019. US Marine Corps/Cpl. Jamin M. Powell The US Army is working on a new landmines designed to attack the thinner armor on the top of tanks. The Army recently awarded a contract for production of the XM204, a "wide area top-attack munition." The Army sees the weapon as a way to restrict an enemy's room to maneuver its armored vehicles. The US Army is developing a smart anti-tank mine that detects the sounds of enemy vehicles and then destroys them with an armor-piercing slug. Gone are the World War II-era buried mines that resembled dinner plates or Frisbees. The XM204 looks like a large suitcase, and instead of clothes it carries four top-attack submunitions that pop up and hit the thinner armor on the top of a tank. The Army recently awarded Textron a $353 million contract to produce the XM204, which is also being designed to pose less danger to civilians who might come across it. US soldiers test the XM204 at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona in June 2021. US Army/Mark Schauer The Army doesn't call the XM204 a landmine, and for good reason. Mines have been widely condemned because of the harm they do to civilians even decades after they are deployed. In June 2022, the Biden administration committed the US to joining many other nations in refusing to buy or deploy anti-personnel mines anywhere except the Korean Peninsula. Instead, XM204 is described as a "wide area top-attack munition" or a "terrain-shaping obstacle." The weapon uses acoustic sensors to detect and identify incoming tanks. "It can 'hear' tracked vehicles and feel them coming," an Army researcher said in a press release. "When it does, it uses a mechanism that starts tracking the vehicle. When the threat-tracked vehicle is a certain distance away, the XM204 will shoot a submunition into the air to fire the warhead down at the target within its zone of authority." A Textron executive told Jane's that each XM204 weighs about 80 pounds. The acoustic sensor detects oncoming vehicles and a Doppler radar pinpoints a vehicle's exact location. US soldiers with terrain-shaping obstacle launchers during an evaluation in July 2020. US Army The Army envisions the weapon as a way to channel the movement of enemy forces. When US troops are in open terrain, without forests or rivers to block enemy armor, they can deploy an instant minefield to constrict the enemy's room to maneuver. Story continues However, the weapon also seem suitable for more aggressive emplacement. US special-operations forces could deploy the XM204 behind enemy lines to block highways and bridges. Particularly interesting is whether the weapon will eventually be given to Ukraine. Ukrainian commandos or guerrillas would have a field day placing the weapon on key Russian roads and supply routes. The Army hasn't released technical details for the XM204. However, in April 2021, the Army posted a sources-sought announcement for companies that could develop a "Terrain Shaping Obstacle (TSO) Top Attack prototype." US soldiers detonate anti-tank mines in southern Iraq in April 2003. PA Images via Getty Images The announcement mentions a control station that could remotely operate up to 12 minefields that are up to 3.1 miles away. The maximum range of the munition itself isn't listed, except for a minimum standoff distance of roughly 164 feet. The Army also desired a munition that could be remotely controlled from up to 186 miles away. The XM204 isn't the first top-attack mine. In the 1990s, the Army developed the M93 Hornet, also built by Textron. The M93 sounds similar to the XM204, except that it appears to have fired a single munition that used infrared homing to target a tank and then fired an explosively formed penetrator a self-forging molten slug of metal into the top of it. More recently, Russia has reportedly employed its PTKM-1R top-attack mine in Ukraine. The weapon, which looks similar to the M93 Hornet, appears to rely on acoustic sensors to detect vehicles. Ukrainian soldiers prepare to move anti-tank mines closer to Russian troops in Kharkiv on May 15. John Moore/Getty Images However, unlike the M93 and XM204, the PTKM-1R's instructions suggest it does not have 360-degree coverage and needs to be pointed at the target. The XM204 will replace the US military's aging suite of artillery- and air-delivered cluster mines, known as the Family of Scatterable Mines. Such weapons drew the ire of anti-landmine organizations. After the first Gulf War, GAO investigators found that many US mines were duds creating entire "dudfields" and that their self-destruct mechanisms didn't always work. Still, a minefield in a suitcase is an appealing concept, especially for special operators, light infantry, and guerrillas who lack heavy weapons to stop enemy armor. For those who don't have their own tanks, an instant minefield may be the next best thing. Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn. Read the original article on Business Insider In this Friday, May 17, 2019, photo released by the U.S. Navy, the USS Abraham Lincoln sails in the Arabian Sea near the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge. Associated Press The US Navy said it recently found E. coli bacteria in the drinking water of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. It said this week that there have been no confirmed cases of illness related to the contamination. It's the second time in only a few weeks that the Navy has revealed the potable water on a carrier had been contaminated. The US Navy acknowledged that it recently found E. coli bacteria in the drinking water aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Sailors first noticed an "odor and cloudy appearance" in the ship's water on September 21, the Navy said in a statement released Thursday, weeks after the initial discovery. The next day, testing aboard the ship indicated that E. coli bacteria was present in several of the ship's potable water tanks. The Navy did not go into detail on the severity of the water contamination by E.coli, of which some strains and concentrations can be life-threatening. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E. coli infections can be very mild, but others can be severe. Symptoms of an infection can include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. The sea service did say though that it isolated the tanks, made bottled water available to the crew, and has had no confirmation of related illnesses. "The odor and cloudiness in the water abated by Sept. 22.," the Navy explained in its statement. "However, since the presence of E. coli was not related to the reports of odor and cloudiness in the water, on Sept. 24, additional water samples were sent to Orange Coast Analytical, Inc., a laboratory certified by the state of California's Department of Health, for further testing." The Navy said the results came back on September 26 and that the water was within the required drinking standards. "All potable water tanks currently in service to the crew have been tested and are clear of E. coli," the service said, further explaining that "the affected water tanks remain isolated and will be deep-cleaned and inspected during the ship's ongoing maintenance period." Story continues The Navy said that although there have been no confirmed cases of illness related to the contamination of the ship's water, the crew is being monitored. The carrier returned earlier this month to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, where the flattop is connected to the city's water supply. A Naval Air Forces spokesperson did not immediately respond to Insider's request seeking more information, including why the Navy waited multiple weeks to publically acknowledge that E. coli had been detected in the water supply and whether or not the ship is encouraging people to seek precautionary medical attention. Contaminated water on Navy ships is not unique to the Abraham Lincoln, which discovered its contaminated water shortly after another aircraft carrier did the same. Last month, just a few days before problems with the water were found on the Abraham Lincoln, the Navy said it found what it described as "traces" of jet fuel in the drinking and bathing water on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. A sailor and their parents later told Insider that the issue was way worse than what the service originally said publically and argued that the issue was downplayed. "We were exposed to an unhealthy amount of JP-5," the Nimitz sailor said, referring to a type of kerosene-based jet fuel that is used in military aircraft and is a go-to for the Navy's carrier air wings. Multiple Navy and Marine Corps veterans told Insider that jet fuel contaminating water on Navy flattops is actually a decades-long issue and one which has spanned many ships. "When you go to take a shower, it smells a lot like jet fuel. It tastes like jet fuel. It was terrible," recalled one veteran sailor who served on the Forrestal-class carrier USS Ranger in the 1980s. Read the original article on Business Insider An ambulance believed to be carrying a shooting suspect arrives at Wake Medical Center Emergency Room in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 surrounded by police. AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker A gunman opened fire in Raleigh, North Carolina on Thursday, killing five and injuring two more. Among the dead is a 16-year-old boy and an off-duty police officer, authorities said Friday. "The depth of their pain is unimaginable," Gov. Roy Cooper said of the victims and families. A gunman opened fire in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday evening, killing five people including a teenager and an off-duty police officer and leaving two more injured, police say. The attack unfolded at around 5 p.m. local time near the Neuse River Greenway in northeast Raleigh, authorities said. At a press conference Friday morning, Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson identified the victims of the shooting as 53-year-old Nicole Conners, 49-year-old Susan Karnatz, 34-year-old Mary Marshall, 16-year-old James Thompson, and 29-year-old off-duty police officer Gabriel Torres. Two other people were injured, Patterson said, including 59-year-old Marcille Gardner, who is in critical condition, and another Raleigh police officer who has since been treated and released from the hospital. "There are several families in our community waking up this morning without their loved ones. We grieve for them today. Our prayers are also with those who are injured," Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said at a press conference. "We also must support these victims and their families. The depth of their pain is unimaginable," North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters. "I saw the faces of Raleigh police officers last night, and their pain was evident. And I know that's happening all over the city." Patterson identified the shooting suspect as a 15-year-old boy who was taken into custody following the shooting and is in critical condition. "He had to be between 13 and 16 max," a witness who saw the gunman on Thursday told local station WRAL. "He was a child. You just don't imagine things like that." Local officials said Thursday night that while the shooting happened just after 5 p.m., authorities didn't contain the suspect until 8 p.m. Mayor Baldwin said there is an active investigation into the shooting. Read the original article on Insider A member of the Proud Boys wearing a t-shirt that reads "death to liberals" stands with other Proud Boys in Freedom Plaza during a protest on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images A new book, "We Are Proud Boys," details the four tiers of membership in the extremist organization. Author Andy Campbell explains tiers involving tattoos, breakfast cereals, and a ban on masturbation. The top Proud Boy tier requires an arrest or a "serious violent fight," per founder Gavin McInnes. When Gavin McInnes, the far-right Canadian shock jock, announced the formation of the Proud Boys back in 2016, the stated aim was defending the historical contributions of white men and their champion, former President Donald Trump. Its members identify as "Western chauvinists" and they see their enemy as "antifa." Chapter leaders mimic the operational security language of a military organization at war and celebrate violent clashes with leftists in the streets. Over the past six years, Proud Boys have shown up at Black Lives Matter demonstrations and marched through liberal cities, serving as the self-styled vanguard of the MAGA movement. They were on the front lines of the January 6 insurrection, its leaders collaborating with paramilitary groups such as the Oath Keepers in an effort to halt the certification of the 2020 election, and several have since been charged with offenses ranging from illegal gun possession to seditious conspiracy. But as journalist Andy Campbell details in his new book, "We Are Proud Boys," while the group ultimately takes itself very seriously, mimicking the operational security language of a military organization, complete with tacticial units on the prowl for trouble at street protests, it is essentially a drug-and-drink fueled fraternity based on a cult of personality and cultural grievances; still potentially dangerous, as evidenced by its arrest record, but also cringe-worthy. That is perhaps no more clear than in the rituals required for members to advance within the organization. How a man becomes a boy Based on extensive research and information gleaned from a left-wing informant within the organization, Campbell, a senior editor at HuffPost, details four tiers of membership within the Proud Boys. The first is easy enough: a simple pledge. Story continues "At the first degree, a new recruit has to declare allegiance to the Proud Boys, often and at every opportunity, whether it's online or in his personal life," Campbell writes. The organization is steeped in white supremacy, demanding that its members commit to the belief that European civilization was, remains, and will always be superior to all others. "The Proud Boys' actions," notes the Southern Poverty Law Center, "belie their disavowals of bigotry: Rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists." Unlike similar far-right groups (or its "antifa" foes), this is also not a group or political tendency that wishes its followers to remain anonymous. In fact, members, including small business owners, have openly boasted of their membership, sometimes managing to obtain press coverage that paints them as simple, color-blind patriots. While Proud Boys are encouraged to boast of their membership, obfuscation is an essential part of being in the group. Although some key leaders have been outed as neo-Nazis, the group as a whole tends to avoid explicit racism, trumpeting the fact that some of its members are indeed non-white (women, however, are not allowed). But as Campbell notes, racial supremacy is at its core. You don't have to be white to be Proud Boy, per its founder, but you do have to know your place. "If you're Black or Hispanic, whatever, I don't really care," McInnes said on one of his online broadcasts, as reported by Campbell. "I'm all about the culture. Now, part of that is recognizing that white males seem to be the ones who made it, and respecting that, but it doesn't mean you're not invited to the party." McInnes did not respond to a request for comment sent to his media company. Western chauvinism as white pride Prospective Proud Boys, to be initiated into the group's first tier, pledge allegiance not to white supremacy, per se, but to what is cast as white culture: "I am a Western chauvinist and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world." As the informant told Campbell, this ceremony can be impromptu, taking place in the middle of a drunken march through a city, and entails a recruit who has gained sufficient trust by attending public events and a superior within the organization facing each other, raising their right hands and reciting the oath in a call-and-response manner. With that, a recruit becomes a member. To get to the second tier, a Proud Boy who is deemed ready by leadership stands in the middle of a circle, surrounded by their cadre, who then start pummeling him Campbell's source got a cracked rib with the violence also ceasing when the man in the middle can recite the names of five breakfast cereals, ostensibly to test their coolness under pressure. "If the embarrassment of the punching ceremony isn't enough," Campbell writes, "a second-degree Proud Boy is also expected to subscribe to one of the truly more bizarre facets of the group. This is the 'no wanks' policy outlined by McInnes: he's only allowed to masturbate once a month, and he's otherwise only able to ejaculate when he's 'within one yard of a woman with her consent.'" From there, things "get permanent," Campbell writes. The third tier: "The recruit must get a Proud Boys tattoo or brand," with the former being far more popular. At this point, the initiation into various tiers could be mistaken for fraternity rites. But while much of the group's antics and internal policies are laughable, there is still danger in groups of intoxicated, radicalizing men who believe they are engaged in a war against a godless enemy. The final tier: violence McInnes himself explained the fourth and final tier of Proud Boys members in a 2017 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast (since deleted by Rogan's publisher, Spotify): "Fourth degree," he said, "you get arrested or get in a serious violent fight for the cause." That violence is supposed to be in self-defense. But part of being a Proud Boy is looking for a fight and apparent efforts to obtain that fourth-tier have led some to prison. Outside a Manhattan venue in 2018 where, inside, founder McInnes was venerating a far-right Japanese assassin, members of the Proud Boys assaulted counter-protesters outside. Two were later convicted in state court of "attempted gang violence," among other charges. The Proud Boys' former, formal leader, Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, has also been charged with engaging in a seditious conspiracy on January 6, when pro-Trump insurrections, members of the Proud Boys front and center, picked fights with police in an effort to overturn the 2020 election, their anti-fascist opponents nowhere in sight. "Our client is looking forward to his day in trial and showing a complete picture of all the pieces of evidence the government intends to show," Tarrio's attorney Nayib Hassan told Insider. Tarrio was not in DC the day of the attack but, prosecutors allege, helped direct his fellow Proud Boys' actions from afar. He has proclaimed his innocence (another former leader, Jeremy Bertino, recently pleaded guilty). McInnes, meanwhile, has managed to avoid the sort of legal trouble his followers now face. He ostensibly cut ties with the group he founded back in 2018, following the arrests outside his Manhattan speech. His own purported "arrest," during a live broadcast in August, turned out to be a publicity stunt: the man who founded a far-right street gang was not in jail, but vacationing in the south of France. Read the original article on Business Insider Roving gangs have gained power throughout Haiti over the past 15 months in the wake of former President Jovenel Moise's assassination, blockading essential ports and terrorizing citizens who are increasingly in need of basic supplies like food and medicine. The Biden administration announced this week that it will deploy security assistance to Haiti's National Police and issue visa restrictions on Haitian officials involved with gangs. The move falls short of "a specialized armed force" that Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry requested from the international community, an action that U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., says is necessary to prevent a mass exodus from Haiti that could overwhelm America's already untenable migrant crisis. "Wait until there's mass starvation there's going to be wholesale emptying of that island, and they're going to be coming across the straits, they're going to be coming through Mexico, they're going to be coming to our border," Sen. Cassidy told Fox News Digital. "Now, we can either ignore that and if we do, we're going to have more immigration than we even have now, and there will be starvation, and there'll be Haitians drowning in the straits of Florida or we can attempt to address it." US EXPELS HAITIANS LEADING TO INCREASE IN CHARTER BUSINESS TO LATIN AMERICA READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Haitians have already fled the island in record numbers in recent months, as the Coast Guard has interdicted more than 7,100 migrants in the Florida Straits, a more than four-fold jump from the 1,527 Haitians who were stopped in all of 2021. While many of these migrants are undoubtedly seeking safety and stability, some members of the violent gangs currently terrorizing the country could be swept into the flow, raising troubling parallels to the origins of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. That infamous gang was born out of Salvadoran migrants who settled in Los Angeles during the 1980s after fleeing their country's civil war. Four decades later, MS-13 has an estimated 10,000 members in the United States and tens of thousands more around the world. Story continues "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure has a rhythm, and you think there might be a rhythm there," Sen. Cassidy said. "Right now, the gangs are stealing rice shipments, but once there are no rice shipments, there won't be anything to steal, and they will be hungry as well, and so we can expect them to leave after they've destroyed the country." Approximately 200 gangs are currently active in Haiti, controlling large parts of the capital of Port-au-Prince and seizing critical infrastructure, such as the country's main Varreux fuel terminal. One gang, known as 400 Mawozo, kidnapped 16 Christian missionaries nearly one year ago on Oct. 16, 2021, but they eventually all escaped captivity by December. The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, 29-year-old Joly Germine, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in May on charges of conspiracy to commit hostage taking. COAST GUARD STOPPED RECORD-BREAKING NUMBER OF HAITIAN MIGRANTS NEAR FLORIDA'S COAST Fulfilling the prime minister's request for an international peacekeeping force may be necessary to restore order in Haiti and prevent an influx of these violent gangs into the U.S., according to Sen. Cassidy. "It should be an international force. Ideally, it would be coming out of Latin America Mexico and Chile and Colombia countries which currently are not involved internationally to the degree that we are, but hopefully have solidarity with a Western hemispheric neighbor," Sen. Cassidy said. "First, youve got to create a security zone period, end of story. Until there's a security zone, nothing else works. Thats really step one, and then after that, you work from there." CHINA MAY SEEK GREATER ROLE IN HAITI AS UN SECURITY COUNCIL EXTENDS POLITICAL MISSION A Biden administration official told reporters on Wednesday that it was "premature" to consider "a U.S. security presence," but the situation in Haiti is growing more dire by the day. Nearly half of the Haitian population, 4.5 million people, are experiencing hunger, and 1.3 million people are experiencing extreme food insecurity, according to Theresa Piorr, a spokesperson for the United Nations' World Food Program based in Haiti. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "In less than a year, the price of the basic food basket has increased by more than half. The price of petrol has doubled. Inflation stands at 31 percent the highest it's been in recent years and it's expected to rise further," Piorr told Fox News Digital. "The situation in Haiti today has sadly reached new levels of desperation." Virgin Group is suing Alaska Airlines over a trademark dispute, according to Simple Flying. The lawsuit: The former claims the latter is obligated to pay $8 million a year in royalties until 2039, and that payments should have started after Alaska acquired Virgin America in 2016. Terms outlined in a trademark license agreement between Virgin Group and Virgin America in 2014 lead Virgin to believe it is entitled to the payments, which from 2016 until now, equal a sum of at least $160 million. The merger: Virgin America ended up merging with Alaska Airlines, however, Alaska stopped using the Virgin brand name a year after the merger. Daniel Toledano, the lawyer for Virgin, said, The minimum royalty is due as a debt, as consideration for the grant of the right to use the Virgin brand, irrespective of whether, and if so how much, the Virgin brand is actually used by Alaska. Alaskas innocence: Alaska Airlines, however, says it is not legally required to pay royalties to Virgin due to a clause introduced in a prior version of the trademark license agreement. The airline claims the clause gives the airline the freedom to operate without paying Virgin as long as it does not use the Virgin brand. Tom Weisselberg, a lawyer representing Alaska Airlines, said, Virgins interpretation is an obviously surprising one. If Alaska really was subject to a nine-figure obligation spanning decades, one would expect that would be clearly spelled out. Whats the come for the future: The case began on Monday in Londons High Court. It is expected to continue for a week. Related: American Airlines And The Points Guy Suing Each Other Over Terms Of Frequent Flyer Program As Raleigh continues to process the shock of Thursday evenings shooting that killed five and injured two, the Wake County District Attorneys Office is preparing to pursue charges against the 15-year-old suspect. On Friday afternoon, District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told The News & Observer that she has begun the process of moving this case from juvenile court to superior court. Her office has filed petitions for a probable cause hearing, the first step in transferring the case to superior court. In this situation, theres no question the mass loss of life, in my opinion, this case be transferred and tried in superior court, Freeman said. Freeman explained there is a three-step process to elevating charges to superior court: First, a petition must be filed in juvenile court for a probable cause hearing Second, a probable cause hearing is held to determine if this case can and should be tried in superior court, usually within 15 days of the incident Third, the DA makes a recommendation based on the evidence of probable cause In this case, if probable cause is determined at the hearing, Freemans office will automatically pursue adult charges per a North Carolina law that moves Class A felonies in juvenile court to superior court. First-degree murder is a Class A homicide. Were very much at the beginning of the process, Freeman said. Because these initial petitions were filed in juvenile court, Freemans office has not released the suspects name. However, sources have confirmed for the N&O that the suspect is 15-year-old Austin Thompson, the brother of 16-year-old shooting victim James Thompson. Freeman said her focus is to support the victims families, as her office has done in the past. We are prepared for justice to be sought for these families, Freeman said. China must adhere to its dynamic zero-COVID strategy to protect its vulnerable population and cope with uncertainties associated with emerging variants and the lingering effects of the disease, public health experts said on Thursday. Liang Wannian, a member of the National Health Commission's virus control expert panel, said that completely ending the epidemic in China would require increasing mass vaccinations among the elderly, strengthening healthcare systems and developing more effective vaccines and drugs. While Omicron is believed to be a less severe variant, Liang's comment came at a time when waves of outbreaks were reported across the Chinese mainland following a major national holiday. "Although the fatality rate (the number of deaths per confirmed cases) of Omicron is lower than that of the original strain and other variants, it can lead to large numbers of infections due to its fast and stealthy transmission and ability to evade immunity," he said at a news briefing. "As a result, the absolute number of deaths across a certain population would still be quite large, and the disease's population-mortality risk remains higher than that of influenza," he said, adding that Omicron can also threaten to overstretch local medical systems and result in excessive deaths. Liang said China's large populations of elderly and people with chronic illnesses are at particularly high risk of severe symptoms and death if Omicron were left to spread unchecked. "If we relax our virus-control measures, there is bound to be a spike in new infections, and even many serious cases and deaths. We cannot stand to see such a severe consequence," he said. China has suffered the least from the pandemic among major countries thanks to its scientific and effective measures. Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said China, which is home to 18.3 percent of the global population, contributes only 0.16 percent of COVID-19 cases and 0.08 percent of related deaths worldwide. He added that the disease's incidence rate on the Chinese mainland is only 1/483rd of United States', and its mortality rate is nearly 1/785th of that of the US. "There is no reason to cast doubt on our (COVID-prevention) strategy," he said. The current dynamic zero-COVID strategy emphasizes prompt and precise detection and control of new outbreaks to avert sustained transmission and large-scale outbreaks, and achieve a balance between virus control and socioeconomic development, said experts. As Omicron continues to sweep across the globe as the dominant strain, Liang said it surely is not the last variant to emerge. "The pathogenicity and virulence of new variants are unclear, so we should stick to the current approach to deal with the unpredictability," he said. Research has also demonstrated that quite a number of recovered patients exhibit long-term symptoms, such as fatigue, breathing difficulties and cognitive impairment. Wu, the chief epidemiologist, said, "Adherence to the dynamic zero-COVID approach not only enables containment of large outbreaks but also prevents most people from getting infected and suffering from long-COVID symptoms." National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control official Lei Zhenglong also urged localities to improve the precision of epidemic control measures and reduce their impact on normal lives. Liang, the expert, said China has seen flickers of hope in ending the epidemic, but more needs to be done and no specific timeline is determined. "We should boost mass vaccination, especially among the elderly, and strengthen our disease control and treatment capability," he said. "Meanwhile, we should enhance efforts to develop more effective vaccines and more accessible and easy-to-use therapeutics, and ramp up their production and supply." The planned merger of Kroger and Albertsons Companies Inc., officially announced Friday, is set to bring more grocery store reshuffling in Washington state. A previous buyout creates overlap with the two chains that could lead to some stores spun out from the deal. Albertsons in 2016 bought the remaining core of Bellingham-based Haggen stores after Haggen filed for bankruptcy and a legal battle between the two over Haggens failed expansion bid involving the purchase of 146 West Coast Vons, Pavilions, Albertsons and Safeway stores. The result was 29 core Haggen sites rebranded under the Albertsons umbrella, resulting in a local grocery retail world now in which there is a Safeway store, for example, mere blocks away from Krogers Fred Meyer in Gig Harbor. The two grocery giants on Friday announced that they would spin off between 100 and 375 stores into a new company to head off Federal Trade Commission concerns about excessive market concentration, The Idaho Statesman reported. Ahead of Fridays announcement, unions representing Pacific Northwest workers for both Kroger and Albertsons/Safeway spoke out against the merger on Thursday. The proposed merger of these two grocery giants is devastating for workers and consumers alike and must be stopped, Faye Guenther, president of UFCW 3000, said in a statement. Just as our UFCW workers stood together to negotiate landmark new contracts with both Kroger and Albertsons/Safeway within the last year across the western US, we will stand united to fight for access to nutritious food, a safe shopping experience, and investments in good jobs in our communities. Unions listed in the joint statement with UFCW 3000 included UFCW 7, UFCW 324, UFCW 367 and UFCW 770. In the joint news release from unions representing area grocery workers, it said: UFCWs members have been a leading national voice on enforcing federal and state antitrust laws as well as forwarding the values of protecting a fair marketplace that prevents corporations from using monopoly power to exploit customers and workers. We are asking the appropriate administrative and elected officials to step in and stop this merger and protect workers and consumers. Story continues Market analysts already were noting the significant brand overlap in some parts of the country from past acquisitions involving both chains. Eleanor Fox, a New York University professor who specializes in antitrust and competition policy, told NBC News on Friday that a merger would be less likely to gain approval if they are the top two grocers in many markets. Southern California, Colorado, the Puget Sound region and parts of the Midwest and Texas are among the dense overlap areas, one analyst noted. Heads up, ARMY: BTS is performing in concert this weekend, and youre all invited to watch. The guys of the worlds biggest boy band Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook have partnered with Weverse to livestream a festival-style show for millions of fans, who are invited to attend virtually from all over the world. Keep reading to see all the details on how to tune in. More from Billboard Related BTS A Complete List of BTS' Solo Projects (So Far) 10/14/2022 10/14/2022 What Is the Concert? in Busan is a global livestreamed BTS concert, planned to showcase the boybands support of Busans bid to host the 2030 World Expo. Busan is one of four cities in the running to host the event a worlds fair proposed to take place in 2030 with Rome; Odesa, Ukraine; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia also being considered. The Bureau International des Expositions will vote on the winning host country next year. In July, the BTS boys were appointed honorary ambassadors for Busans World Expo 2030 bid. The band was chosen because they understand the importance of the World Expo and share the same values, according to a statement from BTS record label, Big Hit. When and Where Will the Concert Take Place? BTS is scheduled to perform at 6 p.m. KST (5 a.m. ET) this Saturday (Oct. 15). Theyll take the stage in Busan Asiad Main Stadium in Busan, South Korea. The concerts venue was originally planned to be Ilgwang Special Stage, but Big Hit later announced in a September press release that the location had been changed to Busan Asiad Main Stadium to preserve the main purpose of the concert and for the audience to have a smooth, enjoyable and accessible viewing experience. How to Watch on Weverse First, youll need to make a free account on Weverse using your email. Story continues Then, come concert time, all youll need to do to watch BTS perform on your computer is click this link. Alternatively, stream the concert on the mobile Weverse app or on the Weverse Smart TV app. The livestream will have eight different languages available for subtitles to help ensure that ARMY from around the world can enjoy the show. The languages are Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Thai. No RSVP is required to watch the show. Click here to read the full article. (Google Maps) Curious viewers began flocking to New Jersey on Thursday to drive by 657 Boulevard in Westfield - the house at the centre of Netflixs new true crime drama The Watcher. The series, starring Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow and Naomi Watts, debuted earlier in the day, telling a highly fictionalized version of a nightmare experienced by the Broaddus family, who bought the house in 2014. Derek and Maria Broaddus and their three young children intended to move into the home, with its $1.35m purchase price. But just days after closing, Mr Broaddus says the family began receiving a series of eerie letters signed The Watcher, who included details such a their childrens names and snippets of conversations that could only be known if someone was within viewing distance and earshot of the house. The Broaddus family never took up residence in the home. The creepy case was chronicled in 2018 by The Cut, which included the homes address, and visitors to the street have not been infrequent ever since - similar to people driving by the Amityville Horror House, another Dutch Colonial with a sinister history just 60 miles east on Long Island. Bobby Cannavale in The Watcher (ERIC LIEBOWITZ/NETFLIX) But there were way more on Boulevard on Thursday, a neighbour told The Independent - and that was only the first day of the series release. The Watcher was the number one show on Netflix on Friday. The Westfield Police Department and Mayor Shelley Brindle did not immediately return requests for comment from The Independent. While the Netflix series takes a huge amount of creative license - manufacturing characters, details, storylines and the majority of the plot, really - the truth at the heart of the story is chiling. The first white envelope discuvered in the family mailbox by Mr Broaddus was addressed to The New Owner. How did you end up here? the letter read. Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within? 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. Story continues 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. The interior of the house as it looked under previous ownership, years before the Broaddus family moved in (Margaret Bakes Davis) 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. 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 and even considered buying it back (Margaret Bakes Davis) 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 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 there were multiple suspects; the family hired their own investigator and consultants, too. But the mystery was never solved, and they eventually sold the house at a loss in 2019. The identity of The Watcher remains unknown to this day. Columbia fire chief candidate Clayton Farr Jr., right, chats with Donald Hill at a meet-and-greet event at Columbia City Hall in August. Farr currently is an assistant chief with the department. The Columbia firefighters' union expressed concerns Friday about being left out of the selection process for the city's next fire chief. The city has worked to fill the fire chief position since Feb. 25 when former Fire Chief Andy Woody officially resigned to take a position as head of the Arkansas Fire Training Academy. Randy White temporarily returned as fire chief until September when Farr was named as acting chief. The city has entered negotiations for its next fire chief, the city manager's office confirmed Thursday. Columbia Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 1055 members have recommended Brian Dunn over internal candidate Clayton Farr Jr., according to a union statement provided to the Tribune. Dunn previously was chief of the San Angelo, Texas, fire department and has family connections to northeast Missouri in Scotland County. "This recommendation was based on qualifications, experience and background information gathered after the finalists were announced by the city manager," read the statement, signed by Zack Privette, union president. "It is the sole mission of our members to seek qualified and stable leadership for our members and for the citizens of Columbia in their next fire chief." Previously: Columbia nears decision on next fire chief, enters negotiation process The union had expected more information two weeks after a Sept. 8 meeting with city manager De'Carlon Seewod, Privette said. Seewood has provided information to the union multiple times, city spokesperson Sydney Olsen wrote in an email, responding to an inquiry from the Tribune. "He informed the union of the number of candidates who applied for the position of fire chief and kept them abreast of the progress of the search by providing information that can be openly discussed," she wrote. "... The city manager has made a concerted effort to hear feedback on candidates from members of the Columbia Fire Department, the union and members of the public, and has communicated that this information is being considered as part of the hiring process." Story continues The city has been assisted by Strategic Government Resources in the search process. The city has spent approximately $18,627 as of Wednesday on the process. A public meet-and-greet with finalists was held Aug. 24. Feedback received from the public, city staff and fire department staff has been taken into consideration by the city manager's office as it works toward hiring the next fire chief, Olsen previously wrote to the Tribune. The union has accused Seewood of shutting it out of information until a hiring announcement is made based on communication it received Sept. 30, along with an accusation that Seewood threatened to discipline Privette for "undermining the selection process," as quoted in the union statement. "Personnel information, including information about the hiring, firing or disciplining of an employee, is closed," Olsen wrote, responding to an inquiry from the Tribune about the union's accusations. "As an entity separate from the City of Columbia, the Columbia Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 1055 is privy to the same information as members of the public or media." The timeline in which a position is filled in the city varies, subject to candidates who apply and the negotiation process with one or more candidates, Olsen previously noted about the fire chief search. "The city wants to ensure adequate time is spent on this search process to make a thoughtful and well-informed decision," she wrote. Union members stated they desire stable leadership, along with a candidate who can bring innovation, creative thinking and problem-solving skills to the department. "The members of the Columbia Professional Firefighters will not be deterred in our efforts to achieve just that, not only for the employees, but for the citizens we proudly serve," the statement read. Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism. This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia firefighters' union concerned with chief selection process Theres a largely overlooked hacking target that could help those who want to sow doubt about vote tallies in the November midterms: cellular modems that transmit unofficial election-night results. The modems, which send vote data from precincts to central offices using cellphone networks, help election officials satisfy the publics demand for rapid results. But putting any networking connection on an election system opens up new ways to attack it that dont require physical access to machines, and security experts say the risks arent worth the rewards. You're counting on a bunch of infrastructure to deliver data back and forth, and it's well within the capabilities of nation-state hackers to break into that infrastructure, said Dan Wallach, a Rice University computer science professor who has repeatedly exposed flaws in election equipment. While tampering with unofficial results wouldn't actually corrupt an elections outcome, it could fuel misinformation about both the accuracy of the vote tally and the integrity of the process. Thats a particular concern since the 2020 election, in which then-President Donald Trump seized on large discrepancies between early returns and final vote counts to falsely allege widespread fraud. At least six states Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota use modems to transmit results in a combined 36 counties, according to a POLITICO survey. Rhode Island uses them statewide, and Washington, D.C., uses them citywide. Wisconsin, which the nonprofit election integrity group Verified Voting identified as using modem-equipped devices, did not respond to inquiries about whether its counties use the feature. While thereve been no reports of modems being hacked in previous elections, the vulnerabilities are well known, and hackers have the tools to exploit them. And the mere existence of these modem vulnerabilities could make it easier for Trump allies to disrupt the midterm elections and future contests with more unfounded hacking claims, say some former election officials. Story continues In the current hyperpolarized atmosphere, modems in voting machines are now not only a potential target for cyberattacks, but, perhaps more importantly, information operations seeking to cast doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. elections, said David Levine, a former election director for Ada County, Idaho. Hes now a fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy working on elections integrity issues. Modem use expands the threat surface area [that] election officials are forced to defend against all hazards including cyber, operational mistake[s], misinformation and fairy tales, said Noah Praetz, former election director for Cook County, Ill. Florida the site of a tight Senate race in November between Republican incumbent Marco Rubio and Democrat Val Demings uses modems in 18 counties, including Broward, the second-most populous. These states have persisted in using the modems even though the hacking risk has been established for years. The Senate Intelligence Committee recommended in a 2019 report on Russias interference in the 2016 election that officials remove or disable any wireless networking capability in their voting machines. Multiple states including Alabama, California, Colorado, Maryland, New York and Virginia have banned modems. Modems remain popular for two major reasons: time and distance. Americans dont like waiting to learn who won an election. There is an appetite in the public for immediate results, and [using modems] is the best way to do that, said Paul Lux, the election supervisor in Okaloosa County, Fla., which uses modems to transmit its election results. The main alternatives are calling in vote totals or driving memory cards to the central office. The former process is error-prone, and multiple counties said the latter process would create hourslong delays. In Okaloosa County, which stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Alabama border, only one major road connects the election office in the north with the 68 percent of registered voters who live in the south, Lux said. If poll workers had to deliver results by hand, he said, he wouldnt be able to report results until 11 p.m. Mark Ard, a spokesperson for Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, said that without modems, some counties might not be able to report results until the day after an election. And delays create misinformation risks as well. Trump and other 2020 election deniers seized on delays as another excuse to claim the results were rigged. Ard and election officials in other states that use modems told POLITICO they believe the security risks are overblown. Ive been at this job now 10 years, and we've used modems as far as I can remember, and we've never ever had an issue, said Travis Weipert, the election supervisor in Johnson County, Iowa. Some officials argued their modems avoid security risks by using special networks set up for that purpose. But those systems are no panacea, Wallach said, because theyre still placing a lot of trust in [telecom companies], and that's exactly the kind of thing that nation-state adversaries can and do regularly compromise. Hackers could break into the telecom networks carrying the modems transmissions and manipulate them en route, similar to how Ukrainian officials have used their control of their own networks to intercept invading Russian soldiers phone calls. Attackers could also use portable devices that emulate cell towers to intercept modem transmissions. We now have to worry about anybody getting access to a communication network that is fundamentally open, said Matt Blaze, a Georgetown University computer science and law professor who studies voting systems. Officials also cited encryption as a way to shield vote data from tampering in transit. But encryption isnt foolproof either. In 2007, researchers discovered that voting vendor Hart InterCivic had misconfigured its modems encryption so that the modems failed to verify their connections. Theres also a chance that hackers could use a modem connection as a foothold for planting malware on the equipment that regional offices use to tally the final counts. But its unlikely this would compromise official results, because of two key safeguards: paper ballots and post-election audits that double-check the tallies of those ballots. That said, some states dont require audits, and some Americans still vote on paperless electronic voting machines. Many security experts are optimistic that modems will eventually disappear as part of a broader push to protect elections. The direction that we're going is very encouraging, Blaze said. Removing modems is part of that trend. There have been a few moves already. In 2018, Harris County, Texas, ditched the modems that Wallach and his colleagues had discovered were insecure more than a decade earlier. Michigan is phasing out modems in the five counties that still use them. And Santa Rosa County, Fla., wont use its modems to transmit results in November after doing so in seven elections since 2018. We have a lot of people that are just concerned, said election supervisor Tappie Villane. But none of the other election offices that discussed their modems with POLITICO said they saw a reason for a change. Eventually, some of the officials sticking by modems will have to abandon them. Last year, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission added a ban on modems to a set of voluntary guidelines that many states use as the basis for their voting system testing programs. It will take years, however, for new equipment to be certified to the updated guidelines, and even then, some states may choose not to incorporate the modem ban into their own regulations. MILWAUKEE Sen. Ron Johnsons public explanations about whether he played a role in a plan to reverse the 2020 election results have led the lawyer suing Wisconsins slate of fake electors to say hell soon demand they turn over any communications they may have had with him or his staff. The attorney, Jeff Mandell, told NBC News hes also attempting to probe communications between the Republican senator and the Wisconsin-based lawyer Jim Troupis, who served as an attorney for then-President Donald Trumps campaign. Troupis, who headed Trumps unsuccessful recount efforts in the state, was not one of the 10 people who falsely attested that Trump was Wisconsins rightful winner, but the lawsuit alleges he was a key player in the broader scheme to undermine Joe Bidens victory. Mandell, whose case is pending in federal court, described Johnsons public explanations as evolving and said he plans to ask the judge overseeing the case for communications between the defendants and Johnson and his aides, including texts or emails. It piques our curiosity that at first it was, theres nothing to see here. Then it was, OK, but my involvement was just [a few] seconds. And now, its my involvement was one hour and, by the way, lets not call this an insurrection, Mandell said, referring to Johnsons recent comments in response to questions from NBC News. We definitely want to probe this. We certainly think there could be more to the story and we want to make sure we have the whole story. It is the latest pressure on Johnson to explain his words or actions surrounding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as the Republican enters the homestretch of an intense battle to win his third term in the U.S. Senate against Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. In addition to the potential for new civil legal entanglements, a former Democratic U.S. senator had called for federal investigators to probe Johnsons ties to the scheme, while Johnsons home state newspaper declared that his public remarks dont add up. And last week, Johnson suffered a social media backlash over his remarks that the attack on the U.S. Capitol wasnt an armed insurrection. Story continues At issue is the extent of Johnsons involvement in trying to pass a slate of phony electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, to subvert the presidential election results. Casey Lucier, investigative counsel with the Jan. 6 Select Committee, has said that the idea behind the fake electors scheme was that the Trump campaign would organize its own, unofficial electors in the swing states that Trump had lost. Then, when Congress met to certify the election results Jan. 6, Trump allies could offer their own elector slates as an alternative to the state-certified Biden electors, in an attempt to pressure Pence to refuse to validate Bidens victory. The House committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed text messages in June showing that a Johnson aide had contacted a Pence aide about getting an alternative slate of electors from Michigan and Wisconsin to the vice president; Pences aide declined. Johnson has since said that he knew nothing of a fake elector scheme, which is now part of a sprawling federal investigation. Johnson said he was contacted by Troupis about getting something to the vice president, but that he didnt know the substance of what Troupis wanted to pass along and his involvement was limited to a couple texts connecting Troupis with a member of his staff. The Wisconsin lawsuit alleges that Troupis was a link between the Trump campaign and the fake electors, and allegedly relayed the strategy behind the scheme to Trump allies in Wisconsin. The New York Times has published a Nov. 18, 2020, memo from the Trump campaign addressed to Troupis laying out the strategy, which is cited in the lawsuit. Earlier this year, Troupis was among the attorneys named in government subpoenas that the FBI served to some of the fake electors in June, according to a source with direct knowledge of the subpoena, as well as reporting from The Washington Post. The subpoena asked electors to turn over communications with various Trump attorneys, including Troupis. Reached for comment this week, a spokesman for Johnsons campaign said, We see no reason to participate in any way in another smear. Troupis could not be reached for comment. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment over phone and email. Trumps campaign also declined to comment. The former president has dismissed multiple investigations into Jan. 6 and attempts to overturn the 2020 election as politically motivated witch hunts and has continued to suggest that the election was stolen from him. Al Franken, a former Democratic senator from Minnesota who was here recently participating in Wisconsin Democrats get-out-the-vote efforts, called on the Department of Justice to investigate Johnson, citing in part Johnsons timeline of events. Hes changed his story a couple of times on handing off fake electors to the vice president or trying to, Franken said in an interview with NBC News. The Wisconsin Senate race remains one of the most closely watched in the nation. A new Marquette Law School poll suggests Johnson leads by 6 points (with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 %), while a CBS News poll last week had Johnson and Barnes in a statistical deadlock. Mandells firm filed their lawsuit in May describing the electors in Wisconsin as critical agents in the broader scheme to steal the 2020 election, which culminated in a violent riot in the nations Capitol. The complaint is awaiting a ruling by a federal judge to determine whether it remains in federal court or is remanded to circuit court. Earlier this month, Johnson again acknowledged texting with Troupis before and after a member of Johnsons staff texted the Pence aide about handing off slates of electors from Wisconsin and Michigan that had been delivered to his office. Johnson said his and his offices interactions involving Troupis and Pences staff lasted about an hour, and that he didnt know the contents of the package at the time it was delivered. You cant even call it participation. I wrote a couple texts, Johnson said, responding to questions from NBC News about his communications with Troupis. But Johnson also said in June that Troupis texted him about Wisconsin electors. Reading his text messages with Troupis on the Vicki McKenna radio show in June, Johnson said Troupis wrote, Need to get a document on Wisconsin electors to you and the VP immediately. But Johnson said he wasnt aware Troupis was referring to an alternate slate of electors; that was something he said his staff later learned. After Pences staff told Johnsons aide not to give them the slate of electors Jan. 6, Johnson said he informed Troupis. In his radio show retelling, he said the two talked a bit more and Troupis told Johnson he was contacted by the campaign. He was kind of like me, just an innocent bystander we were asked to do a delivery job, Johnson said of Troupis on the McKenna show. In all, he said, his offices involvement was limited to about 70 minutes but his own was seconds. Mandell called Johnsons communications with Troupis a red flag. That certainly suggests to me that he was aware of this effort and quite possibly supportive of this effort, he said. At a recent event at the Milwaukee Rotary Club, Johnson was asked about his actions around Jan. 6. He noted that he voted to certify election results backing Biden after the riot was over. Days before that vote, however, Johnson publicly stated he planned to join 10 other Republicans in refusing to certify the Electoral College results, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in a piece published Jan. 2, 2021: Im not going to do what Democrats and many in the media want us to do, which is just shut up, sweep all of this under the rug and move on. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com A woman had her left eye removed after she showered while wearing contact lenses and it got infected. Marie Mason caught a rare parasite infection, called Acanthamoeba keratitis, which can cause blindness. Symptoms of the infection include: eye pain, blurred vision, and the sensation of something in the eye. A woman had her left eye removed after she caught a difficult-to-treat parasitic infection from showering while wearing her contact lens. Acanthamoeba keratitis is a rare but serious infection caused by a microscopic organism that infects the outer covering of the eye, called the cornea. It's most common in contact lens wearers, but anyone can get it, according to the CDC. Marie Mason, 54, from the UK, wore 30-day contact lenses and believes the organism entered her eye when she showered without removing them. "It would have got under the lens then multiplied, so my eye was riddled with it, " she told BBC News. Showering while wearing contact lenses or cleaning lenses with tap water puts people at higher risk of catching Acanthamoeba keratitis, according to the CDC. It can cause severe pain and blindness if untreated, it states. John Dart, honorary professor at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology in the UK, told BBC News that about 150 to 200 people in the UK catch the infection each year. "Very few" lose their eye, but "about half" will lose a substantial amount of vision, he said. Acanthamoeba keratitis can make it feel like sand is constantly stuck in your eye Mason first noticed something was wrong in 2015. "I started feeling like I had a foreign body in my eye like a bit of sand or grit which, when you rub, it will normally go away, but it wouldn't," she said, per BBC News. Symptoms of Acanthamoeba keratitis can include: eye pain, blurred vision, sensitivity to light, and the sensation of something in the eye. The CDC recommends that people speak with a doctor if they get any of those symptoms. An optician advised Mason to go to hospital, and doctors diagnosed her with Acanthamoeba keratitis and treated it with various medications, eye drops, and three cornea transplants but they were all unsuccessful. Story continues "There was just lots of hospital visits, lots of eye drops, lots of operations and procedures and lots of pain," Mason told SWNS, a UK-based news agency. After five years, the decision was made to remove her left eye, and she has worn a false replacement since the operation two years ago. "I do struggle sometimes because my vision on my left side is rubbish, well it's not there. It's quite hard walking down the street when you've got people whizzing by you, and it makes you jump a bit because you don't expect it," she said. Read the original article on Insider (Lindsay Taylor/Facebook ) When Lindsay Taylor filed for divorce in April 2021, she thought she would be the one to keep an album of boudoir photography gifted to her ex-partner years before. I would assume that those images would belong to me since they are of my body, Ms Taylor told The Independent on Thursday. He didnt ask for any [pictures] of our children. He didnt ask for any of our family, any of our pets. Instead, Ms Taylors ex-husband, 45-year-old Chris Marsh, initially requested to keep the album of pictures containing nudity, she said. His request was legitimised by a divorce judge in Davis County, Utah, who ruled in favour of Mr Marshs argument that the album was a memento of their failed marriage, The Salt Lake Tribune first reported. Judge Michael Edwards said that Mr Marsh could keep a redacted version of the album with the written inscriptions in it as long as a third party censored the pictures, which Ms Taylor said is a violation of her privacy. In those moments in your marriage, you believe you can trust your partner ... and then to ask for something like that, like youre just a piece of their property, like you belong to them, somehow, it is unimaginable to me, Ms Taylor, who shares three adult children with her ex-husband, said. The divorce was finalised in July and Ms Taylor was ordered to hold onto the boudoir album for 90 days in case Mr Marsh decides that the edits are not to his agreement. When that time is up, however, Ms Taylor knows exactly what to do to get rid of the pictures for good. Burn them. Im gonna have a party with all of my old friends, the new friends Ive made along this journey, and were gonna burn them, Ms Taylor told The Independent. Ms Taylor said that although her ex-husband had initially asked for the uncensored pictures of her nude body, he later retracted and said he only wanted the album because of the footnotes she had written in it. Lindsay Taylor (Lindsay Taylor/Facebook) He'd ask for the entire book back, she said. Somewhere along the line, I don't know if he got advice from his attorney or if it was somebody else, then all of a sudden it was, 'I just want the inscription. Story continues Mr Marsh told CNN in a statement that he had only ever requested the album because of what his former wife had written in it. Meanwhile, Ms Taylor has said that even the written inscriptions she once penned as a loving wife shouldnt have been awarded to Mr Marsh. These were things that were written between a wife and her husband, and it was how I felt at the time. Its not how I feel now, she said. And to have these three men decide what gets to happen and who gets to see my body was very shocking, Ms Taylor said, referring to her husband, his lawyer, and Judge Edwards. I dont want anybody to be in this situation ever. Nobody should ever have to feel like they belong to somebody else. The decision was a reflection of the misogyny in the Utah court system, Ms Taylor said, and evidence of her ex-husbands wish to have control over her. Lindsay Taylor (Lindsay Taylor/Facebook) I feel the only reason you would ask for these is because you don't see me as a person. You see me as an object, she told The Independent. I think it is just disturbing that we have judges out there who are sitting on the bench, who are making these rulings, who are deciding peoples futures, deciding their lives, and theyre not even looking at all the evidence, she added A silver lining of the strenuous battle to regain ownership of her private pictures has been the outpouring of support that her family, friends and even strangers have shown after she decided to be outspoken about her divorce, Ms Taylor said. I have met a lot of amazing people who have come out to show support. People I know really well, she said. People that were acquaintances, complete strangers who have reached out and are just in awe that something like this could happen. Theres also been people who have felt violated themselves, that have stepped forward, that have said, Thank you for speaking up for those of us. By Tony Munroe BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping will take the stage on Sunday to kick off a historic congress of the ruling Communist Party, where he is poised to win a third term that solidifies his place as China's most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong. The congress comes at a tumultuous time, with Xi's adherence to his zero-COVID policy battering the economy, while his support for Russia's Vladimir Putin has further alienated China from the West. Still, diplomats, economists and analysts spoken to by Reuters say Xi is set to consolidate his grip on power. The roughly week-long congress will take place with around 2,300 delegates, mostly behind closed doors, in the vast Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. The Chinese capital has ramped up security and intensified COVID screening. In nearby Hebei province, steel mills were instructed to cut back on operations to improve air quality, an industry source said. The opacity of Chinese politics, which has been heightened since Xi assumed power a decade ago, means party watchers are left to speculate over who will be named to key posts and what those appointments mean. Still, few expect significant deviation in direction during a third Xi term, with continued focus on policies that prioritise security and self-reliance, state control of the economy, more assertive diplomacy and a stronger military, and growing pressure to seize Taiwan. The congress will conclude with the introduction of the next Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), the elite body that now numbers seven and that Xi has come to dominate. "The likelihood is that the new line-up will be uncompromisingly 'Xi-ist'," said former British diplomat Charles Parton, a fellow at the London-based Council on Geostrategy. The congress will likely begin with Xi reading a lengthy report in a televised speech that will outline broad-brush priorities for the next five years. It begins a months-long process of personnel change at the top of the party and government that will conclude in March at the annual session of parliament. Story continues In securing a third term Xi breaks with the two-term precedent of recent decades. Also breaking with norms: no successor to Xi, 69, is expected to be identified, analysts say, which would indicate he plans to remain in power even longer. MYSTERY MAN China-watchers are most interested to know who among the PSC members will be tapped as the next premier - a job charged with the daunting task of managing the world's second-largest economy - when Li Keqiang steps down in March. While several senior officials are on "usual suspects" lists, none is the obvious choice to succeed Li - an uncertainty that departs from the norm. Still, analysts say, the views of any individual matter less nowadays as Xi has sidelined those seen as "reformers" in favour of his more state-driven and nationalistic economic policies. "There is increasing evidence that promotion decisions over the past few years have been made less on technocratic ability, which you might expect from reformers, and more in terms of loyalty to Xi Jinping, so I think we should retire this reformers idea really," said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. EXPECTATIONS Xi's opening speech at the last congress, in 2017, was broadly upbeat, including ambitious plans to turn China into a leading global power by 2050. He mentioned "reforms" 70 times in a speech that lasted nearly three-and-a-half hours. Since then, circumstances have changed dramatically: China's economy has been battered by COVID curbs, a crushing property sector crisis and blowback after Xi's clampdown on the tech sector under the banner of "common prosperity". Globally, Beijing's relations with the West have sharply deteriorated. Investors and countless frustrated Chinese citizens hoping the congress marks a milestone after which China begins laying groundwork to dial back on zero-COVID appear increasingly likely to be disappointed as Beijing has this week repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the policy. Analysts also say the congress is unlikely to trigger any immediate or dramatic changes in policy to revive an economy that is seen on track to grow about 3% this year, falling far short of the official target of around 5.5%. "Between now and March 2023, we expect no significant policy changes, particularly to the landmark zero-COVID strategy and the unprecedented curbs on China's property sector," Nomura analysts wrote. (Additional reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Kevin Yao, Eduardo Baptista and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) The two New York ex-cons accused in connection with the shooting death of the father of a local Marist College student at a Poughkeepsie hotel were ordered held without bail on Friday after they pleaded not guilty. Roy Johnson and Devin Taylor are charged separately for their involvement in the October 2 shooting that led to the death of 53-year-old Paul Kutz and the discovery of an alleged bomb-making "manual." Wearing a white t-shirt and an orange jail-issued jumpsuit with his hair up, Johnson the man accused of opening fire and killing Kutz appeared in New York's Dutchess County Court early Friday. Johnson, 35, was indicted on one count of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Taylor, 26, appeared separately from Johnson on two charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. MARIST COLLEGE HOTEL MURDER: SUSPECT SHOT DAD WITH AUTOMATIC PISTOL WHILE WEARING SKI MASK, BOXERS: INDICTMENT Both men were ordered held without bail after each pleaded not guilty. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The charges stem from the Oct. 2 shooting death of Long Island native Paul Kutz inside a Courtyard by Marriott in Poughkeepsie, New York. MARIST COLLEGE PARENT MURDER: SUSPECTS INDICTED AFTER UNPROVOKED SHOOTING AS FAMILY RELEASES OBITUARY According to the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, officers received a call around 7:30 a.m. Sunday for a report of a "disturbance" that involved shots being fired at a Courtyard by Marriott on South Road near Evergreen Avenue in Poughkeepsie. Kutz had been visiting the area from Long Island for "Family Weekend" at Marist College, which is located approximately four miles away and is where one of his three sons is a student. MARIST COLLEGE PARENT MURDER: OFFICIALS, NEIGHBORS SLAM NEW YORK CRIME POLICIES FOLLOWING MARRIOTT SHOOTING Police arrived and discovered Kutz with gunshot wounds to his chest and torso inside the hotel, court records show. Story continues Johnson is accused of walking into the hotel lobby on Oct. 2 with an automatic pistol before an outburst at the coffee bar, which involved "cursing and yelling while pacing," according to indictments released earlier this week. Police vehicles outside of the Courtyard by Marriott seen on Wednesday, October 5, 2022, where Paul Kutz was shot and killed on Sunday. He was carrying "a loaded, operable Glock Model 17 which had been outfitted with a fixed pin to render it fully automatic," the indictment against him reads. According to the indictment, Johnson stormed into the hotel lobby wearing a ski mask, an "Army-green" jacket and boxer shorts before opening fire with a fully automatic handgun. After a clerk stopped him from trying to get behind the front desk, according to the indictment, he turned around and allegedly shot Kutz in the chest. The bullet tore through his heart, lungs and liver and broke one of his ribs before exiting out his back, according to the indictment. He died within minutes. MARIST COLLEGE DAD MURDER: SUSPECT THREATENED TO SHOOT MAN IN FACE IN PRIOR NEW YORK ROBBERY Johnson allegedly continued firing "numerous rounds" in the lobby and then another 22 outside the building. He put down the gun, took off his mask and jacket and left them with an electronic device in the parking lot, according to the indictment. He went back inside, where responding officers arrested him. Taylor allegedly possessed a fully automatic 5.56 rifle with no serial number. A general view of Dutchess County Courthouse in Poughkeepsie, NY on Thursday, October 6, 2022. As officers closed in on Taylor in the hotel courtyard, he allegedly ditched a Walther handgun behind some bushes before he surrendered. Police recovered it at the scene, according to a bill of particulars filed with the indictments. MARIST COLLEGE SHOOTING: HOCHUL SPOX VOWS TO 'COMBAT VIOLENCE,' ZELDIN HAMMERS NY 'PRO-CRIMINAL' POLICIES Investigators also said they found "improvised munitions handbooks," ammunition, "one model fbg6 flash bang" and a smoke cannister in the mens hotel room. Both Johnson and Taylor have prior felony convictions. Officials have described Kutz, an accountant who owned a financial planning firm, as having been an innocent bystander in a "random" shooting. There were "no ties" between the victim and the gunmen, Poughkeepsie Police Chief Joseph Cavaliere told reporters during a news conference last week. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "The suspect did not know the victim," Cavaliere went on. "This, we believe, was a random act." Law enforcement in the nearby city of Poughkeepsie, which is separate from the town, have accused Johnson of being present at a previous homicide, on Aug. 9, involving a man named Darren Villani. For months, Police had been seeking to question Johnson in connection with the murder. The per capita disposable income of rural residents in the Tibet autonomous region continued to see double-digit growth over the past decade, with its growth rate ranking first in the country for seven consecutive years, regional authorities said at a news conference in the regional capital Lhasa recently. In 2021, the region's per capita disposable income of rural residents exceeded 16,900 yuan ($2,300), which is 2.97 times that of 2012, according to the regional department of agriculture and rural affairs. Last year, the region's GDP exceeded 200 billion yuan, according to the regional development and reform commission, and per capita GDP exceeded 56,800 yuan, realizing an average annual growth of 7.6 percent over the decade, 1.5 percentage points higher than the national average. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, rural residents in Tibet have been witnessing rapid income growth and significant improvements in living standards. In particular, the region's production capacity of agricultural and animal husbandry is reaching historical highs, and the development of agricultural and pastoral areas has been significantly enhanced, Du Jie, head of the department, said at the news conference. Since 2012, the region has poured 16.8 billion yuan into infrastructure construction of various industries, and 10 agricultural and animal husbandry product bases have been established, including for highland barley, yaks and Tibetan sheep, Du said. As of June, the region had more than 160 leading enterprises of agricultural and animal husbandry industrialization, and more than 12,700 rural cooperatives, with increases of 63 percent and 12 times compared with 2012, he said. Over the past decade, the regional agricultural and animal husbandry industries have seen high-quality development, and nearly 238,000 poor rural residents were lifted out of poverty thanks to the contribution of industries, he added. The cooperative model is one of the region's key indicators of rural vitalization, agricultural development and rural modernization. Rongtse village, for example, in the region's Nang county has rich fertile pastureland. The village came up with the idea of a yak herding cooperative in 2017, and now more than 80 households with more than 300 villagers have been benefiting from the business. The village has more than 700 yaks in the cooperative, profiting the village more than 420,000 yuan last year, village official Tsering Gyatso told China Daily. The cooperative also provides a few herding jobs for villagers, with each herder gaining an annual income of 65,000 yuan, he said. Villagers mainly rely on herding, collecting medicinal herbs and doing part-time jobs for income, with per capita disposable income of rural residents in this village exceeding 18,000 yuan last year, he added. "Most villagers enjoy improved livelihoods thanks to the changes in infrastructure in recent years. The village and each household can now access paved roads, and most families now own cars." Two young boys were locked in a dark closet, deprived of the lunches their mothers packed for them, and beaten with a teachers stick, according to a lawsuit filed against a daycare in Methuen. The civil lawsuit was filed earlier this week in Essex Superior Court against the Childrens Center of the Faith United Methodist Church, alleging battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and invasion of privacy, court documents indicate. The mothers are being represented by Attorney Matthew J, Fogelman of Newton. In an interview with investigative reporter Ted Daniel he said, Its been extremely difficult for the parents and for the children. What happened to them is completely inappropriate, quite frankly, shocking. And its been very traumatic for the kids and for their parents. In the suit, Attorney Fogelman said the younger child has been diagnosed with, PTSD and anxiety from the alleged abuse he suffered. Defendants listed in the lawsuit include the president of the Childrens Center, along with a handful of directors and a trio of employees. They were identified as Mark Siegel, Sandra Lumb, William Callahan, Jennifer Picard, Leticia Cordero, Iris Cordero, Yarlene Betances, Unexie Santos, and a Jane Doe. One of the victims, age 4, was frequently locked in a dark supply closet near the gymnasium as a form of punishment, according to the lawsuit. Staffers at the daycare would allegedly tell the boy that there were monsters in the closet in an effort to scare him. The lawsuit states the boy was routinely physically abused as a form of punishment and employees beat him with what they referred to as the teachers stick. The daycare is also accused of failing to prevent the victims peers from bullying him. Additionally, when the boy had to use the bathroom, employees would reportedly lock him in the restroom and shut the lights off. The boy further claimed that he was restrained to the point where he couldnt breathe and pinched and scratched by staffers. According to the lawsuit, the boy wasnt allowed to eat food that his mother packed in his lunch box. Story continues The other victim, age 3, was said to be locked in the same closet, and when he screamed for help, staffers allegedly told him to shut the [expletive] up. He too reported being beaten with the teachers stick, as well as frequently being called a baby. Both victims also claimed that they were often referred to as disgusting for having to use the bathroom. The lawsuit showed both boys suffer from PTSD, anxiety, night terrors, and self-confidence issues, and they are now undergoing intensive therapy. The mothers of the boys also reported significant damage from emotional distress and lost wages. A lawyer for the Childrens Center of the Faith United Methodist Church in Methuen issued a statement to Boston 25 responding to a lawsuit filed by the parents of the two children who attended the daycare. The Childrens Center denies that the Plaintiffs children were in any way mistreated while they were in its care, attorney Kathryn A. Oleary wrote. According to the daycare center, the parents first complained to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. The daycare center said DCF found the complaint to be unsupported and the teachers were allowed back to the classroom. A DCF spokesperson confirmed an investigation was conducted. DCF does not make its findings public citing privacy reasons. The suit seeks 15 million dollars in damages. FULL STATEMENT FROM CHILDRENS CENTER OF THE FAITH UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: The Childrens Center learned today that it has been sued by two families that allege that their children were treated inappropriately while students at the Childrens Center. The Childrens Center first learned that Plaintiff Dyanarah Fermin was unhappy with the Center for some reason when she appeared at the school on August 18, 2022 with an accomplice and assaulted her sons teacher. The accomplice videotaped the altercation and the video was posted to the Centers Facebook page. The Methuen police removed Fermin and her accomplice from the Childrens Center. They are now seeking the issuance of a criminal complaint against Fermin. A Harassment Prevention Order was issued by the Lawrence District Court against Fermin on behalf of the teacher who was assaulted. The Department of Children and Families and the Department of Early Education and Care have investigated the families allegations. DCF found them UNSUPPORTED. The EEC has not issued its finding yet, however, it has authorized the teacher to return to the classroom. The Director of the Childrens Center and now its Board have investigated and find no support for the allegations. The Childrens Center recently received demand letters on behalf of both families pursuant to MGL ch. 93A. It was in the process of responding to them when the families filed suit. The Childrens Center denies that the Plaintiffs children were in any way mistreated while they were in its care. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The New Zealand government said on Friday it would commission an independent review to assess parliament's workplace culture after a study three years ago found widespread bullying and harassment. A 2019 report uncovered systemic harmful behaviour in New Zealand's parliament, including by and between staff, managers, members of parliament, the media and the public. Speaker of the House of Representatives Adrian Rurawhe said in a statement he believed the parliamentary workplace had improved over the past three years, and had commissioned the author of the 2019 study to review its progress. "It is important that we take stock, as an institution, of the effectiveness of that work," said Rurawhe. In August, a member of parliament from the ruling Labour Party accused other lawmakers from the party of bullying. Labour has denied the accusations and the member of parliament has been suspended. Rurawhe said the review would catalogue gains made to date as well as areas where there was still room for improvement. (Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Edmund Klamann) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday demanded the International Committee of the Red Cross to access a concentration camp in occupied Olenivka where Ukrainian prisoners of war are being held. Access to [the prisoners] is required, as it was stipulated. The Red Cross can make it happen. But you have to try to make it happen. Ukraine is ready to facilitate this, Zelensky said during an address. The Red Cross has been trying to get access to the Olenivka prison in order to assess the prisoners treatment after shelling hit the complex. I believe that the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a club with privileges where they get paid and enjoy life. The Red Cross has obligations, primarily of a moral nature. The mandate of the Red Cross must be fulfilled. It is necessary to immediately do what is completely logical for the Red Cross, Zelensky said, noting that he met Thursday with Red Cross representatives to discuss the process. Ukraine reportedly gave the Red Cross a three-day deadline to send a mission to Olenivka, according to a Telegram post from the head of Zelenskys office Andrii Yermak. I do not understand why during this entire period the Red Cross mission has not yet arrived in Olenivka. There is no time to wait because human lives are at stake, said Yermak in the post. Zelensky on Thursday suggested that the Red Cross mission follow the model of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that sent a mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine earlier this year. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. IRYNA BALACHUK FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 12:37 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has held a meeting of the staff of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to discuss the situation on the front and plan the next steps for further liberation of Ukrainian territories. Source: Zelenskyy on Telegram Quote from Zelenskyy: "I held a meeting of the staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters. We reviewed the situation on different fronts, and discussed the possible actions of the aggressor in the near future. We have planned the next steps for the liberation of Ukrainian territories." Details: The president also added that the government is improving the system for uninterrupted supply of ammunition to the Ukrainian army and it is continuing to prepare the army for the winter period. In addition, the parties discussed the regulation of the activity of volunteer formations in hromadas [an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories - ed.]. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! A local real estate developer and investor was sentenced Friday to 41 months in prison for defrauding the Small Business Administration and associated financial institutions out of more than $1.1 million in COVID-19 relief funds during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. When properly programmed and operated, sprayer drones are able to fly above crops to apply chemicals using a small tank and spray nozzles, avoiding muddy fields and difficult terrain, all while providing the targeted application that saves growers money and time. (Photo by Simer Virk) Its a familiar sight for many a ground sprayer slowly making rounds in a field, applying pesticides to row crops to give producers the best chance of protecting crops from pests and seeing high yields at harvest. These ground sprayers, with booms that can be up to 120 feet wide, are the tool of choice for producers who are spraying large areas with agricultural chemicals. But there are times when these large, heavy ground sprayers have limitations. Significant rains or difficult terrain can make it challenging to run the machinery in a particular area or field, preventing a producer from applying pesticides in a timely manner, said Simer Virk, assistant professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at the University of Georgias College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Producers face additional challenges when pests or diseases are present in small areas of their fields where ground sprayers, with their large booms may not be well-equipped or efficient to provide the targeted application that producers seek. In coming years, however, there may be a solution for these production woes: sprayer drones. In crop production, timing of every operation is critical. We want to address issues in the fields as quickly as possible and that includes the timely application of pesticides and other chemicals that preserve yield potential. Sprayer drones could be another tool in our toolbox that can help us to be timely, especially when the field conditions are not suitable for ground application, said Virk, who also serves as a precision agriculture specialist with UGA Cooperative Extension. The use of drones has steadily increased in agricultural production over the last decade, but only recently have researchers begun to consider how this technology might complement the work done by ground sprayers. When properly programmed and operated, sprayer drones are able to fly above crops to apply chemicals using a small tank and spray nozzles, avoiding muddy fields and difficult terrain, all while providing the targeted application that saves money and time. As with all new technologies in agriculture, there are important questions and concerns to address before researchers and experts are able to provide information and recommendations for producers looking to add spray drones to their operations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the governing body that regulates the use of agricultural drones, or small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). Over the last decade, the regulations around operation of sUAS have evolved significantly as the technology has changed and become a more popular option for agricultural researchers, industries and producers across the nation. In years past, agricultural drones have been used primarily to capture imagery that can be used to assess crop damage, scouting and other needs. FAA has issued specifications for weight, height, speed and operation hours for drones of this kind. We have two main objectives in this work: identifying how spray drones can complement the work were already doing with ground sprayers and analyzing application performance in order to determine a set of standard and safe practices, Virk said of UGAs pioneering work in this area. With spray drones, weve added a tank and nozzles to the equation, which increases the weight and also changes the purpose of the drone, so the FAA has different set of rules when it comes to aerial application of pesticides. However, they are also constantly reviewing these regulations as drone applications expand in new areas, Virk said. Were hopeful that our work will help regulatory bodies as they seek to accommodate these new needs for agriculture. Virk, along with research partners at UGA and experts at Auburn University, is hoping to address some of the most important questions in spray drone technology. We have two main objectives in this work: identifying how spray drones can complement the work were already doing with ground sprayers and analyzing application performance in order to determine a set of standard and safe practices, Virk said of UGAs pioneering work in this area. Even with ground sprayers, which have been in use for many years, there are continual advancements in nozzle type, flow/droplet size control systems and application technology, among other advancements. With a great deal of variety in spray drone design, size and programming, Virk and his team are running trials that test various available platforms, along with questions about ideal height, coverage estimates, nozzle types, spray drift and flight speed. With this information, they are hopeful that producers will be able to continue safe and sustainable use of pesticides in agriculture, which is important to successful and profitable crop production. Right now, theres a lot we need to learn with the regulations around spray drones and the precision required for effective pesticide applications, its critical that we provide Georgia farmers with the information they need when considering adoption of this new technology. Virk said the goal of his research is to equip producers with information that can help them do their job more effectively and precisely, especially when using new technologies like sprayer drones. As both a researcher and an Extension professional, he spends his time conducting trials that move research forward, training students in agricultural technology and working directly with Georgians to make our states No. 1 industry stronger and more profitable. In many aspects, agriculture is so far ahead of where we were 10 years ago our hope is that the research were doing at UGA will be a critical part of moving our industry forward in the next decades and beyond, he said. Follow Virk and Georgia Precision Ag on Twitter for real-time updates on developing precision agriculture technologies. Omaha-based Baxter on Wednesday announced the sale of four of its Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealerships, including the Lincoln store at 6601 Telluride Drive, which is near the 27th Street exit on Interstate 80. Edwards Auto Group of Council Bluffs, Iowa, bought the four dealerships but subsequently sold two of them, including the Lincoln dealership, which is now owned by Sid Dillon. Edwards also sold the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealership in Papillion to H&H Auto, but will retain the locations at 180th Street and West Dodge Road in Omaha as well as one in Bellevue. Baxter has owned the Lincoln Dodge dealership since 1993. The news follows Baxters March acquisition of Toyota of Colorado Springs. Additionally, Baxter opened Baxter Subaru La Vista in July 2021 and Subaru of Olathe in Olathe, Kansas, in 2020, and built two new dealership buildings and a new corporate headquarters, all in Omaha, over recent years. Mickey Anderson, president and chief executive officer at Baxter Auto Group, said in a news release that the company has been focused on expansion, with recent dealership openings and acquisitions. With strong demand for established, profitable dealerships, our team determined that this was an appropriate time to divest of these stores. This transaction is consistent with our long-term plan for geographic diversity, Anderson said. Baxter will continue to own Baxter Toyota at 8600 S. 33rd St. in Lincoln. The purchase of the former Baxter Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram gives Sid Dillon three locations in Lincoln. It owns a Buick-Nissan-Hyundai dealership at 2627 Kendra Lane and a pre-owned dealership at 5730 O St. You couldnt hear a pin drop this week at Thunderbowl. The business has been closed to allow outgoing owners Dean and Connie Ratliff to remove possessions and new owner Bowlero to move in. It is scheduled to reopen at 5:30 p.m. today (Friday.) Bowlero Corp., touted as the worlds largest owner and operator of bowling centers, has completed the acquisition of Thunderbowl in Council Bluffs and has entered into an agreement to purchase The Mark near Omaha, according to a press release posted Thursday by the company. The Ratliffs operated the 32-lane bowling alley and McCoys Bar and Grill from 2013 to 2022, according to a post on their Facebook page. The facility includes interactive arcades, an outdoor patio and fire pits and a reception hall. In 2018, the couple invested in the construction of The Gathering Room reception hall and an expansion of their parking lot. Thunderbowl has hosted many benefits and events and provided space for an annual Special Olympics bowling tournament. In 2014, Thunderbowl hosted the Professional Bowlers Association Thunderbowl Over/Under 50 Midwest Doubles Classic. The Ratliffs expressed their appreciation for the support they have received. Dean and I want to extend a sincere thank you to our guests, many who became friends; our friends, family and our coworkers who supported us through this nine-year journey, Connie wrote in the Facebook post. What a great ride! Thank you. Thank you! The purchase is part of Bowleros strategy to expand its presence in the Midwest, according to its press release. We have been considering the Omaha market for some time and, fortunately, excellent acquisition opportunities arose, said Thomas Shannon, founder and CEO of Bowlero Corp. These two venues are undoubtedly great additions to our growing portfolio. The corporation has definitive agreements to acquire seven additional properties in the Midwest during the coming months, the press release stated. It has entered into eight definitive agreements this fiscal year and completed four acquisitions. Bowlero has more than 300 bowling centers across North America and serves more than 27 million guests each year through a family of brands that includes Bowlero, Bowlmor Lanes and AMF, the release stated. In 2019, Bowlero Corp. acquired the Professional Bowlers Association, which has thousands of members and millions of fans around the world. Mt. Hope United Methodist Church Mt. Hope United Methodist Church, 290th and Highway 6, McClelland, would like to invite all to join us on Sunday mornings for our worship service at 9:30 a.m. Children are welcome for the regular worship service and childrens sermon during the worship service. You do not have to be a member to participate in our church activities. Everyone is welcome. Underwood Lutheran Church Underwood Lutheran Church, 10 Third Ave., will hold Sunday activities. Education begins at 9 a.m., followed by in-person worship featuring Holy Communion at 10:15. Pastor Scott Dalen will deliver a sermon based on Luke 18:1-8. The online video will be available later in the day. Gethsemane Presbyterian Church Gethsemane Presbyterian Church, 224 Wallace Ave., invites you to worship with us. Our service runs from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. The Rev. David Hannah will deliver the message. Children are invited to participate in Sunday school. Please join us for refreshments following the service. Adult Bible study meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 10 a.m. Our Food Pantry is open on Mondays and Thursdays until 10:30 a.m. Our church is collecting Iowa 5 cent-refund cans/bottles for one of our mission projects, the Kanesville Honor Guard Society. Your donations help! Bags can be dropped off anytime at our front door. For more information, contact the church office at 712-366-2513 or visit us on Facebook at gethsemanepresbyterianchurch.org. Timothy Lutheran Church Timothy Lutheran Church, 3112 W. Broadway, offers services at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. The church alternates between traditional services and praise services each week. Bible study and Sunday school at 9:15 a.m. If a month has a fifth Sunday, the church hosts a combined service at 9 a.m. Food and fellowship after service on fifth Sundays and there is no Bible study or Sunday school on those days. The church is handicap accessible. St. Pauls Evangelical Country Church St. Pauls Evangelical Country Church rings the church bell each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. to welcome people to worship at 11055 Dumfries Ave. There are directional signs from Wabash Avenue and Pioneer Trail leading to the church. We are a growing, friendly, Bible-teaching church led by Pastor Jason Kinney. This Sunday, the message will be, God Never Changes, with James 1:17 as the Bible reference. Sunday School for all ages, including adults, begins at 9:15 a.m. Following worship, we enjoy donuts and coffee in the Fellowship Hall. Greeters are Kathy Oltmans and Ron Heuwinkel. The church council will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday. The Ladies Bible Study and Youth Groups meet on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Visit our website at www.stpaulsecc.org for more information. We are handicapped accessible. Compass Christian Church Compass Christian Church welcomes you to worship with us Sundays at 10:30 a.m. We are located at 2007 S. Seventh St., just west of the South Expressway. The church is handicap accessible. During worship, a cry room is available, along with childcare for children ages 1-4. Compass Kids grades K-5 meet downstairs for special Bible lessons during the sermon. You may also worship with us at compasscb.online.church or on YouTube. On Mondays from 7 to 8 p.m., mens and womens Bible study meet. The Bridge young adults (ages 18-30) meet at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday each month, with childcare provided. Bring a friend and join us for supper, fellowship and Bible study. On Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., adult prayer group, students in grades 6-12 and kids in kindergarten through fifth grade meet. On Sunday, Oct. 30, Light Night, a Trunk or Treat event, will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. for children through fifth grade. Kids and families are invited to come in costume or as they are for carnival games, candy, food and bounce house. For questions or more information, visit our Facebook page, Compass Christian Church CB, our website compasscb.org or call the church office at 712-366-9112. Broadway United Methodist ChurchBroadway United Methodist, First Street and Broadway, is seeking, growing and serving with unconditional love and acceptance. Broadway holds traditional worship Sundays at 8:30, followed by coffee and donuts in the DeLong Lounge. Contemporary worship is held at 10:30 a.m. Services are held in person and livestreamed to our Facebook page or broadwayunitedmethodist.com/live. Masks are optional. Activities include Student Life Breakthrough Sundays at 6 p.m. in Room 203. On Mondays, Philips Cupboard is open noon-2 p.m.; Boy Scout Pack 40 meets at 6 p.m.; and Bibles @ Barleys is at 8:30 p.m. Womens Bible Study will be held Wednesday at 5 p.m. in the DeLong Lounge. Praise Band Rehearsal will be at 5:30. A Community Meal will be served at 6 p.m. in the fellowship hall, followed by Foundations Groups and Bell Choir rehearsal at 6:30. Choir will practice at 7:30. Mens Brown Bag: The Bible Year, meets Thursdays at noon. Philips Cupboard, a nonfood pantry, is open noon-2 p.m. on Fridays. On Monday, Oct. 24, the church will hold a Trunk or Treat from 4 to 7 p.m. in the parking lot in partnership with the 100 Block Trick or Treat event. In October, the church is collecting new underwear and new or gently used pants, boys/girls sizes 4-5 to 18-20, for our partner school, Longfellow Elementary. Please place in donation bin in the Welcome Center. The annual Charge Conference will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 1 at Epworth United Methodist Church, 2447 Ave. B. For more information, visit our website at broadwayunitedmethodist.com or call the office at 712-322-7741 (closed Fridays). Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, 1800 Fifth Ave., invites the public to participate in our live worship service at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. The Sunday worship service will be recorded live and can be viewed on our Facebook page: Fifth Avenue UMC, Council Bluffs. Face masks are optional. Upcoming Events: Meal & Message, 6 p.m., Oct. 26; Trunk or Treat, 6-8 p.m., Oct. 29; and Craft Fair, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Nov. 12. The church office can be reached at 712-323-7374 or through our email at fifthaveumchurch@gmail.com. Bethany Presbyterian Church Bethany Presbyterian Church, 1900 S. Seventh St., will have worship at 10:30 a.m. The guest speaker will be the Rev. Cindy Harvey. Liturgist is Denny Higginbotham and greeters are Emily Tomcykowski and Linda Cody. There will be a childrens chat. Bible study will be at 11 a.m. on Monday. The Helping Hands Pantry will be open from 8 to 10 a.m. on Oct. 15. The Session will meet at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15. We are collecting items for Undy Sunday on Oct. 30. We are a handicap accessible facility. Community of Christ Church Community of Christ Church, 140 W. Kanesville Blvd., invites people to attend Sunday worship at 10:15 a.m. Our theme this week is, Written on Our Hearts. Scripture readings for this week are Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; and Luke 18:1-8. Sunday school starts at 9:15. We also have prayer service Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Please call our office at 712-323-4498 for any questions. There are virtual ministries out on our World Church Website under Ongoing Ministries at www.cofchrist.org. Epworth United Methodist Church Epworth United Methodist Church, 2447 Ave. B, worships on Sundays at 9:25 a.m. The people are friendly, the worship is meaningful and the building is handicap accessible. Masks and hand sanitizer are available. We also invite you to our Bible study on Thursdays at 9 a.m. We keep in prayer for the healing of our community and nation for God. If you want us to pray for you personally, let us know your prayer requests by phone or online at Friends of Epworth UMC Facebook. Office hours are 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. Phone: 712-323-3124. Faith Lutheran Church Faith Lutheran Church, 2100 S. 11th St., invites you to join us for traditional worship with Holy Communion at the 9 a.m. Sunday service. On Tuesday, there is a 9:30 a.m. adult Bible study in the downstairs fellowship hall that is open to everyone. Please enter by the rear door. The church council meets Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., and confirmation classes are at 5:45 p.m. The Faith LWML is accepting donations of new packaged childrens underwear for a mission project. These items should be placed in the receptacle in the Narthex. Sunday worship services are available on Faiths Facebook page and on YouTube by searching for Ron Rosenkaimer. For more information, contact the church office at 323-6445. New Horizon Presbyterian Church New Horizon Presbyterian Church has three services on Sunday, with traditional services at 8 and 11 a.m. and the praise service at 9 a.m. Sunday school for kindergarten through eighth grade and adults meets at 10 a.m. On Wednesday, the Praise Team will meet at 5:45 p.m., bell choir at 6:30 and Chancel Choir at 7:30. Sunday services are available on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/NewHorizonPC. Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church, 517 S. 32nd St., welcomes everyone to join us for worship on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. The guest pastor is the Rev. Kim Crummer. His sermon is entitled, A Real Friend. The scripture reading is Philippians 2:19-21. During the month of October, we will be receiving Peace and Global Witness offering. We are handicapped accessible through the northeast door of the church. Corpus Christi Catholic Parish The month of October is dedicated to The Holy Rosary. Join us as we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every day of the week at Corpus Christi Queen of Apostles, 3304 Fourth Ave., Council Bluffs; and Corpus Christi Our Lady of Carter Lake, 3501 N. Ninth St., Carter Lake. Everyone is welcome. Our Weekend Mass in English is celebrated on Saturday at 4 p.m., on Sunday at 8 and 10 a.m. (Council Bluffs) and at 9:30 a.m. (Carter Lake). Our Sunday Spanish Mass is at noon (Council Bluffs). Readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time are Exodus 17:8-13; Psalms 121:1-8; 2 Timothy 3:14-42; and Luke 18:1-8. Daily Mass is celebrated as follows: In English Tuesday through Friday at 8 a.m. (Council Bluffs) and in Spanish on Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. (Council Bluffs). Eucharistic Adoration is held every Monday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. at Corpus Christi Queen of Apostles. The Corpus Christi Parish Annual Chicken Dinner will be held Nov. 6 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with dine-in and take-out at St. Albert Catholic School, 400 Gleason Ave. The meal will include Staleys Broasted Chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, coleslaw, dinner roll and dessert. Gift baskets, raffles and crafts. Tickets are on sale at the parish office at 3304 Fourth Ave. or at St. Albert on the day of the event. For more information, call the parish office at 712-323-2916 or 712-323-4716 (Spanish) or visit our parish website at www.corpuschristiparishiowa.org. Emanuel Lutheran Church Emanuel Lutheran Church, 2444 N. Broadway, welcomes everyone to come as you are and be who you are! Our weekly worship service is at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday. Students will be dismissed to Sunday school after the Gospel lesson. Coffee and donuts will be offered in the community room after church. Other events this week include Tai Chi Monday and Thursday at 10 a.m. in the youth center, Bible study Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in the conference room. On Saturday, Oct. 22, there will be a Craft Fair from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Proceeds will benefit Our Saviors Lutheran Food & Pet Food Pantry. Our worship service and weekly Sunday school show can be found on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Visit us online at emanuelcb.org. Saint John Lutheran Church Saint John Lutheran Church, 633 Willow Ave., holds worship at 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays and 8:30 and 11 a.m. on Sundays. Worship is also available to watch on YouTube. Our website is www.SaintJohnELCA.org, and our Facebook page is Saint John Lutheran Church Council Bluffs IA. Wednesday morning Bible study meets at 9 a.m., and Wednesday evening Bible study meets at 6:30 p.m. Confirmation and high school youth also meet at 6:30. Bell choir practices at 6:30 p.m., and Chancel Choir starts at 7:30. The Sewing Group will meet Wednesday at 9 a.m., and the Mens Club will meet on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. The building is handicap accessible. Please call the church office with any questions, 712-323-7173. Broadway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) The Rev. Carol Hall and members of our congregation invite you to join us for Sunday worship at 9 a.m. at Broadway Christian Church, 2658 Ave. A. We celebrate communion weekly; communion is open to all. A hearing loop is installed for those who need it. Guests are invited to join us in fellowship after worship for coffee and donuts. Overeaters Anonymous meets Mondays at noon. Alcoholics Anonymous meets Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and Fridays at 7:30 p.m. The church is ADA-accessible. Masks are optional. To submit prayer requests or for more information, call the church office at 712-323-7741 or email us at office@bcccb.org. Visit us online at www.bcccb.org or on Facebook. First Congregational UCC Church Come and join us for worship at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), located at 611 First Ave. Coffee is available. Our service is also provided via Zoom. Please email the church for information on how to join the Zoom meeting: cbfirstcong@gmail.com. First Congregational offers a free Community Dinner the last Friday of each month. Everyone is welcome. Come and enjoy a meal and fellowship! Our Saviors Lutheran Church Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 600 Bluff St., can be reached at 712-322-6655. Everyone is welcome. Worship services are Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Adult Sunday School begins at 9:15 a.m., and Youth Sunday School (skit, music, Bible story and games) at 9:30. For more information, see our Facebook page under Our Saviors Lutheran Church of Council Bluffs or the website at oursaviorscb.org. Thursday morning Bible Study meets at 9:30 a.m., and prayer time is at 11:15 a.m. Bell choir practice is at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, followed by choir practice at 7:30 p.m. Other activities this week include Al-Anon meetings Monday and Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Education Building. The Food and Pet Food Pantry is open Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. To schedule an appointment, please call the pantry directly at 712-522-3522 on Thursday only between 9:30 and 11 a.m. St. Pauls Episcopal Church St. Pauls Episcopal Church is located at 22 Dillman Drive in Council Buffs. Our services are held each Sunday morning beginning at 11 a.m., and we invite visitors to attend and share with us these very enjoyable and enlightening services. For additional information, please contact the church at 712-323-7188. DES MOINES Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mike Franken said a Senate leader needs to have a global perspective and steel jaws to navigate international conflict and foreign policy. Franken, who was in the Navy for nearly 40 years before running for Senate and rose to the rank of vice admiral, pitched himself as a clear-eyed leader that can assess global threats such as the war in Ukraine, thinking long-term about big problems. Franken is seeking election to the U.S. Senate in Iowa against Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley, who is seeking his eighth term in the office. Speaking to the Des Moines Rotary Club on Thursday, Franken said the war in Ukraine may lead to higher prices and food scarcity in places like Africa and Asia, and the U.S. needs to remain a leader on the international stage to deal with the potential fallout. This is why we must rebalance the scales, this is why we must act as leaders, and intercept the problems early, he said. Failure to do so will lead to global unrest. In a recent U.S. Senate debate, Franken suggested sending U.S. aid workers into Ukraine in the event of a nuclear attack, saying some would be unarmed military members. He did not suggest on Thursday sending American military members to Ukraine, but said the aid to the country has been helpful, but not pivotal. Still, he said he expects the war in Ukraine to go on a long time, as Russian President Vladimir Putin can withstand internal turmoil in Russia while sustaining the war. I believe Ukraine will turn into more of a dystopian wasteland, and Im not a downer Debbie here, he said. Just a realist. Franken suggested a cautious approach to foreign policy, stressing pragmatism against foreign aggression. I believe in fighting for country, and I believe everyone who throws a punch, there should be 10 of us, peacemakers, looking to make amends, he said. Franken didnt mention Grassley by name in his remarks, but he suggested he was a professional politician who does not have the experience in foreign policy to handle the challenges he presented. In a press release on Thursday, the Grassley campaign pointed to Frankens debate comments and said his position on sending military personnel to Ukraine is extreme. In the debate on Oct. 6, Grassley said sending soldiers abroad without weapons would be dangerous. He said he supports continuing to send aid to Ukraine. He said if Russia crosses into NATO-allied territories the American military would have to step in, but he doesnt support sending troops to Ukraine. I hope that the American people will be patient to understand that helping Ukraine now will save us a lot of money later on if Putin is stopped right now, Grassley said. Speakers: Mr. Guo Yezhou, vice minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Mr. Ma Zhaoxu, vice minister of foreign affairs Chairperson: Mr. Chen Wenjun, spokesperson of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee Date: Sept. 29, 2022 Chen Wenjun: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to this press conference held by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. Today, we are holding the 36th press conference under the theme of "China in the past decade" to brief you on China's diplomacy in the new era. We have invited Mr. Guo Yezhou, vice minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC), and Mr. Ma Zhaoxu, vice minister of foreign affairs. They will also take your questions. Now, let's give the floor to Mr. Guo for his introduction. Guo Yezhou: Friends from the media, it is a great pleasure to brief you on the Party's external work in the new era over the past decade. The CPC's external work is a cause of the whole Party. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important expositions on major theoretical and practical issues regarding the Party's external work, including its definition, purpose, content, methods and actors, providing fundamental principles and guidance for the Party's external work in the new era. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, historic achievements have been made in the Party's external work featuring high-quality development. The international prestige of General Secretary Xi Jinping has been continually growing, the global influence of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has increased steadily, the Party's international circle of friends has kept expanding, and historic changes have taken place in the relationship between the CPC and the world. Over the past decade, we have been committed to serving the major diplomatic agenda of General Secretary Xi Jinping and taken concrete actions to support the "two establishments" (the establishment of both Comrade Xi Jinping's core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era) and to ensure the "two upholds" (upholding General Secretary Xi Jinping's core position on the CPC Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and upholding the Central Committee's authority and its centralized, unified leadership). Global events involving political parties have been held, including the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting, and the CPC and World Political Parties Summit. General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered keynote speeches, charting the course for the trend of the times and human progress. Leaders of foreign political parties said the speeches helped them see the future of both China and the world. We have made every effort to facilitate top-level exchanges between General Secretary Xi Jinping and leaders of other socialist countries including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. Such exchanges have played a leading role in the development of China's relations with these countries. We have held a series of events, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Political Parties Forum, the SCO People's Forum, and the BRICS Political Parties, Think Tanks and Civil Society Organizations Forum. These have proven to be successful practices in serving General Secretary Xi Jinping's major diplomatic agenda, improving relevant cooperation mechanisms, and boosting the momentum of cooperation. Over the past decade, we have been committed to telling the CPC's stories thoroughly and innovatively. We have organized thematic briefings following the 18th and 19th CPC national congresses and the plenary sessions of the 18th and 19th CPC central committees. Dozens of delegations have been sent to nearly 100 countries and regions at their invitation and communicated face-to-face with more than 10,000 political party leaders and prominent figures during over 500 briefings. In response to the interest of foreign political parties, we have offered in-depth introductions to the four volumes of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China." Many political party leaders have regarded the books as important sources of references for their work and asked for a set of the books for each senior official in their parties. In collaboration with CPC committees of relevant provinces and equivalent administrative units, we have held 14 briefings under the theme of "Stories of CPC Achievements in Practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" to elaborate on the new practices and progress in the CPC's state governance. We have invited more than 600 foreign guests to experience firsthand the standing committee meetings of CPC committees at city- and county-levels and activities of Party organizations at the primary level. We have also livestreamed the standing committee meetings of CPC committees at the county-level and villagers' congresses for viewers around the world. International participants have commented that the meetings are truly results-oriented and represent down-to-earth forms of democracy. Over the past 10 years, we continued to make courageous and efficient efforts that brought great results and safeguarded national sovereignty, security, and development interests with firm resolve. The Party's external work has been conducted conscientiously and responsibly, especially when involving the core interests and major concerns of China. Plenty of foreign political parties, non-governmental organizations, and people with vision, highly agreeing with China's relative stances, have formed a potent voice being spoken in defense of justice. As the CPC celebrated its centenary, more than 600 political parties and political organizations sent us more than 1,500 congratulatory messages or letters to mark the grand event together. We innovated an approach for boosting exchanges through the involvement of political parties. Leading officials of local Party committees have led nearly 100 batches of Party delegations for overseas trips, facilitating pragmatic external cooperation and the construction of the new development paradigm. Over the past 10 years, we continued to expand the international circle of friends of the Party through genuine communication and exchanges. We maintained contact with more than 600 political parties and political organizations and proactively participated in multilateral dialogues between political parties within the region and beyond. We made efforts to create a new pattern of international relations by promoting a new model of relationship between political parties, and strived to improve the global partnership network through a cemented global partnership network of political parties. Some political party leaders revisited the IDCPC after assuming the office of a country's president, prime minister, or other important positions, saying it felt like reuniting with siblings or returning home. We carried out political party diplomacy, public diplomacy, and people-to-people diplomacy at the same time. By hosting dialogues for mutual learning among civilizations and international academic exchanges, we enabled China's social organizations and think tanks to communicate with a wider world. Over the past 10 years, we strived to build a community with a shared future for mankind through collective will, effort, and wisdom. The CPC has always seen the development of China as part of the development of the entire human society and closely linked the destiny of the country with the destiny of the world. We willingly sent out letters to foreign political party leaders to explain China's practice in COVID-19 prevention and control and the lessons learned, and provided solutions to the prevention and control and the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. We also provided medical supplies and technical assistance as best as we could to foreign political parties and political dignitaries as well as international organizations of political parties when they needed them. We built a mutual consultation mechanism for political parties from Belt and Road Initiative signatories and established and perfected the Silk Road Think Tank Association and the Silk Road NGO Cooperation Network. We helped deepen policy exchanges and people-to-people bonds and made continued efforts to build consensus on promoting high-quality development through the Belt and Road cooperation. We hosted an exchange activity to share how the international community pursued the Global Development Initiative proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping and organized events to celebrate the International Day of Peace so as to advance the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative. Together with political parties from across the world, we uphold the common values of mankind and contribute our wisdom and strength in building a better world. Facing a new era and new journey, the Party shoulders major responsibilities and has a lofty mission to perform in conducting its external work. This is a glorious mission with huge potential to fulfill and great results to achieve. This is all I want to say. Thank you. Chen Wenjun: Thanks to Mr. Guo. Now Mr. Ma will brief us. If you dont like vampires but are comfortable giving blood to the American Red Cross, the nonprofit organization would be grateful for your help. In addition, the Red Cross invites those who spent time in the U.K., Ireland or France and have never tried to give blood due to concerns over variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) related to mad cow disease to give blood and help save lives, according to a press release from the Red Cross. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its blood donor eligibility guidance on vCJD, eliminating the deferral for those who spent time in the U.K., Ireland and France between 1980 and 2001. In alignment with FDA changes, the Red Cross began accepting donations Oct. 3 from individuals who have not tried giving blood before due to the prior donation criteria. In combination with prior eligibility updates in 2020 for those who spent time in other European countries, this new change effectively eliminates the deferral related to vCJD for all donors. Individuals who have questions about their donor record can contact the Red Cross Donor and Client Support Center at 1-866-236-3276. Book a time to give by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or by calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767). As a thank-you, all who come to give between Oct. 16 and Oct. 31 will receive a $10 e-gift card by email to a merchant of choice. Upcoming blood donation opportunities in southwest Iowa include the following: Cass CountyOct. 20 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Atlantic High School, 1201 E. 14th St., Atlantic Fremont County Oct. 25 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Sidney United Faith Church, 1975 Highway 275, Sidney Harrison County Oct. 26 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., West Harrison High School, 410 Pine St., Mondamin Oct. 27 noon to 6 p.m., Woodbine High School, 501 Weare St., Woodbine Pottawattamie County Oct. 19 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce, 149 W. Broadway, Council Bluffs Oct. 20 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Abraham Lincoln High School, 1205 Bonham Ave., Council Bluffs Oct. 24 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Angels Care Home Health, 1601 McPherson Ave., Council Bluffs Oct. 31 noon to 6 p.m., New Horizon Presbyterian Church, 30 Valley View Drive, Council Bluffs Oct. 18 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Underwood High School, 629 North St., Underwood Oct. 24 noon to 6 p.m., American Legion Hall, 27 Antique City Drive, Walnut Shelby County Oct. 19 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Harlan High School, 2102 Durant St., Harlan Oct. 24 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Myrtue Medical Center, 1213 Garfield Ave., Harlan The Metropolitan Area Planning Agency is partnering with Iowa Workforce Development and Iowa Economic Development Authority to complete a labor market study for the Council Bluffs and Glenwood areas. The study, known as a laborshed study, is a tool often used by economic development teams and existing or prospective employers to understand the local labor market, make informed expansion and site selection decisions, and maintain/recruit a high-quality workforce. This study will define geographically the communities that contribute to the workforce in both cities, and it will measure the availability and characteristics of workers in the defined area. Those who are asked to participate are randomly selected, and directed to complete a confidential online survey. Questions will cover topics such as employment status, wages and benefits, education level and type of occupation. Respondents will not, however, be asked for information that could identify them, like names or social security numbers. Following the conclusion of the online survey period, IWD will conduct a phone survey through a third party based in Missouri. Those selected to participate will receive a phone call from a 573 area code. They will be asked the same questions used in the online survey, and, again, no identifying information will be collected. Once the online and phone surveys have been completed, the answers will be combined into a report issued by IWD. The results will be available at iowalmi.gov/laborshed. Letters about the online survey will begin to arrive in the coming weeks. For more information, visit the above website or call IWD project manager Katie Lippold at 515-281-3035. 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. Diplomats, petitioners and experts from around the world continue to commend, at the United Nations, the realistic autonomy plan offered by Morocco for a lasting resolution to the Sahara issue, denouncing the destabilizing scheme of the Algeria-backed Polisario militias having links with terror groups, drug & arms smugglers operating in the Sahel. Addressing the UN Fourth Committee convening in New York, permanent representative of Guinea-Bissau to the UN Samba Sane said that Moroccos autonomy initiative for the Sahara is a practical and pragmatic plan based on compromise for reaching a mutually acceptable solution. He also commended Morocco for its efforts to improve the local inhabitants social and economic situation through continued investments and building better infrastructures, education and the health care systems. For his part, Deputy permanent representative of Senegal to the UN Mrs. Aminata Ly Diop reiterated her countrys support for a fair and lasting solution to the question of Sahara under the auspices of the UN. Moroccos autonomy initiative is the best solution, she said, hailing the major strides accomplished by Morocco in human rights, inclusive socio-economic development and local governance in the Sahara. Senegal opened its consulate in Dakhla in 2021 as a token of support for Moroccos efforts and recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara, she underlined. Ambassador Juan Jose Portorreal Brandao of Dominican Republic praised Moroccos efforts to achieve a political solution to the Sahara issue, while the Delegate of Cote dIvoire called for the resumption of the UN-sponsored roundtable process for reaching a realistic political solution. Stability in the Maghreb depends on achieving a political solution to the Sahara dispute, he said, reaffirming his countrys steadfast support for Moroccos autonomy initiative. Saudi Arabia also reaffirmed support for the autonomy initiative for the Sahara within the framework of Moroccos sovereignty and territorial integrity. Saudi Arabias Permanent Representative to the UN Abdulaziz Alwasil said the autonomy initiative is in line with international law, the Charter of the United Nations and the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, recalling that this initiative has been hailed in Security Council resolutions since 2007. The diplomat also indicated that his country expresses its support for the efforts of the brotherly Kingdom of Morocco to find a realistic political solution to the regional dispute over the Sahara based on compromise, in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions and under the aegis of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. In this context, he called on all the parties concerned to show wisdom, realism and compromise in order to reach a settlement of this dispute and consequently contribute to the achievement of peace and stability in the region. Jordans Ambassador to UN Mahmoud Daifallah reiterated his countrys backing for the UN Chief efforts to re-launch the UN-led political process and commended Moroccos efforts for reaching a lasting and peaceful solution to the Sahara regional conflict. Manda Dicianni, Rescue and Relief International, said the Polisario-controlled camps in Tindouf, southern Algeria, have become an epicenter of training for child soldiers who are also used as human shields. Mr. Assor Sydney, Surrey Three Faiths Forum, said the Tindouf camps have become a major area of illicit activity as well as a transit corridor for small arms and drugs. The Polisario embodies three overlapping agendas: terrorism, separatism and organized crime, he said, adding that the Tindouf camps have become a hotbed of repression and human trafficking. Thousands of young people who have been abducted and sent to military training centers become easy prey for terrorist groups when they return to the misery in the camps, he stressed. Petitioner Malaainin Boulon said that it is a delusion and historical falsehood that the Sahara region is the last colony in Africa. Recalling the history of the tribes of the three Sahara rivers, including his own, he said that Sahara was successfully liberated from Spanish colonialism. Noting that 12 international agreements recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara, he stressed that the populations of the Sahara are not excluded from the management of their affairs, noting that they elect their own representatives. Karen Hardin, Priority PR Group & Literary Agency called on the UN Secretary-General to re-launch round-table talks and to recognize the tremendous job that Morocco has accomplished in the Sahara. From excellent roads and community centers to hospitals and desalinization plants, Morocco has turned the barren desert into a place of unique beauty, she said. This is a sharp contrast to the life of the Sahrawi in the Tindouf camps, she added. Souleymane Satigui Sidibe, Institut Sahelien de Recherche et dAnalyse pour la Transformation des Conflits (TIRAC-Sahel), also described the Moroccan autonomy plan as the best solution to the Sahara issue. Austrian MP Harald Troch praised Moroccos autonomy proposal as serious and credible initiative which is gaining a growing international support. Jerome Besnard, head of Autonomy for the Sahara Coalition (AUSACO), said the Moroccan Sahara lives in tranquility and peace, recalling the 66 pc participation rate in the 2021 elections in the Sahara. This shows the strong will of the Sahrawi people to manage their own lives as well as their unwavering attachment to their identity. They benefit from the rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Morocco, he said, adding that the Polisario is a relic of the Cold War. Nykaky Lygeros, University of Lyon, highlighted the increasing support from the international community for Moroccos autonomy initiative, adding that the country is implementing a new development model for the southern regions. The people of Moroccan Sahara actively participate in running their own lives, he said, adding that the Polisario group has no legitimacy. Ricardo Berndardo Sanchez Serra, Federacion de Periodistas del Peru, voiced support for the Moroccan autonomy plan, condemned the sequestration by the Polisario militiamen of Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps and their embezzlement of the humanitarian aid destined for those held in the camps. Abdoulatif Aidara, CISPAIX, said the Polisario group has ties to terrorist groups, threatening stability of the whole Sahel region, while Eric Cameron, Head of World Action for Refugees, said the Polisario militia has been recruiting children as soldiers for decades, in a gross violation of human rights, affirming that Algeria, which hosts the Tindouf camps, should be held accountable for these rights violations. Former British MP Derek Conway said it is essential that all parties to the Sahara conflict participate in the UN-sponsored roundtable process, especially the host country of the Tindouf camps, Algeria. Moroccos autonomy initiative is a positive compromise-based solution embodying the parameters called for by the international community and benefits from the support of more than 90 countries. Moreover, it is a guarantee of a brighter future for the entire Sahel and Sahara region, he said. Cameroon and Nigeria have requested to join the Cote dIvoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI), a joint body spearheading the interests of the two countries in the Cocoa trade if both countries are admitted, the initiative will represent about two-thirds of global Cocoa production. The initiative was set up after a 2018 declaration by Ivory Coast and Ghana, the worlds first and second-largest cocoa producers, on willingness to define a common sustainable Cocoa strategy that would raise prices paid to farmers. Representatives from Cameroon and Nigeria were invited to a CIGCI meeting in Abidjan to begin the process of joining the initiative, the head of the initiative Alex Assanvo told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday (12 October). With Cameroon and Nigeria we are going to represent around 75% of global cocoa production, says Yves Brahima Kone, CEO of the Ivory Coast Cocoa and Coffee Council. This will allow us to have more leeway in discussions with the industry on imposing a decent price for our cocoa farmers. Nigeria took the first step in May this year when a high-powered government delegation visited Accra to enquire about the process for joining the bloc. The founding parties made it clear from the onset that their intention was to get on board other cocoa producing nations, particularly in Africa, in order to create a formidable force in the cocoa trade. Media professionals in Tunisia announced Thursday plans to boycott upcoming legislative elections to take place in the North African country in December as result of state refusal to hold talks with the fourth estate on necessary reforms. Mohamed Saidi, Secretary General of the General Federation of Media, said, during a protest in front of the Prime Ministers office, that media are heading towards the boycott of December legislative elections, Webdo Tunis reports. He also called on the government to start serious discussions with the media structures, noting that the General Federation of Media has prepared the necessary solutions to resolve, in particular, the problems of sustainability of institutions confiscated, the online media adds. The union of journalists of the North African country, SNJT, and the media section of the powerful labor union, UGTT, also participated in the protest. The protest denounced President Kais Saied administrations rapport and policy towards media. SNJT President Mehdi Jelassi slammed the state for refusing dialogue with media unions for necessary reforms. The government ignores the real problems of the sector and continues to bury its head in the sand, Jelassi added. Tunisians are called to the polls for snap elections on December 17 to elect new lawmakers. President Saied has frozen the activities of the parliament since 25 July 2021. He also dissolved legislature early this year after lawmakers held an online session nullifying all decrees he had issued since July 25 last year. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has highlighted in his report to the Security Council on the Sahara, published Thursday, the fundamentals of Moroccos position on its Sahara, as expressed by King Mohammed VI in royal speeches over the past year. In this context, the Secretary General stressed that on November 6, 2021, on the occasion of the 46th anniversary of the Green March, the King had reaffirmed that the Moroccanness of the Sahara is an immutable and indisputable fact and that Morocco is not negotiating over its Sahara. Guterres added that the Sovereign also expressed on this occasion Moroccos commitment to the process led by the UN and support for the Secretary-Generals efforts to relaunch the political process as soon as possible. In this speech, King Mohammed VI highlighted the securing of the Guerguerat border crossing on November 13, 2020. The Sovereign also referred to the American proclamation of recognition of the Moroccan Sahara on December 10, 2020, as part of the positive international momentum supporting the Kingdoms positions on the Moroccan Sahara issue. the King had, moreover, sent a clear message to those who display vague or ambivalent positions making it clear that Morocco will not engage with them any economic or commercial approach that would exclude the Moroccan Sahara. In addition, the UN Secretary General noted in his report the sacredness of the Sahara for the entire Moroccan people, referring to the Kings speech of 20 August 2022, on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People. Guterres said that the Sovereign had then stated that the issue of the Moroccan Sahara is the clear, simple benchmark whereby my country measures the sincerity of friendships and the efficiency of partnerships. In the same speech, the Sovereign reiterated the firm American position on the Moroccan Sahara; a position that is not affected by a change of Administration, nor is it influenced by new circumstances. The King also highlighted the growing international support for the autonomy initiative. In this regard, the Sovereign welcomed the clear, responsible stance of Spain, our neighbor that is well aware of the origins and the reality of the dispute. In the same vein, the king had added that this positive stance has paved the way for a new chapter in the Moroccan-Spanish partnership a chapter that is not affected by regional circumstances or by domestic political developments. The King had also expressed his appreciation for the constructive position regarding the Autonomy Initiative adopted by a number of European countries which include Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Hungary, Cyprus and Romania. Likewise, the Sovereign expressed his appreciation to Kings, Emirs and Presidents of Arab sister nations, particularly those of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti and the Comoro Islands, which have opened consulates in Laayoune and Dakhla, as well as the other Arab countries which have consistently confirmed their support for the Moroccanness of the Sahara, especially the Gulf Cooperation Council States, Egypt and Yemen. In his report, the UN Chief also reaffirmed the fundamentals of the UN political process, as advocated by the Security Council in all its resolutions since 2018. He expressed his conviction that a political solution to the Moroccan Sahara issue is possible, adding that the UN remains willing to convene all parties concerned by the Moroccan Sahara issue in order to achieve a political solution in accordance with Security Council resolutions since 2018. Guterres called in this connection on all concerned parties to urgently seize the opportunity offered by the efforts of the Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, noting that strong political will is needed to find a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution in accordance with resolutions 2440 (2018), 2468 (2019), 2494 (2019), 2548 (2020) and 2602 (2021). The UN Chief also urged all parties concerned to approach the political process, in this case the roundtables established by the Security Council resolutions since 2018, with an open mind and to waive preconditions for the political process. King Mohammed VI has called on all stakeholders to urgently address water resources management at a time Morocco is experiencing a period of severe drought the most serious in more than three decades. The King, who was accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, made the remarks in a speech before the two chambers of the Parliament on the occasion of the opening of the parliament fall session. The current water resource situation challenges us all: government, institutions and citizens. It requires us to be frank and responsible in dealing with the issue and in addressing whatever inadequacies there may be, the Sovereign said, noting that Morocco is not the only country facing the problem of drought and water scarcity. This issue has become a global phenomenon, one that is further compounded by climate change. He warned that Morocco is now in a situation of chronic water stress, and not all problems can be solved by simply building the water facilities planned, notwithstanding their great importance and of the need for them. I therefore call for all aspects of the water issue to be addressed seriously, putting, in particular, an end to all forms of squandering and of irrational, irresponsible use of this vital resource, he said, insisting that the water issue should not be exploited for political outbidding purposes, nor should it be used to stoke social tensions. As Moroccans, we should all exert greater efforts to ensure rational, responsible use of water. This requires a real change in our behavior regarding water, he said, urging public administrations and institutions to lead by example. The Sovereign also stressed the need to ensure optimal management of the demand in light of the accomplishments made in mobilizing water resources. King Mohammed VI recalled that to face up to water stress situation, a series of preemptive measures have been adopted, since last February, under the plan to combat the effects of drought. The aim is to make sure drinking water is available, to provide assistance to farmers and to safeguard the livestock, he said. Thus, several working sessions have been devoted to this issue, leading to the formulation of the 2020-2027 National Priority Program for Water. He also recalled that since his accession to the throne, he has keenly sought to continue the policy of building dams. So, more than 50 large and medium-sized dams have been built, and 20 more are under construction. Regardless of the rainfall we may receive in the years ahead, I am keen to make sure we speed up the completion of the projects planned under this program, in all regions and corners of the Kingdom, he said, referring, in particular, to the completion of the construction of planned dams, the development of hydraulic interconnections and the construction of seawater desalination plants, as well as the implementation of a stronger water efficiency policy, especially in the area of irrigation. In the medium term, we need to strengthen our proactive policies in the water sector and make up for lost time. It is both our duty and our responsibility today to adopt sustainable, integrated policies, commit to the spirit of solidarity and ensure efficiency under the new national water plan, which should be implemented as soon as possible, the Sovereign pointed out. In this connection, he stressed the need to launch more ambitious programs and initiatives, and to leverage modern technology for water saving and wastewater reuse purposes, and also to pay special attention to the rational use of groundwater and preserve the water table by tackling illegal pumping and the erratic drilling of wells. The Sovereign also pointed out that water policy is not just a sectoral policy; rather, it lies at the intersection of a great many sectors. This means we need to update sectoral strategies on a continuous basis, in light of the pressure on water resources and the future development of those resources. The King also brought up the issue of water costs, saying the real cost of water needs to be taken into account at each stage of the water mobilization process, keeping in mind the need to be transparent and to raise awareness about all aspects relating to water costs. Iconic pine on China's Huangshan Mountain undergoes comprehensive examination Xinhua) 16:45, October 13, 2022 HEFEI, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- A thorough physical examination of the Guest-Greeting Pine, a famous landmark on Huangshan Mountain in east China's Anhui Province, has kicked off for better conservation of this millenary tree. The 10-meter-tall pine, whose roots sprang from the rocks on the UNESCO world heritage site, stands at an altitude of more than 1,600 meters. Its most recognizable feature is a long branch extending much like an outstretched arm in a welcoming gesture. Since 1998, a thorough physical examination has been carried out about every six years to track the tree's growth, and this year marks the fifth such examination which will last till the end of October, said Wu Yijun, an engineer with the management committee of the Huangshan Mountain scenic area. A series of work such as growth evaluation, growing environment improvement, anticorrosion, restoration and reinforcement of the tree trunk, and pruning will also be carried out during the period. A temporary scaffold has been erected covering the entire tree. A team of multidisciplinary experts in plant physiology and other relevant fields conducts the examination and evaluation, and will accordingly formulate a comprehensive protection plan for the pine. Some other old and famous trees on Huangshan Mountain will also undergo a similar examination this year, Wu noted. (Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Wu Chaolan) Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter on the establishment of the Global Sustainable Transport Innovation and Knowledge Center on Friday. Promoting the sustainable development of global transportation and global connectivity is of great significance to ensuring the stability and smooth flow of global logistics supply chains and boosting the development of the world economy, Xi said. The establishment of the center is a key move to support the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the president said. China is ready to work with other countries to make full use of this platform to promote global transportation cooperation, and contribute to advancing the Global Development Initiative, implementing the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and building a community with a shared future for mankind, Xi said. The opening ceremony of the Global Sustainable Transport Innovation and Knowledge Center was held in Beijing the same day. Morocco is a loyal and fraternal partner with which Spain maintains excellent relations, the Spanish Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said on Friday. Morocco is a state that cooperates with Spain. It is a loyal partner and, of course, I would even say fraternal, Grande-Marlaska said in statements to the press. The relations between Spain and Morocco are so satisfactory and the mutual trust is so important, the Spanish minister added, highlighting the Joint Declaration of April 7 announcing a new stage in bilateral partnership. There is no need to worry, because relations between the two countries are exceptional and excellent, he insisted. The Spanish government had recently welcomed the intense strategic partnership between Spain and Morocco, which reflects a new stage based on transparency, permanent communication and mutual respect. We have an intense bilateral program covering all aspects of our bilateral relationship, based on transparency, permanent communication and mutual respect. These are the principles of a sincere cooperation between two strategic partners like Spain and Morocco, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, said at the end of recent talks with his Moroccan peer Nasser Bourita, on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly. King Mohammed VI has laid out a roadmap for promoting productive investment as it constitutes a lever for boosting economy and creating jobs and growth, and called for removing the obstacles that still prevent a real take-off of domestic investment at all levels. In a speech he delivered Friday at the opening of the Parliament fall session, the Monarch said today, Morocco counts on productive investment as a lever for boosting the economy and making sure the country engages in the promising sectors which provide job opportunities for young people as well as funding for various social and development programs. I expect the new investment charter to significantly enhance Moroccos attractiveness as far as both domestic and foreign investment is concerned, he said insisting on the need to remove the obstacles that still prevent a real take-off of domestic investment at all levels. As to the role of regional investment centers, the King said these centers are expected to oversee the entire investment process; and should improve the efficiency and quality of the services they provide in terms of accompanying and guiding project holders until the actual achievement of their projects. As regards the business environment, the structural reforms we have introduced have made it possible to improve Moroccos image and standing in this respect, he recalled, noting however that despite the results achieved, further efforts are still needed to unlock the nations full potential, encourage private initiative and attract greater foreign investment. In this regard, the King insisted on the need to implement the administrative devolution charter in full, simplify and digitalize procedures, facilitate access to real estate and green energies, and provide financial support to project holders. To boost investor confidence in Morocco as a destination for profitable investment, the Sovereign called for enhancing the rules of fair competition and for restoring arbitration and mediation mechanisms in order to settle disputes in this area. Since investment concerns all institutions as well as the private sector, I wish to insist on the need for everyone to be mobilized and commit to a keen sense of responsibility in order to promote this sector, which is of critical importance for our countrys development, the King insisted, adding that the strategic goal is for the private sector to take its rightful place in the investment environment and be the real driving force behind the national economy. The Sovereign urged Moroccan businesses and their national, regional and sectoral organizations to serve as a lever for the promotion of investment and entrepreneurship. Similarly, he urged the national banking and financial sector to support and finance the new generation of investors and businesspeople, especially youths and small and medium enterprises, he said. In this regard, I invite you, once again, to pay particular attention to the investments made and the initiatives undertaken by the members of the Moroccan community abroad. To achieve the desired goals, I have instructed the government to make sure, jointly with the private and banking sectors, that the commitments made by each party are fulfilled under a national investment contract scheme. The scheme aims to raise 550 billion dirhams for investment, and create 500,000 jobs between 2022 and 2026. LINCOLN Great Plains Healths chief medical officer is one of four winners of 2022 Nebraska Medicaid Provider awards. Dr. Narayana Koduri, who has held his post at the North Platte regional hospital since 2012, received his award from Gov. Pete Ricketts Thursday at a State Capitol ceremony. Award winners were nominated by one of the four managed care networks within Heritage Health Adult, the states Medicaid program, Ricketts office said in a press release. They honor providers who have demonstrated exceptional and measurable contributions to their clinical practice in the Medicaid population, the release said. Koduri, nominated by Healthy Blue of Nebraska, oversees GPHs outpatient clinic and 19 inpatient beds for adolescents and adults. The board-certified psychologist and neurologist also serves as an assistant professor and site director for the University of Nebraska Medical Centers statewide residency program. As UNMCs lead preceptor for pharmacists, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, Koduri has helped steer residents toward rural Nebraska communities, the press release said. Other Nebraska Medicaid Provider winners were Dr. Heidi Barker of Lincoln, nominated by Nebraska Total Care; Mark Darby, an Omaha nurse practitioner, by UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Nebraska; and Dr. David Millea, an Omaha dentist, by MCNA Dental. Through Dr. Koduris advocacy for psychiatric care in rural Nebraska, Great Plains Health has one of the most sought-after site rotations for residents, it added. Guilty. Immediately, Amanda Knox said, she felt the ground had fallen out from beneath her, and she crumbled between her lawyers. Her story dominated the headlines in 2007 when the then-20-year-old college student studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, was arrested and ultimately convicted of murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher. On Thursday, Knox shared her story as part of the Town Hall Lecture Series at the North Platte Community Playhouse. My reality was completely overwritten by a bunch of strangers who thought that I was a monster, Knox said. Not only was my future completely destroyed, but also my past and my present as well. Everything was now a loss. Knox said in those moments in the courtroom, she realized that the criminal justice system is much more complicated than it makes itself out to be. Its not like this scientific laboratory where all of this information gets boiled down to truth beyond a reasonable doubt, Knox said. In fact, the courtroom is a battleground of storytelling, and its not always the most truthful story that wins. She said it is the most compelling story, the story that gets the most people excited. And the story of a local burglar who broke into a house and murdered a young girl, thats not an interesting story, Knox said. The story that really captured peoples attention was Foxy Knoxy, the Ice Queen, the she-devil, Luciferina. I realized in that moment that it wasnt me that was being convicted; it was an idea of a horrible monster that was a projection of peoples fears and fantasies that happened to have my face and name. But it was still me. Knox was eventually acquitted of the crime after she filed an appeal. However, in the Italian justice system, not only can the defendant file an appeal, but so can the prosecution. And they did, and Knox was again convicted by an Italian appeals court. She filed another appeal that ended up going to the Italian Supreme Court, where she was not only acquitted but exonerated from any involvement in the murder. Knox has since married Christopher Robinson and they have a 16-month-old daughter, Eureka. In a pre-speech interview, Knox talked about the ongoing difficulties of life after her harrowing experience. The biggest difference between me today and me as a 20-year-old kid going to study abroad is sadness, she said. Im a lot sadder than I used to be. Knox said that sadness is not an everyday thing, but is more profound. Its more of a sort of deep sadness, like a deep knowledge of human tragedy and human fallibility, Knox said. These situations are so sad, the people who suffer, the people who make mistakes. For her, she said, its a reality she was not aware of previously. The thing that I will say, though, is that this deep well of sadness has allowed me to have a lot of compassion for everyone who finds themselves in this situation, Knox said, including those detectives and prosecutors who make mistakes. I would not want to be in their shoes either. Coping with all that has happened to her has not been easy. The biggest thing is being grateful because the flip side of having everything taken away from you is realizing everything you have left, Knox said. One of those things is Im alive today, Meredith isnt and a lot of people arent. Im lucky. If I had been home the night this murder occurred, I would have been killed too. So in a lot of ways, Im lucky. Knox has a podcast titled Labyrinths, which she and her husband produce. She also participates with The Innocence Project and helping those who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Returning to Indianapolis, and always on my watch list, there was no option but to drop in on the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (often referred to as DLO3) at the beautiful Vogue Theatre on Tuesday night, October 4, 2022. The group features B3 organist Lamarr, the amazing Hendrix-style guitarist Jimmy James, and the steady hand of their new drummer, Julian MacDonough. This mighty trio always delivers the funk - with a mix of jazz, blues, and deep soul that will take you back to reflections of Booker T & The M.G.s at Stax Records, the B3 jazz vibe of Jimmy Smith and Baby Face Willette, or dip you down into Motown or Hendrix territory. It all seems to flow with an infectious rhythm that keeps you wanting more. Formed in May 2015 in Seattle, DLO3 recently released their third album Cold as Weiss, with a nod to their former drummer Dan Weiss. The albums first single, Pull Your Pants Up, has its own back story. On every DLO3 tour, at some point, we have to tell Jimmy James to pull his pants up, says Lamarr. After being blinded by his backside over and over and over again, we decided to write a song about it! With a few more dates on the calendar in the US, DLO3 heads to Europe in October and November as they continue to expand their fan base across the globe. But when they return to Indy again, know I will be there and hope you will too to check out the groove of this group. The Chicago-based band Caught on Cline started the night off at The Vogue and, in the transition, made the exciting announcement that they had signed a management and production agreement with Novo Productions LLC and Amy Novo, founder of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio and wife of Delvon Lamarr. Both bands took the stage together to celebrate their deeper connection and future under Novos hand. For more info on the DL03, go here https://delvonlamarrorgantrio.com For more info on the Vogue Theatre, go here https://thevogue.com/calendar/ Delvon Lamarr-4903.jpg Jimmy James-4867.jpg Delvon Lamarr-5080.jpg Jimmy James-9367.jpg A recent addition to the DLO3 is drummer Julian MacDonough-9140.jpg Jimmy James-9219.jpg Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio-9475.jpg Jimmy James-9300.jpg Julian MacDonough-4969.jpg Jimmy James-5520.jpg Delvon Lamarr-9197.jpg Jimmy James-5442.jpg Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio sitting in with Caught on Cline-9117.jpg Refresco Press Release Refresco expands into Australia by acquiring beverage manufacturer Tru Blu Beverages Rotterdam, The Netherlands October 14, 2022 Refresco Group B.V. (Refresco or the Company), the global independent beverage solutions provider for Global, National and Emerging (GNE) brands and retailers in Europe and North America, today announces it has entered into an agreement to acquire Tru Blu Beverages Pty Ltd. (Tru Blu Beverages), one of Australias leading manufacturers of non-alcoholic beverages. This transaction is subject to regulatory approval. CEO Refresco, Hans Roelofs, comments: Todays announcement is a testament to our proven Buy & Build strategy. We started with one factory in Europe just over two decades ago and steadily built a diversified, pan-European platform. Only six years ago, we took our first step into North America. We now operate over 70 manufacturing sites globally, with just about half of those located across North America and the rest throughout Europe, offering a full range of beverage solutions to a broad customer base. The acquisition of Tru Blu Beverages in Australia creates a new platform for Refresco, in line with our strategic promise to expand into a third continent. The three strategically located manufacturing sites are the starting point for our future footprint in the region. Acquiring Tru Blu Beverages further strengthens our position as beverage solutions provider to branded customers and leading retailers globally, and provides new opportunities for further growth. CEO Tru Blu Beverages, Peter Brooks, adds: By joining Refresco, our customers, suppliers and employees will be able to benefit from the Companys broad capabilities, experience and expertise. We are proud to become part of the Refresco family, with its strong entrepreneurial spirit and passion to deliver quality service to its customers. Tru Blu Beverages leading capabilities and blue-chip customer base gives Refresco a solid entrance into the Australian market. We look forward to building an even stronger platform together. Story continues Strategic rationale The acquisition of Tru Blu Beverages expands Refresco's addressable market and provides opportunities to leverage Refrescos size and scale, as well as its track record of successfully integrating companies. Tru Blu Beverages fits right into Refrescos business model, with its wide range of beverage solutions for retailer brands and global, national and emerging brands. In addition, Refrescos strategic ESG agenda will enable Tru Blu Beverages to accelerate its efforts of minimizing the environmental impact of manufacturing processes, packaging and transport. Refresco obtains a national Australian market position by acquiring Tru Blu Beverages, with opportunities to drive continued growth in the region, both organically and through acquisitions. Refresco intends to continue expanding its global and strategically located footprint to better serve existing and new customers through a range of formats and channels. We will continue to make selective investments and acquisitions, targeting value accretive opportunities. Transaction highlights This transaction is subject to regulatory approval. The financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed. About Tru Blu Beverages Tru Blu Beverages is a privately-owned beverage manufacturer focused on providing non-alcoholic beverages to Australias largest retailers and brand owners. Tru Blu Beverages employs over 400 staff and has three manufacturing facilities, located in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, supported by a distribution network with warehouses in all major Australian capital cities. About Refresco Refresco is the global independent beverage solutions provider for Global, National and Emerging brands, and retailers with production in Europe and North America. Refresco offers an extensive range of product and packaging combinations from juices to carbonated soft drinks and mineral waters in carton, PET, Aseptic PET, cans and glass. Refresco continuously searches for new and alternative ways to improve the quality of its products and packaging combinations in line with consumer and customer demand, environmental responsibilities and market demand. Refresco is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and has more than 13,000 employees. www.refresco.com Media Contacts Refresco Corporate Communications Hendrik de Wit +31 6 1586 1311 hendrik.dewit@refresco.com Attachment Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation after Germany axed the certification process following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia has said that the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines and the leaks that followed were the result of a terrorist act,. A large section of the Nord Stream pipe needs to be replaced so that the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany can be in a ready-operational state again, Gazproms chief executive Alexey Miller has told Russian state TV in an interview. Experts say that in order to restore operations after such a terrorist act, a very large portion of the pipe needs to be cut, at a great distance, and in fact build a new section on this section, Miller told Russias Channel One TV. And in order to restore integrity, it must be raised, this pipe. And you understand, it is one thing when the pipe is hollow, yes, and another thing when it is filled with seawater for hundreds of kilometers, Miller added. Russia has said that the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines and the leaks that followed were the result of a terrorist act, while the West says there is evidence of sabotage. At the time of the explosions at the end of September, no gas was being shipped via either Nord Stream 1 or Nord Stream 2. Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation after Germany axed the certification process following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia, for its part, shut down Nord Stream 1 indefinitely in early September, claiming an inability to repair gas turbines because of the Western sanctions. Related: OPEC Slashes Global Oil Demand Forecast Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia was ready to supply gas to Europe on the one undamaged line on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if the EU wants to start the route. Putin also said that repairing the Nord Stream 1 and 2 lines would only make sense if they will be used later, Russian news agency Interfax quoted the Russian president as saying. Before the Nord Stream 1 and 2 leaks were detected, Putin said that Russia had nothing to do with Europes energy crisis and that if Europe wanted more gas, it just had to push the button on Nord Stream 2, and everything will get going, that is, lift the sanctions on Nord Stream 2. A few days later, Stephan Weil, Minister-President of the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony, said that Germany could never rely on Russia for energy supply again, and the Nord Stream 2 project would never go ahead. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The explosions that caused leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines have been deemed sabotage, and the message to Europe is this: Your infrastructure can be crippled - easily. Neither of the two pipelines damaged was actually sending gas to Europe at the time. It was no loss to Russia, then. And no loss to Europe, in the short term at least. Instead, it was a dangerously intangible message. Its about sowing fear and uncertainty. The Baltic Pipeline was launched on September 27th - which makes the timing of the Nord Stream explosions particularly worrying for Poland. One part of this message was likely intended as a threat to Poland that the Baltic Pipeline is under direct threat - as are other European efforts at independence from Russia. What other energy infrastructure in Europe could be targeted? Norwegian energy infrastructure would be a clear target, as the biggest supplier to Europe - 120bcm this year. These supplies are far greater than what Russia is supplying to Europe. Those drones caught flying over oil facilities in the North Sea were meant to suggest this. But that scenario assumes we are only talking about energy security. It's important to remember any attacks arent just about the immediate future. Europe will survive the winter. But what happens after that? Surviving the winter means depleting gas storage. Its no longer enough for Russia to threaten to cut Europe off from gas. That hasnt Chinese modernization, a key term defining China's journey to rejuvenation, has for the first time been written into a report to the national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the world's largest Marxist governing party. If the German economy sinks, the whole EU economy will sink with it, so the 200-billion-euro aid package the German government approved recently is in fact aid for the whole of the European Union. This is what Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the Financial Times in an interview, responding to accusations from several EU members that Berlin was undermining the competitiveness of poorer countries by providing generous aid to its businesses and households. If Germany were to experience a really deep recession, it would drag the whole of Europe down with it, Habeck said. Were not being selfish were trying to stabilise an economy at the heart of Europe. The aid plan focuses on what is effectively a temporary price ceiling for gas, to enter into effect in several phases aiming to alleviate the burden of record-high energy prices. The money, which is equal to roughly the same sum in U.S. dollars, will come from new loans. The move, however, drew fire from both national governments and a couple of Commissioners, too. The massive 200 billion aid plan decided by Germany (worth 5% of its GDP) responds to a need we recognise and have highlighted - to support the economy. But it also raises questions. How can EU countries that do not have the same fiscal space also support businesses and households? Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote in an op-ed for the Irish Times. To this, Habeck responded that Germany is not the only EU country taking measures to shield its citizens and businesses from the worst of the crisis by introducing price caps, pointing to France, Italy, and Spain as examples. At the same time, Berlin remains opposed to the idea of capping the price of gas imports into the EU. This week, Germany and the Netherlands sent out a document ahead of the next round of discussions that suggested a number of measures to tackle the crunch but capping gas prices was not among them, Euronews reported. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: India will further diversify its oil imports to better prepare for future OPEC+ production cuts that raise oil prices and tighten supply for the worlds third-largest crude oil importer, Indian Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. Last week, OPEC+ announced the biggest cut to its collective target since 2020. Despite the headline number of 2 million bpd, the actual cut from current OPEC+ oil production would be half that figure, at around 1 million bpd-1.1 million bpd. Thats because many producers, including Russia in recent months, havent been able to produce to their quotas for months. Still, the large OPEC+ production cut is bad news for India, which depends on imports for more than 85% of its crude oil consumption. Around 60% of Indias crude oil imports come from the Middle East. However, this share has been falling in recent years as refiners have started to diversify and look for bargain supplies. Some diversification has already happened and we will further diversify...there are many sources and we will not hesitate to take actions, Indias minister Puri said at a local event today, as carried by Reuters. The OPEC+ cut, which enters into force in November, will hurt large importers like India, who spent around $120 billion last year on the import of petroleum products, the minister added. India has recently imported large volumes of Russian oil due to the cheap supply with hefty discounts on the Russian grades compared to benchmarks. But those discounts have narrowed in recent weeks, Puri said. India is also looking to lock in term purchase contracts with crude producers, expecting a redirection of trade flows and a tighter market when the EU embargo on imports of Russian crude enters into force in early December. Major state-held refiners in India, including the biggest refiner Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petroleum, are looking to sign term deals with major producers, expecting more Middle Eastern crude to flow to Europe once the EU bans Russian imports, officials at the refiners told Reuters earlier this month. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Iraq, OPECs second-largest producer, elected a new president on Thursday after months of political deadlock, protests and violent clashes among various militias both in Baghdads Green Zone and oil-rich Basra. Iraqi lawmakers elected Kurdish politician Abdul Latif Rashid as the countrys new president following two rounds of voting in parliament against the backdrop of rocket attacks. Rashid won 160 votes, defeating another Kurdish politician, Barham Saleh, who won 99 votes, according to Al Jazeera. While parliament was in session, nine katyusha rockets hit Baghdads Green Zone, initially delaying the vote. No fatalities were reported, though several security personnel and civilians were injured, according to the Associated Press. Rashid is Iraqs former minister of water resources and has named 52-year-old Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister-designate to replace current prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi. Al-Sudanis task will be the formidable one of winning the backing of rival Shiite factions. According to an Agence France Presse report, al-Sudani already has the backing of influential pro-Iranian factions, which are rivals to powerful anti-Iranian Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr who can summon masses of protesters at will. There are concerns the nomination of al-Sudani will result in a return to bloody violence that has plagued Iraq over the past several months. Iraq has unsuccessfully attempted to elect a new president three times this year. In last years parliamentary vote, al-Sadr won the most votes, but refused to form a coalition government. Since then, parliament has been stalemated, with al-Sadr leading his throngs of protesters in Baghdad against his rivals. In August, al-Sadr pulled all of his parliamentarians from the Iraqi assembly. Last week, Baghdads violence spread to oil-rich Basra, where clashes between al-Sadr militias and those of his rivals in Basra erupted after rocket attacks on the presidential palace. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Norwegian police are investigating reports of a drone flying over the gas processing plant Karst in southwestern Norway, Norwegian newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reported on Friday. The drone was too large for hobby use, an expert on drones told the newspaper. Norway has beefed up security at its energy infrastructure facilities since the end of September after spotting other drones flying over oil and gas assets and after the explosions on the lines of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea. On September 26, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) of Norway urged increased vigilance by all operators and vessel owners on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, after companies operating offshore Norway had recently given warnings or notifications of a number of observations concerning unidentified drones or aircraft close to offshore installations. As of October 3, Norway has posted soldiers from its Home Guard to protect energy infrastructure as Western Europe's largest oil and gas producer and its Scandinavian neighbors increased security following the suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September. Securing and guarding critical civil and military infrastructure is one of the Home Guard's core tasks, the Norwegian Army says. Four leaks, two in each of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, were discovered at the end of September after gas started leaking from the infrastructure just outside Swedish and Danish territorial waters in the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation after Germany axed the certification process following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia, for its part, shut down Nord Stream 1 indefinitely in early September, claiming an inability to repair gas turbines because of the Western sanctions. The EU believes the gas leaks from the pipelines in the Baltic Sea were the result of a deliberate act of sabotage and not an accident or a mere technical failure. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The hard-left CGT trade union walked out of wage increase talks with TotalEnergies early on Friday, vowing to continue the strike at refineries that has crippled Frances fuel supply, despite the fact that two other unions agreed to the proposed 7% pay rise. TotalEnergies and four unions, including the hardcore CGT, sat down late on Thursday to discuss the terms and offers of the oil giant for pay rises. After almost six hours of negotiations, the CGT union walked out of the meeting in the early morning on Friday, and its representative Alexis Antonioli told media the talks were a charade, and TotalEnergies proposals were largely insufficient. Two other trade unions, CFDT and CFE-CGC, found the offer for a 7% pay rise rather favorable. The offer now has to be approved by union members. The nearly three weeks of strikes at refineries in France have left more than 60% of the countrys refining capacity offline while gas stations in and around Paris and in the northern part of the country began to run out of fuel. Earlier this week, France said that it would requisition essential workers to staff Exxons French oil depot, and threatened to do the same for Totals French refineries if talks failed to progress. But workers at Totals Donges refinery decided on Tuesday to strike beginning on Wednesday, the CGT union said. French ministers said on Thursday that TotalEnergies should raise the salaries of the workers at its refineries. If one knows the profits which they made ... companies which have the capacity have a duty to raise wages and Total is one of them, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told local radio, as quoted by Reuters. Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher on Thursday called on TotalEnergies to raise wages, saying that the company can afford to do so, and that everyone must return to the negotiating table. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Russia says it has summoned the ambassadors of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden and handed them notes of protest challenging their investigations into several explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on October 13 that Moscow will not recognize any "pseudo-results" of the investigations conducted by Western nations if Russia is not allowed to take part in them. "If Russian experts are not allowed to get involved in the ongoing investigative operations, Moscow will consider that the aforementioned countries have something to hide or that they are covering up for those who implemented the terrorist acts," the ministry's statement said. Four explosions caused leaks in three of the four links that make up the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September, sending tons of pressurized methane gas into the Baltic Sea at a time of heightened concerns in Europe over a potential energy crisis due to supply disruptions from Russia amid its ongoing war with Ukraine. Western officials have said that the leaks in the pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were caused by sabotage. That has led to suspicion that Moscow was behind the incidents. The West has previously accused Russia of withholding energy supplies in retaliation to sanctions imposed over its war against Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied any Russian involvement in the leaks. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The U.S. should set a price cap on U.S. LNG going to Europe, as American gas is being delivered to Europe at prices four times higher than the price for domestic consumption, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Russian state television. We would advise our US partners to set a certain cap price for the resources they are supplying to Europe. This only pushes Europe toward energy poverty, said the Russian official who represents the country at the OPEC+ meetings. Novak, commenting on the U.S.-proposed price cap on Russian oil, reaffirmed Russias stance that it would not deliver its oil to countries that will join the price cap, regardless of whether the cap is the recently aired $60 per barrel. This is interference with market instruments, Novak said. We are ready to work with consumers that are prepared to work under market principles. Earlier this month, European Union ambassadors reached an agreement to impose a new package of sanctions on Russia, including banning maritime transportation for Russian oil to third-party countries unless the oil is sold below or at a certain price cap. The U.S. Treasury is looking to structure a three-phased approach to the G7 sanctions and price caps on Russian oil to keep Russian crude and products flowingbut at lower prices. The G7 group of the most industrialized nations will first target Russias crude oil, then move on to include diesel in the second stage. Finally, the lower-value products, such as naphtha, will be part of the third phase. Some EU countries are also pushing for a price cap on natural gas. Belgiums Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, for example, has said that the EU could impose a hard cap on Russian gas and a flexible ceiling on LNG imports, which would still be high enough for LNG exporters to have the incentive to bring it to Europe. The European Commission has been reluctant so far to propose a gas price cap precisely because of the concern that by limiting the price, LNG exporters will simply skip Europe and sell their cargoes to customers in Asia. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Moscow is prepared to reject the renewal of an agreement on grain exports from Black Sea ports unless its demands are addressed, Russia's UN ambassador in Geneva has told Reuters. Moscow has submitted a list of complaints about the agreement, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July, to the United Nations, said Gennady Gatilov in an interview with Reuters published on October 13. The agreement paved the way for Ukraine to resume grain exports from Black Sea ports that had been under a Russian naval blockade since Moscow invaded Ukraine and for Russia to resume exports of its own grain and fertilizer. UN officials are due in Moscow on October 16 to discuss the renewal of the agreement. Russia has complained about the implementation of the deal, claiming that the grain is failing to reach poorer countries as intended and saying it still faces difficulty selling fertilizer and food. "If we see nothing is happening on the Russian side of the deal -- export of Russian grains and fertilizers -- then excuse us, we will have to look at it in a different way," Gatilov told Reuters. Asked if Russia might withhold support for the deal's renewal, he said: "There is a possibility.... We are not against deliveries of grains, but this deal should be equal. It should be fair and fairly implemented by all sides." Russian President Vladimir Putin last month hinted at backtracking on the deal. During a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, he complained that Western sanctions were hindering supplies of Russian food and fertilizers to Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, according to the Kremlin. However, there is ample evidence to the contrary, and Europe and the United States did not target either Russian grain or fertilizers for sanctions. Before the agreement was signed, Russian warships blocked exports from Ukraine, one of the worlds top suppliers of grain to foreign markets, causing a sharp spike in food prices that threatened millions of people in poor nations with starvation. Grain prices dropped after the deal was reached, easing economic pressures on poor countries. By RFE/RL More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: The Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District is being criticized for its handling of a board vacancy by one of the two people who applied for the position. David Corbin, whose career, volunteer work and political activities have focused on public health and the environment, said there was too little publicity about the vacancy and there was no follow-up from the district on the appointment process. Lack of publicity, he said, is evidenced by the fact that only two people applied. Also of concern to him is that the board remains an all-male board, and there was no effort to recruit women candidates. Corbin said he wasnt told of an early October subcommittee meeting in which candidates had a chance to talk with board members. That subcommittee voted to recommend Josh Henningsen, who did attend their meeting. Henningsen, an attorney with the Nebraska Legislature, was approved by the full board on a 10-0 vote Thursday. NRD General Manager John Winkler said the district published a legal notice in the The World-Herald, posted about the vacancy on social media and publicized it on the districts website. The district, he said, followed all the legal requirements regarding the vacancy. The NRD is an elected board, and members serve four-year terms. Its mission focuses on natural resources management. The vacancy was created by the August resignation of Danny Begley. A recently elected city councilman, Begley cited time pressures as the reason for his departure. Begley and Henningsen are friends. Begley said Henningsen will bring experience, knowledge and a smooth transition to the NRD board. Henningsen said he learned of the vacancy through his contacts at the Legislature. Corbin said he learned about the vacancy through the Green Omaha Coalition. Henningsen was the only candidate to appear at the early October subcommittee meeting. He said he learned about the committee meeting by asking NRD staff Whats next? when he dropped off his application. Corbin also hand-delivered his application to the NRD and later followed up with a phone call to Winkler and emails to four board members. He said had he been told about the subcommittee meeting, he would have attended it. He did attend Thursdays meeting at which the final vote was taken. Sherron Watkins was a few weeks into her new position as vice president for corporate development at Enron Corp. in August 2001 when she anonymously flagged the late chairman Kenneth Lay on her concerns. In a letter sent to Lay a day after former CEO Jeffrey Skilling abruptly resigned, Watkins noted accounting issues and other fraudulent behavior. I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals, Watkins wrote. Months later, Enron declared bankruptcy. Watkins testified in front of congressional committees, earning recognition that culminated in her being named by Time as one of three Persons of the Year representing whistleblowers in 2002. Watkins told a crowd gathered Thursday at Omahas CHI Health Center that the scandal was partly a result of a lack of people willing to voice their concerns with the companys business practices. Good people just stopped asking questions and never really got their core concerns answered, she said during the Business Ethics Alliances EthicSpace Conference. Up until the precipitous fall of the Houston-based company, which traced its roots to Omaha, Enron had been considered one of the nations most admired companies, with Fortune magazine ranking it as the most innovative company in the country for several years. It also was valued very highly on the stock market, reaching about $90 per share in mid-2000. But a little more than a year later, the value of an Enron share had dropped to less than $1 as the company became embroiled in multiple scandals. Many executives, including Skilling, were sent to prison. Lay died in 2006 after being found guilty of fraud but before being sentenced. However, Watkins said none of the executives was hurt monetarily. Even during Enrons heyday, employees noticed troubling signs, Watkins said. One included Lays requirement that Enron employees book business trips through his sisters travel agency, which Watkins called really, really incompetent. In the decades since the scandal, Watkins said federal legislation has been passed to protect whistleblowers, including the SarbanesOxley Act in 2002 and DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act outlines criminal penalties for companies that retaliate against whistleblowers. The Dodd-Frank Act allows whistleblowers to receive financial compensation and retain job security. Regardless of legislation, Watkins said, its in companies best interests to protect whistleblowers. Citing research conducted by a George Washington University professor, Watkins said companies with hotlines and systems to report unethical behavior and practices have higher returns on investments and much lower litigation costs. Enron formed in the aftermath of Omaha-based InterNorths 1985 acquisition of a Texas-based power company. Shortly afterward, Lay moved InterNorths headquarters to Houston and changed its name to Enron. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy A Sarpy County man between ages 35 and 44 has been confirmed with the first case of monkeypox within the Sarpy/Cass Health Departments jurisdiction, health officials said Friday. The man is isolating at home, and an investigation is underway to inform people who may have been exposed. Monkeypox cases, based on a seven-day moving average, have declined by about 86% since a peak in mid-August, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 27,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the United States during the course of the current outbreak, according to the CDC. Nebraska has reported 31 total cases. The Douglas County Health Department has recorded only one new case in the past month, according to a spokesman. The Health Department, which has recorded 25 total cases, had given 1,400 doses of vaccine for the virus as of Oct. 6. Vaccine availability is improving and more people now are eligible. Sarpy/Cass health officials said the risk to the public from monkeypox remains low. The virus is spread through close, skin-to-skin contact with an infected persons rash, scabs, body fluids, respiratory secretions, or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling or sex. Some people have been infected by handling objects such as clothing or linens used by a person with monkeypox. Anyone with a characteristic monkeypox rash that resembles pimples or blisters should contact their health care provider. Other symptoms may include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and exhaustion. Antivirals that are used to treat smallpox may be used to help patients with a monkeypox infection. For more information, visit the CDC website at www.cdc.gov or call the Sarpy/Cass Health Department at 402-339-4334. LINCOLN A new political action committee has emerged in Nebraska with the backing of Gov. Pete Ricketts, and its first move took aim at an outgoing GOP state lawmaker. Ricketts last month gave $314,000 to the group, dubbed the Nebraska Future Action Fund, making him the PACs first and only donor, according to the latest filings from the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The only expenditure the group documented in its filing was roughly $51,000 to oppose outgoing State Sen. Matt Williams campaign for a seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Little is known about this new PAC. Its website hasnt officially launched, and the group didnt respond to requests for comment. Neither did Ricketts. Both Williams and his opponent Kathy Wilmot said they knew nothing about the PACs goals. More than $51,000 is a lot to spend on a regents race. Wilmot herself has only brought in roughly $50,000 in contributions this year $10,000 of which came as a direct donation from Ricketts, according to her latest campaign filings. Williams has gathered about $96,000 in the same period. Wilmot, of Beaver City, has the support of several other big-name Nebraska politicians and political groups, including the state GOP, former Gov. Kay Orr and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles W. Herbster. Regents races are nonpartisan, though both candidates are registered Republicans. Wilmot said shes earned this support by being a familiar face in Nebraska politics for about 30 years. She served on the State Board of Education for eight years, during which she said she developed a track record of voting to support conservative values. She said Williams doesnt have the same consistency in his voting record. Williams, a banker from Gothenburg, claims the $51,000 was largely spent on radio attack ads that paint him as a liberal RINO, which stands for Republicans In Name Only. Williams said his history in the Nebraska Legislature proves he has supported conservative policies like tax relief, abortion restrictions and increasing gun access. And those are the real facts, Williams said. Williams got crosswise with Ricketts over several issues during their overlapping time in office. Williams voted to override Ricketts vetoes on bills raising the gas tax to fund highway construction, repealing the death penalty and granting drivers licenses and, later, professional and commercial licenses, to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. Voters reinstated the death penalty after a referendum petition funded in part by Ricketts put the issue on the ballot. Williams said what he believed was best for his constituents sometimes differed from Ricketts views, but Williams argued that he had the authority to make those decisions as a member of the policy-making branch of state government. He said it is discouraging to see attack ads become an increasingly common feature of Nebraska elections. Ricketts routinely uses his wealth to influence political races in his home state. Earlier this year, he contributed nearly $1.28 million to Conservative Nebraska, a PAC that ran advertisements opposing Herbster and Sen. Brett Lindstrom two Republican candidates for governor who challenged Ricketts preferred candidate, and the eventual winner of the primary, Jim Pillen. But hes not the only wealthy Nebraska political figure exerting financial force on the states politics. Herbster announced he was forming the Nebraska First PAC back in August. The PACs two main priorities are: opposing secret ballot voting to determine leadership roles in the Nebraska Legislature, and supporting permitless carry of concealed firearms, often called constitutional carry. Williams called this trend disturbing, but acknowledged it was allowed under state law. He encouraged voters to do their own research, and not believe all the claims made in attack ads from PACs. World-Herald staff writer Martha Stoddard contributed to this report. LINCOLN Its acknowledged that a high percentage of the offenders who come into Nebraskas prison system are dogged by mental health and behavioral health problems. Yet of 18 staff psychologist positions within the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, only six are currently filled. And all three clinical psychiatrist positions are also open. I think were at a tipping point right now, one prison employee said in a recent opinion survey. If we lost one more psychologist, things would really start to go downhill. State senators said during a hearing Thursday that such behavioral health staffing shortfalls must be addressed if inmates are to be rehabilitated and the public protected. The lawmakers and others also offered a common refrain for how to close those gaps: offer more pay. We know the formula it is raising pay, said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, chairman of the Legislatures Judiciary Committee. The goal is rehabilitation, not storing people. State corrections officials acknowledged the staffing shortfalls, but said they do take the health needs of inmates seriously. While our health care staff do a remarkable job of managing a multitude of situations around the clock, admittedly, staffing challenges are a concern, said Diane Sabatka-Rine, interim director of the corrections department. She called recruiting people to work within the prison system challenging. But she also said the state is providing robust medical assistance and clinical treatment. The state is using a number of strategies to make sure the health needs of prisoners are met, she said, including contracting with outside providers and utilizing overtime. The hearing came a month after a state watchdog agency cited critical health care staffing shortages within the states prison system. The Office of Inspector General of the Nebraska Correctional System said addressing the shortfalls is critical not only for the welfare of the prisoners, but the safety of correctional staff and the public, too. Now the inspector general has initiated an investigation to determine whether the corrections department is meeting the required standard of care for inmates, said Zach Pluhacek, assistant inspector general. Prisoners are essentially entitled to the same level of care that would be provided to anyone else in the community. Questions of whether the state is meeting that standard were raised earlier this week by an inspector general report on a 40-year-old inmate who died of cervical cancer. She had been in custody for nearly 10 years before she received a Pap smear, a preventative screening that could have revealed her treatable cancer. Sabatka-Rine, a longtime state prison administrator who took over as interim director just last weekend, said the corrections department is actively working to develop an electronic health records system. Just such a system which could track needed health screenings was required by the Legislature seven years ago. Pluhacek also suggested it might be time for the state to have the University of Nebraska Medical Center conduct an assessment of the level of care provided within prison facilities. Lathrop agreed and said the Legislature next year should initiate such a review. Sabatka-Rine said the staffing issues are largely rooted in nationwide shortfalls of health care providers. She said the department has initiated targeted recruiting drives, offered hiring bonuses and increased pay in an effort to attract more workers. A new labor contract last year increased pay for workers in some health classifications by 30%. The department also has some discretion to offer higher pay for certified positions like psychiatrists. The inspector general said a survey it distributed last week also found morale issues among health care and behavioral health staff. While most said they liked coming to work and felt safe, fewer than 10% felt strongly that they were supported by the corrections departments central administration. One worker suggested the central office was making clinical decisions without consulting the mental health team. Another issue causing morale problems is the higher pay offered to the outside providers who are coming in to assist with care. One nurse said the staffing agency nurses working beside her were being paid $65 to $75 an hour. The most recent state labor agreement with prison employees offers registered nurses base pay of $25 to $46 an hour. Currently, only half the prison systems registered nursing positions are filled. The executive director of the state employees union said sometimes nurses even leave state employment to take the higher-paying jobs with the staffing agencies. Its a scam, said Justin Hubly of the Nebraska Association of Public Employees. Lets fix it. ... Pay a fair wage and staff the facility. Hubly noted the state has gone a long way toward eliminating shortages of security staff by offering pay increases of up to 40%. Now the same needs to happen in the medical and behavioral health fields. When we increase wages, it works, he said. I have the receipts now. While no one has an accurate figure of what percentage of prisoners have health needs, the states chief justice has said as many as 80% of those in the court system have behavioral health or addiction problems. Those needs must be addressed, said ACLU lobbyist Spike Eickholt. We dont want them coming out worse than they went in, he said. Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana dropped its lawsuit against Secretary of State Bob Evnen on Thursday, ending an effort to have Nebraskas multicounty signature-gathering requirement for initiative petitions deemed unconstitutional. The dismissal, filed by the ACLU of Nebraska on behalf of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, comes after a panel of judges at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August reversed a lower courts ruling blocking Evnen from enforcing the requirement. Crista Eggers, statewide campaign coordinator for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, sued Evnen in federal court in May, arguing that the requirement that petitions include the signatures of at least 5% of voters in 38 of the states 93 counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Under the requirement, put in place more than a century ago, a single voter who signed a petition in Arthur County had the same power as 1,000 residents of Douglas County who signed the same petition, Eggers lawsuit argued. U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard sided with Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana in June, writing the requirement was unconstitutional and granting a temporary injunction that prevented Evnen from enforcing it. A majority of a three-judge panel from the 8th Circuit Court reversed Gerrards ruling shortly before the July 7 deadline for submitting petitions. With the multicounty requirement back in place, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana failed to qualify a pair of petitions for the ballot, with both falling roughly 9,000 signatures short of the 86,766 needed to appear on the November general election ballot. The first petition, which would have required the Legislature to enact laws protecting doctors who recommend and patients who use cannabis for medical reasons, had 77,843 signatures and qualified in just 26 counties. The second, which called on lawmakers to pass legislation to legalize the production, supply and distribution of cannabis for medical use, had 77,119 valid signatures, and qualified in 27 counties, according to the secretary of state. In rejecting an appeal from Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, two of the three judges on the 8th Circuit Court panel said the right to petition was created under state law and not the U.S. Constitution, finding that the groups rights had not been violated. Earlier this month, the 8th Circuit also rejected a request for the entire court to rehear Nebraskans for Medical Marijuanas appeal. State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln and Sen. Jen Day of Omaha said they plan to introduce bills legalizing cannabis for medical use in the 2023 legislative session, which will begin in January. Lone Star College opens spring registration, hosts financial aid event HOUSTON (Oct. 14, 2022) Lone Star College is paving the way for students to achieve their academic goals by offering educational opportunities such as associate degrees, workforce programs, transfer credits, continuing education courses and four baccalaureate programs. Registration for the 2022 winter mini-term and spring 2023 is now open. To help students fund their education, LSC will host a Financial Aid and Lemonade Event at seven campuses Oct. 22 at noon. Financial aid advisors will assist applicants in completing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or Texas Application for State Financial Aid (TASFA) application. They will also guide applicants to make the best financial decisions based on their individual needs. Our seasoned staff members will be available to answer all questions and walk students and their families through the financial aid process, said Shannon Venezia, Ph.D., LSC Senior Associate Vice Chancellor Financial Aid. LSC offers various financial aid options such as loans, work-study, grants, scholarships and relief funds. To fill out a FAFSA or TASFA application, which takes less than an hour to complete, students should be prepared to bring: Social Security number Alien registration number (if not a U.S. citizen) Federal income tax returns and related files FSA ID (username and password) Bank statements, investment records and untaxed income information, if applicable. Many students and families may not want to discuss financial aid or are scared to reach out to us. However, we are here to help them, said Venezia. We want students to access available funds to make their education as affordable as possible. At the Financial Aid and Lemonade Event, attendees will enjoy lemonade and snacks and have a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card. Visit LoneStar.edu/Lemonade to register and find the nearest event near you. The spring financial aid priority deadline is Nov. 1. To learn more about financial aid options, visit LoneStar.edu/Financial-Aid. NORMAL Renaldo Hudson said he believes in fair chances not second chances. He said a second chance implies someone had a chance in the first place, and thats warped language. Hudson then said "redemption" is more worthwhile vocabulary. The 58-year-old Chicago man, who received prison sentence commutations from two Illinois governors after his 1983 murder of Folke Peterson, has traded out his former title of inmate for a new one: director of education with the Illinois Prison Project. He talked Thursday to an audience of about 100 at the Heartland Community College, discussing his transformation into what he said Gov. J.B. Pritzker described as the most rehabilitated person in a state facility. Hudson recounted his upbringing in a street family involved in drugs, and living as a homeless, illiterate adolescent who dropped out of grade school and used PCP to escape his domestic traumas. He also talked how his personal faith sustained him through serving 37 years in prison and establishing the Building Block Program, which is run by and for incarcerated people and is based on their own knowledge and experiences. Hudson shared details of a trouble upbringing. At age 15, he was among seven relatives shot by an older teen brother; Hudson's aunt and young cousin were killed, he said. William Hudson Jr. is serving a life sentence for the murders, state records show. Renaldo Hudson said his family was so broken, they rejected him because he resembled his older brother. And that sent him spiraling, he said. When he encountered Peterson, Hudson said, he was taking drugs that altered his perception. To him, Peterson appeared wealthy, but in reality was poor and vulnerable. Hudson said he took Peterson's life and money, thinking he would run away happily ever after, but that wasnt the case. Hudson said he woke up the next day in a jail cell, wearing a paper suit. Hudson said he will never gloss over the memory of what happened that day in 1983, and its important for him to remember that Peterson was a person who deserved honor. After watching the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, he said he felt like a bomb went off in his heart, and he realized that Peterson was vulnerable and deserved his protection. From that moment, Hudson said he became determined to remind people that good people can do bad things, and we have to make room for them to be redeemed. 'I am not the act' Hudson said the Illinois Prison Project aims to raise awareness about the way that people may become identified solely by their worst actions. I am not the act. I am the person responsible for the act, which means I can do better, said Hudson, noting that many miss the distinction. He said he was told by staff in Cook County jails that theres nothing redeemable about you. A turning point came when he was in the segregation unit of the Pontiac state prison. The warden offered a deal: He would reduce Hudson's segregation time if he quoted Scripture to the warden once a week. At first, Hudson said he could outsmart the warden. "Jesus wept," he recited. "But why?" the warden responded. Hudson said he told others in segregation about the wardens offer. Just by (the warden's) investment in me, we turned a segregation unit at the Pontiac Correctional Center into a little Bible study, he said. Their unit became a place other inmates wanted to be, Hudson said, because those on death row considered the worst of the worst began to talk about the best of us. Scripture quoted by Hudson resonated with several members in the audience at Heartland on Thursday, including Zion Thomas, of Bloomington, who attended with YouthBuild McLean County. Her biggest takeaway from Hudsons talk, she said, was to always have faith. Just never give up on yourself, Thomas said. Have faith all the time, stay motivated and just always believe in yourself. Condemned to care Those religious studies while in prison led Hudson to designing the Building Block Program, he said, which was first called Unleash the Power: Men of Integrity while on Death Row. Were condemned people that cared to care, Hudson said. We were condemned, but we chose to care while we waited for our death. He said his process of transformation was not predicated around him being released from prison. It began, he said, because I was preparing to die, and I didnt want to be good for nothing. I wanted to be able to walk to my death and say I did my best, Hudson said. I made bad decisions, but I did the best with the rest that I had left. That triggered more transformation, he said. As he and others pursued furthering their education, and prison day rooms were turned into classrooms, he said they discovered brilliance among themselves. I just understood the power of community, said Hudson. There's so much power when we pull community together and you tap into the resources of individuals and not just one person. Now, Hudson told The Pantagraph, he wants to teach courses on communications and philosophy. I want to trouble (the) comfortable and confront the troubled, Hudson said, and you do that by having a clear mind. How Time Flies is a daily feature looking back at Pantagraph archives to revisit what was happening in our community and region. 100 years ago Oct. 14, 1922: U.S. Sen. Medill McCormick will address a large meeting at the Chatterton opera house. County Chairman Ira Adams and about a dozen prominent citizens will go to Peoria to accompany McCormick to Bloomington. Congressman Frank H. Funk will preside and McCormick will speak. A special request has been made that the ladies be present. There will be plenty of music and a good time generally. Read the story. 75 years ago Oct. 14, 1947: Two Bloomington public offices report there are 25 documented cases of homelessness in the city. Mrs. Richard McLean of the Bloomington Bureau of Social Service and the Illinois Public Aid Commission provided the information. Not all of the families are depending on public aid. Mrs. McLean reported one family of 10 where the father is employed steadily, but they face eviction this week. "Some families could afford to pay $75 per month," she said. "It's just a matter of finding a house." Read the story. 50 years ago Oct. 14, 1972: Mrs. Lloyd Brewer, 1506 E. Oakland, was cleaning out her father-in-law's attic, where she found several old trunks. In one of them, wadded down with old odds and ends of cloth, Brewer found a flag with 46 stars. The flag date from sometime between 1907, when Oklahoma became the 46th state, and 1912, when New Mexico became the 47th state. The flag was believed to have been owned by Lloyd Brewer's grandfather, Arthur Barnett, and handed down through the family. Read the story. 25 years ago Oct. 14, 1997: A Bloomington landmark that has stood for 85 years will come down in less than a week. Enviro Safe Air of Omaha, Nebraska, will begin demolition of the abandoned Union Station, 1200 W. Washington St. Union Pacific railroad, which owns the property, has announced no plans for it. But Bloomington officials are glad to see the vacant building torn down because it was a potential safety hazard. Read the story. AT&T Illinois has agreed to pay a $23 million fine as part of a federal criminal investigation into the companys illegal efforts to influence former House Speaker Michael Madigan, court records made public Friday show. Federal prosecutors Friday also unsealed a superseding indictment against Madigan and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, adding allegations about the AT&T Illinois scheme. Also charged as part of the investigation was Paul La Schiazza, the former president of AT&T Illinois, who was accused of conspiring with Madigan and his longtime confidante, Michael McClain. La Schiazza, 65, of Newport, Rhode Island, is charged with conspiracy, corruptly giving something of value to reward a public official, and three counts of using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity. His attorney could not immediately be reached. The investigation of AT&T Illinois, which was previously reported by the Tribune earlier this year, is being resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement under which the company admitted it arranged for payments to be made to an ally of Madigan to influence the powerful speakers efforts to assist with legislation sought by the company in Springfield. In exchange for admitting guilt and paying a $23 million fine, the charge will be dropped by the U.S. Attorneys Office in two years, according to the paperwork filed Friday in U.S. District Court. AT&T has previously acknowledged it was under scrutiny by the U.S. attorneys office as part of the investigation into Madigans political operation. After the charges were announced Friday, AT&T released a statement, saying, We hold ourselves and our contractors to the highest ethical standards. We are committed to ensuring that this never happens again. Arraignment dates for both AT&T Illinois and La Schiazza had not been set as of Friday morning. Madigan and McClain will also be arraigned on the superseding indictment at a later date. In February, AT&T disclosed in a regulatory filing that federal prosecutors had notified them they were considering filing criminal charges against its Illinois subsidiary, formally known as Illinois Bell Telephone Co. LLC, involving a single, nine-month consulting contract in 2017 worth $22,500. State records show the company that year had hired a stable of Madigan-connected lobbyists working for the Illinois subsidiary as AT&T was fighting for a controversial bill to end landline service. The Tribune reported that investigators were specifically looking at thousands of dollars in payments allegedly passed to former state Rep. Edward Acevedo, a onetime member of Madigans leadership team whod recently left the General Assembly. The payments to Acevedo were made via a lobbying contract between AT&T and Thomas Cullen, a former Madigan staffer and longtime political strategist aligned with the speaker, two sources told the newspaper. Acevedo was a registered lobbyist at the time, state records show, but not for AT&T, and the sources said the amount of work Acevedo actually did for AT&T is in question. Acevedo was not named in a statement of facts included in the deferred prosecution agreement filed Friday, but the facts and circumstances described in the charges all match was what previously known and sources said he was indeed the Madigan associate who received the payments. According to the charges unveiled Friday, in 2015, after Madigans office had blocked landline legislation that AT&T wanted, an executive circulated a lessons learned memo that contained one section headed, Speaker Madigan. The memo stated that AT&T had not been as helpful as utility giant Commonwealth Edison when requests were made from the speakers camp, according to the charges. The scheme to reward Acevedo, referred to in the court papers as FR-1, began in February 2017, after the company learned through McClain that the speaker was looking to kick Acevedo some money, according to the charges. In an email exchange that March, an AT&T executive asked if they were 100% certain they would get credit from the powers that be if the payments were made to Madigans associate. I would hope that as long as we explain the approach to McClain and (the associate) gets the money then the ultimate objective is reached, another executive wrote back, according to the agreement. The first executive responded, I dont think (La Schiazza) wants this based on hope. We need to confirm prior to executing this strategy, the agreement stated. Entravision (NYSE: EVC), a leading global advertising solutions, media and technology company, announced today that its Africa-based digital business unit, Entravision 365 Digital in Ghana, has become the Authorized Sales Partner of Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Entravision 365 Digital will provide support, training, lines of credit and local billing to advertisers in the Ghanaian market, thereby enabling them to meet their business objectives. This partnership reinforces our commitment to advertisers to connect brands to consumers through local strategic support, creative expertise and relevant in-market training, said Julian Jordaan, Chief Executive Officer of Entravision 365 Digital. As we continue to expand our presence throughout the continent of Africa, we are thrilled to partner with Meta as their Authorized Sales Partner in Ghana to equip and empower local businesses with our top-notch advertising expertise. Jordaan continued, We are also pleased to welcome Stephen Sawyerr as Country Manager to spearhead our partnership with Meta in Ghana. With over 10 years of management, digital marketing and brand building expertise, Stephen is very well equipped to build a world-class team to support Entravisions growth in West Africa. Entravision 365 Digital, as an Authorized Sales Partner, will deploy dedicated local expert teams in Ghana to provide businesses with each of the tools crucial to sales growth, while also assisting these same customers in deploying their advertising investments more efficiently across the Meta family of products. "Ghana is an important country for Meta and it is a priority for us to invest in the market and to be closer to the people and businesses here, said Enitan Denloye, Regional Director for Africa at Meta. As such, we are happy to bring in Entravision 365 Digital as Metas Authorized Sales Partner in Ghana and believe that with their robust local market insights and expertise, we can provide better support for businesses and agencies locally, helping them unlock their potential growth. About Meta Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. About Entravision Entravision is a leading global advertising, media and ad-tech solutions company connecting brands to consumers by representing top platforms and publishers. Our dynamic portfolio includes digital, television and audio offerings. Digital, our largest revenue segment, is comprised of four business units: our digital sales representation business; Smadex, our programmatic ad purchasing platform; our branding and mobile performance solutions business; and our digital audio business. Through our digital sales representation business, we connect global media companies such as Meta, Twitter, TikTok and Spotify with advertisers in primarily emerging growth markets worldwide. Smadex is our mobile-first demand side platform, enabling advertisers to execute performance campaigns using machine learning. We also offer a branding and mobile performance solutions business, which provides managed services to advertisers looking to connect with global consumers, primarily on mobile devices, and our digital audio business provides digital audio advertising solutions for advertisers in the Americas. In addition to digital, Entravision has 49 television stations and is the largest affiliate group of the Univision and UniMas television networks. Entravision also manages 45 primarily Spanish-language radio stations that feature nationally recognized, Emmy award-winning talent. Shares of Entravision Class A Common Stock trade on the NYSE under ticker: EVC. Learn more about our offerings at entravision.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. About Entravision 365 Digital Entravision 365 Digital is an African online media and ad-technology business with a rich heritage in the African advertising industry. For 23 years the business has represented the largest publishers and platforms in Africa and have helped global brands reach connected consumers and drive business impact. With a mission to connect publishers to brands, and brands to consumers, Entravision 365 Digital helps brands reach audiences at scale through its exclusive partnership with leading platforms like TikTok, Anzu, Triton Digital and many more. Entravision 365 Digital is a business unit of Entravision, a leading global advertising, media and ad-tech solutions company connecting brands to consumers by representing top platforms and publishers. Learn more about all of our innovative media, marketing and technology offerings at entravision365digital.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. 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 Ashanti Regional Police has gunned down a suspected armed robber during an exchange of fire at Asuofua Asamang, near Barekese in the Ashanti region. The deceased, identified as Issaka Muniru was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital. Two other accomplices, identified as Kwaku Boateng, alias Form Noede and Kwadwo Gyamfi, were arrested by the Police, during the operations. The Police retrieved a Smith and Wesson SD40 VE pistol with 13 live ammunition from the suspect. A Police statement issued in Kumasi on Friday said the deceased and his accomplices had been on the Police wanted list for committing a series of robberies within the Kumasi metropolis and its environs. Until his death, Issaka Muniru was standing trial with three other accomplices, Ernest (gangster) Agyei, (Ryder) and Badu (NBY) at the Nkawie circuit court for robbing one Pastor Emmanuel Baffour Awuah, on the 26th of May 2021, and took away two gold wrist watches, mobile phones and unspecified amount of money. The statement said the deceased was granted bail by the court but he managed to jump bail and a bench warrant was placed on him. It said the other accomplices would soon be put before court for trial. 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 Executive Director of the Female Journalists for Women and Rural Development in Africa (FJWoRDA), Mrs. Shirley Asiedu Addo, in partnership with the B4 Foundation, has organized a free health screening, particularly breast cancer examination, for women in Brafoyaw, a community in Abura Asedu Kwamakese district of Central Region. According to her, the devastating effects of breast cancer continue to wreak havoc in families and the community, "therefore the outreach was organized in a bid to promote awareness about breast cancer and to get women to seek early treatment, if anything is detected in their breasts". She indicated that, "while the mass media is important in disseminating and creating awareness on pertinent issues affecting the communities, the effects of getting our hands to the plough and reaching to the communities physically can also not be underestimated. We as female journalists want to be part of the change that we want to see. FJWORDA organized the exercise for about 150 women at Brafoyaw near Cape Coast. Mrs. Shirley Asiedu urged women to go for regular medical check-ups to stay in good health. "Women must understand the need to take care of themselves first before taking care of others," she stressed. The Director of B4 Foundation, Madam Ursula Adadzewa Fynn, on her part, pledged the Foundation's commitment to supporting events that will save lives. She advised the beneficiaries of the health screening exercise to practice personal hygiene and healthy eating habits. She revealed that breast cancer is killing a lot of women, so called on corporate entities to unite with them to send their outreach programmes to underprivileged areas in the Region and across the country. The Central Regional Director for the Gender Department, Ms. Richlove Amamoo also urged the participants to educate their daughters on sexual abuse and the need to be assertive to prevent men who seek to sexually abuse them. An officer with the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU), Mr. Richard Twum Boadi also advised the women to report cases of abuses to the Police. Source: Sally Ngissah/Peace FM News 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 Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana's Finance Minister is in the United States of America, USA, attending the Group of Seven (G7) meeting with Finance Ministers from some African countries which is part of the IMF and World Bank Annual meetings. Ofori-Atta described the meeting as "quite historic because for the first time, the G7 has called African Finance Ministers to deliberate on the crisis that they see. ...these are exogenous factors that have really (impacted), even their own economies (and) put it under serious stress and are, therefore, looking for ways in which they can add to the capital needs to make sure that things do not deteriorate. So countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, and Morocco were there, he said as quoted by 3news. This is not the only historic moment of the ongoing meeting in Washington DC as Ken Ofori-Atta also met for the first time, Kwasi Kwarteng, the British-born Ghanaian who is the current the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that is the UK's Finance Minister. In some of the photos circulating on social media, Ofori-Atta is seen sitting next to Kwarteng and having a tete-a-tete. Kwasi Kwarteng's appointment made him the first Black to ascend to such a position regarded as only second to the Prime Ministers office in UK political circles. Before his new role as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Conservative MP for Spelthorne was the Business secretary under Boris Johnson's government. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the British of Ghanaian descent is responsible for raising revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling public spending. He has overall responsibility for the work of the treasury. The G7 is made of an informal grouping of seven of the worlds advanced economies; namely: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America and European Union. This group invited finance ministers from South Africa, Senegal, Togo, Zambia, Ghana, Guinea, Rwanda, Chad, Tunisia and Morocco for the all-important meeting. The meeting with the African Financial Ministers brings together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, parliamentarians, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness. Source: ghanaweb.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 of gunmen numbering about 10 has reportedly attacked workers of the Gomoa Fetteh Salt Industry Limited, a wholy registered salt and real estate company in the Central Region. Twelve individuals sustained serious gunshot and machette wounds. They were rushed to the Kasoa Government Hospital for medical treatment. The incident occured on Wednesday when workers had reported to work in the morning to begin their daily routing. Several Directors of the company have signed petition to get the attention of the Inspector General of Police to conduct thorough investigations into the incident. In a letter dated 13th October, 2022 and signed by the Director of the company, Amos Appiah, he debunked accusations that the workers are landguards. He however acused one Nana Kwesi Kwansah, Alias Kwesi Alhaji, said to be the 'Mankrado' of Gomoa Fetteh for contesting over same land, hence leading to the attack. Police officers called to bring the situation under control are also said to have wrongfully arrested some of the workers over accusations that they are landguards. The statement indicated the injured, many of whom are security guards and administrative staff, were there to protect the property and the over 3000 acres of lands at the site. Management of the company, who reported the matter to the Central East Regional Police Command - Kasoa, have subsequently requested the attention and presence of the Police to protect the company and its staff. Mr. Amos Appiah also called on the National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah and the Inspector General of Police, George Akuffo Dampare to swoop the area and arrest all individuals involved in landguard activities in order to protect the lands from encroachment. Earlier, another press conference held by the Gomoa Fetteh Royal Family on Wednesday, acused Nana Kwesi Kwansah of eroding the progress made in the area following the protracted chieftaincy disputes. Spokesperson for the royal family, Nana Essel said the family will insist that the 'Mankrado' steps down claiming he is not the true occupant to the stool. In a five-point agenda, the Royal family said Queen mother, Ohembaa Amoasina Nkrabea I, who has reigned since 1989, is alive and still on the stool but another Queen mother has been installed. There is presently an "Omankrado in Gomoa Fetteh but another one has been installed. Again, another Chief of the royal family and Abusuapanyin have all been replaced by a rival chief and Abusuapanyin respectively. "Now the elders and Kingmakers of Gomoa Fetteh do not accept anything untraditional and for that matter we do not recognise these people as chiefs.Usually these de factos load numerous gunmen into the town and they sound several gun shots causing fear and panic an nobody takes them on", Nana Essel emphasized. Statement 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 Turkish Ambassador to Ghana, Dr. Ozlem Ergun Ulueren, has explained the rationale behind the partnership between the Turkish Maarif Foundation and the Hijra Club to take over and run their school as Maarif International School Ghana which will greatly benefit Ghanaian parents looking for world class but affordable education for their wards. Speaking at the signing and handing over ceremony between the Turkish Maarif Foundation Ghana and the Hijra Club to sign documents of a new basic school at Spintex, she made it known that this partnership will strengthen the two countries, which will provide quality education services to International Standards in developing countries, such as Ghana. Dr. Ozlem Ergun Ulueren added that this initiative will help Ghana achieve the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) which is the quality education which is to ensure that by 2030, all girls and boys will have access to quality early childhood education and help the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addos vision of Ghana Beyond Aid. She again commended the Government for such an important and applausive initiative which will further help the Nation and Africa as a whole in terms of Education. Executive Board Member of the Turkish Maarif Foundation Ghana, Professor. Dr. Mehmet Ozkan also stated the benefits a Ghanaian student enjoys in this educational programme which is to travel to Turkey with other students across the globe and also has a fully funded tuition. The Hijra Club Chairman, El Haj Yusif Ibrahim also made it known that the partnership between Hijra Club and Maarif Foundation is to assist learners, especially Ghanaian youth to have access to quality Education for the betterment of the Nation as a whole. The Turkish Maarif Foundation (TMF) was established in 2016 by an act of Parliament passed by the Turkish government. This state foundations primary function is to provide high-quality, holistic education and education services and educational aid to young people worldwide. The foundations mission is to carry out comprehensive educational activities throughout the world based on the shared values of humanity and the Anatolian tradition of wisdom as the sole entity authorized to provide educational services abroad on behalf of the Turkish State. The foundation currently has 363 educational institutions and 51 dormitories spread across the globe. As a result, the TMF oversees institutions in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As expected, most institutions are concentrated in Africa, where there is the greatest need. Maarif is now a global educational institution with over 50,000 students. Source: Gifty Akoto/ Peace FM Newsroom 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 Employers compliance with the payment of pension contributions of employees still remains low as only 49 percent of establishments are compliant, the Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang, has said. According to Act 766, employers must make sure that all workers are registered on the Scheme and make regular contributions on their behalf; this entails taking 5.5 percent of workers salaries each month and adding 13 percent of the base salary to make it 18.5 percent in total. During an Employers Breakfast Meeting held today in Accra, the Director-General noted that as of August 2022, the total number of compliant establishments recorded was 39,242 compared to 80,434 recorded as liable establishments during the same period. This represents a compliance rate of 49 percent. We want to ensure that all your workers are registered, including casual workers, and pay the right contributions based on the right earnings of your employees. The SSNIT scheme can only be better if you make sure that whatever is being earned is actually insured, Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang told the employers. The Trust has improved its self-service portal as well. Members and clients can now access the portal to carry out a variety of tasks, such as seeing and downloading Clearance Certificates and arranging negotiating sessions for unpaid debts among others. He encouraged employers to pay the right contributions for their workers by consolidating the earnings of their workers for enhanced pensions. This will motivate them to go the extra mile in the discharge of their duties. We advise you to pay SSNIT contributions on or before the 14th day of the ensuing month, he stressed. Per the Scheme, at the end of May 2022, more than GH101.38million had been retrieved through court action. The total number of cases within the same period also stood at 10,365. SSNITpay SSNIT has introduced an electronic payment system that allows employers and the self-employed to pay their SSNIT contributions with ease. The payment platform, ssnitpay, went live on October 10, 2022. Members can now pay SSNIT contributions using their Mobile Money Wallet via USSD short code, Mobile Money POS walk-in and Debit Card via the Trusts Web Portal portal.ssnit.org.gh. The innovation forms part of new measures to enhance service delivery to members and clients of the Trust. Members need to dial *711*9# to access the Mobile Money payment platform, which is E-levy exempted. Adoption of the e-payment platform is expected to bring relief and convenience to employers and members, who hitherto had to travel long distances to a SSNIT Branch or a SSNIT partner bank to pay their contributions. He encouraged employers and self-employed workers to use the Mobile Money channels to pay their contributions. Employers Meeting The breakfast meeting is aimed at strengthening the relationship between the Trust and employers to help deepen their understanding of the First Tier Social Security Schemes operations. Organised under the theme Sustainability of the SSNIT Scheme: the role of Employers, the meeting also provided a platform to discuss challenges facing employers concerning the SSNIT scheme and how they can be resolved. A second meeting is expected to be held in Takoradi later this month. Last year, two similar meetings with compliant employers were held in Accra and Kumasi following the maiden edition in 2019, which saw about 50 employers attending in Accra. Source: B&FT 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 Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has called on the chiefs and the people of the Wala Traditional Area in the Upper West Region to support the security agencies to apprehend the perpetrators of the recent murders and mob actions in the area. He said those happenings were not good for the peace and development of the municipality. Dr Bawumia made the call at a grand durbar of the chiefs and the people to climax the celebration of this years Dumba Festival last Wednesday. The celebration was on the theme: Combating the emerging threats of violent extremism and terrorism in Ghana: The role of traditional authorities. Festival The week-long festival, which was celebrated with pomp and ceremony, is linked to the birthday of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (S.A.W.), with the infusion of the tradition and the culture of the people. Activities included prayers, fasting and procession of people, some on horseback, amidst drumming and dancing. The climax of the festival involved the Wa Naa, Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo IV, jumping over a cow to signify the longevity of his reign. The event attracted eminent traditional and opinion leaders in the north, including politicians, diplomats, tourists, among others. The Vice-President said the government was concerned about the safety of all the citizens of the country, but indicated that peace and harmony could be achieved only if the people complemented the efforts of the security agencies to apprehend criminals and make them face the law. He described the theme for the festival as appropriate since traditional authorities had a critical role to play in combating the threat of terrorism by ensuring vigilance and diligence in their respective communities. Dr Bawumia recommended the formation of watch-dog committees in neighbourhoods and the prompt reporting of all suspicious characters to the nearest police station, adding that security was a shared responsibility. He further advised citizens of the area living outside the country to come home regularly to assist in the development of the region. Gratitude Naa Seidu Pelpuo expressed gratitude to the government for beefing up security in the area in response to the recent security infractions in the municipality and pledged his support to the security agencies to apprehend the people behind the murders. He called for further strengthening of security in the region, since it shared borders with neighbouring countries, and a befitting Regional Police Headquarters to facilitate the work of law enforcers. The chief also appealed for the dualisation of the Wa Highway on which heavy-duty trucks transport goods to and from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali through the town. He thanked the government for upgrading the Wa Polytechnic into a technical university. Loss of cultural identity The Nayiri of Mamprugu and President of the North East Regional House of Chiefs, Naa Bohigu Mahami Sheriga, who was the Guest of Honour, bemoaned the fact that globalisation was fast eroding peoples identity and culture. He mentioned traditional meals, dances and attire and said they were being replaced by foreign cultures through television and social media outlets. The chief, therefore, called on the media and the Centre for National Culture to promote the various cultures and traditions of the people to serve as a referral source of knowledge for the youth. Source: Graphiconline 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 Professor of Applied Economics at the Johns Hopkins University, Steve Hanke, has opined that a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal will not solve Ghana's economic problems. In his view, the keenly awaited deal will fail like previous programmes Ghana has entered into with the Bretton Woods institution. In a Twitter post on October 12, the economist touched on Ghanas sovereign bond, mentioning that it has lost 50% of its value this year. While talk of a debt default swirls in Ghana, its sovereign bonds tank. They have depreciated over 50% this year. Now, Pres. Akufo-Addo passes the begging bowl to the IMF. SPOILER ALERT: like Ghanas past 16 IMF programs, a new one will fail to fix Ghanas problems, Professor Hanke tweeted. Ghana has since July this year been engaging IMF hoping to secure a US$3 billion deal which will be spread across a three-year duration. Ahead of that, there are moves by the government to restructure debts of investors after the completion of a Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) by IMF. A debt restructuring will result in a longer yield-to-maturity for government bonds and bills, or the implementation of the "haircut" strategy. Some investors' returns on investments may be impacted by this. Meanwhile, former President John Dramani Mahama in an interview on VOAs Straight Talk Africa has called for an end to the countrys continuous resort to the International Monetary Fund whenever it is confronted with economic headwinds. He said the going and coming to the IMF depleted peoples faith in the countrys democracy and it also created instability. He mentioned that the current return to the IMF to achieve debt sustainability and policy credibility should mark the start of governments prudently running the economy. The economy is situated in an environment. It does not exist in isolation and so there are somethings that need to be done to create an environment for the economy to thrive. Some of them are governance issues, strengthening state-owned institutions, the fight against corruption and so many other things that create the environment for the economy to thrive. I think that when we go into this programme and we bring debts back to sustainable levels and we are able to get the bridging facility in other to achieve policy credibility so that investors again feel confident that they can bring back their money into Ghana, then we must start from there and maintain that prudence. "This should be the last time we go to the IMF because going and coming, it creates a certain instability in the whole system and it also reduces the faith that people have in our democracy, Mahama said. Source: ghanaweb.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 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. The Chief Executive Officer of Intellas, Professor Godfried Williams has warned against excessive posting of personal data on social media. He explained that lack of protection of personal data leaves internet users vulnerable to cyber threats and bullying. He added that downloads of files especially from unknown sources is another means by which uninformed internet users accounts are hacked and taken over by cyber bullies. Professor Williams, who is a cyber security expert and artificial intelligence expert was speaking at a forum organised for children and young adults in Koforidua on Wednesday (October 5, 2022) on cyber security. It was part of an activity to commemorate the celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child in collaboration with Plan Ghana. The forum which was attended by over 100 young adults was on cyber security, attacks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities available in ICT and cyber space. Prof Williams urged young adults to be very circumspect about what they post on social media and limit what they post as well. 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 Flash Two police officers were fatally shot on Wednesday night and a third was seriously wounded while responding to a domestic incident in Bristol, Connecticut. Bristol police told reporters on Thursday that the officers responded to a reported possible domestic violence incident between two siblings before 10:30 p.m. Wednesday (0230 GMT Thursday). When officers arrived, one suspect was outside of the residence and shots were fired, fatally wounding one officer on the scene. The second officer died at the hospital, and the third was seriously injured. The suspect was shot and killed at the scene. The suspect's brother was also shot and was taken to the hospital. The government has relaunched Operation Halt II to reinforce the war on illegal mining activities (galamsey). In addition, the granting of mining licences by the Minerals Commission and other relevant bodies will now involve the inputs of chiefs, regional ministers and metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs). The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, made this known when he took his turn at the Ministers Press Briefing in Accra yesterday[October 13, 2022] to update the media on the fight against galamsey. Operation Halt II Originally launched in April 2021, Operation Halt II, made up of personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces, sought to remove all persons and mining equipment from water bodies and forest reserves in the country, including decommissioning and demobilising equipment where necessary. Over the period, the team worked on major rivers, such as, Pra, Offin, Ankobra, Birim and Ayensu, as well as forest reserves in the country. As a temporary measure, the team relaxed its operations when some of the rivers started showing signs of clearing up. Resurgence However, with the resurgence of galamsey activities across the country, the minister said the Operation Halt II was relaunched on October 11, this year, following a review of the earlier operation. Giving more details, he said Operation Halt II would run alongside other measures being implemented by the ministry, such as the declaration of river bodies as red zones for mining, the suspension of reconnaissance and prospecting activities in forest reserves except in exceptional cases, and the ban on the manufacture, sale and use of changfan. Others are the procurement of speed boats to patrol the rivers, the recruitment of river guards to support the protection of the rivers, the introduction of mercury-free gold Katchas, the establishment of 83 Small Scale Mining Committees in all mining districts in the country, the revamping of Community Mining Schemes, and the introduction of the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme which now engages about 80,000 people in alternative livelihood projects. Sustainability Mr Jinapor said the new Operation Halt II was well thought-through, and was ready to take care of the current resurgence of the galamsey menace, with funding secured to ensure its sustainability. He said the operation was concurrently taking place in the Southern, Central and Northern Commands, and already, 20 excavators and scores of changfans and other mining equipment had been decommissioned. According to the minister, the Operation Halt II team had been instructed to use their discretion whether to decommission or seize equipment, assuring that, that would be done without interference from any quarters. He stated that the team would be held accountable for any lapses in their operation and, therefore, they were not supposed to take instructions from anyone, including him. Mr Jinapor said the ministry had submitted to the Military High Command details of all licensed mining operations in the country to guide them in their operations, adding that the team would be assisted by mine inspectors and personnel from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to gather evidence for prosecution. He said the government was committed to ensuring that anyone found culpable was made to face the full rigours of the law. Throwing more light on the new licensing regime, Mr Jinapor said the decision followed a directive given by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo after he had met with members of the National House of Chiefs on October 5, 2022, during which it became evident that for the government to win the fight against galamsey, chiefs must play a central role, particularly, in the granting of mining concessions and licences. He said the decision was also taken with the conviction that because every galamsey site fell within the jurisdiction of a traditional authority, chiefs must play a key role in the granting of mining licences to help rid their respective jurisdictions of illegal small-scale mining. Mr Jinapor said following the meeting with the members of the National House of Chiefs, a lot of streamlining was being done. Hence, the processes involving the Minerals Commission making recommendations in the granting of licences have been altered dramatically and that will mean the chiefs will now play a central role in the processes, he stated. Mr Jinapor, however, revealed that there were many stories making the rounds to suggest that there was a disconnect among chiefs, the political leadership and security operatives, observing that the development did not augur well for the efforts being made to halt galamsey. The minister reiterated the fact that the war against illegal mining was a collective fight and not only for the government. Constitution While stressing that the Constitution vested mineral resources in the country in their natural state in the President to be held in trust for the people, he added that the President had delegated power to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to manage such resources. He said a critical look at the process in simple terms regarding which entity was permitted to have a final say in terms of granting mining licences or concessions showed that it was the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. But here we are talking about the involvement of traditional rulers in the fight against galamsey, yet we don't seem to give them any active direct central role to play in the processes leading to the granting of concessions in many cases, he intimated. Mr Jinapor revealed that part of the concerns raised by chiefs at the meeting with the President was that they were usually not consulted on matters of the granting of licences, only to find people with licences to mine in their respective jurisdictions. They are not consulted or involved in the granting of licences, yet we are asking them to support us in our efforts to fight illegal mining," the minister pointed out. Education campaign Touching on the public campaign against illegal mining and its negative impact on communities, he said his ministry was rolling out a national public campaign against illegal mining and its adverse effects on the environment and the health of the people. We have also rolled out advertisements on television and radio to educate the public on the dire consequences of illegal mining, the minister said. 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 Workers at the Kumasi Depot of Metro Mass Transit (MMT), say until the Chief Executive Officer, his two Deputies and other management members are dismissed, they will not resume work. The workers accuse the CEO and his management of not only mismanaging the transport company but also compromising on the welfare of the staff, including life after compulsory retirement. Staff of the Kumasi depot of the Metro Mass Transit Company began a sit down strike on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, as a means of making known to the public issues affecting their welfare and sustainability of the transport company. A visit by Radio Ghana to the Kumasi Depot of the MMT showed that almost all the road worthy fleet of buses have not moved since the start of the industrial action, even though the workers are at post and continue to report to duty everyday. The workers were seen either idling or constituting themselves into small groups discussing matters of their mutual interest, including how soon their grievances would receive the needed attention by the government. Also, the almost always very busy bus terminal was a pale shadow of itself as there were no commuters around at the time of the visit. The many hawkers and traders who had been taking advantage of the busy environment were left redundant. Information available indicates that there are technical problems such as the lack of Engine Oil or Fan Belt to power the engines. Other issues raised bothered on the issuance of alleged fake official bus tickets by some staff at the companys head office in Accra, while the drivers are also accused of theft of fuel from the buses, an allegation they have vehemently denied. The Chairman of the Senior Staff Union, Francis Ayim Gyampo, claimed that for five years since 2017, staff Tiers Two and Three contributions deducted by the company have not been remitted to Fund Managers of the pension schemes, just as is the case of staff monthly payment for lands purchased in their respective names, leaving them indebted to the allodia land owners, thereby threatening their ownership of the parcels of land in doubt. According to the Union Chairman, the leadership of the local and Divisional Union are being victimised for championing the concerns of the workers and stressed that the only condition that would encourage the workers to resume work is for the President to dismiss the CEO and other key staff of the company. Source: ghanaweb.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 Political Parties Outside Parliament (PPOP), a group of political parties with no representation in the Legislative House, has called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to arrest the leader and founder of Ghana Union Movement (GUM), Rev. Christian Kwabena Andrew. The parties say Rev. Christian Kwabena Andrew, popularly called 'Osofo Kyiri Abosom', has raised false accusations against the Electoral Commission. Addressing a press conference in Accra, they said; "Recently, the Leader of the Ghana Union Movement has also accused the Electoral Commission of recruiting Electoral Officers with the ruling NPP." "How can one make such a baseless and unfounded accusations?", the parties questioned. They appealed to the IGP, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, to "invite the Leader of GUM to investigate some of these allegations as all Political Parties were given the names of the Electoral Officers and also granted the opportunity for us to provide feedback on each of them we felt had some known political affiliations". "One cannot then turn around to just drag the name of such a reputable institution that is the back bone of our democracy into disrepute without any substantive proof," they added. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former NDC Member of Parliament for Akwatia constituency, Baba Jamal, has reacted to claims that he secured bail for some Chinese galamsayers. The Statesman newspaper published that Baba Jamal last year represented five Chinese and two Ghanaians standing trial for illegal mining and that he secured bail "for his clients, even though he was once an MP for a galamsey ravaged area in the Eastern Region". This follows recent criticisms against former NPP National Chairman, Freddie Blay and Capt. (Rtd) Nkrabea Effah-Dartey following their decision to represent some alleged galamsayers in court. Baba Jamal in response described the news report as an "equalization tactics to balance the scale". "None of my clients have been charged with being involved in galamsey . . . this is just an equalization tactics to balance the scale . . . but their charges have nothing to do with galamsey. Theres nothing like galamsey," he said in an interview on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo'. I will not even bother myself asking them to retract and apologise . . . I won't waste my time, he added. 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 General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has reacted to claims that challenging Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo for the chairmanship position will create a rivalry in the party. According to him, people who share in that thought are fundamentally wrong as democracy encouraged competition. Asiedu Nketiah a.k.a. General Mosquito believes that the contest between him and the current chairman of the party will be a healthy contest where the best ideas will be selected. He indicated on Accra-based Accra FM on October 13 that election rivalry ought to be expected even though in this instance, he and Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo are allies. Which democracy does not have a rivalry, or are we deciding to abandon democracy? People who believe my contest with Ofosu-Ampofo will bring rivalry are fundamentally wrong. That thinking is anti-democratic because proponents of democracy say democracy must bring competition for the best to emerge. They also say democracy is the worse form of government but there is no better alternative. This shows that democracy has its shortcomings but its positives outweigh the shortcomings thus you have to live by it. If you are running a democracy, you have to live with fallouts from this little little competition. From 2002 till now, every position in the party has been up for a contest. Can you mention one congress in which someone has not contested me? the NDC chief scribe quizzed. A former National Organizer of the NDC, Yaw Boateng Gyan, rallied the Council of Elders of the party to block the contest between Asiedu Nketiah and Ofosu-Ampofo. In his view, the contest between the two will sharply divide the party ahead of the crucial 2024 elections. "We will need the two in the party going into the 2024 elections, and just as we did for the first time in 1992 in Cape Coast, where the party elected national officers based on consensus, the same can be done with the two," Yaw Boateng Gyan said. On his part, the former Deputy NDC General Secretary, Samuel Koku Anyidoho, stated that Asiedu Nketiah is unfit to be the chairman of the opposition party. In a series of tweets, Anyidoho opined that it will be a mistake on the part of NDC to allow Asiedu Nketiah to become the party chairman, stressing that it will mark the burial date of the party. The day the NDC makes a sacrilegious mistake and allows Asiedu-Nketiah, to become Chmn (chairman) and Leader of the NDC, that will be the END of the NDC. Asiedu Nketiah is NOT fit to be Chmn of the NDC. Asiedu Nketiah, has undermined every NDC Chmn he has worked with: Dr. Kwabena Adjei, Kofi Portuphy; Mosquito cannot perfidiously manipulate Ofosu-Ampofo, so mosquito wants to become Chmn. Torfiakwa, Anyidoho tweeted. The NDC is currently focused on electing constituency and regional executives after which it will elect national executive officers on December 17. The portfolio which is garnering much interest is the chairmanship race in which Asiedu Nketia will go up against incumbent Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo. Source: ghanaweb.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 New Patriotic Party's headquarters, on Thursday October 13, 2022, hosted the Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Mr. Samuel Awuku. His visitation was to strengthen the relationship between his outfit and the Party, thereby creating a fertile grounds for broader collaboration. Mr. Awuku was received by Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong, General Secretary of the Party; Alhaji Massaudu Osman, 3rd National Vice Chairman; Dr. Charles Dwamena, National Treasurer; Alhaji Aziz Haruna Futa, Nasara Coordinator; Miss Mimi Duah, Deputy National Women Organiser; Safia Mohammed, Deputy National Women Organiser; and Mr. William Yamoah, Director for Finance and Administration. In his welcome address, the General Secretary observed that the National Lottery Authority has become a household name under the leadership of Sammy Awuku (as he is affectionately called), and urged him to continue his revival of the Authority. He extolled Mr. Awuku for his dedication and support to the party and urged other government appointees to emulate his extraordinary examples. Mr. Awuku, the erstwhile national organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), disclosed that following his entry into office as Director General, NLA, his outfit executed several initiatives to shore up the revenue of the Authority. This, he confirmed, has been instrumental in the Authority's ability to recruit hundreds of young Ghanaians. He announced that the National Lottery Authority has no malevolent intent towards the activities of private lotto operators. Nonetheless, it is determined to clamp down on the pursuits of unlicensed individuals operating various lottery schemes. As a former national officer of the Party, Mr. Awuku was not short of advice for the incumbent executives of the Party. He entreated them to work in unity and collaborate with all stakeholders of the Party as it seeks a historic, third-consecutive electoral victory in 2024 to "break the eight". Mr. Awuku was accompanied by Miss Anna Horma Akaisi Miezeh, Deputy Director General, National Lottery Authority; Mr. Goodfellow Dei Offei, Mr. David Nkansah Anto; and other staff of the Authority. It is worthy of note that Mr. Samuel Awuku is one of several government appointees to embrace the party's initiative to enhance party-government collaboration in the former's reorganisation ahead of the 2024 general elections. 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 Mr Yaw Frimpong Addo, the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Manso-Adubia, has called for the strengthening of the grass-root party structures to help retain power in the 2024 general elections. He said building the capacities of the constituency executives, polling station executives, area coordinators and other local structures of the party was the surest way of strengthening the grassroots and galvanizing support for the party. Speaking at a three-day capacity-building workshop for the constituency and polling station executives, area coordinators, womens wing and youth organizers, as well as other local actors of the party at Manso-Adubia, the MP said the initiative was to empower the officers to perform their duties efficiently. He said it was important to provide the party structures at the grassroots with the needed communication skills and appropriate information to enable them to propagate the governments good works to win the party more support for 2024. Mr Frimpong Addo, who is also a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, said leadership at the local levels of the party was key to the partys electoral victory and needed to be provided with support and logistics to perform. He called on the NPP activists to embark on aggressive house-to-house campaigns to sell the good work of the NPP government to help sustain confidence in the party. Mr Kofi Acheampong, the constituency chairman, said the training was to empower the participants to defend and uphold the values of the party while they canvass for community members support in the general elections. He called for unity among the party members and urged them to work as a team to help break the eight-year rule. Mr Acheampong said the training would be held regularly to ensure that the members stayed on top of issues in their political campaign activities in the constituency. Mr Peter Atta Asenso, the constituency organizer, said the grassroots were committed to working to increase the electoral fortunes of the party in the constituency and called for material and logistics support to perform their duties. 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 Once contestants pass the screening and are selected to attend the haunt, McKamey says that's when the "show" starts coming together. "It's definitely a personalized survival horror experience," he says. "We find out a lot of information about an individual, with information we gather from them, from their friends and family, all kinds of sources. We find out what really makes them tick, and then we build a show around their fears and phobias." People tend to be pretty open about what scares them, McKamey adds, because "they want it to be as extreme as possible." Advertisement The haunt does have its limits, though. McKamey is clear that there's "never anything sexual. No one's going to whisper anything inappropriate into your ear. No one's going to touch you in an inappropriate way." There are also no religious references, and there's "no cussing allowed," McKamey says. "It's really very PG-13; like [Disney's] Indiana Jones ride on steroids." " " Running into this guy, who is seemingly eternally chained to a coffin, is one of the least frightening experiences available at McKamey Manor. McKamey Manor But while it may not actually be as extreme as it's made out to be, McKamey says it feels over-the-top to the contestant, and that's the whole point. "I'm going to get inside your head, and that's what makes it scary. It's a very psychological experience that includes hypnosis, and once I hypnotize you, I can make you believe whatever I want. I can put you in a kiddie pool and tell you there's a great white shark in there, and you're going to freak out like there's a shark." There's a distinction, McKamey insists, between what happens inside the manor and what people believe is happening. "I can make them believe that I'm ripping out their teeth, make them believe that I'm taking their fingernails off," he says. "But in reality, is that really happening? You have to put your logic cap on: Torture is not legal, no matter what happens and no matter what you sign." But that hasn't stopped the negative press, which insists McKamey Manor is a nightmare that has no business continuing to operate. "Let them think what they want," says McKamey. "I'm still in business. I'm not in jail." Perennial rice in the fieldnote that the crop base shows signs of previous harvests. Credit: BGI Genomics An estimated 670 million people are projected to be undernourished in 2030, as noted in FAO's The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 report. Conflict, COVID-19, climate extremes and economic shocks are listed as the key factors contributing to food insecurity and malnutrition. Against this backdrop, what are international scientists doing? On the occasion of World Food Day, Dr. Liu Huan, the Chief Scientist of BGI Research Agriculture and Head of BGI Bioverse, notes it is crucial to enhance yields of key crops such as rice. Dr. Liu makes three key points: Compared to cultivated rice, perennial rice can reduce production costs by over 50% Perennial rice incorporates African wild rice genes, which enhances its stress tolerance The reach for perennial rice planting includes 18 countries such as Uganda and Bangladesh Perennial rice's hidden secrets Do you know that wild rice speciessimilar to gingerdevelop rhizomes, modified stems that grow underground horizontally, as a means of vegetative reproduction? However, cultivated rice do not possess rhizomes. This means cultivated rice must be planted on a per-season basis. Whereas perennial rice can be harvested over many years since it incorporates wild rice genes and its rhizomes for reproduction. Perennial rice: In search of a greener and more efficient crop So what does this mean for farmers? Keep in mind that traditional rice cultivation consists of six processes: buy seeds, raise seedlings, plowing, transplanting, field management and harvesting. With perennial rice, the farmers skip the first four stages and concentrate their efforts on field management and harvesting. Six stages of rice production. Credit: BGI Genomics Compared to cultivated rice, perennial rice can reduce production input costs by more than 50%. Farmers are potentially looking at US$11.4013.70 savings per acre based on labor costs in Yunnan, China. If farmers plant two crops in one year, the estimated cost savings is US$22.8027.30 per acre. China has 65.9 million acres of land dedicated to rice farming. Therefore, the theoretical social and economic value of these savings is estimated at US$1.5 billion. Growing perennial rice not only greatly reduces production costs, but also eliminates the need to plow the field for many years, reducing labor, fertilizer and pesticide inputs and enhancing the natural properties of the soil. This can greatly alleviate labor shortage faced by farmers, while as well as bringing associated ecological and environmental benefits. Perennial rice also has the advantage of high yield and quality. In terms of yield, in Yunnan, the yield reaches 164 kilograms, compared to China's average of 75 kilograms per acre. Dr. Liu believes that more varieties can be cultivated, including more disease-resistant varieties, and developing high-yielding and high-quality varieties that are adapted to different climates. There are all future areas of research for BGI's team. Dr. Liu commented that "China produces a quarter of the world's grain with less than 10 percent of its arable land. When we consider the potential savings, enhanced yield as well as environmental benefits, perennial rice can be truly revolutionary for farmers." Not only has perennial rice been selected as one of the FAO's 2018 International Agricultural Technology Innovations, it is also one of the 29 rice varieties promoted by China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for 2022. Perennial rice has relatively wide regional adaptability. Perennial rice has been planted at 117 locations within China, covering 13 major rice-growing provinces while covering 17 countries internationally, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Laos, Myanmar and Bangladesh, showing its potential for development across various climates. Perennial rice's African 'father' gene Generally speaking, higher rice yields require intensive cultivation, field management and favorable weather conditions. What if such conditions are not available? BGI's perennial rice is well-placed to overcome this challenge as it incorporates Oryza longistaminata wild rice genes from Africa, which enhances stress tolerance. Credit: BGI Genomics The Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Uganda have collaborated with BGI to conduct research trials. With less intensive field management, perennial rice achieved a single-season yield of nearly 82 kilograms per acre. Perennial rice can produce high yields with less intensive field management. This indicates perennial rice has the adaptability to be scaled up in Africa. Rice is the second most important source of calories in Africa with demand growing at more than six percent per year. Further adoption of perennial rice is potentially of great importance to the food supply of African countries. Dr. Liu notes that BGI is ready to share technology and to nurture a team of modern technological agricultural talent in Africa. Working with local partners, BGI can develop perennial rice varieties that are more suitable for African cultivation, to further raise farmers' incomes. How can multi-omics sequencing technologies help meet climatic challenges? Apart from its work on existing staple food crops, BGI is an active member of the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC). These local orphan crops which have been neglected by the global scientific community, have special adaptability to grow in these environments. The robustness of orphan crops also helps farmers to increase their yields and incomes as global temperatures rise. The AOCC, in partnership with World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), targets to open access the genomic data from some of Africa's most important food and tree crops to improve their nutrition, productivity and climatic adaptability. Dr. Liu shared that, "We work in partnership at the AOCC. For example, UC Davis takes the lead to train Africa's plant breeders, empowering them to apply their knowledge to their traditional crops and communities. BGI sequences these orphan crops to identify genes that have potential to impart tolerance to high temperatures, drought, and high salinity while providing excellent nutrition. So far, we have sequenced over ten orphan crops, such as African eggplant, breadfruit, jackfruit and the moringa." Explore further New study cracks the code to increasing grain size and reducing chalkiness in rice More information: Liu Huan et al, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, FAO (2022). Liu Huan et al, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022,(2022). DOI: 10.4060/cc0639en Provided by BGI Genomics Credit: ETH Zurich Researchers from ETH Zurich are studying how alpine vegetation is responding to a warming climateand how some plant communities are continuing to stand firm against newcomers from lower elevations. A glance down the vertiginous slope is enough to create a dizzying sensation of being airborne. Far below is the city of Chur, with tiny cars beetling among toy houses. Keeping a firm grip on the wheel, Jake Alexander ascends the potholed road, which in many places is too narrow for two vehicles to pass. His destination is Chruzboden, an alpine meadow situated above the tree line on the Haldenstein peak of the Calanda massif, some 2,000 meters above sea level. It's a popular day trip from Chur, but Alexander is here in his role as Assistant Professor of Plant Ecology at ETH Zurich. For the past 15 years or so, he has been conducting experiments to better understand the effects of climate change on alpine flora. Calanda is the perfect location for this kind of research. Over the space of 5 kilometers, it encompasses the full range of altitudinal vegetation zones in the Alps, from the colline zone on the valley floor to the alpine belt at its 2,800-meter peak. The entire massif is remarkably uniform in both aspect and geologyand the whole area lies within easy reach of Zurich. "We should really set up an alpine research station here; that would be fantastic!" Alexander says. To cover the full span of altitudinal zones, he and his colleagues have set up multiple experimental sites at different elevations. The highest, Chruzboden, is at 2,000 meters; the lowest is at 1,000 meters. The other sites are located at 200-meter intervals between the two. After a climb of some 1,400 meters around countless hairpin bends, we finally reach Chruzboden. It's June, and the cows are grazing among flowers of every shape and hue, meandering between patches of yellow, pink and purple. Alexander parks the car and heads uphill to a patch of meadow that is protected from the cattle by an electric fence. Inside the fenced area are his research plots. Some of these are enclosed in open-topped Perspex chambers, which provide passive heating to simulate global warming. The researchers are studying how plant communities at high elevations respond when confronted with species moving up from lower elevations. Previous research has shown that, on average, mountain regions are warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. This creates potential for certain species to extend their habitat, either to higher elevations or higher latitudes such as in the Arctic. Alexander's previous studies have shown that often alpine plants seem unfazed by global warming itself yet may struggle to cope with competition from new species migrating up the mountain. Bigger and faster Sooner or later, this could lead to changes in the species composition of today's alpine and subalpine plant communities. New species mean new interactionsand because plants from the lowlands are bigger and grow faster, they are literally leaving smaller alpine species in the shadows. "A warmer climate gives them a competitive edge, and they're threatening to displace alpine species," says Alexander. Species that migrate to the summits generally face less competition for space, light, water and nutrients because vegetation tends to be sparser at such high elevations. But the situation is different at the tree line, where species ascending from lower elevations encounter meadows and pastures with almost no gaps in the vegetation. These communities of plants have evolved over centuriestime enough for countless interactions to have emerged between individuals and species, including with microorganisms such as soil bacteria and fungi. Project leader Professor Jake Alexander is investigating whether meadow flowers from lower elevations can thrive at 2,000 metres. Credit: Peter Rueegg / ETH Zurich At current levels of warming, new species might find it tough to gain a foothold, at least at first. But, as the climate gets hotter, they will gain a competitive edgeand, as plant species from the lowlands establish themselves, they will cause a shift in both the composition and myriad interactions of the original plant community. This is a phenomenon the researchers have already observed in experiments at their site at 1,400 meters. "We want to discover how resistant today's plant communities are against newcomers. We also want to find out whether species from lower elevations can already establish themselves higher up the mountain and, if not, what's stopping them," says Alexander, as he surveys an experimental plot filled with a profusion of meadow flowers. The researchers first removed all the original vegetation from the square-meter plot. They then planted the bare soil with ten different species that are predominantly native to low and medium elevations, including meadow sage, brown knapweed and bladder campion. Alexander turns his attention to another densely vegetated plot, pushing the foliage apart with his hands. Buried in the middle is a brown knapweed plant, identified by a colored plastic toothpick. Unlike its peers in the bare plot, this plant is small and bears a solitary flower. "It's having a hard time competing against its new neighbors," he says. "But, in principle, it's certainly capable of growing at this elevation in today's climate." Animal transport However, the conquest of alpine or subalpine habitats by plants from lower altitudes is slower than expected, says the ecologist. He suggests that as well as resistance from existing vegetation, this may partly be due to the plants' poor dispersal abilities. Some have seeds that can be carried by the wind, but those that don't tend to rely on animals to disperse their seeds. For example, studies have shown that cows transport germinable seeds in their gut. One of Alexander's Master's students will soon be embarking on a project to determine whether deer and chamois also disperse the seeds of certain plant species. Ultimately, these data should flow into mechanistic models that will help scientists predict changes in plant communities, including climate projections as well as dispersal mechanisms, interactions between plants, and the ways in which they evolve. Alexander is already heading back down to Haldenstein and Chur, carefully navigating the car towards the houses far below. Reaching a hairpin bend, he takes a right turn to inspect their experimental site 1,400 meters above sea level. He parks the car at the end of the road and walks the last few hundred meters up a track. Soon he's standing on the edge of a large clearing known as Nesselboden. It's noticeably warmer here than 600 meters further up. The average temperature changes by approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius for every 100 meters of elevation, so a simple calculation suggests the air around us is now 3 degrees warmer. This, then, is the climate that alpine plants will be confronted with in the future. Struggle for resources The meadow flowers transplanted to this plot are even more exuberant, flourishing both in isolation and in the presence of existing vegetation. They clearly have no difficulty competing with other plants that are native to this elevation. But things look rather different in one of the other square-meter patches of soil. As part of an earlier experiment a few years ago, the researchers transplanted the soil and its community of plants from 2,000 meters to this site at 1,400 meters, effectively catapulting them into the climate of the future. The patch is dominated by alchemilla, more commonly known as lady's mantle. "This species clearly has no problem with the new climate. But some of the other alpine plants that were transplanted at the same time have already lost the battle for resources against competitors who are better adapted to warm temperatures," says Alexander, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun. "So, assuming it continues to get warmer and drier at higher elevations, this is what the plants up there will be facing." Whatever the case, he says, they intend to study these research plots in the Nesselboden clearing for at least ten years to verify whether their predictions of how plant communities will change are accurate. Alexander's research will eventually reveal exactly how the flora on Calanda will evolve. But it certainly seems that change is inevitableand that plenty more patches of white, violet and yellow flowers will soon be dotted across today's alpine meadows. Explore further New study links the decline of alpine bees to climate change Trajectory of exceptional points on the real part of the light spectrum. Credit: Mateusz Krol, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw A team of researchers from the University of Warsaw in Poland, the Institute Pascal CNRS in France, the Military University of Technology in Poland and the British University of Southampton has shown that it is possible to control the so-called exceptional points. For the first time, physicists also observed the annihilation of exceptional points from different degeneracy points. You can read about the discovery that may contribute to the creation of modern optical devices in the latest Nature Communications. The universe around us is made of elementary particles, most of which have their antiparticles. When a particle and an antiparticle, that is, matter and antimatter, meet each other, annihilation occurs. Physicists have long been able to produce quasiparticles and quasiantiparticleselementary excitations: charge, vibration, energytrapped in matter, most often in crystals or liquids. "The world of quasiparticles can be very complicated, although paradoxically, the quasiparticles themselves help simplify the description of quantum phenomena," explains Jacek Szczytko from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. "Without quasiparticles it would be difficult to understand the operation of transistors, light-emitting diodes, superconductors and some quantum computers. Even abstract mathematical concepts can become quasiparticles, as long as they can be implemented in physical systems. One of such abstract concepts are exceptional points." Theorists from Institute Pascal CNRS in France, Guillaume Malpuech and Dmitry Solnyshkov explain. "The so-called 'exceptional points' are specific system parameters leading to the commonality of two different solutions that can only exist in systems with losses, i.e. those in which the oscillations slowly fade over time," says Malpuech. "They allow the creation of efficient sensors, single-mode lasers, or unidirectional transport. What is important, each exceptional point has a non-zero topological chargea certain mathematical feature that describes the fundamental geometric properties and allows you to determine which exceptional point will be the 'antiparticle' for another exceptional point," adds Solnyshkov. Scientists from the University of Warsaw and the Military University of Technology in cooperation with researchers from the CNRS and the University of Southampton analyzed the optical resonator filled with liquid crystal. Liquid crystals are a special phase of matter in which certain directions are distinguished despite its liquid form. Difference between previously considered EP annihilation and this work. a Typical EP annihilation where only a single Dirac valley is involved. EPs are created from a DP when increasing the relative non-Hermiticity . Conversely, they merge and form a DP when the relative non-Hermiticity decreases. b Annihilation of EPs described in this work, involving different valleys. 4 EPs are created from 2 DPs when increasing the relative non-Hermiticity. When it is increased further, the EPs meet and annihilate, leaving the system without any singularity. w is here the winding number. Credit: Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33001-9 It can be probed, for example, by a light beam, which behaves differently depending on the direction of incidence in relation to the optical axes of the liquid crystal. This feature, combined with the easy tunability by an external electric field, is the basis for the operation of common liquid crystal displays (LCD). Polarized lightthat is, a specific direction of vibrations of the electric field of an electromagnetic waveperfectly "senses" the direction of optical axes, and these are related to the direction of the elongated molecules of the liquid crystal. "In the conducted research, the liquid crystal layer was placed between two flat mirrors," explains Wiktor Piecek from the Military University of Technology in Warsaw. "The whole structure creates an optical cavity, through which only light with a specific wavelength can pass." This condition is met for the so-called cavity resonance modesthat is, light with a certain color (energy), polarization and direction of propagation. This corresponds to a situation where a photon that falls into the cavity can bounce multiple times between the two mirrors. The presence of a liquid crystal, the orientation of which can be changed by applying a voltage, allows the energy of the cavity modes to be tuned. In addition, the resonance condition changes when the light is incident at an angle, which in particular can lead different cavity modes to intersect with each other, i.e. have the same energy despite different polarization of the light. For the specific orientation of the liquid crystal considered in the article, the two different cavity modes should intersect only for the four specific incidence angles of light when considering an ideal structure without any losses. In fact, the light trapped in the cavity can escape through imperfect mirrors or be scattered. The average time the photon remains inside the microcavity can be determined on the basis of spectroscopic measurements. Moreover, due to the orientation of the liquid crystal layer, a difference was observed in the scattering of light polarized along and perpendicular to the axis of the liquid crystal. As a result, at the place of each degeneracy point for an idealized lossless cavity, a pair of so-called exceptional points were observed for which both the energy and lifetime of the photon in the cavity are the same. Mateusz Krol, who is the first author of the publication, describes the experiment: "In the tested system it was observed that the position of exceptional points can be controlled by changing the voltage applied to the cavity. First of all, as the electric bias is reduced, the exceptional points created from different degeneracy points get closer to each other, and for a suitably low voltage, they overlap. As the approaching points have an opposite topological charge, they annihilate at the time of the encounter, so they disappear, leaving no exceptional points." "This type of topological singularity behavior, i.e. the annihilation of exceptional points from different degeneracy points, has been observed for the first time. Earlier work showed the annihilation of exceptional points, but they appeared and disappeared at exactly the same degeneracy points," adds Ismael Septembre, a Ph.D. student at the CNRS. Exceptional points have been intensively studied in many different areas of physics in recent years. "Our discovery will allow the creation of optical devices whose topological properties can be controlled by voltage," concludes Barbara Pietka from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. Explore further Physicists created a microlaser emitting two circular beams More information: M. Krol et al, Annihilation of exceptional points from different Dirac valleys in a 2D photonic system, Nature Communications (2022). Journal information: Nature Communications M. Krol et al, Annihilation of exceptional points from different Dirac valleys in a 2D photonic system,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33001-9 Hebrides Redacted score with notes scrubbed out to reflect declining Humpback Whale population. Credit: Ewan Campbell A Cambridge team frustrated by the apathetic response to biodiversity loss has developed a dramatic new way to highlight the demise of natureand people are listening. Driven by the observation that human activities are silencing nature, Dr. Matthew Agarwala is using sound to convey the enormity of biodiversity lossand help draw attention to what must be done to help species recover. His collaboration with composer Dr. Ewan Campbell is capturing the attention of new audiences by linking a piece of classical music: Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides Overture', with the loss of an iconic species: the North Atlantic Humpback Whale. Crucially, the roughly 30,000 notes in the original music score approximate to the number of Humpback Whales there were in the sea in 1829, when the piece was written. But then extensive commercial whaling began to cause a dramatic decline in the whale populationand by 1920, two thirds of all Humpback Whales were gone. Campbell divided Mendelssohn's score into decades, then scrubbed out notes in proportion to the decline of the whale population as the musicand timeprogresses. The resulting piece, 'Hebrides Redacted', has proved to be a dramatically simple way for audiences to grasp the enormity of biodiversity loss over time. A short film about the music, and its impact on live audiences, will be released online on Friday 14th October, 2022 as part of the Cambridge Zero Climate Change Festival. First, the full score is played by the Hebrides Orchestra. Then, after 1 min 51, the same piece is played by only 1 in every 16 notes remains - this represents the precipitous decline in the whale population since 1829. Credit: Ewan Campbell The music was performed by the 38-piece Wilderness Orchestra at this year's August Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire, conducted by Campbell and narrated by Agarwala. The audience response was overwhelmingly positiveand the piece received a standing ovation. "It really was an uninitiated audience at the Wilderness Festivalpeople were there for a good time, not to be told that the world is falling apart through the medium of music from the 19th century. But somehow it worked," says Campbell, Director of Music at Churchill College and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. "Over the past century we have seen nearly a million species pushed to the brink of extinctionnature is going quiet," said Agarwala, an Economist at the University of Cambridge's Bennett Institute for Public Policy. He added: "Researchersincluding mehave been sounding the alarm about the consequences of biodiversity loss for a long time, but the message isn't landing. Music is visceral and emotional, and grabs people's attention in ways that scientific papers just can't." Hebrides Redacted doesn't just fizzle out at the end. The duo also want to draw attention to the policies that would be needed to help Humpback Whale populations recoverso the last part of the piece looks into the future, allowing an optimistic 8% rise in whale population every decade. "We can see when the oceans are better managed, whale populations can start to rebound," says Agarwala. The orchestra performs 'Hebrides Redacted' at the 2022 Wilderness Festival, UK. Credit: Tom Besley He says that if the ocean food chain is protected through enforced marine protected areas, maritime freight re-routed to reduce the number of whales struck by ships, and ocean pollution minimized, the Humpback Whale population could fully recover. And so their music does the same. "At its nadir, the score is thin and fragmented, with isolated notes reaching for a tune that is only partially present. But even in the face of devastating destruction, nature is resilient and always beautiful, and so even when two-thirds of the music is absent there's still a delicate beauty, though a pale imitation of its once dramatic glory," said Campbell. He added: "Redaction is a word normally associated with censorship, and silencing history. I find it really apt for this piece of musicwe're showing how human activities have silenced nature." Agarwala and Campbell are excited by the power to engage public audiences when arts and sciences work together in this way. They have ideas for many more music projects, which they also hope will encourage policy-makers to take action to protect the natural world. The Cambridge Zero Climate Change Festival 2022 includes a focus on ensuring the conversation around climate change is accessible to the general public. It runs from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th October. Inspired by his 1829 trip to a sea caveFingal's Cavein Scotland's Inner Hebrides, Mendelssohn's original music captures the beauty, power, and vitality of the sea just before the introduction of mechanized industrial fishing. Explore further Can improvisation bring audiences back to classical music? (A) Scenario mentions in the IPCC's Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) contributions to the Fifth (AR5) and Sixth (AR6) Assessment Reports. (B) Fossil-fuel-and-industry (FFI) CO 2 emissions in the seven marker scenarios from AR6, compared to the IEA's Stated Polices and Announced Pledges scenarios, and to the ranges of all AR6 scenarios having similar projected FFI CO 2 emissions growth rates from 2005 to 2050. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2214347119 We've seen it splashed across news headlines: future sea-level rise that could consume the state of Florida, predicted global temperature spikes of 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100threats of catastrophic climate scenarios leading to societal collapse. But now, a University of Colorado Boulder-led team is pushing for climate scientists to put the more likely and plausible middle-range scenarios to the research forefront, instead of solely the worst-case futures. "We shouldn't overstate or understate our climate future," said Matt Burgess, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) fellow, assistant professor at CU Boulder and lead on a letter published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "People need to think in terms of gradations, not absolutes. Yes, we need to be aware of the extremes, like climate solutions that get us to net zero before mid century, or on the flipside, global catastrophes. But it's what's in the middle that is more likely. And that deserves more research." The letter, coauthored by CU Boulder's Roger Pielke Jr. and University of British Columbia's Justin Ritchie, is a reply to a PNAS perspectives paper entitled, "Climate Endgame," led by University of Cambridge's Luke Kemp, that argues catastrophic climate futures, including human extinction, should be a main emphasis in climate research. The CU Boulder team argues overemphasizing worst-case climate scenarios, like RCP 8.5, turns attention away from the most likely future. "Right now, not as many climate models focus enough attention on middle scenarios," said Burgess. "The SSP2-3.4 scenario, which might be one of most plausible emissions scenarios, wasn't featured at all in the IPCC's latest impacts and physical science reports. That should probably change." According to Burgess, we shouldn't ignore the RCP 8.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios completely. "We want to know what might happen in extreme scenarios, and physical climate cycle feedbacks might make warming worse than emissions would suggest. But for the emissions in that scenario to happen, all the regions in the world in 2100 would need to have over $100k GDP per capita, with no climate policy the whole century, all-in on coal, despite facing unlivable heat in tropical regions with the warming that scenario produces. That's just not realistic," Burgess added. And on the other side of the spectrum, we also are unlikely to hit the low-end climate warming scenarios that limit warming to 1.5 degree C by 2100. "That would be a daunting task to keep us that lowwe are almost there now," said Burgess. Many experts agree that what's much more likely is something more in the range of 2 to 3 degrees C (3.6 to 5.4 degrees F) of warming by 2100, Burgess said. By studying these middle-ground scenarios, scientists can focus on understanding those climate impacts that may be harmful and locally severe, but probably not catastrophic to humanity as a whole: more severe heat waves, places like California continuing to get drier and less-than-ideal ski seasons here in Colorado. Climate catastrophism may also be contributing to the youth mental health crisis, the letter states. Over 40 percent of young adults reported thoughts of climate change negatively affecting their daily lives and functioning or making them hesitant to have children. "We don't want to ignore the possibility of catastrophic societal collapse or human extinction, but it shouldn't be our main focus right now," said Burgess. Explore further Paris Climate Agreement goal still within reach, suggests new study More information: Matthew G. Burgess et al, Catastrophic climate risks should be neither understated nor overstated, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). Matthew G. Burgess et al, Catastrophic climate risks should be neither understated nor overstated,(2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2214347119 Luke Kemp et al, Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2108146119 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Western Baltic Sea (WBS) position in the context of the northeast Atlantic shelf region including the entire Baltic Sea region (A). The WBS ecosystem (B) is bounded by ICES subdivisions 22 and 24 (red line). Credit: Frontiers in Marine Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.879998 Decades of overfishing, together with nutrient pollution, rapid increase in hypoxia, ocean warming and acidification have put fish and harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) in the western Baltic Sea at risk of collapse. But the commercially relevant stocks of cod (Gadus morhua), herring (Clupea harengus) and sprat (Sprattus sprattus) can be restored and prospects for marine mammals be improved, according to a team of marine scientists from GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt fur Naturschutz, BfN, Germany) and the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources at the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy. Using model simulations, the researchers tested five scenarios from no fishing to ecosystem-based fisheries management. This approach accounts for the roles of species within their ecosystem and adjusts catches accordingly to keep fish stocks in a healthy, productive and resilient condition. A study now published in Frontiers in Marine Science concludes that ecosystem-based fisheries management would allow the endangered harbor porpoise population to recover and increase catches of herring and cod significantly within a decade. The food web would become less susceptible to eutrophication and climate change and, in addition, more able to support carbon sequestration than in a business-as-usual scenario that assumes today's fisheries practices continue. The study benefits from years of data collection at GEOMAR. Building on a first prototype and a huge amount of data, the researchers now developed the first model for the western Baltic Sea that includes top predators such as harbor porpoise and seals, various fish species and other marine animals, plankton, algae and seaweeds, as well as their interactions under different scenarios. "Looking at the big picture of the food web helps to identify management options that sustain important food resources and dependant businesses," says Dr. Marco Scotti, marine ecologist at GEOMAR and CNR, lead author of the recent publication. Ecosystem-based fisheries management would imply to stop catching juvenile cod, reduce catches of herring and sprat to half of the maximum sustainable yieldthe highest possible harvest per year that can be sustained over timeand catches of adult cod and flatfish to 80 percent of the maximum sustainable yield. This approach was compared to a business-as-usual scenario characterized by average fishing mortalities for all exploited stocks during the years 2015 to 2019. In the business-as-usual scenario, cod stocks decline slightly below the numbers of 2019 and herring stocks to almost half their 2019 sizes by 2050. Sprat and flatfish increase to some degree, suggesting a substantial regime shift. Ecosystem-based fisheries management, in contrast, would lead to an increase of almost 70 percent in cod and 50 percent in herring catches by 2050, compared to the period 2015 to 2019. Catches in flatfish would increase by almost 20 percent, but with largely reduced fishing effort and costs. Potential for carbon sequestration would be more than three times greater under ecosystem-based fisheries management compared to business-as-usual. "The Common Fisheries Policy of Europe demands an end to overfishing by 2020 and rebuilding of healthy and resilient ecosystems thereafter," says Dr. Rainer Froese, fisheries biologist at GEOMAR and co-author of the study. "Past and present overfishingnot climate changewas the main cause of the recent collapse of herring, cod, and profitable western Baltic fisheries in general. Continued business-as-usual would in addition push the highly endangered harbor porpoise to the brink of extinction. In contrast, ecosystem-based management would rebuild healthy stocks and fisheries and even help us to fight climate change. Saving the western Baltic requires to stop fishing of cod and herring for a few years, until these stocks have recovered. During this time, fishers need to be compensated for their losses. Fishing for plaice and other flatfish can meanwhile continue." More information: Marco Scotti et al, Ecosystem-based fisheries management increases catch and carbon sequestration through recovery of exploited stocks: The western Baltic Sea case study, Frontiers in Marine Science (2022). Journal information: Frontiers in Marine Science Marco Scotti et al, Ecosystem-based fisheries management increases catch and carbon sequestration through recovery of exploited stocks: The western Baltic Sea case study,(2022). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.879998 Graphical abstract. Credit: Energy Economics (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2022.106290 The CO 2 tax extended by the German government to the transport sector in 2021 aims to reduce emissions of this climate-damaging gas. For motorists, it will have an impact in the form of rising fuel prices. If one remembers the yellow vest protests in France, the question of the social consequences of a higher CO 2 price is obvious. The economics professor Dr. Mario Mechtel from the Leuphana University Luneburg, together with two colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology, has now examined in a study which income groups are particularly affected by a CO 2 price. The study showed that there are ways to tax greenhouse gas emissions from road traffic in a way that does not place a disproportionate burden on low-income households. For their study, the scientists developed a new, so-called microsimulation model. This allows them to distinguish between different types of households and to determine the effects of taxation on low, middle and high incomes. With the help of this model, they compared current taxation with three political reform scenarios in order to empirically examine their effects on the distributional effects of carbon pricing. They wanted to gain insights into how further increases in the carbon price would affect lower income earners in particular. The current energy tax is based on fuel consumption for motorists and taxes a liter of petrol more than a liter of diesel. As the study shows, this model places a slightly disproportionate burden on lower income groups. This is mainly due to the fact that they are more affected by the higher taxation of petrol, as petrol-driven vehicles are more common in this group. The lower taxation of diesel, on the other hand, has a positive effect above all on higher income groups. There, diesel-powered vehicles are particularly common. One of the reform scenarios now being examined aimswith the tax revenue remaining the sameat reforming the energy tax, which would then no longer be calculated per liter of fuel, but would be based on the amount of CO 2 emittedregardless of whether it is produced by the combustion of petrol or diesel. Since diesel fuel releases a larger amount of the climate-damaging gas when it is burned, this approach would mean that the previous preferential treatment of diesel fuel would no longer apply and the burden would be better distributed. Households with the bottom 60 percent of incomes would, on average, be relieved by this reform. "We urgently need to make progress in reducing emissions of climate-damaging gases. The transport sector offers an important lever for this. We were interested in the extent to which a heavier burden could be imposed in a socially just manner. The results of our study show that even a fairly strong increase in the CO 2 price would not have to lead to a disproportionate burden on lower income earners," Prof. Mechtel summarizes the results of the study. He points out, however, that the results are based on average values, so in individual cases there could be considerable additional burdens. Relief for the affected households would then have to be provided by other means. The team of researchers is currently working on follow-up studies that will deal with issues such as increasing electromobility. They want to find out which households are more likely to buy electrically driven vehicles and what distributional effects result from the fact that individual transport is to be increasingly converted to non-fossil drives. For their study, the scientists used a data set that is unique for Germany. It not only includes data from over 150,000 households with more than 216,000 cars, but also takes into account vehicle-specific information on fuel efficiency, annual mileage and the distinction between different types of fuel. The study is published in Energy Economics. Explore further Study finds rural low-income households bear a larger share of fuel carbon taxes More information: Leif Jacobs et al, Distributional effects of carbon pricing by transport fuel taxation, Energy Economics (2022). Leif Jacobs et al, Distributional effects of carbon pricing by transport fuel taxation,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2022.106290 Provided by Leuphana Universitat Luneburg Fossil records of early animals from Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve in Canada. Credit: Dr Emily. G. Mitchell/University of Cambridge Oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere are likely to have "fluctuated wildly" 1 billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated the development of early animal life, according to new research. Scientists believe atmospheric oxygen developed in three stages, starting with what is known as the Great Oxidation Event around 2 billion years ago, when oxygen first appeared in the atmosphere. The third stage, around 400 million years ago, saw atmospheric oxygen rise to levels that exist today. What is uncertain is what happened during the second stage, in a time known as the Neoproterozoic Era, which started about 1 billion years ago and lasted for around 500 million years, during which time early forms of animal life emerged. The questions scientists have tried to answer are: Was there anything extraordinary about the changes to oxygen levels in the Neoproterozoic Era that may have played a pivotal role in the early evolution of animals? Did oxygen levels suddenly rise or was there a gradual increase? Fossilized traces of early animalsknown as Ediacaran biota, multi-celled organisms that required oxygenhave been found in sedimentary rocks that are 541 to 635 million years old. To try and answer the questions, a research team at the University of Leeds supported by the Universities of Lyon, Exeter and UCL, used measurements of the different forms of carbon, or carbon isotopes, found in limestone rocks taken from shallow seas. Based on the isotope ratios of the different types of carbon found, the researchers were able to calculate photosynthesis levels that existed millions of years ago and infer atmospheric oxygen levels. As a result of the calculations, they have been able to produce a record of oxygen levels in the atmosphere over the last 1.5 billion years, which tells us how much oxygen would have been diffusing into the ocean to support early marine life. Dr. Alex Krause, a biogeochemical modeler who completed his Ph.D. in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds and was the lead scientist on the project, said the findings give a new perspective on the way oxygen levels were changing on Earth. Fossil records of early animals from Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve in Canada. Credit: Dr Emily. G. Mitchell University of Cambridge He added, "The early Earth, for the first 2 billion years of its existence, was anoxic, devoid of atmospheric oxygen. Then oxygen levels started to rise, which is known as the Great Oxidation Event. "Up until now, scientists had thought that after the Great Oxidation Event, oxygen levels were either low and then shot up just before we see the first animals evolve, or that oxygen levels were high for many millions of years before the animals came along. "But our study shows oxygen levels were far more dynamic. There was an oscillation between high and low levels of oxygen for a long time before early forms of animal life emerged. We are seeing periods where the ocean environment, where early animals lived, would have had abundant oxygenand then periods where it does not. Dr. Benjamin Mills, who leads the Earth Evolution Modeling Group at Leeds and supervised the project, said, "This periodic change in environmental conditions would have produced evolutionary pressures where some life forms may have become extinct and new ones could emerge." Dr. Mills said the oxygenated periods expanded what are known as "habitable spaces"parts of the ocean where oxygen levels would have been high enough to support early animal life forms. He said, "It has been proposed in ecological theory that when you have a habitable space that is expanding and contracting, this can support rapid changes to the diversity of biological life. "When oxygen levels decline, there is severe environmental pressure on some organisms which could drive extinctions. And when the oxygen-rich waters expand, the new space allows the survivors to rise to ecological dominance. "These expanded habitable spaces would have lasted for millions of years, giving plenty of time for ecosystems to develop." The research is published in Science Advances. More information: Alexander J. Krause, Extreme variability in atmospheric oxygen levels in the late Precambrian, Science Advances (2022). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm8191 Journal information: Science Advances Alexander J. Krause, Extreme variability in atmospheric oxygen levels in the late Precambrian,(2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm8191 Conceptual drawing explaining the high electron mobility of ITZO material. During a motorway emergency, cars move to one side to clear the path for emergency vehicles. In a similar fashion, free electrons move to the 10-nm-thick interface of the ITZO material with the carrier material and thus create a large bulk where current can flow unhindered. Credit: Ikumi Hatakeyama A new material is set to provide us with faster and higher resolution displays. Hokkaido University researchers explain what makes this material so special, opening the door to its application and further development. All displays consist of a lattice of tiny dots of light, called pixels, the brightness of which can be individually controlled. The total number of pixelsand therefore, the resolution and display sizeis limited by how many of these pixels can be addressed within a given fraction of a second. Therefore, display manufacturers try, in the pixel control units, to use materials that exhibit a very high "electron mobility," which is a measure for how quickly current will start to flow through a control unit as a response to voltage being appliedand thus, how quick the pixel is. A new material called ITZO (for its constituent elements indium, tin, zinc and oxygen) promises to be up to seven times faster than the current state-of-the-art material. However, it has not been clear where this improvement comes from, hampering its adoption for industrial applications. Hokkaido University material scientist Hiromichi Ohta and his team used their unique measurement technique to clarify this point. In their recent paper published in the journal ACS Applied Electronic Materials, they showed that the higher electron mobility results from the unusual fact that in ITZO films of sufficient thickness, free charges accumulate at the interface with the carrier material and thus enable passing-through electrons to travel through the bulk of the material unhindered. The unique ability comes down to a very simple formula: The electron mobility is proportional to the free travel time of the charge carrierselectrons in this casedivided by their effective mass. And while the measurement of the electron mobility itself is a relatively standard technique, effective mass and free travel time cannot be measured as easily, and therefore it is difficult to tell what factor is responsible for the electron mobility. But by measuring how the electric field inside the material changes in response to an applied magnetic field as well as to a temperature gradient, Ohta's team could deduce the effective mass of the electronsand then calculate the free travel time as well. It turns out that both the effective mass is significantly smaller than in current state-of-the-art materials and the free travel time is much higher and, therefore, both factors contribute to the higher electron mobility. In addition, by observing how their results depend on the thickness of the ITZO material, they could deduce how the interface and bulk of the material contribute to these effects. Ohta explains the significance of this analysis: "Using the knowledge we gained from this study, we may in the future design other transparent oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors with different chemical compositions that exhibit even better electron mobility properties." Thus, this study is a major step toward the next generation of ultra high-resolution displays. Explore further An expressway for electrons in oxide heterostructures More information: Hui Yang et al, Thermopower Modulation Analyses of High-Mobility Transparent Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor Thin-Film Transistors, ACS Applied Electronic Materials (2022). Hui Yang et al, Thermopower Modulation Analyses of High-Mobility Transparent Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor Thin-Film Transistors,(2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.2c01210 Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/A. Sarkar; Optical: NSF/NOIRLab/WIYN Astronomers taking inventory of the material in the local universe keep coming up short. A new result from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory about a system of colliding galaxy clusters may help explain this shortfall. Although scientists know a great deal about the composition of the universe, there has been a vexing problem they have struggled to explainthere is a significant amount of matter that has not yet been accounted for. This missing mass is not the invisible dark matter, which makes up a majority of the matter in the universe. This is a separate puzzle where about a third of the "normal" matter that was created in the first billion years or so after the big bang has yet to be detected by observations of the local universe, that is, in regions less than a few billion light-years from Earth. This matter is made up of hydrogen, helium, and other elements and makes up objects like stars, planets, and humans. Scientists have proposed that at least some of this missing mass could be hidden in gigantic strands, or filaments, of warm to hot (temperatures of 10,000 to 10,000,000 kelvins) gas in the space in between galaxies and clusters of galaxies. They have dubbed this the "warm-hot intergalactic medium," or WHIM. A team of astronomers using Chandra to observe a system of colliding galaxy clusters has likely found evidence of this WHIM residing in the space between them. "Finding these filaments of missing matter has proven to be exceptionally difficult, and only a few examples are known," said Arnab Sarkar of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led this study. "We are excited that we have likely pinpointed another." The researchers used Chandra to study Abell 98, which contains colliding galaxy clusters about 1.4 billion light-years from Earth. The Chandra data reveals a bridge of X-ray emission between two of the colliding clusters containing gas at a temperature of about 20 million kelvins and cooler gas with a temperature of about 10 million kelvins. The hotter gas in the bridge is likely from gas in the two clusters overlapping with each other. The temperature and density of the cooler gas agree with predictions for the hottest and densest gas in the WHIM. In addition, the Chandra data shows the presence of a shock wave, which is similar to a sonic boom from a supersonic plane. This shock wave is driven by and located ahead of one of the galaxy clusters as it is starting to collide with another cluster. This is the first time astronomers have found such a shock wave in the early stages of a galaxy cluster collision, before the centers of the cluster pass by one another. "We think this shock wave is an important discovery because our models have predicted such features should be there, but we haven't seen one until now," said co author Scott Randall, also of CfA. "They're a key part of the early collision process that will eventually lead to a merger of the clusters." This shock wave may be directly connected to the discovery of the WHIM in Abell 98 because it has heated the gas in between the clusters as they collide. This may have raised the temperature of the gas in the WHIM filamentestimated to contain some 400 billion times the mass of the Sunhigh enough to be detected with Chandra data. Galaxy clusterswhich contain thousands of galaxies, huge amounts of hot gas, and enormous reservoirs of dark matterare the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity. Scientists think they are able to reach their colossal size by merging with one another over millions or billions of years. "When galaxy clusters collide, we get a chance to see extreme physics that we rarely see in any other cosmic setting," said Yuanyuan Su, a co-author from the University of Kentucky. A paper describing this result by Sarkar et al was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters Explore further Colossal collisions linked to solar system science More information: Arnab Sarkar et al, Discovery of a Premerger Shock in an Intercluster Filament in Abell 98, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). Arnab Sarkar et al, Discovery of a Premerger Shock in an Intercluster Filament in Abell 98,(2022). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac86d4 Gabriella E. Alvarez et al, Suzaku Observations of the Cluster Outskirts and Intercluster Filament in the Triple Merger Cluster Abell 98. arXiv:2206.08430v1 [astro-ph.CO], arxiv.org/abs/2206.08430 Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters One in six children in Australia is living in poverty. Credit: Shutterstock A UNSW Sydney and ACOSS partnership research report shows people in poverty are falling behind the rest of society. One in eight people in Australia, including one in six children, is living in poverty as cost of living pressures continue to put households under strain. New research has been released today, on the eve of Anti-Poverty Week, in the Poverty in Australia 2022 report from the UNSW and the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) Poverty and Inequality Partnership. Scientia Professor Carla Treloar, Director of the Social Policy Research Center at UNSW Sydney, said the report highlights the unacceptable levels of poverty in our nation. "Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet we have one in eight people and one in six children living below the poverty line," she said. "There are 3.3 million people in Australia desperately struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table. There are 761,000 children who are denied a good start to life." Australia can reduce poverty by increasing income supports As many as 13.4% of the population (or 3.3 million people) and 16.6% of children (or 761,000 kids) were living below the poverty line in the first year of the pandemic (201920), according to the report which uses the latest available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The study also revealed people in poverty are falling further behind the rest of society, with their average weekly incomes dropping to $304 below the poverty line. The report found that temporary income supports introduced during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020the Coronavirus Supplement and Economic Support Paymentpulled 646,000 people, including 245,000 children, above the poverty line. Those new supports almost doubled the lowest income support payments, including the JobSeeker Payment. These results demonstrate that Australia can swiftly reduce poverty by raising income supports. In the first three months of 2020, as large parts of the economy were shut down by COVID restrictions and thousands were put out of work, the poverty rate soared to 14.6%. But boosted income support payments announced in April that year saw the poverty rate drop to a 17-year-low of 12% over the next three months. The effect of the boosted payments on children was even more dramatic, reducing the child poverty rate from 19% in the March quarter of 2020 to a 20-year low of 13.7% in the June quarter of 2020, lifting 245,000 children above the poverty line. The extra income meant that single adults receiving social security payments went from being $134 a week below the poverty line in March to $146 above it in June 2020. Couples with two children went from being $187 below the poverty line to $361 above it at the same time. However, by April 2021, Coronavirus Supplement (initially $275 a week) was abolished and in its place JobSeeker and related payments were increased by just $25 a week. "These figures should be a source of great shame for our nation. We can and must do better," said ACOSS CEO Dr. Cassandra Goldie. The study showed there is a clear way to reduce poverty in Australia, she said. "Almost doubling the JobSeeker rate pulled 646,000 people out of poverty in 2020. That is a huge advance in an incredibly short period of time. "The increased payments reduced child poverty by a massive 5.3%, giving 245,000 kids in Australia the chance of a better future." Key findings in the Poverty in Australia 2022 report The poverty line (based on 50% of median household after-tax income) is $489 a week for a single adult and $1,027 a week for a couple with two children, according to the latest available data from the ABS (201920). More than one in eight people in Australia (13.4%) lived below the poverty line in 201920, the first year of the pandemic. That amounts to 3,319,000 people. One in six children (16.6%) live in poverty, which is 761,000 children. The poverty rate soared to 14.6% in the March quarter of 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. But it fell to 12%a 17 year lowin the June quarter of 2020 due to boosted income support payments. The boosted payments brought 646,000 peopleor 2.6% of all peopleout of poverty. The child poverty rate rose from 16.2% in the September quarter of 2019 to 19% in the March quarter of 2020, then fell to 13.7%a two-decade lowin June 2020. Average weekly incomes of people in poverty (from different-sized families) are $304 below the poverty line. This is known as the poverty gap. The poverty gap increased steadily from $168 a week in 1999 to $323 in March 2020 and fell to $310 in June 2020 due to the extra COVID-19 income support. Boosted income support pushed weekly social security payments for single adults with no private income from $134 below the poverty line to $146 above it. Single parents with two children went from $119 below to $176 above the poverty line. Couples with no children went from $152 below to $411 above the poverty line, while couples with two children went from $187 below the poverty line to $361 above it. The study was based on ABS data for the 201920 financial year, which is the latest available. The 13.4% poverty rate and 16.6 percent child poverty rate are the yearly averages. Explore further Reducing poverty and inequality in Australia is possible, report says Credit: University of Strathclyde This simulation of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) space truck reentering Earth's atmosphere starts by representing the surrounding of the spacecraft as a three-dimensional cloud of interconnected points, a so-called "computational grid." This forms part of the process of modeling the hypersonic motion of gases around the falling spacecraft through computational fluid dynamics. This study of the ATV's demise took place as part of the MIDGARD (MultI-Disciplinary modeling of the Aerothemodynamically-induced fragmentation of Re-entering boDies) activity of ESA's Open Space Innovation Platform with the University of Strathclyde's Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. This ongoing activity aims at reducing the uncertainty on the simulation of destructive atmospheric entry by combining highly accurate but expensive and low-fidelity and fast simulation methods. A total of five ATVs resupplied the International Space Station between 2008 and 2015, all of them disposed of by atmospheric reentry. Europe's largest spacecraft leaves a longer-term legacy as the basis for the European Service Module of the NASA-ESA Orion spacecraft, designed to return astronauts to the Moon, and planned to fly on NASA's first Artemis mission later this year. Destructive atmospheric reentry is a traditional way of disposing of spacecraft and satellites at the end of their working lives, but ESA and international regulations state that the risk of injury to people or property on the ground must be lower than one in 10,000. Fabio Morgado of the University of Strathclyde, working on MIDGARD, states, "Addressing the risk of the atmospheric reentry of space debris is progressively becoming more and more pressing due to the increase in the number of orbiting objects and the consequent higher frequency of reentry. The prediction of the reentry processes is impacted by the progressive fragmentation and thermal erosion of the re-entering objects as a result of the severe aerothermal loads." Prof. Marco Fossati, principal investigator of MIDGARD and Fabio's supervisor, adds, "Improved modeling and simulation of the aerothermodynamically-induced fragmentation is paramount to design systems for safe demise and to assess the associated ground impact risk." In the past, heavy elements such as propellant tanks or instrument optic benches have reached the ground intact, but redesigning systems to use lighter parts or making them more likely to break apart earlier in reentry can mitigate against this. Explore further Video: Simulating atmospheric reentry in a plasma wind tunnel Lake facilities sitting on dry land. Lac de Brenets, summer 2022. Credit: Keystone / Laurent Gillieron The 2022 summer has shown us again how climate is becoming more extreme year by year. Sticking to business-as-usual and counting on adaptation alone will not work. Only a rapid phase out of fossil fuels will prevent the worst, says Sonia Seneviratne. Dried-out rivers and soils throughout Europe. Crop losses, devastating forest fires and rapidly melting glaciers. Thousands of deaths caused by extreme heat in cities, cows being slaughtered because of too dry mountain pastures. That was the 2022 summerone of the hottest and the driest since records began. If climate researchers had warned in spring that we could experience such an extreme summer, we would have been branded as alarmists. But what we are facing is fully consistent with the expert assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1. We've long been aware of what we were heading towards, and for some years now we've been seeing the first clear signs that we won't be able to overcome the increasing climate crisis without taking serious mitigation measures. For decades, climate change has been trivialized by many as a distant challenge that we would be able to adapt to without any issues. These last few months have shown us that the reality is very different. Adaptation alone is not an option We are in a climate crisis. The atmosphere has already heated up by 1.2C. Rising temperatures and lack of rain dried out soils across the Northern Hemisphere this summer. We have found that these drought conditions are now to be expected around once every 20 years given the current climatewhile without human-induced global warming, they would happen about once every 400 years. The combination of heat and drought also caused problems in many parts of Switzerlandeven our water-rich country is not immune to water shortages. Especially since the ice reserves in the Alps are shrinking at a record pace. If the Earth continues to heat up, we can expect even stronger and more frequent extreme events in the future than what we have seen in recent years: heatwaves, drought, heavy rains and extreme hurricanes. The latest IPCC report also shows that we will quickly reach limits to adaptation if no countermeasures are taken. One thing is clear: every additional emitted ton of CO 2 heats up our extreme climate further. To avoid this, we need a radical phase out of oil, gas and coaland we need this to happen as quickly as possible. Because every additional tenth of a degree matters. Change is possible Phasing out fossil fuels as required is feasible: there are alternatives in almost all sectorsrenewable energies, heat pumps, electromobility. In Switzerland, 93% of CO 2 emissions come from burning oil and gas. If Switzerland manages to halve its CO 2 emissions by 2030, we would already be on track to meet the Paris climate target, which aims to stabilize warming at around 1.5C. To achieve this, we must reduce our oil and gas consumption by 55% by 2030. The recently passed Federal Act on Climate Protection Goals, Innovation and Strengthening Energy Security will pave the way for net-zero CO 2 . However, individuals, companies and authorities can already start taking the initiative to accelerate the needed change. Switzerland will also benefit from phasing out fossil fuels in geopolitical terms, as it will be able to reduce its dependence on exports from autocratic regimes. Our reliance on oil and gas does not only harm the climate, it is also costly and leaves democracies vulnerable to blackmail by rogue states. We will have to live with the climate consequences caused so far. They will not disappear in a net-zero world. In the best-case scenario we can stabilize global warming, but we can hardly reverse it. When it comes to climate, there is no turning back: many consequences are irreversible. A dry wake-up call for water-rich Switzerland This summer has clearly shown us how climate is becoming more extreme year by year. We can and should contribute to counteract this, both globally and in Switzerland. Acting now is worth it. The 2022 summer should be a wake-up call for all of us. Explore further Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely More information: Original extened article (in German): Original extened article (in German): www.nzz.ch/nzz-live-veranstalt r-weckruf-ld.1705742 A sphinx moth flies near a special movable gate in the US-Mexico border wall. The border wall snaking along the US-Mexican border was built to keep migrants outbut conservationists say the towering metal barrier also stops wildlife from moving between natural habitats. Alarmed by the impact on animals including jaguars, bears and mountain lions, activists from the United States and Mexico have joined forces to try to protect the biodiversity corridor. "This part of the border is one of the most interesting places in North America," said Valer Clark, founder of the transfrontier wildlife organization Cuenca Los Ojos (CLO). Bears, mountain lions, deer, bighorn sheep and coatimundis are among the animals roaming the arid lands of southern Arizona and the northern Mexican state of Sonora, she told AFP. But camera trap photos and the conservationists' own observations have revealed deer, mountain lions and black bears pacing along the border wall, confused and unable to access their former ranges, according to the group. One family of boars spent five hours trying to get past the wall in search of water, said Jose Manuel Perez, CLO's conservation director. Border lighting meanwhile deters nocturnal animals and can cause migratory birds that navigate by moonlight or starlight to lose their way, environmentalists warned. An aerial view of part of the US-Mexico border wall between Arizona and Mexico's Sonora state. An image released by the Sky Island Alliance shows a mountain lion in the Patagonia Mountains of Arizona. The wall was first erected by the United States in 1994 and underwent major reinforcements during Donald Trump's 2017-2021 presidency. The barrier, which stretches across almost all of Arizona's southern edge, "greatly affects" the migration of animals, Perez said. CLO is calling for the removal or modification of the parts of the border wall that cause the most harm to wildlife, and for the restoration of all cross-border rivers. It is more than 40 years since Clark moved to a cattle ranch in southwestern Arizona, where the New Yorker said she fell in love with the wide open spaces. Back then it was a totally different place, where people would cross the border easily to visit relatives, she recalled. Conservationist Eamon Harrity walks near the US-Mexico border to collect images from a trap camera. The region may look barren, but in fact "it's full of important wildlife and diversity," said Eamon Harrity, wildlife project manager at the Sky Island Alliance, another conservation group active in the area. "The development of a large human barrier has repercussions," he said. Explore further Jaguars could return to the US Southwestbut only if they have pathways to move north 2022 AFP MOREAU Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Saratoga Biochar Solutions from going into the Moreau Industrial Park. The Article 78 petition by the environmental group names as defendants the Moreau Planning Board, Biochar CEO Ray Apy and Saratoga Biochar Solutions. The lawsuit claims that the Moreau Planning Board did not follow the legal process necessary when it approved the site plans submitted by the company and that board members failed to follow the recommendations of the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, when making their decisions. The petition was filed on Sept. 26 in Saratoga County Court. Saratoga Biochar proposes to manufacture an agricultural fertilizer from hundreds of thousands of tons of sewage sludge, which would be trucked in annually from Long Island, Metro-New York City, Western Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the Hudson Valley, according to a news release from CAAN on Thursday. Apy said on Thursday he is confident the board and his company will easily defeat the petition. "It is an unfortunate delay for us," he said. Check back at poststar.com for more on this story. MOREAU The Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls has filed an Article 78 lawsuit against the Moreau Planning Board and Saratoga Biochar Solutions and its CEO, Ray Apy, seeking to block the company from establishing in the Moreau Industrial Park. The litigation follows the August approval by town officials of site plans for the construction and operation of a carbon fertilizer plant in the industrial park. The lawsuit claims that the Planning Board did not follow the legal process necessary to approve the site plans submitted by the company and that the board failed to follow the recommendations of the State Environmental Quality Review when making their decisions. The Article 78 lawsuit was filed on Sept. 26 in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County. Article 78 proceedings are used to appeal the decision of a New York state or local agency to the New York courts. Saratoga Biochar proposes to manufacture an agricultural fertilizer from hundreds of thousands of tons of sewage sludge, which would be trucked in annually from Long Island, metro-New York City, western Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the Hudson Valley, according to a news release from the Clean Air Action Network , or CAAN, on Thursday. The companys CEO, Ray Apy, said on Thursday he is confident the board and his company will easily defeat the petition. It is an unfortunate delay for us, he said. Apy said he has not yet been served paperwork, but knows the Planning Board has, so his company and legal counsel have been preparing a defense for the court proceedings. According to the town, the Planning Board was served on Oct. 6. According to the release, the local environmental organization is represented by Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic. Ensuring that state and local government agencies abide by the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) is crucial in preventing hasty and unsupported approvals of industrial facilities like this one. We hope that filing this Article 78 petition will be the first step in holding the Town of Moreau Planning Board accountable and in keeping the community safe, said Megan Gaddy, a third-year Pace University law student and student intern at the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic. CAAN, in its release, said that neither Saratoga Biochar nor its parent company, Northeastern Biochar, have ever built or operated a biochar facility, or any other type of facility, and the Moreau plant would be the first of its kind to operate in the state. The project received criticism from the community throughout the process, and a group was formed in opposition to the proposed plant. The Not Moreau group distributed lawn signs to supporters and created a Facebook group to publicly share their objections. When the company submitted a revised air permit application to the NYS DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) in June, it stated that the facility would release PFAS chemicals, a fact previously denied by Saratoga Biochar. The state of New York set its drinking water limit for PFAS chemicals at 10 parts per trillion, due to the serious health impacts of human exposure. Many community water supplies in the state already exceed this health standard, CAAN states. Planning Board member Ann Purdue was adamantly opposed to passing the project, after hearing the public outcry and thoroughly reviewing the documents provided by the company as well as the DEC. Purdue suggested the board request further research and an expert review at Biochars expense, but she was outnumbered by her fellow board members. Who would have imagined that the town supervisor would welcome in a company like Saratoga Biochar that would threaten us with pollution, stench and noise, thus ruining our quality of life and negatively impacting our health? All to make a product that may not even be safe for its intended purpose as a carbon fertilizer for agriculture, said Mary Clear, a longtime Moreau homeowner whose residence is located near the proposed site. Town Supervisor Todd Kusnierz said in the towns best interest he cannot comment on the company or the project in light of the ongoing litigation. I will say that such a petition was anticipated, regardless of what the town Planning Board ultimately decided, Kusnierz said. Planning Board members did not respond to Post-Star requests for comment on Thursday. WARRENSBURG The town tax rate will go up by 98 cents per $1,000 of assessed value in 2023, after the Town Board voted Wednesday evening to override a state tax cap meant to limit property tax increases. The jump is almost entirely due to the towns establishment of an ambulance special tax district, which enables the town to fund Warrensburg EMS Inc. as part of the general fund. The town will allocate $345,000 for the EMS in 2023, which is $325,000 more than the town could raise in taxes under the cap. We just dont have the assessed value to absorb this kind of increase in the budget without increasing taxes, said Town Supervisor Kevin Geraghty. Its not something we enjoy doing, but something we have to do. Geraghty said he hoped the EMS budget can either be reduced next year or the towns assessed value will go up, so taxpayers dont see continually rising rates. There were no comments from the public during a public hearing on the override at the beginning of the meeting. Town Board member John Alexander said the increased funding would allow the EMS to keep its good people, rather than losing them to higher-paying jobs. The squad is busy, said Town Board member Bryan Rounds. We have to stand behind them. Theyre an important asset to our community. Town Board member Richard Larkin noted that prices for many commodities are going up. The town is in the same situation, he said. The ambulance tax district accounts for 97 cents of the tax increase. The general town tax rate is only going up by 1 cent, Geraghty said. I promised the taxpayers (the increase) would be under a dollar, Geraghty said. Property owners in the lighting district will pay an extra 5 cents per $1,000 of assessed value due to the higher cost of electricity. In other matters: Warrensburg Central School District Superintendent Amy Langworthy and district Business Manager Jennifer Switzer presented the districts $13.5 million capital project that will go up for a vote on Oct. 25. The project includes infrastructure, health and safety, and instruction-related repairs, maintenance, and improvements at the elementary, junior-senior high, bus garage, and maintenance buildings. Most of the work will be at the junior-senior high school, where classrooms will be updated and reconfigured to bring classrooms in the same subjects to the same area. Major changes in the career technical education area will improve trades instruction. The education system nationally is doing a disservice to many students by pushing college, Langworthy said. Students dont know what the other opportunities are. Employers have job openings locally and regionally in technical occupations such as carpentry and pipefitting, she said. School districts north of Warrensburg have told her theyd rather send their CTE students to Warrensburg than bus them to BOCES CTE centers in Hudson Falls or Saratoga Springs. Because of the districts $2 million capital reserve fund and 80% state building aid, the project will have no impact on taxes, Switzer said. Geraghty said approval of the project would be the right move for this community. We want kids to stay in the community. Voting will be from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Oct. 25, outside the junior-senior gym. More information is available at the schools website, www.wcsd.org/page/2022-proposed-capital-project. The board raised the sewer rate by $25 per quarter to cover the increased cost of maintenance at the wastewater treatment plant. The board will hold a public hearing on the 2023 tentative budget at 4:30 p.m., Oct. 26, at the Town Hall. A comprehensive town plan workshop will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Oct. 27, at the firehouse at 18 Elm St. Representatives from LaBella Associates and the towns comprehensive plan committee will conduct workshops to identify needs and opportunities and develop a common vision for the towns future. All are welcome. Leaf pickup is scheduled for 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Oct. 17-21 and Oct. 24-28. No leaves will be collected after the 28th. The Water Department will flush hydrants from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays from Oct. 17 through Oct. 28. Water customers may see some discoloration. The Warrensburg Volunteer Fire Company Halloween parade starts at 4 p.m., Oct. 31, at the Richards Avenue parking area across from Hudson Headwaters Health Center. Costume judging will follow at the school. Netflix could soon set up shop at the Jersey Shore with a massive production complex. The streaming service was recently chosen as the top bidder for a nearly 300-acre plot of land in Eatontown and Oceanport, Monmouth County, the New York Times reports. The site formerly housed the Fort Monmouth Army base, which was closed in 2011, and is about 80 miles from Philadelphia. The deal is not yet final, and Netflix did not publicly announce the amount of its bid for the property. But if the company closes the deal, it plans to "build a facility that will create significant economic impact and job growth for New Jersey," Netflix said in a statement. The studio would become Netflix's second-largest production complex behind a New Mexico site it purchased in 2018. The company also opened a 170,000-square-foot studio in Brooklyn last year. "We are thrilled to hear that Netflix is interested in establishing a serious presence in New Jersey and look forward to working with them and the rest of the industry to create good-paying jobs and spur economic growth throughout the state," Gov. Phil Murphy said. News of the potential production complex comes amid a somewhat tumultuous year for the streaming giant. Over the summer, the company announced it had lost about a million subscribers in the second quarter of the year. In the first quarter, it announced a loss of 200,000 subscribers, which drove the company's stock down by about 37% in a day, NPR reported. The site has been appraised at about $54 million by the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority, the Times reports. Other developers have offered in excess of $100 million for 89 acres of the former base's 1,126-acre spread. If the deal does go through, Netflix's studio wouldn't be the first on the former Army base's grounds. During World War II, special-effects pioneer Harry Redmond Jr. (of "King Kong" fame) designed a studio there for the Army Film Training Lab. WASHINGTON A former Atlantic City man who filmed himself breaching the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack was found guilty for his involvement in the riot, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced. James D. Rahm Jr., 63, of Philadelphia, was found guilty Thursday of obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony, and four related misdemeanor offenses, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Rahm was arrested in Philadelphia on Feb. 5, 2021. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan returned the verdict after a trial in which Rahm and the prosecutor agreed upon specified facts regarding his actions, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. Sentencing is set for Jan. 18, at which time Rahm faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison on the obstruction charge, and a total statutory maximum of three additional years on the misdemeanor charges. A federal judge will sentence Rahm after weighing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. Rahm is the latest from South Jersey to be found guilty for his involvement in the riot, in which a mob devoted to former President Donald Trump breached the Capitol during a joint session to certify the 2020 election results in favor of President Joe Biden. Since the riot, the U.S. Attorneys Office said on Thursday more than 880 people have been arrested in nearly every state and charged with offenses tied to the insurrection. Over 270 have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. Rahm was represented in the case by Leigh Skipper, who could not immediately be reached for comment Friday. According to the agreed-upon facts between the defense and prosecution, Rahm illegally entered Capitol grounds after the pro-Trump mob broke through police lines on the buildings east side. Rahm climbed steps and joined the mob outside the East Rotunda doors. During the attack, Rahm filmed a video, in which he said, We broke the door down. Were going in, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. Rahm also said, I think we stopped the vote, which drew cheers from other rioters, the stipulated facts said. Court records in Rahms case show that by 2:20 p.m. both the House and Senate were evacuated of Congressional members. By about 2:43 p.m., Rahm entered through the East Rotunda doors carrying a flag, where he filmed another video in which he said, Were in. Were taking our (expletive) house back. Were here. He moved through Statuary Hall and other non-public areas before exiting the building at approximately 2:53 p.m., the stipulated facts say. Rahms son, James III, also took part in the insurrection and was arrested on March 18, 2021, in Northfield, after authorities were informed that he posted videos on Snapchat of himself inside the Capitol on that day. Rahm III was indicted on Feb. 24 and arraigned on April 14, at which time he pleaded not guilty to all counts, according to the U.S. Attorneys Offices website. A status conference was set for Sept. 20, and Rahm III remains on personal recognizance, the website says. Multiple stormy days brought erosion to beaches throughout New Jersey, ranging from minor to major, according to an initial storm damage assessment prepared by the state Department of Environmental Protection and released Wednesday. Several Cape May County beaches saw major erosion, according to the findings, with moderate erosion reported for Brigantine and the damage in Atlantic City, Ventnor, Margate and Longport described as minor. In Atlantic City, the state evaluation found dune scarping and up to 50 feet of erosion from the Inlet jetty to the border with Ventnor. Several Ocean County beaches were also hit hard, with moderate erosion reported in Loveladies and major erosion in Harvey Cedars, Beach Haven and Holgate. In all, beaches in that area lost thousands of feet of dunes, with erosion cutting steep, tall cliffs along the beach, an effect known as scarping. DEP staff assessed the storm damage to beaches Oct. 6, finding 63 sites with minor beach or dune erosion on the ocean side or along the Delaware Bay, with moderate erosion in six sites and 12 showing major dune or beach erosion. The storms impact was felt from the Caribbean to the Mid-Atlantic coast. After significantly impacting a large portion of Florida and the southeast coast, Ian tracked inland towards Virginia where its energy eventually transferred off the southern Mid-Atlantic coast; the effects from this developing coastal low began in New Jersey on Thursday, Sept. 29, the DEP findings state. A coastal low-pressure system meandered between the southern Mid-Atlantic coast and the coast of New Jersey through late Wednesday, Oct. 5. The strength and position of this system plagued New Jersey with a prolonged period of onshore winds that created several days of rough seas and elevated surf conditions and persistent rainfall, the report stated. The roughest surf conditions persisted through Oct. 5, the state reported, with waves of up to 9 feet. Buoys recorded wind gusts near 60 mph during the storm, with offshore wave heights reaching 22 feet. All oceanfront and back bay locations reached minor flood stage levels during several tide cycles, with several locations approaching moderate flood stage; the peak of the flooding for most locations was on Monday, Oct. 3, the statement reads. These elevated tides were a product of several days of moderate to strong onshore winds and the proximity of the storm system center relative the coast. Ocean City, which is set to see beaches replenished next year, saw erosion throughout the island, with the dunes lost entirely from Fifth Street to close to Seventh Street. In the Strathmere section of Upper Township, where there were tall cliffs in the dunes in the north end all summer, the DEP found dune scarping up to 14 feet high. The report also described erosion in Sea Isle City as major, with beach access damaged at Kennedy Boulevard. While reporting up to 50 feet of erosion in the north end of North Wildwood, the DEP described it as minor but listed major erosion elsewhere in the city. Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, the Diamond Beach section of Lower Township and Cape May were described as receiving minor damage, and most of the erosion along the bay was also described as minor. HAMILTON TOWNSHIP Police are asking for the publics help identifying a man they say is involved in a motor vehicle theft and used a credit PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. Leftover rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ian during the middle of last week took another bite out of drought in South Jersey, according to the latest update from the United States Drought Monitor. As of Thursday, only Cape May County south of a line from Dennis Township to Sea Isle City is in "moderate" drought, the weakest of four stages, according to the Drought Monitor. The rest of Cape May County, as well as Downe, Commercial and parts of Maurice River townships in Cumberland County, is in a drought transition stage known as "abnormally dry conditions." While the map is released on Thursdays, the data period ends at 8 a.m. Tuesday. Last week's six-day-long nor'easter, which began Sept. 30, was still producing rain after 8 a.m. Oct. 4, which counted toward this Thursday's drought update. Last week, drought had extended farther north into Cape May County and into the eastern bayside of Cumberland County. Abnormally dry conditions ran through most of Cumberland and Atlantic counties, and the rest of Cape May County was not in drought, along with northern Ocean County. This may not come as a surprise to locals, who regularly use the term "Cape May Bubble" to describe storms that hit other parts of the state, but not the county. Throughout a very wet nor'easter, the southern part of Cape May County was the driest. North Wildwood, which is still in moderate drought, received 2.40 inches of rain. Meanwhile, Woodbine, which is not in drought, saw 6.53 inches. On average, Cape May County is the driest county in the state. In another sign of improving conditions, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's drinking water supply indicators were trending in a positive direction. In the Coastal South region, which includes all of The Press of Atlantic City's coverage area, 90-day precipitation, 90-day river and stream discharge as well as groundwater levels were out of "extremely dry" conditions for the first time in weeks. Stream discharge levels improved one category, from extremely dry to "severely dry." It was the first time in seven weeks stream discharge was at this improved level. Year-to-date precipitation now sits near normal for 19 of New Jersey's 21 counties. Only Cape May and Passaic counties are more than 10% below average. That said, the state continues to impose a drought watch over the area for the ninth consecutive week. Despite all of the rain recently, fall foliage is still occurring earlier than usual, with more muted colors. The window to bring forth a more typical, colorful season passed about five to six weeks ago according to Mike Zsolodos of the New Jersey Forest Service. Here's how drought in NJ will impact 2022's fall foliage BASS RIVER STATE FOREST Walking among the sassafras and gum trees on a late September afte Looking forward, the Drought Monitor will take into account rain from Thursday, as well as a few showers forecast for Sunday through Tuesday. Less than an inch of rain is expected for most people in the area. A charge of first-degree murder has been file against a Bellevue man accused in the shooting death of his estranged wife on Saturday. Christopher Eugene Prichard, 56, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty for killing Angela Prichard, 55. According to the arrest affidavit filed by Special Agent Dustin Henningsen of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, at 7:49 a.m. Saturday, deputies with the Jackson County Sheriffs Department responded to a 911 call at the Mississippi Ridge Boarding Kennels, 1821 U.S. Highway 52 in Bellevue. Deputies found Angela Prichard dead of a gunshot wound. She was the operator of the business. Prichard had an active no-contact order filed against her estranged husband, Christopher Prichard. During a post-Miranda interview, Christopher Prichard told officers he was angry about the no-contact order and went to the business while armed with a 20-gauge shotgun. Prichard stated he and Angela began to argue and he shot her with the shotgun. He then left the scene. Prichard was arrested at about 12:30 a.m. Sunday at a rural Jackson County home on a charge of violating the no-contact order. A single count of first-degree murder was filed Thursday in Jackson County District Court. During a first appearance hearing Thursday, Magistrate Sarah Oldsen set Prichards bond at $1 million, cash or surety. Oldsen also scheduled a preliminary hearing in the case for Oct. 20. Prichard was being held Thursday night in the Jackson County Jail. Prichard has been in legal trouble in recent years and has several cases pending in Jackson County District Court. According to Jackson County District Court electronic records, Prichard is charged with first-degree theft stemming from an investigation that began June 4, 2019. According to the arrest affidavit in that case filed by Bellevue Police Officer Josh Kilburg, Prichard had been working for Murphy Construction Group, LLC as an electrician. Prichard's job was to go out and get jobs for Murphy and then he would be compensated per hour to do the work. In several instances, Prichard made up several of his own invoices and gave them to customers. Prichard then had the customers make out their checks to him instead of Murphy Construction. Prichard then pocketed the money that was supposed to have been paid to Murphy Construction. The amount of the canceled checks made out to Prichard totaled $36,050.00. On July 8 during a hearing in Jackson County District Court, Prichard attempted to plead guilty to the first-degree theft charge with the state recommending two years of probation and suspending the 10-year prison sentence for the Class C felony. Prichard also attempted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. However, District Court Judge Mark Lawson ruled that Prichard could not make a factual basis, in other words detail the crimes and their particulars. Lawson rejected both plea agreements and set a jury trial in the theft case for Nov. 7, and a pre-trial conference in the assault case for Oct. 28. Prichard also was charged April 18 with one count of domestic abuse assault-first offense. The victim was Angela Marie Prichard. That charge is a simple misdemeanor that carries a jail sentence of up to 30 days. A trial date was set in that case for Nov. 29. WHAT WE KNOW: City Attorney Derke Price warned the Geneseo City Council previously that accepting banners for downtown light poles from the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary could open up the city to any and all types of banners unless the city adopted a banner policy. The VFW Auxiliary wants to honor veterans with banners on the light poles for Veterans Day and Memorial Day. WHAT'S NEW: Aldermen voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve a light pole banner policy to protect the city from having to erect banners they might not want to take. Aldermen Martin Rothschild, James Roodhouse and Craig Arnold were absent. The policy reads in part, "the light pole banner program is not available to be used, directly or indirectly, to promote, endorse or enhance any commercial enterprise, activity or event or any political candidate, party, activity or event." WHAT'S NEXT: Finance Director Jamie Mathews reported on changes that have been made recently to the fiscal year 2023 budget, which projects a $482,000 surplus in the administration general fund. In public safety, legal services are being reduced in order to pay for two license plate readers that have the potential to solve crimes. The readers can also alert police right away if a vehicle has been reported stolen. She noted in the wastewater department, which is an enterprise fund, a full construction loan payment of $496,000 will come due in 2023 and the department is putting off the $170,000 purchase of a new service truck to reassess the need for it each year. Wastewater will end fiscal 2023 eating $94,000 into its fund balance. Renovations to the wastewater plant are being completed, and an open house will likely be scheduled close to the first of the year, according to Public Works Director Chad VanDeWoestyne. A special City Council meeting will be scheduled at the Oct. 25 committee of the whole meeting for approval of the 2023 budget. Before Jake Coryell began his group's presentation on their vision for the Bison Bridge project, he threw out some statistics gathered from Visit Quad Cities. He said 83% of Quad-Cities residents are proud to call themselves so, but just under 50% actually brag about being from the area. With the plans to connect people, wildlife and nature through the I-80 bridge he and other young design professionals and students developed in just one day, he said the Bison Bridge could shoot those numbers up. "Let's give them something to brag about," Coryell said. Landscape Forms and the Landscape Architecture Foundation brought landscape architecture students from Iowa State University and the University of Illinois and young professionals together for Extreme LA Bison Bridge, a two-day program in which two teams developed a visitor experience for the Bison Bridge project a proposed plan to turn the I-80 bridge and areas on both sides of the river into an ecological destination and tourism site. The teams presented their plans Thursday morning at the Figge Art Museum. Each team took information from surveys, maps, regulations and expert discussions to curate just how the Bison Bridge project could best serve as a national park, attract visitors and enhance and connect communities. They created plans that would showcase the different biomes on both sides of the river and connect them on the bridge through a network of pathways allowing the public to safely view wildlife and experience the river. Lance McOlgan, co-host of the program and principal and Lamar Johnson Collaborative, said he reached out to Chad Pregracke, the driving force behind the proposed project, about Extreme LA because of the project's uniqueness and potential benefits to the Quad-Cities region. "It's about people, and reconnecting with them across the river and connecting them back to nature," McOlgan said. "I think at the end of the day, the majority of the community is going to see this as a big amenity and an asset that doesn't exist today. And it'll be a great attraction for people in different cities." Each team had to take into account sustainability and the differences in Iowa and Illinois' riverfronts in their planning, along with logistics like parking and navigation of the park and river. Around 42,000 cars cross the I-80 Bridge every day, McOlgan said, so the ideas they came up with needed to account for a huge amount of visitors. Studio One, the first team to present, used the bridge's multiple levels from water level to land to bridge and above to utilize every aspect of the environment. Visitors would be able to kayak on the water, walk trails on the riverfront, and watch the wildlife from elevated paths while the bison habitat would take up the whole main bridge. Studio Four added campground areas to their designs, one in Iowa and one in Illinois nearby the proposed visitor centers. They expanded park areas to host overlooks and create a lagoon in the Illinois 500-year floodplain, and made sure the whole project site would be connected in some way to keep habitats from being broken up. One of the challenges students had to account for was how people and bison and other wildlife could coexist in the site as safely as possible. While both teams proposed elevated walkways for pedestrians to look down on the bison habitat, one idea named "Jurassic World" from Studio Four would implement a suspended cable car system for people to ride on over the bridge. Pregracke said he was honored that the teams worked so hard on their projects, and that the audience seemed enthusiastic about some of their ideas. Some of their concepts, like building parking garages underneath grazing areas, would have never occurred to him, and though many of the pitched aspects of the site would be difficult or expensive to implement and maintain, they added fuel to the project's fire. "As we hope that this project moves forward, and hope is a big word there, I think there'll be definitely elements of this that will certainly be put into play," Pregracke said. Coryell has spent much of his life around the Mississippi River, visiting family that lives in the area, so the Bison Bridge design was something he felt he had a permanent stake in. "It was awesome to see other creative talent and how well students produced ideas, as well as how we all kind of came together as a team," Coryell said. "I just really enjoyed the collaborative process." IOWA CITY An Iowa City man pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife multiple times in 2019 before she was scheduled to speak to a banking official who would have told her about his risky high-interest loans, falsified accounting records and that he emptied one of her savings accounts. Roy Carl Browning Jr., 70, of Iowa City, originally charged with first-degree murder, made an Alford plea to second-degree murder. He still faces a life sentence because a second-degree conviction is 50 years in prison. He will have to serve a mandatory 35 years before being eligible for parole. Under the Alford plea, Browning, who appeared in an orange jumpsuit, didn't admit guilt but admitted that the prosecution had enough evidence for a likely conviction in the murder of his wife, JoEllen Browning, 65, who died April 5, 2019. Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said after the plea that more information about the crime will be released later at a sentencing hearing. Lyness did say she conferred with JoEllen Browning's family about the plea, and they agreed to it. None of JoEllen's family was in the courtroom Wednesday. Sixth Judicial District Judge Kevin McKeever set sentencing for Dec. 2 in Johnson County District Court. After Roy Browning's murder trial was rescheduled several times and then set to begin Nov. 1, he filed a motion to exclude testimony that he declined to be questioned by police or asked for a lawyer; testimony by law enforcement regarding his wife's activities; their relationship and statements made by others about him; or his wife's financial information. The motion also wanted the court to exclude "opinion testimony" about any possible motive and of any concealment of funds or how they were used. The defense also asked that any testimony be excluded alleging Roy Browning was seen with "younger women or beliefs he had one night stands" because it's irrelevant, according to the motion. After Roy Browning was arrested six months after the murder in October 2019, investigators said they had determined JoEllen Browning, a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics budget executive, was going to learn April 5, 2019, about her husband falsifying banking records and his numerous high-interest loans. Investigators said she had scheduled a meeting with a financial representative that day and would have learned her husband had depleted one of her savings accounts and taken out loans without her knowledge, according to court documents. During the investigation, law enforcement learned JoEllen Browning had emailed her husband that April 1, asking about the discrepancies in their bank accounts, according to court documents. She told her husband to contact their bank to ensure he could log into their account so the couple could review the accounts that night. Authorities said about 20 minutes after Roy Browning responded to his wife that he was aware of the April 5, 2019, meeting, he was at a paint supply store buying rubber gloves and towels, which police said they never found. Investigators did find a text message from JoEllen Browning to her husband that said they were to meet with their financial institution at 8 a.m. that day an hour after she was found dead in her home, according to a search warrant affidavit. Roy Browning called 911 at 6:59 a.m. April 5, 2019, reporting his wife was "unresponsive." Police found her on the bedroom floor with multiple stab wounds to her front and back torso and on her left hand, according to court documents. A forensic pathologist determined the cause of death was "sharp-force injuries" stab wounds and her death was ruled a homicide. During the investigation, authorities learned JoEllen Browning had a retirement account and life insurance policy worth more than $2 million, according to court documents. Her husband had no source of income. According to court documents, Roy Browning is the executor of his wife's will, which is in probate pending the outcome of the case. Browning will remain in jail on a $5 million bail pending his sentencing. Approximately 20 cavers, Emergency Medical Service officials and other emergency personnel worked around 14 hours over the weekend to rescue a young man from 9-inch tall crawl space in a cave on private land. Rene Ohms, Rocky Mountain regional coordinator for the National Cave Rescue Commission, and Adam Weaver, administrative vice president of the National Speleological Society, were part of the group that rescued the caver. Ohms said Thursday that the young man, who is a minor, got stuck in a tight S bend that he was able to get into, but not get out of around noon Oct. 7. She said he had enough room to lay on his stomach and have one arm in front of him while the other was behind him. After about 18 hours of being stuck, he was rescued and made his way out of the cave on his own. Ohms said she arrived around 4:30 p.m. that day. A team of cavers went in with a rotary hammer with chisel bits thinking it would be the key piece of equipment to get the young man out. "It does happen in cave exploration where people go through something one direction and they just can't get out the other way," she said. "Sometimes there's just a little knob, just a little piece that has to come off of the wall for them to be able to reverse the moves." Weaver said he got a call from the landowner who said someone was stuck in the cave. He said he called Ohms and other cavers and asked them to gear up for a possible rescue. Ohms said what the young man did right was have a plan in case something did happen. He was a part of a cave exploration group. Weaver said when someone gets stuck, there's no avenue for communication other than someone going from the location to the surface and reporting it to someone else. He said the young man who was stuck was about 30 minutes into the cave. "The cave that we're talking about is one of, in my opinion, the least pleasant caves you can enter in the Black Hills," he said. Weaver said the cave is full of about 600 feet of crawl way, some of which is about 8-by-14-inches. "It really limits who can go into the cave," he said. Weaver said the initial group, filled with minors, got permission from the landowner to explore the cave. They entered the cave around 9:15 a.m. When Weaver and Ohms arrived, they were able to use 1940s military surplus field phones to communicate from the cave to the surface and to a building where other rescue, EMS and law enforcement personnel were waiting. Weaver said the field phones' wire is harder to find than the phones themselves, so they had wire from the National Cave Rescue Commission, parks service and Black Hills Institute strung together to make it long enough to get to where the young man was. Ohms said when they found the young man, he was in "incredibly good spirits" and was very calm. "The person that was stuck can be credited with his own rescue in many ways because he kept his head about him," she said. "He was really strong through the whole experience and he was the one that really had to help his rescuers help him." Ohms said one of the biggest concerns while the young man was stuck was the possibility of hypothermia since the cave was about 55 degrees and he didn't have shoes on. However, he never became hypothermic and there were two EMTs and four wilderness first responders in close proximity to the trapped explorer the whole time, Ohms said. She said it was difficult to access the young man, though. She said she's small enough to fit through, but she was in a similar position she could only have one arm in front of her to extend him water or food. "(I) just had to do that with one hand with a straw and it was very difficult for him to swallow because he was laying flat," Ohms said. Weaver said the team ended up using a drill to remove some of the cave wall to get the young man out, but they couldn't see where they were drilling. He said the drill was held above their heads. To keep the young man safe for a portion of the drilling, they laid rocks against him. Ohms said she was in the cave for the last attempt when he was able to get out, and they felt an overwhelming sense of relief. "I wanted to just give him a big hug," she said. "He was thrilled to sit up again. We were so grateful to be able to see the rest of his body, I mean we could only see the top of his head in a tight space and a hand for all that time." After he was able to get out of the crawl space, the cavers made him some soup on a small stove. They even made a spoon out of safety goggles. Ohms said people should never go caving alone. Sam Smolnisky, director of the Custer County Search and Rescue team, said his team was there to assist the cavers in what they needed. He said he recently attended a two-day National Cave Rescue Commission training called Orientation to Cave Rescue before the incident occurred. "I don't like tight spaces, I'm a rock climber, I like to be out in the open, but I recognized with my role in search and rescue that it would be beneficial to at least experience what a cave rescue situation would be like," he said. "That way I know how we can assist and when we shouldn't be going in and when we should be calling other people." Smolnisky said they had a training scheduled for the first week in November to give the team an opportunity to experience and get trained up on cave rescue. He said the team knows active exploration is happening in Wind Cave, Jewel Cave and throughout the hundreds of caves in Custer County, so there is the potential for another cave rescue. Ohms said the last time a cave rescue of this size was needed was in 1989 when 18-year-old Rachel Cox got lost in Wind Cave for about 36 hours. There are over 500 caves in the Black Hills. Weaver said most areas with a large number of caves have dedicated cave rescue teams, but that isn't the case in the Black Hills. He said the Paha Sapa Grotto has a lot of experienced cavers, including himself and Ohms, who many landowners know to call in the case of an emergency. If you fill your car with gas first, the groceries seem pretty reasonable. Horror of horrors. A popular Republican governor, Kristi Noem, travels to Arizona to campaign with a popular Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake. Leftist gubernatorial candidate Jamie Smith will be campaigning for, well, nobody. Mr. Smith has no political purchase outside South Dakota and very little within the state. Maybe the folks who are concerned about voter integrity in South Dakota are on to something when you consider that of the 592,542 registered voters in SD, 293,885 are registered as Republican or about 50%, while the makeup of the 105 members of the SD legislature currently consists of 94 Republicans or about 90%. Stop using my tax-dollars to fund the war in Ukraine. Since the only time our legislators consider lowering taxes is a month before an election, perhaps we should hold elections every six months. It's simple for voters. If you are not happy, vote out the incumbents. That is the only way to ensure change. The Rapid City Indian Boarding School Lands Project began as a search for graves on the site of the Sioux San campus when a team member was asked what the plan was for the graves during an anniversary celebration of Sioux San Hospital. As it turned out, through oral histories, the Indian community in Rapid City had carried the story of the boarding school and children that died through the decades. As with most Indian boarding schools, the mortality rate was very high, and the government did not keep accurate records. We learned from oral histories and years of independent research, including the federal archives, that at least 50 children died at the Rapid City Indian School. We believe the number may be higher. In our search for the children our team has located the likely site of these graves and also uncovered the larger story of the school and distribution of the over 1400 acres that belonged to the school. The Rapid City Indian Boarding school was in operation from 1898-1933, then became the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1933-1939, transitioning to a tuberculosis sanatorium until 1960 when it became an Indian Health Service hospital. After the school closed the Rapid City community recognized the prime real estate and abundance of natural resources on the school grounds and lobbied state leadership and eventually Congress for access to the land. The property stretched from Baken Park all the way to Canyon Lake. This was in the era and spirit of westward expansion and Rapid City joined the ranks of communities hoping to cultivate the local tourism industry. In 1948 Congress issued a statute dictating how the land could be distributed. Three entities could receive land for free with a reversion clause, meaning it had to be used for the stated purpose or would be returned to the government. Those entities are the City of Rapid City, Rapid City Schools, and the National Guard. The next section says that the land could be sold in fee for reasonable value to churches and the last group was needy Indians. Consequently, The City of Rapid City received approximately 207 acres, the Rapid City School District received approximately 152 acres, and the National Guard received approximately 583 acres, all subject to reversion. Churches received approximately 200 acres for religious purposes, although some of them sold tracts of their land for profit in real estate deals. Needy Indians did not receive a single parcel of land, despite numerous attempts to acquire land for various programs that would serve the Rapid City Indigenous population. In fact, the city of Rapid City created a deal with the school district to transfer land from the city to the school, both of which could receive land for free in the statute issued by Congress, and then purchased land outside of town for Needy Indians. This demographic legacy of Rapid City, the history of purposeful policy decisions that actually enforced the segregation and dislocation of Indigenous people in our community exists in Rapid City, both past and present. We live in a segregated community, literally shaped by the distribution of the boarding school lands. Our community was built on the subjugation of the Indigenous people that lived here and are still here and that is our collective history. Each of us has an obligation to learn this history in hopes that, as a community, we do not repeat our past mistakes and we can create a safe and inclusive home for all. Our hope is to carry this story forward in a way that helps us all learn from the past and creates space to learn together and commit to doing better. Learn more at www.rememberingthechildren.org Amy Sazue is the executive director of Remembering the Children Memorial (Wakhanyeza Wichakiksuyapi), and is member of the city of Rapid City's Human Relations Commission/Mniluzahan Okolakiciyapi Ambassadors Alliance. The Colorado rescuer who attempted to save a Montana State University student following a 2012 avalanche will talk at the eighth annual MSU Snow and Avalanche Workshop on Oct. 26 in Bozeman. The collaborative educational event will be held in SUB Ballroom A. Attendees can visit with area avalanche educators and industry representatives from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., and the program will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The workshop also will be livestreamed at https://youtu.be/OAPoA_w8RUs. The event is free and open to the public. During his remarks at the workshop, Jim Donovan will tell his personal story of attempting to save Olivia Buchanan, 23, after she was caught in an avalanche near Silverton, Colorado, on Jan. 6, 2012. Donovan is a certified emergency manager for San Juan County, Colorado, where he also serves on the Avalanche Commission for the International Commission for Alpine Rescue. An outdoor enthusiast with considerable knowledge about avalanches who took safety very seriously, Buchanan seemed an unlikely victim. She had served as an intern for the Silverton Avalanche School and was studying geography with an emphasis on snow science in MSUs Department of Earth Sciences at the time of her death. Donovan will speak about the experience of responding as a rescuer to someone he knew personally and then applying the experience to a broader lens in avalanche search and rescue. Olivia Buchanans rescue was high-risk and challenged our whole response system and impacted the Silverton community, Donovan said. Her incident changed the way I approached organized avalanche rescue. Jerry Johnson, an MSU professor of political science who co-founded MSUs annual avalanche event eight years ago, said Donovan was asked to speak in order to raise avalanche awareness to backcountry recreational skiers and encourage them to up their rescue game. We want our students to get geared up to think about this, Johnson said. Weve had our share of accidents and close calls with avalanches. In addition to Donovans speech, the event will feature research presentations from three MSU graduate students: Maddie Beck, an earth sciences student, who will talk about using drones to better understand snowpack characteristics; Evan Schehrer, a materials science student, who will discuss the ways snow crystal facets affect snowpack; and Nata de Leeuw, also in the earth sciences department, who is conducting research on wind slab formation with a focus on the relationship between meteorological variables and wind slab properties. Other speakers are Matt Caires, MSUs dean of students, who will recognize the history of student ski-related injuries and fatalities during his time on campus, as well as how MSU has advanced snow safety initiatives as a result of these incidents; Shannon Regan, education coordinator for the Friends of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center; and Dave Zinn, Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center forecaster. More information, a complete schedule of events, and a link to the livestream can be found at https://www.montana.edu/outdoorrecreation/saw. Laquita Tobey, who is Anthony Tobeys ex-wife and mother to his three children, left the courtroom in tears after Judge David Eugene Cheek Sr. came to a decision about Kevin L. Degraffenreids sentence. Degraffenreid, 43, in June was found guilty of murdering Tobey, who was his roommate, in February 2021. Authorities have said the murder happened in front of Tobeys now-8-year-old son, who Degraffenreid abducted and left in an alley off Hull Street. A bystander at a convenience store across the street saw the boy and called the police. The boy was eventually returned to his mother unharmed. Degraffenreids lawyer, Leonard McCall, said that his client had no intention of harming the child. Degraffenreid expressed his remorse before the judges sentencing. I apologize to the family, Degraffenreid said repeatedly. I apologize for taking your loved one away from yall. While addressing Anthony Tobeys family, Degraffenreid said the two had been friends, but during an altercation at their shared apartment, Degraffenreid managed to obtain a gun Tobey had legally purchased and carried. He pointed the gun at Tobey, who charged him, Degraffenreid said. Degraffenreid fired one bullet from the loaded .40-caliber gun, which struck Tobey in the head, killing him instantly. The prosecution sought a life sentence for Degraffenreid, who was charged with first-degree murder and felony use of a firearm. Former Richmond police detective Jack Larry, an investigator on this case, expressed his disappointment after the judges ruling. Larry testified Friday that three informants who resided in the same jail provided the detective with details of the crime, including the abduction of Anthony Tobeys son. Its very unusual to have people in prison call the police and we had three of them, Larry said. Degraffenreids 10-year sentence for abduction was eventually suspended. Although Anthony Tobeys son didnt take the stand Friday, the mother of his children and two of his daughters read written statements to the court during the sentencing proceedings. Tobeys 12-year-old and 13-year-old daughters remembered him as a loving, caring and understanding father. The last thing I remember saying is bye to my dad, said Tobeys 12-year-old girl. I didnt know itd be the last time. In less than 24 hours, police responded to two separate reports of gunshots near public schools in Richmond. A woman was killed after gunfire erupted during an altercation outside Westover Hills Elementary, 1211 Jahnke Road, on Friday, police said. Police said officers were dispatched to a report of two armed people at 2:17 p.m., shortly before students were to be picked up from school. The building was placed into lockdown. The woman was taken in a personal vehicle to a hospital, where she died, police said. Her name has not been released. No other injuries were reported. Once the scene was secure and the lockdown lifted, the school held a dismissal in the parking lot of the Family Dollar in the 1200 block of Westover Hills Boulevard. Students could be seen quickly boarding buses, clutching backpacks and being escorted to parents and guardians. A hotline was provided for parents to call with questions about the dismissal. Police responded to the school, at 2300 Cool Lane, at 9:15 p.m. after getting multiple reports of gunfire, officials said. The game against Hanover Countys Patrick Henry High School was stopped, and the area was evacuated. No injuries were reported. Police said Friday that its believed the gunshots came from the nearby Fairfield Court apartment complex. There is no indication that the Thursday or Friday incidents are linked, but Richmond police spokesperson James Mercante said each shooting has a wide-ranging effect on the community. These shootings that go on in the city, it really impacts everyone whether youre involved in a shooting or, in both these cases, whether youre near the shooting, he said. Richmond School Board member Jonathan Young, who's district includes Westover Hills, said students have to deal with the aftermath. His district also includes Huguenot High School, where a 17-year-old walking to a bus stop was shot in September. Irrespective of what they heard or saw, they have to come to school next week knowing what happened outside of your school, Young said. This is no way to live, and it sure as heck is no way to raise children. It is unacceptable. Said Young about the Westover Hills shooting: My heart bleeds for this lady. My heart bleeds for all the children inside that building that experienced this. Young encouraged the School Board and city officials to do more and hold themselves accountable. Next steps, I pray, is a serious reevaluation as to who we are as a town [and] who we are as a school district, Young said. Were experiencing this extraordinary increase in crime in Richmond, and it would seem to me that people would be invested in identifying where disproportionate crime is not adequately addressed. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000. At Richmonds George Wythe High School, while Latino students make up half of the population, only roughly 34% of Latino seniors received a diploma this past spring. For the George Wythe Class of 2022, 33.91% of Latino students met graduation requirements, down from 41.38% the year before, according to state data. While fewer Wythe Latino students graduated this past spring, it represented an increase of nearly 10 percentage points over Latino students in the schools 2019-20 graduating class. For the schools English Language Learner population, only 27.2% in the Class of 2022 graduated. In interviews with teachers and student surveys conducted last year, Jennifer Blackwell, an assistant principal at George Wythe, found that school dropouts for English Language Learners centered on chronic absenteeism, the existing cultural gap with English Language Learners, and the lack of instructional and social-emotional supports specifically bilingual resources. Teachers are trying. They are showing up to work every single day and they are pouring out their hearts and souls and trying every single day to provide whats best for all students, Blackwell said at a Richmond School Board meeting this month. English Language Learner surveys showed that students feel supported by their teachers: both their general education teachers and their Language Instruction Educational Program (LIEP) teachers. After increases in Latino students graduation rates, both statewide and in Richmond, for the Class of 2021, graduation rates among Latino students fell this past spring. However, the most recent figures remained higher than those before the pandemic. Statewide, 83.12% of Latino seniors graduated this past spring, compared with 80.06% for the Class of 2019, the final year before the pandemic adversely impacted education. For RPS, 44.1% of Latino students graduated in the Class of 2022, compared with 40.29% in 2019. To combat the English Language Learner dropout rate, Blackwell presented a series of ideas to the Richmond School Board earlier this month. Such requests include implementing bilingual tutors into every classroom; adding additional LIEP teachers; adding a fifth period to the school day to allow for dedicated time for enrichment, test preparation and social-emotional learning; and a college and career college dropout prevention program. A college and career readiness dropout prevention program is already in the works this school year at George Wythe. Students who are over high school age and lacking enough school credits are placed in a class where they are exposed to various post-secondary opportunities and learning studying and test-taking skills, Blackwell said. Blackwell sees necessary improvements for teachers and students, but also for parents. We are in desperate need of bilingual office assistants, Blackwell said. George Wythe currently has one bilingual office assistant who is inundated with work, she said. One of the biggest findings Blackwell came across is that George Wythes parents want to be part of their childrens schooling. However, because of a dire lack of bilingual support for parents, the school does not have strong parent engagement. Parents want to be involved, Blackwell said. However, they are extremely constrained to their work schedules and because of the lack of bilingual support. Additional bilingual employees and support would be a huge help to assist with the average of 150 to 200 new students George Wythe welcomes every year, Blackwell said. Office assistants would be trained to help families navigate enrollment, transfers and chronic absenteeism. Also implementing parent programming at George Wythe would benefit families, Blackwell said. They go through so much trauma just to be able to step foot onto the soil and then for them to land in the U.S. educational system ... they need somebody to guide them every single day, she said. School Board member Stephanie Rizzi, who represents George Wythe High, would like to see Blackwells asks met but questioned how realistic it is that George Wythe will receive some of the support. I think overall, theres a cultural issue at George Wythe that needs to be addressed overall, but especially the fact that our Latino students dont necessarily feel at home all the time, Rizzi said. Superintendent Jason Kamras said supporting English Language Learners will be his No. 1 priority for the upcoming budget season. Ahead of graduation results, the Richmond Region League of United Latin American Citizens urged the Richmond School Board to approve the leagues plan of creating a Commission on the Status of Latino students in Richmond Public Schools. LULAC pointed to the fact that for the past three school years, Latino students in RPS have trailed behind all of their peers when it comes to graduating. The commission will identify steps in an effort to significantly improve academic and non-academic outcomes for Latino students, including English learners. For the entire RPS Class of 2022, 74.3% satisfied graduation requirements, a decrease of 4.2 percentage points from that of the districts prior graduating class. However, the graduation rate across Richmond schools was still higher than in the 2019-20 school year. Richmond Public Schools Class of 2022s graduation figure ranks below the states 92.1% graduation rate. The Class of 2022s statewide graduation rate, released quietly on the Department of Educations website, is a slight decrease from the previous class. Of the 98,648 students in the Class of 2022, 5.19% dropped out, compared with 4.3% for the Class of 2021. The Virginia Department of Education has not formally communicated anything related to graduation rates this fall. Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow did not respond to a recent request for comment. Balow has expressed criticism with recent reports of annual statewide accountability exams and accreditation ratings. A General District Court judge in Richmond ruled on Friday in favor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, finding that the Youngkin administration had to describe the subject matter of withheld emails. In August, RTD reporter Charlotte Rene Woods submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the governors office for emails sent and received by March Bell during that month. Bell is a senior adviser to Bob Mosier, the Virginia secretary of public safety and homeland security, with an annual salary of $125,000. The administration hired Bell over the summer but never publicly announced his appointment. The information was revealed in an offer letter from Youngkins chief of staff that activist Josh Stanfield obtained through a FOIA and shared with The Times-Dispatch. The Times-Dispatch then filed a FOIA for Bells emails in August. The administration produced some emails but withheld what Denise Burch, an executive assistant, termed approximately a ream of paper or about 500 pages worth of correspondence, citing an exception in FOIA law known as the working papers exclusion. It applies to records prepared by or for the office of the governor, including Cabinet secretaries, for their personal or deliberative use. However, in withholding emails sent or received by Bell, the administration failed to describe with reasonable particularity the subject matter of the withheld emails as required by FOIA. Judge Mansi Shah ruled that the administration will need to provide that information by Friday. The office of the attorney general from which an attorney defended the administration in the hearing declined to comment. The state Freedom of Information Act ensures that members of the public have access to records of government bodies and officials. The working papers exemption allows elected officials to conduct business without everything being subject to FOIA request, but it has been used by various governors to limit whats available. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition of Open Government, said she is pleased with the judges ruling. Im just really glad to see judges recognizing that when the law asks or when the law says that governments are supposed to do something when theyre responding to your FOIA requests that they actually do it, she said. Rhynes organization advocates for transparency in local and state government. In regard to Fridays ruling, Rhyne said its important to know the context of things that are being withheld. Though Bell is still a new addition to the Youngkin administration, this adviser role is not his first time working for the government. He was previously a deputy director at the Department of Environmental Quality before the head of the agency asked him to resign in 1997 following accusations of mishandling funds. More recently, he served as staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives panel that investigated Planned Parenthood. The 15-month investigation in 2015 failed to find evidence that the organization was selling fetal tissue and stemmed from edited videos created by an anti-abortion activist. In 2019, Planned Parenthood won $2 million in a lawsuit over the videos. He is also listed as the president of the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics. The organization sells Christian home-school curriculums, Bible studies and Christian-based self-help books. A man is dead following a single-vehicle crash into a Richmond home Thursday afternoon, Richmond police said. Officers were called to the intersection of Buford and Lynhaven avenues to respond to a report of a collision. When they arrived, they found a van had crashed through a fence on one property and collided with a house on a second property. An adult male, the sole occupant of the van, was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injury, police said. The house was unoccupied at the time of the crash, police said. The medical examiner will determine the cause and manner of death. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact RPD Crash Team Investigator G. Drago at (804) 646-1369 or call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000. The P3 Tips Crime Stoppers app for smartphones may also be use. All Crime Stoppers methods are anonymous. Before Aubrey Layne served in Richmond for eight years as secretary of both finance and transportation, he was a businessman and accountant in Hampton Roads. Now, Layne is a senior executive at a Hampton Roads health care company and chairman of a state authority governing a system of ports that touches almost every part of Virginias economy. With a close perspective on both regions, he said this week that the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas must act with a sense of urgency to collaborate on big initiatives, including unified oversight of three metropolitan airports, widening the final stretch of Interstate 64, expanding passenger rail and inter-regional bike trails, and investing in offshore wind and advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing. Think Big. Act Boldly. Embrace Urgency was the message Layne delivered to about 90 people at a dinner in Williamsburg on Thursday night for a conference sponsored by RVA757 Connects and the chambers of commerce for both regions to promote development of the I-64 Innovation Corridor. Layne served under two Democratic governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam and as an unpaid adviser to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who has made economic development a top priority for Virginia. He said its time for a joint authority to oversee the three airports that separately serve the Richmond area, Peninsula and Hampton Roads, just as the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority manages Washington Dulles in Loudoun County and Reagan National in Arlington County. Richmond International, Norfolk International and Newport News/Williamsburg International could collaborate in the same way, instead of competing against one another within a 70-mile radius, Layne reiterated in an interview on Friday. Those three airports have got to be managed as a common entity, he said. Were never going to get appropriate air service with those three airports unless they work together. Politically, it would be a daunting task for regions that generally compete against one another or among the localities that comprise them, acknowledged Brian Anderson, president and CEO of Chamber RVA and a former local elected official in Georgia. But Anderson said combining the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas into one megaregion would make them the 17th-largest economic region in the country and make it easier to compete for big economic development projects. You add us together from the beach to Richmond, youve got something, he said. Layne, who was transportation secretary under McAuliffe, said Virginia also has to finish widening I-64 from two to three lanes in each direction between Richmond and Williamsburg, a $750 million project that is a top priority of Youngkin and Secretary of Transportation Shep Miller. Miller spoke earlier Thursday to 120 people gathered for the Convergence 2022 conference. Virginias new two-year budget includes $470 million in state money for the project, which also is getting financial support from transportation commissions for both regions and is awaiting a potential federal grant under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that President Joe Biden signed late last year. But Layne also sees transportation as more than roads and airports. He also urged the two regions to work together on expanding passenger rail service, including proposed high-speed links to Raleigh, N.C., and creating a new bike trail from Richmond to Virginia Beach in time for the nations 250th birthday celebration in 2026. The proposed Birthplace of America Trail would build on the popularly of the Virginia Capital Trail between Richmond and Jamestown by extending it both to the end of the Peninsula at Hampton and south of the James River through Hampton Roads to the Atlantic Ocean. It would cost an estimated $150 million, but Layne said it like the Fall Line Trail proposed from Ashland to Petersburg is not about taking away dollars from building roads. We have the world looking at us [in 2026], and eco-tourism is very important, he said in the interview. Layne was unsparing in the outlook if the two regions dont work together on common priorities, especially in Hampton Roads, which he said is lagging almost every major metropolitan area in job growth, standard of living and median earnings. We have a choice, he said in his presentation. We can obsess over our past challenges, or we can focus on our future opportunities. One of the biggest opportunities, especially in Hampton Roads, is the development of an offshore wind industry to serve a massive wind farm proposed by Dominion Energy 27 miles off the Atlantic Coast from Virginia Beach and other offshore wind farms proposed along the East Coast. The Dominion project currently is hung up in a dispute between the company and the State Corporation Commission over protection for monopoly electricity customers if the wind turbines dont perform as projected, but Layne said the industry has huge potential for creating jobs and spurring economic activity. We need to look past the political energy discussions and focus on what do we have to do to get those folks here because its going to happen somewhere, he said in the interview. Its already happening. As chairman of the board of commissioners for the Virginia Port Authority, Layne said the project also is important to support a fast-growing port that he said supports about 437,000 jobs and $100 billion in spending across the state. Among other big opportunities he sees for the two regions is digital technology, including undersea telecommunications cables that connect Hampton Roads and the Richmond area with Europe and South America. Those cables are already driving economic development opportunities in the Richmond area, including data centers in eastern Henrico County and new manufacturing projects in Chesterfield County. Data centers and digital networks represent one of a series of growing industry clusters, including advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing and life sciences in the Richmond and Petersburg areas. Layne, now executive vice president of governance and external affairs at Sentara, said his company is doing its part with a health care system that incorporates both medical providers and insurers, and invests $250 million in what he called community support. Sentara also is a potential investor in an advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing and research cluster in the Richmond and Tri-Cities areas to restore the nations stockpile of essential medicines and to make them more affordably. The players include Virginia Commonwealth University, the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, and drug manufacturers Civica, Phlow and AMPAC Fine Chemicals. We are looking at it as a potential investment, Layne said in the interview. As a former businessman and state official, he said the regions cant just count on state and local governments to chart their future. If were looking for government to solve our issues, thats going to be a big mistake, he said. This has got to be business-led. The art communities of the New River and Roanoke valleys struggled this week to come to terms with the sudden death of Joe Kelley, who for decades filled numerous roles producing his own art and facilitating the work of others. Weve lost a truly special person, said Cindy Petersen, executive director of the Taubman Museum of Art. As the Taubmans head preparator and art handler/technician, Kelley designed and installed exhibits, a task he also took on for years at other arts centers. But he also showed his own art often whimsical paintings or sculpture, but sometimes other forms. The Taubman recently exhibited one of Kelleys artworks that is in the museums permanent collection. Created with Carlton Sturges Abbott, Pathways, Appalachian Trail Frieze gathers 335 photographs taken in the mid-1990s by participants in hikes that Kelley led. To accompany the exhibit, the museum recently posted a video of Kelley talking about it. On Sunday, Kelley, of Blacksburg, died at age 55. Petersen said that Kelley served as a role model and mentor to many of the staff at the Taubman and that his co-workers, like others around the regions art scene, were struggling with his absence. Joe was a beloved staff member, so respected and admired by so many in our community, Petersen said. She cited his calm and reassuring manner and innate talent at fixing just about anything. He was really ready to make things better for anybody, Petersen said. Kelley earned a bachelors degree in architecture from Virginia Tech but soon turned to making his living as a licensed contractor, sometimes joining other builders crews but often functioning as a one-man operation planning and carrying out all manner of repair and carpentry projects. Through it all, Kelleys art involvement never stopped. In Facebook posts this week, friends remembered a years-long series of paintings, often on bits of wood, titled The Natural History of the Undescribed Birds. They recalled Kelley setting up a stand on a Blacksburg sidewalk every Valentines Day to sell homemade cards made from paper hearts. Kelleys brother, Roanoke Times Editor Brian Kelley, remembered this week that Joe Kelley took a job as a designer at a custom lighting company, but soon went back to working for himself. He liked being his own boss. He liked being able to do his art when he needed to, Brian Kelley said. It was at his brothers home in Roanoke that Joe Kelley died Sunday. He had gone to Lexington on Saturday afternoon to help with an art installation, worked at the Taubman in the evening, then stopped by his brothers home to change clothes. I told him to stay here and drive back to Blacksburg in the morning, when a birthday celebration was planned for their mother, Brian Kelley said. The brothers watched television, then Brian Kelley went to bed, he said. In the morning, Leigh Anne Kelley, Brians wife, found her brother-in-law on the couch in front of the television. The cause of death was thought to be a sudden cardiac event, Brian Kelley said. Looking back, Brian Kelley said that he was glad that newspaper work brought him to Blacksburg years before and that for about a decade, the two brothers lived basically down the street from one another. It was a real gift, Brian Kelley said. Clover Archer, director of the Staniar Gallery at Washington and Lee University, said Thursday that she was stunned when she heard about Joe Kelleys passing. He had been amazingly generous and kind to come to Lexington on a Saturday to help with installation of Los Angeles artist Esteban Ramon Perezs mixed-media pieces, Archer said. The setup was complicated, involving a lot of aircraft safety cable but he just made it so smooth, Archer said. It had been the first time that she worked with Kelley, Archer said. Ruth Waalkes, executive director of the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, said it was hard to know where to start in talking about Kelley. He was so humble he had so many fans he has left a mark across this community and across this region, Waalkes said. Since the Moss center opened in 2013, Kelley had helped set up exhibitions. He exhibited his own work there in 2016 in a show that featured some of his bird paintings and also a series titled Piano Haints, humorous sculptures made from salvaged bits of a junked piano. Waalkes called the exhibit really beautiful, such intuitive work something I think everyone connected with. Ann Linden, longtime New River Valley resident, businesswoman and arts patron, said Kelley had been a friend for 30 years. Kelley helped repair and preserve several of Lindens buildings, including the space that houses the Tech student-run XYZ Gallery in downtown Blacksburg. He rented his house from Linden. She said that she was devastated by his death. It isnt just me, its the community Theres a big hole in our community now, Linden said. Andrew Schenker, who with his wife operates Montgomery County organic grower Greenstar Farm, remembered Kelley working with him to put on a barn roof. Schenker called him very easy-going but also very careful, very safe. The two were friends for decades, meeting in the early 1990s when both were part of a crew moving artworks for artist and Virginia Tech art professor Ray Kass, Schenker said. Kass, now a professor emeritus of art, said Thursday that Kelley had seemed to come into his own in the past two years with the job at Taubman and with his own art. Im so sad Im almost 80 and I counted on Joe always being around, Kass said. Kass described Kelleys own art as extreme evocations of images from nature that spoke to a universal language of life that we all share. All his bird and animal images and things might as well be portraits of people. But he said Kelley also excelled at helping others create. Kass recalled the 1980s launch of the Mountain Lake Workshop, a residency series that featured as an early artist, John Cage. In 1990, Cage was working outdoors, using water colors and smoke-applied soot on 30-foot-long strips of paper. It was getting dark and the wind was picking up. On Cages first attempt, the paper tore, Kass said. The second attempt did not seem likely to fare any better. Kass credited Kelley with helping broker a solution tackle the giant strips in sections. Joe knew how to listen. He was quiet. He would take it all in. People were comfortable with him. They could work with him, Kass said. Cages paintings, titled New River Rocks and Smoke, are now in the Menil Collection in Houston. As for setting up exhibitions, Kass said Kelley had a rare combination of skills that made him especially suited for the task: a deep knowledge of art history, expertise in building that let him construct whatever was needed, and insight into an artists perspective from being an artist himself. Arranging exhibits requires considering the juxtapositions of different pieces of art and how lines of sight can affect relationships between artworks or between one exhibit and another in an adjoining space, Kass said. Its not just hanging pictures on the wall, Kass said. Now, Kass said, people are coming from all over the country to remember Kelley at a service set for Sunday at McCoy Funeral Home in Blacksburg. People loved him, Kass said. New York Pakistans anti-India action was seen in the United Nations General Assembly. Ukraine Russia war was being discussed in the United Nations General Assembly. Pakistans representative Munir Akram compared the Russian-Ukraine war with the Kashmir issue. Thereafter Ruchira Kamboj Indias Permanent Representative to the United Nations gave them an apt response slamming them. Ruchira Kamboj said, when a discussion on a serious subject like the Ukraine Russia war is being discussed in the UN general assembly, but we are surprised to see a country misusing it and making petty and frivolous statements about my country. Pakistan deserves UNs collective contempt ! Ruchira Kamboj The country which has the mentality of always telling lies is daily seeking sympathy, but it is of no use. After such statements, Pakistan deserves collective contempt. Whether Pakistans representative accepts it or not, still all parts of Jammu-Kashmir are an integral part of India and will always remain so said Ruchira Kamboj. We call on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism so that our citizens can enjoy their right to life and liberty, Kamboj added. Indias neutral role Vote about the Ukraine Russia war in the United Nations General Assembly A resolution condemning Russias annexation of 4 provinces of Ukraine was passed. 143 countries voted for the resolution, while 5 countries voted against it. 35 countries including India abstained from voting. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Meta hits back in fight with FTC over VR company acquisition Facebook parent Meta struck back in its legal battle with federal regulators over its proposed acquisition of virtual-reality company Within Unlimited and its fitness app Supernatural FLORENCE Florence 1 School Board of Trustees recognized a teacher and three administrators at Thursdays meeting in the auditorium of South Florence High School. Florence 1 Schools announced its Assistant Principal of the Year Amy Williams, McLaurin Elementary School; Principal of the Year Tara Newton, Briggs Elementary School; and Teacher of the Year Hugh Pressley, West Florence High School, in September. Thursday night, the school board recognized and honored Williams, Newton and Pressley. The school board also recognized Superintendent Richard OMalley, who was named Palmetto State Arts Educations 2022 South Carolina Arts Administrator of the Year on Tuesday in a ceremony in Columbia. OMalley is the first superintendent to receive this award in nearly a decade. American Heart Association representative Jane Lott presented plaques to Florence 1 Schools that participated in the Kids Heart Challenge last year. The American Heart Association presented heart healthy information to 5,186 Florence County residents. The heart association gave $3,960 in physical education equipment. North Vista Elementary School received a $1,024 grant, she said. Lott said 10 Florence 1 School District schools participated in the Kids Heart Challenge, and the district was No. 8 in South Carolina in participation. This years theme is Be the torch of hope and kindness, she said. OMalley received a plaque for the districts participation in the program. The Top 3 schools were Delmae Heights Elementary, Greenwood Elementary and Carver Elementary. Other schools participating in the Kids Heart Challenge were Dewey L. Carter Elementary, Henry Timrod Elementary, Lucy T. Davis Elementary, McLaurin Elementary, North Vista Elementary, Theodore Lester Elementary and Royall Elementary. The school board approved its financial statements, minutes from the Sept. 8 board meeting and personnel. The board retired into executive session to receive legal advice concerning certain properties and revenues in the district and to review student disciplinary action appeals. After returning from executive session, the board didnt take any action on the legal advice, and made four recommendation on student appeals. FLORENCE Replacement of two fire hydrants will require water service to be shut off between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday in neighborhoods around the 3800 block of Pine Needles Road. The planned outage will affect residents in the 3800 block of Pine Needles Road, Chalmers Row, Manigault Court, Firestone Drive, Dunes Drive, Pebble Road and Masters Circle. The two hydrants are out-of-service, which became a problem in mid-September when an early morning at 3814 Pine Needles Road destroyed one house and three cars and damaged a house a fourth care. The hydrants didnt work and firefighters had to shuttle water in to the area to battle the blazes. Firefighters had to shuttle more than 30,000 gallons of water into the site. Once the hydrants are installed, water service will be restored. Water lines will be flushed. Residents may experience some water discoloration. Air may be also trapped in residents plumbing. It will be released as the residents use their water system. Because the repair requires a temporary shutdown of the water system, and a loss of water pressure, the South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control requires a boil order to be issued for affected customers. The boil-water advisory is designed to protect the health of residents until test results can confirm the water is safe to drink. Water customers in the area will be urged to vigorously boil their water for a least one full minute prior to drinking or cooking until the city of Florence informs them the water is safe. Ice made from water that has not been boiled should not be used for drinking purposes. Test results for bacteriological quality should be completed on Thursday, Oct. 20. When the results are in, the city will notify customers about the status of the boil water advisory. If you have any questions, call the city of Florences Public Works and Utilities Office at 843-665-3236 or the South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control at 843-661-4825. Like Halleys Comet, Im predictable. I come around to the same subject matter every so often. When I do, its because something triggered memories. A few days ago I drove past the Mule Day Festival at Callaway Plantation at Washington, Georgia. Headed along Highway 78 to the Georgia-Auburn game, I kept on keeping on, but a good crowd milled about on Mule Day. The turnout for the Chamber of Commerces 41st annual Mule Day Festival warmed my heart, as Ive long been an admirer of the mule, that stalwart, dignified laborer. The mule deserves its day in the sun. Once in a blue moon, and I mean the bluest of blue moons, Ill see a man plowing with a mule. Its like being a time traveler. Otherwise, I see mules here and there browsing, peering over a fence, and in general minding their business. Each time I see these noble beasts of burden, my mind jumps to three things. First among my mule memories are boyhood days at my grandfathers farm. I rode a mule on Granddads farm, no saddle. The mules sharp, bony back chewed into me and left a sore reminder of what makes saddles benevolent. That old mule had pain of his own, a large, festering abscess on a knee. Granddad had fastened a chain to the mule with an old tire attached to it. Wherever the mule wandered, the tire trailed it. Looking back through hindsights clear lens, I figure the tire kept it from jumping fences, and that takes me to Edgefield, South Carolina, and its feud that led to eight peoples death when a mule jumped a fence and broke a heifers leg. Its a winding, shocking tale and if you havent read it, google my story How A Mule Kick Killed Eight People. Granddad, having roots in Edgefield, had to have heard about the infamous mule kick and didnt want his mule getting into another mans pasture. The third place my mind jumps too is the mules prominent role in Southern literature. Scholars have studied the mules contributions to stories and theres no shortage of writers who put dead mules in their stories. Among them are Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Richard Wright, Doris Betts, Reynolds Price, Clyde Edgerton, Larry Brown, and Cormac McCarthy. Jerry Leath Mills, a University of North Carolina professor, deceased like the mules he studied, developed a litmus test for what makes Southern literature Southern. It has a dead mule in it. Indeed, many Southern stories feature deceased mules. Cormac McCarthys novel Blood Meridian makes him the king of literary mule carnage. Men shoot them, roast them, drown them, stab them, and mules die for want of water. In one scene, he does in 50 out of a conducta of 122 mules. Theyre packing in quicksilver for mining when an ambush runs them off a cliff. The animals dropping silently as martyrs, turning sedately in the empty air and exploding on the rocks below in startling bursts of blood and silver as the flasks broke open and the mercury loomed wobbling in the air in great sheets and lobes and small trembling satellites .... Half a hundred mules had been ridden off the escarpment. Thats a tragic but fictional end to noble beasts of burden. I admire mules and it does my heart good to see others pay them homage. Such is the case with a book I have, The Natural Superiority of Mules. Its dedication points out that farmers bought hundreds of thousands of mules across the South. The progeny of a male donkey and female horse, the mule long provided power for farming, timbering, gristmilling, and other labor-intensive work. But mules knew when to call it a day. Theres an old saying mule sense? Mules would sometimes refuse to carry a weight too heavy or lie down when ridden to the point of exhaustion. It wasnt stubbornness; it was good sense. It knew when it had hit the wall and its health was in danger. Mule sense. Something we humans need. Dalondo Moultrie is the assistant managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at dalondo.moultrie@seguingazette.com . Notable new district court opinion strikes down federal serial number law but upholds felon possession ban applying Bruen | Main | Notable comments on drug sentencing policies from rival Senate candidates in Pennsylvania October 14, 2022 Might new Justice Jackson create a whole new Court in criminal cases (at least on acquitted conduct)? The question in the title of this post is a modified version of a question I asked at the end of this lengthy July 2022 post which set out some of my initial thoughts on the SCOTUS criminal justice work during October Term 2021. Here is what said at that time in that post: One often hears that every new Justice makes for a whole new Supreme Court. That aphorism is, of course, technically true; but most folks, myself included, expect new Justice Jackson to approach and vote on issues quite similarly to how retired Justice Breyer did. That said, Justice Jackson might not track Justice Breyer on some criminal justices issues (such as Apprendi rights), and perhaps she might encourage the Court to take up more or different types of criminal justice cases. Stay tuned. In this Bloomberg Law piece, Jordan Rubin picks up this theme under the headline "Justice Jackson Can Shift High Courts Crime Docket Post Breyer." Here is how this piece gets started: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will face an early test of whether she can form a new majority in some criminal cases along with Republican-appointed colleagues on issues that cross ideological lines. Jackson is expected to side with criminal defendants in cases involving sentencing and search and seizure more often than her predecessor, Stephen Breyer, who cast tie-breaking votes for the government. But to make a majority on the court dominated by six Republican appointees, criminal defendants may need to attract not only Jackson and the other two Democratic appointees but two Republican appointees as well. Justice Jackson is going to bring all of her experiences in the criminal legal system to the table and to conference and I anticipate her voice and vote having added gravitas on criminal law, criminal procedure, and federal sentencing, said Devi Rao, director of the MacArthur Justice Centers Washington office and deputy director of its Supreme Court and Appellate Program. Shell be more than just the junior Justice when it comes to these issues, Rao said of the former public defender who represented Guantanamo detainees and was a sentencing commissioner at the center of reducing drug punishments. An upcoming test of a potential new criminal coalition comes as the justices prepare to consider taking a case that asks whether judges can punish defendants for conduct theyre acquitted of at trial. The rest of the Bloomberg article discusses a case that should be familiar to readers, namely McClinton v. US, in which the Seventh Circuit affirmed a 19-year sentence that was based heavily on the judge's determination that McClinton was to be held responsible for a murder even after a jury had acquitted him of that killing. As detailed in this SCOTUS docket sheet, a number of notable interest groups have also filed amicus briefs in support of cert in this case (and I also have this amicus brief filed). The government has now received three extensions on their response to the cert petition, so we likely will not have a cert decision until next month (if not later). A few recent of many, many prior related posts: October 14, 2022 at 11:46 AM | Permalink Comments Seems like Ms. Rao expects Justice Jackson to be an advocate for a pre-existing bias rather than decide the particular case on the facts, briefing and argument. Didn't know that's how a Justice is supposed to act, but I guess things are different when you've put in time as a Public Defender. Also there's the question of precedent, see Watts, but precedent only counts when it's one liberals like, https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/stare-decisis-legitimacy-and-liberals. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 14, 2022 8:06:02 PM Mr. Otis, after the Dobbs decision, I don't think precedent matters a damn. Posted by: anon12 | Oct 15, 2022 12:12:40 PM anon12 -- Did you have the same grumpy attitude about overruling precedent when Roper v. Simmons overruled Stanford v. Kentucky? Did precedent matter a damn then? Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 15, 2022 3:33:10 PM Dobbs withdrew a constitutional right that had been recognized for 50 years and affected countless thousands of women; and will affect countless hundreds of thousands more in the future. Hardly comparable to Roper. I may be grumpy, but I stand by my opinion: after Dobbs, precedent doesn't matter a damn. Posted by: anon12 | Oct 16, 2022 4:11:12 PM Anon, Roe was one of the most flawed decisions in the history of the court. Even countless liberal scholars felt so, including RBG. You are arguing the result, not the merits, of the decision. Posted by: TarlsQtr | Oct 17, 2022 9:38:58 AM anon12 -- You unintentionally make my point. In my view, the standards for evaluating precedent are neutral and do not depend on whether it favors liberals (Roe) or conservatives (Stanford v. Kentucky). You are free to disagree (and, obviously, do). P.S. Dobbs did not withdraw a constitutional right. It determined, in an analysis you don't contest on the merits, that there NEVER WAS such a right, not in the Constitution anyway, any more than segregationists had a "right" to exclude blacks. They never had such a right to start with, and Brown simply corrected an earlier misapprehension. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 17, 2022 10:25:50 AM Since when did I need to start bringing popcorn to the comments... Posted by: atomicfrog | Oct 17, 2022 7:42:00 PM Post a comment US Sentencing Commission produces "additional analyses" of those receiving federal marijuana possession pardons | Main | Might new Justice Jackson create a whole new Court in criminal cases (at least on acquitted conduct)? October 13, 2022 Notable new district court opinion strikes down federal serial number law but upholds felon possession ban applying Bruen A helpful reader sent me this morning an interesting new federal district court opinion concerning Second Amendment limits on a couple of federal criminal laws. Here is how the opinion in US v. Price, No. 2:22-cr-00097 (SD WV Oct. 12, 2022) (available here), gets started: The question before the court is whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), which prohibits felons from possessing firearms, and 18 U.S.C. 922(k), which prohibits possession of a firearm with an altered, obliterated, or removed serial number, are constitutional after the Supreme Courts recent decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). After considering the arguments presented here, I find that Section 922(g)(1) is constitutional, but I find that Section 922(k) is not. For the following reasons, Mr. Prices motion to dismiss the indictment against him is GRANTED as to Count Two and DENIED as to Count One. Based on my first quick read of this opinion, I am not sure I am wholly convinced by the analysis driving either part of the ruling. But I am neither a Second Amendment expert nor a historian, so what do I know about such matter (other than Bruen continues to provide a basis for a lot of new arguments against a lot of federal criminal laws). Of course, the rejection of a Bruen-based attacks on felon-in-possession prohibition is already become quite common. As the Price opinion notes "Relying on the same ['law-abiding'] dicta in the wake of Bruen, at least nine federal district courts have rejected constitutional challenges to Section 922(g)(1)." What still seems notable here is that the author of this opinion, District Judge Joseph Goodwin, reads Bruen to require him to strike down another part of 18 U.S.C. 922 while making this point: "that firearms with an obliterated serial number are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable, that argument is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering." Price, Slip op. at 14. October 13, 2022 at 07:04 PM | Permalink Comments But what's meant by a "law abiding" person? Is someone currently not law abiding if they've had a perfectly clean record for several decades? And if they were never even accused of any *violent* crime, why should they be denied their right to a firearm even if their conviction was just last week? And what if they never got a trial, but were coerced and/or tricked into pleading guilty? Punishments should be finite and proportionate to the crime. If someone got a ticket for driving too fast half a century ago, we don't put them in prison for five years if they're found sitting in a stationary car, just because they *might* drive it, and if they do so they *might* drive it too fast, and if so they *might* hurt someone? It's insanity. Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 14, 2022 12:08:00 AM There are so many questions, Keith, about how this "law abiding" dicta is going to be turned into law in the Second Amendment context. For starters, this limit on the rights of "the people" is entirely a-textual. Indeed, the text of the Second Amendment describing who has rights ("the people") is textually the same as what the Framers used elsewhere in the Constitution and particularly in the First, Fourth, Ninth, Tenth and (essentially) the Fifth Amendments (which uses "person" and "any person"). Are we going to reinterpret all the rights in those provisions and elsewhere to only cover so-called "law abiding" persons? Moreover, is a person with a speeding ticket excluded from the "law abiding" class? Heck, how about anyone who has ever sped or once went through a red light, whether they got a ticket or not? How about persons who drank alcohol before they turned 21? How about the millions now violating federal law by using medical marijuana consistent with state law? And so on and so on. Judge Wilkinson once famously described Heller as the new Roe for being a judicially created constitutional doctrine with lots of unclear complications that the judiciary will have to keep inventing doctrines to manage. Perhaps we should call Bruen the replacement Roe since Bruen was decided the day before Roe was reversed in Dobbs. Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 14, 2022 9:05:23 AM Besides this case and the district court out in WDTX that struck down 922(n), are there any other similar decisions striking down federal criminal firearm statutes? I am preparing to file a motion challenging the statutory provisions prohibiting possession of an unregistered firearm, possession of a machine gun, and engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license. Posted by: Tom Church | Oct 14, 2022 2:26:12 PM It's amusing, I guess, that the one and only time you see any enthusiasm from the Left for gun rights is when we're talking about guns possessed by people who have run afoul of the law. Otherwise, all we hear is how bad, bad, bad guns are for society -- or as Barack Obama once famously said, all those hayseeds clinging to their guns and religion. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 14, 2022 8:11:04 PM Bill, do you disagree with the notion that none of the other rights secured for "the people" by the Bill of Rights are deemed wholly inapplicable to "people who have run afoul of the law"? That's the issue --- if the Second Amendment is understood to secure certain rights to "the people," what is the textual basis for elitist judges saying that this right actually only extends to certain people of their choosing (and how do us hayseeds know who are the Second Amendment chosen ones)? Of course, almost everyone "runs afoul of the law" sometimes --- I would be surprised if more than 5% of the US population never engaged in underage drinking or traffic offenses. Indeed, I have done both, and so maybe you and some judges think I am to be excluded from "the people" with rights under the Second Amendment. But how can I or the rest of us hayseeds know? If gun rights are so very important, isn't it critical for us hayseeds to get some clarity on this matter? Until we do, I am expecting a lot more litigation, and I fear a lot less attention to the text of the Second Amendment than so-called textualist seem to claim is essential to proper constitutional interpretation. Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 14, 2022 11:42:54 PM Doug -- "Bill, do you disagree with the notion that none of the other rights secured for "the people" by the Bill of Rights are deemed wholly inapplicable to "people who have run afoul of the law"? Your premise is wildly inaccurate. 2A rights are not "wholly inapplicable" to law breakers or anything close to that. The huge majority of criminal offenses and convictions are for misdemeanors, to which, obviously, felon-in-possession laws do not apply. But your position is indefensible regardless. "The people" also includes the mentally deranged and criminally insane. Your "textualist" position obligates you to urge gun rights for them too, not just Martha Stewart et al. Are you going to? Good luck with that! Or better yet, while Biden, Pelosi and Schumer are in charge of the political branches, get the federal FIP laws repealed. Why is it always up to someone else to do the Left's work for them? Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 15, 2022 10:27:46 AM Bill, we are not talking about felon-in-possession statutes, we are talking about the reach of the Second Amendment and the dicta in SCOTUS constitutional rulings suggesting it only covers/extends to "law abiding" individuals. I can read/understand a federal or state statute that aspires to specify statutory rights (or prohibitions), and we can debate in the legislatures what makes for sound policy. But constitutional rights and jurisprudence takes the policy debate away from legislators and makes these matters only for judicial determination. Ergo the importance of and challenge of, in this context and others, understanding the reach and application of a-textual judicial dicta in Heller and Bruen that the Second Amendment only applies to so-called "law abiding" individuals. This is no longer "work" for the political branches, this is work created by SCOTUS rulings that are continuing to produce lots of litigation and leaves me confused about the scope of constitutional rights and proper means of interpretation. I am not sure of your definition of "mentally deranged and criminally insane," but I think it very worrisome to envision application of any rights limited by state claims of mental illness to exclude large portions of our nation's population. Notably, the CDC states that "more than 50% [of Americans] will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime" and that "1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year." Are you asserting that all these people are permanently and forever excluded from Second Amendment (and other) constitutional rights? Gosh knows, many of the political right think those on the political left are "mentally deranged and criminally insane," and vice versa. Are you and your elite jurist friends going to give us hayseeds a more clear accounting of who you think is enough of a good person to get constitutional rights as part of "the people"? Of course, established constitutional doctrines permit restrictions on all sorts of rights as part of a lawful punishment and in other limited contexts -- eg, prisoners have lots of their rights diminished while in prison and kids have lots of their rights diminished while in school and elsewhere until they become adults. But I am not aware of any other constitutional rights that we say are forever wholly inapplicable to any and every person who might be considered to not be "law abiding." Maybe that will be how the Second Amendment gets interpreted, but it will be a great example of policy-making by the courts, not textual or originalist interpretation. Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 15, 2022 11:20:11 AM I for one *am* talking about felon-in-possession laws. What is a felon? Anyone who has *ever* been convicted of any felony, no matter how long ago, even if it was a non-violent crime, even if they never had a trial or an effective defense attorney, and even if the only reason they weren't able to later prove their innocent to a court is because they missed a deadline? In just three years my wrongful conviction will be further from the present than the first spaceship is from the first airplane. Is there no such thing as an ex-felon? And what is possession? Since I don't drive, friends sometimes give me rides. Some of them keep firearms in their car. Am I guilty of possession if I remain in the car while they get out to pump gas? If I help a friend move house, am I guilty of possession if one of dozens of cardboard boxes I lift and carry for them contains a gun? And what is a firearm? Here in Virginia, someone was convicted of possession and sentenced to a mandatory five years in prison because he owned a boat, and on that boat there was a flare piston, a mandatory piece of safety equipment. If the boat had lacked the flare pistol, he would have been guilty of a different crime. Anyone who has served their sentence has paid their debt to society, and should immediately get all their rights back. And anyone who has committed crimes but never been charged for them is legally innocent until such time, if ever, that they are charged and convicted. At the very least, why not restore all rights to anyone who finished their sentence more than however many years after which the recidivism rate drops to that of never-convicted people the same age? Such a person is obviously either reformed or was innocent all along. What purpose does continued loss of rights serve, other than gratuitous cruelty? Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 15, 2022 2:50:43 PM Doug -- "Bill, we are not talking about felon-in-possession statutes..." ...says the fellow who titled this entry (emphasis added), "Notable new district court opinion strikes down federal serial number law but UPHOLDS FELON POSSESSION BAN applying Bruen." "But constitutional rights and jurisprudence takes the policy debate away from legislators and makes these matters only for judicial determination." Thank you for adding insightful support to my suggestion that the whole FIP debate at the federal level would be moot if Biden, Schumer and Pelosi would just repeal the FIP statute. I think the best time to do this would be, ummmmmm, about five days before the midterms, no? Congress should get on board with a full-throated Bill of Rights, no?? "Ergo the importance of and challenge of, in this context and others, understanding the reach and application of a-textual judicial dicta in Heller and Bruen that the Second Amendment only applies to so-called "law abiding" individuals. This is no longer "work" for the political branches, this is work created by SCOTUS rulings that are continuing to produce lots of litigation and leaves me confused about the scope of constitutional rights and proper means of interpretation." But Congress could play a major part in the most nettlesome item sticking in the "law abiding"-concerns throat, to wit, FIP bans. Let's just do one thing at a time. Make life easy! The Democratic majorities could repeal FIP bans tomorrow, significantly narrowing the scope of any remaining 2A infringements. I mean, Dick Durbin would be OK with that..........wouldn't he??? And AOC? "I am not sure of your definition of 'mentally deranged and criminally insane,'"... Fine, then use your own definition, then tell us whether, under that definition, it would be unconstitutional for Congress to ban mentally deranged and criminally insane people from possessing guns. Don't worry, I'll wait. "CDC states that "more than 50% [of Americans] will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime" and that "1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year." Are you asserting that all these people are permanently and forever excluded from Second Amendment (and other) constitutional rights?" Nope, just asserting that I get to state my own positions in my own words, rather than have tortured versions of them suggested for me. But we've been over that ground sooooo many times before................ " Are you and your elite jurist friends going to give us hayseeds a more clear accounting of who you think is enough of a good person to get constitutional rights as part of "the people"? Well phooey, Doug, there you go again. Just as I'm about to get mad at you, you crack me up. I love it when the Princeton/Harvard guy refers to himself as a "hayseed." As for my elite jurist friends............oh, if you only knew! But some things stay off the Internet. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 15, 2022 4:03:14 PM I wrote "In just three years my wrongful conviction will be further from the present than the first spaceship is from the first airplane." I apologize for the arithmetic error. Those events are 57.7 years apart. My alleged crime was 44.8 years ago. Instead I'll say further than the time from the First World War to the Vietnam War, or from the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 15, 2022 4:08:42 PM Bill, most states have FIP statutes, so even federal reform would not moot the issue of whether and how the Second Amendment has a unique a-textual limit that excludes large classes of Americans. And I do think legislators at the federal and state level ought to feel a commitment to comply and legislate in accord with the Constitution, which is why clear jurisprudence from SCOTUS is so important. Many legislators on both sides of the aisle view various forms of gun control to be important to advance public safety, so I do not expect repeals of FIP laws or other gun laws unless and until it is clear the Constitution demands as much -- providing yet another reason we need clarity from SCOTUS on this front. Just as I think it would be unconstitutional for Congress to say the First or Fourth or Fifth Amendments forever and categorically do not apply to anyone who has ever had mental illness, I do think it would be unconstitutional for Congress to say the Second Amendment forever and categorically does not apply to anyone who has ever had mental illness. I do think that if someone has been, under a proper process, adjudicated to be dangerous because of a mental condition, then that person can be deprived of guns until he or she can establish by some process that they are no longer dangerous. But I do not branding a person "mentally deranged," whatever that means, entails that he or she no long has any constitutional rights. Is that your belief? In the end, you likely want sound gun control policy. So do I. But limiting Second Amendment rights though invented, a-textual limits is judicial policy-making, not constitutional interpretation. That is my main point: modern Second Amendment jurisprudence is just policy-making by unelected jurists. I surmise you like that form of judicial policy-making in this context, while others prefer it in other contexts. But, since you often extol the virtues of honestly, I would like to see you honestly acknowledge that this is what's really afoot here. Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 15, 2022 7:32:46 PM Doug -- "I do think it would be unconstitutional for Congress to say the Second Amendment forever and categorically does not apply to anyone who has ever had mental illness." Good try, but not what I asked. What I asked was -- present tense -- using "your own definition, then tell us whether, under that definition, it would be unconstitutional for Congress to ban mentally deranged and criminally insane people from possessing guns." If you're the textualist you occasionally claim to be, your answer has to be that it's unconstitutional for the legislature to ban a person PRESENTLY criminally insane from possessing guns, since the Second Amendment contains absolutely no such exception. As completely crazy person is still a person. The only problem is that SCOTUS is never going to say any such thing, as we both know (and I strongly suspect, both want). The Fist Amendment likewise contains no exception allowing legislatures to ban a person from, shall we say, shouting FIRE in a crowded theater. But no court anywhere is crazy enough to say that a ban like that is a First Amendment violation. Textualism does not require judges to take leave of their senses. Cutting to the chase: Textualism is the strongly preferred method of interpretation, but has exceptions just as virtually everything has exceptions. This is not exactly earth shaking. The sensible debate is about what those exceptions are and how we go about deciding. Abortion as blessed in Roe was a preposterous exception to a textual reading, as was widely recognized at the time by, e.g., Ginsburg and John Hart Ely. Banning previously convicted felons, by contrast, had and has a long historical pedigree, which is why it got embraced by all five conservatives in Heller and implicitly even more firmly embraced by the four dissenting liberals. If you want to litigate the contours of the 2A, it's completely fine with me, but don't expect to knock out the FIP statutes. And let me add the footnote that the idea that convicted felons only want to be able to possess guns for defensive purposes is a pure, if frequent, fiction. The more typical reason is to use them offensively, for example, to blow the head off of the competing smack dealer. I've been around the track more often than that. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 15, 2022 9:54:32 PM Weakening the 922(g)(1) argument, I believe, is the definition in 18 USC 921(a)(20), that exclude from the reason of 922(g)(1) felons convicted of "any Federal or State offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices..." "Similar offenses" have been held to include securities law violations. Reyes v. Sessions, 342 F. Supp. 3d 141 (D.D.C. 2018). So not all felons are prohibited from possessing guns and ammo, only some. And we need not even get started on a former felon living in a state that happens to restore all civil rights. Posted by: Tom Root | Oct 16, 2022 10:00:07 AM Bill, thanks for at least admitting that textualism often can and will be modified by judicial "senses." And, as we both know, judicial "senses" have a way of evolving --- which is why I have long thought the only honest account of how all judges conduct constitutional interpretation is a form of living constitutionalism (now often hidden under a variety of semantic cloaks). Maybe to embrace your helpful labelling, and to honor our English heritage, we should call this "sense and sensibility constitutionalism." As for the link between guns and self defense, my understanding is that no advocate for Second Amendment rights is eager to limit the right to just keeping/bearing arms in self defense. Moreover, there is no doctrine at common law or in modern law that says that any group of individuals is forever or even at a particular moment barred from using reasonable force in self defense. I do not know who you want to call "criminally insane" -- is that someone criminally convicted who seems crazy like Steve Bannon or someone acquitted by reason of insanity like John Hinkley? In either case, if an angry person were to attack Bannon or Hinkley on the street with a knife, they would surely have a right to punch the attacker in a reasonable use of defensive force. Do you disagree? And that is what rankles: judges and justices and you are making up a crazy quilt of illogical rules for gun regulation that has no connection to either (a) common law or modern self defense doctrines OR (b) historical practices. Broad felon bans do NOT have a "long historical pedigree," especially at the federal level. If so-called originalists want to lean on history to cloak their "senses" of good policy, they ought at least make some effort to pay attention to the actual history. (Like all judges using their "senses" to be policy-makers, I am not a historian; I have read there are some older precedents for barring "dangerous" persons from access to guns, but many persons with felony convictions are not "dangerous.") It always seemed to me that voters did a nice job debating/securing gun rights at the ballot box when the judicial "sense" of the Second Amendment was captured by former CJ Burger's assertion that an individual rights approach to the Amendment was a "fraud." But, judicial personnel led to the judicial "sense" evolving to create an individual rights approach to the Amendment. But if and whenever the Justices are going to strike down duly enacted laws based on that notion of rights, they need to articulate clear and administrable law/policy for the rest of us to know what is allowed and what isn't as a matter of regulation and individual behavior. Before Bruen, it seemed public safety concerns could be part of the new Second Amendment jurisprudence that the Justices were inventing. But now that Bruen has articulated a new accounting of judicial "senses" of the Second Amendment, I am going to continue asking questions on behalf of us hayseeds who would benefit from the judicial elites trying at least a little harder to explain their latest "senses" today of what the Second Amendment means (at least before they evolve again). But, in the end, anyone with their eyes open know what is really afoot --- more judicial policy-making based on their living "senses" and not on the actual text or history of the Constitution. Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 16, 2022 10:52:57 AM Mr. Otis, you say, "And let me add the footnote that the idea that convicted felons only want to be able to possess guns for defensive purposes is a pure, if frequent, fiction. The more typical reason is to use them offensively, for example, to blow the head off of the competing smack dealer." Nobody thinks that's the "only" reason. Some want to hunt deer. And some, including me, only want to "possess" guns incidentally, e.g. when helping a friend who owns a gun to move house. If I were to see an abandoned pistol on a street, with children playing nearby who were likely to find it and play with it, should I get a mandatory five year sentence if I were to kick it into a storm drain? As you know, that is constructive possession. What's more likely in that scenario, given that I've never been accused, much less convicted, of any violent crime or any drug crime? That I wanted to keep a playful child from blowing his friend's head off, or that I intended to come back later to retrieve the piston from the storm sewer so as to go into business as a drug dealer by killing rival dealers? Again, it's been 44.8 years since my wrongful conviction. Even if I *had* been guilty of that non-violent office burglary, would it be accurate to call me a felon rather than a former felon? You ask about insane people possessing guns. I point out that we currently have an insane government possessing guns, and often using them to shoot people. The insane government also passes insane laws. You speak of states that restore all civil rights. Here in Virginia, former Governor McAullife claimed to restore all civil rights to everyone who had completed their sentence. But that somehow didn't include gun rights. To his credit, at least he made that omission clear, lest someone go to prison for the crime of taking him literally. Getting back to felonies that were never charged, do you think that anyone in the Old Dominion who had consensual oral sex with their spouse before 2003 should voluntarily refrain from ever possessing a firearm? Because they were guilty of a felony. So if they were to buy a deer rifle, they might magically turn into Walter White, and take out rival drug gangs. It could happen. Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 16, 2022 2:40:08 PM Oh, and speaking of insane people and of John Hinckley, note that as of June 15th he's freed of all restrictions. He's allowed to possess firearms, even AR-15s. Note that his shooting of President Reagan and others was more recent than the non-violent crime I was falsely convicted of. I wonder who owns the gun he used in his crime, and whether he could buy it back. Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 16, 2022 2:52:51 PM Keith Lynch -- Do you think that the text of the Second Amendment means that the state cannot adopt a criminal statute that forbids a presently insane person from possessing a gun? Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 17, 2022 10:02:36 PM Doug -- "Bill, thanks for at least admitting that textualism often can and will be modified by judicial 'senses.'" "Admitting"??? This is like thanking me for "admitting" that the First Amendment provides no defense to shouting fire in a crowded theater. It's not an "admission." It's just normal sanity. The Framers had it. The Court has it. I have it. And so, while we're at it, do you. You're up to your old tricks -- in this instance, trying to turn normal common sense into a Grand Doctrine of the Living Constitution, in which courts can find whatever they care to in its newly discovered "evolved" meaning. It's a prescription for judicial imperialism. I'm not buying it. I doubt the present Court will either. Posted by: Bill Otis | Oct 17, 2022 10:11:16 PM Okay, Bill, do you want to call your interpretive philosophy "a-textual normal sanity constitutionalism"? Or do you want to call it "a-textual normal common sense constitutionalism"? All I know is that my kids often think I have little common sense, and I sometimes think the same about them. Like "senses" or other mental instincts, "common sense" is often in the eye of the beholder and also evolves in various ways over time. See, e.g., Marcus Arvan, "Common sense leads philosophy astray," https://iai.tv/articles/common-sense-leads-philosophy-astray-auid-2075 ("First, commonsense can be regressive, wrongly presupposing the truth of prevailing prejudices. For example, in his 1680 work Patriarcha, British philosopher Robert Filmer used commonsense religious beliefs in his time to defend the divine right of kings, the view that monarchs rule with absolute, God-given authority. Second, to the extent that commonsense can be used to challenge prejudices, it can if it is not adequately grounded in facts beyond commonsense be recklessly utopian. For example, although Karl Marx gave what many take to be a strong commonsense argument against capitalism, Marx also claimed that a proletarian revolution to destroy capitalism will (somehow!) give rise to true Communism: a stateless way of human life without private property or exploitation. Suffice it to say, that prediction has never materialized. What has materialized from Marxist revolutions are rivers of blood: 20-62 million deaths in the Soviet Union, 40-77 million deaths in Maoist China, 1.3 million deaths in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, and so on.") I am fine with whatever label you want to use, Bill, as long as it is clear, as it should be to anyone paying attention, that your latest accounting of constitutional interpretation has nothing to do with textualism or originalism. Also, whatever you want to call it, I feel comfortable I can make a pretty good case against acquitted conduct sentence enhancements (and maybe even for Miranda) by appealing to "normal sanity" or "normal common sense." Face it, Bill, you have already had to give up the game and that's my main point about what we are seeing post-Bruen: as textualism and/or originalism stop being able to be contorted to give you the policy outcomes you want, new concepts like "senses" or "normal sanity" or "normal common sense" become the means to get where you want judges to take us. (My old classmate, Adrian Vermeule, has decided to embrace the label of "common good constitutionalism" as conservatives throw off the cloak of originalism as a means to desired ends, and he at least gets more points than most for candor here.) Posted by: Doug B. | Oct 18, 2022 1:19:55 PM Mr. Otis: You ask me "Do you think that the text of the Second Amendment means that the state cannot adopt a criminal statute that forbids a presently insane person from possessing a gun?" I don't tend to think in terms of legal frameworks, but in terms of justice. For instance I would say that "Dred Scott" was an objectively bad decision even though the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments hasn't yet been written. The Second Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights don't establish rights, they recognize pre-existing natural rights. So, do I think it's okay to forbid a presently insane person from possessing a gun. Yes, I do, if a jury in a fair trial has determined that a person is presently insane and is dangerous to others. (No "red flag laws".) Similarly, I think it's okay to forbid someone currently in prison from possessing a gun. Now please answer some of my recent questions. For instance is our government dangerously insane if it throws a person in prison for kicking a pistol into a storm drain to keep it out of the hands of small children, even if that person was convicted of a non-violent crime decades ago? And is it sane to allow John Hinckley, who shot four people including the president 41 years ago to possess a gun, but now allow me to possess one because I allegedly committed a non-violent crime 44 years ago? If so, please explain why. Since ownership and possession are not the same thing, Hinckley could make a good argument that he still owns the gun with which he shot Reagan and four others, and should be allowed to retrieve it from the Reagan Library. And, given the laws in force, you could make a legal argument (I won't say a (morally) good argument) that unless he removes it, if I were to accept a position as the director of that library, I should go straight to prison for possessing that same gun. Is that your position?\ Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 18, 2022 9:20:33 PM I apologize for the several typos in the previous comment. I skip proofreading since otherwise my comment is likely not to be posted due to a time-out, forcing me to either start over or give up. Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 18, 2022 9:24:33 PM Post a comment If you said that Luis Villalobos was born with a violin in his hand, you wouldn't be too far off. The Xalapa, Mexico, native grew up listening to his grandmother Cristina Vasquez play music at country fandangos and coastal restaurants near the port city of Vera Cruz. By the time his eldest brother Ernesto turned five, he was already playing the violin. Middle brother Albert and Luis, the baby of the family, were three or four when they took up music. Now internationally known as the Villalobos Brothers, they will be performing with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Orpheum Theatre. Famous for their high-energy performances, the brothers' performance will cap off Hispanic Heritage Month. Yet the Villalobos Brothers reach far exceeds Mexico. Considered prodigies as children, they played with symphony orchestras throughout North and South America. Eventually, Ernesto's musical studies took him to New York's Manhattan School of Music while Alberto studied in Brussels and Switzerland. Luis' studies took him to Germany and Austria. "If me and my brothers were to play music at the highest level, we had to leave Mexico," he said. "There was really no other choice." Even though the Villalobos Brothers are classically-trained violinists, their music draws upon the rich history of Mexican folk music as well a few nods to the fundamentals of jazz, folk and, even, rock and country. You have to remember that the brothers have collaborated with such unlikely musicians as Dolly Parton and Bruce Springsteen. "We couldn't play our style of music without classical training," Luis Villalobos said. "We needed that background in order to fit in with symphonies." Indeed, the Villalobos Brothers love working with symphonies. "Nothing can match the sound of a symphony orchestra in a theater setting," Luis said. "It is wonderful." Plus acts like the Villalobos Brothers bring in a different audience because of their music. "There are people who make a distinction between being an artist and an entertainer," Luis said. "I think me and my brother bridge that gap. We are both artists and entertainers." Of greater importance is the Villalobos Brothers' willingness to give back. They will be performing a special all-school assembly for students at Sioux City's new Hunt A+ Arts Elementary School on Friday afternoon. "Even though we come from a different country, we've always felt comfortable knowing that music is such a universal language," Luis said. "No matter where we perform, we want to share our love with the younger generation," he continued. "We have to make sure that the music goes on and on." CPC Central Committee holds meeting to seek opinions from non-CPC personages on major report Xinhua) 08:21, October 14, 2022 BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held a meeting on Aug. 31 to seek opinions and suggestions from non-CPC personages on the draft report to the 20th CPC National Congress. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting and made an important speech. Facing new tasks and requirements of the new era and new journey, the CPC and other political parties in China shall enhance cooperation, consolidate and expand the broadest possible patriotic united front, pool to the greatest extent possible the wisdom and strength of various social strata and aspects, and give full play to the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the whole society and the whole nation to strive for building a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the national rejuvenation on all fronts, Xi said. Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng, all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the meeting. Speaking at the meeting, Xi introduced the formation process of the draft report to the 20th CPC National Congress, and expressed the hope that non-CPC personages would offer opinions on the draft report. The past five years since the 19th CPC National Congress and the past decade of the new era have been unusual and extraordinary, according to participants of the central committees of non-CPC political parties in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), and personages with no party affiliation. Implementing the strategy of national rejuvenation within the context of global changes unseen in a century, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has united and led the whole Party, the armed forces and the people of all ethnic groups in effectively coping with the grave and complex international and domestic situation and a series of major risks and challenges, in pushing forward socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era in an energetic manner, and in completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects on schedule, and realizing the first centenary goal. Historic achievements and historic shifts have been scored in the cause of the Party and the country, and a glorious chapter has been written in history, according to the non-CPC participants. The draft report to the 20th CPC National Congress is of guiding importance for the building of a modern socialist country in all respects and the journey toward the second centenary goal, they said. After listening to the opinions of the participants, Xi noted that seeking opinions from non-CPC personages on the report to the 20th CPC National Congress is an important part of China's political consultation, and an efficacious way for non-CPC figures to contribute to the country's development and national rejuvenation. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi expressed gratitude and said their opinions will be carefully analyzed and taken into consideration. Promoting the united front is among the key historical experience of the CPC's endeavors over the past century, Xi said. He expressed the hope that the central committees of non-Communist parties, the ACFIC, and personages without party affiliation can align their thinking and action with the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, maintain the correct political orientation, and closely follow the CPC Central Committee in thinking, stance, and action. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Du Mingming) Community Rummage Mayflower Congregational UCC will have a Free Community Rummage. The event will be in the street in front of the church at 1407 W. 18th St.from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 15. There will be a variety of nice clothing, housewares, bed linens, and toys that have been donated to us to share with others. There is something for everyone, and everything is free. Pancake Breakfast St. John Lutheran Church, 2801 Jackson St., will host a pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon, Oct. 22. Pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee, juice, milk, butter, and syrup will be among the selection. Free will offering. Proceeds will go to the Food Pantry Mission. Grill Pork Chop Dinner St. Paul United Methodist Church, 2003 A Street, South Sioux City, will host its annual Grilled Pork Chop Dinner from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22. Menu will include grilled pork chops, baked potatoes, applesauce, green beans, and homemade pies/deserts. Tickets are $15; children 5 and under are $5. Carryouts are available. 75th Anniversary Hope Lutheran Church at 218 W. 18th St., South Sioux City, will be celebrating its 75th Anniversary on Oct. 23. Worship Service with Communion will be at 9:30 a.m. Lunch will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. At 11:30 a.m. The History of European Organ Music in 90 minutes. At 1 p.m. Miroslawa Cieslak Concert. 2:30 p.m. Worship Service. 3:30 p.m. Refreshments. End of Life Issues from a Catholic Perspective Siouxland Catholic Radio and Catholic United Financial will host an educational End of Life Workshop Series told through a uniquely Catholic perspective on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 12:45 p.m. or 6 p.m. at the historic St. Boniface Rectory. Fr. Roger Linnan will address the Catholic Churchs position on medical choices facing the elderly and terminally ill (dignity of the human being, extension of life through medical treatments, use of medications, etc.). Butch Byers, Regional Director of Catholic United Financial, will also speak about the financial decisions which surround end-of-life decisions (probate, incapacity documents, wills, power of attorney, etc.) This is a popular End-of-Life Series recently presented at Holy Cross ParishSioux City, Iowa (IA); St. Marys Remsen, IA; All Saints Parish Le Mars, IA; and St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish Cluster Elk Point, Jefferson, and Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. Dont miss out. Contact Siouxland Radio at 712-224-5342 or fhcradio@fhcradio.com to reserve your spot. Refreshments served. President Joe Biden's decision to pardon thousands of people convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law could give a boost to Election Day ballot proposals in five states that would legalize the drug. Voters in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota will take up proposals to legalize recreational marijuana. Experts say Biden's pardon decision could win over some voters on the fence about the idea. Recreational marijuana is legal in 19 states and opposition to legalization has softened despite federal resistance. Opponents of the measures say they see Biden's pardons having little impact on the campaigns. FRIDAY, Oct. 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Some people believe in the idea of depressive realism that depressed people are just more realistic than others about how much they control their lives. But a new study upends that theory. The idea has been around for about four decades, ever since a 1979 study of college students that seemed to support the theory. That study looked at whether students could predict how much control they would have over a light turning green when they pushed a button. The researchers back then found that students who werent depressed overestimated their own level of control and that depressed students were better at identifying when they had no control over the lights. In the current study, researchers tried to replicate those findings but were unable to do so. The original depressive realism study is cited more than 2,000 times in later studies or research. It is infused into science, culture and potential mental health treatment policy, said study co-author Don Moore. He's chair of leadership and communication at the University of California, Berkeley School of Business. The study's widespread acceptance in both the scholarly and popular literature is a reason to revisit it, Moore said. That means a lot of people are building theories or policies with the belief that this is true, making it important to know if it is or not. (For more on research into depressive realism, click here.) Researchers in the new study worked with two groups of participants. The first group included 248 people from Amazons Mechanical Turk, an online service that provides paid survey-takers. The other group of 134 volunteers were college students who participated in return for college credit. Similar to the 1979 study, participants did a task with 40 rounds, each choosing whether to press a button, after which a lightbulb or a black box appeared. Participants had to figure out whether pushing or not pushing the button affected whether the light came on. They reported how much control they had over the light after each of the rounds. The researchers added a mechanism to measure bias to the original study measurements. They also experimentally varied the amount of control participants actually had over the light. People in the online group with a higher level of depression overestimated their control, which directly contradicts the original study. That finding may be driven by anxiety rather than depression, the researchers said. This merits further study, Moore noted in a university news release. In the student group, depression levels had little impact on how the students viewed their control. Depression also had no impact on overconfidence when asking study participants to estimate their scores on an intelligence test, the investigators found. Moore said the results of this new study undermined his belief in depressive realism. He added that the study does not suggest that there are benefits to being depressed. How to accurately gauge a persons level of control in various situations does have broader implications in life, Moore said. To make good choices, it can be helpful to know what people do and dont control. The findings were published online recently in the journal Collabra: Psychology. More information The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more on depression. SOURCE: University of California, Berkeley School of Business, news release, Oct. 10, 2022 SIOUX CITY A man who illegally re-entered the United States was sentenced Wednesday in Sioux City to 10 years in federal prison. Miguel Rodriguez-Chavez, 38, from Mexico, pleaded guilty in May in U.S. District Court to illegal re-entry as an aggravated felon. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Rodriguez-Chavez was arrested in April 2021 in O'Brien County for domestic abuse assault and provided a false name. Authorities determined his real name, that he was a Mexican citizen and had previously been deported five times, most recently in March 2020. His criminal history includes attempted robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, domestic abuse and other offenses while in prison. He was arrested again in May 2021 for drunken driving and, after serving time in jail for his OWI and domestic abuse convictions, was turned over to federal custody. SOUTH SIOUX CITY The city of South Sioux City is seeking damages from a national consulting firm for its role in marketing the addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin. In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Omaha, the city, along with Sarpy County, Nebraska, says it is has incurred "substantial costs" because of opioid addiction that resulted from a "broad scheme to deceptively market opioids" by drug manufacturers with the help of McKinsey & Company, a New York-based consulting company hired by OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma to increase sales of the powerful painkiller. South Sioux City and Sarpy County "... are experiencing a severe public health crisis and have suffered significant economic damages, including but not limited to increased costs related to public health, opioid-related crimes and emergencies, criminal justice and public safety," the lawsuit said. South Sioux City continues to sustain damages for health care costs, providing addiction treatment and rehabilitation services and law enforcement and public safety training. "Plaintiffs have expended substantial amounts of money to fix or mitigate the societal harms caused by McKinsey's conduct," the lawsuit said. South Sioux City mayor Rod Koch said the city joined the lawsuit in hopes of claiming a share of a damage award that could help the city beef up the abilities of police and public safety to respond to opioid-involved cases. "Like any other city, we're taking it very serious," Koch said. "We think there's going to be funds available, and we're trying to get reimbursed and get out in front of that. It will help with police training and education and safety measures." It's one of dozens of similar federal suits filed against McKinsey by hundreds of cities, counties, school districts and Indian tribes across the country. It's believed to be the first filed by Nebraska municipalities. The suits follow a $573 million settlement McKinsey reached in February 2021 with 47 states over its role in helping to market and boost OxyContin sales. Nebraska's share of the settlement was nearly $2.6 million. Widely reported by national media, drug makers continually downplayed the risks of deaths from overdoses and addiction to OxyContin and other opioids, aggressively marketing them to physicians to prescribe to their patients. The resulting so-called opioid crisis has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths nationwide and thousands more fighting addiction and related health issues. The lawsuit alleges McKinsey and drug companies knew of the dangers, but continued their marketing strategies to maximize sales. It accuses them of unjust enrichment, conspiracy and racketeering committed through mail and wire fraud, using the mail and other means of communication to disseminate false and misleading information about the dangers of opioid use and creating a public health epidemic that is an ongoing public nuisance. South Sioux City and Sarpy County, which includes several Omaha suburbs, are seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages for the costs caused by the opioid crisis, including health care, treatment and rehabilitation, law enforcement and public safety and other social services. Under federal law, those damages could be tripled. SIOUX CITY Warren "Bud" Nelson, a pilot and former commander of the 185th Air Wing in Sioux City, was buried Friday at Memorial Park Cemetery. He died Saturday at age 97 at his Sioux City home. A World War II veteran who also was activated for the Korean War and later chosen to fly in a special unit during the Cold War, Nelson joined the 174th Fighter Squadron, the predecessor of the Sioux City-based 185th Air Refueling Wing, Iowa Air National Guard, earning a promotion to colonel and serving as wing commander from 1976 until his retirement from the Air National Guard in May 1980. Born in Jackson, Minnesota, Nelson entered the Army's Aviation Cadet after graduating from high school and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant and fighter pilot. He did not serve overseas in World War II, instead serving as a P-51 instructor training new pilots. During a Journal interview along with fellow veteran pilots in 2010, Nelson recalled his disappointment of not being sent overseas. "Here I am, all hopped up, the hottest pilot that ever graduated," Nelson said jokingly. "And to make a damn instructor out of me. There were guys that were married and wanted the instruction jobs so bad. They sent them overseas and I had to go sit in the back seat of a P-51." After the war, he joined the Iowa Air National Guard and moved to Sioux City. He and other members of the Sioux City unit were activated in 1951 for the Korean War, and Nelson was ready, he told the Journal in a 2021 interview. "In those times, you kind of had a feeling of wanting to be with it. You didn't want to be left out," he said. None of the unit's members ever were sent to Korea, but he and fellow 174th pilots Dick Sulzbach and Gordon Young were chosen for a new mission, the 20th Fighter Bomb Wing. Trained to fly F-84G Thunderjets and to carry an atomic bomb, Nelson and the other pilots were sent to Europe, flying along the German border carrying atomic bomb look-alikes and making sure the Soviet Union was aware the Americans were watching and prepared to strike, if necessary. After returning to Sioux City, Nelson continued to fly with the Air Guard, serving as a pilot, operations officer and squadron commander before his promotion to commander. After his retirement, Nelson was active in the Downtown Rotary, American Legion Monahan Post No. 64 and other community organizations. He was a co-founder and board member of the Mid-America Museum of Aviation and Transportation. He's survived by four children and seven grandsons. SIOUX CITY The City of Sioux City is reminding residents not to dispose of grass clippings and leaves in streets, detention basins, creeks, ditches or drainage ways. The city said in a statement that depositing grass clippings and leaves in the street is a violation of city code and can result in blocked storm inlets, which can cause local flooding and has a negative impact on water quality. Homeowners are responsible for proper disposal of grass clippings and fallen leaf debris. SIOUX CITY Saturday night, at 7 p.m., a number of local organizations will take part in a candlelight vigil at Miracle Field to "honor, celebrate and remember babies gone too soon." The gathering is the third-annual "Wave of Light" event put on by No Foot Too Small, an Iowa City-based group that raises awareness to the issue of pregnancy loss and infant mortality. It's part of a larger happening where people in their own local time zones light a candle at the called-upon time so that there's a "wave of light" around the world. Registration for the event, which is presented by Siouxland Women's Health as well as the Junior League of Sioux City and the Iowa SIDS Foundation, starts at 6:30 p.m. and things are slated to get going at 7 p.m. "During this hour, we will begin with lighting of the candles, opening remarks, reading of each angel's name," said Katie Kruse, an "angel ambassador" for No Foot Too Small. "Together as a community; love, celebration, and support fills the air." The most-recent data from the Iowa Department of Public Health shows that the infant mortality rate in Woodbury County was 4.28 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2016 through 2020 which is lower than the national rate of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: About one pregnancy in 100, at 20 weeks of pregnancy and later, is affected by stillbirth. And each year about 24,000 babies are stillborn in the United States. Trump's subpoena and what's next for the Jan. 6 panel WASHINGTON (AP) In an extraordinary step, the House Jan. 6 committee has voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump a final effort to get the full story of the Capitol insurrection as the panel wraps up its work by the end of the year. Trump still does not acknowledge the former in front of president, and he has been relentlessly hostile to the investigation. He called it a charade and a witch hunt in a letter to the committee on Friday but notably did not mention the subpoena or say whether he would comply with the demand for his appearance. The attempt to compel Trump's testimony comes as the committee is tying together multiple investigative threads and compiling its final report. The panel is only authorized through this Congress, which ends on Jan. 3. A look at whats next as the panel sprints to its finish: THE TRUMP SUBPOENA EXPLAINER: What to expect from China's party congress BEIJING (AP) Chinas ruling Communist Party is holding its twice-a-decade national congress starting Sunday, at which Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term as the uncontested head of the party, government and military of the worlds second-largest economy. The proceedings surrounding the event are shrouded in secrecy, as is typical in Chinas authoritarian one-party state. But the congress, the 20th in its more than 100-year history, is expected to produce a new set of leaders handpicked by Xi, who faces no term limits and has yet to indicate a successor after a decade in the top spot. The 96 million-member party is led by a Central Committee and Politburo. Their top cadres, who now number seven, form the powerful Politburo Standing Committee. WHAT IS AT STAKE AT THIS YEAR'S MEETING? Putin calls his actions in Ukraine 'correct and timely' KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory. Putin facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and did not set out to destroy Ukraine when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago. What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstan's capital. But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, thats all. So my actions are correct and timely. Russia's difficulties in achieving its war aims have become apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday. Even some of Putins own supporters have criticized the Kremlins handling of the war and mobilization, increasing pressure on him to do more to turn the tide in Russias favor. Police: 15-year-old boy kills 5 in Raleigh shooting rampage RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) A 15-year-old boy killed five people and injured two more in a shooting rampage in Raleigh, police said, horrifying a community that is now mourning victims whose lives were cut short as they were going about their daily routines. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the teen was captured hours after the victims were gunned down Thursday evening. He was hospitalized and in critical condition following his arrest, but authorities have not said how he was injured. Patterson said Friday that police haven't determined a motive for the attack. The victims were different races and ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said. Family members and friends said some of the victims were gunned down while doing normal, everyday activities an off-duty police officer was killed while on his way to work, one of the women who died was on her porch talking to a neighbor, another woman who died was out walking her dog and another was out exercising. Gov. Roy Cooper called the shooting an infuriating and tragic act of gun violence. He added: No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities no one. The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. Thursday in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Police said from there, the teenager fled to a nearby walking trail and continued shooting. Mel Gibson can testify at Harvey Weinstein trial, judge says LOS ANGELES (AP) Mel Gibson can testify about what he learned from one of Harvey Weinsteins accusers, a judge ruled Friday in the rape and sexual assault trial of the former movie mogul. The 66-year-old actor and director was one of many witnesses, and by far the best known, whose identities were revealed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The judge and attorneys had taken a break from jury selection for motions on what evidence will be allowed at the trial, and who can testify. The witness list for the trial is sealed. Judge Lisa B. Lench ruled that Gibson can testify in support of his masseuse and friend, who will be known as Jane Doe #3 at the trial. Weinstein is accused of committing sexual battery by restraint against the woman, one of 11 rape and sexual assault counts in the trial against the 70-year-old. Prosecutors said that after getting a massage from the woman at a California hotel in Beverly Hills in May of 2010, a naked Weinstein followed her into the bathroom and masturbated. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty, and denied any non-consensual sexual activity. Weinstein's attorneys argued against allowing Gibson to testify, saying that what he learned from the woman while getting a massage from her does not constitute a fresh complaint by the woman under the law by which Gibson would take the stand. A fresh complaint under California law allows the introduction of evidence of sexual assault or another crime if the victim reported it to someone else voluntarily and relatively promptly after it happened. Officials: 25 dead, many trapped in Turkish coal mine blast ANKARA, Turkey (AP) An explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 25 people, local officials announced, while rescuers working through the night were trying to bring dozens of others trapped to the surface. The explosion occurred 6:45 p.m. at the state-owned TTK Amasra Muessese Mudurlugu mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin. Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said a preliminary assessment indicated the explosion was likely caused by firedamp a reference to flammable gases found in coal mines. There were 110 people in the mine at the time of the explosion, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who traveled to Amasra to coordinate the rescue operation, told reporters. Most of the workers were able to evacuate following the blast, but 49 were trapped in a higher risk area of the facility, the minister said. Soylu would not provide a number for those still trapped, saying some among the 49 had been lifted to safety. Justice Dept. seeks end to arbiter's review of Trump docs WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to shut down the work of an independent arbiter who was appointed last month to review documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. The appeal is the latest salvo in weeks of litigation over the scope of duties of the arbiter, also known as a special master, who was assigned to inspect the records taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and weed out any that may be protected by claims of legal privilege. The special master process has caused some delays to the Justice Departments investigation into the holding of top-secret documents at the home. But a major hurdle was cleared last month when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted a temporary bar on the departments ability to use the seized classified documents as part of its criminal probe. The move permitted a core aspect of the probe to resume, greatly reducing the odds that the process could have a significant impact on the investigation. Even so, department lawyers returned to the court Friday to ask for the entire special master review to be shut down, saying the judge who made the appointment had no basis for doing so and that Trump was not entitled to an independent review of the seized records or to claim privilege over them. Plaintiff has no plausible claim of executive privilege as to any of the seized materials and no plausible claim of personal attorney-client privilege as to the seized government records including all records bearing classification markings, according to the department's brief. At debate, Walker denies past support for US abortion ban SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) Georgias Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Friday denied his previous support for an outright national ban on abortion, though he has insisted at various points throughout the campaign that it was a proposal he endorsed. Walker, a staunch anti-abortion politician recently accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging and paying for her 2009 abortion, was asked during a debate with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock about his support for a complete ban on a national level. He said the moderator had misstated his position. Walker's claim contradicted statements he had made repeatedly on the campaign trail, including in July when he said "that's a problem that there is no national ban. Walker said Friday that his position is the same as Georgia's state law, the so-called heartbeat bill that bans abortion at six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. That law went into effect this year after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortions nationwide. The debate in Georgias marquee Senate contest was held just days before in-person early voting begins Monday. The outcome will help determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years of President Joe Bidens term. Los Angeles mystery: Who taped meeting with racist rants? LOS ANGELES (AP) An anonymously leaked recording of crude, racist remarks and political scheming that led to the resignation of the Los Angeles City Council president and a powerful labor leader left behind a mystery: Who made the tape, and why? The posting of the year-old recording on the website Reddit in the run-up to Novembers midterm elections raised obvious suspicions of political motive. Much of the hourlong, private conversation among several councilmembers and the head of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor - all Latino Democrats - centered on fortifying their clout in the realignment of Council districts. It has now prompted a state investigation. The recording was made in a meeting room inside the headquarters of the politically influential labor group -- known locally as the Fed -- but its not known how the recording was made during a small gathering of friends, or even who was in the room. Its blatantly obvious it was an insider job, said Mark Gonzalez, who heads the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and believes the most likely target of the unknown person who recorded the meeting was federation president Ron Herrera. 5 years on, key #MeToo voices take stock of the movement Once again, disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein sits in a courtroom, on trial in Los Angeles while the reckoning the accusations against him launched marks a significant milestone this month: It's been five years since a brief hashtag #MeToo galvanized a broad social movement. The Associated Press went back to Louisette Geiss and Andrea Constand, accusers in two of the #MeToo era's most momentous cases Weinstein, already convicted in a New York case, and Bill Cosby, once convicted and now free to learn how their lives have changed, whether they have any regrets, and how hopeful they feel after a decidedly mixed bag of legal results. And we spoke to the woman who originally coined the phrase Tarana Burke, a longtime advocate for sexual violence survivors and a survivor herself about her own journey, the movement's resilience, and the challenges ahead. LOUISETTE GEISS: A LAWSUIT AND A MUSICAL All in all, Louisette Geiss considers herself one of the luckier ones: When she tried to run out of a hotel room to escape Harvey Weinsteins alleged advances, the door opened. She was able to flee. EAST CHICAGO A teacher at St. Stanislaus School was taken into custody after allegedly telling a student of plans to kill herself, students and fellow staff members at the school at 4930 Indianapolis Blvd., East Chicago police said. Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres, 25, of Griffith, confirmed for school officials she had a "kill list," police said. School officials immediately confronted the fifth-grade teacher and sent her home Wednesday afternoon, but police said they were not made aware of the situation until four hours later. No one was immediately available at the school Friday morning for comment. St. Stanislaus School serves students from pre-kindergarten through 8th grade and is part of the Catholic Diocese of Gary, according to the diocese website. Police said they responded Thursday by obtaining an emergency detention order for the teacher from the Lake County prosecutor's office and she was taken into custody from her home around 11:15 a.m. that day without incident. Police said they were called to the school around 5 p.m. Wednesday and spoke with the principal and assistant principal. Officers were reportedly told that around 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, a fifth-grade student reported that the teacher, Carrasquillo-Torres, voiced the treats of killing herself, students and school staff. "The teacher further told the student that she has a list and that he/she was on the bottom of that list," police said. Carrasquillo-Torres was immediately escorted to the principal's office, where she reportedly admitted to making the statements to the student and confirmed she had a "kill list," police were told. "During the conversation the teacher named a specific student on her list, but did not provide the list," police said. "The principal then advised the teacher to leave and not return to school pending an investigation." East Chicago police said they were not made aware of the situation until four hours later after the teacher was allowed to leave. "Once officers were notified they completed a report and notified the criminal investigation division," police said. "This is still an active investigation and no further statements will be made at this time." COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Republican state lawmakers involved in Ohio's political map-making process appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, seeking a review of an Ohio Supreme Court decision finding the state's latest round of congressional maps unconstitutional. The move by Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp and a state senator and representative who also sit on the Ohio Redistricting Commission was foreshadowed when the group flouted an August deadline they'd been given by the Ohio Supreme Court to redraw the boundaries. In a statement, the GOP lawmakers called the high court's July 17 decision rejecting a second proposed congressional map as gerrymandered to GOP partisan advantage fundamentally flawed. Their petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asserts the ruling encroached on their legislative authority in multiple ways. "While many believe that the Ohio Supreme Court majority misinterpreted state law, there is also the broader concern that the Court assumed a role the federal constitution does not permit it to exercise, they said. The head of one of the groups that brought suit against the maps criticized the appeal. This is more hypocrisy and theater from the leaders of the Ohio General Assembly, because this fringe legal theory they're quoting doesn't even apply in this scenario, said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. "The Ohio General Assembly exercised its authority when it helped develop the constitutional amendment that changed mapping processes and gave the Ohio Supreme Court the authority to strike down district maps." Cupp, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice, has advanced the legal theory behind the appeal. In an open memo this summer, he asserted lawmakers could ignore the deadline set by state-level justices and move on to the federal court because the case is a matter of federal interest. He said they had 90 days to do so, which falls on Monday. He did not address why that approach was not taken back in January, the first time the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a congressional map. By waiting, Cupps timeline carries a mapmaking process that was supposed to conclude in 2021 close to the retirement date of Ohio Chief Justice Maureen OConnor, the seven-member court's swing vote. A 4-3 majority has delivered Democratic and voting-rights groups victories over five Statehouse maps and two U.S. House maps. Nationwide, these maps are required to be redrawn to reflect population changes in the 2020 Census. With litigation still pending, the state's 2022 legislative and congressional primaries went forward under those same invalidated maps. The latest congressional map delivered two-thirds of Ohio's 16 seats to Republicans, although the state's party breakdown over the past 10 years was roughly 54% Republican, 46% Democrat. This is Ohio's first time implementing new mapmaking systems approved by voters as constitutional amendments, and what happens when mapmakers fail to comply with court orders has been a matter of debate. So far, justices have stopped short of holding them in contempt. South Korea says North Korea has launched a ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells toward its eastern waters. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff says the missile launch happened early Friday. On Friday afternoon, South Koreas military said North Korea fired 90 additional shells off its east coast. It said it also spotted about 300 other North Korean artillery launches from two separate western coastal areas. In both cases, the North Korean shells were believed to have landed in the buffer zones again. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff says North Korea also flew warplanes near the rivals border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. Donald Trumps private company arranged for the Secret Service to pay for rooms at his properties in excess of government-approved rates at least 40 times during his presidency including two charges for more than $1,100 per room, per night. That is according to documents released Monday by a congressional committee investigating the former president. The House Oversight Committee said the Secret Service was charged more than $800 per night at least 11 times by his properties. The Trump Organization denied anything improper. It said it provided rooms to the Secret Service at cost or deep discount, adding that its business did not profit at all from the presidency. Two Ukrainians who documented the horrors of the Russian invasion and siege of Mariupol for The Associated Press are being honored with Colby Colleges Lovejoy Award in Maine. Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka continued reporting as the last international journalists in Mariupol, an industrial city on the Sea of Azov. They made a harrowing escape to share their images with the world. The Lovejoy award, which was being formally bestowed Friday, is named for a newspaper publisher who was killed in 1837 for his anti-slavery editorials. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Five people were killed by a shooter who opened fire along a walking trail in North Carolinas capital city on Thursday and eluded police for hours before he was cornered in a home and arrested, police said. An off-duty police officer was among those killed by the suspect, who police only described as a white, juvenile male. He was arrested around 9:37 p.m., authorities said. His identity and age werent released. The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. along the Neuse River Greenway in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Officers from numerous law enforcement agencies swarmed the area, closing roads and warning residents to stay inside while they searched for the shooter. Two people, including another police officer, were taken to hospitals. The officer was later released, but the other survivor remained in critical condition. Tonight terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh. This is a senseless horrific and infuriating act of violence that has been committed, Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters. Authorities didn't offer any details on a motive, but Baldwin joined Cooper in decrying the violence. We must stop this mindless violence in America, we must address gun violence, the mayor said. We have much to do, and tonight we have much to mourn. Brooke Medina, who lives in the neighborhood bordering the greenway, was driving home at around 5:15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, both marked and unmarked, race toward the residential area about 9 miles (14 kilometers) from Raleighs downtown. She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital. She and her husband, who was working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order. The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. The family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved further away from their home. Were just going to hunker down for the rest of the night and be very vigilant. Keep all of our lights on, doors locked, she said. She described the neighborhood known as Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined community thats full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area. Medina said she often takes her kids on bike rides along the greenway during the day, but typically brings pepper spray along just in case. Theres a lot of places one could disappear, she said. The Raleigh shooting was the latest in a violent week across the country. Five people were killed Sunday in a shooting at a home in Inman, South Carolina. On Wednesday night two police officers were fatally shot in Connecticut after apparently being drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about possible domestic violence. It followed shootings of police officers this week in Greenville, Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and central Florida. Two of those officers, one in Greenville and one Las Vegas, were killed. Thursdays violence was the 25th mass killing in 2022 in which the victims were fatally shot, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database. A mass killing is defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh contributed to this report. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) A 15-year-old boy killed five people and injured two more in a shooting rampage in Raleigh, police said, horrifying a community that is now mourning victims whose lives were cut short as they were going about their daily routines. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the teen was captured hours after the victims were gunned down Thursday evening. He was hospitalized and in critical condition following his arrest, but authorities have not said how he was injured. Patterson said Friday that police haven't determined a motive for the attack. The victims were different races and ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said. Family members and friends said some of the victims were gunned down while doing normal, everyday activities an off-duty police officer was killed while on his way to work, one of the women who died was on her porch talking to a neighbor, another woman who died was out walking her dog and another was out exercising. Gov. Roy Cooper called the shooting an infuriating and tragic act of gun violence. He added: No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities no one. The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. Thursday in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Police said from there, the teenager fled to a nearby walking trail and continued shooting. The teen, who was not immediately identified by police, eluded officers for hours setting off a manhunt across a crime scene that stretched for 2 miles (3 kilometers) before he was cornered in a home and arrested, Patterson said. The Hedingham neighborhood is a residential area of single family and town homes. The Neuse River Greenway, a walking and biking trail, is behind some of the houses. The trail runs about 27 miles (43 kilometers) along the river and connects to the states Mountains-to-Sea Trail thats popular with hikers. The stretch of trail behind the neighborhood is paved and lies down a grassy slope from the houses. Police said Officer Gabriel Torres, 29, was among the five killed. He was off-duty and heading to work when the shooting began. The other victims were Nicole Connors, 52; Mary Marshall, 34; Susan Karnatz, 49; and James Roger Thompson, 16. Connors' husband told The Associated Press she was on the porch talking to a neighbor when she was killed. Marshall's sister told NBC News that she was walking her dog, Scruff. Marcille Lynn Gardner, 59, was talking to Connors when she was shot. Gardner remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday. A second police officer, Casey Joseph Clark, 33, was also wounded and released from the hospital. Karnatzs husband, Tom Karnatz, said she was an avid runner who often ran on the greenway. She was a very loving wife and amazing mother to our three sons, he said through tears when he answered his door Friday. Were absolutely heartbroken and miss her dearly. In the driveway, a silver minivan and a Toyota Camry had matching 26.2 stickers symbolizing the miles of a marathon. The minivans license plate read simply: RUNNR. Woodrow Glass, a 74-year-old retiree and neighbor of Connors, said he talked to her nearly every day as she walked her small dog. She was friendly with everybody in the neighborhood, spoke with everybody ... and was really respected here. And were going to miss her," he said. In a statement Friday, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are grieving with victims' families, and his administration is working with Cooper to help local authorities with their investigation. Enough. Weve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings," he said. Omer Rosas, a sophomore at Knightdale High School, said he was shocked to learn Friday that his classmate was arrested in the shooting. I did not expect it to be him, Rosas told the AP. He was very calm. He wasnt like a mean person. He was open to be nice to everyone. Rosas said the teen is personable and athletic a smaller guy who enjoys running and was considering joining the schools track team. Thompson, the 16-year-old victim, was a junior at the school. Prosecutors will seek to charge the suspect as an adult, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in an email. Authorities have not commented on what charges the teen could face. The Raleigh shooting was the latest in a violent week nationwide. Five people were killed Sunday in a shooting at a home in Inman, South Carolina. On Wednesday, two police officers were fatally shot in Connecticut after apparently being drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about possible domestic violence. Police officers have been shot this week in Greenville, Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and central Florida. Two of those officers, one in Greenville and one Las Vegas, were killed. Thursdays violence was the 25th mass killing in 2022 in which the victims were fatally shot, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database. A mass killing is defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. The walking trail was quieter than usual Friday. Sara Cutter, 31, said she sensed a lingering sadness over Raleigh as she walked the greenway, about a mile from the shootings. Were all hurting today, the entire city, Cutter said. Ive seen some somber faces while Ive been out walking today. But its also been good to see people out. The community thats what will get us through. This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Nicole Connors last name. A 14-year-old Waverly boy who is accused of stabbing a classmate at Wayne Park amid a scheduled day off from school Thursday morning allegedly carried out the act in pursuit of fame, according to Lancaster County's top law enforcement official. Both the suspect, 14, and the stabbing victim, a 15-year-old Waverly boy, called 911 in the immediate aftermath of the attack, which transpired shortly before noon. Sheriff Terry Wagner called the suspect's 911 call "very unusual" at a media briefing Friday morning, where he declined to identify the 14-year-old, who was taken into custody at the scene Thursday morning and has since been arrested on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. "Part of his motivation was notoriety, and that's why I'm not gonna say his name," Wagner said. "What he told us is that he was going to be famous. "That's pretty scary." The 15-year-old suffered multiple stab wounds including a laceration to his heart that required emergency surgery at Bryan West Campus in Lincoln, Wagner said. The boy's condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, the sheriff said. "We were just very fortunate this wasn't a homicide," he said. Authorities recovered a knife at the scene believed to have been used in the stabbing. Both teens were students at Waverly High School, which was not in session Thursday and Friday for fall break. Wagner said the boys weren't friends or even acquaintances. The suspect had recently moved to Waverly, a community of around 4,000 residents mere miles from Lincoln's northeastern city limit. Wagner said the teen had moved to Nebraska from Colorado, where he had "some issues" that the sheriff described as criminal. He said investigators are working with authorities in that state to learn more. The teen had also recorded run-ins with the agency's school resource officers amid his short time at Waverly High School, though Wagner said previous incidents in Lancaster County weren't criminal and dealt more with following school rules. Wagner said he wasn't sure whether the teen would be charged as an adult. At 14, he is eligible to be charged as an adult for certain crimes, including Class I and II felonies, which he is accused of. The sheriff's office will turn the case over to the Lancaster County Attorney's office. Waverly Superintendent Cory Worrell said the district had no comment on the matter at this time. As the Jan. 6 committee brought its public presentation to a close this week, one of the major takeaways of the months-long hearings remained the critical role that everyday attorneys played in both promoting and helping to thwart Donald Trumps attacks on the 2020 election. As Yale historian Timothy Snyder put it in his superb handbook on how to fight totalitarianism, On Tyranny, its hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers. Law and its perversion are essential to bloodless coups, and those are still the most worrisome kind going forward in 2022 America. Advertisement Snyders truth exposes the dark underside of the lessons Alexis de Tocqueville learned about the key role lawyers play in our country. Writing in his 1831 political chronicle, Democracy in America, Tocqueville, ever the optimist, posited that those who have made a special study of the laws derive from occupation certain habits of order and a kind of instinctive regard for the regular connection of ideas, which naturally render them very hostile to the unreflecting passions of the multitude. Snyder, recognizing that such predictions rest more on hope than on experience, offers the corrective observation that, when political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Wednesday, five former New York State Bar presidents and other legal luminaries demonstrated their commitment to just practice, filing a disciplinary complaint in New York that seeks a bar investigation of Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. Advertisement Advertisement The meticulously drafted complaint, written by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, aims to have Chesebro sanctioned for professional misconduct that he appears to have committed to facilitate Trumps attempts to overturn the 2020 election. (Both authors have signed onto the complaint.) Terrible as it is for the legally naive to cook up a coup, it is far worse when those steeped in the lawas Chesebro isto pervert its tools and techniques to upend our constitutional structure and purpose. In joining the bar, lawyers take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution much like the one that Article VI of the Constitution requires of all public officials. Lawyers who betrayed that oath in ways that led to the deadly insurrection of Jan. 6 are no better than a physician who violates the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Though an extreme example, the case of Larry Nassar, who used the pretext of medicine to do irreparable injury by sexually abusing Olympic gymnasts, comes to mind. Medical authorities properly revoked Nassars license to practice medicine well before he pleaded guilty to criminal charges for assaulting young female athletes. The same should be true of attorneys facing criminal investigation for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack. Advertisement Advertisement Chesebro is not a household name, but he appears to have conspired with two Trump lawyers who are: Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. In fact, Chesebro wrote the earliest memo discovered to date that laid out the twin Trump schemes to appoint fake winning electors in states he lost and to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to anoint them victorious on Jan. 6. Advertisement Advertisement As early as November 18, 2020, Chesebro drafted and sent a memorandum that Wisconsins Trump electors should meet and cast their votes on December 14 even if, at that juncture, the Trump-Pence ticket is behind in the vote count, and no certificate of election has been issued in [their] favor. Three weeks later, on December 9, Chesebro extended his proposal to five other battleground states in a second memorandum. This one described how the Trump electors should vote and send their results to Vice President Pence without any involvement by the governor or any other state official. At the behest of Giuliani and the Trump campaign, fake Republican electors in all six of those states (along with a seventh) actually met on December 14 and signed fraudulent certificates of their official status as electors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The day before, Chesebro had sent an email to Giuliani that described getting Pence to firmly take the position that he, and he alone, is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes, but to count them. Note the timing: It wasnt until December 23 that Eastman sent the first of his two now-infamous memos echoing Chesebros theories regarding Pences ostensibly unilateral authority to reject a states certified presidential electors and replace them with uncertified ones. Significantly, before Eastman finalized his memo and sent it to the Trump campaign, he sent it to Chesebro, who edited it and pronounced it Really awesome. Any minimally skilled lawyer should have known that the Electoral Count Act required certification of elector-slates by each states chief executive, something that none of these Trump slates had. And it is preposterous to think that the founders of our country, the patriots who rebelled against the rule of a king, would have countenanced placing the power to name a president in the hands of a single individual, the vice-president, especially when he himself was up for re-election. Advertisement Advertisement Chesebro is far more than a minimally skilled and knowledgeable lawyer. Indeed, before developing an appellate practice that boasted hundreds of cases in federal appellate courts including the Supreme Court, he was a student and research assistant for one of us (Tribe), as part of a team that included now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, journalist Jeffrey Toobin, and now New York federal judge Paul Engelmayer. While law teachers can never guarantee that their students will turn out to serve the rule of law, all of us have a duty to seek accountability for those who use what they have learned as weapons to shred legal constraints, endanger democracy, and imperil our constitutional republic. Advertisement Lest you think the Chesebro-Eastman efforts were unrelated to the attempt to do just that by criminally violent means on January 6, remember this: It was their untethered legal theory that armed Trump with the faux grievance that inflamed the 6 insurrectionists who went to the Capitol to seek to Hang Mike Pence. Pence, heeding former federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig (rather than Luttigs former law clerk Eastman), had followed the law, resisted Trump and refused to reject the lawfully selected Biden electors, as the Chesebro-Eastman memos urged him to do. Advertisement Nor can Chesebro credibly claim ignorance of the real potential for violence that day. Two weeks before, on Christmas Eve 2020, he wrote an email to Eastman saying that the odds of the Supreme Court taking action on Trumps election cases before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be wild chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then. That message reflects Chesebros acute awareness of Trumps infamous December 19, 2020, tweet inviting his followers to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 for an event that would be wild. Advertisement Advertisement It also reflects Chesebros shameful readiness to manipulate the judiciary with the threat of political violence, an embrace of advocacy by terrorism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One need only recall Tocquevilles aspirational vision of American lawyers serving to restrain unruly mobs driven more by emotion than by reason to recognize that, when a member of the bar does the very opposite and endorses the unreflecting passions of a would-be tyrant and his followers, he betrays the legal profession, the rule of law, and the nation. As the American Bar Associations Standards for Imposing Sanctions states: In addition to duties owed to clients, the lawyer also owes duties to the general public . The community expects lawyers to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity, and lawyers have a duty not to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, or interference with the administration of justice. Advertisement Giuliani and Eastman, the two chief generals orchestrating Trumps abuse of the law to overturn the election, are already under serious disciplinary investigation for professional misconduct. Without attorney-soldiers such as Chesebro, however, those at the top would be far less dangerous to the court and the country. Those soldiers are still out there marching. They pose a silent but clear and present danger to our constitutional republic. The New York State Bars grievance committee must send a powerful message of deterrence by expeditiously investigating Chesebro. It should help defend the nationand honor our profession by expelling him from it. On Thursday, the House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack held what had been billed as its final hearing after months of public scrutiny into Donald Trumps actions surrounding the assault on the Capitol. Without any witnesses and with a closing vote to subpoena Trumpwho is unlikely to ever appear for testimonythe event was technically a committee meeting instead of a hearing. It did, however, deliver on presenting a closing case against Trump and some additional evidence to the American public with less than a month to go before the midterm elections. While the committee only offered a small number of new details from nearly one million documents and recordings handed over by the Secret Service since its previous summer hearing, the information helped corroborate past testimony and strengthen the committees final case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Put most simply, that case was this: President Donald Trump knew he lost, he knew the mob he had assembled on Jan. 6 was armed and dangerous, and he sicced them on the U.S. Capitol anyway. Or as retiring GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger put it, His intent was plain: Ignore the rule of law and stay in power. The new bits of information included further evidence that Trump had planned to declare victory no matter what the outcome, as had been previously been demonstrated by pre-election recordings of Trump confidante Steve Bannon stating this was the plan. The committee played not-previously seen documentary footage, taken by director Christoffer Guldbrandsen, in which another Trump confidante, Roger Stone, declared essentially the same thing. Advertisement In the Nov. 1 video, Stone said of the Election Night results and the presidents plan: I really do suspect itll still be up in the air. But when that happens the key thing to do is claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. No, we won, fuck you, sorry over. We won. Youre wrong. Fuck you. In footage from the next day, Stone added: I said fuck the voting, lets get right to the violence. Advertisement The committee also detailed documents sent days before the election from conservative activist Tom Fitton pushing the former president to declare victory no matter what the outcome. We had an election todayand I won, Fitton urged Trump to say, according to an Oct. 31 memo sent to the White House one week before election. Advertisement Advertisement Fitton told Trump to ignore late-counted ballots, which were expected to favor Democrats because of Trumps efforts to discredit mail-in voting among his base, and declare himself the winner on the basis of the ballots counted by the Election Day deadline. Ultimately, this is what Trump attempted to do, claiming on Election Night that he had won before the votes had actually been counted. Advertisement Advertisement Perhaps more damning, though, is the new evidence that the committee presented that Trump knew he lost all along. This included testimony from General Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Trump may have conceded defeat in a Cabinet meeting, saying words to the effect of, yeah, we lost we need to let that issue go to the next guy, meaning President Biden. Advertisement Advertisement Milley acknowledged it may have been former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who made this statement, but there was other testimony that Trump knew he lost. Trump White House strategist Alyssa Farah testified that shortly after the election, Trump was watching footage of Biden and said to her do you believe I lost to this effin guy. Advertisement Advertisement Milley also revealed that, after the election, Trump issued an order to the military, which was not carried out, calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Somalia. This also seemed to be evidence that Trump knew his time in the White House was drawing to a close, as it implied that he didnt want to see the policy upended by the next administration and felt the need to see it carried out before departing. Advertisement Finally, and most damningly, Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, described an incident in which she heard Trump tell Meadows shortly after the Supreme Court rejected one of Trumps final election appeals: I dont want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I dont want people to know that we lost. Ultimately, Hutchinson was once again the star witness, with the committee spending a significant amount of time putting out new information to corroborate her previous blockbuster testimony that Trump had tried to force the secret service to drive him to the Capitol and that he knew the mob that he had directed to go there was armed. That included Secret Service documents describing agents discussing the level of weaponry and violence they anticipated from the Capitol rioters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It also included a new anonymous witness who corroborated Hutchinsons account that security officials Tony Ornato and Robert Engel discussed Trumps dramatic efforts to force his way to the Capitol as water cooler talk. In the days following that, I do remember, you know, again, hearing again how angry the President was when, you know, they were in the limo, the witness testified. The information came from Mr. Engel with Mr. Ornato in that office, which is exactly as Hutchinson had described receiving the information as well. All of this was meant to hammer home Trumps intent with his actions on Jan. 6. We will focus on President Trumps state of mind, his intent, his motivations and how he spurred others to do his bidding and how another Jan. 6 could happen again if we do not take serious action to prevent it, committee vice chairwoman Liz Cheney said at the start of the hearing. Advertisement Indeed, Trumps intentaccording to the committee, to remain in power through any means necessary including violence despite knowing he had lostwould speak directly to any potential Jan. 6 criminal case against the former president. Right now, those potential cases reportedly include an ongoing federal grand jury investigation, as well as a special grand jury probe in Fulton County, Georgia. We may not know whether any of these prosecutors take action against Trump or his associatesmany of whom were shown to plead the Fifth Amendment in the closing minutes of this hearingfor many months, by which time the committee may have issued a final report and been disbanded by a new Republican House majority. Whatever more aggressive action these prosecutors have taken in the last several months, however, was clearly spurred on by the forceful hearings of the Jan. 6 committee. If those prosecutions go forward, the American people will have this committee to thank. That alone would make it go down as one of the most important such bodies in congressional history. In a perfect world, the Jan. 6 Committee, that concluded its final public presentation on Thursday with devastating evidence that Donald Trump in fact lit the match, started the fire, then poured oil, gas, and lighter fluid all over that fire, could have faced both forward and backward. The final hours of this committees presentation could have centered both the former presidents role in the violent attack on the Capitol, and also flagged the fact that the whole sordid episode was just a beta test for the next one. Advertisement Im afraid it didnt do that. Am I also scared out of my mind about Trump evading accountability for his myriad crimes, running for office in 2024, and vaulting us all into what will doubtless be the end of the free world as we know it immediately thereafter? Why yes, yes I am. But am I fractionally even more terrified that in a few short weeks, a huge army of election deniers, corrupt secretaries of state, bullies and violent vigilantes will start laying down the tracks for the next coup? I am, indeed, just that much more terrified of them. Unfortunately, the committee, in its final presentation, opted to put this scarier and vastly more immediate threat on the backburner to focus on the scariness of one Donald J Trump, hapless, mindless, insurrectionist. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The problem faced by American democracy is Trump, yes. But its also so very much bigger than Trump: an insurrection fomented by white supremacists, incels, and fake militias has now been taken up by sitting senators, state election officials, and tenured jurists. The next time someone calls Georgias Brad Raffensperger and asks him to kindly scare up 11,000 votes, or to submit a ballot of contingent electors it could happen with the blessing of a federal court and a tidy case citation. Nobody doubts that the reckoning over Jan. 6, 2021, is intended to forestall Jan 6, 2025, which is why Donald Trump is by necessity the story. But its also why Donald Trump should actually be ancient history. Advertisement The Jan. 6 Committee made the decision to use the final hearing to hang Jan. 6 on the former president. He knew. He knew that he was going to lose the 2020 election. He knew that if he found himself losing the 2020 election he would say it was stolen. He knew that his assorted legal theories for setting aside the 2020 election results were addled with the brain worms of sycophants and nutjobs. He knew that people with guns were attending his Stop the Steal rally. He knew Mike Pence was in danger and that his words and actions were risking harm to the vice president and to members of Congress. Thursdays hearing made plain that Donald J. Trump hella knew what he was putting in motion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So, we do have motive, as committee members on Thursday promised to lay out. Check. Of course, its establishing a motive for someone who has no discernible theory of mind. But whether the committee truly landed the plane rested on answering the questions of who else knew what, and also what they did with all their seemingly infinite units of knowledge. And the landing of that plane remains in doubt. After Thursday we know that the Secret Service knew. We know that Mark Meadows knew. We know Donald Trumps lawyers knew. They all knew. Advertisement Advertisement As of today we know that a whole lot of people eventually came before the committee and shaved off the thinnest slice of patriotism they could scrape off from the big fat duty-to-country ham. They did and said as little as was humanly possible, after making meaningful eye contact with their attorneys, to establish that Jan. 6 was probably pretty bad, but also that they would like to be paid contributors to cable shows. Advertisement We also know that some of those same low-carb patriotsSteve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnellknew precisely how dangerous Jan. 6 really was, and that in the months that followed, they walked back their horror and outrage. And we know that some of the most unrepentant coup enthusiasts simply took the fifth and moved on to planning bigger, future coups, including Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Mike Flynn. Advertisement Advertisement And so we sit in the uncomfortable tension between relitigating what Donald Trump knew and understood on Jan, 6 and when he knew and understood it, and the grim possibility that virtually none of its enablers, plotters, boosters, and opportunists will suffer any consequences. There is a certain grim satisfaction in the fact that the former president is on the hook for yet one more thing. In addition to the Jan. 6 investigation, he may just take a turn in the barrel for one or more of: stealing classified national security documents, obstructing justice, grifting across New York, trying to pressure Georgia election officials into throwing the 2020 election, and defaming a sexual assault victim. Advertisement But even as the walls close in on him for the thousandth time, its hard to feel wholly placated by the committees final presentation and its laser focus on the least important person on the planet: The guy who is neither interesting, nor terribly relevant to the imminent and exigent threat of the next coup or the coup after that. And while its hardly the mandate of the committee, it does feel that what was left on the table this afternoon was everything. Donald Trump will never honor a subpoena, he will never turn over documents. If the point of this narrow focus on Donald Trump was to prevent him from running for office in 2024, my guess is they maybe found six more voters today. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But my real worry, and the thing that keeps me up at night is the fact that the liars and the cheaters and the con men and the opportunists who allowed Jan. 6 to happen, and who minced their way into the Jan. 6 committee hearings two years later merely in order to exculpate themselves, will all roam free after today, with the slightly more burnished aura of statesmanship and patriotism, so they can lay down the tracks for the next attempt at a stolen election. And for the one that follows quick on its heels. We should be talking about all that, and since we arent, the Jan. 6 Committee should have been talking about all that. And since they didnt, it feels a tiny bit more likely than not to be the thing that we will someday talk about as ancient historythe coup that is coming faster than we could imagineand we will talk about it long after the thing is already done. For decades, federal law has forbidden gun owners from scratching out the serial numbers that manufacturers are legally required to place on firearms. The reason is obvious: These serial numbers help state and federal law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and identify suspected shooters. Indeed, the only apparent reason anyone would remove a serial number is to avoid becoming a suspect after their gun is used illegally. On Wednesday, however, a federal judge ruled that the law prohibiting alteration of serial numbers violates the Second Amendment. Why? Because serial numbers were virtually nonexistent when the amendment was ratified in 1791, so the government has no power to mandate them today. Advertisement This decision in United States v. Price by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, a Bill Clinton appointee, may sound shocking. But it is a perfectly plausible application of the Supreme Courts June ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, Justice Clarence Thomas declared all gun restrictions presumptively unconstitutional if they infringe on the individual right to armed self-defense. (The Constitution says nothing about self-defense, but Thomas gleaned this right from its penumbra.) A gun restriction may only survive legal scrutiny, the justice declared, if it had an analogue in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed on the states. The burden falls on the government to prove the existence of a historical analogue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thomas test has already wreaked havoc in the lower courts. One judge has struck down a Texas law that prohibits 18 to 20-year-olds from carrying a handgun outside the home. People under 21 are significantly more likely to commit gun homicidesbut in Bruen, Thomas announced that courts may never consider the real-world, life-saving impact of gun safety laws when gauging their constitutionality. A different Texas judge invalidated a federal law barring individuals from purchasing a handgun while theyre under indictment, even for a violent felony offense. Just last week, another judge struck down New Yorks ban on concealed carry in airports, train stations, domestic violence shelters, summer camps, the subway, and other sensitive locations. Now Goodwin, who sits in West Virginia, has joined the chorus of lower court judges who feel that Bruen obliges them to strike down longstanding, widely accepted firearm laws. Advertisement Goodwins conclusion might sound bizarre, but his analysis closely follows Thomas test. First, he asked whether the federal ban on possession of a gun with an obliterated serial number infringes on the right to self-defense. He found that it does, presenting the hypothetical example of a father who buys a gun, removes the serial number, dies, and leaves it to his daughter. Both father and daughters ownership of the firearm would be a federal crime. And that, Goodwin wrote, is the definition of an infringement on ones right to possess a firearm. Advertisement The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War. Federal law did not compel any manufacturers to use them until 1934. And Congress did not require almost all guns to include a serial number until 1968, when it determined (correctly) that they would facilitate the investigation of violent crime. These laws proved helpful in the governments mission to attack the black market in firearms and track down individuals who used firearms to commit crimes. Yet serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goodwin acknowledged the argument that firearms with an obliterated serial number are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable. But he explained that this argument is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering. Even if the serial number law demonstrably saved tens of thousands of lives each year, that fact would be totally irrelevant to the constitutional analysis. Advertisement Advertisement These laws almost certainly do save lives. When law enforcement officers recover a weapon from a crime, they check its serial number against a federal database. The results can help them track down the last known seller and buyer of the firearm, who may provide information thats critical to the investigation. It might lead them straight to the suspect if he bought the gun legally. If notif he stole the weapon, for instancethe serial number will lead law enforcement to the last known owner, who can provide information about the theft that could lead to the suspects eventual arrest. The lack of a serial number is a major reason why ghost guns are so dangerous, and why they are becoming a ubiquitous tool in violent crimes: Criminals exploit their untraceability to elude detection. Advertisement Under Bruen, though, none of this matters. All that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test. Lower courts, of course, must adhere to the Supreme Courts decisions, and Goodwin did so respectfully and comprehensively. In the process, though, he repeatedly reminded readers that he had no choice but to follow Bruen to its outrageous logical endpoint. His decision thus doubled as a warning: The Supreme Courts Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime. In other words, Goodwin has teed up a perfect test case to see whether the conservative justices are truly ready to embrace the deadly and devastating consequences of their own revolutionary ruling. The Elon MuskTwitter saga had seemed to have entered a quiet period over the last week or soin court, anyway. But on Thursday, the Delaware Court of Chancery unsealed an Oct. 6 filing by Twitters lawyers alleging that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is under federal investigation related to his attempted purchase of the social-media company. Twitter would like to see Musks correspondence with federal authorities. So would Slates Elon Musk Shenanigans Watch, which comes to you now in its inaugural edition. (Officially, that is. What has the past year of Elon Musk news been if not one big shenanigans watch??) Advertisement According to Twitters lawyers, Musks team has been playing hide the ball with the correspondence, claiming that the documents lie outside the scope of discovery in the suit. It then goes on to describe the companys almost comically lengthy attempts to get those communications, which Musks lawyers still had not produced less than two weeks before the start of the trial that would determine whether Musk would be forced to buy the platform. This delay isnt necessarily important, though its fun to imagine Musks very serious counsel coming up multiple new versions of the dog-ate-my-homework excuse. Lets call this stuff shenanigans-adjacent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whats important is who might be investigating Musk and why. The Twitter filing isnt clear on either, though it drops some clues. According to Reuters, In late September, Musks attorneys provided a privilege log identifying documents to be withheld from discovery. The log referenced drafts of a May 13 email to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission, Twitter said. Advertisement Advertisement But the existence of investigations by those agencies isnt a revelation: The Wall Street Journal broke the news back in May. The SEC, for its part, found it suspicious that Musk was late making the required disclosures to the government when he amassed 5 percent of Twitters stock earlier this year. As Slates Alex Kirshner wrote at the time, the government had a nearly airtight, mostly pointless case against Elon Musk. The FTC was also investigating Musks initial purchases of Twitter shareseventually he reached 9 percenton antitrust grounds. It could be that there are other SEC or FTC investigations, or that some other agency is looking into Musk right now. Does this matter to Elon Musks on, then off, now on, except maybe off attempts to buy Twitter? Perhaps only insofar as it shows us the late date at which Musks legal team was still acting as shady as a Boring Company tunnel. The same day that Twitter asked the court to make Musks lawyers produce these documents, Musk offered to buy Twitter at the original price he offered back in the spring, and the judge in the case gave the parties until the end of this month to work out a deal. Thats more or less where we are now, with Twitter and Musk maybe, possibly working things out in private. (There was also a court back-and-forth related to Twitter whistleblower Peiter Mudge Zatko this week, but the Elon Musk Shenanigans Watch can only process so many potential shenanigans before he has to go to bed.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So instead of waging war against Twitter on, um, Twitter, Musk has been dabbling in an actual war. He proposed a plan to end Russias conflict with Ukraine that seemed kind of Kremlin-friendly, then denied a report that he had recently had a conversation with Vladimir Putin. He also suggested Taiwan become part of Chinaa country on which Musks Tesla relies for materials, so this was yet another red flag. He also tried to broker peace with Kanye West, who spent his weekend being kicked off of Instagram and then Twitter for posting anti-Semitic threats: Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2022 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The least consequential thing Musk did all week was come up with a new novelty product: Burnt Hair, a perfume. It appears to be a hit. Given some other newsthat some of Musks original co-investors in his effort to take Twitter private want out nowhe may not even be kidding about needing the money: Please buy my perfume, so I can buy Twitter Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2022 Advertisement Advertisement Shenanigans Ruling: There is a lot of shenanigans smoke here, but there may not be a shenanigans fire, as none of these developments would seem to get in the way of Musk and Twitter actually closing a deal, if thats what he really wants, which he may not. This has been Elon Musk Shenanigans Watch. We will surely see you soon. Welcome to State of Mind, a new section from Slate and Arizona State University dedicated to exploring mental health. Follow us on Twitter. As he continues his recovery from a life-threatening stroke back in May, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman has made an aggressive return to the campaign trail. But as he prepares for an upcoming debate with his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, hes facing new questions from mainstream journalists about his healthquestions that show how little many of them understand about disabilities and appropriate accommodations. Advertisement On Tuesday, NBC Nightly News aired a conversation anchor Dasha Burns held with Fetterman just four days priorhis first on-camera appearance since the stroke. The interview excerpt broadcast on the waves and clipped for social media centered on how this wasnt a typical chat with a candidate; Burns introduced it by noting Fetterman required closed captioning for this interview to read our questions as we asked them due to lingering effects from his stroke. She further mentioned that during small talk prior to the interview, without captioning, it wasnt clear he was understanding our conversation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The segment then cut to Burns asking Fetterman out loud, Can voters trust that you will be able to do this job on day one? The candidate, pausing as he reads her words on the Mac in front of him, takes a moment before responding, without taking his eyes off the screen, Yeah, of course! The clip then touched on Fettermans issues with auditory processing in the wake of the stroke, showed him stumbling while searching for the word empathetic, and zoomed in on his computer-focused face while he read Burns questions about voter concerns. Advertisement Advertisement There was much more in the full interview posted on NBCs website, including discussion of abortion, crime, and marijuana. But these three minutes were what took offand elicited hostile reaction across the mediasphere. Prominent reporters from the New York Times and CBS implied that this rough clip would lead voters to doubt Fettermans capability. CNN piggybacked off the NBC interview to air a chyron reading, Fetterman Now Uses Closed Captioning to Understand Conversations, a statement that, as other reporters pointed out, was incredibly misleading. (For one, Fetterman has been using closed captioning since the stroke, and both his campaign and the reporters covering it have disclosed that fact.) The segment soon reached conservative media, whose commentators insisted the NBC interview showed that Fettermans condition was far more debilitating than a conventional disability and should disqualify him from office. Tucker Carlson joined in on Wednesday night, braying to his Fox News audience that before the machine was turned on, John Fetterman could not understand human language. Advertisement Advertisement Everything about the situation was incredibly upsetting for observers with disabilities. On both social and traditional media, many have pushed back against both the framing of the NBC segment and the aggressive responses. The way Burns handled that interview will only worsen attitudes and violence towards disabled people, disability activist Charis Hill told BuzzFeed News. Sara Luterman, a 19th News reporter and former Slate contributor, pointed out on Twitter that she also has auditory processing issues and thus uses closed captioning, without it impeding her job. Its a pretty common disability and a pretty common disability accommodation, she told me. I use the same [captioning] technology in meetings and interviews. Eric Michael Garcia, an autistic congressional reporter, added that closed captioning should be seen as akin to glasses, braces, wheelchairs, or crutchesa means for people with disabilities to access public life. Daylina Miller, a multimedia journalist at NPRs Tampa-based member station who struggles with auditory processing, wrote to me that I also wear glasses, and cant function as a journalist or a person without them, but thats a common enough medical issue that no one bats an eye. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement me on the media response to @JohnFetterman's use of closed captioning, which is just so painfully normal pic.twitter.com/f1gn5BOGGo manny (@mannyfidel) October 12, 2022 Advertisement Advertisement It can be difficult for the general public to understand auditory processing disorders, since they differ from typical forms of hearing loss, and chronic forms are rare. Plus, not everyone with a stroke ends up with auditory processing issues, and not everyone with auditory processing problems got them from a stroke. Usually, there is nothing wrong with someones ears; rather, auditory processing issues usually entail a slower ability to recognize or mentally process certain sounds and modes of speech. In Lutermans experience, I can hear people talking, but my brain doesnt put together what theyre saying, or I mishear, she told me. I can hear and understand people most of the time, but I wont always remember. Advertisement While Fetterman has not declared a specific diagnosis for his condition, a number of medical experts told the Washington Post that his public experiences are not atypical for either stroke survivors or people with auditory processing issuesand there are pathways to full healing, through time and therapy. Neurological specialists further informed the Post that Fettermans condition has nothing to do with overall intelligence, because there are a number of areas where understanding can be impaired, even if someone has no hearing loss or intellectual disability. A deaf media observer also told the paper that real-time captioning, which automatically transcribes words as theyre spoken, is often riddled with mistakes or has significant lags. That could mean Fettermans seemingly slower reading and response time was a purely mechanical issue as opposed to a physiological one. (One possible reason why such programs dont work as well as they could: insufficient funding and legislative support for disability services.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All in all, this is likely a temporary thing. In June, Fetterman released a letter from his cardiologist stating that the candidate should be able to campaign and serve in the U.S. Senate without a problem as long as he follows recommended medical practices. The Democrat himself professed, during the interview with Burns, that Im gonna get better and better, every day, alluding to this weeks spate of media appearances and speeches, all coming after months of absence from in-person campaigning. Hes often said hell be using captioning during Oct. 25 debate with Oz and that in general, as long as I have captioning, Im able to understand exactly whats being asked, Advertisement Fetterman has been taking questions live and unedited from the PennLive ed board for half an hour now, still going. He's giving smart, funny, eloquent answers to tough Qs. But hey let's talk more about how he uses captions to aid his stroke recovery because that's what matters. https://t.co/NR3HwFFP2e Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) October 12, 2022 Advertisement Advertisement But what has really infuriated disabled peoplewho, the CDC says, make for 26 percent of the U.S. populationis the insinuation that Fettermans use of this common technology should keep him from serving public office. Fundamentally, the argument is that disabled people are too sick to exist in public or to hold positions of leadership, Luterman said to me. Its an ableist trope that persists even though there are more disabled politicians in Congress than ever before, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Rep. James Langevin. Indeed, as my colleague Jim Newell wrote last month, the supposition that halting speech while recovering from a stroke could make someone an ineffective senator really is a leap. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are plenty of older senators or members of Congress who cannot do their job, but because they dont use closed captioning, they are somehow seen as able to do it, Eric Garcia told me. Fettermans openness about the accommodations hes using, as well as the most visible health issues hes facing, could appeal to more viewers than broadcast news realizes: A 2019 Journal of Policy Analysis and Management study found that about 23 percent of American adults could benefit from workplace accommodations, yet about half of them do not take advantage. Its not unlikely that attacks of the kind Fetterman is now facing contribute to a stigma that prevents people from utilizing adjustmentslike closed captioningthat theyre legally entitled to through the Americans With Disabilities Act. This is in part why more people with disabilities dont run for public office, even though their backgrounds and input could lead to more laws that would aid millions of Americans. As an MSNBC column put it: If having a stammer or a hearing impairment disqualifies someone from running or holding office, are we living up to the promise of democracy and government by the people? Advertisement Advertisement Its certainly fair to ask whether a politician is up for the job theyre going for. Voters are also entitled to informed, reasoned coverage of their candidates conditionsand their disabilities should not be demonized in public life, especially if were talking about conditions and tools as common as auditory processing and closed captioning. Daylina Miller, who uses closed captioning for meetings at their workplace, told me that no one running for office should have to be subjected to doubts of capability for needing accessibility devices. The reactions to NBCs Fetterman interview show we still have a long way to go. State of Mind is a partnership of Slate and Arizona State University that offers a practical look at our mental health systemand how to make it better. In the next few weeks: UK Ambassador on when driving licence issue will be resolved It is a very unfortunate situation We appreciate the goodwill British Ambassador to Spain opens up on driving licences The British Ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott, gave an in-depth interview to Spanish newspaper El Periodico de Espana this week, in which he hinted that the outstanding issues on driving licences for Brits in Spain could be resolved in the next few weeks. Firstly, on the topic of Gibraltar and whether Spain and the UK will reach a deal to create a zone of shared economic prosperity, Elliott stated, We have made a lot of progress and that "there is a determination on all sides to bring this agreement to a successful conclusion. There are still some issues to resolve, its true, he said. If it were easy, it would have been done long ago. He continued: The purpose is to ensure the smooth movement of people between Gibraltar and Spain, to improve the prosperity of the area, Gibraltar and Campo de Gibraltar. That requires an innovative solution to border controls. The details are being worked out. Having the controls where they are, at Gibraltar airport, is complex and the details are important. The UK has made it very clear, as has Spain, that sovereignty positions cannot be altered in this agreement. And that is where we are moving forward. I am confident that we are going to reach an agreement. Related story: Spain wants deal with UK on Gibraltar and driving licences similar to before Brexit However, Elliott refused to give a specific deadline for when such an agreement might be reached, not even at the end of the year as the Government of Gibraltar itself suggested. I dont set dates, he said. What he was confident of, though, was that an agreement on Gibraltar could be reached between the EU and the UK that is separate from an agreement on the Ireland-Northern Ireland border because they do not link the two issues together. Driving licences He even managed to put a tentative timeline on when an agreement might be reached to allow Brits, of whom an estimated 30,000 are affected by this issue, to temporarily use their British driving licences again in Spain and to exchange them for Spanish ones without having to retake their test. You might also like: How much does it cost to get a Spanish driving licence? I hope that in the next few weeks we will solve the remaining problems, he said. This is also what our ministers discussed last Saturday. They expressed a willingness to conclude the negotiations, which have taken longer than we would have wished. It is a very unfortunate situation, with thousands of British people living in Spain currently unable to drive. Spain is the only EU country where this is the case. That is why we want it to be resolved as soon as possible. We appreciate the goodwill. What we are asking for is for British residents to be able to exchange their driving licence for a Spanish one without having to take a new test. Spaniards or other Europeans in the UK can already do that. But here there is a group of thousands of British people who cannot do it. Spain has asked to add to this agreement the exchange of data so that it can have information on tourists, British visitors who come here, to ensure road safety and to be able to send, for example, fines in the event of an offence. It is a complex issue because of the data processing. The Ambassador flatly refused the charge that Spain is actually using the driving licence issue to gain leverage in the Gibraltar negotiation: This is a technical issue and weve almost got it resolved. We are going to get it. Its an important issue for the British here and for this embassy. A star is born! @HughElliottUK se animo a grabar unos truquitos durante mi visita a la Embajada Britanica @ukinspain Decir would you like a cup of tea esta genial, pero este truquito que nos da el Embajador dara vidilla a tu ingles en un contexto muy informal. pic.twitter.com/jX5b2gEDRf Maria Speaks English (@mariaspeakseng) October 13, 2022 Hugh Elliott teaches English to Spanish speakers online The state of the UK Finally, the Ambassador discussed the current political instability in the United Kingdom, with the collapse of the pound , the skyrocketing mortgage rates which are forcing people to pay hundreds more every month and proposed tax cuts for the wealthiest. Standing behind PM Liz Truss, Hugh Elliott said, The economic situation is difficult for everyone. There is an acute cost of living problem. The prime minister took a quick decision to cap the price of electricity to make the cost manageable for people, who were calling for swift and decisive action. She has taken other measures for which the ground could certainly have been better prepared; that much is clear from the reaction of the markets. But those measures were there to promote the growth we need and to be able to meet the needs of the people. Yes, it has been a turbulent reaction, but we are looking for growth. He went on to praise the close relationship of British and Spanish businesses: Investors have a lot of confidence in the UK, hence the level of investment. British investment in Spain is still very strong. The UK is the second largest foreign investor in Spain, and the number one destination for Spanish investment. That belies the fervour in the media about the turbulence. Finally, he had some words about the response in Spain to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and how King Charless first few weeks on the throne have gone. The closeness shown by the Spanish people has been extraordinary, a reflection of the fact that she was a bit of a queen to everyone. After more than 70 years on the throne, she had won the hearts and respect of everyone for her exemplary public service. This was reflected in the comments in the condolence books. The messages were very emotional, of deep respect, admiration and respect. Addressing the not one, but two moments when Charles went viral on the internet for his use of fountain pens, Elliott said: Look, I use a pen. If the ink comes out on my hand, the words I use dont want to be written... It seems to me that perhaps the media have exaggerated. He has done a fantastic job in the face of global scrutiny, after the loss of his mother. He has reached out to the British people, he has addressed the impressive queue of people at the funeral chapel, and he has travelled to the funeral sites in the UK. It was an exemplary performance. Image: gov.uk Second new bird species this autumn, after the pink flamingo. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled In Slovakia, near the village of Mikusovce near Lucenec, a new species of bird has been observed - the Richard's Pipit. This is the second sighting of a new bird species this autumn after the sighting of the pink flamingo, which was recorded at the beginning of September near Trnava. A new bird species of Slovak fauna - Richard's Pipit (Anthus richardii) - was observed in the Poiplie Bird Sanctuary. "When I heard and later saw this bird during bird migration monitoring, I immediately knew it was something unusual, said Marian Mojzis from the Slovak Ornithological Society/BirdLife Slovakia (SOS/BirdLife Slovakia). According to the characteristic voice, which I managed to record with a voice recorder and additional observation, I finally determined the species." The bird was observed during monitoring focused on the migration of the western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus), which is carried out as part of the LIFE IPORSEN project, which SOS/BirdLife Slovakia also implements in the Poiplie region for the purpose of improving the nesting and migration habitats of our nesting birds. Richards pipits are larger songbirds, 17-20 cm in size, with a longer beak and long yellow legs. They are coloured inconspicuously, in brown tones on the top of the body and lighter on the belly and the lower part of the tail. Slovakia's most endangered bird species appears again after 12 years Read more It is a migratory bird that breeds in Siberian meadow and grass habitats and winters in Southeast Asia. Only in recent years has the species become a regular autumn and winter visitor to Western Europe. Recent research shows that the birds found in south-west Europe are true migrants, with the same marked individuals returning to southern France in subsequent winters, and geolocation tracking has revealed that they originate from the western edge of the species' known breeding range. They complete an amazing 6000 km journey from Central Asia through Eurasia, a very unusual long western journey unknown among other Siberian migratory birds. When flying to southwestern Europe, they must also fly over the territory of Slovakia, and sighting them had been expected, but not yet confirmed until now. This change in migration routes and wintering grounds is probably a new phenomenon that has only occurred in recent years. Measures paying off, says Czech Interior Minister. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Both Austria and the Czech Republic have announced they will extend checks on their respective borders with Slovakia as they continue a crackdown on illegal immigration. Checks were introduced last Thursday for a period of ten days. But now officials say the measures will stay in place for a further 20 more days until October 28. Related article Related article Terrible living conditions in camps mean refugees want a better life west (interview) Read more Measures paying off Both countries decided to introduce checks last week amid a significant increase in illegal migration through Slovakia. According to Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan, the decision has already paid off. "In recent days the number of illegal immigrants [coming into] the Czech Republic has fallen," he said. Since the checks were introduced, Czech police have caught more than 30 smugglers. In some incidents, police officers had to use force to stop vehicles, with one ending in car crash. Rakusan said that both Slovak and Czech authorities are continuing negotiations over problems with illegal migration. It was announced that as of next Sunday, 80 soldiers will join police involved in border controls. Related article Related article So, what brings you here? Read more Meanwhile, in Austria, it was reported that police have so far caught eight people smugglers since the start of the checks. The intelligence service helped track down the killer. He did not know the victims, police believe. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Last year, one in six hate comments on social media in Slovakia attacked LGBT+ people, while one in seven targeted Jews. Hatred for these and other minorities was also manifested after the murder of two young people in Bratislava on Wednesday. Comments applauding the murders or displaying laughing emoticons appeared on Facebook, including under the post that the police force published on its official profile. The police deleted the hateful comments throughout the day. "The police reject any form of hate against minorities," the admin of the Police Corps Facebook page wrote. "Hate and spreading false information in the online world can very easily enter the real world and put the life and health of another person in danger just because someone totally succumbs to hateful rhetoric, sustained by spreading hoaxes." Explore events in Bratislava. The late Slovak sculptor Maria Bartuszova exhibits in London. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Kite runners by the Zemplinska Sirava reservoir in eastern Slovakia. (Source: TASR - Roman Hanc) Packet French soup inventor dies Darina Matyasova, a Slovak who invented a packet French soup, has died at the age of 79. Matyasovas story is reminiscent of the careers of successful people. Not only did she discover her product, but she was also responsible for introducing it into production. She spent her life working for the Carpathia company in Prievidza, which later became part of the food giant Nestle. In 1971, a nearly thirty-year-old woman, a mother of two children, faced the task of making a soup that could be prepared quickly and that everyone would like. The assignment was straightforward: a clear vegetable broth soup. Darina Matyasova. (Source: TASR - Alexandra Mostkova) For us, only chicken and beef were then clear soups, she said in 2015. So, we thought about a version that would be something between onion but not too oniony and beef but not too beefy. And we came up with this, French leek soup. The Albanians supplied the dried leek. The machines for making shell-shaped pasta had to be bought in Italy, the Pravda daily wrote. It took about three years to get the soup into production. According to Matyasova, leeks are very important in French soups, and instead of classic noodles, pasta in the shape of shells makes the soup stand out. That is why the popular soup is named after France. Restaurants: McDonalds opened its second restaurant next to the D1 highway between Bratislava and Senec in late September. The Planetka restaurant in Bratislava-Ruzinov was supposed to close due to rising energy prices, but it remains open after all. Texans rodeo trip brings back memories Arriving at the Nemsova ranch, I stepped into another world and time. Ranch 13 is primarily a hotel and destination for weddings and other events, but the entire facility is built to resemble an old western village. It may seem gimmicky to some, but the attention to detail is impeccable. Rodeo in Nemsova. (Source: Jeremy Hill) The start of the rodeo show was surprisingly bombastic, with riders racing around the arena waving flags. The American national anthem was proudly played. All riders and audience members stood, removed their hats and placed them over their hearts. The introduction concluded with a prayer (again, very American) with all participants down on one knee. From that point on, I was fully immersed in excitement and nostalgia. Travel news in short: BBC documentarist Nick Thorpe now knows how to say blueberry in Slovak. Do you? Hnusta has opened its mining museum with underground tours. Top 10 events in Bratislava Slovakias star of visual arts at Tate Modern Until now neither no one in the world nor at home knew about her. Maria Bartuszova did not expect to be appreciated one day. She only had three exhibitions during her life. However, twenty-six years after her death there is a solo exhibition of her work at the Tate Modern, which no other Slovak has been able to achieve. The sculptor knew how to attribute a fascinating meaning to her thoughts and give them a symbolic artistic form, and she easily overcame all the limitations, both physical and ideological, which fate imposed on her. For the Tate Modern she is no Iron Curtain curiosity. She is simply a sculptor who has a natural place in London because she is a star of the visual arts. Sculptor Maria Bartuszova in her studio. (Source: Tate Modern) Other developments: Animation: During this years Biennial of Animation Bratislava, Yamamura was awarded the Prix Klingsor for his lifetime work focused on children. The Japanese animator creates unique films that are, he says, depressing most of the time. On the other hand, Yamamura makes people think. Dozens of Norths is the latest example of such an animated film. During this years Biennial of Animation Bratislava, Yamamura was awarded the Prix Klingsor for his lifetime work focused on children. The Japanese animator creates unique films that are, he says, depressing most of the time. On the other hand, Yamamura makes people think. Dozens of Norths is the latest example of such an animated film. Archaeology: The remains of five individuals, probably convicts, were found during an archaeological survey of a brick gallows. The remains of five individuals, probably convicts, were found during an archaeological survey of a brick gallows. Animal: In Slovakia, near the village of Mikusovce near Lucenec, a new species of bird has been observed - the Richard's Pipit. Bratislava opens its first reuse centre People at Bratislava's first reuse centre. (Source: Courtesy of OLO) The Bratislava city authorities and the municipal waste-management organisation Odvoz a Likvidacia Odpadu (OLO) opened Kolo, the first local reuse centre, on the rented premises of the Korzo shopping centre on Pestovatelska Street, near the Avion and Ikea shopping malls on the outskirts of Bratislava. Six days a week, visitors can obtain second-hand, but still functional, items for symbolic sums or bring things they no longer need, but fully functional and usable. Bratislava has become a city offering sustainable alternatives to standard shopping, giving used items another chance, said Bratislava Mayor Matus Vallo during the centres opening. Such centres already operate in Prague and Vienna. Thats it for this week. Have a restful weekend. - Peter Do you have any tips? You can reach Peter at peter.dlhopolec@spectator.sk The victims were not known to the gunman, investigators believe. The site of the shootings in Bratislava. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The police will prosecute Wednesday's attack at a Bratislava gay bar in which two people were murdered as a serious crime of premeditated murder committed for a specific motive, namely hatred of a group of persons and individuals for their real or perceived sexual orientation. So far, the investigation suggests that the two victims killed in the shooting on Zamocka street in Bratislava were not known to the gunman, Lubomir Danko, director of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA), said on Friday, October 14. The suspect, a 19-year-old student from Bratislava identified as Juraj K., shot dead two people and injured another in the Teplaren gay bar in the centre of the Slovak capital in the evening of Wednesday, October 12. Danko did not rule out that, based on evidence still being collected, the act might be reclassified as terrorism. Gun was legally owned by gunman's relative Sorry that you cannot feel safe here in Slovakia: President Zuzana Caputova to the LGBT+ community. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Thousands of people have gathered in Bratislava for the march to condemn hatred against LGBT+ people organised by the Inakost (Otherness) initiative that advocates for the rights of LGBT+ community in Slovakia. The march was staged as a reaction to the premeditated attack, in which a 19-year-old radicalised man killed two men from the LGBT+ community on the evening of October 12, 2022 outside Teplaren, one of the very few LGBT+ spots in the city. Police ponder terrorism charges. "Many say that LGBTI+ people are an ideology. But I saw the blood of my friends on the sidewalk. I saw their shot bodies, no ideology. I testify on behalf of the murdered Matus. I testify on behalf of the murdered Juraj. I testify on behalf of the shot Radka. Please testify on their behalf too. Each and every one of you has a voice that must be heard. Together we will stop the hate. Thanks to you and your voices, love will win," Teplaren owner Roman Samotny told the crowd in his speech that echoed the statements he had previously voiced in interviews with the media. An estimated 20,000 people, as the Sme daily reported, marched from Teplaren to the SNP Square in downtown Bratislava, the place that saw massive protests following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova four years ago. Prior to the march, Inakost called on the Slovak government to take measures to improve the position of the LGBT+ community in Slovakia. Zlatica Maarova from the Association of Parents and Friends of LGBTI People stressed that everyone is threatened by hatred. "I refuse to ask my daughter not to appear in public, not to live her life authentically and honestly," she said. Rainbow colours in Bratislava The Presidential Palace displayed a rainbow flag next to the Slovak and the European flags on Friday afternoon. The Office of the Parliament announced that the Bratislava Castle will be lit tonight to commemorate the victims of the murder, Juraj and Matus. Only last week, the parliament debated an amendment to ban rainbow flags on public buildings. The amendment failed to pass. "I'm sorry that you cannot feel safe in Slovakia. You belong here, you are valuable to our society," President Zuzana Caputova told the crowd. She repeated her call on politicians not to spread hate. Prime Minister Eduard Heger marched with the crowd, carrying a rainbow flag. After he was criticised for his initial reaction, in which he said that nobody should fear for their life because of "their way of life". "I wanted to show my support to the LGBT+ community, now I see I chose the wrong words and I admit to my mistake," Heger wrote on Facebook. He then went on to say that it is absolutely unacceptable that people die or are attacked because of their different sexual orientation, race, sex, or religious persuasion. Speaking from the stage, Bratislava Mayor Matus Vallo said sorry to the victims. "As a society we were unable to protect you from the materialised hate," Vallo said. He charged that the atmosphere of hate has been created by particular people who do not shy away from inciting hate to gain cheap political points. "Push hate out of our city," said the mayor. Politicians should unite, not divide people Bratislava Regional Governor Juraj Droba called on state representatives to unambiguously condemn the attack against the LGBT+ community. "Many members of this community are losing hope and ponder leaving Slovakia," he said. Deputy Speaker of the European Parliament Michal Simecka, who leads the Progressive Slovakia political party, said he wants the European Parliament to debate the threats of hate against the LGBT+ community, and the Bratislava shooting attack. "Slovakia will not be the black hole on the map of Europe, a rainbow map," he said. On behalf of the community from culture and arts, Frantisek Kosaristan, also known as comedian Fero Joke, said politicians in the parliament could be an example for the people. "They should unite people and not divide them," he said, and called on people not to be silent. Nairobi (Kenya), 13 October 2022 (SPS) - Kenyan President, Mr. William Samuel Ruto, reiterated his country's support for the just Sahrawi cause and its continued efforts to support the just struggle of the Sahrawi people for freedom and self-determination. During a reception for the Sahrawi Ambassador to Kenya, Mr. Abah Al-Mud Abdullah, who paid him a farewell visit on the occasion of the end of his duties as ambassador to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, President William Ruto reaffirmed Kenya's support for the just Sahrawi cause. "Our freedom will not be complete without the freedom of the Sahrawi people," the Kenyan president added, stressing, "we will defend your right firmly." For his part, the Sahrawi Ambassador to the Republic of Kenya, Mr. Abah Al-Mud Abdullah, commended the principled and courageous position of the sisterly Republic of Kenya, expressing, on behalf of the people and government of the Sahrawi Republic, satisfaction with the level of bilateral relations between the two countries and the convergence of views on various issues. 062/SPS https://sputniknews.com/20221013/us-files-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-against-bartow-county-officials---justice-dept-1101827911.html US Files Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Bartow County Officials - Justice Dept. US Files Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Bartow County Officials - Justice Dept. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Justice Department said on Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against key officials of Bartow County, Georgia, for violating... 13.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-13T22:53+0000 2022-10-13T22:53+0000 2022-10-13T22:53+0000 americas us racial slurs racial bias racial descrimination us justice department /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/08/1f/1100245335_0:321:3071:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_4755a3da472f7aae7e04068980864817.jpg The Justice Department alleges in the lawsuit that Bartow County officials exposed former employee Carlen Loyal to a racially hostile work environment and retaliated against him and former employee Bobby Turner - both African Americans - by firing them.Bartow County officials accused the two men of misconduct and fired them after Loyal confessed to the human resources director that he informed Turner about the email, the release said.According to the complaint, Loyal and Turner were each promoted several times and had no prior history of disciplinary action before Loyal complained about this instance of racial discrimination, the release said.Loyal and Turner filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the EEOCs Atlanta district office investigated the charges and found reasonable cause that the county violated Title VII, the release said.After unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the issue, the EEOC referred the charges to the Justice Department, which followed up with a lawsuit to compel the county to put in place policies to prevent discrimination and retaliation, the release said.The Justice Department also plans to secure monetary relief for both men and compensate them for the damages that they sustained as a result of the alleged discrimination and retaliation, the release added.Title VII is a US federal statute that bars employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. Title VII also forbids employers from retaliating against employees for complaining about discrimination in the workplace or otherwise asserting their rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. https://sputniknews.com/20221011/justice-dept-asks-us-supreme-court-to-reject-trump-appeal-in-classified-documents-case-1101741588.html americas 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, racial slurs, racial bias, racial descrimination, us justice department https://sputniknews.com/20221014/drone-scare-in-scandinavia-as-sightings-over-critical-infrastructure-soar-1101831075.html Drone Scare in Scandinavia as Sightings Over Critical Infrastructure Soar Drone Scare in Scandinavia as Sightings Over Critical Infrastructure Soar Following the recent explosions on the Nord Stream pipeline network, which Moscow branded international terrorism and which led to a massive leakage under the... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T05:22+0000 2022-10-14T05:22+0000 2022-10-14T05:22+0000 military scandinavia news europe sweden drone finland norway denmark /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/106609/49/1066094909_0:35:1000:598_1920x0_80_0_0_1c18eebd8292bbf6955182d711c9a7af.jpg Drone activity has increased in Finland, including around critical infrastructure, the Nordic country's Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) has reported.Supo research specialist Lotta Hakala said the intelligence service was monitoring the situation very actively, noting that drone sightings have been made in different parts of the country. The term critical infrastructure includes energy and transportation systems such as power plants, railroads and airports.Generally, the security service presumed the increased sightings of drones are at least partly due to an overall increase in vigilance. Nevertheless, it urged members of the public to report drone sightings to authorities, especially if spotted around critical infrastructure sites.Following explosions on the Nord Stream pipeline network on September 26, which led to a massive leakage under the Baltic Sea and unprecedented damage to what used to be Europe's main gas link, several European nations have upped security around critical infrastructure. Moscow branded the attack as international terrorism, while the European Union and national leaders also said that the gas link was sabotaged. Among others, security authorities in Sweden urged energy infrastructure operators to increase preparedness and vigilance.Meanwhile, in neighboring Norway, the authorities boosted security at oil and gas installations, deploying the Home Guard. Nevertheless, police had to respond twice in a single day on Thursday, first by launching an evacuation of the Nyhamna gas processing plant, one of Europe's largest energy export facilities, in response to a fake telephone threat. Subsequently, an armed police force was deployed at the Karst gas plant in Tysvr municipality following a drone sighting by the Norwegian Armed Forces. After several hours, the police terminated the operation with a negative result, concluding that the operator could have been anyone between a state actor and a hobbyist.Earlier in October, drones were spotted in Denmark over the Roar gas field in the North Sea. scandinavia sweden finland norway denmark Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Igor Kuznetsov Igor Kuznetsov 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 Igor Kuznetsov scandinavia, news, europe, sweden, drone, finland, norway, denmark https://sputniknews.com/20221014/first-cholera-case-since-2017-recorded-in-bahamas---health-ministry-1101829552.html First Cholera Case Since 2017 Recorded in Bahamas - Health Ministry First Cholera Case Since 2017 Recorded in Bahamas - Health Ministry MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The first case of cholera since 2017 has been recorded in the Bahamas, the country's Ministry of Health and Wellness said on Thursday. 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T01:16+0000 2022-10-14T01:16+0000 2022-10-14T01:16+0000 americas bahamas caribbean cholera /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/06/16/1096565548_0:121:1227:811_1920x0_80_0_0_3572bc54b79a48bcaafd49fc6b6e85ef.jpg "The Ministry of Health & Wellness wishes to advise that a confirmed case of cholera has been recorded in New Providence... Cholera is not endemic to The Bahamas. The last case of cholera in the country was recorded in 2017," the ministry said in a statement on social media.According to the ministry, the disease was diagnosed in a 52-year-old Bahamian male resident who has recently returned from abroad. On Wednesday, the patient went to a private medical facility with vomiting and diarrhea and then was admitted and isolated. He tested positive for cholera via lab test.The ministry added that the patient is currently being treated and is listed in stable condition.Cholera is a dangerous infectious disease that can kill within hours if left untreated. It is caused by the consumption of food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholera bacteria. Patients develop acute diarrhea and severe dehydration. americas bahamas caribbean 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 bahamas, caribbean, cholera https://sputniknews.com/20221014/fourteen-killed-in-coal-mine-blast-in-northern-turkey---interior-ministry-1101862481.html Death Toll From Coal Mine Blast in Turkey Rises to 25 - Authorities Death Toll From Coal Mine Blast in Turkey Rises to 25 - Authorities ANKARA (Sputnik) - The death toll from the explosion at a coal mine in northern Turkey now stands at 25, the authorities in the province of Bartin, where the... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T20:49+0000 2022-10-14T20:49+0000 2022-10-14T22:46+0000 world europe turkey turkey coal mine /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0e/1101862339_3:0:984:552_1920x0_80_0_0_fe278e5f223bbb67e00bc616fa7921f7.png "The death toll is 25 people," the Bartin authorities said on social media.According to the health minister, 17 people were injured in the explosion.Earlier on Friday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that 14 people were killed by the blast. It was later reported that 22 people died.The explosion occurred in a mine in northern Turkey, there are workers under the rubble, CNN Turk reported earlier. A Haber broadcaster reported, citing local authorities, that 115 workers had been at the site of the explosion at a depth of 300 meters underground, some of them were evacuated. Forty-nine workers are blocked, Bartin Governor Nurtac Arslan said.The Turkish disaster and emergency management agency AFAD said that the blast appeared to have been caused by a transformer.Rescuers and firefighters were dispatched to the mine. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the ministers of interior and natural resources to travel to the area.According to Turkish media reports, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit the site of the accident on Saturday. turkey 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 europe, turkey, turkey, coal mine https://sputniknews.com/20221014/india-seeks-satisfactory-resolution-with-uk-on-koh-i-noor-diamond-dispute-1101842989.html India Seeks 'Satisfactory Resolution' With UK on Koh-i-Noor Diamond Dispute India Seeks 'Satisfactory Resolution' With UK on Koh-i-Noor Diamond Dispute 'Koh-i-Noor', which means "mountain of light" in Persian, is set in the crown of the Queen Mother and put on display in the Tower of London. India has been... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T12:39+0000 2022-10-14T12:39+0000 2022-10-14T12:39+0000 world uk royal family royal family diamond uk indian foreign ministry camilla parker bowels /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/10/1100868438_0:43:1947:1138_1920x0_80_0_0_7ef0b07a8436fef3feabae52f8ee8204.jpg India seeks a "satisfactory resolution" with the UK government on the retrieval of the iconic Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.The remarks came amid a controversy over whether the diamond will be used when Camilla Bowles Paker is crowned Queen Consort on May 6, 2023, alongside her husband, who will be anointed as King Charles III. British media reported that Camilla may not be crowned with the Koh-i-Noor over concerns it may spark negative sentiments towards the UK, particularly from India.Mindful of the sentiments that have been expressed by the Indian public and parliament, Delhis Foreign Ministry has time and again raised the matter of the return of the diamond and other antiquities with the UK government.As per the Archaeological Survey of India, the legendary diamond was unearthed in the Golconda mines in central southern India, between the 12th-14th centuries.Records show that it was in the possession of the Mughals till the 16th century. Later, Persians seized it from the Mughals and then the Afghans.According to the Royal Collection Trust, the disputed diamond was surrendered to Queen Victoria in 1849 as part of the Treaty of Lahore by the last Sikh Emperor of India Maharaja Duleep Singh when he was 11 years old. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.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 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg uk royal family, royal family, diamond, uk, indian foreign ministry, camilla parker bowels https://sputniknews.com/20221014/india-successfully-test-fires-nuclear-capable-ballistic-missile-from-strategic-strike-submarine-1101847832.html India Successfully Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile From Strategic Strike Submarine India Successfully Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile From Strategic Strike Submarine Indian defense researchers have been developing a range of series K submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), ranging from 500 km to 6,000 km, which are... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T13:38+0000 2022-10-14T13:38+0000 2022-10-14T13:38+0000 indian navy indian ocean ballistic missiles china submarine nuclear india /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0e/1101851014_0:151:1277:869_1920x0_80_0_0_dfd591f25ff42813194c8d78b083834d.jpg India's domestically-developed strategic strike submarine, the INS Arihant, has completed a user training launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the defense ministry announced on Friday.The Arihant, meaning Slayer of Enemies in Sanskrit, uses a uranium-fueled pressurized light-water reactor, allowing the Indian navy to deploy submarines which don't need to return to base for months.The SSBN is a key element of Indias nuclear deterrence capability. The defense ministry reiterated its No First Use commitment to a nuclear arsenal in event of war.India is part of the elite club of nations, namely the US, Russia, the UK, France, and China, which have the capabilities to launch nuclear missiles from sea, air, and undersea platforms. indian ocean china Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.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 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg indian navy, indian ocean, ballistic missiles, china, submarine, nuclear https://sputniknews.com/20221014/indias-border-guard-force-shoots-down-pakistani-drone-in-punjabs-gurdaspur-1101831359.html India's Border Guard Force Shoots Down Pakistani Drone in Punjab's Gurdaspur India's Border Guard Force Shoots Down Pakistani Drone in Punjab's Gurdaspur Since 2021, Pakistan has violated Indian airspace on several occasions, sending drones across the international border, especially in Punjab and J& K... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T06:12+0000 2022-10-14T06:12+0000 2022-10-14T06:12+0000 india punjab drone drone uav uav bsf indian border security force (bsf) shot down pakistan /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0e/1101832896_0:151:1600:1051_1920x0_80_0_0_a006e064084054c3fa18ae24905c5b6a.jpg India's Border Security Force (BSF) shot down a Pakistani drone that flew inside Indian territory in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab on Friday morning. According to BSF DIG, Gurdaspur, Prabhakar Joshi, the drone was shot down at around 4.35 am after troops patrolling the international border in Punjab found it had violated Indian airspace.However, it wasn't the first instance of a Pakistani drone trying to make an illegal entry into India.A recent government document suggests that as many as 191 drones from Pakistan have illegally entered India in 2022, leading the armed forces of the country to expedite the deployment of anti-drone systems along the border with its western neighbor.As per the BSF, Pakistani drones have breached the border on 171 instances in Punjab, 20 UAVs were recorded to have entered India from the Jammu sector. https://sputniknews.com/20221012/india-scouts-for-solution-to-handle-drone-threats-as-191-pakistani-uavs-breach-its-airspace-in-2022-1101767259.html punjab pakistan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Pawan Atri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926219_0:0:358:358_100x100_80_0_0_aca1d9bdccc7af990e49b4511ee80344.png Pawan Atri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926219_0:0:358:358_100x100_80_0_0_aca1d9bdccc7af990e49b4511ee80344.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 Pawan Atri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926219_0:0:358:358_100x100_80_0_0_aca1d9bdccc7af990e49b4511ee80344.png punjab, drone, drone, uav, uav, bsf, indian border security force (bsf), shot down, pakistan, pakistan, jammu, security, security, indian armed forces, indian army, indian air force, indian air force (iaf) https://sputniknews.com/20221014/irans-president-slams-foreign-powers-interference-in-west-asia-1101839381.html Iran's President Slams Foreign Powers Interference in West Asia Iran's President Slams Foreign Powers Interference in West Asia Earlier this year, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani accused the US of seeking to create tension and crisis in West Asia. 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T10:39+0000 2022-10-14T10:39+0000 2022-10-14T10:39+0000 world iran ebrahim raisi us syria governments sanctions middle east /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093828484_0:143:3071:1870_1920x0_80_0_0_7e02fe5e9544a4d3b61a213ae44fceb5.jpg Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has lashed out at what he described as Western governments interference in the West Asia region, which comprises such countries as Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.The Iranian president noted that the interference of foreign powers in the Asia region adds to regional tensions and this was the main issue that we raised at the CICA summit.The statement followed Raisis CICA speech, in which he specifically named Iran as a testament o the ineffectiveness of the US military-political course and sanctions. According to him, it is for this reason that Washington had to resort to destabilizing the Islamic Republic. In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump announced Washington's exit from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, while also reinstating harsh economic sanctions on Tehran, which a year later started to suspend its deal-related obligations. "Iran focuses on the policy of good neighborliness, multipolarity and sustainable integration with a view to implementing a fair order based on cooperation and mutual respect, Raisi pointed out.The remarks came a few months after the Iranian president said that the US troop withdrawal from Syria and the entirety of West Asia is a vital component for the return of peace and stability to the region.US forces intervened in Syria in 2016, ostensibly to fight Daesh* and support local Kurdish militia units combating terrorists. Six years on, the US continues to occupy Syrian territory east of the Euphrates and an outpost on the Syrian-Iraq-Jordanian border, with the lands accounting for 90 percent of the countrys energy wealth.Damascus has repeatedly demanded that the US leave Syrian territory immediately. In May, Foreign Minister Mekdad vowed that the US occupation of eastern Syria would soon be brought to an end, and called on US-allied Kurdish militias to realize that America would abandon them.*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia and other countries https://sputniknews.com/20220916/iran-will-never-bow-to-us-bullying-wont-be-stopped-in-pursuit-of-its-goals-raisi-tells-xi-1100881177.html iran 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 iran, ebrahim raisi, us, syria, governments, sanctions, middle east https://sputniknews.com/20221014/japan-protests-to-north-korea-over-27th-missile-launch-this-year-1101830958.html Japan Protests to North Korea Over 27th Missile Launch This Year Japan Protests to North Korea Over 27th Missile Launch This Year MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - Japan protested to North Korea via diplomatic channels over the 27th ballistic missile launch since the beginning of 2022, Japanese Defense... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T04:54+0000 2022-10-14T04:54+0000 2022-10-14T04:54+0000 world japan north korea missiles /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105661/79/1056617903_0:0:5377:3024_1920x0_80_0_0_960f4d8185dbeb49b6118e902a8886db.jpg "North Korea is launching missiles with unprecedented frequency this year. This is the eighth launch since the end of September alone. North Korea is [behaving] provocatively and unilaterally raising tensions. These actions on the part of North Korea threaten the peace and security of our country and the region and are absolutely unacceptable. They also violate UN resolutions. Our country has strongly protested and condemned [these actions] via the embassy in Beijing," Hamada told a press conference in Tokyo.The Yonhap news agency cited a South Korean Foreign Ministry official as saying on Friday that Seoul has unilaterally sanctioned 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions. The ministry noted that it would consider additional sanctions against North Korea in the event of further provocations.The sanctions list includes officials related to North Korea's missile program and those involved in the procurement of supplies for missiles. Seoul has sanctioned individuals from Korea Ryonbong General Corp., the Academy of the National Defense Science, the Ministry of Rocket Industry, Hapjanggang Trading Corp., Korea Rounsan Trading Corp., and the Maritime Administration and Ministry of Crude Oil Industry.Earlier in the day, North Korea fired a total of 170 artillery shells toward the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea and launched a short-range ballistic missile. The missile traveled about 650 kilometers (404 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, some 370 kilometers from the country's coast, Hamada said, adding that the missile flew on an irregular trajectory.North Korea has carried out eight test launches since September 25 and over 25 since the beginning of the year. North Korea has emphasized that its test launches are being carried out in response to the refusal of the US and South Korea to stop joint military drills, which Pyongyang believes threaten regional stability. 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 japan, north korea, missiles Saudi Arabia Offers Extra $400 Million in Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine - Foreign Ministry The Saudi Arabian government will provide Ukraine with an additional $400 million in humanitarian aid, the country's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. The announcement followed the phone conversation between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, held earlier on Saturday. "The president [Zelensky] also expressed his thanks and appreciation to HRH [his royal highness] for the Saudi leadership's decision to offer an additional humanitarian aid package for Ukraine in the amount of (400 million dollars) which will contribute to alleviating the suffering of Ukrainian citizens at the wake of the crisis," the ministry said in a statement on Twitter. According to the statement, Salman emphasized "the Kingdom's position of supporting everything that will contribute to de-escalation, and the Kingdom's readiness to continue the efforts of mediation." Zelensky, for his part, thanked Salman for Riyadh's readiness to continue mediation efforts aimed at the resolution of the Ukraine conflict. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have already delivered several packages of humanitarian aid to Ukrainians who had fled to Europe. https://sputniknews.com/20221014/metas-new-vr-device-tracks-your-face-what-does-that-mean-for-privacy-1101829175.html Metas New VR Device Tracks Your Face, What Does That Mean for Privacy? Metas New VR Device Tracks Your Face, What Does That Mean for Privacy? Meta,* then called Facebook, entered the Virtual Reality space when it purchased Oculus in 2014. It soon started working on building the metaverse and... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T00:16+0000 2022-10-14T00:16+0000 2022-10-14T00:16+0000 science & tech facebook meta vr data privacy internet privacy digital privacy privacy /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/02/1090419664_0:122:1930:1208_1920x0_80_0_0_8807abae7666b1182bd52c59fe3b849e.jpg At its Meta Connect event on Tuesday, the company revealed the new Meta Quest Pro, an enterprise-level device that is more powerful, thinner, lighter, and with improved augmented reality capabilities compared to its current consumer-focused Meta Quest 2 device.As it is an enterprise device, aimed at companies and VR enthusiasts with extremely deep pockets, it will launch for $1499 and will be released at the end of this month. Significantly, it includes face and eye tracking.It uses five inward-facing cameras to record the users face, allowing the user's avatar to mimic their actions. They can smile or frown, raise their eyebrows, furrow their brow, and just generally reflect what users do in the real world onto their virtual avatar. It will also allow for more detailed environments through foveated rendering, tracking the users eyes and rendering what is in the center of the users vision, while rendering everything else at a lower resolution, not unlike how peripheral vision works in our real eyes. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says face-tracking avatars will be essential for VR to become part of the workplace.The demos on display at Meta Connect 2022 were impressive and a massive leap from their current method of listening to the users voice to approximate mouth movements, but some are worried about potential privacy concerns.While Meta says that the images the device captures are stored locally on the device and deleted after use, that is not enough to assuage the fears of many. Facial identification has been at the forefront of personal privacy in the digital age. In November 2021, Meta announced that Facebook would delete the facial recognition data it had gathered and used to automatically tag people in pictures.Still, the data potentially gathered from the Meta Quest Pro could be used to enhance attempts to use facial recognition to determine a users emotion, a longtime goal of advertisers and tech companies like Amazon, who have attempted that in the past.Meta has also been experimenting with ads inside of VR, something that angered its consumer base last year. With face and eye tracking, Meta could tell how long a user looks at an ad and, potentially, what their reaction is to it. In one way, this is not unlike how websites can track how long your mouse cursor will linger over a part of a page, only even more personal and invasive. And while the images are deleted under Metas current privacy policy, it also states that the insights from those images are processed and stored on Metas servers. Additionally, that data can be accessed by companies outside of Meta through its new Movement SDK so that they can animate avatars in their games and applications.Furthermore, the Meta Quest Pro, like the Meta Quest 2 and its predecessor the Oculus Quest, also has outward-facing cameras. To build a play space, the devices map out the users room, potentially giving Meta and any other company that gets access to that data knowledge of the size and shape of a users room, or multiple rooms if the user uses the device in several places, which is valuable data for advertisers.Meta has been attempting to shed its reputation as a company with bad privacy practices, something that was exacerbated in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018. Many believe that PR shift was behind the companys aforementioned move to delete its facial recognition data, but remain unconvinced that Meta, either through incompetence or malfeasance, is capable of properly securing user data.It is difficult to explain to someone who hasnt put on a headset how personal virtual reality can feel at times. Still, it is safe to say that more expressive avatars will go a long way towards building interconnectedness between people in virtual reality, but it also has the potential for advertisers to use those same emotions against us.Kavya Pearlman is the founder of the XR Safety Initiative, which advises businesses and governments about safety and ethics in the metaverse, and is also the creator of Second Life, an MMO game that predates modern virtual reality. She is also concerned about advertising in virtual reality. My background suggests that we are on a very dangerous path, says Pearlman. And if we arent careful our autonomy, free will, and agency are at risk.*Facebook and its parent company Meta are banned in Russia as extremist, terrorist organizations. https://sputniknews.com/20221011/russia-adds-meta-to-list-of-terrorist-organizations-1101719501.html https://sputniknews.com/20220827/meta-has-reached-a-preliminary-settlement-in-the-cambridge-analytica-lawsuit-1100073056.html 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 facebook, meta, vr, data privacy, internet privacy, digital privacy, privacy https://sputniknews.com/20221014/moscow-urges-riga-to-refrain-from-interfering-in-church-relations---foreign-ministry-1101863679.html Moscow Urges Riga to Refrain From Interfering in Church Relations - Foreign Ministry Moscow Urges Riga to Refrain From Interfering in Church Relations - Foreign Ministry MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Moscow calls on Riga not to interfere in church relations amid reports that the Latvian government has sent a letter to Patriarch Kirill of... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T21:29+0000 2022-10-14T21:29+0000 2022-10-14T21:29+0000 russia russia latvia russian orthodox church egils levits /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/106910/17/1069101735_0:137:3155:1912_1920x0_80_0_0_8070ece434f16d00655c55e48e1a4603.jpg "We would like to call on the 'church reformers' from Latvia not to interfere in the relationship of the churches, but to deal with the problems that are many in their country. The real fact of further interference in the affairs of the Latvian Orthodox Church, attempts to undermine the foundations of Orthodoxy in Latvia broadcast to the whole world the unwillingness of the Latvian authorities to respect the inviolable right of man and citizen to freedom of religion," Askaldovich said.The ambassador noted that Moscow will not agree with such a policy and will do everything possible to expose it on all international platforms. Askaldovich also called on the confessional community to pay attention to the blatant fact of discrimination on religious grounds on the part of Latvia.On September 8, the Latvian Seijm promptly approved amendments to the law, proposed by the country's president, Egils Levits, that declared the Latvian Orthodox Church autocephalous. The amendments to the law on the Latvian Orthodox Church, making it totally independent from any other church outside Latvia, primarily the Russian one. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the approval of such amendments to the law on the Latvian Orthodox Church would not be left without consequences.In early September, a source from the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations told Sputnik that autocephaly could be granted to the Latvian Orthodox Church only by the Russian Orthodox Church and state interference in such matters is unconstitutional. russia latvia 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, latvia, russian orthodox church, egils levits https://sputniknews.com/20221014/moscow-us-involvement-in-ukraine-conflict-fraught-with-catastrophic-consequences-1101833061.html Moscow: US Involvement in Ukraine Conflict Fraught With Catastrophic Consequences Moscow: US Involvement in Ukraine Conflict Fraught With Catastrophic Consequences MOSCOW, October 14 (Sputnik) - The more the United States is involved in the Ukraine conflict, the higher the risk of provoking a clash between the major... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T06:06+0000 2022-10-14T06:06+0000 2022-10-14T06:06+0000 world russia ukraine us /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/0f/1100803632_0:171:3072:1899_1920x0_80_0_0_c4c2560ead101d8613d02097d0edb189.jpg "The logic of the current situation is simple: the more the US is involved in supporting the Kiev regime on the battlefield, the more it becomes a party to the military confrontation with Russia, and thus risks provoking a direct armed clash between the largest nuclear powers, fraught with catastrophic consequences," Ryabkov said.The deputy minister drew parallels between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the current escalation of tensions between Moscow and Washington, adding that in both cases "we have to talk about the destructive for international security and strategic stability desire of Washington to gain a decisive military and strategic superiority."Ryabkov said that the US is raising the stakes in the Ukraine conflict, believing in the ability to "remotely" control the escalation without harming itself. The minister added that the US will continue to "wage war" against Russia at the hands of Ukrainians, "who play the role of hostages and victims."The deputy minister expressed hope that "US politicians will finally realize their responsibility for the fate of the world," as it was demonstrated by Soviet and US leaders in 1962 while working out a political and diplomatic solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis.The Cuban missile crisis, also known as the Caribbean crisis, took place in October 1962, when the US discovered that the Soviet Union had deployed ballistic missiles in Cuba. The move was triggered by a similar US deployment in Turkey. The crisis is widely seen as one of the most dramatic standoffs of the Cold War. 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, ukraine, us https://sputniknews.com/20221014/new-zealand-unveils-plan-to-tax-livestock-emissions-yes-that-means-burps-and-farts-1101830033.html New Zealand Unveils Plan to Tax Livestock Emissions, Yes, That Means Burps and Farts New Zealand Unveils Plan to Tax Livestock Emissions, Yes, That Means Burps and Farts Cows, sheep and other livestock in New Zealand will have to start watching their diets. The countrys prime minister Jacinda Arden confirmed at a press... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T03:11+0000 2022-10-14T03:11+0000 2022-10-14T03:11+0000 world cattle cattle new zealand /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/07/1c/1083476960_0:260:1920:1340_1920x0_80_0_0_c90fbde33684f7a404acb62cd873d4f8.jpg The push to tax livestock emissions may seem odd. For instance, transportation is what generates the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Electric power in the U.S. is the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, followed by industry.The billwhich was first introduced in part back in Mayis proposed to come into force in the year 2025. A consultation on the bill was launched this week and will continue to work until November 18 to address details of the proposal including levies, transition assistance and sequestration.New Zealand is a major livestock and meat producer, with meat being their second largest export, generating the country about $10 billion in revenue in 2021, according to the Meat Industry Association (MIA). Agriculture accounts for half of New Zealands total emissions, with 94% of their nitrous oxide emissions and about 91% of their biogenic methane emissions coming from the sector, according to the countrys Ministry for the Environment.The proposal is in step with the New Zealand government's goal of cutting biogenic methane emissions from somewhere between 24% and 47% by the year 2050. Taxing the countrys 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep may be the key to doing just that.But while the proposal to tax cattle emissions promises to recycle tax revenue back into the agriculture sector through new technology, research and incentive payments to farmers, the Federated Farmers of New Zealand was infuriated by the proposal, calling it gut-wrenching.Andrew Morrison, the chairman of Beef+Lamb New Zealand also expressed concern, and even disapproval, regarding the proposal.We need to further analyze these changes carefully, but one area of immediate concern is the proposed changes to sequestration, which is of real importance to sheep and beef farmers, said Morrison. We know we have a role to play in addressing climate change and our farmers are among the first to feel the effects of it.However, if farmers are to face a price for their agricultural emissions from 2025, it is vital they get proper recognition for the genuine sequestration happening on their farms, Morrison added.In an email to farmers, both Morrison and Sam McIvor, the CEO of Beef+Lamb New Zealand, seemed to fully reject the governments proposal. https://sputniknews.com/20221013/steel-producer-arcelormittal-begins-291mln-decarbonization-project-in-canada-1101824972.html new zealand Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.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 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg cattle, cattle, new zealand https://sputniknews.com/20221014/nigerian-company-uses-e-waste-to-create-eco-friendly-solar-lanterns-1101836446.html Nigerian Company Uses E-Waste to Create Eco-Friendly Solar Lanterns Nigerian Company Uses E-Waste to Create Eco-Friendly Solar Lanterns Earlier this month, the Quadloop chief executive said that the firms flagship product, the IDunnu solar lantern, is fitted with a USB mobile charging option... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T08:32+0000 2022-10-14T08:32+0000 2022-10-14T08:32+0000 africa nigeria company waste production /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107171/08/1071710822_0:203:3888:2390_1920x0_80_0_0_4c3d2db4f241f966b25e4c43dc7802d0.jpg Dozie Igweilo, founder and CEO of the Nigeria-based company Quadloop, has touted his firms R&D efforts to turn electronic waste into environmentally friendly products, such as solar-powered lanterns.Speaking to Reuters, Igweilo said that he had come up with the idea while monitoring a market for affordable domestically made electrical goods. He added that parts for these products were not available in Nigeria.He explained that his company, in particular, recycles lithium batteries from discarded old laptops to produce solar lanterns, which have a lower impact on the environment. According to Igweilo, Quadloop plans to source at least 70% of its materials from electronic waste.The remarks came after the companys CEO told the Meaningful Business group that Quadloop focuses on producing devices that would make life easier and better for everyone while promoting local manufacturing.Igweilo stressed that the firms future ambition is to utilize e-waste as a means of job creation, empowering young adults and bringing awareness to the circular economy resource models in Africa.The company's drive to recycle e-waste unfolds against the backdrop of efforts by Western-backed environmentalist groups, the EU and US President Joe Biden's climate czar John Kerry to prevent African nations from developing their own lucrative energy projects. https://sputniknews.com/20220927/electricity-grid-collapse-causes-blackouts-in-nigeria-1101255644.html https://sputniknews.com/20220928/oil-behemoth-shell-swallows-african-solar-provider-for-greener-balance-sheet-1101312218.html nigeria 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 nigeria, company, waste, production https://sputniknews.com/20221014/north-korea-fires-some-170-artillery-shells-toward-sea-of-japan-yellow-sea---reports-1101830516.html North Korea Fires Some 170 Artillery Shells Toward Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea - Reports North Korea Fires Some 170 Artillery Shells Toward Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea - Reports MOSCOW, October 14 (Sputnik) - North Korea fired about 170 artillery shells toward the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea on Friday, the Kyodo news agency... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T03:18+0000 2022-10-14T03:18+0000 2022-10-14T03:18+0000 world asia north korea artillery sea of japan /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105303/94/1053039446_0:160:3075:1890_1920x0_80_0_0_6d51d9cb90af53ad8d1395aad7b642ba.jpg According to the report, North Korea fired 130 artillery shells toward the Yellow Sea and 40 more shells toward the Sea of Japan at dawn on Friday. The shells fell outside South Korea's exclusive economic zone.The North Korean shelling violated the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, which established a maritime buffer zone between Seoul and Pyongyang to reduce military tensions, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said.The president added that Seoul was building "a readiness posture against North Korea's provocations."Earlier in the day, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan. The missile traveled about 650 kilometers (404 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, some 370 kilometers from the country's coast, Kyodo reported, citing Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada. Hamada said that the missile flew on an irregular trajectory.North Korea has carried out eight test launches since September 25 and over 25 since the beginning of the year. North Korea has emphasized that its test launches are being carried out in response to the refusal of the US and South Korea to stop joint military drills, which Pyongyang believes threaten regional stability. https://sputniknews.com/20221013/north-korea-test-fires-another-ballistic-missile---reports-1101826396.html asia sea of japan 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 asia, north korea, artillery, sea of japan https://sputniknews.com/20221014/north-korea-retaliates-seouls-provocations-near-forward-defense-area-state-media-report-1101833951.html North Korea Retaliates Seoul's 'Provocations' Near Forward Defense Area, State Media Report North Korea Retaliates Seoul's 'Provocations' Near Forward Defense Area, State Media Report MOSCOW (Sputnik) - North Korean troops have taken "strong military countermeasures" in retaliation to the provocations conducted by the South Korean army in... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T06:37+0000 2022-10-14T06:37+0000 2022-10-14T06:37+0000 world dprk democratic republic of north korea (dprk) south korea north korea missile launch missile launches /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/04/19/1095045301_0:0:3095:1740_1920x0_80_0_0_6e65eb4f2998d464fb15b782c94a2d42.jpg It did not specify the nature of the "countermeasures."The report also said that the KPA had sent a "stern warning" to the South Korean army which it said was "inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action."Earlier in the day, North Korea fired a total of 170 artillery shells toward the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea and launched a short-range ballistic missile. The missile flew about 650 kilometers (404 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone.Pyongyang has carried out eight test launches since September 25 and over 25 since the beginning of 2022. North Korea has emphasized that its test launches are being carried out in response to the refusal of the US and South Korea to stop joint military drills, which Pyongyang believes threaten regional stability. democratic republic of north korea (dprk) south korea 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 dprk, democratic republic of north korea (dprk), south korea, north korea missile launch, missile launches https://sputniknews.com/20221014/opec-nations-privately-told-us-they-disagreed-with-production-cut-decision---state-dept-1101863314.html OPEC+ Nations Privately Told US They Disagreed With Production Cut Decision - State Dept. OPEC+ Nations Privately Told US They Disagreed With Production Cut Decision - State Dept. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Some member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) privately told the United States that they... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T21:21+0000 2022-10-14T21:21+0000 2022-10-14T21:21+0000 americas us opec oil production /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107888/64/1078886457_0:151:3106:1898_1920x0_80_0_0_78bdbac9e3e39ea92e8be2ac699de7a5.jpg Last week, OPEC+ unanimously agreed to decrease oil production by two million barrels per day starting in November in response to uncertainty in global energy markets. The Biden administration condemned the supply cut as short-sighted amid rising energy prices in the US and Europe.On Thursday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry denied that the OPEC+ decision was politically motivated. The US disagrees with Saudi claims that the move was economically necessary and provided alternative analysis to the contrary, White House Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby also said on Thursday.The uncertainty in global energy markets is partially caused by sanctions imposed by the collective West on Russian fuel sources. The Biden administration is attempting to establish a global price cap coalition on Russian oil to stabilize supply while reducing Russias profits - a move that is undermined by OPEC+s production cut, according to Kirby.The Kremlin said it will not provide energy to countries that choose to join the price cap coalition. https://sputniknews.com/20221014/us-saudi-arabia-have-multiplicity-of-interests-relating-to-bilateral-ties---state-dept-1101862806.html americas 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, opec, oil production https://sputniknews.com/20221014/poland-integrates-patriot-complex-into-national-air-defense-system---minister-1101863044.html Poland Integrates Patriot Complex Into National Air Defense System - Minister Poland Integrates Patriot Complex Into National Air Defense System - Minister MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Poland has integrated its Patriot missile defense systems into the national air defense system, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T21:10+0000 2022-10-14T21:10+0000 2022-10-14T21:10+0000 military poland us patriot missile system /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102463/90/1024639058_0:106:4113:2420_1920x0_80_0_0_9a46fc91ebf7d4502b0534c72ee82839.jpg "We have achieved the goal. Polish Patriots are being integrated as we proceed to build a multi-layer, based on components produced by the Polish armament industry, air defense system," Blaszczak said following the systems test as quoted by the Polish defense ministry on Twitter.Poland tested its first Patriot missile defense system on Friday at its base camp Torun.Poland plans to create an intermediate-range air defense system in the country based on Patriot missile defense. Under the contract Warsaw signed with the US in 2018, the first two batteries of Patriots were delivered to Poland earlier this year. The Polish military also said it was going to purchase six additional batteries.Warsaw and Washington have numerous programs intended to boost their military cooperation and increase US military exports to Poland, including the Patriot program, the HIMARS program for M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and the program for the purchase of F35 fighter jets, as well as the recently started program for the purchase of Abrams tanks.After the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, the US decided to deploy an additional 4,700 American troops to Poland on top of the nearly 5,000 military personnel which are routinely located in the country. https://sputniknews.com/20221014/minsk-may-take-tough-retaliatory-measures-if-poland-deploys-nuclear-arms---top-diplomat-1101829659.html poland 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 poland, us, patriot missile system . 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You can participate in the discussion within 24 hours after the publication of the article. https://sputniknews.com/20221014/rebellious-tory-mps-have-reportedly-given-truss-17-days-to-save-her-job-as-uk-pm-1101831815.html Rebellious Tory MPs Have Reportedly Given Truss 17 Days to Save Her Job as UK PM Rebellious Tory MPs Have Reportedly Given Truss 17 Days to Save Her Job as UK PM The British PM remains in hot water following the release of the UK governments emergency tax-slashing mini-budget late last month, which triggered a backlash... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T05:57+0000 2022-10-14T05:57+0000 2022-10-17T19:43+0000 world uk liz truss kwasi kwarteng government tory mps budget /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0e/1101832373_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_c15a15131e018b1071e3037a8e97e508.jpg Liz Truss has been given 17 days to save her job by rebellious Tory MPs, who have lined up former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt as a joint ticket to replace the UK prime minister, according to the Daily Mail.The newspaper quoted Tory whips as warning that Truss could face a leadership challenge if Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's upcoming economic statement fails to do away with UK market turmoil caused by the government unveiling its emergency tax-cutting mini-budget in late September.The publication of Kwartengs so-called medium-term fiscal plan on October 31 is reportedly seen by backbench MPs as a document that is central to the survival of both the PM and Chancellor. The plan aims to set out how No 10 will balance the books amid the mini-budget, with independent think tanks claiming the black hole that needs to be filled could top 60 billion ($67 billion).An unnamed former Cabinet minister was cited by the Daily Mail as saying that it is all about the statement on October 31 now she [Truss] has got days to turn things around, that's all.They were echoed by an unnamed senior Tory MP, who told the Daily Mail that the rules [allowing us to oust the PM] can be changed at any time. According to the lawmaker, if she [Truss] loses the confidence of the parliamentary party and cannot regain it, then she will have to go. Of course it will look bad. But we have a duty to stop things descending into the kind of chaos that causes long-term damage. Under Conservative Party rules, Truss cannot face a formal leadership challenge until September 2023.The remarks came as The Times reported that up to 30 senior MPs, including former ministers, are trying to form a council of elders to demand the PMs ouster.The Telegraph in turn cited unnamed sources as saying that Conservative MPs are considering the Michael Howard-style "coronation" of a possible successor to Truss. According to the newspaper, under one plan that is gaining traction among the MPs, the successor should be chosen not according to the normal leadership rules but by cutting out party members' participation and having the MPs pick a winner themselves. The newspaper recalled that in 2003, when the Tories ousted Iain Duncan Smith, they decided to avoid consulting the members and unanimously pick a successor, Lord Michael Howard, all by themselves.A Downing Street source has meanwhile admitted that the waters that may engulf Truss are choppy and might well get choppier, claiming at the same time that there is a way through.Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, for his part, argued in an interview with the BBC that changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea politically and economically.The view was partly supported by former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who warned that ousting Truss would result in a general election as she called on warring MPs to unite behind the PM. MPs circulating a smorgasbord of names about who should replace Truss as PM are not taking into account the fact they cannot foist upon the British public another prime minister that the public have not voted for. A totally untenable position, she tweeted.The developments come after Kwarteng cancelled his meetings in Washington DC to fly back to the UK to hold crunch talks with Truss on possible new U-turns pertaining to the mini-budget. This was preceded by the PM telling Sky News that there was absolutely no shame in the government's U-turn on abolishing the highest rate of income tax earlier this month. Truss claimed that scrapping the 45% rate paid on income over 150,000 per year showed that the government was listening to ordinary peoples' concerns over the mini-budget, which earlier prompted UK market turbulence and the pound plunging to all-time law. https://sputniknews.com/20221005/truss-speech-bought-her-some-time-prof-says-after-pm-vows-to-get-uk-moving--1101539594.html https://sputniknews.com/20221003/probably-wasnt-the-best-idea-kwarteng-regrets-going-to-tory-donors-event-on-mini-budget-day-1101456410.html https://sputniknews.com/20221008/truss-trade-minister-axed-has-whip-suspended-after-serious-misconduct-claim-1101627042.html 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 uk, liz truss, kwasi kwarteng, government, tory mps, budget https://sputniknews.com/20221014/roger-stone-meltdown-calls-ivanka-trump-an-abortionist-b-1101864218.html Roger Stone Meltdown, Calls Ivanka Trump an Abortionist B**** Roger Stone Meltdown, Calls Ivanka Trump an Abortionist B**** Roger Stone, a Republican strategist, consultant and lobbyist, began his career as a student volunteer on Richard Nixons re-election campaign in 1972 before... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T21:55+0000 2022-10-14T21:55+0000 2022-10-14T21:55+0000 viral video clip roger stone meltdown meltdown trump ivanka trump /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0c/11/1091613555_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_57230db56cb0bd43202834fb1e3f6150.jpg A recently released video shows Stone, 70, having a meltdown after he was not granted a pardon following the January 6 riots at the United States Capitol Building. Stone had sought a pardon shortly after the January 6 attacks, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building in order to disrupt a joint session of Congress from certifying the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.According to the House committee investigating the January 6 attacks, Stone had texted a lawyer named David I. Schoen, writing: There will be mass prosecutions. Mark my words. He then asked if Schoen, who was representing Trump at the time, could plug a pardon for him during the next meeting that he took with Trump.That evidence was turned over by a Danish filmmaking crew led by Christoffer Guldbrandsen, who also captured Stones unhinged behavior on camera during a telephone call in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to an unknown person, during which he referred to Ivanka Trump as an abortionist b****.Stones phone call shows his anger at learning that he wouldnt be granted a pardon or legal protection in the aftermath of the January 6 riots. Trump first pardoned Stone in December of 2020 in connection to the 2016 election. Stone was supposed to serve a 40-month prison sentence, but Trump commuted that sentence.The clip was filmed during Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, as Biden was being sworn in as president. It is from an upcoming documentary called A Storm Foretold. The House committee decided not to play the clip during their public hearings, but still showed other footage from the documentary. Additional footage shared with the committee, and obtained by CNN, shows Stone saying, F*** the voting, lets get right to the violence, a day before the 2020 election. https://sputniknews.com/20220321/roger-stone-russia-is-acting-defensively-in-ukrainian-conflict-1094055465.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.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 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg video clip, roger stone, meltdown, meltdown, trump, ivanka trump https://sputniknews.com/20221014/russia-offers-gas-to-eu-through-nord-stream-2-taiwan-threatens-china-amazon-surveillance-robot-1101828651.html Russia Offers Gas to EU Through Nord Stream 2; Taiwan Threatens China; Amazon Surveillance Robot Russia Offers Gas to EU Through Nord Stream 2; Taiwan Threatens China; Amazon Surveillance Robot President Putin has offered to provide gas supplies to the severely weakened EU via the surviving leg of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T08:54+0000 2022-10-14T08:54+0000 2022-10-14T08:54+0000 the critical hour radio sputnik amazon nord stream pipeline taiwan national security strategy ukraine olaf scholz radio /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0d/1101828505_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_2f0e9bc944fc840edae027be364582e8.png Russia Offers Gas to EU Through Nord Stream 2; Taiwan Threatens China; Amazon Surveillance Robot President Putin has offered to provide gas supplies to a severely weakened EU via the surviving leg of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Mark Sleboda, Moscow based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Ukraine. President Putin has offered to provide gas supplies to the severely weakened EU via the surviving leg of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Also, President Biden says he will not meet with Putin and the White House has unveiled its ultra hawkish foreign policy strategy.K. J. Noh, Peace Activist, Writer, Teacher, joins us to discuss China. Taiwan claims that it is ready to attack Chinese aircraft. Also, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the US stance on decoupling in an apparent push back against Washington's anti-China stance.Scott Ritter, former UN weapon inspector in Iraq, joins us to discuss foreign policy. Scott Ritter argues that many people are serving life sentences in jail having been convicted on far weaker grounds than the circumstantial evidence pointing to Washington for the Nord Stream pipeline attack. Also, President Putin points to the US as benefiting from the pipeline terrorism.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, Associate professor of Economics, University of Missouri-Kansas City , joins us to discuss the economy. Michael Hudson has an interesting article in which he outlines the geopolitical pathway away from the neoliberal order. He argues that the pathway is fraught with peril but the rewards are promising.Laith Marouf, broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon, joins us to discuss the Middle East. The calls in the US congress to punish the Saudis is growing louder. Also, the New York Times fired a Palestinian journalist for supporting the Palestine resistance and Iraq still has no political solution for its parliamentary election issues..Ray McGovern, Former CIA analyst and co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to discuss President Biden's new hawkish national security strategy. President Biden has named China as the most consequential geopolitical game changer. Also, NATO claims to be planning on building Ukraine's military industrial complex.Dan Kovalik, writer, Author, lawyer, joins us to discuss Haiti. International security observers are concerned that the US may be planning to invade Haiti. Also, the Haitian people have taken to the streets in massive protests to push back against the possibility of a US led foreign military intervention.Steve Poikonen, National Organizer Action4Assange, joins us to discuss big tech. Amazon has a new home robot and many fear that it may be used for more than just ordering items. Also, Paypal's scheme to punish users with massive fines has backfired.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.comThe views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sputnik ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Wilmer Leon https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.jpg Wilmer Leon https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.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 Wilmer Leon https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.jpg radio sputnik, amazon, nord stream pipeline, taiwan, national security strategy, ukraine, olaf scholz, , radio https://sputniknews.com/20221014/russian-deputy-pm-masterminds-of-nord-stream-terror-attacks-plunged-europe-into-energy-poverty-1101854823.html Russian Deputy PM: Masterminds of Nord Stream Terror Attacks Plunged Europe Into Energy Poverty Russian Deputy PM: Masterminds of Nord Stream Terror Attacks Plunged Europe Into Energy Poverty During the Russian Energy Week forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the Nord Stream terror attacks in late September sought to undermine energy... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T14:56+0000 2022-10-14T14:56+0000 2022-10-14T17:30+0000 nord stream sabotage europe terrorism nord stream nord stream 2 nord stream pipeline russia alexander novak /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/1c/1101300397_0:94:1800:1107_1920x0_80_0_0_c57b09b7699abd78e61ecd94a183ef53.jpg The masterminds of the Nord Stream terror attacks plunged Europe into energy poverty, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday. Novak's remarks came hours after reports that Sweden, Germany and Denmark had refused to jointly investigate the acts of sabotage at the pipelines, each pledging to investigate the attacks independently. Sweden is said to have pulled out from the joint investigative team, followed by Denmark. The German interior ministry told a Friday briefing that the federal police "finished establishing the circumstances" of the sabotage at the Nord Stream network, which runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.The Russian side, in the meantime, has emphasized that it will not recognize the results of the investigation in the attacks, unless Russian experts are allowed to partake in the probe. If Russian experts are denied access to the ongoing investigation, Moscow will assume that Denmark, Sweden and Germany "have something to hide" or provide a cover-up for the perpetrators, the Russian foreign ministry stated.Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that there's no doubt that the incidents at the Nord Stream pipelines were acts of international terrorism.Said competitors, Putin explained, are forcing Europeans to buy energy for a higher price.Nord Stream pipelines suffered fuel leaks and rapid pressure drop on September 26, with Sweden and Denmark registering explosions in the area. The operator company Nord Stream AG later said that the damage to the pipeline system is unprecedented. Putin stated that it was a deliberate assault on European energy infrastructure, hinting that the US and Britain are responsible for the blasts. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has been investigating the incidents as acts of international terrorism. https://sputniknews.com/20221012/kremlin-accidents-at-nord-stream-pipelines-prove-energy-becomes-target-of-terrorists-1101770608.html 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 europe, terrorism, nord stream, nord stream 2, nord stream pipeline, russia, alexander novak https://sputniknews.com/20221014/two-police-officers-in-connecticut-killed-in-apparent-ambush-1101830696.html Two Police Officers in Connecticut Killed in Apparent Ambush Two Police Officers in Connecticut Killed in Apparent Ambush Three officers in Bristol, Connecticut were called to investigate what was thought to be a domestic dispute. A call about two brothers fighting came in at... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T03:41+0000 2022-10-14T03:41+0000 2022-10-14T03:41+0000 americas police police killing /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0f/1092286405_0:321:3071:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_fe102ebd3a0bdb1dbd2c9d25bfd6a93f.jpg Two Bristol police officers were shot and killed, and a third was seriously injured while responding to a domestic dispute report, according to Connecticut State Police. State police now believe the call was a ruse in order to ambush officers Dustin Demonte, 35, Alex Hamzy, 34, who were killed, and Alec Iurato, 26, who suffered a gunshot wound requiring surgery.DeMonte had a wife, two children, and a third child on the way, said Bristol police chief Brian Gould at a news conference.Throughout his career, he has received several awards, including the silver star, officer of the month, and co-recipient for officer of the year in 2019, Gould said of Demonte.The suspect, Nicholas Brutcher, 35, killed the officers with an AR-15-style rifle and had been waiting outside the residence dressed in camouflage attire when police arrived on the scene. The suspect, Brutcher, was shot and killed on the scene. His brother, Nate Brutcher, 32, was also shot and hospitalized in an unknown condition, according to police.Witnesses saw who is most likely the suspects brother run out of the Redstone Hill Road house in an attempt to restrain Brutcher before Brutcher shot him. A witness said they heard about 10 shots fired followed by a burst of gunfire. According to court records, Brutcher had recently been divorced in 2019, had his wages garnished in the past year and owed more than $8,000 to two different credit agencies.Connecticut state police are calling the 911 call a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.These individuals truly, truly enjoyed serving this community. And theyre heroes, and thats what we need to remember them as, he added. https://sputniknews.com/20221013/multiple-dead-including-off-duty-police-officer-in-north-carolina-shooting---reports-1101828980.html americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.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 Mary Manley https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg police, police killing https://sputniknews.com/20221014/uk-defense-chief-chides-macron-for-revealing-his-hand-on-nuclear-weapons-1101835431.html UK Defense Chief Chides Macron for 'Revealing His Hand' on Nuclear Weapons UK Defense Chief Chides Macron for 'Revealing His Hand' on Nuclear Weapons MOSCOW (Sputnik) - UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has chided French President Emmanuel Macron for a premature reveal of France's stance on non-use of nuclear... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T07:50+0000 2022-10-14T07:50+0000 2022-10-14T07:50+0000 world russia france uk emmanuel macron /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107959/80/1079598089_0:0:1280:720_1920x0_80_0_0_8c4a1cc6fd19f2a61398a19d1aa3862c.jpg On Thursday, Macron said Paris would not use nuclear weapons as part of the Ukraine crisis even if Moscow used them against Kiev.Meanwhile, NATO sources told the media outlet that Macron's statement threatened "the principles of deterrence," adding that they, in turn, "don't go into details on scenarios."The European Union and NATO have ramped up rhetoric about alleged Russian plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Russia has slammed the allegation and said that it would only use nuclear weapons under the conditions outlined in its constitution.In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West had crossed all boundaries in its anti-Russian policy and constant threats against Moscow, including nuclear blackmail. High-ranking NATO officials have long been talking about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Moscow, Putin added. In particular, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaking at the opening of the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges on Thursday, promised a "powerful answer from the military side" to Russia if the country launched a nuclear attack against Ukraine. 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, france, uk, emmanuel macron https://sputniknews.com/20221014/us-federal-authorities-investigating-elon-musks-attempt-to-acquire-twitter---court-filing-1101829363.html US Federal Authorities Investigating Elon Musks Attempt to Acquire Twitter - Court Filing US Federal Authorities Investigating Elon Musks Attempt to Acquire Twitter - Court Filing WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is under investigation by the US federal authorities for his activity surrounding the attempted... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T00:17+0000 2022-10-14T00:17+0000 2022-10-14T00:17+0000 science & tech elon musk twitter investigation /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/09/1101657125_0:361:2967:2029_1920x0_80_0_0_7647c1625e9c64029ab3a4dc7a2aa5f3.jpg Elon Musk is presently under investigation by federal authorities for his conduct in connection with the acquisition of Twitter. Through counsel, he has exchanged substantive correspondence with those authorities concerning their investigations. Twitter wants those documents, because they bear upon key issues in this litigation, the court filing said on Thursday.Musk initially agreed to purchase Twitter in April for approximately $44 billion before the deal was halted by lawsuits stemming from Musks concerns about the number of fraudulent accounts on the social media platform. Musk's claim that the true number of fake accounts is higher than Twitter reported was the basis for stopping the acquisition deal.Twitter has accused Musk of attempting to back out of a deal, which they claim he is contractually obligated to see through to completion.Last week, Musk informed Twitter he would go ahead with the acquisition deal as part of a larger plan to create X, the everything app, but did not elaborate. 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 elon musk, twitter, investigation https://sputniknews.com/20221014/watch-man-caught-shopping-with-girlfriend--beaten-up-by-wife-on-husbands-day-in-india-1101834821.html WATCH: Man Caught Shopping With Girlfriend & Beaten Up by Wife on Husbands Day in India WATCH: Man Caught Shopping With Girlfriend & Beaten Up by Wife on Husbands Day in India The woman was visiting parents after having a quarrel with her husband and was on a shopping spree with her mother when she caught her spouse red-handed... 14.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-14T07:44+0000 2022-10-14T07:44+0000 2022-10-14T07:44+0000 india viral video uttar pradesh beating husband wife lover /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0e/1101834533_0:5:635:362_1920x0_80_0_0_5f39276c36169be71d1bc9f94fd5347b.jpg Netizens are buzzing over footage from Indias Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, where three women were seen breaking into a store and beating up an unfaithful husband and the girl he was caught cheating with.A large crowd gathered to watch the scene, but no one dared to step in. One shopkeeper was heard yelling "out" in Hindi, apparently urging the women to wreak vengeance outside the market."We reached Kotwali (the name of district) as soon as we got the news of the incident happening, there we discovered that a man and woman was bitten by ladies. Out of those ladies, one was that mans wife. She was hitting her husband because he was shopping with his girlfriend in Karwa Chauth," local police told India Today.The incident is even more ironic because that it took place on Karwa Chauth, a Hindu festival when married women fast all day and pray for the well-being of their husbands. The Karwa Chauth festival is celebrated with great zeal throughout the country, but especially in the northern parts of India, including Ghaziabad, where the beating took place. uttar pradesh Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Alan Dzhigkaev Alan Dzhigkaev 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 Alan Dzhigkaev viral video, uttar pradesh, beating, husband, wife, lover Team Jones, trainer Dustin and driver Tyler, lowered the Canadian record for two-year-old trotting geldings when Jokic landed in front of an $18,000 overnight on Thursday night (Oct. 13) at Woodbine Mohawk Park, a night which also featured five divisions for the opening preliminary of the Harvest Series. Jokic came from off a tempo of :27.4, :57.1 and 1:25.2 set by Shesundertheradar, who turned for home battling for the lead. Tyler Jones pushed Jokic up the rim and rallied down the centre of the course to overtake a pylon-popping How The Hell late in the stretch and win by a neck in 1:54.1. The time beats the previous track and Canadian record of 1:54.2 set by HP Royal Theo in winning an elimination for the William Wellwood Memorial in September 2019. Dean Lockhart owns Jokic, who collected his second victory from nine starts and added to his bankroll of now $58,398. He paid $5.20 to win. Harvest Series action opened in Race 1 with the first of two divisions for trotting freshmen. The Hazelton stormed from off the speed to win as the 1-2 favourite in 1:57. The Muscle Mass colt sat sixth while Beacon Beach strolled on the lead through a clip of :28.1, :58 and 1:27.3. Once given free sailing to the center of the track, The Hazelton rolled home to best pocket-popper Zip Me Up by a half length in 1:57. Yank My Halo closed for third and Mr Experience took fourth. Mark Etsell trains and co-owns The Hazelton with Terry Devos, Graham Hopkins and Peter Porter. He won his second race from three starts, has banked $16,500 and paid $3 to win. He Will coasted home in the other Harvest Series division to win by 5-1/4 lengths in 1:57.1. Driver James MacDonald brushed the Muscle Mass gelding to the lead from third after a :28.4 first quarter and cruised to a :59 half and three-quarters in 1:28.1. The Bill Megens pupil spun for home in hand as Impressive Dude dashed off cover to finish second with Snapchat Sam closing for third and Lookslikeagoodfella finishing fourth. A homebred for Megens, He Will collected his fifth win from 10 starts and has now earned $30,850. He paid $5.80 to win. Slick N Quick zipped home in the first of three Harvest Series splits for pacing freshmen to win in 1:53.2. Clearing control to a :28.3 first quarter, Slick N Quick clicked a :57.3 half and accelerated to three-quarters in 1:25 to open five lengths on Bettor B Sirius. The Sportswriter colt shortened stride in the lane but built enough cushion to win by two lengths over Bettor B Sirius narrowing in second, with Sauble Ace taking third and Matts Gem finishing fourth. Julie Walker trains Slick N Quick for owner Fox Ridge Stable. He won his second race from eight starts and has now earned $31,168. Louis-Philippe Roy steered the $6.40 winner. Another front-stepping victory came from Winmebak, who delivered as the 2-5 favourite in 1:53.3. Driver James MacDonald swept the Shadow Play gelding to the fore after a :28.4 first quarter to lead into a :57.4 half. He faced little pressure from there, posting three-quarters in 1:26.1 and sprinting home to win by 3-3/4 lengths over Telllaurailoveher closing for second. Teen Tattler took third and Watch My Chips faded to fourth. Nick Gallucci trains Winmebak for owner Millar Farms. He won his second race from five starts, has now earned $31,668 and paid $2.50 to win. Scribblers followed suit with the other winners and brushed to the top to seal the job in 1:53.3. However, the Paul Reid pupil stayed put from third through a :27.4 first quarter and :56.4 half before driver Bob McClure pushed him for the top. He overtook pacesetter Fade To Light as he started to drop anchor to three-quarters in 1:25.3 while Hes A Sweetheart was left uncovered coming for the drive home. Scribblers fought all through the lane to keep a neck in front of Hes A Sweetheart at the finish, with Bar Down Jim rallying for third and Saulsbrook Ian finishing fourth. The Canam Crew owns Scribblers, a Sportswriter gelding who won his second race from 11 starts and has now earned $34,600. He paid $8.30 to win. To view Thursday's harness racing results, click the following link: Thursday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, former Icelandic president and chairman of Arctic Circle, speaks at the opening ceremony of the Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 in Reykjavik, Iceland, Oct. 13, 2022. The Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 kicked off here Thursday with a record 2,000 participants from almost 70 countries and regions. (Xinhua/Chen Jing) REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 kicked off here Thursday with a record 2,000 participants from almost 70 countries and regions. "This is a formidable demonstration of the desire from so many different quarters of the planet to come together ... to seek solutions," said Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, former Icelandic president and chairman of Arctic Circle, at the opening ceremony. In her opening speech, Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir called for cooperation on Arctic issues, which have a global impact on all human beings. Chinese Ambassador to Iceland He Rulong attended the opening ceremony upon invitation. Gao Feng, special representative for Arctic Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of China, will participate in several discussions on China- and Asia-related topics. Founded in 2013 by Grimsson, the Arctic Circle holds its assembly in Iceland every October. This year's four-day event will have over 200 sessions with more than 600 speakers. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson (L) , former Icelandic president and chairman of Arctic Circle, hosts the Q&A session with a guest during the Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 in Reykjavik, Iceland, Oct. 13, 2022. The Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 kicked off here Thursday with a record 2,000 participants from almost 70 countries and regions. (Xinhua/Chen Jing) Tim Tetrick has driven Back Of The Neck only twice, but after picking up two wins, he likes what hes seen from the five-year-old trotter. I really havent found a bad quality about him, said Tetrick, who will get his third start behind Back Of The Neck in Saturdays $1 million MGM Yonkers International Trot at Yonkers Raceway. Hes a pleasure to drive. He does everything right. Hes pretty simple. Just dont fall off. Tetrick and Back Of The Neck, one of two horses representing the U.S. in the International Trot, head to the invitational event off victories in the Maple Leaf Trot on Sept. 3 and Dayton Trotting Derby on Oct. 1. They will start the 1-1/4 mile race from post six in the 10-horse field and are the 7-2 morning-line third choice. Frances Etonnant is the 5-2 favourite, followed by Back Of The Necks Ake Svanstedt-trained stablemate Ecurie D, one of two horses representing Denmark, at 3-1. Im happy with the draw, Tetrick said. You always like to draw inside, but my horse is a closer. He likes to chase down horses, he likes to pass. I just have to stay close enough. Back Of The Neck, a son of Ready Cash-Big Barb, opened this season with three off-the-board finishes before picking up his two victories. He won the Maple Leaf Trot in 1:51 at Woodbine Mohawk Park, giving him the fastest trotting mile of the year in Canada. In the Dayton Trotting Derby, he used a sustained first-over march to win the event for the second consecutive year. Ake and Sarah (Svanstedt) both said he doesnt usually like to keep going like he did first over, so that was big, Tetrick said about the trip at Dayton. It shows you hes sharp and on his game. The International Trot will be Back Of The Necks first time on a half-mile track. He has raced six times on five-eighths-mile ovals, like Dayton, posting four wins and a second. For his career, Back Of The Neck has won 13 of 37 races and earned $1.26 million for owners Howard Taylor, Judith Taylor, and Order By Stable AB, which bred the horse. Back Of The Necks five starts this year are the fewest of any horse in the International Trot with the exception of Ecurie D. A six-year-old son of Infinitif-To Soon, Ecurie D has raced four times, posting a win, two seconds, and a third. Ecurie D opened this season with a world-record 1:49.1 triumph in the Arthur J. Cutler Memorial. He finished second to stablemates Alrajah One in the John Cashman Memorial and Back Of The Neck in the Maple Leaf, and was third in the Crawford Farms Open Trot, also won by Alrajah One. Prior to arriving in the U.S. last year, Ecurie D was a Group 1 winner in Europe. He has won three of six races in North America, including last years Breeders Crown Open Trot, and captured 18 of 27 starts lifetime, earning $1.09 million. Ecurie D prepped for the International Trot with a 1:57.1 qualifier at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono on Oct. 5. Hes not raced very often, but I dont want to race him in overnight races, Ake Svanstedt said. We have tried to enter him in an open also, but they never fill up, so then we must qualify him. He trained very good. Im happy with him. Hes not a horse that needs races. Svanstedt, who won the 2016 International Trot with Resolve, owns Ecurie D with Marko Kreivi Stables and Suleyman Yuksel Stables. Racing begins at 12:30 p.m. (EDT). There also will be two $250,000 invitationals the MGM Aria Pace and MGM Robert Miecuna Trot on the International Trot Day card. Both will go with 10-horse fields and be raced at the distance of 1-1/4 miles. The International Trot (race seven) is scheduled for 3 p.m. It will be the first leg of a $20,000 guaranteed Late Pick-4, which also includes the Aria Pace and Robert Miecuna Trot as races eight and 10, in conjunction with the USTAs Strategic Wagering Program. A lunch buffet dining option is available on the second floor of the Empire Terrace at a cost of $80 per person on MGM Yonkers International Trot Day. Tickets will be sold at the door, but advance reservations can be made by calling 609-317-7295. There will be a Yonkers International Trot hat or T-shirt giveaway to the first 500 fans on the track apron. Fans unable to attend Saturdays races in person can watch the action live here. Following is the field for the International Trot with driver, trainer, and morning-line odds, with ] denoting a second-tier starter. $1 million Yonkers International Trot Post - Horse (Country Represented) - Driver - Trainer - Morning Line 1. Tycoon Conway Hall (Denmark) - Kasper Foget - Flemming Jensen - 4-1 2. Lovedbythemasses (Canada) - Todd McCarthy - Jeff Cullipher - 10-1 3. Cokstile (Norway) - Vincenzo DellAnnunziata - Mattia Orlando - 5-1 4. Stoletheshow (Norway) - Frode Hamre - Frode Hamre - 8-1 5. Ecurie D (Denmark) - Ake Svanstedt - Ake Svanstedt - 3-1 6. Back Of The Neck (USA) - Tim Tetrick - Ake Svanstedt - 7-2 7. Etonnant (France) - Anthony Barrier - Richard Westerink - 5-2 8. Its Academic (USA) - David Miller - Ron Burke - 12-1 9.] Kennedy (Sweden) - Jason Bartlett - Erik Bondo - 8-1 10.] Zacon Gio (Italy) - Roberto Vecchione - Holger Ehlert - 9-2 (USTA) Schools across the area tested their emergency preparedness with a joint emergency response simulation on Thursday. The exercise was carried out in conjunction with local law enforcement and emergency responders in school buildings in Gering and Scottsbluff public schools as well as Educational Service Unit #13. The simulation was designed and overseen by James Todd, the director of safety and security for Scottsbluff Public Schools. We want to test our protocols and see where we stand, said Todd. Im a firm believer that we would rather make our mistakes practicing than we would in real life. Bluffs Middle School Principal Jana Mason was confident that practice would prepare her students and staff to respond appropriately in any situation. We do a lot of drills that prepare us for lots of different scenarios, said Mason. So, our staff is very diligent and they are well prepared for if we needed to evacuate, if we had to move our entire student body into a lockdown, or if it were something where we needed to secure our perimeter. The exact nature of the scenario was kept secret until the drill began to best simulate a true emergency and test whether the schools were truly prepared for anything. This years simulation included a critical twist: the removal of the schools principals from the response. Todd said that this curveball was intended to test how the schools would perform without the leaders who typically take control in cases of emergency. This year we used a situation where the principal was taken out of the picture, said Todd. Taking that main incident commander from the building and seeing how we run on backups was really what we were trying to get across today. Todd said its not unlikely that a principal would be out of the building for a meeting or errand when a disaster strikes, and their staff need to be prepared to manage the situation in their absence. With Mason on the sidelines, BMS ran their students through a lockdown procedure followed by a law enforcement-led evacuation. Todd said that another important goal for Thursdays exercise was testing each schools secondary evacuation sites. Do we have access to them, do we have the ability to get to them, are there any logistics we need to be thinking of, are they the right locations for us? said Todd. I think testing those capabilities today and getting a couple drills under our belt are all good things. Both Todd and Mason expressed how important it was to involve local law enforcement agencies and emergency responders in the exercise. I think its very crucial. I think its important that theres a common language, said Mason. We know their response will be consistent. Its comforting to know from a school standpoint that we can communicate effectively with law enforcement to make sure we can maintain safety. Todd, a former school resource officer, said that the partnership benefited everyone involved. Its great for law enforcement. Theyll be responding to emergencies in our schools when we need them, so getting them into the school environment to practice and know what were doing as a school district and give us feedback as to how that aligns with their responses its all valuable information. Todd has been involved in safety and security at SPS since 2011, and he is a firm believer that schools have to be prepared for anything. Uvalde was a town very similar to Scottsbluff/Gering, he explained. Very small, rural area. Im sure they never thought it was going to happen there. We have to be as prepared as we can be. On May 24, 2022, nineteen students and two teachers were fatally shot and many others were injured when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Examples of worst-case scenarios in the news can be frightening for students, and Mason said that one of her goals is to make her students feel safe at school. The last thing we want is for any student to have an emotion of fear or anxiety in our building, Mason said. Never are drills intended to incite fear. Todd explained that the district has been continuously moving forward in terms of safety and security for many years with a focus on adding layers of security to schools. The analogy Ive always used is that security is like swiss cheese, said Todd. Swiss cheese is full of holes, but the more layers you have, the more of those holes you cover. School leaders and law enforcement held a debriefing after the exercise at ESU 13 to discuss the results and lessons of the day. Feedback from the debriefing will be used to keep improving the safety and security of area schools. We dont want to stop progressing, said Todd. I think when we stop progressing, we start putting things on the back burner, and thats when its going to come back and bite us. Nine days after successfully distributing food in Alliance, the United Way of Western Nebraska and Healthy Blue Nebraska were at it again in Scottsbluff. On Thursday, Oct. 13, volunteers gathered in the back of Main Street Market to stuff bags full of food for people in need. This event continues a month of service as part of the United Ways Fighting Hunger in Our Community initiative. We partner with local agencies throughout the community theyll identify families in need who are facing food insecurity and we deliver food to those individuals, Stephanie Gochoel, the director of development for United Way, said. All told, the team of around 25 volunteers delivered 600 bags of food to 200 individuals or families in need Thursday. The first 200 bags contained fresh fruits and vegetables, while 200 more contained meat and dairy and the other 200 were packed with shelf-stable canned or boxed items. Volunteers started early in the morning to bag the groceries. The items were then shipped once each bag had been filled. In previous years, the packing event was called the Day of Caring, and it served locations such as Alliance, Chadron, Sidney and the Scottsbluff/Gering area. This year, all four of those locations will be covered as well as the towns of Crawford, Gordon and Kimball. Were pretty excited about expanding into other areas, Gochoel said. In addition to food, each family received a SingleCare prescription discount card. The food should go a long way in combating food insecurity across the Panhandle. Last year alone, volunteers shipped out 1,425 bags of food. I think us partnering with (United Way) is a really great way to do that. Were reaching all levels of people from preschool-aged to the elderly, Audrey Rocheleau, a community specialist with Healthy Blue, said. She said the food fits together to make several meals, which should last families at least a week. With the ingredients, they can make tacos to sandwiches. The ingredients and meals are generally the same year-to-year, depending on the supply chain. Gochoel said the organizations make sure to pick food thats both healthy and that families will be familiar with and know how to prepare. The next food-packing day will be Oct. 18, in Kimball. Crawford families in need will be serviced on Oct. 20, and those in both Chadron and Kimball will receive food on Oct. 25. The Gordon date is still being finalized. A once impoverished village in China's Henan Province has risen above the poverty line, and now embraces rural vitalization, thanks to an art-inspired industry and eco-tourism. Produced by Xinhua Global Service The General Federation of Womens Club of North Carolina (GFWC of NC) Statesville Womans Club recently held its September meeting with special motivational speaker, Tyronna Hooker, who spoke about Women Making a Difference. She spoke of the importance of success is u and the differences that you make in the community. She also read the story of carrots, eggs and ground coffee beans each being put into boiling water and their different outcomes. The moral was how we handle things in everyday life and the way we deal with adversity. Club President Dana White presented membership recognition of two Special Gems within the club and for October. The Gem of the month was Sandra Landry and Hidden Gem was Linda Lavinder. The October project focus is for Bellas Backpacks. The backpacks consist of comfort items for children who go through the Dove House. Backpacks will be assembled on Oct. 27 at 5:30 p.m. at the clubhouse. Items needed include small blankets, journals, coloring books, colored pencils, individual tissue packets and hair brushes. All club members, potential members and guests are invited to attend. A fall rock painting will be held at the clubhouse on Monday from 5:15-6:45 p.m. to paint kindness rocks. While painting rocks, members and guests will have a chance to enjoy refreshments and learn more about the club. Invite a friend and join us for this relaxing event. For more information, contact Club Project Coordinator Stephanie Gill at 704-657-5008. A major club upcoming fundraiser is in honor of the historic clubhouse turning 95 years old. An Afternoon Tea at The Clubhouse Preservation Fundraiser will be held Nov. 5-6, starting at 2 p.m. each day. There will be a chance to experience culinary delights, music and more with gluten-free and vegetarian options available. Tickets are $60 per person and all proceeds will be directed to the Statesville Womans Club Capital Campaign Fund. The original Historic clubhouse was built in 1927; and the present one was rebuilt in 1928 after a fire and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For club information or about renting the GFWC of NC Statesville Womans Clubhouse for your meeting or event, inquiries may be emailed to the club at Statesvillewomansclub@gmail.com or by calling 704-761-8208. For details on joining the GFWC of NC Statesville Womans Club, contact Gill at 704-657-5008. The club has also updated its website to www.statesvillewomansclub.org. A brother and sister are accused of abusing a Winston-Salem woman with disabilities who was locked in a room last year for more than 12 hours, authorities said Thursday. Mary Kathleen Adkins, 37, of Bramblewood Trail is charged with two counts of domestic abuse involving neglect and/or exploitation of a disabled adult, Winston-Salem police said. Her brother, George Murray Adkins Jr., 28, of Yadkin College Road in Lexington is charged with one count of the same crime. At 5:37 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2021, police were called to 1913 Bramblewood Trail. Officers found Lauren Kimel, 30, climbing through a bedroom window and calling from help from her home on Bramblewood Trail. Mary Adkins was Kimel's live-in caregiver but was not there when the officers arrived on the scene, police said. Police say George Adkins shared responsibility with his sister for Kimel's care. Investigators allege Kimel was left in locked room for than 12 hours without supervision or the "necessities of life." Mary Adkins and George Adkins were released from custody Oct. 7 on written promises to appear in court this week. It was not immediately clear what occurred during the Oct. 10 court date. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Winston-Salem police at 336-773-7700 or Crime Stoppers, either at 336-727-2800 or on the Spanish line at 336-728-3904. Crime Stoppers of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County is also on Facebook. The Text-A-Tip line at 336-276-1717 allows people to text tips, photos and videos to the police. Law enforcement officers on Thursday found what they're describing as a "replica firearm" on a student at Parkland High School in Winston-Salem, and will be charging the student with having a weapon on school property, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office said. Authorities said a school resource officer found the weapon in the possession of a Parkland student earlier in the day. The replica "appeared to be a fully functional firearm but was not capable of firing live ammunition," said Christina Howell, speaking for the sheriffs office. Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough said his team is "thankful no one was injured or hurt," but that his office takes this kind of offense seriously. "Our school campuses are a place where our students and staff should feel and should be safe," Kimbrough said, acknowledging that the incident created "fear and concern for our students, our families and our communities." The continued lack of fighting, even without renewing the ceasefire, has benefited both the government forces and the Shia rebels. Thats because Iran is in chaos from growing unrest caused by more and more Iranians, especially women but now the vital oil workers too, joining protests that demand an end to the religious dictatorship and the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). The IRGC protects Irans religious government from angry Iranians. For the last month the IRGC has had a hard time doing that, even though they make more arrests and use gunfire against the protestors. That has not worked so far. Iran also agreed to supply Russia with several thousand Shahed 131 and 136 cruise missiles for use in Ukraine. These are actually UAVs that are used mainly for one-way missions carrying explosives and were, until recently, a major smuggled export to the Yemen Shia rebels. All this means that Iran is not supplying the Shia rebels with sufficient cash weapons to continue its extortion tactics that make the Shia efforts self-sustaining. Without the Iranian weapon shipments and some cash, the Shia rebels are vulnerable. It is unclear how long Iranian support will be absent. Since the ceasefire was last renewed in early August, Iran has become a major source of weapons for Russian forces in Ukraine and, a month ago protests began throughout Iran, demanding an end to the government. If that uprising succeeds, using tactics similar to the one in 1979 that put the religious dictatorship in power, the Shia rebels in Yemen will have to negotiate an end to the war or be crushed by government troops and Saudi airpower. The ceasefire was first agreed to in April and renewed in June and August for another two months. The UN sponsored peace talks were to consider a six-month extension but the Iran-backed Shia rebels have turned down that proposal, insisting that the ceasefire was not working for them. The rebels demanded large cash payments and other concessions if there was to be another ceasefire extension. The government refused. Some fighting resumed after the ceasefire expired, mainly in the usual war zones; Taiz province in the south and Marib in central Yemen. At least eight people have died and even more wounded in those areas since October 2nd. The Saudis have not resumed their airstrikes, nor have the rebels resumed attacks against targets in Saudi Arabia or the UAE (United Arab Emirates). Iran does not openly participate in the ceasefire talks but controls what the Shia rebels will agree to. Iran opposed any ceasefire terms that further disrupt Iranian weapons smuggling. Iran wants to continue smuggling in ballistic and cruise missiles, which are brought in broken down, to be assembled under Iranian supervision in Shia territory and then fired at targets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Shia rebels have suffered heavy casualties since 2021 because of failed efforts to gain more territory as well as defending areas they have long occupied. The April ceasefire and extensions were generally adhered to and that could be measured by the reduction (by more than 50 percent) in civilian casualties. This is not usually the case. Past ceasefires were seen as futile because the Shia rebels violated so many of them and, until recently, showed no interest in change, especially since Iran support is crucial to the maintenance of the Shia military efforts. The current peace talks are different because the Shia and the Yemeni government both agree that allowing Yemen to be a battleground for the Iranian campaign to replace Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Moslem world is not good for Yemen. Then there is the situation in Iran. Yemeni Shia are aware of significant popular opposition in Iran to the Yemen war. The Saudis and UAE were always reluctant participants in the war but could not withdraw as long as Iran was attacking them from Shia rebel-controlled northern Yemen. This encouraged the Yemen government to seriously consider some kind of Shia autonomy and sufficient guarantees that the autonomy would not later be taken away. The problem with the autonomy proposal is that Iran has a veto. Shia rebels risk an internal civil war if they attempt to defy Iranian orders. These orders are delivered by the Iranian embassy in Sanaa, the rebel occupied Yemen capital. The current Iranian ambassador is a former Quds Force general and many other diplomats are veteran Iranian Quds Force officers. The Quds Force is a component of the IRGC that specializes in instigating, supervising, and sustaining foreign rebellions and terror campaigns that might expand Iranian power and keep potential enemies on the defensive. Yemen was one of the least expensive Quds Force operations but with continued economic sanctions, Russian weapons purchases and a nationwide rebellion in Iran, support for Yemeni rebels is on hold. October 7, 2022: The ceasefire meant more opportunities for the Saudi sponsored and financed mine-clearing efforts. So far, the demining teams have found and removed over 360,000 landmines and other dangerous explosive items. The landmines have become a major problem and the Saudi and UAE sponsored mine clearing efforts have been concentrating on eight provinces that are not under rebel control or threatened by the rebels. The total includes mines the rebels have not had a chance to use yet. Because the rebels keep poor records of where they plant them and have no plans to remove them, the orphaned landmines are going to be a problem for a long time. The rebel held capital is defended by at least 60,000 mines and many of these will still be in the ground long after the war is over. The Saudis and UAE train and pay Yemenis to do most of this work, alongside teams from other Arab nations. Eventually the local mine clearing teams will carry on by themselves. The demining effort began in 2018 and so far, 33 deminers have died, including five foreigners. Nearly fifty deminers have been wounded. During those four years 1,800 civilians were killed or wounded by the mines and other hidden explosives. The Shia rebels have planted over a million mines and explosive devices, either to defend their positions or terrorize uncooperative civilians. October 2, 2022: The two-month ceasefire ended and there was no rush to extend it for a third time. There was not a major increase in fighting. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time when area women gather to learn about the disease and community resources available to help fight it. On Thursday, Oct. 20, Ladies Night Out, will be held at the Wytheville Meeting Center. Doors will open for registration at 5:30 p.m., and the program begins at 6 p.m. The annual event is held on the third Thursday in October and celebrates women of all ages, promoting breast cancer awareness throughout all stages of a womans life. The event draws women from Wythe and Bland counties, and beyond. First and foremost, the purpose of Ladies Night Out is to bring awareness and education about breast cancer to women, said event chairperson and breast cancer survivor Deb Vrsansky. Sadly, one in eight women continues to be diagnosed; however, survival rates have continued to climb because of better diagnostic tools resulting in early detection. Research has continued to give physicians more treatment options which also increased survival rates. Research is crucial for this trend to continue. Early diagnosis by way of an annual mammogram continues to increase survival rates, Vrsansky added. This years keynote speaker is Nchang Azefor, a general surgeon with the Wythe County Community Hospital, who is a sponsor of Ladies Night Out along with support from the Wythe-Bland Foundation. The evenings format will be the same as last years with the program preceding the vendor portion of the event. We will be giving away door prizes throughout the evening. Remember, you have to be present to win, Vrsansky said. Our vendors and local businesses donate the prizes, and were very thankful for their generosity. The American Cancer Society will be holding a silent auction across the hall, and we invite everyone to take a look on their way to the ballroom. They will open their doors again after the program is over. Vendors include health services, WCCH, womens organizations and retail businesses. Jewelry will also be for sale. One vendor, Wythevilles About Face, will be selling a variety of pink Sabika jewelry and donating profits to Ladies Night Out. The gift bag this year is a small, soft-sided cooler that is perfect for taking a healthy lunch to work. Inside is a perfectly sized two compartment container with dual lids containing a full size knife and fork, Vrsansky said. The bag contains other handy items as well. My favorite is the bamboo easel for your phone or tablet. The gift bag will also contain a booklet, Caring for Your Breasts, a comprehensive guide that addresses everything from regular self-exams to symptoms of breast cancer. Wythe County Community Hospital also donated a publication about heart health. Also inside the gift bags for the first 500 women are small cosmetic bags donated by the American Cancer Society. And, as always, there will be people at Ladies Night Out to answer any questions attendees have about breast cancer. Concerns about secondary beams on the Lewis and Clark Bridge have brought new attention to talks about what the future of the bridge between Longview and Rainier will look like. Pictures from a Longview resident began circulating on Facebook in late September highlighting the bent support beams on the bridge. The Washington State Department of Transportation has stated the bridge remains safe and the bending beams have been on their radar for several years. The Cowlitz Wahkiakum Council of Governments is hoping to do a preliminary study on the bridge next year as an initial step in the long process of deciding the bridges future. Weve got to start working on it at some point to build a foundation for the eventual construction project. I believe were at a point to jump start the process, said Bill Fashing, executive director of the Cowlitz Wahkiakum Council of Governments. The bridge pictures were shared by Amund Rocky Taylor, a longtime longshoreman who created a Facebook account to share his concerns about the beams. Taylor said he wasnt reassured by the statements by the Department of Transportation about the integrity of the bridge. He hoped the pictures would speed up discussions about replacing the bridge. Its complete insanity, in my opinion, that something this important would take that long, Taylor said. Its going to fail whether its today, tomorrow or 10 years from now. According to a bridge status update WSDOT shared with Fashing and local officials, the beams are part of the secondary bracing system for the bridge. The departments engineers believe the bending is a result of issues with the aging finger joints at either end of the bridge, which allow for minor expansion and flexing due to temperatures and traffic. When the joints are unable to move as designed, expansion and contraction of the bridge pushes on the towers and the bracing members flex, the department wrote in its safety status. A project to replace the finger joints on the bridge is planned to take place next year, which will result in a complete closure of the Lewis and Clark Bridge for up to six days and other construction delays. Longviews state Sen. Jeff Wilson spoke to the Cowlitz County commissioners about the bridge during their Tuesday meeting. Wilson said hed been contacted about the bent beams and had talked to WSDOT repeatedly to make sure he can publicly reassure people about the bridges safety. He also emphasized the need to plan for the bridges future. No matter what we do with the intersection, no matter what kind of bent beams we have, we do have a 92-year-old bridge, Wilson said. A study of the Lewis and Clark Bridge was one of the unfunded regional needs included in the long-term Regional Transportation Plan published by the Council of Governments in 2018. The study would look at the transportation needs and future demand to figure out if the bridge should be moved, widened, replaced or go through other changes. Fashing emphasized that a new bridge was likely still decades away from even being funded, let alone completed. The first needs assessment report that kicked off the Interstate 5 Bridge replacement discussions was released in January 2000. Construction on that project isnt expected to begin until 2025 at the very earliest. In the meantime, Fashing said he trusted the Department of Transportations regular inspections and projects like the joint replacement to keep the old bridge safe. They are confident the bridge is operational and should be operational for some time, Fashing said. In her first month on the job at the Humane Society of Cowlitz County, Jennifer Boyd spayed or neutered about 300 dogs and cats, more than seven times the prior monthly average. Before Boyd started Sept. 1 as the shelters full-time veterinarian, about 10 animals per week would get the surgery from contract vets, according to the nonprofit. The humane societys board of directors decided to hire a fulltime vet as part of the organizations efforts to control the countys stray cat population, catch up with a backlog of procedures and better care for animals, said Christopher Cone, executive director. I dont know if people understand the impact this is having on our community, he said. This is a big part of our success and plan moving forward. Growing need The nonprofit is an open-admission shelter, taking in stray and surrendered animals of all kinds, according to its website. The humane society which contracts with the county, Longview, Kelso, Woodland and Castle Rock for animal control services sees volumes similar to larger counties like Clark or Pierce, Cone said. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the shelter had a high of about 45 dogs, and now has about double that amount, said Wanda Lukken, clinic manager. Summer is always a busy time for cats and kittens, and the shelter currently houses about 200 felines, with another 100 kittens in foster homes, she said. When the humane society takes in a stray animal, it is spayed or neutered and vaccinated before becoming available for adoption. Cone said the shelter previously struggled with getting dogs on the adoption floor in a timely way because contract vets only came to the shelter once a week or once every other week. Contracting became unsustainable, not because the vets didnt want to come to the shelter, but because it was no longer affordable for them to drive from Portland, he said. The shelter still contracts with one vet and allows veterinary students to assist, Cone said. More pets served The humane society is working through a backlog of procedures for shelter cats on a waitlist for its low-income clinic and strays brought in as part of its new to trap, neuter and return pilot program, Cone said. This summer, the shelter received a grant from Best Friends Animal Society to start a community cats pilot program to help control the countys large stray cat population. Through the program, residents can humanely trap stray or feral cats without owners, bring them to the humane society for medical evaluation, vaccination and spaying or neutering. The cats are then released back where they came from. The grant helps pay for the program and veterinary services but doesnt fully cover costs, Cone said. Hiring a fulltime vet also allowed the humane society to hold its low-income spay and neuter clinic for cats and vaccine clinic for cats and dogs on a more regular basis, Cone said. Many people cant afford the surgery for their pet at a regular vets office, and the low-income price is still high for some, Lukken said. But she and the other shelter officials stressed the importance of the procedure and routine vaccinations. Spaying or neutering helps control the pet population and has other health and behavioral benefits, Boyd said. Female dogs are less likely to get cancer if they are spayed, she said. Fixed animals are less likely to run away, fight or cause fights, Boyd said. While some pet owners anthropomorphize their animals and hold off on fixing them before they have at least one litter of puppies or kittens, the animals dont care, Boyd said. Backyard breeding can be expensive and get out of hand, creating more strays or animals that end up at the shelter, she said. I want to live in world where all animals live in good homes where people love and care for them, Boyd said. Increasing spaying and neutering has cut the shelters use of euthanasia, bringing its no-kill rate to 94% starting in September, Cone said. Nationwide, animal welfare organizations are working toward a 95% average save rate by 2025, he said. Historically, most euthanized animals were feral cats people brought in that couldnt be adopted out, Lukken said. The community cat program allows those animals to be treated and returned to their neighborhoods, rather than euthanized. Fixing feral or stray cats also helps with other problems like spraying to mark territory and fighting, Lukken said. Residents can request deterrents from the shelter to keep animals out of their yards, she said. We appreciate doing the community cat program, we believe its making huge strides in animal welfare in the county, Cone said. Vaccinating more animals through the community cat program or the low-income vaccine clinic also improves overall public health, Boyd said. Even indoor pets should be vaccinated because they typically escape at least once and can contact other animals, Boyd said. She also encouraged owners to get their pets microchipped, which the shelter also offers to everyone for $20. The shelter relies on community support through donations and volunteers to keep operating and expanding programs, Cone said. This is the right time to make a big impact on the community, he said. VANCOUVER, Wash. For years, a congressional seat in a Republican district in southwest Washington has evaded Democrats. Now, with the incumbent congresswoman ousted over her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump, they have a slim chance in a race that has pitted an America First Republican against a rural Democrat. The tough battle in the 3rd Congressional District is a key race for both parties as the House is up for grabs amid an environment of increasing polarization. Long-time Republican U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She finished third in the August primary, where the top two finishers win a chance to face off in the general election, regardless of party. Now Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Trump-endorsed Republican Joe Kent are fighting for the seat. Herrera Beutler has not endorsed a candidate and has not said how she plans to vote. Herrera Buetler took 22% percent of the vote in the primary. Which candidate her supporters opt for next month will be key in determining whether Republicans retain the seat or Democrats score an upset, said Mark Stephan, an associate professor of political science at Washington State University-Vancouver. Even though Republicans continue to dominate the 3rd District, they are split in their perspectives, he said. This is a Republican district, and it will be for a while. But theres this small sliver of chance for the Democrats now. The former president garnered just 38% of the statewide vote in 2020 but narrowly won the 3rd District with 50.6% of the vote. In comparison, Herrera Beutler captured more than 56% in her race that year. Stephan said the polarization of the rest of the country can be visualized in the 3rd District. A recent debate in Vancouver, the largest city in the district, showed the vast difference between the two candidates, with Gluesenkamp Perez saying Kent is too extreme and Kent countering that she would be a rubber stamp vote for Democrats. Kent, a former Green Beret who is a regular on conservative cable and podcasts, has called for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and an investigation into the 2020 election. Hes also called to defund the FBI after the search on Trumps Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents. He railed against COVID shutdowns and vaccine mandates at the debate, calling the vaccine experimental gene therapy and saying Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, must be held accountable. Does anyone else here feel like they just spent a month on YouTube? Gluesenkamp Perez asked the crowd, saying that Kents comments are doing nothing to heal our country. Kent responded that the loss of his wife, a Navy cryptologist who was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria during a mission to fight the Islamic State in 2019, was because our ruling class, Republicans and Democrats, consistently lied to the American people to keep us engaged in wars abroad. That is why I have a skepticism of our federal government, he said. Gluesenkamp Perez who co-owns an auto shop with her husband just across the border in Portland, Oregon said that as a small business owner who lives in a rural part of the district, she is more in line with voters. She supports abortion access and policies to counter climate change, but also is a gun owner who said she opposes an assault rifle ban, though she does support raising the age of purchase for such guns to 21. I am not your typical Democrat, she told the crowd. We have got to get people in Congress who fix things again, not people that are out starting flame wars. Kent said Gluesenkamp Perez will vote in lock step with Democrats. Hows your 401k doing right now, hows your future look for your kids? Very bleak, he said. We cannot have two more years of the Democrats at the helm. Im going there to be a check and a balance on Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. Kent has had to address connections to right-wing extremists throughout his campaign, something Gluesenkamp Perez pointed to during the debate, saying that he wanted to ban immigration to ensure a white majority. This nonsense about me being a white nationalist is absolutely despicable, Kent countered. I fought for this country for over 20 years, I placed my life in the hands of minorities and people of every single race and creed and sexuality, and theyve placed their lives in my hands. Ron Moon, 79, attended the debate wearing a red Fire Pelosi hat with a Joe Kent button attached. Moon said he had voted for Herrera Beutler in previous elections, calling her the lesser of two evils. Her impeachment vote following the attack on the U.S. Capitol was the last straw: That was the end, he said. I never again thought about supporting her. Nearby, 70-year-old Nancy Everly was wearing a shirt supporting Gluesenkamp Perez and a necklace of Scrabble tiles that spelled out Vote. I have to support a candidate who is pro-choice, she said. We cant go backwards. Ballots will be mailed by Oct. 21 to the states nearly 4.8 million registered voters, including the more than 499,000 in the 3rd Congressional District. Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state and ballots just need to be in by Election Day, it often takes days to learn final results in close races as ballots arrive at county election offices throughout the week. Japanese aerospace company Ispace Inc. is targeting next month for its first robotic lunar mission, called M1. Japanese aerospace company Ispace Inc. is targeting next month for its first robotic lunar mission, called M1, which will send a lander and two small rovers to the surface of the moon. If successful, Ispace will become the first private company to land a spacecraft intact on the lunar surface. In a statement, the company said it's targeting a launch between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15 for its M1 mission. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will launch Ispace's hardware from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying its M1 lander into space. The lander will then journey the rest of the way to the moon. The mission is part of Ispace's HAKUTO-R program, which came about from a now-defunct competition by Google that began in 2007. The contest challenged teams to send the first privately-funded spacecraft to the moon's surface with an eye on reducing the cost of lunar travel. The competition concluded without a winner in 2018 when none of the teams achieved a launch. With its new launch date, Ispace is poised to beat two US companies -- Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Intuitive Machines LLC -- to become the first private company to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon. Both Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines were awarded NASA contracts through the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program to send payloads to the moon. The US companies don't plan to launch their landers until 2023. In partnership with Draper, Ispace also holds a contract with NASA to send payloads to the far side of the moon by 2025. Another team from the Google-backed competition, the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, attempted to land the first privately funded spacecraft on the Moon in 2019, but it came in too fast and crashed into the lunar surface. Sony has announced the release of its latest vlog camera, the Sony ZV-1F. A cheaper (albeit with fewer features) version of the popular Sony ZV-1, the company is positioning the new camera as the new go-to camera for vloggers and creators who want to capture stunning stills and videos. Moreover, Sony claims that the pocket-size camera has been optimised for vlogging with the companys latest technology to make content stand out. Check out the ZV-1Fs key features below: Fixed ultra-wide-angle 20 mm F2.0 prime lens for selfie shooting Background bokeh and Face-priority AE to ensure subjects standout Skin tone optimisation including Soft Skin Effect option High precision focusing and Eye AF for both humans and animals Active Mode (electronic) image stabilisation when shooting video Creative Look presets for ultimate visual expression Slow motion and quick motion options to enhance creativity Product Showcase Setting for product reviews Enhanced touchscreen features with Touch Zoom and Step Zoom functionality Clear voice recording with 3-capsule mic and windscreen 4K 30p /FHD 120p Easy smartphone connection to transfer content for social platforms Eco-friendly features for reduced environmental impact According to Sony Electronics Asia Pacifics Director of Digital Imaging Division Yasufumi Machitani, the ZV-1F is designed with creators in mind and considering how audiences drive the demand for higher-quality content, creators need an all-in-one camera solution that delivers superior quality with creative options. The new Vlog camera is hoping to satisfy the needs of creators, especially with how easy it is to use, including being designed for wireless content sharing. Most notably, the ZV-1F fixes the biggest complaint that users have regarding the ZV-1, which is the latters narrow field of view. The new ZV-1F now boasts an ultra-wide 20mm prime lens for optimum selfie shooting and a wide field of view to capture more background. However, do note that the prime lens does lose the versatility of ZV-1s lens, including losing on optical zoom and built-in ND filters. Sony has announced that the ZV-1F will be available in Malaysia from December 2022 and it is listed for RM2599 on the companys official Malaysian website where consumers can already place a pre-order. For detailed information on the ZV-1F, do visit the companys product page here. So, what do you guys think of the ZV-1F? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and stay tuned to TechNave for more trending tech news in Malaysia and beyond. TEHRAN, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Friday that the unipolar world order is not accepted, Iran's state TV reported. "Nations have been awakened" and they do not accept the unipolar world order, which "is gradually losing its legitimacy," he told the International Islamic Unity Conference held in Tehran. In a unipolar system, arrogant powers such as the United States would design their own schemes and dictate them to other countries such as Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon, he said. The world is now opposed to countries bullying others into obedience, the Iranian top leader noted. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Less than six months after rejecting a proposal for a major desalination plant in Huntington Beach, the California Coastal Commission on Thursday approved plans for a different, smaller project in Orange County they say could serve as a model for future projects. The commision gave unanimous approvalwith conditionsto the Doheny Ocean Desalination Project near the Pacific Coast Highway and San Juan Creek in Dana Point. The facility, which will convert seawater to drinking water, will be operated by the South Coast Water District. Unlike the Poseidon Water project, which was rejected in May because of the dangers it posed to marine life and other issues, the Doheny plant will tie into an existing municipal system and feature a better environmental design, officials said. But while some championed the project as an example of desalination "done right," opponents said there are more efficient and economical methods that should be explored first. Kate Huckelbridge, the Coastal Commission's senior deputy director, said in an interview before the meeting that Doheny cleared many of the hurdles that come with desalination and "represents an easier pathway to an approvable project." "We have really significant water problems in the state, and so I think we're in a situation where we need to be really serious about investigating all of the options," she said. South Coast Water District officials said the project is coming at a critical time. The agencywhich serves about 40,000 residents and 2 million visitors each yearcurrently imports 90% of its supplies from the State Water Project and the Colorado River, both of which are shrinking because of the drought, climate change and growing aridification. There are also five fault lines between the district and its supply, which could jeopardize water deliveries in the event of an earthquake, according to Rick Shintaku, general manager of the SCWD. "That is a huge threat for us, if one of those fault lines were to rupture the feeders or the plant up there," he said. "Our regional planning agency has told us to plan for 60 days' supply in an emergency. We have 11 right now." When completed in 2027, the desalination plant will have the capacity to produce up to 5 million gallons of potable water per day, enough to slash the district's reliance on imported water from 90% to "anywhere from 20% to 40%," Shintaku said. But desalination is not without controversy, and the commission's approval came with more than a dozen conditions that SCWD must meet, including working with the California Department of Parks and Recreation to locate new campsites while construction shuts down the Doheny State Beach campground for 18 to 24 months. The project also includes several design elements intended to address potential harms to marine lifetypically seen as one of the biggest downsides of the desalination process. Under the proposed plans, the seawater will be pumped into the facility through fully submerged, slanted intake wells that will run beneath Doheny State Beach. The low-velocity wells will never reach the surface, and therefore won't trap any marine life, according to the SCWD. The other end of the process involves the discharge of hypersaline brine, or the salty water that is removed from seawater during desalination. Brine from Doheny will be "commingled" with the SCWD's existing wastewater lines and diluted before it is expelled about two miles out to sea. The result is not zero harm, but it is significantly less than a project like Poseidon and is the "environmentally preferred discharge method," officials said. The Commission is also requiring that the SCWD create or restore about seven-and-a-half acres of tidal wetlands elsewhere in the county as compensation for any potential losses. "I see this project as the model that I hope all applicants will aspire to," commission chair Donne Brownsey said during the meeting. The project has gained broad support from local elected officials, including Reps. Mike Levin and Michelle Steel, and agencies such as the Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego Regional Water Quality Board, which called it "the first ocean desalination facility that eliminates harm to fish." The City of San Clemente and the Laguna Beach County Water District have both signed letters of interest in partnering on the project. Reached by phone, Orange County Coastkeeper Garry Brownwho fought against the Poseidon project for nearly 20 yearssaid he supported SCWD's plan because it "totally complied" with the statewide desalination policy under the California Ocean Plan. "We had this project that 100% complied with the statewide policy, and we had Poseidon, which almost 100% did not comply," he said. "The South Coast plant was a project done right, and Poseidon was desal done wrong." Brown noted this his support was based on the project's technical design, which not only mitigates impacts on marine life but also seeks to reduce energy costs through solar power. He had not reviewed the project for its compliance with the California Coastal Acta separate document that considers public impactand so was "neutral" on that aspect. Some locals, however, did have concerns. Connor Everts, executive director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance, said he opposed the project because he did not think the water district had done enough around water conservation and reclamation. "The reality is we save more water than these plants produce," he said. "When we save water, we save energy and we don't harm the environment." Lydia Ponce, an activist with the Society of Native Nations, said similarly that she was concerned about the long-term environmental effects of the brine discharge. She said officials should have exhausted all other options first. "We're nowhere near using desalination as a solution," she said. "It's too much of a commodity to be able to say 'the future of water is desalination.' No, the future of water is conservation, reuse and redirecting, repurposing." Commissioner Effie Turnbull-Sanders acknowledged that continued focus on those efforts is needed. "However, in the current environment, we do have a significant need for additional water in our portfolio," she said. "And I do believe that this project ... is much better than the ones we have seen in the past." Shintaku said the district has been in Level 2 of its water conservation plan since May, and also has one of the lowest water loss rates in the state, around 3% to 4%. He also said the district has been investing in recycled water for about four decades, and that one of its wastewater treatment plants is already reusing 70% of its sewage with a goal of getting to 100%. "We did everything else possiblefrom recycled water to conservation to minimizing our system water losses to (treating) brackish groundwater," he said. "And then we still are stuck in this predicament, with being 90% dependent on Metropolitan for drinking water supplies." In the case of Poseidon, opponents were also concerned about the profit structure, including what they described as the "privatization of water" for the politically powerful Poseidon Company. But the $140 million Doheny project will be tied into already existent municipal lines and will continue to operate as a county water district, officials said. Its added cost to ratepayers will depend on the partnership structure. If SCWD goes it alone, the project would add about $7 a month to an average household bill, Shintaku said. If other water districts sign on, that cost would drop to $2.38. "There's no question that meeting California's future water needs is a challenge that will require all the tools in the toolbox," Huckelbridge told commissioners during the meeting. "We believe that the project before you today, although not perfect, provides a solid example that we can use in planning for future desalination." Doheny will join a growing list of desalination plants in California, including already operational plants in Santa Barbara and Carlsbad. Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, today receives about half of its water from a desalination facility on its shore. Explore further California Coastal Commission rejects plan for Poseidon desalination plant 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Digital transformation in construction industry requires more support, study shows. Credit: XJTLU In recent years, the engineering and construction industries have been exploring the use of digital technologies to boost productivity and improve safety, quality, and sustainability. However, digital transformation in this industry has been slow compared to other sectors due to certain obstacles. In a paper recently published in the journal Engineering, Construction, and Architectural Management, researchers from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and the University of Lincoln identify, classify and rank the main obstacles preventing digital transformation in this sector. The researchers identified barriers through a systematic literature review and expert validation, then surveyed 192 construction professionals in China on the impact of the obstacles. They found that the three main problems are a lack of laws and regulations, a lack of support and leadership, and a lack of resources and professionals. Changing legislation The lack of laws and regulations is the most significant among the barriers identified, according to Dr. Fangyu Guo, assistant professor at XJTLU's Department of Civil Engineering and corresponding author of the paper. "The lack of laws and regulations has a negative effect on digital transformation because construction companies need governmental regulations as guidelines to determine their strategies and adapt their organizational structure. "Well-established standards and regulations are critical for directing an effective digital transformation and motivating stakeholders to invest more in various digital technologies and tools," Guo says. Leadership and resources A lack of support and leadership also negatively influences digital transformation. Most employees may be unfamiliar with the new technologies, and insufficient support from senior management will reduce their willingness to adapt to the change. "It is important for senior management in construction firms to give ongoing support and motivation to employees during the implementation of digital transformation," says Dr. Guo. The lack of resources and professionals is another obstacle. There is currently a large digital skills gap in the industry, so developing the next generation of digital skills and relevant talents is crucial to digital transformation. The researchers suggest firms must develop strategic plans and training programs to obtain potential talents who can use digital technologies and possess long-term business intelligence. The study offers insights for governments and construction companies to improve their understanding of these barriers and their impacts. The findings will help to establish policies that can use digital transformation to enhance construction project management. The research team consists of Kaiyang Wang, Dr. Fangyu Guo, and Dr. Cheng Zhang from XJTLU, and Professor Dirk Schaefer from the University of Lincoln. Explore further Why digital transformation projects fail and how data architecture can help More information: Kaiyang Wang et al, From Industry 4.0 to Construction 4.0: barriers to the digital transformation of engineering and construction sectors, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (2022). Kaiyang Wang et al, From Industry 4.0 to Construction 4.0: barriers to the digital transformation of engineering and construction sectors,(2022). DOI: 10.1108/ECAM-05-2022-0383 The four heat storage tanks of the Hagenholz waste-to-energy plant in Zurich. Credit: Keystone/Gaetan Bally If the transition to renewables is to succeed, we will need a viable means of storing surplus heat and electricity. Globe spoke to experts from ETH Zurich about the promising technologies that could help us reach net zero. Switzerland aims to transition to a net-zero energy system by 2050. To meet this goal, it will need to replace fossil fuels with renewables. The Swiss government has also taken the decision to phase out nuclear power. As a result, its plans for carbon neutrality will require not only the electrification of transport and heating by means of electric vehicles and heat pumps, but also measures to compensate for the loss of nuclear generating capacity. To meet increased energy demand, Switzerland will primarily rely on hydro and photovoltaic energy sources and, to a lesser extent, wind power. But what about the times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow? "The grid has to constantly smooth out fluctuations in renewable generation and match supply to demand," says Gabriela Hug, a professor at the Power Systems Laboratory at ETH Zurich. Hug also heads up the ETH Energy Science Center (ESC), which recently released modeling showing that a renewable energy system is both technically feasible and economically viable. "Obviously, it won't be simple," Hug acknowledges. "And without effective energy storage, the transition to renewables won't even be possible." Energy storage systems stabilize the grid, providing the necessary capacity to offset the volatility of generation from renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydro. This requires technologies that are able to efficiently convert electricity and heat into a form that can be stored and then released back into the grid when neededwhether on a seasonal or minute-by-minute basis. If Switzerland starts investing more in photovoltaics, it will end up generating more power than it needs at noon on a summer's day. To make that midday solar power available both day and night, it needs short-term storage solutions. "But Switzerland's biggest challenge is actually long-term storage," says Hug. The country already produces too little electricity in the winter and relies on imports to cover increased demandand this seasonal imbalance will only intensify as the transition to renewables gathers pace. "Photovoltaic plants in particular generate surplus electricity in the summer," says Gianfranco Guidati, an expert in energy system modeling at the ESC. "But in winter the sun is weaker and heat pumps are keeping people's homes warmthat's when we see a gap between energy supply and demand." The key question for Switzerland is how to store this excess solar power from the summer to the winter. With demand for storage systems clearly growing, Hug argues that the safest approach is to invest both in established and emerging technologies: "We still haven't come up with the perfect energy storage solution." Yet energy storage shouldn't be seen as an end in itself, says Guidati. "Switzerland's goal is to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Storage is crucial, but it's not the only way to help us meet that goal." He believes we should tap into indirect methods of energy storage as well as physical storage capacity. "We need to take a mixed approach," he says. The following sections present some of the methods that might feature in this mix. Run-of-river and pumped storage as buffer reserves Robert Boes, ETH Professor of Hydraulic Engineering, sees hydropower as the backbone of the Swiss electricity system: "Hydro is our most important green energy asset, making up about 60 percent of our renewable generation. Its ability to store power also plays a key role in our net-zero strategy." Run-of-river hydropower plants channel water directly into electricity-generating turbines to supply renewable base-load power. These kinds of plants have no storage function, unlike reservoir plants, which can store water to provide flexible generating capacity on demand. The large reservoirs in the Alps primarily serve as a form of seasonal energy storage. "The rain and melt water they collect in the spring and summer can be used to generate electricity in the winter," says Boes. Yet, however much power these large lakes generate, they are still unable to store any of it. Only pumped-storage plants have the ability to store electricity. They do this by pumping water from a lower to an upper reservoir and then emptying the upper reservoir through the turbines to generate electricity on demand. Currently, hydroelectric pumped storage is the only proven technology for the capture and release of large amounts of electricity. It offers powerful and flexible storage capabilitiesand that makes it the perfect choice for balancing the day-to-day and day-night variability of photovoltaic power generation. Nonetheless, its capacity does not stretch far enough to resolve seasonal variations in electricity generation. One way to reduce the winter energy gap is to build more reservoirs, but this approach is controversial. Such projects often run counter to nature conservation goals and meet resistance. "I don't think this option shows much promise," says Boes. "Hydropower is a mature and very efficient technology, but not enough attention has been paid to environmental aspects such as responsible water management." Researchers at ETH Zurich's Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) are currently seeking ways to make hydropower more eco-friendly. Examples include improved bypass tunnels for sediment, and fish ladders to steer fish safely past reservoir inlets and turbines. "Hydropower won't gain widespread acceptance until it does more to protect biodiversity," says Boes. Decentralized small-scale storage In the grid itself, batteries can act as a kind of miniature pumped-storage unit. If we have more decentralized systems generating electricity on people's rooftops in the future, we will need distributed small-scale storage devices to perform local network balancing. Much like pumped-storage systems, batteries can be used to rapidly balance generation and demand. "Because battery size can be easily tuned to the application, they're suitable for use as decentralized energy-storage devices in buildings," says ETH professor Vanessa Wood. When combined with photovoltaic panels, batteries can take pressure off the grid by offering local storage of excess electricity for a matter of minutes or hours. If all the solar power generated at peak times in residential areas were to be fed to the limited number of pumped-storage hydropower plants in the mountains, however, this could lead to bottlenecks in the grid. In the rapidly evolving battery market for homes and electric vehicles, the latest developments include the first community-scale batteries designed to balance short-term power fluctuations on a neighborhood level. "The next key step is to make batteries even more efficient so that they can complete more charge cycles before losing performance," says Wood, who conducts research to understand the limitations of existing batteries and demonstrate novel battery concepts. "At the same time, we must find substitutes for problematic raw materials and develop methods to recycle batteries at low cost, without using too much energy." Researchers all over the world are already working on solutions. Seasonal thermal energy storage In an ideal energy system, we would use surplus solar power produced in summer to meet the increased demand for heating in winter. Storing large amounts of electricity over a period of several months is not yet financially viable, but there is one way of transferring summer sunshine to the winter months: thermal energy storage. "Cost-effective technology is already available, and it's well-established in countries such as Denmark," says Guidati. Yet thermal energy storage remains a relatively neglected topic in Switzerland. Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) technology captures heat in summer and releases it in winter. It requires large heat reservoirs such as basins, tanks or water-bearing layers underground. These store warm water that is heated in summer by means of heat pumps and surplus solar power. By shifting the production of heat to the summer months, STES systems reduce electricity demand in the winter and help to reduce the energy gap. Guidati believes thermal energy storage will play an important role in Switzerland in the future. Storage in energy carriers There is only one way to store electricity indefinitely, at least for the foreseeable future. "If we ever reach a point in summer where we've exhausted all the short-term storage options and still have surplus electricity available," says Guidati, "thenand only thenshould we consider converting it into a storable energy carrier." He's referring, of course, to the great hydrogen debate. The idea is to use excess power to electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then be stored in a suitable form and converted back into heat and electricity in the winter by means of a gas turbine or fuel cell. Alternatively, the hydrogen could be combined with captured CO 2 to produce synthetic methane. This not only has a higher energy density but can also be fed directly into the existing gas grid. Just one additional step is all it takes to obtain carbon-neutral liquid fuels for aviation or shipping. "As yet, none of these methods are established and many are not financially viable," says Hug. Syngases could certainly serve as a long-term storage medium for solar power produced in summer, but most of the methods used to convert them back into heat and electricity are inefficient. "The most efficient way to use excess electricity is to shift it directly into some other channel like charging electric vehicles," says Hug. Nevertheless, she considers synfuels viable for applications that are difficult to electrify. Gravity batteries and compressed-air energy storage When it comes to short-term energy storage, pumped-storage hydropower plants and batteries are not the only option. Gravity batteries store potential energy and then convert it into electricity, much like pumped-storage systems. But instead of using water, they store potential energy in a mass that is raised and lowered by a crane, for example. Compressed-air energy storage systems are another alternative, though a slightly less efficient one. They work by pumping air into a reservoir or vessel to produce compressed air; this can then be used to drive a gas turbine to quickly compensate for load imbalances in the grid. Although a certain amount of heat is lost during compression, most of the heat produced can be recovered by storing and making it available again when unloading. A more efficientbut also more expensiveoption is a flywheel: these are closer to batteries in terms of capacity, but they store energy in the form of rotational kinetic energy for just a few minutes at a time, once again to help stabilize power grids. Smart power networks All the researchers are keen to emphasize that physical storage systems are not the only option. There are also other approaches that act indirectly like storage and help make the system more flexible. For example, digitalised and automated power grids could monitor generation and consumption in real time to make the best use of available resources. "In the future, smart grid control will enable us to operate power networks closer to their maximum limits," says grid expert Hug. If done successfully, this will make the system more efficient and reduce the need for operating reserves. Demand must also become more flexible so that we can make the most of the electricity available at any given point in time. Smart load management can help reduce the need to store electricity, says Guidati, citing the example of e-mobility: "Electric vehicles are mobile batteries that can help absorb peaks in photovoltaic generation in the daytime." This requires charging stations to be deployed in locations where vehicles typically spend the day, such as workplaces, car parks and parking spaces close to the city center. Imported energy According to the ESC's calculations, Switzerland will also need to expand its electricity production in winter. As well as building up hydropower reserves, this will also mean investing in alpine photovoltaic plants, geothermal power, or gas-fired power plants operating on biogas or syngas. Yet Hug rejects the idea of self-sufficiency, because any attempt by Switzerland to meet all its own electricity needs would be both inefficient and hugely expensive. Switzerland will therefore continue to generate less electricity than it needs, which will mean a continuing dependence on imported energy. "Our models show that a secure and affordable energy system also requires smooth and effective power transfers to and from nearby countries," says Hug. Unlike Switzerland, Northern Europe has plenty of electricity in winter because countries such as Denmark have invested heavily in wind power generation, which peaks in winter. Switzerland could therefore import wind power in winter and export solar power in the form of pumped-storage hydropower in summer to quickly correct load imbalances in the grid. This is a sensible approach because everyone benefits when countries balance out their different generating capacities through electricity trading. However, the lack of an electricity agreement makes cross-border electricity trading with the EU difficult. "That's why regulated access to the European electricity market would be such an important step for Switzerland," says Hug. If it is to make a successful transition to renewables, Switzerland will need not only a broad mix of technologies, but also a blend of solutions ranging from decentralized energy production to international trading agreements. Explore further World's largest flow battery energy storage station connected to grid More information: This text appeared in the 22/03 issue of the ETH magazine Globe. Full issue: This text appeared in the 22/03 issue of the ETH magazine Globe. Full issue: ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/main/ ering-the-future.pdf The U.S. military is now, like the rest of the world, reliant in many cases on Taiwan and South Korea to produce the chips that defense systems need, says Chris Miller. Thats created new challenges. Credit: Shutterstock Semiconductorsthe digital machinery that runs smartphones and computers, and helps run everything from cars and doorbells to water and power supplies and military systemsare ubiquitous. Also called chips or integrated circuits, they are usually pieces of silicon with transistors etched in themtransistors keep track of the 1s and 0s that run all digital systems. Back in the late 1950s, getting four transistors to work on a small piece of silicon was a big accomplishment. The latest iPhone14's processor has 16 billion transistors. While the United States has led the development of chips, most are now fabricated outside the country. Taiwan and South Korea have cornered the market on building the most advanced chipsthough the U.S. and China are trying to change that. Having the world's leading makers in political hotspots is a concern, too. In his new book "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology," Chris Miller, an assistant professor of international history at The Fletcher School, tells the story of semiconductors and their crucial role today. He covers the creation of the technology, the fierce competition in the industry, the astounding scientific advances that propel chips into every aspect of our lives, and why the U.S. and China both view them as critical to national security. "Policymakers in Washington and Beijing increasingly realize that chips are fundamental to military power, as well as crucial to driving the civilian economy," says Miller, who is also Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute this year. Tufts Now spoke with Miller to learn more about chips, their history, and why they are driving competition between the U.S. and China. Tufts Now: Gordon Moore of U.S chip powerhouse Intel predicted in 1970 that computing power would double every year or two, which came to pass. How important is that? Chris Miller: We've gotten exponential growth and power over the past 60 yearsif you don't think about it, it doesn't sound that crazy, but what if the rest of the economy provided a doubling in power every two years? What if airplanes flew twice as fast every two years? Or houses got twice as big every two years, or cars got half as expensive every two years? You realize that the rest of economic life doesn't work that way. But that's the dynamic that provides a billionfold increase in computing power over 60 years, which is what we've gotten. We often take for granted that that's possible, when in fact it's one of the most unique economic phenomena of modern times. You write extensively about the national security consequences of chip manufacturing. How has that changed over time? One of the constants is that chips are crucially important for military systems. It was that way when chips were first invented in the 1950s to fit into missile guidance computers. Today military systems are even more dependent on computing power, on memory, on signals processing. The U.S. military is now, like the rest of the world, reliant in many cases on Taiwan and South Korea to produce the chips that defense systems need. That's created new challenges. The Pentagon has had to get comfortable with sourcing some of the most critical technologies from other countries, which is not something they wanted to have to do. But right now, there's just no other option. As the U.S. falls behind in certain chipmaking spheres, the question is whether China is going to advance in a way that gives China an advantage in technology, or at least closes the gap between the U.S. and China in military terms. The U.S. has always relied on its technological advantage to undergird its military power. If that advantage degrades that will have major ramifications for military power. The U.S. started out fabricating chips, but soon they were offshored, mostly to East Asia. Why is that? It's cheaper generally to produce advanced chips in South Korea and Taiwan, and to some extent in China, because tax incentives in those countries are dramatically more generous and environmental regulations are looserand there are a lot of toxic chemicals needed in chipmaking. Labor costs are only a small part of the story. In general, it's easier to get permits to open a factory in Taiwan. Chips are 42% of exports in Taiwan, so if someone wants to open a chip factory, everyone's going to make sure it happens. In the U.S., chips are important, but not nearly as important as in other countries, so we focus less on them and permitting is harder. It's also true that U.S. firms that used to be leaders have in some cases screwed up in recent years. The best example is Intel, which is the biggest U.S. producer of processor chips, and used to be the world's most advanced in terms of technology. But it has had some real stumbles in the past half decade or so and is now trying to recover from them. For example, it used to have the technological lead, but has fallen behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. How did Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing CompanyTSMCend up with 37% market share of logic chips, the ones that go in smartphones and computers? You have to give their corporate leadership a lot of credit. They've managed their company more effectively than any in the world, and they have a really smart business model. They were the first company to focus not on both designing and producing chips in house, but rather to solely produce chips that were designed by other companies. At the time, that was a radical innovation in the business model. As they grew in volume, they were able to hone their production processes thanks to the large volume that they were producing. The more chips you produce, the more you learn, the more cost-efficient factory production becomes. They've turned into a real juggernaut. Today they produce more logic chips than anyone else by a pretty large margin and they've got the most advanced technology. It's basically impossible to imagine the computing infrastructure we rely onwhether it's phones or computers or data centers or cell phone towerswithout TSMC. China considers Taiwan a 'renegade province' and has threatened to invade it. What would happen to the world's supply of advanced chips is war broke out there? The impact would be disastrous. Smartphone production would grind nearly to a halt. The number of PCs produced would fall dramatically. The impact would be measured in the trillions of dollars. You write that in the 1980s, Japanese companies took over the memory chip business, and it seemed like they were well on their way to being top producers for all chips worldwide. But they stumbled badly in the 1990s and are not major chip producers now. Could the same thing happen to today's top producers, Taiwan, South Korea, and China? Japan invested very heavily in memory chips in the late '70s and throughout the '80s, and they did very well in it. But they invested beyond the capacity the market needed and ended up with a lot of facilities that were not very profitable. They spent the '90s trying to bring their chip industry back to profitability, and missed many key trends like personal computers. The most likely candidate for a Japan-style rise and fall is China, which is pouring money into its chip industry, and doing so in ways that are not economically efficient. There's a substantial risk that a lot of the money China's putting into its chip industry will end up being not commercially viable. The Russian military fighting in Ukraine seems to be at a disadvantage in advanced weaponry. How advanced is Russia in the chip technology field? Russia has been a player in chip production since the early days of the industry, but it's always been a small player. It always relied on copying or smuggling foreign technology for its chip industry. That produces problems today because military equipment is more dependent than ever on computing power. If you take apart the guidance computers of Russian missiles that have been acquired on battlefield in Ukraine, you find that Russian missiles are full of American and South Korean and Taiwanese chips. Because they're smuggled in, Russia's often using chips that are not perfectly suited for a given use case. One of the challenges that Russia faces is that it can't produce enough and it can't produce high quality guidance systems for its munitions, which has been one of the many problems that it has faced in Ukraine. Explore further Taiwan chipmaker TSMC says quarterly profit $8.8 billion Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Meta Platforms Inc. urged a judge to reject the U.S. Federal Trade Commission attempt to block the company's acquisition of virtual reality app Within Unlimited, saying the agency's claims about competition in the area are based on "pure speculation." Meta argued the FTC hasn't laid out the elements to show the deal announced in October 2021 would hurt potential competition in a still-young VR fitness space, according to a court filing Thursday. The company's argument to U.S. District Judge Edward Davila follows the FTC's move last week to narrow its rationale for blocking the deal. The FTC's newly amended complaint dropped allegations that Meta's virtual-reality game, Beat Saber, directly competes with Within's Supernatural fitness app. Supernatural is a subscription fitness service where users can work out or meditate to music in immersive environments. The FTC's complaint now calls Beat Saber an "incidental fitness app" and argues that before the acquisition Meta was likely to create its own dedicated fitness app to compete with Within's offering. Virtual reality is Meta's next big bet as Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg believes that people will want to spend time in a digital universe, called the metaverse. The company previously bought Oculus, which makes VR headsets. Acquisitions like Within are meant to add to the portfolio of experiences for users, bringing them back repeatedly to Meta's products and services. The Facebook-parent featured Within's Supernatural multiple times during its annual product conference Monday and is making announcements on its behalf, saying that users, for example, will soon be able to add a "knee strike" movement. The FTC alleges that Meta would kill future competition in a new market, often referred to as "nascent competition." A suit on these grounds is rare, given the difficulty in proving a deal would suppress the potential of a young industry. The last time the FTC brought such a case, in a 2015 instance involving sterilization technology, the agency lost. "The FTC's attempt to fix its ill-conceived complaint still ignores the facts and the law and relies on pure speculation of a hypothetical future state," a Meta spokesperson said in an email. "There is vibrant competition in the fitness space and across VR, and our acquisition of Within will be good for people, developers, and the VR space. For these reasons, the complaint should be dismissed." FTC Chair Lina Khan has taken a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement than her predecessors. The agency sued July 27 to stop Meta's purchase of Within. Davila has scheduled a two-week hearing in December on the FTC's request for an injunction to block the deal. The judge can decide whether to rule on Meta's motion to dismiss the case, schedule a separate hearing on the issue, or wait until the previously scheduled evidentiary hearing. Separately, the FTC filed a complaint against the merger in its in-house court, and an administrative judge has scheduled a trial to start in January. Even if the injunction is dismissed or if Meta prevails before Davila, the agency could decide to proceed with its administrative process. Explore further FTC acts to block Meta from buying VR company, fitness app 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Post-it Notes are getting a hybrid-work upgrade with a Microsoft Teams app that lets users digitize handwritten notes by holding them in front of the camera. Maplewood, Minnesota-based 3M is partnering with Microsoft to bring a Post-it app into the virtual meeting platform, which was used by about 250 million people worldwide every month in 2021. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the new app during a customer conference Wednesday morning. "3M has built a Post-it app on Teams to support all the ways people brainstorm and collaborate," he said. "Handwritten Post-it Notes are seamlessly transformed into a digital whiteboard by simply taking a picture." Microsoft's technology can then sort and assign tasks based on what is uploaded. "Collaborative apps represent a paradigm shift in how apps are built," Nadella said. "Work doesn't happen in a vacuum." Heather Green, 3M's global vice president of the Post-it and Scotch brands, said in a news release "the ability to collaborate in hybrid environments is critical," as a mix of in-person and work-from-home moves from pandemic necessity to long-term trend. About 58% of working Americans92 million peoplehad the opportunity to work at home at least one day a week this year, according to a McKinsey survey. And among those offered the opportunity, 87% said they took it. As a result, video messaging servicesincluding Teams, Slack and market-leading Zoomare still getting heavy use. Bringing a digital component to analog notetaking creates "an experience that is inclusive for all," Green said. 3M first released a Post-it app for smartphones in 2014 and relaunched it in 2019. The Post-it app for Teams is being offered for free for the first month, then $2.99 per user monthly or $31.25 per user yearly. Explore further Microsoft gives more power to chief Satya Nadella with board election 2022 StarTribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. College Station City Council members directed staff to continue working with the nonprofit, Unlimited Potential during Tuesday nights meeting, which helps 18- to 25-year-olds, who aged out of foster care, by potentially helping it fund a facility to house its youth and provide community resources. An 18-year-old female client entered the program 24 weeks pregnant, homeless, with no documents and nowhere to stay. Her family had kicked her out shortly after she moved in with them, and threw away all of her belongings, Kelyn Wardlaw, UPs executive director, told the council. With UPs assistance, she has received emergency housing, prenatal and specialty medical care, obtained her legal documents and ID, has engaged in the housing process, began the enrollment process for junior college, and has opened her first bank account. The council directed staff to identify $2 million in potential funding for Unlimited Potential's new facility at 1115 Anderson St., contingent upon the organization working with staff to produce a detailed design and business plan. Councilwoman Elizabeth Cunha was against the direction. The new facility would allow UP employees and volunteers to move out of their current center on East 29th Street, and provide temporary housing to youth who have aged out of the foster care system, according to UP staff. The city previously allocated $300,000 toward the demolition of the building on Anderson Street. Debbie Eller, the citys director of community services, said the demolition process will go out to bid by December. During the hour-and-a-half discussion between the council and members of UP, it was made clear that the council needed more details and design plans before they were truly ready to allocate funds to the nonprofit. While each council member spoke in favor of UPs efforts, they needed more information about what the facility would truly entail. Don Russell, chairman of UPs Building Committee, presented a graphic with what the $6 million facility could look like which included an administration building at 8,000 square feet, and six units of residential homes and security systems, landscaping and more. The administration building would hold office spaces for other nonprofits to work, and would be the main source for UP members to find resources and continue their life in school or in finding an occupation, he said. He said the total required to build would be contingent upon funding from external entities and said Brazos County had committed $2 million of non-contingent funds through their America Rescue Plan Act funds and were requesting another $2 million from College Station and the remaining $2 million through philanthropic measures. Wardlaw emphasized the services they provide to people who have aged out of the foster care system including case management, referrals for services, job training, education, Medicaid assistance, mentorships, life skills workshops and counseling services. Jacque Flagg, UPs board president, said the young people who would be living in the homes on the property age from 18 to 26 because that is the age range for their UP programs. She said they are currently working with 40 young people in their program who they have helped find housing through Housing and Urban Development programs. Cunha raised questions about what UPs plan was for housing and how they long it would require people to live there, what other entities were involved in the process, and hoped officials would return during the budgeting process in July to make their case along with other nonprofits who also need city funds. She noted she was in support of their intent, but could not support supplying more funds than the city has already allocated to them at this time. Councilwoman Linda Harvell also expressed similar concerns before being able to see an actual business plan and design layout. Councilman John Crompton was in full support of UPs intentions and wanted to be sure the council would keep the momentum going so UP could have a facility as soon as possible. Councilman John Nichols wanted a more informed business plan from UP about if its contributions would match the outcome of its potential occupancy standards; Mayor Karl Mooney also agreed. Councilman Dennis Maloney highlighted the importance of having a place for these young people to learn technical skills. Councilman Bob Brick said he was mainly concerned with devastating other nonprofits who would be disappointed they were not given as much funds as UP, and where the city would come up with the $2 million. Ultimately, city staff will come back to council with updated information after working with UP to decipher its business plan. For more information about Unlimited Potential, visit upbrazosvalley.org. ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has warned over the spread of the cholera outbreak in the southeastern part of Ethiopia amid growing cases. The UNOCHA, in its latest situation update report issued late Thursday, said as of Oct. 10, some 191 cholera cases were reported in three districts of the Bale zone, including Harana Buluk, Berbere, and Delo Mena. It said four associated deaths were reported during the stated period, with a cumulative case fatality rate of 2.09 percent. The first cholera case was reported in Harana Buluk district on Aug. 27. On Sept. 18, Berbere district became the second reporting cholera cases, followed by Delo Mena district where suspected cases were reported on Oct. 3, according to the UNOCHA. The UNOCHA said that the use of unsafe water from contaminated water points is the most likely cause of this outbreak. Limited access to water and sanitation services, poor hygiene practices that include open defecation, as well a lack of water treatment options are among the factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease across these three districts, it said. Figures from the UNOCHA show that new suspected cases are reported daily in the three affected districts. Presently, there are 15 active cases in the existing Cholera Treatment Center across the three districts, with 71 percent of the patients experiencing severe dehydration symptoms. Due to people's mobility, the UNOCHA warned that there is a high risk that the outbreak could propagate into bordering zones, including Southern and Eastern Oromia, the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region, and Somali Region. The Bale zone remains one of the most drought-affected areas with increasing malnutrition cases and reports of a measles outbreak. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) recently indicated that the latest cholera outbreak is drought-related as Ethiopia is currently experiencing one of the most severe droughts in recent history. The IFRC said the drought-related cholera is due to a number of compounding factors, which includes the limited accessibility and availability of safe drinking and cooking water, particularly in rural areas where many people are exposed to untreated water sources. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe An advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Budworm targeted a U.S.-based entity for the first time in more than six years, according to latest research. The attack was aimed at an unnamed U.S. state legislature, the Symantec Threat Hunter team, part of Broadcom Software, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Other "strategically significant" intrusions mounted over the past six months were directed against a government of a Middle Eastern country, a multinational electronics manufacturer, and a hospital in South East Asia. Budworm, also called APT27, Bronze Union, Emissary Panda, Lucky Mouse, and Red Phoenix, is a threat actor that's believed to operate on behalf of China through attacks that leverage a mix of custom and openly available tools to exfiltrate information of interest. "Bronze Union maintains a high degree of operational flexibility in order to adapt to the environments it operates in," Secureworks notes in a profile of the nation-state group, pointing out its ability to "maintain access to sensitive systems over a long period of time." A prominent backdoor attributed to the adversarial collective is HyperBro, which has been put to use since at least 2013 and is in continuous development. Its other tools include PlugX, SysUpdate, and the China Chopper web shell. The latest set of attacks are no different, with the threat actor leveraging Log4Shell flaws to compromise servers and install web shells, ultimately paving the way for the deployment of HyperBro, PlugX, Cobalt Strike, and credential dumping software. The development marks the second time Budworm has been linked to an attack on a U.S. entity. Earlier this month, the U.S. government revealed that multiple nation-state hacking groups breached a defense sector organization using ProxyLogon flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server to drop China Chopper and HyperBro. "In more recent years, the group's activity appears to have been largely focused on Asia, the Middle East, and Europe," the researchers said. "A resumption of attacks against U.S.-based targets could signal a change in focus for the group." Vote for Jones Ive spent much time with Sherry Jones, Nebraska State Board of Education candidate. I completely disagree with Katie Schroeders recent letter in The Grand Island Independent. Sherry, a 35-year educator, spent her career teaching and counseling children, continuing to educate all ages. She genuinely supports teachers; knows theyre not instigators of this agenda thats coming from the national level that is harmful to children and the family unit. Teachers are caught in the middle. They must participate in meeting their familys needs yet national entities, on down to local boards say, These are the standards you must meet in order to get funding and keep your jobs. Sherry isnt accusing teachers of being groomers. Most teachers dont want to teach CSE because it causes confusion, harming developing brains. They shouldnt be forced to teach biologically incorrect content or face retribution for refusing. They want to teach the three Rs. Sherry visits with teachers, asking their needs, their thoughts and how she can help. Sherry has listened to me as Ive shared my familys experiences and my teaching as a para. Sherry listens thoughtfully to conversations; I know by her facial expression she is focused, processing and responds with discerning wisdom. Sherry is accountable for her actions and her words. She shouldnt be hammered for what another says. After all, do we agree with everyone in our like-minded groups? I know Sherry! Shes a kind, heart-of-gold person, seeking truth and integrity, hating no one. Shell do the right thing, including sitting on the NSBE making decisions affecting our grandchildren and teachers. Shell speak truth and common sense on the board, be a good steward of our money, and vote with integrity. Ill vote for Sherry Jones and stand with NSBE candidates Kirk Penner, Elizabeth Tegtmeier and Marni Hodgens. Kathy Adams Kearney About our bloated military budget As a long time member of Nebraskans for Peace, the oldest statewide peace group in the nation, right now, near Grand Island youll find a NFP billboard pointing out our bloated military budget. The billboard has the following message: Peace is Possible But Not With Trillion$ On War The U.S. spends more on the military budget than the next nine countries combined. Wars solve nothing. The U.S. spent the last 20 years in Middle East wars based on a false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. According to the National Priorities Project, the cumulative cost is over $8 trillion and counting. NFP remains steadfast in working to reduce this budget and reallocate some of that money to deal with issues here at home. Last summer representatives Lee and Pocan introduced the People Over the Pentagon Act, which proposed cutting $100 billion from the proposed $801 billion budget. NFP supported this legislation and saw it as a start to what we need to do. Unfortunately, that legislation did not get through Congress. The good news is that NFP will not stop our work to cut the excessive military budget and use the money to solve the crises we have at home. Imagine how we could use $100 billion a mere 12% of the proposed budget here at home. We could support renewable energy infrastructure to combat climate change, supply millions of Americans with equitable heath care, end hunger, and work to end the culture of violence and guns that put our kids at risk in schools. It is time to address our needs at home and support Americans. Visit our billboard near highways 281 and 34 in Grand Island and snap a photo to post to social media. Dave Sprague St. Paul To the Northwest board An open letter to the Grand Island Northwest School Board members and administration. As an alumnus of Grand Island Northwest, I had a flood of emotions when I read about the cancellation of the Viking Saga newspaper. Anger and sadness reigned supreme, but shock and disappointment crept in as I read why, after 54 years it was so suddenly shut down. Heres a brief timeline: May 9 school board meeting Recognized 2022 State Journalism Awards won by the Saga newspaper, including 20 students and seven first-place awards. May 16 According to The Grand Island Independent, the last Saga goes to print. May 19 According to the Grand Island Independent, the Saga newspaper is canceled. By shutting down the Saga and referencing LGBTQ specifically, you have relegated anyone that identifies as LGBTQ as second-class and not welcome at Grand Island Northwest. They cannot be who they are. News flash: You have LGBTQ students in your school. You have had LGBTQ students in your school. I graduated with classmates who are members of the LGBTQ community. They deserve to be heard just like everyone else. I am calling on the school board to reinstate the Saga newspaper effective immediately. This is a vital and successful activity that is an outlet for students. After 54 years, it went from congratulations to closure in 10 days with no warning and no reason. As a board, you can and you should right this wrong. Tim Wardyn Chicago Class of 1998 Executive director, We Will Press Hope for Alzheimers According to the Alzheimers Association, more than 61,000 Nebraskans are caring for a person living with Alzheimers disease. I am one of those caregivers. Its easy to lose hope when youre impacted by Alzheimers, a devastating and fatal disease. But for so many of us, we channel our grief into action. As well as being a caregiver for my father for the last six years, I have been the executive director for the Alzheimers Association Nebraska Chapter. And recently I was given reason for hope with the release of new data about a possible treatment. For the families we serve, a new treatment could mean more time to attend a family wedding, have another family holiday together, make more meals together, or to live independently. I know this isnt available in doctors offices yet, but for the millions of Americans impacted by Alzheimers the mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, husbands, wives, grandchildren and more were hopeful for more time together. When this drug is approved and based on the current science, its looking promising that it will be people who need it must be able to get it. Thats what Im fighting for. Will you join me? Sharon Stephens Omaha Kudos to Brown, Quandt I did enjoy the Letter to the Editor by Gary Quandt concerning the crucial use of ARPA funds for a digital radio system. Mr. Quandt goes into some detail as to Doug Brown, a candidate for Grand Island mayors office, addressing the Hall County Commissioners in regards to the system. It is a very informative letter and I would advise anyone who is the least bit interested in the upcoming elections to read this fine letter. A key wording is that the city and county must work together for the betterment and welfare of the citizens of Hall County. It addresses the fact that Hall County is not keeping up with the so-called curve but is falling behind. I do feel Mr. Quandt and the other commissioners would enjoy working with this candidate as mayor of Grand Island on this project. Remember to go and vote. Loren L. Avey Grand Island LINCOLN Nearly 10 years passed before prison health officials provided a Pap smear for inmate Niccole Wetherell. When she finally got one, in August 2019, the gynecologist examining her could see the cancer growing in her cervix without the aid of a microscope. Eighteen months later, the cancer killed her at age 40. An investigative report released Tuesday by the State Inspector General of Corrections faulted Nebraskas prison system for Wetherells death. According to the report, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services did not track when inmates were due for preventive care like Pap smears. Nor has the department set up an electronic health records system that could have provided tracking, despite a 2015 law requiring such a system. The forensic pathologist who performed her autopsy speculated that a timely Pap smear could have detected her cancer sooner and possibly would have helped extend her life, the report said. Wetherell was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, the most common type of cervical cancer and one that is highly survivable if caught early. Federal health guidelines recommend that women age 30 through 65 get Pap smears every three years to check for cervical cancer. State prison policy requires the same. But medical records show that Wetherell went from September 2010 until August 2019 without a Pap smear, the report said. She only got the 2019 screening after asking for one because she was having abnormal menstrual symptoms. A nurse practitioner who is the primary caregiver at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York, where Wetherell was incarcerated, explained the gap by saying the department had no way to track when inmates needed preventive care. She told the inspector general that Wetherells case prompted her to create a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to monitor patient visits. The lack of tracking occurred despite a 2015 state law requiring the state prison system to ensure that complete and up-to-date electronic records are maintained for each person committed to the department. Seven years later, however, virtually all inmate medical records are still kept in paper form. The report said various proposals and attempts to create or acquire an electronic health record system, along with the appropriation of more than $2 million, have produced little. The current plan is to develop an in-house system, working with the State Office of the Chief Information Officer. Two limited pieces of the system, a behavioral health module and an intake appraisal form, went live last year. The report said it is not clear when the rest of the system will be finished or to what extent it will be able to share information with outside health providers. Inspector General Doug Koebernick recommended that the department provide the Legislatures Appropriations, Judiciary and Health and Human Services Committees with a detailed update on the electronic health records system in November, a recommendation that the department rejected. Koebernick also recommended that the department cease efforts to build an in-house system if one cannot be fully implemented by July 31, 2025, and seek state funds to purchase a system instead. The department accepted that recommendation. State corrections officials did not respond to a request for comment on the report and its findings on Tuesday. Wetherell was serving a life sentence for the 1998 murder of 19-year-old Scott Catenacci in a Bellevue park in 1998. She was 18 at the time and among six people ages 16 to 20 involved in the killing. By the time of her death, she had become a leader among the other inmates, the report said. She got her associate degree through a program with York College, served as a peer mentor and volunteered with the service dog training program Domesti-PUPS. In a 2018 TEDx talk to fellow inmates and staff, she talked about trying to give hope in what feels like a hopeless situation. A Lincoln man will face sentencing in November after pleading guilty to manslaughter for fatally shooting his friend while shooting at another man. Tip Mut, 22, initially had been charged with second-degree murder for 21-year-old Gabriel Miller's killing in Omaha in 2020. But on Sept. 30, in a deal with prosecutors, Mut pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and use of a firearm to commit a felony. At his sentencing in November, he'll face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to 70. Omaha Police said Mut fatally shot Miller unintentionally while trying to shoot 22-year-old Goa Dat early Nov. 7, 2020, during a fight. Miller died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Dat, who was shot twice in the lower back, survived. At a hearing in Mut's case last year, Officer Brian Wucher said Mut and Miller had lived together in Colorado before they both moved back to Lincoln, and the two had been close friends for years. On the night of the shooting, he said the two went to the Omaha party where a fight broke out in the street about 1:45 a.m. Police said Miller was shot from behind. According to a cellphone video, Miller pulled out a gun and fired twice into the ground. Another five gunshots can be heard next, but the video doesn't show who shot them. Police found two different caliber shell casings, but no guns at the scene. In an interview the next day at the Lincoln Police Department, Mut told Omaha police that he realized a fight was occurring in the street, but his back was turned when the shots were fired. Then, he said, he saw Miller lying on the ground. Police later recovered the 9 mm handgun, which Mut admitted taking from the scene. Three months later, Millers mother told Omaha police that Mut disclosed to her the day after the shooting and again on Dec. 29, 2020, that he had shot Dat but not Miller. Police arrested Mut in March 2021, about a month later, for taking the gun from the scene, but the allegations were upgraded after Mut told police that after he saw his sisters fighting with Dat, he took out a gun and fired at him. He said Miller was struck when he stepped in front of Dat. OMAHA -- An Omaha man will serve 15 years in federal prison after drugs he sold were linked to multiple overdoses. Darnell L. Polite, 43, was sentenced Wednesday for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, the United States Attorneys Office for the District of Nebraska announced. On April 8, 2021, Omaha Fire Department medics found three people unresponsive in an Omaha apartment suffering from drug overdoses, according to court documents. Two of the individuals were revived on the scene with Narcan, and the third was taken to a hospital and revived. Omaha police questioned the victims, who said they bought the narcotics at Polites apartment, according to court documents. After obtaining a search warrant, officers searched Polites apartment and found 3.38 pounds of marijuana, 10.23 ounces of methamphetamine and 23 grams of suspected fentanyl, according to court documents. Officers also found $2,300, multiple clear baggies, digital scales and a stolen handgun. After his release, Polite will begin a five-year term of supervised release, according to court documents. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts presided over the Nebraska Board of Pardons hearing in September. (Jazari Kual/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN A group of American Legion members are protesting the September pardon of a fellow Legion member, saying that John Arias didnt deserve a pardon for a violent, 1993 sex assault and that Arias used other Legion members to win the pardon. On Sept. 19, the Nebraska Board of Pardons voted 2-1 to grant Arias a pardon, a formal act of forgiveness that allows his name to be removed from the states Sex Offender Registry and restores his voting and gun rights. The members of the Pardons Board, before they voted, noted the support shown by about 20 American Legion members who sat together at the meeting. They wore their signature Legion caps, to show their support of Arias, who sits on a state veteran affairs and rehabilitation committee. Not a misunderstanding A former state Legion commander said that not all Legion members supported the pardon of a sex offender and that the Legion cap is only supposed to be worn at official or Legion-sponsored functions. Beth Linn of Scottsbluff, who served as state Legion commander from 2016-17, also said that while Arias has claimed the sexual assault was a misunderstanding, it was far from it. Raping your wife in front of her kids while shes tied to a bed is not a misunderstanding, Linn said. A group of Legion members, including Linn, have planned a peaceful protest of the pardon on Oct. 28 at 10 a.m. at the Nebraska State Capitol. Showed remorse, Ricketts said Gov. Pete Ricketts, who chairs the Pardons Board and voted to pardon Arias, said in a statement that Arias has accepted responsibility for a crime committed nearly 30 years ago and has shown to be remorseful. He has not had any offenses since serving his sentence and has since become an active member of the veteran community, helping others who suffer from PTSD, Ricketts said in a statement, noting the support by veterans at the Pardons Board hearing. At the same September meeting, Earnest Jackson, an Omaha man who has spent 22 years in prison for a murder he maintains he didnt commit and one in which two co-defendants were deemed innocent because of self defense was unanimously denied a pardon Attorney General Doug Peterson, who also voted for the Arias pardon, deferred comment to the governor. Secretary of State Bob Evnen voted no. When contacted by the Examiner, Don Suchy, the current state commander of the American Legion and one of those who attended the Pardons Board hearing in support of Arias, said that the Legion does not condone violence but that Arias, since serving out his prison sentence, had been a model citizen and a mentor to other veterans to reform their lives. Now leading a law-abiding life We support him in leading a productive and law-abiding life, Suchy said in an email. Since his release, he has sought only to better himself to society. While he said he wasnt fully aware of Arias crime, Suchy questioned whether Arias was a victim of overzealous prosecution and whether it made a difference that he suffered from PTSD. Concerning Legion caps, he said that they are typically worn only at official meetings but that the wearing of a Legion cap only indicates the individual wearing the cap is in uniform. Nebraska Legionnaires showed up to support the individuals transformation, Suchy said, adding that they didnt have a vote or voice in the Pardon Boards decision. Broke into home Messages left seeking comment from Arias, 57, of Grand Island, were not returned. He was convicted of first-degree sexual assault in 1994. Court records indicate that he broke into the Ogallala home of his estranged wife, then terrorized her with a knife. He tied her to a bed and sexually assaulted while their children, ages 5 and 7, were in the home. Arias then took the children and fled to Texas, leaving his wife bound and gagged. He was sentenced to 15-30 years in prison, a sentence he completed in 2008. At the Pardons Board hearing, Arias, a former Marine who served in the Gulf War, noted that he has been active in supporting fellow veterans. He was quoted in a recent Grand Island Independent story about the launching of veterans treatment court in Adams County as an alternative to prison for veterans who commit crimes. Contested his listing A check of state court records indicate that Arias has not been charged with any criminal offenses since 1993. But he was very active in filing civil lawsuits while in prison and shortly afterwards. At least 15 times, he sued state prison officials and members of the Nebraska Parole Board. In 2009, Arias, also legally contested the determination that he was a dangerous sex offender who warranted lifetime listing on the sex offender registry maintained by the Nebraska State Patrol. The sex offender registry, it should be noted, has been controversial in recent years, with several offenders contesting their listing, maintaining that very few reoffend and that the public listing is cruel, double punishment. Arias argued that prison psychologists deemed that he was not a threat to reoffend. Arias did acknowledge that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, but he said that didnt represent a threat to society, either. Assault was very heinous Linn, and a press release from a group of Legion members called What About Us? stated that they opposed pardons for sex offenders because it is against their morals and ethical standards. Arias crime, they added, was very heinous. The group, in its press release, asked, What if it was your loved one? The group said that Legion caps should not have been worn at the Pardons Board hearing and that all Legion members should have been informed before such a demonstration of support was made. This was kept pretty quiet. It was not made public to the body of Legion members of Nebraska, Linn said. She added that the pardon set a very bad precedent. Communique of the Seventh Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xinhua) 08:25, October 14, 2022 BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluded its seventh plenary session in Beijing on Wednesday with a communique issued. The following is the full text of the communique: Communique of the Seventh Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (Adopted at the Seventh Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on October 12, 2022) The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) convened its seventh plenary session in Beijing from October 9 to 12, 2022. A total of 199 members and 159 alternate members of the CPC Central Committee attended the session. Members of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and leading officials of related departments were present in a non-voting capacity. The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee presided over the session. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping delivered an important speech. It was decided at the session that the Party will convene its 20th National Congress in Beijing on October 16, 2022. At the session, the Central Committee heard and discussed the report on the work of the Political Bureau, presented by Xi Jinping, who was entrusted by the Political Bureau. It also discussed and adopted a report by the 19th CPC Central Committee to be delivered at the 20th CPC National Congress, as well as a work report of the 19th CPC CCDI to the congress, and an amendment to the Party Constitution. It was decided at the session that the three documents will be submitted to the 20th CPC National Congress for examination and deliberation. Xi Jinping delivered explanatory remarks on the draft report of the 19th CPC Central Committee to the 20th CPC National Congress, and Wang Huning made explanatory remarks on the draft amendment to the Party Constitution. At the session, full recognition was given to the work of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee since this Central Committee's Sixth Plenary Session. It was unanimously agreed that over the past year, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, facing a complicated and grave international situation and the challenging and arduous tasks of reform, development and ensuring stability at home, has been fully implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, uniting and leading the entire Party, the military, and Chinese people of all ethnic groups in achieving new and significant progress in the cause of the Party and the country on all fronts. The great founding spirit of the Party has been championed, the overarching principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability has been adhered to, and efforts have been made to implement the requirements of containing COVID-19 while stabilizing the economy and keeping development secure. The Party has coordinated the COVID-19 response with economic and social development, striking a balance between development and security, and maintaining an unremitting approach in routine COVID-19 prevention and control. It has been advancing high-quality development, deepening reform and opening up, developing whole-process people's democracy and improving its work in communication, ideology and culture fields. Also, it has given special stress on ensuring and improving people's well-being, and made efforts in promoting ecological conservation and environmental protection, accelerating steps in modernizing national defense and the armed forces, vigorously advancing major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics and exercising full and rigorous self-governance. China has successfully hosted the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, and grand celebrations were held to mark the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. The country has been fighting resolutely in major struggles against separatism and foreign interference and has properly responded to the risks and challenges brought about by the Ukraine crisis. All these efforts have helped maintain a stable and healthy economic environment, a secure and peaceful society and a political ecology of integrity and honesty, pushing the cause of the Party and the country to reap new and major achievements, and thus securing a sound environment for the Party's 20th National Congress. The work of the past five years since the 19th CPC National Congress was summarized at the plenary session, and it was held that the five years was an unusual and extraordinary period. In the five years, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has held high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, thoroughly implemented the guidelines of the 19th CPC National Congress and the plenums of the 19th CPC Central Committee, and followed the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The CPC Central Committee has united and led the whole Party, the military and Chinese people of all ethnic groups in concerted efforts to carry out our great struggle, develop our great project, advance our great cause, and pursue our great dream. In the past five years, we have advanced the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan to promote coordinated economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological advancement, and implemented the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy to boost comprehensive moves to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, deepen reform, advance law-based governance, and strengthen Party self-governance. We have responded to COVID-19 and pursued economic and social development in a well-coordinated way, ensured both development and security, upheld the overarching principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, and made every effort to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. We have applied the new development philosophy in full, in the right way, and in all fields of endeavor. We have promoted high-quality development, fostered a new development pattern, and taken swift yet steady steps in advancing reforms. We have promoted whole-process people's democracy, comprehensively advanced law-based governance, developed advanced socialist culture, and worked to ensure and improve public well-being. We have pooled our efforts in eradicating absolute poverty and spurred ecological conservation. We have defended national security, taken steps to forestall and defuse major risks, maintained overall social stability, advanced the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, carried out major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics on all fronts, and advanced the great new project of Party building into full swing. We have declared victory in the critical battle against poverty as envisaged, and achieved the historic mission of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and thus realizing the first centenary goal, embarking on a new journey toward the second centenary goal of building a modern socialist country in all respects. We celebrated the centenary of the founding of the CPC and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and adopted the Party's third resolution on historical issues. We also launched campaigns to study the history of the CPC and called for all Party members to digest and practice the great founding spirit of the Party. Putting the people and their lives first, we organized the people's all-out war against the COVID-19 pandemic and protected the people's lives and health to the greatest possible extent. In line with the Constitution and the basic laws, we effectively exercised the central government's overall jurisdiction over the special administrative regions and implemented the principle of "patriots administering Hong Kong." From disorder to good social order, a significant shift has taken place in Hong Kong. Remaining committed to the one-China principle and the 1992 Consensus, we demonstrated our resolve and ability to safeguard our sovereignty and territorial integrity and fight against any separatist schemes or activities for "Taiwan independence." Giving top priority to national interests and domestic politics, we managed to maintain strategic resolve and carried forward the fighting spirit. Our national dignity and core interests were safeguarded through struggles, and the initiative of development and security was firmly grasped in our hands. Over the past five years, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core wisely sized up the situation and spearheaded innovation on the basis of what has worked. Being brave and adept in carrying out struggle, it united and led the whole Party, the military and people of all ethnic groups in effectively responding to the complicated and grave international situation as well as serious risks and challenges that kept emerging. With high morale, we have constantly advanced socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, tackled many problems that were long on the agenda but remained unsolved, accomplished big and great things of long-term significance, and made major achievements in the cause of the Party and the nation that captured world attention. It was stressed at the plenary session that the major achievements scored in the cause of the Party and the country since the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017 were achieved under the firm leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and through the concerted efforts of the whole Party and people of all ethnic groups under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The Party has set Comrade Xi Jinping's core position on the CPC Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and set Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding ideology. This reflects the common will of all Party members, the military and people of all ethnic groups. It has a decisive bearing on the development of the cause of the Party and the country in the new era and the historic course of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. All Party members must have a keen understanding of the significance of the Two Sets, enhance the Four Consciousnesses, reinforce the Four-Sphere Confidence, and ensure the Two Upholds, and rally even more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, comprehensively implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and strive to build a modern socialist country in all respects and achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. At the session, the Central Committee reviewed the work of the Party's 19th CCDI. It was unanimously agreed that, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, commissions for discipline inspection at all levels faithfully fulfilled their duties as stipulated in the Party Constitution, resolutely implemented Party's strategy for self-reform and the guideline for governing the Party in a strict and comprehensive manner, and carried out the Eight-Point Decision on Improving Party and Government Conduct to strengthen political disciplines and rules. They firmly safeguarded the authority of the CPC Central Committee and its centralized and unified leadership, strengthened political supervision and deepened political inspection, so as to ensure the political duties for strengthening Party self-governance are fully performed. They also rectified misconduct and cracked down on corruption that occurred on the people's doorsteps, and made coordinated efforts to ensure officials do not dare, are not able, and have no desire to commit acts of corruption. As a result, the anti-corruption campaign has secured an overwhelming victory and been consolidated comprehensively. They made efforts to improve the supervision institution of the Party and the state, and deepen reforms on discipline inspection and supervision system so as to make them more procedure-based, law-based and standardized. They made new progress in building a faithful, clean and responsible team for discipline inspection and supervision, and in promoting high-quality discipline inspection and supervision work. In line with the Party Constitution, the session has decided to appoint alternate members Ma Guoqiang, Wang Ning, and Wang Weizhong as members of the Central Committee. The plenary deliberated and adopted the report of the CPC CCDI on the examination of the violations of the Party discipline and law by Fu Zhenghua, Shen Deyong, Li Jia, and Zhang Jinghua, and affirmed the decisions of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to expel Fu Zhenghua, Shen Deyong and Zhang Jinghua from the Party and dismiss Li Jia from his post in the Party. The CPC Central Committee analyzed the current situation and the Party's tasks ahead, discussed several important issues concerning upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and building a modern socialist country in all respects in the new era, making ample preparations for the 20th CPC National Congress. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Du Mingming) ABUJA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's university lecturers on Friday called off an eight-month strike to allow for further negotiations with the government in view of pending matters. The university lecturers, under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), were directed to return to their duty posts by Friday, following a resolution by the national executive council of ASUU at a meeting in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, Emmanuel Osodeke, the union's leader, said in a statement. "Consequently, all members of ASUU are hereby directed to resume all services hitherto withdrawn with effect from 12:01 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14," Osodeke said. The eight-month strike by the ASUU had demanded, among others, the renegotiation of welfare, government funding for the revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, and promotion arrears. Talks between the government and the ASUU continued to yield no result, leading to the prolonged strike by the lecturers. A Nigerian court on Sept. 21 ordered the public university lecturers to call off the nationwide strike after the government approached the court a week earlier to determine the legality of the strike, accusing ASUU's prolonged industrial action of affecting public universities in the country since Feb. 14. The court, while granting the government's request, said the strike by the lecturers was detrimental to public university students who cannot afford to attend private tertiary institutions. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari had in August called on the striking lecturers to reconsider their decision and return to the classroom, noting such prolonged interruption of education could undermine the nation's development of human capital. 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: MARION The children at Boys and Girls Club of Southern Illinois Marion got a special treat on Thursday evening on Upside Down Day. What was upside down? It was the evening meal. The children ate breakfast for dinner, thanks to the efforts of the members of the Kiwanis Club of Marion. The club members fixed pancakes and sausage to serve to the children, staff, parents and visitors. Tina Carpenter, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Southern Illinois, said the club still lacks funding to finish its kitchen in Marion. They need a stove, counters and a fire suppression hood for the kitchen. Our goal is to raise money for the kitchen through a grant or sponsorship, Carpenter said. I think $15,000 would get us there. The Rev. John Holst, George Jacobs and Bob Campbell made pancakes for children and adults. Carpenter said Holst and Scott Murray made sure the children are fed. Holst has been a member of Marion Kiwanis for 23 years and has a long history of flipping pancakes for the Kiwanis. His grandfather started the pancake fundraiser in Moline. Holst helped him with Pancake Days as a child. We wanted to fit it in for the Boys and Girls Club. We knew the kids would enjoy it, Holst said. The Kiwanis Club also used the event as a precursor and practice to their annual fall Pancake Day in Marion. The fundraiser will be from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 29 in the Knights of Columbus Hall next to St. Joseph Catholic Church. They do two fundraisers a year, both pancake days. Due to the pandemic, those fundraisers had to be cancelled in years past. The Pancake Day on Oct. 29 will be their first in a couple years. The children at the Boys and Girls Club said the pancakes were really good. Eight-year-old Elaina Nelson said she likes to have breakfast for dinner. She is a second grader at Longfellow School. Along with delicious pancakes, Elaina likes the activities at the Boys and Girls Club, like crafts, kickball, doing math and homework, and helping people. Lily Tran will be 10 years old next week and loves music. I love pancakes, especially these ones. They are the best Ive ever had, Lily said. She loves pancakes for breakfast, too, and her favorite breakfast is bacon and eggs. Lily got the chance to try sugar-free pancake syrup during the pancake dinner. She really liked it. While the Kiwanis Club was visiting the Marion location of the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Illinois, they had the opportunity to see the farm stand the club has for growing food. Holst said Kiwanis International has a goal of educating children about their food and where the food comes from. Kiwanis International gave them a grant that they used to purchase the farm stand for the club. For more information or to make a donation, visit bgcsi.org. SHAWNEE NATIONAL FOREST The first steps taken down Snake Road were not without trepidation. Snakes have never been my favorite critters. Im well aware the fear is irrational. My mother was deathly afraid of snakes, and seeing her fearful reaction to these useful reptiles lives with me today. Most of my life has been spent trying to avoid snakes whenever possible. Yet, last Tuesday I found myself about to walk through one of the snakiest places in Southern Illinois, dare I say America. Snake Road, located in the western part of the Shawnee National Forest at the base of Inspiration Point in Jackson County has drawn nationwide attention each spring and fall since at least 1972. That was the first year the Shawnee National Forest closed the gravel road between the bluffs of Larue-Pine Hills and the swamp below to protect the snakes from motorized traffic. I had visited Snake Road before. I had walked perhaps 100 yards down the road, seen a snake and called it a day. Walking the length of the road was not a prominent entry on my Bucket List. And, this trip was not my idea. Two friends from high school, Bob Crow and Wayne Gehrs (and Bobs son, Andy), said they planned to walk the road Tuesday and wanted to know if Id accompany them. Fortunately, the desire to spend time with old friends overrode my ophidiophobia. So, after meeting at the north parking lot, the journey began. We didnt see any snakes for the first couple hundred yards, but we did meet several people returning to the parking lot. It was hard to miss the fact that everyone seemed to be having a good time and no one had a tourniquet affixed to their leg. Each time someone walked by, Bob cheerfully asked, How many did you see? The answers varied from six, to about a dozen. Everyone was in agreement that cottonmouths were the predominant species. As fate would have it, we spotted a warmup species before the first snake sighting. Actually, another visitor pointed out a green tree frog to us. But, it was just a few steps later that Wayne spotted a cottonmouth near the edge of the road, and another cottonmouth in the swamp below. The snakes largely ignored us as we jockeyed for position to take photographs. The uneventful interaction with the snakes allayed my fears. A short time later we encountered a gentleman looking at a common water snake. We walked over to take a quick look, again confidence was growing. Soon we spotted a cottonmouth basking in the middle of the road. After examining the critter from all angles, we moved on once again. Before the day was over we had encountered somewhere between 20 and two dozen snakes. Most of the snakes ignored our presence, although a few gaped as we approached. Be assured, we gave them ample room. Finally, as we neared the parking lot on the return trip, there was a man at the side of the road photographing the snake. He was excitedly telling everyone who passed by that the snake we were looking at was the rare Mississippi green snake. While I had no reason to doubt the mans ID, I also lacked the knowledge to verify the species. So, I took a photograph which I sent to Scott Ballard, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources chief herpetologist. Ballard made a positive identification. The snake is, indeed, one of the rarest in Illinois. Illinois is at the northern edge of its range. Ballard said Snake Road is the only place he is certain the species can be found. The final sighting put a perfect cap on the day. It was fun. It was educational. And, I found myself more comfortable than seemed possible. Ill go back just not by myself. United Methodists have for generations been a mainstay of the American religious landscape one of the most geographically widespread of the major Protestant denominations, their steeples visible on urban streets, in county seats and along country roads, their ethos marked by a firm yet quiet faith, simple worship and earnest social service. But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology. In annual regional gatherings across the U.S. earlier this year, United Methodists approved requests of about 300 congregations to quit the denomination, according to United Methodist News Service. Special meetings in the second half of the year are expected to vote on as many as 1,000 more, according to the conservative advocacy group Wesleyan Covenant Association. Scores of churches in Georgia, and hundreds in Texas, are considering disaffiliation. Some aren't waiting for permission to leave: More than 100 congregations in Florida and North Carolina have filed or threatened lawsuits to break out. Those departing are still a fraction of the estimated 30,000 congregations in the United States alone, with nearly 13,000 more abroad, according to recent UMC statistics. But large United Methodist congregations are moving to the exits, including some of the largest in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The flashpoints are the denomination's bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy though many see these as symptoms for deeper differences in views on justice, theology and scriptural authority. The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them. This spring, conservatives launched a new Global Methodist Church, where they are determined both to maintain and to enforce such bans. A proposal to amicably divide the denomination and its assets, unveiled in early 2020, has lost its once-broad support after years of pandemic-related delays to the legislative General Conference, whose vote was needed to ratify it. Now the breakup and the negotiations are happening piecemeal one regional conference at a time. New York Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the Council of Bishops, issued a statement in August denouncing "a constant barrage of negative rhetoric that is filled with falsehood and inaccuracies" by breakaway groups. In particular, he disputed allegations that the church is changing core doctrines. But he said the denomination seeks to find a balance between encouraging churches to stay yet enabling them to go. "It's a both/and," Bickerton said in an interview. "We want people to know straight up front that we don't want them to leave. We need traditionalists, we need centrists, we need progressives willing to engage in a healthy debate to discern what God's will is." But more departures are expected next year. In just the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference, about 300 of its 800 churches have begun inquiring about the process of leaving by the end of 2023, according to the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Not all may follow through, but some see it as inevitable. "We feel like to stay the same in our mission and theology, we need to change denominations," said the Rev. Steve Cordle, lead pastor of Crossroads Church. Based in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, it's one of the largest congregations in the conference. It's considering going independent or joining the Global Methodist Church. A few miles away in Bethel Park, another Pittsburgh suburb, Christ United Methodist Church remains committed to the denomination. The Rev. Chris Morgan said his church has a "big tent" of liberals and conservatives with most congregants "leaning in toward the center." The church recently hosted an educational series on hot topics including the schism, guns, abortion and COVID-19. "Instead of becoming like society, we're trying to become an example of what it looks like to disagree and still treat people with respect and care and love," Morgan said. He was far from the only one to see a parallel between the Methodist debates and broader societal polarization. "We live in a world of division. Just look at our political front," said Bishop David Graves, who oversees the South Georgia and Alabama-West Florida conferences. Both conferences have dozens of congregations moving to the exits, though the large majority are staying so far. Graves said he wants to help enable churches to leave if they want to but has spent long hours urging them to consider all the factors and be sure it is God's will. "It's very taxing," he said. "Those are intense meetings." Conservatives say denominational leaders are making it difficult for those who want to leave to do so, however. Currently churches may leave after paying two years' worth of "apportionments" essentially denominational dues plus their share of unfunded pension liabilities. Conferences may also impose additional requirements, and some are asking for a percentage of the property value of church buildings. "In many cases, (the requirements) are onerous, they are punitive," said the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative advocacy group that is working to help churches jump to the Global Methodist Church. Bishop Karen Oliveto of the UMC's Mountain Sky region who in 2016 became the UMC's first openly lesbian bishop said via email it is "extremely wounding to LGBTQ persons that our very personhood is being used as a wedge to disrupt unity in the church." She expressed hope that UMC churches "will be safe places for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." Conservatives have lamented that UMC has failed to enforce its Book of Discipline on standards for ordination and marriage. Oliveto said, however, that sometimes "the Holy Spirit runs ahead of us and gives us a glimpse of the future to which we are called. This is certainly the case across the denomination, where LGBTQ persons have been examined at every step of the ordination process and found to possess the gifts and graces for ordained ministry." United Methodists are part of a global movement that traces their origins to the 18th-century English revivalist John Wesley, who emphasized personal piety, evangelism and social service. American membership has declined to about 6.5 million, from a peak of 11 million in the 1960s. Overseas membership soared to match or exceed that of the U.S., fueled mostly by growth and mergers in Africa. It's too early to say if there will be widespread departures from international churches. African churches, for instance, often combine conservative stances on sexual issues with progressive views on the economy and colonialism's legacy. Several African bishops issued a statement denouncing conservative advocacy groups, including one called the Africa Initiative, for collaborating to "destroy our United Methodist Church." The Africa Initiative replied that it respected the bishops but would continue its efforts "to see biblical Christianity taught, lived and sustained." Neal Christie of the Love Your Neighbor Coalition, a partnership of progressive and ethnically based Methodist advocacy groups, said the "notion that outside the United States there's one monolithic voice is a caricature." The coalition is promoting a more decentralized church where regions could make their own decisions on issues such as LGBTQ inclusion based on their cultural contexts. "We believe this is a big tent church, that the church is big enough for all," he said. But after decades of controversy, some are done. "The traditionalists decided this is like a toxic relationship now, and we're just harming each other," said the Rev. Laura Saffell, chairperson of the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. "The best we can do is bless and send" each other their separate ways. BAMBERG Bamberg County Council heard from a Goodwill Industries representative on how the nonprofit could provide job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs in the county. Monique McDaniels, vice president of community engagement for Goodwill Industries of Upstate/Midlands South Carolina, on Oct. 3 shared ways the organization could service and partner with the county. This county is particularly covered. We split some of it, along with our Palmetto Goodwill partner, which is the Charleston-Pee Dee area, McDaniels said. Goodwill Industries takes gently donated items that were so gracious that the community provides to us. We resell them in our retail stores and our online platform. We take those funds and we provide job services in the community, she said. She continued, We support veterans, we support seniors, we support young people, those that are re-entering the community from being incarcerated. We spend over 90 cents of every dollar back into the community of putting folks back to work. So were just really excited about that. Goodwill Industries is independently owned by 155 different presidents and CEOs throughout the country. ... We want to service our communities and meet them where they are and their need, McDaniels said, before explaining the types of services Goodwill could provide locally. A lot of our programs stem around: How do we get people trained? How do we get them upskilled? How do we help them become independent where they are? Some of that may be entrepreneurship. Some of that may just be getting them new certifications, helping them go back to school. Well also help them get tech funding and also provide them with equipment if they just need that, she said. She continued, Anything related to job services how we get you back to work, how we can give you wrap around services we have wonderful grant opportunities that allow us to also provide transportation, technology, Wi-Fi hotspots. So we have a lot of plethora of services that we can provide. She informed Councilman Larry Haynes that Goodwill had suspended its pickup services for donated items because of the coronavirus pandemic. We have not restarted them. You would have to bring it to us unfortunately, but we appreciate your donation and supporting our mission, McDaniels said, noting that the closest donation center and retail store is in Orangeburg. While Councilman Evert Comer Jr. said the county does not currently have any available space in which Goodwill could set up, McDaniels said other services could be offered remotely. We dont have a donation center or a retail store here, but it doesnt mean that we cant provide services. ... We can also co-locate somewhere if yall have space. Weve done that within schools, in youth centers. ... We run our programs, of course, like anyone else, where they are digital. They can be online, they can be virtual. So we can make it work for anyone that needs them, she said. McDaniels continued, We teach digital skills. We help get apprenticeships for young people. Our seniors, we have trained them in getting back to work. So a lot of space just needs to be administrative, but were really more so looking for community partnerships. Also during the meeting, County Treasurer Alice Johnson gave the August financial report, stating the county had $605,689.38 in income and expenditures of $740,456.88, leaving a negative balance of $134,767.50. When the negative bank balance at the end of August ($864,208.28) was added, the countys regular account stood at a negative $998,975.78 Councilman Dr. Jonathan Goodman II questioned the large deficit and suggested some type of moratorium on spending. While Johnson said it was important for the county to watch what we spend and when we spend it, County Controller Gina Smith and Preston noted that Johnson just reports on one of the countys bank accounts. Smith said the county is not short on cash because other bank accounts have money in them, including $822,101 in its property-tax-rollback account and $634,996 and $487,260 in its respective fire service and solid waste accounts, as of the end of August. County Finance Director T.M. Thomas reported the general fund had year-to-date revenues as of the end of August of $983,552, with expenses coming in at $1,341,534, for a negative general fund balance of $357,982. He said the county departments continue to operate within their budgets and that the deficit will be reduced with the help of forthcoming property taxes. Unfortunately on the revenue side, these are slow months for us. ... Hopefully when taxes get out, we can get that number to catch up with the expenditure side, Thomas said. Smith also reported that the county had already started its yearend financial statement audit ending June 30, 2022. I am preparing the general ledger, or the books for the audit. My goal is to turn the books and the general ledger over to the auditors on Oct. 17. ... The law and the comptroller general of the state is requiring us now to turn the audit in by Dec. 31, Smith said, or face withholding of funds. That will be a very negative consequence. We dont want that to happen. So thats what Im working toward. Thats my main order of business these days, she said. In other business Council heard from County Coroner Wallace Hicks Jr., stating that the county had 125 deaths as of Jan. 1. He said the county had also performed 20 autopsies already this year, with 10 performed from July through September. So right now were probably going to go over on the ($25,000 budget for) autopsies this year. Its probably going to be a couple thousand over because we still got nine more months to go, and a lot can happen in nine months. We hope not, Hicks said, noting that his staff includes three deputy coroners and an administrative staff person, who he said also knows the job. Comer asked, Other than needing more money, is there anything else you need from us? No, no. Just support me in whatever I need some funding for, Hicks said, noting that he is thankful for the new transport van, office space and morgue the county has provided. Council heard from SouthernCarolina Project Manager Brian Warner, stating the purchase of the countys Wolfe industrial site is complete at no cost to the county. We also are set to start with due diligence on that property, which were using grant funding for. This is going to make it a whole lot more marketable, he said. Warner also reported that the countys U.S. Highway 301 sewer expansion is complete. The Bamberg Board of Public Works took care of that and ... was able to also help with some of the storm water issue that one existing industry was having, he said. He said there have also been two site visits in the last month to the spec building located at the countys CrossRhodes Industrial Park. A Lexington man was sentenced to prison in a boat crash that killed two people in August 2020, a case investigated by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Dylan Steele, 28, was sentenced Oct. 10 in Newberry County court to 10 years in prison, fined $20,000 and ordered to complete 250 hours of community service after pleading guilty to two felony charges of boating under the influence resulting in death. A judge suspended the sentence to seven years, a $10,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. The sentencing helped to bring a little bit of closure to the families, said SCDNR Sgt. Damian Yongue, who led the investigation. Its unfortunately not going to be able to bring their loved ones back, but it is some measure of closure for them. On Aug. 1, 2020, Steele was among a group of acquaintances hanging out and drinking alcohol on a sandbar on the Broad River in Newberry County. Two jon boats with members of the group left the sandbar and were waiting in the river when Steele, who left the sandbar after sundown and was driving a third jon boat at a high rate of speed, crashed into one of the other boats. The victims in that boat Jamie Lindler, 27, and Andrew Bunnell, 28 died of traumatic injuries caused by the crash. An investigation built on detailed witness statements from members of the third boat and field sobriety tests conducted by SCDNR officers at a nearby boat landing supported the charges against Steele of boating under the influence resulting in the deaths. The 8th Circuit Solicitors Office prosecuted the case. Keeping the waters of our state safe from reckless and impaired boaters is critical work, 8th Circuit Solicitor David M. Stumbo said. We were honored to partner with Sgt. Yongue and his team of SCDNR agents to prosecute this case and seek justice in the courtroom this week for the families and friends of the deceased. A Denmark police officer is on administrative leave after being charged with domestic violence, according to Denmark Police Chief Leroy Grimes. Justin Michael Verner, 26, is facing a second-degree domestic violence charge in connection with a Cottageville incident, according to the Colleton County Sheriffs Office. Verner called police around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday after his girlfriend allegedly wouldnt return his cellphone, an incident report said. He said she took it after finding out he was talking with another woman and ran out of the residence to her parents residence, the report said. The girlfriend told a deputy that she took the phone after confronting him. She said Verner became upset and started pushing and pulling at her to try to get his phone. She went to her parents house and Verner allegedly tried to get in the house through a door that was ajar. She claims that when he did that, he pushed the door into her, striking her left forearm and leaving red marks, the report states. Verner told his girlfriend that he was going to talk to police. He claims that she said if he spoke to police, that shed break his phone. She put Verners phone on top of his patrol car and he retrieved it after police arrived. A child was present during the incident, according to the report. During Verners booking process, a deputy spoke with a lieutenant about Verners job so that he could be housed separately for his safety, the report said. The next morning, Colleton County Magistrate Sophie T. Henderson set Verners bond at $2,500 cash or surety. He posted bond using bail bondsman. If convicted, Verner faces up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Verner has been working as a Denmark police officer about six months, Grimes said. He graduated from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy on Sept. 9. Mike Dennis, executive director of the Tri-County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, opened Rowesvilles October Town Council meeting. Dennis spoke about the opioid epidemic and its current rate in South Carolina, which has seen over 7,000 overdoses since Jan. 1, with more than 700 resulting in death. Dennis is reaching out to communities to make the public aware of the services they offer at the Dawn Center, from a 15-bed adolescent program to help youth overcome their addictions with 24/7 nursing care to education for family members with loved ones facing addiction. Councilman Ben Boensch brought forth the idea of the town hosting Trunk or Treat this year and council agreed. Mayor Paul Bishop suggested that it be held at Fairey Park on Halloween. The mayor also suggested contacting Orangeburg to find their trick-or-treat curfew hours so they can match. Bishop will post fliers with the time. Penny sales tax funds will be used in the painting of the second mural on the town museum building, as well as the installation of new streets signs. The next council meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Nov 7 at Rowesville Town Hall, 309 River Drive. About $2.6 million in federal coronavirus relief money will pay for emergency medical response equipment and vehicles in Orangeburg County. The Regional Medical Center will receive $1 million, the City of Orangeburg will get $857,075 and Orangeburg County will receive $750,000 in U.S. Department of Agriculture Emergency Rural Health Care grants. The money for the grants comes from the American Rescue Plan, signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021. The City of Orangeburg's $857,075 grant will be used to help the city recover the costs and wear on fire and Emergency Management System equipment during COVID, according to the grant's project description. This improvement will enable the city to replace and expand their emergency medical care and services to provide equity medical care and emergency medical response to rural citizens to improve the medical and health outcomes in rural Orangeburg, the grant description states. Specifically, the city has already purchased three fire trucks totaling $2,425,413. The grant will reimburse the city 35 percent of the cost, with the city being responsible for the rest. The grant will also cover 35 percent of the cost of the city's purchase of defibrillators for city office buildings and technology for three fire stations. Orangeburg County received $750,000 that will be used toward the purchase of five emergency medical services response vehicles for the Holly Hill and Eutawville service area, which is medically underserved and 40 miles from a hospital. The county plans to purchase three ambulances and two paramedic quick response vehicles for the area. Orangeburg County Administrator Harold Young said the vehicles will used in Holly Hill and Eutawville, but will also be rotated throughout the county in an effort to better allocate mileage usage on the county's emergency response vehicles. The county provided a $250,000 match. The grant was previously announced at an Orangeburg County Council meeting in July. The $1 million RMC grant will partially reimburse the hospital for the $3.5 million in equipment purchased over the last few years due to COVID. The $1 million is the maximum the hospital could receive. In addition to reimbursements for equipment already purchased, the grant may also be used to purchase future items such as ventilators, telehealth equipment, intubators and fluid infusion pumps. The hospital will have three years to spend the money. The grant was previously announced at a meeting of the RMC Board of Trustees. The money is part of about $10 million the state received from the USDA as part of the grant program to help fund eight projects. About $110 million has been allocated in total for the grant program across the nation to help 43 states and Guam. KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's natural rubber production decreased by 3.8 percent to 36,411 tonnes in August from 37,843 tonnes in July, official data showed Friday. The year-on-year comparison also showed that the production of natural rubber fell 15.2 percent, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement. According to DOSM, the production of natural rubber in August for Malaysia was mainly contributed by the smallholder sector, which accounts for 87.5 percent, compared to the estate sector at 12.5 percent. Exports of Malaysia's natural rubber climbed 11.9 percent to 60,170 tonnes in August, from 53,752 tonnes in July. The main destinations for natural rubber exports are China, Iran, Germany, the United States, and Turkey. Total stocks of natural rubber in August slipped 8.1 percent to 209,491 tonnes as compared to 228,039 tonnes in July. The Regional Medical Center celebrated the grand opening of its new outpatient neurology clinic on Thursday afternoon. Hospital officials say theres a long-standing need for the service in the community. RMC hired an inpatient neurologist in 2020, but outpatient visits had to be conducted outside the area. Now with this clinic in our community, we can treat patients close to home, RMC Chief Operating Officer Sabrina Robinson said. There are many patients in our community that have neurological diagnoses such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, dementia and stroke, she said. Our patients need to be cared for in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties and this outpatient office would support the care we provide in our certified stroke center. She said theres a wait list for services. The 2,500-square-foot clinic is located at 1103 Cook Road. The facility has three exam rooms and one procedure room. The clinic will be open Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays, 8 a.m. to noon. The clinic will be closed for lunch daily from noon to 1 p.m. The clinic will serve to diagnose and treat neurological disorders and will provide care for a number of conditions, including dementias, epilepsy, movement disorders, neuromuscular conditions, headaches, multiple sclerosis, post-stroke management, neuropathies, concussion management and dizziness/vertigo. Specialty treatments will include lumbar puncture, occipital nerve block, Botox for migraines and electromyogram and nerve conduction studies. I am extremely excited about this service line being opened, not only because in the uncertainty of health care, many hospital systems are discontinuing service lines. This is especially important to me because my dad had Parkinsons and his quality of life was extended with the care of a neurology doctor, Robinson said. Dr. Tushar Trivedi and certified family nurse practitioners Constance Bailey and Brandi Johnson will be the clinic providers. Trivedi graduated from the University of South Carolina with his doctorate in epidemiology and masters degree in public health. He received his fellowship in vascular neurology from New York University's Langone Hospital and then his residency from University of South Carolina's Prisma Health in neurology. Trivedi attended the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Timisoara in Romania. He is board certified in neurology and specializes in strokes. Hes also the director of the RMC Primary Stroke Program. Trivedi said the clinic is highly needed in the community. Wait times for neurology care to be sometimes up to six months. When he joined the hospital two years ago, he was focused on providing inpatient care. During my interview I went to the point to have in my contract that I would only be doing inpatient, Trivedi said. After working here for one year, it grew on me how much outpatient neurology services are needed in our communities. Trivedi said in his first year of practice, he met a young lady who had seen a number of primary care doctors for lower extremity weakness in both legs. The woman is now in a wheelchair. Trivedi said after seeing her and conducting MRIs, she was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a condition if it was diagnosed six months back and if she started on treatment, she would not have been paralyzed. Over the past two years I have seen many such stories. It led our team to believe this was very important, that we needed to start an outpatient clinic, he said. RMC President and CEO David Southerland said, Folks, this is a really, really big deal here in Orangeburg. We are now offering neurology services on an outpatient basis, which hasn't been done, Southerland said. This is a specialty medical service here in Orangeburg that has not been offered in the past on an outpatient basis. People do not have to get in their car and drive to Columba and drive to Charleston or drive to Summerville. The clinic will be named the RMC Neurology Clinic until an official agreement is signed with the Medical University of South Carolina. Following a signed agreement, the hospital will become MUSC Health Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties. During Thursdays ribbon-cutting ceremony for the clinic, RMC Director of Pastoral Care Paul Hamilton prayed for God's blessings upon the doctors, staff and patients who come to the clinic and asked for God's presence in the clinic. The Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce helped with the ribbon-cutting. This is technology, this is growth. It represents innovation, it represents new Orangeburg, Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce President James McQuilla said. I was growing up in the 90s and there is a song that said, This is how we do it. This is how we do it. This is Orangeburg. McQuilla thanked hospital staff and employees for their service and said the Chamber is going to ask business owners to begin to giving discounts to medical professionals in the community. COVID taught us a lot that you are all indispensable, McQuilla said. We cannot do without you. We cannot do without the hospital. Thank you for making Orangeburg better and better every day. For more information about the clinic, call 803-395-3044. Law enforcement officers say theyre doing what they can to try to curtail crime in Orangeburg County, but they need the community to step up too. In the wake of last Junes reversal of Roe vs. Wade by the Supreme Court of the United States, the South Carolina General Assembly has been debating whether to make our states abortion law more restrictive. The current fetal heartbeat law, recently stayed by the South Carolina Supreme Court while it considers a legal challenge, bans an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually at about the six-week mark, unless the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest, the unborn child is diagnosed with a fatal fetal anomaly, or an abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother. On Aug. 31, the South Carolina House passed and sent to the South Carolina Senate a bill that would replace the fetal-heartbeat abortion ban with a ban from the time of conception, with exceptions only for rape/incest and life/health of the mother. On Sept. 8, the Senate passed an amendment rejecting the new at-conception ban and reaffirming the existing law. On Sept. 27, the House non-concurred with the Senate amendment, and the Senate will reconvene next Tuesday to decide whether to accept the House version or to insist on its amendment. We take this opportunity to point out two critical defects in the House version and to urge our colleagues to insist on the Senate amendment. First, the House version could have the (perhaps unintended) effect of making many commonly used contraceptives illegal. Heres why: Its stated intent is to protect the life of every human being from conception and to prevent the death of the unborn human being, which is defined as an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from conception until live birth. Conception occurs when a males sperm fertilizes a females egg in the fallopian tube. There is a discernable legislative intent here to protect a fertilized egg, which means the use of Plan B and IUDs would be illegal because they sometimes work by killing a fertilized egg through preventing its implantation in the uterus. This intent is reinforced by the House versions limitation of allowable contraceptives to only those that prevent conception. This repeated emphasis on conception and a fertilized egg could also have implications for what is colloquially known as the pill, which works in three ways: first, by preventing ovulation; second, in case ovulation does occur, by preventing the sperm from fertilizing the egg; finally, as a backup to the backup, by rendering the uterine wall inhospitable to implantation. Words matter in legislation, and the words used in the House version are simply not precise enough to allay concerns about their impacts on commonly used contraceptives. Second, the House version of the bill would require a woman to carry to term an unborn child diagnosed by a physician as having a fatal fetal anomaly that is, a profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth. When asked about this, proponents of the House version deflect by citing examples of unborn children diagnosed with nonfatal fetal anomalies, such as Down syndrome, who live meaningful lives. But such examples are immaterial to a consideration of cases where an unborn child is diagnosed with a fatal fetal anomaly. Cases where, for instance, an unborn child is diagnosed with anencephaly, that is, without parts of the brain necessary to survive outside the womb. Or with bilateral renal agenesis, a condition in which the baby's kidneys never develop, where 40 percent of babies are stillborn, and if born alive, live only a few hours. Proponents of the House version say a woman should be forced to give birth if theres a possibility the child might live for minutes or hours, so a grieving family can show love and say good-bye, a direct quote from the floor debate. We respect women and families who make that choice, but the legislature shouldnt be in the business of dictating the proper way to grieve. A potential ban on commonly used contraceptives and no exception for fatal fetal anomalies - for these two reasons alone, we respectfully ask our Senate colleagues to bring reasonableness back to the abortion debate next Tuesday, and to insist on the Senate amendment. SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's automotive export logged a double-digit growth last month due to robust demand for eco-friendly vehicles, government data showed Friday. The country's car shipment soared 34.7 percent over the year to 4.79 billion U.S. dollars in September, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The number of exported vehicles was 192,863 in September, up 27.5 percent from a year earlier. Export for eco-friendly vehicles spiked 35.0 percent to 1.41 billion dollars last month, keeping an upward trend for the 21st consecutive month. Demand for locally-made vehicles from North America surged 70 percent to 2.26 billion dollars in September. Automotive sales in the local market jumped 23.1 percent from a year earlier to 140,242 units in September, keeping an upward momentum for the second successive month. The number of cars manufactured in local factories advanced 34.1 percent to 307,721 in September, continuing to grow for the fifth straight month. Lawyers for the Wyoming Rescue Mission are asking a federal judge to bar state and federal equal employment agencies from forcing the organization to hire non-Christian workers. Last month, the Rescue Mission which operates a homeless shelter, meal service, recovery program and two thrift stores in the Casper area filed suit against the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging those agencies were threatening to punish the nonprofit over its hiring practices. At issue is whether state and federal laws that prevent employers from discriminating against workers based on their religious views applies to the rescue missions jobs. Lawyers for the Rescue Mission contend that as a Christian organization, exemptions in those laws allow it to hire only employees who share its religious beliefs. The Wyoming Department of Workforce Services and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission maintain, according to the suit, that those exemptions only apply to jobs that are considered ministerial. The lawsuit could take months or even years to be resolved in court. So the Rescue Mission filed a preliminary injunction this week asking a judge to allow it to continue its hiring practices while the case proceeds. It maintains, among other things, that a preliminary injunction is warranted because the defendants actions are violating its First Amendment rights. Lawyers for the Rescue Mission say the organization employs more than 60 people and requires all of them to follow its Christian beliefs and values in order to further its faith-based mission. The missions main shelter is the primary one serving central Wyoming. It along with the missions other programs are heavily influenced by its Christian values. In court filings, the Rescue Mission says its already had to alter its hiring practices due to the matter. That includes not hiring for a position at one of its thrift stores, removing employment applications and religious hiring criteria from its website and refraining from punishing employees based on religious adherence. Its lawyers say the Rescue Mission also faces possible legal liability for recent and future decisions to hire coreligionists. The lawsuit stems from a job applicant who applied for a position at Rescued Treasures, one of the missions stores, in October 2020. When asked on a questionnaire about her faith and relationship with God, she answered that she had none. The store hired someone else who shared the organizations religious views. The woman filed a discrimination complaint, and the Department of Workforce Services launched an investigation. Lawyers for the Rescue Mission maintained it was allowed to hire only people who share its religious beliefs, but the department ultimately disagreed, contending the job in question was not a ministerial employee. It sought $3,300 in back pay and a commitment to stop making employment decisions on the basis of religion. When the Rescue Mission declined, the matter was sent to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which also concluded that the shelter was not exempt and had likely discriminated against the job applicant. Alliance Defending Freedom, a national coalition of conservative lawyers, is representing the Rescue Mission at no cost. The same group has also sought to participate in the lawsuit over Wyomings abortion ban, which is currently being blocked by a Teton County judge. Lawyers for the Department of Workforce Services and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have not filed a response to the lawsuit. Depending on the defendant, that should come either later this month or in November. Shaun Hamilton was sentenced to decades in prison after a jury found him guilty of five child sexual abuse charges. One of the cases two victims now says she lied about her allegations. Candidates for Wyomings lone U.S. House seat denounced Trump-backed Republican nominee Harriet Hagemans absence on Thursday from a debate in Riverton, calling the move a disservice to Wyoming. I say this as gracefully as I can, but I believe that, not only is it a disservice to Wyoming, but its a (cowardly) move, Democratic nominee Lynnette Grey Bull said. Wyoming doesnt need a coward. Wyoming needs a leader, Wyoming needs a voice, Wyoming needs people who are able to stand up to anybody and anyone. WyomingPBS, which hosted the U.S. House debate, confirmed with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in September that it had offered two potential dates in October for Hageman to participate in a debate. Hageman initially said she had a scheduling conflict. But when given the alternative date, she said she wouldnt participate at all. Since announcing her candidacy, Harriet Hageman has traveled over 40,000 miles across Wyoming, held more than 200 events and spoken with thousands of voters, Hagemans campaign responded in a statement. This is a much more effective way of communicating with Wyomingites, and its how she will continue, the statement said. We thank you for your invitation, but respectfully decline. The moderators first question for the candidates asked in light of Hagemans absence what they considered to be an appropriate excuse for missing the event. I think that it is very unfortunate that the other candidate is not here, Constitution Party candidate Marissa Joy Selvig said. The voters of Wyoming deserve to hear from all of their candidates. Selvig listed a death in the family or a health issue as reasonable excuses for not participating in the debate. But I dont think that theres any other reason other than a health issue or a family emergency to not participate in a debate, because informed voters make better choices, she continued. As I said previously, I think it is imperative that the voters of Wyoming hear from every candidate that they have to choose from. In August, Hageman beat out incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney by roughly 40 points in a historical race many saw as a referendum about former president Donald Trump. In deep-red Wyoming, and after her resounding victory in the primaries, its likely that Hageman will cruise through the November election to win Wyomings House seat. Libertarian candidate Richard Brubaker said he suspects thats why Hageman didnt feel it necessary to show up for the debate. The only reason I can think that Harriet would not show is that she feels so confident that everybody will vote for the big R, that she does not need to communicate with We the People, he said. Grey Bull also said she believes that Hageman is just so confident about winning the general election that she doesnt feel the need to share her thoughts and her ideas. The general election is Nov. 8. During the 2021 general session, the Wyoming Legislature took the first step of three to authorize counties and other local governments to invest long-term reserve funds in the same manner the state does (e.g., pension plans and the Permanent Mineral Trust Fund). That first step required two-thirds Wyomings house of representatives and senate to agree to enable the voters to determine whether Wyomings constitution should be amended. That amendment appears on this years general election ballot as Amendment A. Should voters approve Amendment A (second step), the final step in the process is for legislators to establish rules governing the investment of any dollars, again by two-thirds of both chambers of the legislature. Local governments have long sought this option the key word being option. In most cases, reserves should never be put into long-term investments because reserve funds are generally established to manage unforeseen future needs or large planned capital expenditures requiring multiple years to accumulate sufficient funds. However, there are times when circumstances either dictate other solutions or it is preferable to put certain monies aside and let the earnings off those funds be used to support government operations. Such a situation exists in Natrona County. With the sale of the Wyoming Medical Center, the county received more than $100 million. In its decision to sell WMC, the Natrona County Board of County Commissioners unanimously agreed these funds would never be spent. Rather, commissioners agreed only the earnings would be used allowing generations of Natrona County citizens to reap the benefits of that sale. Currently, the countys investment options for these funds are greatly limited and, therefore, the funds are yielding very minimal returns. Properly invested and managed for long-term returns could provide the county with an additional $5-7 million per year in perpetual revenues. These additional revenues will provide a broader revenue base for government operations and capital expenditure needs without any additional taxes. For example, a new library could be built at no additional cost to the taxpayers with the earnings pledged for revenue bonds, or the earnings could be used to support employee salaries and benefits. Two of the biggest concerns expressed with allowing local governments to invest more broadly are the safety of the investment and the lack of expertise by local officials in making these types of investments. From a safety standpoint, time provides an incredible safety net. Long-term investing is about seeking steady returns by looking at 5- and 10-year returns, rather than daily returns. Success in this type of investing requires the investment portfolio to have long-term outlook that allows for the ups and downs of the stock market. Hence, the funds that go into this type of investment strategy must be invested for the long-term or more likely permanently. Reiterating what was stated above, long-term investing will not be the norm but rather the exception. All local officials recognize we do not possess the skills or focus to undertake long-term investing. Long-term investing requires professional money managers to develop a portfolio plan, execute it and then provide daily management. Portfolio managers are used extensively by the state for its pension and Permanent Mineral Trust funds. In endorsing this constitutional amendment, the Wyoming County Commission Association unequivocally stated we expect the final legislative rules to require any long-term investing be done by professional portfolio managers. In other words, safeguards exist to ensure that taxpayer resources are properly protected. In closing, Constitution Amendment A on this years general election ballot will, with additional legislative approval, provide some local entities the option to seek higher returns on select reserve funds and broaden their revenue base. Funding received by local governments from the state will be under constant pressure to be reduced due to decreases in coal, oil, and gas production. Having an independent and constant revenue stream will allow some local governments like Natrona County to continue providing uninterrupted high quality services. Further, investments allowed with the adoption of Amendment A can be done safely with expert money managers. One final note; most constitutional amendments fail because voters dont cast votes. Dont skip Amendment A. Vote yes on Amendment A and provide an option for local governments to raise revenue without taxes. When it comes to conserving watersheds and protecting cutthroat trout in Wyoming, everyone must have a place at the table. Trout Unlimiteds (TU) efforts and successes come from years of trusted collaboration with anglers, community members, legislators, landowners, state and federal agencies, and non-profits the list goes on and on. Many individuals, especially in the fishing community, find their way to conservation work, volunteerism, or a passion for protecting a place through shared experiences on the water. As anglers who care about the future of our river resources, it is our responsibility to invite people into the sport we cherish in order to cultivate a powerful community of individuals to support the rivers, trout, and watersheds that play an important role in Wyoming. When more people including women are introduced to flyfishing, Wyomings waters, lands, and communities benefit. Every year as summer inches to a close, the Seedskadee and Upper Bear River Chapters of TU come together to host a Womens Float on the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). The event welcomes anglers of all experience levels, even encouraging women who have never cast a flyrod before to learn a new skill and experience the beautiful Refuge. The genesis of this event came from a place of eagerness to get more women involved in fly fishing. According to national data gathered by the Outdoor Industry Association, men made up 69% of flyfishing participant data, while women sat at 30%. Statistically speaking, thats a big gap, and Wyoming women have made observations while out on the water that back this up. I had been fly-fishing for a few years and was always disappointed that I very rarely saw another woman angler, said Hillary Walrath, Trout Unlimiteds Salinity Control Coordinator based in Green River. When I invited friends, the response I often received was that it was too intimidating, and they didnt want to learn how to fish from their spouse. Walrath, and other TU community members, along with Seedskadee NWR staff saw an opportunity to create something that was organized by women, for women, with the hope of creating meaningful introductions to fly fishing. In 2014, the first Womens Float on the Green River commenced, and the event hasnt slowed down since. Learning something new, like flyfishing, can be intimidating. Walrath and her team solved this issue by allowing women to attend the event with a friend and by ensuring the space was welcoming. All the fishing guides, who are tasked with rowing the drift boats, managing risk, and providing on-the-water instruction, are volunteers who return each year to support the event. Since 2014, the TU Womens Float has introduced over 150 Wyoming women to fly fishing and to the Seedskadee NWR. As one of the premier Brown and Bonneville Cutthroat Trout fishing locations in the state, Seedskadee is the perfect venue. It is also a place that Trout Unlimited, and its Seedskadee Chapter, has spent hundreds of volunteer hours and over a quarter million dollars working to conserve. It is so important that we help people overcome the initial barriers to angling and spread the love and passion for our local rivers and natural resources here in Wyoming, says Walrath. It has been incredibly gratifying to watch these ladies start fly fishing in their own right, and even begin taking their families fishing with them. Getting more women involved in fly fishing will not only benefit the individual and the growth of the sport, but Wyoming as a whole. When more people spend time connecting with the natural world, catching fish, and experiencing unique wildlife encounters, new conservation values are instilled and a feeling of connectivity to place is ignited. We are fortunate to have fantastic fishing opportunities on the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge and all across the state. It will take every single resident to ensure these places are protected and can thrive for future generations, so connect with your local TU chapter, grab a flyrod, and get out on the water! 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. Tourists walk along the Marina Bay in Singapore on Oct. 14, 2022. Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry announced on Friday that based on advance estimates, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2022. (Photo by Then Chih Wey/Xinhua) SINGAPORE, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry announced on Friday that based on advance estimates, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2022, easing slightly from the 4.5 percent growth in the previous quarter. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis, Singapore's economy grew by 1.5 percent in the third quarter, a turnaround from the 0.2 percent contraction in the second quarter. In a breakdown, Singapore's manufacturing sector expanded by 1.5 percent year on year in the third quarter, the construction sector grew by 7.8 percent year on year, and the services-producing industries expanded by 6.1 percent year on year. The advanced GDP estimates released on Friday were computed largely from data in the first two months of the quarter, according to the ministry. These figures are intended as an early indication of the GDP growth in the quarter, and are subject to revision when more comprehensive data become available. The ministry said it will release the preliminary GDP estimates for the third quarter this November. People conduct maintenance work outside the Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on Oct. 14, 2022. Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry announced on Friday that based on advance estimates, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2022. (Photo by Then Chih Wey/Xinhua) OUR country is over the edge, Ronald Boynes said in an interview with Express reporter Camille Hunte this past Sunday. And unless there is an intervention to take off the pressure we are going to implode. He said in order for that calamity to be avoided, there ought to be a change of leadership in the ruling party. There is a vacuum in terms of visionary leadership right now, he says. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) The candidates for governor of Michigan criticized each other's positions on abortion Thursday, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saying women's fundamental rights" are at risk and GOP challenger Tudor Dixon calling the Democrat's support for abortion rights extremely radical. Dixon is a former commentator for a conservative online program who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. She has never held public office and is still working to introduce herself and her ideas to voters some of whom she acknowledged were hearing from her directly for the first time during a debate Thursday night. For months, Whitmer and fellow Democrats have been airing attack ads portraying the Republican as too extreme on the issue, noting Dixons opposition to the procedure even in cases of rape or incest. Those ads have largely gone unanswered as Dixon has struggled to raise money to compete with Whitmers multimillion-dollar campaign fund. On Thursday, Dixon said she is pro-life with exceptions for the life of the mother" and criticized Whitmer for not supporting limits on abortion. Whitmer said she will continue fighting for abortion rights. She noted that prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the right to an abortion, she filed a lawsuit to block a dormant 1931 state ban on abortion from taking effect. When the Supreme Court ruled and ended the national right, Whitmer said, Dixon celebrated. Abortion has been a particularly prominent issue in Michigan this year because voters in November also will decide whether to enshrine the right to the procedure in the state constitution. Dixon, who has been endorsed by anti-abortion groups including Right to Life of Michigan, said that if elected governor, she will abide by the will of the voters on that ballot question. I will always respect the will of the voter, she said, adding that she believes in the right of the people to decide. Asked whether she will abide by the Nov. 8 vote on the ballot measure, Whitmer noted the court case she filed remains pending before Michigan courts, meaning the vote on the ballot measure may not be the final word. She also scoffed at Dixon's statement about respecting the will of voters, saying this is a candidate who still denies the outcome of the 2020 election. Dixon said during the Republican primary that she believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, whose loss to Joe Biden in Michigan by some 154,000 votes was confirmed through multiple investigations and lawsuits. People in this country are allowed to question elections, it doesnt mean that youre not going to accept the will of the people," Dixon said when asked following the debate about her previous comments on the 2020 election. The outcome of the November race will be significant beyond Michigan, a presidential election battleground. The winner will be in office for the 2024 contest, and could influence voting laws and how the election is conducted. Dixon also criticized Whitmer for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying she was heavy handed in issuing lockdowns that hurt small businesses and the statewide economy and kept kids out of school. Whitmer shot back that Dixon promoted conspiracy theories." Had she been governor during the pandemic, thousands more people would have died," Whitmer said. And what about our students, who she kept locked out of our schools and wouldnt listen to parents when they begged her to let them play," Dixon said. She wouldnt even listen. The two candidates are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 25 at Oakland University in Rochester. Joey Cappelletti 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. Burnett reported from Chicago. Federal officials want Gov. Doug Ducey to remove shipping containers he ordered placed along the border near Yuma and abandon his plans to put more there. The states unauthorized placement of the containers on federal property and that of the Cocopah Indian Tribe is a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States, said a letter sent Friday to agency chiefs in Duceys administration by Jacklynn Gould, regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation. That trespass is harming federal lands and resources and impeding Reclamations ability to perform its mission, she wrote to Tim Roemer, who is director of the states Department of Homeland Security, and Allen Clark, who heads the Division of Emergency Management. Gould said this is not simply a question of the federal government wanting Duceys shipping containers off its property. She said Customs and Border Protection already awarded a contract for closure of two of the gaps in the previously constructed wall on Bureau of Reclamation land near Morelos Dam, where the state has put the double-high barrier of shipping containers. There also are plans to close other gaps in the area, Gould said. She said the states placement of the containers is interfering with the federal governments own plans. You are requested to work with Reclamation, in consultation with the Cocopah Indian Tribe, so that Customs and Border Protections project may proceed without unnecessary delay, Gould wrote to the state officials. She said Reclamation will reach out to discuss a way forward and requests your cooperation in the removal of the containers. Ducey press aide C.J. Karamargin said the administration is reviewing the letter. But he also noted the timing of Goulds statement that there are plans to fill the gaps. Theyve been talking about taking action for months, Karamargin told Capitol Media Services. The only thing theyve managed to do is write a letter. We filled 3,800 linear feet of gap in two weeks. But Karamargin sidestepped questions of whether it is legal for the state to put the trailers on federal land. The federal government has been negligent in its responsibility of securing the border, he responded. So the state of Arizona acted. Nothing in Goulds letter addresses previously announced plans by the Republican governor to place containers elsewhere along the international border. One place that now appears to be out of the picture is in and around Nogales. The Nogales International reported that dozens of the shipping containers that had been stacked up at the National Guard Armory awaiting placement are now gone. Karamargin said that should not come as a surprise, as the plans for use of the containers were dependent on terrain. The governor said in his State of the State that he will use border barriers where appropriate, he said. Areas that are mountainous and rocky may not be the best place for shipping containers. But Karamargin said Ducey is looking at other areas where they could be appropriate. There are gaps all along the border because of the Biden administrations decision to halt construction, he said. So we are looking at all of those gaps. Karamargin said that includes Cochise County, where the state has been stockpiling containers near the Whetstone community north of Sierra Vista. None have been moved to the border so far. The issue traces its roots back to an executive order President Joe Biden issued on his first day of office in 2021 halting further construction of the border wall that had been a centerpiece of the Trump administration. But in July the Biden administration authorized completion of stretches of the border wall near Yuma, one of the busiest areas for migrant crossings. That came after U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, hoping to win his election this year, had pressed to close the gaps. Ducey announced his plans for Yuma about a month later. He was able to install the containers before any federal action. Even Kelly said he gets why the governor was proceeding. I understand the governors sentiment on this and why he wanted to do that, the senator said during a media availability in August. Theres a crisis at the border and its important to address it. The states cost for the project is coming from a $564 million Border Security Fund approved by lawmakers earlier this year. It specifically includes $335 million for the state to construct and maintain a border fence or purchase or install border security technologies. Ducey put the cost of using containers to fill the gap at Yuma at about $6 million. But more recent figures place the actual total for the full project closer to $13 million. His action drew praise from some local officials who said the flow of migrants through the gaps in the fence was overwhelming local resources. The Yuma community does not have the infrastructure to handle thousands of people crossing the border in need of food, shelter and medical services, Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls said when Ducey announced his plans in August. Other uses for Border Security Fund dollars include $20 million for a state match for a new Cochise County jail, $30 million for a new State Emergency Operations Center, and more than $53 million for compensation for sheriffs deputies. When Dr. Deborah Jane Power first received the text message from her 14-year-olds patients mother, she was livid. On Sept. 26, Power was informed that her patient of 10 years methotrexate prescription was not refilled at a Walgreens pharmacy in Tucson. Her mother, who requested the refill the day before, told Power the pharmacy had refused to refill the prescription and she needed to contact her doctor. It was denied, with no reason other than to contact your daughters doctor, Power said. When she never heard back during the day and couldnt get the pharmacy to explain why, she went down in person, very angry and pretty scared that she wouldnt have the medicine for her daughter. At a higher dose, methotrexate is used in the treatment of ectopic pregnancy and part of the steps one would go through to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, making it an abortifacient at a certain dose, Power said. Since Arizonas territorial-era law, which only makes an exception for abortion when the mothers life is in danger, was reinstated on Sept. 23, Power believes that was the reason for the prescription trouble. We were both pretty upset and angry that she was being treated this way, that this medication was being withheld when it was not going to be used for an abortion, Power said. She was on an incredibly low dose, so it just seemed inappropriate all around. After some discussion, the girls prescription was finally refilled. Power said the medicine was crucial to control the girls autoimmune disease. Due to the reversal of Roe vs Wade, Power said there have been cases where women of reproductive age had issues getting methotrexate, but she had never seen an adolescent have an issue. This is my first adolescent patient to have methotrexate denied, just full on denied, Power said. I did not feel it was appropriate to not to let me know what was happening. They never contacted us, they did not send a fax, they didnt send anything electronically, they just told the mother to contact us. When asked about the incident, a spokesperson from Walgreens said their focus is meeting the needs of patients and making sure they have access to the medications they need, in compliance with pharmacy laws and regulations. New laws in various states require additional steps for dispensing certain prescriptions and apply to all pharmacies, including Walgreens, their statement said. In these states, our pharmacists work closely with prescribers as needed, to fill lawful, clinically appropriate prescriptions. We provide ongoing training and information to help our pharmacists understand the latest requirements in their area, and with these supports, the expectation is they are empowered to fill these prescriptions. Power has since filed complaints with the state pharmacy board and said she was going to write to senators and members of Congress. Its beyond an abortion issue; its now become a womens health issue, Power said. As of Oct. 7, abortions in Arizona are now legal again. In a previous Arizona Daily Star article, Howard Fischer reported that the state Court of Appeals blocked implementation of the order issued last month by Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson that said prosecutors can now bring charges against doctors who perform abortions. Months after catastrophic flooding upended many lives in Kentucky, the death toll has officially risen to 43, with two additional people dying from health complications related to the crisis and one person still missing, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. "Let us pray for those families and all of eastern Kentucky as we continue to try to stabilize the region and ultimately turn toward rebuilding," Beshear said during a news conference. Parts of the state were nearly leveled in late July when historic flooding washed away homes, submerged vehicles in deep floodwaters and destroyed many businesses and critical infrastructure for water and electricity. Thousands of residents were displaced in the aftermath, and efforts to receive aid from the federal government remain underway. At the time, officials reiterated that reaching a final death count would be challenging due to the extent of the devastation the heavy rain unleashed in the region and the difficulties in accounting for those who were missing. "This is a type of flood that even an area that sees flooding has never seen in our lifetime," Beshear told CNN during the floods. One person from Breathitt County remains missing, the governor said Thursday. The two deaths announced were from Letcher and Breathitt counties. Lives were lost across six counties due to the storms: 10 in Breathitt County; two in Clay County; 19 in Knott County; four in Letcher County; seven in Perry County; and one in Pike County. Tracy Neice, the mayor of Hindman, Kentucky, told CNN during the aftermath of the flooding that her town's main street looked like a stretch of river where one might go whitewater rafting. "I've lived here in this town for 56 years, and I have never seen water of this nature," Neice said. "It was just devastating to all of our businesses, all of our offices." Experts and government officials have said human-induced climate change is the main driver of such extreme weather events, which are expected to get worse and become more common in the future. The rise in temperatures around the the world causes the atmosphere to retain more and more water, which makes water vapor more abundantly available to fall as rain. The-CNN-Wire PHOENIX The Arizona Democratic Party is moving to defend elected Republican officials in Maricopa County from a lawsuit filed against them by their own party. There is no legal basis for demands by the state and national GOP that the county change the rules for seasonal election workers to help attract more Republicans, attorney Daniel Arellano says in a new court filing. The lawyers for the GOP contend that it is things like the hours required that deters party members from signing up. And they want Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah to order the Republican-controlled Board of Supervisors and Stephen Richer, the Republican county recorder, to make adjustments. But plaintiffs fail to explain why these requirements make it harder for only plaintiffs to find enough members willing to do the job, when the rules apply equally to poll workers appointed by both major parties, Arellano said. He acknowledged that political parties have legal rights to designate appointees to various election boards. But that, Arellano told the judge, does not mean the Republicans are entitled to demand new rules because they cant find enough people to serve. They identify no legal basis for their startling assertion that those designees are exempt from the countys generally applicable requirements for the positions to which they are appointed, or that the county is somehow required to alter those requirements to make those positions more palatable to designees who are unwilling or unable to serve, he said. The lawsuit by the Republicans, filed earlier this month, is currently limited to Maricopa County. But a ruling in the partys favor could pave the way for similar claims elsewhere where the GOP cannot find sufficient party members willing to serve. It also comes as state party officials, including Kelli Ward, who is the chair, continue to question the outcome of the 2020 election, though the new lawsuit does not seek to link the outcome and the fact that the official results show Joe Biden outpolling Donald Trump both in Maricopa County and statewide with the issue of whether the GOP has enough poll workers. At the heart of the lawsuit by the Arizona Republican Party and the Republican National Committee is the contention that Maricopa County is not complying with requirements to have inspectors from both political parties at polling places. Similar requirements exist, the lawsuit says, for the boards that oversee processing of early ballots, vote adjudication boards and the boards that oversee operations at county election headquarters. What that resulted in, attorneys for the party charge, is the county hiring 857 Democratic poll workers but only 712 Republicans. And 11 county voting centers in the 2022 primary had no Republican poll workers at all. County officials do not deny that some polling places were short of Republican watchers. But in a separate posting, the county Elections Department said its not because of the lack of efforts. Unfortunately, not all are willing or able to serve, the agency said. And then theres the problem of election workers quitting at the last minute. But GOP attorneys say theres a simple solution: Ease the hours that election workers are required to work and make other changes that make the job more attractive to the elderly and those with disabilities. And thats what they want Hannah to order. Arellano, however, is urging the judge to toss the lawsuit. It starts, he said, with the fact the GOP waited until a month before the election to demand the changes. As Arizona courts have repeatedly recognized, such late-filed challenges to election procedures severely prejudice not only the parties, but also the courts and the voters of Arizona, Arellano said. Then there are the changes the GOP wants Hannah to order the county to make, particularly in the hours for election day. County officials acknowledge poll workers have to show up at 5:30 a.m., a half hour before the doors open, and remain after the last votes are cast at 7 p.m. and the election materials are packed up. Telling such potential board members that they will not be appointed unless they agree to lengthy and onerous day and hour commitments screens out anyone with full-time employment or family commitments and thus many of the individuals the Republican Party has nominated, the GOP lawsuit claims. What is also does, the lawyers say, is screen out many elderly and disabled people who would otherwise be willing to serve. Arellano, however, said if the Republicans selected by the GOP to work the polls are unwilling to serve because of the hours, that is a problem for plaintiffs to solve by designating election workers who are willing to do the job, not by asking a judge to change the work schedule. And he told Hannah the Republicans provide no support for their argument that it is the hours that keep party faithful from working. Nor do they explain why Maricopas hour requirements deter Republicans more than board nominees from other political parties, Arellano said. He also noted there are more than 100,000 more registered Republicans in the county than Democrats, yet the Democrats have managed to designate poll workers who will do the job. If plaintiffs have struggled to do the same, the answer is for plaintiffs to improve their recruiting efforts, not to judicially mandate that the county change its job requirements for election boards, Arellano said. There would be many logistical and operational issues with shorter shifts on Election Day, said Megan Gilbertson, spokeswoman for the recorders office. For example, she said, the county planned to hire 2,148 poll workers for the August primary. Two shifts would have required 4,296. Double the amount of poll workers would require more trainers and the ability to secure more training space, Gilbertson said. Then theres the fact that some poll workers quit in the final few days before Election Day due to illness, family emergencies or other situations. Partially staffed vote centers combined with a lack of experience because they wouldnt have as much time in the job creates a significant risk for errors and points of failure, including the likelihood of longer lines, she said. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Californians are voting now through Election Day on whether to approve a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion and contraception, one of several measures on ballots nationwide this November to address reproductive health care following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Proposition 1 is expected to pass in the heavily Democratic state and was part of a robust legislative package backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure California remains a haven for people seeking abortion services. Legislators placed the measure to amend the constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot days just after the court ruled in June that states could decide whether to allow abortion. Polling shows high support for the measure at least two-thirds of likely voters said yes in two surveys with minimal financial opposition from the California Republican Party and others who call the proposition expensive, extreme and unnecessary. But the measure's supporters want to send a resounding message that abortion is legal and accessible in California, and they hope a solid win will inspire other states also to enshrine the right in their constitutions. The challenge is we had a very short runway, so it really is about awareness. We know when people are aware that abortion is on the ballot, theyre likely to come out and vote for it, said Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, which supports the measure. California joins Michigan and Vermont in asking voters in November to protect the right to abortion. In Kentucky, voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to declare there is not a right to an abortion. A measure in Montana asks voters whether to require medical care and treatment for infants born alive after an attempted abortion. The amendment in California would declare that 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. Opponents say the measure was put on the ballot to score political points with women and drive voter turnout in favor of Democrats. They also say the measure contains no gestational or viability limits on abortion, meaning a fetus could be aborted late in pregnancy even though it's capable of surviving outside the womb. California law currently restricts abortion to only before a fetus is viable, which is usually defined as around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions in the third trimester are rare, and in California, permitted only if the mothers life or heath is at risk. Californians don't support late term abortions, said Catherine Hadro, spokesperson for the No on Prop. 1 campaign. The measure's supporters say a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion will have no bearing on limits placed on abortions by lawmakers. The constitution has always meant to be a broad framework of rights and the Legislature decides the scope of the laws, this wont change what is in statute right now, said Hicks of Planned Parenthood affiliates. A September survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found 69% of likely voters would support the proposition, including 33% of Republicans. An August poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 71% of registered voters would vote yes. Nearly 40% of people who said they would vote yes said that abortion should be legal in most, but not all, cases, said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. It's not clear how much opponents' arguments will stick with voters, if at all. Thats something people will be asking about between now and Election Day, especially those people who say it should be OK in most cases, he said. Before Roe was overturned, the overwhelming majority of abortions in the United States around 90% occurred in the first trimester or at 13 weeks or earlier, said Katrina Kimport, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. An estimated 1% of abortions occurred at 21 weeks or later, she said. Women who have abortions in the third trimester generally fall into one of two categories, she said. They've either learned new information, such as a serious health issue with the fetus that could not be ascertained in earlier trimesters, or they faced insurmountable obstacles preventing them from getting an abortion earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Dobbs may actually increase the number of women seeking third-trimester abortions, she said. California's abortion ballot measure and new state legislation protecting abortion are all helpful but not sufficient, said Donna Crane, political science lecturer at San Jose State University and Menlo College. That's because Congress can always pass a federal ban and the conservative U.S. Supreme Court is likely to take up new conflicts that could result in more limitations, said Crane, who served nearly two decades as strategist and lobbyist with NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, D.C. and supports Prop. 1. California can pass law after law after law, she said, and the federal law will always trump us. By now, most anyone who follows Tulsa politics closely has seen the picture: Its a close-up of Ken Reddick standing in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. Hes wearing a hooded jacket and ballistic safety glasses. Behind him is a throng of people, some carrying American flags, others wearing helmets. The selfie, according to Reddick, was taken on the northwest side of the Capitol at 1:18 p.m. That was less than an hour before some in the mob broke through doors and windows to get into the historic building. By then, Reddick said, he was already back in his hotel room. We get back on the Metro rail and take it back to the hotel in Virginia, and we watched everything unfold live on the news, he told the Tulsa World. Reddick is a conservative Republican who ran for mayor in 2020 and this year is now making a second run for the District 7 City Council seat held by Lori Decter Wright. He has posted at least one message on social media casting doubt about the 2020 presidential election results and says he would support an investigation into how the votes were tallied. But, he insists, he did not go to the nations capital that day to take part in the insurrection. Once you are in D.C. that day, its guilty by association, Reddick said, even though, at first, I just offered to pay someones way. Reddick said he had no intention of going to Washington on Jan. 6 for the Save America March promoted by former President Donald Trump but that things changed at the last moment. After he bought a plane ticket for a local veteran who hoped to make the trip, the flight was canceled. So he offered to drive him there instead. It was no two-man trip. According to Reddick, the veteran was part of a security detail accompanying a Tulsa podcaster. He says thats where he got the protective glasses he was wearing in the picture. It was about six guys, and they were a mixed bag of veterans Id met here during the 2020 campaign and a couple of local law enforcement, Reddick said. Reddick did not name the law enforcement officers. He said the podcasters plan to do live man-on-the-street interviews never panned out because of poor internet reception and that the group he was with spent most of its time on the National Mall and the surrounding area. They did not attend Trumps speech near the White House, Reddick said, and began moving toward the U.S. Capitol when the crowd from that event started heading in their direction. Everyone starts walking down Constitution Way and the National Mall, and you know what a half a million people headed in your direction looks like, Reddick said. So we are like, oh, lets go over here and just get as close as we can (to the Capitol). Reddick said he decided to head back to the hotel after people started climbing over things in an effort to get closer to the Capitol. Before you know it, Capitol police are standing out on that inauguration stage, outside those doors where the large steps are, where the stage is there, and we hear blasts and tear gas, rubber bullets, he said. Thoughts on the 2020 election Reddick said that in the months following the 2020 presidential election he never bought Trumps false assertion that the election had been stolen. He claims that he went to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to help a veteran, do some sightseeing and maybe, just maybe, witness history. Because I was the realist, I thought, in the group. Where everyone else you have 20 hours in the vehicle with everyone they all had high hopes, and they knew what states were going to get challenged first, because it was going to go alphabetical, Reddick said. And I was like, Listen guys. I wish I was as optimistic as you, but its not going to happen. But Id hate to miss it if it did. So that was my personal view. His social media posts on Jan. 6 and afterward have not always reflected the same equanimity when it comes to the election results or his visit to D.C. After returning to his hotel that day, Reddick posted a series of pictures from the trip with this message on Facebook: Regardless of the typical antics of Antifa, it was an awesome rally and I was honored to be surround (sic) by well over one million America lovin patriots. Both the selfie and the post with the series of photos can no longer be viewed publicly on Facebook. Earlier this year, Reddick thanked former U.S. Senate candidate Jackson Lahmeyer an election denier who was backed by Trump adviser Roger Stone and retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a former Trump national security adviser for supporting his City Council candidacy. And he took to Facebook to criticize Sen. James Lankford, whom Lahmeyer was challenging, for not doing enough to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. In May, after watching the movie 2000 Mules at Embassy Church, Reddick wrote in part that with all of the obvious fraud and blatant theft, Senator James Lankford was the first to stand up and push to certify the Presidential Election in favor of Joe Biden. This is not representative of Oklahoma Values. We have to make sure that strong people are there to represent us and fight for our country and stand in the way when they witness criminal acts. I believe Jackson Laymeyer is that man and will fight for our country. Reddick himself described the film by conservative author Dinesh DSouza as propaganda, not a documentary. The movie, which claims to show that organizations paid people, or mules to illegally collect and place ballots in ballot boxes in five key swing states, has been debunked by Trumps former Attorney General William Barr and many others. But it has Reddick thinking twice about the election results. I went from defeatist, move on, forget about it, to I would actively support an investigation, Reddick said. I am not of the camp where they are: It was stolen; its been stolen, and this only further justifies how I have been feeling the whole time. I have been moved from: Its over; move on; were defeated, to: Now I am willing to listen. And if there were a petition, I would sign it. Facebook Live lost Reddick said he was broadcasting on Facebook Live on Jan. 6 but that all of that video was lost after he returned to Tulsa and was interviewed by local and federal law enforcement. During the interview in the parking lot of a south Tulsa convenience store, Reddick said, the law enforcement officials asked to access the videos on his phone. Over the next week, as items kept becoming missing from his Facebook accounts, Reddick asked the officers if they had removed anything from his accounts. Reddick said they said no, at which time he asked them if he could change his password, and they said yes. So people would ask: Prove what you saw. Prove this. Prove that, Reddick said. I was like: Well, its all on my Facebook. Its the only way I recorded is Facebook Live. I didnt have my video camera out. Featured video: Jan. 6 panel focuses on Trumps staggering betrayal ANKARA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that the country's Thrace region could be the best place to serve as an energy hub after his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin proposed to increase Russia's gas exports through Turkish territory. "Thrace is seen as the most important place for such a distribution center," Erdogan told journalists on his flight from Kazakhstan back to Turkiye, semi-official Anadolu Agency reported. The Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Ministry and Russia's Gazprom company were instructed to jointly work on this project after Erdogan and Putin met in Astana on Thursday, according to the Turkish president. Putin proposed to set up a gas hub in Turkiye by building new pipelines in parallel to the TurkStream gas pipeline running through the Black Sea, after the Nord Stream pipelines were recently damaged in a series of explosions. Turkiye would be the best route for redirecting gas supplies to Europe, Putin told reporters on Thursday during a meeting with Erdogan on the sidelines of a regional summit in Kazakhstan. "We could easily regulate (prices) at a normal market level, without any political overtones," with this new energy hub, the Russian leader said. Several leaks have been detected on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near Denmark and Sweden after the explosions, an incident reportedly being investigated as probable sabotage. Putin's proposal comes amid Western sanctions drive against Russia which Turkiye has not joined, as Ankara has maintained close ties with both Moscow and Kiev and positioned itself as a mediator since a conflict broke out between the two sides in late February. Change, even when positive, often comes hard in America. But with patience and an effort to learn, change can be explained. And over time, Americans, the most resilient and adaptable people in the world, have come to embrace and accept change. So, with that in mind, here are the facts about Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska that many people either ignore or simply dont know about or want to understand as they argue against this change in our state election law. In 2020, a majority of Alaska voters voted in favor of a new process for holding statewide elections RCV. While a close vote, the majority standard was met. At the same time as we adopted RCV for our general elections, we also adopted nonpartisan open primaries in which voters make a single choice, and then the top four vote-getters advance to the general election. These two changes mean Alaskans have the best opportunity to choose as their elected representatives those candidates who represent the broadest views of Alaskans. This is working well for many reasons. In Alaska, we have a long tradition of non-party registration. While there are about two times more registered Republicans than Democrats, more than 60% of voters are not registered in one of the two major parties. By having nonpartisan, open primaries where voters pick one candidate, and the top four vote-getters advance to the general primaries, we ensure we have the best candidates regardless of party. To secure one of the top four spots, it means candidates may choose a campaign strategy that appeals to the most voters rather than a narrower base. The same is true for the general election. Using RCV voting, candidates in the general election may have their best chance of victory by appealing to the broadest constituency. Unless an overwhelming favorite is expected to win more than 50% in the initial vote, under RCV, it is nearly as important to be voters second choice as it is their first. Using RCV, Alaska voters are guaranteed that the winner of federal elections will have received 50% of the vote, a situation that often did not occur before RCV. Now for some myth-busting. First, RCV is no more prone to voter error than traditional one-candidate voting. And yes, it can take up to 15 days to count the votes in Alaska elections. This is not due to RCV. This reality existed before RCV was adopted. Alaska has several unique characteristics among the 50 states that led our legislature and election office to adopt laws and rules that provide for a 15-day vote counting period: Alaska is 2.5 times the size of Texas and one-fifth the size of the lower 48. Only 20% of Alaska is accessible by road, and we have only 12 numbered highways. Because of the states geography, 131 of the 401 precincts are hand-count precincts. On election night, they phone in their results, and then the ballots are returned to a regional office where they are scanned. Alaska has a significant percentage of our electorate serving overseas in the military, and we want to ensure their votes are counted. In addition, many young voters are in college in the lower 48 yet vote in our elections. Last, a large percentage of Alaskas voters live in rural Alaska, which is very different than in almost all the rest of the United States. The result is we want there to be a reasonable amount of time for all ballots to be counted. However, the ballot must be postmarked no later than Election Day. As evidence of how long it had historically taken to count votes before RCV was adopted, it took many days to finally declare winners in the following Alaska elections: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowskis win in 2010 was called after 15 days. U.S. Rep. Don Youngs and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivans wins in 2020 were called after eight days. As you hear and read more news about Alaskas election, remember, taken as a whole, Alaskans have adopted specific laws and regulations to ensure the votes of the people of Alaska are counted. While perhaps not how other states do it, this works for us. Ho Chi Minh City-based enterprises successfully inked 22 venture deals worth a combined US$400 million during the first three quarters of 2022. The data was shared on Thursday at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Week of Ho Chi Minh City Innovation, Startup, Entrepreneurship, and Digital Transformation (WHISE) the largest annual event hosted by the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee for innovation, science-technology, and startups. By the end of September, Vietnam had cut a total of 44 venture deals with foreign investors worth a combined $500 million, including 22 worth a total of $400 million with Ho Chi Minh City-based firms. Nguyen Viet Dung, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, said international investors spoke highly of the quality of innovative startups in the city, particularly those involved in digital transformation. According to a recently released study from StartupBlink, a global startup ecosystem mapping and research center, Ho Chi Minh City is currently ranked 179th on the list of global startup cities and is quickly working its way toward the top 100. The citys leading role helped Vietnam move up five places to number 54 in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index in 2022, which ranks the startup ecosystems of over 1,000 cities and 100 countries. In particular, Vietnam places fifth in the Southeast Asian region, following Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, which rank seventh, 38th, 42nd, and 53rd in the world, respectively. This years WHISE was themed 'Digital transformation - New driving force for the citys development' and featured 42 events held on October 13 and 14, aiming to connect Ho Chi Minh Citys innovative startup ecosystem with neighboring provinces, other domestic enterprises, and foreign investors. WHISE 2022 was attended by 200 startups specializing in artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, Tech4life, and STEM. Ho Chi Minh Citys vice-chairman Duong Anh Duc said innovation and digital transformation have been changing production and business models, creating new values and laying the foundation for the development of the digital economy in the city. In Ho Chi Minh City, enterprises and state management agencies are pioneers in digital transformation and consider digital transformation an indispensable part of improving the citys competitiveness, Duc noted. The municipal Peoples Committee will continue its role in orienting, leading, and supporting innovation in the city, the municipal vice-chairman added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnam objects to the use of force to violate a countrys independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity and continues calling for an end to the prolonged military conflict in Ukraine, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, head of Vietnam's Permanent Delegation to the United Nations (UN), said on Wednesday. Ambassador Giang made the statement at the 11th emergency plenary session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday prior to a General Assembly vote for a resolution to request Russia to reverse its decision to annex four Ukrainian territories, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Thursday. The resolution received 143 votes in favor, five against, and 35 abstentions. Through the resolution, the UN General Assembly called on countries not to recognize Russias annexation of Ukraines Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, and demanded that Moscow reverse course. The General Assembly also urged countries around the globe to respect and protect the principles of the UN Charter. Speaking at the session, Ambassador Giang affirmed that Vietnam is concerned about recent developments in Ukraine and stressed the need to ensure compliance with the UN Charter and basic principles of international law, including non-interference in internal affairs, no threat or use of force in international relations, and peaceful settlement of international disputes in accordance with international law. "With its history of experiencing multiple wars to gain independence, reunite, and protect the fatherland, Vietnam understands the value of peace and opposes any threat or use of force to infringe on countries' independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, Ambassador Giang said. Giang went on to call for relevant parties to end their conflicts in Ukraine, restore peace, safeguard security, and protect essential infrastructure. The ambassador also asked that relevant parties proceed with dialogues and negotiations to find a lasting peaceful solution to the conflict on the basis of conformity to and respect for international law, as well as the UN Charter, while taking into account the legitimate interests of stakeholders for the sake of peace and stability in both the region and the world. Vietnam is willing to make active contributions the reconstruction and recovery process in Ukraine, and support diplomatic efforts to ease the tension, including those from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other parties concerned. The ongoing military conflict broke out on February 24, when Russia officially launched its 'special military operation' on Ukrainian territory. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnam's Vice-State President Vo Thi Anh Xuan put forward three initiatives at the sixth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) held in Kazakhstan this week, where she also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders from several other countries. At the two-day CICA Summit, which kicked off on Wednesday in the Kazakhstan capital city of Astana, Vice-State President Xuan delivered a speech regarding comments and concerns on the current situation in Asia and the world in general, the Vietnam News Agency reported. In her speech, Xuan affirmed that Vietnam is ready to be a friend, a trustworthy partner, and an active and responsible member of the international community, based on its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship, cooperation and development, and multilateralization and diversification of relations. She also underlined the efforts of the 10-member ASEAN block, which includes Vietnam, in maintaining peace, stability, freedom of navigation and overflight in Southeast Asia, and in settling disputes by peaceful means in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). With a view to promoting Asias long-term and stable development, Vice-State President Xuan proposed three initiatives to the conference. First, CICA should promote a spirit of cooperation, action, and responsibility to create a peaceful and stable environment for development based on the United Nations Charter and international law, especially the principles of respect for independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of countries, and settlement of disputes by peaceful means without using or threatening to use force. Secondly, CICA should actively take part in creating and leading the strong transformation trends of a new Asia to ensure a rapid, sustainable, and inclusive recovery and development process following the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, CICA should promote reciprocal interaction between regional and inter-regional cooperation and connection mechanisms in order to set up an open, multi-center, multi-tiered, and multilateral network. Vice-State President Xuan told the meeting that Vietnam is ready to join efforts to strengthen dialogues, coordinate actions, and build trust within CICA for peace, cooperation, and development. In her talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin within the events framework, Xuan affirmed that Vietnam attaches great importance to its comprehensive strategic partnership with the Russian Federation and hopes that the two countries will maintain and enhance effective cooperation. The two countries should continue working closely together to remove obstacles to bilateral economic, trade, and investment cooperation, Xuan added. Putin agreed to strengthen ties between Russia and Vietnam in a practical and effective way and stressed that Russia considers Vietnam a leading partner in its foreign policy. Xuan also held separate meetings with Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan, Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during which they focused on measures to foster respective bilateral ties. CICA is a multi-national forum established in 1992 by Kazakhstan with an aim to enhance cooperation toward promoting peace, security, and stability in Asia, according to its website. The forum now has 27 member states and 14 observers, including the U.S. and five international organizations, such as the United Nations. Since its official entry into CICA in 2010, Vietnam has made many active and responsible contributions to promoting dialogues and building trust within the CICA framework as well as strengthening cooperation among its member countries, according to Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A Vietnam court has sentenced a 30-year-old man to death for brutally killing his unofficial wifes three-year-old daughter by hammering ten nails into her skull in a public striking case that first happened last year. Nguyen Trung Huyen, a man from Hanois Thach That District, received the death penalty for the charge of murder at his trial conducted by the Hanoi Peoples Court on Thursday. He was also sentenced to four years in prison for intentionally causing injury, so his combined sentence is death. According to the indictment, Nguyen Thi Luyen, 27, the mother of the toddler, D.N.A., divorced her husband in June 2021 after nine years of marriage and having three daughters. Luyen later lived with Huyen as husband and wife, without registering their marriage, at a rented house in the district. Three months later, L. took A., the youngest of her daughters, to live with her and Huyen, who had since exacted his frequent brutalization on the little girl, with an aim to kill her so that he and L. would not have to raise her anymore. Huyen had beaten A., forced her to drink pesticide and swallow screws, poured wood glue into her nose, and broken her arms since September 2021 before the deadly torture happened to the ill-fated girl on January 17 this year. At 8:00 am that day, when L. went to work, Huyen slapped A. many times after he called her but the girl did not answer. The man grew angry and then hammered ten nails, over 2cm long each, in the childs head. After the crime, Huyen left A. in the care of a neighboring woman and then returned home for sleeping. On the afternoon of the same day, L. took A. to Thach That District General Hospital as she vomited and was in serious health conditions. The girl was hospitalized in a coma and convulsions, with her right arm already in a plaster cast, doctors said. An X-ray scan of her head later showed ten objects that looked like nails in her skull. Due to her conditions getting worse, A. was transferred to Hanoi-based Saint Paul General Hospital for continued treatment but she succumbed to her severe injuries on March 12. Considering Huyens acts as extremely brutal, the trial panel decided to give him the capital punishment. Regarding civil liability, the court ordered the defendant to pay nearly VND470 million (US$19,300) as compensation to the little girls family. The court also announced that there were not enough grounds to determine that Luyen had committed the offense of concealing a crime or not reporting it as alleged by the victims family and their lawyer. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Authorities in District 11 in Ho Chi Minh City are collaborating with Chim Canh Cut Travel Service JSC to launch a tour offering a different perspective on the citys Cho Lon neighborhood. The neighborhood, spanning parts of District 5, District 6, and District 11, is home to Ho Chi Minh City's largest Chinese community. Part of the city's program in which every district offers at least a typical product to boost the metropolis' tourism, the tour to District 11 offers excursions to the destinations close to the Chinese community in Vietnam. Titled 'A different Cho Lon,' the tour aims to introduce District 11 and its features to tourists, as the district remains a less popular part of Cho Lon compared to the other two more famous districts. According to Tran Thi Bich Tram, deputy chairman of the People's Committee of District 11, people immediately think of District 5 and District 6 when talking about Cho Lon, but in fact, District 11 also has typical features of the neighborhood. The tourist, cultural or spiritual destinations in the area are very ordinary and close to life, and the 'A different Cho Lon' tour is designed in that direction. The first stop is Thiec Market, a traditional long-time market selling jewelry which is said to still fully preserve the lifestyle and traditional crafts of the Chinese people in Cho Lon from the past. A customer buys jewelry at Thiec Market in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Built in 1945, the market is one of the big jewelry markets of the city, specializing in processing, repairing, and trading gold, silver, gems, and jewelry. The first floor of the market is dedicated to a training center for jewelers. Instructor Ho Van Tien teaches learners at the training center for jewelers at Thiec Market in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre According to Nguyen Van Dung, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh Citys gemstone, jewelry, and handicraft association, the center offers training to about 400 students from all over Vietnam each year. It also receives students from neighboring countries. Another unmissable stop in District 11 is the Khanh Van Nam Vien pagoda on Nguyen Thi Nho Street. This rare Chinese temple in Ho Chi Minh City was established in 1936 by Taoists from Guangdong, China to preach Taoism to the Chinese community in Cho Lon. A place of pilgrimage for the Chinese community in the city, Khanh Van Nam Vien is a tourist destination known among many domestic and international travelers. Phan Thi Thang (right), vice-chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, burns incense while visiting the Khanh Van Nam Vien pagoda on Nguyen Thi Nho Street in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: T.T.D / Tuoi Tre Those who love Chinese culture would not want to miss a visit to the traditional hall of the Singyi Lion Dance troupe to learn about the traditional art. Tourists visit the Singyi Lion Dance troupe in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: T.T.D / Tuoi Tre After the historical and cultural stops, visitors can treat themselves with delicious dumplings and even learn how to make them at the famous shuijiao street Ha Ton Quyen. A visitor learns to make shuijao dumplings at a shop on Ha Ton Quyen Street in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Shuijiao, known as sui cao in Vietnamese, is a type of Chinese dumpling stuffed with ground meat, shrimp, and vegetables. Ha Ton Quyen Street is known for the dozens of authentic shuijiao dumpling stalls that have popped up on its sidewalks over the past thirty years. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! In a special edition of 60 Minutes, Tara Brown and former homicide detective Gary Jubelin retrace 18-year-old backpacker Theo Hayezs last known steps in Byron Bay. Nightmare in Paradise In all likelihood Theo Hayez from Belgium is the most well-known backpacker to travel to Australia in a long time. But his fame is for all the wrong reasons. Three years ago, Theo vanished in Byron Bay. His disappearance was completely out of character one minute he was seen leaving a local bar, the next minute, nothing. Speculation about what might have happened to the young tourist has been intense, but so far an endless number of theories have led nowhere. In a special edition of 60 Minutes, Tara Brown and former homicide detective Gary Jubelin retrace 18-year-old Theos last known steps using critical GPS data collected from his mobile phone. Brown also travels to Belgium to meet Theos distraught family. Speaking publicly for the first time, Vinciane Delforge makes a heartfelt plea for more information about the baffling disappearance of her beautiful and precious son. Reporter: Tara Brown Producer: Lisa Brown 8:30pm (ish) Sunday on Nine Season 2 of Logie-Award winning Love Me has begun filming in Melbourne for Binge and Foxtel. The series, which was the most nominated drama at this years Logie Awards, sees the return of all the main cast: Hugo Weaving returning as Glenn; Bojana Novakovic as Clara; William Lodder as Aaron; Heather Mitchell as Anita; Bob Morley as Peter; Celia Pacquola as Sacha; Shalom Brune-Franklin as Ella; and Mitzi Ruhlmann as Jesse. Several new characters arrive in Season 2 but are yet to be revealed. Season 2 welcomes new director Bonnie Moir, who has worked with Garth Davis on Lion, Mary Magdalene and FOE and with Glendyn Ivin on The Cry and Penguin Bloom. Her short films include, Were Not Here which premiered at MIFF and Not Dark Yet featuring Richard Moir and Nick Denton. Binge Executive Director, Alison Hurbert-Burns, said: We are thrilled to be back shooting in Melbourne for the next chapter of Love Me, with our incredible cast, and creative team. Season one resonated with Australian viewers and we cant wait to pick up the story of The Mathiesons as they realise that with the euphoria of love, comes the complexities of relationships. Warner Bros. International Television Australia Managing Director, Michael Brooks, said: We are so proud to begin production on Love Me Season two, off the back of our hugely successful debut series that connected so well with Australian audiences. All credit for the success of this stunning series goes to our unbelievably talented cast, our superb writing teams and our passionate, dedicated crew. I want to thank Binge and the Foxtel Group for continuing to support and promote local drama. The series will be available to Binge and Foxtel customers. Commissioned by the Foxtel Group, distributed by DCD Rights in association with VicScreen, Love Me is produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia. The series is produced by Nicole ODonohue, with lead writers, Leon Ford and Tamara Asmar, with Adele Vuko and Celia Pacquola each penning an episode. Executive Producers are Michael Brooks, Hamish Lewis (Warner Bros. Australia) Brian Walsh, Alison Hurbert-Burns and Lana Greenhalgh (Foxtel Group). EU sounds the alarm over rise in illegal border crossings via Serbia and abuse of visa-free travel The visa-free deal between the European Union and Serbia is under renewed scrutiny after a steep rise in irregular border crossings from the Balkan country into the bloc. In the first nine months of this year, around 106,396 irregular entries were detected in the Western Balkans route, a 170% increase compared to the same period in 2021, according to the latest data released by Frontex, the EU's border control agency. September alone saw almost 20,000 detentions. The numbers were published on the eve of a meeting of EU home affairs ministers in Luxembourg, where attention turned to Serbia's unaligned visa policy. The rise in border crossings "is something we're concerned of and we need to tackle all together," said Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for home affairs. Johansson said there had been a "significant increase" of migrants travelling visa-free to Serbia who then attempt to entry EU territory. The commissioner said nationals from Cuba, India and Burundi were coming in "big, big numbers." Serbia allows visa-free travel for these three countries, while the EU does not. Asked if the rise in border crossings might prompt the EU to suspend its own visa-free deal with Serbia, Johansson said she did not exclude taking that step. The visa facilitation agreement, signed back in 2009, allows Serbian nationals to spend up to 90 days in the EU without the need to apply for a Schengen Visa. "I do hope and I do think that Serbia and other Western Balkan partners will cooperate with us and align their visa policy with the EU," she said. "But of course, this [suspension] is nothing that I will exclude." Serbia's Foreign Affairs Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Speaking on behalf of the EU Council's rotating presidency, Vit Rakusan, the Czech Republic's interior minister, sounded the alarm about the uptick in crossings through the Western Balkans. Story continues "We can see the consequences of this migration wave in every corner of the EU," Rakusan said. His Slovak counterpart, Roman Mikulec, also used the term "migration wave" to refer to the current situation. Potential visa-free abuse The scrutiny over Serbia is amplified by the fact the country is an official candidate to join the EU and is therefore expected to gradually align all of its policies, including visa issuance, with those of the bloc. An enlargement report released on Wednesday by the European Commission shed light over Serbia's lack of progress in visa alignment, particularly when it comes to non-EU countries that "present irregular migration or security risks." Serbia continues to allow visa-free travel to some countries that are excluded from the EU's visa-free system, creating a point of friction. Serbia's list includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Guinea Bissau, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Suriname, Tunisia and Turkey. The Commission and the member states are concerned that this disparity is fuelling an abuse of the EU's own visa-free system, from which Serbia benefits. "We have got promises that Serbia will align with our policies," said Commissioner Johansson after Friday's meeting. "We expect them to align." Johansson mentioned Tunisia, Burundi and India as the countries that require the most urgent action by the Serbian government, and said discussions were taking place at the "highest level." "We want to see practical results and progress in this field because it's necessary for the security of EU citizens," said Minister Rakusan, when asked about the possibility of suspending the EU-Serbia visa deal. "We cant exclude some next steps, but the beginning should always be the debate with our partners." Diplomatic outreach has accelerated in recent weeks. The leaders of Hungary, Austria and Serbia met earlier this month to find common solutions on how to stem the reported increase in illegal migration via the Balkan route. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced that by the end of the year, his country would align its visa policies with the EU so that the visa-free regime is no longer used for migration purposes. "We will thus prevent the situation when someone uses Serbia as a country of arrival but not because of their real needs but for illegal migration toward the west," Vucic said. Austria and the Czech Republic have already re-imposed temporary controls on their borders with Slovakia in response to the uptick in irregular arrivals. Austrian authorities have warned the country's asylum system was near a "breaking point" after having received around 56,000 asylum applications between January and August. Many of these requests, including 7,600 from Indians, have little chance of succeeding, authorities said. Over the past nine months, Slovenia has registered the entry 15,590 irregular migrants, a 115% increase compared to the same period last year. Afghans, Indians and Burundians topped the list. In Belgium, the number of asylum application from Burundi nationals multiplied by eightfold over the summer, from 34 in May to 263 requests in July. ReportLinker The Global Waterstop Market size was estimated at USD 3,291. 23 million in 2021 and expected to reach USD 3,517. 07 million in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 7. 11% to reach USD 4,971. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Waterstop Market Research Report by Type, Material, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342459/?utm_source=GNW 72 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Waterstop to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Expansion Waterstop, External Waterstop, and Internal Waterstop. Based on Material, the market was studied across PVC Waterstop and Rubber Waterstop. Based on Application, the market was studied across Industrial and Residential. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Waterstop market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Waterstop Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Waterstop Market, including Berry Global Group, Inc., BoMetals, Inc., CE construction solution, Emagineered solutions Inc, Foshan NanhaiFufujing Plastic & Hardware Company Limited, GCP Applied Technologies, Inc., Greenstreak group Inc., Hengshui Jingtong Rubber Co. Ltd., Henry Company, JP Specialties, Inc., Kanta Rubber Pvt. Ltd., Krystol Group, Mapei Construction Products Pvt Ltd., MCT Group Of Companies, Metro Rubber Corporation, Minerals Technologies, Inc., Sika AG, TPH Bausysteme GmbH, Trelleborg AB, W.R. Meadows, Inc., West American Rubber Company, LLC, and Williams Products, Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Waterstop Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Waterstop Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Waterstop Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Waterstop Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Waterstop Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Waterstop Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Waterstop Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342459/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 ReportLinker The Global Wood Activated Carbon Market size was estimated at USD 381. 24 million in 2021 and expected to reach USD 434. 53 million in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 14. 23% to reach USD 847. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wood Activated Carbon Market Research Report by Form, Application, End User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342582/?utm_source=GNW 21 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wood Activated Carbon to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Form, the market was studied across Granular and Powdered. Based on Application, the market was studied across Decolorization, Fluid Adsorption, and Purification. Based on End User, the market was studied across Air Purification, Automotive, Food & Beverage Processing, Pharmaceutical & Medical, and Water Treatment. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wood Activated Carbon market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wood Activated Carbon Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market, including Acuro Organics Ltd, Adsorbent Carbons Private Ltd., Bestech Water Treatment Pvt. Ltd, Boyce Carbon, Cabot Corporation, Cabot Norit, Calgon Carbon Corporation, Carbon Activated Corp., CarboTech AC GmbH, Chemtex Speciality Limited, Donau Carbon US LLC, Ecologix Environmental Systems, Fujian Yuanli Active Carbon, Fujian Zhixing activated carbon Co., Ltd, Hangzhou Anow Microfiltration Co. Ltd., Ingevity Corporation, Jinan Changxing Plastic Co., Krishna Chemtech, Kuraray Chemical Co., Ltd., Osaka Gas Chemicals Co. Ltd., Oxbow Activated Carbon, Silcarbon Aktivkohle GmbH, and Zhejiang Xingda Activated Carbon Co., Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wood Activated Carbon Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342582/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 By Alistair Smout LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Liz Truss is clinging on to her job after a political crisis and market turmoil sparked by her fiscal plans that has seen her fire her finance minister and reverse major parts of her flagship tax-cutting agenda. Despite an unconvincing news conference that did little to ease her own lawmakers' concerns about her leadership, the route to removing her as prime minister, should it come to that, is not straightforward. Here's what could happen: TRUSS RESIGNS VOLUNTARILY Truss could decide she has lost the support of too many members of her party and the cabinet and resign. She has so far shown no signs of being willing to do this. SENIOR MINISTERS SEEK TO FORCE HER OUT Members of her top team of ministers - her Cabinet - could start resigning in order to force her hand. Currently they are standing by her and none have resigned, with the exception of finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng, who she asked to step down and who expressed his continued support for her. CONFIDENCE VOTE AMONG CONSERVATIVE LAWMAKERS A vote of confidence among Conservative lawmakers is one mechanism to remove their party leader. However, as Truss only became leader last month, current rules say such a vote cannot be held until September 2023. The 1922 Committee of Conservative lawmakers, which sets the rules for selecting and changing a leader, could remove that restriction if there were sufficient pressure from within the party. Under the existing rules, 15% of the Conservative Party's 356 lawmakers would need to write a letter to the Chairman of the 1922 committee requesting a confidence vote. Bob Blackman, secretary of that committee, told The Telegraph newspaper that colleagues should stop sniping from the sidelines and take on the opposition Labour Party, reiterating that rebels would have to wait a year. CONFIDENCE VOTE AMONG ALL LAWMAKERS IN PARLIAMENT A vote of no confidence in the government could be put forward by opposition parties. If enough rebel Conservatives sided with the opposition and the government lost, the prime minister would be expected to either resign or request a dissolution of parliament, triggering an election. Story continues However, even when Conservatives have previously sought to oust their leaders, they have voted against the opposition Labour Party in such confidence votes to avoid an election. TRUSS CALLS A GENERAL ELECTION Truss could call a general election herself, although with her Conservative party dramatically behind Labour in the polls, she doesn't have to unless she loses a confidence vote in the Commons. HOW WOULD SHE BE REPLACED? - If Truss resigns or loses a vote of confidence among Conservative lawmakers in her leadership, there is a process to select a new leader, overseen by the 1922 Committee. - In previous leadership elections in 2019 and this year, lawmakers put themselves forward, needing a certain number of candidates to make the ballot, and then being whittled down by successive lawmaker ballots to a final two. That final two would then usually be put to a vote of the party membership. - However, as that process was a slow one which resulted in instability and a leader in Truss who got less backing among lawmakers than her rival Rishi Sunak, some want any replacement to be selected by a different method. - Some have suggested supporting a unity candidate by making the nominations hurdle so high that only one candidate could be on the ballot. However, others have warned that replacing Truss in this way would be undemocratic. - In 2016, the contest was theoretically structured similarly to in 2019 and 2022, but Theresa May's rival for leader, Andrea Leadsom, was convinced to drop out before the members voted, making May prime minister without a membership ballot and speeding up the process. (Reporting by Alistair Smout, Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Andrew Heavens) A 50-year-old Russian man has been detained in Arctic Norway with two drones and is suspected of flying the unmanned aerial vehicles somewhere in the country. Numerous drone sightings have been reported near Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms in recent weeks. The Russian citizen, who was not identified, was detained on Tuesday. Norwegian media reported that customs officers found two drones and several electronic storage devices in his luggage during a routine check at the Storskog border crossing, the sole crossing point between NATO-member Norway and Russia. Norway's Arctic border with Russia is 198 kilometres long. He is suspected of breaching sanctions which came into force after Russia went to war against Ukraine, prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjr told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. Under Norwegian law, it is prohibited for aircraft operated by Russian companies or citizens to land on, take off from or fly over Norwegian territory. Norway is not a member of the European Union but mirrors its moves. The man's defence lawyer, Jens Bernhard Herstad, told Norwegian daily Dagbladet that his client has acknowledged flying the drones but has declined to say what he was doing in Norway. Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said it was too early to draw conclusions. It is known that we have an intelligence threat against us which has been reinforced by what is happening in Europe, Enger Mehl told NRK. There is heightened security around key energy, internet and power infrastructure following last months underwater explosions that ruptured two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea that were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany. The blasts and ruptures in the Baltic Sea happened in international waters off both Sweden and Denmark but within the countries exclusive economic zone. The damaged Nord Stream pipelines discharged huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the air. Norway to slash pollution with the worlds first zero-emissions public transport network Oslo is on course to become the first capital city in the world with an all-electric public transport system. Norway's capital hopes to reach this goal by the end of 2023 as part of its aim to become the world's first wholly emissions-free city by 2030. The transport push entails replacing the city's diesel-fuelled buses with 450 electric ones. It is hoped the 500 million crown (48 million) programme will save the city money over the long term. "The maintenance is cheaper, it's also cheaper for the operators of the electric buses," says Sirin Stav, Oslo's Vice-Mayor responsible for environment and transport. "All in all, this is a win-win situation." In the city's last tender, e-buses were 5 per cent cheaper than diesel equivalents. The goal of the project is to cut emissions, reduce noise and improve air quality in the city. Oslo is leading the way for sustainable transport Oslo, a city of 700,000, has already electrified most of the ferries that ply the fjord on which it is located. It also has an extensive tram and bike lane network The city's e-bus programme comes amid a global push by major cities worldwide to try to cut their air pollution. As governments and activists prepare for next month's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, Stav encourages other cities to follow Oslo's example. Ingvild Roerholt, an adviser on transport questions at Norwegian environmental group ZERO, says the bus rollout marks an important step forward for the city. "However, it is important that Oslo going forward makes sure there is transparency in how much emissions are associated with the production of these ferries and vehicles," she adds. The makers of I Love You, You Hate Me speak to the creative team behind the series (London Zoo) Barney is the childrens sweetheart. Or at least he used to be. Now, a documentary will unpack where it all went wrong for Nineties TV dinosaur Barney. Created by Sheryl Leach in 1988, because she wanted better educational content that would both amuse and educate her child, the series features main character Barney, a purple Tyrannosaurus Rex who sings and dances all the while getting across educational messages. The series ran until 2010 and aired in the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America, France, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, the UK and Japan. But when did Barneys reputation take a turn for the worse? A new documentary hopes to reveal all. Here is everything you need to know. What can we expect in new Barney documentary I Love You, You Hate Me? I Love You, You Hate Me is a two-part docu-series, exploring the rise and fall of Barney. It is directed by Tommy Avallone, and speaks to the people who contributed to Barney & Friends as well as leaders of hate groups and pop culture commentators to get to the bottom of what happened. You can expect to hear some weird facts about the show, such as The actor who played Barney opened a tantric sex business I figured, 'After 10 years, I've done Barney, I've always wanted to move to Los Angeles to do other acting,' says David Joyner, who played the dinosaur on the series from 1991 to 2001. I help goddesses reconnect with their sexual energy on a spiritual level," explains the actor. He was studying "white lotus" tantra in 1990 when he got cast as Barney. He was asked to sign a document promising he would not teach or speak about tantra while employed on the series. Barney bashing was real In 1993, three boys (aged 10, 11, and 12) attacked a man dressed up as Barney at a Texas shopping mall. And thats not all. Throughout the years, a man was arrested for assaulting Barney, another man started an anti-Barney newsletter, and a group of college students who organised events focused on destroying Barney products. Story continues On what he hopes audiences will take away from the documentary, producer Joel Chiodi told Salon: First of all, I like to call it chocolate-covered spinach. It's super entertaining. This time that we live in, to have a little bit of lightness and fun, let's take it right. But I hope that we can learn something too. And there's so many lessons I don't want to spoil people's sense of discovery and what that might be. When does I Love You, You Hate Me air? I Love You, You Hate Me is streaming now in the US on Peacock but a UK release is yet to be announced. The Countess of Wessex has told how her dear mother-in-law the late Queen was so happy for the people of Malawi at the countrys elimination of the eye disease trachoma. Sophie, in a speech in Malawi to mark World Sight Day, said the Queen knew the summer before she died that the countess would be returning to the southern African nation soon to celebrate its success in battling the condition, which can cause blindness. The countess, global ambassador for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), said: We owe a dept of thanks to Her late Majesty for this incredible legacy and we say zikomo (thank you). Women in Mgawi Village greet the Countess of Wessex as she meets Litens Dalali following her eye surgery in Malawi (Jane Barlow/PA) The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust Fund focused on the instruction of the Queen on offering financial support to help combat avoidable blindness across the Commonwealth including in Malawi. Sophie, who is on an official visit to a host of African nations, travelled to Malawi five years ago as vice patron of the Trust, and said the Queen had been so moved to hear of the work being carried out. The Queen died on September 8, having spent the summer on her beloved Balmoral estate being visited by her family. The Queen with the Countess of Wessex (Jane Barlow/PA) The countess said on Thursday: The success we celebrate today means that future generations of Malawians will not have to face the high risk of blindness caused by trachoma the irritation, the terrible pain, the scarring and the darkness, nor the prospect of not being able to learn, work or cook without help and support. Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, my dear mother-in-law, was so proud of the Commonwealth and all that it stood for. Last time I returned from Malawi, when I had travelled on her behalf, as vice patron of her Trust, I told her all about my visit and she was so moved by the amazing work taking place here. The countess meeting beneficiaries of eye surgery at the Maganga Clinic in Salima, Malawi (Jane Barlow/PA) This summer, before she passed away, she also knew that I was returning to Malawi and why. She knew of Malawis achievement and was so pleased that this was made possible by the fund, with eyesight being its principle objective. She was so happy for Malawians. Story continues Sophie said she had a heart full of joy to be back in Malawi again to witness the formalisation of the achievement, saying: Today is a day that I will remember for the rest of my life. The Countess of Wessex meets eye surgery patient Litens Dalali and surgeon Gladys Ntwana (left) in Mgawi, Malawi (Jane Barlow/PA) She brought with her a personal letter from the King to the countrys president, Lazarus Chakwera, expressing his congratulations. Charles wrote: This is a remarkable success, and a true testament to all those whose hard work, dedication and commitment has led to Malawi becoming the first country in Southern Africa to eliminate this devastating, neglected tropical disease as a public health issue. Malawi is the first country supported by the Trust to reach the milestone of trachoma elimination. Sophie meets the family of Litens Dalali at her home in Mgawi Village (Jane Barlow/PA) During her trip, Sophie visited Mgawi Village where she met eye surgery patient Litens Dalali at her home following her treatment for chronic trachoma. She was joined by surgeon Gladys Ntwana. The countess sat on a mat on the ground as she chatted to the woman and met her family, stroking the head of one youngster as the child lay cuddled against a female relative. She also travelled to the Maganga Clinic in Salima to meet others who have benefitted from medical treatment. "It's kind of an exciting time because it really does feel like rising from the ashes," Pierce said. "We rise as the Phoenix and are finding that fire to rekindle the community and rekindle our own passion for the arts, to remember why it is we do what we do." Pierce, who earned his associate degree in theatre from UNG, is grateful to return to the program he took part in as a student. He also earned a Master of Fine Arts in theatre pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and a Bachelor of Arts in theatre from Brenau. "One of the things that was really lovely about the program then, and now, is the unique training method of the Alliance that creates twice the number of opportunities and resources for students," Pierce said. "I remember the quality of students that would come through our programs were really set apart from other schools." After being an adjunct professor at VCU, Pierce said he recalls coming back to Gainesville and seeing the quality of students and just being blown away by the hunger and the community. "It's such an exciting energy to be around a community of students and faculty who have that kind of passion for the work itself. It's magnetic. It's what brought me back to where I started," Pierce said. "I wanted to be a part of its continued growth into the next leg of the journey." Pierce is a self-described collaborative leader. "We have incredibly passionate faculty and students, and so part of my goal is to lead with a very specific intention of transparency, collaboration and communication with everyone around me," Pierce said. "I'll be the first one to tell you that I don't have the best answers in the room, but I work with people who can find the best answer collectively." Exotic Animal Medicine Will Be Focus of two-Day Symposium Hosted by Purdue Veterinary Students Keynote speaker Antonin Vaidl, curator of birds at the Prague Zoo The Medicine of Mammals and Avian Species (MMAS) Symposium will reflect the passion of the Purdue veterinary students in the College of Veterinary Medicines Exotic Animal Club, when the two day conference is held later this month. The event is designed for veterinary students and veterinary professionals, as well as faculty, staff and students in other fields at Purdue University and in the community. Members of the Exotic Animal Club have organized the symposium, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, October 22-23, in Lynn Hall. The program includes a Keynote Lecture on the topic, Conservation and Reintroduction of Bearded and Egyptian Vultures, that will be given by Anton Vaidl and Dr. Helena Vaidlova, a husband and wife team from the Czech Republic well known for their reputation and experience in the field of avian and exotic medicine. Vaidl has been a bird lover all his life. He was the incubator attendant and assistant to the bird curator at the Prague Zoo from 1995 to 2006. The year following, he served as curator-consultant at the Morocco Birds International, Inc. bird park in the Philippines. Several months later, he returned to the Czech Republic where he has worked as the curator of birds at the Prague Zoo since 2008. Over the past 20 years, he has had the opportunity to work with more than 600 different bird species including about 80 parrot species. During his time working as curator, the Zoo began to breed Palm cockatoos, Pesquets parrots, Hyacinth macaws, Kea parrots, Blue-naped parrots, Golden shouldered parakeets, Yellow and black-bellied Jamaican amazons, Red-tailed amazons and other parrot species. He and Dr. Vaidlova together wrote a comprehensive book on the issue of parrot breeding and veterinary care. Vaidl also has published articles on the breeding of various species of birds and has presented his lectures in more than 20 countries around the world. Dr. Helena Vaidlova, a graduate of the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Brno, Czech Republic. Dr. Helena Vaidlova graduated in 2004 from the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Brno, Czech Republic. During her studies and following graduation, she obtained an internship and worked in Southeast Asia with elephants and parrots. In 2008 she and her husband opened a veterinary clinic focused on birds. She now works for the Prague Zoo and is a Parrot TAG veterinary advisor for the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. Vaidl and Dr. Vaidlova are among a total of 14 speakers who will participate in the symposium, including avian and exotic animal specialists from the College of Veterinary Medicine and private specialty practices, who will present lectures and lead hands-on labs. Concurrent lecture tracks covering avian and exotic companion animal medicine will include lectures on a variety of topics including basic medicine, handling, nutrition, intubation, and anesthesia. For those who are interested but unable to attend in person, an on-line option will be available for the Keynote and other lectures. Learn more and register today! Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu Maintaining Personal Wellbeing is Focus of Dr. Jeffrey A. Sutarik Wellness Lecture October 25 A presentation on personal wellbeing in the veterinary medical profession will be given later this month by a specialist in clinical psychology as part of a lecture series established in memory of a Purdue Veterinary Medicine alumnus. The Dr. Jeffrey A. Sutarik Memorial Wellness Lecture will be held Tuesday morning, October 25, from 8:00 9:20 a.m. as part of a core course in the DVM curriculum. The speaker, Dr. Craig J Bryan, PsyD, ABPP, is internationally recognized as an expert on suicide prevention, trauma and resilience. In an effort to enhance the self-care and mindset of the veterinary community as a whole, the College of Veterinary Medicine will be livestreaming the lecture so that those outside PVM can attend virtually. Dr. Bryan is board-certified as a clinical psychologist in cognitive behavioral psychology. He is the Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University and the Division Director for Recovery and Resilience. Dr. Bryans research has been funded by the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and multiple foundations. He has published more than 250 scientific articles and multiple books including Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention and Rethinking Suicide, and has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research. The Dr. Jeffrey A. Sutarik Memorial Wellness Lecture Series was established by Dr. Sutariks parents, Ed and Pat Sutarik, after the tragic passing of their son who ended his own life in 2019 at the age of 41. Dr. Sutarik earned his Purdue DVM degree in 2005 and went into private practice in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, Illinois, where he was respected as a gifted, dedicated and caring veterinarian. His passing inspired his parents to honor his memory through charity supporting the health and wellbeing of veterinary professionals. Together, they created the Dr. Jeffrey A. Sutarik Memorial Wellness Lecture Series through a fund that also provides assistance to various student wellness initiatives. The purpose of the lectureship is to bring in professional mental health speakers as well as alumni and friends to share their relatable stories of the importance of recognizing and staying in touch with ones mental health. In addition, Pat Sutarik founded the Make A Wag foundation, which continues Dr. Jeffrey Sutariks legacy of compassionate care by providing help for people 65 years and older who need assistance with veterinary care for their pets. Veterinarians all across the country can apply for support in the amount of $2,500 per year to assist this population. The Make A Wag foundation was one of the sponsors for the 2022 Purdue Veterinary Conference that was hosted by the College of Veterinary Medicine September 20-24. As a result of her time visiting Purdue during the conference and touring the new David and Bonnie Brunner Purdue Veterinary Medical Hospital Complex, Pat shared her excitement about the beautiful new hospital facilities with her husband Ed, and together they decided to honor their sons love of horses by placing his name on an equine stall. The memory of Dr. Sutarik and the abundant generosity and caring of his parents reminds all veterinary professionals that as they strive to do whatever they can to help their patients, clients, and all animals, the compassion can run so deep, that they neglect to take time to care for themselves and their own wellbeing. The Dr. Jeffrey A. Sutarik Memorial Wellness Lecture October 25 will equip veterinary professionals with practices and methods to maintain their own personal wellbeing in a demanding profession. Members of the veterinary profession may use this link to watch the lecture: https://tinyurl.com/currentissuesfall22. Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu HA NOI Brand building for businesses must go hand-in-hand with social responsibility to form the foundation for sustainable development, according to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI). The chamber stressed the importance of a strong brand that inspires confidence and stability with business partners while strongly associated with social responsibility and the community. According to the VCCI, nine out of ten businesses in the country were forced to cut back on hours or lay off a part of their workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a vast majority of them took measures to maintain production and minimise workers' income loss including stronger implementation of digitalisation and telecommunication technologies, as well as the creation of new products and services, which has helped speed up recovery post-pandemic. Trinh Van Khanh, CEO of Van Khanh Investment and Construction Group, said his company was able to maintain 100 per cent of its workforce during the pandemic to help with the construction of some 14 field hospitals for COVID-19 patients in HCM City. Khanh said his company's strategies to support workers including profit-sharing schemes, high-quality company meals, housing and living expense subsidies have played a key part in keeping workers from leaving, before, during and after the pandemic. He believes it has been a win-win solution for both employers and workers as it helps boost productivity and loyalty, and promotes the company's brand and trust among business partners and customers. Similarly, Luong Van Vinh, CEO of My Hao Cosmetics JSC., one of the most well-known brands of home products in Viet Nam, said his company went to great lengths to support workers while the city was under social restriction periods. "For us, profit was not as important as our workers during the pandemic," Vinh said. "Our most important objective was to protect their livelihood, to protect our brand and to maintain production capacity." During the pandemic, they were quick to make the adjustment from traditional products such as office attire to more in-demand products including protective equipment, winter attire and in-house items for the domestic and international markets. Saigon Co.op, a major retailer in the Mekong Delta, managed to maintain growth and sales during the pandemic by implementing digitalisation and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies, streamlining logistics and promoting digital commerce. The retailer eyed a 4.5 per cent sale growth and had plans to open three to five supermarkets and malls and 80-100 retail stores in the year 2022, according to CEO Nguyen Anh uc. It takes years for businesses to build strong brands, which requires not only capable business management but also trust among the public, according to the HCM City Union of Business Associations. The union considered building strong domestic brands as a key objective in the city's sustainable economic development and urged the city's authority to lend more support to help businesses in brand-building activities. Pham Chi Tam, deputy chairman of the HCM City's Federation of Labour, encouraged businesses to continue to improve management capacity, competitive advantage, product quality, business culture and most importantly worker living conditions. He added businesses must consider the workforce as among the most valuable resources at their disposal and workers' legitimate demands for housing, child care and transportation must be addressed. He said many businesses in recent years have spent a significant amount of money to build their own housing complexes, improve health care and social security to retain their workforce and help boost brand popularity. There has been a strong correlation between a socially popular brand and a business' profit and growth as a socially popular brand help amplify a company's reputation and product image among the public, according to market experts. "A strong brand sends a message that business management is capable, aware of social responsibility, environmentally conscious, and that the company has sustainable growth and fair treatment of workers," said Vo Van Hoan, deputy chairman of HCM City People's Committee. VNS HA NOI Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hailed women-led businesses as major contributors to economic recovery and development in Viet Nam and the region in his virtual remarks addressing the second ASEAN Women Leaders Summit 2022 on October 12. He reiterated Viet Nams commitments in cooperating with other ASEAN member states to further promote gender equality and womens empowerment, contributing to shaping a sustainable, inclusive and resilient future of the region and the world at large. Putting forth a number of recommendations to inspire and unleash womens potential in business, the PM said it is crucial to enable female entrepreneurs to sustainably contribute to the national growth by advancing a legal framework facilitating the development of a gender-responsive business environment. He stressed the need to encourage women to gain access to and participate in the law-policy making and enforcement. Gender mainstreaming must be done inclusively, at local, national and regional levels and in all sectors, particularly female-dominated professions, he told the summit, adding that it is also important to enhance resilience of women-led businesses and female entrepreneurs to help them adapt to changing business climate and new trends such as green economy and digital transformation. He later stressed the necessity to raise public awareness of gender equality and promote womens empowerment at the national, regional and global levels in order for the entire society to move from awareness to action. The ASEAN Women Leaders Summit was first held by Viet Nam as ASEAN Chair in 2020. It aims to provide a high-level forum for advancing gender equality and womens empowerment, and placing women at the centre of efforts to build the ASEAN Community. This years summit was themed Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Womens Entrepreneurship in ASEAN. VNS HA NOI Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan met with the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan on October 13, as part of her trip to attend the 6th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Kazakhstans capital Astana. Welcoming the Vietnamese leader, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev highly valued Viet Nams role and significant contributions within the CICA framework. He affirmed that Kazakhstan treasures the bilateral friendship and views Viet Nam as an important partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Vice President Xuan expressed her delight that her visit coincides with the 30th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties. She affirmed Viet Nam always attaches importance to the traditional friendship with Kazakhstan, agreeing to increase delegation exchanges via all channels and at all levels. The two leaders shared the view that there remains much room for bilateral economic partnerships, especially in potential fields such as tourism, logistics, agriculture, and construction. They agreed to further capitalise on advantages generated by the free trade agreement between Viet Nam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), of which Kazakhstan is a member, and officially open a direct air route. They also concurred to raise the two-way trade turnover to US$1.5 billion by 2030. At the meeting with Vice President Xuan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that Turkey considers Viet Nam the most important partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and wants to enhance bilateral cooperation and coordinate with Viet Nam at international forums and organisations, especially within the United Nations framework. He underlined Turkeys support for Viet Nam and ASEANs stance on the peaceful settlement of disputes on the basis of international law. He also agreed that both sides should work closely to develop connections in economy, trade, investment, tourism, infrastructure development, transport, and maritime economy on par with the potential and importance of the two countries relations. Describing Turkey as one of the leading trade and investment partners of Viet Nam in the Middle East, Vice President Xuan called on both sides to continue coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums and international organisations while working to successfully hold people-to-people and cultural exchanges to mark the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2023. She also asked for close coordination to tackle bottlenecks and further facilitate exports to each others markets. Talking with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Vice President Xuan highlighted that Viet Nam always treasures the two countries traditional friendship and hopes to step up bilateral cooperation in all aspects. She proposed the two nations further strengthen their political ties through all-level delegation exchanges, and maintain mutual support at international and regional forums. The Uzbek leader said Viet Nam is an important traditional friend and a trustworthy partner of his country in Asia, adding that he is impressed with Viet Nams considerable achievements in economic development, social security, poverty reduction, and international integration over the last three decades since the oi moi (Reform) period began. The two leaders held that it is necessary to further promote economic, trade, and investment ties so that the relations match with the faithful and sincere political ties between the two countries. They also agreed to organise the 8th meeting of the Inter-Governmental Committee early; consider the establishment of partnerships in producing rice, textile - garment, cotton, electronic components, and household appliances; and consider the launching of a direct air route to facilitate transport, people-to-people exchange, and tourism cooperation. VNS HCM CITY The first monkeypox patient in Viet Nam has been given the all-clear after repeatedly testing negative for the virus, and all close contacts are safe, with no further cases found. The patient, a 35-year-old woman who returned from Dubai, was found to have monkeypox by HCM City's Medical Monitoring Systems on September 23. Her test samples were taken and sent to the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the Pasteur Institute HCM City. The test results on September 25 showed the patient had the monkeypox virus. According to Prof. Phan Trong Lan, director of the Viet Nam Control Disease Control, the patient caught the virus in a foreign country and had symptoms from September 18. On September 23, one day after her return, she immediately went to Tu Du Hospital for a check-up. She was transferred to the HCM City Hospital of Dermatovenerology and then to the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases, where she was quarantined and treated. She first tested negative after 12 days of treatment. The transmission source was determined to be outside Viet Nam as the patient was abroad for 60 days and recorded symptoms there. The patient was treated as a positive case while awaiting results, and all the monitoring, testing and contact tracing protocols were done as recommended. According to the test results and genome sequencing done by the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU), the patient had the monkeypox virus of clade IIb. After treatment, the patient had no fever, and the blisters on her skin flaked off. The blisters in her throat also healed, and the patient is in good condition and spirits. PCR tests on different locations of the body all reported negative. The patient adhered to regulations in quarantine, and close contacts in Viet Nam have not recorded symptoms. Medical workers who took care of or were in close contact with the patient are also being monitored. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the total number of monkeypox cases around the world has reached 70,000 and 26 people have died from the virus. The virus has been found in 106 countries. "Monkeypox disease entering Viet Nam is inevitable," said Lan. "In current travelling conditions, the disease can jump from country to country," Lan added. The monkeypox virus is usually transmitted from animal to human, but experts suggested that the current worldwide outbreak is spread through close contact with patients. Common symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, lymph node swelling, and rashes. Monkeypox can also cause rashes similar to smallpox in the face, anus and genital areas. The virus can be transmitted through patients' bodily fluids, such as boils and blood, and also through objects that patients use. Most cases will heal after 10-14 days and cannot spread after 21 days. However, to protect the community, citizens are advised to enact precautionary methods recommended by health authorities. Plans and scenarios for dealing with monkeypox in Viet Nam have also been prepared. VNS The construction of Dau Giay - Phan Thiet Expressway has been delayed due to oil shortage According to the contractors, in September this year, the Ministry of Transport called for the implementation of four construction projects: Mai Son-National Highway 45, Cam Lo-La Son, Vinh Hao-Phan Thiet, and Dau Giay - Phan Thiet. Accordingly, the construction of Dau Giay Phan Thiet was asked to be completed at the end of 2022. We are proactive in looking for alternative oil and petroleum sources with a higher selling price of between VND3,000-5,000 per litre, but the supply is still lowered our demand. We are concerned that if this situation is prolonged, the construction process could not ensure the committed deadline, Lai said. Nguyen Hoang Hai, managing director of the XL03 contraction package developed by Vinaconex group, said that this contractor package needs 5,000 litres of oil per day to operate 300 pieces of machinery and equipment. However, at present, the company can gather between 600 and 1,000 litres of oil per day. At present, we are accelerating the construction work, but the oil and petroleum shortage is a barrier to our effort, Hai said. A similar situation occurred with the XL02 contraction package developed by Phuong Thanh Transport Construction and Investment JSC. Tran Viet Lai, deputy director of this contractor package, said that they needed approximately 20,000 litres of oil per day, 13,000 litres of which are served for drills, rock diggers, excavators, and rock transporters. We are proactive in looking for alternative oil and petroleum sources with higher selling prices of between VND3,000-5,000 per litre, but the supply is still lower than our demand. We are concerned that if this situation is prolonged, the construction process will not meet the committed deadline, Lai said. The expressway is part of the North-South Expressway. With a length of 98 kilometres, the Phan Thiet - Dau Giay expressway project is one of eight expressways recently approved by the prime minister to change from build-operate-transfer to public investment. Four lanes will be built during the first phase, requiring the total investment of roughly VND14 trillion ($608.69 million). More effort to complete Phan Thiet-Dau Giay Expressway The Ministry of Transport has asked the Thang Long Projects Management Board, contractors, and consultants to solve all difficulties and complete Phan Thiet-Dau Giay Expressway by the end of the year. Dong Hoi strives to build a civilised city Dong Hoi city is mobilising all resources to construct an increasingly affluent, contemporary, and civilised metropolis by attempting to synchronise all fields, notably transportation. Ninh Binh-Nam Dinh-Thai Binh Expressway to be built under PPP The government has given the green light for the development of Ninh Binh-Nam Dinh-Thai Binh Expressway under the public-private partnership format. New expressway put into use in Quang Ninh province Van Don - Mong Cai Expressway, expected to open up a new development space for the northern province of Quang Ninh and the entire Red River Delta, was inaugurated on September 1. At this week's ceremony held in Hanoi, representatives from Dragon Capital, MB, and Digi Invest Powered by MB inked an agreement to work together to distribute fund certificates to their retail customers. The fresh partnership would provide easier access to high-quality investment products by leveraging MB's position as a market leader in digital banking services. In addition, the banks retail customers could easily access their investment and monitor their portfolios right on their online banking app. MB's digital platform would facilitate the comprehensive needs of investing activity, from account opening to product selection to order placement. Particularly, DCIP/DCBF bond funds, a DCDS mixed fund, and a DCBC stock fund are all available to investors via conveniently accessible certificate investment products from the portfolio's open-ended fund investment options. These are Dragon Capital's open-ended funds, which have been among the industry's top performers for more than a decade. A spokesman from Dragon Capital Vietnam said, "The partnership displays Dragon Capital's faith in MB's leading stature and the appealing benefits that MB can deliver to its clients on a wide scale. In addition, Dragon Capital sees this step as crucial to our plan to provide fund certificate products as an effective, reliable, and hassle-free investing option for the Vietnamese. MB selected as Top 3 favoured listed company by investors Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank was recently named in the Top 3 most popular large-caps listed companies for investors and the top 4 large-caps listed companies appreciated by financial institutions. MB received Corporate Excellence recognition at the Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards 2022 MB Bank has been recognised at the Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards (APEA) 2022 in the category of Corporate Excellence. This is a testament to MB's recent commitment to sustainable development and the digital revolution. The city also called for investigations into construction on unregulated agricultural land and a review of projects that have not yet or are slow to put land to use. Hanoi authorities want to prevent the destruction of land to increase its resale value.- Photo vov.vn Hanoi also told the department to check if local project investors gave buyers ownership certificates for houses and other assets against the implementation of land use plans, or changed land use purposes for rice cultivation in the city. The department was also assigned to inspect possible violations in the separation of parcels, plots, and ground sales that disrupt the planning, affect the real estate market, land price determination, and the implementation of the auction of land use rights in the area. The city requested a comprehensive inspection of land areas originating from agriculture and forestry schools handed over to localities for management that still have difficulties and problems in land allocation, land lease, issuance of land use rights certificates, ownership of houses and other assets attached to land; aggregate proposed reporting authority considers regulatory treatment. Regarding the registration and issuance of certificates of land use rights, ownership of houses and other assets attached to the land, the Hanoi City People's Committee requested the department to arrange and rationally arrange the receipt of dossiers of administrative procedures for people; do not let overload prolong the time of receiving and resolving documents give rise to negatives. At the same time, the department needed reviewing and advising on amending and abolishing unreasonable procedures, prolonging the implementation time, and causing trouble for people and businesses when carrying out land transactions. In addition, the city said: "It is necessary to correct the registration and issuance of certificates, review and make full statistics on outstanding cases where land has not been registered, or certificates have not been issued; at the same time clarify the causes and have specific plans and measures to solve these cases definitively." The City People's Committee also requested the construction of the land database be urgently completed, with resources focussed on ensuring the completion of national land databases and information systems and providing online public services to shorten the time to carry out administrative procedures. In addition, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment shall assume the prime responsibility for and coordinate with the Department of Finance and the City Tax Department in advising the City People's Committee to ensure that at least 10 per cent of the total revenue from land use and land rent are set aside annually for cadastral mapping measurements and land registration, issuance of certificates, construction of land databases and operation of land information systems. Meanwhile, an individual who divided plots and advertised land for sale illegally was fined VND45 million. According to local media, although the project land in Dong Xoai City, Binh Phuoc Province, has not been licensed, an individual has drawn a map of the subdivision, advertised and sold the ground on a land area of nearly 95,000sq.m on social networks. As advertised, the entire land area, with a total area of nearly 9.5 hectares, has been divided into 39 small plots and one large plot, and all have been granted land use rights certificates. However, through research, the local government discovered that although the land had not been licensed for construction, the landowner drew a map of the plot by himself, then advertised and sold it on social media. The land, about 3km from National Highway 14, has been subdivided according to the concrete road of the village with a road surface of 3m wide following the planned 26km road along the banks of the Be River in Phuoc Hoa Irrigation Lake. Each lot has an area of 1,000-1,500m2. In addition, the land also has internal roads under construction. The man was fined VND45 million on October 10. More clarity urged for draft guidelines of new Land Law Although the draft amended Land Law is deemed to meet the requirements for Vietnams economic development, it remains unclear whether it can solve practical problems in land acquisition, speculation, and valuation. US-based Boeing is accelerating cooperation with Vietnamese suppliers and universities to provide support for long-term industrial growth. Supply chains can be improved through international support, Photo: Shutterstock Boeing Vietnam country director Michael Nguyen said the group was creating opportunities and encouraging vendors, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, Nikkiso, Aerospace Composites Malaysia, and Korea Aerospace Industries to either invest in new projects or expand their operations in Vietnam. Boeing also encourages vendors to deeply connect with domestic suppliers to build a complete supply chain. The group will also work with its major vendors to support domestic companies via training courses to improve their capacity so they can provide international-standard products for the aviation sector, Nguyen said. We had opportunities to meet 10 universities in Vietnam and we have plans to cooperate with them to implement studies and training courses, grant scholarships, and other technical cooperation in the sector. Toyota Motors Vietnam and the Vietnam Industry Agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry are implementing the contents of an MoU signed in June to renew a project to enhance domestic supporting industries. Toyota Vietnam president Hiroyuki Ueda said, Domestic part suppliers face difficulties in competing with foreign vendors and importing goods due to lack of experience and production capacity. The production cost for parts and components in Vietnam is double or triple compared to costs in surrounding countries. Through this project, we hope to contribute to improving suppliers capability and expand the local supplier network. It is the third year Toyota Vietnam and the agency have worked on the project. By joining it, potential suppliers of automotive parts and components will have the opportunity to connect with assemblers and manufacturers in the country and visit the Toyota Vietnam factory and its domestic suppliers. They are also supported for participation in training under local supplier development programmes. Samsung is also providing training programmes for domestic suppliers. However, Do Thi Thuy Huong, an executive board member of the Vietnam Electronics Industries Association, said that the traction created by a few names was not strong enough to create breakthrough change for the domestic supporting industry, and more companies needed to come on board. According to a report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the loose relationship between foreign-invested and domestic enterprises is considered the biggest limit on fostering foreign investment. Foreign-invested enterprises localisation ratio is estimated at an average of 20-25 per cent, while the ratio in the garment and textile sector is between 40-45 per cent, household electronics sector 30-35 per cent, and automobile assembly 7-10 per cent. The gap between global manufacturers and domestic suppliers is large. If local suppliers want to narrow the gap and join the global supply chain, they have to try to improve their internal power, along with international support, Huong said. Vietnam will contribute 20 per cent of all production of iPads and Apple Watches, 5 per cent of MacBooks, and 65 per cent of AirPods by 2025, according to a JP Morgan report. According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, the export turnover of mobile phones, computers, and components from Vietnam saw consecutive growth in the 2016-2020 period with an average growth ratio of 23.8 per cent. In the first three quarters of this year, the figure was estimated at $77 billion, accounting for 32 per cent of the countrys export turnover. Addressing a meeting held in Hanoi by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) to mark Vietnam Entrepreneurs Day (October 13), the leader attributed the achievements Viet Nam has recorded to the active participation of domestic entrepreneurs. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and delegates attending the meeting. - VNA/VNS Photo The Party and the State always highly value the role of entrepreneurs and the business community, he stressed, commending their contributions to national construction and development, and poverty reduction. Vietnam counts more than 900,000 operational enterprises, about 14,400 cooperatives and more than 5 million business households. The number of businesspeople has reached millions. The business circle makes up over 60 per cent of the national domestic product (GDP), and employs some 30 per cent of the workforce. The number of enterprises is expected to be at least 2 million by 2030, and the private economic sector is hoped to make up 60-65 per cent of the GDP. The PM said the Government will further support entrepreneurs and the business community, helping them develop in both quality and quantity, and fulfill their social responsibilities. Solutions will be rolled out concertedly to facilitate peoples and businesses access to credit, while institutions, mechanisms and policies will be built and perfected to match the new situation, he continued. The leader noted that the Government will create conditions for the non-State economic sector to engage in socio-economic infrastructure projects in the form of public-private partnership (PPP), and work to promote the development of private firms, especially in processing, high-tech and IT. He urged them to invest more in scientific-technological application and high-quality personnel development, and to play a more active role in poverty reduction and community-based programmes, contributing to enhancing the great national solidarity bloc. The PM also asked ministries, agencies and localities to further support businesses. On this occasion, the organisers honoured 60 outstanding Vietnamese entrepreneurs in 2022. On behalf of the business community, the organisers also presented 16 houses to residents in Ky Son District, the central province of Nghe An, who were affected by the recent floods, and 212 other houses to poor households nationwide. TOP10 Most Outstanding Entrepreneurs in Viet Nam in 2022 1. Mr Le Manh Hung, General Director of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group 2. Mr Tran Ba Duong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Truong Hai Auto Corporation 3. Major General Nguyen Quoc Dung, Commander of the 11th Army Corps, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Thanh An Corporation, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Corporation 789 4. Mr Vu Van Tien, Chairman of the Board of Directors cum General Director of GELEXIMCO Group 5. Ms Thai Huong, Chairman of the Strategic Council of TH Group 6. Ms Nguyen Thi Nga, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BRG Group 7. Mr Pham Dinh Doan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phu Thai Group Joint Stock Company 8. Mr Huynh Van Thon, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Loc Troi Group Joint Stock Company 9. Mr Nguyen Trung Chinh, Chairman of the Board of Directors cum Executive Chairman of CMC Corporation 10. Mr Ly Ngoc Minh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Minh Long I Co Ltd Tax cuts proposed to support businesses rocked by pandemic The Tax Policy Department under the Ministry of Finance is drafting a proposal on tax reduction to support individuals and businesses affected by the COVID-19. Various policies designed to support COVID-19-hit businesses, labourers Various policies issued by the Government, ministries, sectors and localities last week with an aim to supporting businesses and labourers affected by COVID-19. Government must carefully manage financial support for businesses: experts The Government needs to carefully monitor and outline economic stimulus packages to assist businesses affected by the pandemic to quickly recover the national economy, according to experts. Two housing developments aiming to serve low-income renters got the backing of the Waco Housing Authority and Waco Public Facility Corp. boards Thursday, and officials hope more are on the way. The boards unanimously approved deals allowing public subsidies for the Reserve at 4th Street, a 240-unit development with 36 income-limited units, and Gholson Street Housing, an 84-unit complex that will give preference to military veterans. At the meeting, Waco Housing Authority President and CEO Milet Hopping said she hopes Greater Waco gets 2,000 more low-income units by her retirement in a little more than three years. Gholson Street Housing would arise at the southwest corner of Gholson Road and Herring Avenue, near the Waco Housing Authoritys Estella Maxey Place apartments. Developer Brennen Campbell owns 35 acres there and has agreed to sell 10 acres for the project, Hopping said. She said North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Atlantic Development sought a deal that will exempt the project from property taxes and allow the sale of federal tax credits to investors. The Waco Public Facility Corp. board, whose members also serve as the Waco Housing Authority board, approved local participation. Hopping said residents could expect to pay $700 to $800 a month if their income falls between 30% and 80% percent of the $74,200 family median income locally. Income limits vary with the number of people in a household. She said residents whose income falls closer to 30% of the median may receive vouchers for their rent. The Gholson Street complex is meant to be a place to heal, and will include a workout area, space where doctors and nurses may conduct interviews, counseling rooms, and perhaps areas to provide financial guidance, Hopping said. Each unit will have a separate bedroom, living area, kitchen and bathroom. A groundbreaking is expected in early 2024 if all goes well, she said. The Reserve at 4th potentially will rise at South Fourth Street and Boyd Lane, near Gurley Park. Denver-based Pivotal Developers proposes to build 240 apartment units. It will designate 36 units for occupancy by residents whose income falls between 60% and 80% of the local median. Hopping said The 36 will become eligible for project based vouchers, meaning vouchers are assigned to the property, not individuals, and rent is determined by income. Other units would be priced closer to market rates, though lower rates remain a possibility in some circumstances, Hopping said. Pivotal asked the Waco Public Facility Corp. to issue bonds on its behalf, allowing the bonds to be tax-free, and to clear the way for federal tax credits to sell to investors, she said. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs must examine and approve the transactions before they move forward. I think Waco has become a building hotspot, Hopping said of activity involving builders of low-income housing. People are aware of our need for housing at all income levels. She said the timetable for building The Reserve at 4th Street should mirror that of Gholson Street Housing, with a groundbreaking in early 2024. In August of this year, the residents of Nassau County woke up to find ominous flyers outside of their homes. They were aimed at Long Islands Jewish community. Every single aspect of the media is Jewish, it blared across the top. Every single aspect of gun control is Jewish, it continued. This is a PSA about a Jewish Mafia that has hijacked our country! The fliers, according to authorities, were likely distributed by the antisemitic, white nationalist hate group Goyim Defense League. That group was also thought to be behind the distribution of flyers earlier this year in Colleyville in North Texas, the same town where a gunman had taken Jews hostage at a synagogue a month before. Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish, read one part. Black lives murder white children, read another. Grotesque stories of antisemitic harassment all over the country abound. These stories are accompanied by an appalling rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes including in New York City, where August 2022 saw 24 such crimes, more than double the number in August 2021. So when Kanye West, a rapper, fashion designer, publicity stunt artist, a Trump supporter once attached to the Kardashians, the biggest celebrity family on the planet, tweets out patently antisemitic tropes, it doesnt happen in a vacuum. Im going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE, he promised in the tweet, claiming, You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda. That followed a screenshot of a message where he implied that Sean Diddy Combs was controlled by Jews. Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me. That West may well be mentally ill, as has been reported and he once admitted, is no excuse for what is also obvious that hes infected with the cancer of antisemitism. And yet, he continues to be defended and exploited by right-wing pundits and politicians simply because he supports Trump and occasionally says things that are adjacent to their agenda. Tucker Carlson on Fox and Candace Owens on The Daily Wire have both defended and platformed West, with the latter blithely shrugging off his rank antisemitism because, well, it isnt like its the beginning of a Holocaust. Its like you cannot even say the word Jewish without people getting upset, Owens complained. White nationalist personalities on Infowars, the neo-Nazi blog The Daily Stormer, Telegram, Gab and elsewhere are also defending West. Meanwhile, on the same weekend as Kanyes tweets, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville wowed the crowd at a Trump rally in Nevada with a racist riff that would have made Bull Connor proud. Of the pro-crime Democrats he said, They want crime because they want to take over what you got. Then, They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bull----! They are not owed that. Equating African Americans with criminality isnt new and Democrats have done their part of such dirty business over the years. But its nothing any political party should embrace. Yet Tubervilles audience broke out in exhilarated applause. Not to be outdone, down in Georgia Republicans are lining up behind the scandal-ridden hypocrite to end all hypocrites, Herschel Walker, whos running for Senate as a family values, anti-abortion candidate. Despite allegations that he asked the mother of one of his children to terminate that pregnancy and one other and reportedly paid for her abortion evangelical leaders like Ralph Reed and Tony Perkins, as well as Republican senators like Rick Scott and Tom Cotton, are defending Walker, and so are his voters. Im old enough to remember when we were embarrassed by bad behavior, or at least pretended to be, and even occasionally found it disqualifying in public office. Now, thanks in part to Trump and the odious bargain Republicans made with him to overlook his considerable flaws, important things like immorality, hypocrisy and dishonesty are swatted away like flies at a picnic, insignificant nuisances not even worth getting up for. And I remember when we were ashamed of the darkest hours in our nations history, the ones in which racism, bigotry, and antisemitism either flourished or were casually ignored. To see this scourge of hate not only reemerge but be cheerfully and cravenly repackaged as patriotism and conservatism, or a rejection of groupthink and wokeism, is deeply disturbing. Whether its Walkers hypocrisy, Tubervilles racism, or Kanyes anti-Semitism, the rights morbid embrace of these malignant characters reveals at best an appalling new nadir of moral relativism and at worst a chilling indifference toward the lessons of history lessons no one should want to repeat. IOWA CITY Like the number and percentage of American high school graduates taking the ACT as more colleges and universities make standardized test scores optional in their admission process the national average ACT composite score has been dropping, reaching its lowest point in more than 30 years, the Iowa-City-based company announced Wednesday. For 2022 high school graduates nationally, the average ACT composite score was 19.8 marking the first time since 1991 the average has dipped below 20, according to new data from ACT, which administers the college readiness exam. Although the University of Iowa for example this fall boasted about its most "academically accomplished" freshman class ever, it mentioned only the group's average GPA of 3.82 not its ACT scores, as far fewer applicants have been submitting standardized test scores in recent years. That downward trend in test taking began pre-pandemic and accelerated during the pandemic when the UI like others waived test scores as an application requirement. Earlier this year, the UI made test scores an optional part of the application process permanently. Where 4,782 UI students submitted ACT scores for fall 2017, or about 95 percent of the freshmen class, that tally dropped to 3,919 in fall 2020, or about 87 percent, and then 2,944 in fall 2021, or about 65 percent, according to the most recent data available. Nationally, about 1.3 million U.S. high school graduates in 2022 took the ACT, or about 36 percent. About 1.9 million did so in 2015, or about 59 percent of the national graduating class, according to ACT data. Among those 2022 high school graduates who took the test, only 22 percent met all four of ACT's college readiness benchmarks in the subjects of reading, math, English and science considered the minimum ACT scores students need to have a higher probability of success in first-year college courses. That 22 percent this fall was down from 25 percent in 2021. About 42 percent of the 2022 students met none of the benchmarks, up from 38 percent in 2021. "This is the fifth consecutive year of declines in average scores, a worrisome trend that began long before the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has persisted," ACT Chief Executive Officer Janet Godwin said in a statement. "The magnitude of the declines this year is particularly alarming, as we see rapidly growing numbers of seniors leaving high school without meeting the college-readiness benchmark in any of the subjects we measure. "These declines are not simply a byproduct of the pandemic," she said. "They are further evidence of longtime systemic failures that were exacerbated by the pandemic. A return to the pre-pandemic status quo would be insufficient and a disservice to students and educators." The new data shows average English scores dipped 0.6 percentage points from 19.6 to 19.0 from 2021 to 2022; average math scores saw the same drop of 0.6 points from 19.9 to 19.3; average reading scores fell a half percentage point from 20.9 to 20.4; and average science scores also dropped 0.5 points from 20.4 to 19.9. The declines, according to ACT, have "returned student achievement to levels last observed in the early 1990s." The new ACT research breaks out data by state, showing 49 percent of Iowa's 2022 graduates took the ACT placing it 23rd in the nation, with 100 percent of graduates testing in states including Alabama and Louisiana and under 5 percent testing in California and Maine. Iowa's average composite score of 21.4 was second highest among the 25 states that saw the highest testing rates. But that was down from 22.1 a decade ago. The percent of Iowa's ACT-tested graduates who met all four benchmarks fell to 28 percent this year down from 32 percent a decade ago. Iowa saw its weakest performance in math and science, with 40 percent and 43 percent meeting those benchmarks, respectively. About 65 percent of Iowa's 2022 graduates met the English benchmark, its strongest performance but still down from 76 percent in 2013. SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa A man charged with fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend outside her Milford, Iowa, workplace has been found mentally competent to stand trial for murder. A judge also has granted a defense request to move the trial from Dickinson County in order to find a more impartial pool of jurors to hear the case. Christian Goyne-Yarns, 25, of Jackson, Minnesota, has pleaded not guilty of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Shelby Woizeschke in February. His case had been suspended since late July, when District Judge Carl Petersen granted a defense request for a psychiatric evaluation of Goyne-Yarns, who, his lawyers said, was unable to assist in his own defense. Goyne-Yarns was evaluated by a psychiatrist at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Oakdale. Petersen received a report from the psychiatrist, and at an Oct. 5 hearing in Dickinson County District Court, Goyne-Yarns' attorneys did not seek a second evaluation and withdrew their motion to suspend proceedings in the case. Petersen then granted a defense request for a change of venue, ordering the Dec. 6 trial to take place at the Buena Vista County Courthouse in Storm Lake. Defense attorneys Brendan Kelly and Cassi Wigington had argued that because of media coverage and publicity surrounding the shooting and subsequent hearings, it would not be possible to find an impartial jury in Dickinson County. Petersen agreed with their arguments, saying in his ruling "... that the events of this case and the pretrial publicity have permeated the consciousness of the citizens of Dickinson County to such a level that prejudice may be presumed." Goyne-Yarns is charged with shooting Woizeschke on Feb. 3 in the parking lot at GrapeTree Medical Staffing in Milford as she arrived for work. According to court documents, she was shot at least twice and was able to call 911 and identify Goyne-Yarns as the shooter. He was arrested about an hour and a half later. Woizeschke, 24, of Spencer, Iowa, died in a Sioux Falls hospital Feb. 6. She had two young sons from a previous relationship with Goyne-Yarns. If found guilty as charged, Goyne-Yarns would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. DES MOINES Up to $96 million in business capital, including loans, will be made available to Iowa start-ups and small and veteran-owned businesses under a state plan approved this week by the federal treasury department. The funding is being made available through the federal State Small Business Credit Initiative, a program that was created in 2010 and renewed and expanded in the latest federal pandemic relief package, the American Rescue Plan. "This is an historic investment in entrepreneurship, small business growth, and innovation through the American Rescue Plan that will help reduce barriers to capital access for traditionally underserved communities," U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement. "I'm excited to see how these SSBCI funds will promote equitable economic growth across the country." Iowa's plan was submitted by the state's economic development department. According to the department, the plan calls for: $31 million to a venture capital co-investment fund "to process and hold equity investments in private companies and ensure investments are qualified." $28 million for a manufacturing loan program "to help Iowa manufacturers invest in the new technologies that are transforming the industry." $22 million for a venture capital innovation fund "to increase funding opportunities across the state's assistance programs for entrepreneurs." $15 million for a small business collateral support program "to help small businesses offset collateral shortfalls as they secure loans through commercial lenders." "Small businesses and entrepreneurs dream big, drive Iowa's economy and make our communities better places to live," Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement. Reynolds at the time of its passage opposed the federal pandemic relief package. "Iowa had the fastest economic recovery through the pandemic in large part because of the creativity and resilience of our small businesses," Reynolds said in her statement. "This funding will build on the momentum by investing in our small businesses and entrepreneurs just as they have chosen to invest in Iowa." The White House said the programs are designed to help Iowa retain high-potential startup businesses that might otherwise relocate to areas with greater access to capital, and could have an impact on rural manufacturers. "Iowa's small businesses have faced some of the biggest economic challenges of the last few years, but they also have some of the greatest success stories and we've seen a record-breaking surge in new businesses for two years in a row," Debi Durham, executive director of the Iowa Economic Development Agency and the Iowa Finance Authority, said in a statement. "Our team looks forward to working with our small business and innovation partners to bring these new efforts to life." The state said a process for applying for the business capital and loans still is underway and more information would be provided at iowaeda.com/ssbci. In 2021, Americans applied to start 5.4 million new businesses, which was 20 percent more than any other year on record; and small businesses with fewer than 50 workers created 2.8 million jobs, the highest number recorded in a single year, according to the White House. DES MOINES Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mike Franken said a Senate leader needs to have a global perspective and steel jaws to navigate international conflict and foreign policy. Franken, who was in the Navy for nearly 40 years before running for Senate and rose to the rank of vice admiral, pitched himself as a clear-eyed leader who can assess global threats such as the war in Ukraine, thinking long-term about big problems. Franken is seeking election to the U.S. Senate in Iowa against Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley, who is seeking his eighth term in the office. Speaking to the Des Moines Rotary Club on Thursday, Franken said the war in Ukraine may lead to higher prices and food scarcity in places like Africa and Asia, and the U.S. needs to remain a leader on the world stage to deal with the potential fallout. This is why we must rebalance the scales. This is why we must act as leaders and intercept the problems early, he said. Failure to do so will lead to global unrest. In a recent U.S. Senate debate, Franken suggested sending U.S. aid workers into Ukraine in the event of a nuclear attack, saying some would be unarmed military members. He did not suggest Thursday sending American military members to Ukraine, but said aid to the country has been helpful but not pivotal. Still, he expects the war in Ukraine to go on a long time, as Russian President Vladimir Putin can withstand internal turmoil in Russia while sustaining the war. I believe Ukraine will turn into more of a dystopian wasteland, and Im not a downer Debbie here, he said, just a realist. Franken suggested a cautious approach to foreign policy, stressing pragmatism against foreign aggression. I believe in fighting for country, and I believe for everyone who throws a punch, there should be 10 of us, peacemakers, looking to make amends, he said. Franken didnt mention Grassley by name in his remarks, but he suggested he was a professional politician who does not have the experience in foreign policy to handle the challenges Franken presented. In a press release Thursday, the Grassley campaign pointed to Frankens debate comments and said his position on sending military personnel to Ukraine is extreme. In the debate Oct. 6, Grassley said sending soldiers abroad without weapons would be dangerous. He said he supports continuing to send aid to Ukraine. He said if Russia crosses into NATO-allied territories the American military would have to step in, but he doesnt support sending troops to Ukraine. I hope that the American people will be patient to understand that helping Ukraine now will save us a lot of money later on if Putin is stopped right now, Grassley said. Russian General Surovikin says: We target everyone, anywhere in their controlled territories until the final withdrawal and surrender. We hit critical infrastructure in all cities, including Kiev, bridges, military barracks, foreign mercenary posts, absolutely everything. Our soldiers did not deserve to die in the fight of urban guerrillas because of the simple fact that NATO wants it. Code8 Beauty launches campaign starring ambassador Alexa Chung By Nigel TAYLOR Published Oct 14, 2022 Luxury beauty brand Code8 is launching its latest campaign The London , featuring the brands global brand ambassador . Code8 The British model and presenter will front the new campaign to showcase the brands ongoing commitment to delivering a simplified take on the modern make-up regime. The new campaign playfully tells a story of a day-in-the-life of Alexa Chung, including all the many twists and turns of on-the-go living. Through flash photography, Code8 has created high-energy visuals, each sharing an instant and authentic in the moment narrative. The campaign theme builds on the brand philosophy of creating an effortless yet beautifully polished aesthetic through a curated edit of make-up essentials that can take your look from everyday to elevated in just a few steps. From a natural and off-duty look shot at home, to experimenting with vintage fashion in Notting Hill, the campaign concludes with a bolder, more daring look for a spontaneous fencing lesson: very carpe diem chic. Code8 co-founders Sophia Chikovani and Nadine Ayache said: "Alexa is the effortless and dynamic contemporary muse that perfectly matches Code8s beauty ethos, where make-up and ones self should not be defined by any one 'code' and aspiring to reach your infinite potential is embraced. Alexa captures the essence of what it means to be a Code8 woman in this spirited and elevated campaign. Chung added: "Code8's values align with mine in terms of an approach to beauty. I feel a bit overwhelmed by products a lot of the time. Make-up for me is about accentuating and enhancing your features rather than masking or reinventing them. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Las Vegas police say a veteran patrol officer is dead after being shot during an exchange of gunfire with a man who was later arrested Getty Images The spice company McCormick & Company introduced its Pumpkin Pie Spice nearly 90 years ago to give bakers a flavorful boost when making their pumpkin pies. Through the years, the popular blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice has expanded far beyond dessert to all things food and drink, including beer, cereal and even Spam. But most pumpkin spice aficionados will point to the 2003 Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (or PSL for the truly enamored) as the treat that turned the flavor profile into a bona fide obsession. To wit, a spokesperson for Starbucks told us the PSL is the companys most popular seasonal beverage of all time, selling more than 600 million in the U.S. since the launch. The PSL may have sparked a cultural phenomenon, but the demand for all pumpkin-spice-flavored and pumpkin-spice-scented items continues to grow. One report found that pumpkin spice product sales have increased about 47 percent over the past five years, and according to data from the analytics company NielsenIQ, U.S. sales for pumpkin-spice-flavored grocery items reached a record $236 million at the end of July 2022. For fun ways to enjoy the pumpkin spice season, check out the following events and destinations across the country. Temperature monitoring implemented to reduce loss of grain in N China's Tianjin Xinhua) 08:39, October 14, 2022 A staff worker inspects the warehouse at Dongli branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) Wheat is transported to the warehouse by conveyor belt at Dagang branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) A staff worker conducts heavy metal content test in grain at Dagang branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) A staff worker conducts grain moisture content test at Dagang branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) A staff worker adjusts temperature of the warehouse at Dongli branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) Aerial photo shows trucks loaded with grain at Dagang branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) A staff worker inspects the warehouse at Dongli branch of Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin, Oct. 12, 2022. Affiliated to China Grain Reserves Group (Sinograin), Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. mainly stores wheat and corn with a total storage capacity of about 500,000 tons, which is the largest central grain reserve depot in Tianjin. In recent years, Central Grain Reserve Tianjin Dongli Direct Warehouse Co., Ltd. has implemented 24-hour temperature monitoring in the warehouse to reduce the loss of grain caused by the change of temperature. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Hongyu) Principal Paula Miller on a recent day visits with kindergarteners before they get to technology class at Hubert Humphrey Elementary School to work on skills they practiced. School leadership attributes a big part of the success of Humphrey students to their proficiency in technology, thanks to tech teacher Carol Garcia. (Chancey Bush/Albuquerque Journal) Albuquerque Institute for Mathematics and Science ninth-graders Aislin Barreiro, center, and Cameron Wingenbach study during biology class. AIMS students excelled on standardized assessments this spring. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Third-graders, from left, Kylan Purdue, Katrina Tran and Evelyn Buckley work on a Mystery Math activity at Hubert Humphrey Elementary School in Albuquerque in late September. The activity, according to some third-graders, makes math much more interesting. (Chancey Bush/Albuquerque Journal) Albuquerque Institute for Mathematics and Science freshmen Anirudh Nanda, left, and Philip Marquardt, right, study during biology class on Wednesday. AIMS students excelled on standardized assessments this spring, and their director says that stems from their ambition. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Kindergarteners hop on computers at Hubert Humphrey Elementary School. School leadership attributes a big part of the success of Humphrey students to their proficiency in technology even before the pandemic. (Chancey Bush/Albuquerque Journal) Prev 1 of 5 Next Learning is second nature to Aimee Linebarger. A junior at the Albuquerque Institute for Mathematics and Science, or AIMS, Linebarger was one of a few students at the school who got perfect scores on her calculus and language arts Advanced Placement tests. For her, school is something she cant get enough of. I like learning, and so I dont see it as things to do, the 17-year-old said. I just always try to do my best on everything. The testing data released by the state Public Education Department at the beginning of September was undoubtedly stark after all, it represented the first relatively complete set of scores of the COVID-19 pandemic. But there were still schools in New Mexico and students, like Linebarger which pulled off strong showings coming out of the pandemic. AIMS, a charter school affiliated with the University of New Mexico, is one such school. According to test results provided by the school for six- through eighth- and 11th-graders, a little more than 90% of AIMS students were proficient in math and over 91% were proficient in language arts. Statewide, an average of just over 23% of students in those grade levels were proficient in math and about 33% were proficient in language arts. AIMS Director Kathy Sandoval-Snider said the schools test scores have a lot to do with the drive of its students. It takes work hard work and determination to continue to increase and improve, she said. Those kids are ambitious. AIMS, which has roughly 350 total students from sixth to 12th grade, provides a rigorous education, which includes requiring students to take AP tests. But that doesnt mean some students dont struggle. For them, the school requires after-school tutoring thats overseen by teachers, but performed by older students. Daniel Cruz, a senior at AIMS, is one of those tutors. As a peer, he said hes in a unique position to help younger students with their assignments. I feel like I can bring a new perspective just by having worked on the homework assignments, he said. Ive had different strategies and explored different ideas than someone who had taught the material, but not necessarily worked on the material. Overall, AIMS has an environment that fosters collaboration among students on their studies, said Isaac Yang, a 16-year-old senior who also scored perfectly on his AP tests and is a National Merit Scholar semifinalist. Theres sort of an environment here where you dont feel pressured to do well, you just do well naturally, he said. Because its a small school you feel comfortable going to other people for help, or helping other people. And that just helps you to learn. Hubert Humphrey Another school that excelled in this springs assessments was Hubert Humphrey Elementary School. According to Albuquerque Public Schools results data, over 70% of Humphrey third- through fifth-graders were proficient in language arts and almost 67% were proficient in math. Across New Mexico, a bit over 34% were proficient in language arts and 26% were proficient in math. Helping students do their best is about understanding both where they come from and assessing where theyre at, Humphrey Principal Paula Miller said. All students do better you just have to understand what your community is, she said. Every child is different. And you need to be able to understand every childs nature, you need to know how to read them, you need to understand where their strengths (are). For third grader Blake Ferguson, its all about finding something that makes otherwise drab subjects more fun. Her teacher, Lori Armijo, seemed to have found a sweet spot in worksheets that asked students to solve math problems to reveal clues about an unidentified suspect stealing the dreams of the residents of Mathhattan in other words, Mystery Math. (Were) math detectives, according to the worksheet, Ferguson said. Humphrey is also on top of figuring out which students are in need of help, Miller said. Teachers collaborate every week and closely follow data they have on their students. In addition to the interim assessments that all schools participate in, Miller said Humphrey conducts short-cycle, classroom-based tests to better understand the curriculum that struggling students need. That can also include such intervention strategies as Fundations, she said, which helps students learn the basic building blocks of reading how a letter works, words that are used often and other comprehension strategies. That type of work, Armijo said, helps students across every grade level. Yet another part of Humphreys success, Miller said, is having had a technology teacher prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being more versed in such things as Google apps and typing hugely helped the transition to online learning during the pandemic for students and educators, technology teacher Carol Garcia said. It was pretty amazing to watch it happen, she said. Her work in improving students technological literacy has continued even after the pandemic. On a Friday afternoon, for example, she taught a riveted group of kindergarteners several essential skills for using a computer, including how to properly work mouse pads and keyboards. Keys to success Both AIMS and Humphrey students appear to have advantages at home, as well. According to PED data from near the beginning of the past school year, only about 7% of AIMS students were considered economically disadvantaged. At Humphrey, it was about 10% of students. But Miller said that thats not always the deciding factor in a students success. Ive always seen parents come through for their children, regardless of what their poverty status is, in one way or another, she said. Everyone agreed about one thing: teachers represent the cornerstones of student success. They are the crucial part, Miller said. If (students) believe that their teacher wants them to do their best, and knows they can do their best, and is helping them to do their best every child will succeed. Armijo shifted the credit a bit. She said that, while she holds high expectations for her students, they oftentimes help each other, with students who are a bit more proficient in certain subjects offering help to those who may be struggling a bit. I let them know that theyre all capable, each one of them, to succeed at their level, no matter what level theyre at, she said. When they do need one-on-one help, its not just coming from me, its coming from their peers. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal Santa Fes historic Plaza was the scene of a violent clash between police and protesters in 2020 when Native American activists and their allies used cargo straps and chains to pull down a controversial obelisk. One of the men arrested that day filed a lawsuit this week against the city of Santa Fe alleging that police illegally arrested and assaulted him during a lawful protest at the Plaza on Indigenous Peoples Day. Dylan Wrobel, 29, alleges in the suit that Santa Fe police shoved him to the pavement, giving him a concussion. Police also cuffed and pepper sprayed Wrobel in his nose and mouth, holding the spray just inches from his face. This is not how people attending public events should be treated, said Eric Sirotkin, Wrobels attorney. Wrobel was there for Indigenous Peoples Day and to see what was going on. Wrobel was charged on Oct. 12, 2020, with battery on a peace officer, resisting arrest and criminal trespass. Prosecutors dropped the charges on Feb. 23 after Wrobel completed a restorative justice initiative for first-time nonviolent offenders, court records show. The 1st Judicial District Court lawsuit identifies as defendants the city of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Police Department, Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, former Santa Fe Police Chief Andrew Padilla and several police officers. City of Santa Fe spokesman Dave Herndon, and Deputy Chief of Police Ben Valdez, both said in emails on Thursday that the city does not comment on threatened or pending litigation. Native American activists and their allies pulled down the obelisk, known as the Soldiers Monument, which had stood in the Plaza for more than 150 years. Opponents called the monument a symbol of oppression against Native Americans. Sirotkin said the behavior of police officers that day inflamed the crowd and led to the toppling of the obelisk. I have yet to figure out the exact motivation of the officers, he said. Their total abusiveness and unprofessionalism contributed to the anger level in the crowd. Eight people were arrested on criminal charges in the incident. Wrobel was one of seven who chose to participate in the restorative justice initiative. The eighth was given a deferred sentence after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor vandalism offense. Police were indiscriminately grabbing, pushing, and shoving protestors to the ground and tackling them and engaging in provoking behavior, the suit alleges. The suit seeks unspecified damages, alleging police violated the constitutional rights of people protesting in a public place. It also alleges police used excessive force and falsely arrested Wrobel, and that the city failed to properly train police to use pepper spray or handle large crowds. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal Police have arrested the alleged getaway driver and charged two others in a 2021 robbery turned homicide that played out in a room at a motel in Northeast Albuquerque. Genea Oliver, 34, is charged with an open count of murder, armed robbery and conspiracy in the April 2, 2021, death of 33-year-old Rony Carrera-Flores. She was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center early Thursday morning. The alleged shooter, Christopher Maldonado, 35, and his girlfriend Monique Montano, 32, are facing similar charges and a warrant has been issued for the pairs arrest. Olivers criminal history includes drug-related charges. It is unclear if she has an attorney. Maldonado and Montano were stopped in a stolen vehicle in May, according to court records, and Maldonado was arrested but the case was dropped by prosecutors when they couldnt locate the vehicle owner. Montano is currently awaiting trial in a 2020 case where she and Maldonado allegedly broke into a storage unit, according to court records, but the same case against Maldonado was dropped in April when the officer failed to show up. The 2021 homicide happened in the early hours of April 2, 2021. Officers responded around 6:30 a.m. to the Travelodge motel near Interstate 40 and Juan Tabo and found Carrera-Flores shot to death inside a room, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. A woman staying in the same room told police a woman had knocked on the door asking to use a phone. Police said she told them the woman was acting strange before a man with a gun walked in and robbed Carrera-Flores before shooting him in the head. Multiple witnesses told police the pair left in a white sedan driven by another woman. A man staying at the motel told police the pair who robbed Carrera-Flores were named Christopher and Monique and the driver was Genea, according to the complaint. He said Christopher told him he was going to rob Carrera-Flores hours beforehand and he saw Christopher outside the room after the shooting. Police said that man was found dead several months later in a gas station bathroom, surrounded by drug paraphernalia and blue tablets, in Northwest Albuquerque. Police used the names he gave as well as cellphone data to identify the trio as Maldonado, Montano and Oliver. Two witnesses picked Maldonado and Montano out of a photo array as the shooter and the woman who asked to use the phone before the incident, according to the complaint. Police interviewed Oliver and she denied having anything to do with the robbery and told police she was at home with her children. Police said when detectives questioned her further Oliver requested an attorney. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal A truck driver from Michigan has been accused of setting ablaze nine semitractor-trailers around New Mexico among dozens across eight states in an apparent cross-country revenge scheme aimed at his former employer. Viorel Pricop, 64, is charged in federal court with arson of property in interstate commerce in connection with 25 fires set to Swift Transportation semis between June 2020 and Sept. 14. He was arrested Tuesday in Michigan on an arrest warrant issued out of California for one of the fires set in San Bernadino County. Federal authorities used cellphone data to place Pricop in the general area of at least 22 of the 25 fires set from Arkansas to California, according to court records. Agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also found video of at least five of the fires on his cellphones. ATF agents believe Pricop was motivated by a past criminal case against him in which, according to court records, Swift cooperated in investigating and prosecuting. Court records show Pricop was released from federal prison in 2018 after serving more than two years for stealing hundreds of thousands in stereo systems and other goods while working as a semi driver for Swift. During the yearslong arson spree, Pricop was reportedly driving a semi for Michigan-based Blue Stars Inc. and other companies. His former employer, Swift, told authorities the fires cost the company nearly $2 million in damages. Daniel Dena, Pricops attorney, declined to comment. Swift Transportation could not be reached for comment Thursday. According to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court: The investigation began in January 2022 when the New Mexico State Fire Marshal contacted the ATF about several trucks being set on fire around the state. The first was June 22, 2020, when a semi was set on fire at the TA Travel Center in Santa Rosa. Agents said a very limited investigation was done by local law enforcement, which suspected a mechanical malfunction. Between then and February 2022, nine trucks were set on fire in similar fashion at rest stops around the state. In almost every incident, the driver was asleep in the cab at the time and, in two incidents, two trucks were lit at the same time. Many early incidents were dismissed as possible mechanical issue without much investigation. After numerous semi fires, Swift became suspicious and hired fire investigation consultants. ATF got involved after the 15th incident on Jan. 14, when a truck was set ablaze in Pearsall, Texas. Investigators found the fire was set using a cloth and flammable liquid near the rear tires, similar to the other cases. A cell tower search discovered the same phone at the scene of 10 of the incidents and in late March agents tracked it to Pricop, who was driving a maroon semi cross-country. After six months of no incidents, two fires were set on Sept. 14 in California, and agents discovered Pricops cellphone was in the area at the time. On Sept. 16, agents searched Pricops semi near Jamestown, New Mexico, and found rags with suspected odor of an ignitable liquid, an ignitable liquid, a gas torch and lighters. Pricop told agents he didnt start any of the fires but has seen one of them burning and had video of at least one on his phone. Pricop said he heard Swift was a bad company and too big to hurt, stating you cannot hurt Swift. He was allowed to leave after the interview. Agents found videos of five of the semi fires on Pricops phones in which he can be heard commenting on them. Editors note: The Journal continues its series of stories focusing on key races in this years general election. SANTA FE Since taking office in 2019, Stephanie Garcia Richard has overseen record-setting revenue flows into the State Land Office, driven primarily by a surge in oil production in southeast New Mexico. Specifically, the annual earnings recorded by the office that oversees more than 9 million acres of state trust land plus 13 million subsurface acres has jumped from roughly $1.1 billion during the 2019 budget year to $2.4 billion in the just-ended fiscal year. I remember when I came in four years ago and the doomsdayers were like, Shes going to kill everything,' Garcia Richard said. Not only did we prove them wrong but we made the most of any land commissioner before us. But the Democratic land commissioner, whos running against Republican Jefferson Byrd for reelection to a second four-year term, says she isnt afraid to take drastic steps in order to achieve her policy goals. In response to a Journal questionnaire, Garcia Richard said she would support a temporary moratorium on fracking permits for the oil industry on state trust land as a way to force the Legislature to boost New Mexico royalty rates to match Texas rates, an idea that has stalled in recent sessions at the Roundhouse. Were not going to let up on that because its more money for the trust, she said in an interview. Were leaving billions of dollars on the table. Byrd, her general election opponent, has his own ideas about royalty rates on oil and natural gas produced from state minerals, saying they should be allowed to fluctuate instead of being set at predetermined levels. It needs to be more of a fluid rate that adjusts as the market adjusts, said Byrd, a Public Regulation Commission member who ran twice unsuccessfully for the northern New Mexico-based 3rd Congressional District. He also said his background as a rancher in the eastern New Mexico area and environmental engineer makes him more qualified to lead the State Land Office than Garcia Richard, a former schoolteacher who served three terms in the state House before being elected to statewide office in 2018. Being a teacher doesnt qualify you to determine how these businesses operate, Byrd told the Journal, saying some business executives, ranchers and oil and gas officials have expressed frustration about their recent dealings with the State Land Office. He also cast doubt on Garcia Richards credentials as an outdoorswoman, saying, I dont even know if she hunts I dont think she does. But Garcia Richard said the State Land Office has streamlined some core functions since she took office in 2019, such as reducing the average turnaround time to process applications for right-of-ways on state trust land from 90 to 60 days. She also said her background motivates her to maximize revenue collected by the State Land Office, as much of the money flows into a state permanent fund that helps fund public schools and other beneficiaries. I think a schoolteacher has a unique perspective on what those dollars mean, said Garcia Richard, who cited Byrds past comments calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be abolished. While oil and natural gas still make up more than 80% of all State Land Office revenue, Garcia Richard has pushed to increase renewable energy leases on state trust land and this year signed off on leases with Pattern Energy for a massive wind project in east central New Mexico. Meanwhile, Byrd said he also supports wind and other energy sources, and indicated he would hold oil and gas operators accountable for any environmental damage while simultaneously easing some drilling regulations. My whole life has been managing land, he said. Unlike some other statewide offices, the State Land Office has been held by both Democrats and Republicans in recent years. The last three land commissioners before Garcia Richard was elected were Republican Pat Lyons, Democrat Ray Powell and Aubrey Dunn, who was elected in 2014 as a Republican but later changed his party affiliation to Libertarian. Garcia Richard has significantly outraised Byrd in the race, having reported more than $402,000 in campaign contributions compared to about $46,600 in donations for Byrd. Among other contributors, Garcia Richard has received donations from Ray Powell, Bay Area climate change activist Michael Kieschnick and several Democratic lawmakers. For his part, Byrd has gotten contributions from several individuals involved in the oil and natural gas industries, including retired Xcel Energy President David Hudson. He also loaned $10,000 to his own campaign in April. NECOCLI, Colombia Venezuelan Gilbert Fernandez still plans to cross the dangerous Darien jungle into Panama and head toward the United States over land, despite a U.S. announcement that it will grant conditional humanitarian permits only to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants arriving by air. The news hit us like a bucket of cold water, Fernandez said Thursday, a day after the announcement, which also stated that Venezuelans arriving by land at the Mexico-U.S. border would be returned to Mexico. Fernandez spoke to The Associated Press on a beach in Necocli, a Colombian town where about 9,000 people, mostly Venezuelans, waited to board a boat to take them to the entrance of the Darien Gap connecting the South American country to Panama. From there, migrants head by land up Central America through Mexico toward the U.S. Some on the Colombian beach said they would seek other routes into the United States or give up the voyage after hearing the news. Critics noted that the announced number of humanitarian visas is just a fraction of the number of Venezuelans seeking to enter the United States. But for Fernandez it was too late to turn back. He said he sold his car and his land in Venezuela to finance the trip with his 18-year-old son and his friends, and he no longer has money for a plane ticket to the U.S. Those of us who have already started, how are we going to do that? he wondered. We are already involved in this. The U.S. and Mexico said Wednesday that the Biden administration agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports while Mexico agreed to take back Venezuelans who come to the U.S. over land. Venezuelans who walk or swim across the border will be immediately returned to Mexico under a pandemic rule known as Title 42 authority, which suspends rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The U.S. offer to the Venezuelans is modeled on a similar program for Ukrainians who fled Russias invasion. The moves are a response to a dramatic increase in migration from Venezuela, which surpassed Guatemala and Honduras in August to become the second largest nationality arriving at the U.S. border after Mexico. So far in 2022, more than 151,000 people have crossed into Panama through the jungle, the majority 107,600 Venezuelans. That already exceeds the 133,000 people who crossed in the previous year, according to official Panamanian figures. The trip through the inhospitable jungle is fraught with dangers, including thieves, human traffickers and the possibility of sexual assault. Armed groups operate in the region. Arrests of Venezuelans at the U.S. border also have increased. Authorities detained Venezuelans 25,349 times in August, making them the second most detained nationality at the border, after Mexicans. For some, the offer of 24,000 humanitarian visas is not enough given the dimensions of Venezuelas migration situation, and many consider the conditions on those visas too difficult. Maria Clara Robayo, an investigator for the Venezuelan Observatory at Colombias Del Rosario University, said the flow of migrants through the Darien Gap might be reduced a bit but wont stop. People will continue exposing themselves to precarious situations crossing the jungle, she said. Jeremy Villegas arrived in Necocli in a group of 30 people, most of whom are turning back or looking for other routes. He said he is still undecided and is waiting to hear from people who are farther along the route to know if it is worth the risk. Cristian Casamayor said he has decided to stop his journey through the Darien after hearing of the new U.S. policy. I stopped out of awareness and being smart they mark your passport and you can no longer enter the United States, he said, adding that he has not decided where he will go now. All he knows is that he will not return to Venezuela. Mario Ricardo Camejo, a member of the nonprofit Colombian-Venezuelan foundation Fundacolven, said that while they appreciate any help and humanitarian visas from countries like the U.S., they worry the help comes with conditions that make it difficult on the poorest migrants. For example, having to arrive by plane and having a financial sponsor. Automatically, a filter is created that ensures the help does not reach the people who need it most, Camejo said. Of the more than 7.1 million Venezuelans who have left their country due to the social and economic crisis, at least 4.3 million have difficulties accessing food, housing and formal employment, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Organization for Migration and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Venezuelans back in that countrys capital agreed the new rules will hurt. The people who leave by land have no money, no visa, no family there in the United States, Jose Santana said in Caracas central plaza. It is useless for them to say that they are going to let many enter by plane. KYIV, UKRAINE Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory. Putin facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and did not set out to destroy Ukraine when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago. What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstans capital. But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, thats all. So my actions are correct and timely. Russias difficulties in achieving its war aims have become apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday. Even some of Putins own supporters have criticized the Kremlins handling of the war and mobilization, increasing pressure on him to do more to turn the tide in Russias favor. In his comments on the army mobilization, Putin said the action he ordered last month had registered 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defense Ministry set as an initial goal. A total of 33,000 of them have joined military units, and 16,000 are deployed for combat, he said. Putin ordered the call-up to bolster the fight along a 1,100-km (684-mile) front line where Ukrainian counteroffensives have inflicted blows to Moscows military prestige. The mobilization was troubled from the start, with confusion about who was eligible for the draft in a country where almost all men under age 65 are registered as reservists. Opposition to the order was so strong that tens of thousands of men left Russia, and others protested in the streets. Critics were skeptical the draft would end in two weeks. They predicted only a pause to allow enlistment offices to process regular conscripts during Russias annual fall draft for men aged 18-27, which was postponed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1. Do not believe Putin about two weeks. Mobilization can only be canceled by his decree. No decree no cancellation, Vyacheslav Gimadi, an attorney for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on Facebook. Asked about the possibility of an expanded mobilization, the Russian president said the Defense Ministry had not asked him to authorize one. Nothing further is planned, Putin said, adding, In the foreseeable future, I dont see any need. Putin and other officials stated in September the mobilization would affect some 300,000 people, but his enabling decree did not cite a specific number. Russian media reports have suggested it could be as high as 1.2 million. Putin had also said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. He later admitted military officials had made mistakes, such as enlisting reservists without the relevant background. Men who received minimal training decades ago were drafted in droves. Reports also have surfaced that some recruits were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with little preparation and inadequate equipment. Several mobilized reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, just days after they were drafted. Putin responded to the criticism Friday, saying all activated recruits should receive adequate training and that he would assign Russias Security Council to conduct an inspection of how mobilized citizens are being trained. Before launching the invasion on Feb. 24, Putin questioned Ukraines right to exist as a sovereign nation, portraying the country as part of historic Russia. Asked about this on Friday, he repeated his claim that Russia was prepared for peace talks and again accused the Ukrainian government of quitting negotiations after Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv early in the war. Ukraine rejected any possibility of negotiating with Putin after he illegally annexed Ukraines Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions last month based on referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. The battlefield momentum has shifted toward Ukraine as its military recaptures cities, towns and villages that Russia took early in the war. After occupied Khersons worried Kremlin-backed leaders asked civilians to evacuate to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability, Moscow offered free accommodations. Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases they arent allowed to travel to Ukrainian-held territory, and reports have surfaced that some were forcibly deported to filtration camps with harsh conditions. An Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions to be raised as Russian. Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 populated places in northern Kherson in the last month, according to Ukraines Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in most of the Kharkiv region returning to Ukrainian control, as well as parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said. As they retreat, Russian forces are adding to their losses by abandoning weapons and ammunition. In the U.S., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence presented a slide deck Friday stating that at least 6,000 pieces of Russian equipment have been lost since the start of the war. The presentation outlines enormous pressure on Russias defense industry to replace its losses and says that because of export controls and international sanctions, Russia is expending munitions at an unsustainable rate. Konstantin, a Kherson resident who spoke to the AP only if his last name was withheld for safety reasons, said columns of military trucks had moved around the regions capital and eventually left. Most government offices have reduced working hours, and schools have closed, he said. The city is now in suspense. Primarily the Russian military from the headquarters and the family of collaborators are leaving, Konstantin said. Everyone is discussing the imminent arrival of the Ukrainian military and preparing for it. Russian forces on Friday carried out missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city, and in the Zaphorizhzhia region, home to Europes biggest nuclear power plant. The U.N.s nuclear watchdog has warned that fighting at or near the Russian-controlled Zaphorizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, now shuttered, could trigger a catastrophic radiation release. Putin has vowed to retaliate if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russias Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under attack for a second day Friday. According to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the shelling damaged an electric substation, five houses in the village of Voznesenovka and a power line, leaving several nearby villages temporarily without electricity. No casualties or injuries were reported. Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region on Thursday, according to Russias Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded. Vowing to liberate all Russian-occupied areas, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraines armed forces, said in a video message Friday, We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army. - Yuras Karmanau contributed reporting from Tallinn, Estonia. ___ Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine Since adult-use cannabis sales started in the state earlier this year, New Mexicans now have almost 500 places to buy marijuana products around the state, according to recent data from the New Mexico Regulation & Licensing Department. And, the industry is booming, with record-breaking sales last month. But there have been some growing pains, industry members report. Finding places and landlords willing to rent has been a struggle. Its been a challenge, its been a challenge from Day 1, said Leonard Salgado, director of business development and expansion for Pecos Valley Production. Stigma from landlords, high demand, a conflict between federal and state laws, and varied municipal regulations of the industry have all contributed to a pinched real estate market for cannabis retailers. It turns out that ending prohibition is difficult, said Ben Lewinger, executive director of New Mexicos Cannabis Chamber of Commerce. Stigma, reefer madness Everest Cannabis Co. has 11 locations around the state, with a 12th soon to open in Texico. Trishelle Kirk, CEO of Everest, said that while finding properties seems to be getting a bit easier in the months since legalization, there are still some negative beliefs about dispensaries and their clientele that make some landlords hesitant to rent out their spaces. Theres a perception that folks that are buying cannabis are lingering or loitering, Kirk said. Lewinger said hes seen a similar attitude. I think that theres still a lot of reefer madness with landlords, Lewinger said. But, he said that fears about customers lighting up in the parking lot are generally unfounded. Thats just not the behavior around dispensaries, Lewinger said. Additionally, Kirk said many landlords and banks fear that bringing in dispensaries will also bring in crime. However, she said that most cannabis retailers have more security than an average store. We have more security cameras and security equipment than any other business, Kirk said. Celeste Davis has operated ChocGlitz & Cream, a West Side dessert shop just a few doors down from Everests Paradise Hills location, for eight years. Davis said she was initially hesitant to see Everest move into the area, because the shopping center previously had a medical marijuana dispensary that attracted some crime. I wasnt really excited to have it come in again, said Davis. The daughter of a police officer, Davis said she didnt like seeing illegal activity near her business. But, she said she was pleasantly surprised she hasnt seen an increase in crime since Everest moved in almost two years ago. We havent noticed any issues, Davis said. Adam Silverman, vice president of Albuquerque-based commercial real estate company Geltmore, which often works with dispensaries, said he hasnt had problems with security with his cannabis tenants. Our poor guy who does cellphone repair has gotten broken into more than the marijuana business, Silverman said. Salgado has worked in cannabis first medical and more recently, recreational for 10 years. He said he thinks property owners are becoming more understanding of the cannabis industry. I think in general, landlords are becoming more tolerant to really examining what it means in adding a cannabis retailer to their property, Salgado said. Theyre kind of getting used to it now. The train has left the station. Banking issues Besides stigma, many property owners also have their hands tied legally by federal banking restrictions. One of the largest issues in recreational cannabis is the banking issue, Silverman said. And it overflows into a real estate issue. Because marijuana is illegal on the national level, if local property owners have federal mortgages they may be reluctant to lease to cannabis retailers, fearing that theyll upset their lender. They dont really want to rock the boat on their property, Salgado said. Salgado notes, however, that hes never seen a bank pull a note from a property owner who leased to a dispensary. Pat Davis, founder of cannabis consulting firm Weeds, said that until recently, only two banks in New Mexico Southwest Capital and U.S. Eagle were authorized by the federal government to do cannabis banking. Recently, First Financial was added to that list, Davis said. There are other, out-of-state banks that handle cannabis accounts, he said, but they generally only take wire payments, making it inconvenient for New Mexico-based dispensaries. Silverman said he thinks that banking restrictions are inhibiting the growth of cannabis in the state. Until we can get the federal government to change the banking rules, thats really handcuffed the industry, Silverman said. Tight market Since legalization in April, new dispensaries have exploded around the state and competition is fierce. Right now its extremely hard to find locations because of all the new licenses being issued, Kirk said. New dispensaries also have to compete with the established medical marijuana market, which Pat Davis of Weeds said was grandfathered into the recreational industry. The door is closing for new retailers very quickly to find the best and most profitable locations, Pat Davis said. Lewinger isnt convinced that the market will hold, though. I think it would be Pollyannaish to say that all these retailers will (still) be open in two to three years, Lewinger said. He said he anticipates that as the industry develops, many dispensaries will close, freeing up space for new retailers. Regulation mismatch Different cities and counties in New Mexico have different zoning regulations for cannabis companies, which complicates the process of finding appropriate retail locations. Finding the right location for retail has been probably one of the biggest challenges for our industry, because of the fact youre dealing with zoning that is very unique to every municipality, Salgado said. Pat Davis, who is also an Albuquerque city councilor, has seen a similar issue. Certain locations in the state, like Los Lunas, which currently only allows one retailer per 2,000 residents (for a total of about nine establishments), have instituted caps on the number of retailers that can operate, increasing the competition for storefronts in the state. As long as municipalities dont outright ban marijuana, Pat Davis said, they could even limit down to just one retail store. And, Pat Davis added, because the industry is so new, in the amount of time it takes a prospective retailer to get their license, zoning regulations could have changed in the area they planned to operate. This adds a layer of insecurity, especially for smaller businesses, Davis said. For the folks that sold their cellphone store, or their small business, or took money out of their kids college fund it adds a lot of uncertainty to sign a five-year lease, Pat Davis said. Salgado said that Pecos Valley Production is planning to add nearly a dozen new locations by next year. But the different zoning regulations, he said, are making it more difficult to find those locations. Weve earned the right to be there, Salgado said. You cant make it overly restrictive to do business. At the end of the day, we are creating jobs, we are adding to the statewide, countywide, citywide tax base, and this is recurring revenue. This is not gonna go away. The states cannabis industry in recent times has seen an increase in supply, thanks in part to an abundance of newly licensed cannabis cultivators pumping out crops. That has meant stocked shelves and more plentiful options to choose from at the hundreds of retail locations across the state, a much different picture than in April when supply was limited. But some industry leaders say reports of a strain on wholesale cannabis supply in the early months of adult-use sales were overblown. Thats because its normal for cannabis supply to be tight in a new adult-use market, industry leaders say, as many new businesses especially those only with retail licenses scramble to find marijuana products such as flower, prerolls, concentrates and edibles. Now, and going forward, it is likely New Mexicos supply will continue to remain strong as the states Cannabis Control Division licenses more cultivators, and as the industry adjusts to market needs, according to leaders. I think what happened is there was a lot of hype around this potential supply shortage, and so lots of legacy producers were kind of protecting their supply (and) waiting to see what happened, New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ben Lewinger said. Now that weve gotten through any chance of even just a perceived supply shortage, and with the outdoor harvests coming down in the next several weeks legacy producers that sat on supply a little bit are now looking to move that because nobody wants last seasons flower on their shelf. Supply early on In the period leading up to the advent of adult-use sales this spring, it wasnt clear how strained the supply of cannabis would be. While businesses were preparing to meet customer demands, CCD had said there were 1 million plants listed in their track-and-trace system. But the department later rolled back that assertion, instead saying it was a count of all cannabis plants in the state, not just mature, harvest-ready plants the typical measurement of cannabis by industry standards. That number was criticized at the time. The states largest cannabis operator, Ultra Health, had only about 26,000 mature plants at the time, CEO Duke Rodriguez previously told the Journal. In January, in an effort to boost supply ahead of the April sales date, CCD made an emergency rule-change that doubled the number of cannabis plants that licensed growers could cultivate at one time. Still, some new retailers the Journal spoke with at the onset of adult-use sales said cannabis was hard to come by, but not impossible to secure, in an effort to supply their stores. Growers that had product available to wholesale didnt have enough to outfit demand from retailers. New cultivators whose licenses were approved in the months ahead of the April start date didnt have time to grow and harvest crops. And even existing growers who were able to take advantage of the emergency plant count change didnt have time to grow and harvest an entire new group between January and April. Some industry leaders said they wish the onset of adult-use sales would have been delayed in order to give suppliers more time to prepare. The emergency rules just went into effect too late, said Tony Martinez, CEO of Lava Leaf Organics, one of the first licensed producers under the Cannabis Control Division. I dont want to seem overly critical of the (Cannabis Control Division). Its like the same thing as a presidential election you think the presidents going to fix everything, but it depends on the mess that was left, and who youre there with. Rec (cannabis) should have gone in a year later, thats all there is to it. But one CCD official asserted that, despite anecdotal evidence of supply issues and shortfalls in April, the state didnt see any widespread shortages overall. I think most states kind of see that shortage in the opening day and that opening month, said Andrew Vallejos, the director of the Alcohol Beverage Control Division and acting director of the Cannabis Control Division. We didnt have any reported massive shortages in that first month. So, we kind of covered the first month and I think that allowed the growers to start sort of deciding on the business model about which plants they wanted to put into to get going. Since April, as those cultivators ramped up their operations, and as others were licensed and began growing cannabis, the industrys wholesale market has begun to stabilize and, in some respect, flourish. The wholesale cannabis price measured by the pound has decreased in recent months. Wholesale cannabis was going for as much as $3,800 a pound when supply was more limited. The price now ranges between $2,000 and $2,500 per pound, said Lewinger. Theres a chance that price may drop even more over the coming months. Legacy growers, new growers Many legacy operators those who operated in the medical cannabis industry prior to April this year supply their own shelves. That includes places like Ultra Health, Pecos Valley Production and R. Greenleaf. R. Greenleaf, which was acquired by Colorado-based company Schwazze earlier this year, has a full grow operation in Albuquerque that allows it to grow 20,000 plants, said Schwazze New Mexico Division Director Steve Pear. Pear said the company has been self-sustained on its own cannabis both before recreational sales began and now. The company did buy from the wholesale market before April to make sure they had enough cannabis to serve eager customers, but that was just for good measure. R. Greenleaf is in the process of completing a new grow facility in Albuquerque to accommodate its expansion. The new facility, which is 40,000 square feet, is about halfway complete and it includes six grow rooms equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. The company has or plans on opening stores in Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Clovis and Ruidoso, Pear said. Hes confident the company will be at 17 retail locations by the end of the year and at 25 by next September. With the new grow, supply doesnt seem to be an issue. We have had zero issues on the supply side from the flower perspective, Pear said. We have had to buy some trim on the market over the last, you know, four or five months but that will become less and less of a need as we build up our capacity. Weve been pretty self-sustained and thats part of why our model works so well is (because) were able to take care of our own stores. Meanwhile, new growers are helping supply new retail stores especially those without a vertically integrated license to grow. Brian Rogers, owner of Llano Sativa in Texico, moved back to his home state a couple of years ago from New York in the hopes of growing his own cannabis on his family farm in rural New Mexico. He received a cultivation license earlier this year, and had his first harvest in June. His second harvest was completed in late September. Rogers only sells cannabis on the wholesale market, and his business has had no shortage of suitors. A lot of the retail stores are interested in buying product almost all the time, Rogers said. Licensing, legislation The lack of supply is likely to be less of an issue going forward with the number of licensed cultivators in the state continuing to grow. According to updated numbers from the Cannabis Control Division in late September, there were more than 400 licensed cultivators and micro producers. Thats a stark difference from where the industry was at in licensed producers in mid-April, when a division spokesperson said there were only 107 combined micro producer and cultivator licenses. But in an effort to make sure supply is adequate going forward, the division also plans on some legislative changes for micro producers, which are allowed to grow a maximum of 200 plants. One of the things that we want to fix in the next legislative session is theres a certain cap on micro businesses, Vallejos said. And so, we wanted to make sure that, that we kind of removed those statutory caps and put them more in rule so that we do have the flexibility for all licensees to up or lower the plant count. SANTA FE Five months in, the launch of recreational cannabis sales in New Mexico has meant an enrollment dip in the states medical marijuana program. After years of rapid growth, enrollment in the medical cannabis program dropped from 133,113 patients as of the end of March to 126,387 patients as of the end of August, according to state Department of Health data. Dominick Zurlo, the division director of the states medical cannabis program, said the patient decline did not come as a surprise, while also predicting enrollment levels would rebound in the coming months. It actually is something we expected, and its not concerning to us at all, Zurlo told the Journal. He said some enrolled patients might renew their medical cannabis cards after realizing that commercial sales are subject to taxation the tax rate is currently about 20% depending on location while medical cannabis purchases are not. However, some prominent cannabis producers and patients say the decrease in medical cannabis patient enrollment might not be just a temporary trend. Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of Ultra Health, said the state does not provide sufficient protections and incentives for medical marijuana users to continue signing up. He also said New Mexicos medical cannabis program enrollment decline has been even more rapid than what other states that have also legalized recreational marijuana such as Colorado and Arizona have seen. The adult consumers are squeezing out the medical patients, Rodriguez said. After a while, the patients are going to weigh the costs and say, The hassle is not worth it.' I dont see it stopping, he added. Jason Barker, an Albuquerque medical cannabis patient, said many dispensaries have decided to focus primarily on recreational sales. While state law stipulates that at least 25% of New Mexico cannabis sales through the end of this year must be to enrolled medical patients or caregivers, that requirement does not apply to each individual dispensary that sells marijuana. Some patients arent going to the dispensaries they used to because they dont want to be around the recreational crowd, said Barker, who said his own health issues put him at enhanced risk from COVID-19 and other sicknesses. In all, medical cannabis sales made up about 39% of the states regulated marijuana sales in September, according to data from the state Cannabis Control Division. However, medical cannabis sales have dipped since legal sales began in April, going from $17.3 million that month to $15.4 million in September. In contrast, total recreational cannabis sales increased during the time period. New Mexico launched its medical marijuana program in 2007 the law is officially called the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act and the number of people enrolled in the program skyrocketed in its initial years. There were just 9,950 enrolled patients in September 2013, for instance, but that number rose to 48,861 active patients around the state as of September 2017. So far this year, the number of enrolled patients peaked at 135,388 card-carrying individuals in May but then decreased in each of the three following months. Protecting New Mexicos medical cannabis program and its participants was a key discussion point during lawmakers debate over legalizing recreational cannabis. After numerous previous legalization bills stalled, New Mexico became the 17th state to authorize weed sales to adults age 21 and older during a March 2021 special session called by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Despite the recent enrollment drop, Zurlo said he does not foresee the need for legislation during the upcoming 60-day legislative session to further fortify the medical cannabis program. A lot of thought and planning went into this and I think thats paid off, he said. I think the program is well protected. He also said predicted cannabis supply shortages brought on by legalization have not materialized on any significant scale. New Mexico has different purchase and possession limits for medical patients and recreational cannabis users. Under the medical program, participants can buy up to 425 grams or about 15 ounces of cannabis flower every 90 days. Those limits were increased in February from previous purchase limits. In contrast, adults making recreational cannabis purchases face a limit of no more than 2 ounces per transaction, with corresponding limits for marijuana oils and edibles. But there are no limits on how many cannabis purchases consumers can make in a day or month. Meanwhile, Rodriguez cited an ongoing lawsuit about whether New Mexico health insurers should cover the cost of medical cannabis prescriptions as important to determining the future of the program. Were not going to go back to the days of acknowledging the importance of the medical cannabis program until we acknowledge the importance of covering medical patients, he said. WASHINGTON The Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since almost the beginning of its war with Russia, U.S. officials said Friday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions. In a statement later Friday, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, We can confirm the Department received correspondence from SpaceX about the funding of Starlink, their satellite communications product in Ukraine. We remain in communication with SpaceX about this and other topics. During a Pentagon briefing, she declined to provide any details about the communication or say to whom the correspondence was sent and when the communications with Musk began. Musk began sending Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine just days after Russia invaded in February. On Feb. 28, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted a photo of the first Starlink kits arriving on the back of a truck. You are most welcome, Musk tweeted back. Musks generosity was hailed by Ukrainians and seen as a game changer in war tactics the Russians could try to cut Ukrainian ground communications but it could not control space. The Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraines communications needs. In addition to the terminals, he tweeted that the company has to create, launch, maintain and replenish satellites and ground stations. CNN was the first to report the Musk request. The Starlink satellite internets vital role in Ukraines defense cannot be overstated. It has, for example, assisted front-line reconnaissance drone operators in targeting artillery strikes on key Russian assets. A senior military official on Friday made it clear that the U.S. believes the system has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide U.S. assessment of the Ukrainian battlefield. In a tweet on Friday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak said Ukraine will find a solution to keep Starlink working. Lets be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies, he tweeted. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations. In response to multiple questions during the briefing, Singh said the Pentagon was working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. We know that there is this demand, and (satellite communications) capability is needed and we want to be able to ensure that there are stable communications for the Ukrainian forces and for Ukraine. The request from the worlds richest man to have the Pentagon take over the hundreds of millions of dollars he says the system is costing comes on the heels of a Twitter war between Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And in tweets overnight Musk referred to the friction, suggesting it may affect his decision to end his companys largesse in funding the systems. In a Twitter exchange last week, Musk argued that to reach peace Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014. He also said Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO. Musk also started a Twitter poll asking whether the will of the people should decide if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia. In a sarcastic response, Zelenskyy posted a Twitter poll of his own asking which Elon Musk do you like more?: One who supports Ukraine or One who supports Russia. Musk replied to Zelenskyy that I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. Andrij Melnyk, the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, responded to Musks original tweet with an obscenity. Its not clear how much of the cost of deploying Starlink satellite uplinks in Ukraine has been covered by U.S. funding. In April, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it had delivered 5,000 of the terminals. The Pentagon had no response to that question. Musks commitment to spend $44 billion to purchase Twitter has to factor into his decision that he can no longer afford to do this for free, said retired Army Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Musks request that the Pentagon begin to pick up the tab comes as the Space Force and Pentagon have been looking at how commercial vendors will play a role in national security. Musks threat to withdraw highlights the risk of leaning too much on commercial capabilities, Ferrari said. Commercial vendors always get to change their mind, Ferrari said, adding that the reliance on Starlink to provide communications for Ukraine also serves as a reminder that the Pentagon has to expand this service beyond SpaceX, he said. The government needs many vendors for key capabilities, of course that often means more money, but it is an insurance policy and insurance costs money, Ferrari said. In March, commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James Dickinson said that having vendors provide needed capabilities, such as Maxars satellite imagery of stalled Russian convoys, has become essential, because it frees up limited military satellite assets to focus on other things. In his tweets, Musk also raised a question that various vendors and the Pentagon are considering as space becomes a more critical part of wartime operations: If a commercial vendor is assisting the U.S. and is targeted, does the U.S. owe it protection? Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder, Musk tweeted. ____ Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla, not the founder of the electric vehicle maker. VALLETTA, Malta A judge in Malta sentenced two brothers to 40 years in prison each after they abruptly reversed course and pleaded guilty Friday to the car-bomb murder of an anti-corruption journalist, which had shocked Europe and triggered angry protests in Malta. Hours earlier, at the start of the trial in a Valletta courthouse, George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57, had entered not-guilty pleas over the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia in the blast as she drove near her home on Oct. 16, 2017. Caruana Galizia investigated suspected corruption among political and business circles in the tiny European Union nation, which is a financial haven in the Mediterranean. This is an important step forward, to deliver justice in a case that represents a dark chapter in Maltas history, a statement from the office of Prime Minister Robert Abelas government said shortly after the sentencing. One of her sons, Matthew Caruana Galizia, told reporters: Im relieved that they have been convicted and sentenced. Now its about the remaining cases, he said, referring to prosecution of other defendants. But he said the five years it took to reach this stage of justice for his mother was far too long. The trial judge, Edwina Grima, retired to chambers after the change of plea before announcing the sentences an hour later. The two defendants were also ordered to pay 50,000 euros apiece from the money they received as a result of the crime as well as court costs. They could have faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Prosecutors alleged that the brothers were hired by a top Maltese businessman with government ties. That businessman has been charged and will be tried separately. Bringing the trial to an abrupt close, the Degiorgio brothers entered guilty pleas to all of the following charges: willful homicide; causing an explosion which resulted in the death of a person; illicit possession of explosives; criminal conspiracy; promoting, constituting, organizing or financing an organization with a view to commit criminal offenses, and active participation in a conspiracy. In the run-up to the trial, the Degiorgio brothers had denied the charges. A third suspect, Vincent Muscat, avoided a trial after earlier changing his plea to guilty. Muscat is serving a 15-year sentence. But at Fridays start of the trial Alfred Degiorgio pleaded not guilty while his brother declared that he had nothing to say which the court interpreted as a not-guilty plea. It wasnt immediately clear why the defendants abruptly reversed themselves. During the prosecutions opening arguments, the state argued they had evidence involving cell phones that would link the defendants to the bombing. The brothers had unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a pardon in exchange for naming bigger alleged conspirators, including a former minister whose identity hasnt been revealed. The bomb had been placed under the drivers seat and the explosion was powerful enough to send the cars wreckage flying over a wall and into a field. A top Maltese investigative journalist, Caruana Galizia, 53, had written extensively on her website Running Commentary about suspected corruption in political and business circles in the Mediterranean island nation, an attractive financial haven. Among her targets were people in then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscats inner circle whom she accused of having offshore companies in tax havens disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. But she also targeted the opposition. When she was killed she was facing more than 40 libel suits. The arrest of a top businessman with connections to senior government officials two years after the murder sparked a series of mass protests in the country, forcing Muscat to resign. Yorgen Fenech was arrested in 2019 and indicted in 2021 for alleged complicity in the slaying, by either ordering or instigating the commission of the crime, inciting another to commit the crime or by promising to give a reward after the fact. He was also indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. Fenech has entered not-guilty pleas to all charges. No date has been set for his trial. A self-confessed middleman, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for testimony against Fenech and the other alleged plotters. Two men, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius, have been charged with supplying the bomb, but their trial has not yet begun. In the morning session before a lunch break, Deputy Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia told the court that Theuma was asked by an unnamed person to find someone to kill Caruana Galizia. Theuma allegedly approached one of the Degiorgio brothers and a payment of 150,000 euros ($146,500) was negotiated, said Galea Farrugia. Galea Farrugia also said that a rifle was initially selected as the murder weapon, but that was later switched to a bomb. Prosecutors also said that a cell phone one of three that George Degiorgio had with him on a cabin cruiser in Maltas Grand Harbor had triggered the explosion. A 2021 public inquiry report found that the Maltese state has to bear responsibility for Caruana Galizias murder because of the culture of impunity that emanated from the highest levels of government. The Council of Europes commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatovic, has decried the lack of effective results in establishing accountability five years later. In a letter to Prime Minister Abela, the commissioner expressed the need for urgency in protecting journalists in Malta and cited defamation cases that are still ongoing posthumously against Caruana-Galizias heirs. ___ Frances DEmilio contributed from Rome. Trust. On the surface, were losing it. People have lost faith in the government, friends, family, fellow humans and even God. Fortunately, a sliver of trust is on display each day in a most unexpected embodiment, if people are willing to push aside stigma. Tattoo artist Michael Roybal has committed his life to trust and acceptance through a misunderstood art form. The assuring scent of cleanliness freshened the parlors air as the purr of the needle inched closer to the bare skin of the client, her arm stretched long toward Roybals steady hands. The needle pulsed and punctured as shades of blue and green radiated between the black, and the client-artist trust has never been broken, proven in the permanent sleeve and past hidden etchings that have taken almost a decade to craft. Thats longer than some officials tenures in public office, or a persons stint with their primary care physician or even some friendships. Drawing his path Roybal aspired to be an artist since his youth. Born and raised in Las Vegas, New Mexico, he discovered self-expression through art. While studying at Highlands University to become an art teacher he started running errands and doing various grunt tasks at a local tattoo shop. Eventually, the owner suggested he learn how to tattoo, and a new dream was shaped. When I started learning how to tattoo, I realized that the way I drew and the way I did my art was gonna be a lot different, Roybal said. Theres a lot more that goes into it. Tattooing is a viable career option for artists in an industry that promotes growth; some artists making six-figure annual salaries which is only achievable through hard work and devotion. Tattoo artists need to be business savvy, patient, confident, trustworthy, intuitive to a clients character and committed to advance in the field. Roybal said you never stop learning as a tattoo artist. It really is a lot of hard work, but it can take you all over the world, he said. Its more like do you really want this lifestyle? Because if you dont, its gonna eat you alive. Next May will mark Roybals 10th year as a licensed tattoo artist in New Mexico. A living canvas Roybals abilities are vast and his style broad. Hes able to create original pieces, cover up old tattoos without leaving a memory in sight, or touch up aged art to make it pop. Known for his color schemes, hes an expert at blending standard hues to create striking tints and vivid detailed work, but is also capable of executing intricate tribal designs with smooth shading and gradients. Being Hispanic, he understands that the culture has a lot of black and gray realism, and he embraces the challenge of expanding his creative style as well. His openness and versatility are helping him build a loyal customer base, and he starts by realizing everyone is unique. You have to take so many different things into consideration when finding a design. One thing, first and foremost, is the flow of the body and the shape of the body everyones body is different, Roybal said. Tattooers deal with a living canvas. Each breath changes the landscape; every laugh, sneeze, cough or fretting kink could affect the path of the needle. Its an important decision on what someone wants to permanently stamp on their skin, and theyre putting the fate of their appearance in the steady hands of a tattoo artist. I try to do my best job on every single tattoo and make sure its going to stand the test of time, Roybal said. I just approach it that way, try to be humble about it. I dont like to judge people by their ideas. People are tattoo artists walking portfolios, and their gallery has no borders or admission. The pressure to create quality work is essential for maintaining a positive reputation. Roybal himself hopes to be covered in tattoos one day, and his look is already bold. Though he has tattoos on his head, he noted that his face is off-limits. Its his way to not only express himself, but showcase the work of great artists he admires. Yet, his look does turn heads, and acceptance has been an issue that has fluctuated through history. A rich history The buzz of a tattoo needle was once synonymous with pain, and a parlor full of vivid wickedness and promiscuous imagery cluttering the walls once represented bad seeds. That hum and those seeds are victims to surface judgment. Yes, there is an unsavory affiliation and machismo and marianismo element to tattoos, but not all pride and expression should be labeled as aggressive. Theres a lot more to tattoos than what we see in modern culture, just like theres a lot more to an individual under the ink. Researchers have determined that the oldest preserved tattoos on human skin belong to Otzi the Iceman, a man found on the Austrian-Italian border in 1991 who is believed to have lived in 3370-3100 B.C. Allison Hawn, tattoo art historian and a professor of communication at Phoenix College, explained that the acceptance of tattoos has waxed and waned throughout history. She said, Theyve been high art, and then relegated to gutter trash, only to be picked up again as high art. Hawn explained that various cultures have considered tattoos sacred art, some affiliating tattoos with respect and status. She referenced the Victorian era when royalty would get tattooed to show off their wealth, but when Samuel OReilly invented the electric tattoo machine in the late 1800s, it became easier and affordable for average people to get tattoos, and they suddenly lost value in the eyes of high society. Hawn believes that the art form is elevating again as technology and ink have improved, increasing intricacy and changing the perception of the art. Youre seeing a lot more push into certain areas like photorealism, youre seeing a bigger push into things like abstract surrealism, she said. Researchers estimate around one in three Americans have at least one tattoo. Yet, there is still a stigma surrounding the art, as well as the artists. Hawn said, Tattoo artists deserve far more respect, both generally and in the fine art community, because its such a hard art to actually practice. She added, Its always amazed me that tattoo artists have this ability to build almost instantaneous trust with the people that are coming in to get tattooed. Basically, Im allowing a stranger to come into my very intimate space and permanently change my appearance. The art of trust The cooling touch of ointment eases the light swelling before Roybal gently places a wrap over the artwork. The wound will heal and the pain subsides shortly after the session began. The art, however, is forever, and the customer is part of your community. People right away assume before realizing youre not a criminal or youre not the devil, Roybal said of the attitude shift toward tattoos. Not everything is as it seems look a little bit deeper than the surface. Your doctors, nurses, first responders, accountants, financial advisors, teachers and even your friendly neighborhood journalists may have tattoos. These are all people we trust on a daily basis which is fitting considering a tattoo artist kind of has to be the most trusted artist of all. You dont have to go and get a tattoo if you dont want to, but you also dont have to judge a book by its cover especially when were all in desperate need of a little trust in one another. The white brick building at the corner of Hermosa and Copper has lived many lives. The Nob Hill building used to be a house. Later, it was a salon. Most recently, it was a tattoo parlor. And now, its home to wine bar Public House and comfort-food restaurant Butter. Despite its long history, Andrew Kalemba, owner of Public House and managing partner and head brewer at High and Dry describes the building as a forgotten place until now. We found an inspection sticker from the 1920s, Kalemba said. Public House opened on Sept. 17, a little over a week after Butter opened. The liquor license for the wine bar extends to Butter, so customers can grab a sandwich at the restaurant, then stop by Public House for a glass of wine or vice versa. The shared patio also brings together food and drink. Once youre on site, youre in kind of an immersive experience with the property and kind of choose your own adventure, Kalemba said. High & Dry brewing opened five years ago. Kalemba got into brewing with a few friends when he was living in Austin, Texas. I just became obsessed with it and we brewed twice a week for, like, an entire year, Kalemba said. And that was that was kind of kind of the rabbit hole. Rather than opening another brewery, Kalemba wanted to get into wine. Public House only sells New Mexico-made wines Kalemba said hes hoping to change perceptions about the states wine culture. I get frustrated when theres a lot of commentary we hear that you know New Mexico doesnt have the best wines, Kalemba said. There are some really awesome wines being made here. If we can kind of change that opinion and get them out to more to the masses, I think thatd be awesome. The wine list at Public House rotates seasonally. The wine bar features two New Mexico-based producers at a time. It allows us to get a little bit deeper into their catalogs and go through their vertical, Kalemba said. We can tell, I think, more of an interesting story about who those people are or you can taste their personality a little bit. The Kalembas want the experience at Public House to be comfortable and inviting especially for people who arent experts in wine. The wine experience can sometimes be overwhelming, or has kind of a stigma that its kind of unapproachable, Kalemba said. And the philosophy over here is that very much like High and Dry: wine should be approachable. You dont have to be an expert to enjoy it and like this should be a place where you feel welcome and invited to enjoy a glass of wine. Al Ries, known as the father of positioning, died on Oct 7 at age 95, his family made the public announcement Oct 12. Ries was a legendary marketing maverick that remained a relevant and sought-after consultant and guru until the day he died. If every brand should own a word, positioning is the word owned by Ries. Positioning put Ries on the marketing map and built his global brand. In the 1970s, Al Ries and his then partner Jack Trout rattled the creative agencies on Madison Avenue with their controversial concept of positioning. In a three-part series, which ran in Advertising Age in 1972, they contended that marketers should forget communicating the benefits of a brand, but rather look inside the mind of the consumer. Success depends on finding an open hole in the mind and becoming the first to fill the hole with a brand. Now 50 years later, the theory of positioning is still as relevant as ever. The rise of the internet has made our lives more over-communicated than ever, cutting through the clutter takes an even more skillful positioning strategy. Following the Ad Age articles, Al Ries and Jack Trout published the now iconic book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind which has sold over 4 million copies and been translated into 22 languages. Rance Crain, former editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, who worked with Mr. Ries on the positioning series said, "Al was one of the most remarkable people I've ever known. He understood how things interconnected, and he had a way of making it all seem so logical and inevitable." John Schnatter, founder of Papa John's, a Ries consulting client, and fan of the Positioning book said, "Al was a brilliant marketer, but an even better human being. He was a man of integrity who will be greatly missed." Paul Kim, Vice-President of Samsung who hired Mr. Ries as a consultant said "Al was a true visionary, luminary and wonderful person. I really cherish the moments Al and Laura spent with us, and I can say they made a big difference in our Galaxy smartphone brand." In 1994, Al's daughter Laura Ries joined her father, and the agency was renamed Ries & Ries, now called RIES. Together they co-authored five groundbreaking books including The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR. Over the years, Mr. Ries served as a marketing consultant to dozens of companies around the world including Apple, Disney, Frito-Lay, Ford, Microsoft, Nvidia, Papa Johns, Samsung, Siemens, and Unilever. In 2007, Mr. Ries and his daughter Laura partnered with Simon Zhang to launch RIES China in Shanghai. The agency has worked with many of the top Chinese companies, including Great Wall Motors, Wong Lo Kat, Robam, and Junlebao Dairy. RIES will live on as a global positioning consulting company under the leadership of Laura Ries as RIES Chairwoman, and Simon Zhang as RIES CEO. In 2005, Advertising Age voted "positioning" one of the 75 most important ideas of the past 75 years, in 2009 AdAge readers named Positioning the best book they have ever read on marketing, and in 2016 Mr. Ries was inducted into the AMA Marketing Hall of Fame. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Mr. Ries served in both the U.S. Merchant Marines and the U.S. Army, where he was stationed in Korea for a year. After his service, he graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in 1950. Mr. Ries is survived by Mary Lou Ries, his wife of 55 years; his children Charles Ries, Dorothy Ries Faison, Barbara Tien, Laura Ries; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. MakeMyTrip, Indias leading online travel company, has joined hands with Lohono Stays, a leader in the luxury vacation rental market in India, with an objective to further accelerate the growth of luxury home stay segment in the country. MakeMyTrip and Lohono Stays have lined-up a series of promotional offers to attract customers across the country. As part of the inaugural festive offer, MakeMyTrip is currently offering a jaw dropping 3rd night free on all bookings on all the listed properties of Lohono Stays luxury rental homestay villas across cities/states. Speaking on the development, Vipul Prakash, COO, MakeMyTrip, said, We have been steadily investing behind the homestay segment over the last couple of years and have emerged as the homestay hub with coverage in more than 1100 cities across the country. The attempt now, with Lohono Stays partnership, is to further accelerate the base of ultra-luxury segment in the homestay ecosystem. We have already seen initial wins with the current offer on Lohono Stays and expect it to grow in the future. I am confident that this partnership will offer an unmatched value proposition to the end user with a high-quality product and extremely unique experience for customers, said, Nibhrant Shah, Founder & CEO of Lohono Stays. MakeMyTrip is the market leader and understands the requirement of travellers and that made the decision very easy for us. We want to focus on building a luxury product portfolio that caters to a niche segment of well-travelled and well-heeled travellers while MakeMyTrip will help in increasing discoverability and sales for our properties across the country. Dhimaan Shah, Founder and COO of Lohono Stays, said, Our firm belief has always been that the discerning Indian traveller has a strong bias towards luxury homestays over any other product for a variety of reasons privacy, flexibility, quality of product and consistency in service. Lohono Stays has the best offerings in this segment and we look forward to this strategic partnership with MakeMyTrip as it is an opportunity for us to further expand our market presence and continue our accelerated growth trajectory. Netflix has announced the launch of Basic with Adverts, its lower priced advert-supported plan, in November. It will be available in 12 countries: Basic with Adverts will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US. A plan for every fan: Our current plans and members will not be impacted. Basic with Adverts complements our existing advert-free Basic, Standard and Premium plans, said Greg Peters, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer. Basic with Adverts offers all the features people expect from Netflixs Basic plan, with a few differences. The streamer will offer a wide variety of great TV series and films; personalised viewing experience; available on a wide range of TV and mobile devices; change or cancel your plan at any time. It will offer video quality up to 720p/HD (now for both our Basic with Adverts and Basic plans); average of 4 to 5 minutes of adverts per hour; a limited number of films and TV series won't be available due to licensing restrictions, which the company said it is working on; users wont be able to download titles. In short, Basic with Adverts is everything people love about Netflix, at a lower price, with a few adverts in-between. Starting in November, signing up will be easy visit Netflix.com, and register with your email, date of birth and gender to get started. Basic with Adverts also represents an exciting opportunity for advertisers the chance to reach a diverse audience, including younger viewers who increasingly dont watch linear TV, in a premium environment with a seamless, high-resolution adverts experience, Peters said. Ad format and controls At launch, adverts will be 15 or 30 seconds in length which will play before and during series and films. To help advertisers reach the right audience and ensure our adverts are more relevant for consumers, well offer broad targeting capabilities by country and genre (e.g. action, drama, romance, sci-fi). Advertisers will also be able to prevent their adverts from appearing on content that might be inconsistent with their brand (e.g. sex, nudity or graphic violence), he said. Verification tools Netflix has partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to verify the viewability and traffic validity of its adverts starting in Q1 2023. Basic with Adverts will launch just six months after the streamer first announced the option of a lower-priced adverts plan. None of this would have been possible without our teams hard work or Microsofts extraordinary partnership. The switch from linear is happening at an ever increasing speed, with streaming now surpassing broadcast and cable in the US. Were confident that with Netflix starting at 4.99 a month, we now have a price and plan for every fan. While its still very early days, were pleased with the interest from both consumers and the advertising community and couldnt be more excited about whats ahead. As we learn from and improve the experience, we expect to launch in more countries over time, said Peters. Deflection. Thats when someone tries to turn aside responsibility and shift it to someone/something else. Todays example is the rampage by the White House and Democrats against Saudi Arabia, accusing it of cutting oil production because it is in bed with Russia against American interests in Ukraine. CNN correspondent Manu Raju tweeted on Wednesday [Rep.] Ro Khanna and [Sen.] Dan Blumenthal are calling for bill in lame-duck halting arm sales for a year. Calls for NOPEC legislation. And Durbin this AM: I don't see any reason to arm them now if they believe their future is linked to Vladimir Putin in any way." National Security spokesman John Kirby tried deflection as he announced the White Houses displeasure: The Saudi Foreign Ministry can try to spin or deflect (but) The Saudis conveyed to us their intention to reduce oil production, which they knew would increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions They could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression. The reason the White House wanted the cuts to wait until the next OPEC meeting may have something to do with Americas mid-term election. Why the Saudis would care about that is unclear. The fact is that countries make economic and security decisions based on their own interests and their peoples interests. Americas European allies certainly do -- just last week, Reuters reported that the EU remains the biggest market for Russian oil, according to the IAEA. India and China are increasing their purchases from Russia, according to the CEO of Gazprom Neft. And, while demanding that Saudi Arabia produce more, the Biden administration is considering reinstating a ban on exports of crude oil as gasoline prices rise in the U.S. Reducing oil exports to our allies would only make others look elsewhere, including to Russia, as winter approaches and their stocks remain low. The actual cause of the Saudi decision to cut production in the face of Biden administration begging for an increase is Biden administration policy. Even on the campaign trail, Joe Biden said he would make Saudi Arabia a pariah over the case of Jamal Khashoggi. Arriving in office, his policies have been a huge win for Iran and a huge loss for countries in Irans sights: traditional allies in the Gulf including Saudi Arabia plus Israel, as well as Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, and Kuwait. First, the administration removed the terrorist designation from Iranian-armed and trained Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have since increased their attacks on civilian and industrial sites in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In September 2021, the administration removed most of the U.S.-operated Patriot missile batteries from the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait, suggesting those countries could defend themselves. Concurrently, however, Biden announced a freeze on missile sales to Saudi Arabia (the missiles that were supposed to go in the Patriot system that the Saudis were supposed to use to defend themselves in our absence). In November 2021, Houthis stormed the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, holding local staff hostage. This past February there was an attack aimed at Dubai during the visit of Israels President Isaac Herzog. Another early move with longer-term consequences was a little-noticed agreement with South Korea in March 2021 to permit the unfreezing of up to a billion dollars in Iranian assets that were restricted after Iran hijacked a South Korean ship. The money paid Irans UN arrears and restored its voting rights -- resulting in Iran joining the U.N. committee on womens rights. More money has followed, paid directly to Iran. Along the way, America castigated Saudi Arabia for its human-rights policies -- not entirely undeservedly, but the absence of focus on Irans human rights violations was a signal to Iran, which had the highest known number of executions in 2021. (China is presumed to have the most by thousands, but there are no official numbers. Meanwhile, China buys Iranian oil under American sanction waivers.) In the Spring of 2022, the White House suggested it might lift the terror designation on the Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in exchange for a pledge specifically not to target Americans in the Middle East, according to a diplomatic source as reported in the Jerusalem Post. It didnt happen, mostly because more than 600 Gold Star American families, related to soldiers killed in Iraq by the IRGC, protested. In July, President Biden went to Saudi Arabia and had a fist bump with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Sultan (MbS) in July. After a wave of criticism from his domestic allies, Biden retreated. I didnt come here to meet with the crown prince. I came here to meet with the GCC and nine nations, to deal with the security and the needs of the free world, and particularly the United States. Great way to make MbS consider your request seriously in October. The Ukraine war wont be won or lost by the price of OPEC+ oil. And trying to deflect responsibility for the arc of the war onto oil production and exports of a single producer, Saudi Arabia, wont do it either. Image: White House Californias agricultural production is as large as Texas and Iowa combined. The states Mediterranean climate and fertile valleys help make it the fifth largest supplier of food and fiber in the world. It all depends on water. Most of the states crops rely on irrigation as opposed to rain. Irrigation is regulated by a system of water rights held by public and private parties. Notice these are "rights" and not "privileges." The exercise of these rights to bring about beneficial uses of water such as growing food is a complicated area of law and policy. History proves that giving the government control over the food supply is usually a recipe for famine. Still, there are many environmental and so-called social justice organizations that would like to move all the privately held water rights to state control. One way to do so is by influencing state water rights agencies through Critical Race Theory. Californias State Water Resources Control Board, (AKA the State Board), has released a draft of its Racial Equity Action Plan and is soliciting public comments. The board is one of the more powerful of Californias bureaucracies. Members are appointed by the governor and according to its website, ...the five-member State Water Board allocates water rights, adjudicates water right disputes, develops statewide water protection plans, establishes water quality standards, and guides the nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards. According to Executive Director Eileen Sobeck, There could not be a more critical challenge facing us at this time than the challenge of achieving racial equity, demonstrates the Boards priorities in this time of major drought. The word equity as used by Sobeck is not synonymous to equality, but reflects the thinking found in Critical Race Theory, which divides people according to their skin color as oppressors or oppressed. CRT is a development of the cultural Marxism originated at the Institute for Social Research (Institut fur Sozialforschung), or Frankfurt School, that swaps out race for the economics emphasized in standard Marxist theory. On November 16th, 2021 the State Board adopted Resolution No. 2021-0050 Condemning Racism, Xenophobia, Bigotry, and Racial Injustice and Strengthening Commitment to Racial Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Access, and Anti-Racism. The resolution cites Black Lives Matter as inspiration and is packed with language like this: Californias water rights system has been built on racism perpetuated by White Supremacy. The resolution goes on: White supremacy is a systemically and institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of nations and peoples of color by white people for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege. Citing murders of non-whites by whites, the resolution calls for development of a Racial Equity Action Plan. This raises questions. Should the State Water Board be drawing inspiration from the largely discredited and openly Marxist Black Lives Matter as a source of policy? Were in a drought. The State Board just got slapped by the 6th District Court for overreaching its authority on water rights. The California Auditor has a scathing report on the boards handling of grant fund accountability. Is racial equity really the critical challenge facing the board? Is the staff of an agency tasked with administrative record keeping equipped to develop a Racial Equity Action Plan? Actually, staff is getting help from GARE -- the Government Alliance for Race & Equity based at UC Berkeley according to the resolution. At a Racial Equity Action Plan workshop in Visalia, California on July 27, 2022 I was the only mostly white man in attendance and not once did I hear anyone from the public say they had a concern about water and racism. They all had concerns about adequate water supply and the state diverting flows away from the San Joaquin Valley. One of the attendees said when his parents arrived from Mexico in the 1950s there was plenty of water. His family had the opportunity to work and they saved, bought a home and started a business. The rural communities were not inundated with drugs, gangs, and crime. Now the state continues to cut back water deliveries to farmland in the name of environmentalism. He said crops dont care about race, water doesnt care about race, but withholding water from farms hurts all races. Who is responsible? The draft of the plan states, The Racial Equity Team aims to bring this plan to the State Water Board as an information item in 2023. The board will not approve or deny the Racial Equity Action Plan. However, staff will update the Board on its implementation periodically. Heres an interpretation of the above statement. The team is not locking themselves down to a specific deadline. The hope is sometime before 2024 they can bring the completed plan to the State Board. It will be an information item and not an action item so the Board members wont have to make any choices that could embarrass or displease Governor Gavin Newsom. All the Board members have already profusely given their support to this endeavor but they wont have to sign their name to it with a vote. Staff will update the Board on the plans implementation. The draft plan is short on accountability and it will be interesting how staff judges measurable objectives. The plan has three strategies. One -- integrating racial equity and measuring impact. Programs and policies will be evaluated and realigned to address racial injustices. Two -- creating, maintaining space for inclusion and belonging. Three -- activating BIPOC community wisdom and sharing power. On page 15, Develop an ongoing community capacity building fund to compensate community partners for their expert wisdom, time and collaboration; provide travel stipends to community members, provide funding to community members to pay for amenities to reduce participation barriers; support community-led projects that address environmental injustices; and support community leadership in water decision making processes. During one of the public comment sessions concerning the resolution, Marina Perez, who works in the State Boards Office of Public Participation, stated she wants the board to pay for environmental justice speakers at conferences. Atley Keller, Local Government Commission located in Sacramento put a finer point on it when she said she wants the board to financially compensate local NGOs. Community Water Center, one of the NGOs that helped develop this plan has already received more than $7.25 million in funding from the board in the form of grants. When did the boards mandate change from a bureaucracy administering water rights to an arbitrator and avenger of perceived injustices? At exactly the same moment the people of California stopped holding their government accountable because they thought someone else would do it for them. It gets serious when your familys food supply can be negatively impacted. Remember freedom is worth fighting for and if you dont push back youre going to get what they give you and you wont like it. People and organizations are afraid to speak out against this obvious racist tactic of CRT for fear of being called racist. So? Racists are calling you a racist. You dont have to be from California to speak up for food security and there are rumors someone from Sacramento wants to run for national office. Perhaps your voice can be an influence for sanity. Go to Racial Equity Action Plan and let them know your opinion. Don A. Wright publishes www.WaterWrights.net from Californias Central Valley, a reporting service following agricultural irrigation policy, politics and implementation. Image: US Gov. Prior to the George Floyd incident, the thought of safety would rarely have occurred when executives visit a company as part of the vetting process for both sides. Clearly, the concern for safety has changed in many cities. My wife and I use to do date nights to Minneapolis Uptown area on a monthly basis, but the George Floyd riots changed this part of Minneapolis permanently. Buildings are still boarded up and many of the restaurants we frequented are no longer around. The primary reason we now stay clear of many parts of Minneapolis is that we dont feel safe. Murder rates are at all-time historic highs and all other crimes are way up. Historic police exodus in Minneapolis and other cities impacted by racial justice unrest and Minneapolis identifying as a sanctuary city with a large influx of illegal immigrants, has only exacerbated the problem of increased crime. Looking at cities that are hot spots for crime (Chicago, New Orleans, and New York City), we questioned three financial services firms on whether they are concerned for the safety of financial advisors that visit their home office and whether they intend on relocating their home office due to high crime rates. These due-diligence visits consist of a dinner out with management and a day of meetings the next day. We asked a recruiter of a firm in New Orleans about their concerns. Their response was: There is no plan to change our home office location. Like other major cities across the country there are always challenges for safety and we take that very seriously. When scheduling HOVs with prospective advisors, we book our advisors at 45-star hotels that are located in safe areas nearby our office as well as schedule private transportation between the airport & hotel, holding dinner at highly regarded restaurants. Midway through 2022, New Orleans leads the nation in murders. As much as this firm may try to protect visiting prospects, they cant prevent candidates from wanting to venture out and explore the French Quarter after dinner, in which case, all safety assurances are off. This is problematic in many cities, requiring you to figure out wheres the decreasing number of safe places where you can let your guard down. We asked the CEO of a Chicago firm the same questions and his response was, Our home office is located in the West Loop area of Chicago which is very vibrant, growing, hip and safe area of the city. We have had zero issues with crime or anything even close to it. Our home office employees enjoy coming to the office. So no, we have no intention of moving the home office. If anything, we are looking to expand here in downtown Chicago. Normalcy bias aside, according to Niche, the issues with crime in the West Loop year to date July 2022 are not zero but rather their statistics show this: Crime in Chicago is enough of an issue that many corporations have left including: Boeing Citadel Caterpillar Aldis Whole Foods The CEO of McDonalds has recently sounded the alarm, saying, "The rising crime is hurting his ability to recruit quality executive candidates. The number of safe neighborhoods is decreasing as high crime areas expand. The Magnificent Mile and the North side, which use to be safe places to shop at high-end stores or see a Cub game, have had their perception of safety ripped away with most all categories of crime increasing dramatically. For New Yorkers, crime has had a prolonged upswing, but has amplified since the George Floyd riots with YTD July 2022 stats the following: Robbery +37.2% Felony Assault +17.8% Grand Larceny +40.6% Felonies +29% In a discussion with a recruiter for a firm based in New York City, the conversation was frank and direct. He explained, If I were an advisor, I wouldnt visit New York. Its not safe! Rent/Lease prices are still crazy high and you dont see anyone around so we have plans to move our office to another borough and then eventually go to Florida. Moving from New York City to Florida is a common trend for finance-related firms such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Arch Investments, and Blackstone that have made the move to Florida for less crime, better climate, lower taxes, and no draconian COVID regulations and mismanagement of those regulations. What are your options regarding corporate visits and safety? During COVID, firms did virtual tours and Zoom calls as an alternative to in-person visits. The increased issue with flight delays and cancelations has further taken the shine off in person visits so doing a Zoom call with the departments that matter to you is a viable alternative. If you choose to do an in-person visit at a company that is located in a higher-crime city, avoiding venturing outside the safety of your hotel after dinner would be most prudent. If you do venture out, take the advice that the Los Angeles Police Department is now giving residents in Los Angeles, which is to not wear high-end jewelry in public or expensive clothing that draws attention to you. Expensive watches can be especially risky to wear. Weve always been proponents of in-person visits because meeting people in person, seeing the facility, and eating a meal with management brings things to the surface you dont get on a Zoom call. Unfortunately, as the rule of law is increasingly suppressed in the name of equality, many cities are shifting from centers of commerce to centers of chaos. Because of this trend, you cant assume safety as we once did in urban locations. Image: IvoK. Maybe Im just old. I admit I grew up in times when it was shocking that Elvis gyrated as he sang on the Ed Sullivan show. I remember how the hoods smoked cigarettes, and wore slicked-back haircuts and black pegged pants, much like Travolta in Grease. Compared to todays miscreants, the toughs of my youth were penny-ante. There was crime, but the misery, drug abuse, violence, depredation, and desperation surrounding us these days werent part of our lives. Most neighborhoods were safe, and the overwhelming majority respected one another, smiled at passers-by, and lived their lives without thinking about their safety every moment of the day. Pardon that little indulgence in nostalgia, a counterpoint to the reality of life in our grim, gritty cities. I am reminded, daily, by the reports of heinous crimes on TV, break-ins and frighteningly violent encounters retold on NextDoor, and the nightly (or even daily) murders featured on NewsBreak. We are meant to accept this as normal now. Image: Broken car window by Kafziel. CC BY-SA 3.0. Thanks to BLM and Antifa, both fascist organizations, with their sadly effective demands to defund the police, all the progressive city governments have turned a blind eye to real crime. Police have learned to avoid situations where they risk being prosecuted for defending the innocent. State governments are ineffective at best. Prosecutors ignore those who are wronged and release the perps to do it all over again. The bloviating, inept fools of the Biden administration turn a blind eye to reality, and worse. We can see clearly how they have descended into the gutter, pulling our nation, one city and state at a time, to third-world status, where equity has supplanted equality, where we have a two-track system of justice, where we release violent criminals to re-offend at will, and where we protect only political cronies and set the FBI to terrorize good citizens at gunpoint for their sincere political viewpoints. Things are so out of whack that its getting scary. Just yesterday, the local Newsbreak printed this advice from the Oakland, California, police. They're tips for staying safe. Read it and, in case you live somewhere a bit more bucolic, youll understand the kind of tension we live under. The advice is sadly necessary. Heres a list of the bullet points on car travel, lest you decide not to click on the whole article: Keep your doors locked and windows closed when driving. When possible, drive with a companion. Plan your route before your trip in advance. Travel by freeway or well-lighted, frequently-used surface streets as much as possible. Leave enough room to see the tires of the vehicle ahead when you stop your vehicle in traffic. The extra space allows maneuverability for escape. If your vehicle is bumped, dont stop or get out if you suspect the incident was deliberate. If you come face to face with a carjacker, dont resist the theft. Your life is worth more than your vehicle. Do not wait in your car in the driveway of your home. Take a quick look at your surrounding before you get in or out of your vehicle. Have your vehicle keys in hand and be ready to unlock and enter your vehicle promptly. Once inside, lock all doors. Stay away from your vehicle if you see someone loitering nearby. I know there are many other cities, all run by the Democrat Progressive machine, where this advice is sadly pertinent. We have elections coming but, at least here, its nearly impossible to find any candidate with the courage of his or her convictions, who will call out the BS and do something to fix it. Youd think wed wise up, but from what I can see, with no support from state or federal governments, local helplessness (and hopelessness) will continue unabated. We have become a scared, nearly voiceless community. I hope we get to the tipping point soonbut have no faith that we will. We truly need some firebrand political messiahs here in California, not the pablum were being fed. As protesters, drummers, sign-wavers, and dancers engulfed the Los Angeles City Council in the past two days over the racist guffaws of three Democrat council members caught on tape, there's a push coming from the left to blame the whole fiasco on Latin culture. Not Democrat culture, despite the perpetrators being some of the most powerful Democrats in the state, and Democrats being the party of the Klan. No, it was their latinidad that made them do it. The protesters, who appeared to be all leftists, weren't buying it. The protesters' immediate aim was to get the three city council members out of there, and they did manage to claim one hide: Nury Martinez resigns without an apology. pic.twitter.com/Oi9snS4fAI Memo Torres (@el_tragon_de_LA) October 12, 2022 Nury Martinez: Compared Black child to a changuito" (monkey) & joked about beating him. Called Oaxacan immigrants little short dark people. Also, Nury Martinez:"To all the little Latina girls across the city - I hope I've inspired you to dream beyond that which you can see." uche blackstock, md (@uche_blackstock) October 12, 2022 The other two Democrats on the council, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, continue to cling to power. Council member and former council president Nury Martinez's resignation, though, was typically Democrat, effectively hailing her "first Latina" achievements. Hillary Clintonstyle, she used her resignation to address all little girls about what an inspiration she was, even as she was being ousted for spewing racist claptrap just like the Klan. It was gack-worthy, but utterly Democrat to the core, and taken straight from the Democrat playbook. Cedillo and de Leon are Democrats to the core, too, definers of the party, with de Leon taking credit for making Los Angeles a sanctuary city and Cedillo working out the details to get illegals driver's licenses, two unpopular ideas that have driven many Latino voters to Republicans. Now the race is on to say, "Look, squirrel" about this incident, distracting from the real issue that Democrats have a racist culture, which is in evidence with de Leon and Cedillo being left in place as Martinez takes the fall, and Latin American culture taking the blame for the whole ugly festival of ethnic contempt and slurs. I don't know any Latino people who talk like that. Do you? The Oaxacan immigrants who were the targets of the slurs might know about this from Mexico's elites, not the U.S., as they presumably came here to get away from that. But the bid to blame latinidad, instead of Democrats, who view every human being they run into as a bean-counting matter of color, is forming: For Oaxacan leaders, the insults were painful but not surprising, reminiscent of the racism and colorism Indigenous people face in Latin America and the United States.https://t.co/h6dQlKE4yx Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 11, 2022 Yeah, but Nury and her pals are Americans. They were all raised here and became Democrats. Martinez doesn't even put an accent on her name, and de Leon added his only later to get that "authentic" look. Too many Latinos have fallen into the trap of white supremacy and blatant racism instead of celebrating the Black community for what it has accomplished for American democracy. And this engrained anti-Blackness emanating from Latino communities.... Proud Boys leader is Latin, WHY 24 7 365 (@NotYouOrMeUs) October 12, 2022 Colorism, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous sentiments run deep among those with roots in Latin America, where colonization and slavery took hold for centuries. "If you're Latino, you know this happens because weve witnessed it," professor Raul Perez says.https://t.co/znfg10QPxW Axios (@axios) October 11, 2022 Arellano: Nury Martinezs rant reveals the worst enemy of Latino political power: ourselves . Another incisive look at the world by @GustavoArellano. Read it now! @latimes https://t.co/inRlQa5ty5 Maria La Ganga (@marialaganga) October 10, 2022 It's all a little rich. Democrats with their obsessive interest in identity politics and racial bean-counting are a Petri dish for racism. Continue to look at the color of a person's skin as "representation," continue to deny the humanity of a person "of color" who doesn't buy Democrat policies, and continue to view "race" and grievance politics as primal, and it doesn't take long for racism to form. It makes sense, given that Democrats have always been obsessed with "bloodlines" and have viewed horrible institutions such as Planned Parenthood as basically eugenics projects for racial "purity." It's why they've gone so easily from the party of the Confederates and Copperheads, the party of the Klan, Jim Crow, and Bull Connor, to the racists behind closed doors we see today. Martinez and Co. weren't practicing Latin American politics; they were practicing Democrat politics. That's where the blame belongs, and as black and Latino voters exit the Democrat party in large numbers now, it's obvious the voters are on to it. Image: Twitter screen shot. You almost can't believe it. The spread opened with a blurry black-and-white photograph, evocative of Kurt Cobain or any other alternative rocker of the late '80s and early '90s. It was edgy and possessed a distinctly grunge aesthetic. What was the message? That Matthew McConaughey is a thoughtful, altruistic, and deeply concerned humanitarian, so he's donning his activist hat and diving into politics to chip away at the only amendment that explicitly states, "Shall not be infringed." The lede read: Writing this story was hard. It's personal for me, but more so for the victims and their families, who have paid the ultimate cost. Which is why I've hesitated to write it. Observing from the front lines, then sharing what I saw it makes me feel a bit like a fraud. Am I trespassing? Sharing sacred secrets that are not my stories to tell? I hope not. "From political outsider-cynic to insider broker on gun reform," the tragedy at Uvalde is clearly all about Matthew McConaughey. At least he mentioned the victims and their families, but only after inserting himself. Remember, it's "personal" for him. The online edition of the story was full of images, but get this: they were all of Mr. McConaughey. And you'll never believe it they were trendy glamor shots! Not a single picture that has anything to do with Uvalde! In one, Matthew is chicly dressed all in black, confidently slouched in the perfect model pose while he manspreads in front of a cluttered bureau (hey, he's a down-to-earth normal guy like us plebs). In the next, he casually sits on the slats of a bed frame with the mattress thrown off to the side, unbuttoned shirt exposing his bare chest, and an arm draped around a bent knee while he wistfully gazes (he's probably thinking about how sad Uvalde was, right?). And to top it all off, the cover of the print magazine is shown: donning a linen suit you'd expect to see on James Bond as he went undercover in the Bahamas, McConaughey stands knee-deep in a lake of water, smoldering for the camera as he touches his shirt cuff. You know, he actually did go to Uvalde why couldn't they have shown that? For the sake of optics, using dead schoolchildren and grieving families as an excuse to peacock for some in vogue modeling shots seems a bit over the top to me... Aside from the ridiculousness of all that, there was a pinch of psychological warfare language control and manipulation. See below: I also wrote an op-ed, 'It's Time to Act on Gun Responsibility,' in the Austin American-Statesman on the day we flew east. In it, I offered reasonable regulations that still protected 2A rights, and I proposed a new semantic framing of the issue: Instead of gun control, as it had been labeled, I maintained that the real matter in question was one of gun responsibility. Well, maybe handing my weapons over to the government isn't such a bad thing! After all, we've got a Hollywood actor telling us he's found the perfect solution! One where people are safer, and my rights are still secure! Too bad Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot didn't have McConaughey when they started to erode private ownership of firearms. He's a propaganda whiz! The article climaxes with McConaughey appearing in the briefing room of the White House, demanding action, while he clenched a school photograph of a young victim and wept. Nothing like trusting a professional actor with an agenda when they start with the crocodile tears. For someone who literally makes a living off fooling people, I'm not convinced. How can a person with such an ego be so mind-numbingly unaware? The editorial spread would make any normal person cringe. Image: The White House, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. What does a Green nation do when it can't get fuel? Well, it burns chemical-laden and toxic masks, of course! If you will, follow this (very brief) timeline of events: Trump warned them, they scoffed, and now they're burning COVID masks for heat. So who are they? "They" are the elitists at the helm of the German government, running the country into the ground, all in the name of climate alarmism. But who do the German people think they are, placing undue expectations on public servants to prioritize citizens' prosperity over Big Government altruism? "They" are from the government, and "they" are only here to help. The audacity. According to Bloomberg, the federal health ministry called for nearly 800 million unused surgical masks to be "thermally dispose[d]" of, and get this: the taxpayers footed the bill to the tune of...six. Billion. Euros. But the government incompetence (or corruption) gets worse: Former Health Minister Jens Spahn was criticized at the time for excessive procurement and for using personal connections to buy [the] masks[.] Fortunately, another federal agency independently came to the rescue, ensuring that the masks wouldn't simply go to waste, but rather could be used for...energy! Sure is convenient, given the fact that the politicians have created quite the predicament as the country rolls into a cold winter. Per the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, "Waste incineration also offers the possibility of generating electricity and heat." So what can we learn from the above-mentioned chronology? First, Trump was right a quick but obvious observation worth noting, because it's one more data point in a glorious trend (especially as we consider that Trump may soon be testifying in front of the J6 theater). Secondly, premature gloating is a fool's errand. How embarrassing it would be to have your most ignorant moments captured on video, and then broadcast across conservative media as the butt of every joke. For a refresher, see below: Germany Reacts to Trump's UNGA Speech https://t.co/W27ArguDKt via @YouTube George Orwell (@OrwellsRevenge) October 7, 2022 Thirdly, "Green" energy is not the solution to affordable and independent energy, and any efforts to paint it as such are at best half-baked and at worst intentional, and ushering in another wave of totalitarian subjugation at the hands of the German government. Hey, at least this time, the German leftists are burning garbage and not books. Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required. A court filing made public just yesterday revealed that Elon Musk is under federal investigation related to his $44-billion takeover deal for Twitter, Inc., the social media company. Twitter claims it requested for months that Musk's attorneys produce their communications with federal authorities, but they had not done so. Hence, they asked a Delaware judge to order that the documents be provided. In late September, Musk's attorneys provided a "privilege log" identifying documents to be withheld from discovery. The log referenced drafts of a May 13 email to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission. Twitter's court request was filed on Oct. 6, the very day the Delaware judge halted proceedings that would let Twitter and Musk finalize their deal. In April, Bloomberg reported Twitter shareholder Marc Bain Rasella's claim that investors lost out on gains because Musk waited too long to declare his 9.2-percent stake purchase in the platform. The SEC asked Musk whether the disclosure of his 9% Twitter stake was late and why it indicated that he intended to be a passive shareholder. Musk later refiled the disclosure to indicate he was an active investor. In June, the SEC asked Musk whether he should have amended his public filing to reflect his intention to suspend or abandon the deal. When Elon Musk announced his bid to buy Twitter back in May, it caused celebrations and meltdowns in equal measure. Liberals feared losing control over a primary tool of manipulation. Twitter employees staged walkouts. MSNBC said that Musk's takeover would have "massive, life and globe-altering consequences." The New York Times and the Washington Post attacked Musk. Baseless allegations of racism and white supremacy were also made (obviously). When asked how he would change Twitter, Musk says he'd reverse Twitter's ban on President Donald Trump; he called the ban a "morally bad decision" and "foolish in the extreme." Musk also said he will liberate the platform into a haven for free speech. Then, in mid-May, Musk revealed that his plan to buy Twitter is "temporarily on hold" owing to numerous spambot accounts on the social media platform. Shares of Twitter tumbled, while shares of Tesla rebounded sharply. By June, Musk threatened to end his deal to buy Twitter, accusing Twitter of holding back information about its spambot accounts. By July, Musk claimed he'd abandon his offer to buy Twitter owing to Twitter's refusal to divulge details about the bogus accounts. The attacks on Musk seemed to stop after that. On October 4, Musk offered to honor his original proposal to buy Twitter. Twitter says it intends to close the transaction after receiving Musk's offer. Once again, it caused panic waves across the establishment. Apart from yesterday's announcement that Musk was being investigated by the Feds, there was another bit of news. Ian Bremmer, head of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy, alleged that Musk had personally told him about the conversation with President Putin. elon musk told me he had spoken with putin and the kremlin directly about ukraine. he also told me what the kremlins red lines were. ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) October 11, 2022 This allegation surfaced after Musk tweeted about a plan for peace between Ukraine and Russia: Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022 Musk denied he spoke to Putin about the intervention in Ukraine. Federal investigation and allegations of being in contact with Putin? Where have we heard this before? The tone and content of the probe demands and the investigations seem reminiscent of hoaxes against Trump. It has to be remembered that government agencies do not need any probable cause to investigate. An allegation made could be enough. This is exactly what happened during the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax. The hoaxers couldn't tell how Russia meddled with the 2016 elections or if votes were altered. They couldn't cite the laws that were broken or how votes were altered. They just didn't like the outcome of the election and were doing all they could to unseat President Trump. Their noise caused the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The goal behind the Mueller probe was to create a perception of criminality. The Mueller team selectively leaked to the media that the "walls were closing in on Trump." The probe had no boundaries; it was used to target allies of Trump and even his personal attorney. The goal behind this investigation was also to make the process seem like a punishment and build perceptions. The Mueller team did have some success. They managed to slow down the pace of Trump's implementation of his agenda, which the D.C. establishment was staunchly against. They probably convinced some citizens to vote against the GOP in 2018 and against Trump in 2020. Victory in the 2019 midterms enabled the Democrats to take control of the House, which led to two baseless impeachments of Trump. It is a miracle that Trump, despite all these impediments, managed to implement a great deal of his agenda on the economy, and border security, and secure 74 million votes. The "investigators" know that every human has his limit of endurance; they probably hoped that someday Trump would think, "I am a multi-billionaire, I have a great life, I don't need this" and walk away from politics forever. That didn't happen, and hence myriad baseless investigations continue to this day. They live in hope that a breaking point will be reached. The other objective of this persecution of Trump is to prevent any other aspiring private citizen from entering politics by challenging the D.C Democrat establishment and the Deep State. This is exactly what seems to be happening with Musk. What liberals fear the most is any challenge to their monopoly. Musk has been championing free speech and expressing support for Republicans. Musk has been violating the D.C. Democrat groupthink over and over again and has been enjoying the free publicity he gets from being provocative and amassing a significant following for it. It is hard to say if Musk is a real disruptor or merely addicted to publicity. But the D.C. establishment doesn't like challengers and dissenters. The media attacks on Musk were merely threats. This federal investigation will amount to real persecution. Don't be too surprised if someone demands another investigation to look into Musk's ties with Putin. It would give them an excuse to probe into his business dealings and perhaps even his personal life. This once again should be a reminder to those who say Trump has too much baggage owing to the multiple allegations and investigations and that a clean candidate would serve the GOP better. Make no mistake: challengers to the status quo, even if they are not contemplating joining politics, will be gratuitously probed in addition to being demonized. In fact, the investigations and probes must be seen as a barometer of worthiness. Photo credit: J.D. Lasica, CC BY 2.0 license. Pelosi's rogue Jan. 6 panel has added to its previous illegitimate actions, violating the terms of the House resolution establishing the committee, by issuing a subpoena to former president Trump. If this wayward action by this rabid, partisan committee is upheld by the courts, we shall have an unconstitutional amendment to the Constitution providing for parliamentary government, with the president answerable to Congress. Erased by congressional fiat, supported by the Judiciary, will be the important concept of separation of powers established by the Founding Fathers. Clearly, the courts must act with prudential speed to put a halt to Pelosi's assault on the Constitution if the Judiciary is to honor its oath to support, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the United States. And the Republican members of House and Senate must rise in solidarity to declare their opposition to the rogue nature of Pelosi's puppet panel, comprising its violation of the terms of House Res. 503, the committee's organizing resolution, as well as the blatant disregard of the principle of separation of powers, a key building block of the Constitution. Systemic hatred of Donald J. Trump is no excuse for tearing down the Constitution and erecting a Potemkin governmental compact in its place, a compact that varies with the whims and prejudices of the leaders of the Democrat party. That our Constitution is under assault by Stalinists has been made evident by the recent disclosure that the FBI was prepared to pay Christopher Steele one million dollars for his dossier smearing Donald Trump. Had the FBI a legitimate purpose in getting hold of Steele's obvious forgery, the July raid on Mar-a-Lago suggests that the purpose could have been achieved by a subpoena for Steele and an FBI raiding party at his residence. That the FBI was prepared, however, to help elect Hillary Clinton president by paying Steele for his partisan document makes clear that not only was the FBI acting in support of the Clinton presidential campaign, but it was willing to kick over the traces and use taxpayer money to elect Clinton president. As matters developed, while the FBI did not hand over a million bucks of taxpayer funds to Steele, it did reimburse him with taxpayer dollars for his "expenses." Such payment was clearly illegal. In the event of winning majorities in House and Senate, November 8, the Republicans in Congress if they are to be taken seriously as a valid political party representing the views of the voters must issue a resolution on January 3, 2023 declaring null and void all actions taken by the Pelosi's illegitimate Jan. 6 committee, including all subpoenas that issued from this unconstitutional panel. And House and Senate Republicans must direct the Judiciary Committees of Congress to act immediately to investigate the Department of Justice, and the FBI, unlawfully politicizing their governmental responsibilities to the detriment of the Constitution, thereby causing notorious damage to the American Spirit of Freedom. To paraphrase a vital observation stated in Federalist Paper No. 57, if a Republican majority in Congress fails to nullify the unconstitutional actions taken by the FBI and Jan. 6 panel, the GOP will be prepared to tolerate any action taken by the Stalinists in derogation of the Constitution and, thereby, violate their own oath to support, uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. Fossil has just announced a new smartwatch with Wear OS 3, the Gen 6 Wellness Edition. This smartwatch has been teased lately, and the company just confirmed it. The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition comes with Wear OS 3 out of the box This smartwatch is powered by the Snapdragon 4100+, the same SoC as the regular Gen 6 model. This watch does come with Wear OS 3 out of the box, though. That makes it the first Fossil smartwatch with the latest smartwatch OS from Google. One thing to specifically note is that the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition does not offer Google Assistant support. It does support Amazon Alexa, though, if that works for you. Advertisement Fossil also included the Wellness app here, which brings health and fitness features to the watch. What do those features include? Well, Fossil mentioned blood oxygen level measurement, heart rate zones, automatic workout detection, and cardio fitness estimations using VO2 Max. The watch also offer improved sleep tracking and continuous heart rate monitoring outside of workouts. What about the rest of its specs? Well, lets talk about those real quick. The device features a 1.28-inch display, and 1GB of RAM The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition features a 1.28-inch OLED display. The watch does offer always-on functionality, of course, and it packs in 1GB of RAM. Fossil also included 8GB of storage here. Advertisement The Watch features a 44mm case size, and will be available in three color options. Youll be able to choose between Black, Silver, and Rose Gold colors. The watch will become available starting October 17 from Fossils stores and official website. In order to get it, youll need to part with $299. If you follow this link, youll be thrown to Fossils official landing page for this watch. You can submit your email there, and Fossil will inform you the moment the watch becomes available. As a side note, Fossil also confirmed that Wear OS 3 will start arriving on compatible Fossil smartwatches this month. We all know that Lenovo owns Motorola, and the two companies have teamed up to make some pretty compelling devices (check out our review of the Motorola G Stylus 5G 2022). While this is true, it seems that the Chinese laptop maker has some plans of its own. Lenovo could be in the process of making a ThinkPad phone. Lenovo is primarily a laptop company. Its laptops are some of the best that you can get on the market. However, tech companies rarely want to stay in just one market. This is one reason why it purchased Motorola from Google so many years ago. The plan was to use Motorola to make a line of Lenovo-branded phones. However, Motorolas name carried so much weight that Lenovo decided to let the sleeping dogs lie and push Motorola-branded phones. Advertisement But, Lenovo might be making its own ThinkPad phone Were talking about a leak here, so you want to take this with a grain of salt. Legendary tipster Evan Blass posted a picture to 91Mobiles showing us what looks like a ThinkPad-branded phone. The image is of pretty low quality, but we can still glean some useful information from it. First and foremost, on the bottom of the back, we see the ThinkPhone branding. It has the same font as the ThinkPad branding on Lenovos computers. We see a camera package up top on a rectangular island. Looking at the picture, the island seems to be made of metal. That remains to be known for sure. The back panel seems to be made from a plastic material. However, well have to wait on more information to confirm that. Advertisement Looking at the front of the device, we see some pretty small bezels, a punch hole front and center, an under-display fingerprint sensor, and Googles own At a Glance widget. This could hint at very close-to-stock Android being on the phone. The right side of the phone shows us the volume rocker and what could be the power button. It seems rather small to be the power button, so it could possibly be a Google Assistant button or something equivalent. Advertisement This could be more of a Motorola phone, actually If you think that this is a phone built from the ground up by Lenovo, you might be a little disappointed. This phone shares the same model number as a Motorola smartphone slated to launch next year, and that number is XT-2309. The future Motorola phone has the code name Bronco, and its expected to launch sometime next year with top-of-the-line specs. At this point, we dont know much about this Lenovo ThinkPad phone or Motorolas upcoming smartphone. As time goes on, well get more information about both of them, so stay tuned if you want more updates. (ANSA) - ROME, OCT 14 - Outgoing industry minister Giancarlo Giorgetti is the League's pick for economy minister in the likely new government of Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni, League leader Matteo Salvini said Friday. Salvini said it was "indisputable" that the League would indicate Giorgetti's name to Meloni when she picks her new cabinet. She is expected to accept Giorgetti in the key post. Giorgetti, 55, who became deputy League leader in 2016, has won plaudits for his work as industry minister in outgoing Premier Mario Draghi's executive. Italia media say he is not formally among the League's quota of candidates for the new government but is considered a technocrat. Giorgetti is close to the League governors who govern many Italian regions, especially in the richer north of the country, and is seen as being a rival to Salvini, whose position has been weakened by the party's poor performance in the September 25 general election. The League's vote, largely cannibalised by Meloni's FdI, fell from 34% in European elections in 2019 to just 9% in last month's general election. The league is the second biggest party in the centre right coalition after FdI, which got 26%, and just ahead of three-time former premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi's centre right Forza Italia (FI) party, which got 8% as many of its voters also migrated to Meloni. (ANSA). ATHENS - Following the request of other European countries, Greece will again take in 1,027 refugees who had been granted asylum by the country and who then moved to live in northern Europe, looking for more favorable living conditions. This announcement was made today at the Parliament by the Minister for the Protection of Citizens (the equivalent of the Minister of Interior in Greece), Takis Theodorikakos. Among the countries who have requested the highest number of forced transfers are Germany (with 232 requests), Switzerland (with 169 requests), while France presented 76, Sweden 47 and Finland 25. A single request of transfer however may involved the transfer of more than one individual. Based on the law, the beneficiaries of international protection are obliged to live in the country where such protection was granted, they can move and travel to third countries in Europe only for a 3 month period. In the past, Minister of Migration, Notis Mitatarkis, criticized this law, stating that is resulted in excessive pressure on Mediterranean countries, which according to the Dublin Treaty, are destined to receive the asylum requests, as these are the first countries that the refugees reach. MADRID - Spanish law enforcement authorities conducted an operation against "the major organization funding drug trafficking in Europe". The operation was conducted primarily between the cities of Madrid and Toledo, in cooperation with the Spanish customs control agency and with Europol. Agents of the national Spanish police arrested 32 persons, freezing assets of 3 million euro and confiscating hundreds of kilograms of hashish and marijuana, cars and luxury watches. The majority of those arrested is of Syrian origin, said the prosecutors. The alleged criminal group, on which prosecutors were conducting investigations for approximately two years, are believed to have realized numerous illegal activities related to the transfer, delivery of money for "various organizations tied to drug-trafficking operating in Spain and abroad", even through the use of cryptocurrency: a real "bank account" for drug-traffickers, according to local media reports. Among the countries where these activities were registered there is also Italy, explains the Spanish police. According to an official communication, the group used a restaurant in Fuenlabrada, in the outskirts of Madrid, as its headquarters to run operations in Spain. TEL AVIV - Two Palestinian were killed in clashes with the Israeli army near the Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank. Medical sources, mentioned by the Palestinian news Agency Wafa, state at least six persons were wounded. A hospital doctor who was trying to offer assistance to the wounded was fatally injured and died. "Doctor Abdullah Abu Al-Teen died for wounds at the head, caused by gunshots of the soldiers", wrote the Palestinian news agency, while citing the local Ministry of Health. According to some media sources, the Israeli army during the operation captured a Hamas member. "During the operation in Jenin, numerous armed suspects shot against the security forces in the area who responded targeting the culprits", stated the Israeli army, adding that explosive devices were also used against them". The Israeli army has therefore highlighted that "the presence of civilians who are not involved in armed combat but who are in the area exposes their lives to a high risk". ANSAmed- Weekly diary from October 17 to October 23 (ANSAmed) - ROME, OCTOBER 14 - The following are the main events scheduled in the Euro-Mediterranean area from October 17 to October 23: MONDAY OCTOBER 17 BRUSSELS - Meeting of Energy ministers from the Western Balkans. ROME - World Food Forum 2022 kicks off (to October 21). TUESDAY OCTOBER 18 MOROCCO - Visit by Eu Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans to sign EU-Morocco Green Partnership (to October 19). UNITED NATIONS - Security Council meeting (to October 21). WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 19 TUNIS - First International Energy Transition Fair kicks off (until October 21). BOLOGNA - Exhibition titled 'Libya 1911-1912. Colonialism and Collectivism' (through December 10). THURSDAY OCTOBER 20 BRUSSELS - EU, European Council. FRIDAY OCTOBER 21 ATHENS - Eastern Mediterranean ministers' meeting. SATURDAY OCTOBER 22 No major events scheduled SUNDAY OCTOBER 23 No major events scheduled (ANSAmed). Kwasi Kwarteng is returning to London ahead of schedule for urgent talks with Liz Truss as expectations grow that they will scrap parts of their mini-budget to reassure markets. The Chancellor was set to travel back from the International Monetary Funds (IMF) annual meeting in Washington DC this weekend but is now due to land in the UK on Friday morning, where he is likely to find a significant section of his mini-budget redrawn after days of open revolt among Tory MPs and an emerging market consensus that another U-turn is on the cards. Mr Kwarteng cancelled appointments at the IMF gathering to fly home early. A Treasury spokesperson said: After completing a successful series of meetings at the IMF, the Chancellor is returning to London today to continue work at pace on the medium-term fiscal plan. The Prime Ministers key pledge to scrap the planned increase in corporation tax from 19% to 25% is widely seen as a likely casualty in the coming days, as Ms Truss seeks to save her embattled premiership. It comes amid reports that senior Tories are plotting the possibility of replacing Ms Truss with a joint ticket of Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, with the Times newspaper also reporting that party grandees are considering replacing her with a unity candidate. Downing Street on Thursday did not deny that the potential exists for a reversal on the corporation tax policy, one of the landmark promises made by Ms Truss in her pitch to become Tory leader, with talks said to be under way between No 10 and the Treasury on abandoning elements of the 43 billion tax-cutting plan. Speculation was fuelled further when the Chancellor, in an interview with the Telegraph, only said lets see when asked about the expectation from financial markets that the Government could ditch its corporation tax promise. Friday is set to be a crunch day in the financial markets, with the Bank of Englands emergency bond-buying scheme due to come to an end. Officials stepped in two weeks ago after the mini-budget sent markets into chaos amid concerns over higher borrowing costs, triggering concerns in particular about the fate of pension funds. A growing expectation on Thursday of a Government U-turn on corporation tax appeared to reassure the finance industry, after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey spooked the markets by insisting that the emergency support would not be extended. Mr Kwarteng also insisted to the Telegraph that there would be no real cuts to public spending, appearing to double down on comments made in the Commons by the Prime Minister on Wednesday. Chancellor @KwasiKwarteng has announced that the Medium-Term Fiscal Plan will be published on 31 October & an @OBR_UK forecast has been commissioned for that date. pic.twitter.com/RoiNyhLmQA HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) October 10, 2022 But he told the paper: Lets face it, there are difficult choices within that you have to prioritise. You have to make sure that you know the public is getting value for money. And I make no apologies for that, there has to be some sort of fiscal discipline. In the same interview, he was insistent that his party could still be trusted with the public finances. Were Conservatives. Fiscal discipline runs right through our DNA, he told the paper. The Governments plans revolve around securing an increase in economic growth with a target of an annual rise of around 2.5% in gross domestic product (GDP). The crucial date will be October 31, when the forecasts presented by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) alongside the Chancellors statement will give an assessment on whether such a plan is realistic. Mr Kwarteng on Thursday was insisting that his position was safe, telling broadcasters in Washington: I am not going anywhere. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group meetings were held in Washington DC this week (Patrick Semansky/AP) It comes amid speculation in Westminster about the fate of the Chancellor, only a few weeks into the job, if his financial plans are torn up in the coming days. Former Tory chancellor and party grandee Ken Clarke said that Ms Truss could not be able to make Mr Kwarteng a scapegoat, but it comes amid mounting anger and unrest within the Conservatives about the crisis of recent weeks. Newly elected Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Alicia Kearns told LBCs Tonight With Andrew Marr that she wanted the Prime Minister to succeed but added her voice to calls for a change of course on the mini-budget. She said: The markets are not woke, the markets are not left. The fact they are not lefty, anti-government, the fact they have been spooked, is something that should be taken incredibly seriously. Former veterans minister Johnny Mercer also tweeted that the situation needs a course correction from No.10. Get on and do it we all know its coming. But amid reports of a coronation of a new leader to save the Tories from a crushing defeat at the next election, some warned against such a drastic move. One senior Tory told PA that any move to replace Ms Truss would be completely bonkers and premature, while a staunch ally of Ms Truss, Sir Christopher Chope, insisted on BBC Newsnight that she would not be forced by the anti-growth coalition into a humiliating retreat on corporation tax. If we were to increase corporation tax having said that were not going to, that would be totally inconsistent with the Prime Ministers policy of promoting growth, growth and growth, he said. An Edinburgh theatre has said it was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Robbie Coltrane. Coltranes agent said the actor died aged 72 on Friday and thanked the medical staff at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, near Falkirk in Scotland, for their care and diplomacy. The Scottish star, whose real name is Anthony Robert McMillan, was best known for playing the beloved Hogwarts gamekeeper Hagrid and starring as criminal psychologist Dr Eddie Fitz Fitzgerald in ITVs crime drama Cracker. In 1978, at the age of 28, he appeared in the first theatre production of The Slab Boys at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. The theatre said on Friday: We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of the inimitable Robbie Coltrane, who appeared at the Traverse in the first production of John Byrnes iconic Slab Boys. His energy, wit and skill will be remembered for many years to come and our thoughts are with his loved ones. We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of the inimitable Robbie Coltrane, who appeared at the Traverse in the first production of John Byrne's iconic Slab Boys. His energy, wit and skill will be remembered for many years to come and our thoughts are with his loved ones. pic.twitter.com/Ljc8F2qFqU Traverse Theatre (@traversetheatre) October 14, 2022 Born in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, in 1950, Coltrane was the son of teacher and pianist Jean Ross and general practitioner Ian Baxter McMillan, and was educated at independent school Glenalmond College in Perth and Kinross. He later attended Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and Moray House College of Education in Edinburgh and moved into acting in his 20s. Sam de Santis, GSAs creative network manager, paid tribute to the much-loved actor. He said: We are all saddened to hear the news of the death of Robbie Coltrane. He is a much-loved GSA alumnus who will be missed by us all. Whilst internationally known for his acting career Robbie embodied the way in which studying at an art school opens up myriad opportunities to realise creative potential. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time. A Francis Bacon triptych depicting his close friend has sold for 24.3 million the highest value work sold in a Frieze season auction in the last 10 years. The paintings, titled Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, come from the collection of American media executive William S Paley, who acquired the work from Malborough Gallery months after it was finished in 1963. Moraes was a key figure in Londons post-war artistic landscape and acted as a muse for both Bacon and Lucian Freud. It sold for 24.3m at auction (Jonathan Brady/PA) On Friday, the triptych made its auction debut at Sothebys in London during a contemporary evening sale, which totalled 96.1 million highest frieze week evening sale at Sothebys since 2015. Until recently it was kept under the stewardship of the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York, where it stayed for more than 30 years following Mr Paleys death in 1990. Bacon, known for his bold and shocking figurative style, died aged 82 in 1992. His work focused on the human form in an often brutal manner and included a number of triptychs, religious images of crucifixions and popes, and self-portraits. Sothebys said proceeds from the sale will support various charitable organisations, including The Paley Museum, the Greenpark Foundation, and a new endowment at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). Further works will be sold at Sothebys to benefit charitable causes on Saturday. Liz Truss announced a major U-turn on corporation tax after sacking Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor in an effort to reassure markets spooked by the unfunded mini-budget tax cuts. Admitting she had to change course, the Prime Minister on Friday reversed a key policy to scrap the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25%. It was the latest in a series of screeching U-turns performed by Ms Truss since she entered No 10 little over a month ago and before she took office. Here is a look at her previous climbdowns. Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are expected to blow up parts of their controversial mini-budget (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Tax cuts for the rich Ms Trusss first big U-turn as Prime Minister came when she abandoned plans to axe the 45p rate of income tax for people earning more than 150,000. Then-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced the dramatic volte-face on October 3, just hours before his set-piece speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, to stave off a mounting Tory revolt. He acknowledged that the Governments desire to borrow billions to scrap the top rate of tax for high earners had become a terrible distraction amid widespread criticism. The U-turn was seen as a massive blow to Ms Truss and Mr Kwartengs standing, coming a little over a week after the tax cut was announced in the Chancellors seismic September 23 mini-budget. The mini-budget triggered turmoil in the financial markets, was criticised by the International Monetary Fund and required an emergency intervention by the Bank of England to support Government bonds. But it was the 45p rate which attracted the biggest political backlash, with senior Tories including Michael Gove and Grant Shapps criticising it at the conference for offering help to the rich while the country faced a cost-of-living crisis. We get it and we have listened. The abolition of the 45pc rate had become a distraction from our mission to get Britain moving. Our focus now is on building a high growth economy that funds world-class public services, boosts wages, and creates opportunities across the country. https://t.co/ee4ZFc7Aes Liz Truss (@trussliz) October 3, 2022 Timing of the financial statement Ms Trusss Government bowed to pressure to bring forward the publication of Mr Kwartengs financial strategy and independent economic forecasts. On October 10, Mr Kwarteng agreed to set out his medium-term fiscal plan alongside Office for Budget Responsibility data on October 31 Halloween. He had been resisting setting out his plan to get the public finances back on track before November 23, but faced growing calls from Tory MPs to move more quickly to calm the markets spooked by the scale of borrowing to fund 43 billion of unfunded tax cuts. Mr Kwarteng had sparked confusion during the Tory party conference when he denied his own allies suggestions that he would be bringing forward the statement, drawing accusations of a triple U-turn. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng has brought forward his financial statement to October 31 (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Handouts to address soaring energy prices After rejecting giving handouts to support people through the cost-of-living crisis during her Tory leadership campaign, Ms Truss completed a U-turn by promising a multibillion-pound package of help with energy bills. Asked how she would help families with spiralling bills, she told the Financial Times in August: Of course, I will look at what more can be done. But the way I would do things is in a Conservative way of lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts. But upon entering office, the Prime Minister announced one of the biggest Government handouts in generations. On September 8, she set out an emergency package costing tens of billions of pounds to help shield households and businesses from soaring energy prices, including preventing the average annual family bill in Britain topping 2,500 for two years. Unclear about how the Energy Price Guarantee works? Price per unit of gas and electricity is limitedBills aren't cappedA typical 3-bedroom 2-3 person household will pay 2,500 a yearAutomatically applied Your #EnergyBill will depend on usage.https://t.co/1RZMuJPmtW pic.twitter.com/V6p27pode7 Dept for BEIS (@beisgovuk) October 11, 2022 Regional public sector pay During her leadership campaign, Ms Truss was forced to abandon a flagship policy to slash 8.8 billion from public sector pay outside London, after furious warnings from senior Conservatives that it would be levelling down the nation by leaving nurses, police officers and teachers poorer. She scrapped the plan to pay workers in cheaper regions less than their counterparts in the capital and the South East, a little over 12 hours after making the major announcement. Afterwards, Ms Truss claimed her policy had been misrepresented as she confirmed she would not be going ahead with the regional pay boards. Prime Minister Liz Truss departs 10 Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Brexit Ms Truss has a long history of taking firm positions and then backtracking, including over Brexit. She supported Britain staying in the EU in 2016, but has since turned into a fervent Brexiteer who says she regrets her Remain vote. Party allegiance Ms Truss has even changed political allegiance. The Conservatives were not her first political party, having initially had a brush with the Liberal Democrats and using a speech at their 1994 conference to back a motion calling for the abolition of the monarchy. Perhaps best known for his role as Rubeus Hagrid in eight Harry Potter films, Robbie Coltrane OBE was a larger-than-life character whose presence was immediately evident whenever he graced the screen. Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, on March 30 1950, Coltrane was the son of teacher and pianist Jean Ross and general practitioner Ian Baxter McMillan, and was educated at independent school Glenalmond College in Perth and Kinross. While there, he was head of the schools debating society and won prizes for art, which later prompted him to attend Glasgow School of Art and Moray House College of Education in Edinburgh. Coltrane was known as Red Robbie in his younger years (PA) Despite attending a private school, he called for them to be banned and gained the nickname Red Robbie because of his involvement with the Labour Party and for his anti-conservative views, which were opposite to his upbringing. One of three siblings, who include an older sister Annie and younger sister Jane, the death of his father when he was 19 had a huge impact on his life. It was not until he was in his 20s that he moved into acting, which prompted him to take the stage name Coltrane, a tribute to jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. After working in theatre and comedy, he secured a role in BBC comedy series A Kick Up The Eighties, which brought him further roles in The Comic Strip Presents movies The Supergrass (1985) and The Pope Must Die (1991), and a series of comedy sketch shows. He also memorably appeared as dictionary creator Samuel Johnson in Blackadder The Third in 1987 before reuniting with the cast for the 1988 special Blackadders Christmas Carol. Robbie Coltrane starred as Dr Eddie Fitz Fitzgerald in Cracker (PA) Coltrane also appeared in eight films with a former member of Monty Pythons Flying Circus. Eric Idle was his opposite number in Nuns On The Run (1990) and National Lampoons European Vacation (1985). He also played Big Jazza in the TV mini series Tutti Frutti, where he appeared in six episodes. In 1988, he met sculptor Rhona Gemmell in a pub and they were married in 1999. The birth of their son Spencer happened in 1992 before their daughter, Alice, arrived in 1998. The actor, who lived in Killearn, in the Stirling Council area, and his wife had separated. One of his highest-profile TV roles was in the 1990s playing Dr Eddie Fitz Fitzgerald, a forensic psychologist in the TV series Cracker (1993). It was not until his performance as KGB man Valentin Zukovsky in Bond film Goldeneye (1995) that he became internationally-known, revisiting the same character in The World Is Not Enough. It led to him securing a role in the lucrative Harry Potter franchise for which he was personally selected by author JK Rowling, which led to appearances as Rubeus Hagrid in all the eight films. The 6ft 1ins actor is said to have only taken the role of the giant after his children urged him to. Coltrane at the UK premiere of Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (Ian West/PA) Coltranes collection of accolades culminated with an OBE award from the Queen in 2006 for services to drama. He then said: Once youve been doing anything for 25 years people start to notice you. What was really nice about the OBE is that its the first award where I didnt have to make a speech and I didnt have to sit there waiting to see if Id won, I knew I was going to get it. The comedian and actor, who studied painting at Glasgow School of Art between 1968 and 1972, returned to open its new Reid building in April 2014. He then said his old tutors would be turning in their graves if they knew he was opening the facility and admitted they would be embarrassed if any of them could see the work he produced as a cheeky student. In the same interview with The Scotsman in April 2014, Coltrane also revealed he was writing his own memoirs after reaching a reflective stage in his life. He said: Im writing my biography at the moment. I just think Ive lived such an interesting life. Ive written three books, Ive made more than 700 hours of television, Ive made 78 movies, Ive made a lot. Ive lived in New York, I was in Britain when alternative comedy happened, I was in Tutti Frutti, I was in Cracker, Ive been fortunate enough to be connected with a lot of really important moments in drama, and then there is Harry Potter, obviously. Robbie Coltrane was given an OBE in 2006 (Andrew Parsons/PA) Coltrane won three Baftas for his work in Cracker and also won an outstanding achievement award from Bafta Scotland in 2011. Apart from acting and comedy, his talents also extended to voicing characters for animated films such as Brave in 2012 where his voice was used to bring colour to the character Lord Dingwall. He was also the voice of the Gruffalo in the 2009 TV film. In some of the many TV and film productions in which he was featured, he also brought his musical skills to the soundtrack. His work on Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, according to IMDB, described him as the uncredited performer in the Odo the Hero in 2009. He also performed in three episodes of Cracker and in two episodes of Alfresco TV series between 1983 and 1984. In January 2015, he was taken to a Florida hospital after experiencing flu-like symptoms on a transatlantic flight. He had been travelling to Orlando for a Harry Potter celebration event at the home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. Universal Studios said he was kept in hospital overnight and his agent Belinda Wright said: The prognosis is that hes going to be fine. After a break from television, he returned to the small screen in 2016 for the Channel 4 drama National Treasure, where he played a comedian accused of raping a 15-year-old girl several years earlier. Based on Operation Yewtree, Coltrane worked alongside Dame Julie Walters in the topical series which was broadcast in autumn 2016. In interviews about his appearance in the programmes, he said he was appalled by allegations of historical abuse which emerged about public figures during the police operation. In his later years, he appeared less frequently in film and television, but returned to be interviewed for HBOs Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return To Hogwarts where he spoke of how his legacy as Hagrid would live long beyond him. Speaking on the special, he said: The legacy of the movies is that my childrens generation will show it to their children, so you could be watching it in 50 years time easy. Ill not be here sadlybut Hagrid will. Elon Musk escalated his personal battle with Ukraine with a promise to no longer provide funding for donated Starlink internet terminals a move that could prove disastrous in the nations ongoing war with Russia. SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable, Musk wrote in a tweet shared Friday. Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder, he added. Elon Musk attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" exhibition on Monday, May 2, 2022, in New York. Elon Musk attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" exhibition on Monday, May 2, 2022, in New York. (Evan Agostini/) The confirmation comes days after Musks online spat with Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melnyk, sparked by a poll he shared with his 107 million Twitter followers. He dubbed the poll his Ukraine-Russia Peace plan, which includes demands Kremlin officials have made repeatedly in recent months, and then offered his followers an opportunity to vote yes in support of his ideas or no. Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchevs mistake). Water supply to Crimea assured. Ukraine remains neutral, Musk tweeted. F--k off is my very diplomatic reply to you @ElonMusk, Melnyk wrote in response. Andrij Melnyk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, photographed at the German federal parliament, Bundestag, in the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, May 12, 2022. Andrij Melnyk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, photographed at the German federal parliament, Bundestag, in the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, May 12, 2022. (Michael Kappeler/) The worlds richest man on Friday said he was simply following (Melnyks) recommendation when he made the decision. But a letter from SpaceX obtained by CNN shows the plan to cut off funding was in the works well before the online drama. Last month, Musks SpaceX sent a note to the Pentagon saying it can no longer foot the bill for the Starlink service and requested that the Department of Defense take over funding for Ukraines government and military use of the internet service. The company claimed it cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months. Last month, Musks SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer foot the bill for the Starlink service and requested that the Department of Defense take over funding for Ukraines government and military use of Starlink. Last month, Musks SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer foot the bill for the Starlink service and requested that the Department of Defense take over funding for Ukraines government and military use of Starlink. (SOPA Images/) A Pentagon spokesperson said the department has been in touch with SpaceX regarding the Starlink system, but declined to answer whether a letter was received or provide any further details. The Starlink system, made up of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites, has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Because it is the nations primary mode of communication, a shutdown could deliver a major advantage to Russia, which has sought to jam signals and phone service amid the ongoing conflict. With News Wire Services Rumor patrol. Andy Cohen exclusively spoke to Us Weekly about the speculation that he might retire from Bravo. Read article I just heard that down there, the Watch What Happens Live host, 54, told Us at BravoCon on Friday, October 14. Yeah. Thats not happening. Not happening. Cohen joined Bravo as vice president of original programming in 2004. He launched the Real Housewives franchise in 2006 and continues to executive produce each spinoff in addition to hosting Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, which debuted in 2009. Simply reading his resume is exhausting, but CNNs New Years Eve Live star isnt done yet. When Bravos done with me, I will go off with a lot of happy memories, he exclusively explained to Us while at the New York City convention. Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock The network isnt finished with Cohen yet, but the same cant be said for all the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. The producer revealed that he and the California-based cast members have had the conversations internally about who will stay and who will go. I think that cast shakeups are always in the offing for any season, for any city, he said. Its a conversation that we always have. Its the reason that this franchise been going for 16 years. We like to keep it fresh and we consider everything. Read article RHOBH fans arent shy, but some have becoming increasingly vocal about wanting Erika Jayne off the show amid her legal troubles. Even Paris Hilton seemingly agreed with calls to drop the Pretty Mess author, 51, as well as Lisa Rinna and Kyle Richards. The Cooking With Paris alum, 41, showed her support for her mom, Kathy Hilton, after her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills costars dismissed her in a September episode. Tommy Garcia/Bravo So unkind, she tweeted on September 8 in response to a fan who had written: [Kathy] was so cute, all excited to show the ladies the tequila and then Kyle [Richards] just scoffs at her/ none of them even acted slightly interested. It was so sad to watch. Read article One of several posts liked by Paris called for the firing of Richards, Rinna and Jayne: The only intelligent housewives of #RHOBH who have morals and see through @erikajayne illegal, unethical, narcissist failure to rtn victims and then covering up w lies. Only @SuttonBStracke @GarcelleB @KathyHilton should return to @BravoTV #RHOBH @Andy Fire Kyle, Erika, Rinna. Though the drama is juicy, Cohen is rooting for everyone, especially Richards and Kathy, to make amends. I always hope for everyone to get back on track. Especially families, he told Us. Lee Grant and Sidney Poitier in the classic thriller, In The Heat of the Night. (Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection) It's the slap that still reverberates through cinematic history. Fifty-five years ago only three years after the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was signed into law millions of moviegoers watched as Black police officer Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) was struck across the face by plantation-owning Deep South tycoon Endicott (Larry Gates) in Norman Jewison's classic thriller In the Heat of the Night. But then Tibbs did something that had never been seen in a major studio movie before: He struck back. In the immediate aftermath of being slapped, Endicott appeals to the other white man in the room, local police chief, Gillespie (Rod Steiger), saying, "You saw what he did. What are you going to do about it?" Gillespie whose racially-motivated distrust of Tibbs is slowly turning into grudging respect replies simply, "I don't know." Tibbs ultimately walks away from that encounter the victor, and the scene signaled to both Hollywood and the nation at large that something fundamental had shifted in the way that race relations could be presented onscreen. "They rose off their chairs when he slapped him back," In the Heat of the Night co-star, Lee Grant, confirms to Yahoo Entertainment ahead of the movie's return to theaters on Oct. 16 courtesy of the TCM Big Screen Classics series, hosted by TCM and Fathom Events. "That was also Rod's best moment in the film: I thought he was extraordinary. You could really see him being pulled one way and the other, and he ultimately found a new way of life. I think he's forever changed by the experience." Steiger later earned a Best Actor Oscar for his performance, and the movie itself took home the Best Picture prize. Now in her nineties, Grant says that she wasn't on set to witness the slap in person. But she was present for one of the movie's other signature moments, when Tibbs delivers a verbal smackdown to Gillespie that stings as much as his physical response to Endicott. Passing through Sparta, Mississippi on his way back to Philadelphia, the homicide investigator gets roped into helping solve the murder of a Chicago industrialist who planned to build an integrated factory in the economically-distressed small town. Gillespie is initially less than thrilled to have to work alongside a Black man, and makes a point of belittling him whenever possible, even making fun of his name. "What do they call you up there?" he asks. "They call me Mister Tibbs," Virgil responds with icy precision. (That line has since earned a spot on AFI's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes of all-time.) "I don't remember how many times they shot that scene, but I can assure you the connection between Sidney and Rod was so strong," says Grant, who plays the small, but pivotal role of Mrs. Colbert, the wife of the central murder victim. "There was a symbiosis between them as actors. Sidney didn't have to try for anything: he knew that when Virgil came to that small town, he was the brilliant one." (Both stars have since passed on: Steiger died in 2002, and Poitier passed away earlier this year.) Grant also notes that the "They call me Mr. Tibbs" scene crystalizes Jewison's larger intentions with the film, which was to show these two very different men forging a bond that bridges the deep racial divisions of the time. "He set up a miracle of opposites," she explains. "The whole journey for a smart Philadelphia detective to be caught by accident in this backwards Southern town, where he encounters the ignorance of the police chief. They're forced to face each other and find out where they came from and how far away they are from each other's lives. It's a kind of friendship story." Beyond its larger cultural impact, In the Heat of the Night holds a special place in Grant's heart for being her re-introduction to Hollywood after spending twelve years in career purgatory due to being placed on the film industry's notorious blacklist. A rising stage and screen star in the early 1950s, she married screenwriter Arnold Manoff who was a member of the Communist Party. Amidst the "Red Scare" enveloping the country at the time, her husband came to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and was blacklisted himself. "I refused to take the Fifth Amendment in front of the committee," says Grant, whose eulogy for blacklisted actor, J. Edward Bromberg, also made her a HUAC target. "They insisted that I name names if I wanted to work. I was told that if I named my husband as a Communist, I could work again. So I left and didn't work for the next twelve years in film or television. I worked in theater, and I didn't give a s*** about working in television or in films not if I had to name people. I had no desire to join a group of people who would name names." Grant worked in the New York theater world as McCarthy's red-baiting reign of terror continued. In 1954, the Wisconsin senator was finally exposed as a fraud and censured by Congress, but it took another decade for blacklisted actors, writers and directors to start openly working in the industry again. Over the decades, conservative commentators like Ann Coulter have tried to rehabilitate McCarthy's destructive legacy, but Grant has no patience for that kind of historical distortion. "He was a terrible man," she says emphatically. "And his assistant, Roy Cohn, was terrible, too. He turned people into HUAC. Remember when Donald Trump was president and he said, 'Where's my Roy Cohn?' To me, Donald Trump is no different that his predecessor. That's where I stand on his presidency." (Trump and Cohn were business associates prior to Cohn's death in 1986.) Grant in one of her earliest roles in 1951's Detective Story. (Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection) By the mid-60s, Grant was once again starting to find work on TV shows like Peyton Place and The Fugitive, and that's when Jewison contacted her about In the Heat of the Night. "He called me and said, 'Would you like to do this part?'" she remembers now. "He knew that I had gone through that experience [of the blacklist], and because he was and is a great progressive, he wanted to do something for me." While In the Heat of the Night is set in Mississippi, Jewison shot the bulk of the film in Sparta, Illionis out of concerns over Poitier's safety. "Sidney had to be very careful about where he played the part," Grant remembers. "He could have been killed very easily [in the South] at that time." Grant says she was eager to work opposite Poitier, who she knew from their shared time in New York's tight-knit stage community. (Poitier had also been blacklisted, although he returned to the screen well before Grant.) "While we had been friends, this was our first meeting as actors," she says. "I think that Sidney and I had something going for us in this film that connected to my life before it. He cared about me, and that had nothing to do with acting." Poitier's care for his co-star his evident in their first scene together, where Tibbs tries to comfort Mrs. Colbert who is notably the first white person he touches in the movie. Grant says that they avoided speaking too much about the scene ahead of time. "Actors don't talk to each other about their work," she says, laughing. "Sidney and I were Method actors we each came with our own secrets. Our only connection on set was within our characters; we never had dinner together or chatted together. It would not be until years later that we talked about it. I made a documentary about Sidney [One Bright Light, part of PBS's American Masters series] and I don't remember us even talking about it then." Poitier and Steiger in a scene from In the Heat of the Night. (Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection) Poitier would go on to reprise his role as Virgil Tibbs in two follow-up movies, 1970's They Call Me Mister Tibbs! and 1971's The Organization, both of which were set in San Francisco. Meanwhile, In the Heat of the Night was later adapted into a television series that ran from 1988 until 1995 and starred All in the Family's Carroll O'Connor as Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Mister Tibbs. Grant who went on to win an Oscar for her performance in Hal Ashby's classic 1975 comedy, Shampoo says that she never watched the sequels or the series, but feels that the original movie is just as relevant today as it was in 1967, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. "The preconception of what a Black man is especially in the South with its history of hate and killing isn't gone," she notes, adding that she sees similar intolerance in other places around the world, including in war-torn Ukraine, where her mother's family emigrated from decades ago. "Ukraine has been on my mind a lot," she says. "It may not be the blacklist, but it's the newest fight, and it's one that I'm deeply involved with." In the Heat of the Night returns to theaters on Oct. 16 and Oct. 19; visit Fathom Events for showtime and ticket information Chip and Joanna Gaines Reflect Ahead of Son Drake's Senior Year: 'How Do You Slow Down Time?' James Hardie Joanna Gaines has many special memories from the day she married husband Chip, but the one she will always cherish the most came near the very end of the night. "My favorite moment is when we said goodbye to everybody, got in the limo and ate so much food!" Joanna tells PEOPLE. The designer and author who is releasing her first solo memoir, The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters, Nov. 8 exchanged vows with Chip, 47, back in 2003 at the Earle Harrison House in Waco, Texas. "I just remember, when we got there, I saw how good the food looked and I asked my mom, 'No matter what, will you just put some food in a container and put it in the car?' " Joanna recalls. "So we did our thing, we did our dance, we did all the things that you're supposed to do at a wedding. And all I kept saying is, I can't wait to be in that car with Chip headed to our honeymoon. And the second that door shut, I was like, 'Thank God, this is why I'm here. I just wanna be with you and I wanna eat.' " While it's been nearly two decades since the Fixer Upper stars tied the knot, Joanna, 44, says that memory is still fresh in her mind. "Weddings are kind of scripted and you're doing a lot," she says. "You can forget why you're really there. And for me, I was really there because I wanted to be with Chip. It will always be my favorite memory when that limo door shut and we just ate like kids with our hands. It was Beef Wellington, mashed potatoes and two different kinds of cake." The couple, who share sons Crew, 4, Duke, 14, and Drake, 18, and daughters Emmie Kay, 12, and Ella, 15, recently celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary. "19 years ," Joanna captioned the Instagram post, adding a hashtag with the words "I like you a lot." Chip and Joanna Gaines Joanna Gaines/Instagram Chip and Joanna Gaines In the fall issue of Magnolia Journal, Joanna penned a personal essay about the obstacles she and Chip have overcome. (Magnolia Journal is published by PEOPLE's parent company Dotdash Meredith.) "In our 20 years of marriage, Chip and I have experienced a little bit of all of it," Joanna writes. "Losing a loved one. Shifts in friendships. Bills we couldn't pay. Moments where our hearts were broken. Times when all hope felt lost and circumstances were out of our control. When all I could think to do was lay face down on the floor in surrender." She adds that one of the "heartbreaking things" they're preparing to experience is sending their oldest son Drake, 18, to college. "In the grand scheme of heartbreaking things, this one comes with a lot of gratitude and excitement. But still, my first child is moving away, and our family dynamic will change because of it, and that can feel like a loss of its own. I catch glimpses now of what that life will look like and wonder ifor how many timesthat might bring me to the floor." In last year's summer edition of The Magnolia Journal, released in May 2021, Chip opened up about how he stays dedicated to being a good husband and loving father. "When I look out across the whole landscape of my little corner of the world, there are plenty of places where I fall short," Chip wrote at the time. "I'm known to be easily distracted, for one thing. In general, me and time have this way of losing track of one another. And sometimes, I can let some of the commitments I've made slip through my hands." "But there are other commitmentsthe big onesthat I hold on to with everything I've got. Honoring Jo, being a good dad, my faith, trying to do what's right even when it's not easy, building something that helps other people. Those are commitments I've made that I won't compromise. My nonnegotiables," the HGTV star continued. "No matter how much the details and circumstances of my life may change, and no matter what storms come my way, you watch: I'm going to get those right." A new liquefied natural gas project near Senegal and Mauritanias coastlines is only 80 percent complete, but it has already drawn visits from European leaders. DAKAR, Senegal (AP) A new liquefied natural gas project off Africas western coast may only be 80% complete, but already the prospect of a new energy supplier has drawn visits from the leaders of Poland and Germany. The initial field near Senegal and Mauritanias coastlines is expected to contain about 15 trillion cubic feet (425 billion cubic meters) of gas, five times more than what gas-dependent Germany used in all of 2019. But production isnt expected to start until the end of next year. That wont help solve Europes energy crisis triggered by Russias war in Ukraine. Still, Gordon Birrell, an executive for project co-developer BP, says the development could not be more timely as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is welcomed by Algerian Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane as she arrives in Algiers, on Oct. 9, 2022. European leaders are turning to Africa for more natural gas as the EU tries to replace Russian exports amid the war in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum, File) Current world events are demonstrating the vital role that (liquid gas) can play in underpinning the energy security of nations and regions, he told an energy industry meeting in West Africa last month. While Africas natural gas reserves are vast and North African countries like Algeria have pipelines already linked to Europe, a lack of infrastructure and security challenges have long stymied producers in other parts of the continent from scaling up exports. Established African producers are cutting deals or reducing energy use so they have more to sell to boost their finances, but some leaders warn that hundreds of millions of Africans lack electricity and supplies are needed at home. Nigeria has Africas largest natural gas reserves, said Horatius Egua, a spokesman for the petroleum minister, though it accounts for only 14% of the European Unions imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that comes by ship. Projects face the risk of energy thefts and high costs. Other promising countries like Mozambique have discovered large gas reserves only to see projects delayed by violence from Islamic militants. Europe has been scrambling to secure alternative sources as Moscow has reduced natural gas flows to EU countries, triggering soaring energy prices and growing expectations of a recession. The 27-nation EU, whose energy ministers are meeting this week to discuss a gas price cap, is bracing for the possibility of a complete Russian cutoff but has still managed to fill gas reserves to 90%. European leaders have flocked to countries like Norway, Qatar, Azerbaijan and especially those in North Africa, where Algeria has a pipeline running to Italy and another to Spain. Italy signed a $4 billion gas deal with Algeria in July, a month after Egypt reached an agreement with the European Union and Israel to boost sales of LNG. Angola also has signed a gas deal with Italy. While an earlier agreement allowed Italys biggest energy company to start production at two Algerian gas fields this week, it wasnt clear when flows would start from the July deal because it lacked specifics, analysts said. African leaders like Senegalese President Macky Sall want their countries to cash in on these projects even as theyre dissuaded from pursuing fossil fuels. They dont want to export it all either an estimated 600 million Africans lack access to electricity. It is legitimate, fair and equitable that Africa, the continent that pollutes the least and lags furthest behind in the industrialization process should exploit its available resources to provide basic energy, improve the competitiveness of its economy and achieve universal access to electricity, Sall told the U.N. General Assembly last month. Algeria is a major supplier it and Egypt accounted for 60% of the natural gas production in Africa in 2020 but it cant offset Russian gas to Europe at this stage, said Mahfoud Kaoubi, professor of economics and specialist in energy issues at the University of Algiers. Russia has an annual production of 270 billion cubic meters its huge, Kaoubi said. Algeria is 120 billion cubic meters, of which 70.50% is intended for consumption on the internal market. This year, Algeria is forecast to have piped exports of 31.8 billion cubic meters, according to Tom Purdie, a Europe, Middle East and Africa gas analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights. The key concern here surrounds the level of production step-up that can be achieved, and the impact domestic demand could have given how much gas Algeria uses at home, Purdie said. Cash-strapped Egypt also is looking to export more natural gas to Europe, even regulating air conditioning in shopping malls and lights on streets to save energy and sell it instead. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly says Egypt hopes to bring in an additional $450 million a month in foreign currency by rerouting 15% of its domestic gas usage for export, state media reported. More than 60% of Egypts natural gas consumption still is used by power stations to keep the country running. Most of its LNG goes to Asian markets. A new, three-party deal will see Israel send more gas to Europe via Egypt, which has facilities to liquefy it for export by sea. The EU says it will help the two countries increase gas production and exploration. In Nigeria, ambitious plans have yet to yield results despite years of planning. The country exported less than 1% of its vast natural gas reserves last year. A proposed 4,400-kilometer-long (2,734-mile-long) pipeline that would take Nigerian gas to Algeria through Niger has been stalled since 2009, mainly because of its estimated cost of $13 billion. Many fear that even if completed, the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline would face security risks like Nigerias oil pipelines, which have come under frequent attacks from militants and vandals. The same challenges would hinder increased gas exports to Europe, said Olufola Wusu, a Lagos-based oil and gas expert. If you look at the realities on ground issues that have to do with crude oil theft and others begin to question our ability to supply gas to Europe, he said. Wusu urged pursuing LNG, calling it the most profitable gas strategy so far. Even that isnt without issues: In July, the head of Nigeria LNG Limited, the countrys largest natural gas firm, said its plant was producing at just 68% of capacity, mainly because its operations and earnings have been stifled by oil theft. In the south, Mozambique is slated to become a major exporter of LNG after significant deposits were found along its Indian Ocean coast in 2010. Frances TotalEnergies invested $20 billion and started work to extract gas that would be liquefied in a plant it was building in Palma, in the northern Cabo Delgado province. But Islamic extremist violence forced TotalEnergies to indefinitely scupper the project last year. Mozambican officials have pledged to secure the Palma area to allow work to resume. Italian firm Eni, meanwhile, pressed ahead with plans to pump and liquefy some of its gas deposits discovered in Mozambique in 2011 and 2014. Eni established a platform in the Indian Ocean 50 miles (80 kilometers) offshore, away from the violence in Cabo Delgado. Its the first floating LNG facility in the deep waters off Africa, Eni says, with gas liquefaction capacity of 3.4 million tons per year. The platform liquefied its first gas on Oct. 2, according to Africa Energy, and the first shipment is expected to depart for Europe in mid-October. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post Europe turns to Africa in bid to replace Russian natural gas appeared first on TheGrio. Beyond Meat is letting go of an executive who allegedly bit someone's nose outside of a football game last month as part of a 19% reduction in the plant-based meat company's global workforce that also includes the embattled company's COO. Beyond Meat stock were down more than 7% in pre-market trading as of 7:12 AM ET. The company stated that the last day of Chief Operating Officer (COO) Doug Ramsey would be Friday. Ramsey had been on suspension since September 20 after the alleged incident, which took place inside an Arkansas parking garage following a University of Arkansas football game. According to a preliminary police report obtained by local television station KNWA/Fox 24, Ramsey was arrested on September 17 after the 53-year-old allegedly "punched through the back windshield" of another vehicle during a road rage altercation after the vehicle hit the front tire of the food executive's car. After the owner of the vehicle got our of the car, according to the report, Ramsey began hitting him and bit the owners nose, ripping the flesh on the tip of the nose. Ramsey, who had joined the company in December 2021, was reportedly charged with terroristic threatening and third-degree battery. A guest wears a hat during the Beyond Meat IPO at the Nasdaq Market site in New York, U.S., May 2, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Beyond Meat also issued a material third quarter sales warning, and announced that the company's CFO is also stepping down. The plant-based meat maker previously slashed its global workforce by 4% and cut its full-year guidance after reporting a wider-than-expected loss after the second quarter. Here's the memo: Beyond Meat memo. (Beyond Meat) Alexandra Canal contributed to this post. Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks 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 Florida bodybuilder and former Marine has been charged with killing his ex-wife after authorities discovered human remains inside a 50-gallon barrel on his property, which reeked of decaying flesh, according to court documents. Ian Christopher Baunach, 43, an International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness competitor, is facing counts including first-degree premeditated murder, illegally cremating a body, drug possession and violating federal firearms law. Hes accused of killing and then cremating his former spouse, Katie Baunach, who was last seen dropping off her two children at a friends home on Sept. 29, according to court documents obtained by NBC on Thursday. Katie told her friend she would return after she picked up some belongings from the home she shared with Ian. She never returned though, and was reported missing the following morning. Katie Baunach Katie Baunach Her disappearance came shortly after she told the Hendry County Sheriffs Office that Ian had physically abused one of her kids. As a result she was granted an injunction for domestic violence against him on behalf of the child, the complaint said. On Sept. 30, authorities arrived at the Baunachs home, where they discovered Katies car with her purse still inside. Authorities later returned with a search warrant and discovered evidence that a homicide had occurred there, the complaint reads. They also found a large number of steroids at the residence and arrested Ian on 13 counts of possession of controlled substance without a prescription. Investigators combed through the property over the course of four days. Officials treated Ians car and the walls of the home with luminol, which turned up evidence of blood. Officers also uncovered signs of a physical struggle in a hallway between the homes garage and foyer, according to court documents. On Oct. 1, human remains were discovered on the property, including the fragments of a human mandible with an intact tooth in a fresh burn pile, the complaint said. Ian Baunach Ian Baunach Authorities also discovered a blue 50-gallon barrel near the burn pile, which reeked of decaying flesh, the filing said. Inside, they found additional human bone fragment. It was later determined the remains belonged to 39-year-old Katie. During a subsequent interview with authorities, Ian told officers he did not believe they found blood in his car and denied his ex-wife was missing. He did however admit to being angry that Katie Baunach filed for and received a domestic violence injunction against him, the complaint said. Ian was charged Monday with first-degree murder, as well as destruction/concealment of physical evidence, use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, cremation of a dead body 48 hours after death and failure to report a death to the medical examiner. He is being held without bail in the Hendry County Jail. The final funeral for victims of the Creeslough service station explosion is set to take place. The funeral service for the youngest of the 10 victims of the blast, five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe, and her father Robert Garwe is to be held in St Michaels Church on Saturday morning. Residents of the rural Co Donegal village will line its main street once again for the sixth funeral service held at St Michaels Church for victims of the tragedy in five days. Mourners at the funeral on Friday of the oldest victim of the blast, Hugh Kelly, heard he had brought Mr Garwe and his daughter Shauna to the service station shop to buy a birthday cake for her mother. Robert Garwe, 50, died alongside his daughter Shauna Flanagan, five (handout/PA) Mr Garwe, 50, who was originally from Zimbabwe, worked in construction and could often be seen travelling around the village on his scooter. Shauna started at Scoil Mhuire national school in Creeslough just weeks ago. The funerals of fashion student Jessica Gallagher, 24, and Celtic supporter Martin McGill, 49, were held in Creeslough on Tuesday, while a funeral Mass for Catherine ODonnell, 39, and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan took place on Wednesday afternoon. A service for Sydney native James OFlaherty, 48, was held on Wednesday in Derrybeg. The funeral of shop worker and mother-of-four Martina Martin, 49, took place in Creeslough on Thursday morning and a service for 14-year-old Leona Harper was held at St Marys Church in Ramelton later that day. Parish priest Father John Joe Duffy said the community is still in shock. The coffin of Hugh Hughie Kelly is carried from St Michaels Church in Creeslough on Friday (Brian Lawless/PA) There is still that pall of silence, that grieving and mourning, that heartbreak visible to others who enter into the homes to try and offer consolation and comfort, he said. He urged people affected by the tragedy to contact the counselling services made available to them saying he himself intends to use them. We need help, we need the continued embrace of this country and beyond it, and prayers, and also very much so the professional supports that are being made so available to us, and thank all who are involved in that, he said. President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has been attending the funerals of the victims since Wednesday, and meeting with the families of those affected. The Taoiseachs aide-de-camp Commandant Claire Mortimer, and Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, have also been attending the funerals. Irelands police force An Garda Siochana continues to investigate the cause of the blast, which is being treated as an accident. Along with the 10 people killed in the explosion, eight others were injured in the blast. Seven have been receiving treatment in Letterkenny hospital, while one man aged in his 20s remains in a critical condition in St Jamess Hospital, Dublin. The newly appointed CEO of Grindr, the popular dating app used primarily by gay, bisexual and queer men, has come under fire over unearthed tweets that seem to express support for anti-LGBTQ politicians. George Arison, a 44-year-old businessman who has been on the board of directors of Grindr since May, was named its new CEO last month. Our community is deserving of amazing business services, and we intend to meet and exceed their expectations, Arison said when the companys board of directors made the announcement on Sept. 13, calling him one of the few openly gay public company CEOs in the U.S. George Arison George Arison On Tuesday, eight days before he officially takes over as boss of the networking app, cultural historian and author Aaron Lecklider compiled a series of tweets shared by Arison in which he shows support to politicians who have actively worked to erode the rights of LGBTQ people. Your new Grindr CEO, folks, Lecklider, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, captioned retweets of several instances in which Arison expressed his right-wing views. In a tweet from earlier this year, Arison wrote that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin should totally run for president. Should totally run for President. https://t.co/l3Dl42zUos George Arison (@georgearison) February 24, 2022 Youngkin a staunch conservative who has repeatedly used his platform to promote anti-equality and anti-choice policies, according to a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson angered LGBTQ rights advocates last month over his administrations recently released set of proposed policies that would stop transgender students from accessing restrooms or locker room facilities consistent with their gender identity. In another tweet, shared in January, Arison appeared to show support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who championed the states so-called Dont Say Gay law writing that even though he was not ideal, he is largely right, he wrote in a tweet quoting conservative author Rich Lowry. In a tweet from Feb. 28 2020, Arison said that FYI I am a conservative & agree with some Trump policies though he appeared to distance himself from the former president writing that he viewed him as everything our Founders feared the most. Your new Grindr CEO, folks. https://t.co/Fk5a0nxdKH Aaron Lecklider (@AaronLecklider) October 11, 2022 A Grindr spokesperson told the Daily News that Arison remains committed to fighting for LGBTQ equality in the U.S. and abroad. George is an out gay man, proudly married to his husband and the father of two children, the spokesperson said, adding that he is also passionate about fighting for the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ people around the world. Arison joined the 13-year-old location-based social network after nine years at Shift Technologies, an online used car marketplace, where he was the founder and CEO. His move to Grindr comes as the company, which has roughly 11 million monthly active users, is expected to go public by the end of the year. Kwasi Kwarteng is flying back to London for crisis talks with Liz Truss amid turmoil in the Tory Party and intense speculation he will have to dismantle key elements of his controversial mini-budget. The Chancellor cut short his visit to the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC as Conservative MPs questioned whether he and the Prime Minister can survive the coming days. After days of chaos, there was greater calm on the financial markets following reports that Mr Kwarteng is preparing to abandon parts of his 43 billion tax giveaway. However, the situation remains precarious with the emergency support package put in place by the Bank of England to protect pension funds from collapse due to end on Friday. At Westminster, there were reports of fevered plotting among Tory MPs amid suggestions that Ms Trusss two main rivals for the Tory leadership over the summer Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt could be installed at the head of a new administration. Before he left the United States, Mr Kwarteng initially insisted he stood by his economic growth plan and would be setting out how he intended to get the public finances back on track in a statement on October 31 as planned. (PA Graphics) However, few MPs believe he can afford to wait that long, and in a later interview with The Daily Telegraph he said only lets see when asked if he could ditch his promise on corporation tax. The commitment to scrap the planned increase in the levy on corporate profits from 19% to 25% is widely seen as likely to be the first element to go if the expected U-turn goes ahead. However it is unclear whether that would be enough to settle the markets, which have already priced in significant changes. The senior Conservative MP Mel Stride, who chairs the Commons Treasury Committee, said it was essential that the Government acted decisively if it was to restore confidence. The danger here is that they decide they are going to nibble at the edges of this and dont think that will cut it, he told the BBC. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group meetings were held in Washington DC this week (Patrick Semansky/AP) You could end up in that circumstance in the worst of worlds that youve U-turned but it doesnt settle the markets. A Treasury spokesman said: After completing a successful series of meetings at the IMF, the Chancellor is returning to London today to continue work at pace on the medium-term fiscal plan. Trade Minister Greg Hands, meanwhile, refused to rule out possible changes ahead of the October 31 statement, telling Sky News the Government will make responses as appropriate as events happen. Mr Hands brushed off suggestions Ms Truss could be forced to sacrifice Mr Kwarteng to preserve her own job, insisting his position was totally safe. I know the Prime Minister has got total confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng, he said, adding that the Chancellor was an incredibly capable person, a very, very bright person who makes good judgment calls. (PA Graphics) Mr Hands, who backed Mr Sunak in the leadership election, also dismissed suggestions the former chancellor could be installed at the head of a new government on a joint ticket with Ms Mordaunt. I dont recognise that story at all, he said. However former culture secretary Nadine Dorries angrily accused Mr Sunaks supporters of agitating to get rid of the Prime Minister. She tweeted: They agitated to remove Boris Johnson and now they will continue plotting until they get their way. Its a plot not to remove a PM but to overturn democracy. Those absurdly called grandee MPs (men) agitating to remove Liz Truss are all Sunak supporters. They agitated to remove @borisjohnson and now they will continue plotting until they get their way. Its a plot not to remove a PM but to overturn democracy. #BackLiz Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) October 14, 2022 On the markets, Government bonds and the pound have steadied at the start of London trading on Friday as the Bank of Englands bond-buying programme comes to a close. Yields on UK 30-year gilts fell back by 1.6% to 4.47%, while 10-year gilt yields moved 1.8% lower to 4.11%. Meanwhile, the pound was 0.3% higher at 1.127 against the US dollar as trading sentiment improved. Universal The new historical drama film, Till, hits theaters soon, which means you should get ready to feel your heart break. The film is based on the true story of activist Mamie Hill, whose 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, was brutally attacked and lynched in 1955. The film stars Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, and Whoopi Goldberg, and is directed by Nigerian filmmaker, Chinonye Chukwu. Till is already getting the attention of critics for its writing and the cast's incredible performances. Still, the movie's premise proves that it's one of the most important films of the year and a can't miss watch. Here's everything you need to know about Till and how to watch it. Who Was Mamie Till? Mamie Till was born in Mississippi in 1921, moving to Illinois as a child in the Great Migration where she would meet her first husband, Louis Till. Louis was a charismatic amateur boxer, and despite Mamies parents' misgivings, the pair married in 1940 when they were both 18 years old. Exactly nine months post-nuptials, the pair welcomed their son, Emmett. In 1942, the pair split up after Mamie learned that her husband had been unfaithful. Louis became violent and Mamie was granted a restraining order against him, which he violated repeatedly. In response, a judge told Louis he would either see jail time or enlist in the U.S. Army. He went on to join the army in 1943, and two years later, Mamie received news that her husband had been executed in Italy due to willful misconduct. Mamies investigations into the specifics of his killing were unfounded for nearly 10 years. She eventually learned the reason for his execution he and an accomplice were accused of raping an Italian woman and were sentenced to death by hanging. What Happened to Emmett Till? In 1955, Mamie Tills only son Emmett was sent to Money, Mississippi to visit his family. On August 28, 1955, just one week after his arrival to the state, the 14-year-old boy was accused of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store; though the specifics of this interaction are highly disputed. Days later, Till was abducted from his home, tortured, and lynched, and still, his killers were acquitted. Following his murder, Mamie Till insisted on holding an open-casket funeral, saying, I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby. Emmetts body was seen not only by funeral attendees, but by the nation. Photographs of the brutally slain young boy circulated the country and the Till case became a key moment in the fight for civil rights in America. Till follows the family's story as the film takes viewers through the events that occurred on August 28, 1955, and after, through the trial of his killers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. The main character of this film is Mamie, who continues to be remembered as a civil rights hero and the picture of bravery and motherhood. Where Can I Watch Till? Till is a story that deserves more than your attention, it deserves the big screen. Perhaps youre a history buff, or perhaps this is the first youre hearing about Emmett Till, a privilege in itself. Either way, this may just be the most important film you see this year. Till is available in theaters starting on October 14 as a limited release and will then be given a wide release starting on October 28. That means if your theater does not have it available right away, you might have to wait a bit for them to start showing it. There's no word on when it will be available on streaming, so right now, your best bet is to watch it in a theater. You Might Also Like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz tugs at his shirt collar as he is seated at the defense table for the verdict in his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) A juror who opposed the death penalty for the man who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 wrote the judge a letter denying rumors of bias and explaining that the jury discussions were very tense. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life, wrote juror Denise Cunha in the letter, according to The Associated Press. Cunha told the judge that the allegation that she had made a decision against the death penalty before the trial began was untrue. I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, she said. I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased.Denise Cunha Defendant Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to the murders, was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after a three-month long trial. The jury deliberated over the sentence for seven hours over the course of two days, rejecting the death penalty because of mitigating factors. Cruzs lawyers argued that the defendant suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, causing brain damage, and saw his adoptive father die at five years old. They claimed that Cruz was raped by an older child when he was nine. At least one juror of the 12 decided that the mitigating factors were enough to deny Cruz the death penalty, failing to meet the threshold of unanimity that is required for a death sentence under Florida law. Family members of Cruzs victims said that they were beyond disappointed at the verdict, the AP reported. This should have been the death penalty, 100% I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times.Lori Alhadeff We are beyond disappointed with the outcome, said Lori Alhadeff, the mother of a 14-year-old murdered at the high school. This should have been the death penalty, 100% I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also condemned the decision, saying: I just dont think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence. Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law, he said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Monarch Coffee in Kansas City will be closing its two brick and mortar locations in midtown and Crown Center. The shops last day will be Sunday Oct. 30. The beloved coffeehouse was founded by husband and wife Tyler and Jaime Rovenstine, who announced the closure on the cafes Instagram page on Thursday. The announcement said the pandemic had a significant impact on the business, which prompted the owners to think about what they wanted the future to look like for their family and make the decision to close. The pandemic rocked our industry, and although we survived through the worst of it, we cannot gloss over how hard it was on us, the Instagram post reads. In its eight years of operation, Monarch Coffee was able to open two locations and offer wholesale coffee through its online store. The first location, which opened in 2017, was a 1,731-square-foot renovated space in the Ambassador building at 3560 Broadway. The second location opened at the 2345 Grand Blvd. office building across from Washington Square Park. With Jaime serving as creative director and Tyler serving as a coffee specialist and head of operation, Monarch has garnered praise at the local, regional and national level. In 2022 alone, the coffee shop earned best coffee shop in Missouri by Food & Wine Magazine and best coffee shop in the Midwest by Midwest Living. We opened Monarch because we were excited to create a new kind of coffee space in Kansas City, the Instagram post reads. We are so incredibly proud of the company we created, the team we built, and all that we offered to the community. Monarch will continue taking online coffee orders and farewell merchandise after the two brick and mortar locations close at the end of the month. Includes reporting by The Stars Joyce Smith. Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams said Thursday they are on the same page when it comes to the citys migrant crisis and called for federal help handling the influx of asylum seekers. The Democratic pols presented a united front as they praised President Bidens new border policies meant to stem the flow of migrants seeking sanctuary in the U.S. The mayor and I have been joined at the hip from the beginning in our belief that this is a situation that calls for strong federal engagement making sure that there is a different strategy at the borders, the governor said following an unrelated announcement with the mayor in Manhattan. Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen being dropped off by an MTA Bus at a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News) Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen being dropped off by an MTA Bus at a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News) (Luiz C. Ribeiro/) Adams and Hochul said their administrations have been working in lockstep to manage the situation after nearly 20,000 migrants have come to the Big Apple in recent months, many sent via bus from Republican-run states. The situation has led Adams to declare a state of emergency as asylum seekers from Central and South America fleeing violence and economic devastation in their home countries have inundated the citys shelter system. City officials have been forced to take drastic measures, such as building a controversial tent camp on Randalls Island to house some of the new arrivals. Both Adams and Hochul said they are seeking financial support from the feds to bolster legal services, transportation and housing options as the crisis strains city resources. Thousands of migrants are pouring into NYC from Texas, straining a shaky shelter system. When will it hit a tipping point? Hizzoner said that his administration has been coordinating with the state throughout the process and joked that hes Hochuls favorite local elected official after last week indicating that he had not received much help from Albany. I have not had a better partner than this governor, he said. I know theres a lot of mayors throughout this entire state. But theres no way youre going to tell me Im not her favorite mayor. Its just not possible. On a more serious note, he added that the governor assisted in providing members of the National Guard to help out when migrants first started arriving unannounced at Manhattans Port Authority bus terminal. Immigrants arrive on a bus from Texas to the Port Authority on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. Immigrants arrive on a bus from Texas to the Port Authority on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/) And she has been there. And I cant thank her enough, he said. Meanwhile, Hochul praised Bidens new immigration policy, which will see Venezuelans who enter the U.S. illegally return to Mexico. The new protocols also require those seeking asylum to secure a sponsor, undergo a public safety screening and fulfill unspecified vaccination requirements. The governor said she spoke to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday about the plan and expressed hope that it will help cut down on border crossings. And now the path they announced as a result of countless conversations that weve had jointly and individually with the White House chief of staff and the secretary that we now have a path, the governor said. Were going to start seeing the flow of individuals stemmed Also, people in their home country, Venezuela, will understand that there is a path that can be legal, but you have to take steps in your home country. Theres a whole program that I believe is going to change the dynamic very quickly, she added. Nury Martinez in 2019, upon being elected the first Latina president of the Los Angeles City Council. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Scanning all the media coverage of the leaked City Council audio which at this moment seems poised to join Nixon's Watergate tapes in the annals of recording infamy it's hard to decide which sections might be the most appalling. Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is gay, is dubbed a "little bitch." The behavior of his adopted Black son is likened to that of a monkey. Jabs are exchanged about the child, with City Council President Nury Martinez cattily describing him as "an accessory." The conversation is grotesque a furnace blast of racist tropes and unvarnished political sausage-making. It also surfaces a roiling debate about the nature of Latino identity and the blinkered ways that identity has historically been defined and wielded. At one point in the recording, Martinez says of L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascon: "F that guy. ... He's with the Blacks." The sentiment is echoed by Councilmember Kevin de Leon, who describes Bonin as the council's "fourth Black member," someone who "won't fcking ever say peep about Latinos." Elsewhere in the audio, Indigenous immigrants from Oaxaca also come up literally for denigration. Martinez describes them as "little short dark people" before dismissing them as "tan feos" very ugly. Martinez resigned from the City Council on Wednesday. The two other councilmembers caught on tape, De Leon and Gil Cedillo, have been subject to a growing chorus of calls for their resignations including from the president of the United States. But whatever the fate of the various parties involved (Ron Herrera, of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, has also resigned), the comments reveal the insidious ways in which Latin America's Black and Indigenous populations have been marginalized, their experiences overwritten by a vague pan-continental identity. It also marks an old way of thinking part of deeply embedded systemic issues with which we have yet to fully reckon. For one, the us-versus-them framing of Black and Latino political interests actively overlooks erases the fact that Latinos can be Black and Black people can be Latino. (Latino is a loose ethnicity, not a race, and the African diaspora spans the Americas.) Approximately 1.2 million Latinos in the United States identify racially as Black, according to an analysis of census data published last month by the Pew Research Center. In Los Angeles County, according to 2021 census estimates, Black Latinos number more than 23,000 out of a total Latino population of 4.8 million. That's small compared to New York City, where Afro Latinos, largely from the Caribbean, account for more than 113,000 out of the city's 2.5 million Latinos. But neither figure includes mixed race statistics, which likely make Afro Latino representation higher in both regions. If the Afro Latino presence in Los Angeles is small, it's nonetheless one with deep roots. Afro mestizos from Mexico helped establish the city of Los Angeles in the 18th century. More recently, the Afro Latino presence is visible culturally in the works of hip-hop artists such as Kemo the Blaxican, whose songs engage the hybrid African American and Chicano experience in L.A., as well as writer and photographer Walter Thompson-Hernandez, whose Instagram account, Blaxicans of L.A., began exploring the intersections of Black and Mexican culture half a dozen years ago. In 2020 and 2021, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown L.A. staged a long-term exhibition titled "afroLAtinidad: mi casa, my city," which Thompson-Hernandez helped organize. (The show's impact, unfortunately, was blunted by the pandemic.) Councilmembers Gil Cedillo's and Kevin de Leon's chairs sit empty at Wednesday's City Council meeting. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) The erasure of Blackness within Latino identity long preceded Martinez. It's part of a long-running tradition in Latin America. In the United States, "Latino" has generally come to be equated with the vague adjective of "brown." In Latin America, Latino identity Latinidad is frequently incarnated by the symbol of the mestizo, interpreted to be a person of mixed European (often Spanish) and Indigenous descent. In the essentialized form, the mestizo is someone who is of mixed race but adopts the culture and language of Europe. Brown but not too brown. (In Latin America, issues of race tend to manifest in gradations of color rather than the Black/white binary that operates in the U.S.) Rutgers University scholar Tatiana Flores goes deep on the roots of Latinidad in an essay that appeared last year in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, a journal published by the University of California Press. As she writes: "mestizaje is a project that promotes the erasure of cultural differences in the service of the formation of a group identity." Her work tracks the ways 19th century intellectuals sought to create a unifying identity that marginalized Indigenous ethnicities while pushing Black people completely off the page. Status, as a result, has generally been conferred to those with the greatest proximity to whiteness. (It's a system that benefits a fair-skinned mestiza like myself.) In Latin America, the term "mejorar la raza" improve the race means to make it whiter. The derogatory comments that Martinez, the fair-skinned daughter of Latino immigrants, leveled at other Latino immigrants Indigenous Oaxacans didn't come out of nowhere. It's also a way of thinking that belongs increasingly in the past. The leaked tapes land at a moment when a younger generation of thinkers is challenging the very foundations of Latinidad. In 2018, a popular meme created by Afro-indigenous poet and theorist Alan Pelaez Lopez critiqued the influence of white supremacy on Latinidad. The hashtag Lopez placed on the image #LatinidadIsCancelled went viral as a result. In the years that followed, that concept has appeared in media outlets such as Remezcla and on the Root, where contributor Felicia Leon examined why some millennials were rejecting the label wholesale, preferring to identify in other ways. Some Black artists, for example, have begun identifying as part of Afro Latino diasporas instead of assuming national or ethnic labels. The uprisings for Black lives during the summer of 2020 placed Latinidad under further scrutiny, putting the vagaries of Latino racial hierarchies in the spotlight. When Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical feature film "In the Heights" debuted the following summer, it faced controversy over its lack of dark-skinned Afro Latino representation in the lead roles an oversight for which Miranda later apologized. These complex issues of identity were also at the heart of El Museo del Barrio's 2020-21 triennial exhibition, "Estamos Bien," in New York which I wrote about at length for the New York Review of Books. That show embraced the fractures in Latino identity instead of trying to paper them over with some imagined concept of unity. Protesters hold signs and shout slogans before the Los Angeles City Council meeting on Wednesday. (Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press) It's too early to tell what the City Hall scandal means for Latinidad as a concept. It is heartening, however, to see people of all races protesting the racist vulgarities. On Wednesday, when Martinez resigned from her post, her mystifying resignation letter a non-apology apology taken to epic proportions closed with the line: "To all little Latina girls across this city I hope Ive inspired you to dream beyond that which you can see." Martinez certainly inspired something mainly, tweets like, "Girl WHAT?" Those little Latina girls? Many of them are Black and Indigenous. An apology, perhaps, would have been more inspiring. Along with a role model who sees them not as adversary but as central to the story of who we are. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) Prosecutors in the case of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz are calling for an investigation after a juror said she felt threatened by another member of the jury during deliberations that ended Thursday with a life sentence for Cruz's murder of 17 people. The motion calls for law enforcement to interview the unnamed juror after she told the state attorney's office about what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room. No further details were given. A hearing is set for Friday afternoon. A divided jury spared Cruz the death penalty and instead decided to send him to prison for the rest of his life in a decision that left many families of the victims angered, baffled and in tears. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members, and wounding 17 others, at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Florida criminal defense attorneys Richard Escobar and David Weinstein, who are both former prosecutors, said that even if a threat was made, the jurys decision will not be overturned because of double jeopardy, or trying the same defendant twice for the same crime. Weinstein pointed to a 1990s case involving two drug kingpins who bribed a jury and were acquitted. Even under that circumstance, prosecutors couldn't retry the duo for drug trafficking, but did convict them on charges stemming from the bribery. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. The 12-person jury unanimously agreed there were aggravating factors to warrant a possible death sentence, such as agreeing that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. But one or more jurors also found mitigating factors, such as untreated childhood problems. In the end, the jury could not agree that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones, so Cruz will get life without parole. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences Nov. 1. Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak. The jurors pledged during the selection process that they could vote for a death sentence, but some victims parents, some of whom attended the trial almost daily, wondered whether all of them were being honest. Juror Denise Cunha sent a short handwritten note to the judge Thursday defending her vote for a life sentence and denying she intended to vote that way before the trial began. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life, Cunha wrote. She did not explain her vote and it is unknown if she is the juror who complained to the state attorney's office. Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas told local reporters that three jurors voted for life on the final ballot. Two were willing to reconsider, but one was a hard no for the death penalty. It really came down to a specific (juror) that he (Cruz) was mentally ill," Thomas said. He did not say whether that person was Cunha. ___ Izaguirre reported from Tallahassee, Florida. A Ukrainian soldier stands atop a wrecked Russian military vehicle in Izyum, Ukraine, on Sept. 22. (Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images ) When Olga Shcherba learned that her husband might be in Russian captivity, she was relieved. It was a strange feeling. But it was better than the alternative. Bohdan Shcherba, a 31-year-old industrial worker from outside Kyiv, had gone missing two days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Though devastating, word that he had been sighted in a detention camp in western Russia meant he might still be alive. Olga Shcherba and son Daniel. (Nils Adler / For The Times) Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Ukrainian civilians who disappeared in Russian-occupied areas are imprisoned in Russia, human rights groups say. By formal and informal channels, relatives are gleaning what information they can about their fate and desperately trying to negotiate their release. Some of these civilians are being held because their captors think they have information that would help the occupiers, or because they are suspected of ties to the Ukrainian military, or because they could prove useful as hostages, according to groups trying to secure their freedom. Rights organizations and Ukrainian officials say the Russian tactic of forcibly disappearing Ukrainians in occupied areas also serves a cynical military end: terrorizing and demoralizing the captives compatriots and relatives. Mourners visit graves of Ukrainian servicemen at a cemetery in Bucha, Ukraine, on Oct. 3. (Volodymyr Tarasov / Future Publishing via Getty Images) In addition to her husband, Shcherba is also trying to bring home her brother, Ramiz Musaev, 24, and a friend, Roman Kissel, 30. The three men disappeared Feb. 26 near the Kyiv suburb of Bucha which was to become notorious for gruesome torture and killings of civilians during a monthlong Russian occupation. With the war in its eighth month, rights groups say the pool of missing civilians believed to have been spirited away to Russia from occupied areas is growing. Details of many disappearances are coming to light only as Ukrainian forces retake areas in the south and east that had been under Russian control up until only weeks or days ago. Shcherba, 29, is being assisted in her quest by the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian group that last week shared a Nobel Peace Prize with another rights group and an activist, in Russia and Belarus. Natalia Yashchuk, a project coordinator for the center, said the group had recorded 671 cases of civilian kidnappings since the war began. Of those, 205 captives have been freed. Under Geneva Convention mandates applicable to the war in Ukraine, civilian detainees should be treated as protected persons, distinct from prisoners of war. But rights groups say Moscows forces ignore those provisions. International humanitarian law prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers of civilians from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power, which can constitute a war crime, Human Rights Watch said in a July report. The New York-based group called for the immediate release and return of all Ukrainian civilians detained in Russia, and demanded combatants or civilians in Russian custody be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross. In June, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said Russian forces and their affiliated armed groups had seized hundreds of civilians in areas they controlled. Many of those caught in the dragnet were subjected to torture and other ill treatment, with an unknown number transported to Russia, the U.N. said. Months of stress have taken their toll on the families of the missing. Shcherba said she often found herself unable to eat or sleep. Her voice was subdued as she described the fighting that erupted in the village of Lubianka, where the family lives, just after the Russians pushed their way into the area during a failed attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital. Together with her three children, her mother and other family members, Shcherba spent 10 days hiding in a kindergarten basement, finally making it out of the Russian-occupied area on March 12. Reaching safety in western Ukraine, the family again had internet access, and Shcherbas uncle found a video online that had been recorded by a Russian journalist at Hostomel airport which was the scene of crucial early fighting near Kyiv. In the background, it showed three men in civilian clothing who had been captured: Shcherbas husband, her brother and the friend. "I felt better, because I realized I had hope," she said. "They were alive at least, and that meant they could potentially be rescued." That optimism did not last long. In early April, when Russian forces retreated from the areas around Kyiv, images of mass graves and atrocities committed by Russian forces emerged. Among these, Shcherba spotted a body that she believed might have been that of her brother, plunging her into despair. It turned out not to be him. Then a few days later, she received a call from a Ukrainian soldier who had recently been released from captivity in a detention camp in the Kursk region, in western Russia. There, the soldier told her, he had seen the three missing men. Bodies of the mayor of Motyzhyn, Ukraine, her husband and other family members are seen in a mass grave in the village near Kyiv on April 4. (Efrem Lukatsky / Associated Press) Like their three dozen fellow prisoners, the men were weak and emaciated, sharing a single persons share of rations among them, the soldier recounted. Their quarters were cramped and squalid, and captives were routinely beaten. The Russians apparently suspected the trio of working for Ukrainian intelligence, the freed soldier told Shcherba. She insisted that none of the three had any ties to the Ukrainian military or intelligence, and the Center for Civil Liberties backed her assertion. On a recent bright October day, Yashchuk, who has been helping coordinate the group's efforts to free the men, met with Shcherba in Kyiv. There have been signs of progress, Yashchuk explained, but the specifics of the contacts with the Russian side were being kept under wraps. Shcherbas spirits were buoyed by the news that the group had helped free Viktoria Andrusha, a teenager accused of providing the Ukrainian army with locations of Russian forces in March. Back home in her village now peaceful and wreathed in autumn foliage Shcherba plucked perfect, bright-red apples from a tree outside her home and offered them to visitors. Inside, her elderly mother, Valentina, described her anguish over the plight of her son, her son-in-law and their friend. The couples 7-year-old twin daughters, who had been watching a childrens television program on the couch, clutched their ears when an air-raid alert sounded from apps on the familys mobile phones. Lately, the alerts have been frequent across the country, which was pounded this week by Russian bombardment targeting civilians and energy installations. In August, Shcherba received a letter that bore a Russian postmark and was dated in May. Purportedly from her husband and brother, the Russian-language message disparaged the Ukrainian government. But the family knew the handwriting was not that of their loved ones. Then, in September, a flare of hope: Another letter arrived, this one from Shcherba's brother. It was written in Ukrainian and seemed authentic. He avoided any mention of mistreatment, writing that the three men were doing all right, and that they loved and missed everyone. Shcherba said that if she could speak to the Russian captors, she would ask them to think of their own families, and let the Ukrainian prisoners be with theirs. Let our men come back to us, she said. Adler is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Laura King in Washington contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. FILE PHOTO: EU Commissioner McGuinness and U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Adeyemo give a joint news conference, in Brussels WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday warned it can impose sanctions on people, countries and companies that provide ammunition to Russia or support its military-industrial complex, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, at a first-of-its kind gathering with officials from 32 countries to discuss sanctions on Russia, made clear that Washington is prepared to take action against those outside the United States evading Washington's sanctions. Officials at the meeting, which included representatives from EU countries, Canada and South Korea, discussed additional steps planned to target Russia's military-industrial complex and the effects of several rafts of sanctions imposed by Washington and its partners over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which has killed or wounded thousands. The Treasury Department also warned that Washington is prepared to impose sanctions on those providing ammunition to Russia as well as private military companies or paramilitary groups that participate in or support Russia's war in Ukraine. In addition, the Treasury, Commerce and State departments issued an alert outlining actions that have been taken against Russias military-industrial complex and noting the risks those providing material support for Russias invasion of Ukraine face. The alert said that by restricting Russia's access to advanced goods, technology and services, Washington and its partners have impacted Russia's ability to replace weapons, including over 6,000 pieces of military equipment destroyed in the war. The United States at the meeting was also set to warn that Russia is "expending munitions at an unsustainable rate" and turning to countries like Iran and North Korea for supplies and equipment, including, drones, rockets and artillery munitions, according to a copy of the presentation from Morgan Muir, deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, seen by Reuters. The export control measures imposed by Washington and a coalition of 37 countries have had an impact, according to the presentation, with Russia's defense industry reliant on imported microelectronics and other parts. A critical shortage of bearings is undermining the production of tanks, aircraft, submarines and other military systems, the presentation noted. Muir was also set to caution at the meeting that Russian intelligence services are seeking to illicitly acquire Western technology and parts barred from Russia under U.S. measures. The network used to acquire the technology includes oligarchs, proxies and front companies, and targets Europe and North America as a priority, according to the presentation. Earlier this year, Washington imposed sweeping new restrictions on shipments to Russia of U.S. and foreign goods, if made with U.S. equipment or technology, in an effort to degrade Russia's military and industrial sectors. The controls primarily target Russias defense, aerospace, and maritime sectors. They also target Russias energy production sector as well as luxury goods used by Russian elites. The restrictions from Washington and its allies have reduced semiconductor imports, critical to Russia's weaponry, by 70%, according to the alert. As a result, Russian hypersonic ballistic missile production has nearly ceased and the production of cars fell by three-quarters compared to last year. Asked how much more Western allies could do to increase pressure on Russia, one European finance official said, "We can extend the list of people who are under sanctions. We can extend the number of goods that have export restrictions." (Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Karen Freifeld, Andrea Shalal and Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Alistair Bell) U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The spat between the United States and Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC members over the management of petroleum supplies intensified Thursday when Riyadh accused Washington of "politicizing oil" and declared it would not submit to "dictates" from supposedly friendly countries. The Biden administration, in turn, said it was reassessing its relationship with the desert kingdom, a longtime if often problematic ally, after its "shortsighted" decision on oil production. President Biden is under mounting pressure from Congress and others to take forceful steps against Saudi Arabia including possible suspension of weapons sales after it and Russia successfully pushed a move to reduce the production of oil by 2 million barrels a day, virtually guaranteeing higher revenue for Moscow that will help finance its war against Ukraine. This comes three months after Biden traveled controversially to Saudi Arabia to plead for cooperation in supplying enough oil to meet demand as prices at the pump in the U.S. soared. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Saudis have repeatedly indicated they wanted to reduce oil production, even though they knew it would benefit Russia and hurt Ukraine by weakening sanctions that the U.S. and Western powers have enacted against Moscow. "We made clear that that would be the wrong direction," Blinken told reporters in a news conference at the State Department in Washington. "The recovery is fragile," Blinken said. "We're dealing with head winds from COVID. We're also dealing with head winds from the Russian aggression itself. And so, now is not the time to take energy off the market." Saudi Arabian officials, meanwhile, are waging an all-out media counteroffensive. After several appearances of officials on U.S. television, a stern statement from the Saudi Foreign Ministry was released Thursday. It quoted an unnamed spokesperson saying the government expressed its total rejection of accusations that it was taking sides in international conflicts or that its decision was aimed at the U.S., as Washington has claimed. The Kingdom affirms that outcomes of the OPEC+ meetings are adopted through consensus among member states, and that they are not based on the unilateral decision by a single country, the statement said, adding that the outcomes were based purely on economic considerations, that its relationship with the U.S. was a strategic one based on mutual interest and that attempts to distort its position on Ukraine were unfortunate. (Saudi Arabia voted against Russias annexation of Ukrainian regions in a U.N. General Assembly meeting Wednesday.) The statement said the Biden administration had requested postponing the groups decision on the cuts for one month, presumably so as to avoid any fallout on fuel prices that would then affect Democrats chances in early November midterm elections. But such a delay would have had negative consequences, the statement said. Asked about the delay request, Blinken said the administration asked OPEC wait until its next meeting, in November, to assess how market prices were faring after the summer spikes. Earlier in the year, supply shortages as a result of the war in Ukraine had pushed oil prices to $120 per barrel. But they have been falling since June, with Saudi officials raising alarm when the price hovered around $85 amid fears that the downward trend would persist, said Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist with Bloomberg. The U.S. would like to see the market flooded with oil, in cooperation with Persian Gulf producers, to cause difficulties for Russia, as occurred during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, said Rami Khalifah Ali, a Paris-based political analyst specializing in Saudi Arabia and the gulf. The decision from the gulf was to take a neutral stance between the U.S. and Russia," Ali said. "Thats because now their priorities are their own economic considerations, especially when it comes to the U.S. facing Russia." Officials also took pains to tout OPEC+ as a stabilizing force in energy markets. Speaking to the Saudi state-run news channel Al Arabiya on Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said oil markets had shown far less volatility than those for gas, for example, which have recently witnessed significant price increases. But beyond the economics, the growing diplomatic fracas along with vows of reprisals from Democratic congressional leaders has aggravated a long-smoldering rift between Washington and Riyadh even as it speaks to a wider shift in the relationship between the two allies, analysts say. This has been going on since the beginning of the Biden administration. It was never repaired, and I think unfortunately the language the Biden administration is using it just debases the relationship and makes it harder to rebuild, said Karen Young, a gulf-focused senior research fellow at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. That could have consequences with the region heading toward economically turbulent times, when the U.S. would usually look to richer allies in the Middle East especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to deploy their coffers in the service of maintaining regional stability. We need to have the Emirates and Saudi Arabia to invest there, to give fiscal support, so weve kind of shot ourselves in the foot, whatever happens in the region, she said. The Saudis are asking for what theyve been asking for since 2016, which is respect. Thats the language they use in the statement. The last blowup between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was over the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Threats of paring U.S. support to Saudi Arabia come at a delicate time. Since 2015, the kingdom has relied on Washington's help in pursuing its war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed rebels who control large swaths of northern neighbor Yemen, including the capital, Sana. A cease-fire with the group came to an end this month. Blinken, however, made it clear that new calculations are being made within the Biden administration, although he continued to use the word "recalibrate" to refer to assessment of the relationship, instead of saying there was a rupture. "We have a multiplicity of interests with Saudi Arabia, and our policies need to reflect that," Blinken said. "We need to recalibrate the relationship with Saudi Arabia ... and that process is now continuing with one goal in mind, to make sure that the relationship ... more effectively addresses and advances our interests." Staff reporters Bulos reported from Beirut and Wilkinson from Washington. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. As a result of climate change, the world is experiencing more severe disasters, such as extreme heat waves, storms and droughts, and many governments are not sufficiently prepared to get early warnings out to their residents, according to a report from the United Nations released Thursday. The report from the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that half of countries do not have what it calls the multi-hazard early warning systems needed to ensure that their inhabitants have the earliest possible opportunity to prepare for disaster. The U.N. is trying to emphasize the need for national governments to invest in such systems, and also the need for rich countries to subsidize those systems in developing countries, which are the most at risk from climate change and the least equipped to handle its damaging effects. In a video message released Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put the issue squarely on the table for Novembers climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, known as COP27. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 22. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) Entire populations are being blindsided by cascading climate disasters, without any means of prior alert, Guterres said. People need adequate warning to prepare for extreme weather events. That is why I am calling for universal early warning coverage in the next five years. The report reveals that such services are woefully lacking for those who need them most. At the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, I will launch an action plan to provide early warning systems for all within five years. But what exactly is a multi-hazard early warning system? Experts say it has four main components: understanding disaster risk, technical infrastructure to forecast the weather, a system for communicating that forecast to the public, and a government capacity for using that forecast to mitigate harm. Any warning system is better than nothing, but ideally it should be multihazard, Omar Amach, a spokesperson for the Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, told Yahoo News. What that means is monitoring for every possible cause and the cascading effect of a disaster. Most tsunami early warning systems watch out for seismic activity, earthquakes, and you will catch most earthquakes that way and let people know a tsunami might be coming. But if you look at recent history, there were a couple of examples of tsunamis triggered by events other than earthquakes, Amach said. So there was in Indonesia a tsunami that was triggered by a landslide, and then you have an example in Tonga of a volcanic eruption that then triggered a tsunami. So the idea of multihazard is that you shouldnt just be watching for one hazard, you should be watching anything that could trigger the event. People in Semarang, Indonesia, wade through water after a tidal wave hit the northern coastline on May 24. (Daffa Ramya/AFP via Getty Images) The same need to diversify what governments monitor for and warn about applies to effects as well as causes. Another example in the context of climate change or climate disasters is: You look at any storm warning or, for example, Pakistan right now, Amach said. Its one thing to look at heavy rainfall and potential flooding, but then there are other risks that could cascade from that initial hazard. So that could be landslides. Once youve had heavy rainfall, then theres a risk of landslides. And so is the early warning system watching out for this type of hazard, and warning people that this now is an issue that they should be worried about? The early warning system shouldnt just stop at one hazard and then people are off on their own. It should take into account different hazards that could result or cascade from the initial hazard, he added. In the United States, the National Weather Service has ample technology for tracking extreme weather events and can alert the public and elected officials through mass media, so utility companies can send out cellphone push notifications, for example. When Hurricane Ian approached Florida last month, the state government issued evacuation orders for 12 counties. Had it not done so, the death toll could have been much higher. Officials in Lee County were criticized for delaying evacuation orders longer than their neighbors. But in much of the world, several of these components are missing, and the victims of natural disasters have little, if any, advance notice and chance to prepare. Debris litters the ground in Sanibel, Fla., on Oct. 8 after Hurricane Ian. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) There are many countries, this report shows, that dont even have the beginning parts of the chain, Laura Paterson, WMO representative and coordinator to the United Nations, told Yahoo News. You will struggle to find a good early warning ahead of flooding in many of the least developed countries in Africa. Im thinking of South Sudan: Their [meteorological] service doesnt have the capacity to really be ingesting all this data, making this decision on whats going to be impactful and disseminating it out to their people. And also, perhaps many of the people arent receiving any warnings that they do have. When climate-change-related floods hit South Sudan this summer, not all of the 1 million residents affected received the warnings that were issued and thus missed the chance to move their goods to safer areas, such as higher ground. One example of the kind of system that Guterres would like to see in countries such as South Sudan is a WMO program in Papua New Guinea. In 2015-16, the Pacific Island nation endured severe droughts affecting about 40% of the population, causing life-threatening food shortages, and in response the WMO launched a project there to build an early warning system to reduce the impact of drought. (Since warmer air causes more water to evaporate, droughts have become increasingly frequent and severe in many areas due to climate change.) The project includes increasing the national meteorological agencys ability to predict droughts, and advance collaboration with government agencies such as Papua's Ministry of Agriculture. Thanks to earlier warnings, Papuans in future droughts will have a chance to head off famine with such measures such as planting drought-resistant crops and stocking up on basic goods. South Sudanese residents wade through floodwater in the city of Al Manaqil on Aug. 23. (Ebrahim Hamid /AFP via Getty Images) One key aspect of forecasting that needs to be improved worldwide is what the WMO calls impact-based forecasts. This specifies the potential impact, for instance, explaining not simply, It will rain 6 inches in three hours, but It will rain 6 inches in three hours, which will flood the basements and ground floors of many homes. Forecasts of extreme weather events are often expressed in technical terms giving the temperature in degrees and wind speeds in kilometers per hour that dont make clear to the average person what is going to happen to them and what they should do to prepare. This is an issue even in rich countries. After more than 230 residents of Germany and Belgium died in floods last year, local authorities called for better preparation for extreme weather events. Even if we look at developed countries, and if you think of the example last year of the flooding of Germany and Belgium, thats an example where the forecast was good, Paterson said. "The predictions of how much rainfall was coming were good. In Germany they have weather apps, they have good weather forecasts on TV; I'm sure people would have been aware that this was coming. However, the translation from Were going to get a lot of rain to Our community is going to flood so badly that its the worst weve ever seen and there's going to be a risk to life that step was quite challenging in Germany. Disaster warning systems are also useful only to those who have the means to take precautions such as evacuating. Even in the United States, local governments have failed to make accommodations to evacuate people with disabilities in the path of hurricanes for example, during Hurricane Katrina, which took 1,833 lives in 2005. In Sindh, Pakistan, on Sept. 28, a family displaced by floods sits outside a tent at a makeshift camp. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images) Recent catastrophes attributable to climate change have included the flooding of one-third of Pakistan's land mass. Guterres, who recently visited the country to show solidarity, has called on wealthier nations to present more ambitious plans at COP27 for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and for setting up a system to compensate developing nations for loss and damage from climate catastrophes. Communities everywhere are looking down the barrel of climate-driven destruction, he said. We must act and we must act now. The Northern Ireland Protocol is being used to hold institutions there hostage, the Council of Europe has heard. Parties on both sides should seek in a constructive spirit practical solutions to ensure smooth implementation of the protocol, a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was told. The assembly approved a resolution entitled the impact of Brexit on human rights on the island of Ireland. The UK should reaffirm its commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and, as regards the #NorthernIreland Protocol, refrain from unilateral actions which undermine international law says @PACE_News: Resolution: https://t.co/ah68VonSDJ#Brexit #HumanRights #ECHR pic.twitter.com/Kwcb8nDl5o Council of Europe (@coe) October 14, 2022 Within that, it was stated that while polls have shown the protocol is not a primary concern for the population, it has been used as a pretext to hold public institutions hostage. The resolution said Brexit had reignited deep-seated tensions in Northern Irish society, furthering political division and contributing significantly to the paralysis of devolved institutions. Greek politician George Katrougalos, who is a representative on the Council of Europe assembly, lamented that the main unionist party refuses to collaborate with the government according to the provisions of the Good Friday agreement. The DUP is blocking the functioning of the powersharing institutions in Belfast as part of its protest against the protocol that has created barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said he would work intensively to create the conditions for all parties in Northern Ireland to return to a functioning Assembly (Brian Lawless/PA) The UK Government has vowed to secure changes to the protocol, either by way of a negotiated compromise with the EU or through proposed domestic legislation that would empower ministers to scrap the arrangements without the approval of Brussels. Current legislation says that unless Stormont is restored by October 28, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has to call fresh Assembly elections, something he has said he is prepared to do. Mr Katrougalos said: We should all of us continue to support ways of making Northern Ireland institutions more stable and more resistant to political turbulence. He also warned that the UK should avoid any unilateral acts. Relations between the UK and EU appear to have improved since Liz Truss became Prime Minister and London and Brussels have been talking up the potential for a deal through fresh negotiations. Earlier this week, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said he was speaking with Mr Heaton-Harris regularly and committed to working quite intensively over the next few weeks to try to create the conditions to allow all parties in Northern Ireland to believe that they can move back into the space to establish an executive and a functioning Assembly. Mr Coveney said he hoped for a breakthrough on some of these issues in the next few weeks so that we can have the basis for a step forward on some of the contentious issues before the end of October. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said that any agreement over the protocol must produce an outcome which is acceptable to unionists. The PACE resolution called on parties in Northern Ireland to return to power-sharing immediately and to refrain from political acts which undermine the ability of Northern Irelands institutions to function. Family members whose loved ones were killed in the Parkland school shooting were incensed Thursday after the jury recommended life in prison instead of the death penalty for gunman Nikolas Cruz. This should have been the death penalty, 100%, said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was killed. I am so beyond disappointed and frustrated with this outcome. I cannot understand. I just dont understand. Nikolas Cruz, now 24, had already admitted to killing 17 people, including 14 students, and wounding 17 others in the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in South Florida. In a three-month penalty trial, prosecutors argued that Cruz should be executed for his actions. Under Florida law, a death sentence would have required all 12 jurors to agree. The jury foreman said more than one juror wanted to spare Cruzs life. Ilan and Lori Alhadeff, center, react as they hear that their daughter's murderer will not receive the death penalty as the verdicts are announced in the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Ilan and Lori Alhadeff, center, react as they hear that their daughter's murderer will not receive the death penalty as the verdicts are announced in the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/) We went through all the evidence and some of the jurors just felt that was the appropriate sentence, Benjamin Thomas told a local TV station. I didnt vote that way, so Im not happy with how it worked out, but everyone has the right to decide for themselves. The families were less diplomatic. Todays ruling was yet another gut punch for so many of us who devastatingly lost our loved ones, said Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed. Seventeen beautiful lives were cut short, by murder heinous, pre-planned, torturous murder. And the monster that killed them gets to live another day. Montalto said his statement was on behalf of Stand With Parkland, an organization he founded that is dedicated to ending school shootings. Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott Beigel was killed, said Cruz should be afraid every second of the day of his life. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz is shown at the defense table with Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill as the verdicts are read in his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz is shown at the defense table with Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill as the verdicts are read in his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/) During the trial, Cruzs attorneys argued that his life should be spared because he suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome triggered by his mothers heavy drinking during pregnancy. How can the mitigating factors make this shooter, who they recognized committed this terrible act acts, plural shooting, some victims more than once on a pass, pressing the barrel of his weapon to my daughters chest that doesnt outweigh that poor little whats-his-name had a tough upbringing? Montalto asked at a press conference after the verdict. Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law. Gena Hoyer awaits the verdict in the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Gena Hoyer awaits the verdict in the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/) Other parents directed their anger at the system itself. Lori Alhadeff asked, What is the death penalty for? Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting, said he thought someone predisposed against the death penalty sneaked onto the jury. Ryan Pettty speaks after the jury recommends life in prison for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, as his son Patrick looks on. Ryan's daughter Alaina, was killed in the 2018 shootings. Ryan Pettty speaks after the jury recommends life in prison for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, as his son Patrick looks on. Ryan's daughter Alaina, was killed in the 2018 shootings. (Joe Cavaretta/) A juror did not tell the truth to get on this jury and because of that, 17 families have been failed, he said at the press conference. Guttenberg also criticized the way the defense conducted the trial. Last month, defense attorneys rested after calling only 25 of 80 listed witnesses, prompting an angry rebuke from the judge. Florida is one of 27 states where the death penalty is legal. The state last executed someone in August 2019. With News Wire Services Scotlands drugs minister has called for an urgent meeting with her UK Government counterpart to discuss the implication of changes to drugs legislation that could have an impact north of the border. This year, the Home Office announced plans to toughen up rules around drug possession with a new, three-tier system of interventions the most strict of which could see offenders have their passports or driving licences taken away. In a 56-page report released in July, the Home Office said two of the three tiers the most and least stringent could apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland. The legal system in Scotland, including policing and the courts, is devolved, but parts of the Misuse of Drugs Act remain reserved to Westminster. Drugs Policy Minister Angela Constance has written to the UK Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire to outline her concerns about proposed new consequences for drug possession in the Home Office publication; Swift, Certain, Tough. Full text of letter https://t.co/GYFWhqojWO pic.twitter.com/8NXNyjLEDI Scot Gov Health (@scotgovhealth) October 14, 2022 In a letter to UK crime minister Jeremy Quin on Friday, Angela Constance voiced her concerns at the proposed changes and the impacts they could have on the human rights of drug users. The paper sets out that some proposals, including the most punitive, may apply in Scotland, she wrote. I received a reply on the August 25 2022 claiming that these measures are a step towards changing the damaging culture of drug use. I disagree and, instead, feel that these measures are contradictory to the human rights-based, public health approach that the Scottish Government is implementing, and could undermine aspects of our national mission to improve and save lives. I have previously outlined that these proposals, in particular, the confiscation of passports or drivers licences, raise significant concerns on civil liberties and human rights grounds. Given the devolved nature of Scotlands legal system, Ms Constance continued, the proposals and their potential reach north may prove unworkable as she urged discussions between the Home Office, Police Scotland and the Crown Office, as well as the Scottish Government. I must reiterate my opposition to any decision that requires Scotland to implement these measures and would highlight the significant risks inherent in this approach, she wrote. Ms Constance, who has regularly pushed the UK Government on the use of safe consumption facilities in Scotland as a way to ease the drug death problem in the country, also pushed Mr Quin for a meeting ahead of the regular inter-governmental drug forum due to take place on November 1. The next UK drugs ministerial meeting is scheduled for November 1 and I look forward to meeting with you then, she wrote. I would, however, very much welcome an opportunity to meet with you in advance of that date to talk through the approach we are taking and to discuss what we can do collectively to respond to this public health emergency. A Home Office spokeswoman said: Drugs ruin lives and devastate communities which is why the Government is committed to tackling both the supply and demand for drugs, as set out in the 10-year drug strategy. The recent white paper on new consequences for drug possession sets out our approach to tackling demand and we have welcomed views on this. The public consultation closed this week and responses are being carefully considered. The Scottish Lib Dems have called for a general election after the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday. Mr Kwarteng, who served in the position for just over a month, was relieved of his duties by Prime Minister Liz Truss after dashing back from a trip to Washington. The ex-chancellors mini-budget sent the pound tumbling and forced the Bank of England to step in. An eventual U-turn of scrapping the top rate of tax was not enough to save Mr Kwartengs job, however, with speculation rife before the announcement of his firing that much of the economic plans would have to be dismantled. Following confirmation of the move on Friday, Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton pushed for a general election to be called. This mustnt just be the end of Kwartengs disastrous chancellorship, it should be the death knell of the Conservatives reckless mismanagement of our economy, he said. We owe it to the households, individuals and businesses up and down Scotland, who have been hit hard by this crisis, to take firm action now. Across Scotland, people are angry, fed up and worried about the future. Most of all, they are furious that Conservative MPs seem to think this is an acceptable way to conduct the government of our country in these difficult times. Enough is enough. It started with Boris Johnson failing our country, and now Liz Truss is trashing our economy. Its time for us to have our say in a general election. Labour are currently riding high in the polls, with some suggesting a significant reduction in Tory support, making any election an unlikely prospect in the near future. Meanwhile, SNP deputy Westminster leader Kirsten Oswald sought to highlight the Prime Ministers involvement in the ex-chancellors economic plans. No attempt to pass the buck can disguise the fact that Liz Truss is up to her neck in this, she said. The disastrous policies in the UK budget were the central plank of her Tory leadership campaign. It was her reckless incompetence that trashed the UK economy and she is to blame for the damage to peoples mortgage rates, pensions and household budgets. With her chancellor gone, its unclear what justification there is for Liz Truss remaining in post. Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater added that, as well as Mr Kwarteng, the Prime Minister should also resign. Its not just the chancellor who needs to go, she said. It is also this dangerous Prime Minister who appointed him and the cabinet who have supported him every step of the way. This has already gone on too long, and far too many people are suffering. If Liz Truss wants to emerge with any shred of credibility then it cant just be her chancellor that leaves Downing Street, it must also be her. 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. Chinese cities make bespoke response to COVID-19 resurgences Xinhua) 08:39, October 14, 2022 BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Wang Yan, an empty-nester in her 70s in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, dialed the local citizen hotline 12345 one day to seek help for solving one new problem: picking up groceries. Due to a leg injury, Wang was unable to collect deliveries at the gate of her residential compound, which was under closed-off management due to COVID-19 flare-up. Half an hour after Wang's call, a community worker contacted her and promised to arrange daily deliveries to her doorstep. "My children are out of town, so I was a bit anxious at first. Now I feel much assured as I'm assigned a personal liaison," said Wang. When Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province and a megacity of 21 million people, was hit by a COVID-19 resurgence in September, local authorities turned 12345 into a service desk for solving urgent difficulties facing residents during the outbreak. Between Sept. 1 and 27, the hotline received about 1.58 million calls or online messages related to the epidemic, with 98.29 percent of the cases solved. A special team was also set up to expedite cases concerning senior citizens, children and pregnant women, officials said. In virus-hit Chinese cities, more flexible and custom-made measures are being rolled out to protect both the work and lives of ordinary people, while preventing large-scale outbreaks. The Chinese government has stressed coordinating epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development, and adopting targeted and science-based measures to minimize the epidemic impact on people's work and lives. In an effort to ensure supplies of livelihood-related commodities, the Ministry of Transport has vowed to keep logistics vehicles, postal and express distribution outlets and service stations in normal operation during the epidemic. In tourist city Jinghong, Yunnan Province, authorities offered free meals and are negotiating reduced hotel fees for stranded tourists in the Gaozhuang area after a COVID-19 flare-up prompted travel restrictions in early October. The city has since Oct. 8 allowed non-local travelers to embark on return trips as long as they could provide negative test results. Local communities are fully mobilized to care for epidemic-affected residents. In Chengdu, all neighborhoods are divided into 126,000 "micro-grids," served by 149,000 volunteers recruited from couriers, community workers and retirees. "Each of such micro-grid personnel is responsible for contacting and helping an average of 12 households," said Zheng Zhi, an official with Chengdu's community management commission. Wearing a red jacket, courier Wang Kehao is one of such micro-grid workers. His new job involves delivering epidemic-control materials and necessities, collecting epidemiological information and reporting residents' complaints to authorities. "I'm impressed by the community staff who stick to their tasks despite bad weather. By working together, we'll get through this soon," said one resident in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. After an infection was reported in a local residential complex, volunteers worked overnight to assemble a testing kiosk and facilitate grocery pick-up. New technologies have facilitated communication in this process. In Chengdu, after big data had helped identify a flurry of complaints about grocery purchase, the municipal commerce bureau immediately organized dozens of retail companies to offer regular deliveries to closed-off neighborhoods. A telephone AI was also employed to make over 60,000 calls, collecting information for epidemiological investigation and issuing reminders of tests and vaccination. "The epidemiological tracking used to involve over a dozen staff members making phone calls all day long. It is now done by the robot in an hour, so our people have more time for other epidemic prevention work," said a doctor from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The Chinese mainland on Wednesday reported 322 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,154 local asymptomatic carriers, compared with 374 and 1,386 on Tuesday. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) Spain and France have announced that they will both be delivering ground-based air defense systems to Ukraine, Emma Helfrich reports in The War Zone. This development has taken place as NATO member countries collectively rush to provide Ukraine with advanced air defense capabilities they need to combat attacks like the recent barrage of Russian cruise missiles and drones on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK (Homing All the Way Killer, commonly referred to as "Hawk") (Picture source: Spanish army) In a press briefing held Thursday, Oc tober 13, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Spain would send four medium-range Homing All the Way Killer (HAWK) air defense systems to Ukraine. The country is also providing Ukraine with ground-based Aspide anti-aircraft missile systems, on which 19 Ukrainian servicemen have been training since early October, Emma Helfrich reports. French President Emmanuel Macron has yet to reveal which specific air defense systems France intends to send to Ukraine, but all signs are currently pointing to the Crotale short-range missile system. The Spanish Ministry of Defense first confirmed the delivery of the Aspide system, which is currently used by the Spanish Air Force, this summer, and Ukrainian forces are projected to complete their training course on the type this October 14. MBDA's Aspide 2000 missile is the powerful upgraded version of the Aspide multi-role missile for use in surface-to-air systems. Its operational performance has been enhanced making the missile capable of engaging attacking aircraft before they can release their airborne stand-off rocket-propelled missiles. Thanks to its outstanding capabilities in range, it can ensure a wide area defense against all types of air threats. The Aspide 2000 missile is equipped with an enhanced single-stage rocket motor to increase the missile speed, lateral acceleration and effective range by as much as 40% compared to the Aspide baseline missile. It incorporates all modern electronic features to improve its guidance characteristics and effectiveness in heavy clutter and ECM environments. The Aspide 2000 missile is equipped with an enhanced single-stage rocket motor to increase the missile speed, lateral acceleration and effective range by as much as 40% compared to the Aspide baseline missile (Picture source: MBDA) While there has been no official confirmation from the Spanish government about the HAWK delivery, in a separate press briefing held on October 13, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley specifically mentioned HAWK was requested by Ukraine. Spain currently operates two HAWK types, Phase I and Phase III, but all HAWKs underwent a major improvement program in the 1970s that redesignated the system as Improved-Hawk, or I-HAWK, which is how it's being referenced by the U.S. government. The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK (Homing All the Way Killer, commonly referred to as "Hawk") is an American medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was designed to be a much more mobile counterpart to the MIM-14 Nike Hercules, trading off the range and altitude capability for a much smaller size and weight. Its low-level performance was greatly improved over Nike through the adoption of new radars and a continuous wave semi-active radar homing guidance system. It entered service with the US Army in 1959. In 1971 it underwent a major improvement program as the Improved Hawk, or I-Hawk, which made several improvements to the missile and replaced all of the radar systems with new models. Improvements continued throughout the next twenty years, adding improved ECCM, a potential home-on-jam feature, and in 1995, a new warhead that made it capable against short-range tactical missiles. The original system's single-shot kill probability was 0.56; I-Hawk improved this to 0.85. Hawk was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in the US Army service by 1994. The last US user was the US Marine Corps, who used theirs until 2002 when they were replaced with the man-portable short-range FIM-92 Stinger. The missile was also produced outside the US in Western Europe, Japan and Iran. The US never used the Hawk in combat, but it has been employed numerous times by other nations. Approximately 40,000 of the missiles were produced. In his words: "I am just a professional writer, which means I don't do blogs and try and get money for whatever I write." Mr Putin has retaliated by cutting off gas supplies and even sabotaging with leaks his own undersea gas pipeline Most European countries, and in the main Germany, were/are reliant on Russian gas supplies to keep the lights and heating on and to fuel their industry. Russias invasion of Ukraine has led to crippling sanctions from Western businesses and banks on Vladimir Putins country not to mention the sanctioning and freezing of the vast assets of the Russian mafia oligarchs who have bank accounts and own yachts and property in the West. Mr Putin has retaliated by cutting off gas supplies and even sabotaging with leaks his own undersea gas pipeline. There is no doubt that this has caused a severe crisis in Europe. The governments of every nation in the European Union and that of the UK are scrambling, with variable success, to fill the gap that Russias withdrawal of gas and oil has left. The UK lost five per cent of its energy supply through Mr Putins reaction. Other nations lost 40 per cent or more of the fuel that they use. The reaction to this shortage, especially as winter looms, has been to reactivate some coal burning, to start projects to expand solar and wind-power, to restart old and plan new nuclear plants, to suspend the ban on fracking in Britain and, very obviously, to debate ways of saving energy. The energy-saving suggestions from the media in the UK have not extended to the manufacturing sector. They have concentrated on domestic heating and lighting and the use of energy in shops and offices. Publications sport photographs of High Street shops at night before the shortage with lights blazing and escalators still active behind locked doors in contrast with the darkened interiors photographed from the street after implementing the energy saving measures. The media commentariat and politicians have taken to dispensing advice some good, some vastly crackpot on energy-saving tactics. Boris Johnson, in one of his final speeches, said he would legislate to build new nuclear plants. He said this might seem expensive at 700 billion, but it would in the end rescue the country from the energy shortage and save billions in the long run. He then, in typical style, inserted an analogy, saying replacing a furred-up, energy-slurping electric kettle with a new one may cost you 20, but would save you 10 a year on electricity bills. The social media took this to be BoJos energy-saving advice to households and he was pilloried and made to seem more ridiculous than the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Others recommended wearing sweaters when the heating was switched off, something we perhaps could have alighted on ourselves? There are eccentric bits of advice invoked from the past. In 1974, in a similar crisis, the Tory energy minister urged people to brush their teeth in the dark. No records exist of the populace following the advice or indeed of how much energy was thus saved. My father wasnt on this ministers side, but was a keen believer in not leaving the lights on in an unoccupied room. He would shout at us children, the regular offenders, saying: Its not Diwali yet! Perhaps it helped with the electricity bills, but its more likely that it made him proud of demanding an end to waste. Another piece of unnecessary exhortation appeared in a right-wing weekly called the Spectator, in a column by Charles Moore, a sort of Little Lord Fauntleroy type. In last weeks column he urged the male workers of the nation to emulate Victorians by wearing jackets, ties and vests. He didnt venture to prescribe dress paraphernalia for women but resorted to euphemism: and female workers (should) manage the equivalent. This observation was preceded by the confession that he himself wears a silk vest and long johns while composing his columns. Reading this brought to mind the abbreviation TMI, which the younger generation use to indicate that thats perhaps too much information. It was, I felt, akin to Wordsworth painting a picture of daffodils dancing in the breeze and then interrupting the mood by imposing the image of a prostrate old man: oft when on my couch I lie/ In vacant or in pensive mood which, for me, has always seemed an incongruous image in the poem. TMI? There has been talk of blackouts for periods this winter, though the National Grid-wallahs have said that these wont be necessary. The serious side to the power shortages is that the prices of petrol, gas and hence electricity have been subject to a Himalayan hike. The providers, petrol companies such as BP and Shell, have made billions of pounds in increased profits a phenomenon termed by the government as a windfall. The Labour Party first proposed a windfall tax on these companies, the revenue gathered to be used to help households with soaring energy bills. Kamikwazi Kwarteng, the UKs former chancellor of the exchequer (who was sacked on Friday), had rejected a windfall tax but promised to cap each households energy bills at 2,500 a year. Even so, for some, it would pose the choice between eating and heating this in one of the most developed countries in the world. And so, gentle reader, to my personal energy-saving advice: # Watch TV in the dark just like in the cinema! # Eat salads and cold food instead of cooking err Will I? # Is the Pope a Muslim? It comes as a YouGov poll for the The Times found that almost half of Tory party supporters believe the party chose the wrong candidate LONDON: Rebels on the backbenches of the UK's governing Conservative Party are on Friday said to be plotting to replace Liz Truss as party leader and prime minister with a so-called unity joint ticket team involving former leadership rival Rishi Sunak. It comes as a YouGov poll for the The Times' found that almost half of Tory party supporters believe the party chose the wrong candidate in the leadership election. The YouGov poll found that among those who voted for the Conservatives at the last election, 62 per cent said that party members had made the wrong choice when the race was shortlisted between Truss and Sunak, compared with 15 per cent who said they had got it right. It has led panicked Tory members of Parliament to start considering alternatives in the candidates who secured the most votes within the parliamentary party the British Indian former Chancellor, who was the frontrunner with his colleagues, and Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, who came in third. The government, meanwhile, is reeling from the impact of the controversial mini-budget at the end of last month, with UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng flying back from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington a day earlier than planned. While further U-turns on the tax-cutting plans are expected following crunch meetings at 10 Downing Street, the Tory backbenchers are said to be weighing up the prospect of changing the party leader yet again. Given that Truss technically cannot face a leadership challenge unless until 12 months unless the powerful 1922 Committee of backbench MPs vote to change their rules, MPs are said to be considering the possibility of rallying behind a joint team of Sunak and Mordaunt where the former is the Prime Minister and the latter his Deputy. Another option is for Mordaunt to take over as party leader and Prime Minister and Sunak as Chancellor, given his track record in office at the Treasury and that he had warned of much of the turmoil that has since unleashed under Truss. A coronation won't be that hard to arrange, a senior Tory was quoted as saying in The Times'. The party believes a pact is possible between Sunak, who lost to Truss in the party membership vote 57 to 43 per cent, and Mordaunt who came in third in the early stage of the voting among MPs and then threw her support behind Truss. However, former prime minister Boris Johnson loyalists have condemned such plotting as anti-democratic by disgruntled Sunak backers. No offence to Sunak or Mordaunt but government is not a game of spin the bottle, where if you don't like the result you can just keep spinning again, tweeted Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a fierce Johnson loyalist. Those absurdly called grandee MPs (men) agitating to remove Liz Truss are all Sunak supporters. They agitated to remove Boris Johnson and now they will continue plotting until they get their way. It's a plot not to remove a PM but to overturn democracy, she said. It comes a day after UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly fired a warning shot for rebels that it would be a disastrously bad idea to think about replacing Truss as the Tory leader, just over a month after she was elected by the party membership. I think that changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but also economically, and we are absolutely going to stay focused on growing the economy, he said. The new head of state is 78-year-old Kurdish Abdel Latif Rashid, who overcame rival (and outgoing) Bahram Salih by more than 160 votes to 99. As his first act, he entrusted the task of forming the new government to 52-year-old Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, an exponent of the pro-Tehran Shia faction. Yesterday's vote was marked by the launching of rockets in the Green Zone. Baghdad (AsiaNews) - One year after the general elections, the Iraqi parliament has succeeded in electing a new president, 78 year old Kurdish (according to the Constitution) Abdel Latif Rashid, who replaces his predecessor Barham Salih. An appointment that came after two rounds of voting in the House, gaining more than 160 preferences against Salih's 99. Yesterday's vote is the first step towards unblocking the political and institutional stalemate that has paralysed and bloodied the country for over a year, so much so that the first act of the new head of state is to have given the Shiite Mohammed Shia al-Sudani the task of forming the new government. In Iraq, the role of the head of state is largely ceremonial and lacks real powers on the political level, but the vote is nevertheless an essential step to get the institutional machine moving again. Rashid was Minister of Water Resources from 2003 to 2010; he has studies in British schools behind him and has emerged in the challenge against the outgoing head of state, who is vying for a second term. The contest between Rashid and Salih for the presidency also mirrors the clash in the Kurdish world, which is predominant in northern Iraq where it enjoys wide autonomy and has its beating heart in Erbil. The two major Kurdish parties were divided in the election: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Kdp) supported Rashid after withdrawing its candidate, while the rival faction of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Puk) manoeuvred for a second term for Salih. The two groups fought a bitter civil war in the 1990s; the fear is that the dispute over the president's seat could trigger a new bloody armed conflict between the parties, which in recent months have not found a common synthesis on the candidate. The 52-year-old al-Sudani, on the other hand, belongs to the Coordination Framework, a pro-Iranian alliance that now represents the majority bloc in Parliament after the withdrawal of Sadrist deputies last August. The Prime Minister in charge has previously served as Minister of Human Rights and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs; he now has 30 days to try to form the new executive and present himself in Parliament for the vote of confidence by the assembly. Yesterday's vote was also marked by the firing of at least nine missiles near the Green Zone, Baghdad's armoured area where diplomatic and institutional representations are based. Medical sources report that at least 10 people, including members of the security forces, were injured in the attack. Looming in the background is the figure of the winner of the October 2021 elections, the Shiite populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who in recent months has failed to create a majority bloc capable of forming a government. In August, he forced the resignation of his 73 deputies en bloc, declaring his intention to leave politics. This choice triggered protests by supporters, who took to the streets to demonstrate, and an urban guerrilla warfare that spread from the capital to Basra, involving rival Shiite factions close to Tehran and causing several casualties. Now people are waiting to understand the next moves, while among the population there remains a basic scepticism for the future: few believe that yesterday's vote can really change the substance of the country and help overcome the crisis. by Sumon Corraya Already 83 people have died since the beginning of the year and the spread of the disease is steadily increasing beyond normal seasonality. Experts: an effect of climate change. Epicentre in the capital, followed by the district of Cox's Bazar. The mortality rate is higher in the 40-50 age group. Dhaka (AsiaNews) - After the Covid-19 pandemic, the new spectre for Bangladesh is called dengue fever. In the last 24 hours, eight people have died from this fever. Never before have so many deaths been seen in a single day, and the total number of victims since 1 January has risen to 83. According to data released by Dr Zahidul Islam, head of the Health Emergency Operations Centre, 765 people have been newly admitted to hospital due to dengue: 497 among residents in Dhaka and 268 outside Dhaka. The number of patients throughout the country has thus risen to 2,695. Dhaka is the hottest point of infection, followed by Cox's Bazar, the district that also hosts the Rohingya camps. Among the 83 dengue victims, at least two are Catholic children: Dia Rozario, 10, died on 23 September and Singdha Gomes, 7, died on 22 August. Both are from Tejgaon parish in Dhaka. They had been admitted to hospital, but could not be saved. According to information from the Department of Health, 23,282 people have been hospitalised due to dengue since the beginning of the year. Of these 20,504 have recovered and been discharged. It is feared that this year's epidemic in Bangladesh could be prolonged and the infection situation could become more complicated. Usually, outbreaks of this mosquito-borne disease occur from April to September. Instead, the infection curve in mid-October is rising. Ahmadul Kabir, Deputy Director General of the Department of Health, said that due to climate change, dengue outbreaks have occurred in places where this disease did not exist before. Moreover, most of the patients who came to the hospital had already been infected with dengue once or more in the past. This shows that the symptoms are more acute. However, Kabir assures that the dengue situation in the country is still under control, urging people not to panic. "Since the number of sick people is constantly increasing," he said, "we have instructed the government hospitals to make sure that no patient has to go home without treatment. They will provide the necessary manpower, beds and logistical support." According to the Department of Health, most dengue victims are over 20 years old. Mortality is highest in the 40-50 age group. 35% of the patients who died were children under the age of 18. Due to the delay in getting affected patients to hospital, many people die within three days of admission. The population uses mosquito nets, insecticide sprays and other materials to protect themselves. by Guido Alberto Casanova Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida named his 31-year-old son, Shotaro, as his new executive secretary, a key post on his staff. Although this is not unusual in Japanese politics, it has revived criticism of nepotism. Meanwhile, the prime ministers popularity is at an all-time low. Tokyo (AsiaNews) Shotaro Kishida is a young man of 31, the eldest of three siblings. He studied law at Keio University, one of Tokyo's oldest and foremost universities. After his studies, he was hired by one of the most important firms in the country, Mutsui & Co, one of those companies that made Japans post-war economic history. Shotaro was certainly lucky compared to many of his peers but, in addition to that, he also has another card up his sleeve; his father happens to be Fumio Kishida, Japans current prime minister, who last week, named him as his new executive secretary. Already in 2020 Shotaro was hired directly by his father's office. And his new promotion has not gone down well in the country. The position of executive secretary is particularly important since it will allow him to follow his father practically everywhere, involving him in meetings with foreign leaders and political negotiations behind closed doors. For this reason, Japanese media are speculating on whether Fumio Kishida is trying to groom his firstborn as his heir. Nepotism is never far in Japanese politics, especially within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Most of Japan's prominent politicians belong to political dynasties. Shotaro Kishidas appointment did not catch LDP leaders completely unprepared, Kyodo News reports. A former minister, Itsunori Onodera, who belongs to Kishidas faction, said he expected Shotaro to succeed his father who took office as prime minister only a year ago.. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a press conference that Shotaro Kishidas appointment was decided based on his personality and insight, guided by the idea of putting the right person in the right place. Not everybody is convinced. In parliament, opposition lawmakers went after the prime minister for the appointment. The head of the Democratic Party for the People blasted the prime minister for showing favouritism towards a family member, while the Constitutional Democratic Party described the appointment as too quick and disturbing. Even among the other parties of the ruling coalition, the promotion came in for criticism, with Kishida taken to task for not listening to public opinion. In fact, the appointment comes at a time when the government is sailing in rough waters, with an approval rating plunging from 60 per cent in July to about 30 per cent at present. The LDP's relationship with the Unification Church and former Prime Minister Abe's highly contentious state funeral weigh heavily on the matter. Now Shotaro Kishida's appointment exposes the government to further criticism, increasing its unpopularity among voters. by John Ai Becoming an online sensation, the lone warrior displayed banners attacking the president in Beijing. The rare initiative comes amid heightened security measures in the capital. The authorities are trying to censor all information about the demonstration. Popular discontent grows, but those who oppose Xi, run great risks. Rome (AsiaNews) - On the eve of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, a protest in Beijing against Xi Jinping has caused a stir. A number of banners were hung yesterday on a bridge passing over a busy intersection in the capital targeting China's supreme leader and his policy of 'resetting' the Covid-19, as well as calling for elections. It is the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement that protesters have challenged the regime in such a blatant manner. The incident happened on the Sitong Viaduct in north-west Beijing, where the city's main universities are located. Passers-by stopped and took pictures with their mobile phones. One banner read: 'We don't want Covid tests, we want food. We don't want isolation, we want freedom. We don't want lies, we want dignity. We don't want cultural revolution, we want reforms. We don't want leaders, we want to vote. We don't want to be slaves, we want to be citizens'. Another read: 'Students and workers strike, remove the dictator and traitor to the nation Xi Jinping'. In one of the videos, the slogans were repeated from a loudspeaker. An image circulated on the internet shows a man being taken away by police: the protester is believed to have burnt tyres to attract the attention of passers-by. The police removed the banners immediately. A Bloomberg reporter found burn marks at the spot shown on the videos. The Associated Press reported instead that police patrolled the area and stopped pedestrians to check their identity cards. Chinese authorities did not respond to the requests for comment. Local police denied any incident had taken place. Web users tried different ways to circumvent the censorship and show their support, calling the protester a 'lone warrior' () and a 'brave man' in their discussions on social media. However, the authorities have filtered out such expressions: when searching for words like 'Sitong bridge', or simply 'bridge' and 'brave', online search engines in China do not give any results. The protest has become the most debated topic in the Chinese cyber-sphere. Many netizens who shared photos and videos on the messaging app WeChat or on Weibo (a kind of Chinese Twitter) found their accounts blocked. Many are now concerned about the man's safety. The protester is believed to be Twitter user Peng Zaizhou (): some of his old posts are consistent with the slogans on the banners. His real name should be Peng Lifa (), originally from Tailai county (Heilongjiang). The 20th Party Congress will open on 16 October. The authorities have tightened security nationwide and imposed logistical and travel restrictions in Beijing. Local dissidents are forced to leave the city, while many activists across the country are under house arrest. General Secretary Xi is expected to remain in power for a third term, breaking the unwritten rule that the Party leader cannot serve more than two five-year terms. Xi is poised to become China's most powerful politician since Mao Zedong. This is despite the fact that his strict zero-covidance policy has damaged the economy, leading to rising unemployment. Because of the lockdowns, many citizens become dissatisfied and impatient, but people still choose to avoid mentioning Xi's name in a stifling atmosphere. Openly opposing Xi carries huge risks and some protesters have paid a heavy price. Poet Lu Yang () from Shandong Province, who urged the president to step down, was sentenced to six years in prison. Dong Yaoqiong (), nicknamed 'ink girl' for splashing ink on a poster of the Chinese leader in Shanghai, is interned up in a psychiatric hospital. Her father Dong Jianbiao () died in prison in September. Real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang is to serve 18 years in prison after openly criticising Xi. Senior U.S. officials say the Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces during the war with Russia Email Newsletters Get the best of The Aspen Daily News in your inbox. Our newsletters are free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. 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. Share This: Two new Tesla Cybertruck builds were spotted under wraps by a drone operator at Giga Texas. Tesla is working toward the initial production phases of the Cybertruck at Giga Texas after several production delays. The Cybertruck is set to begin production in mid-2023, Tesla said earlier this year. The Cybertruck was unveiled in late 2019 and has been under development since then. Tesla has revised the dimensions and design of the Cybertruck on several occasions. CEO Elon Musk confirmed earlier this year the company has finalized what it will bring to the market next year. However, Tesla has kept several prototypes of the Cybertruck floating around the country, making appearances at various places though the past three years. New prototypes were spotted Oct 14 at Giga Texas by drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer, who noted the Cybertrucks were located near the north portion of the facility. Tesla has maintained it will build the Cybertruck at Giga Texas, but Tegtmeyer stated the prototypes arrived when he was finished filming. These prototypes were likely built at Fremont, where the previous prototypes were built. It is tough to tell with these photographs as there is not much in the photo to compare dimensions of the Cybertruck prototypes to, but these are likely the revised body designs, which are slightly smaller in size compared to the original design Tesla brought to the stage in Hawthorne, CA, in 2019. Musk said the Cybertruck needed to be smaller to fit in the Boring Company tunnels, but the vehicle has also spurred some debate as to whether it could park in standard parking spaces. Thats pretty much what it [the Cybertruck] will look like, with... Would you find it ridiculous? Well, it's all true. Further still, the very existence of Beriev S-13, as the project came to be known, was directly related to one of the Cold War's hottest flashpoints. An incident that, as recently as 2015, was still being recounted in Hollywood blockbusters with star ensemble casts.The Lockheed U-2 first took to the skies just shy of ten years to the day of the end of the Second World War, on August 1st, 1955. But with the benefit of a considerable level of captured German technology, the U.S. and USSR were able to make profound leaps in aerospace in the time between World War II's end and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Plenty of American warplanes flew faster and carried more firepower, but none flew higher than the U-2.With a service ceiling reaching 80,000 feet (24,000 m) and a paltry top speed of just under three-quarters the speed of sound, the U-2 was impervious to almost all forms of contemporary air defenses. Extra emphasis on the "almost" in that statement. Flash forward to May 1st, 1960. A single U-2C is flying over Soviet territory after taking off from a friendly base in Pakistan with CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers at the stick.Once in the vicinity of the southern Ural Mountains near the Soviet cities of Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk, a single S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile (NATO Code SA-2 Guideline) managed to land a hit on Powers' U-2. Forcing him to bail out of his airplane and endure two years of Soviet captivity before being exchanged for the captured Soviet Intelligence Officer Rudolf Abel in an agreement between Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.With the smoldering wreckage of a top-secret American spy plane now ripe for the picking in Soviet territory, it was time for engineers to start analyzing every nut and bolt on every square inch of this U-2's airframe. The man chosen to lead this research was a specialist in flying boats named Georgy Beriev.What was most immediately obvious when looking at the U-2's components was how much more refined everything was compared to Soviet high-altitude reconnaissance airplane offerings. The closest U-2 equivalent in the Soviet arsenal, the Yakovlev Yak-25RV, a modified interceptor that ditched swept wings for long, straight ones, couldn't get close to the U-2's staggering maximum altitude.Nor could it fly quite as fast. As it turns out, flying at high subsonic speeds at altitudes where the air is so thin it may as well be nonexistent is profoundly harder than it looks. With that in mind, it was decided if the Soviets couldn't beat a U-2, they'd just copy it.By April 1961, Beriev had already finished the fuselage for the first prototype test vehicle. Complete with striking and visibly larger front air intakes than what a U-2 sported, as the only surviving photo of the prototype clearly shows. But just a year later, without warning, the Soviet Council of Ministers axed the program effective immediately. Why? Well, it's broadly agreed the rationale was more or less along the lines of if the Soviets could shoot down a U-2, then the Americans sure as heck could shoot down a Soviet equivalent.Overall, space-dwelling spy satellites were determined to be better at the job. The whereabouts of the sole Beriev S-13's fuselage are unknown, although the Russians are all too happy to show off the mangled remains of their downed U-2 at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. AMG SUV Unfortunately for the Affalterbach-based performance division, the switch from eight to four cylinders was met with pitchforks and torches even though nobody had this problem when Mercedes-introduced the M139 four-pot turbo in 2019 in the W177-generation A 45 and A 45 S.Although it may not sound as glorious as the M177 in the previous C 63, the M139 in the C 63 S E Performance is more than adequate in combination with the rear-mounted electric motor that puts out 201 horsepower. Be that as it may, the chief executive officer of BMW M couldnt resist throwing shade at the Affalterbach-based rival for downsizing to four cylinders.Asked during a media event if BMW M would replace their straight-six with a three-cylinder, Frank van Meel replied, I hope that was just a rhetorical question because it's clear we're not going to do any three-cylinder engines. We're not even going to do four-cylinder engines in high-performance cars. I know there are other companies that are doing that, but we're not going to, he told CarBuzz . The joke, however, is on the Bavarian marque.Does S14 ring a bell? Remember a certain homologation special with four cylinders? BMW premiered the aforementioned four-cylinder lump in the E30 M3 in 1986, initially with 197 horsepower or 192 ponies when equipped with a catalytic converter. The M3 received an inline-six in 1992 with the E36, namely the S50 and the S52, for the post-facelift U.S. specification.It's also worth remembering that the late Sergio Marchionne said that Ferrari would never make an. But as fate would have it, the Prancing Horse of Maranello recently took the veils off the Purosangue, which it stubbornly markets as a four-door even though the hatch is considered a door as well.Even if BMW M wont develop a four-cylinder ever again, Frank van Meels grandstanding does not mean much because the Munich-based automaker gears up for the electric future. Half of global sales will be electric by 2030, with MINI going all-electric by decades end. Its also worth noting that the G87 M2 is the final pure internal combustion M production car. The popularity of Microsoft Teams went through the roof in 2020 when a significant part of the planet started working remotely, with Microsoft itself admitting that it never expected the customer base to increase so much overnight.As a result, the Windows maker tried to improve Microsoft Teams on all fronts, including in the car. The app currently comes with support for Android Auto as well, so you can participate in meetings and take calls just like youd be in front of your PC (of course, only the audio is available while driving).However, users discovered earlier this year that Microsoft Teams no longer worked on Android Auto, and the generic workarounds, which included everything from reinstalling apps to resetting the mobile device, didnt produce any improvement.It took Google nearly 10 months to figure out what happened, and earlier this week, the search giant explained that the whole thing isnt actually caused by Android Auto. In other words, Microsoft Teams is the one to blame for the app no longer working on Android Auto, so Google now recommends users reach out to Microsoft for more information.Some of those who encountered the bug claim they reported the problem to Microsoft as well, only to be told that the problem resides in Android Auto.Right now, however, its unclear who should resolve the glitch, but some users reveal that Microsoft Teams is actually working properly after the latest Android Auto updates. This seems to suggest that Android Auto was the one responsible for the blunder, and Microsoft has nothing to fix in Microsoft Teams on this front.Of course, users who still struggle with Microsoft Teams even after installing the latest Android Auto update have no other option than to follow Googles recommendation and reach out to Microsoft. All luxury owners have the means to go for the best, but only those with some boating experience and knowledge typically go for sailing vessels instead of motor yachts. It takes a connoisseur to be able to appreciate the unique experience of being onboard this kind of ship.Yet, these modern motor sailing yachts are very popular on the luxury charter market, confirming that many people out there are attracted to the classic art of sailing. One of these popular boats has a name that sounds impressive Baracuda Valletta. Its well-suited for a pleasure craft built by the world-famous Perini Navi, known for its exceptional sailing yachts. This particular one was launched in 2009 and refitted only a few years later, in 2013, but it seems to be still in great shape.Its alleged owner is not just a billionaire but someone who happens to be linked to the deep-water drilling industry. George Economous company, Dry Ships, operates a large fleet of tankers, carriers, and drilling units. Theres nothing glamorous about these, but the Baracuda Valletta makes up for it.This elegant boat thats 164-foot-long (50 meters) reveals a surprisingly minimalistic interior created by John Pawson. On the inside, it looks nothing like classic sailing yachts covered in heavy wood but is very modern, light, and spacious. The master suite is as luxurious as those found on bigger motor yachts and, together with the other cabins, can accommodate up to ten guests.It also features a remarkable fold-out transom that can be partially submerged to facilitate swimming. Packed with plenty of modern water toys, the Baracuda Valletta is also ready for adventure, able to hit up to 14 knots (16 mph/26 kph).It looks like this beautiful vessel is also a great investment for its owner. One week onboard this luxury sailboat costs at least $184,000 more details about that are available at IYC. Kia reviewed field data involving the 2021 to 2022 model year Sorento and 2021 to 2023 model year K5 on September 29th, identifying no fewer than 36 alleged incidents of motive power loss due to the electric oil pump going kaput. Come October 4th, the organization in charge of safety recalls decided to call back Sorento and K5 vehicles equipped with the dual-clutch transmission and 2.5-liter turbocharged gasoline four-cylinder engine.No accidents, fires, injuries, or fatalities were reported. Supplied by Myunghwa Ind. Co., Ltd. in South Korea, the electric oil pump assembly bears part number 46220-2N510. Hyundais version is 46220-2N500, and speaking of Hyundai, the sister company is recalling 53,142 vehicles In Kias case, the document below lists no fewer than 69,038 vehicles, of which one percent are estimated to be affected by the aforementioned problem. The 2021 to 2022 Sorento is recalled to the tune of 65,612 units produced between October 26th, 2020, and August 25th, 2022. As for the K5, make that 3,426 between November 16th, 2020, and August 12th, 2022.Kia points the finger at a quality deviation issue at the supplier, which triggers a diagnostic trouble code. This condition allows the vehicle to be driven as if everything is fine for 20 to 30 seconds, then a complete loss of motive power follows suit due to the disengagement of the drive gears. Kia says that a component within the electric oil pump circuit board may detach due to insufficient soldering at the supplier mentioned earlier.Dealers will be informed to inspect and if necessary replace the eight-speed transmission with a new unit produced within specification. Owners, on the other hand, will be notified via first-class mail on December 9th. Being small and mobile in some cases, and capable of producing hardware at a push of a few buttons, 3D printers are of particular interest to the military as well, which would greatly benefit from the ability to produce the stuff it needs right on the front lines, eliminating at least in part its dependence of supply lines. And among the first to step into this brave new world are the Marines from the Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron (MALS) 39, based at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.For a while now these guys have been playing with something called Tier 1 Expeditionary (T1X) desktop polymers system. Its an additive manufacturing (AM) piece of tech, as they call it, that can be deployed in contested logistics environments and make equipment and parts on-demand from polymers.The Marines describe the T1X as the first deployable AM system in support of naval aviation, and for now it can reproduce 126 parts from the repository hosted on a Department of Defence website. Were not told exactly what those parts are, but we do know they include job aids, and might also include parts for helicopters, as the commanding officer for Marine Aircraft Group 39, Col. Nathan Marvel, hints."As the AH-1Z and UH-1Y type/model/series lead, I see immense potential with additive manufacturing for these H-1 platforms," the official said in a statement. I intend to be very active ensuring AM further develops for these H-1 platforms."At the time of writing, its unclear if and when the T1X will see action away from home. The Starlink satellite internet terminals have proven the most important asset of the Ukrainian Army in their struggle to repel Russian forces invading the country. Highly portable and impossible to disrupt or hack, the Starlink satellite internet service has become a vital source of communication as cellular and internet networks have been destroyed in the war. In February, Elon Musk offered the terminals and the underlying services to Ukraine as a gift and was hailed as a hero. Now he wants to get out and asks Pentagon to pick up the tab.This didnt start off the blue, though. Ukraine troops reported Starlink outages on the front line two weeks ago, hindering the effort to liberate territory from Russian occupation. Around the same time, Elon Musk proposed a controversial plan to end the war in Ukraine, which intriguingly sounded like it came straight out of the Russian propaganda machine Musks tweets point to his fears that helping Ukraine further risks starting a nuclear war. This mustnt be true, not least because Musk continued his efforts toward world peace by proposing a similar plan to end the Taiwan conflict by mirroring Chinese propaganda. Theres no nuclear threat from China. Certainly, theres a connection between these two series of tweets, and no doubt, Starlink disruptions in Ukraine were a consequence.We dont know what made Musk change his stance toward Ukraine, but it is an ongoing process, as shown by a CNN report. Exclusive documents obtained by the news outlet show that Musks company has sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund Starlink internet services in Ukraine. The letter also requested that the Pentagon step in to pay for Ukraines government and military use of Starlink. SpaceX claims the associated costs will be more than $120 million by the end of the year and close to $400 million for the next 12 months.We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time, SpaceXs director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter, according to CNN The importance of SpaceXs Starlink for the Ukrainian military cannot be underestimated. The outages on the frontline resulted in a catastrophic loss of communication, crippling the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Musk didnt dispute the outage, saying only that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.SpaceXs request didnt go well with the top brass at the Pentagon, and one senior defense official told CNN that the company has the gall to look like heroes while expecting others to pay the bill. According to SpaceX figures, about 85% of the 20,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine were paid for, at least partially, by countries like the U.S. and Poland. According to CNN, Poland is the largest single contributor of terminals, paying for almost 9,000 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs, and crowdfunding.The internet services are more expensive than the terminals, though, and SpaceX claims it has paid about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine. According to the same source, SpaceX has offered the highest-level plan, at $4,500 a month, to all terminals in Ukraine. This is although most of them were signed on the cheaper $500/month service.You could say hes trying to get money from the government or just trying to say, I dont want to be part of this anymore, one person familiar with Ukraines requests for Starlink said to CNN. Feelings are running really high on the Ukrainian side. That is exactly what Dynaship Yacht Design also seems to think, exemplified by the renderings they released of their new project. It is called the Nautilus 650 and the company described it as a Swiss army knife for millionaires. The 68-meter (223 feet) superyacht can take on anything the sea might throw at it as it is built in line with Ice Class hull standards for global range.Versatility was key when designing this vessel. It waves at the concept of the pleasure boat as it goes by and becomes more. It is a true explorer yacht , where luxury is complemented by function. Of course, one would be able to relax in the immense beach club, alfresco living and dining areas, or outdoor pool in the warmest tropical sun. And with a huge collection of toys including jet skis and a diving support boat there is no denying it would be an experience to remember.But this yacht offers more. In addition to the two outdoor pools, there is an indoor owners pool with upper panoramic windows. This is a place where select guests could admire the northern lights or just stargaze at a clear sky while the captain sails the yacht through an area unaffected by pollution. Guests of 5-star hotels anywhere in the world would be jealous of such a view.Speaking about pollution, the Nautilus makes sure to not spread it everywhere it goes. Thanks to the electric pods certified for extreme conditions, powered by low-emission generators, this yacht will be able to cruise at 15 knots (28 kph / 17 mph) with minor environmental impact . Not so eco-friendly, however, is the helicopter you could take to reach this yacht since it also comes with a helipad.When it comes to guests, the Nautilus can house up to 12 people across six staterooms with the owners suite separated on the top deck. It also has seven crew cabins with room for 14 members, who will take care of the guests. And whoever is invited to this explorer will find out quickly how uncompromising it is, blending extreme functionality with extreme luxury on the inside. Extensive use of marble and glass, combined with the liberal placement of artworks exudes class while you're adventuring around the world. After seven generations of full-sized luxury limousines, it seems that many American fans of the Mercedes-Benz S Class have settled the ageless conundrum of which build might be the best. Well, if you ask the aftermarket community, one major option would be murdered out. And that means no chrome, as well as absolutely no other color other than black even on the wheels.Interestingly, one might assume that when dealing with a car that is all black and nothing else, there are not a lot of possible variations. But that does not take into account the audacity of the aftermarket realm, to be frank.And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have a proper Satin Black yet also a glossy example. The good folks over at performance wheel specialist AL13 Wheels Design + Technik have come forth to highlight a custom, murdered-out-style Mercedes-Benz S 580 created by 412 Motorsport, and it certainly grabbed everyones attention on their Instagram page.Even AL13s caretaker started with murdered-out in Satin and Gloss, ooofff! because thats what most people would say when seeing the lowered luxury sedan rolling through town on a stunning set of 22-inch Duoblock C00-109R aftermarket wheels. Then they also said that this is (a) spaceship, a super-mega Benz, or they thought it was GTA for a second, before seeing the real guy behind the wheel.Anyway, one last thing of note. Has anyone noticed how these murdered-out rides keep standing out in a crowd? This one does so with an interesting deep-dish take on the iconic Aerodisc aftermarket wheel itself inspired by the steelies of lore What can I say, except, Gloss Black sheesh! EV It's called the 305 Ghost , and simply put, it's a limited edition moped from a Canadian company that's causing quite the hubbub on themarket, Lyric Cycles. Best of all, this new machine has been developed together with Tyson Beckford, and when I say developed, I really mean it; Mr. Beckford was involved throughout the entire design process. Time to see why and what the result may be.To understand more of the machine, we need to take a look at the humans behind it all, starting with Lyric Cycles. You may have heard this name in recent news as this Canadian manufacturer is hitting the EV market with quite the capable machines, in the process, unleashing machines like their industry-shifting Graffiti and newest Voodoo While introducing some electric two-wheelers into a seemingly saturated market isn't a big deal, the vital aspect of Lyric machines is that they give people precisely what they want. For example, the Graffiti features a top range of 100 miles (161 kilometers) with two batteries, a top speed of 38 mph (61 kph), and a 2,500-watt motor. Oh, regenerative braking is also part of the mixture of features. Starting to get the picture?As for Tyson Beckford, this gentleman has been stirring up the modeling and movie industries, possibly since he was born in 1970. Over the years, titles like "Man of the Year" have been bestowed upon him, and a career modeling for Ralph Lauren is also in his wake. Did I mention a movie role as "himself" in Zoolander?Now, put Mr. Beckford and Lyric Cycles in the same room, and you're bound to get something different, and the 305 Ghost boasts stats that take the whole electric moped/e-bike game to the next level . I'm calling this a moped/e-bike because...here, just let Lyric explain everything with the words, "Is it an eBike? Is it a moped? Is it a motorcycle? It's whatever you want it to be, when you want it. That's the Voodoo magic!"What does all this mean for future owners of this $7,500 (7,700 at current exchange rates) piece of hardware? Well, part one of the story is found in the Ghost's motor and takes the shape of 18,000 watts of peak power. Uhm, that sounds like you need a license to ride, and you probably should have one for legal purposes, nothing else.All that output also means that the bike can "carry up to 400 lbs" and shoots your needle up to the 65 mph (104 kph) mark. With an updated controller and an unspecified battery capacity, we're shown a peak range of 65 miles (104 kilometers), and yes, Lyric and Mr. Beckford left the regenerative braking in place for this model too.The remainder of the bike is all about style; after all, Tyson Beckford is responsible for some of the looks this EV boasts. We're not told precisely which cues and traits may be from Mr. Beckford's mind, but it doesn't even matter; the 305 Ghost is worthy of any Instagram photoshoot, Sunday afternoon rides, and heading out to meet your friends at some local cafe. Oh, you'll be taking this to work, you say? Be careful not to start a posse or cult following. Come to think of it, that could be precisely what Lyric Cycles and Tyson Beckford want.Ever since I've been covering EVs like this one and many others, I've seen quite a few collaborations. But what I haven't witnessed is a result quite like this one. Just look at it, and I mean really look at it. Not only does the scrambler styling invite you to drool a bit and then hop on , but once you do, you'll understand where all your cash is going.Since pre-order reservations are now standing at $100 (103), if you do want a piece of this limited edition action, you'll see your machine delivered in Spring 2023, just in time for a new season of outdoor riding and sun-kissed photoshoots. The Harley-Davidson V-Rod were here to look at today is part of that category. Its a nod to the U.S. Air Force (USAF), with big black letters stating exactly that on the massively sculpted fuel tank of the two-wheeler. Other markings here and there, like danger warnings, or markings of kills in the form of bombs on the body, or black skulls dangling from the side, reinforce that statement.The bike was modified this way by a German custom garage we havent talked about before, but well cover extensively from now on. Its called Bullock, and has been at it, modifying vehicles, for the past 21 years.The USAF V-Rod youre looking at got the USAF treatment for an unknown customer, and the result is simply stunning. Aside for what we mentioned above, the bike even comes with machine gun cartridges in grips at the end of the handlebar its a purely visual enhancement, but one so effective it could leave you speechless.Draped in matt olive on the modified body bits, the bike rides on 18-inch wheels, makes use modified brakes and a Bad Boy Customs exhaust system, and, to make the USAF reference complete, even has a matching helmet next to it.The phrase 1st Recon 507 Airborne is written on the helmet and, even if we cant be sure of that, its probably a nod to the Fort Benning-born 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment which served during the Second World War in three major battles, namely D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Varsity.In usual style of German custom garages, Bullock does not say how much the USAF Harley-Davidson V-Rod cost to put together. 6x6 If a Stuka was like Hitler's trumpet, the Soviet Union raised them Stalin's Organ. Or, as it was more officially known, the BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher system. The BM-13's trademark howl as it fired a barrage of multiple tons of rockets arguably struck more fear into the hearts of German soldiers than the damage inflicted on enemy hardware. Whether it was strategically effective depends on the specific battle.But this fear which the Germans came to associate with this weapon's ghostly howl, can not be underestimated. But such a weapon needed a fitting vehicular transportation system. Though the Soviets tried to mount the BM-13 on the tops of tanks, they soon learned it was more fit mounted in the backs of trucks. When the Katyusha rocket system was first deployed in battle, it rolled in one of these, the ZIS-6. This is the story of that truck.Though abandoned in 2012, the Zavod Imeni Stalina factory (ZIS or ZiS), as it was known during World War II, was a pivotal cog in the Soviet war-production machine in the 20th century. Based out of Moscow, not far from the furthest point the Germans ever advanced into Russia, the factory stopped building passenger cars inspired by British and American vehicles and started solely making Army trucks after Operation Barbarossa's beginning.One of the most prolific trucks manufactured in the USSR during this period was the predecessor to the heavy-duty ZIS-5, the ZIS-6. Over one million of these durable 73 horsepower straight-six utility vehicles were built between 1933 and 1958. That's despite the production plant being moved from Moscow to the city of Ulyanovsk on the Volga River in 1941.Given how quickly the two-axle ZIS-5 could be slapped together, adding a third axle wasn't much of a fuss. The triple-axle ZIS-6 began production three years after its smaller sibling in 1936. At the onset of the Second World War, the ZIS-6 was employed in many diverse roles in everything from searchlight trucks, troop transports, rapid response ambulances, and even one with a special tank for carrying aviation fuel for the Soviet Air Force.With the same six-cylinder engine under the hood as its ZIS-5 counterpart, a top speed of 34 mph (55 kph) sounds understandable. But a payload capacity of 4,000 kilograms (8,818 lbs) on paved roads and 2,500 kilograms (5,512 lbs) on unpaved roads afforded by its third axle made it perfect for the Katyusha program. The weapon was first deployed to battle via a ZIS-6 on July 14th, 1941. Though it didn't single-handedly turn the tide of the German invasion, Katyusha's distinct wail as it fired its 132mm rockets out of 24 separate launch tubes became a rallying cry for Soviet resistance.As reliable as the ZIS-6 may have been, better trucks from American, British, Canadian, and domestic sources took the place of the aging truck model as the Red Army as they drove the Germans back into their territory to their eventual capitulation.trucks from companies like GMC and Studebaker were especially adept at carrying the range of Katyusha-class rocket launchers ranging from 82mm to 300mm. Large mobile arrays of missile launchers similar in function to Katyusha continue to be used to this day.Meanwhile, only a handful of ZIS-6 trucks remain in 2022. So if you find yourself in some Eastern European car museum and see one parked somewhere, know you're likely never to see another ever again. One of the members of the Bahrain Bikers' Group starting the expedition in Kashmir (Twitter) Ehsan Fazili/Srinagar As Kashmir launched its ambitious plan to boost adventure tourism, a group of 18 bikers from Bahrain Bahrain Bikers Group - completed their expedition from Leh, Ladakh through an arduous journey via Zoiji la, and breathtakingly beautiful barren landscapes, and the freezing night temperatures, to Srinagar. This is the next step in engaging the Muslim countries in promoting the economy of Jammu and Kashmir and their citizens visiting the UT after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. Secretary Tourism Sarmad Hafeez, flagged off the bikers on Srinagar outskirts for downtown for a cultural and sightseeing tour on Thursday after their arrival from Leh. The event was organised by the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), Bahrain Bikers' Group members with leaders of KCCI Speaking on the occasion, Ali Ansari, leader of Bahrain Bikers said he was pleased with the hospitality and generosity of the people of Ladakh and Kashmir and all his team members have received love and affection from the locals. The Bikers moved around in Ladakh and visited the remote Nubra Valley, known for its apricots, and returned via Sonmarg. They visited Pahalgam in South Kashmir later. Sarmad Hafeez said the biking expedition of Bahrain Bikers is a positive sign for Kashmirs Tourism. The department and stakeholders like KCCI had been working on this project for a long time and its only now that efforts are showing results. Hafeez told media persons that the bikers will have wonderful experiences that they cannot get anywhere else. He said this event would push adventure tourism in Kashmir and open it to international adventure lovers. Bikers being flagged off from Srinagar downtown This is the wonderful beginning of winter tourism, he said. Kashmir has the potential to become the biking capital of the world. Director of, the Tourism Department, Kashmir, Fazlul Haseeb said that the Department was targeting different countries to attract tourists to the valley. The department has launched a campaign to promote different J&K destinations, economy, culture, architecture, and heritage in various countries. This will be fruitful for us as the landscapes, nature, architecture, heritage are unmatched. The Tourism department has identified 75 off-beat destinations in the J&K to be promoted as adventure tourism destinations. Most of these are being developed right now. ALSO READ : Valley's Hijab-clad weightlifter Salbeena eyes Olympic medal Fazlul Haseeb said that Gulmarg is an established winter tourism location and the department is trying to introduce places like Pahalgam, Sonmarg Yusmarg, and Dodhpathri (Budgam district) for winter tourism. EU special envoy for Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson Kabul (Afghanistan) Special envoy for European Union for Afghanistan Tomas Niklasson called for the reopening of schools for Afghan girls above grade six and said that the education of women is essential for progress in Afghanistan, TOLOnews reported. Taking to Twitter, Niklasson wrote, "Schools need to re-open, or open, across Afghanistan, offering girls of all ages access to quality education. The teachers, engineers, doctors, architects, civil servants and business leaders of tomorrow, building a more prosperous #Afghanistan, together with their brothers," as the special envoy voiced his concern on Afghan women's rights. Meanwhile, Rina Amiri, the U.S.special envoy for Afghanistan's human rights and women also condemned the condition of Afghan women in the war-torn nation and said that respecting the rights of all Afghans is vital in Afghanistan."The Taliban should take note: there is no way to move forward & become a legitimate member of the international community without respecting the rights of all Afghans, particularly girls' right to education. It is the foundation for any progress in Afghanistan," said Rina Amiri in a tweet. The spokesman for the Islamic Emirate, Zabiullah Mujahid, however refuted the claims of the deteriorating situation of Afghan women and said, "Efforts are continuing, officials are trying to find solutions according to Islamic law," TOLO News reported. Notably, The Taliban were publicly criticized globally after closing Paktia girls' schools after a brief opening.It sparked serious reactions inside and outside of Afghanistan. On Saturday, dozens of girls took to the streets in the centre of Paktia to protest the closing of their schools, reported Tolo News.The videos of the protests went viral on social media and triggered strong reactions from the Afghan public as well as famous politicians and human rights defenders. Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country, according to TOLO News. Moreover, in an earlier statement, HRW's Barr said the Taliban rollback of the rights of women and girls began immediately after they took power on August 15, 2021. Since the Taliban seized power in Kabul last year, the human rights situation has been exacerbated by a nationwide economic, financial and humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. The Taliban dismantled the system to respond to gender-based violence, created new barriers to women accessing health care, blocked women's aid workers from doing their jobs, and attacked women's rights protesters. With the U.S. troops' withdrawal from the country, large-scale violence has been unleashed creating political uncertainty in different parts of the country. At least 59 per cent of the population is now in need of humanitarian aid - an increase of six million people compared with the beginning of 2021, according to UNAMA. Meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts in Kazakhstans capital Astana, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Moscow lay the foundation for such a settlement. Time is running fast, events are developing rapidly, Lavrov said at the start of the trilateral meeting held on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet states. In this regard, I think that today is a convenient occasion to talk about this topic and see what we can report to our leaders regarding the implementation of the agreements they signed. Those agreements stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and called for the restoration of transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan and demarcation of their long border. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov reportedly told Lavrov that their governments remain committed to implementing them. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly proposed that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meet with him again in a trilateral format I am pleased to invited Azerbaijans president and Armenias prime minister, Putin said in a speech during the Commonwealth of Independent States summit. You can agree on a date. I understand that there is now interest in meeting in Russia. Aliyev and Pashinian met in Prague as recently as on October 6 for talks mediated by French President Emmanuel Macron and European Union chief Charles Michel. They are understood to have made major progress towards signing an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty by the end of this year. The four leaders also agreed on the dispatch of an EU monitoring mission to Armenias border with Azerbaijan where at least 290 soldiers were killed last month in heavy fighting between the two sides. Armenian leaders have criticized Russia for what they see as a lack of support for Armenia shown during the two-day hostilities. The Prague summit underscored the fact that the EU as well as the United States have been at the forefront of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace efforts in recent months and especially since the September border clashes. Moscow has been very critical of the Western mediation, saying that the Western powers are trying to sideline Russia and use the Karabakh conflict in the geopolitical standoff over Ukraine. A delegation headed by Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, met with Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian during a visit aimed at clarifying the implications of the Armenian governments readiness to sign such an accord. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and key members of his political team have said that the deal will commit Armenia and Azerbaijan to recognizing each others territorial integrity. Karabakhs leadership is worried that Pashinian will thus recognize Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan. Speaking after the meeting with Simonian, the Karabakh foreign minister, Davit Babayan, said the peace accord must specify that the mutual recognition of borders does not apply to Karabakh. There must be a special point saying that this issue [of Karabakhs status] will be discussed later on, he said, adding that this idea is also proposed by unspecified various countries. We must make clear that Artsakh (Karabakh) will never be a part of Azerbaijan, Babayan went on. It is very important for us to see this philosophy spelled out through that point and policy. Simonian, who is also a leading member of Armenias ruling Civil Contract party, rejected the idea. I dont think that there should be such reference in the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan because it could cause reciprocal demands and desires [from Azerbaijan,] he told reporters. Besides, Armenia has never had territorial claims to Azerbaijan, and an emphasis on territories would complicate and possibly even thwart the signing of the treaty. Pashinian has said in this regard that Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenians should negotiate on the Armenian-populated territorys status. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly ruled out agreeing to any such status. Armenias leading opposition groups have condemned Pashinians stance, saying that he is helping Baku restore full control over Karabakh in hopes of clinging to power. Pashinian held a tete-a-tete meeting with Harutiunian on Wednesday. The Armenian governments press service pointedly declined to release an official statement on the meeting Babayan expressed confidence that the prime minister will receive the entire Karabakh delegation as well. The EUs foreign and security policy chief, Josep Borrell, discussed details of the civilian mission in a phone call with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. Borrell briefed him on the ongoing technical preparations for the deployment and reaffirmed the EUs full commitment to contributing to de-escalation between both countries, according to an EU readout of the call. One of Mirzoyans deputies, Paruyr Hovannisian, said that over the next few days the advance team of about a dozen experts will tour various Armenian border areas to determine the locations where the EU monitors will be stationed. A diplomatic source in Brussels told RFE/RLs Armenian Service earlier that the monitoring mission will number up to 50 members. The 27 Member States have acted rapidly to respond to Armenia's request, tweeted Toivo Klaar, the EUs special envoy to the South Caucasus. The aim of the EU deployment will be to monitor the situation and support Armenia-Azerbaijan stabilization on the ground. An agreement on the deployment was reached on October 6 by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron and the EUs top official, Charles Michel, at a meeting in Prague. Macron said after the meeting that that the EU mission will seek to build confidence and facilitate the work of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on delimiting the long border where heavy fighting left at least 290 soldiers dead last month. The mission will start in October for a maximum of two months, read an EU statement issued on October 7. It said that Azerbaijan agreed to cooperate with this mission as far as it is concerned. Aliyev said on Friday that he rejected at Prague a proposal to deploy EU observers on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier as well. On Wednesday, Russias Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov revealed that the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) also stands ready to send border monitors to Armenia. In a thinly veiled rebuke to Yerevan, Lavrov said that the CSTO secretariat in Moscow proposed such a deployment about a month ago but that Armenia, the current holder of the alliances rotating presidency, has still not acted on the offer. Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian on Friday responded by pointing to Russias failure to provide military assistance to Armenia requested hours after Azerbaijani forces launched offensive military operations on the border on September 13. OK, lets suppose that there is some truth to that statement, Simonian told reporters. But where is [Russias] reply to us in accordance with the Russian-Armenian treaty [on mutual defense? Simonian, who visited Moscow earlier this month, at the same time welcomed the proposed CSTO deployment. Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low 62F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. Pete Tittl's Dining Out column appears in The Californian on Sundays. Email him at pftittl@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter: @pftittl. A Kern County oil producer has stirred controversy by trying to buy up residential property in the McKittrick area in preparation for a buffer Shutterstock.com Most people today are caught up in the hustle and bustle, but have you ever stopped to think about the toll that living a fast-paced life has on you and your family? Unfortunately, were part of a culture where families are apart more than theyre together. In the old days, families would do more activities together, like camping, having Sunday dinner, or cutting down the Christmas tree. An NPR study found that 48 percent of families in the U.S. eat together. The same survey showed that in those families who eat dinner together, only 55 percent have children eating the same food at the same table. Not only are Americans spending less time around the table, but the average U.S. citizen uses one hour and eight minutes of their day eating. Suppose you eat three meals a day, 22 minutes per meal. Is that enough time to have a meaningful conversation with your loved ones and properly digest your food? If you recognize yourself or your family in these statistics, you may be ready for a change, but what do you want that change to look like? First, you should ask yourself what do you want from your life and what does God want from your life? The only way to answer the second question is to ask Him. Matthew 6:33 tells us, But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So how do you go about living a simpler life and make time for what matters? Here are some tips. Dont focus on materialism. What comes to your mind when you think of the word minimalist? Do you see a stark white house with nothing but a few plants? To some people, thats minimalism. However, some see minimalism as the opposite of materialism. If materialism is defined as being caught up in our material possessions, then minimalism does not care so much about those possessions. When you focus away from the material things, a few things start to happen. First, your home becomes less cluttered by what you think you need to have. Second, you spend less money because youre not trying to keep up with the Joneses. Lastly, because youre spending less, youll have more resources to devote to what you want and what God is asking you to do. Take some time to clear out the clutter in your home and mind. That way, youll have a fresh start, and youll be ready to start working your way through some more complicated things. Take time to rest. There will always be many things to do, especially if you have a family. The workload never stops. However, it doesnt need to feel that way. To have time to rest, youll need to learn to be more intentional with your time. It would be best to get into the mindset that its okay to have a day of rest, an evening of rest, or even an hour of rest. Rest doesnt have to mean sitting around doing nothing, although sometimes it does. Sometimes, rest means setting the stressful work aside for a while to be present and take a breath. Life isnt going to slow down anytime soon. Still, you can make an effort to slow it down if you choose. Create routines. Do your family life and daily plans seem to be entirely up in the air? Are your children frustrated with you because plans frequently change that no one ever knows what direction theyre heading? Its essential to plan and execute new routines in your home, so your days become smoother and flow together. Having patterns doesnt mean needing to schedule and plan every minute of the day. Instead, it means having a natural flow of activities put together to make a specific task or time of day more productive. Making time for what matters doesnt mean having a boring life. It just means that youre more intentional with your time. Routines and other planning will help you achieve this intentionality to fit the things you want to do in your day. Make time for family and fellowship. Spending time with your family and fellowship is vital for making time for what matters. In this context, fellowship means spending time with believers to encourage and build each other up. Do you feel like youre struggling in your walk with God because you dont have the support? If you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, look at your effort to build and maintain the relationship. Is it sufficient? You may be so caught up in your worries that you may not see that theyre plenty of people around you to connect with. You need to put in the effort for that to happen. If youre feeling lonely or the right people do not surround you, you should start thinking about how you can improve your relationships with family and friends. It may be best to consider writing your thoughts down in a journal. Think about the impact that having a solid group of believers to lean on and bettering your relationships with your family could have on your life. Right now, it would be best to start with your hopes, aspirations, and wishes. What does your ideal week look like? What activities would you be doing? What would you like to do that you feel you cant fit into your week right now? Take your time to think through these questions. After contemplating, pray, and then pray some more. If you havent already, ask God about the direction He would like you to take with everything that has been on your heart. If you want, you could take it one step further. Ask others around you to pray for and with you. You dont need to give them specifics if you dont want to; tell them youre considering slowing down some parts of your life and you want to be quiet enough to hear what God would like you to do. Protesters hold signs as they rally against the military junta outside the Indonesian Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 24, 2021. Indonesias Constitutional Court is considering a petition to review a human rights law to allow the nation to prosecute and punish members of Myanmars junta for alleged abuses following its military coup in early 2021. If the review paves the way for the application of universal jurisdiction, Indonesia would be able to investigate and, if need be, prosecute atrocities committed by the Myanmar military. Under universal jurisdiction, a nations courts can investigate and prosecute anyone, not just citizens, for serious international crimes committed anywhere. A nine-judge panel adjourned a session earlier this week to deliberate on whether to proceed after requesting amendments to the petition. Amendments to the petition will be brought to a meeting and we will decide whether the case should continue, presiding Judge Wahiduddin Adams said. The petitioners include former Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, who chaired a United Nations independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar; Busyro Muqoddas, former chairman of the Judicial Commission; and the Alliance of Independent Journalists. Article 5 of Indonesias Human Rights Tribunal Law reads, A human rights tribunal is also authorized to examine and rule on cases of gross human rights violations committed outside the territorial limits of the Republic of Indonesia by Indonesian nationals. The petitioners have requested that the phrase by Indonesian nationals be struck down to allow for foreigners to be tried in Indonesia for abuses committed overseas. Feri Amsari, a lawyer for the petitioners, expressed optimism. I am positive that it will continue because the substance of this case must be heard, Feri told BenarNews. He said applying universal jurisdiction is important because it is in line with the Constitutions mandate that Indonesia have an active role in promoting world peace and justice. The state has the responsibility to protect victims of massive and systematic crimes against humanity, regardless of national boundaries, Feri said. Indonesia should show the way that there are no safe havens for gross human rights violators. Human rights group Amnesty International reported 147 nations had utilized universal jurisdiction involving one or more crimes as of 2012. For instance, Argentinas judiciary ruled in November 2021 that it would investigate allegations of war crimes in 2017 by the Myanmar military against the countrys Rohingya minority, under universal jurisdiction principles. Myanmar junta criticized The Indonesian petitioners seek to bring cases against Myanmar because it not a party to the International Criminal Court as it did not sign the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the court. Myanmar forces have killed more than 2,300 people since the military seized power by toppling an elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, according to activists and media reports. Indonesia and other Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) members have criticized Myanmars military for failing to implement a five-point consensus agreed to by its junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing, and regional leaders on April 24, 2021. The consensus called for an end to violence; constructive dialogue among all parties; the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy; the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance; and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties. Calls for ASEAN to punish Myanmars junta increased following the execution of four political prisoners in July. Human rights activists welcomed the petition for universal jurisdiction. If it is granted, this is certainly positive because we can help break the barriers to protecting human rights in the region, including [abuses] endured by our brothers and sisters in Myanmar, and journalists in the Philippines who are often persecuted during elections, and in Thailand, said Dinna Prapto Raharja, a former Indonesian representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. Andreas Harsono, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Indonesia, echoed Dinna. It would be good if the court rules in favor because it would be a warning for officials to continue to respect human rights in making decisions, Andreas told BenarNews. He noted that Indonesia would be the first Southeast Asian country to adopt the principle. Once it becomes universal jurisdiction, not only citizens of other countries are affected, but our citizens can also be affected in other countries, he said. A customer at a restaurant watches an announcement being made byMalaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolving the parliament and calling for general elections, in Kuala Lumpur, Oct. 10, 2022. The upcoming election in Malaysia will be markedly different from the previous 14 for a few reasons, chief among them being the implementation of a law to prevent parliamentarians from switching parties once voted into office. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament on Monday, paving the way for a snap poll within 60 days and ending months of speculation about the timing of the 15th general election. The announcement was meant to stop questions about his governments legitimacy, Ismail Sabri, who belongs to the United Malays National Organization, said when making his announcement. In 2018, Malaysians decisively voted to remove UMNO from power, but the coalition they had elected fell because of infighting and its place was taken by two successive unelected governments. With the upcoming election, which many expect will be held next month, the PM said the mandate will be returned to the people. These are the changes that will make it significantly different from previous polls: Law to prevent switching parties Switching parties once elected, or party defection, or aisle-crossing, has been a major cause of political instability in the country, especially since 2018, when it led to a turnovers in the government. The law came into effect on Oct. 5, five days before the parliament was dissolved. Under the so-called anti-hopping law, lawmakers who switch party affiliations after being elected will lose their seats, unless the party sacks them first. 18- to 21-year-olds to vote for the first time The Malaysian parliament passed a bill to amend the Federal Constitution to reduce the voting age to 18 from 21. It took effect in December 2021 after months of political instability. In January, Ismail Sabri said 4 million Malaysians 20 and younger will be able to cast their first ballots. With these young voters and other new voters added to the electoral rolls after the institution of automatic registration, the number of eligible voters will be more than 22 million, up from nearly 15 million during the 2018 election. Three-cornered fight The country will see a three-cornered electoral fight for the first time. In the previous 14 elections, the main fight has been between the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional (BN) and an opposition coalition. For instance, in 2018, the fight was between BN and Pakatan Harapan, and the former suffered its first-ever defeat. Pakatans members are leader Anwar Ibrahims Peoples Justice Party (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP), and Amanah. This time around, there is another opposition coalition called Perikatan Nasional, which is led by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and his Bersatu party. Joining Bersatu will be the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which has traditionally allied with UMNO, but has broken away for this election. Its a shift from a two-coalition to a three-coalition system, Tunku Mohar Mokhtar, a political science professor at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, told BenarNews. PM candidate who is not party president For the first time, UMNO has named a candidate for prime minister, Ismail Sabri, who is not the president of the party. Ismail Sabri is a party vice president and was named PM in the coalition government last year because UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was battling a corruption case in court and the partys deputy president, Mohamad Hasan, was not a member of parliament, which is a pre-condition to hold the top office. Zahid is battling a corruption case and Hasan is not an MP, but there is talk Ismail Sabri could be replaced as PM candidate with Hasan, who could be asked to stand for MP in the upcoming election. Nothing has been said officially. No simultaneous state polls This time around not all states will hold their own elections along with the national election, as is the norm. Many parties are upset that the polls have been called during the monsoon season, which can bring deadly flooding starting in mid-November. Last year, monsoon floods killed more than 50 people and was blamed for 6 billion ringgit (U.S. $1.3 billion) in losses. PAS-controlled states Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu have announced they will hold state elections next year. At least two of three states controlled by Pakatan also will not be holding state elections this year. States have until the second half of 2023 to hold elections. Meanwhile, the Election Commission is to meet Oct. 20 to set a date for polling day for the national election, which will see three former prime ministers running for parliament Ismail Sabri, Muhyiddin, and Mahathir Mohamad, 97, who has said this would be his last election. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (right) reviews the honor guard during a welcome ceremony with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 9, 2019. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has maneuvered himself to the center of U.S.-China rivalry in the Pacific, stirring debate about his aims. To some, hes an autocrat in waiting, and to others, a smart operator seeking to maximize aid for his volatile and economically-lagging nation. A Seventh-Day Adventist who has a martial arts black belt, Sogavare is also a political brawler whose fortunes have fluctuated over the years alongside the frequent strife of Solomon Islands politics. After rising through the civil service in the 1990s, he is now in his fourth stint as prime minister. His first term, from June 2000 to December 2001, followed a coup, though he was elected by parliament part of a chaotic period that resulted in a years-long military intervention in the Solomon Islands led by U.S. ally Australia. Over time, Sogavare has become more adept at marshaling the levers of power in his favor, researchers say. Earlier this year he pushed a constitutional amendment through parliament that allowed elections, set for 2023, to be delayed on the basis the country couldnt afford a national vote and a major sporting event the Pacific Games in the same year. He is totally driven by the desire to remain PM forever, said Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition in the Solomon Islands parliament. He grants the demands of anyone who will help him achieve that. Sogavare, 67, has increasingly tilted the government of the South Pacific archipelago of some 700,000 people towards China. In 2019, he switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan an unpopular move in the countrys most populous province, Malaita and earlier this year, he signed a security pact with Beijing. China is helping to bankroll the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara next year and is training the countrys police. Last weekend, more than 30 Solomons police officers headed to China for a months instruction in policing methods. Meanwhile, Sogavare signed up to a pact between Pacific island nations and the United States at a summit in Washington last month, in what one observer described as a pragmatic move. Solomon Islands, and Sogavare himself, needs good relations with traditional partners, despite Solomon Islands growing security ties with China, said Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at the Lowy Institute and former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands. Its not zero-sum for Sogavare, rather its about maximizing the potential benefits he can bring to his country. So pragmatism is the main driver, but there is also a personal element when push comes to shove. Mercurial and perplexing Sogavare can seem a mercurial and perplexing figure to outsiders, and even for researchers and others who have spent years in the Solomon Islands. His office didnt respond to a request for an interview. At a regional meeting in July, Sogavare effusively greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a hug following months of tensions with Australia, the largest donor to the Solomon Islands. But within weeks, Sogavare was threatening to ban foreign media from the Solomon Islands, after critical Australian coverage of its China links, and lashing out at perceived Australian government interference. Canberra had offered, clumsily, some analysts say, to pay for the Solomon Islands elections. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) meets with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, in Suva, Fiji July 13, 2022. [Joe Armao/Pool via Reuters] In his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Sogavare said the Solomon Islands had been vilified in the media for joining most other countries in recognizing China. He also urged the United States to end its embargo on Cuba and thanked the Cuban government for training Solomon Islands medical students. Sogavare credits his formative political ideas and skills to Solomon Mamaloni, a charismatic Solomon Islands leader who died in 2000. A staunch nationalist and man of the people who chewed betel nut and drank heavily, Mamaloni distrusted the West, Australia in particular, and U.S.-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Sogavare became Mamalonis protege in the late 1990s. Sogavare believed he was in contact with Mamaloni after his death, according to a biography of Mamaloni by Christopher Chevalier, and other sources. He was like a father to me, I was like his son and he taught me many things, American anthropologist Alexis Tucker Sade quotes Sogavare as saying of Mamaloni in her 2017 doctoral dissertation on the Solomon Islands. Seances with spirits In an interview with Tucker Sade, Sogavare described a four-hour encounter in his government office with Mamalonis spirit, one of a number of supernatural encounters with the former prime minister that Sogavare claimed to have had in the decade following his death. He also acknowledged being a heavy drinker around the turn of the century. Nowadays, he is widely said to abstain from alcohol. Sogavares seances are not out of the ordinary in the Solomon Islands, where strong traditional beliefs are mingled with Christianitys emphasis on the afterlife, said Chevalier. He is his own man. But I dont think he has forgotten the lessons of Mamaloni, Chevalier said. He has obviously learned how to strategize and how to bring people on board in the very complex horse-trading that goes on. Not everyone in the Solomon Islands views the connection with Mamaloni positively. The former leader sought a strong and independent Solomon Islands, but his legacy, which at the time of his death included a country mired in corruption and ethnic strife, is debated. Some people may say Mamaloni is some kind of a political savior to them, said Celsus Irokwato, an adviser to the premier of Malaita province. I see him as one of those who have set the stage for the failures of Solomon Islands. Sogavare stands out because he is unpredictable and doesnt conform to local cultural norms for leadership, based on respect earned from constant community involvement, said Clive Moore, an emeritus professor at the University of Queensland and author of an encyclopedia of the Solomon Islands. Sogavares parents were missionaries from the island of Choiseul in the Solomons, but he spent much of his early life in Papua New Guinea, where he was born in 1955, and in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. He doesnt behave in a traditional manner. Hes a bit of a bully, I think, in the way that he yells at people, the way he yells in the parliament, said Moore. With his tilt to China, Sogavare may reap short-term political benefits such as from a successful staging of the Pacific Games, Moore said. But he could be storing up crises if increased Chinese involvement in the country results in economic domination rather than new skills, jobs and higher living standards for Solomon Islanders. Eventually he is going to cause a big problem for another prime minister or for another government, he said. Chinas Communist Party kicks off its important Congress on Sunday with Xi Jinping set to retain his position as the countrys paramount leader for another five years. Analysts said they dont expect much change in Beijings policy in the South China Sea. China has become more assertive in supporting its claims to almost 90 percent of the South China Sea and demarcating its maritime boundaries with the controversial nine-dash line, as well as developing and militarizing rocks and reefs claimed by other countries in the region. Chinas large fishing fleets, assisted by coast guard ships, have been accused of swarming regional waters, pushing neighboring countries fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds. Philippine fishermen arrive from a week-long trip to the disputed Scarborough Shoal, in Infanta, Pangasinan province, July 6, 2021. [Reuters] In 2016, an international tribunal ruled that most of Chinas claims in the South China Sea, including the nine-dash line, were invalid, but Beijing has so far ignored the ruling. The increasing coercion and risk tolerance is a result of Xi Jinpings policies, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Xi put maritime issues at the core of the China Dream way back in 2013 and hasnt changed course since. No reason to think that would change now, the Washington-based maritime analyst said. China Dream is an inspirational slogan and doctrine considered the hallmark of Xis leadership since he came to power in 2012. In his first presidential address to the nation in March 2013, Xi called on the public to strive to achieve the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Under this slogan, China as seen by the outside world has become more nationalistic and assertive than before. Assertive maritime China This approach has shaped Chinas vision toward its interests, including those in the South China Sea, said Huynh Tam Sang, a Vietnamese analyst. Vietnam, one of the six claimants in the South China Sea, is considered one of the more forceful opponents of Chinas stance. To consolidate his supreme leadership, Xi Jinping may take an even harder line on issues concerning Chinas core interests, including the South China Sea, Sang told Radio Free Asia, an online news affiliate of BenarNews. Taking a softer stance would undoubtedly undermine Xis status which is on the rise to be a symbol of Chinas national rejuvenation, he said. China, Vietnam and other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been discussing a so-called Code of Conduct (COC) a set of rules of the road in the South China Sea. However, there is almost a consensus among observers that an agreement is nowhere near. The COC remains as far away today as it was in 2002 when ASEAN had to settle for a non-binding DOC because of Chinas intransigence, Poling said. DOC, the abbreviation for Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, is the first political document signed by China and ASEAN to set up basic principles for negotiation and foster dialogue among claimants with a COC as the eventual target. Never-ending disputes During the last 20 years since the signing of DOC, ASEAN has watched China become a powerful maritime power with growing naval capabilities as described by analyst Huynh Tam Sang. China no longer hides its maritime ambition and it would potentially continue to harbor pressure over smaller states in the South China Sea, Sang said. Economic coercion by Beijing and a rift inside ASEAN also play a role in the dispute solving process. Many ASEAN countries have China as their biggest trading partner, and in some cases, biggest supplier of foreign direct investment (FDI). Diplomatically, most of the other claimant states continue discussions with China closely to uphold their interests but also mitigate risks. With these claimants, China has the added advantage of time, said Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow at the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). China has slowly but consistently moved to change the status quo in the South China Sea, especially in terms of its presence and ability to control the escalation dominance, Daniel said. The U.S. Navys guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins sails in the South China Sea, Sept. 12, 2022. [U.S. Navy 7th Fleet] A game changer, Daniel said, would be how China responds to extra-regional stakeholders who may continue to demonstrate their maritime and aerial presence in and around the South China Sea to signal their disagreement on Beijings approach. Beijing has repeatedly protested against what it calls the involvement of external forces in the region such as the United States which claims to be an Indo-Pacific power. The latest U.S. National Security Strategy released on Wednesday said Washington will work with other regional states to keep the Indo-Pacific open and accessible and ensure that nations are free to make their own choices, consistent with obligations under international law. We will affirm freedom of the seas and build shared regional support for open access to the South China Sea, it said. Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, said in a recent speech that as a major maritime country, China cannot and will not be separated from the sea and the South China Sea. From Chinese leaders statements, it is obvious that Chinas proactive struggle to uphold its core interests and baselines are paramount, Party congress or no Party congress, Daniel said. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday rejected calls for the countrys justice secretary to step down after his son was caught in a drug raid earlier this week. Marcos said calls for Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to resign have no basis because he was not responsible for his sons actions. Remullas son, Juanito Jose Diaz Remulla III, 38, was arrested Tuesday for alleged possession of marijuana valued at U.S. $22,000 (1.3 million pesos). The drug package allegedly consigned to the younger Remulla was shipped from the U.S. and intercepted on Sept. 27 by customs police in Manila. You call for somebody to resign if hes not doing his job or [if] he has misbehaved in that job, Marcos told reporters during a chance interview Friday. He has not done [anything wrong]. He has done quite the contrary he has taken the very proper position that he is recusing himself from any involvement in the case of his son. Police announced the arrest on Thursday. The younger Remulla has been charged with alleged drug trafficking, a non-bailable offense that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. On Friday, Marcos said the justice secretary was aware that he must allow the processes of the judiciary to work properly and that no one in the executive [department] should interfere. In a statement on Thursday, the elder Remulla assured the public that he would not interfere in the case and let justice take its own course. The justice secretary said he was cognizant that many Filipino families had been affected by drugs, adding that he wished his son would follow a path to redemption. Concerns Rights groups, opposition politicians and relatives of those killed during the administration of former President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs expressed concerns about Remulla after his sons arrest. Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples Lawyers that represents some of the drug war victims survivors in cases against Duterte, said the arrest is a challenge for the countrys justice system. It is a litmus test, on the integrity of the justice system, particularly the prosecutorial service, as well as the trust of the public and confidence in the integrity of the process, he said. Nanette Castillo, whose son Aldrin was fatally shot by suspected pro-government vigilantes in October 2017, said Remulla appeared soft on his own son accused of drug trafficking while calling for the death penalty for others similarly accused. She was part of a group that filed a case against Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC) where prosecutors have argued there is enough evidence to investigate the former president for thousands of deaths under his watch. I also wish for redemption for my son Aldrin, but why was he killed, she told BenarNews. He was never accorded due process. You are very callous, she said of Remulla, who has said the Philippines did not need ICC investigators because the countrys judiciary could handle its own probe. You dont want the ICC to investigate and yet here you are wanting redemption for your son. De Lima reacts Former Sen. Leila de Lima, jailed on what she calls trumped-up drug charges filed against her by Duterte officials, said she sympathized with Remullas predicament, but stopped short of calling for his resignation. This same cardinal presumption is what should have been upheld for those who have been judged all too swiftly in the past administrations drug war and who were not given the chance to defend themselves before the courts, said de Lima, a former justice secretary and a rights commissioner, in a handwritten statement. She said she respected Remullas pledge not to interfere in the case, because the justice system is only worth the faith we put in it. I hope it works for Secretary Remullas son, as I hope that it will also work for me as well as the thousands of others who were condemned to death without trial during the past administration, she said. De Lima was one of the drug wars staunchest critics. About 8,000 suspected addicts and dealers were killed during Dutertes time in office, based on official figures. That number, however, could be three times higher, rights groups have said. Dutertes government accused de Lima of profiting from drug dealers when she served as justice secretary in the administration of Benigno Aquino III and jailed her in 2017. The former senator issued her statement from a police hospital where she has been transferred just days after she was held hostage by an inmate identified as a Muslim militant. On Friday, Marcos said the government was continuing to monitor de Lima, but stressed that she never asked for anything when they spoke shortly after her ordeal. Meanwhile, United States Sen. Ed Markey and other lawmakers in Washington sent a letter to the Philippine government on Thursday urging the release of de Lima just days after the hostage drama. There appears to be no limit to the denial of due process, deprivation of liberty and life-threatening conditions to which the Government of the Philippines is willing to subject Sen. Leila de Lima despite the absence of any evidence to support the outrageous charges against her, Markey and the other lawmakers said in a statement announcing the letter. With Sen. de Lima having just narrowly escaped death at the hand of a knife-wielding hostage-taker, it is incumbent on the Philippine authorities to end this travesty at once. The Massachusetts senator led a delegation of U.S. lawmakers who visited de Lima in August. Basilio Sepe and Jojo Rinoza in Manila, along with Dennis Jay Santos and Froilan Gallardo in Davao city, Philippines, 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. The United Nations chief has reiterated his appeal to Russia to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross full access to all prisoners of war PITTSFIELD Laura Hooks career with General Dynamics Mission Systems has circled back to where it began. Hooks, who began work with the national defense contractor in Pittsfield 28 years ago, has returned to the Berkshires for good as vice president and general manager of maritime and strategic services at General Dynamics Mission Systems. She succeeds Pittsfield native Carlo Zaffanella, who was recently named president and CEO of Ultra Electronics maritime division, which has an office in Braintree. Zaffanella, who had been with General Dynamics since 2009, said he travels between the company's many offices, but still lives in Lenox. Hooks first came to Pittsfield in 1994 to participate in General Dynamics engineering leadership program, while studying for both her master's and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She's from the Buffalo, N.Y., area. Hooks has since worked for General Dynamics at company facilities in Taunton, most recently, and Groton, Conn., but has maintained ties to the Berkshires. Ive always owned a house in the area, Hooks said. Hooks had served since April under Zaffanella as vice president and general manager of General Dynamics ground service systems, which is headquartered in Taunton, and works with the U.S Army. General Dynamics Mission Systems in Pittsfield works mostly with the U.S. Navy. Humbled and excited, said Hooks, about being named to replace Zaffanella in Pittsfield, where General Dynamics is one of Berkshire Countys largest employers, with 1,600 employees. I started my career in Pittsfield right out of college and kind of came up through the ranks of engineering. I actually led the (engineering) leadership program at one point in my career," she said. I cant tell you how amazing it feels to be back and running the business that I grew up in. Her former position in Taunton, she said, helped me understand, quite frankly, what I have to do as a vice president and general manager. It was a whole new set of customers, so that was a learning experience for me. I have a lot of experience working with the underseas community and the strategic deterrent community, said Hooks, who also worked for General Dynamics Electric Boat facility in Connecticut, which builds submarines, for over six years. Today, her goal in Pittsfield is to ensure that General Dynamics remains a strong part of the community. As one of the largest employers in the county, we realize the impact that we have on the community and how important that is, she said. In Pittsfield, General Dynamics has received a consistent stream of Navy contracts over the years, most recently a $273 million, six-year contact in July from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop, produce and install firing systems in the new Columbia and Dreadnought classes of submarines. These contracts have allowed the Pittsfield facility to grow. In 2017, General Dynamics expanded into General Electrics former administration building at 1 Plastics Avenue after Sabic Innovative Plastics moved most of its local employees to Houston. General Dynamics recently opened a second pod in that facility, and hopes to expand further throughout that cavernous structure, Hooks said. Hooks said the company has filled new positions by drawing candidates from outside the Berkshires to Pittsfield, but needs to improve the pipeline to those jobs for local candidates. We have been a part of the Berkshire Business Roundtable and the Massachusetts Roundtable to try and highlight the labor skills of the jobs that we create across the communities, she said. Weve had really good success, I think, filling those positions as we continue to grow. So we continue to have positions that come open. I think that has been a testament to being able to draw talent into the area. But preparing to fill the pipeline with candidates from local areas is also critically important. I think it starts with some of the interactions we have with the high schools and the community colleges and trying to make people aware the students, the parents, the guidance counselors and everybody of the skills they need by working with the Berkshire Innovation Center, she said. General Dynamics Mission Systems is partnering with the innovation center on the BIC Manufacturing Academy, an education and training initiative that involves the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Funded by a recent federal grant, the manufacturing academy is expected to get underway in February. The company has also been working with local and regional schools, including the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Berkshire Community College, UMass-Amherst, McCann Technical School and other county high schools on manufacturing and engineering careers. 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. Fans riot in the streets of Detroit after the 1984 World Series. Also: An aerial view of the construction of the Empire State Building, 1930. Pittsfield Reporter Meg Britton-Mehlisch is the Pittsfield reporter for The Berkshire Eagle. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, she previously worked at the Prior Lake American and its sister publications under the Southwest News Media umbrella in Savage, Minnesota. WILLIAMSTOWN Much of whats known about the Mohican people in the Berkshires comes from stories told by European settlers. For hundreds of years before that, however, Mohicans lived, worked and died making their homes in the area. In an effort to educate the public about that pre-colonial history of the northern Berkshires, a group of community members and Williams College students produced 50 yard signs and two booklets regarding the role the colleges founder, Ephraim Williams Jr., played in displacing the Mohicans in the late 1700s. Quote "We hope to continue such efforts to help get us to a place where people are actively working to make up for what happened. Randal Fippinger The effort, known as the 50 Mohican Reminders project, resulted in yard signs being installed at Field Park to remind people we are walking on the Mohican Homelands. After two weeks, the signs will be given to the Spring Street office of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians the modern descendants around Oct. 24, which will then offer the signs to interested community members who want to display them at their homes or businesses. The signs were installed for Indigenous Peoples Day. Randal Fippinger, one of the events organizers, explained in an email that the point is to build a bridge to understanding. The projects goals are to continue raising awareness within the Williamstown and Williams College communities of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, whose homelands we live on and occupy; and to encourage community respect and support for the sovereign tribal nations ongoing and future presence in the region, he wrote. One of the booklets, both produced by Williams College Junior Mirabai Dyson, recounts the role of Ephraim Williams Jr., founder of Williamstown and of Williams College, and his family in displacing the Mohicans from their ancestral homeland in the late 18th century. The booklet, entitled Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican History in Williamstown, notes that the town is made up of properties given up by Mohicans after land agreements in 1758 and 1763, which they signed under pressure from colonials and with a desire to survive as a people. As a result of the rapid colonization, the Mohicans in the area began being pushed westward, eventually settling in Stockbridge-Munsee Community reservations current home in northeast Wisconsin. Quote Ephraim Williams Sr. in 1742 staked claims on land that was already home to the Mohicans. To obtain the land, Williams Sr. used a common scheme of selling goods to Mohicans for credit. When they were unable to repay the debt, Williams Sr. would then sue to take possession the land. In one example of the Williams familys role in that displacement, Ephraim Williams Sr. in 1742 staked claims on land that was already home to the Mohicans. To obtain the land, Williams Sr. used a common scheme of selling goods to Mohicans for credit. When they were unable to repay the debt, Williams Sr. would then sue to take possession the land. The impact of the Williams family remains heavily embedded and valued in the culture and iconography of Williams College, and as a result permeates the town of Williamstown also named after Ephraim Williams, Jr. as a whole, the booklet says. Williamstown voters recognized Indigenous Peoples Day through a citizens petition approved at the 2017 town meeting. Organizers are trying to raise awareness in the local community that Indigenous people do still live and work in the region today, and that these issues still persist for Indigenous families. Fippinger said that organizers further hope that the two-week installation will help prompt the residents of Williamstown and Berkshire County to move past the important starting point of land acknowledgments, into actively reconciling with the people on whose lands we all live. The project comes at a time when related efforts are underway, including an exhibit coming to the Williamstown Historical Museum. It coincidees with the Mohican Miles exhibition in Stockbridge curated by the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Cultural Affairs Department in collaboration with the Trustees of Reservations, and other projects led by the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Historic Preservation Office, some in partnership with Williams College students, staff and faculty. The 50 Mohican Reminders project has its roots in past work by Williams students, Fippinger noted, including an independent study that led to creation of a Mohican Homelands website and booklets about tribal historic work and sites of interest in town and on the Williams campus, created by Dyson. The booklets will be available soon at locations around the area, including the Tribal Historical Office, at 86 Spring St. in Williamstown. The goal is to give people a way to learn about local tribal history, Dyson said. Fippinger, who is a member of the Williamstown Select Board, said it is important for the future of town that these issues be discussed and further revelations be explored. This effort is the result of citizens and college folk who want to keep this important conversation going, he said. Its part of the Williamstown identity, and we hope to continue such efforts to help get us to a place where people are actively working to make up for what happened. 31 people from 26 countries. All of them are now American citizens, after a Stockbridge naturalization ceremony Thirty-one people became American citizens at a naturalization ceremony Wednesday at Naumkeag in Stockbridge. Here are the paths that three of them Samuel Donkor, Raquel Lee and Jorge Cedeno took to get here. On Wednesday morning, 31 people hailing from 26 countries of origin and all walks of life gathered at Naumkeag, and from many smiles one sentiment was clear: They are all proud and elated to be newly minted American citizens. Eagle reporter Aina de Lapparent Alvarez spoke with several of them on how that new status made them feel. There was a man from Ecuador who first traveled to the United States with his son to reunite with his wife and mother-in-law. A scholarship from Litnet helped the Great Barrington resident to afford the citizenship application process while he worked to support his family. There was a woman who came from her native Costa Rica for a postgraduate internship with a Berkshire human services agency. She so loved working here and helping to change lives in this county that she stayed. Then there was Samuel Donkor, originally from Ghana, who first came to the U.S. on a so-called fiance visa to be with his partner, a woman from Lee. They have been married for nine years and have a three-year-old son. While Mr. Donkor has been a legal U.S. resident for some time, the thing that most excites him about his new citizenship is to vote and contribute to the democratic process of a country hes called home for years. I became a citizen to do this, to have a voice, said Mr. Donkor. I could [have kept renewing] my green card and everything, but as a citizen, you give more. Note that he opted to say give, not get. These folks now enjoy many benefits of citizenship that they all worked hard to earn, but every single one that spoke after the ceremony highlighted voting as a critical civic duty that theyre ready, willing and grateful to embrace. We cant help but hope that every American citizen might follow the example of our newly naturalized neighbors commitment to the maintenance of our great but imperfect republic. As they receive citizenship, we receive a lesson in the valuation of the rights, freedoms and civic responsibilities denied to so many human beings across the globe. Perhaps if we paid better attention to that lesson, wed see higher voter turnout and less apathy; more participatory democracy and less incivility in disagreement; more emphasis on our shared democratic project and less incentive for petty polarization. Wednesdays naturalization event reminds us that we are a nation of immigrants made stronger and brighter by welcoming into our American family those who fought to earn the freedoms many of us too often take for granted. Further, it demonstrates whats needed to combat the national ills we also take for granted. We are dangerously divided. Our politics grow more poisonous. American democracy itself teeters on the brink. But it doesnt have to be that way. To reverse course, we ought to take after our newest fellow citizens in embracing not just the freedoms and rights we enjoy in America but the civic responsibility to build a more perfect union. Any who call themselves American share that responsibility and these newly naturalized citizens show a deeper understanding of that than the average American. A joyful ceremony on a sunny day in Stockbridge does not nullify the many tall challenges America faces, but it does remind us what were fighting for. First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain. Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that. And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details. If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a clinical trial of vaccines to combat the Sudan strain of Ebola could start within weeks as an outbreak of the disease in Uganda reached the capital, stirring alarm. Source: Reuters. The East African country declared an outbreak of Ebola on 20 September and said infections were being caused by the Sudan strain. Uganda's health ministry has confirmed a total of 54 Ebola cases and 19 deaths. Health minister, Jane Ruth Aceng said the first case was detected in the capital Kampala. "A sample confirmed that he had Ebola," Aceng told reporters. A man from central Uganda had travelled to seek treatment at a hospital in the capital, but his condition deteriorated and he died on 7 October. A sample was obtained from his body before burial, which tested positive for Ebola, she said. There have been worries the spread of infection in Uganda could be difficult to control because currently there is no vaccine for the Sudan strain. The epicentre of the infections is a cluster of five districts in central Uganda. In a virtual address to a meeting of Africa regional health officials in Kampala, Ghebreyesus said several vaccines were currently being developed that could deal with the Sudan strain. Two of those vaccines "could be put in clinical trial in Uganda in the coming weeks pending regulatory and other approvals from the Ugandan government," he said. "Our primary focus now is to rapidly control and contain this outbreak to protect neighbouring districts as well as neighbouring countries." Ghebreyesus did not provide details of the vaccines due for trial such as their names or which firms developed them. Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever, mainly spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Symptoms of the viral disease include intense weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat, vomiting, diarrhoea and rashes, among others. Although it has no vaccine, WHO has previously said the Sudan strain is less transmissible and has shown a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks than Ebola Zaire. Unilateral sanctions "tumor of human society," says Chinese envoy Xinhua) 08:49, October 14, 2022 UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Describing unilateral coercive measures as a "tumor of human society," a Chinese envoy on Wednesday urged the United States and some other Western countries to cancel their illegal and unreasonable sanctions immediately. In fact, the unilateral sanctions by those countries under the pretext of human rights violate human rights in other nations, said Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. "Those Western countries must be held responsible and accountable for the systematic violation of human rights caused by their unilateral coercive measures," Dai said at the side event of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights. Unilateral coercive measures violate the UN Charter and international law, the envoy said, noting that some countries even attempt to use those measures to suppress the legitimate governments of the countries concerned and instigate "color revolutions" for regime changes, which poses a severe threat to world peace and stability. Some individual countries' abuse of sanction measures, like imposing trade bans, blocking financial investments and interfering with markets, is disrupting international economic, trade and technological cooperation. The sanctions gravely threaten global food, energy and financial security and pose livelihood difficulties for developing countries, even resulting in humanitarian disasters in some vulnerable nations, he said. Unilateral sanctions also cause severe damage to the harmony and stability of international relations. Even basic requirements such as paying UN dues and attending UN meetings in the U.S. city of New York have been interrupted, Dai said, adding that such practices should be condemned. "We urge the United States and some other Western countries to face squarely the international appeal for justice, and immediately cancel their unilateral coercive measures, so as to practice true multilateralism with concrete actions," Dai said. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) Value addition is a central theme in agriculture. The concept involves adding value at every step, from production to delivery of a product. This creates opportunities for farmers and companies to find competitive advantages. It also has the potential to improve food security and create employment. Source: meric tuna via Unsplash In South Africa, the government has used value addition as a policy to try to correct some of the historical imbalances in the agriculture sector. Large-scale commercial enterprises have dominated the sector since the first part of the 20th century. They compare favourably with those anywhere in the world. But they are in stark contrast with the small-scale farming sector in terms of productivity and value addition. And the divide has a racial dimension. About 72% of farm land is held by white people, and only 4% by black people. Large commercial enterprises are run mostly by white farmers. In the case of grain, oilseed and meat these enterprises account for about three quarters of the countrys production. For their part, small-scale farmers about 2 million of them farm on a limited scale, rearing animals or cultivating crops. Their farming activities are characterised by, among others, low yields, a lack of mechanisation, and lack of financing solutions. It is therefore difficult for small-scale enterprises to commercialise and add value. The South African government has taken some steps to help these farmers boost their productivity and become better integrated into the countrys agricultural economy. Its policies and plans include the Agricultural Policy Action Plan 2015-2019. The more recent efforts have focused on value addition as a strategy. We conducted a study to analyse whether these initiatives had worked. We looked at the contribution of small-scale farmers to food value addition. We found that their participation in agro-processing was limited. And we concluded that governments funding policy for the sector should give priority to improving farmers access to information, technology, skills and markets. The vision for value addition Value addition in the food industry is applied at every link of the chain to increase production. For example, sophisticated techniques can process maize into different products such as corn meal, corn syrup, corn starch and corn oil which can find their way to markets around the world. Maize processing by traditional methods, in contrast, limits the variety of products and is only sufficient for home consumption. South Africas government has recognised the potential that value addition has to improve small-scale agriculture and, in turn, national food security. In 2021, for example, about R1.2bn was allocated to the agriculture and food sector budget to support smallholder farmers through various initiatives related to value addition. The Department of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries budgeted about R5.6 billion between 2018 and 2021 to support 145,000 black commercial, subsistence and smallholder producers. The support included production inputs and farm infrastructure. Also, a scheme called the Micro Agricultural Financial Institutions of South Africa has existed since 2004 to address the financial services needs of smallholder farmers and agribusinesses. It lends money at lower than market rates. The idea was that these interventions would yield returns in the production of high-value crops such as macadamia nuts, fruit production, poultry production, red meat production schemes or initiatives to improve animal production in rural areas. From policy to practice Our study reviewed documents about food value chains and agro-processing in South Africa. We wanted to know how food value-addition policies encouraged food value-addition in the small-scale agricultural sector, and what challenges were inhibiting the sector. The findings show that policies are not contributing much to food value chain addition at the national level. The overall contribution of agro-processing to GDP was a paltry 5.7%. About 3% of farmers are trained in food processing. And the small-scale agricultural and aquaculture sectors are not well established. Land reform remains an issue. The constraints to value addition operate mainly at the primary production level. They limit both quality and quantity of output, which has practical implications for agro-processing participation. For example, an analysis of African leafy vegetable value chains in Limpopo province shows smallholder producers experience considerable post-harvest losses because of their more frequent use of informal market channels and low capitalisation. The key constraints we identified in the literature were: A lack of access to finance and rising input costs Government budget cuts in vital support functions such as extension services and research and development A lack of appropriate technology A dearth of technical and entrepreneurial skills A lack of knowledge and skills in agro-processing and food quality standards required by markets A lack of access to information about technology and markets Bottlenecks in the supply of raw materials like oil and grain Food trade policy misalignment with partner countries Dumping of food products by trading partners, effectively destroying the domestic food value chain. What next? The contribution of the small-scale agricultural sector to the South African food value addition agenda is restricted on many frontiers which require government intervention. Firstly, the South African government needs to rethink its funding policy for agriculture and agro-processing. It should prioritise programmes that enhance farmers access to information about technology and markets. Such programmes should also aim to improve farmers knowledge and skills around agro-processing and help them to understand and comply with food quality standards in line with customer preferences. Finally, food trade policy should be aligned with partner countries in various blocs to protect the food industry from dumping. This has ripple effects on markets and employment. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The winners of the prestigious Great Wine Capitals Best Of Wine Tourism Awards (BOWTA) 2023 for Cape Town & the Cape Winelands. The award winners were announced at Weltevrede, Bonnievale in the Cape Winelands on 13 Octover and recognised excellence in the wine tourism industry. Source: Supplied The awards provide an opportunity for wineries and other visitor-serving businesses in each region to gain exposure and recognition for their commitment to present leading wine tourism options, while giving visitors a one-stop list of the best places to experience. Celebrating innovation and excellence in wine tourism throughout the eleven greatest wine regions of the world, the Bowta is designed to reward the wineries in each of the Great Wine Capitals Global Networks member cities for their excellence in seven different categories, including accommodation, wine tourism restaurant, sustainable wine tourism practice, architecture and landscape, art and culture, innovative wine tourism experiences as well as wine tourism services. Now in their 24th year, the 2023 Great Wine Capitals Best Of Wine Tourism Awards and its local Ambassador Awards saw a combined total of 119 entries. Judging process The judges reviewed the applications received and scored them based on standard criteria. Seven expert judges and three Wine Tourism Ambassador Award judges conducted "ghost visits" to the wineries within each of their assigned categories. The judges then attended a final adjudication review, where each expert judge presented their findings, and a winner was selected for each category. The winners are: Accommodation Winner: Babylonstoren Wine Tourism Restaurants Winner: Creation Wines Wine Tourism Services Winner: Vergelegen Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices Winner: Bosman Hermanus Architecture and Landscape Winner: Weltevrede Art and Culture Winner: Creation Wines Innovative Wine Tourism Experiences Winner: Weltevrede Additional awards celebrated include The Wine Tourism Diversity Award, the WWF Pioneer Award and the Authentic South African Experience Award - all celebrate culture and heritage, as well as those leaders making innovative efforts to ensure sustainability and conservation in the field. The WWF Conservation Award is sponsored by WWF South Africa with funding provided by Pamela and Neville Isdell. The Ambassador Award winners for 2023 are: The Wine Tourism Diversity Award Winner: Paardenkloof Wines The Authentic South African Experience Award Winner: Klein Goederust WWF Conservation Pioneer Award Winner: Tanagra Western Cape minister of finance and economic opportunities, Mireille Wenger, said: "On behalf of the Western Cape Government, I extend my congratulations to all the winners of the Great Wine Capital Best Of Wine Tourism Awards for 2023. During my tourism month tour, I was fortunate enough to have visited some of these winners, and I can attest to their excellent service, quality products and warm hospitality. "Wine tourism is a cornerstone of the Western Capes remarkable offer to visitors from across South Africa and the world, and I am so proud that these businesses are once again helping put our province on the map. "Our Great Wine Capitals membership speaks to our province being ranked as one of the leading wine regions in the world. I wish to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all the winners of the 2023 Best Of Wine Tourism & Ambassador Awards. We look forward to collaborating and working with the industry to continue positioning Cape Town & the Western Cape as a premier wine tourism destination," commented Wrenelle Stander, Wesgro CEO. Wesgros chief destination marketing officer and Bowta ambassador, Monika Iuel, added: "Once again, we are truly honoured to have worked closely with industry stakeholders to recognise the wineries and wine tourism-related businesses for their excellence and innovation. "This year, we received a whopping 119 entries, and we can confidently look forward to the Best Of Wine Tourism & Ambassador awards growing year after year. I would like to convey my sincere congratulations to all the winners and thank the industry for continuing to see the value in the Great Wine Capitals Best Of Wine Tourism Awards. South Africa's longest-running gender-empowering conference is set to take place on 12-13 October 2022. The Standard Bank Top Women Virtual Conference aims to bring together global thought-leaders and experts to offer inspiration, practical solutions, networks and support to more than 10,000 women entrepreneurs in Africa. This two full-day immersive conference will feature multiple breakaway sessions, live Q&A sessions, remote meetups, and access to fast-track networking sessions for top women and women-led companies amplifying both individual and company successes in diversity and inclusion. Private and public institutions continue to show commitment to promoting gender equality and becoming change-makers in the country. Here are the event sponsors, the topics and the panel discussions to look forward to: Standard Bank Women and finance: Enabling womens economic empowerment The power of mentorship | Why empowering her actually empowers me Uber Women in tech as a driver for growth in emerging economies Netstar: Inclusive transformation | The impact of women leaders on workplace culture Cipla: Top women in Stem South African Local Government Association (SALGA): Leading by example | Why local government should transform to enable participation of women in leadership Sibanye Stillwater: Fostering a culture of inclusivity and practical solutions to holding organisations accountable for gender balanced leadership Exxaro: Digging deep | Advancement of women in leadership in male-dominated industries Coca-Cola: Refreshing perspectives | CCBSA reaffirms commitment to transformation and women empowerment Coega Development Corporation (CDC): Ubuntu | A conscious leadership virtue that equips and empowers women entrepreneurs so they take control of their being and create results from within for impact, influence and innovation Blue Label Telecoms: Transforming the landscape of engagement and empowering women | Employee centricity and engagement Industrial Development Corporation (IDC): Investing in women | Gender parity at the centre of economic recovery MSC Cruise: The evolution of empowering women in the workplace. Head of Communications for Uber South Africa, Mpho Sebelebele, said they are proud to be part of the conference: We are proud to be partnering alongside the Standard Bank Top Women Conference as it aligns with our values of driving positive change that is meaningful and empowering. We continue to make a genuine, long-term commitment to tackling the issue of womens safety while also making it possible for female-led business owners to grow their businesses through the platform. Together we can drive conversations for change. Topco Media CEO, Ralf Fletcher thanked the sponsors for being part of this event and part of the change in our society: During the Covid-19 pandemic and in times of massive social changes, we often looked for our true north of truth, and traditionally our truth has come from government and the media, but an overwhelming shift occurred during Covid-19 where truth, trust, and hope came from business for many people in our society. It is for this reason that were honoured to have the case studies, stories of success around change and driving gender empowerment; these organisations are bastions of that change and were honoured to have them as our partners and celebrate their contribution to this massive and impactful, social driving cause. Register to attend the conference here: http://topco.co.za/standardbank-topwomen2022/. So Interactive is proud to have been awarded the 'Best Integrated Marketing Campaign by an Agency' and the 'Most Innovative Social and Digital Media by a Small Agency' at the New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards 2022 for our Pernod Ricard Phakamisa iSpirit campaign. Hosea Matlou, maker The Phakamisa iSpirit campaign was built on the concept of the gift that gives back and its objective was to uplift one of South Africas most seen, yet unnoticed sectors the makers. To achieve this, the campaign brought to life the stories of two makers, who put their hearts and souls into creating fine wooden furniture and decor. The campaign content was shared in a variety of different formats on social media and it garnered great viewership, earning around 4.4 million video impressions, 340,000 engagements, and R6m worth of earned PR. Positive brand impact aside, we also achieved and exceeded the objective of helping the makers, making a positive impact on society in a way that will last, said Darren Mansour, the founder and digital director of So Interactive. Sandile Tsulo, maker Our teams worked exceptionally hard to create an engaging and impactful social media and video campaign, from conception through to completion, and were grateful to have been recognised by the New Generation. Thank you to the team: So Interactive digital agency Ogilvy lead agency PHD Media media Tribeca Public Relations PR What Is New production house Darren Mansour executive creative director Letitia Lerm creative director Claire Bruining art director Michelle Marais copywriter Ryan Whitelaw copywriter Ruan Kotze director and videographer Lerich Van der Merwe sound design Michael Motaung lighting and sound assistant Owen Ncube lighting and sound assistant Mahlodi Sylvester Mpashe editor Bongani Masondo voice over artist Sandile Tsulo maker (cast) Hosea Matlou maker (cast) The winners of the eighth annual Santam Women of the Future Awards, in association with Fairlady and Truelove, have been announced. Monalisa Sibongile Zwambila, Amahle Ntshinga, Janna Kretzmar, and Zanele Ngcobo The announcement happened at an exclusive event held at The Venue Green Park in Morningside, emceed by Jo-Ann Strauss. Guests in attendance at the luncheon included businesswomen and media personalities such as Miss South Africa 2022 Ndavi Nokeri, Johanna Makgalemele, Uyanda Mbuli, Sonia Booth, Jena Dover, Catherine Constantinides, Miss Earth SA 2022 Ziphozethu Sithebe, Anthea Gardner and Zuraida Jardine. The three winners were selected from a shortlist of nine finalists by a distinguished panel of judges: Professor Thuli Madonsela, chair in social justice at Stellenbosch University Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, CEO of Naspers South Africa Dawn Nathan-Jones, entrepreneur and CEO of Over the Rainbow Enid Lizamore, executive head of human resources at Santam Suzy Brokensha, Fairlady editor-in-chief Makhosazana Khosi Zwane-Siguqa, Truelove editor-in-chief Woman of the Future Monalisa Sibongile Zwambila of The Riverbed Agency was named the 2022 Santam Woman of the Future (awarded to an entrepreneur whose business is more than 1,000 days old). The Riverbed Agency is a woman-owned advertising and marketing agency that provides integrated communications services to blue-chip and global clients. Zwambila says that being recognised for her efforts is always rewarding, more so when it is by organisations that have impacted South Africa in many ways. Winning the title of Woman of the Future not only means a lot to me, but it is also an acknowledgement of my team at Riverbed, and something that they can be proud of too, she says. Social Entrepreneur Janna Kretzmar of EarthChild Project was named the 2022 Santam Social Entrepreneur (awarded to an entrepreneur who is making a real difference in her community). EarthChild Project offers complementary education to under-resourced schools in Khayelitsha and Lavender Hill in Cape Town, with a focus on the environment, health and life skills. Winning the Santam Social Entrepreneur Award will allow the EarthChild Project to continue to grow and expand its reach. I have never received this kind of external recognition before, so to have my hard work recognised means so much to me and my team who so diligently support me, Kretzmar says. Rising Star Amahle Ntshinga of Luntu was named the 2022 Santam Rising Star (awarded to an entrepreneur who is still within her first 1,000 days of business). Luntu is a conscious online store that sources products from suppliers who come from marginalised groups. Today, Luntu is doing business in 24 countries across six continents. For Ntshinga, winning the Santam Rising Star Award is validation that her hard work has been worth it. There are some months when sales are really low, she says. And I would ask myself, Should I keep going? But I wont give up, especially knowing that were able to help more businesses grow. Readers Choice Award The Santam Readers Choice Award, voted for by the public, goes to Zanele Ngcobo of BNK Solar, which provides turnkey solar solutions and assists clients with energy management systems and energy-efficiency solutions. Ngcobo wins a Golden Circle Mentorship programme from Over the Rainbow worth R9,000. These winners make me so proud, not only because of the excellent businesses and organisations they've founded, but also because of the enormous energy theyre putting into making our country work, says Brokensha. These are all really innovative ideas, and its a pleasure to reward the women who have seen them through. It was once again an honour and a privilege to be part of this project, Khosi says. All the finalists are exceptional, exemplary leaders. Im also particularly grateful to the excellent panel of judges who gave us their time and wisdom, as well as all our sponsors. The winners of the fourth South African Loyalty Awards were announced on Thursday, 13 October, at the Truth Leaders in Loyalty Summit in Cape Town. South African Loyalty Awards winners 2022. Source: Supplied The awards platform, initiated by international loyalty and CRM consultancy Truth, was created to celebrate loyalty excellence and innovation in the country. In total, there were 14 categories where entries have been evaluated through a robust judging process by a well-established judging committee, made up of 12 loyalty and CRM professionals from South Africa and across the globe. Headline awards winners The headline best programme of the year awards were awarded to four major industry sector leaders across retail, financial services, restaurant/QSR and other for running the best programme in their sectors, with outstanding performance results and overall customer loyalty experience. And for the first time, a category was included this year for the Best Long-term Loyalty Programme for programmes that have been in the market for more than three years. Best Loyalty Programme of the Year: Retail The Shoprite Group Xtra Savings The Shoprite Group Xtra Savings Best Loyalty Programme of the Year: Financial Services Capitec Live Better Capitec Live Better Best Loyalty Programme of the Year: Restaurant/QSR Spur Family Card Spur Family Card Best Loyalty Programme of the Year: Other MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet Best Long-term Loyalty Programme: FNB eBucks In addition, other distinct loyalty awards were also presented to recognise loyalty excellence across innovation in technology, community loyalty campaigns and best loyalty marketing campaign, to name a few. The Shoprite Group Xtra Savings, FNB eBucks, Clicks ClubCard and MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet each won two awards. MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet is the only loyalty brand to win its category for the fourth year running. Omnisient won best loyalty data agency/vendor of the year. Loyalty Personality of the Year: Neil Schreuder The judges also wanted to recognise South Africas loyalty leader in the industry for his contribution to this sector. Neil Schreuder from The Shoprite Group, was named Loyalty Personality of the Year for 2022. His leadership within The Shoprite Group for the concept, design, launch and growth of the Xtra Savings programme has led to its undisputable success. Amanda Cromhout, judging chair of the South African Loyalty Awards and CEO and founder of Truth, commented, The 2022 South African Loyalty Awards has highlighted once again that the South African loyalty industry is thriving in world-class innovation and excellence, competing on the same if not higher playing field as our global peers. We have seen some changes to the lineup of winning loyalty brands and we all agree that competition is a good thing to raise the bar in customer experience and rewards. The 2023 Loyalty Awards dates have been set with entries opening on 3 February 2023 and closing on 30 June 2023. Winners are to be announced in October 2023. Read the full South African Loyalty Awards Winners Report 2022 here. Hundreds of protesters closed down the Elim Mall on Thursday, 15 October blocking the road to Louis Trichardt in Limpopo with bricks and rubbish, demanding that local people be employed at the mall. Motorists could not get through to the shopping mall or to Elim hospital, and learners could not attend school. Protesters demanding jobs were addressed by community leaders outside the mall. Photos: Bernard Chiguvare Elim Mall falls under Njhakanjhaka traditional area but is also within reach of Dhavana traditional area. The protesters were mostly from Dhavana. Walter Mabasa, a community leader from Dhavana, said crime was rife in Elim and most of those responsible were unemployed. We realised shop owners were hiring friends or relatives who are from outside our area. This should not be the case. He said attempts to engage the mall management to hire more people from the area had been unsuccessful. The mall is not going to open until we meet the owners of this mall, said Mabasa. Vicky Muvhali, chairperson of the Njhakanjhaka traditional council, said the council was not aware of the shutdown. A woman described as the new mall manager said she was not allowed to speak to the media. GroundUp requested the contact details of the mall owner from the manager but she could not provide them. Source: Supplied The closing of the mall has affected some local business people. I bought this taxi through instalments so if I lose business for a day it means I will not be able to pay my monthly instalments, said minibus taxi owner Thomas Baloyi. Tshifiwa Tshilambyane, who runs a fruit and vegetable stall next to the mall, said though she is in support of the shut down she will run at a loss.I have made a big order for the week but most of my fruit will get rotten as no-one is coming to buy, she said. Published originally on GroundUp Suspended Director-General (DG) of the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), Kgathatso Tlhakudi, has lost his Labour Court bid to have his suspension declared unlawful and unconstitutional. Tlhakudi had also asked the court to declare that his suspension has lapsed. In a statement, the DPE welcomed the Labour Court judgment and reiterated its position that his suspension was within the bounds of the law. He was not unlawfully removed from his position. Government is vindicated by the judgment. This is confirmation that justice prevails, even when people in a position of authority and accountability threaten the rights of others through unsubstantiated and untested pronouncements. The department remains resolute and steadfast in eradicating maladministration and abuse of power without fear, favour or prejudice, irrespective of the position the person occupies. The Minister views the unsubstantiated allegations in a serious light and refutes them with the contempt they deserve. The Minister reserves his rights in this regard, the statement read. The department explained that Tlhakudi was suspended after a complaint was laid against him at the Public Service Commission, which was then sent to Public Enterprises Minister, Pravin Gordhan. The complaint was then investigated by a senior investigator and a report was made in this regard. The report was referred to the President in terms of the Public Service Act 1994, which provides that the appointment and career incidents of a head of a national department shall be dealt with by the President. The President delegated the matter to Justice Minister, Ronald Lamola, to take disciplinary steps and all ancillary attendances. Having considered the matter, Minister Lamola, decided to place Tlhakudi on precautionary suspension, required that he hand over all work-related tools and or equipment in his possession that were assigned for the execution of his duties, and instituted a disciplinary process against the DG. Facts matter - and the real truth will prevail, the department said. Key to inclusive growth and sustainable jobs in South Africa. A case study of three district municipalities. Thursday, 27 October 2022 @ 12-1pm Prof Scott Drimie, Kenneth Carden from the Southern Africa Food Lab, Bridgette Mabuela from the Seriti Institute and Craig Schwabe of AfricaScope, present findings of the research from a project initiated by the UNDP on food loss and waste and implementation of solutions. Under a five-year programme on Circular Economy, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) facilitated a project focused on food loss and waste. This aimed to support local business to scale and replicate food waste innovations. It helps strengthen the capacity of local government and other stakeholders in implementing food waste solutions, and develop and disseminate knowledge regarding food waste and circularity. Within this overall project, the food systems in eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal Province, O R Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province, and Waterberg District Municipality in Limpopo Province were mapped and analysed. This seminar will focus on the findings of O R Tambo drawing in key insights from the other sites to explore opportunities in the circular economy including the establishment of community waste management systems for recovery, processing, and alternative uses. Click here to register Click to join webinar Prof Scott Drimie is an extraordinary professor in the Nutrition Division, Department of Global Health, (Faculty of Health and Medicine Sciences) at Stellenbosch University, and director of the Southern Africa Food Lab, which identifies and pilots innovative means to achieve long-term, sustainable food security. He has more than two decades of research and teaching expertise related to food systems, livelihoods and vulnerability in Africa, with in-depth knowledge of food and nutrition security. Kenneth Carden has over 30 years experience in business with a focus on business strategy, sustainability and supply chain management. He has broad experience in the Retail and the Food & Beverage Sectors holding senior management positions at South African Breweries, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Woolworths. Kenneth currently focusses on the development of smallholder and emerging farmer support programmes through managing the multi-stakeholder and collaborative Supporting Smallholder Agriculture progamme. Bridgette Mabuela is an agricultural programme coordinator at Seriti Institute under the Work. Learn. Grow division. She holds a bachelors degree in Horticulture from the Tshwane University of Technology and has major interests in agro-food systems, farm management, market development and nutrition. Seriti Institute is a community development facilitation agency that adds value to the green industry by getting involved in solution-driven initiatives which generate work opportunities and aim to strengthen food security in local communities to enhance the socioeconomic impact of people. Craig Schwabe is a geospatial specialist and focuses on the development of geospatial information for South Africa and Africa. He specialises in using geospatial data to develop food insecurity and vulnerability information systems, which creates an understanding of the food value chain, losses and waste. AfricaScope is a unique information company that is passionate about Africa's development. Contact Us: Click here The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has mandated the South African National Energy Development Institute (Sanedi) to implement the national Energy Efficiency Appliance Standards and Labelling programme. The programme has been in place for large residential appliances since 2015. Its success has resulted in an expansion of products with the support of Clasp, an organisation focused on appliance energy performance and its aim to expand access to clean energy. The programme includes the development of minimum energy-performance standards and an energy-efficiency label for televisions in South Africa. The aim of the development of these standards to improve the energy performance of the televisions manufactured and imported into South Africa and the implementation of an energy-efficiency label to guide consumer buying choices, is to lessen the burden of electronic goods on the grid considering the ongoing electricity crisis. Lower energy consumption will result in reduced electricity costs and greenhouse gas emissions in line with South Africas Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Thus, this project is crucial to improving the sustainability of the industry. Areas of opportunity for increased efficiencies Research on residential electricity consumption in South Africa conducted in 2021 shows that 92% of households have one television, while 36% have two or more. 60% of households use their TVs for more than four hours daily. The number of televisions owned is projected to grow to approximately 28.4 million units by 2032, directly increasing the energy use from televisions. Further, the size of television screens has been increasing, directly increasing the television's power consumption. In addition, due to recent technological advancements in many parts of the world, including South Africa, televisions have evolved in the industry. For example, the switch from analogue broadcasts to digital. This has allowed the introduction of high-definition broadcasts and screens. Today, a high-definition tuner and screen will require more power than a standard-definition screen and tuner of the same size, irrespective of the signal being processed. Essential policy instruments Minimum energy performance standards and energy labelling are among the most effective policy tools in promoting energy efficiency in electricity-powered appliances. A recent study on the subject estimated that by 2021, about 1.23TWh more energy would be used by televisions compared to 2017. If minimum energy performance standards are adopted, the cumulative energy savings to be realised by 2030 will be approximately 2.6TWh. The report referenced further estimates that about 1.97 Mt CO2 emissions in South Africa can be reduced by 2030 following the adoption of minimum energy performance standards for televisions. A call for industry participation In line with government processes, stakeholder consultation is a requirement in the development of any proposed legislation. Sanedi invites industry stakeholders, including TV manufacturers, assemblers, and distributors, to participate in upcoming engagements, which will include a project briefing session, interviews and data-collection surveys, consultation workshops and reviews of the study before finalisation to inform the development of proposed performance standards and an energy label for televisions. International calling app Talk360, which enables people around the world to make calls to any landline or mobile phone worldwide, has secured an additional $3m (R55m) in seed round funding, taking its total seed round to $7m (R128m) after its first closing in May 2022. The funds will help the company grow its market share in South Africa, drive its growth on the rest of the continent and launch its first pan-African payment platform in 2023. Pictured from left to right: Talk360 founders Hans Osnabrugge, Jorne Schamp and Dean Hiine | image supplied The latest round of funding includes new South African investors like Allan Gray E2 Ventures (Agev), Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor, existing lead investor Havaic and angel investors in the form of the co-founders of TymeBank, Tjaart van der Walt and Coenraad Jonker. In the past year, Talk360 has seen 167% growth in customers and 130% revenue growth and has nearly doubled the number of calling minutes to and from South Africa, on the back of what it calls a significantly improved distribution network. Founded in 2016 by Dutch entrepreneurs Hans Osnabrugge and Jorne Schamp and South African venture builder Dean Hiine, the company connected 2.3 million people worldwide so far this year. Hiine says it has doubled its headcount this year as it looks to aggressively grow the business. Our mission is to bridge distance and connect lives by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use digital services, delivered in a localised manner to all communities, particularly emerging countries, so they can connect to the world, said Hiine. But were not just solving socio-economic issues: were also offering micro-entrepreneurship and income-generating opportunities to our growing network of agents across the country. Clive Butkow, the CEO of Kalon, said the Talk360 team had a wealth of experience in the communications space in South Africa and across the continent. Were excited to add this investment to the Kalon portfolio, and believe it has the potential to rapidly scale across Africa, he said. Hiine expects Talk360s growth to be further boosted when it launches its pan-African payment platform in 2023. The new platform will allow users across the continent to buy products and services using any currency and more than 160 payment methods. It will also be opened to other merchants. The countdown begins! The Business Show :: Africa will be hosted at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg on 6 and 7 September 2023... This is where thousands of entrepreneurs, business owners, and business decision-makers will seek out new ideas, key solutions, innovative trends, and unique opportunities to build bigger and more successful businesses. So, if you are serious about wanting to build a bigger and more successful business, this unmatched event provides the platform to fast track business success! Exhibiting your business at the ultimate entrepreneurial extravaganza is the number one marketing experience in Africa. Due to the overwhelming demand, exhibiting opportunities are extremely limited. This is how to: Get your business out there Secure many more customers Accelerate growth and boost profits Why The Business Show? Reach 25,000 business owners, entrepreneurs and business decision-makers. Get thousands of quality leads to be converted into many more new customers. This is the most successful and proven platform to boost your customer base, drive your sales, and boost your profits quickly. Its the only show that attracts so many leading local and global brands, year after year. The show enjoys the highest quality and quantity of attending delegates. Who should exhibit? If your business or organisation has a direct offering to SMEs a solution, service, product or opportunity this is the place to exhibit! Let The Business Show become your most successful marketing experience yet. So what are you waiting for? To see more click here. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law a communications legislation to curb hate speech, his office said on Thursday, but critics warn it could squash free speech and cripple electronic commerce. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni attends a news conference following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Entebbe, Uganda 26 July 2022. Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters The "Computer Misuse Amendment Act" was introduced by a ruling party legislator then passed by parliament last month amid criticism by rights activists and opposition politicians. The law proscribes sending or sharing of information that promotes hate speech, is false or malicious and was unsolicited. It also bans sending information through a computer that could "ridicule, degrade or demean another person." Penalties for violations under the law range from custodial sentences of up to ten years or steep cash fines. Museveni, 78, in power since 1986, has previously repeatedly voiced anger at Ugandans who share what he said are lies about his government on social media. Those opposed to the law say it is likely aimed at victimising government critics and opponents who produce or share information on social media that may harm ruling party officials' political prospects. The law "poses a great danger to the right to access information electronically and to the freedom of speech and expression over computer networks," said Allan Bariyo, a Kampala-based cyber law expert. Unwanted Witness, a digital rights pressure group, has also described the legislation as vague and overly broad, saying it will have the "effect of unjustifiably restricting legitimate freedom of speech and expression." Indiscriminately banning sending and sharing of unsolicited information, they also say, will potentially reduce internet usage and cripple e-commerce. MW Project Lead (MW Account Manager) Remuneration: cost-to-company Location: Cape Town, Woodstock Remote work: Some remote work allowed Education level: Diploma Job level: Mid Job policy: Employment Equity position Type: Permanent Reference: #MWProjectLead Company: King James Job description Projects delivered on time, on budget and to client brief Top quality communication with clients to keep them informed, help them to plan, manage their expectations and ensure their feedback into the project is accurately represented and addressed A thorough understanding of the agency environment and how the work flow moves through the agency so that internal teams and colleagues are able to deliver their part of any project really, really well Ensure the Group Account Directors are kept informed of your progress on a project to earn trust and enable them to support and help you learn and grow Accountable from start to finish on all tasks or any parts of the project assigned to you; have a proactive approach to tasks and projects Ensure tasks, jobs and communication are completed with urgency to ensure there is never a bottleneck in any work flow Ensure top quality communication with clients tp keep them informed, help them to plan, manage their expectation and ensure their feedback into the project is accurately represented and addressed Ensure project leads are kept informed of your progress to earn trust and build reliability Ensure written work whether its briefs, debriefs, emails, status reports, post campaign reports or project plans is clear, thought-through, without spelling errors and typos, and always actioned without delay Ensure client feedback is interrogated and thoroughly understood before work is debriefed internally Ensure managers, project leads, colleagues and clients are always kept informed and up-to-date Ensure timesheets are completed on time and accurately at the end of each day Ensure cost estimates are checked before being sent to client, approved before work is commenced, and billed (accurately) as soon as approved Ensure project histories and archives (Chase, server, status reports etc.) are kept up-to-date and accurate A tertiary qualification in either Business/Communications or Marketing Management Minimum 3 years working experience as a Project Lead or an Account Manager in an Advertising Agency Proficient in MS Office (i.e. Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc.) Experience in working on Chase Experience in (or knowledge of) WorkBook will be advantageous ATL/TTL experience is essential Well-versed in Digital A good command of the English language (both verbal and written) Strong administration and time management skills Strong presentation skills Strong multi-tasking skills Team player with the ability to work independently Ability to remain calm in a fast-paced environment Out of the box thinker Proactive Resilient Reliable Accountable Deadline driven Solution driven Meticulous with attention to detail Other: Comfortable to work on-site (at the King James office) and comfortable to work on alcohol brands King James - Part of Accenture Song is seeking a dynamic MW Project Lead to join their Cape Town team. As a MW Project Lead, your role is pivotal to the overall delivery to client. Positioned at the heart of the agency, you will take the lead on projects assigned by the group account director with the single aim of ensuring those projects are delivered on time, on budget and seamlessly (or, as seamlessly as possible in the slightly crazy world of Advertising). Supported by the operational heads of all the relevant studios, you will build your own project plans and budgets, and ensure that all the moving parts are working together according to plan. Youll liaise with your creative colleagues, and your production partners, to keep campaigns forging ahead, and youll make sure that clients are kept in the loop and involved throughout. Because youll be working on individual projects rather than in an always-on client servicing capacity, there will often be exciting opportunities to work across a portfolio of clients and stretch your learning into new categories and channels.What does excellence look like?What does excellence look like?At King James, we believe in doing things really, really well. Having fun while were doing it, of course. But doing things excellently. In your role, that means:Interested? Please submit ato az.oc.semajgnik@jksreerac-jk . Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Should you not hear from us within 1 week after submitting your application, kindly consider your application as unsuccessful. Posted on 14 Oct 09:25, Closing date 31 Oct PR Account Director: Social Media Remuneration: negotiable Benefits: Contribution towards medical aid and pension Location: Johannesburg Remote work: Some remote work allowed Job level: Senior Type: Permanent Reference: #ADSocialMedia_Thrish Company: Eclipse Communications Job description Managing and growing the social media stream in the Corporate Centre of Excellence (People and clients) Managing the financial performance of the stream Delivering and leading the delivery of excellent client service by the social media team And, conceptualizing, leading, and executing innovative and game-changing social media campaigns Support line manager on new business At least five years of experience working on social media and digital campaigns At least two years of experience in a leadership role (included in overall experience) At least two years of experience in client service (included in overall experience) A tertiary qualification in marketing, communications, public relations, journalism, or a related field A track record of conceptualizing and executing successful social media campaigns (success is defined as achieving the objective of the campaign) The ability to manage and work well with a team The ability to conceptualize social media strategies for brands and organizations The ability to translate strategic goals into creative concepts and tactics Strong content-creation and story-telling skills Innovative problem-solving skills are a must Strong working knowledge of the social media landscape An understanding of key social media metrics and how to measure and report on them A technical grasp of popular platforms and the use of third-party tools in social media management Social media certifications are an advantage Maintain a collaborative and accountable team culture Mentor and nurture a growing team Lead the career development of team members Streamline workflows to manage deadlines and priorities Lead the team to work strategically, and upskill team members where necessary Track and monitor the financial performance of the division Work with the Centres leadership team Lead a responsive and delivery-focused client service culture Win the trust and confidence of our discerning and valued clients Conceptualize and pitch ideas to new and existing clients We are looking for an experienced corporate account director with strong social media skills and who has solid experience working on medium and large clients who is ambitious and eager to join Eclipse Communications.The successful candidate will have strong leadership skills as a manager, a good technical understanding of the social media landscape, and be able to nurture and grow client relationships.Posted on 14 Oct 20:08, Closing date 13 Dec Account Manager Remuneration: basic salary Location: Johannesburg, Bryanston Remote work: Not Applicable Education level: Degree Job level: Mid Own transport required: Yes Travel requirement: Often Type: Temporary Reference: #IndabaAccountManager Company: Indaba Billboards & Media Job description Communicating with clients to understand their needs and explain product value. Building relationships with clients based on trust and respect. Collaborating with internal departments to facilitate client need fulfillment. Collecting and analyzing data to learn more about consumer behavior. Keeping accurate records pertaining to inventory and account notes. Maintaining updated knowledge of company products and services. Resolving complaints and preventing additional issues by improving processes. Identifying industry trends. Acting as a client advocate with a focus on improving the buyer experience Requirements Bachelors degree in sales, communications, or related field. More education or experience may be preferred. Exceptional verbal and written communication skills. Ability to collect, track, and analyze large amounts of data. Adaptability and strong problem-solving skills. Excellent active listening skills. Ability to build rapport and collaborate with others within the company and externally. Understanding of consumer behaviors and industry trends. Extensive, accurate product knowledge. Indaba Billboards and Media (Pty) Ltd, a transit and media advertising company is looking for a Junior Photographer to join their team. We are searching for communicative candidates who are proactive and passionate about company products and the clients they serve. Account managers will act as a point of contact for their clients. They will build long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with their contacts, always striving to find the products which best fit the individual needs of the client. They also aid internal departments by collecting information, such as sales leads or testimonials, assisting in the processing and analysis of client data and complaints, and identifying industry trends.Posted on 14 Oct 10:22, Closing date 13 Nov I was a primary three pupil at the Native Anglican Church (ANC) Dicwinyi Primary School in Palabek Division Headquarters, now Palabek Town Council when Uganda got its political independence from the British Colonial masters on October 09, 1962. It was so glamorous when I reflect on that particular day, sixty years later. The holding of the new Uganda National Flag, the smart cotton khaki uniform with the national flag badge tucked on our left breasts, the white canvass boots white black shocks as we marched past to the tunes of brass band being played by pupils of our rival only other school of the Roman Catholic Church School. The joy, verbal abuses by the two rival schools through songs as to which of the two school pupils took the day was another thing. I was about to turn ten years later on November 07, 1962. The future looked promising then. The economy was none to compare with in the region, the peace and harmony in society, the discipline by which our different Churches enforce Church attendance; then, and I thought I would go and study either Law or Political Science at university. The rest is now history. Studies up to university remained a dream. That peace we enjoyed on October 09, 1962, was shuttered before we could even hold the next general election. Talk of Uganda Crisis. Acholi has been on the receiving end of endemic politically engineered killings from day one of the crisis, which began about two years after independence to date as you read this piece. Several factors contributed to the stalled development of Uganda. Key among them includes: 1. Colonial mistakes Our British colonial masters made the fundamental mistake of portioning Acholi, which was a single nation, into two different states Sudan (now South Sudan) and Uganda. This is because they had realized that the tribe would be impossible to colonize unless they are prevented from staying as one unit in the same way their collaborator in the south, the special status of Baganda remained a single entity throughout colonization; a fact that remains the single mistake destabilizing Uganda to this day. The borderline became the symbol of dividing the Acholi which you only cross if you have visa permit. The colonialists disempowered our cultural chiefs and our social setup but instead promoted collaborators and empowered them by sending the children of such collaborators to school. They became the new elite political class today. This tool of keeping Acholi in perpetual division is perfected by all the subsequent independent political governments which sub-divided the Achioli into several autonomous administrative units disguised as taking services nearer to the people. The cultural institutions are now more of politicians than cultural leaders. Palabek Division at the time of independence in 1962 is now split into six autonomous sub-counties and one Town Council. Coming out with one ordinance against the rampant sale of cultural land, the single reason for land related conflicts has remained a dream. The second colonial mistake, which is Acholis biggest asset, is their large swaths of fertile land, which the colonialist designated for growing only cotton and tobacco as cash crop, the two seasonal crops, which one has to plant on yearly basis. On the other hand Buganda region had coffee, which one plants only once and then harvest on yearly basis having been spared from yearly tilling of land to plant coffee. Although coffee growing is now being introduced in Acholi sub-region, it has yet to be embraced by the majority peasants who are also land owners, let alone planting at commercial level. It is very common to see large swaths of idle land in Acholi without being put in use for year in and year out; a fact that has attracted land grabbing and land related conflicts caused by massive unscrupulous sale of land. The third colonial mistake is the physique factor of an Acholi boy- tall, dark, well-built and honest. And because of their built-up, an Acholi is only fit to be in the forces; army, police and prison. It is well documented that the tribe received more coffins of politically engineered killings than any other tribe in the country since the Second World War to date. 2. Mistakes by the NRM By 2026, Ugandans will have been ruled by a single leader, General Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni for forty years- all his six predecessors having ruled for only 24 years combined. He ascended to power with the anti-Northerner (read Acholi) sentiments, used his military credentials to make sure his enemies are buried and should not rise again economically, socially and politically. The second big mistake was to destroy socio-economic infrastructures which were built by his arch enemy, the late Dr. Obote- the Cooperative Movement, the railway transport and Uganda Airlines in favor of free economy controlled by few connected cronies. We dont have to mention education and health sectors which are all rotting under his watch. I dont have to even talk about the rise of secularism, fake pastors using satanic power to derail our youths from restoring moral values; but instead we witness the promotion of boozing and wild living. Churches are nearly empty except for few urban churches. The Acholi is yet to feel the relief the Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo and the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Nobert Mao will play in the transition talks. We are yet to witness what those two midwives will do to suppress anger against the longest regime, or, the two will be like leaders before them- Jacob Oulanyah or Lt. General Paul Lokech. Fast forward to Saturday, October 01, 2022, eight days to the D-Day, Mega FM radio station where the Moderator, Stephen Balmoi, hosted The Secretary Manager of West Acholi Cooperative Union, Mr.Ogen Bob Albert, on its weekly Te-Yat (under the tree) to discuss the paradigm facing Acholi sub-region; abject poverty despite the availability of the most fertile, virgin and underutilized land resource. The program, which airs between 10.00 am to 12.00 noon, and where I was privilege to be a pioneer panelist on the program right from Radio Freedom days to around 2004 before misfortune struck me and I left the show, was initially meant to end the rebellions in the region since 1986 and bring development. The best question which came out, and which determined the angle the discussion was taking is; are co-operatives the magic bullet to drive Acholi out of poverty where report says stands at 68%? Is the chest thumbing in front of regional leaders necessary if not the quest to be the Center of Gravity of Africa? Objectivity and the Polish Question: Two Answers 14. 10. 2022 / Anna Muller, Jadwiga Biskupska cas cteni 20 minut In May 2021, Jill Massino and I organized a roundtable at the annual congress of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York. It was entitled The Benefits and Burdens of the Invisible Suitcase: Writing Contemporary History as an Outsider. Some of the greatest historians of the contemporary period are outsiders to their country of study, for instance Robert Paxton and Christopher Browning in the case of France and Germany during the Second World War. Outsider perspectives enhance, complement, and complicate existing narratives, and, as such, help to produce a more nuanced and complex portrait of the past. Yet our collective experience is that Western historians of communism in Central Europe struggle to establish their legitimacy among societies that remain attached to an ethnonationalist definition of identity. Also, many people believe that only contemporary witnesses are entitled to speak about contemporary history. This roundtable offered the accumulated experience of four scholars: Marci Shore, Jill Massino, Jan Culik, and Muriel Blaive. We reflected on the way in which our status has affected our research, our writing, and our reception. As a result, our round table also offered insight into the societies we are studying and into the stakes involved in the production of history. Britske listy has kindly offered us to publish our texts, as well as a few others on the part of colleagues who attended the panel and participated in a very lively discussion. Here is the second one from Anna Muller (University of Michigan-Dearborn) and Jadwiga Biskupska (Sam Houston State University). Muriel Blaive Previous piece: Marci Shore, Ostranenie, or the Epistemological Advantagesand Disadvantagesof Marginality Marci Shore, Ostranenie aneb Epistemologicke vyhody a nevyhody marginality Objectivity and the Polish Question: Two Answers Anna Muller Jadwiga Biskupska We, to begin in the first person plural, study modern Poland, a nation-state the history of which is intertwined with questions of who was and was not Polish. Those who have explained its history to outsiders have disproportionately been Polish, insiders to the project, familiar with its particulars. Polish historiography thus suffers and profits from an objectivity conundrum. We study it from fundamentally different and fluctuating perspectives. One of us is definitely Polish, and one of us is definitely not. Or, both of us might be or might have been. Anna Muller: I am a historian of modern Poland, born, raised, and educated in Poland. I grew up in 1980s Gdansk, then a provincial city in northern Poland. But, regardless of how provincial it was, Gdansk was also at the heart of the throbbing organism that was Poland in the last decades of socialism. Since the late 1970s, a certain historical dramamostly focused on the Manichean struggle between the regime and its opponentsunfolded in front of our eyes. The Solidarity movement that shook Gdansk in 1980 and later all of Poland led to what we might call a revolution of dignity, even though the term was coined much later and in a different context. My coming of age was hence accompanied by observations of this struggle for dignity and the sudden outburst of individual agency, both struggles framed by the concept of collective good. From that perspective, my resolve to study history was not a career decision but more of an existential search to understand the deep entanglements between history and individual lives. In many respects I was an insider: the historical and political debates that energized society and built our sense of citizenship as I was coming of age were also discussions of who I was, and who I was becoming. My first move to the United States, provided by the chance to enroll in a graduate program to earn a PhD, did not influence my identity much. But the more I belonged to American culture, the more I understood my colleagues and students lives and became privy to social problems that divide the United States, the more my perspective on what Polish history meant to me and how I read it began to change. Or perhaps I could frame this differently: the more I became engaged in American life, the more I stood somewhere in between Poland and the United States. I became an insider and an outsider in Poland, by virtue of not living there, of pondering with my students the weirdness of what had not appeared weird before, and of explaining to them problems that did not seem to need an explanation before. This crossing of boundaries, looking from the outside into a world that on the surface appeared as cozy as the inside of my own pocket, was a mobility that felt transgressive. This shifting challenged what I knew and why I was familiar with certain things and not others. Jadwiga Biskupska: I am also a historian of modern Poland, but in a very different way: Polish history is not my history in the way it is Anias. I am an outsider in Poland, and I will always be. Many Poles have welcomed me, fed me, commented on my Polish heritage with amusement, correcting (or ignoring) my many grammatical mistakes. Being an outsider means that I miss things and misinterpret others. I have to go more slowly and read more carefully; I have to listen more, and not just listen to respond; I have to think before I speak in a way I never do at home, where I am impulsive and quick to formulate opinions and arguments. Those barriers are real but overcoming them may make for worthwhile history in the end. Good history, I am more convinced every day, unfolds slowly, and is open to the evidence of the past rather than hurrying to make arguments about the present. I like the metaphor of being tied to Polish historythere is a connection there, an anchor of sorts. But I also like the metaphor of being pulled by Polish history, of the questions it asks, and their particular moral and political weight. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are filled with Polish historians who saw their historical work as a cause: Poland was a cause; Polish history was a cause. They did the work of narrating the past in order to create a future in which there was some sort of independent Poland. I am fascinated by that, but I am outside of it: I study Poland because I think it is interesting and strange, and because the answers Polish history offers to larger questions about nationalism, violence, war, and the durability of state projects are unique. My situation stems from the particular blessing of being an American, and having been raised and educated in a society in which everyone around me takes our statehood for granted. It makes me wonder all the more what it has been like to live in a society where such a blessing cannot be taken for granted. Being close enough to appreciate the strangeness of modern Polish history already implies a closeness to it, however: Polish history is not well integrated into European or global history (or even into the history of the Second World War, my specialty) and thus its insights often remain tangential to wider discourses. I can see that this is a problem and I want to help correct it. This doubled insider-outsider posture captures those who study places that are not their own, or who study from places not their own. The problem is not really a problem, though. Its an opportunity. Without it, perspectiveand especially the wide perspective that builds new narratives or is willing to reinterpret entire events, familiar characters, and epochsis impossible. AM: Every couple of years, I take students on a month-long study abroad program to Poland. We usually begin in Krakow and make our way north via odz, Warsaw, and Biaystok, to Gdansk. Over time I have come to realize that the feeling of being out of place, dealing with the sensory and emotional overload that comes with foreign travel and embracing the unfamiliar, is more important for my students than the encounter with Polish history. These students are usually first-generation college students who have not travelled much outside Michigan, where I teach, though many of them are of Polish origin. The trip teaches them about themselves and their own country as much or perhaps even more than the country they are visiting. It invites them to look at their own country from the outside. JB: So you bring your Polish-American students to Poland to teach them about Polish history and accidentally teach them...something else? And then you bring them home to Gdansk and discover that its not your home anymore? I dont think its a coincidence that your students and teaching sprang to mind during our discussion, though the combination of teaching and travel is especially transformational. To teach well is to shift perspectives, to take the position of someone who doesnt know and remember how it felt to be there. AM: These are important questions, but I will shift them a bit. Its not that Gdansk is not my home anymore, but that my perception of what home is has changed. Traveling is a form of mobility that offers opportunities, something that expands our imaginations and our capacity for empathysomething you just mentioned. Tim Cresswells On the Move discusses such mobility. On the one hand, mobility signifies progress and change. On the other, it remains suspicious since a sense of home and rootedness are fundamental human needs. To have roots in a place is to have a secure point from which to look out on the world, a firm grasp of ones own position in the order of things, and a significant spiritual and psychological attachment to somewhere in particular (p. 31.) Place organizes meaning. Mobility implies a lack of roots, loneliness. Migrants like me know the meaning of this loneliness only too well. But perhaps, as you suggest, we should look at being an outsider as an opportunity to look for new connections, for explanations about why we feel uncomfortable in new situationslike my students do in Poland. What drives us is the need to understand, to organize this thinking, to tame the unknown andfollowing Cresswells intuitionsto domesticate it, to put down roots.... JB: We are home-making creatures, arent we? Outsidersforeigners?can find a home in new spaces, and this is often about the hospitality of insiders, isnt it? Im not a migrant and not especially mobile. I moved to Texas to teach after graduate school. I am not a Texanyou have to be born in Texas to be a Texanbut Ive been welcomed here. It is, however, hard to move to a new place as an adult. You can rent a new apartment or buy a new house but its hard to build a new home. Raising the question of the insider-outsider bias, though, always makes me think of something very American and not at all Polish: the classic coming-of-age novel, S. E. Hintons The Outsiders. I read it as a teenagerthe same age the author was when she wrote itand its characters have stayed in my head. Its also a book about mobility and place finding: how teenage boys find and position themselves in society, and the enormous price they pay to do it. But, its a book written by a woman (S. E. is Susan Eloise) whose gender was obscured behind her initials, pitching her story as a universal one, rather than a matter of womens concerns. The story she wrote resonated with me before I had much sense of who she, or I, was. AM: The result of such mobility and re-positioning is never straightforward. Mobility is a kind of transgression; we move between places but also out of places. And perhaps we should put this on a spectrum, understanding that were considering a fluctuating way of seeing and being seen: you are never just an outsider or an insider. This idea of outsider placement and its potential for transgression reminds me of the conversation about the work of Joseph ConradJozef Konrad Korzeniowskiespecially his 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness. Conrad was born and raised in a family of Polish patriotsromantic revolutionariesin the Russian part of partitioned Poland, a Russian imperial subject. Orphaned at a young age, Conrad became a British sailor. He later wrote novels in English, his third language. The discussion around his work led to accusations of racism, especially in his treatment of African spaces. Indeed he was a racist. His intellectual and emotional horizons excluded the possibility of seeing Africans as subalterns that can speak, as Edward Said says of his work. And yet, despite his inability to recognize the full humanity of African natives, Said argues that it was precisely Conrads outsider positionperhaps his permanent outsider positionthat allowed him to undermine, to unsettle the empires he wrote about. It could have been his formative experience as a Russian subject, or his ongoing sense of discomfort in British imperial spaces that made him such a careful observer, but he remains someone who still helps us think through the human condition: where and how we can be at home in the world. This brings me back to the research for my first book, If the Walls Could Speak, which was based on interviews with women who were once prisoners in Stalinist Poland, another kind of imperial space. The women I spoke with treated me like their granddaughter, very much like an insider. And back then, I was comfortable with that position, perhaps too much so. The women saw me as someone coming from the USA, but who was still rooted in Poland. They gave me an insider role and I accepted it. The Ukrainian women I tried to interview treated me as a Polish insider as well and that did not translate into the same trust I had with my Polish interlocutors. It was language, I think, and the fact that I was born and educated in Poland, that made the Ukrainian women see me as Polish, i.e. different from them. Moreover, the fact that I lived in the States was irrelevant for both my Polish and Ukrainian interviewees but not for me. I think in this case I was aware of the dynamic between the outsider/insider status and I tried to proceed in the best possible way for my project. Being an insider seemed the best course then. Now I am not so sure anymore. Taking the position of outsider forces one to make space in order to question the obvious, or perhaps, following Ruth Behar, it means getting the native point of view without going native. Jadzia, your recent book examines the Warsaw intelligentsia during the Second World War. Would you have written it differently if you had been an insider? How does your own subject position structure your work? JB: I am glad you did the research you did because someone else could not have done it. I cant know if I would have written Survivors, my book, differently had I been raised in Poland. I assume so. I know that no Polish historian has written such a book, though I relied on the work of many scholars who preceded me to frame it. I think the questions I askedWhats really going on here? How does this society function under stress? What do these people really have the ability to do?are questions an outsider asks precisely because what is obvious internally is not obvious externally, as you mentioned. Ill note that timing matters: you became the honorary granddaughter of your research subjects; I did not. Mine, the wartime Warsaw intelligentsia, had by and large died before I began. The generation of those who fought in and endured the Second World War have died during our lifetimes, turning over a new responsibility to historians who now speak for them rather than to them. Because of their status as intelligentsianation-builders of a sorttheir stories were not lost in death. They wrote voluminously while they lived, becoming the first interpreters of the Nazi occupation they survived. I characterize such insiders as participant-analysts of the war, and they were both sources and interlocutors as I tried to understand the contours of occupation. We keep toying with this insider-outsider problem and havent come to clear conclusions, which is part of the fun. We also keep going in different directions because we ask different questions of the things that trouble us. Sometimes we are literally on the same page: our reading group just tackled Menachem Kaisers Plunder, a part-memoir and part-adventure story written by a Canadian Jewish author who goes to Poland to try and understand his grandfathers Holocaust experience and reclaim family real estate and finds... something else entirely. Hes not Polish but partly Polish and he is welcomed and not welcomed. Its a book on the authors family and a book on Polish history, but it raises more questions than it answers, and with a casualness and familiarity that academic historians rarely touch: what is the role of Polish-Jewish history in Polish history? What role do Polish Jews and their descendants want in Polish history? Who is the rightful narrator of Polish history? Can one write a Polish history in which the subject is theythem, the Polesas Kaiser does, and is that better than a book where the author could write in the first person, the insider historian perspective? Is that hostile, or objective? Family stories, Kaiser muses, are poor preservers of history...but theyre meant and relied on as preservation of soft information...of who someone was, and subsequently, who you are. (p. 169) Kaiser is of course thinking of his own family and its migration and shifting identity, but when you read the passage you think of your family and history, and you immediately think in the singular. Hes right, of course, about family narratives. Families tell themselves stories about their place in the world and this gives individuals a home, a place to be an insider. The details dont have to be right or objectively true to give meaning. Soft information is true, too. Such stories say I, but they often imply we They are a credo, their tenets are a matter of faith: we are a people who As a historian I must pause here: how big is a family? How big a group needs or wants such a credo? Is a nation a kind of family writ larger? Does it need a story that starts with we and in which the accuracy of the details matters less than the fact of sharing them? I think it might, and yet historians consider this sort of story-telling by and large illegitimate. We historians want to get the details right, too, and we worry about the consequences when the details are wrong. Kaiser, as a storyteller-historian, is an insider: he says we when referring to his own past, and he prioritizes soft over hard information. But at some point the historian has to shift to they in order to move beyond soft information. The insider may have a harder time negotiating this shift than those like me who start with they. But what do we lose in between? Ania, you are more comfortable with this in-between positioning than I am. I am still thinking about how your relationship with the women you interviewed has shifted. Youre currently writing a biography of a Polish-Jewish woman, and I know youve come to see similarities between her life trajectory and your own. You contextualize her within her family, but that family is not static. Where do you currently stand on the question of scholarly objectivity, of familiarity? Are you and Tonia na tyspeaking in familiar terms? AM: I love this question. Yes, Tonia and I are na ty in my imagination it is better in Polish: jestem na Ty Tonia Lechtman, the subject of my book, is a woman whose life spanned the short twentieth century and who was a perpetual migrantthough not of her own free will. As I composed her biography, I tried to reason with myself, arguing that if the subject had been a man, I would never have felt such familiarity. Maybe. Maybe not. But it was not only that: friends and colleagues who helped with my research in Switzerland and France slipped into calling me Tonia by accident. I am okay with that. I am not sure why, but I am trying to figure that out. This biography allows me to explore the complexity of her life and provide her specific answer to the overarching question of why wewe historiansare pulled to certain topics, to certain subjects, to historical figures that become our heroes, our friends, or at least the sort of people we would like to have a coffee with. ToniaI call her by her first name, as we are now so well acquaintedherself transgressed borders and categories, political and intellectual: she was a Pole, Jew, Communist, migrant, refugee, mother, widow, Holocaust survivor. Most of her life she tried to fit in, looking at Poland from the outside. My role in trying to understand her lifethrough reading her correspondence, getting to know her childrenis very much what Jadzia describes as an in-between positioning. Let me offer one final thought: perhaps the best we can do is to be transparent about who we are and where we are coming from, whether that is Poland, the United States, somewhere in between, or somewhere else entirely. Where we come from structures the way we approach our research. Each story, each argument is built from a certain angle, and one way or another we become authors and analysts of, but also participants in, the stories we write. 0 Student Union President Peyton Gillespie 25 is just getting started Gillespie '25 spoke with BrandeisNow about his goals as president, hopes for the year, and advice for people interested in student government. In an election sent to the entire student body in the spring of 2022, Peyton Gillespie 25 won the vote for Student Union president. He didnt waste any time before making an impact on campus. Gillespie, a politics and international global studies major, has always had a passion for leadership. Growing up in Hawaii he served as the vice president of the Maui District Student Council Organization, a student-run group that facilitated communication between the 45 public, chartered, and private high schools in Maui County. He was drawn to Brandeis University because of its small campus community, Jewish values, and opportunities for social activism. Gillespie spoke with BrandeisNow about his goals as president, hopes for the year, and advice for people interested in student government. Are there any initiatives youre leading that you are most excited about? We are leading a lot of changes on campus. One of the initiatives I am most passionate about, as it was the number one policy we focused our campaign on, is improving menstrual equity on campus. Our goal is to have more buildings on campus providing free menstrual products. We recently sent a survey to the student body, asking people to share locations on campus that lacked menstrual products. Savannah Jackson 22 compiled a 29-page report from the several hundred responses we received. This data outlined the need for free, accessible products on campus. Our first step is to distribute money from the Community Enhancement Emergency Fund to pilot this initiative, starting with free dispensers in the first-year halls. This will act as a proof of concept to the University that free menstrual products should be implemented in all high traffic buildings on campus. Weve already started conversations with campus administrators to learn more about the next steps in moving this project forward. Weve received a positive response, so were excited to move forward on this project. What are a few important challenges for you? In addition to focusing on menstrual equity, equity in diversity and inclusion, sustainability, and accessibility on campus, we have also added three new positions to address specific major issues. Hannah Miller 25 is our new director of accessibility, working as a liaison between Student Accessibility Support and the student body to improve the accessibility on campus. Monica Apointe 23 is our new director of sexual assault awareness on campus. We created this position because we believe this is a national health crisis that is prevalent on every campus. Were trying to spread awareness and provide students with resources. Finally, we appointed Sophia Reiss '23 to our additional new position, in-house counsel. Our constitution and bylaws are not perfect and have flaws. I am not a fan of saying, this is how we have always done this. Weve created this position to improve our procedures, create new amendments, and to prevent time consuming issues. How would you describe the team atmosphere among the student union branches? We have four other branches of the Student Union that people can get involved with: the senate, judiciary, treasury, and allocations Board. When youre in a room with 15 to 20 people debating major issues it can become tense. We havent had that happen because were working with lighthearted people who are willing to have difficult conversations. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, which provides a well rounded perspective. Were lucky to have such great people in every branch of our student government. How do you manage expectations from the student body? Were working diligently to maintain accountability and transparency with the student body. In addition to following up with all emails and personal requests, we will be implementing town hall discussions starting with our first one on October 20th at 7:30pm in the SCC Multipurpose Room. We want to share what we are working on and provide a space for students to ask questions. We will also be inviting administrators to speak. Being face to face just provides a different experience than email. We want to be warm and inviting, as it is our job to connect with students in a meaningful way. What advice would you give to a student looking to get involved with student government? I would firstly say that not its not just politics majors and those interested in working in the government that get involved. The student government is formed of people who are interested in making a difference on campus and want to make Brandeis feel like home. Its important to have people who are working to improve life on campus. It will never be perfect, nor will any school, but we can put our best efforts towards making college life more equitable. If any of that is interesting, then I highly recommend getting involved in any of the five branches of the student union. There are so many ways to be in the room where it happens. We have room for everyone in the community across all majors, backgrounds, and ideologies. Tedashii releases deeply reflective EP, 'This Time Around 2' and new single "Holy Ground" | Jackie O & Co. LLC Rapper, public speaker, podcast host, and founding member of the 116 Movement, Tedashii, is releasing a new EP, This Time Around 2, on October 14th. The album features Jon Keith, Big Breeze, Zach Paradis, and Reach Records label mates: Lecrae, Trip Lee, and 1K Phew."This Time Around 2 is the outcome of deep self-reflection, a new beginning, and a call to listeners to witness the transformation that is available on the other side if you're willing to do the work and surrender yourself to God," shares Tedashii. Tedashii's special sauce lies in his distinctive style and ability to transfer pain and struggle into poignant music. Nicknamed TDot, the Texas-born and raised emcee has captivated fans with his energetic sound and booming voice for nearly two decades. His latest project, This Time Around 2, picks up where the original released in 2016 left off and this time around he brings even more wisdom into his music from hard-earned lessons learned. "I talk about what I have lived and not what I've learned from reading. As a result, I have a renewed sense of awareness and am constantly working on loving myself and pushing forward through insecurities." In advance of This Time Around 2, Tedashii has released several singles and music videos including: "Mirror Talk," "OBJ," and Respect My Team" featuring label mates, Lecrae and Trip Lee and the latest "Holy Ground" directed by Dustbrandfilms. "Wherever I go, God is with me! As a matter of fact, as someone who is made in the image of God, and one who believes that God is the Creator of everything, where I step because he is with me is Holy Ground so I treat life and the world as such. I walk in and show up as my true self knowing Im on Holy Ground," shares Tedashii. "Mirror Talk is a very confessional song. It's honest, vulnerable, transformative, and reflects some very personal struggles that I've navigated through," shares Tedashii. "In the first verse of "Mirror Talk," I talk about my struggles with mental health, self-esteem, identity,and even the fear of not fitting in. The second verse talks about my experience as a Black Man in the world at large and the conclusions I've come to trying to navigate through white Christian spaces." "Respect My Team," marks the first time that he, Lecrae, and Trip Lee have recorded together since "Nothing I Can't Do," released on his 2014 album, Below Paradise. The heartfelt lyrics on the "Respect My Team" speak to the brotherhood between Tedashii, Lecrae, and Trip Lee that launched the 116 Movement and the Romans 1:16 verse which is at the core of Reach Records' mantra and mission. "I'm always super excited to record new music with Trip Lee and Lecrae. We've been friends and label mates for nearly two decades; they're some of my favorite artists. So, to create new music together is super exciting!" The Texas natives also include a chopped & screwed version of the song on the EP. In the comedic action music video for Respect My Team, which casts Tedashii, Lecrae, and Trip Lee, as Blaxploitation era detectives taking down villains, the three icons go deep undercover and into character. "Some of my favorite films growing up were Kung-Fu flicks," shares Tedashii. "When I was a kid, I watched Kung-Fu theater every Saturday! I watched everything from Bruce Lee to The Heroic Trio and was a superfan of Jim Kelly, and Chuck Norris. I was such a huge fan of karate flicks that I started taking martial arts as a kid, so many of the moves you see me doing in the video come from my childhood. I still watch Kung Fu flicks to this day!" In between recording the new music, TDot launched a new podcast called The Dash which is in its second season. "The goal of The Dash is to hold a mirror up to myself and invite guests on to have a real conversation about the reflections we see in our mirrors and how we're living out our dash. We're all created with unique gifts connected to our life purpose. Our conversations will explore the journey we're on, the things we've learned, and even what we're changing to become reflections of God," shares Tedashii. He's also formed a nonprofit foundation, The Chase Foundation, in honor of his one-year-old son, Chase, who passed away in 2012. "After the sudden death of my son, Chase, I was dealing with panic attacks every week and had bouts of anxiety and depression. I started self-medicating, drinking, and isolating myself for safety and ended up in a self-degrading cycle. I was clinically depressed, and after years of self-analysis, therapy, prayer, and time alone with God, I am finally ready to show my scars, despite their ugliness," he explains. "The loss and pain will always be there, but I'm feeling healthy again. Through The Chase Foundation, I hope to walk with young people the same way I walked with Chase had he still been with us. The Chase Foundation will also help connect parents who have lost a child with resources to assist them as they grieve." With new music on the horizon, producing and hosting season two of The Dash podcast, and even forming a nonprofit, Tedashii, is taking this time around to share his renewed relationship with God through his music. "My renewed vision for this music is to show people the risk of trusting God with the things we go through. But, it's worth it, and if you can hope, you can eventually heal. About Tedashii Anderson Tedashii Lavoy Anderson is an artist, public speaker, podcast/radio host, and founding member of Reach Records' 116 Movement. Born in East Texas, he has lived throughout The Lone Star state and currently lives in Atlanta, GA. His name, Tedashii, is a Japanese name that means faithful, righteous, and true. He has released five albums: Never Fold, Below Paradise, Blacklight, Identity Crisis, Kingdom People, and one EP, This Time Around, on Reach Records. Below Paradise debuted at No. 17 on the coveted Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart. Blacklight debuted at No. 2 on the iTunes Hip-Hop chart and No. 8 on the iTunes overall album chart. Identity Crisis charted No. 2 on the Gospel Billboard chart and No. 9 on the Christian Billboard chart. His hit track "Dum Dum" was featured on the Fox TV Series So You Think You Can Dance, and he has performed on the top-selling 2016 Winter Jam Spectacular Tour. He won "Best Lyric" presenter at the 2016 K-LOVE Awards and performed "Jumped Out The Whip" at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards. He featured on Lecrae's GRAMMY award-winning album Gravity and has over 631K cumulative followers on social media. Warhol died in 1987, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts assumed ownership of his work. When Prince died in 2016, Vanity Fairs parent company, Conde Nast, published a special issue celebrating his life. It paid the foundation $US10,250 to use a different image from the series for the cover. Goldsmith received no money or credit. Litigation followed, much of it focused on whether Warhol had transformed Goldsmiths photograph. The Supreme Court has said a work is transformative if it adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message. Some justices suggested Warhols work had cleared that bar. A ruling for Goldsmith would strip protection not just from the Prince series but from countless works of modern and contemporary art. Roman Martinez, lawyer for the Warhol foundation Its not just that Warhol has a different style, Chief Justice John Roberts said. Its that, unlike Goldsmiths photograph, Warhol sends a message about the depersonalisation of modern culture and celebrity status. He added: One is the commentary on modern society. The other is to show what Prince looks like. Kagan said Warhols success was evidence that his work added to the meaning of his source materials. Loading Why do museums show Andy Warhol? she asked. They show Andy Warhol because he was a transformative artist, because he took a bunch of photographs and he made them mean something completely different. And people look at Elvis and people look at Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor and Prince, and they say this has an entirely different message from the thing that started it all off. But Justice Samuel Alito said judges might not make good art critics. How is a court to determine the purpose of meaning, the message or meaning of works of art like a photograph or a painting? he asked Roman Martinez, a lawyer for the Warhol foundation, adding, You make it sound simple, but maybe its not so simple. Other justices peppered Martinez with sceptical questions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the photographer and the artist had competed in the same market. In a series of 16 images, Warhol altered the photograph in various ways, notably by cropping and colouring it to create what his foundations lawyers described as a flat, impersonal, disembodied, mask-like appearance. Credit:AP They both sell photographs to magazines, she said, and they both sell photographs to magazines to display Princes vision or Princes look. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned whether Warhol had to use Goldsmiths image of Prince. Warhol didnt need Goldsmiths particular photo, right? she asked. I mean, it could have been a different photo of Prince. Martinez said the case did not turn on whether Warhol had alternatives, and he urged the justices to consider the consequences of their ruling. A ruling for Goldsmith, he said, would strip protection not just from the Prince series but from countless works of modern and contemporary art. Lisa S. Blatt, a lawyer for Goldsmith, said it was not enough to say that Warhol is a creative genius who imbued other peoples art with his own distinctive style. Spielberg did the same for films and Jimi Hendrix for music, she said. Those giants still needed licences. She added that a ruling for Warhol would create mayhem in the marketplace. Copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats, she said. Anyone could turn Darth Vader into a hero or spin off All in the Family into The Jeffersons without paying the creators a dime. Loading Last year, in a case about computer code, Justice Stephen Breyers majority opinion appeared to say that the fair-use defence to copyright claims might apply to Warhols images of Campbells Soup cans and similar works. An artistic painting might, for example, fall within the scope of fair use even though it precisely replicates a copyrighted advertising logo to make a comment about consumerism, Breyer wrote, quoting a treatise. Those who argue against the increasing prevalence of insecure work point to the fact that the proportion of casuals, while having bounced around, is basically the same as it was in the early 1990s, and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is currently hovering just above 23 per cent. Melbourne University labour economist Mark Wooden also raises the low unemployment and underemployment rates as a pulse check for broad security in the labour market. Credit: The government is yet to come up with a catch-all for its job insecurity agenda, most likely to do with the varied nature of its application, which will make distilling it as an object of the Fair Work Act more difficult. Meanwhile, the pandemic highlighted an obvious constant: some 2.4 million Australians have no safety net when they are unable to go to work; and a ready-made solution - provide them with sick pay. The digestibility of the problem, and the solution, meant it got significant mainstream attention. Now the Greens, who have new sway over industrial relations policy with 12 senators in the upper house, are calling for casuals to be given such entitlements, as is the National Tertiary Education Union, which represents staff in an industry with unexpectedly high levels of casualisation. United Workers Union national secretary Tim Kennedy says, its clear that with the enormous number of people in the workforce now categorised as casual, there needs to be a rethink around provision of paid leave for this type of employment. Even ACTU secretary Sally McManus opened the door to a debate when asked about it at her National Press Club address last month. I think there is a bigger discussion that we absolutely would like to have with the community on whether our current settings are correct on that, she said, adding such a discussion would include the issue of so many people not having sick leave. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke staked his position on ABCs Insiders in July when he said, Im worried that if you go down that path youre effectively giving up. I must say Im much more interested in how we can promote secure work and get more people into secure jobs than just redefining everything about casual employment, Burke said, in the same answer clarifying the governments version of secure work as part-time and full-time. Gerard Hayes, national president of the Health Services Union, agrees. In an executive resolution on Thursday, the ACTU urged the government to change workplace laws to reduce the number of workers without paid leave, however clarified that this should occur by reducing reliance on workers such as casuals. You can dismiss a casual worker fairly easily, and thats obviously very helpful to an employer when times arent so good. Melbourne University labour economist Mark Wooden The government wants to achieve this by creating a more objective test for casual workers to make it harder for bosses to decide, and clamp down on rolling fixed-term contracts, while Burke in opposition also criticised current casual conversion laws as weak. The obvious aim here being against further entrenching casualisation. Casuals will already be included in the governments plans to give all workers 10 days paid domestic violence leave. Its hard to argue against the virtue of this. Clearly, giving them more entitlements boosts their level of security. Economist and director for the Australia Institutes Centre for Future Work Jim Stanford says its better for casuals to have sick pay: Better for them, and better for society. Makes sense. It doesnt solve the bigger problem of insecure work, but it is certainly a positive step, and I would not say it undermines the broader effort to improve job security, Stanford says. Professor John Buchanan of the University of Sydney Business School agrees, underscoring its importance from a public health point of view. But we shouldnt fool ourselves that its turning them into secure workers. And heres the crunch point. Wooden says casuals are casuals precisely because they can be let go at any time. You can dismiss a casual worker fairly easily, and thats obviously very helpful to an employer when times arent so good. On this, all three experts are in step that, despite giving casual rights usually bestowed to people in full-time positions, it doesnt fundamentally change the insecure nature of their work, which is, they may not have a job the next week. Buchanan believes Burke has grounds to be cynical, saying the risk is further entrenching a class of worker with less power. But he also calls for pragmatism. Loading The kind of workforce we have now has been 30 or 40 years in the making; theres a lot of workers and employers now who think this is the way of the world, he says, adding, importantly, it could even serve as a disincentive for employers to lean on that type of worker in the future. If that is the governments goal, then perhaps it should look at it through the same prism as it does its Same Job, Same Pay policy, which aims to reduce the use of labour hire arrangements by asserting that all workers employed to do the same task are given equal wages. As the European winter approaches and the energy crisis caused by Russias terrible war sets in, the smog in Poland grows progressively worse as households burn their own garbage for heat. Last month, Polish politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski told his Law & Justice Party supporters they must do whatever it takes to keep warm, Bloomberg reported. One needs to burn almost everything, except for tires and similarly harmful things, he said at a rally. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Credit:AP But it is not just trash darkening the skies. Across Europe, demand for the worlds oldest energy source, wood, is soaring and there are reports of hoarding and theft. Firewood is the new gold, a German man told the Washington Post. While waste and wood will keep some households warm, they will not sustain energy grids or industry. To do that, Europe, which has long led the world in efforts to tackle climate change, is turning back to energy sources that are rapidly warming the earth coal and gas. In many cases, they are stripping away environmental regulations in their haste to do so. We dont feel spirited, says Hof, whose bestselling book, The Wim Hof Method has just been re-released in paperback. He argues that too much time spent thinking instead of doing and too many comforts mean that there is less blood flow to parts of the brain, like the limbic system and the deep brain, which are connected to the strength of our immune system and cardiovascular system. We have weakened our physiology, which is connected to our brain. And the deeper brain gets less blood flow on a chronic basis, and it is resulting logically into stress and the deregulation of our immune system. The shock of the cold shower sparks an adrenaline spike and, when it is accompanied by breathing techniques to oppose the fight or flight response to the cold, it resets the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, Hof says. Thats why I say cold shower a day keeps the doctor away. Going out of the comfort zone in ice baths regularly brings the blood flow and the neural activity to the deepest parts of the brain. This doesnt mean we have to live in discomfort, he stresses. Nor do we need to do what he has done and climb Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, swim underneath ice for 66 meters, or sit in a container while covered with ice cubes for more than 112 minutes. No, that was my soul search, says Hof, whose wife and the mother of four of his children died by suicide in 1995. But what came out of it, after scientific trials, is that simple techniques are able to activate our deeper physiology... And just by using the will, we can steer the deeper physiological mechanisms inside the body much better. And he adds, hands gesticulating: Then you come alive, and then you feel energy. Wim Hof: Going to extremes. Frank Marino is a professor of Applied Physiology at Charles Sturt University. He says the physiology is interesting. That said, there simply isnt enough evidence to conclude that the Wim Hof Method is something that should be practised. Marino adds that although some studies indicate that cold exposure might benefit the inflammatory system, there are reports of people dying from attempting the method. Experts suggest checking with your doctor first and making sure you dont swim in cold water alone. Hof says that, as with any acute stressful exercise, people have to start slowly. He suggests 15 seconds of cold at the end of your hot shower, then building up very slowly to two minutes. If you go to two minutes, then that means youll get a full adaptation of your cardiovascular system. Loading Professor Tony Blazevich from the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University, says cold triggers brown adipose tissue, increasing blood glucose uptake, which might be helpful in people with diabetes or pre-diabetes, or those trying to improve their general health. He also says that repeated exposures to cold seem to improve immune function, but he adds: Theres still a lot of work to do to better understand the conditions under which cold stress might prove most effective, the optimal dosing required for success, whether its effective in all people or rather in those with lower immune function. One study of 3000 people in the Netherlands found that the duration mattered less than doing it at all. Those who took a daily cold shower of 30, 60 or 90 seconds for one month were 29 per cent less likely to take sick leave from work than those who had warm showers. The same study found that those who had cold showers reported an increase in energy, while separate research suggests that the high density of cold receptors in the skin, means a cold shower can stimulate electrical impulses from those nerve endings to the brain, which could have an anti-depressive effect. Still, as some researchers have pointed out, given the nature of the intervention, it is difficult to determine whether the benefits are the result of a placebo effect. Hof, who is also an advocate of fasting and exercise to reset within is undeterred. He tells me, at his centre in The Netherlands, they are about to begin a trial using cold therapy with children who have cancer to see if it increases their white blood cells. He is also coming to Australia in November for brain scans with controversial neurosurgeon, Dr Charlie Teo, in the hope of demonstrating that his method willfully brings blood flow and neural activity into different parts of the brain. Though there is mounting evidence that is promising, more is needed to go beyond the speculation and anecdotes. Hof, however, insists that the results speak for themselves. Only now people are becoming receptive. And they go into the cold water, they do breathing, and they see quite incredible results its spreading mouth-to-mouth because if something works, it just spreads. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size On December 5, 2016, police agents entered a dockyard at the Port of Cartagena on Colombias Caribbean coast, searching for a shipping container labelled CAIU8547. It was the latest phase of the previously unpublicised Operation Chinos, in which Colombian law enforcement agencies, working on intelligence supplied by the Australian Federal Police, were attempting to crack a global cocaine trafficking ring. The container held a seemingly routine cargo: 100 metal drums, each containing 55 gallons of palm oil, destined for export to Spain. But each drum had a false bottom, with compartments holding a total of 212 kilograms of cocaine. Cocaine was hidden inside a compartment with barrels containing palm oil. Credit:AFP It was the largest seizure from a syndicate that had previously exported shipments of cocaine bound for Australia, Hong Kong and Europe on at least three occasions. The previous year, AFP surveillance alerted Colombian authorities to a dragonfruit shipment destined for Hong Kong. Acting on the information, customs officers in Hong Kong painstakingly sliced open nearly 2000 dragonfruit, and discovered that 98 of them had been injected with liquid cocaine. Advertisement A dozen members of the Chinese-Colombian syndicate were identified, but it wasnt until 2021 that enough evidence was gathered to issue arrest warrants. The dragonfruit shipment from Colombia containing 15kg of liquid cocaine. Credit:AFP Two days after the warrants were issued, three members of the syndicate Abeline Quintero Garzon, alias Pepe, Davier Quintero Garzon, and Hermides Quintero Garzon were killed by FARC dissidents in the Caqueta district, on the edge of the Amazon jungle. The brutal world in which AFP officers are working is exposed in a huge cache of emails and documents hacked from the Attorney-Generals department of Colombia, and revealed in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Friday. The AFP said it is assessing the risks caused by the exposure of sensitive data in the leak, which was carried out by a group of hackers named Guacamaya. The AFP was unaware of the hack until alerted by this masthead on October 4. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was briefed about the hack and responded to questions on Friday by saying: we dont talk about AFP operations, and that is the appropriate response that I would give. The material, which contains the identities of secret agents, surveillance methods and other sensitive information, had been made available by Guacamaya on a password-protected database since August. Advertisement The AFP is working with our partners in impacted regions to mitigate any potential threats to the safety of people, or ongoing investigations, an AFP spokesperson said. The AFP is working with international partners to support Colombias law enforcement efforts to safeguard their computer systems. Altogether, the AFP was involved in 220 operations stopping drugs from reaching Australia last year. A joint operation led by the AFP resulted in the charging of six people and interception of a large amount of cocaine off the NSW coast in February 2017. Credit:AFP Its activities do not just involve the drug trade. The leaked documents also show the AFP was investigating gold exports from Colombia, and in 197 cases the destination was Australia, the 10th most common place for these exports in 2020. Revenues from these operations fuel guerilla groups like the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which increasingly rely on illegally mined gold to fill their coffers as an ounce of gold sells for more than an ounce of cocaine. A report from the (Colombian Army) Vulcan task force detailed a raid on a cocaine lab in 2021, where members of the ELN, Colombias largest leftist guerilla group, were guarding the lab. Advertisement The [army] unit, through an eight-day infiltration, surprised members of the armed force who were securing and processing cocaine, leaked documents show. Armed groups outside the law, such as the ELN, dissidents of the FARC, among others, greatly hinder the actions of the control organisations of the Colombian state, a leaked email said. About 70 per cent of Australias serious and organised crime threats are based offshore or have strong offshore links, highlighting the need for the AFPs long-standing and continued investment in its international network, a spokesman for the federal police said. Vessel Afalina seized by a French Navy frigate with 1500kg of cocaine on board. Credit:ACIC In 2017, French police found 1500 kilograms of cocaine in the hull of a boat near Noumea, New Caledonia. The boat was controlled by an Eastern European drug trafficking organisation and loaded with cocaine in Peru to sail to Lord Howe Island, where the drugs would be loaded onto a second ship bound for Australia. Four crew members, all from Eastern Europe, were arrested. Following a multinational investigation, the AFP determined the drugs were headed to an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia. Despite the seizure, between 2017 and 2019 the group attempted several importations by boat from South America to Australia. However, due to navigation conditions and the fact that the criminal group noticed law enforcement interest in the vessels, the voyages were repeatedly delayed. Advertisement In 2020, two ships owned by the group were ready to go with up to two tonnes of cocaine, but because both boats had been identified by European law enforcement agencies as suspicious the voyage was cancelled. Another AFP operation featured the seizure of 500 kilograms of cocaine and the arrest of two men in Sydney who were allegedly planning to import it. Phone taps attempted to link two alleged Chinese kingpins of the syndicate to the drugs, but the operation was cancelled due to a lack of evidence. Most cocaine shipments to Australia are ultimately traced back to Colombia, where corruption and coca leaf cultivation still flourish. While Colombia and Peru are US partners, coca cultivation and cocaine production in those countries are at all-time high levels, US analysis shows. Loading Coca cultivation in Colombia and Peru again reached record levels. Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the first-, second- and third-largest cocaine source countries in the world, continuing an established trend, a 2022 report found. Advertisement One of Sydneys wealthiest private schools has unveiled its $125 million building revamp including an aquatic centre, a theatre and a basement car park amid a construction boom in the independent school sector. Cranbrooks new sandstone encased five-storey building, which includes 25 classrooms, a double-height orchestra room, a 267-seat theatre, a chapel, an indoor Olympic-sized pool and a gymnasium, is set to be opened by NSW Governor Margaret Beazley on Saturday. Cranbrooks new building includes 25 new classrooms, an aquatic centre and a double-height orchestra room. Credit:Brook Mitchell School council president Jon North said parents and old boys at the century-old Anglican school, which plans to admit girls from 2026, donated at least $25 million for the upgrade. More than a dozen private schools including Meriden School, Newcastle Grammar and Trinity Grammar are planning multimillion-dollar building projects as institutions overhaul older buildings or expand as they increase enrolment caps and bolster student numbers. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size A blood-stained turquoise shirt. A rifle between his knees. A dark silence over the 13,000 hectare cattle property in central Queensland. Samuel Palm wears blue Wrangler jeans with a brown leather belt, brown lace-up Ariat boots and a turquoise shirt, embroidered with Heytesbury Cattle Company Flora Valley Station above the left chest pocket. It is normal attire for the 19-year-old bushie who, in his last messages to his mother, texted about a tractor on the property. Hed set his alarm for 4am. Always ready for work. Except that day. On January 13, 2019, Sam didnt show up for work. Something was wrong. His boss knew. He had driven up to the station at lunchtime to look for Sam. There, at the top of Tooloombah Stations breezeway steps, his body lay. Advertisement According to the autopsy, the 19-year-old had a gunshot wound to the middle of his forehead above the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows. The force caused multiple skull and upper facial fractures. His boss found some remains about 20 metres from the steps. Police soon told his mother, Jacqueline McCamley, it was suicide. But there was additional DNA on the gun. Jacqueline says as far as the police and central coroner are concerned, her sons death is closed, an open-and-shut case. It was about an hour ... It was very soon that they knocked on my door and they said suicide. Advertisement But with a probe into the states DNA testing procedures shaking Queenslanders faith, hundreds of cases are being retested and remain under a cloud. Jacqueline has called for the DNA found on the weapon to be retested. Sam was in the process of taking over Tooloombah Station, near Rockhampton. The coroner discounted other DNA on the trigger, saying that Sam would have loaned his gun to other people, she says. Thats not an assumption he can make. Gun laws are very strict and Sam, you know, followed the gun laws meticulously. So it wasnt right for the coroner to reach that assumption, to discount that DNA. When scientist Angelina Keller, of the Queensland Health and Forensic Scientific Services lab, tested the trigger of the Remington 783 rifle, she found Sams DNA. Advertisement And the possibility of other DNA. This DNA profile indicates the possible presence of additional low-level DNA below the reportable threshold of Forensic DNA Analysis, she writes in her report. Jacqueline McCamley says her son was a truly remarkable young man. This possible additional low-level DNA was not used for comparison purposes, and in my opinion, does not interfere with the interpretation of this DNA profile. Kellers lab is now the centre of a state inquiry, which is assessing the testing standards at the facility. Commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC has already found testing changes made by the lab misled police and courts about DNA analysis results, potentially allowing those accused of major crimes such as murder, rape and assault to wrongfully walk free. Two senior staff have already been stood down as part of the probe, which has heard of a significant breakdown in the relationship between the Queensland Police and the lab, as police questioned test results. Advertisement Associate professor Carney Matheson, who specialises in forensic DNA analysis, says there is a chance, although slight, to trace DNA in small samples. Some laboratories have validated their DNA testing to very low quantities of DNA, likewise many laboratories in Australia and New Zealand regularly test below the thresholds determined in their validation, he says. That means theres a chance they can get a DNA profile from smaller quantities of DNA. Matheson says while he was not familiar with how often DNA profiles were able to be generated below the threshold levels in samples tested by Queensland Health Forensic Scientific Services, in Canada, where he previously worked and operated forensic laboratories where validation had established lower thresholds, he rarely ever saw that happen. I cant even tell you how many times a DNA profile could be generated below the threshold - I may have seen it twice out of a few hundred cases but our thresholds were lower. Its not that difficult to get a very low-level background of DNA from crime scene samples when the testing is so sensitive. Advertisement Ireland used a citizens assembly to deal with an issue so inflammatory that no government wanted to approach it directly abortion. Same-sex marriage and abortion are now legal in Ireland, and it happened with a minimum of rancour. Today Ireland is running a citizens assembly on biodiversity loss and another on how to structure the local government of Dublin. Not every issue is suitable for a citizens assembly for example, you could do whether to use nuclear energy, but not on how to design a nuclear plant, suggests OLeary. After speaking to audiences in 18 countries in the past four months, OLeary says theres a hunger everywhere for more citizens engagement. So hungry that Colombia had to cancel one recently because 5000 people turned up, overwhelming the organisers. Its a case of, I have something to say, and no one is listening citizens assemblies are a counter to this feeling of disenfranchisement, its a global phenomenon. The citizens assembly is an idea inspired by ancient Athenian democracy where every male citizen over 20 had an automatic right to vote in the assembly. The modern version enjoyed a burst of popularity in the 1980s and a serious resurgence since 2010, so much so that the OECD studied almost 300 citizens assemblies from around the world and drew up a set of guidelines in a 2020 report titled Catching the Deliberative Wave. A citizens assembly or constitutional assembly - doesnt displace a countrys parliament. It doesnt have the power to make laws or allocate budgets. But it does seek to guide a legislature. In Irelands case, the government and parliament have kept close control. A representative sample of about 100 to 150 citizens is chosen to meet on weekends, over a number of months, supported by a secretariat, and study an issue closely. They are given objective briefings on the subject and then presented with the arguments from advocates on all sides of an issue. The group then discusses the problem and reports its recommendations to the parliament. In Irelands case, transparency is key. Plenary sessions are broadcast and live-streamed and journalists are present at the back of the room. The government commits to responding to every recommendation and explaining why its accepting or rejecting each. The attraction? This approach removes the political partisanship, entrenched positions and vested-interest lobbying from the deliberative process. It turns out that a well-run citizens assembly can not only add to public understanding of an issue but also to public trust in any eventual government action. OLeary came to Australia not to proselytise but to learn. Hes been tasked with creating a new institution for Ireland an independent election authority. He says this is the best place in the world to learn how to do it. The Australian Electoral Commission is the gold standard, he tells me. But, along the way, hes spoken to a number of audiences about citizens assemblies. Including the Albanese governments Assistant Minister for the Republic, Matt Thistlethwaite. OLeary argues that a citizens assembly would be perfect for dealing with the question of whether and how Australia should hold a referendum on becoming a republic: Its big and national with lots of options. It would provide time and space for everybody to give their opinion and talk respectfully. Illustration: John Shakespeare. Credit: Thistlethwaite is interested: We are considering it for the republic, particularly as a means of educating Australians about the issue and trying to come to a consensus about the model, he tells me. Im deeply conscious that the monarchists in the 1999 referendum called it a politicians model. Looking at the facts, hearing from both sides, making recommendations to government without politicians involvement its definitely worth considering, Thistlethwaite says. A big issue will be explaining to younger people; theyre looking for more transparency and accountability in the way government operates. I think this is a great way to look at an issue, engage Australians and give them a voice. If we used it, wed use it as a consultative body with recommendations and advice to government. The federal government has said it will consider holding a referendum on this in the next term of parliament. Loading More immediate is the question of whether to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, enshrined in the constitution. The Albanese government has promised to bring this referendum to the people during the term of the current parliament. The Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has carriage of this. Could a citizens assembly be useful? It has potential value, she tells me. Its potentially a very good idea, but I havent considered it seriously. One step at a time. The government already has announced a consultation process for the Voice referendum. Is it not too late to add another step? No, not at all, says Burney. She didnt meet OLeary on his Australian visit this week but said she wanted to speak with him. OLeary says its important that a countrys first national citizens assembly should succeed. Many fail. Design is all. In Irelands case, its first constitutional convention on same-sex marriage comprised 66 citizens and 33 politicians. Loading A citizens assembly including politicians? There was good and bad, reports OLeary. The bad was trying to enforce equal voice: We had a job to shut down the minister to give the bus driver a say. The good was that the parliament had a sense of ownership when the assemblys report arrived. Plus, the experience improved the peoples impressions of politicians: People said the politicians were more knowledgeable than theyd suspected, and they worked a lot harder they work all the time. Another surprise bonus from one citizens assembly? A woman who thanked the organisers for choosing her husband for a group hed started watching the news and reading the papers and they were having much more interesting conversations at dinner. Jen, who requested her surname not be published due to her involvement with the SES, said she felt let down. She was door-knocked shortly before her unit was flooded. I didnt get an alert until after 6 this morning, she said. I didnt take as much stuff as I would have. Another SES volunteer, who did not want to be named, said he was appalled when he went to pick up sandbags from the collection point at Bunnings on Thursday and saw hardly any other residents there. He said not enough homes near the river were door-knocked and many residents were asleep when 4am evacuation messages were sent. But authorities said the waters surged much faster than modelling had predicted. SES incident controller John Bates said modelling was complicated, involving predicting rainfall, catchment mapping and tides. They knew something was coming, but ... the scale of it was more certainly than I was aware of, Bates said. It just came up really fast. And surprisingly fast to all of us. He explained the Maribyrnong catchment was like a funnel which collected water from other regions. The water levels we got coincided with high tide down in the bay so what you end up with is water coming down and water pushing back up and it grows very, very quickly, Bates said. Asked if the modelling could be improved, he said: We are always learning. At least 60 Maribyrnong homes were flooded and 60 boat rescues carried out, Bates said. He expected affected residents would be able to return to inspect their homes on Saturday. Local federal MP Bill Shorten expected the federal government would be able to offer disaster relief payments from Sunday, in addition to the Victorian government support payments of up to $580 per adult and $290 per child. Floodwaters surged through the Anglers Tavern which sits right on the bank of the Maribyrnong River in the early hours of Friday. Under deceptively blue skies, residents awoke to find muddy, debris-filled water flowing rapidly onto their streets. By 8am, dozens of homes and cars on the streets spanning between Chifley Drive and Hillside Crescent were submerged, with people kayaking items to safety or hauling belongings through floodwaters in gumboots. Carolyn Bohm takes to a kayak on Oakland Street as neighbour Joshua watches on. Credit:Chris Hopkins Annette Anderson had just returned from inspecting her flooded home in a canoe on Friday afternoon when she told The Age that emergency services had repeatedly assured her that her property was not in danger. Even up until one oclock this afternoon Vic Emergency was telling me that I was not in a flood zone ... were right up the top of Oakland Street, Anderson said. She found a disaster zone when she paddled out to her recently renovated home the floors covered in mud and silt about a foot high. The paintwork is damaged, the cupboards, the cabinetry, the white goods its very sad. Carolyn Bohm, who also lives on Oakland Street with her husband and two daughters, aged 5 and 9, said the first time she had an inkling her newly renovated home would be flooded was when she saw text messages from authorities at 6am. However, she said the warnings didnt suggest her house would be one of the affected properties. By about 7am, Bohm said the water was lapping at her driveway. Its gut-wrenching, horrible, Bohm said. She, too, was disappointed with the lack of warning. There was a lot of rain last night, but we thought everything was fine. We werent too concerned, she said. We just had to make our own judgment call on what we should do very quickly. Lisa Quinsee and her daughters Jordan, 16, and Lulu, 12, were rescued with their dogs from their flooded home on Chifley Drive. SES crews patrolling on boats spotted the family, huddled on their second-storey balcony because their ground floor was inundated so much so that the fridge had toppled over. SES rescuers transport people on the Maribyrnong River. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui It looks like were in a boathouse. Weve got full glass doors and its just surrounded by water, Ive never seen anything like it, Quinsee said. She said she bought 10 sandbags last night but they made no difference because the water rose so quickly. I had a front yard and about 10 minutes later I didnt. Theyve packed their bags for a stay at Crown to try to turn the situation around. Im trying to flip it for the girls, Quinsee said. Skip bins, shipping containers, car seats and a pontoon were seen floating in the surging river. Nancy Francis, husband Noel, four-year-old son Lawrence and border collie Arabella also had to be rescued by boat from their home on The Esplanade. They got up early to move their cars about 6am then stayed behind because they thought they would be OK in their two-level home. But within an hour, water had filled the ground floor and they were trapped on the second storey. For the little one, being confined in that smell, in that unsavoury atmosphere for a few days, we thought we should just get out, Francis said. They called the SES for help and they were rescued on two boats. I cannot express how grateful I am and how good they were with Lawrence, Francis said of the SES. The family is going to stay with Francis brother in regional Victoria until the water subsides. Pema Kyi and her husband and brother were among about 30 people at the Maribyrnong Community Centre after their rented unit in Clyde Street flooded. They have their important documents in their car and some clothes, but their ground-floor unit is completely submerged. We are going to survive somehow, she said. Jane Clifton, a well-known actor who lives on Duffy Street, spent the night in a panic putting precious items on the second floor. Jane Clifton, who lives on Duffy Street, watches floodwaters in Maribyrnong. Credit:Sophie Aubrey I didnt really sleep, I slept in my clothes because I thought this might happen at night, Clifton said. Weve lived here since 1997, so we always knew this day would come. Loading The river, which draws from the Macedon Ranges, peaked at 4.2 metres just after midday. It was expected to drop below the major flood level of 2.9 metres about 10pm on Friday. The Health Department has recommended people wear sturdy work boots, gloves, and long pants to protect their legs when entering flooded areas and watch where they put their hands and feet when removing or cleaning debris. Young families will gain an increase in paid parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks in a federal pledge to make it easier for women to juggle work and home life while also helping new fathers at a cost that is set to exceed $600 million a year. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cleared the policy with federal cabinet ministers on Friday to extend the existing scheme by 2026 after months of pressure from the Greens and teal independent MPs to be more generous. Starting in several years will keep the cost down and allow time for debate over the use it or lose it rules. The expanded scheme will be included in the October 25 federal budget but will not start for several years, keeping the cost down and allowing time for a debate over the use it or lose it rules that force one partner usually the man to take leave and do more of the work to look after newborn children. By 2026, every family with a new baby will be able to access a total of six months paid leave, shared between the two parents, Albanese will say in a speech on Saturday. Former ministerial staffer Bruce Lehrmann told police that Brittany Higgins going public with her rape allegation last year had rocked his world and he was ready to go. That week I wound up everything ... I guessed my Mum would be OK if she was going to get my super, he said. In his police interview, Lehrmann took aim at the mentally scarring nature of working for politicians, and singled out former Coalition minister Bridget McKenzie as being notorious for treating her staff poorly. Bruce Lehrmann outlined the horrendous culture in Parliament House. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen I know theres been a lot of discussion about the treatment of women but more broadly the culture was horrendous, he said. I thought I was being a gentleman, I ordered an Uber and said it was fine if you want to share an Uber, Lehrmann told police. Asked whether Higgins mentioned why she was going back to parliament, Lehrmann replied: no, it shocked me [about] the timing that she had to do that ... but thats her business. Loading The court heard Higgins had consumed 11 drinks at the first venue and continued to drink at the club, later telling police she was the most intoxicated shed ever been. Department of Defence media adviser Lauren Gain, who was one of the group of four at the club, told the court on Monday she remembered Higgins being quite drunk, falling over in front of them at the club. In Lehrmanns interview with police in April 2021, he said he was only moderately intoxicated when he arrived at the building in the early hours of March 23, 2019 with Higgins. Asked by police how intoxicated he believed Higgins was, he said she was probably about the same. From my observations, I had no reason to believe she was any worse than anybody else, he said. During the interview, Lehrmann said he and Higgins had behaved in a close way throughout the night, but said it was quite friendly and in the nature of opening a door for her. It was actually a very good night, Lehrmann said of the evening. It was such an innocuous night for staff to be out drinking, this was not an unusual night. Asked whether he behaved intimately with Higgins, he said I know we were close, but I just cant remember. He agreed it was possible but said his behaviour wouldnt have gone beyond flirtatious. Absolutely not, because I was in a relationship, he said. He said their demeanour had been professional upon arriving at parliament at 1.41am. I dont remember it being anything else ... I was just sort of ensuring that she got to the office to do what she needed to do at the very least ... then indeed to do what I needed to do. Parliament security guard Nicole Lee Anderson, who was working overnight, told the court on Monday it was strange for them to be there at the time and that her workmate, Mark Fairweather, remarked as much to the pair. Fairweather told the court on Wednesday he could smell alcohol on both Higgins and Lehrmann, but neither was heavily intoxicated. If they were heavily intoxicated, I would have refused entry, which Im entitled to do, he said. The court heard that Lehrmann had told parliament security hed been asked to pick up some documents. The pair were let into Reynolds suite, and Lehrmann said the last he saw of Higgins that morning was when he turned left to his desk and Brittany turned right into the ministers suite. Lehrmann said he spent the rest of his time annotating question-time briefs and left after ordering an Uber at about 2.30am. Police asked why he didnt speak to Higgins before he left, to which Lehrmann replied: All I said was, Im getting what I need, and Ill do what I need to do, and Ill head off ... there was nothing in my mind that said to me that I need to be looking after her. Anderson told the court Fairweather observed that Lehrmann seemed in a hurry to get out upon leaving the building, throwing his temporary pass down as he left. Fairweather told the jury, Lehrmann was on the phone, he wasnt paying attention. I wanted to ask him about the lady and I said, are you coming back? and he just replied hastily no and flicked the pass onto the desk, and before I could ask him any more, hed already walked out. Former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds will give evidence in the trial next week. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Anderson said that she went back to the suite to do a welfare check on Higgins, and when she opened the door to the ministers office, she saw Higgins lying on her back, completely naked on the lounge. Shes opened her eyes, shes looked at me and shes proceeded to roll over in the foetal position facing the desk, Anderson said. Higgins alleges she woke to Lehrmann having sex with her on the couch, she was jammed against the back and armrest, crying and couldnt get him off. When police asked him to respond to Higgins claim, he said: I wont be able to comment because I didnt see her in that state. Ive certainly got a lot of views about it all coming out in the media, but thats not relevant here. Reynolds chief of staff, Fiona Brown, told the court on Tuesday there was no urgent work purpose for either of them to be at the office. She had told police that Lehrmann had told her he went back to the office to drink whisky, but he denied that account. Definitely not the reason for going back into the office ... I just wouldve stayed out drinking, he said. He elaborated that it wasnt unusual to go back to the office to drink, but it was usually in the company of a minister or senior staffer. Id be drinking with the whole office, he said. Reg Chamberlain, chief of staff to then-special minister of state Alex Hawke, gave evidence on Wednesday that he had a phone conversation with Lehrmann and Brown on April 5, 2019, about accessing parliament after hours. Brittany Higgins arriving at court in the trial in Canberra. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen When we asked what his purpose was, he said it was to have whisky, to drink whisky, Chamberlain said. Asked whether Lehrmann mentioned it was for work purposes, Chamberlain replied, no, he just said the purpose was to drink. Aide de camp Captain Nikita Irvine told the court on Wednesday that Higgins had also told him they were going back to parliament because Bruce had something he wanted to show her. It was some whisky or something. One of Reynolds staffers, Nicole Hamer, told the court on Tuesday that Lehrmann had quite a big range of alcohol in the office, including whisky and wine. Hamer said that before Higgins worked in Reynolds office, Lehrmann asked her to reach out to Higgins. He commented that she was good-looking, Hamer said. Higgins former Canberra housemate Alex Humphries described Higgins as bubbly when the pair first met, and so enthusiastic about landing her dream job. She said that changed around the time of and after the 2019 election, staying in her room a lot and keeping to herself. She was always a tidier person ... and that slipped, she said. She was doing a lot of frozen meals and shed come out with a pile of dishes at the end of the week. Higgins mother, Kelly Higgins, said her daughter, who had grown up participating in public speaking and volunteering for the Young Liberals became distant and quiet during March and April, 2019. Her appearance changed, she lost a lot of weight ... she just looked broken, she said. Kelly Higgins said her daughter told her during a dinner in late 2019 what allegedly happened. It was like a relief for her to get it out and finally tell the truth, she said. She was almost unfamiliar in her emotional state, she was almost unfamiliar in her character, she was just so frozen in what had happened to her shes not the same person. Higgins boyfriend at the time, Ben Dillaway, told the court on Wednesday that after Higgins disclosed the allegation a light had turned off in her, she was a broken, shattered person. Dillaway said when Higgins was struggling significantly, not coping with things, he told a colleague in the Prime Ministers Office, Julian Leembruggen, about the alleged incident, with her approval. I said, let me discreetly go speak to someone in the Prime Ministers Office because surely this can move things along, or surely this will get you the help you need, he said. I checked multiple times, got her okay before I went out and met with them to ... seek assistance for her. Defence department liaison officer Chris Payne, who worked in the same office as Higgins and Lehrmann, told the court on Tuesday Higgins disclosed the allegation to him early in the week following the incident. I said, did he rape you? She said, I could not have consented, it would have been like f---ing a log. Irvine also said Higgins had disclosed the allegation to her during the same week. The court heard from witnesses who worked with Higgins in Senator Michaelia Cashs office after the election that she had also alleged to them that she had been assaulted. For 46 years, the rural seat of Benambra in the far north-east of the state has been held by the Liberal Party, and before that by conservatives all the way back to its formation in 1877. But at this election, that long pedigree and the position of incumbent Liberal MP Bill Tilley are under threat from a candidate who insists she is not a teal. Bill Tilley, the local member for Benambra, outside his office in Wodonga. Credit:Jason Robins Im a yellow independent candidate, says Jacqui Hawkins, who is contesting Benambra for the second time. What is a teal? I ran in 2018 before the term teal even existed. Polling suggests independent Hawkins has a fighting chance in the 9000-square-kilometre electorate, part of the federal seat of Indi, which fell into independent hands in 2013 and has remained there since. Tenants in most Melbourne suburbs are facing higher asking rents than they were a year ago, new data shows, as the rental market soars after lockdowns ended. Across the city, 40 suburbs recorded house and unit rent rises of 10 per cent or more, Domains latest rent report, shows. Hundreds more suburbs had rents rise by at least 5 per cent. Melbournes overall house rents rose 9.3 per cent over the year to September to a record $470 per week as more tenants have been returning to the market, including young adults who delayed moving out of home, tenants in share houses who sought their own space to work from home, and returning interstate and international migrants. Some potential tenants are offering $50 or more extra rent each week to secure a property, agents say. Latest News Assetline Capital launches new mortgage products Loans are aimed at small businesses, SMSFs Growing demand for Gold Coast apartments Average price well above $1 million Three in five Australians have been a victim of a scam, or know someone who has, with men more likely to have experienced a scam and suffered a loss (41% to 30%), according to new research by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The CBA study, which looked at Australians attitudes towards scams and how scams have evolved in recent years, revealed that 57% of Australians have become more concerned about scams over the last 12 months. And this may be due to findings that Australians, on average, receive five scam calls, emails, or messages a week, equating to over 250 attempts a year. Australians also believed that scams have changed over the past 12 months, with an increase in scam messages/calls (64%) and scams becoming more sophisticated and harder to identify as fake (57%) the most cited changes. Some 79% of the respondents said they are more likely to contact their bank if they were to fall victim to a scam, and 63% said they would report the scam to the police. Interestingly, 12% of Australians would contact the scammer directly. The release of the research coincides with the launch of a new CBA national campaign, which is part of a broad, longer-term initiative to raise awareness and help protect Australians from scams. Recent events have served as a reminder that scams and fraud continue to rise, said James Roberts, CBA general manager of group fraud. The CommBank Safe campaign is a call to arms encouraging every Australian to stay safe. Through this bank-wide initiative, we hope to contribute to increasing national awareness and resilience against this potentially devastating issue, particularly amongst our most vulnerable customers. As part of the campaign, the bank encourages Australians to detect scams and fraud through this simple guide: Stop. Check. Reject. Stop. When you get an unusual call or text. Real organisations wont put you under pressure to act instantly When you get an unusual call or text. Real organisations wont put you under pressure to act instantly Check. Contact the organisation the message claims to be from or check with someone you trust Contact the organisation the message claims to be from or check with someone you trust Reject. If its not them, block the texter, delete the email, or hang up on the caller. Change your passwords Companies, including the banks and their security departments, should never ask for a PIN, password, or access codes over the phone, email, or text, nor should they ever ask for access to your devices, Roberts said. If you receive any contact from someone claiming to be from a service provider asking for this information, call that organisation immediately to verify before taking any action. Despite the prevalence of scams in Australia, the CBA research found that 33% of scam victims did not lodge a report either because they felt like it was their fault (41%), that it wouldnt be worth the effort (33%), or because they felt embarrassed or ashamed (26%). Encouragingly, 84% felt confident in their ability to recognise and avoid scams, with younger Australians more likely to be more confident in their ability to recognise and avoid scams. Some 65% are cautious about calls from numbers they dont recognise, 57% check before clicking on links received via text unless from a friend, and 54% check written materials for spelling and grammar mistakes. As scammers become more sophisticated, devious, and harder to identify than ever, we want to help our customers feel safe when banking on their devices, knowing were doing whatever we can to protect, detect and resolve issues they encounter, Roberts said. If you think you have fallen victim to a scam, call us to see if we can help. Authum Investment and Infrastructure on Friday acquired debt-ridden Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) for Rs 1 crore. "This is to inform that the company has sold its holding in wholly-owned subsidiary RCFL to Authum Investment and Infrastructure Ltd in pursuance of the implementation of the resolution plan of RCFL in terms of the Reserve Bank of India (Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets) Directions, 2019," Reliance Capital said in a regulatory filing. Authum Investment bought RCFL for a consideration of Rs 1 crore, it added. This is the first subsidiary of Reliance Capital, which has successfully undergone resolution. RCFL, which according to its website has been re-branded as Reliance Money, is a non-banking finance company (NBFC) with assets under management of Rs 11,000 crore. The company offers a wide range of financial products, including small and medium enterprise loans, loans against property, infra financing, agriculture loans and supply chain financing. Authum is a domestic NBFC with around 15 years of presence and earned a profit of Rs 103.76 crore in 2021-22. (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 Federation of (FIA) has withdrawn its writ petitions in the Delhi High Court challenging grant of government approvals to India and . The Delhi High Court on Friday allowed the withdrawal of the two petitions ending eight year old litigation between FIA and Tata-group owned airlines. FIA is a lobby group of private airlines comprising Go First, IndiGo and SpiceJet. Former MP and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy first moved the Delhi High Court in 2013 challenging the grant of approval to India - a joint venture of Malaysia and Tata Sons. Swamy's petition is listed for further hearing on January 13. A year later FIA too filed separate petitions stating that grant of approvals to AirAsia India and were in violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board norms. It contended that foreign investment norms were meant to encourage investment in existing airlines and not greenfield ones. With respect to AirAsia India, FIA also raised the issue of effective control accusing that Malaysian joint venture partner is in charge of the airline. On Friday however FIA submitted to the court that it wishes to withdraw the petition due to changed circumstances. In its application FIA said that the issue of substantial ownership and effective control turned academic following the Competition Commission of India approval to Air India's proposed acquisition of Tata group stake in AirAsia India. " FIA members took legal opinion and decided to withdraw their petitions after CCI order in June," said advocate Charul Sarin of Sarin Associates. The Tata group owns 83.67 per cent in AirAsia India and remainder is held by AirAsia Malaysia. As moonlighting continues to be a buzzword in the IT sector, Limited, India's second-largest IT services company, has weighed in on the issues and confirmed that it had to let go of some of its employees because of dual employment. However, the company has established that it supports learning and "gig work" for its employees. To encourage its employees to learn and engage in work beyond the ambit of their regular job, the company has been running a platform called "Accelerate". While explaining the company's stance on the concept of 'dual employment' and 'gig opportunities' during the Q2 earnings briefing on Thursday, CEO said, "We have been making sure that we have real attention to learning opportunities for our employees within the company. In general, we have always encouraged our employees to have that sort of mindset. In fact, within the company, we have set up, over the last several years, a platform called 'accelerate' through which employees can look at what we internally called 'gig work'- different projects outside of their main work." He further informed that every year, on average, over 4,000 people apply on the "Accelerate" platform, and about 600 are selected. Explaining further about Infosys' policy on gig opportunities outside the company, the CEO said, "For gig opportunities in the external environment, we support the aspirations of our employees to learn beyond their work. We will support them in working on certain gig projects after the prior approval of their managers. We are also developing more comprehensive policies for that while ensuring contractual and confidentiality commitments are fully respected. However, to be clear, we do not support dual employment." "If it is found that an is doing blatant work in two specific companies, where there are confidentiality issues, we have let go of them," CEO Parekh said. According to sources privy to the programme, Accelerate projects are small tasks posted by managers on the platform which can be taken up by employees who want to utilise their free time. Human Resources teams also conduct events to make employees aware of the platform. What is moonlighting? Moonlighting is a situation where the employees are engaged in additional jobs outside their regular employment without the knowledge of the primary employer. Many companies, including Infosys, have opposed the practice and fired the moonlighters claiming the threat of confidentiality and adverse impact on productivity. Karti P Chidambaram, Member of Parliament, on Friday said he has written a letter to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), urging it to probe the financial statements of the edtech giant Byjus. In a letter addressed to ICAI President Dr Debashis Mitra, Chidambaram said Byjus has released FY21 results after an 18-month delay, nearly missing four deadlines. The Financial Reporting Review Board (FRRB) under ICAI has the power to review general purpose financial statements of enterprises and auditors report thereon relating to which serious accounting irregularities have been highlighted by the media reports. I would like to bring to your attention a number of red flags in Byjus financials for FY2021. Analysing how Byjus earns its money and where it spends it is puzzling. Nearly 81 per cent f its operating revenue for FY2021 constitutes sale of edtech products, said Chidambaram in the letter, that was posted by him on Twitter. This includes the sale of tablets, SD cards, and laptops. For an edtech company, is it not a blatant misrepresentation of facts to classify the hardware as edutech. Byjus recently said that it is set to lay off nearly 2,500, or 5 per cent, of its 50,000 employees as part of an optimisation plan. In the light of the aforementioned issues, it is clear that this company is not in a sound state of financial health, said Chidambaram. In the interest of the consumers and the companys employees, I urge ICAI to review Byjus financial statements. On the expense front, Chidambaram said 60 per cent of the costs related to employees have been recognised as capital expenses rather than operational costs. He said if these costs were counted as a direct expense, instead of a capital expense, Byjus total loss for FY 2021 would have gone over Rs 5,000 crore. Such irregular accounting practices fail to give a clear picture of Byjus income, expenses, and losses, alleged Chidambaram. Byjus booked a loss of Rs 4,588 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2021, 19 times more than the preceding year, according to its latest financial report, which was released by the firm last month. The edtech giant, which was last valued at $22 billion, earned Rs 2,428 crore in revenues in FY21. Its adjusted revenue in FY20 was Rs 2,511 crore and the adjusted loss was Rs 300 crore. Chidambaram said that previously, Byjus was recognising revenues from streaming services upfront and in full, on the commencement of a contract. He said it is a standard practice that subscription revenues cant be recognised upfront, and has to be recognised over the period of the delivery of the service. It warrants opening up Byjus previous financial statements as well, said Chidambaram. However, Byjus had said it did not keep to three or four deadlines, all self-imposed, for announcing its results, reportedly because its auditor was not signing off on the accounts. It said that the FY21 numbers had received an unqualified report from the audit firm, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. Even as Byju's is set to lay off nearly 2,500, or 5 per cent, of its employees as part of an optimisation plan, the firm said it is planning to go on a hiring spree. It plans to hire 10,000 teachers in the next six months, adding to the current strength of 20,000 teachers. Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO of Byjus recently told employees, that the firm has already started shifting its focus towards profitable growth. He said revenue of $2 billion was within sight of the firm and that the firms FY22 revenue was nearly Rs 10,000 crore, or $1.3 billion. This means we are now a billion-dollar-plus revenue company, said Raveendran, in a letter addressed to the employees. By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Pernod Ricard's India head, Thibault Cuny, has stepped down from his role due to health reasons, the French spirits giant said on Friday, marking a high-profile exit at a time the company is fighting regulatory and legal battles in the country. Cuny, who has been dealing with health concerns for some years, will take a break from his professional duties on medical advice, but will stay on with Pernod, the company said in its statement to Reuters. Cuny took over as the managing director and CEO of South Asia in 2019 after serving as Brazil as president and CEO. He has been with the group on various leadership roles for almost two decades. His exit comes at a critical time for the Indian business of Pernod, the maker of popular brands such as Chivas Regal and Absolut vodka. The company, which is embroiled in various tax and legal battles, is the second biggest spirits player in India where it competes with the likes of Diageo. Reuters reported last week Indian tax authorities, following an investigation, have demanded $244 million from Pernod India for undervaluing certain liquor imports for over a decade to avoid full payment of federal duties. Pernod has challenged the demand in court. The spirits maker has also been lobbying Indian authorities, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office, to resolve its long-standing tax disputes related to liquor imports valuation, saying they had "inhibited fresh investment" in the country. In the statement, Pernod said it has started the process to identify a new leader for the "next phase of its growth and transformation" in India. In the interim, Philippe Guettat, Chairman and CEO of Asia, will take charge of Pernod Ricard South Asia, including India, the company said. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a setback for Meta-owned WhatsApp, the on Friday cleared the path for the Competition Commission of Indias (CCIs) probe into the messaging platforms updated privacy policy of 2021. The apex court cleared the decks for the regulator to further probe and reach finality in the case it initiated in March 2021 against for alleged abuse of dominance. The regulator viewed the data-sharing policy as exploitative and having the risk of an exclusionary effect. The SCs interim order came on an appeal by and Meta which challenged a Delhi High Court decision that went against the messaging platform. The appeal sought a stay on the probe. In its order, the Bench of Justices M R Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia noted the regulator was an independent body that could investigate any issue that goes beyond the Competition Act, 2002. With the view that this case violates the provisions of the Competition Act, it cannot be said that the probe initiated by the goes beyond its jurisdiction, the apex court observed. The Bench also observed that the apex court itself had set a precedent that the CCIs probe should be completed at the earliest. Given the facts above, it is to be noted that the cannot be restrained from carrying out its probe into the alleged violation of the Competition Act, the Bench held. Senior Advocate and legislator Kapil Sibal, appearing for Meta, submitted that a Constitution Bench is currently hearing a petition that will decide the validity of the privacy policy in January 2023. Also, a new data protection Bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament in the Winter session, he said. Based on these facts, the CCI should not pass a final order related to its probe, Sibal argued. The Bench, however, did not agree and said that the CCI is an independent statutory body and its probe has nothing to do with the courts proceedings. Let the investigation go on. Whatever the final order is, we will leave it to the CCI, the Bench said. Additional Solicitor General of India N Venkatraman, appearing for the CCI, on the other hand, said the anti-trust watchdog is only examining the abuse of dominance by the social media giants and not the constitutional issues regarding the privacy policy. This will give clarity and certainty about the role of CCI in this matter, a senior official said. E-mails written to Meta and on the issue remained unanswered. The order of the will not have any immediate impact as the matter is still under investigation before the director general, CCI. However, WhatsApp will be required to participate in the investigation and give objective justification for its privacy policy and establish that it does not violate provisions of the Competition Act, said Rahul Goel, partner at Anant Law. In August, a Delhi High Court Bench, comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, ruled that appeals of both parent and child were devoid of merits. The court even observed the previous (single-judge Bench) order, which ruled that the CCI had the jurisdiction to proceed with the probe, was well-reasoned. During the previous course of hearing in the case, the messaging platform said that it would not enforce its privacy policy until the time the governments data protection Bill came out. The counsel for WhatsApp also argued that the privacy policy in question is being examined by the and so the investigation cannot be allowed until that matter is resolved. It said that the CCIs decision was an abuse of the commissions suo motu jurisdiction. Facebook (now Meta) contended that just because it is the formal owner of WhatsApp and the instant messaging platform is said to share its data with the parent company do not mean that it is a necessary party to the probe. However, the CCI argued that its probe is not related to what the SC is looking into as it is not examining the alleged violation of individuals' privacy. The anti-trust regulator is probing the privacy policy of both which appears to be neither transparent nor based on the voluntary consent of the user. Such a policy would lead to excessive data collection and stalking of consumers for targeted advertising to bring in more users and is, therefore, alleged abuse of its dominant position. The CCI told the court that it was not able move an inch in its investigation into WhatsApps privacy policy of 2021 on account of a court order granting time to Facebook and the instant messaging platform for filing replies in connection with the probe. In January last year, the CCI on its own had decided to look into WhatsApps updated privacy policy, following reports. The regulator then observed that users were not provided an appropriate granular choice to object or opt-out of specific data sharing terms, adding that the reduction in consumer data protection and loss of control over personalised data can be taken as a reduction in quality under the anti-trust law. WhatsApp and Facebook had subsequently challenged the single-judge CCIs March 2021 order directing a probe against them, saying the issue concerning its new policy was already pending consideration before the HC and the SC. The single judge on April 22 last year, however, refused to interdict the investigation. The current data privacy framework, though lackluster, is contained under the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011. Until more robust legislation is introduced, the Rules will govern the data privacy regime in the country, Pritika Kumar, Founder of Cornellia Chambers said. Akshayy S Nanda, partner at Saraf and Partners said until the new privacy legislation is not introduced, unfair privacy policies of dominant platforms may be challenged before the CCI as abuse of dominant position as was done in the case of WhatsApp. As far as non-dominant platforms are concerned, one would have to wait for the Government to introduce the personal data protection legislation, he said. Homegrown steel major is actively engaged with the UK government for financial support for its business there, a company spokesperson said on Friday, amid reports of the Tatas looking to divest their steel business in the UK. " is seeking support from the UK government in two forms. In policy terms by encouraging the transition to green steel and ensuring a cost competitive landscape, and partnership in financing of the project given the size of investment and the financially constrained position of our UK business," the spokesperson told PTI. The company at present is in active and detailed discussions with the UK government with relation to the future of the business. Currently, it is not in discussions with any potential buyers for the UK business, the spokesperson added. owns the UK's largest steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales and employs around 8,000 people across all its operations in the country. The company is seeking 1.5 billion pounds from the UK government to execute its decarbonisation plans. As part of the UK's decarbonisation move and rising carbon costs in the country, it is necessary for Port Talbot to transition to alternative technologies to remain viable. Tata Steel CEO and MD T V Narendran had earlier told PTI his company plans to invest Rs 8,500 crore in India and Rs 3,500 crore on operations in Europe in 2022-23 to increase product mix and transition to low CO2 technologies, in line with the company's goal to produce CO2-neutral steel by 2050 in Europe. (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 UK government is unlikely to provide a 1.5 billion pound subsidy package to for the anticipated switch to green energy, the Economic Times reported. As a result, is considering exiting Tata Steel's UK operations. According to Tata Sons, in order to keep the factory running, it will be necessary to replace the carbon-intensive blast furnaces with electric arc furnaces over the next few years. doesn't see much use in waiting interminably for assistance from the UK government, which is "sitting on the fence" and is looking at various exit options, sources told ET. The Tata Group has significant business presence in the UK for many years with its Port Talbot plant having a capacity to produce five million tonnes of steel a year. It has been vocal about the need for support from the government to remain viable. An executive privy of the development said to ET, Exiting businesses which are also supporting local communities have never been our group philosophy, but it has to be acknowledged and supported by the government too. The executive further said that high operating costs are a matter of concern and the company has been in discussion over the last two years and there should have a resolution to this concern already. The only other option is closure of sites, said the executive. According to a spokesperson of Tata Steel, the company was still in active and detailed discussions with the UK government. While responding to queries from ET, the spokesperson said that is seeking support from the UK government in two forms- first, at the policy level, by encouraging the transition to green steel and ensuring a cost-competitive landscape; second, through collaboration in the financing of the project, given the magnitude of investment and the financially stilted position of Tata Steels UK business. The spokesperson further informed that it is not currently in any discussions with potential buyers for the UK business. The commerce and industry ministry is working on the second phase of the single window system for giving all approvals to existing businesses, a top government official said on Friday. Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Anurag Jain said that the department is targeting to roll out this system by December 2023. "Right now, the single window is positioned for new investments. You can get your approvals to start a business, if you are making a new investment...For phase-II, we have started working and it is for existing . "For them, it will become a single window. All your returns will be on the single window...We had an inter-ministerial consultation (on this). By and large, everybody is on board....This will make life of existing business simple," he said. Jain was speaking at a CII's national conference on MNCs. The secretary also said that the government is working on further improvement in ease of doing business. Earlier, India was ranked low in the parameter of starting a business, he said, adding, the international average for starting a business is 15 days and in India, it was 22 days. In New Zealand, it is just one day and after taking steps by the government here, "now it is possible to start a business in India in one day," 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.) About 90 per cent of leadership positions in are occupied by upper caste groups with not even a single Dalit or Adivasi heading Indian mainstream media, according to a new report. The second edition of Oxfam India-Newslaundry's Report Who tells our stories matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Media' reveals that around 90 per cent leadership positions in print, TV and digital media are occupied by General caste groups with no Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) heading mainstream media outlets. The report released at The Media Rumble, South Asia's largest news media forum also shows that every 3 out of 5 articles in Hindi and English newspapers are written by General caste authors while marginalised castes (SC, ST or OBC) only contribute to around 1 out of 5 articles. Of the 121 newsroom leadership positions editor-in-chief, managing editor, executive editor, bureau chief, input/output editor across the newspapers, TV news channels, news websites, and magazines under study, 106 are occupied by upper castes, five by other backward classes, and six by people from minority communities. The case of four individuals could not be identified. Three out of every four anchors (among a total of 40 anchors in Hindi channels and 47 in English channels) of debates are upper caste. Not a single one of them a Dalit, Adivasi, or OBC "For over 70 per cent of their primetime debate shows, news channels draw the majority of the panellists from the upper castes. No more than 5 per cent of all articles in English newspapers are written by Dalits and Adivasis. Hindi newspapers fare slightly better at around 10 per cent," it said. Around 72 per cent of articles with author's name on news websites are written by people from the upper castes and only 10 of the 972 articles featured on the cover pages of the 12 magazines under study are about issues related to caste, the report said. Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India said, Our second report in three years continue to show that newsrooms in India are not an inclusive place for marginalised communities in the country. The leaders of media organisations across all platforms continue to fail in creating an enabling environment for Dalits, Adivasis, and Bahujans. The media in the country needs to uphold the constitutional principle of equality in not just its coverage but also in its hiring practices, he said. It is critical that media organisations immediately conduct a significant overhaul of hiring practices and ensure that newsrooms across the country become more diverse and inclusive. This would be crucial for creating India without discrimination and injustice, Behar said. The report studied around 43 Indian print, TV, and digital media outlets for their coverage, social location of the leadership, and the caste composition of journalists employed by the organisations. The research which was conducted between April 2021 and March 2022 analysed over 20,000 magazine and newspaper articles, 2,075 prime-time debates with 76 anchors and 3,318 panellists and 12 months of online news reports. The research was conducted on qualitative parameters such as the social location of authors/ participants, prominence of the news item, and topic of news coverage. The report also examined the representation of various caste groups among the staff of news organisations using surveys, secondary sources of information, and databases of UPSC and central universities. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) and Liberia have issued alerts over cough syrups manufactured by Haryana-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals following the death of 69 children in the . According to the World Health Organization (WHO), four syrups manufactured by the company have been linked with acute kidney injuries, as reported by Mint. Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Agency Control (NAFDAC) on Thursday issued an alert on "substandard paediatric cough syrups circulating in the Gambia", the report said. Liberian health minister Wilhelmina S Jallah, in a separate alert, told health teams to "further inform all health service delivery points (hospitals, health centres, clinics and community health teams)". The syrups notified by are, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Magrip N Cold Syrup, Promethazine Oral Solution, and Makoff Baby . Also read: Haryana stops production at plant making cough syrups flagged by WHO has reportedly circulated the alert across all professional bodies, providers and supply chain associates, Mint added. "The stated manufacturer of the products is Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd (Haryana, India). To date, the stated manufacturer has not provided guarantees to on the safety and quality of these products. All batches of these products listed above should be considered unsafe," NAFDAC said. Director General of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), R Uday Bhaskar, said that it could impact the image of India's pharma sector. Pharmexcil is the government agency for the promotion of pharma exports. He further added that countries could turn cautious about buying drugs from India. India is the largest provider of generic drugs in the world. A consortium comprising several in India is reportedly eyeing a stake in a hydrocarbon asset of the National Oil Company (ADNOC). The consortium is led by (OVL)and includes companies like Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), Bharat PetroResources Ltd (BPRL) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), according to a report in Mint. The Indian and governments are facilitating the talks, the report added. It will be India's second investment in a producing asset in the Gulf region. India's gas imports from were $1.8 billion between April and August. This is over 20 per cent of all the oil imports by India. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) makes up 85 per cent of India's total crude oil imports. is a part of the OECD. "We already have two blocks in the UAE, of which one is a producing block, and the other is an exploration block. We are looking to get into another producing block, and the stake is expected to be acquired by a consortium led by ONGC Videsh," an official aware of the matter told Mint. In 2018, Indian public oil companies, including OVL, IOCL and BROL, signed a deal with UAE to acquire a 10 per cent stake in the Lower Zakum oil field. India is the third-largest consumer of energy in the world. The ADNOC is also reportedly looking to expand its presence in India through investment besides increasing its oil stock. The company had earlier announced a partnership with Reliance Industries to make a facility in Ruwals, . ADNOC has also awarded exploration rights in the Onshore Block 1 to the Indian consortium, according to Mint. Ethanol-blended petrol is likely to be available in the country from December or January, ahead of the April 2023 target, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. "We are constantly reviewing the ethanol production and I believe, 20 per cent blended fuel would come in the market in December or January ahead of April 2023 (target)," he told reporters here. Citing the example of Brazil where flex-fuel vehicles are available and the consumer can take ethanol or petrol as per choice, he said that this will be the ultimate goal of the government. However, to reach that stage, certain technical aspects are there and work is going on. "We are going to hold a major meeting with automobile manufacturers on ethanol blending," he said. India has advanced the target date for achieving 20 per cent ethanol-blending in petrol by five years to 2025. The minister also said that for the targeted 20 per cent blending of ethanol in petrol, the country will need a 1,000 core litre capacity. He added that 450 crore litre is being produced and tenders for 400 crore litre have been issued. "We have more than enough ethanol for 20 per cent blending," he noted. All petrol sold in the country is targeted to have 20 per cent ethanol by 2025. (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.) : Former Delhi University Professor G N suffered immensely in prison for years because of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and his loved ones had to watch helplessly, AIMIM Chief said on Friday. In a tweet, he said, Prof suffered immensely in prison for years because of UAPA & his loved ones had to watch helplessly. UAPA is a monster created by the collaboration of BJP & Congress. Its victims are mostly innocent Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis & dissenters." More than eight years after his arrest, the Bombay High Court today acquitted in an alleged Maoist links case for want of valid sanction for prosecution under the UAPA. Only three per cent of accused have been convicted under UAPA, but innocent people arrested under it remain in jail for years, Owaisi claimed in another tweet. (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 Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided to depute a high-level multi-disciplinary team to to collaborate with the State health authorities in instituting public health measures for management in Firozabad, and Etawah districts, an official statement said. The six-member Central team to UP consists of experts drawn from the National Centre for Disease Control, National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, . The team is headed by Dr V K Chaudhary, Sr RD, Regional Office of Health and Family Welfare, Lucknow. "The team shall work closely with the State Health Departments, take a stock of on ground situation and recommend necessary public health interventions to manage the increasing cases of being reported by the State," the ministry said. The Union Health Ministry has deputed a high-level multi-disciplinary team to to collaborate with the state authorities in instituting public health measures for management in Firozabad, and Etawah districts. The six-member team comprises experts drawn from the National Centre for Disease Control, National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital Hospital, New Delhi, according to a statement. The team is headed by Dr V K Chaudhary, Sr RD, Regional Office of Health and Family Welfare, Lucknow. It shall work closely with the state health departments, take a stock on the ground situation and recommend necessary public health interventions to manage the increasing cases of being reported by the state, the statement said. has been reporting a considerable number of cases recently. A senior official of the state health department on Friday said 140 dengue cases were reported on October 13 with Lucknow reporting 39 and Prayagaj 46 instances of the vector-borne disease. The number of dengue cases reported in Lucknow on a average daily has been 35 to 40 while in Bareilly and Budaun it has been in the range of 15-20, the official said. The daily average in Noida is four to five and in Ghaziabad seven to eight. A fortnight ago, Jaunpur district had reported a daily average of 14 to 15 dengue cases but now it has dropped to 8-10, the official 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.) Hundreds of people joined leader Rajendra Pal Gautam who marched from from Raj Niwas to Dr Ambedkar National Memorial here on Friday and pledged to fight casteism and untouchability. The supporters carried placards and flags and shouted 'Jai Bheem, Jai Bheem'. Gautam, who recently resigned after he got into a controversy over a religious conversion event which he presided over, said caste-based violence must be stopped in the country. "The incidents targeting members of a particular community on the basis of caste must come to an end. The Prime Minister and Home Minister should take strong actions. "I believe in Ambedkar's Constitution and law. Through Buddha, the message of peace and humanity had gone to the world from India. I believe that our country will progress with humanity and peace. We will also pledge to abolish the caste system, and for peace and brotherhood in the country," Gautam said. "This caravan is not going to stop. I, along with thousands of companions from the community, took out a march from my residence, reiterated our resolve to build a caste-free and untouchability-free India. My struggle to connect the community to the mainstream will continue. Namo Buddha, Jai Bhim!" he tweeted in Hindi. Gautam resigned as Delhi's social welfare minister on Sunday in the wake of a controversy over a religious conversion event where hundreds of people renounced Hindu gods and took oaths to convert to Buddhism. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had used the issue to attack (AAP) national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during the campaigning for the upcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat and accused him of being "anti-Hindu". Asked if his march had something to do with the still smouldering controversy, Gautam said: "This is not the first time. I have done thousands of protests in my life." After he resigned from the Delhi Cabinet, Gautam was quizzed by police at his residence on Monday. He had earlier said that he attended the event in his personal capacity and it had nothing to do with his party or the ministry. (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.) : Union Finance Minister on Thursday called for collective responsibility to prevent the risks from aggravating. Sitharaman said that India's efforts will be to encourage conversations that recognise our inter-dependencies, our shared wisdom, and our collective aspiration for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world. Today's faces a confluence of challenges and it is our collective responsibility to prevent the risks from aggravating, the finance minister said in her speech during the closing session of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors here being held on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. India will head the annual rotating presidency of G-20 next year. In her remarks, the finance minister said that India views the hosting of the G20 Presidency as an opportunity as well as a responsibility. Rebuilding trust in multilateralism is at the core of India's thinking, she told her G-20 colleagues. Sitharaman said that G20 finance ministers have always come together in the harshest global situations, set aside their differences, and worked towards a common goal of prosperity for our people. As such, she urged the finance ministers and central bank governors to continue working together with this sense of solidarity. (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 on Friday said India is proud to be a friend and partner in the liberation war of Bangladesh and continues to share the development journey with it. She said that liberation of Bangladesh and its rise and prosperity is an inspiring story for the world community. Youth of Bangladesh have a past which is full of glory, and a future that is full of promises, Murmu said, while addressing a youth delegation from Bangladesh, who had called on her at Rashtrapati Bhavan here. President Murmu said India is proud to be a friend and partner in the Liberation War of Bangladesh and continues to share the development journey with Bangladesh, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement. It is important for us to preserve this spirit, which continues to inspire the deep friendship between our two countries and our people, it said. The president said that Bangladesh occupies a very special place in the hearts and minds of every Indian. Our countries share deep civilisational links. We share many things between us including art, music and literature, Murmu said. She said that India has always attached the highest priority to its friendship with Bangladesh and we remain committed to realising its full potential. Our deep cooperation shows the importance that both countries attach to this relationship, the president said. She recalled her recent meetings with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Delhi and in London. The president stated that both India and Bangladesh have a young population. "More than half of India's population consists of young people and Bangladesh's demography is similar to ours, with a large youth population," Murmu said. She said that as innovators, creators, builders and leaders of the future, the youth of both countries need to engage in cutting-edge areas such as green energy, start ups and technology enabled services in finance, health and education. The president noted that while there is already a lot of people to people contact between India and Bangladesh, "we need to do much more." In this regard, the youth of both countries can play a leading role, she said. The president expressed hope that the members of the delegation will use this opportunity to gain insights and experiences on various aspects of India, its diversity and the developments in areas pertaining to science, technology, arts etc. She said that just as youth of Bangladesh work hard to build the Sonar Bangla, they should also work with the same passion and sincerity to usher in a golden era of peace, prosperity and friendship among the people of India and Bangladesh. Addressing the delegation members, the president said that they all are future leaders of Bangladesh. They are the custodians of the future of not only Bangladesh but also of the unique relationship of India and Bangladesh, Murmu said. She expressed confidence that they will play a major role in the years to come in strengthening the relationship between the two countries. The president said that this visit is important as it continues the momentum from the last year's celebrations of the 50th anniversary of liberation of Bangladesh, establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Bangladesh, and the birth centenary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is as much respected and remembered in India as in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Youth Delegation programme was started in 2012 as a joint initiative by the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. The main objective of this youth programme is to foster goodwill and understanding of each other's countries, promote exchange of ideas and understanding of values and culture among the youth, the statement 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.) Observing digitalisation has become the biggest advantage in India in the last two years, Union Finance Minister on Thursday said that India's public goods are available for countries that need them. Sitharaman said the open-source network that the government of India has created as a public good is helping small and medium industries to scale up their operations. Standing here I want to reiterate that India's public goods are available for countries which so they need it, Sitharaman told students of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) during an interactive session on India's unique Digital Public Goods. The minister asserted that India has a digital stack that other countries can use. So if India today can talk of a digital stack, it's not talking of just payment where UPI, which is today acceptable in Singapore, UAE, and many other countries, she said. We are not talking of just Rupay cards, we are not talking of credit cards, we're not talking of checkbook, we're talking of QR codes, which an Android phone, not a smartphone, no apples, even anything else can just go to the business using a QR code, not just in India, but in countries with whom we've already agreed, she said. The National Payment Corporation of India has already had an agreement signed in France. So, the apps that are under this larger umbrella of NPCI are all available there, be any other payment portal, the minister said. These are not charged for these public goods that we have created. Reiterating that Indian public goods are available in other countries, she said that for instance, during COVID-19 pandemic India created an app wherein one could find the nearest hospital which could give them the vaccination for stores. And that platform would record it and immediately give them a certificate in the phone itself saying you've had this first dose in this first hospital, she said describing the other features of the app. And as a result of this, Indians travelling abroad didn't have to carry paper for proof of their vaccination. Now, this app is available for any country which wants it. Now this is the way in which technology is transforming education, she said. Responding to a question, the minister said that technology and its adaptation have become the biggest advantage for India in the last two years. In India, in the last two years, digitalisation has become the biggest advantage. And people are the reason for the way in which they have adapted it, she 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.) India on Friday said it is carrying out negotiations with the UK for the early finalisation of a that is beneficial to both the sides. In April, the two sides had set a Diwali deadline for concluding the FTA but the deal is set to be pushed back to November in view of differences over certain issues. "There are ongoing negotiations as we know on the FTA. There is interest on both sides to see if we can work towards a deal, an FTA, that is beneficial to both the countries at an early date," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said. "This is a trade negotiation...let this be dealt by trade negotiators," he said. Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held a telephonic conversation with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. "A good conversation with UK Foreign Secretary @JamesCleverly.Reviewed various aspects of our bilateral relationship and committed to taking forward Roadmap 2030 expeditiously. Look forward to an early in-person meeting," Jaishankar tweeted. Asked about the recent remarks by UK home secretary Suella Braverman expressing reservations over the proposed deal, Bagchi said he would not like to comment on it. "I would not like to comment on the Home Secretary's comments," he said. Braverman said the trade deal could lead to increased immigration to the UK from India and that the Indian migrants are the largest group to overstay their visas. Referring to the "larger issue of mobility and consular matters", Bagchi said it is a separate issue. "There are understandings between both countries and going forward, this will require mutual implementation of these understandings," 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.) Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit on Friday said judge Justice Hemant Gupta, who is set to retire on October 16, has always been a "great asset" to the institution. The CJI, who was heading the bench which also comprised Justice Gupta, said the latter has always tried to contribute to whatever he was called upon to decide to the best of his ability. "He is always a great asset to the institution and we wish him all good health, good luck and everything what he deserves and aspires for," Justice Lalit said. Justice Gupta, who was elevated as an apex court judge on November 2, 2018, said it was a "personally enriching experience" to be in the top court and he always got assistance from all lawyers. "Personally speaking, I enjoyed my innings of judgeship of about 20 years. Each day was learning experience and all of you have helped me in my learning process. Thank you very much," Justice Gupta told the advocates, who were present in the court to bid him farewell. The retirement of Justice Gupta will bring down the number of serving judges in the top court to 28 against the sanctioned strength of 34 including the . During his tenure as a judge of the apex court, Justice Gupta delivered several important judgements, including the verdict in the Karnataka hijab ban matter. In the split verdict in the hijab matter, Justice Gupta dismissed the appeals challenging the March 15 judgement of the Karnataka High Court which had refused to lift the ban. Praising Justice Gupta's contribution to the judiciary, the said he had met him for the first time almost about 12-13 years back and has known him closely ever since. "He is a man who has played the innings with a straight bat and has tried to make contribution to whatever he was called upon to decide, called upon to consider, to the best of his ability," he said. At the outset, the said, "I must say something. Today, in this combination, we are the two senior-most judges in terms of age here in this court." CJI Lalit is due to retire on November 8. Justice Gupta said, "Incidentally, my first day in the was in the Chief's court and my last day is also in this court. Senior advocates, including Mukul Rohatgi and A M Singhvi, wished their best to Justice Gupta on his last working day at the apex court. "On behalf of the bar, we wish you a very happy and a successful second innings...," Rohatgi said. Born on October 17, 1957, Justice Gupta was enrolled as an advocate in July 1980. He also worked as additional advocate general of Punjab from 1997 to 1999. He was appointed as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on July 2, 2002. Justice Gupta was a member of the Computer Committee of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for more than 10 years and this period saw complete computerisation of the high court including digitisation of the entire records of judicial files. He took over as a judge of the Patna High Court on February 8, 2016 and was appointed as the acting Chief Justice of that high court on October 29, 2016. Justice Gupta was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on March 18, 2017. During his tenure as a judge in the apex court, he was part of a five-judge constitution bench which, in a significant judgement, refused to refer to a larger bench the issue of revisiting its 29-year-old Mandal verdict putting the cap on quotas at 50 per cent, as it quashed a Maharashtra law granting reservations to Marathas in admissions and government jobs, saying it violated the principle of right to equality. Justice Gupta was also a part of the bench which said insulting remarks made to a person belonging to Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes within the four walls of a house with no witnesses does not amount to offence, as it quashed the charges under the SC/ST Act against a man who had allegedly abused a woman within her building. (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's Counter Intelligence, in a joint operation with a central agency and Maharashtra ATS, apprehended Charat Singh, the main accused in Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attack case, from on Thursday morning, according to an official release on Thursday. An RPG attack was carried out at Intelligence headquarters in Mohali on May 9, 2022, at about 7.45 pm. Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said that the arrested accused is a key operative and associate of Canada-based Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) terrorist Lakhbir Singh alias Landa. "Accused Charat had built a strong crime network across the state with the help of Landa and was providing logistic support and shelter to foot soldiers, who carried out an RPG attack. Charat had also procured an RPG, AK-47, and other weapons from across the border with the active support of Pakistan's ISI through Pakistan-based terrorist Harwinder Singh alias Rinda," Yadav said. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, while addressing a press conference, said that with the arrest of accused Charat Singh, Police have so far arrested eight accused persons in this case, while, another accused, who is a juvenile and had carried out the attack, was arrested by the Delhi Police recently, taking the total number of arrests to nine. Earlier, Nishan Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Baljinder Singh Rambo, Kanwarjeet Singh Bath, Anantdeep Singh Sonu, Baljeet Kaur Sukhi, and Lovepreet Singh Vicky were arrested by the Punjab Police. He said that Police teams are on a manhunt to arrest the last accused in this case identified as Deepak Kumar of Jhajjar, Haryana, who had carried out an RPG attack. The police official said that accused Charat is a habitual offender and has been facing several cases of heinous crimes including murder, attempt to murder, and under the Arms Act in Punjab. "The accused was serving a life sentence in a murder case, and at the time of the RPG attack, he was out on parole," he said, adding that Charat along with his associates had killed a shopkeeper Shashi Kapoor in Khemkaran, Tarn Taran in March 2015. "During his parole period, Charat reassembled his associates including Nishan Kulla and others from the Tarn Taran area to carry out the RPG attack, which was aimed at destabilizing communal harmony and peace in the state," said the IGP. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India indicated on Friday that it will continue to explore ways to bring back the Kohinoor, one of the largest diamonds in the world, from the United Kingdom. The death of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, reignited the demand in India to bring back the . Asked about the demand, (MEA) Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi referred to the government's response on the issue in Parliament a few years ago. "My understanding is that the government of India responded to it in Parliament a few years ago. We have said that we have been raising this matter from time to time with the UK government and we will continue to explore ways and means for obtaining a satisfactory resolution of the matter," he said. The 108-carat gem was given to Queen Victoria in 1849 by Maharajah Duleep Singh. It was worn by the Queen Mother on her crown in 1937. There were speculative reports in the British media about the possibility of Camilla wearing the diamond when she is crowned Queen Consort at a ceremony on May 6 next year. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a significant number of Twitter users in India demanded the return of the Kohinoor to India. (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 Supreme Court's split verdict in the hijab case, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLA) appealed to the government to withdraw its order on the hijab. Requesting the government to withdraw its order regarding a ban on hijab in educational institutions, the board said that if the government does so, the issue would dissolve. "The education of women in the country, especially among Muslims, receives less attention, and hence the government should not support initiatives that create obstacles in the way of girls' education," the board's statement said on Thursday. Notably, Government order had directed Government schools in Karnataka to abide by the prescribed uniform, and the private schools were directed to mandate a uniform as decided by their Board of Management. On Thursday a bench of justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia pronounced a split judgement on the Hijab issue, as one upheld the Karnataka HC judgement, Justice Gupta, upholding the Karnataka High Court judgement, said, "The essential religious practices of the followers of Sikh faith cannot be made the basis of wearing of hijab/headscarf by the believers of the Islamic faith." Justice Dhulia set aside the earlier judgment of Karnataka High Court on the hijab issue. "What constitutes Essential Religious Practices was left to the doctrine of that religion itself, said that "it may or may not be a matter of essential religious practice, but it still is, a matter of conscience, belief, and expression," Dhulia said while hearing various appeals challenging an order passed by the Full Bench of the Karnataka High Court on March 15, which dismissed the pleas challenging the Government order dated February 5. The AIMPLA general secretary Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani said that Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia's view on the hijab case was in line with the requirements of the Indian Constitution and personal freedom, and that his focused on promoting education of girls and on removing barriers in the way of that, which was "something to welcome." "Due to the divided opinion of the judges, the issue will now be referred to the larger bench. The board has so far supported the pro-hijab side in the Karnataka High Court. When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the Board became a party to it, and presented its position with full readiness," the Muslim Personal Law Board's statement further read. "The Board will continue to play its part in the fight of these young girls to carry on with hijab with full strength and willingness," it 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.) Astana [Kazakhstan], October 14 (ANI): Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi on Thursday ruled out any talks with at the cost of India's integrity. In an exclusive interview with ANI in Astana, MoS Lekhi reiterated that should dismantle terror infrastructure and get on the better side of law and order. "I advise to dismantle terror infrastructure in their country and get on the better side of law and order, then you can have a conversation with India. We want good relations with all our neighbours including Pakistan but not at the cost of India's integrity," the minister said after the conclusion of the Conference of Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit here. "One must understand that all the investments that they (Pakistan) have made in organising & sustaining terror infrastructure, had they made that investment in developing the infrastructure of their country, then maybe many the menace would have gone away," she added. The minister further added today Pakistan's condition is because of its own wrongdoing. "Seeing the condition that Pakistan is in, they themselves are responsible for all the wrong they're engaged in. Recklessly raising the same issue over and over again that too at bilateral forums where bilateral issues cannot be raised and using the multilateral forum for their propaganda isn't just wrong but uncalled for", said the minister. Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mentioned Jammu and Kashmir during his address at the sixth CICA Summit. Lekhi, who represented India at the summit slammed Pakistan for misusing the CICA platform to "propagate false and malicious propaganda" against India and to distract from the focus of discussions among the grouping's member states. "The union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been and will remain an integral part of India. Pakistan has no locus standi to comment on India's internal affairs," she said. Underlining that Pakistan remains the global epicentre of terrorism, Lekhi said it should cease cross-border terrorism against India. "Pakistan is the global epicentre of terrorism and continues to be the source of terrorist activities including in India. Pakistan continues to make no investment in human development but provides their resources for creating and sustaining the infrastructure of terrorism," she said. Lekhi led the Indian delegation to the 6th Summit meeting of the CICA that was being held in Astana, Kazakhstan. As one of the founding members of CICA, India has supported CICA's initiatives, including by organizing and participating in various CICA activities. The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia. It is a forum based on the recognition that there is a close link between peace, security and stability in Asia and in the rest of the world. The Member States, while affirming their commitment to the UN Charter, believe that peace and security in Asia can be achieved through dialogue and cooperation leading to a common indivisible area of security in Asia where all states co-exist peacefully and their peoples live in peace, freedom and prosperity. (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 (FTA) talks with India are no longer working towards a Diwali deadline though negotiations are progressing well, UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said as New Delhi expressed confidence on Friday of an "early date" for a mutually beneficial deal. "There are ongoing negotiations as we know on the FTA. There is interest on both sides to see if we can work towards a deal, an FTA, that is beneficial to both the countries at an early date," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters in New Delhi. It came as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke to his UK counterpart, James Cleverly, and referenced the Roadmap 2030 bilateral agreement signed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former UK PM Boris Johnson in May last year, with no specific reference to the FTA. A good conversation with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. Reviewed various aspects of our bilateral relationship and committed to taking forward Roadmap 2030 expeditiously. Look forward to an early in-person meeting, he tweeted. During a visit to a Scotch whisky distillery on Thursday, the UK Cabinet minister in charge of the FTA negotiations at the Department for International Trade (DIT) said the deal being lined up with India would bring great wins for the industry as the steep tariffs of up to 150 per cent are set to be slashed. However, while the negotiations are progressing well, signing a draft agreement by October 24 is no longer the goal. "We are close. We're still working on a deal. One of the things that has changed is that we are no longer working to the Diwali deadline, Kemi Badenoch told the BBC. We've closed a lot of chapters [the sections for the negotiating text]. The negotiations are progressing well. But we want to focus on the quality of the deal rather than the speed of the deal. Given the changes that have taken place not just in government but the mourning period [for the Queen] and so on, it makes sense for us to focus on the deal rather than the day," she said. This marks the first official confirmation that both sides are no longer considering Diwali as the closing date for the majority of the deal, with the DIT previously only saying that the government won't sacrifice quality for speed. The Diwali timeline had been announced by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his India visit in April and it was widely expected that it would prove a tight deadline given the political upheaval that followed in the UK. Home Secretary Suella Braverman's recent comments raising concerns over the prospect of visa concessions for India as part of an FTA were also seen as throwing the talks off-track. As we line up deals with huge markets around the globe, including India and CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership], I can't wait to celebrate the even greater wins which lie ahead, said Badenoch, during her visit to the Glenkinchie Distillery in Scotland. She pointed out that the UK has unlocked export markets worth over GBP 100 million by smashing trade barriers that deterred alcohol sales to multiple countries across South America and Africa. Her department said the FTA being negotiated could lower tariffs and simplify other issues like customs to help Scottish distilleries sell more to India. The UK exported GBP 146 million worth of whisky to India last year from distilleries such as Glenkinchie but faced steep tariffs of up to 150 per cent. With India forecast to become the world's third-largest economy with a middle class of a quarter of a billion by 2050, any greater access to the market could be hugely significant for UK businesses, DIT noted. Securing a deal with India to reduce the 150 per cent tariff on Scotch Whisky is the industry's top international trade priority, said Mark Kent, CEO of Scotch Whisky Association. We want to see a deal agreed, but not any deal. To deliver for the industry, any agreement must open up the market to more Scotch whisky producers, which will in turn generate hundreds of new jobs across the UK, hundreds of millions of pounds of additional exports, and boost investment and revenue in India, he said. The ongoing negotiations are a once in a generation chance to give more Scottish distillers the opportunity to do business in India. That is the scale of the prize on offer, he added. Located near Edinburgh, Glenkinchie is a Victorian distillery which has recently been transformed as part of a GBP 185 million investment in Scotch whisky tourism by leading British distiller Diageo. Glenkinchie is the Lowland Home of Johnnie Walker the biggest selling Scotch whisky in the world and also popular in the Indian market. The UK-India is a truly once in a generation, transformational opportunity for Scotch Whisky and we hope today's visit will have given the Secretary of State a real understanding of our industry and the positive impact the India FTA could have on the sector, noted Ewan Andrew, President of Global Supply Chain and Procurement at Diageo. On January 13, both the countries launched the negotiations. India's exports to the UK stood at USD 10.5 billion in 2021-22, while imports aggregated at USD 7 billion. India's main exports to the UK include ready-made garments and textiles, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, petroleum products, transport equipment, spices, pharmaceuticals and marine products. Imports from Britain include precious and semi-precious stones, ores and metal scraps, engineering goods, chemicals and machinery. In the services sector, the UK is the largest market in Europe for Indian IT services. (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.) Deputy Chief Minister on Friday called for adopting the model across the country, observing that focus should be on providing affordable or free supply to people, an official statement said. Participating in the state power ministers' meet at Udaipur, Sisodia said making prices flexible like that of petrol and diesel will prove to be harmful for the people and power tariff will never come under control, it said. "If the rates fluctuate on the basis of prices of other commodities in the market, this step of the central government can prove to be dangerous and all the burden will come on the common people," the statement quoting Sisodia said. In the 21st century, electricity is a basic necessity and in such a situation, the government's focus should be on providing 24-hour power supply at affordable rates or for free to the poor public, he said. People pay taxes to the government and expect good education, health, electricity, water, road, security and employment facilities. It is absolutely wrong to think tax money be spent on providing cheap or free facilities to the people. he said. Sisodia claimed the financial condition of many states are bad because they did not provide free electricity to their people. They also did not properly used the tax money, 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.) The government on Thursday in the recommended the pre-mature release of Nalini Sriharan and RP Ravichandran, convicts who are serving life imprisonment in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister . government in its affidavit said that its 2018 aid and advice for the remission of their life sentence is binding upon the Governor. Nalini and Ravichandran have approached the apex court seeking release from the prison-like fellow convict AG Perarivalan. government said that in the cabinet meeting held on September 9, 2018, it had considered mercy petitions of seven convicts in the assassination case and resolved to recommend the Governor for the remission of their life sentences invoking the power granted under Article 161 of the Constitution. It said, "The said recommendation in respect of seven life convict petitioners was sent to the then governor of Tamil Nadu individually for approval on September 11 and the same was pending with his office since then." The law relating to the power of the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution and the power of the state government in dealing with the offences (302 of IPC) falls within the exclusive domain of the state government and is also well settled, said Tamil Nadu. The state government said that it is the competent authority to take a decision on the petition filed by Nalini and Ravichandran under Article 161 of the Constitution and "the decision of the state cabinet dated September 9, 2018, thereon is final and it can be exercised by Governor of Tamil Nadu as per the aid and advice of the cabinet". The recommendation of the state government remitting the life sentence of the petitioner was sent to the Governor of Tamil Nadu for approval on September 11, 2018, and the same was kept pending with his office for more than two and half years and the recommendation was finally forwarded by the Governor to the President on January 27, 2021, and it still remains undecided for the past one year and nine months, it said. Nalini and Ravichandran had approached the citing the judgment of the top court in the case of co-convict AG Perarivalan where he was released. Earlier, both had knocked the Madras High Court seeking the same relief, however, the High Court had refused to entertain the petition. The Madras High Court while turning down the petition had stated that it did not have special powers that the has under Article 142 of the Constitution. Hence, it cannot order their release, as the Supreme Court did for Perarivalan in May 2022. The High Court had said they could approach the Supreme Court if their plea were based on Perarivalan's release. Ravichandran, who has been in jail for 30 years now, sought interim bail until his case for formal release reached a conclusion. On May 18, the Supreme Court evoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to release AG Perarivalan, who was one of the seven convicts in the assassination case. Following Perarivalan's release, Ravichandran sent a letter to Chief Minister MK Stalin seeking the release of the remaining six convicts, including him and mentioned that the Governor has kept the files of release without consideration for over three years which he condemns as an anti-constitutional approach. Deciding Perarivalan's plea for premature release from jail based on the recommendation made by the Tamil Nadu government in September 2018, the apex court ordered his release, while the six other convicts remain in jail. Gandhi was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber, identified as Dhanu, at a poll rally. (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.) is providing 2,000 seats in its medical colleges for Indian students who had to discontinue their medical education in war-hit Ukraine, its envoy to India said on Thursday. Uzbekistan's Ambassador, Dilshod Akhatov said here that at the request of the Indian government, Uzbekistan's Medical Higher Educational Institutes (MHEIs) of Ministry of Health is providing 2,000 seats to relocate Indian medical students from . MHEIs will be providing the students quality education by accepting the Erstwhile MCI and NMC norms (Screening test regulations 2002) and (Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate - FMGL Regulations 2021) at an affordable budget for middle class families by providing a study-and-stay-at-a-place with Indian food, he said. The Ambassador stated that stands out in international medical education by offering two undergraduate medical programs to Indians -- 6 years MD Diploma and 5+1 years MBBS Degree with one year Internship. To prepare students for the FMGE/NEXT exam, the university has a large modern infrastructure, a large number of teaching beds in associated government hospitals and clinics, and 30 per cent Indian and international professors with supplementary training. The Ambassador presented the Provisional Admission letters to the students who successfully passed the interview session conducted by the Government Higher Medical Institutes of like Bukhar State Medical Institute and Tashkent Medical Academy. Dr B.Divya Raj Reddy who is a Director of NEO and Indian Representative for MHEIs of Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan was present on the occasion. Under the Uzbekistan-Hyderabad Health Care Exchange programme, the Ministry of Health sent Uzbek surgeons and doctors to AIG, Yashodha, and Medanta hospitals for a month-long programme. The ambassador said due to Covid and conflict, the globe is focusing on health, safety, security, and peace and Uzbekistan is advancing in this direction and emerging as the safest area. He also announced the Uzbekistan Tourism and Tashkent International Tourism Fair in Uzbekistan from November 30 to December 2. Heads and tourism ministers of different countries will be participating in this fair with international tourists and tour operators/agencies. --IANS ms/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.) Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday visited the at Kevadia in Gujarat's Narmada district. He also visited Arogya Van at the site of the statue, located around 200km from Ahmedabad, along with Governor Acharya Devvrat. The is an iconic 182-meter tall tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and it was inaugurated in 2018. "At the feet of the - feeling blessed, invigorated, energised, inspired and motivated to be in service of Bharat. Eminently deserving tribute to the Iron Man and Unifier of Bharat. @souindia #SardarPatel," Dhankhar tweeted after his visit. (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 has identified several stretches of roads for redevelopment and beautification under its streetscaping project. Anyone nowadays passing by the India Habitat Centre in the capital would be able to notice certain changes as beautification work is currently underway near the Lodhi Road and Aurobindo Marg. New and attractive shades are being set up on the pavement. Several artefacts and statues are also being installed. Apart from shades, lights, tiles, different types of trees are also being planted on the footpath to give the stretches a unique look. Vinay, an engineer with the PWD, told IANS that the beautification work is currently underway in the capital in places such as Lodhi Road, Aurobindo Marg, Shanti Van and Majlis Park. Beautification of cycle track, benches, etc., would also be done. --IANS moin/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.) Union Minister for and Skill Development, while inaugurating the R&D showcase in IIT Delhi, said Bahubhashini, one of the 75 projects displayed, could remove the language barriers of the country. The all-IIT R&D showcase titled IInvenTive, is the first-ever display of the projects being undertaken by every IIT in India. Professor Pushpak, IIT Bombay while speaking to Business Standard said that Benefits of higher are not reaching the corners of this country because of the language barrier. Hence the students who are more comfortable in the vernacular languages often found it difficult to follow the lectures which were in English. The Bhashini programme entails a real time conversion of one language to another. Subhashish Choudhary, Director, IIT Bombay also reiterated that the Bhashini programme would help the students across the length and breadth of the country. But the scope of the programme is not limited to alone but to other domains like e-governance where administrative documents like govt notifications and legal documents need to be translated immediately. It is also applicable for the Judiciary which has many case papers pending as they await to be translated in English or Hindi in the higher courts. The R&D showcase also included multiple indigenous projects like drone technology, hydrogen fuels and real-time mapping of floods in India. Pradhan further said that all IITs should have skill development centres which arent limited to carpentering or mobile repairs only but to more sophisticated technologies like semiconductor manufacturing, drone repairs and blockchain. He said that the parameters of IITs shouldnt be limited to only placements and packages but also towards the penetration of innovation in the market which is simultaneously monetised along with jobs created. Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti enterprises who was the guest of honour said India will cross Germany as the worlds third largest economy in the next 3 to 4 years. He further explained how the global technology hub has been shifting from the UK to the US to Japan over the last century to Taiwan, Korea and China in the past twenty years and finally it was India s turn as the technology hub of the world. Both Mittal and Pradhan stressed on the importance of industry academia relationship with the need to connect emerging technologies with market and society. Pradhan further added that technology will drive the next phase of growth and development with IT and communications technology among the front runners in India. He said that the leadership in IITs needed to understand the Emerging purchasing capacity and hence needed more research-based entrepreneurship with machine language and artificial intelligence. The R&D Fair is held to mark the 75th anniversary of India's independence under the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav initiative. The event will include 75 projects and will showcase projects with different themes. The project is in line with the vision of Make in India, Digital India and Atmanirbhar Bharat. Union Coal Minister on Thursday said to meet the coal requirements of the country, it is necessary that all subsidiaries of Ltd (CIL) achieve their annual targets. Joshi visited Western Coalfields Ltd headquarters in Nagpur and attended various programmes, said a press release issued by WCL. Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) is one of the eight subsidiary companies of CIL, a central PSU. The minister also presided over a review meeting and took stock of the production, productivity and coal dispatch status of WCL, said the release. Chairman-cum-Managing Director of WCL Manoj Kumar briefed the minister on coal mining activities and assured the company would achieve the production target by the year-end. In order to meet the coal requirements of the country, it is necessary that all CIL subsidiaries achieve their annual targets, the release quoted Joshi as saying. He said to make the country self-reliant in the coal sector, it is necessary to strengthen the existing mining work and start new projects. The minister assured all possible help from the Ministry of Coal for this purpose. Joshi emphasized on speedy work on land acquisition, environment and forest clearance and use of new technology for projects. He said WCL is playing an important role in meeting India's coal requirements, according to the release. (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 country's exports rose by 4.82 per cent to $35.45 billion in September, even as the trade deficit widened to $25.71 billion, according to the data released by the commerce ministry on Friday. In its preliminary data, which was released in the first week of this month, the ministry stated that the country's merchandise exports contracted by 3.52 per cent to $32.62 billion in September. According to the data released on Friday, imports during the month under review increased by 8.66 per cent to $61.61 billion. The trade deficit in September 2021 was $22.47 billion. During April-September 2022, exports recorded a growth of $16.96 billion to $231.88 billion. Imports rose by 38.55 per cent to $380.34 billion, while the trade deficit widened to $148.46 billion against $ 76.25 billion in September 2021, the data showed. Exports of key sectors such as engineering, RMG (ready-made garments) of all textiles, plastic, cashew and carpet recorded negative growth in September this year. Exports of engineering goods dipped by 10.85 per cent to $8.4 billion in September. Similarly, the export of RMG of all textiles declined by 18 per cent to $1 billion. Shipments of plastics decreased by 12.2 per cent to $660.66 million. However, exports of gems and jewellery, petroleum products, leather, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and rice have recorded positive growth during the month. At imports front, inbound shipments of oil dipped by 5.38 per cent to $15.9 billion. Similarly, gold imports contracted by 24.62 per cent to $3.9 billion. Coal, coke and briquettes imports rose by 60.82 per cent to $3.5 billion in September. Further, the ministry said that the estimated value of services export for September 2022 is $25.65 billion, an increase of 18.72 per cent over September 2021. Imports too rose by 20 per cent to $15.10 billion. "The estimated value of services export for April-September 2022 is $150.43 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 27.88 per cent vis-a-vis April-September 2021," it 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 countrys open source network for digital public goods and application programming interface, India Stack, is available to other countries that need such expertise, said on Thursday. Speaking at an event at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC, Sitharaman said India had set a global benchmark in payments digitisation with its (UPI). Standing here I want to reiterate that Indias public goods are available for countries which need it, Sitharaman said, adding that India Stack is helping small and medium industries scale up. The is in Washington DC to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors. So if India today can talk of a digital stack, its not talking of just payment where UPI, which is today acceptable in Singapore, UAE, and many other countries. We are not talking of just RuPay cards, credit cards, and QR codes. The apps that are under this larger umbrella of NPCI are all available there, and available for any country which wants it, she said, referring to the National Payment Corporation of India. Sitharaman said increased digitisation in payments, direct benefit transfer, and delivery of welfare had not only helped India in its fight against Covid-19 and its economic fallout, but also made the countrys growth story sustainable in the long term. There were times when global benchmarks, global standards were the ones which India had to look up to and say we have to catch up to that level. But on the digital side, be it payment, identity, health, education, be it also the way in which your compliance requirements are being taken care of, India has actually set standards, she said. Our economy is doing well, largely because the confidence in what has happened in the last two years is probably felt by people. And that is why I would think the economy's revival is on a sustained path, she said. Sitharaman acknowledged that because of the global recession, Indias exports would suffer and the US dollar appreciation would impact the rupee. Because of the way technology has been used for public goods, there is a sense of confidence that India will be able to face the current geopolitical headwinds, she said. India is ready to share its indigenously developed 5G infrastructure with other nations. The 5G that weve launched in our country is completely standalone. There could be some parts coming from, say, countries like South Korea or our other partners. This is a complete indigenous technology that we can now provide 5G to any country which wants it, she said. Separately on Thursday, at the G20 meeting, Sitharaman called on her counterparts to work together from the current geopolitical risks from worsening. Todays global economy faces a confluence of challenges and it is our collective responsibility to prevent the risks from aggravating, the said in her speech during the closing session of the G20 meeting. Sitharaman said G20 finance ministers had always come together in the harshest global situations, set aside their differences, and worked towards a common goal of prosperity for our people. As such, she urged the finance ministers and central bank governors to continue working together with this sense of solidarity. In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the IMF had warned of a long and tough economic winter due to the continuing geopolitical crisis in Europe, the slowdown in China, and the cumulative impact on global inflation, which it said has led to a cost-of-living crisis. From December 1, India is set to take over the Presidency of G20 for a year. Rebuilding trust in multilateralism is at the core of India's thinking, Sitharaman told her counterparts. India has opposed efforts of a 10-member group of developed and developing countries, which has called for consultation on the programme at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in a group format rather than bilaterally. Speaking at the WTO General Council meeting on October 7, Indias ambassador and permanent representative to the WTO Brajendra Navnit said he doesnt understand the hesitancy of the countries to consult bilaterally. The Bali decision has not given this format of consultation. And in the WTO, this is the first time I am hearing that members are not interested in bilateral discussion to solve the problem. So sometimes, I wonder if this is all created just for demonstration to show something back home or actually these members are interested in finding a solution to their doubt or clarification, which can be better addressed in a bilateral interaction, he said. The US, European Union (EU), Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Thailand had informed the Agriculture Committee of the WTO that, in accordance with paragraph 6 of the Bali Ministerial Decision on Public Stockholding for Purposes (PSH), they had invited India to engage in a technical dialogue regarding the operation of its PSH programmes. The members had expressed concern with Indias lack of full transparency in taking recourse to the Bali Decision as well as in replies to certain questions raised in the Agri Committee. Those members considered that receiving further information on this matter would facilitate engagement and a meaningful policy dialogue. Navnit said since the group consists of both developed and developing countries as well as food importing and food exporting countries, bilateral consultation is a better option. This is because these four sets of countries will have different sets of clarifications and questions. Under WTO rules, developing countries such as India need to limit their public procurement through minimum support price (MSP) of foodgrains such as wheat and rice to within 10 per cent of the value of the crop. After India enacted the National Act, 2013, which aimed to provide subsidised foodgrains to approximately two-thirds of its 1.3-billion population, the demand for public procurement increased significantly. At the Bali ministerial conference in December 2013, India secured a so-called peace clause. Under it, if India breaches the 10 per cent limit, other member countries will not take legal action under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. However, the concession also comes with onerous notification obligations about farm subsidies provided in the previous year. Though India has invoked the peace clause for paddy at the WTO, some member countries are not happy with the details provided by India. For example, the EU has said India did not disclose the value of production of many subsidised items such as wheat and pulses, among others. In its reply, India provided the details while maintaining that according to the Handbook of Notification Requirements, it is not mandatory to include the value of production in the notification. In the past, the US had alleged that Indias MSP programmes for wheat and rice breached New Delhis permissible levels of trade, distorting domestic support at the WTO. However, India has rejected the flawed assumptions and erroneous methodologies used by the US for its calculations. Reacting to the decision of Organization of Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, Union Minister on Friday said India will do all that is required to ensure its energy security and affordability. He said if required, India will go for diversification of energy sources. "This is their (OPEC's) sovereign right what they want to do but equally it is my job to point out that all actions have consequences, intended or unintended. India will be able to navigate through the situation with confidence," the and natural gas minister said at GEO India 2022 conference here. "We will not allow any shortages to come in. The government will do all that is required to ensure energy security and affordability," he said. Puri said as per the estimate of the sector, consumption of fuel will increase and 25 per cent of the global demand in next 20 years will be from India. Therefore, he said, the prime minister took the decision to open up exploration and production sector. "We have diversified the sources from where we source energy and will diversify it further," he said. The minister said going by the import statistics of the last six months, Saudi Arabia was number one supplier and then Iraq became the second largest supplier but India has the autonomy to take its decision. "We will take our decisions and we will not hesitate to diversify." On October 5, the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries decided to sharply cut production to support sagging oil prices, a move that could deal the global economy a heavy blow. It was decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November. (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 sowing of has started on a healthy note with the area under jumping sharply during the week ended October 14 to around 430,000 hectares, as against 69,000 hectares during the same period last year. For wheat, the other main rabi crop, traders and market participants are hopeful the area under cultivation will be at least 10 per cent more than that in previous years owing to remunerative prices and favourable weather. is usually sown in around 31 million hectares, mostly in the northern belt. The possibility of increase in acreage is that in the main growing states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and UP, sentiment is bullish, Rahul Chauhan, a commodity analyst with iGrain India, told Business Standard. Similarly, is sown in around 6.4 million hectares, which too is expected to increase. This could come at the expense of chana (gram) because traders say the crop hasnt fetched as high a price as and for farmers this year. The recent rain in North India, though harmful for the standing kharif crops, is seen to benefit rabi plantations because it will leave adequate residual soil moisture. in the open market have largely stayed above the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2,015 per quintal this year due to favourable demand and drop in production because of a rise in temperature during the critical harvest months of March and April this year.The Russia-Ukraine war has pushed up global wheat demand, which led to a price spike in Indian markets because both the nations are major exporters. Seeing a sharp spike in prices and a massive drop, almost 57 per cent, in its procurement, the Central government in May imposed a ban on exports. However, the move did little to cool prices much and the markets have been trading above the MSP because there are virtually no pipeline stocks with flour millers. A drop in procurement also means that the Centres ability to intervene in domestic wheat markets to cool prices through open sales is limited. On October 1, the wheat stocks in the central pool were estimated at 22.76 million tonnes, which is precariously close to its buffer norm of 20.52 million tonnes. But the rice stocks are sufficient at 20.46 million tonnes, more than the buffer requirement of 10.25 million tonnes. The rice stocks do not include the 7.93 million tonnes of unmilled lying with millers. In the case of mustard, though edible oil prices have significantly cooled from their highs seen in March to May, traders say market sentiment still remains bullish, which should aid in higher planting. Altogether 18 candidates filed their nominations till Friday, the last date of filing nomination papers for by- to Mokama and Gopalganj assembly segments in Bihar, an official said. While 11 candidates filed their nomination papers in Gopalganj, seven did the same in Mokama, Deputy Election Officer, Bihar, Ashok Priyadarshi told PTI-Bhasha. By- to the two seats have been necessitated by the death of sitting BJP MLA from Gopalganj Subhash Singh and disqualification of RJD's Anant Singh who represented Mokama. In Gopalganj, the deceased MLA's wife Kusum Devi's bid to retain the seat for the party is being challenged by Mohan Prakash Gupta of the RJD though the pitch has been queered by the entry of BSP candidate Indira Yadav. Yadav is married to Sadhu Yadav, an estranged brother-in-law of RJD president Lalu Prasad. Sadhu Yadav had won the seat in 2000. The seat falls in the district of the same name to which both Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, Sadhu Yadav's elder sister, belong. In Mokama, Anant Singh's wife Neelam Devi seems confident of retaining the seat for the RJD. Her bid will be challenged, primarily, by Sonam Devi of the BJP which is fielding its own candidate from the seat after 27 years. Sonam Devi is a greenhorn, married to another local muscleman Lalan Singh who is known to be opposed to Anant Singh. Both belong to the Bhumihar caste which holds sway over the assembly segment. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on Saturday and the last date of withdrawal is October 17. Casting of votes will take place on November 3. (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 Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Murji Patel filed nomination papers on Friday for the November 3 Assembly by-election. He is the joint candidate of the and the Shiv Sena faction headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Patel had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Assembly polls from the same seat against Shiv Sena's Ramesh Latke, whose death earlier this year necessitated the by-election. "I am a worker of the and do what the party asks me to do," Patel said before filing his nomination papers here. In a show of strength, Patel was accompanied by the BJP's Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar, party MLC Pravin Darekar and MLA Nitesh Rane. Deepak Kesarkar, minister and spokesperson of the Eknath Shinde camp of the Shiv Sena, was also present. On Thursday, Kesarkar had said that the and the 'Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena' headed by CM Shinde would field a joint candidate for the Assembly bypoll. From the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, Rutuja Latke, wife of late MLA Ramesh Latke, filed her nomination paper. (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.) Chinese envoy calls for maintenance of current security situation in Yemen Xinhua) 08:50, October 14, 2022 UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called for efforts to maintain the current relatively stable security situation in Yemen. The six-month-old truce has brought a glimmer of hope to Yemen. The Yemeni people and the international community had expected the truce to be extended and expanded. Regrettably, this goal has not been achieved, said Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. "The top priority now is to prevent the escalation of tensions and maintain the current relatively stable security situation," he told the Security Council. "China calls on the relevant parties to put the interests of the Yemeni people first, exercise restraint, act prudently, refrain from any unilateral actions and provocative language that may escalate the situation, and leave enough space for the political process," he said. "At this critical moment, all parties in Yemen should maintain communication and avoid miscalculation." Dialogue and consultation are the only right way to resolve the Yemeni issue. On Oct. 5, the Security Council called on the Yemeni parties, in particular the Houthis, to return to negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations. China hopes that this appeal can be implemented and that the relevant parties can return to the negotiating table as soon as possible, so as to properly resolve their differences and strive to reach a new truce arrangement at an early date, said Geng. China supports the Gulf Cooperation Council's initiative on the issue of Yemen, and encourages countries with influence in Yemen to continue to provide constructive assistance in de-escalating the situation, restoring the truce, and realizing a political settlement, he said. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is continuing and UN humanitarian operations are severely underfunded. Yemen cannot be forgotten by the international community. China calls for the allocation of adequate funding for UN assistance projects in Yemen, he said. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Hongyu) Minister on Thursday called for an effective tax reporting regime and information exchange between jurisdictions for crypto assets to combat offshore tax evasions. Participating in the G20 Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting here on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, Sitharaman intervened on a number of critical issues, including infrastructure, investments and international taxation. On scaling up sustainable and digital infrastructure investments, she highlighted the need to leverage private sector participation. She also spoke on mobilising at sub-national level for inclusive and quality infrastructure. The last session of the ongoing G20 meeting saw discussions on the progress made on the agenda of international taxation during this year. On the two-pillar solution, the finance minister called for participative engagement of all jurisdictions in negotiations and prioritising capacity building. She also said that international tax rules should be simple, administrable and generate meaningful revenue in developing countries. Sitharaman also called for an effective tax reporting regime and information exchange between jurisdictions for crypto assets to combat offshore tax evasion, according to a series of tweets by the Ministry of Finance. (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 court in has fined nearly $19 million for not selling iPhones with a charging socket unit, saying it must provide chargers with its iPhones in the country. has said it will appeal the decision. According to Barron's, the judge called the non-inclusion of chargers in phone purchases an "abusive practice" that "requires consumers to purchase a second product in order for the first to work." The tech giant stopped giving power adapters with its iPhones in 2020 with 12, citing environmental concerns. The company now only gives charging cable with new iPhones. According to Apple, not bundling chargers with iPhones will save 861,000 tonnes of copper, zinc and tin. However, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice told that it can help the environment by allowing USB-C support in its devices. "It is evident that, under the justification of a 'green initiative,' the defendant imposes on the consumer a required purchase of charger adaptors that were previously supplied along with the product," said the court's ruling. Tech giant Apple might bring USB-C port to AirPods and Mac accessories by 2024. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company might introduce USB-C to its newest AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods by the year 2024, while Mac accessories like the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad may convert to USB-C as soon as the next year. "It's a safe bet that those accessories will move to USB-C in their next incarnation", Gurman was quoted as saying in a recent report. As the European Union moves to mandate USB-C charging on new smartphones, tablets, and headphones introduced in the territory in late 2024, there has been a rumoured shift away from Lightning ports. --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.) On the eve of a landmark Communist Party congress thats set to confirm Xi Jinpings third term in power, Chinas economy is confronted with one of its most challenging periods in decades as household and business confidence plummets. Latest data paint a picture of a weak economy, largely a consequence of Xis zero-tolerance approach to combating Covid infections and a crackdown on property sector debt. Consumer-price figures for September raised the possibility of deflation in the economy as demand slumps. High-frequency indicators and a spike in Covid cases suggest economic weakness continued into October. Trade data expected to be published Friday will likely show exports, which have supported the economy through the pandemic, are slowing as European economies and the US stand on the brink of recession. Xi needs to respond to the rockiest economy Beijing has faced in decades, said Jacob Gunter, a senior economy analyst at the Mercator Institute for Studies in Germany. Cynosure, but why? (REUTERS) The 20th party congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) starts on Sunday. The conclave of roughly 2,300 party leaders, held every five years, takes place at the Great Hall of the People on Beijings Tiananmen Square, with much of the proceedings behind closed doors and lasting about a week. Here is how it is likely to proceed: Xis titles A third term as general secretary for Chinese President breaks with the two-term limit of recent precedent. Xis other titles are chairman of the central military commission, which is widely expected to be renewed during the congress, and president, which is up for renewal at the annual parliamentary meeting in March. The opening The ritual begins with dozens of leaders walking into the main hall to thunderous applause and the stirring Welcome March song before taking their seats on-stage against a backdrop of giant red flags and a hammer and sickle plaque. During the opening ceremony, which is broadcast with a delay, Xi will read out the 20th party congress report, reviewing the party's achievements of recent years and laying out its vision for the next five years. At the 19th party congress, the opening speech lasted 3 hours and 24 minutes. The rest of the week Party leaders retreat behind closed doors in smaller groups to discuss the report, personnel, and the draft of an amendment to the party charter. The closing event At the closing ceremony, delegates vote to endorse the congress report and party constitution amendment. They also elect a new Central Committee roughly 200 full members with voting rights and about 170 alternates from a pre-selected shortlist. The first plenum A day after the congress, the newly elected Central Committee convenes behind closed doors at its first plenum. There will be votes on lists of candidates for the next Politburo, which usually has 25 people, and its Standing Committee, which currently numbers seven. Later, the general secretary leads the new Standing Committee into a room at the Great Hall of the People where journalists are gathered. Confidence data is particularly concerning, with household expectations for the job market dropping to a record low in the third quarter, and a reluctance to spend meaning bank savings jumped 56 per cent so far this year compared to 2021. Business surveys show their confidence is unusually low, making them reluctant to hire and invest. On Friday, art enthusiasts strolling through the galleries of London's National Gallery witnessed a shocking show when two activists threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers to protest extraction. No discernible damage was done to the glass-covered oil painting. The activists, who are a part of a group called "Just Stop Oil" wants the UK government to halt new oil and gas projects. The two protesters also glued themselves to the gallery wall to make a point. Both of them have been arrested soon after, said London's Metropolitan Police. "What is worth more, art or life? are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?" said the activists to justify their actions. The soup splashed across the glass covering the painting and its gilded frame. The gallery said there is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed. Statement from the National Gallery pic.twitter.com/DuZhTbAvbH National Gallery (@NationalGallery) October 14, 2022 The work is one of several versions of Sunflowers that Van Gogh painted in the late 1880s. It's not the first time the group acted this way. In July, Just Stop Oil activists glued themselves to the frame of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper at London's Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable's The Hay Wain in the National Gallery. On October 7, the opened a new licensing round for North Sea oil and gas exploration, despite criticism from environmentalists and scientists who say the move undermines the country's commitment to fighting change. Environmentalists say the only way to limit global warming to the internationally approved target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels is to stop extracting fossil fuels. The government's claim that burning ever more fossil fuels from the North Sea will help the UK meet its obligations to become net-zero by 2050 has no connection to reality, UK Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said. Reaffirming a strong commitment to Yemen's unity and unwavering support to the people of the conflict-ridden country, on Thursday (local time) said that it is deeply disappointed that the warring parties in the country have not agreed to an extension of the truce. A truce between Yemen's internationally recognised government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels ended on October 2. India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ruchira Kamboj at a United Nations Security Council meeting on said, " is deeply disappointed to learn that the parties have not agreed to an extension and expansion of the truce." The only sustainable solution to the conflict, Kamboj said is a "peacefully negotiated, Yemeni-led and Yemeni-owned political settlement" that prioritizes the well-being of all Yemenis and meets their legitimate aspirations. Welcoming the commitment shown by the Government of in implementing the truce agreements in good faith, the envoy noted that it is time for warring parties to take a human-centric approach to the conflict and not merely view it as a military or political game. "We take note that negotiations on truce renewal, facilitated by the Special Envoy, are underway and, we hope that a mutually satisfactory agreement is reached soon," she said. appreciated the flexibility shown by the Yemeni Government on the proposals made by the Special Envoy. India urged Ansarallah (the Houthi movement) to reciprocate this flexibility and engage with the Special Envoy constructively. In the meantime, India also urged all parties to maintain the spirit of the truce and refrain from provocations or any military action that could lead to the resumption of active hostilities. The conflict so far has already resulted in an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy in with an enormous loss of lives, endangering millions of civilians with chronic food insecurity, as well as exacerbating the miseries of the people, particularly women and children. "We have seen the tangible benefits of the truce in the past six months: active military operations had ceased; cross-border strikes into Yemen's neighbours had halted; civilian casualties had dropped significantly; fuel imports through Hudaydah port had eased shortages, and commercial flights out of Sana'a airport had resumed," Kamboj said at UNSC meeting. (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 is set to announce next week that it's setting up a military training mission in Europe for thousands of Ukrainian troops and will provide around half a billion more euros (dollars) to help buy weapons for the war-torn country, diplomats and officials said Friday. The aim is to train almost 15,000 Ukrainian troops in a number of EU countries, chiefly Poland and Germany, the officials said. It would range from standard military training to specialised instruction, based on Ukraine's needs. The EU hopes to have it operational by mid-November. EU foreign ministers will endorse the plans at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. The officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details before the plans are officially announced. Several EU and NATO nations are already helping to train the armed forces on a bilateral basis, but diplomats said that this would be more cost effective and efficient with a centralised command structure better able to address Ukraine's needs when done as a collective effort. NATO started training military instructors in after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The military alliance believes that training the trainers is the most effective way of helping Ukraine's armed forces as it does not require troops needed for battle to leave the country. At their meeting in Luxembourg, the ministers will also approve a sixth tranche of money, worth around 500 million euros (dollars), from European Peace Facility a fund being used to reimburse member countries that provide weapons, ammunition and non-lethal military support to . It will bring to just around 3.1 billion euros the total EU sum in security support being made available for Ukraine. Individual countries are also spending more on top of that. The decisions are set to be announced almost eight months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticised the 27-nation bloc for being too slow to come to the country's aid. We had been discussing about the Ukrainian training mission before the war. Before the war. For months, for months before the war, Borrell, who will chair Monday's meeting, told a conference of EU ambassadors. Then the war comes and people said, Oh, we should have done it. (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.) Germany's health minister on Friday urged the country's 16 states to consider stepping up their measures against the amid a rise in new cases. Karl Lauterbach said he favours requiring mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in except on public transport, in medical facilities and care homes. The direction we're going in isn't a good one," Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. He added that it would be better for states to impose limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. The sooner we step on the brake the better it will be. German authorities registered over 114,000 newly confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, and 165 COVID-related deaths. A rise in cases in Bavaria has been linked to the recent Oktoberfest, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Lauterbach said more could have been done to limit the spread of the virus at the beer festival in Munich, such as offering or mandating on-site testing for visitors. The Health Ministry launched a new nearly 33 million-euro (USD 32 million) advertising campaign on Friday, using 84 cases studies of real people affected by COVID-19 to encourage vaccinations. Lauterbach said getting the shot remains an important way of protecting yourself and . The risk of death for people over 60 drops by 90 per cent if they get a fourth shot, 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.) The Lebanese has failed for the second time in a month to elect a new head of state as Michel Aoun's term is about to end in about two weeks. House Speaker Nabih Berri announced the postponement of the election session to October 20 after the failed to secure a quorum for the election, according to a state news media. Only 71 out of 128 members of (MPs) attended Thursday's session, while 86 MPs, or about two-thirds of the parliament, are needed to meet the quorum, Xinhua news agency reported. On September 29, the parliament failed to elect a successor to Aoun in a session attended by 122 lawmakers, as no candidate could obtain two-thirds of the MPs' votes. suffers from a steep financial crisis, and the country is in dire need of a new capable of forcing the implementation of structural reforms to pave the way for a deal with the Monetary Fund. --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.) early on Friday fired an additional and 170 rounds of artillery shells toward the sea and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North's recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the North's capital region at 1:49 am Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters. It was North Korea's 15th missile launch since it resumed its testing activities on September 25. said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and US targets in response to their dangerous" military exercises involving a US aircraft carrier. After the latest missile test, fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, thus violating the accord, South Korea's military said. North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals' border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Korea's provocations are becoming indiscriminative'" but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. "The decision to attack can't be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome, Yoon told reporters. The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North). Maj. Gen. Kang Ho Pil of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff later said in a televised statement that issued a stern warning to (North Korea) to immediately halt its weapons tests. He said has the ability to deliver an overwhelming response to any North Korean provocations. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organisations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seoul's first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them. Most of the North's recent weapons tests were launches that are banned by UN Security Council resolutions. But the North hasn't been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the UN over US disputes with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition. The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korea and Japanese assessments. Whatever the intentions are, North Korea's repeated launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said. He said the missile flew on an irregular trajectory - a possible reference to describe the North's highly maneuverable KN-23 weapon modeled on Russia's Iskander missile. The US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement the North Korean launch didn't pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to its allies, adding that the US commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan remain ironclad. Other North Korean tests in recent weeks included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the US Pacific territory of Guam; a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country; and long-range cruise missiles. After Wednesday's cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the tests successfully demonstrated his military's expanding nuclear strike capabilities. He said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Korea's state media. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. North Korea's ongoing testing spree is reminiscent of its 2017 torrid run of missile and nuclear tests that prompted Kim and then US-President Donald Trump to exchange threats of total destruction. Kim later abruptly entered high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump in 2018 but their negotiations fell apart a year later due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief Kim should be provided in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability. Kim has repeatedly said he has no intentions of resuming the nuclear diplomacy. But some experts say he would eventually want to win recognition of his country as a nuclear state and hold arms control talks with the United State to wrest extensive sanctions relief and other concessions in return for partial denuclearization steps. The urgency of North Korea's nuclear program has grown since it passed a new law last month authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations when it may perceive its leadership as under threat. Most of the recent North Korean tests were mostly of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Some analysts say North Korea's possible upcoming nuclear test, the first of in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles. These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the US to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats North Korea's military early Friday accused South Korea of carrying out artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border, forcing it to take unspecified strong military countermeasures in response. South Korea's military later confirmed it conducted artillery training at a site 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away from the Koreas' military demarcation line and said the training did not violate the conditions of the 2018 agreement. (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.) Letitia James has asked a state court on Thursday to block the Trump Organization from moving its assets from Manhattan to an entity in Delaware and continuing "it's decade long fraud" which her earlier law suit alleged that former President and three of his adult children were involved in to enrich themselves. James filed a motion for a preliminary injunction Thursday, telling the judge: "In short, there is every reason to believe that the defendants will continue to engage in similar fraudulent conduct right up to trial unless checked by order of this court." The Attorney General's office wants to block the Trump Organization from transferring assets to any entities without court approval because it felt that the same day that it announced its $250 million lawsuit against the former President and his company, the Trump Organization incorporated a new entity in Delaware, Trump Organization II LLC. The state says the Trump Organization has not provided any assurances that it will not move assets out of to avoid potential liability, CNN reported. Trump has sought to move the case from the current judge assigned in the case, and to the commercial division. The Attorney General's office has opposed the move. James' office filed a $250 million lawsuit last month, against Trump, his three eldest children and the Trump Organization alleging they used fraudulent financial statements to obtain favourable rates of insurance and loans and tax benefits. The Trumps say the investigation is politically motivated and called Thursday's legal filing "another stunt" to aid James' re-election campaign for . The Attorney General's office asked Judge Arthur Engoron to block the Trump Organization from submitting financial statements to lenders, insurers and without providing additional information about the techniques it used to value assets. In addition, the state wants a judge to impose an independent monitor to oversee the financial statements. "The requested targeted relief is designed to mitigate further fraud and illegality during the pendency of this action because the company has present and continuing obligations under existing loan agreements to prepare and disclose Mr. Trump's Statement of Financial Condition as of June 30, 2022 and may also seek additional financing from lenders and renewal of insurance programs on the basis of that Statement," the state attorneys wrote, CNN reported. "The OAG's filing is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to keep this case with Justice Engoron rather than have it transferred to the Commercial Division where it belongs. We have repeatedly provided assurance, in writing, that the Trump Organization has no intention of doing anything improper. This is simply another stunt which Ms. James hopes will aid her failing political campaign," said Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump. The state also is asking permission to serve Trump and Eric Trump electronically, noting that both individuals and their attorneys have refused to accept service of the lawsuit for nearly one month. In a bid to bolster their position that they will succeed on the merits of their lawsuit, state attorneys cited a number of examples that they said weigh in their favour, including Trump asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refusing to answer questions during his deposition this summer. In a civil case the jury can be instructed to apply an adverse inference against a defendant who doesn't answer questions. In addition, they note that during his sworn testimony, Jr, a top executive of the Trump Organization, "incredibly disclaimed all responsibility for the Statements and their contents" noting that Trump Jr. testified that he was not familiar with generally accepted accounting principles and was not involved in preparing the financial statements. --IANS ash/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.) HYDERABAD: In view of the final day of the Sri Venkateshwara Vaibhavotsavam at NTR Stadium on Saturday, traffic diversions would be in place from 3 pm to 8 pm near the venue, Hyderabad traffic police said on Friday. During the programme, traffic will be stopped or diverted at various locations," said A.V. Ranganath, joint commissioner of police, Hyderabad Traffic. Traffic will be diverted at Kavadiguda crossoads, Bakaram bridge and Domalguda T Junction. Traffic from Katta Maisamma temple (Lower Tank Bund) to NTR Stadium will be diverted towards Goshala, at Lower Tank Bund. Police said traffic congestion will be expected at Tank Bund, RTC crossroads, Ashoknagar crossroads, Lower Tank Bund, Kavadiguda, Indira Park, Katta Maisamma Junction, Necklace Rotary, Ravindra Bharati, Himayatnagar, Liberty, Narayanguda crossroads and suggested that motorists avoid these roads. South Korea's military says it detected additionally firing possibly hundreds of artillery rounds into maritime buffer zones between the rivals, further raising animosities triggered by a recent barrage of weapons tests. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North firing around 80 rounds of artillery into waters near their eastern sea border from around 5.p.m. Friday. It said it also detected firing sounds and sighted splashes that were possibly caused by the firing of around 200 artillery rounds in waters near the western sea boundary from around 5:20 p.m. It said the shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions. The artillery firings came hours after fired a ballistic missile and 170 rounds of artillery shells early Friday, extending a highly provocative run in weapons demonstrations that have been accompanied by threats of nuclear conflict against Seoul and Washington. fired a ballistic missile and 170 rounds of artillery shells early Friday toward the sea and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North's recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the North's capital region at 1:49 a.m. Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters. It was North Korea's 15th missile launch since it resumed testing activities Sept. 25. North Korea said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their dangerous military exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. After the latest missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, South Korea's military said. Observers said it was North Korea's third and most direct violation of the 2018 agreement, which created buffer zones and no-fly areas along their land and sea boundaries to prevent accidental clashes. South Korea's Defence Ministry said it sent North Korea a message asking it not to violate the agreement again. North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals' border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries. It was reportedly the first time that North Korean military aircraft have flown that close to the border since 2017. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Korea's provocations are becoming indiscriminative' but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. The decision to attack can't be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome, Yoon told reporters. The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North). South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seoul's first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are largely a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters he supports South Korea's decision to impose the sanctions. Most of the North's recent weapons tests were ballistic missile launches that are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions. But the North hasn't been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the U.N. over U.S. disputes with Russia regarding its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition. The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. Whatever the intentions are, North Korea's repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said. He said the missile flew on an irregular trajectory a possible reference to describe the North's highly maneuverable KN-23 weapon modeled on Russia's Iskander missile. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the defense of and Japan remains ironclad. Other recent North Korean tests included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam; long-range cruise missiles; and a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country. After Wednesday's cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the tests successfully demonstrated his military's expanding nuclear strike capabilities. He said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Korea's state media. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday that is expected to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing Friday that all related countries should work to prevent tensions from escalating and move toward restarting meaningful talks. North Korea's ongoing testing spree is reminiscent of its 2017 torrid run of missile and nuclear tests that prompted Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump to exchange threats of total destruction. Kim later abruptly entered high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump in 2018 but their negotiations fell apart a year later due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief Kim should be provided in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability. Kim has repeatedly said he has no intentions of resuming nuclear diplomacy. But some experts say he would eventually want to win recognition of his country as a nuclear state and hold arms control talks with the United State to wrest extensive sanctions relief and other concessions in return for partial denuclearization steps. The urgency of North Korea's nuclear program has grown since it passed a law last month authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations when it may perceive its leadership as under threat. Most of the recent North Korean tests were of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting . Some analysts say North Korea's possible upcoming nuclear test, its first bomb detonation in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles. These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the U.S. to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats. North Korea's military early Friday said it took unspecified strong military countermeasures in response to South Korea's artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border on Thursday. South Korea's military later confirmed it conducted artillery training at a frontline area but said its drills didn't violate the conditions of the 2018 agreement. Maj. Gen. Kang Ho Pil of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a televised statement that South Korea issued a stern warning to (North Korea) to immediately halt its weapons tests. South Korea's military said it will begin an annual 12-day field training Monday to hone its operational capabilities under various scenarios of North Korean provocations. It said an unspecified number of U.S. troops plan to take part in this year's drills. (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 suspect in the incident in Raleigh city, in the US state of North Carolina, that resulted in the killing of five people has been arrested in by police officials, media reports said. Earlier, it was reported that the suspect is on a loose. However later Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright confirmed the arrest, reported NBC News. "The suspect is contained, but please stay tuned to Raleigh Police Department, as they are the investigating agency for this incident," the city of Knightdale tweeted. "This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh," city Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin was quoted as saying by CNN. "We must stop this mindless violence in America," Baldwin said during a press conference as she announced the toll of the incident. US media reports said two people were taken to a hospital, one of whom was a police officer. Earlier, police said an active shooter is on the loose in a residential area of Raleigh. The Raleigh Police had said that an active investigation is underway on what was described as an "active shooting". They advised residents in several to stay inside their homes. "This is still an active investigation. Sections of the Hedingham neighbourhood remain closed. Residents should follow the directions of law enforcement officials on the scene," Raleigh Police tweeted. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper had said that he has spoken to the city Mayor. "I have spoken with Mayor Baldwin and instructed state law enforcement to provide assistance responding to the active shooter in East Raleigh. State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe," Cooper had tweeted. (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 vowed on Friday that won't be allowed to flourish again in the country, as he chaired a meeting attended by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other heads of intelligence agencies. Friday's high-profile meeting, also saw the participation of defence minister Khawaja Asif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah, and foreign affairs minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, according to Dunya News TV report. The situation in the Swat Valley and the issues related to negotiations with the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) were discussed in the meeting, following which the officials from the security agencies presented their recommendations to Sharif, the report said. Security issues related to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the western borders were also reviewed in the meeting, it said. Earlier, Prime Minister Sharif and Gen. Bajwa held a separate one-on-one meeting and discussed matters pertaining to national and internal security, it said. Following this meeting Sharif asserted that will not be allowed to flourish again and peace would be restored in the country, as the sacrifices of security personnel cannot be forgotten, it added. Sharif's assurance notwithstanding, the Swat valley has become one of the most volatile regions in the country. Thousands rallied in the Swat Valley earlier this week after a local school bus driver was shot down by an unknown miscreant. In September, five people including an influential anti-Taliban tribal leader were killed in a bomb blast in Kot Katai village in the region. The Swat valley has been a TTP stronghold till a decade ago. The uptick in terrorist activities in the region comes as peace talks between Pakistan's security forces and the TTP have failed to make any progress. (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 UK on Friday announced an additional GBP 10 million humanitarian assistance for flood relief efforts in Pakistan, bringing the country's total contribution to GBP 26.5 million. According to Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority, the unprecedented floods that have submerged huge swathes of the country have so far killed nearly 1700 people and destroyed or damaged 2 million houses. As many as 546,000 people are living in relief camps. The disaster has also damaged 12,716 km of roads and 22,000 schools. In total, 745 health centres have been damaged or destroyed. The British High Commission here said in a statement that the UK will provide a further GBP 10 million of humanitarian aid to for flood relief efforts, bringing Britain's total contribution to GBP 26.5 million. Of the total aid, GBP 21.5m has been allotted to the relief efforts in the areas worst hit by the flooding. The remaining GBP 5m will go directly to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Floods Appeal. The extra support will be spent on urgent life-saving needs such as providing shelter, water and sanitation to prevent waterborne diseases, the statement said. British Minister of State for South Asia, Lord Tariq Ahmad, arrived in on Friday for a visit to flood-affected areas. The relief announcement was made during the visit. Our support will help to tackle the spread of waterborne diseases and to improve access to clean water, sanitation, medical care and shelter across the country, Ahmad said. We are working night and day with Pakistan and our partners to ensure that UK aid reaches the hardest hit areas. He said that apart from helping with urgent life-saving needs, the UK was supporting Pakistan's economic recovery and resilience against future climate disasters. The UK's new Developing Countries Trading Scheme will help grow trade by giving duty-free access to 94% of goods exported from Pakistan to the UK, he said. The High Commission also said that in addition to the GBP 26.5 million donation in humanitarian funding, a UK Royal Air Force flight recently delivered eight boats and ten portable generators for use in flood relief operations in Pakistan. (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 his sudden return from the Monetary Funds' (IMF) meeting in Washington DC on Friday, the UK's chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, has reportedly been sacked by Prime Minister Liz Truss. This makes Kwarteng the shortest-serving chancellor since 1970. The chancellor of the exchequer is the equivalent of India's . Kwarteng confirmed the development. "You have asked me to stand aside as your chancellor. I have accepted," he wrote in a letter to Truss. According to a report by The Guardian, Truss was supposed to meet Kwarteng for "crisis talks" in Downing Street. She will scrap parts of their economic package announced in September. Truss will conduct a press conference later on Friday. On September 23, Truss announced corporation tax cuts worth 18 billion pounds. Her then finance minister, Kwarteng, had also planned to cancel a proposed increase in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent scheduled for April 2023. In total, what was being deemed as Kwarteng's "mini-budget" was expected to provide reliefs worth GBP43 billion based on tax cuts to shake the economy out of a slowdown. According to Financial Times (FT), the "mini-budget" was "very much Truss's policies and featured prominently in her Tory leadership campaign." However, tax cuts led to market chaos in the . The share market dipped and the returns on government bonds, called gilts in the UK, soared so fast that insurance products started demanding a "huge amount of cash". The cost of borrowing and mortgage also surged. The UK's central bank, the Bank of England, had to start an emergency bond-buying programme to shore up gilt-exposed pension funds. With the rising political and economic pressure, reports emerged from the that Truss might be planning a U-turn on her "mini-budget". Her move to sack Kwarteng is seen as a way to calm down the markets. The Guardian reported, "The prime minister intended to get Kwarteng to 'carry the can' over her climbdown as she sought to calm the markets and the nerves of jittery Tory MPs." Kwarteng and Truss had different views regarding how much the earlier announced policies should be reversed. Kwarteng recently said that he was "absolutely, 100 per cent" confident that he would be in post in November, despite the rebellion. However, if the U-turn is not announced soon, the markets may react badly. economist Sonali Punhani said markets needed to see a credible fiscal plan, according to Moneycontrol. "It would be challenging to deliver the scale of these cuts, but for them to be credible, these need to be delivered sooner rather than in the latter part of the forecast," she said. The British government says Prime Minister will hold a news conference Friday as she faces pressure to U-turn on an economic package that sparked market turmoil. The announcement comes after Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng cut short a visit to Washington to fly back to London for crisis talks. The pair are facing intense pressure to scale back unfunded tax cuts to calm financial markets. Truss is also facing a revolt from her own Conservative Party over the chaos unleashed by her economic plans. (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 Supreme Court on Thursday rejected former President Donald Trump's plea to step into the legal fight over the FBI search of his Florida estate. The justices did not otherwise comment in turning away Trump's emergency appeal. Trump had pressed the court on an issue relating to classified documents seized in the search authorized by a federal judge of Mar-a-Lago. The Trump team was asking the justices to overturn a lower court ruling and permit an independent arbiter, or special master, to review the roughly 100 documents with classified markings that were taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago. A three-judge panel from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master's review to the much larger tranche of non-classified documents. The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records. But Trump's lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or Presidential records. The Justice Department said in a Supreme Court filing that Trump's request had no merit. The FBI says it seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during its search. The Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records. Cannon subsequently assigned a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to review the records and segregate those that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. The Justice Department objected to Dearie's ability to review the classified records, prompting the 11th Circuit to side with the department. (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.) Shares of soared 10 per cent to Rs 237.75 on the BSE in Fridays intra-day trade after the companys board approved issue of warrants to promoters and non-promoter group person on preferential basis. The stock of defence company is trading higher for the third straight day and rallied 34 per cent during the period. It was quoting at its highest level since April 2018. Also read: Apollo Micro Systems hits over 4-yr high on stable outlook on Thursday after market hours announced that its board approved to issue up to 10.10 million warrants each convertible into, or exchangeable for, one equity share within the period of 18 months. The company will issue warrants at a price of Rs 183.30 each aggregating up to Rs 185.13 crore, the company said in an exchange filing. Upon issue of warrants, an amount equivalent to 25 per cent of the total issue size shall be called upfront from the proposed allottees. The company will allot 4.62 million warrants to Mr Karunakar Reddy Baddam, Promoter and Managing Director of . The company said it will issue 1.9 million warrants to Nexpact Limited, Mauritius and 1.2 million warrants to Maybank Securities Pte. Ltd. In the past one month, the stock has outperformed market as shares surged 49 per cent, as against 3.5 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. Moreover, in the past three months, the stock soared 80 per cent, as compared to 9 per cent rise in the benchmark index. Apollo Microsystems is an electronic, electro-mechanical, engineering designs, manufacturing and supplies company. It is involved in design, development and sale of high-performance, mission and time critical solutions to defence, space and home land security of the defence ministry, government controlled public sector undertakings, and private sectors. That apart, the company has also participated in several indigenous missile programmes, underwater electronic warfare, underwater missiles, surface to air missiles, nuclear missile programmes, surface to surface missile programmes, indigenous submarine programmes, UAVs long and short endurance, ships, and space programmes. Shares of were trading 3 per cent higher at Rs 1,936.55 on the BSE in Fridays intra-day trade after the engineering & construction company said it has won significant orders for its water & effluent treatment business. The company did not disclose the exact value of the orders. The significant value of the project is between Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore, as per . The company said it has secured repeat orders from the Narmada Water Resources, Water Supply & Kalpsar Department, Government of Gujarat, to execute pumping system and pipeline works from Tappar Dam to Nirona Dam (Northern Link). This is the single largest order secured by the business in Gujarat. The scope of work involves design, supply, construction & commissioning of pump houses & pipelines, with associated electrical & automation works. The turnkey project aims to strengthen water resources in Kachchh district of Gujarat by filling existing reservoirs that will irrigate 36,392 Ha of land, said. Including todays orders, has won a total of five significant orders so far this month. In the global market, L&T Heavy Engineering secured a key order for the supply of Reactors for renewable diesel production from a prestigious client in Singapore. The company has also secured repeat orders from the Water Resources Department, Government of Odisha to execute Cluster XIX & Cluster XX Mega Lift Irrigation Projects. L&T also won an order from a leading automobile major to construct a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Haryana, India. While the companys power transmission & distribution business bagged an order to establish a 765kV Transmission Line in Gujarat. In the past one month, L&T has outperformed the market with a 1 per cent decline as compared to a 3.4 per cent fall in the S&P BSE Sensex. In the last three months, it has rallied 17 per cent as against a 9 per cent gain in the benchmark index. L&T is Indias largest engineering & construction (E&C) company with interest in EPC projects, hi-tech manufacturing and services. It primarily operates in infrastructure, heavy engineering, defence engineering, power, hydrocarbon, services business segments. Infrastructure segment contributes around 45 per cent to its consolidated revenue, followed by services at around 30 per cent. During the April-June quarter (Q2FY23), EPC order inflows announced by L&T were in the range of around Rs 7500-17500 crore (as on date, ex-services segment) across railway, hydrocarbon, power T&D, water treatment, heavy engineering, buildings & factories segments indicating decent order inflows for the quarter amid challenging environment. ICICI Securities expects decent pick-up in execution on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. According to the brokerage, working capital and cash flow management will be key monitorables. L&T will focus on emerging portfolios like green EPC, manufacturing of electrolysers, battery & cell manufacturing, data centres and platforms (Sufin & Edutech), real estate in the next five years. L&T has targeted revenues and order inflow CAGR of 15 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, in FY21-26 with a consolidated RoE of 18 per cent named Lakshya 2026. Focus on asset monetisation is expected to further strengthen the balance sheet and improve return ratios, ICICI Securities said. It expects the company's scrip to rally towards its life-time highs at around Rs 2,070 in coming months and outperform benchmarks. Shares of continued its northward movement and surged 12 per cent to hit 52-week high of Rs 289.55 apiece in Fridays intra-day trade. The stock of commercial vehicles company surpassed its previous high of Rs 270, which it had touched on November 4, 2021. In the past two weeks, the stock zoomed 54 per cent after the board approved preferential issue of Rs 115 crore worth of warrants to promoters and non-promoters of the company, including investor Vijay Kishanlal Kedia. The board approved to issue up to 5.81 million warrants at Rs 198 per share each convertible into one equity share of the company within a maximum period of 18 months from date of allotment. The company will allot 5.05 million warrants to Vijay Kishanlal Kedia, and a total 757,575 warrant to promoters, Khushbu Auto Private Limited (656,565 warrants) and Jayantibhai Jagjivanbhai Chandra (101,010 warrants), said in an exchange filing. As on June 30, 2022, Kedia Securities Private Limited held 1.47 per cent stake in Atul Auto, the shareholding pattern data shows. Analysts believe that the huge fund raise could be utilised for contract manufacturing of electric 3-W player domestically. Moreover, the launch of company's electric auto is a key monitorable, said analysts. "With a market capitalisation of Rs 470 crore and 22 million shares outstanding, this is a significant capital raise resulting in 25 per cent plus dilution. With marquee investor again coming in with a substantial stake (around 18 per cent stake), it remains to be seen as to what are the long term growth opportunities at the company as its base business is on a slower than anticipated recovery path," brokerage firm ICICI Securities said in a note. is a prominent 3-wheeler (3W) manufacturer based out of Gujarat with broad-based presence across segments and fuel types. The company has been analysing macro-economic challenges in the country, specifically concerning the supply and demand, and taking steps to align the business to overcome risk and grab available opportunity. The company also aims to tap opportunity lying in 3-W electric vehicles (EV) segment across the globe. "The company has tested and homologated model of 3W EV L5 category with fixed Lithium-ion Battery Packs, with estimates launch timeline in this fiscal year (FY23). Further, Atul Greentech Private Limited (AGPL) has tied-up with Honda Power Pack Energy India and Valeo to develop the prototype cargo and passenger 3-W with the most reliable Honda Mobile Power Pack e: Swap & Valeo powertrain system. This is considered as a remarkable step towards providing swappable battery solution in 3-W segment," Atul Auto. HYDERABAD: Congress candidate for the Munugode by-election Palvai Sravanthi, highlighting the poor performances of TRS and BJP leaders as MLAs, is seeking to win the poll with her mantra of Okka Aukasham (once chance). Sravanthi said that she has been overwhelmed by the support during her month-long campaign, as many also identified her as the daughter of former minister and five-term MLA Palvai Govardhan Reddy. She is also looking to capitalise on being the only woman candidate in the poll fray. People know me, as I was the person visiting all these villages for the past three decades. I was the contact point, representing my father. Women in these villages consider me as one of them, she told Deccan Chronicle. She alleged that Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy (TRS candidate) and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy (BJP candidate) let down the people of Munugode as MLAs over the past eight years. Prabhakhar Reddy, in his term, failed to bring in development. Construction of roads, securing water bodies and establishment of English-medium colleges remain a pipe dream. How could he seek votes without providing anything like 2BHK or even pensions? One of the villages does not even have a road and a ration shop. People have to travel to Chandur to get pension, she said, during her campaign at Nampally mandal. She highlighted that Rajgopal Reddy betrayed the people who had voted him to power with a huge majority. Rajgopal should be taught a lesson, as he sold himself, she said. The Congress has also amplified its online campaign, alleging that the BJP was trying to buy people with money and the TRS, with liquor. Chemcon Speciality Chemicals rose 1.68% to Rs 431.90 after the company said it purchased three different land parcels worth Rs 22.30 crore in different parts of Vadodra, Gujarat for business purposes. The company purchased a non-agricultural land admeasuring 5868 sq. mtrs along with construction thereon situated at Mouje, Vadodara for Rs 6 crore. It purchased agricultural land admeasuring 2125.00 sq. mtrs at Mouje, Vadodara for Rs 7.49 crore. It bought another agricultural land admeasuring 4075.00 sq. mtrs situated at Mouje in Vadodara for Rs 8.80 crore. "These transactions of Purchase of properties are related party transactions. The sellers are Promoter/Promoter group member/Key Managerial Personnel of the Company," the company said in a statement. Gujarat-based Chemcon Speciality Chemicals manufactures specialised chemicals, such as Hexamethyldisilazane ("HMDS"), Chloromethyl Isopropyl Carbonate ("CMIC"), which are predominantly used in the pharmaceuticals industry. It also makes inorganic bromides, namely Calcium Bromide, Zinc Bromide and Sodium Bromide, which are predominantly used as completion fluids in the oilfields industry. Chemcon Speciality Chemicals' net profit rose 89.9% to Rs 25.46 crore on 56.3% increase in net sales to Rs 89.41 crore in Q1 June 2022 over Q1 June 2021. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Infosys: The IT major reported 12.3% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 6,021 crore on a 6% increase in revenue to Rs 36,538 crore in Q2 FY23 over Q1 FY23. As compared with Q2 FY22, the company's net profit and revenues have grown by 11.1% and 23.4%, respectively. In dollar terms, the company reported revenues of $4,555 million (up 2.5% QoQ and up 13.9% YoY) for the quarter ended 30 September 2022. In constant currency terms, the company's revenue has grown by 4% QoQ and by 18.8% YoY. Large deal TCV for the quarter was robust at $2.7 billion, highest in last 7 quarters. The company has revised its FY23 revenue guidance to 15%-16%. The operating margin guidance has also been revised to 21%-22%. Mindtree: The L&T Group company's consolidated net profit jumped 7.9% to Rs 508.7 crore on 8.9% rise in revenue to Rs 3,400.4 crore in Q2 FY23 over Q1 FY23. As compared to Q2 FY22, the IT company's consolidated net profit and revenue increased by 27.5% and 31.5%, respectively. The company had a healthy order book of $518 million, up 44% YoY in Q2 FY23. H1 total contract value (TCV) crosses $1 billion. Angel One: The stock broker's consolidated profit after tax from continuing operations stood at Rs 213.60 crore in Q2 FY23 as against Rs 181.60 crore in Q1 FY23, a growth of 17.7% QoQ basis and 59.1% YoY basis. Consolidated total income stood at Rs 745.90 crore in Q2 FY23 compared with Rs 684.50 crore in Q1 FY23, a 9% growth on QoQ basis and 39.1% YoY basis. The board has recommended dividend of Rs 9 per equity share as the second interim dividend. Cyient: The IT company's normalised PAT stood at Rs 110.3 crore, a de-growth of 5% QoQ. Group revenue stood at Rs 1396.20 crore, a QoQ growth of 11.7% and YoY growth of 25.6%. Normalised Group EBIT was at Rs 166.10 crore with a margin of 11.9%. Group order intake grew by 58.6% YoY. NLC India: The state-run miner has entered into a memorandum of understanding with BHEL, a Public Sector Undertaking under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, to develop indigenous technology for Lignite Gasification. Indiabulls Housing Finance and Delta Corp are under the NSE's F&O ban list for 14 October 2022. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Till recently, 5 Sardar Patel Marg was just another abandoned house in a tony location. But earlier this year, it was leased for a year by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the all-India reincarnation of the (TRS). On his way back to Hyderabad after attending the funeral of Mulayam Singh Yadav, TRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao surveyed the temporary offices of his national party in Delhi. He also visited in upscale Vasant Vihar the 1,200 square metre plot (allotted by the government) where a permanent Delhi office of his party is being built. His vastu expert was in tow, along with trusted ministers and bureaucrats. Party leaders have been despatched to the Election Commission of India to inform it that though everything else (election symbol, office-bearers, etc) is the same, the TRS is now BRS. The (IMF) has put out its latest numbers on the economic performance of different countries. The numbers go back to 1980, when it published its first World Economic Outlook report with country-wise data. When one looks at comparative economic growth, tracked using current US dollars, four countries feature as the best performers of the 2011-21 decade: Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and India in that order. (For India, 2021 means the financial year 2021-22, its last completed year.) Delhi Environment Minister on Friday defended AAP unit chief Gopal Italia on the row over his alleged derogatory remarks and hit out at the leaders, alleging they keep insulting the country throughout the year and hurl abuses on anyone they want. Replying to questions at a press conference, he said the release of Italia's videos and his detention by Delhi Police here on Thursday only shows how scared the ruling is of the growing support base of the AAP in ahead of the assembly polls in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also surrendered as the has nothing else to say after ruling for 27 years, he said. BJPians are insulting the country 365 days round the year...They hurl abuses on anyone they want but their videos are not released, Rai said when asked for his reaction on purported videos where Italia was seen making derogatory remarks against prime minister Modi, and mocking his 100-year-old mother. The purported videos have not been released by Italia but by the BJP, the senior AAP leader said. I think they have kept more videos They are doing it because the BJP has nothing else to say after ruling Gujarat for 27 years, he said. The release of Italia's videos only shows how scared is the BJP with the growing support base of the Aam Aadmi Party in the run-up to the assembly elections in the state, he said. PM Modi has also surrendered, otherwise Italia's video would not have been released by the BJP, he added. The senior AAP leader lashed out at the BJP over the release of Italia's videos and asked why the BJP doesn't release videos of the dismal school education system in Gujarat, the unemployment scenario, and mothers of those killed in police firing during the OBC quota stir. They think that voices can be suppressed by repressive actions. But as many repressive actions, they are taking, the support base of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party is increasing. They detained Italia yesterday and Aam Aadmi Party supporters increased, Rai said, adding Gujarat wants change and this change is going to take place. Italia was on Thursday detained here for more than 2.5 hours by the Delhi Police after he appeared before the National Commission for Women (NCW) in connection with his alleged comments against Modi amid protests by AAP members outside the women panel's office. Italia claimed that he was "threatened and treated indecently" by NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma after he appeared before her "as he is a Patidar and his community members have come out in support of the Kejriwal-led party" ahead of the elections. The BJP on Friday sharpened its attack on the AAP after its Gujarat chief Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for "abusing" her. An old video of Italia emerged on Thursday in which he is purportedly heard mocking Modi's 100-year-old mother Hiraba. Italia is also heard purportedly using a derogatory word for Modi, drawing strong condemnations from BJP leaders. (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.) Asserting that the BJP-led government in has ushered in many development initiatives since 2018, Chief Minister Manik Saha on Saturday urged people to cast their votes in favour of the in Assembly polls next year "as all other parties have a long history of political violence". Saha, addressing a rally after inaugurating BJP's Unakoti district office at Kailashahar, claimed that people of the state have only "witnessed killings and attacks" during the 35 years of CPI(M) rule. "You should also not forget the days of horror during the rule of the Congress-led coalition government in the state, and the waves of terror that the TMC has unleashed in neighbouring West Bengal," the CM stated. state president Rajib Bhattacharjee, party in-charge of Tripura, Mahesh Sharma, and the party's general secretary (Assam and Tripura, Phanindra Nath Sarma, were among those present at the event. "The only option for people is the BJP, guided by leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda. The saffron party, which doesn't believe in terror, has been working for the betterment of the state and its people since it came to power in 2018. All others have a long history of political violence," Saha maintained. Slamming the TMC for its "terror tactics" in Bengal, the chief minister alleged that at least 100 party leaders and workers were killed in the state, while thousands others were driven out. "The TMC, after toppling the Communist regime in Bengal, adopted the same terror tactics to rule the state," he said. Insisting that that the BJP office "was not mere a brick-and-mortar structure", Saha urged party leaders to turn it into a "place of worship and knowledge gathering". "Unlike the communist party office, where cadres are told to indulge in violence ('danga-bazi'), the BJP office is like a temple, where all sections of people are welcomed to gather and share knowledge," he said. Emphasising that the prime minister is concerned about Tripura's development, Saha said, Modiji has unveiled a new programme 'Prime Minister Development Initiative for Northeast' and announced the allocation of Rs 6,600 crore for the development of the region. The CM also criticised CPI(M) leaders for "boycotting" the recent visit of President Droupadi Murmu to the state for a slew of inaugurations. "The President is without any political colour We had invited CPI(M) legislators to attend programmes hosted in honour of the President, but not a single MLA joined," 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.) A day after International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Deputy Director of Fiscal Affairs Department Paolo Mauro praised India's (DBT) scheme, a political slugfest broke out between the ruling and the main opposition party over its credit sharing. Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tweeted on Friday morning that it was the Congress-led UPA which had introduced the DBT and Aadhar in 2013 and 2009 respectively. To this, BJP's IT cell head and Rajya Sabha member Amit Malviya retaliated through some statistics that in 2013-14, only 43 districts were covered and Rs 28 crore were paid through DBT. However, between 2014 and 2022 (ever since the BJP-led NDA regime came to power), 750 districts have been covered and Rs 25,66,000 crore have been paid through DBT, he added. "Will the former, out on bail, FM, 'honestly' tell who deserves credit after looking at some stats?2013-14: 43 districts covered and 28 crore paid thru DBT. 2014-22: 750 districts covered and 25,66,000 crore paid thru DBT," Malviya tweeted in response to Chidambaram's tweet. Earlier, the former finance minister had said, "IMF official had praised the DBT model, calling it a 'logistical marvel'. He had also praised the innovative use of Aadhaar". Tweeting further, Chidambaram had said, "Before the rushes to claim credit for DBT and Aadhaar, please recall when they were introduced and by which government. Aadhaar was launched on 28-1-2009. DBT was introduced on 1-1-2013. Both by the UPA government." Malviya further countered that "Merely 'introducing' a mechanism isn't enough... Truly transparent and honest approach of Modi Government led to introduction of JAM trinity (Jan Dhan Bank Accounts, Aadhar, Mobile), Aadhaar Payments Bridge, expansion of NPCI/UPI, Digital India Mission caused the DBT and Payments Revolution in India which has earned the praise of all". "By this logic, the will claim credit for all poverty alleviation programs since it gave the 'Garibi Hatao' slogan, even though they did nothing about it from the days of Indira Gandhi's premiership. Rajiv, Sonia and now Rahul Gandhi have been regurgitating it since....", the leader had tweeted further. On Thursday, praising the DBT model, Mauro had said that while there is a lot to learn from countries across the globe, India's DBT scheme is quite impressive. Mauro also said that the DBT programme that seeks to help people who are at low-income levels reach hundreds of millions of people, is a logistical marvel. --IANS ans/shb/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) leader Vadra on Friday promised to restore the old pension scheme for government employees in if her party was voted to power in the Assembly elections. AICC general secretary Vadra said this at the 'Parivartan Pratigya Rally' held at Thodo Maidan in Himachal Pradesh's Solan. She said the decision to restore the old pension scheme and provide one lakh jobs to unemployed youth would be taken in the first cabinet meeting if the was voted to power in the state. Earlier, Gandhi paid obeisance at the Maa Shoolini Temple in Solan before formally launching the Congress' election campaign in the hill state. She also released the party's election theme song on the occasion. Gandhi's rally comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed two rallies in Una and Chamba. Modi also inaugurated and laid the foundation stones for various projects, including flagging off India's fourth Vande Bharat Express from Una. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Himachal president Pratibha Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Mukesh Agnihotri, the party's election campaign committee chairperson Sukhvinder Sukhu and senior leader Rajeev Shukla also spoke on this 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.) leaders and workers including its Mahila Morcha activists staged a protest outside Aam Aadmi Party headquarters here on Friday, asking for removal of the AAP's Gujarat chief Gopal Italia. The AAP leaders have crossed all limits of decency as was exemplified by Italia through his "abusive" language targeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged Leader of Opposition in Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri. "AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal should remove such leaders from the party and apologise to the countrymen for their foul language," Bidhuri said. vice presidents Virendra Sachdeva and Rajan Tiwari, Mahila Morcha president Yogita Singh, incharge of the Morcha Barkha Singh and other leaders of the party participated in the protest. Italia was on Thursday detained here for nearly three hours by the Delhi Police after he appeared before the National Commission for Women (NCW) in connection with his alleged comments against Modi amid protests by AAP members outside the women panel's office. On Friday, the sharpened its attack on the AAP and Kejriwal after Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for "abusing" her. An old video of Italia emerged on Thursday in which he is purportedly heard mocking Modi's 100-year-old mother Hiraba. Italia is also heard purportedly using a derogatory word for Modi, drawing strong condemnations from BJP leaders. (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 Left parties welcomed the acquittal of former Delhi University professor and activist G N in a Maoist-links case on Friday and demanded the immediate release of all political prisoners in the country. More than eight years after his arrest, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court acquitted on Friday and ordered his release from jail, noting that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused in the case under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was "bad in law and invalid". "CPI(M) welcomes (the) acquittal of G N and expresses solidarity with him. Many more continue to be persecuted under false charges. Release all political prisoners immediately," the party said in a tweet. A division bench of justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare allowed Saibaba's appeal, challenging a 2017 trial court order that convicted him in the case and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Saibaba (52), who is wheelchair-bound due to a physical disability, is currently lodged in the Nagpur central prison. He was arrested in February 2014. In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district convicted Saibaba and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, for their alleged Maoist links and indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country. The court had held Saibaba and the others guilty under various provisions of the stringent UAPA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The Communist Party of India (CPI) described Saibaba's incarceration as "state-sponsored torture". "Bombay High Court acquitted Prof. G N Saibaba in the Maoist links case and ordered his release. After years of state-sponsored torture, terror and lies, truth has finally triumphed. "Struggle for human rights, repeal of draconian laws and release of political prisoners will continue!" it said in a statement. CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said Saibaba's acquittal is a victory in the battle against draconian laws. "G N Saibaba and four others acquitted by the Bombay High Court! Rarely does one hear such good news in today's India. Welcome back, Professor Saibaba! It's a victory for the battle for the release of all political prisoners and abolition of draconian laws," he said in a tweet. (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.) Locals did not agree it was a straight fight between TRS and BJP and many were of the opinion that the prospects of the Congress, which was a power in the constituency for several decades, could not be ruled out. (Image: DC) HYDERABAD: Filing of nominations for Munugode bypoll having ended on Friday, a random survey of voters in villages and towns in Chandur mandal indicated that it they thought it would be a neck to neck fight with a slender margin of victory in the last round of counting. Locals did not agree it was a straight fight between TRS and BJP and many were of the opinion that the prospects of the Congress, which was a power in the constituency for several decades, could not be ruled out. Chakali Anjamma, a resident of Kasthala in Chandur mandals, said, "All the three parties are strong. It's highly difficult to predict who will win. As of now, all parties are equally placed. The last two days before the polling will make all the difference." When asked which factors would make the difference, she responded: "Cash and freebies. Local leaders of respective parties will play a key role." Most of the voters who were interviewed answered that it was too early to predict the victor as November 3, polling day, was nearly three weeks away. "TRS being a ruling party has the advantage. As the ruling party at the Centre, BJP also has the advantage. Rajgopal Reddy was the MLA which is an added advantage. Congress has the advantage as Rajgopal Reddy represented it all these days. He won on the strength of Congress," said Ramavath Naik of Udthalapally in Chandur mandal. The situation is no different in urban areas. In Chandur municipality, people were of the view that no party was at this stage and the Munugode result could see a repeat of the Dubbak pattern. "In Dubbak, the result was declared in the last round of counting. The same could be repeated in Munugode with tough contest between TRS, BJP and the Congress. No party would be able to win with a comfortable majority," said A. Ashwin Kumar, a marketing executive in the town. Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi will enter on Friday. Flanked by former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and top leaders of the party, Gandhi resumed the march from Rampura here in the morning after a night halt. The former president will have a brief stay at Obalapuram in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, party workers said. "Another remarkable day at hand! Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka - wherever the #BharatJodoYatra goes, love follows. Join us as we briefly step into for another action-packed day," the Bharat Jodo Yatra team posted on its Twitter handle. After a brief stay in Andhra Pradesh, Gandhi would return to Karnataka later in the day. According to office bearers, Rahul Gandhi would enter through the Jajirakallu toll plaza, where he would halt till 4.30 pm and then resume onwards. The leader will also halt for a while in Obalapuram village in the evening. After returning to Karnataka, the Wayanad MP will stay at Halakundhi Math in Ballari district for the night. As the march started from Rampura, festoons, banners, posters and Congress flags were seen along its route. Many people shook hands with Gandhi, hugged him and interacted with him. The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Karnataka on September 30 and will exit the state on October 20 after covering 511 km in 21 days. The yatra is aimed at uniting India against the divisive forces. (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 political gallery in is set to witness a power show of Union Minister when Union Home Minister arrives in Gwalior on October 16. Shah will lay the foundation stone for the expansion of terminal at the Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia Airport. During the visit, Shah will release Hindi texts of three subjects taught in MBBS first year. It is a part of the government's initiative to start a Hindi instruction option for the medical course in the state. The Hindi instruction will be introduced as a pilot project in the Gandhi Medical College (GMC), Bhopal from the current academic session (2022-23) and it would be extended to 12 other medical colleges in the state later. Books on three subjects -- Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry for MBBS first year --have been prepared by a task force of 16 doctors with inputs for 97 subject experts. Though the matter in the translated books is in Hindi, the technical terms have been retained in English but published in Devnagari script to prevent confusion on technicalities," Medical Education Minister Vishvas Sarang said. Also, to watch out for is Shah's visit to Scindia's Jai Vilas Palace in Gwalior, where he will spend around one-and-half-hours and also will have the 'shahi' lunch there. Special arrangements are being made inside the palace to welcome Shah. Several Scindia loyalist leaders have been assigned to prepare the mega event to be held in Gwalior. Scindia personally is monitoring the preparations. Shah's visit to Gwalior's Jai Vilas Palace is a subject of interest in the political gallery in Madhya Pradesh, especially in the BJP, as that would give a clear indication of the increasing graph of Scindia at the Centre and state both. Scindia, whose name often crops up as replacement of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. His supporters have prepared to exhibit power strength in his hometown, Gwalior. The Scindia family is making special food arrangements for Shah and the whole family would be present to welcome him at the palace. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, state Home Minister Narottam Mishra will also be present at this occasion, sources told IANS. --IANS pd/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.) Bihar Chief Minister on Friday asserted that he will not go with the again for his entire life. "I will never go with them (BJP) for my entire life. The previous leaders of like Atal ji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee), Advani ji, (L.K. Advani), Joshi ji (Murli Manohar Joshi) were the real leaders who believe in work. The present leaders of the are only talking and have nothing to do with working," he said during the inauguration of an engineering college at Samastipur. "Bihar Engineering College, Patna is the oldest institute in the country and I was a student of it. When I became the minister in the Centre, I requested Joshi ji (the Human Resource Development Minister in the Vajpayee government) to recognise it as a National Institute of Technology and he immediately did so. Those leaders think for the common people while the leaders of today's BJP only talk," he added. "I went with the BJP in 2017, expecting that they would be the successors of Atal ji, Advani ji, Joshi ji and work for the people. As they have nothing to do with the common people, I separated from them. Now, we have a socialist government in Bihar. All socialist leaders came together and we will work for the common people. We bring Bihar as well as the country on the development path," he said. "When I was with the the BJP, they were silent. When I went with Mahagathbandhan, they reopened the case against Lalu ji (RJD chief Lalu Prasad) despite him having no role in scam (IRCTC scam)," said. --IANS ajk/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.) Lok Sabha MP on Friday said if elected president, he will take everyone along and maintained the Gandhi family can not be kept away from party affairs. Addressing a press conference here, Tharoor said he was gladdened by the reception he has received from party workers in Madhya Pradesh and admitted he did not get such a welcome in other states which he toured as part of his election campaign for the top party post. The Thiruvananthapuram MP is pitted against veteran Congressman Mallikarjun Kharge for the polls to the party's highest post scheduled for October 17. Poll results will be declared on October 19. The diplomat-turned-politician said he has no enmity with Kharge, adding on the latter's 80th birthday, he penned a tribute listing achievements of his senior party colleague. "Even after elections we are going to work together like in the past," the former Union minister said. Queried on suggestions that he may start taking unilateral decisions if elected president, Tharoor said he will take everyone along. No president can keep the Gandhi family away from party affairs, said the 66-year-old three-time MP in response to another query. The Congress leader said he was happy with the reception he received in Madhya Pradesh after he arrived for seeking support of party delegates. "I am glad at the reception I received in Madhya Pradesh. MP Congress president Kamal Nath, Leader of the Opposition Govind Singh met me, Tharoor said. At the press meet, Tharoor was accompanied by party MLA Lakshman Singh, younger brother of Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Digvijaya Singh. "I did not get such a welcome in other states, he said. Out of 9,000 Congress delegates who will cast their votes in the October 17 polls to elect the new party president, 502 are from Madhya Pradesh. Queried about his presence at the press conference, Lakshman Singh told PTI, Tharoor was my junior in St Stephen's College, Delhi and we are very good friends." Asked whether he will vote for his very good friend, Lakshman Singh avoided a direct reply and remarked voting will be through secret ballot. Two days ago, Kharge was also in Bhopal to drum up support for his candidature and addressed a press conference in the state capital. However, scenes at the press conferences addressed by Kharge and his poll rival were very different. Both the pressers were held in the Rajiv Gandhi hall of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) headquarters here. While chaos prevailed at Kharge's press conference on Wednesday, things were orderly when Tharoor spoke to reporters on Friday. When Kharge arrived for the press meet, the hall was packed with Congress workers with hardly any space left for journalists at the venue. Despite repeated pleas by Congress spokesman Gourav Vallabh, who was present at Kharge's conference, to party workers to leave the hall, no one moved out. Even a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer-turned-Congressman was prevented by Sewa Dal workers from entering the hall to attend a meeting of delegates held before the press meet. The bureaucrat-turned-Congressman had to introduce himself to Sewa Dal workers for gaining entry into the hall. However, in contrast the press meet of Tharoor was organised in an orderly manner with a majority of party office-bearers sitting in the hall. A number of women Congress workers were also present at the conference. I won't be surprised if Tharoor gets a sizeable number of votes from Madhya Pradesh, a Congress leader said, wishing anonymity. At his meeting with delegates, the Lok Sabha MP from Kerala assured he will spare a few hours everyday to meet party workers if elected Congress president, 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.) Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole urged party workers to make party leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra a grand success in Maharashtra. Speaking at a gathering at Vasai in Palghar district on Thursday, Patole appealed to Congress workers and local leaders to come out in the open and tell people about the government's failures, and convert the Bharat Jodo Yatra into a mass movement. Over the last one month, the Congress has embarked on a 3,570 km journey across the 12 states of the country eyeing a political and electoral revival. The state Congress chief said whenever party leader travels to one place during the yatra, local leaders and workers in other districts should simultaneously take out marches in their respective areas and tell people about the government's failures. "The government sitting in Delhi has triggered price rise and unemployment and forced farmers to commit suicide," Patole said, terming the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as Gabbar Singh Tax due to the fear attached to it. The Congress leader further alleged that the Maharashtra chief minister and his deputy were not running the government in the state, but it is being run from Delhi. Speaking about the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, Patole claimed that while the lions share was in Gujarat, the neighbouring state had invested a very small amount in it. "Citizens need to be alert, or else their land will be grabbed for the project without due compensation. We will not allow the land of tribals and non-tribals in Palghar to be looted," he said, offering to participate in a non-violent agitation over land acquisition. (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.) Ahead of final rollout, has announced the release of its passkey support for developers on and Chrome. The American software giant says passkey is a safer substitute for passwords and other phishable authentication factors. It will be integrated with the Password Manager to simplify sign-ins across devices, websites and applications no matter the platform. But what is passkey and how does it work? Lets find out: Passkeys: What is it Passkeys are a new type of login credential that replaces passwords. The authentication requires either -- such as a fingerprint or facial recognition -- or a PIN or swipe pattern used with Androids for access. According to Google, they are built on industry standards and work across different operating systems and browser ecosystems, and can be used for both websites and apps. They follow familiar user experience patterns, and build on the existing experience of password autofill. Passkeys: How it works Google says its passkeys work similar to using a saved password in the Google Password Manager. To prevent lockouts in the case of device loss, passkeys are backed-up and synced through the cloud on users phones and computers. The passkeys can be used to sign in to apps and websites on other nearby devices via users' phone. Users can create and use passkeys on devices, which are synced through the Google Password Manager. On and other supported platforms, developers can build passkey support on their sites for end-users using Chrome via the WebAuthn API. Currently, developers can use Chrome Canary and sign up for the Google Play Services beta to test this. How to create passkeys: Step 1: Through settings on Android 9 device and later, click on Create a Passkey Step 2: Confirm the passkey account information Step 3: Present fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted Earlier, Apple released a similar Passkey feature with its iOS 16 update that allows users to use their Apple devices to log in to websites and services without requiring passwords. Apple, Google and Microsoft partnered with the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) earlier this year, for removing passwords for user authentication across the platforms. Over the years, even though smart devices have gained traction, there exist compatibility issues between brands that ultimately cause headaches for users. According to GSM Arena, with the Matter protocol aiming to make it easier to control a smart home that has a mix of devices from different makers, a major step forward towards that goal has now been announced. In order to resolve compatibility problems, and have agreed to build a bridge between SmartThings and Home devices. That bridge is built on Matter's multi-admin feature, which allows different apps to connect to one or more devices and control them. This means that a device set up in Home will also appear in the SmartThings app and vice versa, so users no longer have to remember which app controls the lights and which controls the smart speakers, reported GSM Arena. This will also free users up to buy the smart device they want rather than looking for one that uses the same app/ecosystem as the rest of their smart home. As long as a device supports the Matter protocol, users will be able to control and automate it with either Samsung's SmartThings or Google's Home, whichever app they prefer. Google and are not the only supporters of Matter as the list includes Amazon, Ikea, LG, Midea, Tuya and several others, as per GSM Arena. (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.) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/NewsVoir): GEMROCK an emerging name in the business of gemstone mining, strengthens its global dominance with the recently held inaugural auction of the Mozambican Ruby roughs unearthed under the brands aegis. A subsidiary of a fine-contemporary jewellery retail brand from India, DIACOLOR, Gemrock's debut auction held between the 3rd till the 7th of October 2022, was a successful endeavor that witnessed participation from over 56 global companies bidding to procure a lot of Mozambican Ruby roughs, unearthed, and mined across the multiple holdings by the company across Mozambique, in Africa. The 5-day auction witnessed a robust sentiment amongst buyers expressing great interest in the inventory that was on offer. Companies from all around Asia and Europe, made it to the maiden auction and resulting in 442 bids for the produced Rubies. These exceptional, gem-quality Rubies of intense colour and saturation were extracted from Montepuez district. With its presence on the fields in Montepuez since 2017, GEMROCK has been exploring in both east and west of Gemfields's MRM license, and today has access to over 589 square kilometres of potential ruby bearing area located within the wedge-shaped Montepuez Comple. Speaking upon this occasion Rishabh Tongya, Founder & Chairman, GEMROCK, and Creative Director DIACOLOR said, "Ever since our journey with DIACOLOR began, it's been our priority to present to our discerning buyers with the finest quality gemstones set in timeless designs. As jewellers we would often find ourselves on a hunt to procure the best quality gemstones and thus to progression towards getting into the business of mining was an organic one. It is a proud moment for all of us at GEMROCK that our inaugural auction received a momentous response, and it reinforces our belief that we are on the right path, however it also makes me super proud to share that DIACOLOR is India's first ever jewellery house to have its own mines and bridge the gap between the mine and consumers." Tim Denning, Bonas Group, commented, "We are absolutely thrilled by the response we've had at GEMROCK's inaugural tender with one of the highest number of attendees. There is a strong demand for Mozambican Rubies, and we look forward to working with them closely for their next auction." In the recently held auction the company achieved the expected prices for its finest quality and is now planning to have the next auction in First Quarter of 2023. The proceeds of this auction will be fully repatriated to Moza Minerals in Mozambique with all royalties being paid in full on the sales price. Highlights: - 56 buyers from in and around Asia and Europe attended the auction - The companies placed 442 bids in total - Buyers requested larger quantities in terms of future auctions. GEMROCK currently holds several large-scale mining titles in the Montepuez Ruby District in northern Mozambique. The mine acquired in 2019 started exploration and mining operation soon after. The rubies produced from the mine are of fine quality and colour. GEMROCK's ambition and vision is to become a leading producer and global market supplier of fine rubies over the next few years. Very significant capital and human investment underpins that goal and ambition. GEMROCK is conscious of the importance to promote and work in an environmentally friendly and ethically sustainable way. The company is therefore strongly committed to adhere to the highest environmental standards and ensure preservation of the areas in and around the mine. DIACOLOR - Fine Contemporary Jewels, a Delhi-based high luxury jewellery brand, today stands at the paramount of couture in the industry. Known for its eclectic mix of diamond and coloured gemstone the brand may only be a couple of years old, but has risen to be one of the key players in the luxury market redefining styles and trends. The brand caters to its patrons across India through its flagship boutique at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai, it's newly opened boutique in Jaipur at the Rambagh Palace and Taj Mansigh Hotel, New Delhi. A by appointment salon at in Dubai at the Almas Towers, is yet another majestic address to experience the DIACOLOR retail rendezvous. For more information, please contact: (https://gemrock.co) This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) Employees in Ireland are suffering from burnout and stress more often than those in other European countries and are the least likely to be thriving. This is according to research from Workhuman which found that 3 in 10 employees in Ireland report being burnt out very often or always, on par with the U.K. and Belgium. All other countries surveyed were found to have lower levels of employee burnout. Just 1.5 in 10 in Switzerland say they are burnt out very often or always. Gallup carried out the large-scale study among more than 12,000 employees in 11 European countries and the U.S. which paints a worrying picture of employee wellbeing in Ireland. The research found that workers in Ireland are the most likely of all countries surveyed to report being stressed, with 6.5 in 10 saying they experienced stress during a lot of the previous day. Along with Belgium, the same figure reported to have experienced worry for a lot of the previous day. Again, this was more than all other countries surveyed, with respondents in the U.S. the least likely to experience worry a lot of the previous day. Meanwhile, just 4.5 in 10 employees in Ireland, Belgium and Norway are thriving meaning that they rate their current lives positively and have optimistic expectations for their future wellbeing. Respondents in all other countries are more likely to be thriving, with six in 10 in the Netherlands and Denmark describing themselves as thriving. Workhuman and Gallups research found that the majority of employees in Ireland are unlikely to feel strong connections with their colleagues or feel a sense of belonging in their workplace. Just two in 10 strongly agree that they have meaningful connections with their coworkers, while 2.5 in 10 strongly agree that they belong at their organisation. Despite the concerning responses from employees in Ireland, the study revealed insights into how gratitude is helping organisations in Ireland to positively influence employee wellbeing. It found that when employees strongly agree that recognition is equitably distributed at their organisation, they are 72% more likely to be thriving and 75% less likely to be burnt out very often or always. Meanwhile, employees working at organisations with a recognition programme are 53% more likely to be thriving and 51% more likely to strongly agree that they have meaningful connections at work. Giving thanks was also found to boost morale. The survey found that employees who give recognition at least a few times a month are 84% more likely to be thriving and 3.5 times more likely to strongly agree that they have meaningful connections at work. Commenting on the research, SVP Global Human Experience at Workhuman, Niamh Graham said, "Organisations in Ireland are facing a people crisis. At a time when they are battling to recruit and retain the best talent, their workforces are burnt out, highly stressed and feeling disconnected from their coworkers and company. Wellbeing is not just important to individuals; it is critical to organisational culture and business outcomes. Its absence comes with a serious price tag, as it hinders employee productivity and engagement, while also leading to high turnover rates." She added, "Our research shows that showing appreciation and gratitude and something as simple as saying thanks can have an enormous impact both on the recipient and the giver. Businesses today must cater to the whole person and make recognition a formal part of their human capital strategy." Source: www.businessworld.ie Hyderabad: The seething ire of the ruling YSRC in Andhra Pradesh against its own member of the Rajya Sabha, V. Vijayasai Reddy, has an underlying sad realisation of a truth with friends like these, you dont need enemies. Vijayasai Reddy has been, according to party insiders and some close to the party high command, treading recklessly close to the thin line bordering on provoking and challenging the party high command. In the process of his activities, he has been chipping away at the moral sheen built assiduously by party founder, president and AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. One of the biggest strengths of our party today, after nearly three and a half years in power, is that we have given corruption-free governance. CM Jagan Mohan Reddy has exposed the insider trading as well as the rigged high prices of projects (in the Amaravati capital) and saved peoples money, which is now reaching them. Vijayasai Reddy, with these allegations of insider trading, has hurt the efforts of the CM, a party insider said. Many others were even less charitable to him, especially after his press diatribe against his own party media, Sakshi newspaper and TV, characterising them ineffective in combating the barrage of fake narratives being unleashed by the Opposition Telugu Desam, including his harangue against a party peer and fellow MP. He was made party in-charge for Visakapatnam but he made a mess of it. It was felt by many in the party that he should not be re-nominated. It was only the kindness of our CM that he ignored all issues and complaints and gave him a second lease of life, a leader explained. But it was Vijayasai Reddys activities in New Delhi that attracted attention back in the party nerve cells, especially talk that he was trying to build relationships for his own personal benefits and almost undercutting the brand of all others. This led to him being slowly sidelined and soon was out of favour. But now that he has publicly attacked the official media of the party and his colleagues, it may not be considered favourably, he said. Another aspect being discussed in the party was Vijayasai Reddy statement in a media interview to purportedly thank the party and leadership for his being nominated for Parliament for a second time. It was a borderline insinuation when he thanked Bharati Reddy for his nomination, along with CM Y.S. Jagan. It created a lot of anger because it was felt he was trying to insinuate she had a crucial say in controlling party matters, the party leader explained. This was when Jagan Reddy was going out of the way to ensure his family members stayed away from the government. Most leaders in the party are angry with him now, especially after his recent media conference in response to allegations of insider trading and unfair acquisition of lands, especially in Visakhapatnam. With the partys top leadership eyeing him with caution, most YSRC leaders not taking his claims of entering the media business seriously, his career graph looks bleak. Several leaders say that they believe he has not repaid the trust reposed in him by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy with gratitude, and has perhaps lost most of his political capital within the party. HYDERABAD: Strangely, development programmes or welfare schemes are not the major topic of discussion either for major political parties or for large sections of the people in bypoll-bound Munugode; instead it is about distribution of money to the voters. Clearly, this is the result of major parties allegedly freely distributing money, liquor and freebies to lure voters. This correspondent saw people in groups discussing which party and which candidate had distributed how much money, which town or village had got the most. People who, during their conversations, discovered that they had received less than the others were heard cursing the middlemen the local leaders and accusing them of siphoning off money. "While some are getting Rs 1,000 each to attend a rally and Rs 500 for a roadshow, some are getting Rs 500 for a rally and Rs 300 for roadshow. This is because of local leaders are siphoning off money," claimed Saidulu, who runs a tiffin centre in Chandur. A few voters accused local leaders of a few households and pocketing the rest. "A household with four voters was given Rs 2,000 but they did they pay us though we have six votes," said Muthyalu, who runs a tea stall in Chandur. Also, an argument broke out between local party leaders and male voters after only women were given Rs 500 each to take part in a Congress rally on Friday. The distribution was done in the lanes adjacent to office of the Election Returning Officer before the rally. Women in large numbers were seen carrying copies of voter ID cards to register their names with local leaders and claim the 'benefit'. Lloyd Austin thanks Spanish government for offering missile launchers to Ukraine BRUSSELS (AA) - NATO will continue to support Ukraine but will not be dragged into the war there, the US secretary of defense said on Thursday. Speaking at a news conference after the two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers, Lloyd Austin said: NATO will not be dragged into Russia's war of choice but we will stand by Ukraine as it fights to defend itself. Austin said Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear saber-rattling is very dangerous, but declined to reveal how NATO would respond to an eventual nuclear attack on Ukraine. At the same time, he stressed that Moscow still has a choice to end this war today. He praised NATO allies for the steadfast support that they have extended to Ukraine since February. He specifically thanked the Spanish government for offering four HAWK missile launchers to Kyiv in a quick response to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikovs demand for more air defense capabilities at the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Wednesday. The US defense secretary explained that NATO has responded robustly and decisively to Russia's imperial invasion, and reassured that the alliance will continue to strengthen its collective defense. During their two-day meeting, NATO defense ministers also discussed the future of NATO missions and plans on increasing the protection of NATOs critical infrastructure in light of the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. Agnes Szucs/AA News at 4Cs Cape Cod Community College Launched New Blue Economy Degree With Enrollment Open Immediately With the new Frank and Maureen Wilkens Science and Engineering Center now opened on their West Barnstable campus, Cape Cod Community College has launched a STEM-focused degree enabling students to take further advantage of the new space. With classes starting as early as October 31, the College has launched an Applied Economics of Coastal and Ocean Environments Associate Degree. The program, dubbed The Blue Economy Degree, focuses on the economic activities related to the oceans, seas, and coasts of Southeastern Massachusetts, and the modern careers and economic development associated with its growth. With a focus on both the necessary science to ensure long-term sustainability of the environment, and applied economic and environmental theories that will help the region prosper, the degree is the first of its kind in the Commonwealth. Across our region, the unique natural environment and the stewardship of the resources that surround us empower our economy, said Dr. John Cox, President of Cape Cod Community College. This degree acknowledges the two-pronged need for sustainability and economic opportunity. The courses students will take allow them to learn both economics and entrepreneurialism and applied scientific skills. Its perfect for students that care about the environment and want to see the Cape and Islands thrive into the future. The Blue Economy Degree is referred to as an interdisciplinary program where students learn a wide range of skills that impact the Blue Economy. This includes courses in hospitality, entrepreneurship, aquaculture, technology, media/communications, and sustainability. All students in the program will have the opportunity to complete an internship with a local Blue Economy-based business, including opportunities with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Aquacultural Research Corporation. This is a game changing opportunity for our region, said Dr. Kathy Vranos, Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs for Cape Cod Community College. We know how passionate our communities are about sustaining the land and seas that make us both a unique place to live and a destination for others to visit. This degree fills a unique hole in strengthening our local economy, preparing a new generation of creative and passionate learners that can bridge the gap between business and sustainability. First-semester courses including English 101, Economics 117, and Biology 109, are open now with start dates of both October 31 in a 7-week format or January 23 in 14 or 7-week formats. Application to the program and to Cape Cod Community College is free and offers guaranteed acceptance. Financial Aid, grants, scholarships, and payment plans are available along with support for essential needs, like transportation, housing, food, and mental health services. You can learn more about the courses included in the Blue Economy Degree program here, or you can reach out to Cape Cod Community Colleges Admissions team for more information and how to register. This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices. South Africa: Umalusi approves 2022 matric exams The Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, Umalusi, has given the green light for the writing of the 2022 end of year examinations. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) currently has 923 460 learners enrolled for the National Senior Certificate exams. This number comprises full-time and part-time scholars. At a media briefing on Friday, the Umalusi said it has completed its role of monitoring and verifying the readiness of the public and private assessment bodies to manage and conduct the 2022 end of the year national examinations. The assessment bodies are the DBE, Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), Independent Examinations Board (IEB), and the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI). As part of its quality assurance mandate, Umalusi is required to assess the levels of readiness of the public and private assessment bodies to conduct, administer and manage the examinations prior to their commencement. Umalusi CEO, Dr Mafu Rakometsi, said the identified shortcomings are not of such a magnitude that they have the potential to put the credibility of the examinations at risk. Rakometsi said Umalusi appreciates the effort made by all assessment bodies in putting systems in place to ensure that the integrity of the 2022 national examinations is not compromised. Similar to the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in the past, the education sector, like other sectors, continues to experience challenges related to load shedding. Umalusi calls upon the assessment bodies to make alternative arrangements for the supply of power during the writing of the examinations to mitigate the risk of load-shedding. Rakometsi issued a stern warning to all stakeholders regarding incidents of cheating. Once again, as we have done in the past, we would like to issue a stern warning to all learners and teachers to refrain from all forms of cheating, including group copying, where teachers are sometimes implicated. We berate and condemn this criminal practice with the contempt it deserves. Cheating compromises the integrity of our national examination system, which we are mandated to jealously protect as a quality council, Rakometsi said. He said Umalusi discourages communities from using national examinations as leverage for their protest actions. This is unacceptable, as it jeopardises the future of our children. The education of our children is something that each South African should protect jealously, he said. The DBEs candidature has increased to 923 460 in 2022 from 897 786 in 2021. The candidates will sit for the examinations at 6 885 exam centres across the country. Umalusi said marking will be conducted at 186 marking centres by 53 926 markers. The IEB has 13 875 (12 857 in 2021) candidates who will write the examinations at 232 examination centres for full-time candidates and six centres for part-time candidates. These numbers include 15 new IEB schools. Overall, approximately 942 000 candidates distributed across the three assessment bodies are registered to write the NSC in 2022. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. UN chief seeks universal early-warning coverage for climate disasters Xinhua) 08:54, October 14, 2022 UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday he will soon launch a plan for universal early-warning coverage for climate disasters. In a video message for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, Guterres said climate disasters are hurting countries and economies like never before. Ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions are supercharging extreme weather events across the planet. Yet, the world is failing to invest in protecting the lives and livelihoods of those on the front line. Those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the highest price. Entire populations are being blindsided by cascading climate disasters without any means of prior alert, he said. "People need adequate warning to prepare for extreme weather events. That is why I am calling for universal early-warning coverage in the next five years," he said. Guterres said early-warning systems and the ability to act on them are proven life-savers, noting that he will launch an action plan to provide early-warning systems for all within five years at the UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt next month. He urged governments, international financial institutions and civil society to support such systems. "On this International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, I call on all countries to invest in early-warning systems and support those who lack capacity. Extreme weather events will happen. But they do not need to become deadly disasters," said Guterres. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Hongyu) Photo: The Canadian Press With employment insurance premiums set to rise in the new year, both employers and workers are calling on the federal government to step in and rescue the program from the considerable amount of debt it has fallen into since the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which is financed entirely through premiums paid by workers and employers, accumulated $25.9 billion of debt by the end of 2021, according to the Office of the Chief Actuary. The rise in debt comes after a staggering number of Canadians were unemployed during the pandemic and eligibility rules for the program were relaxed to ease access to jobless benefits. Since then, the labour market has bounced back and temporary changes to the EI program have been reversed. However, the question that lingers is: who should pick up the tab on the accumulated debt? Employers and workers are hoping the federal government will. The current deficit happened because of the pandemic, and it is not the fault of any employee and it's not the fault of any employer, said Jasmin Guenette, vice-president of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. After a two-year freeze, EI premiums are set to rise by five cents per $100 of earnings in 2023, which is the maximum increase allowed in one year by legislation. However, the increase falls short of what the Office of the Chief Actuary recommended for the program to break even by 2029. Nancy Healey, the representative for employers on the Canadian Employment Insurance Commission, said "both business (and) labour are concerned about the amount of debt that's in the EI account right now." The EI system is overseen by a commission that regularly reviews problems and the appeals system, as well as its financing. The commissioners bring the voices of workers and companies to the table, often consulting their constituents and raising concerns with permanent officials. The representative for workers on the commission, Pierre Laliberte, said the federal government hasn't indicated whether it has any intention to pay off any of the debt. "Everyone was surprised by the fact that at budget, there was no or partial compensation for the cost incurred during the pandemic," he said. When asked whether there are any plans for the federal government to pay off some of the debt, a spokesperson for Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said in a statement "these debts are resolved over many years, with the premium rates being determined using seven-year break-even projections." "With the 5 cent increase, the rate will become $1.63 in 2023, which remains one of the lowest rates observed in Canadas history," said Jane Deeks, the minister's director of communications. Who should pay for the accumulated debt is part of a larger discussion on EI reform. In 2021, the Liberals campaigned on a promise to modernize EI and pledged to expand the program to cover self-employed workers and address gaps, including those highlighted by the COVID-19. Miles Corak, an economics professor at the City University of New York and longtime researcher on EI, said the reform should include changes to how the program is financed. In a note published by the C.D. Howe Institute earlier this week, Corak made the case for tripartite funding of the program, where employers, workers and the government contribute. He argues workers and employers shouldn't be burdened by unexpected shocks to the economy like the pandemic that cause a spike in "involuntary" unemployment. "Sometimes workers are willing to work, are in the right place, and have the required skills, but the jobs are just not available," Corak wrote in the note, which is addressed to Qualtrough. Corak suggests the federal government should cover increased costs to the program caused by unexpected economic shocks. At the same time, it should collect any surpluses accumulated during times of low unemployment. Corak, who participated in public consultations held on EI reform, said both employer and workers groups seemed to react positively to his proposal. "I'm sort of looking between the tea leaves here thinking, OK, that might be a way to get federal government financing involvement into the program," Corak said. While the Liberals haven't given a timeline on the implementation of reform, they are expected to present their plan by the end of the year. The idea of having the government contribute to the program isn't new. Prior to the 1990s, EI was financed through contributions from workers, employers and the federal government. Unifor president Lana Payne says the union wants to see federal contributions reinstated "to both mitigate the accrued program deficit and support long-term enhancements to the program for workers." However, Jennifer Robson, a Carleton University associate professor of political management, said she would be surprised if there was much enthusiasm from the federal government to contribute financially. "My impression is that the current mood from the Department of Finance is much more one of fiscal restraint," Robson said. Dear County and District Superintendents, Charter School Administrators, High School Principals, and High School Counselors: California Dream Act Application: Help Undocumented Students Safely Apply for College Financial Aid Every year, thousands of students apply for financial aid as they consider their college, university, or training options after high school graduation. While this process is not always easy, it is a critically important one to help students access up to $20,000 in grant aid, depending on which institution they attend, to help pay for postsecondary education or training. Students from undocumented or immigrant backgrounds face additional challenges in this process given their status. However, California has made state financial aid available since 2013 through the California Dream Act Application (CADAA), a state-based application. It is available on the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) Dream Act web page at https://dream.csac.ca.gov/landing. It allows undocumented students to receive state financial aid. The California Department of Education (CDE) and CSAC want to assure undocumented students and their families that it is safe to apply for the CADAA. Information provided by the CADAA is used solely to determine eligibility for state financial aid. Information provided through the CADAA is not shared with the federal government, and it is not used for immigration enforcement. shared with the federal government, and it is used for immigration enforcement. Students do not need to have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status to attend college or receive state financial aid. This chart on the Immigrants Rising website helps explain the differences: https://immigrantsrising.org/resource/understand-the-differences-in-state-tuition-ca-dream-act-and-daca/. need to have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status to attend college or receive state financial aid. This chart on the Immigrants Rising website helps explain the differences: https://immigrantsrising.org/resource/understand-the-differences-in-state-tuition-ca-dream-act-and-daca/. We will work to the fullest extent of the law to protect all students that share their information through the CADAA. To increase access to financial aid, California enacted legislation (Assembly Bill 469) requiring local educational agencies, including charter schools, to confirm that all high school seniors have completed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid or a CADAA, expanding access to financial aid to thousands of students who may have otherwise not been aware of this opportunity. We strongly believe it is crucial for all educators to inform students and families about the importance of filling out a CADAA, which could open the door to a college education for thousands of students, and to remind them of the priority state aid deadline of March 2. The opportunity represented by a college education in California is a pathway to success for students, including those who might be undocumented or from mixed-status families. We remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting and serving all students and families. We are proud to stand with Governor Gavin Newsom, leaders of the California State Legislature, community partners across our state, and our states private and public colleges and universities in upholding the rights of California students. Should you have any questions, please contact the CSAC at 888-294-0153 or schoolsupport@csac.ca.gov or the CDE High School Innovations and Initiatives Office at 916-323-6398. More information about the CADAA is available on the CSAC Undocumented/Dreamer Students web page at https://www.csac.ca.gov/undocumented-dreamer-students, and the CADAA is available on the CSAC California Dream Act web page at https://dream.csac.ca.gov/. We urge you to share this information with your schools, students, parents, and guardians as soon as possible. Sincerely, Tony Thurmond State Superintendent of Public Instruction California Department of Education Marlene L. Garcia Executive Director California Student Aid Commission Indian profits forecast to decline ICR Newsroom By 14 October 2022 Indias cement producers are expected to report a decline in profits for the July-September 2022 quarter, according to Mumbai-based brokerage house KR Choksey. The brokerage predicts poor results in the short-term as the industry sees a wave of consolidation taking place, along with huge capital expenditure plans announced by the industrys leading players. KR Choksey predicts a 19.2 per cent YoY fall in net profit for UltraTech in the 2QFY22-23 with the QoQ picture showing a 33 per cent decline. ACC Ltd is expected to post a 47.6 per cent YoY contraction in net profit with a 3.8 per cent fall on a QoQ basis. Ramco Cements net profit is projected to decline sharply by 65.4 per cent YoY and 32.9 per cent QoQ, reports Investing.com, while Shree Cement is expected to see its net profit tumble by 48.2 per cent YoY but post a 4.4 per cent improvement QoQ in the 2QFY22-23. Published under CEMEX Colombia and BBVA form Vertua customer alliance 14 October 2022 CEMEX Colombia and BBVA in Colombia have formed an alliance that will allow the company's customers to access a sustainable line of credit with the bank to extend the payment term of their Vertua cement invoices. Vertua cement may reduce CO 2 emissions by up to 45 per cent compared to traditional cement. The bank has become a strategic ally for CEMEX in designing a financial product that makes it possible for its clients to benefit from the payment of their Vertua cement bills. "As part of our Future in Action program, which aims to reach net-zero CO 2 by 2050, we seek to collaborate with high-level allies such as BBVA," said Alejandro Ramirez, president of CEMEX Colombia and Peru. " We aim to encourage our customers to buy products that reduce their carbon footprint." BBVA in Colombia designed a line of credit for CEMEX's customers who buy Vertua cement and wish to have a longer term to pay their invoices. The credit line is configured as a sustainable transaction since it promotes purchasing a product that helps the environment to which all entrepreneurs, from small to large, have access. "This alliance with CEMEX aligns with our purpose of helping our clients find solutions that allow us to contribute to constructing a greener and more sustainable future. In this specific case, it is very pleasing to join CEMEX and its clients with this sustainable triangular line," said Mario Pardo, executive president of BBVA in Colombia. "Its purpose allows us to move towards a future with zero CO 2 emissions." Published under This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions The American Red Cross now invites those who spent time in the U.K., Ireland or France and have never tried to give blood due to concerns over variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) related to mad cow disease to give blood and help save lives. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has updated its blood donor eligibility guidance on vCJD, eliminating the deferral for those who spent time in the U.K., Ireland and France between 1980 and 2001. In alignment with FDA changes, the Red Cross began accepting donations Oct. 3 from individuals who have not tried giving blood before due to the prior donation criteria. In combination with prior eligibility updates in 2020 for those who spent time in other European countries, this new change effectively eliminates the deferral related to vCJD for all donors. For many years, the Red Cross has heard from people who have spent time in these countries often members of the military and their families hoping for the opportunity to donate blood or platelets, said Clif Redish, interim regional donor services executive. We now welcome all donors who may have spent time in Europe and avoided blood donation as a result to join us in our lifesaving mission to help patients in need. More blood donors especially type O donors are urged to donate now to prevent disruptions to essential medical care this fall, officials said. Book a time to give by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or by calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767). As a thank-you, all who come to give Oct. 16-31 will receive a $10 e-Gift Card by email to a merchant of choice. Those who have tried to give with the Red Cross and have been previously deferred from donating will be contacted by the Red Cross once system records are updated. This deferral is more complex to remove than others as there are decades of donors in the Red Cross system who have been deferred under the previous FDA requirements. Individuals who have questions about their donor record can contact the Red Cross Donor and Client Support Center at 1-866-236-3276. Upcoming blood donation opportunities Oct. 16-31 in Chattanooga: - Oct. 27 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Southeast Tennessee American Red Cross Blood Drive, 4115 S. Access Road. How to donate blood: Download the American Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit RedCrossBlood.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or enable the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed to ensure a reliable supply for patients. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required at check-in. Individuals who are 17 years of age in most states (16 with parental consent where allowed by state law), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate blood. High school students and other donors 18 years of age and younger also have to meet certain height and weight requirements. Blood and platelet donors can save time at their next donation by using RapidPass to complete their pre-donation reading and health history questionnaire online, on the day of their donation, before arriving at the blood drive. To get started, follow the instructions at RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass or use the Blood Donor App. Upland Label, formerly Dixie Labels, has long been a fixture on the Chattanooga business scene. They announced a name change and new brand identity this week. The change comes at a time when Upland is poised for expansion and is experiencing growth. Originally founded as a label converter and barcode printing company in 1991, Dixie Labels has served many local businesses over the past 30 years. Throughout that time, designing and printing prime labels that help other companies communicate their own brand has remained their focus. Founder and sales executive Joe Buckley says that despite the name change, customers should count on the same level of quality, service and care that theyve always received. This name change will help us expand to new areas, but the things that customers have always trusted us with are foundational to our business. We treasure those partnerships and look forward to continuing business with our longstanding customer base. Many upgrades have been made to the business over the last year. General Manager, Greg Leighty, oversaw these improvements to the plant. I am excited about the future at Upland. Weve recently implemented new systems and acquired new equipment which have greatly increased our efficiency. With additional capacity, we are able to take on new opportunities. In addition to changes at the plant level, Upland was acquired in 2019 by Evergreene Manufacturing in Birmingham, Al. In addition to sharing common core values, with Dixie, Evergreene was seeking to add depth and breadth to an existing multi-plant operation including production capacity for substantial growth. Expanding both its sales territory and customer base, Upland expects to carry the same quality and service Dixie was known for into additional markets. Police spoke with a man behind the Waffle House at 4919 Brainerd Road who looked to be squatting. He told officers he was an employee of the Waffle House and was unable to get all his clothes dry from the laundry. He had his clothes hung on the fence, was off shift and just waiting for them to dry more so he could pack them up and go home. * * * Police spoke with a man at BP at 4026 Shallowford Road who said he got into a disorder with an unknown man. The man said the other man called him racial slurs and then fled the scene. * * * Officers were dispatched to check on a suspicious person on McNabb Way. Officers found a man who matched the description given by the reporting party. He said he was working on an RV that belonged to a woman. The man is not a resident of the address. His information was checked and verified and came back with no warrants. * * * The manager of the Coin Laundry at 4011 Brainard Road told police there was a homeless man inside the business and requested police have him leave. Upon arrival, police spoke with the man and told him the manager wanted him to leave the property for the night, which he complied. * * * A woman on Van Buren Street told police she got up to take her dog out and found her back door open. She said it was locked. The officer saw no signs of damage and nothing was taken or out of place. * * * A woman told police she was driving on Dunn Lane and another truck hit her drivers side mirror. There was no contact made with any other part of her vehicle and the only damage to the mirror was broken glass. The woman said she already looked up how much it would be to replace the glass and said it would cost $60. She didnt want a crash report for the broken glass since no contact was made or damage to any other part of her truck. * * * A man on Colville Street called police and said someone entered his unlocked 2012 VW Jetta wagon overnight and stole his sunglasses and Fire Department ID. * * * A man on Hixson Pike called police and reported that on March 5, 2021 he sold his Nissan to a woman and he left the license plate on it. He recently received a ticket in the mail. He called the number on the ticket and was told that there are a total of six tickets outstanding on that license plate number, all in Chattanooga. The picture on the ticket shows the plate to be on a different vehicle than the one he sold. He needed a report to send back with the ticket to get this cleared up. * * * While conducting traffic enforcement on Highway 153, an officer saw a black Ford Fusion run the red light at the exit ramp of Highway 153 and West Shepherd Road. A few minutes later, the officer found the car parked on Fisk Avenue. The driver was outside of the car, standing next to it. The officer told the driver he saw him running the red light. The man apologized and said he was distracted. The man was carrying a loaded handgun on his waistband and the officer retrieved the weapon for officer safety and placed the man inside the police vehicle for further investigation. Neither the vehicle nor the weapon was reported stolen. The man didnt have any warrants and was released. * * * A woman called police on behalf of an employee of Hotworx at 2545 Lifestyle Way. She said the employee was working at the fitness location when a man came in and set up an account with the fitness center. The employee called the woman and said she was the only employee working at the time and the man was the only person in the fitness center and she was feeling scared. The employee expressed to the woman that the man was acting strange and kept looking at her, making her feel uneasy. The woman contacted the business occupying the unit next to her business and asked if someone could walk next door and check on the employee. Once someone was inside with the employee, she said the man left hastily. * * * A woman called police and said someone was following her on Wheeler Avenue. She drove to Mt. Canaan Baptist Church at 2800 N. Chamberlain Ave. and parked and waited for police. Police arrived and met with the woman. The other vehicle that was following her was her girlfriend, who was also there with police. The girlfriend told police she was trying to get the woman to talk to her after some personal matters happened with their relationship. The woman didnt want to speak with her girlfriend and just wanted her to stop following her car. The girlfriend left without issue. * * * A man on Snow Hill Road called police and said over two years ago an unknown vehicle struck his 2018 Toyota Tundra truck on the right side, front fender and front door. He said the vehicle was parked on Snow Hill Road. He said this was a hit and run incident. When it happened, he didnt know it til sometime later and didnt make a report at that time. He says he doesnt remember the date it was hit. He is now having the truck repaired, along with other damage that has occurred since. He doesnt know the cost of the damage for this hit and run incident. He is clear that since this was over two years ago, this is a miscellaneous report. Local minority entrepreneurs and business owners will have the opportunity to join a week-long series of networking and skill-building events in honor of Minority Enterprise Development Week, observed locally on Oct. 17-24. The city of Chattanooga joined nine other local and regional partners to organize the 10-event lineup in celebration of the achievements and contributions of the regions minority-owned business community. The events are free, open to the public, and geared toward minority business owners, community leaders, and individuals who are interested in starting or growing a business. Interested individuals can register online to participate at https://econ.chattanooga.gov/med-week-oct-17-24/. "Minority-owned businesses create living-wage jobs, generate tax revenue for our schools and infrastructure, and brighten and strengthen the fabric of our culture, yet they continue to face long-standing barriers to starting and growing their enterprises, said Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly. Thats why we are proud to partner with the community to offer skill-building classes and technical assistance during this years Minority Enterprise Development Week. From funding fundamentals to marketing your business for government contracting, these events will help our minority business owners and entrepreneurs gain the knowledge and tools they need to thrive and prosper." The city of Chattanooga thanks all of the partners involved in organizing the weeks events, including: City of Knoxville Small Business & Diversity Outreach Office EPB First Horizon Bank Knoxville Area Urban League Nashville Business Incubation Center Pathway Lending Regions Bank Tennessee Procurement Technical Assistance Center Urban League of Middle Tennessee Since taking office, Mayor Kelly has directed city officials to streamline processes and procedures to make it easier for minority-owned businesses to do business with the city, said officials. As a part of this overhaul, Chief Procurement Officer Kevin Bartenfield modernized the citys vendor portal and transitioned to processing vendor invoices and payments through a single electronic system, reducing the amount of time it takes vendors to get paid. Additionally, in July, Chattanooga City Council approved an increase in the citys small purchase threshold from $5,000 to $20,000, which allows departments to make purchases of up to $20,000 with one formal quote as opposed to three - making it significantly easier for small, local, and minority-owned companies to perform services for the city. The citys Department of Equity and Community Engagement is also helping empower local minority businesses by hosting monthly roundtables as part of its commitment to increasing supplier diversity. The roundtables are designed to create a community for small black and brown business owners and entrepreneurs to network and get connected to resources according to their unique needs. Looking ahead, Mayor Kellys One Chattanooga Relief and Recovery Plan dedicates $8.8 million in federal funding for initiatives that will support workforce development and entrepreneurship for the citys minority communities, including creation of a new, $1.4 million minority business resource center. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture announces their participation in a program that will increase purchases of local foods from Tennessees underserved farmers and producers and get it to those who need it most. TDA will participate in the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, established by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Agricultural Marketing Service and authorized by the American Rescue Plan. The initiative aims to maintain and improve agricultural supply chain resiliency to support local, regional, and socially disadvantaged farmers and producers through the purchase of locally grown fresh foods, food products, and beverages. TDA will use LFPA funds to expand economic opportunities for Tennessees farmers and producers who historically have had fewer opportunities, Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, D.V.M. said. Our participation will aid in providing nutritious foods and beverages that are unique to our regions to Tennesseans who dont have access to it. With LFPA funding, TDA will partner with Tennessees Feeding America Food Banks in their efforts to procure high-quality foods and beverages produced within the state or within 400 miles of delivery destination. These healthy food items will be distributed to citizens experiencing food insecurity statewide. TDAs mission is to serve all the citizens of Tennessee by providing options for responsible use of our agricultural and forest resources, developing economic opportunities, safeguarding food and fiber, and ensuring equity in the marketplace. A Friend of the Family: Pocatello, Idaho Wasnt As Small of a Town as They Want You to Think Peacocks true crime, A Friend of the Family, and Netflixs documentary, Abducted in Plain Sight, both portray Pocatello, Idaho, as a small town. A close family friend of Mary Ann Broberg and Bob Broberg Robert Berchtold kidnapped their 12-year-old daughter, Jan Broberg, in 1974 (for five weeks). However, in this shockingly true story, the family dropped the most serious charges against the man, and he kidnapped Jan again two years later. One explanation for why the Brobergs kept in contact with Berchtold after the first kidnapping was that they came from a small town. However, Pocatello, Idaho, is far from a small town. Instead, the church community that the Berchtolds and Brobergs belonged to played a significant role. Pocatello, Idaho, isnt a small town in the literal sense of the word In the 1970 census, the government found that Pocatello, Idaho had a population of 40,036 people. The city grew by 50.9% from the 1960 census to 1970. (In 1960, the population was 26,534). However, the definition of a small town is only 5,000 people. So, Pocatello was far from a small town in 1974. It was more of a growing city (via Census). A Friend of the Family: Anna Paquin as Mary Ann Broberg, Elle Lisic as Young Susan Broberg, Hendrix Yancey as Young Jan Broberg, Mila Harris as Young Karen Broberg, and Colin Hanks as Bob Broberg | Peacock RELATED: Jan Broberg Wasnt the First Girl that Robert B Berchtold Targeted Or the Last The role the church played in Jan Brobergs kidnappings As viewers watch the nine A Friend of the Family episodes, it is evident that the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) played a significant role in the Broberg and Berchtolds family lives. The story opens with Jan Broberg (Hendrix Yancey) writing an excerpt in her journal about the sacrament meeting at her church that day. I really had the spirit today, Jan wrote. I am thankful for the wonderful parents I have. My mom and dad teach me the gospel and how to be a good person. Robert B Berchtold (Jake Lacy) quickly became a stand-up member of the church community that the Brobergs belonged to. He was loved by everyone and followed the values that the Brobergs taught their children. However, he quietly broke those rules by seducing both Bob Broberg (Colin Hanks) and Mary Ann Broberg (Anna Paquin). I know it may seem unbelievable, but we lived in a different world back then, the real Jan Broberg said in the opening scene of episode 1. The Brobergs placed such importance on the church teachings that it was shameful and mortifying to admit that they both had sexual relations with Berchtold. Brother B knew that fact and preyed on the Broberg familys faith. He constantly held their indiscretions over their heads. Neither Jans mother nor father wanted the church community to find out what they had done. It wasnt necessarily a different world than today. According to todays Church of Jesus Christ website, Adultery is most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost. When Berchtold threatened to tell the church community that the Brobergs committed adultery, they quickly dropped the most severe kidnapping charges against him. The Broberg family lived in a small town church community in Pocatello, Idaho RELATED: What Happened to Robert Berchtolds wife, Gail Berchtold, After Jan Brobergs Kidnapping? The Collins Dictionary defines a small town as a place where people are friendly, honest, and polite. It also could refer to someone with old-fashioned ideas. So, the large city of Pocatello, Idaho, didnt play as significant a role as the small town church community that the Brobergs and Berchtolds were a part of. Robert Berchtolds wife, Gail Berchtold, convinced the Brobergs not to call the police and report Jan missing that first night that she didnt come home. Gail referenced the church community in her plea to them. Pocatello, Idaho, was not a small town in the 1970s. However, the LDS community could be considered a small town of people. A Friend of the Family premieres on Peacock on Thursday, October 6, with four episodes. The remaining five episodes will drop weekly on Thursdays through November 10. How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. RELATED: Where Are Jan Brobergs Sisters, Susan, and Karen, Today? ABCs newest drama series, Alaska Daily, has captured the attention of audiences worldwide. Hilary Swank stars as Eileen Fitzgerald, a canceled journalist who seeks redemption in Anchorage, Alaska, after her former boss, Stanley Cornik, offers her a job at the local newspaper. But who plays Stanley in Alaska Daily? Jeff Perry | ABC/Darko Sikman Jeff Perry plays Stanley in Alaska Daily Alaska Daily centers around Eileen Fitzgerald, played by Hilary Swank, who publishes a story outing the next Secretary of Defense for allegedly selling weapons to enemies. But when her source turns out to be a dud, Eileen is shunned and leaves her job at The Vanguard. Flash-forward four months later, Eileen is working on a novel about the Secretary of Defense. Her former boss Stanley Cornik, played by Jeff Perry, contacts her and offers her a job in the Alaska Daily pilot. After some back-and-forth, she accepts and travels to Anchorage, Alaska. There, she works on a story about missing and murdered indigenous women for Stanleys newspaper, The Daily Alaskan. The Alaska Daily cast rounds out with Matt Malloy as Bob Young, Meredith Holzman as Claire Muncy, Grace Dove as Rosalind Roz Friendly, Pablo Castelblanco as Gabriel Martin, Ami Park as Jieun Park, and Craig Frank as Austin Greene. What other projects has Jeff Perry been in? Fans might recognize Stanley in Alaska Daily because Jeff Perry appeared in a few other popular ABC dramas My So-Called Life, Greys Anatomy, and Scandal. Perry played Richard Katimski, an English teacher, in My So-Called Life for a few episodes. He frequently starred as Thatcher Grey, Merediths father, in Greys Anatomy. But Perry is probably most recognizable from his role as Cyrus Beene, the former White House Chief of Staff and eventual Vice President, in Scandal. He was a series regular throughout the shows seven seasons. Most recently, Perry played Lou in Inventing Anna on Netflix. #AlaskaDaily is bringing the mystery to light. Watch TONIGHT at 10/9c on ABC and Stream on Hulu. pic.twitter.com/PFfPPQzJ0x Alaska Daily (@AlaskaDailyABC) October 13, 2022 Is Alaska Daily based on a true story? Alaska Daily is inspired by a series of articles titled Lawless that the Anchorage Daily News published in 2019. These articles detailed the increasing number of missing and murdered indigenous women in Alaska. And they exposed the police for not thoroughly investigating these crimes. Although Alaska Daily is based on a true story, none of the characters, including Stanley, are based on real-life journalists. Hilary Swank told Newsweek, When [Alaska Daily creator Tom McCarthy] said that this was based on a story called Lawless, I read the article. I knew about the missing, murdered indigenous women. I knew about that. But the story was just [shocking]. She added, To me, I knew about that. And yet so many people dont know about it, and its happening right now, right this second. And no ones doing anything about it. It is horrific, and something needs to be done. So, yes, that was a big part of me being in the show. And then theres other things that the article tackles that I had no idea about. And it just blew my mind. New episodes of Alaska Daily air Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. RELATED: This Is Us: Chrissy Metz Teases Kates Not Ideal Goodbye to Rebecca and How Kates Story Ends [Exclusive] Kiss Gene Simmons Said The Beatles Were Like Babies When They Did Love Me Do TL;DR: Gene Simmons compared The Beatles Love Me Do to one of the Fab Fours later songs. He said rock music is dead but other genres are not. In some countries, The Beatles Love Me Do charted higher in the 1980s than it did in the 1960s. Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley of Kiss | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Kiss Gene Simmons discussed his opinion on new rock bands. Subsequently, he said The Beatles Love Me Do is not one of the Fab Fours best songs. Notably, Love Me Do became a hit in the United Kingdom across three different decades. Kiss Gene Simmons contrasted The Beatles Love Me Do with A Day in the Life During a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Simmons discussed his views on the music industry. Look, the system is broken, and because the system is broken, he said. New rock bands are very fragile. Theyre like babies. You need to give them love and caring and give them a chance to come up with their better stuff so that they start with Love Love Me Do [sic] [and] end up writing A Day in the Life. The same band, he said. They had the time to mature and grow. But if they were living in their mothers basement and had to work for a living, which is whats going on today, its not going to happen. RELATED: Beatles: Why Mick Jagger Nearly Felt Sick When He Heard Love Me Do What Kiss Gene Simmons said about the current state of rock, pop, rap, and country music Subsequently, Simmons discussed his views on rock music in general. Yeah, rock is dead, he opined. Not that it cant come back to life, but the business is dead. If the business is dead, rock is dead. Simmons compared rock to other genres of music. You know whats not dead? he said. Pop. Lots of pop divas, little girls buy the material. Black music, especially rap, their fans buy the music. Country, yup, their fans buy the music. Rock, no. He said there doesnt seem to be a modern band comparable to The Beatles. RELATED: John Lennon Said It Was Traumatic for The Beatles to Sing Love Me Do How The Beatles Love Me Do performed on the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom The Beatles Love Me Do became a big hit in the United States. The track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for one week, staying on the chart for a total of 14 weeks. The tune appeared on the compilation 1962-1966. The compilation reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 175 weeks. According to The Official Charts Company, The Beatles Love Me Do reached No. 17. In 1982, it peaked at No. 4 and in 1992, it reached No. 53. Meanwhile, 1962-1966 hit No. 3 and stayed on the chart for a total of 167 weeks. Love Me Do was a hit even if Simmons didnt think it was the Fab Fours best work. RELATED: What The Rolling Stones Brian Jones Asked John Lennon About The Beatles Love Me Do From experience, driving through the city centre takes longer than covering the same distance on an open country road. After all, you will encounter a lot of other road users, red lights, road works and traffic jams in the city centre. Conversely, if you want to find out how busy a road is without having to join the traffic, you can measure the time it takes cars to travel a certain distance. This is precisely how traffic obstructions are identified by modern navigation systems. In the microcosm, this concept is maintained. When electrons (the smallest possible charge carriers) move through solids, they can interact with other electrons, changing their dynamics. However, due to the tiny mass of the electrons, the relevant processes take place unimaginably fast and they follow the intriguing laws of quantum physics rather than classical mechanics. A group of physicists led by Prof. Dr. Rupert Huber from the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and Prof. Dr. Mackillo Kira from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, USA, have now for the first time successfully tracked the ultrafast motion of free electrons in solids with the mind-boggling precision of just a few hundred attoseconds. This resolution is sufficient to investigate the smallest changes in the quantum dynamics of electrons caused by the attraction of other charge carriers or complex many-body correlations. The research team reports on their results in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature. An attosecond corresponds to the billionth part of a billionth of a second, which relates to a second as a second does to twice the age of the universe. Even light would only travel a distance of the order of an atom's diameter in an attosecond. To measure the movement of electrons on such short time scales, the researchers developed a new type of attosecond stopwatch. The pendulum of this clock is given by the oscillating carrier wave of light - the fastest alternating field that can be controlled by humans. The light field literally puts the charge carriers on a test track through the solid. It first accelerates electrons in semiconductor samples in one direction and then, after reversing the direction of the field, recollides them with the gap from which they were removed, so-called holes. In this process, high-energy photons are emitted. The collisions are not always equally likely to occur, but depend on the point in time at which an electron begins its motion. The researchers clocked this collision path more precisely than a hundredth of a light oscillation period and were thus able to show how different strengths of attraction between charge carriers change their dynamics. "Just as it is better to leave earlier in heavy traffic in order to reach your destination on time, electrons have to start their collision course earlier if there are many and strong encounters between electrons in a crystal", explains first author Josef Freudenstein from the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg enthusiastically. To investigate the influence of differently strong attractive forces between charge carriers, the researchers studied a single atomic layer of the semiconductor material tungsten diselenide next to a bulk sample of the same material. In such a minimally thick exotic solid, the attraction between the charge carriers increases many times over and the electrons motion changes. In addition, it was possible to investigate other critical parameters for the dynamics of the charge carriers: If the accelerating light field is amplified, electrons complete their collision course more quickly. The same result is also observed when many electrons start their travel at the same time. Then they shield each other and the charge carriers see only weak attractive forces. From the measured time it takes the electrons to finish their test track, one can thus deduce not only that interaction has taken place, but also how. "On the attosecond time scale, interaction effects can no longer be explained by the laws of classical physics; instead, they are of a purely quantum mechanical nature. Tracking directly in the time domain how they affect the motion of electrons is immensely helpful in testing state-of-the-art many-body quantum theories," explains Prof. Dr. Mackillo Kira, whose group has been able to simulate the microscopic dynamics with quantum mechanical calculations. "For a long time, the solid-state physics community used to believe that the much slower femtosecond time scale was sufficient to describe solid-state-relevant electron dynamics; our results clearly refute this hypothesis," summarises Prof. Dr. Rupert Huber, who leads the experiments in Regensburg, and adds: "Our attosecond stopwatch may help better understand many-body correlations in modern quantum materials and set new trends for future quantum information processing." Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. signs the Cherokee Artist Recovery Act of 2022 into law on Oct. 12 in Tahlequah. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order on Indigenous Peoples Day that rescinded four 1800s-era proclamations from former territorial governors. This editorial ran in the Oct. 5 edition of the Record-Journal: They may be called paraeducators or instructional assistants or related titles, but whatever the terminology used, the work these dedicated individuals do to support students and classroom activities is amazing. As school began, area districts and even state officials recognized the outstanding contributions of paraeducators, noting the remarkable and constant care they provide. Don Askew, a longtime paraeducator at Maloney High School, was recently honored as the states Paraeducator of the Year for 2023. Record-Journal reporter Michael Gagne covered the event and wrote that Askew works with some of Maloneys highest-needs students; and was selected from among some 20,000 paraeducators across the state. Gagne reported that local and state officials described Askew as tirelessly dedicated to his students and school. State Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker also lauded Askews work and thanked all paraeducators. She said paraeducators statewide are critical players in our school ecosystem. Across all grades, all content areas in Connecticut, we find dedicated paraeducators who work tirelessly, as you heard of what Don has done, to help our students with different abilities to help them thrive. In addition to academic support, the boost given to help students thrive might be providing snacks or access to laundry facilities, taking a photo at graduation or tying a shoe. In honoring Askew, Shellye Davis, executive vice president at the Connecticut AFL-CIO union said that paras have a different type of connection with their students. In Wallingford, RJ reporter Jessica Simms attended the school districts award ceremony where Debra Remick, from Highland Elementary School, was chosen as Paraeducator of the Year. Remick has worked in the Wallingford school district for 22 years and is currently a paraprofessional in a kindergarten classroom at Highland Elementary School. Mrs. Remick handles the stressful intricacies of managing a kindergarten classroom with composure and compassion, without complaint or criticism, said Superintendent of Schools Danielle Bellizzi. The Cheshire Herald reported on the Cheshire school districts announcement of Jodi Dutchyshyn as its Paraeducator of the Year. Dutchyshyn, is an instructional assistant at Doolittle School, working with 94 first-graders in five classrooms. She and other instructional assistants help manage and support students with behavioral and academic needs. I always try to make the connection with a child. I want them to know theyre OK, Dutchyshyn told The Herald, adding that The needs of the kids always come first. An interesting, and related story in the Record-Journal comes out of Southington, where Susanne Vitcavage, assistant principal at Kennedy Middle School, was announced as the schools new principal. One of her jobs, earlier in her career was as an instructional associate at Nathan Hale Elementary School, in Meriden. In the RJ coverage, Vitcavage notes that skills she developed as an IA and in other roles along the way have remained valuable as an administrator. These are a few of the stories about paraeducators found in recent news. There are a multitude of others that will never be told but that unfold in the lives of the children who benefit every day from the care of these dedicated classroom helpers. Its great to see this recognition of their work. Pastor inviting drag queen to church for childrens sermon is sign of dying United Methodism Will drag queens in the pulpit become "mainstream" in the United Methodist Church? That's what one Methodist critic is warning after a UMC pastor in Florida invited a man dressed in womens clothing to preach a sermon with children seated next to him during a recent church service. Allendale UMC Senior Pastor Andy Oliver said he invited Isaac Simmons, who performs in drag as Ms. Penny Cost, to deliver the sermon on Oct. 2 because he wants all people to see people like themselves called by God to preach the Gospel. In a Facebook post, Oliver wrote that Simmons who was seen in a video clip of the service wearing a wig and a sequin dress was an angel in heels appearing to shepherds in the fields on the night shift, telling them that Good News had arrived on their doorstep. Oliver compared the decision to have a drag queen teach during Sunday service to other churches putting a flag on your altar, and called Simmons an incredible preacher, grounded as Allendale is, in Wesleyan and liberation theology. Mark Tooley, the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, believes drag queens like Simmons are becoming the new public face of United Methodism. "His children's sermon and role in the Eucharist at a Florida church showcase how drag ministry will now become mainstream in the denomination," Tooley told The Christian Post in an emailed statement. To my knowledge, no United Methodist official, including Simmons bishop, has publicly expressed concern about this United Methodist drag queen." For Tooley, Simmons and others like him are among the reasons that United Methodism, which, as Tooley put it, has never enjoyed a single year of growth in its 53 years, is imploding. Traditionalists have been given a one-year window to withdraw from the denomination with church property, he said. Thousands of congregations are doing so. Dying United Methodism faces only further tragedy ahead. At one point during the Allendale church service, after a worship band performed a song with the lyrics We are building up a new world/ we seek justice for all people, two young girls wearing face coverings were seated behind Simmons as Oliver asked him about his dress. Are you always dressed up like this? asked Oliver. Simmons replied, I wish! adding, No, I only get dressed up like this on special occasions. I kind of feel powerful when I put on a dress like this and a big wig and lots of makeup. It kind of helps me to say things that I dont have the confidence to say outside of it. Simmons went on to make an apparent comparison between the final days of the life of Jesus to what he sees as the end of injustice. We, members of the United Methodist Church, any church, or just the common humanity, we have a privilege and a duty to change the very doctrine and systems of oppression which surround us, said Simmons. The time of change-making will likely be uncomfortable for you, but just as the liminal last days of Christs life were uncomfortable for him, the liminal days which rest between now and the end of injustice will be uncomfortable for us all. He went on to warn that those of us with the privilege of whiteness, of cis-ness, and the privilege of the access to power must be willing to get uncomfortable. Oliver then turned to address the children and referenced Romans 12:2, which reads in part, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. One of the things I think is great about Ms. Penny Cost is that she reminds us that we follow a God who calls us not to conform to things of this world, Oliver is heard telling the children. We are supposed to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. That means what I think today may have to change tomorrow if I continue to renew my mind. While Oliver declined a request for comment from CP when asked, among other things, whether drag queens are invited to teach childrens studies at Allendale, an image posted on the churchs website shows a man dressed in womens clothing reading to young children. Its not clear how many children attend Allendale, but the church reportedly has a fellowship size of roughly 100 people every Sunday. Simmons, an associate pastor at Hope UMC in Bloomington, Illinois, has a video on his website in which he declares the Bible is nothing, adding, God must be nothing / Religion must be nothing / It is all nothing / Until we wield it into something." The United Methodist News Service, which serves as the official UMC media outlet, has touted Simmons as the first drag queen to become a certified candidate for UMC ordination. Mary Adelia McLeod, first female Episcopal Church diocesan bishop, dies at 84 Mary Adelia McLeod, the first woman to become a diocesan bishop in The Episcopal Church, has died at her home in Charleston, West Virginia, on Wednesday at the age of 84. Although McLeod was the third woman to be consecrated a bishop in the mainline Protestant denomination, she was the first female bishop who specifically led a diocese. The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, the regional body that McLeod was elected in 1993 to lead, announced her death on Wednesday. Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown, the head of the Vermont Diocese and the first black woman to hold the leadership position, said in the announcement that McLeod was always encouraging to me. Im trying my best to continue her work of empowering and supporting lay ministry, promoting inclusion, strengthening our stewardship, improving transparency around our financial resources, and encouraging the ministry of women, said MacVean-Brown. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1938, McLeod later graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in history. Along with her husband, Henry McLeod III, she entered the Episcopal seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, graduating in 1980 and becoming the first woman from Alabama to be ordained in The Episcopal Church. She would serve at St. Timothys Church in Athens, Alabama, and St. Johns Church, Charleston, West Virginia, and was an archdeacon in the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia. In 1993, McLeod was elected bishop of the Vermont Diocese, becoming only the second woman in the entire global Anglican Communion to head a diocese as bishop. The first was the Rt. Rev. Penelope Jamieson, who had been elected bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin, a regional body of the Anglican Church of New Zealand, in 1989. In an interview with The Associated Press in July 1993, McLeod explained that she did not want to be considered a feminist icon, but rather simply as a servant of God. The Diocese of Vermont has looked past the gender issue and was looking for the right person for them, and it just happened to be me, said McLeod at the time. But they have been very courageous in following the Spirits guiding. I think theres been a conscious effort, at least in the election of bishops, to include women in that process. That certainly wasnt true 10 years ago. McLeod was consecrated on Nov. 1, 1993, in a globally broadcast service that took place during a major snowstorm and served as head of the diocese until 2001. In 2000, as the state of Vermont first debated legalizing same-sex marriage, McLeod expressed her support for the Church recognizing gay unions in an essay titled, Let the Church be the first to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. I believe homosexual persons choosing to live together in a life-long union are not committing a sin. I believe some persons are born homosexual and are not made/chosen as a result of trauma, rebellion, psychological difficulties or for any other reason. God creates diversity in human beings, she wrote. The Anglican tradition understands marriage as the life-long union between a man and a woman. I have no quarrel with that understanding, but suggest the Church might consider expanding what we mean or may want to mean by the union of two human beings committed to each other in a life-long relationship. McLeod is survived by her husband, three daughters, two sons, and eight grandchildren. A private family ceremony will be held, with her body being donated to the West Virginia Human Gift Registry. Notre Dame professor denies sign on office door signals help for students seeking abortion A Notre Dame professor claims that reports about her offering to help students obtain abortions and contraceptives are false, leaving unanswered questions about a sign on her door that reportedly designates faculty who help students seeking to terminate a pregnancy. The Irish Rover, an independent student newspaper at the Catholic University, reported Monday that sociology professor Tamara Kay advertised on her office door that she would offer information on all healthcare issues and access confidentially with care and compassion. The private university is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, which is opposed to abortion. Also on the door of Kays office is the letter J, which, according to the Rover report, signifies faculty members who are willing to help students access Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, and Plan C abortion pills. The latter induces abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Plan B is a form of emergency contraception that comes in the form of two levonorgestrel pills, according to the Food and Drug Administration. It prevents ovulation by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary and might also stop fertilization by blocking the union of sperm and egg. While Plan B is not the same as the abortion pill, some claim that it can act as an abortifacient by preventing implantation to stop the egg from attaching to the womb. Kay, who publicly advocates for abortion, wrote in a Friday tweet that the note on her office door was not related to abortion, and neither she nor the university could comment on the reason for it. The note on my door was not about abortion. And the university knows this, but neither they, nor I can comment on what happened to prompt it. I'll say no more about that. But I do, of course, fully support abortion rights and the policy implications of abortion bans are horrific. Dr. Tamara Kay: Abortion Rights & Policy Scholar (@BuildSolidarity) October 14, 2022 Ill say no more about that, Kay wrote. But I do, of course, fully support abortion rights and the policy implications of abortion bans are horrific. And so the rag thats not part of ND, not a student pub, has no journalistic standards AND the few faculty who are likely manipulating the puppet strings behind the scenes got it ALL wrong & should ALL be ashamed & need to take some time to get that egg off their faces, she continued. In May, Kay co-wrote an op-ed piece for the left-leaning website Salon where she wrote, "Forced pregnancy and childbirth is violence," in response to a leak from the U.S. Supreme Court on the overturning of the legalization of abortion nationwide. She argued that returning abortion laws to the states could lead to women being "prosecuted for murder" due to miscarriages and stillbirths. "This violence will happen regularly in the U.S. if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade." Notre Dame is a Catholic institution, and while the professor acknowledged in a statement to the Rover that her views on abortion runs afoul of Church teaching, she claims that her positions are perfectly aligned with the Church in other areas. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense and anyone who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication. According to Pope Paul VIs Humanae vitae in 1968, the church views artificial forms of contraception as intrinsically evil but permits methods that dont actively interfere with the creation of a new life, such as natural family planning. Kay told the Rover that she is acting as a private citizen when offering students help with obtaining abortions and that the university has granted her permission. The professor added that she had spoken to the dean and have also spoken to ND Media about policies. The University of Notre Dame did not immediately respond to The Christian Posts request for comment. Kay also could not be reached for comment, as her school email address has been changed, and she did not respond to an inquiry through her social media. Last month, the sociology professor attended and served as a panelist for an event at the university titled, Post-Roe America: Making Intersectional Feminist Sense of Abortion Bans. The event featured local experts on law and reproductive health for a discussion about the U.S. Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer, allowing states such as Indiana to prohibit abortion before the point of viability or outlaw it altogether. Indianas Republican Governor Eric Holcomb signed a bill in August banning abortions while making exceptions for rape and incest in some cases, and if the pregnancy threatens the mothers life or if the unborn has a fetal anomaly. The law is on hold while the Indiana Supreme Court considers its constitutionality. During the panel, Kay said she planned to spend her time debunking some of those myths about abortion and that she wanted people to think about the disproportionality of abortion bans. The professor went on to claim that such policies disproportionately affect people in minority groups: black, indigenous, Latinx, LGBTQIA, those with few resources, those who are incarcerated, those in the military, those who are on campus, those who are immigrants, those who have disabilities and physical and mental health challenges, including substance use disorder. Colorado election integrity had a run-in with an attempt to allegedly pad Democrat votes in the state for the upcoming midterm. A month ago, like a dread rerun of the 2020 presidential elections wherein, 30,000 aliens or non-residents were given postcards to vote. Voter Registration Notices To Non-Colorado Citizens Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a democratic party member, later explained that the 30,000 spurious invitations were caused by an alleged glitch in the computer system. She later claimed these non-resident votes would be shut out of the system itself, reported the Epoch Times. It takes place at a time of pervasive suspicion of casting a ballot with integrity following the presidential election in 2020, as Griswold, who has regarded her role as a nationwide proponent of safe elections, wants a second term in the November midterms. The incumbent confronts Republican Pam Anderson, an erstwhile suburban Denver clerk and head of the state's county clerks association, who has been a strong proponent of Colorado's all-mail voting system. State GOP chairwoman, Kristi Burton Brown, denounced Griswold for such a mistake, declaring in a Monday comment to the Associated Press that Jena Griswold continually makes easily preventable errors well before ballots are sent by mail, noted the Associated Press. The mistake happened when the notices were mailed on September 27 to residents who kept non-citizen Colorado driver's licenses. As shown by Colorado Public Radio News, the front of the card states, "Make sure your voice gets heard this November," and afterward directs viewers to "Sign up to VOTE today at www.GoVoteColorado.gov." Read Also: [Report] Biden Administration Hires Staff To Deflect Hunter Biden Scandals, Pays $265,000 Per Year Every two years, Colorado starts sending postcards to qualified but unregistered citizens, trying to encourage them to cast a ballot. But Colorado's election integrity is hampered by it in the midterm elections. Records indicate that either you or your household could be entitled to vote, yet you do not seem to be enrolled at your current residence, based on the postcard. As stated in the report, the mailing also included the state's voter eligibility rules, like age, nationality, and having lived in the area for a minimum of 22 days. Error in the Department of Motor Vehicles Database Staff members later evaluated a list of names of 102,000 people given by the Electronic Registration Information Center with a municipal Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) directory, observing a formatting error by the latter that also induced the system to malfunction to flag the disqualified names even before envelopes went out, Griswold's office stated in a Monday quote. The incident is now being probed, as stated by the office, and then another notice has been sent to roughly 30,000 people. The state is now also applying measures to prevent anybody not qualified to vote from the registration process, such as regularly comparing the Social Security Cards required with each application. County clerks will also refer suspicious instances to local state prosecutors for evaluation. As Griswold's office said, nobody who received the postcards unwittingly tried to register. Colorado is among at least 18 states, together with the District of Columbia, that give driver's licenses to non-US residents. By the National Conference of State Legislatures, residents In Colorado, eligible voters are also automatically enrolled once they acquire their driver's license from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Colorado election integrity before the Midterm elections is a concern with conservatives who don't want another 2020; that allegedly had rampant cheating by the Dems. Related Article: Delaware GOP Wins Case To Ban Vote-by-Mail That Lessens Chances of Cheating in Midterm Elections @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Victims of religious oppression in Turkey reveal why Christian population is dwindling Victims of religious oppression in Turkey shared their stories at an event on religious freedom at the European Parliament where the speakers suggested that political and social atrocities in that country were behind the Christian population's decline from 20% to a mere 0.2% over the last century. The victims highlighted atrocities against Christian minorities committed by the Turkish government and parts of society, according to the human rights group ADF International, which held the event this week in partnership with the group European Conservatives and Reformists. Among those who testified at Wednesdays event in Brussels, Freedom of Religion in Turkiye, was Mark Smith, a Christian missionary who was expelled from the country in 2020 after living there for over a decade. We love the country of Turkey and want to work for the good of its people. We are not a threat to the state, the country or the Turkish way of life, Smith was quoted as saying. Mark, with his wife, led a Turkish-speaking Evangelical church for 10 years before being banned from the country for activities against Turkish state security. The Turkish government has expelled at least 60 foreign Christian missionaries and their families since 2020, according to the religious freedom group Open Doors, which says Christians in Turkey experience incredible pressure from very strong and increasing religious nationalism in the country. Christians and other faith minorities are unable to exercise their right to freedom of religion, commented Dr. Georgia du Plessis, legal officer for ADF International in Brussels. Christian missionaries are unable to return to the country they call home, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church has not been able to train clergy for 50 years, and religious sites are being violated without action taken from the government, Plessis continued, adding, These direct and egregious violations clearly indicate the demise of democracy in Turkey. Member of the European Parliament Bert-Jan Ruissen said Turkey has restrictive government policies on religious practice for all religious communities other than non-Sunni Muslims. We also see an increase in vandalism and violence against religious minorities and a government interfering in the internal affairs of religious communities, continued Ruissen, who is from ECR Group. This contributes to a hostile environment where religious communities feel increasingly unsafe and this deserves our full attention, he added. The 2022 European Parliament Report on Turkey condemned the oppression of religious and ethnic minorities and expressed regret over the continuously shrinking space for them to operate freely in Turkey. In its recent report, Open Doors says, The government continues to target even foreign Christians in its borders, along with the foreign spouses of Turkish citizens. Its not technically illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, but any Muslim who does decide to follow Jesus comes under immense strain from their families and communities, who often demand the convert return to Islam, it adds. These believers are sometimes forced to lead a double life and hide their conversion. Even Christians who did not convert from Islam are hardly regarded as full members of Turkish society and encounter all kinds of legal and bureaucratic obstructions. Last month, the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide called on the government of Turkey to investigate a claim that the countrys security officials offered to pay an ultranationalist whatever he wanted in return for assassinating church leaders. In August, an ultranationalist man, identified only as Tolgahan A., confessed to Vedat Serin, a leader of the Salvation Church in the eastern city of Malatya, that members of Turkeys Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit offered him whatever he wanted if he killed Serin and two other Christian leaders former pastor Tim Stone and Pastor Ihsan Ozbek, the chair of Kurtulus Churches Association, CSW said in a statement at the time. The man, allegedly connected to the Nationalist Movement Party, was given the addresses and photos of Serin and the others, Ahval News reported, adding that he was also given a gun and sent to the church with a friend. But when they saw a little boy playing with a computer inside, they left. Turkey has a long history of Christian persecution, and its government still refuses to admit that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide of Christian Armenians in 1915. Turkey is 99% Muslim, according to its own statistics. Although its constitution provides for freedom of religion, the government uses regulations that demand the registration of religious groups to make it more difficult to practice non-Islamic faiths. Hatred toward Christians and Jews in the country often leads to discrimination, stigmatization and attacks. In July 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turned the Hagia Sophia, an ancient Christian cathedral, from a museum into a mosque, undoing its transformation in 1934 from a mosque to a cathedral. Pastor killed after driver runs red light; leaves behind wife, 2 kids A Wisconsin pastor was killed while driving to work when a man who was reportedly running late for jury duty ran a red light and crashed into the clergymans car. Aaron Strong, 40, a pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church of Milwaukee, was hit by a driver running a stop light on Wednesday morning. The pastor later died at a local hospital. Grace Evangelical Lutheran announced Strongs death on the church's Facebook page that evening, asking people to keep Abbie Strong and their children, Hannah and Elijah, in your prayers. Like Job, the question Why? troubles all of us regarding this tragedy. Like Job, we are reminded that our majestic God does not always provide an answer to that question. But what brings us everlasting comfort is that Gods mercy shines as bright as his majesty, stated the church. It is that mercy of God that filled Pastor Strongs heart and that he so joyfully proclaimed throughout his ministry, including his seven years at Grace. As we process grief, we will cling to the cross of Jesus and the miracle of his empty tomb that assured Pastor Strong and assures us of life forever in perfect joy. Strong was active in the church, which had a reported 1,100 members, overseeing Bible classes, discipleship ministries, and a ministry centered on college students, reported Fox 6 Milwaukee. God gives you the strength to push on, said Grace Evangelical Luther Lead Pastor James Huebner to Fox 6. We make our plans, but then theres moments the tears just flow, you know? You cant help it. He was a great pastor and great partner, but he was equally a great husband and dad. Strong preached his final sermon last Sunday, titling it The Gift That Keeps on Giving and focused his remarks on 2 Corinthians 9:10-15. We are less than 80 days away from Christmas, he preached at the time. Thirty percent of Americans will start their Christmas shopping during this month. Whenever you start, maybe youll want to start thinking about a gift that maybe is long-lasting, something that is a gift that keeps on giving. The Apostle Paul gives us a far greater gift in our reading today from 2nd Corinthians chapter 9. A gift that truly is one that keeps on giving, he added. The 22-year-old man accused of speeding through the red light and crashing into Strong was, according to WISN 12 News, running late for jury duty at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. The trial in question was for Lamontrez Haywood, who was facing charges of felony strangulation and suffocation, with WISN reporting that, because of the tragic events and the juror now not being able to appear in trial the courts deemed it a mistrial. 'Generation Indoctrination': Inside the transgender battle and gender chaos in America For the past few months, a team of journalists have been working here at The Christian Post to produce a five-part investigative podcast series on transgenderism and its devastating impact on society. This new hard-hitting series, called Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle, features a diverse cast of 20 contributors from a variety of backgrounds. Over the next several weeks, we will chronicle the history and philosophy of gender ideology and how this new-fangled dogma is influencing schools, the medical system, families, and especially children. The inaugural episode explores how gender dogma has become entrenched in the education system nationwide and how many school officials are driving wedges between children and their parents via gender identity policies and course content. While these issues have been around for decades in the United States, the explosive proliferation of a seemingly infinite number of so-called gender identities, including transgender or non-binary and genderqueer, has become impossible to ignore in the last five years. In light of this phenomenon and its broader impact on the culture, CP has scrutinized the underlying ideology since we published our multi-part article series in 2017. Yet it is not necessary to be a professing believer in Jesus Christ to engage on these issues with truthfulness and integrity. We have found that some of the most thoughtful and intelligent voices on these matters do not ascribe to any faith and they land at various places on the political spectrum. CP felt it was important to include their perspectives in our new podcast series because the truth is true no matter who says it. Each featured contributor brought compelling and substantive insights to this project. We interviewed doctors, parent advocates, a bioethicist, investigative journalists and writers, a licensed professional counselor, and several others. We concluded the series with a detransitioner a formerly trans-identified young woman who underwent several experimental medical procedures to appear as the opposite sex. Her story is powerful and beautifully redemptive. We are releasing this series now because a critical mass of people are alarmed at what trans ideology has unleashed and how quickly it has gripped many spheres of influence. People are especially troubled by the experimental medicalization being pushed on children. As more people realize how the combination of chemical puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones cause permanent sterility and other terrible medical complications, an understandable public outrage is growing stronger. Equally appalling is that surgeries that mutilate and disfigure the body in pursuit of a physical impossibility that of becoming the opposite sex are being performed on vulnerable people, including minors. It is interesting to observe that while these operations are being done on the bodies of children at prominent institutions such as Boston Childrens Hospital, the corporate press has pivoted from running interference for the medical facilities and its denial that these atrocities are occurring, to admitting that indeed they are happening and that its a good thing. As a case in point, a Sept. 27 fawning article from CBS ran with the headline, Top surgery drastically improves quality of life for young transgender people, study finds. The article uses information from a JAMA Pediatrics study that surveyed young women who had undergone elective double mastectomies. These medically unnecessary cosmetic surgeries, the study maintained, dramatically improved their quality of life. But this report only interviewed a few dozen postoperative women and girls a few months after their surgeries. Ask anyone who regrets their medicalized gender transition and they will be the first to tell you that the regret does not set in until well after that time when they realize that mutilating their bodies didnt alleviate their mental distress. Most horrifyingly, the age range listed for this cohort in the JAMA Pediatrics report was 13-24. Let that sink in for a moment. Surgeons in this country are severing physically healthy breasts off 13-year-old girls and the corporate press is hailing it as a positive development. This is, we believe, one such anecdote that makes transgenderism, among other things, one of the absolute worst medical scandals and moral atrocities in history. That this ideology has enabled such unethical procedures to be carried out and has become enshrined in influential universities and in prominent hospitals is repugnant. From a small-o orthodox Christian standpoint, the claim that a person can be "born in the wrong body," is no small matter. It constitutes not only the ultimate rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ but is a brutal assault on human beings made in Gods image as male and female. This is not an unimportant agree-to-disagree secondary or tertiary doctrinal matter. What is at stake here is objective truth and the core essentials of the Christian faith. According to CP Executive Editor Dr. Richard Land, the transcendent moral question of our times is: Who and what is a human being? Nothing illustrates that more vividly than the transgender issue. It is the ultimate rebellion against God and against male and female. The transgender movement wants to revolt against that to say that you can decide, and it is a catastrophe to put this in front of children and is the ultimate child abuse, Land explained. I think The Christian Post has seldom done a more important thing for Christendom and for America than to host this five-part series. I would encourage every American adult to listen to it and then to act accordingly to make this movement illegal for children and to be frowned upon and undermined among adults. One of the most powerful aspects of CPs latest podcast series, he added, is that its contributors are not restricted to Christian voices but experts from a variety of professions who may or may not be professing believers. Listen to this podcast series and share it with as many people as you can, Land stressed. The Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle podcast series begins Oct. 14. Four additional episodes will be released every Friday in the coming weeks. From suicidal ideation to Christ: Woman tells her story of depression, anxiety and faith Louisiana resident Emma Benoit remembers wearing a constant smile on her face as a facade in her early adolescent years to cover up her deep ongoing sadness. In an interview with The Christian Post, Benoit recalled that while her life appeared to be picture-perfect on the outside, she felt herself slowly deteriorating mentally and emotionally. Despite being raised in a close-knit Christian household of four, Benoit said that her faith took a back seat in her life for most of her teenage years because having popularity and notoriety among her peers was of the utmost importance. In high school, she became a varsity cheerleader and as a result, she had too many friends to count. However, her mental illnesses remained untreated. In the summer before her senior year of high school in 2017, she said she could no longer masquerade herself as the always-happy-person any longer. That summer, Benoit attempted suicide by shooting herself in the chest using a firearm that belonged to her father. She was left with injuries that disabled her. Now 22, Benoit uses a wheelchair and a walker to move around as a result of the injuries caused by her self-inflicted gunshot wounds. She said that surviving the incident has brought her closer to God because she believes she was given another chance at life. Benoit told CP that in 2018, the year after her attempt, she dedicated her life to Christ. She currently works toward suicide prevention as a mental health advocate. During Suicide Prevention Month, which is observed every September, Benoit partnered with the American Association of Christian Counselors to create a video sharing her testimony in an effort to advance mental health awareness. In elementary school and middle school, I was so insecure and I was so self-conscious that my friends that I made weren't really my friends. The person that I was portraying wasn't always 100% accurate to who I was, Benoit recounted. I always felt like I could never be myself and even though I had all these friends on the outside, and it looked great, it really wasnt. It's isolating. Because I didnt feel like my friends would like me if I was myself. I felt like they would dislike me if I showed them a different side of me. I had a real big bowl of protecting my image. And I worked really hard to mask anything that might show otherwise. Feelings of Isolation Benoit said in the same way she felt isolated in her youth, she "was struggling pretty severely with depression and anxiety and I had no idea that's what I was dealing with." "I began to really struggle with self-esteem issues and self-doubt and peer pressure at a very early age. I was about 12 and came from an environment where those things are not really talked about. It was really challenging, Benoit recalled. Benoit said that as a teenager, there was always the lingering cloud of depression, and she also felt anxiety, which she described as a crippling fear and feeling within. I began to internalize all of those feelings. And obviously, as I got older, those feelings didn't really go away. They just kind of grew with me. And so, it was really challenging for me to navigate my own mental health journey without the knowledge and the environment around me that was accepting of that conversation, she said. Appearance was 'Everything' Before coming to Christ, Benoit said she once thought that the way people viewed her and what they thought of her was everything," calling it "my go-to form of validation" that "gave me a short-lived feeling of confidence." I put a lot of emphasis and value into the way I looked, into how well I was performing, and that really molded a person who was never really secure in themselves, who was never really confident, Benoit admitted. It was a fake confidence because it was based solely on the external opinion of me from other people. So it was really challenging to feel like the only way that I'm going to feel good about myself is if other people tell me how great I am, she continued. My high school years were filled with this great feeling of hopelessness and that nothing will change. My life is going to be this hard, forever. It's so permanent. And those feelings only grew bigger and bigger; the longer that they went on, unaddressed and not talked about. The suicide attempt On the night of her suicide attempt, Benoit said she remembers she was home alone because her parents were at work. Benoit began to have a panic attack, with her first response being to call her mother. As she talked with her mother on the phone, another work call came in and her mother put her on hold. During those few moments waiting on hold, Benoit recalled retrieving her fathers gun and shooting herself in the chest, describing as a spur-of-the-moment decision. When her mother took her off hold, she tried to return to the call, but realized Benoit was unresponsive. She left work and drove home to find Benoit lying unconscious. My mother told me that on that night when I wasnt responding on the other line, she had a really bad gut feeling that something horrible had happened. She calls it mother's intuition or a higher power that showed her that she needed to go home, Benoit said. When my mom came into my bedroom, I snapped out of unconsciousness for a brief moment and I remember her coming into the room and falling to her knees and saying: oh my god. oh my God, just keep breathing. I vividly remember that. But, that's the last memory that I have from that day. Her mother rushed her to the hospital. Benoit had a severed carotid artery, which caused a blood clot that pressed on her spinal cord, injuring it. She also suffered multiple strokes during the surgery to repair the artery. Benoit said she believes that her mother rushing home that evening was a sign of "divine intervention" from God to give her another chance to live. Quite frankly, it was one of the first miracles that happened in my story. Because prior to me making the attempt, I had made no mention of being suicidal and no one knew that I was thinking like that, continued Benoit. Peace Through Faith Benoit said that she has found peace in her faith, telling CP that Christianity changed her perspective on life and her viewpoint on her pursuit of happiness. Once my life was spared, I felt like there's got to be some reason why I'm here. So, I decided to just really put my effort and energy into learning more about God and learning more about the Bible and learning more about Christ, she said. I'm so grateful for this journey. I look at things so much differently now. I just see things in a different light. And I mean, it truly all boils down to the fact that we are imperfect human beings, and it's not our job to fix ourselves. We can't rely solely on ourselves in this life. Benoit said that her nondenominational Christian faith has been instrumental in helping her walk through her recovery process. My faith has been super crucial for me in my recovery because I've been able to totally give everything to God and just rely on Him completely and utterly to get me through hard things. And I've really realized that while I might not be able to pray away my depression, I certainly can utilize the tools that I believe God has given us in this life to navigate life in a different way, Benoit said. Additionally, since her suicide attempt, Benoit has seen a therapist whom she said helps her navigate life alongside Jesus. I believe that some tools that God equipped us with are: therapists, counselors, teachers, knowledge, education and medication which are all wonderful things that can help lead to break through, Benoit said. I believe that those are skills and gifts that we have been given that have equipped us to help one another through life. And honestly, I think my overall perspective on life is much different because I know that there's hope. And I know that this isn't our permanent home. Attacks on pro-life groups, churches continue after DOJ arrests pro-life activists: list As the pro-life movement expresses outrage over the arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck, attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches continue in the United States nearly four months after the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain the right to an abortion. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have faced harsh criticism from the pro-life movement in the past three weeks for an early-morning raid on the Pennsylvania home of Mark Houck. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced on Sept. 23 that it had arrested Houck for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The raid took place earlier that morning. The DOJ contends that Houck is alleged to have twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort. According to the federal agency, the defendant forcefully shoved the clinic escort to the ground on two separate occasions at a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic on Oct. 13, 2021, one of which required him to receive medical attention. However, a fundraiser set up to raise money for the Houck family insists that the clinic escort was harassing Marks 12-year-old son as they prayed outside the clinic: They walked down the street away from the entrance to the building. The escort followed them, and when he continued yelling at Marks son, Mark pushed him away. The arrest of Houck for violating the FACE Act, which subjects anyone who intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person seeking to provide reproductive health services to federal charges, prompted backlash from the pro-life community. If convicted, Houck faces up to 11 years in prison. Following Houcks indictment, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights wrote a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Donohue wrote that 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. Donohue referred to previous letters he had written urging the federal government to take stronger action against violence directed at pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following Politicos May 2 publication of a leak of the Supreme Courts draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization suggesting that a majority of justices were poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The vandalism continued after the official Dobbs decision was released on June 24. Nearly four months after the Dobbs decision and almost six months after Politico published the leaked Dobbs draft decision, pro-life pregnancy centers and churches continue to find themselves subject to varying degrees of vandalism as federal law enforcement agencies direct their resources to prosecuting violations of the FACE Act. Less than two weeks after Houcks Sept. 23 arrest, the DOJ unsealed an indictment against nearly a dozen individuals for violating the FACE Act by blocking the entrance to a Tennessee abortion clinic. Pro-life activists like Donohue see the FACE Act prosecutions and a corresponding lack of action to address the vandalism of churches and pro-life pregnancy centers as evidence of misplaced priorities. The following pages list the most recent acts of pro-abortion vandalism of churches and pregnancy support centers since Houcks Sept. 23 arrest. 1 2 3 Next Woman sues childcare company for allegedly firing her for refusing to read LGBT books to kids A childcare teacher in California is suing her former employer after she was allegedly fired for refusing on religious grounds to read books to children that featured same-sex couples. Nelli Parisenkova, who formerly worked at Bright Horizons Childrens Center in Studio City, filed the complaint in the Superior Court of California on Thursday. According to the lawsuit, Parisenkova had been working at Bright Horizons for four years, having been aware of the books at the location, but not having been forced to read them. In April, Katy Callas, the director of the location, who is a lesbian, became aware of Parisenkovas beliefs, took exception to them, and ultimately led to her being dismissed. Parisenkova formally requested a religious accommodation from Bright Horizons that aligned with her prior informally granted request. Bright Horizons responded by categorically denying the request, stated the suit. Bright Horizons did not engage in any negotiations and made no attempt whatsoever to determine whether a reasonable accommodation could be reached. Instead, Bright Horizons issued a counseling memo with false statements, terminated her life-insurance benefits, required her to complete retraining in diversity issues, and encouraged her to resign her position. Ms. Parisenkova could not return to work without an accommodation; so, Bright Horizons terminated her employment. The suit accuses Bright Horizons and its staff of multiple charges, including unlawful retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, religion-based harassment, wrongful termination, failure to accommodate, unlawful constructive discharge, and disparate treatment. Thomas More Law Society Special Counsel Paul Jonna, who is helping to represent Parisenkova, said in a statement Thursday that he believed this was a clear-cut case of one of the largest childcare employers in the country having anti-religious workplace policies that promote indoctrination of young children with the LGBT agenda. Callas called Nelli into her office, questioned her in an irate manner, told her that if she did not want to celebrate diversity this was not the place for her to work, gave her an administrative leave memo, escorted her outside with a security guard, and left her out in the 96-degree heat with no transportation, Jonna said. As a result, Nelli was forced to walk 20 minutes in the heat and wait 45 minutes for transportation and suffered heat exhaustion for the next two days. She was afraid to return to work. Founded in 1986, Bright Horizons is an international childcare organization with hundreds of locations and boasting more than 26,000 employees. Over the years, Bright Horizons has often voiced support for the LGBT movement, seeing it as part of its overall effort to advance inclusion and diversity. For example, in October 2018, Bright Horizons documented how their centers celebrated LGBT History Month, including taking part in Pride Parades and reading books to children like Daddy, Poppa, and Me and Mommy, Momma, and Me. In November 2019, Bright Horizons officially endorsed the Equality Act, a controversial legislative proposal that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal antidiscrimination policy. Turkey rejects Pastor Andrew Brunsons claim of unlawful arrest, rights violations Turkeys constitutional court this week rejected as inadmissible American Pastor Andrew Brunsons appeal over rights violation for unlawfully arresting him and exceeding the legal limit of his detention. He was imprisoned for his faith for two years in that country. Although he now lives in the United States, the prison sentence against Brunson, who was arrested in October 2016 and charged with espionage and committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization as a non-member, remains. Brunson's appeal was made on the basis that his arrest was illegal and beyond the legal limit of detention. When the characteristics of the concrete case are taken into account, it cannot be said that the judicial control measure implemented by the Izmir 2nd Heavy Penal Court on the applicant was disproportional, the court said Thursday, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. The court added, It has been concluded that the allegations as to the violation of personal liberty and security due to the unlawfulness of the arrest and exceeding the permitted period are inadmissible due to prescription. Brunson is a Wheaton College graduate who served as the leader of a Protestant church in Izmir for over 23 years before he was arrested in October 2016 along with his wife, Norine. Norine was released soon after, but Brunson was thrown in prison, accused of plotting to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans government. In 2018, Brunsons family and U.S. officials who visited him in prison expressed concern with the fact that he had lost at least 50 pounds and was suffering from anxiety and depression. In July that year, after the U.S. raised tariffs on certain metals and imposed sanctions on two Turkish ministers responsible for his detention, a penal court in western Izmir issued an order for his release, allowing him to return to his home in Izmir but on the condition that he couldnt leave his house or the country. Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice and a lawyer of President Donald Trump, said in a statement at the time that the house arrest was a critical first step to what he believed could result in the freedom of Pastor Brunson to return to his family in the U.S. The president has played a critical role in securing the freedom of Pastor Brunson, Sekulow declared at the time. We have worked closely with the president on this matter and are grateful for his efforts. We look forward to the ultimate release of Pastor Brunson. Brunson was finally released in October 2018 after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Turkey. At times, Brunson was jailed with as many as 21 other men in a cell intended to only hold eight. He was also usually the only Christian in his cell. During a recent virtual event, called Global Prayer for U.S. Election Integrity, the pastor shared details about his imprisonment in Turkey, revealing he experienced a crisis of faith while in detention. I was actually very afraid, he admitted. The issue, actually, is what we do when were afraid. There are things to be afraid of. At the event, the pastor also predicted that persecution of Christians in the United States would intensify due to hostility toward people who embrace Jesus Christ and His teaching. Why Are Christian Denominations Splintering? The Inside Story On Chaos Surrounding The Episcopal Church Of South Carolina link to download the audio instead. link to download the audio instead. Christian Post reporter Michael Gryboski joins "The Inside Story" this week to discuss his recent coverage of The Episcopal Church of South Carolina reaching a $500 million settlement with a breakaway Anglican diocese. Huckabee Warns Of Legalizing Marijuana, How The Economy Impacts Giving, Willie Spence In Fatal Crash link to download the audio instead. link to download the audio instead. 08:32 08:32 Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has joined the effort to stop the legalization of recreational marijuana in Arkansas through a ballot measure to be voted on next month. A majority of Protestant pastors in the United States believe the current state of the economy is negatively impacting their churches, according to a new poll. A major pharmacy chain denies allegations of wrongdoing as it faces another lawsuit for terminating an employee who refused to provide abortion-inducing drugs in violation of her deeply held religious beliefs. The Christian Post spoke with Louisiana resident Emma Benoit about her battle with depression, her suicide attempt as a teenager, and how her Christian faith has aided her recovery. Walker vows to pay overdue rent for tenants threatened with eviction at apartment run by Warnock's church Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker has vowed to pay the overdue rent owed by tenants of a building managed by his opponents church as allegations that he paid for his former girlfriend to have an abortion 13 years ago loom large in his campaign. Herschel Walker, the Republican running to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in next months U.S. Senate election, reacted in a tweet to a Washington Free Beacon report about Ebenezer Baptist Churchs efforts to evict tenants of an apartment building it owns. Warnock serves as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. I have never known a preacher that likes abortion even after birth, wont pay his child support and evicts poor people to the street. I will pay the 00 in past due rents listed in this news article to keep @ReverendWarnock from evicting these people. https://t.co/IqSBIWUnLU Herschel Walker (@HerschelWalker) October 11, 2022 Ebenezer Baptist Church has a 99% ownership stake in Columbia Tower at MLK Village, which, according to documents obtained by The Washington Free Beacon, serves as a home for the chronically homeless and people with mental disabilities. The report shows that 12 eviction notices had been served to residents of Columbia Tower from February 2020, just before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, to September 2022. The amount of overdue rent cited as the justification for evicting the tenants adds up to $4,900. I will pay the $4,500 in past due rents listed in this news article to keep @ReverendWarnock from evicting these people, Walker wrote. One tenant of Columbia Tower who spoke to The Washington Free Beacon said of the building's management, They treat me like s*** and theyre not compassionate at all. While it remains unclear the degree to which Warnock and Ebenezer Baptist Church play a role in the day-to-day operations of Columbia Tower and the Ebenezer Building Foundation that manages it, a form submitted to the IRS identifies Warnock as its principal officer. As explained in an application requesting a $5 million grant from the state of Georgia to renovate the building, Ebenezer Building Foundation was established in 1996 to raise funds for the construction and 14 / 22 maintenance of facilities of the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta and to support the various programs of Ebenezer Baptist Church including ownership in Columbia Tower at MLK Village a permanent supportive housing development of 96 units serving the homeless, mentally ill population in Atlanta, Ga. The Washington Free Beacon portrayed the actions taken by the management of Columbia Tower as at odds with Warnocks rhetoric on the campaign trail. The publication found a Dec. 6, 2020, tweet from Warnock lambasting his Republican opponent at the time and all Senate Republicans, suggesting that they refuse to fight for families as pandemic unemployment benefits and eviction protections will expire this month. Pandemic unemployment benefits and eviction protections will expire this month. And it's all because @Kloeffler and Senate Republicans refuse to fight for families. Pandemic relief is at stake in the #GASen race. #GASenDebate#VoteWarnock Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) December 7, 2020 The Washington Free Beacon report about the apartment building owned by Warnocks church comes a week after The Daily Beast published a report maintaining that Walker paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion 13 years earlier. While Walker has denied the allegation, the story has invited charges of hypocrisy from his opponents, who have noted that the candidate has made his pro-life position on the issue of abortion a central part of his campaign. A follow-up article from The Daily Beast published later in the week asserted that the woman who told the publication that Walker paid for her abortion in 2009 was also the mother of one of his children. In the second article, the woman insisted that Walker didnt take responsibility for the child that they had together. As Walker deals with the fallout of The Daily Beast reports, he brought up Warnock's position on abortion and reports that the Democratic senator had failed and refused to reimburse his ex-wife for childcare expenses: I have never known a preacher that likes abortion even after birth, wont pay his child support and evicts poor people to the street. The RealClearPolitics average of polls taken over the past week shows Warnock ahead of Walker by 3.3 percentage points. However, Georgia law requires candidates to receive 50% of the vote to win an election outright. The current polling average shows Warnock with 48.3% of the vote, with Walker at 45%. Should no candidate receive 50% of the vote on Election Day, the top two candidates will advance to a Dec. 6 runoff. The FiveThirtyEight Deluxe Model, which predicts the outcome of elections based on polls, fundraising, past voting patterns and the opinion of political experts, gives Warnock a 60% chance of winning the election while Walker currently has a 40% chance of emerging victorious. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed spoke with Russian President Vladimir during his visit and assessed the good relationship between both nations after the Vienna OPEC+ summit. As Moscow said last Tuesday, Al Nahyan stressed that bilateral ties are essential. UAE Maintains Ties with Russia, West The UAE's head of state is meeting Putin days after a judgment by OPEC and allied producers, which include Russia, to trim the group's everyday productivity goals by two million barrels, enraging the US, reported the Middle East Eye. Putin mentioned that last year, the expansion in trade revenue added up to 65 percent well before the conflict in Ukraine, but this year, despite the obstacles, the economy continues to grow not as big as the previous year but still 17 percent, noted TASS. As reported by the state-run WAM agency, Russian president Putin and the UAE Emirati, known as Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan or MBZ, will share regional and global issues with "cordial" Russia. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, stated that the two heads of state would discuss bilateral issues at the Kremlin in St. Petersburg. When the Biden administration learned that the Vienna OPEC+ summit would affect an oil cut despite that Washington practically ordered the oil alliance to do its bidding, but was snubbed instead. The United Arab Emirates and Moscow lowered production to level out the price per barrel. This would be seen as siding with Russia and foiling an attempt to lessen Moscow's profits. Self-interest Drives UAE's Decisions Washington, as much as possible, would not highlight its part in the current global insecurity caused by sanctions to hobble Russia's oil and natural gas industry. Read Also: Bloc Leaders To Discuss Major Issues Including Energy Price Cap, Fallout from Loss of Stability and Security A statement from Joe Biden published by the White House would show how disappointed the US government is that the oil alliance did not see its way. As said by Dr. Asif Shuja, a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute, Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia has increased oil production, notwithstanding his heavily published misgivings regarding the relationship with Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Salman. He indicated it was not the Saudi Prince choosing Russia and oil producers in the OPEC. The UAE and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) were choosing the best path for their own good. Another argument presented is that Saudi Arabia's decision has powerful market reasons. The United States seems to have no option but to try to postpone it by incurring additional strategic expenses. An intriguing viewpoint was offered by Dubai's former finance chief, Nasser al-Shaikh, submitting on Twitter that a UAE representative could go to Moscow for one purpose. It was to avert a European conflict that had exhausted global resources. The United Arab Emirates, a long-time tactical US partner in the region, has rebuffed Western Russian sanctions and retained partnerships for both sides. A report in March noted that increasingly desperate affluent Russians were looking to keep their wealth out of the grasp of the sanction regime. Its economic model leans toward political and economic actors. The UAE Emirati Mohammed Bin Zayed and Russian President Vladimir Putin affirm stakes after the Vienna OPEC+ summit shaking Washington, realizing it failed. Related Article: Democrats Ponder Ending US Protection in the Middle East To Retaliate for Hostile Oil Cut @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Mike Huckabee, family values group warn Arkansans against voting to legalize marijuana Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has joined an effort to stop the legalization of recreational marijuana in Arkansas through a ballot measure to be voted on next month. Huckabee, a Republican whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is the GOP nominee in the states upcoming gubernatorial election, recently appeared in a video produced by the Arkansas Family Council Action Committee advocating against the passage of Issue 4. Issue 4 would authorize the possession, personal use and conception of cannabis by adults, to authorize the cultivation and sale of cannabis by licensed commercial facilities, and to provide for the regulation of those facilities, if passed. Huckabee asserted that states that have already legalized marijuana have seen an uptick in vehicular accidents and workplace issues, where people show up for work stoned. Characterizing Issue 4 as a disastrous proposal, the former governor rejected the claim that our state and our citizens and especially our children are going to be better off for somehow making recreational drugs part of their daily life. The AFCAC, a nonprofit organization created to promote, protect, and strengthen traditional family values in the political arena, is among the leading opponents of Issue 4. The advocacy group prepared a brief for pastors, which argues that marijuana use directly contradicts the teachings of Christianity. It contains a reference to Galatians 5:22-23, which extols the virtue of self-control. The whole purpose of consuming recreational marijuana is to get high. The Bible has numerous warnings against drunkenness. Being filled with the Spirit leads to more self-control, but using marijuana leads to less self-control and a loss of inhibitions, stated the brief. Marijuana clouds our ability to perceive the world clearly, and it dulls our sense of urgency about what the disciples of Christ should be doing. It clouds a persons senses and makes it more difficult for them to see the need for Christ. In a separate document, the group provided statistics from Colorado, which voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012 via a referendum on Amendment 64. Specifically, the paper shows that marijuana use has played a role in one in four road deaths in Colorado and that child suicide rates increased by 140% after it was legalized. In another video produced by the AFCAC, the group addressed how Issue 4s passage could harm children. One statistic noted, Among children who know their parents use or have used marijuana, 72% have used marijuana themselves. In states where marijuana is legal, 1 out of 8 children report monthly use, read an additional statistic. The National Council of State Legislatures has identified the 19 states that have legalized recreational marijuana as Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. A September 2022 poll conducted by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College revealed that 58.5% of Arkansas voters surveyed planned to vote to approve Issue 4, while 29% indicated that they intended to vote against it. The remaining 12.5% were undecided. Arkansas is not the only state where voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on legalizing marijuana this fall. Similar referendums will appear on the ballot in Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota. Recently, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called on the Republican-controlled Legislature to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. North Carolina native the Rev. Franklin Graham declared his opposition to Cooper's efforts in a tweet published Monday. Some politicians are supporting the legalization of drugs, he said. I cant see how society benefits from this I only see more harm done to communities and families. I pray that voters will turn their backs on politicians who want to drag the U.S. into the drug pit. 'The Great Recital' brings New Testament to life through verse-by-verse readings from memory DALLAS, Texas When it comes to the words of Scripture, professor Tom Meyer also known as the Bible Memory Man believes sometimes hearing makes all the difference. I compare it to reading Mozart versus hearing Mozart, Meyer told The Christian Post. You might be able to read Mozart on the page, but to hear someone play Mozart, especially someone who has the piece memorized and believes it, then the piece takes on another dimension. Meyer, a professor atShasta Bible College of Redding, California, has earned his moniker for having committed 20 books of the Bible to memory, a feat that has taken him to various venues across the country where hes looking to make history. The Great Recital, which takes place through Oct. 15 at the ICR Discovery Center, involves Meyer and six other Bible memory experts who perform verse-by-verse readings of the entire New Testament, all from memory. Coinciding with the Feast of Tabernacles, when the nation of Israel would gather for a celebratory reading of the Torah, Meyer said he specifically scheduled The Great Recital to occur during the same period of time. In fact, for Meyer, The Great Recital offers not only an opportunity to share Gods Word with others, but also to prepare its hearers for what many believe to be a pivotal election for the future of the United States. The Bible records instances of persons reading Scripture aloud at public gatherings like Sukkot, he said. In Bible times, this custom was intended to produce a life of obedience and ensure a continuation of the nation of Israels divine prosperity. In like manner, this modern-day public proclamation of the Word of God shortly before the midterms will inform those who listen as to what the God of the Bible requires of them not only as an individual but as one nation under God, he added. But with the New Testament spanning 27 books and more than 180,000 words, Meyer knew he needed some help to pull it off. Instead of bringing in trained actors, Meyer sought those whom he described as regular people who fear God and love His Word, including retired schoolteacher Scott Firebaugh, Brittany Schlichter, a church secretary, and Timothy Frudd, a podcaster and journalist. Resembling less a traditional church setting and more like one might imagine open-air preaching in the first century looked like, the recital uses different translations of Scripture: Firebaugh, for example, prefers the King James Version, while others opt for the ESV or NIV. Deliveries are also varied, ranging from Meyer's flair for the theatrical to a more subdued approach favored by Firebaugh and others. Frudd, who is tasked with presenting both the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle to the Galatians by memory, said the sheer volume of the work can be a bit daunting, especially when you consider the Gospel of Luke alone is over 25,000 words long and takes more than two hours to recite. It requires a ton of memorization practice, a ton of voice training for stamina, and a lot of mental focus, and a lot of prayer that God will give you the strength, said Frudd. Although Frudd started on the Bible memorization path early and later earned his masters degree in biblical exposition, he didnt cross paths with Meyer until the two met at the Creation Museum and its sister attraction, the Ark Encounter, in Kentucky, where Meyer was overseeing classes on Scripture memorization. After having Meyer on his Heavenward Thinking podcast, Frudd said Meyer surprised him by asking him to join the effort, which he called both terrifying and exciting. But Frudd said he believes its been his own personal walk of faith that has seen the biggest impact from memorizing the Bible. It just really transforms your whole life, he said. Theres nothing that I found studying the Bible in any kind of way thats more powerful than actually memorizing the Word of God, getting that in us, so that its flowing through our mind so that we can recall it whenever were going through difficult times. Most Americans say homelessness is getting worse, notice rise over last 2 years: report Despite the federal government allocating billions of dollars to battle homelessness, the problem is only getting worse and more Americans are noticing the rise in the homeless population in their communities. Rasmussen Reports released the results of a national survey that found 92% of Americans believe homelessness is a serious problem in the country, and 65% say the problem is very serious. Only 6% of participants think homelessness is not a serious issue. The report also notes that perception of the problem has increased since February 2021, when 55% of those surveyed said the problem of homelessness was very serious. Sixty-eight percent of American adults surveyed believe the issue has worsened within the past two years, while 19% think the problem has not changed much in the past two years. Only 8% said that they think the issue has improved. Twenty-eight percent of Americans see the problem as the federal governments responsibility, while 40% think its the states duty to handle it. Sixteen percent say its a local responsibility, and another 16% said that theyre uncertain. The report drew from a survey of 1,000 adults conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC, online and by phone on Sept. 26-27, with a margin of sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. In August, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would provide $2.8 billion in competitive funding to homeless service organizations throughout the country. Every person deserves to live with dignity and security in safe, stable, and affordable home, HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said in the announcement. Coupled with the historic resources in President Bidens American Rescue Plan, the Continuum of Care Program grants made available by HUD today will help more Americans experiencing homelessness move into homes and access critical supportive services like health care, education, and job training." Fudge went on to say that HUD and the Administration continue to prioritize equity in homelessness efforts and the humane treatment of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and the funding announced today will help communities do just that." The funding opportunity is also intended to support local engagement in an effort to increase the availability of affordable housing, boost the housing supply and lower costs. The competitive funding is awarded through HUDs Continuum of Care Program, which is the largest source of federal grant funding for homeless services and housing programs. HUD also stated that it funds approximately 7,000 homeless services projects annually through the Continuum of Care Program, noting that nearly 400 Continuum of Care communities apply for a Notice of Funding Opportunity. For Fiscal Year 2022, access for Indian Tribes and Tribally Designated Housing entities was expanded, allowing them to establish Continuum of Care Communities and serve as Collaborative Applicants. In addition, the NOFO sets aside funding for domestic abuse and sexual assault victims, offering to provide at least $52 million for new rapid re-housing and other critical support services. 15-year-old boys may be tried as adults for murder of Memphis pastor, but family is divided over proposal Two 15-year-old boys charged in connection with the daylight murder of the Rev. Autura Eason-Williams, who led Capleville United Methodist Church in Tennessee, will learn whether they will be tried as adults later this month as the pastors family members remain divided over the idea. The teenagers, Miguel Andrade and Brayan Carrillo, were charged with first-degree murder and other crimes, including carjacking, following the July 18 murder of Eason-Williams in the driveway of her Whitehaven home. Another suspect, 20-year-old, Eduard G. Rodriguez Tabora, was also charged with first-degree murder, especially aggravated robbery, facilitation of first-degree murder, and employment of firearm with intent to commit a felony, Fox 13 reported. Police say Eason-Williams, 52, was fatally shot in her driveway during the carjacking just after 4 p.m. on July 18. Friends say she was on her mobile phone with a colleague when she was attacked. Her life was celebrated in a memorial service on Aug. 3 where her widower, Derrell Eason-Williams, remembered her as the perfect wife for me. On Monday, a local judge was set to decide whether the teenage suspects should be tried as adults in the late pastors murder but the hearing was postponed until Oct. 24, News Channel 3 reported. The hearing was previously delayed to allow the teenagers to undergo psychiatric evaluation. The judge also requested a review of their history, including school records. As the court reviews the case, the pastors oldest child, Ayanna Hampton, has argued against prosecuting the teenagers as adults, saying her mother, who was a child advocate, would have opposed it. I feel like its wrong to use her death to advocate for something that she would absolutely disagree with, Hampton said at a press conference in July. My mother was a visionary leader; I do not want us to miss the opportunity to envision the improvements we can make to our juvenile justice system so that we are not convinced that we have to send children to adult prison for them to suffer the proper consequences that will fit their crime. Hampton said it would be better if the minor suspects remained in the juvenile system with supportive services provided to them. If you cant try them the way you are supposed to in juvenile court that means you need to fix your court. That means that you need to improve your system, she said. So justice for me is not just about these kids, its about every single child. The late pastors husband, who told News Channel 3 that he is now living a nightmare due to the murder of his wife, disagrees. We do not want these three individuals back on the streets, he told the news channel, speaking for several of his sisters-in-law and other family members. They shouldnt have been on the street anyway. I dont care nothing what the kids said. All of that is null and void. Im her husband and what matters to me is that they are prosecuted to the fullest, he added. While Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich agrees with the pastors children that juveniles should be supported, she explained that the teenagers have already been in the juvenile system and that intervention was not enough to keep them from further criminal involvement. I absolutely agree with the children who spoke and we do need more community involvement and intervention in the lives of our youth, and that is the best way to honor the legacy of Rev. Autura Eason-Williams, she said. However, the young men accused of killing Rev. Eason-Williams have been in the juvenile system before and are a danger and threat to the safety of our citizens and I will pursue trying them in adult court. Like in most families, there are differences of opinions. This is one of those cases. I must weigh all of their wishes but most important is the safety of our community and citizens. 7 ways we neglect our salvation Hebrews 2:3 says, How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation. The Greek word for neglect, (having neglected in its original tense in Greek), is amelesantes. This means to pay no attention to, to make light of, or to be negligent of. Many Christians, including Evangelicals, have made it a habit to neglect the basics of the faith, thus operating in a dangerous assumption that their salvation is always a settled fact despite how they live. However, this is not the teaching of the original apostles who wrote the sacred text. Even St. Peter admonished believers to ensure their calling and election (2 Peter 1:10). The following are seven ways in which we can neglect our salvation: 1. Sporadic church attendance When I first came to Christ in the late 1970s, committed Christians rarely missed Sunday services. Then about two decades ago, committed Christians came to church about three times per month. Then, around 14-15 years ago, so-called committed Christians started coming to church one to two times per month or less. Around 2008, our church attendance dropped by about 25%. I thought many people were leaving our church, but when I checked into it, I was shocked to find out that we were not losing members but that they were coming to church less frequently. The writer to the Hebrew Christians warned us not to neglect church assemblies but to exhort one another daily lest our hearts get hardened (Hebrews 3:12-13; Hebrews 10:25). The lack of frequent fellowship and mutual admonition is connected to the hardening of ones heart resulting in the neglect of ones salvation (Hebrews 10:26). 2. No accountability in our life The book of Hebrews admonishes us to exhort one another daily which means believers cannot merely attend church on Sundays and think that is enough (Hebrews 3:13). The early church met daily in the temple as well as house to house (Acts 2:46). Hence, we all need close relationships with mature Christians who will hold us accountable to biblical standards and encourage us to seek God and pursue our divine assignment. We neglect our salvation when we refuse to allow ourselves to be accountable to mature believers. 3. Allowing ourselves to be led by every new trend In the past several years, many sincere Christians have been distracted by conspiracy theories such as QAnon, novel teachings, numerous failed prophetic declarations, and more. St. Peter instructed the church to crave pure spiritual milk so that they can grow (1 Peter 2:2). Satan tempts the saints by leading them astray from their sincere devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3). When we stop feeding on Gods word, we hinder our spiritual growth. This is why St. Paul admonished Timothy to keep his faith sincere with a pure heart and to avoid speculations, conspiracy theories, myths, and anything that promotes questions rather than faith (2 Timothy 1:6). Unfortunately, many have wandered away from the truth because their focus was not on the gospel (1 Timothy 1:6). I once spoke to a Christian who was obsessed with COVID-related conspiracy theories, and he wanted me to spend hours discussing this with him. After several minutes on the phone, I asked him, How many people are you winning to Christ, and are you discipling anybody? He was silent on the phone for a moment, then answered, No. I told him to focus on that and forget the conspiracy theories. We could be neglecting our salvation by continually chasing every conspiracy theory and the latest novel teachings. (By novel teaching, I am referring to that which has not been taught previously in the historic church or has been cited as heretical in one of the major ecumenical councils.) 4. Not participating in church-based corporate exposition of scripture The Bible teaches us the importance of consistently sitting under the preaching and teaching of the word of God. St. Paul said, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, meaning that our posture of continual learning under anointed teachers should never stop (Romans 10:17). When a believer stops getting fed by mature, reliable shepherds called to feed the flock of God, they neglect their salvation. Also, Peter said that we should be fed by our shepherd (1 Peter 5:2). Hence, he is not referring to listening to random preachers but sitting under those called to disciple and speak into our life so we can align with our divine assignment. We neglect our salvation when we infrequently sit under our local churchs corporate teaching and preaching. 5. Not pursuing biblical discipleship Every person is called to be a disciple and to make disciples. St. Paul admonished Timothy to focus on pouring into faithful men who can teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). Jesus laid out a process of discipleship that included initiation into the Body of Christ through water baptism followed by learning the teachings of the faith (Matthew 28:19-20). Every person who converted in the early church was instructed in the Apostles doctrine (Acts 2:42, Hebrews 5:12-6:3). By refusing biblical discipleship, we are neglecting our salvation. 6. Not pursuing the Lord and seeking His kingdom first. Saint Paul instructed Timothy to flee youthful lusts and to pursue faith, love, and peace with those who called upon the Lord with a pure heart (2 Timothy 2:22). As a shepherd since the early 1980s, I have seen that not everybody who is a church member seeks first His kingdom with a pure heart. Jesus said the great commandment includes loving God with all the heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). When we refuse to seek His kingdom first, we neglect our salvation (Matthew 6:33). 7. Hardening our hearts because of trials and tribulations Scripture makes it clear that God allows trials to test our faith so it can come forth as pure gold (1 Peter 1:7). Trials and tests can either make us better or make us bitter. According to the teachings of Jesus, those who harden their hearts because of worldly difficulties and distractions didn't receive the word with the right heart (Mark 4:13-20). When we harden our hearts instead of seeking the Lord during challenging seasons of our life, we are neglecting our salvation. Marlow Moss and the quest for space, movement and light The British artist was a radical and influential figure among the Paris avant-garde of the 1930s, greatly admired by Piet Mondrian. Yet since much of Mosss work was lost in the shelling of the artists Normandy home in 1944, it is rarely seen at auction There are only a few photographs of Marlow Moss, and those that do survive were mainly taken in the 1930s by Stephen Storm, an apprentice of Man Ray and the son of Mosss partner, Netty Nijhoff. In one of these images, Moss is in her early forties; her hair is closely cropped. She wears a cravat and a beautifully tailored jacket and holds a thin cigarette between her long fingers. She is slightly reminiscent of the sleekly androgynous journalist Sylvia von Harden in Otto Dixs homage to Weimar decadence except there is a cool economy about Moss, an austerity that is very much in evidence in her paintings. The photographs were taken in Paris, where Moss was a key member of Abstraction-Creation, the daring modern art movement that sought to refashion human perception as geometry. Moss joined the group at the invitation of Piet Mondrian, who recognised in her a fellow pioneer of abstraction. For the next decade, Moss socialised and exhibited with a close-knit group of Constructivists, among them Georges Vantongerloo, Theo van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Fausto Melotti and Jean Arp all dedicated to reducing a fast-paced, technologically revolutionary modern world to primary colours and straight lines. Despite being a part of this rarefied circle, Moss was all but forgotten by the 1970s so much so that when her paintings were exhibited at Tate St Ives in 1997, one critic wondered if she had ever really existed. I think people found it implausible that a British female artist was at the centre of European Modernism and influenced Mondrian, says Christies specialist Angus Granlund. On 19 October, Mosss 1948 painting White and Black will be offered in the Modern British & Irish Art Evening Sale at Christies in London. I destroyed my old personality and created a new one Marjorie Jewel Moss was born in London in 1889 to a prosperous Jewish family. Had she not contracted tuberculosis as a child, she might have become a musician; however, in 1916 she went to study art, first in St Johns Wood, and later at the Slade. It has been suggested that she abandoned her studies when she discovered Cubism (the Slade was, at the time, opposed to any form of modern art), or after some form of nervous breakdown. Whatever the reason, in 1919 she left London for Penzance in the southwest of England, where she cut her hair, took to wearing riding clothes, and changed her name to Marlow. I destroyed my old personality and created a new one, she said. In the context of todays use of pronouns, I suspect Moss might have chosen to be referred to as they but that is only an assumption, says Granlund. In 1927 Moss moved to Paris and enrolled at the Academie Moderne under Fernand Leger. For a time, she knew everybody: she met Amedee Ozenfant, the architect Le Corbusier, Van Doesburg and the Swedish painter Otto Gustaf Carlsund, and became friends with Vantongerloo and his wife Poema, as well as Suzanne and Jean Gorin. Moss and Mondrian Moss shone in the combative atmosphere of the Parisian avant-garde, an environment the sculptor Naum Gabo described as violent, gossipy and full of intrigue and jealousies. Her studio on Boulevard Raspail was a couple of doors down from Mondrians, and there were lively discussions between them. According to Netty Nijhoff, Moss understood Mondrian very well and vice versa, they were well matched. They were a pair of extraordinary lone wolves. There was, however, a fundamental difference in their artistic approach. Mondrian was a mystic, fascinated by the occult and the Theosophist Madame Blavatsky. Moss, on the other hand, was a theoretician, organising her compositions according to a set of mathematical and geometric rules. Science, in revealing another aspect of the universe, has enlarged our vision, she wrote. Technical perfection has tuned up all our senses. Open a larger version of this image Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Composition with Double Line and Yellow, 1932. Oil on canvas. 45.2 x 45.2 cm. National Galleries of Scotland. Photo: National Galleries of Scotland / Mondrian/Holtzman Trust / Bridgeman Images Mosss great contribution to the movement came in 1932, when she introduced a double line in an attempt to break with the constraints of Neoplasticism. Inspired, Mondrian also adopted the double line. There was some controversy, says Granlund. Georges Vantongerloo accused Mondrian of not giving Moss enough credit for the double line. I think it damaged their relationship for a time. The feud did not last long, and was overtaken by world events. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Moss, being Jewish, was forced to flee Nazi-occupied Europe for England on a fishing trawler. Mondrian tried to persuade her to emigrate to New York, with the prophetic warning, You can either come with me, or you can stay in England and be doomed to [obscurity and] failure. She chose to remain, renting a small cottage in the Cornish village of Lamorna. Rejection by the St Ives artists There she stayed, cut off from her lover Nijhoff, who had remained in Zeeland to be close to her son. In 1944, Mosss home in Normandy was shelled and she lost the work she had left behind. As a result, a great deal of her output was tragically lost and her work very rarely appears at auction, says Granlund. The last painting we sold [at Christies in London] was in 2014. Open a larger version of this image Marlow Moss (1889-1958), White and Yellow, 1935. Oil, string and collage on canvas. 24 x 15 in (62.2 x 40 cm). Sold for 116,500 on 26 June 2014 at Christies in London. Artwork: reserved Moss had hoped to come into contact with the progressive abstractionists living nearby in St Ives, among them Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. However, her overtures were rebuffed. I have seen Ben Nicholson just once, things arent going well between the two of us, I dont know why, she wrote. The rejection was hard, and in 1945 Moss wrote to Vantongerloo, I am very much on my own here. Sign up today Christies Online Magazine delivers our best features, videos, and auction news to your inbox every week Subscribe However, she continued to paint and make sculptures, and the critics took notice, even if her works were occasionally misattributed to others she once had to point out to Max Bill that paintings he believed to be by Mondrian were her own. She exhibited widely and kept abreast of the developments in modern art. Her last exhibition was at the Hanover Gallery in London in 1958, the year of her death, with one reviewer observing, The sculptures are superb, objects of austere, calculated beauty. Former Australian PM Paul Keating had reservations about the Quad, or Asian NATO was doomed to fail to cordon off Beijing as a wrong move in the 'Indo-Pacific Strategy. This group started in 2007 and ended after Australia booted out of the group; even had doubts due to Washington stirring up trouble. Quad Grouping Excludes China Paul Keating scorched the US-led coalition and called it non-representative and has no useful strategic value to the region on Twitter. He briefly told Canberra that it could ill-afford to taunt Beijing by encircling it uselessly, reported Sputnik News. An Asian version of NATO with members like Australia, India, Japan, and the US whose long-term objective is to stop the rise of China as an Asian power or, more so, states keeping a free and Indo-Pacific region to mask its other agendas. He told a member of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's party last Wednesday; that these four nation 'Quad' fencing in China are in for an awful awakening. Furthermore, he stresses that the BRI of China has funded structural projects already, and the Baltic states and ex-Soviet enclaves have Beijing's imprint by now. Belt and Road Initiative Continues The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) costs more than three trillion dollars and has been the spotlight economic thrust of Xi Jinping since 2013. A goal is to link Asia and Europe as massive economic blocs via the internet and infrastructure projects, per China Power. As of March 2022, a maximum of 147 nations from Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America, in addition to North America, were members of the Beijing-backed global movement, remarked the Former Australian PM Keating. Read Also: Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth 2022: How Did Facebook Founder Lose $30 Billion in 1 Day? The ex-Aussie PM reasoned out that the attempts of the hegemonic USA to curtail Xi Jinping are too weak and late; since Washington is a former shadow of itself, and its evident, He added that the American's proclamation they are the number one power is malarkey and has a divine channel to define good is false, even democracy has faltered. In the next world order where the US will fade to nothing. Quad's Dangerous Proposition When Joe Biden to the rulers of Taiwan not to fear the PLA juggernaut, Keating thinks the US could not make good on its promise. Should the Chinese forces attempt to reunify Taipei with the mainland, which the US fails. The visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the enclave in August has caused a sharper reaction from China; dropping the One-China Policy has altered the political reality. Chinese President Xi is now determined to unify the two Chinas, and the democrat was reckless. In a dire assessment, the ex-Aussie PM remarked the surveillance capabilities and weapon status of the PLA are lethal, it can sink vessels going to any location in areas close to the sea. He even made it clear the Americans would be at China's mercy, with no chance of winning. Based on this dreadful assessment, Canberra should consider abandoning Taiwan and getting out of the Asian NATO and be more careful. Former Australian PM Keating regarded the Quad as a dangerous proposition, as Washington is stirring up trouble in the region for its own benefit. Related Article: Top EU Diplomat Told Envoys To Report Faster, Worried Over Increased Global Resistance To Bloc @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 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. After North Korea flew warplanes dangerously close to its border and before launching another ballistic missile, South Korea scrambled fighter jets. Between late Thursday and early Friday, almost a dozen North Korean aircraft flew as near as 12km (7 miles) north of the inter-Korean border, according to a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea. South Korea Scrambles F-35 Jets, Other Warplanes They violated a reconnaissance line established by Seoul, which causes Seoul to automatically launch an operational reaction. The military of South Korea claimed that in response, it scrambled F-35 jets and other aircraft. No reports of gunfire were made. The South Korean air force conducted an emergency sortie and maintained a reaction posture while carrying out a proportional response maneuver matching to the flight of a North Korean military aircraft using its superior air force, including the F-35A, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported. The incursion was extremely unprecedented, and it took place at a time when tensions between the two neighbors were at an all-time high due to North Korea's recent bombardment of missile testing. The North's military said on Friday that its most recent moves were in response to a provocative artillery drill by South Korea close to the border. Following the South Korean artillery fire, the North Korean military, according to the official KCNA news agency, took strong military countermeasures. According to a statement, the Korean People's Army sends a strong warning to the South Korean military for recklessly creating military tension in the frontline area, as per Ajazeera. In response to the flight of a North Korean military aircraft, the South Korean air force conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A, and maintained a reaction posture, according to a statement. It comes after South Korea scrambled fighter fighters furiously after Kim flew 12 warplanes in a terrifying configuration close to the border just last week. As North Korea keeps up its military show of might, Kim Jong Un fired two more missiles on Wednesday in a clear message to adversaries. Kim Jong Un reportedly said the test fire should be seen as yet another clear warning to enemies according to official media. The tyrant also said that the nation shall continue to extend the operational range of the nuclear strategic armed forces to resolutely deter any key military crisis and war crisis at any time and thoroughly take the initiative in it, according to Korea Central News Agency (KCNA). The two missiles flew for 10,234 seconds before definitely hitting the target at a distance of 2,000 miles. Two further short-range ballistic missiles from North Korea were fired at Japan days earlier. The launches were labeled severe provocation by the South Korean military, which damages peace. Fumio Kishida, the prime minister of Japan, issued an emergency alert advising people to take all conceivable precautionary measures, The Sun reported. Read Also: Russia-Ukraine War: Russian Drones Attack Critical Infrastructure in Kyiv, At Least 2 Killed US Extends Deterrence Commitment to South Korea The supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, has praised his nation's nuclear capabilities amid the recent launches and threatened to use them to resist any threats. These events occurred as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol considered fresh approaches to deter North Korean aggression. Some lawmakers called for the cancellation of a 2018 military agreement with Pyongyang and even the potential redeployment of US nuclear weapons to South Korea, 30 years after their withdrawal. According to a State Department spokesperson, President Joe Biden affirmed the US extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of US defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional. In response to the query of whether his government would consider such a move, he said, and missile defense capability. The high-level Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group, which convened last month, has been reactivated, the official added. The new 48-page National Security Strategy, which was unveiled earlier on Wednesday, made scant mention of North Korea and said that Pyongyang continues to advance its unlawful nuclear weapons and missile programs, as per News Week via MSN. Related Article: India's MiG-29K Fighter Aircraft Crashes Off Goa Coast Following Technical Malfunction @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Over the past few years, many enterprises saw much of their knowledge workforce move away from the office to work out of their homes. This move beyond the traditional firewall setup created security issues and device management issues for many IT departments. Adding to these issues was an increasing need to keep employees happy once people began returning to the office. For example, a recent Gallup poll found that four in 10 white-collar workers prefer to work from home despite hybrid workforce options. In addition, many employees continued to feel empowered to begin actively looking for new jobs or watch for openings. In the age of the war for talent, its more important than ever to gain competitive advantage by reinventing the employee experience. Workers want to be engaged in their workplace and feel that their companies value them. That means businesses need to create a modern workplace that proves they do. Interestingly, enterprises are discovering that adopting the Apple Platform in their environment can tackle several of these hybrid workplace and demographic challenges. Consider these four major themes driving more Apple adoption within the enterprise: A move to a hybrid workplace, where employees work either at home or in an office, and need access to the same tools no matter the location with seamless experience. Digital acceleration efforts to make sure workflows and processes are computing-based. Security and privacy acceleration of devices that are located beyond traditional closed environments. A demographic shift of younger workers expecting the same performance from devices that they have used their entire life before entering the workforce. With these themes in mind, its not surprising to discover that employees prefer using Apple devices over other options. Some recent stats prove that employees would be happier at companies that offer Macsolutions: 67% of students would be more likely to join and stay with a business that offers a Mac. Three out of four employees would choose Apple when given the choice. 76% of companies report the use of Apple devices has increased over the past two years. The benefits of adopting Apple devices extend well beyond just ensuring employees satisfaction: With an increase in cyberattacks against corporate networks, understanding Apple platform security is key. Apple builds security into the hardware platform at the start, and provides hardware, encryption, application, and services security across the ecosystem. Mac is the most secure personal computer on the planet, thanks to built-in features like hardware-verified secure boot, on-the-fly encryption, Touch ID, and Gatekeeper. From a performance standpoint, MacBook Air with M1 offers up to 2x faster Excel performance, up to 50% faster web application responsiveness, up to 2x faster browser graphics performance, and up to 2x longer battery life when video conferencing with Zoom on a single charge. Cost: Mac ownership also costs less than PC ownership in the long run, since Mac users are less likely to need computer support. According to an economic impact report by Forrester, Mac ownership costs less in the long run providing 336% ROI. Also, according to a leading SI only 5% of Mac users needed support vs. 40% of PC users. Mac ownership also costs less than PC ownership in the long run, since Mac users are less likely to need computer support. According to an economic impact report by Forrester, in the long run providing 336% ROI. Also, according to a leading SI only 5% of Mac users needed support vs. 40% of PC users. Sustainability: Enterprises focusing on sustainability trends also enjoy Apple for its commitment to the environment MacBook Air cases are made of 100% recycled aluminum, 90% of Apples packaging features recyclable fiber, zero waste is sent to the landfill from final assembly supplier sites, 35% or more of their products used recycled plastic, in products like MacBook Air, energy consumption is reduced by up to 60% when in active use. Enterprises looking to assess their environment for Apple device support or grow the use of Apple devices in their environment dont have to do so alone, however. The recently launched FlexSpace for Apple solution provides a seamless path to device choice by enabling a secure, personalized employee experience that fosters collaboration and productivity on all Apple devices. The solution can craft the right digital experience by using the power of Apple to provide seamless and secure experiences. Starting with understanding customer goals, capturing user experience, then mapping collected data to a plan to meet the customers vision, FlexSpace for Apple provides detailed readiness and network assessments before a broad and consistent deployment. FlexSpace for Apple can also modernize an identity infrastructure, build self-service choice portals, and provide end-to-end lifecycle management at a per-user/per-month consumption model. Users can take advantage of seamless support backed by AppleCare for Enterprise where available through the FlexSpace solution. Regardless of an enterprises experience with Apple devices, from just exploring the ideas to intermediate or advanced users, the FlexSpace for Apple solution provides companies with help along every stage of their Apple journey. Benefits for enterprises also span their landscape: CEOs will see digital transformation and business agility goals met. CFOs can reduce their IT costs through zero-touch deployment. CISOs will gain data encryption, malicious attack prevention, and backup and recovery benefits. Chief Human Resource Officers add an extra tool to their talent retention toolbox through offering device choice and support. Employees remain actively engaged and increase their productivity. For more information on FlexSpace for Apple offering, click here. HCL is running a limited time free Mac assessment offer for customers. Fine print 2022 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, AppleCare ,Mac, MacBook Air, and Touch ID are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions. 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 The government has delayed implementation of parts of the Charities Act 2022 which could allow museums to transfer items on moral grounds. New laws on ex gratia payments originally set to be introduced as part of the Act this autumn, are now under further consideration prior to commencement. Speaking in the House of Lords yesterday, civil society minister Lord Kamall said the government would now defer implementation of sections 15 and 16 of the Act until we fully understand the implications for national museums and other charities. Government to delay until we fully understand the implications Lord Kamall spoke about the potential implications of the new measures in the Charities Act. He said: I am aware that it has been reported that the two provisions, Sections 15 and 16 of the Act, have the effect of enabling national museums for the first time to restitute items from their collections, based on moral grounds. However, I am also advised that when your Lordships and the House of Commons debated the charities bill, no such intent was considered, nor agreed on. Given this, the government are deferring the commencement of the sections of the Act, which we initially expected to be part of the first tranche of commencements in the autumn, until we fully understand the implications for national museums and other charities. Lord Kamall added we really want to understand the implications adding whatever one thinks of the debate, it is important that we understand the legal implications. He continued: We also recognise that restitution cases are complex and that every situation is different. Given that, at the moment the government are not changing their position. Charities minister: I understand the powerful argument The civil society minister added that it was to be encouraged that museums were exploring circumstances in which they may be able to return objects. Lord Kamall referenced the return of the Benin bronzes to Nigeria by the Horniman museum in August this year. He said: Let me be quite clear: I understand the powerful argument that often museums are willing to return objects to countries but are prevented from doing so due to existing law. Many peopleindeed many noble Lordsfeel that there will sometimes be very good reasons why an object should not be returned, such as concerns over preservation, curation, storage or who to return it to. But they also feel that a law preventing items being returned should not be the only justification about returning those items. I understand that debate and these arguments completely. Alexander Herman, director of the Institute of Art and Law, described the now-delayed changes as remarkable in a recent report. The principal legislation affecting charities in England and Wales is the Charities Act 2011, and the new Charities Act 2022, passed by parliament in February, will make changes to this. Implementation of the new Act will begin in tranches this autumn. sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, The war in Ukraine, now escalating again, raises some big journalistic questionsabout the depths of Russian imperialism, how far the West should go in defending Ukraine against unprovoked attacks, and the brinkmanship over Vladimir Putins nuclear threats, which I wrote about in this newsletter last week. The war is one of the most consequential stories of our time. But it also can be a trap for journalists, who can find it easier to focus on the big questionsto which the answers, if not unknowable, are certainly unclearthan on doing whats needed most at a moment like this, which is focusing on ground reporting from a European country under bombardment. New from CJR: How John Bennet went from East Texas kid to New Yorker editor There has been amazing, urgent, real-time reporting from across Ukraine throughout the war. Photojournalists, in particular, have been unsparingly brave. This weeks coverage of Russias attacks on cities nationwide, including Kyiv, however, has felt particularly reminiscent of the wall-to-wall coverage of the earliest days of the warinfused with a sense of imminent danger spread across the country and footage of foreign correspondents ducking amid explosions in Kyiv. (Compare this footage of CNNs Matthew Chance, back then, and the BBCs Hugo Bachega, now.) Of course, the danger didnt go away in between times, even when it grew further from the top of the news cycle and the consciousness of international news consumers. Despite the renewed urgency this week, weve also seen a return to the tendency, particularly on television, to take the easy way outgaming out the geopolitical chess, trying to get into Putins head, armchair-generaling the wara lazy reflex that I also wrote about last week. Watching the bobbing sea of talking heads this week, I was brought back to a conversation from February on The Kicker, CJRs podcast, which I host. We recorded the episode just days after Russia invaded, and interviewed two reporters, one for a US news network and one for a Ukrainian outlet, who, at the time, had made the difficult decision to leave Ukraine. Eleanor Beardsley, NPRs correspondent, spoke to me as she was driving toward the Hungarian border with colleagues. Beardsley and I had talked a few weeks earlier, in a prewar conversation in which she expressed deep skepticism as to whether Russia would really attack. In our second conversation, she was humbled by her own mistake, and unusually honest about how hard it was to take in what she was seeing. I was wrong, I was a hundred percent wrong, she said. Its like, Is this a dream? Is this really happening? I just cant believe it, and neither can the Ukrainians. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Beardsleys willingness to acknowledge that what she was seeing was unfathomable, and that she had no idea what would happen next, was a sign of journalistic humility that we dont see often enough. Also notable was the fact that she had spent the previous weeks crisscrossing Ukraine, talking to people about what they had seen and how they had experienced the first phases of the war. Igor Kossov, a reporter for the Kyiv Independent, who talked to me for the same episode, had essentially done the same thing, reporting for his outlet from the capital. As he was driving for safety out of Kyiv, he told me he would likely be back, as indeed he since has. (He also noted this week, with his colleague Francis Farrell, that Russias strikes on the city were flashbacks to the first day of the war.) The war story, he told me, was in the places and the people where the bombing was happening, not outside of it looking in. My February conversation with these two fearless reporters continues to give us a road map for how this war should be covered: admit to what you dont know, and center your reporting on the people on the ground who do. None of us know what is going to happen tomorrow in Ukraine. But journalists can, and should, continue to give us a sense of what life is like for people living through this terrible war. You can listen back to the conversation here. Below, some other CJR reporting on Ukraine: In another episode of The Kicker, we looked at the prebunking of Russian propaganda in a conversation with Jane Lytvynenko, a senior research fellow in the Technology and Social Change Project at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. Joel Simon reported on the central role played by WhatsApp among journalists trying to understand whats happening in the war. Jon Allsop wrote for CJRs newsletter about Ukraine fatigue, and the ongoing difficulties for news organizations, particularly in the US, to focus on more than one story at a time. Other notable stories: ICYMI: Meta and The Wire point fingers Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Kyle Pope is the editor in chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. An arbitration agreement buried behind a hyperlink that does not give consumers clear notice they are waiving their right to a jury trial when they agree to the companys terms and conditions is not valid, a Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled in a case of an Uber rider injured in a motor vehicle accident. Uber argued that when riders register for its ridesharing service they signify that they agree to be bound by the mandatory arbitration provision found in the hyperlinked terms and conditions, thereby relinquishing their right to a jury trial. A trial court agreed and granted Ubers motion to compel arbitration but on appeal the Pennsylvania Superior Court has reversed, ruling that a stricter burden of proof is necessary to demonstrate a partys assent to arbitration where the important right to a jury trial is at stake. In a strongly-worded opinion by Judge Daniel McCaffery that calls for more judicial scrutiny of the growing use of arbitration agreements, the court ruled that the Uber approach is inadequate because it does not inform users in an explicit and upfront manner that they are giving up a constitutional right to seek damages through a jury trial proceeding. The opinion guides firms on how they may achieve this stricter burden of proof by: (1) explicitly stating on the registration websites and application screens that a consumer is waiving a right to a jury trial when they agree to the companys terms and conditions, and the registration process cannot be completed until the consumer is fully informed of that waiver; and (2) when the agreements are available for viewing after a user has clicked on the hyperlink, the waiver should not be hidden in the terms and conditions provision but should appear at the top of the first page in bold, capitalized text. The appeal arose out of a motor vehicle accident that occurred in 2019. Shannon Chilutti, who is wheelchair bound, was injured while riding in a car provided by Uber Technologies on the way home from a medical appointment. After Uber insisted her injury claims must go to arbitration, Chilutti and her husband both filed suits. The court said the case concerned whether parties should be deprived of their constitutional right to a jury trial when they purportedly enter into an arbitration agreement via a set of hyperlinked terms and conditions on a website or smartphone application that they never clicked on, viewed, or read. The trial court granted Ubers petition to compel arbitration of the claims, determining the plaintiffs had not been forced out of court. But the Superior Court has now decided that the trial court failed to consider the importance of the protected constitutional right to a jury trial. The Superior Court reversed and remanded the case back to the lower court, concluding that plaintiffs are legally entitled to relief and that they demonstrated there was a lack of a valid agreement to arbitrate; therefore, they are entitled to invoke their constitutional right to a jury trial. In Shannon Chiluttis case, according to the court, the terms and conditions agreement was encapsulated in tiny, blue font at the very bottom of a cluttered webpage. The relevant text was not underlined or capitalized. With respect to Keith Chilutti, he was on the fifth screen of the registration process, after he had already provided substantive personal information, when the Terms and Conditions page could be reviewed in small font that, again, was not underlined or capitalized. The appeals court said Uber did not inform the Chilluttis in an explicit and upfront manner that they were giving up a constitutional right to seek damages through a jury trial proceeding. Instead, the court noted, the plaintiffs did not click on or access the terms and conditions before their registration process was completed; rather they merely created a user account. Furthermore, the definition of arbitration is not in the agreement; nor is there any explanation of binding and non-binding arbitration. Notably, if a party wants to review the rules that govern arbitration, they must click on a second hyperlink. Further, the court said the term, arbitration, is ambiguous in that there is nothing to explain its meaning and any non-lawyer subscriber could easily believe that arbitration is simply another step in the litigation process that does not involve relinquishing the constitutional right to a jury trial in its entirety. The court noted that Pennsylvania has a well-established public policy that favors arbitration, and this policy aligns with the federal approach of the Federal Arbitration Act [(FAA]. However, the court noted that the FAA does preempt state law in all cases, warning that the evolution and effect of arbitration provisions has substantially weakened the constitutional right to jury trial in civil proceedings. The court further noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stated that one of the consequences of the shift away from the civil justice system and toward private adjudication is that corporations are routinely stripping individuals of their constitutional right to a jury trial. The sluggish recognition regarding the copious usage of arbitration agreements in present day contracts and the ramifications of these agreements on a partys right to a jury trial raises concern, especially in the context of Internet contracts like the one at issue herein where the parties are of purported unequal bargaining power, the opinion continues. While some courts have taken small bites at the issue, there is a need for greater scrutiny regarding a partys waiver of their constitutional right to a jury trial in terms of these arbitration agreement matters, the opinion states. The opinion further contends that if the issue on appeal involved a confession of money judgment, the court would have no qualms in striking a judgment based on the inconspicuous use of the provision in question. The same would apply to a criminal conviction where no colloquy was provided, or the defendant was not advised of his right to a jury trial. We see no reason why the same analysis should not be afforded herein where a constitutional right a jury trial in a civil action is clicked away without the benefit of any protections the law provides, Judge McCaffery wrote. In ruling as it did, the state appeals court went beyond a federal appeals court standard (Berman v. Freedom Fin. Network, U.S. 9th Cir. 2022) that held so-called clickwrap agreements that use pop-ups to grab users attention generally more acceptable that browsewrap agreements that use only hyperlinks, like Ubers. Judge Alice Beck Dubow joined in the opinion written by Judge McCaffery. Judge Victor Stabile dissented. A song by Queen that was never before released and was written with Freddie Mercury will soon be heard. A dramatic ballad named 'Face It Alone,' which was recorded with the famous vocalist during sessions for Queen's 1989 'The Miracle' album, was made public on Thursday after months of teasers from guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Queen's New Song Release In a press statement regarding the song, May, 72, also mentioned that former Queen member John Deacon, who quit the group in 1997, contributed to it as well. 'Face It Alone' will be included on a box set reissue of the album it was originally recorded for and was written just a few years before Freddie Mercury's death in 1991 at age 45 from complications connected to AIDS. In a BBC Radio 2 interview in June, May and Taylor initially alluded to the release of 'Face It Alone.' The drummer told host Zoe Ball, "We did unearth a little gem from Freddie that we'd kind of forgotten about, and it's amazing," as per People. When Taylor first heard the song, he called it a little treasure from Freddie Mercury that we'd kind of forgotten about. May echo this sentiment and said, "It's nice, it's touching." 'Face It Alone' was first recorded in 1988 as part of the creation of the album 'The Miracle', which was made in the wake of the band's final concert together in Knebworth Park, when they infamously played in front of a crowd of about 160,000 people. The band recorded 30 tracks during the sessions, many of which were never made public. One such song that audiences never got to hear, until today, was 'Face It Alone.' The band members said that the time they spent in the studio together during Mercury's sickness was the time they had ever worked together most closely. When 'The Miracle' was first released in 1989, it was a worldwide triumph and peaked at number one in the UK and several other European nations. The special album will include six previously unreleased tracks, including 'Dog With A Bone,' 'I Guess We're Falling Out,' 'You Know You Belong To Me,' and 'Face It Alone,' as well as original takes, demos, and rough versions. Freddie Mercury can be heard saying things like, "Before we all pass out, can I just try this," in a collection of rarely spoken outtakes from the album's recording sessions. on the song 'I Want It All,' according to Independent. Read Also: Tom Cruise Forced To Hire Heavyweight Bodyguards Amid Onslaught Death Threats from angry Former Staff Freddie Mercury Since the release of the Queen Forever album in 2014, which featured three previously unreleased songs with Mercury titled 'Let Me In Your Heart Again,' 'Love Kills,' and The first brand-new song with the artist is the single, 'There Must Be More to Life Than This.' Mercury, who was widely regarded as rock's greatest frontman, passed away in 1991 at the age of 45 from complications related to his HIV diagnosis. Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon formed the iconic rock band in 1970. They collaborated on popular songs like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'We Will Rock.' The album, which at the time featured the songs 'I Want It All,' 'Breakthru,' and 'The Invisible Man,' peaked at number one in the UK. It is now accessible in the form of an eight-disc collector's edition box set. The Miracle Sessions, an hour-plus disc of additional previously unheard recordings that includes six unpublished tracks, is one of the items in the extended package. It also features the band's verbal interactions on the recording studio floor in London and Montreux, providing an insightful look into the four members' personal lives and creative processes, Daily Mail reported. Related Article: Willie Spence Cause of Death Revealed; 'American Idol' Runner-Up's Final IG Post Goes Viral @Youtube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) Some cities around the world are pulling back from shorelines, as rising seas from climate change increase flooding. But so far, retreat appears out of the question for Atlantic City, New Jersey. The breezy getaway town is on the water on a barrier, which was once reachable only by boat but in modern times via a causeway. The city fully occupies a small piece of land, water on either side, just above sea level. We love our residents, said Barbara Woolley-Dillon, former Atlantic City Planning and Development Director. We have one of the most diverse populations. its a great place to be, and we have such a thriving community that we want to do everything we can to keep it intact. The city, popular with vacation goers in the Eastern U.S., particularly in the summer, brings in billions of dollars in revenue, another incentive to keep it intact as long as possible. Atlantic City is a seven billion dollar a year economic engine that benefits all of southern New Jersey and must be maintained, said Jim Rutala, an Atlantic City planning contractor. Still, the flooding is getting deeper and more frequent. In 1910, researchers installed a tide gauge at the end of Steel Pier Amusement Park. The gauge shows the sea has risen a foot and a half since then, more than double the global mean sea level rise. City leaders have no plans to take state offers to buy and demolish homes in flood-prone areas, according to Rutala. Instead, officials are spending $100 million, from 2016 through next year, to fortify and armor the city from rising sea levels by installing sea walls, pump stations and bulkheads, according to Rutala. Unseen by most tourists, a newly built pump station in Fishermans Park pushes ocean water that has come ashore back into the bay. It is common to hear construction crews at work building structures with entrances elevated to strict new height requirements. Other cities in New Jersey have taken a different route to confront flooding. In Woodbridge, about 100 miles north of Atlantic City, in recent years the state has bought and torn down more than 150 homes to remove people and property from the danger of future floods. In Atlantic City, tourists and residents walk along street names that inspired the Monopoly board game, such as Baltic Avenue and Park Place. Casinos pull in people hoping to win big at the poker table or slot machines. And outside are wide-open beaches and boardwalk amusement park rides. Twenty-seven million people visit the resort town annually. For some, its a place to escape from their daily lives. For others, its a way to live a simple life by the ocean. For many residents, its unbearable to contemplate a future without the city. This part of Atlantic City is just very tightly knit and we are a nice little neighborhood, said elementary school teacher Abby Moul, 47, as she played with her dog in the north part of the island. It is kind off the beaten path and thats what I love about it. Under current projections for global emissions, Rutgers University estimates that New Jersey is likely to experience another one to three feet of sea level rise between now and 2070, according to Robert Kopp, Rutgers climate scientist. And the land here is sinking from what scientists call the see-saw effect of melting glaciers much further north. Its unclear if the citys new fortification projects will be enough to confront the projected sea level rise. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that New Jerseys 950 square miles of beaches and back bays will sustain more than a billion dollars in annual flooding damage in a few years. Atlantic City is the one of the poorest and most densely populated part of the New Jersey coastline. More than two dozen different languages are spoken in city schools. Many people here have what locals call back-of-the-house jobs at one of the nine casinos, preparing food, cleaning rooms and other work. It can cost $150,000 in the denser, older parts of the city to raise up an $80,000 home to protect it from nuisance flooding, periodic flooding, sometimes from high tides or backed up drainage systems. That cost is simply out of reach for many. On a recent afternoon, lifelong Atlantic City resident Zakiy Abdullah, 45, a forklift operator, did his best to keep his three-year-old daughter Jamaarah Wells from riding her tricycle through flood waters in the street. Flooding it is a constant problem, said Abdullah. As you can see, the water has not evaporated from the other night. Kimberly McKenna, of the Stockton University Coastal Research Center, says most of the increased flooding in Atlantic City happens in the part of the island that faces the mainland, called the back bay. That also happens to be where many people live in poverty. Residents often move their cars to higher ground during high tides and full moons. Those floods, what we may now call nuisance flooding, will turn into regular flooding, said McKenna. And thats going to be persistent flooding. People wont be moving their cars. They will be moving their homes. Local coastal governments like Atlantic City will have to decide whether to manage a retreat from the coastline over several years, or to stay and only leave when and if the flood waters become unlivable. You dont need to give up a community right now because of the risk of three or five feet of sea level rise, said Kopp, the Rutgers climate scientist. But you need to think about how redevelopment plans you are making today will fare in the future. There is no simple solution. About the photo: Abby Moul plays with her dog in the her yard, which backs up to a canal, in Atlantic City, N.J., Wednesday, May 4, 2022. Some cities around the world are pulling back from shorelines, as rising seas from climate change increase flooding. But so far, retreat appears out of the question for Atlantic City. This part of Atlantic City is just very tightly knit and we are a nice little neighborhood, said elementary school teacher Moul. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Flood warnings were issued, thousands of homes lost power and a man was missing as heavy rain lashed southeast Australia on Thursday. Rivers across Australias most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, and the island state of Tasmania were rising dangerously with catchments soaked by months of above-average rainfall. Hundreds of people in the the New South Wales city of Forbes, west of Sydney, were ordered to evacuate their homes by Thursday night ahead of major flooding. The State Emergency Service issued an order for 17 streets including the central downtown precinct to be evacuated by 8 p.m., (0900 GMT) with the Lachlan River expected to reach a major flood peak of 10.6 meters (34 feet, 9 inches) by Friday. Police said a 63-year-old man was last seen on Tuesday on a rural property on the Lachlan River near the New South Wales town of Hillston, west of Sydney. He was reported missing hours later but emergency crews have failed to find any sign of him. Police on Tuesday found the body of a 46-year-old man in his submerged car in floodwater near the city of Bathurst, west of Sydney. To the south in Victoria, emergency crews rescued at least five people driving through floodwaters in rural areas after heavy overnight rain, officials said. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews urged people not to drive or walk into floodwaters. Its very dangerous for you, and its also very dangerous for the person who has to come to rescue you, Andrews told reporters. State Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said the heavy rain would reach metropolitan Melbourne, Victorias capital and Australias most populous city after Sydney, late Thursday. Officials have been door-knocking along the Maribyrnong River in inner-Melbourne to ensure residents were ready to evacuate if necessary. Sarah-Jane Gill, a manager at the Rochester Riverside Holiday Park in the town of Rochester, north of Melbourne, said she had evacuated guests on Thursday as the Campaspe River rose. It is scary. You laugh in the face of it all, but were very nervous, Gill said. Nearly 10,000 homes in Victoria were without power overnight, with hundreds yet to be restored, said the State Control Center, which manages Victorias emergencies, and electricity distributor Powercor. In the northern Tasmanian town of Railton, 90 homes were threatened by floodwaters after overnight rain. The State Emergency Service issued an emergency warning for Railton, urging residents to prepare to evacuate. The states northern half was on high alert for flash flooding, with heavy rain forecast to continue into Friday morning. State Emergency Service director Leon Smith said flood peaks in northern Tasmania might reach levels last experienced in 2016 when three people drowned. It is a very dynamic situation that were monitoring, but inevitably we will see flooding that will have significant consequences, Smith said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. MADRID (AP) The former head of safety for Spains state-owned rail infrastructure company told a court Thursday that he was not responsible for the 2013 train crash that killed 80 passengers and injured 145 more. Andres Cortabitarte and the trains driver are both facing four-year prison terms if found guilty of professional negligence for the derailment. The train went off the tracks while speeding at 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) limit as it was arriving to the northwest city of Santiago de Compostela. Spanish news agency Efe reported that Cortabitarte told the court that it was not his job to evaluate the risks of the track where the tragedy took place. Cortabitarte tried to shift responsibility to the train lines constructor, UTE, and Spains Ministry of Infrastructure, as well as the driver. The train driver has to know where he is going and how he will get there at every given moment, Cortabitarte said according to Efe. The rules say that the driver must not go faster than the maximum speed limit at any time. That must be obeyed. Cortabitarte had been originally scheduled to testify last week but his appearance was pushed back after he was hit by the relative of one of the train wrecks victims outside the courthouse. Last week, the trains driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, wept while testifying that he had braked but could not avoid the crash. He added that there had been no signals warning him to reduce speed before the curve where the crash occurred. ADIF, Spains state-owned rail infrastructure company, confirmed days after the July 24, 2013 tragedy that an automatic braking program was installed on most of the track leading from Madrid north to Santiago de Compostela but stopped 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of the accident site. A group representing victims of the crash, the Alvia 04155 Victims Platform, has said that it hoped the trial would show that ADIF bore more responsibility for the derailment than the driver. The trial, which started last week, is expected to last several months and hear from some 650 witnesses. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. PHOENIX Claims adjusters may groan at any mention of going to appraisal. But insurance defense attorney Andrew P. Rock sees the process as an opportunity. He says appraisals are another form of alternative dispute resolution. If I look at a case and if it looks like theres something that can be appraised, I go to appraisal, Rock said during a presentation Thursday at the Property & Liability Resource Bureaus Large Loss Conference. Rock, with the Rock Law Group in Maitland, Florida, and attorney Nathan Thompson with Citizens Property Insurance in Jacksonville, offered guidance on how to properly manage the appraisal process when contending with inflated damage estimates presented by self-interested public adjusters and overzealous plaintiffs attorneys. Thompson said insurers have good reasons to avoid litigation. One of the lawsuits he is defending for Citizens was filed in 2009. Florida statutes require insurers to pay the policyholders attorney fees when they lose. Those fees can reach outrageous totals for long-litigated cases, he said. Juries often are not kind to insurance companies, Thompson said. Juries in the Florida Keys, especially, are notorious for protecting their own. Literally, weve never won a case in the Florida Keys, he said. Once the appraisal process starts, Rock said claims managers need to pay attention every step of the way. While insurance policies usually call for an appraisal to resolve disputes about value, they dont provide any details about how the appraisal should be conducted or how long it should take. Rock said if possible, ask the policyholders attorney to agree to a memorandum of appraisal to settle on some ground rules. Which structures should be appraised? What coverages apply? How long will the process take? Some adjusters may approach the process like this: Hey, youre my appraiser. Wake me up when its over, Rock said, then shook his head side to side. No. Thats not going to have a good outcome is it? Rock said if the plaintiff refuses to agree to parameters, the adjuster can still make sure the insurers appraiser knows what is expected. Insist on line-item details for estimates, he said. Insist on photographs with captions explaining any coverage issues, such as mold or dry rot that may be excluded from coverage. Stay in touch to make sure the process doesnt go off track. The plaintiffs attorney may raise new issues while the appraisal is underway. Dont get sidetracked, Rock said. Insist that any new alleged damage be backed up with a proof of loss and adjust the new demand as if it were a brand new claim. Careful documentation may impress the umpire who ultimately may have final say. This idea is to put the information in front of the umpire just like you did when you adjusted the claim. Of course, appraisals cannot be used to determine whether coverage exists. Often, insurance adjusters encounter deferred maintenance issues and construction defects when inspecting a damaged property. These may present challenging ethical issues. Professional engineer Jeffrey Frazler and independent adjuster Cassandra Hand Gallegos outlined the ethical responsibilities of engineers and claims adjusters during a separate presentation during the PLRB conference. Frazler, with Sdii Global Corp. in Tampa, displayed photographs of various dangerous situations he had encountered when out inspecting properties. One depicted the roof of a church that has become separated from the truss and was in danger of imminent collapse because of slipshod construction. You hear that old saying that they dont build them like they used to, he said. Sometimes thats a good thing. Frazler said insurers that hire him often expect confidentiality, but his first responsibility is to protect the publics health, safety and welfare. If he doesnt report dangerous conditions he risks losing his professional engineers license. The church with the sagging roof housed a daycare center. Frazler said he had to inform the pastor that the center needed to close down until repairs were made. He said he also reported the condition of the roof to the insurer who hired him and municipal building officials. I cant let kids get hurt, Frazler said. Gallegos, who is chief executive officer of CCMS & Associates in Dunedin, Florida, said insurance adjusters also have ethical duties, which are sometimes spelled out in detail (such as in her home state of Florida) and sometimes not (such as in North Carolina, which advises adjusters to be good) by state statutes. Often, she said, any duty to report will create a conflict with the adjusters perceived duty to the insurer, which may not be interested in dealing with an even larger potential claim. How many times do we ask our engineers not to put that in the report? she asked the audience. Lots of times, right? About the photo: Attorney Andrew Rock displayed this photo as he told the imaginary story of a claim filed by the owners of a house named Versailles on Fear Some Bay, Florida during his presentation at the PLRB conference in Phoenix on Thursday. The U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia has dismissed a complaint by petcare and food company Mars Inc. seeking insurance coverage for COVID-19-related business interruption claims. Insurer FM Global sought and won the dismissal of the complaint against the $5 billion in insurance coverage it issued to Mars on the grounds that Mars did not suffer the required direct physical loss and damage from the COVID-19 virus as claimed. However, while Justice Patricia Tolliver Giles dismissed the full complaint, she left open the door for Mars to refile to collect $1 million under two coverage extensions that even FM Global recognized as possibly providing some coverage. The FM Global policy contains narrow coverage extensions entitled Communicable Disease Response and Interruption by Communicable Diseaseneither of which requires physical loss or damage. FM Global told the court that Mars has failed to respond to requests for it to show that it meets the prerequisites or has any evidence to trigger the $1million in coverage available under those provisions. The judge dismissed the sections of the case regarding these provisions without prejudice, meaning Mars can come back to try to recover under them. The complaint dismissal came despite a late appeal by Mars for the court to consider the Vermont Supreme Court opinion late last month reviving a case in which shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries claimed that the COVID-19 virus adheres to surfaces, thereby triggering business interruption coverage. The state Supreme Court remanded the case back to the trial court on the finding that Huntington had met the states low hurdle for pleadings and should be heard. Mars has similarly claimed that statistical modeling confirmed to a high degree of certainty that COVID-19 was present in or around its commercial and industrial properties generally and was being continuously introduced, dispersed, and reintroduced into and altering the air and on surfaces of property in or around Mars locations. FM Global argued that the Virginia Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit Court and the majority of other courts have rejected the theory that the coronavirus causes physical loss or damage. Todd Yanak joins TheBest Claims Solutions Phoenix, AZ., October 14, 2022 TheBest Claims Solutions is pleased to welcome a new Executive Vice President of Strategy, Todd Yanak! Todd plans to apply his 30+ years of experience to our business development team, increasing their levels of efficiency, vertical sales, and communication. Since entering the industry in 1991, Todd has received multiple awards and accolades, including the Steve Paine Award for Excellence and Exemplary Performance. He excelled at his previous company, where he focused on business development for their global catastrophe services. His expertise will be an advantageous addition to TheBest Claims team, and the company is excited for the future ahead with Todd. I was inspired to join the team at TheBest Claims Solutions after working with them at my previous company. The level of service and professionalism provided by TheBest Claims is a rarity in the insurance industry and I believe we have unlimited opportunities ahead of us. About TheBest Claims Solutions: Through meaningful partnerships, our mission is to lead the claims industry in providing quality solutions that put people first. Whether youre looking for claims services or TheBest talent in the nation, we offer customized solutions to organizations in the insurance claims industry. TheBest Claims Solutions is a 10-time winner of ClearlyRateds Best of Staffing Award and has been named IA Firm of the Year by IA Path. If you would like more information about this topic, please call (866) 658-4477 or email news@thebestclaims.com During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal stimulus funds proved to be a lifeline for millions of Americans. However, according to a recent government report, millions of Americans have yet to submit a claim for their federal stimulus payment. Such individuals, both taxpayers, and non-filers, still have time to submit a claim for federal coronavirus stimulus funds. The federal government has approved three rounds of stimulus checks since the COVID-19 pandemic began, two in 2020 and one in 2021. How to Get Unclaimed Stimulus Checks? The Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated in a report on Tuesday that approximately 165 million people were qualified for the stimulus payments. The IRS largely used the taxpayers' tax returns to ascertain eligibility and disburse the funds, using their home addresses for physical checks and direct deposits and their bank account information for direct transfers. The research did point out that millions of Americans, including those with extremely low incomes and seniors receiving Social Security payments, are not required to file taxes. The agency found it difficult to contact all the qualified recipients as a result. The GAO analysis estimates that there may be around 10 million persons who have not yet claimed federal stimulus payments for coronavirus. The study states that these individuals still have about a month to submit a claim for their federal coronavirus stimulus payment. Use of GetCTC.org, a streamlined filing tool, is one simple way for non-filers to collect their stimulus payment. However, this tool only supports the third stimulus check that was authorized in 2016. Those who owe taxes but failed to file them by the deadline of April 15 still have until October 17 to collect their money. For individuals who asked the IRS for an extension, the tax filing deadline is October 17. Taxpayers who meet the requirements can file for free using the IRS Free File tool, as per Share Wise. The law established the enhanced Child Tax Credit, which provided families with payments every month of up to $300 per child for the final half of 2021, up to a maximum of $1,800 per child. The majority of Americans received a one-time payout of $1,400 as a result of the measure. The GAo=O investigated the populations that might have gone unrecognized. They comprise: never submitted a tax return were submitting their first paperwork who did not have access to banks or who did not have bank accounts people whose families have a mixed immigration status folks who use very little or no internet those who are homeless The GAO determined that individuals with incomes under $75,000 or married couples with incomes under $150,000 qualified for each of the three payments in full, according to WBFF Baltimore via MSN. Read Also: Chicago Landlord Found Dismembered in Freezer; Tenant Who Received Eviction Notice Arrested Delayed Stimulus Checks in California The Middle-Class Tax Back will be distributed to around 23 million Californians over the following three months. The third batch of stimulus payments is intended to help Californians deal with the growing costs that have adversely affected households with low and moderate incomes. But Governor Gavin Newsom has added the middle class to the list of winners, along with about 60% of the state's population, or roughly 40 million people. Depending on the method of payment used in their earlier rounds of payments, the Golden State Stimulus Check I and II, residents can anticipate receiving up to $1,050 in their bank accounts or post boxes. Their 2020 filing status, California Adjusted Gross Income (Ca AGI), and the existence of dependents will all affect how much they are paid. In June, lawmakers gave their approval for the payouts. Gavin Newsom had originally recommended a $400 gas card and transit cards for the stimulus check payment, but Democratic lawmakers persuaded him to upgrade the amount in the third round. Gavin Newsom had suggested $400 for every automobile registered in California, with a cap of two cards per family, as well as an equivalent sum for public transportation for households without cars. However, Democratic lawmakers convinced the governor to enhance it, and the Middle-Class Tax Rebate was eventually approved in June. People in California, where gas costs are among the highest in the nation, were in severe need of assistance, and the state could easily afford to do so without relying on the American Rescue Plan Act money that President Joe Biden approved in March 2021. California declared a massive $97 billion budget surplus for 2021, largely as a result of a surge in revenue brought on by a flourishing economy in the final two quarters of 2021. Californians can anticipate a payout within the next four months if they submitted their 2020 income taxes by October 15 and if their AGI falls into one of the administration's three levels. Residents logged onto the account on Friday to claim their payouts, despite state authorities' assurances that they would be made between October 7 and January 15 of the following year, Digital Market News reported. Related Article: Millions Have Unclaimed Child Tax Credit Up to $3,600; Here's How To Check If IRS Still Owes You Money! @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A former federal prosecutor claims that Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, won't be charged before the midterm elections in November. It comes in the wake of news that federal authorities think they have enough proof to charge Hunter Biden with tax offenses and making false claims while buying a gun. Hunter Biden's Potential Charges Any charges are likely to be delayed until after the election to prevent the impression of political meddling, according to Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor who worked for the Department of Justice for nearly three decades. If tax charges are brought against Hunter Biden, according to Rossi, it will probably be difficult for him to win a legal battle. However, based on the details provided by CBS News and The Washington Post, Peter Zeidenberg, a fellow former federal prosecutor at the DOJ who now works for ArentFox Schiff, said it is difficult to predict whether charges will be filed. The activities of Joe Biden's son have been the focus of his political adversaries for years. According to a White House letter from 2019, then-President Trump requested that the Bidens' alleged misdeeds be looked into by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Hunter Biden had a drug problem, President Joe Biden acknowledged, but said, "he's rectified it and worked on it, and I'm proud of my son", as per News Week via MSN. According to the constitutional lawyer and law professor Mark W. Smith, the president may be able to influence the US attorney to indict Hunter Biden by speaking out against the matter while it is still under investigation. Five years in prison are possible for lying on a federal form while buying a gun, and an additional 10 years are possible for having a gun while abusing drugs. However, Professor Smith remarked that it is extremely doubtful that Hunter Biden would ever serve a complete term. President Biden, 80, appeared to concede on live national television that his son lied when he claimed he wasn't a drug addict when buying a gun. Hunter, 52, might be charged with making a false statement on a federal document. In a comprehensive interview, President Biden stated that he is proud of his son for overcoming drug addiction and for penning a book that describes the issues he had with narcotics. He further stated that at the time of the gun purchase, he was not aware that Hunter had lied on the form concerning his drug use. Agents put together a federal case against Hunter, who is now waiting for Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, to decide whether or not to press charges against Biden's sole surviving son, Daily Mail reported. Read Also: Joe Biden's National Security Strategy Highlights Nuclear Threats of Russia, Iran and North Korea Hunter Biden Gun Case Hunter Biden bought a gun in October 2018, according to a weapons transaction report seen by Fox News. Hunter Biden responded "no" when asked if he was "an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressive, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other restricted substance" on the weapon transaction report. After testing positive for cocaine in 2014, Hunter Biden was released from the Navy. Authorities in Delaware launched an inquiry after discovering the gun owned by Hunter Biden in a trash can outside a store close to a school. Hallie Biden, who is the widow of President Biden's late son Beau and was dating Hunter at the time, dumped the gun in the trash, according to a source familiar with the police investigation. House Republicans have pledged to look into Hunter Biden and any possible conflicts of interest President Biden may have had with his son's business transactions. Since 2018, Hunter Biden has been the subject of a federal investigation, according to Fox News. Related Article: Jan. 6 Hearing To Focus on Donald Trump's 'State of Mind' During Capitol Riot; Panel To Present Final Evidence Before Midterm Elections @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. China urges developed nations to honor climate financing commitments to Africa Xinhua) 08:54, October 14, 2022 UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's envoy on Wednesday urged developed countries to honor their climate financing commitments to Africa during a UN debate. Helping Africa cope with climate change is not about how loudly one chants slogans, but rather about the commitments being fulfilled and Africa's needs being met, Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations told the UN Security Council debate on climate and security in Africa. Developed nations have pledged to provide 100-billion-U.S. dollar annual climate financing to developing countries. European countries have also pledged to double financing support to climate projects in poverty-stricken African countries by 2025. These pledges cannot and must not be just lip service. Historical arrears must be made up as soon as possible. A new collective quantitative goal should be defined, so that African countries can receive actual funds needed to carry out work that produces tangible results, Dai said. He added that the international financial institutions and climate finance platforms should also lower financing threshold to ensure that the climate finance is accessible to Africa in a fair way. Lately, when it comes to climate change issues, the vacillation and retrogression on the part of some developed countries is a cause for concern, the envoy said, emphasizing the need for international equity and justice on climate issues. Many countries in Africa are still at the early stage of industrialization, facing the dual task of socioeconomic development and climate change response. Developed countries, on the other hand, have already achieved industrialization, Dai said. "Asking Africa and other developing countries to assume the same climate responsibilities as developed countries goes against international equity and justice," he said. To meet the temperature control target set by The Paris Agreement, developed countries should take the lead in drastically reducing emissions and significantly moving up the date to achieve carbon neutrality, so as to provide development space for Africa and other developing countries, said the envoy. He also noted that China's support to Africa in combating and tackling climate change has been consistent and ever-present. China in September organized a ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative, where a proposal was made to promote the global clean energy cooperation partnership. Among the first projects is the cooperation on climate change response and green development in 19 African countries, said Dai. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) United States President Joe Biden's new border plan would send migrants back to Mexico if they illegally entered the country via the southern border, a policy that is similar to the former administration's agenda. On Wednesday, the Biden administration quietly announced that Venezuelans who illegally enter the US will be "returned" to Mexico. Authorities also said that those seeking asylum must secure a sponsor, undergo a public safety screening, and fulfill certain, as of yet unspecified vaccination requirements. Biden's New Border Plan The requirements for asylum seekers were revealed in a statement put out by the Department of Homeland Security. The new policy comes after New York City has, for months, buckled under the strain of a flow of migrants, many of whom are Venezuelans, into the five boroughs in search of refuge. So far in 2022, there are nearly 20,000 migrants who have traveled to the Big Apple seeking asylum. During that time, New York City Mayor Eric Adams requested assistance from the state and federal government to help alleviate some of the pressure from the influx of new arrivals that have pressured the city's homeless shelter system, as per the New York Daily News. Biden's newly-announced policy, details of which were posted on the DHS' website on Wednesday, is similar to former President Donald Trump's policy on migrants. This is because it allows migrants to be returned to Mexico if they illegally enter the United States. However, there are two areas that the Democrat's policy that differs from the Republican's, which are the provision that asylum seekers must secure sponsorship in the form of someone providing financial support in the US and a clearer path to legal residency. According to Fox News, the policy surprised a group of roughly 30 Venezuelan migrants when they learned they would be sent back to Mexico. Some migrants pleaded for the US to accept them, arguing that they had nowhere to go in Mexico. Others said that their home country was dangerous. Read Also: Joe Biden Reveals Plan with India as 'Major Defense Partner' in National Security Strategy Entering the United States The program that would allow legal migrants is capped at just 24,000 people. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Thursday that the actions make clear that there is a lawful and orderly way for Venezuelans to enter the US The official noted that anyone who attempts to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be sent back to Mexico and they will be ineligible for the process of entering the country in the future. Furthermore, the new border enforcement operation will increase checkpoints at the southern border and crack down on human trafficking operations. Authorities from the Customs and Border Protection reported more than 25,000 encounters with Venezuelan migrants at the border in August, which is an increase from roughly 6,000 encounters in the same month last year. A senior administration official noted that the new policy aims to address particular acute issues that the US is currently facing at the border. It would also provide an opportunity for vulnerable Venezuelans to seek legal means of entering the United States, ABC News reported. Related Article: Jan. 6 Hearings: Donald Trump Plans to Talk About 'Corrupt' Election, Nancy Pelosi's Big Mistake Before US Capitol Attack @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. About 20 Colorado College students had the opportunity to have lunch with Oliver Hart, Nobel Prize laureate, on Sept. 29. In 2016, Hart, of Harvard University, was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Hart has developed theories on contracts, including on the theory of incomplete contracts. The Carey Lectureship brings Nobel laureates in economics to the college, an opportunity unique among liberal arts colleges, making it possible for both students and faculty, as well as for members of the Colorado Springs community, to learn at first-hand about fundamental issues of the day, says Timothy Fuller, political science professor and former president of CC. Professor Oliver Hart is the twentieth Carey lecturer in this distinguished series, speaking on corporate social responsibility a topic in wide discussion today. Elsa Alnebeck 23 is a co-chair of the Political Science Student Advisory Committee and attended the lunch with Hart and later shared that one of her favorite parts of the lunch was how friendly and open to answering questions Hart was. Mr. Hart had a number of really interesting things to say during the lunch. He spoke about the success of the liberal arts model and answered questions around the nature of pursuing further education in the United States versus the United Kingdom. One topic that especially stood out to Alnebeck was when Hart spoke about the specific aspects of the private and public sectors that lend themselves to addressing environmental concerns and the necessity for the private and public sectors to cooperate. Although he briefly reviewed his work on contract theory, and how ownership should be allocated, and when contracting is beneficial over ownership, the topic of corporate responsibility was more tangible. I also appreciated his positive outlook on the role corporations can have in the future, says Alnebeck, who is a political science major and Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern studies minor. Left facing viewer, Andy Fresen '23 and Francis Davis '25, plaid shirt with Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart as he chats with a student on Thursday, September 29, 2022. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III / Colorado College. Andy Fresen 23, who used to run the CC Investment Club, also attended the lunch with Hart. While running the club, I would have to deal with questions over what would be the standards for our social impact portfolio. The intersection of corporate reasonability, finance, and law were vital to our assessment and Oliver Hart is a pioneer in those topics. says Fresen, an economics major. The best part of the lunch was the opportunity to ask Dr. Hart questions directly. It was exciting to be able to engage in a discussion about his research, says Fresen. Dr. Hart was very generous with his time and welcomed the opportunity to teach. Hart taught students about the changing incentive between a diversified investor, like what most people are today, and one with a concentrated position for social good, says Fresen. Hart went through the math to show logically that a rational investor invested across many companies wouldn't want one company to have an outsized detrimental societal effect, like pollution, because the profit of the decision is spread out over its many shareholders, says Fresen. Furthermore, those many diversified shareholders who receive a limited profit also have to live with the outsized environmental consequences. As a result, the duty of a company to follow the wants of its shareholders have changed. Hart recommended focusing as much on math as economics because math is the base that all economic research is built upon, says Fresen. Oliver Kraft 23 says during the lunch, he learned from Hart that small shareholders may be incentivized to be more ESG and environmentally conscious. Kraft also shared that he learned from Hart that owning equity in ESG and environmentally conscious organizations is not necessarily the best way to invest your money to make change, says Kraft. ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, and is a term used to describe socially responsible investing. Saigopal Rangaraj 23, who attended the lunch with Hart, said it was useful to also attend Harts evening lecture, because, as with any complex economic model, no one understands their premise the first time around. The most interesting points from Dr. Hart's conversation were the evolution of education in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as his contrary view to the divestment trend, says Rangaraj, who is a mathematical economics major and comparative politics and anthropology minor. Regarding the second point, I was an ardent believer in investing where your beliefs lie, but Dr. Hart really made me challenge this notion as his argument was that a greater positive impact could be made using shareholder voting powers. Fuller has been responsible for the Carey lectures for the past 20 years, and organized this one as well, says Alnebeck. Several political science, economic and business, and international political economy majors were invited to the lunch. We were incredibly fortunate to have Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart visit our campus. His talk on corporate social responsibility had broad appeal. His visit came at exactly the right time for our community, as students and community members are increasingly confronting what it means for business to be socially responsible, says Christina Rader, associate professor and chair of the Economics and Business Department. In addition to having lunch with students, Hart gave a talk to the Colorado College and Colorado Springs community about corporate social responsibility in Cornerstone Arts Center. Hart advised the students who attended the lunch to read On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill, says Alnebeck. U.S. District Court Judge Raymond P. Moore, who was assigned the case involving the town of Superior, indicated he wished to see the lawsuits proceed separately. He acknowledged there will now be a possibility of conflicting rulings between various judges about whether the various local ordinances violate the Second Amendment. But, Moore said, "if anyone thinks the district court is going to have the last say on this, theyre kidding themselves. Come on." China refuses to ditch its zero-COVID policies despite rising frustration among its population for the effect of the protocols on people's livelihoods. The policies have taken their toll on businesses and jobseekers as Beijing continues to stress time and again the need to maintain its strict protocols against the virus to protect lives. Since 2020, the Asian country has reported 5,226 fatalities related to the disease among its population of roughly 1.4 billion. China's Zero-COVID Policies In comparison, in the United States, more than 1 million people have died due to the coronavirus disease. However, keeping China's death toll low has come at a cost to its economy. A 36-year-old resident, Cai Ju from Beijing, has already been forced to shut four of his five bars in Beijing and Chengdu in the last three years. Business was disrupted at first due to temporary closures to comply with COVID-19 policies. But now, almost no customer walks through the door of the businesses, as per Reuters. Cai said that since the health crisis, he has become anxious, flustered, and lost, and noted that the bars started to close down one by one. In 2016, he quit his job as an architect at a state-owned enterprise to open his first establishment. In order to offset the loss of profits from walk-in customers, Cai started to live stream music performances at his bar to people who were quarantined at home. For now, that side hustle would have to make do. According to CNN, many of China's population have been placed under strict quarantine, with a young woman being isolated in her apartment building for half a year since returning from university in the summer. She stood on her balcony, cried out in desperation, and shouted at hazmat-wearing workers below. Read Also: Russia-Ukraine War: Russian Drones Attack Critical Infrastructure in Kyiv, At Least 2 Killed Strict Quarantine Protocols Despite the majority of Asian economies, even those that previously had hardline zero-COVID stances, have abandoned pandemic-era restrictions, Chinese authorities maintain that the battle against the virus remains "winnable." However, that claim comes even as infections rise and a new strain circulates just days before the country's most important political event, the Communist Party Congress beginning in Beijing on Sunday. At the event, President Xi Jinping is expected to reiterate his position as the country's most powerful leader in decades. The situation comes as observers from around the world will be monitoring the twice-a-decade meeting for any signs of the party's priorities when it comes to its zero-COVID policies. The protocols have been blamed for exacerbating mounting problems in China's economy, from stalled growth to a collapsing housing market. Tensions are even higher in China's capital, where photos posted online on Thursday appeared to show a rare public protest against President Xi. Demonstrators held signs saying, "Say no to COVID test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don't be a slave, be a citizen." Health workers, desperate to isolate recent outbreaks, have started to barricade buildings and cordon off single individuals in public spaces. Currently, there are an estimated 200 million people still in some form of lockdown in the country, the New York Times reported. Related Article: Kim Jong-un Warns Enemies: North Korea's Nuclear Force Is Ready for 'Actual War' @ 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. Are you a current print subscriber to Columbia Gorge News? If so, you qualify for free access to all content on columbiagorgenews.com. Simply verify with your subscriber id to receive free access. Your subscriber id may be found on your bill or mailing label. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. 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 The Kremlin-appointed head of the Kherson province is advising citizens to take their children and flee for Russia as Ukrainian forces close in on the southern city of Kherson, which Russian soldiers have controlled since the start of the battle. Vladimir Saldo requested that the Kremlin arrange for evacuations from four cities, including Kherson, on Thursday on Telegram, claiming that Ukrainian missile attacks are harming citizens and destroying structures. Russia to Evacuate Kherson Residents Saldo asserted that Kherson, one of the four Ukrainian districts Moscow claims to have annexed, is the target of retaliation by Kyiv since it allegedly supported joining Russia last month in elections that were universally acknowledged as fraud. Ukraine has insisted it does not intentionally target its own civilians, as per USA Today. One of the clearest indications yet that Moscow is losing control over the region it claims to have annexed is the Russian-installed governor of Ukraine's southern Kherson region's order to inhabitants to take their children and leave. Saldo officially requested Moscow's assistance in moving civilians to safer parts of Russia, and the Russian government has pledged to provide free lodging to any citizens who escape, according to Independent. Following a recent string of setbacks in Russia's war against Ukraine, the exodus of the Kherson people would be the most severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Successful Ukrainian counteroffensives have caused significant losses to Russian-held territory, people, and equipment in the districts of Kherson, Kharkiv, and Donbas. Notably, the inhabitants of Kherson would flee soon after Putin announced that Russia had annexed the region along with three others. It controls both the only land access point to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnipro, a river that bisects Ukraine over a distance of 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles). Both Ukraine and world leaders have declared the acts to be illegal. The people of the city won't be evacuated, according to Kirill Stremousov, the deputy mayor of Kherson who was placed by Russia. Governor Vladimir Saldo's plea to the leadership of the Russian Federation with a request to assist in organizing the departure of people of the Kherson region for a temporary stay and is not a call for evacuation to rest in other parts of the Russian Federation, the author said. However, Stremousov said that many civilian lives have already been lost as a result of suspected Ukrainian shelling in Kherson and advised locals to stay calm and not succumb to fear, News Week via MSN reported. Read Also: Joe Biden Reveals Plan with India as 'Major Defense Partner' in National Security Strategy Ukrainian Forces Advance in Kherson In their largest southward advance since the start of the war, Ukrainian soldiers have recently pierced through the front lines of Russia there. Since then, they have been moving forward quickly along the west bank intending to cut off the supply lines and potential escape routes of thousands of Russian troops. A flight of civilians would be an insult to Moscow's claim that it has annexed almost 15% of Ukraine's territory, as many of its best-trained soldiers have been sent to defend Kherson's west bank. The fact that supplies cannot cross the river, which is several kilometers wide and has few crossings, to reach the forces on the west bank, is a significant problem. In the past two weeks, Ukraine has reclaimed a large area of ground, and its soldiers are advancing toward the two-mile (three-kilometer) Nova Kakhovka dam, one of the final remaining river crossings. Following swift gains in the east since September, Ukraine made gains in the south this month, as per Daily Mail. Related Article: Russia-Ukraine War: Russian Drones Attack Critical Infrastructure in Kyiv, At Least 2 Killed @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. So you've got a Pixel any ol' Pixel. Or maybe even a relatively new Pixel. And you're thinking about getting Google's glowing new Pixel 7 phone or perhaps its Pixel 7 Pro sibling. It's tempting, I know. (We all love shiny stuff!) But is it actually worth your while to get the Pixel 7, or are you better off hanging onto your current Pixel for a while longer? Having lived with both the Google Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro for a full week now and coming from the perspective of someone who personally owns a Pixel 6, has owned plenty of Pixels before that, and has spent a significant amount of time with every single Pixel model lemme tell ya: There isn't a simple, one-size-fits-all answer. But there is some practical guidance I can give you based on my experiences with these latest Googley phones and my intimate knowledge of their assorted Pixel predecessors. And the most important variable to consider is which specific Pixel you're packin' in your suspiciously sticky palm. So think it through with me, won't ya? And whether you end up snagging the latest and greatest Pixel or stickin' with your current model, be sure to mosey your way over to my free Pixel Academy e-course next. It'll teach you all sorts of useful new stuff your phone can do for you, no matter which Pixel you end up possessing. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 6 We'll start with the most recent Pixels and specifically the smaller Pixel 6 the same sumptuous phone I've got in my oversized man-pocket this second. And this one's a somewhat two-pronged answer: First, your Pixel 6 is still perfectly peachy and set to get Android updates for another solid two years. You've got no particularly pressing reason to make the leap to the Pixel 7, and you'd certainly be fine to stick with your current phone for another year or two. That being said, as someone with the Pixel 6, there's a decent chance you're a tech addict and the type of person who simply likes having the best available product. So if you're looking for a reason to upgrade, I'll give you a few (with advance apologies to your wallet): Face Unlock: The Pixel 7 brings it back from the dead, and while it's undeniably imperfect the system's hit and miss in dim lighting, and because it works through the standard camera and without any specialized hardware, it isn't as secure as a fingerprint and can't be used for any in-app authentication it's still a nice added convenience, and you'll almost certainly appreciate its presence. The Pixel 7 brings it back from the dead, and while it's undeniably imperfect the system's hit and miss in dim lighting, and because it works through the standard camera and without any specialized hardware, it isn't as secure as a fingerprint and can't be used for any in-app authentication it's still a nice added convenience, and you'll almost certainly appreciate its presence. Fingerprint speed: Speaking of authentication, the Pixel 7 series moves to a new fingerprint sensor that's noticeably snappier and more consistent than what the Pixel 6 gives you. It still isn't at the level of the old rear-facing sensors of Pixels yore, but as far as these in-display versions go, it's about as good as it gets. Speaking of authentication, the Pixel 7 series moves to a new fingerprint sensor that's noticeably snappier and more consistent than what the Pixel 6 gives you. It still isn't at the level of the old rear-facing sensors of Pixels yore, but as far as these in-display versions go, it's about as good as it gets. Size: If you're someone who prefers a smaller phone, the Pixel 7 is a nib smaller than the Pixel 6 with a slightly narrower screen and a noticeably more svelte torso. JR The Google Pixel 7 (left) next to the Pixel 6 (right) Given that shrinkage, the upgrade I'd actually suggest contemplating is a step up to the larger land of the Pixel 7 Pro which is what I'm seriously chewing over myself. The Pro phone doesn't feel that overwhelmingly big after a year with the regular Pixel 6, and going Pro gives you the advantage of a bunch of enticing new camera capabilities like the Pixel 7 Pro's wildly impressive long-distance zooming capabilities and its new super-up-close macro photography prowess. JR A macro shot taken with the Pixel 7 Pro camera. (Click to enlarge.) The Pixel 7 Pro also has a substantially less curved screen than the 6 Pro before it, which largely addresses my complaints with that earlier model. The curve on this year's phone is quite subtle and more reminiscent of the slight edge sloping we saw way back with the Nexus 4 than the extreme and experience-harming slant in last year's model. Last but not least, there's the moolah factor to mull over: The Pixel 7 starts at 600 bucks, while the Pixel 7 Pro costs a cool $900. But: If your Pixel 6 is in good condition, Google will give you $440 for it as part of a trade-in. Best Buy will up that number to $470 in the US. (It probably goes without saying, but this stuff is bound to vary in other locales.) Either store will also throw in a $100 store credit if you buy a Pixel 7 and a $200 credit if you buy a Pixel 7 Pro in the US. With both of those factors combined and assuming you have something worthwhile to spend the credit on in the months ahead you'd effectively be getting $540 to $570 off the cost of a Pixel 7 or $640 to $670 off the cost of a Pixel 7 Pro. So with that in mind, a new Pixel 7 would actually only cost you 30 to 60 bucks if you're trading in your Pixel 6, while a Pixel 7 Pro would run you roughly $230 to $260. The regular Pixel 7 upgrade almost seems like a no-brainer in that scenario I mean, really, why not?! while the Pixel 7 Pro ventures into "hell of a deal" and "easy to justify if you're already feeling the urge, anyway" terrain. The verdict, in short: If you're itchin' for something new and you're the sort of person who geeks out over the finer points of mobile technology (hiya!), you'll be thrilled with the Pixel 7 upgrade coming from a regular Pixel 6. The most significant change will come with moving from the regular Pixel 6 to the Pixel 7 Pro. That being said, you certainly don't need it, and the purely sensible advice would be to hang onto your current phone for a while longer (though the trade-in possibility can give you some extra excuses if you really want to talk yourself into it). Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 6 Pro For anyone palming the plus-sized Pixel 6 Pro, the same exact advice we just went over also applies to you with a few key exceptions: First, the size factor isn't a relevant factor for you, unless you're wanting to bump down to something smaller with the regular Pixel 7 model. Second, the camera upgrades from the Pixel 6 Pro to the Pixel 7 Pro won't be quite as substantial, since you've already got that zesty zooming goodness. The zooming quality does get a bit better with the 7 Pro, though, and you also gain the new macro photography magic along with a smattering of other interesting new modes and options. And third, your trade-in value for a good condition Pixel 6 Pro in the US jumps up to $480 from Google or $500 from Best Buy along with that $100 store credit toward a Pixel 7 or $200 credit for a Pixel 7 Pro. That means you'd effectively be paying a mere 20 bucks for a regular Pixel 7 from Google or basically getting the phone free from Best Buy, provided your 6 Pro is in reasonable condition. If you go the Pixel 7 Pro route, you'd bring the phone's price down to $220 from Google or $200 from Best Buy. Not too shabby. The verdict, in short: Like our regular Pixel 6 pals, you definitely don't need to make this upgrade. But if you want to, it'll be a nice little improvement for you albeit a much more subtle one than folks will see going from the regular Pixel 6 to the Pixel 7 Pro. And if you find yourself craving Google's latest and greatest, the trade-in value and current store credit promotion can make it pretty easy to rationalize. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 6a Got Google's most recent midrange Pixel model? Moving to the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would absolutely be an improvement for you, but that's in large part because you're moving from a more budget-minded proposition into premium flagship terrain. That means you'll get a fancier-feeling phone body (for whatever that's worth to you), along with lots of extra bells and whistles and niceties including all the new camera goodies we just went over. The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are also in a completely different league when it comes to processing power, which can make the phone feel a fair bit snappier. That being said, the Pixel 6a is certainly no slouch with performance for most average-mammal needs, and you may or may not notice any obvious difference in your day-to-day use (especially if you aren't doing a ton of multitasking and other high-resource-requiring work). The biggest question to ask yourself is why you went with the Pixel 6a in the first place. If it's because of the price and value, then moving up to the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro probably isn't an advisable move. Your 6a still has a solid few years of active software support under its belt, and nothing about the upgrade is gonna dramatically revolutionize your core user experience or what your phone's capable of doing outside of photography, at least, but even there, we're talking more niceties and added abilities as opposed to core competency. The verdict, in short: If you're jonesing for a more premium Pixel experience, you'll be delighted by the move to a Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro but that's mostly because you're hopping from one product tier to another. For most people who bought the 6a in the first place, sticking with that phone for another year or two will make more sense. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 5 The Pixel 5 is an unusual Pixel in that it's the one flagship-level Google phone that was more of a value play than a high-end, premium-feeling product. With that in mind, the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would be a substantial upgrade for you, all around, and a meaningful leap forward. But your current phone is also still perfectly fine. It'll get Android updates through October 2023. So this one really comes down to a matter of want over need. If you want it, it's well worthwhile, and you'll certainly see enough of a difference to justify the change. But you definitely don't need it, and if you aren't feeling the urge to get something new, there's really no reason not to stick with what you've got. The verdict, in short: The Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would be a nice upgrade for you but by no means a necessary one. Ask yourself how much you truly want one of the devices and how much you can stomach the cost for what's without a doubt an inessential purchase. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 5a The story with the Pixel 5a is honestly pretty similar to what we just said with the Pixel 5 especially since the Pixel 5 was more of a midrange model. The Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would be a significant upgrade from the 5a in every possible measure, and you'd absolutely notice the difference. But your current phone is still fine, and the 5a is set to be supported with Android software updates all the way through August 2024. Just like with the Pixel 6a, the real question here is how badly you want to move to a more premium, high-end phone experience and how much you're willing to spend to get it. The verdict, in short: For most 5a owners, there's no pressing reason to upgrade though going from that phone to the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would absolutely be a massive and immediately noticeable improvement, if you simply wanted to give yourself the added niceties of the more premium Pixel path. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 4 As a former Pixel 4 owner myself, I've got a soft spot in my heart for Google's more experimental Pixel model. Despite the bad rap it got early on, the Pixel 4's Soli radar system genuinely did make the Pixel 4 more useful even if it only reached a tiny fraction of its potential before Google annoyingly gave up on the concept. Soli was also one part of what made the Pixel 4's Face Unlock system so effective in practice: The radar would detect when you were picking up your phone and moving it closer to your face, then the Pixel 4's special infrared camera would kick in and quickly recognize your face to let you in no matter what sort of lighting was involved. The result was near-instant activation and authentication whenever you grabbed your device, which was a pretty incredible advantage to have. That kind of convenience was tough to leave behind with the subsequent Pixel models, but the Pixel 7 series brings Face Unlock back into the equation albeit in a less advanced manner, given the loss of Soli and the infrared camera. Still, it softens the blow considerably and makes the move away from the Pixel 4 much more palatable to anyone still hanging onto that phone. Just know that that specific part of the experience won't be quite as good as what you've got now. Even so, the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro are probably worth your while to buy. For all its positives, the Pixel 4 is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point. And it's no longer actively receiving operating system updates or security patches as of this month (though Google may end up being gracious and giving you a couple more patches before officially pulling the plug). Hanging onto a phone that's not rockin' current software is never a fully advisable move. If you really want to keep your Pixel 4 a while longer, you could get away it for another handful of months. But the Pixel 7 or 7 Pro will be a major leap forward for you, and from almost every possible perspective, it's an upgrade worth making. The verdict, in short: You should think carefully about getting the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro. It's time and the return of Face Unlock in some form will make this the first Pixel upgrade that won't require a total compromise in that department. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 4a The Pixel 4a is slightly newer than its standard 4 cousin, which means it's scheduled to receive software support through August 2023. With that in mind, you could easily get away with keeping it for another year yet and then thinking about an upgrade next fall. And since you're on the midrange path now, you may well want to stick with that same route and think about the next Pixel "a" phone instead of taking the full-price, flagship-phone road. Now, that being said, if you're simply tempted to get the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro, either device would represent a monumental improvement for you in practically every measure. You will notice the difference in your day-to-day use, and it'll be a very nice upgrade. But there's also no reason you can't make the most of your current phone and wait another year to make a change whether you end up shifting over to the premium Pixel path or sticking with the still-perfectly-pleasant and arguably more sensible Pixel "a"-line option. The verdict, in short: The Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro would be quite the upgrade, but your 4a's got a little more life in it yet. Unless you're just ready for something new and wanting to move to a more premium Pixel experience, there's really no reason not to wait a little longer. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 3 This one's easy: If you've got the Pixel 3, get the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro. Your phone's been out of date since early this year, which means you didn't get Android 13, haven't gotten security patches in several months, and won't get any other major software updates moving forward. That aside, Google's Pixel hardware has come an insanely long way over the past four years. You'll be blown away by what the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro will be like to use and how impressive of an experience either device will give you. Plain and simple, it's time. (And the same advice applies to the Pixel 3XL, by the way, which is basically just a bigger version of the same third-generation device.) The verdict, in short: The Pixel 3 is past its prime and past the point of advisable ownership. If the new Pixels are too pricey for your preference, you could certainly save some money and get the Pixel 6a instead. But one way or another, you need a new phone. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 3a Same deal as above: Coming from the midrange "a" path, you might prefer the Pixel 6a, if cost is a concern or you just don't particularly care about the premium phone perks (physical form, camera extras, extra under-the-hood oomph, and all that fun stuff). But getting a new Pixel of some sort is 100% the advisable thing to do. The verdict, in short: Get the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro if you want the best possible Pixel experience, or consider the Pixel 6a if you want to stay on the still-exceptional midrange Pixel path. Google Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 2 and Pixel 1 This last combined category might be the easiest answer of all: If you're still clinging to the Pixel 2 or the first-gen Pixel 1 model, for Goog's sake, get yourself a new phone. The Pixel 2 and its XL companion are still on 2020's Android 11 software and haven't received a security update in nearly two years. That aside, the phones themselves are now five years old. And lemme tell ya: We've come a loooong way since their launch. I've still got my Pixel 2 in my desk drawer. It's bordering on painful to use at this point compared to the current Pixel standard. And that's even more true for the first-gen Pixel I've got nearby as well. Much as I adore it, that phone is now six years old, stuck on 2019's Android 10 version of the operating system, and three years out of date on security patches. In any of these scenarios, moving to a Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro will completely blow your mind in terms of how far Google's hardware and software have come and how pleasant and advanced of an experience you'll encounter. But beyond that, they'll also give you an optimally secure and privacy-protecting setup with a level of performance that's in a totally different league from what you've got now. The verdict, in short: It's well past time for you to upgrade to a more current device, and the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are the perfect opportunities to make that move happen. Don't let yourself miss an ounce of Pixel magic. Sign up for my free Pixel Academy e-course to discover tons of hidden features and time-saving tricks for whatever Pixel you're using! As committee members, guests, and media viewed never-before-seen footage of congressional leaders frantically calling for assistance behind the scenes as an enraged, armed mob destroyed windows and invaded the Capitol on January 6, the hearing room turned silent and still. According to video of witnesses who testified before the panel earlier this year, Democrats were seen in videos taken by documentarian Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pleading practically with federal officials for assistance as former President Donald Trump watched the violence play out on television. Nancy Pelosi on January 6 Capitol Riot According to USA Today, congressmen also spoke with the governors of Maryland and Virginia as well as Jeff Rosen, the interim attorney general. On that specific day, the Democratic leader in the House was first hesitant about recognizing Joe Biden's victory. Pelosi's remarks changed as the situation outside the Capitol and inside its halls worsened. Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, as well as Senators John Thune and Mitch McConnell, appeared with Democrats in the video. Together, they made a call to the Defense department and requested the deployment of troops to the Capitol. Meanwhile, video that CNN got from Pelosi's daughter depicts the Speaker of the House becoming enraged at Trump's address encouraging his supporters to protest the certification of the 2020 presidential election by marching to the Capitol. When Pelosi learns that the Secret Service warned Trump not to visit Capitol Hill, an aide informs her that she threatened to punch the former president if he disregarded the advice. Per Daily Mail, Pelosi added, "If he comes, I'm going to punch him out," while maintaining her composure. " I've been awaiting this. I'm going to punch him out for entering the Capitol grounds without permission. And I'm going to jail, and I'm going to be happy," the speaker added. The January 6 committee publicly aired portions of the video that CNN presented. However, the complete, uncut video depicts the total chaos that prevailed during the notorious incident that left five people dead as politicians took refuge in Fort McNair. The majority of the video follows Pelosi's activities on January 6, including a phone call she placed to Mike Pence, who was then vice president, inquiring about his physical safety in the wake of threats to "Hang Mike Pence." Pelosi advises Pence to remain safe and hidden from the rioters as she talks about pushing through with Joe Biden's certification. Read Also: Joe Biden's Comments on Son Hunter's Gun Case Could Help Put Him in Jail; First Son May Not Face Charges Before Midterm Elections Video Reveals Phone Call Between Pelosi And Schumer The video also reveals a phone conversation between Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy in response to speculations that the National Guard wouldn't be summoned to quell the riot. The new video supports the earlier compilations shown on Thursday, in which Pelosi was seen pleading with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam via phone for the backing of the National Guard. The tense hours during which lawmakers hid in secret places as police battled the crowd were seen on camera for the first time. In another segment of the footage, Pelosi and Schumer can be seen asking Jeff Rosen, Trump's acting attorney general, for assistance. The recordings portray a vivid picture of the politicians' anxiety and uncertainty as well as their drive to resolve the problem, even though it does not much differ from earlier narratives and descriptions of those hours. At the conclusion of the session, when the panel unanimously voted 9-0 to summon Trump to testify under oath and turn over records pertaining to the Capitol incident, additional, horrifying video emerged. New proof that Trump received drafts of a speech claiming victory on October 31 - four days before the general election on November 3, 2020 - was also supplied by the seven Democrats and two Republicans. As evidence that Trump was going to declare victory even if he was losing and as evidence that he was aware of his defeat but persisted in his accusations of electoral fraud, they also released recent videos and testimony. Related Article: Jan. 6 Hearings: Donald Trump Plans to Talk About 'Corrupt' Election, Nancy Pelosi's Big Mistake Before US Capitol Attack @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Elon Musk reportedly claims that his company Space X can no longer sustain the operation of its Starlink satellite internet terminals that have been an essential means of communication for the Ukrainian troops in the Russia-Ukraine war. Tech mogul Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that the operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will likely exceed $100 million by the end of the year in regards to the donation of about 20,000 Starlink satellite systems to Ukraine. But SpaceX just told the Pentagon that it might stop sustaining the internet operation in Ukraine if the US military doesn't pay "tens of millions of dollars" every month. In a letter to the Pentagon last month, Elon Musk's SpaceX explained why it could no longer provide the current level of funding for the Starlink service, according to documents acquired by CNN. The letter also asked for the Pentagon to pay for the Ukrainian government and military to use Starlink Satellite Ukraine. According to SpaceX, this would cost more than $120 million for the rest of this year and up to $400 million for the next 12 months. Pentagon Needs To Pay Huge Amounts In September, the director of government sales at SpaceX wrote to the Pentagon, saying that the company is not in a position to provide more terminals to Ukraine "or pay for the ones they already have for an indefinite amount of time." CNN obtained some of the documents sent by SpaceX to the Pentagon, and among them was a request from the Ukrainian military's commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for over 8,000 additional Starlink terminals, sent directly to Musk in July. These previously unreported documents reveal a unique breakdown of SpaceX's internal data on Starlink, including the expenses and payments related to the hundreds of terminals in Ukraine. They also offer new light on covert discussions that gave Ukraine communications equipment and services worth millions of dollars at little expense to Kyiv for the Russia-Ukraine war. Read Also: China Refuses To Ditch Zero-COVID Policies Despite Rising Frustration Among Population Elon Musk earned praises for providing Starlink Satellite Ukraine, however, the SpaceX letter discloses that the bulk was paid for by the US government, the UK, and Poland, per Politico. Poland gave the largest funding for the roughly 9,000 terminals supplied to Ukraine, per the documents. Each terminal costs $1,500-$2,500. According to SpaceX, while it paid for the remaining, more expensive, 70% of the cost of internet connectivity, the government only funded one-third of that expense. Starlink Outage Problem The letters are timely, since the Ukrainian military has been trying to recapture territory in the east and south of the nation from Russian forces, and there have been reports of widespread Starlink disruptions. People who knew about the outages say they happened out of the blue on September 30 and affected the whole frontline. A person familiar with the disruptions told CNN on condition of anonymity that it hindered Ukrainian efforts to advance as Starlink serves as the primary means of communication between military units. The Financial Times recently reported that a senior Ukrainian official claimed that Starlink has been experiencing "catastrophic" outages on the front lines, leading some to speculate that it has been cut off in areas controlled by Russia, possibly to prevent the Kremlin from manipulating the system. On Twitter, Musk stated he could not remark on the situation on the battlefield, saying, "That's classified." Bremmer, founder and head of political-risk analysis company Eurasia Group said on Monday that Musk appeared to confirm that the satellite service was being purposely discontinued in a conversation they had in late September, according to Business Insider. Despite repeated attempts to reach them, neither SpaceX nor the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has yet provided a statement. Related Article: Crimea Bridge Blast: Russia Arrests Suspects Over Shocking Explosion | Here's What Happened @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. STORY LINK Pound Euro Exchange Rate News: GBP/EUR Slumps amid UK Political Drama GBP/EUR Exchange Rate Falls amid UK Political Jitters Pound (GBP) Drops amid Trusss Lacklustre Address Euro (EUR) Mixed as the Ukraine-Russia Conflict Continues to Escalate GBP/EUR Exchange Rate Forecast: Mini Budget to Drive GBP? Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: The Pound to Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate tumbled on Friday amid UK political uncertainty.At time of writing the GBP/EUR exchange rate traded at around 1.1485, which was down roughly 0.7% from Fridays opening levels.The Pound (GBP) was meet by notable selling pressure on Friday following some UK political drama.This saw Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng forced to fall on his sword for delivering the much-criticism mini-budget.The announcement he would be replaced by Jeremy Hunt temporarily capped Sterlings losses.Speaking about Hunt on Friday Truss said:He shares my convictions and ambitions for our country. He will deliver the medium-term fiscal plan at the end of this month. He will see through the support we are providing to help families and businesses, including our energy price guarantee.However, this did little to soothe investors and Sterlings selloff resumed following a press conference by Prime Minister Liz Truss.While the PM announced a U-turn on her plans to freeze corporation tax at 19%, she maintained that her desire to push for growth. Although she admitted she may have miscalculated with the mini-budget.Truss said:We went further and faster than markets were expecting I want to be honest, this will be difficult we owe it to the next generation to improve economic growth.At the end of the poorly received speech reporters asked whether Truss felt she had the right to remain prime minister after she fired Kwasi Kwarteng earlier in the day for delivering the mini budget.Concerns over Trusss credibility and the future of her premiership likely contributed to the Sterling selling bias on Friday.The Euro (EUR) was trading in a broad range on Friday as Russia announced it would evacuate residents from Kherson after an appeal from the Russian-installed head of the region.This move, along with continued missile strikes stoked fears that Kherson could potentially become the conflicts new frontline. Valdimir Putin also threatened to close humanitarian corridors within Ukraine to stop them from being used in acts of terror.A Kherson council member told Reuters that:This evacuation announced by Saldo is an evacuation for collaborators and traitors in the region... they want to take these collaborators to Russia.EUR investors were wary as they fear the loss of Kherson could push Putin to respond with another escalation of the conflict.Looking ahead the Pound Euro exchange rate will likely remain sensitive to fiscal and political developments in the UK.Questions over Liz Trusss premiership could drag on Sterling in the coming days as rumours swirl that she could be ousted by senior Conservatives.Elsewhere a lack of data means the Euro will be subject to news about the war in Ukraine as investors consider the geopolitical impact of the escalating conflict. International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements. TAGS: Pound Euro Forecasts A reaction over a controversial diamond in her late mother-in-law's beautiful diadem, which is reserved only for use by British queens, may cause the Queen Consort to forego wearing it for the coronation next year. Although the renowned silver, gold, diamond, and pearl piece was created for George IV in 1820, only female family members have ever worn it. Queen Elizabeth II's Controversial Crown The costly item has 2,800 diamonds in total, with the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, resting on the front cross. The enormous diamond reportedly came from India and was given to Queen Victoria by the country's last Sikh emperor, who was just 10 years old at the time. The diamond's gifting, however, is contested, and there are requests to have the gem returned in at least three nations, including India. Following a statement by India's ruling party that wearing the diamond would bring back "sad memories of the colonial past," speculation over the crown the Queen Consort will don next year came to a screeching halt. The Times reports that it is now believed Camilla Parker Bowles will likely decide not to wear the crown and that Buckingham Palace will choose a less expensive alternative rather than commissioning a new crown. Read Also: Queen Releases Forgotten Track Recorded with Freddie Mercury: Listen to the Song Here King Charles III, Queen Consort Camilla Coronation Although palace officials maintain that no decision has been taken, it was previously reported that King Charles III wanted his wife to wear the controversial crown as a tribute to his late mother. After Buckingham Palace declared that the date of the King and Queen's coronation will be May 6, 2023, the issue around the diamond erupted. According to a source close to the palace, "I would have expected they would err on the side of keeping India happy." The Koh-i-Noor diamond may be taken out of the crown and replaced with another gem, but some people worry that doing so would cast doubt on the diamond's status as a legitimate gift. According to current reports, the palace is actively examining other ideas that date back as long as 200 years. A little-known crown that Queen Adelaide wore in 1831 is one of the possibilities, according to The Telegraph. The crown, which is a piece of the Royal Collection, was taken down from the Tower of London's display earlier this year. The Diamond Diadem is another crown, which has been worn by the King and Queen Consort since Adelaide but has never been used at a coronation. The King George IV Diamond Diadem, in the opinion of many people who are passionate about royal regalia, would be the ideal choice. It is composed of a slender band trimmed with pearls and a striking openwork frame set with 1,333 diamonds. It is made of silver and has a gold interior. It features four unique "crosses-pattees"-the front cross is set with a four-carat light yellow brilliant diamond-as well as four sprays of roses, shamrocks, and thistles, the national symbols of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The carefully crafted diamond sprays and crosses have not been disturbed, which is unusual because the stones would typically have been returned to Rundells following the coronation. Since then, the Diamond Diadem has been a common item for queens regnant and their consorts. A "huge diplomatic grenade," according to William Dalrymple, co-author of 'Koh-i-Noor: The History Of The World's Most Famous Diamond.' Although the Imperial State Crown was used in the official ceremony, the late Queen loved the controversial crown so much that she wore it on the way to her own coronation in 1953. She wore it while traveling to every state opening of parliament starting in 1952. She confirmed that the Imperial State Crown was extremely heavy for her as a woman far into her 90s in 2019, therefore she ultimately decided to wear it for the duration of the event. In an exclusive report published yesterday, The Daily Mail stated that Buckingham Palace is secretly reconsidering its initial decision to use the Queen Mother's coronation crown when Camilla Parker Bowles and her husband are crowned together in May due to political sensitivities. Related Article: King Charles III Coronation Date: When Will He Officially Become King? @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. World's space tourism pioneer Dennis Tito will return to space aboard SpaceX's Starship, according to CNET. The 82-year-old American businessman and his wife, Akiko, are set to launch on the spacecraft's second commercial flight around the moon after buying two seats on a SpaceX mission. Tito and his wife will fly to the moon and back on what was said to be a week-long mission. Tito Bought Two Seats Aboard Starship In 2001, Tito became famous as the first private space tourist to visit the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russia's Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft. "Dennis Tito was world's first commercial astronaut to visit the International Space Station. He will now be among the first to fly on Starship," SpaceX announced on October 12. A tweet from SpaceX official Twitter account said that Tito and his wife are the first crew members announced by the company to be part of Starship's second commercial spaceflight around the moon. "The Titos joined the mission to contribute to SpaceX's long-term goal to advance human spaceflight and help make life multiplanetary," SpaceX said a statement. Tito said during a press conference on Wednesday that since his first trip to space, he had always wanted to go to the moon. Meanwhile, Tito's wife, Akiko, who is currently 57-year-old, is a real estate investor and pilot. She married Tito in 2020. The two of them are expected to be the first married couple to take a voyage around the moon. Tito and his wife only purchased two seats of the flight, which means the space trip to the moon remains open for another 10 passengers. There are two private Starship flights previously announced. The first one was bought by billionaire Jared Isaacman, while the second one was purchased by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, according to CNBC. Meanwhile, there are no information regarding the costs of the seats as Tito refused to comment regarding it. Read Also: Japan's Sky Perfect JSAT Enlists SpaceX's Starship to Launch Superbird-9 in 2024 Tito is Still Waiting for Starship's Launch Date While there is no launch date yet for the Titos' flight to the moon, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced last month that Starship will launch for the first time in late October or November. The Titos are expected to have a weeklong journey aboard Starship flying within 124 miles (200 km) of the moon's surface. "This mission is really groundbreaking in that it puts us on a very firm step towards airline-like operations, where now, for the first time, you can buy an individual seat to the moon," said Aarti Matthews, SpaceX's director of Starship crew and cargo programs. According to Tito, he understands that his trip around the moon will have to take some time. He added that perhaps Starship will already have hundreds of flights before he and his wife could have theirs. However, he remains enthusiastic for SpaceX long term goals. In 2023, we can expect that the first commercial flight around the moon will finally happen. It will be the one financed by Maezawa. The Japanese billionaire and a crew of eight artists and entertainers are set fly into space aboard Starship. Related Article: SpaceX's Crew-5 Launch is Delayed to Next Month Due to Hurricane Ian Number of traders net-short has decreased by 4.09% from last week. SYMBOL TRADING BIAS NET-LONG% NET-SHORT% CHANGE IN LONGS CHANGE IN SHORTS CHANGE IN OI Germany 40 BULLISH 49.69% 50.31% -23.23% Daily -13.75% Weekly 22.95% Daily -4.09% Weekly -5.34% Daily -9.15% Weekly Germany 40: Retail trader data shows 49.69% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.01 to 1. In fact, traders have remained net-short since Oct 06 when Germany 40 traded near 12,405.60, price has moved 0.38% higher since then. The number of traders net-long is 23.23% lower than yesterday and 13.75% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 22.95% higher than yesterday and 4.09% lower from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests Germany 40 prices may continue to rise. Our data shows traders are now net-short Germany 40 for the first time since Oct 06, 2022 11:00 GMT when Germany 40 traded near 12,405.60. Traders are further net-short than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger Germany 40-bullish contrarian trading bias. Number of traders net-short has increased by 8.78% from last week. SYMBOL TRADING BIAS NET-LONG% NET-SHORT% CHANGE IN LONGS CHANGE IN SHORTS CHANGE IN OI France 40 BULLISH 49.86% 50.14% -25.87% Daily -10.17% Weekly 33.92% Daily 8.78% Weekly -4.49% Daily -1.57% Weekly France 40: Retail trader data shows 49.86% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.01 to 1. In fact, traders have remained net-short since Oct 06 when France 40 traded near 5,908.00, price has moved 0.84% higher since then. The number of traders net-long is 25.87% lower than yesterday and 10.17% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 33.92% higher than yesterday and 8.78% higher from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests France 40 prices may continue to rise. Our data shows traders are now net-short France 40 for the first time since Oct 06, 2022 12:00 GMT when France 40 traded near 5,908.00. Traders are further net-short than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger France 40-bullish contrarian trading bias. Microsoft is implementing a major overhaul in its Office branding after more than 30 years. Because of the increasing number of productivity apps of the software giant, Microsoft Office will be renamed "Microsoft 365," as per The Verge. This should not make you worry as useful Office apps such as Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint will stay. But instead of being called Microsoft Office, they will now be part of Microsoft 365. Microsoft Will be Putting a Microsoft 365 App on Mobile and Desktop "In the coming months, Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows will become the Microsoft 365 app, with a new icon, a new look, and even more features," according to a Microsoft FAQ. In the past years, the software giant has been opting for this major brand overhaul. In fact, two years ago, it renamed Office 365 to Microsoft 365. While at present, the Microsoft's Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other apps online can be accessed at Office.com, soon you'll have to use Mircrosoft365.com. We'll also say goodbye to the current square logo and welcome the new six-sided one. We can expect the changes to take effect next month. Meanwhile, the rebranding for the Office app for Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android will still happen in January 2023. Microsoft will retain the names Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, Clipchamp, Stream and Designer. The company will be putting a Microsoft 365 app on mobile and desktop. The said app will work as "a centralized hub for information, showing meetings, files, documents and more," according to Engadget. But even with the brand overhaul, the Microsoft Office brand will remain for a while. You can still make one-time purchases of Microsoft' Office bundle apps via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans. Since Microsoft Office is now a "legacy brand" for Microsoft, the new features will directly arrive to Microsoft 365 and no longer to Microsoft Office. Read Also: Microsoft Has Disclosed The Reason by the Microsoft 365 Outage Worldwide Microsoft 365 Aims to Create a Better Experience for Users "Over the last couple years, Microsoft 365 has evolved into our flagship productivity suite, so we are creating an experience to help you get the most out of Microsoft 365," says a Microsoft's FAQ In 2020, when Office 365's name was changed to Microsoft 365, Microsoft said that the name change was made because customers are having a hard time deciding which SKU is right for them. As the company adopted a new name, they are also shifting focus on how their services deliver value to their customers. But even with the change in name, Office remains at the heart of Microsoft 365 apps. However, Microsoft 365 helps convey the larger value while keeping Office central to the experience. Office has changed over the years, and aside from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, other apps, capabilities, connection to the Microsoft 365 cloud, and a user-based licensing approach are also part of it. Even when Microsoft changed Office 365's name, the software giant did not change the prices and features of the product. Related Article: The Microsoft 365 Version 2206 Update Has Been Pulled - But Why? Growing up famous is never a walk in the park, and European royals are taking steps to prepare their children for the limelight that comes with the crown in what could be a blueprint for the Prince and Princess of Wales, royal experts have said. With Prince George, nine, becoming second-in-line for the throne last month, Prince William and Kate Middleton might be tempted to look at how other royal families are raising their children and preparing them for life as royals. Queen Letizia of Spain, 50, has been taking her teenage daughters with her on royal engagements in order to guide them as they make their first steps as royals, and was seen with her youngest daughter, Princess Sofia, 15, in Madrid earlier this week. Meanwhile, Princess Estelle of Sweden, 10, the daughter of Crown Princess Victoria, was front and centre of the Dutch royal visit this week, and was seen warmly hugging her godfather, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. Speaking to FEMAIL, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams asked whether formal public appearances will so become routine for George and his younger siblings, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four. Growing up famous is never a walk in the park, and European royals are taking steps to accustom their children to the limelight that comes with the crown, in what could be a blueprint for the Prince and Princess of Wales. Pictured: Princess Estelle of Sweden, 10, welcomed the Dutch Royals with her parents and grandparents on Tuesday Queen Letizia of Spain, 50, took her youngest daughter, Infanta Sofia, 15, to the National Day Military Parade in Madrid 'The way the public follow the young royals is obviously through public appearances. 'Clearly their privacy must always take priority and William and Catherine have been careful to limit when we see them, when there is always worldwide interest. 'When they do appear, they can steal the show, as Louis did during the Queens Platinum Jubilee. The important issue here is how this is handled,' he added. The commentator went on to say that putting his family first has always been paramount for Prince William. 'William has always put his family first and gave them space, first in Anglesey, then Anmer Hall and now at Adelaide Cottage on Windsor Estate where all three of their children go to the same school and they get privacy they did not have when based at Kensington Palace,' he added. The Prince and Princess of Wales walking their three children to school. From left to right, Prince George, nine, Prince Louis, four, and Princess Charlotte, seven Richard also touched on the controversial decision of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark to remove the princely titles of her second son's children earlier this month. It was recently announced that the children of Prince Joachim, who currently lives in France, Felix, Nikolai, Athena and Henrik, won't be called 'Prince and Princess,' but will instead be Counts and Countesses. The royal expert said: 'Queen Margrethes ill-timed removal of the titles of the children of her second son Joachim, following a similar action by King Carl Gustav in Sweden in 2019, has been a rare moment of public disharmony. However, the commentator asked whether Sweden is setting the pace for the future with Princess Estelle, who welcomed the Dutch royals to Stockholm with her parents and grandparents this week. Prince George and Princess Charlotte showed they were very mature when they attended Queen Elizabeth II's funeral on September 19 He added that we might see more of George and Charlotte in upcoming years as they take on more engagements. 'Is it possible that George might do likewise in a few years? I suspect not for quite a while but who knows,' he said. 'After all, George once entertained President Obama in his bathrobe when almost three and made a friend for life,' he added. 'Copies of the bathrobe sold out too showing his pull as a fashion icon when very young!' When it comes to Princess Charlotte, the only daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the way Letizia of Spain is raising her youngest daughter, Sofia, 15, might be a good example to follow. Sofia stood to the right of her father King Felipe VI. She made quite a splash in her Carolinq Herrera dress Princess Estelle of Sweden stole the show when she met with her godfather King Willem-Alexander ands Queen Maxima on Tuesday. Her father Prince Daniel gave her a sweet hug Princess Leonor, 16, and Sofia, 15, are used to camera and are regularly photographed during their summer outings with their parents (pictured in Mallorca in August) 'Infanta Sofia appeared on the Spanish National Day with her parents and made quite a splash wearing a Carolina Herrera dress,' he said. But the expert tempered that it might a few years before Charlotte is out in this capacity, because 'she is much younger.' Meanwhile, Nigel Cawthorne, author of Prince Andrew, Maxwell, Epstein and the Palace, suggested that the Prince and Princess of Wales might be tempted to follow the example of Princess Diana. 'It was Williams mother Diana who revolutionised the way children in the British royal family would be treated,' he said. 'As Princess of Wales, she did away with the army of servants, nannies who had raised Charles in a bubble away from his parents and treated her boys like any family in Britain would,' he added. 'Without a doubt, the best approach for Kate and William is to think: "what would Diana do?"' Prince Louis is too young to take part in most royal engagements, but stole the show at the Queen's Jubilee celebrations in June Princess Estelle and her brother Oscar of Sweden, six, are photographed to mark special occasions, including the festivities for the Crown Princess her 45th birthday at Solliden Palace in Oland, Leonor and Sofia have grown up in the public eye and have appeared in an official capacity from a young age Decorated cakes are usually something to look forward too - typically at a birthday or special occasion. But whether they are made by a professional baker or a loving friend or family member, sometimes they can go more than wrong. In a hilarious online gallery, Bored Panda reveals some of the most epic cake fails from across the world - often contrasting them with what they should look like. From a monstrous unicorn cake, to a cuddly Mogwai that looks more like a Gremlin, here are some of the best. She is an inspiration to many around the world, yet in cake form New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is not quite so appealing Any guesses who this is meant to be? One Reddit user, from the US, shared this shocking Danny DeVito cake We all know what baby Yoda is supposed to look like, yet something clearly got lost in translation. This Yoda, created by a US baker, doesn't look good. Maybe a nap he needs This ice-cream cake ordered for Valentines Day was supposed to say 'I Love You' but some of the letters fell off during transit. Maybe this is an endearment rapper style. This cake was ordered for an American graduation - and was meant to have a 'cap' on. But presumably the baker misheard and iced a cat on her head instead Die: Someone posted a photo of this slice of cake, joking that it had just been served to them by their mother in law The baker was meant to make a flaming campfire for her friend, but the more she looked at it the more it resembled a flaming pile of poo This cake looks more like a Gremlin than Gizmo, the cute Mogwai gremlin that it was meant to be for a 16th birthday A 3D Pikachu cake was always going to be ambitious - but this one looks very sad and deflated indeed This cake for a one-year-old was meant to show a bright-eyed and enthusiastic astronaut. Instead it featured this more terrified looking one It's not clear why this delicately drawn Mr Man is seeping apparent blood all over the base of the cake Belle from Beauty and the Beast is clearly a beautiful character - but not so much when she's in cake form Every wedding needs a cake: But this bride and groom (on the right) don't look so happy to be getting married When the person was asked by the baker what they wanted written on top of their cake, they said... nothing A new drama coming to ITV and Amazon Prime later this year has been dubbed 'the new Succession' as it follows a web of deception at the top of a super-wealthy family. Riches, starring Deborah Ayorinde and Hugh Quarshie among other stars, will follow the brash Richards family as things begin to unravel in their life and business, which spans New York and London. Quarshie, best known for his role in Holby City plays the family patriarch Stephen Richards, who suffers a stroke in the first episode. Fans of Succession will no doubt draw a parallel with the HBO show's pilot episode in which media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) suffers a brain haemorrhage in a helicopter while surrounded by his children. A still from the trailer of Riches as the two branches of the Richards family face-off (pictured: Adeyinka Akinrinade as Alesha, Ola Orebiyi as Gus and Nneka Okoye as Wanda) The show stars Hugh Quarshie of Holby City as the matriarch Stephen Richards as both sides of his family clash Deadline reports: 'His familys secrets and lies rise to the surface and the future of his multi-million pound cosmetics business is placed in peril as the children from his two marriages lives begin to collide.' Over six episodes, viewers will see Richards' lives unravel as the two branches of Stephen's family clash. Cast members include Deborah Ayorinde, who previously starred in Them, as Stephen's estranged daughter Nina, and Sarah Niles from Ted Lasso as Stephen's second wife Claudia. The trailer for the new series begins with a shot of Nina as she walks towards her office. It is later revealed that the office is the headquarters for the family's beauty company, Flair and Glory. Fans of Succession (cast pictured) may see similarities between the HBO series and Riches, which both follow high-powered families In one shot, she is pictured addressing several employees as she says: 'Flair and Glory is a legacy brand. 'We've been at the heart of black British beauty for over 20 years.' As the trailer continues and the two sides of the Richards family face-off with one another, it appears that one branch is based in the US and the other is based in the UK. Abby Ajayi, writer of the series, told Stylist: 'Riches is a love letter to Black London and it has been thrilling to create the Richards family and celebrate their opulence, their ambition and their immigrant grit. Nina (played by Deborah Ayorinde) appears in Riches as a high-powered career woman who holds a top position in her family's company 'Our talented ensemble of actors are a joy and Im excited to be partnering with Amazon and ITV, working alongside the powerhouses of Greenacre Films and Monumental Television to bring this show to the screen.' As powerhouse female characters appear to run the show at the top of the family, Succession fans might make comparisons with Succession's Siobhan Roy and Gerri Kellman, who hold top positions in Logan Roy's company, Waystar. However, while the patriarch in Riches is a man, it is unclear how prominently Stephen Richards will feature in the series as the he does not appear to feature in the trailer. The trailer was released as it was announced Succession's upcoming season will get a temporary reprieve from its usual location within the concrete jungle of Manhattan. The two branches of the Richards family are set to clash as the series progresses following Stephen's stroke For season four, the Emmy-winning drama will move at least some of its deal-making and family backstabbing to the Scandinavian mountains of Norway, according to Variety. The Norwegian setting will be the backdrop as the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech mogul Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) moves closer and members of the Roy family travel to Matsson's homeland. 'From the beginning, [showrunner Jesse Armstrongs] idea was that the tech company was going to be led by someone from a Scandinavian country,' producer Scott Ferguson told the outlet. 'In the writers room, around February, Jesse had an idea for an episode they wanted to be in [Matssons] part of the world.' When she embarked on her forensic psychology course in the autumn of 2020, Amy Gallagher was prepared for challenging times ahead. The 33-year-old mental health nurse knew she would have to juggle coursework and lectures with her day job and that her studies would occasionally be gruelling. And challenges there most certainly were just not remotely of the kind she envisaged. Over the past two years Amy, from Orpington, Kent, has been the subject of a litany of accusations that has left her reeling. Accused of being a racist who was not fit to work as a nurse because of her prejudiced views, she was told her presence on the course was a threat. Given such a damning character indictment you might wonder what on earth those views might be? Surely only something heinous could justify such accusations? But Amy had merely objected to teaching which she felt portrayed Christianity as a racist religion and which also suggested that all white people must accept their inevitable white privilege. The latter thinking is fundamental to Critical Race Theory, an academic concept that promotes the notion of racism being institutionally endemic. But its a concept entirely alien to Amy, who has always tried to judge people not by the colour of their skin but by their character something one leading member of staff at her course provider told her was an outdated idea which could not be tolerated. When she embarked on her forensic psychology course in the autumn of 2020, Amy Gallagher (pictured) was prepared for challenging times ahead Worse was to follow: Amy not only found herself under investigation on her course, but also in her work as a nurse after a lecturer referred her to the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Not content with falsely accusing me of racial prejudice, this meant my actual livelihood something that was nothing to do with my course was put at risk, Amy tells the Mail in an exclusive interview. All because I wouldnt subscribe to ideology which I believe has no place in a clinical setting in the first place. Its just offensive and deeply wrong. Today, though, she is fighting back: Amy is suing her course provider, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, for religious and racial discrimination in what she believes is the first test of woke ideology in the courts. I am doing it in part to protect my career but also to stand up for what is right, she says. We need to challenge the notion that we can be told what we are meant to think and that if we dont agree we are racist. Strong words with which many readers will undoubtedly sympathise, although Amy says such is the rigorous campaign of scrutiny to which the Tavistock has subjected her that she has been riddled with self-doubt. Its been really hard, she says. Theres been lots of times where Ive questioned myself. Its hard not to when youve got a whole organisation telling you your views are wrong. At times I thought I was going mad. Meeting Amy today, its certainly hard to square the softly spoken, rather reserved young lady with the aggressive and zealous offender depicted by her supervisors at the Tavistock. Amy is suing her course provider, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, for religious and racial discrimination in what she believes is the first test of woke ideology in the courts I have been told my tone of voice was inappropriate, that the way I disagreed was too forceful, she says, her bewilderment all too clear. Yet far from being a zealot, Amy says her faith has always led her to extend tolerance and understanding to others. Raised in a non-religious family and one of two sisters, Amy attended a Catholic primary school, her faith burgeoning in her 20s, when she started regularly attending church. It helped me see a bigger picture, which has been helpful through this, she says. After studying English literature at Sussex University, Amy opted for a career in nursing. She was drawn to specialise in mental health nursing and, after a two year course at Buckinghamshire New University, was employed seven years ago by a South London NHS Trust. She loved her work, even if on occasion she noticed that her faith was open to ridicule. Sometimes the way patients who are Christians are spoken about youd hear talk of their silly ideas, comments like that, she says. I tried not to let it bother me. Four years ago, Amy decided to pursue a qualification as a psychotherapist, enrolling in a four-year course at the Portman Clinic, part of The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which also ran the Gender Identity Development Service, which is being disbanded after a damning independent review. While the scandal with the gender identity clinic was unfolding during my training, my course wasnt remotely connected to it, she says. Four years ago Amy decided to pursue a qualification as a psychotherapist, enrolling in a four-year course at the Portman Clinic, part of The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust At the end of January 2021, Amy (pictured) made a formal complaint to the trust, saying their message went against the Equality Act The course cost around 20,000 in total, which Amy paid in stages from her savings. Her first two-year foundation course passed by uneventfully, and in September 2020, she enrolled for her final two years specialising in forensic psychology, when she would also start to see patients as part of her coursework. Two weeks in, Amy and her fellow students were given an online lecture the Covid pandemic meant that learning was on Zoom called Racism And Difference. The lecture linked Christianity to slavery and suggested Christianity was a racist religion which I thought was an extraordinary statement, says Amy. A few days later, she was invited to attend an online seminar called Whiteness, A Problem For Our Time. The lecture was promoted on the Tavistock website as a flagship policy lecture to mark its centenary year and in its online description offered the following summary: The presentation is rooted in the assumption that the problem of racism is a problem of whiteness. I was already taken aback, and when I actually attended it was worse than I thought. I felt it was one-sided and basically driving home the message that all white people are instinctively racist, Amy says. The mental health nurse was alarmed when lectures she was attending were 'driving home the message that all white people are instinctively racist' Alarmed, she sent a message to the course head, copying in a number of other students and several senior figures at the Tavistock, asking for a more balanced debate. I pointed out that this is not psychotherapy, this is a political ideology and its not evidence based, she says. She was then asked to attend a meeting with the course head. She told me they were an anti-racist organisation, says Amy. I said I was against racism as well, and that my understanding of that would be not to judge a person by the colour of their skin. Amy was told that this colourblind approach was now viewed as discredited and outdated. She added that it was a bit like the way all men are inherently sexist. To which I replied that I didnt agree with that either. To Amys astonishment, the meeting ended with the course head telling her that given her opinions the course might not be right for her. Torn between anger and defiance, Amy says she did consider quitting. On one level I didnt want to continue with the institution if this is what they were saying but this was my career, and what they were doing was wrong. At the end of January 2021 she made a formal complaint to the trust, saying their message went against the Equality Act. Four days later she received an email about her progress on the course in which she was told that her clinical work was progressing well but that the trusts anti-racist thinking challenged some of your personal views. I was really angry about that, she recalls. It felt like what was going on was leaking into my ability to be independently judged on my work alone. In the meantime, course material continued to circulate, among it an essay called The Criminalisation Of Blackness, which talked about the Bibles use of the words light and dark, suggesting it caused unconscious racism. But when she raised objections at an end-of-term Zoom gathering she received a subsequent email from the course head accusing her of creating a traumatising environment for fellow students. Amy was also told that a student conduct policy against her was being raised the first step towards suspension. Amy (left), who did consider quitting, was told that 'given her opinions' the course might not be right for her That was really hard, Amy says, her voice faltering. I got the email at work and had to go home early as I was just in shock. I didnt understand what Id done wrong and was feeling quite targeted. In short order, Amy then received a letter from one of the training directors, informing her that, following the complaint, it had been decided Amys behaviour was vexatious and that further incidents could result in her being suspended. Another letter a week later informed her that her complaint about discrimination, registered four months earlier, had not been upheld. The report said that the lecture had been intense, but said it was undeniable that Europe in the name of Christianity was instrumental in the racism, slavery and colonialism that has a linear connection to . . . forensic services. It also upheld the trusts view that Amy had been excessively and inappropriately confrontational when raising her concerns. It denied that her progression on the course had been compromised by her views but said there had been concern for her capacity for learning becoming restricted. They hadnt followed their own policies and procedures, she says. I think they wanted me to just give up at that point, but my actual clinical work was going well, and I was determined to see it through. I clung on to the idea that someone sensible would step in. But they never did. Amy embarked on the final year of her studies, determined to focus on her clinical work, only to find another hurdle: in March this year, she learned that the lecturer who had suggested Christianity was a racist religion had made a complaint about her to the nursing regulatory body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Why? Well, two months previously, Amy had started an online crowdfunding campaign to raise money to fund possible legal action. As a consequence, she essentially accused me of racially harassing her and of perpetuating a narrative of hate, she says. She questioned my ability to work with diverse patients in the NHS. It meant an already unpleasant ongoing dispute now directly threatened Amys livelihood. It was really scary because my nursing is how I pay my mortgage, she says. It was also upsetting to have this put in my workplace. My head of nursing said they had no issue with me and they couldnt find anything that matched the description that they were being given of me. But I was now under scrutiny, and it was horrible to think that my seniors might be thinking there was no smoke without fire. In June, Amy was told the investigation had concluded and that there was no case to answer. They said theyd found no evidence of me being racist at all, and, in short, that there was nothing wrong in me disagreeing with critical race theory. It was a huge relief, she says. Now, Amy has decided to fight back: she has filed documents at the Central London County Court claiming harassment, discrimination and victimisation at the hands of the Tavistock. Her fees so far have been raised through crowdfunding, and she is being supported by the Bad Law Project, a new anti-woke legal initiative founded by free speech campaigner Harry Miller. She has not ruled out the possibility of asking for a judicial review of the Portmans practices. Her fight has come at a price. Theres been lots of sleepless nights, lots of anxiety. Ive had to take some time off work, she says. It helps that Ive had a few close friends going through it with me and really helping me. You might wonder what any of this has got to do with being a psychotherapist a question Amy has continually asked herself. Whats really concerning me is that this is a clinical training. Its not like a humanities course where theres different theories. Essentially what theyre teaching is an ideology, she says. Its wrong, and someone has to stand up for what is right. A Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said: The matters raised by Ms Gallagher are the subject of ongoing litigation, for which the trust is currently preparing its defence. As this is a live legal matter we are unable to comment on the allegations. As a trust, we have made a public commitment to work to become an anti-racist organisation. When it comes to style, we are all inspired by what we see; whether it be a well-dressed celebrity, a blow-your-mind catwalk presentation or even a fashionable passerby. As fashion editors, we're moved by all of the above, and then some. We're exposed to under-the-radar labels; we get a first-hand look at collections months before they hit stores; we attend VIP events; we're tapped into brands with chic-yet-cheap offerings and we shop a lot. To share our knowledge, FEMAIL brings you Style Swoon, a weekly series of the latest, greatest and on the verge. We hope this Friday series will serve as a buying guide and point of inspiration for all. This week's edition focuses on new launches, starting with a sexy new collaboration with a top jeweler and swimwear brand. Jacqui Aiche fine jewelry lovers rejoice! The celeb-beloved jeweler has teamed up with supermodel Candice Swanepoels eco-conscious swimwear label, Tropic of C, to create an accessibly-priced capsule collection of body jewelry Bling-tastic body jewelry Jacqui Aiche fine jewelry lovers rejoice! The celeb-beloved jeweler has teamed up with supermodel Candice Swanepoels eco-conscious swimwear label, Tropic of C, to create an accessibly-priced capsule collection of body jewelry. The Jacquie Aiche x Tropic of C collection offers nine styles of Jacquies signature body layers in 14k gold plated brass with cubic zirconia bezels. Styles include body chains, belly chains and anklets to mix and match or wear alone. The Jacquie Aiche x Tropic of C collection offers nine styles of Jacquies signature body layers in 14k gold plated brass with cubic zirconia bezels 'This collection is inspired by body love,' said Jacqui. 'I have always wanted these sensual, playful pieces to be available to more people. Ive found that they illuminate the body with a golden glow that inspires self-love and makes you shine a little brighter.' Candice modeled the pieces in the campaign wearing sexy bikinis from her brand. 'Ive been wearing Jacquie Aiche jewelry since I was a teenager, specifically her body chains,' said the Victoria Secret's stunner. 'This is why I was so excited to collaborate with her and bring my favorite pieces to all the girls that love Tropic of C.' Prices range from $65 to $195. 'Ive been wearing Jacquie Aiche jewelry since I was a teenager, specifically her body chains,' said the Victoria Secret's stunner. 'This is why I was so excited to collaborate with her and bring my favorite pieces to all the girls that love Tropic of C It's just been announce that icons Kate Moss, Lily James, Jourdan Dunn and Twiggy (not pictured) have come together for Charlotte Tilbury's epic 2022 holiday campaign inspired by the magic and euphoria of Studio 54 Epic union of beauties for holiday campaign It's just been announced that icons Kate Moss, Lily James, Jourdan Dunn and Twiggy (not pictured) have come together for Charlotte Tilbury's epic 2022 holiday campaign inspired by the magic and euphoria of Studio 54. The dream team are setting the mood for a fun and flirty holiday season modelling festive beauty looks made popular by the disco era. And for all holiday products sold on the CharlotteTilbury website, Charlotte Tilbury Beauty will make a charitable donation to Women For Women International, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that provides practical and moral support to female survivors of war. Among the notable guests at the Golden Goose event were Brooklyn Beckham (pictured), Ashley Park, Matthew Noszka and Inanna Sarkis. On October 12, Golden Goose hosted its annual brand event in Los Angeles An inside look at a cool VIP event On October 12, Golden Goose hosted its annual brand event in Los Angeles. Among the notable guests were Brooklyn Beckham, Ashley Park, Matthew Noszka and Inanna Sarkis. As well as Quincy Combs, Jessie and DLila Combs, Jackson Myles, Myles ONeal, Dr. Woo, and many others. The invite-only event took place at the iconic Pink Motel, a roadside attraction built on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley in 1946. The event took place at the iconic Pink Motel, a roadside attraction built on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley in 1946 Two beautifully decorated long tables were set up outside the motel for a private dinner under the stars Two beautifully decorated long tables were set up outside the motel for a private dinner under the stars. After dinner, attendees had the chance to learn more about the brands history, its core values of Italian craftsmanship and heritage. They also got to discover more about the first From Venice (Italy) to Venice (California) event in 2021, showcasing the relationship between the Italian brand and the world of skateboarding. Outside, the Pink Motels legendary pool was turned into a skate bowl for bronze medal winner skateboarder Cory Juneau and a few members of the LA skateboarding community to perform their hottest tricks After dinner, attendees had the chance to learn more about the brands history, its core values of Italian craftsmanship and heritage Outside, the Pink Motels legendary pool was turned into a skate bowl for bronze medal winner skateboarder Cory Juneau and a few members of the LA skateboarding community to perform their hottest tricks. During the performance, DJ Myles Hendrik spun one of his signature high energy sets. Exclusively in conjunction with the event, Golden Goose will release the new Ball Star sneaker a new version of one of its most beloved icons. Exclusively in conjunction with the event, Golden Goose will release the new Ball Star sneaker a new version of one of its most beloved icons On Thursday, October 13th, Louis Vuitton celebrated the opening of '200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries' exhibition, at 660 Madison Avenue in New York City, the former home of Barneys Among the 200 trunks are creations by K-pop group BTS; astrologist Susan Miller, and Kim Jones with Supreme The fourth iteration of the traveling exhibition is open to the public through December 31st A celebrity-packed exhibition On Thursday, October 13th, Louis Vuitton celebrated the opening of '200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries' exhibition, at 660 Madison Avenue in New York City, the former home of Barneys. The fourth iteration of the traveling exhibition is open to the public through December 31st. Among the 200 trunks are creations by K-pop group BTS; astrologist Susan Miller, and Kim Jones with Supreme. They will be auctioned off at Sotheby's later in the year. Guests in attendance included Karlie Kloss, Nina Dobrev, Shaun White, Justin Theroux, Danai Gurira, Justin Theroux, Victor Cruz, Jaden Smith, Nigel Sylvester, Future, and others, all dressed to the nines in the French label. Guests in attendance included Karlie Kloss, Nina Dobrev, Shaun White, Justin Theroux, Danai Gurira, Justin Theroux, Victor Cruz, Jaden Smith, Nigel Sylvester, Future, and others, all dressed to the nines in the French label. On October 13, co-founders Ally Lewis and Louise Denny celebrated the launch of their new brand, Rose Room, with a beautiful and intimate cocktail party at Eerdmans in New York City The interiors-driven fashion label was designed to be worn from day to night while spending time with great people and having fun Chic loungewear debut On October 13, co-founders Ally Lewis and Louise Denny celebrated the launch of their new brand, Rose Room, with a beautiful and intimate cocktail party at Eerdmans in New York City. Decked out in the lounge-fashion label, guests - including Isolde Brielmaier, Elizabeth Lake, Brianna Lance, Anahita Moussavian, and more - enjoyed hors doeuvres (catered by Glorious Foods) and cocktails (Wolffer Estate Vineyards and Agua Magica Mezcal) while listening to the tunes of DJ Isabella Massenet at the eclectic art gallery. The interiors-driven fashion label was designed to be worn from day to night while spending time with great people and having fun. It's about ease, comfort and quality. Guests enjoyed hors doeuvres (catered by Glorious Foods) and cocktails (Wolffer Estate Vineyards and Agua Magica Mezcal) while listening to the tunes of DJ Isabella Massenet at the eclectic art gallery Minnetonka just released their first shoe collaboration with an Indigenous artist named Lucie Skjefte Thoughtful collab between Minnetonka and Lucie Skjefte Minnetonka just released their first shoe collaboration with an Indigenous artist. Lucie Skjefte a citizen of the Red Lake Nation Anishinaabeg - designed a beautiful shoe that features a Ziigwan Waabigwan (pronounced: Zeeg-one Waah-big-one), which translates to Spring Flower in Ojibwemowin, the language of the Anishinaabe people. 'For this collection, I used a tulip floral design that is commonly found in woodland floral design, streamlined to its simplest form,' said Lucie. 'I chose colors that were fun, different, and less literal in translation from our traditional understanding of these designs for an upbeat and playful feel.' The moccasin is available in grey and brown, and both options feature a hand-beaded flower design on the toe upper. 'My hope is that this collaboration shines light and positivity in a way that pays homage and respect to our way of life and our people.' The comfy footwear retails for $63. The Crown's season five will 'expose the worst aspects' of the royal family, Lady Victoria Hervey has claimed today. The socialite, who has royal connections and is the daughter of the sixth Marquess of Bristol and half-sister to the seventh Marquess, appeared on Good Morning Britain where she discussed the series alongside historian Dr Tessa Dunlop. The hit series is due to air on streaming site Netflix next month for its fifth season and will cover the time period during Diana and King Charles's separation and the fire at Windsor Castle. The year 1992 is a year described by the late Queen Elizabeth II as her 'annus horribilis'. Lady Victoria said: 'Three divorces in one year for the royal family this is the worst series, it exposes the most negative aspects.' Meanwhile the historian said the platform would be 'laughing all the way to the bank' with the show, adding: 'It's all in living memory for us, that's why it's uncomfortable. It's a very unfortunate decade for family monarchy.' Lady Victoria Hervey says it was 'too soon' for the series to be aired on ITV's Good Morning Britain today, and highlights the fact that 'not everyone thinks The Crown is fiction' The hit series is due to be shown on streaming site Netflix next month for its fifth season which will cover the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, who is played by Imelda Staunton Socialite Lady Victoria said: 'Netflix say that it's fiction right? That's their whole argument. A lot of people watching it see it as a documentary.' During the programme, Lady Victoria and Dr Tessa clashed on whether the show should be delayed after the Queen's death. The socialite argued it was 'too soon' after the Queen's passing to air the latest series, saying: 'I think it is too soon, and yes, it is disrespectful. 'It's only been a month since the Queen's death and the Coronation is coming up and Camilla everyone is really accepting her in her role right now and it's going to try and paint her in a negative light.' Host Kate Garraway said: 'Some would say it's a long time ago and why dredge that up? We understand it doesn't paint the new King in a great light.' The fifth and six series of The Crown will cover the 1990s and a particularly difficult time period for the royals which included the separation of Charles and Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki (above) and Diana's death However author Dr Tessa disagreed, saying: 'Well divorces and separations are a messy business. This is just historical drama, this is not a newspaper. 'Netflix has never pretended to be anything other than fiction. 'Yes I agree, sometimes it walks the line and sometimes it isn't always tasteful. I prefer the earlier series. 'To countenance it, or consider postponing it, is extraordinary. How much more reverence does the Royal Family need? Dr Tessa Dunlop (left) went head to head with Lady Victoria (right) about the new season of The Crown on Netflix 'Her Majesty had an extraordinary send off. We've had ten days of mourning and not a bad word was said about the Queen. 'How long will this go on for? We aren't talking about the Queen any more, we are talking about Charles he's got all the extraordinary props of monarchy to see him through his new role. And if a little bit of art is uncomfortable then so be it.' Miss Garraway said: 'You say people see it as art but I don't know if that's true.' Lady Victoria replied: 'Maybe we know it's fiction, but possibly foreigners like in America, they treat it like their bible.' Historian and author Dr Dunlop said the programme may make 'uncomfortable viewing' for the Royal Family Dr Dunlop retorted once more saying: 'You can't have it both ways Victoria. One of the reasons why the world, especially we in Britain, were on the edge of our seats.' The hosts asked the socialite: 'You know the Royal Family do you know if they have watched the series?' Lady Hervey claimed that some members do watch the series on occasion: 'I know some of them dip in and out.' Dr Dunlop added: 'The Queen is the most photographed woman in the world, she began life in a golden goldfish bowl you have to bear that in mind when you are in a gilded cage, in a 24/7 media world. Lady Victoria, 46, is the daughter of the sixth Marquess of Bristol and has royal connections. She admitted some family members 'dip in and out' of the series 'Charles has got a pretty wicked gig age 74, bit of soft power a bit of dressing up I'd take that and it as, "You want to put me in a series... OK."' Lady Victoria said she had just watched the first series again, saying: 'I think it's a lot more than that. 'Interestingly enough I just re-watched the first series of the Crown and I didn't know all the things about the Queen's father that he had one lung removed it was interesting to watch.' Dr Dunlop said: 'I think you cut them [Netflix] too much slack by saying they thought about postponing it. 'They will be laughing all the way to the bank.' Meanwhile the socialite agreed, saying the new series will most likely have 'the most viewers of any series yet', despite the content. Series five of The Crown will take place in the 1990s and, as per each previous season, will consist of ten episodes. Dr Tessa claimed that Netflix will be 'laughing all the way to the bank' and Lady Victoria admitted that the series will be the 'most watched yet' Fans will not see the death of Princess Diana in this series as her passing in 1997 will not be covered until the sixth and final series. The new series of The Crown will be the first to air since the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8. The breakdown of the then Prince Charles and Diana's relationship will be a central part of the new series. There are several poignant moments which could be used, including the Queen making a speech on her 40th anniversary of her accession in 1992, in which she called the year an 'annus horriblis'. She was referring to the breakdown of three of her children's marriages: those of Prince Andrew, Princess Anne and Prince Charles. Other notable events during the time period included a fire at Windsor Castle and her golden wedding anniversary in 1997. Little people is one of the "longest running toy lines" in the history of American toys. These toys have been in the market for over six decades. Little People was originally produced by Fisher-Price in the 1960s as the Play Family People. In 1985, the name "Little People" was registered and trademarked by Mattel and Fisher-Price. This was after a lead of consumers referred to the early Play Family playsets as those little people. The toy was intended for children 6-36 months and ages three and up. In 2016, Little People was included in the National Toy Hall of Fame. Around the same time, more than 2 billion Little People figures are said to be sold in over 60 countries. 1. The Release of 'Chunky' Little People In 1991, the Original Little People figures were redesigned for children, according to Eighties Kids. They were made "chunkier", were more bright and colorful. Most people believe that these figures were developed as a replacement for the original Little People due to the increasing concerns and pressures from parents and consumer-advocacy groups regarding the choking hazard of the smaller parts. Since the version of the toy has wider body, choking will unlikely happen. Unfortunately, this is not received well by customers. The sales of the toy eventually dropped. 2. Fisher-Price was Co-Founded by New York Mayor Fisher-Price is founded by Herman Fisher, a salesman, and Irving Price, the mayor of Aurora, New York, according to Mental Floss. Fisher worked previously in manufacturing, selling, and advertising games for a company in New York. As Fisher wanted to elevate the toy industry, he made a pitch about his ideas. Price supported Fisher by raising $100,000 in capital, making him one of the co-founders of the toy company. Read Also: Fisher-Price Toy Turned Into Functioning Video Game Controller by Modder 3. Fisher-Price Introduced the Safety Bus in 1959 The earlier toys from Fisher-Price included figures with human characteristics, but they were all permanently attached to the vehicle being sold. But in 1959, the company released the Safety Bus. The Safety Bus was the first to include removable figures. With the introduction of the Safety Bus, kids can now remove the passengers and play with the six children as separate toys. Fisher-Price banked on the toy's popularity by releasing toys with removable figures over the following year, including Station Wagon, Fire Engine, the Amusement Park, and the Lacing Shoe. This innovation by Fisher-Price proves to be enjoyed by many children. 4. Fisher-Price Once Ran Out of Wood to Make Toys In 1930s, the materials typically used for toys were wood and tin. But there was wood scarcity after World War II. Because of this, there was not enough wood for the toys of Fisher-Price. Because of wood scarcity for the toys, the company started making toys using plastic. In the long run, plastic became a primary material in making their toys. 5. The Lucky Seven Little People There were seven Little people released by Fisher-Price: Mom, Dad, Pee Wee, Butch, Patty, and Penny. In addition to these seven Little People toys, there was a dog named Lucky. While Lucky isn't the original name the company intended to give to the dog, it sticks because it became it seems to be quite popular among children. Related Article: Fisher Price Just Created A Mini Mustang With Driver Assist Controls A female electrician has said she loves everything about her job - except the male customers doubting her ability. Bethany Andrews, 24, an industrial electrician, from Kent, UK, had concerns about embarking on a career in an industry which is heavily male-led. Despite encouragement and continued support from her family and friends, Beth has had to deal with negative sexist comments. She's even had to deal with incidents where male customers will demand a second opinion, believing her expertise is lacking due to her sex. Bethany Andrews, 24, an industrial electrician, from Kent, has said she loves everything about her job - except the male customers doubting her ability A female sparky: Beth says she loves working as an industrial electrician and feels she is inspiring a new generation of younger women to try the job Beth says people often think she is not up to the job and question her opinions as she is female and young Beth said: 'I've had customers doubt my ability. When I diagnose a fault and tell them the outcome, they say they want a second opinion. I don't know if it's because I'm female or that I'm young - or both? 'I also get the "why aren't you making sandwiches" comment however, being in this industry, you need thick skin, so I'm not bothered by the remarks. 'And I get the odd stare that lingers a bit too long and makes me feel uncomfortable.' However, her thick skin has helped her thrive in her career and Beth is inspiring a future generation of females to choose this industry for their profession. The 24-year-old posts videos of herself working on her Instagram account and jokes that she spends all her money on tools Beth (pictured here working as an electrician) said she decided to take up the trade after realising she could wire a plug faster than anyone else she knew Beth initially went to college to study travel and tourism, but then a friend said she wasn't fulfilling her potential so she changed course Beth (pictured) usually works on her own but says on the occasions she works with other people she always has a laugh while getting the job done Family genes: Beth says her family of three generations is full of motor mechanics, engineers and electricians Recently she has stepped into the world of social media creating an Instagram page @beth_electrical dedicated to her journey as a female electrician, which she states has made her more confident. Beth said: 'I only started my account in January this year. I've never been one for social media so this was really stepping out of my comfort zone. 'Generally, most people are very respectful and make me feel welcome. 'Most people are on social media are lovely and I've been getting messages from other women saying I've inspired them to get into the trade which is so heart warming.' Beth also states the older generation who work in the same industry have welcomed her with open arms. She said: 'Before I started, I was concerned there would be a stigma and strong beliefs against me in this role, especially from the older people on site as they are from a generation where the woman traditionally stays at home and cooks whilst the man goes to work. 'I shouldn't have made this presumption as they've been so welcoming and have taught me so much. Even my work bestie is of that generation. 'I usually work on my own, but on the occasion, I'm working with someone else, we'll have a laugh and get the job done. It's a really good atmosphere.' Beth (pictured) believes some male customers don't particularly rate her at work as she is a young woman Beth (pictured here with a sweet on her tongue) initially had concerns about embarking on a career in an industry which is heavily male-led Recently Beth (pictured here at work) has started posting about her job on Instagram under @beth_electrical Beth at work: She says the older generation have welcomed her with open arms and been very supportive Beth comes from a family of mechanics and engineers, with relatives working on the railways or being domestic electricians Beth said her love for electrics runs in the family. She said: 'When I was a kid, I would play with JCB plastic tools as well as barbies. So I think there was always something in me that liked the idea of construction. 'And I have motor mechanics and engineers in my family. 'My uncle who lives in Scotland is a domestic electrician and my brother-in-law is an electrician on the railway. My great grandad who lives in Scotland was also an electrician.' Revealing how she finally decided to embark on this career, Beth said she beat a whole heap of lads to wire up a plug in the fastest time. She said: 'I decided to study travel and tourism, but in the summer holidays between starting college, my friend said she thought I had more potential and should choose something else. 'I phoned the college and asked to change my course to electrical installations. 'I went to an open day and for some reason I dragged my friends along with me to the electrical department. 'I had to wire up a plug and I did it in the quickest time out of everyone.' The Duchess of York has said her late sister-in-law Princess Diana would be 'so proud' of Prince William and Prince Harry. Sarah Ferguson, 63, who lives at Royal Lodge in Windsor with her ex-husband Prince Andrew, told Marie Claire, that - even 25 years after her death, Diana is never far from her mind. She said: 'I dont miss her, because shes with me. Last night I had a dream about her, and I know shes with me. 'And Im just so proud of her, and shed be so proud of her sons and beautiful grandchildren.' The Duchess of York has said her late sister-in-law Princess Diana would be 'so proud' of Prince William and Prince Harry (pictured, at the Queen's funeral last month) Sarah Ferguson and the late Princess Diana pictured attending a polo match in Windsor in June 1983 She also told the magazine that - that she had finally accepted herself. She said: 'Ive learned: don't try and explain yourselfjust be yourself.' The Duchess, who got divorced from disgraced Prince Andrew in 1986, and has two children with him, Princess Beatrice and Eugenie. And she has previously spoken of her bond with Diana. In 2021, she said the pair never fell out but people speculated about rifts because they wanted to 'break up something strong'. During the interview, Sarah Ferguson said Diana would be 'so proud of her beautiful grandchildren' (pictured, Prince Harry with his children Archie and Lilibet and wife, Meghan Markle) The Duchess of York, who met Diana when they were teenagers before they both married the Queen's sons told People: 'We promised each other we would always be together there was never any daylight between us, 'But everybody wanted that because we were so strong together. People want to break something so strong.' She added they were 'best friends' and that she called the Princess of Wales 'Duch'. She added: 'She taught me so much of public life. She was so brave. We used to have the most incredible time together.' Speaking about her old friend as an aunt and mother, she went on: '[Diana] adored my girls. She adored [her] boys. This would be her haven. Her heaven.' Fergie's comments come weeks after Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton inherited the title of Prince and Princess of Wales (pictured, with their children George, Charlotte and Louis) Her latest comments come weeks after Prince William and Kate Middleton inherited the title of Prince and Princess of Wales. The Duchess is currently working on her career as an author. Her first work of historical fiction, Her Heart for a Compass, was based on the story of her great-great-aunt, Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott. She has now written more then 70 books - many of them for children. And she recently signed a 22-book deal with Australian publisher Serenity Press to write young adult books based on her own experiences with mental health and eating disorders. Next year, she will also see two more of her books published. One will be another work of historical fiction, and one will be a self-help book, both out in early 2023. King Charles is 'absolutely devastated' by 'what has happened' with Prince Harry and is 'hopeful' of a reconciliation, a royal expert has claimed. Katie Nicholl, author of The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth's Legacy and the Future of the Crown, told Fox News Digital that the King is heartbroken over the change in his relationship with the Duke of Sussex, 38, since his son married Meghan Markle in 2018. Vanity Fair's royal editor Miss Nicholl said: 'He is hopeful that there will be a reconciliation. I think we saw that in the very public olive branches that were extended to Harry and Meghan.' King Charles, pictured with his son in 2018, is 'absolutely devastated' by 'what has happened' with Prince Harry and is 'hopeful' of a reconciliation, royal expert Katie Nicholl has claimed The King walks side-by-side with his son Harry as they arrive at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle for the late Queen's funeral last month Miss Nicholl explained: 'Charles absolutely has been devastated by what has happened. 'If you think back just a couple of years around the time of the wedding, the relationship between Harry and his father was, I think, probably better than it ever had been.' Among the many challenges facing the King in his reign, including modernising Britain's ancient monarchy, will be how to deal with Harry and Meghan. The couple plunged The Firm into crisis after quitting public duties for a life free from royal obligations in California from where they have made a string of damaging allegations against the institution. In his first address to the nation as monarch last month, the King appeared to extend an 'olive branch' to the couple. However, others believe it was no more than a PR bid for unity in the hours after the Queen's death. As King Charles shook hands with PM Liz Truss at their weekly meeting on Wednesday, viewers spotted he had keepsakes on display, including pictures from Harry and Meghan's wedding The photo on display appears to be one of the family from Harry and Meghan's 2018 wedding In the run-up to the funeral, Harry was apparently banned from wearing military uniform on the day, and he and Meghan were reportedly uninvited from a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by the King for VIPs including foreign royalty, prime ministers and presidents. However hopes of a thaw in the 'cold war' between The Firm and the Sussexes emerged weeks ago, after royal insiders revealed that King Charles saw 'tremendous flickers of hope' when he spoke to Harry and Meghan at the Queen's funeral and even believes he might even be able to salvage the relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The King's conversations with his son and daughter-in-law at the ceremonies for the late monarch at Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle left him feeling hopeful that he could mend relations with the Sussexes after their acrimonious departure from the Royal Family. An insider told The Daily Telegraph: 'It remains the case that the King loves both of his children. The picture seen at Buckingham Palace appears to be this, which is one of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding photographs. Standing from back left: Camilla, Charles, Harry and Meghan, Meghan's mother Doria Ragland and William. Front, seated: The late Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II and Kate in the drawing room at Windsor Castle in 2018 'Over the last 16 days or so, there were tremendous flickers of hope. In terms of the future, there is hope of a cause for unity.' And this week it was reported that despite the tension, King Charles may still hold Harry and his wife in high esteem as eagle-eyed viewers spotted a photo of the pair at Buckingham Palace as he greeted Liz Truss. A short clip showed the monarch greeting the Prime Minister at his royal residence in London this week for the first of their regular weekly audiences. And a photograph could be seen positioned on a table in a room there, showing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle following their wedding in May 2018. The picture shows the couple surrounded by their bridal party along with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Charles, Camilla and Meghan's mother Doria Ragland. William and Kate were also in the photograph with Princess Charlotte and Prince George. Prince Louis was not there, having been born just four weeks earlier. The Prince and Princess of Wales have marked Baby Loss Awareness Week on Instagram, and have pointed people in the direction of help coping with the loss of children. The royal couple used their joint Instagram account to post the message sending their best wishes to people struggling, before pointing them to charities including Tommy's, which cares for premature babies. Writing on their Instagram stories against a pink background, they said: 'Taking a moment this Baby Loss Awareness Week to think about all those who've been affected by pregnancy and baby loss. The Prince and Princess of Wales (pictured at the Olympic Park on Thursday) posted on their Instagram stories to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week On their Instagram stories, the royal couple said they were thinking of 'everyone affected by pregnancy and baby loss' 'In this story there are organisations and resources that are providing support and advice to families and loved ones who need it most.' In the next slide, they signal people to Child Bereavement UK, a charity which 'offers a support helpline if you've been affected by bereavement at any time'. They wrote: 'Please do reach out if you feel it could help you or someone you know.' The royal couple then signpost people to the MMH Alliance, which is a collection of 120 organisations which raises awareness of mental health 'before, during and after pregnancy, whatever the outcome'. One of the charities involved in the alliance is Sands Charity, which supports 'anyone affected by the death of a baby'. Kate and William directed people to both Child Bereavement UK and Tommy's, both of which support people struggling with the loss of a child The Princess of Wales looked lovingly at a newborn baby girl, Bianca, at the Royal Surrey County Hospital's maternity unit in Guildford Her Royal Highness supported the baby's head as she spoke to her mother, Sylvia Novak, who had recently given birth to her baby daughter in the unit It also aims to improve care for bereaved parents and improve pregnancy and post-natal care so fewer babies die. Finally, their Royal Highnesses pointed people to Tommy's, which supports parents-to-be and carries out research into miscarriages, premature birth and stillbirth. They wrote: 'They have free resources available and, if you're struggling, advise you to be kind to yourself and know support is available.' The Prince and Princess of Wales posted the support guide in the same week they hosted a BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat special where they encouraged people to get help if they are struggling with their mental health. During the broadcast, Kate said: 'Everyone has mental health, and in the same way as their physical health we have to look after, in the same way we go to the gym, we need to look after and nurture our minds as well.' Last week, the Princess of Wales visited an award-winning maternity unit at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, where she met with a team of staff who care for premature babies. During her visit she was also pictured cradling a newborn baby, Bianca, while chatting to her mother Sylvia Novak. Bianca had been born several weeks early but, after receiving care from the staff at the unit, was now 'flourishing', according to the Princess. Dame Deborah James' husband has said he is 'so proud' of her after she inspired record numbers of people to get tested for bowel cancer. Sebastian Bowen said he was 'in awe of everything [Deborah] did' after she spent five years tirelessly campaigning to raise awareness of bowel cancer following her own diagnosis and also raised 7 million for Cancer Research UK in her final weeks. On Thursday, NHS figures revealed a record 30,000 more people went for referrals between May and July in 2021. Figures also showed 170,500 people were referred for checks for checks for suspected lower gastro-intestinal cancers between the months of May and July, which is nearly 80,000 higher than the same period two years ago. Dame Deborah James (pictured) campaigned tirelessly over the final years of her life to raise awareness about bowel cancer. She also raised more than 7million for the cause Dame Deborah James' husband Sebastian (pictured in 2019) has said he is proud of what the inspirational former deputy headteacher achieved Speaking to The Sun, the late campaigner's husband said: 'I'm so proud of her. I'm in awe of everything she did to raise awareness, and the legacy she has left behind.' After her diagnosis, the former headteacher became a co-host of the BBC's You, Me and The Big C podcast, and used her social media platforms to educate people about the symptoms of bowel cancer under her nickname, The Bowel Babe. Just weeks ago the family accepted an honorary degree on Dame Deborah's behalf from the Institute of Cancer Research. They were accompanied by Dame Deborah's You, Me & The Big C co-hosts, Lauren Mahon and Steve Bland, who also received degrees for their outstanding contribution to raising awareness of living with cancer. Posting photos of the graduation ceremony on Instagram, Heather wrote: 'Today was a bittersweet day. 'Deborah and her colleagues Lauren and Steve from You, Me & The Big C were awarded honorary degrees by The Institute of Cancer Research for their outstanding contributions to raising awareness of living with cancer and the importance of cancer research. Deborah is pictured in hospital during her final hours where smiles and holds her thumb up in a final farewell from hospital, maintaining her positive spirit until the end 'We were proud to accept the award on Deborah's behalf in the most beautiful setting of the Guild Hall City of London.' Heather was accompanied by Deborah's father Alistair, her brother Benjamin and her sister Sarah in the grand building as they picked up the degree. On her Instagram story Heather posted a clip of Alistair addressing the crowd as he accepted the degree on Dame Deborah's behalf. He said: 'When Deborah was invited to accept today's degree, she was honoured and proud. 'But this was mixed with a sense of sadness as she realised it was one of the first entries in her diary that she was unlikely to fulfil. 'However in recognition of what this award meant to her, Deborah was clear in her wishes it was her family who should be here today on her behalf and to give thanks to the Institute and its staff for its work.' It comes as the NHS said record numbers of people were having bowel cancer checks after the death of campaigner Dame Deborah James. Since the amazing Bowel Babe campaigner, who inspired a nation with her podcast chronicling her struggles with the disease, a record 30,000 more people went for referrals between May and July in 2021. According to the NHS, between the months of May and July, 170,500 people referred for checks for checks for suspected lower gastrointestinal cancers, which is also nearly 80,000 higher than the same period two years ago. Figures also showed referrals for bowel cancer hit an all-time high in the second week of July, shortly after Dame Deborah's death, up 60 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. She had been raising awareness about the disease until her death on June 28 at the age of 40 after a five-year battle with bowel cancer during which time she raised more than 7million for charity. National cancer director Dame Cally Palmer said: 'Thanks to the brave and relentless campaigning of Dame Deborah James, bowel cancer has come to the forefront of a national conversation on catching cancer as early as possible. 'The fact that we have seen record numbers of people coming forward for bowel cancer checks shows people are taking the illness seriously and speaking to their GPs about it. 'It is so important that we continue the work of Dame Deborah to raise awareness of bowel cancer and save more lives, so to anyone who has noticed symptoms, please do come forward.' Genevieve Edwards, chief executive at Bowel Cancer UK, said: 'People visiting bowelcanceruk.org.uk has never been higher, with tens of thousands more people seeking information about the symptoms of the disease since Dame Deborah James' tragic death. 'There was also a spike in people affected by bowel cancer posting on our forum, contacting our Ask the Nurse service and we know that people have visited their GP as a result of hearing her story.' Deborah knew she would marry her husband after their third date, she said, telling her children she fancied Sebastien from the day they first met In early May, Dame Deborah revealed she had stopped active treatment and was receiving end-of-life care at her parents' home in Woking, Surrey, with her husband and their two children on hand. The podcaster was diagnosed in 2016 and kept her one million Instagram followers up to date with her treatments. Her candid posts about her progress and diagnosis, including videos of her dancing her way through treatment, won praise from the public and media alike. Alongside Lauren Mahon and Rachael Bland, she launched the You, Me And The Big C podcast in 2018. According to the NHS, between the months of May and July, 170,500 people referred for checks for suspected lower gastro-intestinal cancers Dame Deborah, also known by her social media handle Bowel Babe, had been raising awareness about the disease until her death on June 28 at the age of 40 Dame Deborah James told her children telling them to 'take a chance and back yourself' and asked them to experience life now instead of waiting until they were older, in a final piece of advice written in the upcoming book How To Live When You Could Be Dead In the months leading up to her death, Deborah had Prince William over for tea, who made her a Dame. Living life on her own terms despite her illness, she designed Charity T-shirts a clothing line to raise millions more for her Bowelbabe fund. The Dame also wrote and published her second book How to Live When You Should Be Dead, while suffering from cancer, detailing how developing a positive mindset was key to enabling her to cope with her diagnosis. She told her children to 'take chances and experience life now' and to marry for love in a heartbreaking final letter. Landon Jones has revealed shocking footage that shows bullies harassing him at his home and in public after being repeatedly tormented by them A gay teenager has revealed shocking footage of bullies harassing him at his home and out in public - while detailing his experience with the bullies who have been repeatedly harassing him about his sexuality. Landon Jones, 18, from California, shared a video revealing he's been looking the other way for years when bullies would hurl homophobic slurs at him, but after a group of boys showed up at Landon's home to harass him, he decided to no longer turn a blind eye to their cruel actions. The footage shows two separate instances of Landon, who came out as gay in 2020, being bullied. In one instance, caught on a home surveillance camera, a young man approaches Landon's home and screams Landon's a 'f****t' before running off and in the other teens surround Landon's car, refusing to let him leave a parking lot while yelling slurs at him. In a viral video, which has racked up over 1.3 million views, Landon describes the bullying he says he has been subjected to and shows footage of the group of boys who have repeatedly harassed him. Landon Jones has opened about his experience with bullies who have harassed him and even shared footage of the young men hurling homophobic slurs to him He shared that a group of boys showed up at Landon's home to harass him and called him a 'f****t' before running off (one of the young men who has been bullying Landon pictured) Landon claimed him and his sister 'were apparently followed there' and that a young man (pictured) wouldn't let him leave his parking spot and hurled homophobic slurs When the young men shows up to Landon's home, he can be seen approaching the front porch and having a conversation with Landon's father. 'Does Landon live here?' the young man questioned. Landon's father responded: 'Yes, why?' The young man then mumbles, 'Someone said to come up here,' before screaming, 'because he's a f****t' and running off the property. According to Landon's dad, the young man jumped into the passenger side of a black Lincoln Navigator and the car drove off. The other instance, showed a group of young men surrounding Landon's car as he and his sister sat in the Starbucks parking lot. One of the young men looked into Landon's car before adding, 'This f****** f****t.' In the video, Landon claimed him and his sister 'were apparently followed there' and that the group of young men wouldn't let him leave his parking spot as they hurled homophobic slurs. 'I have been called "f****t" countless times at school, and it literally doesn't bother me at all. The fact that they came to my house does,' Landon said while describing the bullies who had targeted him for years. The 18-year-old, from California, shared a video revealing he's been looking the other way while being called a 'f****t', but is ready to speak up Landon claimed boys from his high school, El Toro High School, have 'repeatedly called me names, called me slurs, have followed me, and have now come to my house to say these things' He explained that he had 'never spoken' to these young men before and added that they were just targeting him because he's openly gay and has been since 2020 The TikToker claimed that one group of boys from his high school, El Toro High School (ETHS), has been continuously targeting him and have 'repeatedly called me names, and called me slurs, have followed me, and have now come to my house to say these things'. He explained that he had 'never spoken' to these young men before and added that they were just targeting him because he's openly gay. Landon added: 'They just simply know the fact that I'm gay and I'm out at school, and they choose that and they hang on it and they just give me that attention. The negative attention that they think is so funny.' The teenager then discussed the clips he shared and noted that he had told El Toro High School what was 'going on', but added that he requested the students in question not be punished before explaining he didn't want their lives to be 'affected by this.' He added that the clip of the boys who walked up to his front porch and screamed slurs before running away occurred on September 29, around 10:30 pm. The 18-year-old condemned the repeated bullying as 'harassment' and claimed it was a 'hate crime.' 'Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but these are hate crimes. This is harassment. 'The fact that they went to my house to do this, the fact that they followed me, this is a hate crime, this is harassment, it's bullying. 'And after last night, I am fed up with it. I'm done. I have been called f****t countless times at school. It literally doesn't bother me at all. But the fact that they came to my house does.' The 18-year-old condemned the repeated bullying as 'harassment' and claimed it was a 'hate crime' In an interview with NBC, the 18-year-old explained he was 'sick of being silent about it' before adding that he was 'finally' ready to speak up 'I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying,' he told NBC of the night of the incident Landon ended the video by emphasizing those who have been bullying him would be facing consequences. In an interview with NBC, the 18-year-old explained he was 'sick of being silent about it' before adding that he was 'finally' ready to speak up. He explained that the last straw was when the group of boys came to his home. 'I remember being up in my room, hearing it, and I heard what he said. I immediately jumped out of bed and walked outside to see what was happening. I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying,' he told NBC. At first, Landon explained that the young man in the Starbucks video and the young man who showed up to his house, both attended his high school in Lake Forest, which is part of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. He then clarified that he had heard from other people that the young man who showed up at his house attends a different high school nearby, but can't confirm the accuracy of that information. A spokesperson for the school district told NBC that the 'unconscionable acts committed against Landon Jones do not reflect the feelings or values of Saddleback Valley Unified School District (SVUSD) and El Toro High School (ETHS).' In an email, Wendie Hauschild, the school district's director of communications and administrative services, said: 'ETHS and SVUSD administration, together with the Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD), immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts of the incidents. Landon's dad attempted to run after the bullies and Landon said he heard from other people that the young man who showed up at his house attends a different high school nearby A spokesperson for the school district told NBC that the 'unconscionable acts committed against Landon Jones do not reflect the feelings or values' of the district or school Landon explained that him and his family have spoken with El Toro High School to punish the bullies; however the investigation is ongoing 'We can confirm that the person seen in the surveillance video of the incident that took place at a private home is not a student in SVUSD. Due to the confidentiality that we are required by law to uphold for our students, as well as other minors, SVUSD is unable to share further information regarding the results of the investigation. 'SVUSD remains steadfast in its commitment to create inclusive, supportive, and safe environments for all students on our campuses.' When asked about the incident that showed the group of young men harassing Landon at his home, an Orange County sheriff's spokesperson revealed a resource office at El Toro High School spoke to 'individuals that may or may not have been involved in this incident' or 'possibly have knowledge of the incident.' He added that the person who went to Landon's home hasn't been identified and the 'investigation remains ongoing.' Landon is still attending El Toro High School but has transitioned to virtual learning because of 'bullying and a rough experience with the school,' he said. In joint statement to NBC, Landon's parents, Lauren and Nathan Jones said Landon has been 'called names and made fun of' since he was young because of the way he looked and because his interests didn't align with his classmates. 'Kids and even adults can be so cruel to people that are different from them. 'Actions have consequences and we will keep pursuing this until those consequences are paid. 'This behavior will not be tolerated and we will never turn a blind eye to injustices like these. We have a family to protect and that is our number one focus right now.' The Jones family added that they reached out to El Toro High School and told administrators that the driver of the black Lincoln Navigator was a student there, but they haven't been made aware of any action having been taken yet. Since Landon shared the video, he has received an overwhelming amount of support, with many users giving him words of encouragement Landon and many others who have opened up about their sexuality are facing the cruel after effects from anti-gay bullies as the number of LGBTQ students who are subjected to harassment continues to grow. According to a report published last year from The Trevor Project, a nonprofit LGBTQ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention group, the majority of LGBTQ youths (52%) enrolled in middle or high school reported having been bullied either in person or electronically in the year before they participated in the survey. LGBTQ middle school students reported higher instances of bullying (65%) than those in high school (49%). Since Landon shared the video, he has received an overwhelming amount of support, with many users giving him words of encouragement. Former 'American Idol' contestant David Archuleta, who came out publicly last year, commented: 'Oh gosh sorry you're dealing with that there's no justification for what they're doing to you and so shallow of them.' TikTok personality Ophelia, added: 'Landon, Im so very sorry you are going through this. How can we help you? Please tell us.' Another user wrote: 'Sorry that you're dealing with this. No one should have to put up with something like this. I hope action is taken to put an end to it.' 'I'm so sorry you have to deal with this, you seem like an amazing person and definitely don't deserve any of this hate,' commented another user. Dress is like one Diana wore in 1995, but scene is of one of her last appearances Netflix has shared the first official shot of Elizabeth Debicki's Princess of Wales in The Crown season five - wearing a blue mini dress with a plunging necklace in a scene depicting one of her final ever public appearances. The streaming platform posted a series of pictures on the show's official social media pages, including one of Imelda Staunton taking on the role of Queen Elizabeth II. In one of the shots, which was released today, Debicki looked incredibly similar to Diana as she wore a daring blue dress. The gown was near identical to one the Princess wore in 1995 at a Serpentine Gallery fundraising gala in Hyde Park in 1995, two years before her tragic death. However the scene is actually depicting one of Diana's final public appearances, when Princess Diana attended a royal gala performance of the English National Ballet's Swan Lake in June 1997. The upcoming season of The Crown has been touted as being the most controversial yet as it will delve into the breakup of King Charles's marriage to Diana. A glamorous Elizabeth Debicki (left) looked like the double of Princess Diana in a dress similar to one she wore in 1995 (right, Princess Diana at a Serpentine Gallery fundraising gala in Hyde Park in 1995). However, the Crown uses the dress in its recreation of one of the late Princess's final public appearances The photograph shared today shows one of Diana's last public appearances. However the outfit the late Princess wore in real life has become on of the late Princess's most iconic fashion statements. For reasons unknown, the Australian actress, 31, is in a copy of a Catherine Walker halter neck dress worn by Diana at a party two years previously. The princess wore a Jacques Azagury turquoise sequin shift dress at the event. Elizabeth Debicki is the double of Diana in the red carpet scene but the show's producers have chosen not to replicate the princess's Jacques Azagury turquoise sequin shift dress Also missing from the Royal Albert Hall scene is the pearl and diamond necklace that became so synonymous with the engagement that it sold at auction as the 'Swan Lake necklace' 20 years later for 10million. Diana's appearance came a few short weeks before her death in a Paris car crash on August 31. She was a lover of ballet and dance and at the time was patron of the English National Ballet. Filming of the scenes for the Netflix drama took place at the Lyceum theatre. Series five focuses of the break-up of Diana's marriage to Charles, played by Dominic West, and in other images Miss Debicki who replaced Emma Corrin in the role can be seen alongside Salim Dau, 71, as Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed, father of Diana's lover Dodi. The hit show has been criticised for being insensitive towards a grieving King Charles as they are set to show his crumbling marriage to Diana in 'painful' detail. New: Netflix have released new images from the highly-anticipated series five of The Crown - Imelda Staunton pictured as Queen Elizabeth II after her death alongside Prince Philip, portrayed by Jonathan Pryce One picture shows The Queen and Prince Philip, portrayed by Jonathan Pryce, wearing red tartan as they proudly stand next to one another - as they once did at a ball in 1971 held in Balmoral. Prince Charles, who is portrayed by Dominic West, and his girlfriend, the then Camilla Parker Bowles who is played by Olivia Williams, could be seen smiling outdoors as they appear to watch a fireworks display. Another snap shows Princess Diana, Prince Charles (Dominic West), Prince William and Harry on a family boat trip. Alongside the images, Netflix announced: 'Welcome to the '90s. A first look at Season Five of the The Crown, arriving 9th November.' Trip: Another snap shows Princess Diana, Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Prince William (Timothee Samborand) Harry (Teddy Hawley) on a family boat trip The Princess and Dodi were in a car crash while driving through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France in August 1997 - dying later from sustained injuries during the accident. The breakdown of Charles and Diana's relationship will be a central part of the new series and portrays the then Prince of Wales as 'petty, cold and deceitful'. The fourth series, which streamed in November last year, told the story of the early romance between Charles and Diana. It was announced last year that Elizabeth Debicki would take over from Emma Corrin and play Diana for the fifth and sixth series, which will cover Diana's death in 1997. Highly-anticipated: Series five will take place in the 1990s and, like each previous season, will consist of 10 episodes - Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne A source told The Sun: 'This couldn't have come at a more delicate time for the new King and his Queen Consort, particularly as they're riding high in the minds of the public. 'There's a sense that Netflix are muckraking over events that took place 30 to 40 years ago, but are still raw for those involved. 'The worst element for the royals is that millions of people around the world will view this series and view it less as a drama and more as a documentary. 'And attention on the Windsors couldn't be higher as it's been just a few weeks since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and is in the run-up to the King's coronation.' Netflix: Fans eagerly anticipating the return of The Crown were given a teaser of the fifth series as a new trailer was dropped (Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret) Coming soon: It was recently revealed that the next instalment will premiere on Netflix on Wednesday, November 9 (Olivia Williams as Camilla and Dominic West as Charles) Throwback: Jonny Lee Miller cut a dapper figure in a black suit as he took on the role of the former Prime Minister John Major It's thought the Netflix show is currently shooting scenes portraying the month before the tragic accident, when Diana's sons famously joined their mother and her beau for a holiday. The sixth season of the show is its final, with the last two series covering the Royal Family in the 1990s to 2003, which includes Diana's death. The Crown resumed production on its sixth and final series last month in Barcelona after filming was paused for a single day following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. No doubt The Crown is adhering to a strict filming schedule to ensure its sixth and final series is released by Netflix on time, having been pushed back by its day-long pause in the wake of The Queen's passing. An Australian makeup artist with more than 20 years experience who has worked on famous faces like Rihanna has shared the seven products she uses on every client. Dalal Mansour, who is based in Melbourne, spoke to Adore Beauty about the expensive - and bargain - products she uses constantly on clients because they suit all skin types and skin tones. The first surprising addition to her professional makeup bag is none other than French-born brand Avene's Thermal Spring Water. Priced at $13 for a 50ml bottle it's a pricey can of water but it works to instantly calm the skin and reduce redness before makeup is applied. Dalal Mansour, who is based in Melbourne, spoke to Adore Beauty about the expensive - and bargain - products she uses constantly on clients because they suit all skin types and skin tones The first surprising addition to her professional makeup bag is none other than French-born brand Avene's Thermal Spring Water (left) Dalal recalls her Fashion Week clients 'loving' a spritz in between runway shows to refresh their makeup-laden skin. She will then use L'oreal's Paris Base Magique Primer ($29.95) to blur fine lines and create a matte finish for eyeshadow and foundation to set onto. For the eyebrows Dalal turns to none other than 'eyebrow queen' Anastasia Beverly Hills' Brow Freeze ($40) to create a non-permanent feathered brow texture. 'Brow Freeze doesn't leave any flakey or crusty residue in the brows, so you can quickly brush the product out and re-shape your brows if you need,' she said. To conceal any redness or acne spots the $72 Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat High Cover Concealer Pen is a fail-safe option. One of Dalal's clients with a copper smokey eye and deep black eye liner (pictured) To conceal any redness or acne spots the $72 Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat High Cover Concealer Pen is a fail-safe option It lightens and brightens the undereye area, conceals and illuminates the cheekbones, all without being too 'heavy' or 'cakey' on the skin. 'A stroke of this under the cheekbones also helps to pop your cheekbones out, without contouring,' she said. Dalal's next three favourite products are all related to the eye. She opts for the M.A.C Cosmetics Pro Longwear Paint Pot ($39) for an easy-to-achieve coloured eyeshadow. 'My kit contains a range different shades: Light neutrals like Painterly and Soft Ochre, mid tones like the cult Groundwork and Tailor Grey, and deeper shades such as Contemplative State and It's Fabstract,' she said. She opts for the M.A.C Cosmetics Pro Longwear Paint Pot ($39) for an easy-to-achieve coloured eyeshadow The Huda Beauty Quick 'N Easy Precision Liquid Liner ($17) is a waterproof, sweat-proof and rub-proof liner that makes application a breeze. While Dalal has tried many a liquid liner, this is one she turns back to time and time again. And finally Ardell False Lashes is her go-to option to enhance even the shortest of lashes. The lash hairs have a crisscrossed design to mimic a natural lash. Passengers should not hit the call button for a 'barf bag, blanket, water, food' She revealed that it is a major health and safety risk for both parties involved Passengers should 'never' hit the call button when in take-off or landing The mom worked on a plane for six years and has plenty of tips for travelers Former flight attendant Kat Kamalani, from Hawaii, has revealed the one high-risk thing passengers need to stop 'immediately' A flight attendant has revealed the one thing passengers do that drives airline crew members 'mad' because of the high level of risk. Kat Kamalani, from Hawaii, took to TikTok to reveal that travelers should 'absolutely never' hit the call button when the aircraft is on the tarmac or during take-off and landing because it is incredibly unsafe for crew members to walk to a seat during that time. 'This drives flight attendants absolutely bonkers, and we usually won't even come to it until it is safe,' she said. Scroll down for video A former flight attendant has revealed the one thing passengers do that drives the airline crew 'mad' because of the high level of risk Kat Kamalani, from Hawaii, took to TikTok to reveal the that travellers should 'absolutely never' hit the call button when the aircraft is on the tarmac or during take-off and landing Kamalani revealed that many people make the same mistake, and that the actions of passengers who press the call button during take-off or landing can lead to 'serious consequences.' 'The reason being that it's a huge safety issue for us and we can get injured, and same with [the passengers],' she said. 'So when we're on the tarmac, you hit this and it's not some type of emergency, we're going straight back to our seat.' She added, 'If you hit this while we're going up on the aircraft or we're going down when we're landing, we won't even come to the light, we'd come to it afterwards.' Kamalani revealed that many people made the mistake, and that the actions of passengers who press the call button during take-off or landing can lead to 'serious consequences' But many were unhappy with Kamalani's advice, specifically in regard to not being able to ask for a sickness bag during take-off or landing She urged travelers not to hit the button if they needed a 'barf bag, blanket, water, headphones, food,' because their flight attendant would not be happy. 'Just make sure you're all set before take-off,' she advised. But many were unhappy with this advice, specifically in regard to not being able to ask for a sickness bag. 'Wouldn't the crew prefer asking for a barf bag instead of having to clean puke up when in the air?' asked one man. 'I literally was about to puke all over the seat with motion sickness, so I had to press the button,' explained another. 'What else are people supposed to do?' Kamalani also explained why she never boards a flight without packing her own snacks and always declines a tea or coffee when travelling. Number one on her list is to never board a plane without packing some snacks. 'You never know what is going to happen,' she said. Former flight attendant Kat Kamalani, from Hawaii, took to TikTok to reveal the five things she will never get caught out doing during a flight - after working in the industry for six years Kat now lives in Hawaii - where she looks after her daughter and posts content to TikTok TEN RULES TO LIVE BY WHEN TRAVELING ON A PLANE Always wear shoes on the plane Never drink the hot water Always bring a blanket Always bring a change of clothes Always look up airports nearby Always bring plenty of snacks Bring a face washer Always obey your flight attendant Pack your toothpaste Never tell seat buddies details Advertisement She also revealed she would never drink hot water on an airplane - which means tea and coffee are out of the question. 'The reason being is because those water tanks are never cleaned. They are disgusting,' she said. 'The kettles are cleaned in between flights but the whole (coffee) machines are never cleaned... and they're by the lavatories,' she added. This has been backed up by the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center at the City University of New York who did a study on the 'drinkability' of airplane water. The study found seven in ten airlines didn't have good-quality water and recommended people only ever drink liquids from a sealed container during flights. But an airline maintenance person hit back at this idea, slamming the hostess for her views. 'Just because you don't clean the tanks doesn't mean they aren't done, we do them,' he said. The third thing on Kat's list is perhaps the most obvious, with the Hawaii resident insisting that all passengers should 'always obey the flight attendants and what they say'. She also explains that she always looks up hotels, alternative airports and flights whenever she goes on a trip 'just in case something happens' and she needs to plan another way home. @katkamalani Oh and please dont walk around with your shoes off original sound - Kat Kamalani Her most popular content focuses on her six years in the sky as a flight attendant She also recommends not getting too chatty with your neighbors mid-flight Her final tip is to never 'divulge too much information - personal information - to someone who is sitting next to you and asking about your life'. The former hostess posts about her family life, exotic fruit and videos on health and well being. But it is her travel videos which most often go viral and create the most discussion in the comments. The latest video prompted other flight crew members to add their own musts and must nots to the list. 'I always bring my own blanket - it is freezing on there,' one woman said. 'I always have my toothbrush and toothpaste in my carryon, as well as face and bottom wipes,' one woman said. While others said they like to pack a change of clothes including underwear in their carry-on luggage. 'I always buy food at restaurants and eat in when I get on the plane...I see people's have around me cause the whole plane smells my food,' said another. Another woman said she cringes when people walk around the plane without shoes on. The duo have quit their jobs to focus on their lucrative OnlyFans careers fulltime Their fame grew their income from $10,000 to at least $30,000 each month A glamorous mum encouraged to start making explicit OnlyFans material by her daughter said it's time to stop the judgement - as she reveals she's now making $30,000 a month despite starting less than a year ago. Evie Leana, 37, and Tiahnee, 20, from Adelaide, have been making headlines around the world as the mother-daughter duo earning a fortune on OnlyFans. The single mum-of-four is now bringing in enough money to able to quit her job as a beautician and start up her own clinic as a side hustle to her lucrative on-camera career. Adelaide mum Evie Leana (right) and her daughter Tiahnee (left) have both tripled their income on OnlyFans since starting last year and gaining worldwide attention The single mum-of-four is now bringing in enough money to able to quit her job as a beautician and start up her own clinic as a side hustle to her lucrative OnlyFans career After starting OnlyFans at 18, Tianhee made $100,000 in just 12 months and urged her mum to get on the site after a breakup. 'It didn't take much convincing,' Evie told FEMAIL, who took to it quickly, gaining a following and raking in $10,000 a month. While Tianhee was the reason Evie took up OnlyFans, they keep their business separate and don't spend much time helping each other. 'We have our own things going on and our content is very different,' Evie said. 'She definitely has more boundaries than I do. I have boundaries also but my content is definitely more explicit than hers.' After starting OnlyFans at 18, Tianhee made $100,000 in just 12 months so urged her mum to get on the site after a breakup 'It didn't take much convincing,' Evie told FEMAIL, who took to it quickly, gaining a following and raking in $10,000 a month Nevertheless, their unique situation captured worldwide attention. 'We went viral in the UK, America, Spain and Germany to name a few countries,' Evie said. They were also approached to be the stars of a new reality TV series but turned the offer down. 'We didn't do this for fame. We wanted an easier lifestyle where we can live life on our own terms,' Evie said. The attention grew both Evie and Tiahnee's following to the point they started making at least $30,000 a month each. They were also approached to be the stars of a new reality TV series but turned the offer down Tiahnee was able to quit her job last month and enlisted the help of her long-term boyfriend who's she been with since they were just 14. 'They are high school sweethearts and he has always been 100 per cent supportive of her decision to do OnlyFans. He takes photos for her and it has never been an issue,' Evie said adding that she plans to remain single 'for a long time'. Evie gave up the nine-to-five in June and not only has enough money to support her and her family but has also started her own business. Three days a week, she works as a beauty therapist specialising in body sculpting but OnlyFans is her main focus. Tiahnee was able to quit her job last month and enlisted the help of her long-term boyfriend who's she been with since they were just 14 Evie gave up the nine-to-five in June and not only has enough money to support her and her family but has also started her own business 'I genuinely enjoy it. It makes me feel grateful there is a platform to not only earn money on but to embrace my sensual, feminine side. It makes me feel alive,' Evie said. 'The financial freedom and being able to work on things we are passionate about and enjoy in our spare time, living life on our own terms and building toward our futures is something that we could not do otherwise.' As far downsides of the job goes, Evie said she 'cant think of anything' but admits she's copped judgement from people online. 'There is a lot of negative stereotypes around sex work but not only that I think as a society there is so much shame around sexuality in general,' she said. 'Clearly most people would prefer to keep that side of them private but let's not shame others and educate people on their right to enjoy and express their sexuality as long as it's consensual and not hurting anyone.' The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirms that there is a nationwide shortage of Adderall, limiting the supply and distribution of the drug across the United States. Americans are now facing a shortage of prescription drugs for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and patients are calling for its immediate release, ABC News reports. Patients And Doctors Are Scrambling For Alternatives The FDA officially declared a shortage on the stimulant drug on Wednesday, citing that Teva Pharmaceuticals is not manufacturing enough to meet the US market demand. According to Gizmodo, Adderall is an amphetamine and salt mixture that is widely used for ADHD but is also abused as a study drug because it is known to improve focus. Individuals who require the drug as part of their prescription medication have already reported going without it for weeks and have been urging pharmacies to roll out supplies. The director of the Adult ADHD Center of Maryland, Dr. David Goodman, said that even psychiatrists have been adjusting prescriptions to assist patients, The New York Times writes. However, Teva, the largest maker of Adderall in the US, said that they are manufacturing and distributing supplies at a consistent pace, but the demand for the drug has been irregular. Meanwhile, another drug supplier called Sandoz Pharmaceutical said that there is no shortage of Sandoz Adderall in the market right now as they are meeting all of their current demands. Read More: Adderall Abuse Among College Students, Twitter Findings Track Use ADHD Is Becoming A More Common Diagnosis ABC News says that the company has noticed a significant rise in national prescription rates due to back orders, which causes the disruption in product availability. Gizmodo reports that the spike in demand for Adderall is simultaneous to the rise of its extralegal use but it is also because of the increase in adults getting an ADHD diagnosis. In a few months in 2021 alone, the number of adults between the ages of 22 and 44 diagnosed with ADHD climbed by 15%, possibly including those who get unauthorized prescriptions online. However, adults are not the only ones affected by ADHD as it is also common for kids, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating 10% of them have it as of 2019. While it has become easier to get a diagnosis for ADHD as much as it is to get a prescription, the American Psychiatric Association warns the public of possible side effects, KMA Land says. "While stopping Adderall is generally not life-threatening, rebound symptoms, including inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, may return and be distressing," Dr. Anish Dube claims. Furthermore, the Drug Enforcement Administration also believes that Adderall, like other drugs, has the potential to be addicting, causing psychological and physical dependence in patients. Additionally, doctors and law enforcement continue to remind Americans to avoid buying counterfeit pills since they can be lethal, according to KMA Land. In connection to this, telehealth companies Cerebral and Done Health are already facing federal investigation for alleged violations of the Controlled Substance Act. Until supply is restored, professionals recommend patients seek alternatives as supervised by their doctors to determine their best treatment options, according to WBIW. The FDA's Drug Shortage webpage promises to update the information on Adderall supply regularly, telling patients when the supply will be available for distribution. Related Article: 'EndeavorRX' To Go Public: FDA Approves ADHD Treatment in Video Game Form IKEA Australia has unveiled ultra-exclusive 'BallerCards' that will provide 250 of the brand's most loyal customers with special perks. Recipients of the cards, also called 'Ballers,' will receive a year's worth of complimentary Swedish meat, chicken, veggie or plant balls. These select members can present their gold BallerCard at the restaurant in any of Australia's IKEA stores to claim their reward. IKEA Australia has unveiled ultra-exclusive 'BallerCards' that will provide 250 of the brand's most loyal customers with special perks Recipients of the cards, also called 'Ballers,' will receive a year's worth of complimentary Swedish meat, chicken, veggie or plant balls Poll Will you receive an IKEA BallerCard? YES - I love IKEA NO - but I want the meatballs Will you receive an IKEA BallerCard? YES - I love IKEA 5 votes NO - but I want the meatballs 20 votes Now share your opinion The BallerCard is available by invitation only and was delivered to the selected 250 IKEA Family members' doorsteps at the beginning of October. 'The BallerCard is an opportunity for us to surprise and delight our most engaged IKEA Family members by giving them a taste of IKEA all year round,' said Jessamine Avila, Country Marketing Manager for IKEA Australia. Many have dubbed the program '80 times more exclusive than the AMEX Black Card' and '91 times rarer than an original Picasso' because of its limited release. 'When we say "exclusive," we mean it. The BallerCards are extremely limited and a wonderful way to show our IKEA Family members how important they are and, of course, make them feel like ballers,' added Justin Ruben, Creative Director of CHE Proximity, who helped develop the scheme. The BallerCard is available by invitation only and was delivered to the selected 250 IKEA Family members' doorsteps at the beginning of October Many have dubbed the program '80 times more exclusive than the AMEX Black Card' and '91 times rarer than an original Picasso' because of its limited release The complimentary Swedish Meatballs (usually $10.50) will be served with mashed potatoes, cream sauce, lingonberry jam, and green peas. If patrons are so inclined, they are also able to claim their free meatballs every single day until the reward period ends. It is presently unclear if IKEA has plans to release more BallerCards in the future, or whether the parameters of joining the exclusive club might change. Royal experts are predicting that some of Princess Mary's children will see their titles stripped after four of their cousins had theirs removed to 'lead more normal lives'. Queen Margrethe, 82, revealed two weeks ago she would be removing the princely titles from her youngest son Joachim's four children Nikolai, 23, Felix, 20, Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10. The news was announced through a palace statement which said: 'As of January 1 2023, the descendants of His Royal Highness Prince Joachim will only be able to use their titles of Count and Countess of Monpezat, their previous titles of Prince and Princess of Denmark ceasing to exist.' Queen Margrethe said she wants the four children to live more normal lives, however, her decision upset Joachim and his four children, with the prince insisting his mother only gave him five days' notice - despite the Royal Household claiming the decision 'has been a long time coming'. Now the attention has turned to the Queen's remaining grandchildren after Princess Mary told reporters last Friday: 'We will also look at our children's titles when the time comes'. Royal experts are predicting that some of Princess Mary's children will see their titles stripped after four of their cousins had theirs removed to 'lead more normal lives' (Pictured in 2019) Historian and royal house expert Lars Hovbakke told BT he imagines that Frederik and Mary's children will be divided into two groups - with the twins (pictured) potentially losing their titles Without offering any further information, royal experts are presuming the Princess may be saying her youngest children - twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent - might lose their titles in the future. Historian and royal house expert Lars Hovbakke told BT he imagines that Frederik and Mary's children will be divided into two groups. 'You can easily slim down the royal house by, for example, looking at the twins' titles. It would correspond to the process that is underway in other European royal houses,' he said. The Danish royal family has found itself in the midst of a real crisis, according to an expert who said the very public row sparked by Queen Margrethe (pictured) stripping her four youngest grandchildren of their titles has shown people a different side Prince Joachim (centre) has publicly voiced his dismay at his mother's decision to strip his children of their titles (pictured L-R: Prince Felix, Princess Marie, Prince Joachim, Princess Athena, Prince Henrik and Prince Nikolai in September) But he believes Prince Christian, who is third in line to the throne, and Princess Isabella, will keep theirs. 'I don't think it will affect [Princess Isabella] because titles are needed at the top of the succession,' he said. Speaking after the public announcement was made, Prince Joachim told Ekstra Bladet his children had been 'hurt' by the decision and that he had only been given five days to break the news to them before it was publicly announced. Amid the scandal, Joachim and his second wife Marie admitted their relationship with his older brother Crown Prince Frederik and his sister-in-law Crown Princess Mary is 'complicated'. A Spanish magazine reported the Prince had been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law and Crown Prince Frederik's wife, Princess Mary. Pictured in 2014 The Danish Royal Family tree. Prince Joachim's children Nikolai, 23, Felix, 20, Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10, will all be losing their titles on January 1, 2023 And the Spanish magazine Vaniatis Elconfidencial has since sparked more speculation around the rift, after reporting that Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law Mary'. While Prince Joachim is understood to have since met with his mother to discuss the rift, reports say Crown Prince Frederik was not part of the meeting'. Following the meeting, the palace confirmed that the monarch and Joachim want to 'look forward' and are trying to 'find their way through' their differences, amid the very public row. Several Aussies banded together to share similar stories of miscommunication She posted a video detailing the difficult process of ordering a bottle of water An Australian woman travelling in the United States joked about needing a translator to order food in America - and thousands have admitted to facing the same problem. Betty Micsh, from Queensland, shared a video on TikTok and Instagram that illustrated the difficulties she has had at American drive-thrus. She claimed it was difficult to order a bottle of water when pronouncing it the Australian or British way (phonetically: wo-tah) which lacks the American use of the flap T (phonetically: wa-dder). Scroll down for video An Australian woman travelling in the United States joked about needing a translator to order food in America - and thousands have admitted to facing the same problem The video showed Micsh asking for water several times to no avail, until she switched up her accent to mimic the American pronunciation. 'It's like I need a translator,' she said. The flap T, also called a 'soft d,' in the word 'water' occurs because the letter is in the midst of two vowels. Many took to the comments to share similar experiences interacting with Americans. 'I tried to order a cheeseburger in the States and they had to get the manager,' wrote one man. 'I ended up having to point to a picture.' 'I did a youth exchange to the US a while ago,' one woman began. 'I was sitting in Maths class and talking about my "data" when an American, shocked to her core, asked me if I had a daughter.' 'Trying to find butter was absolute hell! The employee at the supermarket kept taking me to the cake batter aisle.' Betty Micsh, from Queensland, shared a video on TikTok and Instagram that illustrated the difficulties she has had at American drive-throughs Others shared stories of foreigners being unable to grasp the level of English literacy in Australia. 'It's happened to me plenty of times,' said one woman. 'I was told once that I spoke English really well for an Australian. I asked her what language she thought we spoke but she didn't know.' Another added, 'I've had this happen so many times in the States as well - at first, they don't understand what I'm saying, then they refuse to believe Australians can speak English.' NHS surgeons have now been told to start dishing out a 2 jab before operations to ease the knock-on chaos caused by the nationwide blood shortage. Thousands of routine operations face being cancelled due to the crisis, with doctors equipped with just two days' worth of supplies. Hospitals have been told to ration stocks under its 'amber' alert status amid warnings that the situation could last for months. Unless the shortage gets solved quickly, officials may have to enforce even tougher rules that could see all surgery except emergencies postponed. Surgeons and anaesthetists were last night asked to start using tranexamic acid, the same drug given to women battling heavy periods. Leading experts said the drug, which stops blood clots being destroyed, could be a 'major part of the solution'. There are around two days worth of universal blood type O negative, which hospitals rely on in emergencies Professor Ian Roberts, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said tranexamic acid (pictured) could be a 'major part of the solution' to the current NHS blood shortages What is the problem with NHS Blood and Transplant staffing and can I help? Since July 1, NHS Blood and Transplant has recruited more than 250 staff in key frontline roles. But turnover continues to be a challenge, with a quarter of staff who joining leaving every year. NHSBT aims to have around 1,296 staff in its blood donation teams, with 837 donor carers. Currently, only 778 donor carers are working. The shortages have led to appointment cancellations because there are not enough staff to take the blood. This has been exacerbated by Covid and other illnesses causing last minute absences. What roles are there? The greatest challenge is in donor carers. The role looks after people giving blood and administers the needle. Donor carers are paid in NHS band three and forum with salaries ranging from 22,000 to 26,000. They are supervised by session nurses who are in NHS band six, earning between 34,000 and 41,000. Do I need a medical background to be a donor carer? No. Donor carers used to need to take a 12-week training course. But this has been rapidly fast tracked to around eight weeks to tackle the current stock challenge. However, volunteers with no training are not currently being asked for. Advertisement Bleeding in operations accounts for a third of all demand for blood transfusion in Britain, data suggests. Officials already recommend it is given to all patients undergoing major operations. But a damning Mail audit last year revealed only two-thirds of eligible people were given it. A letter co-signed by officials at the Royal Colleges of Anaesthetists, Physicians and Surgeons in England, as well as the Centre for Perioperative Care, lauded the drug as a safe and cost-effective way to reduce blood loss. It said: 'In line with the measures requested by NHSBT, we recommend that use of tranexamic acid is considered in all adult surgical patients and administered if more than 500ml of blood loss is likely. 'We also recommend theatre teams consider adding this prompt to the perioperative care theatre checklist process.' The letter continued: 'Please share this with your colleagues, especially those in your perioperative, surgical and anaesthetic departments.' Dr Fiona Donald, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, told MailOnline: 'Increasing the use of tranexamic acid in surgery could help prevent cancellations of elective surgery because of limited blood stocks. 'Clinical trials show that tranexamic acid is a safe and cost-effective way to reduce blood loss and the need for transfusion. 'We recommend that the use of tranexamic acid is considered in all adult surgical patients if moderate blood loss is anticipated, in line with NICE guidelines. 'Although tranexamic acid is already used in many operations, there is scope for more widespread use, and we recommend operating theatre teams consider adding a prompt to their checklist process to encourage greater uptake.' Professor Ian Roberts, one of the UK's leading experts on blood loss who is based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told MailOnline: 'Tranexamic acid is a very simple, cost-effective solution. 'It reduces deaths in ops and major surgical bleeds and doesn't have any significant side effects. It's really good news all round.' He added: 'NHSBT is doing everything it can to increase supply but the staffing issue is probably the limiting factor. 'The rush to bare arms has been great but its not much use if there's no-one to take the blood. '[Tranexamic acid] is going to be a major part of the solution.' Tranexamic acid (TXA) was developed by a husband and wife in Japan in the 1960s, initially to reduce bleeding after childbirth. When you bleed, the body naturally forms clots which stop it spilling out too much blood. An enzyme called plasmin helps the body breakdown these clots, which is helpful after a wound heals. However, in surgery this can mean the body bleeds more than it should. TXA works by blocking plasmin, stopping the clots from being destroyed. It is injected into the muscle in the thigh or a vein in the arm. The drug has long been used to treat major bleeds, such as road accident victims and women with extremely heavy periods. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends it is given to all patients undergoing major operations. But an audit of 152 NHS hospitals revealed just two thirds of eligible patients were offered it last year. Professor Roberts said the drug is not being pushed by drug companies because it has passed it patent stage, despite there being no issue with supply. But interest in it has shot up due to the continuing problems with blood shortages, he said. Professor Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, told MailOnline: 'There have been many advances in surgery over recent decades which mean patients are less likely to lose a lot of blood during surgery. 'Tranexamic acid can be used to achieve a 25 per cent reduction in major surgical bleeding, and also, up to a 33 per cent reduction in the need for blood transfusions. 'While it is routinely used in some areas, there needs to be greater uptake given the pressures on blood stocks. 'Increasing the use of tranexamic acid could reduce the risk that hospitals have to cancel planned operations for a lack of blood. 'We are writing to all our members today, and hosting a webinar to provide further information on this issue to surgeons across the country.' Hospitals have been told to implement emergency plans to protect their dwindling stocks under the first ever 'amber' alert status England's dire blood shortage could be solved with a 2 drug that is not being used enough by the NHS, experts claim Officials insist the crisis is solely down to staffing shortages and rising Covid rates, as opposed to a lack of donors. Most donor sessions are full, with some appointments having to be cancelled at the last minute because there aren't enough workers to take samples. In a desperate attempt to fix the issue, NHS staff in other roles are being moved to the frontline to fill in on a temporary basis. Some who have left the organisation are even being asked to return until the blood shortage eases, MailOnline understands. The NHS recruitment webpage for roles at blood centres saw 600 per cent more daily visitors on Wednesday. Staff at blood clinics include session nurses who oversee a team of donor carers, whose role involves taking blood and looking after patients. NHS Blood and Transplant said it currently has around 780 donor carers, 50 short of what it needs for its 25 permanent sites across England. Donor carers be trained in eight weeks under a new fast-track system brought in for the crisis, and do not need a medical background. Despite the rush to donate blood, some kind-hearted donors have complained about struggling to get appointments. NHS Blood and Transplant claimed it has been deliberately reducing donor numbers over the years in an attempt to avoid waste. Blood can only be stored for 35 days. It said it is focusing instead on making sure there is enough supply of the specific blood types that patients need. Their muscles could not get enough oxygen and some were hyperventilating 40-year-olds with the condition would run or cycle like 'someone in their fifties' Long Covid can take away a decade's worth of physical fitness, a study found Exercise 'intolerance' should be considered an official symptom of long Covid, scientists say. A review of existing studies found the condition which is still not fully understood can rob people of the equivalent of a decades worth of physical fitness. The finding adds to a long list of symptoms associated with long Covid the name for signs of illness that linger months after a Coronavirus infection. Previous studies have found headaches, fatigue and brain fog to be the most common ailments, but anecdotally people say they also struggle to exercise. Working out if long Covid is the true culprit for these problems has proven tricky, given how commonplace these symptoms are. Professor Matthew Durstenfeld, a cardiologist at the University of California in San Francisco, who led the new review, said there was definitely 'something going on'. His team looked at endurance capacity in people with long Covid and compared them to people of similar ages who recovered from the virus. They found long Covid sufferers performed worse, and had the stamina of someone a decade older. Exercise 'intolerance' should be considered an official symptom of long Covid, scientists say (file) CDC data shows the percentage of people reporting symptoms after a positive Covid test. The green, purple, turquoise and orange bars show the people who would be classed as having long Covid, as symptoms are persisting after 12 weeks. The most commonly reported lasting symptoms are headaches, runny nose, loss of smell, taste or hair and sore throat The estimated number of people in the UK with self-reported long Covid has grown over the months, reaching a peak during April 2022 of 1,988 What is long Covid? Long Covid is an informal term, used to describe ongoing symptoms following a Covid infection that go on longer than four weeks, according to the ONS. A dizzying array of symptoms have been attributed to long Covid, including: extreme tiredness (fatigue) shortness of breath chest pain or tightness problems with memory and concentration ('brain fog') difficulty sleeping (insomnia) heart palpitations dizziness pins and needles joint pain depression and anxiety tinnitus, earaches feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, changes to sense of smell or taste rashes There is no cure for the condition, though treatments can ease symptoms. Advertisement Forty-year-olds with long Covid ran or cycled like 'someone in their fifties', Professor Durstenfeld told The Washington Post. An estimated 16million Americans and 2million Britons have the condition - but medics are still split over the true number. The new analysis focused on 464 people with long Covid and 359 without, aged between 39 and 56, involved in nine existing trials. All participants undertook a test of their exercise capacity and heart rate on a treadmill or exercise bike. Generally, those who had recovered from Covid could withstand a normal amount of exercise for their age. Their heart rates could not reach the average rate expected during exercise, which would slow blood flow around the body. During moderate exercise, an average heart rate should be between 90 and 126 beats per minute, and for vigorous exercise, it should be between 126 and 153. And their muscles took less oxygen from the bloodstream than they usually would, which would hinder muscle contraction. Some people also hyperventilated. Professor Durstenfeld said these are not normal reactions after someone has become out of shape after being ill. Writing in the study, published in JAMA Network Open, the researchers described the symptom as 'exertional intolerance'. Dr David Systrom, a lung expert at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who was not involved with the study, reflected that individuals with long Covid may undergo molecular changes in their muscles, nerves and blood vessels. This means their bodies may become less tolerant to the physical demands of exercise, even if they have nothing abnormal in their lungs or hearts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that around eight percent of American adults are suffering from a form of long Covid. It is near impossible to tell what chance a person has of developing it after Covid infection because of the massive underreporting of cases that has occurred since the Omicron variant emerged last year. US District Judge Robert Hinkle said there was 'nothing wrong' with the decision But in June the state banned Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care Roughly 9,000 trans people in Florida rely on Medicaid for their treatments A ban on public money being used to fund sex changes in Florida has been upheld by a federal judge. The state implemented a rule in August that blocks the jointly funded state and federal Medicaid program from covering the cost of gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy or surgery. Prior to the change, low-income patients covered by the Medicaid program could receive subsidized services that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars out of pocket. A coalition of trans rights groups filed a lawsuit against Florida over the ban, claiming the treatments are 'medically necessary, safe and effective'. But US District Judge Robert Hinkle said there was 'nothing wrong with the state saying they will approve treatment for this and not that'. This map shows the proportion of the population identifying as transgender by state. Those with the darkest color have almost one per cent of their population in this category The above map shows the population of transgender adults and children across America in 2020, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Its estimate for children aged 13 to 17 has doubled since 2017. It shows the highest population is in southern states, followed by those along the east coast He said the trans-rights groups had failed to demonstrate the rule would cause 'irreparable harm' if it were not blocked in the court. Florida is one of 10 states that has banned transgender care from being covered by Medicaid which is jointly funded by the federal government and states. Roughly five million Floridians nearly a quarter of the state's residents rely on taxpayer-funded Medicaid for timely, affordable healthcare. More than half of the children in the state are covered by Medicaid. Advocates estimate about 9,000 transgender Floridians obtain their gender-affirming services through Medicaid. There is growing concern about the long-term effects of irreversible hormone drugs and sex change operations, especially when it comes to children. Now Oklahoma 'bans' puberty blockers for trans children Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has signed a bill that effectively bans gender- reassignment drugs from being prescribed to minors at the state's main children's hospital. The Republican is withholding Covid relief funds from Oklahoma Children's Hospital at OU Health until it stops providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to under-18s. The state allocated $108 million to the University of Oklahoma-linked health system as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act passed in 2021 to help struggling businesses and hospitals. Gov. Stitt said Tuesday: 'By signing this bill today we are taking the first step to protect children from permanent gender transition surgeries and therapies. 'It is wildly inappropriate for taxpayer dollars to be used for condoning, promoting, or performing these types of controversial procedures on healthy children.' Oklahoma Children's Hospital currently offers life-altering drugs to teenagers under 18 with parental approval. It is thought that around 100 minors are currently receiving treatment. Stitt also called for the Republican-controlled state Legislature to ban some of those gender-affirming treatments statewide when it returns in February. He said in a statement that he wanted a prohibition on 'all irreversible gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies' on minors. Advertisement Gender transition surgeries among children are supposed to be used as a last resort but the procedures are becoming increasingly common as more youngsters identify as trans. Gender-affirming care in children more often consists of various hormone therapies, social transitioning, and behavioral therapy. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of four people, claimed that the state breached parts of the equal protections clause of the Constitution and anti-discriminatory language in Obamacare and the Medicaid Act. The suit was brought on behalf of August Dekker, Brit Rothstein, and two 12-year-old children Susan, a transgender girl, and KF, a transgender boy. Mr Rothstein was due to have gender-affirming surgery in December under Florida's Medicaid program. He was told his chest surgery was now cancelled, but his lawyer told the judge a patient being pre-authorized for surgery was an exception to the rule. Judge Hinkle said he would keep that in mind when the ruling is handed down in the near future. Three witnesses brought by the state testified at the hearing on Wednesday, including Yaakov Sheinfeld, whose 18-year-old daughter started transitioning after her therapist suggested it. The therapist said her depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria might be treated with hormones. Gender dysphoria is the emotional distress due to a disconnect between gender identity and biological sex. Sheinfeld said his daughter's depression and anxiety never did pass, even after she had gender-affirming surgery. She later died of a drug overdose. Her father said: 'All I know is the system the world, the Internet, her friends informed her to take this journey. And now shes dead.' The number of children with gender dysphoria has exploded in recent years, giving rise to the use of powerful puberty-blocking drugs. About 300,000 children aged between 13 and 17 (1.4 per cent) in the US identify as transgender, according to most recent estimates from 2020. That is double the number estimated to be transgender in 2017 in a previous report by the same researchers, though they used different estimates. Connecticut and New York saw the numbers of children identifying as transgender in their states nearly quadruple over the last three years alone. The population only fell in West Virginia, Tennessee and New Jersey. Children aged 13 to 17 are over four times more likely to identify as transgender (1.4 per cent) than adults over 65 (0.3 per cent). Some say the rise is born out of increased awareness of gender dysphoria and a rise in acceptance in society. However, many believe that the impressionable minds of children are easily swayed by trends and phases among peers and that children are not ready to make irreversible decisions about their gender. While no official, national estimates exist, many more children receiving gender-affirming care at an increasingly younger age. Treatment often involves powerful and life-altering drugs that block puberty and the release of key developmental hormones. MARPLE: TWELVE NEW STORIES by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins 20, 384pp) MARPLE: TWELVE NEW STORIES by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins 20, 384pp) One of the best-loved characters in crime fiction, Agatha Christies Miss Marple has been freshened up for this delightful collection of original short stories. Led by Val McDermid with a tongue-in-cheek contribution (The Second Murder At The Vicarage), the other writers, all women, are mostly of the generation who were not alive when Christie was active. But having studied form they succeed in recapturing the spirit of an age when good and evil were clearly delineated. Miss Marple is not entirely unchanged. She gets around more for one thing. Defying the frailties of old age, she is to be found in various exotic locations, her home base of St Mary Mead presumably having exhausted its stock of murderers. However, her incisive mind is as sharp as ever. We should applaud her longevity. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next HISTORICAL CRIME Share this article Share THE RAILWAY DETECTIVES CHRISTMAS CASE by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby 19.99, 352pp ) THE RAILWAY DETECTIVES CHRISTMAS CASE by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby 19.99, 352pp) A work outing ends dramatically when the manager leading the excursion is shot dead. Few regret his passing. This being Victorian England, the victim was a hard taskmaster who believed that workers should stick to the factory bench rather than take time off with their families to enjoy the countryside. That he opposed the sentiments of a benevolent employer was known to all. Yet it is scarcely credible that any of those on the day out would have resorted to murder. With Christmas drawing near, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are under pressure to make an early arrest. But first they have to untangle family rivalries, while coping with the hostility of the local gentry who resent the intrusion of the industrial masses into their rural idyll. Steam railway buffs might feel short-changed on period detail but Edward Marston compensates with a rattling good tale. THE TATTOO MURDER by Akimitsu Takagi (Pushkin Vertigo 8.99, 384pp) THE TATTOO MURDER by Akimitsu Takagi (Pushkin Vertigo 8.99, 384pp) Call me old fashioned, a head-totoe tattoo does not stand out as a thing of beauty. But in bombscarred post-war Tokyo, the practitioners of the pinprick art were held in highest regard. Elaborate tattoos were so valued as to become collectors items, to be preserved after the wearers death. This macabre prospect comes prematurely to the carrier of a tattoo masterpiece whose full body snake embellishment leads to her murder and dismemberment. Tracking the killer falls to her lover, along with his policeman brother and a forensic scientist who doubles as a private detective. Thereafter we are on familiar classic crime territory with a locked room mystery, mistaken identities and double dealing within a tight criminal fraternity. A tendency to over-dramatise with shock-horror revelations is balanced by coldly analytical deductions to produce an ingenious whodunnit. In charge: Julian Dunkerton pictured with his fashion designer wife Jade Holland Cooper Superdry shares soared as founder and chief executive Julian Dunkerton increased his stake. The businessman spent 2m on shares, taking his holding 21.7 per cent to 23.9 per cent. Shares jumped 9.8 per cent, or 10.8p, to 121.6p. Last week, the business said it had swung to a 21.9m profit for the year to the end of April. It had booked a 12.6m loss a year earlier. Dunkerton, who co-founded the business in 2003, is carrying out a revamp of Superdry's stores and clothing range. After leaving the business in 2018, the 57-year-old became chief executive again in a boardroom coup a year later. His turnaround plans were thrown off track by Covid and now faces a hit from spiralling costs. He said: 'These are exceptional times for retail and for the economy more generally, and like all brands we're having to work harder than ever to drive performance.' Dunkerton is Superdry's biggest shareholder followed by the firm's co-founder James Holder, with 7 per cent. He now does charity work and promotes donor awareness and recognition Robert Manning says he is 'luckiest man alive' because donor's family said yes Rob Manning owes his life to one word and to the family who uttered it while he lay helpless in a coma approaching death. The word was 'yes', and it allowed Rob to receive a new liver from a fellow patient at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital late last year. 'I offer my heartfelt and loving "thank you" to the family of my liver donor, I will respect the gift I have being given,' the former telco executive said. Rob Manning shows off the scar of his Liver transplant, which came through at almost the last minute 'I wake up every day grateful that I am alive. I am forever grateful to that family for saying "yes".' It was a life-saving miracle in a number of ways. 'Having suffered catastrophic liver failure I needed everything to go right and miraculously it did,' Rob, 55, said. 'I am A-plus positive blood type and the liver was type O (the universal donor type). 'An organ donor has to die in a certain way. They must be on life support or in an emergency department. 'While I was in ICU it could well have been the bloke next to me who was my donor - I don't know.' After blacking out on December 19 the next memory Robert has is from January 2, when he rang his wife from hospital Rob was still alive thanks to the epic dash his wife Claire made to get him to the hospital in Sydney's eastern suburbs from the couple's Central Coast home. Claire had returned home from a shopping trip on December 19 to find Rob unclothed and disoriented. 'I was standing naked in the doorway not being able to put on my pants and shoes,' Rob said. 'She said "are you OK?" 'I said "I don't know. I feel weird". 'I was feeling like the senses were not working. I had no balance and no ability to put the pants on.' Robert and wife Claire (pictured left) had no idea when joyriding in their son's convertible around Sydney in March last year that their life was about to take a dramatic turn Claire bundled Rob in the car and made the 100km dash to the RPA, which she managed to do in 90 minutes without getting fined. Rob was triaged in the hospital's car park because of Covid restrictions. 'I was shivering even though the temperature was about 28C but I was feeling very cold,' Robert said. 'If it wasn't for her (Claire) being there I probably would have got treated like any other patient. 'She told them "there are people inside that know what's going on" - she had rang them on the way down. While he was in a coma Robert was put on dialysis to keep his liver and kidneys functioning 'So, they put me through. It was 3:30pm or 4pm when they wheeled me through the door and by 5pm I was in intensive care on life support.' Entering the hospital in a wheelchair is the last memory Rob has until he woke up on January 2. With Rob's kidneys shutting down as well as his liver, he had a deadline of 12 days on dialysis before the damage would become irreparable. 'There was probably a very high likelihood that I wouldn't have lasted past the first week of January,' Robert said. 'By the 12th day I would have been put through the tests to say "is he here, is he coming back?" When Claire found Robert in their Central Coast home on December 19 he was naked and delirious On December 29, Claire went to collect Robert's phone and was also handed his wedding ring, Medicare card and other belongings. Rob was close to death, which Claire learnt when the hospital rang her on December 30. 'We've got to operate because he's deteriorating,' she was told. 'We need to get him a liver. We are stepping up every attempt to find a match'. A frantic hour and a half later the phone rang again. 'We've found a match, we're prepping him he's going into surgery at the moment,' the hospital said. When Claire picked up Rob's personal effects from the Sydney RPA hospital it felt like he was already deceased Robert found out he had end-stage liver disease because of an auto-immune condition, which also attacked his heart and kidneys, in July last year. Finding out was also a bit of good fortune with Rob barely slowing for a moment in his busy life as an executive. 'I didn't feel sick at all,' he said. 'My wife had said to me many times, "you should go see the GP". I just said "I don't like doctors. I'm fine. If I get sick I'll go but I've never been sick". Robert points to Facebook photo taken around that time showing him with a carefree grin as he and Claire joyride in his son's convertible. 'So, you go from Friday, where I've got a photo of me in my son's Mazda MX 5 driving with the roof down smiling and happy - to Monday when I was in hospital for two weeks,' he said. Rob has become a very active advocate for donor awareness and he also raised money for transplant charities 'The hardest part was accepting the fact that I was sick because I was like "I don't feel sick". 'I owe my life to my wife for insisting I visit the GP.' Robert spent two weeks in North Shore Hospital and over the next five months he had two heart surgeries and numerous tests. In early December he went back to the hospital for what he called a bit of remedial work 'to keep him going' until a liver transplant could be scheduled for April/May this year. He left hospital with the medical staff telling him his blood samples were fine. 'They were happy to say "go and enjoy Christmas' and we'll see you towards the end of January",' Robert said. 'In the space of 36 hours from leaving the hospital everything just shut down. 'I came home and had catastrophic organ failure.' Only about a third of Australians are registered organ donors, however family members still need to consent. Robert is urging people to talk about organ donation before the decision has to be made. 'It's much easier to have this conversation around a BBQ, about what you want when you die than to be confronted in an emergency ward with "will you allow this?",' he said. Robert says despite being unwell he feels years younger since having his liver transplant 'Ten or 11 per cent of next of kin say no - one in 10. 'If the dying person is not a registered donor that number goes up to 60 per cent. 'Nationally the consent rate is 56 per cent, so 44 per cent of Australians say no to organ donation.' Just one organ donor can help up to 40 people. Rob now works full-time as an advocate and fundraiser for organ donor groups. He says his new liver is working extremely well, which is a relief because organ rejection is a major risk for any transplant patient. I have felt fitter and stronger than I have for 30 years,' he said. 'You tend to lead a more aware life. 'In 2021 came the realisation I was not bullet proof or immortal. 'The sun comes up and goes down and I want to see as many of those as I can.' ' A former Liberal party staffer accused of raping Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House in Canberra has had his version of events revealed in public for the first time. Bruce Lehrmann, 26, has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting Ms Higgins in former defence minister Linda Reynolds' office in the early hours of March 23, 2019, after a drunken night out. Ms Higgins, 27, was 'unavailable' to continue being cross-examined in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday, so an interview federal police conducted with Lehrmann on April 19, 2021, was played to the jury instead. The details of the interview can only now be revealed due to a court order banning publication until Ms Higgins had finished giving her evidence. On Monday, the court heard that Lehrmann told his boss on March 25, 2019, that he went to Parliament House to drink whiskey on the night of the alleged assault. However, the jury heard he later told federal police he went there to do some work and collect documents. Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann is pictured outside the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra on Monday, when his interview with federal police was played to the jury He also told police that he travelled with Ms Higgins to parliament from a nightclub about 1.45am on the night of the alleged rape, but claimed they parted ways once they reached their respective offices. Lehrmann said he was 'quite close' with Ms Higgins on the night of the alleged assault, but not in a romantic way, and that he was living with his then-girlfriend at the time. The former Liberal staffer told police he did not know he was accused of rape until February 2021 when a journalist emailed his new boss. He said in the following week he had considered taking his own life. 'I was ready to go. Yep. That week,' he told police. Throughout the recorded interview, Lehrmann maintained he was only 'moderately' intoxicated on the night in question and believed Ms Higgins was similarly drunk. When asked by police if he had sexual intercourse without consent with Ms Higgins, Lehrmann said: 'No.' He told police that, prior to the allegations, his assessment of the night in question had been that it was a 'very good, joyous, happy' evening. 'My world has been rocked,' he said in the police interview. Former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins and her partner David Sharaz outside the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra on October 6 Conflicting statements In his police interview, aired to the 16-person jury on Monday, Lehrmann told detectives he left 88mph, a retro-themed nightclub in Canberra, with Ms Higgins about 1.30am on the night of the alleged assault. He told police he needed to collect his keys and some documents from Parliament House for the weekend, and shared an Uber with Ms Higgins because she told him she needed to do the same. 'I thought I was being a gentleman by ordering an Uber,' he told police. 'I indicated that I had to go back to parliament. She said that she also had to pop by parliament, [I said] we can share an Uber there.' Once security let them inside, Lehrmann told police Ms Higgins took a right-hand turn to go to Ms Reynolds' office, while he turned left to go to his office. Lehrmann said he got to his desk, made notes relating to Question Time and gathered things to work on over the weekend, before he booked an Uber and left the office alone. Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann leaves the ACT Supreme Court after his former colleague and alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins gave evidence last week He told police he didn't see Ms Higgins after they went to their respective offices, and his stopover took about 45 minutes in total. When asked why he went to the office at such a late hour, Lehrmann said it was not unusual for parliamentary workers to collect documents late at night or to have a drink with colleagues. Lehrmann told police there was usually alcohol in parliamentary wings, but said there was none in Ms Reynolds' office at that stage because she was relatively new to the defence portfolio and the office was still being set up. However, he maintained that he did not go to parliament on the night of the alleged assault to drink more alcohol. 'I didn't have any alcohol in the office,' he told police. 'I didn't consume anything.' Detectives then referred to a statement from Fiona Brown, who was chief-of-staff in the defence department at the time. Lehrmann told police in the recorded interview that he had a meeting with Ms Brown on March 25, 2019 - three days after the alleged assault - because she wanted to know why he went to the office in the early hours of the morning. According to Ms Brown's police statement, Lehrmann told her during that meeting that he was not intoxicated when he arrived at work. Brittany Higgins arrives in ACT Supreme Court in Canberra last week before taking to the witness stand in the trial of her alleged rapist In the interview played to the jury, a detective read a section of Ms Brown's statement to Lehrmann: 'When asked who came with him, he said "Brittany", and I asked him why and he said it was to drink whiskey.' 'He said he came to drink his whiskey, he did not access anything else within that time. I asked how much he had, he said about two glasses,' the statement ready by the detective said. When speaking with police, Lehrmann doubled down on his version of events: 'We didn't have any alcohol in the office. I never had any alcohol.' The detective asked again: 'So you didn't have any alcohol in the office and that wasn't a reason for going back to the office?' Lehrmann replied: 'That was certainly not a reason for going back to the office.' The court heard that when Ms Brown met with Lehrmann she effectively ended his employment and asked him to pack his things. 'Close' with Brittany Higgins The court also heard Lehrmann had been at The Dock, a pub in Kingston, earlier that evening with several other colleagues who worked in various parliamentary departments, but only four of them went to 88mph after 12am. Lehrmann said in the police interview that he and Ms Higgins were 'quite close' during the night in question. When asked what he meant by 'close', he said the group-of-four were 'all close' by the time they got to the nightclub because 'we'd known each other from [earlier in] the night and now we're out in public and we don't know anybody else'. 'I don't think we would have done anything out of the ordinary that I wouldn't have done when out with a female friend,' he told police. 'Moving them away from people who were trying to dance with them, watching out for them or opening a door or whatever, you know, it was quite friendly.' Detectives asked Lehrmann if he engaged in any 'intimate behaviour with Ms Higgins at all' on the evening in question. FRESH WITNESS TESTIMONY Lauren Gain - who was the communications advisor in the defence department - was questioned in court on Monday. Ms Gain was at The Dock and 88mph on the night of the alleged offence. She told the court she was 'quite intoxicated' and doesn't remember leaving The Dock and arriving at 88mph. When asked about Ms Higgins' level of intoxication, Ms Gain told the court: 'I remember thinking she was quite drunk, and I remember thinking I was quite drunk also, and I remember thinking I needed to stop drinking.' The crown prosecutor, Shane Drumgold SC, asked why she thought Ms Higgins was intoxicated, to which Ms Gain replied: 'I remember her falling down [while walking] towards us... I think Bruce went to help her back onto the couch. I think [he helped her up]. She then sat back on the couch next to him.' Ms Gain said she didn't remember leaving the club, nor did she recall any conversations about anyone needing to stop by parliament on the way home. Advertisement He replied: 'Yeah it's possible. Would I have acted beyond anything that was a bit flirtatious? Absolutely not. I was in a relationship.' He also told police the two colleagues who accompanied them to the nightclub, Austin Wenke and Lauren Gain, were 'handsy' with each other, and 'hooked up' after the group dispersed. 'Moderately' intoxicated Lehrmann continually told police he was only at a 'moderate' level of intoxication throughout the evening, and when he left the nightclub. 'I recall things quite clearly,' he said. 'I wasn't in a state that I was not able to function.' When asked by police to rate his level of intoxication on a scale of one to ten - if zero is sober and ten was almost unable to function - Lehrmann said he was at seven. When asked how intoxicated he thought Ms Higgins may have been, he said: 'Probably the same.' 'I had no reason, from observation, to think she was any worse than everybody else,' he told police. Lehrmann told police he briefly spoke with Ms Higgins about their two colleagues 'getting drunk and potentially hooking up', and about the new office and the defence portfolio. He added that the pair had to sign in once they arrived at Parliament House because neither of them had their swipe cards on them - 'that takes focus,' he told police. 'It requires you to be aware of your surroundings,' he said. Lehrmann also told police anyone who turns up at Parliament House '10 out of 10 drunk' often gets turned away. 'They would be sent away and the rest of us would go up,' he said. 'Usually a senior member of the team would send them away.' The court heard he did not remember Ms Higgins falling over during the evening. According to Lehrmann's bank statements, which were tendered to the court, he only spent about $40 at the Kingston Hotel before he arrived at The Dock on March 22, and a further $40 at 88mph. Shock allegations The court also heard Lehrmann found out he was the man accused of raping Ms Higgins on February 15, 2021 - long after he left parliament - when a journalist contacted his new boss. 'He called me in, he sends me the email, it says "we've heard from government sources that Bruce is the alleged person, and does he want to respond", and of course I didn't,' Lehrmann told police. In the interview shown to the jury, Lehrmann appeared visibly uncomfortable as he told detectives he had considered taking his own life. 'I was ready to go. Yep. That week,' he said. 'I wound up everything.. I'm going to go. I saw that my mum was going to get everything and my super.' The court heard members of Lehrmann's family, including relatives in the US he barely speaks with, received relentless phone calls from journalists. He told police he was also photographed seeking mental health services, and trolled on Twitter by a 'keyboard warrior' who created various accounts called 'Bruce the rapist' and 'you're a rapist'. The court heard he did not report the trolling to police because he didn't feel as though his life was in danger, but continued to change his passwords. 'From a [public relations] perspective, you're done,' he told police. 'I finally have support but it was a very tough fortnight.' The trial continues. For confidential crisis support, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 Chinese VP meets Kazakh president, attends CICA summit Xinhua) 08:56, October 14, 2022 ASTANA, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and participated in the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana on Thursday. Wang conveyed President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings and best wishes to Tokayev, saying that President Xi paid a successful visit to Kazakhstan last month and the two heads of state agreed to promote the building of a China-Kazakhstan community with a shared future defined by lasting friendship, a high degree of mutual trust and sharing weal and woe, setting the direction for the development of bilateral relations in the new situation. Over recent years, under the strategic guidance of President Xi and President Tokayev, China-Kazakhstan friendship has always been rock-solid and the permanent comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries has been operating at a high level, he noted. Wang said China is willing to work with Kazakhstan to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, continue to firmly support each other's core interests, share development opportunities and safeguard common strategic security and development interests. Wang underscored that the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is one of great significance to be convened at a crucial moment, as China embarks on a new journey toward building a modern socialist country in all respects. He said this congress will fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, promote to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization, and map out China's targets and tasks for the next five years and beyond. The entire CPC and the whole Chinese nation have deeply realized that the fundamental reason behind the major achievements in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade is setting General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping's core position on the CPC Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and setting Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding ideology. Focusing on the mission and tasks of the Party in the new era and new journey, we will have a further keen understanding of the decisive significance of the Two Sets, more consciously ensure the Two Upholds, make concerted and joint efforts and carry forward the cause pioneered by our predecessors to realize the great blueprint to be mapped out at the 20th CPC National Congress step by step, Wang said. For his part, Tokayev asked Wang to convey his sincere greetings and best wishes to President Xi and highly appreciated China's important role in the CICA cooperation. He said that the 20th CPC National Congress will be an epoch-making event for China, which will open a new chapter in building a modern socialist country in all respects and start a new journey to achieve its second centenary goal. Developing relations with China has always been an important diplomatic priority for Kazakhstan and President Xi's historic visit has become a new milestone in the history of bilateral relations, Tokayev said. He said that Kazakhstan will firmly support the Belt and Road Initiative and work with China to continuously consolidate the permanent comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. When addressing the sixth CICA summit, Wang said the CICA participants should strengthen solidarity and coordination, properly tackle challenges, and endeavor to build an Asian community with a shared future. He urged the CICA participants to uphold mutual respect and mutual trust, implement the Global Security Initiative, pursue common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and maintain peace and stability in Asia. The CICA participants need to uphold mutual benefit, implement the Global Development Initiative, speed up delivery of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and promote the development and prosperity of all Asian countries, Wang said. He noted that the CICA participants should uphold mutual learning, rise above differences in ideology and social system and advocate harmony among Asian civilizations. The CICA participants should uphold fairness and justice, firmly support each other in following a development path suited to their own national conditions, uphold the UN-centered international system, champion true multilateralism and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Asian countries, Wang added. Wang emphasized that China has all along viewed CICA's development from a strategic and long-term perspective, and will fully leverage its role as the coordinating country in related fields, host exchanges in agriculture, green development, finance and among think tanks, and work with all parties to bring CICA cooperation to a new height. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Hongyu) "Top Gun: Maverick's" fictional hypersonic jet has become a real, tangible piece of military hardware... sort of. The Edwards Air Force Base recently announced that "Top Gun: Maverick's" Darkstar Jet will be on display during the 2022 Aerospace Valley Open House, Air Show, & STEM Expo (AV Air Show) to "showcase the future." The Darkstar hypersonic jet will be joined by every (real) tactical fighter in the US Air Force's inventory, such as the SR-71 Black Bird, per the Air Show's official Facebook page. AV Airshow - 'Top Gun: Maverick' Hypersonic Jet Display Details The official Facebook page of the Edwards Air Force Base mentioned that "Top Gun: Maverick's" Darkstar Jet will make its world debut during the 2022 AV Air Show scheduled this weekend. The news comes as a surprise to aviation enthusiasts as the possibility of the hypersonic jet's appearance in the air show was circulating on aviation websites for days before the Edwards Air Force Base confirmed it, per Space.com. However, people attending the event won't be seeing the hypersonic jet flying around and going at Mach 10, like in the movies. The jet, while tangible, is only a mock jet and is only meant for display. Despite that, having the jet displayed during the air show serves a purpose. According to the Edwards Air Force Base's post, the jet was designed to "showcase the future." As such, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) students will be the first to see the jet. Read More: World's First Space Tourist is Returning to Space After Booking Flight with SpaceX According to The Aviationist, 12,000 STEM students from high schools near the air show's venue will attend and see the jet on the event's first day. Lockheed Martin, the company that designed the Darkstar, as well as the air show's organizers, are hoping that the jet, though just a model, will stimulate interest in aerospace careers. Interestingly, Lockheed Martin is also allegedly having a hiring drive, and it hoped that the Darkstar Jet's appearance would help focus attention on it. The 2022 Aerospace Valley Open House, Air Show, & STEM Expo will be held on Oct. 15 and 16 at the Edwards Air Force Base in California. The Air Base's gates are set to open at 8:30 AM PDT and will close once the Air Base reaches capacity. The Story Behind 'Top Gun: Maverick's' Darkstar Jet The Darkstar jet is actually a work in progress behind Lockheed Martin's doors. According to a separate Space.com article, the aircraft is a modified variant of the conceptual SR-72 aircraft set to take the place of the SR-71 Blackbird prominently used for executing high-altitude reconnaissance during the Cold War. To get this modified variant of the SR-72 on the big screen, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works partnered with the movie's production team to develop and engineer the SR-72 that would look cool as a mock-up and an airborne CGI jet. Unfortunately, the movie didn't elaborate on the Darkstar's specifications and capabilities, which could have been a good thing. Ananda Cota, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson, said that the Darkstar is a "hyper-realistic aircraft concept" designed specifically for the movie, and such, will remain fictitious. This statement means that the capabilities of the SR-72 would greatly differ from whatever the capabilities of the Darkstar are. Related Article: #EntertainmentTech Was 'Top Gun: Maverick' Filmed in Actual Military Planes? Ms Higgins' ex-boss burst into tears when recalling text messages between them One witness said Lehrmann previously had a cabinet full of liquor in his offices A Parliament House security guard has told a court she found Brittany Higgins 'completely naked' just hours after she was allegedly raped by a former colleague. Ms Higgins, 27, alleges she was sexually assaulted by Bruce Lehrmann inside the office of former defence minister Linda Reynolds after a drunken night out in Canberra in March, 2019. Lehrmann, 26, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent. With Ms Higgins 'unavailable' to be cross-examined in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday and Tuesday, prosecutor Shane Drumgold SC called a range of other witnesses. The details of their evidence can only now be revealed due to a court order banning publication until Ms Higgins had finished giving her evidence. On Tuesday, Ms Reynolds' former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown burst into tears and fled the courtroom when recalling the moment Ms Higgins thanked her for her 'support and advice throughout this period' three months after the alleged assault. She also recalled the moment Ms Higgins, four days after the alleged rape, suddenly said: 'I remember him on top of me', and told the court Lehrmann's employment had been terminated due to three code of conduct breaches. Brittany Higgins, pictured centre arriving at court last week, was 'unavailable' to continue giving evidence on Tuesday so the court heard from a range of other witnesses Security guard Nikola Anderson (pictured) told the court she found Ms Higgins 'completely naked' in ex-defence minister Linda Reynolds' office the morning of the alleged rape Another witness, Nicole Hamar, who worked with Lehrmann in the Home Affairs office, recalled he had a sizeable liquor cabinet filled with 'spirits, whiskey, wine - quite a substantial amount of alcohol'. A fourth witness who worked in parliament said Ms Higgins confided in him days after the alleged assault. He told the court that when he asked Ms Higgins 'did [Lehrmann] rape you?', she replied: 'I couldn't have consented. It would have been like f***ing a log.' Earlier on Tuesday, Parliament House security guard Nikola Anderson told the court she found Ms Higgins naked and laying on her back on former defence minister Linda Reynolds' grey leather couch about 4.15am on March 23, 2019 - the morning she was allegedly raped. CCTV video played in court showed Lehrmann and Ms Higgins entering Parliament House about 1.45am that morning - which Ms Anderson said was 'strange'. 'I believe [my colleague] Mark said to them, "oh guys, this is a bit odd. Couldn't this have waited until Monday?",' Ms Anderson told the court. According to Ms Anderson, Lehrmann sounded 'nonchalant' when he replied: 'No.' The security guard told the court she did not think the pair were intoxicated until Ms Higgins struggled to put on her shoes, having taken them off to go through an x-ray scanner. A series of text messages between Brittany Higgins (pictured outside court last week) and her former boss Fiona Brown were read out in court, causing Ms Brown to break down on the stand Ms Brown burst into tears and was forced to leave the courtroom in distress when this text exchange (pictured) between her and Ms Higgins was read out in court Ms Anderson told the court she couldn't smell anything on them, and that she believes Ms Higgins was able to write her own name on the sign-in form. She escorted Lehrmann and Ms Higgins to the defence department suite and stayed with them until she had to relieve her colleague, who was still working at the security desk at the entrance to Parliament House. 'When I went down to give Mark his break, Mark had told me that something strange was happening ...Mr Lehrmann had left ... approximately 20 minutes after I had let him into the suite,' ' she told the court. 'He seemed to be in a hurry to get out, sort of threw the pass at my colleague and when my colleague had said to him, "That was quick. Are you finished?' his response was, "Yeah,' and hurriedly - quickly left.' The court heard Ms Higgins still had not left the suite by the time security guard Mark was back from his break, so Ms Anderson was advised by her team leader to do a welfare check. 'I went up there... As I opened the door, I announced, "security, hello? Security", just making my presence known. I got no response at all. '[There were] no lights on.' Ms Anderson told the court she then made her way to the minister's office and the door was shut, so she announced her presence again. 'As I've opened the door, Ms Higgins was lying on her back completely naked on the lounge,' Ms Anderson said. 'I think the air from the door has made noise or whatnot. She's opened her eyes, she's looked at me, and then she's proceeded to roll over into the foetal position, facing the desk.' Ms Anderson told the court that the white dress Ms Higgins was wearing earlier in the night was on the floor. Bruce Lehrmann (pictured arriving at court on Wednesday) has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent Later on Tuesday, Ms Reynolds' former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown told the court she tried to support Ms Higgins after she found out about the rape allegations - and became visibly upset when recounting text message exchanges between them. The court heard Ms Brown had a meeting with Ms Higgins on March 26, 2019 - four days after the alleged sexual assault - but did not make any rape claims at the time. The meeting was about a security breach - when she entered parliament with Lehrmann early on the morning of March 23 - and because Ms Brown heard Ms Higgins had been found naked in a ministerial office. Ms Brown also said she was advised that Ms Higgins and Lehrmann told security staff 'they' had urgent work to do - 'not he or she,' the former chief-of-staff added. 'I [told Ms Higgins] I had been advised ... that she was found naked and could she take me through what happened, from her point-of-view,' Ms Brown told the court. 'She said she was responsible for her actions and how she drank. She explained she had been out and had quite a bit to drink. She said she remembered waking up at some point throughout the night, semi-naked.' Ms Brown told the court she asked Ms Higgins if she was OK, to which she replied: 'Yes.' 'I said: "Is everything OK? Did something happen?" She shook her head and "No," she said, "I'm responsible for what I drink and my actions",' Ms Brown said. The court heard that since Ms Higgins had breached the Ministerial Statement of Staff Standards, she was given a new copy of the code to take home, review and sign. Parliament House security guard Nikola Anderson (pictured) told the court the white dress Ms Higgins had been wearing was on the floor when she found her naked in the minister's office Ms Brown said Ms Higgins only indicated something had happened two days later, on March 28, when she brought the signed documents back to the office. The former chief-of-staff asked Ms Higgins how she was going and urged her to get in touch if there was anything she needed. Ms Brown told the court that Ms Higgins, on the way out, had 'turned around and she said, "I remember him on top of me".' 'I said, "Oh. Oh my god. Are you alright? Has something happened you didn't want to have happen?",' Ms Brown said. Ms Brown said Ms Higgins shook her head, but appeared 'composed'. She asked whether the young woman wanted to talk, or make a report, but Ms Higgins said she wanted to talk to her father who was visiting Canberra that weekend. On April 1, there was a meeting between Ms Higgins, Ms Brown, and Ms Reynolds in the ministerial office. 'Ms Reynolds did most of the talking and she wanted to check on the welfare of Brittany,' Ms Brown told the court. 'She said that if something happened, that if Brittany, you know wanted to talk or felt there was a complaint to be made, that she was within her rights to make a complaint and to go to the police. 'She would be full supported.' Ms Higgins then agreed to speak with Australian Federal Police in parliament. When Ms Higgins asked if making a complaint would impact her career, Ms Reynolds said it would not and that she had 'our full support', Ms Brown told the court. Earlier in the trial, the court heard Ms Higgins moved from Ms Reynolds' defence portfolio to Michaelia Cash's employment portfolio. A series of text messages tendered to the court showed a series of exchanges between Ms Brown and Ms Higgins between March and June 2019. In one message, dated June 7, Ms Higgins said: 'I wanted to say this in person, but I cannot overstate how much I've valued your support and advice throughout this period. You've been absolutely incredible and I'm so appreciative.' Linda Reynolds former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown told the court Bruce Lehrmann (pictured right) had been terminated from his role due to three code of conduct breaches When defence lawyer Steven Whybrow began reading the message to Ms Brown on Tuesday, she suddenly burst into tears. 'Yes,' she choked. He finished reading the message to the court, Ms Brown said 'Yes' again, and was so distressed she had to leave the courtroom. Below the text was a photo of a bottle of champagne decorated with a bow, with a text that read: 'Thanks Brittany!!!'. When she arrived back on the witness stand an hour later, Mr Whybrow asked whether Ms Reynolds indicated to Ms Higgins that her job would come to an end if she did not follow the defence minister on the campaign trail to Perth. Ms Brown said: 'No.' Ms Brown also detailed a meeting with Lehrmann on March 26 - three days after the alleged sexual assault - to address the mishandling of sensitive defence documents which, she told the court, was a 'sackable offence'. Lehrmann had previously indicated that he wanted to leave parliament and seek employment elsewhere - his last day would have been that coming Friday, March 29. Ms Brown asked him to go home that evening to look around his office and return any documents. 'It was all very friendly,' she said. Half an hour after that meeting, she was told there had been a 'security breach' early on the previous Saturday when two staff members turned up to parliament while 'inebriated' - claiming they had 'urgent work business' to attend. Ms Brown called another meeting with Lehrmann and asked what he had been doing at work so early in the morning. '[Lehrmann] didn't agree that he was inebriated,' she told the court. 'He said he came back to the office to drink some whiskey, and I questioned that, "it seems a bit unusual to me. Who comes back to the office to drink whiskey?' 'He said, "Oh yes, people do it all the time".' Ms Brown said Lehrmann told her he had 'two glasses' of whiskey while at the office. The court heard Ms Brown was particularly concerned because he was previously caught mishandling documents earlier, and arrived at parliament while inebriated. She asked whether he had taken any documents from the building, and gave him 15 minutes to collect his belongings and leave the office immediately - adding that she wanted to walk him out, mainly to observe that he didn't have any documents. Ms Brown told the court that she went to check on him about five minutes later, and he was gone. He told her, via text message, that he left his pass with security. A fourth witness, Christopher Payne, worked as the departmental liaison officer for the department of defence in March 2019, and was a colleague of Ms Higgins' when she was still employed with now-retired politician Steven Ciobo. Defence lawyers Katrina Musgrove and Steven Whybrow (both pictured) are representing Lehrmann in the the ACT Supreme Court trial He couldn't recall whether his interaction with Ms Higgins was on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday after the alleged assault, but told the court she walked into a room while 'visibly upset'. 'I closed the door and she proceeded to give me a description of a conversation she had had previously with Fiona Brown,' he told the court. 'In that, she indicated that an event had occurred over the weekend that lead to her being found in a state of undress in the office. 'She recalled she was sitting on a windowsill in the office and effectively blacked out and did not recall anything further, until she woke up in the office with Bruce Lehrmann on top of her.' Mr Payne told the court he asked her, 'did he rape you?' to which Ms Higgins replied: 'I could not have consented. It would have been like f***ing a log.' He told the court that he advised her to go to a doctor and offered to take her to wherever she needed to go, but Ms Higgins declined the offer. The trial continues. A California woman was put on suicide watch after threatening to kill herself when her German shepherd puppy was put on doggy death row for biting a stranger - and the cop who came to seize him. Faryal Kabir declared she wished to end her own life after the 16 month-old dog, named Zeus, was seized by Elk Grove animal control on July 15. He bit an unidentified man in May, leaving the victim with multiple bad scratches on his legs. Zeus then struck again in July, nipping an Elk Grove Animal control officer who turned up to seize him. That bite broke the unidentified man's skin. The doomed dog was scheduled to be euthanized at Elk Grove Animal Shelter on Friday, but a lawsuit filed by Kabir, 46, on Wednesday has delayed the execution. She filed it after being slapped with a court order forcing her to spend five days at Sacramento Behavioral Hospital from October 6 over fears she'd harm herself. Speaking to DailyMail.com, Kabir revealed she's now suing the city after an ordeal she says has given her nightmares. Her attorney is also seeking $500,000 for injuries and losses Kabir has suffered and $5 million 'in the event her dog is executed'. She said: 'I can't live without him. He is my baby. My son. My best friend,' she said. Faryal Kabir, 46, says she will kill herself if her German shepherd puppy Zeus, pictured above with his owner, is euthanized for biting a stranger - and a cop who came to seize him after Bodycam video show Kabir trying to restrain Zeus as he lunges at animal control officers trying to seize him. Zeus is now doomed to die by lethal injection for his violent behavior A photo of one of the animal control officers outside of Kabir's home looking at this pant where Zeus snagged him. Officials had arrived five days early to seize the dog . Zeus was due to be put to sleep October 14, but his execution has been delayed after Kabir sued Kabir is seen holding Zeus on his leash before he is loaded into the back of the animal control van and taken away Kabir told DailyMail.com that the ordeal started on May 16 after she and Zeus returned from a dog park. As she parked her car, Zeus was startled when he saw a man nearby and jumped out of the car. The victim, who hasn't been identified, said Zeus chased and bit him, according to a report with the authorities. The victim was treated in the emergency room for his injuries, and reported pain in his legs, difficulty sitting, working, sleeping, and engaging in other normal activities that continued days after the attack. About a week later, city officials sent Kabir a letter classifying her dog as a 'dangerous animal'. Kabir was then given a list of requirements, including that the animal be kept within a substantial enclosure, securely leashed or otherwise controlled. She was given 35 days to comply. She was also required to set up an enclosure in her yard and place a sign saying she had a dangerous dog, as well as install new locks for her gate and get $100,000 in liability insurance for Zeus. However, Kabir says animal control officers from the Elk Grove Animal Shelter showed up unannounced at her home two days before that deadline, and seized Zeus because she had not put a kennel up for him. Bodycam footage obtained by DailyMail.com shows officers speak to Kabir before trying to seize Zeus, who was on a leash. At one point, he can be seen lunging at an unidentified officer and biting him. Animal Control Officer Crystel Mocek and an officer from the Elk Grove Police showed up unannounced at Kabir's home in July to seize Zeus Kabir speaking with the officials on July 15, 2022 outside of her Elk Grove home Recalling her outrage when animal control showed up to impound Zeus, Kabir said: 'I had to put my baby in this dark van. He had no idea what was happening to him,' she said through tears. 'How can you torture a puppy like this and isolate him from the world. I have not seen him and have had no contact with him.' Saturday will be three months since Kabir has been separated from her dog. She said she cries every day. 'I would give him hugs and kisses every minute. He was never left alone. He was such a good boy. How can a person do this? 'This is the United States of America and the treatment of my dog is brutal and inhumane.' A photo of the dog bites the man sustained during the May 16, 2022 incident Faryal Kabir snuggles with her dog Zeus who she hasn't seen since July 15, 2022 (pictured) . She is devastated that he may be put to death by city officials, and had been on suicide watch a a week ago at a local hospital before being released on Tuesday Attorneys for Kabir say officers bullied their client. 'The angry officer then took the dog from my client in an act of authority and bullying, then animal services called Kabir two days later and told her they were going to kill her dog' Kabir still maintains that she followed all of the guidelines, which also included eight weeks of obedience training, getting a license that classified Zeus as a dangerous dog and buying a leash, as well as a muzzle. 'My client was not even out of compliance,' Kabir's attorney Andrew Shalaby said. 'They had no business whatsoever going to Kabir's home before the compliance deadline. In the video the animal service officials admitted that they were there early to seize the animal.' Shalaby, himself a dog lover with two German shepherds, said the officers had also gone to Kabir's home on July 13, two days before the deadline. Zeus's fate was ultimately sealed after biting a shelter cop during that visit. 'The officer [Animal Service Officer Crystel Mocek] got angry that my client refused to let her into her home before the compliance deadline - and then two days later - on July 15th they showed up in a spiteful manner.' Kabir, doesn't have children of her own or a partner and calls Zeus her 'best friend' and 'whole world' Zeus making friends wherever he goes loves to play with children, adults and other animals, Kabir claims Shalaby and attorney Christine Kelly with The Animal Law Office have filed two lawsuits in both state and federal court to stop Zeus from being euthanized. Kelly, who is handling the federal portion of the case, told DailyMail.com that she 'doesn't understand why the city is so drastic.' 'The alleged bites are very minor, and not rising to the level of the death penalty,' she said. 'I think they are using Zeus as an example and are afraid of backing down, for fear of being accused of being wrong.' On Wednesday, Shalaby filed another lawsuit in state court - called injunctive relief - calling for the city to release Zeus on the grounds that they seized him before the law allowed them to do so. 'It's beyond cruel. That dog is 100% innocent,' he said. 'It is intentional and unjustifiable revenge by Officer Moses.' Kabirs lawyers say Zeus only bit the cop to try and 'defend himself,' and that the dog's attack was unprovoked. David Tyra, the attorney representing the city of Elk Grove told DailyMail.com on Thursday that 'he could not comment on the case because it is an active litigation.' When DailyMail.com contacted Elk Grove Animal Shelter regarding Zeus, a police officer from Elk Grove responded and said the 'only statement released is the one posted on the city website.' Dog owners are no longer allowed to place their own pet in the dog paddy wagon, animal control services have to do it. A forensics expert has told a court she did not find semen on the cocktail dress Brittany Higgins was wearing before she was allegedly raped by an ex-colleague. The former political staffer was wearing a white Kookai pencil dress on the night she claims Bruce Lehrmann sexually assaulted her inside Parliament House in Canberra. Forensic biologist Jennifer Stone on Wednesday told the ACT Supreme Court she found no semen on the dress but said the tests - which came two years after the alleged rape - were 'inconclusive, in a way' because it had been washed. The court later heard Ms Higgins told police Lehrmann 'got quite handsy' at a bar before the alleged assault early on March 23, 2019, after a drunken night out. Lehrmann, 26, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent. Ms Higgins was unavailable to finish her cross-examination until Friday this week, forcing prosecutor Shane Drumgold SC to call a range of other witnesses. The details of their evidence can only now be revealed due to a court order banning publication until the former political staffer had finished being cross-examined. The court has heard Brittany Higgins (pictured) centre stored the dress under her bed before she washed it in what she described as a symbolic act Forensics expert Jennifer Stone said the tests 'are inconclusive, in a way' when asked if it was possible that semen was on the dress before it was washed by Ms Higgins (pictured) On Wednesday, Ms Stone - a senior forensic biologist who works for the Australian Federal Police - told the court she was given Ms Higgins' dress on February 6, 2021, and asked to test for semen. 'I was told there was a dress that had been washed and it had been quite a delay since the time of the alleged incident - [it had been] washed once and put away,' she said. The court had previously heard Ms Higgins stored the dress under her bed before she washed it sometime before May 2019 in what she described as a symbolic act. Ms Stone told the court she 'visually examined' the dress for any areas of interest - finding a brown stain and having it tested for blood, but the results were negative. She told the court she then conducted screening tests for semen with a blue light and orange goggles - similar to 'that you might see in some crime shows' - across the entire dress looking for areas that needed further examination. Federal police officer Katie Thelning told the court Ms Higgins said the man she claims raped her, Bruce Lehrmann (pictured right), had 'got quite handsy' with at a bar that night Lehrmann, 26, (pictured arriving at the Supreme Court in the ACT on Thursday) has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent Ms Stone said there were a 'couple' of areas that required further testing but produced negative results for semen. 'I then just screened the entire inside dress, the skirt area of the dress, just to see, just to be thorough,' she told the court. '[The screening] gave a negative result.' When prosecutor Skye Jerome asked whether it was possible semen was on the dress before it was washed, Ms Stone said the tests she performed 'are inconclusive, in a way'. 'It's possible that semen was there and its been washed away,' she told the court. 'In this case, I've conducted the screening tests for semen and I was not able to detect any semen on the item.' Defence lawyer Steven Whybrow asked Ms Stone under cross-examination whether it was possible to find semen on articles of clothing that have been washed. 'I know that it's possible to obtain a semen stain from an item that has been washed,' she explained. Ms Stone added that she had personally never found a positive sample on a washed item of clothing. Later on Wednesday, the court heard from federal agents Rebecca Cleaves and Katie Thelning, who work in Parliament House and were the first police officers to speak with Ms Higgins about the alleged assault. Defence lawyers Katrina Musgrove and Steven Whybrow (both pictured) are representing Lehrmann in the the ACT Supreme Court trial Ms Cleaves recalled Ms Higgins saying during the meeting on April 1, 2019, that she fell over twice on the night she claims she was raped and got in an Uber with a colleague and gave him her address. But they were travelling via Parliament House, 'which caused her some surprise', Ms Cleaves told the court. When they arrived at Parliament House, Ms Cleaves told the court Ms Higgins recalled 'her colleague, who was Bruce, saying to her to play along'. Ms Cleaves also told the court Ms Higgins said she woke up in parliament and she 'could smell sex, so that was when she vomited'. Ms Thelning said she took detailed notes while Ms Higgins told her story during the meeting and read them to the court. 'Dancing, I then fell over. I felt embarrassed and then I sat down,' the federal police officer read from her notes. 'Bruce was sitting with me and got quite handsy. I didn't really mind. I felt like I got super inebriated. I lost it on the stairs again.' Ms Thelning told the court Ms Higgins recalled getting in a taxi with Lehrmann and gave him her address, and then she remembered being at Parliament House. She continued reading Ms Higgins' statement from her notes: 'I don't remember getting up to the suite. I remember being on the minister's couch. Remember him being on top of me. Bruce saying something about finishing.' 'I said something like, "No, don't". He left. I just stayed there. When I woke up, it was morning. I remember thinking it's almost eight o'clock. I was thinking why am I here? Are people about to get in? I felt grossed out as I could smell what had happened on me.' Ms Thelning told the court Ms Higgins decided to 'put what happened away so it wouldn't be a narrative to my life story'. Ms Higgins also told federal police she went to a medical centre for tests, but the results had been yet to come back. She notes Ms Higgins was crying, and apologised for being upset. The trial continues. Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent Ms Higgins' ex-boss burst into tears when recalling text messages between them Forensic biologist was asked to look for semen, but her tests came back negative Her accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann's interview with cops was played to court Major bombshells were revealed during the four days Brittany Higgins was absent from the trial of her accused rapist - but they only now can be reported to the public. A suppression order imposed by Chief Justice Lucy McCallum banned the media publishing any evidence heard until defence lawyer Steven Whybrow's cross-examination of Ms Higgins was complete. While Ms Higgins was 'unavailable' this week, the ACT Supreme Court heard for the first time evidence from her accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann. The 26-year-old has been charged with raping his former colleague inside Coalition minister Linda Reynolds' office in Parliament House after a night out in March 2019. Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent. Ms Higgins (pictured) returned to the witness stand in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday He firmly denied having sex with Ms Higgins - consensually or otherwise - when questioned by police in a recorded interview aired to the court on Monday. Over the following days, the court heard from a range of witnesses including Ms Reynolds' former chief-of-staff, who burst into tears and fled the witness box when asked about texts Ms Higgins sent her thanking her for all her 'support and advice'. Ms Higgins (centre) was declared 'unavailable' to attend court on Monday, absent for four days A security guard working on the evening Ms Higgins and Lehrmann entered Parliament House after a drunken night out told the court the accused left in a 'hurry' 20 minutes after she let them in. About two hours later, the security guard said she found Ms Higgins asleep 'completely naked' on a grey couch in the former defence minister's office. A forensic biologist who worked for the Australian Federal Police told the court she thoroughly examined the white Kookai cocktail dress Ms Higgins wore on the night of the alleged rape - finding no trace of semen. Ms Higgins' mother described her daughter as 'broken', her ex-lover recalled the moment she cried in his arms while recalling the alleged assault, and a federal agent recalled Ms Higgins said Lehrmann 'got quite handsy' during the night in question. The ban on publishing this evidence was lifted after Ms Higgins finished giving evidence on Friday. Here, Daily Mail Australia details everything you missed in the high-profile jury trial. Monday An interview federal police conducted with Lehrmann on April 19, 2021, was played to the jury on Monday - the first time his version of events were revealed in public. The court heard Lehrmann told his former chief-of-staff, Fiona Brown, on March 25, 2019, that he went to Parliament House to drink whiskey on the night of the alleged assault three days earlier. Bruce Lehrmann (pictured left) arrives at the ACT Supreme Court on Friday - his evidence about the night of the alleged rape was heard for the first time on Monday Bruce Lehrmann (pictured) told his former chief-of-staff he went to Parliament House to drink whiskey but later told police he went there to do some work and collect documents However, he later told federal police he went there to collect his keys and make notes on some documents. He also told police that he travelled with Ms Higgins to parliament from a nightclub about 1.45am on the night of the alleged rape, but claimed they parted ways once they reached their respective offices. Lehrmann said he was 'quite close' with Ms Higgins on the night of the alleged rape, but not in a romantic way, and that he was living with his then-girlfriend at the time. The former Liberal staffer told police he did not know he was accused of rape until February 2021 when a journalist emailed his new boss. Throughout the recorded interview, Lehrmann maintained he was only 'moderately' intoxicated on the night in question and believed Ms Higgins was similarly drunk. When asked by police if he had sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins without her consent, Lehrmann said: 'No.' He told police that, prior to the allegations, his assessment of the night in question had been that it was a 'very good, joyous, happy' evening. 'My world has been rocked,' he said in the police interview. Tuesday Parliament House security guard Nikola Anderson told the court she found Ms Higgins naked and laying on her back on Reynolds' grey leather couch about 4.15am on March 23, 2019 - the morning she was allegedly raped. Parliament House security guard Nikola Anderson had escorted Lehrmann and Ms Higgins to the defence department suite in Parliament House in Canberra on the night of the alleged rape Ms Anderson (pictured right) told the court she found Ms Higgins naked and laying on her back Earlier that evening, she had escorted Lehrmann and Ms Higgins to the defence department suite and stayed with them until she had to relieve her colleague, who was still working at the security desk at the entrance to Parliament House. 'When I went down to give Mark his break, Mark had told me that something strange was happening... Mr Lehrmann had left... approximately 20 minutes after I had let him into the suite,' Ms Anderson told the court. 'He seemed to be in a hurry to get out, sort of threw the pass at my colleague.' Ms Anderson was asked to do a welfare check on Ms Higgins some time later, because she didn't leave the suite with Lehrmann. She went up to the defence suite, opened the door, and saw Ms Higgins 'lying on her back completely naked on the lounge'. 'I think the air from the door has made noise or whatnot. She's opened her eyes, she's looked at me, and then she's proceeded to roll over into the foetal position, facing the desk.' Ms Anderson told the court that the white dress Ms Higgins was wearing earlier in the night was on the floor. Later on Tuesday, Ms Reynolds' former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown told the court she tried to support Ms Higgins after she found out about the rape allegations - and became visibly upset when recounting text message exchanges between them. Ms Brown heard two staff members had been let into Parliament House early on the previous Saturday morning, while inebriated, which triggered a security breach. Fiona Brown burst into tears and was forced to leave the courtroom in distress when this text exchange (pictured) between her and Ms Higgins was read out in court She had meetings with Lehrmann and Ms Higgins the following Tuesday to ask how the evening unfolded from their points of view, but claims she didn't hear about any rape allegations until the Thursday. She told the court Ms Higgins was about to walk out the door following another meeting when she suddenly 'turned around, stopped, then she said, "I remember him on top of me".' Ms Brown told the court she tried to be supportive of Ms Higgins, whether she decided to report the alleged incident to police or not. A series of text messages tendered to the court showed a series of exchanges between Ms Brown and Ms Higgins between March and June 2019. In one message, dated June 7, Ms Higgins said: 'I wanted to say this in person, but I cannot overstate how much I've valued your support and advice throughout this period. You've been absolutely incredible and I'm so appreciative.' When Mr Whybrow read the text out to her, she broke down and had to leave the courtroom. Wednesday Jennifer Stone - a senior forensic biologist who works for the Australian Federal Police - told the court she was given Ms Higgins' white Kookai cocktail dress on February 6, 2021, and asked to look for semen. 'I was told there a dress that had been washed and it had been quite a delay since the time of the alleged incident - [it had been] washed once and put away,' she said. Forensics expert Jennifer Stone said the tests 'are inconclusive, in a way' when asked if it was possible that semen was on the dress before it was washed by Ms Higgins (pictured centre) The court has heard Brittany Higgins (pictured) centre stored the dress under her bed before she washed it in what she described as a symbolic act The court previously heard Ms Higgins stored the dress under her bed, before she washed it in early 2019 - after the alleged assault. Ms Stone said there were a 'couple' of areas that required further testing, but they produced negative results for semen. 'I then just screened the entire inside dress, the skirt area of the dress, just to see, just to be thorough,' she told the court. '[The screening] gave a negative result.' Ms Higgins' mother Kelly Higgins then took to the witness stand and told the court that working as a media advisor for the Liberal party was her daughter's 'dream', but said she appeared 'broken' in March and April, 2019. 'Brittany became very distant. Brittany became very quiet... She'd lost a lot of weight. She got quite thin. She just looked quite broken,' she said. Mrs Higgins told the court her daughter confided in her over dinner on November 21, 2019 - explaining she had been drinking before deciding to 'split a taxi' with a colleague. 'She then said she remembers going to Parliament House... She went in, walked in one of the suites... Sat down on the lounge in Senator Reynolds' office,' Mrs Higgins told the court. Her voice quivered while telling the court how her daughter recalled looking over the parliament courthouse from a windowsill in the defence suite and felt proud of her achievements - 'this was her dream', her mother added. '[Ms Higgins] said she woke up with a pain in her leg and that a gentleman was on top of her having intercourse with her. 'He was looking coldly at her. He was non-responsive to her. She was telling him "no". He then finished and left and she said she just lay there for a while.' Brittany Higgins sent texts about the alleged rape to former lover Ben Dillaway (pictured) Earlier that day, Ms Higgins' ex-lover Ben Dilloway told the court he immediately knew something was off when he called her the morning after the alleged assault but she didn't mention anything until three days later. She sent him a text that said: 'I think I may not continue to be employed with Linda [Reynolds].' They had a text message exchange, before Mr Dilloway told the court he phoned her and she recalled the night of the alleged assault. 'I remember saying like, you know, "So, were you raped?" And she broke down and kind of started crying and ended the conversation,' he said. He was on a road trip from the Gold Coast to Melbourne at the time, but made plans to travel to Canberra on March 28 to see Ms Higgins to 'help her out'. She visited him at the hotel he was staying at and they started talking about the alleged allegations before he asked again if she was raped. 'I just remember her, you know, crying and, you know, really breaking down and I kind of just had her in my arms and she was very much, what I would say would be, a broken person,' he said. Federal police officers Rebecca Cleaves and Katie Thelning work in Parliament House and were the first cops to speak with Ms Higgins about the alleged assault. Ms Cleaves recalled, during the meeting in April 1, Ms Higgins saying that she fell over twice, got in an Uber with a colleague and gave him her address, but they were going via Parliament House 'which caused her some surprise'. 'She remembers that her colleague, who was Bruce, saying to her to play along,' she said. Ms Cleaves also told the court Ms Higgins said she woke up in parliament and she 'could smell sex, so that was when she vomited'. The next witness was Ms Thelning, who took detailed notes while Ms Higgins told her story on April 1, 2019. She read her notes to the court: 'Dancing, I then fell over. I felt embarrassed and then I sat down. 'Bruce was sitting with me and got quite handsy. I didn't really mind. I felt like I got super inebriated. I lost it on the stairs again.' Defence lawyers Katrina Musgrove and Steven Whybrow (both pictured) are representing Lehrmann in the the ACT Supreme Court trial Ms Thelning told the court Ms Higgins recalled getting in a taxi with Lehrmann and gave him her address, and then remembered being at Parliament House. She continued reading Ms Higgins' statement from her notes: 'I don't remember getting up to the suite. I remember being on the minister's couch. Remember him being on top of me. Bruce saying something about finishing.' 'I said something like, "No, don't". He left. I just stayed there. When I woke up, it was morning. I remember thinking it's almost eight o'clock. I was thinking why am I here? Are people about to get in? I felt grossed out as I could smell what had happened on me.' Ms Thelning told the court Ms Higgins decided to 'put what happened away so it wouldn't be a narrative to my life story'. The alleged victim also told police she went to a medical centre for tests, but the results hadn't come back. She noted that Ms Higgins was crying, and apologised for being upset. Thursday Senior Constable Emma Frizzell was being cross-examined by defence lawyer Steven Whybrow when she revealed Ms Higgins told her on February 6, 2021, that she was expecting some media coverage about her allegations. She said in court that Ms Higgins 'told me she had been engaged with a particular journalist'. Mr Whybrow asked: 'And you advised her that any media coverage may jeopardise your investigation and a subsequent prosecution?' Ms Frizzell replied: 'Yes, that conversation took place.' The defence continued: 'She acknowledged she indicated that she understood that that might occur?' Again, the senior constable said, 'yes'. The heard that two news stories about the rape allegations were revealed February 15, 2021 - one an online article by News Corp journalist Samantha Maiden, and the other a TV interview with The Project host Lisa Wilkinson (pictured) The court previously heard that two news stories dropped on February 15, 2021 - one was an online article by News Corp journalist Samantha Maiden and the other was a TV interview with The Project host, Lisa Wilkinson. Mr Whybrown continued: 'And it is the case, isn't it, that Ms Higgins indicated she did not want to take part in an EICI [evidence-in-chief interview] that day? Ms Frizzell told the court, 'that's correct'. Earlier in the trial, the court heard Ms Higgins took part in a recorded interview with police on February 24. Upon further questioning, it was revealed that police were unable to work out when a photo of a large bruise on Ms Higgins' thigh was taken. The court heard Ms Higgins signed a statutory declaration indicating the photo was taken on April 3, 2019 - less than two weeks after the alleged assault. However, Ms Frizzell confirmed the alleged victim did not hand her phone to police until May 26, 2021, despite being asked for it in early February. 'Was it the case that you were unable to locate any evidence indicating that photograph had been taken in March or April 2019?' Mr Whybrow asked. Ms Frizzell replied: 'I did not locate the image of the injury in that time period.' She agreed when Mr Whybrow asked whether it 'could that have been as late as January 21 when it showed up in that data?' Later on Thursday, Robert Bower - who worked with Ms Higgins in Senator Michaelia Cash's office after she left the defence department - told the court he was at a Christmas party with Ms Higgins in November or December, 2019. He told the court they were talking about eventually leaving parliament and working in the private sector when 'the issue of skeletons in the closet' came up. 'And it was in that context and following that that she asked if I knew Bruce Lehrmann,' Mr Bower said. 'I said I knew of him, I didn't know him personally, I knew that he worked in the building, knew that he'd worked for Minister [Linda] Reynolds and knew that he'd left Minister Reynolds' office after the election. 'It was then that Brittany told me that he had assaulted her when they worked together in Minister Reynolds' office.' The trial continues. Dutch Crown Princess Catharina-Amalia is under heightened security due to the threat that she could be targeted by gangsters. The 18-year-old, who started a degree in politics, psychology, law and economics at the University of Amsterdam this autumn, has moved out of her student accommodation and returned to her home in The Hague. Last month, several Dutch media outlets reported that the princess, whose formal title is Princess of Orange, was under heightened security due to fears that criminal gangs may target her for kidnapping or an attack. 'She can hardly leave the house,' Dutch news agency ANP quoted Queen Maxima, 51, as saying of her eldest daughter during a state visit to Sweden with her husband King Willem-Alexander. 'The consequences are very difficult for her. There is no student life for her like others have,' she added with an unusual amount of emotional candour. The name of the the princess, along with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, are understood to have come up in communications among organised crime groups which indicated they may be in their crosshairs for kidnapping. Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands at the University of Amsterdam. She was recently forced to return to her home in The Hague over fears that criminal groups were planning to kidnap her 'I'm very sorry for her and I'm obviously very concerned about it,' the prime minister said, without divulging details about the threats or the security measures. 'That makes people angry who want to be informed,' said the prime minister. He added that Dutch authorities are doing everything to ensure that the princess is safe. The Minister for Justice and Security, Dilan Yesilgoz, confirmed on Twitter that 'measures' have been taken 'with regard to the safety of the Crown Princess'. 'I guarantee that our security services work hard day and night to guarantee her safety.' 'It is terrible that this is necessary, in the first place for the Crown Princess herself.' Amalia, 18, heir to the Dutch throne, started university last month and had moved into an apartment in Amsterdam, but the royal couple now said concerns for her safety have forced her to move back to Huis ten Bosch royal palace in The Hague. Crown Princess Amalia, (left) Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima wave from a balcony of Noordeinde Palace on 'Prinsjesdag', in The Hague, The Netherlands, 20 September 2022 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's name also came up in connection with the criminal kidnapping scheme Dutch police and the country's secret service have declined to discuss security arrangements around the Royal House. Rutte said on Thursday evening he could not specify the details of the threats. Princess Amalia started her degree last month and was living in rented accommodation she shared with several other students in Amsterdam before she has had to move back home. The princess, who turns 19 in December, is viewed in Holland as a relatively down-to-earth royal. She is a keen jockey with a horse named Mojito and she was nicknamed the Cocktail Queen after working a summer at a beach bar in Scheveningen. President Joe Biden was in full flow, celebrating the nation's national parks during a visit to Colorado and paying tribute to the bravery of American servicemen and women. And then the 79-year-old delivered the line that would overshadow his visit to Camp Hale, a World War II military installation that was used to train the U.S. Armys 10th Mountain Division. 'I say this is a father of a man who won the bronze star the conspicuous service medal and lost his life in Iraq,' he said. In fact his son Beau Biden served in Iraq but died six years later from a brain tumor, which his family believes was the result of exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits in the country. It was ammunition for his rightwing critics, who accused him of lying about his son Beau, while supporters were quick to flag the cancer link. Either way, the story was nothing new for a public figure known as gaffe-prone, and whose record is littered with examples of exaggerated yarns deployed to build a folksy political identity. The gaffes ended his run for the White House in 1987, when he failed to attribute portions of a speech lifted from that of a British politician. At Camp Hale in Colorado on Wednesday, President Joe Biden described himself as 'father of a man who won the bronze star the conspicuous service medal and lost his life in Iraq' Biden's son Beau died at the age of 46 in 2015, six years after being deployed to Iraq. His family believe exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits may have been responsible for his brain tumor In the ensuing furor he was forced into another humiliating climbdown when he had to admit that he had not finished in the top half of his law school as he previously claimed. He actually graduated 76th out of a law school class of 85. And rather than a full scholarship, he was actually only awarded a partial scholarship. Now, as he approaches his 80th birthday, opponents say that the falsehoods and exaggerations suggest he is not up to running for president in 2024. Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was physician to President Barack Obama and Donald Trump, used the example of Beau Biden's death to repeat his claim that Biden was not fit for office. 'If hes forgotten moments in his life like this, HOW could he have the cognitive ability to lead the country? This has gone too far,' he tweeted. 'Biden needs to take a cognitive exam or RESIGN!' Friends and officials explain away the comments, insisting that Biden's intended meaning - such as saying that Beau died from an illness caused by his time in Iraq - are clear to listeners. And his exaggerations often seem designed to build a bridge to his audience. In that sense Biden is no different to anyone who sometimes trips up when trying make sense of the past and make a broader point, according to Robert Feldman, a professor of psychology at University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of 'The Liar in Your Life.' 'People say things that may not be 100 percent accurate and people do it to get along with other people, it makes you more likable, it makes you feel like you are connecting with people,' he said. During a visit to see hurricane damage in Puerto Rico with his wife Jill, Biden told his audience he was 'raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically' 'It's a benign kind of phenomena explained by normal memory lapses and the desire to ingratiate ourselves with others.' When he recently visited Puerto Rico to see hurricane damage and recovery efforts he talked about growing up in Delaware with its large number of Puerto Rican residents. 'And so I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically,' he said, a fact apparently omitted from his two biographies. A White House spokesman defended his comments, saying he was describing the people and experience that informed his political outlook. 'Since the 1970's, when President Biden first ran for Senate, the largest Hispanic population in Delaware has been made up of Puerto Ricans - many of whom lived in his hometown, Wilmington,' said Andrew Bates. 'He was often in that community on a grassroots level, doing Senate casework, going to fairs, schools, and musical events, and attending mass.' At other times, his words can jar. When he visited Florida to see the utter devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian, he said that he understood the misery of families who had lost everything. 'But we know from experience, I know from experience how much - how much anxiety and fear and concern there are in the people,' he said. 'We didn't lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it about 15 years ago, and we had a lot to go to.' He brought up the fire again a week later when he addressed a fire safety summit. Biden described how lightning struck a pond near his home. President Joe Biden claimed that firefighters almost died during a fire at his Delaware home in 2004 that lasted 20 minutes and was contained to the kitchen 'Ended up generating this thick, black smoke ... ' he said. 'And from the basement to the third floor, the attic, everything was ruined. 'And the kitchen floor - we almost lost a couple firefighters, they tell me, because the kitchen floor was burning between beams in the house, in addition to almost collapsing into the basement.' Reports from the time paint a different picture. They say no one was injured and that the fire did not spread beyond the kitchen. 'Luckily, we got it pretty early,' said Cranston Heights Fire Company Chief George Lamborn. 'The fire was under control in 20 minutes.' At other times, he has muddled visits with telephone calls. Last year, when talking about hate-fueled violence, he described 'spending time at' the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, when a gunman shot dead 11 people in 2018. But the synagogue's rabbi said no visit had happened; the two had spoken by telephone. And then there are the claims about tangling with law enforcement officers at home and abroad. Earlier this year, during a speech in Atlanta on voting rights, he got into trouble for claiming to be have been arrested during civil rights protests 'Because Im so damn old, I was there as well. You think I'm kidding, man,' he said to laughter. 'It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested.' But there is no evidence he was ever arrested during that period and the Washington Post fact checker gave the claim four Pinnochios. Biden set the record straight during a White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. 'I wasn't arrested, I got stopped, prevented from moving,' he admitted During the 2020 campaign, he repeated a claim about South Africa and Nelson Mandela. 'I had the great honor of meeting him,' he said at a campaign event in South Carolina. 'I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens [sic] Island.' Except he didn't. Another four Pinnochios amid a welter of confusing explanations from friends and officials, suggesting he may have muddled different stories, or been separated from a congressional delegation or stopped by police rather than arrested. Bates, the White House spokesman, contrasted Biden with the previous president. 'President Biden has brought honesty and integrity back to the Oval Office, making historic progress for the American middle class and restoring our leadership in the world while never losing touch with his roots,' he said. 'Like he promised, he gives the American people the truth right from the shoulder and takes pride in being straight with the country about his agenda and his values; including by sharing life experiences that have shaped his outlook and that hardworking people relate to.' Advertisement A couple who bought a 25 lottery ticket and won a 3million Cornish mansion have put it up for sale for 4million just weeks later because they say they can't afford the property's upkeep, MailOnline can exclusively reveal. Uttam Parmar, 58, from Leicestershire, won the stunning house with panoramic views of the Camel Estuary and neighbours including Gordon Ramsay on August 12 and put it on the market on October 8 with the hope of making a profit of 3,999,975. The huge prize also included 50,000 for the family and the home is mortgage-free, with stamp duty and legal fees covered. But Mr Parmar and his wife Raki, 53, are already cashing in just eight weeks after the lottery win despite hints to the contrary. The Parmars have decided to return to their home in Leicestershire in the Midlands, saying they have chosen not to keep their Cornish property as a holiday home. They say they are quite content to stay in their large modern red-brick detached home in a quiet close in Appleby Magna, Leicestershire. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Mr Parmar said of his prize property: 'It is a fantastic house in a beautiful Cornish location but the price of it comes with a price to keep it and we can't afford to. We are selling it and not keeping it as a holiday home. 'We considered moving there and staying there but with all the costs et cetera it was a lot so we decided to sell it. 'We have an agent dealing with it and we're leaving him to sort it out.' The lucky winner added: 'I'm quite a normal guy, there's some celebrity neighbours but I'm not in that showbiz league. 'It would be nice to meet a celebrity in the neighbourhood but we'd be a bit out of our depth.' Mr Parmar and his wife Raki said the family had spent time at the house 'chilling out' before deciding to give it up. Uttam Parmar, 58, (left), wife Raki, 53, and son Aaron, 26, in front of the 3million mansion in Cornwall. After winning the dream home in August for 25, Mr Parmar said: 'I've now won my own piece of paradise.' But now it is up for sale The couple put it on the market last weekend with the hope of making a profit of 3,999,975 The operations manager for electronic component firm Alps Alpine, added: 'If we could afford to keep it we would. It is beautiful. But we are looking to buy some land or a smaller property instead.' 'We considered moving there and staying there but with all the costs et cetera it was a lot so we decided to sell it. Mr Parmar added: 'I hope it sells for 4million but let's see.' The eco-mansion is insulated with recycled newspaper and a 'green roof' covered in grasses, moss and flowers which reuses water, helps wildlife and improves air quality. It comes with 5.3 acres of rolling land running down to the River Camel. The four-bedroom property was built with 'no expense spared' and commands views of outstanding natural beauty in the surrounding countryside and is a short distance from the picturesque village of Rock on the coast where celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay lives with his family in his 4.4million mansion across the Camel Estuary from Padstow. But it appears that Mr Parmar will not be swapping Leicestershire for Cornwall not even keeping the property as a holiday home. Instead will sell the house and take the cash. Speaking outside the home in Wadebridge this summer he had hinted that they would keep it, declaring: 'We have a large extended family, so no doubt they'll all be asking to have their next birthday parties here'. He said: 'We've holidayed in Cornwall over the years and always thought it would be incredible to have a place here and now we do we're still pinching ourselves. The dream 3million five-bedroom house, which overlooks the Camel Estuary in Cornwall, was won with a 25 lottery ticket The house commands views of outstanding natural beauty in the surrounding countryside in Wadebridge Inside, the home also has a large, open-plan kitchen and dining area for entertaining guests, with floor-to-ceiling windows The property comes with five acres of land included, as well as its own hot tub with panoramic views of the stunning Cornish countryside He added: 'We're not sure if we'll rent, sell or live in it yet it's the best dilemma we've ever had! Whatever we decide, it's a life changing win for the whole family.' But MailOnline has spotted it on the RightMove website, where it appeared five days ago. Mr Parmar bought a ticket for the Omaze Million Pound House Draw in July. After having entered the competition eight times before without winning, he and his wife finally walked away with the grand prize. He was at a hospital when he found he had won the four-bedroom dream home with a 25 ticket. He said after winning the mansion: 'When Omaze called to tell us we'd won a prize, we were actually at the hospital. We were so excited that we might have won the grand prize, we called our son Aaron, 26, to see if the winning entry code matched ours. When he triple checked the numbers matched, we must've burst his eardrums screaming down the phone'. 'Although, we still didn't believe we'd won until we got back to our house and Omaze told us in person. 'I've entered every Omaze draw since they started, so patience really is a virtue, as I've now won my own piece of paradise this house is definitely my favourite one they've offered.' A video shows Mr Parmar and his family celebrating their astonishing win in the draw and their reaction to seeing the luxury home for the first time. The house includes a suntrap terrace, a hot tub and its own courtyard with exposed brick walls and an open fireplace. Inside, the property also has a large, open-plan kitchen and dining area for entertaining guests. With a sleek modern design, the home won an award for the best new build in Cornwall in 2020. The four-bedroom house also includes a stylish private courtyard for entertaining guests The home's sleek modern design won it an award for best new build in Cornwall in 2020 The competition was the ninth run by Omaze, whose Million Pound House Draw has raised 6.75million for good causes The spacious 4,200 square-foot house also includes five acres of land in the Cornish countryside. Local estate agents estimate it could fetch up to 15,000 a month in rent at peak seasons. Mr Parmar said: 'I've always considered myself a lucky person, firstly because of my wonderful family but I've also won a few bits such as a TV and coffee table, which I was pretty happy with to be honest. 'I never dreamed I'd win anything as extravagant as a 3million house though'. The prize draw raised money for Blood Cancer UK, a charity dedicated to funding research into cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Gemma Peters, Blood Cancer UK's chief executive, said: 'We are so grateful to Omaze for choosing us as its charity partner for the Cornwall house draw. 'Blood cancer is the UK's third biggest cancer killer, and the money this partnership has raised will help us to give support and information to people who are affected by blood cancer as well as fund lifesaving research that will bring forward the day when blood cancer is finally beaten.' James Oakes, chief international officer at Omaze, said: 'We're delighted that Uttam has won his dream home and was able to contribute to this fantastic 1million raise for Blood Cancer UK in the process.' The competition was the ninth run by Omaze, whose Million Pound House Draw has raised 6.75million for good causes. The next house draw is for a stunning 2million home in Marbella, Spain raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust. Qantas boss Alan Joyce has explained why the price of airfares are soaring after being confronted by Karl Stefanovic on live TV. Mr Joyce appeared on Today on Friday morning to trumpet his company's recent financial turnaround when he was confronted about the rising cost of flying. It was revealed on Thursday that Qantas is expected to post booming profits of between $1.2billion and $1.3billion before tax as more Aussies use the airline to head to holiday destinations post-pandemic. Stefanovic asked: 'When will we see prices come down a little for folks out there who want to see their families?' Qantas is expected to post booming profits of between $1.2billion and $1.3billion before tax as more Aussies use the airline to head to holiday destinations post-pandemic 'Well, yesterday we also announced a 1 million seat sale. So there's still a lot of very cheap airfares out there. It's $35 on Jetstar, to Melbourne.' Mr Joyce said. 'We have a million seats on sale. If you look at the value, even though oil prices have gone up and airfares have to go up a bit to cover that, Karl, the 800km between Melbourne and Sydney is just $35'. 'If you were to take an Uber from Mascot to the city, 8km, that would be more expensive and we're carrying you 100 times the distance.' 'What Karl's real question is, is when is his first class flight to LA coming down in price? host Allison Langdon asked. 'Well, Ally, it's a good question. That's where they've become very expensive. The premium seats are just... I don't think there's a spare premium seat on Qantas for the next few months. It's the same on just about every other airline,' he said. 'That's going to take a while because these long hall aircraft, they've been put into storage for a long time and it takes a lot of maintenance, a lot of training to get them back up and running.' Mr Joyce said they only have 69 per cent of its international fleet running at capacity for the next year, which is why airfares are currently so expensive. His comments come as 1,500 workers are still set to walk off the job as part of industrial action, despite receiving $10,000 bonuses as a result of the skyrocketing share price. When asked if the bonuses would stop the strikes, Mr Joyce said: 'Yes, I do believe so. I think don't get confused with what you're hearing from a few angry union leaders.' Qantas boss Alan Joyce claims the airline has been unfairly targeted by unions as it posts record profits for post-pandemic travel The Qantas CEO said the dispute has been over extending regular shift hours. Under the new model, cabin crews would work 12-hour extended shifts instead of the standard nine hours and 45 mins. They could also work up to 14 hours if a 'disruption' with the airline occurs. Breaks between shifts have been cut down to 10 hours if a disruption occurs and no other staff members are available. Mr Joyce said staff will be paid rates between 200 and 300 per cent their normal wage for the extra two hours. 'You know, we are looking after our people.' He explained the company nearly went bankrupt and lost $7 billion during the pandemic. 'I doubt if there's anybody in Nine [where Karl Stefanovic works] that's getting a $10,000 bonus coming out of something like that and getting a 3 per cent salary increases going forward. 'We're sharing the benefit of turning the company around.' Staff will receive $10,000 bonuses as a result of the skyrocketing share price, but 1,500 workers are set to walk off the job as part of industrial action The Flight Attendants Association of Australia however disagree, and confirmed the 1,500 staff are ready to walk off the job. 'We're talking about deals that would extend duty lengths at the same time as reducing rest provisions, all the while not even guaranteeing work on the new (A321neo) aircraft,' FAAA national secretary Teri O'Toole told The Australian. She claimed that staff had 'raised concerns' that the 'disgraceful' deal would lead to widespread fatigue as crews were already stripped down to the bare bones because of labour shortages. 'Workers are already exhausted trying to keep up with demand on a skeleton workforce following cuts to crew numbers per flight (from five to four) and an overenthusiastic redundancy scheme to cull workers and cut costs.' Ms O'Toole said the deal would not be good news for both crew and passengers as the after-effects of the agreement would add further chaos to airports if staff decide to take sick leave because of fatigue. The girlfriend of murdered Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock has posted an emotional tribute to him, saying he saved her life when an armed robber attacked them inside a restaurant. The rapper was killed at a Los Angeles restaurant on September 12, when an armed robber demanded his diamond-studded necklace and other jewelry, then shot him dead. Stephanie Sibounheuang praised her late partner - the father of their infant daughter Xuri Li - and said he had the presence of mind to push her out of harm's way. 'My man saved my life, throwing me under that table,' she wrote on Instagram on Thursday. 'I'm not supposed to be here but bc of him. I am.' She said she was feeling suicidal, and struggling to cope. Stephanie Sibounheuang on Thursday told how she was struggling to cope with the murder of her boyfriend, rapper PnB Rock Sibounheuang is seen with the rapper and their daughter, Xuri Li Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock performs at the 2018 Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Del., on June 16, 2018. The rapper, whose real name is Rakim Allen, was fatally shot during a robbery in South Los Angeles on September 12 Sibounheuang, a model and designer, wrote about the agony of being kept from him as he was taken to the ambulance, and waiting to find out if he had survived. She said it was even more traumatic because they were 'soul mates', and their relationship was stronger than it had ever been. 'I felt this time in my relationship everything was finally perfect for our family,' she wrote. 'My man had gave his self to GOD. Did a complete 360. 'He was loyal. He was patient. He was teachable and a teacher. I was finally letting the past go, and letting him show up as his changed self. 'My last day with u. I told you I know you my husband. I know you my soulmate 'Even it was for a little bit. At least we got to experience what having a soul mate is and for thatI am grateful.' The rapper is seen with their daughter Xuri Li, born in 2020 Sibounheuang is a model and designer She said she was going through intense pain, and urged others to value love. 'The devil is running loose on earth,' she said. 'I will never understand a loss so close. I feel so empty. My world is dark now. My heart is broken for the kids.' On September 28 a man and his 17-year-old son were arrested in Las Vegas and charged with murder. Freddie Lee Trone, 40, was charged with one count of murder, two counts of second-degree robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery. His unnamed teenage son, who was also arrested, was charged with the same counts. This image released by the Los Angeles Police Department shows Freddie Lee Trone Trone's 38-year-old wife, Shauntel Trone, who is the boy's stepmother, was also arrested and was charged with one count of being an accessory after the fact to the killing. Police initially speculated that Sibounheuang's location-tagged Instagram story may have led to his killing. But the theory was dropped after it emerged both men were in the parking lot before the photo was posted, according to law enforcement sources who spoke to The Los Angeles Times. Rock was best known for his 2016 hit 'Selfish' and for making guest appearances on other artists' songs such as YFN Lucci's 'Everyday We Lit' and Ed Sheeran's 'Cross Me' with Chance the Rapper. His latest track, 'Luv Me Again,' was released September 2. A hoon who taunted police while inciting illegal street car meets has wept in court after a judge forced him to forfeit his beloved Holden Commodore. Andrew Drew, 23, was sent to prison this week after participating in dangerous driving offences across Melbourne's south and north suburbs. The key player in the hoon meet scene organised and took part in illicit races and burnouts. Andrew Drew (pictured) took part in the illegal antics in front of hundreds of spectators, while they filmed, with some running up to the cars performing stunts Drew's vehicle, with the rego plates RN4MUK, (pictured) was tracked down by officers in December Drew also stuck an allegedly stolen Dominos Pizza topper on top of his car and had passengers hanging out of it while high-fiving spectators (pictured, an image found on Drew's social media page) Drew's ex-girlfriend Zara Lunney-Adams (pictured) was 'an active participant from start to finish', the prosecution said Drew took part in the illegal antics in front of hundreds of spectators while they filmed, with some running up to the cars performing stunts. Some of the events attracted 200 racers competing against each other. Drew also stuck a Dominos Pizza sign he had allegedly stolen on top of his car and had passengers hanging out of it while high-fiving spectators. The street meet kingpin also stirred up hoon rivalry between the 'Southeast Skids' and 'Northern Skids'. His Commodore was under police surveillance since it had been spotted at several illegal street activities in November last year. The vehicle, with the rego plates RN4MUK, was tracked down by officers in December. Drew wept in court after he forfeited his beloved Holden Commodore (pictured) before being sent to prison The prosecution said Drew had no regard for the criminal justice system (pictured, a photo found on the hoon's social media) Drew tried to evade capture by convincing an associate Caleb Cromarty, 21, to claim he was the driver of the vehicle. His then girlfriend, Zara Lunney-Adams, 20, had transferred $1000 to Cromarty to comply with the fraud. But Cromarty failed to convince police, forcing Drew to finally confess to the crimes. After police accessed Drew's phone, officers found he had played a significant role in the illegal street meets. Drew set up ten illegal gatherings in March 2021 and February this year using Snapchat, which included messages disparaging police. 'Alright c***s its that time of the week again, grab ya sets, grab ya 16 year old s***s and lets bring the good old days back,' Drew said in one of the posts. 'You know the drill no meet ups at servos don't bring attention to us If cops come block them remember its us against them if they follow you go on a hike. 'Protect ya mates if they're changing [tyres] and stand ya f****n ground first spot will be sent out 9.29pm. '#f***vicpol #southdoesitbest.' Police were able to match up the illegal meeting times and dates to Drew's Snapchat messages. Drew took part in the illegal antics in front of hundreds of spectators, while they filmed, with some running up to the cars performing stunts (pictured, a burnout posted on his social media) Authorities had broken up illegal meets across Melbourne's southern and northern suburbs, which Drew had encouraged to feud with each other. Drew pleaded guilty in the County Court on Wednesday to rolled-up incitement and reckless conduct charges. The prosecution said Drew had no regard for the criminal justice system. He was clocked 30-35 km over the limit last August and has prior convictions of perjury and other driving offences. Drew's supporters laughed in court when his brazen messages were read out and his video antics were played. Judge John Carmody remanded Drew in custody, with the hoon throwing his hands on his head and sobbing after the defence failed to oppose an application forfeiting his much loved Commodore. He will be sentenced on October 18, along with Cromarty and Lunney-Adams. Both have pleaded guilty to attempt to pervert the course of justice. Lunney-Adams was 'an active participant from start to finish', the prosecution said. The Brazilian court fines Apple for leaving out chargers from boxes of iPhones sold in the country, warranting the company to pay $19 Million. According to Mac Rumors, Apple must now offer battery chargers with iPhone purchases as opposed to making customers buy them separately as mandated by the Sao Paulo state court. The Court Is Fining The Company For 'Social Damages' CNet writes that the Brazilian court has banned Apple from selling iPhones without charges back in September and was initially fined for $2.38 million. Because of the lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumers' Association, the fine was repealed and replaced with the new fine worth $19 million after careful consideration, Barrons writes. During its sales in Brazil, Apple stopped including chargers with iPhone purchases to reduce their carbon emissions since most customers already have chargers available. Apple also began not including earbuds and power adapters with the release of iPhone 12 in 2020 in an effort to move towards a more carbon-neutral supply strategy, CNet says. "It is evident that, under the justification of a 'green initiative,' the defendant imposes on the consumer a required purchase of charger adapters," the court ruling details. The judge also implored the California-based tech giant to roll out chargers for customers in Brazil who purchased the iPhones 12 and 13 from two years ago, Tech Xplore reports. Read More: Apple to Appeal Brazil's Move to Ban Sales of iPhone Without Chargers Apple Has Been Here Before The Justice Ministry of Brazil has previously told Apple that they should stop selling incomplete products because it is a "deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers." According to Apple Insider, the local law requires transparency from the company should they decide to sell incomplete sets of gadgets, which Apple failed to do so. The Brazilian court believes that concealing the fact that there would be exclusions from the products they expect to receive is ostentatious and false advertising. Aside from the lawsuits and court rulings mentioned before, Apple has already been previously slapped worth $3.7 million in the country, which they appealed to buy more time to settle. In most countries, however, the court is fine with Apple shipping iPhones without earpods or charging cables, only including a USB-C to Lightning charging cable in their packaging. "Power adapters represented our largest use of zinc and plastic and eliminating them from the box helped cut over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions," Apple tells Bloomberg. The company added that eliminating such a number of carbon emissions is equivalent to removing 500,000 cars from the road annually as part of its global initiative of climate justice. However, the Brazilian government has also found an issue regarding the supply of USB-C products, as the regulatory agency Anatel proposed that USB-C usage should be standard. 9to5 Mac writes that this aligns with the European Union's recent decision to force Apple to adapt USB-C for iPhone in 2024, which the US Senate is looking to adapt. With the pre-orders for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro starting to come in from Brazil in the last week, it is important to note that they still ship without chargers, contrary to the jurisdiction. Earlier this year, Brazil also gave Samsung the same ultimatum, which the Korean company has been compliant with, according to 9to5 Mac. Related Article: Apple Releases Updated Magsafe Charger Firmware A nine-year-old girl has choked back tears during a live television interview as raging flood waters threaten to destroy her family home. Those living in Rochester, a small town 180km north of Melbourne, were told to evacuate the area with the swollen Campaspe River expected to peak early on Friday morning. One family who's lived in the rural town their whole life are now facing the reality they may not have a home to come back to. Riley, a nine-year-old girl, struggled to get the words out while clutching a laptop when asked by a reporter how she was feeling. Nine-year-old Riley choked back tears as she described feeling 'scared' about the flooding crisis in her hometown of Rochester, Victoria Flooding has inundated the small rural town of Rochester in northern Victoria 'Kind of, um, scared because I've never seen this water so high,' she told a Today Show reporter on Friday morning. As well as Rochester, evacuation orders have been given for Wedderburn, Maribyrnong in Melbourne's inner city, Benalla and Carisbrook. More than 450 properties in Rochester are expected to be impacted when the swollen Campaspe River peaks. The Victorian SES warned the floods in the town could be reminiscent of those in 2011 when 80 per cent of the township and surrounding rural areas were flooded. For those living in Seymour, which is just over an hour north of Melbourne, they were told on Friday morning it's too late to leave. A relief centre has opened up at the Wedderburn Hall. Evacuation orders have been given for suburbs in Victoria including Wedderburn, Maribyrnong in Melbourne's inner city, Benalla, Carisbrook and Rochester Businesses have sandbagged their premises, with residents told to evacuate 'It is now too late to leave for people in the area bounded by the Goulburn River to Redbank Rd; along the Goulburn Valley Hwy to Whiteheads Creek up to the railway line and along the bridge crossing the river to the south,' VicEmergency said. 'If you have not evacuated, you should shelter in the highest location possible.' The same warning has also been issued for low lying areas between Benalla and Baddiginnie. Those unable to flee to safety have been told to find shelter at the highest ground possible, and ensure they have enough food and water. 'Be aware that you may be isolated by floodwater for a significant amount of time,' the alert reads. Flood waters are seen encroaching on one Victorian family's home on Friday morning Those living in Rochester, a small town 180km north of Melbourne, have been told to evacuate the area with the swollen Campaspe River expected to peak early on Friday morning A house in Rochester, Victoria, is seen surrounded by flood waters after Thursday's deluge There have also been countless warnings to move to higher ground, and to avoid flooded areas around the state. Forty-two suburbs have been declared at risk. Brunswick, Coburg, Fitzroy and Northcote in Melbourne's inner-north and Essendon, Sunshine, Footscray and Yarraville in the west are all on the list of 'at-risk' suburbs. There may be some relief on the way for Victorians with the Bureau of Meteorology declaring the severe weather warning that was issued for the state is now cancelled. Scattered showers are forecast for the state's southern and mountain districts for Friday but the wet weather has mostly eased. But Victoria's emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp has warned the state's flood risk won't end after today, or even after this weekend. He told 3AW's Neil Mitchell 'we're in this for a while', with the state experiencing a 'campaign flood event'. 'There is another low developing, so we'll see, probably, that weather next Wednesday/Thursday,' he told Mitchell. Alex Jones's ex-wife believes he deserves the nearly $1 billion in damages that he was ordered to pay by a jury in a Connecticut defamation trial brought by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims. Kelly Jones recently sat down with INSIDE EDITION to discuss the $965 million verdict brought against her former husband of eight years. 'The truth always comes out,' Kelly Jones said. 'You reap what you sow.' Alex and Kelly share three children together. Kelly Jones spoke with INSIDE EDITION after a jury awarded victims more than $950 million in a defamation trial against her ex-husband The former wife of the conspiracy theorist said that she believes Alex Jones deserved to be handed the verdict against him Kelly called the lies that Alex Jones has peddled 'propaganda' and said that 'Americans are not going to put up' with people like him 'The damages are a declaration,' Kelly said in an interview set to air Thursday evening. 'It's enough of the propaganda. Americans are not going to put up with people that sell lies and hate and fear.' It's unclear, however, if the eight families that brought the suit against Alex Jones will actually see the money awarded. 'I do believe they'll see a cent of that money,' says Kelly Jones. 'I hope they get every single cent that they've been awarded.' The full interview with Kelly Jones and INSIDE EDITION is set to air Thursday night 'We will not tolerate it when people take other people's tragedies and profit off of them.' The full interview with Kelly Jones is set to air on INSIDE EDITION at 7.30pm local time. Kelly's statements come just hours after the conspiracy theorist vowed that he is 'not going away' and 'not going to stop.' The InfoWars host claimed Wednesday during a taping that the verdict was 'the devil coming after us'. The conspiracy theorist broadcast live as the stream of fines were read out in court, and claimed the 'show trial' was a 'fraud' and the children's parents were being 'used.' He also said he was 'bankrupt' - despite claims, he has been working to shield his wealth - and added 'ain't gonna be happening, ain't no money.' Alex Jones is pictured on Wednesday during his Infowars broadcast, claiming he has no money Jones has already lost this trial by default and the jury is simply deciding how much he will pay out to the families of the victims Despite Alex Jones' claims of being broke, legal experts said he could be jailed for 'hiding his assets.' Earlier this year, the conspiracy theorist transferred a $3 million house into his wife's name and pre-emptively filed for bankruptcy. A six-person jury has ruled on the 17th day of the hearing that he will be liable to pay $965 million to the 15 plaintiffs, which include families and a FBI agent. Jones' $3 million home in Austin, Texas. In February he transferred ownership to his wife Erica This six-acre estate, 20 miles from Jones' Austin home, is still owned by the broadcaster, it is believed It is the largest defamation suit damages figure in US history, surpassing a 1997 case where a brokerage firm sued the Wall Street Journal and won $222.7million. In August, Jones was found liable to pay $49.3 million during his first of three Sandy Hook related trial, which took place in Austin. The amount combines the damages for defamation, slander and emotional distress, with Jones ordered to pay a huge sum to the parents of Jesse Heslin who died in the attack. Video played in court showed moments in which Alex Jones spouted baseless lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting being a hoax Francine Wheeler pauses to wipe away tears as she testifies during the Alex Jones Sandy Hook defamation damages trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, Conn. Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022 Jackie and Mark say that their older daughter is riddled with anxiety after losing her brother in a shooting and facing years of harassment from conspiracy theorists Mark Barden wiped away tears in court Tuesday during testimony recounting the horrors his family faced after Daniel Barden was killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School This trial took place in Waterbury, Connecticut, just miles away from where the tragic shooting occurred in December, 2012. On Wednesday, Nicole Hockley, the mother of Dylan, 6, who was killed in the shooting said that she felt 'gratitude' towards the jury for 'hearing' the families. Robbie Parker, the father of 6-year-old Emilie, said he was proud of the groups of plaintiffs. 'Everybody that took the stand told the truth, except for one. The one who proclaims that that's what he does,' said Parker, referring to Jones. He thanked his attorneys for giving him 'the strength to finally find my voice and to fight and to stand up to what had been happening to me for so long.' Erica Lafferty, the daughter of killed Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, called the verdict a moment 'years in the making.' Erica Lafferty, daughter of Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, speaks to the media after jurors returned a $965 million dollar judgement in the defamation trial against Alex Jones Jones repeatedly claimed that the 2012 massacre, which left 20 students and six teachers dead, was a 'hoax' and had been 'staged' 'In this big moment, like in every big moment, since the shooting, I wish I could just call my mom and tell her about it,' she said. 'I would tell her about the horror of watching Alex Jones hold court with the press outside, right here...The heartbreak of reliving the shooting as so many families shared stories of their slain loved ones.' She added that she is grateful to select news outlets for refusing to platform Jones' statements during the trial. Jones, who did not attend the hearing, filed for bankruptcy with his main company, Free Speech Systems, midway through his first two week trial over the summer. How much each of the 15 plaintiff's were awarded in damages: Robert Parker - $120million Father of 6-year-old Emilie Parker William Sherlach - $36million Husband of 56-year-old school employee Mary Sherlach David Wheeler - $55million Father of 6-year-old Ben Wheeler Francine Wheeler - $54million Mother of 6-year-old Ben Wheeler Jacqueline Barden - $28.8million Mother of 7-year-old Daniel Barden Mark Barden - $57.6million Father of 7-year-old Daniel Barden Nicole Hockley - $73.6million Mother of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley Ian Hockley - $81.6million Father of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley Jennifer Hensel - $52.2million For the estate of Jeremy Richman and father who died by suicide of 6-year-old Avielle Richman Donna Soto - $48million Mother of teacher Victoria Soto Carlee Soto-Parisi - $66million Sister of teacher Victoria Soto Carlos Matthew Soto - $57.6million Brother of teacher Victoria Soto Jillian Soto-Marino - $68.8million Sister of teacher Victoria Soto William Aldenberg - $90million FBI agent and first responder Erica Lafferty/trustee Richard M. Coan - $76million Daughter of school principal Dawn Hochsprung Advertisement Several of the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims got emotional as the amounts of compensatory damages were read out in court. David Wheeler, father of Ben, 6, who was killed, was visibly shaking as the amounts were read out while Robert Parker, father of Emilie, 6, was crying with his head in his hands. Speaking outside court, Nicole Hockley said that she had tried to engage with Jones' followers saying she was 'looking for the good'. She added: This is sending the right message that people are good and that good does prevail. Thank you for restoring my faith in people like that. Parker added his appreciation for the jury, not only because of the verdict they delivered, 'but for what they had to endure, what they had to listen to.' Parker alone was awarded $120 million in compensatory damages. Jones previously accused Parker of being a crisis actor to his audience. Jones responded to the massive sum by ranting live on Infowars, where he branded the verdict as a 'joke'. The conspiracy theorist said that the verdict was meant to 'scare' people and said he can 'keep them in court for years'. He added: 'They want to scare us away from questioning Uvalde or Parkland. We're not going away. We're not going to stop.' While broadcasting live he thanked his 'supporters', adding that he was trying to 'climb out of the red' and started plugging 'vitamineral fusion' from the Infowars store. 'I wish that after today, I could just be a daughter grieving her mother and stop worrying about conspiracy theorists sending me threats or worse. 'But I know that this is not the end of Alex Jones in my life. I know that his hates, his hate, lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days,' said Lafferty. Jones previously bashed the trial as a 'kangaroo court,' described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a 'tyrant.' His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal. Jurors revisited the testimony from William Sherlach, whose wife Mary Sherlach was among those killed, earlier in the day. All of the plaintiffs testified about being harassed by people who say the shooting was staged in a plot for more gun control. Bill told the hearing that he worried for his and his familys safety because of the shooting deniers' vitriol and saw posts online which claimed his wife didnt exist. The posts also said the shooting was a hoax, and that she didnt have the credentials to be a psychologist. One father said in court over that the summer that Jones made his life 'living hell' with his comments regarding the shooting that claimed his child's life. The conspiracy theorist has acknowledged that the shooting in Newton, Connecticut happened, but maintains to this day that parents and families involved are pushing an agenda against free-speech and gun rights. Earlier in the current trial, Jones called an attorney for one of the family's 'an ambulance chaser' and told the judge that he's 'done saying I'm sorry.' Francine and David Wheeler, whose son Ben was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, listen as their attorneys address the media after the jury awarded the victims' families $965 million in damages in a second defamation trial against Alex Jones Robert Parker, father of Emilie, 6 who was killed, was visibly shaking as the amounts were read out Plaintiff William Sherlach, left, hugs attorney Josh Koskoff while plaintiff Nicole Hockley hugs attorney Chris Mattei following the jury verdict and reading of monetary damages Mark Barden, the father of seven-year-old Daniel Barden, told a courtroom that Jones and his podcast are responsible for the abuse they received. The family told the court that they were sent a letter by one of Jones supporters, who claimed they urinated on Danielss grave. Throughout this trial and other legal proceedings related to Jones' words and actions, families have stated that they have received threats and malevolence. Some parents and siblings claimed that they have gotten rape and death threats and have had in-person confrontations with theorists claiming that they are all 'crisis actors.' Alex Jones left Connecticut before the end of the trial, telling a judge that he was 'done' saying sorry At least one family member said on the record that they received photos of dead children from conspiracy theorists looking to scare and startle them. The mother of another boy killed in the shooting, Ben Wheeler, said in court that she had a scary interaction a conference on gun violence. Francine Wheeler told the jury that a woman approached her and called her a liar, claiming the whole situation was a hoax. In 2021, a judge found Jones liable for spreading the dangerous falsehoods among his rather large fanbase. The judge said at the time that Jones' actions caused harm against the parents and siblings who initiated the lawsuit. Jones spent years calling the slayings a total hoax but has rowed back on his claims admitting during his Texas trial that they were 100 per cent real. But just last week he referred to the horror as synthetic, and repeatedly claiming that his entire trial was rigged. Both Jones and Infowars has lost a series of civil lawsuits by default in Texas and Connecticut after judges ruled that he failed to respond to discovery. Prosecutors asked that Jones pay $550 million to the group, with Chris Mattei, the plaintiffs attorney asking jurors to think about the scale of the defamation pointing out that Jones claimed families faked their 6- or 7-year-old's death. Jones defense attorney Norm Pattis told jurors it was not their job to bankrupt Jones so he would stop broadcasting lies. During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldnt afford any judgment over $2 million. But testimony in his previous suit estimated that Jones has a net worth of between $135 million and $270 million. Pattis confirmed that he intends to appeal the decision, saying that he has never seen a case like this, calling the decision a dark day for freedom of speech. He added: We disagree with the basis of the default, we disagree with the courts evidentiary rulings. In more than 200 trials in the course of my career I have never seen a trial like this. He faces a third trial in Texas that could result in hefty damages again being awarded in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting. Wednesday's jury decision for nearly $1 billion was for compensatory damages, meant to compensate the plaintiffs for what they lost. Punitive damages, meant to punish the defendant for wrongdoing, have yet to be awarded, and in Connecticut are capped at attorneys' fees and litigation costs. Claims that the Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to cut oil production ahead of next month's midterm elections could constitute an illegal request for a foreign in-kind campaign donation, according to a Republican member of the House natural resources committee. Rep. Tom Tiffany on Thursday demanded the release of transcripts of any calls between President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris and Saudi officials. And he said hearings were needed to get to the bottom of what happened. It came hours after the Saudi foreign minister said American officials 'suggested' postponing a decision to reduce output by two million barrels a day until after November 8, when millions of Americans will cast their ballots. 'The allegations from the Saudi foreign ministry are serious, and if the Biden administration did attempt to pressure a foreign government to influence the outcome of the U.S. election, that' something Americans deserve to know,' said Tiffany in a tweet. American officials expressed deep anger last week when the OPEC+ oil coalition announced plans to keep prices high by cutting production. That threatens to reverse reductions in gas prices at American pumps, adding to Biden's woes ahead of midterms that will decide who runs Congress. US officials have expressed anger at Saudi Arabia for pushing through an oil production cut despite President Joe Biden's visit in July where he met Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman Now Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany is demanding hearings into whether the Biden administration pressured Saudi Arabia to delay the cut until after the midterms In his letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Tiffany said it may 'constitute an illegal solicitation of a foreign in-kind by the White House on behalf of Democrats' midterm campaign efforts' Tiffany also wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi outlining her concerns and urging her to use her powers of oversight. 'This is a very serious allegation,' he wrote. 'One that, if true, may very well constitute an illegal solicitation of a foreign in-kind by the White House on behalf of Democrats' midterm campaign efforts.' He asked Pelosi and committee chairs to convene hearings, demand details of communications between American and Saudi officials, and identify who in the administration had asked for a delay. Earlier the White House had hit back angrily at the claims, accusing the Saudis of trying to 'spin or deflect. John Kirby, the National Security Council's coordinator for strategic communications, said the U.S. had been talking to the Saudis about ensuring that Russia remained isolated and was unable to benefit from oil prices. 'We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed,' he said. The controversy erupted on Thursday morning with a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry defending its decision to cut production. It said it had explained to Washington that delaying the Oct. 5 decision by a month 'according to what has been suggested' would have led to 'negative economic consequences.' The Kingdom also brushed off suggestions it sided with Russia by insisting it took a 'principled position' on the Ukraine war and said the OPEC decision was entirely based on economics, not politics. 'The Government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the U.S. Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,' Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said Last week OPEC+ announced it would cut oil production by two million barrels per day, in a major blow to the Biden administration that for months had asked them to instead increase production. Production cuts are already jacking gas prices back up - $3.91 is the average cost per gallon as of Thursday, up eight cents from when the cut was announced last week. 'The country that benefits the most from this 2 million barrel cut is Russia,' Kirby said in a call with reporters. The cut 'allows [Putin] to continue to fund his war making machine and it certainly gave him, Mr Putin, a sense of comfort here,' Kirby continued. On Wednesday State Department spokesman Ned Price refused to confirm reports the Biden administration had begged the Saudis to wait and spare them the political consequences in next month's election. 'I certainly can't confirm that report. What I can confirm is that we conveyed a consistent message to the Saudis: energy supply needs to meet energy demand. We have made the point repeatedly that we have a multiplicity of interests with Saudi Arabia; energy is one of them,' Price said. 'And in the context of those discussions regarding energy, we have had senior members of the administration travel to Saudi Arabia in recent months. This was notthis engagement did not take place solely in the context of October 2022 or September 2022,' he added. But a Saudi statement released hours later implied that the U.S. did ask for at least a one-month delay. 'The Government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the U.S. Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,' bin Farhan Al Saud said. It was never likely that such a request would have been granted as experts believe that Saudi Crown-Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the cut at least in part to spite Biden and Democrats in the midterm elections. Biden himself had a controversial meeting with the crown prince, beginning with a fist bump rather than a handshake, in July. Rep. Michael McCaul, lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Biden should focus less on Saudi oil and more on production here at home. 'High gas prices are a direct result of President Biden's war on traditional U.S. energy production. Attempting to blame foreign countries every time gas prices rise is ridiculous. Voters won't be fooled,' he said in a statement. The Texas Republican said the White House's latest quarrel with the Saudis would 'alienate Saudi Arabia and harm U.S. national security.' Victoria Coates, Donald Trump's former special energy envoy to Saudi Arabia, told DailyMail.com that Biden's 'outsourcing' of the energy secretary is a 'national disgrace'. Vandenberg Coalition Advisory Board member and Senior Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation added that Biden has placed the American people 'at the mercy of foreign wars, dictators and cartels'. 'The proper response is not to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, an ally of more than seventy years that is taking daily direct fire from Iranian proxies in Yemen. 'It is to embrace our potential as a major energy producing nation that can responsibly protect our citizens against shocks in international energy markets.' After OPEC+ announced the decision, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the move a 'mistake' and accused the Saudis of 'aligning with Russia.' The foreign minister said such an accusation is intended to 'distort the facts' and claimed Saudi Arabia has taken a 'principled position' with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war. Saudi Arabia rejected assertions that it cut oil production to help Russian President Vladimir Putin 'The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would first like to express its total rejection of these statements that are not based on facts, and which are based on portraying the OPEC+ decision out of its purely economic context,' bin Farhan Al Saud said in a statement. The foreign minister said that Saudi Arabia supports UN resolutions regarding the war and rejects 'any infringement on the sovereignty of countries over their territories.' 'The Kingdom stresses that while it strives to preserve the strength of its relations with all friendly countries, it affirms its rejection of any dictates, actions, or efforts to distort its noble objectives to protect the global economy from oil market volatility,' bin Farhan Al Saud said. But Kirby said Washington presented Riyadh with analysis showing there was 'no market basis' for production cuts and 'they could easily wait till the next OPEC meeting and see how things developed.' 'Other OPEC nations communicated to us privately that they felt coerced to support Saudi's direction.' In a press call Kirby said Saudi Arabia had been 'twisting arms' to get other nations to agree to the cut, and 'more than one' had privately expressed concerns about doing so. Kirby said the U.S. would keep a close eye on the next OPEC meeting in December to see where the Saudis stand on Russian aggression. The production cut incensed lawmakers, who questioned why the U.S. had been selling arms to the Middle Eastern nation and ignoring human rights abuses and its role in the war in Yemen if it wasn't going to get oil out of the deal. Biden claimed that Riyadh would face 'consequences' as aides announced the U.S. would be reevaluating its relationship with the Saudis. 'Theres going to be some consequences for what they've done with Russia,' Biden said in a CNN interview aired Tuesday evening. 'I'm not going to get into what I'd consider and what I have in mind,' he added. 'But there will be - there will be consequences.' But the Saudi statement showed no ill will to the U.S. 'The Kingdom affirms that it views its relationship with the United States as a strategic one that serves the common interests of both countries. The Kingdom also stresses the importance of building on the solid pillars on which the Saudi-US relationship has stood over the past eight decades.' The father of a Connecticut cop shot to death after a fake 911 call has called his son a 'patriot' and an 'all-American' The father of a Connecticut cop shot to death after responding to a fake 911 call has said his son was a 'patriot' and an 'all-American' who dreamed of being a police officer. Alex Hamzy, 34, was killed alongside fellow police officer Dustin DeMonte, 35, when the two responded to a fake domestic violence call that was actually a trap set to kill cops by brothers Nicholas and Nathan Brutcher. Alex Hamzy Sr. said he wanted his son to go to college, but he refused as he wanted to be a police officer. 'I said I want him to go to college. He said "Dad, I want to be a police officer, I want to help my town the one I was born in, I grew up in,"' Hamzy Sr. said. 'He had a smile that the chief of police told me, I will never forget that smile on his face, he added. A third officer, Alec Iurato, 26, was rushed to Saint Francis Hospital and underwent surgery for serious gunshot wounds, where he is currently recovering. According to police, Brutcher and his brother, Nathan, 32, opened fire on the officers with an AR-15 once the officers arrived at the home. Alec Iurato, 26, was rushed to Saint Francis Hospital and underwent surgery for serious gunshot wounds, where he is currently recovering Dustin DeMonte (left), 35, and Alex Hamzy, 34, were shot dead while responding to a 911 call of a domestic incident between two brothers in Connecticut Two police officers have been killed and one left fighting for his life after a dispute between two brothers saw a gunman open fire in Connecticut Nicholas Brutcher, 35, was shot dead at the scene when he and his brother allegedly lured two cops to their deaths with a fake 911 call Nathan Brutcher was injured at the scene of the shooting and his condition is currently unknown They now say the preceding 911 was 'a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.' It has not been announced who opened fire, who fired the fatal shots and how many guns were used in the encounter. Nicholas was shot dead at the scene while Nathan was wounded and hospitalized. His condition is unknown. It comes as dozens of cops headed to the scene to line the roads to pay their respects to the fallen officers. One witness, Danny Rodriguez, said he heard three sets of gunshots and 30 shots in total. He says he heard another woman yelling out during the shooting: 'you killed them!' 'I heard a whole war going on behind me,' Rodriguez said, according to KOCO. According to the New York Times, Rodriguez saw a man dressed in camouflage leaving the Brutcher home with a rifle. Another man followed and attempted to restrain the camouflaged man before he was shot. Jeltema said state troopers and detectives are still gathering evidence and the 'very complex' investigation is ongoing. She added that it was an 'isolated incident' with 'no threat to the community' during a press conference. Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould added that the deaths were as a result of 'senseless violence' which has brought the force 'sadness and grief.' 'They answered a call to duty, and they responded without hesitation, and that's what they did every night before that,' Gould said. 'And that's what all our officers do and will continue to do day after day.' Police are shown investigating the Brutcher home where the officers were shot Bristol Police officers console one another at the scene Police officers from across Connecticut stood at the scene in Bristol where two officers were killed Bristol police officer Harrison Pollock stands alongside a vehicle carrying one of the fallen officers Bristol Police Officer Seth Petzing wipes his eyes as he gathers with colleagues at the scene Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont directed flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the fallen officers Sergeant DeMonte was hired in 2012 and worked as a school resource officer, and is survived by his wife Laura and two young children Phoebe and Porter. Gould added that the couple was expecting a third child. 'Words cannot express the sadness and grief that brings me before you this morning,' Gould said. DeMonte was named the 2019 Officer of the Year and also worked as an advisor for the explorer cadet program. A September 27 Facebook post shows DeMonte wearing a Miami Dolphins jersey and smiling alongside his wife, Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould added that the deaths were as a result of 'senseless violence' which has brought the force 'sadness and grief' Officer Hamzy joined in 2014, working the patrol division and is survived by his wife Katie, parents and two sisters Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema confirmed that the suspect opened fire, with one officer being pronounced dead at the scene Jeltema said state troopers and detectives are still gathering evidence and the 'very complex' investigation is ongoing Witnesses described hearing two sets of 12 gunshots before sirens and a helicopter descended on the area. Officer Hamzy joined in 2014, working the patrol division and is survived by his wife Katie, parents and two sisters. Iurato was hired in 2018, and was also assigned to the patrol division, with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont directed flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the fallen officers. He added: 'The loss of two officers from the Bristol Police Department who were killed in the line of duty while responding to an emergency call of domestic violence is a senseless tragedy, and my prayers are with their families, loved ones, and fellow officers. 'This is a devastating reminder of the dangers that police officers face every day to protect our families and neighbors from all kinds of situations.' Mourners have left several floral tributes outside of the Bristol Connecticut Police Department, which also has black bunting hung over their sign. Nearby resident Robyn Lauzon told the Middletown Press that the shootout sounded 'like a war zone.' The three officers were shot during an especially violent week for police in the United States which saw five others shot Connecticut governor Ned Lamont directed flags in the city to be lowered to half-mast in the wake of the shooting, describing the incident as a 'senseless tragedy' 'It was horrible. I heard three rounds of nine or 10 gunshots each,' she said. 'It was scary as hell and the sirens were crazy. It was like a war zone.' The officers were shot during an especially violent week for police in the United States. On Tuesday night in Mississippi, Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart was killed and several other people were injured by gunfire as she and other officers responded to a call, authorities said. Early Wednesday, three Philadelphia police officers were shot and wounded at a home and a suspect was killed when a SWAT team tried to arrest a man wanted on a homicide charge, police said. And in Decatur, Illinois, two police officers conducting a traffic stop in a central Illinois city were shot and wounded early Wednesday by a motorist who died after officers returned fire, police said. She said she was 'determined to carry on' Sir David's legacy with meetings Anna Firth, 56, was elected as MP for Southend West at a by-election in February The Southend West MP was attacked by knifeman Ali Harbi Ali in October 2021 The successor of murdered MP Sir David Amess says she has had to increase security at her surgeries as a result of his stabbing - but insists she will continue to meet constituents face-to-face. Anna Firth, 56, who was elected as the Southend West MP following the veteran politician's killing, says she holds meetings at locations where 'we've got slightly more security'. However, speaking in an interview a year on from the veteran politician's death, she said she was 'determined' to carry on his legacy by continuing to meet constituents in person. She said: 'I think it's a really important aspect of an MP's job that people can contact you if they've got problems. It's something that David thought as well. Anna Firth, 56, who was elected as the Southend West MP following the veteran politician's killing, says she holds meetings at locations where 'we've got slightly more security' Father-of-five, Sir David (pictured), was stabbed to death while meeting constituents in October last year 'I think in some ways obviously I would rather we didn't have any barriers to seeing your MP but I would far rather that we do things safely, particularly as some of my staff were also involved with Sir David and I'm really, really lucky that some of his team have stayed with me. 'It's really important that we keep them safe.' Father-of-five, Sir David, was stabbed to death while meeting constituents at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15 2021. Jurors found Sir David's killer, Ali Harbi Ali, guilty of murder after just 18 minutes of deliberation at the Old Bailey in April, and he was handed a whole-life prison term. Ms Firth was elected as MP for Southend West at a by-election in February. Jurors found Sir David's killer, Ali Harbi Ali (pictured), guilty of murder after just 18 minutes of deliberation at the Old Bailey in April, and he was handed a whole-life prison term She said she had been on a wreck diving holiday when she heard that an MP in the UK had been stabbed. Ms Firth said she learned later that day that it was Sir David. 'I genuinely think to this day no-one can really believe that such a lovely, lovely man and fantastic MP could be taken from us just going about his job, doing the most brilliant job, and in a church,' she said. Sir David had served Southend West since 1997, and Basildon before that since 1983, and Ms Firth said it was 'as if he knew everybody'. 'It was as if he was a headmaster who didn't just have 500 pupils to know and look after,' she said. 'He had 70,000 and he knew every one of them.' Ms Firth said it was an 'enormous privilege' to serve as his successor and 'hard in one sense because people need to talk'. 'They need to talk about their memories of Sir David and their reflections,' she said. 'But because he was such an amazing MP it means that there's a fantastic legacy. My biggest problem is how to do as many things as Sir David did. 'I'm convinced he must have had about six body doubles following him around the constituency. Ali's fatal knife attack took place while Sir David was meeting constituents at Belfairs Methodist Church (pictured: Police at the scene) in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15 2021 'He supported so many people and so many charities and to such a high level, so it's a challenge but it's a wonderful challenge to have.' John Lamb, chairman of the Southend West Conservative Association, said Sir David had wanted to meet his constituents in the community. The 74-year-old said: 'We used to have surgeries (at Sir David's constituency office) but for David it wasn't good enough. 'Because the bus services weren't that good he wanted to go out and meet the people so he did, he got out and about. 'We've had to improve the security around how we do it but our new MP Anna is in fact still very keen to meet the people and to help them.' Advertisement A 15-year-old teenage gunman shot and killed five people yesterday including an off-duty police officer, a 16-year-old boy and three woman. The gunman has not been identified but he is identified as a 15-year-old white boy. He is in the hospital in critical condition. It is unclear if he shot himself as police closed in on him, or if he was injured in a gun fight. He murdered three adult women - Nicole Connors, 52, Susan Karnatz, 49, and Mary Marshall, 35 - along with off-duty Raleigh Police Officer Gabriel Torres, 29, and an unidentified 16-year-old boy. It remains unclear if he is related to any of the victims or what his motive was. The rampage began shortly after 5.30pm on Thursday when the teenager opened fire on a trail near the Neuse River Greenway. Eye witnesses told WRAL that they saw the gunman dressed in camouflage clothing with a backpack and black boots, crouching down, and said he was 'aged between 13 and 16'. 'He looked like a baby. I just don't even have the words to explain. This is not OK.' Law enforcement officer walks at the entrance to Neuse River Greenway Trail parking at Abington Lane following a shooting in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 Police were seen searching a home near the scene of the shooting, believed to be that of the gunman and his family Law enforcement are seen at the entrance to Neuse River Greenway Trail parking at Abington Lane, in east Raleigh The police officer's white car is seen in an image broadcast by WRAL News in Raleigh Law enforcement officers block off Old Milburnie Road during a shooting in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 Raleigh Police Chief Stella Patterson on Friday morning said they still do not know the gunman's motive Police are now searching the suspect's home. The shootings happened in the street. The gunman then fled towards the trail, where he shot some of the victims, before retreating to a barn. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said: 'Tonight, terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh.' A local resident named Robert said: 'I heard two gunshots, and they were really loud so I knew something was close by, and then I heard three other gunshots. 'I saw him basically pass my house in the backyard. He had a long-barrel shotgun. He was dressed in camo. He had a full backpack on that was also camouflage.' The quiet neighborhood is populated with single-family homes and golf courses. Mary-Ann Baldwin, the mayor of Raleigh, said the suspect was 'contained', but police would not say whether they could communicate with him and his condition is not clear. In this aerial image taken with a drone, Law enforcement work at the scene of a shooting in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 A heavily armed Alcohol Law Enforcement officer near the Hedingham residential neighborhood during an active shooter situation in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 13 October 2022 Law enforcement officers congregate outside an armored vehicle at the Aldi on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh after five people were shot and killed in the Hedingham Neighborhood and Nuese River Trail area in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022 WRAL was broadcasting footage of the scene, showing the off-duty police officer's car riddled with bullets. Baldwin said it was 'a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh'. The mayor, visibly shaken, continued: 'It's a tragic day, because Raleigh police has lost one of its own.' She said that more must be done to combat gun violence. 'We must stop this mindless violence in America. We must address gun violence. We have much to do, and tonight we have much to mourn.' Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, praised law enforcement for their bravery, adding: 'This is a senseless, infuriating and horrific act of violence that has been carried out against our community.' Police and firefighters are pictured near the scene in east Raleigh Police are seen directing traffic away from the scene of Thursday's shooting ABC 11 said that there was a standoff, with the suspect barricaded in a barn. A drone was sent into the barn to try and negotiate with the suspect, but the drone malfunctioned, the station said. A huge emergency response started arriving on the scene at around 5pm. 'The Raleigh Police Department is currently on the scene of an active shooting in the area of the Neuse River Greenway near Osprey Cove Drive and Bay Harbor Drive,' the force tweeted. 'Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes.' Estella Patterson, Raleigh police chief, said the gun violence seen in Raleigh mirrors trends across the country. 'I think people are on edge coming out of a pandemic,' she said. 'I think we have mental health issues that are also contributing to that. I believe also too what we're facing as a nation: the war in Ukraine, inflation, gas prices. 'All those things coupled together, I think results in people wanting to solve their disputes or their issues with gun violence rather than just maybe taking a pause, stepping back, and then re-approaching the situation.' The Queen Consort could shun her late mother-in-law's stunning diadem, worn exclusively by British queens, for the coronation next year after a backlash over a controversial diamond contained within it. Although the iconic silver, gold, diamond and pearl piece was made for George IV in 1820, it has since only ever been worn by female family members. The priceless piece features 2,800 diamonds with the front cross holding the famous 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. The huge diamond originated from India and is said to have been given to Queen Victoria by the last Sikh emperor of India - who at the time was 10 years old. But the gifting of the diamond is disputed and there are claims in at least three countries, including India, to have the jewel returned. Speculation over the crown the Queen Consort will wear next year was thrown into chaos yesterday after India's ruling party said that wearing the diamond would bring back 'painful memories of the colonial past.' It is now understood Camilla is likely to decide against wearing the crown, The Times reports, and Buckingham Palace will opt for a cheaper alternative rather than have a new crown commissioned. The Queen Consort could be crowned using her late mother-in-law's stunning diadem, worn exclusively by British queens Although the iconic silver, gold, diamond and pearl piece was made for George IV in 1820, it has since only ever been worn by female family members The coronation crown of the Queen Mother, containing the Koh-i-noor diamond, which is the subject of an international political debate Palace insiders continue to insist that no decision has been made, but King Charles was previously said to have wanted his wife to wear the controversial jewel as a nod to his late mother. The controversy over the diamond blew up after Buckingham Palace announced that the date of the King and Queen's coronation would be May 6 2023. A source close to the palace told The Times: 'I would have thought they would err towards keeping India happy. 'The priority is the Commonwealth these days, and diversity. Those are two very important things going on.' There is the option to remove the Koh-i-Noor from the crown and replace it with a different stone, but some are concerned that this would send a message about the legitimacy of the diamond having been given as a gift. The palace is now said to be actively considering other options, looking back as far as 200 years. Among the contenders are a little-known crown worn by Queen Adelaide in 1831, The Telegraph reports. The crown is a part of the Royal Collection but was removed from display at the Tower of London earlier this year. There is also the Diamond Diadem, a crown worn by King and Queen consort since Adelaide, but it has never been used in a coronation ceremony before. Many of those with a passion for royal regalia believe the King George IV Diamond Diadem would be the perfect option. The late Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her coronation, pictured with the controversial crown Yesterday the Mail exclusively revealed that Buckingham Palace are quietly re-thinking their original plans to use the Queen Mother's coronation crown when Camilla is crowned alongside her husband next May amid political sensitivities Made from silver and lined with gold, it has a distinctive openwork frame set with 1,333 diamonds and a narrow band edged with pearls. It has four distinctive 'crosses-pattee' - the front cross set with a four-carat pale yellow brilliant diamond - as well as four sprays representing the national emblems of England, Ireland and Scotland, roses, shamrocks and thistles. It was made by Rundells in 1820 and, together with a diamond-studded loop (which was broken up to help make Queen Victoria's Garter armlet), the bill for the diadem amounted to the huge sum of 8,216. This included an 800 hire charge for the diamonds - stones were regularly hired for use at coronations up to 1837 - computed on a percentage of the value of the stones. Normally the stones would have been returned to Rundells after the coronation, but in this case there is no sign that the delicately worked diamond sprays and crosses have been disturbed. The Diamond Diadem has been regularly worn by queens regnant and consorts ever since. Meanwhile, William Dalrymple, who co-wrote Koh-i-Noor: The History Of The World's Most Infamous Diamond, described the issue as a 'massive diplomatic grenade'. He said: 'It is not a small, sensitive issue in the eyes of India. People in this country don't have the slightest conception of how much it matters in India. For people here it is the name of an Indian restaurant... or maybe something they have seen on a school trip. 'But it is actually part of a wider disconnect of a number of things that Indians get very upset about to do with the colonial period. 'The diamond has been claimed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and also the Taliban. It is a hugely sensitive stone. 'It matters to a huge number of people and has continued to be very controversial since the Queen died. India is rising as a global power and there is an expectation that this is an issue that will come back.' The late Queen loved the controversial crown so much that she wore it on the way to her own coronation in 1953, although the Imperial State Crown was used in the actual ceremony. From 1952 onwards she also sported it en route to every state opening of parliament. Finally, in 2019, she opted to wear it for the entire event after confirming that the Imperial State Crown was too heavy for her as a woman well into her 90s. Yesterday the Mail exclusively revealed that Buckingham Palace are quietly re-thinking their original plans to use the Queen Mother's coronation crown when Camilla is crowned alongside her husband next May amid the political sensitivities. Defence secretary Ben Wallace has rebuked Emmanuel Macron after the French president ruled out launching a nuclear strike on Russia. The UK's secretary of state for defence said Mr Macron had revealed his hand by confirming that if Vladimir Putin goes nuclear in Ukraine then France would not repay it in kind. There are raised tensions that the Russian president could authorise a nuclear attack as his illegal invasion of Ukraine continues to falter, although the Kremlin has denied it intends to use its arsenal. In recent weeks Nato allies have repeatedly warned that the consequences for Russia would be dire if it did launch such an attack, although the exact nature of these has been left deliberately ambiguous. And these threats will loom large in the mind of Putin as nuclear bombers take off from bases in Britain next week in a drill to simulate a nuclear strike on his country. The nuclear-readiness drill, which will take place over the course of next week, will see dozens of aircraft from Nato allies scrambled as part of the drill and in united show of force. French president Emmanuel Macron appeared to confirm France would not use nuclear weapons if Russia used its own nukes in Ukraine in an interview on French television (pictured) UK defence secretary Ben Wallace appeared to rebuke Mr Macron by saying he had 'revealed' his hand It comes as the US sends B-52 bombers (pictured right) over the Atlantic to take part in Nato nuclear readiness drills However, a chink in that united front appeared yesterday when Mr Macron seemed to rule out using his country's nuclear arsenal in the event of a strike by Putin for fear of causing a 'global war'. Speaking with state broadcaster France 2, he said: 'Our doctrine rests on the fundamental interests of the nation. They are defined clearly and wouldn't be directly affected at all if, for example, there was a ballistic nuclear attack in Ukraine.' When asked about the French president's comments at a Nato meeting in Brussels yesterday, Mr Wallace said it 'reveals President Macron's hand'. He added: 'Our view is if Russia were to use a nuclear weapon, there would be severe consequences for Russia. It would be breaking the 1945 taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. And it would leave him incredibly isolated globally.' The Telegraph quotes sources at Nato as saying Mr Macron's words could upset the 'principles of deterrence' and that he should not 'talk about it publicly'. France would not use a nuclear weapon against Russia if it used one of its own atomic weapons against Ukraine, the French President has said (File image: Russian nuclear missile) A senior Nato source said Mr Macron (pictured) should not have talked publicly about what would happen if Putin used nuclear weapons in Ukraine NATO defence ministers meet in Brussels yesterday as they discuss military aid to Ukraine, ahead of a meeting to plan an upcoming nuclear exercise The day before a senior Nato source said Russia would 'almost certainly be drawing a physical response from many allies, and potentially from Nato itself' if it did strike. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg added that there would be 'severe consequences' should nuclear weapons be used, but refused to give any details on NATO's potential response. Mr Stoltenberg warned Moscow of 'severe consequences' should it use any kind of nuclear weapon against Ukraine but declined to give any details on NATO's potential response. The NATO chief said a nuclear strike would fundamentally change the nature of the conflict and signify the crossing of a very important line. Ukraine joining NATO will guarantee WW3, Russia says Russia has threatened the Third World War if Ukraine is granted membership into NATO, a Russian Security Council official has warned today. 'Kyiv is well aware that such a step would mean a guaranteed escalation to World War Three,' Alexander Venediktov, deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, told the Kremlin's news agency TASS. Mr Venediktov, who is deputy to Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a powerful Vladimir Putin ally, said he felt Ukraine's application was propaganda. He said this was because the West understood the consequences of Ukrainian membership of NATO that the fifth 'collective defence' article would be triggered. This means that an attack against one NATO ally is considered as an attack against all allies. 'Apparently, that's what they are counting on to create informational noise and draw attention to themselves once again,' Mr Venediktov said. 'The suicidal nature of such a step is understood by NATO members themselves,' he added. 'We must remember: a nuclear conflict will affect absolutely the whole world, not only Russia and the collective West, but every country on this planet,' Mr Venediktov said. 'The consequences would be disastrous for all mankind.' Advertisement 'Even the use of a smaller nuclear weapon will be a very serious thing and fundamentally changing the nature of the war in Ukraine,' he noted. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaking in Bruges, warned 'any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian army will be annihilated, and Putin should not be bluffing.' Like Mr Stoltenberg, U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also declined to speculate how NATO might respond to a nuclear strike, calling Russia's threats 'reckless' and 'irresponsible.' 'As I look at indications and warnings, I don't see any need to make any changes to what we're doing right now,' he told a news conference. It comes as dozens of RAF jets and US air force planes have travelled to Europe in preparation for Nato drills to simulate launching nuclear strikes against Russia. The drills, which are codenamed 'Steadfast Noon', will take place next week and will see 60 planes from 14 Nato nations scramble to simulate a nuclear attack on Putin. Among the aircraft taking part will be F-15 Eagles based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, which can carry nuclear weapons, as well as B-52s which are being flown over from the US. The annual exercise, which does not involve live bombs, will see RAF Typhoons play the role of Russian MiG jets which would simulate Putin's defences, The Sun reports. The drills had been planned before Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine in February, with US officials saying it has been held regularly at around this time of year for more than a decade. Cancelling the drills because of the war in Ukraine would have sent a 'very wrong signal,' Mr Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. The bulk of the simulations will take place more than 1,000km (625 miles) from Russia, the US defence official said. 'While we will continue routine activities to sustain our (nuclear) deterrent, there will be no special messaging around our exercises,' the U.S. defence official said. 'We think nuclear sabre rattling is reckless and irresponsible. Russia may choose to play that game but we won't.' The exercise comes as Russia gets set to host its annual Grom exercise, which normally takes place in late October and sees it test its nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles. Mr Stoltenberg said Nato would monitor Russia's annual nuclear drills very closely, as it has done for decades, and remain vigilant 'not least in light of the veiled nuclear threats and the dangerous rhetoric we have seen from the Russian side'. They have called for urgent assistance as floods continue to rise in the region The owners of the horses at Yulong Stud are desperately trying to save them Scores of horses have become trapped in floodwaters in Mangalore, Victoria Horses have become trapped in floodwaters in Victoria as their owners and locals try desperately to rescue the animals. Major flooding has inundated the town of Mangalore and the surrounding region after central Victoria was drenched with rain all week. The severe wet weather hit local horse breeder Yulong Stud and flooded the paddocks and nearby fields. They have one vessel, but there are a lot of horses here. @10NewsFirstMelb pic.twitter.com/aJipJSEjmL Patrick Murrell (@pamurrell) October 13, 2022 Horses at breeder Yulong Stud in Mangalore, Victoria, have become trapped in rising floodwaters as severe wet weather devastates the region Scores of horses have been caught in the floods and are struggling to get out of the raging waters. Owners have attempted to save their thoroughbreds by herding them out of the water. They are using a single boat vessel to rescue the animals and have called for urgent assistance for boats and life jackets. Yulong Investments said in a tweet: 'We're in desperate need of life jackets, boats, blankets, rugs and any other help people in the area of Nagambie can give us as we have a number of horses to rescue from flooded paddocks.' Trucks are reportedly heading to Mangalore to transport the rescued horses to higher ground. At least a dozen horses are still trapped in the floods at the property, according to 10 News. Owners of the thoroughbreds are desperately trying to save them by herding them out of the water and using a boat vessel They have called for urgent assistance, asking for more boats, lifejackets, rugs, blankets and hands to save the horses Towns in Melbourne and central Victoria are being devastated by rising floodwaters after a week of heavy rainfall. Evacuation orders have been given for Rochester, Wedderburn, Maribyrnong in Melbourne's inner city, Benalla and Carisbrook. More than 450 properties in Rochester are expected to be impacted when the swollen Campaspe River peaks. The Victorian SES warned the floods in the town could be reminiscent of those in 2011 when 80 per cent of the township and surrounding rural areas were flooded. For those living in Seymour, which is just over an hour north of Melbourne, they were told on Friday morning it's too late to leave. A relief centre has opened up at the Wedderburn Hall. Evacuation orders have been given for suburbs in Victoria including Wedderburn, Maribyrnong in Melbourne's inner city, Benalla, Carisbrook and Rochester Flooding has inundated the small rural town of Rochester in northern Victoria 'It is now too late to leave for people in the area bounded by the Goulburn River to Redbank Rd; along the Goulburn Valley Hwy to Whiteheads Creek up to the railway line and along the bridge crossing the river to the south,' VicEmergency said. 'If you have not evacuated, you should shelter in the highest location possible.' The same warning has also been issued for low lying areas between Benalla and Baddiginnie. Those unable to flee to safety have been told to find shelter at the highest ground possible, and ensure they have enough food and water. 'Be aware that you may be isolated by floodwater for a significant amount of time,' the alert reads. Those living in Rochester, a small town 180km north of Melbourne, have been told to evacuate the area with the swollen Campaspe River expected to peak early on Friday morning Flood waters are seen encroaching on one Victorian family's home on Friday morning There have also been countless warnings to move to higher ground, and to avoid flooded areas around the state. Forty-two suburbs have been declared at risk. Brunswick, Coburg, Fitzroy and Northcote in Melbourne's inner-north and Essendon, Sunshine, Footscray and Yarraville in the west are all on the list of 'at-risk' suburbs. There may be some relief on the way for Victorians with the Bureau of Meteorology declaring the severe weather warning that was issued for the state is now cancelled. Scattered showers are forecast for the state's southern and mountain districts for Friday but the wet weather has mostly eased. But Victoria's emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp has warned the state's flood risk won't end after today, or even after this weekend. He told 3AW's Neil Mitchell 'we're in this for a while', with the state experiencing a 'campaign flood event'. 'There is another low developing, so we'll see, probably, that weather next Wednesday/Thursday,' he told Mitchell. What is an amber alert? The NHS has an official traffic-light system for handling low levels of blood. Currently England is at 'amber', which means hospitals must 'reduce and prioritise' blood use. It could see elective surgeries, such as hip replacements, cancelled. But urgent or emergency, cancer and transplant surgeries will all continue to run as normal for now. Before today, the NHS was at the pre-amber stage. NHS staff were advised to be cautious of wasting stock and to try to hold back blood types that most likely run low. The next stage, red, would force hospitals to ration blood supplies for emergencies only. How much blood does the NHS have? NHS Blood and Transplant said current overall blood stocks in the NHS stand at 3.1 days. It aims to have at least six days worth of stock. Levels of O negative blood have dipped below the two-day mark. Stocks of O positive (2.12), A positive (2.83), B negative (3.29) and AB negative (3.83) are all also below the threshold. O negative is the universal type which can be given to everyone. It is vitally important during emergencies and when the blood type of the recipient is unknown. B positive, an important blood type for treating people with sickle cell disease, has 6.2 days worth of stocks, while A negative (7.12) and AB positive (9.94) are also both above the target. Is the NHS short of platelets, too? Meanwhile, blood platelet levels are below the one-day stock minimum for types O positive and A positive. Platelets control bleeding in our bodies, so can be essential to surviving surgeries such as organ transplant, as well as fighting cancer, chronic diseases, and traumatic injuries. Donor platelets are given to patients who don't have enough of their own, a condition known as thrombocytopenia, or when a person's platelets aren't working correctly. But substitutions are available for platelets when they are unavailable, unlike with regular blood stocks. What does this mean for hospitals? An email circulated to hospital bosses has told them to postpone elective surgery which is likely to require donor blood. The emergency measure could see thousands of routine operations cancelled. This could include joint replacements, which require adequate stocks of blood on hand in case a patient bleeds heavily. Decisions will be taken by individual hospitals. But hospitals might instead book in other surgeries, such as hernia repairs, gall-bladder removal and eye surgery, which do not require blood to be on standby. Already about 6.5million patients are on waiting lists for such operations, with around 300,000 waiting at least a year. Why are supplies low? The current amber alert is also thought to be due to ongoing staffing issues, with more staff needed to work at donor sessions. NHSBT claimed maintaining stocks has been a challenge in the wake of Covid, partly due to fewer people visiting collection centres in towns and cities. But some donors also had their appointments cancelled more recently because of the lack of staff. NHSBT say bookings have been dropped at the last minute because of Covid and other sickness absences. An NHSBT spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Unfortunately we have needed to cancel some appointments sometimes at the last minute because of staff sickness absence. 'Ongoing staff shortage issues have been caused by accelerated turnover and the time it takes to recruit and train new colleagues. 'This has left NHS Blood and Transplant vulnerable to short term sickness, which remains high due to increases in Covid cases. 'This has led to unavoidable cancellations of high numbers of donor appointments, impacting collections and stock levels.' Is there a potential solution? Experts say one vital tool that could help procedures go ahead is being neglected in NHS hospitals. A drug called tranexamic acid reduces major blood loss by a quarter when given before an operation. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends it is given to all patients undergoing major operations. But an audit of 152 NHS hospitals revealed just two thirds of eligible patients were offered the 2-per-dose drug last year. A report published in British Journal of Anaesthesia last month claimed giving the jab to all hospital surgery patients could prevent 15,000 major bleeds per year. Lead author Professor Ian Roberts, one of the UK's leading experts on blood loss at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said this could reduce the current and future strains on blood stocks. He told the Mail On Sunday: 'It makes perfect sense for doctors and patients. It is a cheap, low-risk intervention that will save tens of thousands of blood units, and lives.' Currently, about 13,000 Britons die every year as a result of a major bleeding during surgery. He added: 'Not only do more doctors need to offer tranexamic acid, but we want every patient having an operation to know they can, and should, ask for it.' How can I donate blood? If you would like to donate blood, you can register online at www.blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23. When you log into your account, you are able to find an appointment. As news of the amber alert broke, the blood donor website became very busy, with people placed in a queue. NHS Blood and Transplant said: 'You can book an appointment to give blood as soon as you register as a blood donor. 'However, the next convenient appointment might not be straightaway. This could be because we already have a good supply of your blood type. 'People need blood all year round so your donation will still save lives, even if your appointment is in a few months' time.' There are 25 main permanent sites where you can donate. They are in: Birmingham Bradford Bristol Cambridge Gloucester Lancaster Leeds City Centre Leicester Liverpool London Edgware London Tooting London West End London Westfield Shepherd's Bush London Westfield Stratford City Luton Manchester, Plymouth Grove Manchester, Norfolk House Newcastle Nottingham Oxford Plymouth Poole Sheffield Southampton Stoke In addition to these 25 main centres, there are also thousands of temporary community-based venues where you can give blood. What happens when I donate? When you are comfortable in the chair, a nurse will put a cuff on your arm to maintain a small amount of pressure during donation (this does not measure blood pressure). They then examine your arm to find a suitable vein and clean it with an antiseptic sponge. A needle will be inserted into your arm which will collect your blood into a blood bag with your unique donor number. You should not feel any discomfort or pain. If you do, tell a member of staff. A scale weighs the blood and stops when you have donated 470ml (or just under a pint). This usually takes between 5-10 minutes. The needle will be removed and a sterile dressing applied to your arm. Your donation is transported to one of our blood centres where it is tested and processed before being issued to hospitals. Years have passed but there are still many firsts to accomplish. Among the list of famous firsts are Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Sputnik, the first artificial satellite in space. One of the many extraordinary people who have managed to join that list is Chuck Yeager. Charles E. Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, became the first person ever to break the sound barrier in flight. This simply means that he flew faster than the speed of sound. The record maker died at the age of 97, on December 7, 2020. Here are five other things to know about the aviator. A War Veteran Yeager was a combat fighter, a private, and an aircraft mechanic in World War II, according to History.com. In all those years, he managed to fly 64 missions over Europe, and shot down 13 German planes. The pilot was also shot down and was held captive. But he found a way to escape using the French Underground. He also served as a wind commander in the Vietnam war, in which he participated in more combat missions than in World War II. He flew 130 combat missions, making his track record 194 combat missions overall. A Pilot's Courage The Bell Aircraft Company built an experimental rocket plane called the X-1. Its purpose was to explore supersonic flight. Many believed that men should not fly faster than sound, as the transonic drag rise would pull any aircraft apart. This did not deter Chuck Yeager at all. He volunteered for a flight test of the X-1 and was among the chosen few. He flew the plane over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. Although, the project was not revealed to the public at the time, which is why Yeager's achievement was not known until 1948. Read Also: UFO Spotted Near Nellis Airforce Base in Nevada Again: Black Projects Confirmed? The Flight of a Bullet The X-1 plane had thin wings and a streamlined fuselage. It was modeled after a .50-caliber bullet to help with its aerodynamics, allowing it to rocket at 40,000 feet and move past 662 miles per hour, after having been lifted by a B-29 aircraft to an altitude of 25,000 feet. He nicknamed the plane "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife. Called in the Face of Tragedy In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger faced major complications and fell apart 73 seconds after blasting off. The disaster killed all seven astronauts on board. President Ronald Reagan ordered an investigation to look into the accident. Chuck Yeager was among the people who served on the Presidential commission. A Decorated Man Yeager accumulated 33 years of service after retiring from the Air Force with the rank of brigadier general, in 1975. His service allowed him to receive several awards and commendations. This includes the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and Bronze Star. In 1985, he was also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as mentioned in Space.com. Related Article: A Concorde Supersonic Plane, Air France Flight 4590, Crashed on This Day 22 Years Ago British spies were informed by Canadian intelligence within 48 hours that its asset had smuggled Isis bride Shamima Begum and her two friends over the Syrian border, sources alleged yesterday. The claims that MI5 and MI6 were aware will add to calls for an inquiry into what the police and intelligence services knew about Canada's activities. It follows revelations that the now-23-year-old was trafficked into the Middle East by a double agent, on the payroll of both the Islamic State and Canadian intelligence. Officials in Ottawa are then said to have kept quiet, even as Scotland Yard ran a huge, international search for Begum, and her friends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, according to The Secret History of the Five Eyes. Five Eyes is an intelligence sharing alliance, formalised during the Cold War, between the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The book, by journalist Richard Kerbaj, alleged that Canada finally admitted its involvement in the plot as bosses feared becoming exposed, then also managed to convince Britain to cover-up its role. British spies were informed by Canadian intelligence within 48 hours that its asset had smuggled Isis bride Shamima Begum and her two friends over the Syrian border, sources alleged yesterday The claims that MI5 and MI6 were aware will add to calls for an inquiry into what the police and intelligence services knew about Canada's activities The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail cited two sources yesterday that confirmed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had passed the information on to MI5 and MI6. The CSIS learnt of the trios whereabouts four days after they were moved by the Isis smuggler Mohammed al-Rashed on February 17. The newspaper said that British intelligence agencies were made aware within the next two days, raising the likelihood that they knew before Scotland Yard. Begum left school in Bethnal Green, East London, to travel to Syria in 2015, where she married an ISIS fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died young. Her youngest child died in the prison camp in Syria's north-east in 2019. She has made previous attempts to restore her British citizenship, but failed in her Supreme Court bid to return to the UK and fight her case in person. The Supreme Court ruled on national security grounds that she cannot return to Britain to pursue an appeal against the decision. The law states a person's citizenship can be stripped if they are deemed to be in the public interest. It follows revelations that the now-23-year-old was trafficked into the Middle East by a double agent, on the payroll of both the Islamic State and Canadian intelligence Speaking to iNews from the camp while she awaits a trial by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces earlier this summer, she insisted that she wants to be 'as British as possible', but conceded that she expects she will spend the rest of her life in Syria. 'That's how I feel and that's what it looks like,' Begum said on the likelihood of her spending the rest of her life in the Middle East. It comes as a British woman and her child were repatriated from a Syrian detention camp in a landmark move, it emerged last night. The woman whose identity has not been revealed is the first adult to be allowed to return to the UK since fighting against Islamic State came to an end. Jonathan Hargreaves, UK Special Representative for Syria, tweeted on Wednesday: 'UK officials have facilitated the repatriation of two British nationals from Syria. In line with long-standing policy, we consider each request for consular assistance in Syria on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all relevant considerations, including national security.' Around 60 Britons, including 35 children, are being held in indefinite detention in Syria. Advertisement A university library described as the 'epitome' of sustainable construction has been recognised with the UK's most prestigious architecture award. The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has named The New Library of Magdalene College in Cambridge the winner of the 2022 Riba Stirling Prize. Set within the college grounds in central Cambridge, the modern 24-hour library was designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects with the aim of lasting 400 years. Sustainability was also high on the agenda, and the brick structure minimises energy use through a grid of chimneys which support the floors and bookshelves while carrying warm air upwards to ventilate the building. Its timber structure also reduced the carbon embodied in its construction, and high, vaulted windows allow natural light to flood in. A university library described as the 'epitome' of sustainable construction has been recognised with the UK's most eminent architecture award The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has named The New Library of Magdalene College in Cambridge the winner of the 2022 Riba Stirling Prize Set within the college grounds in central Cambridge, the modern 24-hour library was designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects with the aim of lasting 400 years The library, which also houses an archive and art gallery, compliments surrounding quadrangular buildings and courts which have gradually developed from the monastic college site. Riba president Simon Allford described the building's design as the 'epitome' of sustainable architecture. He said: 'A unique setting with a clear purpose - The New Library at Magdalene College is sophisticated, generous, architecture that has been built to last. 'Creating a new building that will last at least 400 years is a significant challenge, but one that Niall McLaughlin Architects has risen to with the utmost skill, care and responsibility. 'The result - a solid and confident, yet deferential new kid on the college block. 'The light-filled, warm-wood interior lifts spirits and fosters connections. 'The overarching commitment to build something that will stand the test of time can be felt in every material and detail, and from every viewpoint. Its timber structure also reduced the carbon embodied in its construction, and high, vaulted windows allow natural light to flood in 'This is the epitome of how to build for the long-term.' Architect Niall McLaughlin said the university asked him to 'build for the long-term' and use resources 'wisely'. 'The Magdalene College Library is a work of many hands and many minds,' he said. 'The College created the possibility for success in the way that they initiated and managed the project. 'The appointment of designers, consultants, builders, and craftsmen was treated with care. 'Throughout the development process, our team was supported and robustly questioned in our decisions.' The library's exterior comprises gabled pitched roofs, windows with tracery and elegant brickwork. Inside, students can enjoy wide reading rooms, private desks set into bay windows, and narrow zones for staircases and bookcases. Sustainability was also high on the agenda, and the brick structure minimises energy use through a grid of chimneys which support the floors and bookshelves while carrying warm air upwards to ventilate the building Magdalene College librarian, Dr Marcus Waithe, described it as an 'inspiring structure'. 'Magdalene College's New Library fulfils an unusually challenging brief: to erect a building at the edge of one of Cambridge's most historically sensitive sites, and to do so without committing an intrusion,' he said. 'The College wanted to avoid mere pastiche, or a passive 'blending in'. 'It needed to be an inspiring structure - one that would encourage our undergraduates to aim high - that still preserved a human scale. 'As if that were not difficult enough, it would combine a working library with an archive centre, and the Robert Cripps art gallery. 'The result succeeds on all these fronts and more.' The 2022 Riba Stirling prize-giving ceremony will be held at the institute's headquarters, 66 Portland Place in London. Dustin DeMonte, 35, and Alex Hamzy, 34, were both shot dead after being met outside by Brutcher following a phony 911 call His brother, Nathaniel, was injured at the scene and was called a 'man-child' by neighbors who said he was also a drug user Nicholas Brutcher, 35, who died in a shootout with police after allegedly luring two officers to their deaths, was described as 'rowdy' and 'always drinking' The man accused of placing a fake 911 call to ambush and kill two police officers is seen in newly revealed pictures, as neighbors called him 'rowdy' and 'always drinking.' Nicholas Brutcher, who allegedly fired on the officers before being killed in the ensuing shootout, is seen toting guns in the surfaced Facebook pictures. The pictures show Brutcher and his brother, Nathan, who was shot and injured at the scene, happily holding handguns and rifles at a wedding and in the wilderness. Brutcher shot officers Alex Hamzy, 34, and Dustin Demonte, 35, when he shot at them with an AR-15-style rifle. 26-year-old Alec Iurato was also injured. Nicholas Brutcher, left, and Nathaniel Brutcher, right, allegedly lured two cops to their deaths with a fake 911 call on Wednesday night Nicholas Brutcher, 35, who was described as 'rowdy' and 'always drinking,' was shot dead at the scene Nathaniel Brutcher was described by a neighbor as a 'man-child- who used drugs: 'He was high as a kite every time I see him' According to reports, Nicholas was kicked out of a bar earlier in the night before placing the phony 911 call around 10.30pm on Wednesday. Neighbors said the divorced dad of two was 'always drinking,' and that he'd often be around checking on his brother Nathaniel. Another neighbor described Nathaniel as a 'skater punk' and 'man-child' who was constantly under the influence and did little to get his life together. 'Nate is high as a kite every time I see him. But cocaine doesnt drive you to call cops and shoot them,' he said. The neighbors also spoke of the Brutcher's family, which includes their mom and dad, two brothers and an adopted sister. 'Their mother must be a wreck right now,' a neighbor told the New York Post. 'Shes also crazier than a f**king bag of chips.' The neighbor added the Brutcher's father has 'got a really good heart. Hes been taking care of their mother and those boys for years. That dudes a strong man.' Alec Iurato, 26, was rushed to Saint Francis Hospital and underwent surgery for serious gunshot wounds, where he is currently recovering Dustin DeMonte (left), 35, and Alex Hamzy, 34, were shot dead while responding to a 911 call of a domestic incident between two brothers in Connecticut Two police officers have been killed and one left fighting for his life after a dispute between two brothers saw a gunman open fire in Connecticut Police say the preceding 911 was 'a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.' It has not been announced who opened fire, who fired the fatal shots and how many guns were used in the encounter. It is unclear if Nathaniel also shot at officers or was a bystander or a victim. Nicholas was shot dead at the scene while Nathan was wounded and hospitalized. His condition is unknown. It comes as dozens of cops headed to the scene to line the roads to pay their respects to the fallen officers. One witness, Danny Rodriguez, said he heard three sets of gunshots and 30 shots in total. He says he heard another woman yelling out during the shooting: 'you killed them!' 'I heard a whole war going on behind me,' Rodriguez said, according to KOCO. According to the New York Times, Rodriguez saw a man dressed in camouflage leaving the Brutcher home with a rifle. Another man followed and attempted to restrain the camouflaged man before he was shot. Jeltema said state troopers and detectives are still gathering evidence and the 'very complex' investigation is ongoing. She added that it was an 'isolated incident' with 'no threat to the community' during a press conference. Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould added that the deaths were as a result of 'senseless violence' which has brought the force 'sadness and grief.' 'They answered a call to duty, and they responded without hesitation, and that's what they did every night before that,' Gould said. 'And that's what all our officers do and will continue to do day after day.' Police are shown investigating the Brutcher home where the officers were shot Bristol Police officers console one another at the scene Police officers from across Connecticut stood at the scene in Bristol where two officers were killed Bristol police officer Harrison Pollock stands alongside a vehicle carrying one of the fallen officers Bristol Police Officer Seth Petzing wipes his eyes as he gathers with colleagues at the scene Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont directed flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the fallen officers Sergeant DeMonte was hired in 2012 and worked as a school resource officer, and is survived by his wife Laura and two young children Phoebe and Porter. Gould added that the couple was expecting a third child. 'Words cannot express the sadness and grief that brings me before you this morning,' Gould said. DeMonte was named the 2019 Officer of the Year and also worked as an advisor for the explorer cadet program. A September 27 Facebook post shows DeMonte wearing a Miami Dolphins jersey and smiling alongside his wife, Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould added that the deaths were as a result of 'senseless violence' which has brought the force 'sadness and grief' Officer Hamzy joined in 2014, working the patrol division and is survived by his wife Katie, parents and two sisters Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema confirmed that the suspect opened fire, with one officer being pronounced dead at the scene Jeltema said state troopers and detectives are still gathering evidence and the 'very complex' investigation is ongoing Witnesses described hearing two sets of 12 gunshots before sirens and a helicopter descended on the area. Officer Hamzy joined in 2014, working the patrol division and is survived by his wife Katie, parents and two sisters. Iurato was hired in 2018, and was also assigned to the patrol division, with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont directed flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the fallen officers. He added: 'The loss of two officers from the Bristol Police Department who were killed in the line of duty while responding to an emergency call of domestic violence is a senseless tragedy, and my prayers are with their families, loved ones, and fellow officers. 'This is a devastating reminder of the dangers that police officers face every day to protect our families and neighbors from all kinds of situations.' Mourners have left several floral tributes outside of the Bristol Connecticut Police Department, which also has black bunting hung over their sign. Nearby resident Robyn Lauzon told the Middletown Press that the shootout sounded 'like a war zone.' The three officers were shot during an especially violent week for police in the United States which saw five others shot Connecticut governor Ned Lamont directed flags in the city to be lowered to half-mast in the wake of the shooting, describing the incident as a 'senseless tragedy' 'It was horrible. I heard three rounds of nine or 10 gunshots each,' she said. 'It was scary as hell and the sirens were crazy. It was like a war zone.' The officers were shot during an especially violent week for police in the United States. On Tuesday night in Mississippi, Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart was killed and several other people were injured by gunfire as she and other officers responded to a call, authorities said. Early Wednesday, three Philadelphia police officers were shot and wounded at a home and a suspect was killed when a SWAT team tried to arrest a man wanted on a homicide charge, police said. And in Decatur, Illinois, two police officers conducting a traffic stop in a central Illinois city were shot and wounded early Wednesday by a motorist who died after officers returned fire, police said. Russia has urged civilians to 'leave with their children' and evacuate Kherson for their own safety in a sign of Vladimir Putin's weakening hold on the annexed region as Ukrainian forces continue to advance. Evacuees are expected to begin arriving in Russia on Friday after a Moscow-installed official strongly urged residents to leave Ukraine's southern Kherson region. Vladimir Saldo had urged all civilians to 'protect themselves' as he cited daily rocket attacks by Kyiv forces. The Kherson administration chief was speaking mainly to residents on the west bank of the Dnipro River which includes the regional capital - the only major Ukrainian city Russia has captured intact since Putin began his invasion in February. 'We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if they wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes, ... go to other regions,' Saldo said in a video message. And it has now been claimed that the first civilians fleeing from Kherson are due to arrive in Russia's southern region of Rostov on Friday, TASS news agency reports. Kherson is one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed in recent weeks, and arguably the most strategically important. It controls both the only land route to the Crimea peninsula Russia seized in 2014, and the mouth of the Dnipro, the 2,200-kilometre-long (1,367-mile-long) river that bisects Ukraine. Russia has urged civilians to 'leave with their children' and evacuate Kherson for their own safety. Pictured: Ukrainian troops check Russian trenches in retaken Kherson Vladimir Saldo had urged civilians to 'save themselves' and 'leave with their children' as he cited daily rocket attacks by Kyiv forces. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers retook settlements in Kherson last week Since the start of October, Ukrainian forces have burst through Russia's front lines there in their biggest advance in the south since the war began. They have since been advancing rapidly along the west bank, aiming to cut off thousands of Russian troops from supply lines and potential escape routes across it. TASS quoted the governor of Rostov, which borders on the Ukrainian territories Russia claims to have annexed, as saying his region was prepared to host anyone who chose to leave Kherson. Russia has deployed many of its best-trained troops to defend Kherson's west bank so a flight of civilians would be a humiliating blow to Moscow's claim to have annexed around 15 per cent of Ukraine's territory. A major issue is that troops across the west bank can only be supplied across the river, which is several kilometres wide and has few crossing. Call to evacuate from Saldo (pictured shaking Putin's hand) is a sign of Russia's weakening hold on territory it claims to have annexed In the past two weeks Ukraine has recaptured a swath of territory, with its forces bearing down towards the three kilometre (1.8-mile) long Nova Kakhovka dam that provides one of the last river crossings. Ukraine's gains in the south this month followed rapid gains in the east since September. Mykolaiv, the nearest big Ukrainian-held city to Kherson, came under massive Russian bombardment on Thursday, with civilian facilities hit, local officials said. Regional governor Vitaly Kim said the top two floors of a five-story residential building were destroyed and the rest were under rubble. Video footage provided by state emergency services showed rescuers pulling out an 11-year-old boy who Kim said had spent six hours trapped under the rubble. In the east, three Russian missiles exploded on Thursday morning near the central market in Kupiansk, a major railway junction city that Ukrainian forces recaptured in September. The missiles destroyed shops, carpeting surrounding streets with glass shards, rubble, and twisted metal sheets. Ukrainian soldiers were pictured checking Russian trenches where supplies had been left behind Pictured: A box with ammunition lies on the ground where trenches were dug by Russian soldiers Pictured: A pan with old food was seen in an area that appeared to be used as a canteen before Ukrainian advances were made Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday that 'brutal' fighting continued in the wine and salt-producing town of Bakhmut on the frontline in the eastern Donetsk region, another area Russia has attempted to annex. Zelensky said Ukrainian troops were defending Bakhmut with 'skilful and heroic actions.' Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces view the town as a major objective and have captured several nearby villages. Russian troops had advanced up to 2 km (1.24 miles) towards the town, British intelligence said on Monday, though analysts said the frontline was fluid. Putin has responded to the battlefield setbacks with dramatic moves to escalate the conflict: proclaiming the annexation of territory, calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia. During a Dynamo Kyiv fixture last night, a Ukrainian fan proclaimed that Kherson belonged to Ukraine NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday after a two-day meeting of defence ministers that the alliance would not drop support for Ukraine because of Moscow's nuclear threats. Many countries pledged new military aid for Ukraine. 'We will not be intimidated,' Stoltenberg told reporters. '...They know that if they use [a] nuclear weapon against Ukraine, it will have severe consequences.' This week, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the start of the war, firing more than 100 cruise missiles mainly at Ukraine's electricity and heat infrastructure. Putin said the strikes were retaliation for a blast on Saturday that damaged Russia's Kerch bridge to Crimea. Zelensky on Thursday said Ukraine had about only 10 per cent of what it needed to protect itself against Russian air attacks. She pointed to accused rapist in court: 'Nothing was fine after what you did' She alleges Bruce Lehrmann raped her after a drunken night out in March 2019 He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent Ms Higgins was due to finish giving evidence on Monday, but was 'unavailable' Ms Higgins told a jury she was being 'embarrassed' in front of the court That followed questions regarding the underwear she was wearing Brittany Higgins has told a jury she is being 'embarrassed ... in front of a court' as she is grilled over telling Lisa Wilkinson in a research interview that her accused rapist took her underwear off. Bruce Lehrmann is accused of having non-consensual sex with the former political staffer inside Parliament House after a night out in Canberra in March 2019. Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent in the ACT Supreme Court. As Ms Higgins returned to the witness box on Friday, she was shown a transcript of a question and answer session between her and The Project host Lisa Wilkinson on January 21, 2021. The Q&A came prior to her televised interview. Defence lawyer Steven Whybrow asked if Ms Higgins recalled being asked by Ms Wilkinson 'so she removed your panties?' and if she answered 'yeah'. 'Do you recall giving an answer to that question?' he asked. Ms Higgins said: 'Yes, yes I do. But it was wrong. Brittany Higgins is seen at court last week with her boyfriend David Sharaz (back right). She told a jury she was being 'embarrassed' in front of a court, after questions about what she told Lisa Wilkinson about her clothing The court heard Higgins told Lisa Wilkinson in a research interview that Bruce Lehrmann removed her underwear. 'I didn't wear underwear and I was embarrassed,' Higgins said in court 'I didn't wear underwear and I was embarrassed but that wasn't the interview itself and there was no (statutory declaration) on that. 'I was embarrassed by it ... I continue to be embarrassed by it in front of a court'. Ms Higgins said she did not wear underwear with her dress on the basis that it had lines. 'I'm a 20-year-old girl, we care about stuff like that'. The moment came after Ms Higgins erupted in court at questions from Mr Whybrow, after returning to the trial after a four day absence because she was unavailable. Mr Whybrow put to Ms Higgins that, when she left her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown's office after revealing her rape claim, she was more concerned about her career being in jeopardy. Ms Higgins replied: 'It was absolutely a concern but it was a moment of... I'd let it out. For the first time I'd let it out. I was holding it in pretending it was fine. 'Nothing was fine after what you did to me. Nothing,' she said, pointing at Lehrmann. Ms Higgins (centre) was declared 'unavailable' to attend court on Monday and was absent for four days Ms Higgins claims she told Ms Brown about the allegations against Lehrmann on the Tuesday after the alleged assault. But Mr Whybrow put to her that she didn't tell Ms Brown about the allegations until the Thursday. Ms Higgins replied: 'I don't accept that. The first person I disclosed it to was to Ms Brown.' When Mr Whybrow asked about emails she sent to Lehrmann on the Monday and Tuesday after the alleged assault - where they had exchanges about work, namely an email list he wanted to add her to - he put to her that they were 'completely cordial and normal' because 'there was no sexual assault'. 'Wouldn't say normal,' Ms Higgins replied. 'After a trauma, you kind of go through a strange holding period of an extended, freeze, I guess. But I was trying to maintain calm because he had higher station in the office than me. I was scared.' Mr Whybrow said to Ms Higgins: 'I am putting to you there was no sexual assault.' She replied: 'I know that's what you think. I don't accept that at all. 'It was me compartmentalising my life and caring about my job more than my own life... which is f**ked up, sorry... and my career I'd been building towards my entire life.' Mr Whybrow then referred Ms Higgins to her interview with federal police where she spoke about an attempt by Lehrmann to kiss her 'before March 22' in 2019. 'Yes I recall being definitive. I don't know if I should gave been so definitive,' Ms Higgins replied. She said the attempted kiss would have occurred during a sitting week, and on a Wednesday, because 'that's when we went out as a team'. Mr Whybrow said: 'I put to you this incident did not occur - there was no occasion where Mr Lehrmann tried to kiss you.' Ms Higgins replied: 'That is incorrect.' Mr Whybrow responded: 'I put to you that it did not happen between March 22 and March 26... there was no sitting week between the March 22 and 26, 2019.' 'I just know that we went to the Kingo [Kingston Hotel] and he made an attempt to kiss me during that week,' Ms Higgins replied. Mr Whybrow asked Ms Higgins about a meeting she had with Ms Brown and her then boss, former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds, in the ministerial office where she alleges the rape took place. He put to Ms Higgins that Ms Reynolds told her 'if something had happened and you wanted to talk about it, you are within your rights to go to the police'. 'Broadly accurate,' Ms Higgins replied. Mr Whybrow, quoting Ms Reynolds, said: 'You will be supported in whatever you decide to do.' Ms Higgins replied: 'It had all these provisions on it, so saying it at face value sounds broadly OK but in the context of where they were saying it, how they were saying it, in the context of the [upcoming] election... it felt threatening.' Mr Whybrow asked Ms Higgins if Ms Reynolds told there would be no impact on her career. She replied: 'The words that were said and the context were very different. She said nice things, as I've repeatedly stated. I saw it as threatening and her subsequent behaviour... my job was on the line.' Mr Whybrow showed Ms Higgins of a photograph of a bottle of champagne within a WhatsApp exchange between her and Ms Brown. She responded: 'I was being polite to my employer as I left parliament house.' Defence lawyer Stephen Whybrow showed Brittany Higgins of a photograph of a bottle of champagne within a WhatsApp exchange (pictured) between her and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown. She responded: 'I was being polite to my employer as I left parliament house.' Wr Whybrow asked if she deleted those messages from her phone prior to handing it over to police. Ms Higgins said her WhatsApp data was wiped when she changed phones. Mr Whybrow put to Ms Higgins that she was embarrassed after being found naked in Ms Reynold's office, and therefore 'fabricated' the allegation. 'You did what you thought was necessary to have people believe you had been [sexually assaulted],' he said. Ms Higgins replied: 'I'm not a monster. I would never do something like that.' Ms Higgins was asked whether she told Lisa Wilkinson on Janurary 21, 2021, that Lehrmann removed her underwear. 'No. I didn't wear underwear that night with the dress on the basis that it had lines. I'm a 20-year-old girl, we care about stuff like that.' The new evidence comes after Ms Higgins sat in the witness stand last week and was due to continue being cross-examined by Mr Whybrow on Monday. However, the prosecution told the court she was 'unavailable' until Friday this week. The trial continued with other witnesses but the court has banned their evidence from being published until Ms Higgins has completed her evidence. Channel 10 host Lisa Wilkinson will no longer be required to give evidence in the trial of Brittany Higgins' alleged rapist as the witness list was drastically shortened The court previously heard Ms Higgins and Lehrmann returned to Parliament House after a night out drinking with defence department colleagues. The former Liberal Party staffer claims she fell asleep on the couch and woke up to Lehrmann having sex with her. Former Coalition defence minister Linda Reynolds, Ms Higgins' boss at the time of the alleged assault, is due to give evidence in court on Tuesday. Senator Michaelia Cash is also expected to be in the witness box early next week before the Crown closes its case. Residents in San Francisco and Seattle are more likely to move to a different city as they experience high crime rate and homelessness, according to a new survey. For the first time ever, the American Housing Survey asked residents in the nation's 15 major cities if they planned on moving, with many Dem-led cities leading the way in the looming exodus. About 7.6 percent of those in San Francisco said they wanted to move to a different city, with Seattle coming in second at 7.2 percent. Following them was Washington D.C and Detroit, who both reported that 6.8 percent of residents wished to move away, with Detroit coming in fifth at 6.6 percent. New York City appeared to have the most content residents out of the bunch, with only 3.2 percent saying they wished to move to another city. Both Phoenix and Philadelphia followed behind with 3.7 percent. More Americans living in San Francisco and Seattle said they wanted to move away than any other major city in the nation About 7.6 percent of San Francisco residents said they're thinking of moving away as the city continues to be plagued by crime and homelessness The city's failure to quell crime has further hampered the situation, with city leaders vowing to crack down on increasingly prevalent open-air drug markets Both San Francisco and Seattle championed the Defund the Police movement in 2020 prior to their crime spikes. Pictured: A Defund the Police protest sign in Seattle San Francisco's problems began to inflate in 2019, with the pandemic only making things worse for the Golden Gate City. According to the latest available FBI Unified Crime Report, San Francisco had the highest overall crime rate of the 20 largest cities in the United States, recording 6,917 crimes per 100,000 population in 2019. That was more than double the crime rates in New York and Los Angeles, and well above the rates in the next largest US cities: Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix. A year later following the Black Lives Matter protests, the call to defund the police grew among Democratic leaders. San Francisco Mayor London Breed demanded cities defund the police last year, announcing that the Golden Gate City would be one of the first to do so and promising to slice $120million from the budgets of its police and sheriff's departments. The city also greenlit its first open-air drug market in San Francisco's civic center, which spurred vagrants in homeless encampments across the city to use illegal substances out in broad daylight. Breed has since made a screeching U-turn and announced she was asking the city's Board of Supervisors for more money to be given to the police to stamp out drug dealing, car break-ins, and theft. After initial calls to defund the police, San Francisco Mayor London Breed (pictured) has made a screeching U-turn and announced she was asking the city's Board of Supervisors for more money to be given to the police to stamp out crime San Francisco has the highest overall crime rate of the 20 largest cities in the United States, easily exceeding the crime rates of the five largest cities (seen above) Overall crime in the Golden Gate City is up 7.4 percent so far this year Crime remains stubbornly high in the Golden Gate City, with overall crime up 7.4 percent as of August 14 compared to the same time last year. Assaults are up nearly 12 percent, and robberies are up 5.1 percent. Thefts have spiked by 15.1 percent compared to last year, and rapes have also increased by 9.7 percent. In June, citizens fed up with the state of their city voted to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose anti-incarceration policies have been widely panned as causing the ongoing crisis. He was originally elected on a platform of criminal justice reform, but his notoriously progressive laws have been widely blamed for rising crime and homelessness in the Bay Area since the start of the pandemic. Chesa Boudin (left) was ousted from his position as District Attorney in June, after critics accused him of not doing enough to keep residents and business owners safe amid a crime wave. Brooke Jenkins (right) has since taken over and fired 15 members of Boudin's team During that time, San Francisco also lost 25 percent of its late-twenties white population, as the city experienced the biggest drop in household income of any US city. The data, compiled by the US Census Bureau, looked at the median income of the nation's top 25 most populous metropolises from 2019 to 2021. The Bay Area, long been known as the home of Big Tech - as well as the wealth the industry has created - saw the biggest drop in citizens' earnings. Median household income for the area fell from $121,551 in 2019 to $116,005 in 2021, the data shows - a reduction of 4.6 percent. The statistic illustrates San Francisco in particular's failure to recover following the spread of the virus, with homeless encampments and open-air drug markets since springing up and becoming commonplace. The data also serves as fresh evidence of the city's loss of its hallowed high-income earners - with over 72,000 moving out of Silicon Valley Between January 2020 and September 2021, according to University of California Consumer Credit Panel data. The data, compiled by the US Census Bureau, looked at the median income of the nation's top 25 most populous metropolises from 2019 to 2021. The data also serves as fresh evidence of Democratic-run cities' loss of high-income earners Meanwhile, the mass exodus of citizens deterred by rising mortgage rates, crime, and warnings of a looming recession has caused property prices along West Coast metropolitan areas to dip, due to a glut of properties on the market, Contributing to the rapid cooldown is the country's surging mortgage rates - which rose above a record 6 percent this summer. Consequently, in addition to the widespread migration, the markedly less people are moving to the city amid its current state. Since the start of the pandemic, move-ins to San Francisco are down by a marked 24 percent. The Bay Area has also failed to replace its displaced teach workers who left between March and October 2020, city data shows, restoring just 96 tech workers for every 100 tech workers that fled. In a report by the California Policy Lab that tracks Californians credit history, research fellow Natalie Holmes labeled the phenomenon 'a unique and dramatic exodus.' Crime in Seattle has remained persistently high, with the city documenting about 3,887 violent crime reports so far this year, slowly encroaching on last year's total of 5,407. Rapes and robberys appear on track to match or exceed last year's totals, with 191 and 1,244 cases reported so far, respectively. The same is true of aggravated assault cases, with the city reporting 2,413 cases in 2022, coming up on the 3,316 cases reported last year. There have been 39 homicides in 2022, nearly as much as the 42 total recorded last year. The city saw it's latest murder case in August, when distressing footage showed a disabled 66 year-old being beaten to death with a metal pole in Seattle - allegedly by a serial criminal cops say had been freed by a local judge on a separate felony charge just eight days earlier. Aaron Fulk, 48, was caught on surveillance footage as he bludgeoned 66-year-old Rodney Peterman with the makeshift weapon in the city's notoriously crime-ridden downtown. It happened close to Seattle's world-famous Pike Place food market, a popular tourist-hot spot, KOMO reported. Prosecutors say Fulk kept on beating Peterman even after the victim fell unconscious during the August 2 attack. Aaron Fulk, 48, was caught on camera brutally attacking 66-year-old Rodney Peterman, striking him in the back of the head multiple times with a metal pole Surveillance footage and cell phone video clearly caught the moment Fulk carried out the brutal beating in downtown Seattle It's alleged Fulk was able to strike Peterman over the head at least three times It fractured the skull of Peterman - who had mobility issues and used a walker - who was struck at least three times in the back of the head and on the temple. Although bystanders performed CPR on Peterman, he never regained consciousness and died in hospital four days later. It's unclear if he knew his victim before the attack, and what his motive was. But he might not have been out on the streets at all were it not for the actions of Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Thornton. Thornton had come across Pierce days earlier, and decided to release him without bail on felony harassment charges after he allegedly threatened to kill a local city worker. Thornton released Fulk on his own recognizance, and asked him not to commit any more crime. The serial criminal's subsequent behavior has sparked fury over Thornton's decision to ignore prosecutors' request for $10,000 bail, and is being viewed as symbolic of Seattle's apparent unwillingness to crack down on serious crime. Seattle protesters are seen calling for the police to be defunded are pictured marching in August 2020. The following month the city council adopted their call, and police numbers have been falling ever since The city of Seattle has been facing an uphill battle when it comes to tackling crime. In July, the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office said it filed 598 felony cases, adding up to about 30 charges filed every business day. The majority of the charges are connected to violent or gun crimes with 21% related to domestic violence. Felony charges relating to firearms and repeat offenders were also filed each business day throughout the month. In the city of 724,000, 16 percent of its police officers are on leave, while others have left permanently. Between January 2020 and December 2021 at least 339 Seattle police officers retired or resigned, The Wall Street Journal reported, noting that the city has an authorized force of 1,347 but only some 1,000 deployable officers. During summer 2020, woke ex-mayor Jenny Durkan infamously handed over a large section of the city's once bustling Capitol Hill zone to a group of anti-police anarchists, turning the area into a hot bed of crime, and bringing businesses to their knees. In September 2020, Carmen Best, the widely respected then-chief of Seattle police, resigned hours after the city council made good on its promise to approve sweeping proposals that would cut about 100 officers and slash the department's budget. The 2021 police budget, approved in September 2020, was reduced by nearly $35.6 million, or nine percent, from 2019. A year later, the budget was cut again. The information was hacked through a Colombian law enforcement agency Australian Federal Police officers details have been leaked in a security breach Australian Federal Police drug operations and the details of its officers have been exposed after a trove of classified documents were hacked from the Colombian government. The agency says it's working with its international partners to help Colombian law enforcement bolster its security for computer systems and identify what information has been exposed. 'The AFP is concerned about possible breaches of operational security as a consequence of this data compromise,' a spokesman said in a statement on Friday. Colombian drug cartels have their tentacles stretched out right across the world, including in Australia (pictured, an AFP officer) Partnership with Colombian law enforcement agencies has prevented large amounts of drug importations entering Australia and had disrupted drug cartels, the AFP said (pictured, police in Tulua, Colombia) 'The AFP is working with our partners in impacted regions to mitigate any potential threats to the safety of people, or ongoing investigations.' The spokesman said co-operation with Colombian law enforcement agencies had prevented large amounts of drug importations entering Australia and had disrupted drug cartels. Senior Labor minister Jason Clare said the data breach was serious. 'We all know about Colombian drug cartels and their tentacles stretched out right across the world, including here in Australia, where you've got criminals working with them,' he told Seven's Sunrise. About 70 per cent of Australia's serious and organised crime threats are based offshore or have strong international links. The AFP was involved in 266 international disruption operations that stopped drugs from reaching Australian shores in the 2021-22 financial year. Advertisement The Bureau of Meteorology has warned Victoria could be hit with further blasts of rain in the coming days as at least 1,000 homes are inundated or cut off by floodwaters. Despite easing conditions and a predicted days-long reprieve from wet weather, floodwaters are expected to rise further in the coming hours and the ground is 'incredibly wet'. It comes as thousands of inner-city Melbourne residents were evacuated on Friday as entire streets of Marbiyrnong turned into rivers, with properties and cars submerged. Meanwhile, major flood warnings have been issued for the Werribee and Yarra Rivers this afternoon, more than 4,000 homes across the state are without power and SES crews have performed more than 200 flood rescues. During an emergency press conference on Friday, Premier Daniel Andrews warned floodwaters will not hit their peak 'for quite awhile.' 'Then there is the other issue of rain events that are forecast in coming weeks and, of course, the ground was already sodden before this last couple of days of record rainfall,' he said. 'We know that even moderate rain events over coming weeks will present a real challenge for us as well. So this is with us all for a while yet.' Rescue boat was the only way in and out of many streets in inner-city Maribyrnong on Friday Residents in the town of Rochester spent Friday evacuated pets from flooded properties Parts of Victoria and Tasmania will remain under flood watch in the coming days as conditions eased The Yarra River is to reach 9.2m at Heidelberg on Friday afternoon while major flooding of the Werribee River catchment is expected to cause extensive inundation, disruption to traffic, and may be isolation of some properties. At least 500 homes across the state have been flooded while another 500 have been cut off. Those numbers are almost certain to rise - with floodwaters in Shepparton and Wangaratta set to peak over the weekend. As conditions ease, the Bureau of Meteorology warned the flood crisis is still 'very much evolving' and remains a 'dangerous' event. Major flood warnings are place for at least 10 rivers across the state. 'We are watching another low, potentially developing over South Australia on Monday and Tuesday of next week,' meteorologist Diane Eadie said. Where that heavy rain goes will be highly dependent on the movement of this system.' 'For Victoria, we could see some increased rainfall across northern parts from Wednesday (of next week) into Thursday and Friday. 'But at this stage, we are more likely to be on the periphery of that system. That being said, the grounds are incredibly wet.' Local residents kept a watchful eye on the partially submerged Anglers Tavern in Maribyrnong on Friday These Melbourne residents wouldn't let major flooding dampen their spirits, choosing to get around via kayak A Maribyrnong man stands waist-deep in floodwaters near his home after the nearby Maribyrnong River burst its banks Strathbogie North, in Melbourne's north east, received the most rain in recent days with 224mm followed by Charnwood (210mm), 171mms across the Central Highlands at Avalon Station and 166mm at Seymour. The SES has responded to more than 2600 requests for help in 24 hours and carried out at least 200 flood rescues during the past two days. More than 1500 Victorians have applied for emergency payments within hours of the one-off payments being announced on Friday morning. Affected adults will each be eligible for a $560 payment with an additional $280 per child. 'We're processing those as fast as we can,' Mr Andrews said. Meanwhile, the Federal Government is keeping the state's Mickleham Covid-19 quarantine hub open as temporary accommodation for flood victims. 'We're making necessary arrangements as over the coming days, we think there's every chance we'll need to house people at that Mickleham facility,' Mr Andrews said. The Esplanade in inner-city Melbourne is one of dozens of Maribyrnong streets which have turned into rivers Opposition Leader Matthew Guy called on the state government to declare a natural disaster in flood-affected areas. 'The scenes of flooding in our state, reaching virtually into the middle of Melbourne, are devastating,' he said. 'It is clear that affected communities, families and small businesses are going to need immediate emergency relief, as well as longer-term support to recover,' Mr Guy said. Emergency authorities are yet to declare a natural disaster. 'This is a major emergency for the state of Victoria and in support of that, the State Control Centre. We have activated to tier three our highest level of readiness and we will continue at tier three for the foreseeable future,' Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his heart goes out to Victorians affected by the flood crisis and has spoked to Premier Andrews to offer support. 'There will be a request coming for support there,' Mr Albanese said. 'There are already ADF personnel on the ground in Victoria providing that support and assistance.' A inner-city suburb just 7km from the Melbourne CBD has been inundated with floodwaters. Pictured is an elderly Maribyrnong resident being helped to higher ground This dog was relieved to be taken to dry land by SES workers in Maribyrnong, Melbourne The Project host Lisa Wilkinson will no longer be required to give evidence Prosecution called other witnesses instead. The witness list has been shortened Ms Higgins was due to finish giving evidence on Monday, but was 'unavailable' He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent She alleges Bruce Lehrmann raped her after a drunken night out in March 2019 She pointed to accused rapist in court: 'Nothing was fine after what you did' Brittany Higgins has told a court that her alleged rapist was 'in my body' after Bruce Lehrmann's lawyer suggested that he never sexually assaulted her. Ms Higgins returned to court on Friday morning after a four-day absence from the Lehrmann's rape trial, to finish being cross-examined by defence lawyer Steven Whybrow. The ex-Liberal staffer alleges Lehrmann raped her in former defence minister Linda Reynolds' parliamentary office after a drunken night out in Canberra in the early hours of March 23, 2019. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and is being tried in the ACT Supreme Court. On Friday morning, cross-examination took an emotional turn when Mr Whybrow put to Ms Higgins that there was no sexual assault, and that Lehrmann never entered the minister's office. Ms Higgins replied, loudly: 'He was in there physically assaulting me. He was in my body. I know.' Brittany Higgins is pictured outside court on Friday after she finished being cross-examined Brittany Higgins (pictured outside court on Friday) pointed at her accused rapist and said 'nothing was fine after what you did to me' Earlier in the exchange, the defence lawyer referenced the point in Ms Higgins' police interview where she told police that her memory on the way to parliament 'wasn't the best'. In court, she agreed with that statement. Mr Whybrow said: 'You told police that Bruce said to you, "just be quiet or they don't let you in". 'I suggest to you that he never said that to you.' Ms Higgins responded: 'I disagree. It's one of the few things I do have. Like sitting on the [windowsill in the ministerial suite].' He then suggested that she told Lehrmann she also had to get something from Parliament House, which Ms Higgins disagreed with. 'There was no reason I had to pop back to Parliament at 2am or whatever it was,' she told the court. Ms Higgins acknowledged that she told police in her initial interview that she couldn't remember being led into the suite by security, or how she got to Ms Reynolds' couch. She agreed that she may have let herself in to the minister's office, but disagreed when Mr Whybrow asked her whether she and Lehrmann turned in different directions once they arrived in the defence suite. Mr Whybrow put to Ms Higgins: 'Whilst you were in Ms Reynolds' office, you removed you dress and lay down on the couch.' 'No,' she replied. Mr Whybrow said: 'I suggest you removed your dress at some stage.' Ms Higgins responded: 'It may have been removed off my body but I'm not entirely sure.' 'Once again, I always thought it was scrunched around my waist. Other people's accounts is that I didn't have it. 'When I threw up, I don't remember having to pick up my dress and redress the next morning. Earlier on Friday, Ms Higgins was grilled about not wearing underwear on the night of the alleged assault, and she was accused of lying about the sexual assault because she felt embarrassed about being found naked in Ms Reynolds' office and felt as though her job was in jeopardy. She admitted that she was not wearing underwear at the time because she was wearing a white dress and it had lines - 'I'm a 20-year-old girl, we care about stuff like that,' and rejected the suggestion that she lied about the assault to save her job. Mr Whybrow also put to Ms Higgins that, when she left her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown's office after revealing her rape claim, she was more concerned about her career being in jeopardy. Ms Higgins replied: 'It was absolutely a concern but it was a moment of... I'd let it out. For the first time I'd let it out. I was holding it in pretending it was fine. Pointing at Lehrmann in the courtroom, she almost shouted: 'Nothing was fine after what you did to me. Nothing.' Ms Higgins claims she told Ms Brown about the allegations against Lehrmann on the Tuesday after the alleged assault. But Mr Whybrow put to her that she didn't tell Ms Brown until the Thursday. Ms Higgins replied: 'I don't accept that. The first person I disclosed it to was to Ms Brown.' Brittany Higgins (pictured outside court in Canberra) was 'unavailable' four dayslast week, but she returned on Friday When Mr Whybrow asked about emails she sent to Lehrmann on the Monday and Tuesday after the alleged assault - where they had exchanges about work, namely an email list he wanted to add her to - he put to her that they were 'completely cordial and normal' because 'there was no sexual assault'. 'Wouldn't say normal,' Ms Higgins replied. 'After a trauma, you kind of go through a strange holding period of an extended, freeze, I guess. But I was trying to maintain calm because he had higher station in the office than me. I was scared.' Mr Whybrow said to Ms Higgins: 'I am putting to you there was no sexual assault.' She replied: 'I know that's what you think. I don't accept that at all. 'It was me compartmentalising my life and caring about my job more than my own life... which is f**ked up, sorry... and my career I'd been building towards my entire life.' Mr Whybrow then referred Ms Higgins to her interview with federal police where she spoke about an attempt by Lehrmann to kiss her 'before March 22' in 2019. 'Yes I recall being definitive. I don't know if I should gave been so definitive,' Ms Higgins replied. Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to one count sexual intercourse without consent She said the attempted kiss would have occurred during a sitting week, and on a Wednesday, because 'that's when we went out as a team'. Mr Whybrow said: 'I put to you this incident did not occur - there was no occasion where Mr Lehrmann tried to kiss you.' Ms Higgins replied: 'That is incorrect.' Mr Whybrow responded: 'I put to you that it did not happen between March 2 and March 26... there was no sitting week between March 2 and 26, 2019.' 'I just know that we went to the Kingo [Kingston Hotel] and he made an attempt to kiss me during that week,' Ms Higgins replied. Mr Whybrow asked Ms Higgins about a meeting she had with Ms Brown and her then-boss, former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds, in the ministerial office where she alleges the rape took place. He put to Ms Higgins that Ms Reynolds told her 'if something had happened and you wanted to talk about it, you are within your rights to go to the police'. 'Broadly accurate,' Ms Higgins replied. Mr Whybrow, quoting Ms Reynolds, said: 'You will be supported in whatever you decide to do.' Ms Higgins replied: 'It had all these provisions on it, so saying it at face value sounds broadly OK but in the context of where they were saying it, how they were saying it, in the context of the [upcoming] election... it felt threatening.' Mr Whybrow asked Ms Higgins if Ms Reynolds told there would be no impact on her career. She replied: 'The words that were said and the context were very different. She said nice things, as I've repeatedly stated. I saw it as threatening and her subsequent behaviour... my job was on the line.' Mr Whybrow showed Ms Higgins of a photograph of a bottle of champagne within a WhatsApp exchange between her and Ms Brown. She responded: 'I was being polite to my employer as I left parliament house.' Defence lawyer Stephen Whybrow showed Brittany Higgins of a photograph of a bottle of champagne within a WhatsApp exchange (pictured) between her and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown. She responded: 'I was being polite to my employer as I left parliament house.' Wr Whybrow asked if she deleted those messages from her phone prior to handing it over to police. Ms Higgins said her WhatsApp data was wiped when she changed phones. Mr Whybrow put to Ms Higgins that she was embarrassed after being found naked in Ms Reynold's office, and therefore 'fabricated' the allegation. 'You did what you thought was necessary to have people believe you had been [sexually assaulted],' he said. Ms Higgins replied: 'I'm not a monster. I would never do something like that.' Ms Higgins was asked whether she told Lisa Wilkinson on January 21, 2021, that Lehrmann removed her underwear. 'I didn't wear underwear that night with the dress on the basis that it had lines. I know that's salacious ... But I didn't wear underwear with that dress on the basis that it had lines. I'm a 20-year-old girl, we care about stuff like that.' Ms Higgins was shown a Q&A between her and Channel 10 TV host Lisa Wilkinson on January 21, 2021 - before her interview on The Project was recorded. Mr Whybrow asked if she recalled being asked by Ms Wilkinson: 'So he removed your panties?' 'And you said "Yeah". Do you recall giving and answer to that question?' he asked. Ms Higgins responded: 'Yes. yes I do but it was wrong. I didn't wear underwear and I was embarrassed but that wasn't the interview itself and there was no stat dec [statutory declaration] on that... I was embarrassed by it... I continue to be embarrassed by it in front of a court.' Mr Whybrow also asked Ms Higgins about a photograph of a large bruise on her thigh, which was shown to the court last week. He asked why Ms Higgins didn't mention the photograph in conversations with police. Mr Whybrow then said the photograph didn't come up until police did 'extractions' of her phones in January 2021. 'In those extractions there is no reference to this bruise before January 2021,' he put to Ms Higgins. Ms Higgins replied: 'I don't think I sent it to anyone. I sent to to [News Corp journalist] Samantha Maiden and Lisa Wilkinson... but until I was making a police complaint, why would I send that around? Mr Whybrow: 'I put to you that the bruises and injury you sustained is a fabrication.' Ms Higgins replied: 'I reject that completely.' When Mr Whybrow asked Ms Higgins about doctor appointments she told police she attended, she lashed out. 'I put it to you that you did say to both those officers that... you had doctors' appointments,' he said. Mr Higgins responded: 'Going to the doctor was a really big f**king deal for me... Yes, I agree [that I told police I went to medical centres]. I wasn't perfect.' Mr Whybrow later put to Ms Higgins 'that Mr Lehrmann did not assault you'. 'I obviously don't agree, he raped me,' she responded. Mr Whybrow said: 'He didn't come into the ministers office.' 'He was in there physically assaulting me. He was in my body,' Ms Higgins replied, loudly. The new evidence comes after Ms Higgins sat in the witness stand last week and was due to continue being cross-examined by Mr Whybrow on Monday. However, the prosecution told the court she was 'unavailable' until Friday this week. The trial continued with other witnesses but the court has banned their evidence from being published until Ms Higgins has completed her evidence. Channel 10 host Lisa Wilkinson will no longer be required to give evidence in the trial of Brittany Higgins' alleged rapist as the witness list was drastically shortened The court previously heard Ms Higgins and Lehrmann returned to Parliament House after a night out drinking with defence department colleagues. The former Liberal Party staffer claims she fell asleep on the couch and woke up to Lehrmann having sex with her. Former Coalition defence minister Linda Reynolds, Ms Higgins' boss at the time of the alleged assault, is due to give evidence in court on Tuesday. Senator Michaelia Cash is also expected to be in the witness box early next week before the Crown closes its case. 'Brittany became very distant. Brittany became very quiet,' Ms Higgins said Kelly Higgins told the court Brittany lost her active social life after 2019 She alleged Ms Higgins underwent a number of physical and mental changes Brittany Higgins' mother has told jurors how alleged rape changed her daughter Brittany Higgins moved to Canberra as a bubbly, excited 23-year-old about to start her dream job. Six months later she was broken, frozen and 'unfamiliar in character', some of the people closest to her have testified. The former Liberal Party staffer alleges she was raped by then-colleague Bruce Lehrmann inside Parliament House in 2019. Lehrmann is undergoing a criminal trial in the ACT Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent. Kelly Higgins told the court her daughter was fulfilling a dream when she moved to Canberra to work for a federal coalition minister. 'Throughout high school she had studied debating, public speaking, she volunteered for the Young Liberals at university,' Ms Higgins told the court. Brittany Higgins's mother told the court her daughter went from a 'bubbly' young girl to 'very distant' following her alleged rape as the trial continues (above, Brittany Higgins arrives at court in Canberra) 'She was extremely excited.' But about April 2019, Ms Higgins noticed a change in her daughter. 'Brittany became very distant. Brittany became very quiet,' she said. 'She'd lost a lot of weight. She got quite thin. She just looked quite broken.' Ms Higgins described her daughter as becoming unfamiliar to her emotionally and in character. Bruce Lehrmann, a fellow Coalition staffer, denied raping Ms Higgins at Parliament House in 2019 and pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent Ms Higgins (above with current boyfriend David Sharaz) changed drastically after 2019, according to her former boyfriend, ex-housemate and mother's court testimony 'She was just so frozen in what had happened to her,' she said. Former housemate Alex Humphreys told the court when she first moved to Canberra, 'Britt' was keen to get involved in social events. 'She was lovely, she was bubbly, she was just so enthusiastic about landing her dream job,' Ms Humphreys said. She said Ms Higgins was initially keen to make friends in her new city and they would often attend social gatherings together. But the following year, Ms Higgins stopped participating socially. Ms Humphreys said the change happened around the time of the 2019 federal election, which was called weeks after Ms Higgins was allegedly raped. Ms Higgins' mother, former housemate, and ex-boyfriend told the court Ms Higgins seemed 'broken' in the months after her alleged rape Despite her best efforts to encourage Ms Higgins to get out of the house, Ms Humphreys said her once bubbly housemate kept to herself. 'She stayed in her room a lot and for the last couple of months that she lived with us ... it was really hard to get her out for social outings,' Ms Humphreys said. 'She wouldn't come out of her room ... she didn't really engage at all.' Ms Humphreys assumed at the time election and work stress contributed to the change in Ms Higgins, who was working on the campaign of Liberal senator Linda Reynolds. Former colleague and ex-boyfriend Ben Dillaway was one of the first people Ms Higgins told about the alleged assault. Any time he tried to talk to her about the night of her alleged rape she 'didn't handle it well'. 'She was very much what I would say would be a broken person and any time that night or that event was brought up she broke down,' he told the court. 'A light had turned off in her. She was a broken, shattered person.' Ukraine's Starlink connection is now in the hands of fate. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has recently asked the Department of Defense to fund Ukraine's Starlink satellite internet service as it, as a company, can longer afford it. Elon Muska and SpaceX previously supported Ukraine with numerous Starlink terminals during the opening months of its conflict with Russia at the public request of the country's minister for digital transformation on Feb. 26. Ukraine Starlink Support Details Musk sent a letter to the Pentagon in September that SpaceX can no longer continue to fund Ukraine's Starlink service as it has. According to a CNN-exclusive report, this inability is due to the company not being in a position to donate any terminals to Ukraine or fund existing ones for an indefinite period. SpaceX's CEO explained in its letter that he expects the cost of keeping Ukraine connected to its Starlink satellite internet service to reach more than $120 million for the rest of 2022. Additionally, Musk estimates that the cost will reach nearly $400 million if it continues to support Ukraine over the next year. This value is in line with what Musk tweeted on Oct. 7 regarding the cost of keeping Ukraine connected to its Starlink satellite service, with it reaching over $100 million by the end of 2022. As a result, Musk has seen no other option than to have the DOD foot Ukraine's bill in SpaceX's stead. However, Musk clarified in a tweet that SpaceX is not asking the DOD to recoup past expenses, and only wants the Department to pay for upcoming expenses as the status quo is "unreasonable." Read More: Microsoft 365 to Replace Microsoft Office as part of Brand Overhaul Having the DOD paying Ukraine's Starlink bill will be quite the resource drain on the Department's resources. The US government, Poland, and other countries have fully or partially paid for around 85% of 25,000 Starlink terminals already in Ukraine, per The Verge. These same countries are also paying 30% of the price of keeping these terminals connected to the Starlink satellite constellation, while SpaceX pays for the remaining 70%. However, SpaceX's woes about paying Ukraine's bill could be due to its decision of providing the country its top service, which costs $4,500 per month instead of the $500 per month service most Ukrainian users are asking for. CNN also reports that two models of Starlink terminals SpaceX sent to Ukraine cost $1,500 and $2,500, but a quick visit to the official Starlink website showed that these models only cost $600. Despite these increased prices, Musk tweeted that the company is still losing money while referencing CNN's article. The DOD has yet to officially address Musk's letter in a statement. A Musk-Ukraine Spat? It is unknown if Musk is asking the Pentagon to foot Ukraine's bill out of necessity or out of animosity. Gizmodo reported that Musk seemed to imply he was following Ukraine's suggestion of "sodding off" after one of the country's officials told him to do that over the idea of Russia keeping Crimea over Twitter. You may remember that Musk posted a poll wherein he suggested a set of peace terms between Russia and Ukraine. In Musk's peace terms, Russia gets to keep Crimea, which is a part of Ukraine annexed by Russia in 2014, while the other parts of Ukraine Russia recently annexed get to do annexation elections under UN supervision. Related Article: Ukraine Thanks Starlink for its Continued Service after a Recent Attack It comes days after the hub, which He revealed he had spoken with Anthony Albanese about reopening the facility Premier Daniel Andrews said there was 'every chance' the hub would be used Victoria's quarantine facility in Mickleham could be used to house flood victims Victoria's deserted $580million quarantine facility on the outskirts of Melbourne may be used to house flood victims as wild weather devastates the state. Premier Daniel Andrews announced that he was considering using the 'white elephant' Mickelham quarantine facility, while providing an update on the floods crisis on Friday. More than 500 homes have been inundated and a further 500 cut off by the floodwaters, with one person missing on Friday afternoon. Mr Andrews revealed he had spoken to the Federal government about using the Mickleham facility to house Victorians, if necessary. Ironically, it comes just days after the state government closed the facility after eight months housing quarantined Covid patients. Victoria's $580million quarantine facility in Mickleham (pictured) may be used to house flood victims Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) revealed that he had spoken to the federal government about preparing the hub to be used to house displaced Victorians 'We think there's every chance that we'll need to house people at that (Mickleham) facility,' Mr Andrews said. 'Weve got 500 homes where theyve got water over the floorboards, and also another 500 that are cut off. That number will definitely grow.' 'I have spoken with the Prime Minister this morning, and he has assured me that Victorians will have everything (they need).' The 1,000-bed quarantine centre in Mickleham, 50km north of Melbourne, was initially designed as a secure space to host people isolating with Covid-19. Ironically it comes just days the facility was closed. There was controversy over its high cost and the fact it was opened towards the end of the Covid pandemic. The facility was used by just 2,168 people in total, while 500 of its beds were never even used. Construction costs worked out at $267,527 per person who stayed there, not counting running costs of around $1.5million per week in its early months. But Craig Lapsley, Victoria's emergency management commissioner from 2014-2018, had called for the facility to be adapted to house those fleeing disasters such as floods. Wild wet weather has devastated Melbourne and central Victoria as residents flee towns (pictured, people seen evacuating a pet dog through flood water In Rochester, Victoria) The Mickleham quarantine hub (pictured) was initially constructed to host people isolating with Covid-19 'I know when we went through '09 (the Black Saturday bushfires), we spent a huge amount of time asking: 'How many caravans could we get? How many houses could we get?',' he told The Sunday Age. Mr Lapsley said Mickleham's well-built accommodation has government services on site and could be a safe haven for families affected by bushfires and floods. 'To have something that is pre-planned and ready to go, and it might not suit every scenario, but it certainly is a very positive piece of infrastructure in building those emergency plans for the state,' he said. Mr Lapsley added that its position made it accessible for anywhere 'from the Dandenongs around to the coast', though he cautioned that it was built to be functional, not community friendly. A Florida sheriff announced he has arrest seven looters that are accused of stealing items, including fire extinguishers, from wrecked properties in the aftermath of devastating Hurricane Ian. The men, who are seen on video being led away in handcuffs, were called 'the lowest form of scum' for preying 'on others directly impacted by Hurricane Ian' by Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno. 'There will absolutely be law and order in Lee County, and those who think they will commit crime are gravely mistaken,' he added. Lee County encompasses Fort Myers, which was ravaged by the hurricane that has left at least 55 dead in Lee County and hundreds of thousands of homes still without power. Five of the men were arrested when police apprehended them and found stolen items, including fire extinguishers, in their van. Five men were arrested when police apprehended them and found stolen items, including fire extinguishers Hurricane Ian left at least 109 people dead, with at least 55 coming in Lee County where the men were arrested The video, released by Lee County Sheriff's Office, showed the robbery suspects being led away in handcuffs The storm knocked out power to more than 4 million homes and businesses in Florida More than half the schools in Lee County had at least some damage from Ian and 14 percent had major damage Eli Francisco Acevedo Marin, 48, Eli Yadiel Acevedo Ayala, 19, Luis Enrique Cedeno Morales, 57, Axel Martinez Quiles, 18, and Benigno Ortiz Diaz, 40, were charged with two counts of burglary during a state of emergency and two counts of grand theft of a fire extinguisher. Another two men were arrested after they allegedly stole construction from a Hampton Inn parking lot in Fort Myers beach. Al King Chapman, 33 and Rodney Rogers, 59, were charged with grand theft. The storm caused an estimated $60 billion in damage and thousands were left homeless. The storm knocked out power to more than 4 million homes and businesses in Florida and over 1.1 million in North and South Carolina. More than 400,000 residents went without power according to PowerOutage.us. with Lee and Charlotte county hit the hardest seeing 208,263 and 75,721 customers affected respectively. Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis said 79,000 structures have been searched and announced the opening of the first Disaster Recovery Center in Fort Myers The storm caused an estimated $60 billion in damage and thousands were left homeless Biden has signed major disaster declarations for more than a dozen Florida counties last week Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis said 79,000 structures have been searched and announced the opening of the first Disaster Recovery Center in Fort Myers for residents and businesses that have been affected by Hurricane Ian. More than half the schools in Lee County had at least some damage from Ian and 14 percent had major damage, the school district posted on Facebook. Officials said they expect that toll to rise with the Marceno earlier telling reporters he is concerned for rescue workers. 'We worry about burnout. We work 12-hour shifts, and they don't get to go home to their family members,' he said. The sheriff said he was grateful to the National Guard and federal personnel, as well as volunteer rescue workers, for easing the burden on his department. 'We took such a catastrophic hit but everybody wants to help,' said Marceno. 'It's very heartwarming during these tragic events because in minutes and hours, a lot of people had their lives washed away.' New footage from January 6 revealed Nancy Pelosi threatened to hit former president Donald Trump if he showed up with rioters storming the Capitol. Footage obtained by CNN from Pelosi's daughter shows the Speaker of the House frustrated over Trump's speech asking his followers to march to the Capitol to protest the certification of the 2020 presidential election. When an aide tells Pelosi that the Secret Service warned Trump not to go to Capitol Hill, she said she would punch the former president if he ignored the warnings. 'If he comes, I'm going to punch him out,' Pelosi said with a straight face. I've been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds, I'm going to punch him out. 'And I'm going to go to jail, and I'm going to be happy.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened to punch Donald Trump if he showed up with rioters at the Capitol, newly released footage revealed Pelosi was seen frustrated over Trump's speech on January 6 (above) urging his supporters to march to the Capitol to protest the certification of Joe Biden The protest unraveled into a riot as people broke into the Capitol building, forcing lawmakers to evacuate in a chaos, with new footage depicting the panic and anger of America's top members of Congress The footage shown by CNN had snippets of it publicly aired on Thursday by the January 6 committee. The full, raw footage, however, shows the full chaos taking place during the infamous riot that left five dead as lawmakers sought shelter in Fort McNair. Most of the film shows Pelosi's movements on January 6, including a phone call she made to then-Vice President Mike Pence asking about his physical safety, following threats to 'Hang Mike Pence.' 'We're at Fort McNair, which has facilities for the House and the Senate to meet, as a backup plan should anything happen that would warrant that,' Pelosi tells Pence. 'We'd rather go to the Capitol and do it there, but it doesn't seem to be safe.' As Pelosi discusses moving on with the certification of Joe Biden, she urges Pence to stay safe and hidden from the rioters. 'I worry about you being in that Capitol room,' Pelosi said. 'Don't let anybody know where you are.' Pelosi could be seen phoning Mike Pence several times, asking about his safety There were calls to hang the former Vice President after Trump called on him to stop the certification of the 2020 election Pelosi told Pence that the Capitol was not safe after rioters clashed with police, and warned the former Vice President to stay hidden and not disclose his location to anyone The footage also shows a phone call Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had with Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy after hearing rumors that the National Guard wouldn't be called to end the riot. 'I'd like to know a good God damn reason why it's been denied,' Schumer said. 'Please the whole Capitol is rampaged. 'There is a picture of someone sitting in the chair of the Senate. We've all been evacuated. There have been shots fired. We need a full National Guard component, now!' Congress' top two Democrats are then joined by other lawmakers, including Mitch McConnel;, to grill Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on the slow response. McConnell tells Miller that National Guard troops need to be 'getting there in one hell of a hurry,' with Schumer echoing the urgency to restore order in the Capitol. 'This is an emergency,' Schumer says, 'where life and limb are at stake.' Pictured: US lawmakers taking shelter in Fort McNair on January 6 as rioters stormed the Capitol The new footage also shows both top Republican and Democratic lawmakers urge Defense Department leaders to send out the National Guard to quell the riot The new footage adds on to the previous compilations shown on Thursday where Pelosi was seen calling Virginia Governor Ralph Northam begging for National Guard support. 'It's just horrendous, and all at the instigation of the President of the United States,' Pelosi said in the video. It was the first time such video has been shown of the frantic hours in which lawmakers hid in undisclosed locations while police were grappling with the mob. Another part of the video shows Pelosi and Schumer calling Trump's acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, for aid. 'Why don't you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?' Schumer shot at Rosen. 'A public statement - they should all leave.' Pelosi tells him, 'They're breaking in, they're ransacking our offices, all that - that's nothing.' 'The concern we have about personal harm - personal safety - it just transcends anything,' she continued. 'But the fact is on any given day they're breaking the law in many different ways - and quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the President of the United States.' Throughout the event, Pelosi laid the blame on former President Donald Trump She and Schumer (above) made several calls to bring out troops to stop the riot, voicing their frustration over the bureaucracy slowing the deployment While it does not broadly differ from previous narratives and accounts of those hours, the videos paint a visceral picture of the fear and uncertainty lawmakers felt as well as their determination to solve the crisis. The new, disturbing footage came at the end of the hearing where the panel voted unanimously 9-0 to subpoena Trump to give testimony under oath and hand over documents related to the Capitol riot. The seven Democrats and two Republicans also shared new evidence that Trump was sent drafts of a speech saying he won the election on October 31 - four days before the general election on November 3, 2020. They also shared new clips and testimony suggesting Trump was going to declare victory even if he was losing and proof that he knew he had been defeated, but kept pushing his election fraud claims. The January 6 Senate Committee unanimously voted to subpoena Trump and have him testify under oath, as well as hand over documents related to the riot Introducing the historic motion, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said: ''We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th's key player.' Trump lashed out at the committee on his Truth Social app, demanding to know why they did not move on him earlier. 'Why didn't the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago? Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total "BUST" that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly - A laughing stock all over the World?' the former president wrote. He followed up with more vitriol, this time directed at Pelosi herself: Why didn't Crazy Nancy Pelosi call out the "troops" before January 6th, which I strongly recommended that she do. It was her responsibility, but she "didn't like the look." Crazy Nancy failed the American People!' The lawyer for an ex-swimming instructor accused of sexually touching his young students has questioned why the girls did not physically react to any of the alleged abuse. Kyle James Henk Daniels, 24, is standing trial for 21 offences relating to the alleged sexual touching of nine girls, aged between five and 10, who he taught at Mosman Swim Centre on Sydney's lower north shore. Mr Daniels has been charged with five counts of sexual intercourse with a child aged under 10, eight counts of sexual touching of a child and eight counts of indecent assault. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was supported by his parents and twin brother in court on Friday which coincided with his birthday. Mr Daniels' barrister Leslie Nicholls told the jury that many of the alleged victims said they 'kept swimming' despite claiming the accused had just touched them inappropriately. Kyle James Henk Daniels, 24, is standing trial for 21 offences relating to the alleged sexual touching of nine girls, aged between five and 10, who he taught at Mosman Swim Centre on Sydney 's lower north shore The court had heard allegations from a seven-year-old girl who alleged Mr Daniels had put four of his fingers 'up to the knuckles' inside her vagina through her swimming costume while she was using a kickboard on her back. The girl had said Mr Daniels' hand had felt like a 'worm' during the alleged touching. 'Mr Daniels is supposed to come along and put four of his fingers into her vagina up to his knuckles,' Mr Nicholls said in his closing address to the Sydney Downing Centre Court on Friday. 'She keeps swimming, there's no reaction, nothing. It's impossible to envisage that happening to a consenting adult who is ready, willing and able to do it, let alone a seven-year-old child in a costume.' Mr Nicholls said the girl's legs were relatively straight at the time of the alleged touching, as she was kicking on her back with a kickboard at her knees. The girl's older sister had already told her mother Mr Daniels had allegedly touched her inappropriately. The mother then told the younger sibling before the lesson: 'If he touches you somewhere bad please tell me,' the court heard. Mr Daniels' (middle with his parents) barrister Leslie Nicholls told the jury that many of the alleged victims said they 'kept swimming' despite claiming the accused had just touched them inappropriately 'Is the child expecting something to happen in that context?' Mr Nicholls told the jury. Referring to another allegation of Mr Daniels touching a girl on the outside of her swimmers on her vagina while pushing her off to swim, Mr Nicholls said the student's father was less than a metre away at the time. He noted that the father had said he believed his daughter had initially been 'making it up'. 'There was nothing (out of the ordinary) he saw at the time that it was said to have happened,' Mr Nicholls said. The barrister also mentioned the allegation of one girl who had 12 lessons with Mr Daniels, claiming he touched her underneath her swimmers on her vagina once. Mr Nicholls questioned why if Mr Daniels had, as the Crown suggests, a sexual interest in the children, he would only allegedly touch her inappropriately the one time in all their lessons together. He raised the idea of whether the parents of the alleged victims had been influenced by media reports following Mr Daniels' arrest in March, 2019. He said one father had told his daughter about the allegations of girls at the swim school and asked if anything had happened to her. She initially denied anything had. 'She felt that no matter how many times she told her father nothing happened at swimming, he wasn't going to accept it,' Mr Nicholls said. He said there could have been an 'adoption' of the information being told to the girls by their parents, who then relayed that as their own experiences. Mr Daniels' defence has argued he did not knowingly or intentionally touch the children in a sexual or indecent manner Mr Nicholls said that some of the allegations were 'implausible', including from an eight-year-old girl who claimed Mr Daniels inserted three or more of his fingers into her vagina several times a lesson, over various lessons. 'How could the accused insert a finger let alone three when she's swimming without any physical reaction or consequences to her swimming?' he said. Mr Nicholls will finish his closing submission next week. The jury is expected to start deliberations on Tuesday. Mr Daniels' defence has argued he did not knowingly or intentionally touch the children in a sexual or indecent manner. The 23-year-old vehemently denies all of the allegations. The woman, in her 30s, and two children were found unconscious on the floor A woman and two children have been hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning after a car was left running overnight in their garage. Emergency crews sped to a home in Maylands, Perth where they found the trio unconscious on the floor about 8.30am Friday. Paramedics treated the woman, reportedly in her 30s, and the two children, a teenager and a child, at the residence before rushing them to hospital. Firefighters' investigations showed there was a high level of the gas in the family home. A Western Australian woman and two children are in hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning, firefighters' tests revealed their home was filled with the gas after a car had been left running in the garage (above, a Perth ambulance vehicle) The woman and children were found at an address on East Street, Maylands in Perth (above) A Department of Fire and Emergency Services spokesman confirmed an idling car in the garage caused the high readings and the poisonings. The woman is now receiving treatment in Fiona Stanley Hospital with the children in Perth Children's Hospital. Local newspaper the West Australian reported fire crews ventilated the house with fans to reduce the amount of the chemical present in the home to safe levels. Police are yet to investigate the cause of the poisoning at this stage, a spokeswoman confirmed. The Queens woman who plunged to her death from a 54th floor Times Square rooftop bar has been named as aspiring model Elizabeth Gaglewski. Gaglewski was remembered by friends and family as 'sweet' and kind. Police are investigating whether she jumped or if she may have fallen by accident on Wednesday afternoon. 'She was just a good person, a sweet and loving, caring kid,' said her uncle, Tony Smith - speaking to The New York Post. Her aunt, Janet, said: 'She was a good, loving, kind girl.' They refused to say whether she was struggling with mental health battles. Smith said they were waiting to hear the results of the investigation. Staff at the bar tried in vain to grab Gaglewski before she fell 27 floors, and landed on a ledge on the skyscraper hotel. Elizabeth Gaglewski, 26, died on Wednesday when she fell from a Times Square rooftop bar Police are yet to conclude whether Gaglewski purposely jumped or fell to her death The balcony where the Gaglewski, 26, fell to her death at Bar 54 on Wednesday Onlookers were horrified to see Gaglewski jump from a Times Square rooftop bar. The 26-year-old landed on a balcony 27 floors below and was pronounced dead on the scene. Medical examiners are seen removing the woman's body Eyewitnesses told police the woman was 'seen jumping' to her death around 3:30pm Wednesday Gaglewski jumped from Hyatt Centric's 54th floor roof top bar in Times Square Other eyewitnesses told police the woman was 'seen jumping' to her death around 3:30pm on Wednesday. She was seen making a phone call, before climbing onto a piece of furniture, then jumping over the side of the terrace. A Hyatt staffer told the New York Daily News: 'She walked right by me and I didn't think anything of it. She was a young girl with a reservation for the bar.' Explaining what happened next, the worker added: 'It's easy (to jump) because the tables and chairs are right near the glass. 'She didn't say anything. 'Everybody came running saying, 'She jumped! She jumped!' At first I thought they were playing. 'The woman cleaning on the 27th floor heard the crash and found her body on the balcony,' the worker told the Daily News. 'We're lucky she didn't land on the sidewalk. It's crazy.' The bar is described as being 'perched above the bright lights of Times Square.' On the website, it is termed New York City's 'highest open-air hotel rooftop bar'. According to police, Gaglewski plunged 27 floors from the rooftop of Bar 54 and landed on the 27th floor balcony below. Pictured: The Bar 54 terrace The horrifying incident happened just before 3.30pm, with emergency services finding the 26-year-old Gaglewski unresponsive and unconscious on the balcony. Pictured: Hyatt Centric hotel Gaglewski was pronounced dead at the scene. Her official cause of death will be determined by the city medical examiner. Pictured: The outside of Hyatt Centric In a statement, Hyatt Hotels Corporation General Manager Tom Blundell expressed his condolences to the family and said the hotel is working closely with local authorities Emergency services found the 26-year-old unresponsive and unconscious on the balcony and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her official cause of death will be determined by the city medical examiner. Police have not said if the woman was a guest at the hotel or visiting the bar, which requires reservations. Standard rooms at the Hyatt location cost upwards of $600 a night. 'Soak in stunning river-to-river views of the Chrysler Building and lower Manhattan from 54 floors up at New York City's highest open-air hotel rooftop bar,' reads the hotel's website. 'Perched above the bright lights of Times Square, Bar 54 is an unforgettable location featuring chic, intimate indoor space and an expansive outdoor terrace - perfect for enjoying delicious craft cocktails, fine wines and light gourmet fare.' The bar was closed for the rest of Wednesday, according to a hotel employee. In a statement, Hyatt Hotels Corporation General Manager Tom Blundell said: 'We are deeply saddened by the situation that occurred this afternoon at our hotel and our thoughts go out to the individual's family and those who have been affected. 'We are working closely with local authorities and all inquiries should be directed to the New York Police Department.' In June, he fell in his McLean, Virginia house and broke his hip, requiring two subsequent surgeries He is retiring at the end of this year after a 48 year career representing Vermont in the upper chamber Leahy, 82, is the president pro tempore of the Senate and longest sitting senator He was admitted to a DC-area hospital and is being kept overnight for observation Senator Patrick Leahy was taken to the hospital Thursday night for tests following complaints that he did not feel well Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy was taken to the hospital Thursday night after reporting he 'was not feeling well' at his DC residence. He was taken in for 'tests, as a precaution,' admitted and will be held overnight for observation at a DC-area hospital, said his office in a statement. His doctors recommended he stay the night. His office did not specify what tests were administered or whether the hospital visit had anything to do with Leahy's recent hip replacement surgery. The longtime lawmaker 82, is the most senior Democratic senator and longest serving sitting senator will retire at the end of the year after eight terms in the upper chamber. He is currently third in the line of presidential succession as the Senate president pro tempore. He is also ending his career as the chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Senator Patrick Leahy (D) speaks at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in May, 2022. Leahy is the chair of the broader appropriations committee Senator Patrick Leahy, 82, a Democrat from Vermont, center, takes a photograph while exiting an elevator in US Capitol building in Washington, D.C., US, on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. Leahy will retire at the end of this term Leahy was hospitalized in June after falling and breaking his hip at his McLean, Virginia home. He was also briefly hospitalized in early 2021, putting the Democrats' new razor-thin Senate majority in jeopardy. He was taken to the hospital in January 2021 hours after he began presiding over the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. He had said he was not feeling well. He had surgery in June and again in July following his fall. His staff said he was expected to make a full recovery. He has been using a wheelchair to get around the Capitol since the fall and subsequent surgeries. Throughout his career, Leahy has made several cameo appearances in Batman television episodes and movies. He had a role in The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and most recently, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. His wheelchair is adorned with a Batman sticker. Leahy is the longest sitting senator and as such the president pro tempore of the US senate. He presides over the chamber in the absence of the vice president (which is most of the time) Sen. Pat Leahy (D) being pushed around the Capitol in a wheelchair following two hip surgeries this summer Leahy's office says it will offer updates on the senator's health 'as warranted' On Thursday, his office said it will 'offer updates as warranted.' The upper chamber is presently in recess until after the midterm election next month. Representative Peter Welch (D) is favored to assume Leahy's senate seat in a race against Republican candidate Gerald Malloy. By the time he retires, Leahy will have served for 48 years in the senate. He was first elected to his seat at the age of 34 in 1974 after Republican President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace in an effort to avoid impeachment. If Democrats keep their Senate majority, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, will become the next president pro tempore. And Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, also 89, will assume the role if Republicans win control. Grassley is in cycle this election, but is expected to defeat Democrat Mike Franken. Broadcaster disclosed the story to slam the Greens' push to legalise cannibas He was charged with possession and faced court - but got off with a fine Price claimed he was caught by police officers with marijuana in the late 1970s The Project panellist Steve Price revealed that he was once arrested for drugs Steve Price has revealed he was arrested by police and charged with drug possession for smoking marijuana some 40 years ago. The conservative-leaning Project panellist disclosed the surprising details as he voiced his opposition to a national push by the Greens to legalise recreational cannabis. The campaign, which is being led by doctor and state Greens MP Tim Read, also calls on the government to decriminalise small quantities of other drugs. Price claimed he wanted to tell his story about his arrest to prove he wasn't a 'raging hypocrite' when it came to slamming the Greens push. Journalist and Project panellist Steve Price (pictured) has revealed he was arrested and charged with drug possession in the late 1970s after he was caught smoking marijuana 'I hate what drugs do to people but I would be a raging hypocrite not to admit what had happened in the dim, dark past in my early 20s,' he wrote in his Herald-Sun column. 'Somewhere on file, in the bowels of the South Australia police department, would be, I guess, a folder with my name on it.' Price, who was still working as a newspaper journalist, was caught by police smoking a joint with two others inside a car registered in his name. The officers discovered marijuana 'in a plastic bag in the glovebox' in Price's vehicle, parked outside a hotel that was hosting a work function. Price was arrested, charged with drug possession and had to face the South Australian Magistrates Court over the matter. His said in his Herald-Sun column that he was able to 'intercept the warrant with the charges and court date mailed to my parents home' - meaning his mum had no idea. Price explained that he was only issued a fine and received no other penalty. 'Can you imagine if I appeared today on drugs charges? The internet would break,' he added. Price (pictured with co-host Carrie Bickmore) was caught by police smoking marijuana. He faced South Australian Magistrates Court but got off with a fine He disclosed the story to slam Greens MP Tim Read (centre) and his push to legalise marijuana and decriminalise small quantities of other drugs Price's co-host on The Project, Carrie Bickmore, announced that she was leaving the current affairs panel show this week to spend more time with her family. The TV presenter fought back tears as she told viewers it was the hardest decision she has had to make in her professional life earlier this week. The Gold Logie winner has been on The Project desk since the program launched in 2009 and has since become a familiar face on Australian screens. 'I have some news that I wanted to share... s*** I'm already crying,' she began. 'I have made the tough decision to finish up hosting the show at the end of the year. 'It's been the hardest decision of my professional life, to make this call, but it's time for a new challenge and for my next chapter.' Carrie Bickmore (pictured on The Project on Tuesday night) has announced she is leaving The Project so she can spend more time with her family Bickmore said she was going to miss her 'mates on the desk' - no doubt including Price - and the 'wonderful viewers' who have supported the show for over a decade. 'It's no secret that this show has become a second home to me, and I couldn't be more thankful to everyone that has been involved on and off screen,' she said. 'It has been a long journey. I started the show when Ollie, my son, was one, and he's now 15, which is crazy. And I want to spend more time at home. Bickmore has been on The Project desk since the program was first launched back in 2009 Bickmore (pictured at the Logies in 2019) said leaving The Project had been the hardest decision she had had to make in her professional career 'I want to have more family dinners. I'll watch the show at home with a glass of wine in hand. I just wanted to say an enormous thank you. 'It has been an incredible privilege.' Bickmore said that while she loved her 'fulfilling' job, she wanted to find out who she was without The Project. 'This show is so much in my DNA, and I don't know who I am without it,' she said. The public has been urged to contact police if they have any information The girl was last seen in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast nearby to a highway Police are 'concerned' about the 13-year-old who seemed to vanish on Tuesday Authorities are fearing for the welfare of a girl no one has seen in three days A young girl who disappeared from a popular tourist town in Queensland has now been missing for more than three days. Queensland Police are fearing for the 13-year-old girl's welfare, and on Thursday urgently appealed for public assistance to find her. The girl was reported missing from the southern Caloundra suburb of Pelican Waters on the Sunshine coast. She was last seen on Gregson Place, Caloundra about 7.40am on Tuesday. Police believe the teen may be travelling in the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane or Ipswich areas of Queensland. Queensland Police appealed for assistance from the public in locating a 13-year-old girl (above) who hasn't been seen in three days The girl was reported missing from Caloundra (above, the southern suburb of Pelican Waters) Police said there is 'concern for her welfare' because of her young age. She is described as Caucasian and of slim build. The girl is 163 centimetres tall with dark hair, according to police, who've only released one image of her. She was reportedly wearing navy cargo pants and a black cropped shirt when she disappeared. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to contact police via Crime Stoppers by calling 1800 333 000 or report online at www.crimestoppersqld.com.au. A man who died on a Sydney highway and was only found when a truck driver checked his dashcam two days later was a devoted father-of-three whose 'kids were his life'. David Howard, 30, was found near the Hume Highway by Campbelltown, in the city's southwest, on Wednesday afternoon after emergency services closed northbound lanes to search for him following a tip from the truck driver. It is believed Mr Howard was killed on Monday, with the truck driver telling police he hit something he assumed was an animal but later realised it could have been a person when he checked his dashcam footage. Mr Howard's Facebook is filled with pictures of his young children, and his final post was wishing his eldest son a happy fourth birthday: 'I love you so much and I'm proud of the young boy you have become. See you after work son'. Mr Howard's final Facebook post was to wish his son a Happy Birthday (pictured) The father-of-three's Facebook is filled with pictured of his children (pictured with his daughter) 'You melt my heart baby girl,' he wrote in the next most recent post of a picture of his then newborn daughter An investigation is now being conducted by detectives into how Mr Howard ended up on the highway, with self-harm reportedly one of a number of lines of inquiry. He leaves behind his eight year-old son, four-year-old daughter, and another young son he described as 'three perfect blessings'. Tributes have begun to flow online for Mr Howard who friends describe as 'one of the good ones'. 'R.I.P my Bro. Shattered hearing the news, still can't believe it,' Sol Katene wrote. 'Such a sweet soul taken too soon,' Tara Monte wrote. He leaves behind three children, an eight-year-old son, a four-year-odl daughter and a young son Tributes have flowed for Mr Howard remebered as a 'sweet soul' (pictured with a friend) 'Sending all my love to the kids, Rest in paradise,' Demi Moana wrote. 'We're all going to miss you, the family is trying to hold it together but we (are) all crushed,' his cousin Robbie Gordon wrote. 'I keep asking why do the good ones go early, but you will always be with us my cuz. We will meet again one day but until then we have to hold the rest of the family together.' Investigations continue and a report will be prepared for the coroner. For confidential 24-hour support in Australia call Lifeline: 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue: 1300 224 63 Pianist Cho Seong-jin and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) perform Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43" at LG Arts Center Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of LG Arts Center Seoul By Dong Sun-hwa LG Arts Center Seoul, an art theater managed by Korea's fourth-largest conglomerate, LG Group, celebrated its relocation on Thursday with the performance of award-winning Korean pianist Cho Seong-jin and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), helmed by British conductor Simon Rattle. After operating in Gangnam District for more than two decades, the art center recently moved to a new building in Gangseo District, which is almost twice as large as the old one. Designed by internationally acclaimed Japanese architect Ando Tadao, the new building has two theaters: the LG Signature Hall and the U+ Stage. The former can accommodate more than 1,300 people. LG Arts Center Seoul's new building in Gangseo District / Courtesy of LG Arts Center Seoul Royal Mail today announced plans to make up to 6,000 workers redundant by next August, as it blamed ongoing strike action for rising losses at the business. The postal company said it will begin notifying staff of its proposals as part of a drive to reduce its headcount by 10,000 overall. Half of these jobs are expected to be axed by March, with the rest going by August. On top of the redundancies, the firm will aim to scrap the additional 4,000 roles through not replacing staff when they leave, cutting temporary positions and reducing overtime. The company said the move is in response to the 'impact of industrial action, delays in delivering agreed productivity improvements and lower parcel volumes'. Royal Mail is expected to fall to a 350 million operating loss for the year after being hit by industrial action, parent group International Distributions Services said. The cuts announcement comes a day after Royal Mail workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) launched a fresh strike in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. Members of the Communication Workers Union mount a picket line in Farnham, Surrey Postal workers go on strike outside their workplace at Hatfield in Hertfordshire yesterday Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson said: 'This is a very sad day. I regret that we are announcing these job losses. 'We will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies and support everyone affected. 'We have announced today losses of 219 million in the first half of the year. Each strike day weakens our financial situation. 'The CWU's decision to choose damaging strike action over resolution regrettably increases the risk of further headcount reductions.' Yesterday saw postal workers stage a fresh strike in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions, with a series of 19 further walkouts planned for the coming weeks. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) described the action as the largest strike in a year that has seen industrial unrest across several industries, including rail. Some 115,000 members across the UK took action yesterday, with picket lines mounted outside Royal Mail offices on what was the sixth strike day in recent months. The CWU tweeted pictures of workers on strike yesterday morning in locations including Leicester, Sheffield, Oxford, Aberdeen, Worcester, Belfast and across London. Picket lines were also mounted at Bognor Regis in West Sussex, King's Lynn in Norfolk, Sidcup in Kent, Romsey in Hampshire and Thirsk in North Yorkshire. Strike action is also taking place among postal workers in Mitcham, South London, yesterday The union has accused the Royal Mail of planning structural change, which would effectively see employees in secure, well-paid jobs turned into a 'casualised, financially precarious workforce overnight'. The CWU said plans include delaying the arrival of post to members of the public by three hours, cuts in workers' sick pay and inferior terms for new employees. The union has announced 19 further days of strike action in the build up to the busy Christmas period. General secretary Dave Ward said: 'Postal workers face the biggest ever assault on their jobs, terms and conditions in the history of Royal Mail. 'The public and businesses also face the end of daily deliveries and destruction of the special relationship that postal workers and the public have in every community in the UK. 'It is insulting the intelligence of every postal worker for Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson to claim that their change agenda is ''modernisation''.' Karla Xiomara Zelaya Godoy, a Honduran-Spanish national living in London, was murdered on a romantic getaway to Peru Police are hunting the boyfriend of a London woman who was murdered on a romantic getaway and is believed to be on the run in the UK. Karla Xiomara Zelaya Godoy, a Honduran-Spanish national living in London, had been reported missing by her family in September. Karla, who is believed to have an eight-year-old daughter, had travelled to Peru last month to be with her partner Jorge Alfredo Minaya Garay, 46, where she visited tourist hotspots like Machu Picchu. But on Monday, police found human remains in a blue bag after receiving an audio recording of Garay speaking on the phone to Erick Zelaya, the victim's brother. In the alleged confession, he revealed he had murdered Karla and buried her body in his grandmother's house, located in a remote area of Carabayllo, Lima, Peru. On October 1, Garay reportedly travelled to Chile before buying a ticket to London where he lived with his partner and, according to local media, is believed to have removed his possessions. Karla reportedly last spoke with her mother on September 22, when she was riding in a taxi with Garay to visit his grandmother in the north of Lima. She told her mother that she planned to fly to Spain the next day, but was not heard from again, according to The Sun. Karla, who is believed to have an eight-year-old daughter, had travelled to Peru last month to be with her partner Jorge Alfredo Minaya Garay (pictured together in Peru), 46, where she visited tourist hotspots like Machu Picchu Local police launched an investigation on October 3, working off the initial assumption that she had been kidnapped. However, her remains were found days later buried in the bag. It reportedly took police more than 10 hours to recover the remains. Speaking to local media at the time of her disappearance, her devastated brother Erick said: 'She has many who love and miss her. She also has an eight-year-old daughter who misses her terribly.' On Monday, police found human remains in a blue bag after receiving an audio recording of Garay speaking on the phone to Erick Zelaya, the victim's brother Pictured: Police are seen scouring a property in Peru where Karla Xiomara Zelaya Godoy's remains was discovered A spokesman for the Peru Embassy in London told The Sun that it was aware of the case, and that the Consulate General of Peru in London was consulting with officials in the South American country. MailOnline has contacted the embassy for comment. The investigation continues. Advertisement A little-known crown that was last worn nearly 200 years ago may be used for the Queen Consort's coronation amid controversy over the Koh-i-Noor diamond. There are fears an international row could be triggered if Camilla wears the Queen Mother's coronation crown, which features the sparkling gem. The huge diamond originated from India and was given to Queen Victoria by the last Sikh emperor of India who at the time was just ten years old. But the gifting of the diamond is disputed, with both Pakistan and Afghanistan also claiming the jewel as theirs. The governing party of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is reported to have expressed concern that if Camilla were to display the diamond at King Charles's coronation next year, it would would provide an unwelcome reminder of the British Empire. But Buckingham Palace is said to be considering the use of other crowns, including the one worn by Queen Adelaide at her husband William IV's coronation in 1831. Other options are said to include the 1820 Diamond Diadem, which was made for use at the coronation of George IV and was worn by the late Queen Elizabeth II on her way to her coronation in 1953, and then at each State Opening of Parliament. Crowns created for the coronation of Queen Alexandra the wife of King Edward VII and King George V's wife Queen Mary are other options that are under consideration, The Daily Telegraph reported. A little-known crown that was last worn nearly 200 years ago may be used for the Queen Consort's coronation amid controversy over the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Buckingham Palace is said to be considering the use of this crown, worn by Queen Adelaide at her husband William IV's coronation in 1831 King Charles's coronation will take place on May 6 next year, Buckingham Palace announced this week. Above: The King and Queen Consort at the State Opening of Parliament in 2015 There are fears an international row could be triggered if Camilla wears the Queen Mother's coronation crown, which features the sparkling gem. Above: The Queen Mother's crown is seen on her coffin when she was lying in state in 2002 Other options are said to include the 1820 Diamond Diadem, which was made for use at the coronation of George IV Christopher Joll, a royal and military historian, told The Daily Telegraph that the Queen Adelaide's crown would be a frontrunner for use by Camilla if Buckingham Palace opts not to use the Queen Mother's crown at all. It was created for William IV's coronation, which at the time was described as the 'Half-Crown nation' due to the king's insistence to remove expensive ceremonial events from the occasion. The Koh-i-Noor diamond: A priceless gifted gem at the centre of one of the world's most famous crowns - and an international row The Koh-i-Noor, translated from Persian to English as the 'Mountain of Light, is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. It weighs an astonishing 21g (105carats). However it is significantly smaller than the world's largest cut diamond, the Cullinan I, also one of the famed Crown Jewels, which is mounted on the Sovereign's Sceptre, which weighs 530.4 carats (106.08 g). Though there is no official record of its original weight, the Koh-i-Noor may have weighed as much as 38.2g (186 carats), before it was cut, according to well-attested reports. It is impossible to know exactly where the diamond came from, although there is no doubt that it was panned in India. The earliest reference appears to relate to a powerful Mughal ruler in 1628. The first verifiable report of the diamond, however, comes from the 1740s when it was noted as being one of many stones on the Mughal Peacock Throne, which was looted by the Iranian Afsharid leader Nader Shah from Delhi. It returned to India in 1813 and become a potent symbol of power until it was acquired by Britain in 1849. The diamond was given to Queen Victoria in 1855 by 10 year-old Duleep Singh, the last emperor of the Sikhs. Although much has been made of the fact that it was 'given' to this country, critics point out that this was only after the mother of the ten-year old heir to the Punjabi throne was held prisoner and he was forced to sign it away. It then became a special possession of Queen Victoria and displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. However, British people were reportedly unimpressed by the gem. 'Many people find a difficulty in bringing themselves to believe, from its external appearance, that it is anything but a piece of common glass,' wrote the Times in 1851. Since then it has become part of the Crown Jewels, and a point of dispute between the UK, India as well as several other nations ever since. William Dalrymple, who co-wrote Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond with colleague Anita Anand said: 'It is not a small sensitive issue in the eyes of India. It is a massive diplomatic grenade.' 'One of the reasons we wrote our book was that we don't believe anyone in this country has the slightest conception of how much it matters in India. For people here it is the name of an Indian restaurant or a brand of pencils or maybe something they have seen on a school trip to the Tower of London.' Advertisement It followed the most extravagant coronation in history the decade prior, when George IV was crowned. After William's coronation, the jewels that had been set in Queen Adelaide's crown were removed. The crown is currently part of the Royal Collection and had been on display at the Tower of London, but was removed in May. Its current location is unknown. The Diamond Diadem became well-known due to the fact that the Queen wore it when arriving for the State Opening of Parliament and then when she posed for images on coins, bank notes and stamps. Made from silver and lined with gold, it has a distinctive openwork frame set with 1,333 diamonds and a narrow band edged with pearls. It has four distinctive 'crosses-pattees' the front cross set with a four-carat pale, yellow brilliant diamond as well as four sprays representing the national emblems of England, Ireland and Scotland, roses, shamrocks and thistles. It was made by Rundells in 1820 and, together with a diamond-studded loop (which was broken up to help make Queen Victoria's Garter armlet), the bill for the diadem amounted to the huge sum of 8,216. This included an 800 hire charge for the diamonds stones were regularly hired for use at coronations up to 1837. Normally the stones would have been returned to Rundells after the coronation, but in this case there is no sign that the delicately worked diamond sprays and crosses have been disturbed. The Queen Mother's coronation crown features 2,800 diamonds with the front cross holding the famous 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. It is the largest among 2,800 that are mounted on the Queen Mother's crown. The controversial diamond was first recorded in 1306. A Hindu text at the time said: 'Only God or woman can wear it with impunity'. The diamond was given to Queen Victoria in 1855 by ten-year-old Duleep Singh, last emperor of the Sikhs. Although much has been made of the fact that it was 'given' to this country, critics point out that this was only after the mother of the ten-year-old was held prisoner and he was forced to sign it away. After it fell into Queen Victoria's ownership, it was displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. The jewel was seized by the East India Company as one of the spoils of war and presented to Queen Victoria in 1850. Her husband Prince Albert ordered the diamond, then weighing 186 carats, be recut to improve its brilliance. It was reduced in weight by 42 per cent and cut into an oval brilliant weighing 109 carats. The Koh-i-Noor was then mounted into Victoria's crown. It passed to consorts Queen Alexandra in 1902 and Queen Mary in 1911 for their coronation crowns and then to the late Queen Mother in 1937, being set in a Maltese Cross. The diamond is the third largest in the Crown collection, behind the Cullinan 1 and 2 jewels cut from the Cullinan diamond the largest rough diamond ever found. They are set in the Sovereign's sceptre with cross and the Imperial State Crown. In 1976, prime minister Jim Callaghan refused a request to hand the diamond back to nations claiming it, saying: 'I could not advise Her Majesty the Queen that it should be surrendered.' Speaking of the controversy over its potential use, William Dalrymple, who co-wrote Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond with colleague Anita Anand, said: 'It is not a small sensitive issue in the eyes of India. It is a massive diplomatic grenade. 'One of the reasons we wrote our book was that we don't believe anyone in this country has the slightest conception of how much it matters in India. 'For people here it is the name of an Indian restaurant or a brand of pencils or maybe something they have seen on a school trip to the Tower of London. 'But it is actually part of a wider disconnect of a number of things that Indians get very upset about to do with the colonial period. 'The diamond has been claimed by Pakistani, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and also the Taliban. It is a hugely sensitive and much claimed stone. 'It matters to a huge number of people and has continued to be very controversial since the Queen died. 'There is an expectation that this is an issue that will come back. Colonialism is over, Britain wants to make friends with India, it is a major new rising power. 'In a sense the British have brought this on themselves because they turned the stone into a symbol of their empire by putting it on display in the Great Exhibition of 1851. 'It has [since] become, rightly or wrongly, a symbol for many colonised people of all they think that we took from them. Whatever your position on it, that is how it's viewed. 'This tiny stone, which is actually not that big in fact, and it's not even in the top 100 of the worlds diamonds any more has come to take the whole weight of colonisation on its shoulder. It it has become this very, very sensitive object and is a major issue now between the two countries. ' Other options besides swapping the Queen Mother's crown for another include the replacement of the Koh-i-Noor with a crystal replica or just removing the diamond and not swapping in another jewel at all. The crown created for the coronation of Queen Alexandra the wife of King Edward VII in 1902 is also under consideration Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII, on the day of her husband's coronation in 1902. At the time, her crown was set with the Koh-i-Noor diamond Queen Mary's crown is seen above. She wore it at the coronation of her husband King George V 1911 Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, is seen wearing coronation robes and a crown in 1911 Queen Elizabeth (pictured here with the late Queen, her sister Margaret and King George VI) wore the crown without its arches at the State Openings of Parliament during the reign of King George VI, and again at the coronation of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1953 The coronation crown of the Queen Mother, containing the Koh-i-noor diamond, which is the subject of an international political debate Possibly the most controversial jewel in the Crown Jewels is the 108-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is set in the Crown of the Queen Mother. The gem, which came into British hands during the colonial era, is the subject of a historic ownership dispute and has been claimed by at least four countries, including India Queen Adelaide's crown was created for William IV's coronation, which at the time was described as the 'Half-Crown nation' due to the king's insistence to remove expensive ceremonial events from the occasion Palace officials are understood to be reviewing whether she should wear the jewel, with the King acutely aware of the sensitivities. She is due to be crowned in a similar but simpler ceremony as part of the King's coronation on May 6 next year in Westminster Abbey. According to The Daily Telegraph, a spokesman for Indian prime minister Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party said: 'The coronation of Camilla and the use of the crown jewel Koh-i-Noor brings back painful memories of the colonial past. 'Most Indians have very little memory of the oppressive past. Five to six generations of Indians suffered under multiple foreign rules for over five centuries. 'Recent occasions, like Queen Elizabeth II's death, the coronation of the new Queen Camilla and the use of the Koh-i-Noor does transport a few Indians back to the days of the British Empire in India.' The date for the coronation, May 6, was unveiled earlier this week. The deeply religious affair will take place in Westminster Abbey, eight months after Charles's accession to the throne and the death of the Queen. The Palace said the ceremony will be 'rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry' but also 'reflect the monarch's role today and look towards the future'. The Queen is seen wearing the Diamond Diadem in a portrait to mark her coronation in 1953, and, right, at the State Opening of Parliament in 2002 The Koh-i-Noor diamond was given to Queen Victoria in 1855 by ten-year-old Duleep Singh, last emperor of the Sikhs. It is now in the Crown of the Queen Mother Charles III will be anointed with holy oil, receive the orb, coronation ring and sceptre, be crowned with the majestic St Edward's Crown and blessed during the historic ceremony, with Camilla also be anointed with holy oil and crowned. Buckingham Palace has declined to comment about the use of the Queen Mother's crown. Other objects that make up the Crown Jewels include the Ampulla, an eagle-shaped vessel of pure gold. It held the holy oil which used for the anointing of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The Anointing Spoon, which dates back to the 14th century, is used to hold the oil poured from the Ampulla. After the execution of Charles I in 1649, Oliver Cromwell melted down the original English Crown Jewels. Any objects that could not be melted down were sold off. It was only because of the survival of records detailing what the original jewels looked like and which objects were sold off that they were able to be faithfully recreated when the monarchy was restored in 1660. Another post-revolution addition to the Crown Jewels was the Sovereign's Orb, which acts as the symbol of Godly power within the monarchy. The item was made for Charles II's coronation in 1661 and is a 30cm-wide hollow gold sphere with a crucifix above it, adorned with nine emeralds, 18 rubies, nine sapphires, 365 diamonds, 375 pearls, one amethyst and one glass stone. The cross remaining above the orb represents the dominion of Christ over the world with the monarch holding it as God's representative on Earth. The oldest part of the collection is the Scottish Crown Jewels, which date from the early 1500s. They are held at Edinburgh Castle. The revelation comes as the police force faces calls to probe the trans charity A police force under pressure to investigate controversial transgender children's charity Mermaids received 'trans awareness training' from the organisation, it has been revealed. Mermaids, which is based in Leeds, confirmed they provided 'support training' to some officers from the county's West Yorkshire police force, as well as others in Merseyside, in 2019. The revelation comes days after Prime Minister Liz Truss appeared to back calls for the police force to investigate the Mermaids over safeguarding concerns. Mermaids has faced increased scrutiny in recent weeks amid claims it has sent 'chest binders' to children without parental knowledge. A member of the charity's board also quit after giving a speech at a conference hosted by an organisation that promotes services to paedophiles. And the group's online help centre has reportedly also been offering advice to teenagers that hormone-blocking drugs are safe and 'totally reversible'. In recent years, West Yorkshire Police has launched a number of hate crime probes following complaints by Mermaids staff about comments directed at them over social media. Police were shown this slide of the 'gender spectrum', which featured a Barbie doll at one end and a GI Joe toy at the other West Yorkshire Police has come under fire for receiving training from transgender children's charity Mermaids - which is facing calls to be investigated by police over safeguarding concerns. Pictured is West Yorkshire Chief Constable John Robins and Mermaids' chief executive, Susie Green However, police have refused to comment on whether they will be investigating safeguarding concerns after they were raised by MPs. The force also declined to say whether it was still receiving training from Mermaids, according to the Telegraph, raising questions over its impartiality. 'Given the serious allegations of child safeguarding failures made against Mermaids in recent weeks, it is imperative that any investigation is seen to be impartial and transparent,' barrister Laura Farris, Tory MP for Newbury, told the paper. The 2019 training session was opened by then-Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, Julie Cooke. But images of slides used during the seminar, in February 2019, were ridiculed on social media. Police were shown one slide of a gender identity 'spectrum', with a Barbie doll at one end, and a GI Joe toy at the other followed by the question: 'Where on the spectrum might your gender identity be?' Another image, reportedly shown during the training session, said: 'Your sexuality is who you go to bed with. Your gender Identity is who you go to bed as.' Social media users blasted the police force for attending the training, with one saying: 'For pity's sake - the police are paying for this Barbie and GI Joe twaddle? Why are the police - a publicly paid for body - using this false science nonsense?' Another person raged: 'This is unbelievably sexist and has NO BASIS IN SCIENCE. Why is public money being spent on this? Its like funding religious brainwashing.' While a third added: 'They're just making it up as they go along, total nonsense.' The fears over the safeguarding concerns raised against Mermaids prompted calls from MPs for the police to step in. Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons on Wednesday, Tory MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge Miriam Cates asked the PM if she agrees it is 'high time' for a police investigation into the charity to be launched. Ms Cates told the Commons: 'For years, despite whistleblowers raising alarm, Mermaids have had unfettered access to vulnerable children. 'Does my right honourable friend (Liz Truss) agree that it's taken far too long for these concerns to be taken seriously and does she also agree that it is high time for a police investigation into the activities of Mermaids?' The Prime Minister replied: 'It's very important that underage teens are able to develop their own decision-making capabilities and not be forced into any kind of activity. What I would say on the subject of the investigation she raises, of course those matters should be raised and should be properly looked at.' Prime Minister Liz Truss speaking to MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday Christian parents Nigel and Sally Rowes won a legal case against DfE, which led to a 22,000 settlement for legal costs and a commitment from the Government to reform its trans policies The Department for Education (DfE) has stopped recommending Mermaids as a mental health and wellbeing resource for schools - and campaign group Christian Concern have launched a new petition to the archbishop, calling for trans guidance to be withdrawn from Church of England (CofE)schools across the country. It came after Christian parents Nigel and Sally Rowes' legal victory against DfE, which led to a 22,000 settlement for legal costs and a commitment from the Government to reform its trans policies. The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into the organisation after a number of complaints, and it is the first step taken by the regulator, and not a finding of wrongdoing. The Rowes have written an open letter to the archbishop urging the Church of England (CoE) to drop transgender guidance covering its schools A spokeswoman for the commission said: 'Concerns have been raised with us about Mermaids' approach to safeguarding young people. We have opened a regulatory compliance case and have written to the trustees. We now await their reply.' The Rowes have written an open letter to the archbishop urging the CoE to drop transgender guidance covering its schools A spokesperson for Mermaids told MailOnline: 'Mrs Cates' attitudes to LGBT organisations are well-documented and this is not the first time she has criticised Mermaids. We will continue to provide crucial support for trans and gender-diverse young people and their families, and remain accountable to our service users and the public at large through the Charity Commission and other regulators.' The Rowes took action against the department after they and their six-year-old son were accused of 'transphobia' by a CoE primary school for refusing to support transgender affirming policies. In an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the parents - who withdrew their two sons from an Anglican school on the Isle of Wight in a row over its approach to trans matters - accused CoE schools of 'violating the clear guidance' from the Attorney-General by 'forcing children to affirm the acquired gender of fellow pupils and failing to require basic steps to be taken to keep children safe'. They claimed that when they raised concern with the CoE's Portsmouth Diocesan Board of Education in 2017 about the influence of so-called 'radical transgender ideology' at the school, the 'Valuing All God's Children' (VAGC) guidance was used to 'dismiss and shut down their complaints'. A spokesperson for the Church of England told MailOnline: 'It is simply untrue to describe the Church of England's anti-bullying guidance for schools Valuing All God's Children as ''Mermaids influenced''. 'Mermaids had no involvement in or influence on the preparation of the guidance, published in 2017. 'Initial copies of the guidance did include an annexe with a list of organisations working in this area, which was provided by the Government. 'Although the text emphasised that the Church of England could not recommend or endorse any organisation as a resource, nevertheless the annexe was also removed three years ago for the avoidance of doubt.' A British holidaymaker has died after plunging 65 feet from a cliff in Ibiza. The 24-year-old's body was found in the ocean by coastguards following Thursday evening's tragedy in the upmarket destination of Cap Martinet near Ibiza Town. The alarm was sounded around 8pm. Well-placed sources said a witness had told police the unnamed tourist was with another man and both appeared to be 'inebriated' although there has not yet been any official confirmation of the claims. A 24-year-old Briton has died after falling from 65ft cliffs in the town of Cap Martinet, on the Spanish party island of Ibiza, around 8pm on Thursday (file image) A spokesman for the Civil Guard confirmed: 'We are investigating the death of a British holidaymaker aged 24 in an incident which occurred on Thursday at cliffs in the Cap Martinet area. 'The investigation is at an early stage and it will take more time to get a clearer picture of what exactly happened.' The force spokesman added: 'Firefighters, local police, Civil Guard and coastguards were mobilised after the alarm was raised. 'The dead man's body was recovered by a coastguard vessel.' The same coastguards reportedly rescued two other men from the water who are said to have tried to rescue the British holidaymaker after he ended up in the sea. They were described locally as staff at the five-star Destino Pacha Ibiza Hotel near to where the tourist is believed to have been staying. A coastguard helicopter called the Helimer 221 participated in the operation. Cap Martinet is an upmarket town on the southern side of the Spanish party island, and is believed to have been where the Briton was staying Cap Martinet, just two miles away from Ibiza town centre, is home to the island's VIP crowd and international deluxe guests. Its high-end luxury villas offer stunning sea views of the Mediterranean Sea and even further away to the neighbouring island of Formentera. The hotel the holidaymaker is said to have been staying at, which offers exclusive wellness treatments and open-air yoga classes, is in a privileged position on the secluded cliff top of Cap Martinet. Last month a 55-year-old British tourist died after slipping and plunging nearly 400ft off a cliff while visiting a lighthouse on the paradise island of Formentera. The London-based holidaymaker fell to his death when he lost his footing around midday on September 13 while visiting La Mola lighthouse, which Jules Verne wrote about in his novel Hector Servadec. Local reports said he was with his partner and a group of friends when the tragedy occurred. A Civil Guard spokesman confirmed at the time the death was being treated as a tragic accident and there was nothing to suggest it was the result of a crime. A student who randomly bashed a grandmother on the steps of her Greek Orthodox church was on a night out to 'cheer up' following his own grandmother's death, a court has heard. Amrick Roy, 27, pleaded guilty in Victoria's County Court on Friday to the 'vicious' March 2021 assault on Penelope Katsavos, 79, in Melbourne's South Yarra. Ms Katsavos was unlocking the doors on the Sts Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, where she had volunteered for 30 years, at about 6am when she was set upon by Roy in an unprovoked attack. He hit her in the the head, knocking her to the ground, and then repeatedly kicked her before fleeing with her shopping trolley which he wheeled around South Yarra before dumping. Roy wheeled around the grandmother's shopping trolley after he bashed outside a Greek church in Melbourne (pictured) Penelope Katsavos, 78, was left lying on the steps of the church (pictured) where she was found 30 minutes later by a street cleaner who then called paramedics Penelope Katsavos' face was covered in massive purple bruises, trailing from her right eye down to her chin (pictured left after the attack and right in hospital) Ms Katsavos lay bleeding for 30 minutes before she was found by a street cleaner who called paramedics. She suffered two brain bleeds, a broken hip and a broken wrist in the attack. Roy's defence lawyer told the court on Friday that his client's grandmother had recently died and a friend convinced him to go to the Revolver Upstairs nightclub in Prahran on the night of March 12 to 'cheer him up', reports The Herald Sun. After a night of heavy drinking, he assaulted a number of people on the street when he left the club before attacking the grandmother-of-six. Police released images of Roy wandering the street as part of their investigation (pictured) Judge John Carmody said Ms Katsavos had recently celebrated her 78th birthday when 'this young bloke full of grog and maybe other things has punched her in the head and knocked her down'. Ms Katsavos said in her victim impact statement she had been left with lasting effects and that she could no longer properly care for her husband with dementia who had been moved to a nursing home. 'I miss my husband (and) I miss my independence,' she said. Penelope Katsavos and her husband Thomas who suffers from dementia (pictured) The grandmother-of-six flashed a brave smile as she recovered in hospital last year (pictured) But despite her ordeal, Ms Katsavos said she had forgiven Roy. 'My only hope is that you will learn how to be a better person.' Forensic psychologist Nina Zimmerman testified Roy has schizophrenia and had stopped taking his medication weeks before the attack but did not believe he met the criteria for a mental impairment defence. He will be sentenced on October 21. Turkey giant Bernard Matthews has been fined 300,000 after a worker at the firm's Suffolk plant was sucked into a machine, leaving him paralysed. Colin Frewin suffered horrific injuries at the firm's Suffolk plant on January 2020 when trying to dislodge a turkey stuck at the bottom of a machine. The 54-year-old was tasked with cleaning a large screw conveyor used to move turkeys along and chill them, but he spotted a lone turkey stuck at the bottom. When trying to dislodge it using a squeegee, he was such into the machine. It was only when a colleague noticed he was missing and heard his shouts for help that the emergency stop was pulled. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found an unsafe system of work at the firm, which is set to supply millions across Britain with their Christmas turkeys, meant the chillers continued to run as Mr Frewin when to dislodge the blockage. The firm admitted a breach of the health and safety at work regulations and was fined 300,000 The firm admitted a breach of the health and safety at work regulations and was fined 300,000. Mr Frewin spent six months in hospital after the incident, three of which were spent in an induced coma, and has been left permanently paralysed. He suffered multiple injuries including a pierced left lung, several broken ribs, four fractured vertebrae and a spinal bleed. In a victim impact statement, Mr Frewin told Chelmsford Crown Court: 'I will never walk again and so I will be in a wheelchair permanently. 'I now have a suprapubic catheter, which was inserted via an operation. The district nurse has to give me bowel care every day and visits me daily at home. 'I also suffer from AD - a condition which is life threatening, as my body doesn't register if I'm ill. 'I have moved from my flat overlooking the sea, to a bungalow. I miss seeing the sea and being close to the seafront and all the amenities. I feel isolated as I cannot go out when I want as I need people to assist me.' 'I can't socialise with my friends and family as much as I used to, as I can't fit my wheelchair into their homes. 'Physical relationships are very hard as I can't get out much. The accident has affected my life and my family's lives.' Just five months earlier, on August 12 2019, a turkey deboning line had to be shut down at the same plant after developing a fault, which resulted in employees being moved to a surplus production line. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found an unsafe system of work at the firm meant the chillers continued to run as Mr Frewin when to dislodge the blockage The incident involving Mr Frewin was heard at Chelmsford Crown Court (pictured) While working on the surplus production line, one of the wings became stuck in the belt under the machine. Employee Adriano Gama attempted to push it out of the way but his gloved hand became caught in the exposed sprocket of the conveyer as he did and was drawn into the machine. The 34-year-old was eventually released and suffered a broken arm and damage to the muscles in his forearm as a result. An investigation by the HSE found that pre-start checks that day were only completed on the production lines. This meant that workers on the surplus deboning line had no system in place to ensure it was checked prior to being put into operation. Two safety guards had been removed and a team leader had reported the issue to the engineering team, but it was not followed up. Bernard Matthews Food Ltd of Sparrowhawk Road, Halesworth in Suffolk pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in Mr Gama's case and the firm was fined 100,000. The company also had to pay 15,000 in relation to the two cases, resulting in a total penalty of 415,000. HSE Principal Inspector Adam Hills said: 'Both incidents could have been avoided - the consequences were devastating for Mr Frewin in particular. 'If Bernard Matthews had acted to identify and manage the risks involved and put a safe system of work in place they could have easily been prevented. The firm supplies around seven million turkeys a year and was built by the son of a car mechanic Bernard Matthews 'Fundamentally, you should not clean a machine while it is running. 'Companies need to ensure that risk assessments cover activities including cleaning and blockages, and that where appropriate, robust isolation and lock off mechanisms are in place for these activities. 'Prior to use you can put in place some pre-start checks and if faults such as missing guards are identified they need to be formally reported, tracked, rectified and closed out.' The firm supplies around seven million turkeys a year and was built by the son of a car mechanic Bernard Matthews. He was just 18 when he saw 20 turkey eggs for sale, which he bought for a shilling each, and then purchased a paraffin oil incubator. In the 1950s, he purchased Great Witchingham Hall in Norfolk for 3,000 and filled its 35 rooms with turkeys. While he and his wife lived in two unheated rooms, turkeys were hatched in the dining room, reared in the bedrooms and slaughtered in the kitchens, and eventually led to a well-known company and brand. At the time of his death in 2010, Mr Matthews had amassed a personal fortune estimated at over 300 million. A theme park zoo has launched an investigation after the entire population of one of its animal attractions suddenly died. The deaths of the Capybara population - a type of rodent - at Chessington World of Adventures has been shrouded in mystery. Visitors to the south west London park wanting to take part in the rodent feeding session were told the animals had 'sadly' passed away, leaving many puzzled and distraught. The deaths of the Capybara population - a type of rodent - at Chessington World of Adventures has been shrouded in mystery All three of the animals died last month but staff have launched a probe into how they died. The cause of death is still unknown. The popular zoo has no plans to bring in new ones until the mystery surrounding the untimely deaths has been solved. Capybaras are the world's biggest rodent and are loved by many at the family-friendly zoo for their chunky snouts and friendliness towards humans. They are native to South America and are often comparable in appearance to overgrown guinea pigs. The animal became a hit at Chessington World of Adventures due to its feeding experience with them. The popular zoo has no plans to bring in new ones until the mystery surrounding the untimely deaths has been solved All three of the animals died last month but staff have launched a probe into how they died Guests were allocated 20 minutes in the enclosure feeding and petting the animals. But the park has confirmed that its three capybaras died in September. Chessington assured it is working closely with vets to decipher the cause of death and has no plans to bring new ones in until the investigation has finished. A spokesperson said: 'It is with great sadness that we can confirm the death of our three capybaras. 'External veterinary experts are working closely with our dedicated welfare team to conduct a thorough investigation into why the animals sadly passed away. 'This investigation remains ongoing and until we know the results, we wouldn't be making any decisions on bringing new capybaras in. 'We know our capybaras are extremely popular with our guests, and were much loved by all of us here, especially our dedicated zoo team.' Fans of the much loved animal attraction shared their sadness at the news on social media. One said: 'When was someone going to tell me the capybaras died at Chessington? Chessington assured it is working closely with vets to decipher the cause of death and has no plans to bring new ones in until the investigation has finished. Pictured: A social media post enquiring about the animals 'I'm going to go cry now.' Another mourned: 'The capybaras at Chessington are dead and I feel really sad about it.' Chessington's spokesperson added: 'The health, safety and welfare of our animals is the primary concern to us here at Chessington World of Adventures Resort. 'We are a member of EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquariums) and BIAZA (British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums). 'Both of which have strict codes of practice and ethics covering animal management, conservation, education research and operations.' Built in 1877, the prison only housed men serving life sentences following the abolition of capital punishment It housed inmates such as Eastenders' Leslie Grantham, Archibald Hall, Anthony Sawoniuk and the M25 three Now known as 'The Old Portsmouth Gaol', the former lifers' prison flats are going for between 250k-325k HMP Kingston in Portsmouth, Hampshire has been converted into luxury apartments with original features Advertisement A Grade II-listed 19th-century lifers' prison which locked up serial killers, a Nazi war criminal and an Eastenders 'Dirty Den' actor has been converted into 64 apartments going for up to 325,000 giving a new meaning to 'forever home'. HMP Kingston in Portsmouth, Hampshire, has been transformed into luxury apartments known as 'The Old Portsmouth Gaol'. The former lifers' prison, originally built in 1877, exclusively housed men serving life sentences following the abolition of capital punishment in 1965. Notable inmates included Leslie Grantham who served time there after he shot and killed a German taxi driver before portraying Eastenders villain 'Dirty Den'. Others included Scottish serial killer Archibald Hall and Nazi war criminal Anthony Sawoniuk. After the jail doors closed for the last time in March 2013, the conversion project by St Cross Homes began in 2020. HMP Kingston in Portsmouth, Hampshire, has been converted into luxury apartments known as 'The Old Portsmouth Gaol' The conversion of the old lifers' prison into 64 luxury apartments has given a new meaning to the phrase 'forever home' The bedrooms also have a contemporary monochromatic interior with high-quality flooring, white painted woodwork and recessed lights Each apartment features a contemporary combined kitchen, lounge and dining room including an integrated fridge/freezer, washing machine and modern handle-less soft-close doors and drawers The apartments have kept some of their original features, including their imposing 19th-century exterior and being converted around the historic 'rotunda and wings' arrangement common among Victorian prisons. Now a series of two-bedroom apartments are up for grabs, all with allocated parking and ranging in price from 250,000 to 325,000. The apartments have kept some of their original features, including their imposing 19th-century exterior and being converted around the historic 'rotunda and wings' arrangement common among Victorian prisons. In addition, the original doorways, internal balustrading, stonework, windowsills, stairs and landing features have been retained. Each apartment features a contemporary combined kitchen, lounge and dining room including an integrated fridge/freezer, washing machine and modern handle-less soft-close doors and drawers. In addition, the original doorways, internal balustrading, stonework, windowsills, stairs and landing features have been retained The bathrooms feature 'clean lines' that are complemented with contemporary fittings and marble-effect wall and floor tiles A series of two-bedroom apartments are up for grabs, all with allocated parking and ranging in price from 250,000 to 325,000 Martin Merrett, director of Bernards Estate Agents, who have been handling the sale of the apartments, says the building has 'turned into something quite special' Notable inmates included Leslie Grantham who served time there after he shot and killed a German taxi driver before portraying Eastenders villain 'Dirty Den'. Others included Scottish serial killer Archibald Hall and Nazi war criminal Anthony Sawoniuk The bathrooms feature 'clean lines' that are complemented with contemporary fittings and marble-effect wall and floor tiles. The bedrooms also have a contemporary monochromatic interior with high-quality flooring, white painted woodwork and recessed lights. Martin Merrett, director of Bernards Estate Agents, who have been handling the sale of the apartments, says the building has 'turned into something quite special'. Martin, from Portsmouth in Hampshire, said: 'It was a lifers' prison, so it certainly does bring new meaning to the phrase 'forever home'. 'It's been in and around Portsmouth for a long time, so it's a bit of a local institution in both senses. 'It's fantastic what they've done down there. What would've been a derelict building has turned into something quite special. The renovations are light and open and have monochromatic features and fittings. Pictured here is a kitchen space in one of the apartments The building now has a modern twist on the old prison format, but many of the former features still remain such as the exterior The two-bedroom flats have a combined kitchen/dining/living room with a fridge/freezer in a modern set-up 'We've had viewings and everyone's really impressed with the historic feel that the site still has, but with a modern twist. 'It's created a lot of interest and is a bit of a talking point around the town - we've not really had any issues selling the apartments. 'I think the buyers are banking on having nicer neighbours than the building was used to. And, of course, they'll be able to move around freely.' The conversion of the old building was overseen by chartered surveyors Chris Flint Associates. Director Chris Flint said that it was a 'one-off' opportunity to work on such a historic site, and said in the eyes of many potential buyers 'the prison is the real feature' Though it once housed some of the country's most dangerous criminals, the old prison building now has a homely feel The apartments have many architectural details, moving it away from the prison format and into residential accommodation The building is Grade II-listed and the apartments come with an allotted parking space for their residents HMP Kingston's Famous Inmates Leslie Grantham - Eastenders Actor Grantham is best known for playing 'Dirty' Den Watts in Eastenders. He served ten years for killing a West German taxi driver and had a sex scandal in 2004. Archibald Hall (also known as Ray Fontaine) - Serial killer He became known as the 'Killer Butler' as he committed his crimes while serving some of the members of the British aristocracy. Anthony Sawoniuk - Nazi war criminal A Belarusian Nazi collaborator and the first and only person to be convicted under the UK's War Crimes Act 1991. He took part in the murder of the Jewish community in his hometown, before serving in the SS. The M25 Three: Raphael George Row, Michael George Davis and Randolph Egbert Johnson The three were wrongly jailed for life after being convicted for murders and robberies that took place around the M25 in December 1988. Advertisement Director Chris Flint said that it was a 'one-off' opportunity to work on such a historic site, and said in the eyes of many potential buyers 'the prison is the real feature'. Chris, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, said: 'It's a one-off really you probably wouldn't find one or two of these in a lifetime of work. 'It's been really good, and we've done a lot of work with Portsmouth City Council's planning department and their conservation officer to retain as much as possible whilst integrating a modern apartment in what was a really old building. 'It's a listed building as well, so it's been tricky but that relationship with the council has worked really well to bring forward essentially what was a redundant building. 'It's a really super building, and very attractive externally with the original stonework and windowsills - the actual architectural detailing of it is really special. 'For me personally, you move away from that relationship of what happened internally to one of a modern approach. You step away from that prison and into what is now residential accommodation. 'With a number of people I've spoken to who have been interested in buying, the prison is the real feature. 'There's a distinction between the two but a lot of people do like that association. The buyers definitely get to keep hold of their own keys though.' In 2003 an inspection report found that the elderly prisoner unit at Kingston was in an unacceptable condition, as there was insufficient privacy, little natural light and ventilation and restricted movement. Ian Maguire, assistant director of regeneration at Portsmouth City Council, said: 'Portsmouth City Council is always keen to work with partners to enhance brownfield sites and preserve the heritage of the city. 'Finding landowners and quality developers who share our city's vision and reflect the dedication and commitment of the council's planning team is essential. I am delighted that this been achieved on the HMP Kingston site.' A key member of the same group of far-right National Action supporters as Miss Hitler beauty queen Alice Cutter has a parole hearing next week and could join her in winning freedom. Extremist Garry Jack, now 27, admitted with another man they were 'committed and unapologetic' members of National Action, which was banned in December 2016. However, he claimed to have quit the organisation before it was proscribed but was found guilty in March 2020 and later sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. Extremist Garry Jack, now 27, admitted with another man they were 'committed and unapologetic' members of National Action Jack, then 24, of Birmingham, had attended almost every meeting of NA's Midlands sub-group, it emerged during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court. He also had a previous conviction, from before the group was banned for plastering Birmingham's Aston University campus with NA's racially charged stickers, some reading 'Britain is ours, the rest must go.' If the Parole Board decides to release him, Jack will be freed alongside Cutter, 25, who MailOnline revealed this week had been granted release from prison on licence. Neo-Nazi Alice Cutter had served just 26-months of a three year sentence imposed in June 2020 along with other 'diehard' colleagues If the Parole Board decides to release him, Garry Jack will be freed alongside Cutter, 25, who MailOnline revealed this week had been granted release from prison on licence The neo-Nazi beauty queen had served just 26-months of a three year sentence imposed in June 2020 along with other 'diehard' colleagues her ex-partner Mark Jones, Jack and Connor Scothern. MailOnline can also reveal that Scothern, now 22, who got 18-months, had been turned down for parole after a hearing in October 2020. He is eligible for a further appeal in the near future, but has not been listed yet. The Parole Board also refused to endorse a move to an open prison for Scothern. A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: 'An oral hearing has been listed for the parole review of Garry Jack and is scheduled to take place in October 2022. 'Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community. The Parole Board also refused to endorse a move to an open prison for Connor Scothern 'A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims. 'Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing. Evidence from witnesses including probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements are then given at the hearing. 'The prisoner and witnesses are then questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. 'Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.' At his trial, Scothern, from Nottingham, was referred to as 'one of the most active members of the group' who was 'considered future leadership material' The spokesperson added: 'We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board refused the release of Connor Scothern following a paper hearing in October 2020. The panel also refused to recommend a move to open prison.' At his trial, Scothern, from Nottingham, was referred to as 'one of the most active members of the group' who was 'considered future leadership material'. Self-confessed Nazi Jack was described as a foot soldier in the group, having joined six months before the ban. Jack, from Birmingham, appeared at his sentencing via a video-link. He wrote a letter to judge Paul Farrer QC stating:'I have turned my back on the far right.' Max Hill QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the group were 'diehards in the way that they think'. 'They hark back to the days of not just anti-Semitism but the Holocaust, the Third Reich in Germany, and they take their mindset from those extreme Nazi groups and latterly neo-Nazi groups in Germany,' he said. Det Ch Supt Kenny Bell, of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit said after the trial: 'Being convicted of membership of this extreme right terrorist group is the same as belonging to other terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda or Daesh. 'They share a real toxic extreme ideology which is a danger to the public, the same ideology that we have seen manifested in the tragic attack in New Zealand, the murder of Jo Cox MP and the attack at Finsbury Park mosque in 2017. Cutter's Nazi-admiring former partner Mark Jones was convicted of membership of a terrorist group and got five-and-a-half years 'This group was amassing weapons and recipes for bomb-making. They communicated through secret channels to recruit others to their cause. Left unchecked they presented a real threat to the public.' Cutter's Nazi-admiring former partner Mark Jones was convicted of membership of a terrorist group and got five-and-a-half years. He is eligible for a parole hearing but has not yet been listed. National Action, founded in 2013, was outlawed under anti-terror legislation three years later after it celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox. Finalists of the 2022 K-Pop Cover Dance Festival perform in a flash mob at the Cheong Wa Dae compound in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of KCDF By Kwak Yeon-soo K-pop fans from around the world gathered in Seoul this month to compete in the finals of the annual K-Pop Cover Dance Festival (KCDF). A total of 87 contenders from 12 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, advanced to the final round of the competition that was held on Saturday. The KCDF, which began in 2011, is designed to grow global interest in "hallyu," or the Korean wave, as well as K-pop. "K-pop cover dancers, mostly in their late teens and early 20s, will be staying in Seoul until Oct. 17 to perform flash mobs, compete in the final competition and experience Korean culture," the festival's organizer said. In the days prior to the final round of competition, the participants performed flash mobs at popular tourist attractions around Seoul, such as Gwanghwamun Square, Banpo Hangang Park and Dongdaemun Design Plaza. While participants of the festival in previous years performed at these places, a new place has been added this year: Cheong Wa Dae, the former presidential office and residence compound for 74 years, which was opened to the public this May after the presidential office was moved to Yongsan District. At Cheong Wa Dae on Friday, contestants danced to 34 K-pop songs, including: TWICE's "Feel Special," IVE's "After Like," Stray Kids' "Maniac," NCT 127's "Kick It," BTS' "Butter" and ATEEZ's "Guerrilla." Finalists of the 2022 K-pop Cover Dance Festival pose after performing in a flash mob at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Kwak Yeon-soo "I'm a member of a dance crew called Virtue. We practice K-pop dance and upload dance cover videos on our YouTube channel, Virtue Dance," said Pessotto Tianna Lourdes, a contestant from Australia. "We found out about the festival online and decided to take part in it because it felt like an exciting opportunity to come to Korea. We look forward to trying Korean food and meeting new people." Thai dance crew GunSquad, consisting of 13 members, expressed their wish to win the grand prize. "I love K-pop music and dance. The visuals and choreographies are really cool, and I think K-pop cover dance is an interesting hobby. I love so many things about Korea. The people are so kind," said Vongrukun Sasit, a contestant from the Thai team. Participants from Turkey said they found out about the festival through the Korean Cultural Center in Turkey. "We actually have more members in our dance crew, but only four of us were chosen to come to Korea. K-pop artists are true all-rounders and I respect them so much. Apart from the competition, I look forward to trying on hanbok and eating Korean food," said Ecevit Ezgi, a contestant from Turkey. In the final round held on Nodeul Island in Seoul, Saturday, three teams -- from the Philippines, the U.S. and Thailand -- won the top prizes together. The festival was co-hosted by the Seoul Shinmun Daily, Seoul Metropolitan Government and Korean Cultural Centers around the world. The panel of judges included K-pop boy band KINGDOM. The government's flagship anti-terror strategy is so vague it leads to thousands of unnecessary referrals from teachers and healthcare professionals, according to a report. The study found the categories of people who may be 'vulnerable to extremism' under the Prevent programme were ill defined and 'lacked clear connections to violent radicalisation'. They included 'people with mental health issues or learning disabilities', 'young offenders and people vulnerable to offending' and religious converts who were 'less well-informed about their faith'. The lack of clarity may explain the high number of Prevent referrals referred to the Channel phase which are not taken up. Of the 6,287 referrals made to Channel - in 2019-20, just 697 were taken up. 'This suggests that Prevent is casting a very wide net, and may not be working as efficiently as it can,' the report says. A very small minority of referrals to the Prevent Channel phase - which is reserved for the most serious cases - are taken up as Channel cases The most common sources of Prevent referrals are police officers and teachers The scheme works by local council-appointed Prevent coordinators taking referrals from public servants like teachers and social workers, with each individual of concern categorised by their ideology. Less serious cases are dealt with by councils, who can offer services like mentoring or parenting support, while the more serious ones go to Channel, where a panel of local officials, including police, will recommend the next steps. Despite the report's criticisms, the report found many of the attacks on the programme were misguided and relied largely on 'speculation and unproven assumptions' by scholars and 'anti-Prevent activists'. Many critics were motivated by a 'conspiratorial view of both government and academic work on terrorism and counterterrorism' and a belief that Prevent 'criminalises' Muslims, wrote its author, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens. He said polling suggests most Muslims had not heard of Prevent but supported its underlying premise, while university staff felt it was a 'proportionate response' to the terror threat - even if they were unsure of its focus on British values. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is believed to be planning a major overhaul of Prevent following the publication of the Shawcross Review, which scrutinises the programme and is expected to be released by the end of the year. Six of the 11 most significant recent terror attacks were carried out by individuals who have gone through Prevent. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is believed to be planning a major overhaul of Prevent following the publication of the Shawcross Review, which scrutinises the programme and is expected to be released by the end of the year. The MP Sir David Amess's killer Ali Harbi Ali - who was sentenced last month to a whole life order - had been referred to the programme in 2014 but a year later it was concluded he no longer posed a threat. Usman Khan, 28, who stabbed two young graduates to death after a prisoner rehabilitation event on London Bridge, had come into contact with Prevent officers who had 'no specific training' in handling terrorists, an inquest heard. William Shawcross is scrutinising the programme and is expected to release his report by the end of the year Another terrorist referred to Prevent was Sudesh Amman, who stabbed two people in Streatham, south London, in February 2019. However, a panel decided his case did not require intervention. Meanwhile, Parsons Green bomber Ahmed Hassan was also referred to the anti-terror scheme 20 months before he planted a device on the Tube that injured 50 people during rush hour in 2017. Earlier this year it emerged the number of military personnel referred to Prevent had doubled in a year amid fears the far right are actively targeting soldiers. Freedom of Information Act disclosures show a total of 40 soldiers, air force personnel and sailors have been probed over extremist concerns since 2019. Half of them were referred to Prevent over alleged extreme right-wing activity. Four serving members of the army were arrested in 2017 under anti-terror laws on suspicion of being members of banned neo-Nazi group National Action. The court heard Afghanistan veteran Lance Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen had been trying to recruit fellow soldiers for National Action to 'cleanse our lands'. Sickening bunting proudly displaying swastikas was found in his possession. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We are committed to doing everything possible to protect our communities from the threat of terrorism and the UK has one of the most robust counter-terrorism frameworks in the world. 'Prevent has changed and saved the lives of individuals from all walks of life, with over 3,000 people led away from radicalisation and supported through the programme. Megyn Kelly has described how her police officer brother was hospitalized after being attacked by a 'gang of thugs' in upstate New York as she railed against the ambush killing of two cops in Connecticut. Speaking on 'The Megyn Kelly Show' on Wednesday, Megyn, 51, told listeners on SiriusXM that her brother had been left 'really hurt' by the incident and was in hospital for a long time. She explained that her brother was a lieutenant in inner city Albany and that when he came out of hospital he went straight back to work. According to the New York Post, Megyn was speaking about her step-brother Paul Kirwin. Megyn went on to describe Paul's work and said he was working to protect women who were getting beaten and helping members of the community who were victims of what she claimed was 'black on black' crime. Megyn said: 'And never once said a racist thing or had a racist thought. 'He just kept going back out there to protect folks and was never accused of anything like that.' Speaking on 'The Megyn Kelly Show' on Wednesday, Megyn, 51, told listeners on SiriusXM that her brother had been left 'really hurt' by the incident and was in hospital for a long time She also condemned the killing of police officers Alex Hamzy, 34, and Dustin Demonte, 35, pictured, who were shot dead in Connecticut Alex Hamzy, pictured, was allegedly killed by Nicholas Brutcher who is suspected of shooting at them with an AR-15 style rifle She also condemned the killing of police officers Alex Hamzy, 34, and Dustin Demonte, 35, who were shot dead in Connecticut. They were allegedly killed by Nicholas Brutcher who is suspected of shooting at them with an AR-15 style rifle. She also spoke of life in the police force after the death of George Floyd, who was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin, saying that her step brother 'had the nation pointing at him.' Megyn said that people were saying cops were racist and terrible people and that they did not deserve funding. Megyn went on to describe Paul's work and said he was working to protect women who were getting beaten and helping members of the community who were victims of what she claimed was 'black on black' crime After the death of Floyd, huge protests were sparked across the country and outraged people called for the police to be defunded. In her show, Megyn said that Democrats are in thrall to the Squad and added that they will not budge off their old rhetoric. She also said that 'deviating from the anti-police line' would cost you with their base. She also spoke of life in the police force after the death of George Floyd, who was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin, pictured, saying that her step brother 'had the nation pointing at him' On her show was Rafael Mangual, an author and researcher, who blamed the surge in crime in Philadelphia on District Attorney Larry Krasner. Democrats and their supporters were slammed by the podcaster. She demanded 'an apology for the rhetoric' denouncing police. Megyn said that the police should be celebrated for being heroes and added that most of them abide by the rules while a small minority are 'bad apples' who give the force a bad reputation. She said that police officers should be appreciated and shown affection due to their risky jobs. And her guest agreed, adding that cops work with challenging people and their job is 'psychologically taxing.' A passenger on a 29-hour flight from New Zealand to Germany recorded the incessant screams of a baby that ruined the journey. Unfortunate traveller Henry Beasley documented his deteriorating mood as the piercing cries filled the cabin on the 11,000 mile trip. The musician, in the band Balu Brigada, was sitting a few rows ahead of the baby and at least attempted to take it in good humour. In a video posted on his band's TikTok account, he initially wrote: 'Rate my 29 hour flight to Berlin' and then in a second clip he wrote 'strong start' amid the guttural screams. But as the gruelling journey went on, he appeared to be increasingly weary as he sarcastically commented: 'The kid's got some lungs. Great projection.' Unfortunate traveller Henry Beasley documented his own deteriorating mood as the piercing cries rang out during his 11,000 mile flight A tick begins to form in his left eye as he furiously chews gum amid the endless screaming which he also compares to the sound of a kettle boiling. He even records specific cries and rates them including one with the caption 'nice long one here, 100.' He concluded the video - with the aircraft in darkness - by writing: 'Stellar performance, incredible stamina. 10/10.' The video split opinions on social media with some enraged by the baby's screams and others sympathetic to the parents. 'Been there done that. It's not fun for us either,' wrote one parent. 'I'm glad someone didn't video listening to my kid scream though.' Another said: 'You think we enjoy our kids screaming and others around us having to listen to it? Absolutely not.' However, one user commented: 'The rage I get just by watching this.' The video of the baby's screams caused a stir on social media and divided respondents between those enraged by the baby's screams and those sympathetic to the parents Another user suggested flights should be split into those with children and those without. 'It should be called flights with people who choose not to have kids for their own peace,' another agreed. Flights between New Zealand and Germany require at least one stop, and it's unclear on which leg of the flight Mr Beasley had to endure the screaming - or if it was both. There have been increasing calls for child-free flights, with some travellers declaring that they are willing to pay more for the privilege. In a 2012 poll by TripAdvisor, one-third of Britons said that they would pay a higher price if it meant that the flight would have no children onboard. And twenty-two per cent of the respondents also said that a child kicking the back of their seat was a pet peeve on flights. The coroner who investigated the death of 14-year-old schoolgirl Molly Russell has called for the Government to consider having separate social media platforms for adults and children. Coroner Andrew Walker today issued six recommendations that the Government should consider reviewing the provision of internet platforms to children, with reference to harmful on-line content. Molly, from Harrow, north-west London, ended her life in November 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online, prompting her family to campaign for better internet safety. Molly Russell, 14, from Harrow, ended her life in November 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online Molly Russell's family have campaigned better internet safety since the schoolgirl took her own life in November 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online Molly's father, Ian Russell has urged social media companies to not 'drag their feet waiting for legislation' after a coroner issued recommendations. Reacting to the Prevention of Future Deaths report, he said: 'We urge social media companies to heed the coroner's words and not drag their feet waiting for legislation and regulation, but instead to take a proactive approach to self-regulation to make their platforms safer for their young users. 'They should think long and hard about whether their platforms are suitable for young people at all.' Another recommendation issued by the coroner was for the Government to look at verification of age before joining the platform. The other recommendations looked at the provision of age specific content, the use of algorithms to provide content, the use of advertising and parental guardian or carer control, including access to material viewed by a child, and retention of material viewed by a child. Ian Russell, pictured on Spetember 30 while speaking at a press conference following the inquest into the death of his daughter. Mr Russell has urged social media companies not to 'drag their feet waiting for legislation' after a coroner issued recommendations Mr Walker also suggested an independent regulatory body should be considered to monitor online platform content. He said: 'I recommend that consideration is given to enacting such legislation as may be necessary to ensure the protection of children from the effects of harmful online content and the effective regulation of harmful online content. 'Although regulation would be a matter for Government, I can see no reason why the platforms themselves would not wish to give consideration to self-regulation taking into account the matters raised above.' Mr Walker sent the report to social media platforms such as Meta, Pinterest, Twitter and Snapchat as well as to Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan. He told them: 'In my opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you and/or your organisation have the power to take such action.' He said they were under a duty to respond within 56 days - by December 8 - with 'details of action taken or proposed to be taken, setting out the timetable for action. Molly's father Ian Russell speaking to the media outside Barnet Coroner's Court in north London following the death into his 14-year-old daughter 'Otherwise you must explain why no action is proposed.' Instagram's parent company Meta said it supported more regulation of social media after the coroner in the Molly Russell inquest recommended platforms be required to do more to protect children online. In response, a Meta company spokesperson said: 'We're committed to making Instagram a safe and positive experience for everyone, particularly teenagers, and are reviewing the Coroner's report. 'We agree regulation is needed and we've already been working on many of the recommendations outlined in this report, including new parental supervision tools that let parents see who their teens follow, and limit the amount of time they spend on Instagram. Ian adds: Having seen the effect it had on expert witnesses, our solicitor, the police, me I dont think there was a chance that a 14-year-old would survive it. That is why it needs to be talked about, parents need to be aware; conversations must be had 'We also automatically set teens' accounts to private when they join, nudge them towards different content if they've been scrolling on the same topic for some time and have controls designed to limit the types of content teens see. 'We don't allow content that promotes suicide or self-harm, and we find 98% of the content we take action on before it's reported to us. 'We'll continue working hard, in collaboration with experts, teens and parents, so we can keep improving.' Pinterest has said it will consider 'with care' the recommendations for better regulation of social media platforms maybe by the coroner in the Molly Russell inquest. Responding to a report from senior coroner Andrew Walker which suggests introducing stricter rules that force tech firms to better protect children from online harm, a Pinterest spokesperson said: 'Our thoughts are with the Russell family. 'We've listened very carefully to everything that the coroner and the family have said during the inquest. 'Pinterest is committed to making ongoing improvements to help ensure that the platform is safe for everyone and the coroner's report will be considered with care. 'Over the past few years, we've continued to strengthen our policies around self-harm content, we've provided routes to compassionate support for those in need and we've invested heavily in building new technologies that automatically identify and take action on self-harm content. 'Molly's story has reinforced our commitment to creating a safe and positive space for our Pinners.' For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details. A blame game has broken out after the Government ditched an end-of-month deadline for securing a trade deal with India. Ministers had hoped to reach an agreement with New Delhi by the Diwali festival on October 24. But International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has now confirmed negotiators are no longer working to secure a deal by that date. India has been accused of having 'weaponised' the deadline in order to try and secure last-minute concessions in talks. But Prime Minister Liz Truss has also been blamed for scuppering the talks. She has been blasted for chasing a deal 'at any cost' and for messaging Indian ministers over the heads of negotiators - although Government sources denied this. Home Secretary Suella Braverman's recent criticism of Indian migrants is also said to sunk the chances of an agreement by infuriating New Delhi. PM Liz Truss has been blasted for chasing a deal 'at any cost' and for messaging Indian ministers over the heads of negotiators International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has confirmed negotiators are no longer working to secure a deal by the end of this month Boris Johnson and Indian PM Narendra Modi set the Diwali deadline for getting a trade deal over the line in April this year Downing Street yesterday insisted the Government still wanted to conclude a trade deal with India by Diwali. But, just hours later, Ms Badenoch confirmed officials were no longer working towards the October 24 deadline. She told the BBC: 'We are close. We're still working on a deal. One of the things that has changed is that we are no longer working to the Diwali deadline.' Ms Badenoch insisted that negotiations were 'progressing well' but blamed this summer's change of PM and the recent mourning period for the Queen for the delay in completing a deal. 'We want to focus on the quality of the deal rather than the speed of the deal,' she said. Ms Badenoch refused to give a new date for when an agreement might be reached. A Whitehall source told The Times the Diwali deadline had been 'weaponised' by Indian negotiators to try and force last-minute concessions. 'At the end of the day, this deal has to work for Britain and when we looked at what was on offer it was clear that it wasnt a good deal,' the source said. 'We dont want to be rushed into signing a deal and would rather invest more time in getting it right.' But blame was also heaped on No10 with Ms Truss claimed to have been regularly messaging Piyush Goyal, the Indian minister of commerce and industry. The same newspaper reported claims the PM had been messaging Mr Goyal directly as she chases a deal 'at any cost'. In response to the claims, a source at the Department for International Trade told MailOnline: 'It is completely untrue to say the deal has been shelved and we don't recognise claims on the PM's role. 'You always get lots of chatter at the business end of trade negotiations. Not all of it is well informed. 'The Trade Secretary had a positive call with her Indian counterpart this week and negotiating teams are in constant contact. 'Our trade relationship with India is thriving, but we want to boost it further. That's why we are negotiating a high-ambition Free Trade Agreement. 'Both the Trade Secretary and PM are in full agreement we want the right deal that will back British jobs and grow our economy.' Home Secretary Suella Braverman's recent criticism of Indian migrants is also said to sunk the chances of an agreement by infuriating New Delhi Ms Braverman's comments about Indian migrants are reported to have infuriated New Delhi with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi having abandoned plans to visit the UK to sign a trade deal this month. In an interview with the Spectator magazine last week, Mrs Braverman said she had 'some reservations' about reducing visa rules for Indians wishing to come to the UK. I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I dont think thats what people voted for with Brexit,' she said. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Mr Modi set the Diwali deadline for getting a trade deal over the line in April this year. Advertisement Russian president Vladimir Putin has increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, satellite images show. The move comes amid high tension over whether Putin plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine, which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months. The Russian tyrant has gradually increased the number of strategic bombers at Olenya air base - from none on August 12, to four supersonic Tu-160s on August 21, to 11 now. News of Putin's increasing numbers of nuclear-capable bombers at the base came as... Footage showed the moment an ammunition store inside Russia was hit by a Ukrainian strike in the latest attack within Vladimir Putin's territory, in yet another embarrassing moment for the Kremlin; Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday promised victory over Russia as he marked Defenders Day; Norwegian police on Friday investigated reports of a drone that was spotted flying over the Kaarstoe gas processing plant in southwest Norway on Thursday, in potential violation of security protocols; Elon Musk said he cannot afford to keep funding Starlink satellites - that have proved vital for Ukraine in defending itself against Russia, raising fears he may cut support to the systems, hindering the war effort; Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of border tensions, amid fears he could order his forces to join the war; Damning evidence collected by the UN found Russian troops are using rape as a weapon of war against Ukrainians, with more than 100 verified cases of rape being found. Vladimir Putin has again increased his strategic nuclear bombers at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, say reports. Pictured: A satellite image taken on October 7, 2022 shows seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the Olenya airbase, Russia Kola Peninsula Pictured: The runway of the Olenya air base at the Kola Peninsula is seen empty on August 12, 2022 Pictured: Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' seen at Olenya air base around August, 21 2022 by an Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat Intl Pictured: The Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' (at the base since August 21, 2022) were joined by three Tu-95 'Bears' by September 25 The increase of nuclear-capable bombers comes amid high tension over whether Putin (seen today) plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine , which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months There are seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red on newly released satellite images) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the facility on the Kola Peninsula - found in the extreme northwest of Russia, and in the Arctic Circle. The disclosure comes from Faktisk.no - an independent Norwegian fact checking website - which obtained the data from American satellite operator Planet. The buildup above at the air base follows international concern over another report two weeks ago, when The Jerusalem Post revealed there was an 'unusual deployment' of seven nuclear bombers at the airbase. This was highlighted by Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International which detected the 'irregular presence' of TU-160s and TU-95s. The Armageddon planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 450 miles south-east of Moscow. Now, however, the bombers are stationed around 115 miles away from the border of NATO member Norway, and about 95 miles away from the soon-to-become Alliance member, Finland. They can also be used with conventional weapons. There is evidence the deployment at Olanya has Kh-101 cruise missiles for possible use against targets in Ukraine. The Kh-101 can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. The runway at Olenya airbase was empty on 12 August, with satellite images from October 7 showing that it is now full of warplanes. The Tu-160 - aka White Swan, but known in the West as Blackjack - is a supersonic strategic bomber that has been the workhorse of Russia's strategic missile forces since Soviet times. It is the largest Mach 2+ military aircraft ever built, and as of 2022 is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft still in use - while also being the fastest bomber. Pictured: A Russian Tu-160 'Blackjack' strategic bomber flies over the Volga and the cities of Engels (left) and Privolzsky (right), Saratov Region, view to the east Pictured: A Tu-95MS Bear H RF-94130 pictured flying off Scotland in 2014 Tupolev Tu-160 The Tupolev Tu-160 is a supersonic strategic bomber designed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It is the largest Mach 2+ military aircraft ever built, and as of 2022 is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft still in use - while also being the fastest bomber. Length: 177 feet 177 feet Wingspan: 182 feet 182 feet Weight: 242,508 pounds (empty) 242,508 pounds (empty) Max speed: 1,380 miles per hour /Mach 2.05 1,380 miles per hour /Mach 2.05 Range: 7,600 miles 7,600 miles Payload: Two internal weapon bays for 99,208 pounds of ordinance Two internal weapon bays for 99,208 pounds of ordinance Crew: 4 (pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, defensive systems officer) 4 (pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, defensive systems officer) First flight: December, 1981 December, 1981 Number built: 36 36 Designed by: Tupolev Design Bureau Advertisement Tupolev Tu-95 The super-loud Tu-95, known as Bear, is the only propeller-powered strategic bomber still in operational use today. The aircraft first flew 70 years ago, but was only used in combat for the first time in 2015. Length: 151 feet 151 feet Wingspan: 164 feet 164 feet Weight: 198,416 pounds (empty) 198,416 pounds (empty) Max speed: 575 miles per hour 575 miles per hour Range: 9,300 miles 9,300 miles Payload: Up to 33,000 pounds of cruise missiles Up to 33,000 pounds of cruise missiles Crew: 6 - 7 (pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, communications system operator, at least one navigator, tail gunner) 6 - 7 (pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, communications system operator, at least one navigator, tail gunner) First flight: November, 1952 November, 1952 Number built: Less than 500 Less than 500 Designed by: Tupolev Design Bureau Advertisement As of 2016, the Russian Air Force's Long Range Aviation branch had 16 aircraft in service, with upgrades on the aircraft being undertaken in recent years. The jet can carry 88,000lbs of weapons on-board, with each of its two internal bays capable of holding 44,000lbs or free-fall weapons or a nuclear missile launcher. In May 2020, it was reported that the Russian military was exploring whether the Tu-160 could carry a hypersonic missile. Russia's Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (also known as 'dagger'), is a nuclear-capable missile with a range of 1,200 miles and a speed of up to Mach 10 (ten-times the speed of sound). Meanwhile, the super-loud Tu-95, known as Bear, is the only propeller-powered strategic bomber still in operational use today. The aircraft first flew 70 years ago, but was only used in combat for the first time in 2015. It was originally intended to drop free-falling nuclear weapons, but has since been modified to perform several other roles. Putin has deployed the Tu-95s to buzz Britain at moments of high tension, for example in February this year when the Royal Air Force scrambled Typhoon fighters to escort two Bears off northern Scotland. News of Putin's increasing numbers of nuclear-capable bombers came as footage showed the moment an ammunition store inside Russia was hit by a Ukrainian strike. Pictured: An ammunition depot exploded in Belgorod after being hit by Ukrainian forces Pictured: Footage shows flames and smoke rising from the site struck by Ukrainian forces Lukashenko puts Belarus into 'state of heightened terrorism' Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of tensions on its borders. Lukashenko linked the move to his announcement on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine. 'In connection with the escalation of tension, a regime of heightened terrorist danger has been introduced,' Lukashenko said in a Russian TV interview. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert 'Therefore we began a procedure with the Union group of forces, the basis of which, as I already said, is the Belarusian army, which will be supplemented by units from the Russian Federation. Everything is going according to plan.' Allied with Moscow and wedged between Russia, Ukraine and three NATO countries, Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Its latest troop movements have raised concern in Kyiv and the West that Lukashenko may be about to commit his army to support Russia's faltering war effort. Political analysts say that is an unappealing option for him but that he may not be in a position to refuse if Russian President Vladimir Putin demands it. Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad. Advertisement The warehouse was reported to be at a sugar plant in Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. The strike seven miles inside Russia caused a major blaze with shells exploding in the inferno, according to local Telegram channels. It is the latest example of Kyiv taking the battle inside Putin's territory in retaliation for his relentless attacks on Ukraine, and in a bid to dim Russian war enthusiasm. Russian military correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny confirmed the village was hit. Other Ukrainian missiles were shot down by Russian air defence, according to reports in Belgorod. However, at least one got through hitting the warehouse. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also confirmed the strike, saying: 'An ammunition depot located in a settlement in the Belgorod District came under Ukrainian Armed Forces' fire. 'Ammunition detonated. According to preliminary reports, there were no casualties. We will now evacuate local residents to a safe distance.' Separately, he said air defence had shot down incoming missiles in Novooskol district. 'The remains fell in the area of the railway. Power lines are damaged. 'Trains are temporarily suspended. Emergency crews are waiting. I am sure that they will correct the situation very quickly and traffic will be restored. The most important thing is that there are no victims.' A day earlier, Russia claimed a tower block was hit in Belgorod city. On Friday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday promised victory over Russia as his country celebrated its first Defenders Day public holiday since the start of Moscow's invasion almost eight months ago. 'On October 14, we express our gratitude... gratitude to everyone who fought for Ukraine in the past. And to everyone who is fighting for it now. To all who won then. And to everyone who will definitely win now,' Zelensky said in a video address to mark the occasion. Zelensky laid a wreath with the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag in front of a memorial in the capital Kyiv, dedicated to soldiers killed on the frontlines since 2014, when fighting broke out with Russia-backed separatists in the east. Zelensky said that by 'defeating' Russia 'we will respond to all enemies who encroached on Ukraine'. 'This will be a victory for all our people,' he said. 'The world stands with us. More than ever in our history' he added, referring to the unprecedented support from Western capitals. Ukraine's commander-in-chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny on social media congratulated his troops and thanked them for their service. 'We have stopped the enemy onslaught and ended the myth about the invincibility of the Russian army,' he said in a video address. In Kyiv, religious services and exhibitions were planned on the occasion, with the country's post service announcing the release of commemorative stamps. Defenders Day was established in 2014 to replace a previous February 23 holiday of Soviet origin that is still celebrated in Russia. On Friday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) promised victory over Russia as his country celebrated its first Defenders Day public holiday since the start of Moscow's invasion almost eight months ago Norwegian police on Friday investigated reports of a drone that was spotted flying over the Kaarstoe gas processing plant in southwest Norway on Thursday in potential violation of security protocols. The Norwegian military Home Guard has been posted at Kaarstoe and other major energy export facilities since authorities boosted security at Norwegian oil and gas installations after the September 26 Nord Stream leaks. At 2130 local time (1930 GMT) on Thursday, the military posted at Kaarstoe reported that they had seen a drone flying in the vicinity of the plant, police official Kjetil Lussand said. 'Police responded to find the drone and find the operator. They did not find them. We have no suspects and no arrests have been made,' Lussand said. Even before the Nord Stream incidents Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) had warned energy companies to be vigilant for unidentified drones. Police on Thursday responded to a threat made by telephone against the Nyhamna gas plant, which alongside Kaarstoe and a handful of other Norwegian sites rank among Europe's largest energy export facilities. Norway is now Europe's largest gas supplier after a sharp reduction in flows from Russia. Flame and smoke rise fron Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, in Kerch, Crimea, Saturday, October 8, 2022 A firefighter helps his colleague to escape from a crater as they extinguish smoke from a burned car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 10, 2022 On Thursday, Ukraine's allies vowed to supply the besieged nation with advanced air defence systems as Russian forces attacked the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones and fired missiles elsewhere at civilian targets, payback for the bombing of a strategic bridge linking Russia with annexed Crimea. Missile strikes killed at least five people and destroyed an apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while heavy artillery damaged more than 30 houses, a hospital, a kindergarten and other buildings in the town of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russia has intensified its bombardment of civilian areas in recent weeks as its military lost ground in multiple occupied regions of Ukraine that Putin has illegally annexed. Kremlin war hawks have urged Putin to escalate the bombing campaign even more to punish Ukraine for Saturday's truck bomb attack on the landmark Kerch Bridge. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack. 'We need to protect our sky from the terror of Russia,' Zelensky told the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation. 'If this is done, it will be a fundamental step to end the entire war in the near future.' Responding to Zelensky's repeated pleas for more effective air defences, the British government announced it would provide missiles for advanced NASAM anti-aircraft systems that the Pentagon plans to send to Ukraine. The U.K. also is sending hundreds of aerial drones for information-gathering and logistics support, plus 18 howitzer artillery guns. 'These weapons will help Ukraine defend its skies from attacks and strengthen their overall missile defence alongside the U.S. NASAMS,' U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said. Other NATO defence ministers meeting this week promised to supply systems offering medium- to long-range defence against missile attacks. NATO plans to hold a nuclear exercise next week against the backdrop of Putin's insistence he would use any means necessary to defend Russian territory, including the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. The exercise takes place each year. On the battlefield Thursday in Ukraine, Russian forces hit a five-story apartment building in Mykolaiv with an S-300 missile, regional Gov. Vitaliy Kim said, a weapon ordinarily used for targeting military aircraft. An 11-year-old boy was pulled alive from the building's rubble after six hours but later died. 'No words. Creature terrorists,' Kim wrote on Telegram. Video showed rescuers working by flashlight to pull the boy out of the concrete and metal debris. As they carried him on a stretcher through the building's front door to an ambulance, a man who appeared to be his father leaned over to kiss the boy's head, then place a blanket on him. Four other people were reported killed in Mykolaiv. Elon Musk says he cannot afford to keep funding Starlink satellites that have proved vital for Ukraine in defending itself against Russia, raising fears he may cut support. The world's richest man, with a personal fortune north of $200billion, said it is costing firm SpaceX $20million per month to maintain the network that keeps roughly 20,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine running and it is not sustainable. He spoke out just days after tweeting a 'peace plan' that proposed handing chunks of Ukrainian territory to Russia that prompted a clash with President Zelensky and saw ambassador Andreij Melnyk tell him to 'f**k off'. Musk said Friday he is 'just following [the ambassador's] recommendation' when challenged over his plan to stop paying for the network on Twitter. Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, says the firm cannot continue paying for Starlink terminals to Ukraine that have proved vital in the war against Russia Musk threatened to withdraw Starlink after tweeted a 'peace plan' that prompted an ambassador to tell him to 'f*** off' - and joked he was simply 'following [the] recommendation' The SpaceX owner is the world's richest man, with a personal fortune north of $200billion Starlink terminals have allowed Ukrainian commanders and units to communicate on the battlefield when their usual networks have been taken down by Russia, and have proved vital to the war effort. They have also helped Ukrainian troops control drones which assist with reconnaissance, attacks on enemy tanks, and directing artillery fire. Interviewed in the early months of the war, one Ukrainian soldier said Starlink was the single most important piece of kit he had used. Musk tweeted: 'SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable. 'In addition to terminals, we have to create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to Internet via gateways. 'Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder. Burn is approaching ~$20M/month.' He spoke out after CNN reported that SpaceX had sent a letter to the Pentagon last month asking the US Department of Defence to start picking up the tab for Starlink in Ukraine - estimating the annual cost to be $400million. The letter was reportedly sent just days before Musk tweeted out his 'peace plan'. CNN also revealed that Valerii Zaluzhniy - the general in charge of Ukraine's forces - had sent a letter directly to Musk back in July asking for 6,000 more Starlink terminals plus 500 per month to make up for units that are being destroyed. Musk claimed the costs of running Starlink in Ukraine are roughly $20million per month, and that it is 'unreasonable' to expect him to pick up the tab Drones used in the field are able to use the newly available Starlink to keep connected and provide intelligence as internet and power outages plague Ukraine Most Starlink terminals currently in use in Ukraine were not paid for by SpaceX, but were bought by the US, Poland, UK and others. However, the technology company is responsible for running the underlying data network and shouldering the associated costs. Musk activated Starlink in Ukraine in late February after internet services were disrupted because of Russia's invasion. Since then, troops have been using small terminals to access high-speed internet when cable networks or cellphone towers have been taken out by Russia. That allows them to securely communicate, pilot drones, direct artillery strikes, film themselves fighting for propaganda purposes and speak to loved ones. Ukraine's vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said this week Starlink services helped restore energy and communications infrastructure in critical areas after more than 100 Russian cruise missile attacks. However, there have been reports that Starlink has been temporarily interrupted across the frontlines since Musk tweeted his 'peace plan' online. That plan involved ceding Crimea to Russia and assuring it has a water supply, re-running elections in occupied regions of Ukraine to break away, and a guarantee from Kyiv to remain neutral. Crimea has been part of Ukraine since it broke away from Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, with a majority of people voting to become part of the new nation. Ukrainian troops fire a mortar towards Russian lines. Starlink has proved invaluable for helping troops to effectively direct artillery fire Starlink terminals are small, portable, have low power requirements and are almost impossible for Russia to jam - providing Ukraine with an ideal communications network And elections in occupied territory - even under UN supervision as Musk suggested - would hold little legitimacy because most people who support Kyiv have fled those areas after Russian troops moved in. Moscow's soldiers have also forcibly deported anyone suspected of supporting the government in Kyiv, and encouraged thousands of their own citizens to settle there. Musk's plan prompted allegations that he had been speaking directly to Putin and had taken notes from the Russian leader, though he has denied this. Ukraine says it will never agree to cede land taken by force, and lawful referendums cannot be held in occupied territory. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was among those who criticised Musk's proposal. Ukraine's outgoing ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, also condemned the proposal in blunt terms, saying on Twitter: 'F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk.' It bills itself as a futuristic megatropolis where residents will live in a 110-mile long skyscraper, a floating city and a high-tech mountain resort. But as we find out in this video, others fear it it is a dystopian nightmare in the making. Artificial intelligence will predict what residents need, they will by whisked around at hundreds of miles an hour by high-speed transport that hasnt even been invented yet. The Saudi Arabian city of Neom will have its own digital currency, and citizens will be constantly monitored by facial recognition cameras to manage the citys power and waste resources. And Horrifying new details are emerging about the fate of three Saudi tribesman who were this week sentenced to death for trying to object to the construction on their land. A bird hunter was knocked down and trampled by a 677lb grizzly in front of his wife before he shot the enraged bear in Montana. He was at the Glacier National Park in Montana on Tuesday afternoon hunting on private property with his wife and their dogs when the bear knocked him over, charged and stepped on him. It was alleged that trouble ensued between the animal and the man as the bear was surprised by him. The man had been trying to flush out a bird and the grizzly advanced on him from the brush in a creek bottom east of Choteau. Defending himself, the man shot at the bear with a handgun and shotgun and the bear fled, wounded. After the man left with his wife and dogs, they told authorities and he spent Tuesday evening in hospital. He had suffered no claw or bite marks. He was at the Glacier National Park in Montana on Tuesday afternoon hunting on private property with his wife and their dogs when the bear knocked him over, charged and stepped on him. Pictured: A grizzly bear in Montana (file image) The 51-year-old and his wife, are from Washington state, but were not named. The bear was found by a drone and euthanised due to the injuries it suffered after a decision by bear management specialists and game wardens. This was decided even though the animal is protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. It comes after a man was fatally attacked by a grizzly bear in March. The remains of Craig Clouatre, 40, of Livingston, were discovered by Park County Search and Rescue near Yellowstone National Park. Clouatre went missing after hiking in the Six Mile Creek area of Paradise Valley on Wednesday, according to The Living Enterprise. Pictured: Craig Clouatre, 40, of Livingston, reportedly went missing after hiking in the Six Mile Creek area of Paradise Valley Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler confirmed Clouatre's death in a statement. 'It is with a very heavy heart that I am writing this update. After an extensive search this morning we have located Craig,' Bichler wrote. 'It appears he had an encounter with a grizzly and unfortunately did not survive.' 'Please keep his family and all those involved in your thoughts and prayers.' Pictured: the location of the deadly grizzly attack that reportedly took Clouatre's life in relation to Yellowstone National Park Since 2010, grizzlies in the Yellowstone region have killed at least eight people. Among them was a backcountry guide killed by a bear last year along Yellowstone's western border. Guide Charles 'Carl' Mock was killed in April after being mauled by a 400-plus pound male grizzly while fishing alone at a favorite spot on Montanas Madison River, where it spills out of the park. Grizzlies are protected under federal law outside Alaska. Elected officials in the Yellowstone region are pushing to lift protections and allow grizzly hunting. The Yellowstone region spanning portions of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming has more than 700 bears. Fatal attacks on humans are rare but have increased in recent decades as the grizzly population grew and more people moved into rural areas near bear habitat. A businessman who allowed guests to book into his hotel while it was still being built has been handed a 50,000 court bill. Naveed Mir, 51, bought a former Barclays bank and converted it into the Bank Hotel on Ripple Road in Barking, east London. During an inspection on May 25 2018, London Fire Brigade (LFB) officers found several breaches of the Fire Safety Order, and the hotel was issued with a Prohibition Notice, lasting for four months. The LFB visited again on June 19 and July 20 and discovered that the hotel had continued to take in guests and workers at a time when the hotel was still not safe. Naveed Mir, 51, bought a former Barclays bank and converted it into the Bank Hotel on Ripple Road in Barking, east London At Westminster Magistrates' Court, Tanveer Qureshi, defending Mir, said: He has been in the hotel industry in the past. It went badly wrong on this occasion. The defendant committed the offence over a very short period of time. He did not seek to disrupt or obstruct the inspectors. All inspections were unannounced. He was cooperative. There is good reason that immediate imprisonment should not be imposed in this case. The judge, Mr Recorder Nigel Sangster said that Mir's breach was 'deliberate' adding that he was 'fully aware' of his decision to let guests stay - dishing out a hefty fine. He said: Mr Mir failed to comply with the prohibition order. He allowed guests to stay there. I am satisfied that the defendant was fully aware that the building was in no fit state for anyone to sleep there. The reason he allowed workers to stay there was because of financial pressures. He was in need of funds to complete the project. This was a deliberate breach of the prohibition notice. Westminster Magistrates' Court handed Mir an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years. He also had to pay a 40,000 fine, and 10,000 towards the prosecution costs This clearly passes the custody threshold. Mir, of Barking, was given an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years. He also had to pay a 40,000 fine, and 10,000 towards the prosecution costs. The judge said: There was very little financial gain on the part of Mr Mir. Putting the lives of workers and guests at risk is a very serious offence. Mir denied the claims but was convicted of three counts of failing to comply with a requirement/ prohibition where failure risks death/serious injury in case of fire and two counts of failing to comply with any prohibition or restriction imposed by a prohibition notice. gettyimagesbank By Kang Seung-woo With North Korea's recent shows of force, an increasing number of experts are calling for the pursuit of a more realistic, attainable objective than denuclearization to deal with the North. In that respect, an arms control agreement is emerging as a likely option to deter North Korea's escalating nuclear threats, according to some diplomatic observers, while others disagree because doing so would recognize North Korea as a nuclear state. When U.S. President Joe Biden was elected in 2020, there were concerns that he would follow in the footsteps of the Barack Obama administration's policy of "strategic patience" toward North Korea, given that Biden was Obama's vice president. The strategic patience policy, which meant no engagement with North Korea as long as its leadership persisted with nuclear development and ballistic missile testing, is now taking flak because it actually failed to address the reclusive state's ever-growing nuclear and missile programs. According to South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities, North Korea is fully prepared to conduct its seventh nuclear test. "Biden's North Korea policy reflects a learning curve from 30 years of failed diplomacy. Although the U.S. and allies repeat the ritual calls for denuclearization, they all realize Kim Jong-un will not give up his nuclear weapons," said Robert Manning, a distinguished senior fellow of the Stimson Center, adding that there is little expectation that Pyongyang will engage in talks. Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London, said the U.S. has failed in its handling of North Korea's nuclear program dating back to Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s. "When the Agreed Framework was not implemented after being signed (in 1994), I think that it's too late for the Biden administration to do anything about North Korea's nuclear program," Pacheco Pardo said. The Agreed Framework was aimed at freezing and replacing North Korea's nuclear power plant program with light water reactor power plants which are more resistant to nuclear proliferation, along with the step-by-step normalization of relations between the U.S. and North Korea. "So it makes sense to consider shifting policy to arms control, which in my view should have already happened in 2006 when North Korea tested a nuclear device. Back then, North Korea had no real incentive to give up its nuclear program. That is also the case today. So I think that the U.S. and the international community at large have wasted many years pursuing a goal that was not attainable," Pacheco Pardo said. Bruce Bennett, a senior international defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, also presented a similar view, saying that the Biden administration has not denuclearized North Korea or even obtained a full or partial production freeze on nuclear weapons. "The Biden administration has allowed the most serious North Korean ballistic missile testing program ever, which while not directly nuclear, is nuclear weapon-related, and done little to deter those tests. And they have not effectively responded against North Korea's increasingly harsh threats of nuclear weapon use and its new nuclear doctrine just announced," Bennett said. Mentioning the U.S. government's current focus on China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bennett said its lack of focus on the North Korea issue may negatively affect the alliance between South Korea and the U.S. "Unless they assume a proactive approach toward North Korea, giving them more time will not moderate the North Korean nuclear weapon threat and its growth, nor will it stop Kim's effective efforts at undermining U.S. extended deterrence or the U.S.-South Korea alliance," he said. "The alliance is strong right now, but cracks and fissures are developing." Pacheco Pardo said it made sense to consider shifting the policy to arms control, which should have already happened in 2006, when North Korea tested a nuclear device. "Back then, North Korea had no real incentive to give up its nuclear program. That is also the case today. So I think that the U.S. and the international community at large have wasted many years pursuing a goal that was not attainable," he said. An arms control deal means curbing North Korea's nuclear development and avoiding the use of its existing weapons, but there are lingering concerns that should the U.S. reach such a deal with the North, it would formally recognize the Stalinist state as a nuclear power a status the country has been seeking aggressively. Manning said an arms control deal is highly unlikely, based on history. "Kim's goal is to be accepted as a de facto nuclear state like Israel or Pakistan. I suspect at some point the North may be interested in an arms control deal, a cap and freeze of their nuclear and missile program now that they are close to completing it," Manning said, questioning if the relevant countries are ready to legitimize North Korea as a nuclear state despite all the implications for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the possibility of a chain of nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia. "While it is worth exploring, a credible deal is highly unlikely. Why? The trail of failed deals helps explain why. The 2005 Agreed Statement and the 1994 nuclear deal fell apart amid issues of transparency. The North has refused to give a full statement of what and where their nuclear weapons are. If we don't know how many there are, how can we be sure the program is frozen? Secondly, Pyongyang has refused to accept IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) full verification and monitoring including challenge inspections. If we can't be sure of verification, how can we know there is a cap and freeze?" he said. To this end, Manning said he thinks there should be preconditions. "Any arms control talks need a full declaration of their nuclear inventory and a commitment to allow the IAEA adequate verification and monitoring," he said. "If Pyongyang agreed to that, then nuclear talks would have a chance of being credible." Bennett also said that one of the worst mistakes the U.S. could make now would be to reward Kim's misbehavior by recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power. However, he said there was a chance that progress can still be made with North Korea by taking an incremental approach to the North Korean nuclear threat, while dropping the strategic ambiguity approach in U.S. deterrence steps. "The U.S. should threaten North Korea with specific penalties that will be imposed should North Korea continue its missile tests or restart its nuclear tests. These penalties must affect Kim Jong-un personally he is the decision maker, and really doesn't care, for example, about sanctions applied to the personnel he uses to support his nuclear weapon development," Bennett said. "The U.S. needs to have a strategy of escalating penalties to respond appropriately, depending upon how serious any given North Korean provocation is. Moreover, those escalating penalties would threaten Kim with a more serious price to pay if he escalates after early U.S. penalties." According to him, for example, if the Kim regime continues producing nuclear weapons, the U.S. could threaten North Korea with a plan to return some of its tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, which were removed from South Korea in 1991. Bennett added that the weapons the U.S. could return would be the new B61-12 gravity bombs specifically designed to destroy deep underground facilities where Kim might hide in a conflict. He said that the only tactical nuclear weapons the U.S. has are B61 gravity bombs. Bennet said the goal would be "providing Kim with specific carrot and stick packages to incrementally address the North Korean threats." Flash floods are sweeping across Victoria with parts of Melbourne and regional towns underwater on Friday Advertisement The northern Victorian city of Shepparton has been put on high alert with residents warned floodwaters could reach 12 metres by Saturday night and break the 1974 flood record. It comes as thousands of Victorians have been told to evacuate while hundreds more have been cut off from their homes and forced to find shelter elsewhere. Torrential rain has affected metropolitan Melbourne and regional areas as authorities warn sodden catchments will create weeks of flood risk. Evacuation orders are in place for low-lying parts of Benalla on the Broken River gateway, Murchison along the Goulburn River southwest of Shepparton, Maribyrnong in Melbourne and the town of Charlton at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. The Victorian town of Seymour was underwater on Friday with Shepparton set to be hit with major floods on Saturday (pictured) A man and woman in their 60s had to be winched onto a police helicopter after their truck became stuck in floodwater in Maude, west of Melbourne, on Friday (pictured) A watch and act order has been put in place for the north of Shepparton on Friday night with flooding expected to impact properties in some areas by 11am. Up to 4,000 properties could be affected in the regional city and the surrounding Goulburn Valley areas. The Avoca River at Charlton is forecast to peak on Saturday afternoon, with the SES expecting flooding to be similar to 2010, when 40 properties were affected. The flooding there could last for up to five days, authorities warn, and could result in 70 per cent of the town going underwater. Flood levels in nearby Seymour on Friday peaked above the record levels recorded in 1974. Seymour was mostly underwater on Friday with the peak breaking the 1974 flood record (pictured) Floodwaters inundate the suburb of Maribyrnong after the Maribyrnong River burst its banks following two days of heavy rain About 70 residents were told to leave Maribyrnong in Melbourne, where a fresh evacuation order was issued on Friday afternoon after flooding. An emergency alert for residents of Rochester along the Campaspe River to evacuate immediately is in place, with about 1,000 properties expected to be inundated or isolated. Flood alerts and evacuations are in place across the state (pictured) Many in Rochester sandbagged their properties and left town but some stayed to protect their businesses, motel owner Meagan Keating said on Friday afternoon. 'The anxiety is high (because) as quick as the water is moving, it is a slow process, watching it come,' she said. Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday confirmed 500 homes have been flooded across Victoria, and another 500 homes are isolated. 'That number will definitely grow,' Mr Andrews said. Mr Andrews visited Shepparton's incident control centre on Friday. The Goulburn River has a major flood warning is in place and declared the next few days would be 'challenging' for the town. Authorities expect the city of 80,000 to experience its worst flood in decades after the river peaks on Tuesday. 'There's a big volume of water coming the way of Shepparton, Murchison and Mooroopna,' Mr Andrews said. 'I thought it was important to be here today and just to look people in the eye and ask them, "have you got everything you need?" and the good news is the answer is yes. 'But if that changes, we're here for the people of Shepparton and indeed the Goulburn Valley, and I'm pretty sure we'll be back because these next two, three, four days are going to be a very, very challenging time.' Premier Dan Andrews said on Friday Shepparton will have a 'challenging' few days ahead (pictured) Rescuer workers use an inflatable dinghy to rescue people from floodwaters in Maribyrnong Men help carry a woman who was walking with a cane through floodwaters after hundreds of homes had to be evacuated in Maribyrnong The SES fielded nearly 3600 calls for help in the 48 hours to 6pm Friday and rescued more than 230 people across the state in two days. One person was reported missing in central Victoria on Friday, but police later announced a man was rescued after he ignored a roadblock and drove into floodwaters at Newbridge. His vehicle was washed downstream and he managed to climb on to a tree branch, police said. Dozens of horses had to be rescued from floodwaters at Mangalore on Friday (pictured) Officers rescued another woman in her 70s trapped in floodwaters near Newstead along the Loddon River, and a man in a woman in a truck who became stranded trying to cross the Moorabool River at Maude. Complacency has been blamed for the number of rescues. The federal and state governments agreed on Friday to use the $580 million Mickleham quarantine facility as emergency accommodation a week after it was officially closed. The facility will reopen early next week for 250 people, with crisis accommodation available for six to eight weeks, but the Victorian government said its actual use will depend on demand. Premier Andrews also announced one-off payments of $560 per adult and $280 per child for people displaced by the floods. About 1500 applications had been made by Friday afternoon. Emergency relief centres have been set up near flood-affected areas. Emergency crews help evacuate people from Maribyrnong The Werribee River on Friday broke its banks and flooded surrounding areas (pictured) Opposition Leader Matthew Guy called on the government to declare a state of emergency, and the Victorian Farmers Federation said the state government should work with its federal counterparts and declare a natural disaster in flood-affected areas. The federal member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, said the situation was heartbreaking in the area he had called home for 30 years. 'The last big floods were in 1974, so for a lot of people this would be a new and devastating experience,' Mr Shorten said. A handful of fleeing protesters were fired upon by Iranian security forces wielding a machine gun mounted on the back of a pick-up truck, a new video shows. In the clip, which has been verified by the BBC Persian service, shots can be heard as the vehicle chases people in Baneh, in Kurdistan province in the east of Iran, indicating that the regime is stepping up its violent repression of nationwide protests. Kurdistan has seen some of the fiercest repression in the wake of the demonstrations that broke out after a young girl was killed in the custody of the morality police who had detained her for not wearing her hijab correctly. The death toll from the protests has been put at 201 by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO, although the true number is feared to be much higher. They also state that 23 of the dead are children, as the country's Gen-Z teens - those born before 2010 - have come of age and faced off against security forces. Accurate figures are hard to verify as independent media are banned from reporting from inside Iran. The regime has also disrupted internet services in the country in a bid to stifle accurate reporting getting out, as well as stymie communication and organisation by the protesters. Protesters flee from security forces in Baneh, in Kurdistan province in the east of Iran The protesters are pursued by a pick-up truck armed with a machine gun on the back that appears to be firing at them Iran has been rocked by a month of demonstrations driven by public outrage over Amini's death after the morality police arrested her for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women. Night after night, young women and schoolgirls have taken to the streets with their hair exposed and fists raised, chanting 'Woman, life, freedom' and 'Death to the dictator'. Of the hundreds of Iranian children detained after being caught up in protests, some of them have even ended up in 'psychological centres.' 'Iranian Zoomers are frustrated/angry with the status quo and aren't afraid to say it online and push outside the red lines' of the Islamic republic, tweeted Holly Dagres, an Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council think tank. Youths involved in the protests have paid with their lives, however, with the US-based rights group HRANA naming at least 26 dead children - three of them as young as 12. Meanwhile, Iran's Children's Rights Protection Society said at least 28 had been killed, including many from the underprivileged province of Sistan-Baluchestan, underlining how difficult it is to get verified figures out of the country. It said families were being 'kept in the dark' about the whereabouts of their children, and that their cases were going ahead without proper legal representation. Amnesty International said Iran's 'unrelenting brutal crackdown' involved an 'all-out attack on child protesters' that had cost the lives of at least 23 minors. But the overall number of children killed is widely believed to be much higher. A crowd of mostly female protesters chant and cheer in Iran while one of them holds up a picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in the custody of Iran's feared morality police. Over 200 are thought to have died in the month-long protests The demonstrations were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, (pictured) a woman who died in the custody of Iran's feared morality police The authorities are waging a deadly crackdown against the unrest, with more than 200 protesters feared killed in the violence, including at least 23 children Iranian students chant slogans as they protest at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology Human rights lawyer Hassan Raisi said some arrested children were being held in detention centres for adult drug offenders. 'This is very concerning,' he was quoted as saying by the London-based Iran Wire news website. Anyone 'under the age of 18 must never be held with any criminal over 18... This is a legal requirement, not a recommendation'. 'Around 300 people between the ages of 12-13 and 18-19 are in police custody,' he said, without elaborating. Among those slain in the protests are Nika Shahkarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh - 16-year-old girls whose deaths triggered an outpouring of grief in Iran and around the world. Protesting children have also been arrested inside classrooms, said Iran's Education Minister Yousef Nouri. 'They are not that many,' he told Shargh newspaper in response to a question on the number of schoolchildren arrested. 'I can't give an exact number.' Nouri said those detained were being held in 'psychological centres'. The aim, he said, was 'correction and rehabilitation' to stop them from becoming 'anti-social characters'. Protesters make fire and block the street during a protests on September 21 Iran's Teachers' Union blasted the minister in a statement that said it 'strongly condemns these unwise actions that will lead to education centres becoming like military camps'. The teachers called on 'all those involved, including the unfit education minister, to quickly release the jailed protesting pupils and colleagues of ours that have been arrested for supporting the protests'. The United Nations children's agency UNICEF said this week it was 'extremely concerned' over reports of 'children and adolescents being killed, injured and detained' in Iran. Despite the crackdown and blocks on smartphone apps popular among Iranian teens, such as Instagram and TikTok, internet-savvy youths have still managed to get out videos of their protests. They have adopted new tactics for the street too. Those heading out to protests wear masks, leave phones behind to avoid being tracked, and take extra clothes to change into if they are marked by paintballs that the security forces deploy to identify them later. Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi told Iranian media on October 5 that the 'average age of the detainees from many of the recent protests was 15'. 'Some of the teenagers and young adults arrested used similar key phrases in their confessions, such as likening street riots to video games,' he was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency. Concerns over the influence of video games have also been raised by other officials. Cleric Aboulfazl Ahmadi, head of a provincial organisation linked to the morality police, said Iran's enemies 'have banked on' the country's teenagers and that 'some video games were designed to bring the youth to the streets at times like these'. The Jewish founder of DailyWire says he 'radically disagrees' with Candace Owens and Kanye West over the rapper's anti-Semitic tweets, but will continue to work with Owens and allow West to attend events because he encourages 'open disagreement'. Ben Shapiro made the remarks yesterday after being widely criticized for allowing West to attend the premiere of Owens' documentary, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold. DailyWire produced the documentary with Owens, which accuses the BLM organization of misappropriating millions of dollars. She has defended West since he tweeted that he wanted to go 'death con 3 on Jewish people', a remark that got him banned from social media and which sickened his Hollywood friends. Shapiro, in a live video last night, explained why he hasn't cut ties with Owens and West. 'What he said is anti-Semitic. Pure, rote anti-Semitism. I do not think it is possible to defend it. Candace and I disagree with a wide variety of topics. One of the features not the bugs of DailyWire+ is that we openly disagree about all of this stuff. I share my opinions, she shares hers. We battle it out. Ben Shapiro made the remarks yesterday after being widely criticized for allowing West to attend the premiere of Owens' documentary, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold Ben Shapiro was asked today about Candace Owens defending Kanye West. One of the features not the bugs of Daily Wire is that we openly disagree about all of this stuff We battle it out. What she said about Kanye I radically disagree with. I think that shes dead wrong. pic.twitter.com/gnh7gLpp1r Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) October 13, 2022 The rapper, who has a history of mental illness, appeared at the Nashville premiere of Candace Owen's new documentary, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, which accuses the BLM organization of misappropriating millions of dollars in donations He blamed Kanye's outburst on his mental health issues. 'The real answer is Kanye is a bipolar human being. Bipolar people tend to say extraordinarily bizarre and ugly things. There's a difference between somebody saying cohesively what Kanye West said, and Kanye West saying things in broken grammar in the midst of what appears to be a bizarre period of his life.' Owens also accused JP Morgan Chase of ending its relationship with the rapper in protest over the tweet, when in fact the bank cut ties a month ago as West's relationships with Gap and Adidas fell apart. The letter from Chase read: 'We are sending this letter to confirm our recent discussion with [associate's name] that JP Morgan Chase Bank has decided to end its banking relationship with Yeezy, LLC, and its affiliated entities. 'We ask that you promptly transfer your business to another financial institution before November 21, 2022.' JP Morgan Chase broke up with Kanye in this letter that was posted by Candace Owens on Twitter. Kanye has been locked out of his accounts Owens shared her thoughts Wednesday evening about the purported corporate cancelation of Kanye by Chase Bank JPMorgan Chase did not offer an explanation as to why it cut ties with the music and design mogul, and declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com. West has also publicly disparaged his partnerships with Gap and Adidas. In September West ended his relationship with Gap and Adidas placed its highly successful partnership with West under review. 'We are proud of our team that has worked tirelessly throughout our collaboration with Ye and the iconic products that were born from it. We also recognize that all successful partnerships are rooted in mutual respect and shared values. 'After repeated efforts to privately resolve the situation, we have taken the decision to place the partnership under review,' the company said in a statement last week. On Wednesday evening, hours before West walked the red carpet at the premiere of Owens' new anti-BLM documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM, the conservative firebrand tweeted: 'Earlier today I learned that @kanyewest was officially kicked out JP Morgan Chase bank. 'I was told there was no official reason given, but they sent this letter as well to confirm that he has until late November to find another place for the Yeezy empire to bank...what has landed us in to these times is an ongoing discussion which I would like to open up,' she wrote. Following his Paris fashion week 'White Lives Matter' news cycle, Ye sat down with Fox News' Tucker Carlson to expand upon some of his more controversial views Though apparently unrelated, the timing of West's ban from Chase arrived soon after Motherboard leaked an unaired clip from his interview with Tucker Carlson, which heard him saying Planned Parenthood was created to 'control the Jew populations' through eugenics. 'When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race black really are,' he added. 'This is who our people are. The blood of Christ. This, as a Christian, is my belief.' The clip was notably absent from the interview when it aired on Fox News last week. Owens and West promoting his White Lives Matter t-shirts at his show in Paris Nevertheless, the aired portions of West's interview remained rife with bizarre statements, including a suggestion that his children had been replaced with 'professional actors' in his home to 'sexualize my kids.' He also pushed the anti-Semitic trope about Jewish people being good with money, saying 'I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering,' before chuckling. West's Twitter was suspended last weekend after he wrote, 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.' He added: 'The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' His attack on Jewish people arrived just a day after sharing screenshots on Instagram revealing messages sent to Diddy in which West, 45, accused the rapper of being controlled by Jewish people trying to silence his 'White Lives Matter' message. Following his attendance at Owens' premiere last night, West told reporters that he felt 'happy to have crossed the line of that idea so that we can speak openly about things like getting canceled from the bank.' 'People use the anti-Semite idea to cover up bad business. To say if you call someone out on bad business then you're being anti-Semitic. 'Do you think that the comment came just out of the blue? I do feel that in Hollywood when, especially with black entertainers, I've had a lot of bad experiences,' he said. Many have speculated that West - who has said he suffers from bi-polar disorder - is in the midst of a psychological episode. Envoy verified more than 100 rapes with victims aged from four to 82 years old Russian troops are using rape as a weapon of war against Ukrainians, according to damning evidence collected by the UN. Pramila Patten, UN special envoy on sexual violence, said she has verified more than 100 cases of rape against Ukrainians during the eight-month war - but the true figure is almost certain to be higher. Victims have ranged in age from four years old to 82 and have been mostly women and girls but included a number of men and young boys, she added. Russian soldiers are using rape as part of a 'military strategy' against Ukrainians, a UN special envoy has concluded (file image) Patten said survivors have told her of genital mutilations and of soldiers 'equipped with Viagra' in what appears to be a 'military strategy' to dehumanise people. 'When women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy,' she said. 'And when the victims report what was said during the rapes, it is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims.' The United Nations has verified 'more than a hundred cases' of rape or sexual assaults in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February, Patten said, referring to a UN report released in late September. The report 'confirmed crimes against humanity committed by the Russian forces, and according to gathered testimonies, the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from four to 82-years-old,' she said. Russian troops have been accused of butchering civilians in areas they occupy, and the UN now says it has verified more then 100 rapes A Ukrainian man tries to survive in the remains of his bombed-out house in Kyiv, after Russian unleashed missiles on civilian areas She added that 'reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg'. 'It's very difficult to have reliable statistics during an active conflict, and the numbers will never reflect reality, because sexual violence is a silent crime' that is largely underreported, she said. Russia invaded Ukraine back in February as Putin ordered what was supposed to be a days-long 'special military operation' to topple the government. But he now finds himself bogged down in an eight-month long war that looks set to continue for months longer at least, and suffering huge losses. Ukrainian resistance has proved fiercer than almost all observers expected, and has been spurred on by atrocities that Russia troops have committed in occupied areas. Back in April, after Putin's men withdrew from areas around the capital Kyiv, mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of civilians were uncovered. Russian soldiers have sexually abused children as young a four and people as old as 82, and have been 'equipped with Viagra', UN says (file image) Survivors of the occupation told how Russian soldiers hunted down anyone suspected of working with the government or military to interrogate and torture - some were ultimately killed. Others told how soldiers came to their homes, beat or raped them, stole, and then fled as Ukraine's forces advanced. Kyiv argues that Moscow is fighting a genocidal war aimed at wiping out their national identity by murdering innocents, deporting people into Russia, and systemic rapes. Putin denies that his armed forces are deliberately targeting civilians. Twitter users have likened Liz Truss to Forrest Gump after she appeared to storm out of her own 'car crash' press conference, which lasted for eight minutes and 21 seconds. The Prime Minister took to the podium this afternoon to say it was 'clear' that parts of the mini-budget, announced by the now departed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng last month, went 'further and faster' than expected. She said she would reverse her plan to scrap an increase in corporation tax, in a bid to quell the volatile markets. But Truss was next in line to face the wrath of the Twittersphere, which had already exploded with memes about the former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng - who was sacked earlier today. Now turning their sights on the PM, who only took four questions from journalists after her U-turn announcement, some less-than-impressed users joked she was 'as effective as a chocolate teapot'. Twitter was awash with people's takes on Liz Truss' press conference, which lasted eight minutes and 21 seconds The Daily Star has set up a livestream to see whether a lettuce or Liz Truss will 'last longer' People were quick to make a jibe at the Prime Minister's quick exit, with one comparing her to Homer Simpson disappearing into a bush. Meanwhile, the Daily Star has set up a livestream of a picture of Liz Truss next to a lettuce, in a bid to find out which will last longer. The paper said that bookies have given odds of 6-1 for the Prime Minister to be replaced faster than it takes a lettuce to decay, around 35 days. The political drama unfolded today as the former Chancellor cut short a trip to the US and flew back to London, after being summoned by Liz Truss following concerns over his mini-budget announcement on September 23. Mr Kwarteng arrived at No 10 around noon today and accepted the Prime Minister's request to stand down less than half an hour later, before leaving through the front door of No 11 with a smile on his face. Around 30 minutes later it was announced that Jeremy Hunt would be taking over the role. Following the news, Twitter went wild with memes as some joked that they had 'cheese in their fridge that had lasted longer' than Kwarteng's tenure, which lasted 38 days. It comes as today, the former Chancellor cut short a trip to the US and flew back to London, after being summoned by Liz Truss following concerns over his mini-budget announcement on September 23. Mr Kwarteng arrived at No 10 around noon today and accepted the Prime Minister's request to stand down less than half an hour later, before leaving through the front door of No 11 with a smile on his face. Around 30 minutes later it was announced that Jeremy Hunt would be taking over the role. Following the news, Twitter went wild with memes as some joked that they had 'cheese in their fridge that had lasted longer' than Kwarteng's tenure, which lasted 38 days. Others, including 'right-wing' comedian Joe Lycett, said that he had become a member of the 'anti-growth coalition' - a phrase Truss has used to describe detractors of her economic policy. Kwarteng flew back early from Washington today to have 'urgent talks' with the Prime Minister, before suggestions came out that he is facing the sack. Multiple pictures of his flight path were shared with suggestions that his plane was doing a U-turn, mere hours before the Prime Minister is expected to announce another rowing back on elements of the mini-budget. One Twitter user responded to the news of his sacking by labelling Truss and Kwarteng 'Clueless'. They posted a mock-up of the Chancellor and Liz Truss as Cher and Dionne in 90s chick flick by the same name, writing 'Kwasi Kwarteng dashes back from the US to be sacked by Liz Truss?'. Others could not help but to compare it to Nadhim Zahawi's short-lived career as Chancellor in the final days of Boris Johnson's government. Kwarteng's departure after just 38 days makes him the second shortest-serving Chancellor in modern British politics. Zahawi served the third shortest tenure with 62 days during a short-lived reshuffle under Boris Johnson. Another post shows a picture of Kwarteng appearing on University Challenge, captioned with '"Who was the shortest-serving post-war chancellor not to die in office?" BZZZZTTT "Kwarteng, Cambridge" "Correct"'. Others on Twitter called him and Prime Minister Liz Truss 'toast' and questioned his mathematics abilities after the mini-budget. One meme showed a photoshopped Ladybird children's book entitled 'Counting with Kwasi' with a picture of a child writing on a chalk board '4 - 5 = 9'. A cartoon posted by one Tweeter shows a '0' bank note with Truss and Kwarteng on the front. The Prime Minister will hold a press conference at 2pm in which she is widely tipped to bow to political and economic pressure to increase corporation tax, abandoning a major policy in the Chancellor's economic plans. In a letter, Mr Kwarteng confirmed he had been 'asked to stand aside' rather than quitting - and suggested he still believes that the tax-cuts should go ahead. A teenage girl who brandished a 10-inch kitchen knife during a vicious fight in a school cafeteria has been arrested, police have said. The 14-year-old was detained in Maryland after allegedly wielding the weapon during the wild lunchtime brawl at Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, Maryland. Footage captured by shocked bystanders shows the girl advancing towards another individual 'in a threatening manner' before School Resource Officer Deputy 1st Class Dustin Turner intervened. A teenage girl who brandished a 10-inch kitchen knife a vicious fight in a school cafeteria has been arrested, police have said The blade is then dropped to the floor and the girl is pinned down as panicked students flee the room, the video shows. She was taken into custody and transported to a law enforcement center. No one was injured in the ugly scenes but a heavy police presence remained at the school. Mr Turner was praised for how he 'quickly deescalated a situation that could have ended with injuries and/or death.' The 14-year-old was detained in Maryland after allegedly wielding the weapon during the wild lunchtime brawl School Resource Officer Deputy 1st Class Dustin Turner intervened and restrained the teenager Frederick County sheriff's office initially said the student was attempting to stab multiple people, before downplaying it to an 'isolated incident between two students in the cafeteria'. But they have since released footage of the incident because it was 'so egregious that the public had the right and the need to know,' Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said. He told Morning News Express on WFMD: 'I wanted the public to see how the resource officer that was there and responded to this so instinctively and effectively responded with a minimum use of force to a situation that could have been fatal. 'The public needs to see this because we're always faulted in law enforcement for not deescalating situations. 'If this wasn't a classic, better-than-textbook example of how to intervene and use a minimum amount of force to control the situation, there is none.' The teenager has been charged as a juvenile with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, resisting arrest, disturbing school operations, having a dangerous weapon on school property and reckless endangerment. A fifth-grade teacher at an Indiana Catholic school has been arrested and fired for creating a 'kill list' of students and colleagues she wanted to murder. Angelica Carraquillo-Torres, 25, a teacher at St. Stanislaus School in Chicago, was arrested on Thursday, the day after she told fifth-grade student Portia Jones that she had a 'kill list' and that she was suicidal. Carraquillo-Torres said 'she wanted to kill her middle school friends, her high school friends, and half of her family,' Portia told CBS 2. Portia recounted the comments made by her teacher during a meeting with another pupil, a teacher and her counsellor. During that meeting Portia said that Carraquillo-Torres also spoke about harming students. Portia Jones told CBS 2: 'She said she wanted to kill her middle school friends, her high school friends, and half of her family' St Stanislaus School in east Chicago is the Catholic school in which Angelica Carraquillo-Torres, 25, worked as a teacher Immediately after her comments were reported the allegations were brought to the school's principal, Angelica Foy. According to East Chicago Police Carraquillo-Torres admitted in that meeting with the principal that the 'kill list' existed and that at least one student was on it. She was then told to leave the school and not to return until an investigation had been carried out. Four hours later Carraquillo-Torres was reported to police, they said in a press release. Police attended the school at around 5pm that day and during an interview with the principal and assistant principal were told of the 'kill list' and that the teacher alluded to 'killing herself, students and staff,' an East Chicago Police statement said. According to police Carraquillo-Torres did not turn over the list itself. Portia's father Quiannis Jones was disappointed that the principal let the teacher leave after confessing to having made a 'kill list' A parent of a student at the school, Kirsten Saldivar, said that the communication from the school was poor and an email they sent to parents made no reference to the list The following day police obtained an emergency detention order from the Lake County Prosecutors Office, police said in the statement. The next morning they arrested her and she was taken into custody at around 11.15am. Many parents are frustrated that the school did not properly communicate with them. Portia's father, Quiannis Jones, said: 'They should have never let her walk out them doors. They should have called the police right then and there.' Another parent, Kirsten Saldivar, thought that the teacher should never have been allowed to leave the principal's office after acknowledging that some of the allegations were true. St Stanislaus School principal Angelica Foy spoke with Carraquillo-Torres shortly after she was reported by a student. She contacted the police around four hours later 'You let somebody leave who's making accusations and confirming them,' she told Fox. In an email sent to the parents by the school obtained by WGN9 the school failed to mention either the threats or the 'kill list'. In it the school said: 'We were informed of a concerning report from a student regarding comments made by the students teacher.' Saldivar said to Fox 32 Chicago: 'The original email that we received last night had no information of what was going on other than there was an issue in that specific classroom. 'We knew nothing and we went about our normal schools days like nothing was wrong.' A newlywed couple on their honeymoon are being hailed as heroes for saving 20 babies from a burning nursery in Spain. David Squillante and Doran Smith, both 38, of Bristol, Rhode Island, were on their way to a park tour in Barcelona on September 28 to celebrate their belated honeymoon when Smith noticed women screaming from a flaming nursery entryway, causing the pair to jump into action. Squillante, 38, immediately 'dropped his backpack and ran across the street' into the building from a different entrance. 'I just ran in and saw a bunch of babies sleeping and screaming,' Squillante, who comes from a family of firefighters, told NBC News. The groom, who speaks very little Spanish, said 'instinct took over' as he ran into the burning building and straight into the smoky playroom. David Squillante and Doran Smith, both 38, of Bristol, were on their way to a park tour in Barcelona when Smith noticed a nearby nursery was on fire and women screaming from a flaming entryway, causing them to jump into action on September 28 Squillante immediately 'dropped his backpack and ran across the street' into a different entrance and immediately started handing kids to his wife and putting more in cribs to wheel them out (pictured) Nursery staff helped them pull the children from the nursery. When asked why the staff hadn't evacuated the building yet, Smith told DailyMail.com: 'There werent flames in the nursery, so I think the staff was just trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from and trying to decide what to do' They managed to get the children to safety at a local high school across the street and the couple believes no one was hurt Smith, who married Squillante in 2020, told DailyMail.com that she didn't know how the fire started or how long it was going on before the couple arrived, but they believe it was an 'electric fire in the walls.' 'It did seem like we walked by right when the chaos was starting though.' Squillante began placing around 20 children into cribs as the smoke got heavier and wheeling them out to his new wife, all while trying to calm the nursery staff. He found one of the children in a playhouse and handed the child off to his partner, who said the baby seemed frightened but wasn't crying like the others and squeezed her finger when she held them. Smith told DailyMail.com that the staff likely hadn't evacuated the building yet because 'there werent flames in the nursery.' 'I think the staff was just trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from and trying to decide what to do.' 'We couldnt speak the language, but there was a universal language - we were all just trying to help,' Smith, who is a software engineer, told the Boston Globe. As others jumped in, they started passing babies down a line out of the building and into a local high school across the street. The whole process took around 10 minutes, the couple said. The honeymooners left soon after the firefighters arrived and believe no one was injured. The couple then went straight to their park tour, showing up about 30 minutes late. The surreal experience didn't hit them until later, they said. While on the tour, they turned to each other and said, 'remember that time we saved a bunch of babies?' 'It felt like we watched it in a movie, it just didn't feel real,' Squillante, who works in food sales, told the Globe. Directly after, they continued on to their park tour, which they showed up to 30 minutes late. It wouldn't hit them until later, when they turned to each and said: 'Remember that time we saved a bunch of babies?' The couple married in October 2020, but did not take their honeymoon until September 2022 due to the pandemic Smith said the moment her husband ran into the building without a second thought was when she realized he was the person to have around in an emergency. Squillante has a knack for being in the right place at the right time - as this wasn't his first experience saving lives by accident. In another close save, he and a paramedic stopped a man from jumping over an overpass, all while Squillante was just cruising around on unfamiliar roads on his motorcycle. The selfless bystander also once went out in the rain to help find his friend's missing dog - only to locate a man passed out while on a bike ride, and the missing pooch. Since the fire, the food salesman said he is looking into following in his father and grandfather's footsteps and becoming a volunteer firefighter. Border patrol officials found $400,000 worth of meth hidden inside pumpkins at the U.S-Mexico border in Texas. The drug haul was uncovered after a closer check of an SUV coming over from Mexico at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry across from Piedras Niegras occurred. Officers discovered 136 condoms with 44 pounds of liquid meth stuffed inside four pumpkins in the 2012 Ford Escape. CBP seized the haul and released an image which seemed to show the huge quantity of drugs packed into the vegetable. Both drug smugglers, who were the driver and passenger of the SUV, were arrested and are being investigated by Maverick County Sheriff's Office. Acting Eagle Pass Port Director Elizabeth Garduno said: 'Our frontline CBP officers have seen just about everything and this Tuesday was no exception as they encountered liquid methamphetamine hidden within pumpkins. 'They utilized their training, experience, interviewing skills and uncovered a rather novel narcotics smuggling method in the process.' The drug haul, was uncovered after a closer check of an SUV coming over from Mexico at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry across from Piedras Niegras occurred. Pictured: One of the four pumpkins found stuffed with drugs Both drug smugglers, who were the driver and passenger of the SUV, were arrested and are being investigated by Maverick County Sheriff's Office. Pictured: Eagle Pass It's not the first time criminals have used vegetables to try and sneak large quantities of meth into America. On February 20 this year, US Customs and Border Protection agents foiled an attempt to smuggle $2.9 million of meth disguised as onions into California. The massive shipment was rumbled when customs agents examined a tractor trailer in a routine check. It had crossed from Mexico through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in Otay Mesa. CBP officers referred the truck's 46-year-old Mexican driver to an intrusive inspection and used a sniffer dog to screen the truck and the trailer when the dog picked up a strange smell. In among the tens of thousands of regular onions, border agents found 1,197 packages of methamphetamine that were shaped into small globes with a white covering and apparently intended to look like the vegetable. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in Otay Mesa, California, seized a $2.9 million shipment of methamphetamine off a tractor trailer that crossed from Mexico on February 20 CBP said a sniffer dog led agents to 1,197 packages of methamphetamine that were mixed with thousands of pounds of onions that were shipped from Mexico 'This was not only a clever attempt to try and smuggle in narcotics, one I haven't seen before, but also time consuming to wrap narcotics into these small packages, designed to look like onions,' said Sidney Aki of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in San Diego. 'These efforts show how effective our officers are, and as a response, the lengths drug trafficking organizations are willing to go as they try to smuggle narcotics into the U.S. While we have certainly seen narcotics in produce before, it's unusual for us to see this level of detail in the concealment,' he added. The driver was apprehended on an attempted drug smuggling charge and then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further processing. Nearly 15,000 migrants in New York City will be distributed across its five boroughs, with Queens housing the most despite its borough president saying it does not have enough resources to do so. Queens will house 4,782 of the 14,777 migrants, or 32 percent, according to the Department of Homeless Services. 'It's a powder keg in Queens at this point,' said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. Brooklyn will house the second-most, with 3,906 (26 percent), followed by Manhattan with 2,913 (20 percent), the Bronx with 2,587 (18 percent) and Staten Island with 589 (4 percent). 'There are several crises. You have a recession coming. We have a lack of affordable housing, rising rents. We have food insecurity. This is a recipe for a social and economic disaster,' Richards said. Earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams warned each borough that 'every community is going to see asylum-seekers' and that the city 'can't give people a month heads-up' before migrants are moved into the communities. 'As the emergency comes, we have to make these on-the-ground moves and make sure that we deal with the crisis that's in front of us,' Adams said. Migrants have been sent to local hotels - including Times Square-adjacent, $700-a-night Row NYC - and housing shelters. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards responded to a decision by the city to send nearly one-third of the 15,000 migrants to Queens, adding that it is 'a recipe for a social and economic disaster' Construction takes place of a new facility to house migrants on Randall's Island Construction takes place of a new facility to house migrants on Randalls Island, New York. 14 October 2022. The future 'tent city' is meant to house 500 migrants Cot beds can be seen as construction takes place of a new facility to house migrants on Randalls Island, New York. 14 October 2022 The inside of one tent shows several cot beds adjacent each other, with included pillows and sheets It is unknown how many tent-like structures will be constructed The Randall's Island project follows a failed Brooklyn tent-city idea that was scrapped because of flooding Restroom and shower facilities can be seen at the new Randall's Island project According to the New York Post, some Staten Island-based migrants are staying at the Staten Island Inn, a Holiday Inn and Fairfield Inn and Suites Marriott. The Staten Island Inn is currently fully booked. In Queens, Richards said the borough does not have 'enough bilingual teachers and or mental health counselors' to support incoming migrant families. 'It's beyond ridiculous,' he said. 'We open our arms to everyone, but we definitely need resources.' Adams declared a state of emergency over the crisis and has said the Big Apple needed $1 billion in federal funding to deal with the influx of people. Desperate for solutions to the crisis, a frantic Mayor Adams has even suggested renting out cruise ships for temporary housing of the city's newest residents until their immigration situations are sorted. The city is currently building a 'tent city' on Randall's Island, which is expected to house 500. Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency and said each borough will be bringing in migrants In response to the sudden surge of migrants, Adams said 'we can't give people a month heads-up' before migrants are moved into communities Migrants will be moved into local hotels, like $700-a-night Row NYC, and housing shelters, some of which are already at capacity Hundreds - if not thousands - of asylum seekers will be moved to chic rooms such as this one A recent influx of migrants conflates with an ongoing homeless shelter crisis within the city. New York City reported a 31 percent increase in its homeless shelter population between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022, according to data released by the Office of the New York State Comptroller. 'The surge in the city's homeless shelter population is straining shelter capacity and is projected to surpass its previous peak of 61,415,' the data reads. An estimated 60,008 were counted living in city's homeless shelters as of September 30. 'A plan was developed to build new, purpose-built, nonprofit-operated shelters; however, many of these were put on hold during the pandemic and in the transition to the Adams administration,' reads the comptroller's most recent report. 'As the number of homeless people has surged in recent months, the city has utilized emergency procurement to open 42 new shelter locations, many of them hotels.' Paying for a single adult in a shelter costs the city an average of $136 per night, while an adult family costs $172 and $188 for a family with children. 'Rising rents are likely to both increase the need for shelter, as struggling New Yorkers are unable to find affordable housing, and increase the of cost providing shelter, as the City must find more housing in a tight market,' it continues. In the last 12 months, New York City rent has risen by 19 percent on average. Rent in Queens, the borough to receive the largest number of migrants, has increased just under 14 percent in the last year. Manhattan's rent has risen the most of the five boroughs, jumping 20 percent. Adams declared a state of emergency over the crisis, and has said the Big Apple needed $1 billion in federal funding to deal with the influx of people Gov. Kathy Hochul has urged the Biden administration to 'take ownership' of the migrant crisis Nearly 2,000 asylum seekers from Latin America arrived in New York City over the weekend. It's estimated that over 700,000 undocumented immigrants live in the city. For the first time ever, Customs and Border Patrol reported 2.15 million migrant encounters from October 2021 to August 2022. That figure has never broken two million for an entire fiscal year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul went after the Biden administration for 'failing to take ownership' of the migrant crisis that now has stretched all the way to New York City. 'We really are looking for a federal response to this to take ownership of a crisis and we'll be there to help, but this belongs to the federal government,' Hochul said. 'We want the federal government to see that this is a humanitarian crisis.' Hochul's gubernatorial opponent, GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, said New York must end its cushy policies toward migrants. 'There are sanctuary state policies that New York has that should be ended. We saw it with the creation of a multi-billion dollar Excluded Workers Fund that was created. They raise taxes in order to pay for it,' Zeldin said. For the first time ever, Customs and Border Patrol reported 2.15 million migrant encounters from October 2021 to August 2022 In speaking about the migrant crisis, Hochul added: ''We want the federal government to see that this is a humanitarian crisis' Over the Covid-19 pandemic, New York set up the Excluded Workers Fund, which doled out more than $2 billion to undocumented immigrants who were not eligible for other pandemic assistance. 'There's a Green Light Law that is in place that prevents federal law enforcement from being able to get access to DMV records,' Zeldin added. In April, Hochul herself signed a bill allowing senior illegal immigrants to apply for Medicaid. 'There was just an expansion of all Medicaid, where they're now providing additional tax dollars to people who aren't legally here,' Zeldin continued. After several failed courses of action to quell the burden on the city's shelter system - such as a planned tent city in The Bronx that was scrapped due to flooding and a proposed facility on Randall's Island that also never materialized - Adams revealed Wednesday that he and his team had gone back to the drawing board. Meanwhile, more and more busses continue to arrive to the city's Port Authority Bus Terminal each day - bringing with them hundreds of tired, huddled men, women, and children at a time. 'As the numbers of asylum seekers entering New York City continues to increase without an end in sight, the citys family-focused Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center will soon open to serve families with children and provide them with the care and compassion they deserve,' Adams said of the revived Row plan. Adams, who has been engaged in a very public war of words with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the unsanctioned arrivals, added that 'this is not an everyday homelessness crisis.' 'These humanitarian emergency response centers will take on a multitude of looks with the similarities that they will all help triage and provide immediate support to arriving asylum seekers.' Adams has been engaged in a very public war of words with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the unsanctioned arrivals New York officials have also accused Abbott of placing bar codes on record numbers of migrants being bused into the Big Apple Adams and Abbott, 64, have been locked in a bitter feud over the mass migration, which has seen Abbott spend upward of $14 million sending tens of thousands of migrants to cities including Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago - all self-proclaimed sanctuary cities. The maneuver is an apparent political statement about the rising number of migrants at the Texas border. Abbott and other Texas officials have been criticized by Adams and others for not providing notice about bus arrivals and have been accused of using the asylum seekers as pawns for his own political ends. New York officials have also accused Abbott of placing bar codes on record numbers of migrants being bused into the Big Apple, calling the move an intimidation tactic amid a growing feud between the states over asylum seekers. Earlier this week, Abbott acknowledged an email from Adams office - after asserting for months that the mayor had yet to reach out to him - but said that an invitation remained open for the mayor to visit the southern border. Adams has also claimed that if officials in Texas and Arizona, where the majority of migrants are being bused from, had first reached out to New York to coordinate a plan, the city would've been able to allocate a budget to help the migrants. 'But we didn't get the support and information we asked for, and now, New York City is being forced to bear far more than its share of this national crisis,' Adams chided. 'Our right to shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain.' The Democrat-run city of El Paso in Texas has been bussing migrants north to cities such as Chicago and New York Migrants wait to be bused out of El Paso The federal government has been releasing hundreds of migrants onto the streets of El Paso El Paso, which sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico, has bused roughly 7,000 migrants to New York City since late August and sent more than 1,800 to Chicago, a city-run effort that far exceeds the more ad-hoc transportation of the past. Abbott has bused more than 3,000 migrants to New York City and more than 900 to Chicago as part of a high-profile campaign to put a spotlight on the record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas and Arizona combined have also bused over 10,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. However, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, said the city's program is 'completely different' than the other busing efforts and that they seek to 'treat people with respect.' The city's busing effort has received less attention than Abbott's program, who is seeking a third term in Nov. 8 midterm elections. A TV screen shows file images of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 13. AP-Yonhap North Korea on Friday fired a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) into the East Sea and about 170 artillery shots into maritime "buffer zones" set under a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction accord, the South Korean military said. The provocative move came after more than 10 North Korean warplanes staged menacing flights close to the inter-Korean border, prompting the South Korean Air Force to scramble its F-35A stealth fighters and other assets to the scene, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JCS said it detected the SRBM launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 1:49 a.m., and that the missile flew some 700 kilometers at an apogee of 50 km at a top speed of about Mach 6. It also detected the North's firing of some 130 artillery shots into the Yellow Sea from Majang-dong, Hwanghae Province, between 1:20 a.m. and 1:25 a.m., and of some 40 artillery shots into the East Sea from Gueup-ri, Gangwon Province, between 2:57 a.m. and 3:07 a.m. The artillery shots landed in eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border, which were delineated under the two Koreas' Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) signed on Sept. 19, 2018, to reduce tensions. The North's Korean People's Army said later via the country's state media that it took "strong countermeasures" in response to what it claims to be a 10-hour-long South Korean artillery exercise. Seoul officials said the artillery exercise in question was conducted by the U.S. Forces Korea at a firing range in Cheorwon, some 71 km northeast of Seoul, from 8 a.m. through 6 p.m. on Thursday, involving multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). The JCS issued a statement criticizing the artillery firing and the SRBM launch as a "clear" violation of the CMA and U.N. Security Council resolutions, respectively. "Our military gravely warns North Korea regarding the fact that it has violated the Sept. 19 military agreement and escalated military tensions on the Korean Peninsula through continued provocations, and strongly urges it to immediately cease them," the JCS said. It added, "Our military will keep maintaining a firm readiness posture based on capabilities to respond overwhelmingly to any North Korean provocations." One of Germany's largest mosques sounded the call to prayer for the first time today after a years-long battle with local authorities. The Central Mosque, in the city of Cologne, played the muezzin call shortly after 3pm today inviting the city's 100,000 Muslims to pray. Mosques elsewhere in Germany have long been allowed to play the call, but Cologne's move is significant because of the mosque's prominence. The Central Mosque, in Cologne, played the muezzin call shortly after 3pm today for the first time, after the city's mayor allowed it to go ahead Run by the the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, or DITIB, it was inaugurated by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018. The city's mayor has said that allowing the call - which can play for a maximum of five minutes between 3pm and 4pm each Friday - is a symbol of tolerance. But critics say the call is actually symbolic of a brand of repressive Islam and casts the city in a poor light. Other have argued that the mosque itself is a soft power play by Turkish autocrat Erdogan, and allowing the call to play is a symbolic victory for his regime. DITIB says an agreement for a two-year trial of the call was made with the city on Wednesday. The mosque is one of Germany's largest but the call has been opposed by locals who argue it represents a repressive brand of Islam Until now, the call to prayer was heard only inside the building. On Friday, it is to be broadcast by loudspeaker and will be audible outside, though authorities stipulated that it should be limited to 60 decibels for nearby residents. Cologne's mayor has said that allowing the call to prayer shows diversity is appreciated in the city. Still, the restrictions imposed on the project point to the sensitivity of the subject. And the construction of the Central Mosque itself drew opposition from right-wing groups, Cologne's then-archbishop and others in the late 2000s. The mother and widow of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs have broken their silence, days after a former team staffer was sentenced to 22 years in prison for supplying the fentanyl-laced pills that led to his death in 2019. On Friday morning, Tyler's widow Carli Skaggs and his mom Debbie Hetman gave their first televised interview since his death, speaking with Good Morning America. 'I couldn't believe it was true. I mean that day still haunts me,' Hetman recalled of the day Tyler, 27, was found dead in a Dallas hotel room during an Angels road series in Texas. Carli said that she was driving in her car on July 1, 2019 when she saw a call come in from the Angels general manager, and immediately 'knew it was bad.' 'I didn't want to hear what he was going to tell me. I knew my life changed forever in that moment,' she said. But she said she had 'not a clue' that her husband had a drug problem, calling it 'the last thought that crossed my mind.' The family's tragedy came to a conclusion of sorts on Tuesday, when former Angels communications director Eric Kay was sentenced to 22 years in prison for providing the drugs that led to Tyler's fatal overdose. Tyler's widow Carli Skaggs and his mom Debbie Hetman gave their first televised interview since his 2019 death of a drug overdose involving fentanyl-laced pills Skaggs, 27, was found dead in a Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019, after choking to death on his vomit with a toxic mix of alcohol and various drugs in his system Former Angels communications director Eric Kay (right) was sentenced to 22 years in prison for providing the drugs that led to Tyler's fatal overdose 'We're fortunate because we can hold somebody accountable for our son's death and a lot of people aren't able to do that right now with this fentanyl crisis,' said Hetman. 'I miss Tyler so much. He was my only son and, you know, I'm not going to be a grandma. I'm not going to be able to hold a grandchild and those things,' the grieving mother added. Carli revealed that the couple had been planning to try for their first baby after the fatal Texas road trip. 'I distinctly remember four days before he passed away we talked about it and he said, when I get back from Texas,' the widow recalled. 'He would have made an amazing father. He was so great with kids and I wonder sometimes if I'll ever be as happy as I was. I have a lot of healing to do, you know. I have faith that I'll get there,' she said. In court, prosecutors presented evidence of Kay, 48, making derogatory comments about Skaggs, his family, prosecutors and jurors in phone calls and emails after he was convicted in February. Hetman reacted in the interview saying: 'Through this entire three years, he's deflected. He's not taken responsibility. And the fact that he speaks what he spoke about myself, my family, my son, it's unacceptable.' Carli revealed that the couple had been planning to try for their first baby after the fatal Texas road trip 'We're fortunate because we can hold somebody accountable for our son's death and a lot of people aren't able to do that right now with this fentanyl crisis,' said Hetman Carli Skaggs, left, wife of Tyler Skaggs and his mother Debbie Skaggs are shown with the jersey and photos of the Angels pitcher in Los Angeles in 2020 She also slammed Kay over claims that he was in the room as Skaggs overdosed, but failed to render aid. 'That haunts me all the time. To think that somebody is in the room and doesn't render help to your child, to your son. So heartbreaking,' she said. Carli lamented that she didn't join her husband on the trip to Dallas. 'You know, I always think about if -- why didn't I go to Texas. I wish I was there to save him, but he shouldn't have needed it,' she said. At Tuesday's sentencing hearing, the judge gave Kay two additional years on top of the 20-year minimum for his remarks behind bars disparaging Skaggs and his family. Kay, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs and leg shackles, didn't react when U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means read his sentence. There was emotional testimony from both sides in federal court in Fort Worth, about 15 miles from where the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers on July 1, 2019, the day Skaggs was found dead in a suburban Dallas hotel room. An impromptu memorial is set up on outside Angel Stadium in Anaheim on July 1, 2019 in memory of Angel pitcher Tyler Skaggs who died that day in Texas Kay was convicted on one count each of drug distribution resulting in death and drug conspiracy. A coroners report said Skaggs, 27, had choked to death on his vomit and that a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was in his system. The trial included testimony from five major league players who said they received oxycodone pills from Kay at various times from 2017-19, the years Kay was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to players at Angel Stadium. Kay also used drugs himself, according to testimony and court documents. He had been in prison in Fort Worth, Texas, up until his sentencing, but will likely serve the 22 years in his home state of California. Attorneys for Kay say they plan to appeal his conviction. A delivery driver who strangled his lover with a phone charger cord told detectives he 'felt the urge to just kill her' when she threatened to tell his wife of their affair. Chulsoo Jung, 56, will spend at least 13 years behind bars for murdering Min Sook Moon, 49, whose family reported her missing in March 2021. Ms Moon was last seen walking along Rawson St in Epping on March 8 last year and her body was found in a Silverwater park later that month. On Friday, Jung faced the NSW Supreme Court where Justice Ian Harrison sentenced him to a term of 18 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 13 years and six months after he previously pleaded guilty in February. Min Sook Moon (pictured), 49, was strangled after she threatened to expose her affair with a delivery driver to his wife In handing down sentence, Justice Harrison noted Jung had shown deep regret for killing Ms Moon, whom he had been having an initimate affair with for several years in the lead-up to the 'undeserving' crime. He pointed to it being highly unlikely that Jung would ever reoffend, his lack of criminal history and that he would be much older when released from jail. The judge also noted that Jung, who was born in South Korea and moved to Australia in 2010, had assisted investigators in locating the body of Ms Moon, and his guilty plea afforded him a 25 per cent discount on his sentence. The court heard that Jung, who would deliver food to Ms Moon's Korean food store in Epping, killed her by strangling her with a phone charger cord, angered she would expose him to his family. 'Without me realising it... I felt the urge to just kill her,' he told police, court documents show. The attack took at least five-and-a-half minutes and was carried out when she got into the passenger seat of his van, before he buried her at Blaxland Riverside Park near a tree. The murder, which involved a prolonged exertion of force, possibly took place in the context of strain, or an ending, to the extra-marital affair, the judge said, describing the killing as a 'violent act of uncontrollable passion'. 'On Jung's account he just went crazy,' Justice Harrison said, noting that crimes of passion needed to be punished and that Jung's brutal loss of self control was carried out on Ms Moon, who was an unsuspecting victim. Jung, in a green prison tracksuit, appeared via audio-visual link from Parklea Prison and showed little emotion as the sentence was handed down. These have been heightened after Russia suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks in recent weeks Fears have risen in recent weeks over the possibility of Moscow launching nuclear strikes against Ukraine Russian strongman insisted it was not his goal to destroy Ukraine, and said he had no regrets over invasion He said his mobilisation was getting close to achieving its target of calling up 300,000 new troops The Russian president spoke today from Astana, Kazakhstan after a meeting between ex-Soviet allied states Advertisement Vladimir Putin said today that a direct clash between NATO and Russian troops would lead to a 'global catastrophe', adding that he sees no need to carry out massive strikes against Ukraine... 'for now'. The Russian strongman also said the recent military mobilisation he ordered is coming to an end, and he has no plans for further conscriptions once it has finished. He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part. Vladimir Putin said today (pictured during a press conference in Astana) that a direct clash between NATO and Russian troops would lead to a 'global catastrophe', adding that he saw no need to carry out massive strikes against Ukraine... 'for now' Putin was speaking in Astana after a meeting of The Commonwealth of Independent States Summit (CIS), where he sat down with fellow leaders of ex-Soviet states. Other attendees included Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, who said on Friday that Russian troops would soon be arriving to take part in a 'regional grouping' of forces to protect its borders. 'The introduction of troops into a direct confrontation with the Russian army is a very dangerous step that could lead to a global catastrophe,' Putin told reporters. 'I hope that those who speak of this have enough sense not to take such steps.' He said he currently saw no need for 'massive strikes' on Ukraine now having hit their intended targets earlier in the week - but that could change in the future - and insisted that it was not his goal to destroy Ukraine. 'There is no need now for massive strikes. There are other tasks. For now. And then it will be clear,' he said, adding: 'We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not,' Putin said. Fears have risen in recent weeks over the possibility of Moscow launching nuclear strikes, after suffering a series of embarrassing setbacks in Putin's invasion. It was revealed on Friday - shortly before he spoke in Astana - that Putin has increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, satellite images show. He went on to say that the 'partial mobilisation' he announced last month, which the defence minister said aimed to recruit 300,000 soldiers, was finishing and would be over within two weeks. 'Nothing additional is planned. No proposals have been received from the defence ministry and I don't see any additional need in the foreseeable future. 'Now 222,000 people have been mobilised out of 300,000. Within about two weeks, all mobilisation activities will be completed.' A total of 33,000 of them are already in military units and 16,000 are involved in the military operation in Ukraine, he said. He said his decision to call-up of reserve forces to fight in Ukraine, criticised as chaotic by some Kremlin allies, had been vital to hold the front line. 'The line of contact is 680 miles so it is practically impossible to hold it with forces formed only of contract soldiers, especially since they take part in offensive activities,' Putin claimed. Pictured, from left: Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon and Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov attend a joint photographing ceremony before the Russia-Central Asia Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 Pictured: (right to left, clockwise) Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon and Turkmenistan's President Serdar Berdymukhamedov attend the Central Asia - Russia summit in Astana, Kazakhstan Russian troops have raped more than 100 Ukrainians with victims as young as FOUR, UN report says Russian troops are using rape as a weapon of war against Ukrainians, according to damning evidence collected by the UN. Pramila Patten, UN special envoy on sexual violence, said she has verified more than 100 cases of rape against Ukrainians during the war - but the true figure is almost certain to be higher. Victims have ranged in age from four years old to 82 and have been mostly women and girls but included a number of men and young boys, she added. Patten said survivors have told her of genital mutilations and of soldiers 'equipped with Viagra' in what appears to be a 'military strategy' to dehumanise people. 'When women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy,' she said. 'And when the victims report what was said during the rapes, it is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims.' The United Nations has verified 'more than a hundred cases' of rape or sexual assaults in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February, Patten said, referring to a UN report released in late September. The report 'confirmed crimes against humanity committed by the Russian forces, and according to gathered testimonies, the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from four to 82-years-old,' she said. Advertisement Asked if he had any regrets over ordering the invasion of his neighbouring country on February 24, Putin said: 'No.' He acknowledged that the war us unpleasant, but said he believed what his forces were doing was right. 'I want to make it clear: what is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, but we would have got the same thing a little later, only in worse conditions for us, that's that,' he said. 'So we are acting correctly and in a timely manner.' Putin said he 'doesn't see the need' for talks with US President Joe Biden over an end to the war, but suggested he was open to talks with Kyiv. 'We should ask him if he's ready to hold such talks with me or not. I don't see the need, to be honest,' Putin said, asked about a potential meeting with Biden on the sidelines of a G20 summit in November. He added that his participation in the summit hosted by Indonesia is not yet decided. 'The question of my trip there has not been finalised. Russia will certainly take part. As for the format, we're still thinking about it,' Putin told reporters following a summit in Kazakhstan. Speaking earlier this week, Biden said he had 'no intention' of meeting with Putin but did not rule out potential talks. He also attacked Germany for siding with NATO. '(Germany) must decide what is more important for them: the fulfillment of alliance obligations, as they see it, or their national interests. In this case, it seems that Germany placed its obligations to the (NATO) alliance above all. I believe that this is a mistake,' he said. 'German citizens, businesses, and its economy are paying for this mistake, because it has negative economic consequences for the eurozone as a whole, and in Germany. But very few people take into account its interests, otherwise Nord Stream 1 and 2 would not have been undermined. 'But although one branch remains, as I said, in working order, a decision has not been made and is unlikely to be made. But this is no longer our business, this is the business of our partners.' Meanwhile, Lukashenko warned Ukraine and the West on Friday not to force his ally Russia into a corner, saying Moscow had nuclear weapons for a reason. In extracts of an interview with the American TV channel NBC released by Belarus's state news agency, Lukashenko said: 'The most important thing is, don't drive your interlocutor and even your opponent into a corner. So you mustn't cross those lines - those red lines, as the Russians say. You can't cross them.' Concern has mounted in the West that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear weapons since a series of defeats for his forces in Ukraine swung the momentum of the war in Kyiv's favour. 'As for nuclear weapons, any weapon is a weapon created for something,' Lukashenko was quoted as saying. 'Russia has clearly outlined its position: God forbid there will be an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation; in that event, Russia can use all types of weapons if necessary.' Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the plenary session of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS) Summit, October 14, 2022 in Astana, Kazakhstan The call-up, announced by Putin in September, has proved hugely unpopular in Russia, where almost all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. The Russian leader initially described the mobilisation as 'partial' and said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. However, a decree he signed outlined almost no specific criteria. Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience, including those ineligible for service for medical reasons. In the wake of the president's mobilisation order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. In the wake of Putin's order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. Reports have surfaced since then of recruits getting deployed to the front lines in Ukraine with little training and inadequate equipment. Several mobilised reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, several days after they were drafted. While Putin struck a confident tone about hitting his mobilisation target, report from Russia on Friday said sinister raids by conscript-catchers have begun in Moscow and St Petersburg - in a sign that he is getting desperate. Police alongside enlistment officers are said to be lurking on street corners and near blocks of flats. The armed recruiters are cruising offices seeking men to join the war, while there have been previous reports of them picking up homeless men. In some cases enlistment teams are reportedly using facial recognition cameras to snare dodgers. 'They are acting like dog catchers,' said one comment. 'It's sickening how they are dragging men away as cannon fodder.' In Polyustrovo Park residential complex, St Petersburg men of mobilisation age were trapped near the entrance for summonses to be served. Pictured: Russian police alongside enlistment officers are seen searching for men to sign up for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine Russian recruits gather inside a military recruitment center of Bataysk, Rostov-on-Don region, south of Russia, Sept. 26, 2022 Russian recruits take a bus near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sept. 25 Russian recruits gather to take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, Volgograd, Sept 29 In Moscow, there was a mass delivery of summonses at underground stations, reported Ostorozhno News. Eyewitnesses said police officers interview men, take their personal details, then serve some of them with summonses. Some people are taken away to police cars. Pavel Chikov, prominent lawyer and human rights activist, warned: 'increasing reports of raids'. 'There are cases of summonses being served on the street, citizens being detained by the police in the subway and hotels, and their forced delivery to military enlistment offices or mobilisation points' He stated: 'This practice is illegal.' Senator Andrey Klishas - from pro-Putin United Russia party - called for checks on whether it was legal to pluck men from the metro and force them to the war. The authorities are using police, traffic police, FSB security service and residential databases to track down possible dodgers. They are also raiding offices to root out men of mobilisation age, even though Russians were promised that one one percent of the male population would be sent to Putin's war. 'Police officers walk around the floors and take men of military age,' reported a source of The Village online media. 'In the morning there was one [...] wagon, it was filled. A second was brought. They took our administrator and other men who were on the first floor. [Men] are caught in the corridor. Specifically, three policemen came to our reception.' Reservists are vulnerable for mobilisation to the lower ranks up to the age of 35. Junior officers can be called up to the age of 50. Senior officers can be drafted up to 55. The conscript-catching raids seem to give the lie to claims in Russia that the first wave of mobilisation is over, and that no second wave has begun. Putin's comments came after widespread attacks against Ukraine, such as those Russia launched Monday in retaliation for an October 8 truck bomb explosion on a prized bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. The Kerch Bridge explosion followed Ukraine's recapturing of occupied areas in the country's east and south in continuing counteroffensives that have restored Ukrainian confidence and embarrassed Russia's military. The Russian tyrant has gradually increased the number of strategic bombers at Olenya air base - from none on August 12, to four supersonic Tu-160s on August 21, to 11 now - satellite images released on Friday revealed. Vladimir Putin has again increased his strategic nuclear bombers at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, say reports. Pictured: A satellite image taken on October 7, 2022 shows seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the Olenya airbase, Russia Kola Peninsula Pictured: The runway of the Olenya air base at the Kola Peninsula is seen empty on August 12, 2022 Pictured: Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' seen at Olenya air base around August, 21 2022 by an Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat Intl Pictured: The Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' (at the base since August 21, 2022) were joined by three Tu-95 'Bears' by September 25 The increase of nuclear-capable bombers comes amid high tension over whether Putin (seen today) plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine , which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months There are seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red on newly released satellite images) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the facility on the Kola Peninsula - found in the extreme northwest of Russia, and in the Arctic Circle. The disclosure comes from Faktisk.no - an independent Norwegian fact checking website - which obtained the data from American satellite operator Planet. The buildup above at the air base follows international concern over another report two weeks ago, when The Jerusalem Post revealed there was an 'unusual deployment' of seven nuclear bombers at the airbase. This was highlighted by Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International which detected the 'irregular presence' of TU-160s and TU-95s. The Armageddon planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 450 miles south-east of Moscow. Now, however, the bombers are stationed around 115 miles away from the border of NATO member Norway, and about 95 miles away from the soon-to-become Alliance member, Finland. They can also be used with conventional weapons. There is evidence the deployment at Olanya has Kh-101 cruise missiles for possible use against targets in Ukraine. The Kh-101 can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. The runway at Olenya airbase was empty on 12 August, with satellite images from October 7 showing that it is now full of warplanes. The Tu-160 - aka White Swan, but known in the West as Blackjack - is a supersonic strategic bomber that has been the workhorse of Russia's strategic missile forces since Soviet times. It is the largest Mach 2+ military aircraft ever built, and as of 2022 is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft still in use - while also being the fastest bomber. Pictured: A Russian Tu-160 'Blackjack' strategic bomber flies over the Volga and the cities of Engels (left) and Privolzsky (right), Saratov Region, view to the east Pictured: A Tu-95MS Bear H RF-94130 pictured flying off Scotland in 2014 As of 2016, the Russian Air Force's Long Range Aviation branch had 16 aircraft in service, with upgrades on the aircraft being undertaken in recent years. The jet can carry 88,000lbs of weapons on-board, with each of its two internal bays capable of holding 44,000lbs or free-fall weapons or a nuclear missile launcher. In May 2020, it was reported that the Russian military was exploring whether the Tu-160 could carry a hypersonic missile. Russia's Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (also known as 'dagger'), is a nuclear-capable missile with a range of 1,200 miles and a speed of up to Mach 10 (ten-times the speed of sound). Meanwhile, the super-loud Tu-95, known as Bear, is the only propeller-powered strategic bomber still in operational use today. The aircraft first flew 70 years ago, but was only used in combat for the first time in 2015. It was originally intended to drop free-falling nuclear weapons, but has since been modified to perform several other roles. Putin has deployed the Tu-95s to buzz Britain at moments of high tension, for example in February this year when the Royal Air Force scrambled Typhoon fighters to escort two Bears off northern Scotland. News of Putin's increasing numbers of nuclear-capable bombers came as footage showed the moment an ammunition store inside Russia was hit by a Ukrainian strike. Pictured: An ammunition depot exploded in Belgorod after being hit by Ukrainian forces Pictured: Footage shows flames and smoke rising from the site struck by Ukrainian forces Lukashenko puts Belarus into 'state of heightened terrorism' Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of tensions on its borders. Lukashenko linked the move to his announcement on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine. 'In connection with the escalation of tension, a regime of heightened terrorist danger has been introduced,' Lukashenko said in a Russian TV interview. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert 'Therefore we began a procedure with the Union group of forces, the basis of which, as I already said, is the Belarusian army, which will be supplemented by units from the Russian Federation. Everything is going according to plan.' Allied with Moscow and wedged between Russia, Ukraine and three NATO countries, Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Its latest troop movements have raised concern in Kyiv and the West that Lukashenko may be about to commit his army to support Russia's faltering war effort. Political analysts say that is an unappealing option for him but that he may not be in a position to refuse if Russian President Vladimir Putin demands it. Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad. Advertisement The warehouse was reported to be at a sugar plant in Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. The strike seven miles inside Russia caused a major blaze with shells exploding in the inferno, according to local Telegram channels. It is the latest example of Kyiv taking the battle inside Putin's territory in retaliation for his relentless attacks on Ukraine, and in a bid to dim Russian war enthusiasm. Russian military correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny confirmed the village was hit. Other Ukrainian missiles were shot down by Russian air defence, according to reports in Belgorod. However, at least one got through hitting the warehouse. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also confirmed the strike, saying: 'An ammunition depot located in a settlement in the Belgorod District came under Ukrainian Armed Forces' fire. 'Ammunition detonated. According to preliminary reports, there were no casualties. We will now evacuate local residents to a safe distance.' Separately, he said air defence had shot down incoming missiles in Novooskol district. 'The remains fell in the area of the railway. Power lines are damaged. 'Trains are temporarily suspended. Emergency crews are waiting. I am sure that they will correct the situation very quickly and traffic will be restored. The most important thing is that there are no victims.' A day earlier, Russia claimed a tower block was hit in Belgorod city. On Friday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday promised victory over Russia as his country celebrated its first Defenders Day public holiday since the start of Moscow's invasion almost eight months ago. 'On October 14, we express our gratitude... gratitude to everyone who fought for Ukraine in the past. And to everyone who is fighting for it now. To all who won then. And to everyone who will definitely win now,' Zelensky said in a video address to mark the occasion. Zelensky laid a wreath with the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag in front of a memorial in the capital Kyiv, dedicated to soldiers killed on the frontlines since 2014, when fighting broke out with Russia-backed separatists in the east. Zelensky said that by 'defeating' Russia 'we will respond to all enemies who encroached on Ukraine'. 'This will be a victory for all our people,' he said. 'The world stands with us. More than ever in our history' he added, referring to the unprecedented support from Western capitals. Ukraine's commander-in-chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny on social media congratulated his troops and thanked them for their service. 'We have stopped the enemy onslaught and ended the myth about the invincibility of the Russian army,' he said in a video address. In Kyiv, religious services and exhibitions were planned on the occasion, with the country's post service announcing the release of commemorative stamps. Defenders Day was established in 2014 to replace a previous February 23 holiday of Soviet origin that is still celebrated in Russia. Russian dictator said: '222,000 people have been mobilised out of 300,000' Comes as Putin declared that his military mobilisation is coming to an end Sinister raids by conscript-catchers have begun in Moscow and St Petersburg, even as Vladimir Putin announced his military mobilisation is coming to an end and he has no plans for further conscriptions. Speaking at a press conference in the Kazakh capital Astana, Putin said that the 'partial mobilisation' he announced last month, which the defence minister said aimed to recruit 300,000 soldiers, was finishing and would be over within two weeks. 'Nothing additional is planned. No proposals have been received from the defence ministry and I don't see any additional need in the foreseeable future,' Putin said of his on-going mobilisation. 'Now 222,000 people have been mobilised out of 300,000. Within about two weeks, all mobilisation activities will be completed.' The announcement comes as police and enlistment officers have been spotted lurking on street corners and near blocks of flats. Armed recruiters have even been visiting offices seeking men for mobilisation and in some cases enlistment teams are reportedly using facial recognition cameras to snare dodgers. 'They are acting like dog catchers. It's sickening how they are dragging men away as cannon fodder,' said one commenter. Sinister conscript catchers with conscription papers have been raiding homes and offices looking for men to forcibly enlist in Vladimir Putin's army And armed recruiters have even been cruising offices seeking men for mobilisation and in some cases enlistment teams are reportedly using facial recognition cameras to snare dodgers Russian recruits gather inside a military recruitment centre of Bataysk, Rostov-on-Don region, south of Russia, on September 26 Men being rounded up for war mobilisation by Putin's conscript-catchers in Moscow and St Petersburg In Polyustrovo Park residential complex in St Petersburg, men of mobilisation age were trapped near the entrance for summonses to be served. In Moscow, there was a mass delivery of summonses at underground stations, reported Ostorozhno News. Witnesses said police officers interview men, take their personal details, then serve some of them with summonses. Some people are taken away to police cars. Pavel Chikov, prominent lawyer and human rights activist, warned of 'increasing reports of raids'. 'There are cases of summonses being served on the street, citizens being detained by the police in the subway and hotels, and their forced delivery to military enlistment offices or mobilisation points' He stated: 'This practice is illegal.' Senator Andrey Klishas - from the pro-Putin United Russia party - called for checks on whether it was legal to pluck men from the metro and force them to the war. The authorities are using police, traffic police, FSB security service and residential databases to track down possible dodgers. They are also raiding offices to root out men of mobilisation age, even though Russians were promised that one percent of the male population would be sent to Putin's war. 'Police officers walk around the floors and take men of military age,' reported a source of The Village online media. 'In the morning there was one paddy wagon, it was filled. A second was brought. They took our administrator and other men who were on the first floor. [Men] are caught in the corridor. Putin said in Astana that the 'partial mobilisation' he announced last month, which the defence minister said aimed to recruit 300,000 soldiers, was finishing and would be over within two weeks Russian recruits take a bus near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 25 Russian recruits gather to take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, in the Volgograd region of Russia, September 29 'Specifically, three policemen came to our reception.' Reservists are vulnerable for mobilisation to the lower ranks up to the age of 35; junior officers can be called up to the age of 50 and senior officers can be drafted up to 55. The conscript-catching raids seem to give lie to claims in Russia that the first wave of mobilisation is over, and that no second wave has begun. The sinister conscript catchers come as a holiday flight in Russia was delayed for nine hours because the co-pilot was conscripted. The unnamed pilot was barred from going abroad even as passengers were on board and ready to fly to Antalya in Turkey. Holidaymakers in the AzurAir flight were told: 'Due to the mobilisation and subsequent prohibition on crossing the border for the co-pilot, take-off has been cancelled. 'We ask you to leave the plane.' The flight left oil city Ufa in the Urals some nine hours later once a replacement co-pilot was found. 'Everyone was shocked,' said passenger Vadim. 'It was insane, the military enlistment office came for the co-pilot. We were supposed to take off at 5:20 am, but we eventually left only at 2pm. 'At first we waited for two hours, then we were all sent to hotels.' Officials evidently blamed the plane nightmare on the co-pilot ignoring an initial summons to fight in Putin's bloody war in Ukraine. This is why he was barred from leaving Russia, it was claimed. Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin has increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, satellite images show. The move comes amid high tension over whether Putin plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine, which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months. The Russian tyrant has gradually increased the number of strategic bombers at Olenya air base - from none on August 12, to four supersonic Tu-160s on August 21, to 11 now. Vladimir Putin has again increased his strategic nuclear bombers at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, say reports. Pictured: A satellite image taken on October 7, 2022 shows seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the Olenya airbase, Russia Kola Peninsula Pictured: The runway of the Olenya air base at the Kola Peninsula is seen empty on August 12, 2022 Pictured: Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' seen at Olenya air base around August 21 by an Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat Intl Pictured: The Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' (at the base since August 21) were joined by three Tu-95 'Bears' by September 25 The Armageddon planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 450 miles south-east of Moscow. Now, however, the bombers are stationed around 115 miles away from the border of NATO member Norway, and about 95 miles away from the soon-to-become Alliance member, Finland. They can also be used with conventional weapons. There is evidence the deployment at Olanya has Kh-101 cruise missiles for possible use against targets in Ukraine. The Kh-101 can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. The runway at Olenya airbase was empty on 12 August, with satellite images from October 7 showing that it is now full of warplanes. A 97 year-old Kentucky woman has died 'of a broken heart' just three months after a photo of her sitting devastated in her flood-ravaged home swept the internet. Mae Amburgey died on Saturday, three months after the photo of her sitting on her almost-submerged bed in her Whitesburg home was widely-shared online, her granddaughter Missy Amburgey Crovetti announced. Amburgey was rescued from her Whitesburg home along with three others when Kentucky was hit by historic flash flooding that swept away homes and cars. Harrowing video shot at the time showed her being pulled through deep, filthy brown water to safety - but sadly, the anguish of the flooding ordeal proved too much for Amburgey to bear. The 97-year-old's home was unsalvageable, and Amburgey plunged into a despair which ultimately killed her, Crovetti said. 'I feel she died of a broken heart,' Crovetti wrote on a GoFundPage originally dedicated to help her grandmother recover from the flood. 'While our hearts are completely broken, we are also relieved that she is no longer in pain. ' Mae Amburgey, pictured, has died three months after this photo of her sitting devastated in her flood-ravaged Kentucky home swept the internet. Her granddaughter believes the stress of the inundation killed her Amburgey's home (pictured above) was destroyed after it was nearly all submerged in raging flood waters in July The elderly woman's family is helping her save items that were preserved in the flooding Multiple items remained on the ground as the family attempted to sort what could be saved Amburgey's college diploma was recovered by her granddaughter. It was partially covered with mud Granddaughter Missy Amburgey Crovetti has been helping her 97-year-old grandmother recover her home after nearly everything was destroyed in the the historic flooding Amburgey was saved along with her son after they were trapped inside their home. Video footage showed the heroic moment a Good Samaritan rescued Amburgey and her family by using a floatie to guide them through the raging floodwaters. The 97-year-old had to swim to her safety until she reached the boats waiting to help. She was later admitted to the hospital. After returning back to her home, Amburgey realized everything had been destroyed and drenched in water. Granddaughter Crovetti, who said her grandma was an 'incredible force,' created a GoFundMe to help the elderly woman recover. 'Her house is a total mess and like so many from the area, she may not have flood insurance,' Crovetti wrote at the time. 'Any help would be greatly appreciated. She never lived outside of Ermine, Kentucky and would very much like to stay home.' The fundraiser raised $16,597. It's unclear what the funds will now be used for. The kitchen of Amburgey's home was seen in shambles. The side kitchen door leading outside was seen off it's hinges Windows in the home were nearly broken off and dirt covered the floor of a room Piles of mud remained on the floor nearby a damaged fireplace Mud covered the floor along with random items A closet was seen damaged with an iron on the top shelf Piles of wood remained in one room along with empty picture frames The curtains on the window remained while slightly leaning off the rod Three months after the catastrophic floods, the death toll in Kentucky raised to 43 as two more people died from health complications and another that is still missing, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a Thursday press conference. Officials on August 1 said they expected to find bodies weeks after the flooding, especially after the Kentucky National Guard conducted about 700 air rescues over the span of a week, and 600 more by boat. Water levels in portions of the state, including the river at Whitesburg, rose 20 feet within hours as flash flooding threatened the state in July. A Jewish holidaymaker has told of her fury after she was confronted by a swastika in a hotel bathroom she was staying in - only to be told by staff that it was not intended to be offensive and was a 'design feature.' Emily White, 33 was left gobsmacked when she checked in to the four-star Plough Inn in Marsham, Norfolk, and went into the bathroom of her 100 per night room where she saw the Nazi symbol on display. The swastika was embossed into a wooden shelf which contained toilet rolls, prompting Ms White to complain to staff. Emily White, 33, was horrified to see a swastika in her hotel bathroom when she stayed at the Plough Inn in Marsham, Norfolk The swastika was embossed into a wooden shelf (pictured) which contained toilet rolls, prompting Ms White to complain to staff. When Ms White complained to staff at the Plough Inn in Marsham (pictured) they told her it 'was not intended to be offensive and was a design feature' She told MailOnline: 'I saw it on the evening of when I checked in but it wasn't until the morning that I decided to alert the staff. I wasn't sure if they knew that there was a swastika in the bathroom and what it signified. 'I felt very angry but what was even more sickening was the hotel's response. I complained to three members of staff and they admitted that they knew it was there.' She fumed: 'But they justified it by saying it was not intended to be offensive and was a design feature after the hotel was refurbished last year.' Ms White, who originates from Canada but has lived in east London for the past ten years added: 'I'm Jewish and the swastika is racist and anti-Semitic. I don't understand why the hotel have got it there and their explanation is offensive.' Ms White (pictured) said she found the explanation given to her by staff over why there was a swastika in the hotel bathroom 'offensive' The swastika was embossed into a wooden shelf (pictured) which contained toilet rolls, prompting Ms White to complain to staff. Ms White was with a group of friends staying at the traditional country hotel after attending a wedding earlier this month. Prior to leaving, she filmed one of her pals raising concerns to staff who admitted that they knew about the swastika but insisted that it was not in all the hotel rooms. When asked about it, one of the staff members replies: 'It's not meant for anything.' After leaving the hotel, Ms White also complained to Booking.com through which she booked her room, alerting them to the swastika and demanding an apology. After contacting the hotel on her behalf, she was told by Booking.com that the swastika in the Plough Inn bathroom is the one associated with Indian culture and not Nazism. Despite its links with Hitler's regime, the swastika is originally a sacred symbol in Hinduism and a common sight in homes and temples around India. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika, which means 'good fortune' or 'well-being' and the symbol can trace its origins back almost 7,000 years. When Ms White complained to staff at the Plough Inn in Marsham (bedroom in the hotel pictured) they told her it 'was not intended to be offensive and was a design feature' But Ms White insisted: 'I appreciate the cultural significance of the swastika but regardless of this, we are not in India. This is in a hotel in Norfolk where it has completely different connotations. 'The hotel's reasons for having a swastika are just nonsense. They can't claim ignorance-everybody knows what it stands for. It should be removed immediately but they are so unapologetic about it. For me, this is active racism.' In addition to an apology Ms White is now also demanding a full refund. She said: 'I initially only wanted an apology and for the swastika to be removed. But after hearing the hotel's justifications, I'm so angry that I also want a refund. That is the least they can do.' The Plough Inn has been contacted for comment. We've all got ourselves into some sticky situations in our lives or found ourselves in some confined spaces. But perhaps no one has been quite as unlucky or felt as cramped as a kitten found with its head stuck in a glass bowl who was dubbed Buzz Lightyear by rescuers. The unfortunate cat, aged six months, was seen meandering around the Fall River neighborhood in Massachusetts- while stuck fast. A nearby resident to the 200 block of Danforth Street contacted Fall River Animal Control. They lured the cat, which they named Buzz Lightyear, and her siblings into a drop trap with the help of some food. Then the ARL Field Services agent was able to remove the glass jar and handle the kitten. Rescuers took Buzz Lightyear to ARL's Dedham Animal Care and Adoption Center. She was dirty from living on the streets but found to be in good health and was given vaccines and spay surgery. The unfortunate cat, aged six months, was seen meandering around the Fall River neighborhood in Massachusetts- while stuck fast A nearby resident to the 200 block of Danforth Street contacted Fall River Animal Control. They lured the cat, which they named Buzz Lightyear, and her siblings into a drop trap with the help of some food Rescuers took Buzz Lightyear to ARL's Dedham Animal Care and Adoption Center She was dirty from living on the streets but found to be in good health and was given vaccines and spay surgery Buzz took a little while to learn to trust humans but has now settled into her new surroundings and is now available for adoption The Animal Rescue League of Boston's Field Services said that they worked with Fall River Animal Control to rescue her Buzz took a little while to learn to trust humans but has now settled into her new surroundings and is now available for adoption. The Animal Rescue League of Boston's Field Services said that they worked with Fall River Animal Control to rescue her. ARL found a previously unknown cat colony while rescuing Buzz and they will begin trapping others to provide them with medical care and surgery. They will also assess behaviour to possibly place other cats from the colony into loving homes. The family of a knife-wielding Romanian builder who was shot dead by police after smashing up a police station have released a picture of him and revealed he was killed while carrying a cat. Marius Ciolac, 35, was gunned down last Friday October 7 after smashing the windows of parked vehicles in the car park of Ascot Drive police station in Derby. His family have now spoken of their 'shock' and said they 'just cannot find answers' as to why he was killed. Mr Ciolac, who lived yards away from the newly built 9.5million station, stormed into the police car park just before 10am and also went on to smash the windows of the police station. Officers tried to stop Mr Ciolac by using a stun grenade, baton round and Taser before an armed officer shot him in the stomach. He was airlifted to hospital but later died. Marius Ciolac (pictured), 35, was gunned down last Friday October 7 after smashing the windows of parked vehicles in the car park of Ascot Drive police station in Derby. Police found three knives at the scene, along with a live cat inside a bag, his family have revealed. The IOPC, which is investigating the shooting, said Derbyshire Police officers scrambled to the scene at 9.55am. The report said attempts were made to stop him 'including using a multi-bang stun grenade, discharge of a baton round and a Taser, before a police firearm was discharged at about 10.03am.' Initial findings of a post mortem revealed Mr Ciolac died from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen. Derbyshire Police officers in an armed response vehicle were called to the building by the force at around 9.55am after officers inside reported seeing a man with a knife in the car park causing damage to property Marius Ciolac died after one shot was fired into his abdomen from a police issue firearm Mr Ciolac was given first aid by officers and paramedics at the scene before being taken by ambulance to hospital in Nottingham, where he sadly died later that morning. Mr Ciolac's devastated sister Andreea Ciolac, 32, said she found out about her brother's death while searching the internet about the shooting. Speaking from her home in Italy, she said: 'I know that Marius was clearly in the wrong and he was not innocent. 'The family later heard that he had a knife on him but we still ask the police why did they kill him? 'We only found out from the news after he died that his lawyer said he was having mental health issues. 'We found out what happened when we were told on Sunday afternoon that he had died due to a police related accident. 'We did not know much about it at the time. We searched for any information on the internet. 'Our searches came up with the death in Derby and we then knew that he was shot by police from the news. 'We knew nothing about it before then.' Ms Ciolac said her brother had moved to England four years ago and he had been working as a builder but had planned to return to Romania. His family have now spoken of their 'shock' and said they 'just cannot find answers' as to why he was killed Officers tried to stop Mr Ciolac by using a stun grenade, baton round and Taser before an armed officer shot him in the stomach. He was airlifted to hospital but later died Mr Ciolac's devastated sister Andreea Ciolac, 32, said she found out about her brother's death while searching the internet about the shooting She said: 'He wanted to move back to Romania to travel. We al thought he was happy in England, but in the last few months he was very lonely.' Ms Ciolac has two children and is pregnant with her third and lives in Florence with her mum Mariana Racos, 62. She added: 'My mum cannot really talk about it all and she is very upset. 'We know now that Marius died from a single shot to his abdomen. 'We tried to get in touch with Marius before he died and we spoke to his friends who were saying that he was quite lonely. 'We are all very shocked and could maybe understand if it was an accident but we just cannot find answers. 'We do not understand what it was in his head and to have knives on him in a police station car park. 'Police also told us that he was carrying a bag with a cat inside it.' Mum Mariana Racos said: 'I just think that it has all happened too fast. Even if he was in the wrong.' Other members of the family are planning to fly to the UK next week to formally identify his body. Advertisement Evocative newly colourised images show 19th and 20th-century workers battling to build and extend London Underground tunnels, offering a glimpse into a different age. One of the oldest celebratory images shows men working on the central line of the London Underground, dating from 1898. The tube network has been open to the public since 1863 and was the worlds first underground railway. Another image captured shows the first section of the eastern extension of the Central Line from Liverpool Street to Stratford being officially opened by the Minister of Transport, Mr Alfred Barnes MP on December 3, 1946. Slide me Amazing images of Victorian and early twentieth century workers battling to build and extend the London underground tunnels and stations have been colourised. Pictured here are men working on the new Gants Hill station on the seven mile Central Line extension in 1947. Another capture shows the first section of the eastern extension of the Central Line from Liverpool Street to Stratford being officially opened by the Minister of Transport, Mr Alfred Barnes MP on December 3, 1946 Men working on the ultra-modern escalators at Wanstead Station on the Central Line extension in October 1947, as they begin to take shape There is also a capture from when The Right Honourable Sir Philip Lloyd Graeme opened the Hendon extension of the London Underground on November 19, 1923. These fascinating images were released by the TopFoto archive to show the men who built the amazing rail that one of the busiest cities in the world still relies on almost 160 years later. They also show the entrance to the underground in Trafalgar Square and the new colour brings the pictures to life, showing the textures and vibrancy of pedestrians' clothing. The colourised images show the systems first tunnels being built just below the ground, using the cut-and-cover method. The 'cut and cover' means of construction saw a trench being excavated, which was then roofed over with a support system. The London Passenger Transport Board re-layed the underground railway from Charing Cross to Waterloo in 11 days - the first time this part of the railway had been closed in 22 years. Picture is from 1944 The London Underground has been open to the public since 1863, and was the worlds first underground railway. Pictured here are men working on the Central Line in 1898 Signal lamps are fitted at the entrance to the tunnel at Bethnal Green station in 1946. The station was opened as part of the Central Line eastern extension on December 4, 1946 after it was previously used as an air-raid shelter The 300-foot tunnel built to house Britain's first travellator to connect the Waterloo and City Line with the station at Bank in 1959 Workmen fitting the opening gate at Wanstead Station ready for the opening ceremony in 1947. The tunnels in this extension were finished earlier in the war but were initially used to make accessories for bombers and fighter planes in the war Later, smaller and roughly circular tunnels, which gave rise to its nickname the Tube, were dug through at a deeper level. When it opened in 1863 the London Underground operated between Paddington and Farringdon and served six intermediate stations. Today it serves a whopping 272 stations and covers 402 kilometres. A pilot tunnel for the London Underground leading to the construction of an escalator tunnel at Colliers Wood There is also a capture from when The Right Honourable Sir Philip Lloyd Graeme opened the Hendon extension of the London Underground on November 19, 1923 The newly-constructed Hampstead tunnel, south of Camden Town, in October 1923, as a workman takes a wheelbarrow between tunnels Construction of Clapham South on the City and South London Railway in May 1925. Images have been newly colourised, revealing hidden details in the pictures Workmen in the Gants Hill Station in 1947, showing the lofty hall through which trains will run on either side and which will resemble the Moscow Underground London Transport install loudspeakers at Bank Station in February 1959 to keep travellers fully informed about any hold-ups Piccadilly Line extension works from Finsbury to Cockfosters. Here the final girder is placed in position for the bridge over Telford Road The network has now expanded to 11 lines, and as of 2020 to 2021 the underground was used for 296 million passenger journeys, making it one of the worlds busiest metro systems. The 11 lines collectively handle up to five million passenger journeys every day. The new Elizabeth Line opened on May 24 this year, including nine new stations from Paddington to Abbey Wood. Its Bond Street station will open later this year. South Korea said Friday it has put 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions on its blacklist in its first unilateral sanctions in nearly five years in an effort to deter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development programs. Yonhap South Korea said Friday it has put 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions on its blacklist in its first unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang in nearly five years in response to its evolving nuclear and missile threats highlighted by unrelenting missile launches and the stated drills by tactical nuclear operation units. The people on the new list include officials at shipping firms and organizations related to the North's missile program, as well as those involved in the procurement of supplies for weapons of mass destruction. "We strongly condemn North Korea for staging a series of missile provocations with unprecedented frequency recently and suggesting the use of tactical nukes against us," the foreign ministry said. The new sanctions come as the North has ratcheted up tensions on the peninsula with a barrage of provocative missile launches in recent weeks amid growing concerns it may soon conduct a nuclear test. This marks the first time the South Korean government has slapped sanctions on the North since 2017, following Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test. It is the first set of sanctions against the North since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in May. A pensioner who was murdered and dumped in the woods falsely believed that she had a YouTube relationship with King Charles, a court has heard. Mee Kuen Chong, 67, was allegedly attacked in her north-west London home by property developer Jemma Mitchell, 38. It is alleged that Ms Mitchell then drove more than 250 miles to Devon to dump her body, carrying her in a large blue suitcase. Former osteopath Ms Mitchell, from Willesden, north-west London, admits to being the person seen on CCTV carrying the suitcase but denies murder. The Malaysian national, who lived in Wembley for more than 30 years, was reported missing on June 11 last year, and her headless body was discovered in a woodland near Salcombe by a holidaying family 16 days later. Earlier in the case, the court heard that Ms Chong had promised to invest 200,000 in Ms Mitchell's home, before changing her mind. The two women (pictured) were in an alleged disagreement after Ms Chong changed her mind about giving Ms Mitchell money for a project to add an extra storey to her home in Willesden Ms Mitchell needed at least 400,000 after a project to add an extra storey to her home in Willesden ended in disaster. The court was told that she had been pressuring Ms Chong into giving her the money. But when Ms Chong changed her mind, it is alleged to have led to a disagreement between the two women, and Ms Mitchell is alleged to have battered her over the head with a blunt object, fracturing her skull. Ms Mitchell is then alleged to have then moved the body and kept it there for two weeks before driving to Devon in a rented Volvo to dump it in woodland. Jurors heard that Ms Mitchell made herself the main beneficiary of the victim's will. Jurors were shown the suitcase at the Old Bailey on Friday before prosecutor Lucy Organ read out a series of statements from people who knew the victim, one of which included details of Ms Chong's 'perceived relationship' with King Charles. Doctor Alyson Callan said Ms Chong, known to friends as Deborah, believed she could communicate with the King though video-sharing website YouTube. Dr Callan, a consultant psychiatrist with the Brent Community Mental Health Team, added that Ms Chong was referred by the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre at Buckingham Palace to the Brent team last March. 'The referral was made when Mee sent a number of letters addressed to Prince Charles and Boris Johnson,' she told the court. 'The contents of the letters contained nothing alarming but they were bizarre, suggesting she was having another episode of mental illness.' Ms Chong's body was found in woodlands near the chic seaside town of Salcombe in South Devon Ms Chong, known to friends as Deborah, believed she could communicate with the King though video-sharing website YouTube She added that Ms Chong was also referred in 2017 after being admitted to a mental health unit. Ms Chong was prescribed anti-psychotics last May but in early June, she complained that they affected her sleep and appetite. On a visit to her home on June 4 last year, Dr Callan said that Ms Chong did not want to speak about 'her perceived relationship with Prince Charles and Boris Johnson'. 'She did inform me that she could communicate with Prince Charles via YouTube,' she said. Just two days before she was reported missing, her lodger, crane operator David Klein, had requested a carer for her, Dr Callan added. Michael McGreal, a retired carpenter who went to the same church as Ms Chong, said she was worried about climate change and had 'strong political views'. He added that she had introduced Ms Mitchell, who met the victim through the church in August 2020, to him as a friend. They met when he attended a meeting between her, Ms Chong and an account in late 2020. 'The meeting was about Deborah leaving her house to the homeless and not being sold,' he said. 'Deborah told me she was writing letters to Boris Johnson and Prince Charles about the running of the country,' he added. 'I do not know of Deborah having any disagreements with anyone. She had strong views about politics. Jurors heard that Mitchell was in Salcombe on 26 June last year, having travelled there in a rented grey Volvo with a large blue suitcase 'She was a very kind person and allowed people to live in her house rent-free and supported people emotionally and financially.' He also told the court about Ms Chong's mental health and confirmed she had been admitted to hospital in 2017 'for about six months'. Former lodger and evangelist Lorenia Alvaranqa told the court: 'Deborah was very passionate about politicians. There were times when I thought she would physically hit me, although this never transpired.' She went on to describe the pensioner as 'quite frightening', leading to her decision to move out in November 2020. In her witness statement, she said: 'The last two weeks before moving out, Deborah was not eating or sleeping. She would spend hours writing letters to the Prime Minister and the Government.' On learning Ms Chong was missing, Ms Alvaranaa said: 'I felt something bad had happened to Deborah. I was concerned about Deborah because she did not take much care when she met and spoke to strangers.' She added that she met Ms Mitchell at a barbecue at Ms Chong's house, where she was introduce as Ms Chong's lodger Mr Klein's friend. '[Ms Mitchell] said that she wanted to get married,' Ms Alvaranaa added. 'However, she said she looked after her mother. 'Jemma also told us she was in love with someone but he did not want to get involved with her.' The Old Bailey heard the two women were both devoutly Christian and met at church in 2020 She added that Ms Mitchell then asked to stay the night and went to bed at 2am, but that when she went into the room at 6am the next day, Ms Mitchell was not there. Ms Mitchell was captured on CCTV going to Ms Chong's house in Chaplain Road at 8am with an empty blue suitcase, which was full when she left at lunchtime. CCTV from June 26 shows she hired a Volvo from Hertz and laid a 'white sheet' in the boot before struggling to load the blue suitcase into the back of the car. While in Devon, the Volvo got a puncture but Ms Mitchell continued to drive, damaging the wheel. She eventually stopped at a Co-op garage on Salcombe Road, Marlborough and called the AA. Lee Gardin, of the AA who attended, told the court the car had a 'musty smell'. 'As if like someone had been staying overnight living in the vehicle with all the windows up so there was no ventilation or airflow,' he said. 'It was just a really odd smell. Especially for a vehicle that was a brand new hire vehicle.' When asked about how Ms Mitchell was acting, he said she 'seemed a bit confused.' 'She was quite intense. So she was listening to me. She was taking all the information in but from our conversation...I'm not sure whether what I was saying was sinking in. 'She was asking lots of questions and I was having to repeat myself three or four times. The tyre had been 'destroyed' to a level of damage that would not occur even in 'a blowout', he told jurors. Ms Mitchell had not stopped sooner because she 'did not feel safe' where she was, the court heard. Mee Kuen Chong was said to be a vulnerable person and prone to erratic behaviour. She is said to have been discussing financial dealings with Mitchell before she died Before he fitted the spare wheel, Mr Gardin said Ms Mitchell moved the suitcase from the boot of the car to the rear passenger compartment. 'She didn't appear to struggle with it,' he said. When he later suggested that they put the damaged wheel back in the boot, Ms Mitchell allegedly said she would like it placed on the back seat. 'I thought [it] a little strange,' Mr Gardin added. 'I sort of said I don't think this is the safest idea...because if there was an accident the wheel was in the back of the car. 'Also for damage, it was a brand new premium vehicle with leather seats. Then going to be liable for charges. She still wanted it in the back.' Before the arrival of AA, Ms Mitchell interacted with another member of the public, Nicola Powell, at the same garage. Giving evidence, Ms Powell said she recalled the 'horrible screeching' noise of the metal wheel on tarmac as Mitchell drove into the garage. 'The way it was driving it looked like it had come through the exit,' she said. The witness said the driver was female, gave her name as 'Jemma' and was 'very casually dressed' in 'loose fitting clothing'. Ms Powell told jurors she spoke to Mitchell when she exited the Volvo. 'She was out of the car stood by the rear of the car looking a little lost and confused. So in my nature I just went over and said, "Is everything okay?" She was sort of a bit vacant.' She described her as 'very spaced out' and 'nonplussed'. Ms Powell lent Ms Mitchell her phone to call roadside recovery as the latter said she 'did not have reception', the court heard. 'She said she had been visiting family in Paignton and then I asked how come she's over here because it must be at least an hour's drive and she said she was coming on a scenic leisure drive,' Ms Powell told the court. Ms Powell opened up the boot to check for a spare tyre and saw a suitcase which she described as 'a little bit bigger than a cabin suitcase', 'hard shelled' and 'black/grey and speckled'. She told the court that the suitcase moved 'quite normally' as she lifted the boot floor and that it 'was not heavy'. Asked if anything struck her about the smell of the car, the witness said she did not smell anything untoward. Later that evening the car was captured on a CCTV camera overlooking Bennett Road, close to the location where the deceased's body was to be found the following day by a family on holiday. Richard Jory, defending, told the court on Friday 'There is no dispute that all of the images where you have sought to identify her do indeed show Jemma Mitchell.' The court has heard that Ms Mitchell will claim Ms Chong's death was 'absolutely nothing to do with her.' The trial continues. Topshop and Sir Philip Green's now defunct parent company Arcadia have been fined 1 million for health and safety failures after a boy was killed when a 17-stone queue barrier fell on him. Kaden Reddick, 10, died at a store in Reading while out shopping with his mother, sister and grandmother in February 2017. Arcadia Group and Topshop/Topman, formerly owned by the millionaire tycoon Sir Green, were handed the fine after being unanimously convicted by a jury of failing to properly design, install and inspect the 17-stone queue barrier which hit and fatally injured Kaden. Stoneforce, the barrier's fitters, admitted the same health and safety failures and were today fined a nominal 1,000 after the judge heard the company had gone into liquidation. Kaden Reddick was killed when a 17-stone queue barrier fell on him while out shopping with his family in Topshop in Reading in February 2017 Defending, Arcadia and Topshop/Topman, Simon Antrobus said: 'The companies went into administration in 2020, long before the trial. There has been a movement from administration to liquidation. 'We are very much at the end stages of both these businesses. This court needs to consider the inability to pay and the effect that will have. The fundamental cause of the barrier falling was the type of fixings used. 'It was a case of choosing light fixings or heavyweight fixings - it should have been obvious to any competent shop-fitter that the screws were inadequate. Nobody expected or intended for this to happen.' When a company is liquidated, its assets such as property and stock are sold off to pay off its debts and creditors. The administrators appointed to wind down the companies will be responsible for finding the funds to pay the fines from its remaining assets. Prosecutor James Ageros said: 'The trial was in relation to an investigation following the death of Kaden Reddick on February 13, 2017, while he was out with his mum, sister and grandmother in Topshop, in The Oracle, Reading, Berkshire. 'Your Honour will recall he was 10 years old at the date of his death. The circumstances of the death were that he was hit by a queue barrier weighing around 110kg. 'Kaden had been playing and when he put some weight on the barrier it fell on top of him as a result of being poorly fitted to the floor. This was after a barrier of a similar type fell in Glasgow six days before. 'Arcadia were part-owners of Topshop/Topman and it was they who were involved in the aftermath of the Glasgow incident. Topshop was a well-known retailer, owning stores across the country. Both are now in liquidation. 'Stoneforce is also in liquidation but was a construction company which constructed shop fittings among other activities. It fitted the three queue barriers in Reading and other barriers in different shops. 'Stoneforce used inadequate fittings to install the barriers in the Topshop store - the fittings that would be appropriate for putting a [picture] on a wall, but were wholly inappropriate for a heavy object where the public have access. A picture taken from 2014 of the Topshop Reading branch where 10-year-old Kaden Reddick was hit by a 17-stone queue barrier, resulting in his death. The jury was shown this picture of the barrier around the time it was installed 'Topshop and Arcadia's reaction to the case in Manchester Trafford, where the barrier wasn't secured at all, was shallow and inappropriate. There were serious failures within the organisation to address risks to health and safety. 'While the barrier did not give out until February 13, 2017, as they were never adequately installed, what is proper to infer is that the barrier could have given out at any time. Kaden was acting as a boy of his age, in a way you would expect. 'The barrier contained teaser items and there was evidence this was something that had attracted Kaden, so the prosecution does not accept the submission that in some way there was something unusual or unexpected in the way Kaden interacted with the barrier. 'This was to be expected and could have happened any time after the barrier was fitted in 2014. Following the incident in Glasgow, where a 10-year-old girl suffered a fractured skull as a result of the queue barrier falling over, Arcadia was fined 450,000.' Lisa Mallett and her son Kaden pictured before his death in February 2017 Sir Philip Green's now dissolved Arcadia Group, which owned the Topshop chain when Kaden Reddick (pictured) was killed In a victim impact statement, Kaden's mother Lisa Mallett said: 'There is a hole - a hole that is bottomless so can't be filled. Our lives are completely shattered and even after 265 weeks there is a big empty space. Home no longer feels like home. 'My children's lives have needlessly been torn to pieces and nothing but Kaden can fix it. I hate that I couldn't protect him. Shopping was meant to be something fun after the cinema so that Kaden could spend his pocket money. 'The world is a much sadder place without Kaden James Alexander Reddick in it.' Defending Stoneforce, Dominic Kay said: 'It's rather an unedifying scene for Kaden's family to hear a company's submissions about money. This is absolutely not a situation where a business was 'wound-down' to avoid punishment. 'Stoneforce received almost all of its money from Arcadia and its subsidiaries - when Arcadia went into administration the work for Stoneforce deceased almost overnight. The company has debts of around 3 million. 'Stoneforce wishes to express its remorse and regret to Kaden's family. All I can do is repeat their unreserved apology.' Sentencing, Judge Heather Norton said: 'I would like to pay tribute to Kaden's family, who came almost every day of the trial in-person or over video link. 'You had to relive over and over the events of that terrible day. Kaden's family had been to see the film 'Sing' at the Vue cinema at the Oracle shopping centre before deciding to 'make a day of it' by going shopping, stopping first at Topshop (pictured) Topshop and its now defunct parent company Arcadia, owned by Sir Philip Green, was fined a combined total of 1 million - but the judge warned it would have been higher if the companies were still operating 'It is always humbling to see how a family can act in such dignity in such unbearable circumstances. I offer my condolences to you. 'I know that the only sentence I can give is a financial one, but I know the state the companies are in so whatever I can do is limited. 'For a child to die on an ordinary day in an ordinary shop must carry a particular pain and shock. 'The risk these queue barriers possessed should have been and was, forseen by the defendant companies. 'It was obvious that the barriers, which were top-heavy, needed to be fixed to the floor. It was a heavy item with a high centre of gravity. 'It should have been obvious it could be pushed over when left free-standing.' Arcadia was fined 650,000 and Topshop/Topman was handed a 350,000 fine. The judge stated that, had the companies been operating, Arcadia would have been fined more than 1.3 million, and Topshop/Topman would have been fined 650,000. Stoneforce was fined a nominal 1,000 on the account that 'there is no money at all - no amount will be paid'. However, she stated it would have been fined 700,000. Liz Truss has turned to experienced Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt to take charge of the Treasury after she dramatically sacked Kwasi Kwarteng. The Prime Minister has appointed the 55-year-old as her new Chancellor as she battles to save her premiership with efforts to soothe mutinous Tory MPs and volatile financial markets. The appointment marks a dramatic return to Government for Mr Hunt, who appeared to admit just three months ago that his time in frontline politics was at an end. In July, when he dropped out this year's Tory leadership contest that was ultimately won by Ms Truss, Mr Hunt said it had 'become obvious to me you only get one big shot at this'. He went on to back Ms Truss's rival Rishi Sunak after being knocked out the race himself. Mr Hunt, a multi-millionaire married father of three, had previously stood to be Conservative leader in 2019, when he was defeated in a run-off by Boris Johnson. But Mr Hunt is now back at the heart of Government where he has previously served in one of the 'great offices of state' as foreign secretary. He is also the longest-serving health secretary in history following his near-six year spell in the role. When he enters the Treasury, Mr Hunt will face immediate questions over the economic agenda he will oversee. During his second failed bid to become PM this summer, Mr Hunt had championed cutting corporation tax to 15 per cent. This is below the 19 per cent rate that his sacked predecessor Mr Kwarteng had been aiming for which is viewed as having played a part in last month's mini-Budget meltdown. Liz Truss has turned to experienced Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt, seen arriving at his home in central London after being appointed Chancellor today, to take charge of the Treasury Mr Hunt with his wife Lucia Guo in central London in 2019. On a visit to China the year before, the Chancellor mistakenly referred to his Chinese spouse as 'Japanese' After dropping out the contest himself, Mr Hunt backed Ms Truss's rival Rishi Sunak for the Tory leadership this summer After entering Parliament as MP for South West Surrey in 2005, Mr Hunt became a key ally of David Cameron after supporting his Tory leadership bid. He served in a series of shadow ministerial roles as one of the leading 'Cameroons' hoping to return the Conservatives to power. Under the coalition government that followed the 2010 general election, Mr Hunt took on the role of culture secretary during which he helped oversee the 2012 Olympics. He then moved to the Department of Health and oversaw the running of the NHS for nearly six years to become the longest-serving health secretary in British history. His spell in charge saw a major battle with junior doctors after they went on strike over changes to their contracts which saw his popularity with voters plummet. But, prior to leaving the health brief, Mr Hunt managed to secure a 20billion boost to the NHS budget as a 70th 'birthday present' for the health service. There have since been questions about Mr Hunt's record as health secretary in the wake of the Covid crisis, including over how well-prepared he had left the NHS for a pandemic. Theresa May, the then prime minister, shuffled Mr Hunt to foreign secretary to replace Mr Johnson following his resignation in protest over Brexit policy in 2018. It meant that, as well as Mrs May and the then chancellor Philip Hammond, the top of Government was dominated by figures who had backed Remain at the EU referendum. Mr Hunt visits King's College Hospital in London in 2012 as health secretary. He served the role for nearly six years the longest of any politician in history Back in 2012, as culture secretary he narrowly avoids injuring bystanders when a bell he was ringing flew off its handle at an Olympics celebration When the Brexit chaos at Westminster led to Mrs May's resignation, Mr Hunt announced he would stand for the Tory leadership but was a distant runner-up to winner Mr Johnson. He refused to serve in Mr Johnson's Government after rejecting a demotion to defence secretary, although Mr Hunt let it be known he would have been happy to have carried on as foreign secretary. Until today, he had since spent his time in Parliament on the back benches of the House of Commons and took on the chairmanship of the health and social care Committee. He had used that role to offer himself as a constructive critic of the Government's handling of the Covid crisis. Despite his long experience in frontline politics, Mr Hunt has been prone to a gaffe such as in 2018 when on a visit to China he referred to his Chinese wife Lucia Guo as 'Japanese'. Back in 2012, he narrowly avoided injuring bystanders when a bell he was ringing flew off its handle at an Olympics celebration. Broadcasters have also been known to struggle with Mr Hunt's surname, with a number having inadvertently referred to him with a C-word expletive. The largest US grocery chain, Kroger, has agreed to buy its biggest rival Albertsons, creating a supermarket titan to better compete with Walmart, Amazon and other major companies that have stepped into the grocery business. The mega merger between the No. 1 and No. 2 standalone grocers in the United States will create a colossus with nearly 5,000 stores in 48 states, employing a total of 710,000 workers. Kroger, based in Cincinnati, operates 2,800 stores in 35 states under its own name as well as subsidiary banners such as Smith's, Fred Meyer, Ralphs, King Soopers and Harris Teeter. Boise, Idaho-headquartered Albertsons operates 2,200 supermarkets in 34 states, with about 20 banners including Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme and Tom Thumb. Under the deal terms announced on Friday, Kroger will pay $34.10 for each Albertsons share, representing a premium of about 33 percent to the stock's closing price on Wednesday, before media reports of a potential deal first circulated. The largest US grocery chain, Kroger, has agreed to buy its biggest rival Albertsons, creating a supermarket titan to better compete with Walmart A map shows the dominant grocery chain in each state. Albertsons also operates Safeway, Acme and Tom Thumb, while Kroger owns Smith's, King Soopers and Harris Teeter Map source: SitesUSA The deal stands to draw plenty of regulatory scrutiny, with some analysts saying the deal could stifle competition and lead to higher prices for American shoppers. In a move that could help ease those concerns, the companies said they expect to sell some stores in areas where they directly compete, and Albertsons is ready to spinoff a standalone unit to its shareholders immediately before the Kroger deal closes. The new spinoff public company is estimated to comprise between 100 and 375 stores. 'Albertsons Cos brings a complementary footprint and operates in several parts of the country with very few or no Kroger stores,' Kroger's Chief Executive Officer Rodney McMullen said. 'This merger ... accelerates our position as a more compelling alternative to larger and non-union competitors.' Kroger also said it expects to reinvest about half a billion dollars of cost savings from deal synergies to reduce prices for customers. An incremental $1.3 billion will also be invested into Albertsons. Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen (left) and Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran are seen above Boise, Idaho-headquartered Albertsons operates 2,200 supermarkets in 34 states, with about 20 banners including Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme and Tom Thumb 'Kroger has a long track record of lowering prices, improving the customer experience and investing in its associates and communities,' the company said in a statement. Ohio-based Kroger plans to fund the deal using a combination of cash on hand and proceeds from $17.4 billion in debt financing in place from Citi and Wells Fargo. After the deal close, which is expected in early 2024, Kroger CEO McMullen will continue to serve as the head of the combined company. Companies say tie-up will give them an edge in beating Walmart's prices Market leader Walmart has been doubling down on its own grocery business and has traditionally used its scale to demand the lowest possible prices from food and beverage suppliers, leaving rivals at a disadvantage in price negotiations. The Kroger-Albertsons merger would give them an edge in negotiations on product prices with suppliers including consumer goods companies, at a time when prices of groceries and essentials are soaring in the country. Groceries constitute roughly 55 percent of Walmart's annual sales. Walmart traditionally has used its clout to demand the lowest possible prices from packaged-food and beverage companies, leaving rivals at a disadvantage in their own negotiations with suppliers. Roughly 25 percent of all dollars spent on groceries in the United States are spent at Walmart, according to data provided by Euromonitor. The Kroger-Albertsons merger would give them an edge over negotiations on product prices with suppliers including consumer goods companies Kroger and Albertsons have roughly 8 percent and 5 percent of the U.S. grocery market, respectively, according to Euromonitor. The specter of Amazon may have contributed to the merger talks as well. Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimated the online retailer has taken about $4 billion in market share from Kroger and Albertsons in the past two years -- small relative to an $800 billion grocery market but a threat nonetheless. 'Amazon scares the bejeezus out of the conventional retailers,' he said. The Seattle-based online retail giant is betting that the cashier-less and contactless payment systems it is adding to stores, including at its subsidiary Whole Foods Market, will win it customers in the long run. Liz Truss is less popular with the public than any of her immediate Tory predecessors ever were, new figures reveal today. The Prime Minister has an approval rating of -51, the lowest of any modern premier at this stage of their term in office. Two thirds (67 per cent) of Brits told Ipsos they were dissatisfied with her performance, up 38 points in a month. And just 16 per cent were satisfied, a fall of 11 points as the public discover more about her. Her net score is worse than the lowest scores ever achieved by Boris Johnson (-46), Theresa May (-44), David Cameron (-38) and Tony Blair (-44). It equals Gordon Brown's unpopularity in July 2008 during the financial crisis (-51), whilst John Major (-59) and Margaret Thatcher (-56) both slipped lower during their own economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s. However, no PM has reached this low so quickly in their tenure. Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos, said: 'While at first the public was reserving judgement, the danger for both of them is that in only their second month those early impressions have rapidly become much more negative. 'Even in our long-term trends going back over the decades there are few Prime Ministers (and no chancellors) with worse scores, and none that have deteriorated so quickly. 'Underpinning this is the poor reaction to their economic policies, which many think will leave them worse off during high levels of concern about the cost of living, and for which the Government is being held increasingly responsible and from which Labour is benefiting. Ms Truss executed another humiliating U-turn on her flagship tax cuts today after 24 hours of extraordinary drama that saw her sack Kwasi Kwarteng and bring back Jeremy Hunt to quell market chaos. Barely a month into her premiership, Ms Truss fronted a make-or-break press conference to abandon plans to keep corporation tax at 19p, rather than hiking it to 25p in April. She said she had made a 'difficult' decision for 'economic security' and 'in the national interest', but argued that her 'mission' to reduce taxes remained. 'We will get through this storm,' she said. 'The mission remains the same.. but ultimately we have to make sure we have economic stability.' Under fierce fire from journalists, Ms Truss refused to apologise for 'trashing' the Tories' reputation - before abruptly walking out after eight minutes and just four question. Downing Street will now be waiting anxiously to see if the PM has done enough to cling on, after Tory MPs warned that a poor performance would mean she is 'out'. Looking uncomfortable, Ms Truss took to the podium inside Downing Street to make a statement confirming the corporation tax rethink. Asked why she should remain as PM, she said: 'I'm absolutely determined to see through what I have promised, to deliver a higher growth, more prosperous United Kingdom, to see us through the storm we face. 'We've already delivered the energy price guarantee making sure people aren't facing huge bills this winter. 'But it was right in the face of the issues that we had that I acted decisively to ensure that we have economic stability, because that is vitally important to people and businesses right across our country.' Challenged on whether she would apologise to her party, Ms Truss told reporters: 'I am determined to deliver on what I set out when I campaigned to be party leader. 'We need to have a high-growth economy but we have to recognise that we are facing very difficult issues as a country. 'And it was right, in the national interest, that I made the decisions I've made today to restore that economic stability so we can deliver, first of all helping people through this winter and next winter with their energy bills, but also making sure that our country is on the long-term footing for sustainable economic growth.' Mr Kwarteng was given his marching orders after being hauled back to Downing Street from a US summit, with the PM facing a potentially terminal Tory rebellion. Former foreign secretary and two-time failed leadership contender Mr Hunt is making a shock return as a 'safe pair of hands' to take over No11. In a letter, Mr Kwarteng confirmed he had been 'asked to stand aside' rather than quitting - and suggested he still believes that the tax-cuts should go ahead. After being fired, the MP left No10 by the front door, smiling and waving to waiting media. Ms Truss replied by praising their 'friendship' and 'shared vision', saying he had put the 'national interest first' by falling on his sword. Despite Mr Kwarteng leaving no doubt that he had been given the bullet, she said: 'I deeply respect the decision you have taken today.' One bewildered Cabinet source told MailOnline of the prospect of Mr Hunt taking over at No11: 'I think my rationality barometer is broken.' Chris Philp has also been ousted from Treasury Chief Secretary, after a series of gaffes including tweeting that the Pound was strengthening during Mr Kwarteng's mini-Budget speech - minutes before it crashed. He is swapping jobs with Paymaster General Edward Argar. The chaos saw the Pound shedding the gains it had made yesterday when the markets moved on the growing likelihood of a big shift on the unfunded tax cuts. Mutinous Conservative MPs have been touting Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt as a 'dream ticket' to take over from Ms Truss. He chased the burglars out of the Liverpool home forcing them to drop the cash The dog saved his owner Karen, 64, in May and the family cats from a fire in 2019 A support dog has been branded 'Britain's bravest dog' after it saved its owner from a burglary - retrieved the stolen items from the thieves - and rescued two pet cats from a house fire. Alaskan Malamute Storm, 12, won the Blue Cross Medal for saving owner Karen Crosby's life and saving the family cats from the fire. The support dog first stepped up and came to the rescue after burglars broke into 64-year-old Ms Crosby's Liverpool home in 2019. He chased the thieves from the house, forcing them to drop their stolen stash and alert a passer-by who notified police. Storm was then called in to action again in May when a neighbour contacted his owner, who was out, to say her home was on fire and all of her pets were trapped inside. Karen Crosby (pictured) and her hero dog Storm. The 12-year-old Alaskan Malamute won the Blue Cross award for saving his owner's life and their family cats The brave pooch saved the lives of two of Ms Crosby's cats by pushing them out of a window as the house filled with smoke, then calmly waited by the kitchen door to be rescued himself. One police officer described hero Storm as being 'just as good as a trained police dog'. Storm was given the prestigious award on the 125th anniversary of the Blue Cross, an animal welfare charity specialised in helping sick, injured and homeless pets. The lifesaving dog was chosen from 650 nominations of pets considered 'heroes' by their owners. Ms Crosby, from Wavertree in Liverpool, said: 'Storm is a hero to me for everything he has done and continues to do. 'I'm over the moon that he has won the Blue Cross medal. It was amazing news. I never expected he would win and I'm so proud of him.' The brave dog saved the family cats from dying in a fire at Ms Crosby's home in Liverpool in May Storm's day-to-day life is not as dramatic, but of vital importance to Karen and her partner, Phil, 69, also retired, who suffered two brain injuries and developed epilepsy and vascular dementia. Before moving into care, he relied on Storm's services to help him with his walking and gently nudge him if he wasn't walking in a straight line. The dog still helps Ms Crosby, who has degenerative disc disease, little sensation in her left leg, visual field problems and tinnitus. He alerts her to the telephone and the doorbell and helps her cross the road, with further support for her fibromyalgia and asthma, sensing if an attack is imminent and providing comfort and support for his owner. The dog saved the two cats from the fire by pushing them out of a window as the house filled with smoke before then calmly waited by the kitchen door to be rescued himself Storm's true bravery was on show after he saved Karen's cats from her burning home all of his own accord. Karen said: 'The fire brigade could not believe how Storm saved two of my cats and trusted that help would soon arrive. 'The police were so impressed they personally took him down the road to his vet to check hadn't inhaled the smoke or been harmed. 'The officer would not leave his side and said he was as good as a trained police dog.' The Blue Cross medal was first given to a pet in 1940, after a dog called La Cloche saved his owner, a French sailor, from drowning. The Blue Cross charity was formed with an aim of helping vulnerable pets and their owners. Chris Burghes, Blue Cross chief executive, on choosing this years winner, said: 'We were particularly moved by the number of pets who really do help their owners' mental health, some even preventing their owners from taking their own lives. 'It was a very close call, but Storm came out on top, he is an amazing pet that has been such a valued member of the family when they have gone through so much. 'Congratulations to him and each and every pet who supports their owners in both day-to-day life and by doing incredible acts like Storm.' Police say the elderly man was taken to hospital for treatment of severe injuries An 82-year-old wheelchair user was randomly stabbed from behind while eating in a Los Angeles Taco Bell. The unidentified knifeman entered the Taco Bell in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista before looking around briefly, pulling out an object from his right jacket pocket, and stabbing the seated man in the neck and shoulder. The LAPD responded to a call to the 12011 Venice Boulevard at around 7pm on October 3. Police said that the elderly man was taken to hospital and treated for severe injuries. He is expected to recover from them. The footage shows the man approaching the 82-year-old before stabbing him twice in the neck and shoulder In CCTV footage the suspect can be seen entering the restaurant with a red skateboard in his left hand. He pauses and looks around briefly before launching the attack. The suspect glances over his glasses as he peers into the Taco Bell where the victim was sitting at a table The Mar Vista Taco Bell in Los Angeles where the 82-year-man was randomly stabbed while sitting and eating The elderly man was sitting at a table with his wheelchair positioned just next too him when the suspect enters and glances around briefly, CCTV footage shows. The suspect has a red skateboard clasped in his left hand, which he drops as he moves in to attack the old man. The old man, who is stabbed twice in the shoulder and neck, turns around in his chair in shock to watch the man with the knife run for the door. As the suspect bolts for the door he leaves the skateboard behind on the floor. The 82-year-old man was stabbed twice in the neck and shoulder before turning around in his chair to watch the man with the knife run for the door Changes in crime since 2021 as reported by the LAPD. Statistics are from October 1 The suspect was described by police as being a bald man between 5-foot-1 and 5-foot-6, weighing about 130 pounds and likely in his 20s or 30s. He also has a large tattoo on the back of his head and a small tattoo next to his left eye, the LAPD said. Overall crime in Los Angeles has been up in recent years. Statistics provided by the LAPD indicated that until on October 10 there had been a total of 24,450 violent crimes committed, up by 3.9 percent from the total in the same period last year, 23,526. Robbery is up by 14.9 percent since last year and aggravated assault 0.9 percent. The LAPD released the surveillance images of the attack seeking help from the public in identifying the suspect. Woke LA DA George Gascon has come under fire for his progressive policies, which he says will lower jail populations - but which critics warn are making the streets less safe. Murders have soared in recent years, with the city also hit by a spate of terrifying follow-home robberies which sees wealthy locals hit by robbers who pursue them, then strike when they make it back to their properties. The two Just Stop Oil protestors who threw Heinz tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh's 76million Sunflowers painting are a student and graduate who have blockaded some of London's busiest areas. Phoebe Plummer, 21, and Anna Holland, 20, threw two tins of soup on the masterpiece at the National Gallery this morning before gluing themselves to the wall. Plummer, a University of Manchester graduate from London, has been involved in several major Just Stop Oil Demonstrations, including gluing herself to the road to stop traffic. Self-styled 'Ziggy Stardyke' on Twitter, she has shared numerous photos and videos of herself and fellow campaigners at demonstrations. The two eco warriors have been part of the radical group's blockades of Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square - bringing the centre of London to a halt. On one occasion, Plummer had to be dragged off by police after the Met un-glued her from the tarmac on Trafalgar Square on October 6. Plummer and Holland went viral when they threw Heinz tomato soup on Vincent Van Gogh's 76 million masterpiece at the National Gallery this morning After their protest, the pair of demonstrators glued themselves to the floor and needed to be unglued by specialist police officers One of the protesters, Phoebe Plummer, 21, is led away by police following the political stunt She said at the protest: 'We have no time to lose. Last year Sir David King said what we do in the next three to four years will determine the future of humanity. 'The government is not listening... Liz Truss is now proposing 130 new oil licences in the North Sea. 'We need to make them listen, because they will not continue to fuel the destruction of our planet in my name.' After helping to block up Parliament Square, Anna Holland, a student at Newcastle University, insisted Just Stop Oil were not criminals and demanded the government agree to the group's demands. She said: 'People need to understand that we are not criminals. We are peacefully demanding that our government ends its unlawful genocide and protects its people where is the crime in that? 'When asked why I would risk my future with arrest and a criminal record, I always reply: what future? Plummer is a University of Manchester gradate who has been involved in several Just Stop Oil protests After throwing soup on the painting - which has a glass cover - protestor Phoebe Plummer, 21, yelled: 'What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? More than justice?' Newcastle University student Anna Holland, 20, was part of Just Stop Oil's blockade of Parliament Square on October 4 'If I don't take peaceful action to demand change, I don't see a future for myself or people of my generation.' The Met said two people had been arrested for criminal damage following the incident at the National Gallery. Plummer was pictured being taken away by police outside the gallery while making an 'ok' hand sign to the camera. After throwing the soup on the Van Gogh painting, she yelled: 'What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? 'More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? 'The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis.' Holland said: 'UK families will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter, as fossil fuel companies reap record profits. Police say the 76 million piece of art was 'unharmed' during the climate demonstration today. Pictured: Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland as tomato soup is thrown across the painting Specialist officers were called in to unglue the two protesters after two cans of tomato sauce was thrown on Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Pictured are police officers leading away Phoebe Plummer, rear, and Anna Holland, 20, front Earlier this month, eco activist Phoebe Plummer was pictured being carried away by police in London after blocking Trafalgar Square during a climate protest on October 8 'But the cost of oil and gas isn't limited to our bills. Somalia is now facing an apocalyptic famine, caused by drought and fuelled by the climate crisis. 'Millions are being forced to move and tens of thousands face starvation. This is the future we choose for ourselves if we push for new oil and gas.' The demonstrators were surrounded by a group of photographers and journalists when they attacked the painting, before the press were asked to leave by National Gallery Staff. Police were called shortly afterwards to un-glue the climate activists from the wall of the National Gallery and arrested two people for criminal damage and aggravated tresspass. A Met Police spokeswoman said: 'Two protesters have been arrested following an incident at the National Gallery. 'The Just Stop Oil protesters entered the National Gallery just after 11am and threw a substance over Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting before gluing themselves to a wall opposite it. 'They have been arrested by Met police officers for criminal damage and aggravated trespass.' Holland said 'I don't see a future for myself or people of my generation' if environmental policy is not changed The 20 year-old climate activist has been involved in several major Just Stop Oil demonstrations Holland (centre) pictured with the north-east branch of the Just Stop Oil climate group She added: 'Specialist officers have now un-glued them and they have been taken into custody to a central London police station. 'There is some minor damage to the frame, but the painting is unharmed.' Art historian Ruth Millington told MailOnline: 'I think that attacking one of the world's most loved paintings, which I would call priceless, will not gain these protestors public support. That is what which they need in order to effect real change. 'What has happened today provides a perfect example of why the painting is protected by glass, luckily.' Meanwhile, the Met Police added a further 24 protesters had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage after activists sprayed orange paint at New Scotland Yards revolving sign; and wilful obstruction of the highway after they sat down in the carriageway outside New Scotland Yard. Some of the demonstrators glued themselves to the road outside the policing HQ, with specialist officers having been called in to remove them. A National Gallery spokesman said: 'At just after 11am this morning two people entered Room 43 of the National Gallery. The pair appeared to glue themselves to the wall adjacent to Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' (1888). They also threw a red substance - what appears to be tomato soup - over the painting. 'The room was cleared of visitors and police were called. Officers are now on the scene. There is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed. 'Two people have been arrested.' Hours later and activists from Just Stop Oil launched a humiliating attack on the New Scotland Yard HQ in Westminster, hurling paint at the policing hub's sign A police officer detains a woman after a sign at the New Scotland Yard HQ was sprayed with orange paint Just Stop Oil has held protests throughout the past few weeks, including blocking roads around Parliament Square as police made dozens or arrests. Following the latest stunt at the National Gallery, the group said: 'This is not a one day event, this is an act of resistance against a criminal government and their genocidal death project. 'Our supporters will be returning today, tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that and every day until our demand is met: no new oil and gas in the UK.' Art lovers have since slammed the 'ridiculous' climate stunt, branding it 'despicable'. David Smith, 75, who was visiting the capital from Birmingham, said: 'As a Van Gogh lover and fan, I think this is despicable. 'I am not in favour of trying to harm art at all. There must be a better way of protesting. 'They are protesting here in Trafalgar Square, just outside the gallery. They are very near Downing Street and are making lots of noise. 'They have just made a mess of a brilliant artwork.' Other climate change protesters were seen blocking the road outside the New Scotland Yard building in Westminster 24 protesters had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage after activists sprayed orange paint at New Scotland Yards revolving sign. Pictured is a man being arrested outside New Scotland Yard on Friday afternoon Retired grammar schoolteacher Moyra Zaman, 75, from Amersham, Buckinghamshire, who was waiting to visit the gallery, said: 'It is ridiculous. There are better ways to protest. 'It is not exactly as if Van Gogh is responsible for oil extraction. 'They are just looking back to things that happened many years ago and treating them as if they are happening now. 'Van Gogh wasn't part of all this; in those days oil was new to them. 'It is such a waste of a wonderful piece of art. 'Everybody knows the Sunflowers. It is such a sad thing.' Her pal Yvonne Lincoln, 75, from Chester, added: 'Just because these paintings are ours it is foolish to start damaging them. Doing that is just ridiculous.' Tim Williams, 68, from Nottingham, said targeting art was not 'a sensible or good way of protesting'. He added: 'What has art got to do with it anyway? I think these demonstrations are futile. 'For every bit of oil exploration you stop in the UK, China build 10 coal-fuelled power stations. What's the point?' A British man has drowned at a private swimming pool on the holiday island of Menorca. The 64-year-old's body was found floating in the water at his own property by a maintenance worker. It was not immediately clear if he lived on the island or was on holiday at the time. A British man has drowned at a private swimming pool on the holiday island of Menorca. Pictured: police at the scene His body was found floating in the water at his own property by a maintenance worker The alarm was raised this morning. Local police, Civil Guard officers and paramedics were among the emergency responders who raced to the villa in a residential area called Trebaluger near Es Castell on the east of the island. Police are understood to be looking at the possibility the victim ended up in the pool after falling and hitting his head. An autopsy is expected to take place tomorrow. The Civil Guard in Majorca has confirmed it has launched an investigation into the tragedy. It is being overseen by a local investigating judge. Local police, Civil Guard officers and paramedics were among the emergency responders who raced to the villa Last month a 72-year-old British man was rushed to hospital after being rescued from a hotel swimming pool in Menorca. Paramedics managed to recover his pulse after practicing CPR on him before taking him to the island's Mateu Orfila Hospital in a 'critical condition.' In June an Irish holidaymaker aged 69 drowned in the sea in an area known as Paupa next to Cala Torre, a picturesque beach in the south-east of Menorca. That tragedy happened days after a British man aged 70 drowned at a pool at the residential apartment block in Menorca he was staying at. The ongoing trial of Russia analyst Igor Danchenko has brought more revelations about how the FBI pays for information, with testimony the source got $200,000 over a period of more than three years. FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson testified about the payments in Danchenko's trial on charges of lying to the FBI, following a years-long investigation by Trump-appointed Special Counsel John Durham into the origins of the Russia probe. Helson told the court Danchenko, who was a primary source for ex-British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele's infamous dossier, got paid $3,000 for just one meeting. It is all part of Durham's look at a series of missteps that went into the creation of the dossier, which also included salacious unproven allegations about Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. Durham's team has highlighted the FBI's use of the dossier to secure surveillance warrants on former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page. Helson testified that he put in for an additional $346,000 when he was closed as a source, Fox News reported, but that it didn't get approved. The work that earned him $200,000 came over three and a half years. On the payroll: Russian analyst Igor Danchenko is on trial on charges of lying to the FBI about his sources. An FBI handler testified that Danchenko was paid $200,000 over a period of three and a half years That revelation came days after FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that the FBI offered Steele $1 million in cash to prove the salacious allegations in the dossier he compiled on Trump, but that the bureau didn't hand over the money because Steele couldn't back up the claims. Danchenko is accused of lying to the FBI when questioned about his information, and is on trial in Alexandria, Virginia federal courthouse. He was indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the dossier as agents rushed to try to verify its information. Prosecutors told the court earlier that Danchenko fabricated one of his own sources and hid the identity of another when he was interviewed by the bureau. Danchenko's own sources are also coming under scrutiny and feature in the charges. News you can use: Charles Dolan Jr. testified that he provided information to Danchenko that he saw on TV about Trump campaign intrigue involving Paul Manafort Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele compiled the infamous dossier of material on Donald Trump and the then-candidate's Russia ties. An FBI supervisory agent testified Steele was offered $1 million to back up his information but was unable to do so Steele compiled a series of reports on ties between Trump figures and Russia, along with salacious unproven allegations about Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room One of them, Democratic PR exec Charles Dolan Jr., testified that he lied when he fed information to Danchenko, who was seeking intelligence on the sudden resignation of former Trump 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort. Manafort had substantial lobbying and financial links to Kremlin-backed figures in Ukraine, and there were public reports of internal campaign tensions when he exited. And it turns out that Dolan was relying on public information that he tried to pass off as inside dope. Auten (pictured) testified that information from the Steele dossier was used to support a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign official Carter Page, even though the information could not be corroborated Danchenko in turn passed on the information, and it got included in the dossier, which contained other unsubstantiated and salacious allegations about Trump. Dolan read from an Aug. 19, 2016 where Danchenko sought information on the Manafort intrigue. Dolan said he would 'dig around,' and later told Danchenko: 'I had drinks with a GOP friend who knows the players.' On the stand he admitted he never met with a GOP source, the Washington Times reported. 'I thought I'd embellish a bit.' He said Dolan had helped him in the past and he wanted to 'throw a bone.' 'I thought I would just embellish a bit to make it seem like his contacts were good,' he said. 'You actually didn't have any inside information, did you?' prosecutor Michael Keilty asked him. 'No,' he responded. Dolan said he wasn't sure why Danchenko was seeking the information at the time. 'You never talked with Mr. Danchenko about anything that showed up in the dossier, correct?' lawyer Stuart Sears asked him. 'Correct,' Dolan responded. Prosecutors read a portion of the dossier in court that said a Trump-linked political figure provided the reasons behind 'Manafort's demise' and that it 'was true that the Ukraine corruption revelations had played a part in this but also, several senior players close to Trump had wanted Manafort out, primarily to loosen his control on strategy and policy formulation.' Manafort was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison on tax, bank fraud, and corruption charges, but received a pardon from Trump. His Russia contacts were part of multiple Russia ties of Trump-linked figures that are included in the dossier. Durham's years-long probe has resulted in a single conviction of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for doctoring an email used to justify surveillance. The trial of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann resulted in an acquittal. National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han, second from left, presides over a National Security Council meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on Oct. 9, hours after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, in this photo provided by the office. Yonhap The presidential National Security Council strongly condemned a barrage of threatening military actions that North Korea carried out overnight, such as artillery firings and a missile launch, warning such provocations will bring consequences. Between Thursday and Friday, the North flew about 10 military planes close to the border with the South, conducted artillery firings off the east and west coasts and launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea. The NSC said President Yoon Suk-yeol was briefed on the latest provocations and its members held an emergency meeting to discuss their response. The council "took note that North Korea has recently been firing ballistic missiles at various times and places with unprecedented frequency, and reaffirmed that all ballistic missile launches by North Korea constitute clear violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions," it said. Dr. Mehmet Oz claimed that he is not concerned with John Fetterman's ability to serve as Senator because of his stroke but is focused on the Democrat's lack of transparency in refusing to release his medical records. 'I think people with disabilities can serve and they should serve. I would never hold that against anybody,' Oz said in a sit-down interview with NBC News. 'The issue for me is the voters of Pennsylvania deserve transparency.' But Thursday night during an interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo Oz took a direct hit at Fetterman's auditory processing issues. 'I dont think theres closed captioning on the floor of the Senate,' he said, knocking his opponent for having to use closed captioning during an NBC interview this week. During the NBC interview also gave a clearer picture on his abortion stance after successfully avoiding being forced to answer on the matter for much of his campaign. He reiterated that he opposes abortion except in the case of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother. However, Oz insinuated he would not back Sen. Lindsey Graham's abortion bill, which bans the procedure after 15 weeks without exception for rape or incest. 'I don't want any federal rules limiting what states do with abortion,' he said, adding that he was speaking broadly. 'It should be up to the states.' Dr. Mehmet Oz gave a clearer picture on his abortion stance after successfully avoiding being forced to answer on the matter for much of his campaign The celebrity heart surgeon also said he backs President Biden's move to pardon federal marijuana possession offenses The celebrity heart surgeon also said he backs President Biden's move to pardon federal marijuana possession offenses. 'Going to jail for marijuana is not a wise move for the country. I think folks who have used marijuana and that's the only reason they're in jail should not have those criminal those rulings held against them,' Oz said, calling the Biden decision a 'rational move.' And in a tack to the center in the waning days of the campaign, Oz said he opposes federal mandatory minimum sentencing. 'I really think judges should be empowered to make the difficult decisions, and they generally do it well,' Oz said. 'When we tie their hands by making laws at the federal level, it hinders their ability to do what needs to be done.' Fetterman days ago in an interview with NBC supported federal mandatory minimums for cases involving fentanyl dealers. Fetterman suffered a stroke in May and still deals with lingering auditory processing issues. He sometimes jumbles his words together or says the wrong thing and has to read from a closed-caption screen to take questions from the press. Last week Fetterman granted his first sit-down interview since his stroke to the same NBC News reporters, where he sat behind a desk and glanced at a computer screen with closed captioning of the reporters' questions. Oz said he watched the interview and thought, 'He probably does want to release his records, but he's not. So why not?' 'I sometimes will hear things in a way that's not perfectly clear. So I use captioning so I'm able to see what you're saying on the captioning,' Fetterman explained. 'Every now and then I'll miss a word. Every now and then. Or sometimes I'll maybe mush two words together. But as long as I have captioning, I'm able to understand exactly what's being asked,' he said. Fetterman 'occasionally stuttered and had trouble finding words,' according to the reporters who interviewed him, who sat down with the lieutenant governor during a key part of his race, with Oz pulling closer to Fetterman in pre-election polls. During the interview, Fetterman struggled with the word 'empathetic,' sometimes saying it as 'emphetic,' and calling the error an example of the lingering impact of the stroke. Dacha Burns, one of the interviewers, said that in her casual conversations with Fetterman before the formal interview, 'it wasn't clear he was understanding our conversation.' 'By January, I'm going [to] be, you know, much better,' said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is recovering from the impacts of a stroke Fetterman occasionally looked at a screen showing closed captioning during the NBC interview Republicans seized on her description of the interaction as proof Fetterman was unable to handle the job duties of the Senate while others accused Burns of being 'ableist' in describing her conversation with Fetterman. Pressed by NBC News on why he declined to make public his medical records, Fetterman said he is not aware of any undisclosed symptoms and emphasized that his memory and cognition were unaffected. 'I feel like we have been very transparent in a lot of different ways,' Fetterman said. 'When our doctor has already given a letter saying that I'm able to serve and to be running. And then I think there's you can't be any more transparent than standing up on a stage with 3,000 people and having a speech without a teleprompter and just being and putting everything and yourself out there like that. I think that's as transparent as everyone in Pennsylvania can see.' Prince William thinks Netflix is profiteering by re-enacting his mother Diana's BBC Panorama interview, palace sources have said. The streaming giant will recreate excerpts of Diana's 1995 encounter with journalist Martin Bashir for the fifth series of The Crown. A source told The Telegraph that the Prince of Wales made his feelings 'very clear' and a depiction in the show would be 'met in the way you would expect'. They added it was understandable that he was angered about the 'dramatisation of it for financial gain'. An independent inquiry found that Bashir deceived Diana to get the interview, seen by more than 20 million viewers, and then lied to BBC managers. He got a BBC graphic artist to produce fake bank statements that appeared to show payments by a newspaper group to an ex-member of staff of Earl Spencer, Diana's brother. The inquiry said this was to gain the Earl's confidence so he would introduce Bashir to Diana. Prince William thinks Netflix is profiteering by re-enacting his mother Diana's BBC Panorama interview, palace sources have said The streaming giant will recreate excerpts of Diana's 1995 encounter with journalist Martin Bashir for the fifth series of The Crown Prince William has previously been an outspoken critic of the interview being aired by broadcasters It is thought the interview contributed to her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996 - a year prior to her fatal car crash in the Tunnel de l'Alma in Paris. Series 5 of The Crown opens in 1991, and a key plotline is the deteriorating relationship between Charles, played by Dominic West, and Diana, portrayed by The Night Manager's Elizabeth Debicki. It is understood that Netflix, which has cast Prasanna Puwanarajah in the role of Bashir, will show how the discredited reporter persuaded Diana to give the interview by playing on her paranoia. But to tell the story, it will recreate what an insider called 'snippets' from Diana's Panorama appearance. However, any reference to the interview, even if critical of Bashir, is likely to be greeted with dismay in Buckingham Palace. Prince William has previously been an outspoken critic of the interview being aired by broadcasters. In May last year, he said: 'It is my firm view that this programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again. 'It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialised by the BBC and others.' Series 5 of The Crown opens in 1991, and a key plotline is the deteriorating relationship between Charles, played by Dominic West, and Diana, portrayed by The Night Manager's Elizabeth Debicki A spokesman for The Crown insisted the interview was of 'historical significance' He added that he was 'most saddened' Diana never learned she had been deceived. He said his mother was failed 'not just by a rogue reporter' but by BBC bosses. A spokesman for The Crown insisted the interview was of 'historical significance'. It was previously reported that the new series will show King Charles's crumbling marriage to Princess Diana in 'painful' detail. The breakdown of Charles and Diana's relationship will be a central part of the new series and portrays the then Prince of Wales as 'petty, cold and deceitful'. The fourth series, which streamed in November last year, told the story of the early romance between Charles and Diana. It was announced last year that Elizabeth Debicki would take over from Emma Corrin and play Diana for the fifth and sixth series, which will cover Diana's death in 1997. A source told The Sun: 'This couldn't have come at a more delicate time for the new King and his Queen Consort, particularly as they're riding high in the minds of the public. The new series of Netflix's The Crown will show King Charles's crumbling marriage to Princess Diana in 'painful' detail. Pictured: Dominic West as Prince Charles and Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana The breakdown of Charles and Diana's relationship will be a central part of the new series and portrays the then Prince of Wales as 'petty, cold and deceitful'. Pictured: A family holiday taken by the royals a year prior to Charles and Diana's divorce in 1992 in which they enjoyed a trip aboard the 400ft yacht Alexander The fourth series, which streamed in November last year, told the story of the early romance between Charles and Diana. Pictured: King Charles III attends the state funeral of the Queen 'There's a sense that Netflix are muckraking over events that took place 30 to 40 years ago, but are still raw for those involved. 'The worst element for the royals is that millions of people around the world will view this series and view it less as a drama and more as a documentary. 'And attention on the Windsors couldn't be higher as it's been just a few weeks since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and is in the run-up to the King's coronation.' The fifth series will span the 1990s, including events from 1992, the late monarch's annus horribilis - horrible year - during which Prince Andrew and Prince Charles separated from their wives, the Princess Royal divorced her husband Mark Phillips, and part of Windsor Castle burnt down. It will begin with Sir John Major as Prime Minister and conclude with the arrival of Tony Blair. During this time, Prince Charles admitted to Jonathan Dimbleby that he committed adultery with the then Camilla Parker Bowles. Princess Diana's death - which took place in 1997 - will not be covered until the sixth and final series. A senior police officer has been suspended by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) as he faces allegations of sexual harassment. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it is considering a referral from the force about an unnamed high-ranking officer. The police watchdog said in a statement: 'We have received a conduct referral from Greater Manchester Police in relation to allegations of sexual harassment by a senior officer. A senior police officer suspended by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is facing sexual harassment allegations 'We will now assess the available information to determine if any further action is required from us.' Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods, of GMP, earlier said the officer had been suspended. He said: 'Following an allegation of misconduct, a senior officer has been suspended from duty and referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for investigation into their standards of professional behaviour.' At least five New Jersey high schools on Friday became victims of swatting - an increasingly widespread trend in which unnecessary police responses are triggered by false reports of violence or shootings. Many of the false reports received in schools across New Jersey appear to have come via text messages from an overseas cell phone, sparking concerns the same swatter was behind all the callouts. At around 9.45am somebody called Weequahic High School reporting that a 'male had injured ten people with a long gun', RLS Media reported. The swatting attacks occurred on at least six schools throughout the state and appear to have happened within an approximately 30 minute period. No one was injured - but swatting calls are particularly dangerous because those targeted can mistake cops for an intruder, respond aggressively, and find themselves injured or even killed as a result. Weequahic High School and Barnegat High School Schools understood to have been targeted by the attacks are: Hamilton, Barnegat, Weequahic, East Brunswick, Toms River North and Jackson Liberty high schools. Toms River Police put out a tweet at 11am saying their officers had responded to a call regarding a 'possible shooting' at High School North. 'The call was deemed unfounded and is being investigated as a swatting incident, there is no active threat,' they wrote. Superintendent of East Brunswick Public Schools, Victor Valeski, said in a statement: 'Our 911 police dispatch operator received a phone call reporting an incident occurring at our high school that required immediate police assistance. 'This warranted a large police response to the high school and the building was immediately placed in a "Shelter in Place" status.' East Brunswick High and Jackson Liberty High School Toms River High School North and Hamilton High School Berkley Townships School District took action and said in an announcement on their Facebook page that 'out of an abundance of caution, students will remain in the buildings' on Friday. Swatting is considered dangerous because it can divert important law enforcement attention away from where it is most needed. This spate of swatting attacks in New Jersey comes just days after a cluster of schools were similarly targeted in south Florida. Those calls coincided with the start of closing arguments for the trial of Parkland shooter Nicholas Cruz, who the jury decided should receive a sentence of life without parole as opposed to death. One woman's trash is also her treasure! A New York woman is feeling grateful today after sanitation workers helped her to find a ring with tremendous sentimental value that had accidentally been thrown away Monday morning. NYC Sanitation first shared the news Friday, celebrating 'another lost & found success' after the woman had placed her ring, modeled after a butterfly, in a white tissue that eventually got thrown in the garbage. The ring was given to her by someone who loves her 'very much' and was from Aruba, the woman said in an interview after the precious item was found. The ring's monetary value is unknown, but the sentimental value for it is priceless. 'This #StatenIsland resident lost her diamond ring in the trash! She called us and we found the truck that served her block. After a few pointers from the #DSNYexperts at our Staten Island Transfer Station - voila - she found it! Reunited,' the NYC Sanitation Department said on Twitter. The ring does not actually appear to contain a diamond, but is very valuable to its owner. The woman who lost her ring in the garbage poses with two of the sanitation workers who helped to sort through hundreds of bags of trash after they found it Monday Jackie's ring was given to her by someone special and had tremendous sentimental value. She called the sanitation workers who helped search for it New York's 'strongest heroes' Another Lost & Found Success! This #StatenIsland resident lost her diamond ring in the trash ! She called us and we found the truck that served her block. After a few pointers from the #DSNY experts at our Staten Island Transfer Station - voila - she found it! Reunited! pic.twitter.com/KyQtZM5BeY NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) October 14, 2022 Jackie Cacace, 46, expressed her gratitude to the NYC Department of Sanitation in a Facebook post Thursday, calling the workers who helped her New York's 'strongest heroes.' According to the woman's post, she tossed the ring in the trash Monday morning after realizing it had been wrapped in a crumbled napkin. Immediately jumping into action, Jackie said she ran outside to find the trash bag already taken by sanitation workers. 'Striking fear ran throughout my entire body as I believed my ring was gone forever,' the New York woman said. She began driving around her neighborhood in an effort to find the garbage truck that had picked up her trash. 'Miraculously' she found the truck. 'I approached them with tears in my eyes and trembling hands. They quickly calmed me down, placed a phone call to their supervisor Richie, and ensured me my ring will be found,' Jackie wrote. The group did not hesitate to reroute the truck to a transfer station and get to searching. This is the NYC Department of Sanitation transfer site where Jackie Cacace and five workers searched for her missing ring on Monday after she accidentally threw it out DSNY workers Mo Hedderman, Anthony Mirabello, Mike Abbatantuono, Pete Mauro, manager Richie Ferraro, and supervisor Scott Rogers came to Jackie's rescue in her time of need. The group helped to sort through hundreds of bags of garbage, knowing only that the ring was inside a black garbage bag that had glass clippings and a box from Mallow bars. Mauro said that after a few minutes, he saw the box of Mallow bars and said, 'we got it, you know, it's here.' Pete Mauro was one of the NYC Department of Sanitation workers who helped sort through the bags of garbage to reunite Jackie with the ring she had lost 'When Pete tore the trash bag open and screamed, 'I found it,' tears of happiness and joy just came right down my face, and I gave him the biggest hug ever,' said Jackie in an interview with PIX 11. The group 'amazingly' found the bag and the ring inside. 'I recognize the massive amount of facilitation that took place, and the chaos I caused. I am simply impressed, humble, and overwhelmed with joy,' Jackie said. 'This was a simple act of kindness where all these men went above and beyond my expectations. May all the angels above us bless and protect our NY Strongest Heroes,' the woman continued. Jackie thanked the group of men who didn't hesitate to reroute a trash truck and sort through garbage to find her ring The Staten Island resident said that the ring was purchased in Aruba by someone she loves and that she was brokenhearted when she thought she had lost it Jackie wasn't the only one who applauded the sanitation workers, though. New York City Mayor Eric Adams shouted out the group Friday by quoting the tweet shared by the NYC Sanitation account, calling the group 'New Yorks Strongest.' In 2018, the New York Police Department made a startling recovery of their own when they located an engagement ring that had been dropped down a utility grate on accident. The marriage proposal gone wrong happened near 2 Times Square and the couple involved begged officers for help after the incident. Initially, police were unable to recover the ring, but further efforts made it possible for the NYPD to pull the ring out the next day. The couple had left the scene and the law enforcement agency then asked the public for their help in identifying the man and woman. The NYPD tweeted a photo of the ring that officers recovered in 2018 The NYPDs official Twitter feed posted a photo of the ring. Heres a photo of the ring our officers recovered (and cleaned!) the tweet read. The NYPD then posted a video on Twitter with the caption: WANTED for dropping his fiancees ring in Times Square! She said Yes - but he was so excited that he dropped the ring in a grate. Social media got to work. The couple was later located and reunited with the ring they thought they would never see again. Average rainfall over winter will not be sufficient to avoid drought conditions in England continuing beyond spring 2023, the National Drought Group has forecast. This could lead water companies to impose strict water saving measures, including banning all non-critical use, such as refilling swimming pools and cleaning non-residential buildings. The National Drought Group is made up of senior decision-makers from the Environment Agency, government, water companies, and farming and environmental groups. At a meeting on Friday, the group heard that water companies were preparing to implement drought plans over the next six months to improve the resilience of water supplies. It comes after below average rainfall this year led to drought conditions across the country, with the South and East of England experiencing the worst impacts. Average rainfall over winter will not be sufficient to avoid drought conditions in England continuing beyond spring 2023, the National Drought Group has forecast (Pictured: Greenwich Park, London, near the Royal Observatory, in August) Indeed, the Environment Agency (EA) has reported that despite average rainfall in September, much of England remains in drought, with low river and groundwater levels, and reservoir stocks continuing to decrease. The group heard that if rainfall remains below average over winter, then impending drought or drought conditions will remain beyond spring 2023 in some areas of England, including parts of the South West, South East, East and Yorkshire and East Midlands. They were also told that even if rainfall returns to average levels, some areas will still see drought conditions. The projections were presented to the group by the EA, and were made up of contributions by various members, including the water companies. Those gathered heard that investment in water infrastructure will be needed to ensure long-term water security. EA chief executive and NDG chair, Sir James Bevan, said the country needs to take action now to ensure wit has enough water over the coming decades. This could lead water companies to impose strict water saving measures, including banning all non-critical use, such as refilling swimming pools and cleaning non-residential buildings (Pictured: Ardingly reservoir in West Sussex, standing at 30% of it's normal capacity in August) 'Our lives, livelihoods and nature all depend on one thing - water,' he said. 'Climate change and population growth mean we need to take action now to ensure we have enough over the coming decades to manage everyday supplies, and more intense drought events. 'We have a plan to do that and delivering it will require all of us to work together: government, water companies, regulators, farmers and businesses, and each of us as individuals. The Environment Agency is determined to do its part.' Water Minister Trudy Harrison added that we need to 'adapt' to ensure our water supplies are resilient in the future. 'The record-breaking temperatures, unusually low rainfall and widespread drought the country has experienced this year are a reminder that we need to adapt to ensure our water supplies are resilient and secure in future,' she said. He is facing charges of attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and robbery Alleged incident took place just three days before the Queen's funeral in London He is also accused of stabbing a female officer in the arm in Leicester Square A suspected robber has appeared at the Old Bailey accused of stabbing two police officers in central London three days before the Queens funeral. Mohammed Rahman, 24, allegedly knifed a male constable in the neck and chest and a female officer in the arm in Leicester Square early on Friday September 16. The officers, who were taken to hospital, were attached to the Mets Central West Command Unit responsible for policing Westminster. Mohammed Rahman, 24, allegedly knifed a male constable in the neck and chest and a female officer in the arm in Leicester Square early on Friday September 16 They were carrying out routine duties and were not part of the wider policing operation in place in the run-up to the Queens funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19. On Friday, Rahman appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey charged with attempted murder of the male officer and causing grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to the female officer. Rahman has been charged with assault and two counts of threatening a person in a public place with a bladed article in relation to three other officers. Pictured: Debris on the ground after the alleged stabbing near London's Leicester Square The defendant is further accused of robbery and possession of a bladed article. During the brief hearing, Rahman spoke only to confirm his identity before a timetable for his case was set. Judge Mark Dennis KC said a further hearing would take place on December 21. Rahman, of Westbourne Park Road in Notting Hill, was remanded into custody. Two brothers have been sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering a prominent female journalist in Malta in a stunning backflip on the first day of their trial. George Degiorgio, 59, and his brother Alfred, 57, entered their pleas just hours after the trial got underway. Up until today, they'd maintained their innocence through the courts. 'Their position has changed... they declare they are guilty,' defence lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace told the court. Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed on October 16, 2017 when a car bomb was detonated inside her car on the tiny Mediterranean island. She'd made a name for herself reporting on organised crime and government corruption, and had been described as a 'one-woman WikiLeaks'. George and Alfred Degiorgio entered their pleas just hours after the trial got underway. Up until today, they'd maintained their innocence through the courts Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed on October 16, 2017 when a car bomb was detonated inside her car on the tiny Mediterranean island Her death was widely condemned internationally and sparked mass protests within Malta. Then-prime minister Joseph Muscat resigned in the wake of the controversy, over his perceived efforts to protect friends and allies from the investigation. Current prime minister Robert Abela said the sentences were 'an important step forward to deliver justice in a case that represents a dark chapter in Malta's history'. One of her sons, Matthew Caruana Galizia, told reporters: 'I'm relieved that they have been convicted and sentenced. Now it's about the remaining cases,' he said, referring to prosecution of other defendants. But he said the five years it took to reach this stage of justice for his mother was 'far too long'. A 2021 public inquiry into Caruana Galizia's murder found the state should bear responsibility for her death, by creating a 'climate of impunity' for those who wanted to silence her. The trial of the two brothers had faced significant delays and setbacks but began on Friday with George Degiorgio accusing prosecutors of wrongdoings in a dramatic courtroom outburst. 'Don't you know who killed Daphne?' he shouted to the prosecution upon entering court. 'Your friends, those you were shoulder to shoulder with... Go investigate them!' Her death was widely condemned internationally and sparked mass protests within Malta Pictured: Ms Caruana Galizia's car after the explosion on October 16, 2017 The pair were charged with homicide, causing a fatal explosion and criminal conspiracy. A third man, Vincent Muscat, pled guilty last year for his role in the murder as part of a plea bargain and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. In the early stages of Friday's trial, prosecutors detailed how the trio had originally planned to shoot Caruana Galizia but procured a bomb which they opted to place in her car instead. The court heard George set off the bomb from a yacht off Malta's coastline while his brother Alfred and Muscat served as spotters. During the prosecution's opening arguments, the state argued they had evidence involving mobile phones that would link the defendants to the bombing. The brothers had unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a pardon in exchange for naming bigger alleged conspirators, including a former government minister whose identity has not been revealed. Still awaiting trial is Yorgen Fenech, a wealthy businessman prosecutors allegedly consider the alleged mastermind of the murder. Fenech has entered not guilty pleas to all charges. No date has been set for his trial. A self-confessed middleman, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for testimony against Fenech and the other alleged plotters. Two men, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius, have been charged with supplying the bomb, but their trial has not yet begun. A 2021 public inquiry into Caruana Galizia's murder found the state should bear responsibility for her death, by creating a 'climate of impunity' for those who wanted to silence her Pictured: Ms Caruana Galizia's car after the explosion on October 16, 2017 Caruana Galizia's assassination put Malta, the European Union's smallest member state, in the spotlight over its apparent rule-of-law failings. One of Malta's most prominent public figures, Caruana Galizia was a vocal critic of the country's political elite, whom she accused of cronyism and corruption via her blog. The October 16, 2017 car bomb attack near her home came hours after she posted a message that read, 'There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.' As the trial opened, judge Edwina Grima said a defence request to suspend the trial, due to what lawyers said was their lack of time to prepare, had been refused. Courtroom observers included representatives from press freedom groups, including Reporters without Borders and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. Her boyfriend, David, told DailyMail.com that she was the 'most beautiful person in the world' A New York model hugged her mother goodbye and seemed 'happy' just three hours before she jumped to her death from the 54th floor of a Times Square rooftop bar. Elizabeth Gaglewski, 26, had reserved a table at the Hyatt Centric's bar in midtown and ordered a drink before reportedly climbing over a barrier as horrified staff tried to stop her. Police are investigating if the 'sweet and kind' girl jumped or if her death was an accident after she landed on a 27th floor balcony on Wednesday. Friends told DailyMail.com that Elizabeth had seemed 'happy' before leaving the family home in Queens. They added that she had 'struggled to cope' after the death of her father, and had suffered with depression. She had a conversation with her widowed mother, Hope, three hours before she left for the bar and the family had 'no idea' that anything was wrong. Her boyfriend, David, has paid tribute to her as the 'most beautiful person in the world that ever lived.' Elizabeth Gaglewski, 26, hugged her mother Hope, left, hours before she plunged to her death from a 54th floor rooftop bar in Manhattan A GoFundMe page has been set up for the model, with pals saying she was 'adored by all that crossed her path' Police are investigating if the 'sweet and kind' girl jumped or if her death was an accident after she landed on a 27th floor balcony on Wednesday Friends told DailyMail.com that Elizabeth had seemed 'happy' before leaving the family home in Queens, but that she had previously 'struggled with depression' Neighbour Sony Beauville said: 'She is a friend of my family. Her mum told me before she left that she hugged her and that they spoke. 'She told her that she looked good, and everything sounded fine. No one was worried about her, or thought anything was wrong. 'Only forensics can tell if it was an accident. We don't know. She had been sick some time before, and probably had depression.' He added that Gaglewski had been working for her aunt's modelling business, but that work was slow. Family members have described her as a 'good person, a sweet and loving, caring kid', with her mother Hope sharing a touching photo of the pair of them online. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the model, with pals saying she was 'adored by all that crossed her path'. It described her death as 'a shock' to everyone who knew her, adding that it comes after her father passed away during the pandemic. The aspiring model had seemed 'happy' before leaving the family home in Queens, with relatives having 'no idea' anything was wrong Her father passed away during the pandemic, with the aspiring models death coming as a 'shock' to her family Elizabeth, pictured with herm other as a toddler, was seen making a phone call, before climbing onto a piece of furniture, then jumping over the side of the terrace. Onlookers were horrified to see Gaglewski jump from a Times Square rooftop bar. The 26-year-old landed on a balcony 27 floors below and was pronounced dead on the scene. Medical examiners are seen removing the woman's body Staff at the bar tried in vain to grab Gaglewski before she fell 27 floors, and landed on a ledge on the skyscraper hotel Staff at the bar tried in vain to grab Gaglewski before she fell 27 floors, and landed on a ledge on the skyscraper hotel. Other eyewitnesses told police the woman was 'seen jumping' to her death around 3:30pm on Wednesday. She was seen making a phone call, before climbing onto a piece of furniture, then jumping over the side of the terrace. A Hyatt staffer told the New York Daily News: 'She walked right by me and I didn't think anything of it. She was a young girl with a reservation for the bar.' Explaining what happened next, the worker added: 'It's easy (to jump) because the tables and chairs are right near the glass. 'She didn't say anything. Everybody came running saying, 'She jumped! She jumped!' At first I thought they were playing. 'The woman cleaning on the 27th floor heard the crash and found her body on the balcony. We're lucky she didn't land on the sidewalk. It's crazy.' The bar is described as being 'perched above the bright lights of Times Square.' Gaglewski jumped from Hyatt Centric's 54th floor roof top bar in Times Square The balcony where the Gaglewski, 26, fell to her death at Bar 54 on Wednesday Eyewitnesses told police the woman was 'seen jumping' to her death around 3:30pm Wednesday The horrifying incident happened just before 3.30pm, with emergency services finding the 26-year-old Gaglewski unresponsive and unconscious on the balcony. Pictured: Hyatt Centric hotel On the website, it is termed New York City's 'highest open-air hotel rooftop bar'. Emergency services found her unresponsive and unconscious on the balcony and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her official cause of death will be determined by the city medical examiner. Police have not said if the woman was a guest at the hotel or visiting the bar, which requires reservations. Standard rooms at the Hyatt location cost upwards of $600 a night, with the bar closing for the rest of Wednesday, according to a hotel employee. In a statement, Hyatt Hotels Corporation General Manager Tom Blundell said: 'We are deeply saddened by the situation that occurred this afternoon at our hotel and our thoughts go out to the individual's family and those who have been affected. 'We are working closely with local authorities and all inquiries should be directed to the New York Police Department.' Longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone called Ivanka Trump an abortionist b***' and said Jared in an 'IQ of 70' in a furious phone call after learning Donald refused to pardon him for the second time. In newly-released video footage from an upcoming documentary, the consultant rants 'f*** you and your abortionist b**** daughter' in anger at Trump to the person on the other end of the line. Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen captured the footage for his documentary A Storm Foretold while Stone was in Florida. The veteran Republican then started ranting about Jared Kushner, seemingly blaming him for not receiving the pardon in the final hours of Trump's presidency. 'Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. He's coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly,' Stone said can be heard fuming into a cell phone in obvious anger, in footage obtained by the Daily Beast. 'Very quickly.' 'He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let's fight. F*** you,' he said. Stone had been hoping Trump would give him a second pardon to protect him from any legal action taken on January. The former President had already pardoned him in December 2020 for multiple charges including witness tampering and trying to interfere in Robert Mueller's 2016 Russia investigation. Roger Stone can be seen raging in video footage over President Trump's failure to give him a pardon during his last days in office, in what a filmmaker says was a push for a Jan. 6th related pardon Stone targeted his anger on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who are seen walking out of a private club in London earlier this month Guldbrandsen provided footage to the House January 6th Committee, which aired film of Stone pictured with far-right Proud Boys at Thursday's hearing. He said the committee had selected the clip of Stone but didn't play it. The filmmaker said the 'f*** you and your abortionist b**** daughter,' referenced Ivanka, who served as a senior White House advisor to Trump and was viewed as untrustworthy by some figures in Trump's orbit who railed against a 'globalist' wing. Kushner testified to the committee that he was spending considerable time during his last weeks in office working on pardon issues for Trump. When Trump pardoned Stone over his conviction, he also pardoned Kushner's father, Charles. Additional footage and documents revealed the extent of Stone's plan to have Trump pardon members of the 'America First movement' to shield them from potential prosecution after Trump left office. Stone, 70, at one point said then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone nixed the plan. 'Clearly, Cipollone f---ed everybody,' he told an associate who was in prison in a January 19th call, the Washington Post reported. In another comment, he fumed that Trump was a 'disgrace' and said: 'He betrayed everybody.' Guldbrandsen told the Daily Beast Stone had become 'increasingly frustrated' and wanted pared back pardons for himself and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a longtime associate of Rudy Giuliani. Other earlier footage features Florida Rep. Mat Gaetz reassuring Stone that he'll get a pardon. 'The boss still has a very favorable view of you,' he said. 'F*** you and your abortionist b**** daughter,' Stone said, in a line Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen said referenced Ivanka Trump The Jan. 6th committee featured footage of Stone, who was seen with Proud Boys on Jan. 5th, in its Thursday hearing 'F*** the voting, let's get right to the violence,' Stone says at one point Stone tears into Kushner, who took a leading role in assisting Trump with pardons in his final weeks in office. Both worked in Trump's White House The House Jan. 6th Committee included footage of Stone with Oath Keepers in its last hearing, and played video of him exercising his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination The Jan. 6th committee played video footage of Stone taking the Fifth Amendment during his appearance under subpoena. They also played a clip from the film of Stone saying: 'F*** the voting, let's get right to the violence.' 'Although we do not yet have all relevant records of Roger Stone's communications, even Stone's own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Donald Trump on December 27thas preparations for January 6th were underway,' the committee wrote in a tweet. Stone sounded off on Telegram after the hearing. 'All I've seen in today's Jan 6 Committee is guilt by association,' he said. 'The fact that I know or have met someone is most certainly not evidence of criminal conspiracy. If the committee has actual proof and content of communication between me and anyone charged with a crime, they should produce it.' Kenya says Chinese manufacturers help boost industrialization agenda Xinhua) 08:59, October 14, 2022 NAIROBI, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Thursday said that Chinese manufacturers are playing a positive role in the country's industrialization agenda. Anthony Mwangi, the chief executive officer of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), said in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, that Chinese industrialists have raised the standards of competition in the country, which has led to the development of more local innovations. "We welcome more international investors to come to the country to add value to raw materials so that more Kenyans can have job opportunities," Mwangi said during the launch of the fifth edition of the manufacturers' shopping festival. He said that Chinese manufacturers are attracted to Kenya because it is a gateway for East and Central Africa's rapidly growing markets. "My rallying call is, let us welcome more Chinese companies to come and establish a presence in Kenya so that we benefit from their advanced technology," he added. Mwangi observed that foreign manufacturers based in Kenya benefit from infrastructure that enables them to export to the rest of Africa. He revealed that Kenya is also keen to learn from China's industrialization journey that has transformed the Asian nation to become the world's manufacturing hub. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks to reporters as he arrives at the presidential office in Seoul on Oct. 14. Yonhap President Yoon Suk-yeol said Friday that North Korea violated an inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement by firing artillery shots into buffer zones earlier in the day. Between Thursday and Friday, the North flew about 10 military planes close to the border with the South, conducted artillery firings off the east and west coasts and launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea. The actions represented the latest in a series of increasingly threatening provocations by the North. "We're building a readiness posture against North Korea's provocations without leaving any gaps and by doing our best," Yoon told reporters as he arrived for work, adding that such physical provocations are bound to be followed by psychological offensives aimed at reunifying the peninsula by force. "For our security, it's more important than anything to have a firm awareness of the enemy and strong commitment to defending the Constitution by upholding our liberal democracy," he said. Yoon said the North's artillery firing constituted a violation of the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, which calls for halting all hostile military activity between the Koreas. A New York congressional candidate has released a tape of him having sex on PornHub to promote his 'sex positive' agenda, including the legalization of prostitution. Mike Itkis, a third-party liberal candidate in New York's 12th District and current major in the US Army Reserve, is running to unseat Jerry Nadler in November, having achieved ballot access in September. One of Itkis' key campaign issues is decriminalizing sex work, so to promote it, he participated in an adult film which he posted to the sex site PornHub on his own account. The 53-year-old Itkis - whose bio describes himself as 'Not married. No kids. Not celibate. Atheist.' - stars with adult actress Nicole Sage in the X-rated clip, which features the pair having sex on camera twice over the course of the past year. The video, which is about 13 minutes long opens with the performer Sage, clarifying that she consents to the scene and is 'not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.' Itkis - whose bio describes himself as 'Not married. No kids. Not celibate. Atheist.' - stars with adult actress Nicole Sage in a fairly straightforward video, which features the pair having sex on camera twice over the course of the past year The video, which is about 13 minutes long opens with the performer Sage, clarifying that she consents to the scene and is 'not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.' Mike Itkis, an independent candidate for Congress in New York, is attempting to bring attention to both his campaign and the cause of legalizing sex work by getting in on the act, so to speak Itkis then walks into the scene and clarifies that the two have been tested for STDs and established a safe word ('Stop'). After the initial scene ends, a video cuts to the pair again, fully clothed, subtitled 'Los Angeles, CA, October 2021' before establishing consent again and going back to performing. Sage has an OnlyFans account and posts regularly on Instagram and Snapchat, describing herself as 'Your naughty, online girlfriend.' Itkis told City & State that he made the video in an attempt to walk the walk, a 'conversation piece' backing up his campaign promises regarding sex work. He said: 'If I would just talk about it, it wouldnt demonstrate my commitment to the issue. And the fact I actually did it was a huge learning experience, and it actually influenced items on my platform.' The progressive independent's key issues include legalizing sex work, ending the war in Ukraine (Itkis was born in Odessa before moving to New York City in 1979) and keeping men from being forced to pay child support without 'prior agreement.' Itkis told City & State that he made the video in an attempt to walk the walk, a 'conversation piece' backing up his campaign promises regarding sex work One of Itkis' key campaign issues is decriminalizing sex work, so to promote it, he participated in an adult film which he posted to the sex site PornHub on his own account The progressive independent's key issues include legalizing sex work, ending the war in Ukraine (Itkis was born in Odessa before moving to New York City in 1979) and keeping men from being forced to pay child support without 'prior agreement.' Sage has an OnlyFans account and posts regularly on Instagram and Snapchat, describing herself as 'Your naughty, online girlfriend' Itkis, a third-party liberal candidate in New York's 12th District and current major in the US Army Reserve, is running to unseat Jerrold Nadler in November, having achieved ballot access in September The video, titled 'Bucket List Bonanza', was his first time the Cornell graduate has ever performed on film. Itkis said: 'Im very much an introvert. Im kind of a nerd who doesnt like to be the center of attention if I can avoid it. But I thought the issues Im trying to address are so important I wanted to have my issues talked about in some way.' The registered Democrat is running as an independent because he says that despite having 'uncompromising opposition' to the Republican agenda, 'he has significant disagreements with establishment Democrats and wanted to provide the voters a choice on November 8.' Despite the lurid nature of the video, his Republican opponent isn't knocking it. Mike Zubluskas said: 'You gotta do what you gotta do. The media ignores everybody that's not a Democrat in the city.' Itkis isn't even the first Manhattan politician to attempt to drum up attention using a sex tape. Zack Weiner, 26, a screenwriter and actor was caught on video engaged in BDSM The video was posted onto Twitter and in the comments section for one of Weiner's rally's Zack Weiner, 26, a screenwriter and actor and 2021 candidate for New York's City Council has had a video of himself enjoying a sadomasochism session posted to Twitter. Weiner quickly fessed up to participating in the BDSM ritual and did not make any moves to dispel that notion that it wasn't him who featured in the footage which was said to have been filmed 18 months ago. Nadler defeated fellow veteran lawmaker Rep. Carolyn Maloney in one of the most significant elections Empire State Democrats have seen in years. Both left-wing legislators are in their 70s, joined Congress in 1993 and both hold valuable committee chairmanships - Nadler leads the House Judiciary Committee while Maloney chairs the House Oversight panel. Also in the running was 38-year-old progressive attorney Suraj Patel, whose calls for a new generation of leadership nearly saw Maloney unseated in the old bounds of New York's 12th district in 2020. Patel again came within roughly a few thousands votes of Maloney - though their combined total gains would still be slightly less than ballots cast for Nadler. New York's new Congressional map saw one seat in the House of Representatives thrown out based on the latest census. Among the shakeups it has caused for the blue stronghold is pitting Nadler and Maloney against each other. He said his mobilisation was getting close to achieving its target of calling up 300,000 new troops The Russian president spoke today from Astana, Kazakhstan after a meeting between ex-Soviet allied states This came as Vladimir Putin said today that direct clashes with Russia would spark a 'global catastrophe' The nuclear drills do not involve live bombs and were 'not linked to current world events', according to NATO NATO's 'Steadfast Noon' routine October exercise will see up to 60 aircrafts take part in training flights Advertisement NATO is set to start military drills practising the use of Europe's nuclear bombs on Monday after Putin warned direct clashes with Russia would spark 'global catastrophe'. Its annual nuclear exercise 'Steadfast Noon' will see up to 60 aircrafts take part in training flights over Belgium, the North Sea and Britain. The nuclear drills - which do not involve live bombs - come after Vladimir Putin said today that a direct clash between NATO and Russian troops would lead to 'global catastrophe' The alliance said the routine drills were not 'linked to current world events'. Putin also said today that he sees no need to carry out massive strikes against Ukraine... 'for now'. On its website, NATO said the exercise, which runs until 30 October, was a routine, recurring training activity and added that no live weapons would be used. Spokesperson Oana Lungescu, said the exercise helps ensure NATO's nuclear deterrent 'remains safe, secure and effective'. Spokesperson Oana Lungescu (pictured), said the 'Steadfast Noon' exercise helps ensure NATO's nuclear deterrent 'remains safe, secure and effective' Vladimir Putin said today (pictured during a press conference in Astana) that a direct clash between NATO and Russian troops would lead to a 'global catastrophe', adding that he saw no need to carry out massive strikes against Ukraine... 'for now' Belgium is hosting the drills that will involve 14 countries and up to 60 aircraft, including the most advanced fighter jets on the market and U.S. B-52 long-range bombers that will fly in from Minot Air Base in North Dakota, a statement from NATO said. Earlier, Putin said the recent military mobilisation he ordered is coming to an end, and he has no plans for further conscriptions once it has finished. He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part. Putin was speaking in Astana after a meeting of The Commonwealth of Independent States Summit (CIS), where he sat down with fellow leaders of ex-Soviet states. Other attendees included Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, who said on Friday that Russian troops would soon be arriving to take part in a 'regional grouping' of forces to protect its borders. 'The introduction of troops into a direct confrontation with the Russian army is a very dangerous step that could lead to a global catastrophe,' Putin told reporters. 'I hope that those who speak of this have enough sense not to take such steps.' Belgium is hosting the drills that will involve 14 countries and up to 60 aircraft, including the most advanced fighter jets on the market and U.S. B-52 long-range bombers that will fly in from Minot Air Base in North Dakota, a statement from NATO said He said he currently saw no need for 'massive strikes' on Ukraine now having hit their intended targets earlier in the week - but that could change in the future - and insisted that it was not his goal to destroy Ukraine. 'There is no need now for massive strikes. There are other tasks. For now. And then it will be clear,' he said, adding: 'We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not,' Putin said. Fears have risen in recent weeks over the possibility of Moscow launching nuclear strikes, after suffering a series of embarrassing setbacks in Putin's invasion. It was revealed on Friday - shortly before he spoke in Astana - that Putin has increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, satellite images show. He went on to say that the 'partial mobilisation' he announced last month, which the defence minister said aimed to recruit 300,000 soldiers, was finishing and would be over within two weeks. 'Nothing additional is planned. No proposals have been received from the defence ministry and I don't see any additional need in the foreseeable future. Pictured, from left: Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon and Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov attend a joint photographing ceremony before the Russia-Central Asia Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 'Now 222,000 people have been mobilised out of 300,000. Within about two weeks, all mobilisation activities will be completed.' A total of 33,000 of them are already in military units and 16,000 are involved in the military operation in Ukraine, he said. He said his decision to call-up of reserve forces to fight in Ukraine, criticised as chaotic by some Kremlin allies, had been vital to hold the front line. 'The line of contact is 680 miles so it is practically impossible to hold it with forces formed only of contract soldiers, especially since they take part in offensive activities,' Putin claimed. Pictured: (right to left, clockwise) Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon and Turkmenistan's President Serdar Berdymukhamedov attend the Central Asia - Russia summit in Astana, Kazakhstan Russian troops have raped more than 100 Ukrainians with victims as young as FOUR, UN report says Russian troops are using rape as a weapon of war against Ukrainians, according to damning evidence collected by the UN. Pramila Patten, UN special envoy on sexual violence, said she has verified more than 100 cases of rape against Ukrainians during the war - but the true figure is almost certain to be higher. Victims have ranged in age from four years old to 82 and have been mostly women and girls but included a number of men and young boys, she added. Patten said survivors have told her of genital mutilations and of soldiers 'equipped with Viagra' in what appears to be a 'military strategy' to dehumanise people. 'When women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy,' she said. 'And when the victims report what was said during the rapes, it is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims.' The United Nations has verified 'more than a hundred cases' of rape or sexual assaults in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February, Patten said, referring to a UN report released in late September. The report 'confirmed crimes against humanity committed by the Russian forces, and according to gathered testimonies, the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from four to 82-years-old,' she said. Advertisement Asked if he had any regrets over ordering the invasion of his neighbouring country on February 24, Putin said: 'No.' He acknowledged that the war us unpleasant, but said he believed what his forces were doing was right. 'I want to make it clear: what is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, but we would have got the same thing a little later, only in worse conditions for us, that's that,' he said. 'So we are acting correctly and in a timely manner.' Putin said he 'doesn't see the need' for talks with US President Joe Biden over an end to the war, but suggested he was open to talks with Kyiv. 'We should ask him if he's ready to hold such talks with me or not. I don't see the need, to be honest,' Putin said, asked about a potential meeting with Biden on the sidelines of a G20 summit in November. He added that his participation in the summit hosted by Indonesia is not yet decided. 'The question of my trip there has not been finalised. Russia will certainly take part. As for the format, we're still thinking about it,' Putin told reporters following a summit in Kazakhstan. Speaking earlier this week, Biden said he had 'no intention' of meeting with Putin but did not rule out potential talks. He also attacked Germany for siding with NATO. '(Germany) must decide what is more important for them: the fulfillment of alliance obligations, as they see it, or their national interests. In this case, it seems that Germany placed its obligations to the (NATO) alliance above all. I believe that this is a mistake,' he said. 'German citizens, businesses, and its economy are paying for this mistake, because it has negative economic consequences for the eurozone as a whole, and in Germany. But very few people take into account its interests, otherwise Nord Stream 1 and 2 would not have been undermined. 'But although one branch remains, as I said, in working order, a decision has not been made and is unlikely to be made. But this is no longer our business, this is the business of our partners.' Meanwhile, Lukashenko warned Ukraine and the West on Friday not to force his ally Russia into a corner, saying Moscow had nuclear weapons for a reason. In extracts of an interview with the American TV channel NBC released by Belarus's state news agency, Lukashenko said: 'The most important thing is, don't drive your interlocutor and even your opponent into a corner. So you mustn't cross those lines - those red lines, as the Russians say. You can't cross them.' Concern has mounted in the West that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear weapons since a series of defeats for his forces in Ukraine swung the momentum of the war in Kyiv's favour. 'As for nuclear weapons, any weapon is a weapon created for something,' Lukashenko was quoted as saying. 'Russia has clearly outlined its position: God forbid there will be an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation; in that event, Russia can use all types of weapons if necessary.' Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the plenary session of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS) Summit, October 14, 2022 in Astana, Kazakhstan The call-up, announced by Putin in September, has proved hugely unpopular in Russia, where almost all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. The Russian leader initially described the mobilisation as 'partial' and said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. However, a decree he signed outlined almost no specific criteria. Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience, including those ineligible for service for medical reasons. In the wake of the president's mobilisation order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. In the wake of Putin's order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. Reports have surfaced since then of recruits getting deployed to the front lines in Ukraine with little training and inadequate equipment. Several mobilised reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, several days after they were drafted. While Putin struck a confident tone about hitting his mobilisation target, report from Russia on Friday said sinister raids by conscript-catchers have begun in Moscow and St Petersburg - in a sign that he is getting desperate. Police alongside enlistment officers are said to be lurking on street corners and near blocks of flats. The armed recruiters are cruising offices seeking men to join the war, while there have been previous reports of them picking up homeless men. In some cases enlistment teams are reportedly using facial recognition cameras to snare dodgers. 'They are acting like dog catchers,' said one comment. 'It's sickening how they are dragging men away as cannon fodder.' In Polyustrovo Park residential complex, St Petersburg men of mobilisation age were trapped near the entrance for summonses to be served. Pictured: Russian police alongside enlistment officers are seen searching for men to sign up for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine Russian recruits gather inside a military recruitment center of Bataysk, Rostov-on-Don region, south of Russia, Sept. 26, 2022 Russian recruits take a bus near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sept. 25 Russian recruits gather to take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, Volgograd, Sept 29 In Moscow, there was a mass delivery of summonses at underground stations, reported Ostorozhno News. Eyewitnesses said police officers interview men, take their personal details, then serve some of them with summonses. Some people are taken away to police cars. Pavel Chikov, prominent lawyer and human rights activist, warned: 'increasing reports of raids'. 'There are cases of summonses being served on the street, citizens being detained by the police in the subway and hotels, and their forced delivery to military enlistment offices or mobilisation points' He stated: 'This practice is illegal.' Senator Andrey Klishas - from pro-Putin United Russia party - called for checks on whether it was legal to pluck men from the metro and force them to the war. The authorities are using police, traffic police, FSB security service and residential databases to track down possible dodgers. They are also raiding offices to root out men of mobilisation age, even though Russians were promised that one one percent of the male population would be sent to Putin's war. 'Police officers walk around the floors and take men of military age,' reported a source of The Village online media. 'In the morning there was one [...] wagon, it was filled. A second was brought. They took our administrator and other men who were on the first floor. [Men] are caught in the corridor. Specifically, three policemen came to our reception.' Reservists are vulnerable for mobilisation to the lower ranks up to the age of 35. Junior officers can be called up to the age of 50. Senior officers can be drafted up to 55. The conscript-catching raids seem to give the lie to claims in Russia that the first wave of mobilisation is over, and that no second wave has begun. Putin's comments came after widespread attacks against Ukraine, such as those Russia launched Monday in retaliation for an October 8 truck bomb explosion on a prized bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. The Kerch Bridge explosion followed Ukraine's recapturing of occupied areas in the country's east and south in continuing counteroffensives that have restored Ukrainian confidence and embarrassed Russia's military. The Russian tyrant has gradually increased the number of strategic bombers at Olenya air base - from none on August 12, to four supersonic Tu-160s on August 21, to 11 now - satellite images released on Friday revealed. Vladimir Putin has again increased his strategic nuclear bombers at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, say reports. Pictured: A satellite image taken on October 7, 2022 shows seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the Olenya airbase, Russia Kola Peninsula Pictured: The runway of the Olenya air base at the Kola Peninsula is seen empty on August 12, 2022 Pictured: Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' seen at Olenya air base around August, 21 2022 by an Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat Intl Pictured: The Four Tu-160 'Blackjacks' (at the base since August 21, 2022) were joined by three Tu-95 'Bears' by September 25 The increase of nuclear-capable bombers comes amid high tension over whether Putin (seen today) plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine , which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months There are seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red on newly released satellite images) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the facility on the Kola Peninsula - found in the extreme northwest of Russia, and in the Arctic Circle. The disclosure comes from Faktisk.no - an independent Norwegian fact checking website - which obtained the data from American satellite operator Planet. The buildup above at the air base follows international concern over another report two weeks ago, when The Jerusalem Post revealed there was an 'unusual deployment' of seven nuclear bombers at the airbase. This was highlighted by Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International which detected the 'irregular presence' of TU-160s and TU-95s. The Armageddon planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 450 miles south-east of Moscow. Now, however, the bombers are stationed around 115 miles away from the border of NATO member Norway, and about 95 miles away from the soon-to-become Alliance member, Finland. They can also be used with conventional weapons. There is evidence the deployment at Olanya has Kh-101 cruise missiles for possible use against targets in Ukraine. The Kh-101 can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. The runway at Olenya airbase was empty on 12 August, with satellite images from October 7 showing that it is now full of warplanes. The Tu-160 - aka White Swan, but known in the West as Blackjack - is a supersonic strategic bomber that has been the workhorse of Russia's strategic missile forces since Soviet times. It is the largest Mach 2+ military aircraft ever built, and as of 2022 is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft still in use - while also being the fastest bomber. Pictured: A Russian Tu-160 'Blackjack' strategic bomber flies over the Volga and the cities of Engels (left) and Privolzsky (right), Saratov Region, view to the east Pictured: A Tu-95MS Bear H RF-94130 pictured flying off Scotland in 2014 As of 2016, the Russian Air Force's Long Range Aviation branch had 16 aircraft in service, with upgrades on the aircraft being undertaken in recent years. The jet can carry 88,000lbs of weapons on-board, with each of its two internal bays capable of holding 44,000lbs or free-fall weapons or a nuclear missile launcher. In May 2020, it was reported that the Russian military was exploring whether the Tu-160 could carry a hypersonic missile. Russia's Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (also known as 'dagger'), is a nuclear-capable missile with a range of 1,200 miles and a speed of up to Mach 10 (ten-times the speed of sound). Meanwhile, the super-loud Tu-95, known as Bear, is the only propeller-powered strategic bomber still in operational use today. The aircraft first flew 70 years ago, but was only used in combat for the first time in 2015. It was originally intended to drop free-falling nuclear weapons, but has since been modified to perform several other roles. Putin has deployed the Tu-95s to buzz Britain at moments of high tension, for example in February this year when the Royal Air Force scrambled Typhoon fighters to escort two Bears off northern Scotland. News of Putin's increasing numbers of nuclear-capable bombers came as footage showed the moment an ammunition store inside Russia was hit by a Ukrainian strike. Pictured: An ammunition depot exploded in Belgorod after being hit by Ukrainian forces Pictured: Footage shows flames and smoke rising from the site struck by Ukrainian forces Lukashenko puts Belarus into 'state of heightened terrorism' Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of tensions on its borders. Lukashenko linked the move to his announcement on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine. 'In connection with the escalation of tension, a regime of heightened terrorist danger has been introduced,' Lukashenko said in a Russian TV interview. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday he had placed his country in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert 'Therefore we began a procedure with the Union group of forces, the basis of which, as I already said, is the Belarusian army, which will be supplemented by units from the Russian Federation. Everything is going according to plan.' Allied with Moscow and wedged between Russia, Ukraine and three NATO countries, Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Its latest troop movements have raised concern in Kyiv and the West that Lukashenko may be about to commit his army to support Russia's faltering war effort. Political analysts say that is an unappealing option for him but that he may not be in a position to refuse if Russian President Vladimir Putin demands it. Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad. Advertisement The warehouse was reported to be at a sugar plant in Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. Oktyabrsky, close to the border, in Belgorod region. The strike seven miles inside Russia caused a major blaze with shells exploding in the inferno, according to local Telegram channels. It is the latest example of Kyiv taking the battle inside Putin's territory in retaliation for his relentless attacks on Ukraine, and in a bid to dim Russian war enthusiasm. Russian military correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny confirmed the village was hit. Other Ukrainian missiles were shot down by Russian air defence, according to reports in Belgorod. However, at least one got through hitting the warehouse. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also confirmed the strike, saying: 'An ammunition depot located in a settlement in the Belgorod District came under Ukrainian Armed Forces' fire. 'Ammunition detonated. According to preliminary reports, there were no casualties. We will now evacuate local residents to a safe distance.' Separately, he said air defence had shot down incoming missiles in Novooskol district. 'The remains fell in the area of the railway. Power lines are damaged. 'Trains are temporarily suspended. Emergency crews are waiting. I am sure that they will correct the situation very quickly and traffic will be restored. The most important thing is that there are no victims.' A day earlier, Russia claimed a tower block was hit in Belgorod city. On Friday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday promised victory over Russia as his country celebrated its first Defenders Day public holiday since the start of Moscow's invasion almost eight months ago. 'On October 14, we express our gratitude... gratitude to everyone who fought for Ukraine in the past. And to everyone who is fighting for it now. To all who won then. And to everyone who will definitely win now,' Zelensky said in a video address to mark the occasion. Zelensky laid a wreath with the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag in front of a memorial in the capital Kyiv, dedicated to soldiers killed on the frontlines since 2014, when fighting broke out with Russia-backed separatists in the east. Zelensky said that by 'defeating' Russia 'we will respond to all enemies who encroached on Ukraine'. 'This will be a victory for all our people,' he said. 'The world stands with us. More than ever in our history' he added, referring to the unprecedented support from Western capitals. Ukraine's commander-in-chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny on social media congratulated his troops and thanked them for their service. 'We have stopped the enemy onslaught and ended the myth about the invincibility of the Russian army,' he said in a video address. In Kyiv, religious services and exhibitions were planned on the occasion, with the country's post service announcing the release of commemorative stamps. Defenders Day was established in 2014 to replace a previous February 23 holiday of Soviet origin that is still celebrated in Russia. Advertisement Pictured: Neil Maxwell, the convicted sex offender suspected of killing Leah Croucher The Leah Croucher murder suspect's former boss tonight revealed how he warned police of his belief that the pervert could kill, as it emerged that bungling officers missed 18 opportunities to snare him after he was jailed for a sex attack. Neil Maxwell was today named as the man detectives believe was responsible for killing the 19-year-old, who vanished in February 2019. The convicted sex offender killed himself two months later, sparking fears that he may have held her captive for weeks while police and relatives made heart-wrenching appeals for the teenager's safe return. Now, the Mail can reveal the true extent of Maxwell's criminal history, including the moment in which a magistrate spared him a prison sentence in 2018 when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman, despite already being a convicted rapist. Maxwell, then aged 48, admitted committing a sexual assault on a woman in Milton Keynes in February 2018 and was sentenced to 200-hours of unpaid work and made to pay 85 court costs and 1,000 compensation. He was also placed on the sex offender's register for five years. At the time of the offence, Maxwell had only recently been released from prison for raping a teenage girl in 2009, for which he was handed a four-and-a-half year sentence. The pervert went on to strike again just nine months later. He was on the run for that offence at the time of Leah's disappearance, but had managed to evade arrest on 18 occasions. Thames Valley Police told MailOnline earlier that Maxwell was aware officers were searching for him and he 'made concerted efforts to evade arrest' by using false names and changing his mobile phone and car often, fleeing as far as Scotland. His image was circulated as a wanted person on the national database and police issued a 'wanted appeal' on April 4, 2019, a spokesman said. Matthew Barber, Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner, has asked the force's chief constable to conduct an investigation into the handling of Leah's disappearance to determine if an inquiry is needed. 'Given the time that has passed questions have inevitably been raised about the earlier investigation and there is an understandable desire for more information,' he said. 'None of the information I have received so far leads me to conclude that there were shortcomings in the earlier missing persons investigation. Nevertheless I have requested that the Chief Constable presents me with a review of the case in order to determine if any further inquiry is required. 'If mistakes have been made I will ensure a thorough review of the missing persons investigation, but I must stress that this will be evidence-led and so far I have seen nothing to suggest any reasonable lines of enquiry were missed.' Maxwell's reign of terror only came to an end when he ended his life on April 20, 16 days after the police issued the public appeal. The convicted sex attacker was the only person with keys to the house in Milton Keynes where human remains were found next to Leah's backpack earlier this week. Now, a former employer has come forward to reveal he raised his concerns about Maxwell to police and warned: 'He is one evil f***er, he can't control his urges for sex and he's going to kill someone.' 'I was fuming with the police. He liked young girls, he was a rapist, a dangerous man. They have let the system down - that man should have been locked up for life.' Leah Croucher was 19 when she disappeared on her way to work in February 2019. Police have now discovered human remains at a house in Milton Keynes, along with some of Leah's possessions Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Hunter told a news conference today: 'Today, I am able to confirm that we have nominated a suspect in this case. His name is Neil Maxwell' Leah's sister Jade, father John Croucher and mother Claire Croucher look at flowers outside a property in Loxbeare Drive, Furzton, Milton Keynes, where police identified human remains during forensic examinations Notes for 'our darling Leah' from her parents and sister are left outside the house where police found a body in the search for the missing teenager. The remains were removed last night The business owner, who wanted to remain anonymous, told The Daily Mirror he was unaware Maxwell had only recently finished a stint in prison when he was hired. Maxwell went out of his way to do a good job and appeared helpful and attentive, but the employer happened across a probation report which described him as a 'dangerous man'. 'He's sick in the head with his hunger for young girls. It's disgusting what's gone on,' he told The Daily Mail. 'They could have saved that girl. If they had listened to me that girl wouldn't be dead. The whole system has completely failed her... My eldest daughter used to play with him, she was about 11.' The convicted sex pest remained at the company for a few years before he was jailed for four-and-a-half years in 2009 for raping a woman in her late teens. A former girlfriend who dated Maxwell as an underage schoolgirl while he was in his mid-20s, also described an 'unhealthy interest he had in children'. She described Maxwell as controlling and said he groomed her and took advantage of her. 'He was well known in the area for trying to pin down girls and force himself on them... Eventually everyone kept away from him. He was a deeply sinister character. It's horrible that he did this to Leah but, to be honest, I'm not surprised in the slightest,' she said. Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Hunter said formal identification of the body has not yet taken place, but they do believe it is Leah. The family of Leah Croucher bring floral tributes to the property last night. Her relatives have said their 'darkest fears had come true' after human remains were found on Monday Members of the Croucher family are let under a cordon by police after arriving at the property How convicted rapist Neil Maxwell avoided 18 arrest attempts Describing the hunt for Leah's alleged murderer, DCS Ian Hunter said: 'A significant amount of enquiries were made nationally to locate Maxwell and these included 18 attempts to arrest him. 'In April 2019, when we published our wanted appeal regarding Maxwell in connection with the sexual assault in Newport Pagnell, and during our entire investigation to find Leah, there has been no direct link between Maxwell and Leah until Monday this week when we were called about the property in Loxbeare Drive. 'Maxwell has previous convictions for sexual offences against females and was wanted in connection with a sexual assault in Newport Pagnell in November 2018. 'The sexual assault was reported to Bedfordshire Police on November 29, 2018 and the case was transferred to Thames Valley Police the same day.' DCS Hunter said Thames Valley Police first tried to arrest Maxwell in Milton Keynes the following day - November 30 - but were unable to find him. He continued: 'We established that Maxwell was at an unknown location in Scotland at one stage, but further arrest attempts were continually made throughout the UK at various different addresses.' He is likely to have known that he would be returning to prison if he was arrested and convicted, DCS Hunter said. 'If Maxwell were alive today, we would be seeking his arrest in connection with this investigation, so he could be interviewed under caution to provide his account.' Advertisement He said police were unaware of any potential links between Maxwell and Leah until a maintenance worker alerted police on Monday to a suspicious object in a loft of the property. Today, Thames Valley faced questions about how they failed to catch the convict despite saying officers had tried to arrest him 18 times. At a press conference this afternoon, a senior officer said police were looking into the possibility Leah was held captive as an 'active part of our investigation'. Maxwell took his own life aged 49 in April 2019 - two months after Leah went missing. Local resident Jill Davey, who lives on the same road as the house where the human remains were found, told MailOnline the teenager would still be alive if officers had 'done their job properly'. She added: 'It's all very well for them to say they tried to arrest him, but 18 times and to keep missing him is nonsense.' Following the press conference, senior Tory MP Bob Blackman called on the Independent Office for Police Conduct, to look at the case. He called on the police watchdog to examine any contact Thames Valley Police had with Maxwell and the force's claims he evaded arrest 18 times. Mr Blackman told MailOnline: 'This tragedy is just the sort of case the IOPC should review. It is heart-breaking for the family of Leah Croucher's family'. He added: 'This case is clearly not cut and dried and it also shows the kind of sexual predators police have to deal with. They are often very clever at evading arrest'. It previously emerged the house where human remains were found had been occupied by Alex Johnston, a 30-year-old paedophile who once appeared on 24 Hours in Police Custody. But he was in prison at the time Leah disappeared after being sentenced to four-and-a-half years in June 2017 for five counts of engaging in sexual activity with a girl aged between 13 and 15. Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Hunter told a news conference today: 'Today, I am able to confirm that we have nominated a suspect in this case. His name is Neil Maxwell. It is unusual to name a suspect, but we have also learned this week that during the time when Leah went missing, and whilst the owner of the property was not in the UK, Maxwell was the only person to have keys to the property. 'Maxwell had been employed by the homeowner to carry out some property maintenance at the house. We now know that Maxwell had keys to this property from November 2018. Whilst Maxwell has been nominated as a suspect, this does not mean he is guilty of any offence. We will keep an open mind, and our detailed investigation will seek to gather sufficient evidence to establish the truth. 'If Maxwell were alive today, we would be seeking his arrest in connection with this investigation, so he could be interviewed under caution to provide his account.' Various flowers, candles and teddy bears have all been left at the scene, many addressed directly to Leah A bouquet and wreath laid on behalf of Leah's parents were accompanied by a handwritten note, which promised to 'fight ahead' for justice Bombshell press conference at a glance At today's bombshell press conference, it emerged - Police named the prime suspect in the murder of Leah Croucher as convicted sex offender Neil Maxwell; He was the only person with keys to the house where human remains were found next to Leah's backpack; Maxwell was known to police due to his previous convictions for sexual assaults against women; On November 29, 2018, he was reported to Bedfordshire Police for a sexual assault in Newport Pagnell; Passed to Thames Valley Police who first tried to arrest him at a house in Milton Keynes the following day; Maxwell's name was put on the Police National Computer in December 2018 in relation to the sex assault; Thames Valley Police also issued a public wanted appeal to find Maxwell on April 4, 2019; 18 attempts were made to arrest Maxwell evaded police by using an alias and changing his phone and car; One attempt was made to arrest the sex offender in Scotland; Convicted criminal was found dead on April 20, 2019, having taken his own life at the age of 49; Police are now trying to establish whether Maxwell saw Croucher when she walked past the house; Officers examining whether Leah was hold hostage; but would not say if she killed at house or elsewhere; Formal identification of the human remains has not yet taken place but will do so 'as soon as possible; Police would not say if any weapons had been found by officers searching the property Advertisement DCS Hunter told today's press conference in Milton Keynes: 'I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like for Leah's parents and family, for three years and eight months not knowing what has happened to their daughter and loved one. 'All of the investigation team who are working on this case are dedicated to finding the truth for Leah's family.' The human remains were found in the loft of the property at Loxbeare Drive in Furzton, Milton Keynes, DCS Hunter, Thames Valley Police's head of crime, said. Asked how long the human remains had been in the house and where they were found, he said: 'Of course, we have got an ongoing investigation so we will need to establish some of those facts. 'I will reveal today that the rucksack containing Leah's possessions and the human remains were found in the loft - that is what is making this so complex and challenging for us to be able to work through.' Thames Valley Police were asked if it was possible that Maxwell had targeted Ms Croucher after seeing her as she was walking to work on a route that took her close to the property. DCS Hunter said: 'This inquiry was always extremely challenging. If we go back to Buzzacott Lane and the CCTV at 8.16am on February 15 2019 - there were no further lines of inquiry that helped us from there. 'Of course, Leah's route to work has always been subject to intense scrutiny throughout our investigation. (There were) 4,000 properties visited and CCTV that we were able to obtain has been viewed. 'At this stage, it is of course an active line of our inquiry - did Leah walk past that house and some sort of action took place? That is exactly what the investigation team are going to try and establish.' The police would not say if Leah had been killed at the house or elsewhere or if she had been held hostage. A Home Office pathologist is carrying out a post-mortem examination to try and determine a cause of death. DCS Hunter said the Croucher family had been fully briefed on the latest developments and their 'nominated' suspect. In a statement read out at a press conference, the family said: 'We would like to take this opportunity to thank Thames Valley Police for all their efforts over the past three years and eight months. 'We believe that they could not have done anything differently, they have always approached every conversation with dignity and compassion. 'As a family, we ask that everyone respects our privacy as well as our immediate family, at what is one of the most difficult times of our lives.' Leah Croucher, 19, was last seen making her way into work in Milton Keynes in February 2019 House was just a 20-minute walk from Leah's home The detached home where human remains were found is owned by a Kuwaiti based family who have rented it out for over two decades. Local residents missing teenager Leah Croucher would walk past the home every day on her way to work as an admin assistant. The 19-year-old lived less than half a mile away from the 490,000 home where human remains along with her rucksack and other possessions were found. Forensic teams continued to work at the property which has a rusting truck parked in the driveway. Jill Davey, who lives close to the house, said: 'Leah used to walk past the house every day. I would see her walking to work. 'It just sickens me... The police were meant to have searched all the houses around here, but they obviously didn't do their job properly. I just hope they can find whoever did this.' Records show the four-bedroom detached home was rented to a number of tenants. One neighbour said:' It has been empty for quite a few months. I never knew the people who owned the house, but like a lot of properties it was a family from Kuwait.' Murder squad detectives were talking to close neighbours to find out as much detail as possible about the tenants who rented the house. A small group of neighbours stood opposite the police blue tape that had sealed off the house. A blue tent had been erected adjacent to the front door. One resident said: 'Anyone who lives on the estate remembers Leah going missing and the police search. 'I would never have thought that she would be found in a house on the estate. She was so close to home.' A missing poster for Leah Croucher is still pinned to a tree less than 15 yards from the property. Advertisement After dark last night Leah's family arrived to tearfully lay tributes to a beloved daughter and sister. An undertaker carried a bouquet of flowers as he then accompanied the parents to a makeshift memorial at the front of the house which is at the centre of the police investigation. A note left with the flowers read: 'To our darling Leah. Our darkest fears have come true, we only need to be apart a little longer now. 'We have so missed you for so long already. The future looks so bleak now. We know we will never see hour smile or hear your laughter again. We will cherish your memories forever. We love you, Mum and dad'. Another note, by Leah's elder sister Jade, read: 'To my beautiful sister Leah, My heart has broken, my mind racing with thoughts and my body numb. How can a life as beautiful as yours come to an end in such a tragic way. 'I have loved you from your very first breath and I will love you until my last. There has never been a moment when you were not in my thoughts and there never will be. 'My only comfort is that you and Hayden are together in heaven. All my love forever your big sister Jade and nephew Reggie.' The remains of the body were taken away in a three-car convoy. Police had sealed off Loxbeare Drive to traffic while the family were at the scene. Leah was last captured on CCTV on her way to her job on February 15, 2019, but never made it to work. Well-wishers have laid flowers, candles, teddy bears and tea-lights in the shape of the letter L at the edge of the police tape cordoning off the two-storey brick house and its neighbouring detached property. Flowers left at the scene by friends of Mr and Mrs Croucher on their behalf had a heart-wrenching handwritten note which promised to 'never give up fighting' for their daughter. It comes as metal fencing covered with black screens was erected in the driveway of the empty 490,000 house, just a 20-minute walk from Leah's home and less than half a mile from where the teenager was last seen. Another small bouquet was signed 'Nan and Grandad.' It read: 'We will never stop seeking answers. With love and miss you always.' Tragically, nine months after she went missing, Leah's half-brother Haydon Croucher, 24, was discovered by his mother Tracey Furness hanged at his flat and later died in hospital landing the family a further blow. An inquest heard he struggled to cope following her disappearance. Leah's mother previously said her disappearance had 'destroyed' their family, adding that if she had been abducted or killed they would hold the culprit responsible for Haydon's death as well. Home CCTV captured Leah Croucher as she walked to work on the morning of February 15, 2019 An aerial view of the house in Furzton, Milton Keynes where police have found human remains Flowers are laid earlier this morning outside the home where a body was found in the hunt for missing Leah Croucher Various posters were released to try and find the teenager after she went missing in February 2019 Police have launched a murder investigation after finding human remains in their search for missing teenager Leah Croucher It has emerged that the 490,000 house, which the teenager is thought to have regularly walked past on her way to work, was once occupied by a convicted paedophile. Pictured: Floral tributes are left outside the property Timeline of missing Leah Croucher's disappearance November 29, 2018 Prime suspect Neil Maxwell is reported to Bedfordshire Police for a sexual assault in Newport Pagnell. 2019 February 14 8am: Leah, 19, sets off for work as normal to her admin job with finance company in Milton Keynes. 5.45pm: Leah walks home from work. The location settings on her Samsung phone were switched off in the Furzton Lake area. 6pm: Leah arrives home from work. She changes into tracksuit bottoms and a long-sleeved top. She tells her mum she is going to visit a friend. 7.15pm: Leah arrives home again. Her behaviour that night was totally normal, say her parents. February 15 8am: Leah gets up and leaves for work. She sets off on her normal route, wearing a black coat, skinny black jeans, black Converse high top shoes and carrying a small black rucksack. Underneath her coat she wears a distinctive grey hoodie. 8.13am: CCTV footage shows her walking along Buzzacott Lane in Furzton. That was the last confirmed sighting of Leah. 8.34am: Leah's mobile phone is switched off. 9am: Leah fails to arrive at work. 9.30am - 11.15am: Three different witnesses report seeing a girl matching Leah's description walking by Furzton Lake. She was looking 'visibly upset' and crying while talking on the phone. Police have never been able to say definitely that this was Leah. 6pm: Leah fails to return home. She is reported missing. February 17 Police issue a press release saying Leah is missing. February 19 Police release the CCTV footage of Leah. They are becoming 'increasingly concerned' for her welfare. Her phone is switched off and cannot be traced and her bank account has not been touched. In the following weeks divers scour Furzton Lake and fingertip searches are carried out. Leah's family and friends put posters up appealing for information. April 4 A public appeal is issued to find Maxwell. April 20 The convicted sex offender is found dead. September 25 BBC's Crimewatch Roadshow re-enacts Leah's disappearance and appeals for information. It shows the clothing Leah was wearing on the day she vanished. Viewer contacts the show saying she and remembers walking at the Blue Lagoon lake in Bletchley, Milton Keynes in February and seeing a grey hoodie just near the water, like the one Leah was wearing. October 9 Police launch a major search at the Blue Lagoon. Nothing of any significance is found. November 14-16 Leah's brother Haydon Croucher killed himself in his flat in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, and was found by his mother and sister. February 14, 2020 Leah's parents Claire and John Croucher issue a fresh appeal at a media conference at Milton Keynes Police Station a year after her disappearance. February 15, 2021 Her family issue a statement appealing for help to find her on the second anniversary of her disappearance. In an emotional statement they said: 'It's now been two years since our beautiful, wonderful daughter Leah, left for work and vanished without a trace. Missing. Gone. 'To say they have been a hard two years is an understatement. They have been the longest and toughest two years of our lives.' February 15, 2022 Police release a new image of a person dressed in black seen at Furzton Lake to mark the third year of her disappearance. In a written statement Leah's family said each day 'feels like an eternity of pain and despair', but said they remained hopeful she would one day be found. 'It is harder each day to tell ourselves that today will be the day that we get answers, today we find out what happened three years ago,' her parents said. Monday October 10, 2022 Remains, believed to be Leah, are found in a house in Loxbeare Drive, Milton Keynes, which she passed every day on her way to work. Her belongings were found inside. Friday October 14 At a press conference, police name Neil Maxwell as the prime suspect in Leah's murder. Advertisement People view flowers and messages left at the scene after police identified human remains in Furzton, Milton Keynes Personal items including Leah Croucher's rucksack have been recovered from the address Leah is seen on CCTV shortly before she went missing. The teenager was last spotted walking down Buzzacott Lane in Furzton, Buckinghamshire, while on her way to work on the morning of February 15, 2019 before she 'vanished into thin air' One image from Furzton Lake, shows a figure of a person dressed in black, who may or may not have been Leah, on the day she disappeared An Arkansas second grader was recognized for saving his best friend's life after he suffered a cracked skull and fractured neck in a scooter accident. Jase Brown and his friend Liam Woods were riding scooters on October 6 before the pair hit an uneven patch of gravel and fell to the ground. Brown was uninjured, but he noticed Woods was hurt. After yelling for help, Brown then ran home to get a first aid kit to help Woods, who was subsequently taken to a Paris, Arkansas, emergency room. 'Liam was really hurt and I didn't want to leave him there hurt,' Brown told 5News. 'I had to go get some neighbors to help him up because I care for my buddy.' After being airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital, Woods was diagnosed with a concussion, a cracked skull and a fractured neck in two places - and is still at risk of becoming paralyzed. 'I'm just happy my friend is OK and not in bad condition,' Brown said. 'Liam was really hurt and I didn't want to leave him there hurt,' Brown (right) told 5News. 'I had to go get some neighbors to help him up because I care for my buddy' 'I'm just happy my friend is OK and not in bad condition,' Brown said, who was wearing a cape for Superhero Day when he was honored for helping his friend Paris Elementary School in Paris, Arkansas (pictured) recognized Brown for his heroics during a day when students dressed as their favorite Disney or superhero character Paris Elementary School honored Brown's efforts to save Woods, who now wears a neck brace, during its Spirit Week. That day just happened to be 'Superhero Day' at the kids' school - a day when students were allowed to dress up as their favorite Disney or superhero character. Principal Lakaen Schluterman surprised Brown with a 'Superhero' certificate during the school's pep rally. 'I was glad we got to do that in front of all his peers, like look what he did, he stepped up and took action,' said Schluterman. 'This is something all of you can do, no matter how old you are, no matter what.' Woods' grandmother, Rhonda, said Liam 'still has to be very careful because he still could become paralyzed.' Woods is expected to return to the classroom as soon as next week and will be receiving 'extra care' from the school in his return Woods' grandmother (left) was very appreciative of Brown's heroics and the community's support. 'The prayers, they have gone out of their way to make sure Liam is okay' Woods and his family were in attendance as surprise guests during the makeshift ceremony, as Brown and his friend posed for photos for the school Woods and his family were in attendance as surprise guests during the makeshift ceremony, as Brown and his friend posed for photos for the school. In honoring Brown, who wore a Batman cape, the school also took time to celebrate Liam's life. 'They didn't have to do that and they're all so gracious and kind,' Rhonda said. Woods' grandmother, Rhonda, said Liam 'still has to be very careful because he still could become paralyzed.' 'The prayers, they have gone out of their way to make sure Liam is okay.' Woods is expected to return to the classroom as soon as next week and will be receiving 'extra care' from the school in his return. It is unclear if the pair were wearing helmets at the time of the accident. Iranian troops have been secretly sent to the Ukrainian frontline to help train Moscow's forces in how to operate kamikaze drones. Up to 50 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specialists have been sent to the southern and eastern front with hundreds of Shahed-136 drones, according to the Mirror. It comes as a strike using the Iranian-made 'suicide drones' near Makrariv, a small city located 31 miles west of Kyiv, yesterday destroyed critical infrastructure and sent rescue workers rushing to the scene. Despite denials from the Iranian regime that their forces are getting involved in the conflict, IRGC troops have reportedly been based in Dzankoi in Crimea and Kherson in the south, where one team has already been destroyed. A Ukrainian source told the newspaper: 'At least one of the Iranian training teams has been hit recently and they are actively being hunted down. 'We have been concerned for some time that IRGC specialists are helping Russia in their terrible attacks on civilians and they are of course being targeted.' Up to 50 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (pictured) specialists have been sent to Ukraine The Iranian troops have been sent to the frontline to help train Moscow's forces in how to operate Shahed-136 drones Tehran denies that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (pictured) are getting involved in the conflict but their troops have reportedly been based in Dzankoi in Crimea and Kherson in the south Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs: Facts and figures Ukraine has accused Russia of using Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs - also known as suicide drones - against military and civilian targets. Tehran has denied selling the drones to Russia, but there is mounting evidence that Moscow is deploying the weapon. Here are some facts and figures about the deadly drone: Weapon type: Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) In service since: 2021 2021 Made in: Iran Iran Maker: HESA (Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation) HESA (Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation) Weight: 440lbs 440lbs Warhead: 80lbs 80lbs Length: 12 feet 12 feet Wingspan: 8 feet 8 feet Range: 600 miles 600 miles Flight height: 13,000ft max. 13,000ft max. Speed: 120 miles per hour 120 miles per hour Used in: Yemen, Iraq and Ukraine Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs Advertisement Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia earlier this week of using Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs - also known as suicide drones - against military and civilian targets. Tehran has denied selling the drones to Russia, but there is mounting evidence that Moscow is deploying the weapon. Between September 30 and October 6 alone, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said it had destroyed 24 of the weapons, which are designed to be flown directly into targets - overwhelming and evading air defences along the way. With a range of more than 600 miles, the explosive-laden drones can 'loiter' above potential targets for hours before being slammed directly into enemy soldiers, vehicles or buildings from above - causing an explosion. Russia has intensified its bombardment of civilian areas in recent weeks as its military lost ground in multiple occupied regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed. Kyiv said 83 missiles or drones were launched against the country on Monday morning, striking the capital and several other cities, killing civilians in the process. 'They want panic and chaos. They want to destroy our energy system,' Zelensky said in a video address on Telegram. He added: Russia is 'trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.' In a statement on Facebook, Ukraine's military specified that 'the enemy used Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs in strikes launched from the territory of Belarus' and the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia, adding that nine drones were 'destroyed'. Tonight, Ukraine's air defence teams are again having to shoot down missiles and suspected drones fired in Kherson, the only major urban site that Russia has continually occupied since its invasion in February. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin said today that the recent military mobilisation he ordered is coming to an end, and he has no plans for further conscriptions once it has finished. He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part. Putin was speaking in Astana after a meeting of The Commonwealth of Independent States Summit (CIS), where he sat down with fellow leaders of ex-Soviet states. Other attendees included Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, who said on Friday that Russian troops would soon be arriving to take part in a 'regional grouping' of forces to protect its borders. Rescuers work at the site of a residential building heavily damaged during a Russian attack in Mykolaiv yesterday Ukraine has accused Moscow of using Iranian-made Shahed-136 'suicide' drones as part of multiple deadly strikes on Ukraine 'The introduction of troops into a direct confrontation with the Russian army is a very dangerous step that could lead to a global catastrophe,' Putin told reporters. 'I hope that those who speak of this have enough sense not to take such steps.' He said he currently saw no need for 'massive strikes' on Ukraine now having hit their intended targets earlier in the week - but that could change in the future - and insisted that it was not his goal to destroy Ukraine. 'There is no need now for massive strikes. There are other tasks. For now. And then it will be clear,' he said, adding: 'We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not,' Putin said. Fears have risen in recent weeks over the possibility of Moscow launching nuclear strikes, after suffering a series of embarrassing setbacks in Putin's invasion. It was revealed on Friday - shortly before he spoke in Astana - that Putin has increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, satellite images show. Conservatives including Texas Senator Ted Cruz have lost thousands of Twitter followers in October, less than a month before Americans go to the polls in the midterm elections. Cruz tweeted on Friday: 'I'm down 13,345 today. Are the partisan hacks at Twitter just idiots? Why doe they purge conservatives en masse all at the same time?' Cruz was retweeting a message from conservative pundit Byron York when he wrote his own tweet. Social Blade shows that Cruz lost more than 12,000 followers on Friday. On October 5, he lost more than 7,000. Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted on Friday: 'I'm down 13,345 today. Are the partisan hacks at Twitter just idiots? Why doe they purge conservatives en masse all at the same time? Donald Trump Jr. is among those who have lost thousands of followers in October Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has lost more than 8,000, having had gains every other day this month except for October 5, when he lost more than 2,500 Trump's former Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grennell, has lost thousands of followers in recent days. This month, Grennell has lost nearly 15,000 followers Cruz tweeted at the time: 'Twitter is really bad at suppressing conservatives. For months, my account gained about 1K followers a day. THE DAY AFTER @elonmusk offer accepted, it rose to 50k-70k PER DAY. When the deal froze, it fell to 500 per day. Yesterday? 12,500 followers disappeared.' Every other day this month, Cruz gained followers to the tune of more than 1,000 each day. York noted that Trump's former Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grennell, had lost thousands of followers in recent days. This month, Grennell has lost nearly 15,000 followers. York himself has lost nearly 10,000 followers this month. York added: 'Other similar accounts down proportionally similar numbers. Spot check of some accounts on left does not show same drops.' Activist Tom Fitton, who is accused of pressuring Trump to declare victory in the 2020 presidential election, said Friday that he lost 7,300 followers. At the time of writing, Fitton has lost 10,500, according to Social Blade. These allegations come days after the world's wealthiest man Elon Musk continues to work towards forcing his takeover through. Donald Trump Jr has also weighed in on the scandal to promote a new Twitter-like social media site, Public Square. His father Donald Trump owns his own Twitter rival, Truth Social, after being banned from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the January 6 riots. According to an October 6 court filing, Musk is under federal investigation for his conduct in his bid to buy Twitter According to Social Blade, on Friday alone, Trump Jr has lost over 12,000 followers. The analysis shows that on October 5, he lost over 6,000. Every other day this month shows the president's son gaining more than 1,000 followers each day. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has lost more than 8,000, having had gains every other day this month except for October 5, when he lost more than 2,500. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is down nearly 9,000 today. Ohio congressman Jim Jordan is down over 13,000 today and over 20,000 this month so far. On October 5, Twitter said publicly that the removal of user's followers was in line with the company's policies on spam. Florida conservative Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted: 'Cleaning up bots before @ElonMusks purchase or another mass wave of censorship?' Twitter, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has long been accused of censorious behavior, particularly towards conservatives. Musk accused the company of downplaying how many fake accounts - known as bots - it has on its site, with Twitter denying his allegations. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said: 'The current Twitter purge is like the Nazis burning those secret documents before the Americans took Berlin.' Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has lost around 10,000 followers as of Friday afternoon Liberal congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also lost followers on Friday, nearly 10,000, according to Social Blade. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost over 2,000. In May, Cruz gained a huge number of followers days after reports first emerged that Musk was planning a takeover of Twitter. He said: 'It's almost like they turned off the shadow bans...' In general, conservative influencers enjoyed a considerable uptick in Twitter followers in May, while public figures on the left of the political spectrum suffered a sharp decrease. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump Jr. and DeSantis - three of America's most forthright conservative mouthpieces - experienced an influx of 175,960, 301,570 and 286,559 followers respectively since the news of Musk's takeover broke earlier this week. Meanwhile on the left, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Hillary Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres have witnessed an exodus of 26,072, 21,424 and 27,141 Twitter followers respectively in the past four days. Musk is now being investigated by United States federal authorities in relation to his bid to acquire Twitter. Lawyers working for the online platform claimed in a court filing unsealed in Delaware on Thursday that Musk is currently under investigation by federal authorities for his conduct as it pertains to his buyout of the popular social media company. 'Elon Musk is presently under investigation by federal authorities for his conduct in connection with the acquisition of Twitter, wrote attorneys for Potter Anderson Corroon LLP in a filing dated October 6. A black mechanic was fired by a Georgia county after he refused to forgive a white colleague who called him the n-word, a race discrimination lawsuit alleges. Carlen Loyal, 52, was described using the slur by his Bartow County co-worker Kirk Ledford in June 2019. Loyal, a mechanic who keeps pigs in his spare time, texted Ledford a feed recipe in June 2019, prompting a response from Ledford that said 'N***** at work showed me this, I ain't tried it,' it is alleged. It appears Ledford accidentally responded to Loyal while using the slur, although further details on the sequence of events have not been shared. Loyal was appalled by the racist language and complained asking not to be put on any more shifts with Ledford, the lawsuit says. Loyal promptly complained and was pulled into a meeting where HR director Robin Puryear told the employee that he had taken the message the wrong way and proceeded to read the definition of the word out loud. 'You don't think this is you,' Puryear reportedly told Loyal. 'Puryear responded by suggesting that Loyal should not be offended because he listened to rap music that uses the "n-word" and probably refers to his friends using the same term,' according to the lawsuit. The HR director suggested Loyal and Ledford shake hands and 'forgive and forget.' Robin Puryear, a former at Bartow County Road Department, allegedly dismissed the racial claims a black employee insisted was said about him from a white employee Carlen Loyal, 52, was described using the slur by his Bartow County co-worker Kirk Ledford in June 2019. Pictured: Bartow County courthouse 'Why didn't you just call him a c****** and be done with it,' Puryear added, referring to a slur used against white people. During the 2019 HR complaint meeting, Puryear asked Loyal if he mentioned the racist text message to anyone else. Loyal admitted he told Turner. To which Puryear allegedly responded: 'I wish you hadn't done that.' Loyal left the meeting after refusing Puryear's order to 'shake Ledford's hand and "forgive and forget."' Loyal was later fired two weeks later for allegedly lying on his time sheet. The former employee's black brother-in-law Bobby Tuner, who also knew about the racial complaint and worked alongside him, was also fired. Days later, Loyal and Turner worked overtime to respond to multiple road emergencies. The co-workers were later asked to explain to HR the multiple calls they responded to. After various meetings, they were fired on June 25, 2019, for 'discrepancies in dates, times and locations of call outs reported.' There had been no prior issues with either man's work, and they are convinced they were given the boot for complaining about Ledford's alleged racism. During the 2019 HR complaint meeting, Puryear asked Loyal if he mentioned the racist text message to anyone else. Loyal admitted he told his brother-in-law Bobby Turner. The pair were both fired two weeks later for allegedly falsifying timecards Loyal and Turner filed the lawsuit in the US District Court Northern District of Georgia on Thursday after being 'subjected to race-based acts of harassment, humiliation, and intimidation in the workplace.' They are seeking undisclosed damages for the 'pain and suffering' caused by their former U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan rebuked the actions of the Bartow County employees for allowing discrimination in the workplace. 'No one should be forced to labor in an environment where employers condone racial slurs and employees are expected to tolerate them,' Buchanan said in a press briefing. 'It is also unacceptable for an employer to foster a work environment where employees with the courage to report such abhorrent behavior experience retaliation from supervisors and face termination of their jobs.' Officials suggest the allegations against the county violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, 'when it subjected former employee Carlen Loyal to a racially hostile work environment, retaliated against former employee Bobby Turner, and fired both men. U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan rebuked the actions of the Bartow County employees for allowing discrimination in the workplace Puryear later resigned at the end of 2019 after the county investigated a complaint of sexual harassment filed against her by a firefighter, according to the lawsuit. She now runs a tanning salon, and has been contacted by DailyMail.com for a comment. The investigation concluded that 'Puryear's explanations were not 'trustworthy or credible' after became angry at the Firefighter for complaining and insisted she was a victim. 'The County concluded that Puryear "was not being candid" and "there was a loss of trust.' Weaving through crowds to the hypnotic timbre of ceremonial drumming, brightly-coloured Chinese lion dancers descended on Glasgow last month to mark the ancient Chinese 'Moon Festival'. Celebrating the autumn harvest, when the full moon is brightest, Glasgow's Lord Provost Jacqueline McLaren welcomed guest of honour Hou Danna, China's Acting Consul General in Edinburgh, who gave a speech urging 'unity' between the 'Chinese community and . . . Scottish community'. The festivities, hosted by local businessman Jimmy Lin, culminated in a feast of Peking duck and honey-roast pork at the Loon Fung restaurant. Loon Fung is a Glaswegian institution which has served dumplings for decades. But next door to shuttered shops and the Nice N Sleazy bar, the restaurant's less-than-salubrious location of Sauchiehall Street has been marred for years by ructions between rival Chinese Triad gangs. The address shares a peculiar distinction with two seemingly ordinary properties 400 miles away: the business premises of a food delivery app in Croydon, South London, and an estate agent on a High Street in Hendon, North London both of which I visited this week. Because what belies their everyday exteriors is that their addresses and telephone numbers appear on a list of overseas 'service stations' connected to police in China. So says a report by Madrid-based human rights NGO (non-governmental organisation) Safeguard Defenders, published last month. Weaving through crowds to the hypnotic timbre of ceremonial drumming, brightly-coloured Chinese lion dancers descended on Glasgow last month to mark the ancient Chinese 'Moon Festival' The report highlighted 54 such illegal 'police stations' that have quietly flooded the world over five continents in a flagrant breach of international laws on extradition and cross-border arrests. The NGO described the situation as 'Chinese transnational policing gone wild'. Named after the Chinese emergency number, the '110 Overseas' centres sell themselves as one-stop-shops for Chinese people abroad, offering legal advice, document processing and 'hotlines' to police back in China. Their true purpose, however, is a means for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to take the law into its own hands no matter the jurisdiction and to, in its own words 'resolutely crack down on various illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese'. They can and do catch genuine Chinese 'gangsters and scammers', and state officials boasted some 230,000 'fugitives' had been 'persuaded to return' between April 2021 and July this year. But it begs the question: are all of these 'fugitives' common criminals? It is feared that many are political dissidents who fled China for daring to speak out against the communist regime. Some could be Hong Kong expatriates, Uighur refugees or legal citizens of another country. Just last Sunday a Chinese government official speaking on condition of anonymity admitted the existence of the 'stations' and their role in 'pressuring criminals' to return to China. An official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Shanghai told the Spanish newspaper El Correo that: 'Bilateral treaties are very cumbersome and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China.' Celebrating the autumn harvest, when the full moon is brightest, Glasgow's Lord Provost Jacqueline McLaren welcomed guest of honour Hou Danna, China's Acting Consul General in Edinburgh, who gave a speech urging 'unity' between the 'Chinese community and . . . Scottish community' She added: 'I do not see what is wrong in pressuring criminals to face justice with all the guarantees contained in Chinese law', adding that 'only legal means are used.' It seems astonishing that organs of the Chinese totalitarian state can operate under the noses of Western governments with impunity. But in 2020, a Madrid branch was able to apprehend Liu, a Chinese resident in Spain, who was wanted by prosecutors in China for 'environmental pollution'. Using its network of people on the ground in the Spanish capital, Liu was taken to the 110 'station' where he was put on a video call with police from his home province. They were seated with a member of Liu's family placed there as a thinly-veiled threat and Liu was 'persuaded' to return to the mainland where he was then prosecuted. Last month, the Chinese embassy in Ireland denied the existence of a secret 'police station' when newspaper reporters visited the address of a supposed 110 centre, at a grocery shop in Dublin. A spokesman at the embassy explained that 'quite a few Chinese nationals' in Ireland could not renew their expired driving licences and that the 'station' was only used to help them. 'This is the ambit of the station,' the spokesman told the Irish Times. 'We have shared the above information with the Irish authority as well.' So what do we make of the three UK addresses appearing on the list of overseas 'service stations'? It is not suggested, yet, that any of the addresses and phone numbers have been used for anything other than as a contact point in a Chinese government directory. Loon Fung restaurant has been going for 50 years, and its manager's eyes were on stalks when asked about links to a secret Chinese police bureau. The festivities, hosted by local businessman Jimmy Lin, culminated in a feast of Peking duck and honey-roast pork at the Loon Fung restaurant. Loon Fung is a Glaswegian institution which has served dumplings for decades 'This is one of the top Cantonese restaurants,' he said, astonished. 'There's no secret police here.' Through the intercom of the All Eat app office in Croydon, a Chinese woman named Jessica said: 'I am really, really confused. I am an employee here. You'll have to speak to my manager.' In Hendon, workers at the Hunter Realty estate agent were similarly baffled. So what's the explanation? 'Individuals or associations abroad linked to the 110 Overseas network are deployed to track the target [person] or 'bring them in' to talk to the authorities back in China', said Laura Harth, campaign director of Safeguard Defenders. 'In that sense, the physical addresses listed are of secondary importance, other than serving as a possible point of reference or contact for the transnational policing efforts.' The premises are less of a literal 'police station', and more of a phone number that Chinese police can call to coordinate their efforts abroad. So the bewilderment of the business operators I met is likely genuine. But Loon Fung's address shares a telephone number with another Chinese restaurant, Sichuan House, based a few doors down the road. Astonishingly, when Safeguard Defenders telephoned this number last month, making enquiries in Cantonese, someone at the address admitted there was indeed a telephone line to police in China, but that it existed 'in name only'. When the researchers attempted to call back for more information, the line was cut off. While this is hardly proof of a secretive cross-border rendition network, the alleged cells would be in keeping with China's wider threat to British national security. MI5 chief Ken McCallum warned in July that the 'most game-changing challenge' to our security came from the 'increasingly authoritarian Chinese Communist Party'. But next door to shuttered shops and the Nice N Sleazy bar, the restaurant's less-than-salubrious location of Sauchiehall Street has been marred for years by ructions between rival Chinese Triad gangs It follows the efforts by Huawei, the telecoms company widely believed to be in thrall to the CCP, to involve themselves in the UK's 5G roll-out before then Prime Minister Boris Johnson barred them from the network. Whitehall buildings are fitted with computerised cameras made by Chinese firm Hikvision, and an investigation in Italy this year found they could be hacked to send footage straight to Beijing. Meanwhile, China embeds military academics into British universities so they can accumulate sensitive information on weapons-building from them, which is then used to strengthen the People's Liberation Army. CCP apparatchiks praise their espionage and intellectual property theft as 'picking flowers in other lands to make honey in China'. Does China now have new flower beds in Glasgow, Hendon and Croydon? All three addresses are allegedly part of the 'first batch' of a network that went live in January to serve Fuzhou city police in Fujian province, China. The local government there was breathless in lauding the launch of these 34 'police service centres'. Fuzhou is regarded as the 'second homeland' of China's president Xi Jinping, after he'd served as governor of the province. Last month Chinese central government's Ministry of Public Security praised the Fuzhou scheme as an example of 'national excellent law enforcement', leading to fears that similar initiatives could be adopted by police in all 31 provinces. The only other publicly declared network is run from Qingtian, in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, taking the total number of 'cells' worldwide to 54, but many more are suspected. In Belgrade, Serbia, for instance, a man was forced to return to China after the local branch of Qingtian police facilitated a week of relentless video and voice calls on the WeChat platform. The address shares a peculiar distinction with two seemingly ordinary properties 400 miles away: the business premises of a food delivery app in Croydon, South London, and an estate agent on a High Street in Hendon, North London both of which I visited this week In Prato, Italy, meanwhile, five men have posed for an official photograph in an office decked with a banner declaring 'Fuzhou Public Security Overseas Police Station', celebrating the processing of a Chinese driver's licence there. The Fuzhou connection is strong in Glasgow. The address of the Sichuan House restaurant is listed in the World Federation of Fuzhou Associations a directory of 'clubs' linked to the city while it is also the place where the Scotland Fujian Chamber of Commerce is registered. Its chairman is Jimmy Lin who, as we have seen, hosted VIPs at the Loon Fung last month to celebrate the Moon Festival. Four years ago, the chamber chaperoned Edinburgh's Lord Provost Frank Ross on an all-expenses-paid trip to Fuzhou on the invitation of the city's mayor, who said he wanted to advance 'mutually beneficial cooperation . . . keep in closer connections, enhance communications' and 'upgrade our friendship to a new level'. Days after the trip, Xiaoying Lin, a member of Fuzhou's local government, was in the Scottish capital to sign a 'letter of intent' with the Lord Provost, formally marking the strengthened ties. The sojourn occurred in 2018, the same year that the CCP first announced plans for networks of overseas 'police stations' as part of its 'special fight against gangsterism and evil'. Because what belies their everyday exteriors is that their addresses and telephone numbers appear on a list of overseas 'service stations' connected to police in China. So says a report by Madrid-based human rights NGO (non-governmental organisation) Safeguard Defenders, published last month Was the purpose of the 'new level of friendship' to plant the seed for a Fuzhou police cell in Scotland? A spokeswoman on behalf of the Edinburgh Lord Provost office said there is no awareness of these addresses being linked to police in Fujian. She added that the council has ceased any twinning city arrangements and Frank Ross is no longer Lord Provost. As I continued to investigate the three UK addresses, a Companies House search thickened the plot considerably. All three are used as business addresses by people with the admittedly common surname 'Lin'. There are 15 active companies registered to the Hendon address, three linked to people named Lin. Three more Lins including one who is director of the UK Fujianese Association are involved with the four active companies operating out of the Croydon address. And at the Sichuan House site in Glasgow, there are five active companies, including two linked to Lihao Lin, director of the Scotland Fujian Chamber of Commerce. It is unknown if all of these Lins are related, but many have direct links to Fujian province, if not to Fuzhou city itself. The Chinese embassy in London and most of the other parties mentioned above declined to respond to requests for comment, including Jimmy Lin, who despite being linked to the Sichuan House address, we are not suggesting is involved with Chinese police. The office of Glasgow's Lord Provost Jacqueline McLaren said they were unaware of any concerns regarding the Loon Fung address. The manager of Hunter Realty in Hendon, meanwhile, told me: 'We provide our address as a virtual address to companies . . . We do not know why they put our address and telephone number into 110 Overseas, we have no connection with them at all.' Last month, however, the estate agent told reporters that the office is also used by a 'legal firm'. The report highlighted 54 such illegal 'police stations' that have quietly flooded the world over five continents in a flagrant breach of international laws on extradition and cross-border arrests. The NGO described the situation as 'Chinese transnational policing gone wild' When I presented my findings to the Home Office, Cabinet Office, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the National Crime Agency, I received a statement from the Home Office which said: 'Any foreign country operating on UK soil must abide by UK law. We support legitimate requests for the repatriation of suspected foreign criminals.' But I received no response when I asked what would happen if a foreign country on UK soil did not abide by UK law. Other countries have not been as inhibited in their responses. In January, FBI Director Christopher Wray acknowledged that 'the Chinese government is increasingly targeting people inside the U.S. for personal and political retribution undercutting the freedoms that our Constitution and laws promise. 'The kinds of people the Chinese Communist Party tends to go after are not those that a responsible government would make their enemies refugees, dissidents, and Uighurs people with their own ideas, who speak or worship as their conscience dictates.' Canada has similarly warned of the issue, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki confirming that the overseas centres there are 'a growing problem'. In Beijing, they are adamant. Speaking of international 'criminals' its government wanted to hunt down, a party official declared this year: 'We will catch them inside and outside the borders.' The message from China is chilling and clear: no one is safe. Additional reporting: Joe Hutchison and Gavin Madeley 'Suspects identified' in the investigation but are yet to be revealed The sheriff is investigating a possible case of 'Unlawful Restraint', he said Almost 50 illegal immigrants flown to Martha's Vineyard by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will qualify for visas to stay in the US because their treatment was criminal, a Texas sheriff has said. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar submitted documents on Thursday suggesting the 48 migrants were victims of a crime, making them eligible for a non-immigrant 'U-visa' that will allow them to stay in the US until any criminal proceedings are completed. Salazar, a Democrat whose county encompasses San Antonio, says the DeSantis flight broke the law by lying to the Venezuelan migrants about their destination and the support they could expect to receive on arriving. The migrants are believed to have been told they'd be taken to Boston, before being flown to the ritzy island off Cape Cod on September 14 instead. 'We have submitted documentation through the federal system to ensure the migrants availability as witnesses during the investigation,' Salazar said in a statement. Bexar County Sheriff launched an investigation into DeSantis's scheme last month and submitted documents on Thursday characterizing them as victims of a crime The migrants were flown from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts in September as part of a stunt organized by the Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Under the direction of DeSantis the state of Florida paid for two flights to take them from Texas to Martha's Vineyard. DeSantis's objective was to draw attention to an influx of immigrants to southern states and an alleged hypocrisy of those like Massachusetts that pride themselves on being 'sanctuary states'. DeSantis and other GOP governors say many Democrat leaders of sanctuary states have little understanding of how badly the ongoing influx of illegal immigrants is affecting towns and cities along the southern border. 'The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they all of a sudden go berserk,' said DeSantis in September. 'It shows you their virtue signaling is a fraud,' he added. The Venezuelan migrants were flown by DeSantis to Martha's Vineyard. They will now be eligible for U-visa, which could eventually turn into green cards Florida governor Ron DeSantis oversaw two flights from San Antonio to transport the migrants to Martha's Vineyard Rachel Self is an attorney working with the migrants. She told radio station WGBH that the move by Salazar was intended to enable the immigrants to acquire visas, which are reserved for victims or witnesses of crime. Getting a certification for a 'U-visa' can often take as long as a year so its unusual that Salazar was able to finalize the process so soon. A U-visa holder becomes eligible to apply for a green card after holding it for three years. Members of a group of nearly 50 migrants from Venezuela who were flown to the island of Martha's Vineyard off Cape Cod 14 September look at mobile phones at the parish house at St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Edgartown Volunteers prepare food for immigrants outside St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Edgartown near Martha's Vineyard This move by the Bexar County Sheriff to assist the migrants comes weeks after he brought an investigation into DeSantis's scheme. No charges have yet been filed. 'Based upon the claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this case as possible Unlawful Restraint,' Salazar said in the statement. 'We have suspects identified, however at this point in the investigation, we are not at liberty to release those names publicly or confirm any identities.' Salazar may be referring to 43-year-old former military spy Perla Huerta. Huerta was said to have been spotted in the crowd helping to load mostly Venezuelan migrants on to a plane at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio last month. Migrants told the New York Times Huerta approached them in San Antonio with the proposition of flying north to Martha's Vineyard where jobs, shelter and legal representation would be available. According to the Times, she was sent to Texas in order to convince the migrants to head north. 'We are actively working with the Bexar County District Attorneys Office and the attorneys representing the migrants,' Salazar said in the statement. 'The investigation remains ongoing and we will release any updates as available.' A judge on Friday tossed out one of five counts against a think-tank analyst charged with lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a flawed dossier about former President Donald Trump. The remaining four counts against Igor Danchenko will go to a jury Monday after prosecutors and the defense rested their cases Friday. But Judge Anthony Trenga reserved the right to toss out the other four counts regardless of what the jury decides. In the count that was tossed out, prosecutors alleged that Danchenko lied to the FBI when he told an agent that he never 'talked' with a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan about the information in the dossier. As it turns out, there was evidence that Dolan and Danchenko had discussed the information over email. Defense attorneys argued that Danchenko's response was literally true because they did not talk orally, and the question the FBI agent asked specifically referenced talking. A federal judge tossed out one of five counts against Russian analyst Igor Danchenko on Friday, after the prosecution and defense each rested their cases Trenga agreed, and he said that accepting the prosecution's argument that the question had a broader context than mere talking would result in 'divorcing words from their common meaning.' Danchenko is being prosecuted by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate any misconduct in the FBIs investigation of the Trump campaign and its alleged ties to Russia. Danchenko is the third person to be prosecuted by Durham, who was appointed by Donald Trump. It is the first of Durham's cases that delves deeply into the origins of the 'Steele dossier,' which alleged connections between Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin. and which Trump derided as fake news and a political witch hunt. Durham's other two cases resulted in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation. Testimony this week at trial has highlighted Durham's difficulty in proving his allegations. Two key FBI witnesses for the prosecution ended up providing testimony that was highly favorable to Danchenko, resulting in the unusual spectacle of Durham seeking to eviscerate the credibility of his own witnesses on re-direct. News you can use: Charles Dolan Jr. testified that he provided information to Danchenko that he saw on TV about Trump campaign intrigue involving Paul Manafort. Danchenko's lawyer argued his client was truthful when he said he hadn't 'talked' with Dolan In the remaining counts that will go forward, prosecutors argue that Danchenko fabricated interactions with a supposed source named Sergei Millian, who was a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. Defense lawyers say Danchenko received an anonymous call from a person he believed to be Millian, and that Danchenko was forthright from the beginning with the FBI that while he suspected the call came from Millian he was not certain. Prosecutors say that if Danchenko had been more forthcoming about his sources the FBI would have been better equipped to judge the veracity of the dossier. The FBI ended up using the allegations in the dossier to obtain court-ordered surveillance against a Trump campaign official, Carter Page, even though the FBI was never able to corroborate any of the dossier's allegations. Trenga's decision to dismiss one of the five counts came Friday afternoon after prosecutors rested their case. Defense lawyers, who have consistently criticized the case as prosecutorial overreach, said the evidence put forward by prosecutors fell far short of anything a reasonable juror could use to convict. 'This nightmare of a case for Mr. Danchenko, it should end today,' defense attorney Stuart Sears told the judge. North Korean soldiers stage an artillery firing exercise, in this photo carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 10. Yonhap By Nam Hyun-woo North Korea staged multiple military actions including a missile launch, air drill and artillery firing over a single night, Thursday to Friday, in what appears to be unprecedented belligerence in recent years. Experts said tensions on the Korean Peninsula are only increasing as the two Koreas resort to hardline approaches, and it is becoming more difficult to predict the ultimate purpose of the North's recent provocations. According to Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), North Korea on early Friday launched a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) into the East Sea and fired about 170 rounds of artillery shells into the East and West Seas and some of the rounds landed in maritime buffer zones set under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on ceasing hostile military actions. The JCS also said that more than 10 North Korean military aircraft staged menacing flights close to the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the border area from 10:30 p.m., Thursday, to 12:20 a.m., Friday, which caused the Republic of Korea Air Force to scramble its F-35A stealth fighters and other assets to the scene. The North Korean aircraft staged the flights between the NLL and the Tactical Action Line, which was set by South Korea's military about 20 to 50 kilometers from the NLL, to earn time to react to the North's aerial provocations. It was the first case of North Korean aircraft flying south to the Tactical Acton Line since October 2012. The JCS said the rounds did not drop in South Korean waters but landed in a maritime area north of the NLL in the buffer zone. Since the 2018 comprehensive military agreement prohibits artillery shelling in waters in the buffer zone, the JCS said, "The North has clearly violated the agreement." Seoul's Ministry of National Defense sent a statement to Pyongyang to note that the artillery firing was a clear violation of the military agreement, but the North is yet to show any response. Instead, the North's Korean People's Army said it conducted the shelling "as a strong military countermeasure" to South Korea, which had conducted artillery exercises for more than 10 hours. The JCS said that U.S. Forces Korea had staged a drill involving multiple launch rocket systems at a firing range in Gangwon Province, but that it was a "planned exercise" which had launched rockets toward the South outside of the military buffer zone. Also on Friday, the South Korean government announced independent sanctions, blacklisting 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions for their involvement in the North's nuclear and missile programs and efforts to evade other sanctions. It was the first case of such unilateral sanctions by Seoul in five years, when it imposed one in 2017 in response to an intercontinental ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang. An explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey has killed at least 22 people as rescuers try to bring dozens of others trapped inside the mine to the surface. The explosion occurred at the state-owned TTK Amasra Muessese Mudurlugu mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin. Energy minister Fatih Donmez said a preliminary assessment indicated the explosion was likely caused by firedamp - a reference to flammable gases found in coal mines. There were 110 people in the mine at the time of the explosion, interior minister Suleyman Soylu said. Most of the workers were able to evacuate following the blast but 49 were trapped in a higher risk area of the facility. Mr Soylu would not provide a number for those still trapped, saying some among the 49 had been lifted to safety. Health minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Twitter that 22 people were killed in the blast. He did not say how many people were taken out of the mine with injuries but said eight were in a serious condition. Several rescue teams were dispatched to the area, including from neighbouring provinces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was cancelling a planned visit to the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir and would travel to Amasra instead to coordinate the rescue operation. Emergency services have rushed to the scene, along with desperate family members, and multiple miners have been seen being lifted into ambulances on stretchers. Paramedics were pictured appearing to perform CPR on casualties as they rushed them into waiting ambulances. A miner is lifted into an ambulance and can be seen barefoot, and covered in mud from the horrific blast A rescue team prepare to go underground in the mine in Amasra, Turkey Paramedics perform CPR on one casualty as he is rushed from the scene Emergency services have rushed to the scene, including at least nine ambulances, with multiple other vehicles in attendance too Emergency services, local officials and friends and family of those working in the mine have all rushed to the scene Some of the workers appear to be assisting with rescue efforts, as emergency services rely on them for information The mine, which is in the north of Turkey, remains a hive of activity as the darkness hinders rescue efforts A coal mine worker being rescued by search and rescue team as ambulances and firefighters conduct operation at the explosion site Earlier, Cakir said at least six of the workers were lying 'motionless' inside the mine, according to information he had received. The private DHA news agency quoted one worker telling Governor Arslan that he came out of the mine by his own means. He described feeling a 'pressure' but said he could not see anything due to the dust and dirt. People rushed to the mine for news of trapped friends or colleagues, DHA reported. Turkey's Maden Is mining workers' union attributed the blast to a build-up of methane gas, but it has since been claimed it was related to firedamp. But other officials said it was premature to draw definitive conclusions over the cause of the accident. The blast occurred moments before sunset and the rescue effort was being impeded by the dark. Most initial information about those trapped inside was coming from workers who had managed to climb out relatively unharmed. The Maden Is union estimated that some 100 workers were underground at the time of the blast. Rescuers sent in reinforcements from surrounding villages to help search for signs of life. It is believed there could be more than 40 miners still trapped inside after the explosion Police officers are at the scene, and appear to be separating the crowd of worried relatives from the rescue teams Television images showed paramedics giving oxygen to the miners who had climbed out and then rushing them to the nearest hospitals. Turkey's AFAD disaster management service said the initial spark that caused the blast appeared to have come from a malfunctioning transformer. The local governor said a team of more than 70 rescuers had managed to reach a point in the pit some 250 metres below ground. It was not immediately clear if the rescuers would be able to come any closer to the trapped workers or what was blocking their further passage. The local public prosecutor's office said it was treating the incident as an accident and launching a formal investigation. In Turkey's worst mine disaster, a total of 301 people died in 2014 in a fire inside a coal mine in the town of Soma, in western Turkey. The founder of Nikola Corp. was found guilty of fraud on charges of deceiving investors with claims about his company's value and progress in producing zero-emission trucks. Billionare Trevor Milton, 40, who founded the company in his Utah basement six years ago, took the company public in 2020 at $34 billion, claiming to have built a revolutionary set of 18-wheel trucks that could run on cheap hydrogen. While the company quickly soared to outvalue even Ford, things began to crumble quickly for Milton amid allegations that his company was nowhere near creating zero-emission vehicles. At the trial, prosecutors portrayed Milton as a scammer who went as far as stamping Nikola's logo on other company's trucks and faking a promo video where the engineless vehicle was rolled downhill to make it seem like it was working. During closing arguments, Jordan Estes, assistant U.S. attorney, said: 'Trevor Milton is a con man. He lied to investors to get their money, plain and simple.' Milton's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, said there would be an appeal. 'We're going to keep fighting,' he told reporters outside court on Friday. Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton ( pictured on Friday) was convicted of charges he deceived investors with exaggerated claims about his company's progress in producing zero-emission 18-wheel trucks The company started to unravel in September 2020 when a report accused it of being an 'intricate fraud'. Among the allegations was that it staged a promotional video for its Nikola One truck that reportedly didn't have an engine (above a grab of the video) A jury reached the verdict against Milton after deliberating for about five hours in federal court in Manhattan. Milton was convicted on one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud, the most serious of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Called as a government witness, Nikola's CEO Mark Russell testified that Milton 'was prone to exaggeration' in pitching his venture to investors. When the company went public in 2020, shares rocketed to nearly $80 per share with promises that it would roll out the Nikola One truck, a zero-emission electric vehicle powered by hydrogen-fuel. Following the allegations against him, the company's stock plummeted, and on Friday, Nikola closed at $3.06 per share, a 95 percent drop from its glory days. Among the most damning allegations against Milton was a dramatic promotional video depicting the Nikola One driving through the desert. Prosecutors, however, showed evidence that the futuristic truck was anything but, operating with doors that were taped shut and batteries removed. They said the car was towed uphill and then allowed to roll down as the company filmed it to pretend like it was running on its hydrogen-fuel. Through its lavish promises of groundbreaking vehicles, prosecutors said Milton intentionally sought easy marks to invest in his company. The indictment said many of the people duped in the scheme were first-time or new investors who began trading during the pandemic. Milton 'targeted individual, non-professional investors so-called retail investors by making false and misleading statements directly to the investing public through social media, and television, print and podcast interviews,' it read. 'The lies - that is what this case is about,' prosecutor Matthew Podolsky told the jury in closing arguments Thursday. Sentencing for Milton, who was freed on a $100 million bond, was set for January 27 Milton was indicted on two counts of securities fraud, including making false statements about the company, and wire fraud, the US Department of Justice announced Thursday The company's stock continues to plummet, closing on Friday at $3.06 per share. During the height of its IPO, the company was valued at nearly $80 per share Mukasey urged acquittal, saying there was 'a stunning lack of evidence' that his client ever intended to cheat investors. Although the defense lawyer admitted that his client sometimes spoke in ways that could mislead people into believing that future plans were something the company had already achieved, Mukasey said Milton just liked to boast about his company. The defense also dismissed arguments that the altered promotional video constituted any wrongdoing. 'It's certainly not a crime to use special effects,' Mr. Mukasey told jurors. 'Otherwise the government would have to indict the Energizer Bunny.' Milton had pleaded not guilty to securities and wire fraud. He resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikola's stock prices into a tailspin. Sentencing for Milton, who was freed on a $100 million bond, was set for January 27. Nikola, which has said it cooperated with the investigation against Milton, previously settled a $125 million fine with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Nikola One's product launch in 2016 (above) fell under scrutiny. The truck was said to be a pusher - an inoperable prototype. Gears and motors were missing, and while the words 'H2 Zero Emission Hydrogen Electric' were emblazoned on the vehicle An electric cable was snaked up from under the stage through the floor of the cab (above) In September 2020, GM announced it would be investing $2billion in the company and providing it with hydrogen fuel cells and batteries for its vehicles in exchange for an 11 per cent stake in the firm. But the company and Milton's reputation started to unravel when short-seller Hindenburg Research published a bombshell report just two days after the GM deal was announced, claiming Milton lied about the company's technology. The damning report claimed the electric truck start-up was based on years of lies, exaggerations of its technologies and faked product launches. Many of the allegations in the indictment were previously mentioned in the report. The short-seller accused Milton of 'misleading partners into signing agreements by falsely claiming to have extensive proprietary technology'. It also claimed Nikola was short-selling stock and labeled the company a 'fraud', a charge it denied. Hindenburg claimed to have 'extensive evidence' that Nikola's proprietary technology was purchased from another company. Hindenburg also alleged that Milton appointed his brother, Travis, to lead a unit in the company for which he did not have any substantial experience related to the sector. Trevor Milton founded the company in 2016 inside his basement in Salt Lake City, Utah Milton grew up in Las Vegas and then Utah in a family of Mormons to a railroad manager father and realtor mother. After Milton's mother died from cancer when he was a teenager, he went to Utah Valley State College before dropping out after just one semester. He told Forbes in 2019 that he developed an interest in the transport industry from his father who worked for the freight railroad company Union Pacific. He also said he was inspired to change the world by an 18-month church mission to Brazil. Milton founded at least five businesses before launching Nikola in 2015, named after famous electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Milton's goal was for Nikola to become the biggest producer of hydrogen for zero-emission fuel cell vehicles and to have set up 700 Nikola hydrogen stations across America by 2028. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to shut down the work of an independent arbiter who was appointed last month to review documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. The appeal is the latest salvo in weeks of litigation over the scope of duties of the arbiter, also known as a special master, who was assigned to inspect the records taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and weed out any that may be protected by claims of legal privilege. The special master process has caused some delays to the Justice Departments investigation into the holding of top-secret documents at the home. But a major hurdle was cleared last month when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted a temporary bar on the departments ability to use the seized classified documents as part of its criminal probe. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday, Oct. 14, to overturn a judge's appointment of an independent arbiter to review documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida estate The move permitted a core aspect of the probe to resume, greatly reducing the odds that the process could have a significant impact on the investigation. Even so, department lawyers returned to the court Friday to ask for the entire special master review to be shut down, saying the judge who made the appointment had no basis for doing so and that Trump was not entitled to an independent review of the seized records or to claim privilege over them. "Plaintiff has no plausible claim of executive privilege as to any of the seized materials and no plausible claim of personal attorney-client privilege as to the seized government records - including all records bearing classification markings," according to the department's brief. "Accordingly," they added, "the special-master review process is unwarranted." President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago case, but was denied. His lawyers will now respond to the DOJ's appeal filing The FBI says agents seized more than 100 documents marked 'classified' from the president's private Florida club Judge Raymond Dearie has been appointed special master, and has worked with attorneys on both sides to set up a process to review thousands of documents The legal team of former US President Donald Trump, led by M. Evan Corcoran (C), along with Lindsey Halligan (L), James Trusty (Center-R), and Christ Kise (R) arrive at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. on September 20, 2022 in New York City. Trump's lawyers will now respond to the DOJ The Justice Department says it seized about 13,000 records, including roughly 100 with classification markings, during its court-authorized search in August. The department is conducting a criminal investigation into the retention of those records as well as into whether anyone obstructed its probe. As part of the investigation, the FBI has interviewed multiple Trump aides, including a lawyer for him who served as a custodian of the records and who in June presented investigators with a signed letter asserting that all the classified records the Justice Department had asked for in a subpoena had been located and turned over. Agents believed more records remained at the house, returned in August with a search warrant and removed 33 boxes of documents, including material classified at the top-secret level. Weeks later, the Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records. Cannon agreed, naming a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to inspect the records and segregate from the rest of the investigation any documents that could possibly be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. The 11th Circuit subsequently lifted Cannon's prohibition on the department's use of the classified documents for its investigation pending Dearie's review, as well as a requirement that the Justice Department provide those specific records to Dearie for his review. The Supreme Court on Thursday declined a request from Trump's lawyers to intervene in the dispute. The Justice Department has repeatedly rejected the idea that a special master review was needed, and though it has been able to resume its review of the classified records, it said its investigation remains slowed by its inability to use the much larger set of non-classified documents as part of its probe. "The district courts injunction barring review and use of the other seized records harms the government and the public as well," the department said. "A magistrate judge has already found probable cause to believe that those records may constitute evidence of crimes, and the government has demonstrated a clear need for them." A teenage girl walks slowly up the stairs at a family home in a prosperous, middle-class area of northern England, each step watched by her worried parents. The child has a short haircut, is wearing khaki shorts and has an unusually flat chest for her age and sex. She stops twice on her way to her bedroom to take deep breaths, wincing in pain each time she does so. Why is she not rushing up the stairs like any other teenager might? The reason is that she is wearing a constricting breast binder to squash her developing figure. The child, who attends a state school in a large suburban town where a number of teenage female-born pupils now identify as male, ordered the garment a few months ago via the internet without the consent, or knowledge, of her mother or father, Patricia and Michael. It is very hard to watch my daughter slowly destroy her healthy body, Patricia said in a searingly sad letter to watchdog, the Charity Commission, recently. We havent been able to protect her from the harm of breast binding. Since using the binder, she is very likely to have seriously and irreversibly damaged her breast tissue, her rib cage and her lungs because it is so tight. Her letter goes on: My husband and I love our daughter very much. We have cared for her and watched her grow, attending to her every need and desire, anticipating and guarding her from any possible harm since the day she was born. But we could not save her from transgender ideology. She, encouraged by advice from Mermaids helpline, now believes she is a male who was born in a female body. Before and after images show how breast binders work but they can cause ulcers, breathing problems, cracked ribs and permanent disfigurement Patricia, a property consultant in her 40s, does not know for certain if her daughter got her breast binder from Mermaids, a transgender charity which has offered them free of charge to some children since 2019. The item sent to her daughter arrived in a package with no identifying invoice or return address. It could have come from any of the multitude of transgender charities, self-help groups, or internet shopping outlets which offer paraphernalia including knicker padding so girls can emulate a male body shape. Patricia is one of scores of parents who urged the Charity Commission to investigate Mermaids, which is now at the forefront of an emerging scandal over the use of chest binders among young people suffering from gender dysphoria distress at living with their biological sex. The outrage has only intensified in recent weeks, after it was revealed that Mermaids employed someone who had posed for highly sexualised photographs and posted them online. Darren Mew posted an upskirt selfie on Instagram with the caption: Sorry I cant hear you. Im just out here living my fantasy, alongside the hashtag #nonbinaryfinery. The same person also posed for extremely explicit nude photographs for LGBT publication Haus Magazine as part of a sex collage. Mermaids has confirmed that the person no longer works for the charity. Jacob Breslow, one of the charitys trustees, quit his role when it emerged that he had given a presentation at an event for B4U-ACT, an American group that calls for paedophiles to have the right to live in truth and dignity. Dr Breslow has since made it clear that he unequivocally condemns child sexual abuse and has not been affiliated with B4U-ACT since. Binding is meant to help address the feeling of gender dysphoria experienced by trans boys. File image Meanwhile, a Twitter storm ensued when J. K. Rowling challenged transgender television presenter India Willoughby to sue her in an online spat. It came after the author posted that Mermaids had achieved unprecedented influence in the UK with the help of certain corporations and celebrities who backed it despite red flags. And now the National Lottery has paused a 500,000 grant to Mermaids during the ongoing investigation into breast binders. Mermaids has been accused of sending potentially dangerous breast-flattening devices to children as young as 13 and 14 behind their parents backs, and against their wishes, to help them achieve their dream of changing sex. In response to the accusations in a British national newspaper, Scotland Yard announced that if police receive reports of an individual using a breast binder, they and social workers will investigate the issue as potential child abuse. The Charity Commission, meanwhile, has also acted following the plethora of complaints received from parents following the articles disclosures. The Commission says it is contacting Mermaids trustees for more information about its approach to safeguarding young people, opening the way to a full investigation if wrongdoings are found. Transgender charity Mermaids, who is under investigation, has been accused of offering them for free since 2019. File image There are many who believe the spotlight now focused on Mermaids is not before time. It is more than a year since a former Childline counsellor, James Esses, claimed in a series of social media posts that transgender charities were giving away and selling breast binders to very young girls, often without their parents knowledge. Mermaids has not responded to this. A concerned parent sent James, the co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists a UK group pioneering neutral help and psychological advice for those struggling with gender identity a screenshot of a chat-room conversation between a Mermaids adviser and a 13-year-old girl. In the screenshot, the girl says her mother wont let her have a breast binder. The adviser then offers to send her one out secretly for free. The current furore has been sparked by another revelation that a member of Mermaids staff agreed by email to send a binder discreetly to a girl whom they believed was only 14, despite knowing that the childs mother would not allow her to use one. The charity asked that safety guidelines be agreed before the binder was sent. It is an outrage, James told the Mail. Binders can be the first step on a slippery slope towards girls hating the body and the breasts they have. They often go on to want masculinising hormone treatment, and even mastectomies to remove their breasts altogether. I consider Mermaids providing breast binders to dysphoric young girls to be the moral equivalent of providing depressed children who self-harm with blades to cut themselves. A Twitter storm ensued when J. K. Rowling (pictured) challenged transgender television presenter India Willoughby to sue her in an online spat. It came after the author posted that Mermaids had achieved unprecedented influence in the UK with the help of certain corporations and celebrities who backed it despite red flags Other experts in this tricky arena have similar opinions. Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of Transgender Trend a help group for parents and carers of gender-dysphoric children said that binders have all sorts of health risks. They can prevent girls breathing properly and damage breast tissue, the lungs, the ribs and backs, she said. Parents who disagree with their child using one are often painted as transphobic bigots by the transgender community. It is wrong that children should be able to get and wear binders without the knowledge of those who know them best and care for them. Community paediatrician, Dr Julie Maxwell, based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, goes further. She told the Mail: Wearing a binder is basically self-harm and encouraging a child to do that to themselves is wrong. On Twitter, a heated debate on binders took off as the Mermaids controversy began to resonate with the Charity Commission. One post from someone named Alex said: I wore a binder for four years. I now have an abscess scar on the side of my breast, back pain and need to use an inhaler when my chest gets wheezy. Theyre barbaric. Alex, who received numerous messages of support, added in a later tweet: But even if binders were just underwear, would you support adult strangers sending children underwear in the post, and keeping it a secret from their parents? But Mermaids is far from the only organisation or shopping outlet providing them, many without age restrictions or parental supervision. In August, for instance, a group calling itself G(end)er Swap CIC advertised a free binder give-away at an open house on a Saturday afternoon in an LGBTIQ+ Centre in South-East London. It said on Twitter: FREE BINDERS available grab a hot drink, get sizing assistance? Find the community too. A trans support group in the North-West of England called MORF, run by volunteers, offers a binder exchange scheme asking trans men who have recently had top surgery (mastectomies) to donate their no-longer-needed garment to others. On the internet, it said to its followers wanting binders: This is a free scheme, all you pay is the postage. We have so far redistributed over 150 binders and we want to continue giving out as many as possible. Both G(end)er Swap CIC and MORFs websites give advice on how to use binders safely. MORF warns that binders should not be worn for more than eight hours; nor should one sleep in them. It says that unsafe binding can lead to nerve damage, blisters, cracked ribs and breathing difficulties. Mermaids also offers similar safety advice on its website. In a statement, it said that binding helped some of those experiencing dysphoria to alleviate their distress. We take a harm-reduction position providing a young person with a binder alongside comprehensive safety guidelines from an experienced member of staff is preferable to the likely alternative of unsafe practices or increasing dysphoria. Yet, safety guidelines do not exist everywhere. The Mail was easily able to buy a binder, costing less than 10, through the post with no questions asked about the age of the purchaser. It arrived within 24 hours in a plain brown parcel after it was ordered via Amazon from a transgender internet shopping site. The black, elasticised garment was in a plastic wrapper inside the anonymous cardboard packaging, and was labelled comfortable. Made in China, it came with no safety advice on how long to wear it, what might happen if it was too tight, or even how to put it on. Binding is meant to help address the feeling of gender dysphoria experienced by trans boys because it causes their bodies to appear more masculine, as their breasts are flattened by the garment. In a well-publicised and controversial November 2021 blog about a residential weekend organised by Mermaids for children and their families, one of the charitys own managers said the highlight of the event was the binder safety session. The manager added that young girls transitioning to boys were able to learn how to properly measure and fit their binders, before going off to try them on. Watching them come back into the room, grinning from ear to ear, was witnessing gender euphoria in action. Yet read the words of Patricia, the mother who sent a letter to the Charity Commission. She said of her beloved daughter: I often witness her wincing with pain from how tight the garment is. Asking her to take it off after a few hours simply does not work. She wears it all the time and guards it with her life. Since she has been using a binder there has been no sign of the euphoria promised by Mermaids. What I have observed is a very sad-looking child forever checking her body in the mirror, making sure her chest looks flat enough, and never satisfied with her reflection. Patricia finished her letter with a personal appeal. I feel compelled to complain about Mermaids and hope you (the Commission) will stop supporting them as a charity. Many parents, it has become clear, feel the same way. The airline said passengers can select the size seat that 'works best for them,' which could mean paying additional dollars for the guarantee of personal space American Airlines later responded to Watson by telling her that its passengers 'come in all different shapes and sizes' Sydney Watson shared her hours of discomfort with her followers, ranting that the passengers were too fat to be flying A conservative commentator with more than 300,000 Twitter followers was stuck on a long flight between two fat passengers A passenger found herself 'sandwiched' between two supremely overweight passengers on a recent American Airlines flight. Sydney Watson, an Australian-American conservative political commentator, documented her struggle for personal space and comfort during the three-hour flight on Twitter, but was in for a rude awakening when American Airlines publicly rebuffed her excessive complaining. 'I am currently - literally - WEDGED between two OBESE people on my flight,' wrote Watson on October 11. 'This is absolutely NOT acceptable or okay. If fat people want to be fat, fine. But it is something else entirely when I'm stuck between you, with your arm rolls on my body, for 3 hours,' she wrote, accompanied by two pictures of the arm rolls in question. American Airlines' official Twitter account responded Monday: 'Our passengers come in all different shapes and sizes. We're sorry you were uncomfortable on your flight.' Sydney Watson documented the process of enduring a three hour flight stuck between two obese siblings for her twitter followers American Airlines told Watson it caters to passengers of all shapes and sizes Watson took issue with the dismissal, pointing to specific ways in which she was uncomfortable during the flight because of the limited space she was afforded Watson shared another picture of her skinny legs squeezed between the bodies that surrounded her The picture Watson mentioned here never materialized Watson is an Australian-American conservative commentator with more than 300,000 Twitter followers Deeply unsatisfied with the corporation's response, Watson wrote, 'This is really their official reply to me being sandwiched between two obese humans.' 'Holy sh*t. So, I'm expected to have only a quarter of a seat when I fly?' 'I just experienced getting sweat on, touched without my consent, smacked in the face and subjected to hours of no personal space. 'And your response is essentially 'too bad'? Is that what I'm getting here?' she wrote, tagging the airline. She previously documented many moments of her unpleasant flying experience to her 317,000 Twitter followers. 'I don't care if this is mean. My entire body is currently being touched against my wishes. I can't even put the arm rests down on either side because there's no f***ing room.' 'I'm sick of acting like fatness to this extent is normal. Let me assure you, it is not.' 'If you need a seat belt extender, you are TOO FAT TO BE ON A PLANE,' she wrote. 'Buy two seats or don't fly.' Watson wrote that she initially asked one of the obese passengers if he'd like to swap seats with her. He was apparently siblings with the woman who bordered Watson on her either side. 'He says, 'no. That's okay :),'' she wrote. '...and then I started shrieking internally.' Watson seemed in disbelief that American Airlines failed to acknowledge her gruesome experience American Airlines said passengers can select how much space they get on a flight by picking their seat ahead of time - and possibly paying more to ensure personal space She later wrote that 'Both the fats are sweating on me.' 'Have realized if I learn forward, I am less crushed. Only draw back is the man in front of me has his seat back and I keep getting smacked in the head when he adjusts in his chair.' 'Humiliating,' she wrote, followed by two crying emojis. 'This will begin my villain arc.' As the saga concluded, Watson wrote, 'I am off the plane!!' 'The ONLY saving grace was that EVERY flight attendant apologized to me. We had a laugh.' 'They said they'd have given me free booze if I'd asked.' Watson added that she had not personally booked her middle seat on American Airlines, rather it was booked for her by a company that paid to fly her to an event. One Twitter user responded to American Airlines: 'If your passengers come in all different shapes & sizes, why are your seats only wide enough for medium-sized people?' 'We offer a variety of seat sizes and styles, so our customers can select what works best for them,' replied the corporate account before linking to a page that shows the various classes (economy, business, first) passengers can sit in. American Airlines did not return Daily Mail's request for comment. Police bodycam footage captured the moment the Florida driver of a white pickup truck was arrested and placed into handcuffs having stolen the vehicle with two children aged four and eight, still seated inside. Deputy Jonathan Pazmino Alvarez of the Hillsborough County Sheriff was flagged down at around 6:45pm on Monday by the truck's actual driver and children's father. Police sprang into action and pursued the vehicle. Within a few minutes, the suspect, Kevin Smith, was pulled over by police who conducted a traffic stop. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office arrested a man for kidnapping after he stole a truck occupied by two children Within minutes, suspect, Kevin Smith, 37, was stopped and could be seen in the driver's seat When Alaverez opened the door to the vehicle, the children told the officer that the car did not belong to the man behind the wheel. Smith, 37, was then told to get out of the car and hand over the keys but initially refused. 'It's not me!' he kept repeating to police, which only added to the confusion. 'You need to step out of the car while I work out what's going on,' Alvarez demanded. Smith continued to refuse the officer's commands to get out of the vehicle. One of the two children inside the car could be heard telling officers Smith was 'not my dad!' Smith initially refused to get out of the vehicle fearing that he might be punched Eventually . Smith exited the vehicle and was placed into handcuffs and taken into custody Kevin Smith, 37, has been charged with kidnapping after he stole a pickup truck in which two children were still in the back 'You're going to punch me!' Smith said as he refused to move from the driver's seat. Eventually, Alvarez reassured the suspect that he was not going to punch him and instead quickly placed him into handcuffs. While the arrest was taking place, one of the children in the car could be heard telling the deputy, 'That's not my dad!' Smith faces one count of Grand Theft Motor Vehicle and two counts of Felony Kidnapping. The children, meanwhile, were safely returned to their father shortly after Smith's arrest. 'This situation could've been a lot worse had it not been for the swift action taken by Deputy Pazmino Alvarez. He halted what could have been an otherwise terrifying situation for any parent,' Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement. 'Thanks to him, two children are safe and in the arms of their loved ones today.' Said people can just 'get an Uber' if they have somewhere important to get to The 62-year-old tries to target a few SUVs each night on her way back from work But 'Anna' has emerged from the shadows to argue the case of her chosen cause A small, female figure emerges from the shadows in the fading light and crouches beside a parked car. She swiftly takes a rucksack from her back, removes something from within and turns her attention to the wheel in front of her. Less than a minute passes before she moves towards the back of the vehicle, repeats the process and disappears. It is only the following morning when the owners of all the cars she has targeted try to drive away that they discover what has happened each vehicle has a pair of completely flat tyres. Plans for the day will have to be put on hold. People will be late for work, for school vital hospital appointments may even be missed. Of course, the worst-case scenario is that they fail to notice at all and set off in the unsafe vehicle, putting their lives and those of other road users at risk. Until now, those behind the attacks have largely let their handiwork do the talking. The eco-warriors, who call themselves the Tyre Extinguishers, target sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Their aim is to deter motorists from buying cars that they say, because of the size and weight, are particularly damaging to the environment and dangerous to pedestrians. And the early signs are that, as with the eco-zealots of Extinction Rebellion, their direct action is driving people to distraction away from, rather than towards, their green cause. The Tyre Extinguishers are a group of anonymous eco-warriors who target sport utility vehicles (SUVs). But one activist, 'Anna' has decided to speak out to argue the case of her chosen cause What if the SUV-owner is disabled? Or has three young children whose car seats won't fit across the back seat of a standard-sized car? Or if it's hybrid or electric? How those whose daily lives have been disrupted by the Tyre Extinguishers would love to have it out with those responsible. Well, step forward 'Anna', an activist who this week emerged from the shadows to argue the case of her chosen cause. 'When I started, I was really shocked at how many SUVs there are, and so I calculated if I do ten a night for five nights a week, I would manage to do more than 2,000 in a year,' the well-spoken 62-year-old proudly told me this week. 'I started in September and have done nearly 100.' Were her actions not so infuriating, the way in which this middle-class, semi-retired mother of three describes her entry into the world of eco-activism would be amusing. Living in an affluent corner of West London, she says she became increasingly aware over the years of the number of SUVs clogging the capital's streets. 'I just kept seeing cars getting bigger and bigger,' she says. 'It angered me because the cars are releasing carbon emissions and polluting the area around me and I can't do anything about it.' A decade ago, these vehicles accounted for about 6 per cent of all cars sold in the UK. Today, one in five cars sold is an SUV. For a moment, Anna considered buying stickers to place on offending cars. Then she heard of the Tyre Extinguishers' campaign. On its anonymously-run website, advice is given on how to deflate tyres and leaflets are supplied for printing and leaving on windscreens, explaining why the car has been targeted. Campaigners are told how to use a lentil or piece of gravel to slowly deflate a tyre. The Tyre Extinguishers' aim is to deter motorists from buying cars that they say, because of the size and weight, are particularly damaging to the environment and dangerous to pedestrians And so, one evening in September, Anna headed off on her bicycle. Like all master 'criminals', she went prepared. On her back was a rucksack loaded with a stash of leaflets and a pill-bottle filled with yellow split lentils, which she would normally use to make dhal. It was only when she was kneeling nervously by her first tyre that she discovered her store-cupboard sabotage tools, the yellow lentils, would not do the job. They were too large. 'I went back to the website and saw they said green lentils,' she explains. 'So I got them instead.' While her next sortie went to plan, Anna admits she was anxious. 'I was worried that if I was crouched on the ground trying to get a valve cap off, someone might come and tower over me.' What would she do if that happened, I ask? 'I would say: "I don't want to be doing this, your car is too big, you need to get a smaller one," ' she says. 'If SUV owners feel so angry about having a tyre or two deflated, it may not just be due to the temporary inconvenience but that underneath they know what they are doing is wrong and don't like having it pointed out.' Quite how that would go down with an irate motorist is anyone's guess. And her argument that having a few flat tyres is no big deal would, I imagine, be even less well received. 'If I have caught you out at a bad moment by letting down your tyres you are not helpless,' she says. 'You could get an Uber, a taxi. On its anonymously-run website, advice is given on how to deflate tyres and leaflets are supplied for printing and leaving on windscreens, explaining why the car has been targeted 'It's not like I haven't experienced those sort of things myself. I have had three bicycles stolen in the last three years so I know what it is like to be inconvenienced and I think the inconvenience they are causing the rest of the world is far greater.' But in the real world in the midst of an economic crisis don't people just want to get on with their lives, to earn a living, to get their kids to school? Not to have to shell out for an Uber while sorting out two flat tyres. But maybe it is easier to be idealistic when, like Anna, you are single, semi-retired and living in a flat in a nice part of London. In those circumstances, and with three grown-up children, getting by on a bicycle or public transport is no great hardship. She bridles: 'That is ridiculous, it's not like I haven't had to work all my life and be at a certain place at 9am each day . . . so it wouldn't be a fair picture to say I have had an easy life, so this is indulgent.' But what about when she was younger? Not only does it emerge that Anna did in fact own a car but that it was a Toyota Rav4, just the sort of SUV she is now targeting. 'I did have a car when my children were young,' Anna admits. 'I lived for 20 years in Wiltshire and we lived down a dirt track and used to pull horses in a trailer.' Very pleasant. But isn't it rather hypocritical? Anna refutes the suggestion, claiming that her SUV, which she got rid of on moving to London a decade ago, was smaller and lighter than the newer ones. 'I have looked it up it is half the weight of the new cars,' she says. 'This was a car that could get us through snow and down anything. It's not like the SUVs of today and I didn't have it in London. If I was in London I would be on a bicycle, or moped, or use public transport.' Even with three children? 'The toddler stage is not that long,' replies Anna. 'Anna' said she has deflated the tyres of nearly 100 SUVs since September and tries to do a few each night on her way back from work As a father of three, I bite my tongue and move on to ask about whether there are any SUV-owners she won't target. 'I have been about to do a car and seen it has a disabled card, so I don't do that,' she says. What about the growing number of electric and hybrid SUVs, which will have lower emissions than smaller petrol or diesel vehicles? She says that while she tries to avoid them, their extra weight, the dust from their brake pads and the rubber from tyre wear all increase environmental pollution. 'The only thing I worry about is that someone is going to get in a car I have just done and go off down the motorway,' she says. 'So I do it at the end of the day on a sleepy street. I put the leaflet on each and always put it in front of where the driver sits. 'I don't want to be doing it and I don't enjoy it, but it's an extreme reaction from desperation. If the Government won't do anything then what else can we do?' Anna tries to target a few SUVs each night on the way back from work, in the early evening. 'I find it the easiest way of fitting it in,' she says, as casually as someone talking about delivering the parish magazine. 'It takes me about an hour to do ten. I can't afford more time.' A former TV scriptwriter, she now has part-time jobs, but declines to say what they are. Anna is not her real name and, while the Daily Mail is aware of her true identity, she only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. She accepts that if caught red-handed, she could be charged with criminal damage, maybe jailed. It is a risk she is prepared to take. In fact, she wants to see more people like her. 'We need an army of late-middle-aged women.' An army equipped not just with a sense of unwavering self-belief, like Anna, but with a bag full of the right type of lentils as well. Vladimir Putin has parked nuclear bombers on Europe's doorstep days before a huge Nato exercise in which Britain will play a pivotal role. In a classic piece of Kremlin sabre-rattling, Moscow moved a fleet of 11 nuclear-capable jets more than 1,500 miles to the Arctic Circle. Deployed to the Olenya airbase, close to Finland and Norway, the planes are capable of launching long- and short-range weapons. The seven TU-160 'Blackjack' strategic bombers and four TU-95 'Bear' hydrogen bomb carriers were picked up on new satellite images. As recently as mid-August, according to similar images, no such bombers sat at the base in the Kola Peninsula. Putin yesterday warned of 'global catastrophe' if Nato troops clash directly with Russia, despite having now heightened that risk himself. The coming weeks will see a number of Russian nuclear drills, predicted to include the test-firing of ballistic missiles, at the same time as Nato tests its preparedness to respond to such attacks. The relocation of the Russian aircraft from a base close to the Ukraine battlefields was spotted by Israeli intelligence officials. Putin yesterday warned of 'global catastrophe' if Nato troops clash directly with Russia, despite having now heightened that risk himself They are now fewer than 100 miles from Finland, which is in the process of joining Nato, and 115 miles from Norway, an existing member of the alliance. The Royal Air Force is completing last-minute preparations for Exercise Steadfast Noon, which will see up to 60 Nato aircraft taking part in training flights over Belgium, the North Sea and Britain to practise the use of US nuclear bombs based in Europe. Beginning on Monday, the drills will simulate tactical strikes and see RAF Typhoons playing the role of Russian MiG fighter jets, while RAF F-35 Lightnings escort US nuclear bombers. Nuclear-capable US B-52 'Stratofortress' aircraft will cross the Atlantic to take part, joining US F-15 Eagle jets based at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk. Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg (pictured) made it clear that Exercise Steadfast Noon, which will see up to 60 Nato aircraft taking part in training flights over Belgium, the North Sea and Britain, will go ahead next week despite the tense international situation Moscow has moved a fleet of 11 nuclear-capable jets more than 1,500 miles to the Arctic Circle. The seven TU-160 'Blackjack' strategic bombers and four TU-95 'Bear' hydrogen bomb carriers were picked up on new satellite images. Pictured: a TU-160 'Blackjack' strategic bomber Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg made clear this week that the alliance would proceed with its annual operation despite the tense international situation. Cancelling the drills because of the war in Ukraine would send a 'very wrong signal', he said, arguing that Nato's military strength was the best way to prevent any further escalation of tensions. Putin yesterday warned Nato not to intervene in Ukraine, adding: 'I hope those who make decisions will decide not to.' Western officials said Russia was 'rapidly exhausting' its supply of missiles and because of sanctions was unable to import the parts required to manufacture replacements. One added: 'For these reasons Russia cannot sustain the aerial campaign indefinitely.' Labour's former deputy leader Tom Watson was appointed to the House of Lords yesterday amid claims the peerage system 'honours the dishonourable'. Lord Watson, who was nominated by party leader Sir Keir Starmer, has come under fire for his role in supporting fantasist Carl Beech, who made false claims about a VIP paedophile ring. Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who won a payout from police after being falsely accused of child abuse during the Operation Midland inquiry, said it was a 'very dark day' for the system. Other VIPs falsely accused included former Tory PM Sir Ted Heath, ex-Home Secretary Lord Brittan and 1980s Armed Forces chief Lord Bramall. Labour's former deputy leader Tom Watson was appointed to the House of Lords yesterday amid claims the peerage system 'honours the dishonourable' Beech was jailed for 18 years for fraud and perverting justice in 2019. Mr Proctor said of Lord Watson: 'It was right that the House of Lords Commission rejected his peerage in 2020. 'It is iniquitous to ennoble him now. I am troubled that Watson and others have been rewarded for the failure of Operation Midland. 'Those who were the real victims Lord Brittan, Edwin Bramall, Edward Heath will be turning in their graves. 'I am deeply depressed at the state of the honour system which honours the dishonourable and rewards failure. I fear the House of Lords will rue the day Tom Watson was ennobled.' Lord Watson, who was nominated by party leader Sir Keir Starmer, has come under fire for his role in supporting fantasist Carl Beech, who made false claims about a VIP paedophile ring Mr Proctor said Lord Watson had not apologised for his role in Scotland Yard's disastrous Operation Midland inquiry and had offered only 'half-hearted' condolences to the families of the innocent people who were questioned. Other new appointees to the Lords include former Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster. The Tories remain the largest party in the upper chamber, with 262 peers out of 780. 'It's way easier!' Michael Buble shocks fans on GMA when he says the workload it LESS when he goes on tour than it is watching his four kids A TV screen shows an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a news program at the Seoul Station in Seoul, Oct. 13. AP-Yonhap North Korea could carry out two or three nuclear tests in a row as part of efforts to develop tactical nuclear weapons, a senior defense official said Friday. Vice Defense Minister Shin Beom-chul made the remarks amid growing concerns that Pyongyang could soon carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test "If the (North) seeks to test tactical nuclear devices to mount on its various missiles that are recently being developed, it has to be prepared at a (certain) technological level," Shin said in an interview with Yonhap News TV. "It might be carried out two or three times in a row, not just once." The heartbreaking moment a wombat and its tiny joey flee rising floodwaters in Victoria's north has emerged among the chaos. The image was captured by staff at the Molesworth Recreation Reserve and Caravan Park- situated situated a little over 100kms northeast of Melbourne's CBD on the Goulburn River. The fate of the wombat and its joey remains unknown, with the caravan park and its residents fighting a losing battle against the rising flood waters. A wombat and its joey scurry to escape rising floodwaters just north of Melbourne The Molesworth Recreation Reserve and Caravan Park has been wiped out in the flood The fate of the wombat and its joey remains unknown A spokesperson for the park told Daily Mail Australia the mother and joey were not the only wombats scurrying for their lives. 'There were wombats everywhere searching for higher ground. It's a terrible situation with the Goulburn right now,' the spokesperson said. 'Our entire park is under water and it's getting deeper and deeper so hoping eases soon.' The Bureau of Meteorology said major flooding with the Goulburn has peaked at Seymour - just north west of the caravan park - above the record flood from May 1974 of 7.64 metres. Further south, more dramatic images have captured how an ordinary river flowing through one of Melbourne's largest suburbs turned into a raging beast overnight. As dozens of residents in Maribyrnong continue to flee that river, locals just down the road are watching the Werribee River burst its banks. Daily Mail Australia captured images of the river flowing quickly under the Cottrell Street Bridge in Werribee just 24 hours ago. On Friday, the bridge had been swamped with a raging torrent of water, cutting the area in two. The Bureau of Meteorology updated its major flood warning list last night, warning Werribee residents the river was about to swell. Long time locals, who are not unaccustomed to seeing the river surge over the area known as the 'ford', expressed concern at the surging river. 'We've never seen it like this,' one local said. 'This is insane.' 'Under this river is the actual bridge we drive to school over,' another said. 'In the 19 years Ive lived in Werribee, Ive never seen the river this high. Usually the ford only breaks every few years. Its happened twice in the past week.' Further along the river, in Ballan, residents fear it is about to burst its banks and swamp their homes. One man posted to social media video of 'rapids' forming just outside his backyard. Images of the Werribee River at Melton Weir show water gushing over the spillway. The river originates in the Wombat State Forest on the Great Dividing Range and flows for about 110 kilometres south-east to Port Phillip Bay. A bridge crossing the Werribee River in Werribee at 10am on Thursday That same bridge at 10am on Friday The Werribee River threatens to inundate homes Just yesterday vision of a cat swimming for its life emerged in Point Cook, a stone's throw from Werribee. Emergency workers jumped into a kayak to try and rescue the cat, which had had become stranded under a bridge. Dramatic footage captured by local news service Wyndham TV showed 'Yumi' the cat swimming for its life after it was eventually swept free by the flood waters. It's owner managed to pull the cat to safety as it was swept down the floodwaters. The worrying scenes across the municipality come as dozens of Maribyrnong residents evacuate their homes. Situated just north of the Werribee River, about 60 homes around the Anglers Tavern area have been issued with evacuation orders since 5am on Friday as floodwaters threatened properties up to 200m from the river. Almost 50 roads across the state have been closed since 8pm last night, including Raleigh Rd near Van Ness Ave in Maribyrnong, with drivers advised to take Ballarat Rd instead. Two tram lines have been halted and flooding is also causing delays just south of Williamstown Rd in Port Melbourne. The Werribee River has turned into a snarling beast as it crashes its way 110kms to Port Phillip Bay Werribee River has reclaimed its path to the ocean At least 9,000 homes across the state have been left without electricity after a power station became flooded in Castlemaine, 100km northwest of Melbourne. There have also been countless warnings to move to higher ground, and to avoid flooded areas around the state. Forty-two suburbs have been declared at risk. Brunswick, Coburg, Fitzroy and Northcote in Melbourne's inner-north and Essendon, Sunshine, Footscray and Yarraville in the west are all on the list of 'at-risk suburbs. There may be some relief on the way for Victorians with the Bureau of Meteorology declaring the severe weather warning that was issued for the state is now cancelled. Scattered showers are forecast for the state's southern and mountain districts for Friday but the wet weather has mostly eased. Areas under siege by rising flood waters across Victoria The Maribyrnong River has inundated homes and businesses just outside of Melbourne's CBD SHOPPING: Products featured in this article are independently selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, MailOnline will earn an affiliate commission. Amazon shoppers are claiming to have never felt healthier since using the phenomenally popular Fitbit Versa 2, and now you can be on your way to a healthier lifestyle for less as it's on sale for a huge 50 per cent off. Hailed 'perfect for everyday life', the health and fitness smartwatch boasts a 24/7 heart rate tracker to better track calorie burn, as well as count your steps, real-time exercise stats and distance moved. And it's now a massive 100.99 off. Fitbit Versa 2 Health & Fitness Smartwatch Thanks to the personalised insights into your fitness and sleeping patterns, the Fitbit Versa 2 has helped thousands on their fitness journeys, regardless of their ability. It boasts a 24/7 heart rate tracker to better track calorie burn, as well as count your steps, real-time exercise stats and distance moved. You can also get texts and emails, listen to music and get your sleeping stats. Shop The Amazon Prime Early Access Sale may be over, but shoppers are still finding incredible bargains, including the Fitbit Versa 2 Health & Fitness Smartwatch for 100.99 off. Helping you keep on track with your fitness by tracking a bunch of health metrics to help you stay accountable on your fitness journey, the Fitbit Versa 2 has the backing of over 111,000 five-star reviews. If you need a bit of a push to keep active particularly through the cold dark winter months, then the Fitbit Versa 2 could give you that added motivation. Acting as a personal trainer on your wrist, it goes that extra mile to help track your activity, including your steps, workouts, weight, food log, and even help you set new goals. A cult-favourite amongst gym-goers and fitness fanatics, the watch can also monitor your sleep quality by measuring heart rate, time asleep, time awake, time in deep and REM sleep and restlessness. And if that wasn't already enough, the Fitbit can receive notifications from calls and texts, send quick replies, store and play over 300 songs, and control your smart home and Alexa-enabled devices too. The Fitbit Versa 2 can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, tracking your activity as well as setting challenges to help keep you motivated and on the move Thanks to the personalised insights into your fitness and sleeping patterns, the Fitbit Versa 2 has helped thousands on their fitness journeys, regardless of their ability. One impressed shopper raved: 'Absolutely love my new Fitbit. Colour is pretty, works perfectly and definitely motivating enough to get moving and to get your daily steps in.' Another agreed, adding: 'Everything I wanted it to do and more. The battery lasts a decent amount of time, and charging is super quick. It motivates me to do more steps, so I can meet my goals for the day. My health has actually improved so much since starting to wear it.' A third penned: 'Ive bought cheaper watches in the past that havent been accurate and have broken after a few months this watch is brilliant and can do so much more than the cheaper ones its definitely worth the money.' Advertisement The idea of skydiving is enough to get even the most daring adrenaline junkie's palms sweating. And while the average skydive takes place from a height of around 10,000ft, this pales in comparison to a record-breaking jump that took place 10 years ago. On this day in 2012, daredevil Felix Baumgartner, now 53, jumped from the edge of space, armed only with a pressure suit, a parachute, and nerves of steel. He free fell to Earth for more than four minutes, during which time he reached dizzying speeds of 843.6mph and broke the sound barrier, before opening his parachute and safely gliding down to land in New Mexico. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his jump, MailOnline spoke to Mr Baumgartner, who described his memories of the terrifying stunt - and why he would never attempt it again. On this day in 2012, daredevil Felix Baumgartner, now 53, jumped from the edge of space, armed only with a pressure suit, a parachute, and nerves of steel Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking jump On 14 October 2012, millions of people around the world eagerly tuned in to watch Mr the record-breaking jump from the edge of space, which played out live across 77 TV channels and online. At 9:28 MDT, Mr Baumgartner boarded the Red Bull Stratos capsule wearing a pressurised suit, before soaring up to the edge of space, guided by a helium balloon. Once the capsule reached an altitude of 127,852.4ft (38,969.4 metres), Mr Baumgarnter stepped off. His freefall back to Earth lasted 4 minutes 30 seconds, and saw him reach dizzying speeds of 843.6mph (357.6 kph). Once at 8,421.3ft (2,566.8 metres) above sea level, he pulled his chute and parachuted down to the ground. Advertisement Mr Baumgartner was an accomplished skydiver who had completed thousands of jumps before setting his sights on space. His inspiration was Captain Joe Kittinger, a retired fighter pilot who had jumped to Earth from 102,800ft back in 1960. Speaking to MailOnline, he said: 'As a skydiver, you always want to push the envelope. 'What Joe accomplished in the 1960s after only 33 skydives this is what I call a true pioneer. 'And I had a couple thousand skydives under my belt. 'You're always thinking, what more can I do? Go faster? Go higher? It's always floating out there.' Mr Baumgartner had previously worked with Red Bull on base jumps, and reached out to them once again with the idea of jumping from space. 'Because of all the trust I'd built with Red Bull with base jumps, we took on that challenge trying to find the right people,' he explained. This included his inspiration, Joe Kittinger, who agreed to help him. 'Joe made it very clear the first time I met him I'm interested but I'm only going to support you if you take it seriously. You can't go from zero to hero. We have to do it the right way.' The two years that followed involved rigorous planning and testing, which wasn't always smooth sailing. On 14 October 2012, millions of people around the world eagerly tuned in to watch Mr the record-breaking jump from the edge of space, which played out live across 77 TV channels and online Once he reached an altitude of 114,829ft (35,000 metres), Mr Baumgartner would open the capsule door and jump, freefalling for four minutes before opening his parachute and gliding to the ground 'A lot of people didn't believe in us, so it took us a while to convince people to come on board,' Mr Baumgartner said. 'We had to be really patient.' The plan was simple - Mr Baumgartner would board the Red Bull Stratos capsule wearing a pressurised suit, before soaring up to the edge of space, guided by a helium balloon. Once he reached an altitude of 114,829ft (35,000 metres), Mr Baumgartner would open the capsule door and jump, freefalling for four minutes before opening his parachute and gliding to the ground. While the entire mission would take less than three hours, Mr Baumgartner knew there were several things that could go wrong. 'It's a very hostile environment up there. If the suit fails, your blood would start to boil and you'd die in 15 seconds,' he said. 'The parachute could malfunction or you could flat spin, which pushes all your blood into your skull. If that happens, at a certain RPM your blood only has one way out through your eyeballs.' Mr Baumgartner was an accomplished skydiver who had completed thousands of jumps before setting his sights to space Despite surviving the stunt unscathed, his main concern was whether or not he had hit his key goal - breaking the sound barrier Following a briefing with a doctor, Mr Baumgartner was told the 'good news' - if something went wrong 'it would only take 15 seconds to die.' The launch was originally scheduled for 9 October 2012, but was aborted due to adverse weather conditions. 'The first test got called off, and we only had one spare balloon,' said Mr Baumgartner. 'If the second test failed, we would have had to wait another six months to try again.' Thankfully, Mr Baumgartner woke up on the 14 October to better conditions, and felt optimistic for the second launch attempt. 'You wake up a 2am and go out to mission control, do the weather brief and medical tests,' he described. 'They put on my pressure suit and then put me in the capsule. Once the balloon launched, it was a big relief we were on the way.' During the 90 minute ascent, several questions were going through Mr Baumgartner's head. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his jump, MailOnline spoke to Mr Baumgartner, who described his memories of the terrifying stunt - and why he would never attempt it again Thankfully, the data revealed that Mr Baumgartner had not only broken the speed of sound, but had also hit Mach 1.25 - 1.25 times the speed of sound 'Will we reach jump altitude of 35,000 metres? Can I even open the door? It might be frozen shut?' he described. His worries were put to rest, however, when the capsule reached 38,969.3 metres (127,852 feet) and the door opened without a hitch, at which point he knew there was only one way down. While you might think Mr Baumgartner would be nervous at this point, he explained how he actually felt strangely peaceful. 'I looked up and the sky was black,' he said. 'It was completely silent. All you can hear is yourself breathing. It was very peaceful.' As much as he wanted to enjoy that moment, Mr Baumgartner didn't have long - he had already disconnected from the capsule's oxygen supply, and now relied on an oxygen cannister, which would only last for 15 minutes. He saluted the capsule's camera, took one step forwards and jumped. As he fell back down to Earth, Mr Baumgartner quickly accelerated, going from 0 to 890mph in just 50 seconds and breaking the sound barrier. While the footage of his four minute and 19 second descent is terrifying to watch, he explained that he didn't even feel it. Ten years on from the jump, Mr Baumgartner says he has no plans to recreate the stunt, and is now focused on his work as an acrobatic helicopter pilot 'You don't feel it. There's nothing rushing by to give you a sense of speed. The suit isn't flapping because it's pressurised. So there's not indication of how fast you're going,' he said. At 1,500 metres (4,921ft) above ground level, Mr Baumgartner opened his parachute and safely glided to the ground in New Mexico. Despite surviving the stunt unscathed, his main concern was whether or not he had hit his key goal - breaking the sound barrier. 'Once I landed, I was super happy it had gone well, but I still didn't know if I'd broken the sound barrier,' he said. 'It took 10 minutes to download my data before I knew if I'd done it.' Thankfully, the data revealed that Mr Baumgartner had not only reached the speed of sound, but had hit Mach 1.25 - 1.25 times the speed of sound. 'That was a very relieving moment,' he added. Ten years on from the jump, Mr Baumgartner says he has no plans to recreate the stunt, and is now focused on his work as an acrobatic helicopter pilot. 'Of course I wouldn't do it again! We were trying to accomplish breaking the sound barrier in freefall,' he said. 'If we did it again, it's as risky. Just because it worked once, doesn't mean it would work again. I'll leave it to the next generation.' A new documentary featuring never-before-seen images and perspectives, 'Space Jump: How Red Bull Stratos Captured the World's Attention' premieres on Red Bull TV on October 14. The US government backpedaled on its decision to rebuild Puerto Rico's fallen alien-hunting telescope in Puerto Rico that collapsed in 2020 because the nation has other radar facilities that can do part of the mission that the Arecibo Observatory once did. The telescope met its demise in December, when a cable holding up a 900-ton receiver platform snapped and sent the massive structure hurling onto the reflector dish more than 400 feet below - smashing right through it. Funding had been committed to raising Arecibo Observatory back from the dead, but the $5 million will now go toward constructing an education center at the site. The decision is being mourned by scientists around the world who used the telescope for years to search for asteroids, planets and extraterrestrial life. The 1,000-foot-wide dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film 'Contact' and the James Bond movie 'GoldenEye.' The Arecibo Observatory collapsed on December 1, 2020 (pictured, when a cable holding a receiver snapped and sent the equipment tumbling through the dish below The collapse of Arecibo stunned many experts who had relied on what was until recently the largest radio telescope in the world. Jonathan Friedman, who worked for 26 years as a senior research associate at the observatory and still lives near it, said in 2020: 'It sounded like a rumble. I knew exactly what it was. 'I was screaming. Personally, I was out of control.... I don't have words to express it. It's a very deep, terrible feeling.' After hearing the distant roar, Friedman said he ran up a small hill near his home and saw a thick cloud of dust hanging over the location of the telescope - confirming his suspicions and greatest fear. The telescope was set to be rebuilt, but he US government backpedaled on its decision to rebuild Puerto Rico's fallen alien-hunting telescope in Puerto Rico Funding had been committed to raising Arecibo Observatory back from the dead, but the $5 million will now go toward constructing an education center at the site Arecibo had endured hurricanes, tropical humidity and a recent string of earthquakes in its 57 years of operation, but it was mechanical failures that brought it down for good. It received a grant of $2 million in 2018 shortly after hurricanes Irma and Maria ripped through the island and damaged the observatory. However, between 2001 and 2006, NASA had decreased and then fully eliminated its support of the planetary device. The American space agency had a change of heart in 2010 and provided the observatory with $2 million per year - mainly so it could study near-Earth objects. Although the small budget was helping Arecibo get by, in 2015 and 2016 NSF proposed decommissioning it and said it would continue to reduce funding as the years passed. The move sparked fury among the scientific community, which raised concerns over the number of scientific discoveries that would be lost if the massive telescope would shut down. The 1,000-foot-wide dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film 'Contact' and the James Bond movie 'GoldenEye' (picutred) Scientists have since harnessed the power of the telescope to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable. Arecibo has also served as a training ground for a number of graduate students and drew about 90,000 visitors a year. Just 30 days after the collapse, Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez signed an executive order approving $8 million to help rebuild the renowned telescope. This funding was to be used for removing and disposing of the debris and the design of the new telescope. Sean Jones, assistant director for the directorate of mathematical and physical sciences at NSF, said on Thursday: 'We understand how much the site has meant to the community. The decision is being mourned by scientists around the world who used the telescope for years to search for asteroids, planets and extraterrestrial life 'If you're a radio astronomer, you've probably spent some time of your career at Arecibo.' The education center is set to promote programs and partnerships related to science, technology, engineering and math. NSF also seeks the implementation of a research and workforce development program, with the center slated to open next year in the northern mountain town of Arecibo where the telescope was once located. 'This is a pivotal time. The education component is very important,' said James Moore, assistant director for education and human resource directorate at NSF. He said by phone that one of the agency's priorities is to make STEM more accessible and inclusive and that the proposed education center would fill that need. 'It's a way to augment some of the things that young people are getting in their schools or not getting,' he said. Eerie footage captured by European Space Agency's Mars Express probe shows the Martian moon Deimos eclipsing Jupiter. The new clip, captured by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, comprises 80 individual images that were stitched together. In the foreground is the irregular-shaped Martian moon Deimos, with its rocky and cratered surface. In the background is Jupiter and its four largest moons, known as the 'Galilean moons' Europa, Ganymede, Io and Callisto. Jupiter is the large bright white circle near the centre, while its moons appear as small white specks of light. A second, shorter clip, meanwhile, shows Phobos, the other Martian moon, blocking its sibling Deimos. The Martian moon Deimos (left) notable for its rocky and cratered surface, can be seen here about to pass Jupiter, which appears as a large white spot. Jupiter's moons appear as mere specks of light THE GALILEAN MOONS The Galilean moons are the four largest moons of Jupiter: - Ganymede (3,273 miles in diameter) - Callisto (2,995 miles in diameter) - Io (2,263 miles in diameter) - Europa (1,939 miles in diameter) Advertisement Mars Express is still going strong nearly 20 years after its launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in June 2003. 'The new images demonstrate that Mars Express continues to shine a light on Mars, the immediate surroundings of the Red Planet, and beyond,' said the European Space Agency (ESA). The first clip is made up of a series of 80 images taken on February 14, 2022. It first shows Deimos passing in front of Europa, the smallest of the four Galilean moons, known for its icy surface and thin oxygen atmosphere. The largest moon in the Solar System, Ganymede, is then obscured from view, as is Jupiter, Io and then lastly Callisto. In the clip, Deimos appears to move up and down in the animation due to the small swaying movements of Mars Express while it rotates to place its camera into position. Deimos is the smaller and outermost of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos. Here, the Martian moon obscures Callisto. Jupiter and the other three Galilean moons are visible to the left Artist's impression of the the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, which launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in June 2003 The two Martian moons experience strong tidal forces from the planet, causing their orbits to fluctuate constantly. Phobos orbits extremely close to Mars at an average of 3,700 miles and is moving towards the planet, while Deimos is 12,470 miles away on average and moves away from it. ESA's second new clip, meanwhile, comprises 19 images captured on March 30, 2022 by Mars Express. In this second video, Deimos is blocked by its larger sibling, Phobos, which measures about 14 miles along its longest axis. Deimos is a dwarf in comparison only 3.7 miles. Enhanced colour image of Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons. It measures 14 miles along its longest axis At only 3.7 miles in diameter, Deimos (pictured in this enhanced colour image) is a dwarf in comparison to its Martian sibling At the time the images were taken, Phobos was 7,618 miles away from the camera, while Deimos was 17,340 miles away. 'From this perspective it is difficult to see the size difference between the Martian moons,' ESA said. Much is still unknown about the formation and composition of Mars' two moons, although the upcoming MMX mission, led by the Japanese space agency, aims to remedy this. Set to launch next year, the mission will orbit Phobos and Deimos before landing on Phobos and collecting a sample from the larger moon to return to Earth. Zoetop is said to have misrepresented the number of accounts that were hacked The parent company of the widely popular clothing brand Shein has been fined $1.9 million by New York state for failing to notify all 39 million users of a massive data breach in 2018 that compromised login credentials, allowing bad actors to steal credit card information. The cyberattack on Shein, according to the Attorney General Office (AGO), included more than 375,000 New York residents, along with 800,000 more from the seven million Romwe accounts that were also infiltrated. China-based Zoetop falsely stated that only 6.42 million consumers had been impacted in the breach and failed to maintain reasonable security measures to protect customers' data, which led New York to seek retribution, according to AGO In addition to the misleading statements, Zoetop said that it 'ha[d] seen no evidence that [customer] credit card information was taken from our systems,' but two years later the firm found customer login information for Romwe on the dark web. Shein's parent company, Zoetop, will pay a $1.9 million to New York state for failing to notify all 39 million users of a data breach in 2018 Attorney General Lelita James said in a statement: 'Shein and Romwe's weak digital security measures made it easy for hackers to shoplift consumers' personal data. 'While New Yorkers were shopping for the latest trends on Shein and Romwe, their personal data was stolen and Zoetop tried to cover it up. 'Failing to protect consumers' personal data and lying about it is not trendy. 'Shein and Romwe must button up their cybersecurity measures to protect consumers from fraud and identity theft. 'This agreement should send a clear warning to companies that they must strengthen their digital security measures and be transparent with consumers, anything less will not be tolerated.' The 2018 cyberattack also saw personal information being scrapped from accounts, including names, email addresses and hashed account passwords of certain Zoetop customers. The digital crime then went unnoticed by the firm until it was later notified by a payment processor that the company's systems 'appeared to be compromised,' the AGO announcement reads. The cyberattack saw bad actors steal credit cards and personal information, including names, email addresses and hashed account passwords of certain Zoetop customers Following the cyberattack, Zoetop engaged a cybersecurity firm to conduct a forensic investigation. The cybersecurity firm confirmed that attackers had gained access to Zoetop's internal network and had altered code responsible for processing customer transactions in an attempt to intercept and exfiltrate customer's credit card information. 'As a result of today's agreement, Zoetop is required to pay New York $1,900,000 in penalties and costs,' the AGO announcement states. 'In addition, Zoetop must maintain a comprehensive information security program that includes robust hashing of customer passwords, network monitoring for suspicious activity, network vulnerability scanning, and incident response policies requiring timely investigation, timely consumer notice, and prompt password resets.' Shein, which was revealed in August to have a $100 billion valuation, was founded in 2008 and recently named the world's largest fashion retailer. In recent years, Shein has found itself in the middle of several controversies including trademark disputes, tax evasion, human rights violations and health and safety concerns. There have also been concerns about the sinister surveillance tactics employed by Shein to get ahead of its rivals. Industry insiders say the shadowy company is spying on unsuspecting customers by using social media sites and apps, collecting vast amounts of data on what its customers view and like, then instructing its factories to churn out copies at a lower cost than its competitors. If Rice's whale goes extinct it would be 'the first anthropogenic extinction of a great whale species' They wrote in a letter stating offshore oil and gas drilling is killing the population Scientists observed only 50 of the whales in the Gulf and are calling on the Biden administration to action The Rice's whale can weigh up to 600,000 pounds and grow 42 feet long Researchers discovered a new species of whale in the Gulf of Mexico last year A new species of whale discovered last year in the Gulf of Mexico is already 'on the edge of extinction' and a group of more than 100 scientists have petitioned the Biden administration to take action in an open letter. Known as Rice's whale, or the Gulf of Mexico whale, this animal was long believed to be Bryde's whales until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined it was a new species of baleen whale in January 2021. However, there are only about 50 known to be alive and researchers believe offshore oil and gas drilling practices are to blame - about 20 percent of the population may have been killed during the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. The large team of scientists is now sounding the alarm about the potential loss, which would be 'the first anthropogenic extinction of a great whale species.' Rice's whale is a new species of baleen whale that was identified in January 2021. However, there are just about 50 left in the Gulf of Mexico, making it the most endangered whale on the planet Scientists are blaming this on offshore oil and gas drilling and have petitioned a group of more petitioned the Biden administration to take action in an open letter Rices whales can weigh up to 600,000 pounds, grow 42 feet long and live for up to 60 years. In the letter, which was sent to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the scientists note this is 'the only large whale species resident year-round in the waters of the US. 'Yet few on-water measures have been established to protect it. Unless significant conservation actions are taken,' the team concluded. The scientists are pointing blame at fossil fuel exploration and development in the Gulf waters, which is disrupting the animal's habitat and unknowingly killing them. Continued oil and gas development in the Gulf represents a 'clear, existential threat to the whale's survival and recovery,' the scientists state, citing the impacts of far-reaching airgun surveys and of oil spills. The letter mentions the Deepwater Horizon spill that dumped 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf on April 20, 2010. The species is also impacted by noise from seismic oil and gas exploration, 'which dominates the acoustic environment through much of the northern Gulf.' 'Airgun surveys have far-reaching effects on baleen whales, including the masking of biologically important sounds and the disruption of activities vital to feeding and reproduction over large ocean areas,' the scientists wrote. Another danger is several shipping routes that transverse through the waters, as Rice's whales rest within 49 feet of the surface during the night. About 20 percent of the population may have been killed during the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 Rices whales can weigh up to 600,000 pounds, grow 42 feet long and live for up to 60 years 'One stranded whale, a lactating female, was found with injuries consistent with blunt force trauma; another, a free-swimming individual, has been observed with spinal deformities consistent with a collision injury,' the letter states. 'Another, a free-swimming individual, has been observed with spinal deformities consistent with a collision injury.' While there are only 50 known Rice's whales, the scientists are still hopeful that the species could be saved because the whales are still reproducing and previous observations of baleen whales suggest populations can bounce back if the environment improves. 'But Gulf of Mexico whales are on the edge of extinction, and measures are urgently needed to reduce mortality and serious injury as well as to alleviate human stressors,' reads the letter. The only way to save the whales, according to the scientists, is to stop using the Gulf for offshore wind farms or oil and gas development, urging officials to ban drilling within the whale's habitat and outside of it. 'Habitat in the eastern, central, and western Gulf must be protected,' the letter reads. As of now, the Biden administration is full steam ahead with drilling in the northern Gulf and is 'considering a new five-year program for offshore oil and gas leasing, as well as a new regulation and related permits and authorizations for seismic surveys in the Gulf of Mexico.' 'The Gulf of Mexico whale is a unique part of the Gulf's natural history and the only large whale species resident year-round in the waters of the United States. Yet few on-water measures have been established to protect it,' scientists concluded. 'Unless significant conservation actions are taken, the United States is likely to cause the first anthropogenic extinction of a great whale species.' Liverpool's defenders have been warned not to fall into the trap of focusing purely on Erling Haaland as they hunt the win that can transform their season. Jurgen Klopps admiration for Haaland is such that he described him on Friday as the best striker in the world. The Norwegian has made the steps Klopp anticipated when he first came across him in a Champions League fixture in October 2019. Jurgen Klopp (right) believes Man City's Erling Haaland (left) is 'the best striker in the world' Haaland, then at Red Bull Salzburg, had been ill during the build-up, but scored Salzburgs third goal four minutes after coming on as a substitute at Anfield. Liverpool went on to win 4-3 but Klopp knew he had seen a wonderful player and a proper threat. In his current form there is no bigger menace in the game, but Klopp knows it would be a huge mistake if Liverpool neglected to try and contain the rest of Citys mercurial talents. Like always when you play against the best striker in the world, you have to make sure he doesnt get too many balls, the German manager said. That is what you have to defend before you come to the challenge with himself, so that is what we will try to do. Haaland's scored 15 goals in nine league games, including three successive Etihad hat-tricks He also scored a hat-trick in a thumping 6-3 win over City's rivals Manchester United But against City the problem is if you close Haaland down with too many players then you open up gaps for all the other world-class players, so that will not make life easier. It is a football problem but we will try and find solutions. Of Haalands impact at City, Klopp added: Physically he sets new standards, the combination of being really physical and technical with sensational awareness. His orientation on the pitch is exceptional. Haaland had a rare off day when he played against Liverpool in City's Community Shield defeat He always knows where the decisive gaps are, he is barely ever offside and reads that really well. There are so many things that make him a striker. He has some of the best players around him in the world at City setting up goals and finding the right moments for passes. Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden, they are all really good at that, so it makes him a perfect fit. For Erling, the thing is he combines so many things. It is rare you have his finishing skills, but he moves really smartly too. The package makes him special. Earlier in 2022, Chrishell Stause added fashion designer and entrepreneur to her resume that already included actress, real estate agent and reality star. And on Thursday, the Selling Sunset star took to her Instagram page and dropped a video to announce the latest collection for her Chrishell x Lipsy line is now available online. 'My event-ready collection with @lipsylondon is now live!' she wrote alongside the clip that showed her striking poses and dancing in several different sequin ensembles. 'Ahhhh! Here's to high heels, high spirits and high glamour this party season. Shop now at Next.co.uk #ad #ChrishellXLipsy.' Shining star: Chrishell Stause , 41, announced the new collection from her Chrishell x Lipsy line is now available online by dropping a couple of social media videos that showcase the Selling Sunset star dancing and posing Off the top of the new advert, Strause can be seen enthusiastically lifting her arms up in to the air while dancing decked out in a sparkling black sequin minidress that hugs her curves just enough to properly showcase her womanly curves. It quickly transitions to her sitting down in front of a fireplace while modeling the silver sequin version of the minidress, only this one has an off-the-shoulder design. Within a few seconds she steps up the pacing of the clip and begins to dance and shake her hips once again, while wearing a full-length version of the striking silver sequin dress. Sparkling: Off the top of the new advert, both Strause and her black sequin minidress sparkled as she eventually lifted her arms up in to the air while dancing Event-ready: The former soap star announced the new collection is a perfect fit for 'high glamour this party season' in her Instagram post Fire and hot: The newly minted fashion designer is then seen sitting down in front of a fireplace decked out in the silver sequin version of the minidress For the advert, the actress and entrepreneur has her blonde tresses styled long and flowing several inches past her shoulders with a part in the middle. She then shows off the full-length version of the black sequin dress, all while she flashes a cute but seductive stare towards the camera. For the closing shot, Stause (born Terrina Chrishell Stause) holds the camera in front of her face for a selfie look while wearing a silver sequin jumpsuit. There's also a second social media advert promoting her collaboration with the British fashion and cosmetic retailer, which shows her working her magic in the same silver and black sequin numbers. Variety: The new line also includes full-length version of the sequin dresses in silver and black Stylin': The North Carolina native has her blonde tresses styled long and flowing several inches past her shoulders with a part in the middle Sparkling again: Stause also modeled the black sequin numbers, all while flashing her infectious smile The former soap star's Chrishell x Lipsy collaboration was first launched back in April and included 20 different pieces she could be proud of. 'The collection is aimed towards great fit, fun colors, and staple looks you can transition from day to night without breaking the bank,' she told Hello at the time. She went on to reveal what inspired her to take the leap into the world of fashion, and how her experience on Selling Sunset influenced her fashion sense. 'I always had a love for clothes, but being a part of Selling Sunset has completely given me a love for fashion on a bigger level,' she added. Selfie moment: For the closing shot, Stause (born Terrina Chrishell Stause) holds the camera in front of her face for a selfie look while wearing a silver sequin jumpsuit Sweet smooch: Stause ends the advert by offering a kiss towards the camera, as she holds the camera for selfie snap looks Strause has been a main cast member of Selling Sunset for all five seasons that have been streaming on Netflix since it premiered in March 2019. The reality series revolves around the Oppenheim Group, a high-end real estate brokerage firm in the Los Angeles area, and follows a group of agents as they navigate their personal and professional lives, which often translates into plenty of entertaining drama. In late June, Netlfix announced Selling Sunset had been renewed for a sixth and seventh season. Promo mode: There's also a second social media advert promoting the new Chrishell x Lipsy London collection Striking: Stause is modeling her black ad silver sequin numbers in the second video Reality world: Strause has been a main cast member of Selling Sunset for all five seasons that have been streaming on Netflix since it premiered in March 2019 Julie Bishop had an air of elegance about her as she attended a David Jones event in Melbourne on Wednesday, but not everyone was impressed by her ritzy ensemble. The former foreign minister, 66, dazzled in a strapless Toni Maticevski gown worth a whopping $2,800, adding a chic Bianca Spender blazer that retails for $625. Some left-wing trolls on social media felt the money she dropped on her outfit could have been better spent helping vulnerable Australians pay their electricity bills. Julie Bishop had an air of elegance about her as she attended a David Jones event in Melbourne on Wednesday, but not everyone was impressed by her ritzy ensemble 'Imagine what that kind of money could do? Help a few people out with electricity bills for example,' one critic wrote, according to Yahoo Lifestyle. Another said: 'Julie Bishop flaunting herself again while people are struggling.' However, not everyone begrudged Bishop a night of indulgence, with some saying she she looked 'stunning' in the dress, which she paired with sky-high black heels. The former foreign minister, 66, dazzled in a strapless Toni Maticevski gown worth a whopping $2,800, adding a chic Bianca Spender blazer that retails for $625 'When you've got the money, anyone can look glam. Good for her!' someone wrote. Julie appears to be glamming it up more and more, as she continues to live her best life following her split from long-time boyfriend David Panton. The pair dated from 2014 until July this year, when the property developer abruptly broke up with her over dinner at a restaurant in Circular Quay. Some left-wing trolls on social media felt the money she dropped on her outfit could have been better spent helping vulnerable Australians pay their electricity bills The jet-setting couple had attended a private engagement with Prince Charles, now King Charles III, in London just a week earlier. The former deputy leader of the Liberal Party was reportedly blindsided by the split, and David was later romantically linked to a woman from the Northern Beaches. The secretive man was sometimes described as Julie's 'handbag' during their eight years together as he was regularly photographed smiling by her side at sparkling social gatherings, while barely saying a word in public. It comes as Julie appears to be glamming it up more and more, living her best life following her split from long-time lover David Panton. (Pictured together in 2015) He was largely unknown when he first appeared with Julie at the 2014 Melbourne Cup, a year after the prime minister Tony Abbott appointed her minister for foreign affairs. They had been introduced by Julie's close friend and retired Liberal politician Bruce Baird and shared an interest in fitness and health. A seemingly never-ending round of glamorous outings followed - including repeated invitations to marquees at Flemington Racecourse, opening nights, film premieres and fashion shows. North Korea fired additional artillery shells into waters off its east and west coasts Friday, the South Korean military said, following its firing of a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) and artillery rounds earlier in the day. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the North firing some 90 artillery shells into the East Sea from Jangjon in Kangwon Province between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. It also found the North fired some 90 and 210 shells from two areas in the Yellow Sea, Haeju Bay and a site west of Jangsan Cape, respectively, between 5:20 p.m. and 7 p.m. The shells fell into eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, which were delineated under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tensions. But no shells landed in South Korean waters, the JCS said. The South Korean military communicated a warning message multiple times, through which it pointed out the North's violation of the 2018 agreement and called on the North to stop provocations, according to the JCS. "Such continued provocations by North Korea are acts that undermine peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula, but also in the international community, and we gravely warn the North to immediately cease them," the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters. It added, "Our military is tracking and monitoring related movements in close cooperation with the United States, and reinforcing a readiness posture to prepare against possible contingencies." Early in the morning, the North flew some 10 warplanes close to the inter-Korean border, and fired an SRBM and some 170 artillery shots. The South Korean military decried the SRBM launch and the artillery firing as a breach of U.N. Security Council sanctions and the inter-Korean military accord, respectively. (Yonhap) Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann has opened up about his special relationship with Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio. The Elvis director described DiCaprio as the world's greatest 'gift giver', revealing the actor recently attended his 60th birthday party. 'Leonardo is really thoughtful,' Luhrmann told the I've Got News for You podcast. Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann (pictured) has opened up about his special relationship with Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio The Moulin Rouge! visionary said DiCaprio, 47, is the sort of person who goes out of his way to find the perfect gift for someone, and takes pleasure in the effort. While working together on The Great Gatsby in 2011, DiCaprio discovered that Luhrmann likes to drink tea from China cups on set. So for his 50th birthday, he gave the director a very special surprise present. DiCaprio, who first collaborated with Luhrmann on 1996's Romeo + Juliet, sourced 'incredible teacups from all around the world, from different periods' for his friend. The Elvis director described DiCaprio (pictured) as the world's greatest 'gift giver', revealing the actor recently attended his 60th birthday party 'I remember opening the case and thinking how thoughtful and how much effort he went to just find something that was meaningful,' he told the podcast. Luhrmann also spoke of meeting DiCaprio for the first time when he was just 19 and they were working on Romeo + Juliet. 'I met his mum and dad; they're [now] like family,' he said. Elsewhere in the interview, Luhrmann revealed the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star has a cheeky sense of humour, and is able to impersonate anyone perfectly. While working together on The Great Gatsby in 2011, DiCaprio discovered that Luhrmann likes to drink tea from China cups on set. So for his 50th birthday, he gave the director a collection of 'incredible teacups from all around the world, from different periods'. (Pictured: DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby) 'There was a funny moment when I first met him,' Luhrmann recounted. DiCaprio was impersonating all sorts of well-known actors, including Robert de Niro, then he launched into an Australian accent Luhrmann did not recognise. 'I couldn't work out who it was... I thought, "Hmmm, I don't get that one." And then I realised it was me!' he said. He's swapped a life of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll for a quieter existence painting in his rural home studio. And Ronnie Wood, who studied art back in the 60s before hitting it big with the Rolling Stones, proudly showed off his latest work with an exhibition at Kenwood House in London on Thursday. The rocker, 75, was supported by a whole host of pals at the event including former Spice Girl Geri Horner, 50, and her husband Christian, 48 Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood, 75 (centre) was supported by Geri Horner (left) and her husband Christian (right) as he unveiled latest collection of art with a swanky exhibition on Thursday Beaming Ronnie cut a trendy figure in a printed shirt adorned with mermaids which he layered over a white t-shirt and teamed with Rolling Stones branded jeans. Slipping his feet into white high-top trainers the hitmaker styled his dark locks into spikes while standing alongside his painting, which is dubbed The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and will go on sale later this month for 1500. Meanwhile Geri, who shares son Montague, five, with former race car driver Christian, looked chic in cream polo necked sweater which she wore with matching trousers. Artist: The hitmaker cut a trendy figure in a printed shirt adorned with mermaids which he layered over a white t-shirt and teamed with Rolling Stones branded jeans Gorgeous: Meanwhile Geri, who shares son Montague, five, with former race car driver Christian, looked chic in cream polo necked sweater which she wore with matching trousers Famous friends: The trio chatted away as they enjoyed both champagne and the impressive art on display at the event She wrapped up warm in a woollen alabaster coat and added extra height to her frame with a pair of suede boots. The beauty sported a dewey make-up look while her famous ginger tresses fell to her shoulders. Meanwhile Christian, who married the pop star in 2015, cut a dapper figure in a navy blazer which he teamed with jeans. Meanwhile Christian (right) cut a dapper figure in a navy blazer which he teamed with jeans Impressive: It comes after Ronnie revealed he had recreated Rembrandt's masterpiece The Storm on the Sea of Galilee on a grand scale for the exhibition Proud as punch: Ronnie proudly showed off his work Completing the look with a plaid shirt he slipped his feet into a pair of brown boots. It comes after Ronnie revealed he had recreated Rembrandt's masterpiece The Storm on the Sea of Galilee on a grand scale for the exhibition. The 1633 oil-on-canvas was stolen from a museum in Boston, US, in 1990 by two thieves posing as policemen in what remains one of the biggest thefts in art history. Unveiling his homage to the Dutch master, Wood joked that he'd like to perform the heist in reverse by sneaking his version into the empty frame at the museum the original was stolen from. Pals: Ronnie was supported by his hotelier pal Tamie Adaya (pictured) Support: Former model Pattie Boyd (left) also made an appearance alongside Rod Weston Cola: Ronnie sipped a glass of cola as he showcased his latest work (pictured with Lisa Baker) Famous friends: (L to R) Count Leopold von Bismarck, Countess Debonnaire von Bismarck, Pattie Boyd and Rod Weston Speaking to the Mail, the guitarist said: 'When I saw the empty frame I said to the curator there 'what a shame'. I thought, I know what I'm going to do. 'When I get back to England, I'm going to paint the replica of it and do a reverse heist and break into the museum at night and put my picture up.' Wood, who paints in his 'man cave' on the edge of a forest at his Hertfordshire home, has created a 'bonus seascape on the side'. He added: 'So it's a diptych. A double painting of one which is the tribute to the Rembrandt from my imagination and it kind of looks like a continuation and it's a message of hope for the future.' Like Rembrandt in the original, Wood has painted himself into the scene. 'I'm holding Rembrandt steady. I'm saying: 'Hold still old chap. Hold on to that rope'.' The painting, which depicts the biblical story of Jesus calming the storm, was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and has never been found, despite several leads. Kendall Jenner showed off her supermodel credentials while stepping out with pals in Beverly Hills on Thursday. The 26-year-old was wearing a casual look including a tank top and a pair of bike shorts that flaunted her statuesque legs. At one point she hiked up the top, allowing her to bare her impressively chiseled midriff as she sauntered down the sidewalk. Off she goes: Kendall Jenner showed off her supermodel credentials while stepping out with pals in Beverly Hills on Thursday Kendall let her luxurious dark hair tumble free and popped on a dark pair of sunglasses to ward off the California rays. She appeared to be in bright spirits as she headed down a sunlit tree-lined street with her friends in the upscale enclave. Recently Kendall used social media to subtly criticize her former brother-in-law Kanye West during the backlash against his 'White Lives Matter' t-shirts, which he debuted to a storm of controversy at his show at Paris Fashion Week. Kendall liked tweets in which Will Smith's son Jaden revealed he walked out of Kanye's show because 'I Dont Care Whos It Is If I Dont Feel The Message Im Out.' Off she goes: The 26-year-old was wearing a casual look including a tank top and a pair of bike shorts that flaunted her statuesque legs Kanye has since been thrown off Twitter after he bizarrely wrote on the social media platform that he would 'go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.' The rapper claimed that he 'can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also' and ranted that 'You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' Lately Kanye has also directed multiple tirades at Kendall's pal Hailey Bieber, whom she was seen heading to a Pilates session with earlier this week. Use it or lose it: At one point she hiked up the top, allowing her to bare her impressively chiseled midriff as she sauntered down the sidewalk Kendall has landed in her share of race rows herself, including a cultural appropriation furor that erupted after she launched a tequila line called 818 after the Los Angeles area code where she grew up. A few years ago she was also raked over the coals for alleged racial insensitivity after she starred in an infamous Pepsi ad in which she establishes peace between police officers and protestors by offering them soda. Meanwhile Jaden previously drew attention for his eye-catching tweets after his father slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in March. Family business: Kendall is pictured enjoying lunch with her sisters Kim and Khloe Kardashian during a recent episode of their Hulu reality show The Hitch actor smacked Chris across the face onstage for making a bald joke about Will's wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who shaved her head because she has alopecia. Will went on to win the best actor Oscar and deliver a freewheeling speech in which he sobbed that he wanted to be a 'vessel of love' and a 'river to my people.' After the zany monologue, Jaden wrote on Twitter: 'And Thats How We Do It.' Liam Neeson may be about to show off his comedic chops to their fullest extent following reports that he is in talks to star in a reboot of the comedy classic The Naked Gun. Neeson, 70, was described as being in 'early talks' by The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, while The Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer is already attached to the project as director. While many social media users were excited at the opportunity to see Neeson go all in on comedy after focusing almost exclusively on dark action films in recent years, some fans of the original film and its sequels were concerned that he might not be able to live up to Leslie Nielsen's side-splitting performance. Something new: Liam Neeson, 70, is in talks to star in a Naked Gun reboot for Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter; seen September 24 in Spain According to THR, the Naked Gun reboot will be produced for Paramount. Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who previously wrote the Schaffer-directed Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers film that was released earlier this year, have reportedly completed a screenplay. Mark Hentemann and Alec Sulkin are said to have written an earlier draft for the film. Family Guy creator and star Seth MacFarlane will be producing the reboot with Erica Huggins for Fuzzy Door. Schaffer has worked with Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone on Saturday Night Live and on subsequent projects as one third of The Lonely Island. He directed Samberg in the comedies Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and the latter film's over-the-top humor, slapstick and sight gags might point the way toward how his version of The Naked Gun. Hard to follow: While many social media users were excited to see Neeson go all in on comedy after focusing on action films in recent years, some fans of the original film were concerned that he might not be able to live up to Leslie Nielsen's performance; seen in Naked Gun 33 1/3 Comedy stars: The Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer will direct the film, while Family Guy creator and star Seth MacFarlane is a producer Somewhat like Neeson, The Naked Gun star Leslie Neilsen was known almost exclusively for drama before trying his hand at deadpan comedy as Lieutenant Frank Drebin in Police Squad! and The Naked Gun films, which launched a new career in comedy. The first film was directed by David Zucker and co-written with Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams the trio that had written and directed the comedy classic Airplane! along with Pat Proft. Some fans were skeptical online that a Naked Gun reboot could succeed. 'I don't think a modern Naked Gun is going to be any good at all,' opined one user, though they were bullish on Neeson's involvement. Others were more negative. 'Nah. Can't top Lelsie Nielsen's Frank Drebin. Untouchable. Make a new screwball cop satire, the Naked Gun/Police Squad moniker was perfected the first time around and should be retired in glory,' wrote one person. One Twitter user wrote,' Remake the Godafather if you want. Cast Andy Samberg as Luke Skywalker if you have to. Do NOT touch Naked Gun.' Change of pace: Like Neeson, Leslie Neilsen was known almost exclusively for drama before trying his hand at deadpan comedy as Lieutenant Frank Drebin in Police Squad! and The Naked Gun, which launched a new career in comedy; still from Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear Skeptical: Some fans were skeptical online that a Naked Gun reboot could succeed. 'I don't think a modern Naked Gun is going to be any good at all,' opined one user Try something else: 'Nah. Can't top Lelsie Nielsen's Frank Drebin. Untouchable. Make a new screwball cop satire, the Naked Gun/Police Squad moniker was perfected the first time around and should be retired in glory,' wrote a fan Anything but The Naked Gun: One Twitter user wrote,' Remake the Godafather if you want. Cast Andy Samberg as Luke Skywalker if you have to. Do NOT touch Naked Gun' But others were excited at the prospect of seeing Neeson take on the iconic comedy role. 'I think "Naked Gun from Liam Neeson and Akiva Schaffer" is sufficient to get me excited,' tweeted one user. The filmmaker and publicist Ted Geoghegan enthused: 'Seth MacFarlane gets great comedic performances out of Liam Neeson... and to all the detractors out there Leslie Nielsen was a fiercely dramatic actor until he was 54 years old. I'm very optimistic about this.' Others noted how much older Neeson is now than Nielsen was when he shot the first Naked Gun film. 'Assuming the new Naked Gun shoots next year, Liam Neeson will be nine years older than Leslie Nielsen was in the first Naked Gun movie,' added one person. Go for it: But others were excited at the prospect of seeing Neeson take on the iconic comedy role. 'I think "Naked Gun from Liam Neeson and Akiva Schaffer" is sufficient to get me excited,' tweeted one user Looking forward to it: The filmmaker and publicist Ted Geoghegan was enthusiastic Age difference: Others noted how much older Neeson is now than Nielsen was when he shot the first Naked Gun film Obstacle: 'Assuming the new Naked Gun shoots next year, Liam Neeson will be nine years older than Leslie Nielsen was in the first Naked Gun movie' Although Neeson has ventured into comedy before, and has shown himself to be particularly capable at deadpan humor, a Naked Gun film would be his broadest comedy project to date. In recent years, the Schindler's List star sparked controversy over comments he made on the press tour for his film Cold Pursuit in 2019 that some observers found to be racist. While speaking about the film, which follows a father going on a revenge spree after his son is killed, Neeson claimed to The Independent that he had based the character's rage on his experience 40 years earlier when he learned that a female friend of his had been raped. Neeson said that after he was told that the culprit was Black, he began walking the streets at night with a concealed club while 'hoping some "black bastard" would come out of a pub and have a go' so that he could attack or kill him. However, he called his behavior 'horrible' and added, 'It's awful [...] but I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, "What the f*** are you doing?"' He later denied being a racist and claimed he had brought up the incident in hopes of being open about the racism he was surrounded by earlier in his life. Lisa Rinna kept things casual at LAX airport on Thursday, as she was seen flying out of Los Angeles on the heels of receiving backlash for her recent cancer comments. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 59, kept warm in a black hoodie and sweatpants, and layered it up with a grey blazer. The reality TV star paired the ensemble with black sneakers and a large pair of black-rim reading glasses. Bye! Lisa Rinna kept things casual at LAX airport on Thursday, as she was seen flying out of Los Angeles on the heels of receiving backlash for her recent cancer comments Rinna appeared to go fresh-faced for the flight, and accessorized the look with just a couple of gold rings. The star seemed unfazed by the recent controversy and appeared to be in a good mood, flashing a smile at the photographers. The actress caught flack for saying that she would 'get cancer' if she didn't expose Kathy Hilton's 'vile' comments on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills finale. Staying warm: The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 59, kept warm in a black hoodie and sweatpants, and layered it up with a grey blazer Rinna was slammed by cancer survivors and doctors alike after she used the disease as an excuse to spill Hilton's personal secrets. In the final episode of season 12, which aired on October 5, Rinna was discussing a previous meltdown Hilton, 63, had during a trip they had taken to Aspen together, when Kyle Richards told her it was time to move on. But Rinna then explained that Hilton told her things off-camera about the other castmates that could 'ruin their lives forever' - and that holding them in was going to make her 'sick.' Unfazed: The star seemed unfazed by the recent controversy and appeared to be in a good mood, flashing a smile at the photographers Controversy: The actress caught flack for saying that she would 'get cancer' if she didn't expose co-star Kathy Hilton's 'vile' comments on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills finale 'Im not gonna take it to my grave because Id get sick and Id get cancer if I didnt express this,' she said. 'Thats how bad it is. To have these kinds of things go on and not express them, Ill get sick and die because its that vile.' Viewers were left aghast at the comment and took their outrage online. One woman, who has a three-year-old daughter with leukemia, called Rinna's comment 'hurtful and horrendous,' while another, who lost their mom to the disease, said she was 'disgusted to her core.' Wow: 'Im not gonna take it to my grave because Id get sick and Id get cancer if I didnt express this,' she said Vile: 'Thats how bad it is. To have these kinds of things go on and not express them, Ill get sick and die because its that vile,' she continued A third user said it was an 'insult to everyone who has been sick with cancer,' and someone else wrote that it was 'the most wild thing they had ever seen on the show.' Even the American Institute for Cancer Research ridiculed Rinna, with a rep blasting the reality star to TMZ for 'using the specter of cancer as emotional blackmail to justify airing her grievance' in a statement. The organization added that there's no evidence to support a link between stress and the disease, and that her claim was 'certainly not based on reputable research.' Backlash: Many viewers were unhappy with her statement, and they took to Twitter to share their dismay, calling for her to be 'canceled' or removed from the show One woman, whose daughter has leukemia, called Rinna's comment 'hurtful and horrendous,' while another, who lost their mom to the disease, said she was 'disgusted to her core' RHOBH alum Camille Grammer, who was diagnosed with Stage 2 endometrial cancer in 2013 and underwent a hysterectomy, said Rinna's comment was in 'poor taste,' and called her 'pathetic' in a scathing Twitter post. In a previous episode, Lisa stated that her fight with Hilton resulted in her suffering from 'PTSD.' This certainly isn't the first time that Rinna has been slammed for her comments in the show; back in 2016, she came under fire after she accused her then-castmate Yolanda Hadid of lying about her Lyme disease diagnosis. Nicki Minaj on Thursday spoke out in protest after a report that her single Super Freaky Girl will compete in the Grammys pop category, despite her submitting it as a rap song. She took to Instagram Stories after source told The Hollywood Reporter that the Recording Academys rap committee denied her request for the track - which landed in the top spot upon its debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this past August - to compete in the rap category. 'They stay moving the goalposts when it comes to me, because in order for them to uplift the people who they want to shine,' she said. 'The people who these corporate giants can make the money off of; the people who control a lot of things behind the scenes - they have to elevate someone that they profit off. They must move the goalposts for me, all the time.' The latest: Nicki Minaj, 39, on Thursday spoke out in protest after a report that her single Super Freaky Girl will compete in the Grammys pop category, despite her submitting it as a rap song Minaj, 39, said 'there is a concerted effort to give newer artists things that they really don't deserve over people who have been deserving for many years,' and that 'soon, female rap will really not have any Black women.' She continued: 'This is not to say any song is bad or any female rapper is bad ... but why is the goalpost only ever moved when it's Nicki?' Minaj said that decision-makers in the industry don't want artists they have a vested interest in to 'go up against' her. 'What do you think is gonna happen when they start voting on these pop categories and its a bunch of these people ... white and older, wherever they're from,' to have to choose between her and stars such as Adele and Harry Styles. She took to Instagram Stories after a source told The Hollywood Reporter that the Recording Academys rap committee denied her request for the track to compete in the rap category The musical artist said, 'They stay moving the goalposts when it comes to me, because in order for them to uplift the people who they want to shine; the people who these corporate giants can make the money off of; the people who control a lot of things behind the scenes' 'That's purposely designed so that Nicki is not in the category that we don't want any competition,' she said. Minaj said the rationale is, 'Put here there so she has more competition and less of a chance to win,' adding that 'Black women rarely, rarely ... a lot of time we don't speak up until it's too late - how you don't see what's happening.' Minaj said the reason she's not favored by certain industry powerbroker is because she is not signed to a 360 contract; and bad blood over a previous business arrangement with a label that had to pay her nonstop. 'Excuse me Grammy board, tell us everybody that made this decision,' she said. 'Y'all, this s*** has got to stop. I just wanted to make it very f***ing clear that this is not good; this is a bad thing.' Minaj said that decision-makers in the industry don't want artists they have a vested interest in to 'go up against' her Minaj said 'there is a concerted effort to give newer artists things that they really don't deserve over people who have been deserving for many years,' and that 'soon, female rap will really not have any Black women' Minaj said that if Super Freaky Girl is classified as pop, then the Latto single Big Energy should be as well, especially since they have the same group of producers She also took to Twitter with commentary on the issue Minaj said that if Super Freaky Girl - which samples the 1981 Rick James song Super Freak - is classified as pop, then the Latto single Big Energy should be as well, especially since they have the same group of producers. She also took to Twitter with commentary on the issue, writing, 'I have no prob being moved out the RAP category as long as we r ALL being treated FAIRLY. If SFG has 2B moved out RAP then so does Big Energy! ANY1 who says diff is simply a Nicki hater or a troll. Id actually LUV 2 c a more street record win- male OR female! IJS rightIsRight.' Minaj credited Drake for his past commentary on industry injustices and said more artists need to speak up on the topic. Minaj has past been nominated for Grammys 10 times, in the pop category one time for best pop duo/group performance for the collaboration Bang Bang with Ariana Grande and Jessie J. Most of her nominations have been in the rap category. Advertisement Carey Mulligan exuded classic glamour as she joined co-star Zoe Kazan at the New York Film Festival premiere of She Said on Thursday night. The film follows the female New York Times reporters (played by Mulligan and Kazan) who took on Hollywood producer and convicted sex abuser Harvey Weinstein, which led to the #MeToo movement in 2018. The actress, 37, stepped onto the red carpet in an understated black gown with a strap that elegantly fell off one shoulder. Glamour: Carey Mulligan exuded classic glamour as she joined co-star Zoe Kazan at the New York Film Festival premiere of She Said on Thursday night. The actress, 37, stepped onto the red carpet in an understated black gown with a strap that elegantly fell off one shoulder Mulligan's dress stopped at the ankles allowing her to show off her black kitten heels. The British star's cropped blonde tresses framed her face in voluminous waves. As for makeup, she opted for a natural look complete with rosy cheeks and a muted mauve pout. Kazan cut a quirky figure in a voluminous off-white ruffled dress and black platform heels. Blonde beauty: The British star's cropped blonde tresses framed her face in voluminous waves Fresh faced: As for makeup, she opted for a natural look complete with rosy cheeks and a muted mauve pout The 39-year-old star, who made her film debut back in 2003, made her blue eyes pop by dusting a shimmery bronze shadow across her lids. She completed the romantic-style makeup look with a bright red lip and a flushed complexion. Kazan was joined at the premiere by her longtime husband and actor Paul Dano, who looked spiffy in an all-black suit, dress shirt and tie. The duo wed back in 2007 and share four-year-old daughter Alma Bay. True story: The film follows the female New York Times reporters (played by Mulligan and Kazan) who took on Hollywood producer and convicted sex abuser Harvey Weinstein, which led to the #MeToo movement in 2018 Quirky: Kazan cut a quirky figure in a voluminous off-white ruffled dress and black platform heels. She was joined at the premiere by her longtime husband and actor Paul Dano, who looked spiffy in an all-black suit, dress shirt and tie Mulligan and Kazan posed up with the film's real-life inspirations, NYT journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. Mulligan portrays Twohey while Kazan steps in as Kantor. Rounding out premiere attendees was actress Arielle Kebbel, who stunned in a vibrant green co-ord that consisted of a sleeveless top and maxi skirt. The Maria Schrader-directed feature follows Twohey and Kantor, who published a report about Weinstein, 70, in October 2017 that detailed decades of sexual abuse by the Hollywood heavyweight ushering in the #MeToo movement. The New York Times and The New Yorker were awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of Weinstein. Longtime love: The duo wed back in 2007 and share four-year-old daughter Alma Bay Heroes: Mulligan and Kazan posed up with the film's real-life inspirations, journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. Mulligan portrays Twohey while Kazan steps in as Kantor Gorgeous in green: Rounding out premiere attendees was actress Arielle Kebbel, who stunned in a vibrant green co-ord that consisted of a sleeveless top and maxi skirt Schrader famously directed and won a Primetime Emmy for her work on the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. Brad Pitt, who confronted Weinstein after his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow accused the producer of coming onto her, serves as one of the film's producers. 'At that moment, I was just a boy from the Ozarks on the playground and that's how we confronted things,' he recalled of his tense one-on-one with Weinstein to CNN. Two-time Academy Award-winning producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner are also attached to the project. Pulitzer winners: The Maria Schrader-directed feature follows Twohey and Kantor, who published a report about Weinstein, 70, in October 2017 that detailed decades of sexual abuse by the Hollywood heavyweight ushering in the #MeToo movement. The New York Times and The New Yorker were awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of Weinstein; the pair seen in 2018 Drama film: Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan were recently shown portraying the New York Times reporters who took on Harvey Weinstein in a trailer for She Said The screenplay was penned by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who is a renown author and playwright. She Said will be released in theaters on November 18. Weinstein's rape conviction and 23-year-prison sentence was upheld in July by a New York appeals court that rejected the movie mogul's claims that the judge at his landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him by allowing women to testify about allegations that weren't part of the criminal case. The ruling was issued by a five-judge panel in the state's intermediate appeals court. Ally: Brad Pitt, who confronted Weinstein after his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow accused the producer of coming onto her, serves as one of the film's producers; Pitt seen in September Upheld: Weinstein's rape conviction and 23-year-prison sentence was upheld in July by a New York appeals court that rejected the movie mogul's claims that the judge at his landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him by allowing women to testify about allegations that weren't part of the criminal case; Weinstein seen in 2014 The bombshell decision affirmed the milestone verdict in America's reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures - an era that began with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a California prison and is awaiting trial on charges he assaulted five women in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013. The trial is set to begin on October 24 and is expected to last several months. Angelina Pivarnick fled Vinny Guadagnino's hotel room after claiming he was getting an erection on Thursday's season finale of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation on MTV. The final regular season episode of season five titled 'VIN DAY' showed Angelina, 36, knocking on Vinny's door after his day of self-celebration ended at a San Diego strip club. 'I'm horny,' Angelina admitted before she went knocking on Vinny's door. Season finale: Angelina Pivarnick fled Vinny Guadagnino's hotel room after claiming he was getting an erection on Thursday's season finale of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation on MTV 'Who is it?,' Vinny, 34, asked while wearing his underwear. 'What are you doing?,' Angelina asked. 'Not much,' Vinny replied. 'Vin Day. It started out really sucky, but it didn't turn out that bad,' Angelina asked while standing in his doorway. Underwear on: The final regular season episode of season five titled 'VIN DAY' showed Angelina, 36, knocking on Vinny's door after his day of self-celebration ended at a San Diego strip club Angelina was shown the next morning sleeping in her room as a flashback showed her knocking on Vinny's door. 'I think had a f***ing nightmare last night,' Angelina said in a confessional. Vinny meanwhile was shown talking to Paul 'DJ Pauly D' DelVecchio, 42, about Angelina coming to his room. Next morning: 'I think had a f***ing nightmare last night,' Angelina said in a confessional 'She did?,' Pauly asked. 'Yeah, I was in my underwear,' Vinny said. Angelina was then shown again in a flashback knocking on Vinny's door. Catching up: Vinny meanwhile was shown talking to Paul 'DJ Pauly D' DelVecchio, 42, about Angelina coming to his room Vinny told her, 'Angelina, get out.' 'F*** off,' Angelina told him. 'Get out,' Vinny said. Get out: 'Get out,' Vinny told Angelina after she knocked on his door 'Ew. Your d*** is right there and I see it,' Angelina said as she accused Vinny of having an erection. Vinny denied it and said he was soft. 'I see the difference. It's growing as I look at it. Ew, dirtbag,' Angelina said as she closed the door and ran down the hallway. Erection accusation: 'I see the difference. It's growing as I look at it. Ew, dirtbag,' Angelina said as she closed the door and ran down the hallway 'This is actually soft,' Vinny declared. Vinny later went to Angelina's room to talk after noting that she's been struggling amid her divorce from Chris Larangeira. He opened up about having Osgood-Schlatter disease and Angelina talked about going into 'depression mode' and wanting to do nothing but go out. Sprinted away: Angelina after calling Vinny a 'dirtbag' sprinted down the hallway Strong denial: 'This is actually soft,' Vinny declared 'We're going home today, and I'm just not ready for it. This vacation has been a very good distraction for me, and I know it's going to be hard walking into an empty house, and I'm not looking forward to it,' Angelina said in a confessional. Angelina asked Vinny if he could picture just one person living in her house and he replied, 'No, definitely not.' He also told Angelina that her house was too far from everything and she admitted it was 'boring'. Not ready: 'We're going home today, and I'm just not ready for it. This vacation has been a very good distraction for me, and I know it's going to be hard walking into an empty house, and I'm not looking forward to it,' Angelina said in a confessional 'My whole development is filled with families and children, and my plan was to move into that house with Chris and have a family, but that didn't work out, so here I am,' Angelina said in a confessional. She told Vinny how she watches a school bus in the morning stop in front of her house and all the children coming out and getting on the bus. 'And you're like the Wicked Witch that lives alone with her seven cats,' Vinny teased her. Candid conversation: 'And you're like the Wicked Witch that lives alone with her seven cats,' Vinny teased her Vinny in a confessional admitted that was in a similar situation as Angelina until he started to travel and live in cities. He encouraged Angelina to move out of the suburbs and she was appreciative of his support. 'We might go back and forth at each other all day, every day, but ultimately, I know Vinny actually does care about me 'cause he's, like, giving me advice, which I really appreciate because I need that,' Angelina said in a confessional. Similar situation: Vinny in a confessional admitted that was in a similar situation as Angelina until he started to travel and live in cities Angelina after their heartfelt talk reminded Vinny that he got an erection while talking to her. 'No, you think I would sit there in front of you getting a boner?,' he asked. 'Yes,' Angelina replied. Reminded him: Angelina after their heartfelt talk reminded Vinny that he got an erection while talking to her Vinny told Angelina that he was a professional stripper and in his 'underwear all day'. 'The only difference is I'm not in front of you,' Angelina told him. They then joined the group who were outside gossiping about them. Group trip: Season five featured the group trip to San Diego Vinny joked that he and Angelina were 'officially together' after having sex the previous night. 'Happy for you guys,' Pauly quipped. Deena Cortese, 35, then gathered everyone for a group photo wearing matching San Diego sweatshirts. Matching outfits: Deena Cortese, 35, then gathered everyone for a group photo wearing matching San Diego sweatshirts Vin Day got off to a rough start with the group jumping rope, joining a pedal pub and also going on a hike. Vinny also was enforcing a no carbs eating rule that forced Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino, 40, to order his preferred foods on the side. The mood shifted, however, after Vinny changed gears and took everyone to a strip club in San Diego. Rough start: Vin Day got off to a rough start with the group jumping rope, joining a pedal pub and also going on a hike Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 36, went into party mode at the strip club and gave her fiance Zack Carpinello a lap dance. Pauly also enjoyed a lap dance from his girlfriend Nikki Hall and Mike looked on as his wife Lauren Pesce enjoyed herself. Jersey Shore: Family Vacation will return next week on MTV with the first of two reunion episodes. Party mode: Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 36, went into party mode at the strip club and gave her fiance Zack Carpinello a lap dance Good times: Pauly and his girlfriend Nikki Hall also were having fun Megan Thee Stallion set temperatures soaring in a teaser for this week's Saturday Night Live, in which she will serve as host and musical guest. The 27-year-old rapper flaunted her curves and pert posterior in a sheer black bodysuit while rehearsing onstage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in NYC. 'Hotties y'all ready for #stallionnightlive @nbcsnl' captioned Megan, who shared the sizzling snaps to Instagram on Thursday. Tease! Megan Thee Stallion set temperatures soaring in a teaser for this week's Saturday Night Live, in which she will serve as host and musical guest To accentuate her hourglass shape, the bodysuit had a corset bodice while the arms and legs were sheer with a rhinestone squiggle pattern that sparkled under the lights. The Hot Girl Summer hitmaker's lengthy brunette tresses were worn in a high ponytail and cascaded down her back in voluminous, curly strands. Megan achieved a seductive gaze with a dramatic smokey eyeshadow look featuring shiny silver pigment on the lids. To keep her eyes the focus, her plump pout was lined with a brick red lip liner and drenched in a milky pink gloss. Sheer perfection: The 27-year-old flaunted her curves and pert posterior in a sheer black bodysuit while rehearsing her opening monologue onstage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in NYC 'Hotties y'all ready for #stallionnightlive @nbcsnl' captioned Megan, who shared the sizzling snaps to Instagram on Thursday A pair of silver chandelier earrings brushed the tops of her shoulders and she added height to her 5foot10inch frame with some black heels. Shortly after sharing her behind-the-scenes snaps, Megan appeared in three fun Saturday Night Live promo videos featuring castmember Heidi Gardner, 39. In the first one, Megan jovially reveals to fans that she'll be pulling double duty on this week's episode. The Grammy Award-winner is hilariously caught by surprise as Gardner reveals that the sketches for the show have yet to be written. Promo mode: Shortly after sharing her behind-the-scenes snaps, Megan appeared in three fun Saturday Night Live promo videos featuring castmember Heidi Gardner, 39 'Wait, the show ain't written yet?' asks Megan, to which Gardner replies with a perky, 'Nope.' 'But it's already Thursday,' the WAP hitmaker reminds Gardner, who is already well aware of the fact that the show is just two days away. As she asks optimistically if 'we got people workin' on that,' she's quickly met with further dismay as Gardner informs her that that is not the case. Hype: In the first one, Megan jovially reveals to fans that she'll be pulling double duty on this week's episode Say what? The Grammy Award-winner is hilariously caught by surprise as Gardner reveals that the sketches for the show have yet to be written Uh oh: 'But it's already Thursday,' the WAP hitmaker reminds Gardner, who is already well aware of the fact that the show is just two days away In a follow-up, Gardner refers to herself as 'Heidi Thee Gardner' which a disapproving Megan quickly shuts down. Rounding out the promo is a clip of Gardner trying to one-up Megan's dual role by announcing to viewers that she'll be doing 'comedy and magic this week on SNL.' Megan looks over at her with raised eyebrows which prompts Gardner to admit that she's jealous of her for getting to be both the show's host and musical guest. Not so fast: In a follow-up, Gardner refers to herself as 'Heidi Thee Gardner' which a disapproving Megan quickly shuts down 'Why would you say you doin' magic if you not?' Megan asks before Gardner surprises her by pulling off a quick magic trick. Earlier this week, Megan showed off her humorous side in the first hilarious promo video for her highly-anticipated Saturday Night Live hosting debut. When asked by Sarah Sherman if she was 'so excited for this week' of rehearsals, the rapper, who was sitting in her dressing room in an orange and blue minidress, gushed: 'I am so excited, but a little nervous!' Megan versus Heidi: Rounding out the promo is a clip of Gardner trying to one-up Megan's dual role by announcing to viewers that she'll be doing 'comedy and magic this week on SNL' Surprise! 'Why would you say you doin' magic if you not?' Megan asks before Gardner surprises her by pulling off a quick magic trick that sees her pull a bouquet of flowers out of thin air 'I feel like we're gonna have fun,' the Sweetest Pie hitmaker told Sherman, 29, before asking the comedian if she realized she was 'completely naked.' The Houston-based musician will be both hosting and performing on the October 15 episode of SNL. Megan, who refers to her diehard fanbase as 'the hotties,' made the exciting announcement via her Instagram on September 20. Coming soon: Rapper Megan Thee Stallion showed off her humorous side in a hilarious promo for her highly-anticipated Saturday Night Live debut this weekend Honest: When asked by Sarah Sherman if she was 'so excited for this week' of rehearsals, the 27-year-old, who was sitting in her dressing room, gushed: 'I am so excited, but a little nervous!' 'I feel like we're gonna have fun,' the Sweetest Pie hitmaker told Sherman, 29, before asking the comedian if she realized she was 'completely naked' 'Hosting andddd performingggg REAL HOT GIRL SH** @nbcsnl tune in ALL HOTTIES,' she captioned the post. Previously, Megan hit the SNL soundstage alongside Chance the Rapper in 2019, and again in 2020 to perform her chart-topping hits Dont Stop and Savage. Last year, she won best new artist at the 2021 Grammys, and another for best rap performance for her Savage Remix with Beyonce. Pretty Woman turned Sporty Woman! Hollywood star Julia Roberts donned a quirky custom Gucci X Adidas suit while linking arms with George Clooney. The acting duo arrived in Hollywood to film Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday after recently co-starring in the upcoming rom-com Ticket To Paradise. George matched Julia with a suit but instead of her beige and black striped outfit featuring gold buttons and fuzzy black sleeves, he opted for a classic grey colour. Stylish duo: George Clooney and Julia Roberts made a stylish duo as they were seen arriving arm in arm to film the Jimmy Kimmel show on Thursday Custom Gucci: Julia wore an incredible custom Gucci X Adidas suit in a beige and black striped colourway, featuring gold buttons and fuzzy black sleeves The Hollywood silver fox, 61, and the 54-year-old Pretty Woman actress - who co-star together in the upcoming rom-com Ticket to Paradise - both looked stylish in suits. Roberts wore a white shirt and a classic black tie underneath the double-breasted suit. The Academy Award winner paired the stylish ensemble with pointed-toe black heels and aviator sunglasses. The Notting Hill star styled her auburn tresses with a mid-part and cascading down her shoulders in light waves. They mean business! The Hollywood silver fox, 61, and the 54-year-old Pretty Woman actress - who co-star together in the upcoming rom-com Ticket to Paradise - both looked stylish in suits Chipper: The duo appeared in high spirits, with Julia looking incredible in her custom Gucci suit - with the price not known Her suit is believed to be a custom Gucci suit as it has not been seen on the runway, therefore the prices of the striking pieces are not known. Although a similar blazer from the Gucci X Adidas collection retails at 3,500, it is likely her pieces is something more than that given it's unique value. Meanwhile the Kentucky native accessorized with a silver watch and wore a pair of iridescent aviators for the occasion. George styled his silver hair slightly to the side, and sported meticulously groomed light stubble on his face. The two Hollywood stars have been the best of friends throughout their careers, and on Thursday they explained why they never took their relationship to the next level. Pretty woman: Julia chose a fun tan-colored Gucci Adidas suit, featuring gold buttons and fuzzy black sleeves Cool as ever: The Academy Award winner paired the stylish ensemble with pointed-toe black heels and aviator sunglasses In a new interview to promote their latest film, the Oscar winners finally revealed why they've always remained platonic and never dated in real life. Although Roberts and Clooney are happily married to their respective spouses, Danny Moder and Amal Clooney, they've known each other back when both were single. During a rapid-fire question session on Access Hollywood, host Kit Hoover asked the Hollywood veterans if they ever enacted a 'no-dating policy' during the early days of their working relationship. Waves: The Notting Hill star styled her auburn tresses with a mid-part and cascading down her shoulders in light waves Classy: George opted for a more classic grey colored suit over a black shirt 'To not date each other? I don't think we needed to state it!' the Pretty Woman star said. 'It just seemed like the right thing to do.' Clooney then elaborated about each other's busy romantic life at the time. 'Julia was always in a relationship, or I was in a relationship,' the Gravity actor added. 'We were fast friends right away. It's been nothing but fun for us, so I don't think that was ever really a thing.' Dapper: The Kentucky native accessorized with a silver watch and wore a pair of iridescent aviators for the occasion Silver fox: George styled his silver hair slightly to the side, and sported meticulously groomed light stubble on his face Since 2002, Roberts has been married to Danny Moder, 53. The pair share three children: 17-year-old twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus, and son Henry, 15. Meanwhile, Clooney has been happily wed to wife Amal Clooney, 44, since 2014. He and the human rights lawyer share five-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella. Roberts and Clooney have co-starred in several films together including Ocean's Eleven in 2001, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind in 2002, Ocean's Twelve in 2004, and Money Monster in 2016. In their new romantic comedy Ticket To Paradise, the pair play divorced exes who reunite to try and stop their daughter from marrying a man she recently met. Rom com: In their new romantic comedy, Ticket To Paradise, the pair play divorced exes who reunite to try and stop their daughter from marrying a man she recently met Bestie: Part of the film's storyline required the platonic pals to kiss, which Roberts found a bit bizarre. 'It's kinda ridiculous, It is like kissing your best friend,' she said on the Today show Coming soon! Ticket To Paradise hits theaters on Friday, October 21 Part of the film's storyline required the platonic pals to kiss, which Roberts found a bit bizarre. 'It's kinda ridiculous,' she admitted on the Today show. 'It is like kissing your best friend.' Without missing a beat, Clooney tried to get the last laugh and responded, 'Well, thanks for that. You know I was a two-time "Sexiest Man Alive?"' Ticket To Paradise hits theaters on Friday, October 21. Also spotted heading to Kimmel was comedian Sarah Silverman, 51, who was more laid back, rocking a T-shirt with the slogan 'Love your mother.' With a message: Also spotted heading to Kimmel was comedian Sarah Silverman, 51, who was more laid back, rocking a T-shirt with the slogan 'Love your mother' Old-school: She sported a pair of bell-bottom jeans with knee rips and wore a backpack to the studio She sported a pair of bell-bottom jeans with knee rips and wore a backpack to the studio. To keep her eyes shielded from the sun, the actress wore a pair of black shades. The star - who previously dated Jimmy Kimmel - wore her black tresses pulled into a neat ponytail. Silverman was one of many celebrities who recently spoke out against Kanye West's anti-Semitic tirade, after he announced he would go 'death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.' The star took to her on her social media writing: 'Kanye threatened the Jews yesterday on twitter and its not even trending. Why do mostly only Jews speak up against Jewish hate? The silence is so loud.' A South Korean army soldier stands guard inside a military guard post at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Oct. 14. North Korea early Friday fired a ballistic missile and 170 rounds of artillery shells toward the sea and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North's recent barrage of weapons tests. AP-Yonhap North Korea fired a ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells toward the sea Friday and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North's recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the North's capital region at 1:49 a.m. Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters. It was North Korea's 15th missile launch since it resumed testing activities Sept. 25. North Korea said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their "dangerous" military exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. Soon after the latest missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, South Korea's military said. On Friday afternoon, South Korea's military said North Korea fired 80 additional shells off its east coast. It said it also detected signs of about 200 other North Korean artillery launches off its west coast, citing firing sounds and splashes. In both coasts, the North Korean shells were believed to have landed in the buffer zones again, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Observers said it was North Korea's third and most direct violation of the 2018 agreement, which created buffer zones and no-fly areas along their land and sea boundaries to prevent accidental clashes. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it earlier sent North Korea a message asking it not to violate the agreement again. North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals' border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries. It was reportedly the first time that North Korean military aircraft have flown that close to the border since 2017. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Korea's provocations are becoming "indiscriminative" but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. "The decision to attack can't be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome," Yoon told reporters. "The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North)." South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seoul's first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are largely a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters he supports South Korea's decision to impose the sanctions. Most of the North's recent weapons tests were ballistic missile launches that are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions. But the North hasn't been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the U.N. over U.S. disputes with Russia regarding its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition. The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. "Whatever the intentions are, North Korea's repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology," Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan remains "ironclad." Other recent North Korean tests included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam; long-range cruise missiles; and a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country. After Wednesday's cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for "actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow" and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Korea's state media. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday that is expected to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing Friday that all related countries should work to prevent tensions from escalating and move toward restarting meaningful talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, April 25, 2019. AP-Yonhap Miles Teller was spotted living it up amid his vacation to Mexico with his stunning wife, Keleigh Sperry, earlier on Thursday afternoon. The Top Gun: Maverick star, 35, was seen relaxing in the pool next to his other half, 29, as they sipped on a few delicious drinks. The happy couple were pictured sharing an affectionate hug as they lounged in the glistening, cool water with a few pals. Pool time: Miles Teller, 35, was pictured enjoying time under the sun with his wife, Keleigh Sperry, 29, during their trip to Mexico Having a blast: The two lovebirds, who tied the knot in 2019, made the most of the romantic getaway The talented actor went shirtless and donned a pair of swim trunks as he jumped into the shimmering pool water. He was seen carrying a pair of blue goggles that he could quickly put on when he wanted to take a swim. Miles added a blue cap and a pair of black sunglasses to protect his eyes from the bright, hot sun. The star appeared to be in high spirits as he relaxed on a peaceful getaway during a break in his busy work schedule. Cute! The Top Gun: Maverick star wrapped his arm around his wife as they cooled off in the pool His wife and model, Keleigh, showcased her fit physique in blue printed bikini as she joined her husband in the pool. Her brunette hair was pulled up into a bun, with her long locks secured by a large clip. She also added a pair of black shades as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. The couple were spotted cooling off in the glistening water, and the Footloose actor affectionately embraced his wife. Miles was in vacation mode as he sipped on a delicious drink in a clear cup along with a few other buddies. Vacation mode: Miles cheerfully sipped on a tasty, refreshing drink along with a close friend while soaking up the hot sun Stylish: Keleigh, who starred in Taylor Swift's I Bet You Think About Me music video, donned a colorful kimono to match her swimsuit Sharing a laugh: Miles was pictured with a big smile on his face while talking with his wife, Keleigh At one point, Keleigh brought over a gold-colored inner tube to easily float on the water. Later on in the day, Miles lingered in the pool while his wife sauntered down to the sandy beach along with her gal pals. The Hollywood couple became engaged in 2017 while on safari in Africa after dating for six years. The two said 'I do' during an intimate wedding ceremony in Maui in September 2019. A source close to the two lovebirds opened up to Us Weekly earlier this year in May about their happy marriage. 'Miles and Keleigh work because they are both the goofiest of people,' the insider revealed. 'They are silly, always making jokes and doing little bits with each other. They know how to make each other laugh and have fun together.' Fall getaway: The group appeared to be in good spirits as they escaped the cool fall weather Relaxation time: At one point in the afternoon, Keleigh was seen carrying a sparkling inner tube into the pool Casual stroll: The stunning model was seen walking between two of her friends as they enjoyed time on the sandy beach together Lounging: Miles rested his arms on the ledge of the pool as he looked down at the scenic beach 'Theyre also always attached, kissing and touching each other and have a great physical chemistry,' the source further added. Keleigh recently attended the red carpet premieres of Top Gun: Maverick alongside Miles, who portrayed the role of Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw. Along with starring in the recent blockbuster with Tom Cruise, Miles has a number of other projects that he is set to be a part of. The actor will be stepping into the world of animation, and will voice the character of Gilbert in the upcoming movie, The Ark And The Aardvark. The premise of the film follows, 'an aardvark named Gilbert lands the job of shepherding all the animals onto Noah's Ark,' according to IMDB. Downtime: The Hollywood actor has been spending his downtime between his upcoming projects on a relaxing getaway Staying refreshed: Throughout the day, Miles and his friends were pictured enjoying tasty and refreshing drinks as they lounged in the pool Refills: Keleigh stepped out of the pool to grab another cool drink that was placed under the shade According to Deadline, Miles will co-star with actress, Anya Taylor-Joy in the upcoming Apple original film called, The Gorge. Although the plot details haven't been revealed, the publication reported that the movie will have a mix of genres such as action and romance. He was also cast to star in the film, The Fence, which is currently in the stages of pre-production. Sylvester Stallone and wife Jennifer Flavin looked glamorous as they made their first red carpet appearance since their recent reconciliation. The pair attended the Ralph Lauren SS23 Runway Show on Thursday, at The Huntington Library in San Marino, in matching fall-appropriate outfits, and brought along their daughters Sistine, 24, and Sophia Rose, 26. The duo are back together after Flavin, 54, shockingly filed for divorce from her husband of 25 years, 76, back in August. A judge officially dismissed the proceedings last week. Meant to be together: Sylvester Stallone, 76, and wife Jennifer Flavin, 54, looked glamorous as they made their first red carpet appearance since their recent reconciliation The Rocky star - who tied the knot with Jennifer in 1997 - was dapper as ever in a brown suede jacket over a cream cashmere sweater and white pants. The New York native finalized the elegant look with a pair of brown boots, and beamed with his arm placed around his wife. Jennifer showed off her model figure in a form-fitting off-shoulder brown gown, which she paired with a snakeskin purse. Ready for fall: The pair attended the Ralph Lauren SS23 Runway Show on Thursday, at The Huntington Library in San Marino, in matching fall-appropriate outfits Family affair: The Hollywood duo brought along their gorgeous daughters Sistine, 24 (L) and Sophia, 26 (R) She added some extra oomph to her look with a chunky gold necklace and small gold hoops. The beauty drew attention to her magnetic eyes with winged eyeliner and big lashes, and accentuated her features with a touch of blush and nude lipstick. Meanwhile Sistine opted for a champagne-colored silk slip dress with a trendy motorcycle jacket draped over her shoulders. Back on! The pair are back together after Flavin shockingly filed for divorce from her husband of 25 years back in August. A judge officially dismissed the proceedings last week Dapper: The Rocky star - who tied the knot with Jennifer in 1997 - was dapper as ever in a brown suede jacket over a cream cashmere sweater and white pants Sly's girl paired the outfit with a mini suede brown purse and black wrap-around heels. Her sister wore a similar look, choosing to go with a white silk slip and matching white purse, as well as a metallic plaid silver jacket. The girls happily posed together while their proud parents watched from the side, with Jennifer tenderly holding the Rambo actor's arm and leaning her head on his shoulder. Missing from action was their youngest daughter Scarlet Rose, 20. Like mother, like daughters: Jennifer showed off her model figure in a form-fitting off-shoulder brown gown, which she paired with a snakeskin purse as she posed with her girls and hubby One missing: Missing from action was their youngest daughter Scarlet Rose, 20 Last week, a Florida judge officially dismissed divorce proceedings between Sylvester Stallone and his wife Jennifer Flavin as they salvaged their 25-year marriage. The couple filed a voluntary notice for dismissal in Palm Beach County, Florida and are 'together and very happy', Page Six reports. Earlier last week, it was reported that the movie star and his wife of 25 years 'decided to meet up at home, where they talked and were able to work out their differences. They are both extremely happy,' his rep told Page Six. Sly's girls: The Rocky star's daughters looked chic, with Sistine rocking a champagne-colored silk slip dress with a trendy motorcycle jacket draped over her shoulders Dynamic duo: Her sister wore a similar look, choosing to go with a white silk slip and matching white purse, as well as a metallic plaid silver jacket Their reconciliation comes one month after Jennifer filed for divorce from Sylvester. Days prior to their reconciliation, a court filing revealed at a Palm Beach Country, Florida court revealed that the duo agreed 'that it is in the best interests of each of them individually, and more importantly collectively as a family, to resolve all issues attendant to the dissolution of their marriage in a dignified, amicable and private manner out-of-court.' On August 19, Jennifer filed for divorce from him, alleging that he 'engaged in the intentional dissipation, depletion and/or waste of marital assets, which has had an adverse economic impact on the marital estates.' The actor denied her allegations at the time. Advertisement Kourtney Kardashian cuddled up to her husband Travis Barker at Thursday night's grand opening for the new Calabasas location of the vegan restaurant Crossroads Kitchen. Travis, 46, is an investor in the original Crossroads Kitchen on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, and now the enterprise has expanded to Calabasas, which is famous for being a Kardashian enclave. They were joined by Kourtney's daughter Penelope, 10, at the new location, which is in an upscale open-air mall called The Commons owned by billionaire LA mayoral candidate Rick Caruso. New venture: Kourtney Kardashian cuddled up to her husband Travis Barker at Thursday night's grand opening for the new Calabasas location of the vegan restaurant Crossroads Kitchen Having a ball: They were joined by Kourtney's daughter Penelope, 10, at the new location, which is in an upscale open-air mall called The Commons owned by billionaire LA mayoral candidate Rick Caruso Kourtney could be seen clinging to her husband as they sat at a table in the newly opened restaurant, whose premises used to play host to a Corner Bakery. Wearing her hair in an elegant voluptuous do reminiscent of the 1990s, Kourtney hinted at her amply endowed cleavage in a see-through black top for her latest outing. She shares Penelope and her sons Mason, 12, and Reign, seven, with her sizzling ex-fiance Scott Disick, whom she was involved with on and off from 2006 until 2015. Meanwhile Travis fired up his Insta Stories to post a couple of pictures of the culinary treats he and Kourtney settled down to, including an appetizing-looking bowl of pasta. BLooking fab: Kourtney could be seen clinging to her husband as they sat at a table in the newly opened restaurant, whose premises used to play host to a Corner Bakery Meanwhile: Travis fired up his Insta Stories to post a couple of pictures of the culinary treats he and Kourtney settled down to, including an appetizing-looking bowl of pasta Travis, who shot to fame as the drummer for Blink-182, got to mingle that evening with 'pop punk princess' Avril Lavigne, who signed to his label DTA Records last year. Near the end of this February Avril released Luv Sux, her seventh studio album overall and her first with DTA Records, and wound up with the number one album on the Billboard 200. She swung by the new Crossroads Kitchen in Calabasas this Thursday and proved that she is also happy to lend her support to Travis' professional ventures even outside of show business. Throwing herself into the spirit of Halloween just a couple of weeks before the holiday, Avril decked herself out in an orange and black sweater-dress with a skeleton print. Dynamic duo: Travis, who shot to fame as the drummer for Blink-182, got to mingle that evening with 'pop punk princess' Avril Lavigne, who signed to his label DTA Records last year Collab: Near the end of this February Avril released Luv Sux, her seventh studio album overall and her first with DTA Records, and wound up with the number one album on the Billboard 200 Avril committed to the look by introducing orange highlights into her signature blonde hair, and in a retro chic flourish she hoisted on a pair of fuzzy black legwarmers and a matching hat. While swanning about the new restaurant, she beamed for the photographers alongside Travis, who modeled sunglasses even inside and flashed a peace sign for the camera. Evidently Avril enjoyed her food enough that she decided to pack some up for later, as she was seen emerging from the restaurant at dusk with a takeaway container. Bassist Tony Kanal, whose career has included being a member of No Doubt alongside such names as Gwen Stefani, made his presence felt at the opening as well. Mover and shaker: Evidently Avril enjoyed her food enough that she decided to pack some up for later, as she was seen emerging from the restaurant at dusk with a takeaway container Mover and shaker: Avril committed to the look by introducing orange highlights into her signature blonde hair, and in a retro chic flourish she hoisted on a pair of fuzzy black legwarmers and a matching hat Such fun: While swanning about the new restaurant, she beamed for the photographers alongside Travis, who modeled sunglasses even inside and flashed a peace sign for the camera The London-burn musician cut a California casual figure in a fashionable blue bomber jacket over a print t-shirt as he arrived in Calabasas with his brother Neil. Limp Bizkit star Fred Durst was a particularly eye-catching guest at the grand opening, where he got to pose with Travis and the Israeli chef Tal Ronnen, the founder of Crossroads Kitchen. The restaurant opening comes days after Travis announced that Blink-182 is embarking on a world tour and releasing new music, as well as reuniting with vocalist Tom DeLonge who left the group seven years ago. Kourtney and Travis had a drunken Las Vegas wedding on April Fool's Day this year after walking the red carpet for the Grammys together earlier that evening. Dashing: Bassist Tony Kanal, whose career has included being a member of No Doubt alongside such names as Gwen Stefani, made his presence felt at the opening as well Family outing: The London-born musician cut a California casual figure in a fashionable blue bomber jacket over a print t-shirt as he arrived in Calabasas with his brother Neil They exchanged vows in front of an Elvis impersonator - only to discover the marriage was not legally binding as they had neglected to obtain the requisite paperwork before dashing off to the wedding chapel. 'Kravis' obtained a civil marriage in Santa Barbara the following month and then jetted off to Italy for a weekend of wedding functions in Portofino. Shortly thereafter Travis was hospitalized for days with what he later revealed was a 'life threatening' bout of pancreatitis, which he said was triggered by a polyp removal. She's the model and mother of three known for her sensational figure. And Lara Worthington showcased her famous physique in an all-black ensemble as she attended the Prada fragrance launch party in London on Thursday. The 35-year-old displayed her flawlessly toned abs in a low-cut crop top and matching midi skirt upon her arrival at the event. Lara Worthington showcased her famous physique in a low-cut black crop top and matching midi skirt as she attended the Prada fragrance launch party in London on Thursday Lara completed her stylish ensemble with a pair of high-heeled boots as she posed for photos in front of the media wall. She styled her shoulder-length blonde hair sleek and straight, and opted for a dramatic makeup look comprising black eyeliner and blush. Lara shares three sons with her actor husband Sam Worthington. Lara (pictured on November 11, 2017, in Los Angeles) has become known for her bold fashion sense ever since she reinvented herself from swimsuit model to chic socialite The family spent most of 2021 in Australia, after living in the U.S. for several years. However, they have since returned to America and appear to be living in New York City, where they previously resided. Lara has become known for her bold fashion sense ever since she reinvented herself from swimsuit model to chic socialite. She is known for wearing lots of black, and often adds a tomboy twist to her ensembles with oversized blazers, sneakers and T-shirts. She's known for wearing lots of black, and often adds a tomboy twist to her ensembles with oversized blazers, sneakers and T-shirts She has previously revealed she has a relaxed attitude when it comes to fashion. Speaking to Stellar magazine, Lara said: 'I wear whatever the hell I want and I don't care!' She also told The Daily Telegraph her must-haves include a 'black dress in a statement silhouette' and 'a leather dress [that] stands the test of time'. Gunna's fellow rapper Young Thug was also arrested on more serious charges The 29-year-old rapper has been denied bond for the third time The reality star claimed there was almost no evidence linking him to crimes He has been jailed since May on gang-related charges Kim Kardashian spoke out in favor of the jailed rapper Gunna in multiple posts shared to her Instagram Stories on Thursday. The 41-year-old reality star wrote in consecutive text posts that the 29-year-old hitmaker was being held on 'no evidence' after he was charged in May with his regular collaborator Young Thug, 31, and 26 others on gang-related charges, including murder and armed robbery. Kardashian, who has become an advocate for the wrongfully imprisoned in recent years, described what she considered to be a threadbare case against Gunna (real name: Sergio Kitchens). Speaking out: Kim Kardashian, 41, defended the jailed rapper Gunna, 29, on Instagram on Thursday, claiming there was no evidence against him. He was arrested in May on one count of conspiracy to violate (RICO); both are seen in May 2022 'Imagine sitting in a jail cell for 155 days with no bond when the only evidence against you is a ticket for an unrelated window tint and someone saying you weren't in a gang,' Kim began her text post. 'That's where my friend Sergio finds himself today after having his bond denied for the third time despite there being zero evidence that he committed a crime.' She described the 'pleasure' she had meeting the rapper earlier this year. Though she didn't specify the circumstances, both attended the Met Gala in New York City on May 2 of this year, just days before Gunna's arrest. 'He appreciated my interest in criminal justice reform and asked me to take a look at his cousin's case,' she said, presumably referring to their first meeting. Meeting: Kim noted that Gunna had been jailed for 155 days on what she claimed was shoddy evidence. She noted meeting him earlier in the year, when he asked for her help on his cousin's case Point by point: She tried to dismantle prosecutors' allegations, claim there was no evidence of 'witness intimidation,' while denying that any testimony showed him to be a gang member Kim added that she had lately been working with the musicians legal team, adding that, 'the facts of his case are yet another example of why the "justice system" is any thing but just.' The Kardashians star then laid out what she considered to be the relevant 'facts' behind Gunna's incarceration. She noted that 'prosecutors alleged witness intimidation,' but claimed that no one had actually said he threatened them, nor point out anyone else he had allegedly threatened. The ex-wife of Kanye West also expressed skepticism about prosecutors' claims that a nurse gave the rapper illegal drugs, as the 'nurse says this is untrue and there is zero evidence it happened.' She suggested that prosecutors might even be misinterpreting a key piece of evidence. 'Prosecutors alleged he was in a gang based on a witness testimony but when you read that testimony it says specifically that he is not in a gang and the witness doesn't really know him and the interview is 3 years old.' Hidden away: Kardashian added that it would get worse for Gunna, as his trial in January would likely get a continuance, forcing him to stay behind bars for even longer Pals: Although Gunna (R) and the rapper Young Thug (L) were arrested around the same time, Kim notably didn't mention him. Gunna is facing one count of conspiracy to violate (RICO), while Thug's charges are much more serious; seen in October 2021 Despite prosecutors allegedly not having evidence linking Gunna to any crimes, or have any information 'showing that he is a risk to the community,' she noted that 'Sergio had his bond denied once again today [broken heart emoji].' Kardashian said Gunna was likely to spend considerably more time in jail, as his trial in January would likely get a continuance, meaning he would 'sit in jail even longer.' 'Sergio deserves better and we all should demand better,' she concluded, adding the hashtag, '#FreeGunna.' Although Gunna and the rapper Young Thug were arrested around the same time, Kim notably didn't mention him. Gunna is facing one count of conspiracy to violate (RICO), while Thug's charges are much more serious. Legal trouble: Rap star Young Thug was arrested on gang-related charges in May. He is pictured in a mugshot taken b the Fulton County Sheriff's office Caught on camera: A photojournalist from Atlanta station WSB-TV captured this image of authorities taking Young Thug into custody earlier on Monday Back in May, the Grammy Awardwinning rapper Young Thug was arrested and booked on gang-related charges into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. The rapper, whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, 30, was charged with one count of attempted murder and one count of participating in criminal street gang activity after authorities accused him of renting a car that was used to carry out a 2015 drive-by shooting that claimed the life of 26-year-old Donovan Thomas. He was also charged with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Video footage posted to TikTok and Twitter showed several police vehicles outside a home in the upmarket Atlanta suburb of Buckhead on the day of Young Thug's arrest. The man, believed to be the Williams, could be seen being led away by police with his hands bound by zip tie handcuffs. Young Thugs home in #Buckhead was reportedly raided this afternoon. #FreeThugga pic.twitter.com/IRwrVR4h0W ATL Uncensored - Atlanta News (@ATLUncensored) May 10, 2022 The rapper was taken into custody by Atlanta police, although few details were shared about the arrest. One photographer at the scene noted that 10 people were handcuffed and detained during the raid on Williams' home. Agents also tore Williams' home apart, according to TMZ, breaking down walls and digging up his backyard. Williams is accused of conspiring to associate with others for the common purposes of illegally obtaining money and property through a pattern of racketeering activity, according to the Fulton County District Attorney's office. A grand jury indictment identified him and 27 others as members of the same street gang. The indictment runs a whopping 88 pages long, according to The New York Times. It alleges Williams is a founder of a criminal gang that has been operating in Atlanta since 2012, known as Young Slime Life or YSL. Authorities said YSL is affiliated with the infamous Bloods, which operate across the country. The indictment also alleges Williams and YSL member engaged in the activities including: Preserving, protecting and enhancing the reputation, power and territory of the enterprise through acts of racketeering activity including murder, assault and threats of violence; Preserving, protecting and enhancing the reputation, power and territory of the enterprise by the posting of messages, images, videos and songs, demonstrating allegiance to the enterprise and a willingness to engage in violence on its behalf; Maintaining armed individuals ready and willing to preserve, protect and enhance the reputation, power and territory of the enterprise through the use of violence; Obtaining money, weapons and other property through acts of racketeering activity, including robbery, theft and the unlawful sale and distribution of drugs; Obstructing law enforcement investigations and court proceedings through witness intimidation and attacks upon law enforcement officers. Walked out: Other video showed the rapper being walked to waiting patrol car with his hands in zip ties Handcuffed: The rapper could be seen being walked to a police car in handcuffs on Monday in Buckhead Shocking: Several police cars were seen lining what would otherwise be a quiet residential Atlanta street The charges: A list of indictments and names including aliases is revealed in the court documents Massive list: 56 charges were listed in the the court documents Some members have been charged with violent crimes including murder and attempted armed robbery. Williams' RICO Act charge stretches back to an alleged offense in January 2013, while his count of gang activity comes from allegations made in May 2018, according to jail records seen by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. According to the indictment, Williams is accused of renting a 2014 Infiniti sedan from Hertz that was allegedly used in the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas Jr., who was killed in a drive-by shooting. Two other YSL associates, Christian Eppinger and Antonio Sumlin, are also accused of seeking Thug's permission to make a second murder attempt on fellow rapper YFN Lucci while he was imprisoned in Fulton County Jail. Lucci was allegedly stabbed while at the facility in February. 'I'll tell you the response to any allegation; Mr. Williams committed no crime whatsoever and we will fight to my last drop of blood to clear him,' his defense attorney Brian Steel said to WSB on Monday night. The RICO law has been a popular strategy for prosecutors to target the members of organized crime in the past. Williams is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. Williams' arrest comes as the District Attorney, Fani Willis, vowed last week to crack down on street gangs in Atlanta. 'We expect that in coming days weeks and months that we will bring RICO indictments against gang members even top level gang members to make sure that we rid them from our society,' Willis said during an interview. Pals: Rappers Young Thug and Gunna, right, were both arrested. The pair are pictured during an album release party in Atlanta, Georgia in February 2019 Happier times: Gunna, left, and Young Thug, right are seen arriving at Jimmy Kimmel Live in March 2019 Young Thug's Young Stoner Life (YSL) record label had been doing well over the past couple of years. Those associated with the label are referred to as being part of the 'Slime Family'. Young Thug released his debut album at the end of 2019 entitled So Much Fun and earned first number one album. In the years that followed, the label's success continued with four more chart-topping releases: Gunna's Wunna and DS4EVER. In total, he earned three No. 1 albums on the Billboard chart and has collaborated with stars both in and outside of the rap world. The label released a 2021 compilation album called Slime Language 2, and Thug's Punk. A Sydney nurse who accused The Kyle and Jackie O Show of rigging a competition has ended up a happy customer after she complained on TikTok and ended up winning on her second attempt. The listener named Tammy took part in the Tradie vs Lady quiz earlier this week, but lost to her male rival in what she described as unfair circumstances. She claimed someone in the studio 'muted' her when she gave the correct answer to the last question, which would have won her Post Malone tickets. A Sydney nurse who accused Kyle and Jackie O of rigging a competition has ended up a happy customer after she complained on TikTok and ended up winning on her second attempt In Tradie vs Lady, a tradesman must answer female-skewed questions about topics such as makeup and fashion, while a woman must answer male-skewed questions. After losing the quiz, Tammy posted a video on TikTok railing against the decision and accusing someone at the station of cheating her out of the prize. She also alleged co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson had taken her side in the dispute and agreed something wasn't quite right. The listener named Tammy took part in the Tradie vs Lady quiz earlier this week, but lost to her male rival in what she described as unfair circumstances. She claimed someone in the studio 'muted' her when she gave the correct answer to the last question, which would have won her Post Malone tickets (Pictured: Kyle Sandilands, left, and Jackie 'O' Henderson, right) Tammy explained she and the other listener made it to the tie-break question when they were asked 'what is Mount Franklin' and she yelled out straight away 'water'. 'But he won,' she said. 'And I swear to f**king God, even Jackie said [to a colleague], "You muted her when she said water," and so he won the Post Malone tickets. 'I f**king got ripped off, c**t. Like, not impressed, at all.' Tammy's video went viral with fans tagging The Kyle and Jackie O in the comments section, and soon caught the attention of executive producer Sonia Jahshan. While KIIS FM strongly denied any cheating took place, Tammy was invited back on air the next day to have another go at Tradie vs Lady as a gesture of goodwill. She ended up winning the second time around without controversy, and posted a video update on TikTok (pictured) While KIIS FM strongly denied any cheating took place, Tammy was invited back on air the next day to have another go at Tradie vs Lady as a gesture of goodwill. She ended up winning the second time around without controversy, and walked away with concert tickets for her and her family. At the show's request, Tammy returned to TikTok to post a video update on Thursday in which she made it clear there was no ill will. 'Guess what: I f**king won, c**ts, I f**king won,' she said in the clip, which was recorded in her car before her nursing shift. 'I have won four Post Malone and Red Hot Chili Peppers tickets for February. I am so grateful they took the time to call me back and let me have another go,' she said. 'The TikTok worked. I didn't expect them to contact me, but they did.' She continued: 'Thanks to all you guys [her followers] and Kyle and Jackie O... yeah the girls. We f**king won.' Brendan Fraser was snapped with his partner Jeanne Moore at the Mill Valley Film Festival in San Rafael, California Thursday, for a screening of his comeback film The Whale. Fraser, 53, donned a stone blue suit with button-down white top and navy blue tie. The Indianapolis, Indiana-born actor rounded out his ensemble with black shoes. Moore, who made her first public appearance with Brendan at the Venice Film Festival last month, looked lovely in a mint green dress with plunging top and a dark blue clutch. She wore her blonde locks back and donned a light layer of makeup on the evening. The latest: Brendan Fraser, 53, was snapped with his partner Jeanne Moore at the Mill Valley Film Festival in San Rafael, California Thursday, for a screening of his comeback film The Whale Fraser, who has also been seen in films such as Encino Man, The Mummy and Crash, appears to be in the midst of a full-fledged career comeback with his performance in the Darren Aronofsky-directed motion picture. His performance as a morbidly-obese teacher named Charlie in the drama has garnered massive buzz, as he received an extended standing ovation following the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month. Since its premiere last month, The Whale has earned rave reviews from critics, and has kickstarted Brendan's comeback after he stepped out of the spotlight following struggles with depression. In footage shared on social media following the film's screening, Brendan fought back tears as he received a lengthy standing ovation. Fraser donned a stone blue suit with button-down white top and navy blue tie Moore, who made her first public appearance with Brendan at the Venice Film Festival last month, looked lovely in a mint green dress with plunging top and a dark blue clutch She wore her blonde locks back and donned a light layer of makeup on the evening The movie marks the legendary star's comeback after grappling with depression following a claim of sexual assault and being in and out of hospital for health issues. The Whale is a psychological drama which saw Brendan undergo a physical transformation, as he plays a 600-pound man confined to a wheelchair, a role for which he also had to wear prosthetics. Its official synopsis reads: 'A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.' The film is set to hit theaters on December 9, and marks Brendan's first lead role in a movie since straight-to-DVD thriller Breakout in 2013, leading many fans to believe this is his comeback. Fraser shot to stardom when he was cast in children's favorite film franchises George of the Jungle and The Mummy. His unbelievably chiseled physique earnt him a position as a Hollywood heartthrob as he thrashed around the sets performing stunts in high-action roles. The Whale is a psychological drama which saw Brendan undergo a physical transformation, as well as wear prosthetics to play a man 'living with obesity' Fraser appears to be in the midst of a full-fledged career comeback with his performance in the Darren Aronofsky-directed motion picture Since its premiere last month, The Whale has earned rave reviews from critics, and has kickstarted Brendan's comeback after he stepped out of the spotlight following struggles with depression The actor beamed as he appeared in support of the highly-anticipated drama But Fraser revealed in a later interview the toll the stunts had taken on his body. He told GQ in 2018 that when he filmed the third installment in The Mummy franchise, he was being taped up and was icing injuries in between takes. Speaking from his home in Bedford, New York, he said the physical toll of his roles made him feel like a workhorse from the Orwell novel Animal Farm. After rising to fame through the action-packed films, Fraser described his buff physique as resembling 'a walking steak'. However, in the same interview the actor revealed he believed he had been blacklisted from Hollywood after he claimed he had been sexually assaulted by the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk, in 2003. Fraser claimed he was leaving a luncheon hosted by the HFPA at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Hollywood when Berk shook his hand. Fraser said: 'His left hand reaches around, grabs my a** cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around.' Emotional: In footage shared on social media following the film's screening in Venice, Brenda fought back tears as he received a lengthy standing ovation He added: 'I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.' Fraser claimed he was able to remove Berk's hand before running out of the hotel and going straight home. He told his then wife, Afton Smith, about the incident but never made it public. Instead, his reps asked Berk for a written apology, which he provided, but did not admit any wrongdoing. Speaking to GQ about the claims, Berk acknowledged he had written a letter of apology to Fraser but insisted he had not done anything wrong and dismissed Fraser's account as 'a total fabrication'. After Fraser reported the claim to the HFPA he said he believed he may have been 'blacklisted' and was rarely invited back to the Golden Globe awards. Fraser said the incident had caused him to 'retreat' as he spiraled into depression. He described feeling 'not worthy' as the decade wore on, leading him to take roles he was less proud of. Lily Collins cosied up to her husband Charlie McDowell as they posed on the red carpet for the Ralph Lauren runway show in California. Donning a chic oversized tartan bow bodice top, the 33-year-old British Actress looked incredible in her sleeveless top and tapered high-waisted black trousers. Her American film director beau matched with his brown houndstooth double-breasted suit, with exaggerated collar panels and unique curved collar shirt. Loved-up: Lily Collins cosied up to her husband Charlie McDowell as they posed on the red carpet for the Ralph Lauren runway show in California Lily wore some black court heels to add some height to her slender frame, and it tied in perfectly with the blue and green train from the oversized bow on her back. Her left hand was bejewelled with her unique diamond engagement ring and wedding band, decorating her other hand with a lion ring and an iced-out diamond statement piece. She also wore a delicate gold wrist watch which matched her studded circular earrings adorning her face. Party in the back: Donning a chic oversized tartan bow bodice top, the 33-year-old British Actress looked incredible in her sleeveless top and tapered high-waisted black trousers Elegance: Her left hand was bejewelled with her unique diamond engagement ring and wedding band, decorating her other hand with a lion ring and an iced-out diamond piece Cosy: Her husband of a year and a month, screenwriter and director Charlie McDowell, looked suave in his two-piece Keeping her flawless face makeup simple, the Emily In Paris star had a flush of bronze on her eyelids and a blushed colour across her lips. Her husband of a year and a month, screenwriter and director Charlie McDowell, looked suave in his two-piece. The blue of the body and white of the collar on his shirt contrasted to his stand-out black, red and grey patterned tie. He kept a light stubble for the well-groomed look as he proudly stood beside his brunette beauty. All smiles: Her American film director beau matched with his brown houndstooth double-breasted suit, with exaggerated collar panels and unique curved collar shirt Lovebirds: The blue of the body and white of the collar on his shirt contrasted to his stand-out black, red and grey patterned tie Hollywood couple: The couple, who started dating in 2019, just celebrated their first wedding anniversary on September 4 Also in attendance at the Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 ready-to-wear runway show held at the Huntington Museum and Gardens was Hollywood A-listers Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. They matched in their all black ensembles, with Jennifer donning a black wide-brimmed hat and a plunging neckline on her black and grey pinstriped maxi dress. The couple, who started dating in 2019, just celebrated their first wedding anniversary on September 4. The lovebirds went Instagram official in 2019 before tying the knot during an intimate wedding ceremony in Colorado in 2021. Picture perfect: Keeping her flawless face makeup simple, the Emily In Paris star had a flush of bronze on her eyelids and a blushed colour across her lips Model stature: Lily wore some black court heels to add some height to her slender frame, and it tied in perfectly with the blue and green train from the oversized bow on her back Recently the pair put on a loved-up display in Paris as they went on a romantic scooter ride around the French capital. Collins initially traveled back to Europe in late May to begin work on season three of her hit show Emily In Paris. The comedy-drama, in which Collins plays an American who moves to France to provide an American point of view to the French marketing firm Savoir, premiered in October 2020. This past January, the show got renewed for a third and fourth season by Netflix. The couple initially met while working on the set of Gilded Rage. Newlyweds: Also in attendance at the Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 ready-to-wear runway show held at the Huntington Museum and Gardens was A-listers Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck Filmmaker Charlie had previously been romantically linked to figures such as Emilia Clarke and Rooney Mara. Lily and her now-husband went Instagram official in 2019, and they made their first public appearance as a couple the following year. The actress went on to announce that she had become engaged to the filmmaker with a post that was shared to her Instagram account in October of 2020. During an interview with Vogue Australia late last year, Collins raved about getting to work with her spouse, which she said was easier than expected. 'I thought it would be harder, I have to say. I thought it would be more stressful to have to work with him, but it honestly was really amazing and freeing,' she told the outlet. He's still a teenager but Robert Irwin is already feeling the pressure to settle down and have kids. The 18-year-old wildlife warrior says his sister Bindi, 24, who recently welcomed her first child, has told him it's 'his turn now'. 'It's pretty funny because of course my sister has gotten married and had a kid and there's always a lot of rumours that go around,' he told E! News. Robert Irwin says his sister Bindi, 24, who recently welcomed her first child, has told him it's 'his turn' to settle down now. Pictured are Robert, his mother Terri, Bindi, her husband Chandler Powell, and thehir daughter Grace '"Bindi's having a second kid" or "they're having triplets",' Robert continued. 'There's always so many crazy things that happen, so Bindi always says, "Robert, it's your turn now. You gotta find someone to take the heat off me!". The teenager said he's happy to be a 'crazy uncle' for now to Bindi's daughter Grace Warrior with husband Chandler Powell. He also added that 19-month-old Grace was the 'smartest member' of the famous family. The teenager said he's happy to be a 'crazy uncle' for now to Bindi's daughter Grace Warrior with husband Chandler Powell 'She is just hitting all the milestones,' he said. 'It's so surreal being an uncle. It's the most amazing thing. 'It's the best job I've ever had, that's for sure. She's just so full of energy. She's so determined. She's a focused and intelligent little kid.' Robert lives with the Irwin family at Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Robert lives with the Irwin family at Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast He is the son of the late conservationist Steve Irwin, known to the world as the 'Crocodile Hunter'. Robert recently said he feels closest to his father, who died in a freak accident on September 4, 2006, at the age of 44 after he was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb, when he is feeding crocodiles at Australia Zoo. 'It's an honour and most of all I feel closest to Dad [Steve Irwin] when I'm feeding the crocodiles,' he told ABC's One Plus One last week. 'You can feel his presence,' he added. Robert, who is the son of the late conservationist Steve Irwin, known to the world as the 'Crocodile Hunter', has been doing the media rounds this month. (Pictured: Steve and Terri Irwin with their children Robert and Bindi in June 2006) Robert has said there's no 'big scoop' on who he is dating, but has been linked to a 17-year-old American actress. Rumours swirled earlier this year the star was dating long-time friend Emmy Perry. Emmy is an American actress, animal welfare advocate and heiress to a videogame fortune worth an estimated $380million. The Glee star jetted to Queensland in June in order to spend time with Robert whom she has known since 2019. The full trailer for ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! 2022 dropped on Friday as hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly gear up to welcome 12 new famous faces into the Australian camp in November. The comical new pre-recorded clip shows the terrified Geordie duo jumping out of a helicopter and parachuting into the Australian jungle. With Dec hesitant to jump, Ant reminded him that he signed a contact, meaning they legally have to go everywhere together. It comes after the pair confirmed they've tested positive for Covid-19 after being forced to pull out of attending the National Television Awards and Britain's Got Talent: The Ultimate Magician. Comical: The full trailer for ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! 2022 dropped on Friday - showing a terrified Ant and Dec jump out of a helicopter The video shows a helicopter flying across the cloudy skies above Australia, as Dec can be heard saying: 'Where's the luggage going?' Ant then shouted, 'It's meeting us there!' before reminding Dec: 'Remember wherever I go, you have to go.' 'This is Alpha Tango and Delta Echo Ciabatta coming in hot,' Ant shouts into a headset before jumping into the air.' A worried Dec says: 'Oh I wish I had never signed that thing. Get me out of here!' The iconic show's theme tune then kicks in as Ant and Dec fly into the Australian jungle, with the words 'We're Back' printed on their parachutes. Scared: With Dec hesitant to jump, Ant reminded him that he signed a contact, meaning they legally have to go everywhere together Highly-anticipated: The iconic show's theme tune then kicks in as Ant and Dec parachute into the Australian jungle The reality show is returning to the Australian jungle for the first time in three years after it was held in Gwrych Castle in North Wales due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. In a statement, ITV confirmed the show's return: 'Autumn also brings I'm A Celebrity which makes a welcome return to ITV from the Australian jungle.' The 2021 series saw Danny Miller crowned as King of the Castle, while Giovanna Fletcher was the first person to win the Welsh version of the show the year before. 'This is Alpha Tango and Delta Echo Ciabatta coming in hot,' Ant shouts into a headset before jumping into the air.' A worried Dec says: 'Oh I wish I had never signed that thing. Get me out of here!' Several stars have signed up for the adventure next month including 1980s pop icon Boy George, comedian Seann Walsh, radio DJ Chris Moyles and former Love Islander Olivia Attwood. Celebrities who end up in the legendary jungle camp will find themselves cut off from the outside world and their fate will be in the hands of viewers who could decide to send them into a dreaded Bushtucker Trial. It comes after a host of former show stars returned from South Africa this week after reportedly filming for the I'm A Celebrity All Stars Spin-Off series. Return: Ant and Dec are set to welcome 12 new famous faces into the Australian camp in November Carol Vorderman, Helen Flanagan, Paul Burrell and Fatima Whitbread were all spotted arriving back at Heathrow airport on Wednesday. Georgia Toffolo and Myleene Klass are all also tipped to be among the famous faces making an appearance on the show. They will reportedly be joined by Joe Swash, Gillian McKeith, Phil Tufnell, Amir Khan, Jordan Banjo, Andrew Whyment, Dean Gaffney and Shaun Ryder with Janice Dickinson completing the line-up. The new spin-off series is set to hit TV screens in 2023 and will see fan favourites battle it out in the jungle once more. Celebrities: According to reports, Seann and Olivia will be joining the likes of Babatunde Aleshe and Boy George (pictured) in the jungle The TV duo recently confirmed they had tested positive for Covid-19 by sharing a photo of their lateral flow test results to Instagram. The pair, who have won best presenter at the NTAs for 20 consecutive years, confirmed MailOnline's exclusive by telling their followers: 'Sadly, it's true'. Ant and Dec are suffering from flu-like symptoms and are 'bed bound' with the contagious infection. 'Sadly, it's true': Ant and Declan have confirmed they've tested positive for Covid-19 after being forced to pull out of attending the NTAs and Britain's Got Talent special A source told MailOnline: 'Ant and Dec are gutted. They love the NTAs, it's the best night in TV, and for them it's an event they always look forward to. 'They're both feeling really poorly but will be watching the show from bed and hope to be well and working again soon.' A spokesperson for Ant and Dec told MailOnline: 'After both feeling unwell Ant and Dec have tested for Covid and unfortunately have both tested positive. 'The duo will be postponing work commitments whilst they recover.' A dermatologist treats patients from Mongolia at a medical center in Daegu, in this April 23, 2019 photo. Courtesy of Daegu Metropolitan City By Lee Hyo-jin The medical tourism industry was one of the sectors hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic as countries around the world imposed travel restrictions. But now, with borders opening up again, foreign nationals seeking medical treatment are coming back to Korea. Medical tourism is an all-inclusive package inviting foreign patients to come here to receive treatment at medical institutions, during which they go sightseeing, shopping and experience Korean culture. The industry is considered a future growth engine because medical tourists spend about 10 times more money that ordinary tourists. During the past decade, Korea has risen as a popular destination for foreign nationals with its advanced medical technologies and services, coupled with the global popularity of Korean culture. However, since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020, restrictions on international travel and the entry of foreign nationals due to virus concerns have contributed heavily to the sharp decline of overseas patients. According to data from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), nearly 600,000 foreign patients entered Korea in 2019, but the number dropped to 134,000 in 2020. Although it marked a slight increase in 2021 with 180,000, there seemed to be little signs of recovery as the country grappled with another Omicron wave in early 2022. But as the pandemic is currently relatively under control here, with approximately 30,000 new daily infections and the Korean government seeking to transition to an endemic phase, overseas patients are expected to return to local hospitals. Although this year's total number hasn't been tallied yet, Seo Eun-hee, head of K-medical tourism association, a non-government organization launched in 2016, anticipates the figures could return to pre-pandemic levels in the near future. "I expect businesses to be normalized soon, although we are still a little cautious due to the ongoing Russian war (with Ukraine), along with the continued lockdowns in China, both of which are our major target countries," she told The Korea Times. Seo explained that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on agencies and facilitators inviting overseas patients. "Out of 2,000 registered agencies, only 900 had survived by the end of 2020. Agency owners left to other sectors such as delivery services, where they barely made ends meet, while a lot of workers were fired due to the lack of financial support from the government," she said. "Many foreign employees working at these agencies had to leave the country after their visas expired because there was simply no work for them." Strict laws needed to eradicate illegal brokers A Medical Tourism Support Center in the arrivals area of Incheon International Airport / Yonhap Chandler Powell was on shopping duty last weekend. The husband of Bindi Irwin headed out to the local Woolworths to collect groceries for his family new their home at Australia Zoo in Queensland. The 25-year-old kept things safe with a white face mask as he walked into the busy shop. Chandler Powell (pictured) was on shopping duty last weekend. The husband of Bindi Irwin headed out to the local Woolworths to collect groceries for his family new their home at Australia Zoo in Queensland Chandler dressed casually in a simple navy blue T-shirt and a loose pair of khaki shorts. He added chunky work boots in a beige tone with brown accents as well as black socks. Once inside the store, Chandler picked up a Click & Collect bag of goods that he'd ordered ahead. The 25-year-old kept things safe with a white face mask as he walked into the busy shop Chandler dressed casually in a simple navy blue shirt and a loose pair of khaki shorts He added chunky work boots in a beige tone with brown accents as well as black socks After collecting the groceries, he headed back to his car and hopped inside to take his shopping home. Bindi, 24, and Chandler wed in a secret ceremony at Australia Zoo on March 25, 2020. The Wildlife Warrior and her Florida-born husband welcomed daughter Grace into the world in March last year. Once inside the store, Chandler picked up a Click and Collect bag of goods that he'd ordered ahead After collecting the groceries, he headed back to his car and loaded the back He later hopped inside to take his shopping home The couple first met in 2013 when Chandler was touring Australia as part of a national wakeboarding competition. It comes after Chandler and Bindi were criticised by some fans for promoting products on social media. The zookeeper shared a 'paid partnership' post for low-waste cleaning brand Cleanery on Thursday. A Woolworths worker gave Chandler a hand with his bags Bindi, 24, and Chandler wed in a secret ceremony at Australia Zoo on March 25, 2020 The Wildlife Warrior and her Florida-born husband welcomed daughter Grace into the world in March last year She posted a photo of the couple posing with numerous products from the brand, as well as another image of herself cleaning a kitchen benchtop. 'Anyone who is part of my life knows that I like to keep my home super clean,' she wrote in the caption. 'I only share things that I 100 per cent believe in and that's why I'm proud to share our home cleaning product. My go-to is @cleaneryonline for environmentally friendly cleaning.' The couple first met in 2013 when Chandler was touring Australia as part of a national wakeboarding competition It comes after Chandler and Bindi were criticised by some fans for promoting products on social media The zookeeper shared a 'paid partnership' post for low-waste cleaning brand Cleanery Bindi went on to state the benefits of the products, before concluding her post by encouraging her followers to use a discount code with her name. A handful of followers were unhappy with Bindi's paid post, with some saying it 'tarnishes' the authenticity of the Irwin brand. 'Please don't commercialise yourselves!' one fan commented. 'I don't like seeing you commercialising yourselves,' another wrote, while a third added: 'Don't go into advertising, it tarnishes your image.' A handful of followers were unhappy with Bindi's paid post, with some saying it 'tarnishes' the authenticity of the Irwin brand 'Please don't commercialise yourselves!' one fan commented However, other followers praised Bindi and Chandler for making ethical choices when it comes to the products they promote However, other followers praised Bindi and Chandler for making ethical choices when it comes to the products they promote. 'I love these photos promoting such a great cleaning product that is Occa approved!' one supporter wrote. 'Never thought I'd see an Irwin putting up a post with a promo code. But yeah if it's an eco-friendly product then I say [thumbs up],' added another. 'So glad that you use what you advocate, especially environmentally friendly products [that are] good for everyone,' a third said. Advertisement Showgirls veteran Elizabeth Berkley, 48, made a rare red carpet appearance with husband of 15 years, artist Greg Lauren, on Thursday for the Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 Fashion Experience event in San Marino, California. The blonde beauty - who came to fame on Saved By The Bell and went on to star in Showgirls and CSI: Miami - sizzled in a plunging white top that made the most of her curves as she added a black jacket and slacks. Black platform heels added seven inches to her height. Together the power couple have one child, 10-year-old son Sky Cole Lauren. Elegant: Showgirls veteran Elizabeth Berkley, 48, made a rare red carpet appearance with husband of 15 years, artist Greg Lauren, on Thursday for the Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 Fashion Experience event in San Marino, California Smart set: The blonde beauty - who came to fame on Saved By The Bell and went on to star in Showgirls and CSI: Miami - sizzled in a plunging white top that made the most of her curves as she added a black jacket and slacks Elizabeth rose to prominence on Saved By The Bell as high school girl Jessie Spano, a role tailored especially to her strengths. She and Tiffani Amber Thiessen had both auditioned for one of the other roles, and after Tiffani got that part, the character of Jessie was created for Elizabeth. The show ran from 1989 to 1993, after which Elizabeth secured the most infamous gig of her career - the 1995 movie Showgirls. Standing out: . Black platform heels added seven inches to her height. Together the power couple have one child, 10-year-old son Sky Cole Lauren Showgirls was directed by Paul Verhoeven from a script by Joe Eszterhas, after the two men collaborated on the hit erotic thriller Basic Instinct. The script at the time was the most expensive ever sold. Although the movie disappointed, hamstrung partly by its NC-17 rating, it wound up being a smash on home video. Showgirls rapidly became a cult favorite thanks in part to Elizabeth's dynamic performance as stripper Nomi Malone. Legendary: Saved by The Bell ran from 1989 to 1993, after which Elizabeth secured the 1995 movie Showgirls (pictured) Remember when: Elizabeth rose to prominence on Saved By The Bell as high school girl Jessie Spano and is pictured on the show in 1992 She took the blame for the film not doing well. 'Of course it was disappointing that it didn't do well, but there was so much cruelty around it. I was bullied,' she told People two years ago. 'And I didn't understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfill the vision of the director. And I did everything I was supposed to do.' She noted 'no one associated with the film spoke up on my behalf to protect me. I was left out in the cold and I was a pariah in the industry I had worked so hard for.' Meanwhile, Elizabeth's upcoming appearances include the HBO drama miniseries The Idol, which also features the late Anne Heche. Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose stars on The Idol, which according to Deadline is about a pop star who falls for a cult-leading nightclub owner. Viewers will see Lily-Rose, Anne and Elizabeth amid a cast that includes Canadian pop idol The Weeknd and YouTube star Troye Sivan. Two years ago Elizabeth returned to the Saved By The Bell franchise for the show's Peacock reboot, which was canceled this May after two seasons. Also at the star-studded event were Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was their fist time on the red carpet as a married couple after marrying in August. The 53-year-old actress and 50-year-old actor led the star parade at the star-studded on Thursday. Jennifer put on an eye-popping display in a black low-cut pin striped dress which showcased her bountiful cleavage. Jennifer teamed the look with a pair of black Christian Louboutin heels and a matching cowboy hat. Her silky honey toned tresses were swept over one shoulder and worn in voluminous curls. The ageless icon amped up her sultry stare by dusting a shimmery bronze shadow across her lids along with a pair of fluffy faux lashes. For his evening out with the On The Floor hitmaker, Affleck suited up in a charcoal gray wool jacket with tapered trousers and a fitted black dress shirt. Just the two of us: Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck held hands as they appeared at first event as married couple The Argo actor styled the classic look with a patterned necktie that nearly blended in with his button-up, as well as a pair of shiny leather dress shoes. 'Bennifer' hit the pre-runway show photo op with their hands interlocked as they radiated newlywed bliss. At one point, a smitten Jennifer was captured gazing up at her new husband with a warm smirk. Jennifer and Ben were later captured posing for snaps with Academy Award-winner Jessica Chastain and her husband Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo. in late August the A-listers married in a 'fun and casual' ceremony at the famed A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. The Gigli castmates 'intentionally' chose to elope in Las Vegas after having to call off their lavish 2003 Santa Barbara nuptials (with 400 guests) days before ceremony. 'Due to the excessive media attention surrounding our wedding, we have decided to postpone the date,' their reps said in a joint statement at the time. 'When we found ourselves seriously contemplating hiring three separate "decoy brides" at three different locations, we realized that something was awry.' It's the second time down the aisle for Ben, who has three children - daughter Violet, 16; daughter Seraphina, 13; and son Samuel, 10 - from his decade-long marriage to Jennifer Garner, which ended in 2018. Say cheese! Jennifer and Ben were later captured posing for snaps with Academy Award-winner Jessica Chastain and her husband Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo Jennifer has 14-year-old fraternal twins - daughter Emme Maribel Muniz and son Maximilian David Muniz - from her third marriage to Marc Anthony, which ended in 2011 after seven years. After hitting the red carpet, the duo headed inside the runway show where they were treated like VIPs. Ben and Jennifer were seated front row and appeared eager to get a first look at Ralph Lauren's Spring/Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection. They rubbed shoulders with Chastain and her husband, as well as a sharply dressed Diane Keaton. Love was clearly in the air on Thursday night as Sylvester Stallone arrived to the star-studded shindig with his wife Jennifer Flavin. The couple recently reconciled after Flavin, 54, shockingly filed for divorce from her husband of 25 years, 76, back in August. A judge officially dismissed the proceedings last week. Stylish: Sylvester Stallone and his wife Jennifer Flavin - who are back on - looked stylish in a tan suede blazer worn over a plain white tee and fitted off-white trousers. He strolled the red carpet in brown leather dress shoes Family affair: Flavin and Stallone were joined by two of their three daughters, Sistine, 24, and Sophia Rose, 26 They were joined by two of their three daughters, Sistine, 24, and Sophia Rose, 26. Stallone looked stylish in a tan suede blazer worn over a plain white tee and fitted off-white trousers. He strolled the red carpet in brown leather dress shoes. Flavin exuded elegance as she slipped her slender frame into a brown one-shoulder dress that flowed to the floor. The natural beauty was decked out in glitzy gold jewelry and she toted her essentials in a chic crocodile skin handbag. Flavin's golden flowed down onto her shoulders in wavy strands and her fringe was styled wispy. Sistine looked radiant in a slinky slip dress as she arrived with a bleached leather motorcycle jacket over her shoulders. Like her mother, the influencer also carried a small handbag that was just big enough to hold a cellphone and the makeup needed to touch up throughout the night. Sophia wowed in a similar get to her older sister's but she opted for a sheeny gold plaid blazer and a white slip that accentuated her ample bust. Red hot! Mindy Kaling looked red hot as she flaunted her fit physique in a red satin suit Mindy Kaling looked red hot as she flaunted her fit physique in a red satin suit. The jacket cinched with a fabric belt that accentuated her trim waistline. The Office star, 43, added some sparkle to her look by fastening a diamond choker around her neck. Kaling oozed confidence posing for solo red carpet shots before eagerly catching up with fellow actress and pal Laura Dern. The 55-year-old Jurassic Park alum cut a chic figure as she rocked a white blouse with a black pussy bow and high-waisted black trousers. She layered up the look with a black rhinestone cardigan. Brilliant: Jessica Chastain offered shutterbugs a radiant grin while modeling a red tartan jacket and a partially unbuttoned white blouse Bow-tiful! Lily Collins looked every bit the style maven as she cozied up to director husband Charlie McDowell, 39, in a plaid strapless top with a dramatic bow in the back Jessica Chastain offered shutterbugs a radiant grin while modeling a red tartan jacket and a partially unbuttoned white blouse. The Zero Dark Thirty star slipped her slim pins into a pair of fitted black trousers to complete the fashion-forward getup. Lily Collins looked every bit the style maven as she cozied up to director husband Charlie McDowell, 39, in a plaid strapless top with a dramatic bow in the back. The 33-year-old actress' eye-catching upper half was teamed with classic black pants and pointed-toe heels. Diane Keaton had her effortlessly cool aesthetic on full display as she posed up in a longline tuxedo jacket and ultra high waisted wide-legged trousers. The Annie Hall star pounded the pavement in treaded oxfords and let her silver tresses flow out from under a black bowler hat. Newly single Robin Wright oozed confidence as she attended the fashion show with her and Sean Penn's daughter Dylan Penn, 31. The Forest Gump actress, 56, reportedly filed for divorce from her husband Clement Giraudet, 37, last month after four years citing 'irreconcilable differences.' Moving on! Newly single Robin Wright oozed confidence as she attended the fashion show with her and Sean Penn's daughter Dylan Penn, 31. The Forest Gump actress, 56, reportedly filed for divorce from her husband Clement Giraudet, 37, last month after four years citing 'irreconcilable differences' Fashion designer Rachel Zoe turned heads in a plunging black satin blouse tucked into a sheeny accordion skirt. She brought along husband Rodger Berman, who looked dapper in a gray suit, as her plus one. Kathryn Newton dazzled in a red sequin polo dress and strappy black heels that showed off her scarlet pedicure. Maggie Rogers looked chic in a expertly tailored powersuit that consisted of a fitted black jacket and flared trousers. A suited up Cole Sprouse kept an arm wrapped around his stunning girlfriend Ari Fournier. Chasing Carmeron star Blake Gray's model girlfriend Amelie Zilber could hardly keep her hands off him as they posed up together on the red carpet. Dazzling: Kathryn Newton dazzled in a red sequin polo dress and strappy black heels that showed off her scarlet pedicure Tailored: Maggie Rogers looked chic in a expertly tailored powersuit that consisted of a fitted black jacket and flared trousers John Legend, Patrick Schwarzenegger, James Marsden and Chris Pine were among Hollywoods hunks who turned out for the designers first-ever West Coast runway show. Mayday actress Grace Van Patten sizzled in a Western-inspired aqua and black blouse as she posed beside boyfriend Jackson White. The starlet, 25, kept a classic black blazer hanging from her left shoulder and strutted her stuff in skintight slacks and square-toed leather boots. White happened to be rocking the same suede blazer as Hollywood heavyweight Sylvester Stallone, but the Tell Me Lies star also went with the matching pants. Euphoria star Angus Cloud rocked a brown leather Ralph Lauren racing jacket styled with charcoal gray wool pants and a brown plaid beret. He happens to be the new face of the iconic Polo by Ralph Lauren perfume. His campaign was unveiled in February of this year following the release of Euphoria's highly-anticipated second season on HBO. The runway attendees displayed a variety of glamour from tailored pantsuits to curve-clinging dresses as proved by the likes of Aimee Song, Leonie Hanne and Nicole Warne. Ralph Lauren's nephew David Lauren looked dapper while posing beside his fashion designer wife Lauren Bush. Thursday night's catwalk was Ralph's first-ever runway show on the West Coast, according to LA Magazine. In a statement provided to the outlet, the brand revealed that 'both menswear and womenswear' would be presented on Thursday, October 13, 'in a special fashion experience that will be uniquely Ralph Lauren.' All in the family: Ralph Lauren's nephew David Lauren looked dapper while posing beside his fashion designer wife Lauren Bush A first: Thursday night's catwalk was Ralph's first-ever runway show on the West Coast, according to LA Magazine Details: In a statement provided to the outlet, the brand revealed that 'both menswear and womenswear' would be presented on Thursday, October 13, 'in a special fashion experience that will be uniquely Ralph Lauren' Advertisement Netflix have released new images from the highly-anticipated series five of The Crown - which is set to take place in the 1990s. The pictures, which were posted on the show's official social media pages, showed a glamorous Elizabeth Debicki, playing Princess Diana, and Imelda Staunton, taking on the role of Queen Elizabeth II. The release comes just a month after Queen Elizabeth II's death, aged 96 - after the show was heavily criticised for resuming filming one day after her majesty passed away. It comes after the hit show was criticised once again for being insensitive towards a grieving King Charles as they are set to show his crumbling marriage to Diana in 'painful' detail. New: Netflix have released new images from the highly-anticipated series five of The Crown - Imelda Staunton pictured as Queen Elizabeth II after her death alongside Prince Philip, portrayed by Jonathan Pryce Special moment: The Queen dances with Prince Philip at the Ghillies Ball at Balmoral in 1991 One picture shows The Queen and Prince Philip, portrayed by Jonathan Pryce, wearing red tartan as they proudly stand next to one another - as they once did at a ball in 1971 held in Balmoral. Prince Charles, who is portrayed by Dominic West, and his girlfriend, the then Camilla Parker Bowles who is played by Olivia Williams, could be seen smiling outdoors as they appear to watch a fireworks display. In one imagine Princess Diana, known for her sensational sense of style, donned a sparkly blue plunging dress -recreating an iconic outfit she wore to a fundraising gala in Hyde Park in 1995. Another snap shows Princess Diana, Prince Charles (Dominic West), Prince William and Harry on a family boat trip - recreating the couple's second honeymoon in Naples in 1991. Alongside the images, Netflix announced: 'Welcome to the '90s. A first look at Season Five of the The Crown, arriving 9th November.' Playing the part: The pictures, which were posted on the show's official social media pages, showed a glamorous Elizabeth Debicki, playing Princess Diana - who tragically passed away in August 1997 Playing the part: Elizabeth Debicki plays Princess Diana (left), while the late Princess Diana is seen at the serpentine gallery fundraising gala in Hyde Park in 1995 (right) Trip: Another snap shows Princess Diana, Prince Charles (Dominic West), Prince William (Timothee Samborand) Harry (Teddy Hawley) on a family boat trip Trip: The Sunshine Royals: Prince Charles And Princess Diana on their second Honeymoon in Naples in 1991 (right) Filming: Actress Elizabeth Debicki was seen on the set of The Crown as filming resumed following a brief pause for Elizabeth II's funeral last month. Also on set was new actor Rufus Kampa playing a 15-year old prince William At work: Actress Imelda Staunton, who plays Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, was seen on the set in December last year The breakdown of Charles and Diana's relationship will be a central part of the new series and portrays the then Prince of Wales as 'petty, cold and deceitful'. The fourth series, which streamed in November last year, told the story of the early romance between Charles and Diana. It was announced last year that Elizabeth Debicki would take over from Emma Corrin and play Diana for the fifth and sixth series, which will cover Diana's death in 1997. The Princess and Dodi were in a car crash while driving through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France in August 1997 - dying later from sustained injuries during the accident. Highly-anticipated: Series five will take place in the 1990s and, like each previous season, will consist of 10 episodes - Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne Who's who? The actress playing Princess Anne in The Crown's fifth season has been revealed as The IT Crowd and Humans star Claudia Harrison A source told The Sun: 'This couldn't have come at a more delicate time for the new King and his Queen Consort, particularly as they're riding high in the minds of the public. 'There's a sense that Netflix are muckraking over events that took place 30 to 40 years ago, but are still raw for those involved. 'The worst element for the royals is that millions of people around the world will view this series and view it less as a drama and more as a documentary. 'And attention on the Windsors couldn't be higher as it's been just a few weeks since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and is in the run-up to the King's coronation.' Netflix: Fans eagerly anticipating the return of The Crown were given a teaser of the fifth series as a new trailer was dropped (Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret) Netflix: The new trailer has given fans a teaser of the new series with Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret (left), with Princess Margaret at an official royal engagement in 1966 (right) It's thought the Netflix show is currently shooting scenes portraying the month before the tragic accident, when Diana's sons famously joined their mother and her beau for a holiday. The sixth season of the show is its final, with the last two series covering the Royal Family in the 1990s to 2003, which includes Diana's death. The Crown resumed production on its sixth and final series last month in Barcelona after filming was paused for a single day following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Coming soon: It was recently revealed that the next instalment will premiere on Netflix on Wednesday, November 9 (Olivia Williams as Camilla and Dominic West as Charles) Then and now: Camilla and Charles in front of the cathedral during a visit at the Rock of Cashel in 2022 (right) Throwback: Jonny Lee Miller cut a dapper figure in a black suit as he took on the role of the former Prime Minister John Major Throwback: Jonny Lee Miller plays former Prime Minister John Major (left) while the real Prime Minister John is pictured in Downing Street in 1993 (right) The Crown: The fourth series, which streamed in November last year, told the story of the early romance between Charles and Diana (Pictured: King Charles III attends the state funeral of the Queen) Diana star Elizabeth was seen filming one of the late royals' final public appearances, when she visited the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, just four days after work on the series was paused following the monarch's passing. No doubt The Crown is adhering to a strict filming schedule to ensure its sixth and final series is released by Netflix on time, having been pushed back by its day-long pause in the wake of The Queen's passing. It was revealed that filming for The Crown been suspended for one day as a 'mark of respect to the late monarch', who passed away aged 96 on September 8 at Balmoral Castle. Netflix had reportedly devised a plan, also named Operation London Bridge like the official funeral plan for the Queen, to outline what the production company for The Crown would do in the event of her passing. Younger days: Rufus was cast to play the Prince (right in 1997) at a different stage in his life, depicting his teenage years showing how he and the royal family coped with the death of Princess Diana Prince William's fury as Netflix is accused of profiteering by re-enacting his mother Diana's BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir in new series of The Crown Prince William thinks Netflix is profiteering by re-enacting his mother Diana's BBC Panorama interview, palace sources have said. The streaming giant will recreate excerpts of Diana's 1995 encounter with journalist Martin Bashir for the fifth series of The Crown. A source told The Telegraph that the Prince of Wales made his feelings 'very clear' and a depiction in the show would be 'met in the way you would expect'. Not happy: Prince William thinks Netflix is profiteering by re-enacting his mother Diana's BBC Panorama interview, palace sources have said They added it was understandable that he was angered about the 'dramatisation of it for financial gain'. An independent inquiry found that Bashir deceived Diana to get the interview, seen by more than 20 million viewers, and then lied to BBC managers. He got a BBC graphic artist to produce fake bank statements that appeared to show payments by a newspaper group to an ex-member of staff of Earl Spencer, Diana's brother. The inquiry said this was to gain the Earl's confidence so he would introduce Bashir to Diana - portrayed by Elizabeth Debicki in the Netflix series. Contoversial: The streaming giant will recreate excerpts of Diana's 1995 encounter with journalist Martin Bashir for the fifth series of The Crown It is thought the interview contributed to her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996 - a year prior to her fatal car crash in the Tunnel de l'Alma in Paris. It is understood that Netflix, which has cast Prasanna Puwanarajah in the role of Bashir, will show how the discredited reporter persuaded Diana to give the interview by playing on her paranoia. Concerns: They added it was understandable that he was angered about the 'dramatisation of it for financial gain' (pictured Elizabeth Debicki as Diana) But to tell the story, it will recreate what an insider called 'snippets' from Diana's Panorama appearance. Prince William has previously been an outspoken critic of the interview being aired by broadcasters. In May last year, he said: 'It is my firm view that this programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again. 'It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialised by the BBC and others.' A spokesman for The Crown insisted the interview was of 'historical significance'. Advertisement One of the show's creators Stephen Daldry said when the show first premiered in 2016 the cast would likely stop production, saying: 'It would be a simple tribute and a mark of respect. She's a global figure and it's what we should do.' Peter Morgan, writer of the drama, was quoted after news of the Queen's death was confirmed as saying: 'The Crown is a love letter to her and I've nothing to add for now, just silence and respect. I expect we will stop filming out of respect too.' Lady Victoria Hervey has slammed plans to air the new series of Netflix's royal drama 'The Crown' just two months after the death of Queen Elizabeth. The 46-year-old socialite - who is the daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol and previously dated Prince Andrew - has branded streaming site bosses "disrespectful" for forging ahead with the schedule to release the fifth season of the show just eight weeks after the monarch passed away aged 96 on September 8. Speaking during an appearance on 'Good Morning Britain' on Friday (14.10.22), Lady Victoria said: "I think it is too soon, and yes, it is disrespectful." Much of the show will focus on the breakdown of King Charles' marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales and his relationship with Queen Consort Camilla and Lady Victoria insisted the timing is just not right especially with the new monarch's coronation being planned for the spring. She went on: "It's only been a month since the Queen's death and the coronation is coming up and Camilla - everyone is really accepting her in her role right now and it's going to try and paint her in a negative light." The socialite also warned of the dangers of the fictional show being accepted as fact, adding: "Netflix say that it's fiction right? That's their whole argument. A lot of people watching it see it as a documentary. ... Maybe we know it's fiction, but possibly foreigners like in America, they treat it like their bible." Child star: Will Powell takes on the role of Prince Harry in the Netflix series as his first major acting role Child star: Will plays Prince Harry in the Netflix show (left), while the real Prince Harry is seen in 1997 (right) When asked whether any members of the royal family actually watch 'The Crown', Lady Victoria replied: "I know some of them dip in and out." As well as showing events leading up to King Charles' divorce from Diana, series five is also said to cover the breakdown of Prince Andrew's marriage to Sarah, Duchess of York and Anne, Princess Royal's split from Mark Phillips. Fans eagerly anticipating the return of The Crown were given a teaser of the fifth series as a new trailer was dropped. The short 37-second clip portrayed when the news of the dramatic breakdown of Diana and Charles' marriage was revealed to the public and the ensuing family drama that all took place under the brightest of spotlights. It was also revealed that the next instalment will premiere on Netflix on Wednesday, November 9 - where fans will see Imelda Staunton take on the role of Queen Elizabeth II for the first time. Iconic role: Khalid Abdalla will take on the role of Princess Diana's tragic boyfriend Dodi Fayed in series 5 of The Crown The video starts with an eerie voiceover saying: 'Buckingham Palace is issuing this statement: It is with regret that the Prince and Princess of Wales are separating'. A news bulletin is then heard in the background stating: 'There's uproar in Britain after Prince Charles bared his soul to the nation but the Princess of Wales upstaged her husband speaking about her marriage, her life and her future.' A cacophony of reports are then heard being mixed up in the background that culminate with the phrase: 'This is becoming all-out war' as the screen shows the pair getting ready to do news interviews. Diana looks smart in a green jacket and skirt while Charles wore a dark suit as he sat on the chair and fiddled nervously with his hands. The final black screen then flashes up with: 'The Crown: November 9.' Sophie Habboo has hit back at fans who have been messaging her and asking if she's 'pregnant'. The Made in Chelsea star, who is engaged to Jamie Laing, told fans she's just 'bloated' after making a red carpet appearance at the National Television Awards in London on Thursday. At the coveted event, Sophie, 28, stunned in a flowing teal blue dress. 'I can't cope with the amount of messages I've been getting!' Sophie Habboo told fans on Friday that she's 'bloated not pregnant' after hitting the red carpet at the NTAs (pictured) She shared an Instagram story on Friday, saying she's had countess messages from fans asking if she's pregnant. She shared one message from a fan that asked the question and wrote: 'I can't cope with the amount of messages like this I've received today. Lol.' She added: 'No just bloat,' alongside a smile face emoji. 'No, just bloat': She shared an Instagram story on Friday, saying she's had countess messages from fans asking if she's pregnant She had shared a picture of herself in her strapless blue frock, captioning it: 'Last night.' Sophie is engaged to former Made in Chelsea star Jamie Laing, 33. Last month, Sophie branded her husband-to-be Jamie a 'groomzilla' after it was revealed that he wants to walk up the aisle on their big day. The pair appeared on This Morning and said wedding planning is an 'utter nightmare'. Engaged: Sophie is engaged to former Made in Chelsea star Jamie Laing, 33 Jamie told viewers: 'Wedding planning is the worse thing ever. When you get engaged people say its so exciting but we're filled with anxiety. 'Were doing wedding scents, where you create a scent so you can give it to guests when they leave and they can smell your wedding for the rest of their lives.' Detailing her fiance's wedding demands, Sophie said: 'Jamie wants me to wait for him [at the end of the aisle] to he can walk down with everyone watching. She added: 'He's a groomzilla. The guest list keeps me up at night, we haven't sent our save the dates yet and its in seven months.' Jamie said: 'The whole thing is a complete and utter nightmare.' They also revealed they are planning to have a joint stag and hen do, known as a 'sten', rather than celebrating separately. Sophie previously let slip their wedding date on Good Morning Britain, saying they plan to tie the knot on May 19. Jenna Dewan was spotted running errands in Los Angeles on Thursday. The 41-year-old actress and dancer fully embraced the spirit of fall with a beige cardigan, white crop top, loose-fitting black pants and brown sandals. Jenna elevated her casual look with a black Chanel purse and understated jewelry, but soon the star might be wearing something more outrageous as she readies herself for Halloween. Falling for Halloween: Jenna Dewan, 41, was spotted running errands in Los Angeles on Thursday as she gears up for Halloween Comfortable and chic: The actress and dancer fully embraced the spirit of fall with a beige cardigan, white crop top, loose-fitting black pants and brown sandals. Jenna elevated her casual look with a black Chanel purse and understated jewelry 'Tis the spoOoOky season!' she captured an Instagram post on Thursday. The Step Up star is clearly excited for Halloween as she posted a series of her favorite past looks, which included Cleopatra and a unicorn. 'Some of my favorites,' wrote the star of American Horror Story: Asylum. 'Any guesses on what it'll be this year?' Guesses and suggestions poured into Dewan's comments section, with her 8.3 million followers taking stabs at what she might choose. 'Maleficent this year?' asked one fan, while another guessed a zebra. What will she be? The Step Up star posted a series of her favorite looks from past Halloweens. 'Tis the spoOoOky season!' she captured the images. 'Some of my favorites. Any guesses on what it'll be this year?' Jenna's close friend, Entourage star Emmanuelle Chriqui, 46, loved her Instagram trip down memory lane. 'These are SO great!!!!!!' she commented. Celebrity hairstylist and beauty mogul Jen Atkin, 42, wrote, 'Omg that unicorn night was so fun.' Both Jen and Emmanuelle were with Dewan on the night she strapped a horn to her forehead, dyed her hair lavender and covered herself in fairy dust for Halloween in 2016. Halloween fairy: Guesses and suggestions poured into Dewan's comments section of her Instagram post, with her 8.3 million followers coming up with everything from Maleficent to a zebra. Jenna stunned in 2018 as a fairy Giving it her all every year: The star of American Horror Story: Asylum dressed up as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2017 Cleopatra resurrected: 2018 also saw The Witches of East End alum dress up as Cleopatra Unicorns are real: Dewan strapped a horn to her forehead, dyed her hair lavender and covered herself in fairy dust for Halloween in 2016 Other favorite costumes of the Superman & Lois star were Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, a pink bear onesie, a fairy, the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland and a pregnant skeleton. The holiday is evidently very important to the former backup dancer and her family. The actress has frequently dressed up in matching costumes with her nine-year-old daughter Everly, who she shares with ex-husband Channing Tatum, 42. Halloween has been a way for Dewan and Tatum to reunite for their daughter. The former power couple went trick-or-treating together with Everly in October 2018 right after filing for divorce earlier that month. Famous friends: Jenna partied with Nina Dobrev in a horse costume, 33, and Emmanuelle Chriqui in a Joe Dirt shirt, 46, back in 2016 More famous faces: The former backup dancer was also accompanied in 2016 by Kendall Jenner (36, right) and Celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin (42, left) Adorably spooky: Dewan flaunted her baby bump in 2019 by wearing an adorable skeleton costume The Witches of East End alum's romance with Steve Kazee also took off during Halloween. Dewan and the Tony-winning Broadway star were first seen together at a Casamigos Halloween party before attending the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride with a group of friends. This month will end on high note as Kazee's 47th birthday is on October 30. The couple became engaged in 2020 and share a two-year-old son named Callum. ' A lifetime to love and grow with you,' she captioned an Instagram post announcing their engagement. 'You have my heart.' In addition to love, a shared passion for Halloween is undoubtedly a must for Dewan and her future husband. Petite and in pink: Jenna palled around in a pink bear onesie with a towering Behati Prinsloo, 33, dressed as Rainbow Brite in 2016 Belle of the ball: The star and her nine-year-old daughter Everly who she shares with ex-husband Channing Tatum, 42 both dressed up as Belle from Beauty and the Beast in 2016 Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford were no where to be seen at the National Television Awards - because of his recent vital back surgery and her QVC schedule clash. The married presenting duo, who used to host NTA winning show This Morning on a regular schedule, are normally firm attendees of the biggest night in TV. But his recent health woes and her work with teleshopping channel QVC meant that the pair were not sat with their industry colleagues as they usually do on a star-studded night in London. No show: Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford were no where to be seen at the NTA's - because of his recent vital back surgery and her QVC schedule clash (pictured at the NTA's last year) Northern Irish presenter Eamonn, 62, recently told his new channel GB News that he was operated on around two weeks ago, talking on 5 October: 'Its early days, itll probably be about three weeks before they know if its been a success or not.' Ruth on the other hand shared her busy schedule to her Instagram stories, with one showing her travelling to and presenting at her fashion segment on the QVC teleshopping channel. Eamonn was forced to take a step away from his show to prepare for the vital back surgery on 28 September. The television personality said that he was 'praying' ahead of the operation which will relieve pressure on his static nerves. Health woes: But Eamonn's (pictured earlier this month) health woes and her work with QVC meant that the pair were not sat with their colleagues as they usually do at the NTA's The broadcaster has suffered from long-term difficulties, previously telling of his battle with chronic back pain after a dislocated pelvis led to three slipped discs. He told the Express: 'It's an operation that carries a 20 per cent risk of going wrong, but such is the pain and restrictions that I have been suffering for the past 18 months, I've decided it is a risk I am willing to take. 'In fact, it's a risk I want to take because, at this moment in time, nothing could seem worse than the constant pain that runs through my lower back and legs.' He said that he 'prays that God will guide [his] surgeon's hand this week' to help him get back to the 'man he used to be.' Busy woman: Ruth on the other hand shared her busy schedule to her Instagram stories, with one showing her travelling to and presenting at her fashion segment on the QVC channel He went on to reveal to the publication that the agony can be so intense that sleep is sometimes his own 'escape'. He added that someone can be surrounded by family and friends but that severe pain can feel like your companion. Before saying that he hopes his recovery can offer hopes to those who can no longer deal with their depression at anger with chronic pain. By missing the NTA's last night, the married couple missed out on seeing their former regular presenting gig This Morning bag a gong for the best daytime show. Holly Willoughby snuck out of the National Television Awards before the ceremony had ended on Thursday, leaving Phillip Schofield to face the music as he was awkwardly asked about their 'queuegate' controversy. Poorly: Eamonn Holmes has revealed he felt 'humiliated' as his co-star Isabel Webster was forced to help him through the crowds while reporting on the Queen's funeral outside Buckingham Palace last month The TV presenters were booed at the event when This Morning won the Best Daytime award, following allegations they had skipped the queue to see the Queen lying in state last month. Holly departed the awards show - held at London's Ovo Arena Wembley - just before 10pm, more than half an hour before the ceremony finished. The GB News presenter previously made his feelings about their 'queue jumping' known. He 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. '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, who presents his new show with Isabel Webster on GB News, temporarily stepped down from his role as the co-presenter in June while after receiving hospital treatment due to his painful condition. Last week, he revealed that he felt 'humiliated' as his co-star Isabel Webster was forced to help him through the crowds while reporting on the Queen's funeral outside Buckingham Palace last month. The broadcaster, 62, is currently recovering from back surgery after suffering long-term difficulties, previously telling of his battle with chronic back pain after a dislocated pelvis led to three slipped discs. And joining the show on Wednesday via video from him home following his operation last week, Eamonn reflected on how he felt with Isabel, 39, having to assist him as he stumbled and struggled on his crutch during the presenting stint, telling her: 'It was an issue for me'. Scandal: Tearful Holly Willoughby was booed at the National Television Awards on Thursday before sneaking out of show early after backlash over 'queue-gate' - while flustered Phillip Schofield stumbled as he was quizzed over the scandal As they chatted through their coverage of the Queen's death and subsequent funeral in September, Isabel reflected that they were 'up against the crowds', explaining: 'There was a pack of around eight people wide, walking, all trying to see the royal procession and we were going against the crowd arm in arm, and it was a long walk.' Praising his pal for helping him, Eamonn then said: 'You're one of my dearest friends in life Isabel, and you go above and beyond the call of duty. 'I mean, there is such a beautiful heart with you. But I mean it was humiliating for me. You took me through that crowd. And I stumbled a few times, and my leg gave way a few times. 'And after that I was a bit humiliated really. You didn't make any issue of it, but it was an issue for me.' The broadcaster has suffered from long-term difficulties, previously telling of his battle with chronic back pain after a dislocated pelvis led to three slipped discs. Former This Morning host Eamonn left GB News viewers wondering where he was when he wasn't on-screen, with the journalist taking to Twitter to clear things up, writing: 'Many of you have been asking why I haven't been presenting GB News. 'Unfortunately, due to a reoccurrence of a long-term back condition, I've had to undergo some unexpected hospital treatment and am now following Doctor's orders by taking a short time off. Harrison Ford is reportedly joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The 80-year-old star - who has appeared in some of the biggest film franchises of all time including Star Wars and Indiana Jones - will be filling some very big shoes it seems. It has been claimed that Harrison will replace William Hurt - who died in March, aged 71 - as General Thaddeus E 'Thunderbolt' Ross in the Marvel movies, according to Hot Mic with John Rocha and Jeff Sneider. Big time: Harrison Ford is reportedly joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The 80-year-old star - who has appeared in some of the biggest film franchises of all time - has been tipped to become the latest big-name actor to join the MCU. Seen in 2020 Slash Film soon after made the same claim. The Thunderbolt character has already appeared in The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow. Now there will be a stand alone Thunderbolts movie with Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan. The synopsis: A group of supervillains are recruited to go on missions for the government. It is reportedly set to be released on July 26, 2024, according to a fan page. Stepping in: Harrison is set to replace William Hurt - who died in March, aged 71 - as General Thaddeus E 'Thunderbolt' Ross in the Marvel movies, according to Hot Mic with John Rocha and Jeff Sneider. Hurt seen in 2016 And according to reporter Sneider, Ford has now signed a deal with Marvel that will see him star in the upcoming Captain America: New World Order. Despite this, Harrison previously claimed that Marvel had 'killed' the success of its superhero films by releasing too many of them. The acting legend made the claim during a discussion about the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, which is slated for release in 2023. Captain America cast: Actors Chris Evans (Front L) and Robert Downey Jr. (Front R) with cast and crew attend The World Premiere of Marvel's Captain America: Civil War at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles in 2016 Harrison - who first starred as the adventurer in Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 - said: 'I don't really want to give them what they wanna see, I want to give them something they didn't anticipate seeing. 'The Marvel movies are a spectacular example of a success that worked the other way round - they killed it.' Harrison suggested that he wouldn't allow the franchise to follow the same path as the Marvel movies. More Indy: The acting legend will star in an upcoming Indiana Jones movie, which is slated for release in 2023. Seen in 2008 He is a part of this franchise as well: Ford, far left, with John Boyega, Peter Mayhew in 2015's Star Wars - Episode VI - The Force Awakens Speaking about their plans, Harrison said: 'We're not going to make another Indiana Jones unless we're in a position to kill it. We want it to be the best.' The actor also insisted he wouldn't commit to another Indiana Jones movie unless he was totally convinced by the project. He explained: 'We're determined to get it right before we get it made.' Actor Russell Crowe has been declared an ambassador of the Italian city, Rome, receiving a special plaque from the mayor during a ceremony on Friday. The Gladiator star, 58, who has been filming The Pope's Exorcist in the city in recent weeks, looked dapper in a navy blazer and trousers as he received the honour at the local city hall. Russell is also a guest of the Rome Film Festival and will reportedly soon take place in a masterclass, where he will talk about his incredible Hollywood career with a film school and members of the public. Honoured: Russell Crowe looked dapper in a suit as he was named an ambassador of Rome and honoured in an Italian ceremony in the city on Friday. Pictured with mayor Roberto Gualtieri His new film, Poker Face, will premiere at the festival on Saturday. For his meeting with mayor Roberto Gualtieri, 56, on Friday, Russell looked sharp in a navy blazer with a black shirt and black trousers. He was later seen beaming as he waved to crowds outside the hall, appearing in great spirits at the ceremony. Proud: Russell, affectionately called Rusty by fans, posed with his silver plaque from the city Dapper: The Gladiator star, 58, who has been filming The Pope's Exorcist in the city in recent weeks, looked dapper in a navy blazer and trousers as he received the honour at the local city hall What a moment! Russell looked thrilled as he received the honour He looked every inch the Hollywood star wearing a pair of dark aviator shades. Russell directed and stars in Poker Face, alongside the likes of Elsa Pataky and Liam Hemsworth. The thriller, according to IMDB, focuses on Russell's character Jake who hosts a poker game at his Miami mansion that soon turns sour. High spirits: He was later seen beaming as he waved to crowds outside the hall, appearing in great spirits at the ceremony Film icon! He looked every inch the Hollywood star wearing a pair of dark aviator shades Selfie time: The Hollywood star was mobbed by fans at the event City guest: Russell is also a guest of the Rome Film Festival and will reportedly soon take place in a masterclass Affiliation: He also has a long-standing affiliation with Rome, after appearing in Ridley Scott's Gladiator in 2000, based on the ancient Roman empire 'Those friends have a love hate relationship with the host, a master game-player/planner, and he has concocted an elaborate scheme designed to bring a certain justice to all of them,' IMDB reports. 'However, Jake finds himself re-thinking his strategy when his Miami mansion is overtaken by a dangerous home invader whose previous jobs have all ended in murder and arson.' He also has a long-standing affiliation with Rome, after appearing in Ridley Scott's Gladiator in 2000, based on the ancient Roman empire. New film: His new film, Poker Face, will premiere at the festival on Saturday Thriller: The thriller, according to IMDB, focuses on Russell's character Jake who hosts a poker game at his Miami mansion that soon turns sour Private meeting: Russell had a meeting with the mayor before the ceremony Star life: Russell was greeted with crowds waiting for him at the event Russell has also been filming The Pope's Exorcist in Rome in recent weeks, with NRL star Sam Burgess by his side. The star plays Father Gabriele Amorth in the film, who is said to have cast out devils by performing more than 100,000 exorcisms. Russell has also been seen around Rome with his US girlfriend Britney Theriot, 31. The father-of-two, who divorced wife Danielle in 2018, has been dating former actress Britney since 2020. They are said to have met while making movie Broken City in 2013. In town: Russell has also been filming The Pope's Exorcist in Rome in recent weeks, with NRL star Sam Burgess by his side Elizabeth Banks has said she feels a 'much deeper responsibility' to release her new film Call Jane in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned. The actress and director, 48, stars in the 1960s drama about a housewife who learns her pregnancy poses a threat to her own life and joins the Jane Collective to fight for abortion rights. While the film was made before June when the US supreme court overturned the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, which established a constitutional right to abortion, Elizabeth said it had only grown in relevance. Important: Elizabeth Banks, 48, has said she feels a 'much deeper responsibility' to release her new film Call Jane in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, the star described the feature as 'a coming of age movie of a 40-year old woman'. She added: 'The film was written and made before Roe v Wade was reversed but now we feel a much deeper responsibility to put this story out.' Asked about how she speaks to her own children about sex, she replied: 'I am not embarrassed at all and I am very open with them. Playing the part: She in the 1960s drama about a housewife who learns her pregnancy poses a threat to her own life and joins the Jane Collective to fight for abortion rights (seen in the film) 'I learnt from my own mother that those conversations should happen as early and as often as possible. 'The only way to lower the abortion rate is by great sex education to empower women to understand about what's going on with their bodies and how to protect themselves and to learn that sex can be fun.' Call Jane is set during the summer of 1968 when protesters rocked the Democratic National Convention. Speaking out: Actress and director Elizabeth appeared on The Graham Norton Show to discuss the movie (seen alongside editor-in-chief of British Vogue Edward Enninful) According to Deadline.com, Banks' character Joy Griffin is a housewife and mother who experiences a life-threatening pregnancy that no doctor will allow her to terminate. After finding herself out of options, she discovers a network of women who facilitate safe abortions for women in need wit no questions asked. The supporting cast includes Kate Mara, Chris Messina, Aida Turturro and Wunmi Mosaku. It is set for release in the US on Friday 28 October and in the UK on Friday 4 November. Chatterbox: Hollywood actress Kate Hudson also appeared on the programme to discuss appearing in the new Knives Out film, Glass Onion Hollywood actress Kate Hudson also appeared on the programme to discuss appearing in the new Knives Out film, Glass Onion. Staying tight-lipped about the plot of the whodunnit, the 43-year-old said: 'I really can't tell you much about it because it's a mystery, but it was so much fun to do and my character Birdy was fabulous to play. 'The cast is wonderful and Daniel (Craig) was great fun to watch. 'We weren't allowed to see the movie except with an audience, which I've never done before and it caused lots of sweating and a headache, but when I did see it with so many people it was just raucous and a great party. It was cool.' The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One on Friday 14 October at 10.40pm. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais almost didn't appear on the reunion episodes after filming for the drama-filled season took a toll on her mentally and physically. Speaking at BravoCon on Friday, the 55-year-old said she was an emotional 'wreck' and was even too scared to be in her own home after she and her 14-year-old son Jax were heavily trolled on social media. 'It affected me so much more than I can tell you. Weeks before the reunion I was a wreck. I felt like I wasn't in my body, I felt shaky, I was crying every day and feeling fearful at my home. It was really hard. I got to a place that I made it to the reunion and I felt like I could hold my own,' she told said. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais says she almost didn't appear on the reunion episodes after filming for the drama-filled season took a toll on her mentally and physically Garcelle also had a strong message for social media trolls and appeared to take a thinly veiled swipe at her castmate Diana Jenkins after saying she believed the 49-year-old blonde was behind bots that targeted Jax during this week's reunion episode. 'I think social media now has been weaponised and that is not OK. It has been weaponised to go after each other and it has been weaponised to go after our children and that's got to stop,' she said. While the Haitian beauty said doing this year's show was extremely hard, she wouldn't rule out returning next season if she is asked back. Garcelle said she believed Diana was behind the bots that targeted Jax on Wednesday during the first part of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills reunion. 'Yeah, I did if I am going to be honest I did think she was behind it, absolutely,' she said on the show. 'You think I would send that to Jax?' responded Diana, who was joining the reunion virtually from her house. Garcelle said she believed Diana was behind the bots that targeted Jax on Wednesday during the first part of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills reunion 'I did,' Garcelle said. 'You obviously have a very low opinion of me if you think that I would be behind bullying a 14-year-old,' Diana said. 'Yeah,' Garcelle said. . Garcelle said Jax received a text that read 'you'd have your neck kneeled on if it weren't for your white daddy. Tell your mom to leave Diana alone or you'll deal with us' when he was over at his father's house. Low opinion: 'You obviously have a very low opinion of me if you think that I would be behind bullying a 14-year-old,' Diana said in response Too far: Garcelle said Jax received a text that read 'you'd have your neck kneeled on if it weren't for your white daddy. Tell your mom to leave Diana alone or you'll deal with us' when he was over at his father's house Twin sons: Garcelle is shown in June with her twin sons Jaid, left, and Jax, right, in Santa Monica, California 'He wrote on the text ''you've gone too far'' and posted that,' Garcelle said. 'He's a 14-year-old kid. He gets this horrendous message. He's not thinking let me take out Diana's name so she's not implicated. He put it out there because he was fearful. He had enough.' Garcelle said Diana sent her a threatening text asking her to remove her name from the post. 'I've asked her to take, pencil the name, when we were getting death threats,' Diana said Death threats: 'I've asked her to take, pencil the name, when we were getting death threats,' Diana said while appearing remotely due to sickness Kyle Richards, 53, tried to intervene and explained that she thought that Diana wanted her to delete the post and repost it with her name penciled out. 'Are you f***ing kidding me,' Garcelle said. 'You want me in the middle of me trying to protect my child, I have to come and save all you?' 'We got death threats,' Diana said. 'In my country when they issue threats, those are actual threats.' Chimed in: Kyle Richards, 53, tried to intervene and explained that she thought that Diana wanted her to delete the post and repost it with her name penciled out 'Well your threat was an actual threat to me as well,' Garcelle said. 'It was pretty much if anything happens to my family, I'm coming for you.' The actual text from Diana read 'believe me what I say if anything happens to my children you will be held legally responsible and no Bravo contract will stop me.' 'A threat is a threat,' Garcelle said. Felt threatened: 'Well your threat was an actual threat to me as well,' Garcelle said. 'It was pretty much if anything happens to my family, I'm coming for you' 'No, Garcelle, a threat is not a threat,' Diana said. 'I have a murder in my family. My family has been murdered. Murder is murder and when somebody tells you they are going to stab your son or daughter with a knife that's a threat. And it's not a cease and desist. It's very different when a lawyer calls you and when someone takes a gun and points it at you. So I'm sorry there are different types of threats.' Before she singled out Diana specifically, Garcelle told show host Andy Cohen, 54, she thought someone in the group was behind the attacks targeting her teenage son. 'I don't know for a fact that they would have said that, I think for me maybe purchasing the bots,' Garcelle said. 'It felt to me there was a pattern of attacking my children. For me, it felt like I wasn't wanted on this show so this was a way to get me out.' Brand new The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is streaming on Hayu in Australia, the UK and Canada, plus relive every episode ever - only on Hayu Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the Canadian Embassy in central Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk By Kwon Mee-yoo Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly emphasized that Canada is a Pacific country and part of the Indo-Pacific community during her trip to Korea and Japan, as Canada shifts its attention to the Indo-Pacific region and develops its Indo-Pacific strategy. "For a long time, we've defined ourselves through the transatlantic relationship, which we value, and we'll continue to have strong ties to Europe. But we're also an Arctic and a Pacific country. So in that sense, we are finalizing the Indo-Pacific strategy right now," Joly said at an interview with The Korea Times at the Canadian Embassy in Seoul, Thursday evening. She emphasized that Canada wants to be a reliable partner as a member of the Indo-Pacific region. "Our goal is really to play a bigger role in the Indo-Pacific, because we know that the future of the world is linked to what will happen in this very important region of the world," Joly said. During her trip to Northeast Asia, Joly first visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Oct. 9 and headed to Busan on Oct. 10 to meet Canadian Armed Forces members aboard His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Vancouver, a Canadian frigate deployed on Operation NEON, monitoring the U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea. Then she flew to Japan to meet her Japanese counterpart, before returning to Korea to hold a meeting with Korea's foreign and unification ministers as well as Ban Ki-moon, president and chair of the Global Green Growth Institute, Friday. The country-hopping schedule came out of her intention to encourage Canadian sailors on the occasion of Canadian Thanksgiving, which fell on Oct. 10 this year. "We wanted to spend Thanksgiving with the troops, who are far from home and have left Canada since June. They just came out of the Taiwan Strait and their work is to enforce the U.N. Security Council sanctions against the DPRK... So it's really a question of Thanksgiving in Canada," she explained. Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the Canadian Embassy in central Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk She said the visit to the DMZ reminded her of the importance of security in the Indo-Pacific region and Canada's commitment to it. "I would say it was historic for me, in the sense that I've read it in the papers, I've heard about it in the news (and) I've followed the history of the conflict," she said. "Now it was important for us to state that we believe in multilateralism and we believe in the U.N.'s work. In a world of growing tensions, we need more multilateralism and we need to play a bigger role in the region." Joly noted that Canada is a "diplomatic powerhouse" and wants to use this power to defend the rules-based international order. "It doesn't matter whether you're a big country or a small country. You need to abide by the same rules. In that context that we decided to go to the DMZ to send a strong message about this vision." Canada strongly condemned North Korea's launch of ballistic missiles, which Foreign Minister Joly said Canada did "because it is the right thing to do." "We have a very precise, principled foreign policy and we believe that rules must be abided by the countries. So for us, it is important that we participate in the enforcement of the rules. That is our approach when it comes to the U.N. Security Council sanctions and having frigates and military assets here to enforce them," she said. "That's our vision about supporting at the U.N. in New York anything South Korea's doing to seize the Security Council on this issue. That's the only way forward." Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, left, shakes hands with Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, during their meeting at the Government Complex Seoul in Gwanghwamun, Friday. Joint Press Corps Advertisement Carey Mulligan was the picture of glamour on Friday as she led the arrivals at the premiere of her new film She Said, held at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre. The actress, 37, looked sensational in a strapless black gown which had a striking bright pink panel as she greeted the crowd at the event amid the BFI London Film Festival. Carey oozed confidence in the plunging dress by Giorgio Armani, as she larked around for the cameras before posing up a storm. The film follows the female New York Times reporters (played by Mulligan and co-star Zoe Kazan) who took on Hollywood producer and convicted sex abuser Harvey Weinstein, which led to the #MeToo movement in 2018. Gorgeous: Carey Mulligan was the picture of glamour on Friday as she led the arrivals at the premiere of her new film She Said, held at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre The film star allowed her gorgeous gown to do all the talking, ditching all accessorises save for her wedding ring and a pair of small diamond earrings. Carey's cropped blonde locks were styled into sift waves, while she highlighted her features with a neutral make-up palette. The Promising Young Woman star was in great spirits as she smiled and waved to fans, before stopping to take photos with her admirers. Carey also posed alongside the She Said director Maria Schrader, who looked smart in a black trouser suit and silver shoes. Stunner: The actress, 37, looked sensational in a strapless black gown which had a striking bright pink panel as she greeted the crowd at the event amid the BFI London Film Festival In demand: All eyes and lenses were on Carey at the glitzy premiere Walk this way: Carey oozed confidence in the plunging dress by Giorgio Armani, as she larked around for the cameras before posing up a storm Popular: The film star stopped to take photos with fans The Maria Schrader-directed feature follows NYT journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who published a report about Weinstein, 70, in October 2017 that detailed decades of sexual abuse by the Hollywood heavyweight ushering in the #MeToo movement. The New York Times and The New Yorker were awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of Weinstein. Schrader famously directed and won a Primetime Emmy for her work on the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. Standing strong: Two of Weinstein's accusers Zelda Perkins and Laura Madden attended the premiere United: Zelda and Laura were supported by pals and donned yellow T-shirts with the words 'Can't Buy My Silence' on the front Picture perfect: The film actress looked sensational in her plunging gown Small details: The film star allowed her gorgeous gown to do all the talking, ditching all accessorises save for her wedding ring and a pair of small diamond earrings Glowing: Carey's cropped blonde locks were styled into sift waves, while she highlighted her features with a neutral make-up palette What a woman: The Promising Young Woman star was in great spirits as she smiled and waved to fans, before stopping to take photos with her admirers Big fan: Carey spent time speaking with one excited gentleman in the crowd Selfie time: The beauty was radiant as she snapped a picture with a fan Flawless: Carey looked incredible in her form-fitting gown Brad Pitt, who confronted Weinstein after his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow accused the producer of coming onto her, serves as one of the film's producers. 'At that moment, I was just a boy from the Ozarks on the playground and that's how we confronted things,' he recalled of his tense one-on-one with Weinstein to CNN. Two-time Academy Award-winning producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner are also attached to the project. Chit chat; Carey ensured she spoke with and took pictures with an abundance of followers Duo: Carey also posed alongside the She Said director Maria Schrader, who looked smart in a black trouser suit and silver shoes Style: Maria teamed her black blazer and jacket with a semi-sheer black shirt Glam: Molly Windsor, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Angela Yeoh (L-R) dressed to impress for the glitzy premiere Dressed up: Lauren O'Connor looked stylish in a crisp white suit, while Rowena Chiu opted for a bold red dress Close: Angela Yeoh and Rowena Chiu posed for a lovely photo together The screenplay was penned by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who is a renown author and playwright. She Said will be released in UK cinemas on November 25. Speaking at the premiere, Carey told how she felt 'compelled as a woman' to star in the film. She explained to PA news agency: 'I felt compelled as a woman to be part of a story about so much female heroism. I really was so fascinated by Megan, the person I am playing in the film. Speech: Carey later addressed the audience inside the premiere Group shot: Carey posed alongside Producer Dede Gardner, Producer Jeremy Kleiner, Author Rebecca Lenkiewicz, and Director Maria Schrader on the red carpet United they stand: The cast and crew posed for a picture of some of Weinstein's accusers 'Shes an investigative journalist, I really couldnt kind of get into the head of what it was like to be someone who can ring someone up in the middle of the day and say "There is this thing I know about you, will you to tell me and can I tell everyone."To build that trust and to be able to have that kind of relationship with people, I think I was so fascinated by who she was as an individual.' She added of the film's investigation: 'I think this is an immense sort of important history lesson in a way, this was a sort of enormous event in our society and although things have changed, theres so much more to do. We know by reading the news today how much further there is to go in so many parts of the world and even within our own industry, which has had lots of shifts.' Weinstein's rape conviction and 23-year-prison sentence was upheld in July by a New York appeals court that rejected the movie mogul's claims that the judge at his landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him by allowing women to testify about allegations that weren't part of the criminal case. Pulitzer winners: The Maria Schrader-directed feature follows Twohey and Kantor, who published a report about Weinstein, 70, in October 2017 that detailed decades of sexual abuse by the Hollywood heavyweight ushering in the #MeToo movement (the pair seen in 2018) Drama film: Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan were recently shown portraying the New York Times reporters who took on Harvey Weinstein in a trailer for She Said The ruling was issued by a five-judge panel in the state's intermediate appeals court. The bombshell decision affirmed the milestone verdict in America's reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures - an era that began with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a California prison and is awaiting trial on charges he assaulted five women in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013. The trial is set to begin on October 24 and is expected to last several months. Ally: Brad Pitt, who confronted Weinstein after his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow accused the producer of coming onto her, serves as one of the film's producers; Pitt seen in September Leah Messer's former fiance, Jaylan Mobley, has moved out of their shared home in West Virginia after the two split up earlier this week. The news about the Teen Mom cast member was revealed on Friday, and TMZ obtained photos of the reality television personality's ex packing his belongings in a U-Haul van the day prior. The media figure was said to have moved his items into an apartment located 45 minutes away from the home. Gone: Leah Messer's former fiance, Jaylan Mobley, has moved out of their shared home in West Virginia after the two split up earlier this week Sources spoke to TMZ and told the media outlet that Messer, 30, will remain in the house with her daughter Adalynn, aged nine, and twin girls Aliannah and Aleeah, aged 12. It was pointed out that the reality television property picked up the home for $515,000 this past April. The reality television personality and her former fiance initially met in September of 2020 and began seeing each other the following year. Messer was previously married to Corey Simms, with whom she shares Aliannah and Aleeah. Staying close: The media figure was said to have moved his items into an apartment located 45 minutes away from the home The media figure went on to tie the knot with Jeremy Calvert, and the pair welcomed Adalynn during their time together. She eventually moved on with Mobley, 25, and the two became engaged during a trip to Costa Rica that took place last year. The former couple eventually split up, and they have since shared a joint statement where they confirmed that they had separated. 'While the last year has been tremendously exciting for both of us, we've realized that it's best we walk separate paths. We are so grateful for the lessons, growth, and memories we've had in this relationship,' they said. Proud mom: Messer shares her children with her former spouses, Corey Simms and Jeremy Calvert Letting everyone know: The former couple eventually split up, and they have since shared a joint statement where they confirmed that they had separated; Messer is seen in 2017 Messer and Mobley went on to express that they were planning on staying on amicable terms in the future. 'So many of you have watched our love story unfold, and we hope that you'll continue to watch our stories while we move forward as friends,' they said. The former couple concluded their statement by requesting a measure of privacy from their fans. 'We will forever have love and respect for each other, and we ask for privacy as we refocus and transition out of this chapter together.' Advertisement Erika Jayne, Kyle Richards and Lisa Rinna led numerous cast members from across The Real Housewives universe down the red carpet at BravoCon in New York City on Friday. BravoCon is a whirlwind three-day event, which will see more than 140 Bravolebrities in one place, beginning Friday, Oct. 14 and ending Sunday, Oct. 16. The three-day weekend will put forth over 60 live events that give devotees unparalleled access to the Bravo universe. Jayne, 51, wore a patchwork blazer made up of a variety of different plaid patterns and a matching miniskirt. She added plaid high heels to the look as well. A trio of powerful women: Erika Jayne, Kyle Richards and Lisa Rinna led numerous cast members from across The Real Housewives universe down the red carpet at BravoCon in New York City Friday Her blazer was cut into a deep-V, revealing her impressive cleavage underneath. She tied her platinum locks back into a high, messy bun. At the event, Erika was heard addressing the controversy surrounding her appearing in RHOBH amid her recent legal woes. 'We're here sharing our lives and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad,' she said. 'Being human, we're all human. I have accepted the fact that some people will agree with me and some people won't and that's just the way it goes. It hurts but that's just the way it goes.' Opening up: At the event, Erika was heard addressing the controversy surrounding her appearing in RHOBH amid her recent legal woes More stars: Garcelle Beauvais and Vicki Gunvalson both attended the star-studded event Meanwhile, Richards, 53, wore a dark blue, velvet blazer and matching pants. She wore a low-cut black t-shirt underneath the buttoned-up blazer. She parted her dark brown hair in the middle and styled her tresses into thick curls which rested comfortably on her shoulders. Her dark mascara gave her eyes a smoky look, and she stood on black high heels adorned with a design on the toes. Rinna, 59, wore a vibrant ensemble to the suave affair as she stunned in a bright orange pantsuit with prominent shoulder pads. She went without a shirt under the blazer, giving onlookers a peak at her cleavage. She matched bright orange high heels to the eye-catching outfit and painted her lips a bright red. Her dark brown hair was cut into its trademark short style and big hoop earrings hung down to her shoulders. Pretty in pink pink: Hoda Kotb, 58, and Lisa Hochstein both wore pink ensembles to BravoCon Sutton Stracke, 51, wore a dark green shin-length gown with long, loose sleeves that hung off her wrists The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais, 55, wore a long, all leopard print ensemble. Her dress clung tightly to her body, and she stood in stylish boots. A matching sweater, which ended near her knees, hung loosely off her arms. She held a black leather bag as well. Vicki Gunvalson of The Real Housewives of Orange County fame stood in a power pose, one hand on her left hip. She wore a long-sleeve black and white patterned dress with a turtle neck. The dress ended high on her thighs, and she cut her blonde hair short. It barely reached her shoulders. Hoda Kotb, 58, wore a silky pink blouse and a pair of matching, hot pink slacks which hung loosely off her legs. She stood in beige high heels. Professional suit: Andy Cohen, 54, looked casual in a gray blazer and matching trousers. Underneath the blazer, The St. Louis native wore a black t-shirt under the blazer Long locks: Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and strands of it fell on each side of her face, framing it well. Lisa Hochstein, 40, wore a bright pink blazer and trousers. The low-cut pink blazer showed off her black bra underneath which accentuated her impressive chest. The Real Housewives of Miami star wore her long, wavy hair parted in the middle. It stopped in the middle of her back. Her full lips parted to reveal her brilliant white smile. Sutton Stracke, 51, wore a dark green shin-length gown with long, loose sleeves that hung off her wrists. The dress was cut out in the middle, revealing her sternum. Andy Cohen, 54, looked casual in a gray blazer and matching trousers. Underneath the blazer, the St. Louis native wore a black t-shirt under the blazer. His dark gray hair was cut short. The Real Housewives of Dubai star Caroline Stanbury, 46, donned a button-down turquoise blazer and matching miniskirt. She added knee-high white boots as well. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and strands of it fell on each side of her face, framing it well. More pink: Kyle Richards' sister Kathy Hilton, 63, attended BravoCon as well. She wore a short-sleeve minidress which ended high on her thighs Posing: Tamra Judge, 55, and Teddi Mellencamp, 41, posed together at the red carpet of the big event Bright red: Mellencamp wore a vibrant red blazer and trousers. She wore the exact same shoes as Judge, and her hair was dyed a fading pink Kyle Richards' sister Kathy Hilton, 63, attended BravoCon as well. She wore a short-sleeve minidress which ended high on her thighs. She carried a matching pink clutch with her, and she stood on gray high heels. Her short blonde locks were brushed off to the right. It barely touched her shoulders. Tamra Judge, 55, and Teddi Mellencamp, 41, posed together at the red carpet of the big event. Judge wore a low-cut light pink blouse which accentuated her chest. Her top perfectly matched her huge, pink platform high heels. She wore a tiny black blazer and ankle-length trousers. Mellencamp wore a vibrant red blazer and trousers. She wore the exact same shoes as Judge, and her hair was dyed a fading pink. Riley Burruss, 20, wore a tight, light brown dress. She carried a black handbag, accessorized with black boots and her dark dreadlocks stopped near her navel. Leggy: Riley Burruss, 20, wore a tight, light brown dress. She carried a black handbag, accessorized with black boots and her dark dreadlocks stopped near her navel Happy couple: Gia Giudice, the daughter of Teresa Giudice, also walked down the event with her beau Christian Carmichael Patterned: A number of stars were spotted arriving outside the star-studded affair including Gia's mother, Teresa Patterned: The 50-year-old wore a purple patterned blazer and trousers combination. She added a low-cut black shirt underneath the fashionable blazer Gia Giudice, the daughter of Teresa Giudice, also walked down the event with her beau Christian Carmichael. The 21-year-old wore a brown coat over a brown minidress, and she added knee-high leather boots. Her hair was parted in the middle. Carmichael kept it simple in a white t-shirt, black jeans and gray sneakers with red and orange trim. A number of stars were spotted arriving outside the star-studded affair including Gia's mother. More stars headed in: Alexis Nepola, 55, donned tight yoga pants and a matching long sleeve top. Her platinum blonde locks were put into a middle part Arriving: Caroline Stanbury was also spotted out front of the convention. She was joined by her beau Sergio Carallo on the way in The 50-year-old wore a purple patterned blazer and trousers combination. She added a low-cut black shirt underneath the fashionable blazer. She stood on dark blue stiletto high heels and parted her long brown locks in the middle. Her tresses fell in gentle waves down to the middle of her chest. She wore dark mascara and gave a small hand wave to her onlookers as she made her way into the event. Alexis Nepola, 55, donned tight yoga pants and a matching long sleeve top. Her platinum blonde locks were put into a middle part. Smiling: Marysol Patton wore a multi-colored bodysuit with a low-cut neckline Lots of pink: Meredith Marks donned a tiny pink blazer that ended high on her legs. Her outfit was accented with silver trim Beautiful! Sara Almadani looked gorgeous in a teal blazer and slacks. Her black hair fell down the sides of her face She protected her eyes with thin, dark sunglasses. She walked in black stiletto high heels. She carried a small black clutch with her. Savannah Guthrie went with a very subdued all black outfit. She donned a black leather jacket over a black shirt. She added ankle-high boots to the ensemble. Her black skirt ended around her knees, and her light brown hair fell just shy of her shoulders. She donned multiple bulky gold necklaces. Caroline Stanbury was also spotted out front of the convention. She was joined by her beau Sergio Carallo on the way in. Ask Andy! A number of the stars engaged in panels during the Friday's festivities. Cohen stood onstage during the Ask Andy Panel before talking to several of the Housewives Grinning: Guthrie and Kotb flashed winning grins during the conversation Drink! The trio took a shotski shot onstage Big crowd: During the Housewife2Housewife conversation, Stanbury, Hochstein, Candiace Dillard-Bassett, Cynthia Bailey and Jennifer Aydin all sat onstage together Unmistakable: Teresa also treated the audience to her megawatt smile when she took her seat during one of the panel discussions at the star-studded fete A number of the stars engaged in panels during the Friday's festivities. Cohen stood onstage during the Ask Andy Panel before talking to several of the Housewives. Guthrie and Kotb flashed winning grins during the conversation before taking a shot out of a shotski with Cohen. During the Housewife2Housewife conversation, Stanbury, Hochstein, Candiace Dillard-Bassett, Cynthia Bailey and Jennifer Aydin all sat onstage together. The Real Housewives Of Potomac were well-represented at BravoCon, from a flesh-flashing Ashley Darby to a catsuit-clad Candiace Dillard Bassett to blonde bombshell Gizelle Bryant. There they are: The Real Housewives Of Potomac were well-represented at BravoCon, from a flesh-flashing Ashley Darby to a catsuit-clad Candiace Dillard Bassett to blonde bombshell Gizelle Bryant Andrea Denver, the Italian model who starred in Taylor Swift's Blank Space music video and was recently seen sizzling on the Bravo shows Winter House and Summer House, was dashing as ever at the fete. Family Karma star Anisha Ramakrishna modeled a stylish lehenga, Ariana Manix of Vanderpump Rules leg flashed a bit of leg in an electric blue dress and Married To Medicine's Dr. Simone Whitmore was ravishing in red. Ramona Singer, a long-running cast member of The Real Housewives Of York City, flashed her ample cleavage in a busty gold cocktail dress and threw her hands festively up into the air. Captain Sandy of Below Deck Mediterranean put on a loud color-block blazer, whilst Anila Sajja of Married To Medicine stunned in a wrap dress and Potomac Housewife Robyn Dixon slid into a feathery see-through top. Sizzler: Andrea Denver, the Italian model who starred in Taylor Swift's Blank Space music video and was recently seen sizzling on the Bravo shows Winter House and Summer House, was dashing as ever at the fete Glamour: (from left) Family Karma star Anisha Ramakrishna modeled a stylish lehenga, Ariana Manix of Vanderpump Rules leg flashed a bit of leg in an electric blue dress and Married To Medicine's Dr. Simone Whitmore was ravishing in red Stardom: Ramona Singer, a long-running cast member of The Real Housewives Of York City, flashed her ample cleavage in a busty gold cocktail dress and threw her hands festively into the air Wow: (from left) Captain Sandy of Below Deck Mediterranean put on a loud color-block blazer, whilst Anila Sajja of Married To Medicine stunned in a wrap dress and Potomac Housewife Robyn Dixon slid into a feathery see-through top Real Housewife Of New Jersey Melissa Gorga bared her sculpted midriff while attending the event on the arm of her heartthrob husband Joe Gorga, whose sister happens to be Teresa Giudice. Miami Housewife Nicole Martin showcased her legs in a pastel robe mini-dress, while her co-star Marysol Patton turned up the glitz factor in a gold sequined trouser suit. Richa Sadana of Family Karma posed up in a silver lehenga, while her boyfriend Vishal Parvani wore a fashionably short white kurta under an intricately embossed wrap. Family Karma's Brian Benni rocked a royal purple vest with a Nehru collar, Dubai Housewife Lesa Milan played with her ponytail and Captain Glenn Shephard of Below Deck Sailing Yacht was nautical chic in blue and white. Hot couple: Real Housewife Of New Jersey Melissa Gorga bared her sculpted midriff while attending the event on the arm of her heartthrob husband Joe Gorga, whose sister happens to be Teresa Giudice Swanking about: Miami Housewife Nicole Martin showcased her legs in a pastel robe mini-dress, while her co-star Marysol Patton turned up the glitz factor in a gold sequined trouser suit Date night: Richa Sadana of Family Karma posed up in a silver lehenga, while her boyfriend Vishal Parvani wore a fashionably short white kurta under an intricately embossed wrap So many stars: (from left) Family Karma's Brian Benni rocked a royal purple vest with a Nehru collar, Dubai Housewife Lesa Milan played with her ponytail and Captain Glenn Shephard of Below Deck Sailing Yacht was nautical chic in blue and white Leggy: Toya Bush-Harris, another personality from the Bravo series Married To Medicine, wore a simple black cocktail dress lent an extra dash of sparkle with sloping gold chains Toya Bush-Harris, another personality from the Bravo series Married To Medicine, wore a simple black cocktail dress lent an extra dash of sparkle with sloping gold chains. Bravo personalities galore got together for various panel discussions during the rollicking festivities, including a Thrills In Beverly Hills panel for the 90210 zip code's Real Housewives franchise. Embattled platinum blonde Erika Jayne and sensationally svelte soap star Lisa Rinna were seen seated alongside their co-stars Crystal Minkoff and Dorit Kemsley. An East v West panel sat ladies from across America, with one couch seating Atlanta's Marlo Hampton, Miami's Adriana De Moura, Atlanta's Eva Marcille, New York's Ramona Singer and Married To Medicine's Quad Webb. Bravo personalities galore got together for various panel discussions during the rollicking festivities, including a Thrills In Beverly Hills panel including (from left) Garcelle Beauvais, Sutton Stracke and Kyle Richards What a lineup: (from left) Embattled platinum blonde Erika Jayne and sensationally svelte soap star Lisa Rinna were seen seated alongside their co-stars Crystal Minkoff and Dorit Kemsley Quintet: An East v West panel sat ladies from across America, with one couch seating (from left) Atlanta's Marlo Hampton, Miami's Adriana De Moura, Atlanta's Eva Marcille, New York's Ramona Singer and Married To Medicine's Quad Webb Meanwhile on the West Coast sofa sat Erika Jayne, Lisa Berlow, Shannon Storms Beador, Garcelle Beauvais, Emily Simpson and Daryn Carp from various shows set around that end of the country. A Spirit Of Bravo panel also offered stars from across a string of programs, such as Captain Sandy Yawn of Below Deck Mediterranean and Family Karma couple Amrit Kapai and Nicholas Kouchoukos. The Bravo's Most Golden Moments Power Hour appeared to be a sparkling discussion, with Potomac Housewife Karen Huger and former New York Housewife Jill Zarin sharing a sassy moment onstage. Amid the string of panels was Bravo Family Game Night, where celebs including Marcie Hobbs, Shep Rose, Aunt Bertha Jones, Aunt Nora Wilcox, Mama Joyce Jones and Kandi Burruss were on hand. Meanwhile: On the West Coast sofa sat Erika Jayne, Lisa Berlow, Shannon Storms Beador, Garcelle Beauvais, Emily Simpson and Daryn Carp from various shows set around that end of the country Having a laugh: A Spirit Of Bravo panel also offered stars from across a string of programs, such as Captain Sandy Yawn of Below Deck Mediterranean and Family Karma couple Amrit Kapai and Nicholas Kouchoukos Fun times: The Bravo's Most Golden Moments Power Hour appeared to be a sparkling discussion, with Potomac Housewife Karen Huger and former New York Housewife Jill Zarin sharing a sassy moment onstage What a time: Amid the string of panels was Bravo Family Game Night, where celebs including Marcie Hobbs, Shep Rose, Aunt Bertha Jones, Aunt Nora Wilcox, Mama Joyce Jones and Kandi Burruss were on hand Shahs Of Sunset's Golnesa Gharachedaghi, Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Daisy Kelliher, Southern Charm's Naomie Olindo and Summer House's Lindsay Hubbard were just part of the Bravo2Bravo panel. Meanwhile a Right The Relationship panel featured such guests as former Beverly Hills Housewife and reliable scene-stealer Brandi Glanville and Salt Lake City Housewife Heather Gay. The Modern Love Panel included Nicholas and Amrit from Family Karma, as well as Melissa and Joe from The Real Housewives Of New Jersey and Carl Radke of Summer House. That day the Javits Center also played host to a Million Dollar Listing Bravolebrity Edition Panel including Real Housewives Dorinda Medley, Sheree Whitfield and Jennifer Aydin. Having a ball: Shahs Of Sunset's Golnesa Gharachedaghi, Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Daisy Kelliher, Southern Charm's Naomie Olindo and Summer House's Lindsay Hubbard were just part of the Bravo2Bravo panel Blondes: Meanwhile a Right The Relationship panel featured such guests as former Beverly Hills Housewife and reliable scene-stealer Brandi Glanville (left) and Salt Lake City Housewife Heather Gay (right) Panel to panel: The Modern Love Panel included Nicholas and Amrit from Family Karma, as well as Melissa and Joe from The Real Housewives Of New Jersey and Carl Radke of Summer House Legs for days: That day the Javits Center also played host to a Million Dollar Listing Bravolebrity Edition Panel including Real Housewives Dorinda Medley, Sheree Whitfield and Jennifer Aydin A number of Real Housewives managed to do quick-changes that day, including Erika Jayne of Beverly Hills, who went from color-block plaid to a highlighter yellow look. Paris Hilton's mother Kathy Hilton, also of the Beverly Hills franchise, started off in a pink cocktail dress reminiscent of her daughter and switched into a shimmering frock. Teresa Giudice looked every inch the busty bombshell in a plunging bubblegum dress at Andy's Legends Ball as she cuddled up to her new husband Luis Ruelas. The table-flipping reality star stood side by side with her 21-year-old daughter Gia Giudice, whom she shares with her first husband Joe Giudice. Knockout pins: A number of Real Housewives managed to do quick-changes that day, including Erika Jayne of Beverly Hills, who went from color-block plaid to a highlighter yellow look Luis and his lady: Teresa Giudice looked every inch the busty bombshell in a plunging bubblegum dress at Andy's Legends Ball as she cuddled up to her new husband Luis Ruelas Family business: Paris Hilton's mother Kathy Hilton, also of the Beverly Hills franchise, started off in a pink cocktail dress reminiscent of her daughter and switched into a shimmering frock Teresa and her mini-me: The table-flipping reality star stood side by side with her 21-year-old daughter Gia Giudice, whom she shares with her first husband Joe Giudice At the same ball, Monica Vaswani of Family Karma teamed a skirt-top combo with a kundan tikka, Dubai Housewife Caroline Stanbury slid into a blue jumpsuit and Miami Housewife Alexia Nepola flaunted her figure in a tight frock. One of the couples who turned the ball into a date night was Atlanta Housewife Kandi Burruss, who posed on the arm of her longtime husband Todd Tucker. Luann De Lesseps glowed in a gleaming split blue gown, Dorinda made a splash in a hot pink look and Karen flashed the flesh in a sequined blazer dress. Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval, who shot to fame on Vanderpump Rules and have since gone into the bar business together, matched each other in dapper old-fashioned suits and walking sticks. At the same ball: (from left) Monica Vaswani of Family Karma teamed a skirt-top combo with a kundan tikka, Dubai Housewife Caroline Stanbury slid into a blue jumpsuit and Miami Housewife Alexia Nepola flaunted her figure in a tight frock. Hot couple: One of the couples who turned the ball into a date night was Atlanta Housewife Kandi Burruss, who posed on the arm of her longtime husband Todd Tucker Sensations: (from left) Luann De Lesseps glowed in a gleaming split blue gown, Dorinda made a splash in a hot pink look and Karen flashed the flesh in a sequined blazer dress Kicks: Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval, who shot to fame on Vanderpump Rules and have since gone into the bar business together, matched each other in dapper old-fashioned suits and walking sticks Her new look: Dorit made a splash in a sparkling green ensemble that featured some kinky metallic touches True to form: Andy was as much of a showstopper as ever at the ball in a sparkling blue suit Kenya Moore emphasized her cleavage in a peekaboo highlighter green dress, Heather Dubrow kept her look simple in a black pencil dress and Kyle Richards shone in a glittery catsuit. Margaret Josephs of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey beamed for the cameras while standing beside her second husband Joe Benigno, whom she has been married to since 2013. Chanel Ayan sported a retro chic towering blonde hairdo, Ciara Miller bared her washboard abs in a super-revealing black gown, Garcelle Beauvais pulled on a wrap dress and Sonja Morgan was busty in a silver dress. Housewife parade: (from left) Kenya Moore emphasized her cleavage in a peekaboo highlighter green dress, Heather Dubrow kept her look simple in a black pencil dress and Kyle Richards shone in a glittery catsuit Couple's outing: Margaret Josephs of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey beamed for the cameras while standing beside her second husband Joe Benigno, whom she has been married to since 2013 Lisa Rinna shockingly flipped off the crowd at BravoCon on Friday after she was booed following a fan backlash to her recent cancer comments. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 59, made the offensive gesture as she headed onto stage - days after it emerged she said that she would 'get cancer' if she didn't expose Kathy Hilton's 'vile' comments on the show's finale. The defiant star, who is no stranger to controversy, showed no signs of regret over her comment as she then smiled at the crowd and joined her co-stars. Lisa, who caught the eye in a neon orange suit at the event, told DailyMail.com she 'doesn't know' how to react to calls for her firing, before branding herself a 'rockstar'. Here she is: Lisa Rinna shockingly flipped off the crowd at BravoCon on Friday after she was booed following a fan backlash to her recent cancer comments She said: 'We are the number one show on cable, and on television. And I'm a f*****g rockstar. That's all I have to say.' Lisa has been slammed by cancer survivors and doctors alike after she used the disease as an excuse to spill Kathy Hilton's personal secrets. Speaking to DailyMail.com at BravoCon, Kathy said she was considering whether to stay on the show in the aftermath of her clash with Lisa. Kathy, 63, believes the drama started because Lisa was deliberately 'poking the bear' with the tequila, and Kathy felt that she was 'being the bigger person' by choosing to apologize on camera - only to be 'accused of things I didn't say. Say what? The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 59, made the offensive gesture as she headed onto stage - days after it emerged she said that she would 'get cancer' if she didn't expose Kathy Hilton's 'vile' comments on the show's finale Kathy also reflected on how both she and daughter Paris Hilton are speaking out against mistreatment right now - with Paris campaigning to regulate 'troubled teen centers' and shut down a Utah boarding school where she was allegedly sexually abused. Kathy said: 'Bullying is really bad. Mistreating others is bad. I am so proud of Paris, I went to Washington with her... she's a really good girl. 'I got the chance to speak with other victims and have meetings with them and their families, so that has been powerful. I'm proud of her.' In the final episode of season 12, which aired on October 5, Rinna was discussing a previous meltdown Kathy had during a trip they had taken to Aspen together, when Kyle Richards told her it was time to move on. But Rinna then explained that Hilton told her things off-camera about the other castmates that could 'ruin their lives forever' - and that holding them in was going to make her 'sick.' 'Im not gonna take it to my grave because Id get sick and Id get cancer if I didnt express this,' she said. 'Thats how bad it is. To have these kinds of things go on and not express them, Ill get sick and die because its that vile.' Many of her costars were stunned by her statement; Diana Jenkins asked the camera privately, 'Did she really say that?' while Garcelle Beauvais added, 'Oh my God its so dramatic.' Many viewers were also left unhappy, and they took to Twitter to share their dismay. One woman, who has a three-year-old daughter with leukemia, called Rinna's comment 'hurtful and horrendous,' while another, who lost their mom to the disease, said she was 'disgusted to her core.' Sighting: Lisa, who caught the eye in a neon orange suit at the event, told DailyMail.com she 'doesn't know' how to react to calls for her firing, before branding herself a 'rockstar' Line-up: The defiant star, who is no stranger to controversy, showed no signs of regret over her comment as she then smiled at the crowd and joined her co-stars A third user said it was an 'insult to everyone who has been sick with cancer,' and someone else wrote that it was 'the most wild thing they had ever seen on the show. 'What a disgusting thing for Lisa to say, an insult to every Cancer victim,' read another tweet. 'I know Lisa Rinna didn't just say, "If I don't talk about Kathy Hilton, I'll get sick with cancer and die." What is wrong with this woman?' asked someone else. 'Rinna saying if she didnt get her anger out it would be a cancer and she would die is SO DISGUSTING,' agreed another person. 'What an insensitive slap in the face to those who have dealt with or are dealing with cancer and to those who have lost loved ones to cancer. Shes vile.' Wow: In the final episode of season 12, which aired on October 5, Rinna was discussing a previous meltdown Kathy Hilton, 63, had during a trip they had taken to Aspen together, when Kyle Richards told her it was time to move on Vile: But Rinna then explained that Hilton told her things off-camera about the other castmates that could 'ruin their lives forever' - and that holding them in was going to make her 'sick' 'Shame on you @LisaRinna for saying you might get cancer if you don't tell the Kathy story. As a cancer survivor, who went through two years of treatment and am now permanently scarred, I found your words offensive,' wrote a different user. Others called for her to be 'canceled' or removed from the show, with a different user tweeting, 'How has she not been completely canceled yet? Disgraceful.' 'If they bring back Lisa Rinna next season I will die I will get cancer and I will die,' said someone else. The American Institute for Cancer Research even ridiculed Rinna, with a rep blasting the reality star to TMZ for 'using the specter of cancer as emotional blackmail to justify airing her grievance' in a statement The organization added that there's no evidence to support a link between stress and the disease, and that her claim was 'certainly not based on reputable research.' Backlash: Many viewers were unhappy with her statement, and they took to Twitter to share their dismay, calling for her to be 'canceled' or removed from the show One woman, whose daughter has leukemia, called Rinna's comment 'hurtful and horrendous,' while another, who lost their mom to the disease, said she was 'disgusted to her core' RHOBH alum Camille Grammer, who was diagnosed with Stage 2 endometrial cancer in 2013 and underwent a hysterectomy, said Rinna's comment was in 'poor taste,' and called her 'pathetic' in a scathing Twitter post. 'I had cancer,' she replied to a fan who asked her thoughts on the matter. 'I thought this was in poor taste. Pathetic.' In a previous episode, Lisa stated that her fight with Hilton resulted in her suffering from 'PTSD.' She claimed that Hilton screamed at her, threw her glasses, jumped up and down while pounding the walls, and threatened to take NBC and Bravo, as well as her fellow castmates, down This certainly isn't the first time that Rinna has been slammed for her comments in the show; back in 2016, she came under fire after she accused her then-castmate Yolanda Hadid of lying about her Lyme disease diagnosis. Hadid found out she was suffering from the tick-borne illness in 2012, but in season six of ROBH, it came to light that Rinna didn't believe her. Rinna even accused Hadid of having Munchausen syndrome, a mental condition in which someone falsely believes he or she is physically ill. At the time, Hadid told Rinna that her accusation was 'the biggest f**king blow she's ever had in her life,' and that 'sorry was not enough.' Helen Flanagan reunited with her former Coronation Street co-star Ryan Thomas at the NTAs on Thursday, and shared a snap of the pair to Instagram from the event. The actress, 32, looked sensational as she flashed her legs in a mauve gown featuring a daringly high slit and a cutout on the side for an extra flash of skin. Ryan and Helen, who previously played lovers Jason and Rosie on the ITV soap, appeared to be in high spirits as they posed for the beaming photo. Cute: Helen Flanagan reunited with her former Coronation Street co-star Ryan Thomas at the NTAs on Thursday, and shared a snap of the pair to Instagram from the event The former Celebrity Big Brother housemate cut a dapper figure in a black suit and bow-tie, which he wore with a white shirt. Alongside a laughing emoji, the former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here star wrote in her caption: 'Rosie and Jason. Lovely to see you @ryanthomas84.' At the ceremony, held at London's OVO Arena Wembley, Helen denied that she will be a part of the upcoming I'm A Celebrity: All Stars series. Throwback: Ryan and Helen previously played lovers Jason and Rosie on the ITV soap (pictured in-character) The TV personality, who appeared on the show in 2012, said that it would've have been too difficult for her to leave her three children. Speaking to MailOnline about whether she took part, she said: 'Oh no, I don't think it's for me. It would have been too hard to leave the kids as well.' This year's NTAs were broadcast live from the brand new venue, with Joel Dommett hosting. Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were booed by some members of the audience at the National Television Awards when This Morning was announced as a contender for the Best Daytime Award. The presenters found themselves at the centre of the 'queuegate' controversy' in September when they were accused of skipping the queue to see the Queen lying in state, which they both denied. Despite the criticism the broadcasters received, the show still took home the Daytime gong, with Phillip saying the award means 'so much to us every year, especially this year'. Gabrielle Union stunned on Friday in a vibrant coat adorned with multicolored dots as she arrived to speak at a Q&A in Manhattan for her latest film, The Inspection. The 49-year-old actress was joined at the event by her dapper co-star Jeremy Pope, 30, and famed producer Effie Brown, 50. Dazzling onlookers as she made her way into the event, Union stole the show in her multicolored Christopher John Rogers coat. Vibrant showstopper: Gabrielle Union stunned on Friday in a vibrant coat adorned with multicolored dots as she arrived to speak at a Q&A in Manhattan for her latest film, The Inspection She paired the statement piece with a lengthy white shirt and cream-colored cargo pants. The A-lister's hair was swept up in a bun and earrings from Khiry accented her face. After wearing blush-colored stiletto sandals as she made her way inside, the star switched into a neon green pair from the brand Paris Texas before taking the stage. Both Pope and Brown made fashion statements of their own as they made their way in to join Union. Dapper: Jeremy Pope, 30, arrived looking dapper in an all-leather look. The star's brown leather pants, shirt and coat were offset by black leather heeled boots Making a statement: Union paired her coat with a lengthy white shirt and cream-colored cargo pants while the A-lister's hair was swept up in a bun The producer: Effie Brown, 50, donned a forest green coat for the event Effie arrived in a dress emblazoned with an eccentric pattern and purple hues. The Project Greenlight star's bright red lipstick matched her crimson hair while a forest green coat kept the autumn air at bay. Jeremy Pope best known for his Tony-nominated performances on Broadway arrived looking dapper in leather from top to bottom. The star's brown leather pants, shirt and coat were offset by black leather boots, increasing his already magnetic presence as he made his way inside. Directed by Elegance Bratton, 43, and based on the filmmaker's own experience as a gay man in Marine Corps basic training, The Inspection tells the dramatic story of a young marine dealing with both abuse and desire. Pope plays the young gay marine in the film while Union inhabits the role of the mother who rejected him. According to the New York Film Festival's website, The Inspection is 'a nuanced portrait of American masculinity and evocation of the military during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era, as well as a forceful, electric work of autobiography.' The film is already earning stellar reviews, with particular praise being lauded on Union's performance. 'I was an entertainer,' she told Vanity Fair when discussing the role and how it has changed her career. 'Now I'm an actor.' Critics have been calling Union's performance a 'career-best' and many have pegged her as a potential Oscar nominee for best supporting actress. A powerful story: Directed by Elegance Bratton, 43, and based on the filmmaker's own experience as a gay man in Marine Corps basic training, The Inspection tells the dramatic story of a young marine dealing with both abuse and desire Bond: Gabrielle and Jeremy posed on the New York Film Festival red carpet The central role: The Tony-nominated Broadway star plays the film's central role of a young gay marine. His performance has earned glowing reviews and critics are touting him as a potential contender on the awards circuit Future Oscar? Union inhabits the role of a homophobic prison guard who rejects her gay son. Critics have been calling the actress's performance a 'career-best' and many have pegged her as a potential Oscar nominee for best supporting actress The power behind the scenes: Famed producer Effie Brown helped to finance the drama film that many critics are calling one of the year's best Perched on the end of a diving board alone with her thoughts, it is one of the last photos taken of Princess Diana before her death. Now, Elizabeth Debicki has recreated the famous shot for the sixth and final series of The Crown. The Australian actress, 32, looked identical to the late royal as she re-enacted Diana's final holiday with boyfriend Dodi Fayed six days before their deaths on August 31, 1997. Miss Debicki was pictured stretching out in a blue swimsuit during filming for the Netflix drama in Majorca. She also posed in a pink patterned swimsuit as she recreated Diana's final cruise from the south of France to the Italian coast on Dodi's yacht. Miss Debicki stars alongside British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla, who plays Dodi, and Imelda Staunton, who replaces Olivia Colman as the Queen. Perched on the end of a diving board alone with her thoughts, it is one of the last photos taken of Princess Diana before her death (left). Now, Elizabeth Debicki has recreated the famous shot for the sixth and final series of The Crown (pictured right) Crown actress Elizabeth Debicki has been recreating Diana's final holiday with boyfriend Dodi Fayed (pictured together) six days before their deaths on August 31, 1997 The latest images come weeks after Miss Debicki was pictured recreating Diana's trip to the island of Nevis in the West Indies in January 1993. She was pictured barefoot on a villa balcony on location in Mallorca, Spain, in an oversized white t-shirt which she teamed with a pair of black sunglasses. Diana was famously pictured wearing a white t-shirt emblazoned with a colourful print during a day trip to Banana beach with her two sons, months after her separation from Prince Charles, who is played by Dominic West. The holiday marked her reunion with her sons after they spent the Christmas with Charles. Newcomers, Timothee Sambor and West's son Senan will play a young Prince William, while Teddy Hawley is among those cast to play Prince Harry. Diana was joined on the Caribbean island by her close friend Catherine Soames and her nine-year-old son Harry. Miss Debicki (right) was pictured stretching out in a blue swimsuit during filming for the Netflix drama in Majorca, like Diana (left) had been photographed doing 25 years earlier She also posed in a pink patterned swimsuit as she recreated Diana's final cruise from the south of France to the Italian coast on Dodi's yacht Miss Debicki has also shot scenes dressed in the pale pink shirt and black trousers the former Princess of Wales wore while promoting the Landmine Survivors Network in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in 1997. Filming on the upcoming final series was suspended twice in the wake of the Queen's death last month. Writer Peter Morgan described The Crown as a 'love letter' to the late monarch, telling Deadline: 'I expect we will stop filming out of respect too.' Imelda Staunton, 65, has replaced Olivia Colman, 47, as the Queen while Lesley Manville, 65, has taken over from Helena Bonham Carter, 55, as Princess Margaret. Trainspotting star Jonny Lee Miller, 49, will play former Prime Minister John Major and Jonathan Pryce, 74, will star as Prince Philip. Diana was famously pictured wearing a white t-shirt emblazoned with a colourful print during a day trip to Banana beach on St Kitts in January 1993 with her two sons, months after her separation from Prince Charles Newcomers, Timothee Sambor (right) and Dominic West's son Senan will play a young Prince William, while Teddy Hawley (second from left) is among those cast to play Prince Harry Other cast members include Emma Laird Craig as Sarah, Duchess of York and Marcia Warren as the Queen Mother. Diana and Dodi were riding in the passenger seats of a Mercedes-Benz, driven by Henri Paul, a security officer at The Ritz, when they were killed in a collision in Paris. The final series of The Crown will not film the crash, according to sources. 'We've been dreading getting to this point,' a source on the production told Deadline. 'The countdown is two weeks and while we're calmly carrying on it's fair to acknowledge that there's a certain anxiety; a palpable sense of being slightly on edge. 'I mean, there's bombshell sensitivity surrounding this one.' Series five launches on November 9. She celebrated her 48th birthday last month. And Victoria Silvstedt was proudly flaunting her incredible figure in a sexy black cut-out jumpsuit as she attended The Art Ball at The Claridge's Brook Street in London on Friday. The Swedish model put on a busty display in her glamorous one-piece as she arrived solo for the swanky event. Gorgeous: Victoria Silvstedt, 48, proudly flaunted her incredible figure in a sexy black cut-out jumpsuit as she attended The Art Ball at The Claridge's Brook Street in London on Friday Victoria slipped into a form-fitting black jumpsuit with a plunging front and revealing cut-outs to showcased her toned abs. The fashion star teamed her flared look with a sparkly silver clutch bag and matching heels as she posed up a storm at the party. Letting her statement piece do the talking, Victoria showed off her ample cleavage in the sexy jumpsuit. Stunning: The Swedish model put on a busty display in her glamorous one-piece as she arrived solo for the swanky event Sensational: The Swedish model put on a busty display in her glamorous one-piece as she arrived solo for the swanky event Elsewhere, Victoria had previously been enjoying time in France with her partner Maurice Dabbah. The beauty and her boyfriend Maurice, who is dubbed one of the richest businessman in Sweden, have been together since 2011. Victoria enjoyed a lengthy stint in the spotlight after being chosen to represent her country in the Miss World pageant in 1993. After her pageant days, the Scandinavian stunner was spotted by Hugh Hefner and went on to become a Playboy Playmate. Glamour: The fashion star teamed her flared look with a sparkly silver clutch bag and matching heels as she posed up a storm at the party Since her career rocketed, Victoria has modelled for some of the world's most prestigious fashion houses, including Chanel, Dior and Valentino. Despite the glamorous veneer to her lifestyle as a young model, she revealed there was a dark side in a recent interview with Female First. Victoria said: 'I started very young to model in Paris when I was 18, I remember like starving myself to fit into the clothes. 'It was an amazing experience but you know I did shows for Valentino, Chanel, so it was really prestigious.' She's known for her racy party looks. And Leomie Anderson put on another showstopping display as she enjoyed a night out at a Marc Jacobs party, hosted by Iris Law, at Langan's Brasserie in London on Friday. The model, 28, flaunted her incredible figure in a racy chain-effect gown with a dramatic thigh-split skirt. Wow! Leomie Anderson, 28, put on a showstopping display as she enjoyed a night out at a Marc Jacobs party, hosted by Iris Law, at Langan's Brasserie in London on Friday Posing up a storm inside the party, Leomie donned the extravagant dress that boasted a revealing bodice with a chained effect. The piece then flowed into a full denim skirt with a revealing thigh-high split, and she added extra height to her look with chunky platform heels. Teaming her look with matching gloves, Leomie swept her hair into a dramatic half-up, half-down style for the party. Revealing: The model flaunted her incredible figure in a racy chain-effect gown with a dramatic thigh-split skirt Confident! Posing up a storm inside the party, Leomie donned the extravagant dress that boasted a revealing bodice with a chained effect Pose it up! The piece then flowed into a full denim skirt with a revealing thigh-high split, and she added extra height to her look with chunky platform heels (pictured with Neelam Gill) Glam: Teaming her look with matching gloves, Leomie swept her hair into a dramatic half-up, half-down style for the party Elsewhere Iris, who acted as host for the evening, donned a flirty pale grey babydoll dress and chunky black boots. Displaying her signature pixie crop, the actress beamed as she arrived in her flirty outfit, acting as host for the occasion. It comes after Leomie previously urged designers to hire more black make-up artists after revealing she was forced to do her own make-up during Fashion Week because beauticians left her looking like she 'worked in a mine'. What an outfit! Leomie stunned in her scantily-clad black dress as she headed to the fashion bash, hosted by actress Iris Jaw-dropping: Her revealing dress highlighted every inch of her endless pins The star, who was born in London to Jamaican parents, shared a behind the scenes video at the Christian Cowan Show at New York Fashion Week, which she walked in last year. In the clip, which has racked up more than 250,000 views,Leomie revealed she always carries a full make-up kit with her as 'trash' make-up artists left her looking 'clapped' - a slang term meaning ugly. In the video, called 'the realities of being a black model during fashion week' the model shares a clip of her make-up being done adding the caption: 'I asked who could do black make-up, why do I look like I work in the mines?'. She went on to say she looked 'clapped' as she shared footage of herself taking her make-up off adding the caption: 'I told him it wasn't my colour, he is trash'. Stunner: Elsewhere Iris, who acted as host for the evening, donned a flirty pale grey babydoll dress and chunky black boots Style star: Displaying her signature pixie crop, the actress beamed as she arrived in her flirty outfit, acting as host for the occasion Leomie then said hairdressers were 'hurting her' as she posted a clip adding she was told to wash her hair. 'No one dried it until the last minute,' she went on, before adding another make-up artist tried to fix her make-up. 'Good try girl but felt ugly af,' she said. 'Redid my whole face in 10 minutes, can't go out sad'. Sharing stunning photos of her walking down the runway, Leomie added: 'By the time I walked the runway I wanted to go home'. 'Please hire more black hair and make-up artists so we don't have to go through this.' Leomie has previously walked for Ralph Lauren, Moschino, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio Armani, Burberry and Chloe among others and was the first ever black model to become a Victoria Secret Angel. She's has spoken about the difficulties black models face in the industry, telling the Guardian in May: 'There are more opportunities for black models today. When I started it was an isolating experience, you really felt alone. 'But often the motivation of brands or companies is tokenism, or the fear of being called out. Ticking a diversity box isn't good enough. That's presentation, not structural change. 'Black women are asked to do a lot of free labour, to speak up on everything. Some days I don't feel like it. I'm a human being, not a machine, but that doesn't mean I don't care. ' Megan Thee Stallion's LA home was broken into on Thursday, with thieves making off with $300-400k worth of the star's possessions from her bedroom, reports TMZ. The two thieves wearing hoodies and gloves are said to have smashed a glass door at the back of Megan's home to gain access, before going into the master bedroom. They are said to have stolen huge amounts of jewelry, cash and electronics during the burglary - with musician Megan, 27, not home during the incident. Shock: Megan Thee Stallion's LA home was broken into on Thursday, with thieves making off with $300-400k worth of the star's possessions from her bedroom, reports TMZ She later tweeted: 'Material things can be replaced but Im glad everyone is safe', before adding: 'Hotties I'm really sorry but after SNL I really gotta take a break Im so tired, physically and emotionally.' Police have not made any arrests yet but there is said to be home surveillance footage of the theft, with officers hoping to obtain more footage from neighbors. DailyMail.com has contacted representatives for Megan Thee Stallion and the LAPD for further comment. Megan is gearing up to make her SNL debut this weekend, and admitted to feeling 'so excited, but a little nervous!' in a promo Tweet: They are said to have stolen huge amounts of jewelry, cash and electronics during the burglary - with musician Megan, 27, not home during the incident - she later tweeted that she was 'glad everyone is safe' 'I feel like we're gonna have fun,' the Sweetest Pie hitmaker told Sarah Sherman, 29, before asking the comedian if she realized she was 'completely naked.' The Houston-based musician will be both hosting and performing on the October 15 episode of SNL. Previously, she hit the SNL soundstage alongside Chance the Rapper in 2019, and again in 2020 to perform her chart-topping hits Dont Stop and Savage. In March the LAPD told rich residents to leave their flashy jewelry at home to avoid making themselves 'targets' to criminals as the city's violent crime wave surged. In the last year, violent robberies and smash-and-grab thefts have sky-rocketed in Los Angeles. Break: The star, who is gearing up for her SNL debut this weekend - said she was going to take a break due to feeling 'tired, physically and emotionally' In some startling examples in Beverly Hills, people have had their watches and and jewelry snatched from their bodies by brazen thieves who approached them as they dined in restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Now, the LAPD is telling residents not to wear their pricey jewelry. 'Over the last year there has been a marked increase of armed robberies involving victims wearing expensive jewelry while in public. If it is visible, it can be a target,' the LAPD statement said this week. The warning was met with incredulity from some, who asked why the police force isn't doing more to round up thieves. 'So we're supposed to give up everything, because they allow these criminals to walk the streets, instead of putting them in prison, where they belong?' one critic said. This file photo, taken Oct. 26, 2020, shows armored amphibious vehicles engaging in a landing drill on the coast of Pohang, southeastern South Korea, as part of the Hoguk exercise involving the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Yonhap South Korea will kick off a major military exercise next week to hone defense capabilities to counter North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, Seoul officials said Friday. The annual Hoguk exercise, set for Monday to Oct. 28, has been arranged amid heightened tensions caused by North Korea's provocations, including its firing of a short-range ballistic missile and some 170 artillery shots early Friday. This year's edition will focus on improving capabilities to carry out peacetime and wartime missions by simulating various threats from the North, including those from its nuclear arms and missiles, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 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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 A prosecution official prepares a briefing on the prosecution's countermeasures against growing narcotics crimes at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO) in Seocho District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap By Lee Hae-rin Prosecutors announced the creation of a special investigation squad against narcotics to tackle mushrooming drug crimes in the country, Friday. The announcement is followed by Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon's order Thursday for prosecutors to do their "utmost with the determination to go to war (against drugs)." The Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO) said, Friday that it will operate four special investigation squads for narcotics in four high prosecutors' offices: the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (DPO), Incheon DPO, Busan DPO and Gwangju DPO. The prosecution will team up with relevant government bodies, including the Korea Customs Service, the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Communications Commission, as well as local governments. The primary target includes the large-scale smuggling of drugs, the illegal distribution of pharmaceuticals and the illegal trafficking of drugs via the internet. The prosecution said a prosecutor exclusively in charge of narcotic crimes will supervise investigations on the smuggling, distribution and use of drugs across the country. The prosecution also plans to work with the health authorities to provide treatment and rehabilitation for drug addicts. According to the prosecution, the number of drug offenders caught this year from January to July reached 10,575. The figure is an all-time high, having climbed 12.9 percent from last year's 9,363 during the same months. A total of 1,295.7 kilograms of drugs was confiscated this year, which is an eightfold increase from 2017's 154.6 kilograms, the SPO data showed. Also, the age of drug offenders has gone down. The number of adolescent drug offenders increased five times from 2011's 105 to 494 last year. Over half, or 56.8 percent, of drug offenders caught in the first half of this year are in their 20s and 30s. The prosecution office attributes the dramatic surge to diverse methods of contactless transactions with high security via the dark web, messenger apps and cryptocurrency which have become available, as well as the increased inflow of cheap medical drugs and overseas products. The SPO pledged to undertake special investigations to protect the country from narcotic crimes and make Korea a drug-free nation. To be declared a drug-free nation, the yearly number of drug offenders should be less than 20 for every 100,000 people, or 0.02 percent of the population. Korea lost this status as the number of drug offenders surpassed 10,000 per year in the first half of 2022. According to the justice ministry, the country's drug market has grown and international drug organizations have been pointing to Korea as a major target and stopover for global trafficking. Lee Rae-jin, the elder brother of the late Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official named Lee Dae-jun killed by North Korea in 2020, speaks to reporters at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office in Seoul on Oct. 13. Yonhap The family of a South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korea in 2020 said Friday his death was the most tragic event apparently caused by the state's failure to protect the lives and safety of its citizens. Lee Rae-jin, the elder brother of the late Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official named Lee Dae-jun, issued a statement denouncing the presidential office of former President Moon Jae-in and other government agencies for intentionally covering up the truth behind the death. "It was the most tragic event in which the state violated its duty to protect the lives and safety of its citizens," Lee said, responding to the state auditor's announcement of its interim audit results on the case Thursday. The 47-year-old fisheries official was fatally shot by the North's military on Sept. 22, 2020, near the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea, after going missing the previous day while on duty on board a fishery inspection boat. The Coast Guard and the defense ministry announced at the time he could have been attempting to defect to the North. Free Event Fairmont Presbyterian Church, Kettering, Ohio, will host this show on Sat. Nov. 12th from 9-3. Featuring collectibles, baked goods, silent auction, lunch, and vendors with quality items. Fairmont Presbyterian Church presents our annual Fine Art, Antiques, & Crafts Show. You will find beautiful items for Christmas gifts (and something to reward yourself for being so good this year!). Amazing bake sale Home cooked lunch HUGE vintage boutique Silent Auction DOZENS of unique vendors and artisans offering quality items! For more information or if you have questions, call the church office at 937-299-3539. Chinese researcher discovers new species of fungus People's Daily Online) 10:58, October 14, 2022 Cantharellus albopileatus, a species of fungus newly discovered in east China's Zhejiang Province and south China's Hainan Province, has recently attracted wide attention in China. Photo shows Cantharellus albopileatus, a newly discovered species of fungus. (Photo/Courtesy of the management bureau of Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve) The pileus of the new species has a smooth and slightly greasy surface and is creamy to off-white in color, according to a paper on four new species of subgenus Cantharellus discovered in China, including Cantharellus albopileatus, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. The stipe of Cantharellus albopileatus is fleshy and firm with a whitish appearance, and the taste and odor of it are not distinctive, says the paper. The new species was first discovered in Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang Province, by Lin Wenfei, a teacher with the Institute of Edible and Medicinal Fungi, College of Life Sciences at Zhejiang University. The discovery of Cantharellus albopileatus bears great theoretical and practical significance for ecological conservation and studies in evolutionary biology and has demonstrated Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve's stable ecological systems, rich biodiversity and notable achievements in ecological conservation, said Qi Xiangbin, a staff member of the management bureau of the nature reserve. News reports on the discovery of Cantharellus albopileatus have sparked extensive discussions on Chinese social media platforms, with many netizens asking, "Is it edible? Does it taste good?" Photo shows Cantharellus albopileatus, a newly discovered species of fungus. (Photo/CCTV News) Qi suggests people to not eat the new fungus species before scientists can gain a better understanding of it. People had better not eat the types of mushrooms that they haven't eaten before, as well as the ones they don't recognize or can't tell if they are edible, said a staff member of the College of Life Sciences of Zhejiang University. Before discovering the fungus, Lin was already famous in Zhejiang University for teaching a riveting general education course on fungi, which is very popular among students. In his class, Lin invites students to taste 18 dishes made of mushrooms, and explains the processing methods and nutritive value of edible fungi as students enjoy the food. Photo shows Cantharellus albopileatus, a newly discovered species of fungus. (Photo/Courtesy of the management bureau of Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve) "For me, the course not only offered knowledge, but also a relaxing experience, during which I got to be close to nature and see a different world," said Lins former student. Fungus not only serves as food and boosts the health of people, but it can be used in medical treatment for diseases, said Lin. There are not many researchers of fungi in the world, he said, adding that in order to help more people benefit from this "treasure," he will remain committed to the popularization of science knowledge about fungi among the public. (Web editor: Hongyu, Wu Chengliang) Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) Chair Choe Jae-hae, center, arrives for work at the BAI headquarters in Seoul on Oct. 14. Yonhap The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Friday slammed the state auditor for becoming a "pawn" of the Yoon Suk-yeol government, a day after the institution referred former officials in the previous administration to prosecutors over the killing of a South Korean fisheries official by North Korea in 2020. Following a two-month inspection into the Moon Jae-in government's handling of the official's death near the Yellow Sea border, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) requested the prosecution investigate 20 people on charges that include power abuse and document forgery. The list reportedly includes top security officials of the Moon administration, such as former National Security Adviser Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service chief Park Jie-won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook. The DPK, which has criticized the inspections for being politically motivated, accused the state auditor for compromising its independence and neutrality to support the conservative Yoon administration. WASHINGTON: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday called for collective responsibility to prevent the risks from aggravating. Sitharaman said that India's efforts will be to encourage conversations that recognise our inter-dependencies, our shared wisdom, and our collective aspiration for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world. Today's global economy faces a confluence of challenges and it is our collective responsibility to prevent the risks from aggravating, the finance minister said in her speech during the closing session of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors here being held on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. India will head the annual rotating presidency of G-20 next year. In her remarks, the finance minister said that India views the hosting of the G20 Presidency as an opportunity as well as a responsibility. Rebuilding trust in multilateralism is at the core of India's thinking, she told her G-20 colleagues. Sitharaman said that G20 finance ministers have always come together in the harshest global situations, set aside their differences, and worked towards a common goal of prosperity for our people. As such, she urged the finance ministers and central bank governors to continue working together with this sense of solidarity. Mucola Markovich, 76, wipes a tear as he stands next to a residential building that was heavily damaged after a Russian attack at a residential area in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) HYDERABAD: Over 2,000 medical students from India who returned from Ukraine due to the ongoing war are set to be accommodated in institutes in Uzbekistan, the countrys Ambassador to India, His Excellency Dilshod Akhatov, announced in the city on Thursday. Around 700 of the 2,000 students are from Telangana. At the request of the Indian government, Uzbekistans medical higher educational institutes (MHEIs) of ministry of health of Ukraine is providing 2,000 seats to relocate Indian medical students from Ukraine with quality education by accepting the erstwhile MCI and NMC norms (screening test regulations 2002) and Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate (FMGL Regulations 2021), he said. Dr B. Divya Raj Reddy, Director of NEO Institute and the Indian representative to MHEIs of Uzbekistan, said that the move comes after thorough research. Also, she said the fee structure was similar to that of Ukraine. HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court has sought to know why and on what basis the state government had relinquished its claims of ownership on 52 acres in Survey No 63 of Guttala Begumpet, the legal tussles over which has been pending since the 1950s. The court stayed the recent order of Ranga Reddy district collector Amoy Kumar removing the land from the prohibitory list which facilitated registration of the property in favour of a few private parties. The rival claimants approached the High Court challenging the August 10, 2022, order of the collector asking the commissioner and inspector-general of the stamps and registration department to de-notify from the prohibitory list under Section 22A of the Registration Act 1908. Hearing the petition, Justice K. Lakshman asked: On what basis it has been de-notified from the prohibitory list for Registrations. Has the government come to the decision that the land does not belong to it? How have the government officials forgone the claim over the land, which has been pending before the courts since the 1950s, the judge asked. Deccan Chronicle had carried areport, Under cloud firm gets Rs 2,500 cr land in these columns on September 2, highlighting the governments decision to give away land to a benami of a reality firm which was recently raided by the income-tax department for alleged largescale illegal financial transactions. The report also gave details of the company forming a layout on paper and selling plots at exorbitant rate of Rs 2 lakh plus per sq yd even before the ban on registration was removed by the government. The land was originally declared as kancha sarkari (government) land and was included in the prohibitory list. In 2018, the High Court while ordering status quo made it clear that any alteration would be considered seriously. But, Ranga Reddy collector went ahead with his recommendation to de-notify the lands and sought instructions to district registrar, Ranga Reddy, to effect registration of property. ANANTAPUR: Heavy floods continued in Pennar and Chitravati rivers in Anantapur and Kadapa regions. Five persons were stuck in Pennar river near Kanchannagaeipalli in Kamalapueam mandal in YSR district, reports said on Friday. A group of persons were washed away by the floodwaters from Priddatur and they got stuck on trees. Rescue teams were pressed into service to rescue them. Kundu and Pennar rivers were flowing above the dangerous mark.The Gandikota reservoir was flooded at full gross storage capacity. About 45,000 cusecs of water was released from Mylavaram reservoir towards downstream and the people living in low-lying areas were sounded an alert by the authorities. A private bus with 40 passengers got stuck on Chitravati riverbed in Gorantla mandal in Satya sai district. The bus was going from Proddatur towards Bengaluru. Fire and police teams rushed to the spot, lifted the bus up with the help of a JCB and rescued the passengers. In Anantapur, the situation was worse in many colonies though the floodwater flow has reduced in Nadimivanka. The bridge at Ramalayam was destroyed. VARANASI: The Muslim side in the Gyanvapi mosque-Shringar Gauri complex case on Thursday filed an objection in the court against Hindu plaintiffs' plea for the carbon dating of the "Shivling" claimed to be found on the masjid premises. One of the Hindu petitioners in the case also objected to the carbon dating of the object, saying any scientific testing may harm it. The court has reserved its order for October 7. Hindu petitioners had during a court-mandated videography survey of the mosque premises claimed that a "Shivling" was found close to the "wazookhana", a small reservoir used by Muslim devotees to perform ritual ablutions before offering the namaz. The claim was disputed by the Muslim side, which said the object was part of a "fountain". District Government Advocate Mahendra Pandey said Hindu petitioners had demanded the carbon dating of the structure, on which the Muslim side lodged an objection. The Muslim side contended that the Supreme Court has asked the Varanasi District Magistrate to keep the structure safe. In such a situation, getting it examined cannot be justified, they said. The Muslim side also said the original case is about the worship of Shringar Gauri while the structure in the mosque has nothing to do with it. In such a condition, neither any investigation can be done by the Archaeological Department nor a legal report be called after conducting a scientific investigation. Man Bahadur Singh, the advocate of Rakhi Singh, a Hindu plaintiff in the Gyanvapi mosque-Shringar Gauri complex case, also objected to the carbon dating of the structure. Singh told the court that any scientific testing of the "Shivling" found in the Gyanvapi complex could harm it. Therefore, its carbon dating or scientific testing is not appropriate, he told the court. Pandey said the Muslim side supported Rakhi Singh's stand on carbon dating but disagreed on the fact that the figure was a Shivling. HYDERABAD: The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leadership's stance on the crucial Munugode Assembly bypoll scheduled for November 3 differs significantly from previous byelections. No special funds, schemes, or projects were announced for the development of the Munugode Assembly constituency. This is in stark contrast to the policy it followed in previous byelections in Huzurnagar in October 2019, Dubbak in November 2020, Nagarjunasagar in April 2021, and Huzurabad in October 2021. In all these byelections, TRS president and Chief Minister K.Chandrashekar Rao showered sops for the development of these constituencies while addressing the election meetings. The CM sanctioned residential schools, colleges, hospitals, and community halls for various castes, in addition to allocating crores of rupees of funds to each municipality and lakhs of rupees to each gram panchayat. However, in the case of Munugode bypoll, although the CM addressed the election meeting on August 20, he did not announce any funds or schemes. In his speech, he simply attacked the BJP and left with the assurance that he will address one another public meeting in the constituency soon. There has been a strong demand from Munugode locals for establishing government junior and degree colleges, hospitals, bus stands, and community halls, but the CM has yet to respond. This, however, did not materialise even after two months. The CM is now expected to address a public meeting in Chandur on October 30 or 31, ahead of the November 3 election. Since the election code is already in force, the CM cannot announce any new schemes or funds. In TRS circles, there is a heated debate about why the CM did not shower sops on Munugode. According to TRS circles, this was done out of fear that the strategy of announcing sops would backfire in Huzurabad bypoll, where the TRS government sanctioned funds worth thousands of crores and launched the Dalit Bandhu scheme, but credit went to BJP's Etala Rajender, who campaigned aggressively that it was all because of his resignation and forcing bypoll. In Huzurabad, Rs 2,000 crore was sanctioned for Dalit Bandhu alone, and another Rs 600 crore was sanctioned for various development works in the constituency. TRS leadership fears that BJP's Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy will claim credit for Munugode development, which is why it has refrained from showering sops on Munugode. Rajgopal Reddy has been aggressively campaigning from the beginning, claiming that he resigned as MLA solely to bring about a bypoll because the TRS government only sanctions funds, schemes, and projects if elections are held. Pointing out that every village secretariat has been receiving Rs 20 lakh for taking up priority works, the CM said the villagers are happy with the allotment. (Photo: DC) VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has called upon the party activists to be united and prepare for the next round of assembly and parliament elections. Interacting with partymen from Aluru Assembly constituency at his camp office here on Thursday, the chief minister directed his party legislators to be accessible to the partys rank and file while touring villages as part of the ongoing Gadapa Gadapaku (governance at the doorsteps of the people) programme. Jagan said as CM, it was not possible for him to be accessible to each and every activist. MLAs must make themselves available to party activists. Our MLAs and party leaders are trying their best to know the problems of the people and solve them in every village by interacting with them for at least six hours a day, two days in a week, he said. As for the Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam mass contact programme, Jagan said that by visiting each and every house in the villages, the MLAs are seeking the blessings of the people, explaining to them the welfare schemes being implemented by the YSRCP government in the last three years and also finding out if they are receiving the welfare benefits while also trying to solve other issues when complaints are received. Pointing out that every village secretariat has been receiving Rs 20 lakh for taking up priority works, the CM said the villagers are happy with the allotment. The people in Aluru constituency alone received Rs 1050 crore in the last three years under various welfare schemes, he said. The CM asked the party workers to publicise these to the people and dedicatedly work to get more public support. Labour and employment minister Gummanur Jayaram was also present. HYDERABAD: Alleging that the TRS and BJP were luring voters with money and freebies, TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy on Friday called upon Munugode voters to support Congress candidate Palvai Sravanthi in the November 3 byelection. Sravanthi filed her nomination papers at Chandur in the presence of Revanth Reddy and other senior leaders. Before filing of the nomination, the party took out a massive rally and held a meeting at Chandur. Addressing the gathering, Reddy sought one chance to Sravanthi so that she could represent them to the required levels. "It is for the first time that a woman candidate is contesting in Munugode. TRS and BJP ministers, MLAs and MPs have camped in the constituency to defeat a woman. Give her a chance and teach a lesson to TRS and BJP," Reddy said. Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy asked people to accept money from both TRS and BJP candidates but cast vote in favour of the Congress candidate. CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarks said that the electorate must think twice before casting their vote. It is the right time to elect a Congress candidate, he said. MLA Dr Seetakka alleged that Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy joined BJP for improving his business activities. People must elect Sravanthi to silence the TRS and BJP leaders. Women voters generally favoured Sravanthi's ability to understand women's issues because she had a political background and was an experienced candidate who could appreciate issues faced by the people. (Image: DC) HYDERABAD: The last day to file nominations for the Munugode byelections on Friday, billed as a semi-final to the 2023 Assembly elections and a matter of prestige for the major political parties, turned out to be a show of strength for the Congress too. The party brimmed with confidence following a large turnout of people for Palvai Sravanthi's nomination rally in Chandur, raising hopes of party leaders and cadre of retaining the Munugode seat. The rally also demonstrated unity among the Congress leaders, as it was attended by the partys heavyweights including TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy, Nalgonda MP N. Uttam.Kumar Reddy, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, former MP V.Hanumantha Rao, and other senior leaders, and boosted the morale of the party's rank and file, which had been hit following Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy's sudden resignation from the Congress to join the BJP in August. Buoyed by the sight of massive crowd, the Congress leaders declared that it was an indication of 'winds of change' in Munugode ahead of polling on November 3. The mood of the people at the rally was that Sravathi may throw a surprise despite a huge hype over "TRS-BJP battle" in the bypoll. They expressed confidence that Sravanthi will emerge victorious on the back of the goodwill her family enjoys among people of the constituency and the valuable services rendered by her father late Palvai Govardhan Reddy during his stint as MLA from this constituency multiple times and also as a Rajya Sabha member. There was a sea of humanity in Chandur as the rally saw huge participation from all the sections, especially women who rallied behind Sravanthi raising slogans "Munugode MLA Sravanthi", and "Palvai Govardhan Reddy amar hai." The rally covered five kilometres and featured a large fleet of cars, trucks, tractors, two-wheelers, and other vehicles. Women playing Bathukamma and Kolatams, tribal women performing various arts, a few drumming, and a few bursting fireworks all contributed to the rally's festive mood. Police struggled to control the crowd even as thousands of people could not reach the rally venue due to traffic jam. For several hours, hundreds of vehicles were snarled in a traffic bottleneck. After the gathering, it took many hours for the police to empty the streets. Supporters of Sravanthi slammed BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy for not only cheating people of the constituency by quitting Congress after getting elected as MLA but also made a mockery of sacrifice made by Palvai family. They said Palvai family sacrificed ticket in the 2018 Assembly polls in favour of Rajgopal Reddy and worked hard for his victory but he ditched them all by quitting the Congress and joining the BJP. Describing Munugode as "Congress adda" (Congress fortress), Sravanthi's supporters exuded confidence that Congress flag will fly high on November 6, when counting of votes will take place. "The massive turnout of people for Sravanthi's rally in Chandur is an answer to those who are dubbing Munugode bypoll as a battle between TRS and BJP. This rally proved beyond doubt that the fight is between TRS and Congress. BJP is nowhere in the picture. Both TRS and BJP are just creating hype by splurging money but people are with Congress," said K.Vijayalaxmi, a private teacher, who came all the way from Gattuppal, for the rally. Nalla Santosh Raj, who runs a kirana store in Nermata village, said, "Sravanthi would have become MLA in 2014 itself. But the Congress high command did a mistake by denying her ticket in 2014 and fielding Rajgopal in 2018. Both these decisions were proved wrong now. We are glad that finally Congress high command took a right decision by fielding Sravanthi in the bypoll. TRS and BJP have created a fake impression that this bypoll is a fight between TRS and BJP conveniently ignoring the fact that this seat is held by Congress until recently." BENGALURU: While the opposition to the imposition of Hindi is growing in Karnataka, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said students should be allowed to take exam in the language that he wishes to. Every state should have the right to use its language and if students wants to do exams in that language then they should allowed to do exams in that language, Rahul Gandhi said while interacting with job-seekers in Chitradurga on Thursday as part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Rahul Gandhi was responding to comments made by a student, who said it is difficult for even a post-graduate to understand the notifications of the Central government, which will be published either in Hindi or English. She told Rahul Gandhi that she hailed from the rural part of the state and does not have knowledge of Hindi. She said she finds it difficult to get a Central government job because she can't speak Hindi. Responding to the query, Rahul Gandhi said, I think it is a fundamental thing. Kannada is your language and deserves a space. If you want to communicate in Kannada, then it is your right to communicate in Kannada. A language is much more than what you simply use for conversation. A language has hope, has imagination and has history in it, the Congress leader said. On another query about privatisation of government-owned companies, Rahul Gandhi said, I dont agree with the rampant privatisation of government assets. When we were in power, we did not allow privatisation because it is public sector units that give employment to weaker sections. He assured that a strategy will be evolved so that millions get jobs. Meanwhile, Janata Dal Secular leader and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy suspected a hidden agenda of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to impose Hindi in the state. Kannada is experiencing threats at every step. Now, the Central government is plotting to destroy Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya and others, Kumaraswamy said. Prosecutors questioned a former chief of the Coast Guard on Friday as part of their investigation into the previous administration's handling of the 2020 death of a South Korean fisheries official at the hands of North Korea. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office summoned former Commissioner General Kim Hong-hee, who at the time was responsible for an investigation into the death. Prosecutors have been looking into allegations that the Moon Jae-in administration at the time concluded without sufficient evidence that the official was killed while attempting to defect to the North. The 47-year-old fisheries official, Lee Dae-jun, was fatally shot by the North's coast guard near the Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas, a day after going missing while on duty on board a fishery inspection vessel. The Moon government concluded the official was shot and killed while trying to defect to the North. But the Coast Guard and the military reversed the conclusion in June, saying there was no evidence to suggest such motives. On Thursday, the state auditor also requested the prosecution to investigate 20 people, including top security officials of the previous government, on charges of covering up and distorting facts in the case. Among them are former National Security Adviser Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Park Jie-won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook. Prosecutors plan to summon Noh Young-min, a former presidential chief of staff, Sunday for questioning, sources said. They are also expected to question the two former NIS chiefs and former National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong sometime soon. (Yonhap) HYDERABAD: Dealing with various doubts over the massive enrolment of new voters in the bypoll-bound Munugode Assembly constituency, a division bench of Telangana High Court said that it had not found any 'abnormality' in the voters list provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI). After reviewing the statement of the Chief Election Officer, a bench comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy affirmed that the total voters in Munugode as of October 12, 2018, were 2,14,847, and it had risen to 2,38,759 as of October 11, 2022. The Chief Justice contended that the increase was not unusual. However, the court instructed ECI to provide the final voters list by October 21. The bench was dealing with a petition filed by Gujjala Venkata Krishna Reddy, BJP state general secretary, seeking a direction to the State Election Commission not to declare the voters list as they had doubts of the ruling partys hand in the enrolment of 25,000 new voters in 70 days. According to the CEO's statement, they received 25,013 Form 6 applications, of which 7,247 were rejected. As of October 11, 5,517 applications are pending. With regard to Form 8 applications, 2,142 were received of which 1,813 were rejected and 182 were waiting. Counsel B. Rachana Reddy appearing for the petitioner said the authorities were not adhering to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. To this, the CJ asked: "What order do you want? Do you wish to put the elections on hold or freeze the voter list? Those individuals are not before us; you are requesting that they be removed from the voter list; we cannot do so; your statement has been recorded, and the writ petition is still ongoing. If you win by a large margin, that may be the end; if you lose by a little margin, we will look into it. In April, Kim said North Korea could preemptively use nuclear weapons if threatened, saying they would never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent.(AP) SEOUL: North Korea early on Friday launched a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters and flew warplanes near the border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North's recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it would keep up a provocative run of weapons tests designed to bolster its nuclear capability for now. Some experts say North Korea would eventually want the United States and others to accept it as a nuclear state, lifting economic sanctions and making other concessions. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the missile lifted off from the North's capital region at 1:49 am on Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday). It said South Korea boosted its surveillance posture and maintains military readiness in close coordination with the United States. Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile flew on an irregular trajectory a possible reference to describe the North's highly maneuverable KN-23 weapon modelled on Russia's Iskander missile. Whatever the intentions are, North Korea's repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Hamada said. North Korea's series of actions pose threats to Japan, as well as the region and the international community, and are absolutely intolerable. He said the missile travelled as far as 650 kilometres (403 miles) at the maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement the North Korean launch didn't pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to its allies, adding that the U.S. commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan remain ironclad. It was the latest in a series of missile launches by North Korea in recent weeks. North Korea said on Monday that its missile tests in the past two weeks simulated nuclear attacks on key South Korean and US targets. It said the tests included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the US Pacific territory of Guam, and a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country. North Korea said the weapons tests were meant to issue a warning to Seoul and Washington for staging dangerous joint naval exercises involving a U.S. aircraft. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities in consideration of its major ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-launches Wednesday of long-range cruise missiles that he said successfully demonstrated his military's expanding nuclear strike capabilities. After the tests, Kim praised the readiness of his nuclear forces, which he said were fully prepared for actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow with various weapons systems that are mobile, precise and powerful. He also vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to KCNA. The urgency of North Korea's nuclear programme has grown since it passed a new law last month authorising the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of situations. Most of the recent North Korean tests were mostly of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Some experts say North Korea's possible upcoming nuclear test, the first of in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles. These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the US to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a separate statement that North Korea had flown warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals' border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. The North Korean planes flew as close as 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of the inter-Korean border. South Korea responded by scrambling F-35 jets and other warplanes, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There were no reports of clashes. A similar incident took place last week, but it was still uncommon for North Korea to fly its warplanes near the border. Also, in the previous flight last week, North Korean warplanes flew much farther away from the border. North Korea's military early on Friday accused South Korea of carrying out artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border. Google along with Apple and Microsoft earlier this year in May announced a collaboration with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the FIDO (Fast ID Online) Alliance, to work on Web Authentication (WebAuthn) specifications for a safe and easy sign-in process. This new-age authentication system can replace passwords and yet offer robust end-to-end secured access to websites and apps. Now, the search engine giant has set the ball rolling for a passwordless verification system 'passkeys' on Android and Chrome. It has invited app and website owners to incorporate its WebAuthn API for passkeys and tests, and share feedback. "Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors. They cannot be reused, don't leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks. Passkeys are built on industry standards and work across different operating systems and browser ecosystems, and can be used for both websites and apps," said Google's joint team of Android, Chrome, and Account Security. Passkeys can be stored on the device and also synced with cloud storage and as said before, will work across all devices- be it with Windows, macOS, iOS, ChromeOS or on Android, with a uniform user experience. The user selects the account they want to sign in to, and presents their fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted. Credit: Google A passkey is nothing but a short user ID alternative for a particular online account and as you can see in the screenshot above, once you select the passkey, the next step is, you will have to use either the fingerprint or the FaceID or the phone's lockscreen PIN to log in. This is a seamless smooth process and is said to be the most secure authentication system. The company says it will continue to work with technology partners Apple, Microsoft, and members of the FIDO Alliance and the W3C to work on more secure systems, as digital security is an ever-evolving space. There will always be cyber criminals who will be able to find loopholes with the latest tech and Google hopes to be several steps ahead of the bad actors. All smart device owners hope so too. Must read | Apple, Google, and Microsoft commit to bringing FIDO standard passwordless sign-in on devices in 2023 Get the latest news on new launches, gadget reviews, apps, cybersecurity, and more on personal technology only on DH Tech. News Highlights: Nitish Kumar declares he will not realign with BJP till he is alive Border Security Force troops in Punjab's Amritsar on Friday shot down a drone that had sneaked into the Indian territory from Pakistan, an official said. BSF personnel at the Shahpur border outpost fired 17 rounds after they noticed the drone coming from the Pakistani side around 4:30 am, the official said. Illuminating bombs were also used to increase visibility as it was still dark, he said, adding that the drone was shot down immediately after it entered Indian territory in the area falling near Bhaini Gill village in Amritsar. During the search that followed, troops recovered a quadcopter (DJI Matrice) weighing four kilograms, a BSF statement said. It said a wing-rod of the quadcopter was broken and there was a hold-and-release mechanism. A nylon rope along with six reflector lights and a green strap were also found, the statement said, adding that a search operation was underway in the area. BSF Director General Pankaj Kumar Singh on Wednesday had said the force was alive to the threat of drones and that it had been working to counter it. The BSF guards India's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. The total length of Punjab's border with Pakistan is 553 kilometres. To mark Dyslexia Awareness Month (October 2022), global assistive technology company, Texthelp has partnered with TV actor, Dylan Llewellyn, to raise awareness of the challenges faced by those with literacy struggles. Best known for his role as James in Derry Girls, Dylan struggles with dyslexia and says that everyday tasks can be difficult for him. He said: Being severely dyslexic meant I found school challenging and was often behind with my classwork. "I struggled at mainstream school but as soon as I went to a specialist school it did help me grow in confidence and develop learning techniques. Acting with dyslexia has thrown up some challenges, for example, if I have to learn a script quickly then this can be difficult to do. "Reading and writing is a part of everyones lives, so its important that there is support for everybody, not just pupils with dyslexia who attend a specialist school. "I'm working with Texthelp to raise awareness of its campaign 'Words Can't Hold Us Back' which aims to reveal the literacy challenges people in the UK face day to day." Global assistive technology company, Texthelp, has unveiled new research highlighting the scale and impact that literacy challenges are having on the UK population including Northern Ireland. The survey is part of their campaign titled Words Cant Hold Us Back and aims to raise awareness of the extent of literacy challenges in the UK. Over a third (39%) of those in Northern Ireland have admitted to having reading, writing, grammar, comprehension and spelling difficulties. 27% of Northern Irish people said that they find it difficult understanding terms and conditions of applications and contracts. Over a quarter (29%) also admit to finding it difficult reading and filling out lengthy forms, such as medical, insurance or travel forms. For people in Northern Ireland who find at least one of these everyday situations difficult the most common feeling they experience is frustration. Over half (56%) admitted to feeling frustrated when they experience difficulties reading and filling out lengthy forms. Martin McKay, Founder and CEO at Texthelp said: By carrying out this research, we have found out more about how adults in the UK including Northern Ireland feel about literacy challenges. "We have learned how these barriers impact people every day. We are continuing to provide new products in education and will ensure words wont hold people back. We are helping in both education and in the workplace. We are committed to helping everyone understand and be understood by providing a suite of literacy and numeracy tools to more people across the globe. To find out more about Texthelp please visit https://text.help/literacy The South Korean tech giant hosted the Samsung Developer Conference 2022 and announced that the new Galaxy S22 series would be the first model to upgrade to the latest Android 13-based One UI 5.0 OS by October. Samsung launched the Galaxy S22 series earlier this year. The series included three models - Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+ and Galaxy S22 Ultra, and so far, Samsung has rolled out four beta editions of the new OS for the S22 series. However, whether the fourth beta update will be the final one is unknown. OS One UI 5.0 new update offers The One UI 5.0 brings along some new features for the users, like the Bixby Text Call, which will allow the users to answer phone calls by typing a message. In addition, it can also convert text to audio and share it with the caller and will display what the caller is saying by converting their voice to text. The new update will also enable modes customisation for sleeping, relaxing, exercising, and driving. In addition, One UI 5.0 offers deeper integration of Android 13's "Material You design". Other features include stacked widgets, extracting text from images, Quick Share, Smart View, Samsung DeX, a security and privacy dashboard, a new Dynamic lock screen, multi-user support, etc. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in. AGC's Culture of CARE supports Construction Inclusion Week By SONJA FORSTER AGC of Washington Members of the Associated General Contractors across the state and nation will participate in Construction Inclusion Week, Oct. 17-21. An inclusive jobsite culture is a key to being able to attract, retain and develop the best talent for the industry, both in the workforce and supplier partnerships. AGC, the construction association, encourages contractors to use this week to build on what it calls a company's own Culture of CARE, where everybody feels valued, safe, welcome and included. During this week, partners of Construction Inclusion Week will come together to provide contractors a myriad of resources to help them advance where ever they may be in their diversity, equity, and inclusion journey. Supporting Construction Inclusion Week, AGC's Culture of CARE program provides a calendar of daily resources to support companies who want to increase their commitment to diversity and inclusion, foster a sense of belonging among the workforce, increase partnerships with diverse suppliers and subcontractors, advance inclusive jobsite culture, and engage with the community. Locally owned Lydig Construction and Absher Construction are typical of companies who are striving for a more inclusive construction industry. Lydig Construction supports Construction Inclusion Week and is encouraged by these local and national efforts to increase diversity and cultivate inclusion, said Diahnna Nunez, who leads inclusion strategy and outreach at Lydig. Here, a Culture of CARE involves everyone from the most seasoned superintendent to the newest contract administrator, from the most senior leader to the newest subcontractor apprentice. For us, it is about daily behaviors and decision making that get us the most inclusive outcomes and experience. Stephanie Caldwell, director of diversity, equity, and community engagement at Absher, echoed those sentiments. Absher Construction Company's commitment to inclusion is at the core of who we are, Caldwell said. We value the unique differences of all Absher associates by leaving everything open our doors, our hearts and our minds. We actively participate in conversations that will have lasting tangible impacts to promoting diversity and inclusion within Absher and beyond. AGC of Washington applauds all the workplaces who join in Construction Inclusion Week. Visit the Construction Inclusion Week, and Culture of CARE Inclusion Week web pages for information, planning resources, and materials aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion awareness in your company. Sonja Forster manages the Seattle District of the AGC of Washington. Subscriber content preview SEATTLE An apparently unoccupied corner at 13340-13350 Lake City Way N.E. sold for $3.2 million, according to King County records. The seller was the estate of a local family that assembled the property in the 1980s and 1990s for $675,000. . . . Aekyung's controversial 2080 Hochi Toothpaste / Courtesy of Aekyung By Kim Jae-heun The government is expected to order Aekyung to recall all of its controversial 2080 Hochi Toothpaste products, which the company introduced in collaboration with Samyang Foods' super-spicy Buldak Ramen, due to safety concerns, according to industry officials, Thursday. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) said it will soon decide whether to advise the hygiene product maker to change the package design of its controversial toothpaste or make it recall the products. The ministry is concerned that Aekyung's 2080 Hochi Toothpaste could be mistaken for food by consumers, similar to the company's previous curry-flavored toothpaste that it collaborated with Ottogi on in 2020. "No person shall manufacture, import, store or display any non-drugs that are likely to mislead the use of them pursuant to Article 62 Subparagraph 10 of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act for the purpose of selling them," an MFDS official said. "We will leave everything open and review necessary measures." Aekyung has refused to give a direct answer on whether the company will recall all of its 2080 Hochi Toothpaste products voluntarily. "We stopped producing Hochi Toothpaste late last year. For the products that have already been distributed through various retail channels, we have no control over them," an Aekyung official said. Local convenience stores are hoping Aekyung will recall its product for different reasons though. "Aekyung's 2080 Hochi Toothpaste doesn't sell at all at our convenience stores and we have been criticized for displaying such a controversial product on the shelf too. Who is going to buy this weird item? I wish they would get recalled as soon as possible," one convenience store firm official said. People wait in line at Shake Shack's new restaurant in Bishan, Singapore, on Oct. 13. / Courtesy of SPC Group By Kim Jae-heun SPC Group opened its ninth Shake Shack restaurant in Singapore at Junction 8, the largest shopping mall in Bishan. The opening is the latest move by the food company in its campaign to expand its business into Southeast Asia, it said, Friday. After acquiring a license to run the U.S. burger chain in Singapore, SPC Group opened the first store in Jewel Changi Airport in April 2019. SPC Group Vice President Hur Hee-soo / Courtesy of SPC Group Bishan is a large residential complex located in central Singapore and Shake Shack's new restaurant is 324 square meters in size with 104 seats. "It is a notable achievement that we have expanded Shake Shack restaurants not only in commercial areas but also at shopping malls near residential complexes. Singapore is an important market for us to expand the burger chain business in Southeast Asia, which will help us to be global later. We will continue to open more restaurants in Singapore," an SPC Group official said. Early in January, SPC Group also earned a license to operate Shake Shack restaurants in Malaysia from 2023. The company revealed its plan to open 10 stores there by 2031. Shake Shack granted SPC Group permission to operate its restaurants in Singapore and Malaysia after acknowledging the company's capabilities in the franchise business. "We are the only business partner outside of the United States that manufactures the buns used in Shake Shack burgers. Our world-class R&D system and product quality captured the American fast food chain's heart," the official added. Currently, SPC operates 23 Shake Shack restaurants in Seoul. Shake Shack was brought into Korea in 2016 by SPC Group Vice President Hur Hee-soo, who is the second son of Chairman Hur Young-in. The younger Hur is said to have worked on securing a business license to operate Shake Shack in Korea since 2011. A HPV vaccine catch-up programme named in honour of an Irish woman who died of cancer is expected to launch in mid-November this year. The Laura Brennan HPV Vaccine Catch-up Programme - announced yesterday (October 13) by the Minister for Health and the Brennan Family - will offer free HPV vaccines to all boys and girls in second level education previously eligible to receive the HPV vaccine and who have not yet received it. Young women, up to the age of 25, who have now left secondary school, and who did not receive the vaccine, will also be eligible to receive it as part of the catch-up programme. The human papilloma virus, or HPV, can cause cancer and genital warts in both women and men. Studies from Sweden and England have shown that vaccination with HPV vaccine is associated with a big reduction in the risk of cervical cancer, especially in people who got the HPV vaccine at 12 to 13 years of age. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said, "Laura Brennan is the epitome of inspiration for all of us. Even when faced with a terminal diagnosis, Laura dedicated herself to promoting the HPV vaccine to ensure that as few families as possible would have to go through the rigours of cancer treatment and end-of-life care as she did. "The Laura Brennan HPV Vaccine programme is a fitting tribute to the memory and the tireless efforts Laura made to encourage young people to take up this vaccine. Vaccines save lives and, through screening and vaccination, we are working to eliminate cervical cancer in Ireland I really cannot think of a better way to remember Laura than achieving this goal through the programme named after her." Bernie Brennan also commented and said, "September just gone would have been Lauras 30th birthday. The reality of living with cancer, and then life after cancer when someone passes away means that we miss out on milestone celebrations with our loved ones. To see the HPV Catch-Up Programme named in Lauras memory is a comfort and a testament to Lauras dedication to increasing the uptake of the HPV vaccine. "I urge all parents to discuss HPV vaccination with their children and encourage them to take it vaccines prevent cancer. Prevention is better than cure and prevention is definitely better than no cure." Larry Brennan said, "It is lovely to see the HPV Catch-Up programme named after Laura. It is so important that this vaccine will be available free of charge and easily accessed for those who missed out on it in school, I hope this move increases uptake across the country. "I would urge anyone who has any question about HPV vaccines to get your information from trusted sources like the HSE and the WHO. Increasing uptake of the HPV vaccine will protect women and stop them getting cervical cancer. Bus Eireann, Irelands national bus company, has celebrated its employees achievements in 2022 at the regional annual GEM (Go the Extra Mile) Awards, which recognise excellent customer service, community impact, performance and forward-thinking. Geraldine Lenaghan, based in Ardee was recognised as School Bus Driver of the Year and was praised for her meticulous work ethic, always professional and setting the highest standards for others to follow. Awards were issued in a number of different categories including Craftworker of the Year, Depot of the Year, Foreman of the Year and Engineering Operative of the Year. Bus Eireanns Drogheda team was celebrated and named as Depot of the Year for their exceptional service delivery. Praised for consistently going the extra mile attending to customers, ensuring their needs are met at all times. The teams forward-thinking and collaboration was especially commended, recognising their respect for fellow employees and customers alike. "I am incredibly proud of our team of committed and dedicated employees in the Eastern Region who go the extra mile for our customers every day, said Adrian OLoughlin, Bus Eireann Senior Operations Manager, East. I would especially like to recognise the Drogheda Depot team who exemplify Bus Eireanns core values. Their professionalism and collaboration make them worthy winners of the GEM Eastern Region Depot of the Year. The GEM Awards celebrate the exceptional contributions of Bus Eireann employees for our passengers, our services and for their colleagues. I want to congratulate all of those who have won and who have been nominated for GEM Awards in 2022. The Bus Eireann regional awards will take place across the country in October and the winners of each region will go forward to the National GEM awards on the 8 December in Dublin. According to a recent KPMG report, Bus Eireann employs 132 people who live in County Louth, and transports 4,111 primary and post primary students on school transport in Louth each school day. Harp Day 2022 takes place on Saturday October 15th with live and online events planned all over the world including in Louth. Harp Day in Louth starts off at 10 am in the wonderful County Museum, Dundalk where you can peruse the exhibits to the sound of the harp as it rings around the beautiful old building. Spread across 3 levels, harpers will be dotted around the building providing background music to museums patrons from 10am to 1pm. Should you prefer something a little more formal, the museums auditorium will host short performances from the rising stars of harping in Co. Louth. Droghedas Millmount Museum will host some of the young local harpers learning at Music Generation Louths after school hub. Following the performance you can try the harp yourself with Music Generation Louth educator Sharon Carroll. At 8pm in the historic surrounds of Dundalk Gaol, now known as the Oriel Centre, you can hear the rare duet on Harp and Uilleann Pipes of Laoise Kelly & Tiarnan O Duinnchinn. From Mayo and Monaghan respectively, they are leading, influential exponents of their instruments. Their acclaimed album Ar Lorg na Laochra | On the Shoulders of Giants pays homage to the source of their repertoire, encompassing many of the various tune and song air types to be found in 17th-19th century manuscripts from different parts of Ireland. Laoise Kelly is a young harpist with the disposition of an iconoclast and the talent and technique of a virtuoso. Irish Times O Duinnchinns precise articulate playing quickly explains his many awards. His mastery of the pipes is without question and leaves no doubt about the subtleties of his musical inventiveness. - Journal of Music Laoise Kelly and Tiarnan O Duinnchinn harper and piper respectively have achieved levels of excellence and mastery realised by only a very few musicians. They are regarded by many in the same light as the giants they invoke on the album title Humour, gaiety, mischief and sorrow weave in and out of the musical narrative. Nuala OConnor Admission is free of charge however booking is essential. Tickets: https://bit.ly/harpdaylouthconcert Supporting Laoise and Tiarnan on the night will be the Music Generation Louth Harp Ensemble. The ensemble will also perform at the Gala Concert on Sunday 16th in Dublin with The Music Generation Harp Collective, a large National ensemble comprising harpers from Music Generations Laois, Louth and Mayo. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/harps-together-la-na-cruite-harp-day-2022-gala-concert-tickets-426073175337 Irelands planning appeal body has admitted it did not take the countrys climate plan into consideration before approving a major ring road for Galway. As a result, An Bord Pleanala indicated it would not oppose a judicial review taken by an environment group over the 18km N6 infrastructure project. Plans to relieve traffic congestion in and around the city is now up for review after correspondence was issued to the parties involved in the High Court case. Galway City and County councils and Irelands transport infrastructure state agency said they were disappointed with the decision not to oppose the judicial review. Friends of the Irish Environment had taken a High Court case against An Bord Pleanala, Ireland and the Attorney General, and Galway County Council over the decision to approve the ring road on November 8, 2021. In correspondence issued on Friday to the informed parties, An Bord Pleanala said it was not aware that the new Climate Action Plan had been adopted four days before the decision was made. It said: The board held five meetings to consider the application before making its decision at its fifth and final meeting on November 8, 2021 at which it decided to grant permission for the proposed road development. The board was not aware at this meeting that a new Climate Action Plan 2021 had been adopted four days previously on November 4, 2021 (adoption of same had not been communicated to the organisation). The board accepts that, in particular in the context of the proposed development at issue and the decision in this case, the failure to consider the new Climate Action Plan 2021 in accordance with section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 as amended prior to making its decision is sufficient to vitiate the lawfulness of its decision. Accordingly, the board is consenting to an Order of Certiorari on that basis, it said, suggesting that the original decision is to be quashed. An Bord Pleanala is to propose adjourning the proceedings, as well as two related cases, on Monday for mention in three weeks time. The Galway Councils call the climate action plan 'very limited grounds'. All were forewarned by those of us objecting at the oral hearing of the lack of consideration of climate. And after this we had the Climate Act & Climate Action Plan. Time for everyone to wake up. #RingRoad https://t.co/XwpbDklJyV Senator Pauline O'Reilly (@paulinegalway) October 14, 2022 Galway County Council, Galway City Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) issued a joint statement to say they were disappointed An Bord Pleanala had indicated it would not be opposing the judicial review proceedings on very limited ground. The statement said: Notwithstanding this setback, Galway County Council and Galway City Council are confident that the issues arising can be resolved and as a result intend to continue to progress the delivery of the N6 GCRR project. It said the Galway ring road, or the N6 GCRR, is a key component of the Galway Transport Strategy (GTS) and as the city and the surrounding area continue to grow. It addresses the transport problem in Galway City by adding trip capacity to the existing transport network thereby reducing trips through the city centre, it said. Furthermore, once the GTS is fully implemented, which includes interventions to re-allocate the freed road space in the city centre to public transport, there will be an even greater significant shift to public transport and sustainable transport modes. Senator Pauline OReilly, who originally lodged a submission against the ring road and in favour of a climate-friendly option, welcomed the decision. Now its time to ramp up an approach to reducing traffic through public and active travel. A reimagined Galway is needed, the Galway senator said. An update of the Governments Climate Action Plan is due before the end of the year, which sets out the actions that would be needed for Ireland to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 including a 50% reduction in the transport sector. Last week, Transport Minister and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said replacing cars that run on petrol and diesel with electric vehicles will not be the strategy to reduce Irelands emissions. Just switching one fuel type to another is not good enough. Its not going to work. Its not going to be the strategy, he said, as he pledged major public transport projects would be developed over the next three years. DFI BEDS, one of Irelands leading bed and mattress retailers, has opened its first bricks and mortar store at the Quays Shopping Centre in Newry. The family-run Tyrone company has invested a sum of over 250,000 in the development of the new store, a new website and a refreshed look for the brand, creating 5 full and part-time jobs with the expansion, adding to its 24-strong workforce at the DFI Beds manufacturing facility and HQ based in Coalisland. The store marks DFI Beds first foray into physical retailing. Having built its brand online since it was established in 2019, DFI Beds business grew by 300% during the pandemic, making the company Irelands biggest online bed retailer. The decision to create a presence on the high street reflects the brands commitment to further growth both on and offline, building on its success to date with a prime store location in Newry on the key transport corridor between Belfast and Dublin. The new store held an official launch event on Thursday 29th September, with brand collaborator, Erin McGregor, cutting the ribbon on the new premises to mark the occasion. Speaking about the new store opening, Managing Director of DFI Beds, Brian McCann said: "We are thrilled to open our first retail store at the Quays Shopping Centre in Newry. Up until now, DFI Beds has operated predominantly online, building our brand first via social media and then through digital advertising, following a period of significant growth, we felt it was time to build our presence offline. By opening our first bricks and mortar store, we are bringing the DFI Beds experience to potential customers, providing the opportunity for them to see the collections, try out the products for themselves and get to meet members of the DFI Team who can help them to find their perfect sleep solution. The DFI Beds brand has become synonymous with 5* customer service, offering a seamless ordering system and free delivery anywhere in Ireland within five working days. We pride ourselves on offering great value on great products, the best customer service and quick, free delivery and this is something that will be replicated in our new store. We are really excited to have joined the Quays Shopping Centre, the Newry location puts us in a great place to cater for customers on both sides of the border. Cathal Austin, Centre Manager at the Quays, Newry, welcomed DFI Beds to the complex, saying, "We are delighted at The Quays to welcome DFI Beds. The addition of DFI Beds further enhances the already diverse offering at the centre. We are sure that customers from Newry and beyond will be impressed with this unique retail experience and enjoy the superb customer service. Taking a new approach to retail experience, the store layout, provides an opportunity for customers to browse the companys beds and mattresses in store and online with iPads placed throughout the store, allowing customers to place orders directly from the store and receive their order within 5 working days. Members of the DFI Sales team are also on hand in-store to assist customers as required. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Grant Fit Out for all their fantastic work in helping us to develop the store. From start to finish, the Grant Fit Out team have been a dream to work with, supporting us every step of the way and realising our vision for the store. Our Project Manager, Paul Grant, deserves a special mention for always finding answers and solutions to our questions and challenges- no matter how big or small. Based in Coalisland, every DFI Beds mattress and bed is made in its own state of the art manufacturing facility using the latest advancements in sleep technologies, construction techniques and materials to create mattresses and beds that deliver on comfort and value for customers. The DFI Beds store is now open at the Quays Shopping Centre complex, Newry. The store will open Monday and Tuesday, 9am 6pm; Wednesday to Friday, 9am - 9pm; Saturday, 9am - 6pm and Sunday, 1pm - 6pm. Visit dfibeds.com to shop online or learn more European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell and Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles take part in a North Atlantic Council during a NATO defence ministers meeting, with Finland and Sweden as invitees, at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium Oct. 13. Reuters-Yonhap EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow on Thursday its forces would be "annihilated" by the West's military response if President Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine. "Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither," Borrell said at the opening of a Diplomatic Academy in Belgium. "Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated." Fears that Moscow could use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine have grown after Putin issued veiled threats as he staged the annexation of four occupied regions in the face of losses on the battlefield. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has warned Russia of "severe consequences" if it launches a nuclear attack on its pro-Western neighbor. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana, on Oct. 13. AFP-Yonhap Russia typically holds major annual nuclear exercises around this time of year, and U.S. and Western officials expect them perhaps in just days. They will likely include the test launch of ballistic missiles, U.S. officials say. But with Putin having openly threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia in its unraveling invasion of Ukraine, some Western officials are worried Moscow could deliberately try to muddy the waters about its intentions. "This is why you don't want to have extraordinarily overheated rhetoric at the same time you're going to do a nuclear exercise," a Western official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Because then we do have an additional challenge to really be sure that the actions that we see, the things that are occurring, are actually an exercise and not something else." Still, the official expressed "high confidence" in the West's ability to make this distinction. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg assured a news conference in Brussels that the alliance would monitor Russia's annual nuclear drills very closely, as it has for decades. At the White House, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Russia's so-called "Grom" drills would involve large scale maneuvers of its strategic nuclear forces, including live missile launches. He described them as "routine." "While Russia probably believes this exercise will help it project power, particularly in light of recent events, we know that Russian nuclear units train extensively at this time of year," Kirby said, adding the United States would "monitor that accordingly." A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Russian drills were expected to be carried out about the same time as NATO's own annual nuclear preparedness exercise, which is dubbed "Steadfast Noon" and will begin next week. "We believe that Russian nuclear rhetoric and its decision to proceed with this exercise while at war with Ukraine is irresponsible," the official told Reuters. "Brandishing nuclear weapons to coerce the United States and its allies is irresponsible." his photo taken from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, shows a Russian Iskander-K missile launched during a military exercise at a training ground in Russia. AP-Yonhap Worldwide 2021 figures surpass 2025 climate finance goals, with global mitigation finance of nearly US $63 billion Global adaptation finance reaches over US$ 19 billion The amount of mobilised global private finance stands at US$ 41 billion Climate finance committed by major multilateral development banks (MDBs) rose by more than 24 per cent last year compared to 2020, according to the 2021 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks Climate Finance, published today. The 2021 total financing by multilateral development banks already surpassed the 2025 climate finance goals outlined at the 2019 UN Secretary Generals Climate Action Summit in New York. Those goals amounted to an expected collective total of US$ 50 billion for low- and middle-income economies, and at least US$ 65 billion of climate finance globally, with a projected doubling of adaptation finance to US$ 18 billion, and private mobilisation of US$ 40 billion. The EBRDs contribution to the 2021 figures included total climate finance of US$ 6.4 billion, a record high since joint MDB tracking began 11 years ago, with total climate co-finance at US$ 17.8 billion of which US$ 14 billion came from private sector sources. It is good news ahead of COP27 to see that EBRD climate finance has hit a new record total of US$ 6.4 billion, as part of a collective joint MDB climate finance delivery that is also a new record at US$ 82 billion. We are especially pleased to see that every dollar of finance we provided leveraged more than another two dollars of private climate mobilisation. We know we have to do more but the MDBs are determined to play a crucial role in the green transition that the world urgently needs, both with our own capital and by mobilising the resources of the private sector, said EBRD Managing Director for Climate Strategy and Delivery Harry Boyd-Carpenter. Overall 2021 figures: Low- and middle-income countries In 2021, MDBs provided around US$ 51 billion (62 per cent) in climate finance to low- and middle-income economies. Of this total, more than US$ 33 billion (65 per cent) was for climate change mitigation and more than US$ 17 billion (35 per cent) for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilised private finance stood at US$ 13 billion. High-income countries In addition, in 2021, MDBs provided more than US$ 31 billion (38 per cent) in climate finance to high-income economies, of which US$ 29 billion (95 per cent) was for climate change mitigation and US$ 1.6 billion (5 per cent) for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilised private finance stood at US$ 28 billion. The Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks Climate Finance is an annual collaboration to make the banks climate finance figures public, together with a clear explanation of the methodologies for tracking this finance. This joint report, alongside the publication of climate finance statistics for each bank, is intended to track progress in relation to their climate finance targets, such as those announced around COP21, and the greater ambition pledged for the post-2020 period. The 2021 multilateral development bank report, coordinated by the EIB, combines data from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IADB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the World Bank Group (WBG). This years report also summarises information on climate finance tracking from the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), presented separately from the joint figures. Joint MDB Report Infographic Joint MDB Report Canada and EBRD support Naftogaz, Ukraines state-owned gas company, with finance and risk-sharing support to maintain operations despite Russian invasion Canada signs first dedicated guarantee of 36.5 million to enable, together with others, a 300 million EBRD loan to support critical gas purchases for Ukrainian households and businesses before winter The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Government of Canada continue their partnership to support Ukraines state-owned gas company, Naftogaz (NAK), so it can deliver critical energy to Ukrainian customers over the winter heating season. Canada, a founding member of the EBRD and an important contributor to its work, signed an agreement to enable, together with others, a 300 million EBRD loan to NAK . In doing so, Canada will provide a 36.5 million guarantee to help compensate for the loss of natural gas production due to Russias invasion of Ukraine. The timely contribution will support NAK in purchasing gas ahead of the winter season to secure heating in households, schools and offices, to produce electricity and to keep the economy going. Canadians are firmly committed to supporting the government and people of Ukraine in their fight against Vladimir Putins illegal and barbaric invasion, said Canadas Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland. With this 36.5 million loan guarantee, Canada is supporting the EBRD to offer a 300 million loan which will help Ukraine purchase the heating fuel it needs before winter. It is Canadas strong conviction that Ukraine must win this war to defend its sovereignty, democracy, and the rules-based international order. We are extremely grateful for this important contribution from Canada which reaffirms our long-standing partnership and sees us united in supporting Ukraine, its people and its economy ahead of a very difficult winter. The EBRD is on track to invest over 1 billion in Ukraine this year and none of this would have been possible without the strong support of donors like Canada, the EBRDs President, Odile Renaud-Basso, said. To address the Ukrainian economys most pressing needs, the EBRD is prioritising trade finance, energy security, vital infrastructure, food security and providing liquidity to pharmaceutical companies. Investments in all areas will involve risk-sharing with partners. 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 open endedly the access of Russian Federation and Belarus to EBRD finance and expertise, and the Bank has closed its offices in Russia and Belarus. Canada is unequivocal in its support to Ukraine and has already imposed, and will continue further imposing, forceful economic and financial sanctions on Russia and Belarus. Canada has committed over $3.4 billion CAD in military, humanitarian, and other assistance to Ukraine so far this year, including $1.95 billion CAD in loans which have been fully disbursed, to help meet Ukraines urgent balance of payments needs and support its macroeconomic stability. THE launch of Cork City Firefighters : A Proud Record. A Visual History From 1950 took place in City Hall on Wednesday. This beautiful volume is the final instalment of a trilogy and the culmination of a tremendous labour of love by author Pat Poland. Fittingly, the launch coincided with the 145th anniversary of Cork Fire Brigades very first turn-out, in October, 1877. The author talked to The Echo about the drive behind this book and his previous works, For Whom The Bells Tolled: A History Of Cork Fire Services 1622-1900 and The Old Brigade: The Rebel Citys Firefighting Story 1900-1950. My father before me was a member of the Fire Brigade (Deputy Chief) so we lived adjacent to Headquarters, then located on Sullivans Quay, Pat says. Our house had bells and emergency lights on every landing. When the General Alarm sounded for a fire or other emergency in the station next door, the alarms clanged all over our house as well. I knew all the firemen by name, and indeed, as a child, played ball with them behind the station. When, later, I joined the Brigade, some of them would be my senior officers! Some of the firemen had been in the Old IRA, and some had served in the Brigade throughout the Troubles. Later, when I was a member of the Fire Brigade myself, some of these old lads would drop in to the Mess for a cuppa, and regale us with stories from the past. I was fascinated, and thought that, one day, all this should be documented. This is when my interest was sparked. In those days, there was little interest in social history, the whole emphasis was on the physical-force side of things, the IRA, the Black and Tans, who did what to whom and so on. It is really only in recent years that the importance of recording our social history, too, is coming into its own. Pat would go on to spend 32 years in the fire service, based in Sullivans Quay, Watercourse Road, and at the service headquarters on Anglesea Street. When he retired, he devoted himself to researching and documenting the story of the fire and rescue services in Cork. Early indications revealed that, to treat the subject as it deserved, it could not be undertaken in just one book, Pat says. That is where the concept of a trilogy began. He took his research seriously. I knew I had to acquire the necessary skills and so undertook an MA in Local History at UCC; I graduated in 2007, he says. Research was undertaken at the Church of Ireland Representative Body Library in Dublin, the National Library, the National Archives, and at the Insurance Institute of Ireland Archives. Locally, both City and County Library staff, and staff at the Cork City and County Archives, could not have been more helpful. One find was crucial. The Minutes of the Waterworks and Fire Brigade Committee are deposited in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool," Pat explains. These constitute a fortnightly state of affairs of all matters appertaining to the Fire Brigade from 1877. It was long assumed they were destroyed in the burning of the City Hall by the Black and Tans in 1920, but, some years ago, they were discovered, in a decrepit state, in an old building at the Waterworks by Dr Colman OMahony of Monkstown. "It is no exaggeration to say that, without them, my research would not have been possible. Pats first book went back to the beginnings of the city, through the Vikings, the Great Fire of 1622, the Siege in 1690, and took the reader up to 1900, while the second looked at the Great War, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the Emergency, and the impact they had on Corks firefighters - including the Burning of Cork. For his final volume, Pat had his own memories as well as historical research, and he includes his experience of three major fire incident, the Opera House (1955), Suttons (1963), and Scotts (1965). In 1955 I was only a schoolboy, but I helped fight the other two fires mentioned, he said. Illustrations are also a major part of this book, which includes 240 colour and monochrome images of fire brigade operations, staff and appliances from the latter half of the 20th century While the [first two] volumes were well-illustrated, I felt that there was a significant corpus of photographs available from 1950 on that the general public would have a great interest in, and having been influenced by a similar Visual History produced on the Army, I decided the final volume in the trilogy would largely comprise a book of illustrations, Pat says. The result is a beautiful volume with particular appeal for readers with an interest in local and social history, or a background or family members in the fire service or wider emergency services. It is currently available online at buythe book.ie and on eBay, and at the Bookstor, Newmans Mall, Kinsale, and is shortly due to be available in Waterstones on Patrick Street. MINISTER for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath will today officially open a new 30.5 million ($30 million) manufacturing line at GE Healthcares Carrigtohill, Co. Cork facility. The new line, which has created 140 jobs, manufactures injectable diagnostic imaging agents (contrast media) used in Xray and Computed Tomography (CT) procedures around the world. Kevin ONeill, President & CEO GE Healthcare Pharmaceutical Diagnostics, Tanya OSullivan, QA Analyst, GE Healthcare Site Lead Eugene Barrett and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath T.D at the opening of the new 30.5 Million Manufacturing Line at GE Healthcare in Carrigtohill, Co. Cork 140 new jobs are being created at the site, which manufactures injectable diagnostic imaging agents (contrast media) used in Xray and Computed Tomography (CT) procedures around the world.Photo Darragh Kane Minister McGrath said: GE Healthcare has consistently invested in manufacturing here in Cork, bringing together state-of-the-art technology, global best practices in pharmaceutical healthcare and a highly qualified workforce. I am delighted today to open the newest filling line at the Cork campus, and welcome the creation of 140 jobs at the plant. "Todays opening represents yet another vote of confidence in Cork as a location for pharmaceutical manufacturing. I would like to commend all those who worked on this 30.5 million project and I wish GE Healthcare continued success here in Cork. The growing global prevalence of chronic disorders has driven significant growth in Computed Tomography (CT) procedures, leading to increased demand for iodinated contrast media, used to enhance visualization of organs, blood vessels and tissues across disease pathways. GE Healthcares Pharmaceutical Diagnostics business develops and manufactures imaging agents used to support over 100 million procedures per year globally, equivalent to three patient procedures every second. It is estimated that the new manufacturing line will increase production capacity at the Cork facility by over 50 percent by 2025. Michael Lohan, Head of Life Sciences IDA Ireland, Tanya OSullivan, QA Analyst, GE Healthcare Site Lead Eugene Barrett, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath T.D and Kevin ONeill, President & CEO GE Healthcare Pharmaceutical Diagnostics at the opening of the new 30.5 Million Manufacturing Line at GE Healthcare in Carrigtohill, Co. Cork 140 new jobs are being created at the site, which manufactures injectable diagnostic imaging agents (contrast media) used in Xray and Computed Tomography (CT) procedures around the world.Photo Darragh Kane President & CEO of GE Healthcare Pharmaceutical Diagnostics, Kevin ONeill, said, We expect global demand for iodinated contrast media to double over the next ten years due to the growth of CT imaging procedures. As an industry leader, we understand our responsibility to help meet this growing demand from customers and patients and this new production line is part of our wider commitment to produce 30 million more patient doses of contrast media annually by 2025. Eugene Barrett, GE Healthcare Ireland Site Leader, who leads the 765 strong team at the Cork facility, said, We have a great team here in Cork focused on supplying for our customers and their patients. Next year marks our 30-year anniversary of production and this new production line is central to our continued growth. We are delighted to have Minister McGrath and Kevin ONeill on campus to celebrate this milestone. IDA Ireland Executive Director Mary Buckley said, Todays announcement by GE Healthcare is terrific news for Cork and indeed the entire South West Region. It speaks to this global healthcare leaders continued commitment to Ireland. IDA Ireland remains focused on winning jobs and investments, like this, in regional locations. I wish GE Healthcare every success with this investment and expansion. Roles currently open at GE Healthcare include operatives, project managers, engineers, quality control personnel as well as facility management. Current jobs are open to applications here. CHAMBER WELCOME Cork Chamber has welcomed the 30 million investment. This investment and the jobs created by GE Healthcare is great news for Cork. Its another major investment by a global leader in the life sciences sector in Cork and shows that we continue to be the investment destination of choice for the global life sciences and pharmaceutical industry, said Cork Chamber CEO Conor Healy. The new manufacturing line at GE Healthcares Carrigtohill, Co. Cork facility. The new line, which has created 140 jobs, manufactures injectable diagnostic imaging agents (contrast media) used in Xray and Computed Tomography (CT) procedures around the world. GE have been in Cork for almost 30 years, and this 30 million investment in a new manufacturing line shows their enduring commitment for the long term, as well as the high quality of workforce and economic environment available here for leading global companies." We need to continue to create the conditions in the Cork region that make these investments possible and that includes investment in sustainable transport and infrastructure including accelerating investment in delivery of new suburban rail stations and cycle ways to support continued job and investment growth in this part of East Cork." With continuing investment flowing into this area Government needs to revisit and reverse its decision not to fund the N25 Carrigtwohill to Midleton multi-modal route as a key enabler to continued job growth and investment in East Cork. LATEST: Gardai have confirmed that Kevin Lane who had been missing from Monkstown in Cork has been located 'safe and well'. The 44-year-old had been missing since Wednesday. "We would like to thank the public and media for their assistance in this matter," a spokesperson said. EARLIER: GARDAI in Cork are appealing to the public for assistance in tracing the whereabouts of 44 year old Kevin Lane who has been missing from the Monkstown area of Cork since the morning of Wednesday, 12th October, 2022. Kevin is described as being approximately 6 foot in height with a slim build, grey hair with a grey beard, and blue eyes. 44 -year-old Kevin Lane has been missing since yesterday morning. When last seen, Kevin was wearing black trousers and a jumper and shirt (colours unknown). Gardai and Kevin's family are concerned for his welfare. Anyone with information is asked to contact Togher Garda Station on 021 4947120, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station. Russia's President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during their meeting on sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit, in Astana, Kazakhstan, Oct. 13. AP-Yonhap Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Turkey and Russia have instructed their respective energy authorities to immediately begin technical work on a Russian proposal that would turn Turkey into a gas hub for Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has floated the idea of exporting more gas through the TurkStream gas pipeline running beneath the Black Sea to Turkey after gas deliveries to Germany through the Baltic Sea's Nord Stream pipeline were halted. Erdogan said Russian and Turkish energy authorities would work together to designate the best location for a gas distribution center, adding that Turkey's Thrace region, bordering Greece and Bulgaria, appeared to be the best spot. "Together with Mr. Putin, we have instructed our Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the relevant institution on the Russian side to work together," Erdogan was quoted as saying. "They will conduct this study. Wherever the most appropriate place is, we will hopefully establish this distribution center there." "There will be no waiting," Erdogan said in his first statement on the Russian proposal. The Turkish leader made the comments on Thursday on his return from a regional summit in Kazakhstan where he met with Putin. His words were reported by Hurriyet newspaper and other media. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Putin proposed shipping gas to European countries that want it via Turkey because he no longer considers Nord Stream 1 and 2 to be "reliable" conduits. The minister said, however, that the Russian proposal needs "to be studied well." "There are investments that need to be made, they need to be examined,' he said during a joint news conference with his Qatari counterpart. "This is a matter of supply and demand. How much of Europe ... is ready to buy gas from such a project? This needs to be worked out together." Cavusoglu added that Turkey wanted to alleviate Europe's energy crisis. "The weakening of Europe in all aspects is not in Turkey's interest. On the contrary, it is against (Turkey's interests,)" Cavusoglu said. Turkey has long aspired to become an energy hub. Energy analysts have, however, questioned the likelihood of the proposal to ship gas to Europe via Turkey getting off the ground, with European leaders criticizing Russia's reliability as an energy supplier and calling Russia's cuts in natural gas a political bid to divide them over their support for Ukraine. Germany this week rejected another proposal by Putin to step up gas flows to Europe via a link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea _ a pipeline that has never been operational. Moscow cut off the parallel Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline over what it claimed were technical problems. Asked to comment on an assertion by Putin that Russia had foiled an attack on the TurkStream gas pipeline, Erdogan said Turkey was taking every step necessary to secure the pipeline. NATO-member Turkey, which depends on Russian for its energy needs and tourism, has criticized Moscow's actions in Ukraine but has not joined U.S. and European sanctions against Russia. It has maintained its close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv and positioned itself as a mediator between the two. Ankara recently helped broker key deals that allowed Ukraine to resume grain exports and led to a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia. (AP) The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) have seized 14,000 in cash during a search operation in Cork today. CAB conducted a series of searches across Donegal, Limerick and Cork earlier today, as part of an operation targeting a Limerick based Organised Crime Group. The operation was conducted by Bureau Officers, supported by the Southern Regional Armed Response Unit and Gardai from Donegal and Limerick. Searches were conducted in five separate locations, and resulted in the seizure of over 20,000 in cash, a Rolex watch, as well as documents and conveyance files. A Rolex watch seized during criminal Assets Bureau Search Operation across Donegal, Limerick and Cork on Friday 14 October. Picture: An Garda Siochana 14,000 in cash was seized at the Cork search site, while a further 8,900 was seized during a search in Limerick. Cash seized during criminal Assets Bureau Search Operation across Donegal, Limerick and Cork on Friday 14 October. Picture: An Garda Siochana Gardai said that Fridays search operation marks a significant development in the overall CAB proceeds of crime investigation which will target assets including properties linked to the Limerick Organised Crime Group. By PA Reporters The funeral mass for the oldest victim in the Creeslough explosion has taken place at St Michaels Church. People lined up on the Co Donegal villages main street for the seventh funeral of the 10 people killed in the blast at a service station a week ago. Hugh Kelly (59) was the oldest of the victims. He had recently received news that he was in remission after battling cancer, mourners at his funeral were told. Hugh Kelly He was described as having grown up in Doe as the youngest of five siblings, and loved to spend time at the castle in the area as a child. He built the wall up here behind us in the car park, and someone was telling me he placed his initials in that wall, Father John Joe Duffy told mourners. He spent time in England, and theres a photograph of him with a colourful exotic bird something that he posted home one time with a letter. The funeral also heard he could turn his hand to any job, from replacing a skirting board to making cradles, dolls and fairy doors for his nieces. He was someone who had determination, and he had lots of close scrapes, particularly in recent years with his cancer where he was up and down to Galway for treatment, Mr Duffy told mourners. He was battling that very well and just three weeks ago he was in Galway again for a check-up where he was in remission. That was such happy and good news. The funeral was told Mr Kelly had brought fellow explosion victims Robert Garwe and his daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe to the service station shop on the evening of the blast to buy a birthday cake for her mother. 'Cheeky grin' Mr Kelly was remembered as a happy man with a cheeky grin. Father Duffy told Mr Kellys partner Linda she is very much in their hearts at this time. Symbols representing different aspects of Mr Kellys life, including a jewellery box that he made representing his ability to turn his hand to so many things, a picture of him with his granddaughter to represent his love for his family, a pot of blackberry jam, reminiscent of the hours he spent picking blackberries for jam to share with others, and a recent photograph of him in a corn field, were presented at the service. Mr Duffy said: A man who enjoyed a good time, a happy man and a cheeky grin, a man who the family knew and loved so well. President of Ireland Michael D Higgins, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh were among those attending the service. Leona Harpers parents were also among the mourners at the funeral service. At the funeral for 14-year-old Leona Harper on Thursday, those in attendance heard that the families and communities impacted by the tragedy are lost in a fog of grief and painful sadness. Mourners at her funeral at St Marys Church in Ramelton, Co Donegal, heard how her parents, Hugh and Donna, talked of their daughter as a gem which shone brightly. Earlier, mother-of-four Martina Martin was also laid to rest, with Fr John Joe Duffy saying the shop worker had an abundance of love. Mrs Martin (49) was working in the shop when the explosion happened at a service station in the rural village. The funeral of Leona, who was a talented rugby player and sister to two older brothers, Anthony and Jamie, heard how her sudden death has left all those who knew and loved her shell-shocked and grief-stricken. A Liverpool FC flag is flown as members of Letterkenny Rugby Club join mourners outside St Marys Church for the funeral Mass of Leona Harper. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Fr Duffy told mourners the community of Creeslough was growing in strength each day to get through the hours and days ahead. Creeslough is a small village but it is now more than just that. It is now a word for determination, for resolve and for togetherness and how important togetherness is, he said. This tragedy has reignited within all of us, myself included, that each one of us are only as strong as the families we have around us, only as strong as the community that surrounds us. Martina Martin At the end of the service, Fr Duffy urged people affected by the tragedy to contact local counselling services saying he intends to too. President Michael D Higgins and the Taoiseachs aide-de-camp were among those who attended the services for Leona and Mrs Martin. The funerals of Jessica Gallagher (24) and Martin McGill (49) were held in Creeslough on Tuesday, while those of Catherine ODonnell (39) and her son James Monaghan (13) were held in Creeslough on Wednesday afternoon. A service for James OFlaherty (48) was held in the morning in Derrybeg. Funeral details for the youngest victim, Shauna Flanagan Garwe (5) and her father, Robert Garwe (50), have yet to be announced. THOMPSONS Bakery has featured in many of our Throwback Thursdays, and quite rightly too, since it played so large a part in our lives here in Cork. Whether you were a housewife needing to buy the days bread, or a child looking longingly at the confections in the window, Thompsons was an integral part of the citys existence. Tim Cagney sent us a very moving story about one particular Thompsons employee: Many years ago, in Thompsons Bakery, there worked a baker called Michael OKeefe, known to all and sundry as Micka. He was a great friend of my late father. Micka, says Tim, never married, and the love of his life was opera. He lived alone - I never knew where - and owned a sizable collection of classical records. He would often invite Dad to his humble abode, to listen to the music. Whilst Dad was not particularly musical, he was happy to provide Micka with company. I remember that, back in the 1960s, Micka was one of the first to acquire the new-fangled phenomenon of stereo sound. Dad was extremely impressed with this innovation, and told me all about it. Micka also possessed a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which he would sometimes bring to our house on Gardiners Hill, and amuse us by letting us record our voices on it. St Marys Church, Popes Quay, Cork, around 1915 - a reader recalls how Micka and his father used to operate a newspaper stall outside. Micka never drove, so he had to swag the machine from wherever he lived all the way to our house. On Sundays, Micka - assisted by Dad - used to operate a newspaper-stall outside St Marys Church, on Popes Quay. They sold Catholic publications, such as The Catholic Herald, The Universe and the Messenger, to mention just three. My younger brother (Con) and I were eventually roped-in to help with this operation. When trading ceased, the stall - which was, essentially a hut, mounted on wheels - would be pushed by Dad and Micka to a yard at the side of the church, with Con and myself happily riding inside. In those days, emphasises Tim, bread was nothing like it is today. The loaves were unsliced, with thick, crunchy crusts. It was not unknown for children, on their way home from the shops, to pinch a corner from the loaf, for an early sample. Right next to our house was a very small shop, run by the Healy sisters, Eithne and Patty. The bread bought there would often still be warm, and would be referred to as bleeding-fresh. However, there was always a word of caution from our mother. She deemed that such bread was too fresh to eat, and feared it would congeal into an indigestible mass in your stomach, if prematurely consumed. Micka used to lend weight to this theory, saying that bread should best be eaten one day old. It need hardly be said, of course, that such sage advice was never heeded by Con or myself, as the delights of the bleeding-fresh confection were nigh on impossible to resist. Tim himself moved to Dublin in 1973. One day, on one of my visits back to Gardiners Hill, I found Dad standing in the kitchen. He told me that they had just returned from burying poor old Micka. He had tears in his eyes. Im afraid I dont remember the year, but Dad himself died in 1986, so it was somewhere in between. Rest in Peace, Micka. Thank-you so much for sending us that memory of Michael OKeeffe, Tim. A man who lived a quietly good life and was liked by all. People like that were the backbone of Cork. Tony Finn writes to thank us for a great Throwback Thursday on the topic When it cost a months wages to fly to London. He says it reminded him of his own very first flight, when he was just 16. My family was emigrating to Cardiff, and my dad had gone ahead to get a job there, staying with my aunt and her family. In July, 1965, I flew from Cork to join him, while my mother and sister travelled to Wales by boat a few weeks later. I cant recall exactly why I was going earlier, but I think it was connected with getting me signed up for a school in time for the new school year. A Cambrian Airways DC3 plane. Picture supplied by Tony Finn. We got to the airport (the old terminal in Cork) about an hour before the flight was due to take off. I had very mixed emotions saying goodbye to my mother and sister at the airport, and to Cork, but I was also a bit excited about the new adventure that lay ahead in Wales. I was also worried about how I was going to collect my Intermediate Certificate from Colaiste Chriost Ri, something I never managed to do; I wonder if it is now too late? Anybody in authority at the Colaiste, do please answer. Tony would really like that Inter Cert to display on his wall! Tony continues: I flew on a Cambrian Airways DC3 (above), a plane where you boarded at the front end and walked downhill to your seat! The flight was very different from a flight today, as the propeller-driven aircraft could take no more than 32 passengers, so it was pretty small. Passengers received a small meal on the flight, and it took about an hour and a half to get to Rhoose Glamorgan Airport (now Cardiff International) where my Dad and my aunt and uncle picked me up without too much bother. It took under four hours in total to get from my home at Ballinlough in Cork to my aunts house in Cardiff. A similar flight from Cork to Cardiff today (if you could get one) would probably take about eight hours door-to-door. And Tony also remembers the old West London Air terminal mentioned in that previous article. My Dad and I went there once to collect my aunt, who had come on a flight from Cork to visit us in London. We collected her at Cromwell Road and took her into the Tube system, and while we were waiting for the train to arrive, my aunt asked us what the big holes at each end of the platform were. My dad told her that they had very big rats in London and that they lived in the holes, scaring her half to death! The other week, I went to collect some of my family at Gatwick Airport. It was the day that Queen Elizabeth died and the air corridors over the UK and Ireland were more or less cleared of traffic to allow the Royal family to fly into and out of Scotland, with huge delays all round. My family members, who were supposed to arrive at the Gatwick North Terminal around 9pm in the evening, arrived in at 11.45pm, and the plane went to the South Terminal, so they had to catch a train to the North Terminal to meet up with me as I had used the car park there. I had been prepared for flight delays so I got to Gatwick at just after 10pm. There were a lot of tired people sitting or standing around in the terminal building, some waiting to board delayed flights and others, like me, collecting incoming passengers, but the terminal had more or less shut down for the night so people couldnt even get a cup of coffee while they waited. Finally, when I met up with the family, we returned to my car to be charged 17 for two hours parking! Im afraid that flying is now an expensive endurance and not much of a pleasure for anyone any more. Too true, Tony! And Mr Finn can add three more now-defunct airlines to our lost airlines list: Braniff International Airways, Seaboard and Western Airlines, and Flying Tiger Airways; a brilliant name for an airline which is now part of FedEx. Indeed, The Flying Tigers was the very first scheduled cargo airline in the U.S, and did yeoman service during the Cold War on military charters, before being bought out by Federal Express in 1988. And John Harley also remembers the West London Air Terminal on Cromwell Road. As far as I recall, Aer Lingus and El Al (Israeli Airlines) had a joint terminal on the Cromwell Road with the same service in the late 60s and early 70s. I lived in London, and used it to fly home to Cork. It was interesting because both airlines were targets for terrorist attacks! Thanks for that little nugget of information, John. Must have made the trip back to see the folks a bit worrying? Michael ORiordan wrote to confirm another detail from that popular piece on flying and airports. There certainly was a viewing balcony at the airport and heres a photo to prove it (above). My good friend John and I decided that we wanted to see the City of Light and we flew to Paris for an 11-day holiday. First time flying, first time in France - a trip to remember. How did they get on with that first big trip, and what made them think of something so adventurous? We had, as they used to say in those days, a ball, and with a mini-budget. The idea first came to me from a notice on a school board. As apprentices, we still had to attend classes in a Technical School, which was the only reason that I was still attending school in my late teens. Anyway, Aer Lingus had this ad for student flights to Paris for 17 - I told my mother and she said, Why dont you go and that started me off. My good friend John also decided that hed go and so we made out plans together. There was a small catch in that John was already working full-time and so could not avail of the student ticket. To ensure that we flew together, I decided to forgo the student ticket and we both got the same price tickets: I dont remember the cost but it couldnt have been extraordinary as even on apprentice wages I could still afford it. Our pocket money though was fairly limited, but that made it more fun - making ends meet. We saw all of the sights [that were free]. A major disappointment was not being able to see the Bastille but we were about 176 years too late for that. Another disappointment was that it was August and Paris was empty of locals and full of tourists so any chance that we had of meeting French girls was nil. We flew direct from Cork to Le Bourget but coming home our flights took us through London. Both of our small duffle bags [the original ones not like the pretty things available today] were delayed in London [I dont remember which airport] so we walked home with our hands hanging to us and only our passports to show that we had been to Paris! But what memories, Michael, what memories! Lets hear from the rest of you with some great memories of the past! Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork During last nights gubernatorial debate, GOP nominee Tudor Dixon asserted that a difference between her and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was that Dixon was a small business owner, whose company had been crushed during the pandemic by Whitmers Covid policies. Curious, I decided to look into Dixons small business. Heres what I learned Dixons business, Cornerstone Foundry Supply (CFS), manufactures nothingits a reseller of imported ceramic parts from the Czech Republic and Italy. Its also really smallfrom its inception in 2015 until 2021, the company employed exactly 1 person; then in 2021 the payroll increased to 3 employees in total. Which also calls into question Dixons claim that Gov. Whitmers Covid policies crushed her business. Now, I just happen to know a fair number of ceramic engineers, so when I learned that Tudor Dixons small business got crushed during the pandemic, I was intrigued. So what does CFS actually do? A person with 30+ years of experience in this industry gives this summary of the company: Kind of sleazy, but its a US firm that imports cheap ceramics from eastern block companies to better compete against US companies like Vesuvius and others. You see it a lot with old US former sales guys repping Chinese companies to steal away business from US firms (by undercutting them) in price. But waittheres more. James Blair, the chief strategist for the Dixon campaign, made the following statement in an article from the Heartland Signal: These are highly specialized products of which there is very limited supply in the U.S. But these products are essential to U.S. manufacturers ability to produce steel castings and continue operating. Without them, many U.S. manufacturers would not be able to keep up with the demand for the products they make. One of my sources had the following response: Not sure their US competitors would agree with the comment about limited supply in the US. If this company is only importing goods from other countries to compete with US mfgand not manufacturing here themselveshow exactly is that good? My other source said this: It is this low cost competition that has driven the U.S. manufacturers for these refractories out of business allowing the foreign companies to creep in and gain market share. Ms. Dixon can say shes a small business owner as much as she likes, but her small business makes no products here in Michigan, seems to exist solely to compete against American manufacturers by importing cheap materials and selling them at lower prices in an attempt to take business away from US companies, and is helping to drive US manufacturers out of business in the process. Not exactly an American success story. Im voting for Gretchen Whitmer as Governor of Michigan. You should, too. 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. In perhaps their most controversial protest yet, two Just Stop Oil activists poured tomato soup on Vincent van Goghs famous Sunflowers painting in Londons National Gallery. The gallery said the painting itself was not damaged because the canvass was protected by glass. The action comes as Just Stop Oil has been protesting in London for two weeks with a demand that the UK government stop all new oil and gas exploration. What is worth more, art or life? 21-year-old demonstrator Phoebe Plummer said as she glued her hand to the wall below the painting. Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people? A video shared on Youtube shows Plummer and fellow activist 20-year-old Anna Holland removing their jackets in front of the painting to reveal Just Stop Oil t-shirts. Then Plummer tosses a can of tomato soup at the painting to gasps from onlookers and a cry of Oh my gosh. The two women next glue their hands to the wall below the painting as Plummer gives a short speech explaining their action. The action took place at 11 a.m. local time on Friday, according to Just Stop Oil. In addition to the climate crisis, Plummer also mentioned the energy crisis that has caused fuel costs to soar in the UK in the wake of Russias invasion of Ukraine, putting strain on ordinary people. The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis, Plummer continued. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They cant even afford to heat a tin of soup. The protest comes as UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has responded to the energy crisis by lifting a moratorium on fracking and expanding oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Just Stop Oil said that the government could issue more than 100 new licenses for oil and gas projects and that an October 1 energy price increase could push nearly eight million households into fuel poverty by April of next year. UK families will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter, as fossil fuel companies reap record profits. But the cost of oil and gas isnt limited to our bills. Somalia is now facing an apocalyptic famine, caused by drought and fuelled by the climate crisis. Millions are being forced to move and tens of thousands face starvation. This is the future we choose for ourselves if we push for new oil and gas, Holland said in a statement shared by Just Stop Oil. The two women were later arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and aggravated trespass, AP News reported. Specialist officers have now un-glued them and they have been taken into custody to a central London police station, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement reported by AP News. The National Gallery said the painting itself was not damaged and had returned to its place after cleaning. [T]here is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed, the gallery said. Just Stop Oil told The Guardian that it considered the fact that the painting was protected with glass when planning the protest. Targeting works of art has become one of the groups more divisive direct action tactics. Just Stop Oil activists glued themselves to the frames of Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper at Londons Royal Academy of Arts and John Constables The Hay Wain in the National Gallery in July, AP News pointed out. One onlooker who did not give his name told The Guardian that he thought the protest was counterproductive. They may be trying to get people to think about the issues but all they end up doing is getting people really annoyed and angry, he said. Another witness, 43-year-old Sophie Wright, told The Guardian that she first opposed the protest but changed her mind when she learned the painting hadnt been harmed. I support the cause and by the looks of it they are considered protests, with a purpose of raising awareness and shocking [people], she said. So long as they dont hurt people or put people in danger, then I support them. Just Stop Oil spokesperson Alex De Koning said that the group had considered the backlash but thought it was worthwhile to make people think. We are not trying to make friends here, we are trying to make change, and unfortunately this is the way that change happens, De Koning said. Export of Pakistan's livestock products supported by Chinese vaccine technology Chinese vaccine technology has driven Pakistan's export of livestock products, according to a recent report published by Gwadar Pro. "Foot and mouth disease (FMD)-Free Certification proved to be a prerequisite for the promotion of Pakistan's meat export to major markets of the world, with a potential to reach US$1-3 billion annually," the report stated. "China has experience theoretically and practically in the construction of animal disease free zones," said Prof. He Cheng, coordinator of the China-Pakistan Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation & Extension Center at the China Agricultural University. "We are willing to share our technology with Pakistan and deepen cooperation to boost its livestock exports to China." Currently, Pakistan's livestock sector is suffering from major animal diseases, such as lumpy skin disease (LSD), foot and mouth disease (FMD), brucellosis, and Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR). Due to the non-certification of disease-free zones, Pakistan could not compete with major exporters such as New Zealand, Australia and Brazil. Considering core vaccine technologies, China has developed cutting-edge technologies of FMD vaccines, including inactivated vaccine, peptide vaccine and virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines. Last month, a Chinese delegation consisting of He Cheng and Dr. Li Shoujun, president of Tianjin Ringpu Bio-Pharm Group, a veterinary vaccine and pharmaceutical company in China, as well as two vice-presidents of the company, visited Pakistan's related governmental sectors including Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, private companies and local dealers. Dr. Li, president of Tianjin Ringpu, signed a memorandum of understanding with Khalid Naeem, coordinator of Grand Pharma (pvt) Limited. Dr. Li also signed an MoU for producing Chinese vaccine with Prof. Khalid Naeem, coordinator of Grand Pharma (pvt) Limited, a Rawalpindi-based company. According to the MoU, the first batch of Chinese FMD antigens and adjuvants will be shipped to Pakistan this month, indicating that high-quality FMD vaccine will be produced locally and supplied to local livestock. "We are also looking forward to developing joint ventures with local companies and manufacturing poultry vaccines and pharmaceutical raw materials in Punjab province," Prof. He said. "With the introduction of protocols of sustainable healthy husbandry and eradications of major animal diseases, FMD-free zones will be established in Punjab and promoted to other provinces. In the future, fresh beef, mutton and chicken will be exported from Pakistan to China and other international markets." - Daily Times Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, left, and Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov shake hands during their meeting in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 25, 2017. AP-Yonhap Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned Ukraine and the West on Friday not to force his ally Russia into a corner, saying Moscow had nuclear weapons for a reason. In extracts of an interview with the American TV channel NBC released by Belarus's state news agency, Lukashenko said: "The most important thing is, don't drive your interlocutor and even your opponent into a corner. So you mustn't cross those lines - those red lines, as the Russians say. You can't cross them." Concern has mounted in the West that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear weapons since a series of defeats for his forces in Ukraine swung the momentum of the war in Kyiv's favour. "As for nuclear weapons, any weapon is a weapon created for something," Lukashenko was quoted as saying. "Russia has clearly outlined its position: God forbid there will be an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation; in that event, Russia can use all types of weapons if necessary." Lukashenko has no say in Putin's military decisions but his comments served to underline the heightened state of East-West tension as the war nears the end of its eighth month. Putin unilaterally proclaimed four Ukrainian regions as part of Russia last month, a move overwhelmingly condemned this week by the U.N. General Assembly, and has said he will defend Russia's "territorial integrity" by all means, including nuclear weapons if necessary. Lukashenko said separately he had placed Belarus in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of tensions on its borders. He linked that move to his announcement on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine. Allied with Moscow and wedged between Russia, Ukraine and three NATO countries, Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Its latest troop movements have raised concern in Kyiv and the West that Lukashenko may be about to commit his army to support Russia's faltering war effort. Political analysts say that is an unappealing option for him but that he may not be in a position to refuse if Russian President Vladimir Putin demands it. Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad. (Reuters) Framework, which make modular, easy-to-repair laptops with the idea of reducing e-waste, is now selling refurbished models. They come from "the small number of returns we get from our 30-day return guarantee," and promise a like-new laptop with decent specs, a full guarantee and a discount from all-new models. The company is also selling refurbished version of its expansions packs (USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, etc.) The returns go through a detailed testing process, and the company replaces any parts that fail to meet its specifications. They're then tested to confirm functionality and cleaned. There are what Framework calls "cosmetic limitations," but the company has set "pretty stringent" limits for the initial set of refurbed laptops. Framework The cheapest refurbished model available has an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor for $600, without memory, storage, WiFi, a power adapter, the OS and expansion cards. In comparison, the same model new costs $680. With 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, 1TB of storage, WiFi, a power adapter and a refurbished expansion card pack (2 USB-C, 1 USB-A and 1 HDMI), you're looking at $905 in total not bad for a decently equipped laptop that's easy to repair and upgrade. The other options are a Core i7-1165G7 model for $800 and a Core i7-1185G7 model for $1,069. Allowing the sale of previously purchased devices is part of the company's pledge to "remake consumer electronics to respect people and the planet," while letting buyers contribute to the circular economy. The refurbished program is only available in Canada and the US so far it hasn't received enough returns to launch the program in Europe yet. Framework has always said that it wants to sell PCs to compete with models like the Surface Laptop or Dell XPS 13, and spec-wise, its latest 12th-generation Intel models are at least competitive. And so far, the company has offered mainboard updates you can install yourself, should you desire more performance down the road. In any case, most buyers will likely be just as interested in playing a part in reducing e-waste, and the refurbished models give Framework another way to do that. SpaceX's donations of Starlink satellite service to Ukraine might not last much longer. CNN says it obtained documents indicating that SpaceX sent a letter to the Defense Department in September claiming the company is "not in a position" to fund Starlink internet in Ukraine as it has without tens of millions of dollars in monthly funding. The company estimated that data access for the Ukranian government and military might cost $124 million for the rest of 2022 and almost $380 million per year, and asked the Pentagon to take over that financing. Elon Musk elaborated on the reasoning in a tweet on Friday. SpaceX couldn't afford to fund the current infrastructure "indefinitely" while simultaneously delivering more Starlink terminals and managing data use "100X greater" than typical homes, Musk claimed. The satellite technology has not only been used to coordinate Ukranian military campaigns, but can be used to provide data to cell towers and other civilian networks that serve many people. The executive added that the "burn" was close to $20 million per month and included the cost of defending against Russian "cyberattacks & jamming." SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 The documents apparently contradict one of Musk's earlier claims, however. Where he said last week that only a "small percentage" of Starlink terminals and service received external funding, the letter suggests about 85 percent of the 20,000 Ukraine systems at the time (now 25,000) were at least partly funded by the US, Poland and others. A leak in April indicated that the US had already spent millions to get Starlink hardware to Ukraine. Even so, resources may have been tight. Ukranian commander General Valerii Zaluzhniy directly asked Musk to provide close to 8,000 additional terminals in July, but SpaceX answered by pointing the military leader to the Defense Department. Word of the letter comes at a bad moment for Musk. He recently drew flak from Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky and diplomat Andrij Melnyk for proposing a peace deal that included conceding the illegally annexed Crimea region to Russia. Musk even half-joked his firm was "just following [Melnyk's] recommendation" to "fuck off" following the proposal. We'd add that Musk's net worth of roughly $220 billion is more than Ukraine's 2021 GDP there have been numerous calls for the entrepreneur to personally fund Starlink service. There are doubts SpaceX is fully committed to supporting Ukraine's fight against Russia, and the funding request doesn't help matters. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow has no plans to expand a mobilisation of reservists to bolster its Ukraine invasion, after an earlier draft sparked panic and an exodus from the country. "Nothing additional is planned. No proposals have been received from the defence ministry and I don't see any additional need in the foreseeable future. Now 222,000 people have been mobilised out of 300,000. Within about two weeks, all mobilisation activities will be completed," Putin told reporters following a summit in Kazakhstan. Putin said he saw "no need" for talks with his US counterpart Joe Biden as tensions with Washington soar over a litany of issues including Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. "We should ask him if he's ready to hold such talks with me or not. I don't see the need, to be honest," Putin said, asked about a potential meeting with Biden on the sidelines of a G20 summit in November. He added that his participation in the summit hosted by Indonesia is not yet decided. (AFP) Friday, October 14, 2022 Magazines: United We Stand; Television, Internet, And Social Media: Divided We Sit. Part Three Lessons from the past for todays magazine editors and publishers Whoever has ears, let them hear. Matthew 13:9 Not all the magazines of July 1942 carried the American flag on the cover, however each magazine, in its own way, paid tribute to the United We Stand campaign and the war efforts. In this third installment of Magazines: United We Stand, Social Media: Divided We Sit, we look at three magazines from 1942, Hit!, Liberty Laughs, and Liberty. To read part one click here and to read part two click here. Hit! magazine, July 1942 In what reads like dry humor today, Hit magazine, in an article on pages 4-5 about the model displayed on that spread, wrote: I GAVE MY GIRDLE FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE You mustnt use rubber, you cant get zippers, so what can a poor girl do about a girdle? Confidentially, she shrinks. No fooling, brother, the answer to girdle shortage in the near future will be bend down, sister, bend down. If your girl cant afford the ritzy reducing salons, give her the turkish towel workout at home. Dancer Movita of the Havana-Madrid night club in New York says its a lulu. As soon as she finishes her morning shower, Movita goes into action. Her technique is a combination of the rhumba, conga and the Susie-Q. Movitas theme song is rub-a-dub-dub and she plans to roll the excess poundage away with a turkish towel, thus eliminating the need for a two-way-stretch. After shes perfected her form (and frankly we cant see a thing wrong with it now) shell turn in her girdle in the interests of National Defense. And then the only rubber not available for defense will be you, you rubberneck! Liberty Laughs magazine, December 1942 This brand new magazine with a tag line Best War Cartoons, Jokes and Anecdotes premiered with its December issue with a back cover cartoon supporting the United We Stand campaign and screaming every BOND is a STEP in the right direction. The magazine published by Dell Publishing Co., was the brainchild of Frances Cavanah and Ruth Cromer Weir, who were listed as the Compilers of the content. Liberty Laughs first issue started with AN OPEN LETTER Members of the Chicago North Shore Alumnae Chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, National Honorary and Professional Fraternity for Women In Journalism, have compiled this magazine as a contribution toward the war effort. We pledge to turn over all the royalties from its sale to Army Emergency Relief. We believe that a nation that can laugh is a nation that can take it, and we have attempted to bring together some of the best war humor published to date. Without the generous cooperation of AMERICAN, COLLIERS, ESQUIRE, NEW YORKER, PARADE, SATURDAY EVENING POST, THIS WEEK and other magazines and newspapers, this project would not have been possible. We are grateful to the artists and authors who have allowed us to use their material without fee. No one represented in this magazine has received one cent of compensation Liberty magazine, February 14, and October 3, 1942 The Macfadden publication, in its Feb. 14 issue, had a painting of Miss America 1942 draped with an American flag adoring the cover of the issue. In an editorial under the heading of Remember Pearl Harbor the magazine asked WHY NOT USE THESE ABLE MEN? And went on to answer: TO win this war, we need all the brains that America can supply. Not only New Deal brains but all constructive minds. No party in this country has a monopoly on ability. The administration has been telling us that politics must be adjourned. When do we start? Now is no time to hold old grudges. Now is no time for discrimination. Now is a time to use all our resources for victory These resources, these brains, these great and patriotic Americans should be allowed to help win the war! In the same issue of Liberty magazine an advertisement for Texaco read: Helping make America strong: HIGHER, FASTER, FARTHER! Right now it is good to know our aviation designers are at work on the greatest fighting airplanes the world has ever seen. Working side by side with them on the gasoline and lubrication problems of these new planes are the research men of the oil industry. In the Texas company alone are more than 1000 skilled scientists and technicians working and planning helping make America strong. An ad on the inside front cover of the October 3 issue, Liberty magazine offers an Emblem of the Statue of Liberty with the words WE ARE MAKING WINNING THE WAR OUR JOB. The ad goes on to state: The Emblem of Liberty WEAR IT ON YOUR COAT Americans will never stop fighting for those principles of liberty that have made this country great! Wherever you see the Liberty Emblem in a coat lapel, in a window, on a counter or in a store you will know that an American is saying: I Am Making Winning The War My Job An editorial in the aforementioned issue under the title THE U.S.A. IS OURS reads: THE U.S.A. is ours the individual possession of every mothers one of us. THE U.S.A. is not just a name to be applauded patriotically, not just a land, not just a country. The U.S.A. is factories turning out beds and cars, cereals and cosmetics, medicines and clothes, tanks and airplanes and guns. It is capital contributing its money and brains, and labor contributing its muscle and skill. It is farms producing food. It is cities housing millions and villages warm with friendliness. It is roads leading to work and to pleasure. It is schools and churches and hospitals and homes. It is song and laughter and love and children and the good satisfaction of a days work And, more than all this, it is the mighty sinews of freedom, weaving through every least citizens affairs, giving him the right and the opportunity to be part of this great whole, to co-operate, contribute, and pridefully share in its priceless gift liberty Remember, the U.S.A. is all of us. It belongs to all of us. It is our hearth and our home. It is our opportunity and our obligation Dont let any of us put any personal interest before this one and well keep it ours the magnificent U.S.A. To be continued Samir Mr. Magazine Husni, Ph.D. Founder and Director Magazine Media Center Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Entries are now open for the 2023 Royal Dairy Innovation Award for companies with a product or service exhibited at Dairy-Tech that positively impacts UK dairy. The award, sponsored by the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), is for research and development in the field of dairy farming. It will be awarded for the most practical, relevant product or service which is, or likely to be, the most significant innovation for the future of dairying. Entries must be submitted online to the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) by 9 December, where they will then be judged and a shortlist of three finalists selected. They must include a written description, supporting literature and online demonstrations, where possible. The shortlisted finalists will give a presentation or demonstration at Dairy-Tech 2023 on 1 February at Stoneleigh Park. Following that, the winner will be announced at the end of the Innovation Hub programme at Dairy-Tech. Each of the finalists will receive a Finalist Certificate to display on their stand at the show. Lyndsay Chapman, CIEL chief executive explained: CIEL provides a front door for the dairy sector looking for science-based solutions. "The UK dairy sector has a great track record of innovation and were pleased to be supporting future dairy innovators in collaboration with the RABDF. Representatives from the winning company will be invited to Buckingham Palace in April 2023 to receive a signed framed certificate and trophy from the Princess Royal. Applications close on 9 December 2022. Exhibits for fifth CIIE arriving in Shanghai 11:30, October 14, 2022 By Qiu Haifeng ( People's Daily Shanghai customs is seeing an influx of inbound exhibits as the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE) has entered the final preparation stage, according to the CIIE Bureau and the General Administration of Customs. The event is expected to be held in Shanghai as scheduled between Nov. 5 and 10. The fourth China Internet Import Expo is held, Nov. 6, 2021. (People's Daily Online/Chen Bin) The CIIE is the world's first import-themed fair held at a national level. It shows China's commitment to expanding high-level opening-up. The event, constantly advancing international procurement, investment promotion, cultural exchange and open cooperation during the past five years, has become a place for global exhibitors to debut their new products, cutting-edge technologies and innovative services. The transaction volume of the event has exceeded $70 billion in each of the past three years. The fifth CIIE will be a higher-level and more professional event joined by more participants. Over 280 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry-leading enterprises have confirmed their participation, of which nearly 90 percent are repeat participants. A large number of new products will also be debuted at the event. The fifth CIIE is expected to build a better platform for global enterprises to share development opportunities and pursue win-win cooperation. Global exhibits are speeding up their pace to Shanghai. Since mid-September, Shanghai Customs has established more than 100 CIIE-exclusive counters and channels for customs clearance. On Sept. 21, a ping-pong robot manufactured by Japanese electronics manufacturer Omron acquired the ATA Carnet certificate, a "passport" for international exhibits. It was the first inbound exhibit of the fifth CIIE to have cleared customs by sea. "We have provided services for inbound CIIE exhibits for five years. As more foreign exhibits are coming in, the customs clearance is also getting more and more convenient," said the shipping agent of Omron. Relevant procedures were completed in just hours, according to the agent. Twenty-five pieces of rare jewelry artwork, the first batch of inbound exhibits of the fifth China International Import Expo, arrive in Shanghai Pudong International Airport from Hong Kong, Sept. 20, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai Customs) At the end of September, a "Jinbo (short for CIIE in Chinese)" China-Europe freight train took off from the northern German city of Hamburg for Shanghai. Fourteen 40-foot containers loaded with products to be displayed at the CIIE are passing through Poland, Belarus, and Russia, and will enter Shanghai in mid-October via the Chinese land port of Manzhouli in north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The products include automotive parts, mechanical components, concentrated cleaning fluids and automotive friction materials. This is the second year that the service has delivered products to the CIIE in Shanghai. Apart from facilitated customs clearance, new regulations have been issued to ensure a better CIIE. A regulation was implemented in Shanghai on Oct. 1 to encourage better services in entrance & exits, volunteering, intellectual property rights protection and legal assistance. The regulation guarantees the debuts of global new products, new services and new technologies in the fifth CIIE. Sun Chenghai, deputy head of the CIIE Bureau, noted that CIIE organizers have developed support policies to help businesses overcome problems, which will benefit participants of the CIIE in terms of tax, market admission and customs clearance. Besides, special measures have been taken for the least developed countries participating in the expo, including the provision of free exhibition booths, Sun added. The first "Jinbo" China-Europe freight train is seen upon its arrival in Shanghai, east China, marking the first time for exhibits of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) to be sent by the freight train to the municipality, Oct. 29, 2021. (People's Daily Online/Shen Chunchen) With better services and a more solid platform, the fifth CIIE has driven up exhibitors' expectations. French company Schneider Electric, joining the event for the fifth time this year, will showcase its latest outcomes in green energy management and intelligent manufacturing. Engineering and technology company Honeywell, an "old friend" of the CIIE, is expected to display over 60 innovative products and solutions, including two items to debut in China. This year, Iceland will participate in the CIIE country exhibition for the first time, bringing its seafood, alcohol, chocolate and cosmetics. Li Xingqian, an official with China's Ministry of Commerce, noted that China places high importance on imports and is working actively to expand imports. The country will maintain its efforts to host the CIIE and introduce commodities from more countries, so as to share the opportunities of its development and opening up, Li said. (Web editor: Hongyu, Wu Chengliang) As a result of recent inquiries, the FDIC's Division of Supervision is restating the agency's long-standing position encouraging insured institutions' use of vacation policy as an effective internal control. The FDIC endorses the concept of a vacation policy that allows active officers and employees to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of no less than two weeks. During this time, their duties and responsibilities should be assumed by other employees. This basic control has proven to be an effective internal safeguard in preventing fraud. In addition, such a policy is viewed as a benefit to the well-being of the employees and can be a valuable aid to the institution's overall training program. The FDIC recognizes, however, that exceptions to a two-week policy can occur. In those situations, it is important for the institution to have adequate compensating controls -- such as an effective rotation of personnel -- that are strictly enforced. When the vacation policy does not conform to the recommended two-week absence, the institution's board of directors should review and approve the policy actually followed and the exceptions allowed. The FDIC views a sound vacation policy as one element of an institution's overall internal control system. In evaluating the adequacy of that system, examiners review the relative importance of an individual control, or lack thereof, in the context of the entire system and whether the institution has other effective compensatory control procedures. The FDIC's position is consistent with the industry's practices and guidelines on internal control systems, as well as the position of the other regulators. The following paragraph is included as examiner guidance in the Internal Routine and Controls Section of the FDIC's Manual of Examination Policies. Vacation Policies - It is the FDIC's goal that all banks have a vacation policy which provides that active officers and employees be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of not less than two consecutive weeks. Such a policy is considered an important internal safeguard largely because of the fact that perpetration of an embezzlement of any substantial size usually requires the constant presence of the embezzler in order to manipulate records, respond to inquiries from customers or other employees, and otherwise prevent detection. It is important for examiners and bank management to recognize that the benefits of this policy may be substantially, if not totally, eroded if the duties performed by an absent individual are not assumed by someone else. Where the bank's policy does not conform to the two-week recommended absence period, examiners should encourage the board of directors to annually review and approve the policy followed and the exceptions allowed. It is important in such cases that adequate compensating controls be devised and strictly enforced. When it is determined, after thorough consideration of all relevant facts and circumstances, that the bank's vacation policies are deficient, the matter should be discussed with the chief executive officer or directors. Comments and recommendations on the supplemental Internal Routine and Controls schedule may be appropriate. For more information, contact Examination Specialist Mike Jenkins in Washington (202-898-6896) or your regional office of the FDIC's Division of Supervision. The Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to continue the Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme for another five years from January 2023 to December 2027. BFC, which is part of the Better Work programme, is intended to boost economic growth in the country via the clothing, travel goods, and footwear sectors by improving working conditions in factories and other workplaces across the industry to increase productivity and encourage competition since 2001. The Cambodia government through the MOC and the MLVT has signed an MoU with GMAC and the ILO to continue the BFC programme for another five years from January 2023 to December 2027. The new MoU for 2023-2027, which is the eighth agreement regarding BFC, was signed to modify the terms of execution of certain projects by extending the implementation period. The new MoU for 2023-2027, which is the eighth agreement regarding the BFC programme, was signed to modify the terms of execution of certain projects by extending the implementation period from 3 to 5 years to safeguard the projects sustainability and feasibility. Fully supported by the Royal Government of Cambodia through the MLVT and MOC, the Better Factories Cambodia programme has been running smoothly for the past 21 years, MLVT minister Ith Samheng was quoted as saying in a Cambodia Peoples Party (CPP) press release. Samheng emphasised that the success of this project in Cambodia has become a model for countries in the region through the creation of the Better Work programme. Thanks to the policy of linking trade with labour standards, Cambodia has built more trust among famous brand buyers to add orders for key products like clothing, textiles, footwear, and bags from Cambodia, said MOC minister Pan Sorasak. According to the commerce minister, in the first nine months of this year, Cambodias exports under the preferential trade system to foreign markets totalled $17,578 million, a year-on-year increase by 24.23 per cent. The exports of garments and textiles rose by 23.16 per cent and travel goods and bags by 36.31 per cent, added the release. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB) Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) has announced a significant rise in all indicators i.e. exports, investment, and employment in the recently ended fiscal (FY) 2021-22. Exports soared 30.41 per cent and investment increased over 20 per cent compared to the achievement of the previous year, which is an all-time high growth since the past 40 years. The enterprises of export processing zones (EPZs) created employment opportunities for 64,160 Bangladeshi nationals, which is the highest in a single year in the history of BEPZA, according to a press release. Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority has announced a significant rise in all indicators i.e. export, investment, and employment in the recently ended fiscal (FY) 2021-22. Exports soared 30.41 per cent and investment increased over 20 per cent compared to the achievement of the previous year, which is an all-time high growth since the past 40 years. Among the total export of EPZs, the apparel shipment accounts for only 54.68 per cent whereas 85 per cent of the countrys total export is apparel. But the other sectors of EPZs such as garment accessories, footwear and leather goods, textiles, tents, caps, plastic goods, and electronics captured a fair share in the export earnings which proved the EPZs as the hub of producing products of various types. The exports from the operational enterprises of the countrys 8 EPZs under BEPZA reached $8,655.90 million in the fiscal 2021-22, setting a new record crossing the $8 billion mark for the first time. The previous highest in a single FY was $7,524.11 million in 2018-2019. Export receipts were 30.41 per cent up compared to a year ago i.e. 2020-21, when the enterprises of EPZs brought home $6,637.06 million. BEPZA has attracted an investment of $409.80 million in FY 2021-2022. The previous highest was $406.35 million in FY 2014-2015. The investment increased 20.26 per cent in the just concluded FY compared to $340.75 million achieved in FY 2020-21. BEPZA hopes the investment would be increased even more compared to FY 2022-23 by the operation of the BEPZA Economic Zone BEPZA largest ever venture. Till June 2022, BEPZA allowed 10 companies to set up industries in BEPZA EZ with a total proposed investment of $215.66 million, which will start to be added as an actual investment from the current FY. In the recent ended fiscal 2021-22, BEPZA has created a milestone by creating employment for 64,160 Bangladeshi nationals. Though BEPZA created new jobs for over 47,000 people in FY 2020-21, in the recently concluded FY 2021-22 the authority set a new record by creating job opportunities for 64,160 Bangladeshi nationals. This shows a rise of 36.51 per cent, added the release. Investors from over 37 countries including South Korea, China (Taiwan and Hong Kong), Japan, India, UK, US along with the host country, Bangladesh, invested $6,040.43 million in EPZs as of June 2022. The total exports from the 456 operational enterprises of 8 EPZs reached to $96 billion where cumulative employment stood at 5,02,365 till June 2022. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB) In the midst of a global demand slump and warning of temporary closures and more worker layoffs in the next few month, the Philippine garments industry appears to be struggling. Factories may have to further cut staff if demand continues to decline, Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines (CONWEP) executive director Maritess Jocson-Agoncillo said. Around 4,000 workers were laid off by garment firms in Mactan, Cebu. In the midst of a global demand slump and warning of temporary closures and more worker layoffs in the next few month, the Philippine garments industry appears to be struggling. Factories may have to further cut staff if demand continues to decline, Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines executive director Maritess Jocson-Agoncillo said. Jocson-Agoncillo said around 9,440 workers employed by CONWEP member units are temporarily on forced leave or have been laid off. This represents 3.5 per cent of the 270,000-worker base, and covers four sectors: apparel, shoes, bags and textile, she said. It might reach to a maximum range of 8-10 per cent if the current trend extends longer or global demand conditions worsen, she said. The uncertainty of the war in East-Central Europe, rising fuel cost, the disrupted supply chain, and trepidation of another pandemic directly impacts on consumer behaviour across the globe, she was quoted as saying by Philippine media reports. Global clothing brands are now reducing their order projections. Companies are looking to shift their portfolios out of the Philippines and into other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia over high labour costs, logistics and production flexibility, she added. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) The exports of textile and apparel from the United States went up by 13.19 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months of this year. The value of exports stood at $16.795 billion during January-August 2022 compared to $14.837 billion in the same period of 2021, according to data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel, US department of commerce. Category-wise, apparel exports increased by 26.22 per cent year-on-year to $4.862 billion, while textile mill products rose by 8.62 per cent to $11.933 billion during the first eight months of 2022. Among textile mill products, yarn exports increased by 21.33 per cent year-on-year to $3.118 billion, while fabric exports were up 3.25 per cent to $5.956 billion. Made-up and miscellaneous article exports grew 7.99 per cent to $2.857 billion. The exports of textile and apparel from the United States went up by 13.19 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months of this year. The value of exports stood at $16.795 billion during January-August 2022 compared to $14.837 billion in the same period of 2021, according to data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel, US department of commerce. Country-wise, Mexico (27.21 per cent) and Canada (24.13 per cent) together accounted for more than half of the total US textile and clothing exports during the period under review. The US supplied $4.627 billion worth of textiles and apparel to Mexico during the eight-month period, followed by $4.034 billion to Canada and $1.195 billion to Honduras. In recent years, the US textile and clothing exports have remained in the range of $22-25 billion per annum. In 2014, they stood at $24.418 billion, while the figure was $23.622 billion in 2015, $22.124 billion in 2016, $22.671 billion in 2017, $23.467 billion in 2018, and $22.905 billion in 2019. The value had dropped to $19.330 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but rose again in 2021 to $22.652 billion. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) critic's rating: 2.5/5 Trailer : Code Name: Tiranga The film revolves around a female RAW agent, Durga Singh (Parineeti Chopra), who chances upon Dr. Mirza Ali (Harrdy Sandhu), who is half-Turkish, half-Punjabi in Afghanistan. Sparks fly, and it seems theyre all set to marry soon. But it was all a ploy to use him as a decoy. Shes actually after Khalid Omar (Sharad Kelkar), the dreaded terrorist who blew up the Indian Parliament years earlier and has been hiding out in Turkey. Were then told that her handler, Ajay Bakshi (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), has gone rogue, and she gets an order to find and execute him. Involved in all this is the Pakistani agent (Shishir Sharma), who wants to capture Ajay Bakshi for his own nefarious purposes. How Durga goes about her mission and finally manages to corner Khalid Omar forms the crux of the film.Weve seen spy films like Salt (2010), Atomic Blonde (2017), and Red Sparrow (2018) in Hollywood before, and of late, the trend has caught on in Bollywood too. Naam Shabana (2017), Raazi (2018), and Dhaakad (2022) are three obvious examples. Code Name: Tiranga is another addition to that. Its closer to Dhaakad than others when it comes to treatment. Parineeti Chopra plays a superspy who can out kick, out punch and out gun the baddies even while blindfolded. No kidding.The film has some nice action scenes. The gunplay is mostly inspired by first-person shooter games. In the climax, Parineeti single-handedly takes on a small army and kills all of them with a headshot. But it isnt just gun antics. She also goes mano-a-mano with goons and comes out on top. Her climax fight with Sharad Kelkar, for instance, is a gore fest, with both acquiring multiple injuries. The film has been shot at multiple locations abroad and looks quite picturesque. The chase scenes, whether on a car or on foot, are decent as well. Another thing the film has gotten right is the use of foreign mercenaries by Indian and Pakistani agents. The portions where the mercenaries storm Khalid Omars bastion are shot like proper battle scenes, with plenty of casualties all around.But it looks like director Ribhu Dasgupta only concentrated on action scenes and, as a result, has let other things slide. The films plot is paper thin and doesnt offer you any surprises, the way a spy film should. And theres no emotional core to the film as Parineeti and Harrdy Sandhus romantic track isnt properly developed. Better writing and more fleshed out characters would have made it a crackling watch. To reiterate, while the action does hold your attention, the inane storyline doesnt grip you at all.Harrdy Sandhu impresses in his limited role. He does look the part and is confident in front of the camera. Parineeti Chopra has given it all for the film. She's one hundred percent into her character and does lots of physical labour for it. But shes a performer above all and doesnt have much scope to exercise her histrionics in the film. As said earlier, her scenes with Harrdy are too few and far in between, though they make for a good pair. But all her enthusiasm and commitment werent enough to salvage the film.Watch Code Name: Tiranga only if youre a die-hard action film buff who has to watch everything released in the genre. Otherwise, avoid. Marula Mining PLC ("Marula'' or the "Company") 14 October 2022 Quarterly Activities Update Marula Mining (AQSE: MARU) ("Marula"), is pleased to update the market and shareholders on the quarterly activities of the Company for the three-month period ending 30 September 2022 (the "Quarter"). Highlights for the Quarter Blesberg Lithium Sampling and Metallurgical Test work Completed Work programs commenced at the Blesberg Lithium and Tantalum Project in South Africa ("Blesberg") during the Quarter. This included a major bulk sampling program on the approx. 280,000 tonnes of existing lithium and spodumene stockpiles. The Company's South African based mineral processing and mining consultants and plant operators, Southern Metal Processing Pty Limited ("SMP") undertook this work, which included taking 3 one-tonne samples and seventy-five 40 kilogram ("kg") additional samples. Samples were taken for metallurgical test work, to allow SMP to update the extensive historical test work already completed at the Blesberg Project and to enable the Company and SMP to finalise the plant design and optimise the process flow sheet for the production of a spodumene concentrate for the export markets and the potential upgrading to a high value lithium carbonate at SMP's facilities in Johannesburg, South Africa. High-Grade Assay Results Obtained from Blesberg Sampling work Results from the initial sampling, metallurgical test work and flowsheet work were received toward the end of the Quarter. Average grades of 6.10% Li2O were reported from the initial test work completed on the initial one tonne of material assayed. Lithium grades of 6.25% Li2O were also reported in the first 520kg bulk sample and grades of between 1.5% Li2O and 5.8% Li2O reported in an additional 486kg sample taken and initially sampled The results demonstrated that high-grade lithium was contained within the spodumene mineralisation and that high value lithium can potentially be recovered from the existing stockpiles without incurring high capital, mining, and processing costs. Following the receipt of the results, the Board approved an accelerated program to fast-track the treatment of the high-grade lithium identified in the spodumene and position Blesberg as a producer and seller of lithium product. Blesberg site works commenced To round off the Quarter, the Company announced that SMP had completed a detailed site visit, assessment and review of the Blesberg Project area to enable them to finalise the design and develop a long-term sustainable mining and associated operations plan for the planned mining and processing operation. Completion of this review allowed the Board to make the decision to commence site establishment work in line with the requirements of the Department of Mineral Resources. During the Quarter, SMP commenced the initial site works, which included submitting a proposal for the retreatment of the existing stockpiles and preliminary design work for a longer term hard-rock mine, together with exploration plans and budgets, mine health and safety plan, and detailed capital and operating cost estimates and the standard operating procedures for the lithium mining and processing operation in line with the Company's ESG and CSR corporate policies. As part of the initial site works, SMP are now commencing improvements to the local site infrastructure, submitting applications for two five hectare mining permits extending over the initial areas to reprocess the stockpiles and a waste management license and will also work with the Company's geological consultants in preparing an updated resource statement of the existing stockpiles of material including the identified lithium bearing spodumene. Nkombwa Hill Site Visit A comprehensive site visit was completed during the Quarter at the Nkombwa Hill Niobium and Tantalum, Rare Earth Elements and Phosphate Project in Zambia ("Nkombwa"). The site visit was conducted by the Company's representatives and technical consultants and the other Nkombwa shareholders. The site visit was undertaken to allow the Company and its technical consultants to better plan and prepare the proposed exploration and development programs at Nkombwa over the next 12 months. Previous exploration has defined a JORC 2012 Compliant Total Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 21.8 million tonnes ("Mt") at a grade of 7.06% P2O5 and 1.17% Total Rare Earth Oxides ("TREOs") at a 3.0% P2O5 cut-off, and with a high grade subset of the Total Mineral Resource, of 2.78Mt at a grade of 2.76% TREO and 6.43% P2O5 at a 1.0% TREO cut-off grade also defined. The reported Total Mineral Resource was defined on an area of less than 5% of the Nkombwa Project. During the site visit, the majority of the diamond drill boreholes, completed as part of the previous resource definition programme, were located and the differing styles of niobium and tantalum mineralisation were observed along with the phosphate and rare earth element mineralisation identified during previous drill works. A sampling programme of the niobium and tantalum mineralisation in the major alluvial zone at the Southern side of Nkombwa was undertaken during the visit. These samples are currently in Johannesburg, South Africa undergoing metallurgical analysis. Results of the analysis will be used to optimise and finalise the design of the process flow sheet for on-site concentration and off-site extraction or refining. Post Quarter Highlights Investment in High-Grade Copper Mining Project in Tanzania Post the Quarter end, the Company entered into a binding heads of agreement with Takela Mining Tanzania Limited ("Takela") to secure a 49% commercial interest in the Kinusi Copper Project comprising of 10 copper mining licences in Tanzania. Under the terms of the agreement with Takela, the Company will now advance funds to complete additional exploration, expansion, and mine development work. A site visit by the Company's CEO and management during the Quarter identified a potential high grade and shallow copper ore body extending for over a kilometre. Copper mineralisation was widely observed and samples taken and copper grades of 7.28%, 19.12% and 31.32% were reported. Further exploration and mine development work is to commence at the Kinusi Copper Project during the current quarter. The addition of these licences has further broadened the Company's portfolio of assets to include another key component in the supply chain of critical minerals essential towards the drive to the green transition. Jason Brewer, Marula Mining PLC CEO said; "The Company has made significant progress at Blesberg during the Quarter making significant strides towards becoming a producer in the short-term, and providing value for shareholders. The team's efforts have led to the identification of high-grade lithium mineralisation and the potential of Blesberg to produce at low cost and potentially generate cashflow in the near term. "I am particularly happy with the progress at Blesberg which has not gone unnoticed by many commodity trading groups and investors who are looking to secure long-term and sustainable supplies of lithium concentrate to meet the record levels of demand. "The successful site visit to Nkombwa Hill has allowed the Company to focus its exploration and development activities over the coming 12 months. The sampling programme undertaken during the visit will be analysed and used to progress works for onsite concentration of niobium and tantalum and off-site extraction or refining. This will further allow plans for broader exploration with the aim of identifying new phosphate and rare earth elements mineral resources. "We're excited about the potential of the Kinusi Copper project and adding this already proven high grade copper project to our portfolio will further strengthen Marula's strategy of investing and developing mining assets with near-term potential. "I would like to thank shareholders and the Marula team for their continual support and look forward to updating the market with ongoing activities." The Directors of Marula Mining Plc are responsible for the contents of this announcement. For enquiries contact: Marula Mining PLC Jason Brewer, Chief Executive Officer Faith Kinyanjuimumbi Investor Relations Email: jason@marulamining.com Email: info@marulamining.com AQSE Corporate Adviser Cairn Financial Advisers LLP, Liam Murray / Ludovico Lazzaretti +44 (0)20 7213 0880 Broker OvalX, Tom Curran / Thomas Smith +44 (0) 20 7392 1568 Financial PR and IR BlytheRay Tim Blythe / Megan Ray +44 (0)20 7138 3204 Caution; This announcement has been prepared for information purposes only. Certain statements in this announcement, are, or may be deemed to be, forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are identi?ed by their use of terms and phrases such as 'believe', 'could', "should" 'envisage', 'estimate', 'intend', 'may', 'plan', 'potentially', "expect", 'will' or the negative of those, variations or comparable expressions, including references to assumptions. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on the Directors' current expectations and assumptions regarding the Company's future growth, results of operations, performance, future capital and other expenditures (including the amount, nature and sources of funding thereof), competitive advantages, business prospects and opportunities. Such forward looking statements re?ect the Directors' current beliefs and assumptions and are based on information currently available to the Directors. In Defence of Marxism is committed to safeguarding your privacy. 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Achieving our purposes These include (but are not limited to) promoting socialist policies Governance Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes Statutory reporting Publicity and income generation Conventional direct marketing and other forms of marketing, publicity or advertisement Unsolicited messages, including campaigns, newsletters, and fundraising appeals Analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop and promote or strategy and improve communication efficiency Personalisation used to tailor and enhance your experience of our communications Operational Management Maintenance of suppression files Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purpose Purely administrative purposes Responding to enquiries Delivery of requested products or information Communications designed to administer existing services including subscriptions, administration of petitions and financial transactions Thank you communications and receipts Maintaining a supporter database and suppression lists Financial Management and control Processing financial transactions and maintaining financial controls Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering Enforcement of legal claims Reporting criminal acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies When we use your personal information, we will consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. 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We recommend that you check this Privacy Policy occasionally to ensure you remain happy with it. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email. Third party websites We link our website directly to other sites. This Privacy Policy does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any external websites you visit via links on our website. Updating information You can check the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to update it where necessary, by emailing us at webmaster@marxist.com Contact We are not required by law to have a Data Protection Officer however we have a Data Protection Manager. Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / October 14, 2022 / Southern Energy Corp. ("Southern" or the "Company") (TSXV:SOU)(AIM:SOUC)(OTCQX:SOUTF), a U.S.-focused, growth-oriented natural gas producer, is pleased to announce that its common shares of no par value in the capital of the Company ("Common Shares") are now trading on the OTCQX Best Market under the ticker symbol of SOUTF. Southern's Common Shares will continue to trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol SOU, and on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol SOUC. OTCQX Graduation Southern graduated to OTCQX from the Pink Open Market. Investors based in the U.S. can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the Company on www.otcmarkets.com. For companies listed on a qualified international exchange, such as the TSXV and AIM, streamlined market standards enable them to utilize their home market reporting to make their information available in the U.S. To qualify for OTCQX, companies must meet high financial standards, follow best practice corporate governance and demonstrate compliance with applicable securities laws. JWTT Inc. acted as the Company's OTCQX sponsor. Conference Participation The Company is also pleased to announce that Calvin Yau, Southern's Chief Financial Officer, will be presenting at the Schachter "Catch The Energy" Conference at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta on October 22, 2022. Ian Atkinson, CEO and President of Southern Energy, commented: "We are pleased to reach the milestone of trading on OTCQX, as this will make it easier for our U.S. investors to invest in Southern as we look to unlock shareholder value through our long-term development drilling program at Gwinville." About Southern Energy Corp. Southern Energy Corp. is a natural gas exploration and production company. Southern has a primary focus on acquiring and developing conventional natural gas and light oil resources in the southeast Gulf States of Mississippi, Louisiana, and East Texas. Our management team has a long and successful history working together and have created significant shareholder value through accretive acquisitions, optimization of existing oil and natural gas fields and the utilization of re-development strategies utilizing horizontal drilling and multi-staged fracture completion techniques. For further information about Southern, please visit our website at www.southernenergycorp.com or contact: Southern Energy Corp. Ian Atkinson (President and CEO) +1 587 287 5401 Calvin Yau (CFO) +1 587 287 5402 Strand Hanson Limited - Nominated & Financial Adviser +44 (0) 20 7409 3494 James Spinney / James Bellman / Rob Patrick Canaccord Genuity - Joint Broker +44 (0) 20 7523 8000 Henry Fitzgerald-O'Connor / Gerel Bastin Hannam & Partners - Joint Broker +44 (0) 20 7907 8500 Samuel Merlin / Ernest Bell Camarco +44 (0) 20 3757 4980 Owen Roberts / Billy Clegg / Hugo Liddy Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: Southern Energy Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/720422/Southern-Energy-Corp-Announces-Commencement-of-OTCQX-Trading-and-Participation-in-the-Schachter-Catch-the-Energy-Conference BANGKOK, Oct 14, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - InfoComm Southeast Asia which debuted in 2019 was a huge success. Now, after the Covid-resultant pause, the Show is back - as an in-person show, with access to new pre-show planning and engagement tools that will enhance the visitor experience. InfoComm Southeast Asia 2022 will take place from 2 to 4 November at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre (BITEC).InfoComm Southeast Asia is the region's premier Professional AudioVisual (Pro-AV) and Transformative Technology tradeshow, featuring trailblazing international and local solution providers. Powerful solutions on show and insightful learning sessions cater to a spectrum of industries, including the government sectors of transportation, public security and defense, education, healthcare, hospitality, retail, and others.The Show specially caters to AV industry players as well as embedded technology decision-makers and business end-users. For these stakeholders who are serious about transforming their organization and growing their business in and beyond the post-pandemic landscape, this is a show not to be missed."After the 2-year hiatus due to the global pandemic, InfoComm Southeast Asia is happy to once again bring together Pro-AV technology providers and business users; technology experts, industry leaders and open minds ready to learn," said Richard Tan, Executive Director of InfoCommAsia. "Much has changed in terms of available tech-enhanced solutions and marketplace needs and trends. So, besides the opportunity for all stakeholders to reconnect face-to-face, InfoComm Southeast Asia 2022 is going to be an exciting space for visitors and delegates as they get up close and personal with exhibitors and experts - the drivers of tomorrow's technology and solutions. The Show is the place to seek out the most advanced Pro-AV ideas to-date, to create and deliver an exceptional customer experience in an increasingly hybrid world."THE EXHIBITIONTransformative Solutions for All IndustriesThe world has just begun to emerge from a painful yet revitalizing lesson. It has learnt the urgency of technology adoption and the importance of constant upgrading along with technological evolution, to be future-ready and disruption-proof. Increased technology implementation and integration lead to greater reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) to mitigate the consequent increase in security risks. This reality is already fast unfolding, driven by Pro-AV technologies, making InfoComm Southeast Asia an important show for AV and IT professionals and business decision-makers.InfoComm Southeast Asia is where entrepreneurs, business leaders and technical professionals will discover the latest Pro-AV solutions that are transforming every industry. More than 130 exhibiting companies from over 20 participating countries will gather under one roof to showcase their innovations for the post-pandemic marketplace. These include brands like Epson, Lenovo, Microsoft, Panasonic, Philips, and more. Visitors can expect to see:- Large screen, projection mapping, AR/VR solutionsfor live events, museums, education and simulation training- Security, flood and surveillance monitoring systems for network operations centers- Control and automation solutions for smart city management- Room automation and centralized systems for smart homes and offices- Collaborative conferencing systems for in-person and hybrid meetings- Smart classrooms- Digital signage and display solutions for advertising and information- Virtual and hybrid learning solutions...and moreDISCOVER SOLUTIONS WITH vBOOTHPre-Show Engagement for Better Show ExperienceTo enhance show experience for visitors, InfoComm Southeast Asia has introduced facilitative tools on the Show website. These tools will allow solution-seekers to identify exhibitors that have those solutions, and connect with them.- An intuitive business matching system instantaneously presents visitors with a list of exhibitors, based on their industry and the solutions they seek.- vBooth gives every exhibitor a dedicated page online, where visitors can explore the exhibitor's solutions via multimedia presentations. Information will include the exhibitor's range of solutions as well as products and solutions being presented at the Show.- Business card drop facility lets visitors leave their details for callback by exhibitors, and appointment scheduler allows visitors to pre-arrange meet-ups with exhibitors at the Show.All these will help visitors organize their visit way before the Show begins. Fully-utilised, visitors can look forward to a productive time at InfoComm Southeast Asia 2022.THE SUMMITInsights into Developments and Trends for Informed Business DecisionsConcurrent to an exciting show floor is the InfoComm Southeast Asia 2022 Summit line-up. Multiple conference tracks cater to different industries and learner profiles. Delegates can look forward to more than 30 free-to-attend learning sessions in the form of keynotes, panel discussion and case studies.Tracks for Vertical Market Solution-seekers and AV Professionals- The two-day NIXT Summit focuses on end-to-end emerging tech solutions for businesses. Sessions delve into the successes and challenges of digital transformation practices in industries and enterprises.Tracks for AV Professionals and Technology Decision-makers- AVIXA Seminars help AV professionals stay in touch with technical updates, industry practices and trends across various industries and application scenarios.- Asia AV Leaders Connect (By invite-only) gathers the AV industry's C-suite and directorate leaders across Asia for the exchange of intelligence; discussions on geopolitical and economic concerns as well as emerging technology trends and disruptions; and identification of growth opportunities.- AV Managers Day sessions are designed for mid-level AV managers and use real-life case studies to delve into AV project challenges and how to overcome them.There is also the AV Technical Tour which offers an opportunity to see Pro-AV solutions in situ. The "Smart Traffic Systems -- Expressway Traffic Management Centre and Control Rooms" tour will take delegates into the very heart of command and control scenarios, where condition monitoring, situational management, emergency response, etc are critical. Visitors can learn how advanced technologies and control systems enable the Expressway Authority of Thailand to effectively and efficiently provide the best experience for expressway users.For the full Summit line-up and latest updates, please visit the official Show website at www.infocomm-sea.com.REGISTRATION IS OPENAdmission to Exhibition and Summit is FreeInfoComm Southeast Asia 2022 will be at BITEC from 2-4 November (Days 1 and 2: 10am - 6pm; Day 3: 10am - 4pm local time). Visitors can register to visit the Show at www.infocomm-sea.com. Admission is free.About InfoCommAsiaInfoCommAsia Pte. Ltd. is the region's preeminent organizer of tradeshows for the Professional AudioVisual (Pro-AV) and Transformative Solutions industries. Through industry-leading shows in China, India and Southeast Asia, InfoCommAsia connects global and regional solution providers, vertical market end-users and the supply chain with the most important markets of Asia Pacific.Additional information is available at:infocomm-china.com | nixt-china.com | infocomm-india.com | infocomm-sea.comFor more information, please contact:Rest of the WorldAngie EngMarketing DirectorInfoCommAsia Pte Ltdangieeng@infocommasia.comThailandKanokwan SukchaisriManaging DirectorExpo Inter Co., Ltdkanokwan.infocommasia@expointer.netSource: InfoCommAsiaCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. LONDON (dpa-AFX) - International Distributions Services plc (IDS.L) Friday said its UK business Royal Mail recorded an adjusted operating loss in the first half, compared to prior year's profit. Trading in GLS has been in line with expectations. Royal Mail also projects an operating loss in the full year. The company also said around 5,000 to 6,000 redundancies may be required by end of August 2023. The company will be starting the process of consulting on rightsizing the business in response to the impact of industrial action, delays in delivering agreed productivity improvements and lower parcel volumes. Short-term cost efficiencies will be achieved through an estimated reduction of around 5,000 full time equivalent operational roles or FTEs by March 2023 and around 10,000 by end of August 2023, on a rolling 12 month basis. In its trading update, the company reported that Royal Mail adjusted operating loss was 219 million pounds for the first half, compared to profit of 235 million pounds last year. The latest results included around 70 million pounds of direct negative impacts from 3 days of industrial action. For the full year, Royal Mail expects adjusted operating loss of around 350 million euros, including the direct, immediate impact of eight days of industrial action which have taken place or been notified to Royal Mail, but excluding any charges for voluntary redundancy costs. This may increase to around a 450 million pounds loss if customers move volume away for longer periods following the initial disruption. The company added that Communication Workers Union or CWU has threatened, but not yet formally notified Royal Mail, of a further 16 days of strikes in November and December. If these take place, the full-year loss would increase materially and may necessitate further operational restructuring and headcount reduction. Royal Mail urges CWU to immediately call off planned strike action, and to accept its offer of Acas talks to urgently find a resolution to the current dispute. CWU has already taken 6 days of industrial action to date and formally notified Royal Mail of a further 2 days of damaging industrial action on 20 and 25 October, which are expected to go ahead. With the ongoing uncertainty, the Board is unable to give a clear outlook for the full year. In addition, the company may report an impairment of the carrying value of the Royal Mail business when it reports first half results on November 17. However, the performance of GLS remains on track to meet full year expectations of an adjusted operating profit between 370 million pounds and 410 million pounds. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTIONS SERVICES-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de 14 October 2022 ONE swiss bank today published its first Sustainability Report ONE swiss bank SA (ONE) today issued itsfirst Sustainability Report as at 30 June 2022. The aim of this report is to disclose and explain its strategy, as well as some of the actions undertaken by ONE, to become a better and more sustainable company. This report constitutes a first step for ONE towards its goal of becoming a more sustainable company. It neither claims to be exhaustive, inspiring nor in the vanguard of ESG-related developments. It simply provides readers with basic information on its commitment to drive positive change for all its stakeholders: its clients, employees, business partners and society at large. Gregoire Pennone, CEO of ONE swiss bank: "In addition to providing factual information on where we stand in terms of sustainability, we want to describe, transparently and unpretentiously, the difficulties and occasionalconstraints that can be encountered when trying to become a more sustainable companythat actively contributes to change. Our efforts are led by a team of complementary professionals in their field of expertise, eachwith different roles within the company but united around a common goal." The report does not aim to comply with any set of sustainability reporting standards such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards or the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards - though the bank aims to comply with one of these sets of standards by the end of 2024. The Sustainability Report is available for download here: https://oneswissbank.com/corporate-social-responsibility/sustainability-report-2022 For further information, please contact: Julien Delecraz Head of Marketing & Communication jde@oneswiss.com +41 58 300 78 13 ONE swiss bank SA Attachment GRC's Chief Revenue Officer Jim Weynand will join data centre and telecom experts to discuss immersion cooling as a key component in reducing the consumption of natural resources by telco infrastructure GRC (Green Revolution Cooling), the leader in immersion cooling for data centres, announced today that Chief Revenue Officer Jim Weynand will join a panel to discuss how immersion cooling is a necessity for ensuring sustainability in telecom deployments at Capacity Europe 2022 in London, taking place October 17-20 at the InterContinental London The O2 in Greenwich. His panel is titled Utilising Our Environment's Natural Resources in Your Telco Infrastructure Strategy and will take place on October 19 at 15:55-16:35 GMT. Liquid immersion cooling is positioned to be the primary technology enabling sustainability for data centres today and into the future, to equip data centres to tackle rising energy costs and server energy consumption, and facilitate Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) policies. With data centres striving to meet the European Commission's climate neutral targets by 2030, immersion cooling is a critical component of any sustainability-oriented solution. Jim will join co-presenters Ali Moinuddin of Uptime Institute, Colm Shorten of JLL, Dominic Ward from Verne Global, Gary Aitkenhead of Equinix, and Lex Coors from Digital Realty to discuss running ICT infrastructure facilities like data centres close to where power is generated, the industry's goal to meet European Commission's climate neutral targets by 2030, and defining your market by latency rather than by geography. "Capacity Europe is an exciting opportunity to discuss the environmental sustainability impact of immersion cooling," said Jim Weynand, Chief Revenue Officer at GRC. "I'm thrilled to be joining these global leaders to help data centre designers and operators learn how immersion can address their cooling needs and power consumption challenges with a sustainable, responsible, and efficient infrastructure." About GRC GRC is The Immersion Cooling Authority. The company's patented immersion-cooling technology radically simplifies deployment of data centre cooling infrastructure. By eliminating the need for chillers, CRACs, air handlers, humidity controls, and other conventional cooling components, enterprises reduce their data centre design, build, energy, and maintenance costs. GRC's solutions are deployed in twenty-one countries and are ideal for next-gen applications platforms, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, HPC, 5G, and other edge computing and core applications. Their systems are environmentally resilient, sustainable, and space saving, making it possible to deploy them in virtually any location with minimal lead time. Visit http://grcooling.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005134/en/ Contacts: Milldam Public Relations Adam Waitkunas 978-828-8304 (mobile) adam.waitkunas@milldampr.com EQS Post-admission Duties announcement: Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd. / Third country release according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 of the WpHG [the German Securities Trading Act] Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd.: Announcement on conversion period and maturity of the bonds 14.10.2022 / 10:08 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Post-admission Duties announcement according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 WpHG transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Third country release according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 of the WpHG Announcement on conversion period and maturity of the bonds Qingdao / Shanghai / Frankfurt / Hong Kong, 14 October 2022 - Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. (the "Company" or "Haier Smart Home", D-share 690D.DE, A-share 600690.SH, H-share 06690.HK) yesterday published a voluntary joint announcement of the Company and its subsidiary in relation to the conversion period and maturity of the convertible bonds convertible to H-shares. The announcement is fully available at: https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2022/1013/2022101301030.pdf IR Contact: Haier Smart Home Hong Kong T: +852 2169 0000 Email: ir@haier.hk Press Contact: CROSS ALLIANCE communication GmbH Sara Pinto Sven Pauly pi@crossalliance.de T: +49 (0) 89 1250903 35 About Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd.: Haier is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household appliances with a focus on smart home solutions and customized production. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. develops, produces and distributes a wide range of household appliances. These include refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, kitchen appliances as well as small household appliances and an extensive range of intelligent household appliances. The Company distributes its products through leading household brands such as Haier, Casarte, Leader, Candy, GE Appliances, AQUA and Fisher & Paykel. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. has launched Smart Home Experiential Cloud, which connects homes, users, enterprises and ecosystem partners, and facilitates the integration of Haier's online, offline and micro-store businesses and supports user interaction to further optimize the user experience. 14.10.2022 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com The ultimate post-pandemic holiday happiness boost revealed as spontaneous travel as almost two thirds (61%) of UK survey participants saying that the events of the last two years have made them want to be more spontaneous as almost of UK survey participants saying that the events of the last two years have made them want to be more Acclaimed psychologist Emma Kenny reveals that travelling spontaneously can reduce stress and anxiety and introduces a level of playfulness into day-to-day life reveals that travelling spontaneously can and introduces a level of into day-to-day life A third of respondents (32%) have booked a trip to a destination they know nothing about, revealing spontaneous and flexible holidays as the new travel norm Around two thirds of the UK (62%) consider themselves to be spontaneous and 32% have previously arrived at an airport without a destination in mind and booked there and then and and booked there and then Analysis of bookings made on Skyscanner show that booking 2 weeks before travelling can be up to 44% cheaper than booking 12 weeks from departure** LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following some two-and-a-half years of pandemic travel restrictions, leading travel company Skyscanner today reveals the latest research into the psychology behind spontaneity and the benefits of spontaneous travel in association with esteemed psychologist, Emma Kenny. The pandemic's effect on travel spontaneity: Savvy UK travellers have long taken pride in being adventurous at heart with two thirds of respondents (62%) considering themselves spontaneous. But the last two-and-a-half years have knocked their spontaneous streak with 61% agreeing that the pandemic limited their ability to be spontaneous. Just under two thirds (61%) of respondents say that the pandemic has made them want to be even more spontaneous, and 29% specifically called out travel as an area of life in which they want to do that. Spontaneous and flexible holidays the new travel norm: Over a third of respondents (32%) have booked a trip to a destination they know nothing about, revealing spontaneous and flexible holidays as the new travel norm. 34% have arrived at an airport without a destination in mind and booked there and then to get away. 36% of respondents have previously booked a spontaneous holiday with a third (34%) stating that it felt more exciting. Spontaneous trips the most popular bookings on Skyscanner - bookings made 7 - 29 days before departure date have increased by 12% since pre-pandemic Bookings made 1 week before departure date have also increased by 14% since 2019 UK travellers embraced spontaneity this summer with spontaneous trips booked 1 week before departure spiking to 15% of all bookings in July Spontaneity good for the mind and wallet: Skyscanner's flight pricing data shows that being flexible with where and when you travel is the key to unlocking the best prices. With 10 billion prices searched every single day, an 'Everywhere' search on Skyscanner for October reveals great value flights from as little as 17 to Europe this weekend. Analysis of bookings made on Skyscanner show that booking 2 weeks before travelling can be up to 44% cheaper than booking 12 weeks from departure** Emma, an NHS worker in her mid-thirties swears by the benefits of spontaneous holidays: "Work is busy and demanding and I need time on holiday that is just for me where I can please myself.Most of the time, I only book my trips a few weeks before I go, and I spend the minimum amount of time possible booking. "I definitely prefer to just get on with booking a trip and make it happen. I don't like getting lost in over-researching and over-preparing. It's easy to go down the rabbit hole, which could stop me from booking altogether!" The benefits of spontaneous travel according to psychologist Emma Kenny : "One common stress is the decision making involved in the holiday planning process. This is why forgoing the methodical organisation that so often goes hand in hand with a planned holiday and instead choosing to enjoy an impromptu break can be so liberating. "Nothing is quite as thrilling as seeing a new place for the first time, and the excitement and instant gratification that comes with that. "Whilst it may seem scary to just pack a bag and hop on a plane to take a chance on an unknown destination, you will psychologically benefit as this creates a 'can do' attitude and will remind you of the limitless possibilities that are out there. And because you have no clear set agenda, or plans, every step you take will involve a sense of adventure which is truly freeing." Skyscanner's expert travel tips for booking a spontaneous trip: Consider 'Everywhere': An ' Everywhere' search on Skyscanner is a great starting point for your next spontaneous break away! Ordered by price, an 'everywhere' search can inspire you to go somewhere you've never been before. In fact, 'Everywhere' is currently the most searched 'destination' for UK travellers on Skyscanner right now." An ' is a great starting point for your next spontaneous break away! Ordered by price, an 'everywhere' search can inspire you to go somewhere you've never been before. In fact, 'Everywhere' is currently the most searched 'destination' for UK travellers on Skyscanner right now." Flex those dates : "Searching by multiple dates and airports will give you the best chance of a bargain. Flight prices are all based on supply and demand. Because some dates are more popular than others, prices will vary. The 'whole month' search tool allows you to see cheap flights at a glance and pick the right deal for you. Consider travelling a day before or a day after your original departure dates, flying on less popular days of the week is always cheaper." : "Searching by multiple dates and airports will give you the best chance of a bargain. Flight prices are all based on supply and demand. Because some dates are more popular than others, prices will vary. The 'whole month' search tool allows you to see cheap flights at a glance and pick the right deal for you. Consider travelling a day before or a day after your original departure dates, flying on less popular days of the week is always cheaper." Mix & Match to save : "Being flexible in mix and matching the airlines you choose to fly with can seriously cut costs. Fares don't have to be booked as returns, look at flying out with one airline and back with another or out of one airport and back into another." "Being flexible in mix and matching the airlines you choose to fly with can seriously cut costs. Fares don't have to be booked as returns, look at flying out with one airline and back with another or out of one airport and back into another." Find a spontaneous friend: "If you struggle to be spontaneous and you know that you need that extra push to get you out of your comfort zone, enlist the help of your partner, best mate or parent. Get them to plan some fun trips away and agree that they will only tell you where you are going a few hours before you need to set off! Brits are in with a chance to win their own spontaneous trip abroad this month with Skyscanner: With a desire to help people rediscover the joy of spontaneous travel, Skyscanner's NOMOFOMO campaign is the antidote to social media-fuelled FOMO. Through a series of exciting giveaways, Skyscanner social media followers have the chance to win a number of holidays that will help remind them how easy it is to get back out there and embrace their impulsive side - just head to @skyscanner on Instagram and Facebook. Notes *Research conducted with OnePoll in August 2022 with sample of 1,000 UK respondents **Analysis of booking (redirects) as made on Skyscanner for economy class, return travel made on Skyscanner for departures between September - December 2022 NB Flight pricing correct on 11.10.22 About Skyscanner Founded in 2003, Skyscanner is a leading travel marketplace dedicated to putting travellers first. Skyscanner helps millions of people in 52 countries and over 30 languages find the best travel options for flights, hotels and car hire every month. Skyscanner is available on desktop, mobile web and its highly rated app has over 110 million downloads. Working with 1200 travel partners, Skyscanner's mission is to lead the global transformation to modern and sustainable travel. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1921185/SKYSCANNER_Competition.jpg PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1921186/Skyscanner_Spontaneity_Study_UK.pdf Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/561502/Skyscanner_Logo.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/new-skyscanner-study-reveals-spontaneous-travel-as-secret-to-uk-travellers-happiness-301649329.html HONG KONG, Oct 14, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - Invest Hong Kong of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will launch a series of themed seminars to provide foreign companies and business chambers with the latest updates about the city's dynamic business environment, enduring global hub status and business opportunities arising from growing ties with the Mainland.As part of the official celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the five-day Investment Promotion Week will run in a hybrid format from October 17 to 21 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and online. It will feature five thematic days - Financial Services/Business Professional Services/FinTech, Innovation and Technology, Lifestyle and Creative Industries, Startup - Sustainable Futures, and the Greater Bay Area - with over 120 speakers sharing insights and experiences in their respective areas.The Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, and the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, are offering full support for the event and hope it will reinforce foreign investors' understanding of the city's enduring business advantages and highlight the new and emerging business opportunities.Mr Lee said, "Hong Kong is the world's freest economy and an international financial, trading and shipping centre. We are always welcoming companies and investors from all over the world. With the full support of the Central Government, as well as the plentiful opportunities under such national strategies as the National 14th Five-Year Plan and the Greater Bay Area development, Hong Kong is the best choice for b usiness operations and expansion plans."Mr Chan said, "Under 'one country, two systems', Hong Kong has a distinctive status and advantages: we have unparalleled and privileged access to the Mainland market, while remaining a free and open market economy with the common law system. And moreover, the HKSAR Government is committed to creating a strong impetus for economic development, by combining the strengths of a proactive government and an efficient market. We are sure that businesses from all over the world will be able to tap the vast opportunities Hong Kong and the Mainland offer."The Director-General of Investment Promotion, Mr Stephen Phillips, said, "This is a week not to be missed for those who want to learn about the key trends shaping global investment and how Hong Kong can help in capturing these opportunities. Participants will gain first-hand insights and pragmatic advice in all these important areas where we are witnessing tremendous growth - not only in Hong Kong, but in Mainland China and the region as a whole."For more details of Investment Promotion Week, visit www.investhk.gov.hk/en/investment-promotion-week.html.About Invest Hong KongInvest Hong Kong is the department of the HKSAR Government responsible for attracting foreign direct investment and supporting overseas and Mainland businesses to set up or expand in Hong Kong. It provides free advice and customised services for overseas and Mainland companies. For more information, please visit www.investhk.gov.hk.Source: InvestHKCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Small batch coffee-infused Premium Tequila launches in the UK LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- When Bacardi called time on Patron XO Cafe, many coffee-infused tequila lovers in the UK shed a tear. Now that love affair can blossom again with the introduction of Bandero Cafe to meet the demand for authentic Mexican tequila infused with the best of coffee. Bandero Cafe is smooth yet dry, with notes of fresh roasted coffee, chocolate and vanilla. Using the finest Blue Weber Agave, matured for seven years in the red clay soil of Jalisco's Los Altos Highlands in Mexico, the result produces a floral, sweet flavoured and creamy textured tequila. Jonathan Kendrick, the founder, designer and creator of Bandero, said: "We see a great opportunity in the UK to offer consumers a better choice of premium tequilas and both Bandero Cafe and Blanco are exceptional in their own right. They are meant to be sipped and savoured, allowing the intricate flavours created by being twice distilled to come through. I am excited to see these brands go from strength to strength." Bandero's Cafe and Blanco tequilas are now available through Molson Coors and Deckers Trading, who share exclusive distribution rights for the products in the UK. Bandero Cafe has already secured its first national listing across all Be At One bars, owned by Stonegate Group, and will be available for customers to purchase from mid-October. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1919714/BANDERO_CAFE.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/bandero-cafe-tequila-now-available-in-the-uk-301647636.html The Hong Kong Police Force's "3R" rescue solution combines (from L) R-Cam, R-Map and R-Watch to increase the efficiency of rescue operations. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's hill fire surveillance system can detect hill fires and send an alert to its Fire Control Centre. Yee Fung Technology's auto-parking system uses robotic pallets (in blue, under the vehicle) to send vehicles to parking spaces. HONG KONG, Oct 14, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is hosting five autumn technology fairs* at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 13 to 16 October. The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) and many other exhibitors are showing an array of cutting-edge solutions that enhance hiker safety, boost search and rescue efficiency, detect hill fires, kill viruses, eliminate odours, detect rodent activities and enable automated parking, among other benefits. The fairs are signature events that encourage exchange among industry professionals and promote the application of innovative technologies across different sectors, aiming to improve people's quality of living.Positioning system improves safety of hikers and rescuersThemed "Innovations for Better Living", this year's fairs have brought together more than 1,100 exhibitors. At the HKTDC International ICT Expo, the OGCIO has set up two pavilions - the Smart Government Pavilion (Booth: 1E-A02) and the Hong Kong Innovation Pavilion (Booth: 1E-A22) - under the theme "Smarter Hong Kong" to showcase a number of technological solutions.Among them is the Government Wide-Internet of Things Network (GWIN) developed by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) since 2019 and based on LoRa (Long Range) wireless technology. Last year, under the Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong 2.0, the EMSD developed a trial system based on GWIN to provide location tracking and an SOS function for use in areas with weak or no mobile network coverage, aiming to enhance the safety of hikers. A "GWIN-on-drone" has also been developed to support the location-tracking application of the trial system. The department collaborated with the Civil Aid Service and the Fire Services Department, in 2021 and 2022 respectively, to try out the system and test the drone's location tracking at Plover Cove Country Park in Hong Kong's New Territories.Alongside the EMSD, the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is presenting its own rescue technology. The HKPF's Information Systems Wing has created a "3R" rescue solution with a digital platform that combines R-Map, R-Watch and R-Cam. The solution can provide accurate locations of rescue teams and transmit high-definition video footage of rescue scenes to the control centre using live mapping and GPS positioning. The overall aim of the system is to increase the efficiency of rescue operations and monitor the status of rescue team members to ensure their safety.Another smart development on display is the hill fire surveillance system developed by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD). Installed at the Tin Fu Tsai Fire Lookout in Tai Lam Country Park, the system uses infrared thermal detection technology, video analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technologies. It can detect hill fires and send an alert to the AFCD's Fire Control Centre, along with real time fire data, to help in its deployment of firefighting operations.Environmental problems addressed by rodent detection and deodorisation techOther exhibitors at the fairs are showcasing a variety of solutions and products to address environmental problems and improve people's living environments. Among them is the Care222 solution developed by Ecobay Technologies Limited (Booth: 1D-C02), an exhibitor at the B4B Challenge pavilion. The technology uses filtered Far-UVC light to disinfect both the air and surfaces and is effective against coronavirus. The solution also includes a special filter that blocks the UV-C band, which is harmful to human skin and eyes, to ensure it is safe. The Care222 solution has already been deployed at Hong Kong International Airport and in other public organisations.Ecobay is also exhibiting its ozone deodoriser, Radica, which works by generating low-concentration ozone. The product is safe to use not only in unoccupied environments, such as garbage rooms, but also locations where people congregate such as hospital waiting rooms and welfare facility rooms, effectively eliminating odours in these spaces.Datax Limited (Booth: 1D-E02), an exhibitor at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks pavilion that provides AI and data solutions to Hong Kong businesses, is showcasing a thermal rodent detection system that is battery-powered and equipped with 4G connectivity. The system requires no external power or internet connection and can be used both indoors and outdoors. It uses AI to estimate rodent infestation and generate heat maps and other reports to help in rodent eradication planning.Meanwhile, Smart City Consortium pavilion exhibitor Yee Fung Technology (Booth: 1E-A22) is displaying an automatic parking system that is intended to alleviate Hong Kong's shortage of parking spaces and congested car parks. The system uses robotic pallets and autonomous navigation technology to send the vehicles to parking spaces and accurately park them. At the same time, it analyses big data on parking times and car owner habits to reduce the time required to park and retrieve vehicles. The solution helps to increase the number of parking spaces while reducing energy consumption and exhaust emissions.The five technology fairs have all adopted the HKTDC's brand-new EXHIBITION+ hybrid model. In addition to attending the physical fairs, exhibitors, buyers and industry professionals can participate in smart business matching through the Click2Match platform from now until 23 October.*The five autumn technology fairs are the HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Autumn Edition), electronicAsia (organised by the HKTDC and MMI Asia Pte Ltd), the HKTDC International ICT Expo, HKTDC Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) and the HKTDC Hong Kong International Outdoor and Tech Light Expo.Websites- Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Autumn Edition): https://hkelectronicsfairae.hktdc.com- electronicAsia: www.electronicasia.com- International ICT Expo: https://ictexpo.hktdc.com- Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition): https://hklightingfairae.hktdc.com- Hong Kong International Outdoor and Tech Light Expo: https://hkotlexpo.hktdc.com- Highlight product lists: https://bit.ly/3rc6pLp- Photo download: https://bit.ly/3g6iyj0About HKTDCThe Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong's trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via research reports and digital news channels. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Twitter @hktdc and LinkedInMedia enquiriesPlease contact the HKTDC's Communications & Public Affairs Department:Snowy Chan, Tel: +852 2584 4537, Email: snowy.sn.chan@hktdc.orgFrankie Leung, Tel: +852 2584 4298, Email: frankie.cy.leung@hktdc.orgSource: HKTDCCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Reference is made to the calling notice for an extraordinary general meeting to be held in REC Silicon ASA ("REC" or the "Company") on 21 October 2022 where it is proposed to appoint three new board members, while two of the current board members will be resigning. The board of directors would like to take this opportunity to share some further background information concerning the proposal. The current board of directors was appointed at an extraordinary general meeting on 2 May 2022, in connection with the announced transaction between Aker Horizons, Hanwha Corporation and Hanwha Solutions Corporation. As explained in the stock exchange announcement of 22 April 2022 the purpose was to replace the former board members who were resigning and to reflect the new ownership situation in the Company. The board members were elected with a majority of 98% of the votes cast at the extraordinary general meeting. Since being elected, the current board has focused its efforts on strengthening the Company and preparing for the long-awaited reopening of Moses Lake. The board believes this represents an important strategic priority for the Company, but it is not risk-free and requires large investments. The Company has enjoyed significant and crucial support from Hanwha in this process, which was essential to unlock the necessary investments. On 30 November 2021, before Hanwha Solutions completed its first share acquisition in the Company, James May was appointed interim CEO to replace the former CEO, Tore Torvund, who had to step down for health-related reasons. After the appointment of the interim CEO, the former board of directors had started searching for candidates qualified for the position as the new CEO in REC. The search was temporarily suspended by the former board, due to the transaction between Aker Horizons and Hanwha, and the search was then resumed by the new board after its appointment in May 2022. It has been of high importance for the board of directors to appoint the most suitable CEO to lead the Company henceforward. Based on a thorough consideration of the Company's direction and strategic priorities going forward, the board decided that the Company needed a new CEO with strong leadership and management skills and the necessary technical, operational, and commercial understanding of the Company's assets, operations and strategies. It was based on this backdrop, that Kurt Levens was announced as the new CEO on 28 September 2022. Mr. Levens is a former Senior Vice President of REC Silicon ASA and has been a committed member of the REC family since 2002. The board strongly believes that the current CEO and the current management team are the right persons to lead the Company through the next phase of its development. The Company has been through a long period without production at Moses Lake and will now finally be able to resume normal operations under leadership of the competent management team. After having taken these important steps to reposition the Company to take it to the next level, the board believes that the Company is in now need of appointing new board members with strong financial and industrial knowledge, and capable of supporting the management to deliver on the strategy of the Company. While the current board has included senior representatives from Hanwha, the Company's next phase will be focused on securing a successful reopening of Moses Lake, operational improvements and strengthening its position in the market. A new nomination committee was elected at the annual general meeting in 2022, with support from 99.9% of the votes cast. The nomination committee has prepared the proposal for new directors to be elected by the general meeting on 21 October 2022. The board is pleased with the proposals from the nomination committee, and considers that this will give the Company a well-composed board with strong competence, experience and diversity. Tae Won Jun is an expert in corporate finance and investment management. Dong Kwan Kim is an expert in corporate mid-to-long term strategy and photovoltaic and renewable energy industry. Finally, Vivian Bertseka is an investment expert in the climate and sustainability industries. All of the nominated board members have a wealth of experience, and the board is confident that they will be well-qualified and well positioned to work effectively with the management to lead the Company through the challenging but important times of global economic and energy transitions ahead. For the sake of good order, the board also notes that the current director, Dr. Renate Oberhoffer-Fritz, will remain as a member of the board of directors to ensure continuity and help with a smooth transition for the newly appointed board. The board appreciates all feedback that has been received from shareholders and investors during the past months since the current board was appointed. Overall, there has been a positive development and the board has taken due notice of the views that have been expressed. The board respects and is committed to comply with good standards of corporate governance, and this firm commitment is also shared by the nominated board members. Accordingly, all board appointments and related procedures are carried out in accordance with Norwegian statutory rules. The same commitment also applies in the case of related party transactions, if any, and the board of directors are mindful of the need to ensure that all transactions are conducted at arms' length basis and in the best interests of the Company and all of its shareholders. The board recognizes that the ongoing support from all of the Company's shareholders will continue to be crucial for the success of the Company. This relationship will continue to be managed in accordance with good standards of corporate governance and in the best interest of the Company. For further information, please contact: Nils O. Kjerstad IR Contact Phone: +47 9135 6659 Email: nils.kjerstad@crux.no. About REC Silicon REC Silicon is a leading producer of advanced silicon materials, delivering high purity polysilicon and silicon gas to the solar and electronics industries worldwide. We combine over 30 years of experience and proprietary technology with the needs of our customers, with annual production capacity of more than 20,000 MT of polysilicon from our two US-based manufacturing plants. Listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: RECSI), the Company's registered address is in Lysaker, Norway. For more information, go to: www.recsilicon.co This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act TwentyFour Income Fund Limited (a closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 56128) LEI Number: 549300CCEV00IH2SU369 (The "Company") 14 OCTOBER 2022 RESULT OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING At the Annual General Meeting of the Company held today, all Resolutions set out in the Annual General Meeting Notice sent to Shareholders dated 15 September 2022 were duly passed. Details of the proxy voting results which should be read along side the Notice are noted below: Ordinary Resolution For Discretion (voted in favour) Against Abstain 1 350,647,211 0 20,159 15,467 2 346,616,286 0 4,029,453 37,098 3 350,381,463 0 124,704 176,670 4 346,537,605 0 4,100,478 44,754 5 350,572,761 0 66,772 43,304 6 347,065,004 0 3,461,373 156,460 7 347,188,870 0 3,337,507 156,460 8 347,198,595 0 3,327,782 156,460 9 347,178,476 0 3,347,901 156,460 10 350,495,562 0 30,815 156,460 11 346,615,528 0 4,052,783 14,526 12 350,628,161 0 38,150 16,526 13 350,598,257 0 45,482 39,098 Extraordinary Resolution For Discretion (voted in favour) Against Abstain 14 350,442,254 0 200,544 40,039 15 290,757,166 0 9,119,866 50,805,805 Special Resolution For Discretion (voted in favour) Against Abstain 16 295,644,932 0 4,072,384 50,965,521 Note -A vote withheld is not a vote in law and has not been counted in the votes for and against a resolution. The Extraordinary and Special Resolutions were as follows: Extraordinary Resolution 14 That, in substitution of all existing powers (but in addition to any power conferred on them by ordinary resolutions 12 and 13 above), the Directors be and are authorised generally and unconditionally in accordance with Article 6.7 of the Articles to exercise all powers of the Company to issue equity securities (as defined in Article 6.1.1(a)) for cash as if the members' pre-emption rights contained in Article 6.2 of the Articles did not apply to any such issue pursuant to the general authority conferred on them by the ordinary resolutions 12 and 13 above (as varied from time to time by the Company in general meeting): pursuant to an offer of equity securities open for acceptance for a period fixed by the Directors where the equity securities respectively attributable to the interests of holders of Ordinary Shares are proportionate (as nearly as may be) to the respective numbers of Ordinary Shares held by them but subject to such exclusions or other arrangements in connection with the issue as the Directors may consider necessary, appropriate or expedient to deal with equity securities representing fractional entitlements or to deal with legal or practical problems arising in any overseas territory, the requirements of any regulatory body or stock exchange, or any other matter whatsoever; and provided that (otherwise than pursuant to sub-paragraph (a) above) this power shall be limited to the allotment of equity securities up to an aggregate nominal value equal to 10 per cent. of the total number of shares in issue in the Company at the date of the passing of this extraordinary resolution, and provided further that (i) the number of equity securities to which this power applies shall be reduced from time to time by the number of treasury shares which are sold pursuant to any power conferred on the Directors by ordinary resolution 10 above and (ii) no issue of equity securities shall be made under this power which would result in Ordinary Shares being issued at a price which is less than the net asset value per Ordinary Share as at the latest practicable date before such allotment of equity securities as determined by the Directors in their reasonable discretion, and such power hereby conferred shall expire on whichever is the earlier of: (i) the conclusion of the annual general meeting of the Company to be held in 2023; or (ii) the date 15 months after the date on which this extraordinary resolution is passed (unless renewed, varied or revoked by the Company prior to that date) save that the Company may, before such expiry, make offers or agreements which would or might require equity securities to be issued after such expiry and the Directors may issue equity securities in pursuance to such offers or agreements as if the authority conferred hereby had not expired. Extraordinary Resolution 15 That, conditional on extraordinary resolution 14 above having been passed, in substitution of all existing powers (but in addition to any power conferred on them by ordinary resolutions 12 and 13 and in addition to and without prejudice to the power granted by extraordinary resolution 14 above), the Directors be and are authorised generally and unconditionally in accordance with Article 6.7 of the Articles to exercise all powers of the Company to issue equity securities (as defined in Article 6.1.1(a)) for cash as if the members' pre-emption rights contained in Article 6.2 of the Articles did not apply to any such issue pursuant to the general authority conferred on them by the ordinary resolutions 12 and 13 above (as varied from time to time by the Company in general meeting): pursuant to an offer of equity securities open for acceptance for a period fixed by the Directors where the equity securities respectively attributable to the interests of holders of Ordinary Shares are proportionate (as nearly as may be) to the respective numbers of Ordinary Shares held by them but subject to such exclusions or other arrangements in connection with the issue as the Directors may consider necessary, appropriate or expedient to deal with equity securities representing fractional entitlements or to deal with legal or practical problems arising in any overseas territory, the requirements of any regulatory body or stock exchange, or any other matter whatsoever; and provided that (otherwise than pursuant to sub-paragraph (a) above) this power shall be limited to the allotment of equity securities up to an aggregate nominal value equal to 10 per cent. of the total number of shares in issue in the Company at the date of the passing of this extraordinary resolution, and provided further that no issue of equity securities shall be made under this power which would result in Ordinary Shares being issued at a price which is less than the net asset value per Ordinary Share as at the latest practicable date before such allotment of equity securities as determined by the Directors in their reasonable discretion, and such power hereby conferred shall expire on whichever is the earlier of: (i) the conclusion of the annual general meeting of the Company to be held in 2023; or (ii) the date 15 months after the date on which this extraordinary resolution is passed (unless renewed, varied or revoked by the Company prior to that date) save that the Company may, before such expiry, make offers or agreements which would or might require equity securities to be issued after such expiry and the Directors may issue equity securities in pursuance to such offers or agreements as if the authority conferred hereby had not expired. Special Resolution 16 That Article 24.2 of the Articles of Incorporation be amended as below: "The Directors (other than any alternate Directors) shall be entitled to receive by way of fees for their services as Directors such sum as the Board may from time to time determine provided that the aggregate amount of such fees (including fees, if any, due to the Directors for attendance at meetings of any committee of the Board) for all the Board collectively shall not exceed 400,000 in any financial year in aggregate, or such higher sum as may be determined from time to time by Ordinary Resolution of the Company." Enquiries: Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited The Company Secretary Trafalgar Court Les Banques St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 3QL Tel: 01481 745001 END EQT Infrastructure welcomes Mubadala as an investor in GlobalConnect The broadened investor base adds new resources and expertise, supporting GlobalConnect's long-term ambition to increase societies' digital connectivity STOCKHOLM, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- EQT is pleased to announce that the EQT Infrastructure III and IV funds ("EQT Infrastructure") have signed an agreement to sell a minority stake in GlobalConnect (the "Company") to Mubadala Investment Company ("Mubadala"). Having been invested in the Company since 2017, EQT Infrastructure will remain as the largest owner following the closing of the transaction. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, GlobalConnect is a fiber-based data communication and data center services provider to enterprises, public institutions, and consumers in Northern Europe. The Company was created in 2019 through the combination of four independent fiber platforms in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, owned by EQT Infrastructure. In times of increasing data volumes and ever-growing demand for fast and reliable connectivity, GlobalConnect plays an important role in providing essential digital infrastructure solutions to the societies it operates in. Today, GlobalConnect's infrastructure carries more than 50 percent of all internet traffic generated in the Nordics across its network of 150,000 km of fiber infrastructure and 35,000 m2 data center space, and it employs around 1,800 people in the region. Rooted in an ambition to provide fast and secure internet access to all, EQT Infrastructure has over the years invested significantly in GlobalConnect's Fiber-to-the-Home deployment in underserved areas and remote parts of Sweden and Norway, enabling digital inclusion and bridging the divide between urban and rural regions. As made evident by the pandemic, having access to fast and robust bandwidth increases societies' resilience and strengthens companies' competitiveness. By welcoming Mubadala as a minority investor in GlobalConnect, EQT Infrastructure aims to broaden the Company's long-term shareholder base, while drawing on Mubadala's prior investment experience in data center and Fiber-to-the-Home assets in numerous markets. Carl Sjolund, Partner within EQT Infrastructure's Advisory Team, said, "GlobalConnect is a perfect example of EQT Infrastructure's strategy to back companies that provide essential services to society. As data usage and internet traffic continue to increase, it is vital that the underlying digital infrastructure keeps up to meet future demand. EQT Infrastructure remains committed to GlobalConnect's ambition to increase societies' digital connectivity and we are happy to welcome Mubadala to come along on this journey". Khaled Abdulla Al Qubaisi, Chief Executive Officer, Real Estate and Infrastructure Investments at Mubadala, said, "We are pleased to be investing with our long-term partner, EQT, in GlobalConnect. As a responsible investor, we highly prize those deals that enable us to invest in high conviction assets and sectors for value creation and to deliver a positive impact on communities. Investing in digital infrastructure allows us to achieve both these goals. We look forward to working with GlobalConnect and EQT to capitalize on growth opportunities in data center and Fiber-to-the-Home assets, and to support Europe's digital infrastructure development, a vital enabler of digital inclusion and socioeconomic progress." The transaction is subject to customary conditions and approvals. EQT Infrastructure was advised by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. Contact: EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/87/3648309/1638656.pdf Press release EQT Infrastructure III IV GlobalConnect Project Gloow 221014 https://news.cision.com/eqt/i/globalconnect-1,c3101017 GlobalConnect 1 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/eqt-infrastructure-broadens-investor-base-in-globalconnect-301649489.html The fleet utilisation rate in the third quarter of 2022 was 77.3 per cent (Q3 2021: 70.9 per cent), with five out of seven vessels in full operation throughout the quarter. This is the highest third quarter utilisation since 2016. Two vessels are on long-term contracts in Brazil, while the rest are working on shorter term contracts. Safe Boreas worked part of the quarter while Safe Scandinavia remained idle. Safe Zephyrus has been operating for bp at ETAP in the UK North Sea since 22 January 2022 on a 10-month contract with up to four months of options. On 22 September 2022, bp exercised the first of four one-months options taking the firm period through 21 December 2022. Safe Caledonia has been operating for TotalEnergies at the Elgin platform in the UK since 7 March 2022. The vessel will be on contract until early December 2022 with one 30-day option. Safe Boreas operated on the Norwegian Continental Shelf until 29 July 2022. On 22 September 2022, the vessel started a 21-day contract to support a platform shutdown in the UK North Sea. The client has exercised the first of two available 15-day options. https://www.prosafe.com Safe Eurus has been providing safety and maintenance support to Petrobras in Brazil since November 2019 on a contract with a firm duration until February 2023. On 25 May 2022, Safe Eurus was awarded a four-year contract with Petrobras aiming to commence around end of March 2023 following on from the expiry of her current contract.Safe Notos has been operating for Petrobras in Brazil since December 2016. Safe Notos commenced a new four-year contract with Petrobras on 18 July 2022, in direct continuation of the previous contract.Safe Concordia continued operations in Trinidad and Tobago during the quarter. On 27 July 2022, the client exercised all four one-week options, taking the contract through to end September 2022. On 13 October, Prosafe announced that a contract had been signed with a major operator to provide accommodation support in the US Gulf of Mexico. The firm duration of the contract, commencing within a window of July through October 2023, is 330 days with up to 6 months of options. Safe Concordia will be laid up in the region pending new work and the start of the contract in the US Gulf of Mexico.Safe Scandinavia is laid up in Norway and is being marketed broadly.Prosafe is a leading owner and operator of semi-submersible accommodation vessels. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with ticker code PRS. For more information, please refer to(https://www.prosafe.com)Stavanger, 14 October 2022Prosafe SEFor further information, please contact:Jesper K. Andresen, CEOPhone: +47 51 65 24 30 / +47 907 65 155Reese McNeel, CFOPhone: +47 47 51 64 25 17 / +47 415 08 186This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The pound slipped against its major counterparts in the European session on Friday, despite optimism over the likelihood of U-turn on tax cuts in the mini-budget by the U.K. government amid a turbulence in the markets. There were reports on Thursday that Prime Minister Liz Truss is likely to make changes to the mini-budget that fuelled concerns about financial stability. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has shortened his trip to the US for discussions on the financial plans it presented last month. Gilts and the pound moved up on Thursday on hopes that the government would reconsider changes to corporation tax. Britain's trade department minister Greg Hands said that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are committed to stick to the growth plan, contradicting reports that the government could change some parts of the fiscal plan. The pound dropped to 1.1230 against the greenback and 166.02 against the yen, off its early highs of 1.1366 and 167.21, respectively. The pound is poised to challenge support around 1.10 against the greenback and 159.00 against the yen. The pound reversed from its prior highs of 1.1345 against the franc and 0.8617 against the euro, weakening to 1.1241 and 0.8671, respectively. The pound may locate support around 1.06 against the franc and 0.88 against the euro. Looking ahead, Canada manufacturing and wholesale sales for August, U.S. retail sales and import and export prices for September, University of Michigan's preliminary U.S. consumer sentiment index for October and business inventories data for August are set for release in the New York session. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Procurement Analytics Market Outlook (2022-2028) The Global Procurement Analytics Market was valued at USD 2.63 Billion in 2021 and is poised to amplify with a CAGR of 25.19% over 2022-2028, thereby amassing USD 12.67 Billion by end of the assessment timeline. Procurement Analytics involves the procedure of collecting and analyzing procurement data such as credit card expenses, purchase information, transaction history, and other work streams from the large reservoir of an enterprise. The data is extracted and assessed using the quantitate method so as to enhance the operational efficiency of an organization and help related bodies to make informed decisions. The steep rise in the promotion and marketing expenditures of various companies, technological advancements in the field along with widespread industrialization worldwide are primarily augmenting the outlook of this industry vertically. Additionally, increasing efforts of enterprises to enhance their overall operational efficiencies, the ability of procurement analytic technologies to reduce operational costs, and growing popularity of cloud-based tools are adding traction to the market development. Also, rapid digitalization, surging R&D investments in the field, and shifting inclination of small enterprises towards cost saving tools are creating lucrative opportunities for the business sphere to prosper. On the flipside, rising concerns regarding user data security and dearth of awareness regarding the benefits of procurement analytics tools are hindering the remuneration scope of this market. Get Sample of Report@https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestSample/PostId/2089 Procurement Analytics Market Competitive Landscape The Major Players characterizing the competitive terrain of this industry are Oracle, SAS Institute Inc., Coupa Software Inc., Rosslyn Data Technologies, JAGGAER, Zycus Inc., Genpact, BirchStreet Systems, LLC, Sievo, Tungsten Network, Dataction, IBM, Simfoni, Cisco Systems, Inc., Microsoft, Tamr, SAP SE, BRIDGEi2i Analytics, Proactis Holdings Plc, and others. Market Growth Comparison pertaining to the historical years and forecast timeline of 2022-2028 The Global Procurement Analytics Market has witnessed an exponential growth over the recent years due to a wide array of factors. With prompt internet proliferation and digitalization, it has become easier for companies to record and store various confidential data. Thus, the adoption of procurement analytics tools enables enterprises to assess this information which in turn will help them to reduce operational costs, improve efficient, formulate expansion strategies, and amass notable gains over time. Moreover, the emergence of cloud-based procurement analytics tools is further aiding the industry expansion since they are easily accessible and affordable in nature. Also, the emergence of numerous startups across the globe and growing focus of players to develop advanced tools in the field are positively influencing the dynamics of this marketplace. Besides, the ability of procurement analytics tools to reduce human errors within organizations is adding momentum to the progression of this business sphere. The increasing popularity of e-commerce channels, rising internet penetration, along with rising adoption of smart devices are fueling the growth of this industry. Country-wise Assessment Why has U.S. become the largest consumer of procurement analytics technologies? The United States has emerged as the largest use of procurement analytics tools and is providing lucrative opportunities for this marketplace to prosper. This is credited to the presence of leading suppliers, rise in the number of enterprises, and prompt economic growth. Category-wise Outlook Which end use Segment is presently leading the procurement analytics market? The retail and ecommerce end-use segment accounts for a substantial volume share and is reckoned to showcase similar development trends over the stipulated timeline. This is ascribed to the rising focus of enterprises to enhance their supply chain efficiency, rapid integration of advanced technologies such as machine learning and AI in the field, along with the booming retail sector. These companies are aimed at strengthening their global presence by adopting various expansion strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, R&D investments, products launch, collaborations, and partnerships, among others. Major Developments In March 2022 , SAP SE announced the acquisition of a controlling share in Taulia. This will enable SAP to integrate Taulia's procurement analytics solutions into its software. , SAP SE announced the acquisition of a controlling share in Taulia. This will enable SAP to integrate Taulia's procurement analytics solutions into its software. In April 2022 , The Kraft Heinz Business inked a partnership deal with Microsoft Corp. with an aim to jointly develop effective solutions to enable consumers to strengthen their supply chain-based operations. , The Kraft Heinz Business inked a partnership deal with Microsoft Corp. with an aim to jointly develop effective solutions to enable consumers to strengthen their supply chain-based operations. In April 2020 , digitate announced the launch of its ignio cognitive procurement tool. This tool is equipped with the ability to track and monitor enterprise-based purchase transactions using the power of AI. Get Methodology @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestMethodology/PostId/2089 Segmental Analysis of Global Procurement Analytics Market By Component: Services Solution By Organization Size: Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises Large Enterprises By Deployment Mode: Cloud On-Premises By End-Use: Healthcare & Life Sciences Telecom & IT Retail & Ecommerce Energy & Utilities Government & Defense Manufacturing Others Region-wise Insights Which is the fastest growing region in the Global Procurement Analytics Market? North America presently accounts for a market share of more than 40% and thereby is the leading region in this business sphere. This is attributable to the booming e-commerce and retail sectors, rapidly evolving digital infrastructure, and rising number of SMEs across the region. Furthermore, increasing adoption of AI and IoT based tools and software across various enterprises, prompt economic developments, and presence of potential players are further paving the way for North America procurement analytics market to prosper. What are the factors propelling the growth of the Asia Pacific Procurement Analytics Market? The market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to garner significant returns over the estimated timeline due to the growing internet proliferation, rapid evolution in the field of machine learning and algorithm development along with widespread industrialization. On Special Requirement Procurement Analytics Market Report is also available for below region: North America? U.S, Canada? Europe? Germany , France , U.K., Italy , Spain , Sweden , Netherland, Turkey , Switzerland , Belgium , Rest of Europe? Asia-Pacific? South Korea , Japan , China , India , Australia , Philippines , Singapore , Malaysia , Thailand , Indonesia , Rest Of APAC? Latin America? Mexico , Colombia , Brazil , Argentina , Peru , Rest of Latin America? Middle East and Africa? Saudi Arabia , UAE, Egypt , South Africa , Rest Of MEA Purchase Copy of Report @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/Checkout?report_id=2089 Related Reports: Vocal Biomarkers Market in terms of revenue was worth of USD 1901.1 Million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 5131.8 Million in 2028, growing at a CAGR of 15.45% from 2021 to 2028. in 2021 and is expected to reach in 2028, growing at a CAGR of 15.45% from 2021 to 2028. OLED TV Market is Estimated at USD 7.45 Billion in the year 2021 and is projected to reach USD 22.63 Billion by 2028 growing at a CAGR of 17.2% over the period. in the year 2021 and is projected to reach by 2028 growing at a CAGR of 17.2% over the period. 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Nanosensors Market size is valued at USD 592.4 Million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 1245.6 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 11.2% over the forecast period. in 2021 and is expected to reach by 2028 with a CAGR of 11.2% over the forecast period. Fiber Optic Cable Market is valued at USD 11.56 Billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 25.40 Billion by 2027 with a CAGR of 11.9% over the forecast period. in 2020 and is expected to reach by 2027 with a CAGR of 11.9% over the forecast period. Power Line Communication Market is valued at USD 7.80 Billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 18.64 Billion by 2027 with a CAGR of 11.5% over the forecast period. i-Factor: Live Market intelligence platform I-Factor is our guaranteed seal to keep our clients ahead of the competition, always. This knowledge platform delivers real-time updates on key economic indicators, competitive landscape, changing demand, trends, customized regional insights, and more. The platform visualizes key data points to help make decision making agile, trustworthy, and holistic. Register for free trial here at? https://brandessenceresearch.com/i-factor/login/userRegister Brandessence Market Research & Consulting Pvt ltd. Brandessence Market Research publishes market research reports & business insights produced by highly qualified and experienced industry analysts. Our research reports are available in a wide range of industry verticals including aviation, food & beverage, healthcare, ICT, Construction, Chemicals, and lot more. Brand Essence Market Research report will be best fit for senior executives, business development managers, marketing managers, consultants, CEOs, CIOs, COOs, and Directors, governments, agencies, organizations, and Ph.D. Students. We have a delivery center in?Pune, India?and our sales office is in?London. Follow Us:? Linkedin ?Blog: Edge Data Centre Companies Contact: Mr.?Vishal Sawant Email:? vishal@brandessenceresearch.com ? Email:? Sales@brandessenceresearch.com ? Corporate Sales:?+44-2038074155? Asia Office:?+917447409162 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1392316/BEMR_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/procurement-analytics-market-reach-usd-12-67-billion-by-2028-at-25-19-cagr--brandessence-market-research-301649337.html LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market is reckoned to amass a valuation of USD 538.6 Million by 2028 from USD 121.5 Million in 2021, registering a CAGR of 23.7% over 2022-2028. Thin Film and Printed Battery are nano-sized flexible, rechargeable, and stretchable batteries that are predominantly used in electronic products such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablets, among others. These batteries are mainly made up of lithium ion and are specifically designed to be mounted according to the shape and size of any end use product. The increasing adoption of electronic devices among the masses, rising disposable income levels, and widespread technological advancements are primarily fueling the growth of this business vertical. Due to their flexible and stretchable nature, these batteries can be integrated in a wide range of electronic devices irrespective of their shape and size. This is further adding traction to the development of this market. Moreover, surging trends of device miniaturization in order to make them easily portable is further escalating the demand for thin films and printed batteries across the globe. These batteries are energy efficient in nature as compared to their traditional counterparts. It is evident that widespread population expansion and industrialization has increased the energy needs of the masses. This in turn has led to the depletion of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources, thereby increasing the environmental consciousness of individuals. Due to their power saving nature, thin film and printed batteries are being extensively adopted by consumers worldwide. Get Sample of Report@ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestSample/PostId/2088 Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Competitive Landscape Cymbet Corporation Blue Spark Technologies Enfucell Imprint Energy STMicroelectronics NV Excellatron Solid State Ilika plc Printed Energy Pty Molex (Koch Industries) BrightVolt Others. These Companies are amplifying their global footprint by engaging in mergers & acquisitions, product launches, R&D investments, collaborations, and partnerships, among others. Also, the rising adoption of wireless sensors across various verticals such as public security, healthcare, and communication is escalating the demand for thin film and printed batteries across the globe. On the flipside, high costs pertaining to these batteries is hindering the remuneration scope of this business vertical. Historical Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Outlook Compared to Forecast 2022-2028 The marketplace has been registering notable gains over the last few decades. With prompt technological advancements and emergence of innovative electronic devices, the sale of thin film and print batteries has surged exponentially. People have started depending on consumer electronic goods for various daily tasks including cooking, travelling, and communication, among others. This has shifted their inclination towards portable electronic items, thereby popularizing the trends of device miniaturization. Thus, the beneficial features of these batteries make them convenient for consumer electronic devices. Moreover, manufacturers are investing whopping amounts to facilitate the development and launch of technologically advanced printed and thin film batteries. Country-wise insights What are the growth propellants for U.S. Thin Film and Printed Battery Market? Rising popularity of wearable devices in the U.S. is accelerating industry growth There has been a widespread adoption of wearable electronic devices like smartwatch among the masses across U.S. This is attributable to the increasing disposable income levels, rising digital literacy among consumers, and presence of leading industry players. Wearable devices are compact in nature and therefore are powered by thin film and printed batteries. This in turn is stimulating the dynamics of the marketplace in the U.S. How is the healthcare sector in China contributing to the growth of Thin Film and Printed Battery Market? Apart from consumer electronics items, thin film and printed batteries are also used in medical electronics devices like hearing aids. China is witnessing a rapid evolution in its healthcare sector as leading companies are launching innovative medical devices for fast paced diseases diagnosis and treatment. Flexible, energy efficient, and stretchable batteries are a pivotal component of every such equipment of device. Thus, technological advancements in the Chinese healthcare domain are positively influencing the overall industry growth. Get Methodology @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestMethodology/PostId/2088 Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Segmentation: - By Type Printed Batteries Thin film Batteries By Voltage Between 1.5V & 3V Below 1.5V Above 3V By Capacity Between 10 MAH & 100 MAH Below 10 MAH Above 100 MAH By Rechargeability Secondary Batteries Primary Batteries By Application Smart Packaging Consumer Electronics Medical Devices Wireless Sensors Smart Cards Others Category-wise insights Which is the fastest growing capacity segment in the market? The 10mAh capacity segment is slated to capture substantial returns over the forecast duration owing to their widespread integration in e-cigarettes, motorized toys, and portable media players, among others. Recent developments in the Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market On November 22, 2021, LionVolt BV, a Dutch Startup raised a funding of EUD 4 million from Prime Ventures and Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. The company intends to use the fresh funds for the development of its 3D solid state thin film battery range meant for electric cars and wearables. North America is Expected to Dominate the Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Geographically, North America is expected to dominate the global thin film and printed battery market within the forecast period due to the increasing adoption of smartphones, higher adoption of medical electronic devices and growing sales of wearable electronics in this region. The increasing adoption of smartphones is also driving the growth of the market. For instance, according to scientist research publishing, in June 2018; the number of smartphone users worldwide reached 2.5 billion, which is 33% of the world's population. In addition, the higher adoption of medical electronic devices is also supplementing the market growth in this region. The Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region in the global thin film and printed battery market due to the increasing adoption of printed battery technology in consumer electronics such as wireless sensor networks, remote controls, and smart cards, rising sales of wearable electronics and medical electronic devices such as hearing aids and respiratory aids, and the presence of key players in this region. On Special Requirement Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Report is also available for below region: North America? U.S, Canada? Europe? Germany , France , U.K., Italy , Spain , Sweden , Netherland, Turkey , Switzerland , Belgium , Rest of Europe? Asia-Pacific? South Korea , Japan , China , India , Australia , Philippines , Singapore , Malaysia , Thailand , Indonesia , Rest Of APAC? Latin America? Mexico , Colombia , Brazil , Argentina , Peru , Rest of Latin America? Middle East and Africa? Saudi Arabia , UAE, Egypt , South Africa , Rest Of MEA Purchase Copy of Report @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/Checkout?report_id=2088 Related Reports: Automotive Rain Sensors Market is valued at USD 4.61 Billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 7.26 Billion by 2028 with a CAGR of 6.71% over the forecast period. Recreational Vehicle Market Size is Expected to reach?USD 68.53 Billion?by 2028 Global Automotive LiDAR Market is valued at USD 588.47 Million in 2021 and expected to reach USD 2422.12 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 22.40% over the forecast period. Automotive Piston System Market is valued at USD 2.47 Billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 3.38 Billion by 2028 with the CAGR of 4.58% over the forecast period. At 12.4% CAGR, Wood Plastic Composite Market Size is projected to reach USD 13418.6 Million by 2028, Brandessence Market Research Electric Air Taxi Market to Surpass USD 2342.73 Million at a CAGR of 29.36% by 2028 | ImagineAir, Airstream Jets, Skymax, Propair Automotive Luxury Vehicle Market to Cross USD 659.34 Billion with a CAGR of 7.10% by 2028 | Tesla, Inc., BMW, Denso Corporation, Daimler AG At 18.3% CAGR, Language Learning Market to hit USD 191.06 Billion by 2028 Global Growth Industry Trends, Value, Analysis & Forecast By Brandessence Market Research i-Factor: Live Market intelligence platform I-Factor is our guaranteed seal to keep our clients ahead of the competition, always. This knowledge platform delivers real-time updates on key economic indicators, competitive landscape, changing demand, trends, customized regional insights, and more. The platform visualizes key data points to help make decision making agile, trustworthy, and holistic. Register for free trial here at?https://brandessenceresearch.com/i-factor/login/userRegister Brandessence Market Research & Consulting Pvt ltd. Brandessence Market Research publishes market research reports & business insights produced by highly qualified and experienced industry analysts. Our research reports are available in a wide range of industry verticals including aviation, food & beverage, healthcare, ICT, Construction, Chemicals, and lot more. Brand Essence Market Research report will be best fit for senior executives, business development managers, marketing managers, consultants, CEOs, CIOs, COOs, and Directors, governments, agencies, organizations, and Ph.D. Students. We have a delivery center in?Pune, India?and our sales office is in?London. Follow Us:?Linkedin?Blog: Digital Gaming Companies Contact: Mr.?Vishal Sawant Email:?vishal@brandessenceresearch.com? Email:?Sales@brandessenceresearch.com? Corporate Sales:?+44-2038074155? Asia Office:?+917447409162 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1392316/BEMR_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/thin-film-and-printed-battery-market-size-is-expected-to-generate-a-revenue-of-usd-538-6-million-by-2028--globally-at-23-7-cagr-brandessence-market-research-301649494.html Phase III VISION trial showed Pluvicto plus best standard of care significantly improved survival for patients with pre-treated PSMA-positive mCRPC1 Approximately 473,000 prostate cancer cases and 108,000 prostate cancer-related deaths occurred across Europe in 20202; Metastatic prostate cancer has a 5-year survival rate of approximately 30%3 Two Phase III trials are underway to evaluate Pluvicto for treatment in earlier stages of metastatic prostate cancer Basel, October 14, 2022 - Novartis announced today that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion and recommended granting a marketing authorization for Pluvicto (INN: lutetium (177Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan) (formerly referred to as 177Lu-PSMA-617), a radioligand therapy, in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with or without androgen receptor (AR) pathway inhibition, for the treatment of adult patients with progressive prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have been treated with AR pathway inhibition and taxane based chemotherapy. "People at this advanced stage of disease have already received many different treatments and have few alternatives left," said Prof. Karim Fizazi, MD, PhD, VISION trial investigator and Head of Medical Oncology at Gustave Roussy, first European cancer center based in Villejuif, France. "If approved in Europe, Pluvicto would represent a new type of precision medicine targeting a biomarker broadly expressed in prostate cancer patients4 and provide a therapeutic option with demonstrated potential to improve outcomes1. As a clinician this gives me hope for patients facing a very difficult situation." The positive CHMP opinion is based on data from the Phase III VISION study, in which Pluvicto plus best standard of care (BSoC) demonstrated significantly improved overall survival in PSMA-positive mCRPC patients previously treated with AR pathway inhibition and taxane-based chemotherapy compared to BSoC alone1. Results from the VISION trial demonstrated that participants treated with Pluvicto plus BSoC had a 38% reduction in risk of death and a 60% reduction in the risk of radiographic disease progression or death (rPFS) compared to BSoC alone1. In addition, approximately a third (29.8%) of patients with evaluable disease at baseline demonstrated an overall response (per RECIST 1.1) with Pluvicto plus BSoC, compared to 1.7% in the BSoC alone arm1. The most common adverse events (all grades) in the Pluvicto arm of the study were fatigue (43%), dry mouth (39%), nausea (35%), anemia (low red blood cell counts) (32%), decreased appetite (21%), and constipation (20%)1. "This positive CHMP opinion for Pluvicto is an important step forward in our goal of bringing transformative innovation to more patients around the world," said Marie-France Tschudin, President, Innovative Medicines International & Chief Commercial Officer, Novartis. "If approved by the European Commission, Pluvicto would be the first and only commercial radioligand therapy for people with advanced prostate cancer in Europe. We are committed to exploring the potential of radioligand therapy to address unmet needs in prostate cancer, including in earlier stages of disease." The CHMP's positive opinion on Pluvicto in PSMA-positive mCRPC patients will be referred to the European Commission (EC), which will deliver a final decision in approximately two months. The decision will be applicable to all 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, Northern Ireland and Liechtenstein. About Pluvicto (lutetium (177Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan) Despite advances in prostate cancer care, there is a high unmet need for new targeted treatment options to improve outcomes for patients with mCRPC1. Pluvicto is a radioligand therapy combining a targeting compound (ligand, in this case directed to PSMA) with a therapeutic radioisotope (a radioactive particle, in this case lutetium-177)1. Pluvicto delivers radiation to PSMA-positive cells and the surrounding microenvironment1. Pluvicto was approved by the FDA in March 2022. Two additional Phase III trials in earlier lines of treatment for metastatic prostate cancer are ongoing, investigating potential clinical utility in the mCRPC pre-taxane setting (PSMAfore (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04689828?term=PSMAfore&draw=2&rank=1))11 and in the metastatic hormone-sensitive setting (PSMAddition (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04720157?term=PSMAddition&draw=2&rank=1))12. Novartis is also evaluating opportunities to investigate Pluvicto radioligand therapy in earlier stages of prostate cancer. About VISION VISION is an international, prospective, randomized, open-label, multicenter, phase III study that assessed the efficacy and safety of Pluvicto (lutetium (177Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan) (7.4 GBq administered by IV infusion every 6 weeks for a maximum of 6 cycles) plus investigator-chosen standard of care (BSoC) in the investigational arm, versus BSoC in the control arm1. Patients with PSMA PET-scan positive mCRPC who have received androgen receptor (AR) pathway inhibition and taxane-based chemotherapy, were randomized in a 2:1 ratio in favor of the investigational arm1. The alternate primary endpoints were rPFS and OS1. The study enrolled 831 patients1. Novartis and Prostate Cancer With more 1.4 million new cases and 375,000 deaths in 2020 alone, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in 112 countries-more than half the world13. At Novartis, we are harnessing the innovation of our world-class scientists, strategic partnerships, and one of the industry's most competitive pipelines to explore the potential of new, targeted therapies and precision medicine platforms to address the greatest unmet needs in prostate cancer. Through the bold science of targeted therapies, our goal is to reduce the global disease burden, extend the lives of patients with prostate cancer, and elevate current standards of care. About Phenotypic Precision Medicine in advanced prostate cancer More than 80% of patients with prostate cancer highly express a phenotypic biomarker4 called prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)4-8, making it a promising diagnostic (through positron emission tomography (PET) scan imaging) and therapeutic target for radioligand therapy9. This differs from 'genotypic' precision medicine which targets specific genetic alterations in cancer cells10. Disclaimer This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "potential," "can," "will," "plan," "may," "could," "would," "expect," "anticipate," "seek," "look forward," "believe," "committed," "investigational," "pipeline," "launch," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures and requirements for increased pricing transparency; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political, economic and business conditions, including the effects of and efforts to mitigate pandemic diseases such as COVID-19; safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. About Novartis Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world's top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 108,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com (https://www.novartis.com) . Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at https://twitter.com/novartisnews (https://twitter.com/novartisnews) For Novartis multimedia content, please visit https://www.novartis.com/news/media-library (https://www.novartis.com/news/media-library) For questions about the site or required registration, please contact media.relations@novartis.com (mailto:media.relations@novartis.com) References Sartor O, J. de Bono KN, Chi K, et al. Lutetium-177-PSMA-617 for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. NEJM 2021; doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2107322. World Health Organization (WHO). (2022) Cancer population fact sheet:Europe. Retrieved from https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/populations/908-europe-fact-sheets.pdf (https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/populations/908-europe-fact-sheets.pdf) SEER. Cancer stat facts: prostate cancer April 2021. [https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html (https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html)] Hope TA, Aggarwal R, Chee B, et al. Impact of 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET on management in patients with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer. J Nucl Med 2017;58(12):1956-61 Hupe MC, Philippi C, Roth D, et al. Expression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) on biopsies is an independent risk stratifier of prostate cancer patients at time of initial diagnosis. Front Oncol 2018;8:623. Bostwick DG, Pacelli A, Blute M, et al. Prostate specific membrane antigen expression in prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia and adenocarcinoma: a study of 184 cases. Cancer 1998;82(11):2256-61 Pomykala KL, Czernin J, Grogan TR, et al. Total-body 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT for bone metastasis detection in prostate cancer patients: potential impact on bone scan guidelines. J Nucl Med 2020;61(3):405-11 Minner S, Wittmer C, Graefen M, et al. High level PSMA expression is associated with early PSA recurrence in surgically treated prostate cancer. Prostate 2011;71(3):281-8 Hofman MS, Violet J, Hicks RJ et al. [177Lu]-PSMA-617 radionuclide treatment in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (LuPSMA trial): a single-centre, single-arm, phase 2. Sant GR, Knopf KB, Albala DM. Live-single-cell phenotypic cancer biomarkers-future role in precision oncology? NPJ Precision Oncology 2017;1(1):21 Novartis Pharmaceuticals. 177Lu-PSMA-617 vs. Androgen Receptor-directed Therapy in the Treatment of Progressive Metastatic Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (PSMAfore). U.S. National Library of Medicine: Clinical Trials. 2020; NCT04689828. Novartis Pharmaceuticals. An International Prospective Open-label, Randomized, Phase III Study Comparing 177Lu-PSMA-617 in Combination With Soc, Versus SoC Alone, in Adult Male Patients With mHSPC (PSMAddition). U.S. National Library of Medicine: Clinical Trials. 2021; NCT04720157. Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Sung H, et al. Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA Cancer J Clin. 2021;71(3):209-249. doi:10.3322/caac.21660. # # # Novartis Media Relations E-mail: media.relations@novartis.com (mailto:media.relations@novartis.com) Anja von Treskow Novartis External Communications +41 79 392 8697 (mobile) anja.von_treskow@novartis.com (mailto:anja.von_treskow@novartis.com) Julie Masow Novartis US External Communications +1 862 579 8456 (mobile) julie.masow@novartis.com (mailto:julie.masow@novartis.com) Fran Rodrigues Novartis Innovative Medicines International Communications +41 79 413 4942 fran.rodrigues@novartis.com (mailto:fran.rodrigues@novartis.com) Novartis Investor Relations Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944 E-mail: investor.relations@novartis.com (mailto:investor.relations@novartis.com) 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. TAK-003 Recommended for the Prevention of Dengue Disease Caused by Any Dengue Virus Serotype in Individuals Four Years of Age and Older in the EU and in Dengue-Endemic Countries Participating in the EU-M4all Procedure Positive Opinion for TAK-003 Based on 4.5 Years of Safety and Efficacy Data from Pivotal Phase 3 Trial of Over 20,000 Children and Adolescents Across Eight Dengue-Endemic Countries Marketing Authorization Expected in Coming Months in Europe Followed by Regulatory Decisions in Latin America and Asia Takeda(TSE:4502/NYSE:TAKtoday announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended the approval of Takeda's dengue vaccine candidate, TAK-003, for the prevention of dengue disease caused by any serotype in individuals four years of age and older in Europe and in dengue-endemic countries participating in the parallel EU-M4all procedure. The final step in the path to approval in Europe is Marketing Authorization from the EMA, which is expected in the coming months. Regulatory reviews will also progress in dengue-endemic countries in Latin America and Asia. "We are one step closer towards the approval of a dengue vaccine that could benefit many of the millions of individuals around the world exposed to dengue. This is a major moment for the global health community, European countries and the dengue-endemic countries that participated in the EU-M4all procedure," said Gary Dubin, M.D., president of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda. "We have been working for many years to help improve the way dengue can be prevented. Our efforts to provide a new option for dengue prevention support Takeda's overall goal to provide long-term societal value to the people we serve." The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades, causing an estimated 390 million infections and 500,000 hospitalizations annually.1,2 The rise in cases can be attributed to factors such as urbanization, globalization and climate change.1 Severe dengue accounts for about 5% of dengue cases and is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children and adults in Latin America and Asia.3,4 Dengue is the second most diagnosed cause of fever in travelers returning to Europe from endemic countries.5 Its presence is far-reaching in endemic countries across the Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions and is growing in non-endemic areas in continental Europe, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States.6 "The global health community has been eager for a dengue vaccine that is accessible without the barrier of pre-vaccination testing," said Dr. Ooi Eng Eong, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. "The robust clinical data provided by Takeda shows that its dengue vaccine has the potential to help prevent dengue cases and hospitalizations. Today, we are closer to helping improve dengue prevention and reducing the burden of disease on countries, communities and health systems." The Committee's positive opinion was supported by results across five Phase 1, 2 and 3 trials with more than 28,000 children and adults. This includes four and a half years of follow-up data from the global, pivotal Phase 3 Tetravalent Immunization against Dengue Efficacy Study (TIDES) trial, consistent with the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommendation to obtain three to five years of follow-up data after the completion of a primary dengue vaccination in order to most accurately assess safety and efficacy.7 TIDES exploratory analyses showed that throughout the four and a half years of study follow-up, TAK-003 prevented 84% of hospitalized dengue cases and 61% of symptomatic dengue cases in the overall population, including both seropositive and seronegative individuals. TAK-003 has been generally well tolerated, with no evidence of disease enhancement in vaccine recipients, and no important safety risks have been identified in the TIDES trial, to date. In August 2022, Takeda's dengue vaccine, known as QDENGA (Dengue Tetravalent Vaccine [Live, Attenuated]) (TAK-003), was approved by the Indonesia National Agency for Drug and Food Control, BADAN POM, for the prevention of dengue disease by any serotype in individuals six years to 45 years of age. TAK-003 has not yet been approved anywhere else in the world and Takeda will continue to initiate and progress regulatory filings in other dengue-endemic and non-endemic countries. Regulatory approval and use of the vaccine is dependent on evaluation by relevant local authorities and for the indication they deem appropriate. ? This medicinal product is subject to additional monitoring. This will allow quick identification of new safety information. Healthcare professionals are asked to report suspected adverse reactions. See Section 4.8 of the SmPC for how to report adverse reactions. Please consult with your local regulatory agency for any approved labeling in your country. The drug information contained herein is intended to disclose corporate information. Nothing contained in this document should be considered a solicitation, promotion, or indication for any prescription drug, including those currently under development. The CHMP's positive recommendation has no impact on the full year consolidated reported forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023 (Fiscal Year 2022). Takeda will hold a TAK-003 Investor Event in December 2022 to provide more detail on commercial planning and updates on regulatory progress. About Dengue Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that spreads rapidly around the world and was one of the WHO's top 10 threats to global health in 2019.8 Dengue is mainly spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and, to a lesser extent, Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.1 It is caused by any of four dengue virus serotypes, each of which can cause dengue fever or severe dengue. The prevalence of individual serotypes varies across different geographies, countries, regions, seasons and over time.2 Recovery from infection by one serotype provides lifelong immunity against only that serotype, and later exposure to any of the remaining serotypes is associated with an increased risk of severe disease.1 About TAK-003 Takeda's tetravalent dengue vaccine candidate (TAK-003) is based on a live-attenuated dengue serotype 2 virus, which provides the genetic "backbone" for all four vaccine viruses.9 Clinical Phase 2 data in children and adolescents showed that TAK-003 induced immune responses against all four dengue serotypes, in both seropositive and seronegative participants, which persisted through 48 months after vaccination, and the vaccine was found to be generally safe and well tolerated.10 The pivotal Phase 3 Tetravalent Immunization against Dengue Efficacy Study (TIDES) trial met its primary endpoint of overall vaccine efficacy (VE) against virologically-confirmed dengue (VCD) at 12-months follow-up and all secondary endpoints at 18-months follow-up for which there were a sufficient number of dengue cases, including VE against hospitalized dengue and VE in baseline seropositive and baseline seronegative individuals.11,12 Efficacy varied by serotype. The results demonstrated TAK-003 was generally well tolerated, and there have been no important safety risks observed to date. About EU-M4all13 EU-M4all (or EU-Medicines for all) is a procedure designed to facilitate patient access to essential medicines or vaccines intended to help prevent or treat diseases of major public health interest. Through the EU-M4all procedure (previously known as the Article 58 procedure), the EMA, in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), can provide scientific opinion on medicines and vaccines for public health priority diseases that are intended for markets outside of the EU that have registered in the procedure. About the Phase 3 TIDES (DEN-301) Trial The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 3 Tetravalent Immunization against Dengue Efficacy Study (TIDES) trial is evaluating the safety and efficacy of two doses of TAK-003 in the prevention of laboratory-confirmed symptomatic dengue fever of any severity and due to any of the four dengue virus serotypes in children and adolescents. The TIDES trial is Takeda's largest interventional clinical trial to date and enrolled over 20,000 healthy children and adolescents ages four to 16 years living in dengue-endemic areas.11 Study participants were randomized 2:1 to receive two doses of TAK-003 0.5 mL or placebo on Months 0 and 3, administered subcutaneously.11 The study is comprised of five parts. Part 1 and the primary endpoint analysis evaluated vaccine efficacy (VE) and safety through 12 months after the second dose.11 Part 2 continued for an additional six months to complete the assessment of the secondary endpoints of VE by serotype, baseline serostatus and disease severity, including VE against hospitalized dengue.11 Part 3 evaluated VE and long-term safety by following participants for an additional two and a half to three years, as per WHO recommendations.14 Part 4 will evaluate efficacy and safety for 13 months following booster vaccination and Part 5 will evaluate long-term efficacy and safety for one year after completion of Part 4.14 The trial is taking place at sites in dengue-endemic areas in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua) and Asia (Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka) where there are unmet needs in dengue prevention and where severe dengue is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children.14 Baseline blood samples were collected from all individuals participating in the trial to allow for evaluation of safety and efficacy based on serostatus. Takeda and an independent Data Monitoring Committee of experts are actively monitoring safety on an ongoing basis. Takeda's Commitment to Vaccines Vaccines prevent 3.5 to 5 million deaths each year and have transformed global public health.15 For more than 70 years, Takeda has supplied vaccines to protect the health of people in Japan. Today, Takeda's global vaccine business is applying innovation to tackle some of the world's most challenging infectious diseases, such as dengue, COVID-19, pandemic flu and Zika. Takeda's team brings an outstanding track record and a wealth of knowledge in vaccine development and manufacturing to advance a pipeline of vaccines to address some of the world's most pressing public health needs. For more information, visit www.Takeda.com/what-we-do/areas-of-focus/vaccines/. About Takeda Takeda is a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical leader headquartered in Japan, committed to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments, guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Takeda focuses its R&D efforts on four therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Genetics and Hematology, Neuroscience, and Gastroenterology (GI). We also make targeted R&D investments in Plasma-Derived Therapies and Vaccines. We are focusing on developing highly innovative medicines that contribute to making a difference in people's lives by advancing the frontier of new treatment options and leveraging our enhanced collaborative R&D engine and capabilities to create a robust, modality-diverse pipeline. Our employees are committed to improving quality of life for patients and to working with our partners in health care in approximately 80 countries and regions. For more information, visit https://www.takeda.com. Important Notice For the purposes of this notice, "press release" means this document, any oral presentation, any question and answer session and any written or oral material discussed or distributed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda") regarding this release. This press release (including any oral briefing and any question-and-answer in connection with it) is not intended to, and does not constitute, represent or form part of any offer, invitation or solicitation of any offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, exchange, sell or otherwise dispose of, any securities or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction. No shares or other securities are being offered to the public by means of this press release. No offering of securities shall be made in the United States except pursuant to registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom. This press release is being given (together with any further information which may be provided to the recipient) on the condition that it is for use by the recipient for information purposes only (and not for the evaluation of any investment, acquisition, disposal or any other transaction). Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of applicable securities laws. The companies in which Takeda directly and indirectly owns investments are separate entities. In this press release, "Takeda" is sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Takeda and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies. Forward-Looking Statements This press release and any materials distributed in connection with this press release may contain forward-looking statements, beliefs or opinions regarding Takeda's future business, future position and results of operations, including estimates, forecasts, targets and plans for Takeda. Without limitation, forward-looking statements often include words such as "targets", "plans", "believes", "hopes", "continues", "expects", "aims", "intends", "ensures", "will", "may", "should", "would", "could" "anticipates", "estimates", "projects" or similar expressions or the negative thereof. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions about many important factors, including the following, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements: the economic circumstances surrounding Takeda's global business, including general economic conditions in Japan and the United States; competitive pressures and developments; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; challenges inherent in new product development, including uncertainty of clinical success and decisions of regulatory authorities and the timing thereof; uncertainty of commercial success for new and existing products; manufacturing difficulties or delays; fluctuations in interest and currency exchange rates; claims or concerns regarding the safety or efficacy of marketed products or product candidates; the impact of health crises, like the novel coronavirus pandemic, on Takeda and its customers and suppliers, including foreign governments in countries in which Takeda operates, or on other facets of its business; the timing and impact of post-merger integration efforts with acquired companies; the ability to divest assets that are not core to Takeda's operations and the timing of any such divestment(s); and other factors identified in Takeda's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and Takeda's other reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, available on Takeda's website at: https://www.takeda.com/investors/sec-filings/ or at www.sec.gov. Takeda does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or any other forward-looking statements it may make, except as required by law or stock exchange rule. Past performance is not an indicator of future results and the results or statements of Takeda in this press release may not be indicative of, and are not an estimate, forecast, guarantee or projection of Takeda's future results. Medical information This press release contains information about products that may not be available in all countries, or may be available under different trademarks, for different indications, in different dosages, or in different strengths. Nothing contained herein should be considered a solicitation, promotion or advertisement for any prescription drugs including the ones under development. World Health Organization. Fact Sheet. Dengue and Severe Dengue. January 2022. Retrieved August 2022. Guzman MG, Halstead SB, Artsob H, et al. Dengue: a continuing global threat. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2010;8(12 Suppl):S7-S16. doi:10.1038/nrmicro2460. Knowlton K, et al. Mosquito-Borne Dengue Fever Threat Spreading in the Americas. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 2009. Retrieved April 2022. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dengue For Healthcare Providers Clinical Presentation. September 2021. Retrieved October 2022. Bulugahapitiya, U., Siyambalapitiya, S., Seneviratne, S. L., Fernando, D. J. (2007). Dengue fever in travellers: A challenge for European physicians. European journal of internal medicine, 18(3), 185-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejim.2006.12.002 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Autochthonous transmission of dengue virus in EU/EEA, 2010-present. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/all-topics-z/dengue/surveillance-and-disease-data/autochthonoustransmission-dengue-virus-eueea. WHO Technical Report Series No. 979, 2013 Annex 2. Guidelines on the quality, safety and efficacy of dengue tetravalent vaccines (live, attenuated). https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/biologicals/vaccine-standardization/dengue/trs-979-annex-2-dengue.pdf'sfvrsn=bd659777_2&download=true. World Health Organization. Ten threats to global health in 2019. 2019. Retrieved October 2022. Huang CY-H, et al. Genetic and phenotypic characterization of manufacturing seeds for tetravalent dengue vaccine (DENVax). PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2013;7:e2243. Tricou, V, Saez-Llorens X, et al. Safety and immunogenicity of a tetravalent dengue vaccine in children aged 2-17 years: a randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial. 2020. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30556-0. Biswal S, et al. Efficacy of a tetravalent dengue vaccine in healthy children and adolescents. N Engl J Med. 2019; 2019;381:2009-2019. Biswal S, et al. Efficacy of a tetravalent dengue vaccine in healthy children aged 4-16 years: a randomized, placebo controlled, phase 3 trial. Lancet. 2020. 2020;395:1423-1433. The European Medicines Agency. Medicines for use outside the EU EU-M4all. July 2020. Retrieved October 2022. Gov. Efficacy, Safety and Immunogenicity of Takeda's Tetravalent Dengue Vaccine (TDV) in Healthy Children (TIDES). Retrieved August 2022. World Health Organization. Vaccines and immunization. 2022. Retrieved August 2022. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221013006022/en/ Contacts: Media: Japanese Media Jun Saito jun.saito@takeda.com +81 (0) 3-3278-2325 U.S. and International Media Rachel Higgins rachel.higgins@takeda.com +1 917-796-8703 The recently awarded 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics has been accompanied by much chatter in popular science columns about how the work of the three awarded scientists has proven that there is no such thing as objective reality, and the world is not real. Even the Nobel Prize committee itself succeeded in misrepresenting the science. Idealist mysticism has made much headway in the sciences, and is expressed most crudely in popular science journals. Perhaps the worst specimen is the once highly regarded New Scientist magazine, as the following article from issue 37 of In Defence of Marxism magazine explains. A note on this years Nobel Prize in Physics The three winners of this years Nobel Prize in Physics Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger are being hailed as having proven that the world is not locally real. According to the Nobel Prize committee itself, the implications of their work [mean] that quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by a theory that uses hidden variables. Quantum mechanics is fundamentally a probabilistic theory. Those who interpret quantum mechanics in an idealist fashion are content that this is a complete description of the world. After all, if the world only pops into existence when we look at it, it might as well exist in an indeterministic haze when we are not observing it. But for materialists, the behaviour of matter is deterministic i.e. it obeys laws of cause and effect. Hypotheses that explain quantum mechanics by recourse to deeper, deterministic laws (i.e. hypotheses that retain cause and effect!) are referred to as hidden variable theories. This is the meaning of Einsteins celebrated aphorism, God does not play dice. He believed that there must be some deeper, more fundamental causality. But the Nobel Prize committee has breezily declared that three scientists have now banished cause and effect from science, and have proven that the world exists in an indeterminate quantum haze until we observe it, when it finally pops into existence. This is categorically untrue. The denial of cause and effect opens the door to reactionary, mystical conclusions. The popular science website Big Think interpreted the research of the scientists as meaning that [an] objective reality, devoid of the actions of an observer, does not appear to exist in any sort of fundamental way. This is complete and utter subjective idealism. And it is not what the awarded scientists discovered. Their discoveries are interesting enough, and the nonsense being written about their work does them a disservice. What they actually discovered were ways of practically testing the theoretical work of the physicist John Bell, famous for what is known as Bells inequality. Bells inequality is a theoretical framework for setting limits beyond which we can rule out local causality. However, this is not to throw out causality in general. Rather, it seems to indicate that cause and effect are non-local i.e. capable of operating on the quantum level over vast distances. Indeed, Bell himself favoured the non-local hidden variable theories of David Bohm. This is a remarkable enough discovery in itself. It contradicts common sense, whereby causes operate locally and not at a distance. It throws up new scientific and philosophical problems. But it is not at all the same as saying that there is no causality and that it is the observer that brings reality into existence! The output of New Scientist in the past few years demonstrates how subjective idealist nonsense is pumped into the public consciousness, and given the weight of an esteemed popular science journal. This entirely reactionary attack on the fundamental premises of science shows the dead-end of bourgeois thought, which is descending into mysticism and superstition. Moreover, these ideas are useful to the ruling class, as they can be used to blunt class struggle. After all, if reality is merely a subjective matter, how and why would we seek to change it? It is the duty of Marxists to reject this reactionary rubbish, and stand in defence of rational thought. New Scientist magazine has been conveying complex scientific ideas to the general public in an accessible way for over six decades. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Alongside the indignity of its 2021 purchase by the Daily Mail General Trust (Britains foremost producer of right-wing rags), this once-proud publication has increasingly turned its back, not only on quality science journalism, but reality itself. In February 2020 New Scientist ran a feature, with the headline, Can we perceive reality? / Image: New Scientist The dead end of capitalism is leading the ruling class to promote mysticism and solipsism (the idea that the sole reality is the one in my mind). This is having a corrosive effect on science and philosophy at all levels. Instead of educating readers about the latest inspiring breakthroughs in human knowledge, magazines like New Scientist are filling their pages with idealist drivel. Ironically, these notions are neither new, nor scientific. In fact, they mostly parrot old ideas, such as those of the reactionary 18th Century Bishop George Berkeley an outspoken enemy of science, and particularly of his contemporary, Sir Isaac Newton. We are not suggesting the majority of scientists share these views. But it is undeniable that New Scientist is giving a major platform to subjective idealism, as we can see with the example of three featured articles, published between 2020 and 2022, two of which made the front page. These reflect a subjectivist trend within the scientific establishment, which is being communicated through popular culture to the wider public, for nefarious ends. The Case Against Reality In order for science to advance, it must take as its starting principle that there is a single, objective reality out there, our understanding of which can be perfected through observation and experiment. Instead, a February 2020 New Scientist feature, with the headline, Can we perceive reality?, opens on a note of existential uncertainty: I dont know about you, but I feel that I have a perfectly good perception of reality. Inside my head is a vivid depiction of the world around me, replete with sounds, smells, colour and objects. So it is rather unsettling to discover this might all be a fabrication (our emphasis).[1] Unsettling indeed! And what is the cause of the authors sudden lapse in confidence in their senses? They cite Donald Hoffman, a psychologist at the University of California, author of a modestly-titled book, The Case Against Reality. Hoffman presents his so-called interface theory of perception, arguing that our sensory systems condense the complexity of the real world into a simplified user inference filtering out superfluous information for the benefit of our comprehension.[2] In his book The Case Against Reality, Donald Hoffman merely recycles an argument proposed hundreds of years ago by Immanuel Kant / Image: W. W. Norton Company Now, it is certainly true that our brains are adept at recognising patterns and unconsciously filtering out much in our sensory experience. For Prof. Hoffman, however, the interface is all that exists. What we think of as reality is nothing but an abstract data structure for something that doesnt even exist in space and time, and therefore, [i]f you have this notion that reality is something that is inherently different from the mind, then it becomes paradoxical to think that we ever have access to reality.[3] This paradox is identical to an argument proposed hundreds of years ago by Immanuel Kant, who despite his many important contributions to science and philosophy, was an idealist, and thus had his limitations. Kant reasoned that we can only know appearances of reality, based on our sense perceptions, and never the thing-in-itself. In exactly the same way as Prof. Hoffman argues the mind imposes a data structure, Kant argued the mind imposes a priori abstract thought categories to make sense of our sense data. But whilst these categories may help us order our thoughts, for Kant, the essence of reality itself is unknowable.[4] However, as Friedrich Engels explains in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, practice, development and the history of science are the ultimate proof of the objective world. He gives the example of developments in biology and chemistry, which have allowed scientists to reproduce natural phenomena, including the chemicals produced internally by plants and animals. These were thus transformed by the march of science and human knowledge from ungraspable things-in-themselves into things for us.[5] To give him his due, Kant was a scientist and philosopher of stature. But by replicating his weakest side, Prof. Hoffman undoes centuries of progress at a stroke. The author then takes Hoffmans arguments to their conclusion, asking whether people at least share the same misrepresentation? This seems like a reasonable assumption, the author suggests. After all, humans have roughly the same brains and sensory systems, and when we talk about our conscious experiences we all seem to be on the same page.[6] But, the author warns, we cannot be sure. The only way you know you exist as a conscious being is experience of your own consciousness. The nature and even existence of other peoples consciousness is a closed book. For all you know, everybody else is a zombie.[7] Reading this stuff, it certainly feels like ones brains are being slowly consumed by the shambling undead. Knowingly or not, the author is resurrecting an ancient argument, whose most prominent proponent in the history of philosophy was the reactionary Bishop Berkeley. Although, at least in Berkeleys case, he had the honesty to make clear his enmity towards the scientific revolution of the 18th century, and specifically materialism. Bishop Berkeley at least had the honesty to make clear his enmity towards the scientific revolution of the 18th century / Image: Google Art Project Berkeley recognised that materialism contained the kernel of atheism, by stating that knowledge and truth flow from studying and experimenting on the material world, rather than from God. His thrust against materialism was based on a trick. Berkeleys subjective idealism held that, if one can only know the world through the senses, it is impossible to be sure of anything but ones own sensations. Therefore, the so-called real world, nature and every other human being only exist insofar as they are being perceived by the human mind. He writes, in The Principles of Human Knowledge: It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world; yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations; and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these or any combination of them should exist unperceived?[8] This is the same line of reasoning presented by Hoffman. But whereas Berkeley was explicitly attacking materialism and science, Hoffmans theory is being printed approvingly in a world-renowned scientific magazine! It is an indictment of the decline of capitalism and its inability to advance human thinking that centuries-old idealist dross is today being revived as the last word of modern science. The logical conclusion of these ideas is solipsism: that is, the view that only I exist. This way of thinking reflects the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, individualistic mindset, where the self is the final, and only truth. This solipsistic perspective is at best worthless, but at worst, it actively rejects the very idea of scientific knowledge altogether. After all, what is the point of trying to unlock the secrets of the universe when we can never know if they are true? In its triumphant, revolutionary advance, the bourgeois class battled religious superstition under the banner of science, reason and progress. It is evidence of just how far bourgeois thought has degenerated that it has arrived at such a quagmire. We shall return to Prof. Hoffman shortly, but first, lets have a flick through a few other issues of our once-esteemed popular science journal. Entangled in quantum theory This one article is hardly a dissonant note in the New Scientist magazine. Subjective idealism has cropped up again and again in the magazine in recent years. Particularly when it comes to the subject of quantum theory. Subatomic objects express characteristics both of particles and of waves / Image: Public Domain A front-page of the November 2021 issue of New Scientist asks: Does anything exist when were not looking? Closing in on the true nature of quantum reality. If the reader resists the temptation to stop looking at the magazine, banishing it from the realm of reality to the dustbin, we find the article in question (The quantum experiment that could prove reality doesnt exist) concerns the boundary between the worlds of classical Newtonian and quantum mechanics. In short, at the level of everyday life, classical mechanics hold sway: objects have clear positions and more-or-less measurable properties like momentum, energy and so forth. At the minute scale of quantum mechanics, the situation becomes more complicated. Subatomic objects express characteristics both of particles, which have discrete positions; and waves, which are continuous in space. How these two spheres interact is a major source of debate in fundamental physics. The most popular way of getting around this apparent contradiction is the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, developed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the 1930s. They argued that a quantum particle doesnt exist in a fixed state until observed. When we arent looking at it, it merely exists as a probability wave. They drew the conclusion that, therefore, looking at something causes it to exist in one state and not another. This is pure idealism: the notion that thought determines the material world. New Scientist quotes Albert Einsteins witty objection to idealist interpretations of quantum mechanics: I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it. Ah, but now, the author states, a new class of experiments is putting Einsteins conviction to the test, seeing if quantum weirdness stretches beyond the tiny world of quarks, atoms and qubits into the everyday world of tables, chairs, and, well, moons. These experiments, the author claims, might just kick the legs out from under one of our most firmly held beliefs: that things exist regardless of whether we are looking at them.[9] The article goes on to explain that scientists at various top institutions in Oxford, Vienna and London have been attempting to observe quantum behaviour in comparatively large objects, though still only tiny nanocrystals. If they can pull this off, the argument goes, then what is to stop them from extrapolating their conclusions to objects as large as the moon? As summed up by Jonathan Halliwell, a researcher at Imperial College London: If macroscopic realism is violated, then you cant assume the moon is there (our emphasis).[10] Unfortunately, even a stray photon can disrupt these experiments, and force the observed objects to behave classically (a problem known as decoherence). So it would seem the jury is still out on the moon! While there remain many unresolved problems in fundamental physics, idealist fudges dont bring us a step closer to solving them. For now, we can be reasonably confident the moon will stubbornly continue to exist, whether or not the editors of New Scientist bother to look up. Talking reality into being The front cover of New Scientists February 2022 edition also questions the existence of reality. Do we create space-time? the cover reads. Once again, we find ourselves in the realm of quantum mechanics. And once again, the article affirms the Copenhagen interpretation: When quantum theory arrived It seemed to show that by measuring things, we play a part in determining their properties. As a result, the author continues: many physicists question whether a single objective reality, shared by all observers, exists at all.[11] Bohr and Heisenberg argued that a quantum particle doesnt exist in a fixed state until observed / Image: Bundesarchiv, AB Lagrelius Westphal But fear not! The article goes on to reassure us that a number of scientists now believe reality does indeed exist because we bring it into being ourselves. The author cites physicists Flavio Mercati at the University of Burgos in Spain, and Giovanni Amelino-Camelia at the University of Naples Federico II, whose research points towards a startling conclusion, namely: [T]hat as people exchange quantum information, they are collaborating to construct their mutual reality. It means that if we simply look at space and time from one perspective, not only do we miss its full beauty, but there might not be any deeper shared reality until two people interact, they dont share the same reality because it is communication itself that creates it (our emphasis).[12] Again, we return to Bohr and Heisenbergs idealist conclusion that the existence of a conscious observer makes reality. More than this, its only communication between observers that makes their separate subjective realities a shared reality. Presumably, it was by some kind of quantum telepathy that we even know there is someone else out there to communicate with in the first place. This stands the scientific conception of the universe on its head. Consciousness is nothing more than a product of matter organised in a particular way. It is the culmination of billions of years of development that saw the formation of our galaxy, solar system, and planet. Finally, the conditions emerged for the formation of organic matter and life, and eventually animal life capable of thought and communication. Who then was there to observe the Earth when it was just a hot ball of magma? The February 2020 New Scientist article praises John Wheeler at Princeton University as among the most eloquent proponents of this idealist viewpoint on quantum theory, who wrote: Nothing is more astonishing about quantum mechanics than its allowing one to consider seriously that the universe would be nothing without observership.[13] It calls to mind an old limerick by the Catholic Theologian Ronald Arbuthnott Knox: There once was a man who said God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When theres no one about in the Quad.[14] Of course, this begs the question: what kind of consciousness are we talking about? Would the observations of a passing fruit fly be enough? One startling solution to this so-called observer problem, presented in the February 2020 article, is that even inanimate objects may possess a rudimentary form of consciousness. Indeed, consciousness itself may be a fundamental property of matter. If so, then there was no such thing as a pre-conscious universe.[15] This resembles Berkeley's answer to a flaw in his subjective idealism: how do we know that God isnt also a figment of our senses? The bishop got around this little conundrum by stating that the omniscient God is a universal observer: Dear Sir, your astonishments odd. I am always about in the Quad. And thats why the tree Will continue to be Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.[16] The idea presented in New Scientist is much the same: the only difference is that, rather than an omniscient deity consciously observing reality, consciousness is a universal property of matter itself. Everything from mountains, to letterboxes, to rubber bath ducks are conscious, and therefore the universe is constantly observing itself, and bringing itself into being. But then if the universe itself is already a conscious observer, why would scientists observing a quantum particle cause its wave function to collapse? Surely by making the whole universe conscious and having it permanently observe every other part of the universe, then every particle has a determined position at all times? It would never exist as a mere probability wave. In other words, why introduce the observer a la the Copenhagen interpretation to begin with? These ideas really fail to solve anything. Alternatively, we must conclude that what we mean by consciousness is actually God after all that Berkeley was right. And so we have smuggled religion in by the backdoor. An even-more outlandish proposal by scientist-and-philosopher Nick Bostrom presented in the February 2020 New Scientist article takes inspiration from the plight of Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and the rest of the cast of The Matrix. He suggests we are all living in a giant computer simulation, under constant observation by scientists in the real world. And if you thought he was joking, he has suggestions for how we could test this theory, all of which are unblushingly reprinted by New Scientist: One idea is to look at the behaviour of the very highest-energy cosmic rays, which some physicists say are impossible to simulate 100 per cent accurately according to the real laws of physics. Anomalies in their behaviour could be evidence that reality isnt real.[17] But we should be careful with this line of enquiry, the article warns. If our simulator overlords found out that we knew, they might just switch us off.[18] After reading these lines, one almost wishes they would. Or at least undergo a hard reboot to rid us of these defective theories. Even if he were proved right, Bostrom wouldnt have brought us an inch closer to reality. Are the simulators living in their own simulated reality, continuing ad infinitum? This dreck hardly dignifies refutation. It belongs in the category of science fiction and bad science fiction at that. Resurrecting idealism You might object that such nonsense is easy to dismiss and amusing to mock, and that it doesnt represent the views of most scientists. Its just frivolous fancy being used to sell more copies of the magazine. But there is a more insidious agenda at work here. The same article describes the view of Markus Muller at the University of Vienna that it is not the world that is fundamental but the information and the probabilistic law, which happen to give observers the impression of a physical world with consistent laws of nature. New Scientist then goes on to admit what is really happening here by quoting Kelvin McQueen, a philosopher of quantum physics at Chapman University in California: Mullers proposal is extremely interesting. It effectively aims to resurrect an old idea in philosophy known as idealism, according to which experiences are not caused by a pre-existing physical reality but actually compose all the reality there (our emphasis).[19] There you have it! In black and white. These scientists and philosophers aim to resurrect the stinking corpse of idealism, and New Scientist is guilty of dignifying them with a platform. These utterly reactionary ideas are an insult to the heroic struggle waged against religious obscurantism by the pioneers of the bourgeois scientific revolution. Dont imagine Dr. Muller is unaware of the fact that his work is being used to rehabilitate idealism. As it turns out, both he and the aforementioned Prof. Hoffman are members of the academic advisory board of the Essentia Foundation. And what is the Essentia Foundation? It is a think tank founded by the philanthropist and multi-millionaire, Fred Matser, a bourgeois who only wishes to save our souls. The Essentia Foundation states its aim quite clearly. It wishes to destroy materialism and instate idealism at the heart of modern science: We live under a materialist metaphysics: all that supposedly exists is matter, an abstract entity conceptually defined as being outside and independent of consciousness. This metaphysics is often conflated with science itself The mainstream cultural endorsement of metaphysical materialism became firmly established in the second half of the nineteenth century. Since then, however, its strength has been derived mainly from intellectual habit Nonetheless, the cultural prevalence of metaphysical materialism has myriadand arguably dysfunctionalimplications at both individual and social levels: it impacts our sense of meaning and purpose, our value systems, our understanding of health, disease and death, as well as the way we relate to others, the planet and even ourselves. Essentia Foundation questions metaphysical materialism and argues for the plausibility of idealism by leveraging the exact same epistemic values our culture reifies today We show that, if applied objectively and consequently, these values point directly at idealism, while contradicting materialism.[20] These are only the most open partisans of a philosophical counter-revolution, and they apparently have a hotline straight to the editorial desks of some of the worlds biggest popular science journals! At one time, the bourgeoisie played a revolutionary role. It advanced human thinking and carried out a scientific revolution, at the core of which was a materialist method. But its modern representatives would rip the materialist heart out of science. The advance of science and materialist philosophy during the rise of capitalism dealt a mighty blow to subjectivism and idealism of all kinds, as the folks at the Essentia Foundation recognise. Today, however, the capitalist class has become hostile towards philosophical materialism, in part due to its association with Marxism. But more broadly, denying the objectivity of reality also denies the reality of exploitation, oppression and class struggle, as well as the possibility of progress or change. Subjective idealism is thus politically useful for the ruling class. The task of science should be to continually refine our understanding of reality, to free us from ignorance and superstition / Image: Camille Flammarion Again, these ideas are not dominant among the majority of ordinary scientists. Nor have they halted scientific progress and development, which proceeds on the assumption that objective reality exists and can be studied. However, there is a strong subjectivist trend right at the top in the scientific establishment, which, in line with the interests of the ruling class, preaches that salvation lies in introspection. Such reactionary notions are being transmitted and promoted through science journalism to the wider scientific community and beyond. We reject all of this mystical garbage that cloaks itself in scientific-sounding phraseology. We assert clearly that human consciousness is a product of matter, organised in a particular way, and our senses give us access to an objective reality that exists outside ourselves. In the words of Lenin: All knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from perception. That is true. But the question arises, does objective reality belong to perception, i.e., is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are a materialist. If you answer no, you are inconsistent and will inevitably arrive at subjectivism, or agnosticism, irrespective of whether you deny the knowability of the thing-in-itself, or the objectivity of time, space and causality (with Kant), or whether you do not even permit the thought of a thing-in-itself (with Hume). The inconsistency of your empiricism, of your philosophy of experience, will in that case lie in the fact that you deny the objective content of experience, the objective truth of experimental knowledge.[21] Objective reality can be known, and there is no fundamental limit to our understanding of it. The task of science should be to continually refine our understanding of reality, to free us from ignorance and superstition. The rise of mystical and subjectivist ideas today reflect the dead end of capitalism and the capitalist class itself. The systems most avid representatives are waging a conscious assault against materialism. Marxists, all consistent materialists, and all defenders of science must wage an equally conscious counter-offensive. Unlike the ruling class, and the editors of New Scientist magazine, we must not run from reality, we must fight to change it. [1] Donna Lu, Alison George, Daniel Cossins and Layal Liverpool, Can we perceive reality?, New Scientist, February 1, 2020, 39. [2] Donald Holffman, The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes (London: Allen Lane, 2019), cited in Lu, George, Cossins and Liverpool, 39. [3] Ibid, 39. [4] Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics: Second Edition, trans. Paul Carus (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977), 53. [5] Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, in Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works Vol. 26 Engels 1882-1889 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), 367-8. [6] Lu, George, Cossins and Liverpool, 40 [7] Ibid. [8] Quoted in George S. Pappas, Berkeleys Thought, (London: Cornell University Press, 2000), 118. [9] Thomas Lewton, The quantum experiment that could prove reality doesnt exist, New Scientist, November 6, 2021, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25233590-800-the-quantum-experiment-that-could-prove-reality-doesnt-exist/#ixzz7OMJMgxYU [10] Ibid. [11] Amanda Gefter, Quantum Perspective, New Scientist, February 5, 2022, 38 [12] Ibid, 41. [13] Lu, George, Cossins and Liverpool, 41. [14] Ronald Knox, Some Berkeley Limericks, Philosophy 210/310 Early Modern Philosophy, http://faculty.otterbein.edu/AMills/EarlyModern/brklim.htm [15] Lu, George, Cossins and Liverpool, 42. [16] Unknown, Some Berkeley Limericks. [17] Lu, George, Cossins and Liverpool, 42-3. [18] Ibid, 43. [19] Ibid, 42. [20] The challenge, Essentia Foundation, https://www.essentiafoundation.org/about/. [21] V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (London: Wellred Books, 2021), 99. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - Wealth Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: WML) (OTCQB: WMLLF) (SSE: WMLCL) (FSE: EJZN) (the "Company" or "Wealth"), has discovered a 6-metre-thick zone of massive sulphide mineralization exposed at surface at its Kootenay Project, located north of Revelstoke, British Columbia (Figures 1 and 2). The semi-massive sulphide zone contains iron sulphides (pyrite), copper sulphides (chalcopyrite-bornite) and zinc sulphides and carbonate (sphalerite and hydrozincite) and was identified during field evaluation of a six-kilometre long highly prospective trend defined by favourable Lardeau Group geology, recently identified VTEM geophysical features, Ni-Cu-Zn soil geochemical anomalies and coincident magnetic anomalies (along strike; Figures 1 and 2). This newly identified semi-massive sulphide zone represents a priority target for Wealth Minerals and will be a focus of an immediate flow-through financing (see below). Figure 1. Gossanous weathering semi-massive pyrite-chalcopyrite-bornite-sphalerite-galena with heavy hydrozincite crust in upper sphalerite-bearing layer (1A) and the sulphide horizon looking northwest along strike (1B). To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/4437/140544_figure1.jpg Wealth's CEO, Hendrik van Alphen, commented: "The discovery of a 6 metre wide zone of massive sulphides within a 6 kilometre-long trend of prospective Lardeau Group rocks significantly enhances the potential of the Kootenay Project and warrants immediate follow-up exploration to maximize value for Wealth's shareholders." Mr. van Alphen added: Wealth Minerals remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing its core lithium assets but also intends to leverage the Kootenay Project, now a low-cost, technically driven, battery metals discovery to provide additional value to shareholders. Management is committed to keep the operating cost of the Kootenay Project low, and as soon as the project requires significant spending, we intend to divest of the Kootenay Project via a spin-out or similar transaction to Wealth shareholders." In conjunction with the discovery, the Company is announcing a flow-through non-brokered, private placement offering of up to 6,814,814 units in the capital of the Corporation (the "Units"), for the subscription price of $0.27 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,840,000, with each Unit consisting of one "flow-through" common share (each, an "FT Share") in the capital of the Corporation within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Canada Income Tax Act ("ITA") and one-half of one "non-flow-through" common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one non-flow-through common share in the capital of the Corporation (each, a "Warrant Share") at an exercise price of $0.40 per Warrant Share for a period of 24 months (the "Flow-Through Offering"). The proceeds of the Flow-Through Offering are expected to be used to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" (within the meaning of the ITA) related to the Kootenay Project for renunciation to the subscribers under the Offering. Finder's fees may be payable to arm's length parties that have introduced the Company to certain subscribers participating in the Flow-Through Offering. All securities issued in the Flow-Through Offering are subject to a four-month hold period, during which time the securities may not be traded. The Company further announces a non-flow through non-brokered private placement of 2,500,000 shares (the "Shares") at a price of $0.20 per Share (the "Non-Flow-Through Offering") for gross proceeds of $500,000. The Non-Flow-Through Offering is fully subscribed. There are no finder's fees payable pursuant to the Non-Flow-Through Offering. All securities issued in the Non-Flow-Through Offering are subject to a four-month hold period, during which time the securities may not be traded. Closing of the Flow-Through and Non-Flow-Through Offerings are subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities offered have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "U.S. Securities Act"), as amended, or any applicable state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to "U.S. persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Kootenay Project Update The Kootenay nickel-copper-zinc-gold property in southeastern British Columbia (the "Kootenay Project") comprises two separate claim blocks including the Lardeau-Goldsmith claim block, covering 6,951 hectares, and the Ledgend claim block covering 1,728 hectares. The claims cover precious and base metal prospective lower Paleozoic greenstone and phyllite units within the Lardeau Group, which hosts Besshi-type volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") deposits north of Revelstoke. On August 17, 2022, the Company announced the results of recent geophysical studies ("Studies"), including the analysis of a completed VTEM survey that covered the north end of the Ledgend property, an area of very poor historical data coverage, but prospective stratigraphy (Figure 2). Two significant, highly conductive electromagnetic ("EM") anomalies occur on the eastern edge of the geophysical survey grid and on strike with Ni-Cu-Zn soil and magnetic anomalies to the south. The strong conductors, with conductivity-thicknesses ("CTs") of >300 siemens, were interpreted by geophysicist Martin St. Pierre to be shallow (Northeast target) and outcropping (Lost Ledge target) massive sulphides. Figure 2. Airborne magnetics and EM conductors, Ledgend North and Main Grid areas. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/4437/140544_figure2.jpg Since the August 17, 2022, announcement, the Company's geological team conducted a site visit to field-check the geophysical anomalies. At the Lost Ledge target, at the south edge of VTEM survey, geologists identified a previously undocumented outcrop of massive sulphide that extends for 30 metres along strike. At the southeast end, the phyllite-hosted layer is 6-metres thick and open in that direction, and tapers to between 1-2-metres thick at the northwest end, where it is also open along strike. Sphalerite, hydrozincite, chalcopyrite, bornite and pyrite were visually identified in the outcrop (see photos in Figure 1). Five chip samples, from one to three metres long, were taken across the layer at both ends and have been submitted to ALS Labs, Vancouver. Follow-up channel sampling utilizing a saw is planned for the following week, as well as tracing the horizon southeast into Lost Ledge creek. Also, further trail cutting will complete access to the northeast EM anomalies, which remain unvisited. Qualified Person John Drobe, P.Geo., Wealth's Exploration Manager and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed the scientific information that forms the basis for this news release, and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Drobe is not independent of the Company as he is a consultant and shareholder of Wealth and holds incentive stock options of the Company. About Wealth Minerals Ltd. Wealth is a mineral resource company with interests in Canada and Chile. The Company's focus is the acquisition and development of lithium projects in South America. The Company opportunistically advances battery metal projects where it has a peer advantage in project selection and initial evaluation. Lithium market dynamics and a rapidly increasing metal price are the result of profound structural issues with the industry meeting anticipated future demand. Wealth is positioning itself to be a major beneficiary of this future mismatch of supply and demand. In parallel with lithium market dynamics, Wealth believes other battery metals will benefit from similar industry trends. For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Company's website (www.wealthminerals.com) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors of WEALTH MINERALS LTD. "Hendrik van Alphen" Hendrik van Alphen Chief Executive Officer For further information, please contact: Marla Ritchie, Michael Pound or Henk van Alphen Phone: 604-331-0096 or 604-638-3886 For all Investor Relations inquiries, please contact: John Liviakis Liviakis Financial Communications Inc. Phone: 415-389-4670 For all Public Relations inquiries, please contact: Nancy Thompson Vorticom, Inc. Office: 212-532-2208 | Mobile: 917-371-4053 Follow Us: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/WealthMineralsLtd Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/wealth-minerals Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/WealthMinerals"Hendrik van Alphen" Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement, timing and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the Company's expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements to acquire interests in additional mineral projects, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the state of the financial markets for the Company's equity securities, the state of the commodity markets generally, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including TSXV acceptance, for its planned activities, the inability of the Company to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis and filed with certain securities commissions in Canada. All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties. **NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES** To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140544 SINGAPORE, Oct 14, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - The Board of Directors (the "Board") of Kitchen Culture Holdings Ltd. ("Kitchen Culture" or the "Company") today rejected a requisition to remove 5 of its 6 directors, and sharply criticised its largest shareholder, OOWAY Group Ltd. ("OOWAY"), for conveying to the media factual inaccuracies and mischaracterising recent events.The Board, with the exception of Madam Hao Dongting ("Mdm Hao"), said that there are no grounds to justify the resignations. The Board had received a notice (the "Section 177 Notice") - issued under Section 177 of the Companies Act 1967 - on 30 September 2022 from OOWAY and 7 individuals who own an aggregate of 21.71% of the Company's shares.Kitchen Culture was listed on SGX Catalist in 2011 as a provider of solutions and products for kitchens and wardrobes. Its shares have been suspended from trading since July 2021. Its Board has seen several changes since the involvement of OOWAY in October 2020. As announced on 17 July 2022, Mr Lincoln Teo ("Mr Lincoln Teo"), an OOWAY representative and former Interim CEO of Kitchen Culture, ceased to be Executive Director, while 2 new Board members were named - Mr Lau Kay Heng as Vice-Chairman and Non-Executive Director and Mr Peter Lim King Soon as Independent Director.Kitchen Culture has written to the requisitioning shareholders that the 2 new Board members, Mr Lim Wee Li (Executive Director) and 2 Independent Directors Mr William Teo Choon Kow and Mr Ang Lian Kiat (the "5 Directors") will not resign. The Company stressed that OOWAY had in fact supported the reappointments of Mr William Teo and Mr Ang Lian Kiat at the Annual General Meeting held on 18 March 2022."The circumstances suggest that OOWAY may have its own reasons for calling for the replacement of the 5 Directors, which are unknown to the Board, with the exception of Mdm Hao," Kitchen Culture said.Separately, Kitchen Culture sharply criticised Mr Liu Yanlong ("Mr Liu"), representative of OOWAY, for his remarks to the Chinese-language Lianhe Zaobao newspaper, published on 7 October 2022, and as contained in a 12 October 2022 press release issued on ACN Newswire.The Board, with the exception of Mdm Hao, said it "notes with grave disappointment that this is at least the second instance in which Mr Liu of the OOWAY has mis-characterised to the media events of the recent past with blatant factual inaccuracies. These efforts are a distraction to the serious matters, as outlined above, which the current Board is working very hard to address."The Board, with the exception of Mdm Hao, highlighted 5 key matters:1) The remarks to the media misinterpret the findings of an internal control review by Baker Tilly Consultancy (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. ("Baker Tilly").It also notes that on 19 August 2021, the Singapore Exchange Regulation Pte. Ltd. ("SGX RegCo") issued a Notice of Compliance ("NOC") for a Special Audit ("Special Audit") to review several matters including the internal control weaknesses noted in the Interim Report issued by Baker Tilly. Matters including the use of the Company's funds - including the funds of S$19 milion raised from February to August 2020 for business transformation, before OOWAY's involvement in the Company in October 2020 - remain within the purview of the Special Auditor and it is premature for Mr Liu or OOWAY to make any insinuations in that regard. The Company is reviewing a draft report in relation only to the Payroll Matters and the Transaction announced by the Company on 29 September 2021. The independent review of the remaining scope of work is on-going. The Company will update shareholders once there are material developments in this regard.2) It rejects any allegation of impropriety as to the appointment of Mr Lau Kay Heng as director, whose appointment was duly assessed by the Nominating Committee.3) Regarding the reference in the media to 2 loan matters:(i) for the loan of S$1.0 million taken up by the Company, the rationale - announced on 30 August 2022 - was to meet anticipated general working capital needs up to the end of 2022; and(ii) a S$1.5 million interest-free loan proposed by OOWAY had initially come with the pre-condition that a specific candidate had to be appointed as Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") of the Company. This condition could not be accepted after the Nominating Committee's due assessment which found the candidate to be not suitable to be the CFO of the Company. Subsequently, the former Executive Director and Interim CEO Mr Lincoln Teo had on 7 July 2022 recommended the Board to accept a proposal by another investor found by the OOWAY Group which contained conditions, among others, that the Company's investment in OTPL be provided as collateral for a convertible loan of S$5.0 million. By late-July 2022, the balance proceeds from the past fundraising activities were reduced to the precariously low level of S$26,559 while liabilities accumulated under the management of Mr Lincoln Teo amounted to approximately S$935,000.4) There is no basis to state "OOWAY Technology [Pte. Ltd.] [("OTPL")] is Kitchen Culture's most valuable asset".OOWAY has made many promises of injecting profitable businesses to the Company but did not make good its promises since becoming shareholders of the Company in October 2020 and had management control of the Company between July 2021 and July 2022.It is noted that the OTPL and its subsidiaries ("the OTPL Group") recorded losses in 2020 and 2021. The Company's share of OTPL Group's losses amounted to approximately S$910,000 and S$803,000 for the 12 months ended 30 June 2021 and 30 June 2022, respectively.5) As to Mr Liu's remarks to the media on the Section 177 Notice, the Board said that since the resignation of Mr Lincoln Teo and appointments of the 2 new Independent Directors, the current Board has achieved significant progress in the last 3 months, by:- successfully negotiating payment terms for liabilities incurred during Mr Lincoln Teo's tenure, including rental arrears for the Company's office premises and unpaid salaries;- reducing overhead costs significantly by terminating services of 6 staff (4 of whom were existing/former employees of companies related to Mr Lincoln Teo) who were receiving almost S$600,000 in combined salaries and allowances annually from the Company; and- securing a S$1 million loan to settle immediate debts as well as to provide short term working capital.The current Board is also in the process of evaluating the acquisition of new businesses that are cashflow positive and profitable.In its letter to the requisitioning shareholders, the Board, with the exception of Mdm Hao, said the Directors will continue to act honestly and diligently in discharging their functions and duties and will continue the ordinary course of business for the Company.Further, the Board wishes to state that it has this afternoon received a letter dated 14 October 2022 from the requisitioning shareholders enclosing a Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting ("EGM") and proxy form, and giving notice that the EGM will be held on Tuesday, 1 November 2022, 9.00 a.m. at Toucan Room Level 4, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, 392 Havelock Road, Singapore 169663. A further announcement will be made in this regard on SGXNet.Issued by:Kitchen Culture Holdings Ltd.9 Raffles Place, #52-02, Republic PlazaSingapore 048619Tel: +65 6471 6776, Fax: +65 6472 6776Media & Investor ContactWhatsapp (Text): +65 9748 0688kitchenculture@wer1.netThis press release has been reviewed by the Company's sponsor, SAC Capital Private Limited (the "Sponsor"). It has not been examined or approved by the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (the "SGX-ST") and the SGX-ST assumes no responsibility for the contents of this press release, including the correctness of any of the statements or opinions made or reports contained in this press release.The contact person for the Sponsor is Ms. Lee Khai Yinn (Tel +65 6232 3210), at 1 Robinson Road, #21-00 AIA Tower, Singapore 048542.Source: Kitchen Culture Holdings LtdCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: VGANF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a Quick Serve Restaurant ("QSR") and Consumer Packaged Goods ("CPG") wellness company bringing delicious foods and retail brands to customers, is pleased to announce that Heal Wellness, a portfolio brand, has solidified plans to open another corporate location next Happy Belly's most recent acquisition of Lettuce Love in Burlington, Ontario, replacing Pure Love Smoothie Bar. The new store location comes just 4 months after Heal Wellness opened a corporate store in Toronto, demonstrating an ability to quickly integrate into existing infrastructure provided by Happy Belly to maximize efficiently, speed to market, and cost-effective use of physical assets. Furthermore, the new location will replicate the successful integration and leveraging of shared resources that is currently being utilized between Heal Wellness and their shared co-location space with Yamchops in downtown Toronto. "Shareholders can start to see a repeatable pattern emerging with our ability to organically grow our brands. We share and leverage infrastructure across the portfolio while enabling access to our shared resource pool that provides access to SMEs not readily or normally available to brands during their growth phase," said Shawn Moniz, CEO of Happy Belly Food Group. "Our approach has always been to specialize in the development and growth of emerging consumer brands in the food sector. The rapid expansion of the Heal Wellness brand is a prime example of our approach reflected in our execution." The new location anticipates operations to commence with a grand opening in November. Heal Wellness was an accretive acquisition by Happy Belly Food Group, and it is anticipated that the new store location will continue to drive both the top line and bottom line of the company. About Heal Wellness "Heal Wellness was created out of a passion and mission to serve quick, fresh wellness foods that power and support a busy, active lifestyle. Currently, we are pleased to offer a wide variety of smoothie bowls, smoothies, and delicious breakfast waffles. We are proud to highlight that every superfood ingredient in the Heal Wellness menu is carefully selected with the intention of fueling the body with a reduced ecological footprint," said Jesse Davidson, Co-founder of Heal Wellness. Heal Wellness To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6625/140553_66255427b4663834_001full.jpg. About Happy Belly Food Group Brands To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6625/140553_66255427b4663834_003full.jpg. Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: VGANF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a Quick Serve Restaurant ("QSR") and Consumer Packaged Goods ("CPG") wellness company bringing delicious foods and retail brands to customers. It offers a growing number of CPG and QSR brands through its portfolio of Holy Crap Foods, YamChops, LumberHeads Food Co., Lettuce Love Cafe, and Heal Wellness. For more information please visit: www.HolyCrap.com, www.YamChops.com, www.LumberHeads.com, www.HealWellness.ca, www.LettuceLoveCafe.com and www.HappyBellyFG.com. Happy Belly Food Group Shawn Moniz Chief Executive Officer FOR FUTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT: www: www.happybellyfg.com or email hello@happybellyfg.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, and include the future performance of LumberHeads Food Co. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. 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 and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedar.com. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140553 Altasciences hired two expert advisors to support its strategic growth in Europe, while its preclinical team continues to expand with the addition of two key employees. Providing strategic input into steering Altasciences' drug development solutions direction in Europe, Peter Varney joins the company as Pharma Development and Strategy Advisor. Peter brings 40 years of experience in commercial development, strategic alliances, and relationship management at Covance/Labcorp to his new position. Hazel Clay, with over 30 years of experience in supporting the development of innovator pharmaceutical assets at Covance/Labcorp, plays a key role as Drug Development Advisor in Altasciences' European expansion. Both Peter and Hazel are based out of Altasciences' offices in Harrogate, UK. "With their extensive experience and keen strategic vision, Peter and Hazel are important assets to Altasciences' expansion into the European market. We wanted to provide our European clients access to in-depth knowledge on early phase drug development to help them get better drugs to market faster," stated Chris Perkin, Altasciences' Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Dr. Lisa Biegel joins Altasciences as Senior Scientific Director, Preclinical Services, and will be based at the Columbia, MO, facility. With over 30 years of industry experience in regulatory toxicology at Covance/Labcorp, Lisa will provide leadership and oversight, as well as strategic scientific input, to the study direction and reporting teams. Furthermore, Annette Kenser joins Altasciences as Senior Director of Quality Assurance, Preclinical Research. Annette has extensive experience as a scientific quality assurance auditor, and will focus on identifying areas of improvement while aligning quality assurance activities throughout the organization. "We are pleased to welcome Lisa and Annette to Altasciences, and look forward to benefitting from their talents and contributions in the preclinical space," said Andy Brown, Site Director at Altasciences' Columbia preclinical facility. About Altasciences Altasciences is an integrated drug development solution company offering pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies a proven, flexible approach to preclinical and clinical pharmacology studies, including formulation, manufacturing, and analytical services. For over 25 years, Altasciences has been partnering with sponsors to help support educated, faster, and more complete early drug development decisions. Altasciences' integrated, full-service solutions include preclinical safety testing, clinical pharmacology and proof of concept, bioanalysis, program management, medical writing, biostatistics, clinical monitoring, and data management, all customizable to specific sponsor requirements. Altasciences helps sponsors get better drugs to the people who need them, faster. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005030/en/ Contacts: Julie-Ann Cabana Altasciences +1 514 601-9763 jcabana@altasciences.com Company invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors and analysts, to attend real-time, interactive presentations on VirtualInvestorConferences.com SYDNEY AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / October 14, 2022 / American Rare Earths Limited (ASX:ARR)(OTCQB:ARRNF), based in Sydney, AU and Phoenix, AZ, focused on Rare Earths and Scandium, today announced that Marty Weems, President - North America, will present live at VirtualInvestorConferences.com on October 20th, 2022. DATE: October 20th, 2022 TIME: 1:30pm Eastern LINK: https://bit.ly/3q1Z3Ka Available for 1x1 meetings: October 20th and 21st, 2022 This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. Mr. Weems will present the first updated presentation since the Company achieved Recent Major Milestones, including: October 2022 Drilling Commences at Halleck Creek; Exploration Target increases 328% September 2022 Annual Report to Shareholders August 2022 DOE Funds Next-Generation Rare Earths Processing Research August 2022 A$14M Placement to Support Rare Earths Growth Strategy June 2022 ARR Teams up for Defense R&D Rare Earths processing Mr. Weems will also outline the currently ongoing drill campaign to define a JORC Compliant Maiden Resource at Halleck Creek, metallurgy, and the Company's three US government funded R&D partnerships. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event. It is recommended that investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates. Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com . About American Rare Earths Limited (ASX:ARR, OTCQB:ARRNF, FSE: 1BHA) is an Australian company listed on the ASX and OTC Markets with assets in the growing rare earth metals sector of the United States of America, emerging as an alternative international supply chain to China's dominance of a global rare earth market expected to expand to US$20 billion by the mid-2020s. The Company's mission is to supply Critical Materials for Renewable Energy, Green Tech, Electric Vehicles, National Security, and a Carbon-Reduced Future. Western Rare Earths (WRE) is the wholly-owned US subsidiary of the Company. The Company owns 100% of the world-class La Paz Rare Earth Project, located 170km northwest of Phoenix, Arizona. As a large tonnage, bulk deposit, La Paz is potentially the largest, rare-earth deposit in the USA and benefits from containing exceptionally low penalty elements such as radioactive thorium and uranium. Approximately 742-928 million tonnes of Rare Earths mineralized rocks are identified as an exploration target in the La Paz Rare Earths Project's Southwest area with an average TREO Grade of 350 - 400ppm and Scandium Oxide grade of 20 - 24.5ppm. The new exploration Target is additive to the La Paz Rare Earth project's recently upgraded 170MT Resource. Since acquiring it's second flagship, the Halleck Creek Rare Earth Project in Wyoming, the Company has increased the land holding to over 6,000+ acres. Approximately 1,015 to 1,268 million tonnes of rare earths mineralized rocks were identified as an exploration target for the Halleck Creek project area with an average Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) grade of 2,245 - 2,807 ppm. The Exploration Target estimate includes between 2.8 and 3.56 million In-Place tonnes of TREO at Halleck Creek. The maiden exploration drilling program was completed in April 2022. In calendar Q3-Q4 2022 the Company is executing a drilling program with the objective of defining a high tonnage maiden JORC resource in Q1 2023. La Paz and Halleck Creek's mineral profiles are incorporated into emerging advanced rare earth processing technologies in collaboration with US Department of Energy's National Laboratories, major universities and the US DOE innovation hub, the Critical Materials Institute. Successful partnership development has resulted in the Company benefiting from potentially more than $14M USD of non-dilutive government funding for the National Laboratories and major universities to study mineral processing, metallurgy, separation, and purification technologies on Company feedstocks. Making the Company the only pure play rare earths exploration company benefiting from three US Government funded R&D initiatives simultaneously. About Virtual Investor Conferences Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors. Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors. COMPANY CONTACTS: American Rare Earths Limited Marty Weems President - North America info@americanrareearths.com.au Media Contact: Susan Assadi 347 977 7125 susan@americanrareearths.com.au Virtual Investor Conferences John M. Viglotti SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access OTC Markets Group (212) 220-2221 johnv@otcmarkets.com SOURCE: American Rare Earths Limited View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/720432/American-Rare-Earths-Limited-to-Webcast-Live-at-Battery-Precious-Metals-Virtual-Investor-Conference-October-18-20th CLEVELAND, OH / ACCESSWIRE / October 14, 2022 / Mace Security International, Inc. (OTCQX:MACE) is pleased to announce a new partnership to create, market and present a suite of fee-based self-defense courses to consumers and retail customers with Legal Heat, one of the largest providers of self-defense training in the United States. This new line of service business to offer fee-based training to consumers in the personal safety space is a significant revenue opportunity for the company. The subject matter conveyed in these courses will include, but not limited to situational awareness, the use of aerosol sprays and other non-lethal devices in self-defense, the laws regulating the carry, possession, use and transport of self-defense tools, and other key topics. These courses will be offered in an online format through Legal Heat's proprietary Learning Management System, as well as offered in-person through a network of over two hundred locations nationwide. Courses will also be offered to certify instructors, as well as to provide continuing education credit for law enforcement and security personnel. Phil Nelsen, Legal Counsel and Director of Education at Legal Heat, noted "Mace Brand is known worldwide for offering the highest quality products on the market, and Legal Heat is widely regarded as the highest tier training provider in the industry. Joining forces on this project was a natural fit and will enable us to create something truly special. We are proud to be collaborating with Mace Brand to bring this much needed training to the market." "Mace is very excited to partner with Legal Heat who are experts in providing training through their proprietary training systems" said Sanjay Singh, Chairman and CEO of Mace Security International. "The company's mission is to prepare those who are interested in personal safety for themselves or their loved ones either by our various products or educational blogs, and now, services like self-defense training. The need for personal safety is higher than we have witnessed in a long time. Mace's focus is to offer its expertise on all matters related to personal safety using non-lethal means. We look forward to rapidly adding this new line of service business to our revenue stream in the coming quarters." Mace Security International, Inc. Board of Directors is also pleased to announce the appointment of Margaret Jordan, a Director of Business Development at KIKO Company, to its Board of Directors on October 11, 2022. Ms. Jordan will serve on the Board's Governance Committee. "We welcome Ms. Jordan to our Board of Directors. She brings experience in business development strategy and lead generation that are critical to our future operations and strategy," said Sanjay Singh, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mace Security International, Inc. "Ms. Jordan also has a passion for personal safety and has hosted many self-defense training programs for her colleagues and friends. She will provide valuable input to our new line of situational awareness and self-defense training business strategy." Margaret earned her J.D. from the University of Akron School of Law and her M.S. in Higher Education Administration and B.A. in English Literature from the University of Akron. Margaret spent more than a decade working in Student Affairs at The University of Akron. During that time, she worked with the University of Akron Police Department and City of Akron Police on campus safety initiatives. She is passionate about empowering individuals to protect themselves to avoid becoming crime victims. Ms. Jordan currently serves on the Board for the Association for Corporate Growth ("ACG") and is the past chair of ACG's Women in Transactions Committee. She was appointed by the Governor of the State of Ohio as a student member of the Board of Trustees for The University of Akron. She is a graduate of the Leadership Akron Signature Program and President of Class 31. She is an honorary director for Goodwill Industries of Akron, where she served nine years as board member. She actively supports several local charities that help the homeless people and pets. Margaret's appointment brings Mace's total Board of Directors membership to seven. About Legal Heat: Legal Heat was founded in 2008 in Ogden, Utah. Since that time, Legal Heat has expanded its physical operations to over forty states and two hundred locations, having certified over 400,000 individuals in its training courses. Legal Heat publishes the industry leading Legal Heat: 50 State Guide to Firearm Laws and Regulations, which is available in both app and traditional book format. Legal Heat offers a number of online and in-person self-defense training courses, tailored to everyone from beginners to experts. Visit Legal Heat online at www.legalheat.com. About Mace Security International, Inc. Mace Security International, Inc. (MACE) is a globally recognized leader in personal safety and security. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, the company has spent more than 40 years designing and manufacturing consumer and tactical products for personal defense and security under its world-renowned Mace Brand - the original trusted brand of defense spray products. The company also offers aerosol defense sprays and tactical products for law enforcement and security professionals worldwide through its Mace Take Down brand, KUROS! Brand personal safety products, Vigilant Brand alarms, and Tornado Brand pepper spray and stun guns. MACE distributes and supports Mace Brand products through mass market retailers, wholesale distributors, independent dealers, Amazon.com, Mace.com, and other channels. For more information, visit www.mace.com. Contact: Philip Minick Interim Controller Mace Security International, Inc. pminick@mace.com 216-273-4682 SOURCE: MACE SECURITY INTERNATIONAL INC. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/720465/Mace-Announces-Partnership-with-Legal-Heat-and-Appointment-to-Board-of-Directors NORTH VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 14, 2022 / Accelovant, an innovative developer of fiber optic sensing solutions for semiconductor, industrial, IoT, manufacturing, and power distribution markets, today announced it has reached a distribution agreement with Quantum Solutions Provider, (QSP Co., Ltd.), a leading supplier of precision measurement, sensing, and diagnostic systems. As a part of the agreement, QSP will provide Accelovant's fiber optic temperature sensor solutions to semiconductor manufacturers in South Korea. QSP is the largest provider of fiber optic temperature sensors in South Korea and has extensive experience working with manufacturers on chuck design and semiconductor processes, as well as providing high-quality hardware, software, and consulting services. "The QSP team includes executives from leading semiconductor customers including Samsung, Applied Materials, SEMES, Wonik IPS, APTC, and Mattson Technology," said Michael Goldstein, chief executive officer of Accelovant. "QSP has an outstanding reputation serving Asia's robust semiconductor sector and has already been instrumental in securing orders for our advanced fiber optic sensors from some of the of the largest semiconductor equipment manufacturers." Accelovant offers a new generation of fiber optic sensors that provide order-of-magnitude performance improvements over legacy devices. Its suite of solutions employs Accelovant's patented Kristonium material system, which has certified long-term stability from -95 to +450 degrees Celsius, nearly double what legacy products can support. "Our customers in semiconductor manufacturing have identified temperature management on the wafer as a key concern for the next generation of chip production," said WM Lee, QSP's chief executive officer and co-founder of one of Korea's leading semiconductor equipment companies. "Accelovant is demonstrating to our customers a level of advanced performance and cost advantage previously unavailable from any supplier. We expect that the unmatched capabilities of the Accelovant products will be in high demand throughout the industry." To learn more about Accelovant fiber optic solutions, please visit www.accelovant.com. About Accelovant: Headquartered in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Accelovant is a leader in the design and manufacture of fiber optic sensing solutions for semiconductor, industrial, IoT, medical, and power distribution markets. Accelovant offers precision measurement capabilities across broad operating temperature extremes. With a vertically integrated approach that combines materials science mastery with design expertise, Accelovant delivers measurement solutions that increase yields, decrease costs, and provides exceptional domain and product support. Details are available at www.accelovant.com. About QSP: Headquartered in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, QSP Co. Ltd. is a value-added supplier and process-technology consultancy, providing precision measurement, sensing, tool-design, and diagnostic system required in the semiconductor and flat panel display equipment industry. Contact: John Stafford Parallel Communications jstafford@parallelpr.com Twitter: @Parallel_PR +1 515 708-1296 QSP CO., LTD 708 WonheeCastle, 14, Seocheon-ro 201beon-gil, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea 17111 Mr. PanSun Kim, +8210-5292-7885, pskim@qsp.co.kr SOURCE: Accelovant View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/720462/Accelovant-Announces-Agreement-with-Quantum-Solutions-Provider-QSP-to-Distribute-its-Fiber-Optic-Sensing-Solutions-to-Korean-Semiconductor-Manufacturers Bioretec Ltd Inside information14 October 2022 at 5:45 p.m. EEST TAMPERE, Finland, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bioretec Ltd, a pioneer in bioresorbable orthopedic implants, continues to discuss the company's RemeOs trauma screw market authorization with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Based on the current information, Bioretec estimates to receive the authorization in April 2023. Previously the authorization was expected to be received in the second half of 2022. The company shall supplement the authorization request in accordance with the De Novo registration process by the end of 2022, after which the FDA has according to its' internal guideline a maximum of 90 days to finalize the decision. Bioretec submitted the De Novo market authorization request for the RemeOs trauma screw to the FDA in May 2022. The De Novo request process is used when similar products do not yet have market authorization in the United States. As the De Novo request is intended for novel products, the registration process includes general controls as well as new, product-specific requirements defined as special controls for this new class of products. The special controls make the process more complicated for new products and also set the standard for future comparable product market authorizations. "Regulatory approvals are an integral and important part of a commercialization process in our industry. We will continue to work promptly to obtain a market authorization in the U.S. and expect our service providers to strive for this common goal in a timely manner." says Timo Lehtonen, CEO of Bioretec. Further enquiries Timo Lehtonen, CEO, m. +358 50 433 8493 Johanna Salko, CFO, m. +358 40 754 8172 Certified advisor: Nordic Certified Adviser AB, tel. +46 70 551 67 29 Information about Bioretec Bioretec is a globally operating Finnish medical device company that continues to pioneer the application of bioresorbable orthopedic implants. The company has built unique competencies in the?biological interface?of active implants?to enhance bone growth and accelerate fracture healing after orthopedic surgery. The products developed and manufactured by Bioretec are used worldwide in approximately 40 countries.? Bioretec is?developing?the new RemeOs?product line?based on a magnesium alloy and hybrid composite, introducing a new generation of strong bioresorbable materials for enhanced surgical outcomes. The RemeOs implants are resorbed and replaced by bone, which eliminates the need for removal surgery while facilitating fracture healing. The combination has the potential to make titanium implants redundant and help clinics reach their Value-Based Healthcare targets while focusing on?value for patients through efficient healthcare. With the U.S. market authorization for the first RemeOs product expected in the first half of 2023 and the EU one during 2022, Bioretec is positioning itself to enter the addressable USD 7 billion global orthopedic trauma market and become a game changer in surgical possibilities. Better Healing - Better Life. www.bioretec.com. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/bioretec-updates-estimate-of-us-registration-of-remeos-screws-and-expects-approval-in-april-2023-301649780.html 14 October 2022 Vulcan Industries plc ("Vulcan" or the "Company") Acquisition of Peregrine X Limited Vulcan Industries plc (AQSE: VULC) is pleased to announce that it has entered into binding Heads of Terms to acquire the entire share capital of Peregrine X Limited and its 100% owned subsidiary Peregrine Analytics Limited ("Peregrine" together the "Peregrine Group") From Unity Global -FZCO (the "Vendor" or "Unity Group"). The terms are conditional only on documentation of the acquisition agreement. Acquisition rationale Peregrine has developed an analytical tool and algorithms using High Performance Capillary Electrophoresis (HPCE), an analytical separation method technology. Applications are suitable for the analysis of Oil and Water samples and Medical diagnostic purposes. The initial applications will be to address oil well-head analysis where functionality to characterise Asphaltenes is highly sought after. The acquisition of Peregrine will enable the Company to broaden its industrial engineering activities into the energy sector. Peregrine Group Peregrine Analytics has developed its diagnostic technology over the last four years and is now ready to bring the product to market. The initial target market is the Middle East where contract negotiations are well advanced with preliminary tests for clients successfully completed. Peregrine is attending ADIPEC at the end of October 2022 to formally launch its product and service offerings. Peregrine expects to commence the contractual delivery of tests no later than Q2 2023. Total Consideration The total consideration payable is 5,000,000 to be satisfied by the issue of zero-coupon convertible loan notes with a term of one year ("CLN"). Initial consideration will be the issue of 1,000,000 notes with deferred consideration of four tranches of 1,000,000 of notes to be issued on; (a) the receipt of an independent valuation of the Peregrine Group; (b) the commissioning of a laboratory facility in the UAE, (c) the signature of contracts for more than 250 tests and (d) the delivery of the first 25 tests. If no tests have been delivered within the term of the CLN, there is a mutual unwind clause. The notes may be converted at will by the Company, or after the four tranches of deferred consideration have been triggered, by Peregrine. The conversion price is 1p per new ordinary share. Conversion of the full consideration would result in the issue of 500,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.0004 each, being approximately 46.2% of the enlarged share capital today. In addition, the Company has agreed to enter a Royalty agreement whereby the vendors will receive a Royalty of 70% of the post tax earnings of the Peregrine Group This has been capped. At present the Peregrine Group has generated no revenue and there is no guarantee that revenue will be generated. Both Peregrine and the Company have options to terminate the Royalty agreement once 2,000 tests have been contracted for and 200 tests delivered. The Company has agreed to issue 50,000,000 warrants to the Vendor with an exercise price of 1p and a term to 31 March 2024. In addition, the Vendor will receive warrants for any shares issued in settlement of the Royalty agreement with a term to the later of 12 months from the date of issue or 31 March 2024. The exercise price will be the price of the related equity issued to settle Royalty obligations. ("Vendor warrants"). Related Party Transaction The executive directors of Vulcan will receive 5% of the convertible loan notes and 5% of any royalties paid to Peregrine (the "Related Party Transaction" pursuant to Rule 4.6 of the AQSE Access Growth Market Rulebook). The 5% convertible loan notes worth up to 250,000 and 5% of any royalties paid to Peregrine will be split between Ian Tordoff and Neil Clayton. The remaining directors of Vulcan, who have no interest in the transaction and who are independent for these purposes, being John Maxwell and Darren Taylor, having exercised reasonable skill care and diligence, consider that the Related Party Transaction is fair and reasonable as far as the shareholders of the Company are concerned. Ian Tordoff, Executive Chairman: "The acquisition of Peregrine X (PX) presents a transformational opportunity for the Group providing Vulcan access to multiple new geographic markets and revenue streams. The PX technology has clear competitive advantages which early market engagements bear out. We are anticipating early adoption from a number of significant producers initially in the Middle East by considerably reducing well-production down-time. Like many others in the sector the Group's UK businesses have worked through difficult trading conditions in the last 24 months and the European outlook for the period 2023-24 remains volatile. With the addition of PX, Vulcan is reducing its exposure to UK market conditions whilst extending its international client base and revenue generating capabilities. We welcome Justin Last and the PX team to the Group and look forward to working closely with PX to accelerate the roll-out globally. Justin Last CEO Peregrine Analytics Limited: "This is an exciting milestone in our growth story and a great opportunity for both companies. We believe the Peregrine analytical capabilities have huge potential to disrupt data analytics in multiple sectors, but initially the Oil & Gas industry. The Company has identified significant opportunities and has been engaged with a number of clients who have long sought a solution to improved oil analytics data capture. Through the development of AI algorithms, Peregrine intends to develop various near real-time modelling techniques for oil components, primarily providing solutions for existing deposition issues. I am looking forward to working with the wider management team and I thank everyone who has been involved in getting us to this point including our valued investors, trusted advisers, and our enthusiastic channel partners." For further information, visit: https://vulcanplc.com The directors of Vulcan accept responsibility for this announcement. Contacts Vulcan Industries plc Via Vox Markets Ian Tordoff, Chairman First Sentinel Corporate Finance Ltd (AQSE Corporate Adviser) +44 7876 888 011 Brian Stockbridge Jenny Liu Vox Markets (Media and Investor Relations) vulcan@voxmarkets.co.uk Kat Perez +44 7881 622 830 Paul Cornelius + 44 7866 384 707 About Vulcan Vulcan has been incorporated to build a group of UK companies providing high quality products and services to the engineering, manufacturing and engineering sectors, particularly focussed on metal fabrication and precision engineering, which have underlying profitability and growth potential and can benefit from being part of a larger group focussed on similar or complementary sectors to the target. Vulcan seeks to acquire and consolidate traditional but historically profitable engineering, manufacturing and industrial SMEs for value and to enhance this value in part through group synergies, but primarily by unlocking growth which is not being achieved as a standalone private company. The group will also optimise productivity through the introduction of new technologies and processes. For more information visit https://www.voxmarkets.co.uk/listings/PLU/VULC About Unity Global - FZCO The Vendor is a subsidiary of the Unity Group, a mergers and acquisitions firm that specialise in attracting investment and creating opportunities for small to medium-sized enterprises ("SMEs") to scale. https://www.unity-group.com/ Forward Looking Statements This news release may contain "forward-looking" statements and information relating to the Company. These statements are based on the beliefs of Company management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Company management. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law. The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the pub Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares For immediate release 14 October 2022 FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC (the "Company") MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES The Company announces that it has today purchased 24,991 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 789.76 pence per Ordinary Share. Such shares will be held in treasury by the Company. The transaction was made pursuant to the authority granted at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 9 February 2022. Following this transaction, the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury is 9,762,869; the total number of Ordinary Shares that the Company has in issue, less the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury following such purchase, and therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 215,228,434. The figure of 215,228,434 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for calculations of interests in the Company's voting rights in accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. For and on behalf of Frostrow Capital LLP Company Secretary For further information, please contact: Victoria Hale Frostrow Capital LLP Tel: 020 3 170 8732 14 October 2022 Rightmove plc Share buy-back programme Rightmove plc - Transaction in own shares Rightmove plc ('Rightmove') announces that today it purchased 152,000 of its 0.1p ordinary shares at a volume weighted average price paid per share of 470.568. The highest price paid per share was 478.500p and the lowest price paid per share was 462.600p. Rightmove purchased these shares through Numis Securities Limited. The number of shares purchased represented 0.0183% of the voting rights attributable to the total ordinary shares in issue prior to such purchase. The purchased shares will be cancelled. Since announcing a share buy-back programme on 28 December 2007, Rightmove has purchased in aggregate 477,246,471 ordinary shares. The total number of ordinary shares in issue (excluding treasury shares) following this announcement is 829,432,557. Rightmove holds 12,375,052 shares in treasury. In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation) as amended by The Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the "UK MAR"), the schedule below contains detailed information about the purchases made by Numis Securities Limited on behalf of the Company as part of the buyback programme. Contact: Michelle Palmer, Deputy Secretary CompanySecretary@rightmove.co.uk Schedule of Purchases - Individual Transactions MENDRISIO, Switzerland, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sintetica, a Swiss pharmaceutical company headquartered in Mendrisio specializing in injectables in the field of pain therapy, has taken another important and significant step in its 100-year growth strategy. On July 14, 2022 Sintetica established its subsidiary Sintetica US, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, headed by leading pharma expert Frank Mullery (President-Sintetica US). Frank Mullery brings with him more than 20 years of outstanding experience in the pharmaceutical industry including as President of Mylan Institutional, President & Chief Commercial Officer of STI Pharma, and in key roles at Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Viropharma Inc. He established Mylan Institutional as a key player in the US injectable market successfully launching new products and establishing strong relationships with key customers. Nicola Caronzolo, Corporate CEO of Sintetica states: "I am very proud of this further important step in the growth of our company, which is increasingly establishing itself on international markets through the quality of its products and the reliability of its services. With the establishment of our US subsidiary we will be able to focus equally on B2B as well as B2C markets in the US. Frank will be instrumental in setting up the B2C business of Sintetica in the US by working closely with GPO's, IDN's, hospitals, and other key stakeholders. Sintetica will also continue to service its B2B partners in the US through its existing agreements. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people involved (employees, stakeholders and KOLs) who make our ongoing success story possible every day". Frank Mullery, President of Sintetica US affirms: "I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the Sintetica US team. It is a very exciting time for our company. Sintetica is uniquely positioned with a strong core business, best in class research and development, high quality Swiss manufacturing, and a valuable pipeline. I look forward to working with Nicola, our board, the management team and all Sintetica employees to continue to grow the business and bring innovative products to the US customers and patients". CONTACT: Daniele Fontana, Sustainability & HR Corporate Director, +41 79 218 90 57 Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1909742/SINTETICA_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sintetica-establishes-us-entity-301649863.html Redde Northgate Plc - Transaction in Own Shares NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OR REGULATIONS OF SUCH JURISDICTION 14 October 2022 REDDE NORTHGATE PLC ("Redde Northgate" or the "Group" or the "Company") Transaction in Own Shares Redde Northgate plc (LSE:REDD) announces that on 14 October 2022 it purchased the following number of its own shares to be held in treasury: Class of shares : Ordinary shares of 50p ("shares") Number of shares purchased : 100,000 Weighted average purchase price paid : 311.7856 pence per share Highest purchase price paid : 317.5 pence per share Lowest purchase price paid : 308 pence per share Following the above transaction, the Company's issued share capital consists of 246,091,423 ordinary shares of 50p each, of which 12,591,477 ordinary shares are held in treasury, and 1,000,000 preference shares of 50p each which do not carry any rights to vote. Therefore the total number of voting rights in the Company is 233,499,946 which may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation) as incorporated into UK domestic law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the schedule below contains detailed information about the purchases made by Numis Securities Limited on behalf of the Company as part of the Company's buyback programme. Schedule of Purchases - Individual Transactions (all of 14 October 2022) Number of shares purchased Transaction price (GB pence per share) Time of transaction Transaction reference number Venue 206 311.50 08:32:07 00061571050TRLO0 LSE 598 311.50 08:32:07 00061571051TRLO0 LSE 699 311.50 08:32:07 00061571052TRLO0 LSE 700 311.50 08:35:44 00061571260TRLO0 LSE 81 311.50 08:35:44 00061571261TRLO0 LSE 2065 311.50 08:35:44 00061571262TRLO0 LSE 583 311.50 08:42:14 00061571693TRLO0 LSE 52 311.50 08:42:14 00061571694TRLO0 LSE 1000 311.00 08:42:54 00061571701TRLO0 LSE 241 311.00 08:42:54 00061571702TRLO0 LSE 1822 310.50 08:43:03 00061571703TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571704TRLO0 LSE 730 310.50 08:43:03 00061571705TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571706TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571707TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571708TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571709TRLO0 LSE 1000 310.50 08:43:03 00061571710TRLO0 LSE 860 310.50 09:00:43 00061572607TRLO0 LSE 495 310.50 09:00:43 00061572608TRLO0 LSE 445 310.50 09:00:43 00061572609TRLO0 LSE 1945 309.50 09:02:34 00061572741TRLO0 LSE 2044 311.00 09:36:54 00061574173TRLO0 LSE 710 310.50 09:58:43 00061574893TRLO0 LSE 1216 310.50 09:58:43 00061574894TRLO0 LSE 1979 310.50 09:58:43 00061574895TRLO0 LSE 1902 310.50 09:58:43 00061574898TRLO0 LSE 1773 310.00 10:00:44 00061575002TRLO0 LSE 850 309.50 10:00:56 00061575011TRLO0 LSE 262 309.50 10:00:56 00061575012TRLO0 LSE 753 309.50 10:00:56 00061575013TRLO0 LSE 1237 309.50 10:27:58 00061575806TRLO0 LSE 675 309.50 10:27:58 00061575807TRLO0 LSE 1732 309.50 10:29:01 00061575880TRLO0 LSE 2049 309.00 10:42:57 00061576490TRLO0 LSE 2087 308.50 10:45:36 00061576612TRLO0 LSE 2072 308.00 11:00:40 00061577633TRLO0 LSE 2115 308.50 11:09:11 00061577949TRLO0 LSE 241 308.00 11:21:40 00061578565TRLO0 LSE 1565 308.00 11:21:40 00061578566TRLO0 LSE 2009 309.00 12:04:56 00061580972TRLO0 LSE 1739 309.50 12:07:25 00061581054TRLO0 LSE 1727 309.00 12:10:23 00061581192TRLO0 LSE 1790 309.00 12:10:23 00061581193TRLO0 LSE 1902 311.50 12:42:36 00061582863TRLO0 LSE 11 311.50 12:42:36 00061582864TRLO0 LSE 1813 311.50 12:42:36 00061582865TRLO0 LSE 2029 311.50 12:42:36 00061582866TRLO0 LSE 1730 311.00 12:55:09 00061583215TRLO0 LSE 1765 310.50 13:09:22 00061583561TRLO0 LSE 980 313.00 13:32:02 00061584321TRLO0 LSE 1128 313.00 13:32:02 00061584322TRLO0 LSE 58 314.00 13:44:02 00061584763TRLO0 LSE 9 314.00 13:44:15 00061584784TRLO0 LSE 2057 316.50 13:59:10 00061585816TRLO0 LSE 1398 316.00 14:02:37 00061586089TRLO0 LSE 674 316.00 14:02:37 00061586090TRLO0 LSE 192 315.00 14:07:09 00061586347TRLO0 LSE 1959 316.50 14:37:20 00061588359TRLO0 LSE 847 317.50 14:43:05 00061588764TRLO0 LSE 454 317.50 14:43:05 00061588765TRLO0 LSE 193 317.00 14:43:21 00061588784TRLO0 LSE 1763 317.00 14:43:21 00061588785TRLO0 LSE 1400 317.00 14:43:21 00061588786TRLO0 LSE 547 317.00 14:43:21 00061588787TRLO0 LSE 142 317.00 14:43:21 00061588788TRLO0 LSE 1927 316.00 14:44:00 00061588878TRLO0 LSE 689 316.00 14:51:50 00061589372TRLO0 LSE 700 316.00 14:51:50 00061589373TRLO0 LSE 503 316.00 14:51:50 00061589374TRLO0 LSE 1831 315.00 15:00:01 00061589897TRLO0 LSE 1546 313.00 15:06:38 00061590562TRLO0 LSE 230 313.00 15:06:38 00061590563TRLO0 LSE 700 313.00 15:12:03 00061591034TRLO0 LSE 1328 313.00 15:12:03 00061591035TRLO0 LSE 1805 312.50 15:19:04 00061591534TRLO0 LSE 283 312.00 15:41:29 00061593148TRLO0 LSE 1843 312.00 15:41:29 00061593149TRLO0 LSE 2112 312.00 15:43:03 00061593300TRLO0 LSE 1105 313.50 16:00:16 00061594276TRLO0 LSE 1082 313.50 16:00:16 00061594277TRLO0 LSE 34 313.50 16:00:16 00061594278TRLO0 LSE 1228 313.50 16:00:18 00061594280TRLO0 LSE 540 313.50 16:03:18 00061594503TRLO0 LSE 700 313.50 16:03:18 00061594504TRLO0 LSE 700 313.50 16:03:18 00061594505TRLO0 LSE 195 313.50 16:03:18 00061594506TRLO0 LSE 2089 313.50 16:08:51 00061594935TRLO0 LSE 2085 313.00 16:11:16 00061595060TRLO0 LSE 645 311.50 16:17:29 00061595401TRLO0 LSE Notes This announcement is made in accordance with the requirements of Listing Rule 12.4.6. For further information contact: Buchanan David Rydell/Jamie Hooper/Hannah Ratcliff +44 (0) 207 466 5000 Notes to Editors: Redde Northgate is the leading integrated mobility solutions platform providing services across the vehicle lifecycle. The Company offers integrated mobility solutions to businesses, fleet operators, insurers, OEMs and other customers across seven key areas: vehicle rental, vehicle data, accident management, vehicle repairs, fleet management, service and maintenance, vehicle ancillary services and vehicle sales. The Company's core purpose is to keep its customers mobile, whether through meeting their regular mobility needs or by servicing and supporting them when unforeseen events occur. With its considerable scale and reach, Redde Northgate's mission is to offer a market-leading customer proposition and drive enhanced returns for shareholders by creating value through sustainable compounding growth. The Group aims to achieve this through the delivery of its strategic framework of Focus, Drive and Broaden. Redde Northgate services its customers through a network and diversified fleet of over 120,000 owned and leased vehicles, supporting over 600,000 managed vehicles, with more than 170 workshop, body shop and rental locations across the UK, Ireland and Spain and a specialist team of over 6,000 automotive services professionals. Further information please visit the Company's website: www.reddenorthgate.com Registration is open until October 21 for international companies that wish to participate in the International InvestChile Forum. The 2019 edition brought together organizations from 21 countries with more than $7.2 billion in projects. SANTIAGO, Chile, Oct. 14, 2022is set to take place in Santiago on Dec. 5-7. This event - the most important of its kind in Chile - will be held in-person for the first time since 2019 and is expected to attract over a hundred multinational companies. The forum will include a plenary session with 450 attendees, which will be chaired by the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric. Participants with a range of perspectives will discuss the investment situation in a context of uncertainty and global challenges, local prospects for business development, and cases where foreign investment is being used to develop solutions for sustainability and inclusion in Chile. Among the contributors from Chile who have confirmed their participation are Economy Minister Nicolas Grau, Treasury Minister Mario Marcel, and InvestChile Executive Director Karla Flores. Representatives from Seche Group (France), Aquafil (Italy), Phibion (Australia) and AWS (United States) will also take part. Representatives from the Mining Ministry, Energy Ministry and Public Works Ministry are also expected to participate and will announce investment opportunities within their respective portfolios. Why should companies apply? As part of the event, InvestChile will stage exclusive breakout sessions, where foreign companies will have the opportunity to meet directly with relevant authorities and key players from specific sectors, who will give them first-hand information about the market, public portfolios, projections and country plans for these industries. The sectors that will be addressed are Global Services and Technology, Fintech, Circular Economy, Green Hydrogen and Tourism. A matchmaking session is also planned, where foreign companies will be able to meet potential partners and local suppliers. "We wanted to include sectors that represent good investment opportunities in Chile, and which require foreign investment to help us take a leap in quality, speed up our development, and enhance the sustainability of our economy, as well as job creation. This is without neglecting the opportunities presented by the more traditional sectors," stated InvestChile Executive Director Karla Flores. More than one hundred companies from 21 countries participated in the last in-person edition of the event held in 2019, bringing more than US $7.2 billion in projects and taking part in more than 200 matchmaking meetings. Foreign companies interested in participating in the activities and B2B meetings in person can apply until October 21 here. Contact Information: Claudio Alvarez Head of Communications at InvestChile calvarez@investchile.gob.cl Related Images Image 1: InvestChile Forum The 6th International InvestChile Forum will take place in Santiago on December 5, 6 and 7, with a view to strengthening Chile's position as a foreign investment destination and promoting new high-value sectors. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment The London born medical marijuana company Eden Pharma Limited has seen huge success. LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Eden Pharma Ltd is pleased to announce its successful listing on the MERJ Exchange. Eden Pharma listed on 25th May 2022. Eden Pharma Market Capitalisation upon listing was circa 650 million pounds. The company share price closed on its first day of trading at 25.50. Change to Eden Pharma listed on the exchange with an opening price of 25.31 per share. Trading in Eden Pharma shares has seen the share price rise by 15% since listing, with the company valuation standing at over 770 million GBP currently. The closing price in Eden Pharma shares on the 23rd June was 29.50 per share. The current trading hours for the exchange are Monday to Friday: 10:00am to 06:00am (GMT+4). The MERJ Exchange is an award winning internationally recognised securities exchange. Eden Pharma are proud to have listed on the exchange. Eden Pharma limited continues to embark on its global growth plans. The Company announced its plans to build the world's largest cannabis research and development site located in Uganda. The successful partnership, fully licensed by the Ugandan government, is proposed to cover 5000 Acres. Further updates on the progress of the company will be announced through the Stock Exchange and on the Company's website Company Overview Eden Pharma limited, established in 2017 by Martin Booth, is now the world's 12th largest medical marijuana company by market capitalisation. The Eden Pharma Company is the UKs, Europes and Africas largest licensed marijuana company by market capitalisation. The Company began with a focus on research and development of the versatile marijuana plant to create innovative health and beauty products, and further develop new strains of marijuana. Eden Pharma is creating a bespoke, luxury brand for health and wellness products that primarily include CBD or other holistic compounds. Today, the company also has an award nominated range of CBD products that aim to assist with mental and physical well being. Eden Pharma also have, what is believed to be the largest cannabis R & D cultivation site in the world. The site is fully licensed and stands at 5000 Acres, making the site larger than some countries. Disclaimer Neither this document nor any of its contents constitute an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to any person to enter into any transaction or adopt any hedging, trading or investment strategy, nor does it constitute any prediction of likely future movements in rates or prices or any representation that any such future movements will either exceed or not exceed those shown in any text or illustration herein. No information provided in this document in relation to any investment should be construed as advice on the suitability or otherwise of that investment to any person, such suitability depending on all the circumstances of the person concerned. Nothing contained in this document constitutes investment, legal, tax or any other advice nor is it to be relied on in making an investment or any other decision. You, the reader of this document, are to make your own independent judgement with respect to any matter contained herein and to seek your own independent professional advice where appropriate. All recipients are strongly recommended to take independent professional advice where appropriate. This document does not constitute a formal offer, being capable of acceptance, or invitation to purchase or acquire any securities in any company or any interest therein, nor shall it form the basis of any contract for the sale of securities in any company. If you are in any doubt as to the action that you should take, you are recommended to seek your own professional advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant or any other independent financial adviser authorised to give such advice under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended). View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/eden-pharma-market-cap-reaches-774-million-pounds-301649991.html Special Meeting Called to Approve Reduction of Stated Capital San Francisco, California--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - Noble Iron Inc. (TSXV: NIR) ("Noble Iron", or the "Company") today announced that it has called a special meeting of shareholders for December 1, 2022 (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, shareholders will be asked to consider a reduction in the stated capital of the Company. As previously announced, the Company is assessing the available options to return capital raised pursuant to the sale of the Texada Software business to Banneker Partners to its shareholders, as disclosed in the Company's press releases of April 18, 2022, May 19, 2022, June 17, 2022 and June 30, 2022. Further to this, the Company has called the Meeting to ask the Shareholders to approve a reduction in the stated capital of the Company pursuant to section 34(1)(b)(i) of the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) for the purpose of distributing to the holders of the common shares of the Company (the "Distribution") certain of the proceeds of the sale of the Texada Software business. The reduction in stated capital and the Distribution are subject to the receipt of all regulatory, shareholder, corporate and TSXV approvals. There can be no assurances that the Distribution will receive the required approvals, or that the Company will proceed with the Distribution. Further details in respect of the Distribution will be provided as they become available. About Noble Iron Inc. Noble Iron can be reached at www.nobleiron.com/contact-us, or call 1(800) 361-1233. Corporate communications contacts: Mariam Chaudhry Chief Financial Officer t: (226) 962-2718 e: mariam.chaudhry@nobleiron.com Nabil Kassam Founder, Chairman & CEO t: (650) 766-9177 e: nabil@nobleiron.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, including in connection with the proposed Distribution. The forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified using words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements and information and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on such statements and information. The Company's ongoing securities laws filings should be consulted for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to these forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Management assumes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise, other than 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 release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140646 WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Trevor Milton, the founder and former chairman and CEO of electric heavy truck maker Nikola, was convicted of securites fraud by a federal jury in New York. The jury found Milton guilty in three of four counts of fraud related to false statements he made to drive up the value of Nikola's stock. Milton was charged with two counts of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Milton faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all four counts. Milton had founded Nikola in his basement in 2015 and took the company public in 2020 at a valuation of $3.3 billion, despite his company not selling even a single truck. Milton resigned from Nikola in September 2020 after a short seller report alleged he made a litany of misrepresentations about the company. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan had alleged that Milton lied about 'nearly all aspects of the business'. 'On the backs of those innocent investors taken in by his lies, he became a billionaire virtually overnight,' Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said in his opening statement in September. 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. Astra, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of instant card-to-card funding as a service in the U.S., raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by FPV Ventures, with participation from Slow Ventures and Allegis Capital. The company also received a $30M line of credit through CoVenture. Astra intends to use the funds to support the expansion of its team, with a particular focus on engineering and compliance resources, to further enable faster payments from any source to any destination. Founded in 2016 by Gil Akos and Sam Morgan, the company is a provider of advanced bank-to-bank transfer technology for financial institutions, fintech startups, and enterprises. Via a lightweight API integration, Astra offers a platform that allows developers to add faster settlement and financial automation to their existing products. Developers can enable accelerated and risk-mitigated transfers without having to take compliance specifications, capital commitments, or operational costs into account. While many payment platforms provide an incomplete solution that is, only allowing access to payment networks without added fraud prevention Astras dynamic, all-in-one solution has risk mitigation and anti-fraud measures built-in, powering a level of financial functionality that was previously unattainable. FinSMEs 14/10/2022 Kyra, a London, UK-based creator economy company, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bonnier Ventures, with participation from LionTree, Torch Capital, GMG Ventures and Firstminute Capital. The company intends to use the funds to further build out its home for creators, beginning with the launch of Kyra Platform, a proprietary platform streamlining and optimizing TikTok partnerships for brands and creators alike. Led by CEO Devran Amaratunga Karaca, Kyra is a creator economy company bridging the gap between brands and TikTok creators. The company encompasses Kyra: Originals, originally produced TikTok channels reaching more than 13M monthly viewers; Profile, a Gen Z creator incubator program; Studios, a production studio creating social content on behalf of brands; and Platform, a new proprietary platform enabling TikTok partnerships for brands and creators at scale. The company works with a diverse slate of creators including Abby Roberts, Iconicakes, and Nintendo Grl, and global blue-chip brands such as Nike, Converse, Levis, Calvin Klein and more. FinSMEs 14/10/2022 Xiao Chi Jie, a Seattle, WA-based direct-to-consumer Chinese food brand, raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by Imaginary Ventures, with participation from Simu Liu, Goldhouse Ventures, Hyphen Capital, Colin McCabe, Jason Wang, Gabi Lewis, Katrina Lake, Scott Cutler, and Shan-lyn Ma. The company intends to use the funds to focus on high-quality products and customer experience, lean into cultural experiences and education, and explore paths to increase accessibility. Founded in 2020 by second-generation Chinese Americans Caleb Wang and Jennifer Liao, Xiao offers a product line that includes restaurant-quality soup dumplings, Chinese BBQ skewers, sauces, bamboo steamers, ice creams, and now, noodle kits inspired by different regions of China. The products are available nationwide. The startup has also debuted new noodle kits which include a plant-based option developed in collaboration with Impossible Foods, featuring the brands Impossible Pork product. FinSMEs 14/10/2022 Retour des deputes, PPS et ministres au Parlement pour les trois derniers mois de 2022 avec des questions et un projet de loi non vote. 1. Announcements 2. Papers 3. Questions 4. Motion The Honourable Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Home Affairs and External Communications, Minister for Rodrigues, Outer Islands and Territorial Integrity That all the business on todays Order Paper be exempted from the provisions of paragraph (2) of Standing Order 10. 5. Statements by Ministers 6. Public Bill (a) SECOND READING *The Mauritius Food Standards Agency Bill (No. XIII of 2022: Dr the Honourable Minister of Health and Wellness) (b) COMMITTEE STAGE *The Mauritius Food Standards Agency Bill (No. XIII of 2022: Dr the Honourable Minister of Health and Wellness) (c) THIRD READING *The Mauritius Food Standards Agency Bill (No. XIII of 2022: Dr the Honourable Minister of Health and Wellness) Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires Hispanic Heritage Month celebrated on campus with student event, keynote speaker In 1988, the month-long celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month was codified as a national period of observance recognizing the cultures and contributions of people in the U.S. who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. This month of celebration, which begins on Sept. 15, also coincides with the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua reminding us to recognize the rich history of Latin American countries. Hispanic Heritage Month to me means celebrating my culture and who I am, senior Kandy Marroquin said. It also reminds me to appreciate what my family has worked hard for. During the past four weeks, the Latin American Students Organization (L.A.S.O.) and the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion partnered to host events celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month. Cooking with L.A.S.O. On Oct. 6, student leaders from L.A.S.O. worked with Mary Rose Pedron, assistant director of DE&I, to host a showcase for members of Flaglers Latin and Hispanic community to share recipes close to their hearts and talk about their culture. Last year Mary Rose hosted a similar event but for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Marroquin, who is also L.A.S.O. vice president said. We all loved how that event turned out, so we decided that it would be a perfect opportunity for us to share our favorite Latin meals with the school. The event was potluck style with small signs describing each dish, and participants also had a chance to share how they made the dishes. Every culture is different, which is what makes it so unique, Marroquin said. Recipes are passed down from many generations and are shared with the ones that we love. Each time that these meals are made they create memories with those people. Part of Marroquins personal celebration of this month included creating different events like this one with L.A.S.O. where students can share their culture and history with the Flagler community. With about 40 people in attendance, L.A.S.O. Treasurer Mandy Nicole said the event was a success. We had a great turnout considering we completely ran out of food by the end of the event, she said. Nicole considers food a very big part of celebrating Latin culture. Cooking is a way to connect with our ancestors as their recipes are passed on, and we celebrate the life they lived by sharing these foods, Nicole said. She sees recognizing her ancestors as a key part of Hispanic Heritage Month and said celebrating this month feels like a hug from late grandparents. Hispanic Heritage month means to me that I get to honor those that came before me by celebrating the beautiful culture they have passed onto me, she said. The Walk of the Immigrants: Hispanic Heritage Month Keynote Speaker Saul Flores, philanthropist and public speaker, visited Flagler on Oct. 13 to share the story of a 5,328-mile journey he made across Latin America to raise awareness of the experience many immigrants face while leaving their home countries. During his sophomore year of college, Flores felt called to visit Atencingo, Mexico, his mothers hometown, on a service trip. I just found myself so curious about my own identity, that I started leading these service trips back to mothers hometown in Mexico, he said. While he was there, the local elementary school captured his attention. In an unexpecting place, I discovered a community I was meant to serve, he said. He said while this elementary school was lit up with the joy of the children who were there, it was lacking the educational resources necessary for the students to continue their education and pursue their dreams. Part of the reason Flores felt drawn to working with this elementary school was his mothers affinity for education and the sacrifice she made to provide him with the best education possible. She was so adamant about the power of education, he said. This was in part what inspired Flores to make this journey, the same journey his parents once made. He traveled from Ecuador all the way to Charlotte, N.C. over the course of three months. He walked and hitchhiked through 10 countries trying to gain a sense of the unimaginable experience his parents and other immigrants had to go through to come to the U.S. Flores documented through photography the essence of the people, communities, and cultures he encountered along the way. I believe that every person has an incredible story to tell, he said. After the journey, he sold those photographs in an effort to raise funds to support the elementary school in Atencingo. Today, through his organization LoveWalk, Flores works on various projects like a documentary with the goal of educating, advocating, and bringing awareness to what he sees as the immigrant plight. Tagged As The six finalists were chosen following extremely strong competition from over 700 fintechs from 59 countries; Grand Finale to be held on 28 October at the Ecobank Group (http://www.Ecobank.com) Pan African Centre in Lome, Togo; Finalists will compete for the top price of $50,000 and admission to the Ecobank Fintech Challenge Fellowship program. Ecobank Group, the leading private pan-African banking group, has announced the six finalists for the fifth edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge. The finalists come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Togo. The six fintechs stood out from a highly competitive pool of over 700 applicants from 59 countries in and outside Africa. The six finalists will compete for the top price of $50,000 at the Grand Finale, which is being held at the Ecobank Pan African Centre in Lome, Togo, on Friday 28 October 2022. The finalists for the 2022 edition, in alphabetical order, are: Cauri Money, Senegal DizzitUp, Togo MaishaPay, Democratic Republic of Congo Moni Africa, Nigeria Paycode, South Africa Touchand Pay, Nigeria This 5th edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge, which is sponsored by Arise, will allow all finalists to benefit from Ecobanks Fintech Mentoring Programme. During this programme, Ecobank will help them to explore opportunities including: Rolling out their products on a pan-African scale: an opportunity to further integrate with Ecobank and potentially launch their products or services in all or part of Ecobanks 33-country pan-African ecosystem. Access to the Groups pan-African Banking Sandbox to test and develop their products in the pan-African market. Priority access to Ecobanks venture capital partners to explore funding opportunities. Tomisin Fashina, Ecobank Group Executive, Operations and Technology, said: I am impressed by the growing number of applications for the Ecobank Fintech Challenge. Applications have grown from about 412 applications in 2018 to over 700 in 2022. This demonstrates a definite paradigm shift within the African continent, with Africans desire to transform technological innovation into a real lever for socio-economic development. We thank all applicants for their participation and applaud the highly impressive quality of their entries. We look forward to partnering with them for their groundbreaking digital financial solutions to our continents unique challenges and to help promoting financial inclusion on the continent. Gavin Tipper, CEO of Arise, partner and co-sponsor of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge 2022 competition, said: Fintechs play a central role in creating innovative digital solutions that improve customer experience, deliver value propositions and reduce costs. Our investments in fintechs are based on collaborative partnerships that advance financial inclusion on the continent and offer opportunities for mutual synergies with our balanced investment portfolio. The Ecobank Fintech Challenge is designed to identify innovative fintechs that are ready to grow, that we can partner with, mentor and give access to Ecobanks 33 African markets, so that they can realise their potential and become pan-African success stories. This competition is in line with Ecobanks Fintech strategy of building partnerships with African fintechs to help transform digital finance and banking. The Ecobank Fintech Challenge is organised in collaboration with partners across Africa and the world, including Arise, gold sponsor of the 2022 edition, Global Finder, TechCabal, Africa Fintech Network and Konfidants. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires On August 21, 2022, Ambassador Zhang Jianwei met with Dr. Rana Al-Faris, Kuwaits Minister of State for Municipal Affairs and Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology. Cheng Yongru, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Kuwait, was present at the meeting. Noting that Kuwait was the first Middle East country to sign the cooperation agreement under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China, Ambassador Zhang said, with care and concerted efforts of the leaders of both countries, we have achieved positive results in bilateral cooperation on various fronts, adding that China is ready to continue to synergize development strategy of the two countries with the Kuwaiti side and push ahead high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, thus enriching China-Kuwait strategic partnership. For her part, Rana praised the progress in Kuwait-China relations over the years, saying that Kuwait attaches great importance to its strategic partnership with China, values the strength and reputation of Chinese enterprises, and will maintain close communication with the Chinese side and strive for greater outcomes of bilateral practical cooperation. On October 1, 2022, a signed article titled China's New Development Creates Fresh Opportunities for Closer China-Kuwait Strategic Partnership by Ambassador Zhang Jianwei was published on the websites of Kuwaiti newspapers Al-Anba and Al-Rai and on other social media platforms. The full text of the article is available on:https://epaper.alraimedia.com/article. In the charming season of autumn, the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is drawing near. Here, I wish to extend my festive greetings and best regards to the Chinese nationals working and studying in Kuwait. I also wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to the leaders and people of Kuwait who have long given care and support to China and China-Kuwait relations. Over the past 73 years, hundreds of millions of Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), have worked tirelessly and fearlessly to build our nation. The Chinese people have realized the great transformation from standing up to growing prosperous and finally to becoming strong, and opened up bright prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In particular, since the 18th CPC National Congress convened ten years ago, China has made historic achievements and transformation under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. China has maintained its position as the worlds second-largest economy and become the largest trading nation. China has topped the globe in its outbound direct investment and in its contribution to global growth which surpassed 30 percent. Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, China has proposed a series of vision and initiatives that include the vision to build a community with a shared future for mankind, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Security Initiative (GSI). These represent Chinas wisdom and solutions to meeting global risks and challenges. The CPC will convene its 20th National Congress in two weeks. Following the new development philosophy, China will pursue opening-up against higher standards, make steady progress toward common prosperity, move on toward the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects, and follow the Chinese path to modernization to achieve the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Furthermore, China will stick to the path of peaceful development, advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and create new opportunities to the rest of the world with its new development. China will work with other countries to meet various challenges together. It is imperative for us to practice true multilateralism, defend fairness and justice, pursue development through cooperation, and expand openness and integration. This will add stronger momentum to the fast-changing world. It is necessary that we promote harmony without uniformity. Although China and Kuwait are separately by thousands of miles and have different historical traditions and political systems, we are connected by the principles of mutual respect and sincerity which are the original aspiration upon the establishment of our diplomatic relations. Bearing in mind these principles, we have given each other firm support on issues concerning our respective core interests and major concerns, and coordinated and collaborated closely on major regional and international issues. Kuwait follows the one-China principle, while China firmly supports Kuwait in maintaining its sovereignty, security and stability. China appreciates Kuwaits prominent role in maintaining peace and security in the Gulf region and enabling the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to seek strength through unity. Under the concern and guidance of the leaders of China and Kuwait, our two countries have deepened our strategic partnership and better synergized Chinas BRI and Kuwaits Vision 2035. Our practical cooperation has demonstrated great resilience and enormous potential. China has become Kuwaits largest source of imports and its biggest trading partner, with the trade volume between China and Kuwait reaching US$22.1 billion in 2021, while Kuwait has been Chinas seventh largest source of crude oil imports, with 30.16 million tons of crude oil exported to China last year. Statistics released by Kuwait suggest that Chinas direct investment in Kuwait totaled about US$410 million, making China Kuwaits second largest source of foreign direct investment. As China-Kuwait relations have come a long way, we have delivered tangible benefits to the people of two countries. It also contributes to promoting solidarity and cooperation in the region and beyond. Kuwait becoming a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) dialogue partner is of great significance to facilitate sound interactions and peaceful development in the region. On the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabahs assumption of office, we would like to offer congratulations on Kuwaits new achievements in national development and external exchanges and cooperation, and wish the parliamentary election in Kuwait a full success. May Kuwait enjoy prosperity and its people live in happiness and peace under the leadership of Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and Crown Prince Sheikh Mishaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. As Chinas new ambassador to Kuwait, I will work with colleagues and friends from various sectors in Kuwait and redouble our efforts to further deepen political mutual trust between the two sides, expand our practical cooperation and promote people-to-people ties. I believe that under the concern and guidance of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Kuwaits Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and Crown Prince Sheikh Mishaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, our two nations will continue to join hands on the way forward to boost cooperation in various fields and advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Doing so will add more profound substance to and create broader prospects for China-Kuwait strategic partnership. On September 22, 2022, the Chinese Embassy in Kuwait held a seminar on the development of Chinese auto brands in Kuwait, with the attendance of over 30 representatives from car dealers in Kuwait of major Chinese automakers, including GAC Group, Dongfeng Motor, FAW Group, Sinotruk, Chery and Geely. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jianwei, and Mr. Mohammed Al Duwaihees, Vice President of the Kuwait Automobile Dealers Association, attended and addressed the seminar which was chaired by Cheng Yongru, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Kuwait. Ambassador Zhang said, China and Kuwait enjoy an enduring bond of friendship and have sustained rapid growth in economic and trade cooperation over the years. After years of operations in the local market, Chinese car brands have emerged as mainstream brands in the Kuwaiti auto market. The number of Chinese vehicles of various types exported to Kuwait in 2021 jumped by 81 percent year on year, reaching 17,859, which represents a new highlight of economic and trade cooperation between the two sides. He noted that the remarkable performance of Chinese auto brands in the Kuwaiti market is attributed to five factors. The first is innovative development. Chinese-brand vehicles are designed with pioneering concepts and manufactured with extensive new technologies and in increasingly better quality. The next is coordinated development. The Chinese auto industry stands out for its full-fledged manufacturing system and the robust industrial supporting systems. Amid the pandemic, many mainstream car brands in the world have been stuck in supply chain issues, while the Chinese auto industry is able to restore production and achieve explosive growth due to Chinas excellent performance in COVID-19 control and strong and well-coordinated support from the related parties. The third is green development. Taking a long-term perspective, China has been vigorously pushing forward the development of new energy vehicles. The fourth is open development. By absorbing technologies introduced by joint ventures at the early stage and making continual improvements through exchanges and cooperation with foreign brands, Chinese automakers have been capable of developing and manufacturing vehicles independently, with their products now exported to overseas markets. And the last is win-win results. Over the years, Chinese automakers have generated decent profits for their partners and delivered benefits to their customers as well. Ambassador Zhang stressed that seeking innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all is the guideline for the development of Chinas automobile industry, adding that more importantly, it is a new development philosophy China implements unwaveringly to advance its high-quality development. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to be convened next month will steer China toward more solid progress. There is a reasonable prospect that China will not stop its pace of robust growth or halt its pursuit of reform and opening-up. China will maintain the momentum for self-reliance of its automobile industry and elevate the foreign trade in cars to higher levels, thus creating brighter prospects for its auto sector. For his part, Duwaihees pointed out that the past years have seen a rapid growth of Chinese car brands in the Kuwaiti market, with their market share and popularity among local customers growing steadily. He expected Chinese automakers to offer more quality products and services to Kuwait customers, adding that the Kuwait Automobile Dealers Association will continue to support Chinese car brands in growing bigger in the country. Representatives of those dealers present at the seminar exchanged their views on the performance of Chinese auto brands in the local market, opportunities and challenges they face, and the prospects of their future in Kuwait, and also gave reasonable suggestions. They noted that the seminar came at an opportune time, and they look forward to more seminars of such kind in the future. Mainstream media outlets in Kuwait including Kuwait News Agency, Al-Anba, Al-Jarida and Kuwait Times gave coverage to the seminar and conducted an interview with Ambassador Zhang. AFP: The US government said that Beijing has ambitions to become the worlds leading power and the US would prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC. What is your comment on this? Mao Ning: It is neither popular nor constructive to hold on to the Cold War zero-sum mentality and play up geopolitical conflicts and major power competition. China and the US are both major countries in the world. As the biggest developing and developed country, China and the US have a responsibility of defending world peace and stability and promoting economic prosperity and development. The US needs to follow the principle of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, follow through on President Bidens five-noes commitment, and work with China to bring China-US relations back onto the track of sound and steady development. Reuters: So just following up on this National Security Strategy that the White House released. It said that even after Russias invasion, China represents the most consequential challenge to the global order and the United States must win the competition against China. Does the foreign ministry have any response to this? Mao Ning: We have noted the new National Security Strategy released by the US government. The world is undergoing changes unseen in a century. Nevertheless, peace and development remain the unchanging theme of the times and the shared aspiration of humanity. We oppose the outdated Cold War mentality and zero-sum mindset. We see no benefit in any rhetoric or act that plays up geographical conflict or major power competition, for they go against the trend of the times and the aspiration of the international community. They are not going to be welcomed and will not succeed. Chinas development is fundamentally about the happiness of the people and rejuvenation of the nation. China has always been a force for world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order, a provider of public goods and part of the mediation efforts on hotspot issues. This is the reality known to the international community. China and the US are respectively the biggest developing country and the biggest developed country with a responsibility of preserving world peace and stability and promoting economic prosperity and development. China and the US stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. The US needs to follow the principle of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, follow through on President Bidens five-noes commitment, and work with China to bring China-US relations back onto the track of sound and steady development. Xinhua News Agency: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called on the international community to provide assistance to African countries to respond to climate change. He said countries must deliver concrete action on loss and damage. For many countries, particularly in Africa, climate change is a question of survival. What is your comment? Mao Ning: We have noted the Secretary-Generals remarks. China has been supporting Africa in responding to climate change and has never been absent. The eighth ministerial meeting of FOCAC adopted the Declaration on China-Africa Cooperation on Combating Climate Change, proposed to establish a China-Africa partnership of strategic cooperation of the new era for the fight against climate change, and included the green development program in the first three-year plan of China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035. Last month, China hosted a ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative and put forward the Global Clean Energy Cooperation Partnership, and its first group of projects include cooperation with 19 African countries on climate change and green development. China not only helps African countries respond to climate change with every sincerity, but has also lived up to its commitments on global climate response. We actively advance low-carbon development and green transition at home and work hard to deliver the targets for carbon peaking and neutrality. We have played a constructive part in the multilateral climate process and made historic contribution to the conclusion and implementation of the Paris Agreement. Chinas effort adds a strong boost to the global climate response. Climate change is a global challenge and bears on the future of humanity. It thus requires a global response. Developed countries have unshirkable historical responsibilities for climate change. They need to adhere to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, take the lead in substantial emission reduction, and honor their pledge of financial, technological and capacity-building support for developing countries. Yonhap News Agency: It is reported that in response to the threat of the DPRKs nuclear weapons, the ruling party in the ROK has proposed that the country needs to re-deploy the USs tactical nuclear weapons. Do you have any comment? Mao Ning: We have noted the reports. Relevant parties need to fulfill their respective international obligations and commitments, and take concrete actions to uphold peace and stability on the Peninsula and in this region. Reuters: After North Korea test-fired two long-range strategic cruise missiles on Wednesday, the North Korean side said the country should continue to expand the operational sphere of the nuclear strategic armed forces to resolutely deter any crucial military crisis and war crisis, according to KCNA. Does the foreign ministry have any comment on this? Mao Ning: Chinas position on the Korean Peninsula issue remains unchanged. China is committed to upholding peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. Reuters: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that the United States must prevent China from weaponizing trade as a tool of geopolitical coercion, as Russia has done so during its invasion of Ukraine. Does the foreign ministry have any comments? Mao Ning: China is always against politicization and weaponization of economic and trade issues. We are committed to defending liberalization and facilitation of global trade and investment, and defending the stability of global industrial and supply chains. It is the unilateral and protectionist practices of certain countries that have impeded international economic and trade cooperation. Under the current circumstances, the relevant parties need to abandon the unilateral and protectionist approach and work with the international community to ensure the industrial and supply chains are secure and smooth, safeguard the stability of the system, rules and foundation of the world economy, and promote the steady recovery of the world economy. AFP: After German Chancellor dismissed decoupling with China, German Foreign Minister said that Germany should reduce its dependency on trade with China. Do you have any comment on this? Also, can you confirm that German Chancellor is going to visit China next month? Mao Ning: If attitude toward a country is based on values and normal economic and trade ties are politicized, it will not contribute to international cooperation or help diversify markets. Over the past five decades since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Germany, practical cooperation and mutual benefits have always been the defining feature of our bilateral relations. Both countries have been deeply engaged in and benefited from each others success. The two sides need to stay practical in advancing mutually beneficial cooperation so as to deliver more for the two countries and two peoples. As for the high-level visit you mentioned, I have no information to offer at the moment. Global Times: Samantha Cristoforetti, a female Italian astronaut working aboard the international space station, recently posted several photos taken from space on her social media account. She quoted a few lines from an ancient Chinese calligraphy masterpiece by Wang Xizhi titled Preface to Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion to go with the photos: Looking up, I see the immensity of the cosmos; bowing my head, I look at the multitude of the world. The gaze flies, the heart expands, the joy of the senses can reach its peak, & indeed, this is true happiness. The post has been liked by many people in China and elsewhere. Do you have any comment on this? Mao Ning: I have read about it too and the Italian astronaut certainly has my like. Exploring the universe has been mankinds dream since ancient times. Thanks to scientific and technological progress, reaching beyond the moon has become a reality. Humanity will continue to benefit from the noble endeavor of exploration and peaceful use of space. Just a few days ago we also saw a video clip shared online showing the magnificence of our blue planet Earth seen from Chinas space station. Countries around the world can and need to work together to look after the planet we all call home and make the world a better place for all. CNR: It is reported that the military barracks in Djiboutis Tadjoura region were attacked by Armed FRUD (Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy). The attack has left seven soldiers killed, four wounded and six missing. Do you have any comment? Mao Ning: We have noted relevant reports. China is shocked by and condemns the attack. We express deep condolences to the family of the victims. China firmly supports the efforts of the government and people of Djibouti to uphold peace and stability in the country. On October 14, 2022, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Hailing the time-honored friendship between China and the Maldives, Xi Jinping pointed out that over the past 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the two countries have always respected and supported each other, setting a good example of equal treatment and mutual benefit between countries of different sizes. In recent years, the two sides have stood together through thick and thin, and worked jointly to meet the challenges of the once-in-a-century pandemic, deepen the Belt and Road cooperation, and safeguard and promote true multilateralism, adding new impetus to and opening up new prospects for China-Maldives relations. Noting the great importance he attaches to the development of China-Maldives relations, Xi Jinping expressed readiness to work with President Solih to promote the steady progress of the future-oriented comprehensive friendly and cooperative partnership between China and the Maldives, and bring more benefits to the two countries and peoples. Solih said that the Maldives-China relationship is built on shared historical experiences, sovereign equality and mutual respect, and is grounded on the Maldives governments firm commitment to the one-China principle. Applauding Chinas great contributions to the economic, social and cultural development of his country, Solih expressed the confidence that the long-term friendly and cooperative relations the two countries have developed over the past 50 years will be further deepened and expanded. Linn County Sheriff's deputies have arrested two more men in connection to an Oct. 11 stabbing that left one man with life-threatening injuries. Arrested were Carl William Serpa, 38, and Michael Allen Kulp, 30, both on suspicion of first-degree assault, according to a Linn County Sheriff's Office news release. Both men are homeless from Albany, according to the agency. Court documents allege Serpa used a knife to assault the victim, a 36-year-old homeless man from Arizona. Kulp also allegedly used a dangerous weapon to hurt the victim. The two are scheduled to be arraigned in Linn County Circuit Court on charges of first-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon. Deputies initially arrested John Wesley Kersey, 72, for allegedly hitting the victim with a car and then stabbing him. Dispatch received reports at around 6:08 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11 of the stabbing on Quartzville Road outside of Sweet Home. The incident reportedly took place at a campsite with other around, but no one helped the victim, according to LCSO. The victim allegedly walked 250 feet before finding someone who would help. A truck operator found the victim and called in the stabbing. Medics transported the victim by ambulance to Lebanon Hospital and later to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis by Life Flight. He suffered life-threatening injuries but was expected to survive. Through investigation, deputies discovered Kersey and the victim had traveled to the Quartzville area with a group. Kersey was arraigned in Linn County Circuit Court on Wednesday, Oct. 12 on charges of first-degree assault, first-degree attempted assault and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Anyone that was traveling in the area of milepost 20 on Quartzville Road during the late hours of Monday, Oct. 10 to early hours of Tuesday is asked to call Detective Scott Tennant at 541-967-3950. UN chief welcomes Lebanon-Israel maritime boundary deal Xinhua) 13:46, October 14, 2022 UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday welcomed a deal between Lebanon and Israel on the resolution of their maritime boundary dispute, said his spokesman. "The secretary-general welcomes the announcements that the governments of Lebanon and Israel have formally agreed to settle their maritime boundary dispute, as mediated by the United States. He strongly believes this encouraging development can promote increased stability in the region and enhanced prosperity for the Lebanese and Israeli peoples," said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, in a statement. The United Nations remained committed to assisting the parties, as requested, said the statement. The secretary-general reiterated the commitment of the United Nations to support the effective implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which deals with the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as other relevant resolutions that remain essential to the stability of the region, said the statement. The leaders of Lebanon and Israel announced Tuesday that the two countries had agreed to resolve a decades-long dispute over their maritime boundary in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) Visiongain has published a new report entitled the Offshore Wind Power 2022-2032 . It includes profiles of Offshore Wind Power and Forecasts Market Segment by (Market Value (USD Billion), Market Cumulative Installations (GW)) Market Segment by Location, (Shallow Water Installation, Transitional Water Installation, Deep Water Installation) Market Segment by Technology, (Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), Diffuser-Augmented Wind Turbine (DAWT), Vortex Bladeless Technology, Other Technology) Market Segment by Components, (Turbines, Electrical Infrastructure, Substructure, Other Components) Market Segment by Type, (Floating, Bottom Fixed), PLUS COVID-19 Impact Analysis and Recovery Pattern Analysis (V-shaped, W-shaped, U-shaped, L-shaped) Profiles of Leading Companies, Region and Country. The global offshore wind power market was valued at US$30.54 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7% during the forecast period 2022-2032. Stable Revenue is an Added Advantage One of the advantages of a well-designed and strong offshore wind power assistance programme is revenue stabilisation and risk minimization. This is due to offshore wind power's relatively higher time and capital investment requirements compared to other renewable energy technologies, which puts a greater emphasis on bankability conditions, as well as significant reliance on enabling infrastructure like grids, ports, manufacturing, and workforce capacity. Because emerging markets usually rely on the cost and availability of international funding to support the first batch of offshore wind power projects, certainty and transparency of payment improves bankability for foreign investors. Offshore Wind Energy Has Low Impact on the Environment Offshore wind farms, like onshore wind farms, have a modest global warming potential per unit of power generated. In comparison to land-based projects, offshore installations have a lower impact on noise and the environment. Furthermore, evidence exists that offshore wind power facilities have assisted to the regeneration of damaged ecosystems by acting as artificial reefs in a few particular situations. While the offshore wind power business has developed significantly in recent decades, there is still a lot of ambiguity about how the building and management of these wind farms may affect marine species and the environment. Download Exclusive Sample of Report: https://www.visiongain.com/report/offshore-wind-power-market-2022/#download_sampe_div How has COVID-19 Had a Significant Negative Impact on the Offshore Wind Power Market? The Industry Recovered in spite of the Worldwide COVID Outbreak Despite the impact of COVID-19, the worldwide offshore wind power sector flourished its second-best year ever in 2020. For the third year in a row, China dominated the globe in new installations, with more than 3 GW of offshore wind power grid installed in 2020. The majority of the remaining new capacity was erected in Europe, with the Netherlands leading the way with approximately 1.5 GW of new offshore wind power installed in 2020, followed by Belgium (706 MW). While COVID-19 limitations caused auctions to be postponed or cancelled in the first half of 2020, the industry rebounded significantly in the second half of the year as important mature and growing wind markets began to overcome COVID-19's effects. How this Report Will Benefit You? Visiongains 260 page report provides 131 tables and 129 charts/graphs. Our new study is suitable for anyone requiring commercial, in-depth analyses for the global offshore wind power market, along with detailed segment analysis in the market. Our new study will help you evaluate the overall global and regional market for Offshore Wind Power. Get the financial analysis of the overall market and different segments including market value, cumulative installations, location, technology, components, type and capture higher market share. We believe that high opportunity remains in this fast-growing offshore wind power market. See how to use the existing and upcoming opportunities in this market to gain revenue benefits in the near future. Moreover, the report would help you to improve your strategic decision-making, allowing you to frame growth strategies, reinforce the analysis of other market players, and maximise the productivity of the company. What Are the Current Market Drivers? The Offshore Wind Power Energy Industry Has Long-Term Viability Given the immeasurable implications of the climate crisis, every stakeholder must adapt to a more sustainable route. Non-state actors, such as wind energy businesses of all sizes, must be held responsible to decarbonisation imperatives, especially as the sector advocates for significant expansion of wind projects and accompanying industrial activities. The commercial case for decarbonisation is becoming increasingly compelling, as evidenced by a shift in retail and institutional investor sentiment toward corporate sustainability. The market for socially responsible impact investment funds, or ESG ETFs, had a record inflow of US$89 billion in 2020, about nine times the amount in 2018. Governments are also taking steps to decarbonize industrial value chains, from green electricity procurement to zero-emissions construction regulations. Eversource is Collaborating with Orsted of Denmark on the South Fork Wind Farm Eversource, a New England utility that is a 50-50 partner in two proposed offshore wind power farms for Long Island, has recruited advisors to look into selling its stake in the projects, according to the firm. Eversource is collaborating with Orsted of Denmark on the South Fork Wind Farm, which is expected to provide up to 130 megawatts of power to the South Fork by late 2023, and Sunrise Wind, which is expected to provide 924 megawatts to the Long Island grid by 2025. It's also a partner in Revolution Wind, a third project that will supply 704 megawatts of electricity to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Eversource announced Thursday that it has recruited two investment companies to look into selling part or all of its 50 percent stake in the ventures, a move that had already been approved by Eversource's board of trustees. Download Exclusive Sample of Report: https://www.visiongain.com/report/offshore-wind-power-market-2022/#download_sampe_div Where are the market opportunities? Continuous Innovations Are Required in Order to Deal with Unprecedented Incidents To capture offshore wind power from a larger range of geographies, continued innovation is required, including enhancing turbine robustness in areas prone to tropical storms, typhoons, or hurricanes, as well as pushing towards the commercialization of floating wind before 2030. As the sector continues to grow into new areas, these variables represent a regulatory challenge in terms of ensuring uniform recognition and certification of project and component design aspects. Modvion's modular wind turbine tower built of laminated wood, envisioned for potential deployment in offshore conditions, is one example of new technologies to overcome the steel dilemma. With Rising Demands, Collaboration with Other Sectors Will Required in Future The need for structural materials like concrete and steel, key minerals like copper, nickel, chromium, and manganese, and rare earths like neodymium and boron magnets in wind turbines will rise as the offshore wind power industry grows. This not only exacerbates existing dependencies in the mining of minerals and rare earths China, for example, is the world's largest exporter of rare earth metals but also shines light on the carbon intensity of upstream activities in the offshore wind power supply chain. However, reducing the carbon footprint of the offshore wind power sector would need collaboration with heavy sectors such as steel and concrete. Competitive Landscape The major players operating in the offshore wind power market are General Electric Company, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA, Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co Ltd, Shanghai Electric Wind Power Equipment Co., ABB Ltd., Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co Ltd, Hitachi, Ltd., Nexans SA, DEME Group, Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Limited, Envision, Rockwell Automation, Inc., Nordex SE, Sinovel Wind Group Co., Ltd These major players operating in this market have adopted various strategies comprising M&A, investment in R&D, collaborations, partnerships, regional business expansion, and new product launch. Recent Developments in the Market TotalEnergies, a French Energy Company, Has Begun Construction on the Eolmed Project On May 12, 2022, TotalEnergies, a French energy company, has begun construction on the Eolmed project, which is administered by Qair and in which TotalEnergies owns a 20% share. This 30-megawatt project is 12 miles off the coasts of Gruissan and Port la Nouvelle. Production is expected to begin in 2024. Three 10-MW wind turbines will be installed on steel floats and connected to the French Electricity Transmission Network through an underwater cable. Eversource is Collaborating with Orsted of Denmark on the South Fork Wind Farm Eversource, a New England utility that is a 50-50 partner in two proposed offshore wind power farms for Long Island, has recruited advisors to look into selling its stake in the projects, according to the firm. Eversource is collaborating with Orsted of Denmark on the South Fork Wind Farm, which is expected to provide up to 130 megawatts of power to the South Fork by late 2023, and Sunrise Wind, which is expected to provide 924 megawatts to the Long Island grid by 2025. It's also a partner in Revolution Wind, a third project that will supply 704 megawatts of electricity to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Eversource announced Thursday that it has recruited two investment companies to look into selling part or all of its 50 percent stake in the ventures, a move that had already been approved by Eversource's board of trustees. The Nordsee One Offshore Wind Power Farm Has Begun a Major Turbine Component Exchange On April 20, 2022, the components exchange campaign at the Nordsee One wind farm offshore Germany has begun thanks to ARGE N1, a joint venture between SAL Renewables, Offshore Wind Power Solutions GmbH (OWS), and Wind Multiplikator GmbH. The campaign will see 44 rotor shaft bearings of the installed 6.2M126 wind turbines changed at the Nordsee One offshore wind power farm, which is projected to be completed in September 2022, depending on weather conditions, according to the joint venture. Find more Visiongain research reports on Renewable Energy sector click on the following links: Do you have any custom requirements we can help you with? Any need for a specific country, geo region, market segment or specific company information? Contact us today, we can discuss your needs and see how we can help: oliver.davison@visiongain.com About Visiongain Visiongain is one of the fastest-growing and most innovative independent market intelligence around, the company publishes hundreds of market research reports which it adds to its extensive portfolio each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis across 18 industries worldwide. The reports cover a 10 year forecasts, are hundreds of pages long, with in depth market analysis and valuable competitive intelligence data. Visiongain works across a range of vertical markets, which currently can influence one another, these markets include automotive, aviation, chemicals, cyber, defence, energy, food & drink, materials, packaging, pharmaceutical and utilities sectors. Our customized and syndicated market research reports means that you can have a bespoke piece of market intelligence customized to your very own business needs. Contact: SAN DIEGO, Oct. 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Class: Shareholder rights law firm Robbins LLP reminds investors that a shareholder filed a class action on behalf of all persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) securities between November 9, 2021 and May 6, 2022, for violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Palantir builds and deploys software platforms to assist the U.S. intelligence community in counterterrorism investigations and operations. If you would like more information about Palantir Technology Inc.'s misconduct, click here . What is this Case About: Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) Mislead Investors Regarding its Financial Prospects According to the complaint, during the class period, defendants failed to disclose that Palantir's investments in marketable securities were having a significant negative impact on the Companys earnings per share (EPS) results; (ii) Palantir overstated the sustainability of its government segments growth and revenues; and (iii) Palantir was experiencing a significant slowdown in revenue growth, particularly among its government customers. As a result, Palantir was likely to and did miss consensus estimates for its first quarter 2022 ("Q1") EPS and second quarter 2022 ("Q2") sales outlook. On May 9, 2022, Palantir issued a press release announcing its Q1 financial results and guidance for Q2. For Q1, Palantir announced adjusted EPS of $0.02, compared to analyst estimates of $0.04 per share, noting on a conference call that the [f]irst quarter adjusted [EPS of] $0.02 . . . includes a negative $0.02 impact driven primarily by unrealized losses on marketable securities. The Company also disclosed that government revenue grew by only 16% year-over-year for Q1, representing a significant slowdown in revenue growth compared to prior quarters, and that, for Q2, the Company expected $470 million in sales, compared to estimates of $483.76 million. On this news, Palantir's stock price fell $2.02 per share, or over 21%, to close at $7.46 per share on May 9, 2022. Next Steps: If you acquired shares of Palantir Technologies Inc. between November 9, 2021 and May 6, 2022, you have until November 14, 2022, to ask the court to appoint you lead plaintiff for the class. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. You do not have to participate in the case to be eligible for a recovery. All representation is on a contingency fee basis. Shareholders pay no fees or expenses. Contact us to learn more: Aaron Dumas (800) 350-6003 adumas@robbinsllp.com Shareholder Information Form About Robbins LLP: A recognized leader in shareholder rights litigation, the attorneys and staff of Robbins LLP have been dedicated to helping shareholders recover losses, improve corporate governance structures, and hold company executives accountable for their wrongdoing since 2002. To be notified if a class action against Palantir Technologies Inc. settles or to receive free alerts when corporate executives engage in wrongdoing, sign up for Stock Watch today. Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Demand for Wood with Greater Durability to Drive the Wood Preservative Chemicals & Coatings Active Ingredients Market, Says Future Market Insights, Inc. Icreasing investments in the construction sector is propelling the demand for wood in the decking and furniture manufacturing industries. the U.S. Wood Preservative Chemicals & Coatings Active Ingredients Market is expected to account for 17.3% of the sales, surpassing US$ 37.9 Mn NEWARK, Del: The global wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market stands at US$ 218.5 Mn as of now and is expected to reach US$ 320.3 Mn by the year 2032 at a CAGR of 3.9% between 2022 and 2032. Wood preservation chemicals, as the name suggests, render protection against fungi and insets that attack the wooden surface. There are several kinds of active ingredients used in wood preservative chemicals and coatings like inorganic and organic ingredients. Wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients do improvise on woods life span by keeping it away from the environmental factors like UV rays, mechanical abrasion, and household chemical attacks. Indoor as well as outdoor applications are inclined towards wood-based products owing to the aesthetics revolving around them. As such, the requirements of wood-based products are expected to increase in residential buildings, educational institutions, hospitals, and offices. Get Access to Sample Now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-15642 Furniture vertical is expanding at a rapid pace all across the US, which is expected to catalyze the wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market in the forecast period. The US Census Bureau has stated that more than 87K establishments record ~US$ 120 Mn every single year and furniture industry has turned out to be worth US$ 30 Bn. As of the year 2019, furniture and furnishing store sales market was worth ~US$ 9 Bn. Infrastructure expansion projects are witnessing a rising demand for treated wood due to inevitability of protection of furniture against insects and fungi. This is another factor driving the wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market. Also, water-borne coatings are being increasingly used in Canada and the US. Plus, rising awareness regarding advantages of the environmentally-friendly products like wood is expected to take the entire wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market by storm in the near future. At the same time, the fact that developed economies like France, Germany, and the US are subject to altering environmental rules as well as regulations with regards to wood preservative chemicals and coatings active ingredients cant be ignored. Along these lines, Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR), CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging), REACH, and VOCs are restraining the market. Customization Report before Buying, Visit@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-15642 It has also been observed that wood preservative chemicals and coatings active ingredients release toxic odor, which is hazardous for animals as well as humans. These active ingredients also do not render any protection against tough weather conditions. This is another factor hindering the market. Future Market Insights has, with the help of its team of analysts and consultants, entailed these findings with insights in its latest market study entitled Wood Preservative Chemicals & Coatings Active Ingredients Market. Key Takeaways from Wood Preservative Chemicals & Coatings Active Ingredients Market The US holds 17.3% of the overall market share and the status quo is expected to remain the same even in the forecast period due to consistent demand for water-borne coatings. The Asia-Pacific is expected to move at a significant pace in the wood preservative chemicals & coatings market due to rapid expansion in Japan, India, and China. Demand for eco-friendly products of decor to keep the hopes high for wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market, says an analyst from Future Market Insights. Browse Full Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/wood-preservative-chemicals-and-coatings-active-ingredients-market Competitive Landscape LANXESS AG, in January 2022, decided upon expanding the active ingredient preservatives preventol CMKs capacity by 50%. It looks forward to invest $1 Mn Euros in its site based out of Krefeld-Uerdingen (Germany). LONZA GROUP AG, in March 2019, tabled 2 novel products as a part of its Proxel range Proxel LSR and Proxel HBC. What does the Report Cover? Future Market Insights offers an exclusive perspective and various real-time insights on the wood preservative chemicals & coatings active ingredients market in its latest study, presenting historical demand assessment of 2016 2021 and projections for 2022 2032. The research study is based on active ingredient type (inorganic and organic (azoles (propiconazole, tebuconazole, cyproconazole, and likewise), and others), and by use class (UC - indoor, UC 3 outdoor, UC 4 outdoor with ground contact, and UC 5 - marine). Table of Content 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Global Market Outlook 1.2. Demand Side Trends 1.3. Supply Side Trends 1.4. Analysis and Recommendations 2. Market Overview 2.1. Market Coverage / Taxonomy 2.2. Market Definition / Scope / Limitations 3. Key Market Trends 3.1. Key Trends Impacting the Market 4. Key Success Factors 4.1. Product Adoption / Usage Analysis > "FMITODAY" To Get Flat 20% Discount:..!">Use Promo Code ->> "FMITODAY" To Get Flat 20% Discount:..! Explore Our Trending Reports of FMI'S Chemicals & Materials Market Insights Landscape Asia Pacific Waterproofing Chemicals Market Size - The market of waterproofing in the Asia Pacific region is projected to reach a valuation of US$ 11,568.5 Mn in 2032. India Construction Chemicals Market Share - Growing awareness and governmental initiatives towards recovery of various sectors of economy, Future market insights expects that the construction chemicals market in India will expand at CAGR of 13.6% through 2031. Wood Preservative Coatings Market Trends - Demand for wood preservatives coatings is 653,844 tonnes in 2021. It is set to grow at 4.9% CAGR by volume through 2027. Semi Chemical Wood Pulp Market Analysis - Out of the total pulp produced using chemical method, over 5% constitutes of semi chemical methods. Moreover, the global semi chemical wood pulp market is expected to exhibit a moderate single digit growth in the forecast period. Wood Plastic Composites Market Growth - The global wood plastic composites market is set to flourish at a promising CAGR of 11.3% between 2022 and 2032. The market is anticipated to reach USD 16.06 Billion by 2032, while it holds a market value of USD 6.38 Billion in 2022. 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. Contact Us: Future Market Insights, Inc. 1602-6 Jumeirah Bay X2 Tower, Plot No: JLT-PH2-X2A, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates For Sales Enquiries: sales@futuremarketinsights.com SINGAPORE, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the 3rd of October, Xctuality proudly announced the launch of Xctualyfe, Singapore's first home-grown Metaverse platform. Users can connect from around the world, interact and have fun together in uniquely designed and well-thought-out virtual environments. Watch the Official Xctualyfe video trailer https://youtu.be/72YJE3VkDAI For the past two and a half years of Xctualyfe's development, the platforms virtual experiences have shown to present their capabilities and artistic style. Early 2022, Xctuality showcased local Kampong Glam with snapshots featured on Channel NewsAsia sporting the Xctualyfe design and can be navigated using virtual reality (VR). Thereafter, a series of projects was launched and with the most significant being an entire virtual world developed dedicated to Singapore's National Day Parade (NDP). During the NDP event, users had the opportunity to play bespoke games associated with actual NDP events like the Black Knights and the Red Lions. Users socialized in a virtual theme park decorated with digitally recreated iconic local landmarks like the Toa Payoh Dragon Playground. The key event highlight was the premiere of the phygital (physical and digital) encounter. Digital coins earned were redeemable for merchandise dispensed from physical vending machines in Singapore. A Metaverse interaction thats the first in Southeast Asia, and well-understood by SMEs. Watch the Vending Machines in Xctualyfe phygital Experience video https://youtu.be/KhPIuaUscmY Users can now register and visit a variety of virtual worlds in Xctualyfe, including the NDP experience, to socialize and earn rewards. Among a series of games launched, the Obstacle Course enables users to compete among one another in a floating ninja warrior-style course to race towards the finishing mark within a time limit. For gamers, who seek a milder-paced enjoyable engagement, there are parkour activities under the neon night city of Mainstreet with a treasure hunt focus of mystery boxes that contain digital tokens - soon to be available to purchase in-world items. Additionally, Xctualyfe users can host up to twenty friends in personal virtual homes called Lyfespace to communicate and mingle. Even after a user logs out, their avatars will continue to appear in the virtual home. An innovative feature within Xctualyfe developed in-house by Xctuality. With further gamified features and activities awaiting to be developed and activated, Xctualyfe looks ahead to innovate and create an exciting Metaverse platform that bridges communities around the globe. Other notable creations in the pipeline include non-fungible token (NFTs) where ownership of virtual items is pegged individually with immediate utility and tangible value; businesses can create digital environments to engage consumers with several other engagements that will be communicated in due time. With Xctualyfes progressive developments, the final objective will result in having both consumers and businesses being powerfully integrated into the next evolution of social networking experience. You can join the Xctualyfe Metaverse here https://xctualyfe.com For any additional information and partnership, please contact us here: https://xctualyfe.com/contact marketing@xctualyfe.com Videos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c0d0ba42-4b42-4d89-825c-da4017756db4 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/33ae653e-ef3f-433a-9f25-35bf1036f912 Photo accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1581a7f7-ae0f-4722-ac2c-b72e087e4834 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5abafc7c-2c7d-4edf-88ab-8067bf5e0308 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ef5570b7-473f-4ed2-8ed4-434f0b47af36 Dublin, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Data-Centric Security Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Component, Deployment Mode, Organization Size and Verticals" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Data-Centric Security market size is projected to reach US$ 16,518.1 million by 2028 from US$ 4,510.6 million in 2022. The data-centric security market share is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.2% from 2022 to 2028. Most big data experts agree that the generated data will grow exponentially during the forecast period. Based on research from Seagate's Data Age 2025 report, the world's data sphere will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. This growth is attributed to the enormous increase in people working, studying, and amusing themselves from home. Hence, securing these data will be the companies' primary objective, as data-driven business models will be widely adopted in the future. Hence, such a transition is anticipated to create lucrative opportunities for the data-centric security vendors over the forecast period (2022-2028). Furthermore, the IT infrastructure is anticipated to become more complicated and heterogeneous due to the introduction of new platforms, bring your own device (BYOD) regulations, choose your own device (CYOD) trends, business apps, and other technologies. The BYOD and CYOD trends are becoming more and more common in business settings due to the quick improvements in mobile computing. Through mobile devices, employees may access organizational data from anywhere, at any time, thanks to these developments, which also boost employee productivity to protect organizational data from potential hazards and maintain its confidentiality and integrity. Based on the Bitglass survey, 69% of respondents said their organizations allow employees to use personal devices for work while allowing contractors, partners, customers, and suppliers. However, several companies fail to maintain security due to the unsuccessful incorporation of new devices into the existing security infrastructure. Based on the report by Software Guild, 72% of organizations have no plans to secure BYOD devices. Hence, such factors will likely create mammoth opportunities for the data-centric- security market players. The Europe data-centric security market is spread across Germany, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, and the rest of Europe. The adoption of data-centric security solutions is expected to increase as internet penetration increases in major European countries. In addition, expanding wireless networks serving mobile devices has increased data vulnerability. Implementing EU legislation and actions rooted in the National Framework and the National Cybersecurity Plan is expected to facilitate the data-centric security market growth in the region. Since the publication in 2018 of the EU- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), new regulations have emerged in different countries to protect the personal data that organizations collect from employees, partners, customers, and other sources. The GDPR sets a high standard for consent, which will hugely impact the marketing industry. As part of its digital strategy, the Italian government plans to invest significantly in the protection of digital identities to increase the security level of digital transactions and, subsequently, to strengthen consumers' trust by protecting citizens' identities. In addition, telecommunication companies are increasing their investment in data-centric security to deal with rapidly increasing data threats. For instance, Telefonica came up with Telefonica Tech Ventures in 2020 to seek strategic start-ups and develop its investment capabilities to invest in markets for Telefonica in Germany and other European countries. Each of these factors is expected to impact the growth of the European data-centric security market in the coming years. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Key Takeaways 3. Research Methodology 4. Data-Centric Security - Market Landscape 4.1 Market Overview 4.2 PEST Analysis 4.2.1 North America 4.2.2 Europe 4.2.3 APAC 4.2.4 MEA 4.2.5 SAM 4.3 Ecosystem Analysis 4.4 Expert Opinions 5. Data-Centric Security Market - Market Dynamics 5.1 Key Market Drivers 5.1.1 Growing Emphasis on Data-Centric Security Model by Enterprises 5.1.2 Standardization of Data Protection Rules 5.2 Key Market Restraints 5.2.1 Concerns Regarding the Adoption of Cloud-Based Security Solutions 5.3 Key Market Opportunities 5.3.1 Increase in Data and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policies 5.4 Future Trends 5.4.1 Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Multi-Cloud Strategy 5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints 6. Data-Centric Security Market - Global Market Analysis 6.1 Overview 6.2 Global Data-Centric Security Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 6.3 Market Positioning - Top Five Players 7. Data-Centric Security Market Analysis - By Component 7.1 Overview 7.2 Data-Centric Security Market Breakdown, by Component, 2021 & 2028 7.3 Solution 7.3.1 Overview 7.3.2 Solution Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 7.4 Service 7.4.1 Overview 7.4.2 Service Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 8. Data-Centric Security Market Analysis - By Deployment Mode 8.1 Overview 8.2 Data-Centric Security Market Breakdown, by Deployment Mode, 2021 & 2028 8.3 On Premise 8.3.1 Overview 8.3.2 On Premise Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 8.4 Cloud based 8.4.1 Overview 8.4.2 Cloud based Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 9. Data-Centric Security Market Analysis - By Organization Size 9.1 Overview 9.2 Data-Centric Security Market Breakdown, by Organization Size, 2021 & 2028 9.3 Small and Medium Enterprises 9.3.1 Overview 9.3.2 Small and Medium Enterprises Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 9.4 Large Enterprises 9.4.1 Overview 9.4.2 Large Enterprises Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 10. Data-Centric Security Market Analysis - By Verticals 10.1 Overview 10.2 Data-Centric Security Market Breakdown, By Verticals, 2021 & 2028 10.3 IT and Telecommunication 10.3.1 Overview 10.3.2 IT and Telecommunication Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 10.4 BFSI 10.4.1 Overview 10.4.2 BFSI Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 10.5 Healthcare and Pharmaceutical 10.5.1 Overview 10.5.2 Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 10.6 Government and Defense 10.6.1 Overview 10.6.2 Government and Defense Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 10.7 Others 10.7.1 Overview 10.7.2 Others Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 11. Data-Centric Security Market - Geographic Analysis 12. Data-Centric Security Market- COVID-19 Impact Analysis 12.1 Overview 12.2 North America 12.3 Europe 12.4 Asia-Pacific 12.5 Middle East and Africa 12.6 South America 13. Industry Landscape 13.1 Overview 13.2 Market Initiative 13.3 New Product Development 13.1 Merger and Acquisition 14. Company Profiles 14.1 Imperva 14.1.1 Key Facts 14.1.2 Business Description 14.1.3 Products and Services 14.1.4 Financial Overview 14.1.5 SWOT Analysis 14.1.6 Key Developments 14.2 IBM Corporation 14.2.1 Key Facts 14.2.2 Business Description 14.2.3 Products and Services 14.2.4 Financial Overview 14.2.5 SWOT Analysis 14.2.6 Key Developments 14.3 FORCEPOINT 14.3.1 Key Facts 14.3.2 Business Description 14.3.3 Products and Services 14.3.4 Financial Overview 14.3.5 SWOT Analysis 14.3.6 Key Developments 14.4 Broadcom Inc. 14.4.1 Key Facts 14.4.2 Business Description 14.4.3 Products and Services 14.4.4 Financial Overview 14.4.5 SWOT Analysis 14.4.6 Key Developments 14.5 Informatica Corporation 14.5.1 Key Facts 14.5.2 Business Description 14.5.3 Products and Services 14.5.4 Financial Overview 14.5.5 SWOT Analysis 14.5.6 Key Developments 14.6 Micro Focus 14.6.1 Key Facts 14.6.2 Business Description 14.6.3 Products and Services 14.6.4 Financial Overview 14.6.5 SWOT Analysis 14.6.6 Key Developments 14.7 NetApp, Inc. 14.7.1 Key Facts 14.7.2 Business Description 14.7.3 Products and Services 14.7.4 Financial Overview 14.7.5 SWOT Analysis 14.7.6 Key Developments 14.8 OrangeCyberdefense 14.8.1 Key Facts 14.8.2 Business Description 14.8.3 Products and Services 14.8.4 Financial Overview 14.8.5 SWOT Analysis 14.8.6 Key Developments 14.9 Talend 14.9.1 Key Facts 14.9.2 Business Description 14.9.3 Products and Services 14.9.4 Financial Overview 14.9.5 SWOT Analysis 14.9.6 Key Developments 14.10 Varonis 14.10.1 Key Facts 14.10.2 Business Description 14.10.3 Products and Services 14.10.4 Financial Overview 14.10.5 SWOT Analysis 14.10.6 Key Developments 15. Appendix For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/och0rj Attachment Dublin, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Sustainable Personal Care Market By Nature, By Type, By Sales Channel: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The sustainable personal care market was valued at $ 50,791.8 million in 2021, and is estimated to reach $ 129,693.9 million by 2031, registering a CAGR of 9.5% from 2022 to 2031. Innovation is considered the key business strategy to drive economic growth, but it also plays a major role in tackling social and environmental issues, such as chemical abuse, environmental pollution, and natural resources shortages. Companies, nowadays, are facing growth limits because of various environmental issues. Challenges coming from the sustainable development of society and business imply increasing need for more intelligent innovations. Sustainability-related innovation or sustainable innovation was put forward to address this new wave of business innovation strategy to help understand how new technologies and social practices enable companies to become more sustainable. Sustainability is an emerging trend in food and beverage, personal care, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, animal feed, and many other industries. Today, consumers are more concerned about the environment like never before, owing to the easing pollution, limited natural resource, and global warming. Thus, natural ingredients and reusable and biodegradable packaging are the key factors that consumers look at before buying any products. Besides, governments, lawmakers, and organizations are promoting sustainability, which leaves a huge impact on the growth of the global sustainable ingredients market. Sustainable personal care products attach more health concerns than traditional ones. In general, personal care companies usually focus on the benefits and special functions their products can provide for customers, with details on the product ingredients. As a result, customers pay attention to the composition of the product. The personal care industry aims to serve consumers quickly, safely, and efficiently with the most sustainable solutions. Cosmetics manufacturers' strive to maximize their positive impact and minimize any negative 'footprint' on the environment, economy, and society in general. Business strategies are being re-assessed through a sustainability lens to analyze their contribution to this overall impact. Besides, increase in demand for natural and organic ingredients and products from consumers across the globe due to rise in awareness about health and wellness, well-informed consumers, and increase in knowledge about ingredients used in different products are the key growth drivers of the sustainable personal care market. Skin care products are used to enhance and maintain the appearance of human skin. There are a variety of products available in the market, such as cleansers, toners, body lotions, oils and serums, and creams with alpha-hydroxy acids, beta-hydroxy acids, and retinol as some of their key ingredients. These products aid in regular replenishment of the dying skin cells and counter the signs of aging, such as wrinkles, fine lines, and age spots while maintaining overall skin health. The global skin care products market is highly diversified as it varies from region to region catering to a wide range of skin types present across the globe. The improving quality of life, the positive effects of sustainable personal care on self-esteem and social interaction, and the gradual consumer shift toward premium and luxury cosmetic brands are a few factors that are likely to propel the market growth during the forecast period. Face creams and moisturizers are gaining increasing popularity globally, as people are becoming more conscious of their physical appearance along with being more concerned about skin disorders and malignancies of the skin. Furthermore, the demand for vegan or blends of plant-based ingredients in these products has increased with a rise in number of consumers opting for cruelty-free products due to their increased consciousness regarding animal welfare and the environment. Increase in the number of people are becoming a part of corporate culture and giving importance to personal grooming, which fuels the growth of the sustainable personal care market. The market is anticipated to be driven by increase in spending. Consumers generally practice shaving for the removal of their facial hair. Growing awareness about self-grooming, coupled with the rise in disposable income, is expected to positively impact the market growth. Increasing awareness through advertisements, social media blogs, YouTube channels, and influencers is likely to augment the demand further. The high cost of sustainable personal care products is a major restraint to the sustainable personal care market, since it leads to increase in demand for regular personal care products. North America and Europe are the leading regions in the global sustainable personal care market owing to the high spending power of consumers on health and wellness products. Whereas, Asia-Pacific and LAMEA are expected to offer huge growth opportunities during the forecast period. Furthermore, regular personal care products with similar characteristics and benefits are commonly available, which in turn restrains the growth of the global market. Key players in the global market have adopted a variety of development methods to grow their market share, boost their profitability, and stay competitive. The key players profiled in this report include, Coty Inc., Colgate Palmolive Company, Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Kao Corporation, L'Oreal S.A., L'Occitane Group, The Procter & Gamble Company, Unilever Plc, and Weleda. Key Benefits For Stakeholders The study provides an in-depth analysis of the global sustainable personal care market along with the current and future trends to elucidate the imminent investment pockets in the market. Current and future trends are outlined in the report to determine the overall market attractiveness and single out profitable trends to gain a stronger foothold in the market. The report provides information regarding drivers, restraints, and opportunities with impact analysis. A quantitative analysis of the current market and estimation for the same from 2021 to 2031 is provided to showcase the financial competency of the market. Porter's five forces model of the industry illustrates competitiveness of the market by analyzing various parameters such as threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of the buyers, and bargaining power of the suppliers operating in the market. Value chain analysis in the report provides a clear understanding of the roles of stakeholders involved in the value chain. Competitive intelligence highlights business practices followed by leading market players across various regions. Key Topics Covered: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 3: MARKET OVERVIEW 3.1. Market definition and scope 3.2. Key findings 3.2.1. Top investment pockets 3.3. Porter's five forces analysis 3.4. Top player positioning 3.5. Market dynamics 3.5.1. Drivers 3.5.2. Restraints 3.5.3. Opportunities 3.6. COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the market 3.7. Value Chain Analysis CHAPTER 4: SUSTAINABLE PERSONAL CARE MARKET, BY NATURE 4.1 Overview 4.1.1 Market size and forecast 4.2 Organic 4.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.2.3 Market analysis by country 4.3 Natural and Green 4.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.3.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 5: SUSTAINABLE PERSONAL CARE MARKET, BY TYPE 5.1 Overview 5.1.1 Market size and forecast 5.2 Skin Care 5.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.2.3 Market analysis by country 5.3 Hair Care 5.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.3.3 Market analysis by country 5.4 Oral Care 5.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.4.3 Market analysis by country 5.5 Hygiene Products 5.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.5.3 Market analysis by country 5.6 Others 5.6.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.6.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.6.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 6: SUSTAINABLE PERSONAL CARE MARKET, BY SALES CHANNEL 6.1 Overview 6.1.1 Market size and forecast 6.2 Hypermarkets and Supermarkets 6.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.2.3 Market analysis by country 6.3 Specialty Stores 6.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.3.3 Market analysis by country 6.4 Online Retail 6.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.4.3 Market analysis by country 6.5 Others 6.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.5.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 7: SUSTAINABLE PERSONAL CARE MARKET, BY REGION CHAPTER 8: COMPANY LANDSCAPE 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Top winning strategies 8.3. Product Mapping of Top 10 Player 8.4. Competitive Dashboard 8.5. Competitive Heatmap 8.6. Key developments CHAPTER 9: COMPANY PROFILES 9.1 Coty Inc. 9.1.1 Company overview 9.1.2 Company snapshot 9.1.3 Operating business segments 9.1.4 Product portfolio 9.1.5 Business performance 9.1.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.2 Colgate Palmolive Company 9.2.1 Company overview 9.2.2 Company snapshot 9.2.3 Operating business segments 9.2.4 Product portfolio 9.2.5 Business performance 9.2.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.3 Estee Lauder Companies Inc. 9.3.1 Company overview 9.3.2 Company snapshot 9.3.3 Operating business segments 9.3.4 Product portfolio 9.3.5 Business performance 9.3.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.4 Johnson & Johnson 9.4.1 Company overview 9.4.2 Company snapshot 9.4.3 Operating business segments 9.4.4 Product portfolio 9.4.5 Business performance 9.4.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.5 Kao Corporation 9.5.1 Company overview 9.5.2 Company snapshot 9.5.3 Operating business segments 9.5.4 Product portfolio 9.5.5 Business performance 9.5.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.6 L'Oreal S.A. 9.6.1 Company overview 9.6.2 Company snapshot 9.6.3 Operating business segments 9.6.4 Product portfolio 9.6.5 Business performance 9.6.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.7 L'Occitane Group 9.7.1 Company overview 9.7.2 Company snapshot 9.7.3 Operating business segments 9.7.4 Product portfolio 9.7.5 Business performance 9.7.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.8 The Procter & Gamble Company 9.8.1 Company overview 9.8.2 Company snapshot 9.8.3 Operating business segments 9.8.4 Product portfolio 9.8.5 Business performance 9.8.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.9 Unilever plc 9.9.1 Company overview 9.9.2 Company snapshot 9.9.3 Operating business segments 9.9.4 Product portfolio 9.9.5 Business performance 9.9.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.10 weleda uk 9.10.1 Company overview 9.10.2 Company snapshot 9.10.3 Operating business segments 9.10.4 Product portfolio 9.10.5 Business performance 9.10.6 Key strategic moves and developments For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/klltoo Attachment New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "mRNA Therapeutics Market Research Report by Type, Application, End Use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342655/?utm_source=GNW 83 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the mRNA Therapeutics to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Prophylactic Vaccines, Therapeutic Drugs, and Therapeutic Vaccines. Based on Application, the market was studied across Infectious Diseases, Oncology, Rare Genetic Diseases, and Respiratory Diseases. Based on End Use, the market was studied across Hospitals & Clinics and Research Organizations. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for mRNA Therapeutics market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the mRNA Therapeutics Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market, including Abogen Biosciences, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc., Argos Therapeutics Inc., AstraZeneca plc, BioNTech SE, CRISPR Therapeutics AG, CureVac N.V., Deep Genomics, Eli Lilly and Company, GSK plc., Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Laronde Inc., Moderna, Inc., Nutcracker Therapeutics Inc., Pfizer Inc., Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., Sarepta Therapeutics, Sirnaomics Inc., and Translate Bio, Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global mRNA Therapeutics Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342655/?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. __________________________ Dublin, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Cosmetic Surgery Market By Gender, By Age Group, By Procedure, By End User: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global cosmetic surgery market was valued at $67,289.1 million in 2021, and is projected to reach $201,025.5 million by 2031, registering a CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2031. Cosmetic surgery is a type of plastic surgery that aims to improve a person's appearance. It is the unique discipline of medicine focused on enhancing appearance through surgical and medical techniques. Cosmetic surgery can be performed on any part of the face or body. It is a voluntary choice made by a patient to have cosmetic surgery. It includes body contouring, breast enhancement, facial contouring, facial rejuvenation, skin rejuvenation, eyelid surgery, liposuction, rhinoplasty, and facelift. The non-surgical procedure includes botulinum toxin, soft tissue fillers, laser skin resurfacing, microdermabrasion, intense pulsed light, chemical peel, and laser skin resurfacing. The cosmetic surgery market is driven by increase in number of cosmetic procedures such as body contouring, breast enhancement, facial contouring, increase in demand for aesthetic treatment, rise in awareness regarding skin health, and surge in expenditure on human healthcare services. Moreover, increase in number of key players to launch various cosmetic surgery products boosts growth of the market. Increase in number of licensed medical spas. Rise in self-awareness among young population regarding aesthetic appearance is anticipated to propel growth of the market. According to a report by the American society of plastic surgeons (ASPS), in 2020, it was reported that around 16 million cosmetic procedures are conducted, globally. As per the same source, it was also reported that consumers spent approximately $20 billion on cosmetic surgery procedures globally for total consumers. Breast augmentation surgery remains leading aesthetic surgical procedure in the U.S. According to the aesthetic society, over 250,000 primary breast augmentation procedures were performed in the U.S. in 2020. According to the Galderma, one of the aesthetic product manufacturing companies, increase in number of new products for cosmetic surgery also boosts the market. For instance, in January 2021, Candela Syneron, a healthcare equipment manufacturing company, announced the launch of the frax pro system. It is a smarter version of frax dual-depth skin resurfacing device. However, side effects associated with cosmetic procedures and high cost of surgical cosmetic procedures are anticipated to hinder the market growth during the forecast period. Side effects such as complication related to anesthesia, infection, edema, abnormal scaring, numbness, or nerve damage at the surgical site hinder growth of the market. Development of products with advanced technologies for cosmetic procedures boost demand for cosmetic surgery and provide growth opportunities for the cosmetic surgery market. For instance, in February 2022, Galderma, a pharmaceutical company, announced the launch of alastin skincare reform and repair complex with trihex technology. It is designed to assist in recovery from surgical body procedure. The global cosmetic surgery market is segmented on the basis of procedure, gender, age group, provider and region. The procedure segment is further bifurcated into breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, liposuction, rhinoplasty and others. On the basis of geneder market is segmented into female and male. On the basis of age group market is segmented into 13 to 29, 30 to 54 and 55 and others. On the basis of provider market is segmented into ambulatory surgical facilities, hospitals & clinics, office & cosmetic surgical center. Region wise, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. Some of the major companies that operate in the global cosmetic surgery market include AbbVie Inc., Bausch Health Companies Inc., Candela Syneron, Cynosure Technologies, Galderma SA, Johnson and Johnson, Merz Pharma GmbH & Co. KGaA, Sientra Inc, Sinclair Pharma, and Teoxane Laboratories Key Benefits For Stakeholders This report provides a quantitative analysis of the market segments, current trends, estimations, and dynamics of the cosmetic surgery market analysis from 2021 to 2031 to identify the prevailingcosmetic surgery market opportunity. The market research is offered along with information related to key drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Porter's five forces analysis highlights the potency of buyers and suppliers to enable stakeholders make profit-oriented business decisions and strengthen their supplier-buyer network. In-depth analysis of the cosmetic surgery market segmentation assists to determine the prevailing market opportunities. Major countries in each region are mapped according to their revenue contribution to the global market. Market player positioning facilitates benchmarking and provides a clear understanding of the present position of the market players. The report includes the analysis of the regional as well as global cosmetic surgery market trends, key players, market segments, application areas, and market growth strategies. Key Topics Covered: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 3: MARKET OVERVIEW 3.1. Market definition and scope 3.2. Key findings 3.2.1. Top investment pockets 3.3. Porter's five forces analysis 3.4. Top player positioning 3.5. Market dynamics 3.5.1. Drivers 3.5.2. Restraints 3.5.3. Opportunities 3.6. COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the market CHAPTER 4: COSMETIC SURGERY MARKET, BY PROCEDURE 4.1 Overview 4.1.1 Market size and forecast 4.2 Breast augmentation 4.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.2.3 Market analysis by country 4.3 Eyelid surgery 4.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.3.3 Market analysis by country 4.4 Liposuction 4.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.4.3 Market analysis by country 4.5 Rhinoplasty 4.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.5.3 Market analysis by country 4.6 Others 4.6.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.6.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.6.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 5: COSMETIC SURGERY MARKET, BY GENDER 5.1 Overview 5.1.1 Market size and forecast 5.2 Female 5.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.2.3 Market analysis by country 5.3 Male 5.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.3.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 6: COSMETIC SURGERY MARKET, BY AGE GROUP 6.1 Overview 6.1.1 Market size and forecast 6.2 13 to 29 6.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.2.3 Market analysis by country 6.3 30 to 54 6.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.3.3 Market analysis by country 6.4 55 and above 6.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.4.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 7: COSMETIC SURGERY MARKET, BY END USER 7.1 Overview 7.1.1 Market size and forecast 7.2 Ambulatory surgical facility 7.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 7.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 7.2.3 Market analysis by country 7.3 Hospital and clinic 7.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 7.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 7.3.3 Market analysis by country 7.4 Office and cosmetic surgical center 7.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 7.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 7.4.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 8: COSMETIC SURGERY MARKET, BY REGION CHAPTER 9: COMPANY LANDSCAPE 9.1. Introduction 9.2. Top winning strategies 9.3. Product Mapping of Top 10 Player 9.4. Competitive Dashboard 9.5. Competitive Heatmap 9.6. Key developments CHAPTER 10: COMPANY PROFILES 10.1 Abbvie Inc 10.1.1 Company overview 10.1.2 Company snapshot 10.1.3 Operating business segments 10.1.4 Product portfolio 10.1.5 Business performance 10.1.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.2 Bausch Health Companies Inc. 10.2.1 Company overview 10.2.2 Company snapshot 10.2.3 Operating business segments 10.2.4 Product portfolio 10.2.5 Business performance 10.2.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.3 Candela Syneron 10.3.1 Company overview 10.3.2 Company snapshot 10.3.3 Operating business segments 10.3.4 Product portfolio 10.3.5 Business performance 10.3.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.4 cynosure inc 10.4.1 Company overview 10.4.2 Company snapshot 10.4.3 Operating business segments 10.4.4 Product portfolio 10.4.5 Business performance 10.4.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.5 Galderma SA 10.5.1 Company overview 10.5.2 Company snapshot 10.5.3 Operating business segments 10.5.4 Product portfolio 10.5.5 Business performance 10.5.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.6 Merz Pharma GmbH and Co. KGaA 10.6.1 Company overview 10.6.2 Company snapshot 10.6.3 Operating business segments 10.6.4 Product portfolio 10.6.5 Business performance 10.6.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.7 Sientra Inc 10.7.1 Company overview 10.7.2 Company snapshot 10.7.3 Operating business segments 10.7.4 Product portfolio 10.7.5 Business performance 10.7.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.8 Sinclair Pharmaceuticals Limited 10.8.1 Company overview 10.8.2 Company snapshot 10.8.3 Operating business segments 10.8.4 Product portfolio 10.8.5 Business performance 10.8.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.9 Teoxane Laboratories 10.9.1 Company overview 10.9.2 Company snapshot 10.9.3 Operating business segments 10.9.4 Product portfolio 10.9.5 Business performance 10.9.6 Key strategic moves and developments 10.10 Johnson and Johnson 10.10.1 Company overview 10.10.2 Company snapshot 10.10.3 Operating business segments 10.10.4 Product portfolio 10.10.5 Business performance 10.10.6 Key strategic moves and developments For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/y9aw1l Attachment New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Zero Turn Mowers Market Research Report by Cutting Width, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342628/?utm_source=GNW 93 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Zero Turn Mowers to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Cutting Width, the market was studied across 50 to 60 inches, Less than 50 inches, and More than 60 inches. Based on Application, the market was studied across Commercial and Residential. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Zero Turn Mowers market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Zero Turn Mowers Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market, including Alamo Group Inc, Ariens Co, Bad Boy Mowers, Bobcat Company, Briggs and Stratton LLC,, DIXIE CHOPPER,, EGO, Exmark,, Havener Enterprises Inc, Hustler Turf Equipment Inc.,, Kut Kwick Corp., LASTEC LLC, Scag Power Equipment, Shivvers Manufacturing Inc.,, Spartan Mowers,, The Grasshopper Co., The Toro Company, Venture Products Inc, WALKER MANUFACTURING, and Worldlawn Power Equipment. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Zero Turn Mowers Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342628/?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. __________________________ SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Campaign to Reelect Sheriff Villanueva announces a recent poll by Tulchin Research which shows the Los Angeles Sheriff's race is now tied, with over with over 20% of Angelenos still undecided. An additional poll regarding Measure A confirmed similar opinions among likely voters. Both polls show a growing frustration with political corruption as well as increased concern for public safety. "We are gaining momentum and stronger than ever," said Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who recently announced endorsements from several local media outlets such as The Signal, The Compton Herald and Charging BigHorn. Media interested in speaking with spokespeople from the Campaign to Reelect Sheriff Villanueva or representatives from Tulchin Research should contact the campaign. For campaign information, information on future events, or to donate to the campaign, visit www.alexvillanueva.org and follow @Alex4Sheriff on Instagram. About Sheriff Villanueva When elected Sheriff four years ago, Sheriff Villanueva became the first candidate to unseat an incumbent LA Sheriff in over a century. Running on a campaign platform of "reform, rebuild and restore", Sheriff Villanueva began to immediately address challenges within the department that plagued it for so many years under previous administrations. The Sheriff wasted no time in tackling these problems, such as instituting policies that ban deputy "gangs", equipping all deputies with body-worn cameras, banning transfers to ICE and raising standards which helped diversify the leadership within the department (such as raising standards for internal promotions, new hires and senior command staff). Along with creating the most diverse senior command, Sheriff Villanueva's actions resulted in a dramatic reduction in use of force lawsuits against the department. Contact Information: Javier Gonzalez Campaign Manager javier@alexvillanueva.org Related Files LA County Sheriff - 538-C 8-22 - Public MEMO - Final.pdf Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Chicago, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Turbine Oil Market is projected to reach USD 1.91 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 3.9% from USD 1.40 billion in 2022, as per the recent study by MarketsandMarkets. Turbine oils are being promoted by a number of manufacturers for use in a wide variety of equipment, including air compressors, vacuum pumps, and bearings. These elements are anticipated to have a substantial impact on the growth of the turbine oil market globally. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=21842248 Browse in-depth TOC on Turbine oil Market 254 - Market Data Tables 65 - Figures List of Key Players in Turbine oil Market: Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands) ExxonMobil Corporation (US) BP plc (UK) TotalEnergies SE (US) Chevron Corporation (US) Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd. (Japan) Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and Challenges in Turbine oil Market: Driver: Rising energy consumption across the globe Restraints: Growing demand for hybrid and e-vehicles Opportunities: Rising initiatives towards renewable energy sources Challenges: Stringent environmental norms and continuous reforms by governments Key Findings of the Study: Based on base oil, bio-based is projected to grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period. Industrial is projected to be the fastest growing end-use industry in turbine oil market, in terms of value. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for turbine oil during the forecast period, in terms of value and volume. Get Free Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=21842248 Based on base oil, bio-based is projected to grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period The major factor that drives the bio-based segment market is their bio-degradability in certain conditions. They do not pose much threat to the environment if directly disposed of or accidentally spilled due to their less toxic nature and natural origin. The US is one of the promising nations to encourage the use of bio-based segment. Industrial is projected to be the fastest growing end-use industry in turbine oil market, in terms of value The use of turbine oil helps increase the life of machinery and equipment. The demand for turbine oil from the industrial sector is projected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. This is owed to rapid industrialization and economic development. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=21842248 Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for turbine oil during the forecast period, in terms of value and volume. Asia Pacific dominated the global turbine oil market, in terms of value, in 2021. Investment in new large gas-fired combined cycle power generation plants and large coal-fired plants, along with rising electricity demand, is expected to drive the Asia Pacific gas turbines market's growth. Also, the growth is expected due to rapid regional industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth, leading to the installation of new power plants in various emerging economies. Browse Adjacent Markets: Specialty Chemicals Market Research Reports & Consulting Related Reports: New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wooden Decking Market Research Report by Type, Application, Type of Construction, End-user, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342589/?utm_source=GNW 44 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wooden Decking to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Cedar, Pressure-Treated Wood, and Redwood. Based on Application, the market was studied across Floors, Railing, and Walls. Based on Type of Construction, the market was studied across New decks on existing constructions, New decks on new constructions, and Repairs & remodeling. Based on End-user, the market was studied across Non-residential and Residential. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wooden Decking market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wooden Decking Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wooden Decking Market, including A.K.Lumbers Ltd., Advantage Lumber, LLC, Al Ameemi International Trading LLC, Builders FirstSource, Inc., Cornerstone Specialty Wood Products, LLC, Cox Industries, Inc., Danzer Holding AG, Fiberon, Holz Selections Limited, JAF International Services GmbH, James Latham Group, Kebony AS, Koppers Inc., Metsa Group, Setra Group AB, UFP Industries, Inc., UPM-Kymmene Corporation, Vetedy Group, West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., and Weyerhaeuser Company. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wooden Decking Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wooden Decking Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wooden Decking Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wooden Decking Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wooden Decking Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wooden Decking Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wooden Decking Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342589/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wood Pressed Oil Market Research Report by Products, Distribution Channels, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342586/?utm_source=GNW 70 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wood Pressed Oil to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Products, the market was studied across Coconut Oil, Groundnut Oil, Mustard Oil, and Safflower Oil. Based on Distribution Channels, the market was studied across Offline and Online. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wood Pressed Oil market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wood Pressed Oil Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market, including AL-Freshco Foods, Amala Earth Private Limited, Amma Chekku Wood Pressed Oil, Anveshan Farm Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Freshmill Oils, Gir Organic, Gramiyaa by TrichiKaveri Foods Pvt Ltd., Kachi Ghani, Mannus Farm Fresh Ltd., Minaliya Goods, Nayesha Mills, Paripoorna Ltd., PUVI by Universal Seeds Corporation, Saptham Food and Beverages Private Limited, Satvyk Limited, Vandana Oil Mills, Vedik Oils, and Wilankar Enterprises. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wood Pressed Oil Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342586/?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. __________________________ NEODESHA, Kan., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premium luxury manufacturer Cobalt Boats continued its series of popular World Class Dealer Network annual celebrations with a special four-day event from September 18-21 at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, FL. Held annually to recognize dealer accomplishments, this years edition marked Cobalts 55 years in business, with founder Pack St. Clair and his son, former Cobalt President Paxson St. Clair, driving the companys newest boats, the R35 Sterndrive and R35 Outboard, in a reveal to the 361 dealers, vendors, VIPs, Cobalt associates and guests in attendance. Dealer Highlights Along with the regional sales conferences, highlights of the dealer schedule included the general business meeting with state-of-the-industry and state-of-Cobalt recaps, sales updates, and a product development report. Other events included a cocktail reception, a Cobalt Fun Run/Walk and, of course, boat demos with Cobalt staff. The meeting also gave the company the chance to recognize the dealerships that earned Cobalt awards for sales promotion and customer service excellence in 2022. Breakout sessions covered business development discussions with an emphasis on such topics as Deliver the Experience Your Customer Deserves, Keep Your Talented Employees on Board and Handle the Heat, the latter focusing on improved customer service. Complementing these activities were boat-testing opportunities and a vendor mall where many of Cobalts top partners displayed products. The meetings grand finale was a cocktail reception and awards banquet honoring the Cobalt dealers with the top rankings for sales and customer satisfaction, listed below. Top Sales- Singleton Marine Group, Buford, GA Rambo Marine, Hazel Green, AL Seattle Boat Co, Inc., Seattle, WA Parks Marina, Okoboji, IA Village Marina, Eldon, MO Boats By George, Inc., Lake George, NY West Coast Boat Center, Rocklin, CA Hagadone Marine Group, Coeur DAlene, ID Premier Marine, LLC, Middleton, MA The Boat House of Cape Coral, Cape Coral, FL Gordys Lakefront Marine, Fontana, WI Boat Town, Inc, Austin, TX Slalom Shop, Lewisville, TX Action Water Sports, Hudsonville, MI River Valley Power & Sport, Inc., Rochester, MN Futrell Marine, Nashville, AR The Harbor, Branson, MO Marine Connection, West Palm Beach, FL Arrowhead Boat Sales, Afton, OK Worlds Largest Dealer- Singleton Marine Group, Buford, GA Worlds Largest Single-Market Dealer- Seattle Boat Co, Inc., Seattle, WA Customer Satisfaction Awards- Western Region: Hagadone Marine Group, Coeur DAlene, ID Central Region: The Harbor, Branson, MO Eastern Region: OHara Marine, Inc., Brookfield, CT International: Cobalt Australia, Queensland, Australia Worldwide: The Harbor, Branson, MO The awards evening culminated in a Margaritaville-themed, Jimmy Buffet-style 55 Years of Paradise celebration to commemorate the 55-year anniversary. Product Preview The 2023 new-product preview featured the all-new R35 Sterndrive and R35 Outboard models, addressing the markets strong demand for larger day runabouts. Providing even more comfort and room, the R35 Sterndrive represents Cobalts most popular drive-train configuration in a contemporary design, with superb performance and such advances as the industrys first Harman Kardon premium audio system. The similarly sized R35 Outboard offers the same spacious interior and impressive amenities while adding beach landing capability and up to three engines. Both models are yacht-certified and feature a 35 4 LOA, and both elevate the day-boat experience with Cobalts trademark combination of high performance, sleek lines, and luxury appointments. About Cobalt: Headquartered in Neodesha, KS, Cobalt Boats LLC, is a publicly owned, industry-leading manufacturer of luxury family day boats. Combining uncompromising product quality with customer-inspired innovation and value, Cobalt, a division of Malibu Boats, has earned an international reputation for unmatched customer satisfaction through its World Class Dealer Network. Learn more at www.cobaltboats.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1cf5eab1-a1ba-453b-9c84-e0f91d9a47b3 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6568ecdc-8227-44cd-b25d-e2410749c4de THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO AUSTRALIA, CANADA, ITALY, DENMARK, JAPAN, THE UNITED STATES, OR TO ANY NATIONAL OF SUCH JURISDICTIONS NBPE Announces Director Declaration 1 October 2022 In accordance with the requirements of Listing Rule 9.6.14, NB Private Equity Partners Limited (the Company) advises that it has been notified of the following change to directorships in other publicly quoted companies held by a member of the Board. John Falla, a director and audit committee chairman, has informed the Company that he has been appointed as an independent non-executive director of Baker Steel Resources Trust Limited with immediate effect. For further information, please contact: NBPE Investor Relations +1 214 647 9593 Kaso Legg Communications +44 (0)20 3995 6673 Charles Gorman nbpe@kl-communications.com Luke Dampier Charlotte Francis About NB Private Equity Partners Limited NBPE invests in direct private equity investments alongside market leading private equity firms globally. NB Alternatives Advisers LLC (the Investment Manager), an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Neuberger Berman Group LLC, is responsible for sourcing, execution and management of NBPE. The vast majority of direct investments are made with no management fee / no carried interest payable to third-party GPs, offering greater fee efficiency than other listed private equity companies. NBPE seeks capital appreciation through growth in net asset value over time while paying a bi-annual dividend. LEI number: 213800UJH93NH8IOFQ77 About Neuberger Berman Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategiesincluding equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity, real estate and hedge fundson behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors globally. With offices in 25 countries, Neuberger Bermans diverse team has over 2,500 professionals. For eight consecutive years, the company has been named first or second in Pensions & Investments Best Places to Work in Money Management survey (among those with 1,000 employees or more). In 2020, the PRI named Neuberger Berman a Leader, a designation awarded to fewer than 1% of investment firms for excellence in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. The PRI also awarded Neuberger Berman an A+ in every eligible category for our approach to ESG integration across asset classes. The firm manages $418 billion in client assets as of June 30, 2022. For more information, please visit our website at www.nb.com . New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wireless Telecommunications Market Research Report by Type, Product, Technology, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342566/?utm_source=GNW 22 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wireless Telecommunications to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Cellular/Mobile Telephone Services and Wireless Internet Services. Based on Product, the market was studied across Data and Voice. Based on Technology, the market was studied across 3G, 4G, and 5G. Based on Application, the market was studied across Commercial and Household. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wireless Telecommunications market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wireless Telecommunications Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market, including America Movil, AT&T Inc, China Mobile Limited, China Telecommunications Corporation, Deutsche Telekom AG, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Orange S.A., Singapore Telecommunications Limited, SK Telecom Co., Ltd., SoftBank Group Corp., Telefonica, S.A, Telstra Corporation Limited, Verizon Communications Inc, Vodafone Group Plc, and Wireless Telecom Group, Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wireless Telecommunications Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342566/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Window Covering Market Research Report by Type, Material, Window Treatment, Operation, Business Type, Location, Distribution Channel, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342538/?utm_source=GNW 40 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Window Covering to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Blinds & Shades, Curtains & Drapes, and Shutters. Based on Material, the market was studied across Fabric, Metal, Plastic, and Wood. Based on Window Treatment, the market was studied across Hard Window Treatment, Layered Window Treatment, and Soft Window Treatment. Based on Operation, the market was studied across Manual Covers and Smart Covers. Based on Business Type, the market was studied across Aftermarket and Original Equipment Manufacturer. Based on Location, the market was studied across Exterior and Interior. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Offline and Online. Based on Application, the market was studied across Commercial and Residential. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Window Covering market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Window Covering Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Window Covering Market, including Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Coulisse B.V., Decora Blind Systems Ltd., Griesser AG, Hunter Douglas N.V., Innovative Openings, Inc., Inter IKEA Holding B.V., Kvadrat A/S, Lafayette Venetian Blind, Inc., Louvolite, Nichibei Co., Ltd., Nien Made Enterprise Co., Ltd., Norman Window Fashions, Persan Home Studio, Polar Shades Sun Control, ROMA KG, Skandia Window Fashions, Inc., Springs Window Fashions, LLC, The Shade Store, LLC, and TOSO Company, Limited. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Window Covering Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Window Covering Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Window Covering Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Window Covering Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Window Covering Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Window Covering Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Window Covering Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342538/?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. __________________________ SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman urges FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) investors who suffered significant losses to submit your losses now. Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/FDX Contact An Attorney Now: FDX@hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895 FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) Investigation: As recently as late June 2022, FedEx gave investors FY 2023 guidance and said, with respect to its largest operating segment (FedEx Express), both FedEx Express air network efficiency and year-over-year volume comparisons across all of its transportation segments would strengthen through the fiscal year. FedExs representations came under question on Sept. 15, 2022, when it announced disastrous preliminary results for Q1 2023. The company also said its business conditions would weaken in Q2 2023 and then it withdrew its 2-month-old FY 2023 guidance. This news sent the price of FedEx shares crashing 21% lower on Sept. 16, 2022, wiping out over $11 billion of shareholder value. In response, one analyst wrote, Much of the shortfall was attributed to global volume weakness in the final weeks of the quarter, but we have a hard time believing that's the full picture Were focused on investors losses and finding the true cause of FedExs reversal from its June 2022 guidance, said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation. If you invested in FedEx and have significant losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firms investigation, click here to discuss your legal rights with Hagens Berman. Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding FedEx should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email FDX@hbsslaw.com. About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw. KAUNAS, Lithuania, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voltas IT, the company developing the intelligent automotive solution OBDeleven, released a BMW application - an easy-to-use customization and diagnostic solution for daily drivers of BMW Group vehicles. Now, drivers will be able to refine their driving experience with a few clicks on a smartphone, even without any programming knowledge. Officially licensed by the BMW Group, the application, together with a small Bluetooth device OBDeleven, will be compatible with the following models: BMW (F, G, and I-series) MINI (F-series) Select Rolls-Royce models The latest release from OBDeleven will be available in the European Union (EU), Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) and its territories. The BMW Group brands join the Volkswagen Group (VAG) list of brands, including Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Cupra, Skoda, Bentley, and Lamborghini, which are officially supported by OBDeleven. Unlocking hidden features with your smartphone One of the primary benefits that users will receive with the newly launched application is the ability to unlock various hidden features on their cars, in addition to dealership-level diagnostics. Called One-Click Apps, the ready-made coding functions allow the adjustment of vehicle comfort features to the individual needs of the driver. For example, drivers will be able to enable Bluetooth music streaming, change the look and theme of the dashboard once the ignition is turned on, or change the look and behavior of their lights. All of these functions and much more will not require any programming knowledge and can be enabled on their smartphones with a single click. "We have developed and tested the most-desired One-Click Apps for users following extensive market research, which also allowed us to identify the most-popular BMW, MINI, and Rolls-Royce models, enabling us to deliver a customization solution that is not offered by anyone else on the intelligent automotive device market," explained Edvardas Astrauskas, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Voltas IT, the company behind OBDeleven. With the application's diagnostic features, drivers will be able to scan, read, and clear trouble codes with their smartphones, as the Bluetooth-powered device replaces the need to carry around heavy equipment to properly diagnose a warning light on the dashboard. Quality-focused development According to the executive, the application focuses on quality and usability. "We have thoroughly tested diagnostic and customization features by OBDeleven, ensuring that the end-product following the closed, open, and internal beta testing will be market-leading," added the CEO. While the work on developing both BMW and VAG-focused applications will continue, "we are extremely proud of what we have achieved at OBDeleven since our launch to the public more than eight years ago. Our goal is to cement our positions as the leading intelligent diagnostic device globally," concluded Astrauskas. OBDeleven is an intelligent automotive software and hardware solution that has been in development since 2014. With official licenses from the Volkswagen Group and BMW Group, the device and application provide users with full functionality to diagnose and customize their vehicles and have connected over 2 million vehicles since the device has been available to the public in 2015. Contact Information: Gerda Micikeviciene Communication Team Lead gerda@voltasit.com +37060354345 Related Images Image 1: OBDeleven for BMW BMW driver using OBDeleven mobile application for car customization This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Insight Partners published latest research study on " UV Disinfection Equipment Market Size, Share, Revenue and Forecast to 2028 COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Component (UV Lamps, Reactor Chambers, Quartz Sleeves, Control Units, and Others); Power Rating (Low, Medium, and High); Application (Water Disinfection, Air Disinfection, and Surface Disinfection); and End User (Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Municipal)," the global UV disinfection equipment market size is expected to grow from USD 4.5 billion in 2021 to USD 9.5 billion by 2028; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12% from 2022 to 2028. Download Sample PDF Brochure of UV Disinfection Equipment Market Size - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis with Strategic Insights at: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00015724 Global UV Disinfection Equipment Market Values, Growth Rate, Segmentations, Regional & Country Scope: Market Size Value in USD 4.5 Billion in 2021 Market Size Value by USD 9.5 Billion by 2028 Growth rate CAGR of 12% from 2022 to 2028. Forecast Period 2022-2028 Base Year 2021 No. of Pages 150 Historical data available Yes Segments covered Component, Power Rating, Application, and End User Regional scope North America; Europe; Asia Pacific; Latin America; MEA Country scope US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends The rising demand for clean and safe drinking water owing to the growing population and scarcity of freshwater resources is increasing the need for water disinfection-based technologies. UV disinfection equipment manufacturers are making significant investments in developing the latest technologies for applications such as municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment to increase the efficiency of the equipment. Additionally, governments of different countries are introducing regulations for supporting water and wastewater treatment to help resolve water scarcity issues in emerging countries such as India and China. All these factors are driving the UV disinfection equipment market. Inquiry Before Purchase: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPRE00015724 Global UV Disinfection Equipment Market: Competitive Landscape: The report includes the profiles of key UV disinfection equipment companies, along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. In addition, the report focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, components and services offered, financial information for the last three years, and key developments in the past five years. American Ultraviolet; Evoqua Water Technologies LLC; Xylem Inc; and Kuraray Co., Ltd are a few of the key players profiled during the study of the UV disinfection equipment market. Several other major companies were studied and analyzed during this research study to get a holistic view of the tail rotor market and its ecosystem. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global UV Disinfection Equipment Market: Due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies such as Signify are working on expanding capacity and increasing UV-C portfolio. The UV-C lighting offered by the company is an effective disinfectant that inactivates SARS-CoV-2 within few seconds. Similarly, Godrej Security Solutions is another market player investing in technologies that facilitate in disinfecting surroundings. The company developed a UV Case of 3 different sizes15 liters, 30 liters, and 54 liters in July 2020. The developed UV case facilitates the user to place their mobile phones, newspapers, and other objects within the case to sterilize them. Speak to Research Expert: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/speak-to-analyst/TIPRE00015724 According to Mehernosh Pithawalla, the VP of Godrej Security Solutions, the UV case is certified by the Central Scientific Instrument Organisation (CSIR). Moreover, in March 2021, Kuala Lumpur International Airport started disinfecting arriving baggage using their latest automatic UV disinfection system as a precautionary measure to curb the spread of COVID-19. The system consists of UV bulbs fixed in an enclosed tunnel inside a baggage handling system that disinfects bags automatically as they pass through the conveyor system. The system is currently installed at two out of four tunnels at KUL airport, whereas the remaining tunnels are projected to install the system in April 2021. The disinfecting system is a new initiative of KULs - Airports 4.0- ensuring the best airport safety. Therefore, the production of UV disinfection equipment increased, which, in turn, boosted the UV disinfection equipment market growth. The application areas of UV disinfection equipment are gaining popularity across different commercial areas with an aim to reduce bacteria and germs responsible for spereading disease and making area unhygienic. For instance, the hospitality industry is looking for different types of UV-C emitting equipment for various touchpoints across the property, including portable UV disinfecting equipment for rooms, communal spaces, in-house gymnasiums, and rooms and UVGI air disinfection for HVAC systems and a baggage conveyor at the reception. The hospitality industry is also adopting a new water purification technology; therefore, the industry is switching from old commercial water purification systems to smarter commercial RO+UV water purification systems. The cost-effective RO+UV water purification system is appropriate for retail chains, restaurants and food outlets, malls & multiplexes, construction sites, and educational institutions. Quickly Purchase Premium Copy of UV Disinfection Equipment Market Growth Report (2022-2028) at: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00015724 Browse Adjoining Reports: UV Disinfection Market Forecast to 2028 - Covid-19 Impact and Global Analysis - by Application (Wastewater, Drinking Water, Process Water, Others); End-user (Residential, Commercial, Industrial) and Geography Portable UV Sanitizing Boxes Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Application (Residential, Commercial); Distribution Channel (Hypermarkets and Supermarkets, Online Retail, Others) and Geography Water Disinfection Equipment Market Forecast to 2028 - Covid-19 Impact and Global Analysis - by Product Type (Chemical Generation, UV, Ozone Generation, and Other); Application (Municipal, Commercial And Residential, Manufacturing, and Other) Disinfection Robots Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Type (UV-Disinfection Robot, Hydrogen Peroxide Vaporization Robot, Others); End User (Hospitals, Research Institutes, Others) and Geography UV Lamp Market to 2028 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type (UV LED Lamp, UV Mercury Lamp); Application (Medical Phototherapy, Analytical Instruments, Tanning, Water Treatment, Air Purification, UV Curing, Biomedical Applications, Others) and Geography UV LED Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Technology (UV-A LED, UV-B LED, UV-C LED), Applications (Curing, Medical, Electronic Devices, Water Treatment, Security and Others) UV Curing System Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Application (Bonding & Assembling, Disinfection, Coating & Finishing, and Printing) and End User (Automotive, Healthcare, Electronics, and Others) UV Sterilizer Pouch Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Application (Residential, Commercial) and Geography About Us: The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We specialize in industries such as Semiconductor and Electronics, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive and Transportation, Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Manufacturing and Construction, Medical Device, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Chemicals and Materials. Contact Us: If you have any queries about this report or if you would like further information, please contact us: New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market Research Report by Product, End User, Distribution, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342481/?utm_source=GNW 90 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wearable Pulse Oximeter to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across Fingertip Oximeter, Ring-type Oximeter, and Wrist Oximeter. Based on End User, the market was studied across Ambulatory Surgical Center, Clinic, Home Care Setting, Hospital, and Personnel. Based on Distribution, the market was studied across Offline and Online. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wearable Pulse Oximeter market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market, including Apple Inc., Contec Medical Systems Co., Ltd., Fitbit, Inc., Garmin Ltd., GOQii, Isansys Ltd., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Masimo Corporation, MedIoTek Health Systems Pvt. Ltd., Medtronic PLC, Microchip Technology Incorporated, MTEC Global Co., Ltd., Nonin Medical, Inc., Nordic Semiconductor ASA, Omron Corporation, Oxitone Medical Ltd., Shenzhen Viatom Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., True Wearables, Inc., Vyaire Medical, Inc., and ZOLL Medical Corporation. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wearable Pulse Oximeter Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342481/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Water Leakage Detector Systems Market Research Report by Product, End User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342434/?utm_source=GNW 23% to reach USD 3,582.08 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Water Leakage Detector Systems to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across Fixed Leak Detector and Portable Leak Detector. Based on End User, the market was studied across Commercial and Residential. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Water Leakage Detector Systems market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Water Leakage Detector Systems Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market, including 3M Company, ABB Limited, Aqualeak Detection Ltd., Atmos International Limited, Badger Meter Inc., Gutermann AG, Hermann Sewerin GmbH, Mueller Water Products Inc., NEC Corporation, Ovarro Limited, Perma-Pipe International Holdings, Inc., QinetiQ Group plc, SebaKMT, SPX Corporation, and TTK S.A.S.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Water Leakage Detector Systems Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342434/?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. __________________________ Toronto, Ontario, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Members of the media are invited to a Toronto Mayoral Debate hosted by the Toronto Region Board of Trade one week ahead of the citys municipal elections. The 90-minute program will include opening remarks from the Boards President and CEO, Jan De Silva, followed by a formal debate among five mayoral candidates. The debate will be moderated by Steve Paikin, Host of TVOs The Agenda. The event will be followed by a media availability on site. The debate will be streamed live on TVO's YouTube and Twitter channels. [JLW1] Candidates participating include: John Tory Gil Penalosa Sarah Climenhaga Stephen Punwasi Chloe Brown Media interested in attending are to RSVP to Andrew Perez, Media Relations Manager, Toronto Region Board of Trade. Date: Monday, October 17th, 2022 Time: 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Location: The Carlu 444 Yonge Street Toronto, Ontario M5B 2H4 New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Water Blocking Tapes Market Research Report by Conductive Type, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342431/?utm_source=GNW 13 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Water Blocking Tapes to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Conductive Type, the market was studied across Conductive, Non-Conductive, and Semi-Conductive. Based on Application, the market was studied across Communication cable, Optical Fiber Cable, Power Cable, and Submarine Cable. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Water Blocking Tapes market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Water Blocking Tapes Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market, including Centran Industrial Co., Ltd., Chase Corporation, Chhaperia International Company, Ekstel d.o.o., Fukuoka Cloth Industry Co., Ltd., Gepco Industries Pvt. Ltd., Gurfil Sanayi ve Elektronik Cihazlar? Pazarlama A.?, Hanyu Cable Materials Co. Ltd., Hongzhuo Photoelectric Materials Technology, Indore Composite Pvt. Ltd., International Materials Group, LLC, Lantor B.V., Scapa Group Ltd., Shenyang Tianrong Cable Materials Co., Ltd., Shinyuan Technologies Limited, Sneham International, Star Materials Co. Ltd., Suzhou Taifang Machinery Co., Ltd., Unitape UK Ltd., and Weihai Hongda Cable Material Co., Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Water Blocking Tapes Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342431/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Water & Wastewater Management Market Research Report by Type, Process, Equipment, Derivative, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342429/?utm_source=GNW 69 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Water & Wastewater Management to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Adsorption, Desalination, Disinfection, Filtration, and Testing. The Filtration is further studied across Micro-Filtration and Ultra-Filtration. Based on Process, the market was studied across Primary Treatment, Secondary Treatment, and Tertiary Treatment. Based on Equipment, the market was studied across Biological, Disinfection, Membrane Separation, and Sludge Dewatering. Based on Derivative, the market was studied across Industrial and Municipal. The Industrial is further studied across Chemicals, Food & Beverage, Oil & Gas, and Pulp & Paper. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Water & Wastewater Management market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Water & Wastewater Management Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market, including Alfa Laval Corporate AB, AQUARION AG, Aquatech International LLC, BQE Water Inc., Carmeuse Coordination Center SA, Condorchem Envitech SL, Danaher Corp., DuPont de Nemours Inc., Fluence Corp. Ltd., General Electric Co., Genesis Water Technologies Inc., IDE Technologies, John Wood Group PLC, Lenntech B.V., MIWATEK, LLC, Newterra Ltd., Saltworks Technologies Inc., Stantec Inc., Suez SA, and Veolia Environnement S.A.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Water & Wastewater Management Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342429/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Waste Heat Recovery Market Research Report by Application, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342423/?utm_source=GNW 42 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Waste Heat Recovery to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Application, the market was studied across Pre Heating and Steam & Electricity Generation. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Cement, Chemical, Metal Production, Petroleum Refinery, Power, and Pulp & Paper. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Waste Heat Recovery market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Waste Heat Recovery Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market, including ABB Ltd., Alfa Laval Corporate AB, ALSTOM SA, Cannon SpA, Clean Energy Technologies Inc., Econotherm Ltd., Forbes Marshall Pvt. Ltd., GEA Group AG, General Electric Company, John Wood Group PLC, KNM Group Berhad, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Muhibbah Engineering (M) Bhd., Ormat Technologies Inc., Promec Engineering Ltd., Questor Technology Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Siemens AG, Thermax Ltd., and Transparent Energy Systems Pvt. Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Waste Heat Recovery Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342423/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wagyu Beef Market Research Report by Nature, Product Type, Distribution Channel, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342409/?utm_source=GNW 64 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wagyu Beef to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Nature, the market was studied across Conventional and Organic. Based on Product Type, the market was studied across Australian Breed, Cross Breed, and Japanese Breed. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Online and Retail. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wagyu Beef market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wagyu Beef Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wagyu Beef Market, including Agri Beef Co., Australian Agricultural Co Ltd, Black Hawk Farms, Blackmore Wagyu, Chicago Steak Co., Dolan Foods Inc., GWB LLC, Havel Wagyu GbR, Holy Grail Steak Co., ITOHAM FOODS Inc., JAPAN PREMIUM BEEF Inc., JBS SA, K and K International Inc., Lone Mountain Wagyu LLC,, Masami Foods Inc., Morgan Ranch Inc., Starzen Co. Ltd., Sugar Mountain, WAGYU MASTER Europe GmbH, and Wagyu World.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wagyu Beef Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wagyu Beef Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wagyu Beef Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wagyu Beef Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wagyu Beef Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wagyu Beef Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wagyu Beef Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342409/?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. __________________________ WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When Beryl Hansen went out for her usual morning walk near Portage la Prairie on the morning of April 20, 1999, neither she nor her family could have predicted the tragedy that was about to strike. The quiet, funny, recently-retired 59-year-old was struck and killed by an impaired driver, leaving her husband, daughter and two sons devastated by the sudden, senseless and preventable loss. KAG Canada, the Canadian service group for The Kenan Advantage Group, Inc., and MADD Canada are honouring Beryl Hansens memory as part of an ongoing mobile safety campaign. KAG Canada is putting Beryls photo on 20 of its truck trailers, along with a message to motorists to call 911 if they see a driver they suspect is impaired. The campaign raises awareness about the impact of impaired driving while engaging the public to help police take impaired drivers off the roads before a deadly crash occurs. Thousands of motorists will see the message each day. A truck trailer with Beryls photo will be unveiled on Tuesday, October 18. Media are invited to attend the event and photo opportunity: Date & Time: Tuesday, October 18 at 11 a.m. Location: KAG Canada, 250 Oak Point Highway, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2R 1V1 Special Guests: Honourable Kelvin Goertzen, Manitoba Minister of Justice and Attorney General A/Deputy Mayor Markus Chambers, City of Winnipeg Tyler Cochrane, Sr. VP of Information, KAG Canada S/Sgt Carrie Kennedy, Unit Commander, RCMP D Division Tanya Hansen Pratt, MADD Winnipeg Vice-President Dawn Regan, Chief Operating Officer, MADD Canada This year marks the 10th anniversary of the mobile safety campaign started by KAG Canada, the largest niche bulk commodity hauler in Canada. In all, 260 of KAG Canadas truck trailers have photos of impaired driving victims, along with the call 911 message. English French MONTREAL, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Velan Inc. (TSX: VLN) (the Company), a world-leading manufacturer of industrial valves, announced today its financial results for its second quarter ended August 31, 2022. Highlights: As the volatility across various macro economic factors continues across the globe, the Company has managed to improve performance over its first quarter by prudently managing the business while facing headwinds in logistics, operations and their related impact on deliveries. Sales for the quarter amounted to $85.1 million, an improvement of $10.1 million or 13.4% compared to the first quarter of the current fiscal year, but a decrease of $16.8 million or 16.5% compared to the second quarter of the previous fiscal year. The decrease in sales for the quarter compared to the prior year is partly due to the continued weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar, stronger shipments in the prior year related to one major contract and the timing of the delivery schedule on open orders in the current quarter. During the second quarter of the current fiscal year, the company shipped a large order which was expected to reach its destination prior to the closing of the quarter. As a result of logistics delays, the final acceptance of this shipment will be completed in the third quarter. The impact of this delayed shipment on the quarter was $10.9 million. Gross profit for the quarter amounted to $23.5 million or 27.6%, an improvement of $3.4 million or 80 basis points compared to the first quarter of the current fiscal year, but a decrease compared to last years $31.4 million or 30.8%. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the quarter was primarily due to the previously explained lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease was also due to the unfavourable effect of the product mix. Finally, the gross profit was lower than last year by $0.5 million as the Company did not receive funds from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidies (CEWS) program. Net loss 1 of $3.7 million and EBITDA 2 of $1.4 million for the quarter compared to a net income 1 of $5.0 million and EBITDA 2 of $10.7 million last year. The decrease in EBITDA 2 is primarily attributable to the previously mentioned reduction in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs in the quarter. of $3.7 million and EBITDA of $1.4 million for the quarter compared to a net income of $5.0 million and EBITDA of $10.7 million last year. The decrease in EBITDA is primarily attributable to the previously mentioned reduction in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs in the quarter. Order backlog 2 remains strong at $477.6 million, a decrease of $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the year which is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar and lower upstream oil and gas net new orders (bookings) 2 for the half year. The portion of the current backlog 2 deliverable in the next twelve months increased to $347.2 million primarily due to the shipment delays encountered in the quarter. remains strong at $477.6 million, a decrease of $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the year which is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar and lower upstream oil and gas net new orders (bookings) for the half year. The portion of the current backlog deliverable in the next twelve months increased to $347.2 million primarily due to the shipment delays encountered in the quarter. Bookings 2 of $73.5 million for the quarter, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to last year. The decrease in bookings 2 compared to last year resulted mainly from the current geo-political uncertainties which created slower project awards. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The Companys book-to-bill ratio 2 for the half-year remains favorable at 1.04. of $73.5 million for the quarter, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to last year. The decrease in bookings compared to last year resulted mainly from the current geo-political uncertainties which created slower project awards. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The Companys book-to-bill ratio for the half-year remains favorable at 1.04. The Companys net cash amounted to $29.7 million at the end of the quarter, a decrease of $23.7 million since the beginning of the fiscal year. The decrease in net cash for the quarter is primarily attributable to the lower EBITDA2, combined with unfavorable non-cash working capital items. The overall available liquidity remains strong with $137.8 million of available cash-on-hand and facilities. Bruno Carbonaro, CEO and President of Velan Inc., said, As the volatility across various macro economic factors continues across the globe, we managed to improve our performance over our first quarter by prudently managing our business while facing headwinds in logistics, operations and their related impact on deliveries. We are nonetheless not pleased with our second quarter results and believe that our success in the second half of the fiscal year will rely on our plant effectiveness, with continuous improvements that will lead to sustainable performance, and a strong performance in bookings, targeting certain key projects that will allow us to maintain our strong backlog. Important to note that the decrease in backlog this fiscal year is largely related to foreign exchange conversion as our book-to-bill ratio is positive since the beginning of the fiscal year. Finally, we believe that our success will be possible thanks to our highly qualified employees who have continued to show great discipline and dedication. Financial Highlights: Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended (thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding per share amounts) August 31, 2022 August 31, 2021 August 31, 2022 August 31, 2021 Sales $85,054 $101,893 $160,059 $176,422 Gross profit 23,482 31,391 43,555 51,385 Gross profit % 27.6% 30.8% 27.2% 29.1% Net income (loss)1 (3,676) 5,015 (11,028) (58) Net income (loss)1 per share basic and diluted (0.17) 0.23 (0.51) (0.00) EBITDA2 1,365 10,657 (1,513) 9,716 EBITDA2 per share basic and diluted 0.06 0.49 (0.07) 0.45 Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 (unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in U.S. dollars and all comparisons are to the second quarter of fiscal 2022): Sales amounted to $85.1 million for the quarter, decreasing by $16.8 million or 16.5% compared to the same quarter last year. The negative effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on sales for the quarter amounted to $6.0 million compared to the second quarter of last fiscal year. The decrease in sales for the quarter is primarily attributable to the delivery of significant orders by the Companys Italian operations destined to the upstream oil and gas sector in the prior fiscal year. The decrease is also attributable to the timing of delivery dates on open orders caused by lower bookings recorded in the second half of the previous year. The Company still faced, in the current quarter, supply chain delays as well as customer related issues which had a negative effect on sales. Bookings 2 for the quarter amounted to $73.5 million, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to the second quarter of last year. The effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings 2 for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $4.5 million in the second quarter compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the quarter is primarily attributable to lower orders recorded in the Companys Italian and German operations. The decrease for the quarter is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $1.5 million of bookings 2 in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year. Finally, the decrease for the quarter was partially offset by an increase in the Companys MRO bookings 2 compared to last year. for the quarter amounted to $73.5 million, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to the second quarter of last year. The effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $4.5 million in the second quarter compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the quarter is primarily attributable to lower orders recorded in the Companys Italian and German operations. The decrease for the quarter is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $1.5 million of bookings in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year. Finally, the decrease for the quarter was partially offset by an increase in the Companys MRO bookings compared to last year. Gross profit for the quarter amounted to $23.5 million, a decrease of $7.9 million or 25.2%. The gross profit percentage for the quarter of 27.6% was a decrease of 320 basis points compared to last years second quarter. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the quarter is primarily attributable to the lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease in gross profit percentage was also due to the unfavorable effect of the product mix delivered. Additionally, The Companys gross profit for the quarter was negatively impacted by less favorable foreign exchange movements, when compared to similar movements from the previous year, which were primarily made up of unrealized foreign exchange translations related to the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar against the euro and Canadian dollar. The gross profit in the prior year was positively impacted by the recording of $0.5 million for the quarter of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current fiscal year. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. Prior years gross profit percentage without CEWS would have been 30.2% for the quarter. Administration costs for the quarter amounted to $24.7 million, an increase of $0.7 million or 2.9%. The increase in administration costs for the quarter is primarily attributable to the reassessment of the Companys long-term legal provision. The increase is also due to higher outbound freight costs caused by the current global supply chain issues which are impacting freight costs and shipping delays. The administration costs in the prior year benefited from the recording of $0.5 million for the quarter of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current quarter. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. The increase for the quarter was partially offset by lower sales commissions recorded on the delivery of large orders over the course of the quarter and a general reduction of the remaining administration costs. Net loss1 amounted to $3.7 million or $0.17 per share compared to a net income1 of $5.0 million or $0.23 per share last year. EBITDA2 for the quarter amounted to $1.4 million or $0.06 per share compared to $10.7 million or $0.49 per share last year. The unfavorable movements in EBITDA2 for the quarter is primarily attributable to the previously explained decrease in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs. A portion of the effects on the EBITDA2 caused by the weakening of the euro against the U.S. dollar were hedged by the company. The negative movement in the Companys results was primarily attributable to the previously mentioned factors, partially offset by favorable movements in finance costs and in income taxes for the quarter. First Six months Fiscal 2023 (unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in U.S. dollars and all comparisons are to the first six months of fiscal 2022): Sales for the half year totaled $160.1 million, a decrease of $16.3 or 9.3% compared to the last fiscal year. The negative effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on sales for the half year amounted to $10.5 million compared to the first half year of the last fiscal year. The decrease for the half year is also attributable to the timing of delivery dates on open orders caused by lower bookings recorded in the second half of the previous year. The Company still faced supply chain delays as well as customer related issues which had a negative effect on sales for the half year. Bookings 2 for the half year amounted to $166.9 million, a decrease of $31.0 million or 15.7% compared to the prior fiscal year. The weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings 2 for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $7.8 million on the half year compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the half year is primarily attributable to lower upstream oil and gas and marine orders recorded in the Companys Italian and North American operations. The current geo-political uncertainties have created slower project awards resulting in lower bookings 2 for the Company in the half-year. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The decrease for the half year is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $4.3 million of bookings 2 for the six-month period of the previous year. for the half year amounted to $166.9 million, a decrease of $31.0 million or 15.7% compared to the prior fiscal year. The weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $7.8 million on the half year compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the half year is primarily attributable to lower upstream oil and gas and marine orders recorded in the Companys Italian and North American operations. The current geo-political uncertainties have created slower project awards resulting in lower bookings for the Company in the half-year. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The decrease for the half year is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $4.3 million of bookings for the six-month period of the previous year. The total backlog 2 decreased by $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the fiscal year, settling at $477.6 million at the end of the quarter. The decrease in backlog 2 is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the fiscal year which represented $30.5 million for the six-month period. The decrease since the beginning of the fiscal year was partially offset by a positive book-to-bill ratio 2 of 1.04 as a result of bookings outpacing sales for the half year. decreased by $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the fiscal year, settling at $477.6 million at the end of the quarter. The decrease in backlog is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the fiscal year which represented $30.5 million for the six-month period. The decrease since the beginning of the fiscal year was partially offset by a positive book-to-bill ratio of 1.04 as a result of bookings outpacing sales for the half year. Gross profit for the half year amounted to $43.6 million, a decrease of $7.8 million or 15.2%. The gross profit percentage for the six-month period of 27.2% represented a decrease of 190 basis points compared to the same period last year. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the half year is primarily attributable to the lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease in gross profit percentage was also due to the unfavorable effect of the product mix delivered. The Companys gross profit for the six-month period was positively impacted by more favorable foreign exchange movements, when compared to similar movements from the previous year, which were primarily made up of unrealized foreign exchange translations related to the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar against the euro and Canadian dollar. The gross profit in the prior year was positively impacted by the recording of $1.1 million for the half year of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current fiscal year. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. Prior years gross profit percentage without CEWS would have been 28.5% for the half year. Administration costs for the half year amounted to $50.5 million, an increase of $2.7 million or 5.7%. The increase in administration costs for the half year is primarily attributable to the reassessment of the Companys long-term legal provision. The increase is also due to higher outbound freight costs caused by the current global supply chain issues which are impacting freight costs and shipping delays. The administration costs in the prior year benefited from the recording of $0.9 million for the half year period of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current six-month period. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. The increase for the half year was partially offset by lower sales commissions recorded on the delivery of large orders over the course of the quarter. Net loss1 for the half year amounted to $11.0 million or $0.51 per share compared to $0.1 million or $0.00 per share last year. EBITDA2 for the half year amounted to negative $1.5 million or negative $0.07 per share compared to $9.7 million or $0.45 per share last year. The unfavorable movements in EBITDA2 for the six-month period are primarily attributable to the previously explained decrease in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs. A portion of the effects on the EBITDA2 caused by the weakening of the euro against the U.S. dollar were hedged by the company. The negative movement in the Companys results was primarily attributable to the same factors as previously explained combined with an unfavorable movement in income taxes, partially offset by favorable movements in finance costs. Dividend For the current quarter, no dividend will be declared. The Company will revisit the declaration of dividends in subsequent quarters. Conference call Financial analysts, shareholders, and other interested individuals are invited to attend the second quarter conference call to be held on Friday, October 14, 2022, at 4:00 p.m. (EDT). The toll free call-in number is 1-800-908-1236, access code 22020915. Live content to support the discussion will be presented to participants at the following link for the duration of the call: https://cc.callinfo.com/r/1f133bi14afpj&eom. A recording of this conference call will be available for seven days at 1-416-626-4100 or 1-800-558-5253, access code 22020915. About Velan Founded in Montreal in 1950, Velan Inc. (www.velan.com) is one of the worlds leading manufacturers of industrial valves, with sales of US$411.2 million in its last reported fiscal year. The Company employs approximately 1,650 people and has manufacturing plants in 9 countries. Velan Inc. is a public company with its shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol VLN. Safe harbour statement This news release may include forward-looking statements, which generally contain words like should, believe, anticipate, plan, may, will, expect, intend, continue or estimate or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar expressions, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are disclosed in the Companys filings with the appropriate securities commissions. While these statements are based on managements assumptions regarding historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that it believes are reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may differ materially from those expressed herein. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by the applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Non-IFRS and supplementary financial measures In this press release, the Company has presented measures of performance or financial condition which are not defined under IFRS (non-IFRS measures) and are, therefore, unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. These measures are used by management in assessing the operating results and financial condition of the Company and are reconciled with the performance measures defined under IFRS. Company has also presented supplementary financial measures which are defined at the end of this report. Reconciliation and definition can be found on the next page. Net earnings (loss) before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended (thousands, except amount per shares) August 31, 2022 $ August 31, 2021 $ August 31, 2022 $ August 31, 2021 $ Net income (loss)1 (3,676 ) 5,015 (11,028 ) (58 ) Adjustments for: Depreciation of property, plant and equipment 2,023 2,394 4,184 4,808 Amortization of intangible assets 556 451 1,124 1,009 Finance costs net 378 526 614 1,055 Income taxes 2,084 2,271 3,593 2,902 EBITDA 1,365 10,657 (1,513 ) 9,716 EBITDA per share - Basic and diluted 0.06 0.49 (0.07 ) 0.45 The term EBITDA is defined as net income or loss attributable to Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares plus depreciation of property, plant & equipment, plus amortization of intangible assets, plus net finance costs plus income tax provision. The terms EBITDA per share is obtained by dividing EBITDA by the total amount of subordinate and multiple voting shares. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Definitions of supplementary financial measures The term Net new orders or bookings is defined as firm orders, net of cancellations, recorded by the Company during a period. Bookings are impacted by the fluctuation of foreign exchange rates for a given period. The measure provides an indication of the Companys sales operation performance for a given period as well as well as an expectation of future sales and cash flows to be achieved on these orders. The term backlog is defined as the buildup of all outstanding bookings to be delivered by the Company. The Companys backlog is impacted by the fluctuation of foreign exchange rates for a given period. The measure provides an indication of the future operational challenges of the Company as well as an expectation of future sales and cash flows to be achieved on these orders. The term book-to-bill is obtained by dividing bookings by sales. The measure provides an indication of the Companys performance and outlook for a given period. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. _____________________________ 1 Net earnings or loss refer to net income or loss attributable to Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares. 2 Non-IFRS and supplementary financial measures See explanation above. Consolidated Statements of Financial Position (in thousands of U.S. dollars) As at August 31, February 28, 2022 2022 $ $ Assets Current assets Cash and cash equivalents 32,938 54,015 Short-term investments 9,097 8,726 Accounts receivable 109,106 115,834 Income taxes recoverable 5,570 2,955 Inventories 216,666 223,198 Deposits and prepaid expenses 6,078 6,877 Derivative assets 694 553 380,149 412,158 Non-current assets Property, plant and equipment 68,403 73,906 Intangible assets and goodwill 15,605 16,693 Deferred income taxes 3,665 4,774 Other assets 699 897 88,372 96,270 Total assets 468,521 508,428 Liabilities Current liabilities Bank indebtedness 3,213 550 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 69,517 80,503 Income taxes payable 1,985 3,806 Customer deposits 47,306 41,344 Provisions 15,204 18,444 Derivative liabilities 284 560 Current portion of long-term lease liabilities 1,274 1,360 Current portion of long-term debt 7,744 8,111 146,527 154,678 Non-current liabilities Long-term lease liabilities 9,536 11,073 Long-term debt 21,980 22,927 Income taxes payable 1,079 1,244 Deferred income taxes 4,178 4,025 Customer deposits 23,547 30,139 Provisions 16,204 13,101 Other liabilities 5,056 5,731 81,580 88,240 Total liabilities 228,107 242,918 Total equity 240,414 265,510 Total liabilities and equity 468,521 508,428 Consolidated Statements of Income (loss) (in thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding number of shares and per share amounts) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Sales 85,054 101,893 160,059 176,422 Cost of sales 61,572 70,502 116,504 125,037 Gross profit 23,482 31,391 43,555 51,385 Administration costs 24,678 23,977 50,490 47,756 Other expense (income) 7 (79 ) (134 ) 42 Operating profit (loss) (1,203 ) 7,493 (6,801 ) 3,587 Finance income 78 118 168 290 Finance costs (456 ) (644 ) (782 ) (1,345 ) Finance costs net (378 ) (526 ) (614 ) (1,055 ) Income (loss) before income taxes (1,581 ) 6,967 (7,415 ) 2,532 Income tax expense 2,084 2,271 3,593 2,902 Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Net income (loss) attributable to: Subordinate Voting Shares and Multiple Voting Shares (3,676 ) 5,015 (11,028 ) (58 ) Non-controlling interest 11 (319 ) 20 (312 ) Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Net income (loss) per Subordinate and Multiple Voting Share Basic and diluted (0.17 ) 0.23 (0.51 ) (0.00 ) Dividends declared per Subordinate and Multiple - - 0.02 - Voting Share (CA$ - ) (CA$ - ) (CA$0.03) (CA$-) Total weighted average number of Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares Basic and diluted 21,585,635 21,585,635 21,585,635 21,585,635 Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss (in thousands of U.S. dollars) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Comprehensive loss Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Other comprehensive loss Foreign currency translation (7,760 ) (4,817 ) (13,591 ) (3,422 ) Comprehensive loss (11,425 ) (121 ) (24,599 ) (3,792 ) Comprehensive income (loss) attributable to: Subordinate Voting Shares and Multiple Voting Shares (11,437 ) 254 (24,619 ) (3,448 ) Non-controlling interest 12 (375 ) 20 (344 ) Comprehensive loss (11,425 ) (121 ) (24,599 ) (3,792 ) Other comprehensive loss is composed solely of items that may be reclassified subsequently to the consolidated statement of income (loss). Consolidated Statements of Changes in Equity (in thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding number of shares) Equity attributable to the Subordinate and Multiple Voting shareholders Share capital Contributed surplus Accumulated other comprehensive loss Retained earnings Total Non-controlling interest Total equity Balance - February 28, 2021 72,695 6,260 (21,007 ) 239,136 297,084 3,137 300,221 Net loss for the period - - - (58 ) (58 ) (312 ) (370 ) Other comprehensive loss - - (3,390 ) - (3,390 ) (32 ) (3,422 ) Comprehensive loss - - (3,390 ) (58 ) (3,448 ) (344 ) (3,792 ) Balance - August 31, 2021 72,695 6,260 (24,397 ) 239,078 293,636 2,793 296,429 Balance - February 28, 2022 72,695 6,260 (32,223 ) 218,092 264,824 686 265,510 Net income (loss) for the period - - - (11,028 ) (11,028 ) 20 (11,008 ) Other comprehensive loss - - (13,591 ) - (13,591 ) - (13,591 ) Comprehensive income (loss) - - (13,591 ) (11,028 ) (24,619 ) 20 (24,599 ) Dividends Multiple Voting Shares - - - (366 ) (366 ) - (366 ) Subordinate Voting Shares - - - (131 ) (131 ) - (131 ) Balance - August 31, 2022 72,695 6,260 (45,814 ) 206,567 239,708 706 240,414 Consolidated Statements of Cash Flow (in thousands of U.S. dollars) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Cash flows from Operating activities Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to cash provided (used) by operating activities 6,072 3,645 4,317 6,057 Changes in non-cash working capital items (13,931 ) (6,808 ) (7,898 ) (3,259 ) Cash provided (used) by operating activities (11,524 ) 1,533 (14,589 ) 2,428 Investing activities Short-term investments 107 (1,232 ) (1,181 ) (1,418 ) Additions to property, plant and equipment (616 ) (1,830 ) (1,536 ) (3,569 ) Additions to intangible assets (1,200 ) (522 ) (1,209 ) (810 ) Proceeds on disposal of property, plant and equipment 24 - 40 3,132 Net change in other assets 14 (15 ) 28 (27 ) Cash used by investing activities (1,671 ) (3,599 ) (3,858 ) (2,692 ) Financing activities Dividends paid to Subordinate and Multiple Voting shareholders (497 ) - (497 ) - Net change in revolving credit facility 16 (3,378 ) 16 6,248 Increase in long-term debt - 5,889 2,160 5,889 Repayment of long-term debt (2,108 ) (1,379 ) (2,677 ) (4,546 ) Repayment of long-term lease liabilities (362 ) (444 ) (732 ) (857 ) Cash provided (used) by financing activities (2,951 ) 688 (1,730 ) 6,734 Effect of exchange rate differences on cash (1,781 ) (1,728 ) (3,563 ) (1,292 ) Net change in cash during the period (17,927 ) (3,106 ) (23,740 ) 5,178 Net cash Beginning of the period 47,652 71,237 53,465 62,953 Net cash End of the period 29,725 68,131 29,725 68,131 Net cash is composed of: Cash and cash equivalents 32,938 76,448 32,938 76,448 Bank indebtedness (3,213 ) (8,317 ) (3,213 ) (8,317 ) Net cash End of the period 29,725 68,131 29,725 68,131 Supplementary information Interest paid 15 (484 ) (208 ) (834 ) Income taxes paid (2,180 ) (463 ) (3,997 ) (1,584 ) For further information please contact: Bruno Carbonaro, Chief Executive Officer and President Tel: (438) 817-7593 or Rishi Sharma, Chief Financial Officer Tel: (438) 817-4430 New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vitrectomy Devices Market Research Report by Product, Application, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342389/?utm_source=GNW 20 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vitrectomy Devices to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across Illumination devices, Photocoagulation lasers, Vitrectomy machines, and Vitrectomy packs. Based on Application, the market was studied across Diabetic Retinopathy, Macular Hole, Retinal Detachment, and Vitreous Hemorrhage. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Ambulatory Surgical Centers, Hospitals, and ??Ophthalmology clinics. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vitrectomy Devices market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vitrectomy Devices Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market, including Alcon Inc., Bausch & Lomb Incorporated, Blink Medical, BVI Medical, Inc, Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Designs for Vision, Inc., DORC Dutch Ophthalmic Research Center International BV, Haag-Streit Group, Hoya Surgical Optics, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., MedOne Surgical, Inc., NIDEK CO., LTD., OCULUS Optikgerate GmbH, Peregrine Surgical, and Topcon Corporation. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vitrectomy Devices Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342389/?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. __________________________ WESTPORT, Conn., Oct. 14, 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, is excited to be hosting its 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit at The Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View, CA on October 27. 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. World-class technology leaders and industry experts speaking at this popular in-person event will explore different ways in which technology executives have adapted their leadership styles to help galvanize the team around a shared mission, to stimulate a collaborative and inclusive culture that can spark innovation and drive successful business outcomes. As members of the C-suite, technology executives are playing a deeper role in fostering the culture of the organization and motivating team members to achieve its strategic goals, said Hunter Muller, Founder and CEO of HMG Strategy. To do this, technology leaders are placing a heightened focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion so that all voices are being heard and to bring a variety of perspectives into innovation that can fuel next-generation business models. World-class technology executives speaking at the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit will include: Snehal Antani , Co-Founder and CEO, Horizon3.ai , Co-Founder and CEO, Horizon3.ai Chris Bedi , CIO, ServiceNow , CIO, ServiceNow Eddie Borrero , VP & CISO, Blue Shield of California , VP & CISO, Blue Shield of California Bruce Burroughs , CTO, AAA Northern California Nevada & Utah , CTO, AAA Northern California Nevada & Utah Dr. Sarah Cortes , Privacy Engineering, Netflix , Privacy Engineering, Netflix Tom Cullen , CIO, Corsair , CIO, Corsair Mark Egan , Partner, StrataFusion , Partner, StrataFusion David Hahn , CISO, CDK Global , CISO, CDK Global Emily Heath , Board of Directors, Chair of Technology & Cyber Security Committee, Member of Audit Committee, Norton LifeLock , Board of Directors, Chair of Technology & Cyber Security Committee, Member of Audit Committee, Norton LifeLock Rohit Jain , VP of Technology, Applications and Analytics, iRhythm Technologies, Inc. , VP of Technology, Applications and Analytics, iRhythm Technologies, Inc. Datta Junnarkar , CIO Marine, Boeing , CIO Marine, Boeing Tony Leng , Managing Director, Practice Lead and OMP, Diversified Search , Managing Director, Practice Lead and OMP, Diversified Search Adhir Mattu , SVP & CIO, Marvell Semiconductor , SVP & CIO, Marvell Semiconductor David Morris , Founder & Chairman, HiPER Solutions , Founder & Chairman, HiPER Solutions Wendy M. Pfeiffer , CIO & SVP, Nutanix , CIO & SVP, Nutanix Sahaar Rezaie , Executive Director, Genesys Works , Executive Director, Genesys Works Sarah Richardson , SVP, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Tivity Health , SVP, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Tivity Health Matthew Rosenquist , CISO, Eclipz.io , CISO, Eclipz.io Parul Saini , Global Head of Business and Enterprise Applications, Uber , Global Head of Business and Enterprise Applications, Uber Chris Starling , Associate VP, NPower , Associate VP, NPower Cynthia Stoddard , SVP & CIO, Adobe , SVP & CIO, Adobe Ravi Thadani , Interim CIO/Head of IT Business Applications, AMD , Interim CIO/Head of IT Business Applications, AMD Kathryn Ullrich , Managing Partner, Technology and Diversity, DHR Global , Managing Partner, Technology and Diversity, DHR Global Dr. Branden Williams, Business Identity Specialist, Ping Identity Valued Partners for the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit include 8x8, Akamai, Automation Anywhere, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, LastPass, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, Qumulo, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, ServiceNow, Strata, Tonkean, Transmit Security, Upwork, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit and to register for the event, click here. HMG Strategy will also be hosting its 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine on October 25. This popular and long-standing CIO summit will bring together the top CIOs, CISOs, technology executives and industry experts from the Greater San Diego area who will share their insights on the roles that technology executives can play in helping to design fresh go-to-market business models. Top tier technology executives and industry experts speaking at the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego on October 25 will include: Mike Anderson , Chief Digital and Information Officer, Netskope , Chief Digital and Information Officer, Netskope Joshua Barons , Head of Information Security, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance , Head of Information Security, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Amy Benton , VP, IT, Travere Therapeutics , VP, IT, Travere Therapeutics Louise Brandy , SVP & CIO, Quidel , SVP & CIO, Quidel Eric Dube , President & CEO, Travere Therapeutics , President & CEO, Travere Therapeutics Todd Felker , Executive Healthcare Strategist, CrowdStrike , Executive Healthcare Strategist, CrowdStrike Todd Friedman , CISO, ResMed , CISO, ResMed Suresh Gunasekaran , President and CEO, UCSF Health , President and CEO, UCSF Health Houman Haghighi , Partner, Business & Corporate Development, Menlo Ventures , Partner, Business & Corporate Development, Menlo Ventures Dan Hedstrom , VP & CIO, Cubic Corporation , VP & CIO, Cubic Corporation Steve Hoyt , Executive Director Information Technology, Aspen Neuroscience , Executive Director Information Technology, Aspen Neuroscience Abe Lietz , SVP & CIO, KinderCare Education , SVP & CIO, KinderCare Education Christopher Longhurst , Chief Medical Officer & Chief Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health System , Chief Medical Officer & Chief Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health System Aviva McPherron , CIO, NuVasive , CIO, NuVasive Barb Munro , Co-Founder and Membership Chair, SIM San Diego; Co-Founder, Partner, The Carrera Agency , Co-Founder and Membership Chair, SIM San Diego; Co-Founder, Partner, The Carrera Agency Tony Olzak , CTO, Trace3 , CTO, Trace3 Albert Oriol , CIO, Rady Childrens Hospital , CIO, Rady Childrens Hospital Gautham Pallapa , Senior Executive Advisor, VMware, Inc. , Senior Executive Advisor, VMware, Inc. Steve Phillpott , President, SIM San Diego; CIO/CDO, Solidigm , President, SIM San Diego; CIO/CDO, Solidigm Bhavin Shah , Founder and CEO, Moveworks , Founder and CEO, Moveworks Yasmin Shah , CEO, CIO, SeenADriver , CEO, CIO, SeenADriver Jessica Sica , CISO, PETCO Animal Supplies , CISO, PETCO Animal Supplies Mark Taylor , CEO, Society for Information Management , CEO, Society for Information Management Maria Zack , Professor and Chair of Mathematical, Information and Computer Sciences Point Loma Nazarene University , Professor and Chair of Mathematical, Information and Computer Sciences Point Loma Nazarene University John Zavada, Chief Administrative Officer, PETCO Animal Supplies Valued Partners for the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego include 8x8, Akamai, Automation Anywhere, BetterCloud, Centripetal, CrowdStrike, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, Intelliswift, LastPass, LogicMonitor, Moveworks, Netskope, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, ReliaQuest, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, SentinelOne, SHE Information Technology, Sigma, SIM San Diego, Slalom, Snowflake, Tanium, Tonkean, Trace3, Upwork, Varonis, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego and to register for the event, click here. HMG Strategy will also be hosting its 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit on October 17. In this digital summit which is designed by female technology executives for female technology executives, CIOs, CISOs and other female technology leaders will explore the role of the future-forward female tech leader in inspiring performance through purposeful leadership. Top-tier female CIOs, CISOs and industry leaders speaking at the 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit on October 17 will include: Alissa Abdullah , Deputy CSO, SVP of Cybersecurity Technology, Mastercard , Deputy CSO, SVP of Cybersecurity Technology, Mastercard Robin Brown , CIO, Protein North America, Cargill , CIO, Protein North America, Cargill Christine Converse Hogan , CIO Advisor, Zoom , CIO Advisor, Zoom Kirsten Davies , CISO, Unilever , CISO, Unilever Candice Dixon , Coalition Development Director, NPower , Coalition Development Director, NPower Cindy Finkelman , Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal , Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal Chandy Ghosh , COO & General Manager, Sinch , COO & General Manager, Sinch Dax Grant , CEO, Global Transform , CEO, Global Transform Klara Jelinkova , VP and University CIO, Harvard University , VP and University CIO, Harvard University Ebele Kemery , Managing Director, Head of Global Technology Diversity Equity & Inclusion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. , Managing Director, Head of Global Technology Diversity Equity & Inclusion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Rashmi Kumar , SVP & CIO Global IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise , SVP & CIO Global IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Laura Whitt-Winyard , Former CISO, Malwarebytes , Former CISO, Malwarebytes Angela Yochem, EVP, Chief Transformation & Digital Officer, Novant Health Valued Partners for the 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit include 8x8, Akamai, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, LastPass, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, Tonkean, Upwork, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 HMG Live! Global Leadership in Technology Summit and to register for the event, click here. To learn more about HMG Strategys upcoming CIO and CISO Summits, click here. About HMG Strategy HMG Strategy is the world's leading digital platform for 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 the 7 Pillars of Trust for HMG Strategy's unique business model, click here . A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6e03d724-18f6-4ec3-900c-ba2479b7e753 New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market Research Report by Component, Type, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342367/?utm_source=GNW 21% to reach USD 3,931.22 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Virtual Routing & Forwarding System to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Component, the market was studied across Service and Solution. The Service is further studied across Managed Services and Professional Services. The Solution is further studied across Integrated Solution and Standalone Solution. Based on Type, the market was studied across BGP VRF and Multi-VRF. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Enterprises and Service Provider. The Service Provider is further studied across Cloud, Data Center, and Telecom. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Virtual Routing & Forwarding System market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market, including Arista Networks, Inc., Broadcom Inc., Brocade Communication Systems Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., D-Link Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., International Business Machines Corporation, Juniper Networks, Inc., MetricFire Corporation, Net gear, Inc., Nokia Corporation, NVIDIA Corporation, Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Plixer, LLC, Riverbed Technology, Inc, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, VMware, Inc, Wind River Systems, Inc., and ZTE Corporation. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Virtual Routing & Forwarding System Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342367/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Virtual Production Market Research Report by Component, Production Stage, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342359/?utm_source=GNW 90 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Virtual Production to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Component, the market was studied across Hardware, Services, and Software. Based on Production Stage, the market was studied across Post-Production, Pre-Production, and Production. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Commercial Ads, Movies, Online Videos, and TV Series. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Virtual Production market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Virtual Production Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Virtual Production Market, including 360Rize, Adobe Inc., Arashi Vision Inc. ( Insta 360), Autodesk Inc., Boris Fx, Inc., Brompton Technology Ltd, Epic Games, Inc., Htc Corporation (Viveport), Humaneyes Technologies, Nvidia Corporation, Pixar (The Walt Disney Company), ROE Visual, Side Effects Software Inc. (Sidefx), Technicolor SA, and Vicon Motion Systems Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Virtual Production Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Virtual Production Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Virtual Production Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Virtual Production Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Virtual Production Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Virtual Production Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Virtual Production Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342359/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vibratory Finishing Machine Market Research Report by Type, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342318/?utm_source=GNW 39 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vibratory Finishing Machine to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Centrifugal, CNC, and Linear. Based on Application, the market was studied across Aerospace, Automotive, Construction, General Manufacturing, Healthcare, Jewelry & Accessories, and Machine Tooling. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vibratory Finishing Machine market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vibratory Finishing Machine Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market, including Abc Swisstech, ActOn Finishing Pvt., Almco, AVALON, Bhalani Group, BV Products, C&M Topline Inc., CLM Vibetech, Dalal Engineering, DeLong Equipment, Finishing Systems, Inc., Giant Finishing, Hammond Roto-Finish, Kemet International Ltd, Micro Technica Technologie, Norican Group, Novagum S.r.l., OTEC Precision Finish, Inc., Rotar Precision Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd., Royson Industries, LLC., Rosler Oberflachentechnik GmbH, Separation Engineers (SEPRO), Sinto Group, and Vibra Finish Ltd. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vibratory Finishing Machine Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342318/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Veterinary Pain Management Market Research Report by Product, Animal Type, Application, End User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342299/?utm_source=GNW 71 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Veterinary Pain Management to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across Device and Drugs. The Device is further studied across Electromagnetic Device and Laser Therapy Device. The Drugs is further studied across Alpha-2 Agonists, Disease-Modifying Osteoarthritis Agents, Local Anesthetics, NSAIDS, and Opioids. Based on Animal Type, the market was studied across Companion Animal and Livestock Animal. Based on Application, the market was studied across Cancer Pain, Joint Pain, and Postoperative Pain. The Joint Pain is further studied across Musculoskeletal and Osteoarthritis. Based on End User, the market was studied across Pharmacies and Drug Store, Veterinary Clinics, and Veterinary Hospitals. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Veterinary Pain Management market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Veterinary Pain Management Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market, including Ashish Life Science Pvt. Ltd., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Century Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Ceva Sante Animale, Chanelle Pharma, Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC, Eco Animal Health Group PLC, Elanco Animal Health Incorporated, Endovac Animal Health, LLC, K-Laser USA Inc., Merck KGaA, Morvel Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Norbrook Laboratories Limited, Ourofino Group, Vetoquinol group, Vetoquinol S.A., Virbac S.A., and Zoetis Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Veterinary Pain Management Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342299/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Veterinary Endoscopes Market Research Report by Product Type, Procedure, Animal, Application, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342291/?utm_source=GNW 86 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Veterinary Endoscopes to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product Type, the market was studied across Flexible Endoscopes and Rigid Endoscopes. Based on Procedure, the market was studied across Bronchoscopy, Cystoscopy, Gastrointestinal, Laparoscopy, Others, and Otoscopy. Based on Animal, the market was studied across Companion and Large. Based on Application, the market was studied across Diagnostic and Surgical/ Interventional. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Clinics and Hospitals. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Veterinary Endoscopes market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Veterinary Endoscopes Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market, including Advanced Monitors Corporation, Ambu A/S, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Biovision Veterinary Endoscopy, LLC, Boston Scientific Corporation, Carl Zeiss AG, Cook Medical Inc, Dr. Fritz Endoscopes GmbH, ESS, Inc., Firefly Inc., Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, JOHNSON & JOHNSON, KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG, Kuore, MDS Incorporated, Medtronic Inc., Olympus Corporation, Richard Wolf GmbH, Steris PLC, Stryker Corporation, and Zhuhai Seesheen Medical Technology Co.,Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Veterinary Endoscopes Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342291/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vehicle Scanner Market Research Report by Scanner Type, Structure Type, Component, Technology, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342266/?utm_source=GNW 06 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vehicle Scanner to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Scanner Type, the market was studied across Fixed/Static and Portable/Mobile. Based on Structure Type, the market was studied across Drive-through and Under Vehicle Scanning System (UVSS). Based on Component, the market was studied across Barriers, Camera, Lighting unit, and Software. Based on Technology, the market was studied across Illuminating, Imaging, Processing, Scanning, and Sensing. Based on Application, the market was studied across Government/Critical Infrastructure Protection and Private/Commercial Facilities. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vehicle Scanner market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vehicle Scanner Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vehicle Scanner Market, including Advanced Detection Technology LLC, Amba Defence Global Ltd,, CASS PARKING, Chemring Group PLC, Dahua Technology Co. Ltd,, EL-GO TEAM,, Gatekeeper Security Inc.,, Godrej,, INFINITE TECHNOLOGIES, International Road Dynamics Inc.,, Leidos,, Omnitec Group,, PARKnSECURE Pvt. Ltd., Rapiscan Systems,, Safeway Inspection System Limited, SCANLAB GmbH,, SecureOne International BV, TESCON Sicherheitssysteme AG, Toyota Tsusho Corporation,, UVeye, Vehant Technologies, and VMI Security System. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vehicle Scanner Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vehicle Scanner Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342266/?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. __________________________ LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Oct. 20, 2022, in honor of National Conflict Resolution Day, five non-profit organizations from California, New Jersey, New York and Florida are uniting to co-host the 2022 National Cultural Competency Forum 2022(NCCF). The online event is entitled EAST MEETS WEST: CULTURAL COMPETENCY/SENSITIVITY FORUM FOR MEDIATORS, JUDGES, LAWYERS AND OTHER LEGAL PROFESSIONALS and is co-hosted by Cultural Competency in Family Practice in California (CCFP), the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators (NJAPM), the New York City Bar's Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Florida Center for Cultural Competence, and the Iranian American Lawyers Association. Co-moderating the NCCF are Abbas Hadjian (California) Lawrence R. Jones, Joni Jones, Margarita Echevarria (New Jersey), James. A Lewis V (New York) and Gail Price-Wise (Florida). The program is sponsored by Our Family Wizard and features 26 speakers from throughout the country on issues addressing disputes between persons of different backgrounds and cultures. Honorary co-sponsors of the NCCF include Rutgers University Law School, University of West Los Angeles Law School, Monmouth University (President's Council on Diversity and Inclusion), Montclair University, Kean University (Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Diversity Council on Global Education and Citizenship), Autism Speaks, the National Disability Rights Network, and the Academy of Professional Mediators, and others. The program will be nationally released through the hosting organizations on Oct. 20, free of charge as a public service. Lawrence R. Jones, Chair of the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators' Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Cultural Competency, stated: "NJAPM is extremely excited to be jointly collaborating with all of these energetic and socially conscious organizations from sister states to create this first-time national program on such a significant subject. The NCCF is open to all, and the material which each diverse panel is covering is comprehensive and valuable for both new and experienced professionals alike." Abbas Hadjian, an Iranian American journalist and attorney who chairs California's annual Cultural Competency in Family Practice (CCFP) program and chairs the Iranian American Lawyers Association in California, began professional education and focus on the link of culture to Family Law practice 15 years ago. According to Hadjian, "It is important to focus on the ABCD principles of cultural competency. Principle A: The attorneys are Architects, like Michelangelo, Frank Gehry, and Steve Jobs. Principle B: We all carry an invisible backpack, anytime, all the time, everywhere, in or out of courtrooms. Principle C: As attorneys, we must be civil. Professions have expected characteristics. An attorney is expected to speak, and those in the legal profession must be civil, and act diplomatically. Principle D: Legal professionals are diverse but united." James Lewis, former Executive Director for the NYC Bar Office of Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging, and Chief DEI Officer for the law firm of Cole Schotz, stated, "With a cross-section of judges, legal professionals, and practitioners, this program offers the unique opportunity for participants to learn from a highly successful diverse group of individuals who are deeply wedded to advancing cultural competence within the profession. This is a unique opportunity to learn best practices and receive thoughtful and inspiring insights from recognized thought leaders throughout the country." Margarita Echevarria, Vice-President of NJAPM, commented: "The need to grow in cultural competence in all legal forums, but especially ADR environments, is related to increasing belief and trust in our judicial system. This program offers a number of lenses for participants through which this goal may be understood and realized." Gail Price-Wise of the Florida Center for Cultural Competence added, "Biases are automatic thoughts and feelings that come into our heads whether or not we want them. In anti-bias training, it is essential to create a safe environment for people to do some honest reflection." Matthew Havrevold of Our Family Wizard (OFW) summed up the spirit and intent of the program. "Our Family Wizard is honored to be a sponsor of this historic National Cultural Competency Forum. OFW's mission is to help families living separately thrive, and this includes all families from every type of background and way of life. Cultural competency is a core tenet of OFW's value to champion inclusion, for both our employees and our customers, and we could not be prouder to support this program and the amazing group of expert panelists behind it." Attendees may seek continuing legal education credits in certain applicable jurisdictions for an administrative fee of $35. In New Jersey, the NCCF program has been pre-approved for five hours of ethics and diversity/inclusion credits. For registration and more information, contact: NEW JERSEY: https://njapm.org (email: njapm@c3workplace.com) CALIFORNIA: https://culturalcompetencyinfamilypractice.com; http://www.ialawyers.org (email: ialalawyers@gmail.com NEW YORK: https://www.nycbar.org/serving-the-community/diversity-and-inclusion (email: diversity@nycbar.org) FLORIDA: https://www.culturalcompetence.center (email: gpricewise@flculturalcompetence.org) OUR FAMILY WIZARD: https://www.ourfamilywizard.com (email: info@ourfamilywizard.com) Contact Information: Lawrence Jones Co-Chair, NCCF njapm@c3workplace.com Abbas Hadjian Co-Chair, NCCF ialalawyers@gmail.com Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vegan Products Market Research Report by Product Type, Source, Distribution Channel, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342258/?utm_source=GNW 97 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vegan Products to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product Type, the market was studied across Dairy Alternative and Meat Substitute. Based on Source, the market was studied across Almond, Oats, Soy, and Wheat. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Offline and Online. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vegan Products market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vegan Products Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vegan Products Market, including Beyond Meat, Inc., Blue Diamond Growers, Danone S.A., Earths Own Food Company Inc, Eden Foods, Inc., Givaudan SA, Hain Celestial Group Inc., International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., Kerry Group PLC, Living Harvest Food Inc., Mane SA, McCormick & Company, Inc., Organic Valley Ltd, Panos Brand LLC, Plamil Foods Ltd., Ripple Foods Inc., Sensient Technologies Corporation, Sun Opta Inc., Symrise AG, The Archer Daniels Midland Company, VBites Foods Limited, and Vitasoy Australia Products Pty Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vegan Products Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vegan Products Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vegan Products Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vegan Products Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vegan Products Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vegan Products Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vegan Products Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342258/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vegan Ice Cream Market Research Report by Source, Flavor, Distribution Channel, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342256/?utm_source=GNW 60 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vegan Ice Cream to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Source, the market was studied across Almond Milk, Cashew milk, Coconut Milk, and Soy Milk. Based on Flavor, the market was studied across Caramel, Chocolate, Coconut, Coffee, Fruit, and Vanilla. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Convenience Stores, Online, and Supermarket/Hypermarket. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vegan Ice Cream market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vegan Ice Cream Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market, including Arctic Zero Inc., Baskin-Robbins, Ben & Jerrys Homemade, Inc., Bliss Unlimited, LLC., BOOJA-BOOJA, Danone S.A., Eden Creamery LLC., General Mills, HAPPY COW LIMITED, McDonalds, Morrisons Ltd, NADAMOO, Nestle S.A., Over The Moo, Tofutti Brands, Inc., Trader Joes, Unilever, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream LLC, Waitrose & Partners, and Wells Enterprises. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vegan Ice Cream Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342256/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Vapor Deposition Equipment Market Research Report by Category, Process, Application, End-Use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342235/?utm_source=GNW 96 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Vapor Deposition Equipment to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Category, the market was studied across PVD Equipment, PVD Materials, and PVD Services. Based on Process, the market was studied across Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD). Based on Application, the market was studied across Cutting Tools, Data Storage, Medical Equipment, Microelectronics, and Solar Products. Based on End-Use, the market was studied across Aerospace, Automotive, Electrical & Electronics, Medical, and Metal Industry. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Vapor Deposition Equipment market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Vapor Deposition Equipment Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market, including , Buhler Alzenau GmbH, Adeka Corporation, Aixtron SE, AJA International Inc., Angstrom Engineering Inc., Applied Materials Inc., ASM International N.V, CHA Industries Inc., Denton Vacuum LLC, IHI Corporation, IHI HAUZER B.V., Intevac, Inc., Kurt J. Lesker Co., Lam Research Corporation, Mustang Vacuum Systems LLC, Plasma-Therm, LLC, Platit AG, Semicore Equipment Inc., Singulus Technologies AG, Tokyo Electron Limited, ULVAC Inc., and Veeco Instruments Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Vapor Deposition Equipment Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342235/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market Research Report by Type, Pricing Range, Sales Channel, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342205/?utm_source=GNW 64 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Used & Refurbished Smartphone to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Refurbished Phones and Used Phones. The Refurbished Phones is further studied across Company-owned and Consumer-owned. The Used Phones is further studied across Buybacks and Trade-ins. Based on Pricing Range, the market was studied across Low-priced, Mid-Priced, and Premium. Based on Sales Channel, the market was studied across Offline and Online/ e-Commerce. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Used & Refurbished Smartphone market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market, including Alibaba, Amazon, Apple Inc., AT&T Inc., Back Market, Cashify, Chinarephone.com, eBay, Huawei, Lenovo, Mobiru India Private Limited, NIPPON TELEPHONE INC.,, One97 Communications Ltd., Paytm, Qarmatek Services Private Ltd., Quikr India Pvt. Ltd, Reboxed Ltd.,, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Smart Cellular, Verizon Communications, Inc., Walmart, Xiaomi, and Yaantra. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Used & Refurbished Smartphone Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342205/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Urometer Market Research Report by Product, Application, End-user, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342203/?utm_source=GNW Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Urometer to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across 100 ml, 200 ml, 400 ml, 450 ml, and 500 ml. Based on Application, the market was studied across Emergency Trauma, Operative Procedures, and Palliative Care. Based on End-user, the market was studied across Clinics and Hospitals. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Urometer market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Urometer Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Urometer Market, including Advin Health Care, Angel Group Co., Ltd., Angiplast Pvt. Ltd., B Braun Melsungen AG, Barisal Surgical, Cardinal Health, Inc., Collateral Medical Pvt Ltd, Inc., ConvaTec Inc., Jambu Pershad & Sons, Johnson & Johnson, Lybrate, Inc, MAISHA CARE LIMITED, Medline Industries, Inc., OMEX MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY, Pfm Medical AG, Poly Medicure Ltd., Rudraksh Pharma & Surgico Pvt. Ltd., Sanctus, LLC, SPM Medicare Pvt. Ltd, and SYNBONE AG. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Urometer Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Urometer Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Urometer Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Urometer Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Urometer Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Urometer Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Urometer Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342203/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market Research Report by Type, Test, End-use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342197/?utm_source=GNW 85 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Urinary Tract Infection Testing to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Cystitis, Pyelonephritis, Urethritis, and Vaginitis. Based on Test, the market was studied across Cystoscopy Urinary Tract Infection Testing, Kidney & Bladder Ultrasound Urinary Tract Infection Testing, Laboratory Test, Non-Laboratory Test, Nuclear Scans Urinary Tract Infection Testing, Susceptibility Urinary Tract Infection Testing, Urinalysis Urinary Tract Infection Testing, Urine Culture Urinary Tract Infection Testing, and Voiding Cystourethrogram (VCUG) Urinary Tract Infection Testing. Based on End-use, the market was studied across Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), General Practitioners (GPs), Hospital Emergency Departments, Hospital Laboratories, Reference Laboratories, Urgent Care, Urogynecologists, and Urologists. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Urinary Tract Infection Testing market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market, including Accelerate Diagnostics, Inc., AGILeBiotics B.V., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., bioMerieux SA, Danaher Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Linear Diagnostics Limited, Module Innovations Pvt. Ltd., QIAGEN GmbH, Randox Laboratories Ltd., Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Spero Therapeutics, T2 Biosystems, Inc., Tecuro Holding AG, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Urinary Tract Infection Testing Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342197/?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. __________________________ PALM COAST, Fla., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Capstone Planning, an independent financial services firm, opened the doors to their brand-new location on Oct. 7, 2022. The 6,400 sq ft new office is located in Palm Coast Town Center. The multi-million dollar investment in the Palm Coast community is designed to service and aid the growing number of individuals and families that choose Palm Coast to be their retirement destination. The family-owned firm has served retirees and people approaching retirement in Palm Coast and Ormond Beach for 25 years. "We wanted to invest in our community in a bigger way," said Timothy Wiltfong, Capstone Planning president and founder. "Our new location allows us to do even more for Palm Coast residents. We're committed to making our community a great place to live, both before and after retirement." "Retirement is what we do," said Keith Wiltfong, CFP. "The people we work with are usually looking for reassurance they will have enough money to last through retirement. They're also looking for guidance, someone to help them make important decisions and put a clear financial plan in place to get them through their later years." The firm achieves this through their proprietary process The Better Retirement Journey, a comprehensive financial plan incorporating five key aspects of retirement planning: income, investments, taxes, health care and legacy. "We want our clients to live by design, not by default," said Connie Wiltfong. "We want our clients to live with confidence and certainty, not worry and fear. They should be living out the dreams and desires they've worked for over the past three or four decades." Kris Wiltfong agreed. "We're known for helping our clients make life happen," he said. "You get one shot at retirement. People wonder if they're doing their planning right. We've helped hundreds of people get to and through the retirement finish line." About Capstone Planning Capstone Planning is a full-service, family-owned independent financial services firm in Palm Coast and Ormond Beach. Since 1998, they have helped hundreds of people create a long-lasting and fulfilling retirement. Visit capstoneplanning.com to learn more about the Wiltfong family and their proprietary process The Better Retirement Journey. Contact Information: Keith Wiltfong CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER keith@capstoneplanning.com (386) 202-4498 Related Images Image 1: Capstone's Grand Opening The Capstone team cutting the grand opening ribbon This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market Research Report by Class, Type, Mode of Operation, System, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342174/?utm_source=GNW 83 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Class, the market was studied across Small UAV, Special Purpose UAV, and Tactical UAV. Based on Type, the market was studied across Fixed Wing, Rotary Wing, and Vertical Take-off and Landing. Based on Mode of Operation, the market was studied across Fully Autonomous, Optionally Piloted, and Remotely Piloted. Based on System, the market was studied across Data Links, Ground Control Stations, and Launch & Recovery Systems. Based on Application, the market was studied across Civil & Commercial, Military, and Recreational. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market, including 3D Robotics Inc., AeroVironment Inc., Airbus SE, Autel Robotics Co., BAE Systems PLC, Boeing Company, Delair SAS, Elbit Systems Ltd., General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., GoPro, Inc., IAI Group, Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Microdrones GmbH, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Saab AB, SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd., Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, Textron Inc., and Thales Group. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342174/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market Research Report by Product Type, End-User, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342155/?utm_source=GNW 23% to reach USD 1,211.23 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product Type, the market was studied across Area/Room Disinfection, Equipment & Packaging Disinfection, In-Duct Air Disinfection, Lower Room Disinfection, Recirculation Units, and Upper Room Systems. Based on End-User, the market was studied across Hospitals & Surgical Centers and Research Laboratories. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market, including Abbott Laboratories SE, AeroMed Inc., American Ultraviolet, Inc., Angioscore Inc., Aquionics Inc., Atlantic Ultraviolet Corporation, Ensavior Technologies Pvt. Ltd., General Electric Company, Halma plc, Hiten Techno Products Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Manncorp Inc., Medtronic Plc, OZ-Air (I) Pvt Ltd., ServiceMASTER Clean Limited, Solar Light Company, LLC, UltraViolet Devices, Inc., UNNASOL GmbH, Ushio America, Inc., and Volcano Corporation. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342155/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Ultrasound Transducer Market Research Report by Product Type, Application, End-Use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342153/?utm_source=GNW 79 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Ultrasound Transducer to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product Type, the market was studied across Convex, CW Doppler, Endocavitary, Linear, and Phased Array. Based on Application, the market was studied across Cardiovascular, General Imaging, Musculoskeletal, OB/GYN, and Vascular. Based on End-Use, the market was studied across Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs), Clinics, Diagnostic center, and Hospital. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Ultrasound Transducer market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Ultrasound Transducer Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market, including Alpinion Medical Systems Co. Ltd, Bracco Spa, Butterfly Network Inc, ESAOTE SPA, eZono AG, Fujifilm Corporation, General Electric Company, Hitachi, Ltd., Honeywell International Inc., KOELIS SAS, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Mindray, Rockwell Automation, Inc., Samsung, Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Ruqi Technology Co., Ltd., Siemens Healthineers AG, SIUI, SonoScape Medical Corp, and TELEMED Medical Systems. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Ultrasound Transducer Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342153/?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. __________________________ New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Ultrasonic Scalpels Market Research Report by Product, Type, Type of Surgery, Type of Procedures, Indication, Distribution Channel, End-use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342145/?utm_source=GNW 67 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Ultrasonic Scalpels to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the market was studied across Handheld Ultrasonic Scalpel Devices, Ultrasonic Scalpels Accessories, and Ultrasonic Scalpels Generators. Based on Type, the market was studied across Polyurethane Liner, Silicone Liner, and Thermoplastic Elastomer. Based on Type of Surgery, the market was studied across Gynecology, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Open Surgery, and Urology. Based on Type of Procedures, the market was studied across Ear- Nose- Throat (ENT), General Surgery, and Plastic Surgery. Based on Indication, the market was studied across Gynecologic Cancer, Lung Biopsy, Thyroidectomy, and Tonsillectomy. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Offline and Online. Based on End-use, the market was studied across Ambulatory Surgical Centers, Home Care, and Hospitals. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Ultrasonic Scalpels market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Ultrasonic Scalpels Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market, including Axon Medical Solutions Private Ltd., BOWA-electronic GmbH & Co. KG, EndoAfrique, MedWOW Ltd., Ethicon, Inc., InnoSound, Integer Holdings Corporation, Jinan Bakr Ultrasonic Technology Co., Ltd., Johnson & Johnson, Lotus Surgical Pvt. Ltd., Medtronic PLC, Olympus Corporation, Reach Surgical (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., Stryker Corporation, Soring GmbH, Tonglu Rex Medical Instrument Co., Ltd., and Wuhan BBT Medical Tech. Co. Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Ultrasonic Scalpels Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342145/?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. __________________________ NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Boxed, Inc. (NYSE: BOXD, BOXD WS) (Boxed or the Company), an online platform which sells household consumables in bulk and licenses its e-commerce software through its Spresso Software and Services Division, today announced that the Company received a written letter from the New York Stock Exchange (the NYSE) that it is not in compliance with Section 802.01C of the NYSE Listed Company Manual because the average closing price of the Companys common stock was less than $1.00 over a consecutive 30 trading-day period. The notice has no immediate impact on the listing of the Companys common stock, which will continue to be listed and traded on the NYSE, subject to the Companys compliance with other NYSE continued listing standards. The Company will notify the NYSE that it intends to cure the stock price deficiency and to return to compliance with the NYSE continued listing standard. The Company can regain compliance at any time within the six-month period following receipt of the NYSE notice if on the last trading day of any calendar month during the cure period the Company has a closing share price of at least $1.00 and an average closing share price of at least $1.00 over the 30 trading-day period ending on the last trading day of that month. The Company intends to consider available alternatives, including, but not limited to, a reverse stock split, subject to stockholder approval, no later than at the Companys next annual meeting of stockholders, if necessary to cure the stock price non-compliance. Under the NYSEs rules, if the Company determines that it will cure the stock price deficiency by taking an action that will require stockholder approval by no later than its next annual meeting of stockholders and implements the action promptly thereafter, the price condition will be deemed cured if the price promptly exceeds $1.00 per share, and the price remains above that level for at least the following 30 trading days. The Companys common stock will continue to be listed and trade on the NYSE during this period, subject to the Companys compliance with other NYSE continued listing standards. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events, such as Boxeds plan to notify the NYSE of its intent to cure the continued listing requirement deficiency and any potential plans to cure the stock price deficiency, including by action that would require a stockholder vote. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as intends, plans, and will, or the negative of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and assumptions and analyses made by us in light of our experience and our perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances. However, whether actual results and developments will conform with our expectations and predictions is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, including the Companys ability to regain compliance with the continued listing standards of the NYSE within the applicable cure period, the Companys ability to continue to comply with applicable listing standards of the NYSE, and the other factors under the heading Risk Factors in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with the SEC in the future. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The actual results or developments anticipated may not be realized or, even if substantially realized, they may not have the expected consequences to or effects on our Company or our business or operations. Such statements are not intended to be a guarantee of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are made only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. About Boxed Boxed is an e-commerce retailer and an e-commerce enabler. The Company operates an e-commerce retail service that provides bulk pantry consumables to businesses and household customers, without the requirement of a big-box store membership. This service is powered by Spresso, the Companys own Software & Service business. From solving challenges with data using machine-learning modules to re-platforming with end-to-end technology, Spressos purpose-built storefront, marketplace, analytics, fulfillment, advertising, and robotics technologies enable better business outcomes for e-commerce customers. The Company aspires to make a positive social impact with an emphasis on good Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices, and as such, has developed a powerful, unique brand, known for doing right by its customers, employees and society. For more information, please visit investors.boxed.com. Media Contacts David Taft Boxed dave@boxed.com Investor Contacts Chris Mandeville ICR BoxedIR@icrinc.com A MEMBER of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) considers himself lucky to be alive after cheeky vehicle smugglers pumped eight rounds of ammunition into his body after being cornered at an undesignated crossing point along the Limpopo River in Beitbridge last week. The soldier was part of a security team deployed to curb cross-border crime in the border town. Officer Commanding Beitbridge Police District Chief Superintendent Tichaona Nyongo confirmed the incident which happened last week, but referred further questions to the ZNA. He was on deployment and no one else was injured. As the norm, you can get detailed facts from the army through their national spokesperson, said Nyongo. Army spokesperson Alphios Makotore said he would issue a statement next week. Sources at Beitbridge District Hospital said the soldier sustained several bullet wounds and was immediately transferred to Gwanda en-route to Bulawayo. Hundreds of vehicles have over the years been driven from South Africa across the Limpopo River by syndicates who often target high-jacked or stolen vehicles from South Africa. Currently, one of the super SUVs is stuck along the riverbed after futile attempts to drive it across into Zimbabwe. The daring car smugglers use several methods including hiring donkeys from villagers in the vicinity to tow their cars across the river. The latest incident came as crime has been on the rise in the country with armed robbers exchanging gunfire with State security agents. Newsday GROUNDBREAKING engineer, Daniel Chingoma, says he was given an ultimatum to remove his homemade chopper, from the University of Zimbabwe, or it would be destroyed. It had been left at the UZ campus after being removed from the Mbudzi Roundabout. Chingoma is now keeping the helicopter at his Chitungwiza home. He said he was advised to remove it or it was going to be destroyed. Speaking to DJ Ollah 7, during his After Drive Show on Star FM, Chingoma appealed to Zimbabweans to help him standardise the machine. At the moment, I havent got any help. I am pleading with well-wishers to help me work towards standardising this machine. When it was removed from Mbudzi Roundabout by the road construction company, we did not oppose it since it was for development purposes. We spoke with university authorities to put our machine there since its a place of higher learning. It was for the purpose of them helping us to improve the helicopter. Its unfortunate that we were given a negative answer. Hanzi pisai, we dont want it here. They didnt explain, but just said we cant help you. I am surprised that a university turned down innovative ideas. They even gave us a time frame, hanzi mukasachibvisa tikunochirasa. We then hired a lorry to take it home. It weighs 1 200kgs, just like a Madza 323. Chingoma, who runs TAISEK Engineering, said he has always been innovative. I developed a telephone in the rural areas around 1978, which could be used to communicate up to 1km. Zvekubata bata zviri mandiri, he said. H Metro The California Air Resources Board (CARB) reached a settlement agreement with FCA US LLC (FCA) of Auburn Hills, Mich. for $5,601,090 for violations of CARBs air quality regulations. This is the second enforcement action against FCA in the past four years. The FCA vehicles and model years (MY) involved in the settlement include MY 2012 through 2018 Ram 1500, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango vehicles, equipped with 5.7L gasoline engines. This engine configuration was found to not comply with certification emission standards when it was tested by CARB. More than 30,000 vehicles were involved. FCA cooperated with CARB to resolve all allegations of violating Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Devices regulations. FCAs settlement includes a $2.8-million civil penalty that will go to CARBs Air Pollution Control Fund, which provides funding for projects and research to improve Californias air quality. The remaining $2.8 million will fund a Supplemental Environment Project (SEP)Cleaner Air for Kids Zero Emission School Bus Fundingthat will help bring more electric school buses to schools in the South Coast Air Basin. Previously, in January 2019, CARB entered a joint settlement with FCA for allegations that the company violated environmental and consumer protection laws by using defeat device software to circumvent emissions testing on more than 100,000 vehicles nationwide. California received more than $78 million of the $500-million settlement. HEFEI -- A thorough physical examination of the Guest-Greeting Pine, a famous landmark on Huangshan Mountain in East China's Anhui province, has kicked off for better conservation of this millenary tree. The 10-meter-tall pine, whose roots sprang from the rocks on the UNESCO world heritage site, stands at an altitude of more than 1,600 meters. Its most recognizable feature is a long branch extending much like an outstretched arm in a welcoming gesture. Since 1998, a thorough physical examination has been carried out about every six years to track the tree's growth, and this year marks the fifth such examination which will last till the end of October, said Wu Yijun, an engineer with the management committee of the Huangshan Mountain scenic area. A series of work such as growth evaluation, growing environment improvement, anticorrosion, restoration and reinforcement of the tree trunk, and pruning will also be carried out during the period. A temporary scaffold has been erected covering the entire tree. A team of multidisciplinary experts in plant physiology and other relevant fields conducts the examination and evaluation, and will accordingly formulate a comprehensive protection plan for the pine. Some other old and famous trees on Huangshan Mountain will also undergo a similar examination this year, Wu noted. Over 10 years ago Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad Android tablet, however, the sequel (dubbed ThinkPad Tablet 2) ran Windows and so did the ThinkPad 8 and 10 tablets that followed in the years after that. Leaked renders show that the tech giant may be considering leveraging the ThinkPad brand for an Android device once again. Well, the branding on the back actually says ThinkPhone, but the connection is unmistakable with the trademark red dot on the i (which represents the TrackPoint that the laptops are known for). Lenovo is already using its Legion PC brand for a series of gaming smartphones, ThinkPads occupy a different niche business-oriented laptops. Is there still a market for business phones? ThinkPads do also appeal to techies, so this could be an enthusiast phone as well. Motorola "Bronco" - a ThinkPhone or an Edge 40 Fusion (or both) The device shown in the render the XT-2309, code name Bronco could also launch under Lenovos preferred brand for Android devices, Motorola. If so, then this will probably be part of the next Edge series. Previous rumors detailed several devices, including Bronco and Canyon. Canyon is likely the Edge 40 Pro with a 165Hz FHD+ display, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, a 50MP main, 50MP ultra wide and 12MP tele cameras (plus 60MP selfie). The Bronco will slot below that with a similar screen and main camera, but with only a 13MP ultra wide and 16MP selfie cameras (no telephoto). It will use either the 8 Gen 2 chip as the Canyon or the current Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. So, if Canyon is the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, the Bronco is the Edge 40 Fusion (heres a comparison of the current Edge 30 Pro and 30 Fusion). Will the Bronco also be the ThinkPhone? The company will have to acquire a trademark for that, which will be a good indication of whether Lenovo is serious about starting a new phone series or whether it will just stick to using the Motorola brand. Source News featured Senators could vote on Heartbeat Act next week Lawmakers could tackle the controversial Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022, Bill 291, at next weeks session of the Guam Legislature. The measure would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Rick Cruz / PDN FILE PHOTO Dededo resident Mary Lou Garcia-Pereda and about three dozen other abortion opponents gather for a peaceful prayer and thanksgiving wave in front of the Guam Congress Building in Hagatna on June 28, 2022. Lawmakers could tackle the controversial Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022, Bill 291, at next weeks session of the Guam Legislature. Sen. Telena Nelson, the bills author, motioned to include it as one of several potential items on the upcoming session agenda, scheduled for Friday, during a meeting of the Legislatures committee on rules earlier this week. The Heartbeat Act will only be entertained if lawmakers agree to debate it on the floor. During four lengthy public hearings held in May, the bill was met with heated opposition and vocal support. Of particular concern for opponents was the mechanism of enforcement for the ban, which would allow third parties to sue those found aiding or abetting a woman in obtaining an abortion for a minimum of $10,000. Five senators are already signed on in support of the measure. Its unclear whether the bill would garner the eight votes needed to pass, or the 10 to overcome a likely veto from Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero. All seven Republican members of the Legislature have told the PDN they were opposed to abortion, though opinions on the Heartbeat Act and restrictions on the procedure vary. Democrat Sens. Joe San Agustin and Jose Pedo Terlaje have voiced personal opposition to abortion but havent endorsed the bill or any restrictions, while Democrat Sen. Amanda Shelton is a cosponsor of the bill. Locked in for debate at the upcoming session is Speaker Therese Terlajes Bill 248, which will allow the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to charge fees for the storage and transport of bodies, morgue processing and death certification. Among the fees proposed by the Commission on Postmortem Examinations are a $45 fee for processing remains and $38.50 charged daily for body storage after next of kin is notified. A final fee schedule would have to go through a separate public hearing. The estimated $80,000 to $100,000 the fees would bring in annually would go toward staff salaries and upgrades of equipment. Discrimination bill Also on the agenda is Vice Speaker Tina Muna Barnes Bill 297, which bars employers from discriminating against employees affected by pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. An employer that denies reasonable accommodation to an expectant mother, or forces an expectant mother to go on leave, could be fined $1,000 for the first violation and $2,000 for additional violations. Sen. Nelsons Bill 298 would allow the Port Authority of Guam to shift funds to several capital improvement projects that were financed through bond sales in 2018. GovGuam sold $71.44 million worth of bonds, which will cost the Port $128 million to repay, PDN files show. But according to the findings of Bill 298, the amount of the bond proceeds allotted to several projects, such as the construction of an annex to the Port administration building, was insufficient. The measure doesnt lift the cap on bond sales, set at $72.6 million. Related 1:45 1:45 What you need to know this week: Oct. 10 Find out where and how you can get vaccines and testing for COVID-19 and mAb treatment this week, based on information provided by Joint Infor Joaquin Cook, left, president and CEO of Bank of Guam, and Clarke Schaumann, regional country head of Guam and American Samoa and board director of ANZ Guam, shake hands as Bank of Guam buys a Guam-based loan portfolio from ANZ Guam. A man was charged Friday with terrorizing and family violence involving a gun. On Thursday, Guam Police Department officers responded to a call from the Inalahan Mayors Office, according to a magistrates complaint filed in the Superior Court of Guam. A relative of Mark Anthony Duenas said he was physically and emotionally abusive to family members, and that Duenas had threatened to kill all of them. September incident According to the report, the threats and abuse started in early September. On Sept. 9, police responded to a home where Duenas was holding a loaded shotgun and threatened to shoot three people, the complaint stated. Police confiscated the gun. Duenas is not allowed to possess a firearm because of his criminal history and court-ordered release conditions from earlier cases, according to the complaint. Duenas was charged in January with possession of a firearm without a firearm identification card as a third-degree felony and three counts of violation of a court order as a misdemeanor, according to PDN files. Relatives told police that since the Sept. 9 incident, Duenas has hit them with his fists, and on Wednesday held a gun to their heads and said he would shoot them. Charges Duenas has been charged with three counts of terrorizing as a third-degree felony, with the special allegation of possession or use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony. He is also charged with three counts of family violence as a third-degree felony. Candidates for attorney general of Guam from left, Douglas Moylan, Leevin Camacho and Peter Santos face fellow members of the Guam Bar Association and others as they present their viewpoints at the 2022 Attorney General Candidate Forum at the Hilton Guam Resort & Spa in Tumon Sept. 29, 2022. Paul Yin-Lien Chen is the director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam. Editors note: This letter has been edited for length. Read it in its entirety online at guampdn.com. Haiti - USA : More than 64,000 additional H-2B visas for fiscal year 2023 On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of Labor (DOL), announced that it will issue regulations that will make available to employers 64,716 additional temporary worker visas nonfarm H-2B visas for fiscal year 2023, in addition to the 66,000 H-2B visas that are normally available each fiscal year. By making these additional visas available at the start of the fiscal year, which began October 1, 2022, DHS is moving quickly to meet employers' needs for additional seasonal workers. "The Department of Homeland Security is moving with unprecedented speed to meet the needs of American businesses, said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. At a time of record job growth, this full year allocation at the very outset of the fiscal year will ensure that businesses can plan for their peak season labor needs. The H-2B supplemental includes an allocation of 20,000 visas to workers from Haiti and the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. This advances the Biden Administrations pledge, under the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection, to expand legal pathways as an alternative to irregular migration. This is also consistent with the joint commitment President Biden and President Lopez Obrador of Mexico made in July to work together to broaden opportunities for seasonal and circular labor and ensure that migration is a choice and not a necessity. This is one of many ways that the United States and Mexico are partnering to manage migration and fuel economic growth, as discussed in the bilateral working group on labor mobility. American businesses in industries as varied as hospitality and tourism, landscaping, seafood processing, and more depend on seasonal workers to meet demand from consumers. The supplemental visa allocation will address the need for seasonal workers in areas where too few U.S. workers are available, helping contribute to the American economy. In addition to the 20,000 visas reserved for nationals of Haiti and the Northern Central American countries, the remaining 44,716 supplemental visas will be available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years. The regulation will allocate these remaining supplemental visas for returning workers between the first half and second half of the fiscal year to account for the need for additional seasonal workers over the course of the year, with a portion of the second half allocation reserved to meet the demand for workers during the peak summer season." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - FLASH : 250% increase in suspected cholera cases in 72 hours, 3 departments affected Situation of the progression of cholera in Haiti as of October 11, 2022 according to data from the Department of Epidemiology, Laboratories and Research (DELR) of the Ministry of Public Health (latest data available ): Period from October 9 to 11: Total suspected cases (including the national penitentiary): 560 cases +150% (October 8: 224 cases) Total confirmed cases (including the national penitentiary): 47 cases +46.8% (October 8: 32 cases) Total suspected hospitalized cases: 296 cases +56.6% (8 October: 189 cases) Total institutional deaths (including the national penitentiary): 35 deaths +118% (October 8: 16 cases) Distribution of suspected cases: 1-4 years: 89 cases (+) 5-9 years: 57 cases (+) 10-14 years: 24 cases (+) 15-19 years old: 18 cases (+) 20-29 years old: 44 cases (+) 30-39 years old: 37 cases (+) 40-49 years old: 30 cases (+) 50-59 years old: 25 cases (+) 60-69 years: 10 cases (+) 70-79 years old: 8 cases (+) 80 years and over: 0 cases 53.22% men 46.78% women Samples received: 262 +51.4% (October 8: 173 samples) Tests carried out: 140 +38.6% (October 8: 101 samples) Pending tests 122 +69.4% (October 8: 72 samples) Distribution of suspected cases: Central Department: Mirebalais: 5 cases (+150% in 3 days) West Department: Cite Soleil: 188 cases (+67.8% in 3 days) Croix-des-Bouquets: 1 case (unchanged) Delmas: 10 cases (+11.1% in 3 days) Petion-ville: 5 cases (unchanged) Port-au-Prince: 146 cases (+53.6% in 3 days) The situation at the national penitentiary as of October 11 was 203 suspected cases, 12 confirmed cases and 14 deaths. A treatment center was opened there with a capacity of 40 beds, including 25 beds provided by PAHO/WHO and 10 others by MSF Holland. According to the latest situation report from the Ministry of Health, three departments are affected by the epidemic, mainly the department of the West (554 suspected cases), but also that of the Center (4 suspected cases) and Nippes (2 cases suspects) pending confirmation of laboratory results. According to report #3 from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) dated October 11, 2022, the 13 cholera treatment centers (CTC) in place have a capacity of 394 beds, including 374 for the West department and 20 for the Center department. A new CTC managed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Holland opened on October 11 at Hopital le Messie in Port-au-Prince, with a capacity of 37 beds and the possibility of reaching 50 in the coming days. In support of the Ministry, MSF France, Belgium and Holland manage a total of five CTCs, some of which are integrated into existing health structures, and the Gheskio Institute two centres. In the current context, the partners involved in the response to the epidemic must face the logistical constraints posed by the insecurity and the blockage of the Varreux oil terminal. The national laboratory, in particular, is faced with the lack of fuel to be able to carry out the rapid analysis of the samples taken. Note that due to travel difficulties and insecurity (access to areas controlled by gangs and urban guerrilla areas) this assessment is partial. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37865-haiti-health-the-number-of-confirmed-cholera-cases-strongly-increased.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37839-haiti-health-72-increase-in-confirmed-cases-of-cholera-in-48-hours.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37826-icihaiti-flash-cholera-has-more-than-doubled-in-48-hours.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37816-icihaiti-cholera-entry-ban-on-cooked-food-from-haiti-on-the-dajabon-market.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37807-haiti-flash-cholera-the-who-is-sounding-the-alarm.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37803-haiti-flash-already-7-dead-from-cholera-and-dozens-of-suspected-cases.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37795-haiti-flash-cholera-back-in-haiti-fear-of-epidemic-the-un-ready-to-intervene.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Barbecue wants a representative in the Government Jean Rebel Dorcenat, the Rapporteur of the National Commission for Disarmament, Dismantling and Reintegration said that Jimmy Cherizier, alias "Barbecue" the leader of the "G-9" gang coalition proposed to the Government to grant an amnesty for him and all members of the G9 to open a humanitarian corridor at the Varreux terminal. In addition to the amnesty "Barbecue" would also like to have a representative in the Government... Cholera : Dramatic situation at the national penitentiary The situation at the national penitentiary as of October 11 was 203 suspected cases, 12 confirmed cases and 14 deaths. A treatment center was opened there with a capacity of 40 beds, including 25 beds provided by PAHO/WHO and 10 others by MSF Holland See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37883-haiti-flash-250-increase-in-suspected-cholera-cases-in-72-hours-3-departments-affected.html Theft of a PNH machine gun and armored vehicle On the night of October 12 to 13 during an attack by heavily armed individuals from the "Leclerc" sub-police station (Martissant 23) various equipment including a machine gun and several automatic weapons as well as an armored vehicle from the National Police of Haiti (PNH) were stolen. No police were injured. An investigation is opened. Information confirmed by Divisional Inspector Garry Desrosiers Spokesperson for the PNH. Fuel theft at the Varreux terminal Late in the evening of Wednesday, October 12, armed individuals broke into the Varreux oil terminal and stole fuel after overpowering security guards. The US Coast Guard WMEC 904 patrols with the Haitian Coast Guard The US Coast Guard Cutter Northland (WMEC 904) an 82m long vessel with 100 crew on board including 14 officers), armed with a 76mm/62 caliber OTO Melara Mk 75 naval gun and 2 caliber machine guns .50 (12.7 mm), patrol with the Haitian Coast Guard in the bay of Port-au-Prince. Crisis : psychological support for women and children The current crisis in Haiti is psychologically affecting children and women. UNICEF is strengthening the capacity of multipurpose community health workers (ASCP) in first aid to provide psychological support to people in need. HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2022/10/13 | Source Actor Yoon Kye-sang makes an acting transformation. Advertisement The drama "The Day of the Kidnapping" is a special collaboration between the clumsy kidnapper Kim Myeong-joon (Yoon Kye-sang) and an 11-year-old genius girl Roh-hee. Myeong-joon is a first-time kidnapper who kidnaps a girl to pay for his daughter's hospital bills. He is suddenly chased as a murder suspect due to an unexpected incident. For some reason, the truth tracking of the kidnapper, who is lacking 2% but is human and weak-hearted, and the girl who is smart, is expected to be fun and touching. Yoon Kye-sang said, "The material was interesting", adding, "I look forward to the harmony between Myeong-joon, a clumsy kidnapper, and Ro-hee, a genius girl". It is based on Jung Hae-yeon's novel of the same name and it is written by Kim Je-yeong. It will be directed by Park Yoo-young. It is made by Ace Story and scheduled to air next year. The CRC on Wednesday issued a decision stating that leaving the children in life-threatening conditions in the camps violated their right to life and their right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment. THE FAILURE of Finland to repatriate Finnish children from detention camps in Syria constituted a violation of childrens rights, according to the UN Child Rights Committee (CRC). The decision was issued after considering a case filed on behalf of six children held at al-Hol, a displacement camp for the families of fighters of the so-called Islamic State in Syria. Finland, the committee viewed, has both the responsibility and the power to protect Finnish children against an imminent risk to their lives. The situation of children in the camps has been widely reported as inhuman, lacking basic necessities including water, food and health care, and facing an imminent risk of death, highlighted Ann Skelton, a member of the CRC. We call on Finland to take immediate and decisive action to preserve the lives of these children, and to bring them home to their families. Finland is the second country that has been ruled to have violated the rights of children living in the detention camps. The CRC issued a similar decision to France in February. Jussi Tanner, the director of consular affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, told YLE on Wednesday that Finland treats the decision with the utmost seriousness, saying its justification aligns fundamentally with the stance of Finland. The children have been subjected to serious violations of basic rights and that has required outright special measures from the Finnish state. Weve carried them out to the best of our ability, he said. Finland has repatriated 35 people, including 26 children, from the infamous camp, according to Tanner. Roughly a dozen Finnish citizens remain at the camp, the majority of them children, and efforts to repatriate them are ongoing. As soon as the opportunity arises, well repatriate them, he told. The efforts, he reminded, do not depend solely on the willingness of Finland. Not all Finnish citizens at al-Hol have wanted to return, and the country has no legal possibilities to repatriate anyone against their will. Tanner is therefore somewhat puzzled about what the country could have done better. I dont understand this fully. Finns there have had a chance to express their desire [to return] to us. Weve tried to be in contact with everyone. Everyone who has been co-operative has pretty much been repatriated, he said. We havent had the chance to move forward for quite a while. Thats because of the situation in the field. Factors that arent in Finlands hands cant be changed by the committees decision. Outi Korhonen, a professor of international law at the University of Turku, on Wednesday stated to the public broadcasting company that the decision is very serious and significant. Over my relatively long career, the last time there was talk of a nation being ruled guilty of torture in Europe was in the 70s. It does stir up a lot of thoughts that this could happen in the case of Finland, she commented. Now that this was ruled to have happened in the case of children, [] its a terribly regrettable thing for our state. Korhonen said Finland must take immediate action even though the decision is non-binding. Without a doubt you have to start negotiating genuinely and effectively with Kurdish authorities about coming to the site. You should find out who are your citizens and make the arrangements. Thats what practical, effective and positive measures mean. Also mothers should be repatriated from the camps, according to her. The mothers should be brought to Finland as the primary caretakers of these children. We can then review here whether they should be living together or separately. Aleksi Teivainen HT Latvia: Return home or never leave the woods reveals the brutal treatment of migrants and refugees including children who have been held arbitrarily in undisclosed sites in the Latvian forest, and unlawfully and violently returned to Belarus. Latvian authorities have violently pushed back refugees and migrants at the countrys borders with Belarus, subjecting many to grave human rights violations, including secret detention and even torture, according to new findings published in a report by Amnesty International. Many faced beatings and electric shocks with tasers, including on their genitals. Some were unlawfully forced to return voluntarily to their home countries. Latvia has given refugees and migrants a cruel ultimatum: accept to return voluntarily to their country, or remain stranded at the border facing detention, unlawful returns and torture. In some cases, their arbitrary detention at the border may amount to enforced disappearance, said Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty Internationals European Institutions Office. The Latvian authorities have left men, women and children to fend for themselves in freezing temperatures, often stranded in forests or held in tents. They have violently pushed them back to Belarus, where they have no chance of seeking protection. These actions have nothing to do with border protection and are brazen violations of international and EU law. On 10 August 2021, Latvia introduced a state of emergency following an increase in numbers of people encouraged to come to the border by Belarus. In contrast with EU and international law and the principle of non-refoulement, the emergency rules suspended the right to seek asylum in four border areas and allowed Latvian authorities to forcibly and summarily return people to Belarus. Latvian authorities have repeatedly extended the state of emergency, currently until November 2022, despite the decrease of movements over time, and their own admission that the number of attempted entries were the result of multiple crossings by the same people. Dozens of refugees and migrants have been arbitrarily held in tents at the border in unsanitary conditions, A small percentage of people were allowed into Latvia, the vast majority of whom were placed in detention centres and offered limited or no access to asylum processes, legal assistance or independent oversight. Amnestys report on Latvia follows and supplements similar reports focussing on abuses against refugees and migrants by Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. Violent pushbacks, arbitrary detention and possible enforced disappearances Under the state of emergency, Latvian border guards, in cooperation with unidentified commandos, the army and the police, repeatedly subjected people to summary, unlawful and violent forced returns. In response, Belarusian authorities would then systematically push people back to Latvia. Zaki, a man from Iraq who was stranded at the border for around three months, told Amnesty International that he had been pushed back more than 150 times, sometimes eight times in a single day. Hassan, another man from Iraq who spent five months at the border, said: They forced us to be completely naked, sometimes they beat us when naked and then they forced us to cross back to Belarus, sometimes having to cross a river which was very cold. They said they would shoot us if we didnt cross. In between pushbacks, people were forced to spend prolonged periods stranded at the border or in tents set up by the authorities in isolated areas of the forest. Latvian authorities have so far denied using tents for anything other than providing humanitarian assistance, but Amnesty Internationals findings show that tents were heavily guarded sites used to arbitrarily hold refugees and migrants and as outposts for illegal returns. Those not held in tents sometimes ended up stranded in the open at the border, as winter temperatures at times fell to -20C. Adil, a man from Iraq, who spent several months in the forest since August 2021, told Amnesty International: We used to sleep in the forest on the snow. We used to light fire to get warm, there were wolves, bears. At the border and in the tents, authorities confiscated peoples mobile phones to prevent any communication with the outside world. Some families searched for people who were last known to be in Latvia but could not be reached by phone. A Latvian NGO reported that between August and November 2021, they were contacted by the relatives of more than 30 refugees and migrants feared to have gone missing. Holding migrants and refugees in tents in undisclosed locations or leaving them stranded at the border without access to communication or safe alternatives to being continuously shuttled back and forth between Latvia and Belarus constitutes secret detention and could amount to enforced disappearance. Forced returns, abuse and torture With no effective access to asylum under the state of emergency, Latvian officers coerced some people held at the border into agreeing to return voluntarily to their countries of origin as the only way to be taken out of the forest. Others were coerced or misled into accepting voluntary returns in detention centres or police stations. Hassan, from Iraq, told Amnesty International that he tried to explain that his life would be in danger if he was returned: The commando responded: You can die here too. Another Iraqi, Omar, described how an officer hit him from behind and forced him to sign a return paper: He held my hand and said you should do the signature, and then with force, he made me do the signature. In some cases, the IOM representative for Latvia ignored evidence that people transferred as part of voluntary return procedures had not provided their genuine consent to returning. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, continue to commit grave abuses, under the pretext of being under a hybrid attack from Belarus. As winter approaches and movements at the border have resumed, the state of emergency continues to allow Latvian authorities to unlawfully return people to Belarus. Many more could be exposed to violence, arbitrary detention and other abuses, with limited or no independent oversight, said Eve Geddie. Latvias shameful treatment of people arriving at its borders presents a vital test for European institutions, which must take urgent measures to ensure that Latvia ends the state of emergency and restores the right to asylum across the country for everyone seeking safety, irrespective of their origin or how they crossed the border. Background As pushbacks at the Belarus border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland re-intensify, the EU Council is prioritizing the adoption of a Regulation on the instrumentalization of migrants and asylum seekers. This would allow member states facing situations of instrumentalization as experienced by Latvia to derogate from their obligations under EU asylum and migration law. The proposal disproportionately impacts the rights of refugees and migrants and risks undermining the uniform application of EU asylum law. In June, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that the Lithuanian law on asylum and migration, which limited peoples ability to make asylum applications under the state of emergency and provided for the automatic detention of asylum seekers, was incompatible with EU law. The Courts analysis and conclusions should apply directly to the situation in Latvia, where, since August 2021, the state of emergency effectively prevents most people entering or attempting to enter irregularly from Belarus from accessing asylum. See Amnesty International reports on Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. HT Source: Amnesty International Today, Scandic has opened the doors to its fifth hotel in Germany, Scandic Munchen Macherei. The hotel, which has 234 rooms, is attractively located in Munich's lively "Die Macherei" quarter in the Berg am Laim district. With its modern tile and brick facade and Nordic inspired interior, the new hotel will offer global travelers unique hotel experiences. Die Macherei is a district for movers and shakers - a creative place where ideas are brought to life. Munich is also an important strategic location for us, so it's exciting to be opening Scandic's first hotel in the city. We're continuing our growth strategy of expanding in Germany's largest cities. Scandic Munchen Macherei complements our German portfolio at a time when leisure and business travelers have returned in large numbers to our hotels, says Michel Schutzbach, Head of Europe at Scandic Hotels. The hotel features airy living room-style lounges and spacious co-working areas. Conventional conference rooms have also been replaced by two private rooms that are ideal for shorter meetings. With its international yet Scandinavian-Bavarian feel, the hotel restaurant, Zieglerei, will be a modern meeting place for hotel guests and locals alike. I'm very much looking forward to bringing a new type of hotel experience to Munich. We've placed great emphasis on creating a sense of community here at Scandic Munchen Macherei and in addition to chic and comfortable hotel rooms, we offer spacious lounge areas for relaxing, coworking, socializing and for private events and seasonal usage, a rooftop terrace with a stunning view of the Alps. Together with my outstanding team, we're ready to welcome guests to enjoy truly great hotel experiences, says Carina Antic, General Manager at Scandic Munchen Macherei. The building will also be certified according to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), an international sustainability assessment system, meeting the requirements for LEED Gold. The purpose of the certification is to provide an independent environmental assessment of the building for guests, society and other stakeholders. The certification system assesses several important sustainability aspects, such as biodiversity, water conservation, energy and resource efficiency as well as the ability of indoor spaces to provide good daylight, air and sound environments. As at all Scandic hotels, sustainability is a central part of Scandic Munchen Macherei. The hotel is aimed to be ecolabeled according to the Nordic Swan Ecolabel's tough new criteria, when the ecolabel is introduced in Germany. Ecolabeled products, chemicals and 100 percent renewable electricity, the absence of single-use disposables, reduced water consumption, a climate-friendly menu and reduced food waste forms the basis for certification. The hotel is also located near mobility sharing facilities, excellent public transportation options and e-charging stations located in the public underground garage. Scandic Munchen Machereiis Scandic's fifth hotel in Germany and the ninth hotel that the company has opened in 2022. The hotel will strengthen Scandic's presence on the German hotel market and following the opening, the company will operate a total of 1,645 rooms in the country. Facts about Scandic Munchen Macherei 234 rooms 24 accessible rooms Zieglerei restaurant and bar, seating for 152 Private meeting rooms, maximum capacity 20 (10 persons each room) Coworking lounge Gym Architect, interior: Koncept Architect, exterior: HWKN New York Property owner: Bayerische Versorgungskammer / Universal Investments Construction: Art Invest / Accumulata Construction years: 2019 - 2022 Environmental certification: LEED Gold (in preparation) and Nordic Swan Ecolable (in preparation) Hotel website Hilton (NYSE: HLT) announced today plans to expand the presence of Conrad Hotels & Resorts, its award-winning, contemporary luxury brand, through Conrad Singapore Orchard. Jointly owned by Pontiac Land Group and Kajima Development, Conrad Singapore Orchard will be the second Conrad Hotels & Resorts property in Singapore managed by Hilton, joining Conrad Centennial Singapore. A rebrand of Regent Singapore, Conrad Singapore Orchard, is set to open in two phases. The hotel's meeting spaces and its ten restaurants and bars, including Manhattan, Basilico and Summer Palace, are poised to welcome guests from 1 January 2023. Following extensive room refurbishments, the hotel is scheduled to open fully in Q1 2024, bringing new levels of sophisticated, modern luxury to Singapore's famed Orchard Road. Elevating Luxury Hospitality in Singapore Centrally located in the heart of the city, Conrad Singapore Orchard will be the perfect venue for both business and leisure travelers. Steps from Singapore's famed Orchard Road shopping district and home to many luxury retailers, top-end restaurants and department stores, Conrad Singapore Orchard will feature 440 spacious guest rooms starting from 36 square meters. The hotel will also offer a fitness centre and over 1,600 square meters of beautiful event spaces. Conrad Singapore Orchard is conveniently accessible to Singapore's Changi International Airport, located 22km or a 30-minute drive away. Growth of Hilton's Luxury Portfolio in Asia Pacific The announcement of Conrad Singapore Orchard comes on the back of two recent signings that will see the Conrad Hotels & Resorts brand debut in the major cities of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Nagoya, Japan. Conrad Kuala Lumpur, slated to open next year, will mark the brand's debut in Malaysia, while Conrad Nagoya - the city's first - will open in 2026. Hotel website Rocco Forte Hotels, the prestigious family-run hotel group led by Sir Rocco Forte and his sister, Olga Polizzi, is delighted to announce the appointment of Tristan Knight as Group Director of Human Resources. Tristan re-joins Rocco Forte Hotels following his most recent position as Regional Talent & Culture Director for Europe & Middle East at Rosewood Hotel Group, a role he has held since 2013. While at Rosewood, Tristan led the people strategy for the opening of the flagship Rosewood London, the first hotel in Europe for the group. He soon expanded his remit to support the growth of the region, opening five hotels under his expertise. Working alongside the global Talent & Culture team, Tristan played a wider strategic role in driving new initiatives; enhancing the working culture, elevating the employee experience and strengthening the employer brand in the luxury sector. Prior to his leadership position at Rosewood, Tristan worked with Rocco Forte Hotels at Brown's Hotel where he led the human resources strategy successfully transforming the culture through training where he received the accredited CIPD HR Initiative Award for his achievements. Tristan will lead the global people strategy across the iconic collection of hotels and resorts, providing strategic direction and support to the leadership and operational teams at Rocco Forte Hotels. With his demonstrated excellence in driving a culture that positively influences the guest and employee experience, alongside strengthening the employer brand of luxury companies, Tristan will ensure the Rocco Forte culture remains strong and embedded throughout the organisation. Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva announces the appointment of Toshikazu Kato as Executive Chef of rooftop restaurant Izumi. Chef Kato brings a wealth of culinary experience to Izumi, today a well-established restaurant on the Geneva dining scene. Constantly striving to exceed guests' expectations, the chef is always at the forefront of the latest gastronomic trends. Chef Kato's cuisine combines Japanese and Peruvian culinary traditions, with exquisite Nikkei dishes prepared using seasonal produce. The elegant, delicate flavours of Japanese cuisine combine with punchy Peruvian flavours, resulting in mouth watering gastronomic creations. Chef Kato takes a farm-to-table approach, sourcing as many ingredients as possible from the local area, including freshwater perch from Switzerland's many mountain streams and lakes. Meat is from local farms, with premium lamb and beef from cows that graze on alpine pastures, complementing the wagyu meat that he imports from his native Japan. When it comes to saltwater fish, Chef Kato works closely with trusted suppliers to source top-quality fish and seafood that is ethically and sustainably sourced or responsibly farmed. Brought up in the Kanto region of Honshu, Kato began cooking at a young age, inspired by his uncle who ran an izakaya, a traditional Japanese bar. As a young teenager, he worked part-time alongside his uncle, much enjoying the intense, fast-paced environment of the kitchen. He first began working for Four Seasons in Tokyo, where he learned the art of sushi making, and later spent time at several Four Seasons properties around the world, including Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai and Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach. While in Doha, Kato worked as sous chef for two years at the world's largest Nobu. He first attained the title of Executive Chef at the former Four Seasons St. Petersburg, continuing his journey as Executive Chef at Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in autumn 2022. Capa Steakhouse, the Michelin star rated restaurant perched atop the 17th floor rooftop of Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort, has a new chef masterfully running the kitchen: Malyna Si was recently promoted to Restaurant Chef. Si was promoted to Restaurant Chef after serving five years at Capa, most recently as Sous Chef, and previously as Cook. She is the only female chef helming a Michelin star restaurant in Central Florida. Si is always looking to evolve, constantly seeking new opportunities to enhance the menu and the overall Capa experience. Recently, the menu was refreshed with several new options. A standout on the new menu is an 8-ounce pluma Iberico pork loin Si sourced from Extremadura. Capa's pluma comes from Iberico hogs raised at Farm Vera Vieja, located in Retamal de Llerena (Badajoz, Spain). Alex has been in the hospitality industry for more than 20 years. Prior to joining HVS London, he has gained extensive experience in Europe and Asia in various corporate, development, operational and pre-opening positions, with companies such as Kempinski, IHG and Mandarin Oriental. Based in Germany, he is responsible for the German market and HVSs work in other German-speaking countries. Previously, he also worked with HVS Hong Kong and HVS London on several assignments. Alex holds a bachelors degree from Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne and a real estate certificate from Cornell University. For more information, contact him directly at [email protected] Technology in the hotel industry continues to advance at a rapid pace and hotel property management software (PMS) remains essential for hoteliers looking to improve how they run their business. The key to reaping the benefits of an effective hotel management software system is to select the right one for your property. Its critical that you know exactly what the hotel management technology is and why it is important for you to implement it at your hotel. All hotels need some variation of a property management system (PMS), however not all PMS systems are created equal and it can be confusing knowing which one is best suited for your property. Were going to take you through everything you need to know about hotel PMS so you can make the best-informed decision for your hotel. Table of contents What is a hotel property management system? Hotel management software is technology that allows hotel operators and owners to streamline their administrative tasks while also increasing their bookings in both the short and long-term. Your hotel management system is not only important for your own day-to-day operations, but its a vital part in improving overall guest experience. From the beginning of your guests online booking journey until the completion of their stay and their feedback once they return home, your hotel management system is there to enhance their experience. Finding a hotel management system that offers the features you both need and want is necessary to effectively manage your hotel in the global economic climate. Cloud-based PMS solutions are a superior way to automate and accelerate all the important processes at your hotel including; Taking and confirming bookings, Managing reservations, Generating bills and reports, Check-in/out, Room transfers, Checking/editing availability, Guest communication. Cloud-based technology can handle all these tasks with ease because of its ability to deeply integrate with channel managers, booking engines, and revenue management systems. Despite this, there are still concerns over the validity and cost effectiveness of cloud-based PMS tools, such as: Is a hotel PMS software important? PMS hotel software is incredibly important for any business looking to optimise their daily tasks. From collating data in one place to automation processes these are key to ensuring time-consuming activities are completed quickly, boosting overall efficiency. This means you can focus on the more important hotel operations. Here are some of the benefits of a hotel property management system. Reduce time spent on administrative tasks The right hotel management system should do a lot of the work for you, minimising the amount of time spent on admin tasks, allowing you to focus your efforts and energy on the big picture. The software should also provide you with valuable data on employee retention, satisfaction and productivity. In todays fast-paced travel environment, its critical that you automate as many tasks as possible. A property management system can help you tremendously with that. Increase your online presence Management software that is integrated with a website builder allows you to accept direct online bookings and develop a user-friendly website. Naturally, this can increase your relevance in search engine results and online presence, allowing more travellers to discover your property during their online booking journey. Management software that is integrated with a website builder allows you to accept direct online bookings and develop a user-friendly website. Naturally, this can increase your relevance in search engine results and online presence, allowing more travellers to discover your property during their online booking journey. Build relationships with guests Develop a better rapport with your target market segment. Loyal guests that have stayed in your property a few times will appreciate the improved experience. Hotel management software not only benefits returning guests but the technology will allow you to reach out to new markets that would not have discovered your brand. Manage your distribution With a property management system in place that integrates with a channel manager, youll be able to advertise across many channels whilst maintaining rate parity. From the large OTAs and GDSs to individual retail travel agents, youll be able to instantly provide real-time booking information to your agents that will help drive bookings. With a property management system in place that integrates with a channel manager, youll be able to advertise across many channels whilst maintaining rate parity. From the large OTAs and GDSs to individual retail travel agents, youll be able to instantly provide real-time booking information to your agents that will help drive bookings. Manage your revenue Using innovative pricing tools that allow you to create a flexible room pricing strategy, you can maximise revenue per room at any given moment. Pricing your rooms right is the key to succeeding in this competitive industry, and having these tools available can help your hotels revenue management strategy significantly. Increase bookings At the end of the day, the point of every feature within your hotel management business solution is to boost the bookings your property receives. Whether you want to increase your off-season bookings or expand your offerings to new market segments, the right hotel management software can improve success for your property. Features of a hotel property management system Management systems are important for both hotel operators who manage large chains as well as independent hoteliers. There are several purposes it can provide, including: Reservations Your property management system should help you efficiently and effectively manage your reservations by automating the process for you. It allows you to focus more on interacting with your guests. A PMS also significantly reduces the risk of overbooking your rooms, directly improving the guest experience at your property. And with travellers today more likely to book online than they are to call or partner with a travel agent, you need to consider both direct bookings and third party bookings. This will allow you to maximise the revenue generated per booking. Consider software that integrates with an online booking engine. Front desk operations This functionality will allow a front-desk manager to view and update room reservations, check guests in and out, and process payments. Guests want a seamless check in experience. Convenience is key, so having a system that enhances processes will ensure your guests are happy and enable your staff to have more time to support guests. Channel manager Managing a hotel with software that offers a channel management will allow you to create and implement a diverse distribution strategy that continually drives bookings. Creating partnerships with different types of agents in the industry, from OTAs to GDSs, is necessary to survive in a competitive climate. Revenue management A Revenue Management System (RMS), helps a hotel management team to understand how to adjust and improve processes to achieve better results and optimise finances. Key management indicators such as Occupancy, RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) and GOPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room) are all measures that are considered to help improve pricing strategies to sell more rooms at the most optimal rate. Customer data and CRM integration Collecting and organising guest data is critical for any hotelier. A CRM system needs to integrate with the front desk and reservation system in order to collate all guest data from each source. This will then provide a powerful database for your management team that can help you keep in touch with guests during and post-checkout. This will boost marketing efforts, allow you to share promotions, and encourage guest feedback. Repeat customers can be rewarded through loyalty programmes, which are particularly important for large-scale hotel chains and resorts. Housekeeping A housekeeping module within your PMS system can connect housekeeping staff to the front-office team. The key functionality of the housekeeping module is for property maintenance, such as management of room status, cleaner assignment and assignment of tasks for housekeepers. If youre using a cloud-based PMS software, housekeepers can simply update the status of tasks through a digital device. Point of sale services Its likely there are multiple point-of-sale touch points across your hotel. Whether its front desk, a hotel restaurant, or spa, a point-of-sale module in your PMS system is indispensable when it comes to handling transactions. Its purpose is to automate and keep financial data secured in one place. This will improve a guests experience when they are looking to charge products and services to their room for a seamless experience throughout. Invoice and payment options When your hotel PMS system integrates with your payment system, you will benefit from faster payments, a reduction in errors and more options for automatic payment processes. This is not only beneficial to your guests but can be efficient for your hotel staff. These payment systems are designed to process debit and credit card payments at reception, payments made online, and can automatically create invoices for guests. Reporting Making data-driven decisions is key to understanding and enhancing your business performance. Reporting and analysing allows you to review current processes, determining what is working well and what needs improving. An effective report through your PMS can allow for better strategic planning, and depending on the PMS software, you may be able to generate audit reports, housekeeping reports and so on. Hotel property management system integration A hotel PMS integration refers to the seamless connecting and operating of the PMS system with other softwares. This could be your hotel channel manager, online booking engines or payment processing. Your hotel PMS system is the heart of your property operations and this can be amplified when successfully integrated with other systems to create a cloud-based hub that helps run your business. The ability for your PMS hotel software to connect and integrate with other systems eliminates the need for time-consuming admin work on your behalf. Things to consider when choosing a property management system for your hotel Choosing a program that offers a web editor or website creator will allow you to build a clean, appealing and user-friendly site that encourages guests to book their stay at your property. Some top features to look for: Cloud-based Integration with other softwares Multifunctional Self service interaction functionality Easy reservation and upselling processes Supports classic and dynamic price models Helps detect repeat customers Simplifies daily routines Challenges with a hotel property management system Some hoteliers may have a hesitancy towards implementing a hotel property management system. There are a few reasons why you may think a PMS system poses a challenge. For example: Cloud-based technology is hard to use and confusing Sensitive data is not secure and vulnerable to hackers Current software is just as good A PMS is only suitable for large hotels Technology is too expensive Many of these concerns are groundless and theres plenty of data that shows how overall a cloud-based PMS can provide you more control over your hotel business, in some of the following areas: An extra degree of customisation, Reporting and data analysis capabilities, Integration with other third-party systems like OTAs and booking systems, Ease of access through any location and device. List of property management systems There are hundreds of property management systems on the market. The most important aspect when choosing one is to ensure its easy to use, has all the functions you need, and that it is able to integrate with your other important systems, such as your channel manager. Some popular examples you might come across include: Little Hotelier Mews Sirvoy CloudBeds Frontdesk Anywhere eZee Frontdesk Hotelogix Maestro OPERA Avvio The list goes on. Finding a PMS if you dont already have one will require some research and evaluation. Hotel property management software: Questions you should ask providers Selecting the right hotel software is critical, particularly in a world where consumers are relying more heavily on their devices with each passing day. An investment into the right software can make all the difference to your overall success as a hotel operator, but will require some research. These are seven main questions that you should ask your hotel system provider as soon as possible: 1. How does the product maintain its relevance in the hospitality industry? While the core of a technology system may remain the same over time, the product will need to adapt to changing trends and preferences from travellers within the hospitality industry. You need to ask this question so you have an understanding of how technology can aid and support your hotels growth along with the industry. 2. How often is the platform updated or upgraded? Theres always room for improvement within softwares and technology, and the best hotel software providers will ensure that regular updates and upgrades are available for their clients. Its important to have an understanding of how often these upgrades will be available, how youll be able to successfully implement the upgrades and how they might impact your distribution channels or reporting. 3. What level of customer service will you receive from the company? Unfortunately, far too many hotel technology providers focus on hard sales tactics without much support after the purchase is complete. You will want to verify with the provider that there will be an on-hand contact to support the software, provide training when requested and work with staff after the technology has been installed. 4. Is the hotel platform secure? Security should be a top priority with your chosen hotel technology provider. Ask about the details regarding their security features, as its imperative that both your hotel and guests data is secure. 5. How easily can the system be personalised? Hotel technology providers need to offer a versatile system that includes not only the generic features that are necessary for any hotel, but also adaptable features that allow a business to personalise the platform to a particular brand. Ultimately, your investment in technology needs to result in a system that works specifically for your hotel. 6. What reporting features are available? Some of the most important features of a hotel management software include the reporting features. Verify that youll be able to run detailed reports using live data, as this is the only way to get an understanding of the market, your performance and competitors to ensure that you can grow your brand. 7. How can I access the hotel technology system once implemented? Be sure that you are investing in a system that allows you to run your hotel from anywhere. You need hotel technology that is optimised for all devices, including smartphones and tablets. The future of PMS in the hotel industry A hotel property management system is an essential business tool for any hotel or property. Technology drives everything we do in our daily lives, so having top-of-the-line software in place can enhance your business model immensely. Hoteliers depend on this technology to run seamless front-of-house operations, including front desk management and back-of-house operations, such as reporting. By upgrading your PMS system, you are staying up to date with the latest technological trends, and enabling your business to meet the demands of todays travellers. Expectations from both guests and staff are continuously evolving so your hotel software needs to match to keep up. Flexible payment options, keyless entry and self-service check-ins are just some of the ways that the hotel industry is moving. SiteMinder Source: SiteMinder About SiteMinder SiteMinder Limited (ASX:SDR) is the world's leading open hotel commerce platform, ranked among technology pioneers for opening up every hotel's access to online commerce. It's this central role that has earned SiteMinder the trust of tens of thousands of hotels, across 150 countries, to sell, market, manage and grow their business. The global company, headquartered in Sydney with offices in Bangkok, Berlin, Dallas, Galway, London and Manila, generated more than 100 million reservations worth over US$35 billion in revenue for hotels in the last year prior to the start of the pandemic. For more information, visit siteminder.com. View source Anren is a small association of hamlets in Jiande, Zhejiang province that may have big implications for the future of the country as a pilot zone for common prosperity. It was established in June 2021, about a month after the central government designated Zhejiang as an experimental zone for common prosperity, which is a plan to reduce inequalities throughout the country. It consists of the eponymous Anren village and five other less well-off nearby villages. All six settlements share resources and develop jointly. They have consolidated their 250 hectares of land to enable comprehensive planning and development, forming an integrated association of hamlets known as a lianheti in Chinese. For example, they have jointly developed a nearly 27-hectare strawberry farm for lease with 4 hectares contracted to low-income farmers, who receive technical and sales support from better-off farmers. And Japan-based coating manufacturer Nippon Paint has opened a factory in Anren village, offering job opportunities to residents from the other villages as well. Jin Yu returned from a city where he worked in e-commerce to his home village of Houshan to take a job at the paint plant that pays over 10,000 yuan ($1,400) a month. The factory is expected to employ more than 300 people when it becomes fully operational. And the lianheti is also developing homestays, a mini industrial park and other businesses. "To achieve common prosperity, fundamentally, we need to make the cake bigger, and, at the same time, share it fairly," said Li Shi, dean of Zhejiang University's Institute for Common Prosperity and Development. Anren lianheti has designed programs to distribute wealth more equitably. Anren village built the houses and allocated them to people in need from any village in the lianheti. Over 200 households moved in. One such opportunity enabled 70-year-old Wang Changfa to relocate from an old house high up on a mountainside to buy a new 368-square-meter house at the precipice's foot for about 790,000 yuan. "This makes it easier for children to go to school and for the elderly to see doctors," Wang said. The lianheti has also built such public facilities as a senior care center with equal access to all residents. Retirees ages 60 to 89 pay no more than 5 yuan for each meal at the center, and people older than 90 dine for free. The canteen is partly funded by regular donations from local enterprises and charitable villagers. Anren lianheti offers a vivid specimen of what China is working to build since it has eliminated extreme poverty. Li pointed out that China's economy has grown in the decades since it adopted the reform and opening-up, through giving greater play to the market and encouraging entrepreneurship. Now, the country is maintaining these practices while exploring how to share growth's benefits more fairly. He said China should invest more in basic public services in rural areas to bring them on par with their urban counterparts. And low-income people should receive education and training to enjoy better opportunities. Nicholas Hope, former director of the World Bank's China program, also emphasized the role of education in achieving common prosperity. "Education, particularly that of the rural poor, is an essential part of efforts ensuring against relapse," he said. Hope is optimistic about China's common prosperity pursuit. In a scant two generations, the CPC can make a country that's by any definition desperately poor into a country that's moderately prosperous, he said. That should give everybody confidence that China can move into the era of common prosperity, he said. Online Watch the video by scanning the code. Our sustainability editor Juliet Kinsman has put together the ultimate cheat sheet to judge hotels and travel operators and tell if theyre really green. Were sharing these considerations so that you, too, can assess if a hotel or travel business is truly eco-friendly, so we are all less susceptible to greenwashing and can start travelling better. 1. Learn how to measure impact Ultimately, businesses need to measure positive and negative impact with a clear aim to keep doing better. Is the hotel or operator youre considering demonstrating that their teams actively track this? It can be challenging to quantify impact, but companies must be action-oriented. Action needs to be tangible we need to know how theyre supporting initiatives to tackle issues such as poverty and gender equality, as well as supporting marginalised people, marine conservation and environmental protection. This might mean messages laced with statistics, or showing that there is a clear company-wide directive around a specific goal. 2. Prioritise decarbonisation not carbon offsetting Carbon accountancy is a priority, but there should be an emphasis on reducing the cause of emissions not just offsetting through third parties. Smaller-scale guesthouses and independent travel agents are likely to have smaller footprints than bigger companies. But kudos to the likes of Intrepid Travel, which sets excellent carbon-measurement benchmarks. The company is signed up to the Science Based Targets Initiative, which means the team tracks and reduces emissions across operations, from trips they arrange to ensure offices globally run on renewables. Talk of real innovations around greenhouse gas reduction is also worth attention such as hotels introducing triple-glazing minimal energy waste through heating and cooling. The best brag is for a business to say they carry out significant carbon-sequestration efforts such as Alladales vast reforestation in Scotland rather than simply outsourcing to carbon-credit projects. 3. Book locally-owned businesses and hotels with sustainability experts 4. Favour companies with official accreditation 5. Consider social impact 6. Nature positive 7. Reduce waste 8. Pay attention to philanthropy 9. Walking their talk? 10. Ask more questions Read the full article at cntraveler.com WASHINGTON - U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman issued the following statement on the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys Wednesday announcement that it will make available an additional 65,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas for fiscal year FY23: After months of vociferous advocacy from the U.S. Travel Association, this announcementthe largest ever supplemental visa releaseis a lifeline for an industry whose workforce shortage tops a million open positions. This will provide the travel industry with thousands of workers ahead of the peak travel season, allowing businesses to adequately prepare for a surge in demand." U.S. Travel is a vocal advocate for increasing the cap of H-2B visas, and we will continue to call on Congress to pass an exemption to the cap in FY23 and enact a permanent expansion of the H-2B program." We extend our gratitude to Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration for their swift response to such a critical workforce need and their ongoing support of the travel industrys recovery. About U.S. Travel Association U.S. Travel Association is the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the travel industry. Travelers in the United States are estimated to spend $1.1 trillion in 2022 (still 10% below 2019 levels). U.S. Travel advocates for policies to accelerate an even recovery across the travel industry and restore economic and job growth for this essential contributor to our nation's success. Visit ustravel.org for information and recovery-related data. View source When I hear companies talk about being "data rich" yet "information poor" or having "knowledge gaps," this well-known adage comes to mind. But it's not difficult to see why there is this disconnect when you learn that more data has been created in the last two years than in all of human history. Furthermore 99.5% of the data collected never gets used or examined. In todays environment, fast, high-quality decisions are needed to outperform peers, and insights are the key to continually empowering decisions. Data alone, especially unorganized data, has little value, but knowledge and wisdom, however, have enormous value. So what is the connection between data, information, knowledge, and even the higher order of wisdom? I find the DIKW model helpful in representing the structural and functional relationships between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. DIKW is shorthand for the data-to-information-to-knowledge-to-wisdom transformation. How do you progress from Data to Wisdom? I recently visited Glacier National Park in Montana, USA, and hiked to Grinell Glacier. Let me walk you through my experience transitioning from data to wisdom on this hike, as well as some of the hurdles I encountered along the way. There is plenty of data available about the glacier, including: Coordinates: 484506N 1134339W Area: 152 acres (0.62 km 2 ) ) Altitude: 6,510 feet (1,984 meters). That data has been organized and assigned context to form information: The glacier is named after George Bird Grinnell, who was also a strong advocate of ensuring the creation of Glacier National Park. Grinnell Glacier lost nearly 40% of its land area between 1966 and 2005. The glacier can be reached after a 6-mile (9.7 km) hike from a trailhead beginning at Swiftcurrent Lake and has an altitude gain of just over 1,600 ft (490 m) Over time, many hikers and outdoor enthusiasts have processed that information and assigned meaning to form knowledge: The majority of the elevation is in the second half of the hike, with a very strenuous section in the last 0.4 miles (0.65km). Be aware that bears, moose, and other wildlife are present. The trails are rocky, making for a difficult hike. And finally, insight is added to knowledge to create wisdom, guiding actions and judgements like: Hike in a group and bring plenty of water. Bring bear spray and pray you dont ever come close enough to have to use it. Dress in layers and take your time. So whats the moral to the story? Going into the hike I had all the data, information, knowledge, and wisdom available from the internet on the Grinnell Glacier hike. Even with that, I still went down a goat path I thought was the hiking trail, believed every hiker that assured me the glacier was just around the corner (it wasnt) and thought going back down hill would be easy (it wasnt). So here is my takeaway. As you move from data to wisdom, the key is to expect bumps along the way. Youre going to get false positives and its going to take longer than you want it to. But the key is to take that first step. In the end the results, and in my case, the view (below), will be worth it. About CWT CWT is a Business-to-Business-for-Employees (B2B4E) travel management platform. Companies and governments rely on us to keep their people connected anywhere, anytime, anyhow and, across six continents, we provide their employees with innovative technology and an efficient, safe, and secure travel experience. Engage with us via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and our Podcast. Media Contact CWT CWT A new trend in China is turning the Direct Bookings paradigm on its head. A hybrid model between third-party distribution and direct bookings is taking the market by storm requiring a very different approach to traditional OTA bookings and Direct Bookings. This Social Booking trend is poised to change the international markets in the near future, in this article I discuss what is social bookings and how it works. A New Booking Engine Throughout my 26 years in distribution, while were always on the lookout for the next big thing, one thing constant factor is a unique differentiator newer USPs and effective innovations that can give us the edge. Traditionally, distribution can be divided into global distribution, OTAs, tour wholesale, and the meta category, such as Trivago, Google, Skyscanner, and so on. In China, some of what is available on the market is next level in terms of effectiveness, but, unfortunately, would be challenging to implement in other parts of the world. A couple of years prior to the pandemic, we had extensive business with a pseudo-booking engine on WeChat a giant multi-purpose platform which is almost a hotels own branded booking engine within the app that does not carry very high costs of distribution. Similar solutions are also available on TikTok and AliPay. Now that the world is bouncing back from the effects of the pandemic, hoteliers around the world are preparing themselves for the rebound in Chinese demand once border restrictions are lifted, and, as a technology provider, we are also planning the next iteration of these solutions. This new category is what we call Social Booking, and it offers businesses, including hotels, the ability to sell directly to consumers. Technology providers are currently leveraging the Social Booking space to create solutions in the form of mini apps that bypass traditional booking engines, such as OTAs or even the hotels own website, and suggest hotel properties and rooms according to a users behavior on the host social network or digital platform, using their algorithms to make those suggestions more tailored, which are proven to be better at driving traffic to the point of acquisition. Mini apps are generally the solution companies adopt to take part in social networks marketplaces, and, technically speaking from a developmental point of view, the code that needs to be written is largely the same, simplifying the process of creating solutions for different platforms. Since Shiji launched this solution in June for Douyin (Chinas version of TikTok), 20 hotel chains have come on board and 11 of them have already gone live. As the engine is directed at Chinese travelers and inventory, most of these chains are from Hong Kong or China, however, there are already first adopters in very large international hotel chains with inventory in China. ByteDance most likely plans to extend Douyins vast e-commerce capabilities to the global TikTok, and, therefore, outside of China, Social Booking will also follow. Competition in the Chinese market is extremely tight, but there are three major players: WeChat counts 1.29 billion users, Douyin has around 700 million, and AliBaba reaches 1.1 billion users. Social Booking Opportunities for Hoteliers in China and Abroad As a hotelier, partnerships for connectivity with these players booking engines open up a way of targeting customers according to their proclivity to spend and allow hotels to show their guests offers that they previously would not have had access to based solely on hotel loyalty status. Apart from enhanced insight into customer data that would be otherwise unavailable, measuring distribution ROI accurately becomes more achievable. I dont believe anybody can truly, scientifically get to believable measurable business benefit results without getting this close to the coalface and spend. Additionally, when simply trying to push ads or content based on a customers online consumption behavior via the current targeted digital marketing strategies, costs involved can be very high, while the mini app solutions involve only a small percentage of distribution agreement costs and reach guests with far more relevant, potentially lucrative, and tempting suggestions. Source: Shiji Distribution Solutions As relevance goes, current research already shows what the next few years may look like online. In 2020, TikTok had 1 trillion location check-in video views and 159% growth rate on travel video interaction, as well as 147 million searches related to #travel and #tourism. Recent Google statistics show that 40% of young people between the ages of 18 and 35 arent using textual search when looking for restaurants and hotels, they are instead doing their research through video. All this shows us the importance of video algorithms in platforms such as TikTok. When a social network has data revealing that a specific customer out of Guangzhou visits Vietnam twice a year and frequently consumes content related to the country, why not let a Vietnamese hotel chain drive offers to him that may actually convert into a booking? The purchase is by no means guaranteed, but it is heavily weighted in favor of that hotel chain. But one could wonder whether, on a more international scale, anyone would be able to build a platform that is equally all-inclusive as what the three Chinese giants offer, and if similar solutions could also be rolled out for international customers and markets. What I believe is that we can already see indications of distribution moving towards this trend. For instance, Elon Musks recent announcement of his intention to make Twitter into a super-app. We are left to wonder if this could be the very first seed, the initial bits and pieces needed to build an app that supports this distribution model in the western world, above all when we consider the amount of funding such a project would require. What I also see as a possibility are existing apps like TikTok extending their Social Booking connectivity to international inventory first, and then expanding to non-Chinese travelers with time. We all know there is a reason why TikTok has worked so hard to conquer the amount of eyes-on-glass that they did, and that is to produce more revenue by starting on different verticals, different opportunities to merchandise and to convert. User-generated content is an important thing, leading to an even bigger phenomenon with influencers that can help drive those initiatives. Even other platforms, such as Facebook, are following suit. When Meta added reels to Facebook, they already had the advantage of knowing what works and what doesnt from TikToks experience, and this may even lead them to better results as they have the advantage of making fewer mistakes. Possible Challenges When speaking about the Chinese traveler, there are fewer privacy concerns and governance that come into play. Unlike in most other parts of the world, the mining of all that behavior and consumption data on apps like Douyin, WeChat, and AliPay isnt as tightly controlled as it is on Facebook, Apple, or Google. For that reason, much more information is readily available to a hotel company that partners with Chinese platforms, while still abiding by the imposed privacy rules. A hotel company can give the platforms certain offers, a range, and distribution so that they can identify triggers and send those promotions in a more targeted, effective manner. In the Chinese domestic market, the three superapps have something of an unfair advantage over competitors such as Agoda or Trip.com due to regulations, but thats not to say that the government cant turn around one day and realize that this has to slow down and the superapps ability to make conversions and earn money in that way can suddenly change. Another factor to consider is exposure, as a majority of people in China are on at least one of these three apps every day, but nobody visits Agoda or Trip.com unless they have something specific to research. Unlike cross-border payment solutions, which are very heavily and uniformly regulated worldwide (think how easy it is for a traveler to pay for a purchase in Las Vegas, Singapore, or wherever they are using AliPay on their phone), this model cannot be easily transported to other countries. Globally speaking, privacy concerns remain one of the biggest challenges for these distribution channels to remain as they are. While the status quo can change at any time, even within China, ultimately the growth and adoption will depend on creative solutions to work within the landscape, whichever country one is aiming for. But it is nothing new, much the same way companies are currently having to adapt to cookieless ads, being flexible and adapting to how consumers choose and research their interests and products is the way forward. And finally, the existence of an app, or apps, that are as integrated and far-reaching as their Chinese counterparts is something that still remains to be seen in the western world. RELATED Greg Berman is COO of Shiji Distribution Solutions. In his more than 31 years of Business Operations, Marketing, Sales, and Software Development and IT across industries like hospitality, government, and telecommunications, Greg has led companies through countless technological improvements. Shiji Distribution Solutions (SDS, formerly CHINAonline), a division of Shiji Group (Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 002153), is a leading online distribution technology and service provider. Founded in 2007, SDS built the first online travel distribution platform in China. It has expanded both domestically and internationally and now has offices in USA & UK. Over 70 hotel groups, 200+ distribution channels, 2500+ independent hotels and 30,000 properties are using SDS to streamline their distribution. 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Our expanded daily delivery of your local news reaches into the following areas: FREE ED SHEERAN from ridiculous copyright lawsuits [Mike Masnick] Mike Masnick discusses Ed Sheerans frequent appearance in the copyright courts due to silly lawsuits. by Mike Masnick of Tech Dirt Weve written a bunch about how Ed Sheeran recognizes how batshit crazy current copyright law is. One of the most successful recording artists today, youd think that maybe hed be a copyright maximalist, and yet copyright just seems to keep getting in the way of his creativity. Sheeran has admitted that piracy made him successful. When he started out as an independent artist, he says it was people sharing his music through pirate sites that built up his fan base, eventually leading to his record deals. Hes also been supportive of fans who got hit with copyright claims for covering his songs. But, at the same time, he keeps getting sued with questionable claims of copyright infringement. Earlier this year, he won one of the key lawsuits against him, including having the plaintiff have to pay his legal fees. However, he admitted to what a strain its been putting on his ability to create music, releasing a video statement saying: I feel like claims like this are way too common now, and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim. Its really damaging to the songwriting industry. Theres only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotifythats 22 million songs a yearand theres only 12 notes that are available. I dont want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered from both sides of this case, but I just want to say, Im not an entity. Im not a corporation. Im a human being. Im a father, Im a husband, Im a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience. And I hope that with this ruling, in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end. Me, Johnny, and Steve, are very grateful for all the support sent to us by fellow songwriters over the last few weeks. Hopefully, we can all get back to writing songs, rather than having to prove that we can write them. Except, he cant just get back to writing songs, because a court has said he has to go to trial over yet another one of these silly lawsuits. And, as Glyn Moody highlights, while this lawsuit is over a Marvin Gaye song, its not even the Gaye estate that brought the lawsuit. An investment banker bought the rights and is suing Sheeran to get free cash. The claim over Thinking Out Loud was originally lodged in 2018, not by Gayes family but by investment banker David Pullman and a company called Structured Asset Sales, which has acquired a portion of the estate of Lets Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend. Sheeran has talked about now he has to record all of his songwriting sessions knowing that he might end up in court, and thats just depressing and awful. None of this is helping creativity. None of this is promoting the progress. This is all just pure greed and exploitation of someone who is an actual creator. For what its worth, you may recall that the lawsuit that kicked off this wave of lawsuits for songs that have a similar groove was also about a Marvin Gaye song, Got to Give it Up which was deemed too similar to Robin Thickes Blurred Lines. What you might not remember, though, is while that case was brought by the Gaye estate, this same company, Structured Asset Sales, tried to insert itself into the case as an extra plaintiff. So, now we have an investment banker just trying to cash in on songs that have a similar groove and get free cash while making it depressingly difficult for artists to write new songs. This isnt copyright trolling, exactly, its trying to lock up entire genres through financial shenanigans. Mike Masnick Share on: Clark Art to Host Conversation on Feminism, Black History and Identity WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. On Thursday, Oct. 27, at 5 p.m., Tsedaye Makonnen, the Futures Fellow in the Clark Art Institutes Research and Academic Program, joins Nikki A. Greene, associate professor of art at Wellesley College, in a conversation examining feminism and the transhistorical forced migration of Black communities across the globe. The conversation explores Makonnens studio, curatorial, and research-based practice, and how it threads together her identity as a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, a Black American woman, a doula, and a mother. This lecture will be held in the Clarks Conforti Pavilion and is free and open to the public. A reception precedes the program at 4:30 p.m. Tsedaye Makonnens studio practice primarily focuses on feminism and migration. She intends to create a global spiritual network that recalibrates the worlds energy towards something positive. Makonnen is the current recipient of a permanent large-scale public art commission for Providence, Rhode Island. In 2019, she was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, and in 2021, her light sculptures were acquired by the Smithsonian for its permanent collection. Most recently, she performed at the 2022 Venice Biennale for Simone Leighs Loophole Retreat. At the Clark, she works on a project that explores how performance art can challenge whiteness, colonialism, and the effects of systemic forms of oppression on migration. Makonnen will exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2023. The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events. A recorded video of this lecture releases on the Clarks YouTube channel on Nov. 3. The next Research and Academic Program lecture is Zeynep Celik Alexanders Imperial Data: An Architectural History on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 5:30 p.m. North Adams Library Hosting Home Movie Showings NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The North Adams Public Library will host a Home Movie Day on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 7 to 10 p.m. Home Movie Day is an annual celebration of the historical and cultural value of amateur film. Screenings are held in communities throughout the world, and residents are encouraged to bring their films to share. Participants may show up at 7 p.m. with their films. Qualified volunteers will inspect for condition. Projection formats include 8mm, Super 8, and 16mm. This is the fourth Home Movie Day event in North Adams and Williamstown. Local host Rich Remsberg says past screenings have brought to light family films from Kenya, a student film from an underground comics artist, and many scenes of North Adams rendered in Kodachrome. "It's always a surprise what people show up with, but we know that there will be one reel that shows JFK's visit to North Adams," Remsberg said. President Kennedy made a number of trips to North Berkshire while a senator and during his presidential campaign, including walking in the Fall Foliage parade. Williamstown Sets November Deadline on Conserved Land Question WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Select Board on Wednesday decided to set a late November deadline for the non-profit seeking to be assigned the town's right of first refusal on a 10-acre parcel of farmland off Oblong Road. A portion of the Phelps property currently used for grazing by Sweet Brook Farm is under a purchase and sales agreement for $745,000. But because the land previously was conserved under Chapter 61 of Massachusetts General Law and eligible for a lower assessment for local property tax purposes, the town has a right of first refusal to either purchase the land itself (for the agreed-upon price) or allow a qualified non-profit to buy it for purposes of conservation. If the original agreed-upon sale goes through, proposed buyer's intent is to use the land for residential housing development. Under the town's zoning bylaw, up to four duplexes could be built on a 10-acre parcel, but it was noted at Wednesday's meeting that in the district outside the town's water and sewer services, septic and well-water capacity might limit the amount of development. No matter how many homes actually get built, the assessed value of the property and subsequent tax revenue to the town would go up significantly if the private sale goes through and the acreage is removed from the Chapter 61 program. "This 10 acres is currently valued at $2,181 because it's in the Chapter 61 program," Select Board Chair Hugh Daley told his colleagues. "So the taxes paid are $38.82. "Based on the assessor, as residential raw land, it would be valued at $479,200 and generate for the town and fire district $8,529.26 a year in property taxes. If it were developed into a home, the assessor's viewpoint is the home would probably be in the $2 million range and it would generate for the town and fire district $35,963 based on the tax rate per year." In addition to that potential 900-fold increase in property tax revenue, the town would receive a one-time "claw back" of some of the property taxes it would have received while the land was under Chapter 61 protection. Daley said that number would be about $49,079.97. To date, one non-profit, the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, has expressed an interest in being assigned the town's right of first refusal. WRLF officials started talking to the Select Board about the possibility this summer , when the property first was subject to a purchase-and-sales agreement. But Town Hall did not receive the formal notice of the potential sale as required under Chapter 61 until Sept. 20, Daley said on Wednesday. That means Williamstown has 120 days from the date of notification to decide whether to exercise or assign its right of first refusal, which puts the deadline at Jan. 17, 2023. But rather than wait until early next year, the Select Board decided to determine the issue at its Nov. 28 meeting. Jane Patton said that considering the fact that the question has been on the radar of the town and WRLF since June, it is "more than fair" to expect a firm commitment from the non-profit by late November. In July, WRLF officials told the board the organization was interested in assignment of the town's rights but was not yet able to say whether it could raise the $745,000 needed to close the deal. Patton and other members of the board said they had an obligation to make sure that a town asset, the right of first refusal, was used in a way that best benefited all town residents. She also noted that a municipality or non-profit could exercise the right of first refusal, fail to close on the property in a 90-day window that begins on Jan. 17, and pay only a 10 percent penalty to the seller after the original purchaser has walked away from the deal. "This has nothing at all to do with Rural Lands as an entity or the people on Rural Lands," Patton said. "But this is New York corporate Jane who is like, '$35,000 and maybe I make the other people go away and I don't have to do anything else.' Right? I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I feel like we've learned some lessons the last few years in assuming everyone is always going to do the right thing. "We need to, especially in stuff like this where, historically, it would have been, 'Conservation, that's amazing and blah blah,' I want to be really mindful that, as stewards of this we've now been asked to be a steward of this That's all I ask. And, again, no offense to anyone on the committees. This is smart business. This is being fiscally responsible and accountable and mindful about what to do with this asset." Patton said one consideration is the potential benefit to taxpayers of adding the property back on the tax roll, but there are other considerations for the Select Board to take into account, like whether residents will have access to the parcel, whoever ends up holding title. Andy Hogeland noted that the town could make public access a condition when it assigns the right of first refusal to WRLF or any other non-profit that comes forward. The board agreed to discuss that or any other conditions it might propose at its meetings between now and Nov. 28, at which time it intends to decide whether to let the private sale go through. No one on the board expressed an interest in pursuing a third scenario: the town buying the land outright, a move that likely would involve a special town meeting to authorize the $745,000 expenditure. In other business on Wednesday, the Select Board appointed Michael Eagle to the Northern Berkshire Cultural Council and accepted the resignation of longtime Zoning Board of Appeals member Andrew Hoar. It held off on appointing Hoar as alternate to the ZBA, as he offered, or naming current alternate Amy Jeschawitz to the board after Hogeland pointed out the town had not had time to advertise the vacancy created by Hoar's departure and encourage other residents to apply. After agreeing to post the vacancy on the town website, Daley recommended that a permanent section for current vacancies be created on the page of the town's website where board and committee members are listed. The Select Board learned from Town Manager Robert Menicocci that he has advertised the position of police chief with a deadline of Nov. 10 for responses. Menicocci said that in addition to listing the position with various regional law enforcement entities, he posted it on sites like the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, National Asian Peace Officers' Association, Massachusetts Latino Police Officers Association and the Hispanic American Police Command Officers' Association. The board received an update on the activities of the Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships Council from facilitator Lucy Gerold and took a step toward finalizing a months-long discussion about the purpose of the town's Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee. The board agreed to charge the DIRE Committee with developing a Diversity Strategic Plan, a decision that allows Menicocci to start the process of hiring a DEI consultant to advise the DIRE panel in developing that plan. Jeffrey Johnson, a former DIRE Committee member who has been part of a working group with the advisory panel, told his colleagues that the two-page "charge" document aligns with a separate revised DIRE Committee charter that the working group also is developing. He did not show the Select Board the new charter because it needs to be considered by the full DIRE Committee before presentation to the Select Board. On the other hand, Johnson said he felt comfortable advancing the charge because it is a direction from the Select Board, which identified the need for a strategic plan this summer. "This charge comes from us," Johnson said. "It's what we're asking them to do. It doesn't need consultation." Randy Fippinger, who fills the Select Board's ex officio seat on the DIRE Committee, said he believes there is buy-in from the committee on the goal of creating a strategic plan. Johnson also indicated that the strategic plan work need not be DIRE's sole focus, addressing a concern by committee members that they would be asked to stop all other work to focus on the charge. He noted that the process of finding a consultant is going to take time, during which DIRE can continue its current work. "I've got people in town who need this [work] all the time," Johnson said. "Racism and discrimination are alive and well in Williamstown, Mass., like it is in every place. I'm saying: Don't let them just sit. To me, I think it can all blend together." iciHaiti - UN : The Security Council discusses intervention options for Haiti Jose Alfonso Blanco Conde, the Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the UN (New York) announced that the National Council of the UN could present, this Monday, October 17, options on how to deal urgently with the issue of insecurity in Haiti, initially scheduled for October 21. White Conde indicated that as the date approached, the Security Council continued to discuss options while stressing that the war in Ukraine had "distracted attention from many Security Council issues, including that on Haiti." "We hope that next Monday we will have clear ideas on how the Council should address this issue as soon as possible," said Jose Alfonso Blanco Conde See also : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37866-icihaiti-request-for-armed-intervention-letter-from-prime-minister-to-the-un-secretary-general.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37863-haiti-usa-jo-biden-examines-haiti-s-request-for-armed-intervention.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37859-haiti-armed-foreign-intervention-the-minister-of-planning-ricard-pierre-justifies-his-decision-audio.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37847-haiti-politic-the-senate-asks-the-pm-to-postpone-the-intervention-of-a-foreign-armed-force-in-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37843-haiti-security-rain-of-reactions-to-the-decision-of-an-international-armed-intervention-in-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37831-haiti-flash-towards-a-foreign-armed-intervention-in-haiti-to-eliminate-gangs.html S/ iciHaiti Prime Minister Shezbaz Sharif inaugurated the Thar Coal Power Project for an energy-starved Pakistan this week along with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other dignitaries in Sindh province. He said the project would be a game-changer for the entire country as it would help in saving up to $6 billion in energy imports. Pakistan has been dealing with low energy supply coupled with high cost of power. It is also battling non-payment of arrears to Chinese power companies under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The inauguration of the project was attended by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Chinese ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong. Ambassador Nong Rong congratulated Pakistan for the project and thanked Sharif for his consistent devotion and firm support in strengthening Pakistan-China cooperation including support to CPEC projects. He also thanked the Pakistani Army for providing security to Chinese professionals in Pakistanmany of whom have been attacked by Sindh and Baloch nationalists. However, many Sindhis were not happy with the project. They see the mining of coal in Sindh as another ploy by Pakistans mainstream politicians to benefit the Punjab-dominated Pakistan polity. Sindh-based journalists criticised the project as the local scribes were not allowed to cover the inauguration of the project. They also said that despite the large projects being set up in their province, the jobs will be provided to outsiders, particularly from Punjab. Local journalists were not allowed to cover the Thar Coal Project, which Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, PM Shahbaz Sharif, and Bilawal Bhutto inaugurated, according to local. Thar Coal project is a game-changer in which locals cant have a job as gate-keeper but from Punjab people /2 Veengas (@VeengasJ) October 10, 2022 Zafar Sahito of the Jeay Sindh Freedom Movement said that the Islamabad based government is exploiting Sindh natural resources and grabbing their land. He said: Since its creation, the Punjab-dominated Pakistan has looted the resources of small provinces in the name of the federal government. They had earlier exploited East Pakistans natural resources, now they are looting the natural resources of Occupied Sindh, Balochistan & KPK. He reiterated the widely held view that this project too will not generate employment for the Sindhi people. Giving an insight into how investments and projects in Balochistan and Sindh do not benefit the locals, Sahito said: All national level projects in Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa benefit the federal government dominated by Punjab. He added that if the locals get any jobs, those are the lowest-level jobs because of which development of local people does not take place. Thar Coal project will be game-changer PK FM @BBhuttoZardari & PM @CMShehbaz The national resources of Occupied Sindh are property of people of Sindh only, not of Punjab dominated Pakistan. We will not allow anyone to take our natural resources, grab our land & exploit1/5 pic.twitter.com/zW2JGIT6uk Zafar Sahito (@widhyarthi) October 10, 2022 The Blaoch, and some Sindhi, separatist groups allege that Pakistan in collusion with China has been mining their resources, the profits of which go to the powerful generals and politicians, most of whom hail from the Punjab province. Sindhi rebels have carried out low-level attacks against Pakistani interests while the Baloch have specifically targeted Chinese assets in both Balochistan and Sindh to deter China from investing in the CPEC. Also read: Why Chinas assets are easy targets for Pakistani separatists Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has appointed former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed as his International Climate Advisor. Wickremesinghe also appointed former Norwegian minister Erik Solheim for the same role, reports The Times of Addu. Wickremesinghe had in May 2022 appointed Nasheed as a special envoy to coordinate foreign aid for Sri Lanka during the countrys debilitating economic crisis. Reportedly, Nasheed was in Sri Lanka just a few days back in his role as the special envoy to seek international assistance for the island nation. Mr President @RW_UNP; Ill give it my best shot. Look forward to working alongside @ErikSolheim Mohamed Nasheed (@MohamedNasheed) October 12, 2022 Nasheed is known widely for being a climate champion. During his time as the President of the archipelago, he had organised a widely-publicised cabinet meeting under the sea to highlight the threat from global warming and rising sea levels. The two Indian Ocean island nations enjoy strong historical and people-to-people connections. During the mass protests and political upheaval in Sri Lanka in July this year, the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Maldives to escape the public wrath. However, as people protested in Maldives against his arrival, Rajapaksa had to leave Maldives for Singapore. The Maldivian government too faced flak for giving shelter to Rajapaksa. Sri Lankan newspaper Daily FT reported that the other international climate advisor Solheim met Wickremesinghe and endorsed his vision for green economic recovery and for Sri Lankas climate leadership. Solheim has been working on climate change issues. He was earlier Norways international development and environment minister and also headed the UN Environment Program (UNEP) as its Executive Director. Good meeting with Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lankan President. The President has a great vision for green economic revocery and for Sri Lankan climate leadership! Proud to be appointed his International Climate Adviser together with @MohamedNasheed @RW_UNP @SriLankaTweet pic.twitter.com/1UnhQOCA4j Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) October 12, 2022 Solheim was also upbeat about the governments plans to pull Sri Lanka out of the economic crisis. He said: It is hard to think of any politician with a better grasp of economic realities than President Wickremesinghe. He added that the President has great plans for a green economic recovery for the country. Solheim has had a long association with Sri Lanka as he was involved in negotiations with Sri Lanka and the LTTE rebels as a Special Adviser in the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Ministry where he got the two sides to agree to a peace deal. The peace deal was seen as controversial by many Sri Lankan parties who felt that Sri Lankas interests were not articulated through the deal. Also Read: Why did Ranil Wickremesinghe appoint Nasheed of Maldives as advisor for aid assistance? Why is the COP26 a lifeline for Maldives and Small Island Nation States? The Journey of India is a celebration of the democratic country with prominent people and celebrities who throw light on India, the up-and-coming superpower, and its historic transition to democracy after achieving independence. Rana Daggubati, a Telugu actor, will host the second episode of the docuseries "The Journey of India." The actor said that India's development toward sustainability is admirable and that it is the result of group efforts by people at all levels. Poster Rana will appear with pioneering wildlife activist Latika Nath in the episode, and the two will emphasise the tenacity, tenacity, and never-say-die spirit of people and communities in the nation who struggle against all difficulties in their attempts to restore the proper balance with nature. netflix As reported by IANS, Rana spoke about the show's second episode, "The Journey of India demonstrates the rich fruits of India's collective hard work and sheer willpower. Our progress toward sustainability and becoming more conscious as a nation is commendable; there is so much to be an Indian that one can never be too proud." He further added, "Warner Bros. Discovery's contributions to bringing conservation initiatives to the forefront and igniting the green agenda are a step in the right direction for educating viewers on the importance of preserving our land's ecology. It's an honour for me to be a part of a show that highlights awe-inspiring achievements while emphasising the importance of preserving our motherland for future generations." Along With Rana, Many Celebs Will Join The Journey Of India India's natural wealth, which includes exquisite flora and animals as well as extinct species, is profoundly interwoven in its cultural heritage. Amitabh Bachchan, the series' narrator, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, will educate the viewers on the history of the nation's coexistence with the environment, its foundations in tradition, and its evolution over 75 years of freedom in the upcoming episode of The Journey of India. Twitter The following episode will highlight the flawless efforts of the nation to protect its ecological, from exposing the drastic absence of plastic in Asia's cleanest village Mawlynnong to sustainability hero Vani Murthy's wacky attempts to glamorise rubbish. Indian author Amish Tripathi will honour the variety of religions in India. Vikas Khanna, a Michelin-starred chef, will also be a part of the programme and talk about the appetising qualities of Indian food as well as his ancestry and how it has influenced other cuisines. On October 17, Discovery+ and India's network of Discovery channels will start airing the second episode of "The Journey of India." (With Inputs From IANS) (To read more such stories related to movies and shows released on OTTs, keep reading Indiatimes BINGE) While many celebrities like Twinkle Khanna and Rhea Kapoor in the past have said that they wouldn't celebrate Karwa Chauth, observing the fast remains to be a personal choice. Women should not be judged for whatever choice they make. However, most women shame each other for picking a side. Also Read: 'I Do Karwa Chauth As I Live In A Free Country', People Slam Ratna Pathak Shah For Her Comment Instagram As women across the nation celebrated the festival of Karwa Chauth, among those who also fasted were Katrina Kaif and Mouni Roy. The festival in which women fast for the entire day - from sunrise to moon rise - and pray for their husband's well-being and longevity is celebrated enthusiastically by Hindu women in Northern and Western India. As Mouni Roy celebrated the festival, fans praised her for celebrating the most important Punjabi festival, despite being Bengali. Her husband Suraj Nambiar is a south Indian. "Mallu husband, Bong wife, Punjabi ritual," commented a fan. "She is bengali, her husband is mallu, and they are celebrating karwachauth," said another one. Other fans were obsessing over Mouni Roy's Karwa Chauth Mehendi. "This is the most impressive mehndi art i've ever seen in my life," said a fan. "Omgggg such a beautiful design.. love the intricacy," said another one. For the unversed, Suraj Nambiar is an Indian businessman and investment banker based in Dubai. He was born to Jain parents in Bengaluru, Karnataka. If reports are to be believed, they met in Dubai and thereafter started dating. While they never openly talked about being in a relationship, they were often spotted together at parties and events, which sparked rumours. It is said that Mouni met Suraj's parents at her close friend Mandira Bedi's house. She also celebrated the new year with Suraj's family. Also Read: Rhea Kapoor Refuses To Celebrate Karva Chauth, Says 'It's Not Something Karan Or I Believe In' (For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment, and let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments below.) A spike in COVID-19 cases has prompted China to impose new lockdowns and travel restrictions across the nation. Two novel Omicron sub-variants, BF.7 and BA.5.1.7, which are anticipated to be extremely contagious and more communicable, have been detected by China in a variety of regions. On October 12, China's national health committee announced that 1,760 new local infections had occurred the day before, including cases from Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Xian. Evolution of Omicron Late last year, Omicron outcompeted the delta strain and was first discovered in southern Africa. The spike protein gene, which provides the coronavirus its crown-like structure and enables cell invasion, has about 30 mutations in Omicron's initial iteration, B.1.1.529, which is what makes this coronavirus unique. AP Changes there may reduce the pathogen's recognition by the immune system's antibodies generated in response to immunization or a case of Covid, raising the likelihood of infection in those circumstances. Since then, Omicron has been evolving continuously, resulting in the sudden, simultaneous appearance of numerous "fitter," faster-moving subvariants. Each consists of a unique combination of genetic changes that have an impact on infectivity, pathogenicity, and antibody evasion. Some mutant strains have developed a remarkable resistance to antibodies, including those created to treat Covid, as well as an improved capacity to infect respiratory system cells, leaving them increasingly adept at transmitting from person to person. To separate specific variants from what has become a confusing categorization of letters and digits using traditional scientific nomenclature, scientists have assigned them labels like "basilisk" and "gryphon." Among the main omicron lineages, the BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BQ.1.3, BA.2.3.20, and XBB subvariants have some of the highest rates of spread. The UK's health security agency recently stated that the BQ varieties, as well as BA.2.75.2 and BF.7, are the most worrisome due to their growth benefit and immune evasiveness. What is the current situation in China? AFP Two extremely transmissible subvariants of Omicron, BF.7 and BA.5.1.7, have been discovered in a number of Chinese provinces. The experts have issued a warning over these two subvariants' "rapidly spreading speed" since more cases of each have spread to more provinces of China. While multiple cases of BA.5.1.7 have been found in the Chinese city of Shaoguan in the province of Guangdong, BF.7 has also been found there as well as in Yantai and is gradually spreading to further regions. While extensive Covid prohibitions prevented people from traveling or shopping, consumer confidence is still declining as holiday spending over China's Golden Week fell to its lowest point in 7 years. The country is doubling down on zero-Covid, a strategy used by local authorities to follow Party directives, show their allegiance to President Xi Jingping, and avoid any widespread outbreak that could endanger their careers weeks before the Party Congress. In mainland China, the number of new instances of COVID is surging, causing numerous local authorities to tighten movement restrictions. China's 'Zero Covid' policy? Zero-COVID is a public health policy that stresses the use of contact monitoring, border restrictions, mass screening, and periodic lockdowns to effectively shut down all avenues for a virus like COVID to propagate. AFP Despite the fact that the frequency of new infections is not concerning, China has been pursuing a zero-COVID strategy. Local media claimed that due to the country's economic downturn, there is increasing public pressure on the Chinese authorities to ease its zero-Covid policy. However, the debates at the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party's (7th Plenary) current meeting are mostly focused on the party's determination to uphold the strict zero-Covid policy even after the 20th National Congress of the CCP. On October 10, the Party's newspaper "People's Daily" repeated this as well, pleading with the public to "show patient" with the zero-Covid policy as it aims to break all virus transmission chains. For more on the news, sports, and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. In a shocking incident, an Indian national pursuing education in Australia has been left in critical condition after he was stabbed multiple times. The student, identified as Shubham Garg, who is pursuing Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, was brutally attacked with a knife and allegedly stabbed 11 times on October 6. Twitter Attacked during robbery attempt The 28-year-old was walking along the Pacific Highway while returning to his place of residence at around 10:30 pm when he was attacked. According to the police, Daniel Norwood, a 27-year-old local man approached Garg and demand cash and his phone. When he refused Norwood allegedly stabbed Garg many times in the abdomen before fleeing the scene. Local media reported that an injured Garg sought assistance from a nearby house before being taken to Royal North Shore Hospital. Garg, who is from Agra, Uttar Pradesh underwent multiple surgeries and continues to be in critical condition in the hospital. Accused arrested According to Australian authorities, the accused, Norwood was arrested and taken to Chatswood Police Station where he was charged with one count of attempted murder. File A local court in Hornsby denied him bail and he will remain in custody for at least till 14 December 2022, the date of the next hearing. Family seeks help to get visa Garg's family in Agra said that he had completed a Bachelor of Technology and Master of Science degree from IIT Madras and went to Australia on September 1 to pursue his Ph.D. With the youth's condition remaining critical, his family said they have been trying to get a visa for Australia for the past seven days, but haven't been able to secure it. "My brother Shubham Garg, 28,from UP, was brutually attacked in Sydney, Australia 11 times with knife and he is in critical condition.We seek your immediate help in this matter and emergency visa to family member to look after him," Kavya Garg, the sister of the injured student wrote on Twitter. My brother Shubham Garg, 28,from UP, was brutually attacked in Sydney, Australia 11 times with knife and he is in critical condition.We seek your immediate help in this matter and emergency visa to family member to look after him.@PMOIndia @myogiadityanath @DrSJaishankar Kavya Garg (@KGARG1205) October 12, 2022 "Update!! My brother is going through multiple operations and doctor said that infection is spreading in body. Requesting @narendramodi for urgent help on this matter," she said in another tweet. Update!! My brother is going through multiple operations and doctor said that infection is spreading in body. Requesting @narendramodi for urgent help on this matter. Kavya Garg (@KGARG1205) October 13, 2022 Indian students in Australia Australia is one of the most sought-after countries for Indians to pursue higher studies. Unsplash/ Representational image As of July 2022, 96,000 Indian students were studying in Australia, forming the second-largest group of foreign students after China. While the country continues to attract Indian students and skilled workforce, the increase in hate crimes targeting the diaspora has remained a concern. For more on the news, sports, and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. A Brazilian court on Thursday has fined Apple BRL 100 million (around Rs 150 crores) while ruling that battery chargers must come included with new iPhone models sold in the nation, reveals a Reuters report. Unsplash The lawsuit was filed by the association of borrowers, consumers and taxpayers, who argued that the company is committing abusive practices by selling its flagship product without a charger. Apple had initially claimed that its move of omitting chargers from the packaging was with the view to reduce e-waste caused due to spare chargers, as well as reducing carbon emissions. The court however stated in its decision, "It is evident that, under the justification of a 'green initiative,' the defendant imposes on the consumer a required purchase of charger adaptors that were previously supplied along with the product." The Cupertino giant said that it will appeal this recent decision. Just last month, the government of Brazil fined Apple for BRL 12.275 million (roughly Rs 18 crores) for the very same thing -- not including a charger in the box with its iPhone models, while also claiming that the company was providing an incomplete product to its customers. Reuters The Justice Ministry of Brazil at the time had put a ban on the sale of iPhone 12 and other variants that didnt pack a charging brick, claiming that the company is conducting deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers, by lacking what is actually an essential component. The Justice Ministry claimed at the time that there was no evidence that exclusion of the charger was protecting the environment. This comes amidst the newly passed EU law for a universal charger, which could force Apple to kill its proprietary Lightning Connector in favour of the more universally-used USB Type-C connector. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com. A photographer in California managed to capture stunning images of a rainbow but with a twist. On the majority of rainy days, one may notice a glimpse of a magnificent rainbow covering the sky. The rainbow symbolizes hope and positivity and can quickly leave people in awe. Unsplash On the internet, breathtaking rainbow formations have been widely shared in images and movies. Social media has witnessed the creation of one such photograph of unparalleled beauty. Three days ago, Stu Berman, a photographer, captured the iconic photo and posted it on Instagram. stuinsf/Instagram The photographer captured this unique and unusual airborne phenomenon in the misty San Francisco sky. Mr. Berman is a photographer from San Francisco, California, and he loves sharing the beauty of the world, as per his Instagram bio. "Yesterday morning, I went for a walk in the Marin Headlands and saw a sight unlike any I'd seen before... A "Fogbow," wrote Mr. Berman while sharing the post. This phenomenon often referred to as a fogbow or a white rainbow, is much less frequent than its wet counterpart, the rainbow, according to Newsweek. "The picture was taken at Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands [peninsula]," photographer Stuart Berman, who lives in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood," Mr. Berman told Newsweek. "I saw it for about 15-20 minutes, but it was still there when I left," he added. Pictures show a mysterious fogbow formation in California. The images have gone viral because netizens are stunned by their beauty. Screengrab The same combination of sunlight and moisture that creates rainbows also creates them. Rainbows emerge as raindrops flutter through the air. Fogbows go by various names, including white rainbows, cloud bows, and ghost rainbows, as stated in Mr. Berman's Instagram post. In the caption, the photographer reflected upon what precisely a fogbow is. Also known as white rainbows, cloud bows, or ghost rainbows, fogbows are "made much as rainbows are, from the same configuration of sunlight and moisture." He explained in his caption: "Rainbows happen when the air is filled with raindrops. You always see a rainbow in the direction opposite the sun. Fogbows are much the same, always opposite the sun." Fogbows, as opposed to more giant massive raindrops, are created by tiny droplets within a fog or cloud. (For the latest trending stories, keep reading Indiatimes) C++ is a general-purpose systems programming language that is now more than 40 years old, having been designed in 1979. Far from losing steam, C++ still ranks near the top of multiple programming language popularity indexes. Smoothing the path to C++ usage is broad support for the language among the makers of IDEs, editors, compilers, test frameworks, code quality, and other tools. Software developers also have at their disposal many excellent libraries to assist with building C++ applications. Here are 12 that C++ developers rely on. Active Template Library From Microsoft, Active Template Library (ATL) is a set of C++ classes for building COM (Common Object Model) objects, with support for COM features such as dual interfaces, standard COM enumerator interfaces, connection points, and ActiveX controls. Available with the Visual Studio IDE, ATL can be used to build single-threaded objects, apartment-model objects, free-threaded model objects, or both free-threaded and apartment-model objects. Asio C++ library The Asio C++ library is used for network and low-level I/O programming, offering a consistent asynchronous model. Providing basic building blocks for concurrency, C++ networking, and other types of I/O, Asio has been used in applications ranging from smartphone apps and games to highly interactive websites and real-time transaction systems. Projects using Asio include the WebSocketPP library and the DDT3 remote debugger for the Lua language. Asio is available as free open source under the Boost Software License, and supported on Linux, Windows, MacOS, and FreeBSD. Boost Boost provides free, peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries, accessible from boost.org, that work with the C++ standard library. Boost libraries are intended to be used across a spectrum of applications. Among the collection are libraries for JSON, math, multi-index, file system, and geometry. Boost works on most modern operating systems including Linux, Unix, and Windows. Linux and Unix distributions such as Debian, Fedora, and NetBSD already include pre-built Boost packages. Cinder Cinder is an open source library for creative coding in C++. Useful for applications such as audio, computational geometry, graphics, and video, Cinder supports platform-native windowing and event-handling, along with I/O abstraction, and has a built-in API for XML and JSON parsing. Designed around idiomatic C++ 11 features such as shared_ptr, the library ships with numerous samples. Cinder supports MacOS, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Windows UWP. Eigen Eigen is a C++ template library for linear algebra, including matrices, vectors, numerical solvers, and related algorithms. All matrix sizes are supported, from small, fixed matrices to arbitrarily large, dense matrices. Algorithms are selected for reliability. All standard numeric types are supported. For speed, Eigen features expression templates to intelligently remove temporaries and enable lazy evaluation. Freely available under the Mozilla Public License 2 and downloadable from the Eigen project page, Eigen has been fitted with an API described by proponents as expressive and clean and natural to C++ programmers. The test suite for Eigen has been run against many compilers to ensure reliability. FloatX FloatX, or Float eXtended, is a header-only library for low-precision, floating point type emulation. While natively compatible with C++ compilers, FloatX can be called by other languages such as Python or Fortran. Floating point types are extended beyond the native single and double precision types. Template types are provided that allow the user to select the number of bits used for the exponent as well as significant parts of the floating point number. FloatX is based on the idea of the FlexFloat library for emulating reduced-precision floating types, but implements a superset of FlexFloat functionality in C and provides C++ wrappers. FloatX emerged from the Open Transprecision Computing initiative. It is available free under the Apache License 2.0. OpenCV OpenCV, or Open Source Computer Vision Library, is a computer vision and machine learning library written natively in C++, and available under an Apache 2 license. OpenCV was built to provide common infrastructure for computer vision applications and accelerate the use of machine perception in commercial products. More than 2,500 optimized algorithms for face recognition, object detection, object classification, 3D model extraction, image search, and much more, OpenCV has amassed a user community of more than 47,000 persons. Available from the OpenCV project website, the library provides C++, Java, Python, and Matlab interfaces and supports Windows, Linux, Android, and MacOS. CUDA and OpenCL interfaces are in development. Poco C++ Libraries Intended to simplify C++ development, the Poco (Portable Components) C++ Libraries are cross-platform C++ libraries for building Internet and network applications to run on systems ranging from desktops and servers to mobile and IoT devices. The libraries also can be used to build microservices with REST APIs for machine learning or data analytics. The Poco libraries are similar in concept to the Java Class Library, Microsofts .NET Framework, or Apple Cocoa. Developers can use Poco libraries to build application servers in C++ that talk to SQL databases, Redis, or MongoDB, or to build software for IoT devices that talk to cloud back-ends. Among the features of the libraries are a cache framework, HTML form handling, an FTP client for transferring files, and an HTTP server and client. The Poco libraries are available free under the Boost Software License and downloadable from GitHub. Velox Velox is an embeddable, vectorized execution library for OLAP systems. The library is intended to optimize data processing systems and query engines. The project was begun as an internal engineering project at Facebook in 2020 and then open sourced. In common usage scenarios, Velox takes a fully optimized query plan as input and performs the described computation. Components include a high-level typing system, a columnar memory module, function packages, and network serializers. Velox is available on GitHub in the Facebook Incubator repo. Windows Template Library Originally from Microsoft, the Windows Template Library (WTL) is (since 2004) an open source library for building lightweight Windows applications and UI components. Positioned as an alternative to the Microsoft Foundation Classes toolkit, WTL extends ATL and provides a set of classes for controls, dialogs, frame windows, and GDI objects. Wt Wt is a web GUI library in modern C++ that allows developers to build interactive web UIs with widgets, without having to write JavaScript. A server-side solution, Wt does request handling and page rendering, providing built-in security, PDF rendering, a 2D and 3D painting system, an object-relational mapping library, a charting library, and an authentication framework. The core library is open source, providing a hybrid single-page framework that can be deployed on Linux, Unix, or Windows. Developed by software engineering company Emweb, Wt is compatible with HTML5 and HTML4 browsers as well as with plain HTML user agents. And Wt can integrate with third-party JavaScript libraries. With Wt, an application is defined as a hierarchy of widgetsranging from generic widgets such as push buttons to specialized widgets such as an entire blog widget. The widget tree is rendered as HTML/JavaScript in the browser. Wt can be downloaded from the project webpage. Both open source and commercial usage terms are available. Yocto/GL Yocto/GL is a collection of small C++17 libraries for building physically-based graphics algorithms. It is written in a data-oriented style for ease of development, and split into small libraries to make code navigation easier. Data is stored in simple structs and accessed with free functions or directly. Yocto/GL includes code from the PCG random number generator, boost hash_combine , and external libraries from the public domain or that are included with their own licenses. The developers of Yocto/GL prefer a functional approach rather than an object-oriented one, favoring free functions to class methods. Functions and data are defined in sibling namespaces contained in the yocto namespace. Yocto/GL is released under the MIT license and available from GitHub. A C++17 compiler is required. Hooker began his career in 1988 in London, later relocating to Australia and then Asia in 2000. He has since held various leadership roles throughout the region, including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Its a privilege to join Miller and be part of the well-established Singapore team. I greatly look forward to helping accelerate growth across the region and working with a group of such passionate and highly skilled people, he said. As Millers regional head of energy for the Asia Pacific region, Hooker will be based in Singapore and report to Nigel Cross, head of Miller Singapore, and Martin Henderson, head of energy & marine, energy and transportation liability. I am thrilled to be welcoming Matt to the team, Cross said. His depth of knowledge, breadth of relationships and entrepreneurial leadership will significantly contribute to Millers ambitious expansion plans in the region and growth in the energy sector. Matts appointment signifies our ongoing commitment to building out a differentiated energy and renewables proposition, Henderson said. I greatly look forward to working with him and the rest of the Singapore team as we continue to provide solutions to our clients on a global basis. Hookers appointment is part of Millers wider growth strategy in Asia Pacific. The company recently announced a number of senior appointments to its Singapore team, including Ron Whyte as head of strategic development and Nick King as head of marine. Im pleased to say our ahm and international students can now resume their normal activities after we restored access to our systems, Koczkar said. As we continue to take decisive action to safeguard our networks and systems, we will take any steps necessary to protect the data of our customers, people and other stakeholders. However, one of Australias biggest health insurers said higher than usual traffic had caused some delays to ahm and international student customers logging in to member accounts. Those experiencing interruptions are encouraged to contact support via phone instead. Weve temporarily restricted these services to ensure customers can continue to make claims and access their policies via our phone team, Medibank said in a statement. We apologise for the regrettable inconvenience this will cause some customers. Medibank is in frequent contact with regulators, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, government departments and other key stakeholders to keep them updated on the information of its 3.6 million members. A forensic investigation continues, and it will take time, Medibank said in a statement. Medibank will continue to provide customers with regular updates on the investigation. Thimble is an online MGA focused on professional liability, business equipment protection, commercial property, event insurance and other coverage options. Their team-up allows Thimble to offer customers Ceritys workers compensation coverage along with its own offerings. They are digitizing the insurance shopping process for small businesses, enabling affordable quotes in minutes as well as downloading of their own certificates of insurance. Were thrilled to team up with Thimble to meet customers where they want to be online, Jeff Shaw, Ceritys executive vice president, said in prepared remarks. Embroker Embroker hired a former Burns & Wilcox executive as its new chief insurance officer. David Derigiotis will lead development of the digital insurance brokers insurance vertical products, particularly those focused on cybersecurity, technology and privacy. Previously he was corporate senior vice president and National Professional Liability Practice Group leader for Burns & Wilcox, an international wholesale broker and MGA. He brings to Embroker 20 years of insurance industry experience, with a particular focus on cybersecurity exposures, data privacy law, regulatory requirements and emerging technologies such as blockchain, decentralized finance and cryptocurrency. As we continue to expand our product offerings for different customer segments, [Derigiotis] wealth of cybersecurity and privacy expertise will help ensure our products are the absolute best they can be, Ben Jennings, Embrokers chief revenue officer, said in prepared remarks. Cover Whale Cover Whale Insurance, an insurtech MGA focused on commercial trucking, has expanded into 10 additional states and added new product offerings. The new states are Arkansas, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, West Virginia and New Hampshire. Cover Whale now does business in 27 states with its auto liability coverage, and 48 states for its auto physical damage, motor truck cargo, non-trucking liability and truckers general liability lines of business. Truck drivers keep the US economy running and we are committed to supporting them by expanding our services and state availability, Cover Whale CEO Dan Abrahamsen said in prepared remarks. Cover Whale works with more than 5,000 agents. Mutual Capital Analytics/Vertafore Mutual Capital Analytics and Vertafore are teaming on an effort to unlock big data benefits for mutual insurance companies. Vertafore is an insurance technology company, and Mutual Capital Analytics provides analytical products and services for mutual insurance companies. Their arrangement calls for MCA to combine its analytics expertise with Vertafores data and analytics products to help mutual insurance companies work with their independent agents so they can better compete in personal lines. The idea is that the partnership will help carriers quickly gain actionable insight to manage performance. Launched in 2019, Mutual Capital Analytics works with leaders of Mutual Insurance Companies to help them compete more effectively. Duck Creek Technologies Duck Creek is collaborating with SBS to help accelerate same-day claims settlements. Duck Creek is a developer of property/casualty insurance technology products and services. SBS provides tech-enabled content validation and replacement services in the UK. The companies are enacting their partnership through the Duck Creek Content Exchange. Duck Creek customers are able to connect with SBSs Digital Household Contents Validation systems so those users can achieve a one-touch, same-day contents claim settlement. Their linkup will also facilitate a completely digital claims model. TheGuarantors TheGuarantors has launched rent and damage protection for independent landlords. The New York-based fintech MGA builds smart financial and insurance products and services for landlords. Independent landlords use the platform to access TheGuarantors insurance products and invite their prospective renters to apply in a matter of minutes. In exchange for the renter paying a fee (often less than one month of rent), TheGuarantors issues a Lease Guarantee policy that protects the landlords rental income against loss due to rent defaults, vacancies, lease breaks and other common risks. In addition, TheGuarantors offers a Security Deposit Replacement product that helps landlords meet changing deposit regulations, eliminate administrative hassles and attract more renters by offering a deposit alternative that significantly reduces move-in costs. IronVest IronVest raised $23 million in seed funding designed to help scale up its technology that protects personal accounts and personal data from fraud. The New York-based startup is also formally emerging from stealth mode, which means it was operating under the radar as it developed and fine-tuned its technology. Accomplice led the round, though Trust Ventures, Ulysses, Joule Ventures and OurCrowd also participated along with a number of strategic angel investors. The company relies on a decentralized infrastructure to protect personal data as well as decentralized biometric fraud prevention technology to make sure only the correct person can access the most sensitive accounts and data during sign-in and through a session. Pivotal Home Solutions, a home warranty company headquartered in Naperville, Illinois, will pay $175,000 and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced According to the EEOCs suit, a former employee worked at Pivotal Home Solutions (Pivotal) as a dispatcher through a staffing agency for nearly six months. During that time, she succeeded in her role, received no negative performance evaluations, and was told that she would likely be hired to work directly for Pivotal instead of through the staffing agency. In January 2018, the employee disclosed to her supervisor that she had a panic attack and had been prescribed medication to treat her post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. Shortly thereafter, the supervisor contacted several representatives of the staffing company that placed the employee at Pivotal and requested that she be separated because of her nervous breakdown. In two of the phone calls, documented by representatives of the staffing company, the supervisor indicated that the employee had no performance issues but that he wanted to separate her anyway because he believed that the environment was too stressful for her. At least one representative of the staffing company informed the supervisor of the risk of terminating an employee for a medical condition that did not affect her performance, but the supervisor continued to request that the employee be terminated. Such conduct violates Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (EEOC v. Pivotal Home Solutions, Civil Action No. 21-cv-04978), after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through the EEOCs conciliation process. Under the three-year consent decree settling the suit, Pivotal will pay $175,000 to the former employee. Further, Pivotal is subject to an injunction forbidding it from discriminating against employees, including employees working for Pivotal through a staffing company, because of their disability. Pivotal is also subject to an injunction forbidding it from retaliating against employees for opposing any practice made unlawful under the ADA, filing a charge of discrimination under the ADA, testifying in any proceeding under the ADA, or for asserting any rights under the consent decree. Pivotal is also required to update its policies to prohibit discrimination under the ADA and to update the policies to state explicitly that they apply to employees working at Pivotal through staffing companies. In addition, Pivotal will provide annual trainings conducted by outside and independent trainers to managers and all employees responsible for human resources about their obligations under the ADA. SOURCE: EEOC Topics Illinois This post is part of a series sponsored by IAT Insurance Group. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is doing all they can to reduce emissions. From moving and storage vehicles to buses, freight trucks and even agribusiness vehicles previously not required to comply, the CARB regulations require engines in heavy-duty vehicles to be upgraded or retrofitted. Regardless of where the vehicle is registered, all carriers hauling freight in California are required to comply. Combine this with the lifting of Assembly Bill 5,[1] which changed the definition of who is considered an independent contractor (IC), and theres even more pressure being put on an already taxed industry in California. What you need to know based on your vehicle size Complying with these new mandates depends on your vehicles Engine Model Year (EMY) and the trucks Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). The chart below breaks down requirement deadlines to have a PM filter upgraded and installed based on a trucks weight and year. Note that all vehicles with a 2010 EMY or newer are fully compliant. EMY Schedule for Heavier Vehicles (>26,000 lbs.)[2] Vehicles with an engine model year (EMY) of 2004 and earlier must have a particulate matter (PM) filter upgraded and installed by January 1, 2021. EMY Level 3 PM Filter 2010 EMY by 2005 or newer January 1, 2014 January 1, 2022 2007 2009 If already equipped January 1, 2023 Lighter Vehicles (14,001 26,000 lbs.)[3] Lighter vehicles do not require a Level 3 PM filter per the new regulations. Vehicles with an EMY of 2003 and earlier were required to have a 2010 EMY by January 1, 2020. EMY 2010 EMY by 2004 2006 January 1, 2021 2007 2009 January 1, 2023 Under the new regulations, refrigerated trailers and trucks may not have an engine older than seven years old. By January 1, 2022, the refrigerated unit engine could be no older than 2005. These changes incrementally, effective January 1 of every year. So, by January 1, 2023, refrigerated unit engines can be no older than 2006.[4] How will the Department of Transportation (DOT) enforce this? Since 2020, California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, has checked compliance with regulation during new vehicle registration. Vehicles that are a 2010 model or older, must have a 2010 engine by January 1, 2023, or owners will not be allowed to register their vehicle(s). But compliance hasnt been easy. Due to the current supply chain crisis, some motor carriers and independent contractors have been waiting for more than a year for new trucks and upgraded engines. These supply chain issues are causing truckers to consider staying off the road and not make a living or driving trucks illegally. Many owners may opt to keep fleets operating locally to avoid Caltrans roadside inspections and face non-compliance repercussions. All carriers traveling into California should obtain CARB certification for their fleets. Carriers can obtain CARB certification and print certificates for drivers at www.arb.ca.gov only after fleets have reported accurate information and meet compliance standards. For trucks that do not comply, CARB can issue Caltrans DOT blocks on vehicle registration, which forces owners to address the blocks before their vehicle can be reregistered. For this reason, many motor carriers are opting to transport goods through East Coast ports and sending the goods by rail to their West Coast location instead. Whats the impact on independent contractors (ICs)? All companies must upgrade or retrofit their vehicles to stay in compliance. But thats hard for the IC, who may not have the funds to meet Californias new emission mandates. Motor carriers may want to consider making their ICs employees to ensure drivers are meeting safety mandates and staying within compliance standards. While the combination of California emissions regulations and AB 5 pose ongoing questions, motor carriers and IC can rely on insurance brokers to find optimal solutions for coverage. Contact IAT Insurance to learn more about how California Emissions regulations can impact commercial transportation coverage. By Nancy Ross-Anderson, Loss Control Specialist [1] Freight Waves Lower court formally lifts injunction against AB5 in California trucking, August 29, 2022. [2] California Air Resources Board A Guide to Californias Clean Air Regulations for Heavy Duty Diesel Vehicles, February 2020. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. Topics California A federal appeals court on Wednesday allowed New York to continue enforcing its new gun law as it considers a lower court ruling that would block key provisions. The decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came six days after a federal district judge in Syracuse declared multiple portions of the law unconstitutional and placed a temporary hold on them. The state promptly appealed the order. The decision puts a hold on U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddabys order until a three-judge appeals panel can make a decision on the states motion. Suddaby on Thursday put a hold on several of the states new licensing rules for carrying handguns in public, including one that made applicants turn over information about their social media accounts. The judge also chipped away at the list of sensitive locations where people cannot carry guns. He said the state couldnt ban people from carrying guns in New York Citys subway system or Times Square. Attorney General Letitia James said she was pleased the law would stay in effect. My office will continue our efforts to protect the safety of everyday New Yorkers and defend our common-sense gun laws, she said in a prepared release. Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers rewrote the states handgun laws this summer after a Supreme Court ruling invalidated New Yorks old system for granting permits to carry handguns outside the home. The high court struck down the states longstanding requirement that people demonstrate an unusual threat to their safety to qualify for such a license. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics New York Gun Liability New Jersey Democrats say they are going to take a shot at passing new gun legislation similar to New Yorks even thought that states law is facing a court challenge. Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin and Senate President Nick Scutari, both Democrats, have unveiled legislation that they contend would establish New Jersey as the toughest in the nation when it comes to concealed-carry laws. New Jersey legislative leaders said they expect there will be legal challenges if New Jersey enacts a new gun-carry law. A June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated certain restrictions on state gun-carry laws like those New Jersey has had including requiring citizens to show a justifiable need for carrying a gun in public. New York revised its similar law following that high court ruling and now that revised law is under review by courts. The New Jersey Democrats latest proposal seeks to require more comprehensive background checks before a permit is issued; prohibit permit holders from carrying handguns in certain public areas; and impose a new insurance requirement, among other measures. Supreme Court Voids New York Gun Law, Establishes Right to Carry Outside Home The New Jersey proposal would prohibit permit holders from carrying handguns in schools, government buildings, polling places, bars and restaurants, theaters, sporting arenas, parks, airports, casinos and childcare facilities. Previously, application of the justifiable need standard minimized the serious dangers of misuse and accidental use inherent in the carrying of handguns in a public place. Given the likelihood that a much greater number of individuals will now qualify to carry handguns in public, it is now both necessary and appropriate to clearly identify in the law those sensitive places where, due to heightened public safety concerns, carrying a weapon of any kind, including a handgun, is not permissible. These prohibitions are based on common sense principles and historical analogues, the bill says in its introduction acknowledging the changed gun control landscape following the Supreme Court ruling. Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, an author of the proposed legislation, believes the new measure strikes a balance between public safety and protecting constitutional rights. He said the state should be able to promote responsible gun ownership, gun safety, gun education, and gun training while upholding the Second Amendment. Proposed Insurance Requirement Every private citizen who carries a handgun in public in this State shall maintain liability insurance coverage, under provisions approved by the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, insuring against loss resulting from liability imposed by law for bodily injury, death, and property damage sustained by any person arising out of the ownership, maintenance, operation or use of a firearm carried in public wherein such coverage shall be at least in: (1) an amount or limit of $100,000, exclusive of interest and costs, on account of injury to, or death of, one person, in any one incident; (2) an amount or limit, subject to such limit for any one person so injured or killed, of $300,000, exclusive of interest and costs, on account of injury to or death of, more than one person, in any one incident; and (3) an amount or limit of $25,000, exclusive of interest and costs, for damage to property in any one incident. The bill would also increase the number of non-family references who must vouch for applicants for concealed carry permits, as well as allow disqualification of candidates for reasons of character of temperament and past violations of restraining orders and convictions. The Democrats legislation would further require handgun owners to have liability insurance to compensate victims of an accidental discharge. Failure to carry insurance would be grounds for revocation of a permit to carry a handgun. (See sidebar for legislative language on insurance.) Also, property owners would have to opt into allowing people to carry on their premises and concealed-carry permittees would have to undergo safety training, including a gun range qualification. Republican Senator Ed Durr criticized the latest Democratic proposal. Protecting public safety also includes protecting the individual right to self-defense, yet Democrats take every opportunity to prevent people from protecting themselves, Durr stated. Lets be real. Criminals are the problem, not law-abiding citizens who have rights. The bad guys wont go out and buy gun insurance before they carjack a family or shoot up a neighborhood. Democrats see their approach as enhancing public safety. They argue that expanding handgun carrying creates safety risks, citing a study by Johns Hopkins that the estimated average rate of officer-involved shootings increased by 12.9 percent in 10 states that relaxed restrictions between 2014 and 2020 on civilians carrying concealed firearms in public. This legislation is designed to make New Jersey safer in response to the U.S. Supreme Courts Bruen ruling that, left unaddressed, would undoubtedly hinder public safety for the more than nine million residents of our state, said Speaker Coughlin. The legislation also says the Supreme Court decision recognizes that the carrying of firearms in sensitive places can be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. Supreme Court In a 6-3 ruling in June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law that required citizens to show they had a special need to carry a handgun in public. It was the first ruling to hold that the Second Amendment protects gun rights outside the home. New York and New Jersey were among a handful of states, along with California, Massachusetts, Maryland and Hawaii, with laws that tightly regulated who could carry guns and where and that gave local officials broad discretion to deny licenses to carry a handgun in public. Several states have rewritten their laws but those are now the targets of court challenges from gun rights advocates. Last week a federal district judge in Syracuse declared various provisions of New Yorks revised gun law unconstitutional and placed a temporary hold on their enforcement. This week, a federal appeals court allowed New York to continue enforcing the new gun law as it considers the lower court ruling and its objections to multiple sections. New Yorks new law requires applicants for a concealed carry permit to complete classroom and live-fire training. It also prohibits most people from bringing guns to schools, churches, subways, theaters and amusement parks among other places deemed sensitive by authorities. Republicans in New Jersey have introduced several gun bills of their own. Durr introduced five gun rights bills in May before the Supreme Court ruling, as part of what he said would be 15-bill package to advance safe, responsible firearm ownership for law abiding citizens. Durr. who has said he decided to enter politics after being denied a concealed carry permit despite having a clean record, has sponsored legislation to allow certain persons to carry a handgun on private property unless expressly prohibited by the property owner. His measure would also remove the statutory justifiable need requirement, which was effectively invalidated by the Supreme Court ruling. Other gun bills filed by Durr in May would allow members of the military to carry a firearm at all times; repeal the Extreme Risk Protective Order Act of 2018, which allows legally owned guns to be seized by the courts; remove capacity limits for ammunition magazines; and eliminate the 30-day waiting period between handgun purchases. These measures, and the 10 more I will be introducing, benefit residents who do not defy the laws of the state, Durr said at the time. Im standing up for the right of self-protection. It is time for Trenton to stop penalizing upstanding citizens for the irresponsible, life-threatening actions of criminals. Democrats have also advanced other gun legislation. In July, Gov. Phil Murphy signed laws requiring training for those seeking firearms purchaser identification cards and permits; requiring firearm retailers to sell microstamping-enabled firearms when they become available; and upgrading certain crimes related to manufacturing firearms from third degree to second degree. Topics Legislation New Jersey Gun Liability This edition of International People Moves details appointments at NFP, Miller and Liberty Global Transaction Solutions A summary of these new hires follows here. NFP Hires Pelaez for Management and Professional Liability Team in Canada NFP, the property and casualty broker, announced it has hired Juliana Pelaez as mid-market leader for its Management and Professional Liability practice in Canada. Pelaez will be responsible for building out NFPs advisory and insurance broking services model to help mitigate executive risk exposure for clients in the mid-market segment including, directors and officers (D&O), employment practices, fiduciary, cyber, and crime liability risk management programs. She will report to Imran Pira, senior vice president, head of Management and Professional Liability, NFP in Canada. Prior to joining NFP, Pelaez served as an account executive officer at Travelers (October 2019 to September 2022) and as the executive liability senior underwriter for AIG (December 2012 to September 2019), according to her LinkedIn profile. In all, she brings more than 14 years of international underwriting and product development experience to NFP. Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Pelaez is a graduate of EAFIT University in Medellin, Colombia, and earned a specialization in International Business from McGill University. Juliana is an experienced subject matter expert with technical underwriting experience which will make her a valuable risk advisor, said Pira. Her focus on the mid-market segment with respect to management liability will include privately held and non-profit organizations across a broad range of industries including, but not limited to, manufacturing, real estate, transportation, natural resources, technology and construction. *** Miller Names AGCS Hooker as APAC Regional Head of Energy Miller, the leading independent specialist re/insurance broker, announces the appointment of Matt Hooker as regional Head of Energy for Asia-Pacific. Matt will be based in Singapore and report to Nigel Cross, head of Miller Singapore, and Martin Henderson, head of Energy & Marine, Energy and Transportation Liability (METL). Hooker brings a wealth of experience in successfully building market leading business development and client servicing teams within the energy sector, particularly downstream, power, construction and renewables. He joins from Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, where he was Asia Pacific regional head of Energy & Construction, based in Singapore. Prior to joining Allianz, Hooker had a distinguished broking career, predominantly with Willis on either side of five years at Marsh. He started in London in 1988 and following a spell working in Australia he relocated to Asia in 2000, undertaking various leadership roles throughout the region including mainland China, Hong Kong, and in Singapore since 2010. Hookers appointment forms part of Millers wider growth strategy in the region and follows recent senior hires to the Singapore team, including Ron Whyte as head of Strategic Development and Nick King as head of Marine. *** Liberty Global Transaction Solutions Hires 3 for APAC Team Liberty Global Transaction Solutions, part of Liberty Mutual Insurances Global Risk Solutions division, announced that, as part of its growth strategy for Asia Pacific, welcomes three new underwriters to better service the warranty & indemnity insurance market in the region, as follows: Damian Ng, underwriter for Liberty GTS in Singapore, is focusing on M&A insurance in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Liberty GTS, Ng was an associate director at a top-tier Singapore law firm, where he worked on a broad range of corporate and commercial matters, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions. Sanjeve Prakasam, underwriter for Liberty GTS in Singapore, is focusing on M&A insurance in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Liberty GTS, Prakasam was a corporate lawyer in two major law firms in Malaysia, where he advised on various corporate matters in relation to mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets, corporate restructurings and all other legal aspects of corporate and commercial transactions. Alexandra Culas, underwriter for Liberty GTS in Sydney is focusing on M&A insurance in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Liberty GTS, Culas worked as a corporate associate for six years at several top tier firms. Culas has experience working on large corporate and M&A transactions with a focus on private equity and private M&A. About Liberty Global Transaction Solutions Liberty Global Transaction Solutions (GTS) is one of the largest global M&A insurance teams in the industry. With more than 70 specialists, it has facilitated over 800 M&A deals a year on averagesuccessfully insuring thousands of transactions since our inception. GTS offers specialized products and services to help facilitate M&A transactions for buyers and sellers, including representations & warranties (R&W)/warranty & indemnity (W&I) insurance, tax liability insurance and one-off policies created for individual contingent risks. Topics Canada United States Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that Herbert Allen, age 37, and Dion Ridley, age 23, agreed to plead guilty to count one (1) of their indictment, charging Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. In pleading guilty, each defendant faces a maximum penalty of five (5) years imprisonment; a term of supervised release of up to three (3) years; and a fine up to $250,000.00, or the greater of twice the gross gain to the defendant or twice the gross loss to any person under Title 18, United States Code, Section 3571, as well as a mandatory special assessment fee of $100.00. Todays guilty plea brings the total number of defendants convicted in Operation Sideswipe to 41. As part of their plea, the defendants admitted to conspiring to commit mail fraud in connection with a staged automobile collision. In the scheme, Allen falsely claimed that he was the driver of a car that was struck by a tractor-trailer on June 28, 2017. Ridley, a passenger in the car, falsely claimed that Allen was driving the car when they were struck by a tractor-trailer. In fact, the governments evidence showed that the defendants conspired with Damien Labeaud (Labeaud), Roderick Hickman (Hickman), and others to intentionally collide Allens 2007 Chevrolet Impala with a tractor-trailer in the area of Tchoupitoulas Street and Calliope Street in New Orleans. Both defendants lied in civil depositions, falsely claiming that Allen was driving the car that collided with the tractor-trailer, when in fact Hickman was driving the car and intentionally hit the tractor-trailer. Both defendants hoped that, through their false statements, they would secure lucrative monetary settlements from the owner, driver, and insurer of the tractor-trailer. Sentencing is set for both defendants on February 15, 2023, before United States District Judge Sarah S. Vance. The U.S. Attorneys Office would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louisiana State Police, and the Metropolitan Crime Commission with this matter. The prosecution of this case is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon S. Long; Brian M. Klebba, Chief of the Financial Crimes Unit; Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria M. Carboni; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward J. Rivera. Source: DOJ Topics Auto A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against United Property & Casualty Insurance Co. and its adjusters, a closely watched legal action that charged the insurer had violated anti-racketeering laws to systematically deny assignment-of-benefits claims from Hurricane Irma. Were very happy with the decision. We think its the correct decision and were happy to put this case behind us, said Michael Monteverde, attorney for United in the litigation. The suit by SFR Services, a south Florida restoration firm, caught the attention of Florida insurers when it was filed in January, partly because it purported to include copies of text messages that showed UPC urging its adjusters to avoid estimating wind damages because the carrier planned to issue blanket denials of claims. But U.S. District Judge William Jung found Wednesday that a 1945 federal law, the McCarran-Ferguson Act, leaves it strictly to states to regulate the business of insurance, and bars federal laws from interfering with state insurance laws. Florida statute requires a 60-day notice before a bad-faith lawsuit is launched against insurance companies. The lawsuit by SFR stood on the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act, which does not require that waiting period. SFR, which is well-known to the Florida insurance industry because of its hundreds of AOB lawsuits in recent years, also failed to state its RICO claims with specificity or show how it was injured by UPCs practices, the judge wrote in his order dismissing the suit. Because the McCarran-Ferguson Act preempts SFRs RICO claim and because SFR fails to plead its RICO claim in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 9(b), the claim is dismissed with prejudice, the order reads, meaning it cannot be filed again in federal court. Its uncertain if the contracting firm would fare better in state courts, since Florida has its own anti-racketeering statute. A similar suit brought by SFR, in fact, is now pending in Martin County. Attorneys for SFR could not be reached. The manager of the firm, Ricky McGraw, declined to comment. The dismissal of the suit may come too late to help UPC financially. The insurer, which earlier this year had some 166,000 policies in force in Florida, may soon be deemed insolvent amid an estimated $1 billion in losses from Hurricane Ian. The Saint Petersburg-based carrier stopped writing new policies late last year and in June announced an orderly run-off of remaining policies. Now, with the losses from Ian, the companys future is in peril and we think insolvency is likely, Mark Friedlander, with the Insurance Information Institute, told Insurance Journal on Friday. There is a very high degree of uncertainty regarding the long-term economic implications of this event for our company and the entire industry, Uniteds president and chief financial officer, Brad Martz, said in a statement Wednesday. UPC also has some 200 lawsuits pending in state courts, filed by SFR Services. Some of those have been settled, which undermines SFRs fraud claims against the carrier, UPC said in its motion to dismiss. But the suits could end up costing UPC significantly in litigation expenses. Topics Lawsuits Florida Legislation Property Casualty An explosion and fire last week at the Columbia Hills Retirement Center in St. Helens, Oregon, that killed one person was a human-caused accident. Columbia River Fire & Rescue officials said the explosion was caused by oxygen tanks stored in the apartment where the fire started at about 12:30 a.m. Oct. 5. Linda Newman, 74, died in the fire. Her son, Adam King of Kelso, Washington, told KATU his mother was the life of the party, who liked to sing and dance, and was a kick in the pants. St. Helens Police officers responded to the fire and rescued several residents from the building by pulling them through windows. Firefighters found Newman unconscious in the hallway of the building where the fire started. They got her out of the building and despite efforts to revive her, she died at the scene, authorities said. Columbia River Fire & Rescue said the complex had working smoke detectors and were loud enough to alert tenants to the fire. But the building did not have a sprinkler system, which was not required when it was built, firefighters said. The Red Cross is helping the residents who were displaced. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Oregon Cork-based forestry software company Treemetrics, which facilitates the auction and measurement of forests, has signed a 1.2m contract with the European Space Agency (ESA). The two-year contract will allow Treemetrics to use ESA tools such as satellite imaging and data analytics to create accurate forest carbon credit estimates. Treemetrics is delighted to work with the European Space Agency on this new project, which will play an essential role in building greater trust and transparency in this rapidly growing forest carbon credit market, said CEO of Treemetrics Enda Keane, who is also a former Teagasc worker. Treemetrics provides its clients, including Coillte and the World Bank, with ways to become carbon neutral by facilitating the sale of forests to corporate companies for carbon credits, which are used to offset their emissions. "The measurement and management of forests will be a key factor in the global communitys efforts to tackle the effects of climate change and to live and operate sustainably, said Mr Keane. However, there are some critics of carbon credits such as Greenpeace that say carbon credits do not provide a reduction in the carbon emissions entering the atmosphere but are used as a distraction by big companies. The global demand for forest carbon credits nearly quadrupled in 2021. Mr Keane previously told the Irish Examiner that Treemetrics and the ESA are working on a new tool for sustainable forest management. Sustainable forest management is about trying to get more timber produced from less trees, said Mr Keane. The best place for households renting in the private market to live is in a property owned by a vulture fund, the chair of the Residential Tenancies Board has said. In remarks made at the launch of a report into how the private rental sector is making people more vulnerable, Tom Dunne said it is worth a tenants while to pay more rent to achieve security of tenure. The greatest security of tenure you get now is from institutional landlords, he said, adding there was enormous resistance in our society to institutional landlords, which he has always been curious about. Mr Dunne said that, unlike private landlords, vulture funds cannot evict tenants in order to move a family member in and are less likely to sell up if they have invested in a property. On the other hand, there are increasing reports of smaller landlords leaving the sector and further reducing the supply of available housing. He added that renting from such funds provides security of tenure, provided you can meet the rent. Mr Dunne said proposals being considered by Government to ban evictions this winter may lead some landlords to choose not to rent out their property in future, which would further lessen supply in the market. Tax and other incentives might not overcome this reluctance [from landlords], he said, adding that it was important that if the Government was going to introduce incentives to encourage landlords to remain in the market, it must not create a situation that would allow landlords to then outbid first-time buyers. Negative consequences He said that one change made to try to improve the situation in the housing market could have unintended negative consequences in another area of the market, comparing it to whack a mole. That problem will pop up again then, somewhere else, Mr Dunne said. His remarks came at the launch of a report published by housing charity Threshold and the Citizens Information Board, which analysed 90,000 queries to both bodies over a two-year period and found that tenancy termination and rent increases are the most prevalent issues facing private renters. Vulnerable clients on fixed incomes were most likely to be adversely affected and at risk of homelessness when given a notice of tenancy termination. Separately, new figures published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday showed that private rents have risen 11.9% in the last year while the cost of purchasing a home in Ireland has risen 12.2% in the same time frame. Home prices now are 2.2% higher than they were during the peak of the Celtic Tiger, with the median house price now standing at 295,000. Threshold CEO John McCafferty said that the comments from Mr Dunne were valid and that institutional investors were also less likely to end a tenancy in order to substantially refurbish a property, given that they are often buying homes in brand new developments. Whats equally true, however, is that we generally arent seeing clients who are being housed by these institutions, he said. Were generally helping clients on middle and low incomes, and institutions arent interested in housing those people. Mr McCafferty said the majority of renters live in homes owned by small landlords. In a case where those landlords decide to sell up, it can leave families in very difficult situations. They may tend to have a lower income and then have fewer options, he said. They wont have the purchasing power to access other accommodation in the private rental sector. In such a tight market, they wont afford the rents for properties that may be available from institutional investors. The Threshold CEO said that an eviction ban is a crude measure but one that must be taken to protect families at risk this winter. Theres nowhere for them to go in the private sector," he said. "And it could have negative impacts down the line on supply, but what alternative do we have? Ciara Morley, Aideen Hayden, Fiona Coyne, and Ann-Marie OReilly at the launch of a report by Threshold and the Citizens' Information Board which shows private tenants are most concerned about tenancy terminations and rent increases. Picture: Jason Clarke Photography Thresholds research and policy group chair Aideen Hayden, meanwhile, said that families on lower incomes are facing into a very difficult winter. People in those groups are paying more for absolutely everything, she said. They dont have the additional resources to pay for it. Inevitably, they will fall into rent arrears. We need a national policy to assist tenants who fall into arrears. Ms Hayden also urged the RTB to enforce some of the laws that are actually there. During leaders questions in the Dail, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar indicated that the Government was currently weighing up a possible eviction ban. We have to weigh up the pros and cons, he said, adding that it could lead to a glut of further homelessness whenever the ban lifts and lead more landlords to leave the sector. We dont want to do something that helps a problem get a bit better for a few months, only to make it much worse in a year's time. Billboards encouraging healthcare workers to move to Australia are causing controversy as they have been appearing near hospitals around the country. The adverts have been spotted in Dublin and Cork. The billboards seen near the Mater hospital in Dublin are probably a bit cheeky an Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) representative said. Kind of depressing to see this billboard on Douglas St. But it probably sums up the situation here for health workers. pic.twitter.com/hv4laK2OiS John Roycroft (@torban69) October 13, 2022 Maeve Brehony, assistant director of industrial relations and the INMO representative for the Mater Hospital, said that it was not surprising that young medical professionals were attracted to working in Australia as the working conditions there were far better than in Ireland. Dr Fergal Hickey of the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine said that Australia was a much better choice for healthcare professionals who could not continue to work under the current conditions in Irish public hospitals indefinitely. They are leaving the country in droves. Billboards, commissioned by the Department of Health in Victoria, Australia, have been erected near the Mater hospital in Dublin encouraging healthcare workers to make the move. Highly sought Ms Brehony acknowledged that the billboard was provocative but not surprising given how highly sought after Irish nurses were. We should be seeing action from our own management. We should see the HSE and the Mater using billboards to recruit, she told Newstalk Breakfast. There was an unfortunate pace of activity when it came to recruitment in Ireland, she said. Workers were voting with their feet and moving elsewhere to work, where the pay might be the same, but the conditions were far better. The Irish system was effectively training people to leave, she warned. 'Overburdened and overworked' The numbers currently being recruited were not keeping pace with those leaving. Irish healthcare professionals were overburdened and overworked she added. In other countries there was a better work-life balance. It would only be through more recruitment and retention that the tide will be turned. There was a lot of red tape when it comes to recruiting nurses, said Ms Brehony. There should not be a wait of months for a starting date. There also needed to be legal backing for safe staffing levels. Dr Hickey pointed out that Ireland has only two-thirds of the acute hospital beds of the OECD average. The Irish health system was clearly very short of beds. There was a problem with the flow of patients through hospitals, a delay of five hours could increase mortality. This was an example of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, he told RTE radios Morning Ireland. We know the problem, it needs to be fixed. The establishment of a task force to address problems in emergency departments was welcome, said Dr Hickey, but it was tinkering with the problem if the issue of bed capacity was not addressed. A retired Dublin school principal, accused of the sexual abuse of 21 former pupils, has been served with a book of evidence and sent forward for trial. Gardai charged Patrick Harte, 80, in May with 83 indecent assaults, one attempted indecent assault and six sexual assaults from 1967 to 1995. It followed an investigation by the Divisional Protective Services Unit at Kevin Street Garda station. The alleged offences involved pupils at Sancta Maria Christian Brothers primary school on Synge Street, Dublin. The former teacher, who later became a principal, worked at the school from 1967 until 2008. He denies the allegations and appeared again at Dublin District Court on Friday when Detective Garda Colleen Gallagher served him with a book of evidence. State solicitor Brian Coveney told Judge Treasa Kelly the Director of Public Prosecutions consented to trial on indictment. Judge Kelly told him that he was being returned for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he will face his next appearance on November 11. The pensioner, who was granted legal aid, spoke once to confirm he understood the order. The judge warned him to notify the prosecution within 14 days if he intended to rely on alibi evidence in his defence. Bail He remains on 30,000 bail with conditions which include signing on three days a week at his local garda station. The judge refused a defence application to reduce that requirement to once weekly. She directed gardai to provide copies of the interview videos to the defence while typed versions were handed over in court. Sligo-born Mr Harte, with an address at Glendown Park, Templeogue, was also ordered to obey strict terms and had to provide cash lodgments and surrender his passport earlier. Detective Garda Colleen Gallagher voiced "flight-risk" concerns at a previous bail hearing. She had said the "allegations are similar in nature"; however, the injured parties were "unknown to each other". The officer said the allegations indicated "prolonged, systematic abuse", but she added that Mr Harte denied all the allegations when gardai put them to him. Change in bail On Friday, she objected to Mr Harte's request to change the signing on condition. Defence counsel John Griffin told the court having to go to the garda station three days each week interfered with his client's medical appointments. He argued that the condition was disproportionate and pointed out that his client's trial may not get underway until 2025. However, in view of the garda objection, Judge Kelly refused the defence application at this point. But she added that a further application could be made as time goes on. It was a savage murder that shocked the nation, left a town in fear and several first responders requiring counselling. Now, after almost four-and-a-half years of painstaking investigation, which included liaison with Europol and Interpol, gardai in Cork are poised to submit a vast and detailed file on the brutal machete murder of Mikolaj Wilk to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for consideration. The news emerged at Cork City Coroner's Court where the inquest into Mr Wilk's death was first opened and adjourned in November 2018. Mr Wilk, 35, who was originally from Poland, suffered extensive and horrific wounds to his body when he was set upon by a gang of up to five masked men armed with machetes who broke into his rented home at Maglin, near Ballincollig, Cork, in the early hours of June 10, 2018. The inquest heard at the time how he died from shock and haemorrhage due to multiple blows from sharp weapons in association with a traumatic brain injury. The inquest was adjourned as the garda probe continued, and it has been mentioned and adjourned a number of times since, pending the outcome of those investigations. Garda investigation The case was in for mention before city coroner, Philip Comyn, again on Thursday where Sgt Fergus Twomey confirmed that the garda probe is now at a very advanced stage. It has been complex and far-reaching with a national and international aspect, he said. It is at a very advanced stage and it is anticipated that a file will be submitted to the DPP in the near future seeking directions. A further adjournment was granted pending the outcome of the DPPs deliberations. While gardai have not commented publicly on the motive for the attack, it is suspected that Mr Wilk may have had a historic debt with a Polish criminal gang. Horrific crime The father-of-two was hacked and sliced repeatedly in front of his wife Elzbieta, who also sustained life-changing injuries to her hands as she tried to defend him. Gardai and paramedics who arrived first encountered horrific scenes. They found Mr Wilk in critical condition and treated him before he was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later. Detectives believe that a gang with links to Eastern Europe travelled to Ireland to carry out the attack, and that they received logistics support from contacts living in Cork. Gardai have been in contact with police forces in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, as part of their investigation. CCTV evidence It is understood that the garda file on the case is vast, detailed and complex, and relies heavily on CCTV footage from residential and business properties, on forensic evidence from the scene and from the suspected get-away car which was found burning in nearby Waterfall after the murder, as well as on technical data gleaned from phones and computers. Mr Wilk was buried in his native Poland. Ms Wilk returned to Poland just a few weeks later. Several months after the murder, gardai seized vehicles, phones and computers, searched seven properties in Cork city, and arrested several people, including Irish, Latvian and Polish nationals, on suspicion of facilitating and supporting the gang involved in the murder. Burma Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Security Chief Jailed by Myanmar Junta Myanmars State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Lashio, Shan State, on March 10, 2020. A junta court in Naypyitaw sentenced U Aung Naing Oo, head of security for the ousted civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to 10 years imprisonment on Thursday. According to court sources, he was jailed under the Official Secrets Act as he was found leaking military information to Ko Jimmy, a well-known 88 Generation leader, who was executed in July. U Aung Naing Oo was assigned to watch Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest during the previous military regime in the 1990s at her Yangon residence. Under the ousted civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, he was the deputy director of security at the Presidents Office and arranged security for her trips. He was arrested in October 2021 and has been detained in Naypyitaw prison. He has also been charged under the Counter-Terrorism Law. The junta also jailed Cherry Htet, the female bodyguard of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to five years of imprisonment under incitement charges and police rules. The 30-year-old police second lieutenant was sent to Yamethin Prison from Naypyitaws jail after being handed a second sentence. Last July, Ko Zaw Naing Win, an aide to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was sentenced to seven years in prison for breach of trust by a civil servant for joining the Civil Disobedience Movement against the junta. The regime has sentenced Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to 26 years in prison so far in 14 cases. Burma Myanmar Junta Warns Arakan National Party Over Statement on Rakhine Killings ANP members and supporters on the election campaign trail in 2020. / The Irrawaddy The juntas Union Election Commission (UEC) has issued a warning to the Arakan National Party (ANP) following its statement condemning the regime for deadly artillery attacks on villages in Rakhine State. The ANP, which is based in Rakhine, issued a statement on September 29 slamming regime troops for artillery attacks that resulted in civilian deaths and injuries as well as damage to homes. The statement also urged the warring groups to stop targeting residential areas. Three villagers including a four-year-old boy in Kin Seik Village were killed when the juntas Light Infantry Battalion Nos. 377 and 540, based in Mrauk-U town, fired around 30 shells toward the village following a skirmish with the Arakan Army (AA) near neighboring Lekka village in late August. Several other villagers were injured in the bombardment. In late October, two seven-year-olds were killed in Kyauktaw and Buthidaung townships when junta forces fired mortar shells without apparent reason. The unofficial ceasefire observed by the Myanmar military and the AA ahead of 2020 November election, after two years of intense fighting, has now collapsed entirely amid months of fighting in Rakhine and neighboring Chin States Paletwa Township. Clashes have been reported in Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun, Mrauk-U and Rathedaung townships. Junta shelling also injured two children and damaged houses in Maung Swe Village, Mrauk-U on September 29. Meanwhile four civilians were injured and six houses were damaged when junta forces shelled Sekka Yay Village, Minbya on September 27. Following their statement condemning the attacks, ANP officials were summoned to the electoral bodys office in Naypyitaw on Wednesday and warned to abide by party registration laws. The UEC said we failed to follow certain provisions in the Political Parties Registration Law, and that our statement was one-sided. We explained that we, as a political party, feel obliged to speak out when our people suffer, which is why we issued the statement, said ANP chair U Tha Tun Hla. The regime election commission warned ANP officials to abide by existing laws and rules in any future statements it makes about the fighting in Rakhine, he added. We will issue statements as necessary for the interests of the people, though they may result in different views and disputes, said the ANP chair. The regime last month ordered local and international NGOs to halt humanitarian aid operations in six townships amid rising military tension in the region. It has also denied locals access to roads and waterways in several parts of the state, including those unaffected by fighting. The blockade of land and water routes threatens the livelihoods of local people, said the ANP statement. It also called on the regime to lift its travel ban on aid agencies providing humanitarian aid to internally displaced people in Rakhine. Prices have soared as locals face food shortages following the juntas blockade of routes in northern Rakhine including Buthidaung and Maungdaw. Burma Myanmars Brain Drain Grows Amid Chaos of Life Under Military Rule -- Military rule in Myanmar is taking a toll on every front from peoples day-to-day lives to their safety to their future. To escape the deteriorating situation at home, young and middle-aged educated citizens from the middle and upper classes are now leaving the country in increasing numbers. Many have fled abroad in search of career opportunities, better futures for their children, or simply safer living conditions. But their varied reasons for leaving their homeland are dominated by a single impulse: They no longer want to live under a military dictatorship. The new emigrants are heading to many different places overseas some are crossing oceans and continents while others are seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Ma San San is among them. The Yangon native first thought about leaving the country in June, then spent July planning her departure before moving abroad with her two children one month later. Previously, she had been among the many citizens waiting for stability and peace to return after the coup last year. But she waited in vain for more than a year. Ma San San is a fashion designer who makes dresses for special events. But her career came to a halt after the coup as events and shows dried up. She and her 8-year-old twins were left completely dependent on her husbands income as a seaman. I waited over one year, which was enough. It was time to think about the education of my children. Finally, my husband and I decided to move to Thailand so our children could study here, said San San, who now lives in Chiang Mai on a guardian visa. Like many Myanmar parents, she was expecting to send her children to public school amid high expectations of educational reforms made by the National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But the dreams of millions in Myanmar were shattered when the military staged a coup on February 1 last year. Among people fleeing the country are educated professionals who are at no immediate risk from the political turmoil. Many have headed to neighboring countries like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia while others have found new homes farther afield in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. As a founder of a startup in Myanmar, U Myo wanted to leave the country even before the coup, frustrated by economic reforms passed by the NLD government during its first term. But he waited, hoping that the NLD would bring economic improvement in its second term after winning the 2020 general election. The coup following the election shocked him and destroyed those expectations. My main reasons for leaving my country are that we no longer have a safe environment, the economy is bad, and my childrens education has become uncertain, explained U Myo. He and his family left the country in June for Thailand after eight months spent planning their departure. Before the coup, Ma Thin Thin and her husband ran a company in the food and digital marketing sector. However, business has slowed in the general economic downturn since the military takeover. With a child in kindergarten, the couple decided to move the family and their business to Singapore. They left in February but are still offering services in Myanmar remotely, while also launching a new digital marketing operation in Singapore. Ma Thin Thin said they will only return when it is safe to do so. And there was no chance of returning while cities are being patrolled by military trucks. I dont want my child to experience the same thing as I did, she said, referring to her childhood under the previous military regime. Ma Cho Cho, a former project coordinator for a Yangon community development NGO, found herself jobless after funds from international donors dried up following the coup. Not wanting to join another NGO or live in Myanmar under military dictatorship, she applied for and was granted a scholarship at Chiang Mai University. After moving to Chiang Mai in December last year, she got the idea to open a cafe or restaurant where Myanmar expatriates could gather. She invested all her savings in the plan and was finally able to open a Burmese restaurant and store selling authentic Myanmar culinary and products. She requested that her business not be named over concerns for her safety. I have settled down here in Chiang Mai. But I feel sorrow for my home country, so my friends and I are trying our best to help those who fleeing risks and threats in Myanmar. Among them is a young medical doctor who is washing dishes at a restaurant, she said. Although no precise figures exist for the exodus of these middle-class professionals, Myanmar expats who have lived in Thailand for decades report a growing number of arrivals from Myanmar. U John is a Myanmar businessman who has lived in Chiang Mai for 28 years. He used to run a tour business, catering to visitors from his home country. But political and economic turmoil after the coup forced him to switch to the real estate business last year. He explained that most Myanmar citizens now arriving in Chiang Mai via official routes are young people seeking education and career opportunities, or families with regular foreign income who want to live in peace. The flow of arrivals began rising in March this year, said U John, fed by middle- and upper-class scholarship holders who are also working in Thailand to fund their studies. Low-rent condo apartments costing between 3,000 and 7,000 baht per month are doing brisk business, while wealthier Myanmar expats are taking bungalows and two-story houses for over 10,000 baht per month, according to real estate sources in Chiang Mai. Myanmar expatriates who can afford it are also buying condo apartments and townhouses. Elsewhere, the capital Bangkok is also seeing an influx of Myanmar citizens arriving with plans to settle for the short or long term. Before 2021, I was seeing only about three Myanmar people per week seeking to rent in areas around Chiang Mai University. But this year, I am helping at least five to seven per week, said Ma Yamone, a real estate agent in Chiang Mai. As a Myanmar programmer for a Singapore-based software enterprise, Ko Phyo was used to working from home when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His work was only disrupted a year later when Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing launched a military takeover. After the coup, I joined the street protests at times. But then, with tragedies occurring daily, I was no longer able to concentrate on my work at all. I was depressed and couldnt control my emotions, Ko Phyo recalled. He has also encountered major obstacles to his working life since the coup, including unstable internet and regular power blackouts hitting even Yangon, the countrys commercial capital. After a year of disruption, he and his programmer wife left the country for Bangkok this July. The couple are on a three-month tourist visa, which they hope to upgrade to an extendable six-month education visa. They are also trying to get their parents out of the country over concerns about the healthcare situation in Myanmar. Ko Phyo has decided not to return home for at least five years. Even if stability is restored in the country, the economy will remain collapsed. Human resources could also be destroyed and everything will need at least half a decade or more to restore. Burma Who is Supplying Myanmar Junta with Aviation Fuel? The PEAS fuel storage terminal at Thilawa Port in Yangon. Puma Energy, the main supplier of aviation fuel in Myanmar, announced on October 5 that it had sold its operations in the country to a locally owned company. The midstream and retail arm of Switzerlands Trafigura said in a statement it had signed a deal to sell its stake in Puma Energy Asia Sun (PEAS) and its minority share in National Energy Puma Aviation Services (NEPAS) to a locally owned private company, without naming the buyer. Puma Energy is thought to have sold its stakes to its partner, Asian Sun Energy (ASE). The two firms established PEAS in 2014 to import and supply aviation fuel in Myanmar. The joint venture built Myanmars largest fuel storage terminal, with a capacity of 91,000m, at Thilawa Port in Yangon. The US$100-million port opened in 2017. Puma had owned 80 percent of the joint venture, with the ASE holding the remaining 20 percent. ASE has been blacklisted by the parallel National Unity Government for supplying aviation fuel for junta aircraft which the regime uses to carry out air raids on civilians. Following the military coup in February 2021, Puma initially suspended operations in Myanmar but later resumed distribution for civilian purposes. It has now sold its stake to exit Myanmar. It appears that it can only sell its stakes to ASE because it may need ASEs approval to sell its stakes to a third company, a source from a Yangon-based fuel company told The Irrawaddy. While telecom companies that have pulled out of Myanmar are entirely foreign-owned, PEAS is a joint venture between a foreign firm and a local company, and it is therefore likely that Puma has sold its stakes to its partner, he added. The Irrawaddy was unable to reach ASE for comment. ASE was established in 2013 by businessman U Win Kyaw Kyaw Aung, who returned to Myanmar after studying abroad when U Thein Seins quasi-civilian government was inviting foreign investment. The company engages in logistics and fuel importation and distribution. Its two other directors are Daw Kyu Kyu Myint and Daw Tharaphi Hla Myo. U Win Kyaw Kyaw Aung lived mainly in Singapore before he returned to Myanmar. Less than one year after his return, he managed to partner with an international energy firm, Puma, while also obtaining a 50-year lease from the state-owned Myanmar Port Authority for the land to build the fuel storage terminal at Thilawa Port. U Win Kyaw Kyaw Aung reportedly has close ties with regime crony and Ayeyar Hinthar co-owner U Zaw Win Shein and others who have won tenders from the Myanmar militarys Directorate of Procurement, a businessman with knowledge of the matter told The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity. When it entered the Myanmar market, Puma chose him for fear that it might end up partnering with sanctioned companies. But [ASE] is close to the military. Today, generals do not invest in businesses run by cronies. They do any business they like by hiring frontmen, said the businessman. The fact that U Win Kyaw Kyaw, 38, has a low profile in business circles also makes him an ideal frontman for the generals. In 2017, a Singapore court found U Win Kyaw Kyaw Aung, then 33, a Myanmar national with permanent residency in Singapore, guilty of hiring hitmen to kill a man suspected of adultery with his wife in 2015. The suspect fled before it could be ascertained whether he was the same man who had established ASE. ASE has also acquired Pumas minority share in NEPAS, sources told The Irrawaddy. NEPAS is a joint venture between Puma Energy and the state-owned Myanmar Petroleum Products Enterprise under the juntas Ministry of Energy. It supplies aviation fuel as well as bitumen to 10 domestic airports including Yangon International Airport. However, one source claimed that Pumas stake in NEPAS has been acquired by 24 Petroleum. A subsidiary of 24 Hour Group, 24 Petroleum, was established in early 2021 before the coup to supply Jet A-1 fuel as well as gasoline and diesel. Owned by U Aung Aung Zaw, 24 Hour Group bought Air KBZ and Myanmar Airways International from Kanbawza Group in late 2018. International airlines do not refuel here. The domestic aviation fuel market only supplies the military and domestic airlines, so only companies close to military will buy the stakes, said the source, a businessman with knowledge of the matter. The Irrawaddy could not obtain comment from managing directors of the Myanmar Petroleum Product Enterprise (MPPE) and Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprise under the Energy Ministry to confirm the purchase. In August, Myanmars junta reconstituted a national coordination committee with the stated aim of importing, storing and distributing aviation fuel in line with international norms. The 15-member committee consists of directors-general from the ministries of Energy, Transport and Communications, and Planning and Finances, the assistant quarter-master general, and chiefs of the flag carrier Myanmar National Airlines and private airlines including Air Thanlwin, Myanmar Airways International, Yangon Aerodrome Co, and Golden Myanmar Airline. War Against the Junta Myanmar Junta Suffers Over 20 Casualties in Clashes With Resistance in Two Days -- More than 20 Myanmar junta troops were killed or injured in the last two days when Peoples Defense Force groups (PDFs) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) attacked regime targets in Bago, Mandalay and Tanintharyi regions and Chin, Kayah and Karen states. Meanwhile, around 10 civilians were killed or injured in regime attacks. The Irrawaddy has rounded up the following reports of significant attacks by PDFs and EAOs as well as regime atrocities. 12 junta soldiers killed in PDF ambushes, raid in Bago At least 12 junta soldiers were killed and many others injured when PDF groups ambushed a military detachment and raided a junta camp in Nattalin and Taungoo townships in Bago Region on Thursday, claimed Bago Region-PDF. Four soldiers were killed and seven others injured when PDF fighters from a PDF battalion of Tharyarwaddy District, Bago used land mines to ambush a military detachment of 50 soldiers between two villages in Nattalin Township at 10 a.m. on Thursday. Six more regime troops were also killed and eight other forces injured when the military detachment was hit by mine ambushes by resistance groups on that afternoon, the PDF group claimed. After the ambushes, the regime forces retreated. Two regime soldiers were also killed on that afternoon in Taungoo Township, Bago when Taungoo District PDF raided a camp of 20 regime forces in a village. No PDF casualties were reported in the ambushes and raid. Four civilians burned alive by junta soldiers in Magwe The remains of four civilians who had been bound and burned alive by regime soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee pro-regime militia members were found in a burned house in Anout Village in Tilin Township, Magwe Region on Thursday, said Yaw Defense Force-Tilin. Regime forces stationed in the village burned some houses before leaving on Thursday. Six male villagers are also missing from the village, said YDF-Tilin. Junta outpost bombarded in Kayah A military outpost is bombarded by resistance groups in Loikaw, Kayah State on Tuesday. / KNDF The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) claimed on Thursday that it and two other resistance groups managed to bombard the Pon Chaung junta outpost on the border of Loikaw and Shadaw townships in Kayah State on Tuesday. The junta outpost has been used to randomly attack nearby areas using heavy explosives. Regime forces are believed to have been killed or injured when the outpost was directly hit by explosives fired by resistance forces, said KNDF. A KNDF video shows the outpost being hit directly by explosives. Regime forces ambushed with land mines in Mandalay TGYR-Youth Guerrilla Counter Revolution said on Thursday that it and five other resistance group used 11 land mines to ambush regime forces stationed at Thargyin Village school in Ngazun Township, Mandalay Region on Wednesday night while they were patrolling between two villages. Following the ambush, a shootout broke out between the regime forces and the resistance groups. At 4:15 a.m. on Thursday, the resistance groups continued to ambush military reinforcements arriving in the clash area, using 12 additional land mines. However, military casualties for both ambushes were unknown. Seven junta troops killed in Tanintharyi Seven regime forces were killed and four others seriously injured on Wednesday evening when PDF-Federal Column attacked a military convoy traveling to Dawei from Myeik Township in Tanintharyi Region, claimed the PDF group. Amid the PDFs ambush, the convoy fled without returning fire, the PDF group said. Two junta soldiers injured by land mines in Karen Two regime troops were seriously injured by land mines planted by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on Thursday morning as junta soldiers from three military battalions were entering the Luukhoe area in Myawaddy Township, Karen State, said KNLAs Cobra Column. Five civilians including three children injured by junta attack in Karen Two villagers and three children were injured in Hpa-an Township, Karen State on Wednesday when regime forces in a military convoy of 10 vehicles randomly opened fire on villages along the Hpa-an- Zarthapyin highway using both firearms and heavy explosives without being attacked, said the Karen National Union (KNU) on Thursday. In the attack, a school building was also damaged, the KNU said. Four ethnic Chin resistance fighters killed in Chin State Four ethnic Chin resistance fighters were killed and another injured during an intense firefight with a military detachment in Hakha Township, Chin State on Thursday, said Zalen, a local media outlet. A clash broke out between the regime forces and Chin Defense Force groups near a college in the township on Thursday afternoon. Military casualties were unknown. The Australian Federal Police was unaware of a huge leak of Colombian government documents, which contained information about their operations to prevent international drug cartels from operating Down Under, until they informed about it by newspapers owned by Nine Entertainment. A report in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday said the AFP had been contacted on 4 October and was now busy trying to contain the damage from the leaks. It said publication was delayed until the AFP gave the go-ahead. The report said details about 35 Australian Federal Police operations both current and completed had been leaked, as also undercover surveillance reports, information from phone taps and Colombian officers' payroll records. It said the group which claimed responsibility for the breach was known as Guacamaya, the Mayan moniker for the macaw, and claimed it was driven by both anti-imperialist and environmental motives. Contacted for comment, an AFP spokesperson said: "The AFP is concerned about possible breaches of operational security as a consequence of this data compromise." The agency said it was assessing the information that may have leaked, adding that it was working with its partners in affected regions to mitigate potential threats to people, or ongoing investigations. "The AFP is working with international partners to support Colombia law enforcement efforts to safeguard their computer systems," the spokesperson said. It said the agency's relationship with law enforcement in Colombia had been very successful at disrupting criminal groups which target Australia. "Operations carried out with involvement from Colombian law enforcement agencies have resulted in the detection of a large amount of drug importations bound for Australia, and disrupted drug cartels through arrests and prosecutions undertaken by Colombia authorities," the spokesperson added. "These successes are not possible without the close cooperation of the AFPs Colombian partners. These activities have prevented drugs entering Australia and causing significant harm to the Australian community." The AFP claimed illicit drug trafficking affected Australias national security, economy and the social security system. "Transnational serious organised crime groups are importing illicit drugs into Australia on an industrial scale. They are ambivalent to the misery caused by their product, its impact on our health systems, or if innocent people are killed in the crossfire of their turf wars. "About 70% of Australias serious and organised crime threats are based offshore or have strong offshore links, highlighting the need for the AFPs long-standing and continued investment in its international network. "The priority of the AFPs international network is to work directly with international partners to target these criminal groups at their source and prevent their influence and harm from spreading internationally. "During the 2021-22 financial year, the AFP was involved in 266 international disruption operations that prevented drugs from reaching Australian shores." Professional networking site LinkedIn has reinstated British security guru Kevin Beaumont's account, after kicking him off the platform for unspecified reasons. Beaumont told iTWire that LinkedIn had apologised for its action, adding that he may have been wrong about the reason he advanced as being behind the expulsion. He was initially of the view that content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company Cloudflare had complained to LinkedIn about him because he had been sending out critical tweets about Cloudflare's providing service to Internet forum Kiwi Farms. Im back, baby! The story behind this one is going in a book one day, because lol. pic.twitter.com/6lS0KQqWH5 Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) October 12, 2022 According to Wikipedia, this forum facilitates the discussion and harassment of online figures and communities, with targets often being subject to organised group trolling and stalking, as well as doxxing and real-life harassment. Lol, LinkedIn kicked me off. Im guessing Cloudflare complained. pic.twitter.com/62eU8zW6gg Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) October 12, 2022 Kiwi Farms wasearly in September, after it had changed hosts a couple of times and was finally dropped by a hosting firm known as DDoS Protector. One of Beaumont's jibes at Cloudflare was to list himself in his LinkedIn profile as the unaccountability manager for the company. He then got a message from LinkedIn citing this entry and saying that it had received a claim his profile contained inaccurate content. This led him to surmise that he was later cut off from LinkedIn due to a complaint from Cloudflare. LinkedIn temporarily suspended Beaumont's membership and asked him to verify his identity. Of this, he said; "The recovery process is mad, it asks you to take a photo of the front of your passport, which I did.. and thats it. You would have thought they wanted the ID page itself." Lol, instant ban when valid passport uploaded - literally 4 seconds later. Thanks, @LinkedIn! pic.twitter.com/L37xD9lbSt Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) October 12, 2022 Once he uploaded that he was immediately banned. "Lol, instant ban when valid passport uploaded literally 4 seconds later," he tweeted. "BTW, to be clear I never appealed this (there isn't even an option to), I just got the prompt to upload my passport scan on opening the app, then got instantly banned." In my personal circumstance, a Kiwi Farms user doxxed me because I tweeted, here, about business customers leaving Cloudflare. That was my offense. Cloudflare opted to leave them - Kiwi Farms - as a customer, despite me being a Cloudflare customer. Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) September 3, 2022 Content delivery networks like Cloudflare generally have a process which they follow when taking content offline to tackle issues like child porn. In fact, iTWire spoke to the company back in March 2019 after Beaumont pointed out there were clear indications of child pornography being hosted by 8chan which was a customer of Cloudflare. At the time Beaumont asked: "If your business used Cloudflare and got contacted by somebody highlighting 8chan is also a customer, along with examples of posts (toddler, rape fantasy etc) 8chan hosts, and Cloudflares denial to remove service to them, would you raise concerns with CF [Cloudflare]?" Cloudflares CEO is posting on Hacker News comments about how law enforcement are rubbish and how Cloudflare had to save everybody. pic.twitter.com/D5LbT0MjcM Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) September 4, 2022 iTWire asked the company at that time why it could not suspend its services to 8chan, but was told that there was a process to be gone through in cases like this. "As a reverse proxy that does not host websites but instead passes bits across the Internet and provides security to 13 million websites, Cloudflare itself does not have the ability to take content offline," a spokesperson said. "Despite this, Cloudflare refers to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children every report we receive that references alleged child sexual abuse material to help facilitate the investigation and enforcement by the appropriate authorities. Cloudflare has a yearly problem with allowing customers who practice incel terror. That is not a problem for society to manage. That is a problem for Cloudflare's leadership to manage. It is a Cloudflare policy problem. It is a Cloudflare Terms of Service Problem. Lead. Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) September 3, 2022 "Cloudflare is a law-abiding company and as such has a very clear process in place to allow for users, law enforcement, and members of the public to alert Cloudflare to abuse on its network and have illegal content addressed in the proper way." The issue with Kiwi Farms occurred in the early part of September. In one tweet, Beaumont wrote: "In my personal circumstance, a Kiwi Farms user doxxed me because I tweeted, here, about business customers leaving Cloudflare. That was my offence. Great CEO at Cloudflare. pic.twitter.com/m5D4zxczg3 Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) September 2, 2022 "Cloudflare opted to leave them Kiwi Farms as a customer, despite me being a Cloudflare customer." His tirade against Cloudflare led to his being blocked on Twitter by Matthew Prince, the chief executive of the company, but Beaumont did not hold back in his criticism of the company. Prince finally pulled support for Kiwi Farms on 3 September after coming under intense pressure to do so. Prince told the Washington Post: "As Kiwi Farms has felt more threatened, they have reacted by being more threatening. We think there is an imminent danger, and the pace at which law enforcement is able to respond to those threats we dont think is fast enough to keep up. He had earlier written a long blog post defending his company's policy to offer DDoS protection to sites like Kiwi Farms. Scams reported worldwide increased by 10.2%, from 266 in 2020 to 293 million reports in 2021, with the latest study by the Global Anti Scam Alliance revealing the money lost in scams grew by 15,7%, from $47.8 billion in 2020 to $55.3 billion in 2021. According to the Global State of Scams 2022 Report by the Global Anti Scam Alliance (GASA) and ScamAdviser amongst 48 countries, scams are no longer a Western disease. In fact GASA says 53% of Filipinos stated fraudsters targeted them in 3 months, 11% of the respondents said they ended up as victims and other developing countries like Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia are reporting huge increases in online scams, primarily via mobile phones. As investment scams continue to rise, GASA says countries like Australia and Singapore report that investment/cryptocurrency scams continue to grow - and the Turkish government suspended a cryptocurrency exchange, freezing $2 billion in assets, while Canada reports $164 million loss in investment scams, and US citizens lost $575 million. With GASA noting that scams remain one of the most underreported types of crime, it says that in Australia, an estimated 13% of all scams are reported, Canada estimated that only 5% of the cases reach law enforcement, Israel estimated this number to be 9%, and the Dutch and French estimates range between 12% and 17%. According to GASA, social media is a steppingstone for scammers and Pakistani authorities state 23% of the reported online crimes started on Facebook, Indonesia states that 51% of the scams begin on social media - while more than one in four people reporting money loss in the United States said it started on social media. GASA also reports that young people are targeted more and lose money more frequently than elderly. In Finland, the worst-hit age group was individuals between 18 and 30 (23.3%) and the Dutch University of Twente confirms that young people are more likely to be scammed. GASA notes that according to a World Economic Forum study, only 0.05% of all cybercrimes are prosecuted and as scammers professionalise, raising awareness is not enough - More preventive action is needed, and a faster takedown of scams is essential. GASA is organising the Global Anti Scam Summit to define concrete actions to combat online fraud. The Global State of Scams Report can be downloaded here. COMPANY NEWS: Secureworks, a global leader in cybersecurity, today announced that its extended detection and response platform Taegis will be generally available in Japan from 1 November 2022. Secureworks Taegis XDR and Taegis ManagedXDR will enable organisations in Japan to augment their overall cybersecurity posture and reduce cyber risk. Taegis open, interoperable technology architecture enables an integrated and more advanced approach to cybersecurity as companies face a relentless and ever evolving threat landscape. Japanese companies rank the damage caused from ransomware and Advanced Persistent Threats as their top two biggest information security concerns according to IPA. In September 2022, the Japanese National Police Agency reported an 87% uplift in ransomware incidents for the first half of the year compared to 2021. As ransomware escalates, businesses are increasingly looking for new ways to enhance their cyber defences. The economics of cybersecurity must change. XDR has the clear advantage over siloed, point cybersecurity solutions, which provide blind spots for threat actors to lurk in. As companies in Japan seek to evolve their business models with new technologies, cybersecurity must be an accelerant, not an inhibitor, said Secureworks president and CEO Wendy Thomas. Weve brought together two decades of real-world cyber experience, with more than nine years operating in Japan, to take cybersecurity defence to a new level and fundamentally change the economic dynamics of cybercrime. Taegis is a cloud-native, holistic security solution that enables superior threat detection and unmatched rapid response. With its open approach, Taegis integrates feeds from third party tools that are normalised and analysed, along with Secureworks own proprietary data and threat intelligence, in real time, to help identify and resolve threats. This enables organisations to empower their security analysts to cut through the noise of alerts, prioritise the most serious events, and reduce risk. Taegis ManagedXDR, Secureworks Managed Detection and Response (MDR) offering, includes proactive threat hunting and incident response capabilities in a fully managed solution, to help customers protect existing investments in IT and security technology. From 1 November, Secureworks will make generally available a version of the Taegis platform that has been specifically designed for the Japanese market, supported by local security experts from the companys Tokyo-based SOC and growing incident response team. Customers in Japan can join the 4,800 Secureworks customers globally in implementing a proven security solution with Taegis XDR. We are pleased that Secureworks is launching Taegis XDR and Taegis MXDR for evolving cybersecurity threats. Cybersecurity has become a key business challenge for Japanese companies and organisations. IT users are demanding a robust, effective security technology foundation and managed services, delivered by experts, to meet their increasingly sophisticated requirements, said Itochu Techno-Solutions general manager managed services planning and promotion division IT services group Nagahiro Kaneko. As a Secureworks sales partner, we strongly welcome the introduction of Taegis into the Japanese market to meet this need. Launching Taegis in Japan is an important milestone in our international growth strategy and reflects the importance of this buoyant cybersecurity marketplace, continued Thomas. Market demand for XDR in Japan is accelerating, which has historically been a fast-growing region for Secureworks. Todays announcement underscores our commitment to ensuring customers can defend their networks against threat actors now and in the future. Secureworks Taegis XDR and Taegis ManagedXDR are GA in Japan on 1 November 2022. For more information, click here and here. About Secureworks Secureworks is a global cybersecurity leader that protects customer progress with SecureworksTaegis, a cloud-native security analytics platform built on 20+ years of real-world threat intelligence and research, improving customers ability to detect advanced threats, streamline and collaborate on investigations, and automate the right actions. Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest seller of smartphones, appears to be facing issues with the batteries in its smartphones again, with reports that batteries in older models are swelling up making the devices unusable. A popular British YouTube host, who goes by the name Mrwhosetheboss and whose real name is Arun Maini, posted a video on 28 September about various models which were experiencing this issue. The video appears to have hit a nerve, judging by the fact that it has attracted 39,374 comments and been viewed nearly five million times. Maini keeps a library of smartphones that he has acquired and during the video he pointed out to the viewer numerous models that are facing the battery swelling issue. HeThe Verge that the swelling up did not appear to be related to the ambient temperature. There were even people who were storing them in cold garages who were tweeting me, so I dont think its completely a temperature thing, he said. According to what he has experienced, the Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S8, S10e, and the S10 5G have all suffered this problem. Even the two-year-old Galaxy Z Fold 2 has been displaying signs of the battery swelling, with the S20 FE being slightly less affected. In many cases which Maini detailed, the swollen battery forced the rear panel to pop open. Journalist Martin Filipov, writing in the Phone Arena site, said he had experienced battery swelling with other brands too; he mentioned the Huawei P10 Lite and Oppo R7. Battery issues are not new to Samsung mobile devices. iTWire readers may recall that in 2016 Samsung faced issues with its Galaxy Note7 device, with the problem being finally tracked down to the battery. But the company's response to the issue which was experienced in many countries was criticised by The Wall Street Journal at the time, with its commentators giving the South Korean firm a C for its efforts. They said the company was yet to experience what it called the "Tylenol moment". This is a reference to a recall by Johnson & Johnson in 1982 when seven people were killed by Tylenol products which had cyanide added to them. This led the company and the industry to rethink pill packaging; the new measures were viewed by the public as ensuring safety and protection. These comments came after Samsung held a media conference in January 2017, claiming to have tested more than 200,000 Galaxy Note7 devices, 30,000 batteries and using people from its own units and two other outfits, but still admitting it did not know the "root cause" of the issue. iTWire contacted Samsung Australia at noon on Thursday, seeking comment from the company by close of business the same day. No response has been received. Update: A Samsung Electronics Australia spokesperson responded on Friday morning and said: "We are aware of this matter and are looking into further technical assessments. We encourage customers with questions regarding their Samsung device to contact their local Customer Service representative." 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. Transitional justice is certainly on the menu in Chad, at least on paper, after the official inauguration on October 10 of "transitional" president Mahamat Idriss Deby, head of the military junta that succeeded his father, who came to power in a military coup by overthrowing Habre in December 1990. Deby's son has thus given himself two more years to "restore constitutional order" and although he has not said so -- prepare to run for presidential elections in a dynastic logic denounced by the opposition. In so doing, Deby had to commit to implementing the recommendations of the "National Dialogue", the "inclusive and sovereign" consultation process that designated him to ensure the continuity of power. The son of Idriss Deby - who died in 2021 after 30 years as head of state - should, according to the conclusions of the Dialogue, initiate "reflection on the creation of a truth, forgiveness, reparation, and reconciliation commission" and "establishment of a commission of inquiry to elucidate cases of disappearances," although it does not specify the periods to be considered. Compensating victims and returning Habre's body More concretely, the "heir" should, if he follows these same recommendations, "execute court decisions relating to the compensation of victims of the regime of former president Hissene Habre", who was in power from 1982 to 1990. He should also examine the "modalities for repatriation of the remains" of Habre, who died in Senegal in 2021, and make a gesture of reconciliation towards his ethnic group, the Goranes. After his fall, Habre was exiled in the Senegalese capital Dakar, where 25 years later a special court sentenced him to life imprisonment. At the end of this trial before the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC), his victims obtained significant reparations (82.290 billion CFA francs - 124 million euros), but they have not been paid. Until a year ago, Habre's villa seized in Dakar had not been sold, and the Compensation Fund for Victims, whose management has been entrusted to the African Union (AU), remained an empty shell. But Habre's death on August 24, 2021, reignited the fight of the victims, who called for a "donors' conference" in Addis Ababa at the AU headquarters. It was the AU that had asked Senegal to try Habre "in the name of Africa", and the pan-African organization carried out a mission to Chad soon after his death to set up the Fund. Since then, nothing has happened, except for the Fund administration moving to the Chadian capital Ndjamena and the appointment of a board of directors composed of victims' representatives. On September 19, the Fund received a letter on presidential the letterhead announcing that the President of the Transitional Military Council - Deby Jr. - had allocated 10 billion CFA francs (15.2 million euros) to the Fund and requested "its bank account details", and asserting that the head of state, "within the framework of the national reconciliation process (...), is anxious that the compensation of the victims should start as soon as possible. "This is part of the new young president's efforts to settle the past, to try to turn the page on certain issues and do what was not done by his father," explains Thierry Vircoulon, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations and specialist on central Africa. He thinks that "within the framework of this policy, they can indeed do both: pay compensation and bring back the body, to satisfy both Habres family and the victims. But these two things must be linked, and this will depend essentially on the funds available in a state that is in permanent financial crisis. "Its being taken seriously Clement Abaifouta, one of the main representatives of the victims and a member of the Fund's board of directors, says he was threatened in September by a Habre supporter during the National Dialogue. However, the man who told the story at the Habre trial of his 1985 arrest by the political police believes in the promise of reparations. "I passed a draft resolution during the Dialogue saying that as long as the victims are not compensated, we will not accept the repatriation of Habre's body, he explains. This caused sparks to fly. The entire Zaghawa ethnic group [to which Deby belongs] sided with us, but the most radical officers did not want to hear of it. On the other side, there are the supporters of Mahamat Noury, a rebel leader and direct cousin of Habre, who demanded it as a precondition for the Doha peace agreement [signed on August 8]. So I'm not against repatriating the body, but if the victims are not compensated, they will have to reckon with us. Abaifouta recalls that in addition to the money pledged now by Chad, the AU has already allocated $5 million to the Fund and that there is some money left from the EAC budget. "Its being taken seriously,he says. The National Transitional Council has been talking to us about it since the beginning of the year. They need to make a gesture, for the pressure is coming from everywhere: from us inside and internationally." Abaifouta mentions the role played, in his opinion, by Senegalese President Macky Sall, who came to Ndjamena in September as chair of the AU and who had taken the historic decision to try Habre. "I said to Macky Sall it was Dakar that was our battlefield, it was Dakar that made commitments [in judging Habre], so I believe that Senegal has an interest in seeing this finished properly." Limited amounts "A year ago, I didn't give this much of a chance. But its thanks to the tenacity and perseverance of the victims -- they are in the street, they are there with pots and pans, demonstrating and mobilized," says Reed Brody, an American lawyer who fought with the Chadian victims to have Habre tried. He recalls, however, that Chad was ordered to pay reparations in a national trial of former members of the DDS, Habre's political police, and that it has never paid. The amounts available are also limited. According to his calculations, if the funds promised by Chad are added to those of the AU, they come to only about 2,700 euros per victim, or one sixth of the reparations awarded by the EAC. Plus the question of how the money will be distributed remains unanswered, due to the lack of transparency of the Fund, and this is potentially explosive in Chad. "Can a fund do this? Yes, but have they given themselves the means to do so, and can the people who manage it do so? That remains to be seen," warns Brody. Reached by phone in Addis Ababa, Alexandre Ratebaye, a legal officer at the AU Commission chaired by Chadian Moussa Faki, did not want to specify the composition of the team working for the Fund, whose headquarters agreement was signed in 2019. "They are members seconded from the African Union," he said, "who are working in its representative office in Ndjamena until the building provided by Chad is furnished, equipped, connected. A lot of work has been done. We will try to accelerate the process. Ratebaye plans to convene a meeting in N'Djamena "in a few weeks time" of the Fund, of which he chairs the Board of Directors, "to decide on the contribution of the Republic of Chad and on the already existing contribution of the African Union. These two contributions are not enough. We will have to decide on the modalities for allocating the money to the victims and, more importantly, work on a conference of international donors by the end of the year," he said, without wishing to comment on the availability of the money from Chad. "An announcement has been made, we are taking steps to make it effective. Two associations have lodged a legal complaint against French energy giant TotalEnergies for "complicity in war crimes" for allegedly helping fuel Russian planes that have bombed Ukraine, a source close to the case said Friday. The France-based Darwin Climax Coalition and Ukrainian group Razom We Stand handed the file to the national anti-terrorist prosecutor, who investigates war crime allegations, on Thursday. Le Monde newspaper in August said TotalEnergies held a stake in a company that extracted gas condensate from northern Russia, some of which was turned into jet fuel used by Russian air squadrons accused of war crimes in Ukraine. The legal complaint, seen by AFP, accuses TotalEnergies of helping to provide the Russian government with "the necessary means to commit war crimes" by "continuing to exploit the Termokarstovoye deposit" in northern Russia. TotalEnergies until recently owned a 49-percent share in Terneftegaz, a company that extracts gas from the Termokarstovoye field. The other 51 percent was held by Russian company Novatek, in which the French firm also owns a direct 19.4 percent stake. After the article in Le Monde, the French giant said it had on July 18 sold its 49-percent share in Terneftegaz to Novatek. Le Monde reported that Termokarstovoye is a source of natural gas condensates -- a liquid hydrocarbon recovered when extracting the gas itself -- that are sent by pipeline to a Novatek processing plant in Purovsky. They were then sent by rail for further refining into jet fuel in the southern Siberian city of Omsk. That fuel has been sent to Russian airbases near the Ukrainian border, Le Monde said, citing data from financial information firm Refinitiv. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused squadrons based there of attacks on civilians, including the March 16 bombing of a Mariupol theatre where hundreds of people are believed to have died in what Amnesty described as a "war crime". - TotalEnergies refutes allegations - TotalEnergies has contested the claims. It says Novatek had confirmed it was not supplying Moscow with jet fuel to carry out strikes in Ukraine. The firm said on Friday that it "categorically refutes all of the unfounded allegations made by Global Witness, published by the newspaper Le Monde last August." TotalEnergies added that unstable condensates produced by Terneftegaz had been "exported abroad" and therefore could not have been used by the Russian army as fuel for its planes. The accusations of complicity in war crimes are "outrageous", "defamatory" and "unfounded", the company said. Last week, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne had already hit back at the allegations. "It's wrong, absolutely wrong, and you cannot find a single proof that there was a single condensate of Termokarstovoye going to any refinery in Russia," he said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. The European Union has imposed a ban on most Russian oil imports and a coal embargo in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February, but it has avoided sanctions on gas as the bloc is highly reliant on Russian supplies. Pouyanne said his firm was no longer investing in new projects in Russia. But "we will continue to ship energy from Russia as long as there are no sanctions from Europe on the gas, as we contribute to the security of supply for Europe," he said. Lawyers from the two associations told AFP it was time for multinationals to be held to account. "Justice should not be blind when faced with the indirect but essential support of multinationals to the war effort, and to the considerable benefits that they continue to enjoy after the invasion of Ukraine," lawyers William Bourdon, Vincent Brengarth and Henri Thulliez said. "France cannot in the same breath condemn the invasion, and remain inactive in the face of the behaviours propping it up." gd-edy-rfj/ah/jh/bp TOTALENERGIES NOVATEK The suspected Eritrean leader of a global human trafficking group sought by Interpol has been extradited to Italy, Italian police told AFP on Friday. Ghebremedhin Temesghen Ghebru, 35, is accused of involvement in human trafficking and aiding illegal immigration. He arrived Wednesday in Italy after being arrested at Ethiopia's Addis Ababa International Airport as he was about to board a flight to the Australian city of Adelaide, police said. At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of an Australian passport, a country where his criminal organisation also has activities, according to the Italian police. The human trafficking group, for which Ghebru was "among the leaders and promoters," according to police, has been active in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, North Africa, especially Libya, and European countries including Italy, Germany and England. The group organised a migrant route by land from Central African countries to Libya, where they then journeyed by sea to Europe. His arrest is the result of collaboration between the Italian, Dutch and British judicial and police authorities, the International Criminal Court (ICC), Interpol and the European Union's police cooperation agency Europol, police said in a statement. The Interpol office in Addis Ababa was able to arrest the suspect by following his movements, particularly between Australia and Ethiopia. Chinese and Nigerien laborers haul huge steel pipes across mounds of earth while heavily armed soldiers stand guard. Africas longest oil pipeline is being built near Gaya in south-west Niger, near the border with Benin. With a planned length of almost 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) including 1,250 km in Niger itself the pipeline will connect oil wells in the eastern region of Agadem, an area plagued by deadly jihadi incursions, to the Beninese port of Seme . Climate activists are calling for an end to investments in carbon-spitting fossil fuels. But in Niger, the poorest country in the world according to the UN Human Development Index, this project is seen as an economic lifeline. The landlocked West African country became an oil producer in 2011. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which exploits the reserves, has pipelined oil to refineries in Zinder in south-central Niger. For export, Niger initially planned to ship crude oil via Cameroons port of Kribi via neighboring Chad. It eventually settled on the Benini Corridor, which ends at the northern edge of the Gulf of Guinea. The project, which started in 2019, was supposed to be completed in 2022, but the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed it down, said Nafiou Issaka, deputy general manager of the West African Oil Pipeline Company (WAPCO). More than 600km of pipeline has already been laid, according to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, and Niger is on track to start selling crude oil on the international market from July next year. More than 700 soldiers have been deployed to provide security for the project, though much of the territory it traverses has so far been spared from jihadist violence, according to a security source who asked not to be named. Nigers biggest investment Niger has long been a major uranium producer, ranking seventh in the world with total production of 2,248 tonnes in 2021 after a year-on-year decline over the past decade, according to the World Nuclear Association. But uranium revenues continue to fall, and the countrys leadership is turning to oil to boost the state budget, much of which goes to fighting jihadists in the southeast and west. Six billion dollars will be invested in the pipeline. Its Nigers biggest investment since independence from France in 1960, said Kabirou Zakari, who heads the ministrys oil refining department. From 2023, oil production is expected to increase to 110,000 barrels per day, of which 90,000 barrels will be exported, Zakari told AFP. Oil could then generate a quarter of the countrys GDP more than $13.6 billion in 2020 according to the World Bank and represent about 50 percent of Nigers tax revenue, compared to four percent and 19 percent today, respectively, Zakari added . He estimated Nigers oil reserves at around two billion barrels. According to official projections, Niger will produce 200,000 barrels per day in 2026. fuel smuggling Algerian oil company Sonatrach has announced an encouraging oil discovery in Kafra, a vast 23,737 square km (9,165 sq mi) area bordering Algeria. British company Savannah Energy, a key player in the gas industry in neighboring Nigeria, says it has also found deposits in the Agadem region, where the Chinese are already operating. A black market in oil products is thriving in the capital, Niamey, and other major cities. A liter of gasoline (gasoline) costs 300 FCFA (40 US cents), just under half the price at the pump. An anonymous Jane Doe is prosecuted Activision Blizzard, Inc ATVI including sexual harassment, gender discrimination and sexual violence. Doe claimed a former product manager, Miguel Vega, sexually harassed her at work for years. TechCrunch reported. Vega also hinted that she would get a raise if she caved in to his sexual advances. Doe escalated her concerns to a manager in 2017 but yielded no results. Vega later threatened to reveal the intimate photos she sent him over a decade earlier. By August 2021, a month after California regulators sued the company for gender-based harassment and discrimination, the plaintiff again raised her concerns with Human Resources. On September 1, 2021, Activision Blizzard ended Vega. Now Doe tried to blame Activision Blizzard for creating a hostile work environment and not protecting them from sexual harassment. She requested a jury trial, seeking damages, medical expenses, attorneys fees and lost earnings. Lisa Bloom, plaintiffs attorney, tweeted that her firm represents eight women who allege they were sexually harassed at Activision Blizzard. For more than a year, Activision Blizzard employees have protested the companys poor handling of persistent sexual harassment allegations. CEO Robert Kotick is said to have known about rampant sexual harassment in the company for years failed to act. microsoft corp MSFT plans to buy the gaming giant for $68.7 billion. If the deal goes through, Kotick will likely step down as CEO. In June, a committee of independent directors at Activision Blizzard dismissed allegations of senior officials refuting allegations of gender-based harassment. It acknowledged some substantiated instances of gender-based harassment and denied officials awareness and Tolerance to Harassment. Price promotion: ATVI shares were priced last Two brothers were sentenced on Friday to 40 years in prison for the car bomb murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Caruana Galizia, 53, was one of Maltas most prominent public figures. Once dubbed the one-woman WikiLeaks, she has been a vocal critic of the countrys political elite on her blog, accusing them of nepotism and corruption. There are crooks everywhere you look, she wrote hours before the attack that killed her on October 16, 2017. The situation is desperate. George and Alfred Degiorgios sentences fell on the first day of their trial and nearly five years to the day she was murdered. Fridays dramatic trial had led to the couple pleading not guilty before a judge that morning, before changing their pleas hours later. Todays verdict is another important step towards justice for the Caruana Galizia family, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Twitter. We remain committed to bringing full justice to the family and to Malta. In a statement released by his office, he added: In parallel, the government will continue to implement important reforms to further strengthen the principles of the rule of law and democracy in Malta. Discover your friends The much-delayed trial of the brothers, who were charged with murder, causing a deadly explosion and criminal conspiracy, among other charges, began on Friday with a dramatic outburst from the accused George Degiorgio. Dont you know who killed Daphne? Degiorgio called the prosecutors office when he arrived in court. Your friends, the ones youve rubbed shoulders with Go examine them! A third killer, Vincent Muscat, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Judge Edwina Grima had denied a defense motion to stay the trial, based on what she believed had not been time to prepare. Observers in the courtroom on Friday included representatives from press freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the European Center for Press and Media Freedom. The Degiorgio brothers said last year they were willing to implicate a former government minister in exchange for a pardon that was not granted. George Degiorgio admitted to the crime during an interview from prison in July, calling it just business. He reiterated his previously stated plea of ??not guilty in court early Friday. His wheelchair-bound brother Alfred said, I have nothing to say, which the court found not guilty. But within hours, both had changed their pleas to guilty. Malta Spotlight The killing of Caruana Galizia sparked global outrage and put Malta, the European Unions smallest member state, in the spotlight for its apparent flaws in the rule of law. Joseph Muscat resigned as prime minister over the affair in January 2020 after mass protests against his alleged efforts to protect friends and allies from the investigation. A public inquiry into Caruana Galizias 2021 murder found the state should shoulder responsibility for her death, creating a climate of impunity for those who tried to silence her. Still awaiting trial is wealthy Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, who prosecutors believe is the suspected mastermind behind the murder. A growing number of seizures of weapons made at home from 3D printed parts are ringing alarm bells among European police about an emerging threat. For now, interest from far-right activists may be limited, analysts say and fears of a society awash with self-expression guns remain far-fetched. But homemade guns have become more widespread since 2013, when a US gun enthusiast first showed off a mostly 3D-printed handgun and shared its design online. As recently as September, Icelandic police said they had arrested four people suspected of planning a terrorist attack and confiscated several 3D-printed semi-automatic weapons. In the same month, Spanish authorities discovered an illegal arms workshop owned by a man in his forties in the Basque Country. This finding was followed by two more such cases in the country in 2021. In addition to two 3D printers, the police on the Spanish Canary Islands found literature and manuals by white racists on the subject of urban guerrillas. And in the northwestern city of A Coruna, police uncovered a man on the verge of completing a homemade assault rifle. The rapidly developing advanced technology could mean that this becomes a bigger threat in the near future, said Ina Mihaylova, a spokeswoman for the European police agency Europol. While traditional guns are easily traceable thanks to their serial numbers and hallmarks, these house-printed models are less easy for authorities to trace. Focus on right-wing extremists At the moment, there is still a big difference between the quality of the professionally manufactured weapons available in the criminal market and the 3D printed/homemade weapons, Mihaylova said. 3D printed firearms that are made entirely of plastic typically cannot withstand the pressure of live ammunition, she added. You need metal barrels, chambers or firing pins. But Christian Goblas, a ballistics expert at Frances University of Rouen, said metal 3D printing could become affordable in the next decade which could make homemade weapons more durable and reliable. With its 3D parts and metal firing pin, the 2013 Liberator pistol demonstrated by self-proclaimed crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson in 2013 featured a crude single-shot weapon of the same name being air-dropped at French resistance fighters during World became war II. Wilson posted instructions for the gun online, sparking alarm in the United States with its already lax gun control and history of deadly mass shootings. Since then, 3D printers have become cheaper and more blueprints have been published on the so-called dark web. Rajan Basra, senior research fellow at the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR), said nonetheless that 3D gun printing remained mostly a curiosity for firearms fans or libertarians. Even in countries with strict gun restrictions, there are better options for gun seekers: In France, you can get a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the black market for between 500 and 1,500 euros. To a lesser extent, DIY weapons are also attractive to terrorists, far-right militants and gangsters, Basra added. Eleven out of 12 recent seizures in Europe have involved far-right activists, he stressed. Not the future of terrorism One of the most famous applications of weapons with 3D printed parts took place in Germany in 2019. A gunman has killed two people in the eastern city of Halle after failing to break into a synagogue. Before the attack, he had put a racist, misogynistic and anti-Semitic manifesto online. A video the attacker took of his killing spree showed him repeatedly struggling with gun jams. At least I demonstrated how useless improvised weapons are, he was heard saying at one point. Blyth Crawford, another researcher at ICSR, said the attack was an exceptional case. In online discussions by some right-wing extremists, 3D printed firearms are not yet considered a serious alternative to regular firearms for conducting a mass shooting, as they are considered comparatively untried, he said. Jacob Ware, a counterterrorism researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that not all of these extremists were enthusiastic about the labor-intensive manufacture of a weapon. For some, it was fundamentally groundbreaking in opening new doors for terrorists without access to firearms. But others derided the technology as only relevant to those who failed to stockpile weapons in preparation for government tyranny. Extremists may see other emerging technologies, such as drones, as more promising for their purposes. Its unlikely that 3D printing is the future of terrorism for now, Ware said. Following the conclusion of the hit series "Little Women," the production unit of the drama releases the unseen footage of the drama making of its finale. Kim Go Eun, Nam Ji Hyun, Park Ji Hu, Wi Ha Joon and the rest of the cast expressed their gratitude to their supporters, and bid goodbye one last time. Kim Go Eun, Wi Ha Joon Express Gratitude, Regrets, More The hit series "Little Women," which followed the story of three destitute sisters, finally closed its curtains. A week after its finale, the production unit of the series released its final making video, sharing a glimpse of what went down behind the scenes. The first clips featured the acting performances of the actresses including Uhm Ji Won, Uhm Ki Joon and more. Kim Go Eun and Nam Ji Hyun also showcased their sisterly bond on set while both Wi Ha Joon and Kang Hoon mesmerized the cameras with their intense action scenes. Despite the heavy atmosphere of the drama, the cast made a lighthearted aura on the filming set, creating lifelong friendships and bonds. In the next scene, the cast expressed their honest thoughts on their characters as well their experience working in the drama. Kang Hoon admitted that he regrets the ending, saying, "I really didn't want "Little Women" to end as it's a project many people worked hard on. I'm thankful that we are able to finish the series without anyone getting hurt." Following Kang Hoon, Park Ji Hu thanked her co-stars for the things she learned throughout the filming. She added, "The drama is my first film of my twenties so I won't forget about it for a long time." Meanwhile, Nam Ji Hyun compares her experience to the weather. In the first few months of filming, the cast endured the scorching weather as they took on a new challenge. Now that the series is over, a different kind of breeze is felt on the filming set of the drama, symbolizing how they were able to overcome their hardships. Finally, Kim Go Eun thanked the viewers who supported the drama from the beginning and said, "I feel a bit sad but now that the masterpiece of the drama has ended, I feel accomplished." "Little Women" ended on October 9 with a score of 11.1% nationwide rating, marking the highest record of the series throughout its run. Kim Go Eun, Nam Ji Hyun To Hold First Offline Fan Meet While the cast of "Little Women" gears up for their forthcoming works, lead actresses Kim Go Eun and Nam Ji Hyun are preparing for their first ever offline fan meet event this 2022! Kim Go Eun will hold her offline fan meet in the second half of the year. Details regarding the event have not been released yet. On the other hand, Nam Ji Hyun's "Welcome to My House!" fan meet will be held on November 26 to deliver fun and excitement to the actress' supporters from South Korea. Furthermore, Wi Ha Joon is gearing up for his new series "Gyeongseong Creature" along with Han So Hee and Park Seo Joon. It will be released in the early half of 2023 on Netflix. KDramaStars owns this article. Written by Elijah Mully. On October 12, Jeon Yeo Bin shared a raw outtake of her sci-fi series "Glitch" on her Instagram account. Immediately, the actress received massive praises for her outstanding acting in the scene. Want to witness her "daesang"-worthy skill? Then continue reading the article! Jeon Yeo Bin Expands Career by Trying Out New Genres Jeon Yeo Bin challenges herself to try new genres. May it be in dramas or movies, the actress gives her best effort to showcase her brilliance and versatility. The "Vincenzo" star always surprises the audience with how she delivers her lines and emotions in every performance, which helps her establish a strong foundation in her career as an actress, Jeon Yeo Bin welcomed October with a new K-series, titled "Glitch." There, she played the character of Hong Ji Hyo, an ordinary office worker who has the extraordinary power to see aliens. The 10-episode show may have received various reactions from the viewers, but it was Jeon Yeo Bin's performance that got the most praises. Jeon Yeo Bin Receives Huge Praises For 'Daesang-Worthy' Acting in Raw Outtake On October 12, Jeon Yeo Bin shared a short outtake from "Glitch." It was a scene where she was trying to escape the facility where she was being held for experiments. From blockings to delivery of lines to exhibiting strong emotions, she was able to show it all at once! In less than a day after the clip debuted on her Instagram, the post already garnered thousands of hearts and comments from her fans, with tons of commenters calling her raw acting worthy of "daesang." Jeon Yeo Bin Returns To Netflix With 'Into Your Time' Meanwhile, the "Be Melodramatic" star is gearing up for her next Netflix dama "Into Your Time," also known as "One Day or Some Day." It's a coming-of-age series adapted from the original Taiwanese drama of the same name. Ahn Hyo Seop and Kang Hoon will join Jeon Yeo Bin in the soon-to-be released Korean adaptation. The series is said to meet the viewers in the first half of 2023. Jeon Yeo Bin will also appear in the highly-anticipated and star-studded movie "Cobweb," in which the cast members are composed of Song Kang Ho, Lim Soo Jung, Oh Jung Se, and Krystal Jung. What can you say about Jeon Yeo Bin's acting in the outtake? Share your thoughts with us in the comments! For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity updates, keep your tabs open here at KDramastars. KDramastars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. While Song Joong Ki's K-drama "Reborn Rich" is gaining the hype, his co-star made it to headlines for the wrong reasons after netizens criticized his past actions. After JTBC dropped the official poster of the revenge series, the public has mixed reactions following the much-awaited premiere of the K-drama. Will Yoon Je Moon's Image Affect Song Jong Ki's K-drama Comeback for 'Reborn Rich'? According to a report the public expressed their stance on social media after seeing Yoon Je Moon in the teaser of "Reborn Rich." In the upcoming revenge drama, he took the role of Jin Young Ki, the eldest son of a Sunyang Group's chairman. While some were excited to see Song Joong Ki once again on the small screen with a strong cast lineup, others acted coldly to Yoon Je Moon's appearance citing his drunk driving incidents. It can be recalled that the actor caused a social scandal after being caught drunk driving not once but thrice. He was sentenced to 1.5 million won or around 1,050 USD and another 2.5 million won or an estimated 1,749 USD in fines for drunk driving in 2010 and 2013, respectively. After three years, he got involved in the same situation after he was caught by the police for falling asleep while driving for about 2.4 km in the Sinchon-dong area of Seoul. Due to this his license was revoked and was sentenced to eight months in prison and two years of probation for habitual drunk driving. A year later, he returned to show business with the movie "Daddy You, Daughter Me," alongside Jung So Min, but got embroiled in another controversy after he reportedly appeared drunk in an interview. At the time, outlets cited that he was yelling, "Cancel all (interview)," and, "What is the article, write it?" The public expressed their stance on social media saying that they are a thriller to watch the series but pointed out that "it will not be good" since Yoon Je Moon is among the cast. Besides the upcoming K-drama "Reborn Rich" the public is also unresponsive about his soon-to-be-released independent film "Excellence" which is set to premiere in November. Cast, Premiere Date, and Where to Watch 'Reborn Rich' K-drama? Song Joong Ki plays Yoon Hyun Woo, a longtime employee at Sunyang Group who was framed and murdered for embezzlement. Interestingly, he returned as the family's youngest son and was reborn as Jin Do Joon, who is set to take the whole conglomerate as revenge. In the upcoming series, veteran actor Lee Sung Min took the role of Sunyang Group chairman Jin Yang Chul, while Shin Hyun Bin portrays prosecutor Seo Min Young also known as the Sunyang Group's grim reaper. Viewers will also get to see Song Joong Ki reunite with "Vincenzo" actor Jo Han Chul as he plays one of the sons of Jin Yang Chul. in addition, Girls' Generation's Tiffany will also have her K-drama debut through "Reborn Rich." IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Song Joong Ki Instagram: Hallyu Star Flaunts Gifts on Set of New Drama 'The Youngest Son of a Conglomerate' KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre takes part in an interview at Defence Headquarters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Eyre says the military will press ahead with plans to kick out dozens of unvaccinated troops despite changes to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick In late September, a group of Ukrainian families were forced to leave their temporary Laois homes. In all, eight families who came to Ireland to escape the war by Russia, were requested to pack up and move to other temporary accommodation in Kilkenny. They were only given less than two days notice by the Department of Children, a move that "shocked and horrified" Laois Integration Network. The families vacated houses that had been bought and furnished for another group of non-nationals seeking refuge in Ireland, Direct Provision residents. The Didean chairman is Mountrath based businessman Ed Dunne. He formed Didean housing body in 2019 to offer an alternative to Direct Provision centres which house people seeking refugee status in Ireland. Mr Dunne confirmed the detail to the Leinster Express/Laois Live. He said he cannot comment on the situation of the Ukraine families forced to leave the houses so suddenly, including children leaving schools and parents leaving jobs. They are offered shared accommodation in Kilkenny as an only option. "Unfortunately we are not in a position to comment on the move of residents to Kilkenny given our contractual obligations, specifically clauses re confidentiality. "Didean has no control over the moving on of residents other than the provision of social care supports aimed at helping them seek independent accommodation," the chairman said. Here's what was making the news in the Kilkenny People on April 16, 1971: Over three months ago a 4,500 improvement scheme for the Canal Walk, Kilkenny was passed by the Corporation and sent to the Department for sanction. And that is the last that has been heard of it. But all the time the Canal is deteriorating rapidly. And not only is a beautiful walk becoming more ugly, but the dangers for children - and even adults - are increasing. Not far from the entrance to the Walk, the river bank is crumbling away. Even the hedge adjoining the river is slipping into the water. It is highly dangerous, particularly for young children, and something will just have to be done about it soon. Since the opening of the Castle Park and the doorway from the Park to the Canal Walk, more people are now using the Canal. As well, summer is fast approaching and many more people with young children will be using the Walk for afternoon and evening strolls. Will one of their casual and pleasant strolls end in tragedy for some unfortunate family? The dangers are all too real. Pressure will have to be put on the Department to speed up sanction. The Canal Walk will have to be made safe. It could be a tremendous amenity for the city - linked as it is to the Castle Park. But at the moment it is little more than a death trap. VANDALISM, THUGGERY An unprecedented wave of hooliganism, vandalism, shoplifting, thuggery, bottle smashing. car stealing and larceny is sweeping Kilkenny at present. Elderly people and those living alone in the Ossory Park area complain of being terrified by hooligans breaking their windows and kicking their doors. On average eight to 10 cars are broken into in the city every weekend. Some are stolen. A city trader said shoplifting now seems to have become a national past-time. In some city shops, store detectives have now been appointed. Some 2,400 milk bottles are either taken or broken in the city every week. Even church collections are not safe. Money is taken regularly from collection plates. At Monday's Corporation meeting, grave concern was expressed at the rapidly increasing trend of vandalism and thuggery in the city. Ald M McGuinness said he had received a very serious letter from an old person in Ossory Park about vandals throwing stones at windows and kicking the door. With general blackguardism by groups of young thugs it is almost impossible for people to get sleep at night, he said. He had spoken to the Gardai about it but they said they were getting no co-operation from parents. The Gardai couldn't be blamed for what was happening. DIRTY NORE Is the Nore, once a clean and sparkling river, to follow the sad fate of such polluted and dead rivers as the Dodder and Tolka in Dublin? Present indications would seem to suggest that it is certainly on the way. On Thursday of last week, a People reporter and photographer noticed an oil slick on the river covering about one-third of the width from bank to bank. They traced it upstream and it seemed to emanate from somewhere around John's Bridge. On several occasions recently, People staff men have noticed oil in the River Nore and a member of the Kilkenny Anglers Association has reported that for at least seven successive Sunday mornings he has observed a slick on the Nore. Now, the anglers association are asking all their members, and all interested people, to report any pollution immediately so that the source can be located. And they promise to take action immediately. Oil, however, is not the rivers only problem. Detergents, chemicals, solvents, acids and raw sewage all contribute very much to pollution, says Mr Paddy Troy, secretary of the Kilkenny Anglers Association, who keeps a close eye on the river in the interests of his club. The pollution on the Nore is not a major problem at present but the state of the river is constantly deteriorating. And this is happening despite repeated appeals to industry and business, and also to the public in general. The Lions Spirit of Christmas Hamper Appeal was launched in City Hall by council cathaoirleach Pat Fitzpatrick, Mayor David Fitzgerald, Lions President Carmel Slater and special guest Brian Cody last Tuesday. Cathaoirleach Pat Fitzpatrick thanked the Lions for the significant amount of money they have allocated over the years to so many local organisations in County Kilkenny. He highlighted the many organisations who have benefitted from Kilkenny Lions Club funding and they are extremely grateful to the Club. He added that, without the Lions support, organisations would find it difficult to fully fund their programmes. He also thanked the Kilkenny People and KCLR for their work in promoting the appeal. Mayor David Fitzgerald congratulated the Lions Club in their fundraising campaigns over the past two years which were successful in spite of the challenges presented by Covid restrictions. The mayor referred to the fact that so many local organisations benefit from the campaign and he congratulated the Lions Club for the positive contribution they make. He also thanked all the volunteers in these local organisations for their great work. Lions President Carmel Slater said it was a privilege to launch this years 2022 Spirit of Christmas Hamper Appeal and she is delighted that it is again being undertaken in partnership with KCLR and the Kilkenny People. She added that the Spirit of Christmas builds on the success of the annual hamper appeal which has been run by Kilkenny Lions Club for the thirty years. This and other events, since 2002, have raised more than 800,000 for local organisations. All of the money collected is distributed to the charities as no administration or other costs are incurred. The proceeds have gone to assist many local organisations such as the St Vincent de Paul Society, Kilkenny Social Services, Church of Ireland, Good Shepherd Centre, Amber Womens Refuge Centre and many other organisations throughout Kilkenny. In total, Kilkenny Lions have supported over 100 local community organisations over that period. The primary fundraising is through the auction and sale of goods or services donated by local businesses. The appeal is divided into two sections, a Farm Section and a General Section. The Kilkenny People publishes the auction lists with names of over 200 businesses over a three week period prior to and during the auction. AUCTIONED The goods or services are then auctioned by KCLR96FM on air and it is hoped over 25,000 will be raised. The auctions will take place this year in early December. The farm auction will be on December 1 and 8. The general auction will be from December 6 - 8. Kilkenny Lions would like to thank the many people who contribute unselfishly each year to making this a success : KCLR and Kilkenny People for their partnership over the years; Brian Cody for his unfailing support each year; The 200 or so local businesses, without whose generosity, the auction could not happen; The people of Kilkenny who donate so generously; Fellow members of the Lions Club who give hugely of their time each year. Carmel confirmed that the sponsored duck race will be held on November 30 together with the Schools concert on December 15. The annual street collection will take place on December 17. She concluded by thanking again everybody for their support of the Lions Charity Appeal and said she was confident that it will be a tremendous success. Brian Cody congratulated the Lions for all their great work over the years and he was delighted to have been asked again to launch the appeal with the Mayor, Cathaoirleach and the President of Kilkenny Lions Club. He referred to the generosity of the people of Kilkenny who are never found wanting in helping the less well off in our community. He also thanked the business community who every year donate a significant amount of items for the auction. He concluded by wishing Lions every success over the Christmas period. Local Green Party Councillor, Maria Dollard has reacted to the latest EPA Water Quality report which has found a deterioration in water quality across Ireland, but particularly in the South and the South East. Cllr Dollard said, The recent report from the EPA is further evidence that our water quality in the South East Region is continuing to fail to meet standards for good ecological status or higher. In a single generation we have destroyed all pristine rivers in the county because of human activities and there is no time to debate, defend or procrastinate any longer. Tremendous work is being carried out on the ground by many groups, businesses and individuals to make sure they are not contributing to the problem. It is my view that until we see evidence of results, we cannot know how effective this is. I believe that Kilkenny County Council needs to meet their targets for inspections and its likely that for those who fail to work to eliminate the pollution they cause, that prosecutions will have to be taken as a last resort to prevent the destruction of our rivers and streams. It is no longer acceptable to the vast majority of people that pollution and destruction of our environment is something that can be justified or excused. The EPA report highlights that almost half (46%) Irelands surface waters are unhealthy, and trending in the wrong direction with the quality of estuary water declining by an alarming 16% and coastal waters declining 10%. The report also highlights that nearly half of Irelands rivers (43%), mostly in the South and South-East of the country, are below healthy levels for nitrogen while nearly a third of rivers (30%) and a third of lakes (33%) are failing for phosphorus concentrations. Concentrations of nitrogen in particular have increased across Irelands rivers, and estuaries. As well as impacting wildlife, poor water quality also impacts human health: pollution regularly contaminates drinking water and lakes and seas used for recreation. A fundraiser has recently been set up for a Kilkenny woman by her family after she experienced a life-altering medical ordeal. Back in June, Jackie Falsey Molloy set out for the Mater in Dublin for an operation to help with pains she was having in her back and legs. During the operation things didn't go as planned, she experienced 4 spinal strokes and things then went from bad to worse from there. She was put into a medically induced coma to deal with the trauma and her family weren't sure if they would ever get to see her or speak to her again. Thankfully, Jackie pulled through and woke up to see her loving husband Mush and two sons Craig and Aaron waiting patiently for her. She then got hit with more tragic news in that she had suffered so much trauma during her operation that she was paralysed from the waist down. This was a killer blow for Jackie and her family as anyone that knows her knows that she is so full of life and usually the one running around caring for everyone else. "She has the biggest heart of anyone that I know," Jackie's nephew said, 'so I am asking for people to please help and support her in her new journey'. The family home is going to have to be renovated, there will be medical bills and so much more. The lives of the whole family are going to change. If anyone spare anything at all to help out this lovely family during their time of need please CLICK HERE and donate. Anything donated would be gratefully appreciated. Leo Varadkar has said a temporary ban on residential tenancy evictions may lead to a glut of homelessness occurring when it ends. The Tanaiste added the Government is weighing up the pros and cons of a ban over the winter months, and that he has no ideological objection to such a measure. The Fine Gael leader made the comments in response to calls from Labour leader Ivana Bacik in the Dail to immediately impose an eviction ban in a bid to improve security for private sector renters this winter. It comes as a new report from national housing charity Threshold found termination of tenancies is the biggest issue facing renters at present. Mr Varadkar said: In terms of an eviction ban or a no-fault eviction ban over the winter period, thats something the government is weighing up at the moment. I certainly have no ideological objection to that. We introduced it when I was taoiseach as head of the last government, although that was during the Covid crisis and there were restrictions on movement and the circumstances were different. But he said the Government needs to examine the pros and cons of the policy. The obvious advantage is fewer people losing their homes over the winter period, he said. The obvious disadvantage is that when it ends, you may see a glut of homelessness occurring at that time, which is harder to deal with. And indeed it may accelerate the number of landlords leaving the sector and might result in a higher level of homelessness next year. And nobody wants to do anything that helps a problem get a bit better for a few months, only to make it much worse in a years time. We have to weight it up. The Tanaiste added that a ban could only be introduced as part of a wider response as Taoiseach Micheal Martin had indicated. Ms Bacik told the Tanaiste during Leaders Questions that a temporary eviction ban was urgently needed. The fear of termination of tenancy is the biggest fear confronting renters, the fear of eviction. And with over 10,000 people on the homeless list I think we know just how serious that fear is, the Dublin Bay South TD said. A report by Threshold published on Thursday found that the most pressing issue facing those renting in the private sector in Ireland is the fear of termination of their tenancies. The organisation recommended the removal of no-fault evictions from the Residential Tenancies Act. Ms Bacik added: Renters are worried theyll lose their home, theyre worried that they will be evicted from their homes. And we do need to see urgent action from government on this. The most recent Government figures show there are now 10,805 people homeless across Ireland. The Department of Housings August report, showed there were 7,585 adults and 3,220 children in emergency accommodation across the country. This is up from the 7,431 adults and 3,137 children recorded in emergency accommodation in July. It represents a 32% increase overall compared with a year ago, and child homelessness is up 47% compared with the same time last year. JEFFERSON CITY - A Cole County Circuit Court judge tossed a lawsuit Wednesday filed by the Missouri chapter of the NAACP and League of Women Voters, regarding the legality of the state's new voter ID law. The two organizations allege the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on the voting rights of Missouri residents. They have 30 days to appeal the ruling. In documents released by the court, Judge Jon Beetem ruled that the lawsuit failed to show that the new law would be "unconstitutionally burdensome for every voter in Missouri." He also wrote the NAACP and League of Women Voters lacked standing to bring the suit. "The Petition fails to allege facts establishing standing or a legally protectable interest of these Plaintiffs as well," Beetem wrote. This means voters will have to show a government-issued ID to vote on Nov. 8. Previously, voters could use different options like utility bills or a school-issued ID. Those who don't have photo ID will use a provisional ballot. Director of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, Denise Lieberman said, "The case is not dismissed. What the court did today was say that the way the initial pleadings were submitted was not sufficiently detailed enough to support the case going forward unless we wanted to amend it. The judge offered thirty days to do so before he would dismiss the case." She called the ruling "out of step" when compared to other court rulings regarding the level of specificity needed in the initial court documents. Lieberman said that her team has the evidence, but had not been given the opportunity to present it in court. "We've not had a chance to provide any evidence, so no proof has been offered yet. We, of course, have that proof," she said. "We have been taking depositions to get that evidence that could go into the record. We have witnesses lined up to testify. We have expert witnesses who have been providing scientific analysis of the issues involved in this case. None of that has gotten before the court yet." A joint statement from the Missouri ACLU and Missouri Voter Protection Coalition called the decision "wrong" and said it will continue to "press the case to get a decision from the Missouri Supreme Court." Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. "... we all recognize that this is a procedural pit stop on the way to having the Missouri Supreme Court decide the issue as they have twice before striking down less restrictive requirements," the statement said. "Missouris Constitution provides all Missourians with the fundamental right to vote. Voter ID restrictions disenfranchise Missourians, particularly people of color, people with disabilities, rural Missourians, voters with limited income, seniors and students. Similar attempts to create unnecessary and burdensome obstacles have been struck down multiple times by the courts over the past decade in a half." Beetem also stated that the two individual plaintiffs have not "alleged a specific, concrete, non-speculative injury or legally protectable interest in challenging the photo ID requirement." Breaking the photo ID lawsuit has been dismissed by the circuit court #MO pic.twitter.com/BKporUHg0z Brianna Lennon (@briannalennon) October 13, 2022 According to court documents, two plaintiffs were named by the filers. Rene Powell alleged that "she needs to get a photo ID to vote because her Missouri state nondrivers ID expired on December 29, 2021." The judge states that according to House bill 1878, individuals can vote with a state-issued photo ID provided that the document expired after the date of the most recent general election. Meaning any state-issued photo ID that expired after Nov. 3, 2020 meets the photo ID requirement in HB 1878. Dismissal is due to lack of plaintiffs standing #MO https://t.co/jQeZHbYpED Brianna Lennon (@briannalennon) October 13, 2022 Kimberly Morgan alleged that "she has a valid photo ID, but that the photo ID includes an extra e in her name." In Morgan's case, the judge ruled that if the document contains the name of the individual to whom the document was issued, and the name substantially conforms to the most recent signature on the individuals voter registration record. The League of Women Voters filed an additional lawsuit about voter engagement, which makes it illegal for people who are not registered to vote to solicit others to send absentee ballots. Judge Beetem has yet to make a decision on that suit. South Africa: Eskom signs leasing agreements with renewable energy companies Eskom has signed leasing contracts with four renewable energy companies to build new renewable energy facilities on land owned by the power utility. The four companies HDF Energy SA, Red Rocket SA, Sola Group and Mainstream Renewable Power Developments SA are expected to be connected to the national grid within 24 to 36 months and contribute some 2000MW to the grid. The final capacity that these projects will contribute will be determined following comprehensive feasibility studies by the companies. Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the land is near the Majuba and Tutuka Power Stations in Mpumalanga, allowing for easier access to the grid. We have responded to the call by President Cyril Ramaphosa to come up with ambitious, bold and urgent responses to the energy crisis. We are delighted that we are able to be the enabler of the rapid addition of new generation capacity which the country sorely needs. What makes this different is that unlike the bid window process that is run by the IPP [Independent Power Producers] office, there is no requirement for Eskom to sign a power purchase agreement. So theres no onerous obligation, theres no price negotiation. This is the beginning of an electricity market which enabled by the Presidents announcement on the 25th of July this year lifting the cap on licensing for new generation capacity, de Ruyter said on Friday. He added that because Eskom is not the buyer of electricity there was no need to obtain a Treasury guarantee for these investments and the agreements do not present any risk to the taxpayer. De Ruyter said that the build of these new plants will bring billions of rand in investments and add jobs to Mpumalanga. For this tranche we are looking at an investment of about R40 billion at least in total. These investments will take place in Mpumalanga, in the heart of coal country. [This] proves that renewable energy and coal fired generation can co-exist. This is a question of putting together an energy mix for South Africa that is sensible, appropriate and that meets the needs of the country as well as creating much needed jobs by generating clean electricity in a province that has unemployment that is substantially higher than the national average, he said. The CEO said Eskom will be releasing further tranches of its land for leasing as our contribution to enabling the rapid resolution of South Africas electricity challenge. Eskom says the next phase of land to be made available will be focused on the property around Kendal and Kusile power stations also in Mpumalanga and the retired Ingagane power station in KwaZulu-Natal. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. SONG CHEN/CHINA DAILY NATO's insidious stretch into the region bodes gloomy regional security and cooperation On Sept 7, the representatives of the four Asia-Pacific partners of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, namely Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea, held a meeting on the margins of the 2022 Seoul Defense Dialogue. The meeting was a follow-up to the quadripartite summit of Asia-Pacific partner countries during the NATO summit in June 2022. The meeting was a signal that NATO is expanding its footprint to the Asia-Pacific region, which has profound implications for regional security. Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, NATO has expressed its ill intentions to counter China's international presence and influence. Its pivot to the Asia-Pacific region heralds heightened tensions and confrontation. First, NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region will intensify the China-US competition. Due to its relative decline and strategic anxiety, the United States is seeking to take advantage of its alliance resources to undermine China's comprehensive strength and global influence in an attempt to re-tilt the balance of power in favor of itself. The US has already revived and upgraded the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Japan, Australia, and India to build it into a full-fledged security mechanism. The security cooperation among the Quad members and the Quad itself aim to exclude China. Besides the Quad, the US is also cajoling other allies to suppress China. The Joe Biden administration has established AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership of the US, the United Kingdom and Australia. As the largest military organization in the world, NATO's involvement in China-US rivalry could escalate the arms and space races initiated by the US, with competition exacerbated in cyber and maritime domains, key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains. Second, NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region may pit China-US rivalry into camp confrontation. The US-led NATO has accused China of stepping up military cooperation with Russia, claiming that China has lined up with Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in an attempt to undercut the "rules-based international order". Following their near retreat from the Asia-Pacific region after decolonization, NATO's major European members, namely the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands, have renewed their interest in the "Indo-Pacific" by sending their warships thousands of kilometers from home to the Western Pacific to join the military exercises with the US, Japan and Australia. The continued naval deployments of the US' European allies in the region will worsen China-European relations. And despite their cooperative relations with China in trade and investment, European countries have followed the US in interfering in the Hong Kong and Xinjiang affairs, and hyping up fabricated claims of human rights abuses by China. NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region will also enhance the US' existing partnerships with its Asian allies, especially Japan, in terms of pursuing cooperation in various areas such as deterring cyberattacks and diversifying supply chains. Given Japan's relations with China, such cooperation will be adverse to China. Third, NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region could go beyond security. The competition conducted by the US against China has already spoiled the atmosphere of regional cooperation, as regional and subregional economic cooperation have been slowing down. NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region could accelerate the process of decoupling from China as seen in the US-initiated "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity", a new economic bloc consisting of about a dozen Asia-Pacific nations with the notable exclusion of China. In addition to military confrontation and ideological conflict, NATO's disruptive moves will probably fray regional economic interdependence, in a bid to pull regional cooperation back to exclusive Western economic cooperation. Fourth, NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region will add fuel to the tensions arising from the unresolved Taiwan question, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula issues. While NATO stands with the ROK on denuclearization of the peninsula, the cooperation between the two in cyberspace and other security domains will complicate the situation. On the South China Sea disputes, the presence of the US and NATO members will turn the sea of peace into a sea of great power rivalry dominated by warships. Also, NATO will try to obstruct China's reunification as its military support for the Taiwan authority will exacerbate the instability across the Taiwan Straits. But it is worth noting that NATO remains focused on Euro-Atlantic security in a broad sense. Furthermore, differences still exist between NATO members on how to deal with China. The region needs to be vigilant in regard to NATO's move toward the Asia-Pacific, as NATO has fabricated China as a systemic challenge. The purpose of NATO's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region is clear: to undermine China's development and to exert international influence. Facing China's rise, NATO countries are anxious to keep their vested interests and unfair international rules. Regarding the challenges posed by NATO's pivot, China should keep patient while adapting to the new circumstances. First, China needs to strengthen its capability of safeguarding peace and security. China needs to sharpen its edge against NATO's military machine. If its interests are challenged, it can make a firm response. Nonetheless, China should beware of not plunging into the trap of an arms race. Second, China could use the policy tools available to reduce tensions and confrontations. China and the US share the major responsibility of de-escalating competition. China should strive to promote peace and development along with neighboring partners, and find ways to avoid the camp confrontation being reenacted in the Asia-Pacific region. China still needs to make efforts for inclusive regional cooperation by providing public goods, weaving the network of cooperation with regional countries, and reinforcing the cooperative atmosphere in the region. Third, China needs to improve its ability to develop and implement a sound crisis management system. Through assessing the latest developments in regional hotspots, China can take necessary measures, including setting up more channels and mechanisms to communicate with the US, avoiding the risks of miscalculation with unintended consequences while ensuring that China's core interests are safeguarded. The author is a senior fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. 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 Yoon Yeo-cheol, former ambassador to Egypt, was appointed South Korea's new top envoy to Britain, the foreign ministry said Friday. Yoon started his diplomatic career in 1985, and has worked in various sectors in the Foreign Ministry and its overseas missions, including in the United States and the Republic of Cote D'Ivoire. He served as chief of protocol at the United Nations in 2012, assisting then Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and served the same role at the South Korean presidential office in 2016. Yoon was named the ambassador to Egypt in 2018. Yoo Jeh-seung, former deputy minister of the Ministry of National Defense, will take the top diplomatic post at the country's mission to the United Arab Emirates. Yeo Seung-bae, former deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was picked as the new ambassador to Malaysia, while Keum Chang-rok, former consul-general at the Korean consulate general in Frankfurt, will serve as South Korea's new head diplomat in Switzerland. (Yonhap) Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Showers this evening, becoming a steady rain overnight. Low 38F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Showers this evening, becoming a steady rain overnight. Low 38F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Butler, IN (46721) Today Cloudy with periods of rain. Snow may mix in. High 41F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Snow may mix in. Low 38F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. (The Center Square) Two more unions have ratified a national collective bargaining agreement with the nation's railroads. The SMART Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department and the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers voted in favor of the deal. While the deal includes a wage increase, health care premium adjustments and work rule updates, some workers have raised concerns about their working conditions. "It was up to our members to decide whether to accept this agreement, and the members have made the decision to ratify a contract with the highest wage increases we have ever seen in national freight rail bargaining," Joseph Sellers Jr., the general president of SMART, said in a statement. "However, we hear the concerns of our members who may be disappointed in the outcome of this vote, and I promise that we will never stop fighting to ensure that they receive the wages, benefits, and working conditions that they deserve for keeping the American economy running." Six unions have ratified the deal with the latest signoffs, while one voted against it. According to the National Carriers' Conference Committee, representing the nation's railroads, five unions have not yet ratified the deal. Any work stoppage wouldn't happen until after next month's midterm election. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, the next union expected to vote on the ratification of the contract, is slated to announce its decision by about Oct. 26. "Quality of life issues after the COVID-19 crisis is extremely important, sick leave and time off to visit Medical Practitioners are more important today than it was 48 years ago," NCFO President Dean Devita said in a statement, noting the deal includes the largest wage increase in 48 years. "Although the agreement is finalized, the NCFO will continue to work on this and many other issues." This week, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, the country's third-largest rail union, announced its members voted against ratification of the deal. About 56.1% voted against it, while about 43% voted in favor of the deal. According to NCCC, following an unsuccessful vote, the two sides "have agreed to maintain the status quo for a period of time pending any further discussions and assessment of next steps. As such, a failed ratification does not present risk of an immediate service disruption." A new electric vehicle charging station was installed in the parking lot of the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum earlier this week. The charger is the second one in Auburn, but first at a destination location within the city. "Fourth Generation First-Tier" girl group Kep1er has returned to the music scene as girl heroes! In an interview, the nonet then revealed their strengths, concepts and goals with their third mini-album. Keep reading to know more! Kep1er Transforms Into Girl Heroes Through Third Mini-Album 'TROUBLESHOOTER' "Rookie Monster" Kep1er, comprised of Choi Yujin, Xiaoting, Mashiro, Kim Chaehyun, Kim Dayeon, Hikaru, Huening Bahiyyih, Seo Young Eun and Kang Yeseo made its speedy return to the K-pop scene with a new album! On October 13 at 6 p.m. KST, the girl group's third mini-album, "TROUBLESHOOTER" was officially unveiled on various online music sites, gaining attention from K-pop fans, especially Kep1ians (fandom). In particular, "TROUBLESHOOTER" is a word that means "problem solver," which explains Kepler's transformation into nine girl heroes who happily solve problems. The album is comprised of a total of five songs, including the title track, "We Fresh." The song is an uptempo dance genre that combines a rock guitar and an exciting house beat. Just by listening to it, K-pop fans can feel its powerful performance with a strong desire to convey the message of hope. With this song, Kep1er specifically wants to say, "You can achieve anything despite challenges if (we) are together, being fearless amid difficulties." The other songs including "Lion Tamer" then showcase Kep1er's own charm, "Downtown," a witty song comparing Kep1er's journey from their dream to triumphant and "Dreams" which captured fans' hearts as if they were moving a fantasy novel. The fifth song is a remastered version of its song, "The Girls (Can't Turn Me Down). WATCH Kep1er's "We Fresh' MV: Kep1er Explains 'TROUBLESHOOTER' Concept, Strengths, Goals They Want To Achieve With Comeback Meanwhile, ahead of its album's official release, Kep1er held a media showcase to commemorate the release of its third mini-album "TROUBLESHOOTER" at Yes24 Live Hall in Gwangjang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul in the afternoon of the 13th. Kepler returned in about four months after its second mini-album "DOUBLAST," which was released in June. When asked about the strengths of this comeback, the group's leader Choi Yujin expressed confidence, saying: "It's our fourth album, including the Japanese album, and now we know each other's feelings just by looking into each other's eyes even if we don't talk. I think that synergy is really important on stage. So I think we can show everyone a better stage. I also think that my vocal and performance skills have improved a lot." Regarding the MV's concept, Kep1er explained: "In this album, each member has a given ability. It has a message that if you put that ability together, you can do anything." As for their advantages compared to other girl groups, the members responded: "When I first heard this song, I thought it suited us well. I think our strength is our performance, and I think we can show our performance charm with this song" Kim Dayeon also pointed out their strength as an "all-rounder" girl group. Lastly, when asked about their goals with this comeback, Hikaru replied: "I want to win first place in music programs with 'We Fresh.' If we win first place, I will randomly change the parts among the members and sing it." For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Eunice Dawson. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. Smooth like a criminal undercover, BTS' second English song enters Spotify's Billions Club! In 2021, BTS achieved a milestone when their first English song, "Dynamite," joined the prestigious Spotify Billions club. Then 8-year-old septet was the first K-pop act to accomplish this recognition. Breaking their own record, Spotify announced on Twitter that BTS's second English song, "Butter," has accumulated one billion streams on Spotify. This breakthrough was achieved during member Jimin's birthday, October 13 (local time). So far, "Dynamite" and "Butter" are the only songs by a K-pop act to sit on the billion streams throne of Spotify. "Butter" made the world groove on May 21, 2021. Therefore, the song took a year and five months to score a billion streams. Congratulations to BTS! A Billion Streams, But What is with 'Butter'? With how "Dynamite" smashed the music industry in 2020, fans expect BTS to release songs more capable of breaking their records and scoring historical feats. From being the song with the highest 24-hour view counts on YouTube to kicking Spotify and iTunes records and winning simultaneous local and international awards, it is no doubt that "Dynamite" is among the most memorable songs of BTS that hooked K-pop and non-K-pop fans. THIS MIGHT INTEREST YOU: BTS Amazingly Garners 16 Billion Streams on Spotify + 'Dynamite' Music Video to Reach 1 Billion Views Soon Additionally, some fans have mentioned that this song is why they started stanning BTS and became attached to K-pop. When BTS announced that "Butter" would be their second full English song, fans expressed their sky-high expectations. Being one of the most prominent and influential boy bands in the world, BTS did not fail their fans on this release. In an interview, BTS members RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook dissected the song's meaning. Generally, the K-pop group mentioned that unlike their previous songs with numerous references and evoking deep meaning, "Butter" is a single that conveys "ease." Moreover, media reports supplemented this explanation of the group by theorizing that the song's easy lyrics are the group's ticket to penetrating international fans. The more fans they attract (primarily through songs using the English language), the faster they can ascend the paramount of influence and fame. Suga is known to be the group's member with vivid visions for the team. With high hopes, Suga shared in the interview that "Butter" is another attempt for the Grammy Awards. Despite not having extensive notes, BTS has shared that they referred to Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and Usher's U Got It Bad in the song lyrics. Genuinely, this song is more sentimental and memorable because the group's official fandom name, ARMY, was mentioned in the concluding part of the song. BTS' Agency Has An Announcement As BTS is breaking their records, HYBE Labels, on the other hand, announced that it will "implement strict measures against portrait rights and trademarks." This is in response to the number of counterfeit products featuring their artists. Thus, the agency said they, together with the Korean Intellectual Property group, will conduct an in-person inspection at the BTS: Yet to Come in Busan. ARMYs, which BTS song do you think will join "Dynamite" and "Butter in the billion stream legacies of Spotify? Share your thought below. Help "Butter" achieve 1 billion streams by watching the music video here. KpopStarz owns this article. Sophia Carson reported this. Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 14 (ANI/PRNewswire): IndusInd Bank today announced that it has been awarded at the 'Governance Now 5th India BFSI Conclave & Awards' under the category - 'SME Connect' for initiating 'Indus Credit for Business'. The award acknowledges the Bank's outstanding journey in supporting the SME ecosystem and promoting digital financial inclusion in the country by offering credit to MSMEs digitally through 'Indus easy credit stack for business'. The award was received by Charu Sachdeva Mathur, Head - Digital Banking and Strategy (Existing Business), IndusInd Bank. The Award won at the 'Governance Now 5th India BFSI Conclave & Awards' announced on October 12, 2022. The Award won under the category - 'SME Connect' for initiating 'Indus Credit for Business'. Governance Now 5th India BFSI Conclave & Awards 2022 recognizes the contributions made by the BFSI and Fintech sector in developing and including digital finance in the country. It recognizes the best solutions made possible by emerging technologies that are assuring industry continuity and resilience. Also Read | Jabtak Maniesh Aur Karan Ki Dosti Salamat Hai, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Mein Hasi-khushi Chhayi Latest Tweet by ColorsTV. Speaking about the award, Charu Sachdeva Mathur, Head - Digital Banking and Strategy (Existing Business), IndusInd Bank, said, "We are honoured to have been recognized for our efforts at the prestigious Governance Now 5th India BFSI Conclave & Awards. IndusInd Bank is committed to accelerating India's economic growth by empowering the MSME sector. This award serves as a testimony to the Bank's efforts towards supporting the MSME sector in India by providing small and large ticket-size loans in order to help them expand and run their business and in turn promote accelerated growth of the MSME sector in India." With 'Indus easy credit stack for business', Indian MSMEs can digitally apply for credit and receive a collateral-free loan from the bank of up to 20 lakhs immediately into their bank account. The platform enables the customers to leverage non-traditional digital information like banking, GST, and bureau repayment data as well as new age scorecards for quick and simple access to financing for the MSME segment for loans ranging from 2 lakhs to 2 Crore. Also Read | PhonePe Launches Online Dispute Resolution Feature for UPI. IndusInd Bank, which commenced operations in 1994, caters to the needs of both consumer and corporate customers. Its technology platform supports multi-channel delivery capabilities. As on June 30, 2022, IndusInd Bank has Branches / Banking Outlets and ATMs spread across geographical locations of the country. The Bank also has representative offices in London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The Bank believes in driving its business through technology. It enjoys clearing bank status for both major stock exchanges - BSE and NSE - and major commodity exchanges in the country, including MCX, NCDEX and NMCE. IndusInd Bank was included in the NIFTY 50 benchmark index on April 1, 2013. RATINGS Domestic Ratings: - CRISIL AA + for Infrastructure Bonds program/Tier 2 Bonds - CRISIL AA for Additional Tier 1 Bonds program - CRISIL A1+ for certificate of deposit program / short term FD program - IND AA+ for Senior bonds program/Tier 2 Bonds by India Ratings and Research - IND AA for Additional Tier 1 Bonds program by India Ratings and Research - IND A1+ for Short-Term Debt Instruments by India Ratings and Research International Ratings: - Ba1 for Senior Unsecured MTN programme by Moody's Investors Service Visit us at https://www.indusind.com/ Twitter: @MyIndusIndBank Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialIndusIndBankPage This story has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PRNewswire) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 14 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Pocket HRMS today announced its availability in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Microsoft Azure customers worldwide now gain access to Pocket HRMS to take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies. This is a significant milestone for the company, which is on a collaboration streak with major technology players to offer end-to-end employee management solutions for businesses. As a Microsoft Partner, the Azure Marketplace would enable Pocket HRMS to make their payroll and HRMS software available to a broader audience of companies looking to digitize and enhance their HR processes. With offices and customers in all major cities across India, Pocket HRMS boasts its presence across the country, processing more than five million HR transactions per month. Also Read | Assembly Elections 2022: Election Commission To Announce Schedule for Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh Polls Today. Kumar Siddhartha, Managing Director at Pocket HRMS, said, "We are honoured to announce that we are a proud Microsoft Partner. With this announcement, we aim to bring together the best in cloud-enabled infrastructure and the best in HR software. Our goal is to provide greater value to our customers and bring about a true HR transformation. It will help in increased employee engagement, faster payroll processing, and a highly scalable solution that grows with our client's business requirements. We are excited to offer our powerful smHRt suite of features to our prospective clientele." "Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure," said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. "We're happy to welcome Pocket HRMS to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem." Also Read | UP: Dress Code Issued For Government School Teachers in Muzaffarnagar; Jeans and T-Shirts Banned. The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. It helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use. Established almost two decades ago, Pocket HRMS is a leading HRMS software in India. Its core values are ensuring the best in customer service, cost-effectiveness, and robust module offerings. The latest update has incorporated an improved AI-based attendance system and an AI chatbot- smHRty that can interact with employees to apply leaves, answer queries, and more. Additionally, Pocket HRMS offers HRs a unique global look at their database with smHRt searcHR, which is one of the first implementations of its kind in the HR domain. To learn more, contact us: https://www.pockethrms.com | sales@pockethrms.com | 022-67687800 This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India) (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], October 14 (ANI/NewsVoir): Redefining luxury housing in the country, TARC Ltd - one of North India's leading real estate developers - today launched its luxury residential project, TARC Tripundra. Nestled amidst the scenic and posh environs of Pushpanjali Farms on the main Bijwasan Road in New Delhi. Conveniently located within easy driving distance of commercial and social hubs across Delhi-NCR and located at an equidistant from Delhi and Gurugram, TARC Tripundra enjoys seamless connectivity to the Indira Gandhi International Airport and Aerocity. The premium project offers 3 and 4-BHK homes priced INR 4.5 crore onwards. The gated township stands out for its enormous Delhi green view, 7D security, indoor heated pool, terrace area with an open-air theatre, star-view facility, and a meditation deck among other facilities. Also Read | India Successfully Launches Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile From INS Arihant. Elaborating on the project, Amar Sarin, CEO & Managing Director - TARC Ltd said, "TARC Tripundra has been launched keeping in mind the aspirations of homebuyers to live within the Capital without worrying about the city's hustle and bustle. Accordingly, our emphasis is on creating an upscale luxurious residential enclave that will be akin to an oasis within the bustling city. Moreover, since most of the flats face open areas on two or three sides, there is ample provision for the entry of natural light, fresh air and cross-ventilation across every apartment. The 6-feet-plus wide balconies and sundeck options also augment the charm of TARC Tripundra." A perfect embodiment of opulence, future-ready designs, comfort, convenience and sustainability, TARC Tripundra will provide an EV-charging facility, water conservation and rainwater harvesting systems, solar panels, air filtration and waste management systems, to mention a few. Besides, it is backed by multiple smart technologies, community apps and Wi-Fi in common areas to keep residents connected 24x7. Also Read | Noida Businessman Praveen Kumar Wrongly Detained at Abu Dhabi Airport Over Mistaken Identity. Added Sarin, "Significantly, only 190 families will live in this New Delhi project, ensuring the advantage of community living without the feeling of being constricted. A mini theatre & open-air theatre on the terrace is an offering for movie buffs who value their privacy and prefer to avoid overcrowded public areas. Naturally, TARC Tripundra presents an ideal opportunity for well-heeled cohorts seeking a better home, senior citizens looking for a safe, green haven within the city precincts or NRIs wishing to return to their roots without sacrificing the comforts of modern living. Even investors will be delighted as our luxury New Delhi-based project is poised to provide robust returns in the days ahead by emerging as a hot destination for both homeowners and investors." TARC NSE ISIN: INE0EK901012. TARC is a leading Real Estate Development company in New Delhi with one of the largest land banks and key land parcels at prime locations in the National Capital Region. The leadership at TARC has spent the past four decades creating and building multiple projects across New Delhi-NCR through diverse verticals of residential, hospitality, commercial and retail with the mission of transforming urban living by curating future-ready, high-quality developments. TARC further strengthens its Brand Equity after recent collaborations with Bain Capital, USA & Blackstone Inc. For further information, please visit www.TARC.in. This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) London [UK], October 14 (ANI): According to a recent study headed by UCL researchers, people with dementia who experience anxiety or sadness may benefit from talking therapy provided by the NHS. People with dementia frequently experience mental health issues like depression and anxiety; according to earlier studies, 38% of those with moderate dementia experience these problems. Also Read | Women Actually Better at Finding and Remembering Words Than Men: Study. The latest study, however, is the first to examine whether talking therapies that are frequently provided in healthcare settings may be helpful in relieving symptoms. It was published in the journal - eClinicalMedicine. Researchers looked at information from 2,515,402 individuals who received treatment through England's national "Improving Access to Psychological Therapies" (IAPT) service between 2012 and 2019 who had clinically significant anxiety or depression. Also Read | Karwa Chauth 2022: These Fasting Tips Could Be a Game-Changer!. IAPT is a free NHS service that offers CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), counselling, and guided self-help, with sessions provided in person, in groups, or online. It also offers evidence-based therapies for treating anxiety and depression. Participants had to meet one of two criteria in order to be included in the study: * Clinical levels of depressive symptoms as determined by a standard questionnaire*, which takes into account elements including a loss of interest in activities, sleep problems, and feelings of low mood. * Clinical levels of anxiety based on a benchmark assessment that queries patients on their amount of worry or difficulty unwinding. The researchers looked at all 1,549 individuals who had a dementia diagnosis prior to beginning IAPT treatment in order to examine results for those with dementia. In order to determine whether therapy outcomes for those with dementia varied from those without dementia, researchers also used a control group of 1,329 individuals. These individuals were chosen from the entire dataset and matched to the dementia patients in terms of age, gender, depression and anxiety severity at the beginning of treatment. The treatment was clinically effective for dementia patients, according to the researchers, and 63% of them reported fewer depressive and anxious symptoms after receiving IAPT. In the meantime, about 40% fully recovered. In contrast, 47% of participants in the control group recovered, while 70% of people reported improved symptoms. Georgia Bell, the lead author and a PhD student in psychology and language sciences at UCL, noted that anxiety and despair are particularly prevalent among dementia patients. They are incredibly crippling and are linked to worse results for both the dementia patient and their caregivers. This is the largest study yet conducted to examine the effectiveness of psychological treatments for dementia patients. Our findings imply that, although having a lower chance of recovery or improvement than those without dementia, psychological therapies provided in primary care mental health facilities can be helpful for patients with dementia. "Consequently, our findings support the use of IAPT to treat anxiety and depression in people with dementia. We hope this study will have implications for encouraging referrals and adaptations to increase access and enhance outcomes for people living with dementia." Prior to this year, there was insufficient evidence to support the effectiveness of talking therapy for dementia patients; nevertheless, an assessment of the available data, headed by UCL experts, validated its usefulness. *** This most recent study strengthens that by demonstrating the viability of such a benefit from NHS treatment options. The Alzheimer's Society and Wellcome financed the study. According to Dr. Richard Oakley, Associate Director of Research at the Alzheimer's Society, "Many people with dementia also have depression and anxiety, making it even more difficult for them and their caregivers to cope with symptoms and, for some people, even contributing to a faster decline in memory and thinking problems. After a diagnosis, consistent and easy access to mental health support is crucial. This study, which was supported by the Alzheimer's Society, is the first to examine the efficacy of therapy for dementia patients in a practical context. Even while their reaction wasn't as robust as that seen in the general population, it indicated that people with dementia showed a considerable reduction in their symptoms of anxiety and despair when treated with therapy. This study supports the findings of our most recent report, Left To Cope Alone, which stressed the value of prompt access to mental health care. We discovered that 61% of dementia sufferers currently require mental health care, however, in 2018, only 0.2% of the 1 million yearly referrals to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programs were for dementia sufferers. "Despite the fact that this study did not compare the various forms of therapy, types of dementia, or whether accommodations had been made for those suffering from the condition, it still emphasizes the urgent need to advance real-world therapy for those with dementia, with modifications to increase its efficacy and accessibility." (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 York [US], October 14 (ANI): The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated a trend that has seen rising rates of anxiety and depression for many years. Frank Schroeder of the Boyce Thompson Institute's latest research could eventually result in novel treatments that could lessen the burden of mental illness around the world. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter that is generated by many animals and was first identified in the 1930s, regulates a wide range of behaviours including feeding, sleep, mood, and cognition. The primary tool for treating psychological illnesses including anxiety and depression and eating disorders is a medication that modifies serotonin levels. Also Read | Women Actually Better at Finding and Remembering Words Than Men: Study. The tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has been extensively used as a straightforward model for neurobiology research to examine serotonin's function in controlling behaviour and food intake. For a long time, scientists believed that C. elegans had a single biochemical pathway for producing serotonin, which was subsequently rapidly destroyed. Now it has been established by Schroeder's group and associates at Columbia University that none of those presumptions was entirely accurate. In our model system, around half of the serotonin is created by a second, parallel biosynthetic pathway, according to Schroeder. Also Read | Karwa Chauth 2022: These Fasting Tips Could Be a Game-Changer!. An article that was published in 'Nature Chemical Biology' describes the findings. The project got underway roughly three years ago when scientists unintentionally found an enzyme that breaks down serotonin into its derivatives. We discovered that serotonin is employed as a building block for other molecules accountable for some of the serotonin's function, contrary to what most experts in the area had previously believed. "So, we chose to start at the beginning and observe how serotonin is made, and then how it is changed into these other molecules once it is made," the researcher said. Further research by Jingfang Yu, a graduate student in Schroeder's lab and the paper's first author, demonstrated how the novel serotonin derivatives influence feeding behaviour. According to Yu, when worms are deficient in endogenous serotonin, they have a propensity to move fast across the bacterium food lawn on an agar plate and turn only occasionally to investigate the food. We discovered that dosing the worms with serotonin derivatives can stop this behaviour, indicating that these recently discovered substances are responsible for the effects once assigned to serotonin. Serotonin's molecular signalling pathways are largely conserved across species, including humans, making the worm C. elegans an ideal model organism. For instance, studies have demonstrated that the gut is where a significant part of serotonin is produced in C. elegans, as it is in humans. According to Schroeder, there are indications that human serotonin is changed into metabolites that resemble those seen in C. elegans. Schroeder, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the department of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, said that this finding "opens up the door for many other paths of inquiry in humans." "Do humans need the corresponding metabolites? What function does one manufacturing pathway serve in comparison to another?" He questioned. "How are these production pathways and metabolites significant for human behaviours, such as mental health and food patterns?" The effect of the novel serotonin derivatives on C. elegans behaviour is currently being studied, as is the possibility that human beings have serotonin metabolites that are similar. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Shimla, Oct 14 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh state election office has sought 67 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces for holding free and fair Assembly polls in the state. This information was given by state Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg on Friday evening. Also Read | XXX Lands Ekta Kapoor in Big Trouble; Supreme Court Raps Producer for 'Polluting Minds of Young Generation' With Her Web Series. As many as 65 CAPF companies were deployed during the last Assembly elections in 2017, he told the media. The CEO said a notification for the state elections will be issued on October 17 and the last date for the filing of nominations is October 25. Also Read | Gurugram: Stuck in Traffic, Woman Delivers Baby Inside Car in Jacobpura. Scrutiny of papers will be held on October 27 and the last date for the withdrawal of papers will be October 29, he added. The voting is scheduled to take place on November 12 while the counting will take place on December 8. As many as 55,74,793 people are eligible to vote in the polls as of now. The state has 68 Assembly seats. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) The AAP blamed the BJP on Friday for the imposition of a Rs 900-crore fine by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the Delhi government for improper management of solid municipal waste and demanded that the civic body polls be held in the city "at the earliest". Addressing a press conference here, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Durgesh Pathak said the people of the national capital will have to pay the price for the "inefficiency" of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which is run by the BJP. Also Read | Hyderabad Wins World Green City Award 2022. There was no immediate reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the allegation levelled by the AAP. "We demand that the MCD polls be held at the earliest so that the people of Delhi can oust the BJP from the civic body," Pathak, who is the AAP's MCD poll in-charge, said. Also Read | World Sight Day 2022: Unique Blind Walk in Chandigarh To Support Eye Donation. The NGT directed the Delhi government on Wednesday to pay Rs 900 crore as environmental compensation for improper management of solid municipal waste, observing that citizens cannot be faced with an emergency situation due to a lack of governance. A bench headed by chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel noted that around 80 per cent of the three crore metric tonnes of legacy waste at the three landfill sites in the city -- Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla -- was not remediated. The green panel said there was a serious violation of citizens' rights and a failure of the public trust doctrine to protect the environment and public health by the authorities concerned. "The steps taken so far do not meet the mandate of law and are not commensurate to the grim factual emergency situation, constantly threatening the safety and health of citizens and the environment with no accountability of the officers entrusted with the task," it said. Fixing the accountability of the state authorities for past violations, the bench said, "We hold the National Capital Territory of Delhi liable to pay environmental compensation of Rs 900 crore having regard to the quantity of undisposed waste, which is to the extent of three crore metric tonnes at the three landfill sites." The amount could be placed in a ring-fenced account to be operated under the directions of the Delhi chief secretary for the restoration of the environment by remediation of waste and other measures, the bench said. It also directed the authorities to ensure that current waste is not added to the legacy waste sites and the waste is disposed of in accordance with norms. "Due to the BJP-run MCD, the NGT has imposed a fine of Rs 900 crore on the people of Delhi. It is very unfortunate and a matter of shame. Due to the BJP's inefficiency, its inability to do its work and corruption, the NGT has imposed the fine," Pathak alleged. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) Delhi BJP leaders and workers including its Mahila Morcha activists staged a protest outside Aam Aadmi Party headquarters here on Friday, asking for removal of the AAP's Gujarat chief Gopal Italia. The AAP leaders have crossed all limits of decency as was exemplified by Italia through his "abusive" language targeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri. Also Read | Indian Coast Guard Frees Six Indian Fishermen From Pakistani Captivity in High Seas Along Maritime Border. "AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal should remove such leaders from the party and apologise to the countrymen for their foul language," Bidhuri said. Delhi BJP vice presidents Virendra Sachdeva and Rajan Tiwari, Mahila Morcha president Yogita Singh, incharge of the Morcha Barkha Singh and other leaders of the party participated in the protest. Also Read | India Will Come Out of Current Global Turmoil, Move On Path of Sustained Growth, Says FM Nirmala Sitharaman. Italia was on Thursday detained here for nearly three hours by the Delhi Police after he appeared before the National Commission for Women (NCW) in connection with his alleged comments against Modi amid protests by AAP members outside the women panel's office. On Friday, the BJP sharpened its attack on the AAP and Kejriwal after Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for "abusing" her. An old video of Italia emerged on Thursday in which he is purportedly heard mocking Modi's 100-year-old mother Hiraba. Italia is also heard purportedly using a derogatory word for Modi, drawing strong condemnations from BJP leaders. (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], October 14 (ANI): The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that the methodology of the electoral bonds scheme is a "completely transparent" mode of political funding and it is impossible to get black money or unaccounted money. Defending the electoral bonds scheme before a bench of Justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that there is no scope for black money in the electoral bonds scheme. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. Solicitor General said, "Methodology of donation is so transparent, it is impossible to get black money... It is most transparent and to say it strikes at democracy is wrong." The top court was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the provisions of the Finance Act 2017 which paved the way for anonymous electoral bonds. Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Government To Provide Two Sets of Tracksuits to Pre-Primary Students. During the hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for petitioners argued that the case involves issues that strike at the roots of democracy. Bhushan further pointed out that the Finance Bill, of 2017, which paved the way for the introduction of the electoral bond scheme, was passed as a money bill even though it wasn't. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for one of the petitioners, said that this is a matter that should be heard by a larger bench. Attorney General R Venkataramani said that there is no pressing urgency and requested the Court to list it in January 2023. However, Bhushan and Sibal pointed out that there are elections coming up in Gujarat which would be announced today. They objected to AG's suggestion of hearing in January saying that would mean more sale of bonds. The apex court then listed the case for hearing on December 6. The various petitions filed were filed in the apex court challenging the provisions of Finance Act 2017 which paved the way for anonymous electoral bonds. Association for Democratic Reforms, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and others had approached the apex court in 2017 challenged the scheme as an "obscure funding system which is unchecked by any authority". An electoral bond is an instrument in the nature of a promissory note or bearer bond which can be purchased by any individual, company, firm or association of persons provided the person or body is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India. The bonds are issued specifically for the purpose of contributing of funds to political parties. The electoral bond scheme was notified by the central government on January 2, 2018. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) The BJP on Friday sharpened its attack on the Aam Aadmi Party after its Gujarat chief Gopal Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for "abusing" her. An old video of Italia emerged on Thursday in which he is purportedly heard mocking Modi's 100-year-old mother Hiraba. Italia is also heard purportedly using a derogatory word for Modi, drawing strong condemnations from BJP leaders. Also Read | Mumbai Cyber Fraud: Virtual Friends Gifts from Poland Cost Woman Rs 2 Lakh. "If you think abusing the prime minister's mother will help you gain political popularity in Gujarat, you are mistaken. And for that mistake, Gujarat and Gujaratis will make you pay the political price in the forthcoming elections," Union minister Smriti Irani told reporters on Friday, attacking AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal. She claimed Italia's comments were made on Kejriwal's instructions, saying the Gujarat AAP leader has made a number of comments which have also "insulted" the Hindu society and temple-going women. Also Read | Video: UP IAS Officer Samuel Paul Tells Flood Victims Government Not Running Zomato Service, Draws Flak. Irani said it is "absolutely unforgivable" if AAP leaders seek to abuse an 100-year-old woman who has nothing to do with politics. "Her only crime is not that she is in politics but she gave birth to Narendra Modi who is thwarting your (Kejriwal's) political designs," the BJP leader said. With Italia claiming that the BJP is targeting him as he is from the Patidar community, Irani said he was hiding behind new excuses and this showed that the AAP would play community and gender cards for its political ends. "That Arvind Kejriwal can fall to new lows is not surprising. What they don't realise is the esteem with which Gujarat and Gujratis hold women especially mothers in our society," she said, claiming that the regional party will suffer political decimation in the upcoming state assembly polls there. The AAP leadership in the state has been making all sorts of statements, including "slurring Hindu women and religious institutions", to draw political attentions, Irani alleged. In another video, Italia was purportedly heard urging women not to go to temples, alleging that religious places were dens of exploitation of women. With the "blessings" of Kejriwal, he "maliciously and in abusive form" attacks Modi's mother, Irani said. Italia was on Thursday detained here for more than 2.5 hours by the Delhi Police after he appeared before the National Commission for Women (NCW) in connection with his alleged comments against Modi amid protests by AAP members outside the women panel's office. Italia claimed that he was "threatened and treated indecently" by NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma after he appeared before her "as he is a Patidar and his community members have come out in support of the Kejriwal-led party" ahead of the elections. Kejriwal said his detention had triggered massive anger in the Patel community across Gujarat. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Bengaluru, Oct 14 (PTI) The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the state government to fix the fare for app-based auto-rickshaw hailing services within 15 days. The authorities last week ordered online aggregators like Uber, Rapido, and Ola to immediately stop their services for auto-rickshaws. Also Read | Indian Coast Guard Frees Six Indian Fishermen From Pakistani Captivity in High Seas Along Maritime Border. The aggregators were also warned that action would be initiated if autos were found violating the order. The government had contended that auto-rickshaws were not covered under the license issued under the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregator Rules in 2016. Also Read | India Will Come Out of Current Global Turmoil, Move On Path of Sustained Growth, Says FM Nirmala Sitharaman. ANI Technologies Private Limited, which is offering service through Ola app, and Uber India Systems Private Limited had challenged this before the HC in two separate petitions. Justice M G S Kamal, who heard the petitions on Thursday, suggested that the authorities and the companies arrive at a compromise and make a common submission. The government had agreed to talk to the aggregators. On Friday, the HC directed that the government take into account the suggestions of all stakeholders while deciding the fare within 15 days. The HC also directed that no coercive steps would be initiated against the aggregators till the fare is fixed. The hearing of the case was adjourned. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) India on Friday said it is carrying out negotiations with the UK for the early finalisation of a free trade agreement that is beneficial to both the sides. In April, the two sides had set a Diwali deadline for concluding the FTA but the deal is set to be pushed back to November in view of differences over certain issues. Also Read | XXX Lands Ekta Kapoor in Big Trouble; Supreme Court Raps Producer for 'Polluting Minds of Young Generation' With Her Web Series. "There are ongoing negotiations as we know on the FTA. There is interest on both sides to see if we can work towards a deal, an FTA, that is beneficial to both the countries at an early date," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said. "This is a trade negotiation...let this be dealt by trade negotiators," he said. Also Read | Gurugram: Stuck in Traffic, Woman Delivers Baby Inside Car in Jacobpura. Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held a telephonic conversation with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. "A good conversation with UK Foreign Secretary @JamesCleverly.Reviewed various aspects of our bilateral relationship and committed to taking forward Roadmap 2030 expeditiously. Look forward to an early in-person meeting," Jaishankar tweeted. Asked about the recent remarks by UK home secretary Suella Braverman expressing reservations over the proposed deal, Bagchi said he would not like to comment on it. "I would not like to comment on the Home Secretary's comments," he said. Braverman said the trade deal could lead to increased immigration to the UK from India and that the Indian migrants are the largest group to overstay their visas. Referring to the "larger issue of mobility and consular matters", Bagchi said it is a separate issue. "There are understandings between both countries and going forward, this will require mutual implementation of these understandings," he said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Oct 14 (PTI) Supreme Court judge Justice Hemant Gupta, who is set to retire on October 16, said on Friday a judge cannot make people happy as "that's not the role assigned to him". Justice Gupta was speaking at a felicitation programme organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association on his last working day as an apex court judge. Also Read | World Sight Day 2022: Unique Blind Walk in Chandigarh To Support Eye Donation. "A judge cannot make people happy, that's not the role assigned to him. That role is assigned to other people in public life. One cannot discharge this role with intention of pleasing people," he said. He said he was harsh and blunt in court, "but whatever orders were warranted as per my understanding were passed". Also Read | India Successfully Launches Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile From INS Arihant. "Most important is my inner satisfaction that I have given the best to the institution. I have no regrets. I have tried my best to discharge my duties with utmost humility and sincerity, though sometimes I lose my cool. No one is perfect. I cannot stake any claim to perfection. In my shortcomings, when I erred, it's been unintentional," he said, adding "I am retiring with a lot of contentment in my heart." Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit termed Justice Gupta as a "great asset" to the institution. He is a man "who has the capacity to go into everything to make the best of whatever is presented before him", the CJI said. He also praised Justice Gupta for being "completely digitised". "No wonder his court has always encouraged going paperless. He was associated with legal aid work. Whatever he has done, he's done it to the best of his ability," the CJI said. The CJI praised Justice Gupta also for his efficiency in delivering judgment. "Whatever he has done, any judgment would be ready in two weeks' time. He's a man who would find time to write judgements immediately," he said. Justice Gupta, who had his last working day as the apex court judge on Friday, expressed his satisfaction regarding his work, and said whatever role was assigned to him, he performed to best of his abilities, and without fear or favour. "Whatever matter has come before me, I have not shied away from deciding, whatever may be the subject." Justice Gupta was elevated as an apex court judge on November 2, 2018. The retirement of Justice Gupta would bring down the number of serving judges in the top court to 28 against the sanctioned strength of 34 including the CJI. During his tenure as a judge of the apex court, Justice Gupta delivered several important judgements, including the verdict in the Karnataka Hijab ban matter. In the split verdict in the Hijab matter, Justice Gupta had dismissed the appeals challenging the March 15 judgement of the Karnataka High Court which had refused to lift the ban. Earlier during the day, Justice Gupta sat with the CJI to hear the matters, where CJI Lalit said, "I must say something. Today, in this combination, we are the two senior-most judges in terms of age here in this court." CJI Lalit is due to retire on November 8. Justice Gupta, son of former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Hayana High Court Jitender Vir Gupta, was born on October 17, 1957, and was enrolled as an advocate in July 1980. He also worked as additional advocate general of Punjab from 1997 to 1999. He was appointed a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on July 2, 2002. Justice Gupta was a member of the Computer Committee of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for more than 10 years and this period saw a complete computerisation of the high court including digitisation of the entire records of judicial files and developing a mechanism to scan the freshly filed case, introduction of the case management system, launching of an e-diary etc. He took over as a judge of the Patna High Court on February 8, 2016 and was appointed as the acting Chief Justice of that high court on October 29, 2016. Justice Gupta was appointed as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on March 18, 2017. During his tenure as a judge in the apex court, he was part of a five-judge Constitution bench, which in a significant judgement had refused to refer to a larger bench to revisit its 29-year-old Mandal verdict putting cap on quotas at 50 per cent, as it quashed a Maharashtra law granting reservations to Marathas in admissions and government jobs in the state, saying it violated the principle of right to equality. Justice Gupta was also a part of the bench which had said that insulting remarks made to a person belonging to Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes within four walls of the house with no witnesses does not amount to offence, as it quashed the charges under the SC/ST Act against a man who had allegedly abused a woman within her building. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Hyderabad, Oct 14 (PTI) Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Friday announced the introduction of its A350-900 medium haul wide-body aircraft services from Hyderabad to Singapore. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. The SIA will operate daily flights between Hyderabad and Singapore, with the A350 services operating every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Government To Provide Two Sets of Tracksuits to Pre-Primary Students. The inaugural service SQ 523 will depart from Hyderabad international airport at 2310 hours on October 30. The airline will continue to operate its B737-8 narrow-body services through the remainder of the week, a Singapore Airlines release said. "We are delighted to enhance our services to Hyderabad with our wide-body A350 aircraft. This is a significant milestone for us as it reinforces our commitment to the market, more so after SilkAir's integration with Singapore Airlines a year ago," said Sy Yen Chen, General Manager India for Singapore Airlines. "In line with the company's commitment to product and service excellence, the Airbus A350 medium haul aircraft, combined with our award-winning inflight service, will provide enhanced comfort to travellers from Hyderabad. Furthermore, the introduction of a wide-body aircraft on this sector also opens up a wider range of opportunities and capabilities for SIA Cargo," he said. "From 30 October 2022, Singapore Airlines will restore 100 per cent of its pre-pandemic frequency from India, and will operate 96 flights weekly from eight cities across the country," the 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) Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited has today announced that it has appointed one of its directors, John Nicholls, to the Board of FSF Management Company Limited, the manager of the Fonterra Shareholders Fund with effect from the close of the Fonterra Shareholders Fund Annual Meeting on 14 November 2022. John replaces Donna Smit, who will be retiring from the FSF Management Company Limited Board on 14 November 2022, following the announcement of her retirement as a director of Fonterra. John was elected to the Fonterra Board in 2018. As the owner of several mid-Canterbury dairy farms forming part of the Rylib Group, John is highly focused on investing in and mentoring the next generation of farmers in New Zealand and on safeguarding the sustainability of farming for the long term. John is the current chair of MHV Water, New Zealands largest intergenerational irrigation co-operative and has a degree in agriculture and a postgraduate diploma in agricultural science, both from Massey University. -ENDS- Fonterra appoints Director to FSF Management Company Board Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Infratil 2022 Sydney Investor Day Rua Bioscience Confirms First International Order AIA - Auckland Airport considers retail bond offer October 19th Morning Report SCT - Scott Announces FY22 Results Manawa Energy Q2 Operating Report & Market Guidance Update IKE 1H FY23 Performance Update GSH - Annual Meeting and Director Nominations PGW Trading Guidance Update October 18th Morning Report Kochi, October 14: A woman's attire cannot be a license to outrage her modesty nor can it be a ground for absolving the accused who committed such a crime, the Kerala High Court has said. Justice Kauser Edappagath said objectifying a woman based on what she wears "cannot be justified" and it should not be believed that women dress only to lure male attention. Kerala High Court Says Rape Will Not Stand if Woman Continues Sexual Relations After Knowing Man Is Married. "There is no reason why a woman should be judged by her clothes. Norms that categorize women based on her attire and expressions can never be tolerated. There cannot be any thought that women dress only to lure male attention. It is wrong to say that a woman was sexually assaulted just because she was wearing provocative clothes. "Sexually provocative dressing of a victim cannot be construed as a legal ground to absolve an accused from the charge of insulting the modesty of a woman. The right to wear any dress is a natural extension of personal freedom guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Even if a woman wears a sexually provocative dress, that cannot give a license to a man to outrage her modesty," the judge observed in its October 13 order. Supreme Court on Rape: Woman Cant File Rape Case if Willing To Stay With Man After Relationship Goes Bad; Check Update on Filing Rape Charges. The observation by the court came while expunging from a bail order of a sessions court the remarks that offence of molestation would not be attracted as the victim was wearing a sexually provocative dress. This remark was made by a sessions court in the anticipatory bail granted to writer and social activist 'Civic' Chandran in a sexual harassment case. While expunging the controversial remarks, the judge upheld the relief granted to the social activist, saying that the complainant-victim was an educated lady who was unable to satisfactorily explain the delay of over two-and-a-half years in lodging the complaint after the alleged incident occurred. The court also said that even according to the prosecution, the investigation was almost over and therefore, in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, "custodial interrogation of the accused does not appear to be necessary". It said the sessions court had not imposed sufficient conditions on Chandran while granting him the relief and directed that he shall be released on bail, if arrested, on executing a bond of Rs one lakh with two solvent sureties of the like amount. The other conditions imposed on him by the high court are that he shall fully cooperate with the probe, shall appear before the investigating officer every Saturday between 10 AM and 11 AM and also as when required by the police, shall not make any attempt to contact any of the prosecution witnesses or tamper with evidence and shall not leave Kerala without permission of the lower court. With these directions, the judge disposed of the pleas moved by the state and the complainant woman challenging the anticipatory bail granted to 74-year-old Chandran. The Sessions Court in its August 12 order had observed that the offence under sexual harassment is not prima facie attracted when the woman was wearing "sexually provocative dress" and it sparked a widespread controversy. Chandran has been accused in two sexual harassment cases, one by a writer and belonging to a Scheduled Tribe community, alleging sexual harassment by him during a book exhibition here in April. The other was by a young writer, who accused him of sexual harassment during a book exhibition in town in February 2020. He was granted anticipatory bail in both cases by the same sessions court. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) Authum Investment and Infrastructure on Friday acquired debt-ridden Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) for Rs 1 crore. "This is to inform that the company has sold its holding in wholly-owned subsidiary RCFL to Authum Investment and Infrastructure Ltd in pursuance of the implementation of the resolution plan of RCFL in terms of the Reserve Bank of India (Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets) Directions, 2019," Reliance Capital said in a regulatory filing. Also Read | Nearly 5.3 Billion Mobile Phones Will Drop Out of Use This Year, Say Experts. Authum Investment bought RCFL for a consideration of Rs 1 crore, it added. This is the first subsidiary of Reliance Capital, which has successfully undergone resolution. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. RCFL, which according to its website has been re-branded as Reliance Money, is a non-banking finance company (NBFC) with assets under management of Rs 11,000 crore. The company offers a wide range of financial products, including small and medium enterprise loans, loans against property, infra financing, agriculture loans and supply chain financing. Authum is a domestic NBFC with around 15 years of presence and earned a profit of Rs 103.76 crore in 2021-22. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Nagpur, Oct 14 (PTI) Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi on Friday said that the country will stop import of thermal coal by 2024-25. Joshi was speaking at the 'Mincon 2022' Mines -Mineral-Metals event here. Also Read | Nearly 5.3 Billion Mobile Phones Will Drop Out of Use This Year, Say Experts. The minister expressed his concern that that the country has to import coal despite having adequate domestic resource of the fuel. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him that this substitute coal import has to stop. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. "We are working in that direction and I am assuring you that by 2024-25, the substitute coal that is thermal coal import, we are going to stop it," he said. Joshi said that the government is taking pro-industry initiatives. "There was a time, when those in power used to think that talking about industry, business and industrialists is kind of anti-poor. But, our government does not think like that, we think your businesses should run nicely and our policies should be good and the revenue from you will help in serving the poor. This is the firm belief of the government and we think you are working for the country," he added. Joshi said that the government has brought major reforms in the mining sector in 2021 and there has been a sea change in less than one-and-a-half years. The prime minister had said that after agriculture and small industries, mining is the sector which can provide jobs and develop the economy. Joshi further said that the prime minister has said that India should become developed country by 2047. "...today the contribution to GDP from mining sector is around just 0.9 per cent... by 2030 we should try to take it to 2.5 per cent. We will be working and talking with the states on how should be the auction, allocation and what should be the policy, rules and laws for this purpose," he said. Joshi also took a dig at the previous Maharashtra government in 2021, saying that the central government tried to contact the then state government and ministers many a times. The officers came to him but no politician came to meet. Whereas, chief minister of Odisha and ministers of Gujarat and Karnataka gave suggestions and his ministry accepted almost 90 per cent of their suggestions and also implemented them, resulting in to increase in the revenues of these states. Joshi assured the Maharshtra government of all possible assistance and asked them (forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and minister of mines and ports Dada Bhuse) to come for discussions. Speaking at the event Union minister Nitin Gadkari praised Joshi for the reforms brought in the coal mining sector. Gadkari also pitched for reducing the import of coal. The road transport and highway minister said that the progress and employment potential of Vidarbha is connected with forests and minerals. Gadkari also said that Maharashtra's development cannot happen without the development of Vidarbha. Forest based and coal and mineral based industries are very important for the development of Vidarbha, he said, adding that 75 per cent of minerals in Maharashtra are in Vidarbha and 80 per cent of Maharashtra's forest area falls in Vidarbha. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Army to provide specially designed products to the Agniveers under the bank's exclusive scheme 'PNB AGNI RAKSHAK'. This scheme includes personal accidental insurance, air-accidental insurance covering all Agniveers along with zero balance salary account with sweep facility, internet banking and alerts, etc, the bank said in a statement. Also Read | Nearly 5.3 Billion Mobile Phones Will Drop Out of Use This Year, Say Experts. The agreement to this effect was signed between the bank and Indian Army. The Agnipath scheme, announced on June 14, provides for the recruitment of youths between the age bracket of 17-and-half years to 21 for only four years with a provision to retain 25 per cent of them for 15 more years. Later, the government extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment in 2022. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. The personnel to be recruited under the new scheme will be known as 'Agniveers'. (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, Oct 14 (PTI) Homegrown steel major Tata Steel is actively engaged with the UK government for financial support for its business there, a company spokesperson said on Friday, amid reports of the Tatas looking to divest their steel business in the UK. "Tata Steel is seeking support from the UK government in two forms. In policy terms by encouraging the transition to green steel and ensuring a cost competitive landscape, and partnership in financing of the project given the size of investment and the financially constrained position of our UK business," the spokesperson told PTI. Also Read | Microsoft Office Branding To Be Renamed As Microsoft 365 After Over 3 Decades. The company at present is in active and detailed discussions with the UK government with relation to the future of the business. Currently, it is not in discussions with any potential buyers for the UK business, the spokesperson added. Tata Steel owns the UK's largest steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales and employs around 8,000 people across all its operations in the country. The company is seeking 1.5 billion pounds from the UK government to execute its decarbonisation plans. Also Read | Airtel Launches 'Always On' IoT Connectivity Solution. As part of the UK's decarbonisation move and rising carbon costs in the country, it is necessary for Port Talbot to transition to alternative technologies to remain viable. Tata Steel CEO and MD T V Narendran had earlier told PTI his company plans to invest Rs 8,500 crore in India and Rs 3,500 crore on operations in Europe in 2022-23 to increase product mix and transition to low CO2 technologies, in line with the company's goal to produce CO2-neutral steel by 2050 in Europe. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Paris [France], October 14 (ANI): A bag resembling a packet of Lays potato chips but in leather by Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga has caught the fancy of the Internet. It's going to take you a while to let the price of the bag sink in. Also Read | Google Completes iOS 16 Lock Screen Widgets Roll Out With Maps & Search Update. Page Six quoted a Hypebeast report to say that the bag will retail at around USD 1,800. It translates to INR 1,40,000 - yes, more than 1 lakh 40 thousand Rupees! Also Read | Bihar Shocker: Man Open Fires Over Family Dispute at Ahiroli, Injures Four. PepsiCo and Balenciaga creative designer Demna collaborated on a line of bags resembling Lay's potato chip packs, according to Page Six. The delectable bags debuted at the recently concluded Paris Fashion Week. Typically the potato chips packet costs around USD 4 in the USA (in India, a Lays packet ranges between INR 10 and 60). On October 3, Lay's shared the Balenciaga runway looks on its Instagram page. According to Page Six, fans of the chips bemoaned the fact that the Flamin' Hot variety was reportedly sold out in many stores and that the luxury bag comes sans chips. Balenciaga is known across the world for its eccentric accessories and kooky designs. Even Kim Kardashian is a great fan of the fashion house. Most recently, the company also sold the "most expensive garbage bag in the world" for USD 1,790. If we convert that to Indian Rupees, it would come close to INR 1,47,00 (as per the present-day conversion rate). (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Boston, Oct 14 (AP) A 91-year-old education equity pioneer and civil rights activist who was stabbed while walking her dog in a Boston park released her first public statement Friday since the attack, keeping the focus on her lifetime work of helping children. We as a community can never forget that we need to stand together and continue working to empower our children through learning," Jean McGuire said in the statement released by her family. We are at our best as a people; when it's about we' not me'. I love you all and I will see you soon. Also Read | Disturbing Video: Pakistan in Shock After Scores of Rotting Bodies Found on Multan Hospital's Roof. McGuire, the first Black woman to serve on the Boston School Committee, was stabbed multiple times in an apparently unprovoked attack in Franklin Park about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said. She remains in the hospital. The family of Jean McGuire would like to thank all of the doctors and dedicated health care workers who are assisting in her recovery," the family said in the statement. We greatly appreciate the outpouring of love and support that Jean has received from people in the Greater Boston area, across Massachusetts, and around the world. Jean has spent her entire professional life fighting for all families to have the best educational opportunities to achieve their dreams. Also Read | Yemen: 10 Child Leukemia Patients Killed After Administration of Expired Doses of Cancer Treatment Drug. The family added that they are in the process of a establishing a nonprofit to help promote the education throughout New England to support McGuire's legacy. The suspect has not yet been caught, but police say he might have been injured during the attack. In addition to being the first Black woman on the school committee, where she served for a decade starting in 1981, McGuire in 1966 helped found METCO Inc., the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, which sends students of color from Boston to predominantly white suburban schools. She became the program's executive director in 1973 and served in the position until 2016, according to a biography posted by Northeastern University's John D. O'Bryant African American Institute. She studied at Howard University and Boston State College, and taught in a city school for two years before being named the first Black pupil adjustment counselor for Boston Public Schools. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Sydney, October 14: The Indian mission in Australia is providing consular assistance to a 28-year-old student from Agra who was stabbed multiple times in Sydney and is under "serious but stable" condition after undergoing surgery at a local hospital. "The Indian Consulate in Sydney has provided consular assistance to the individual," the Australian High Commission in New Delhi said adding that it is assisting with the facilitation of visa for a family member of the injured student identified as Shubham Garg. The 28-year-old student, pursuing his doctorate in Mechanical engineering from the University of NSW, was reportedly stabbed multiple times in Sydney's Artamon by 27-year-old Daniel Norwood, who according to local media reports has been arrested and is in the custody of the Australian Police. Racist Attack in Australia: Indian student Pursuing PhD at University of New South Wales Critical After Being Stabbed, One Arrested. Daniel Norwood was arrested and taken to Chatswood Police Station where he was charged with one count of attempted murder, reported local media outlet The Australia Today. Quoting local media reports the outlet said that the incident occurred at around 10.30 pm on October 6, when Garg was walking along the Pacific Highway on his way back to his place of residence. Garg suffered multiple stabbing injuries on his face, chest and abdomen. A nearby resident took Garg to Royal North Shore Hospital where he underwent surgery. Garg remains in a "serious but stable condition," as per the media report. Following the incident, the North Shore Police Area Command detectives formed Strike Force Prosy to investigate the incident. Later, a search warrant was executed on a home on the Pacific Highway at Greenwich at about 3.40 pm on October 9. Australia: Indian-Origin Sikh Man Faces Trial for Spending Amount Mistakenly Transferred by Cryptocurrency Company. The suspect Norwood was arrested at the scene and to further investigate into the matter, the police seized a number of items from the home. The items were sent for forensic examination. Norwood appeared in Hornsby Local Court however he was denied bail. He continues to remain in custody with the next court appearance on December 14, 2022. As per reports, Norwood allegedly threatened Shubham while demanding cash and his phone. Shubham refused and was allegedly stabbed a number of times in the abdomen. The assailant then fled from the crime scene, reported The Australia Today. Shubham Garg came to Australia in September this year to pursue his PhD in Mechanical engineering from the University of NSW. He has completed his master's degree at IIT Madras. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kyiv, Oct 14 (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin says he thinks a mobilisation of army reservists he ordered last month to bolster his country's troops in Ukraine will to be completed in two weeks. Putin told reporters after attending a summit in Kazakhstan on Friday that 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defence Ministry said would get called up have been mobilized. A total of 33,000 of them are already in military units and 16,000 are involved in the military operation in Ukraine. Also Read | Noida Businessman Praveen Kumar Wrongly Detained at Abu Dhabi Airport Over Mistaken Identity. The call-up, announced by Putin in September, has proved hugely unpopular in Russia, where almost all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. The Russian leader initially described the mobilization as partial and said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. However, a decree he signed outlined almost no specific criteria. Also Read | India-Made Cough Syrup-Linked Deaths in Gambia: Expert Committee Holds First Meeting To Examine WHO's Claims on Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience, including those ineligible for service for medical reasons. In the wake of the president's mobilisation order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. Putin also said Friday there was no need for more widespread attacks against Ukraine, such as those Russia launched Monday. He said the Russian military is making selective strikes against targets selected earlier but were not destroyed. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) By Sahil Pandey New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI): Under the chairmanship of India, the regional counter-terror body of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Friday approved joint measures of member states of the group to counter threats posed by terror groups operating from Afghanistan. Also Read | Snake Charmer Cartoon Used by Spanish Newspaper La Vanguardia To Portray India's Economic Growth; Netizens Unamused. The meeting of the Regional Anti-Terror Structure of the SCO was attended by delegations of the competent authorities of the Republic of India, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Executive Committee of the RATS SCO. "Joint measures of the competent authorities of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to counter the challenges and threats posed by international terrorist organizations from the territory of Afghanistan were approved. The course of implementation of earlier decisions of the RATS SCO Council was considered," said deputy NSA Dattatray Padsalgikar. Also Read | Imran Khan Will Be Hanged Upside Down if He Launches Long March, Says Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan. The work plans of the SCO RATS Executive Committee, as well as the activities of the Group of technical experts of the competent authorities of the SCO member states, expert groups in the areas of border cooperation and countering the use of the Internet for terrorist, separatist and extremist purposes were approved," he added. The Council of the SCO RATS decided to organize and conduct a joint border operation with the forces and means of the border services of the competent authorities of the SCO member states "Solidarity - 2023". Deputy NSA also said a decision was made to approve the Regulations "On the jubilee medal"20 years of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization". "For personal contribution to the development of the activities of the SCO RATS and strengthening of interaction between the competent authorities of the SCO member states, a number of employees of the competent authorities of the SCO member states and officials of the Executive Committee of the SCO RATS were awarded the Diploma of the Council and the RATS SCOCommemorative Badge. Decisions were made on organizational and staffing support for the activities of the Executive Committee of the RATS SCO," he added. An agreement was reached to hold the next meeting of the SCO RATS Council in March 2023 in Tashkent. "The chairmanship in the SCO RATS Council passed from the Republic of India to the Republic of Kazakhstan. The meeting of the Council was held in a business-like, constructive and friendly atmosphere," concluded Deputy NSA Padsalgikar. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) KMD Brands Limited (ASX/NZX: KMD , KMD Brands) advises that it has today published its Annual Integrated Report for the year ended 31 July 2022, and the Notice of Meeting for its 2022 Annual Shareholders Meeting. Annual Integrated Report KMD Brands is pleased to publish its first Annual Integrated Report for the year ended 31 July 2022. The Annual Integrated Report is available electronically at www.kmdbrands.com/results-reports. A hardcopy will be sent to shareholders who have requested this. Annual Shareholders Meeting KMD Brands Annual Shareholders Meeting will be held at Dexus Place, 15/1 Farrer Street, Sydney, and online at www.virtualmeeting.co.nz/kmd22, on Wednesday, 16 November 2022 at 10:00am (AEDT) / 12:00pm (NZDT). The following documents are attached: 1. Annual Integrated Report 2. Notice of Annual Meeting 3. Proxy Form 4. Link Virtual Annual Meeting online guide ENDS Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Infratil 2022 Sydney Investor Day Rua Bioscience Confirms First International Order AIA - Auckland Airport considers retail bond offer October 19th Morning Report SCT - Scott Announces FY22 Results Manawa Energy Q2 Operating Report & Market Guidance Update IKE 1H FY23 Performance Update GSH - Annual Meeting and Director Nominations PGW Trading Guidance Update October 18th Morning Report Cape Canaveral (US), Oct 15 (AP) Four astronauts returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule, ending their nearly six-month space station mission with a splashdown in the Atlantic off Florida. Wet and windy weather across Florida delayed their homecoming. SpaceX and NASA finally gave the all-clear on Friday, and the three Americans and one Italian departed the International Space Station, their residence since April. Also Read | Disturbing Video: Pakistan in Shock After Scores of Rotting Bodies Found on Multan Hospital's Roof. The capsule parachuted into the ocean, just off Jacksonville, Florida, about five hours after it left the space station. It carried NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman to complete a long-term spaceflight, and the European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti. SpaceX delivered their replacements last week. Before checking out, the astronauts said they couldn't wait to have a cold drink with ice, eat some pizza and ice cream, take a shower, revel in nature and, of course, reunite with their families. NASA planned to hustle them to Houston once they were off SpaceX's recovery ship and back on solid ground. Also Read | Yemen: 10 Child Leukemia Patients Killed After Administration of Expired Doses of Cancer Treatment Drug. "Getting the first few hugs when we get back is really going to be awesome," Hines told reporters earlier in the week. Remaining aboard the space station are three Americans, three Russians and one Japanese. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Islamabad, Oct 14 (PTI) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed on Friday that terrorism won't be allowed to flourish again in the country, as he chaired a meeting attended by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other heads of intelligence agencies. Friday's high-profile meeting, also saw the participation of defence minister Khawaja Asif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah, and foreign affairs minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, according to Dunya News TV report. Also Read | Yemen: 10 Child Leukemia Patients Killed After Administration of Expired Doses of Cancer Treatment Drug. The situation in the Swat Valley and the issues related to negotiations with the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were discussed in the meeting, following which the officials from the security agencies presented their recommendations to Sharif, the report said. Also Read | If Liz Truss Goes, Who May Replace Her As UK PM? Rishi Sunak Sky Bets Favourite Amid Reports of Change in Conservative Party Leadership. Security issues related to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the western borders were also reviewed in the meeting, it said. Earlier, Prime Minister Sharif and Gen. Bajwa held a separate one-on-one meeting and discussed matters pertaining to national and internal security, it said. Following this meeting Sharif asserted that terrorism will not be allowed to flourish again and peace would be restored in the country, as the sacrifices of security personnel cannot be forgotten, it added. Sharif's assurance notwithstanding, the Swat valley has become one of the most volatile regions in the country. Thousands rallied in the Swat Valley earlier this week after a local school bus driver was shot down by an unknown miscreant. In September, five people including an influential anti-Taliban tribal leader were killed in a bomb blast in Kot Katai village in the region. The Swat valley has been a TTP stronghold till a decade ago. The uptick in terrorist activities in the region comes as peace talks between Pakistan's security forces and the TTP have failed to make any progress. (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], October 14 (ANI): The US embassy in India has released over one lakh appointments for H and L work visa categories and for their family members. "In response to the high demand for employment-based visas, the US Mission to India recently released over 100,000 appointments for H&L workers and their families," the US embassy in India tweeted. Also Read | Disturbing Video: Pakistan in Shock After Scores of Rotting Bodies Found on Multan Hospital's Roof. This was among the key assurances that the US mission has given after Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had raised the visa delay issue with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month. "Thousands of applicants have already booked their appointments and the wait time for both interview waiver and first-time appointments has been cut in half throughout Mission India. This bulk appointment opening reflects our ongoing commitment to H&L workers," the embassy added in a tweet. Also Read | Yemen: 10 Child Leukemia Patients Killed After Administration of Expired Doses of Cancer Treatment Drug. The US embassy further said in the first nine months of 2022, the US Mission had already processed over 160,000 H and L visas and it will continue to prioritize H and L workers for visa appointments as resources allow. Consular officers are now temporarily authorized, through December 31, 2022, to waive in-person interviews for certain individual petition-based non-immigrant work visas and their qualifying derivatives in the following categories: Persons in Specialty Occupations (H-1B visas), Trainee or Special Education Visitors (H-3 visas), Intracompany Transferees (L visas), Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement (O visas), Athletes, Artists, and Entertainers (P visas), and Participants in International Cultural Exchange Programs (Q visas), added a US State Department release. Additionally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has extended consular officers' current ability to waive the in-person interview, through December 31, 2022, for the following other categories of non-immigrant visas: Temporary Agricultural and Non-agricultural Workers (H-2 visas), Students (F and M visas), and Student Exchange Visitors (Academic J visas). "We recognize the many contributions of international visitors to our communities and campuses. Lastly, the authorization to waive the in-person interview for applicants renewing a visa in the same visa class within 48 months of the prior visa's expiration has been extended indefinitely," added to the release. (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, October 14: A woman fell for the age-old trick of an online acquaintance promising to send her a gift and lost over Rs 2 lakh to fraudsters. As per the report published by the Times of India, a Charkop-based woman lost Rs. 2.3 lakh after a fraudster asked her to pay Customs penalties for gifts from Poland. Lucknow Woman Banker Duped of Rs 73,000 by Prospective 'Groom' On Matrimonial Site. As per the reports, the complainant, a 33-year-old woman, said that she met a man on a social media site last month, and became friends. The man introduced himself as Frank David. The duo talked regularly from September 21. The woman said that her online friend told her that he is sending her gifts from Poland. He asked her to pay a Custom penalty of Rs. 45,000 via a digital wallet. Online Fraud in Chandigarh: Woman Duped of Rs 10 Lakh by Cyber Fraudster Posing as Bank Representative. After this, the man told her that a money laundering case would be registered against her because of the contents of the parcel and asked her to pay more money. The woman did as David asked her to do and ended up paying Rs. 2.3 lakh in total. After realising that she has been duped, the woman approached Charkop police station and registered a complaint. On the basis of the complaint, a case has been registered against an unidentified man under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and IT Acts. A probe into the matter is underway, said police. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 14, 2022 10:40 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Chandigarh, Oct 14: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday failed to reach a consensus over the contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue. A crucial meeting over the issue was held between the two CMs in Chandigarh. Mann clearly said that Punjab has no surplus water to share with Haryana. He sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to provide additional water to Haryana either from the Ganga or the Yamuna river basins to overcome its shortage. Haryana Government To Set Up Cluster-Based Solid Waste Management Plants To Accelerate Swachhta Campaign. Haryana Chief Minister Khattar categorically ruled out that any initiative to hold next round of talks between the Chief Ministers will be taken. Khattar said no consensus was reached at the meeting and they would now meet Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to apprise him of the meeting. The meeting was held after the Supreme Court recently asked them to meet and find an amicable solution. Before the meeting, Khattar said residents of Haryana have the right over SYL water and he is affirmative that they will definitely get their right. "SYL water is very important for Haryana. Now it is necessary to fix a timeline in this matter, so that the availability of water to the farmers of Haryana can be ensured." Punjab Excise Collection Crosses Rs 4,000 Crores Within 6 Months, First Time Ever, Says Finance Minister Harpal Cheema. It is well known that despite two Supreme Court judgments, Punjab has not completed the construction of SYL. Instead of implementing the decisions of the apex court, Punjab tried to obstruct their implementation by enacting the Cancellation of Agreements Act in 2004. Under the provision of Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966, according to the order of the government of India dated March 24, 1976, 3.5 MAF of water was allocated to Haryana out of the surplus water of the Ravi-Beas. Due to non-completion of the SYL canal, Haryana is using only 1.62 MAF of water. Punjab is illegally using about 1.9 MAF of water from Haryana's share by not completing the SYL canal in its region, an official statement quoting Khattar said on Thursday. Due to this attitude of Punjab, Haryana is not able to take its 1.88 MAF share of water. Punjab and Rajasthan are using about 2,600 cusecs of water from Haryana every year. "If this water had reached Haryana, it would have been used to irrigate 10.08 lakh acres of land, quench the state's thirst, and help thousands of farmers," Khattar said. Due to non-availability of this water, the groundwater level in South-Haryana is also going down considerably. Due to non-construction of SYL, farmers of Haryana irrigate by using expensive diesel and running tubewells with electricity, which incurs an additional burden of Rs 100 crore to Rs 150 crore every year, he said. Due to non-formation of SYL in Punjab region, the irrigation potential created to irrigate 10 lakh acres in Haryana is lying idle. Additionally, the state also bears the loss of 42 lakh tonnes of foodgrains every year. Haryana would have generated an additional 130 lakh tonnes of foodgrains and other crops, had the SYL been established in 1983 in accordance with the 1981 agreement. The total value of this agricultural produce at the rate of 15,000 per tonne is Rs 19,500 crore. Around 200 Kazakhstan nationals attend classes of Indian dance & music & practice yoga-an integral part of ancient Indian culture. We want to connect with people here & make them aware of Indian culture & traditions: Sanjay Vedi, Director, Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre (SVCC) pic.twitter.com/HbodoXMG3c ANI (@ANI) October 14, 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.) Motorola India will officially launch the E22s smartphone on October 17, 2022. The company teased the device on its Twitter account, revealing its launch date. The handset is listed on Flipkart, confirming its availability via the e-commerce platform. The smartphone is also listed on the Motorola India website, which reveals its several key specifications. It will be available in two colours - arctic blue and eco black. Moto E32 With 5,000mAh Battery Launched in India, Check Price & Other Details Here. Moto E22s will sport a 6.5-inch HD+ IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1600x720 pixels. It will come powered by a MediaTek Helio G37 SoC coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The #motoe22s features a speedy 90Hz refresh rate that helps you swipe, scroll and switch seamlessly between apps. Enjoy expansive visuals on a 6.5 IPS LCD screen. Stay tuned as it launches 17th October on @flipkart and other leading retail stores. Motorola India (@motorolaindia) October 14, 2022 For optics, the device will come with a dual rear camera setup comprising a 16MP primary shooter and a 2MP depth sensor. Upfront, there will be an 8MP front camera. Moto G72 With MediaTek Helio G99 SoC Launched in India, Check Price & Other Details Here. The handset will pack a 5,000mAh battery with 10W charging support. In addition to this, Moto E22s will come with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and face unlock for biometric security. It will run on Android 12 OS. To recall Moto E22s debuted in Europe at EUR 160 (approximately Rs 12,810) for the sole 4GB + 64GB model. As such, the price of the Indian model could be some where around it. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 14, 2022 04:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, October 14: India on Friday said that the "unfortunate" attack on a 28-year-old student from Agra on October 6 in Australia should be taken seriously and swift action must be taken against the perpetrators. "The Indian national is in hospital, his treatment is on... Our High Commission in Canberra and Consulate in Sydney are in close touch with the local authorities, and family here. Our officials have met him in the hospital. Our expectation is that the issue must be taken seriously and action must be taken against the perpetrators," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in his weekly briefing. Racist Attack in Australia: Indian student Pursuing PhD at University of New South Wales Critical After Being Stabbed, One Arrested. Shubham Garg, 28, who is pursuing PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales, was stabbed multiple times on his face, chest and abdomen when he was walking along the Pacific Highway while returning to his place of residence. A 27-year-old man Daniel Norwood was arrested at the scene and was taken to Chatswood Police Station where he was charged with one count of attempted murder. Norwood was refused bail when he appeared in Hornsby Local Court. He will remain in custody with the next court appearance on December 14, The Australia Today reported. Agra Student Stabbed Multiple Times in Australia, Attacker Held; Indian Consulate Assisting for Visa to Kin. Norwood allegedly threatened Garg while demanding cash and his phone. He refused and was allegedly stabbed a number of times in the abdomen before the assailant fled, The Australia Today quoted local media reports as saying. While Garg's family called the attack against his son an act of "racism", Bagchi said: "At the moment our main focus is that he should be out of danger and the perpetrators must be brought to book. "We have asked the Australian HC to expedite the visa process so that family members can urgently go." The attack comes close on the heels of another Indian, Varun Manish Chheda, a student at the Purdue University in the US, who was stabbed to death by his roommate earlier this month (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 14, 2022 04:44 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Nikolas Cruz, the Florida mass shooter who shot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed 17 people was spared the death penalty. The Florida jury instead recommended that he should get life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to Reuters, the prosecution originally requested the death penalty for Cruz. The 24-year-old, who was responsible for one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, showed little emotion as his verdict was read out. Lead prosecutor Mike Satz said in his closing argument that Cruz hunted his victims and returned to those he wounded and shoot them again to make sure they were dead. "This plan was goal directed, it was calculated, it was purposeful and it was a systematic massacre," Satz said. Meanwhile, the defense argued that Cruz was a "brain-damaged, broken, mentally-ill person." They presented evidence that included testimony from counselors and a doctor, all of whom agreed that the Parkland shooter suffers from a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which affected his reasoning and behavior. Witnesses also testified that his birth mother, Brenda Woodard, took alcohol and cocaine while she was still pregnant with him. This led the defense to argue that he was "literally poisoned" while he was still in the womb, and this affected his reasoning. Jury foreperson Benjamin Thomas admitted in an interview that one juror insisted that Cruz should not get the death penalty because of his mental illness. The sentencing hearing had been set for November 1. READ MORE: Alex Jones Loses Another Court Battle vs. Sandy Hook Families, Ordered To Pay $965 Million The Jury Did Not Unanimously Vote for Death Penalty for Parkland Shooter Nikolas Cruz A unanimous decision was needed in order to hand Cruz the death penalty. However, at least one juror from the 12-member jury did not agree on giving the infamous Parkland shooter such a punishment. NPR reported that while all 12 jurors found that there had been aggravating factors in the murders, at least one juror concluded that the aggravating factors did not outweigh the mitigating circumstances for each murder. This meant that the jury, or at least one of them, found that the case did not merit the death penalty and thus recommended a life sentence. When the jurors read out the verdict sheets for all 17 counts of murder, NPR noted that it was difficult for observers to immediately discern what the jury decided. Parkland Victims' Families Upset With Jury Decision As the verdict was read out and the families of the victims found out that Cruz was not getting the death penalty, many of them were visibly upset. They appeared in a press conference following the verdict and expressed their dismay and anger over the decision. One father, Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter Jaime in the mass shooting incident, stated that he was stunned and devastated as their loved ones did not receive any justice. "This jury failed our families today," Guttenberg added. BBC reported that distress was visible in the faces of the family members. One father, Tony Montalto, who lost his daughter, Gina, in the attack, was seen shaking his head as he wrapped his arms around his wife, Jennifer, who dropped her head in dismay. Other family members could be seen crying quietly. One family member even stood up and left the room as soon as the verdict was read. READ MORE: Alex Jones Loses Again vs. Sandy Hook Victim's Parents, Must Pay $45.2 Million More in Punitive Damages This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Jury recommends Parkland school shooter be sentenced to life prison - ABC News There was no evidence that suggested there was foul play, and authorities have determined that Kiely Rodni's death was accidental. According to KCRA, Rodni had been missing for two weeks when her body and car were found at Prosser Creek Reservoir in Truckee, California, in August. The search for Rodni got a lot of attention from people all over the country. READ NEXT: Kiely Rodni Search: Is the Missing Teen Really the One Found in California Reservoir? Kiely Rodni's Cause of Death The Nevada County Sheriff's Office coroner's division said that Rodni died of drowning. "As always, our office will continue to work with the family by evaluating any additional information related to this investigation," the sheriff's office said in a release Thursday. Rodni went missing on August 6 after going to a big party with about 300 young adults and teens at the Prosser Family Campground near the reservoir, where her body and car were later found. She texted her mother at 11:30 p.m. to let her know she would be late getting home. The authorities confirmed that her phone died just after midnight, San Francisco Chronicle noted. Her disappearance sparked a massive search involving multiple law enforcement organizations, including the FBI, throughout the Truckee-Tahoe region. Initially, officials believed she might have been kidnapped because neither she nor her automobile was seen leaving the gathering. According to the coroner, there was nothing else to show that she had been a victim of foul play. He also stated that their office would keep working with the family by investigating additional information about the case. The California teen's autopsy was conducted in August, over two weeks after she was reported missing. Family Releases a Statement on Kiely Rodni's Death The Rodni-Nieman family released a statement following Kiely's death. "We are eternally grateful for the love and support you have shown us in the last couple of weeks," the statement begins. The family thanked the army of warriors, matriarchs, healers, and helpers that helped them as they weathered the storm of unfathomable force. The statement also said that the family has not had to look for helpers as everyone came to their rescue in full force, ABC 10 noted. "While we accept this sadness cast under death's shadow, the rising sun shines light upon us, reminding us not to mourn our loss but to celebrate Kiely's spirit and the gift we all received in knowing her. Kiely will surely remain with us even though we will not get her back," the statement continues. Meanwhile, authorities have not disclosed what caused the automobile to end up in the water. Authorities in Nevada and Placer counties, assisted by volunteers, began a thorough search for the teen after she was reported missing. According to Sacramento Bee, nearly 20,000 hours were devoted to the search by the authorities. Investigators received more than 1,800 tips from the public about Kiely's disappearance. The Honda CR-V was discovered upside down in 14 feet of water with a body inside. The diving team from Adventures with Purpose found the truck 55 feet offshore, less than a quarter mile south of the campground. They said they had been in the water with sonar boats for 35 minutes. READ MORE: Texas Teen, in Critical Condition After San Antonio Police, Shot Him Several Times in McDonald's Parking Lot This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: How We FOUND Kiely Rodni: MURDER or ACCIDENT? - From Adventures with Purpose After over a year of investigations, the January 6 committee finally conducted what may be their final public hearing. There, all members of the panel, both Democrat and Republican, unanimously voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump. January 6 committee co-chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) stated that the committee had an "obligation" to hear from the former president as they presented evidence that Trump helped instigate the January 6 Capitol Insurrection. Outgoing Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) was the one who introduced the committee's resolution. She called Trump the riot's "central player." Donald Trump Likely to Fight Subpoena and Delay It A source close to the committee told NBC News that the panel is planning to issue the subpoena in the coming days. It is noted that they are on a tight time frame, as the subpoena will expire at the end of this congressional term, with the former president likely challenging it. With the possibility of fighting Trump in court over the subpoena, Rep. Thompson stated, "Let's see what happens, we hope that he honors it." Trump fighting the subpoena is an almost certainty, with the Associated Press reporting that he will decline to testify. In fact, the former president lambasted the decision via his social media outlet, Truth social. He posted that the committee should have already asked him earlier. However, it was noted that he did not say whether or not he would comply with that subpoena. He also called the panel "a total BUST." While the January 6 committee's subpoena may languish due to foreseen delaying tactics from Trump, they did send a clear message that they will send their findings to the Department of Justice in a criminal referral. READ MORE: January 6: Dominican Republic-born Immigrant Capitol Police Officer Dealing With Pain After Capitol Insurrection Former Trump Aide Says Trump Knew He Lost but Did Not Want the Public To Know He Lost Thursday's hearing also featured new testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump's White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She testified that Trump privately acknowledged that he lost the election; he just did not want the public to know about it. According to CNN, the committee showed a new video from Hutchinson's deposition. "I remember looking at Mark, and I said 'Mark, he can't possibly think we're going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy.' And he looked at me and just started shaking his head. And he's like, 'No, Cass, you know, he knows it's over. He knows he lost. But we're going to keep trying,'" she said during the deposition. The former aide also testified that Meadows had a conversation with Trump, whom she said was furious because the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. Hutchinson told the committee that Trump said something to the effect of "I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don't want people to know that we lost." Because of this, the former president and his allies planned to declare victory no matter what. The panel then showed evidence that this was a premeditated plan, including testimony from Brad Parscale, Trump's former campaign manager. He told the committee that Trump planned this as early as July 2020 that he would say he won the election, even if he lost. READ MORE: Oath Keepers Member Testifies Far-Right Extremist Group Had Massive Cache of Weapons for January 6 Capitol Attack This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Recap of what could have been final Jan. 6 hearing - ABC News Donald Trump's legal woes continued on Thursday, as not only was he subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, but also got rejected on his plea for the Supreme Court to step into his case regarding the classified documents he stored a Mar-a-Lago. The former president made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and pressed them on the issue relating to classified documents seized in the FBI search on his Florida home in Mar-a-Lago. However, the highest court rejected the plea. The justices did not comment on why they turned down the case. Why Did Donald Trump Want the Supreme Court to Step In? The Associated Press reported that the former president's legal team asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling and permit an independent arbiter, also known as a special master, to review the approximately 100 documents seized by the FBI that had classified markings taken during the August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago. The move is widely seen to reduce the potential impact of the special master process on the ongoing criminal investigation by the Department of Justice into the classified documents that Trump brought home when he exited the White House last year. The request from Trump and his legal team came after the 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals stopped the special master from examining the classified documents for National Security reasons. According to CNBC, the appeals court stated that only the Department of Justice can review the subset of records. READ MORE: Donald Trump Admits Taking North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un Letters to Mar-a-Lago When He Left the White House: New Book The Trump legal team argued to the Supreme Court that the ruling made by the appeals court "impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master." They added that "any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a president's home erodes public confidence in our system of justice." The request was worrisome for investigators, as the justice overseeing emergency appeals from the 11th Circuit was Clarence Thomas, who is married to notable Trump ally Ginni Thomas. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court still rejected the appeal. Department of Justice Asked Supreme Court To Stay Out of the Case The Department of Justice had asked the Supreme Court to deny former President Trump's appeal, with U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar arguing that the former president has "no plausible claims" to the classified records. According to CNN, the Department of Justice called the records taken by Trump "extraordinarily sensitive," so they asked the Supreme Court to stay out of the case as the legal challenges play out. The DOJ cited a previous case and stated that courts should be "cautious before insisting upon an examination of records whose disclosure would jeopardize national security." The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with this and junked Trump's plea, which led the former president to take his case to the Supreme Court, which also agreed with the Justice Department's arguments. READ MORE: Donald Trump in More Legal Trouble as Grand Jury Investigates Save America PAC Formation and Spending This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Appeal Over Mar-a-Lago Documents Case - NBC News An Indiana woman who killed the father of her daughter by poisoning his oatmeal and strangling him with his favorite tie in January 2021 was sentenced to 115 years in prison, according to NBC news. The records from the Hamilton Superior Court said that Heidi Marie Littlefield, 42, was given a sentence of 60 years for murder and 55 years for conspiracy to commit murder. READ NEXT: California Dermatologist Arrested for Poisoning Husband Who Provided Video Evidence to Police Indiana Woman Tried To Kill Victim Several Times After a seven-day jury trial in Hamilton County, Littlefield was found guilty of murder and two felony charges of conspiracy to kill on Tuesday. IndyStar noted that Littlefield's primary accomplice, her daughter Logan Runyon, presented incriminating testimony during the trial. Between October 2020 and January 2021, Littlefield was suspected of plotting several murder attempts against Francis Kelley. According to authorities, Kelley was the father of Runyon. Littlefield and Runyon were in a custody battle for their 2-year-old daughter at the time of the homicide. Littlefield and 23-year-old Runyon allegedly worked together to buy fentanyl from drug dealers in Ohio. She then asked her daughter to sneak into Kelley's house and mix the powerful opiate into his almond-topped oatmeal. They once placed fentanyl in his takeaway miso soup. They poisoned his food three times in total, according to Runyon. Runyon testified in court that they broke into Kelley's Carmel home on January 15, 2021, the day after the third incident, and found him face-down on the floor. He was gasping for breath. Runyon claimed that Littlefield asked to break Kelley's neck. However, she claimed Kelley was too heavy, so she could not. Littlefield reportedly went upstairs to get his favorite necktie, returned downstairs, and used it to strangle him. Three days later, Carmel police located Kelley. His death was ruled homicide, and strangulation was identified as the cause of death. Indiana Woman Pays Daughter's Boyfriend To Find a Hitman Robert Walker, another conspirator and Runyon's boyfriend, was arrested on a warrant in Ohio in March 2021. He told Carmel Police Department detectives he planned to tell them about Littlefield and Runyon's role in Kelley's death. Walker claims Littlefield paid him $2,500 to hire a hitman to kill Kelley. He also claimed he had no intention of honoring his promise and spent the money on drugs instead, Local Today reported. Walker says that Littlefield talked about killing her "baby's daddy" because "she would be failing her daughter if (Kelley) didn't end up dead." Walker even said that the Indiana woman asked her daughter if she wanted to take the fall and asked if she was "cool with going to prison for the rest of her life." He also said that Runyon is the one who told him what happened to Kelley's home, detailing Kelley's death to investigators. Meanwhile, Runyon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder in March and was given 26 years in prison as a result. A murder charge against Runyon was dropped. She agreed to testify against her mother as part of her plea deal. READ MORE: Ex-Texas Cop Who Shot Teen Multiple Times at McDonald's Parking Lot Is Arrested This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Police: Murder victim ate fentanyl-laced oatmeal - From WISH-TV Issa Rae recently said that everything happening with Ezra Miller is a "microcosm of Hollywood," particularly how the industry still protects offenders. This year, Miller was detained twice in Hawaii for disorderly conduct and harassment. He was also charged with felony burglary in Vermont. According to Variety, Miller was also caught on camera in 2020 choking a woman outside a bar in Iceland. Despite these incidents, Warner Bros. still intends to release "The Flash" next year. Miller has even been working on reshoots for the film recently. READ NEXT: Ezra Miller Debunks Rumors that 'The Flash' Movie will Reset the DCEU and Erase the Snyderverse Issa Rae's Sentiments The actress, nominated for an Emmy, told Elle, "It feels like we're regressing, depressingly so." Issa Rae said she does not support people jumping to conclusions immediately and thinks it is okay for investigations to be done. However, she added that she believes listening to women is very important. "I'm gonna be real, the stuff that's happening with Ezra Miller is, to me, a microcosm of Hollywood," the "Insecure" star said. Miller, a nonbinary person who utilizes they/them pronouns, is accused of displaying cult-like manners. Yahoo reported that the actor has been stirring the pot for disturbing behavior for months. In an August statement, Miller apologized and said they were seeking treatment for "complex mental health issues" while Warner Bros. decided what would happen to "The Flash." The studio concluded to support the film and its star. "There's this person who's a repeat offender, who's been behaving atrociously, and as opposed to shutting them down and shutting the production down, there's an effort to save the movie and them," Rae noted. She said that is a clear example of how far Hollywood will go to "to save itself and protect offenders," adding that perhaps women can succeed if they do not do that as they will not have to live in fear of keeping silent. Issa Rae further noted that this pattern of abuse will continue as long as Hollywood insists on being this way. She said there must be legitimate consequences, and people should be held accountable. "Hollywood is very bad about consequences. It's literally the worst industry when it comes to punishing people for misdeeds and actions, because money will always reign supreme," the actress added. 'The Flash' Actor: Ezra Miller's Troubles Last June, the parents of 18-year-old Native American environmental activist Tokata Iron Eyes and an anonymous 12-year-old child in Massachusetts both got temporary restraining orders against Ezra Miller because of alleged inappropriate behavior. Rolling Stone reported that in the same month, Miller was also reported sheltering a woman and her three young children at his Vermont farm, where firearms and ammunition were easily accessible. State authorities visited the area because the living situation was dangerous, but they could not find the mother or the children. Ezra Miller's downward spiral began with drug benders in Iceland at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in September 2020. It led to fantasies that they were "the Messiah," while the Flash was the "Jesus" of the DC comics multiverse. Meanwhile, despite the star's legal issues, Miller's superhero film "The Flash" is still on track to be released on June 23, 2023. READ MORE: Kaley Cuoco Is Pregnant With Tom Pelphrey Few Months After Her Divorce With Karl Cook | Will She Get Married for the Third Time? This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover Watch: Top 10 Biggest Ezra Miller Red Flags We Should've Noticed - From Top 10 Beyond The Screen A 12-year-old girl recently gave birth, and DNA testing reportedly showed that the baby's father is a 46-year-old man. Crime Online reported that Richard Welch of Brandon, Vermont, was arraigned this week on charges of aggravated sexual assault on a child after DNA evidence showed that he had fathered a child with the young girl. According to The Reporter, the man pleaded not guilty in Rutland criminal court on Wednesday. The victim was reportedly impregnated at age 11 and gave birth on June 30. She allegedly tried to hide her pregnancy with a belly harness and initially told police in Vermont that she was not sexually active. The victim also said she sometimes sleepwalks but does not remember anything after waking up and attributed her stomach to being "chubby" despite not having her period since December. The girl's father got photos of his visibly-pregnant daughter and told the Brandon police about it, which also prompted the Child First Advocacy Center (CFAC) in Rutland County to get involved in August. The victim's father further noted that he has joint custody with the child's mother. He said he had not seen his daughter since May, as the child's mother was withholding visitation. Police allegedly advised the victim's mother to seek medical attention for her daughter and her unborn baby during the girl's pregnancy. It was then confirmed that the girl was approximately 38 weeks pregnant. READ NEXT: Florida Cop Shot Dead by Fellow Police Officer While Serving Arrest Warrant 12-Year-Old Girl Impregnated by 46-Year-Old Man Richard Welch The girl said during a CFAC interview that she was aware of the sexual intercourse act through discussions with other children and sexual education at school. In subsequent interviews, she started to say that Welch might be the father of her baby but denied that she had sex with Welch. However, she noted that maybe something happened "while she was sleeping." The girl said she was a "pretty hard sleeper" and did not wake up to anything "other than the smoke alarm," according to The Reporter. Welch told police that the girl got into bed with him on multiple occasions and that he sleeps naked. However, he claimed to have been dealing with erectile dysfunction for some time. The girl's mother suggested that her daughter could have become pregnant at her father's house. However, she also acknowledged previous sexual assault allegations against Welch. The affidavit said the man "stuck his penis inside one of her kid's mouths, and she had laughed at it," which the mom claimed was not true. DNA test results proved that the father of the girl's baby is not her father, and it is Welch. Both the girl's father and Welch took voluntary DNA tests, and the results showed that Welch was "72 trillion times more likely to be the child's father." Richard Welch remains jailed without bail. Texas Man Sexually Abused Ex-Girlfriend's Daughter In Texas, a man was sentenced to life in prison after he also impregnated his ex-girlfriend's daughter. Milton Geovany Valle, 45, was found guilty of continuous trafficking of a person by a jury, KKTV reported. He did not testify during trial but insisted he was innocent after his sentencing and called the outcome "an unjust verdict." The victim, who is now 18, testified that Valle would give her clothes such as electronic tablets, cell phones, clothes, shoes, and cash when she was with him. The teen added that she did not know she was pregnant until she went to a hospital's emergency room with leg and back pains when she was 15 in November 2019. The girl's younger sister testified she saw the Texas man sexually assaulting her sister on two occasions. She said she told their mom about it but did not believe her. DNA tests also confirmed that Valle is the child's father. READ MORE: Florida Teen May Be Forced to Go Through Pregnancy After Deemed Not 'Mature' Enough for Abortion, Court Rules This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Here's Why Crime Rates Are Continuing to Climb Across America - From Fox News Amber Heard has outlined several grounds that form the basis of her appeal against the ruling in the defamation case won by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. According to Fox News, the actress and her new legal team filed an appellate brief listing 16 grounds for appeal on Monday. A Virginia court ruled on June 1 that Heard must pay Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages. Depp and Heard had battled over a 2018 op-ed the actress wrote for the Washington Post, calling herself a domestic violence survivor. The piece did not mention Depp by name, but the actor claimed he was booted from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise due to the "clear implication" that he was the abuser in his ex-wife's op-ed. Depp also alleged that Heard was the actual "perpetrator" of the violent encounters that damaged their relationship. He asked for $50 million in damages, while the actress countersued for $100 million for nuisance. Amber Heard lost the defamation case, but the jury awarded the actress $2 million in compensatory damages for her counterclaim but nothing in punitive damages. Jurors reportedly found that Johnny Depp defamed her through his attorney. READ NEXT: Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp Is Not Yet Over: Why Is 'Aquaman' Actress Filing for Mistrial? Amber Heard's Lawyers Present Reasons for Appeal to Johnny Depp's Libel Award According to the court documents obtained by Fox News, the grounds for the actress' appeal include "clear and convincing evidence" for actual malice. It also said the court failed to invalidate the damages it awarded after the jury found that both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamed each other. The appeal also described the damages as "inherently and irreconcilably inconsistent." According to the Sunday Times, Depp's legal team also confused the court by presenting statements used by their client prior to the 2018 op-ed on the Washington Post. Heard's lawyers also pointed out several pieces of evidence that "should not have been submitted into court," and argued that there were also pieces of evidence withheld during the trial. The appeal said: "The trial court erred in allowing Mr. Depp to argue or suggest at trial that the jury could award damages based on statements or conduct occurring prior to the publication of the challenged op-ed." Heard's camp filed a notice of appeal to overturn the verdict less than a month after the ruling. A spokesperson for Amber Heard earlier said they were appealing the verdict because they believe the court made errors that "prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment." However, Johnny Depp's legal team does not seem worried that the verdict will be overturned. At the actor's recent Washington, D.C. show, his lawyer, Camille Vasquez, told Fox News that they were "really confident in the case we put on, the verdict, and I like our chances on the appeal." Amber Heard's New Legal Team to be Put to Test With This Appeal In August, Amber Heard hired a new legal team to represent her in her motion to appeal the court's decision. This time, the "Aquaman" star hired legal firm Ballard Spahr, as her lead appellate counsel. David L. Axelrod and Jay Ward Brown, who previously defended the New York Times against a defamation lawsuit from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, will lead her new legal team. READ MORE: Johnny Depp Trial: Amber Heard's New Lawyer Thinks They Can 'Reverse the Judgment,' Highlights New Evidence This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Amber Heard Outlines Appeal Against Johnny Depp Victory - Law&Crime Network Congress in Mexico voted on Thursday in favor of extending the military's presence in the streets until 2028. Mexican armed forces have been performing public security duties for years as part of Mexico's fight against drugs and cartels that run the country's drug trade. However, critics claimed that extending military obligations for four years will further militarize the nation, BBC reported. Rights groups claimed that the militarization of police work has resulted in violations of human rights and increased violence. However, members of the president's party argued that removing the army from the streets would leave Mexico's population vulnerable to organized crime groups. READ NEXT: Mexico: Brutal Torture and Slaying of Bear Cub Sparks Anger, Massive Backlash Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Trusts Mexican Armed Forces More Than Local Police President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is in favor of continuing to have troops on the streets because he believes they are more trustworthy. He is known for giving the military more responsibilities than any previous leader. The Lopez Obrador-supported bill needs to be ratified by a majority of the 32 state legislatures in Mexico after passing the lower house. Most experts agree that Mexico needs civilian police who are well-paid, trained well, and equipped. In 2006, the army and marines were called in to help local police fight the well-armed drug cartels in the country. According to some reports, the country's state and local police are often poorly trained, corrupt, and unprofessional. Lopez Obrador exclusively relied on the Mexican armed forces. He removed the civilian federal police and established the National Guard, which he wanted to turn over to the Defense Department. According to Associated Press, the Mexican president has used the military for everything from running airports and trains to building infrastructure projects. Mexico State and Local Police Lack Funding The reform to expand the military's role in Mexico will also reportedly restore some of the funds that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador slashed shortly after taking office in December 2018 to boost state and municipal police forces. But the measure, which the Senate has already approved, does not say how much money will be given to improve civilian police. All it said was that it could not be less than the annual increase in military and National Guard funding, ABC News reported. But according to a bill voted by the lower house this week, a large portion of the money would come from the government taking over domestic bank accounts that have not been used for at least six years. However, Lopez Obrador said Thursday that even that money should not go to the police. Instead, he said, "it should be for disabled people, the elderly, health care." Many local police departments are in a mess due to a lack of funds. Underpaid cops perform 24-hour shifts and must purchase their equipment and uniforms. Meanwhile, critics claimed that the military is not trained to be the police force and conducts fewer investigations. The military forces have also been accused of violating human rights while on duty. But despite that, studies showed that most Mexicans trust the army more than municipal police and want the army and navy to continue undertaking law enforcement. READ MORE: Peru President Pedro Castillo Faces New Constitutional Complaint, Says 'New Form of Coup Has Begun' This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Mexico Plan to Militarise Premier Police Force Draws Rights Fears - From Al Jazeera English A boarding house tenant in Chicago, Illinois, had murdered her landlord two days after receiving an eviction notice. Police said Sandra Kolalou, 36, was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday for killing her Chicago landlord, Frances Walker, 69, a pianist at the Evanston School of Ballet. According to Block Club Chicago, Brendan Deenihan, the chief of detectives, confirmed Walker's death on Monday. Deenihan said in a press conference that Walker had given Kolalou notice to depart "as recently as Saturday." Police said Kolalou murdered Walker, dismembered her before putting her in a freezer, and then attempted to dispose of the evidence at Rogers Park beach. Authorities noted that Kolalou also used a knife on a tow truck driver she had called to transport her to the beach. Police said Kolalou was charged with aggravated assault for what she did to the driver. Deenihan said officers discovered Walker's remains in a freezer around the same time Kolalou was still with the tow truck driver. "They [police] were able to find some additional blood inside the tenant's [Kolalou] room, at which point they discovered the gruesome remains in a freezer," Deenihan noted. READ NEXT: Chicago Police Officer Shot in Englewood, Marks Second Cop to Be Shot in the Area Illinois: Tenants Received Bizzare Text From Chicago Landlord's Phone Brandon Deenihan said police were able to arrest Sandra Kolalou after the victim's other tenants in the West Ridge boarding house called the police and followed the suspect as she tried to hide evidence. During the hearing Thursday, prosecutors said Frances Walker and Kolalou exchanged loud bangs and screams after getting the notice, NBC Chicago reported. "Other tenants heard loud bangs and the victim and the defendant arguing on the first floor," said Assistant State's Attorney Anne McCord Rodgers. She also said a tenant from the basement heard the landlord screaming and a dish breaking. Tenants also claimed to have heard "scratching noises" in the home's common space on the first level in the following hours. According to prosecutors, some tenants also got bizarre text messages from the Chicago landlord's phone. They noted that the texts said Kolalou would take care of Walker's dog and that anyone moving out in the future should give Kolalou the keys. "Given the issues between the offender and the [victim], coupled with the eviction notice, the tenants found these texts extremely unusual," a proffer read in court noted. Tenants reportedly called the police after the altercations, bizarre text messages, and bloody rags in a garbage can they found at the beach after following the tow truck driver hired by Kolalou. The police later found Walker's phone in Kolalou's room. No Bail for Sandra Kolalou After Murdering and Dismembering the Chicago Landlord in Illinois Sandra Kolalou was ordered to be held without bail. Aside from murder, she was also charged with one count of concealing a homicidal death, and one misdemeanor count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Officers reportedly found blood on the victim and the suspect's room on the first floor, two knives, and Walker's dismembered body parts in the freezer when they searched the house. The prosecution said investigators found a severed head, severed arms, and severed legs inside the freezer. The victim's torso has not been found yet. "They eventually discovered human remains in a freezer, at which point we backed out of the residence to secure a search warrant to go back in and retrieve all evidence properly," Deenihan noted. Deenihan said the Chicago landlord was believed to have been killed in her bedroom and dismembered on the house's first floor, ABC7 reported. Walker's husband is overseas but told ABC7 that she was the best human being he knew. Meanwhile, Sandra Kolalou pleaded not guilty. She is expected to appear in court again on October 31. READ MORE: Arizona Cryonics Facility Preserves Dead Bodies Until Science Can Bring Them Back to Life This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: New Details: Chicago Woman Charged With Dismembering Landlord - From FOX 32 Chicago St Fergal's College in Rathdowney is in expansion mode and the Department of Education has recognised this by giving the green light to new classrooms. A significant recent increase in enrolment the Laois Offaly Education and Training Board school has resulted in an agreement with the Department of Education for an additional six classrooms including an ASD/SEN hub at the Laois school. The details of the internal layout are not finalised but the staff and management view the new agreement as an exciting development for everyone involved with the school. It comes soon after a previous announcement about the construction of an all-weather pitch. St Fergals views recent developments as enhancing its positive reputation for sport as well as further improving its teaching and learning. The proposed new construction is more than a vote of confidence in the school according to Principal Gerry Quinn. Its needed to properly accommodate the schools increased student numbers and to address the broad spectrum of educational need. As well as providing more state of the art classrooms this development will position St Fergals to continue to comprehensively address the 21st century requirements for excellent education, he said. The principal added the expansion is just one element of developing the school. We are ambitious for our school. With our patron Laois and Offaly Education Board (LOETB), our Board of Management and the Parents Council, a united front is in place to achieve even more success. As is said in Irish, Ni neart go cur le cheile, he said. The school believes the unity of purpose has been forged in a school which takes pride in its family atmosphere, community values and educational excellence. They say these are characteristics and values they are determined to retain into the future. Our small school together with solid support from parents for a contented, safe and learning student body are important factors. But its also our holistic view of education with excellent teachers blending their technical skill with a commitment to positive professional relationships with their students, said Mr Quinn. Cllr John King, the Chairperson of the Board of Management, also welcomed the extension describing it as a major step forward. "This development will be a great service to the catchment area and its different communities. It shows that the school is developing and able to serve the needs of all of the children, he said. The Open Night for First Year enrolment in 2023/24 is Thursday 20th October, with guided tours from 5.30 pm to 7.30pm to facilitate parents/guardians. Address from principal at 7.45pm. 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. The international fundraising campaign to help the family of a Portarlington man who is suffering from aggressive Motor Neurone Disease has reached an important milestone. The so-called Fight For Johnny's Girls campaign has crossed the AUD $700k threshold in the ongoing efforts to raise 750,000 for the wife an family of Johnny McCowen. The news was revealed on the campaign's social media campaign where people were thanked for their efforts for the family who now live in Australia. "It has taken phenomenal support from an army of people around the globe to get us this far. The overwhelming support that the campaign has received since we launched on July 1st is testament to the man that Johnny is. "Throughout his life, Johnny has made -and maintained -friendships. Those friendships have resulted in fundraising events being set up not only in Ireland, but around the world. "The goodwill and warm wishes towards Johnny, Sherie, Darcy and Riley is truly heart warming. Friends, acquaintances and total strangers have supported the family with messages, likes and comments on social media- and by donating generously. "Thank you for your support. "Every donation brings Johnny closer to realising his dream to provide a home for his girls. We haven't reached our goal yet. With your help, we'll get there," concluded the post. The people of Port have played a huge role in the fundraising effort with the latest event planned by Portarlington GAA. This Saturday, October 15 old rivalries will be reignited as a Laois and Offaly over-40 selection square off in McCann Park with all proceeds going to Fight For Johnny's Girls. There will be a bake sale on the day too, with all money collected also going to the family. The organisers hope you'll come along and support, or alternatively make your donations online via GoFundMe here. A man who was using cannabis became paranoid and called gardai who then found him in possession of 1,200 worth of the drug. Warren Delaney, 31, of 32 Rathevan Heights, Portlaoise admitted possessing drugs for sale or supply at his address on February 24 last. Sgt JJ Kirby said garda smelled cannabis when they responded to a call of intruders at the address at 2am on the date in question. He said 1,200 in cannabis was discovered when the premises was searched with the consent of the owner. Sgt Kirby said the defendant was arrested and made admissions in relation to the find. It was the accused who called the gardai? asked Judge Andrew Cody. Sgt Kirby confirmed it was. Solicitor Josephine Fitzpatrick said her client had been using cannabis that night and was a little bit paranoid. When gardai arrived, he invited them in and the drugs were found, she explained. It has been a turning point in his life, Ms Fitzpatrick told the sitting of Portlaoise District Court. She said he has secured an electrical apprenticeship and is now working in Dublin. The man also returned home and is now living with his parents. Ms Fitzpatrick said the man has had an opportunity to reflect and had since undergone counselling. Judge Cody ordered an updated probation report and adjourned the case until July 20. He said if the accused can convince him he has turned his life around and walked away from drugs he would strike out the charges. I think there is a little bit to go yet, Judge Cody remarked. The bereaved fiancee of a Laois credit union CEO who died suddenly this week, has given a loving brave speech at his funeral. Communities in Laois and Kildare gathered on Friday for the funeral of Credit Union CEO Colm Heslin. Mr Heslin, 51, CEO of Mountmellick, Rathangan and Clonaslee credit unions, had died suddenly while at work on Tuesday October 11 in Mountmellick Credit Union. His fiancee is Michelle Kemmy, manager of Kildare Credit Union. Below: the couple's photograph placed on the coffin along with a jacket with the Mountmellick Credit Union logo. At his funeral mass in The Church of St Laurence O'Toole, Levitstown, she was among those who spoke lovingly of Colm. His smile always made me go weak at the knees. My time with Colm was too short. Our future has been taken from us now. But I will cherish the times we spent together, the laughs we had, the cuddles we shared. By loving him he gave me the gift of his family. Thank you for welcoming me into your family, for loving me. I love you all and Im so very sorry for your loss." Michelle thanked her own parents, brothers, sisters and friends for welcoming Colm and now for being her rock of strength. I love you all. I love you Colm. thank you for being you, a gentleman, She read a poem that Colm had inscribed on a handmade bracelet he gave her when they got engaged. Loved you yesterday, love you still. Always have. Always will. Parish Priest Fr Aidan Kierans had only last June celebrated the funeral mass of Colm's younger brother Ollie who died in a motorbiking accident. He said that his first thought on hearing of Colm's death was "that couldnt be right, not so soon after his brother Ollie had died in June". "It was a difficult moment for all of us when we realised that Colm had left this world, and the Heslin family were in the midst of another heartbreaking bereavement so soon after the passing of Ollie. "Colm and Michelle were looking forward to a bright future together. We are so sad that their time together has been cut short." Colms parents Mary and Mick brought up the gifts, while three of his nephews read the Prayers of the Faithful, which included prayers for the Mountmellick credit union staff, paramedics, fire service and Portlaoise hospital staff. Colms brother Terence described him as "a son, brother, mentor, confidant and friend". Colm was an amazing son and brother, and Michelle had completed his world. He was adored by his nieces and nephews and he adored them. He was a kind loving man, nothing was too much to ask him. As Fr Aidan said he was often sought after by friends, family and his colleagues for his opinion, but beware once you asked the question. Stick the kettle on, sit down and you better have time on your hands. Colm had many interests, he cultured Bonsai trees and collected fossils much to our dismay because our house was full of rocks. He loved foraging for mushrooms. A favourite for me was pigs. Colm and Ollie decided a few years ago to start rearing pigs. The two boys would go off collect the pigs and bring them home, and chaos would ensue. The pigs would escape, phone calls would go out, most of the community would spend the afternoon chasing pigs around. Year after year this happened. He had a beautiful mind, incredibly knowledgeable but would never boastful. He would educate you through casual conversation rather than preach. Rest in peace brother. Colm Heslin was predeceased by his brother Ollie and is mourned by his fiancee Michelle Kemmy, his mother Mary, father Mick, brothers Terence and Fergal, Michelle's parents Jim and Rita Kemmy and family, sisters-in-law Sophia, Averil and Marie, nephews Seth, Caleb, Fionn, nieces Amelia, Elodie, Isabella, aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives and a large circle of friends. He will also be deeply missed by the staff, boards and members of credit unions in Laois and Kildare. The Requiem Mass was concelebrated by Mountmellick PP Fr Micheal Murphy, and Castledermot PP Fr Tom Kennedy. It was followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery. ABOVE: Back Row Jill Lush (Wicklow WIB Co-ordinator), Doreen Heavey (LEO Kildare), Tara Lane, Nina Carberry, Kate Dempsey (Guest Speakers) and Louise Fleming (Wicklow LEO)Front Row Jacqui McNabb (Head of Enterprise, Kildare), Susan Keogh (MC) and Vibeke Delahunt (Head of Enterprise, Wicklow) Research has shown that Irish womens belief in their ability to run a successful business is continuing to grow as this years National Womens Enterprise Day (NWED) was launched in Kildare and Wicklow recently. The initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices, now in its 16th year, took place on the 13th October encouraging female entrepreneurship and supporting women in business across the country. The research, part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for 2021, showed that 49% of women surveyed believed they had the necessary skills and knowledge to start a business. This was up from 39% in 2018. The report also highlighted that Ireland has the third highest rate for early-stage women entrepreneurs across European countries, with over 1,400 women starting a new business in Ireland every month. Early-stage women entrepreneurs in Ireland are mainly focused on the customer services sector with 64% of those surveyed working in that area. The report showed a significant growth in export customers for these businesses, with 26% of customers of these early-stage startups based abroad, up from 15% in 2019 highlighting how they have diversified their markets during Covid. The theme of this years National Womens Enterprise Day was Our Future, Our Way A joint event run by Local Enterprise Offices Kildare and Wicklow, Keadeen Hotel, Newbridge, supported by Enterprise Ireland and the Local Authorities. Panel discussion was hosted by MC Susan Keogh with Leading Lights from Kildare and Wicklow, Tara Lane (Centrepiece Rosettes) and Kate Dempsey (Aqualicense Ltd. - recent overall winner of the LEO National Enterprise Awards 2022), along with Guest Speaker Nina Carberry, Entrepreneur, retired Irish female National Hunt jockey and TV personality and was followed by an exhibition area showcasing several female- led local businesses, music and networking. In her address to the Audience Jacqui McNabb Head of Enterprise Kildare, said; National Womens Enterprise Day has become a flagship event for women entrepreneurs and businesswomen every year. While the past two years saw successful online celebrations, it really is special to be back with sixteen in person events across the country, and some amazing speakers and inspirational businesswomen. If you have that itch to start a business, or maybe you are already running a business, reach out to your local Enterprise office It can help you grow your network, find out what supports are available and learn from those who have gone before. Carol Gibbons, Divisional Manager, Regions and Local Enterprise with Enterprise Ireland said; Enterprise Ireland is delighted to support National Womens Enterprise Day, particularly as we are seeing in person events return this year. As evidence by the recent GEM report confidence about entrepreneurship among women is growing with nearly half of all women surveyed saying they had the skills and knowledge to start a business. Events like National Womens Enterprise Day are important in supporting this positive improvement, providing women entrepreneurs and those considering starting a business with insights from leading business women and introducing them to a network of entrepreneurs who are blazing a trail in the Irish market and overseas. Pharmacists from across Kildare are gathering in Tullamore Park Hotel in Westmeath next week for an Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) meeting focussed on growing the healthcare pharmacies can provide in communities. The meeting on Wednesday, 26 October will be attended by many of the nearly 100 pharmacists currently based in Kildare. Key items on the agenda will be expanding the availability of contraception in pharmacies, the need for a Chief Pharmaceutical Officer in Ireland and proposals on how to address a growing shortage of pharmacists in Ireland. Speaking in advance of the meeting, IPU President Dermot Twomey said, Community pharmacy is the most accessible part of the healthcare system. Each year there are 78 million visits to community pharmacy outlets, or 19 visits per annum per man, woman, and child in the State. Community pharmacy is at the heart of practically every community with over half of the Irish population living within one kilometre of their local pharmacy. A key priority for the IPU is providing women in Kildare with convenient access to oral contraception without prescription direct from a pharmacy. This is already available to women in the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and other countries, Ireland should not be an outlier. The essential role that pharmacies play in delivering healthcare in the community has been ably demonstrated during the COVID pandemic and in particular over the course of a series of national lockdowns. A poll released by Ipsos MRBI last year found that local pharmacists were the most trusted professional group in the country with a trust rating of 98%. However, pharmacies are under increasing pressure to sustain the level of service locally. A growing shortage of pharmacists and increasing challenges attracting and retaining suitably qualified people within the profession is fast becoming a major concern, warned Mr Twomey. We need government action to increase the number of education places in Ireland for pharmacists. We also need to examine the regulations the profession operates under to remove time consuming red tape that provides no benefit to patients. Mr Twomey said that with adequate resources including additional pharmacists, this sector is ripe for expansion, and we all want to be empowered to do more for our patients. Pharmacists are also campaigning for the introduction of a range of new clinical services in community pharmacies. This includes the roll-out of a national Community Pharmacy-based Triage Programme including a Minor Ailment Scheme, use of Emergency Medicines, and Minor Injuries. Concluding Mr Twomey reminded the people of Kildare to think pharmacy for their healthcare needs. With over 1,900 pharmacies nationwide the pharmacy sector is at the heart of providing healthcare in every single community. Pharmacies provide a wide range of services from general advice on healthcare and medicines, to treating minor ailments, providing winter flu vaccinations and conducting a variety of health screenings. Your pharmacist is always happy to help and provide whatever advice you may require. A special and highly respected member of the Glenfarne and North Leitrim community, namely, Charlie Cullen, was honoured on Tuesday, October 4 when the Glenboy and Glenfarne Group Water Scheme organised a surprise party to celebrate Charlie's 80th birthday in the Rainbow Ballroom. Charlie probably was not expecting what was in store for him on the occasion after he arrived to attend a meeting of the Glenboy and Glenfarne Group Water Scheme. His pleasant surprise began when a birthday cake was unveiled for him and then his special birthday party got underway. During his lifetime in his home parish of Glenfarne, as well as in the wider North Leitrim community, Charlie has been an outstanding advocate and worker for the improvement of local matters that affect the everyday lives of all. Praising this popular local man on the occasion of his 80th birthday Secretary of the Glenboy and Glenfarne Group Water Scheme, Jimmy McMorrow remarked Charlie is an active promoter of community development. As a local representative Charlie was first elected a Leitrim County Councillor in 1967. He was returned to Leitrim County Council at every subsequent local authority election until he retired from the Council in 1999. Charlie topped the poll for Leitrim Councillors in 1974. He also served as the Chairman of Leitrim County Council in 1996/97. The popular Glenfarne man has played a key role in many local community organisations as well as also being a leading local member of national organisations. On Tuesday, October 4, Glenboy/Glenfarne GWS Committee marked Charlie Cullen's 80th birthday in the Rainbow Centre with a surprise birthday cake. Front, from left - Edmund Cullen, Charlie Cullen and Sean McDermott. Back, from left - Jack Cullen, John Mulvihill, Joe O'Hagan, Jimmy McMorrow and Frank Somers. Absent from the birthday party and committee meeting were Anna-Marie Brosi and Dorothee Kolle. Thanks to Sheila O'Keeffe for taking the picture Charlie is and has been a proud member of the Irish Farmers Association. He remembers clearly being on an IFA picket line with Francy McLoughlin outside Mountjoy Jail in 1968 some Leitrim IFA members were locked up there at the time when they protested for farmers to get fair play in their attempts to earn a livelihood from the land for themselves, as well as their families. Also Charlie was centrally involved in the on-going development of the Rainbow Centre, Glenfarne since the ballroom was taken into community ownership in 1977. He also took to the stage as an active member of the successful Cloonclare Drama Group for a number of years. Charlie was a founding member of Glenfarne Group Water Scheme (GWS) in 1968. Together with wife, Mona and Caretaker, Hughie Maguire, Cornamon, they kept the scheme operational (100+ households) and financially viable for almost 40 years. Charlie himself paid tribute to the role played in getting the scheme up and by Terry McHugh. Terry was a Health Inspector in the area at the time. Charlie also acted as a voluntary adviser to many local community organisations who wished to set up their own group water scheme in their areas in the late 1960s and 1970s. He also facilitated the smooth transition of the Glenfarne Scheme into the Glenboy/Glenfarne GWS. It was officially opened in 2006 after the amalgamation of the 5 local schemes: Glenfarne, Glenboy, Ardmoneen/ Loughross, Lissinagroagh, and Ardvarney/Corracloona. Today, over 390 households are connected to Glenboy/ Glenfarne GWS. The quality and reliability of locally sourced water provided by local group schemes was always problematic. In Charlies opinion, it was a giant step forward to have Glenboy/ Glenfarne GWS water supply sourced in Lough Gill through the publicly funded North Leitrim Regional Water Supply Scheme. The water is safe, reliable and must meet the highest local authority water standards under the direction of Irish Water, which was established in 2013. Charlie is and has been an active, enthusiastic and valued member of the Glenboy/Glenfarne GWS Management Committee since it was established. It is widely believed that country folk were left to fend for themselves when it came to the provision of water supply infrastructure in rural communities. This is not the full picture. Charlie explains: In the 1960s, the Department of Local Government was putting pressure on county councils to set up regional water schemes to provide tapped water in rural areas. Local authority plans for regional schemes were supported by the ICA (Irish Country Women's Association) but opposed by the IFA (Irish Farmers Association). Farmers objected because once their farm was connected to a regional scheme, the rateable valuation of their land and dwelling would increase, so more rates (a significant property tax) would have to be paid annually to the county council. Group water schemes were the compromise. The message from the County Councils to rural communities was, in Charlie's words, do it yourselves, well give you a bit of a grant and you will not pay anything on the rates. In response to the current energy management challenges facing tourism businesses, Failte Ireland has today launched a series of free in-person energy management workshops tailored support the tourism industry in managing their energy usage and reduce their energy costs. This series will run across nine locations nationwide during October and early November. A 2-hour workshop in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone will be hosted by energy experts who will provide businesses with immediate, low-cost actions that they can take to improve their energy efficiency and reduce energy bills. This is open to all tourism businesses across the county who register their attendance with Failte Ireland. The workshops will be practical and informative with attendees encouraged to bring their business energy bills to the session to gain a deeper understanding with energy experts on the day. There will be guidance and recommendations on low-cost and no-cost actions that can be implemented immediately to reduce energy consumption in the business and case studies of similar tourism businesses will be presented. To support these workshops a step-by-step Failte Ireland Energy Management Guide, the first in an upcoming series of guides, is available to download. Speaking at the announcement of the Energy Management Roadshow series, Jenny De Saulles, Director of Sector Development at Failte Ireland said; The challenge for businesses in managing their energy costs is immense and Failte Ireland recognises that tourism businesses are being hit particularly hard by the energy cost challenge. In response to this Failte Ireland is conducting practical in-person workshops nationwide to offer immediate guidance and information to businesses to help reduce their energy bills. Using less energy more efficiently is the most cost-effective and practical way for businesses to take action and we will be showing businesses how to implement easy changes. Created with energy experts these workshops are designed to offer businesses practical advice and best practise examples that can be adopted quickly for immediate effect. All tourism businesses in County Leitrim are welcome to attend so we are encouraging businesses to register today. Along with the practical in-person events virtual sessions are also available for businesses. The Failte Ireland alwayson schedule of tourism capability supports includes webinars and workshops designed as a direct response to meet industry needs across several priority areas including climate action. To register your attendance at the Failte Ireland Athlone Energy Management Workshop go to www.failteireland.ie The oldest victim in the Creeslough explosion had recently received news that he was in remission after battling cancer, his funeral heard. On Friday morning, people lined the Co Donegal villages main street for the seventh funeral of the 10 people killed in the blast at a service station a week ago. Hugh Hughie Kelly, 59, worked on farmland and as a carpenter, and was well-known in the community. Father John Joe Duffy told the congregation that Mr Kelly was a man who enjoyed a good time, a happy man and a cheeky grin, a man who the family knew and loved so well. He was described as having grown up in nearby Doe as the youngest of five siblings, and loved to spend time at the castle in the area as a child. He spent time in England, and theres a photograph of him with a colourful exotic bird, something that he posted home one time with a letter. The priest said that Mr Kelly often had a dog with him, and would say: I didnt look for him, but he found me. The funeral also heard he could turn his hand to any job, from replacing a skirting board to making cradles, dolls and fairy doors for his nieces. He built the wall up here behind us in the car park, and someone was telling me he placed his initials in that wall, Fr Duffy told mourners. Whether it was replacing a skirting board or hanging a shelf or a picture, he always gave it 100%, taking the time to get it right, making sure he got it perfect. Others would get it done and say it was grand, but he kept going until it was perfect. Of course, that shows that he wanted to do the very best for those he was doing it for out of his love. Fr Duffy also told mourners of Mr Kellys battle with cancer. He was someone who had determination, and he had lots of close scrapes, particularly in recent years with his cancer where he was up and down to Galway for treatment, the priest said. He was battling that very well and just three weeks ago he was in Galway again for a check-up where he was in remission. That was such happy and good news. Mourners also heard that Mr Kelly had brought two other victims of the blast, Robert Garwe and his daughter, Shauna Flanagan Garwe, to the service station shop to buy a birthday cake for her mother on the day of the tragedy. A jewellery box that Mr Kelly made for his niece and a picture of his granddaughter, Rosie, representing his love for family, were among the symbols brought up to the altar for the service. Also brought up as symbols were a pot of blackberry jam, representing his patience and dedication in spending hours picking blackberries; and a recent photo of Mr Kelly taken in a cornfield, showing him as a happy and content man. President of Ireland Michael D Higgins, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh are among those attending the service. Hugh and Donna Harper, the parents of 14-year-old victim Leona, were also among the mourners at the funeral service. Fr Duffy told mourners on Friday that families were still in shock, numb, and we still do not know what we are feeling. We are a community that is carrying a broken heart, but together we will work together to help us through this darkness and grief. He said that we feel, President, that you and the country are holding us, holding both Creeslough and Donegal, and stepping together, walking together and caring for each other, and that is so important. Fr Duffy once again urged people affected by the tragedy to contact local counselling services saying he himself intends to do so. He said: If you go down to Doe point or if you look at the rocks at Lagha, you will see the strength that is in rock, its solid and its strong. But either down at Doe point Hughies home or in Lagha, you will see the sand, and sand is not strong. Dear friends, none of us are rocks, we are the sand, our bodies are fragile, as well we know. But even more fragile is our minds. We are the sand. We need help, we need the continued embrace of this country and beyond it, and prayers, and also very much so the professional supports that are being made so available to us, and thank all who are involved in that. The funerals of Jessica Gallagher, 24, and Martin McGill, 49, were held in Creeslough on Tuesday, while those of Catherine ODonnell, 39, and her son James Monaghan, 13, were held in Creeslough on Wednesday afternoon. A service for James OFlaherty, 48, was held on Wednesday morning in Derrybeg. The funeral of Martina Martin, 49, was held in Creeslough on Thursday morning and a service for Leona Harper was held at St Marys Church in Ramelton later that day. The funeral service for the youngest victim, Shauna Flanagan Garwe, five, and her father Robert Garwe, 50, is to take place in St Michaels Church on Saturday morning. A farmer harvests soybeans with a combine under solar panels at an agrivoltaic site in Amance on October 12, 2022. PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP Financing the climate transition has never seemed more urgent than under the pressure of the climate and energy crises, both linked to the world's addiction to fossil fuels. After a decade of "chronic underinvestment" in France, there is both a note of hope and grounds for concern, said the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) in its annual overview, published Friday, October 14, in the midst of France's budget debate. The think tank shows that public and private investments dedicated to the climate have risen sharply in 2021, to 84 billion, up 18% compared to 2020. But this surge remains "fragile," experts warn, and much-increased spending will still be needed to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 and sustainably reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas. These investments made by households, companies and public authorities are increasing in the three sectors studied by I4CE: transport, buildings and energy production, which concentrate 60% of French greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest increases are found in the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles (68 % in one year), the development of renewable energies (34 %) or the energy renovation of buildings (20 %). Green investments This "exceptional" increase is "in a context of economic recovery but also dynamic public support," said Hadrien Hainaut, one of the authors of the study. The increase in investment is thus linked to the postponement of projects delayed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but also to the consequence of the 100 billion stimulus plan launched by the government in 2020, a third of which is devoted to green transitions. For example, the state has paid 5.1 billion in subsidies to households to help them renovate their homes, and local authorities have increased subsidies paid to France's public railway company, SNCF Reseau. Regulations have also played a role: new European CO 2 emission standards have, for example, pushed manufacturers to bring electric and hybrid vehicles to markets. In total, climate investments grew by 71% between 2011 and 2021. "Last year, we got close to what we should be doing in terms of volume," said Damien Demailly, the deputy director general of I4CE, "and we're very pleased. But there are still questions about quality." The increase in financing has not, for example, necessarily led to high-performance energy renovations with real energy efficiency gains, he points out. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback 'Concern' for 2023 Could this growth be structural? "Several elements worry us for the future," answers Mr. Demailly. First, there is the stimulus plan, which expires at the end of the year "without any new programming at this stage". Then, the exceptionally high prices of energy, associated with a lack of labor in some sectors (especially construction) and a lack of supply of materials, may prevent some spending favorable to the climate. You have 54.14% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a press conference after attending a summit with leaders of post-soviet countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Astana (Kazakhstan), on October 14, 2022. VALERY SHARIFULIN / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, October 14, that Moscow was "doing everything right" in its nearly eight-month invasion of Ukraine despite a string of embarrassing defeats, as Kyiv said it was "stronger than ever" and would emerge victorious. Putin's comments came hours after Kremlin-installed officials in the southern region of Kherson urged residents to leave after Kyiv said its forces were advancing on the region's eponymous main city. Read more Russia to evacuate civilians from occupied Kherson region as Ukraine closes in Moscow also hinted at the potentially wide extent of the damage dealt to the Crimea bridge the sole connecting its mainland to the annexed Ukrainian peninsula following a blast, saying it could take many months to complete repairs. "What is happening today is not pleasant. But all the same, (if Russia hadn't attacked on February) we would have been in the same situation, only the conditions would have been worse for us," Mr. Putin told reporters after a summit in the capital of Kazakhstan. "So we're doing everything right," he insisted. He did, however, acknowledge that Russia's ex-Soviet allies were "worried." Ukraine, which is clawing back territory in the east as well as in the south, feted its first Defenders Day public holiday since the start of Moscow's invasion, pledging victory. "On October 14, we express our gratitude... gratitude to everyone who fought for Ukraine in the past. And to everyone who is fighting for it now. To all who won then. And to everyone who will definitely win now," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address to mark the occasion. "The world is with us, more than ever. This makes us stronger than ever in history," Mr. Zelensky said, referring to unprecedented Western aid. Read more Top EU diplomat says Russian army will be 'annihilated' if Putin nukes Ukraine Mr. Putin has described the explosion on the Crimea bridge on Saturday as a "terrorist" act and in retaliation battered Ukraine for two days with missiles that hit energy facilities and caused blackouts and disruption to water supplies. He said on Thursday that "for now" there was no need to continue the massive salvo of missiles that hit cities several far from the front line and left at least 20 civilians dead. He explained the Russian military had other objectives. 'Our aim is not to destroy Ukraine' "Our aim is not to destroy Ukraine," Mr. Putin added. The Crimea bridge is logistically crucial for Moscow. It is a vital transport link for moving military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. But the bridge is also symbolically important to Putin, who inaugurated it in 2018, four years after he annexed the peninsula, drawing a chorus of Western condemnation. The missile barrage on Monday and Tuesday, he said, was direct retaliation for the blast on the bridge. Russia's cabinet, in a decree signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, ordered the company tasked with the "design and restoration of destroyed elements of ... the Crimean Bridge" to complete the work by July 1, 2023. The date gives an indication of the extent of the damage. Russian officials have otherwise been circumspect about the lasting impact of the incident. Read more Subscribers only War in Ukraine: Crimea, the Russian annexation troubling the West Hours after the blast which Russian authorities blamed on Ukraine's special forces Moscow announced that both road and rail traffic had been restored. Ukrainian forces mounted a counter-offensive in the south towards the end of the summer and have been pushing closer and closer to the main city in the Kherson region, also called Kherson. On Friday, the Moscow-installed authorities in the region renewed a call for residents to temporarily leave, with reports that Ukrainian forces had been gaining ground near Kherson. Advance on Kherson "The bombardments of the Kherson region are dangerous for civilians," Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the pro-Russian regional administration said and urged residents to take a trip for "rest and recreation" elsewhere. But in the east, pro-Russian forces said they were closing in on the industrial city of Bakhmut after reporting the capture of two villages on the city's outskirts this week. An official of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic, a pro-Kremlin breakaway region in east Ukraine, said "active hostilities were underway" within Bakhmut. "Our forces are confidently marching and liberating this settlement," the official, Andriy Marochko, was quoted as saying by Russia's state-run TASS news agency. Read more Subscribers only Ukraine gains ground in Kherson and Donetsk regions, days after Russia claims annexation We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback UN envoy Pramila Patten told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an interview that rapes and sexual assaults attributed to Moscow's forces in Ukraine were part of a Russian "military strategy" and a "deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims". "When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy," the UN special representative on sexual violence said on Thursday. "It is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims." Le Monde with AFP THIRTY-THREE community centres in Limerick have been allocated funding totalling almost 700,000 to upgrade their facilities. In a bid to support almost 600 community centres nationwide, The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, has announced new funding of over 12.5 millions, 680,240.47 of which will be allocated to organisations across Limerick In an unprecedented investment, grants of up to 25,000 will be used to benefit community centres, parish halls, GAA clubhouses, youth facilities, Mens Sheds and facilities which are used by the elderly. The new Community Centre Investment Fund (CCIF) aims to support groups in Limerick and across the country to carry out refurbishments and improvements of their local community facilities. The CCIF represents the largest single investment in community centres in decades. Making the announcement, Minister Humphreys said: "The local Community Centre is at the heart of our towns, villages and parishes all across this country. They come in many different shapes and sizes and are a place for people of all ages to meet up and socialise with friends, old and new." Welcoming the announcement, Limerick TD and Minister-of-State Patrick ODonovan, commented: "Community centres are valued shared spaces and are very much at the heart of Limerick towns and villages. I hope this funding assists in making them even better in the provision of services to people all across Limerick." His Fine Gael colleague in Limerick city, Deputy Kieran ODonnell added: "I am delighted that my colleague Minister Humphreys has made 680,240.47 in funding available to 33 Limerick community centres, given the vital work that staff and volunteers there do and the invaluable services they provide." The successful Limerick applicants are: Adare Mens Shed, Ballinvreena Community Centre, Bruff Heritage Group, Caherdavin Residents Association, Cappamore Development Association, CARI Foundation, Colmanswell Community Centre, Croom Community Development Association, Doon Community Centre, Fedamore Community Centre, Glenbrohane Community Association, Glenroe / Ballyorgan Community Council, Herbertstown Development Association, Hospital Family Resource Centre Company, Irish Palatine Association, Kantoher Development Group, Kilbehenny Community Centre, Kilcornan Community Council, Kilfinane Community Council, Kilfinane Community Projects, Killeedy Hall Management Committee, Limerick Mental Health Association, Lough Gur Development Co-operative Society, Meanus Social and Community Club, Mountcollins Community Centre, Mulclair Mens Shed, Murroe Community Council, Newcastle West & District Community Centre, Pallasgreen-Templebraden Community Council, Southill Area Centre, The Desmond Ability Resource Complex, The Haven Hub and West Limerick Resources. A LIMERICK school principal has added his voice to calls for bus drivers over 70 to be used to ease the shortage. As highlighted by Limerick Live in recent weeks, many school bus services in Limerick and elsewhere are not running due to a lack of staff. Its impacted students at Scoil Pol in Kilfinane, and its principal Mike OHara believes the ban that Bus Eireann has on using drivers over the retirement age of 70 should be scrapped. These same drivers that Bus Eireann deem too old to drive can drive privately, they can drive the same vehicles. At 70 years, you cant drive school buses for Bus Eireann, or contractors, but they can drive privately, he said. There are so many ways Bus Eireann can look at that rule they have which would allow extremely fit people, male and female, to continue driving and doing what theyve been doing without issue for many a long year, and doing it when they want to do it. Dont tell a 70-year-old, because they hit that age, they are no use. The principal said many people in their 40s and 50s who fancy a change of career might not be tempted to become a bus driver as they know the current retirement age is 70. They might look at becoming bus drivers if they felt there was a longer working life involved, Mr OHara pointed out. BEIJING, Oct. 14 -- An aviation brigade of the PLA Air Force has conducted intensive flight training recently. During the combat training of the J-20 fighter jets, the onboard pilots have to pull 7 to 8 G forces, which will lead to insufficient blood supply to brain, or even blackout if it gets worse. Faced with numerous challenges, the J-20 pilots must always keep sober and accurately manipulate the aircraft. THIRD-level students across Limerick were among those who participated in a national protest to highlight the accommodation crisis. Hundreds of students from Mary Immaculate College, the University of Limerick and the Technical University of the Shannon walked out of their lectures and classes at 11:11am on Thursday to voice their concerns over the issues they face. Their main concerns centre around a lack of accommodation for students, the soaring cost of living and an insufficient minimum wage. Cop on the government like! Exclaims @MICLimerick student Roisin Merz at the student walk-out today outside the @LimeTreeTheatre. The walk-outs were planned to raise concerns over lack of student accommodation among other student related issues. Full story on @Limerick_Leader. pic.twitter.com/2gy6Czvjmd Cathal Doherty (@catdoh98) October 13, 2022 President of MISU Aoife Gleeson also commented: We need to have more affordable, purpose built student accommodation. Particularly in the Limerick area there is very little student accommodation. Its almost impossible to be a student in Ireland nowadays with the rising cost of living and fuel. Being in full time education its really hard to work so students are working Saturdays and Sundays and evenings whilst also trying to be in full time education. Theyre burning out and losing out on money. Its tough, Ms Gleeson said. SEARCHES have been conducted and arrests have been made in Limerick and Clare as part of major transnational operation which is being led by INTERPOL. As part of Operation Jackal, involving law-enforcement agencies across 13 countries on four continents, gardai carried out multiple searches and arrested dozens of people over the course of a single week last month. Known as Operation Skein in Ireland, it is being led by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) with assistance from local gardai and specialist units across the country. An Garda Siochana, in conjunction with @INTERPOL_HQ and Law Enforcement Agencies across 13 countries on 4 Continents carried out enforcement activity under Operation Jackal.https://t.co/CinJikPDhj Garda Info (@gardainfo) October 14, 2022 The searches of premises in Dublin and Clare and the associated arrests were conducted by GNECB while other arrests (for the purpose of preferring charges) were conducted members from by local garda divisions such as Limerick. Gardai say they were supported by two seconded members from INTERPOL during the week-of-action. Operation Skein, is an ongoing investigation into international Business Email Compromise / Invoice re-direct/ Romance fraud offences which are being committed from Ireland, and the laundering of the proceeds through accounts in this jurisdiction. Gardai and Interpol are focussed on the activities of the Black Axe organised crime group, which has a global footprint. They said it is involved in online fraud, human trafficking, drugs and gun crime, as well as murder. Illicit financial funds are the lifeblood of transnational organised crime, and we have witnessed how groups like Black Axe will channel money gained from online financial scams into other crime areas, such as drugs and human trafficking. These groups demand a global response, said Stephen Kavanagh, Executive Director of Police Services, INTERPOL. To date, 69 people have been arrested under organised crime legislation while 195 persons have been arrested for money laundering offences. A further 77 arrests have been made by GNEB while 187 people have been arrested by local gardai across the country. Of those arrested, almost 80 have been charged and brought before the courts. The exact number of arrests in Limerick has not been disclosed. The final funeral for victims of the Creeslough service station explosion is set to take place. The funeral service for the youngest of the 10 victims of the blast, five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe, and her father Robert Garwe is to be held in St Michaels Church on Saturday morning. Residents of the rural Co Donegal village will line its main street once again for the sixth funeral service held at St Michaels Church for victims of the tragedy in five days. Mourners at the funeral on Friday of the oldest victim of the blast, Hugh Kelly, heard he had brought Mr Garwe and his daughter Shauna to the service station shop to buy a birthday cake for her mother. Mr Garwe, 50, who was originally from Zimbabwe, worked in construction and could often be seen travelling around the village on his scooter. Shauna started at Scoil Mhuire national school in Creeslough just weeks ago. The funerals of fashion student Jessica Gallagher, 24, and Celtic supporter Martin McGill, 49, were held in Creeslough on Tuesday, while a funeral Mass for Catherine ODonnell, 39, and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan took place on Wednesday afternoon. A service for Sydney native James OFlaherty, 48, was held on Wednesday in Derrybeg. The funeral of shop worker and mother-of-four Martina Martin, 49, took place in Creeslough on Thursday morning and a service for 14-year-old Leona Harper was held at St Marys Church in Ramelton later that day. Parish priest Father John Joe Duffy said the community is still in shock. There is still that pall of silence, that grieving and mourning, that heartbreak visible to others who enter into the homes to try and offer consolation and comfort, he said. He urged people affected by the tragedy to contact the counselling services made available to them saying he himself intends to use them. We need help, we need the continued embrace of this country and beyond it, and prayers, and also very much so the professional supports that are being made so available to us, and thank all who are involved in that, he said. President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has been attending the funerals of the victims since Wednesday, and meeting with the families of those affected. The Taoiseachs aide-de-camp Commandant Claire Mortimer, and Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, have also been attending the funerals. An Garda Siochana continues to investigate the cause of the blast, which is being treated as an accident. Along with the 10 people killed in the explosion, eight others were injured in the blast. Seven have been receiving treatment in Letterkenny hospital, while one man aged in his 20s remains in a critical condition in St Jamess Hospital, Dublin. In every community, there are a few places that everyone knows about and where everyone feels welcome, and OMalleys Life Pharmacy is one of them. Situated across from the Walk-In GP Clinic and near University Hospital Limerick, the pharmacy has been in the same spot for over 50 years, attending to the needs of the local community of Dooradoyle and environs. Norma Maher, Retail Manager, says: "We love to see our regular customers coming in to us. Often, well be looking after the third generation of the same family parents, children and grandchildren and its great to be able to provide that continuity of service and knowledge across the years. The older generation might be coming in for their regular prescription, their children availing of our great Wellbeing section to help them to stay healthy to look after their young families, or maybe getting a bit of advice from our pharmacist, Eva, when one of their little ones is under the weather. Whatever the situation, were here to help. "I suppose, being here so long, weve seen lots of change. When I came to work here first, there was an older population around us, but now we see lots of young parents with small kiddies and we adapt to that change. Our Baby section is a lot bigger than it was only a few years ago! "Were so lucky to have a team with great clinical knowledge and experience, Norma continues. With Covid and huge pressure elsewhere in the healthcare system, people have come to rely on pharmacies like ours as the easiest and quickest way to access clinical advice. We also provide day to day health services like blood pressure monitoring, smoking cessation, BMI monitoring, asthma management and vaccinations. All these services we administer in our separate consulting room, and its great to have somewhere private to go if you need to talk to the pharmacist and you dont want to share your symptoms with the rest of the shop! Just pop in or give us a call to make an appointment for a specific service, like the flu vaccine which is available at the moment, and well look after you. "Its important when you are giving people advice about something as important as their health that you are properly trained. We work very hard to keep all our team trained and up to date on the latest treatments and trends. Because our pharmacy is right beside the hospital, we are often working with patients who are that little bit sicker, maybe theyre in to get their discharge prescriptions or the like. So our staff are very experienced in supporting people when they are going through a particularly rough time health wise. Committing to constant training gives our staff the knowledge and confidence to advise our patients and customers, and they, in turn, know they are safe to rely on our advice. "Because we know our patients well, we know what other medications they might be on, whether maybe theres a history of, say, blood pressure or kidney problems in the family that might make one medicine riskier than another. All of this knowledge we use to keep our patients and customers as safe and well as we can. Norma adds: "Eleven years ago, we joined the Life symbol group and thats been great for us. It means we can offer a loyalty programme that works not only in our pharmacy but any Life pharmacy. Our customers have access to an Online Doctor, as well as online shopping from our website www.lifepharmacy.ie. Our customers can order from a wide range of products, even lines that we dont carry day to day on the shop floor, and we can have it in store for them to pick up within a day or two. Likewise with e-prescriptions, customers can get their GP to email us the script and we can have their medicines ready for them within about 30 minutes. "This time of the year, were heading into cold & flu season and there are plenty of people in to get their flu jab. This is also the time of year when we start preparing for Christmas, even though its still a couple of months away. From now on, we start getting in our Christmas gift ranges, skincare sets, beauty sets, perfumes and all the nice treats for under the tree! Conscious of the cost-of-living pressures, we have something for every budget and well be getting in additional stock as we get closer to the big day. So come in and say hello if youre around Dooradoyle, wed love to see you!" *SPONSORED CONTENT NEW DELHI: Indias petroleum industry will be able to produce 25% of its crude oil demand by 2030, Union minister of petroleum Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. At present, five million barrels of petroleum is being consumed in our country every day and it is also increasing by 3%, which is higher than global average of around 1%," he said. The minister was addressing the three-day South Asian Geoscience Conference Geo India 2022, which began at JECC, Sitapura on Friday. Puri said that the percentage of ethanol blended in petrol rose to 10% in May, about five months ahead of the schedule and will help reduce 2.7 million tonne of carbon emissions. As per the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates, India will contribute a quarter of the growth in global energy consumption in the coming two decades. BP estimates that Indias energy demand will double, while natural gas demand is expected to grow five-fold by 2050. Petroleum secretary Pankaj Jain said the geology experts should utilise this opportunity to elevate their contribution in the context of increasing demand and scarcity of energy sources. The minister also inaugurated the Exhibition of GeoIndia 2022, where a number of Indian and global petroleum companies and service providers are showcasing cutting edge services and tools for exploration and production of oil and gas. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday launched Maa Bharati Ke Sapoot website (www.maabharatikesapoot.mod.gov.in) for contribution to the Armed Forces Battle Casualties Welfare Fund (AFBCWF) at a function organised at the National War Memorial Complex in New Delhi on 14 October, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. The AFBCWF is a Tri-Service fund, which is utilised for grant of immediate financial assistance to the families of soldiers/sailors/airmen who lay down their lives or get grievously injured in active military operations. According to the ministrys statement, the website was launched to simplify the process for patriotic Indians to join this noble cause. While the government of India has initiated a large number of welfare schemes for the soldiers killed or disabled during active military operations in the line of duty, there has been a strong public sentiment and requests from patriotic citizens, corporate heads or industry captains, to contribute to the cause of welfare of the soldiers and their families," the statement said. The website will enable people to contribute online directly into the fund. A certificate of online contribution can also be downloaded, it added. According to the statement, in a video message, Amitabh Bachchan, who is the Goodwill Ambassador of the initiative, expressed his gratitude towards the families of the fallen heroes and exhorted people to come forward and contribute to the fund. The chief of defence staff, the heads of all three services, numerous Param Vir Chakra awardees, other well-known ministry officials, various corporate heads, chairman and managing directors of banks, notable serving sports professionals, and other celebrities attended the function. New Delhi: National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL), a CPSE under the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, has signed a memorandum of understanding with CSIR-CRRI, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur and NSDC to help introduce innovative technologies and find pragmatic solution to the highways construction issues in challenging hilly and border areas. Earlier, MoUs were signed with IIT Bombay & IIT Guwahati for sharing knowledge of innovative ideas and technologies in the field of highway engineering to upgrade skill and capacity of the core engineering professional of NHIDCL who are working tirelessly for construction of Highways, tunnels and other infrastructure in the very tough geographical areas of NE region, UT of Ladakh, UT of J&K and UT of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The latest MoU with IIT, Patna was signed on 11 October, 2022. Iranian activists called for fresh nationwide protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, as the movement entered a fifth week on Friday despite a crackdown that has killed dozens. Outrage over the 22-year-old's death on September 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran's notorious morality police, has fuelled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country for years. Young women have been on the front line of the protests, shouting anti-government slogans, removing their headscarves and facing off with security forces in the streets. At least 108 people have been killed in the Amini protests, and at least 93 more have died in separate clashes in Zahedan, capital of the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, according to Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. The unrest has continued despite what Amnesty International called an "unrelenting brutal crackdown" that included an "all-out attack on child protesters" -- leading to the deaths of at least 23 minors. There were fewer reports of people taking to the streets over Amini's death on Friday, but hundreds of men were seen protesting after weekly prayers in Zahedan, in online videos verified by AFP. Despite blocked access to internet services and platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, activists issued an online appeal for a huge turnout on Saturday for protests under the catch cry "The beginning of the end!". They have called on people across Iran to show up at spots where the security forces are not present and to chant "Death to the dictator". "We have to be present in the squares, because the best VPN these days is the street," they declared, referring to virtual private networks used to skirt internet restrictions. In response, one of Iran's main revolutionary bodies, the Islamic Development Coordination Council, has called on people to join a counter-demonstration after evening prayers on Saturday to "express their revolutionary anger against sedition and rioters". International condemnation The bloody crackdown has drawn international condemnation and new sanctions on Iran from Britain, Canada and the United States. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the country's enemies of fomenting the "riots". On Friday, his government condemned French President Emmanuel Macron for remarks in which he expressed solidarity with the protests sparked over Amini's death. Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Macron's remarks served to encourage "violent people and law breakers". He said it was "surprising" that France was condemning Iran's security forces for dealing with "violent people and rioters" when it was threatening to use force in response to "labour strikes in the oil and gas sector" at home. "This is clear hypocrisy," he said. Guards 'retirees' get call-up Analysts say the multi-faceted nature of the Amini protests has complicated state attempts to quell them, which could spell an even bigger challenge to the authorities than 2019 demonstrations over a sudden fuel price hike. Young women and schoolgirls have been seen staging flash-mob protests to avoid detection, as seen in video footage posted online. The approach has reportedly forced security personnel to move around a lot and caused them to grow tired, as the protests look set to extend into a second month. This week, a call went out to "retirees" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for them to gather on Saturday given "the current sensitive situation", according to a journalist at Shargh newspaper. In response to the protests, the security forces have carried out a campaign of mass arrests that has netted young activists, journalists, students and even minors. Schoolchildren have been arrested inside classrooms and ended up in "psychological centres", Education Minister Yousef Nouri said this week, quoted by Shargh. In a rare show of accountability, the Tehran police department said Friday that it will investigate the conduct of an officer following allegations of harassment during the arrest of a woman protesting Amini's death. It came after a video showed a male officer appearing to grope the woman from behind while arresting her, before she was eventually allowed to leave. Some voices of support for the protesters have come from inside the country. In an open letter published on its front page on Thursday, reformist newspaper Etemad called on Iran's top security official, Ali Shamkhani, to stop arrests being made under "pretences that are sometimes false". The Iranian authorities have organised their own rallies attended by women clad in black chadors, garments that cover their heads and bodies. A bid to show they had the support of famous women unravelled overnight, after a photomontage of dozens wearing the hijab disappeared from a Tehran billboard within 24 hours of being erected as it featured some personalities known to oppose the headscarf. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Since succeeding Boris Johnson as British Prime Minister, Liz Truss has experienced the shortest of political honeymoons. Truss only had a week of having control over events after accounting for the 10 days of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, before her political plan collapsed and she was forced to fire her finance minister. Commenting on the short tenure Truss actually practised power, The Economist magazine commented this week. "That is the shelf-life of a lettuce." Here is a timeline of events that unfolded after Truss assumed the office that is said to be turning into a nightmare. 5 September In a vote among Conservative Party members, Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister for Johnson, receives 60,399 votes losing to Truss' 81,326. With support from less than 0.2% of the UK electorate and a small portion of her own MPs, she is now prime minister as the new leader of the largest party in parliament. The queen confirms her as prime minister the following day. Despite having a weak mandate, Truss removes all Sunak backers from her new cabinet and appoints Kwasi Kwarteng to the position of chancellor of the exchequer. 8 September A costly plan to limit household energy costs is unveiled by Truss in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, the tragic announcement is overshadowed by the queen's passing, which halts all government operations for ten days. 23 September Kwarteng releases a "mini-budget" that includes information on the cost of the energy programme, which is 60 billion ($67 billion) over the following six months. However, there are no initiatives to raise money. Instead, he proposes scrapping a cap on bankers' bonuses and massive new borrowing to pay for broad tax cuts, including those for the highest earners. Politicians immediately criticise the announcement for being unfair. However, the markets reserve their harshest judgement for their reaction to the new borrowing, pushing the pound toward parity with the dollar. On a Sunday two days later, Kwarteng promises "more to come" in terms of tax cuts. When the markets reopen the following day, the pound reaches new lows. The media begin reporting tensions between Kwarteng and Truss and widespread unease among Tory MPs, including cabinet ministers, as a result of the budget, which they have dubbed "Kami-Kwasi." 28 September The Bank of England announces a two-week programme to buy long-term UK bonds, with an initial cap of 65 billion, in an effort to "restore orderly market conditions" as the turmoil on the bond market threatens British pension funds. 29 September Pollsters YouGov report a 33-point lead for the main opposition Labour party over the Tories -- its biggest margin since the heyday of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair in the late 1990s. Additionally, other polls predict electoral catastrophe for the Conservatives. But Kwarteng promises to "stay the course" just hours before delivering the keynote address at the party's annual conference at the beginning of October. 3 October After hurried late-night negotiations, Kwarteng and Truss abandon their planned reduction in the top rate of income tax in an embarrassing U-turn as civil war grips the party conference. Truss promises to pursue her "growth, growth, growth" agenda in her own conference speech on 5 October, but she falls short of assuaging party rebels and uneasy markets. As mortgage rates rise, rising UK government bond yields cause more pain for UK households. 10 October In yet another volte-face, Kwarteng says he'll release a medium-term fiscal plan and independent budget forecasts on October 31 Halloween as opposed to the original schedule of late November. But on October 12, Truss rejects any cuts to government spending while announcing that she won't change her mind about the remaining tax cuts, adding to the impression that the government is in disarray. 14 October After only 38 days in the position, the prime minister fires Kwarteng, further fueling rumours that her party was planning to attempt her own ouster as the markets remain uneasy and pressure mounts on Truss. In a letter to Truss, Kwarteng argues in favour of the economic plan, saying that "the status quo was simply not an option." She appoints Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign minister, in his place. (With inputs from AFP) UK Prime Minister Liz Truss fired her finance minister Kwaisi Kwarteng and took a U-turn on the tax cuts Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. 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 roots of the Farrell Clan have spread and are well established in most parts of the world, but the seeds of The Farrell Clan Organisation were sown at a meeting in the Annaly Hotel in Longford town in November 1991. Since that time The Farrell Clan Committee have organised nine Farrell Clan Rallies and have welcomed hundreds of Farrell visitors to Co Longford. The most recent Farrell Clan Rally was hosted last July, and the committee will now hold their annual general meeting on Sunday, October 16 in The Rustic Inn in Abbeyshrule at 3pm as thoughts turn to the next Rally. In line with tradition, members will meet for Sunday lunch, prior to the AGM, at 1.30pm. Like every other organisation The Farrell Clan have had to change and evolve with modern technology. Last year they launched their website www.farrellclan.ie and their Facebook page currently has 4,700 members. The other essential ingredient for the continued success of the organisation is the input of new and innovative ideas for the planning of future events. To this end, the committee are anxious to involve more Farrells locally and from all around Ireland to join them. The Farrell Clan committee take this opportunity to invite Farrells and their families who have an interest in The Farrell Clan to join them at the AGM in The Rustic Inn, Abbeyshrule on Sunday next. Regional Hospital Mullingar will take part in this years Wave of Light on Saturday October 15. Across the World on the 15th at 7pm candles, monuments, landmarks and buildings will be lit in pink and blue in the memory of babies that have been lost. Regional Hospital Mullingar will again host a different remembrance service this year. A display table will be set up in the front concourse of the hospital, with the background of pink and blue. At 7pm on Saturday, October 15, staff from the hospital will be outside the building as a way of remembering the families who have lost babies, as the hospital is lit in blue and pink. Along with that, the Mullingar town band will attend for 20-25 minutes to help those attending to remember their loved ones through music. Kathryn Woods, the Bereavement Nurse in Regional Hospital Mullingar said, October 15 is International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and is recognised across the world and we would like to invite anyone who wishes to join with other families across the world and take part in the global Wave of Light. If you cannot join with us at the hospital, then please light a candle at home to remember." The staff in Regional Hospital Mullingar hope turning buildings and landmarks blue and pink will spark conversations about baby loss and give bereaved parents and families an opportunity to talk about their precious babies. Every County will have at least one building lite up pink and blue. In the past this process has brought so much comfort to bereaved parents and their families. Feileacain volunteer, said, I took part last year to remember all the babies that were taken too soon. Thank you to the staff of Mullingar Hospital so much for organising this event and for doing this for our angels who are missed every day. Feileacain (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland) which is the National Charity supporting families affected by perinatal loss; spearhead the wave of light initiative. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Hundreds of people are waiting for beds at overcrowded Irish hospitals today (October 14). That's according to the latest report from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), which revealed 382 people are waiting in emergency departments this morning with 79 in wards elsewhere. Cork University Hospital is the most overcrowded nationwide with 74 people waiting for a bed, followed by 71 at University Hospital Limerick, 40 at St Vincent's University Hospital, 35 at St James' Hospital and 34 at Tallaght University Hospital. Just 7 hospitals are free from overcrowding today, including Beaumont Hospital, Connolly Hospital, National Children's Hospital Tallaght, Cavan General Hospital, Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise, Our Lady's Hospital Navan, and Portiuncula Hospital. Twenty eight people are waiting for a bed at Sligo University Hospital, with 21 at University Hospital Galway, 20 at Mercy University Hospital Cork and 16 at Letterkenny University Hospital. The INMO yesterday (October 13) called on the government to urgently implement a recruitment and retention plan ahead of the busy winter period. It comes following the publication of a HIQA inspection report into three hospitals including Cork University Hospital. Speaking yesterday, INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said, "Bespoke recruitment and retention measures are needed hospital by hospital this winter. The funding allocated in the Winter Plan to implement the Safe Staffing Framework is welcome to ensure that a safe nursing to patient staffing and skill mix ratio exists in each emergency department is key. As outlined in the HSE Winter Plan published this week, each ED should conduct an urgent analysis to identify and address gaps and risks, each hospital must move to undertake this process immediately." Assistant Director of Industrial Relations for Southern Region, Colm Porter, called HIQA's findings into Cork University Hospital "particularly stark". He said, "On the day that HIQA carried out its inspection (June 15) 62 people were without a bed. Since then, over 4469 patients have been on trolleys in Cork University Hospital. The hospital is the most overcrowded hospital in Ireland today. "The bed deficit that currently exists in both CUH and the wider Cork community is adding to the pressure in this Emergency Department. "HIQAs report raises questions on the safety of staffing levels in CUH. A bespoke taskforce is now needed to tackle the ongoing issues in Cork University Hospital, focusing on staffing and timely discharging of patients in order to improve patient flow. Hewlett Man Sentenced to 25 Years to Life in Prison for Fatal 2020 Hempstead Stabbing Crime By Chris Boyle Published: October 14 2022 Keith Pooler was convicted in May of stabbing 49-year-old Andre Garry in the heart on a street corner, killing him. Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced a Hewlett man was sentenced today to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of a 49-year-old man in Hempstead in June 2020. Keith Pooler, 56, was convicted on May 13, 2022, after a jury trial before Judge Howard Sturim, of Murder in the Second Degree (an A-I felony) and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree (a D felony). Pooler was sentenced today to 25 years to life in prison. Keith Pooler senselessly took Andre Garrys life during a street corner fight, driving a steak knife into the victims heart, said DA Donnelly. With todays jail sentence, Pooler will pay for this terrible crime and his violence will no longer be a threat to the Hempstead community. District Attorney Donnelly said on June 28, 2020, at approximately 9:00 p.m. on the corner of Terrace and Fulton Avenues, the defendant had a verbal altercation with 49-year-old Andre Garry. As the argument continued, the defendant pulled out a steak knife with an approximately 5-inch blade and stabbed Garry in the heart. The victim collapsed and Pooler fled the scene. Garry was transported to NYU Langone Hospital Long Island (Winthrop) where he was pronounced deceased. The murder weapon was recovered nearby by police less than twenty minutes after the incident. Pooler was arrested in Hewlett by detectives of the Nassau County Police Departments Homicide Squad on July 11, 2020. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: October 14 2022 Individuals Stole Thousands of Dollars Worth of Property and Services from New York City Hotels and Clothing Stores Using Stolen Credit Card Information and IDs. New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Keechant Sewell today announced the takedown of a luxury vehicle theft ring and fraudulent credit card operation in New York City. As outlined in the indictment, four individuals are charged with 76 counts for their roles in the auto-theft and export operation. During a three-year joint investigation conducted by the Office of the Attorney Generals (OAG) Organized Crime Task Force (OCTF) and NYPDs Grand Larceny Division, law enforcement uncovered a scheme in which these individuals used stolen credit card information and stolen identifications to steal high-end vehicles from residences and rental car lots in New York and other states. After stealing the rental vehicles, the members of this theft ring drove the stolen vehicles into the greater New York City area, leaving them for a period of time to cool off. Crew members then drove the vehicles to South Florida where the stolen cars were loaded into shipping containers headed to West Africa to be sold. These same individuals also defrauded luxury hotels and clothing stores in New York City by purchasing thousands of dollars in goods and services using fake identifications. The defendants are being charged with various counts of criminal possession of stolen property, identity theft, grand larceny, and other crimes. We are slamming the breaks on this dangerous luxury vehicle theft ring that defrauded New York businesses and individuals, said Attorney General James. These fraudsters stole high-end cars to sell abroad and today they are being held accountable for the harm they have caused. Todays takedown is a continuation of our efforts to make our streets safer and protect New Yorkers from fraud and theft. New York City will not tolerate any form of lawlessness, and this once sophisticated theft ring not only harmed public safety, but also undermined our local economy, said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. We were proud to partner with Attorney General James in announcing operation Treasure Steals earlier this year and arrest these bad actors. Todays announcement is a testament to the strength of the ongoing partnership between the NYPD, the Office of the Attorney General, and other local law enforcement entities, and their ability to bring organized criminal enterprises to justice. This years-long, multistate investigation is a perfect example of how public safety is most definitely a shared responsibility, said NYPD Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell. These wide-ranging charges show how complex this criminal enterprise was, and this case exemplifies our collective effort to bring these criminals to justice. I want to thank the New York Attorney Generals Office and all of our law enforcement partners for their tireless dedication and exceptional work. Todays takedown was a result of a three-year joint investigation conducted by OAGs OCTF and NYPDs Manhattan Grand Larceny Division. The investigation dubbed Operation Gone in 60 Seconds utilized court-authorized wiretapping, multi-state physical surveillance, and financial analysis to identify the stolen vehicles, stolen credit card information, and identities used in this interstate scheme. The OAGs investigation alleges, that since 2018, defendant Salimou Dabo managed this vehicle theft and export operation and provided fraudulent identification documents and stolen credit card information to co-defendants Tamek Skinner and Jayvon Moore, which they used to steal specific vehicles based on sales trends in West Africa. During the course of this investigation, Dabo, Skinner, and Moore targeted nine SUV models, including Land Rover, Range Rover, Mercedes, Infiniti, and Toyota, with a combined value of approximately $423,000. In an effort to erase the vehicles true origin, Dabo and his co-conspirators altered the vehicle identification numbers on five of the nine vehicles in preparation for their export, and used fraudulent, stolen identities to register and insure the vehicles. Dabo directed Skinner and Moore to transport the stolen vehicles from the theft locations to shipping yards, located in South Florida, where the vehicles would be loaded into 40-foot shipping containers, destined for the West African country of Guinea. Dabo disguised the contents of the shipping containers by documenting false vehicle identification numbers and vehicle descriptions. The investigation further alleges, that Tony Blathers created and supplied fraudulent credit cards and credit card information, as well as fraudulent identification documents to Dabo and Skinner, to bolster this operation. Wire communications between Blathers and Dabo revealed discussions related to matching fraudulent credit cards to faces or stolen identifications and Blathers creation of fraudulent credit cards that would beat the light, referring to circumventing ultraviolet light security checks at Hertz rental counters, in an effort to circumvent any detection of a stolen credit card. The investigation also revealed that Dabo, Skinner, and Moore used the stolen credit card information, fraudulent credit cards, and fraudulent identification documents provided by Blathers to steal more than $16,500 worth of goods or services from New York City area retailers and hotels. The indictment, unsealed today before New York County Acting Supreme Court Justice Cori Weston, charged the individuals with various counts of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree, Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, Identity Theft, Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, and other crimes in relation to their involvement in the auto-theft and export operation and the fraudulent credit card operation. Those charged in todays unsealed indictment include: Salimou Dabo, 37, Guinea Tamek Skinner, 28, New York, NY Jayvon Moore, 28, New York, NY Tony Blathers, 60, Brooklyn, NY The charges against the defendants are accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law. In addition to law enforcement partners, Attorney General James would like to thank the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys Border Enforcement Security Task Force, specifically Agent Michael Dealmeida, for his long-term assistance on this investigation. The OAG thanks the Hertz Corporation, CMC Investments, Inc., and Todd Investment Co. doing business as Dollar, and all of OAG's retail partners in this investigation. The OAG extends a special thanks to Detective Thomas Moran of the Pembroke Pines Police Department, who provided long-term investigative collaboration and resources to the investigative team. This joint OCTF-NYPD investigation was directed by NYPD Detective Brian Deighan, retired Sergeant Michael Korabel, NYPD Detective Vincent Catalano, OCTF Detective Brian Fleming, OCTF Detective Mary Laspina, and OCTF Detective Rachel Muzichenko. OCTF Detectives Fleming and Laspina are under the supervision of Detective Supervisor Paul Grzegorski; OCTF Detective Muzichenko is under the supervision of Detective Supervisor Cheryl Munoz; all of which are under the supervision of OCTF Acting Deputy Chief Andrew Boss. The Investigations Division is led by Chief Investigator Oliver Pu-Folkes. During the active investigation, NYPD Detective Deighan was under the supervision of retired Lieutenant Michael Burke of the Manhattan Grand Larceny Division. The Manhattan Grand Larceny Division is currently under the supervision of Sergeants Fredy Cruz and Matthew Doherty, Lieutenant Gabriel Zambrano, Captains Brian Eng, Patrick Davis, Tawee Theanthong, and Eddie Lau, and Deputy Inspector Nicholas Fiore. The case is being prosecuted by OCTF Assistant Deputy Attorney Brandi S. Kligman, with support from OCTF Legal Support Analyst Christine Cintron under the supervision of OCTF Downstate Deputy Bureau Chief Lauren Abinanti. Nicole Keary is the Deputy Attorney General in Charge of OCTF. The Division for Criminal Justice is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General Jose Maldonado. Both the Investigations Division and the Division for Criminal Justice are overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy. Tech & Science By Chris Boyle Published: October 14 2022 Hundreds expected to convene on symposium on EV expansion and test drive EVs. On Friday, October 14th, Farmingdale State College will host its annual Electric Vehicle, EV Symposium and Ride and Drive. The college is partnering with Drive Electric LI to host the event, which will bring local utilities and EV manufacturers together to educate attendees on the industry today and where it is heading for the future. This event is free for attendees, and the focus of this event will be on both consumer and fleet EVs. The days events will begin with a panel of speakers from vehicle manufacturers, followed by a panel of speakers on EV and charger incentives, including representatives from PSEG LI, NYSERDA, the NY State Department of Transportation, NYPA, and Empire Clean Cities. Manufacturers will have vehicles present for attendees to test drive around a track starting from Farmingdale State College's Campus Center. The Ride and Drive will be managed by Electric Drive LI, and drivers will be able to choose from several electric vehicles to test drive. Drivers are asked to present their driver's license to participate. Governor Kathy Hochul has announced six municipalities will receive $31.3 million in financial assistance for critical water infrastructure improvements that are crucial to protecting public health and the environment. The Environmental Facilities Corporation Board of Directors approved funding packages in support of wastewater and drinking water projects totaling more than $43.1 million. This announcement marks the latest action by Governor Hochul to upgrade New York's water and sewer systems, reduce water pollution, and safeguard vital drinking water supplies. "New York continues to provide unprecedented financial support to help communities upgrade water systems and improve water quality," Governor Hochul said. "Providing funding and resources to help local governments get shovels in the ground for water infrastructure improvement projects is a top priority of my administration, and we'll continue working together to modernize our infrastructure and provide safe, reliable water systems for generations to come." The Board's approval is an important milestone for the Environmental Facilities Corporation's municipal partners, as it enables recipients to access low-cost financing and previously announced grants to start and complete their water infrastructure projects. The Board also approved various long-term financing conversions that make completed projects even more cost-effective by providing interest relief to help reduce debt for municipalities. New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation President and CEO Maureen A. Coleman said, "As the 50th anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act is observed this month, EFC thanks Governor Hochul for prioritizing clean water investment. EFC is committed to furthering the Governor's ambitious agenda as we work shoulder to shoulder with local governments to modernize New York's water infrastructure and safeguard public health and the environment." New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner and Environmental Facilities Corporation Board Chair Basil Seggos said, "Across the state, the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds are supporting critical municipal infrastructure projects that will reduce potential risks to public health and the environment. With the continued support of Governor Hochul and in collaboration with our partners at EFC, DEC looks forward to communities reaping the benefits of these game-changing projects." New York State Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said, "Providing clean, safe water is vital to protecting public health and a foundation for building healthy communities across New York. Governor Hochul understands the importance of modernizing drinking water delivery and sewage systems. We will continue to work together to assist communities in providing clean water that meets the most stringent water quality standards for years to come." Secretary of State Robert J. Rodriguez said, "Under Governor Hochul's leadership, New York continues to invest in critical infrastructure that will provide safe and clean drinking water to all New Yorkers. This $31.3 million critical investment through New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation will help six municipalities with the necessary resources to modernize networks of drinking water and wastewater for New Yorkers and improve the ability to withstand severe weather events." The Board's approvals include financings through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and grants already announced pursuant to the Water Infrastructure Improvement (WIIA) program. Visit EFC's website to learn more about water infrastructure funding opportunities. Clean Water Project Funding Approved Local News, Business & Finance By Chris Boyle Published: October 14 2022 The new boutique location affords LAGOS the opportunity to provide a beautiful, branded shopping experience for their customers in the Huntington Station area and beyond. Fine jewelry brand LAGOS , founded 45 years ago by the innovative and creative master jeweler Steven Lagos, is expanding their breathtaking wares into the Long Island marketplace with a boutique inside the Bloomingdale's at the Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station.In celebration, they are giving locals an exclusive first look at a wondrous new collection. The new boutique location, which just opened in early September, affords LAGOS the opportunity to provide a beautiful, branded shopping experience for their customers in the Huntington Station area and beyond. To that end, the LAGOS boutique presents a color palette that is warm and welcoming featuring precious blonde woods, pristine stone, and brushed brass accents positioning the brand as a retail destination. LAGOS is known for its Caviar collections, which is the iconic design of the brand; they have everything from sterling silver to 18 karat gold and colorful ceramic collections, featuring classic bracelets and statement necklaces, stacking rings, elegant earrings and more. The Caviar collections take their name from the exquisite beading that resembles the pricey seafaring delicacy. Itsan iconic design element that adds texture and that makes the jewelry feel comfortable to wear. Founder and Creative Director Steven Lagos still personally designs each and every piece that LAGOS produces to this very day. Ive always had an appreciation for beautiful materials and clean design, Lagos said. Whether Im designing a new collection or building a shop with our visual team, its the common thread that runs throughout. As an exclusive pre-launch for the Long Island marketplace, LAGOS has introduced a new Signature Caviar Superfine 18K gold and diamond collection, which embodies a youthful, luxe aesthetic, with the rich Caviar beads creating links that connect for beautiful, fluid movement. To celebrate their new local retail presence, shoppers at the Huntington Station Bloomingdale's boutique will be getting the exclusive first opportunity to purchase this exquisite new collection. LAGOS fully intends to continue to bring their luxurious Caviar experience to as many New Yorkers as possible. Long Island represents a major jewelry shopping region whose inhabitants are especially style conscious, according to Bloomingdales Senior Vice President and General Merchandise Manager of Center Core Jennifer Jones, with LAGOS being the perfect complement to that aesthetic. Our fine jewelry customers look for unique, luxury offerings to help express their personal style, Jones said. Were excited that LAGOS will have an expanded footprint in our Huntington store so we can bring even more of their classic Caviar styles to our discerning customers. The LAGOS boutique inside the Bloomingdale's at the Walt Whitman Shops will feature the largest selection of LAGOS, both in New York and within the entire Bloomingdales network. Frontier IP Group PLC - London-based intellectual property commercialisation company - Says portfolio firm Elute Intelligence Holdings Ltd has hired Steve Cable as chief executive officer. Says he will guide Elute through the development of existing products with an emphasis on product alignment, market traction and commercial growth. "The Elute technology is based on encoding forensic linguistic principles in software," adds Frontier. Cable has over 25 years' experience in building businesses. He was recently part of leadership team at CMap Software Ltd, a software firm based in Wilmslow, England. Frontier IP Chief Executive Neil Crabb says: "Elute has the potential to transform the way in which we search and compare text stored in large, complex, and unstructured datasets. We are very pleased that Steve has been appointed Elute's chief executive. He has already made great progress since he joined the company, and we are looking forward to working with him as CEO as he takes it forward to success." Current stock price: 59.00 pence, up 5.4% on Friday mid-morning in London. 12-month change: down 46% By Xindi Wei; xindiwei@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday following strong gains on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 was called to open 70 points higher at 6,920. CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "As a result of yesterday's sharp turnaround in the US we can expect to see European markets open sharply higher as we come to the end of what has been a turbulent week. "UK markets also saw some big moves yesterday with UK gilt yields retreating sharply, and the pound surging on reports that the government will execute further U-turns when it comes to its recent mini-budget measures. While Number 10 Downing Street has denied such a U-turn will happen, markets seem to think that the Chancellor won't have a choice, and his early departure from the IMF meetings in Washington appears to suggest that something is afoot. "There is also an expectation that whatever the Bank of England and Governor Bailey says about ending the support for the gilt market today, if we get further turbulence next week, they will have little choice but to step in and provide liquidity to the market." Hewson added that while Thursday's rebound was a welcome respite after the weakness seen in markets this week, there's no reason to think that it was anything more than a technical rebound off some key support levels. In corporate news, asset manager Ashmore said that total assets under management had fallen 12.5% in the three months ended 30 September as a result of $5.0bn in net outflows and a $3.0bn negative investment performance. Ashmore said total assets under management dropped from $64.0bn at the end of June to $56.0bn in the third quarter, with the increase in net outflows predominantly stemming from institutional investors reducing exposure in the external debt, local currency and blended debt themes. Royal Mail said it was looking to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of August 2023 as it warned of financial losses due to industrial action and lower parcel volumes. Parent company, the newly renamed International Distribution Services, said the job loss figure could include up to 6,000 redundancies. For the current fiscal year, Royal Mail forecast an adjusted operating loss of around 350m, including the direct, immediate impact of eight days of industrial action which have taken place or been notified to Royal Mail, but excluding any charges for voluntary redundancy costs. "This may increase to around a 450m loss if customers move volume away for longer periods following the initial disruption," it added. (Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Thursday and not separately reported by Alliance News: ---------- British Honey Co PLC - Buckinghamshire-based spirits and honey producer - Launches strategic review to explore the strategic and financing options available to it. Explains that its options may include a potential sale of its company as a whole or its business and assets. Confirms that it has not yet received any expressions of interest. ---------- Malin Corp PLC - Dublin-based investor in life sciences companies - Says all remaining founders will surrender A shares without conversion. Confirms that Kelly Martin and Sean Murphy have agreed to discontinue their defamation proceedings. Agrees to make a EUR1 million contribution towards their remaining founders' proceedings costs. ---------- Riverstone Credit Opportunities Income PLC - energy infrastructure and energy-transition credit investor - Realises USD1 million profit from EPIC Propane investment. ---------- By Abby Amoakuh; abbyamoakuh@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - Prime Minister Liz Truss is to hold a press conference amid speculation of a major U-turn on Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget. Kwarteng flew back to London on Friday for crisis talks after cutting short a visit to the International Monetary Fund's annual meeting in Washington. It follows days of turmoil in the markets amid concerns about the impact of his GBP43 billion tax giveaway on the public finances. By Gavin Cordon, PA Whitehall Editor source: PA Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Initiative dedicated to helping revitalize efforts to meet UNs Sustainable Development Goals The Global Development Initiative proposed by China has renewed global focus on development issues and strengthened cooperation between developing countries amid a series of global crises, government officials, international organizations and experts across the world said. President Xi Jinping launched the proposal during a video address in September last year to the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, with the aim of steering global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth. A timely call This initiative came at a timely moment. We are suffering multiple shocks to the global economy and especially to developing countries, Munir Akram, the permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told China Daily in an exclusive interview on Aug 26. This initiative brings the countries of the world, especially developing countries, together to partner with China on addressing these issues, said Akram, who is also chairperson of the Group of 77 and China. The G77, which got its name from its 77 founding members, is now a group of 134 developing countries at the United Nations. With the world facing a storm of cascading crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, devastating rises in the cost of living and the climate emergency to growing numbers of the poor and hungry, worsening inequalities and rising social unrest, the UNs Sustainable Development Goals need to be back on track for the well-being of this and future generations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the GDI on Sept 20. The holistic Global Development Initiative is a valued contribution to addressing common challenges and accelerating the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive future, the UN chief said at the meeting. The meeting, which was chaired by State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and attended by nearly 40 foreign ministers and heads of international agencies, agreed on the value of close coordination between the GDI and UN bodies in addressing poverty and advancing the SDGs. The agreement found support in developing countries. Dennis Munene, executive director of the China-Africa Center at the Africa Policy Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, told China Daily in a recent interview that the GDI is benefiting the world in various ways. It is assisting the global community and the UN in achieving the SDGs. It is also helping the African Union achieve its Agenda 2063, which is currently in its ninth year, and regional governments fulfill their national agendas, including Kenyas Vision 2030. Furthermore, the initiative is striving to reverse the devastating impact of COVID-19 on development, to address the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, and to promote green recovery and Chinas policy of an ecological civilization to harmonize development and the environment. China and Iraq are vigorously strengthening relations to inject fresh vitality into their cooperation Iraq and China enjoy long-standing historical communications and well-established friendship. The ancient Chinese civilization and the Mesopotamian civilization came across each other and got acquainted with each other via the ancient Silk Road, with lots of stories about friendly exchanges between the two countries recorded in historical documents. Bilateral relations have maintained sound development with friendly exchanges at all levels since the countries established diplomatic relations in 1958.In December 2015, China and Iraq established a strategic partnership. For more than a century, the Communist Party of China has united and led the Chinese people in working tirelessly to make earth-shaking changes to the nation, with extraordinary historic achievements in economic, social, technological and cultural development that attract worldwide attention. In uniting and leading the Chinese people in the tenacious struggle, the CPC, always with foresight and sagacity, has been paying high attention to following the tide of the times. Following an arduous journey through hardships and adversity, China has made the historic achievement of eliminating absolute poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Today, China is dedicated to promoting high-quality economic growth to allow all people to benefit more fairly and thoroughly from the fruits of growth and to fulfill Chinese peoples aspirations for a better life. China and other developing nations share vast common interests and have a solid foundation for further boosting cooperation. When handling its relations with the Middle Eastern countries, China has always attached great significance to regional security and stability. As a friendly partner of the Middle Eastern countries, China has been supporting regional countries in solving their security issues with solidarity and collaboration, and in independently exploring their own development paths in accordance with their national conditions. China has been carrying out cooperation with the Middle Eastern countries in various fields including infrastructure construction, science and technology, economy and trade and striving for common development. Furthermore, China has been vigorously assisting African countries development, setting a good example for international cooperation with Africa. China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, in an attempt to inherit and carry forward the Silk Road spirit and to bestow new connotations of the times to the ancient Silk Road. In jointly building the Belt and Road, China has enhanced connectivity, strengthened trade cooperation, promoted cultural exchanges, and realized mutual benefit and win-win results with the countries and regions along the routes of the Belt and Road. Iraq was one of the first Arab states to take part in the joint building of the Belt and Road, with the two countries signing a memorandum of understanding on the joint promotion of the Belt and Road construction in 2015. Iraq is currently facing the pressing task of rebuilding its economy, and boosting cooperation in the joint construction of the Belt and Road is of great significance to the countrys development. In recent years, China and Iraq have vigorously promoted cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road, injecting fresh vitality into their bilateral relations. On top of that, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has selflessly shared the experience of its own fight against the virus with the rest of the world, dispatched teams of medical experts to assist other countries pandemic response, provided a large number of medical supplies for other countries, and strengthened international cooperation in the health sector, practicing the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind with concrete actions. Iraq and China have profoundly strengthened cooperation in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, with China providing Iraq with multiple batches of anti-pandemic supplies and dispatching medical experts to the nation. Furthermore, China has assisted Iraq in building a nucleic acid testing laboratory, notably enhancing the nations testing capability. Looking ahead, Iraq and China should elevate bilateral relations to a higher level and constantly unleash the potential of cooperation. Iraq welcomes the Chinese side to take part in its economic reconstruction and is willing to further boost economic, technological and cultural ties with China, so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples. The author is head of the Institute of Historical Research at the Bayt Al-Hikma, a think tank in Iraq. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. Contact the editor at [email protected] SOURCE: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ Commentaires via Facebook : Friendly cooperation has become a strong consensus and aspiration of China and Thailand This year marks the 47th anniversary of the establishment of China-Thailand diplomatic ties and the 10th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries. The two nations have taken the lead in issuing a joint statement on cooperation in the 21st century, promoting strategic cooperation, implementing a zero-tariff arrangement on vegetables and fruits within the framework of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, establishing a security and defense consultation mechanism, and holding joint military exercises and training. The first China Culture Center in the Southeast Asia was launched in Bangkok. These achievements stem from the long and profound friendship between the two countries and the concerted efforts of both sides. Treating each other with sincerity, the two countries have laid a solid foundation for all-round cooperation with political mutual trust. China and Thailand have always respected each others core interests and major concerns, and supported each other in seeking development paths suitable to their own national conditions. China-Thailand relations have withstood the test of international and regional vicissitudes, and explored a successful path for developing good neighborly ties between countries with different social systems and economic sizes. The leaders of the two states have maintained regular contacts through mutual visits, letters or telephone calls, steering the development of bilateral relations. The two sides have also conducted timely and in-depth communication on major issues through bilateral mechanisms such as strategic dialogues, and therefore, our political mutual trust has been constantly consolidated and deepened. Valuing friendship and good faith, the two sides have been shoulder to shoulder in times of difficulties. China and Thailand always help each other in times of adversity. Whenever natural disasters or major challenges occur, be it the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 or the 2003 SARS pandemic, China and Thailand always provide assistance to each other at the earliest time possible. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has once again highlighted the sincere friendship between the two countries through thick and thin. As the epidemic worsened in Thailand, China took the lead in providing vaccine assistance despite a very tight domestic vaccine supply. A total of 50.85 million doses of Chinese vaccines played an important role in helping Thailand build a timely and effective immunity barrier. Real results-oriented, practical cooperation between the two countries has benefited both peoples. Despite the pandemic, the pragmatic cooperation between the two countries has increased. In 2021, trade volume between China and Thailand reached $131.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 33 percent, and China has been Thailands largest trading partner for nine consecutive years. In recent years, China has remained among the top three sources of Thailands foreign investment, in particular in industries such as e-commerce, 5G communications, rubber, photovoltaic, and new energy vehicles, which have showed remarkable growth in Thailand. And Thailands investment in China has also maintained a sound momentum of growth. The two countries have been deepening their cooperation in infrastructure construction. The China-Thailand Railway project is progressing at a faster pace and will be connected with the China-Laos Railway to form a transport artery running through the Indochina Peninsula. One heart to another, people-to-people and cultural cooperation have helped to forge closer ties between Chinese and Thai citizens. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, China was the largest source of international students in Thailand and each year more than 10 million Chinese tourists visited the country, accounting for more than a quarter of the latters foreign tourists. As the first country to incorporate Chinese language into its national education system, Thailand has millions of Chinese language and culture learners. Chinas excellent films, television and literary works have created waves of enthusiasm in Thailand. Sharing the common vision, the two countries have joined hands to safeguard international and regional peace and development. The Thai side agrees with the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping, actively promotes cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and has made important progress in many aspects. The two states maintain close coordination and cooperation under regional multilateral frameworks such as the Lancang-Mekong and China-ASEAN cooperation mechanisms, work together to safeguard ASEAN centrality in the region and advocate a just and reasonable international order. At the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers Meeting and the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in June this year, the two countries reached many important consensuses on regional cooperation. Thailand fully supports the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative proposed by China, and was invited to attend the High-level Dialogue on Global Development. As the most critical economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, APEC is at a critical phase of development. China firmly supports Thailand in hosting this years Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting and promoting progress in all fields under the APEC framework. The Communist Party of China is expected to convene its 20th National Congress soon. Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi at the core, the Chinese people of all ethnic groups are embarking on a new journey of building a modern socialist country with Chinese characteristics in an all-round way. Chinas implementation of the new development philosophy, construction of a new development paradigm and efforts to achieve high-quality growth are expected to help create a stimulus effect and benefit the social-economic development of countries in the world, especially its neighboring countries. In the context of the repeated resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic and global changes unseen in a century, China and Thailand are facing many common development opportunities and complex objective challenges, and further deepening friendly cooperation has become a strong consensus and aspiration of the two peoples. Not long ago, the two sides agreed to build a China-Thailand community with a shared future, enriching the connotation of China and Thailand are one family in the new era. This bodes well for a better future of bilateral relations and also puts forward new requirements for the two nations. To move toward this great goal and vision, China and Thailand need to further enhance political mutual trust, continue to respect each others core interests and major concerns, and support each other in taking a development path that suits their respective national conditions. The two sides should strengthen exchanges on governance and administration, and implement the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative in Thailand as soon as possible. The two countries should further deepen mutual benefit and win-win results, seek greater synergy between our development strategies, advance the completion of the China-Laos-Thailand railway, create new growth points such as the digital economy and green economy, and constantly expand the achievements of common interests. It is necessary to further pass down our non-governmental friendship, steadily enhance personnel exchanges and people-to-people and cultural cooperation, strengthen friendly contacts between the young people of the two countries, and promote China-Thailand friendship from generation to generation. Both sides should further intensify coordination of international and regional affairs, jointly improve China-ASEAN relations, bolster coordination and cooperation in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, vigorously promote the universal values such as peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom, and work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind. In retracing the past, the future can be known. We believe that China-Thailand relations will surely usher in a brighter future, which will better help facilitate the development of the two countries and benefit the two peoples with the leadership of the heads of our two nations and the joint efforts of the two peoples. The author is the Chinese ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. Contact the editor at [email protected] SOURCE: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ Commentaires via Facebook : Paulo Nasser held a press conference on Thursday in which he gave details of the prosecution's arguments before the start of the trial on the signing of Neymar by Barcelona. "Our lawsuit has two bases. The first is a crime of private corruption. And the second is a crime of fraud in the form of contractual simulation. The real cause of the contracts that Neymar signed with FC Barcelona was to save what they had to pay DIS and Santos, a termination clause of 65 million euros," explained the lawyer. In 2009, DIS secured 40 percent of a future transfer of the player, who had not yet made his professional debut for Santos, in exchange for 2 million euros. But the Brazilian fund's lawyers consider that this pact was breached. "Neymar, with the connivance of his parents, the directors of FC Barcelona and the directors of Santos, betrayed the trust placed in him by the Sonda brothers (owners of DIS)," said Nasser. Barcelona ended up paying 25.17 million to Santos for the player's rights and another 60 million for various concepts to N & N Consultoria Esportiva, the family business run by Neymar's father, but DIS only received 6.8 million, for its 40 percent. Nevertheless, DIS's lawyer believes that "Santos ended up receiving its 55 percent share". "This was done by confidentially agreeing a friendly match with Barcelona for a price of 4.5 million euros and paying 7.9 million euros for a right of first refusal for three players that was never exercised," he added. For this reason, DIS and FAAP (Professional Athletes' Associations of Brazil), who will appear as private prosecutors, are asking for five years in prison for Neymar, a fine for the benefit of the state of 149 million euros and "a disqualification for his profession as a player" for the duration of Neymar's sentence. Rosell and Bartomeu involved They are also asking for five years in prison for Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu (president and vice-president of the club at the time), as well as seven and a half years' disqualification from holding managerial positions and 195 million euros in financial compensation for the benefit of the state. For its part, the Public Prosecutor's Office is asking for five years in prison and a fine of 10 million euros for Sandro Rosell for the crimes of corruption in business and fraud in the signing of Neymar, for whom it is also asking for two years in prison and another 10 million in fines for a crime of corruption in business. On the other hand, it exonerates Josep Maria Bartomeu, who is also the former president of Barcelona, on the understanding that despite signing the allegedly fraudulent contracts to sign the Santos striker between 2011 and 2013, he did not take an active part in the negotiations. Three legal entities will also be tried for their involvement in the case: Barcelona, Santos FC and N&N Consultoria Esportiva, for which the prosecution is seeking fines of 8.4, 7 and 1.44 million euros, respectively. The case over the transfer of Neymar has been going on for years, with several open fronts that have caused numerous legal and financial problems for Barcelona. The case being dealt with by the Barcelona Court is the so-called 'Neymar 2', as 'Neymar 1' culminated in an agreement with the Barcelona court for which the Catalan club paid 5.5 million euros and was convicted of two tax offences, exonerating Rosell and Bartomeu from liability. On May 6, 2023, Charles III will be officially crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey in London. In the meantime, the monarch continues to attend to his agenda and in one of his last official acts he received Liz Truss. In the UK prime minister's visit at Buckingham Palace, a curious moment took place that has gone viral on social media. Charles III's phrase The video was shared by ITV News' Chris Ship on Twitter and it shows Charles III waiting in one of the halls of the royal building. At one point, Truss arrives to have the weekly meeting with the monarch, whom she greets according to the protocol. "Your Majesty, lovely to see you again," Truss said. The scene seems most ordinary, but it is Charles III's sincere and direct response that has made the video viral. "Back again. Dear oh dear. Anyway," said Charles. Among the responses, there are those who defend the spontaneity of Charles III despite his position and those who question his "desire" to exercise his duties after the death of Elizabeth II last September. Be that as it may, the countdown to the coronation of Charles III is already underway. It will be the first coronation to take place in England in more than 70 years. Kate Middleton and Prince William recovered their schedule of activities, after the mourning for the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but now as Prince and Princess of Wales, heirs to the British throne. This implies that they visit the different countries that make up the United Kingdom and have not always been received with all the affection of their subjects. The unpleasant moment for Kate Middleton Prince William and Kate Middleton make cocktails! A few days ago, Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales had an unpleasant moment during her visit, along with her husband in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the first official trip: the royal couple was walking in front of a crowd, when Kate approached to greet a group of women, where she was rebuked by an Irish nationalist citizen, in the community of Carrickfergus, in Belfast. After interacting with the people, a woman in a green jacket, greeted the princess and without letting go of her hand said: "Nice to meet you, but it would be better if it was when you were in your own country" and added: "Ireland belongs to the Irish". The moment was captured on video and went viral on social media. Apparently, the only one who did not notice the situation was Prince William, who was walking several steps ahead. Kate Middleton's hilarous story about her children's reaction to her engagement photo A refined and classy reaction from Kate Middleton After the awkward moment, Middleton simply smiled, let go of the woman's hand and continued waving to the crowd, as a reflection of the role of the royals in the face of the emancipatory currents in the United Kingdom that seek the fragmentation of the country. The reaction of the Princess of Wales was applauded on social networks for the way she handled the situation: "Princess Kate's response was pure elegance and calm", "Always cool and calm", "Princess Kate's response was pure elegance and calm", "Always cool, calm and calm", "She didn't even take a step back, that's why she is 'Kate the Great'", "Kate handled it beautifully, such a serene and charming princess", were some of the comments on Twitter, where initially more than 20 views were generated on Twitter. The island of Ireland has a complicated relationship with the United Kingdom, after having been occupied for hundreds of years. The island was divided in the 20th century and the Republic of Ireland gained independence from the United Kingdom, while Northern Ireland remains part of the union, though there has been growing support in Northern Ireland for discussions about a possible new union with the Republic of Ireland instead. A referendum may come in the near future on the matter. Subsequently, Kate and William continued their tour of Northern Ireland where they made a one-day tour of the region. BEIJING, Oct. 14 -- A landing convoy consisting of PLAN amphibious assault ships Hainan and Guangxi recently conducted a multi-subject assessment on multi-dimensional power projection, underway replenishment at sea, and other subjects in the waters of the South China Sea. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth on Friday said service leaders need to stand up for women online after previously saying that she expects soldiers to stay out of so-called culture wars to avoid the appearance of partisanship. "There has been confusion on an issue where there should be none," Wormuth said on Twitter. "So let me be clear: I expect [Army] leaders to stand up for women--and all Soldiers--who are unduly attacked or disrespected." She continued, "our Soldiers don't hesitate to defend each other in combat & they shouldn't hesitate to defend each other from threats or abuse, whether [in real life] or online. Army leaders, use good judgment online. Keep it professional." Read Next: Is There Sewage in This Carrier's Water? The Navy Doesn't Know. Her statement comes after a weeklong slog for the service of rebukes from soldiers and media attention on the Army's handling of an investigation of Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, which found his conduct online to be inappropriate, according to a copy of the report reviewed by Military.com. The investigation was launched after Donahoe rebutted Fox News' Tucker Carlson for his criticism of women serving in the military, and amid Donahoe's public support for other female soldiers on Twitter. Wormuth's comments Friday are a pivot from her comments at a press conference Monday during which she said the Army needs "a broad appeal" to attract new recruits and that it's critical that the Army remain "apolitical and keeping out of the culture wars." Gen. James McConville, the Armys chief of staff, issued a similar sentiment to Wormuths Friday comments. We have 185,000 women serving in the United States Army with distinction. I expect leaders to do the right thing by them and every member of our team, McConville, the services top officer said in a statement to Military.com. Never forget the trust your Soldiers and the American people have in you to do whats right. Senior Army leaders and the service's public communications apparatus have struggled to walk a tightrope in responding to the inspector general report, with public affairs officials typically barred from discussing such investigations. They also faced widespread criticism from all ranks, blasting the Army for the perception of bending the knee to partisan media and potentially establishing a precedent that could force the service's leaders to not publicly defend women at a time when they were seeing major gains in terms of acceptance in the Army. In March 2021, Carlson blasted the service for allowing women to serve, especially while pregnant. That segment served as a flashpoint for right-wing commentators and some Republican lawmakers to launch what has become a steady stream of criticism that the military and its service members are being "woke," or so fixated on diversity and inclusion that they have abandoned its obligation to warfighting, an allegation for which there is no clear evidence that took hold when President Joe Biden took office. Donahoe rebuked Carlson, tweeting a video of himself reenlisting a female non-commissioned officer saying that the Fox News host "couldn't be more wrong" about women in the service. Army investigators also found Donahoe's friendly relationship with women online was inappropriate. Donahoe frequently interacted with soldiers on Twitter, including women, and often congratulated them for their military accomplishments or offered words of encouragement, a relatively common practice of Army officials who are routinely online, including Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston. None of Donahoe's public interactions listed in the report were sexual, and investigators did not suggest there were any concerns of flirtatious behavior; instead, they claim his interactions online could have given the perception of preferential treatment. "It's tricky with investigations. Legally sharing information is against protocol, but this story has shifted and the Army has struggled to keep up," one Army official with direct knowledge of the situation said on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press on the matter. "There really isn't a playbook here." Military.com interviewed numerous Army officials including civilian staff, senior officers and senior non-commissioned offers on the matter, and most agreed that the situation with Donahoe is a disaster in terms of the perception of the force and that if Donahoe faces any consequences, to include a reduction of rank, the backlash could be enormous. Army officials have tried to respond to the report in the past week, while keeping it at arm's reach, never mentioning Donahoe by name or referencing the report on the record. Yet the narrative quickly evolved into the Army throwing women under the bus. One senior Army officer pointed to Wormuth's comments on Monday as troubling and said that it could easily be perceived that women existing in the service are inherently political and coming to their defense can be partisan. Grinston, speaking Wednesday, also pushed back on the idea that officers should not defend their soldiers. "As a leader you're expected to intervene on behalf of your soldiers. And then it says in parentheses online and in person. It's our policy," Grinston told soldiers at an Army conference in Washington, D.C., referencing the service's command policy. "We need to intervene, and I'm not going to stop doing that, no matter what the venue is." -- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Related: 'The Army Gave a Hunting Permit to Radical Partisans': What a General's Bout with Fox Could Mean for Women SEOUL, South Korea North Korea fired a ballistic missile and 170 rounds of artillery shells early Friday toward the sea and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the Norths recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the Norths capital region at 1:49 a.m. Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters. It was North Koreas 15th missile launch since it resumed testing activities Sept. 25. North Korea said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their dangerous military exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. After the latest missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, South Koreas military said. Observers said it was North Koreas third and most direct violation of the 2018 agreement, which created buffer zones and no-fly areas along their land and sea boundaries to prevent accidental clashes. South Koreas Defense Ministry said it sent North Korea a message asking it not to violate the agreement again. North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries. It was reportedly the first time that North Korean military aircraft have flown that close to the border since 2017. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Koreas provocations are becoming indiscriminative but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. The decision to attack cant be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome, Yoon told reporters. The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North). South Koreas Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Koreas nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seouls first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are largely a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters he supports South Koreas decision to impose the sanctions. Most of the Norths recent weapons tests were ballistic missile launches that are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions. But the North hasnt been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the U.N. over U.S. disputes with Russia regarding its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition. The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. Whatever the intentions are, North Koreas repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said. He said the missile flew on an irregular trajectory a possible reference to describe the Norths highly maneuverable KN-23 weapon modeled on Russias Iskander missile. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan remains ironclad. Other recent North Korean tests included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam; long-range cruise missiles; and a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country. After Wednesdays cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the tests successfully demonstrated his militarys expanding nuclear strike capabilities. He said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Koreas state media. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday that is expected to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing Friday that all related countries should work to prevent tensions from escalating and move toward restarting meaningful talks. North Koreas ongoing testing spree is reminiscent of its 2017 torrid run of missile and nuclear tests that prompted Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump to exchange threats of total destruction. Kim later abruptly entered high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump in 2018 but their negotiations fell apart a year later due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief Kim should be provided in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability. Kim has repeatedly said he has no intentions of resuming nuclear diplomacy. But some experts say he would eventually want to win international recognition of his country as a nuclear state and hold arms control talks with the United State to wrest extensive sanctions relief and other concessions in return for partial denuclearization steps. The urgency of North Koreas nuclear program has grown since it passed a law last month authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations when it may perceive its leadership as under threat. Most of the recent North Korean tests were of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Some analysts say North Koreas possible upcoming nuclear test, its first bomb detonation in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles. These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the U.S. to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats. North Koreas military early Friday said it took unspecified strong military countermeasures in response to South Koreas artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border on Thursday. South Koreas military later confirmed it conducted artillery training at a frontline area but said its drills didnt violate the conditions of the 2018 agreement. Maj. Gen. Kang Ho Pil of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a televised statement that South Korea issued a stern warning to (North Korea) to immediately halt its weapons tests. South Koreas military said it will begin an annual 12-day field training Monday to hone its operational capabilities under various scenarios of North Korean provocations. It said an unspecified number of U.S. troops plan to take part in this years drills. ___ Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report. WASHINGTON The Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces during the war with Russia, a U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions. A Pentagon spokesperson said the Pentagon has been in touch with SpaceX regarding the Starlink system, but declined to answer whether a letter was received or provide any details about the communication and whether it involved the pay issue. Sabrina Singh also would not say to whom any letter may have been sent or when the communications with Musk began. Musk's Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraines communications needs. In addition to the terminals, he tweeted that the company has to create, launch, maintain and replenish satellites and ground stations. CNN was the first to report the Musk request. The Starlink satellite internets vital role in Ukraines defense cannot be overstated. It has, for example, assisted front-line reconnaissance drone operators in targeting artillery strikes on key Russian assets. A senior military official on Friday made it clear that the U.S. believes the system has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide U.S. assessment of the Ukraine battlefield. In response to multiple questions during a briefing, Singh said the Pentagon was working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. "We know that there is this demand and (satellite communications) capability that is needed and we want to be able to ensure that there are stable communication for the Ukrainian forces and for Ukraine. The request from the world's richest man to have the Pentagon take over the hundreds of millions of dollars he says the system is costing comes on the heels of a Twitter war between Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And in tweets overnight Musk referred to the friction, suggesting it may affect his decision to end his company's largesse in funding the systems. In a Twitter exchange last week, Musk argued that to reach peace Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014. He also said Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO. Musk also started a Twitter poll asking whether the will of the people should decide if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia. In a sarcastic response, Zelenskyy posted a Twitter poll of his own asking which Elon Musk do you like more?: One who supports Ukraine or One who supports Russia. Musk replied to Zelenskyy that I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. Andrij Melnyk, the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, responded to Musks original tweet with an obscenity. Its not clear how much of the cost of deploying Starlink satellite uplinks in Ukraine has been covered by U.S. funding. In April, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it had delivered 5,000 of the terminals. The Pentagon had no response to that question. Musks request that the Pentagon begin to pick up the tab comes as the Space Force and Pentagon have been looking at how commercial vendors will play a role in national security. In March, commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James Dickinson said that having many vendors providing needed capabilities, such as Maxars satellite imagery of stalled Russian convoys, has become essential, because it frees up limited military satellite assets to focus on other things. In his tweets, Musk also raised a question that various vendors and the Pentagon are considering as space becomes a more critical part of wartime operations: If a commercial vendor is assisting the U.S. and is targeted, does the U.S. owe it protection? Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder, Musk tweeted. ____ Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report. The waters around the Crimean Peninsula became a lot more dangerous in recent months, with anti-ship missiles sinking Russian flagships, bridges exploding and any other spillover from Russia's disastrous "special operation," which is how Russian President Vladimir Putin insists people call the war in Ukraine. With Ukrainians rapidly taking back lost territory, Russia likely feels the need to keep what's left of its most important military asset, a naval base in Sevastopol, from spontaneously combusting. Before invading Ukraine, Russian state media touted its hypersonic missiles, T-14 Armata tanks and the S-400 missile defense system. To protect Sevastopol, however, Russia isn't relying on its nuclear-powered Poseidon underwater drone; it's using killer dolphins, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. Nothing in the region seems to be safe from Ukrainian weapons. The warship Moskva, formerly the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet before relocating to the sea floor, was hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles closer to the coast of Moldova than Ukraine or Russia in April 2022. The Kerch Bridge connected Russia with Crimea on the far side of the peninsula, hundreds of miles from Ukraine's mainland. The destruction of the Kerch Bridge in October 2022 is a move akin to locking the door to Russian forces outside of the peninsula, while locking the occupiers inside. A logical follow-up, in the eyes of some naval experts, will be depleting the number of Russian defenders in Crimea, most likely through the Sevastopol base. Keeping saboteurs and special operators out of a port or harbor is a difficult job, requiring either constant vigilance or cutting-edge technology. Since technology can only be as cutting edge as the Russian draftee manning the controls, vigilance is the key. What could be better than an animal who never really loses consciousness, even while sleeping? U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) MARK 7 Marine Mammal System bottlenose dolphin places a marking device in the vicinity of an exercise sea mine in Southern California during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise. (U.S. Navy) Recent satellite imagery revealed what appears to be dolphin pens near the installation. This wouldn't be a first for Russia, as the Crimean pens are similar to ones used by Russia's navy in the Syrian port of Tartus. Russia isn't even the first country to weaponize sea life. The United States, North Korea and Israel also use trained dolphins to protect critical bases. Read: Militarized Dolphins Protect a Quarter of US Nuclear Stockpile The U.S. Navy not only uses dolphins but also enlists sea lions to detect undersea mines and search out combat divers infiltrating the waters around American bases. Russia has used dolphins and a number of other animals for the same protections since the days of the Soviet Union, including seals and beluga whales. One of those beluga whales likely appeared off the coast of Norway in 2019, wearing a harness meant to mount a GoPro camera. Like any other Russian conscript, the whale escaped its captivity and fled the Russian military, looking for help elsewhere in Europe. No one is certain how the Ukrainian military managed to detonate the Kerch Bridge, with speculation ranging from sabotage to long-range missiles and stealth boats to special operations divers. While there's not much a bottlenose dolphin can do against a long-range missile, they are widely accepted as credible protection from combat divers. In fact, they may be the best protection. -- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook. Want to Learn More About Military Life? Whether you're thinking of joining the military, looking for post-military careers or keeping up with military life and benefits, Military.com has you covered. Subscribe to Military.com to have military news, updates and resources delivered directly to your inbox. While the Navy was dealing with the fallout of jet fuel-contaminated water aboard one of its aircraft carriers, another carrier was at sea and struggling with a totally different drinking water contamination -- E. coli. Several videos posted by sailors from aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln show bottles of water that are clouded and have brown or gray particles floating inside. In one video, a sailor narrates: "look at the film on top." On Sept. 22, after reports from sailors about cloudy water, tests on the ship identified E. coli in the water supply. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that E. coli contamination in municipal water supplies is commonly caused by sewage or animal waste. Military.com asked the Navy whether the ship's sewage system was responsible for the issue. Cmdr. Zachary Harrell, a spokesman for the commander of Naval Air Forces, said that "there is a thorough root-cause analysis ongoing to determine the exact cause of the contamination." Read Next: 'Instructed Not To Call 911': Report Reveals Confusion, Failure and Fear in SEAL Candidate Death In a statement released Thursday, the Navy acknowledged that on Sept. 21, sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln discovered "an odor and cloudy appearance in the ship's potable water while operating off the coast of Southern California." The next day, shipboard tests showed that E. coli bacteria was present in three of the ship's 26 potable water tanks. In the statement the Navy said that "safe water is a priority that all Sailors take extremely seriously and the crew immediately took action to shift water tanks," but videos shot aboard the ship of the commanding officer paint a picture of a leader sending mixed messages amid an uncertain situation to a skeptical crew. "There are all kinds of rumors floating around the ship about what is in the water," the ship's commanding officer, Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt, can be heard addressing the crew via the ship-wide announcement system, known as the 1MC, during one of four undated videos posted online. She then noted that she had in front of her a bottle "of exactly what everyone was talking about" before immediately explaining that she "purposely" took a shower the night before and explained that it "was marvelous." "I even tasted the water," she said before explaining it was "good to go." According to the timeline provided by the Navy, it took just one day -- until Sept. 22 -- for shipboard testing to determine that there was E. coli bacteria in three of the ship's water tanks. In a different video that seemingly was shot after the confirmation of the contamination, Bauernschmidt tells her crew "before anybody starts freaking out ... E. coli is an extremely common bacteria." "Matter of fact, every single person on this ship has it in their digestive system right now," the captain went on while sailors captured in the video listening to the announcement can be heard in the background loudly protesting -- "that's not how that works!" In another video, Bauernschmidt again cast the bacterial contamination as indeterminate by noting that the ship "found the problem, if there is probably -- again, E. coli can be good or bad." While there are harmless E. coli strains found in nature, the bacteria is also connected to severe illness and even death. Harrell, the spokesman for the commander of Naval Air Forces, confirmed that the videos depict "some of the many 1MC announcements that Capt. Bauernschmidt made to the crew shortly after the odor and cloudiness in the water was detected." "These are the efforts of a commanding officer trying to keep her crew informed to the best of her ability on the status of testing and inspections of the potable water as additional information and test results were coming in," Harrell added. The carrier returned from a seven-month deployment to the Pacific in August. It was Bauernschmidt's first deployment with the ship and a historic milestone since she is the first woman to command an aircraft carrier. She also previously served aboard the Lincoln as the ship's second-in-command. Word had already spread among the crew of the issues another carrier in the fleet, the USS Nimitz, was having with jet fuel in its water. That situation also made its way to the public through social media posts, but the Navy was quick to declare the matter resolved -- only to reverse course over the ensuing days as the contamination continued to persist and reports of illnesses trickled in. Bauernschmidt seemingly addresses that concern in another of the undated videos that would appear to have been shot before the positive E. coli test. "I can say with as much certainty as anything I can: it is not JP5," Bauernschmidt said, using the Navy's abbreviation for jet fuel. She told the ship that "the water I was getting -- I literally can't see, taste anything" before admitting that "everyone on the bridge is looking at a water bottle with me" that "is cloudy and personally tastes like saltwater to me." In another video, Bauernschmidt also admits she's not sure what the contaminant is, but that it's "not JP5 right now ... I just know it's not a bacteria." The Navy's statement claims that "the odor and cloudiness in the water abated by Sept. 22" and that the presence of E. coli "was not related to the reports of odor and cloudiness." Two days later -- Sept. 24 -- the ship sent samples off to be analyzed by an outside lab. Those results came back on Sept. 26 and, according to the statement, showed "the water was within drinking water standards for pH, turbidity, aluminum, copper, lead, sodium, and hardness." In one of the videos, Bauernschmidt explains that the ship got "lab results back." She says that "they were all negative" before immediately saying that "there were two that were inconclusive, which meant ... they couldn't 100% tell for 100% certainty that there wasn't something in there but definitely negative for JP5." The ship ultimately pulled back into port on Oct. 3, and the Navy says that "since that time, the ship has been connected to the San Diego water supply." Furthermore, the sea service says that "the affected water tanks remain isolated and will be deep-cleaned and inspected during the ship's ongoing maintenance period." In Thursday's statement about the Lincoln, the Navy also said "free bottled water was made available to the crew" after the contamination was revealed and that "there have been no confirmed cases of illness related to the ship's water." -- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin. Related: Sailors Were Sickened by Fuel-Tainted Water on Nimitz Carrier, Navy Says Kate Marsh Lord is the communications director for Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan nonprofit aimed at mobilizing military spouses to vote and advocate on issues that impact their communities. A proud Air Force spouse and mother of three, she currently lives in South Carolina. The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration. On the surface, Michigan's new Uniformed Service Member Absentee Ballot Act is an important step, easing the state and local absentee voting process for military members. But dig a little deeper, and it becomes a slap in the face to military spouses and dependents. That's because rather than extend the rule to make it easy for those family members who often also absentee vote, Michigan state Sen. Ruth Johnson objected to a measure to do so because those families aren't "in foxholes," she said. This law is a stark reminder of a misunderstanding of the sacrifices of military families. Michigan is now the only state in the country to deliberately omit military spouses and their dependents from electronic signature eligibility during absentee voting. The law, signed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this week, allows eligible members of the military to use verified electronic signatures to submit their absentee ballot for state and local elections, beginning in 2024. The aim of the legislation is to securely ease the voting process for service members, who we know are 27% less likely to vote than their civilian counterparts. When the bill was debated on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Adam Hollier, a combat veteran, proposed an amendment to the bill to extend equal inclusion for military spouses and eligible dependents. "As you all know, and especially those who serve in the military understand, when you sign up like I did, it is not just you who serves in the military, but your entire family. I believe that we should include our entire family -- spouses and dependents -- in that protection when they are deployed overseas to ensure that they can cast their ballots on time and not miss the opportunity to vote," Hollier said in his statement to the state legislature. But the bill's sponsor, Johnson, objected to Hollier's amendment to include spouses and family members. "Spouses and dependents are not in foxholes, or on military ships, or in barracks. Again, I request a "no" vote on this amendment," she argued. After her statement, the amendment to include spouses and dependents in the new rule was voted down and ultimately not included. The bill was signed into law this week. Spouses and military dependents of voting age stationed overseas or away from the state in which they are registered to vote face the same voting obstacles as uniformed military members, something I know from personal experience. I am the spouse of an active-duty airman who has served for 22 years, including a total of 10 years when our family was stationed overseas on accompanied tours. But during this entire time, my husband has never served in a foxhole or on a military ship or in a barracks. Johnson's interpretation of qualifying military service is outdated, disrespectful and completely detached from the reality of today's military service. The state of Michigan's deliberate refusal to extend equal voting privileges to Michigan military families stationed overseas is an insult to all those who serve -- both active-duty troops and their dependents. MIlitary spouses and family members make untold and unrecognized sacrifices to support our loved ones in uniform. Equal access to voting should not be one of them. In fact, according to the Defense Department, 50% of active-duty service members are married and 92% of active-duty spouses are women. Omitting spouses from this legislation disproportionately cuts women out of the local electoral process. The new Michigan does not prevent military spouses and overseas dependents from voting via other means. Our federal rights are protected by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act. But the Michigan legislature took the disappointing step of intentionally excluding spouses from a bill that would make it easier for us because we're not in "foxholes." Military spouses and dependents face enough barriers to voting that it is extremely disappointing to see lawmakers create an arbitrary roadblock. If nothing else, watching the discourse and vote surrounding this legislation is a reminder that we must carefully research and vet every candidate and issue on our ballots. Every vote from local government to federal office can impact us. It's vital we overcome the challenges and barriers to voting and make our voices heard - whether we're voting in our home state or from a foxhole on the other side of the world. Military.com has compiled a list of Veterans Day discounts on restaurants, goods, services and events for 2022. Click below to search for discounts by category. Visit daily as the list is updated frequently! Popular Veterans Day Restaurant Discounts White Castle -- Veterans and active-duty military get a free Combo Meal or Breakfast Combo Meal when dining at a participating restaurant on November 11 . -- Veterans and active-duty military get a free Combo Meal or Breakfast Combo Meal when dining at a participating restaurant on . Hooters -- Active-duty military and veterans get a free entree from the Hooters Veterans Day Menu with purchase of a beverage on November 11 . -- Active-duty military and veterans get a free entree from the Hooters Veterans Day Menu with purchase of a beverage on . Chili's -- Veterans and active-duty service members get a free meal from a select menu on November 11. See All Veterans Day Restaurant Offerings Popular Veterans Day Retail Discounts AARP -- AARP salutes you for your service to our country with a special membership offer. -- AARP salutes you for your service to our country with a special membership offer. Vitamin Shoppe -- From November 10 to 13, veterans receive a 25% discount on their entire purchase at any in-store location of The Vitamin Shoppe and Super Supplements. -- From veterans receive a 25% discount on their entire purchase at any in-store location of The Vitamin Shoppe and Super Supplements. Sport Clips -- On November 11, participating locations will provide free haircuts to veterans and active-duty service members with valid proof of service. See All Veterans Day Retail Offerings Popular Veterans Day Travel & Recreation Discounts National WWI Museum and Memorial -- Admission is free for veterans and active-duty military personnel, November 11 through 13 . -- Admission is free for veterans and active-duty military personnel, . Akron Zoo -- Veterans, past and current, receive free admission with valid military ID, and immediate family members receive 50% off admission, November 9 through 13. -- Veterans, past and current, receive free admission with valid military ID, and immediate family members receive 50% off admission, November 9 through 13. True REST Float Spa -- Active-duty military members and veterans get a free 60-minute float therapy session on the 11th of every month, including November 11. All spa locations will close on Veterans Day to the public to serve service members. See All Veterans Day Travel & Recreation Discounts All of the Veterans Day discounts featured by Military.com have been confirmed, either through press release or direct communication with the company. Keep in mind that to access your Veterans Day discounts most businesses require proof of military service. What identification do you need to prove that you're a veteran? If youre an active duty military member, reservist member of the National Guard or military retiree, the easiest way to access Veterans Day discounts is to use your military ID card. For veterans who receive Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health benefits, the VA benefits photo ID card should serve as easy proof of veteran status at most businesses. If you dont have a VA benefits card, the VA can provide you with a Veterans ID Card. Rolled-out in 2017, the Veterans ID Card program allows all honorably discharged veterans to apply for online and receive by mail a card meant to function as proof of service. While not an official form of government ID, most businesses accept it as proof of service. Learn more about getting a Veterans ID Card. Some states include veteran status on their state ID cards and drivers licenses, offering another ID card option for veterans looking to show businesses proof that they served. Related: Learn more about state veterans benefits And, if all else fails, most businesses will accept a copy of your DD-214 as proof of service. Note: Not all franchise locations participate in their national chain's Veterans Day programs -- be sure to contact your nearest establishment to make sure they are participating. Related: Related: Veterans - experience the benefits of a VA Loan. Start your quote today. The same bloodshed, political upheaval, egregious corruption, and insecurity that have struck Ghana, are also being felt by the ambassadors, also known as diplomats, who are there to represent their countries in Ghana. Even while it is unconstitutional for a diplomat representing a nation abroad to criticize the administration of that country, that doesn't mean they are ignorant of the situation there. Even worse, it is shameful to claim that foreign diplomats in Ghana are better knowledgeable about current events and the factors contributing to crime, corruption, and political turmoil, than people who were born and raised in Ghana. In their embassies, foreign ambassadors build relationships in certain governance sectors; but events occurring in the nation are secretly being monitored. Foreign ambassadors are not considered to be spies, but they are aware of Ghana's weak judicial system, which is to blame for the country's high levels of crime and anarchy. They are aware of the NPP government's goals and the honesty or dishonesty of Ken Ofori Atta, the Finance Minister, and other Ghanaian politicians. They are aware of the whereabouts of the money taken from Ghana, but they can't inform Ghanaians. Despite the deafening noise they made about fighting corruption, cutting taxes, and improving life for regular Ghanaians, it is a great embarrassment for the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo Addo, and the entire NPP government to wreck Ghana's future in such a dreadful way. One characteristic of the vast majority of Ghanaian politicians is that many of them don't just think like humans. They also have no shame in what they do, since their motivation for entering politics is to amass a fortune. If Akufo Addo is a competent and wise leader, he should never forget that foreign diplomats are based in my nation; as a result, I must ferociously combat corruption if I want to be taken seriously. He lacks that mentality because he can't do without corruption. The advanced nations, where African leaders frequently travel for vacations and medical appointments, were formerly underdeveloped like Ghana, but they employ their intelligence and the execution of efficient laws to rule their country. That doesn't imply that crime isn't common in developed nations; it is, but it is under control thanks to a strong judicial system. People like Charles Bissue, Paul Adom-Otchere, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, John Boadu, Ernest Owusu Bempah, Kennedy Agyapong, Hopeson Adorye, Eugene Arhin, and many others involved in serious corruption and crime scandals, are still in the NPP government because everyone, including foreign diplomats, know that Ghana is a peaceful nation and they love God, therefore, political criminals can enjoy impunity without going to prison. Thats part of the reason this government has rapidly collapsed. Today's political developments in Ghana are so reprehensible that I occasionally feel ashamed of myself. Not because I'm from Ghana, but the fact that these diplomats view many of our politicians as a laughing stock, makes me feel ashamed. They don't care about the poor people. They are only engaged in the politics of amassing wealth. What even makes me sick is any time I hear that the NPP government speaks about winning or breaking the 8th cycle in 2024. Foreign diplomats probably frequently inquire if these Ghanaian politicians are normal because they are aware of the quality of foreign politics. Foreign politicians never even broach the subject of ending the eighth cycle or anything like that. Because a political party wants to hold onto power for a long period, they compete with one another to provide the finest service possible to the public. That is why a laborer in Europe or America has a job, a home, and a good car to get him to and from work. People talk about Ghana not just because it is a peaceful country but also because they are aware that the unscrupulous Chinese invasion and illicit mining are made possible by the weak government, which also permits corruption. More significantly, they choose crooked and criminal politicians to represent the people. Even though the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, claims that he is not corrupt, he has appointed Eugene Arhin, Paul Adom-Otchere, Charles Bissue, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, etc. to serve Ghanaians despite their significant involvement in corruption scandals, and none of them are intelligent because intelligent people will resign. If these ambassadors are working at their desks in Ghana, do you know what they think of our leaders? They are aware that most Ghanaians and politicians are naive idiots, who believe that turning to the International Monetary Fund can revive the country's economy although they were unable to accomplish anything with their wealth of gold, diamonds, bauxite, oil, cocoa, and other natural resources. Although sad, this is the situation. Debt does not advance a nation; rather, it retards a nation, therefore the NPP government's assertion that our economy would start to advance once they approach the International Monetary Fund is pure wishful thinking. In actuality, corruption will waste every dollar that comes from a foreign nation or the world bank. What would IMF aid accomplish if, despite Ghana's abundant resources, this administration had brought on such a severe economic catastrophe? When the diplomats representing their countries gather, they frequently discuss the unrest, insecurity, crime, and corruption that have afflicted the country. Foreign diplomats serve their countries in Ghana, but they are more effective at it than Ghanaian politicians are. I'm confident that many Ghanaians, even those politicians who are only interested in personal wealth, are unaware that one of an ambassador's most significant responsibilities is to inform his country of any political and economic developments taking place in the host nation. They write detailed reports to report on external developments, especially in the area of trade policy. They will alert their country whether Ghana is ready for investment and warn them if it is not. They act in this manner because they are knowledgeable individuals who will stop at nothing to safeguard their compatriots' assets in Ghana. Consider how many financial institutions have collapsed in Ghana. Imagine the number of dishonest politicians, judges, and journalists who continue to serve the nation without being put behind bars. Imagine individuals, such as Nam 1 and Agradaa; who have defrauded others, yet they are being protected by the law. Consider how Aisha Huang, a criminal from China, is being defended and protected by the government rather than being charged and imprisoned. Foreign diplomats are aware of all these issues, therefore, they warn their citizens. A diplomat works harder than even African politicians; he is not just a man in a coat and tie for no reason. In order to maintain good relations between the host nation and their country of origin, ambassadors perform their duties in a diplomatic manner. Although they don't frequently meddle in the affairs of other governments, this does not imply that they are unaware of what is going on behind them. Many Ghanaians were unaware that Akufo Addo had embezzled $330 million of the $430 million the World Bank had given Ghana until the World Bank refuted the NPP government's assertion that the World Bank gave only $100 million. Diplomats' secrets should not be taken lightly. They report to their governments, and one of their secrets is to make sure that no one can read them. Foreign ambassadors' presence in Ghana ought to have served as a kind of caution to politicians to act honorably and refrain from corruption, but who cares? The deterioration of Ghana's judiciary is to blame for the rise in crime because no one from the country's elite is put in jail. However, things are moving so quickly in that nation that dishonest politicians, judges, and journalists will one day laugh at the wrong side of their mouths when they find themselves behind bars. Anas is making a powerful comeback, as I mentioned in my recent post, and this time, no politician who is implicated in a corruption issue will get off scot-free. No rational Ghanaian should waste his time backing the NPP administration if it doesn't apprehend them, including previous corrupt officials without imprisoning them. The success of Europe and America would not have occurred if corrupt leaders were not imprisoned. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has directed that henceforth no mining concession or license should be granted to any applicant, unless the paramount chief of the area is formally consulted to seek his input. Additionally, the regional ministers and metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) of that particular jurisdiction should also be formally consulted to bring their views to bear on the granting of mining concessions to any individual or company. In view of the Presidents directive, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Samuel Abu Jinapor, has issued a Ministerial Fiat to the Minerals Commission to halt all processes leading to the recommendation for granting of mining concessions and licences until the Commission has sought the inputs of the authorities. Mr Jinapor announced this at a media briefing in Accra on Thursday to update the public on new measures being implemented by the Government to combat illegal small-scale mining, otherwise known as galamsey. The directive had become necessary to ensure the traditional and local authorities played a central role in the fight against illegal small-scale mining, which had wreaked havoc on the environment and water bodies. When the President met the National House of Chiefs in Kumasi recently, the chiefs raised concerns about being sidelined in the issuance of mining licences and granting of concessions to individuals. Therefore, whenever there was illegal mining within their traditional areas, they had no power to stop it because they did not play any meaningful part in the granting of the licences. Mr Jinapor said with the enforcement of the Ministerial Fiat, traditional rulers and MMDCEs would play a central role in the fight against galamsey. He highlighted a gamut of measures implemented by the Government to stop the galamsey menace; procurement of speed boats to patrol rivers, training of river guards, forest reserves declared as red zones for mining, and distribution of mercury free gold processing machines (gold kachas) to small-scale miners. Others are collaboration between the Lands Ministry and the Attorney-Generals Office to prosecute illegal miners, both Ghanaians and foreigners; rolling out Community Mining Schemes for local people, recruitment and engagement of about 80,000 people for alternative livelihood programme, frequent operations by the military (Operation Halt) to mining sites to arrest and burn excavators belonging to illegal miners, and setting up 83 district mining committees to oversee mining at the district level. Operation Halt II campaign has also been launched, spearheaded by the Military High Commands in the southern, middle and northern belts, which would be sustained until galamsey was brought to the minimal. The government has, therefore, allocated significant funds and logistics to the new military operation, Mr Jinapor stated, and called for collaboration with stakeholders and a change of attitude by all to help fight the menace. He said the media should constantly educate the public on the dangerous consequences of galamsey such as kidney diseases and buruli ulcers affecting inhabitants in the mining areas. Mr Jinapor pledged the unflinching support of the President and the Ministry towards fighing the menace, with integrity and transparency without shielding anyone, irrespective of ones political affiliation or standing in society. GNA 13.10.2022 LISTEN Today, we are proud to have launched our Spotlight on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning: Ghana. This report, conducted in collaboration with UNESCOs Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), provides comprehensive, candid, and invaluable insights into our education system here in Ghana, with the 2022 Born to Learn Report, which will be launched on 20 October 2022, providing a more detailed view drawing on countries across the continent. We welcome the completion and publication of this report especially given that foundational learning is the bedrock of our educational transformation here in Ghana. The report marks a cornerstone in the development of education in Ghana, synthesising evidence, data, and contextually relevant research to guide and unite our progress toward a fulfilling, thorough education for all learners one that allows children to have the opportunity to realise their place in Ghanaian society, through the countrys provision of accessible, high-quality education for all learners. Solutions to the challenges we currently face in achieving this ambitious, though entirely possible feat, are identified throughout the report, offering a unique opportunity to transform our education system, and improve learning outcomes throughout the country. Over the last decade, Ghana has made great strides in the advancement of its education system. In 2017, we launched our Education Strategic Plan 20182030, which represented a landmark shift in the way education is structured. The plan oversaw the introduction of free secondary education for all learners, leading to an increase in students from 800,000 at the time of implementation, to 1.3 million at present. This figure is ever-growing. However, the focus extended far beyond access and included reforming the school structure, developing National Standards for teachers, and preparing and rolling out a new standards-based curriculum. It is clear that students who are encouraged to think independently rather than repeating what teachers have said, attain better learning outcomes. The recently developed guidelines to accompany the National Teachers Standards are helping teachers understand what is expected of them and should enable them to lead in such a way that learners can enjoy the freedom of critical thinking within the classroom. As a result, students can expect a communicative, collaborative, and creative style of teaching which provides them with skills that are hugely beneficial to the development of their education. While considerable efforts across the country have already been made in the pursuit of high-quality education for all learners, with 77% of second-grade students still unable to read a single word and many schools reporting a lack of textbooks, the advice provided by the Spotlight Report on Ghana is fundamental to the continued improvement of learning outcomes. The report focuses particularly on methods of developing teacher quality and the importance of providing structured support (including teaching and learning materials) to both teachers and to school leaders, a journey we have already started on. Over the last few years, the Ghana Education Service introduced the concept of weekly professional learning community sessions in schools in which teachers meet to discuss teaching styles and have the opportunity to share ideas on how to best implement the reforms of new curricula. The report highlights how those schools who have established regular professional learning community sessions tend to perform better than those that do not and recommends implementation of this initiative in all schools across the country, something that we are committed to doing. Furthermore, we have extended the length of teacher-training qualifications from three to four years. This will allow teachers to better acquaint themselves with effective and efficient learning styles, which they can adopt when they enter the classroom. We are also establishing a National Education Institute which will provide leadership training for all basic schools linked to our education leadership framework. In recent years, Ghana has made bold commitments in the pursuit of quality education for all learners. Dedicated efforts across the community have the potential to transform education outcomes for Ghanaians across the country. Much remains to be done to achieve this, but the clarity of analysis and evidence-informed recommendations provided by the Spotlight Report on Ghana are critical in making this attainable. As part of the International Day of the Girl Child celebrations, media personality Doreen Avio took time off her busy schedule to interact with some young girls in a basic school in Accra. The host of Lets Talk Showbiz on the Joy News channel paid a visit to the Luom Presbyterian Basic School at the Shai Osudoku District in the Greater Accra Region to talk to them about the importance of education. International Day of the Girl Child is an international observance day declared by the United Nations on October 11, 2012. The observation supports more opportunities for girls and increases awareness of gender inequality faced by girls worldwide based on their gender. This inequality includes areas such as access to education, nutrition, legal rights, medical care, protection from discrimination, violence against women, and forced child marriage. On this day, Doreen Avio through her DoreenAvio Foundation in partnership with the school support program (SSP) visited students in JHS 3 who were set to write their BECE. During the visit, Doreen interacted with the headmaster and his deputy to find out some of the challenges of the school, which include desks for their classrooms, washrooms, students having to walk long distances with some of them coming to school on empty stomachs, after which the students gathered under a shed for the talk. The host of Matter Dey on Hitz FM also used the opportunity to educate the students on the importance of education and encouraged them to take their studies seriously. She also advised them to stay away from sex and focus more on their books. The students who were so excited about the conversations asked questions about how they can further their education if their parents didnt have the funds, and how to stay away from each other to avoid sexual relationships. After the question and answer sections, there were some refreshments and distribution of sanitary pads for the girls since the price of sanitary pads has gone up, young girls in these areas might not be able to afford them. The teachers and students thanked Doreen for her kind gesture and appealed to her to visit them more often and also call on organisations to also support them. Doreen Avio who was excited about the visit also thanked them, however, she is calling on organizations, NGOs to help support young girls in rural areas. h Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has entreated the contractor working on the Agenda 111 hospital project at Gwollu in the Upper West Region to endeavour to complete the work on schedule. He said the difficulty in accessing timely and quality healthcare services by many communities in the area informed the decision by the Government to embark on the project. Dr Bawumia said this at Gwollu in the Sissala West District during his visit to the district to interact with the chiefs and elders and inspect the progress of work. We have over 90 districts in Ghana without district hospitals after 65 years of independence, he said. The hospital in Sissala West would help bridge the gap and provide health care for most of people. The Vice President assured the chiefs and people of the government's resolve to address their concerns on healthcare, education and security among others. On education, he directed the management of the Gwollu Senior High School to take stock of the needs of the school to enable the Ministry of Education to properly address them. Vice President Bawumia said since coming into office, the Akufo-Addo-led Government had completed 29 E-blocks inherited from the previous administration to improve access to secondary education. He assured of the completion of the abandoned Zini E-block to enhance access to education, adding: I will be your messenger to the GETFund to get it on course. One of the problems is the road issue in the Sissala area, and I don't need anybody to tell me about it, he said, and the government was working hard to get it fixed. We are here to get a better understanding of the problem and I promise that something will be done to address them to provide relief for the people. Kuoro Kuri Buktie Limann IV, the Paramount Chief of the Gwollu Traditional Area, mentioned challenges in health, water, education, security, and the need for a magistrate court for Gwollu and appealed to the Vice President to intervene. GNA 14.10.2022 LISTEN I have followed the Agradaa money doubling scam since it started and I cant help but share my opinion. Anytime, I watch her videos on social media including the recent court proceedings I cant help but to think to myself: This woman got guts and strength I remember the day when the police broke the news that Agradaa has been arrested, there were people on social media already with a free Agradaa campaign to some of those people, it was not her fault that people felt they had been duped. Agradaa, (aka) Evangelist Mama Pat, herself came out with a video explaining that all what was happening was just a plot to attack her thriving ministry. She explained that like every other church, she only raised funds during her said All night service and the people who were complaining were only people planted in her church to destroy her. I cant help but to admire her wit and strength as she moves in and out of court, how she sings out loudly especially knowing that camera lenses are on her baffles me. However, a few questions continue to play on my mind, is it that the people that trooped her church on the night of the said All night service are gullible? What really could have informed their decision to subscribe to a so-called money doubling scheme in church? Were they believing in instant miracle? Or what actually was their motivation for going to get double the money they had, when the Bible itself says that You cannot reap where you have not sown or they had seen another version of the Bible. Ghanaians like free, someone said, people troop to anywhere free is promised but in advanced economies, a lot of the people understand that there is no free lunch. I mean how were the people expecting that their monies could be doubled, or they probably thought that the miracle of the five loaves of bread and two fishes which was multiplied to feed thousands was going to be repeated in Ghana? Well. As someone said I cant think far. There is another Ghanaian parable translated to mean we do not light a lamp to watch a person we already know we all know the Agradaa of yesterday who used to perform the sika gari miracle while she was a fetish, and yet sigh! Anyway, what I have been thinking to myself is that if we had such bold and strong personalities with the kind of guts and tenacity who stood for righteousness, honestly and modelled good behavior, Ghana would have been a little more developed than it is now. As it is in Ghana, even if someone is pursuing a worthy cause and wants monetary support to do that, the person gets very little support. Without sounding political, how many Christians have supported the building of the cathedral? Especially when majority of Christians are familiar with the scripture which says that it is more blessed to give than to receive. This does not mean that I support what Agradaa did, not in anyway, it is not good to dupe people no matter how vulnerable they may be, but to me it seems that there is a little bit of Agradaa scattered all over Ghana. Many people do not think twice when they get an opportunity to make money off their fellow Ghanaian or put one down to enable them rise up. Why do we do this to ourselves and why are a lot of people ready to sacrifice human values and morality on the money making Altar. I am not here to judge anyone but just to point out that I wish there were about 200 people with the kind of strength that Agradaa displays, but who stood for righteousness, honesty, humility, knowledge, respect and all the good virtues you can think of. That said I really admire Agradaas strength. The Savannah Regional Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Inusah Abdulai has urged delegates of the party to root for competent leaders as the party readies itself to form the next government. In a declaration of intent, he disclosed that the task ahead of the NDC in 2024 was daunting since it was incumbent on the party to rescue Ghanaians from the untold hardship unleashed by the super incompetent NPP government. "Dear delegates and comrades, the task ahead of the party in 2024 for the seek of emphasis is onerous and having served this great party in various capacities and now as Regional Organizer,I have gathered enough experience in grassroot mobilization to continue in the resilient path of rallying the wishes and aspirations of the rank and file of the party for a consolidated victory. "By the grace of God and with your prayers,I wish to notify that I have successfully picked nomination forms to rerun for the position of Regional Organizer for the Savannah Region in the forthcoming Regional Delegate Congress," he stated. He used the occasion to congratulate the party and all branch executives for successful branch elections and to wish all constituency executive aspirants the very best of luck in the impending constituency executive elections, stressing that, "the great NDC will emerge victorious, stronger and ever united in the final analysis". In a renewed spirit, the Regional Organizer said his dream is to continue the good work he started in properly reorganizing the base of the party towards rescuing Ghana from the failed NPP government, adding that, "I have diligently served in the mandate you gave me by touching the base of every constituency and branch of our region with the required resources, even in challenging times just to ensure the success of the party. I enjoyed working tirelessly with you and can't rest now until our collective mission of recapturing power from the super incompetent NPP government is accomplished". He pledged to bring on board positive energy, renewed hope for the grassroots beyond 2024, transparency in leadership, and mobilised every energy and resource needed to ensure victory 2024. 13.10.2022 LISTEN The National Democratic Congress (NDC) needs to perfect its strategy to win the 2024 elections, Mr Sunday Casper Kampoli, a Deputy Communications Officer of the party, Upper East Region, has said. He said the ruling New Patriotic Party was determined to win power at all costs despite its underwhelming performance in office. I, therefore, entreat you to give me your mandate to build and lead a robust, strategic and purposeful political communications outfit to help make the Agenda 15/15 a reality, he said. The Agenda 15/15 was a target set by the regional branch of the NDC in the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections to win all 15 parliamentary seats in the Upper East Region. Currently, it has 14 out of the 15 seats. Mr Kampoli said this in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga to declare his intention to contest as the substantive Regional Communications Officer of the NDC. He said after several months of thorough and wide consultations within the region and across the country, he decided to pick the form to contest the position. Comrades, for the past four years that I have served you in the capacity as your Deputy Communications Officer, I have led an army of communicators across the 15 constituencies to project the NDC and its superior record in the Upper East Region. Mr Kampoli said he effectively communicated the life-changing policies in the NDC Manifesto to the people, which contributed to the impressive performance in the 2020 elections, winning 14 seats out of the 15 parliamentary seats in the region. He said through a weekly panelling of communicators, he built a regional communications bureau with membership across all 15 constituencies. My team of committed and eloquent communicators was always at hand to expose the ineptitude and corruption going on in the country, he said. Under the leadership and tutelage of Sammy Gyamfi (Esq,) the NDC National Communications Officer, he (Kampoli) had the privilege of participating in several political communications workshops and seminars to build his capacity for the position, he said. GNA Ghana and four other ECOWAS member countries have benefited from a USD 250 million fund from the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID). The rest of the beneficiary countries are Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The Board of Directors of EBID approved the fund to boost sectors like oil & gas, energy, road infrastructure and agriculture of member States. The approvals are part of the intensified efforts by EBID to invest in key sectors to spur up post-COVID pandemic recovery and mitigate the impact of the Russian Ukraine war on the Member States of ECOWAS. This was disclosed in a release by Dr George Agyekum Donkor, the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, at the just ended 79th session of the Board of Directors of the Bank. Dr Donkor observed that the impact of the COVID pandemic and the ongoing Russian Ukraine war have left many economies in tatters. He indicated that the current market conditions have compelled investors to seek premium on investments in sub-Saharan Africa thereby increasing the cost of capital. According to the President of EBID, this has resulted in dampening economic growth, the wide-spread balance of payments deficits, unfavourable terms of trade, depletion of central bank international reserves, fiscal deficits, and debt distress. Dr Donkor stressed the need for EBID, as the financial arm of ECOWAS, to deepen its financial inter-mediation in all the critical sectors of the Member States to assist them to recover from the economic challenges. Present at the session was Damtien L. Tchintchibidja, the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, who lauded the tremendous impact of EBIDs interventions in the sub-region and assured the Bank of the commitment of the new administration of the ECOWAS Commission to collaborate and support EBID in its multifarious activities especially in the area of resource mobilisation to transform the ECOWAS Communities. EBID is a leading regional investment and development bank, owned by the 15 ECOWAS Member States, namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote dIvoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Based in Lome, Togolese Republic, the Bank is committed to financing developmental projects and programs covering diverse initiatives from infrastructure and basic amenities, rural development and environment, industry, and social services sectors, through its private and public sector windows. EBID intervenes through long, medium, and short-term loans, equity participation, lines of credit, refinancing, financial engineering operations and related services. Zimbabwean authorities and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) should investigate the assaults and harassment of journalists covering events of public interest in the past week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. The increasing cases of violence against journalists in Zimbabwe is becoming a serious source of concern and must be strongly condemned, said Angela Quintal, CPJs Africa program coordinator, in New York. Press freedom violations and the rising impunity for crimes against journalists should not be tolerated as the country prepares for a general election in 2023. Between Thursday, October 6, and Monday, October 10, five journalists were assaulted, briefly detained, and prevented from covering events by police, ZANU-PF activists, and suspected government agents from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO): On Thursday, October 6, in Mbare, a suburb south of the capital Harare, police assaulted NewsDay reporter Moreblessings Nyoni after he was found taking pictures of Harare City Council employees demolishing vending stalls and residential structures, the journalist and news reports said. According to the journalist, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app, police asked for his press card before assaulting him using batons, leaving him with a swollen arm and painful buttocks. I showed them my press card, but they said, Its fake. You are a sellout, the journalist said. On Saturday, October 8, in Harares Kuwadzana neighborhood, ZANU-PF members and people believed to be members of the CIO assaulted Voice of America correspondent Godwin Mangudya and forced him to delete footage captured at the ruling partys central committee elections, according to the journalist who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, news reports, and the Zimbabwean chapter of the regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Mangudya was held for over an hour and his personal and work-related data was wiped from his devices before they were returned, the journalist and MISA statement said. On Sunday, October 9, around 1 p.m. in Masvingo, about 183 miles (294 kilometers) south of capital Harare, ZANU-PF security officers barred NewsDay journalist Desmond Chingarande from covering the central committee elections, which were held at Masvingo Teachers College, according to the journalist, a news report and MISAs Zimbabwean chapter. Chingarande told CPJ via messaging app he was informed that NewsDay reporters were not being allowed in. Other journalists from state broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation were granted access to the event, he added. On Monday, October 10, in Mbare, police assaulted Dunmore Mundai and Gadaffi Wells, journalists from Alpha Media Holdings HStv, according to the journalists who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, news reports, a MISA statement, and the International Federation of Journalists. The two were in the area filming a documentary when they captured an exchange between police and vendors from ruling ZANU-PF and opposition Citizens Coalition for Change over vendors market stands, the journalists and MISA statement said. Mundai and Wells were only released after identifying themselves as journalists despite having news cameras, the journalists said. CPJ did not get any response from phone calls and repeated queries sent via messaging app to ZANU-PF information director Tafadzwa Mugwadi and police spokesperson Paul Nyathi. The Coalition of Northern Ghana Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) has welcomed the decision by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate the Northern Development Authority (NDA) over suspected corruption offences. The coalition led by its Convener, the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) in a press release has commended the OSP for taking the bold step to look into the matter. The Office of the Special Prosecutor is currently investigating the Northern Development Authority in respect of a contract awarded to A & Qs Consortium services under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme. As part of the investigations, the OSP has directed the Accountant and Controller General to freeze payment arising from the suspected fraudulent contract of GHS10million. Reacting to that directive the Coalition of Northern Ghana CSOs noted that the OSP deserves commendation. The Coalition in its release also calls on the government, particularly President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to show commitment to fighting corruption by immediately giving a directive to the affected officials particularly the CEO of NDA, the two deputy CEOs of NDA and any other suspect including those at the presidency to step aside for unimpeded investigations into the matter. Below is a copy of the release from the coalition: For immediate release, 13th October, 2022 PRESS STATEMENT COALITION OF NORTHERN GHANA CSOs COMMENDS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR INVESTIGATIONS INTO SUSPECTED CORRUPTION AND CORRUPTION-RELATED OFFECENCES IN NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITYAND DEMANDS AFFECTED OFFICIALS STEP ASIDE FOR UNIMPEDED INVESTIGATIONS The Coalition of Northern Ghana Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) led by its Convener, the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) has commended the Office of the Special Prosecutor for demonstrating practical commitment to fighting corruption in Ghana by conducting investigations into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in Northern Development Authority (NDA) in respect of a contract awarded to A & Qs Consortium services under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme. The directive of the OSP to the Accountant and Controller General to freeze payment arising from the fraudulent contract of Ten Million Ghana cedis and the arrest of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NDA, his deputies and an official from the Jubilee House are particularly commendable. As a Coalition working not only to influence increased public investment in northern Ghana for an accelerated socio-economic transformation of the area for shared prosperity of all Ghanaians but also working to promote transparency and accountability in public resource management, it has keen interest in the matter and therefore wish to call on government particularly his Excellency, the President of the Republic of Ghana and his Vice President to reassure the Ghanaian people of their determination and commitment to fight corruption by immediately giving a directive to the affected officials particularly the CEO of NDA, the two deputy CEOs of the NDA and any other suspect including those at the presidency to step aside for unimpeded investigations into the matter. In the view of the Coalition, the continuous stay of the accused officials has the potential of obstructing or impeding the smooth conduct of the investigations into their alleged corrupt acts and of course compromising the quality of the outcome of the investigations. As a matter of fact, northern Ghana is home to extreme poverty, food insecurity and very limited employment opportunities. This situation is certainly, without doubt, poses a serious threat to the countrys efforts made towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.(SDGs). The Coalition therefore finds it regrettable that the northerner with the finest privileged opportunity to serve and lead his people out of poverty and general underdevelopment through public service would turn round to rob his own people of the much needed poverty eradication programme. It is an undeniable fact that the quantum of money involved in this suspected corruption scandal was significant enough to provide poor and deprived communities with potable drinking water, farm inputs, health facilities and many more life-transforming facilities in line with the NDAs mandate of accelerating economic and social development in northern Ghana. Against this backdrop, it would only take a person with no sense of patriotism and love for humanity especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalized groups to consciously engage in acts that seek to deepen poverty and vulnerability in a poverty-stricken area like northern Ghana. It is important to drop a hint here that the Coalition is currently compiling a lot of information on many more suspected corruption related issues in NDA and will share with the public through a press conference as soon as practicable. While using this opportunity to also commend the former CEO of NDA, Dr Sulemana Anamzoya and lawyer Martin Kpebu for their bold decisions to petition the Presidency and OSP respectively on this matter, the Coalition, in view of the sad reality that, corruption has become so pervasive, endemic and cancerous in public service and the generality of the Ghanaian society, wishes to call on every Ghanaian especially anti-corruption agencies and crusaders to show much more interest in the issue and speak up to end the sustained efforts made by heartless individuals to promote corruption and deny the state of her effort to provide social and economic development to curb widespread poverty and deprivation in the country. . Signed Bismark Adongo Ayorogo (Executive Director) Phone: 0209313630 Email: [email protected] 14.10.2022 LISTEN A younger sister of Hannah Tetteh, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs in former president John Dramani Mahamas administration, Gabriella Tetteh, has declared her intention to contest for the position of Communication Officer for the Central Region on the ticket of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). Miss Tetteh is also a sister of the NDCs Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya West Constituency in the Central Region, Gizella Tetteh Agbotui. Miss Tetteh took to her Facebook page to announce her decision to run for the position. She wrote: This is to inform my friends, followers and party faithful that I shall be contesting for the Central Regional Communications Officer in the regional-level elections. Thank you for your encouraging words so far. It means a lot to me. Regards, Gabriella Tetteh. Classfmonline.com Political parties, social and religious groups and representatives of the security forces gather Friday to chart the next phase in Burkina Faso's future after the country's latest coup. The forum in the capital Ouagadougou will take place two weeks after the jihadist-torn Sahel state was rocked by its second military takeover in less than nine months. A 34-year-old captain, Ibrahim Traore, leading a faction of disgruntled junior officers, forced out Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Damiba had seized power only in January, toppling the country's last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore. The talks opening on Friday are scheduled to appoint a successor to Damiba as transitional president -- a head of state who will rule in the interim before power is eventually returned to civilians. Burkina Faso. By (AFP) Supporters of Traore are clamouring for him to be that man, although he has outwardly said he does not want the job. The head of the forum's organising committee, Colonel Celestin Compaore, said the conference "will examine and adopt (a) charter of transition, appoint a transitional president in line with the charter and receive any proposals for the proper execution of the charter." Troubled country One of the world's poorest nations, Burkina Faso has a long history of coups since independence from France in 1960. The latest takeovers are rooted in unrest within army ranks over a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015. Thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million have been displaced. Barely a week goes by without the announcement of a bloody attack on the poorly-equipped security forces. More than a third of the country lies outside government control. Traore said Burkina would uphold a pledge that Damiba made to the West African bloc ECOWAS involving new elections and a return to civilian government by July 2024 at the latest. But like Damiba before him, Traore defended the coup on the grounds that the authorities were failing to do enough against the jihadists. The September 30 coup announcement sparked anti-French protests and a flag-waving show of support for Russia. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) The coup announcement on September 30 said it was time to "refocus the transition (interim military rule) on the security emergency". Damiba fled to neighbouring Benin on October 2, after a weekend of violent protests that also targeted the French embassy and cultural centre and saw demonstrators raise Russian flags. Vocal support Traore said he would only stay at the helm to carry out "current business" but at meetings in Ouagadougou and Burkina's second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, supporters have been clamouring for him to be appointed to the top job. "Captain Ibrahim Traore must fully implement the reason for which he came," said Oscar Seraphin Ky, one of his backers. France, a close ally in Burkina's fight against the jihadists, has watched the new turmoil with deep concern, especially the anti-French sentiment. The French Institute in Ouagadougou, a major venue for artists in impoverished Burkina, was extensively damaged. By OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT (AFP) A coup in Mali in 2020 sparked friction with France and led to the country's military entwinement with Russia. French troops that had been fighting jihadists in Mali for nine years pulled out this year after the row escalated. The French ambassador to Burkina Faso, Luc Hallade, has advised French citizens to limit their movements on Friday to "what is strictly necessary... out of concern for new protest movements". According to local pollster Apidon, 53 percent of those questioned would prefer to have Traore in charge. Among his most ardent supporters, the scale of Burkina's security crisis makes it crucial to have a military man in charge, it found. The Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners has called for a more measured approach to fitting illegal mining than calls for banning all surface mining. The group's General Secretary, Godwin Armah, said the ban is not going to work, and it is not going to bring the solutions that we want. The Media Coalition Against Galamsey has been among the latest critics to demand an immediate ban on all forms of small-scale and surface mining in the country as part of efforts to curb mining activities destroying the environment. But Mr. Armah said his group was engaging the government on solutions to the illegal mining problem. We cannot get the results in a day. It is a work in progress and there are so many interventions that government has put in place, and we are also working closely to ensure that we get our river bodies back. He also urged people calling for a ban on all mining to be mindful of the jobs at stake. It is employing over one million people who also have dependents. Yes, we appreciate that there are challenges, but there should be a balance. The government tried a ban on small-scale mining in May 2017 and this had limited effects on the environment. The ban on small-scale mining was lifted in May 2018. citinewsroom MATSAPHA Power Pack Africa has invested about E50 million to provide packaging solutions for businesses in Eswatini and is looking to double its staff complement. This was revealed by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo, when he officially launched the company from the Republic of China (Taiwan). The company produces preforms, bottles, caps and handles which can be applied on water, beverages, cooking oil and vinegar, among other things. The launch was held yesterday at the company premises at Matsapha Industrial Site. The enterprise currently supplies local entities like Eco Water, Emlembe Beverages, Waterman, Aha Water, Water Life and Highveld Water. The minister said the company was established in the country in 2021 and it came with a wealth of experience in this industry, spanning 20 years across the border in Mozambique and had expanded their operations into the Kingdom of Eswatini. Project He said this was a long journey as the project was initiated by his predecessor, the former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Jabulani Mabuza, and he handed it over to him when he was appointed as the head of the ministry. The minister said as government, they were grateful for the confidence that investors displayed in setting up their businesses in the country. He said the Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority (EIPA) diligently aided Power Pack Africa with the setting up of the business and in no time, this was achieved as they were there to witness the achievement during the launch. Again, the minister said Power Pack Africa had put in place a long-term programme, especially with regard to localisation. He said currently, as part of their staff complement, there about 30 people who had been employed and the company looks to recruit as the business continues to thrive. In fact, he said they would have employed about 60 workers after the next two months. Thereafter, he assured the company that it would get full support from government, even if it wanted a biggest factory shell to expand its business. Customers Meanwhile, the Manager of Power Pack Africa, Alan Chang, said they were dedicated to providing packaging solution to their customers. He added that their goal was to not only supply the kingdom, but also the nearby countries in the region. We are proud to say Eswatini is such a good country for business and we have a five-year programme for it, especially localisation. We hope that we can grow year after another and we believe we can provide more employment opportunities in return to Eswatinis kindness and support, the manager said. He said packaging materials of Eswatini business had been dominated by foreign products for a long time, but now they were in the country to provide this service while empowering locals. 14.10.2022 LISTEN Akwasi Addai Odike, the leader of the United Progressive Party (UFP), has accused the Electoral Commission of disrespecting some smaller parties following the notice to revoke the registration of 17 of them. This woman [Electoral Commission Chair] doesn't respect me as a person. Even when I want to meet her to discuss something, never has this woman allowed me to meet her, Mr. Odike complained on Eyewitness News. The Electoral Commission wants these parties to respond in writing justifying why they should be maintained on the countrys political parties list because they have no national and regional offices as required by the Act governing political parties. Between May and June 2022, the EC embarked on a nationwide exercise to inspect the offices of all registered political parties in Ghana. After the exercise, the EC invoked Section 15 (3) (c) of the Political Parties Act of 2000, Act 574, which mandates it to cancel the registration of Political Parties which do not have offices at the National and Regional levels. Mr. Odike argued that the commission already has the required information because they were provided ahead of previous elections. All the information was provided to them, so I dont understand why she makes a U-turn to throw into the public space that they cannot find our offices. Sometimes NDC and NPP fail to submit even their audited reports, and it takes the EC to go after them for many months before they submit it. These are normal things that happen to political parties. Mr. Odike also criticised the commission for making this information public. When we write to EC we don't put it in the public domain, so they must accord us that respect, he said. citinewsroom "Londres", a novel by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, was published for the first time this week after laying forgotten for decades. Discovered in 2021, it is the second book published from a massive stack of raw material written by one of France's most controversial authors. "Londres" ("London"), published on Thursday by French publisher Gallimard, depicts the shady underworld of the British capital between the two world wars. The 500-page book is based on nearly 1,200 handwritten pages left behind by Celine, a Nazi collaborator, when he fled Paris for Germany in June 1944, the month that Allied forces launched their decisive invasion in Normandy. The stack of papers remained hidden for three-quarters of a century, but were found by a French journalist in 2021. Last May, Gallimard published a shorter novel, "War" (Guerre), that features the same protagonist Brigadier Ferdinand, who is shot in the First World War and eventually makes his way across the Channel. "Londres" describes his life in the racier venues of the English capital during the interwar years. "War" and "London" are inspired by Celine's own life. He volunteered to fight in the French army during World War One, but was wounded. In March 1915, the authorities sent him to London to work in the French passport office. In his spare time, he frequented music halls and the shadier side of the London underworld. The 1944 novel "Guignol's Band" drew on these experiences as did "London". The unpublished manuscripts that formed the basis for "Guerre" and "Londres" were left behind in Montmartre when Celine left for Germany in an attempt to escape the Allies. The papers then disappeared, but appeared to have been kept in a safe place, and eventually they landed in the hands of a former journalist, Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, who said he was given them by a reader. Thibaudat offered them to Celine's heirs, but they refused to take them. Thibaudat then went to the police, who made them public in the summer of 2021. Gallimard quickly sought to publish them before Celine's oeuvre ends up in the public domain in 2032. Anti-Semitism The reviews for "War", the first of the novels to come out of the manuscripts, were largely positive. Many critics seemed keen to make a distinction between "early Celine", the novelist, and "later Celine," a phase marked by the publication of his first openly anti-Semitic pamphlet in 1937. "Guerre" is thought to have been written in 1934, shortly after the publication of Celine's first novel, "Voyage au bout de la nuit" ("Journey to the End of the Night") in 1932. That novel, filled with slang and jabbing at bourgeois sensibilities, brought him to fame, and is still taught in schools today. (with agencies) The Police through a specialised intelligence operation, on Thursday, October 13 arrested two armed robbers and shot one other at Asufua Asamang in the Ashanti region. The deceased identified as Issaka Muniru was shot when he attempted to fire at the police during the operation. He was rushed to the hospital for treatment but was pronounced dead on arrival. The Police also succeeded in arresting two of his accomplices, Kwaku Boateng alias Form Noede and Kojo Gyamfi. The two are currently in Police custody and will be put before the court to face justice. The Police said it retrieved a Smith and Wiesson SD40 VE pistol which was used to fire at the officers, and 13 rounds of live ammunition. The deceased, Issaka Muniru and his robbery syndicate according to the cops have been involved in a series of robberies within the Kumasi Metropolis and its environs for years. Before his demise, Isaaka Muniru, the Police said, was standing trial with three other accomplices Ernest Agyei Badu aka gangster, Rider and MBY at the Nkawie Circuit Court for robbing one Pastor Emmanuel Barfour Awuah of Abuakwa Abakomadi at gunpoint on 26th May 2021 and making away with his two gold wrist watches, mobile phones and an unspecified amount of money. The deceased was granted bail by the court but he jumped the bail and a bench warrant was, therefore, issued for his arrest. His accomplices are still attending trial at the court. In another robbery where the deceased was named as the gang leader, three other members of his gang, Charles Kojo Fosu, Yaw Anim and Paul Osafo were arrested but he managed to escape. The three suspects have since been remanded into prison custody. Source: Classfmonline.com A staunch member of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), Kwame Jantuah has asked the President to place a curfew in all mining areas as part of the fight against illegal small scale mining (Galamsey). He suggested that the army should be deployed to enforce the curfew if it is done. Contributing to a discussion on TV3s New Day show with Roland Walker on Friday October 14, he said There should be a curfew in galamsey areas, get our army there to enforce the curfew. He further called for a five-year ban to be placed on all mining activities. Ban small scale mining for five years. The people will lose jobs and so they are afraid to do it but you have to create jobs for them. His comments come at a time the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources , Samuel Abu Jinapor has said that the fight against galamsey is tough. However, he said the government will not relent on its efforts in fighting the menace to protect the environment. Addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday October 13, the Damongo Lawmaker said It is going to be a tough fight but the Ghanaian people should be rest assured that we are fully committed to this fight and we are never going to relent in our efforts. I am very confident that if all of us work together in good faith, we take out partisan politics out of it and see this as a national canker or national issue as it truly is, and pull our weight together, we definitely will be able to protect our environment and protect our country, protect our forest, protect our land scape, protect our water bodies for ourselves and our children and future generations. Recently, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo also admitted that the fight against Galamsey has not been an easy one. He said he has not achieved the results he was looking for in the fight but the government is determined to win the battle against the menace. Since I took office I have made it a central feature of my presidency to lead in the efforts to rid our country of this menace which we all now call galamsey. It has not been popular and we have not got the result that I was looking for, Mr Akufo-Addo said during a meeting with the National House of Chiefs and the Municipal, Metropolitan and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in Kumasi on Wednesday October 5. He further told the National House of Chiefs that the task to protect the lands and the environment from the effect of Galamsey is a joint responsibility between the government and the traditional authorities. Mr Akufo-Addo explained that 80 per cent of the lands in Ghana are in the custody of the chiefs. This means they have a role to play in protecting the resource, he said. He said 80 per cent of the lands in this country continue to be under your custody, much of it having been acquired through the blood and sacrifices of your ancestors. The reminder of 20 per cent which I hold in trust of the people of Ghana, derived from state acquisition from you. What this means is that ultimately, the welfare of the state of the lands is our joint responsibility, although by statute the minerals in the soil belong to the president in trust for the people. The chiefs on their part assured Mr Akufo-Addo that they are solidly behind his administration to apply appropriate measures against all persons involved in Galamsey in the country. President of the National House of Chiefs, Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyeb indicated that galamsey is having a negative effect on the environment and also threatens revenue mobilsation in the country hence, their resolve to support the President and government in fighting it. He said your relentless war against forest degradation and illegal mining in Ghana is of great importance to Ghanaians especially we the chiefs. The effects of illegal mining on the environment threaten the survival of water bodies , farmlands, cocoa industry and even encouraging school dropouts, this undermins the revenue mobilsation drive in the country. In view of this development [the Chiefs] are solidly behind your administration to apply the appropriate sanctions against persons who are engaged in the practice illegal mining irrespective of their status. 3news.com 14.10.2022 LISTEN Former President John Dramani Mahama is in Bahir Dar at Ethiopia for the 10th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa. He was received at the Bahur Dar airport by the President of Amhara Region, Dr yilkal kefal Amhara and officials of the Tana Secretariat. The three-day Forum, 14th-16th October, is on the theme Managing security threats: Building resilience for the Africa we want. The former Ghanaian leader is the Chairperson of the Tana Forum and will present a report on the State of Peace and Security in Africa for 2021. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is expected to officially open the Forum, with the President of Sudan, the Vice President of Uganda, a number of former presidents and prime ministers and officials of the African Union in attendance. Over one hundred participants are attending the Forum in person, with others joining the virtual session. In a message to participants, President Mahama said the world is experiencing a host of challenges, adding that, our continent, Africa, and the world must address ongoing socioeconomic, political, and security challenges head-on. The African continent is mired by unconstitutional changes of government, intra-state conflict, and terrorism that continue to punctuate our peace and security spheres. Our continent has witnessed six successful coups, and two attempted coups in the last two years alone. Authoritarian entrenchment seems almost a hallmark not only in Africa but around the globe, he added. The Tana Forum is an initiative in response to the African Unions Tripoli Declaration of August 2009 for African-led solutions and to peace and security as a collective intellectual challenge. The annual Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa was initiated by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of the Addis Ababa University (AAU) and the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The Forum brings African leaders, decision-makers, and stakeholders to engage and explore African-led security solutions. Members of the Tana Board are Hailemariam Desalegn, former Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dr. Joyce Banda, former President, Republic of Malawi, Catherine Samba-Panza, former President, Central African Republic and Michelle Ndiaye, Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. The others are Amb. Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Amb. Soad M. Shalaby, Director-General, Egyptian African Centre for Women (EACW), Mr. Alain Foka, Journalist, Radio France International, France and Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, Former Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kenya School of Laws. 14.10.2022 LISTEN President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has held bilateral discussions with France President, Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, October 13. The meeting was centered on strengthening the ties of cooperation between the two nations. Earlier, President Akufo-Addo was elected Chairperson of the Gulf of Guinea Commission, an organisation established to defend the common interests of Member States, and promote peace and socio-economic development based on the bases of dialogue, consensus, ties of friendship, solidarity, and fraternity. President Akufo-Addo also addressed a Session of Asia Society France; and held a meeting with Catherine Colonna, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs. DGN online The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Microfinance and Small Loans Company (MASLOC), Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama Zakariah has endorsed the new policy initiative by the current NPP National Executives aimed at building a stronger relationship between the party and government appointees to enhance the implementation of governments policies and programmes for the benefit of all Ghanaians. Hajia Abibata on Thursday, October 13, 2022, paid a visit to the NPP headquarters in Accra to engage with the executives for detailed discussions on the new policy implementation. She was hosted by Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong, the party's General Secretary, with Mr. William Yamoah, Director for Finance and Administration; and Dr. Nyame Baafi, Deputy Director of Research. The MASLOC CEO was eulogized by the NPP's chief scribe for her acceptance and response to the party-government initiative. The General Secretary showered her with praises for her support and the impact of her institution, especially the businesses of women and other vulnerable groups who otherwise would hardly access any credit facility to shore up their businesses. Hajia Abibata Mahama recounted the Akufo-Addo-led administration's commitment to sustaining micro-enterprises, citing the disbursement of over 300 million Ghana Cedis since January 2017 in loans to micro enterprises across the country. She hinted that as part of its grand strategy towards poverty alleviation, government is determined to provide continuous respite to women-owned and other small businesses with sustainable loans. Hajia Abibata, however stressed that government's financial supports through her institution were not freebies to beneficiaries and were, therefore, expected to be repaid on schedule to keep MASLOC operational. She debunked assertions by propagandists that her outfit resorts to debt collectors to harass defaulters. "The process of debt recovery by MASLOC, as far as I am aware, is always in line with corporate governance principles," she clarified. The NPP General Secretary, Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong, urged the CEO and her outfit to intensify public sensitisation on the roles and functions of MASLOC. This, he indicated, would achieve buy-in amongst beneficiaries to voluntarily repay loans granted to them. Upon assumption of office barely three months ago, the Ntim-Kodua administration of the NPP instituted this policy of engagement to solidify party-government appointees' bond and provide mutual assistance in fulfilling governments programmes and interventions for the good of the Ghanaian people. Following the introduction of this policy, the party headquarters has hosted some government appointees and expects to interact with several others over the course of time. 14.10.2022 LISTEN The Police in the Ashanti Region on Thursday, October 13, conducted a successful operation at Asuofua Asamang. At the end of the intelligence-led operation, one suspected armed robber was shot and later died when he was rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, two of his accomplices who were arrested during the operation have been booked and are currently in police custody. The Police, through a specialised intelligence operation, on 13th October 2022 arrested two armed robbers and shot dead one other at Asuofua Asamang in the Ashanti Region. The deceased, who was later identified as Issaka Muniru was shot when he attempted to fire at the Police during the operation. He was rushed to the hospital for treatment but was pronounced dead on arrival. The Police also succeeded in arresting two of his accomplices, Kwaku Boateng alias Form Noede and Kojo Gyamfi. The two are currently in Police custody and will be put before the court to face justice, parts of a police statement said. According to the police, the deceased, Issaka Muniru, and his robbery syndicate have been involved in a series of robberies within the Kumasi Metropolis and its environs for years. Find more from the post by the Ghana Police Service below: The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has been furnished with a full list of small-scale mining companies licensed to engage in mining. This has been disclosed by the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor. According to the Minister, companies found to be engaged in mining but not on the list will be dealt with by the military to be deployed soon. What weve done is that my Ministry has furnished them with the full list of all licensed small-scale mining concessions and thats what theyre going to work with. So if they go and they find out that youre not part of the list theyre supposed to clamp you down and nobody is to interfere, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor told Asempa FM in an interview. He further indicated that his Ministry has never interfered with the work of the military and does not plan to do so. Through the operations of the military, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor is confident that the fight against illegal small-scale mining, often referred to as galamsey will produce the desired results. This time around its been made abundantly clear, we, and for that matter myself as the Minister and Ministry and other stakeholders, are responsible for formulating the policies relating to mining, which is actually what it should be. But when it comes to the implementation of the enforcement regime or the enforcement mechanism by the Ghana Armed Forces, they are supposed to do so independent of the Ministry and of any other entity; Chiefs, religious leaders, influential people, journalists, Members of Parliament, Ministers of State, political leaders. Military people are not supposed to take any instruction from anybody. Ive never done that anyway, even in the past, but Im saying no interference whatsoever, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources stressed. Over the years, the government through the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources has fought galamsey with various operations led by the Ministry. Unfortunately, there is more to be done with the continuous destruction of forests and water bodies by illegal miners. The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor has reacted to the decision by Freddie Blays law firm to represent the accomplices of accused Chinese illegal miner, Aisha Huang. According to him, he wishes Freddie Blay, the former National Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have declined when he was contacted to represent the Chinese nationals. I wish Freddie Blay declined it but that is not for me to say; because immediately her daughter announced the brief in court, I told my assistant this is going to be controversial and will fuel conspiracy theories, Samuel Abu Jinapor told Asempa FM in an interview. The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources however admits that Freddie Blay and his firm did no wrong in taking up the case. He insists that it is now up to prosecutors to present a strong case to secure the necessary conviction. A lawyers representation of a client is steeped in the jurisprudence of our countrys laws and the criminal justice system presumes a person innocent until proven guilty. What we have to do is to continue to prosecute these accused persons in a very spirited manner and hopefully secure convictions and secure severe punishments to them, and that will dispel all the conspiracy theories that are being bandied around, Abu Jinapor added. Meanwhile, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources has disclosed that his outfit has furnished the Ghana Armed Forces with the list of all licensed small-scale mining companies. What weve done is that my Ministry has furnished them with the full list of all licensed small-scale mining concessions and thats what theyre going to work with. So if they go and they find out that youre not part of the list theyre supposed to clamp you down and nobody is to interfere, Samuel Abu Jinapor stressed. PIGGS PEAK Barely a week after a Piggs Peak town council employees vehicle was set alight, property worth over E3.6 million belonging to the same organisation was set alight. The arson attack happened at around 12:30am yesterday. It was gathered that about five people, armed with bush knives, burnt the property situated near the local dumpsite. This is where the vehicles as well as some of the tools are said to have been parked. It is also the same vehicles the town council uses for heavy duty maintenance or even fixing roads. The tractor is also used alongside the garbage truck to collect garbage. Fortunately, the main garbage truck is said to have been taken for maintenance and was not parked at the premises on the night of the arson attack. Despite that the vehicles were parked about 50 metres away from the Piggs Peak correctional facility, the arsonists are said to have carried out the attack with ease, unconcerned about the nearby presence of warders. The dumpsite is also situated away from the town area, and partly surrounded by a forest. It is alleged the arsonists may have fled into the nearby forest. Targeted The arsonists targeted heavy plant machinery; two truck loader backhoes (TLBs) and a tractor. One of the TLBs is a 2022 John Deere model, the other is a CAT 2005 model and the tractor is a New Holland 2005 model. It was gathered that when the arsonists arrived, they shouted out for the security guard. Assuming that these were people who genuinely needed assistance, one of the security guards is said to have approached them but it turned out that they had arrived to set the place on fire. An employee at the town council said there were two security guards. He said as the attackers were approaching the premises where the vehicles were parked, another tried to access the area by jumping over the fence. One of the security guards is said to have tried to fight back by punching one of the men who tried to jump over the fence but failed. Hacked At the same time, another is said to have targeted the other security guard, who was hacked on the head and was left for dead. After the incident, the men quickly continued towards the shed where the vehicles were parked and used a flammable liquid that was in a container to set the place alight. The men targeted the large tyres of the machinery, which quickly went up in flames. The fire quickly spread and destroyed the other machinery. The arsonists also broke some windows of a building within the same premises. After setting the place on fire, the men fled. It was after this time that the injured security guard was rushed to the hospital by his colleague, who had called for help. Chief Executive Officer of the Piggs Peak Town Council Mzwandile Ndzinisa confirmed the incident. He said the matter was also reported to the relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. He said they would be guided by the ministry on the way forward. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the arson attack. She also stated that no one had been arrested yet. About two weeks ago, ratepayers and some residents had a confrontation with police officers at the civic centre after they demanded an audience with the town council officials. They were booted out of the civic centre and tear gas was fired after being accused of illegally being inside the civic centre. One of the residents was injured in the process. Former Ghana President, John Dramani Mahama has stressed the need for African countries to take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In his view, it is a sure way to ensure that the continent does not rely on imports from China but also exports massively to the Asian country. African imports from China amount to roughly $148 billion, while exports from Africa to China is estimated at roughly $106 billion. It is important to work together to bridge this trade deficit. With the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) taking off and looking positive, the trade experts are predicting that it will further bolster free trade between the continent and China, John Dramani Mahama shared while delivering a keynote address to open the virtual Abuja Forum 2022 organised by Gusau Institute. According to the former Ghanaian leader, Africa must be concerned about how trading between the continent and the Asian country benefits countries on the continent as much as it benefits China. In his view, he said China is one of Africas biggest bilateral trading partners and will remain so for years to come. John Dramani Mahama is currently in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia to attend the 10th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa. The forum is being organised on the theme; Managing Security Threats: Building resilience for Africa We Want. Political parties, social and religious groups and representatives of the security forces launched talks on Friday to chart the next phase in Burkina Faso's future after the country's latest coup. The gathering of some 300 people in the capital Ouagadougou is taking place two weeks after the jihadist-torn Sahel state was rocked by its second military takeover in less than nine months. A 34-year-old captain, Ibrahim Traore, leading disgruntled junior officers, forced out Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Damiba had seized power only in January, toppling Burkina's last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore. The national forum is due to appoint a transitional president to rule before power is eventually returned to civilians. Burkina Faso. By (AFP) Supporters of Traore are clamouring for him to be that man, although he has said he does not want the job. Several hundreds demonstrated Friday in the capital to call for Traore to be appointed president. "We want captain Traore or nothing," demonstrator Sayouba Ouedrapogo told AFP near the conference centre where the talks opened. Traore did not attend the forum but junta member captain Marcel Medah read out a message from him urging national unity and peace. "We must set aside our differences ... and write a new page full of hope," the message said. Traore called for "clear directions for the construction of a strong and resilient nation, a nation that can establish peace, security, and sustainable development." The forum is expected to adopt a charter for which a draft seen by AFP states that the presidential transition mandate will end with the inauguration of a new president after elections in July 2024. Troubled country One of the world's poorest nations, Burkina Faso has a long history of coups since independence from France in 1960. The September 30 coup announcement sparked anti-French protests and a flag-waving show of support for Russia. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) The latest are rooted in unrest within army ranks over the jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015. Thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million have been displaced and more than a third of the country lies outside government control. Traore has said Burkina will uphold a pledge that Damiba made for a return to civilian government by July 2024 at the latest. But like Damiba before him, Traore defended the coup on the grounds that the authorities were failing to do enough against the jihadists. Damiba fled to neighbouring Benin on October 2, after a weekend of violent protests that also targeted the French embassy and saw demonstrators raise Russian flags. Vocal support Traore said he would only stay on to carry out "current business" but at meetings in Ouagadougou and Burkina's second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, supporters have been clamouring for him to be appointed to the top job. "Captain Ibrahim Traore must fully implement the reason for which he came," said Oscar Seraphin Ky, one of his backers. France, a close ally, has watched the new turmoil with deep concern. The French Institute in Ouagadougou, a major venue for artists in impoverished Burkina, was extensively damaged. By OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT (AFP) A coup in Mali in 2020 sparked friction with France and led to Bamako's military entwinement with Moscow. French troops that had been fighting jihadists in Mali for nine years pulled out this year after the row escalated. The French ambassador to Burkina Faso, Luc Hallade, advised French citizens to limit their movements on Friday to "what is strictly necessary... out of concern for new protest movements". Military vehicles guarded the entry points to the conference centre in the capital where the talks were being held. According to local pollster Apidon, 53 percent of those questioned would prefer to have Traore in charge. Among his most ardent supporters, the scale of Burkina's security crisis makes it crucial to have a military man in charge, it found. 14.10.2022 LISTEN The Advocacy for Alleged Witches(AfAW) urges the Nigerian police to protect an elderly woman who was seen in a video confessing to killing people and causing illnesses in her community. In the video, the woman, who is in her 70s was wearing some palm fronts and surrounded by an angry mob. The woman was accused and coerced to admit to initiating people into the occult world, inflicting someone with a diabetic sore, and killing a one-month-old baby. At some point, somebody from the crowd slapped her. It is not clear what eventually happened to this woman. AfAW is deeply concerned because incidents like this usually end in the lynching of the suspected witch. Efforts are underway to ascertain her fate and the whereabouts of the woman. Meanwhile, AfAW enjoins the police, the national human rights commission, the social welfare department, and the general public to join efforts to ensure that this woman if she is still alive, receives care and protection. From all indications, this woman is unwell, mentally unstable, and may be suffering from dementia. Nigerian public should know that dementia is and those who suffer from this health issue confess to doing unimaginable things. Meanwhile, AfAW condemns a Facebook post by one Onuoha Peter Jude. In reaction to the video, Jude, who claims to be a roman catholic priest, an educational psychologist, traumatologist, and a success ambassador said: "Wickedness of the highest order. Honestly speaking I laugh all the time whenever some people begin to compare Nigeria, America, and Europe in terms of religion and development. In America and Europe, they encourage your talents. But in Nigeria and some other African countries, some agent of darkness will afflict people with numerous diseases and problems". He tried to validate the notion that the woman did what she "confessed" to have done. He further stated that what the woman claimed to have done was beyond government, science, and technology. "Government cannot cure spiritual problems and attack. Science and technology as some champions cannot solve spiritual problems and attack. Medication cannot cure spiritual infirmities. It is only the power of the Most High God, that can cure this type of thing". Jude tried to defend faith healers and exorcists who valorize these occult and superstitious claims: "It is unfair to always attack prayers and healing and deliverance ministers and ministries. God has used many of them mightily and He is still using them. People who go for prayers are not faithless. You can only know what these people go through when you are in their shoes". He claimed that the woman's case confirmed the reality of spiritual affliction of illness. "Just look at this woman in the short video confessing all the evil she has done in afflicting people with spiritual infirmities after she was apprehended. She killed the husband's father, blinded so many persons, initiated some persons, gave elephantiasis to some, and caused a whole lot of misfortunes for people. Those who under such demonic captivity can only be freed through God's intervention". it is sad that a priest who claims to be educated made this post that drips with ignorance and misinformation about mental health. AfAW enjoins Christian churches to call witch-hunting pastors like Onuoha Peter Jude and other evangelical throwbacks to order. Nigerian churches should draw lessons from the western church and begin to consign witchcraft imputations to the dustbin of history. Ending witch persecution in Africa is long overdue. For the benefit of democracy, we have condensed this article with passion and brevity through the capacity of the Constitution which is the fountainhead of the organs of government to express our views on how the judiciary ought to respond to constructive criticisms in the 2023 legal year and beyond. We see this as among the panacea for building a stronger judiciary. We all need constructive criticism or advice that can help us improve in our work or attitude. In fact, the Holy Book of the Bible has expressly stated in James chapter 3 versus 2 that, For we all stumble and sin in many ways . Based on that reason, everyone needs constructive feedback. Article 21 (1) (a) of the Constitution unequivocally states that "All persons shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, which shall include freedom of the press and other media;" This constitutional provision birthed the repeal of the criminal libel law since it was inconsistent with the Constitution. As a result of that, every Ghanaian citizen has the right to express discontent about judicial decisions especially when such decisions are inconsistent with the law and being repugnant to good conscience. Article 17 (1) which states that All persons shall be equal before the law did not exculpate any arms of government above the law. It is a trite fact that none of the three arms of government are above the law including the Judiciary, hence, they are also subject to constructive criticisms under the tenet of democracy. Africa is still very young under democracy. To survive, the arms of government of African democracies must perform active checks on one another as well as accommodate criticisms from the public. Public criticisms are the most spontaneous feedback by which these arms of governments may reform. Though they may not automatically result in good decisions, criticisms are means by which democratic institutions measure the peoples confidence in their works. Constructive criticism is a method of critique that offers actionable and effective feedback to enable targets implement improvement strategies. The point of constructive criticism is to diagnose and address weaknesses in systems and structures. It is neither a battle of insults nor a ploy to take down the other. The goal of this article is to assess constructive criticism and how the judiciary may take them going forward. The judiciary is known as the fulcrum of justice and development. According to Article 125 of the 1992 Constitution, the judicial power of Ghana shall be vested in the judiciary. Accordingly, neither the president nor parliament nor any organ or agency of the President or Parliament shall have or be given final judicial power. Over the years, the judiciary has been touted to be one of the most reputable and trusted of the three arms of government. It was revered throughout the country for its mystery and almost imperfect self-discipline. However, recent happenings in the country have got eyebrows up in a manner that not only vested politicians but also senior practising lawyers, lecturers, the clergy, and ordinary citizens have raised concerns about the judiciary. The judiciary remains the most credible arm of Government in the Fourth Republic. Notwithstanding this, the judiciary is not without blemish. Despite the constitutional guarantees for an independent judiciary, many believe that the judiciary is not independent. A recent survey by Afro barometer shows that 46% of Ghanaians believe that judges are corrupt. This is a scathe on the judiciary and people are gradually losing confidence in it which is a serious cancer to our democratic system. Lord Birgham of the House of Lords stated that the law must be clear, intelligible and predictable, and should not be applied to occasion injustice. The above statement requires judges not to use their discretionary powers to diminish the supremacy of the law in cases where the law is clear, precise, intelligible and predictable. Recently, Hon. Albert Kan Dapaah bemoaned the public confidence in the judiciary which generated further discourse on the issue. He said Injustice occasioned as a result of the absence of an effective justice delivery system or delayed justice delivery system or biased justice is certainly a threat to national security. He further added that if the interpretation of the law is tilted in favor of the government all the time, people will start accusing the judiciary and they will not have the confidence that they need. There has always been concerns of judicial corruption however the level of rot was not known. An investigative work by Anas Aremeyaw Anas in which judges were seen asking for bribes and demanding for sex to bend the arms of justice. This episode in the history of the judiciary is a blot on its reputation as far as public perception is concerned. Recent criticisms of the judiciary by the opposition NDC and elements in civil society could end up worsening public perception of the judiciary. The constitution posits that justice emanates from the people and it is administered in the name of the republic by the Judiciary. Given that this is the case, the judiciary must be concerned of public perception and must take steps to correct the negative perception by elements of the public whether they are true or not. The Judiciary must also endeavour to wean itself off the continuous defence by members of the executive. AUTHORS Angela Agyeiwaa Darkwah, Legal Research Assistant and A Law Student at KNUST Email: [email protected] & Afi Morkporkpor, A Law Student at Kings University College, Accra Email: [email protected] A South African court judgment banning the publication of an intelligence report about alleged U.S. efforts to gather intelligence about South Africas ruling African National Congress party must be made public and should be overturned on appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On October 5, Gauteng High Court judge Daisy Sekao Molefe issued a final order banning the Daily News newspaper and Independent Online (IOL) news website from publishing a leaked November 5, 2020 intelligence report marked secret by South Africas State Security Agency and ordered that all copies of the document in Daily News reporter Thabo Makwakwas possession be returned to the agency, according to a statement by IOL and a tweet by Anton Harber, the executive director of local rights organization the Campaign for Free Expression. However, the court order has not been made public, contrary to the international legal principle of open justice whereby court processes and records should as a general rule be transparent and open to the public and as of Thursday, October 13, neither Harber nor CPJ had been able to obtain a copy of the judgment from the judges office and the court registrar. Harber told CPJ via messaging app that he called the judges office on October 6 requesting a copy but the judges clerk told him that she had been instructed not to release it. He said that a formal request sent via his lawyer to the judge on October 7 also received no response. CPJ emailed Molefes office October 12 requesting a copy of the judgment and also called and emailed the office of the chief court registrar in Pretoria on October 13 for a copy but received no responses at the time of publication. Independent Media, which owns Daily News and IOL, and Makwakwa will appeal the judgment, according to the IOL statement. In the spirit of open justice, the court ruling banning the publication of this intelligence report must be made public immediately, said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal, in New York. An appeals court must reverse this ruling regarding a publication that is a matter of public interest, especially when information appears to have been classified incorrectly or exposes criminal activity. Too often the default when it comes to intelligence classification is secret, even when the information is public and the subject of robust debate. The courts should guard against giving the intelligence service a blank check to censor at will. The report, titled Intelligence brief: US interest in ANC party dynamics, reportedly describes attempts by the United States to gather intelligence about the ANC and influence its policies. The October 5 order confirmed a late-night interim order by the same court on December 22, 2021, after an application by South Africas State Security Agency in the absence of the media outlets representatives, which barred Independent Media, the Daily News, Makwakwa, and any other person from publishing or disseminating the report, according to Daily News editor Ayanda Mduli, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. State Security Agency spokesman Mava Scott did not respond to a request for comment via messaging app from CPJ. Anyone that thinks a country that was flowing with milk and honey is going to get out of abject poverty soon, with the parade of these Presidential candidates, is a joker. Atiku, Tinubu and Obi have already told you what they are going to do. More of the same by selling off state asserts, becoming the only free open market in the world and turning the whole country into personal or family property. Let us face it, Activists will not be elected President because they lack experience in looting, terrorism, drug peddling and ritual sacrifice. General Buhari, regardless of party affiliation or loyalty, will vote for Atiku. He will also do everything possible to make sure the Fulani reign continues. Most Yoruba know that and will not play dead before or after the Election. The next Election is becoming irrelevant to the aspiration of southern and Middle Belt voters. The North has decided to continue their reign by tulasi. Who runs the government but the same people that paralyzed the same government. They all claim Government Business Is Nobody's Business. If Nigeria is run by ants big enough to throw darts on the board, we would have had a better country. After all, ants have an efficient system of division of labor by workers, soldiers and food providers while the queen becomes fat. Nigeria fell from grace to grass in one generation right in our lifetime. Though poverty increases crimes, a place without law and order breeds even more crimes. Criminals cannot be eliminated, this is why every society supports good moral behavior and law enforcement. Locally and worldwide we hear those that hardly accomplish any tangible tasks for their society, brag about how they made reputable men and women. We must thank them for the Sun that shines, otherwise Nigeria could have sunk below Nigeria! Presidential ambition of a few Southern candidates cannot override the aspiration of most people in the South. Most Nigerians are sick and tired of the same politicians that have converted the political system into a cash cow for their selfish interests. It is no longer a matter of who becomes the President. The most lucrative business in the country is the politics of do or die where terrorists are ruling. We must thank them for sinking a country into abject poverty. There is no doubt that the North Central region have woken up from their slumber after Danjuma gave up and implore them to defend themselves. The Governors from the area especially Plateau knew that a long time ago because they were ignored by Fulani military officers that were their subordinates when some were in the Army, as they had called for help. They became helpless watching the massacre of their people in the hands of armed Fulani. It is not surprising that the Buhari Government has already approved the AK-47 for Katsina Security men, his home state. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a fool playing to the gallery or part of the gangs that are going to use every military means to suppress the rest of Nigeria. Oh, that Katsina Security Forces were only invited for training. Just as those Boko Haram that were captured and released got reabsorbed into the Army for training on AK-47 l, abi. Yoruba across class and political spectrum believe that they must defend themselves against marauders prowling all over their land. Terrorists have gone out of their land to lay claim on other people's territory or home, while Yoruba seek no territorial amalgamation. Since Yoruba land is the only place where tolerance and accommodation flourish, it has been abused by their hosts with impunity. Governor Akeredolu must be commended for seeing the charade and chicanery of the Fulani plan after RUGA ranching in Southern land was rejected. He has raised the alarm for those that can perceive. If State Police is not created, there is an obvious vacuum for Amutekun and other law enforcement in each State to be easily overpowered by Fulani bandits. This charade is well beyond AK-47, Fulani herdsmen have no better weapons to control cows. It takes AK-47, no be so? When it comes to Yoruba Nation, the West has never been this unified. Yoruba hardly deliver block votes to any party. The closest to solid votes was for Awolowo. Even then, Yoruba in NCNC made it difficult before Akintola NNDP split Yoruba politicians. While Awolowo insisted on forming an Alliance with the Eastern Region, Akintola saw a better prospect with the North. Both sides failed, Yoruba must stand on its progressive culture. Others will join on our terms. Yoruba Nation is already going through the diplomatic process of getting out of Nigeria. The clock is moving faster to that goal than remaining in Nigeria. Yoruba land is the only place most Nigerians aspire to, feel safe and comfortable in. Even when Nigeria eventually split, more Nigerians will relocate to the West than other parts of the country. The irony is that Yoruba talents that should be utilized to make what used to be the most progressive enclave in Africa richer, are being sold into modern form of slavery abroad in the name of salvation. Those raising the aspiration of Igbo for President are right. Unfortunately, the Nigeria the Southern candidates would like to rule no longer exist. Unless they want to wait for another hundred years. Power has to go to those who have future stake in the country, not spent career politicians jumping from one house to another as representatives,governors, senators to President. As long as you they remain on government doles getting the highest remuneration in the world. Tinubu, a man who should be celebrating his obscure humble beginning to encourage the downtrodden, he cannot, because he graduated into a voracious caterpillar. He would rather ridicule the dignity of labor to hide his Insecurity complex. But then, it is not his fault since he gets enough Youths support, paying homage to his tainted legacy of avarice. Indeed, the reason Nigeria dropped to the lowest poverty level is the consequence of the choice we made of politicians leading the country. A country put on automatic cruise would have done a better job because these leaders intentionally sold our interest out to any willing bidders, in most cases for less than they are willing to pay. H.E Alhaji Said Sinare, a National Vice Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress has declared his intention to contest the National Vice Chairmanship seat in the coming days if the party opens nomination. He made his intention known in a statement shared on his official Facebook page on his birthday. He noted that his intention to seek re-election was because he had lived up to the expectation of his members and the party needs his experience to guide and assist the other national executives and the presidential candidate to deliver the much-needed victory for the party and the country. He stressed the need for the party and its delegates to retain him and his election-winning prowess as the National Vice Chairman particularly as the party goes into the difficult elections of 2024 with the ruling NPP. Credible information available to this portal indicates that the former Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, Alhaji Said Sinare is 64 years today on 14th October, 2022. H.E Alhaji Said Sinare, the founder of Zongo for NDC rummaged the length and breadth of the country and spent his energy and resources just to ensure President John Dramani Mahama and the NDC garner the needed and expected Muslim votes in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. John Dramani Mahamas problem is that he is too gentle and where Ghana has gotten to, we dont need gentle people as leaders in 2024, seasoned Ghanaian music producer and sound engineer, Appiatus, has said. The music producer noted that instead of John Mahama who has been highly tipped for a comeback as the flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2024 polls, he is rooting for Kennedy Agyapong to be president in 2024. Mr Agyapong is the Member of Parliament for Assin Central and has declared his intention to contest Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Trades Minister Alan Kyerematen the two top runners for the flagbearership position of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). Born Appiah Dankwa, Appiatus was the man who made the beat for the famous NPPs 2008 campaign song by Daddy Lumba titled Nana dier oye winner to wit Nana Akufo-Addo is a winner. Despite making the beat for the hit campaign song that brought the NPP and Nana Akufo-Addo to power, Appiatus said he has great liking for Mr Mahama, the main opposition leader. Speaking on the Class Morning Show on Class91.3FM on Friday, 14 October 2022, Appiatus told show host Kofi Oppong Asamoah that someone like Mahama, I dey feel am waa, I wont lie, I really like Mahama, he doesnt know but I like him. I like the way he is. During his time, [as president], people were attacking this man and even when he hot angry, the way he talked: youve not being a president before (Appiatus said in a soft voice to mimic Mahama), hes just a gentleman, I think hes so gentle that its a problem, I feel that where Ghana has gotten to, we dont need gentle people again. He noted that when Kennedy Agyapong said he wanted to stand, (contest as president), I said this man should come, we need a Trump to come and stir up things because where weve reached, we need a president that can fight with someone on social media, so I wish Kennedy Agyapong will be president in 2024 because Mahama is too gentle, when he talks we wont listen Source: Classfmonline.com 14.10.2022 LISTEN AngloGold Ashanti Ghana, Obuasi Mine has partnered develoPPP health, a Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) health programme, to launch a campaign on infection prevention and control for improved maternal and child health in Obuasi. The current maternal mortality rate in Ghana stands at 310 per 100,000 live births. This figure is above the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) accepted standard of 70 out of 100,000 live births with majority of maternal deaths resulting from bleeding and other infections during or after childbirth. Anglogold Ashanti through its partners; GIZ and the Health Directorates in both the Obuasi East and Municipal Districts have pledged their commitment to stem the tide and improve maternal and child health in both districts. According to the Senior Manager of Sustainability, AngloGold Ashanti, Emmanuel Baidoo, the company has collaborated with GIZ to come out with a pandemic preparedness program to be implemented in Obuasi. Featuring in the six (6) outcomes of the program, he said is improving maternal health. To promote maternal and child healthcare Mr. Baidoo underscored the need to train healthcare professionals especially nurses and midwives, build their capacity to prepare them to prevent and control infections. "Today we are to launch a training program for midwives and nurses in infection management as part of specific activities under the collaboration with GIZ, all to promote Maternal health which is critical for saving lives of mother and children." He said the promotion of children and maternal health is a key element in AngloGold Ashanti's social development outcomes under the 10-year Socio-Economic Development Plan which is targeted at improving quality health care delivery in Obuasi. Beyond the training, the Sustainability Manager said Anglogold Ashanti is also focused on providing medical equipment and support for other government health facilities in and around Obuasi. "Last two (2) years, we completed and handed over a maternity block with the State of the Arts equipment for the Obuasi Government Hospital. We will continue in our quest to contribute immensely to healthcare delivery for our people," he stated. Throwing more light on the training program and other interventions, Dr. Paul Okyere, a Lecturer and Public Health Promotion researcher at the Department of Health Promotion and Education, School of Public Health, KNUST said COVID-19 has taught countries to be adequately prepared for an outbreak of a pandemic hence it is important to build the capacity of healthcare professionals as far as maternal and child is concerned. He said at the end of the program, 85 health workers from both the Obuasi East and Municipal Health Directorates who are service providers, are expected to be trained on the need to prevent infectious diseases that threaten the lives of children and women. Dr. Okyere again added that as part of the campaign, series of sensitization programs has been lined up. He said, "we have developed jingles to be played on community information centers as well as radio discussions on infection prevention." Margaret Yaa Manu, the Obuasi Health Director said the training is timely since it is important for health professionals to undertake refresher courses to enable them live up to the task in order to protect mothers and babies from infections including COVID-19. The northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara has imposed a local lockdown and closed some markets and highways amid restrictions to contain renewed attacks by bandit militias after the breakdown of a peace deal, officials said. Northwest and central states are struggling to halt violence from criminal gangs who raid villages, loot and kidnap for ransom, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes and farms in recent years. Zamfara's decision underscored the complex security challenges facing Africa's most populous state as the country prepares for February elections to chose a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari. Zamfara, one of the worst hit by the bandit violence, had enjoyed a lull in attacks following peace deal with the gunmen, including with powerful warlord Bello Turji. But villages in the agrarian state have seen resurgence of raids in recent weeks following a military bombardment of Turji's house during a naming ceremony for his new child, which killed a dozen people, including his elder brother. Turji, a 28-year old herder-turned-bandit chief, was not at home during the raid. But he later told local media he was ready for both peace and war, a veiled threat to resume violence. "Government is saddened and worried about the resurgence of the activities of bandits and the recent killings," Ibrahim Dosara, Zamfara state information commissioner said in the statement on Thursday. Following these attacks the state governor Bello Matawalle approved the "total shutdown of Anka, Bukkuyum and Gummi Local Government Areas," as well as nine nearby villages, the statement said. Last week bandits carried out three separate attacks on Nigerian troops in Zamfara, including an ambush that killed three soldiers as well as a raid on a base. "All movements are henceforth restricted in the afore-mentioned local governments and towns," the statement said. "Security personnel have been directed to deal ruthlessly with anybody found violating the restriction order." Two weekly markets in the towns of Danjibga and Bagega were shut indefinitely as well as seven major highways across the state. Other restrictions include a ban on political rallies, gatherings and meetings in the open air and at homes of politicians as parties begin campaigning for the February 25 election. Zamfara has tried several peace deals, offering bandits amnesty and cash incentives but none of the truces has lasted. Military raids as well a telecom shutdown to cut communications between bandits and the closure of petrol stations and markets aimed at curtailing supplies to the gangs have also failed to end the violence. Bandits, who were declared terrorists by the Nigerian authorities in January, are motivated by financial gains but there are concerns among officials and analysts about their growing ties with jihadists waging a 13-year insurgency in Nigeria's northeast. MANZINI The Royal Eswatini Police Service has had a busy week as at 10am today, station commanders and station operations officers, will be in a special meeting. The station commanders and station operations officers from all the four regions shall be having a special meeting with the National Commissioner (NATCOM) of Police, William Tsitsibala Dlamini. This comes three days after the NATCOM convened a special meeting with five representatives of each police station in the country. There are about 23 police stations, 22 police posts, and 12 border posts, as well as one airport security monitoring post. These police posts and police stations are subordinated to the four regional headquarters and there is also a support unit and a police college subordinated to the executive command. In a communique to all regional police headquarters, dated October 13, 2022, the NATCOM extended the invitation to the station commanders and station (operations) officers at the Police Headquarters in Mbabane. The concise 84 words letter advised the officers it was addressed to, that they should attend the meeting without fail and should treat the communication as urgent. Discipline Impeccable sources claimed that the meeting scheduled for today was set to emphasise that discipline had to be rekindled within the police service, following what was termed an embarrassing moment wherein junior officers delivered a petition to the Cabinet offices directed to the Prime Minister (PM), Cleopas Sipho Dlamini and two other ministers. It is worth noting that this meeting comes at a time when the NATCOM was said to be engaging in a vusela in all the regions to encourage police officers to work selflessly while also reminding them of their oath, which is to protect and serve, ensure peace and safety in the country and serve the authorities of the land. Dlamini, in a press statement, reminded police officers to ensure that they respected human rights as they went about their duties while also emphasising that they should work hand-in-hand with the public as they were a good source of information. During the meeting, Dlamini was said to have reminded police officers that even if there were misunderstandings within the organisation, these quarrels should not let the law enforcers deviate from their oath of service. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, could not be drawn to comment on the proposed meeting as she said internal matters were not discussed with the media. The Concerned Drivers Association of Ghana has served notice to shock the entire nation over hikes in fuel prices. There have been projections that fuel prices will increase by 10 per cent on Sunday, 16 October 2022, while transport fares are likely to go up by 40 per cent in the coming weeks. A statement issued by the association, co-signed by its National Chairman Paa Willie, National Public Relations Officer (PRO) David Agboado and Deputy Secretary, Nana Owiredu said: Prices of fuel have been steadily increasing even at a time crude prices was reduced at the world market. As an association, we are promising the government, if they do not work on stabilising the fuel prices, well not increase fares for the ordinary Ghanaian to suffer but we will shock the entire Nation. It added: No amount of intimidation can stop us this time around. Speaking on 12Live on Class91.3FM, Friday, 14 October 2022, Deputy Communications Director, Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Samuel Amoah explained the current condition of drivers. Now the commercial drivers too are suffering. A driver will go to work, at the close of the day, all the money that the driver will get, hell just send it to a filling station, to just go and give it to them and go home, empty handed. Likewise, in case you have a problem with your car, youll use all the money to go and buy spare parts, so we have come to realise that our businesses are going down and theres pressure on us. He indicated that transport fares will be adjusted upward by 40 per cent if the government fails to take action. That is why this time around, per our calculation, we say were coming out with 40 per cent upward adjustment of transport fares, he stressed. Source: classfmonline.com 14.10.2022 LISTEN An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced a 39-year-old petty trader to ten years imprisonment in hard labour for unlawful possession of narcotics. Samuel Hagan, alias Tuga, denied the offence but he was found culpable after trial. Police Chief Inspector Benson Benneh told the Court presided over by Mrs Evelyn Asamoah that complainants, in this case, were Police Officers stationed at Mamprobi and Hagan was a petty trader who lived at Dansoman Beach Road. On February 4, 2022, at about 1800 hours, Mamprobi Police command embarked on an operation to arrest suspected drug peddlers and users within its jurisdiction, he told the Court. Chief Inspector Benneh said the team, acting on a tip-off, went to a ghetto at Dansoman Beach where undercover men were placed among the people present, adding that whilst there, Hagan, the convict, was spotted with a multi-coloured polythene bag containing wrappers of dried plant materials suspected to be narcotic drugs which he was selling out. The prosecution said the team was called in and the convict was arrested with 42 wrappers of dried plant materials suspected to be narcotic drugs. He said the convict together with the exhibits were sent to the station for investigation. Chief Inspector Benneh said Hagan claimed ownership of the 42 dried plant materials suspected to be narcotic drugs and that he was selling them. He said cautioned statement was obtained from the convict and the exhibit was forwarded to Police Forensic Science Laboratory for examination. The Court heard that Hagan was charged with the offence and put before the court as the laboratory result came out positive. GNA The General Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has finally revealed the party's intentions towards the fight against illegal mining in the country. He emphatically stated that his outfit will not stop the activities of illegal miners, known popularly as galamsey. Instead, the aspiring NDC national chairman intimated that the NDC has plans to train galamseyers in a way that will pose no threats to the environment. Speaking on the Kumasi-based Oyerepa FM, he further argued that any politician who promises to stop illegal mining, as the President did in 2017 when he assumed office is a liar. We wont stop mining, well extract the resources. The extraction isnt the dilemma but the method is the problem, he said. He added, If anyone promises to stop galamsey or mining in Ghana, that person is a liar. Recently, the debate about the activities of illegal mining has heightened. This comes on the heels of the re-arrest of Chinese Galamsey Kingpin, Aisha Huang, and the recent release of a documentary titled "Destruction for Gold" by Multimedia Journalist, Erastus Asare Donkor, which revealed the alarming rate of polluted river bodies caused by illegal mining. This even compelled President Akufo-Addo to convene a meeting with the National House of Chiefs and MMDCEs on the galamsey threat on Wednesday, October 5 in Kumasi. The UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Harriet Thompson says Ghana is not alone in facing economic challenges. She said in a tweet that there was the need to take the difficult decisions and come together internationally to get through. Her tweet comes after the UKs Minister for Development, Vicky Ford said Ghana is a great friend of the UK. In my meeting with Hon. Minister Ofori-Atta @MoF_Ghana we discussed the global economic challenges and the support we as the international community can offer Ghana, including a possible new @IMFNews programme. Harriet Thompson tweeted Ghana is not alone in facing economic challenges. We must be ready to take the difficult decisions & come together internationally to get through. We look forward to welcoming you back to Ghana in your new role @vickyford (& we're glad to see you love your made-in-Ghana jacket! Meanwhile, the G7 has asked the World Bank to provide financial support to Ghana and other African countries to enable them deal with the impact of the economic crisis caused by force majeures. The decision was taken during a meeting with African Finance Minsters with the G7 as part of the ongoing World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) Meetings in Washington D.C. The G7, an informal grouping of seven of the world's advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. Representatives from Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal were all at the meeting. Speaking in an exclusive interview with TV3, Ghana's Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta described the meeting as historic because this is the first time African Finance Ministers have been invited to for such discussions. Mr Ofori-Atta said It was actually quite a historic meeting because for the first time the G7 has called African Finance Ministers to deliberate on the crisis that they see. The trues that these are exogenous factors that have really, even their own economies put it under serious stress and are therefore, looking for ways in which they can add to the capital needs to make sure that things do not deteriorate. So countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco were there. He added The empathy is clear, the need to [introduce] something new and therefore, their interest in encouraging the world Bank to find more resource, tapping into the private sector so that they will stabilize where things are going. They have reduced growth rate to 2.7 per cent expecting a grim and difficult period, they don't want to make sure that things deteriorate from liquidly to insolvency to chaos. The meeting brings together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, parliamentarians, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness. Also featured are seminars, regional briefings, press conferences, and many other events focused on the global economy, international development, and the world's financial system. 3news.com 14.10.2022 LISTEN Traders at Adum on Friday, reopened their shops following the intervention of the Asantehemaa, Nana Yaa Konadu. The traders, most of whom deal in fast-moving consumer goods closed their shops on Monday, October 10, 2022, in protest of what they described as an unfavourable tax regime and the free fall of the Ghana cedis. The closures left the Pampaso and PZ areas, considered as the busiest enclave in the Kumasi central business district empty while many traders who had come from near and far from Kumasi to buy some of these items were left stranded. Mr Charles Kusi, Executive Secretary to the Kumasi Business Community told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Friday that, they were opening the shops out of respect for the Asantehemaa. He said the Asantehemaa sent a delegation to meet the executives of the Community to rescind their decision as they engaged the government to address their concerns. We are reopening our shops out of respect for the revered queen-mother, but we may be compelled to close the shops again if nothing good comes out of our engagement with the government, he stated. Mr Kusi said the Ashanti regional Minister had also invited their leadership to discuss their concerns and that he was looking forward to a fruitful deliberation. GNA A young army captain who led the latest coup in Burkina Faso drew signs of support Friday for him to serve as the transitional president of the jihadist-torn west African country. Captain Ibrahim Traore, 34, who led disgruntled junior officers into toppling Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba two weeks ago, has so far faced no major visible opposition. Armoured and other military vehicles guarded access to a conference centre in the capital Ouagadougou where the elite debated Friday the nation's future. Some 300 delegates from political parties, social and religious groups, security forces, unions as well as people displaced by jihadist violence discussed chosing a transitional president before power is supposed to return to civilians. Supporters of Traore are clamouring for him to be that man, although he has said he does not want the job. Several hundreds demonstrated Friday in the capital calling for Traore to be appointed president. Map of Burkina Faso locating the capital Ouagadougou. By (AFP) "We want captain Traore or nothing," demonstrator Sayouba Ouedrapogo told AFP near the centre where the talks opened. Traore did not attend the forum but junta member captain Marcel Medah read out a message from him urging national unity and peace. "We must set aside our differences ... and write a new page full of hope," the message said. Traore called for "clear directions for the construction of a strong and resilient nation, a nation that can establish peace, security, and sustainable development." The forum is expected to adopt a charter for which a draft seen by AFP states that the presidential transition mandate will end with the inauguration of a new president after elections in July 2024. Troubled country One of the world's poorest nations, Burkina Faso has a long history of coups since independence from France in 1960. The September 30 coup announcement sparked anti-French protests and a flag-waving show of support for Russia. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) The latest are rooted in unrest within army ranks over the jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015. Thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million have been displaced and more than a third of the country lies outside government control. Traore has said Burkina will uphold a pledge that Damiba made for a return to civilian government by July 2024 at the latest. But like Damiba before him, Traore defended the coup on the grounds that the authorities were failing to do enough against the jihadists. Damiba fled on October 2 after a weekend of violent protests that also targeted the French embassy and saw demonstrators raise Russian flags. Vocal support Traore said he would only stay on to carry out "current business" but at meetings in Ouagadougou and Burkina's second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, supporters have also been clamouring for him to be appointed to the top job. The French Institute in Ouagadougou, a major venue for artists in impoverished Burkina, was extensively damaged. By OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT (AFP) "Captain Ibrahim Traore must fully implement the reason for which he came," said Oscar Seraphin Ky, one of his backers. Monique Yeli Kam said she came to the national forum representing her party, the Movement for Burkina's Renaissance, in order to "support and defend the vision of national unity. "What we want is Captain Traore's confirmation as head of state and president of Burkina Faso," she said. "He embodies renewal, a generational renewal, a break with old practices." France, a close ally, has watched the new turmoil with deep concern. A coup in Mali in 2020 sparked friction with France and led to Bamako's military entwinement with Moscow. French troops that had been fighting jihadists in Mali for nine years pulled out this year after the row escalated. Captain Ibrahim Traore, 34, led Burkina Faso's second coup in less than nine months. By - (AFP) The French ambassador to Burkina Faso, Luc Hallade, advised French citizens to limit their movements on Friday to "what is strictly necessary... out of concern for new protest movements". Military vehicles guarded the entry points to the conference centre in the capital where the talks were being held. According to local pollster Apidon, 53 percent of those questioned would prefer to have Traore in charge. Among his most ardent supporters, the scale of Burkina's security crisis makes it crucial to have a military man in charge, it found. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu has accused the British government led by Prime Minister Liz Truss of being unfair towards Finance Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng. According to him, Ghana's Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta who has run down the country's economy and inflicted hardship on Ghanaians and still at post, then sacking Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng was unfair. In a tweet after the announcement, the vocal legislator asserted that even the "fruitless" Ofori-Atta is being praised by the Ghanaian government. Kwasi Kwarteng hasnt done a fraction of the damage Ken Ofori-Atta has caused the Ghanaian economy but he gets to be sacked and Ken is showered with praises from his family member, President Akufo-Addo as Ghanaians languish in more pain. Sad no justice in the world, he wrote. Great Britain has today, October 14 sacked its Finance Minister, Mr. Kwasi Kwarteng less than six weeks in office as the nation keeps facing worst economic challenges in decades. The British-Ghanaian ex-Chancellor took over from Nadhim Zahawi. His offence was that, at a time when the UK was facing a difficult period, he implemented a mini-budget which turned out to affect the country's economy badly. Kwarteng spent only 38 days in office making him the second-shortest serving officer after Iain Macleod, who died in office. Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has refuted reports blaming the military for Ghana's failed fight against illegal mining (galamsey). The reports, widely circulated in the media, suggest that the military is to be held responsible for failures in the galamsey fight and has been attributed to the sector minister, Samuel Jinapor during a press update last Thursday. In a statement, the Ministry said for the avoidance of doubt, the Minister did not say the military is to be blamed for any failures in the fight against illegal mining. It clarified that what the Minister said was to the effect that the military has been put fully in charge of the operations on the ground. The above comments have obviously been misunderstood by a section of the media, the statement added. By Citi Newsroom Self-styled evangelist, Patricia Asiedua aka Nana Agradaa will spend more days in police custody as an Accra court has remanded her in a second case filed against her by the Ghana Police Service. This is the third time she has been remanded into custody in two separate cases. The traditional priestess turned evangelist was arrested last Sunday for allegedly swindling members of her Heaven Way Church at Weija. In the first case, the police arraigned Nana Agradaa before the court on 10th October 2022 after her arrest. The court remanded her into police custody to reappear on the 13th of October. The Police on the said date brought the accused before the court where she was remanded again to reappear on 17th October 2022. In the second case, the accused was again arraigned before the court on Friday 14th October 2022 and has been remanded into police custody to reappear on 24th October 2022, police said in a statement but failed to disclose her charges. Ghana runs a risk of having a sick population in future and a food security crisis due to the increasing rate of harmful chemical residue found on food produce. This is because of the contamination of soil and water beds with harmful chemicals through illegal mining activities-Galamsey and the wrong use of pesticides. If you should do an analysis, either microbial or physiochemical analysis on the produce on our farms, a lot of it is being contaminated, said Mr Nlaliban Wujangi in an interview with the Ghana News Agency. The Director for Food and Agriculture at the Chamber of Agribusiness who is also an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Focal Person, warned that the country's Cocoa which is a major export earner also risked being rejected on the market if major interventions are not carried out to end the Galamsey menace. He observed that, even though there was a withdrawal period to take away chemical residue on food stuff especially when fertilizer had been applied, the non-adherence with the period and the heavy concentration of harmful mining chemicals highly contaminated the food produce. Even when the rain falls it is not able to take out all the chemicals because of the high concentration of chemicals used for galamsey He said the ongoing tests had suggested that the contamination of food produce which was thought of to be a problem predominated in mining areas has taken a national character due to the impact of illegal mining on the water bodies. It is a national issue as water finds its way, anywhere water originates and goes to, we have a risk there. We thought Galamsey was happening down south in the Western and Eastern region however, there is even some part of the Northern regions where there is some form of Galamsey, he said. He said the Chamber had made efforts to notify the Government through its representatives on various joint committees with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and participation in donor-funded programmes. One other thing we might end up doing very soon is calling an entire press conference purposely to address that issue, he said. He advocated a holistic approach to addressing the issue which would require the implementation of sustainable alternative livelihood programmes for persons involved in the practice. GNA MBABANE - Lomvula Hlophe, the wife to Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini, has been appointed the Acting DPP. Lomvulas appointment by His Majesty King Mswati III was announced by the Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), Chief Justice (CJ) Bheki Maphalala, yesterday. The CJ said Lomvula would hold the reins in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) while the indisposed Phila Dlamini received medical attention. Maphalala expressed hope that with Lomvula as acting DPP, her office would work hand-in-hand with the Judiciary and, among other things, help deal with the shortage of prosecutors. Lomvula was previously a Principal Crown Counsel in the Office of the DPP before being elevated to the position of Under Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources. As Crown Counsel, Lomvula was the head of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Unit. She was also responsible for cases which touched on human trafficking and peoples smuggling. She is the daughter of King Sobhuza IIs daughter, Princess Dutoit. This means she is a niece to King Mswati III. Her father is the late former Statesman, Abednego Kuseni Hlophe, popularly known as AK. Lomvula is known for her no-nonsense approach when it comes to issues of gender-based violence and children. When the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act 15/2018 was being piloted, she was the one sensitising the public and legislators about it. One of the cases she is currently handling is that of Pastor Themba Masimula. Masimula, who is also a teacher, is accused of killing his wife, Funekile, who was burnt to death inside a motor vehicle. Disappeared Lomvula is also leading the prosecution in the murder trial of Patrick Bhubesi Shongwe, who is a police officer. Shongwe, however, disappeared when the trial was supposed to start on November 1, 2021. A warrant of arrest against him was issued but he is still at large. The acting DPP is also prosecuting in the case of Mpendulo Mcolisi Msibi, who is facing 21 charges of rape and murder. Other pending cases which are being prosecuted by her include that of Talos, the Mozambican national who is accused of raping many women at Checkers, Mbabane. She is also prosecuting in the matter of the soldier who allegedly hired people to kill his wardress wife. Lomvula also prosecuted in the matter where a 13-year-old girl was allegedly sexually abused by her Mozambican father on numerous occasions and she fell pregnant. The striking workers of Metro Mass Transit have called off the industrial action after meeting the National Labour Commission. The workers who have been on a sit-down strike since October 12 agreed to return to work on the advice of the NLC to allow the disagreeing parties to come to the table and find lasting solutions. The employees laid down their tools because of the delay in the payment of their two months' salaries. Patrons of Metro Mass Transit were left stranded across the country, eventually prompting the intervention of the NLC. They were also demanding the dismissal of their Managing Director, whom they blame for their current condition. Metro Mass Transits management responded to the calls saying the companys struggles were because of logistical constraints. It has said it has only 187 buses nationwide and struggles to generate enough revenue for 2,000 workers nationwide. By Citi Newsroom Statistics indicate that about 16,000 new breast cancer cases are reported annually in Ghana. Prestea Huni Valley Municipal Health Director, Dr. Joseph Kwame Sampson, who revealed this described the figure as alarming. He also added that most of the women who have died from breast cancer in the country report late to health facilities. He, therefore, stressed the need for women to report early if they suspect there is evidence of the disease. He was speaking at a breast cancer awareness and screening programme organized by Aboso Goldfields Limited (AGL), Damang mine in the Prestea Huni Valley municipality of the Western Region. The exercise, which was held to mark October Breast Cancer Awareness month, was organized through the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation and the Damang wing of Women in Mining (WiM). Dr. Magdalene Bakari of the Tarkwa Government Hospital educated the participants on the symptoms of the disease and how they could examine their breasts to check for the disease. She mentioned some of the signs and symptoms as a breast lump, lump in the armpit, change in the colour of the breast skin, and bloody nipple discharge. She encouraged the women to frequently check for the disease. She debunked the assertion that the sucking of womens breasts by male adults will prevent breast cancer. It is rather breastfeeding that will help prevent women from contracting the disease, she indicated. She stressed the need for every woman to know the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and understand the significance of early detection for treatment. Catherine Kupool, Acting General Manager of AGL said the mine has volunteered to support the awareness creation and share ideas with its host communities, in particular, women about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer to improve early detection and treatment. Even though the disease may seem frightening, early discovery is crucial for its treatment and the survival of those who are affected, she emphasized. Out of 67 women who went through free screening as part of the programme, two, who were suspected to have cancerous lumps were referred to the Tarkwa Municipal Hospital. -DGN online 14.10.2022 LISTEN Once the mighty tech giant of the world, Japan has not been spared its own fair share of the economic turbulence and stark insecurity the world is going through, especially, in her own backyard. The rouge North Korean state and its leader, Kim Jong-Un, with their infatuation with testing missiles of various types and ranges that are very capably able to hit anywhere inside Japan to cause massive devastation to land, property and human lives, it is just security-wise, if not common sense, for Japan to guarantee her own self-protection. Matters become worse when you put almighty China, the current overambitious neo-colonial expansionist country in the world, into the equation. Communist China has indisputably become an economic, technology and military superpower in the world with the unhidden agenda to expand her territory and influence, if possibly, by force. Look at how China in just twenty years into an agreed term of fifty years for running a one-country on two-political systems with Hong Kong, has reneged on the agreement. China was supposed to allow Hong Kong to run as a democratic state for fifty years after the United Kingdom handing the country back to her on 1st July 1997. "The Handover of Hong Kong was the formal passing of authority over the territory of the then colony of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony". However, for China's overzealousness to expand her territory and authority, in the larger picture of dominating the world by numbers of population, militarily, economically, technologically and politically ideologically, they could not wait but to abrogate whatever terms of contract they had entered into with the UK on Hong Kong. Now, Hong Kong has practically been forced into the communist rule of China long before the fifty-year agreed term has expired. Additionally, China is threatening Taiwan and will soon end Taiwan's democracy by forcing her into mainland China as one country practising communism. The numerous islands in both South China and the disputed East China seas are being claimed by China by the use of sheer force. Without getting down to the nitty-gritty of the islands and the international sea waters around the area that China is laying a claim to, and protecting with military threats to would-be trespassers, it will not be any surprise to me to wake up one morning to hear that China is claiming Japan as part of it. Therefore, it will just be strategically wise, or commonsensical for Japan to start seriously implementing robust measures of any preventive type, to ward off any would-be Chinese endeavours to incorporate Japan into China, if indeed, Japan wants to continue to remain a sovereign democratic country in that sphere of turbulent world. Japan, I will advise, should not deceive themselves to thinking that the United States of America (USA) and her allies will solidly defend them against a powerful external aggressor like almighty greedy and clever China. USA may again have a president like Donald Trump who was disinterested in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but the selfish interests of America. Was Donald Trump not withdrawing the USA from NATO, if he had indeed not withdrawn her while he was in power? Was he not showing disinterest in the defence of Europe and asked the European members of NATO to contribute enough money of their own for their own defence without looking forward to the USA to defend them in case of attacks by whomever? If Donald Trump was in power today, his friend, Vladimir Putin, the President of the Federation of Russia, will have successfully completed his military invasion of Ukraine within weeks with Ukraine now fully become part of Russia. Concluding from the behaviour and the policies that Donald Trump was selfishly pursuing in the selfish interest of America, it is just prudent for Japan, a small country in the Sea of Japan in the Western Pacific Ocean, bordered by Korea to the West and Russia to the North, to arm herself to the teeth. She should be ready and able to defend herself against aggressors like North Korea, Russia and China that may see her as an enemy owing to her friendship with, or marriage to, America. Japan not being a member of NATO but a formal global partner same as Afghanistan, Australia, Colombia, Iraq, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan, had better find a means to defend herself without over-relying on America or NATO to defend her when attacked by say, Russia, North Korea or China, all three nuclear powers. Japan should not remember her past in the second world war to continue to feel shy to stop her from putting in place powerful mechanisms to capably defend herself against rogue states like North Korea. The same advice goes to Germany, the economic and industrial powerhouse of Europe. Germany has all the means available to her to build sophisticated weapons to defend herself and colleague-NATO and European Union members. Look at how the European Union is lately threatened with disintegration following the successful exit by the United Kingdom in what is Brexit? Some French political parties are doting on Frexit with Italy and Austria far-right leaders probably deciding on revising their membership of the European Union. Those who have the means to build what it takes to defend themselves, not using such means to oppress or invade others, should please do so to avoid being invaded by pariah states like Russia, North Korea and especially, almighty China who is on expansionism of territory and sovereignty the world over, through brute force, or baiting soft loans to third world countries, including Ghana, my motherland. They are dominating Ghanaians in Ghana, doing whatever they like with impunity, while the ensemble of Ghanaians watch in utter disbelief and resign to fate taking its own course. Germany should not be held down by the shame visited upon them by their once fascist, xenophobic and aggressor leader, Adolf Hitler, who in his desire to conquer the world, brought about the second world war and the extermination of millions of Jews whom he wrongly saw and considered as vermin. Russia invasion of Ukraine and the untold economic hardships it has brought upon the world should be sufficient signal or proof to Japan to advise herself when it comes to her defence as a sovereign state. They have the technology so let them invent something that can negative the efforts by any of their would-be aggressors. The military invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin for selfish reasons can happen to any country. Therefore, Japan is warned to be a million times proactive to avoid any had I known in her sovereign life. Rockson Adofo Friday, 14 October 2022 LC Waikiki, a leading globally renowned fashion retail brand on Friday, October 14, opened its second store in Ghana at the Achimota Retail Centre in Accra. This follows the success of its first official store at the Junction Mall in Accra which was opened in 2021. The latest addition by the fashion retail giant forms part of its plan to expand further in Africa in line with its mission, 'Everyone Deserves to Dress Well.' The new shop at the Achimota Mall has been opened with a 20% discount on all items. The promo is running till Sunday, October 16. In the new store which covers an area of over 900m, customers can find LC Waikikis special collections with a wide choice for men, women and children. Speaking at the opening of the new store, LC Waikikis Country Manager, Aziddin Zidi disclosed that his outfit sees a lot of potential in the Ghanaian market and wants to open more stores in the country. Ghanian market is one of the most attractive markets in Africa thanks to its economic potential, population, and location in West Africa. It is a proud moment for us to open this store today as it signifies progress in LC Waikiki's Africa growth strategy. The two stores in Ghana make us the second country in West Africa where LC Waikiki has expanded its brand following its success in the East African market and we are very happy about that, he noted. In the short term, Aziddin Zidi disclosed that LC Waikikis goal is to have more stores by the end of 2023. We are targeting more stores and more cities to be closer to our customers wherever they wish to find us. Regarding our goals; we are planning to open our next store in Kumasi and we are aiming to be in 2 cities with 5 stores by end of 2023. From this day onward, our promise to the Ghanaian market is to provide them with quality and fashionable items, and never will we go back on this promise, the country director of the fashion retail giant assured. Engaging journalists on the sideline of the opening, Aziddin Zidi added that in the next five years, LC Waikiki wants to be the market leader in Ghana. He noted that his outfit will do so by having more stores in different cities. Our expectation for the next five years is to have more stores and to be the leader of the market as we are a leader in many markets. We want to be the leader of our sector in Ghana and to contribute to the development of the fashion retail in this country because these people [Ghanaians] deserve it, he stressed. Globally, the Turkish brand continues its operations with more than 1200 stores in 56 countries, 357 different cities on 4 continents, and 57,000 employees. LC Waikiki's target is to have more than 1500 stores all over the world in the next few years. The company reported that they have had 530 million items sold in 2021. The Paramount Chief of the Paga Traditional Area in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, Pe Awiah Awumpaga II has lauded government for its Agenda 111 Project. He noted that the initiative will bring healthcare delivery to the doorstep of the citizenry, which has been one of the major challenges faced by the nation. The Chief was particularly happy that his Traditional Area is a beneficiary of the innovative initiative by the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, underscoring its significance in saving lives and improving the health needs of residents in the area. During a courtesy call on him by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as part of his days working visit to the Upper East Region, the Chief indicated that the district's Agenda 111 project had been sited in his jurisdiction, which is one of the ancient towns in the Region. I wish to commend the Akufo-Addo government for its vision of bringing healthcare to the doorstep of the citizenry with Agenda 111. There would not have been a better place to site this project than my area. I am convinced that upon completion, my subjects and I will benefit from it. It would also save us the struggle of travelling to Navrongo and Bolga for certain services once they would be available here for us, he disclosed. The Agenda 111 project includes 101 district hospitals, six regional hospitals in the newly created regions, two specialised hospitals in the middle and northern belts, as well as a regional hospital in the Western Region and renovation of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital. The objective of the Project is to significantly deepen delivery of quality healthcare at the district level, boost access to healthcare services for all citizens towards ensuring the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Three. The regional coordination and training meeting of regional experts and focal points for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in West Africa ended on Wednesday 12 October 2022 in Accra, Ghana. One main recommendation made by participants during the meeting was the call on the ECOWAS Commission to provide support to Member States to fast track the signing and ratification of the African Union Protocol on Disability. The experts from Member States also requested ECOWAS support for the preparation of the preliminary and periodic reports of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), as prescribed in the ECOWAS Regional Action Plan on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in West Africa. The Accra meeting further recommended that ECOWAS should mobilise resources to assist Member States to implement programmes for the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Addressing Member States of the West African regional body, the meeting urged governments to develop tools for the collection and dissemination of disaggregated data on disability, with a view to facilitating policy formulation and national planning. Member States were also urged to collaborate with development partners, including the private sector, to mobilise technical and financial assistance for disability integration programmes. Lastly, they are to ensure that persons with disabilities are appointed as heads of national disability agencies or structures, as well as lead delegations at meetings relating to the inclusion of persons with disabilities, as stipulated by the principle "Nothing About Us, Without Us". Delivering his address at the closing ceremony, Ambassador Baba Gana Wakil, ECOWAS Deputy Resident Representative in Ghana pointed out that many important issues that need to be tackled with diligence by all stakeholders were raised. These include the need to continue to build the capacity of disability inclusion experts, to canvass for the support of national and regional policy makers for increased budget allocation for the implementation of disability inclusive programmes. Ambassador Baba Gana Wakil commended participants for their effective contributions and active participation in the proceedings. He also thanked the African Union, the UN Regional Office for Human Rights, and the expert, Danlami Basharu, for their contributions to the success of the proceedings. It should be noted that other statements were delivered at the closing ceremony, namely those by (i) Mrs. Paula Saad, Director General of Social Inclusion of Guinea Bissau, representing His Excellency General Umaro Sissoko Embalo, Chair of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, (ii) Lephko Kasamang, African Union expert, representing Ambassador Cessouma Minata Samate. Source: ECOWAS MBABANE - Hardly a day after the King blessed the installation of about 50 chiefs from different chiefdoms around the country; the candidacy of one of them is now being challenged in court. A certain faction, which is against the installation of Sibusiso Magagula as the chief of KaBhudla, has filed an urgent application at the High Court. They contend that Malindane Magagula is the rightful heir. Applicants in the matter are Phelelani Zachariah Magagula, Bekwaphi Mtsetfwa, Lomajele Magagula, Busisiwe Magagula and Malindane. Selected The Chairman of the Ludzidzini Council, Chief Mdlaka Gamedze, is the first respondent in the matter, while Indvuna Themba Ginindza is the second respondent. Other respondents are Zizwe Mamba, Tentile Mamba, Gema Magagula, Vangeli Magagula, Annah Magagula and Sibusiso Magagula. The applicants alleged that Malindane was selected by lusendvo (family council) as the successor of his late father, Chief Magutjwa. The applicants, who are against the installation of Sibusiso, further claimed that a beast was slaughtered at the cattle byre and the bile (inyongo) was removed and inserted on Malindanes hand by John Valimpompi Magagula, who is now late. According to the applicants, Malindane was given the name Chief Thutha, which is his great-grandfathers name. It is alleged by the warring faction, that Malindane was endorsed as the next chief designate of KaBhudla by the late Chief of Dvokolwako, Malamlela Magagula. Phelelani, who deposed to an affidavit, informed the court that he was the brother to the late Chief Magutjwa and a senior prince of KaBhudla. He narrated to the court that since 2012, the matter had been dragging and pending before libandla, being the Ludzidzini Council. According to the deponent (Phelelani), the change in membership of the council also affected the progress of the matter. In addition, most of Chief Magutjwas siblings, who had selected Malindane, as the next successor of his father, have died along the way save for the second applicant (Bekwaphi) and third applicant (Lomajele). Engagements He submitted that in the year 2019, following lengthy engagements with the Ludzidzini Council regarding the selection of Malindane as the next candidate chief, the council (Ludzidzini Council) advised him, in the presence of Chief Jubiphathi, that as libandla, they had approved Sibusiso as the next candidate chief of KaBhudla. The Ludzidzini Council alleged that this was an order from Their Majesties-to our utter dismay. Some of the respondents, as well as their delegation we present. We were ordered by the council to present Sibusiso the following week, on October 9, 2019 before them, submitted the deponent. He brought it to the attention of the court that, dissatisfied with the councils decision, they then resolved to go to Her Majesty, the Queen Mother, at Ludzidzini Royal Residence to thank her (siyobonga lenkhulumo yelibandla). He told the court that after receiving a warm welcome from the Queen Mother, they (applicants) expressed their frustration on the fact that they could not reach common ground with the Ludzidzini Council regarding the selection of Malindane as the candidate chief of KaBhudla. Phelelani further submitted that during the meeting, they also highlighted to Her Majesty that the Ludzidzini Council had alleged that Their Majesties had issued an order that Sibusiso be selected as the candidate chief of KaBhudla, instead of Malindane. Shock Her Majesty expressed utter shock about the Ludzidzini Councils allegations and also vehemently denied that Their Majesties issued an order. Her Majesty emphatically stated that, under Swazi Law and Custom, Their Majesties were not involved in the selection of candidate chiefs at family level, he argued. Phelelani, who holds himself as the senior prince of the area, further averred that during the meeting with the Queen Mother, she also ardently decreed that the selection of a chief, under Swazi Law and Custom, was the exclusive prerogative of the family council (lusendvo) and not the libandla (council). According to the applicants, the Queen Mother further decreed that it was within the province of the family council (bobabe nabo anti) to select whosoever they deemed fit, in accordance with Swazi Law and Custom, to assume the role of a late chief and not the libandla. As a result, Her Majesty the Indlovukazi commanded Indvuna Themba Ginindza to accompany us, the following day on October 9, 2019, to the council and admonish to them that Their Majesties had not issued an order to the council regarding Sibusiso, contended the applicant. Reasons Phelelani recounted that on October 9, 2019, as commanded by Her Majesty, they went to Nkhanini to appear before the council. He alleged that, unfortunately, for reasons known to him, Indvuna Ginindza did not avail himself to accompany them to the Ludzidzini Council. He informed the court that they last saw Indvuna Ginindza during their meeting with Her Majesty the Queen Mother and to date they had not heard from him. He recounted that on October 27, 2019, a multitude of men, claiming to be from Dvokolwako and Madlangampisi respectively, led by Zizwe Mamba, invaded the Endabeni Umphakatsi. According to the applicant, among them was Mohamed Magagula (now deceased), who was Acting Chief of Dvokolwako. Chief Jubiphathi of Nyakatfo was also reportedly present. He told the court that Mohamed and the other respondents alleged that they were there to enforce a superior order, as alleged by the Ludzidzini Council. He said the order, they were allegedly made to believe, was to the effect that they had to install Sibusiso and present him to the council the following day, on Monday of October 28, 2019. In the month of November 2020, I lodged a complaint with Eswatini National Council (SNC) against the unlawful decision of the Ludzidzini Council to order the multitude of men from Dvokolwako and Madlangampisi, including some of the respondents, to invade our umphakatsi for installing Sibusiso based on a superior order .The SNC, after having heard our submissions, remitted the matter back to the Ludzidzini Council for correction, Phelelani argued. It was further the deponents submission that on November 12, 2020, they appeared before the Ludzidzini Council and the deliberations on the matter continued until they were suspended due to annual royal duties. I state that the Ludzizini Council has made it impossible for us to get a relief from the traditional structures, since they recklessly and deliberately frustrated all our efforts to have this matter amicably resolved within the traditional realms, alleged Phelelani. He also alleged that the Ludzidzini Council and Indvuna Ginindza had negligently disrespected and/or turned a blind eye to Her Majestys command on October 9, 2019 restraining the council from imposing Sibusiso and poking its nose into the selection of KaBhudla candidate chief, The matter is still pending in court and appearing for the applicants is Xolani Mthethwa of PM Dlamini Attorneys in Mbabane. MBABANE Chairman of the Ludzidzini Council Chief Mdlaka Gamedze has explained that the 21 chiefs, who were not blessed on Wednesday had their matters under discussion. In an interview, Gamedze said some of the pending matters were taking a positive direction while some were still not clear. He said the positive pending chieftaincy discussions were bringing hope that at some point, those areas would have their substantive chiefs. List The chiefs, who appeared on the pending list, included an indvuna of Gamula area under Lubombo Region. On the right is the list of the pending chiefs as they appeared in the attached document of the chiefs who were blessed by the King on Wednesday. (Alliance News) - Labour has pledged to ban fracking "once and for all" as it hit out at suggestions that the UK government could move to ban solar farms from much of England's farmland. The party intends to work with MPs who oppose fracking to force the government to maintain the ban, one of several issues to divide the Conservatives since Liz Truss became leader. The new administration's environmental commitments have come under severe scrutiny in recent weeks after lifting England's fracking ban, in place since 2019 following a series of earth tremors, and giving the green light to the expansion of oil and gas operations in the North Sea. Ed Miliband, Labour's shadow climate secretary, will visit Bassetlaw on Friday to meet with the party's candidate Jo White and local residents to listen to concerns about the potential for fracking in their area. Labour is working to bring forward an opposition day motion to maintain the current ban, Miliband is expected to tell locals during his visit. In his speech to Labour's party conference last month, Keir Starmer promised to create a publicly-owned energy company to ensure energy security in the UK. Miliband said: "Labour will stand with communities in opposing the Conservatives' dodgy plans to impose expensive, dirty, and dangerous fracking on the British people. "Fracking would make no difference to energy prices, and could risk the health of local communities, nature, and water supplies." Hitting out at what he called Truss's "unjust charter for earthquakes", he said Labour would stand up to her plan to "outsource decisions about local consent to fracking companies". Some MPs have been clamouring for a vote on the controversial issue, while the government has insisted that future applications will be considered where there is local support, although it is not clear how that will be measured. The 2019 Conservative manifesto pledged not to lift England's moratorium unless "the science shows categorically it can be done safely". A government-commissioned report by the British Geological Survey suggested more data was needed, but despite the lack of scientific progress, Truss's administration has torn up the manifesto commitment. Miliband will also visit a solar farm, where he is expected to set out his party's opposition to any plan that would block new solar projects. Downing Street this week confirmed that Truss is opposed to the installation of solar panels on productive agricultural lands. "If Liz Truss blocks solar power she will be declaring unilateral energy disarmament undermining our energy security and forcing the British people to accept decades of higher energy bills," Miliband said. "Only Labour can deliver lower energy bills and energy security for the UK, with our plans for clean power by 2030 including trebling solar power and GB Energy, a publicly-owned, clean energy company, to make Britain an energy independent superpower." source: PA Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Editor's Note: The delegates to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are outstanding Party members with remarkable achievements. They are selected from and trusted by more than 96 million members and more than 4.9 million grass-roots organizations of the CPC, embodying the pioneering nature of the CPC and carrying the expectations of the Chinese people. China Military Online is publishing a series of stories to elaborate the outstanding deeds of some delegates. Buha talks with elder villagers in Suosuolada Village in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. (Photo by Zheng Lei) By An Puzhong, Zhang Leifeng, and Lian Yi Suosuolada Village of Zhaojue County sits in the hinterland of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Suosuolada means a valley full of cedar trees in local language. For a long time in the past, due to blocked traffic and some primitive traditional customs, this village has not kept pace with the development of the times and been a typical desperately impoverished area. Lieutenant Colonel Buha, who is political instructor of a unit of the Liangshan Detachment under the Chinese Peoples Armed Police (PAP) Sichuan Corps, now serves as a cadre in Suosuolada Village. His hometown is in Ganluo County, not far from the village. When he was very young, his mother died, the family life was all dependent on his father to support. Thanks to the preferential policies granted by the Party and the Chinese government for ethnic minorities, Buha was able to finish his studies and successively graduated from primary school, secondary schools, and university. After graduating from Chengdu University of Technology, Buha joined the armed police force as a special recruit. In 2017, according to the results of an investigation made by a working team sent by the PAP Sichuan Corps to the Liangshan area, the PAP Sichuan Corps decided to take various measures to help Suosuolada Village shake off poverty. Buha took the initiative to rush to the front line of poverty alleviation. Upon arriving at the village, Buha visited all the 522 households in the village. On the basis of in-depth investigations and careful study of the policies for poverty alleviation work, he gradually sorted out such poverty alleviation measures for the village as developing industries, promoting education, strengthening medical care, and improving infrastructure. Under his guidance, the Party branch of the PAP squadron stationed in the Zhaojue County paired up with the Party branch of the Suosuolada Village to help the Party branch of the village to give full play to its leading role in the poverty alleviation. In order to improve medical conditions in the village, Buha went to the PAP Sichuan Corps hospital to ask for help. After learning the real situation of the village, the PAP Sichuan Corps hospital donated emergency kits for 152 poor households in the village with commonly used medicine, the medical teams from the hospital came to the village to provide free clinical treatment for the local people for 33 times and distributed medicines worth more than 60,000 yuan and conducted free physical examinations for more than 2,000 Local people. At the end of 2018, 356 households in Suosuolada Village moved into new houses. The industrial poverty alleviation model of "cooperatives + technical experts + poor households" has achieved initial results. Depending on planting tomatoes and breeding local chickens and bees, the per capita income of poor households increased by more than 2,000 yuan and the per household income increase reached over 8,000 yuan, marking the entire village was successfully lifted out of poverty. A few years ago, the village kindergarten had only two rudimentary classrooms. In September 2019, the Sichuan Armed Police Corps built a kindergarten for the village that can accommodate more than 200 children to receive pre-primary education. The kindergarten named Aimin has 2 bungalows and a small 2-story building, with a piano room, dance room, library, canteen, and dormitory, etc. inside, and the village children can go to the kindergarten with no tuition and uniform fees. Poverty alleviation has never been the end. Buha is now engaged in the rural revitalization work in the Suosuolada Village. Buha has led the villagers to establish a "one-stop" industrial chain integrating planting, breeding, processing and sales, injecting new momentum for further development of the village. In 2020, the poverty incidence of Suosuolada Village declined to zero from 34% in 2017, and the per capita annual income has reached more than 6,200 yuan. When it comes to being elected as a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Buha firmly said: I have been ready to act as a loyal guard of the Party and the people to shoulder the mission with the people in mind. Ather Energy to install 820 more charging grids by end of FY23 Hyderabad/Bangalore, Oct 14 (UNI) As part of expanding its footprint Nationally, Ather Energy, Indias leading electric scooter manufacturer on Friday announced plans to install 820 more charging grids across the country by the end of FY23 and taking the count to 1400. Marking a significant milestone, the company announced the installation of the 580th public fast charging point, the Ather Grid, across 56 cities in India. Ather Grids have been strategically installed across markets, with 60 percent of current installations in tier-II and tier-III cities, Ather Energy, which launched Indias first truly intelligent electric scooter, said in a release. Since inception, Ather Energy has been building a robust charging ecosystem to support the growth of the EV industry and facilitate a hassle-free transition to EVs. The Ather Grid allows EV owners to charge their vehicles up to 80 per cent at 1.5 km/min. The charging network is supported by the Ather Grid app, which allows all EV owners to locate and check the availability of the nearest charging stations in real-time. The fast charging network can be used by all electric two-wheelers and electric four-wheelers, and this facility is being offered free of charge to everyone till the end of December 2022. Commenting on the milestone, Ravneet Phokela, Chief Business Officer, Ather Energy, said in addition to setting up charging points, we recently opened up our proprietary charging connector for any OEM to adopt. We believe that OEMs need to collaborate when it comes to building infrastructure, and interoperability is a critical requirement for collaboration. Interoperability through a common charging connector provides an incentive to OEMs and independent charging infrastructure operators to make deeper investments in charging infrastructure. Ather Energy has partnered with multiple players like Park+, Magenta Power, and signed MoU with the Government of Karnataka, to set up EV charging locations in various cities. Ather Energy will continue to partner with more progressive hosts which can offer EV owners easy accessibility, curb range anxiety, and ease the adoption of electric vehicles. Ather Energy is also working with Co-operative Housing Societies & Owners Associations to help Ather owners in setting up home charging solutions in their apartments and buildings. Ather Energy, Indias first intelligent electric vehicle manufacturer was founded in 2013 by IIT Madras alumni, Tarun Mehta, and Swapnil Jain and backed by founders of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal, Hero MotoCorp, and Tiger Global. Ather Energy currently operates in 46 cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Mysore, and Hubli. UNI KNR CS1314 Dhaka, Oct 14 (UNI) Bangladesh has expressed displeasure over public comments by a section of diplomats based here over parliamentary elections and democracy in the country. Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam expressed his government's sentiments at a meeting with diplomats here. Without naming any diplomat or country, he said no diplomatic representative accredited to Dhaka should try to cross the limits of diplomatic etiquette. "They (foreigners) should remember how much they can say about the internal affairs of our country," the Minister told the media. "They have to be careful." He also hinted at restricting their access to various offices if they "cross the line". "We are hospitable and keep the doors of our country's offices open for ambassadors of all countries... They should not cross it. If you do, we will think of something else." UNI MAZ SY MR The ongoing Western self-immolation via poorly-thought-through sanctions becomes more bizarre as the US and its allies keep piling on. The Biden Administration looks to have a contagious version of Dunning-Kreuger Effect as the press and punditocracy for the most part cheer the collective West going full Black Knight: A fresh example is on the China front, where the Administration is moving to bar the export of advanced chips and related services to cripple Chinas military and tech advancement generally. The Financial Times provides the orthodox view (for a full blown technical discussion, see this write up courtesy Covington & Burling). The US has introduced sweeping export controls that will severely complicate efforts by Chinese companies to develop cutting-edge technologies with military applications, in one of the toughest actions President Joe Biden has taken against China. The commerce department on Friday announced restrictions that will make it extremely hard for Chinese companies to obtain or manufacture advanced computer chips and will slow their progress in artificial intelligence. The measures are also designed to make it much tougher for China to develop supercomputers with military applications that range from modelling nuclear weapons to developing hypersonic weapons. Underscoring the scope of the controls, the US is using a far-reaching mechanism called the foreign direct product rule to make it harder for China to develop and maintain supercomputers and AI technology. The rule which was first used by the administration of Donald Trump against Chinese technology group Huawei in effect bars any US or non-US company from supplying targeted Chinese entities with hardware or software whose supply chain contains American technology. Analysts said Chinas memory chipmakers, including YMTC and ChangXin Memory, would feel the most immediate blow But the ban on the export of semiconductor tools could significantly hurt Chinese chipmakers more broadly because US equipment makers have a stranglehold in a few crucial niches. Triolo said there would be many losers, including US chip design leaders such as Nvidia and AMD, and tool makers including Applied Materials and Lam Research. He said the rules would also hit non-US players, including ASML, the Dutch company that produces the most advanced semiconductor tools, and TSMC, the Taiwanese contract foundry company. One chip industry executive said the US was attacking China from all angles. The stunning thing about this move is that they have assembled a whole array of tools, the executive said. They are not just targeting military applications, they are trying to block the development of Chinas technology power by any means. This salvo against China sounds devastating, particularly since the Trump measures against Huawei did diminish its global competitiveness. But consider a contrary reading from Asia Times, which argues that these sanctions will so badly blow back to key US players that in due course, China will wind up net ahead. This article also points out that these various sanctions will not impede Chinas military, since it does not use the most advanced chips. From the story: The Biden administrations unprecedented package of bans on chip and chip equipment sales to China announced on October 7 could not have come at a worse moment for the global semiconductor industry. The damage to capital investment and R&D in the Western semiconductor industry will exceed Washingtons modest subsidies for the chip industry by a factor of five or more. The US measures wont affect Chinas sensors, satellite surveillance, military guidance and other strategic systems because the vast majority of military applications use older chips that China can produce at home. But it may postpone autonomous driving, cloud computing and other efforts to digitize Chinas economy. It will also elicit an all-out Chinese effort to replace American chip-making and design technology. CapEx and R&D will shrink drastically in the US semiconductor industry while China allocates a massive budget to the sector. On a five- or ten-year horizon, Americas technological edge in semiconductor design and fabrication is likely to vanish. As capital budgets collapse in the Western semiconductor industry, the damage to the US and other Western economies is likely to be greater than the harm inflicted on China The incipient global recession turned the chip shortage of 2021 into a glut, reflected in a collapse of the Philadelphia index of semiconductor stocks (PHLX) by nearly half during 2022. NVIDIA, the leading US chip designer, has lost 68% of its market capitalization so far this year. The industry had already cut capital investment plans from about US$200 billion to $160 billion for 2022. US restrictions on exports of semiconductor equipment, design tools and high-end chips to China will shrink revenues further, putting an air pocket into R&D and capital expansion. The worlds dominant chip fabricator, Taiwans TSMC, planned $44 billion in CapEx just six months ago but on Wednesday announced a cut to $36 billion. Smaller American fabricators like GlobalFoundries and SkyWater Technology, who make chips for the US military several generations behind the present state of the art, will benefit from the Biden subsidies. But companies with the most advanced technology have the most to lose, including American manufacturers of chipmaking equipment. Some comments at the Financial Times article quoted earlier were also skeptical: Michael Power As it is, SMIC already produces 7nm chips and does so without embargoed EUV lithography: ironically these were developed to manufacture the MinerVa Bitcoin Miner systembefore cryptocurrency mining was banned in China! SMIC are now developing the 5nm chip and expect it to be available within 18-24 months. Meanwhile Chinese foundries are flooding the market with 14nm+ chips, commodizing this segment. The only measure that seems to be falling faster than these chip prices is Intels share price! So this may simply be a case of the US shutting the door after the silk worms are already in Constantinople? Danny Barro Nowhere does the article explain why the US is doing this, in the sense of how they feel they can justify this action. I dont criticise the FT here (though they could do more) but it is interesting that there is an assumption, even looking at the comments below, that this is somehow a good thing. The ultimate result will be the acceleration of the Chinese semi-conductor industry and that will give the world more choice. For the purpose of keeping the post to a manageable length, well skip over the risk that China might retaliate, and the pressure points it could choose. The next item on the sanctions front is a Biden Administration scheme, admittedly still under debate, to sanction Russian aluminum. As if our previous sanctions of Russian commodities and companies have been such resounding successes. The Administration looks desperate to be seen to be Doing Something. From Bloomberg: A complete US ban on Russian aluminum threatens to upend a global market already reeling from multiple disruptions, throwing a spotlight on how China could fill any supply gap. The Biden administration is considering options including sanctions on Russias top producer of the metal The biggest aluminum and aluminum product exporters in 2020 in billions of dollars, per Statista: Keep in mind that aluminum smelting is extremely energy-intensive, so it seems likely that production in Europe will fall dramatically and/or become uncompetitive for export. So the worst outcome, which seems likely if the Biden Administration proceeds, is that prices rise globally, Russia sells ore and semi-finished product at lower than new normal prices, but probably not much lower (and potentially even higher) while China, and potentially India, the UAE and Malaysia happily buy from Russia and sell to the US at a markup. Continuing from Bloomberg: The worst scenario is Europe and the US will block Russian aluminum, Shanghai-based Chaos Ternary Research Institute wrote in an emailed note. Stranded Russian aluminum will most likely flow to China, India and elsewhere, followed by Chinas exports of aluminum products into Europe and the US to fill the gap. China is by far both the worlds biggest producer and consumer of aluminum. Under a reconfiguration of trade flows, metal from Russia could potentially be used by its domestic industries, with China then boosting overseas sales of its own metal along its well-established export routes. Finally, Bloomberg broke the story yesterday that it has finally dawned on Biden Administration officials that the oil price cap idea could backfire. For some bizarre reason, it appears that the OPEC+ production cut triggered the recognition that Russia could deliver on the repeatedly-made Putin promise not to sell oil subject to a price limit. Perhaps it was seeing that Russia didnt participate in the planned 2 million barrel reduction because it is already producing below its current quota. From Business Insider: Officials in the Biden administration are signaling the plan to cap Russian oil prices could backfire, according to a report from Bloomberg. OPEC+s cut to its production quota last week could end up undermining the effort to cap prices, sources told Bloomberg. The cartels move has already added to volatility in markets, and a price cap on Russian oil could trigger a spike in crude, they said. Officials also noted concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate by slashing more supplies, sending prices higher. Putin has already signaled that the Kremlin will not sell oil to countries that participate in the price cap effort. Mind you, I see no sign in these stories or on Twitter that the Administration is considering how to walk back this barmy idea. It apparently sees itself as beyond the point of no return. Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war both real fog and stage fog in comments. None of us need more cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will be summarily whacked. And for those who are new here, this is not a mere polite request. We have written site Policies and those who comment have accepted those terms. To prevent having to resort to the nuclear option of shutting comments down entirely until more sanity prevails, as we did during the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders. Yves P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies: Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commenter troll points. Please dont do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them. * * * Humans and parrots battle in an arms race over trash in Australia Science Inside the war on urban coyotes in Southern California LA Times Despite Everything, Private Equity Dealmaking Is Still Going Strong Institutional Investor With Just 26 Days of Heating Oil, US Households Face Costliest Winter in Decades Bloomberg Meet Kastle Systems, the Covid-Era Kings of Back-to-Work Data Bloomberg Climate Water #COVID19 Air and surface sampling for monkeypox virus in a UK hospital: an observational study The Lancet. From the Abstract: These data show contamination in isolation facilities and potential for suspension of monkeypox virus into the air during specific activities. PPE contamination was observed after clinical contact and changing of bedding . Contamination of hard surfaces in doffing areas supports the importance of cleaning protocols, PPE use, and doffing procedures. Note that CDCs bias against airborne transmission is so extreme that its monkeypox case collection form doesnt even include a field for changing bedding (let alone other, less obvious transmission pathways). China? HCMCs Gasoline Market Mess Vietnam Weekly. Ho Chi Minh City. Southeast Asias delivery riders brave dangerous roads with limited insurance protection Globe_ India Syraqistan Saudi Arabia Swings Toward Russia Project Syndicate Dear Old Blighty European Disunion New Not-So-Cold War Biden Administration Capitol Seizure Police State Watch Hot pursuit Searchlight New Mexico Iowa to dramatically cut back on some restaurant inspections Iowa Capital Dispatch. What could go wrong? Healthcare Shortages FDA confirms Adderall shortage as largest manufacturer warns of delays through end of the year NBC Tech Class Warfare There Are No Five Stages of Grief The Atlantic Antidote du jour (via): Winter is coming. See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. My job with the Post has evolved since October 2000, when I began work with The City Paper. In 2008, both publications became aligned via former owner SouthComm Inc. I have served as Post managing editor since 2011. Follow William Williams 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 Rocky Mountain Powers UW Philanthropy Has Long-Term Impact For 50 years, Rocky Mountain Power has supported the University of Wyoming. In total, Rocky Mountain Power has given over $1 million to UW programs, supporting hundreds of students and faculty from all areas of UW. The Rocky Mountain Power Foundation aims to support impactful organizations -- like the University of Wyoming -- that perform critical work in our region, says Abbie Rice, Rocky Mountain Power Foundation manager. These groups work tirelessly to strengthen our communities, and the foundation is proud to serve as a dedicated partner in their efforts. Every year, Rocky Mountain Power gives to UW and chooses the areas that the company is most passionate about. This year, it gave $58,500 to support 11 UW initiatives. The 2022 initiatives are the Jody K. Humphrey Inspirational Staff Award; the Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program; the Veterans Student Center Academic Program; the Science Initiative Roadshow; the Rocky Mountain Power Graduate Scholarship in Regulatory Economics; the College of Business Summer Undergraduate Research in Economics; the Ruckelshaus Institutes Collaboration Program in Natural Resources; the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources Sustainability Student Fellowships; the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences K-14 STEM Education Program; the Wyoming Department of Education UW American Indian Education for All K-3 Disciplinary Literacy Initiative; and the Nuclear Energy Research Center. On behalf of everyone at UW, let me take this opportunity to thank Rocky Mountain Power for their generous support over the years, UW Foundation President John Stark says. Fifty years of giving totaling over $1 million -- what an incredible milestone! Through the years, the programs that Rocky Mountain Power supports have greatly benefited the university and the greater Wyoming community. For example, the Ruckelshaus Institute, as a part of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, works to advance the understanding of complex environmental and natural resources challenges and promote collaborative decision-making. This mission is accomplished through programs such as the Private Lands Stewardship and the Wyoming Open Spaces Initiative. Progress in the stewardship of our wild and working lands requires the opportunity for broad levels of engagement among the people of our state on issues of sustainability, says John Koprowski, dean of the Haub School. The support of Rocky Mountain Power facilitates training in methods of collaborative practice and increased student engagement in academic training in land and natural resource management. The College of Engineering and Physical Sciences K-14 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs look to increase education in STEM-related fields among Wyoming students. This has included programs such as Computer Science Week, which helps students to learn coding from UW faculty and students as well as field experts. Another program is Engineers Week, which gives third graders throughout Wyoming the opportunity to do hands-on engineering activities. These activities are led by professional engineers, with the goal of inspiring innovative thinking and problem-solving. The College of Engineering and Physical Sciences K-14 outreach office is immensely grateful for the generosity shown by Rocky Mountain Power, says Cindy Jones, K-14 STEM Education Program representative. Without such generosity, this program would not be possible. Because of the support and philanthropy shown by our industry partners, this office reached thousands of Wyoming students last year and will be able to continue its work to inspire the next generation of problem solvers. By supporting these initiatives, Rocky Mountain Power is making a difference in the lives of UW students and faculty, as well as making a positive impact on current and future generations of Wyoming. We are so very grateful to everyone at Rocky Mountain Power who made this support possible over these many years, Stark says. We look forward to this partnership continuing for many years into the future. Rocky Mountain Power is a regulated electric utility that provides power to much of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region. It serves about 150,000 people in Wyoming. The company strives to provide the best service to Wyoming using the core principles of customer service, employee commitment, environmental respect, regulatory integrity, operational excellence and financial strength. We believe in the power of lowering barriers and the importance of empowering the next generation in the communities we serve, says Sharon Fain, Rocky Mountain Power vice president for Wyoming. We are thankful for the opportunity to support these dedicated organizations in doing this significant and impactful work. The company supports communities with its philanthropy through the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, which is one of the largest utility-endowed foundations in the United States. The Rocky Mountain Power Foundation was created in 1988 by PacifiCorp, an electric utility serving 1.8 million customers in six Western states as Rocky Mountain Power in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho (www.rockymountainpower.net) and as Pacific Power in Oregon, Washington and California (www.pacificpower.net). The foundations mission, through charitable investments, is to support the growth and vitality of the communities served by Rocky Mountain Power and Pacific Power. Rocky Mountain Power also supports communities and colleges by offering grants and financial support for nonprofit organizations that fund projects based on everything from education and STEM to environmental respect to arts and culture. The emphasis is on supporting community enhancement projects as a way to give back. (Natural News) A research report presented to the European Parliament back in July 2021 concluded that radiofrequency (RF) radiation, emitted by 5G technology networks at 450 to 6000 megahertz, may cause cancer, infertility and developmental defects in embryos, fetuses and newborns. The study titled Health Impact of 5G used PubMed and electric and magnetic fields (EMF) portal database. It found 950 papers on the carcinogenicity of RF-EMF in humans and 2,834 papers on the reproductive and developmental studies. (Related: 5G poses health risks; humans must limit exposure to EMF, RF.) The results show positive associations between exposure to RF radiation from wireless phones and both glioma (also known as a tumor of the brain) and acoustic neuroma. There was also sufficient evidence of adverse effects on the fertility of men and limited evidence of adverse effects on fertility in women, as well as developmental effects in the offspring of mothers who were heavy users of mobile phones during pregnancy. Several papers also found higher exposure to RF in buildings located close to cell towers and antennas. In a study conducted in 2012 and published in the Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management, researchers investigated RF power density levels from antennas 35 meters away from a 10-story apartment building and transmitting antennas were approximately at the same height as the sixth floor. They found that the highest RF is on floors five to seven, and that RF was three times higher on the sixth-floor balcony than the third-floor balcony. The RF power density on the sixth floor was about 15 times the RF measures on the first floor. A 2019 study published in Oncology Letters also found that apartments with high RF exposure had outdoor areas as close as six meters from cell antennas. In contrast, the low-exposure apartments balconies were at least 40 meters away from cell antennas. Having found that both properties had good mobile reception, they concluded that installation of base stations to risky places cannot be justified using the good reception requirement argument. Moreover, studies were also able to prove that outdoor levels of RF are increasing from the densification of wireless networks due to mobile phone base stations. According to a 2022 research, positioning antennas should be as far as possible from the general public like in high elevation locations or remote areas. A study published just this year in the World Academy of Sciences Journal measured levels of RFR from 5G in the city of Columbia, South Carolina. It concluded that the highest exposure areas were due to two reasons. First, cell phone base antennas on top of high-rise buildings provide good cell coverage reaching far away, but creating elevated exposure to the RF-EMF at the immediate vicinity; and second, cell phone base station antennas installed on top of utility poles have placed the radiation source closer to humans walking on street level. Scientists, telecom exec call for moratorium on 5G Experts and even a telecom industry executive have called for a moratorium on 5G. In the current circumstances, it seems that the scientific experts in the field are very clear about the serious problems we are facing and have expressed this through important appeals. However, the media, the responsible organizations and the governments are not transmitting this crucial information to the population, who remain uninformed. For these reasons, the current situation will probably end in a crisis, a group of researchers concluded in a recent study. Martin Bouygues, CEO of French telecom firm Bouygues, also appealed to the government to postpone auctions for 5G frequencies, citing the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and public mistrust of the technology. According to Nexus, France is planning on auctioning 5G frequencies to telecom companies at the end of the summer. However, Bouygues thinks that bidding should be pushed back to the end of the year at the earliest. We need to push back the auction date simply because the economic world today is not the same as it was early March when the terms of the auction were set, Bouygues told Le Figaro back in May, adding that holding a bidding war while France recovers with difficulty from a terrible human health and economic health nightmare is not the priority of the country. Visit 5GAlert.com for more news related to the harmful health effects of 5G. Watch this video about the secret behind 5G technology. This video is from the Puretrauma357 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: 5G THREAT: Can mmWave be weaponized? Forget 5G, Apple is now looking for engineers to work on 6G. 9 Ways 5G technology endangers human beings. Landmark study on 5G technology highlights health threats. 5G and 4G both linked to cell and tissue damage, DNA destruction. Sources include: GlobalResearch.ca EuroParl.europa.eu TandFOnline.com NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov PubMed.NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov Spandidos-Publications.com ScienceDirect.com NexusNewsFeed.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) A leading Australian government research agency with ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has admitted to conducting or funding gain-of-function research projects and wants the government to legalize bioweapons research. The agency in question is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). It is the Australian federal governments main agency responsible for conducting scientific research. CSIRO gained notoriety last year when investigators unveiled its ties with the WIV, where the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) most likely originated. This investigation was conducted by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), another Australian government agency. It found that the government, through CSIRO, has funded or conducted gain-of-function research on at least 17 projects, some of which could be categorized as of concern because it involved modifying a virus or bacterium in a way that may make it more dangerous to humans. Maria Zeee, during an interview with Stew Peters on The Stew Peters Show, noted that the investigation that found CSIROs connections to the WIV and to other gain-of-function research projects is unbelievable because of how willing the government was to admit that this was happening. (Related: Groundbreaking lawsuit filed against Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric over SARS-CoV-2 gain of function research and hazardous RELEASE.) Its unbelievable, Stew, that they have openly admitted to the fact that weve been doing this for 10 years in this country, she said. I think that the past two years of the terror that weve been subjected to has really sparked the people to look deeper into this. CSIRO wants Australia to legalize bioweapons research Zeee noted that CSIRO is calling on the Australian government to further expand the ability of research institutions like it to conduct, fund or otherwise support gain-of-function research. She believes this is a way to legalize more research into biological weapons. Theyre hiding the development of biological weapons here in Australia, said Zeee. Theyre calling it research, but it is clearly biological weapons creation. Zeee noted that CSIRO fully admitted to all of this in the NHMRCs report. The agency also admitted to not being able to go into detail about where its biological weapons research projects are being conducted and who is involved because the participants are worried about their safety. Oh, I wonder why that is? said Zeee, sarcastically. Maybe because youre creating biological weapons that could kill millions? Just a thought. The report goes on to talk about Australias Defense and Strategic Goods List. It is a list that specifies goods, software or technology that are heavily regulated when exported, supplied, brokered or published. A permit from the government is usually required to handle goods on this list. According to the NHMRCs report, on top of that list are biological weapon agents or biological materials that are adapted or configured to produce casualties in humans or animals, degrade equipment or damage crops or the environment. CSIRO has made multiple excuses for why it is necessary for the organization to continue gain-of-function research on potential biological weapons. Zee noted that this includes claims that it needs to help Australia strengthen its pandemic preparedness, especially since the spillover of diseases from animals to humans will become more common due to climate change. More news like this can be found at BiologicalWeapons.news. Watch this clip from The Stew Peters Show as Stew Peters and Maria Zeee discuss CSIROs involvement in gain-of-function research. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Owen Shroyer slams NIH, Fauci for granting EcoHealth Alliance funds for another round of coronavirus research. Fauci knew he was funding illegal gain-of-function research, says former CDC director. Unethical Wuhan virology (bioweapons) experiments may be moving to Boston, Massachusetts, with new grants issued to Peter Daszak and COVID-19 conspirators. REPORT: Baylor Medicine Dean Peter Hotez funded gain-of-function bat coronavirus research in Wuhan. Critic of congressional probe into gain-of-function research helped fund Wuhan gain-of-function study. Sources include: Brighteon.com NHMRC.gov.au [PDF] Defence.gov.au (Natural News) If the pharmaceutical drug cartels get their way, every American over the age of eight will soon be advised to get screened for anxiety, even if they show no symptoms of any kind of mental or emotional illness. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), one of the most influential groups governing American health care, says that mental health issues stemming from the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) scamdemic are not being properly addressed, and that something needs to change. What the group really mean, of course, is that Big Pharma is greedy for more cash profits and needs new customers to be diagnosed with anxiety so they can get hooked on all the latest blockbuster anti-anxiety medications cha-ching! A panel of doctors from USPSTF also came to the conclusion that all children over the age of 12 need to be tested for depression again, even in absence of any noticeable or felt symptoms. Everyone aged 18 to 65 should be screened for both anxiety and depression, USPSTF insists. That demographic includes some 200 million people living in the United States. The Task Force reviewed the evidence on screening for anxiety, depression, and suicide risk to provide primary care professionals with guidance on how they can help support the mental health of children and adolescents, said Dr. Matha Kubik, a member of USPSTF and a nursing professor at George Mason University. Fortunately, screening older children for anxiety and depression can identify these conditions so children and teens can receive the care that they need. Big Pharma wants your children to become lifelong pharmakeia customers Again, reading between the lines makes it abundantly clear that Big Pharma is desperately searching for new customers to rob of their health, life, and money. The more people who are diagnosed with mental health problems, the more cash flows into Big Pharmas coffers. It is really that simple. Not everyone in the industry supports this attempt at mass-drugging America for brain health. This includes Dr. Lori Pbert, a psychologist from the University of Massachusetts who warns that there are key evidence gaps related to screening younger children in the manner proposed by USPSTF. We are calling for more research in these critical areas so we can provide healthcare professionals with evidence-based ways to keep their young patients healthy, she is quoted as saying. Other experts warn that all this excess screening will likely result in a surge of new prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications, which is the last thing America needs amid an ongoing opioid and other drug addiction crisis. Experts have expressed concerns over these recommendations, fearing it could lead to an over-medicated population and another opioid-like crisis, reports the DailyMail Online. The most common anxiety medications fall into the class of benzodiazepines, with highly addictive drugs like Xanax, Klomopin, and Valium. Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of the Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University, explained how chronic pain screening led to many more people being prescribed opioids, which in turn contributed to the opioid crisis. The very same thing is happening again, this time with anxiety, depression, and other mental and emotional illnesses, which the pharmaceutical drug cartels want to monetize through mass deception and hypnosis of the population. In the United States when the Joint Commission mandated that all doctors screen all patients for pain, even when patients did not come in for pain complaints or demonstrate physical stigmata of being in pain, the result was increased opioid prescribing, contributing to our current opioid epidemic, Lembke is quoted as saying. I could see something similar happening with mandated screening of anxiety. Big Pharma is the evilest drug dealer of all, and increasingly more people are just saying no to its deadly drugs. To keep up with the latest news about the drug industry, visit BadMedicine.news. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reportedly opened overseas police service stations in multiple countries in an effort to monitor Chinese citizens who are living abroad. The human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, who investigated the matter, said this illegal effort could enable the CCP to engage in sabotage or espionage. The report, titled 110 Overseas-Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild, posited that the Chinese government established at least 54 police stations in 30 countries across five continents, although the total number is likely to be higher. At least one of the CCP-run stations operates in the United States and is located in New York City. Housed at 107 East Broadway, the New York outpost is said to be among the first batch that was established by the CCPs Public Security Bureau. It opened on February 15 inside the American ChangLe Association (ACA) headquarters, a nonprofit with close ties to the Chinese regime. These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity in third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods, the group said in their recent report. They identified 54 overseas police service stations across five continents, including major cities such as Toronto, Dublin and London. However, the number of stations in operation remains unclear, as there is no complete list available, although they believe that the number may be higher and the stations more widespread. Moreover, Safeguard Defenders reported that between April 2021 and July 2022, some 230,000 Chinese citizens living abroad had been persuaded to return home to China through a variety of methods that included threats and harassment to family members. Once back on Chinese soil, the targets could face potential criminal charges or be tapped to serve their governments interests. (Related: Criticizing communist China even outside of China is now a punishable offense.) Frank Gaffney, the executive chairman of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, warned that stations could be used for sabotage or espionage, among other malicious motives The Chinese are not simply forcing people to go back to China and stand trial, but they may be giving them directions to do other things, he said. These other things could include espionage, recruitment, influence operations, sabotage or subversion. These police stations could pose the gravest risk to the international rule of law and territorial sovereignty, the Safeguard Defenders said. Chinese influence a national security concern Chinas influence and power within the U.S. have become a national security concern among American lawmakers in recent years. Legislators, many of whom are Republicans, previously raised the alarm over the CCPs ideological influence on American schools through the Confucius Institutes. Moreover, lawmakers have raised concerns and pushed forward legislation to crack down on the CCPs purchasing of American real estate. Chinese investors have now become the largest foreign group of real estate buyers over the past decade with over $188 billion in American land and property acquisitions since 2013. Last year alone, Chinese buyers purchased a record $6.1 billion in U.S. real estate. China-based Fufeng Group also drew national attention after proposing to purchase land in North Dakota worth $700 million, allegedly for an agribusiness facility. The catch: It is near a military base. In response, Republican Senator Mike Rounds of nearby South Dakota introduced the senate version of Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security Act of 2022, which would effectively blacklist China and other bad actors from continuing to buy up American farmland or agricultural companies. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also announced a slate of legislative agenda items to rein in the influence of the CCP in his state, including an explicit call to ban the Chinese government and certain other foreign governments from buying up agricultural land and property near military bases. Today, I took action to protect Floridians from the bad intentions of adversaries abroad, such as the Chinese Communist Party, he tweeted on September 22. (Related: Communist China controls LME commodities exchange; regime changes the rules at whim to protect key traders linked to China.) From server farms to farmland, the Communist Party of China has been worming its way into our nations data storage systems and buying up tracts of land near sensitive national security sites. Florida is leading the way to protect our nation from international foes. Visit Communism.news for more shady and possibly illegal acts by the Chinese government that Americans need to be aware of. More related stories: The war between China and the United States has already begun, and America is the battleground. Trump setting the stage for wartime retaliation against communist China regime for launching biological weapon attack against the United States. Its time for all Americans to REJECT China and all those orgs that support China, such as the NBA. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com TheEpochTimes.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Experts have warned that the European Unions act of divesting itself of Russian oil and natural gas exports will result in the worst energy crisis the continent has ever experienced. The latest data show that Russia has lost around 60 percent of its seaborne crude oil sales since February when the EU stopped purchasing Russian oil as part of the blocs economic sanctions for the special military operation in Ukraine. During the four weeks up to Oct. 7, Russias seaborne crude oil shipments to Europe averaged just 630,000 barrels a day, down from an average of 1.62 million barrels a day before the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. An additional analysis conducted by David Fyfe, chief economist with research firm Argus Media, found that Russian gas supplies to the EU have dropped by 88 percent over the past year. According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the goal of the EU is to make the Kremlin pay for the invasion of Ukraine. But this effort backfired as Russia was able to find more lucrative trading partners in Asia. (Related: European energy crisis is going to last a lot longer than just one winter, crucial analysis finds.) Monica Malik, the chief economist for the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, warned in an energy security panel that the oil-producing Gulf States like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will not be able to increase their production to sufficient levels to replace Russian oil in Europe. Putin blames Europe for energy crisis In a statement during the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week International Forum in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin blamed Europe for its own energy crisis. Putin said Moscow was not to blame for the continents sky-high energy prices. He pointed out how the EUs drive to quickly replace all energy infrastructure with green and renewable energy led to underinvestment in oil and gas at a crucial time. The Russian president said it is not too late for Europe to reopen its economic ties with Russia. He said gas could still be supplied to the EU, but it is up to the bloc whether or not it wants cheap and plentiful gas. The ball, as they say, is now in the European Unions court. Let them open the tap, said Putin. We do not limit anyone in anything, he added, noting that Moscow was ready to supply as much gas as Europe needs during the fall and the winter. Discussing the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Putin said this will not hinder Russia. It can still transport gas to Europe through the one intact part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and by other means. We could move the lost volumes along the Nord Streams along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea region, and thus make the main routes for the supply of our fuel, our natural gas, to Europe through Turkey, said Putin. Learn more about Europes energy crisis at EnergySupply.news. Watch this episode of The Right Dissident as host Dalton Clodfelter talks about how Europes mass resource and energy shortages are bringing the continent back to the Dark Ages. This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Refinery strikes and gas rationing: Frances energy supply chain collapsing. Swedish government tells citizens to build indoor blanket huts this winter to avoid freezing to death. Germans rush to buy electric heaters as natural gas shortage looms. High wind hazard: Norway wind farm faces SHUTDOWN as parts of wind turbines fly off due to strong winds. Switzerland threatens residents who heat their homes this winter with jail time. Sources include: NewsPunch.com Bloomberg.com BBC.com Reuters.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Jeffrey InTheMatrixxx Pedersen and Shannon ShadyGrooove Townsend blasted election technology company Konnechs damning action of storing the data of U.S. poll workers on Chinese servers. The grand jury found that theres plausible information that Konnech is storing data on servers in China allegedly, Pedersen said on the Oct. 6 episode of The Matrixxx Grooove Show on Brighteon.TV. The total that we have is 1.8 million. That is the total [amount] of information of individuals that were actually in that Chinese server apparently. InTheMatrixxx also cited the Oct. 4 arrest of Konnech founder and CEO Eugene Yu in Michigan. The head of the election technology firm was nabbed on suspicion of stealing data on hundreds of Los Angeles County poll workers. Alongside Yus arrest, computer hard drives and other digital evidence were seized by investigators, Fox News reported. According to the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorneys office, Konnech was required to keep the data in the U.S. with only citizens and permanent residents having access to it. However, the East Lansing, Michigan-based firm stored the data on servers based in China. So, he was arrested for stealing personal information on poll workers, Pedersen said of Yus arrest. (Related: Breaking: Election software CEO arrested for storing data in China is deemed significant flight risk caught with luggage on way to MI airport left his cell phone behind has substantial ties to China.) He noted that Yus damning arrest is not a conspiracy theory at all. This should concern every American. It is very damning is this is true, and we think it is allegedly true. You should be scared shaken to your core, Pedersen said. Townsend agreed, commenting that some people do not understand the gravity of the issue because they are desensitized to what Hollywood and the media feed them. He added that people need to stand back and take a closer look at what is happening to be able to see everything from a different perspective. Concerned citizens must inform their election board and counties about Konnech Pedersen mentioned that concerned citizens must inform their election board and counties that use Konnech products about Yus arrest and the companys use of China-based servers. He also noted that with the poll worker software compromised, this could lead to a poll worker being used to steal the vote for a particular party or candidate. Townsend stated that they already got video evidence and similar things are already happening. He urged concerned poll workers to call their counties to ask why their poll worker data are in China and show their frustration. Pedersen also called out Colorado, Florida, California, Indiana, Michigan, Virginia, Montana, Missouri, Texas and Washington D.C. on the program due to their continued use of Konnech election software. He added that Georgia just signed up with Konnech for its elections and called for the deal to be scrapped amid Yus arrest. Moreover, Pedersen blasted the New York Times for painting Konnech and Yu as targets of conspiracy theories. Pedersen stressed that this is not a conspiracy or a theory since it is now becoming a fact, because a grand jury found evidence about the data theft. According to the Brighteon.TV host, the data theft involving Konnech is a massive story that the mainstream news cartels will not be able to squish. Follow PrivacyWatch.news for more stories about U.S. data being compromised by companies linked to China. Watch the Oct. 6 episode of Matrixxx Grooove below. The Matrixxx Grooove Show with Jeff and Shady airs Monday to Friday at 12-1 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: Authorities: CEO of election software company sent American poll workers data to China. Matrixxx Grooove: Jeff and Shady EXPOSE Chinas role in US elections Brighteon.TV. Investigation finds NY Times lied to cover-up Chinese connection to U.S. election software firm. Sources include: Brighteon.com FoxNews.com (Natural News) Im old enough to remember the days when a large audience ensured large revenues. (Article by Joseph Farah republished from WND.com) That was before the internet. I found out the hard way by being the first independent media entrepreneur some 26 years ago. Thats right. WND was the first to carve out a place for a conservative, Christian, professional news site. We were, by some standards, the most popular destination around other than the site of my friend Matt Drudge. It was no problem for WorldNetDaily.com, as we were known back then, establishing an immense audience. We were different from anything out there in attitude, perspective, worldview, news judgment. We emphasized exposing government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption as well as a champion of constitutionally limited government. But did it translate into meaningful advertising revenues? No. Not for a long time. Back then, virtually all of the limited dollars spent on digital advertising went to dominant mainstream search engines the biggest of which was Yahoo! Google was not even on the radar. Today, even though the digital advertising pie is much, much larger, even eclipsing television, companies like Facebook and Google dominate in revenues so much so the U.S. government needs to go after them on anti-trust actions. Theyve become too big to fail. Theyve become arrogant monopolies. Theyve become the tail that wags the dog. Theyve become dangerous for the health of the free press and the role it plays in the future of America. While I believe in limited government, I also believe there are good reasons for anti-trust actions especially those necessary to preserve free speech in the new digital public square. Google and Facebook inhibit free speech through their ever-changing algorithms designed to give extreme preference to publishers they like and penalize those they dont. Of course, what they like is super woke. Ive been screaming about this for eight years longer than anyone. This has affected my life in staggering ways. It seemed that the moment we at WND started celebrating some success, Big Tech roared. I can pinpoint the moment that happened. It was 2016 when our support for candidate Donald Trump was noticed. Yes, we LOVE him we make no bones about it. First Google, the search engine, began to shadow-ban us. Then they started openly and cruelly highlighting competitors complaints. I had a stroke five actually from the stress. A year ago, they hit us with the works total and permanent DEMONITAZATION by Google and YouTube, the equivalence of a death sentence. Why? Because Google and Facebook are monopolies truly under the spell of left-wing sensibilities. Theres no other way to say it. They penalize those entities producing content they dont like no matter how large their audiences might be. One could argue these monster corporations have a right to do that, but only if you support monopoly capitalism, ironically an idea so-called progressives find theoretically repulsive. One of the highest ideals both Google and Facebook say they uphold is diversity. But the diversity genie seems to take a backseat when it comes to the most important kind of diversity in a free society diversity of viewpoints. Maybe this sounds like sour grapes coming from the pioneer of independent digital news-gathering. Maybe it is. Yet what Big Tech is doing is patently unfair. This is the beginning of a Dark Age for the free press. Whats the answer? We now survive only by the generosity of our readers. We count on you for your faithful support. We keep on keeping on as long as we can. We pray to God every day and are thankful to Him for your continued support immensely thankful! Read more at: WND.com (Natural News) Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdowns in Sydney the capital of Australias New South Wales (NSW) state unfairly targeted blue-collar workers and immigrants, according to a report. The Oct. 11 report was commissioned by the United Workers Union (UWU) alongside the Australian Catholic University. It pointed out that during the countrys wave of infections driven by the B16172 delta variant from June 21 to Oct. 24, 2021, the NSW government allegedly utilized faulty data modeling. The erroneous models argued that the proportion of residents employed in blue-collar jobs was the biggest driver of COVID-19 infections. Two major factors in different NSW regions were linked to greater COVID-19 infections. First, those with a higher proportion of residents employed as technicians, tradesmen, machine operators, drivers and laborers. Second, those with a higher proportion of overseas-born workers who primarily spoke a language other than English at home. According to the report, the state government under former Premier Gladys Berejiklian and incumbent Premier Dominic Perrottet utilized this faulty modeling as justification for draconian lockdowns in 12 Sydney local government areas (LGAs). These areas Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith and Strathfield were targeted with harsher restrictions compared to the rest of the NSW capital. Given that the 12 LGAs had a high proportion of blue-collar workers and immigrants residing in them, they faced stricter stay-at-home orders, a night-time curfew and more overt enforcement by government and police authorities. Moreover, residents from the 12 Sydney LGAs were told by the NSW state government that they could only leave the areas they reside in for work if either their workplace has rapid antigen testing kits or they get the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of August 2021. Sydney turned into mini police state The report mentioned that the NSW state government also deployed around 300 members of the Australian Defense Force to back up the NSW Police Force (NSWPF) in ensuring compliance of stay-at-home orders. Both police and military officers roamed the streets of Western Sydney where the 12 LGAs were located in July and August last year. They also knocked on residents doors and inspected their homes to check for any breaches of lockdown protocols. The reports authors also interviewed several UWU members residing in the 12 areas. The interviewees shared that they felt targeted by the government. One resident from the Canterbury-Bankstownk LGA named Lydia recounted the intensified police presence during the delta variants circulation. She told the reports authors: It was stressful. So many people said, Police will be out, be careful. There were police helicopters. They would fly out at night, checking to make sure that everybody was off the streets. Separate reports also attested to the NSWPFs use of helicopters to ensure compliance with COVID-19 protocols. The Sun reported that one Sydney resident strolling at a park near his home managed to capture footage of a blue and white helicopter admonishing people to go home. Police officers aboard the helicopter warned the man that local law enforcement would search for him and fine him for violating lockdown orders. A separate report from the Daily Mail zeroed in on the polices use of helicopters to disperse beachgoers at Sydneys Gordons Bay beach. Footage uploaded to social media showed officers warning people to leave immediately. Anyone breaching the public health order will be issued a fine, the officers aboard the helicopter warned. A third report, this time from Metro, stated that NSWPF used the same tactic to disperse beachgoers at the Coogee and Bondi beaches who were simply soaking up the sun. Nearly 1,000 people were spoken to, ensuring they were complying with the LGAs requirement, said an NSWPF spokesman. MedicalTyranny.com has more stories about the draconian COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney. More related stories: Australia rapidly collapsing into a large-scale medical PRISON as tyrants threaten to unleash full force of armed police against people seeking freedom. Welcome to Nazi Germany: In now-deleted tweet, Sydney mayor compares strict new lockdown laws to Hitler-era regime. New South Wales premier upholds construction ban as part of two-week lockdown in Greater Sydney. Australia to send more troops to Sydney following a single COVID-19 case. Sydney extends lockdown as post-vaccine coronavirus outbreak surges. Sources include: TheEpochTimes.com The-Sun.com DailyMail.co.uk Metro.co.uk Brighteon.com (Natural News) From Hunter Bidens laptop to the origins of COVID-19, numerous contentious claims deemed false and misleading by elites have since proven legitimate. (Article by Aaron Kliegman republished from JustTheNews.com) At the heart of the second trial to come out of Special Counsel John Durhams investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe is a story of disinformation. Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, testified both during a House Intelligence Committee investigation in 2017 and recently during Durhams ongoing probe that he was the one who hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS went on to commission former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to create the infamous Steele dossier, which purported to show collusion between Trumps campaign and the Kremlin. It contained several salacious and since-debunked claims about Trump and his alleged ties to Russia. The federal government infamously used the now-discredited dossier to obtain a warrant to surveil former Trump 2016 campaign aide Carter Page. The Justice Department later admitted the warrant application was full of misinformation and the surveillance warrant shouldve never been approved. The primary source of the Steele dossier was Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst whos now on trial as part of Durhams investigation for allegedly lying to the FBI about his own sources for the information that he provided to Steele. Federal prosecutors allege that Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, fabricated and concealed his sources in conversations with the feds. The trial began in Alexandria, Va. on Tuesday. The case highlights how potent a weapon disinformation can be in todays political climate, where falsehoods can slip through the cracks and transform into received truth without the public noticing. However, it works the other way as well. Indeed, in the past few years the opposite has more often been the case: Something deemed disinformation ultimately turns out to be true. Here are seven recent examples of elites in government, Big Tech, and other positions of influence targeting various ideas as mis- or disinformation only to be proven wrong in the end as the facts come in: 1. Hunter Bidens laptop In October 2020, the New York Post obtained emails from a laptop that President Bidens son, Hunter Biden, had abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware. Shortly after the story was published, Facebooks policy communications director boasted the social media giant was reducing its distribution on our platform. He added the report would be scrutinized by third-party fact checkers to reduce the spread of misinformation. Twitter quickly followed Facebooks lead, blocking users from posting or reading the story. The company even locked the Posts primary Twitter account, apparently because of the lack of authoritative reporting on the origins of the materials included in the article. Prominent mainstream media outlets either ignored the Hunter Biden story or cast doubt on its authenticity. After the Posts story was published, 51 former intelligence officials signed a public letter dismissing the report as Russian disinformation. The laptop has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation, they wrote. Only in recent months have government officials and the nations most prestigious media outlets admitted the authenticity of the laptop, which revealed a trove of details that are now being used as part of a government probe into Bidens taxes and business dealings. 2. The origins of COVID-19 Experts, lawmakers, and journalists roundly dismissed the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, attacking those who gave the idea credence as bigots. New York Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, for example, tweeted the lab leak theory had racist roots. Scientific American accused former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield of promoting a conspiracy theory based on xenophobia. New York magazine reported how the media dismissed the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab and smeared those who supported the theory. Nina Jankowicz, who was appointed head of the Department of Homeland Securitys now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board, dismissed the theory, saying it was politically convenient for the Trump administration to entertain the idea. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress resisted efforts to probe the merits of the lab leak theory. Over the past year, however, the theory has gained widespread credibility from a range of evidence. 3. COVID-19 vaccines as a panacea When the COVID-19 vaccines were first made available, they were billed by the media and public health professionals as mechanisms to limit transmission of the virus and ultimately end the pandemic. Assertions questioning the efficacy of the vaccine were deemed misinformation by Big Tech companies and the Biden administration, which categorized many such assertions as conspiracy theories. Under a new California law, doctors who spread misinformation about COVID-19 could even be subject to discipline by state medical boards and risk losing their licenses. However, a director of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer admitted Tuesday at a hearing before the European Parliament that, at the time of its introduction, the COVID-19 vaccine had never been tested for stopping transmission of the virus, according to a video of the exchange posted by parliamentarian Rob Roos. Citing new data, some experts argue the vaccine can have a range of adverse effects, including potential heart problems in young adults. Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus of epidemiology at Yale University, recently told the Just the News, No Noise television show that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has officially backtracked on the vaccines as a method of public health and pandemic control. 4. Pelosis Jan. 6 role and calling in the National Guard Journalists, Democrats in Congress, and others have lambasted defenses of former President Trumps efforts to prepare for unrest ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as well as criticisms of House Speaker Nancy Pelosis handling of that fateful day as lies, counternarratives, conspiracy theories, and disinformation spread by Republicans and Trump supporters. However, Just the News reported FBI intelligence warning that Jan. 6 protesters might violently storm the Capitol was emailed the night before the riot to a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer but was never sent to frontline police commanders and officers. That report came after new revelations showed the Pentagon first raised the possibility of sending National Guard troops to the Capitol four days before the Jan. 6 riot, validating former Trump administration officials long-held claims about their efforts to provide extra security. The Capitol Police rejected the offer of troops, according to government documents. Soon after, however, then-Chief Steven Sund decided he wanted the troops after all but was turned down by the House sergeant at arms, who reports to Pelosi. Meanwhile, Trump had signed an order on Jan. 4 to deploy 20,000 Guardsmen to prevent any violence if requested by Congress, which turned down the request. Just the News also revealed that Capitol Police had compiled a secret after-action review months after the Jan. 6 riot that identified sweeping intelligence and security failures by the department. Pelosi has come under fire from Republicans for obstructing congressional efforts to investigate the security vulnerabilities exposed by the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. 5. The mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendants The same voices dismissing the Jan. 6 counternarrative have also dismissed those raising concerns that Jan. 6 defendants have been targeted and mistreated for political reasons. The Justice Department has arrested nearly 900 people for charges related to Jan. 6, imprisoning most without a trial. Several have said the FBI, Justice Department, and federal prison officials under the Biden administration violated their civil and constitutional rights. The vast majority werent accused of carrying a weapon, assaulting law enforcement, or destroying property. Many didnt even enter the Capitol building. 6. Irregularities in the 2020 election Big Tech and the Biden administration have infamously suppressed and castigated claims of irregularities in the 2020 presidential election. For example, whistleblower documents recently released by Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) showed government officials writing that disinformation threatens homeland security, especially conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections and disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks. In February, the Department of Homeland Security put out a National Terrorism Advisory Bulletin discussing how conspiracy theories, misleading narratives, and and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information can fuel foreign and domestic terrorism. It cited false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19 online as key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment. Nonetheless, Just the News has reported on numerous examples of confirmed illegalities and irregularities in the 2020 election. 7. Critical race theory in schools Critical race theory (CRT) argues racism is entrenched in all systems of American society and all disparities between the races indicate racial discrimination. The media and proponents of CRT have argued its critics are pushing misinformation, portraying the theory as being more prevalent than it actually is. Last year, for example, Jankowicz referred to opponents of CRT as disinformers, accusing them of peddling disinformation to stoke anger and make money off the uproar. But parents have been vocally protesting the presence of CRT in their schools. The National School Boards Association sent a letter to Biden asking his administration to investigate threats against public school officials. In the letter, the NSBA specifically referred to parents who protested the teaching of CRT in the classroom, suggesting such actions should be classified as domestic terrorism. The NSBA requested that the Justice and Homeland Security departments probe and prosecute these crimes under the Patriot Act in regards to domestic terrorism. Less than a week later, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent out a memo warning that the Justice Department is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage the threats described by the NSBA, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate. The memo directed the FBI to work with each U.S. Attorney to convene meetings nationwide to discuss strategies for addressing these threats. Garland also mentioned his intent to launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days which, according to the Justice Department, would determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes. The NSBA later apologized for the letter after receiving backlash for comparing parent protests to domestic terrorism. However, subsequent reports indicated coordination between the NSBA and the Biden administration on the formers letter and Garlands subsequent memo. Evidence has shown school districts teaching the ideas of CRT as part of the curriculum, even if they dont refer to CRT by name. Read more at: JustTheNews.com UWs Cheadle Teaches Geology, Granites to Female Graduate Students in India Michael Cheadle, a professor in UWs Department of Geology and Geophysics, teaches Indian graduate students about geology and granites during a field trip to the Lesser Himalayas in September. Cheadle was one of a dozen professors from around the world invited to Kumaun University to teach an 11-day workshop to primarily female Indian college graduate and postdoctoral students who came from universities across India. (Santosh Kumar Photo) Michael Cheadle, a professor in the University of Wyomings Department of Geology and Geophysics, spent two weeks in September teaching young female scientists in India about geology and granites. Cheadle was one of a dozen professors from around the world invited to teach an 11-day workshop to 23 Indian college graduate and postdoctoral students -- 19 women, four men -- who came from various universities across India. The lecture/lab course was taught at Kumaun University in Nainital, Uttarakhand, India, and fieldwork took place in the Lesser Himalayas. This was all part of an initiative to teach graduate students in developing countries, with the objective of both bringing in expertise to help train/teach Indian students and to foster links between Indian scientists and those from other countries, Cheadle says. A national training program of young scientists from all over India has started at the Department of Geology at Kumaun University. Young women scientists from various renowned institutions of the country participated in the event, which was organized by Professor Santosh Kumar and funded in collaboration with the government of Indias Department of Science and Technology. The program, titled Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing, sponsored an advanced training workshop on Granites and Related Rocks Sept. 5-15. Students participated in lectures and labs for the first week before taking a four-day field trip to the Lesser Himalayas. I was invited because of my expertise in understanding the textures of rocks -- in other words, the arrangement and shape of the crystals in the rocks -- which can inform about how the rocks formed, Cheadle explains. The other professors were experts on other aspects of granites, including chemistry, determining the age of the granites and how granites are formed. Michael Cheadle (second row, fifth from left), a professor in UWs Department of Geology and Geophysics, poses with students and teaching faculty during a pause in fieldwork in the Lesser Himalayas. Young women scientists from various renowned institutions of India participated in the event, which was organized and funded in collaboration with the government of Indias Department of Science and Technology. (Kapil Singh Panwar Photo) Granites are the rocks that form the uppermost part of continental crust and make up a lot of the ground we walk on, Cheadle says. For example, Vedauwoo Recreation Area is made of granitic rocks, as is most of the upper part of Wyomings crust. So, if we want to explain how the Earths crust is made, then we need to understand how granites form. The objective of the workshop was to teach Indian students the concepts and tools to understand granites, he says. Additionally, if we want to comprehend explosive volcanoes and their hazards, then one avenue is to study granites, because they likely form in a magma chamber below the volcano. During his time at Kumaun University, Cheadle taught two 90-minute lectures, ran an afternoon lab and continued teaching during the field trip. The whole concept was to teach a program that covered all of the modern and cutting-edge skills involved in the study of granites, Cheadle says. We hoped that the students would both learn new skills and information beyond the knowledge they already had; and learn/take away computer programs that the participants had developed, which help with the study of granites and develop the confidence and belief to operate in a male-dominated field. A big part of the objective was to inspire and enthuse young Indian scientists so that they can succeed in international science. Cheadle says the students he taught are all working in various granite and/or metamorphic field areas all across India. Most are working on pre-Cambrian (more than 542 million years old) terranes and attempting to understand their origin and evolution. Some are working in the Dharwar Craton, a chunk of continental crust located in southern India. The Dharwar Craton formed between 3.6 billion and 2.5 billion years ago and is considered the oldest part of India. In many respects, these terranes are similar to the rocks that make up the core of the crust of Wyoming, Cheadle says. Michael Cheadle poses in front of Indias famous Taj Mahal. (Michael Cheadle Photo) The workshop evolved as a response to a need identified during the last Hutton Symposium on granites and related rocks: to give students from developing countries a chance to be exposed to modern granite science. The Hutton Symposium, named after James Hutton, a famous Scottish geologist, first took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987. Since then, the Hutton Symposium has become a classic meeting on granite geology. Every four years, this event brings together leading scientists in granite geology and highlights the research trends in this field. The last symposium was in China in 2019, with the next scheduled in Italy in 2023. This marked the first visit to India for Cheadle, a well-heeled researcher. He says he gained a better understanding of the country, its culture and its people. He also did a little sightseeing, taking in the fabled Taj Mahal and the High Himalayas. He also made a stop at Gautam Buddha University, located in Uttar Pradesh, India, where he met with Professor Ravindra Kumar Sinha, the vice chancellor at that university. The vice chancellor position there is similar to the position of president at UW, Cheadle says. Additionally, he says teaching provided an opportunity to build new relationships between faculty and students in India and UW, and he forged one key relationship for future collaboration. Im looking forward to collaborating with Dr. Roberto Visalli, from the University of Catania in Sicily, Cheadle says. Hes a young, future-generation geoscientist who also is studying rock textures. (Natural News) Florida stood out during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by being considerate of peoples medical freedom while managing the crisis in an impressive manner. The state continued to impress as Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo recommended against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines because the data showed that these vaccines are linked to severe side effects. The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety. This analysis found that there is an 84 percent increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination, he said in a statement. As state surgeon general, Ladapo helped Florida reach the lowest case rate for COVID-19 in America without enforcing draconian mask mandates and lockdowns. His supporters also shared that his impressive leadership has contributed to these laudable public health trends. Ladapo challenges vaccine mandates Ladapo, a Nigerian-born American physician and researcher, was appointed as Floridas surgeon general by Governor Ron DeSantis on September 21, 2021. He was also appointed to the position of associate professor at the University of Florida Health at the same time. Early in March, Ladapo announced that Florida would become the first state in the U.S. that would recommend against giving children aged five and older COVID-19 vaccines, contrary to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) recommendations. He said the decision came about because of the lack of sufficient clinical trial data on vaccines for children in this age range. Additionally, data suggest that healthy children were among the least likely to experience adverse effects from COVID-19, meaning they would only reap more risks than benefits from getting vaccinated. And while children, including very young children, can get coronavirus, many of them dont experience any symptoms. Even children who do get sick tend usually experience milder symptoms like cough, fatigue, and low-grade fever. Ladapo also petitioned the CDC three months earlier to stop the approval of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. By the time he voiced these recommendations back in March, he had already been targeted as a conscientious critic of face masks, mask mandates and quarantines. This isnt the only time Ladapo has spoken up about the COVID-19 vaccine controversy. On Sept. 2, Ladapo posted on Twitter to voice his concerns about the adverse events linked to these vaccines. He cited a study that showed a concerning rate of serious adverse events after mRNA vaccination. New study published in #Vaccine shows concerning rate of serious adverse events after mRNA vaccination, but estimates are limited b/c @pfizer & @moderna_tx wont release patient-level trial data. Why are doctors blindly following Big Pharma?https://t.co/M2QAoUsf5J Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) September 2, 2022 As of Oct. 7, Ladapo is also warning young men aged 18 to 39 about the COVID- vaccine because of a significant risk of death. Unlike mainstream media and other states, Ladapo isnt afraid to ask important questions. Why are doctors blindly following Big Pharma? Questions like these must be asked even if it lands someone in hot waters because studies continue to show that these vaccines arent always worth their alleged benefits. (Related: Ben Armstrong lauds Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, lawyer Thomas Renz for exposing flaws of COVID-19 vaccines.) Floridas official state guidance for COVID-19 Starting February, DeSantis and Ladapo released a list of updated COVID-19 recommendations for Florida. The states guidelines were often at odds with many guidelines, restrictions and mandates imposed in other states across the country. After announcing the updated guidelines for his constituents, DeSantis said: People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children. He added that the state wants to empower health care practitioners to follow science, not [Anthony] Faucis status quo. DeSantis and Ladapo remain committed to pushing back against unscientific guidelines. They also encouraged Florida physicians to exercise their individual clinical judgment and expertise based on their patients needs and preferences. The pair also announced several public health updates, such as: Ending corporate masking for employees. Keeping students in school and reducing isolation by limiting isolation periods for Floridians to only five days. Ensuring doctors have a right to try treatments and advising health care providers and facilities to reevaluate status quo protocols in favor of science-based treatments that may benefit patients. To date, the CDC has also relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines. People who havent been vaccinated now have the same guidelines as those who have opted to get vaccinated. Visit Vaccines.news for more news related to COVID-19 vaccines. Watch the video below to learn how Dr. Brian Tyson successfully treated 6,000 COVID-19 patients. This video is from The Gateway Beast channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Florida closes the curtain on COVID theater with roundtable discussion. Florida surgeon general: COVID vaccine risks OUTWEIGH benefits for healthy children. Floridas DeSantis says children should not get vaccinated for covid. Sources include: NaturalHealth365.com Health.Harvard.edu Twitter.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Two doctors filed a federal lawsuit to halt a recently signed California law that would enforce disciplinary actions on doctors if they spread misinformation or challenge the states Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) narrative. California Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), signed Sept. 30 by Governor Gavin Newsom, would authorize the Medical Board of California (MBC) to pursue professional sanctions and even license revocation against doctors who go against their COVID-19 scientific consensus. (Related: California legislators are on a mission to de-license ALL doctors in the state who challenge covid dogma.) Dr. Mark McDonald, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, and Dr. Jeff Barke, an Orange County primary care physician and founding member of Americas Frontline Doctors, filed the complaint in the District Court for the Central District of California. The suit named 12 members of the MBC and California Attorney General Robert Bonta as defendants. [This new law] puts patients at risk. Requiring physicians to consider the states narrative when making a medical decision, is bad medicine and dangerous. Consensus in science only occurs when dissenting opinions are censored, the suit stated. The plaintiffs also filed papers seeking a preliminary injunction to protect their free speech rights as the case unfolds. Mary Holland, president and general counsel for Childrens Health Defense, commented that Californias new law is a clear violation of the First Amendment. It is startling that the legislature and the governor would even attempt to pass such legislation, Holland said, adding that censoring information about health never leads to health, but it certainly can and has led to medical catastrophes. According to Los Angeles Times, some doctors worry that the Golden States new law could only do more harm than good. What was misinformation one day is the current scientific thinking another day, Dr. Eric Widera, professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told the news portal. Daniel Suhr, the doctors attorney and managing lawyer at the national nonprofit law firm Liberty Justice Center, said: We rely on our doctors to give us their best medical advice, yet the State of California is stopping doctors from doing just that. Thats not just wrong, its unconstitutional. AB 2098 defines misinformation as false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care and disinformation as misinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead. The lawsuit disputed this in the context of a new disease like COVID-19, about which consensus opinions and official guidance are regularly adjusted as new information is learned. Reasonable minds disagreed then, and continue to disagree now, about any number of such topics, but the search for truth cannot be furthered by a government edict imposing orthodoxy from above, punishing those who disagree with the loss of their profession and their livelihood, the lawsuit stated. It also alleged that the new law intrudes into the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship by replacing the medical judgment of the government for that of the licensed professional and chilling the speech of those who dissent from the official view. New California law may cause doctors to censor themselves The said bill was introduced in mid-February by California Assemblymember Evan Low, one of the Democratic state lawmakers who established the Vaccine Work Group in January that would develop laws promoting the use of COVID-19 vaccines while battling misinformation. Back in June, a hearing was held in the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, where Low declared that his bill was really very straightforward. According to civil rights attorney Laura Powell, Low had struggled to respond to questions from the committee and had often resorted to simply reading the text of the bill during the hearing that lasted for over an hour. Powell also noted that there was no clear guidance regarding what would constitute misinformation, and physicians can only guess if they risk losing their licenses for expressing their good-faith disagreements with positions of public health officials. Even if in practice, the Medical Board only applied the law to speech that the First Amendment does not protect, the laws vagueness would render it unconstitutional, because it would tend to cause doctors to censor themselves, she pointed out. Visit MedicalCensorship.com for more stories like this. Watch Steve Bannon and Dr. Robert Malone discuss why AB 2098 violates the Nuremberg Code and the right to informed consent. This video is from the In Search Of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: The dystopian vision of the health information police. California warns doctors: tell the truth about anything and youll lose your medical license. California doctor pushes back against medical misinformation bill. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com ChildrensHealthDefense.org LegiScan.com GreatGameIndia.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) On October 10, 2022, a committee convened at the European Parliament to investigate fraud, crimes, and mortality associated with the covid-19 vaccines and the governments sordid response. The committee included representatives from the twenty-seven European Union (EU) member states. Christian Terhes, the representative from Romania, brought forth evidence showing that high vaccination rates in EU countries are correlated with excess mortality rates (when compared to the 2016-2019 averages). In fact, as the COVID vaccination rate goes up in a country, so does the excess mortality rate! Terhes reported, The excess mortality rate across the EU has increased by 16% more than the average. If you look at the map, the countries with the highest vaccination rates currently have the highest excess mortality rate. Terhes continued, So obviously we ask, Is there a connection, between being vaccinated and having a higher mortality rate? Everybody is avoiding answering this logical question. The mass murder cannot be denied. Pfizer CEO hesitant to show his face, as judicial oversight begins Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla recently suffered through two bouts of covid-19 illness in August and September of 2022. Both times, Bourla used his illness to advertise his companys failed mRNA vaccines. The quadruple vaccinated Bourla also voiced his intention to get a fifth dose of his failed product, even after contracting and succumbing to infections he was supposed to be protected from in the first place. When Bourla was asked to appear before the EU Parliament in October, he communicated via text message and sent someone else in his place Janine Small, president of Pfizers International Developed Markets. Mrs. Small refused to be transparent with Pfizers data and communications, and oftentimes was hesitant to address the serious matters at hand. Rob Roos, the Dutch Member of Parliament asked Pfizer representative Janine Small whether the companys COVID vaccine was ever tested on stopping transmission of the virus. The Pfizer rep admitted to the Parliament that the Pfizer mRNA vaccine was never tested for blocking transmission before it was rushed to market. Perhaps this is why the CDC changed the definition of a vaccine in 2021. Was the Pfizer COVID vaccine tested on stopping the transmission of the virus before it entered the market? Roos asked. If not, please say it clearly. If yes, are you willing to share the data with this committee? Regarding the question around did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market? No. We have to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market, Small responded. Terhes pressed further, exposing a criminal conspiracy: On January the 11th 2020 the Chinese Government released the DNA data to the public of the virus and 3 days later Pfizer already started the tests for this vaccine, how is that possible? The EU representatives called it a major disgrace that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla failed to show his face in front of the committee and answer questions about his product and his company. The fact that Mr. Bourla, CEO of Pfizer had the audacity to refuse to appear in front of the Committee to answer questions, constitutes a gross disregard for the people whose tax money he took by the way, said Christine Anderson, who served as an Alternative for Germany Member of the European Parliament. If we cannot compel a crucial player to appear in front of this Committee, then this Committee is useless. So I propose that we declare ourselves incompetent. Indeed, it will take more than special committees and press conferences to investigate Pfizer and the rest of the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. Subpoenas and interrogations are warranted. Everyone involved with defrauding the public, injuring the population, and violating human rights must be held accountable. Sources include: TheGatewayPundit.com Twitter.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) A major train network in northern Germany came full stop on Oct. 8 due to sabotage, affecting long-distance trains early on that day. State-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn confirmed the sabotage on cables vital for train traffic. The operator added that long-distance trains in the countrys north came to a total standstill for nearly three hours. Domestic routes affected include those coming to and from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony in the direction of Kassel-Wilhelmshohe, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). High-speed intercity express trains along Berlin, Hanover and NRW were impacted as well. International train routes were also affected by the attack, with trips to and from Berlin via Amsterdam being completely canceled. Meanwhile, trains to Denmark that would typically reach the cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus were forced to start and end in the southern Danish city of Padborg. Countless travelers in the region were left stranded at railway stations as queues built up rapidly along mainline stations, including Berlin and Hanover. Departure boards also showed many other services being delayed or canceled. Deutsche Bahn initially blamed a technical malfunction for the standstill. However, it said hours later that malicious activity brought down the rail network, alerting security authorities to get involved. Der Spiegel magazine was more specific, saying that the sabotage involved Deutsche Bahn communication network cables being severed in two places. Federal police have started investigating the incident, according to Interior and Community Minister Nancy Faeser. However, the motive for the sabotage remained unclear. (Related: 10 Ways Russia can respond to the pipeline destruction: A 100 tsunami awaits US cities via Putins underwater drone nukes.) Omid Nouripour, leader of the Greens Party in the German parliament, said anyone who attacked the countrys critical infrastructure would receive a decisive response. He tweeted: We will not be intimidated. Acts of sabotage affecting Germany, other EU countries The disruption of Deutsche Bahns operations in northern Germany followed news of sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The pipelines that ran under the Baltic Sea and provided Russian natural gas to the rest of Europe were blown up, leading the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to remind their respective member nations of the importance of securing critical infrastructure against other potential attacks. There had been growing fears about assaults on Germanys critical infrastructure even before the sabotage. Transport Minister Volker Wissing said it was clear that this was a targeted and malicious action. German authorities said they were looking into suspicions of deliberate sabotage, and investigators said they have not ruled out interference with a political motive. State investigators in Berlin later said there were no signs of involvement by a foreign state nor terrorism in the attack. Following this, the federal police handed the investigation over to Berlin and NRW state criminal police bureaus. Lawmaker Anton Hofreiter of the Green Party told the press that disrupting the railway networks communication cables would require very precise knowledge of the railways radio system. Maj. Gen. Carsten Breuer of the German Bundeswehr the countrys armed forces said every substation, every power plant and every pipeline could be possible targets of attacks, especially as the current state of affairs was not quite peace anymore, but not really war either. Breuer also said Russias invasion of Ukraine showed that war was possible on the European continent again, adding that his team was preparing primarily for hybrid threats that combine both military and non-military activities. Visit Chaos.news for more stories like this. Watch the video below for more information on the possible sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: CIA recently warned Germany about possible Nord Stream pipeline attack, says German magazine. Nord Stream pipeline SABOTAGE clearly orchestrated by ruthless Biden regime: Nuland, Biden and Sen. Johnson all demanded ending it permanently by any means necessary. Norway tightens security on gas and oil sites in North Sea after spotting mysterious drones in the area. Sources include: ZeroHedge.com DW.com 1 AlJazeera.com DW.com 2 Brighteon.com (Natural News) The Encinitas Union School District in San Diego is holding an all-ages Halloween drag show called Queerfest, and parents are reportedly in an uproar. The event, which targets youth and families, is described as the queerest free Halloween party for kids and families. It includes games, trick or treating, and a family-friendly drag show, reads a flyer promoting the event, which is to be held on October 29 in Hillcrest, a popular LGBT neighborhood in San Diego. (Related: Will Antifa show up to guard Queerfest at gunpoint like it recently did in a suburb of Dallas?) Queerfest is reportedly sponsored by a local homosexual bar as well as a gender reassignment surgery center called Transfamily Support Services, which profits from the gender and genitalia mutilation of children. Parents pull children out of Encinitas school district after spotting fliers The fliers clearly state that their distribution does not imply endorsement by the Encinitas Union School District, its schools, or staff and is distributed in compliance with federal and state law. It was, however, directly distributed by the school board. So which is it: is Queerfest and its Boo Bash drag show a school-sponsored event or not? It would seem that the district is trying to play both sides while flagrantly violating the law. Our message is clear: we dont want strip shows, we dont want drag shows, and definitely not sent out inviting the parents and kids in our district, said Carrie Boller, a parent who immediately pulled her two children out of the district after spotting the fliers. Boller is not alone, according to reports. Many parents saw the event being promoted both on the streets and in the Peachjar app, which allows community groups to submit events to the local school board for promotional consideration. We certainly want to be an inclusive community and support groups of all kinds, but the question is where do we draw the line? said Justin Reid, another parent, father of two, and school board candidate who opposes the school boards promotion of the event. At what point do we think well, maybe drag shows shouldnt be promoted to our kindergarten through 6th families. Is that something that would be suitable for somebody who is five to ten years old? Maybe not. We should know how those decisions are being arrived at. The flier has since been removed from Peachjar and is no longer officially supported by the school board, but many parents are still wondering who is responsible for posting it in the first place. The district issued a statement of its own claiming that it remains steadfast in our commitment to be an inclusive and supportive district for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, linguistic background, economic class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and physical and cognitive ability. The district also said that the fliers were taken down for not meeting district approval criteria. The district has reviewed and adjusted procedures for approving fliers in the future, it added. Boller says this is not enough and that those responsible need to be held accountable. They work for taxpayers like herself, after all. They work for us, she said. Were the parents and were their constituents and were tired of them ignoring us. Boller and other parents are demanding an apology, and for the person or people responsible to be fired. So disgusting, wrote a commenter on a new story about the event and the fliers. These sick, evil people should be jailed forever. They are headed for hell, responded another. The latest news about the transgender indoctrination and mutilation of innocent children by the Cult of LGBT can be found at Transhumanism.news. Sources for this article include: TheGatewayPundit.com 10news.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) In the next year, close to half of all hospital doctors who currently work for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom are planning to quit, putting the government-run health system at risk of a complete collapse. The British Medical Association (BMA) conducted a survey of more than 7,700 hospital consultants through England. It was discovered that 44 percent, to be more precise, do not plan to stay even if that means having to retire early, take a career break, or find a job in the private sector. Dr. Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants committee, said the figures show an extremely grim reading for what will soon become of the NSH. Without action, the NHS is in danger of complete collapse. This writers immediate thought is that hospital doctors are not necessarily quitting so much as they are dying from having gotten jabbed in many cases by force for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19). Perhaps this is all a cover-up for those deaths? (Related: Remember back in the spring when the NHS launched a fifth jab for covid?) The NHS is already at a breaking point and cannot afford to lose any of its staff, never mind facing the prospect of losing nearly half of its most senior doctors, Sharma is quoted as saying. Is there any way to save the NHS or is it done? It does appear that not everyone threatening to quit is dying, though. There are very real people who, just like the railroad unions here in the United States and the energy unions in France, want better pay and better working conditions. A prominent doctors union is calling on the government of the U.K. to take immediate action to address these and other issues, including pension arrangements amid a shaky economic environment. Health Secretary Therese Coffey has announced changes to the NSH pension rules that aim to retain more experienced staff while removing barriers for retired staff to return to work if they so choose. The BMA, however, says these changes do not nearly go far enough. What has been done so far, according to the group, is just sticking plasters and [is] not the long-term fix that the NHS desperately needs. Goodwill of NHS staff has all but dried up, the BMA added. In the survey, consultants were asked what actions they personally believe need to take place within the next 12 months in order to retain hospital doctors specifically as it pertains to pay and current tax arrangements. Nearly half responded to this by suggesting that the only solution is to quit, meaning no amount of change at the current time is adequate despite the fact that 90 percent of respondents indicated a pay increase of 4.5 percent this year. This is not the NHS that our patients deserve or that our staff signed up to work in, Sharma added. The NHS is at breaking point and unless the government acts it will collapse completely. We urge the government to come to the table and talk to consultants about the changes that are needed before it is too late to stop the drain of doctors from the NHS. In the comments, someone wrote that it was only a matter of time before this happened. Is it time to consider the quacks of the medical field as murderers? this same person asked. How many have died at their mal-practicing hands? Another wrote that if this were any other union, the government would be labeling them thugs and extortionists, bullies using blackmail to screw over taxpayers for their own profits. If you would like to learn more about the ongoing collapse of the medical industry, visit BadMedicine.news. Sources for this article include: Newspunch.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) On November 8, Michigan voters will have the chance to decide if they want to codify Roe v. Wade into state law via Proposal 3 now that the longtime federal abortion ruling has been overturned by the Supreme Court. What many of them do not know, however, is that Prop 3 contains hidden provisions that would make gender affirming surgeries and pharmaceutical drugging available to children without parental knowledge or consent. If Prop 3 passes, Michigans state constitution will be amended to allow children to waltz right in to one of Planned Parenthoods 12 statewide gender affirming clinics and chop off their genitals or take prescriptions for gender-bending hormones and puberty blockers. And with Planned Parenthood of Michigan promising gender affirming care via telehealth in the coming months, Michiganders kids wont even need to leave their house to obtain these sterilizing drugs, warned The Federalist. In essence, Prop 3s passage would allow young boys to get castrated without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Likewise, young girls could opt for a double mastectomy and hysterectomy without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Gretchen Whitmer misleading voters by calling Prop 3 the abortion amendment A big reason why most Michiganders presumably have no idea as to the true intent of Prop 3 is because the states governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is knowingly and intentionally deceiving them about it. Constantly referring to Prop 3 as the abortion amendment, Whitmer is making it seem through her rhetoric that the proposed legislation is merely about keeping Michigan the same as it was, as far as abortion is concerned, when Roe was still in place. Passing this amendment simply restores the same protections that Michiganders had for five decades under Roe v. Wade, is exactly how the Detroit Free Press is misleadingly framing Prop 3. Prop 3 goes far beyond the controlling Roe-Casey precedent, warned The Federalists Margot Cleveland. If passed, the constitutional amendment would create an extreme regime in Michigan of abortion on demand, at any time, for any reason, without informed or parental consent, and paid for by taxpayers. This is not merely a political point, and it is not a worst-case-scenario argument based on how some liberal activist judge or justice might interpret Prop 3. This reality flows from the plain language of Prop 3 and rests on general legal principles of constitutional construction. The passage of Prop 3 would etch into the Michigan constitution as Article 1, Section 28, several key lines about how every individual, including children, would have the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy. It would also scratch into the law additional rights for reproductive freedom, which like the pregnancy line refers not just to a woman getting pregnant and wanting an abortion but also to children who decide that they are boys trapped inside girls bodies, and vice versa. You can read the exact text for yourself at The Federalist. This proposal represents a huge demarcation from controlling Michigan law, under which minors must have parental consent to obtain medical treatment or receive prescription medications, with the only current exception being the judicial bypass provisions governing minors seeking abortions, Cleveland further warned. The rights of parents do not matter; mom and dad have no rights. These are truly disturbing times, so none of this is really all that surprising. What is surprising is the degree to which deception has now been enshrined into seemingly everything that is said and done these days and that too few people look into and read the ballot more closely before voting in favor of things like this. The latest news about the North American transgender craze can be found at Transhumanism.news. Sources for this article include: TheFederalist.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The Resistance Chicks Michelle and Leah Svensson told their viewers that Americas Founding Fathers were Christian nationalists who quoted the Holy Bible in the documents they composed. Michelle opened the Oct. 9 episode of Headline News: The Resistance Chicks on Brighteon.TV by reiterating that the power of God is moving in the U.S., despite the uncertainties going on in the world such as the threat of nuclear war and economic collapse. She added that the Founding Fathers believed all of these uncertainties can be handled through the power of God. Leah, the elder sister, explained that the Founding Fathers were Christian nationalists who had built America upon biblical, legal and educational foundations. The country, she added, is a Christian nation whose foundation is solely and completely based upon men and women who were living out the Word of God. The Bible was the most quoted book by the Founding Fathers, but in the early 1900s secularists hijacked the American school system with the expressed goal of rewriting American history to take all mention of God and His Divine Hand of Providence out of the curriculum, Leah stated. (Related: Pete Buttigieg demands revisions of history to scrub the name of Thomas Jefferson from the American landscape because Leftists HATE Americas founding.) The elder Svensson sister pointed out that while most patriots are ready to legally take on the Deep State, they have to fight them with the power of God. She also lamented that 80 percent of Christians who send their children to public schools were woefully under-educated. These same Christians, Leah added, lost many court cases because they do not know how to stand on the same principles that guided the great minds that created Americas founding documents. Founding Fathers quoted the Bible in key documents Michelle, the younger sister, said the Founding Fathers often quoted the Bible. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, their personal writings and other documents composed by the Founding Fathers were drenched with the Scripture, she added. The elder sister interjected, remarking that the first full manifestation of modern nationalism happened in 17th century England during the Puritan revolution. Leah also noted that England had become the leading nation in scientific spirit, commercial enterprise and political thought and activity during that time. In turn, English nationalism gave way to the Christian nationalist idea that there was a divine hand in England itself. Leah continued that the rise of English nationalism led to freedom and the idea of the common man having common rights, which influenced American and French nationalism. She also mentioned that the Founding Fathers belief in Christian nationalism started with the ideas of English philosopher John Locke and English poet John Milton. According to Milton no one was ordained to rule over anyone since all men were naturally born free. Michelle explained the influence of Locke, who espoused freedom, individuality and rights before God. While people used to understand the impact of Locke before, she lamented that it was wiped out in just a short period of time. The younger Svensson sister then urged viewers to check out Lockes Two Treatises of Government. The first treatise of Lockes work, according to Britannica, debunked the so-called divine right of kings. The second treatise defined political power as a right of making laws and enforcing them for the public good. Follow Liberty.news for more news about the legacy of Americas Founding Fathers. Watch the Oct. 9 episode of Headline News: The Resistance Chicks below. You can catch Headline News: The Resistance Chicks every Friday at 6-7 p.m. and every Sunday at 5-6 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: Echoing demonic globalists, this Southern Baptist minister says nation has to repent for sins of nationalism and white supremacy Newly uncovered document reveals left-wing deep state elites battle plan against American Christians. America now has proof: Democrats have become the tyrants Americas founding fathers warned us about. Woke Left rewriting history at Founding Fathers estates, downplaying their accomplishments and portraying them as slave-owning racists. Sources include: Brighteon.com Britannica.com (Natural News) Whether or not youre a fan of talk radio host Alex Jones, the most recent jury award over remarks he made following the horrific 2012 murders of 20 second graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut is, at its core, the destruction of the First Amendment. In the aftermath of that horrible attack, Jones claimed, albeit falsely, that the shooting was staged and that the families were crisis actors in an effort by the government to confiscate Americans guns, the Daily Wire reported on Wednesday after a jury in Connecticut ordered Jones to pay Sandy Hook families more than $950 million in damages. The award follows a ruling from a separate jury in Texas ordered Jones to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages, an amount that may soon be reduced due to state laws capping the amount of damages, the outlet added. The award came after three weeks of testimony from family members of the young victims and an FBI agent who responded to the shootings, which were committed by Adam Lanza, who committed suicide as police were closing in on him. The case was a consolidation of three other cases brought by parents, family members, and the FBI agent. You may say that is astronomical. It is, Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs said while addressing the jurors after asking them to award the plaintiffs $550 million. Its exactly what Alex Jones set himself up to do. Thats what he built. He built a lie machine that could push this stuff out. You reap what you sow. However, according to an analysis of a Texas case against Jones by Revolver News in August, amidst all of the fanfare and controversy, it is easy to overlook just how weak the defamation case against Jones really was. The analysis notes that while a jury in Austin awarded plaintiffs Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin $4.1 million, they had sought $150 million in damages: The Sandy Hook parents mentioned above based their defamation claim on a 2017 NBC interview where Heslin said he held his sons body after he was murdered. In a contemporaneous Infowars segment, reporter Owen Shroyer said that, according to a timeline of events and a coroners testimony, that is not possible, and Jones responded by calling Heslin to clarify his statements. Otherwise, all of Joness defamatory behavior is premised on him making wild but vague allegations of a Sandy Hook false flag by unknown forces. Virtually all of the damages, meanwhile, are based on blaming Jones for the actions of people he doesnt even know. Based on the alleged trauma caused by Joness claims, and harassment from various people who are neither Jones himself nor acting on his orders, the plaintiffs sought a staggering $150 million in damages. The $4.1 million judgment is mercifully less than that, but after punitive damages come in Jones will still be paying a massive amount, Revolver News noted further, adding that shortly thereafter, Jones put his company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The outlet acknowledged that Jones accusations of a false flag were indeed highly controversial and came at a bad time when parents were grieving the loss of their children who were murdered in a horrific manner. Jones later admitted he should not have covered the story the way he did. At the same time, it is a very dangerous precedent to set when the feelings of grieving families can be used to silence reporting even conspiratorial and crazy reporting on tragedies of national significance, Revolver News continued. The Sandy Hook tragedy was a very public and very politicized event from the beginning, and almost immediately became enveloped into a national debate about gun control. Just months after the Sandy Hook Tragedy, Connecticut passed a dramatic enhancement to its so-called assault weapons ban. New York and Maryland took similar action, while Senator Diane Feinstein proposed a severe assault weapons ban at the national level, which never passed, the outlet added. Given the political stakes involved, it seems consistent with the spirit of the First Amendment and the spirit of a free society to allow maximum discussion and deliberation about a major tragedy serving as the catalyst for legislation, even if some of that discussion turns out to be silly, crude, cruel, irresponsible, or even harmful to the emotional state of the families affected by that tragedy, Revolver News continued. But thats not what happened. Instead, we now have a highly controversial jury award under circumstances that are going to chill, not protect, free speech, however outlandish it may be. After all, our founders spoke out against the British crown at a time when doing so could get you jailed and executed. Sources include: Revolver.news NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Taiwan will comply with new rules on semiconductor chip exports put in place by the U.S., even though the rules from Washington were originally aimed at Beijing. The Department of Commerce (DOC) announced the sweeping new export controls on Oct. 7, that will cut China off from certain semiconductor chips that are made with U.S. technologies, regardless of whether the chips were manufactured in the United States. The announcement sought to cut off communist China from chips made using American technologies. A Bloomberg report published on the same day noted that the U.S. would consider evacuating Taiwans highly skilled chip engineers in case the mainland invades. The report cited people familiar with the Biden administrations deliberations. In response, the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said the next day, Oct. 8, that Taiwanese firms would comply with the measures. Taiwans semiconductor industry has long served global customers and attaches great importance to compliance with laws, it said. The MOEA added that the international community including Beijing should understand that Taiwans economy is heavily intertwined with that of the world. Instability in the Taiwan Strait would inevitably endanger the security of the Asia-Pacific region including its neighbors Japan and Korea, which are also part of the critical semiconductor supply chains. The ministry remarked that maintaining peace and security in the strait serves the best interest of all parties. Taiwanese Economic Affairs Minister Wang Mei-hua told Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun that China heavily depends on Taiwan for its semiconductor imports. Any incident in the Taiwan Strait, she added, will disrupt the supply chain and severely impact the Chinese economy. (Related: Taiwan chip giant warns against global supply devastation if China attacks.) Wang warned that if Beijing uses Taiwan-made semiconductors in a way that threatens Taipeis security, the mainlands exports will be restricted or controlled under international rules and regulations. Taiwan too precious to lose because of its chip industry Days before the DOC announced the new export controls, the Taiwanese think tank Economic Democracy Union held a forum on Oct. 5 that looked at the role of Taiwans semiconductor industry and the geopolitical risks that threaten it. Two of the speakers, Academia Sinica researcher Wu Jieh-min and National Sun Yat-sen University professor Li Pao-wen, pointed out that China is highly dependent on Taiwans supply chain. Citing data from the MOEAs Bureau of Foreign Trade, Wu revealed that total semiconductor exports from Taiwan to China and Hong Kong was about $68.36 billion in 2021. This accounted for 60.4 percent of the total semiconductors exported worldwide. Furthermore, Li remarked that Taiwan is currently an asset rather than a burden to the U.S. in its rivalry with China for world hegemony. He pointed out that nearly 80 percent of chips in the U.S. come from Taiwan, and that the two countries share deep commercial and economic ties. If worse comes to worst, however, the possibility of mainland China launching a full-scale invasion against either the U.S. or Taiwan looms. This was one issue discussed by the Health Ranger Mike Adams and the Liberty Man John Moore during the Dec. 13, 2021 episode of the Health Ranger Report on Brighteon.TV. The Natural News and Brighteon.com founder explained: What a lot of Americans dont realize is that if China moves against Taiwan [and] theyre successful, then they can shut down or take over Taiwans entire semiconductor industry. Adams noted that the island nation is the No. 1 supplier of semiconductors to the West. If China successfully takes over Taiwan, shuts down the semiconductor factories and imposes an embargo of exports the U.S. economy would be crippled. They could instantly put the U.S. into severe shortages of medicines, electronics, consumer goods, raw materials, everything imaginable, he told Moore. They would literally shut down the entire U.S. economy overnight. Head over to CommunistChina.news for more stories like this. Watch this December 2021 episode of the Health Ranger Report on Brighteon.TV as Health Ranger Mike Adams and Liberty Man John Moore discuss Chinas possible moves against Taiwan. This video is from the BrighteonTV channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Coronavirus outbreak in Taiwan threatens to worsen global semiconductor shortage. ANALYSIS: Why China LOSES any escalation involving Taiwan and the United States Navy. The Liberty Man warns the Health Ranger of Chinas next moves against the US Brighteon.TV. Sources include: TheEpochTimes.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Towards the end of September, the United Nations General Assembly convened at the same time as the World Economic Forums (WEF) Sustainable Development Impact Meeting, during which it was discussed that Big Tech platforms like Google (which owns YouTube) and Twitter are controlled by the globalists. UN officials who said things like we own the science also admitted that a partnership was formed with Google to censor search results that fail to conform with the globalist agenda on matters such as Covid-19 and climate change. This is how public opinion is shaped, it was further admitted: through censorship and silencing of the truth. Both the UN and the WEF now openly admit to this because they apparently feel as though they are invincible and have already won. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are also heavily censored and controlled, it was stated. Groups and prominent figures that share or post content that the globalists find offensive or incorrect are routinely punished and whipped, so to speak. We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves do, a UN representative arrogantly pronounced, further noting that millions of dollars are poured into the coffers of social media influencers to spread globalist propaganda. If you Google climate change, you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources, the representative added. Another really key strategy we had was to deploy influencers influencers who were really keen, who have huge followings, but really keen to help carry messages that were going to serve their communities, and they were much more trusted than the United Nations. Not all speech is equal, say UN and WEF The United States Constitution states that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, including free speech but the UN and WEF disagree. In fact, the U.S. Constitution is something the globalists aim to destroy because it contradicts their out-in-the-open agenda for global enslavement of the masses. Thus, the First Amendment needs to go. The idea that all speech is equal is not true, the UN representative said without shame. These people really do look at us as their slaves. And if we willingly participate in their system, then that is exactly what we are. If we let them, the globalists pulling the political puppet strings at the UN and the WEF will force everyone into permanent indentured servitude to the new globalist world order, part of which includes a mass culling. That mass culling is already in motion with the so-called vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19), which among other things are a death tool not to mention an IQ test. The UN is right this moment, according to Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming, using TikTok, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Big Tech platforms to brainwash users into being good little soldiers for the new world order. We are becoming much more proactive, Fleming is quoted as saying. Remember all those nurses and doctors on TikTok who were seen dancing around while preaching about face masks and covid injections? The UN was behind all that with something called Team Halo that trained scientists around the world and some doctors to preach the gospel of the UN and the WEF. Bill and Melinda Gates remain heavy funders of this kind of stuff, which has largely turned the internet into a control matrix of relentless, in-your-face globalist propaganda. Interested in keeping up with the latest news about Big Tech? Visit Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: Expose-News.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Parents in Virginia who are caught deadnaming their transgender-identifying children could soon be forced to hand them over to the state for rehoming. A campaign surrogate of Democrat Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger made statements at a recent school board meeting in Prince William County (PWC) suggesting that gender-dysphoric children who believe they are trans but whose parents disagree should be kidnapped by the government and transferred to affirming households. (Related: Some members of the transgender mafia also believe that trans people should receive reparations for having to face deadnaming and other perceived forms of aggression.) The topic came up when an individual in attendance questioned Democrat PWC Supervisor Kenny Boddye about a recent announcement by the group Pride Liberation Project that this is the plan moving forward. Here is the question that was asked of Boddye: Recently announced by the group [Pride Liberation Project] was that they were establishing, forgive me for one moment, it was the, affirming households is what they were establishing. That adults could take in kids that feel like that theyre not being affirmed at home so that they can come live and reside with that adult. What are your thoughts on that policy? Here is Boddyes response: I think thats something that would have to be very carefully looked at. Because while its one thing if its a family friend, or you know, a family member or something like that, that knows the household knows theres issues there, thats known to the kids themselves and the parents, thats one thing. But if youre talking to someone whos out, an outsider, someone whos not a known entity to that, to that, that individual or that child or that family, I think you need to be careful with that. Boddye would go on to talk about how there are already other types of systems in place such as foster care and adoption programs that have guardrails in place to try to ensure a safe environment for rehomed children. However, he stated toward the end of his response that we wouldnt need those kinds of guardrails in place before I would support something like what Pride Liberation Project is proposing. Members of the LGBT cult want to become your childs parents Boddye is a political candidate in one of the most competitive swing district races in the country, so it is nothing short of disturbing that he believes parents should be stripped of their parental rights, including access to their own children, for refusing to play along with LGBT delusion and mental illness. It gets worse, though. Boddye further likened deadnaming and refusal to use gender pronouns as a form of abuse, which in his mind justifies a child being abducted by the state and moved to another family. Its obviously best when parents are affirming their kids, Boddye stated. Thats what I believe in. I affirm my kids every single day. But theres a big gradient between affirming your kids, not affirming your kids and being downright abusive and unwelcoming and intolerant and deadnaming your kid and what have you. In other words, deadname is downright abusive, in Boddyes mind. He also called deadnaming a form of neglect and emotional abuse, stating that he believes such situations really need to be looked into. Pride Liberation Projects goal is to abduct all gender dysphoric children whose parents want to protect them from LGBT annihilation and place them with queer-friendly guardians, as arbitrarily determined by the group in conjunction with the state. The latest news about Americas transgender craze can be found at Transhumanism.news. Sources for this article include: ThePostMillennial.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) A viral in-depth investigation of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia suggests the supposedly neutral website is openly politicized and sends its donor cash to fund a variety of radical leftist organizations fully committed to driving Americas cultural revolution. (Article by Ashley Sadler republished from LifeSiteNews.com) The investigation was published in a lengthy Twitter thread on Monday and has since garnered over 33,000 likes and nearly 10,000 shares. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis War Room Rapid Response Director Christina Pushaw retweeted the thread, calling it incredibly eye-opening. This is an incredibly eye opening thread ? https://t.co/hkTqlnIHKW Christina Pushaw ? ?? (@ChristinaPushaw) October 11, 2022 In the thread, Twitter user echetus argues that Wikipedia asks for donations to support the site but actually sends large amounts of money at least partially from those donations to support nonprofit organizations that may not reflect the values of readers. The investigation highlights the fact that Wikipedias parent corporation, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), has exploded in size in recent years, and increased its spending from just $10 million in 2010 to a whopping $112 million by 2020. This suprised [sic] me, seeing as Wikipedia seems to be functionally the same website it was 10 years ago, echetus said. So what explains this huge increase? According to the investigation, the increased spending isnt just to accommodate higher costs of operation, but rather to bankroll other organizations and pay the salaries of employees hired to facilitate the process. From 2012 to 2020, the spending on salaries increased fivefold, and $22.9 million was given in grants, echetus wrote. In a decade, Wikimedias spending has soared: from $10 million in 2010 to $112 million by 2020. This suprised me, seeing as Wikipedia seems to be functionally the same website it was 10 years ago. So what explains this huge increase? pic.twitter.com/X5zr9qUeI0 ? (@echetus) October 11, 2022 The WMF has been open about its support for left-wing social advocacy groups. While Wikipedia claims to support neutrality in its encyclopedia entries, the so-called Knowledge Equity Fund has explicitly affirmed its belief in a white supremacist caste system, and expressed its commitment to racial equity, defined as: shifting away from Eurocentricity, White-male-imperialist-patriarchal supremacy, superiority, power and privilege to create an environment that is inclusive and reflects the experiences of communities of color worldwide. To illustrate the type of organization that has raked in funding from Wikipedia, the Twitter thread spotlighted two organizations that have been granted hundreds of thousands of dollars via the Wikimedia Foundation. One such group is the The SeRCH Foundation, which received $250,000 from the WMF. The SeRCH Foundations website employs a host of radical left-wing racial and sexual cliches, stating it focuses on the representation, cultivation and amplification of the voices and experiences of persons of color and other marginalized bodies using an intersectional framework to engage the overlapping identities and discrimination that marginalized communities Through The SeRCH Foundation, Inc. we will keep building, keep pushing and keep making space for not only women of color, but all people of color, non-gender conforming folks and others who live lives that are too-often marginalized in STEM and society, the nonprofit pledges. In the videos they discuss issues in science like objectivity (theyre against it) and bias (theyre in favour). Theres been one new video in the last year. pic.twitter.com/tCpe5Uu0uw ? (@echetus) October 11, 2022 Another organization to receive a quarter of a million dollars from WMF was Borealis Philanthropys Racial Equity in Journalism Fund. Like The SeRCH Foundation, Borealis is explicitly political. The group promises that its community organizers are dedicated to bringing about transformational change ranging [f]rom Black-led movement-building, to queer and trans liberation, to disability justice and inclusion. In a news release put out just before the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, Borealis issued a call for radical change and investment in a Future Led by Trans, Queer, and BIPOC Reproductive Justice Organizers. Borealis Philanthropys Racial Equity in Journalism Fund divvies up the grants it receives to dozens of news outlets also committed to Borealis ideological views. Thus, the money you give to keep Wikipedia online is diverted to bankroll the inescapable American culture war. ? (@echetus) October 11, 2022 In the Monday Twitter thread, the author argued that the Wikimedia foundations grantees symbolize an advanced industry of NGOs, charities, and foundations that funds so much of the weirdness in our daily lives. A caste of activist-professionals have emerged, which inevitably capture any non-profit with spare cash, echetus said, characterizing such an industry as The Blob: a powerful but inconspicuous force that has given us the dysfunction of the 21st century. Concluding the thread, the author argued that while Wikipedia is an amazing and important website, it has plenty of funding to stay online, improve and [grow]. The donations it rakes in, meanwhile, are being used to fund one side in the United States culture war. Wikipedias leftward slant isnt new. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger came out against the site last year, arguing that the encyclopedia now promotes propaganda and censors anything that is contrary to the establishment. Noting that Wikipedia completely ignores any conservative, libertarian, or critical treatment of certain subjects, Sanger explained that while the platform did not start out with a left-leaning bias, a decade ago as liberals, or leftists made their march through the institutions, Wikipedia became one of those influential institutions. They started their march and basically took it over, Sanger said. In October 2020, Wikipedia banned editors from displaying userboxes that would demonstrate opposition to same-sex marriage and support for traditional marriage, arguing they were inflammatory or divisive and promoted bigotry. Last year, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales expressed support for the widespread banning and censorship of Donald Trump, even suggesting that Big Tech should have throttled his reach earlier. Wikipedia did not immediately respond to LifeSiteNews request for comment. This article will be updated if comment is provided. Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com Greta Thunberg, a well-known 19-year-old climate activist, claims that shutting down German nuclear power plants would be "a mistake" if it required the nation to burn more climate-warming coal. Given the threat of an impending energy crisis brought on by the conflict in Ukraine, the German government is still deliberating the fate of its nuclear plants, which were previously scheduled to be shut down this year. Three Nuclear Power Plants vs. A Lot of Coal Focusing on coal when nuclear power has been made available, according to Thunberg, who instigated a youth climate movement with her lone protests outside of the Swedish parliament in 2018, was a very bad idea. She did, however, acknowledge that there was a heated discussion about the subject in Germany in an interview that will be broadcast on Wednesday. When asked if keeping Germany's three remaining nuclear power plants operational would be better for the environment, Thunberg replied that she believes it would be a mistake to shut down nuclear power plants in favor of coal if they are already operating. Sandra Maischberger, the show's host, pressed Thunberg on whether she thought nuclear plants should be shut down the moment the current energy crisis is over. Thunberg responded that it depends because no one knows what will happen. The 19-year-remarks old's come as the ruling coalition of Germany's three parties disagrees over the viability of suspending the nation's nuclear phaseout. According to Robert Habeck, a Green Party opponent, and Economy Minister, maintaining the reactors would not significantly help the country's gas shortage. He recently said that two of the plants could, in rare circumstances, run until April, but he opposes doing so for safety reasons. To guarantee energy supplies in the wake of Russia's decision to reduce natural gas deliveries to Europe, Habeck has separately approved the reactivation of some coal-fired and oil-fired power plants. Read also: Greta Thunberg: Heatwave 'Just Getting Started' as Canada Breaks All-time Record Highest Temperature Focus on Renewable Energy Instead Environmentalists warn that Germany runs the risk of failing to meet its climate goals if it burns more fossil fuels, but conservative lawmakers argue that given the precarious energy supply and the high cost of energy, the government should utilize all available resources to produce energy. Right-wing German politicians and libertarians who had previously dismissed or sharply criticized Thunberg's activism welcomed her comments on nuclear power. The adolescent, who is reportedly finishing high school, claimed that Germany's decision to depend on coal plants demonstrated what occurs when a person becomes overly dependent on these fossil fuels. She criticized proposals to fund the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, arguing that the emphasis should be placed on boosting renewable energy. The German government is promoting the production of wind and solar energy while insisting that new gas plants should be able to use clean hydrogen. Thunberg pointed out that despite the possibility of lower prices, politicians in some nations, such as Sweden, are reluctant to advocate for people to conserve energy. She claimed that while in Germany, energy conservation is a hot topic, it is outright illegal in Sweden to discuss actual energy savings. According to Thunberg, this is so that people won't mistake it for communism. Thunberg said that while she does not think there is a single magic solution to the issue, people must understand the gravity of the crisis that humanity is facing due to rising temperatures. The high schooler is currently promoting her new book, which is centered on climate change. The young climate activist claims that she is realistic about the future because this catastrophe can be avoided if people take the necessary actions. She continued by saying that if nothing is done, the planet will have to deal with the repercussions, so it is up to the people, AP News reports. Related article: "No More Blah Blah"- Greta Thunberg Calls Out World Leaders During UN Climate Summit In the northeastern part of Washington State, six endangered gray wolves were poisoned and perished. $51k has been set aside by wildlife organizations as reward money for any information that helps solve the case. The deaths of six gray wolves within the territory of the Wedge pack in Stevens County are being looked into by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Late in February, the bodies of four of the animals were discovered, and subsequent searches revealed the deaths of two additional animals. The six wolves all died from poisoning, according to toxicology results, the wildlife department reported in an alert on Monday. Reward Money For information that could result in the arrest of those held to account for the poisonings, wildlife and conservation organizations are offering reward money totaling $51,400. Zoe Hanley, a wolf biologist from the Defenders of Wildlife, said that The endangered wolf population in our state has suffered a tragic, needless loss as a result. This cowardly act contradicts the sincere efforts made by biologists, policymakers, and ranchers in Washington to restore and coexist with wolves. Defenders of Wildlife provided a $2,500 informational reward. Since 1980, wolves in Washington have been classified as endangered, and the state's laws forbid hunting, cruel harassment, possession, and killing of animals. The federal government has listed gray wolves as endangered in the western portion of the state. Read also: Federal Court Restores Protection to Gray Wolves as Threatened Species Across US Gross Misdemeanor According to the wildlife department, killing a wolf or any other endangered species is considered to be a gross misdemeanor under Washington law, which carries a maximum one-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. According to the department, at least 206 known wolves were living in 33 known packs across Washington State as of the end of 2021. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, following a court order in February, gray wolves are a protected species under the Endangered Species Act in the majority of the contiguous 48 states and Mexico, except for the Northern Rocky Mountain population. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed the lethal removal of one wolf from the Leadpoint pack territory in Stevens County on Monday as well. Kelly Susewind, the department director, gave the go-ahead for the killing on Sunday, after attacks on cattle on private grazing lands. Because of similar threats to nearby livestock, state wildlife officials have recently been permitted to kill a small number of gray wolves, which wildlife officials say is per state guidelines. This includes the lethal removal of a maximum of two wolves from the Wedge pack in August 2020, USA Today reports. Gray Wolves Canines known as gray wolves have long, bushy tails that frequently have black tips. They are also known as timber wolves. Their coat color can range from solid white to either brown or black, but it usually has buffy facial markings and is a blend of gray and brown. Gray wolves resemble bigger German shepherds in appearance. Wolves' sizes vary depending on their habitat. Typically, northern wolves are bigger than southern ones. A wolf's body is typically three to five feet long, and its tail can typically reach up to two feet in length. Males and females typically weigh 70 to 145 pounds and 60 to 100 pounds, respectively. Related article: Wolves Reintroduction Into the Wild Can Restore Local Ecosystems, Scientists Say The current low water levels in the Mississippi River are increasing supply costs and barge transport fees. However, farmers must put up with lowball offers for their goods. Significant constraints in the supply chain across the midsection of the US could have far-reaching effects into the winter, beginning with farmers in the Plains and extending to the nation's overall economy. Decline in Water Levels and Commerce Low water levels in the Mississippi River, an important commercial waterway that has been suffering a steady decline in flow during the past few months because of a lack of rain, are aggravating the issue. On Wednesday, October 12, a river gauge at Osceola, Arkansas, located 35 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, recorded a water level that was 4.8% lower than what has been considered "low stage" there since records began in 1927. Because of the low water levels earlier in the month, at least eight barges ran aground. As the water level continues to drop, the risk of barges becoming stuck increases daily, placing more strain on the barge and shipping traffic that depends on the biggest river in the US for transportation. Michael Steenhoek, the executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, said that it is a crucial component of the US economy as a whole, and this is especially true for agriculture. 90% of the nation's agricultural exports, in addition to 60% of all grain exports, 78% of exports of feed grains, soybeans, and livestock, and 92% of all grain exports take place on the Mississippi River. Worst Timing For farmers, there was no worse time for the drought and declining water levels to have occurred. Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist from AccuWeather, said that the harvest season is currently in full swing, making this the busiest time of year for barge trafficking, the bulkiest mode of transportation for agricultural goods. Pastelok said that if this is out of control, grains won't be able to reach the ports to be transported to other nations, which could harm farmers and the US economy as a whole. Only a small portion of the average rainfall fell in the Mississippi River watershed from September 12 to October 12. Memphis, Tennessee, did not receive a single millimeter of rain during this time. According to Steenhoek, worries about the current state of affairs began to surface almost a year ago, during the winter of 2021to 2022, when there was a lack of snowfall throughout the Mississippi River basin. Very Dry Summer in Montana Steenhoek claimed that a significant portion of the water seen on the lower part of the Mississippi River originates as a snowflake in Montana. It just kept getting worse, and the area experienced a dry summer, which contributed to the current predicament. Steenhoek explained that due to the decreased shipping activity on the Mississippi River, demand for crops like corn and soybeans is far outpacing supply. Inefficient, Expensive Transport Barges can still travel down the river, but they might carry less cargo to stay afloat in the shallow water. The shipping strategy is now, however, less effective, which ultimately results in higher costs. Steenhoek explained that shippers are currently noticing a cost increase for barge freight of well over 100% compared to the same time last year. These costs are now being mainly passed on to the farmer, which is something that frequently occurs in the agricultural sector and is undoubtedly happening right now. This manifests itself in the lower price that is provided to those farmers at the point of sale. Even though shipping has decreased significantly, it has not completely stopped. According to the AP, the US Army Corps of Engineers now only moves 25 barges at a time instead of the usual 30 to 40 because of the extremely low water level. In comparison to the previous five years, barge traffic has decreased by 39%. Tyler Oxner, from the Arkansas Farm Bureau, said that rain must fall in the area to solve this problem, plain and simple. The Mississippi's reduced flow has repercussions that extend to the travel sector, including Viking cruise ships. Read also: Mississippi Governor, President Biden Declare State of Emergency Over Growing Jackson Water Crisis Winter is Not Yet Coming According to Pastelok, the long-range forecast for the area does not appear to be particularly wet, so conditions on the Mississippi River may worsen before they improve. Pastelok explained that this might continue throughout the winter and the first few days of spring. The Mississippi River's tributaries from Ohio and Tennessee, which empty into it, are the only source of relief. The area east of the Mississippi River may become wetter by mid-winter to late winter as a winter storm's path changes. However, farther west, there is currently a dry forecast for precipitation. The majority of the Mississippi River Valley is expected to experience wet weather this winter, with snowfall expected across the northern Plains, according to AccuWeather's long-range forecasters. These elements should reduce drought-related worries and raise the Mississippi River's water level, but it will take some time for this prediction to materialize. Steenhoek said that with few signs of hope on the horizon, they are witnessing the situation worsen with each passing day. There isn't much that can be done right now, he continued, AccuWeather reported. Related article: Mississippi River Communities Are Threatened by the River's Alarmingly Low Water Level A non-profit organization has warned residents of West Virginia that exposure to oil and gas fumes can increase their risk of developing cancer, but an organization representing these industries disagrees. Over half of West Virginia's counties are shown on a map in the Clean Air Task Force report to be above the level of concern for cancer risks set by the EPA. The report comes as fresh data from the US Energy Information Administration was made public on Wednesday, showing that gas production in the US surpassed previous records in 2021. The data in the Clean Air Task Force Report is contested by the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia. Although the report was released in September, it is noted that this analysis is of data that the EPA collected in 2017. Experts from CATF explained that they updated the data to a more recent date using EPA projections and trends on the gas and oil industry. Source of Cleanest Natural Gas According to the Energy Information Administration, 1/3 of all natural gas generated in the United States is produced in the Appalachian Basin, which includes Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Charlie Burd, executive director of the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, said that West Virginia is perched atop the Marcellus and Utica shale, which may contain the nation's richest natural gas deposits. Burd cites a different CATF report that appears to demonstrate that while West Virginia's natural gas production increased between 2018 and 2020, greenhouse gas emissions decreased. He claimed that the gas and oil industries in Appalachia reduced emissions by about 70% as an outcome of the voluntary agreements that the industry has with the Department of Energy and EPA. Burd further said that the company is extremely proud of West Virginia's production of the cleanest natural gas in the entire world. They believed that if given the chance to produce more, they will do more than any other location to reduce emissions. EPA Review The cited report is being examined by the EPA. The EPA proposed a rule in November 2021 that would substantially lower methane and other harmful air pollution from both existing and new sources in the natural gas and oil industry. This includes air toxins such as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene. The agency held a three-day public hearing after receiving close to half a million written comments and responses on the proposal. The EPA has created a supplemental proposal that may revisit, improve, or expand on the specifics of the one we released in November after reviewing those comments. In the upcoming weeks, the EPA intends to release the supplemental proposal open for public review and comment. Read also: Environmental Impacts of Fracking Boom in the US Waiting for Answers The Methane Pollution Prevention Team at CATF has knowledge of and support for the rule proposed in 2021, according to Lesley Feldman, manager of research and analysis, but it contained a loophole for leak inspections. Feldman said that they anticipate that the EPA will close this gap by requiring these inspections at all facilities. They believed that the EPA is generally moving in the right direction and that they currently have a fantastic opportunity to finalize those rules, which will significantly decrease methane emissions while also safeguarding communities from these dangerous air pollutants. Burd, on the other hand, asserted that he thought the new EPA regulation would be superfluous because gas and oil companies already place a high priority on environmental protection and safety. He further said that companies that have previously made these voluntary efforts to reduce emissions may find that this new round of potential penalties for failing to reduce emissions even more than they already do sort of fly in their faces, Eyewitness News reported. Related article: Experts are Studying the Possibility of Storing Hydrogen in Underground Salt Beds The landslides in Venezuela were devastating and might be considered one of the worst disasters that hit the country, causing deaths and massive damage to properties. The catastrophic landslides claimed the lives of over 43 people, according to the Washington Post reported. The government started the search operations to recover more victims or people trapped in the landslides. Impact The report said a landslide happened in Las Tejerias. AccuWeather noted it is located in the mountains about 40 km from Caracas, serving a place for over 54,000 residents. The report from AFP also said that completely destroyed houses were almost at 400 and 400 more were partially damaged. Reuters reported that Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro made the area a disaster zone and announced three days of mourning. Meanwhile, the AFP News Agency explained that the death toll could reach 100. Also Read: UN, Red Cross Warn Heat Waves Would Cause Regions Uninhabitable Within Decades AccuWeather explained that the dissipated Hurricane Julia and La Nina caused heavy rainfall that contributed significant role in the worst natural disaster in Venezuela. According to Reuters, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said that floodwaters affected the important pumps for the community's drinking water for residents. The Vice President stressed the urgent response to locate residents trapped in the mud and rocks, saying that the town of Tejerias suffers from a tragedy. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Karl is expected to move towards Mexico, which could bring heavy rains and flooding. Tropical Strom Watch and Warning are now in effect for affected residents. Landslides Based on the U.S. Geological Survey's website, landslides refer to the movement of debris, mass rock moving down the slope, or movement of soil and rock with the influence of gravity. Mudslides can also develop nearby and affect communities. Meanwhile, the CDC noted that landslides could emerge in areas that have destroyed vegetation, history of landslides, at the bottom of the mountains, canyons, or near the stream or river, or with active constructions affecting the land. Incessant heavy rains and strong winds could cause landslides. For possible evacuation plans, it is important to be aware of the current news updates, especially if you live in landslide-prone areas. Stay on high alert if there is a storm or hurricane, as it can cause landslides or mudslides. Monitor the activity outside your communities for potential threats. Immediately evacuate if the place is already at risk after an earthquake or heavy rains. Consider evacuating if possible. Report to authorities for any possible landslide incidents. If landslides occur, coordinate with the local authorities if it is safe to return. Be wary of mudslides. Be mindful of damaged electrical wires, appliances, outlets, sharp debris, and landslide risks. If your family members are missing, report to authorities for urgent search and rescue operations. Refrain from traveling or any outdoor activities near flood-prone and landslide-prone areas. Related Article: Sea-Level May Rise to 2 Meters By 2100, Feared Critical to Existing Infrastructures in Asia Pacific Regions For more similar, don't forget to follow Nature World News. Forecasts showed that Tropical Storm Karl started to move to Mexico with tropical conditions in the southwestern portions. Meteorologists are monitoring potential developments of a new storm in the Atlantic. People near southwestern portions of Mexico, especially with tropical storm watches or warnings, should stay updated with current news and weather reports. AccuWeather's latest update on October 14, said they were monitoring areas for any development in the coming weeks, noting that the Atlantic Hurricane wasn't over. The article added that no tropical systems were detected over the next week; however, it may change depending on the weather's conditions. The weather website explained that systems could form close to North America and Central America in the Atlantic Ocean, including in the southern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Coast, and the Caribbean Sea. It noted that they would closely monitor for potential development in the Caribbean for the next few weeks. Mexico's Impact Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center's latest weather advisory on October 13, (10:00 p.m) showed that southwestern Mexico could experience tropical storm conditions starting late Friday. The advisory reminded heavy rainfalls could result in flash flooding, and mudslides in high-terrain areas, including in Tabasco, Chiapas, Veracruz, and Oaxaca states in Mexico. Moreover, the Hurricane Center reported that Tropical Storm Karl was seen moving Southeastward on Campeche's Bay. The NHC has been monitoring the developments on Tropical Storm Karl. Also Read: Venezuela Suffers from Catastrophic Landslide, Death Toll Could Climb As of Thursday, reports said that Tropical Storm Karl recorded a near 50 mph (85 km/h) maximum sustained winds and higher gusts, noting that Karl could gradually weaken on Friday. AccuWeather rated Tropical Storm Karl less than one on the RealImpactTM Scale for Hurricanes in Mexico, noting that the tropical storm could unleash locally damaging winds, rough surfs, flash flooding, rip currents, and mudslides. Reports also showed that the tropical storm could not impact the United States. Brace for Tropical Storm Karl's Impact Forecasts reported that Tropical Storm Karl could make an impact starting late Friday. Karl would unleash heavy rains that could result in mudslides, landslides, flash floods, and flooding. Rough and dangerous seas are also expected from the storm starting late Friday. Keep in mind the following important reminders before Karl makes landfall. Tropical Storm Karl would unleash heavy rains. Tracking the storm with weather reports would help assess the impact on your communities. Keep your mobile phones waterproof. Stay on alert, especially near coastal areas or flood-prone places. Monitor the increase in seawater. Having a fully-charged mobile phone and a power bank would be very helpful for emergencies. Follow the advice of your local authorities for immediate evacuation, or consider evacuating early for the threat of a storm or Hurricane if the areas are flood-prone. Stay indoors sa much as possible during the onslaught of the storm. Lastly, advise your children or family to avoid traveling during the storm. After the storm, check your house for potential damage. Be careful with power lines or electrical supplies. Related Article: Sea-Level May Rise to 2 Meters By 2100, Feared Critical to Existing Infrastructures in Asia Pacific Regions For more similar, don't forget to follow Nature World News. NASA's Lucy spacecraft will be close to Earth and set to skim the said planet's atmosphere on October 16 (7:04 a.m EDT). According to the report, swinging past Earth, Lucy would finally gain orbital energy to travel to the population of primitive asteroids. According to the NASA Solar System Exploration website, the Lucy Spacecraft is essential to explore several Trojan asteroids, which is considered a population of primitive asteroids orbiting Jupiter. The mission launch date was on October 16, 2021. NASA explained the importance of Lucy's exploration of the cosmos for science and understanding the universe that could unveil important mysteries. Furthermore, NASA said that Trojan asteroids refer to small and early solar system remnants. Lucy spacecraft is recorded as the first space mission to Trojan Asteroids, reaching one year into a twelve years space exploration. Lucy Spacecraft Importance Meanwhile, Lucy's spacecraft would pass 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface. The report noted that the Trojan Asteroids revealed to be trapped in orbits around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. NASA explained that the trajectory of the Lucy spacecraft would place it closer to Earth, passing through the earth-oribting satellites and at a low altitude. However, NASA has safety procedures for potential collision hazards and immediate maneuvering. Also Read: Hunter's Moon Shines Brightly in the Sky Deputy navigation team chief Coralie Adam explained that the team prepared two maneuvers. If the team observes and detects that the spacecraft could be at risk, it would execute one of the maneuvers 12 hours before reaching the closest approach to the planet Earth, noting that the maneuver would avoid a collision. According to the report, October 16( 7:04 a.m EDT ) is the date that Lucy would skim the atmosphere of the Earth. Amazingly, it also marks the first anniversary of the launch. The report said the Lucy spacecraft would be visible at 6:55 a.m (EDT) in Western Australia. At around 7:02 a.m (EDT), Lucy would be visible for a few minutes before disappearing. At 7:36 a.m (EDT), the report said that spacecraft would continue to the Pacific Ocean and appear in the shadow of the time stated. Parts of the western United States could see the view of Lucy using binocular equipment if the weather is not cloudy. Gravity assist NASA explained that the first gravity assist would bring Lucy's spacecraft to approach Earth from the Sun's direction, making stargazers or observers on Earth not see any sightings of the space vehicle before the event. What is amazing about the first gravity assist is that space explorers would capture significant images of the Earth and moon for future studies and calibration of instruments for explorations. In the second gravity assist would provide energy to the spacecraft; Lucy s would move, crossing the main asteroid belt where it will begin to look into the asteroid Donaldjohanson. Then, the report said that the spacecraft would travel to the Trojan Asteroids swarm, passing and flying in the following: Eurybates and satellite Queta Polymele and an unnamed satellite Leucus Orus Visit the NASA website for updates and news about the Lucy Spacecraft explorations. Related Article: NASA Rover catches Amazing Image of Cat Loaf Rock on Mars. For more similar, don't forget to follow Nature World News. Australia flooding has affected once again the southeastern part of the country, including the states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. Widespread disruption and large-scale infrastructural damage were reported in recent hours, as raging floodwaters inland and from bodies of water ravaged communities across the region. The weather event led to forced evacuation orders and power outages. In recent days, the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issued severe weather warnings of heavy downpours and flood threat for the said Australian states. The previous warnings emphasized that flash flooding is likely due to riverine flooding which pertains to the rise and overflow of water levels from rivers, lakes, and streams. Man-made dams are also included in this flood risk. Australian meteorologists blame torrential rain for the flash flooding. However, experts also attribute climate change and the La Nina weather phenomenon to the renewed flooding in Southeast Australia. The phenomenon is known for increasing the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall in the region, as well as influencing cyclones and causing cooler daytime temperatures. Earlier this year, a similar La Nina-triggered weather event caused massive flooding in Queensland, New South Wales, and other parts of the country. The flooding in Eastern Australia was considered to be disastrous event as it submerged many communities and also staged an unprecedented evacuation of residents during the first quarter of 2022. Australia Torrential Rain Major flooding forced communities in New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, as the Australia torrential rain soaked parts of the country and received four times their average rainfall for a typical month of October in just 24 hours as of Friday, October 14. The inclement weather submerged at least 500 houses, with one person dead and another missing as the natural disaster develops. Floodwaters also overwhelmed roads and forced school closures. It also led to approximately 3,000 power outages affecting residential and business establishments. Also Read: Heavy Rain Eases While Flood Risk Remains in Multiple Areas Across New South Wales [BoM] Hard Hit Areas The number of flooded homes will continue to grow amid the state's worst flood events in decades, according to Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews, as cited by the BBC. Victoria is Australia's worst hit state this week; wherein several communities, including some in the state capital city of Melbourne, were ordered to evacuate. In Tasmania, severe rivers became flooded after up to 400 millimeters of rainfall occurred in some parts of the state in 24 hours. The number of affected homes and businesses in the area is not yet clear. In New South Wales, local authorities told around 600 people to evacuate from the town of Forbes, where about 250 properties and businesses were expected to be submerged as well. One man died in the state earlier this week when he got stuck in his flooded car. Australia Weather Forecast Forecasters warn that flooding risks will remain high indefinitely as rivers swell and slowly recede. Meteorologists also states Australians should not be complacent amid the hazardous weather. AccuWeather. The BoM at 2:00 p.m. AEDT (local time) on Friday said people and communities living on or near any creeks, rivers, and streams, as well as in low-lying areas are advised to monitor the local weather developments. Related Article: Severe Weather Warnings Issued for New South Wales, Tasmania, and Victoria Amid Heavy Rain Forecast Heavy rain and flooding are threatening south-central United States once again, according to US meteorologists. This comes amid drought conditions in the region for over a month. Evidence shows that the joining of forces of these weather systems may cause the renewed weather hazards in the region. Local authorities advise the public remain vigilant. Flash Flooding Threat Two weather systems will combine to generate a large area of rainfall machine and increase flash flooding risk in parts of south-central US that are in need of rainfall in the aftermath of months drought, according to AccuWeather meteorologists. Local weather authorities are weighing in the potential impact of the looming weather since it could either bring beneficial or excessive rainfall. The same storm responsible for the thundershowers in Southern California on Tuesday, October 11, and the same cold front responsible for producing severe thunderstorms in the Midwest will integrate over the southern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains region for several days. The meteorologists estimate it will span from Sunday, October 16, to at least Tuesday, October 18. In the coming days, 6 inches of rain could occur in parts of Texas and New Mexico. AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz said the storm from Southern California will move eastward as the front stalls over the southern Plains. Forecast suggests the front is likely to crawl southward this coming weekend and into early next week. The slow movement and moisture can bring both beneficial and excessive rainfall. Also Read: NHC Raises Flash Flood Alerts in Texas as Potentially Deadly Hurricane Pamela Draws Closer Potential Weather Hazards AccuWeather issued a significant rain forecast that could result in urban flash flooding, drought relief for some areas, and travel disruptions. For instance, low-lying grounds in metropolitan areas are good candidates for flooding, even if any rainfall could be a relief for some. Travel disruptions are also possible as floodwaters could disrupt road traffic movement, as well as affect train services. Major cities in the affected states include Albuquerque, Dallas, and San Antonio. In previous months, majority of these areas have experienced extreme drought conditions. US Weather Forecast In other latest US weather forecast, the National Weather Service (NWS) - Weather Prediction Center (WPC) stated that there is a critical fire weather in the Central US, and there is possible flooding in the Northeast US. The NWS - WPC aet 3:51 a.m. EDT (local time) on Friday, October 14, that the flash flooding concerns from the Northeast will shift to the southwest-southern Plains this weekend. In the Central US, critical fire weather conditions, including dry air and gust winds are expected again in a large area of the central Plains into the mid-Mississippi Valley until Friday. In particular, the said weather conditions are also possible in the northern Cascades this weekend. With this, there is a higher chance growth and spread of wildfire. The US weather agency adds the "strong cold front" hovering over the Northeast US will continue to bring gusty winds and heavy rain with potential flooding until Friday. Related Article: Renewed Flash Flooding Risk Over Heavy Rain Threatens Texas Until September 3 Three fishermen were stranded for 28 hours in shark-infested waters on the Gulf of Mexico, off the Louisiana Coast after their boat capsized over the weekend. During the ordeal that took more than a day, two of the anglers fought off sharks that kept attacking them. The other angler used his phone to find a signal and sent their location, which led to their eventual rescue with no fatalities reported. Louisiana Coast Stranded Fishermen The three men named Phong Le, Luan Nguyen, and Son Nguyen were stranded and floating in the water since 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 8, until the sharks showed up on Sunday morning, October 9. One shark bit the life vest of Luan. The fishermen used an improvised float in order to survive the waters off Louisiana coast after their boat sank due to unknown circumstances. One of the fishermen punched the face and jabbed the eyes of the shark in order to scare it away. Phong told ABC News on Tuesday, October 11, that he was able to capture a cellphone signal and sent their Google map location to his friend just before his mobile phone battery died. Phong also needed to swim a distance of at least half a mile or a mile in order to retrieve a signal. Meanwhile, Son also told the US media agency he also received injuries on his hand from shark bites after his life jacket was torn apart. Also Read: Fishermen Capture a Large Shark That Is Being Devoured by an Unknown Sea Creature U.S. Coast Guard Rescue The U.S. Coast Guard rescued the stranded fishermen and were flew back home on Tuesday. Upon arrival, the rescuers noticed that four blacktip sharks, about 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) long, were circling and harassing the two men even if they were pulled from the water, according to Andrew Stone, a Coast Guard seaman. During an interview with other Coast Guard members, Stone told The Associated Press the anglers were too tired to panic. Coast Guard helicopter co-pilot named Lt. Katy Caraway reportedly said the fishermen's will to survive and their lifejackets is what saved them from the situation. All of the boaters were sent to a hospital in New Orleans for medical treatment. Phong was already suffering from hypothermia when the Coast Guard found him. In addition, helicopter rescue swimmer Richard Hoefle stated the other two boaters had deep cuts on their hands, with one missing the trip of a middle finger. Prior to their rescue, one of the fisherman's wife reported them missing around 10 p.m. on Saturday, according to Lieutenant Commander Kevin Keefe, the rescue coordinator for Sector New Orleans, as cited by Sky News. Related Case In a similar case, a Chinese sailor was rescued after being stranded in sharky waters off the west coast of Australia back in July, according to NDTV. The sailor reportedly fell from a cargo ship and endured a long night floating in the Indian Ocean and in a part of Australia's west coast with a large shark population, which had a record of attacking swimmers and surfers in the past. Related Article: Woman Dies from Fatal Shark Attack in Plettenberg Bay; Nearby Beaches Closed According to a PR published by Damen on October 13, 2022, celebrating the start of the construction of a second batch of two Offshore Patrol Vessels for the Pakistan Navy, the Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi performed the initial welding work on the keel of the first vessel at Damen Shipyards Galati. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Keel laying ceremony for the second batch of Pakistan OPVs, Romania. (Picture source: Damen) Mrs. Annelies Damen, a Member of the Supervisory Board, welcomed the Admiral and his delegation on behalf of the Damen family for a celebration of the continued cooperation. Together with the keel laying of the first vessel planned for completion, the first plates of steel were cut for the construction of the second of two Damen OPV 2600 multi-mission patrol vessels. These will provide the Pakistan Navy with a highly effective search and rescue capability, and allow it to play an important role in safeguarding international trade routes from piracy and other threats. The ships are equipped for extended range and performance and benefit from advanced communication systems. This order for two more OPV vessels from Damen was issued by the Pakistan Navy following their positive experiences with two OPVs from the Shipyard Group they already operate. The initial order for the construction of two OPVs was awarded to Damen by the Islamic Republic of Pakistans Ministry of Defense Production following the completion of a transparent bidding process in which Damens design and construction proposal was found to be the most suited for Pakistans maritime needs. In February and November 2020, two OPV 2300s were delivered. The performance and capabilities of these vessels, known in the Pakistan Navy as the Yarmook class, led to second order. The two bigger OPVs are planned for delivery in February and August 2024. The Admiral underscored the importance of OPVs in the maritime domain in his speech at the ceremony. These ships will act as force multipliers in enhancing the navys capability of safeguarding maritime frontiers and will offer more flexibility for the Regional Maritime Security Patrols (RMSP) in the Indian Ocean. The Pakistan Navy has been playing its role in providing a secure sea environment, not only to Pakistan but also to the world community. The Admiral appreciated the professional competence of Damen design and construction teams. The ceremony was attended by senior officials from the Pakistan Navy, the Romanian Navy and local administration of the city of Galati as well as directors from Damen Shipyards. The Yarmook-class corvette is a class of corvettes in service with the Pakistan Navy. The primary role of the class is to patrol the sea area. The displacement of both vessels is 2300 tonnes. They are designed to carry out a variety of maritime operations and are able to transport both a helicopter and a UAV. They can also carry two high-speed rigid-hulled inflatable boats of 11.5 meters and 6.5 meters simultaneously. In addition to that, they are designed to accommodate two twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) for special mission-based operations. s According to a tweet published by the US DoD on October 14, 2022, the Virginia class submarine USS Missouri (SSN 780) arrives at Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka for a scheduled port visit. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Virginia class submarine USS Missouri, Yokosuka, Japan. (Picture source: US DoD) USS Missouri (SSN-780) is the seventh Virginia-class attack submarine and the fourth ship in the United States Navy named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. She was completed, and delivered, nine months early and under budget. The 7,800-ton submarine Missouri was built under a joint arrangement between General Dynamics Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding-Newport News. Sections of the submarine were built at both shipyards with final assembly completed at one or the other. The Virginia class, also known as the SSN-774 class, is a class of nuclear-powered cruise missile fast-attack submarines, in service in the United States Navy. They are designed to excel in anti-submarine warfare, anti-ship warfare, strike warfare, special operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, irregular warfare, and mine warfare. Fast-attack submarines project power ashore with special operations forces and Tomahawk cruise missiles in the prevention or preparation of regional crises. The Virginia-class submarine has a length of 114.8 m, and a beam of 10.36 m. The submarine can reach a top speed of 28 miles per hour (45 km/h). She has a crew of 132 people including 15 officers and 117 enlisted. The Virginia Class is equipped with twelve Vertical Launch System (VLS) tubes and four torpedo tubes (starting with SSN 784 North Dakota [Block II], the 12 VLS tubes are replaced by 2 large-diameter payload tubes). The submarines also carry Mk 48 ADCAP Torpedoes, UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, Mk 60 CAPTOR mines, advanced mobile mines, and unmanned underwater vehicles. When mental health crises require more than a phone conversation, these mobile units come to help Many companies are struggling with how best to make use of the advanced solutions that 5G enables because deploying many of these new solutions requires significant amounts of engineering in as close to real-world situations as possible. Gathering the tecnology and expertise to develop these solutions can benefit from a collaborative ecosystem that includes a fast and reliable network in a controlled environment where potentially harmful if not working properly systems can be safely evaluated. 5G holds great promise to revolutionize processes and produce creative solutions in many industries and the public sector. Carrier services and private 5G networks, both installed and owned by the organization or provided and managed as a service from network operators, are both available. But many companies are struggling with how best to make use of the advanced solutions that 5G enables. Weve seen many organizations, especially in more mature companies and industries, not even consider 5G solutions at this point due to the lack of resources necessary to reinvent/update processes and implement solutions. 5G technology challenges Deploying many of these new solutions requires significant amounts of engineering in as close to real world situations as possible. And the level of expertise required to complete a solution often is not confined to a single company but requires a collaborative ecosystem. Indeed, end user expertise in fields like healthcare, security, smart cities, transportation systems, manufacturing, to name but a few areas, needs to be coupled with equipment and software providers developing specialized sensors, robotics, vision systems, AI, AR/VR, and of course, built on high speed and low latency connectivity. The need for an available fast and reliable network to run these discoveries is critical to success, as is a controlled environment where potentially harmful if not working properly systems can be safely evaluated (e.g., machine tools, manufacturing lines, automated vehicles, telemedicine). But organizations have a way to accelerate their use of 5G technology while also limiting their risk and their need for internal expertise, and thereby achieve a more rapid time to deployment. 5G testing labs One way to accomplish this is to set up solution labs that deploy private 5G networks into a controlled environment for experimentation and discovery, and include commercial companies, academics, public sector labs and software vendors to create a full ecosystem. While this is often done at academic institutions and government labs, it is less common at commercial sites. But that seems to be changing. An example of such a commercial collaboration between a network operator providing 5G expertise and private/public organizations is the Verizon Innovation Hubs. These hubs will be outfitted with 5G, but will also create spaces for various collaborations that can be used to create new products and solutions, as well as co-creation and sharing of ideas and expertise among the participants. And while the innovation hubs are Verizon branded and supported, they are located at customer sites. Verizon has initially established several of these hubs, including; Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub concentrating on the healthcare needs and partnering with multiple health care providers in the area; an innovation hub with Pacific Northwest National Labs to concentrate on advanced wireless communications and its effects on infrastructure security (e.g., power grid), first responders and climate science; University of Illinois at Urbana to help with their engineering curriculum and academic studies and support many of the corporate sponsors of research especially in the agriculture industry; and the municipality of Lake Nona Florida to study the needs of smart cities and community wellness like autonomous transportation and lifetime health support. Collaboration reduces risk Each of these hubs represents a collaboration of not only Verizon, but of multiple groups doing experimentation on solutions built on 5G that solve unique and compelling challenges. The controlled environment provides a low risk way to develop and assess viability of solutions, and to make corrections and/or changes before going out to public deployments. I expect Verizon to create more of these innovation labs going forward, and other 5G network operators are and will do the same. Of course, by establishing these innovation centers, Verizon expects to see an increase in the use of their 5G networks as solutions are deployed in volume. But it also means that new innovations will be created that can significantly increase business profits and longer term growth in many new and/or peripheral business ventures, while also offering a great starting point for new ventures that are incubated there. So while this arrangement certainly benefits Verizon, it is also quite beneficial to the industry in general. Frankly, this is not a new model, but rather a 5G-specific implantation of a model that has worked very well in the past and should work well here, too. There are many compelling solutions envisioned based on availability of 5G connectivity, but not all are easily accomplished. Organizations developing 5G-based solutions for their specific needs, whether as a user community or as a product vendor, would do well to look at collaboration opportunities such as the Innovation Hubs. Go it alone programs are difficult to fully implement, especially for newer technology that hasnt been previously proven and/or implemented. Further, shared risk with partners means that companies can afford to take more risk for achieving greater benefits as they have less downside on an individual basis. And partners can often provide a jumpstart by offering technology components to solve portions of the overall solution that dont need to be reinvented. Finally, a shared ecosystem of partners enables a much wider degree of expertise sharing and therefore results in more likely discoveries of significance and in a more timely fashion. Bottom line: Innovation centers, like those established by Verizon, can go a long way towards accelerating solutions, especially those that require collaborations and/or partnerships. Having a safe area to try out new products and strategies can make all the difference between success and failure. And having an immediate ecosystem can greatly benefit by not having a solely invented-here outcome. Any enterprise thats looking to implement new processes and/or business models using 5G and related advanced technologies would do well to look into participating in an innovation center and all the services they offer. With COVID on the retreat, are Halloween, Thanksgiving and winter holiday gatherings safe? On 12 and 13 October 2022, the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the Egmont Group (EG) jointly organized the Budapest Conference: a global Anti-Money Laundering Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Workshop for Enhanced Engagement between Customs Authorities and Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). The conference highlighted the growing threat posed to both regional and global security and the integrity of the global trade system and financial industry by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and terrorist organizations. TCOs continue to exploit the growth in global trade. The increased speed of transportation, money transfer, and new and innovative technologies provide them with an expanding array of mechanisms to continue and enhance their illicit activities. The UNODC estimates that between 2% and 5% of global GDP is laundered annually, the equivalent of between $800 billion to $2 trillion (US). Global Financial Integrity estimates that the illicit narcotics trafficking industry generates between $426 billion to $652 billion in illicit revenues annually and that intellectual property rights violations generate between $913 billion and $1.13 trillion in illicit profits annually. Customs administrations across the globe are on the frontline regarding law enforcement efforts to identify, intercept, and dismantle criminal and terrorist activities that exploit international borders. The WCO is internationally recognized as the primary standards-setting authority for all Customs matters. It is also a recognized center of expertise in combatting criminal activity in the Customs arena. Customs administrations are critical sentinels not only to national security but also to regional and global security. Customs provide vital oversight over the movement of goods, people, money, and means of transport. Through these responsibilities, Customs are a vital national security component for every nation, as they are often the authorities that identify and seize illicit merchandise, narcotics, and weapons smuggled across international borders, as well as illicit currency and currency equivalents. The revenues and illicit donations to global terrorist organizations are their lifelines. Terrorist organizations regularly smuggle currency and currency equivalents across international borders to further their lethal and destructive agendas. They also engage in illicit smuggling schemes to generate revenues to support and promote the same. The revenue generated by TCOs allows them to continue their criminal enterprises to the detriment of society. Their illicit proceeds will enable them to maintain the internal structures of their organizations, from payment of salaries to their membership; to the payment of bribes to public officials; to the purchase of equipment, vehicles and products that keep their illicit supply chain operational; to the investment in infrastructure to increase the scale of their illicit activities. Certain TCOs and terrorist organizations use complex ML schemes to launder illicit funds. These schemes include trade-based money laundering (TBML), an intricate form of ML involving converting the illicit origin's proceeds into commercial products that are subsequently entered into global commerce. TBML is utilized to provide an appearance of legitimacy to the money and mask its movement across international borders. Often TBML involves comingling and layering, whereby the illicit proceeds are placed together with legitimate money through an intricate web of financial transactions via banking and non-banking routes. Customs and FIUs are the best-placed authorities to identify and combat such nefarious and complex criminal activity. Customs are traditionally the authority responsible for monitoring TBML, trade fraud, mis-invoicing schemes, and international currency transportation reports. FIUs monitor suspicious transactions and large-scale cash transactions within national financial and DNFBP sectors on a national basis. The EG of FIUs is the umbrella organization for all FIUs worldwide. The EG is responsible for strategically guiding FIUs and their operational efforts to pool FIUs collective strength regarding combatting certain salient ML/TF threats. The FIUs monitor suspicious transactions within the financial and non-financial, including, among others: suspicious transaction reports (STRs), currency transaction reports, casino reports and cross-border wire transfers. The intelligence gleaned from reviewing these suspicious reporting mechanisms is invaluable to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors when identifying and neutralizing criminal and terrorist organizations. The EGs greatest strength is its members ability to exchange operational and strategic financial intelligence rapidly and effectively at both the bilateral and multilateral levels. EG member FIUs work together to identify current ML/TF risks and Modi operandi. Moreover, through its Strategic Plan, the EG focuses on enhancing its cooperation with relevant international partners, such as the WCO. In this regard, close cooperation between Customs and FIUs at the national level and between the WCO and EG at the international level, as it pertains to combatting ML in the Customs arena, is vital to and effective in combatting transnational organized crime and terrorism. The conference also underscored the importance of the joint efforts of law enforcement and FIU to identify the conversion of illicit proceeds into international commercial shipments. This often leads to active investigations determining and prosecuting predicate ML offences. The participants discussed that the prevalence of currency, gold and precious metals smuggling has not diminished in the last decade due to the advent and proliferation of virtual assets in the global economy. Although Customs and FIU efforts in AML should invest efforts to identify ML/TF activities involving virtual currencies, they should not lose sight of actual/fiat currency and precious metals smuggling. Currency remains a primary preference for many criminal organizations mediums for smuggling their ill-gotten gains. The participants acknowledged that new payment methods, such as virtual assets, will continue to grow in transactional importance vis-a-vis international commerce. Hence, law enforcement should grant a reinvigorated and continuous prioritization to ML in this sector. It also warrants increasing focus and training in the abuse of virtual assets for ML for Customs services and FIUs. Finally, the conference participants also acknowledged the Customs-FIU Cooperation Handbook (CFCH) as a vital tool for enhancing the collaboration of Customs and FIUs worldwide. It is a critical tool for Customs authorities to target ML activities, such as bulk cash smuggling, the smuggling of currency-equivalents, gems, and precious metals and TBML. Furthermore, the CFCH is an essential guide to assist Customs and other ML authorities in the identification, interdiction, seizure, forfeiture, and further investigation of ML, in addition to promoting FIU engagement in collaborative efforts to combat the same. The two organizations will consider expanding the CFCH in 2023 by adding a section on counter-terrorist financing. Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project and with the kind host of the Zambia Revenue Authority, the third Working Group Activity of the Master Trainers Programme (MTP) on Rules of Origin (RoO) for East and Southern Africa was held in Lusaka, Zambia, from 3 to 7 October 2022. The objective of MTP is to establish more self-sustainable capacity in key Customs work areas in the participating regions through developing a pool of well-qualified trainers and training materials/programmes that meet regional needs. To this end, the MTP trains the same nominated participants (WG members) from respective Customs Administrations through 5 working groups and intersessional activities for 2-3 years. In addition, the MTP on RoO, which started in September 2021, is intended to cooperate with African WCO Members to smoothly implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Based on the remarkable success of MTP so far, and taking into account the needs of WCO Members and the importance of improving the Customs capability in Africa for the implementation of AfCFTA, the WCO and the JICA had agreed to expand the MTP on RoO to 3 WCO Members for this region, namely Ethiopia, Madagascar and South Africa, giving a total of 13 participating WCO Members. The WG members of all 13 WCO Members, Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, participated in the working group activity from the region. This working group activity is the third in a series of 5 activities of the MTP to be undertaken for the WG members to be Master Trainers (MT). The WG members started developing teaching materials they could use when conducting training sessions and were drilled on teaching skills and knowledge to become MTs on RoO. With this in mind, the WCO and Japan Customs experts conducted lectures, including case studies, to enable the WG members to understand RoO and the competency-based approach further. The material making has just begun and the WG members are expected to continue working on it intersessionally until the material is finalized at the 4th WG planned for next year. For more information, please, contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org. One of the greatest rights and responsibilities we have as Americans is that of choosing the people who will represent us in local, regional, state and national offices. The ability to do this should not be taken lightly." This story contains original reporting by News-Gazette staff. If you are not a subscriber, please consider becoming one, because local journalism is only possible with your support. A subscription to The News-Gazette plays a vital role in making this reporting possible. Thank you for your support and helping us continue to connect our community. Ethan Simmons is a reporter at The News-Gazette covering the University of Illinois. His email is esimmons@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@ethancsimmons). Funeral homes often submit obituaries as a service to the families they are assisting. However, we will be happy to accept obituaries from family members pending proper verification of the death. Submit Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), remains a leading infectious threat to public health worldwide. It is estimated to have infected 23 billion people and causes ~1.5 million deaths each year. Now, a group of Chinese scientists has described a previously undefined pathway by which Mtb counteracts host immunity. Specifically, the researchers identified the known Mtb protein tyrosine phosphatase PtpB as a phospholipid phosphatase that inhibits the host inflammasome-pyroptosis pathway by hijacking host ubiquitin. The study, carried out by Prof. LIU Cuihua's group at the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS), in collaboration with Prof. QIU Xiaobo from Beijing Normal University, was published in Science. Dr. LIU's group has been investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying Mtb-host interactions, and previous studies from her group have provided potential targets for the development of anti-TB treatments based on pathogen-host interaction interfaces. Mtb is an intracellular pathogen that has developed numerous intracellular survival strategies, and the intricate and dynamic interactions between Mtb and its host determine the occurrence, progression, and outcomes of TB. One interesting feature evolved by Mtb is a set of eukaryotic-like effectors, but their host targets and regulatory roles in pathogen-host interactions have been largely unexplored. In this study, LIU's group examined the whole genome of Mtb to predict secreted eukaryotic-like proteins possessing eukaryotic-like motifs or domains that might target host factors directly. These Mtb effector proteins were then subjected to further experimental analyses using an inflammasome reconstitution system for screening inhibitors of inflammasome-pyroptosis pathways. Out of 201 predicted Mtb-secreted eukaryotic proteins, the scientists identified PtpB as a key bacterial effector that was abundantly secreted by Mtb to inhibit both NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) and absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) inflammasome pathways. Subsequent experiments demonstrated that PtpB inhibited GSDMD-dependent cytokine release and pyroptosis to promote Mtb intracellular survival in macrophages. Mechanistically, Mtb-secreted PtpB targets and dephosphorylates host plasma membrane phosphatidylinositol-4-monophosphate (PI4P) and phosphatidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P 2 ] to inhibit membrane localization of the N-terminal cleavage fragment of GSDMD (GSDMD-N), thus preventing GSDMD-mediated immune responses. Interestingly, this phosphatase activity requires PtpB binding to ubiquitin via its unique ubiquitin-interacting motif (UIM)-like region. Disruption of phospholipid phosphatase activity or the UIM-like region of PtpB enhanced host GSDMD-dependent immune responses, thus reducing intracellular pathogen survival. This study reveals a previously unrecognized strategy by which pathogens inhibit pyroptosis and counteract host immunity by altering host membrane composition. Its results might lead to the development of a potential TB treatment by targeting the PtpB-Ub-phospholipid-pyroptosis axis. In a recent study published in PLOS ONE, researchers assessed the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on temperature-sensitive disease mortality. Cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses caused 345,476 and 172,727 deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, respectively. Compared to 2019 (pre-COVID-19), this represented a considerable decrease of 5,029 and 20,507, respectively. This indicates that examining the alterations in the number of cardiovascular and respiratory mortality caused by behavioral changes will be crucial in researching various issues, including climate change, public health, and the aging population. About the study In the present study, researchers assessed the variations in temperature-sensitive disease mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. The three largest cities that were the focus of this study were Sapporo City (Sapporo), Osaka City (Osaka), and Tokyo 23 wards (Tokyo), which have a population of 1.97 million, 2.75 million, and 9.71 million, respectively, in 2021. These teams were assessed because they exhibited different climates. For example, in August, the mean ambient temperatures were 22.3 C in Sapporo, 29 C in Osaka, and 26.9 C in Tokyo, while the mean temperatures in December were 0.9 C in Sapporo, 17.1 C in Osaka, and 15.8 C in Tokyo. The monthly death toll for each cause of death is made available on the Japanese government's "e-Stat" portal website. Due to the statistical reports produced by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (MHLW), the figures were highly reliable. Heart failure (HF), intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), cerebral infarction (CI), respiratory diseases (Resp), cardiac arrhythmia and conduction disorders (CACD), and ischemic heart disease (IHD) were the seven illnesses examined in this study. The age-adjusted mortality rate (MR adj ) was applied to the population by age group to account for yearly variations and city variances. The available data collected and provided by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) served as the source for the monthly mean temperature (MMT). The Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS), a network of numerous weather stations, has been installed by the JMA all across Japan. For the analysis, the corresponding AMeDAS in Sapporo City, Osaka City, and Ota Ward in Tokyo were selected. The team estimated the outdoor air temperature approximately 1.5 m above the ground. Furthermore, the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic was considered to be from March to December 2020, and the months between 2010 and 2019 were compared with those in the pre-pandemic era. Results For CACD, CI, HF, IHD, ICH, and Resp, the MR adj steadily climbed in the winter and declined in the summer from January 2019 to December 2020. Numerous studies have documented an increase in respiratory and cardiovascular mortality in older persons during the winter. In March 2020, COVID-19 started to spread in Japan. The overlap between the declining period and the COVID-19 spreading period appears to be coincidental since the reduction in MR adj between spring and summer was observed in 2020 as well as in the preCOVID-19 period. With declining annual MMT in all cities, MR adj increased with statistically significant associations for May IHD in Osaka and Sapporo, May CI in Osaka and Tokyo, and May Resp in Osaka and Tokyo. This indicated that the MMT for the majority of diseases in these three cities had a high contribution rate for the MR adj in May. Despite having a more temperate environment and a greater MMT than Sapporo, both Tokyo and Osaka demonstrated a significantly negative response of MR adj towards MMT in May. This could be because the optimum temperature where temperature-sensitive mortality is at its lowest throughout the year was found to vary by region. The team noted that the August MR adj of the assessed cities had a positive response to MMT. This observation was also made in Sapporo whose August MMT was considerably smaller than that in Tokyo and Osaka. Therefore, if the temperature in a given year was greater or lower than the city's climatologically ideal temperature, disease mortality increased. In Sapporo, it was anticipated that an additional 324 to 980 persons would die between April and December 2020. This was equivalent to 1.19 to 1.56 times the number of recorded deaths. On the other hand, 651 to 2653 deaths were predicted in Tokyo between April and December 2020, which equated to 1.10 to 1.39 times the actual number of deaths reported. In Osaka, an estimated 235 to 1,343 deaths occurred, which is 1.08 to 1.48 times the number of deaths reported over the same period. In the absence of the pandemic, in Sapporo, Osaka, and Tokyo, death rates corresponding to temperature-sensitive diseases would have increased by 19% to 56%, 8% to 48%, and 10% to 39%. Conclusion Overall, the study utilized the data obtained from three major Japanese cities of Sapporo, Tokyo, and Osaka, to assess the mortality changes related to temperature-sensitive respiratory and cardiovascular diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent study published in the Journal of Infection and Public Health, researchers conducted a retrospective study of all coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases from a single hospital in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) between December 25, 2021, and February 30, 2022. They described the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients during the third pandemic wave when the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant was predominant. Background The KSA had managed to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within the country to a large extent through widespread vaccination programs. With the emergence of Omicron, the daily reported cases in the KSA surged to 4000/day from less than 100/day in the preceding months. Although compared to Delta, Omicron caused less severe infections, fewer hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and much-reduced mortality, there was an urgent need to evaluate its effects in the general population. About the study In the present study, researchers reviewed all COVID-19 cases from a single medical center in KSA and gathered data to study the characteristics of patients during the Omicron wave. This data encompassed their demographics, clinical symptoms, pre-existing medical conditions, COVID-19 vaccination status, date of last vaccination, and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further, the researchers assessed whether or not these COVID-19 patients required hospital or ICU admission. For statistical analyses, they first summarized data as numbers and percentages. They compared categorical data using a chi-square test, including admitted and non-admitted patients and gender-based data with other covariates. A binary logistic regression analysis helped the researchers model multiple covariates with admission status and gender. Furthermore, they constructed a Boxplot of the cycle threshold (CT) values of SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with COVID-19 vaccine doses. Finally, the team used Kaplan-Meier curve analysis to determine the days from the last COVID-19 vaccine to the subsequent occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Study findings The final study analysis covered 400 Omicron-infected patients, of which 55% were males, and the remaining were females. The most common pre-existing medical conditions were diabetes mellitus and hypertension, 10.5% and 7.5%. The most striking feature of the Omicron wave was the significantly lower hospitalization rate (only 14%) compared to prior pandemic waves. Only 3.5% and 2% of 400 Omicron-infected patients required ICU admission and mechanical ventilation, respectively. Further, it was inversely related to the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses. In a binary logistic analysis, while hospital admission was significantly associated with headache and sore throat, fever and diabetes mellitus were inversely associated with hospital admission. The most common symptoms observed in the study of patients infected with Omicron were sore throat, cough, fever, and headache, observed in 39.8%, 39.5%, 33%, and 30.5% of patients, respectively. The clinical presentation and comorbidities did not change with the patient's gender during the Omicron-driven pandemic wave. However, the occurrence of sore throat in a binary logistic regression showed a higher rate among males with an OR of 2.014. Regardless of the vaccination status, more Omicron-infected than Delta-infected patients experienced sore throats (70.5% vs. 60.8%). Intriguingly, these patients also had odynophagia; however, anosmia, a pathognomonic symptom of previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, was markedly low in Omicron-infected patients. Across male and female patients, the average time to SARS-CoV-2 infection from the last vaccination was 131.60 days. The average CT value was higher in the recipients of two or three vaccine doses than the recipient of one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine; however, this difference did not reach a statistical difference. The observed differences during different COVID-19 pandemic waves likely reflected differences in the study population or the interaction between the factors and the vaccination. Conclusions The current study remarkably depicted the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients during the Omicron wave in KSA. They had a milder disease and required less hospitalization and less ICU admission. Since most patients had received COVID-19 vaccines, it showed the importance of COVID-19 vaccination in limiting disease severity and decreasing the need for hospitalization. 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 If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit While influenza has taken a backseat to COVID-19 over the last 2.5 years, flu season is here again and, with a significant reduction in social distancing, masking and other COVID-prevention measures, well likely see many more cases of the flu this year, experts say. The best prevention against flu is the influenza vaccine, but its effectiveness varies year to year and remains relatively modest. According to a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, while there have been major advances over the last decade in an effort to improve the effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine, innovative approaches are needed to significantly improve vaccine effectiveness. Study author Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, discusses the findings. This paper looks back at the study of influenza and vaccine effectiveness over the past decade. Can you summarize those findings? Enormous progress was made in tracking influenza in the 10 years following the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic through the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. That included significant progress in our ability to follow circulating viruses both national and internationally. We have also increased our ability to carefully characterize these viruses and identify new variants as they emerge. In the U.S., the major impact of the variants in various populations, both in terms of illness and death, has been confirmed. In the U.S., vaccine uptake has been mainly stable in most groups during the last decade, with the highest uptake among older adults followed by children. How are influenza vaccines currently produced? Inactivated vaccine remains the main way we reduce influenza infections. Most of the vaccines used in the U.S. are grown in eggs, the traditional method of production. Because of changes in the circulating viruses, strains included in the vaccine need to be updated regularly. This is done twice yearlyonce in September or October ahead of the following Southern Hemisphere winter, which usually begins in June, and once in February or March for the following Northern Hemisphere winter. That means a decision about which strains to target needs to be made six or more months before the vaccine is used. Often, a variant different from the one targeted by the vaccine emerges during this time. Strain selection is based on analysis of viruses detected in surveillance. That analysis is based on antigenic, molecular and immunologic studies, which have improved greatly in the last 10 years. But there are still problems in producing a highly effective vaccine. In some years, there may be two predominant virus variants for a single subtype, and the incorrect variant may be selected. What do we need to do to improve the vaccine? The National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies have recognized the need for improving influenza vaccines to have more reliable effectiveness. Ultimately, we need a supraseasonal vaccine, or a vaccine that covers a large subset of influenza viruses. However, this will take many years to develop and fully test. Is there anything we can do in the interim to improve vaccine effectiveness? Yes. There are some changes that could result in some degree of improvement sooner. It is important that we take these steps while we work on a supraseasonal vaccine. There are vaccines available now which may be more effectivevaccines not produced in eggs, such as cell-based and recombinant vaccines, as well as high-dose vaccines for older adults. Another approach would be to eliminate the extra B strain that is in the vaccine, one that has not circulated for several years, and replace it with an extra type A virus. This would increase the likelihood that the vaccine will offer a high degree of protection. Finally, we should work to increase vaccine uptake, especially among high-risk groups. Even though flu outbreaks stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, they are returning and we need to resume our efforts to produce improved flu vaccines while we continue to maximize the use of the vaccines that are currently available. Patients who have surgery to repair bone fractures typically receive a type of injectable blood thinner, low-molecular-weight heparin, to prevent life-threatening blood clots, but a new clinical trial found that over-the-counter aspirin is just as effective. The findings, presented today at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) annual meeting in Tampa, FL, could cause surgeons to change their practice and administer aspirin instead to these patients. The multi-center randomized clinical trial of more than 12,000 patients at 21 trauma centers in the U.S. and Canada, is the largest-ever trial in orthopedic trauma patients. The trial was co-led by the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC) based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. We expect our findings from this large-scale trial to have an important impact on clinical practice, and potentially even change the standard of care. Orthopaedic trauma patients are commonly prescribed the blood thinner low-molecular-weight heparin to prevent blood clots for weeks following surgery. Not only does the medication need to be injected, it can also be quite expensive compared to aspirin." Robert V. O'Toole, MD, Study's Principal Investigator, the Hansjorg Wyss Medical Foundation Endowed Professor in Orthopaedic Trauma at UMSOM and Head of the Division of Orthopaedic Traumatology Blood clots cause as many as 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Patients who experience fractures that require surgery an estimated 1 million people in the U.S. annually are at increased risk of developing blood clots in the veins, including a fatal pulmonary embolism, which is a clot in the lung. Current guidelines recommend prescribing low-molecular-weight heparin (enoxaparin), although research in total joint replacement surgery suggested a potential benefit of aspirin as a less-expensive, widely available option. Dr. O'Toole, who is also Chief of Orthopaedics at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), presented the results of the landmark clinical trial at the OTA annual meeting. The $12 million study was funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), (PCS-1511-32745), an independent, nonprofit organization that finances research to help patients and clinicians make better-informed healthcare decisions. The study enrolled 12,211 patients with leg or arm fractures that necessitated surgery or pelvic fractures regardless of the specific treatment. Half were randomly assigned to receive 30 mg of injectable low-molecular-weight heparin twice daily. The other half received 81 mg of aspirin twice daily. The follow-up period after surgery was 90 days. The main finding of the study was that aspirin was "noninferior," or no worse, than low-molecular-weight heparin in preventing death from any cause 47 patients in the aspirin group died compared with 45 patients in the heparin group. Secondary outcomes noted no differences in non-fatal pulmonary embolism. The incidence of bleeding complications and all other safety outcomes was similar in both groups. Of all the outcomes studied, the one potential difference noted was fewer blood clots in the legs in the low-molecular-weight heparin group. This relatively small difference was driven by clots lower in the leg, which are of unclear clinical importance. "With data from more than 12,000 patients, this study provides clear evidence that aspirin is a viable option for preventing blood clots in the lung and death in patients who require surgery for orthopaedic trauma," said Andrew Pollak, MD, the James Lawrence Kernan Professor and Chair of the Department of Orthopedics at UMSOM and Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for the 11-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS). The trial was called PREVENTion of CLots in Orthopaedic Trauma, or PREVENT CLOT. Patients enrolled in the trial were treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at UMMC and 20 other trauma centers in 15 other states and two in Canada. Recruitment started in April 2017 and continued through 2021. Deborah Stein, MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery at UMSOM and Director of Adult Critical Care Services at UMMC, and Renan Castillo, PhD, an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, are co-principal investigators. "This exciting trial, the largest ever conducted in orthopedic trauma patients, provides important guidance to surgeons in helping to prevent potentially fatal blood clots after fracture surgery by using a medication that is both inexpensive and easy to administer," said Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. In a recent study posted in the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers demonstrated the parallel evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Deltacron variant. Background Recombination and gene flow is likely to play a bigger role in the adaptive development of SARS-CoV-2 as more people travel internationally and more lineages coexist. This might lead to the beginnings of parallel evolution across various recombinant lineages. However, the full extent of the recombinant evolution of SARS-CoV-2 may be underestimated since it is difficult to detect recombinant lineages. About the study In the present study, researchers assessed four SARS-CoV-2 recombinants found in southern and southeastern Brazil. The clinical samples were obtained from three organizations in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, that were involved in the diagnosis of COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance. Real-time reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used in each case to identify the SARS-CoV-2 infection before the samples were sent to each institution's genome sequencing procedure. On May 20, 2022, the team noticed a SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) gene dropout in the sample SC2-9898; hence, this sample was sequenced, followed by library preparation. The CleanPlex human SARS-CoV2 pipeline was used to examine the resulting FASTq files for sequence alignment. The team conducted blast searches on the "Unassigned" dataset from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) using the sequence Brazil/RS-FIOCRUZ-8390/2022 to find additional genomes from the novel Brazilian recombinant. Subsequently, using the alleged Brazilian recombinant sequences as a guide, the team visually examined the mutation pattern corresponding to the top hits on the Nextclade Web. The first alignment step employed the MN908947 sequence as a reference. Using Sc2rf, the team assessed the recombinant genomes. The SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron sections of the genomes of the earliest sequences of each recombinant lineage were manually segmented. Then, the Pangolin lineage corresponding to each segment of the 5' Delta and 3' Omicron were evaluated. Considering the Pango lineages, the team constructed lineage-specific databases (GISAID sequences). To identify the top 20 hits from the reference databases, each segment was utilized as a query. The researchers retrieved their sequences from GISAID after selecting the top parental candidates. Using a Python script, these top-hit sequences were used to determine the frequency of mutations for each lineage. Results Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today The genomic sequence from Cruz Alta (Brazil/RS-FIOCRUZ-8390/2022) was allocated to the recombinant lineage XS by preliminary analysis. However, compared to an XS archetype, the first 20 kb of the genome showed a distinctive mutational pattern. The team discovered two other sequences that are comparable to the Cruz Alta sequence through the State Rio Grande do Sul's genomic monitoring routine, one each from Porto Alegre (Brazil/SC2-9898/2022) and Santa Maria (Brazil/RS-315-66266-219/2022). The team also searched through the GISAID database and discovered a sequence from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil/RJ-NVBS19517GENOV829190059793/2022) that was strikingly similar to the South Brazil recombinants. After classifying the sequences as suspected recombinants, Sc2rf was employed to look for potential recombination signals in their genomes. The team found that the 3' region belonged to an Omicron lineage while the 5' region was from a Delta lineage. Additional analysis revealed that the 3' and 5' genomic regions mostly resembled AY.101 and BA.1 or BA.1.1, respectively. Furthermore, the team created databases for each lineage of sequences and searched them for sequences that resembled each section (5' Delta and 3' Omicron) the most. The mutational signatures of the parental sequences were compared to those of the Brazilian recombinant sequences. All Brazilian recombinant sequences exhibited the same trends in this analysis: their 3' section belonged to the BA.1.1 lineage and their 5' segment matched AY.101. The Brazilian recombinant four sequences all included the substitution C10604T. Since the recombinant discovered in this study complied with the Pango nomenclature standards, it was termed AYBA-RS, taking into account its paternal lineages (AY.101 and BA.1.1) and place of origin. Since the four Brazilian recombinant sequences formed a separate group from the other Deltacrons, haplotype network analysis and phylogenetic network reconstruction showed sufficient consistency. Additionally, both models demonstrated how the various Deltacrons were split between the Omicron and Delta groups, containing more of each lineage. The team calculated that the recombination event that gave rise to the recombinant may have transpired 180 days before the collection date of the first sample, or December 2021, based on the number of SNPs between the AYBA-RS sequences. Examining the lineage density plots revealed that AY.101 and BA.1.1 were overlapping across the country's regions, mostly in December 2021. The Southern region of Brazil showed greater relative frequencies of AY.101 and BA.1.1 than the rest of Brazil. The team demonstrated the discovery of the first Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron lineage, AYBA-RS. The study showed that this recombinant strain originated in Southern Brazil as a result of single recombination between the AY.101 and BA.1.1 lineages. *Important notice bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information. A proud family congratulates a paratrooper who has just been awarded his Expert Infantryman Badge, as she is held at a ceremony at the 173rd Airborne Brigade. (U.S. photo by Lt. Col. John Hall) Wayne E. Heimer has been involved in Dall sheep management as a biologist/manager and special interest advocate for 50 years. For his detailed contemporary history, google Northern Wild Sheep and Goat Council Proceedings and click on page 49 of the year 2020. A more comprehensive (and human) history is at the printer. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain yesterday affirmed peace and solidarity as the only way to ensure global security and stability and advised world nations to adopt diplomacy to resolve regional crises and conflicts during a speech to Asian leaders, including Russias Vladimir Putin. Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid AlZayani, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said this while addressing the 6th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana, Kazakhstan. Chaired by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the conference kicked off yesterday. Russian President Vladimir Putin was present at the summit alongside a number of Asian leaders, including Turkeys Tayyip Erdogan. The body includes several Central Asian ex-Soviet nations, China, India and some Arab and Southeast Asian nations. Ensuring the right to a free and dignified life as well as international cooperation and partnership are the basic requirements to resolve the challenges and difficulties the world face, the minister said. This is especially important as the world around us faces bitter conflicts, disputes and extremely difficult political, security and economic challenges threatening international peace and security and draining our resources and energies. It affects humanitarian conditions and the lives of ordinary people and compounds their suffering. He also underlined that Asia, with diverse resources, natural and economic potential and human energies, deserves to play a greater role in the international arena. The will to change requires wisdom, insight, and an ambitious future outlook, the minister stressed. Tolerance and peaceful coexistence between peoples, religions, beliefs, mutual respect, human unity, the values of brotherhood, cooperation and solidarity are the principles and values pursued by Bahrain under the leadership of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the minister stressed During his speech at the summit, Putin said, The world is becoming truly multi-polar, Putin said. And Asia, where new centres of power are emerging, plays a significant, if not key, role in it. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The National Bank of Bahrain has announced the retirement of Jean-Christophe Durand from his current position as Chief Executive Officer, effective 31st December 2022 and welcomed Usman Ahmed as its Group Chief Executive Officer, effective 1st January 2023. NBB Chairman, Farouk Yousuf Al Moayyed, said: We would like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Durand for his instrumental contributions to the bank and for his role in cementing NBBs position as a leading responsible banking group in the Kingdom. Upon joining as CEO in December 2016, Durand has prioritised strategic leadership to ensure effective financial management and business expansion, steering NBBs transformation into a digitally-driven entity aligned with global digitalisation agendas. He has also successfully guided the bank on its recognised sustainability journey while strengthening NBBs role as a value-adding partner to the Kingdom. The bank wishes him a happy, well-earned retirement and the best of luck on this upcoming stage. We would also like to welcome Ahmed in his Group CEO role and express our utmost confidence in his abilities to take up the reins of our national institution and to continue steering it towards the highest levels of success in the industry, he added. Ahmed joined the bank with over 27 years of diverse international banking experience in emerging markets across the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. Before his most recently held position at Citibank, Ahmed has held various senior leadership roles over the past 14 years, serving in multiple capacities as CEO, Managing Director and Board Member. Ahmed has also previously served as a Director on various Boards, including the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers, the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance, the American Chambers of Commerce in Malaysia and Bahrain, the Association of Banks in Malaysia, the Bahrain International School Association, Injaz Bahrain and the Financial Industries Collective outreach Malaysia. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com ASRY, the leading ship and rig repair yard in the Arabian Gulf, has recently honoured its outstanding employees as well as trade partners from subcontractors and agents. This ceremony was in the presence of ASRYs Chairman of Board of Directors Yousif Isa Bubshait and Board Members representing Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iraq. More than 200 employees were honoured for their exceptional efforts and dedication to serving the company, as well as their contributions towards ASRYs modernization strategies. About 20 companies from both ASRY specialized agents and subcontractors were also honoured for providing services of high standards throughout many years. ASRYs Chairman, Yousif Isa Bubshait, expressed his appreciation to the distinguished employees and the crucial role they played in the growth of the company. Mazen Matar, ASRYs Managing Director, commented, This ceremony comes in recognition of the companys successes and achievements, attributed to all the employees who constitute ASRYs pillars of development and growth. The ceremony also included the distribution of certificates of appreciation from the Executive Management to all the honoured employees. Partnership marks a five-year commitment to honour unique cultures, rights, interests, perspectives and contributions of Indigenous Peoples in Canada to foster an inclusive workplace TORONTO, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Bimbo Canada is extremely proud to announce that it has expanded its Legacy Spaces partnership with the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (DWF) and unveiled the first Legacy Space in Canada in a manufacturing setting in its bakery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The company unveiled its first Legacy Space at its head office in Etobicoke, Ontario in March, 2022 and over the next two months will create two more Legacy Spaces at its bakeries in Montreal, Quebec and Moncton, New Brunswick. BIMBO CANADA UNVEILS THE FIRST LEGACY SPACE IN A MANUFACTURING FACILITY WITH THE GORD DOWNIE & CHANIE WENJACK FUND (CNW Group/Bimbo Canada) Each Legacy Spaces is unique and designed to help build cultural understanding, connections and a path toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The Winnipeg bakery's Legacy Space is located in the atrium of the bakery, where all associates can easily access the resources provided by DWF to learn more about Indigenous history and the journey of Reconciliation. The Winnipeg team's first reconciliACTION was the commissioning of a local Indigenous artist, a family member of one of its associates to create a mural on an exterior bay door at the facility. The mural will tell a story about Indigenous peoples and residential schools and will be painted in three different parts over the next three years. "In Winnipeg, we are taking action to bring awareness to and educate everyone in the history of residential schools as a way to show our support for all the families that have been impacted by this and honour the memories of the Indigenous kids who never made it home," says Emmanuel Osagie, Bakery Supervisor, Bimbo Canada. "We can never forget what happened and must 'Do Something' to spread the word and inspire change." Since March, 2022, Bimbo Canada has been consistently taking reconciliACTION to raise awareness about Chanie Wenjack's story and the true history of residential schools in Canada. This includes providing ongoing training and educational opportunities for associates through The Indigenous Cultural Competency Training (ICCT) program offered by DWF, regularly sharing educational opportunities and providing the opportunity for open discussion, and participating in Walk for Wenjack during Secret Path Week from October 17-22. "The Legacy Spaces program has grown substantially over the last year and is an opportunity for organizations to play an important role in their communities by building cultural understanding, and creating a path toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples," says Sarah Midanik, President and CEO of the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. "Bimbo Canada has worked with our team to move reconciliation forward and we are thrilled to see them add additional spaces for their employees across the country." This recent initiative is one of many contributions Bimbo Canada makes to support the company's larger goal of building a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace so each associate can reach their potential and know they belong. The company believes every associate has a responsibility to contribute to diversity, equity, and belonging and actively encourages employees to live this at work and share back within their communities. About Bimbo Canada Bimbo Canada is Canada's largest bakery, operating for more than 100 years. It is a leading producer and distributor of fresh packaged breads and snacks with more than 1,000 products across 18 brands Canadians know and love, like Dempster's, Stonemill, Villaggio, Vachon and Takis. We are proud to feed Canadian families with safe, high-quality products they can trust made by Canadians, for Canadians at 16 bakeries, 15 distribution centres and 191 depots across the country. Bimbo Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo, the world's largest baking company. Together, they are nourishing a better world with delicious baked goods and snacks by building a sustainable, highly productive and deeply humane company. The company is dedicated to building a diverse workplace that promotes equity and belonging, where all employees can develop and contribute to the transformation of the company, the baking industry and our communities. For more, visit www.bimbocanada.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. About the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund Inspired by Chanie's story and Gord's call to build a better Canada, the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (DWF) aims to build cultural understanding and create a path toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. DWF's work centres around improving the lives of Indigenous people by building awareness, education, and connections between all peoples in Canada. The Legacy Spaces program is an opportunity for organizations large and small to participate in their own reconciliACTIONs, which are simple acts with the power to bring us together in the spirit of reconciliation, sharing, and education. As Gord would say, they inspire us to "Do Something." For more, visit www.downiewenjack.ca SOURCE Bimbo Canada For further information: Sylvia Sicuso, Director of Corporate Affairs, Bimbo Canada, (416) 626-4316, [email protected]; Mel Hoskins, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund, (647) 534-4703, [email protected] Today, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, Taleeb Noormohamed, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville, Murray Rankin, Province of British Columbia Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing alongside Chief Glenn Bennett, Kitselas Band Council announced a combined investment of over $25 million to support the creation of 40 units of on-reserve affordable rental housing as part of the Kitselas Community Housing Project. The Government of Canada is contributing $3 million through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund (NHCF), in addition to $4.2 million through the Canada Community Housing Initiative (CCHI). The Province of British Columbia is investing more than $2 million from the Building BC: Community Housing Fund. The Kitselas First Nation provided the land for the project, valued at $300,000. Located at 2350 Gitaus Road and operated by Kitselas Housing Society, the on-Nation project will provide 40 units of culturally appropriate market and affordable rental housing for members in greatest need, including families, youth, Elders, and people living with disabilities. All common areas, as well as 32 units, will be wheelchair accessible or adaptable. The development has a mix of one-, two- and three- bedroom homes. Quotes: "No relationship is more important to our government than the one with Indigenous Peoples. That is why we are committed to supporting better housing outcomes for Indigenous communities and together with our partners, like the Kitselas Band Council, we are going to deliver more housing options for Indigenous communities like right here in the Kitselas First Nation. This is just one of the many ways our government's National Housing Strategy is creating safe and affordable housing across Canada. The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion "Every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, our government is investing in affordable housing right here in Kitselas to help improve the quality of life for those who need it most. Thanks to today's announcement, more Elders, youth, families and people with physical disabilities will now have access to affordable homes. This is the National Housing Strategy at work." Taleeb Noormohamed, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville "Indigenous Peoples face disproportionate challenges when it comes to finding and securing a safe and affordable place to call home. That's why our government is developing housing like these new homes for people and families with diverse needs and mixed incomes to ensure that everyone in B.C. has a safe and affordable place to call their own." Murray Rankin, Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing "These 40 new affordable homes will help Kitselas First Nation youth, families and Elders stay and live in the beautiful community they call home. Our government will continue to work in partnership to build homes like these across the province, to ease the burden on families and help make life better and more affordable." Nathan Cullen, MLA for Stikine "Kitselas is excited to be constructing forty units that will be affordable housing for Kitselas seniors, single's, multi family units. BC Housing and CMHC has given Kitselas an opportunity to bring Kitselas members home to their community & families. On behalf of Kitselas Band Council, thank you Ulyses & CMHC."- Chief Glenn Bennett, Kitselas Band Council Quick facts: This project is part of BC's 10-year, $7-billion housing plan. Since 2017, the Province has funded more than 36,000 affordable new homes that have been completed or are underway for people in BC. housing plan. Since 2017, the Province has funded more than 36,000 affordable new homes that have been completed or are underway for people in BC. The Community Housing Fund is a 10-year provincial investment of $1.9 billion to build more than 14,000 affordable rental homes for families and individuals with low and moderate incomes. to build more than 14,000 affordable rental homes for families and individuals with low and moderate incomes. More than 8,900 of these homes are already open, under construction or in development. The National Housing Co-Investment Fund (NHCF) is a program under the National Housing Strategy (NHS) that gives priority to projects that help people who need it most, including women and children fleeing family violence, seniors, Indigenous peoples, people living with disabilities, those with mental health or addiction issues, veterans, and young adults. is a program under the National Housing Strategy (NHS) that gives priority to projects that help people who need it most, including women and children fleeing family violence, seniors, Indigenous peoples, people living with disabilities, those with mental health or addiction issues, veterans, and young adults. With a budget of $13.2 billion , the NHCF plans to: , the NHCF plans to: Create up to 60,000 new homes Repair up to 240,000 homes Create or repair at least 4,000 shelter spaces for victims of family violence Create at least 7,000 new homes for seniors Create at least 2,400 new homes for people with developmental disabilities Budget 2022 proposes to advance $2.9 billion in funding under the NHCF to accelerate the creation of up to 4,300 new units and the repair of up to 17,800 units. in funding under the NHCF to accelerate the creation of up to 4,300 new units and the repair of up to 17,800 units. The Government of Canada's National Housing Strategy (NHS) is an ambitious, 10-year plan that will invest over $72 billion to give more Canadians a place to call home. Associated links: As Canada's authority on housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. CMHC's aim is that by 2030, everyone in Canada has a home they can afford, and that meets their needs. For more information, please visit cmhc.ca or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. authority on housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. CMHC's aim is that by 2030, everyone in has a home they can afford, and that meets their needs. For more information, please visit cmhc.ca or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. To find out more about the National Housing Strategy, visit www.placetocallhome.ca. Check out the National Housing Strategy Housing Funding Initiatives Map to see the affordable housing projects that have been developed across Canada . . A map showing the location of all announced provincially-funded housing projects in BC is available online: https://www.bchousing.org/homes-for-BC To learn about the steps the Province is taking to tackle the housing crisis and deliver affordable homes for British Columbians, visit: https://workingforyou.gov.bc.ca/ SOURCE Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation For further information: Information on this release: Arevig Afarian, Office of the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, [email protected]; Media Relations: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, [email protected]; Ministry of Attorney General and Responsible for Housing, Media Relations, 236 478-0251; BC Housing, Media Relations, [email protected] ROME, Italy, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, concluded a trip to Rome, Italy as part of Canada's delegation to the Global Mental Health Summit. This year's Summit theme was Skills, Rights, Care: Time to Act; advancing a community-based approach to mental health, and was hosted by the Italian Government, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), to increase mental health awareness and strengthen global action on key issues related to mental health care. While in Rome, Minister Bennett heard from internationally recognised leaders in mental health as they shared wise practices and innovative approaches to support mental health and prevent substance use harms. Additionally, she participated in a workshop that focused on the value of community-based mental health initiatives for mitigating stigma and discrimination where she highlighted domestic initiatives and made recommendations for supporting positive mental health and substance use behaviours and resiliency within communities. The Summit was also an opportunity for Minister Bennett to share Canada's approach to address mental health with officials and partners from other countries and connect with representatives from the World Federation for Mental Health and United for Global Mental Health. Key discussions focused on strengthening global action from Governments, international organizations and civil society to address issues related to mental health care, which has been disrupted under the pressure of recent health and humanitarian crises. Of note, Minister Bennett met with Devora Kestel, Director of Mental Health and Substance Use at the WHO, to discuss how Canada can contribute in a meaningful way to advance momentum on global mental health. The Government of Canada will continue to work with its international partners to increase mental health awareness, strengthen global cooperation, and advance community-focused approaches to mental health and substance use. Together, we will find new and innovative ways to improve mental healthand make mental health for all a global priority. Quotes: "Huge congratulations to the organizers of the Global Mental Health Summit for providing us all with the opportunity to learn from the leaders in mental health and addictions from countries around the world. The lack of access to mental health services and continued stigma and discrimination is a challenge we all share. It was so important to hear about the evidence-based & promising practices from our international partners. We all know that we have more to do. I thank all the delegates for their candour and advocacy as we work towards a comprehensive strategy for mental health and substance use in Canada." The Honourable Carolyn Bennett Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health Associated links Global Mental Health Summit SOURCE Public Health Agency of Canada For further information: Maja Staka, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, 343-552-5568; Media Relations, Public Health Agency of Canada, 613-957-2983, [email protected]; Public Inquiries: 613-957-2991, 1-866-225-0709 MONTREAL, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - Today, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, and Member of Parliament for Hochelaga, along with Mr. Benoit Dorais, vice-president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal, responsible for housing, real estate strategy and legal affairs, as well as Pierre Lessard-Blais, mayor of the borough of Hochelaga celebrated the opening of Maison Tangente which received $1.7 million through the Government of Canada's Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI). The project, situated in the borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, is a renovated triplex that has been converted into 6 units of transitional housing which provide secure and stable housing for vulnerable young adults at risk of homelessness. Tangent House's mission is to house young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who are in vulnerable situations or at risk of homelessness, and to provide them with a secure home in a setting that encourages life skills and housing responsibilities. The main living area of the newly renovated triplex has been converted into a common space that includes a shared kitchen. Quotes: "Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. That is why it is important to support local partners like Maison Tangente. For more than 40 years, Maison Tangente has provided transitional housing for vulnerable young adults, especially youth facing difficult circumstances. The Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) is a concrete way to support the work of non-profit organizations and to better meet the needs of people across Canada." Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Member of Parliament for Hochelaga (Quebec) and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion (Housing) "The City of Montreal is proud to have contributed to the success of this project, which responds to a specific need to help the most vulnerable. The Maison Tangente will allow young adults in search of autonomy, independence and empowerment to benefit from a first home. I would liek to thank our partners for their involvement in this project. This partnership is an example of what we can accomplish when we all work together to achieve a common goal." Benoit Dorais, vice-president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal " The effects of the housing boom and housing crisis are severe. Maison Tangente is an example of a partnership where each stakeholder skillfully uses the levers at their disposal to create more accessible housing for the most vulnerable. The City's support, the federal government's financial investment and the expertise of community organizations are a winning formula." Pierre Lessard-Blais, Mayor of the Borough of MercierHochelaga-Maisonneuve " The success of this project is based on the collaborative work of the Maison Tangente team and community partners who are committed to supporting and accompanying young adults in difficulty in their progression towards autonomy. This project is a model that we would like to replicate if we want to guarantee a better future for young people in respect and dignity." Edith Cyr, Director General of Batir son quartier " This investment will allow the youth that we serve, the time they need and the support necessary to ensure their permanent exit from homelessness." Johanne Cooper, Director General of Maison Tangente Quick facts: The RHI is a $2.5 billion program to help address urgent housing needs of vulnerable Canadians, especially in the context of COVID-19, through the rapid construction of over 10,000 units of affordable housing. program to help address urgent housing needs of vulnerable Canadians, especially in the context of COVID-19, through the rapid construction of over 10,000 units of affordable housing. . The RHI takes a human rights-based approach to housing, serving people experiencing or at risk of homelessness and other vulnerable people under the NHS, including women and children fleeing domestic violence, seniors, young adults, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, people experiencing mental health and addiction issues, veterans, LGBTQ2 individuals, racialized and Black Canadians, and recent immigrants or refugees. To ensure that more affordable housing can be built quickly, Budget 2022 proposes to provide $1.5 billion over two years, starting in 2022-23, to extend the Rapid Housing Initiative. over two years, starting in 2022-23, to extend the Rapid Housing Initiative. This new funding is expected to create at least 6,000 new affordable housing units, with at least 25 per cent of funding going towards women-focused housing projects. Units are intended to be constructed within 12 months of when funding is provided to program applicants (with some exceptions), with units in the North and in special access communities intended to be constructed within 18 months. Associated links: As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. CMHC's aim is that by 2030, everyone in Canada has a home they can afford, and that meets their needs. For more information, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. SOURCE Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation For further information: Media contacts: Arevig Afarian, Office of the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, [email protected]; Media Relations: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, [email protected] OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show national home sales were down in September 2022. Highlights: Monthly home sales (CNW Group/Canadian Real Estate Association) National home sales were down 3.9% on a month-over-month basis in September. Actual (not seasonally adjusted) monthly activity came in 32.2% below September 2021 . . The number of newly listed properties edged down 0.8% month-over-month. The MLS Home Price Index (HPI) declined by 1.4% month-over-month but was still up 3.3% year-over-year. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average sale price posted a 6.6% year-over-year decline in September. Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS Systems fell by 3.9% between August and September 2022. From May through August, month-over-month declines have been progressively smaller. The September result marked a slight increase in the current sales slowdown that began with the Bank of Canada's first rate hike back in March. While about 60% of all local markets saw sales fall from August to September, the national number was pulled lower by the fact markets with declines included Greater Vancouver, Calgary, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Montreal. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of transactions in September 2022 came in 32.2% below that same month last year and stood about 12% below the pre-pandemic 10-year average for that month. "September was another month of lower sales activity, although, with many sellers also opting to play the waiting game, the market remains on the tighter side of balanced market territory," said Jill Oudil, Chair of CREA. "It makes for an interesting dynamic, one that doesn't really have many historical precedents. The market has changed so much in the last year, and the adjustment to higher borrowing costs is still underway. As always, for information and guidance about how to navigate the current marketplace, your best bet is to contact your local REALTOR," continued Oudil. "Up until recently, higher borrowing costs had disproportionally affected the fixed-rate space, with buyers able to qualify more easily if they went with a variable rate mortgage," said Shaun Cathcart, CREA's Senior Economist. "The Bank of Canada's most recent rate hike in early September finally closed that door, so it was not a big surprise to see additional softness on the sales side. The important thing to remember is we're still in the middle of a period of rapid adjustment, with buyers and sellers trying to feel each other out while a lot of people have had to take their home search plans back to the drawing board. As such, resale markets may remain on the quiet side for some time yet, with the flipside of that coin being even more pressure on rental markets." The number of newly listed homes edged back a further 0.8% on a month-over-month basis in September. This built on the 6.1% and 4.9% declines recorded in July and August, respectively, as some sellers appear content to stay on the sidelines until more buyers are ready to get back into the market. It was an even split between markets where new supply was down in September and those where it increased, with the biggest declines in the GTA offsetting the largest gains in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. With sales down and new listings seeing minor change in September, the sales-to-new listings ratio eased to 52% compared to 53.6% in August. The September 2022 reading for the national sales-to-new listings ratio was back on par with those in June and July, and only a little below its long-term average of 55.1%. There were 3.7 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of September 2022, up slightly from 3.5 months at the end of August. While the number of months of inventory still well below the long-term average of about five months, it's also up quite a bit from the all-time low of 1.7 months set at the beginning of 2022. The Aggregate Composite MLS HPI edged down 1.4% on a month-over-month basis in September 2022, not a small decline historically, but smaller than in June, July and August. Breaking it down regionally, most of the recent monthly declines had been in markets across Ontario and, to a lesser extent, in B.C. The standout trend in August and September was that quite a few of those Ontario markets saw monthly price declines get stopped in their tracks, mainly in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. In a few markets prices even popped up a bit between August and September. Looking across the Prairies, prices in Edmonton and Winnipeg are down a bit from their peaks, while prices are sliding sideways in Calgary, Regina, and Saskatoon. Similarly in Quebec, prices have dipped in Montreal but are mostly flat in Quebec City. On the East Coast, price softness that had been confined to the Halifax-Dartmouth area appears to now be showing up in parts of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, while prices in Prince Edward Island have flattened out in recent months but have not yet moved any lower. The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS HPI was still up by 3.3% on a year-over-year basis in September, a far cry from the near-30% record year-over-year gains logged in early 2022. Expect MLS HPI year-over-year comparisons to shift slightly into negative territory in the final months of this year, with declines becoming larger next spring a year out from the peak. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average home price was $640,479 in September 2022, down 6.6% from the same month last year. The national average price is heavily influenced by sales in Greater Vancouver and the GTA, two of Canada's most active and expensive housing markets. Excluding these two markets from the calculation cuts more than $117,000 from the national average price. PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this news release combines both major market and national sales information from MLS Systems from the previous month. CREA cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Statistical information contained in this report includes all housing types. MLS Systems are co-operative marketing systems used only by Canada's real estate boards to ensure maximum exposure of properties listed for sale. About The Canadian Real Estate Association The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada's largest single-industry associations, representing more than 155,000 REALTORS working through 75 real estate boards and associations. Further information can be found at http://crea.ca/statistics. SOURCE Canadian Real Estate Association For further information: Pierre Leduc, Media Relations, The Canadian Real Estate Association, Tel.: 613-237-7111 or 613-884-1460, E-mail: [email protected] OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Today is World Egg Day and to mark the occasion Egg Farmers of Canada is paying tribute to the humble egg and the hard-working Canadian egg farmers who deliver fresh, local, high-quality eggs, all year-round. World Egg Day is taking place on Friday, October 14, 2022. To mark the day, Egg Farmers of Canada is celebrating the humble egg and the hard-working farmers who produce them. From sustainability practices, to community impact, this video celebrates Canadian egg farmers and their hard work year-round. "This World Egg Day we are celebrating the importance of made-in-Canada food and the people that make it all possible," says Roger Pelissero, Chair of Egg Farmers of Canada. "Egg farming families such as my own take pride in the fact that the food we produce is enjoyed by our friends, neighbours and fellow Canadians. Not only that, but Canada's egg farmers have also positioned themselves as leaders by living sustainably every day, through every choice they makeand the impact this will have for generations to come is something to celebrate!" It's no secret that eggs are enjoyed the world over and especially here in Canada. Thanks to the day-to-day work of over 1,200 egg farmers from Newfoundland to British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, top-quality Canadian-made foodlocal Canadian eggs that isfeeds our appetite. To help shine a light on that collective appreciation for Canadian egg farmers and Canadian eggs, Egg Farmers of Canada has put together a short World Egg Day video which you can watch, HERE. Notable Canadian chefs have also partnered with Egg Farmers of Canada this World Egg Day to create seasonal recipes made with locally-sourced ingredients from their respective region. These vibrant recipes which encourage everyone to get creative in the kitchen while showing their support for local, made-in-Canada food can be found, HERE. Now it's your turn. Join us in our World Egg Day celebrations by sharing how much you love Canadian eggs and egg farmers using the hashtag #WorldEggDay and tagging @eggsoeufs on your favourite social platform. To learn more about Egg Farmers of Canada: Website: eggfarmers.ca Instagram: @eggsoeufs Twitter: @eggsoeufs Facebook: facebook.com/eggsoeufs About Egg Farmers of Canada Now in its fifth decade as one of Canada's leading agriculture organizations, Egg Farmers of Canada manages the national egg supply and promotes egg consumption while representing the interests of regulated egg producers from coast to coast. Visit eggfarmers.ca for more information. About World Egg Day World Egg Day is an international celebration on the second Friday of October every year. The day is meant to raise awareness of the nutritional benefits of eggs and the role they play in feeding families across the globe. World Egg Day was established at the International Egg Commission conference held in Vienna in 1996. This year, World Egg Day is Friday, October 14, 2022. SOURCE Egg Farmers of Canada For further information: Media contact: Elissa Zaks, Senior Public Relations Officer, Egg Farmers of Canada, [email protected], 343-777-6433 More than $85 million in grants to support colleges and partner organizations to tackle R&D challenges within their communities OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Colleges are at the heart of many rural and urban communities across Canada and offer a wealth of resources to local and regional partners to develop innovative, tangible solutions to challenges being faced in their own backyards. That is why the Government of Canada values the tremendous contributions that colleges make as a key innovation player in Canada, offering unique knowledge, expertise, capabilities, and equipment to their applied research collaborations. Today, the Honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry announced more than $85 million for 76 grants through the College and Community Innovation program (CCI), managed by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), in collaboration with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The CCI program is a key vehicle for funding applied research in Canada, strengthening research links and collaborations between Canadian colleges and partners from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, other colleges, and/or universities with a common goal of creating economic, social, health and environmental benefits for Canada. The funding announced today is provided through two CCI grant types: More than $76 million for 50 recipients through the new Mobilize grants, providing flexible, long-term funding for college applied research programs to maximize student training and community innovation impacts. for 50 recipients through the new Mobilize grants, providing flexible, long-term funding for college applied research programs to maximize student training and community innovation impacts. More than $9 million for 26 recipients through the College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF), fostering community innovation by connecting talent, facilities and capabilities of Canada's colleges with the research needs of community organizations. These collaborations encourage colleges to help partners address research challenges that are of importance to their communities and also applicable across Canada. College students will also receive valuable training experience in essential technical skills that local businesses and community organizations seek when hiring new workers. Examples of projects awarded across the country include: Yukon University, receiving a $360,000 CCSIF grant to examine the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Yukon. This project will allow researchers to delve deeper into the attitudes and opinions of four Yukon First Nations with varying experiences of vaccine uptake. The research will lead to better understanding of community factors influencing vaccine hesitancy and will contribute to the development of effective and context-specific vaccine outreach programs. Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, receiving a $360,000 CCSIF grant for the eXtended Reality (XR) Mobile Learning Lab Partnership with Rural and Northern Communities. The project will expand the capacity of rural educators and learners to engage virtually with training environments and scenarios that might otherwise prove difficult to access. Increased access to post-secondary vocational training will allow Canadian students residing in northern and rural communities to better prepare for a range of career possibilities, both within their communities and beyond. College de Rosemont, receiving a $360,000 CCSIF grant to explore how to better equip organizations in order to include the needs of vulnerable groups in decision-making processes regarding park spaces in the city of Montreal. Using a case-study approach, the project aims to investigate the relationship between forms of park governance and their impact on the appropriation of park spaces. By promoting the inclusion of disadvantaged groups in decision-making processes, park spaces will be better adapted to offer benefits related to the belonging and well-being of vulnerable populations. College of the North Atlantic (CNA),receiving a $2,250,000 Mobilize grant to provide digital support to its growing list of partner companies from the health care, forestry, utilities, environmental monitoring, and hospitality and tourism sectors. These Newfoundland and Labrador regional sector partners will become more productive through the innovation services provided by the college. The Mobilize grant funds will allow CNA to acquire additional human expertise to enhance the college partners' digital maturity a vital component of business ecosystem health resulting in more scalable, resilient, export-ready and profitable businesses. Selkirk College, receiving a $1,000,000 Mobilize grant to advance rural resilience in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, address issues from climate action to technology and social innovation and offer a quality work-integrated learning experience for students. Mobilize grant funds will ensure that emerging themes in health, reconciliation, and inclusion continues to mature to address Selkirk's most pressing community and industry partner innovation challenges. Northwestern Polytechnic, receiving a $1,000,000 Mobilize grant to enhance production, resilience, and ecosystem health in northern regenerative agricultural systems. Guided by the insight of regional producer experts and practitioners across regional, Indigenous, and western scientific knowledge systems, the outcomes of this research will provide growers with knowledge to optimize regenerative practices, become world leaders in the production of regeneratively farmed goods, while conserving unique soil and land resources within Northern Canada in an era of climate change challenges. Quotes " Colleges, polytechnics and CEGEPs play a critical role within Canada's world-class research and innovation community. Our next generation of researchers and entrepreneurs need support to help tackle projects that address social, business, health or environmental needs. With the CCI program, we are investing in projects that will have real impacts in local communities and Canada-wide. " The Honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry "For over a decade, the CCI program has been a primary source of funding for colleges, CEGEPs and polytechnics to foster research collaborations with their local partners to support their communities, strengthen their local economies, and train their students to enter the workforce. On behalf of the tri-agencies, congratulations to the first ever Mobilize recipients and this year's recipients of the College and Community Social Innovation Fund." Prof. Alejandro Adem, FRSC, President, NSERC Quick facts Associated links Stay connected Find more services and information at Canada.ca/ISED. Follow Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on social media. Twitter: @CDNscience , Facebook: Canadian Science , Instagram: @cdnscience and LinkedIn Follow Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada on social media. Twitter: @NSERC_CRSNG , Facebook: @nserccanada, Instagram: @NSERC_CRSNG, YouTube: NSERCTube and LinkedIn SOURCE Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada For further information: Media Relations, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, [email protected]; Laurie Bouchard, Senior Manager, Communications, Office of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, [email protected]; Media Relations, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 343-291-1777, [email protected] GATINEAU, QC, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Menstrual products are a basic need and are essential to upholding Canadians' sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as to ensuring women's participation in school, work and society. Yet, one in three Canadians who need pads, tampons or other menstrual products struggle to afford them. To make life more affordable and workplaces more equitable, the Government of Canada is proposing to strengthen regulations under the Canada Labour Code to provide free menstrual products to workers in federally regulated industries. Today, the Minister of Labour, Seamus O'Regan Jr., announced that the proposed Regulations Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (Menstrual Products) are now available for comment in Part I of the Canada Gazette. The draft regulations provide employers with flexibility in how they are implemented and aim to reduce physical and psychological health risks associated with lack of access to menstrual products at work. When employees, including those who are gender diverse, find themselves without access to these products, they may turn to unsuitable solutions. Some may even avoid the workplace altogether due to the shame and stigma that continue to surround menstruation in some instances. The proposed regulations were developed following extensive consultations with stakeholders, experts and the Canadian public. The results of these consultations helped to inform the development of the draft regulations. Interested parties are now invited to share their feedback on the regulations by November 13, 2022. The scope of this unique initiative is inclusive of all workers in federally regulated public and private sectors who menstruate, such as cisgender women, non-binary individuals, transgender men and intersex people. It aligns with other efforts by the Government to break down barriers to equality, such as the national pilot for the Menstrual Equity Fund, which will help make menstrual products available to Canadians in need. Quotes "We'd never ask people to bring their own toilet paper to work. So why do we do that with menstrual products? We're changing that. We're putting menstrual products in federally regulated workplaces and treating workers with the dignity they deserve." The Honourable Seamus O'Regan Jr., Minister of Labour "Menstrual products are a basic need for people who menstruate. All barriers to accessing them need to be broken down, and supports at both the individual and institutional levels need to be improved for women, girls, trans and non-binary people who menstruate. This initiative is a step in the right direction to reach menstrual equity and advance gender equality in the workplace." The Honourable Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth "No one in Canada should worry about accessing menstrual products. Something as natural as a period should not prevent anyone from going to work and participating fully in society. Menstrual products are not a luxury. They are essential to people's health and well-being. Let's lead by example and make a measurable difference in advancing menstrual equity in Canada." Jenna Sudds, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth Quick Facts Associated Links Follow us on Twitter SOURCE Employment and Social Development Canada For further information: Damien O'Brien, Director of Parliamentary Affairs, Office of the Minister of Labour, Seamus O'Regan Jr., 343-543-7653, [email protected]; Media Relations Office, Employment and Social Development Canada, 819-994-5559, [email protected] WHITEHORSE, YT, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Crisis hotlines are a lifeline to survivors of gender-based violence and are critical support services. Rates of gender-based violence in the Yukon are three times greater than the national average. Today, Jenna Sudds, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, announced $500,000 to support crisis hotlines across Yukon. Ms. Sudds was joined by the Honourable Jeanie McLean, Yukon Minister responsible for the Women and Gender Equity Directorate, to announce the bilateral agreement. This funding will help Yukon crisis hotlines serve the urgent needs of Canadians. The crisis hotlines will offer more robust services, resources, and support to prevent the escalation of gender-based violence. This announcement marks one of the bilateral agreements recently signed with provincial and territorial governments. Over the next few months, the Government of Canada will continue to work with other provinces and territories to finalize similar bilateral agreements. Further, the Parliamentary Secretary also announced that the Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council will receive just over $400,000 to provide gender-based violence prevention services and supports. The announcements build on the Government of Canada's commitment to provide approximately $300 million in emergency COVID-19 funding to support individuals experiencing gender-based violence. Since April 2020, we've invested over $240 million of emergency COVID-19 funding in 1,400 women's shelters, sexual assault centers, and other organizations, including almost 140 organizations that serve Indigenous individuals. Quotes "Providing timely funding for crisis hotlines is a necessity, and in the Yukon where the rate of sexual assault is higher than the national average, it is crucial that we support these services. Through this investment, these hotlines are able to continue providing life-saving services for women fleeing violence. The Government of Canada will remain committed to making Canada safer for everyone from coast to coast to coast." Jenna Sudds, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth "Women and girls are disproportionately affected by gender-based violence and we know that the pandemic has only increased domestic violence across the country. It is important that we continue to provide resources for those experiencing gender-based violence, in particular Indigenous women and girls and those who identify as LGBTQQIA2S+. These crisis hotlines, supported by local organizations, help ensure all Yukoners can talk to someone about their options, no matter where they live in the territory. " The Honourable Jeanie McLean, Minister responsible for the Women and Gender Equity Directorate "Gender-based violence is never acceptable. While it disproportionately affects women and girls, every Yukoner deserves to feel safe regardless of their identified or perceived gender. These crisis hotlines provide an essential and accessible resource for individuals seeking help during life's most difficult moments. I am proud to be part of a government standing alongside our Yukon counterparts to sign another historic agreement to support crisis hotlines." Brendan Hanley, Member of Parliament for Yukon Quick facts Funding received by the Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council comes from the $55 million Call for Proposals launched earlier this year. Call for Proposals launched earlier this year. This call for proposals is part of the approximately $3 billion over five years that the Government of Canada committed through Budget 2021 to increase efforts to end gender-based violence. This includes $601.3M over five years to advance toward a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. over five years that the Government of committed through Budget 2021 to increase efforts to end gender-based violence. This includes over five years to advance toward a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. Since April 2020 , the Government of Canada invested over $240 million of emergency COVID-19 funding in 1,400 women's shelters, sexual assault centers, and other organizations, including nearly 140 organizations that serve Indigenous individuals. , the Government of invested over of emergency COVID-19 funding in 1,400 women's shelters, sexual assault centers, and other organizations, including nearly 140 organizations that serve Indigenous individuals. Between 2016 to 2021, Yukon led the country in population growth (+12.1% to 40,232). It was also the only sole territory that grew at a faster pace than Canada overall. led the country in population growth (+12.1% to 40,232). It was also the only sole territory that grew at a faster pace than overall. GBV disproportionately affects women and girls. Certain intersectional populations also experience high levels of violence or are underserved in the GBV sector, such as Indigenous women and girls; Black and racialized women; immigrant and refugee women; members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities; people with disabilities; and women living in Northern, rural, and remote communities. Crisis hotlines across Canada saw a dramatic surge in calls from June to October 2020 , when the COVID lockdown measures first eased. saw a dramatic surge in calls from June to , when the COVID lockdown measures first eased. Organizations operating crisis lines in Yukon report that the volume of calls increased during the pandemic, as victims of violence and those seeking related services experienced perceived and real barriers to safely accessing services. Associated links Follow Women and Gender Equality Canada: SOURCE Women and Gender Equality Canada For further information: Johise Namwira, Press Secretary and Issues Manager, Office of the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, 873-353-0985, [email protected]; Media Relations: Women and Gender Equality Canada, 819-420-6530, [email protected] Concrete support for the Franco-Ontarian community: the Governments of Canada and Ontario announce a major investment in College Boreal SUDBURY, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - The Government of Canada is committed to making sure all Canadians can learn and grow in the official language of their choice. We know that investing in post-secondary institutions is the path to take in order to equip young people for their future and promote the vitality of official-language minority communities. Today, Marc Serre, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages, accompanied by Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury, announced more than $8 million in funding for College Boreal. He made this announcement on behalf of the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Thanks to this funding, College Boreal will start work to develop new bachelor's degrees that will address specific training and labour needs in Northern Ontario. In addition to responding to a great need for programs offered in Northern Ontario, the development of College Boreal's new French-language post-secondary programs will make it possible to increase access to high-quality education for the province's student population, including rural regions. The project is funded under the CanadaOntario Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction (20202021 to 20222023). The Government of Canada will provide $5.1 million over three years to improve programs at College Boreal, and the Government of Ontario will provide just over $2.9 million over three years. Quotes "Thanks to today's investment, the province will offer the Francophone and Francophile student population a wider range of training that meet the needs of the Franco-Ontarian community. Canada needs highly qualified and committed workforce in French-speaking communities. We are proud to work closely with the province on this project and to contribute to the economic, social and cultural vitality of Northern Ontario." The Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency "Thanks to this joint investment with the province of Ontario, we are enabling College Boreal to stand out with an interesting service offering. In addition to representing the college's areas of interest, the programs offered will better meet the needs of the Francophone student population and prepare them for their entry into the job market. More students who wish to pursue a career in French will now be able to do so." Marc Serre, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages "Our government understands the importance of providing learners with high-quality French-language education options, especially in Northern Ontario. That's why we are proud to support College Boreal in developing more French-language post-secondary programs over the next three years, providing flexible opportunities for Ontarians to live, learn, and thrive in the language of their choice." The Honourable Jill Dunlop, Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities "Today's $8-million investment in Sudbury, and College Boreal specifically, demonstrates the confidence our governments of Canada and Ontario have in our Franco-Ontarian future and Franco-Ontarian youth. College Boreal is a leader in providing quality, French-language, post-secondary education programs. I look forward to seeing the success of these programs, and more importantly, the success of our young people." Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury "This announcement marks an important milestone in the history of College Boreal, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. This new chapter promises to be a dynamic one, as we offer even more choices for post-secondary education in French in Sudbury and ultimately throughout Ontario. Thanks to this generous investment by the federal and provincial governments, our competent teams are ready to set up bachelor's degree programs that will prepare the next generation of Francophone and bilingual citizens." Daniel Giroux, President, College Boreal Quick Facts Founded in 1995, College Boreal is a French-language post-secondary institution. Located in Sudbury, the college has 38 access centres in 26 communities across the province, including 7 main campuses in Hearst, Kapuskasing, Nipissing, Sudbury, Timmins, Toronto, and Windsor. Since its founding in 1995, more than 18,000 students have graduated from College Boreal. The institution currently offers 25 programs that are unique in Ontario, and over $1.2 million in scholarships and bursaries. In June 2008, College Boreal became the first post-secondary institution in Ontario to receive designation under the French Language Services Act. Degree programs offered by Ontario colleges are subject to approval by the Minister of Colleges and Universities via the Ministerial consent process. Proposed college degree programs are reviewed by the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board, a quality assurance agency which provides advice and recommendations to the Minister. Budget 2021 provides $121 million over three years (20212022 to 20232024) to support high-quality post-secondary education in a minority language. These new investments will be made primarily through existing intergovernmental collaboration mechanisms to help provinces and territories address pressing needs and help stabilize the minority-language post-secondary sector. Federal funding for this project is through the Official Languages Support Programs, whose overall goal is to enhance the vitality of English- and French-speaking minority communities and promote the English and French languages in Canadian society. The project is funded under the CanadaOntario Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second Official-Language Instruction 20202021 to 20222023. Associated Links Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages Budget 2021 Action Plan for Official Languages 20182023: Investing in Our Future Official Languages Support Programs College Boreal SOURCE Canadian Heritage For further information: (media only), please contact: Marianne Blondin, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, [email protected]; Media Relations, Canadian Heritage, 819-994-9101, 1-866-569-6155, [email protected] VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Canada's economic growth depends on strong supply chains to create jobs, ensure goods get to Canadians, and addressing the impact of the rising cost of living. Digitizing our supply chain is one way to make it more efficient while helping to grow our economy. Today, the Minister of Transport, the Honourable Omar Alghabra, announced the intention to launch the $136 million Advancing Industry-Driven Digitalization of Canada's Supply Chain initiative. Funding for this initiative is made possible through Budget 2022, to develop digital solutions and optimize Canada's supply chains. This initiative, which would form a key part of Canada's National Supply Chain Strategy, would improve the efficiency and resiliency of Canada's supply chain by: Making it easier to plan and coordinate transportation activities to alleviate bottlenecks, reduce congestion and be more resilient to disruptions by collecting and sharing data and analytics in real time; Supporting industry-driven approaches to digital solutions, especially in the areas of data collection, coordination, and improving the visibility of the transportation network for carriers, shippers and governments; Supporting evidence-based decision-making to further optimize existing networks and better plan infrastructure investments; and Working with industry to optimize trade corridors and gateways across Canada , such as the Pacific Gateway and the Windsor-Quebec trade corridor. The Minister also announced that Transport Canada will soon launch a new Call for Proposals under the National Trade Corridors Fund to support projects that strengthen Canada's digital infrastructure to enhance the efficiency and reliability of our transportation supply chains. Altogether, these investments will help establish a strong foundation on which to advance the National Supply Chain Task Force recommendations to digitalize and create end-to-end supply chain visibility in our supply chain network. Because of the importance and urgency of making our largest Pacific Gateway more efficient, Transport Canada is also convening supply chain leaders from the railways, shippers, shipping industry, labour, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and the technology sector, to develop and implement digital solutions that will make this gateway operate more efficiently. The Government of Canada will continue to collaborate with supply partners to ensure essential transportation networks and supply chains remain competitive and make Canada a trade partner of choice. By improving the digitalization of our supply chains, the Government of Canada is ensuring that those who export products from Canada can do so more efficiently and reliably. This helps middle class Canadians by providing jobs and making life more affordable. Quotes: "Supply chain resiliency, efficiency, and reliability is a priority for our Government. That's why today's announcement is so important to ensure that essential goods and critical supplies are accessible to Canadians. We will enable our supply chains to have the digital infrastructure needed to continue to be more efficient and resilient for years to come, which are vital to growing a strong economy." The Honourable Omar Alghabra Minister of Transport Quick Facts: In 2021, international merchandise trade equaled around $1.24 trillion , a 16.8% increase from 2020 and the highest annual value of total trade on record. , a 16.8% increase from 2020 and the highest annual value of total trade on record. Budget 2022 announced a commitment of $603.2 million over the next five years to help ensure that Canada's supply chains can fulfil the needs of our economy and endure disruptions caused by climate change and global events. over the next five years to help ensure that supply chains can fulfil the needs of our economy and endure disruptions caused by climate change and global events. The Government of Canada has established an online portal for suggestions on how it can improve its supply chain performance. has established an online portal for suggestions on how it can improve its supply chain performance. On January 31, 2022 , the Minister of Transport hosted a National Supply Chain Summit. The Summit brought together federal ministers, businesses, industry leaders, and associations, to discuss the challenges facing our supply chain. , the Minister of Transport hosted a The Summit brought together federal ministers, businesses, industry leaders, and associations, to discuss the challenges facing our supply chain. The Minister of Transport announced during the National Supply Chain Summit the creation of a Supply Chain Task Force. On October 6, 2022 , the Task Force provided its final report to the Minister of Transport. The report contains recommendations on measures that could be considered by government to mitigate both the acute short-term challenges and chronic longer-term strategic issues confronting Canada's supply chain. , the Task Force provided its final report to the Minister of Transport. The report contains recommendations on measures that could be considered by government to mitigate both the acute short-term challenges and chronic longer-term strategic issues confronting supply chain. An efficient and reliable transportation network is key to Canada's economic growth. The Government of Canada , through the National Trade Corridors Fund (NTCF) and the Advancing Industry-Driven Digitalization of Canada's Supply Chain initiative, is making investments that will support the flow of goods across Canada's supply chains. Associated Links Follow Transport Canada on Twitter: @Transport_gc Transport Canada is online at www.tc.gc.ca. Subscribe to e-news or stay connected through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to keep up to date on the latest from Transport Canada. This news release may be made available in alternative formats for persons living with visual disabilities. SOURCE Transport Canada For further information: Contacts: Nadine Ramadan, Press Secretary and Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Omar Alghabra, Minister of Transport, [email protected]; Media Relations, Transport Canada, Ottawa, 613-993-0055, [email protected] NIISAACHEWAN ANISHINAABE NATION, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - On October 12, 2022, Chief Lorraine Cobiness of Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation; the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of CrownIndigenous Relations; and the Honourable Greg Rickford, Ontario Minister of Indigenous Affairs, announced the successful tripartite settlement agreement between Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation, the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario regarding Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation's flooding claim. The settlement provided Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation with $83,082,612 in total compensation, with Canada paying $63,243,003 and Ontario paying $19,839,609. With the successful conclusion of the settlement agreement, the Honourable Marc Miller and the Honourable Greg Rickford apologized on behalf of the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario to Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation for their respective government's role in flooding Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation reserve lands. Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation submitted a claim to Ontario on December 2, 2000, and to Canada on January 2, 2001, alleging unauthorized construction and operation of the Rollerway Dam (built in 1887, removed in 1899) and the Norman Dam (built in or around 1895, reconstructed in 1924), and consequent changes in water levels on the Winnipeg River, resulting in the flooding of portions of the Reserve from 1887 to the present without proper authorization or payment of compensation. The Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario will continue to work alongside Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation to build and renew our relationships for all generations. Quotes "Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation has been suffering since 1887 from flooding and unnatural water flows on the Winnipeg River caused by dams at Kenora that impacted and nearly destroyed our way of life, our families, and our community. But through the resiliency, strength, and courage of my people, we have been actively working on this claim with the Federal and Provincial Governments for over 20 years to see the resolution of this Settlement Agreement. In the spirit of reconciliation, we are committed to strengthening and renewing our Nation to Nation relationship by working together in a respectful and honest way to ensure this never happens again. Our commitment to this relationship is to ensure the safety and success of my people, our children here now, our grandchildren, and those yet to come for generations by making meaningful change in western systems by asserting our Inherent Rights and Sacred Responsibilities through Anishinaabe Law and Ceremony. Miigwetch!" Chief Lorraine Cobiness, on behalf of herself, the Councillors, the First Nation's Grievance Committee, and all the people of Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation "On behalf of the Government of Canada, I acknowledge Canada's failure to protect Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation's interests and act without considering their loss of culture, heritage and traditional economy. With the successful resolution of this settlement agreement, we are taking a step toward reconciliation and to renewing our nation-to-nation relationship with Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation." The Honourable Marc Miller Minister of CrownIndigenous Relations "The settlement of this historic grievance through fair, respectful and meaningful negotiation is an example of our government's commitment to advance reconciliation and enhance the social and economic outcomes of First Nations. As we move forward with this process, we are confident this will lead to greater prosperity, as we develop relationships built on respect with Indigenous partners." The Honourable Greg Rickford Minister of Indigenous Affairs Quick facts Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation, located in Kenora District, Ontario , is a Treaty 3 First Nation. District, , is a Treaty 3 First Nation. Canada has a longstanding policy and process in place to resolve specific claims by negotiating settlements with First Nations. Working in partnership with First Nations, Canada has resolved over 592 specific claims since 1973. has a longstanding policy and process in place to resolve specific claims by negotiating settlements with First Nations. Working in partnership with First Nations, has resolved over 592 specific claims since 1973. Since January 1, 2016 , Canada has settled more than 183 specific claims with First Nations, totalling $8.9 billion in compensation. , has settled more than 183 specific claims with First Nations, totalling in compensation. In the fiscal year 202122, 56 claims were filed with Canada , 83 claims were "assessed" (77 claims were accepted for negotiation, while 6 claims were not accepted for negotiations), and 26 claims were resolved (with 23 claims settled through negotiations, and in 3 claims, compensation was awarded at the Specific Claims Tribunal). , 83 claims were "assessed" (77 claims were accepted for negotiation, while 6 claims were not accepted for negotiations), and 26 claims were resolved (with 23 claims settled through negotiations, and in 3 claims, compensation was awarded at the Specific Claims Tribunal). As of July 22, 2022 , 53 land claims and other land-related agreements have been reached in Ontario . Learn more about land claims in Ontario . Associated links Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation Stay connected Join the conversation about Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Twitter: @GCIndigenous Facebook: @GCIndigenous Instagram: @gcindigenous You can subscribe to receive our news releases and speeches via RSS feeds. For more information or to subscribe, visit www.cirnac.gc.ca/RSS SOURCE Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada For further information: media may contact: Renelle Arsenault, Director of Communications, Office of the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, [email protected]; CIRNAC Media Relations: Email: [email protected], Phone: 819-934-2302; Erika Robson, Press Secretary, Senior Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Greg Rickford, 416-450-1309; Flavia Mussio, Communications Branch, Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, 416-314-9455, [email protected] The National President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, has called on Nigerians not to vote on sentiments of ... The National President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, has called on Nigerians not to vote on sentiments of religion, tribe or section in the 2023 election, saying that may spell doom for the future of the country. He advised that Nigerians should cast their votes devoid of any sentiment, saying candidates should be supported based on merit. Speaking to newsmen in Kaduna on Thursday, Alhaji Yerima Shettima said, The constitution of the country has provided Nigerians with another opportunity to elect leaders of their choice to pilot the affairs of the country in the next four years. Nigerians should be able to learn from the mistakes of the past and cast their votes to candidates that have the experience, exposure and are issue-based in tackling the challenges of the country. He added, Nigerians should be conscious and know that this is the country we all belong to and we have no other country. We should be patriotic and should be wise enough not to be carried away by sentiments but we should sincerely give our votes to who will sincerely pilot the affairs of the country successfully for the overall benefit of all. We have hope for better change, hopefully with the situation on ground, everybody has seen it all, Nigerians have become more politically conscious, I believed strongly that Nigerians will look for better options and make a choice among the candidates we have. If we cannot get it right now, then it will be too dangerous for us in the country in the years ahead, he said. He appealed to candidates to be issue-based in their campaigns so that Nigerians would have a better option to choose who to cast their votes for, saying that Nigerians should be mindful of who to cast their votes to in order to ensure hope is restored in the country. According to him, the future of democracy in the country is bright, believing that Nigerians have learned their lessons and with the present situation in Nigeria, Nigerians have become very conscious of what is good for them and will not allow themselves to be toyed around by selfish politicians who are after themselves. He believed that at the moment, Nigerians are very much divided and anything that would bring further disunity should be totally discouraged, expressing delight that the government and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are leaving no stone unturned to ensure the campaign is issue based devoid of hate speech for the unity and development of the country. Shettima then called on Nigerians to rise to the occasion by ensuring that next years elections are free, fair and credible, stressing that efforts should be made to do away with sectional, religious and tribal politics that would further divide the country. Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has vowed that his camp will not back down in their demand for the resignation of the National Chairman o... Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has vowed that his camp will not back down in their demand for the resignation of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Iyorchia Ayu. The Governor made the vow during a media chat in Port Harcourt on Friday. Governor Wike said his demand is for the interest of his people. He reiterated that the south should be allowed to produce a National Chairman since the President ticket of the party is in the North. The Governor said those from the South who support Ayus chairmanship are hypocrites. All you should know is that we are not going to back down. When they say , go and talk to Wike and I ask them a question, they run away. Some of them are just hypocrites. I will look into their eyes and say, where are you from , what will you tell your children? You cannot tell them youre a principled man? Our problem in this country is that we always accommodate evil and then you come and tell me it is for the interest of the party. The governor insisted that Ayu must fulfill the promise he made to resign when the presidential candidate of the party emerges from the North. The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, quashed the terrorism charge the Federal Government preferred against the detained leader of th... The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, quashed the terrorism charge the Federal Government preferred against the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu. It discharged and acquitted him of the seven-count charge pending against him before the Federal High Court in Abuja. The appellate court, in a decision by a three-man panel led by Justice Jummai Hanatu, said it was satisfied that FG flagrantly violated the law, when it forcefully rendered Kanu from Kenya to the country for the continuation of his trial. It held that such extra-ordinary rendition, without adherence to due process of the law, was a gross violation of all international conventions, protocols and guidelines that Nigeria is signatory to, as well as a breach of the Appellants fundamental human rights. The appellate court noted that FG failed to refute the allegation that the IPOB leader was in Kenya and that he was abducted and brought back to the country without any extradition proceeding. It held that FG was ominously silent on the issue which it described as very pivotal in determining whether the trial court would still have the jurisdiction to continue with the criminal proceeding before it. In law, that is a costly failure and such failure is an admittance by the Respondent. Where a party fails to controvert a deposition by an opponent, the issue not contested is deemed conceded, the court held, adding that the onus was on FG to prove the legality of the Appellants arrest and return from Kenya. More so, the court noted that Nigeria is a signatory to OAU Convention which it ratified on April 28, 2022, as well as the Charter of Human and Peoples Rights, which it said prescribed how a wanted person could be transferred from one country to the other. It held that any extradition request must be in writing, with a statement indicating offences for which a person is wanted. The appellate court held that FGs action tainted the entire proceeding it initiated against Kanu and amounted to an abuse of criminal prosecution in general. The court will never shy away from calling the Executive to order when it tilts towards Executive recklessness, the Appellate court held, even as it accused FG of engaging in serious abuse of power. Nevertheless, the appellate court said it would be pre-judicial for it to make an order on the proscription of IPOB since the issue is still on appeal. It held that the proscription order by the lower court would subsist until it is set-aside. Governor Aminu Tambuwal said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign for Atiku Abubakar was going on as planned. Th... Governor Aminu Tambuwal said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign for Atiku Abubakar was going on as planned. The Sokoto helmsman is the Director General of the Presidential Campaign Organisation (PCO). In a statement by spokesman Mohammed Bello, Tambuwal dismissed the speculations in social media and elsewhere. The governor said the campaign train is continuing, by the grace of God on Monday in Kaduna. He called the suspension fake news, adding that people were looking forward to the PDP train in their states. Tambuwal, who declared that the PDP is the party to beat in 2023, said other parties were jittery of its popularity. None of them have composed their campaign councils, not to even talk of starting. They are trying to throw spammer at our works. Tambuwal assured that the partys campaign would be issue-based because there are sufficient challenges in our country. We shall do better for Nigeria; we hope we are able to convince Nigerians to vote for Abubakar/Okowa come February 2023, the statement added. Kanunta Kanu, a family member of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, leader, Nnamdi Kanu, has reacted to the ruling of the Abuja Appeal C... Kanunta Kanu, a family member of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, leader, Nnamdi Kanu, has reacted to the ruling of the Abuja Appeal Court discharging and acquitting the pro-Biafra agitator. Kanu said there is jubilation even in the land of the dead over the court ruling that acquitted and discharged the agitator. Yesterday, the Appeal Court discharged and acquitted Kanu of the terrorism charges levelled against him by the Nigerian Government. A three-judge panel of the appellate court ruled that Kanu was illegally extracted from Kenya by Nigerian agents in a process known internationally as extraordinary rendition, which rights experts define as an abduction. The judges held that the Nigerian Government could not charge Kanu for any offence in the country until federal authorities explained how they moved him from Nairobi to Abuja in June 2022. Reacting, Kanu, in a series of tweets wrote: #MaziNnamdiKanu has been discharged by the Court of Appeal, based on the Extra Ordinary rendition. Even in the land of the dead, theres a jubilation going on there. The Appeal Court further held that based on the Extra Ordinary Rendition, there was no charge against the Appellant #MaziNnamdiKanu . No court would have extradited #MNK. That was @GovNigeria therefore resorted to criminal activity. @UN @StateDept @EU_Commission @FCDOGovUK @BBC There is currently wild jubilation in several towns in South eastern zone of Nigeria over news of the acquittal of the leader of the Indige... There is currently wild jubilation in several towns in South eastern zone of Nigeria over news of the acquittal of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu of terrorism charges. Our source who monitored spontaneous reactions in major towns across the five States of the South-East, reports that youths are jubilating and celebrating the release in beer parlours. In parts of Anambra, including Amawbia and UNIZIK junction in Awka, there is wild jubilation among some residents of the area, over the news of the discharge and acquittal of the IPOB leader. In a motor park at UNIZIK junction, Awka, some motor park operators and drivers were seen jubilating and celebrating with alcoholic beverages over the news. One of the men in the area, who was identified by his nickname as Oga Boss was overheard saying: this is the best news of the year. This Nnamdi Kanu has totally rubbished Nigerian government. He is really teaching them a lesson. All the things he said about Nigeria have come to pass, he has proven that he knows what he is doing. Upon all the things the Nigerian government has done to keep him trapped, he has been defeating them in all of them. Maybe now we can have peace in Igbo land, Oga Boss said. It is the same situation in other cities, including Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia and Imo States, where residents erupted in wild jubilation. Residents are seen gathered in clusters discussing in a happy mood what they described as the most cheering news that would de-escalate tension in the South-East zone. The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory had earlier on Thursday upheld the appeal of the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu. The court also discharged and acquitted him of terrorism charges, maintaining that his forceful and illegal rendition made the federal government incompetent to try him of terrorism. The Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has called for the upgrade of the Commission to a ful... The Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has called for the upgrade of the Commission to a full-fledged Ministry. Mrs Dabiri-Erewa stated this on Thursday when she appeared before the Senate Committee on the Diaspora and Nongovernmental Organisations for an interaction on the developments in the agency. She said the call has been necessitated by the volume of work in the Commission, noting that as a Ministry, it would afford them to be able to cater for the millions of Nigeria citizens living abroad. Earlier, the NiDCOM boss lamented the paucity of funds as militating against the agency in coping with its statutory responsibilities. According to her, she said her office was finding it difficult to help some Nigerians in critical situations in foreign lands because there were no provisions for foreign trips for her officials, disclosing that she was yet to be refunded for the three trips she recently embarked upon on behalf of the government. Dabiri-Erewa said, It is in the act that we should have five diasporan offices, but we dont have money. Its in the act, but we dont have money. Some diasporans help us out when we travel. The diasporan is the most important thing for Nigeria right now, and I can tell you that we havent even engaged 10 percent of our diaspora. Speaking on the expected offices of NiDCOM abroad, she disclosed that they have been using technology to track the happenings as there was no adequate fund to open offices. She pleaded with the National Assembly to assist so that continental offices could be opened for direct access to Nigerians in the Diaspora. Meanwhile, members of the Senate Committee, chaired by Senator Michael Nnachi, suggested that the Technical Aids Corps should be under the direct supervision of NiDCOM. He further advised the legal department of NiDCOM to liaise with the National Assembly to amend the Act that established it. He said, There is the need to upgrade NiDCOM to a full-fledged ministry. The legal department should start work toward the review of the Act. John Enenche, the army officer who claimed photos and videos from the massacre of unarmed demonstrators at Lekki Tollgate were photoshoppe... John Enenche, the army officer who claimed photos and videos from the massacre of unarmed demonstrators at Lekki Tollgate were photoshopped, has been appointed a member of Peter Obis presidential advisory council. Mr Enenche is a retired general and former director of defence information. On Wednesday, Mr Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour party, released a list of his campaign team, which had 1,234 names, including the army general appointed as a representative of the North-Central. Mr Enenches appointment has triggered an outcry from the partys supporters, insisting he is unsuitable to take up any position in Mr Obis campaign team due to his role in covering up the Lekki massacre in October 2020. Yunusa Tanko, the campaigns chief spokesman, did not immediately respond to Peoples Gazettes request seeking comments on the matter. Mr Enenche had claimed the Instagram live footage of DJ Switch, which showed #EndSARS protesters dying from Nigerian armys bullets, was photoshopped. The video of his claims has been posted on Twitter. Mr Obis supporters, christened Obidients, are clamouring for the removal of Mr Enenches name from the campaign council. @Uzochi_O My own beef with the Peter Obi PCC is the inclusion of Gen. John Enenche (Rtd). Much as his inclusion is strategic and might come with some weight, I wont forget his role in the #EndSARS massacre. He was the one who said DJ Switchs IG live was photoshop. I cant forgive that. @SVPDO8 Why is John Enenches name on the Labour Party list?? He denied the occurrence that happened at Lekki tollgate. His name must be taken off!!! @NgLabour @FadaunsiAdeniyi I expect all #OBIdients especially those from the SE to demand for the removal of Major Gen John Enenche (rtd) as a member of Labour Partys Presidential Campaign Council. Anything short of that means we see evil ONLY when our tribes men are not involved. #ObiDattiAllTheWay @Didynne He is a member is of the campaign council and its not a problem for as a retired officer who has full control of his actions now have decided to follow the light. @Femia86 @PeterObi @NgLabour Gen. John Eneche cannot be on that list. He must be removed and replaced to send the right message. A minority of Obidients, however, defended the army general, saying he was only acting on orders from above two years ago. @krisketa As a serving military personnel, you will do same. They are simply orders from above. Dont try to create a falsehood about what he said. No one will say otherwise under such circumstances, as long as its a directive. @EraRepair Many of you should should know that when you are under a wicked government, you lie and lie and lie and lie. The best is to leave such government but for him, he was military general who defends the military and the government. What should he have done? Abu Ibrahim, a former senator representing Katsina south, says Bola Tinubu, standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), will p... Abu Ibrahim, a former senator representing Katsina south, says Bola Tinubu, standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), will promote the interest of the north. Ibrahim spoke on Thursday when he visited the campaign office of Dikko Radda, Katsina APC gubernatorial candidate. The former senator said it is time for the north to pay back Tinubu by voting for him at the 2023 polls, adding the former governor of Lagos has historically supported candidates from the north. He said Tinubu played a key role in the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and 2019. When elected, Tinubu will surely promote the interest of the north, NAN quoted him as saying. Ibrahim also asked the people of Katsina to vote for Radda. Radda is an intelligent young man that would move the state forward when elected as governor, he said. The former senator said he relocated to Katsina to spearhead the reconciliation of party members and promote the candidatures of Tinubu and Radda. On his part, the governorship candidate thanked Ibrahim for his counsel and assured him that he would not be disappointed during the elections. Watertown, NY (13601) Today Partly cloudy skies. A shower of rain or wet snow possible. Low around 35F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. A shower of rain or wet snow possible. Low around 35F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Watertown, NY (13601) Today Partly cloudy early followed by increasing clouds with showers developing later in the day. High 51F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low near 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. A mobile forensic lab from Delgado Community Colleges Science Laboratory Technology program comes to the Smith Library on Oct. 19 "Geothermal Is the Future"University of Oklahoma Collegiate Competition Champions Host Geothermal Community Event The Sooners Geothermal Team, first-place winners of the U.S. Department of Energy 2022 Geothermal Collegiate Competition, pose with competition organizer Caity Smith during their community event. Karelia La Marca speaks about the teams geothermal project. Yuxing Wu speaks during the event, with Cesar Vivas, Karelia La Marca, and Esteban Ugarte behind. Karelia La Marca, Esteban Ugarte, and Yuxing Wu prepare for their presentation at their geothermal community event. The Sooners Geothermal Team shares their project to repurpose abandoned oil and gas wells for geothermal energy with the community. Esteban Ugarte shares details about the Sooner Geothermal project with the crowd. Chinedu Nwosu, Esteban Ugarte, and Daniel Tetteh talk with other students during the community event on the OU campus. Opening slide for the OU community event. Previous Next Students from a school of petroleum and geological engineering may not be obvious choices for a $10k geothermal prizebut in winning this year's U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Collegiate Competition, the University of Oklahoma team proved that oil and gas industry knowledge can transfer to geothermal energy development. "Geothermal is the future," said competition participant Cesar Vivas at a geothermal community event hosted by the winning team. "It is the only renewable that can be a baseload source of power and is not limited by seasonal factors. You can develop geothermal energy anywhere, so I recommend anyone to apply to this competition." The Sooners Geothermal Team from the University of Oklahoma (OU) took first place for designing a system repurposing six abandoned oil and gas wells in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to provide clean, renewable geothermal energy for more than 730,449 square feet of educational and municipal buildings, including sites within the Absentee Shawnee Tribe and Potawatomi Nation jurisdiction. Alex Cedola shows off the Sooners Geothermal Team's first-place certificate. All photos from the University of Oklahoma By using previously drilled, currently unproductive oil and gas wells, the team showed how a creative design could reduce drilling costs to feasibly power local schools, religious centers, and government buildings using geothermal energy. What did you learn? And where to next? Alex Cedola: "The competition made us think outside the box and outside our comfort zone. I have learned so much about geothermal, not just within Oklahoma, but across the country and globally because it is a worldwide energy source." Yuxing Wu: "I am a postdoc, and the most attractive projects I work on are the renewable energy projects like this onegeothermal storage, hydrogen storage. I would like to continue renewable energy research and maybe even become a professor to have more researchers involved in this field." As part of the competition, the first-place team from the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy received funding to host a community event sharing their project and the benefits of geothermal. The team's event was held on Sept. 2, 2022, in the historic Molly Shi Boren Ballroom at the Oklahoma Memorial Union, where the team shared their passion for this project and the potential of geothermal energy. "I just took a course here on geothermal, but the amount of knowledge that we acquired by doing the project was so much more than a courseit is a 'hands in' type of opportunity," said Karelia La Marca, the team's geophysicist. As she enters the final year of her doctoral studies at OU, La Marca shared that her studies of geothermal are not over just because the competition has ended. "The cool thing is that I got so interested in geothermal energy from this competition, and how we can transfer oil and gas skills, that my third and final doctoral project is going to be based on geothermal," La Marca said. Yuxing Wu, a postdoctoral researcher at OU responsible for modeling and economic development for the competition project, has also found inspiration through the competition. "Next step, we want to let more people know we have this project, collect some funding, and then we want to make it realnot just on paper," Wu said. So how did the team react when they learned they won this year's competition and $10,000? Yuxing Wu, Chinedu Nwosu, Alex Cedola, Cesar Vivas, Camila Castillo, Karelia La Marca, Esteban Ugarte, Daniel Tetteh, and Abdelmjeed Mohamed (not pictured) were the winners of the 2022 U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Collegiate Competition. "We were very proud of all the work we put into it, but we were all kind of in shock when we heard we won," Cedola said. "We freaked out, started texting and calling each other, and our advisors and teachers found out. It was thrilling." The next Geothermal Collegiate Competition opens for registrationand a shot at thousands in prize fundingin November 2022. Competition deliverables will be due in spring 2023. Keep an eye on the Geothermal Collegiate Competition website for more information. RALEIGH, N.C.A 15-year-old boy fatally shot two people in the streets of a neighborhood in North Carolinas capital city, then fled toward a walking trail, where he opened fire, killing three more people and wounding two others, police said Friday. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the suspect was hospitalized in critical condition following the shootings late Thursday afternoon. Those killed ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said during a news conference. Among the dead was an off-duty Raleigh police officer, Gabriel Torres, who was on his way to work when the shooting began. A second police officer was wounded and released from the hospital, while a 59-year-old woman remained hospitalized in critical condition. The suspect, who was not immediately identified by police, eluded officers for hours before he was cornered in a home and arrested, police said. Officials have not said how the suspect was injured. The shootings set off a massive police response and manhunt, with police scouring an area of more than 2 miles to find and capture the suspect, Patterson said. She said authorities have not yet determined any motive. The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Officers from numerous law enforcement agencies swarmed the area, closing roads and warning residents to stay inside while they searched for the shooter. The Neuse River Greenway runs just behind the backs of houses in the Hedingham neighborhood where the shooting began. The trail runs about 27 miles along the river and connects to the states Mountains-to-Sea Trail thats popular with thru-hikers. The stretch behind the neighborhood is paved and lies down a grassy slope from the houses. Brooke Medina, who lives in the neighborhood bordering the greenway, was driving home at around 5:15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, both marked and unmarked, race toward the residential area about 9 miles from Raleighs downtown. She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital. She and her husband, who was working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order. The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. The family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved farther away from their home. She described the neighborhood known as Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined community thats full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area. For readers of Marvel, DC, Image or indie comics, The Tenth Planet has been the place to grab the latest editions in the Tri-Town for more than three decades. Named after a lost Doctor Who storyline about a fictional planet that introduced the Cybermen, The Tenth Planet has sold comics, graphic novels and games in the Lincoln Ridge Plaza in Schererville since 1988. It's moved to four different spots in the shopping center on U.S. 30 but has always been based there. "It was based on the economy," owner Dan Scheffel said of the move. "If it was down, we would move to a smaller spot and then back to a larger spot." The Tenth Planet has been looking for a bigger location for some time. It just moved from its longtime home at 224 Lincoln Highway in Schererville to the Crossroads of American intersection. It went from a 2,400-square-foot space to a space with more than 3,000 spare feet at 1686 Indianapolis Boulevard in Schererville. It faces U.S. 30 in the shopping center that's also home to Etc., Pro Am Team Sports, Furniture Depot and Dollar Tree. "It's a bigger space for less money," Scheffel said. "We wanted to expand and were looking to buy when we ran into this spot." The new space has a warehouse area that will be dedicated to gaming so it will be separate from the comics shop. In the old location, people played Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons and other games while surrounded by racks of new comic books and other merchandise. "More dedicated space will let us have larger tournaments," he said. "With the smaller space, we were always having to move fixtures out of the way." The Tenth Planet also will have more room to display its life-sized statues, including Deadpool and the Silver Surfer, who's being pulled back out of storage. The comic book shop will continue to maintain the same breadth of inventory, including trades and graphic novels that have been marked 25% off for the past decade. Scheffel, who was previously a manager at the store, bought it from the original owners 17 years ago. It once had locations in Matteson and Oak Lawn in Illinois. "Galactic Greg's in Valpo was a Tenth Planet for a short period of time before the late Greg (Karras) decided to go his own way," Scheffel said. The Tenth Planet has been rushing to move its inventory to the new location, which is now open for business but still getting organized. Scheffel said the official reopening will be near the beginning of November when everything is set up better. "We hang our hat on being organized, clean and friendly," he said. "We carry anything most people want and are happy to be full service and get it for them if we don't have it." Scheffel said he has mixed emotions about moving from the store's longtime spot. "It's bittersweet," he said. "We've been there a long time now. People know us from being there for more than 30 years. By the same token, this spot is bigger and better and we had to take the next step." The larger space will allow The Tenth Planet to do more live-streaming of role-playing games. It's also looking at doing family nights with board games now that it has more space. "We think we'll be able to attract a lot of people," he said. "We're going to get a big sign on the building that will make it very visible from U.S. 30." For more information, visit tenthplanetschererville.wordpress.com, call 219-322-2902 or find the business on Facebook. HAMMOND The national Busload of Books rolled into Hammond last week to encourage students to read. Media tech specialist Megan Mann won a contest last fall to bring the bus to town. The organization First Book and the author/illustrator couple Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr are touring the bus around the country, taking it to Title I school districts. When not running a commercial salmon fishery in Alaska, they've published many children's books through the major publisher Macmillan, including "The Real McCoy" series. "They, along with their kids and dog, would be traveling around the country via bus to talk to kids about being an author and an illustrator, what goes into that, and then at the end, each student would be going home with books," Mann said. "It would be an elevated author visit for districts that generally didn't get to experience it while they also conducted a research project on how to better help Title I districts." Mann spent a few hours filling out an application that asked such questions as "If you had more funding, what would you do with it?" and "What would this mean for your students?" She made the case that a visit from the Busload of Books would make a big difference in her students' lives. "I said that the students rarely get the opportunity to experience something like this. They would be able to hold on to this memory for years to come and the books that all of the students would receive as part of being the winning school would be priceless as so many of the students run into the book fairs with Gatsby dreams on Oliver Twist budgets," she said. "I wanted to be able to give the students something both tangible (the book) and intangible (the memory of the day) to hold close and remember, the way I hold close and remember certain memories from my childhood." She forgot about the application and was surprised when she won, wondering whether the email was real and if anyone else in Indiana applied. The bus came Friday to Jefferson Elementary. Swanson read their book "Everywhere Wonder" and Behr talked about how she created the pictures. They took questions from students, did a quick draw, did a create-a-story exercise and gave out copies of "Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom." "In between presentations, kids were allowed to go as a class outside to the bus and take photos and look at all of the cool art on the sides. They all loved it and pointed out their favorite parts," Mann said. "They had their books personalized and then they went outside in the rain with me as I painted Indiana on the U.S. map on the side of the bus." One student told Mann they would remember the experience forever. "It was something that they would never have the opportunity to receive due to lack of funding and was a special day that they will never forget," she said. "The ease in which Robbi and Matthew spoke to the students, the way they were engaging and got on their level, really made it extra special for these kids." Mann said access to books is important at the elementary school level because it's crucial to students' development emotionally and socially. Kids need to see themselves reflected in books, she said. "In a diverse district like Hammond, without diverse books, kids won't be able to identify and see their potential," she said. "Without the dedication to creating a more inclusive classroom and library, something I strove so hard for, kids will absolutely turn away from books." But money is needed to make it possible. "Without funding, you can't improve libraries, and without improving them, you won't improve literacy," she said. "It's important for kids to read to improve their emotional intelligence and learn that their experience isn't singular, that it isn't the only one out there. There's a great big world and the more they read, the more they understand that." Mann said she works tirelessly to get students excited about books, including creating a TikTok account to engage them more. "I read extensively to find books that I know they would like," she said. "If they know you've read it, they'll ask about it or they'll want to talk to you about it when they're done. If you don't know anything about the books, they won't be interested as they see you also aren't. They want that mutual excitement and interest." She said it's crucial to find books that will pique and sustain students' interest. "With nonfiction, if it's too boring, how can you expect them to want to learn about it? You need to find engaging books about a wide variety of topics. It also comes down to 'Why are we teaching the same five things?' Kids will check out immediately when they have to relearn the same things every year, so you have to find other things to excite them." EAST CHICAGO A Chicago-based developer is tearing down a long-vacant part of one of the Region's most prominent steel mills to make way for a major redevelopment project. The private investment firm Speedwagon Capital Partners is demolishing the former Plant 4 on Dickey Road at Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor in East Chicago. The 1.5 million-square-foot building is located on a 92-acre site at 3300 Dickey Road, bordering the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal and Cline Avenue. "The idea is for a larger-scale development, but we're not quite there with all of the specs and a site plan yet," Lake County Economic Alliance President Karen Lauerman said. "I think their focus now is to get the demo done given the construction season and the good weather. They're taking advantage of the good weather and then will put something together." The city of East Chicago also is putting in a roundabout near the planned redevelopment, Mayor Anthony Copeland said. "We're going to be able to flow the traffic in nice and smooth," he said. "They can drive on the toll road, come down, hit the roundabout, hit Michigan Avenue and hit Dickey by Marktown." Speedwagon Capital Partners bought for an undisclosed sum late last year the former bar mill that sat vacant for more than 20 years, since the import crisis of the early 2000s that led to the disappearance of many long-running steelmakers like Bethlehem, LTV and Inland. It had an electric act furnace and made bar products for the construction industry. ArcelorMittal bought it when the domestic steel industry consolidated, used it only for storage and sold it to Cleveland-Cliffs when it unloaded most of its U.S. assets for $1.4 billion in late 2020. Located on the edge of the Indiana Harbor Works mill, it hadn't been operational as a steelmaking operation since 2000. It's been completely empty since ArcelorMittal stopped using it for storage five years ago, Lauerman said. "They're doing the demolition right now," Lauerman said. "They're taking down the old steel structure and the electric arc furnace." The property was long on the market as a "pocket listing" where it wasn't officially for sale but was being suggested to potential buyers. "The idea is to bring down the current buildings and work with the mayor, the council and the city on a site plan and then move forward," Lauerman said. The redevelopment could be home to multiple buildings. "It's a very large site,: Lauerman said. Several potential investors expressed interest in the site over the years. "Over the years, I think about 15 groups toured it, either for redevelopment or acquisition," she said. "It's got a great location. It was just a matter of finding the right group that knew what they wanted to do and had the financial backing to do the demolition and remediation. It's a great redevelopment." HOBART Northwest Indiana, and indeed the entire urbanized coast of Lake Michigan from South Bend to Milwaukee, is perfectly positioned to become a national and international center of technology and innovation. That was the message delivered by a variety of speakers Thursday to more than 500 entrepreneurs, community advocates, and business and municipal officials during the annual One Region luncheon at Avalon Manor in Hobart. The challenge for all of us is to shift our thinking from the parochial to the breadth of this larger region, and to leverage the regions shared assets to support an innovation ecosystem, said Susan Brehm, Chicago regional director for the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Alejandra Castillo, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, emphasized that innovation is key to global competitiveness, new and better jobs, a resilient economy, and the attainment of national economic goals. Simply put, regional collaboration is essential for economic recovery because regions are the center of competition in the new global economy, and those that work together to leverage resources and use their strength to overcome weaknesses will fare better than those that do not, Castillo said. By building a strong coalition of regional leaders and by focusing on growing your innovation ecosystem, you are best positioning the region for a bright future, she added. Among Northwest Indianas strengths is its technology-focused higher education programs at public and private colleges and universities in Lake and Porter counties, and throughout the broader region, said Thomas Keon, Purdue University Northwest chancellor and One Region chairman. No region is making any strides in economic development unless they have strong higher education, Keon said. So all of you need to, as best you can, help support IUN, Valpo University, Calumet College and Purdue University Northwest, so that we can help you get the assets you need, in students and faculty, to help build a stronger economy for Northwest Indiana. At the same time, several speakers noted Indiana as a whole is among the worst in the nation for access to capital, which One Region CEO Marie Foster-Bruns said is essential to developing an innovation ecosystem, along with talent and place in that order. John McDonald, managing entrepreneur of Indianapolis NEXT Studios, noted the Hoosier State ranks 47th of 50 states for the percentage of employees working at start-up companies and currently has single-digit venture capital availability. So what we need to do is get capital in the hands of start-up founders, particularly in underserved communities, and show the way to go because we really cant be what we cant see, McDonald said. Keynote speaker Alexandre Lazarow, an author and venture capitalist, said hes confident the benefits and opportunities of the innovation economy remain accessible, even though what One Region hopes to accomplish probably wont end up looking like Silicon Valley. Its easier than ever for a start-up to be run from anywhere, Lazarow said. I think innovation is going to be multi-polar, and places like Northwest Indiana are going to have an incredible role to play in specializing around their own assets and their own community. Foster-Bruns ended by challenging those in attendance to think about ways of collaborating and supporting innovation in their particular industries and communities. Our individual work impacts the Greater South Shore region, and together, we all win, she said. Negin Hosseini Goodrich stopped wearing her hijab when she left Iran in 2010. The former journalist felt compelled to leave her native country after its controversial presidential election the previous year, which prompted global allegations of fraudulent voter results and suspicions of political corruption. As reformists, we were protesting in the streets because we fairly believed that the hardliners had stolen our votes, Goodrich told me. She lives in Highland yet continues to protest in the streets to demonstrate against injustices that scream out to her. The latest scream came from Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested last month in Tehran by the governments morality police for not properly wearing her hijab, or headscarf. She died at a hospital while in police custody. Police claim that Amini had underlying health problems, only further inciting outrage over her suspicious death by Iranians and human rights activists around the world. One of those activists is Goodrich, who still has the attitude of a journalist. Police brutality towards an innocent girl outraged Iranians, she said. The protests started in Mahsas hometown, Saqez in Kurdistan, and soon expanded to the other cities, including the capital. The protests continue, almost one month after Aminis death, in Iran and in our country, most recently in Chicago and at Purdue University in West Lafayette. Goodrich, who took part in both demonstrations, works as a lecturer at the Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange. The organization helps international students learn English as a second language while offering cultural support as they adjust to life at a U.S. university. As a pattern consistently repeated, the Islamic regime did not hesitate to ignite its suppression engine, attacking the protesters, shooting at them and arresting thousands of Iranians either in the streets or by brutally invading their houses, Goodrich said. To prevent protesters from spreading the news, photos and videos of police state brutality coming from Iran, the Islamic regime has shut down the internet in many areas of the country. The protesters in Iran are counting on native Iranians living outside the country to share the atrocities taking place every day. Millions of Iranians outside the country have been heartbroken yet determined to amplify the suppressed voices of their people inside Iran, Goodrich said. In the past four weeks, they have been relentlessly attracting the attention of the world to whats going on in Iran, demanding the governments of other countries including the U.S. to not only condemn the violation of human rights in Iran, but also take measures to issue more sanctions on the Islamic regime officials. Female protesters in Iran are publicly burning their headscarves and cutting their hair in defiance of the regimes orders. What courage it must take to do such a thing under that kind of oppression and threats of death. To show support, Goodrich has cut her hair during protests here. Most Iranians, especially women, have been suffering from being monitored in all aspects of their lives what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, how to think, what to believe and what to say, she said. I, similarly, detest the entire regime and its components, including the morality police. My rage is not new though. It is rooted in 43 years of being repressed, monitored and devalued as a woman. One Iranian government official told an independent reformist newspaper there that student protesters are being taken to mental health institutions to reform and reeducate in efforts to prevent future antisocial behavior. Mahsa was pushed into a police van to be sent to the so-called education center, Goodrich said. Only the hardliners, some pious people, and those who have been gaining wealth and position through supporting the Islamic Republic are in favor of the morality police. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed the protests as merely scattered riots orchestrated by enemies from outside the country. Obviously, its political propaganda, similar to what we hear from Russia, China and other dictatorship nations. I could have been apprehended if I had not left the country to the U.S. in 2010, Goodrich said. She was invited to Purdue Universitys Hammond campus as a visiting scholar with help from a renowned Iranian-American communication professor, Dr. Yahya Kamalipour. At the time, Goodrich was a Ph.D. candidate in journalism communications, and working on her dissertation. She rented an apartment in Griffith near a man named Herbert Goodrich, a Hessville native who would soon become her husband. I dont have a super power, but the first time my neighbor opened the door and walked out of the building, I thought, Oh my God! Im gonna marry this man! she said. Her premonition came true. They married 18 months later. Before leaving Iran, I knew in heart that my true love was awaiting me in the USA, she said. The Romeo-Juliet tie between us testifies how nations can move beyond their political contexts and love each other regardless of what they have been taught about each other through media and propaganda. Within two years, she had already committed what would be considered political crimes to the Islamic regime: she fled Iran, traveled to the U.S. as a journalist and married a foreigner deemed the enemy. It was very risky to return to Iran, so I never went back, Goodrich said. Her heart remains there, though. She urges anyone who will listen anyone who cares to join the ongoing protests and vigils to support oppressed Iranians, particularly women there. And to use #mahsaamini on social media, sharing relevant posts and continue talking about the situation. On Sunday, she is organizing a solidarity event at the Wicker Park Veterans Memorial in Highland from 3 to 5 p.m. Call your senators and Congress members, she said. Ask them to hold the Islamic republic regime accountable for its systematic breach of human rights and to condemn their brutal repression of protesters, she said. I left my family behind. My mother, my three sisters and their children. But I still self-identify as a journalist at heart. A man was arrested Thursday in Indianapolis in connection with a shooting at a Gary tire shop in August that left one man dead and another wounded, officials said. Jermaine Martin, 29, was taken into custody after complying with commands to exit a building in the 5300 block of Lake Boggs Street, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Martin is accused of fatally shooting Said Saad, 47, of East Chicago, and wounding another man on Aug. 29 at Saad's business, Happy Way Tire Shop, in the 1400 block of East Ridge Road in Gary's Glen Park section. Martin was charged Sept. 9 with murder, attempted murder, robbery resulting in bodily injury and unlawful carrying of a handgun with a prior conviction, the Marshals Service said. His case remained sealed, pending extradition to Lake County. Gary police responded to Saad's tire shop around 5 p.m. for a report of an active shooter, officials said. A witness told police a man fired into the shop and fled west on Ridge Road in a dark-colored sedan, police said. Officers arrived to find Saad dead and another person with an apparent gunshot wound to the leg. A large crowd gathered outside the shop after the shooting, and a man asked multiple police officers to stop onlookers from taking video of the crime scene. Martin was found by the U.S. Marshals Service Regional Fugitive Task Force in Indianapolis, with assistance from Indiana State Police, officials said. He was booked into the Marion County Jail. Malik Bunch Booking Photo Malik Bunch, above, is being held at the LaPorte County Jail on a $30,000 cash only bond. MICHIGAN CITY A Hammond man stole an undisclosed amount of currency and damaged an ATM to the point that it was deemed unusable, police said Friday. Michigan City police were notified at 7:05 a.m. Oct. 9 regarding theft from a First Trust Credit Union ATM at their location on U.S. Highway 20. When police arrived, they noticed major damage to the machine, and an audit by a company representative revealed the amount of money stolen, Michigan City police said. Video surveillance aided police in identifying the suspect, and police located his vehicle Oct. 10. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the 2500 block of Chickadee Drive and found evidence linking the suspect to the crime. Malik Bunch, 25, was arrested and taken to the Michigan City Police Department. The vehicle was impounded and processed as evidence. After obtaining a search warrant, detectives found additional evidence in the vehicle, police said. Bunch was charged with theft, a level five felony, and criminal mischief, a class A misdemeanor. He is incarcerated at the LaPorte County Jail and was issued a $30,000 cash-only bond. EAST CHICAGO A teacher at St. Stanislaus School was charged with felony intimidation after allegedly telling a student this week she had a "kill list" made up of students and staff at the 4930 Indianapolis Blvd. school, according to newly filed charging documents. When Angelica Carrasquillo, 25, of Griffith, was asked Wednesday why she wanted to kill herself and others, she reportedly told school officials, "I'm having trouble with my mental health, and sometimes the kids do not listen in the classroom. I also have trauma caused when I went to high school." The alleged threats came to light when a counselor overheard a fifth grade student say while being escorted to Carrasquillo's classroom for recess detention that "I heard Ms. Carrasquillo wants to kill herself and has a list." The student reportedly said Carrasquillo voiced the threat to him directly and told the student he was at the bottom of the list. The Diocese of Gary, which operates the K-8 school, said in a statement issued to parents Thursday that Carrasquillo was removed from the classroom and escorted to the principal's office after the allegations came to light. The principal and an assistant principal said Carrasquillo gave them the name of one student on the "kill list" but did not reveal all the names, a court document reads. "Also while being interviewed, Carrasquillo stated that if she had a car she would be able to fit two dead bodies in the trunk," East Chicago police said. While a student reported hearing Carrasquillo voicing interest in the past about killing herself and others, Carrasquillo allegedly told school officials "she was only joking about it all." School officials said they immediately confronted the fifth grade teacher and sent her home Wednesday afternoon, but East Chicago police said they were not made aware of the situation until four hours later. In a statement that reportedly went to parents Thursday, the Diocese of Gary said Carrasquillo was removed from the classroom Wednesday and had no further contact with students before being escorted off campus once students were safely dismissed at the end of the school day. East Chicago police were then notified around 4:45 p.m. and "assured the principal that the facility was safe and that they could proceed normally with all scheduled learning and school events for the next school day." Classes were held remotely Friday and students were offered access to a school counselor, the diocese said. The diocese and school are cooperating with the investigation and "reviewing what transpired during that afternoon," the diocese said in a public statement Friday. "We are deeply saddened by this event," the diocese said. "School safety is a paramount concern of our schools." East Chicago police said they responded Thursday by obtaining an emergency detention order for the teacher from the Lake County prosecutor's office and she was taken into custody from her home around 11:15 a.m. that day without incident. "Once officers were notified they completed a report and notified the criminal investigation division," police said. "This is still an active investigation and no further statements will be made at this time." WESTVILLE A 31-year-old inmate at Westville Correctional Facility who was reported missing Friday afternoon has been found inside the facility, the Indiana Department of Correction said. Inmate Dustin Lappin was found about 6:41 p.m. Friday evening, according to the Department of Correction. The search for Lappin began earlier in the day when correctional staff saw he was missing in a facility count. Investigators initially said there was no indication Lappin, who is serving time for robbery, had left the facility, according to a notice from the Department of Correction. The notice was issued to the public Friday afternoon "out of an abundance of caution." Department of Correction officials will now work to pursue additional charges against Lappin, the IDOC said. Lappin was sentenced in 2020 to serve eight years behind bars after he was convicted of robbery in Marion County. His expected release date was Jan. 7, 2026, and his last known address was in Clayton, Indiana. Times Staff Writer Lizzie Kaboski contributed to reporting. VALPARAISO A 61-year-old Portage man is accused of repeatedly molesting a young girl, telling her afterward: "What happens in Bill's house, stays in Bill's house," according to a newly filed charging document. Billy Brooks Jr. is charged with felony counts of child molesting and sexual misconduct with a minor, records show. The abuse is alleged to have gone on from July 1, 2019, through Jan. 31, 2021, beginning when the girl was 7, police say. Portage police said they began investigating the case in June after the girl told officials that Brooks had touched her inappropriately while baby-sitting after she got out of the shower. He would put lotion on her back and arms, but then started asking her to remove clothing and touching her in inappropriate ways, police said. She said he also had her sit on his lap, "but she really didn't want to." This incident occurred as the girl's father and his friends were outside, police said. It was after one of those instances that he told her not to tell anyone, according to a charging document. Brooks initially denied doing anything inappropriate, but police said he later told them, "OK, I did touch her accidentally." Brooks is scheduled to make an initial court appearance Monday before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, during which time bond is to be set, court records show. "The Porter County Sheriffs Office is obviously strongly opposed to domestic violence in any form and is committed to the safety of the community in all forms," according to a prepared statement by the department. Every time Jolles introduces a subject, two choices appear at the bottom of the screen. Which one you take dictates the joke in a way that enables you to avoid opinions you might disagree with. Akella uses a similar device, though it asks less about your opinions than your knowledge of references or your demographic. As a result, boomers will get different punch lines (not to mention larger fonts) than millennials will. These specials are the culmination of two worrying hallmarks of the culture today: how fragmentation incentivizes pandering to niches or fandoms, and the cheap, double-edged appeal of interactivity, a useful artistic tool that often becomes a crassly commercial one. These comics are not only aware of all this, but they also adopt the posture of a skeptic more than an evangelist. Their specials are sly enough to satirize themselves. As is so often the case, David Letterman got there first. In the early 1980s, he often simultaneously spoofed and exploited the overhyping of technological innovation, particularly in themed episodes like the custom-made show, written by Chris Elliott and Matt Wickline. It began with a populist introduction: Letterman said he was taking power away from network executives and giving it to the people, letting them decide everything from what he would wear to the order of guests. The studio audiences response to multiple-choice questions, recorded by an applause meter, was the key metric. Of course, the crowds choices gave Letterman a chance to sarcastically marvel about the wonders of democracy. Its asking too much of these young comics to display Lettermans light touch, but also, our current internet age demands a blunter tone. This reveals itself less in the onstage jokes by Akella than in what comes in between the questions for the viewer and the onscreen text that riffs on them. If you click on Gen Z when asked about your age, the script will ridicule you for easily giving up data to TikTok. The shares of the cash-rich special purpose acquisition company that seeks to merge with former President Donald J. Trumps social media company surged on Thursday after Google said it would allow Trump Media & Technology Groups flagship product to appear in its app store. The stock of that SPAC, Digital World Acquisition Corp., was up about 15 percent on Thursday, at one point reaching just over $19 a share. Shares of Digital World have come under pressure because of investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors that threaten the completion of the deal. The decision by Alphabet, Googles parent company, to permit Trump Medias Truth Social app to be downloaded from the Google Play Store was announced late Wednesday. The move was something of an about face for the tech giant, which had said it would not permit downloads of the Twitter-like social media app until it took steps to remove content that promoted violence. But in a statement on Wednesday, Google said that an app was permitted onto the platform as long as it complied with guidelines to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence. What just happened? The 16-year-old girls voice was flat and tired. I think you had a seizure, her mother answered. Her daughter had asked to be taken to the pediatricians office because she hadnt felt right for the past several weeks not since she had what looked like a seizure at school. And now shed had another. Youre OK now, the mother continued. Its good news because it means that maybe we finally figured out whats going on. To most people, that might have been a stretch to call having a seizure good news. But for the past several years, the young woman had been plagued by headaches, episodes of dizziness and odd bouts of profound fatigue, and her mother embraced the possibility of a treatable disorder. The specialists she had taken her daughter to see attributed her collection of symptoms to the lingering effect of the many concussions she suffered playing sports. She had at least one concussion every year since she was in the fourth grade. Because of her frequent head injuries, her parents made her drop all her sports. Even when not on the playing field, the young woman continued to fall and hit her head. The headaches and other symptoms persisted long after each injury. She saw several specialists who agreed that she had what was called persistent post-concussive syndrome symptoms caused either by a severe brain injury or, in her case, repeated mild injuries. She should get better with time and patience, the girl and her mother were told. And yet her head pounded and she retreated to her darkened room several times a week. She did everything her doctors suggested: She got plenty of sleep, rested when she was tired and tried to be patient. But she still got headaches, still got dizzy. She found it harder and harder to pay attention. For the past couple of years, it had even started to affect her grades. Early in September, the mother got a call from her daughters high school. Her daughter was ill and needed to go home. What happened? her mother asked her later. The girl answered: I dont know. I was in class; it had just started. The next thing I knew, class was almost over and everyone was standing around me. That evening one of the girls friends sent the mother a text. I want to tell you what I saw, he said. They were in class, and he noticed that his friends hand started to shake. She seemed kind of zoned out, and she was drooling. It only lasted a minute or so, but it was strange, the boy said. Whether or not Elon Musk ends up acquiring Twitter, his plans have caused consternation because of a simple truth: The owners of social media sites have too much power. Much of the nations public discourse is conducted in forums owned by Mark Zuckerberg and a handful of rival billionaires and is regulated by algorithms concealed from public scrutiny. The oligarchs of the internet not only command larger audiences than the media barons of earlier eras; they operate under fewer constraints. That is because government has abandoned the principle that mass media companies have special obligations to society, and it has allowed a few big social networks to suffocate competition, leaving users and advertisers without practical choices or leverage. Better laws could help to revive competition, restrain harmful behavior and even realize the potential of social media to strengthen American democracy rather than undermine it. In short, policymakers can ensure the question of who owns Twitter, or Instagram or TikTok, doesnt matter quite so much. The best way to limit the power of any individual social media network is to make room for new networks and, perhaps even more important, for third-party sites that allow users to customize their online experience: combining content from multiple sites, controlling what kids can see and other features someone has imagined and needs a chance to make real. Its real simple, one of the participants in the conversation said at one point. You got 100 people, right? Fifty-two of them are Mexicano. I feel pretty good about it. I feel pretty good about my chances of beating your ass. Those two assumptions didnt come out of nowhere. We have had a long-running debate in this country over how to think about racial categories. On the one side there are those, often associated with Ibram X. Kendi and others, who see American society as a conflict between oppressor and oppressed groups. They center race and race consciousness when talking about a persons identity. Justice will come when minority group power is used to push back on white supremacy. The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination, is how Kendi puts it. On the other side, there are others, like Thomas Chatterton Williams, Coleman Hughes and Reihan Salam, who argue that racial categorization itself can be the problem. The concept of systemic racism is built upon crude racial categorization. As Williams puts it, America should fight racism while over the long term getting rid of the categories that come out of the collision of Africa and Europe in the slave trade and the New World. You do that by emphasizing how much all humans have in common and by emphasizing how complex each persons identity is that it includes race but so many other things, too. The last thing you want to do is traffic in the sort of racial essentialist categories that were so rampantly on display during that conversation among the City Council members. That conversation is what happens when the assumptions of the former school of thought are embraced as a matter of course. You dont get a righteous struggle against oppression. You get a bunch of people who assume that public life is a brutal struggle of group against group, and who are probably going to develop derogatory views of people in rival groups. When Eugene Yus small election software company signed a contract to help Los Angeles County organize poll workers for the 2020 election, he agreed to keep the workers personal data in the United States. But the company, Konnech, transferred personal data on thousands of the election workers to developers in China who were writing and troubleshooting software, according to a court filing that Los Angeles County prosecutors made on Thursday. The filing adds new details about the arrest last week of Mr. Yu, whose company has been the focus of groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election. Some of those groups have accused the company of storing information about poll workers on servers in China. Before the arrest, the company repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times. Los Angeles prosecutors initially accused Mr. Yu of embezzling public money by knowingly violating the terms of the companys contract. Since searching Konnechs offices and Mr. Yus home, the prosecutors have also accused him of conspiring with others to commit a crime, according to the new legal filing. It is rare for an executive to face criminal charges for potentially mishandling data. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday. The testimony by Mr. Helson, a witness for the prosecution, seemed to be another setback for the special counsel investigation examining the origins of the F.B.I. inquiry into former President Donald J. Trumps ties with Russia. The trial of Mr. Danchenko appears to be the last chance for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who Mr. Trump had said would expose a deep state conspiracy against him, to obtain a court conviction before his investigation winds down. In November 2021, Mr. Durham charged Mr. Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to the F.B.I. about his sources for certain claims in the dossier, which contains a collection of rumors and unproven assertions suggesting that Mr. Trump and his 2016 campaign were compromised by and conspiring with Russian intelligence officials to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. Although a few of the dossiers claims made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser, that was largely peripheral to the official inquiry. This is the second trial for Mr. Durham, whom Mr. Barr appointed to lead the investigation in the spring of 2019. The first trial, in which Mr. Durham accused a lawyer of providing false information to the F.B.I., ended this year with an acquittal. In the new trial, which began on Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Northern Virginia and in which testimony is expected to conclude Friday, with closing statements likely on Monday, Mr. Durham and his team have had to grapple with significant questions about the quality of their evidence. Mr. Helsons testimony on Thursday capped three days of questioning of him and another F.B.I. prosecution witness, a counterintelligence analyst, both of whom at certain points seemed to undermine the prosecutions case. Mr. Durham at times appeared visibly frustrated with the testimony of the F.B.I. officials. RALEIGH, N.C. At least five people were fatally shot on Thursday as a 15-year-old boy carved a trail of bloodshed through a residential neighborhood in Raleigh, the authorities said, leaving a crime scene that stretched over two miles and setting off a sprawling investigation to determine a motive for the attacks. We dont have answers as to why this tragedy occurred, Chief Estella Patterson of the Raleigh Police Department told reporters during a briefing on Friday morning. The dead include a city police officer, Gabriel Torres, 29, who was on his way to work when he was shot on Thursday afternoon, Chief Patterson said. She identified the other victims as a 52-year-old woman, a 49-year-old woman, a 35-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy. The 15-year-old suspect, whose identity the authorities have not disclosed, is in custody at a hospital, in critical condition, the authorities said. It is unclear how and when he was injured. Two other people were wounded in the shootings, Chief Patterson said: a 59-year-old woman who was in critical condition and a police officer who was treated at a hospital and released. Garlic and onions are two of my favorite foods I have been known to eat roasted garlic cloves like candy so its no surprise that I often find myself surreptitiously smelling my breath and wincing. Studies on the prevalence of bad breath are hard to come by, but research has estimated that up to half of all Americans have been concerned by the smell of their breath over the course of their lives. (The other half clearly lack self-awareness.) The bad news is that smelly breath can have many causes, some more serious than others. The good news is that there are a handful of ways to address it, depending on the underlying cause. I spoke to two restorative dentists who have studied bad breath; an ear, nose and throat doctor; and a periodontist to get their suggestions. Determine if your breath is that bad. One key problem with bad breath is that you cant always tell when you have it, even though everyone around you probably can. A popular and useful litmus test is to cup your hands over your nose and mouth, exhale and then inhale, said Dr. Mark Wolff, a restorative dentist at Penn Dental Medicine. Another method is to lick (yes, lick) the back of your hand a few times, wait a minute for the water to evaporate so that the odor molecules concentrate, then give the back of your hand a good sniff. If what you smell makes you want to keel over, you may want to do something about your breath, Dr. Wolff said. BRUSSELS Russia hit Ukrainian cities from the air for the fourth day in a row on Thursday, and as new missiles fell and bodies from earlier barrages were pulled from the rubble, the death count rose to more than three dozen, officials said. The new toll emerged as Western allies met to figure out how to strengthen Ukraines hand on the battlefield without enlarging the deadliest, most destructive conflict to be fought in Europe since World War II. Prodded by the expanded attacks ordered by Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, Western nations were working to hasten deliveries of sophisticated air-defense systems to Ukraine, and European Union officials said they planned to begin training Ukrainian soldiers on E.U. soil. At the moment when Putin is increasing escalation, we have, in turn, to continue to support Ukraine as much as needed and for how long is needed, the European Unions top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. Take me back to 1990. What was your initial reaction to your promotion? So lets get this right. In 1990, I didnt know my promotion was historic. I thought my promotion was that the miracle happened. I didnt think Id be at the top of the company. I was thinking thats probably impossible. And lo and behold, it happened. I knew I was the first Black person to be a principal dancer. But I wasnt thinking history making; I was just thinking, I got to the mountaintop. Now I know. And throughout my career, Ive understood the gravity of it. You said in an interview, My blackness never bothered me, it bothered other people. How did Houston react? Ive been here my whole life, for 57 years. The city of Houston has seen my face on the stage since 1972, because I was in Houston Ballets first Nutcracker. However, in 1983, when I did my first Sugarplum Fairy, when I turned to face the audience, they let out this huge gasp, because they just hadnt seen this. And then, at the end of the show, we got a standing ovation. From that moment on, the city of Houston has had their arms open, and they have given me a giant hug. The staff had to deal with some things, though. Whenever theres hate mail or anything of that kind, the F.B.I. opens a file, so I know Houston Ballets F.B.I. file on me has to be a mile high. Museo Kaluz keeps its definition of Mexican art loose, and that is one thing that sets it apart as an attraction. Artists do not have to be Mexican, but they must have spent time in the country and made critical work there. That leaves room to exhibit rarely-seen painters, such as the Polish-born muralist Fanny Rabel, and Eugenio Landesio, an Italian who came to Mexico to start the first landscape painting program at the famous Academy of San Carlos. Bringing recognition to artists who were overlooked by history is central to the mission. For example, the collection is rich with work by Gerardo Murillo Cornado, also known as Dr. Atl, who lived from 1875 to 1964 and whose emotional, Winslow Homer-esque landscapes have lately been reconsidered as some of the countrys best paintings. By hanging lesser-known talents alongside widely respected names like the Impressionist Joaquin Clausell, the architect and painter Juan OGorman and the modern-leaning Rufino Tamayo, Kaluz wants to lift up painters such as Francisco Romano Guillemin and Armando Garcia Nunez. To that same end, the collection features an abundance of 20th-century female painters, notable among them Maria Izquierdo, Mercedes Zamora and Olga Costa, and Angelina Beloff, whose skills are often overshadowed by the fact that she was the first of Diego Riveras four wives. Robbie Coltrane, the veteran Scottish actor who played the beloved half-giant Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter films and starred on the cult British crime series Cracker, died on Friday in Larbert, Scotland. He was 72. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Belinda Wright, his British agent. Ms. Wright said that Mr. Coltranes family had not disclosed a cause, but that he had been unwell for some time. Mr. Coltrane veered from the comic to the gritty in a four-decade career in film and television. He was an antihero detective on Cracker (1993-96), a K.G.B. agent turned ally to James Bond in two films, and a gangster who disguises himself as a nun after betraying his fellow criminals in the comedy Nuns on the Run (1990), alongside Eric Idle of Monty Python. But those roles did little to prepare Mr. Coltrane to play Hagrid, a fan favorite from the Harry Potter books whose transition to the big screen would face the sky-high expectations of millions of young readers. On a Sunday stroll up 16th Street in Washington, D.C., years ago, Lonnie Bunch got a hug and a gentle talking-to from an African American woman. Mr. Bunch who at the time was the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which was still under construction, and now heads the entire Smithsonian Institution had been very visible in the media discussing the newest of the Smithsonian museums. She came up to me and said, I know who you are, and she hugged me, Mr. Bunch said with a chuckle. And she basically said, I am so proud of what you are doing, but please dont talk about slavery. You have an opportunity not to have a generation tarred by slavery. I thought that was very powerful. What struck Mr. Bunch about this was that it echoed other conversations he had been having on the topic: Some people did not want the museum to talk about slavery, but others did. On a mild September afternoon, we sat in rocking chairs on her porch, the vibrant landscape spread out before us like a psychedelic terrarium. Southern Appalachian hollows, as these temperate canyons are called, make up one of the most biodiverse environments in the United States. Hummingbirds zipped in and out of a purple buddleia bush; Hugo, an eager-to-please Border collie, stretched out on the porch, smelling faintly of skunk. A rooster squawked, and in the distance you could hear Kingsolvers flock of Icelandic sheep mumbling whatever it is that sheep need to tell each other. Kingsolver and her second husband, Steven Hopp, moved here with their two daughters full-time 18 years ago. Hopp had bought the place years earlier, when he began teaching at Emory & Henry College, a small liberal arts institution a few miles away. He told me that his wife fell in love with his land they met after he invited her to speak to one of his classes and he came with the deal. Since generations of Kingsolvers also settled in this county, its as much a home to her as Kentucky was. But back to Dickens. Kingsolver was touring in England for her 2018 book, Unsheltered, when she discovered that Bleak House, where Dickens wrote much of David Copperfield, was a bed-and-breakfast. Who could resist? She and Hopp were the only guests at the cliffside mansion. Kingsolver settled into the study where Dickens had worked, while Hopp went to bed. I sat at his desk and I just started communing with Dickens, she said. I thought about how David Copperfield was his own story, and Im thinking were in the same boat. Im sure the polite Victorians did not want to hear about poorhouses and orphanages and yet they were waiting each month for the next installment. She went on: I asked him, How do I do that? And he said: Let the kid tell the story. No one doubts the child. It was really late, I got the willies and I went back to the room where Steven was sleeping and said, Hey, I just had this amazing conversation with Charles Dickens, and he said, Did it end well? While the Westerns doomed love story drives the narratives, McCarthy seems most interested in his characters ideas about the nature of time and reality. Characters debate byzantine concepts like S-Matrix theory, string theory and the general relativistic theory of gravitation, and they discuss the ideas of pioneering physicists like Gerard t Hooft, Sheldon Glashow, Ludwig Boltzmann, Richard Feynman and George Zweig, a particle physicist who has corresponded with McCarthy and read his latest work. The Essential Cormac MacCarthy Card 1 of 5 Blood Meridian (1985). Loosely based on historical events, the novel follows a fictional 14-year-old referred to only as the kid as he drifts through the Southwest. Blood Meridian makes it clear that all along Mr. McCarthy has asked us to witness evil not in order to understand it but to affirm its inexplicable reality, Caryn James wrote in her review for The Times. All the Pretty Horses (1992). This best-selling book is an adventure story about a Texan boy who rides off with his buddy to Mexico. The magnetic attraction of Mr. McCarthy's fiction comes first from the extraordinary quality of his prose, Madison Smartt Bell wrote in his review. The Crossing (1994). The novel begins on a small cattle ranch in New Mexico in the last years of the Depression and follows Billy Parham, a teenage cowboy as he repeatedly crosses the border with Mexico. The Crossing is a miracle in prose, an American original, Robert Hass wrote in his review. No Country for Old Men (2005). This fast, violent story centers on a stone-cold killer, a small-town sheriff and an average Joe who stumbles across a leather case filled with more than $2 million. No Country for Old Men is as bracing a variation on these noir orthodoxies as any fan of the genre could expect, Walter Kirn wrote in his review. The Road (2006). The book is a despairing account of a boy and his father lurching across the cold, wretched, corpse-strewn, ashen landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. Mr. McCarthy has summoned his fiercest visions to invoke the devastation. He gives voice to the unspeakable in a terse cautionary tale that is too potent to be numbing, Janet Maslin wrote in her review. In one passage, McCarthy writes with reverence about gravitons hypothetical elementary particles with no mass and describes one as a creature imagined but never seen. In another, he compares the incremental nature of time passing to a bird trapped in a barn that moves through the slats of light bird by bird. Whose sum is one bird. Even if hes not practicing mathematics and physics, theres something beautiful to him about the unyielding quality of a difficult thought, said Krakauer, who read early versions of the novels. Hes drawn to the aesthetics of it. It remains to be seen how fans of McCarthys earlier works will respond to the novels, which are wildly different from anything hes done before. At times, the narratives feel disjointed and bogged down in arcane details and enigmatic concepts, for example, in a passage where Bobby discusses the theories of the physicist Steven Weinberg: Still he figured that if you had these neutrino-nucleon collisions that spun off the W particle and gave you a lepton with the opposite charge youd have to get a Z particle every once in a while. And since the Z carried no charge this meant that the neutrino coming in would stay a neutrino. Its fascinating to look at a writer whos 89 and whos writing a book that feels pretty far away from his early works, said Jenny Jackson, an executive editor at Knopf who worked on the books with McCarthy. (They communicated mostly through written comments on the page, she said.) When people say a Cormac McCarthy novel, were all accustomed to thinking about books with blistering violence and with dark, black-and-white views of morality, books that juxtapose good and evil, books with haunting depravity. These books are different in that way. But the novels are also recognizably McCarthys, laced with transcendent language and profound insights into human nature. The word translation connotes movement: carrying meaning from one language to another, or shifting bodies from one place or one context to another, all while recognizing that moving entails loss and change. These books dwell in that potent space between setting out and arriving. R.F. Kuangs fourth novel, BABEL (Harper Voyager, 544 pp., $27.99), is set in an alternate 19th century where the work of translation generates powerful, empire-fueling magic. Oxfords Royal Institute of Translation Babel trains students to inscribe silver bars with pairs of words in different languages whose meanings are related but divergent; what is lost in translation is caught by the silver, creating magical effects. Thus, the pairing of treacle and triacle (Old French for antidote) can heal a body of poison as long as the words are spoken by someone fluent in English and French, able to grasp both meanings simultaneously. The more native the speaker, the more powerful the effect. Orphaned in China at a young age, and on the verge of succumbing to the cholera that killed his family, Robin Swift is rescued by Prof. Richard Lovell, who heals him with a silver bar and brings him to England as his ward. Robin enters a world of wealth and privilege at Babel, into exciting academic work and a cohort of brilliant friends but the dissonance between Oxfords dreaming spires and the atrocities their scholarship enables soon becomes impossible to endure. Morgan Stanley, stung by volatile markets, reported a big drop in its earnings in the third quarter, sending its stock lower on a day when other banks were buoyed by their latest financial results. The Wall Street firm, which reported its latest earnings on Friday, said that revenues from advising companies on mergers as well as underwriting stock and bond offerings fell 55 percent in the third quarter, versus the same period last year. The business of buying and selling stocks recorded a 14 percent drop. Revenue in the banks closely watched debt, commodities and currency trading business, however, rose 33 percent, which was better than analysts had expected. But that one bright spot was not enough to boost the banks overall bottom line. In all, Morgan Stanleys third-quarter profit dropped nearly 30 percent from a year ago, to $2.6 billion, slightly less than analysts had expected. Shares of the bank were down about 5 percent on Friday, underperforming banks that have more exposure to consumer operations, like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, which have held up better than Wall Street-focused businesses. He also cast doubt on the idea that Russia would switch off its oil spigots as readily as it had stopped sending natural gas to Europe. Russia has more options to sell its oil, and shutting down wells could create future problems for the Russian industry, Professor Sonnenfeld said, so President Vladimir V. Putin would be poisoning the Russian economy for years. Philip K. Verleger, an energy economist who began his career as a Washington policy adviser 50 years ago, said that the production cuts announced by OPEC Plus are likely to have less of an impact now because the circumstances are quite different. The United States was more dependent on foreign oil in the 1970s, he said, so OPECs aggressive moves led to gas rationing and lines at filling stations. But the United States is a bigger producer today, and some drivers are choosing vehicles that use little to no gas. Electric vehicles are beginning to penetrate the market so rapidly that if OPEC pushes too hard now, they could really accelerate the move off oil, Mr. Verleger said. In past economic cycles, higher energy prices have reduced demand, ultimately putting a lid on prices. European governments are providing a test case by spending billions of dollars on price controls and direct stimulus payments to offset higher energy costs while encouraging their citizens to voluntarily turn down the thermostats. President Emmanuel Macron of France has called such voluntary conservation efforts energy sobriety. But Europe is also investing heavily in new infrastructure to support imports of liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., which is supercooled so it can be shipped on tankers. Theyve been signing a flurry of deals to construct the facilities required to reconvert L.N.G. to vaporous gas in Germany, France, Belgium and elsewhere. American exporters may be among the biggest beneficiaries of this trend. The United States began exporting L.N.G. six years ago and became the worlds largest exporter in the first half of this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Paul M. DeSisto, executive vice president of the wealth management firm M&R Capital Management, says that whatever direction energy prices take, he sees the big energy companies in the S&P 500 index returning to something closer to their 20-year average of 8.3 percent of the market value of the index. At the end of September, energy stocks represented 4.5 percent of the S&P 500. Given how important energy is to the world economy, I think it will return to something closer to the longer view, he said. His firm uses two energy-focused exchange-traded funds in client portfolios: the $35 billion Energy Select Sector SPDR, managed by State Street Global Advisors, and the $7 billion Vanguard Energy fund. The two funds have a slight difference in composition as they track different market indexes. The State Street fund owns the 21 energy stocks in the S&P 500 index, while the Vanguard fund includes a mix of more than 100 large, midsize and small U.S. energy companies. But the returns after the 0.1 percent management fee charged by both funds tend to be similar because Exxon Mobil and Chevron are the two biggest holdings in each fund, representing more than a third of the total assets. The State Street fund returned 33.76 percent in the first three quarters of the year, while the Vanguard fund returned 34.71 percent. Other changes are affecting the way of life in Reno. By the time Ms. Pixton, 37, wants to go shopping after her shift ends around 11 p.m., stores that were once open are now closed after scaling back their hours during the pandemic. When she does make it to Walmart or Target, she often finds scant offerings on the shelves because of continuing supply chain issues and the fact that the Walmart, one of the few locations for miles, draws people from neighboring cities. Inflation F.A.Q. Card 1 of 5 What is inflation? Inflation is a loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys. What causes inflation? It can be the result of rising consumer demand. But inflation can also rise and fall based on developments that have little to do with economic conditions, such as limited oil production and supply chain problems. Is inflation bad? It depends on the circumstances. Fast price increases spell trouble, but moderate price gains can lead to higher wages and job growth. How does inflation affect the poor? Inflation can be especially hard to shoulder for poor households because they spend a bigger chunk of their budgets on necessities like food, housing and gas. Can inflation affect the stock market? Rapid inflation typically spells trouble for stocks. Financial assets in general have historically fared badly during inflation booms, while tangible assets like houses have held their value better. In a city whose economy is partly driven by getting goods to people across the country expeditiously, Ms. Pixton is left scrambling to find Uncrustables frozen sandwiches for her two sons and the right brand of dog food for the familys Labrador retriever. This isnt a sustainable pattern, said Ms. Pixton, whose husband works as a foreman at an HVAC company. We make six figures, and were still stuck in this struggling pattern. In May 2021, Ms. Pixton received a raise to $19 an hour, up from $16. It was a market-rate adjustment that UPS put in place across the country to stay competitive when hiring and retaining workers. But in January, it went back down to $16. As a union steward, Ms. Pixton found herself telling other workers the bad news. Fifteen people quit that week, she said. Its been quite hellish, Ms. Pixton said. It was not a completely livable salary, but it was something where we could struggle and not have to get a second job. A spokesman for UPS said that, starting on Oct. 2, another market-rate adjustment brought hourly pay for part-time workers back to $19 an hour. WASHINGTON Twenty countries most vulnerable to climate change are considering halting their repayment of $685 billion in collective debt, loans that they say are an injustice, Mohamad Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, said on Friday. When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund conclude their annual meetings in Washington on Sunday, Mr. Nasheed said he would tell officials that the nations were weighing whether to stop payments on their debts. The finance ministers are calling instead for a debt-for-nature swap, in which part of a nations debt is forgiven and invested in conservation. We are living not just on borrowed money but on borrowed time, said Mr. Nasheed, who brought global attention to his sinking archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean by holding an underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. We are under threat, and we should collectively find a way out of it. Mr. Nasheed said poor nations were locked in a Sisyphean trap: they must borrow money to ward off rising seas and storms only to see disasters made worse by climate change destroy the improvements they make. But the debt remains, and often countries are left to borrow once again. Remember Custardgate? Deborah and Howard each cooked a custard and put it in the fridge to chill. But then! When Deborah was layering her trifle, she grabbed Howards custard by mistake. Well! This left Howard no choice but to use Deborahs custard in his trifle. I couldnt forget the whole frivolous affair if I wanted to and I dont. In its early days, the pleasure of The Great British Baking Show was in the reassuring fantasy it built under a high-pitched country tent an endless source of cheeky innuendo, serious amateur baking and absolutely nothing else. The worst thing imaginable was that someones Battenberg cake would come out a bit asymmetrical, or that one baker might accidentally use another bakers custard. Sue Perkins, then a host, described Custardgate as either a mistake, or the most incredible case of baking espionage, not because of actual drama or suspicion, but because problems on the show tended toward the truly wholesome and amusing. Taking them too seriously was a sport. From the start, The Great British Bake Off as its known in Britain seemed completely unlike the chef-driven, adrenaline-fueled, corporate-branded American competition shows that dominated at the time, where contestants casually announced their intention to win not to make friends! It promised to disrupt the genre. Lesson Overview Featured Article: NASA Spacecraft Accomplishes Mission and Smashes Asteroid Into New Orbit by Sarah Scoles What do you know about asteroids? Do you ever worry about one hitting Earth? On Sept. 26, a NASA spacecraft smashed into a small asteroid, changing its orbit suggesting that a deadly space rock could be deflected in the future. In this lesson, you will learn about the dramatic mission and what it means for the safety of our planet. In a Going Further activity, we invite you to design your own creative method for defending Earth from a threatening asteroid. Earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adamss administration released an impressive blueprint for day care and early childhood education in New York, a plan that would address the needs of the citys most financially burdened families. Nearly a third of children in New York under the age of 5 were infants and young toddlers whose families qualify for subsidized care, but only a portion of them were receiving it, largely because there were too few facilities to meet the demand. Almost 60 percent of census tracts in New York were identified as child care deserts, meaning there were too few seats for the number of children in any given community who needed them. Universal pre-K, the signature policy of the de Blasio years, had been a great success 76 percent of pre-school-age children were now enrolled. But there was still a lot to be done for families with younger charges at a time when the average cost of care for a child under 3 was somewhere between $10,000 and $19,000 a year. Covid had only aggravated the problem of supply, leaving roughly 400 day care centers closed for good during the first year of the pandemic. On Wednesday, the City Council moved toward the goal of establishing universal child care, passing legislation that would create an advisory board to come up with a five-year plan to devise and orchestrate it. But how that might play out in light of the mayors preference for a means-tested approach one that would provide free care only to those in most need, rather than to anyone is unclear. (A spokesman for City Hall called the councils vote an important step in the right direction.) Recent months have brought the strain of confusion and upheaval. Part of the mayors plan to create additional facilities would come in the form of a tax abatement meant to incentivize owners of residential and commercial properties to turn available spaces into nurseries and preschools in compliance with health and safety codes. But its hard to imagine anyone wanting to open a new day care center, given that the city has failed to pay so many of its contracted providers. But the Myers-Briggs test had an intrinsic thematic quality that the others lacked. Most existing tests concluded that each personality category had a positive and a negative: An extrovert was good, an introvert was bad, for instance. But Myers felt that each personality type had strengths and weaknesses. Rather than build a test that favored one over another, hers was judgment-free. She and her mother described their personality types in terms of strengths and gifts and how those could clarify whether a person was the right fit for a job, a career or even a social affair. It felt simultaneously analytic and supportive, giving people a language to describe their best selves. We sometimes say that Isabel was the first positive psychologist, Elizabeth Styron, chairwoman of the nonprofit Center for Applications of Psychological Types, an M.B.T.I. research center, said in a phone interview, referring to a branch of psychology that took off in the 1980s. Its about whats right with a person, not whats wrong with a person. The mother-daughter team became a creative sales force as well. Myers tweaked and promoted her product while searching for guinea pigs. Her sons high school class took the test, as did incoming students to the George Washington University medical school. Soon dozens of medical schools around the country were added to her list. She wrote all the questions (for instance Do you prefer to a) eat to live, or b) live to eat?) and scored all the tests by hand. All the while she pushed back against skepticism and sexism. Critics pointed out that neither Briggs nor Myers had a background or advanced degree in psychology; they were merely amateur housewives with an unusual hobby. And, the critics said, their personality indicator had no scientific foundation, no peer-reviewed research to validate it. Some said it was little more effective than reading someones horoscope. Myers kept going nonetheless, and in 1956 she started working with Henry Chauncey, the president of the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, to publish the M.B.T.I. The tool posited that the four dimensions of personality produced a total of 16 possible types, all noted with initials. The first dimension is whether an individual is an introvert (I) or extrovert (E). The second is how a person perceives the world, either through sensing (S) or through intuition (N). A third focused on how an individual makes decisions, either in a thinking (T) manner or a feeling (F) manner. The final dimension is based on how a person deals with the outside world, either judging (J) or perceiving (P). Judging is a structured, organized approach, while perceiving means someone has an adaptable, flexible, spontaneous relationship with the outside world. Myers herself was a proud I.N.F.P., which she described as someone with a great faithfulness to duty and obligations who did not pass judgment on others. Her mother was an I.N.F.J. There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were. Bill Barr, Mr. Trumps attorney general, said this in his testimony to the committee, describing his frustration with trying to bat away the unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud that Mr. Trump kept bringing to him claims that were rejected by every federal and state court to consider them in the months after Election Day. When Mr. Barr resigned in December 2020, Mr. Trump attempted to replace him with Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer in the Justice Department who had expressed a willingness to help Mr. Trump subvert the election. The plan failed only when top department officials threatened to resign if Mr. Clark got the job. He knows its over. He knows he lost, but were going to keep trying. According to testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trumps last chief of staff, Mr. Meadows said this to her soon after Mr. Trump called Georgias secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and tried in vain to shake him down for 11,780 votes, exactly one more than Mr. Bidens margin of victory in the state. That was on Jan. 2, four days before Mr. Trump stood before tens of thousands of his supporters at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., and repeated many of the claims of voting fraud that he had been repeatedly told were false. He knew that many of those supporters were armed, because they had refused to pass through the magnetometers that had been set up for Mr. Trumps safety. But he didnt care. As he said, according to Ms. Hutchinson, Theyre not here to hurt me. As the committee revealed on Thursday, the Secret Service was aware of the threat of violence and specifically of an armed attack on the Capitol more than a week before Jan. 6. Their plan is to literally kill people, one tipster wrote. Mr. Trump was informed of the threats, too, before he whipped the mob into a frenzy and urged them to march on the Capitol. These are only a few examples pulled from the immense body of evidence that the Jan. 6 committee has compiled for the American people and the world to see. Together they paint a clear and damning picture of the man who sat in the Oval Office for four years and will almost certainly try to again. Before that happens, Mr. Trump must be required to answer for his actions, as Mr. Thompson rightly said. It sounds so basic and yet, with Mr. Trump, it has remained so elusive. That may be on the verge of changing. In addition to a criminal prosecution for the Jan. 6 insurrection, Mr. Trump could well be charged with federal offenses over the removal from the White House of hundreds of documents, some highly classified. He also faces a potential prosecution in Georgia for his efforts to subvert the election there. These prosecutions would not by themselves solve all our problems. They would not neutralize the danger of the Republican Party, which is now infected from coast to coast with proudly ignorant conspiracymongers, wild-eyed election deniers and gun-toting maniacs. Led by Mr. Trump, the party has morphed into the greatest threat to the Republic since the Confederacy: a revanchist cult that refuses to accept electoral defeat. The Times reported on Thursday that a vast majority of the Republican candidates for top federal and state offices around the country either question or deny the 2020 presidential outcome, despite the lack of any supporting evidence. Still, prosecutions would send a critical message to those who have put their careers and even lives on the line for American democracy or are considering doing so in the future: that their sacrifices are worth it. That when they come forward and speak the truth, the system responds with accountability. That when other people, especially the most powerful people, dont play by the rules, they face consequences. The country cannot escape its impoverishment and its dangerous political instability unless all children have access to quality education. Countries whose school systems exclude students native languages correlate closely with those that have the lower national development, and the World Economic Forum rates Haiti among the lowest of all in terms of education and innovation. No more than 10 percent of its students who enter primary school manage to graduate from high school, roughly the same percentage of Haitians who have some fluency in French. When I was a schoolchild at the prestigious Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague in Port-au-Prince, my teacher of French and Haitian literature, a French Catholic brother, had us memorize texts that taught us to despise Kreyol as a worthless language. I was also made to write hundreds of lines saying I will never speak Kreyol again. Some parents and teachers even make children scrub their tongues with soap, lemon and vinegar to metaphorically wash away the Kreyol. In 1982, a decree known as the Joseph Bernard Reform promised change. It required that Kreyol be the language of instruction for the first 10 years of schooling and sought to make French a second language of instruction in the sixth year. That would have given Haitian students a chance to function in both languages while prizing their national identity. But for the past 40 years, this decree has largely been either ignored or misinterpreted. Haitian education has suffered across every academic subject even French, in which the adults at the front of the classroom may be only marginally more proficient than the students in the seats. Many teachers use their native Kreyol to approximate a narrow range of French sentences that they have simply memorized by rote. In October 2014, Michel Martelly, the Haitian president at the time, asked then President Francois Hollande of France to send retired French teachers to Haiti to help rebuild the Haitian mentality and the Haitian man. The next year, Mr. Hollande pledged to repay Frances so-called moral debt to Haiti, in part by investing in its educational system and more fully honoring its place as a Francophone nation. As recently as last year, experts at the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, with help from the French Development Agency, produced a curriculum guidance framework for the Haitian education system that would make French the sole language of instruction from the fifth year onward. I consider the description of Haiti as the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere to be a gross misrepresentation; Haiti is, rather, the nation most impoverished by the effects of white supremacy. The emissary of Charles X imposed an insurmountable financial ransom, but the French educational model, a supposed war bounty, was every bit as brutal: a linguistic ransom, a powerful tool for mental colonization. Haitis French-speaking elites, who have enforced that mandate, have always lived as far away as possible geographically, socially, culturally, religiously and linguistically from the majority Kreyol-speaking population. They have never created a system to adequately teach French to those who did not grow up speaking it. Instead these Haitian elites favor teaching in French an option thats guaranteed to multiply the privilege they already enjoy and to ensure that most of their fellow citizens cannot share it. President Xi Jinpings first decade in power has been a study in hubris. He has purged political rivals and adopted heavy-handed policies that have imperiled Chinas economy. He laid the groundwork for a crackdown in the Xinjiang region that drove Muslim citizens into thought reform camps and has alarmed and alienated neighbors with an aggressive foreign policy. And things just might get worse. The Chinese Communist Party congress, which opens on Sunday, is expected to hand Mr. Xi another five years as general secretary of the party. Rather than a reassuring sign of continuity, his third term as the top leader of China could spell years of uncertainty as problems mount around an unbound leader who has shown little inclination to share decision-making. Mr. Xi fell into the same trap that has ensnared dictators throughout history: He overreached. He has concentrated more power in his hands than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, looming so completely over the country that hes been called the chairman of everything. Rivals real and imagined have been removed through an extensive anti-corruption campaign. Two more top former officials were jailed last month, accused of financial crimes and disloyalty to Mr. Xi. Mr. Xi has openly accused other politicians of plotting against the party from the outset of his purge ten years ago. He values fealty to himself as more important than competence, and subordinates compete to prove their loyalty by carrying out his policies to the extreme rather than raising harsh truths about negative consequences. On Thursday, in what was probably its final public hearing before the election, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol revealed new details about former President Donald Trump. Those details included Secret Service records documenting his determination to join a mob he knew was armed and headed for violence. The hearings have provided an indispensable record of an attempted coup that failed but that, as Representative Liz Cheney pointed out, threatens to recur. As the committee waits for the (unlikely) testimony of Mr. Trump, the torch now passes to other actors who hold the power to achieve accountability for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and to prevent another one from happening. This task fits into three key areas. Potential Disqualification The added proof of Mr. Trumps involvement in the events of Jan. 6 renews the question of whether elections officials and courts can disqualify him from holding public office under the Constitution. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment provides for the disqualification from office of any person who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or who has given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. The prospect of Mr. Trump being disqualified may sound unlikely, but it is not fanciful a New Mexico county commissioner who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection was recently removed on just this basis. To the Editor: Re Wrapping Up Case, Jan. 6 Panel Plans a Trump Subpoena (front page, Oct. 14): On Thursday, the House select committee held what is possibly its final public hearing on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The importance of this hearing was not so much that it revealed any startling new revelations; it did not. Nor that the committee will subpoena Donald Trump to testify, a request that he will surely fight in court. What is stunning, and seemingly irrefutable, is the weight of the evidence about what transpired that day and those who were involved. The cumulative evidence paints a stark picture of Donald Trumps role in precipitating the assault on the Capitol. It is not clear if the House committee will criminally refer Mr. Trump to the Justice Department. What these hearings have made abundantly apparent is that Mr. Trump knew that he had lost the 2020 election and yet suborned his vice president, Mike Pence, to illegally refuse to certify the electors. The hearings have also made manifestly clear that in terms of character, temperament, morals and ethics Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit to ever serve again as president. If these hearings have made his re-election highly unlikely, if not impossible, they will have delivered a consequential and lasting benefit to our country, and to the world. For the chief justice, Walter Stahr explains in Salmon P. Chase: Lincolns Vital Rival, the Milligan case was only in part about events in Indiana in the recent past; it was also about the scope of federal authority in the violent present. Chase was well aware that, in many parts of the South, the state civilian courts provided no protections for blacks; only the federal military courts would punish whites for crimes against blacks. Republicans in Congress, still struggling with Johnson for control of Reconstruction policy, were outraged. The Chicago Tribune spoke for many Republicans when it said that this decision along with another that concerned the ability of Congress and the states to require a loyalty or test oath for former Confederates who wished to serve in public capacity showed a deliberate purpose of the Supreme Court to thus usurp the legislative powers of the government to defeat the will of the loyal men of this nation in the interests of a rebellion crushed by military power. The remedy for this problem, The Tribune wrote, was simple: We think the time has come for Congress to pass a law requiring the concurrence of three-fourths, or at least two-thirds of the whole bench, to pronounce authoritatively against the constitutionality of any act of Congress. Republicans took heed of the argument. In 1868, as Congress awaited the courts decision in another case, Ex parte McCardle, that could undermine its military Reconstruction policies, the House of Representatives debated a bill that would require, according to The New York Herald, a concurrence of two-thirds of all the members necessary to a decision adverse to the validity of any law of the United States. Democrats condemned the bill as one of the very gravest of all the revolutionary measures brought before the last or present Congress tending to subvert and destroy the institutions of the country. If Congress could override the deliberate judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared Representative Samuel S. Marshall of Illinois, as recorded by The New York Times, there would be established a despotism, not of one man, but an oligarchy or a mob, elected by the people, but usurping powers never given to it by the Constitution or the people. Representative John Bingham of Ohio, author of the 14th Amendment and a Republican, disagreed. It would be a sad day for American institutions and for the sacred cause of Republican Governments if any tribunal in this land, created by the will of the people, was above and superior to the peoples power. The Supreme Court, he continued, in a reference to its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, had disgraced not only itself as a tribunal of justice, but it had disgraced humanity when it dared to mouth from its high seat of justice, the horrible blasphemy that there were human beings, either in this land, or in any land, whose rights white men were not bound to respect. The bill passed the House and Senate but it was never signed into law. President Johnson simply refused. In February, the House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Johnson, who was eventually acquitted in the Senate by a single vote. After this, as far as I can tell, Republicans in Congress made no further effort to force the issue. Lets start with the name: The fish is really known as the sarcastic fringehead. Fringehead refers to the frills lining its forehead. And Watcharapong Hongjamrassilp, a biologist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok who studies the fish, said scientists called it sarcastic not because of its withering sense of humor, but for its propensity to lash out at anything threatening its nest even humans. They may have been referring to an ancient Greek word that means stripping off flesh. Once you get past its name, the fishs behavior is fascinating. Watch sarcastic fringeheads long enough and youll see them parachute their mouths outward like a lions mane. The display exposes a curtain of flesh that beams with yellow outlines, indigo tie dye and an ultraviolet glow, as if it were a dangerous Demogorgon from Netflixs Stranger Things dressed for an EDM festival. Naturalists and filmmakers have documented the remarkable behavior during fights between fringeheads before. But we had no scientific support that this behavior is used just for fighting and not for courtship or some other purpose, Dr. Hongjamrassilp said. Dr. Hongjamrassilp and his colleagues discovered that sarcastic fringeheads performed their outlandish displays not to attract mates or to fight other species but rather to fend off their own kind, potentially when competing for scarce resources. Had he not been oblivious to Ms. Adus crush, he might not have waited until she left Ridgeway High to tell her that he, too, wanted to be more than study buddies. I thought she was really attractive, he said. I thought someone with her vivacious personality and friends all around her would never date me. In 2012, after sophomore year, Ms. Adu transferred to Houston High School, about 20 minutes away from Ridgeway, in Germantown, Tenn. Her mother had heard good things about the schools honors and advanced-placement programs, and Ms. Adu was ready for a challenge. Also, getting away from Mr. Canales, who had become a close friend, seemed a good idea academically. For better access to his table in chemistry class, she had intentionally botched assignments; students who were underperforming sat closer to the teachers desk. Ms. Adu and Mr. Canales never lost touch after her transfer and were texting daily. In the spring of 2013, she told him she had been asked to junior prom. He was like, Thats not happening, she said. In the same text exchange, he asked her to be his girlfriend. Ms. Adu has no trouble recalling the date: It was April 7, 2013. I screamed. I put the phone down and ran laps around my house. I felt like I was president of the entire world. I said, Id love to be your girlfriend. Their first date, a few weeks later, was a Percy Jackson movie. Ms. Curtis, who had raised her daughter to embrace cultural differences, liked Mr. Canales immediately. Mr. Canaless family approved of Ms. Adu right away, too. My parents had told me in no uncertain terms they wanted me marrying a Jewish girl, he said. But given his struggles at home, they were just happy Brittney was a normal person. At the end of his junior year in 2013, Mr. Canales had graduated high school. I wanted out, he said, so he took summer classes and enrolled at the University of Memphis as a 16 year old. In 2014, when Ms. Adu graduated, she followed him there, despite acceptances to other colleges. If I didnt love him so much, I would have been like, Why didnt I go to Maine or Minnesota or other places I had gotten into? she said. But I think our relationship is worth more than a degree from anyplace. Lucas Timothy McMahon had just finished seeing The Cher Show on Broadway in January 2019 when he was introduced to Elise Marie MacPherson at a friends birthday party. He was eager to talk about the performances. I started doing some re-enactments, he said. Ms. MacPherson, an actress who goes by Ellie, found them hilarious. Mr. McMahon, 32, and Ms. MacPherson, 34, had been introduced at the party, held at Es Bar on Manhattans Upper West Side, by their mutual friend Nicole Capatasto, a theater publicist. Mr. McMahon, the vice president of Alchemation, a theater production company, and an executive producer of the Broadway musical Six, recognized Ms. MacPherson, now starring Off Broadway in The Play That Goes Wrong, from past parties for theater people. We had never talked, but I remember seeing her across the room and thinking, That girl is really cute, but shes really out of my league, he said. When Ms. MacPherson messaged him on Instagram the day after the party to say she was still laughing about the conversation they had the night before, he asked her on a date. (They went to an Upper West Side wine bar, but quickly discovered that neither liked wine.) Fourteen months later, they were a committed couple and Broadway had shut down because of the coronavirus. Ms. MacPherson, then living in Hamilton Heights, thought the pandemic could be a barometer of their compatibility. At first she packed two bags and spent a few nights at Mr. McMahons Upper West Side apartment. In June 2020, when her lease ran out, the arrangement became permanent. What do you think it means? she asked. I was brought back to the time my best friend had asked me about the fame and fortune tattoo, not to mention my encounters with various Chinese-speaking people who had come up to me in the street or cornered me in locker rooms with pointed questions of their own. I crossed my fingers and told her. Instead of complimenting me on the beautiful, permanent version of my name needled onto my arm, my Arabic-speaking friend paused. Apparently, tattoo No. 2 was actually one of those 404 Error messages, when an online search comes up blank. So my arm said, more or less: Result not found. Congratulations for getting a true internet tattoo, she said. As a reluctant pioneer in the field of bad tattooing, I spent years afterward stubbornly telling people it meant the eternal search. It sounded more elegant than I didnt find a correct translation of my name on the internet. Everyone I ever lied to about the meaning of my tattoo waited a beat before we spent a moment laughing together. The other person was laughing because I was stupid, and I was laughing because I wanted to seem like I was in on the joke. It would have been so much more convenient if being stupid had protected me from the consequences of my own stupidity. So what did my tattoos mean? I had the technical explanations, but the best way to think about them came from a chat I had with an older Chinese-speaking woman in a university locker room when we were changing clothes. She asked me what I thought the Chinese characters on my shoulder meant, and I told her. Then she asked me what I was at school to study, and I said law. She frowned and told me the tattoo was better suited for someone in the arts that I should hurry up and get into the arts. We both laughed. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Elon Musk gave the Ukrainians a digital lifeline by providing them with the Starlink internet service operated by his rocket company, SpaceX. But those actions landed the worlds richest man in an international controversy on Friday when Mr. Musk said his company could not indefinitely fund Ukraines use of Starlink, which has become crucial for the Ukrainian Armys communication as it advances into territory occupied by Russia and defends against continued Russian attacks. Mr. Musk made his comments on Twitter after CNN reported that SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon last month asking it to take over the funding of Ukraines use of Starlink. About 20,000 Starlink terminals, which were designed to work with satellites orbiting in space to provide online access, have been delivered to Ukraine since Russias invasion in February. Mr. Musk, who did not mention the Pentagon, talked about the difficulties of funding the service. The play provides a historical touch point for our fractious political present. The director John Collins said: I think there are several ways to frame why you should listen to those you disagree with, and sometimes it is because one should allow for the possibilities that the people you dont agree with might have something intelligent and worthwhile to say. The other reason, though, is to really understand the seriousness, and sometimes the danger, of these other arguments. Drawing verbatim from the debate transcript, the play ends with an imagined conversation between Baldwin and Hansberry that was inspired by a 1961 discussion about Black Americans in culture. (In addition to Baldwin and Hansberry, the other participants included the essayist and publisher Emile Capouya, the journalist and social commentator Nat Hentoff, the poet Langston Hughes and the writer and critic Alfred Kazin.) While they focused primarily on the question of Black writers in American literature, they also considered the status of Black Americans. On the subject of crafting Black characters, Baldwin explained, Faulkner has never sat in a Negro kitchen while the Negroes were talking about him, but we have been sitting around for generations, in kitchens and everywhere else, while everybody talks about us, and this creates a very great difference. Hansberry confirmed, Which is a different relationship, because the employer doesnt go to the maids house. She continued as Baldwin and the rest of the room erupted in laughter, We have been washing everybodys underwear for 300 years. We know when youre not clean. The recording captures Baldwin and Hansberrys intimacy and the joy they felt in each others company. The following has been edited for length and clarity. What caused you to undertake such an ambitious project? I saw black goat-hair tents when I was a teenager traveling in the Middle East and even then, I realized that although I had studied history, I had heard almost nothing about nomads. But in places like Syria and Jordan, they were still part of everyday life. My book came into focus years ago, around the same time as millions of people were fleeing the Middle East, when Britain was voting to close itself from Europe, and when I was trying to change my own life. I wanted to write something that would tell another side of history and that would also celebrate movement, open borders, a more open world. Besides your journeys to the London Library and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where did you travel to do research? In the 1990s I stayed in Kenya with Wilfred Thesiger his whole life was spent among nomads. Since then, Ive had conversations about and with nomads in many places in the world, and I wrote different sections of the book on the move around Europe. But the most important journey I made specifically for this book was to Iran, where I stayed with the Bakhtiari, a nomadic tribe that winters on the Mesopotamian plains, near the Iraqi border. In late spring, when all the grasses dry up, the nomads take their flocks, families and tents up into the Zagros Mountains, and that was where I first found them, on a high plateau where the snow had melted and the valleys, carpeted with irises and dwarf tulips, had excellent grazing for their sheep and goats. In the book you write that nomads are important to the way we settled people live, just as the way they are crucial to the way we understand ourselves. Can you say a bit more about this? Humans began to settle and learned to domesticate crops and animals around 12,000 years ago. The process took a long time, but has been immensely successful given that most of the eight billion of us are now settled and over half of us now live urban lives. That success has now become problematic our cities, like much else in our world, are in crisis. The need for a new way of living and of thinking has never been more necessary. Yet most of us are entirely unaware of our nomadic heritage, because it is not in our history books. How can we know who we are and who we might become if we dont know where we have come from, who we have been? And those of us who find it challenging to live in one place, or at least find that settling down makes huge demands on us, can find solace in the knowledge that they might still be wired to live on the move. How did immersing yourself so thoroughly in the lives and histories of nomadic groups change your philosophy of travel? I wish I could tell you that I have learned to travel lightly, but unfortunately that didnt rub off on me! But the journey of writing this book has changed me in many ways. Perhaps the most important is the recognition of my dependence on, and my place in, the natural world. Its easy to forget when you live in a city. So now when I travel, I look and listen and even smell harder, forcing myself to pay more attention to where I am. Can you elaborate on how traditional nomadism relates to modern-day travelers and digital nomads? The nomads I included in the book are and were obliged to obey three rules. They all had to recognize their dependence on the natural world they are nomads who move because they need to find fodder for their herds of sheep, goats, horses, whatever, and out of that comes a respect for their environment. They are all forced to live lightly, to take with them only what can be carried. And they are only able to succeed if they are flexible in their thinking the nomad world is constantly in flux and always dependent on the shifting climate. Their lives are shaped by these three obligations. They are not to trash the land they depend on, not to overburden themselves or their animals, and to keep an open mind about what happens next. Modern travelers and digital nomads will recognize the need to travel lightly and to be nimble in their thinking, flexible in their assumptions. LOS ANGELES Ivan Vasquez arrived in Los Angeles in 1996, a teenager who had crossed the border to find work and improve the lot of his family in Mexico. As a newbie washing dishes in restaurants, the young man from the majority Indigenous state of Oaxaca was often called Oaxaquita, or Little Oaxacan, by other Mexicans because of his deep tan skin and diminutive stature. Still, he eventually rose to become a regional manager at Baja Fresh and opened his own restaurant in 2013, a celebration of his native states unique cuisine. Powered by mole and mezcal, the restaurant, Madre, has won rave reviews from food critics and grown to three locations in a city that embraces multiculturalism. So Mr. Vasquez, now 41, was shocked this week to hear disparaging remarks about Oaxacans from Nury Martinez, a powerful Latina politician who was president of the City Council. A recording of a closed-door meeting in 2021, in which Ms. Martinez was heard referring to Oaxacans as a lot of little, short dark people who are so ugly, was published over the weekend by The Los Angeles Times, creating a firestorm that has yet to subside in the countrys second-largest city. Ms. Martinez, who also made derogatory comments about Black people, resigned from the Council on Wednesday. Two other Hispanic council members who were heard in the meeting, in which they discussed ways to enhance Latino political power, are facing a cascade of calls to give up their seats as well. Its painful to realize the discrimination never went away, Mr. Vasquez said. This is not what you expect of L.A. Most importantly, some say, the once-rewarding business of legislative bargaining and high-stakes lawmaking has lost its luster. The big deals are most often cut in the Capitol leadership suites these days, and presented as a fait accompli to the rank-and-file. Given the reluctance among many to take politically tough votes, members have few opportunities to push their own amendments, and their influence is often reduced to railing against the finished product on the Senate floor when few are listening. I think the Senate has essentially, for most purposes, stopped legislating, said Mr. Blunt, 72, who opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate. The opportunity to be a committee chairman is not what it was 12, 15 or even 10 years ago. The opportunity to take a bill through the committee process and go to the Senate floor and see it debated and voted on is almost nonexistent. Then there is just the plain nastiness of the current social media-fueled political climate. The lack of respect for our institutions and the vicious nature of politics today is getting tiresome to people, said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who mourned this years retirees. They have gotten seniority, and they would be able to make a real difference. Their influence and effectiveness would only grow if they stayed in the Senate. Too many are concluding it is no longer worth it. On one hand, the likely departure of Mr. Sasse, 50, to Gainesville, is something of a surprise, considering he was just re-elected to a second term in 2020 and showed some independence in a willingness to challenge Mr. Trump. Democrats saw him as someone to court when trying to craft bipartisan legislation, and some Republicans regarded him as a potential presidential prospect. But Mr. Sasse also made it clear from the very beginning of his service that he was skeptical of the value of an institution that was losing ground with the public and its own members. In his maiden speech in 2015, he attacked the partisanship employed by both sides. WASHINGTON Former President Donald J. Trump responded on Friday to a promised subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault with a lengthy, rambling letter that attacked the panels work, reiterated false claims of widespread voting fraud and presaged a potentially bruising battle over whether he could be compelled to testify about his role in the riot and his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. In a 14-page missive that did not address whether he would comply with the subpoena, Mr. Trump perpetuated the same lies that had fueled the attack and boasted about the size of the crowd that had amassed to hear him speak before marching to the Capitol and staging a violent siege. The former president has indicated privately to aides that he would be willing to testify to the House panel but would like to do so live, according to a person close to him, a prospect that would prevent video of him from being clipped or edited in a manner he dislikes. The letter he released on Friday a conspiracy theory-filled rehash of his many grievances and false assertions underscored the risks for the committee of giving Mr. Trump an unfettered public platform. The presidential election of 2020 was rigged and stolen! the letter began in all capital letters. Mr. Trump dedicated page after page to repeating that lie about the 2020 election, which he lost to President Biden, a fact he has repeatedly refused to acknowledge. When two planeloads of asylum seekers were flown to Marthas Vineyard last month, Peola Denham Jr. recognized an echo of his own experience from six decades ago one nearly forgotten in the long history of Black Americans struggle for civil rights. What really took me back, recalled Mr. Denham, 73, is that when the people got to their destinations, they didnt get what they were promised. The migrants on Marthas Vineyard, who were primarily from Venezuela, found themselves repeating history, pawns in a political fight. The promise as dozens of them would later recount to lawyers and journalists was of jobs and resettlement help. Instead, they arrived with no warning to the community, which nevertheless scrambled to find them food and shelter. For Mr. Denham, in the spring of 1962, the promise came in the form of bus and train tickets offered to his family and other Black Southerners by members of the White Citizens Council, a segregationist group, to take them to Northern and Western states where many were promised jobs and housing. The Russian military has lost 6,000 pieces of equipment since invading Ukraine in February and has been expending munitions at a rate it cannot replace, as Western sanctions have damaged Moscows defense industry, according to a newly released U.S. government report. The United States also began detecting that Russia was short of critical supplies for diesel engines, helicopter and aircraft engine parts and its armored tanks as early as May, according to the report. Moscow has also had trouble fulfilling its sales to foreign militaries. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the United States has focused its efforts on two fronts: supplying Ukraine with significant military aid and hurting Russia economically through broad sanctions and export controls. Russias ability to build sophisticated precision weapons was already being hurt by export controls, which limit Russias access to advanced technology. Western sanctions have also created shortages of less complex technologies. For example, Russia is experiencing a shortage of bearings, which has undermined the production and repairs of tanks, aircraft, submarines and other military systems, according to the U.S. government report. Every Saturday, Father Joe offers Mass for the children of the center, and they are free to pray in whatever religion they choose. But in the midst of the Buddhist prayers, he said, we make sure to slip in a Hail Mary. As with Catholic priests, Buddhist monks in Thailand are not expected to be vegetarians, but Father Joe still gave it a shot. I tried, but I couldnt do it, he said. I ate a lot of chicken noodle soup and instant noodles on the side. But as a religious figure in Klong Toey, he was motivated, he said, to be pure as snow, adding, I couldnt do anything stupid, like getting drunk. At the beginning, it was hard to be pure. I was a hypocrite, he said. I drank privately. When he had a younger mans legs, he wandered Klong Toeys passageways and food stalls. When he does get out now, people still greet him, Hello, Father Joe! as if they were Catholics themselves. Hed walk along and talk to everybody, even though his Thai wasnt that good: How are you doing today? Are you selling well? said Amphorn Iamphorn, 58, who has been selling grilled toast with butter and sugar here for 23 years. For me, it has nothing to do with religion; hes just a good man. Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting. The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This weeks issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter with the Australia bureau. On one of my earliest visits to Australia, as a small child in the 1990s, I couldnt believe the extraordinary wealth of kids programming on terrestrial television. (We were not a cable family, and had strict limits on screen time at home.) While our parents snoozed and the cicadas chirped outside, my siblings and I closed the shutters and parked ourselves in front of the box. For hour after hour (or so it seemed), we drank in distinctively Australian programs such as Play School, a show somewhere between Britains Blue Peter and the PBS classic Sesame Street, albeit without puppets. Bananas in Pajamas, a program about a pair of wacky six-foot-tall banana twins, was another favorite. (We were a bit young for Heartbreak High, the Australian teen drama rebooted for Netflix this year.) Bananas in Pajamas was never quite as popular in the United States as it was back home. But other Australian hits have had astonishing success elsewhere in the world. Skippy, the 1960s program about a bush kangaroo, was broadcast throughout the Commonwealth, while the all-singing, all-strumming quartet of The Wiggles gave new meaning to kid rock. And now there is Bluey. The series, about a family of the Australian cattle dogs known as Blue Heelers, topped Nielsens streaming charts in August; Disney, to feed its audiences yawning demand, even plans to unban an episode from its streaming platform that it had previously nixed over jokes about flatulence. BRUSSELS The beginnings of a new air defense network for Europe came into focus at NATO headquarters on Thursday following a meeting of the alliances defense ministers, and the Spanish government announced that it would ship Hawk antiaircraft missiles to Kyiv. Russias cruise missile and rocket strikes on civilian areas across Ukraine this week have been among the most punishing since the war began, and have galvanized Kyivs allies to accelerate the countrys air defenses, including the United States moving to speed up the deployment of an air defense system to Ukraine that it uses to protect the White House. This latest effort, the European air-defense network, is being led by Germany. Called the Joint Air Defense Initiative, and known more commonly as European Sky Shield, officials said it had thus far been joined by 14 other nations, spurred by Russias missile and rocket strikes. Its intent is to standardize an air-defense network of short, medium and long-range missiles and radars for use in defending against a potential attack by Russia, and to save money by purchasing the equipment together. The countries that signed onto the Sky Shield initiative are Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, according to a German ministry of defense official. Image Smoke over Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Monday after Russian missile strikes. Credit... Finbarr OReilly for The New York Times KYIV, Ukraine They exploded with dull thuds on the outskirts of towns and detonated in the center of cities with deafening booms. Strikes in Kyiv, the capital, left cars burning and splatters of blood on the sidewalks. Through the week, the Russian military fired its most intense barrage of missiles at Ukraine since the start of the war in February, killing at least three dozen civilians, knocking out electricity across swaths of the country and overwhelming air defenses. One thing the missiles didnt do was change the course of the ground war. Fought mostly in trenches, with the most fierce combat now in an area of rolling hills and pine forests in the east and on the open plains in the south, these battles are where control of territory is decided and where Russias military continued to lose ground this week, despite the missile strikes. They use their expensive rockets for nothing, just to frighten people, Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament with Ukraines European Solidarity party, said of the paltry military effect of the Russian cruise missiles, rockets and self-destructing drones used in the strikes. They think they can scare Ukrainians. But the goal they achieved is only making us angrier. The war in the south and east continued apace through the strikes, with Russia mostly falling back but also attacking on one section of front in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. On Monday and Tuesday, the most intense days of Russias missile strikes, the Ukrainian Army continued its offensive in the Kherson region in the south, reclaiming five villages over the two days, according to the military command. Ukrainian forces also took back a village in the east. The Kremlin continues to struggle to message itself out of the reality of mobilization and military failures, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, wrote in an analysis published Thursday. The Kremlin continued its general pattern of temporarily appeasing the nationalist communities by conducting retaliatory missile strikes. The war is now separated into two largely unconnected arenas: the battles in the sky, in which Russia is seeking to demoralize Ukrainian society and cripple the economy by using cruise missiles and drones to destroy heating, electricity and water infrastructure as winter sets in; and the battles on the ground, in which Ukraine continues to advance against Russian forces in two areas of the front line. Image Ukrainian soldiers dismantled an abandoned Russian vehicle for parts in Novomykolaivka, Ukraine, on Sunday. Novomykolaivka was retaken by Ukrainian troops last week. Credit... Nicole Tung for The New York Times Russia has been using even the newest addition to its arsenal, Shahed-136 kamikaze drones purchased from Iran, principally for strategic strikes far from the front line, rather than in efforts to slow the Ukrainian attacks. Shahed-136s will not generate asymmetric effects for Russian forces because they are not being used to strike areas of critical military significance in a way that directly influences the frontline, the Institute for the Study of War wrote. The drones that get past air defenses instead buzz into cities, blowing up electrical power stations and municipal boilers used to heat neighborhoods in the centralized heating systems used in Ukraine. Over the past 24 hours, the Russian Army and air force attacked around the country with missiles, rockets and self-destructing drones, from the region around Kyiv, the capital, to Mykolaiv in the south, near the Black Sea, the Ukrainian General Staff said in its regular morning report. The enemy is not halting strikes on critical infrastructure and civilian objects, it said, listing 88 strikes, including with short-range rocket systems near the front line. The strikes have refocused Ukrainians attention on the war in cities where a sense of normalcy had been returning, including Kyiv. Even successful advances for the Ukrainian Army have been bloody and costly as the Russian military has been skirmishing and firing artillery to cover its retreat and continuing attacks in Donbas. Fighting raged along the entire front and in cross-border skirmishing with Russia in northern Ukraine overnight Thursday to Friday, the military command said in a morning statement. Jeremy Hunt, who was appointed Britains chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, is a former foreign minister and a pragmatist from the ideological center ground of conservative politics. The selection of a moderate with government experience appeared intended to restore calm to financial markets. Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain named him to replace Kwasi Kwarteng, whom she had fired the same day, cutting short his tenure after just 38 days on the job and after he had introduced a tax plan that backfired and rattled financial markets. The dizzying speed of the turnover in a post that is normally associated with measured, and sometimes staid, authority sent a jolt through British politics, sharpening criticism of Ms. Truss from within her own party. Speaking at a news conference, Ms. Truss called Mr. Hunt one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians and he shares my convictions and ambitions for our country. The goal for Princess Amalia of the Netherlands as she went off to college last month at the University of Amsterdam was for her to live life like a regular student as much as possible, moving into a house with other students and studying politics and law. The reality for the 18-year-old future queen turned out to be something altogether different. On Thursday, her parents, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, said that she had moved back home and was largely confined to one of the royal familys palaces in The Hague because of fears that she would be attacked or abducted. It has enormous consequences for her life, Queen Maxima said at a news conference on Thursday during a state visit to Sweden. It means that shes not living in Amsterdam and that she cant really go outside. It was a rare peek into life for the Dutch royals, who rarely share details about their private lives or matters of security, and represented something of a shock in the Netherlands, where high-profile figures can live their lives relatively unbothered. With a new wave of Russian airstrikes this week that slammed into the capital and more than a dozen other cities, Western officials are under increasing pressure to speed the delivery of missiles, launchers and other sophisticated air defense systems to help protect Ukraine. Some are already on the way. A first shipment of high-tech, heat-seeking missiles from Germany so new that even Berlins forces have not deployed them yet was delivered Tuesday. France, the Netherlands and Spain pledged this week to send more air defense missiles too. And the United States said it would hasten delivery of two missile launchers, the type that have protected Washington since 2005. Those defense systems fire missiles from mobile launchers to intercept incoming aircraft, missiles, rockets or other projectiles, and are crucial to protecting Ukraine in ways that its relatively small and struggling air force cannot. Ukraine has air defense systems of its own, including old Soviet-era weapons, but it is using up ammunition at a great rate, and both Kyiv and its Western allies say it needs much more. We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes, we will step up our support, and in particular, we will provide more air defense systems to Ukraine, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said in Brussels. KYIV, Ukraine In just two days this week, Russian forces fired more than 100 cruise missiles and dozens of exploding drones at cities across Ukraine, far more than the nations aging air defenses were ever expected to encounter. And yet fewer than half made it to their targets, Ukrainian officials say. Ukraines success in knocking down those projectiles, and the death and destruction caused wherever missiles slipped through, has reinvigorated calls by officials in Kyiv for Western countries to provide more sophisticated defensive weapons systems. At a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, the United States and other allies readily agreed, pledging to rapidly provide the weaponry. But for all the gaps made clear by the bombardment, which killed at least 19 people and scarred some two dozen Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian patchwork air defenses have proved to be one of the great successes of the war, and among the most unexpected. And Ukraines response to the attacks underscored how far the air defense units have come since President Vladimir V. Putin ordered his forces to invade on Feb. 24. On Monday, the first day of the bombardment, the countrys air defenses took out more than half of the roughly 80 cruise missiles fired, according to Ukraines military. And on Day 2 of the attack, only eight missiles were able to hit their targets out of a total of 28 fired, the military said. It said Ukrainian forces had also destroyed nearly 50 explosive drones this week. The figures could not be independently confirmed. Some of the wounded tried to crawl away to escape the gunfire. Others bled to death on prayer mats as people tried to drag them to safety. But the snipers and officers kept pulling their triggers, firing bullet after bullet into men and young boys at a worship area where Friday Prayer had been underway. The horrific scene unfolded on Sept. 30 in Zahedan, a city in southeastern Iran that is home to the ethnic Baluch minority, after a small group of worshipers emerged from the Great Mosalla prayer complex to confront security forces posted at a police station across the street. The protesters chanted antigovernment slogans and threw rocks at the officers, prompting the security forces to fire indiscriminately into the crowd, according to witnesses. As the demonstrators scattered, the gunshots stalked their retreat back toward the complex, where thousands were still praying. JERUSALEM Violence and unrest continued on Friday in pockets of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, as tensions rise sharply in what has been the deadliest year in the West Bank since 2015. Set against the backdrop of an Israeli election campaign, the unrest capped several days of violence in Israel and the occupied territories in which two Israeli soldiers were killed in Palestinian attacks and a total of four Palestinians were killed during Israeli raids. Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians during an early morning raid in Jenin, in the northern West Bank. Israeli settlers also entered Huwara, a Palestinian town that Israelis regularly pass through to reach nearby settlements, vandalizing property and clashing with residents for the second day in a row. Settler leaders said they were responding to Palestinian stone throwers. A growing number of states are pushing high school seniors to file the federal financial aid form because evidence suggests that students who complete the form are more likely to attend college. Five states Alabama, California, Illinois, Louisiana and Texas now require high school seniors to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, according to the National College Attainment Network. New Hampshire will join the crowd in the 2023-24 school year, and at least a half dozen other states are considering similar policies. Other states, including Colorado, have taken interim steps to encourage schools to promote the form. FAFSA completion rates nationally are rising again after dropping during the pandemic but still havent returned to pre-2020 levels, said Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives with the attainment network. About half of high school seniors completed one for the 2021-22 academic year. A quick review: The FAFSA, administered by the Education Department, collects details about student and family finances and serves as a gateway to grants, scholarships and loans for higher education. Students and their parents file the form when applying to college and resubmit it each year. The latest version, for aid to be awarded for the 2023-24 academic year, became available online on Oct. 1 and uses financial information from 2021. Jennifer Diamond Haber SOSi, a technology and services contractor to the U.S. government, names Jennifer Diamond Haber VP president for communications. Diamond Haber has served as a producer at both ABC and CBS News and as a VP at MSLGROUP. She was most recently senior vice president, of brand & communications at PM Hotel Group. In her new post, she serves as SOSi's senior communications executive responsible for leading corporate and executive communications, as well as media and government relations, community engagement, brand management and integrated marketing. "Jennifer is a creative visionary with a unique and diverse mix of media and corporate experience," said SOSi president and CEO Julian Setian. Roberta Lippi Brunswick Group promotes Roberta Lippi to head of its Sao Paulo office, effective immediately. Lippi has been with Brunswick since 2013, most recently serving as a partner. She previously worked as a reporter for several Brazilian business publications and coordinated the corporate communications department at Brasilprev Seguros e Previdencia, a pension management company. "Roberta has developed an extensive network and deep knowledge of the South American market, playing a key role in broadening our capabilities in Sao Paulo and connecting with the firm's global network to advise clients on critical issues they face in the region," said Brunswick Group CEO Neal Wolin. Brian O'Shaughnessy Hims & Hers Health, a digital platform that offers access to treatments for conditions including those related to sexual health, hair loss, dermatology, mental health and primary care, hires Brian O'Shaughnessy as its first chief communications officer. O'Shaughnessy has served as head of global communications at Skype and led global corporate communications and public affairs at Google. He most recently served as head of communications at AI-powered creator platform Triller. South Korea has hired Qorvis to handle PR, strategic communications and media management services. The Publicis Groupe unit has a five-month contract valued at $175K. Qorvis CEO Michael Petruzzelo and senior VP Brad Klapper are among the six-member Korea team. The firm reports to Chang Woo Lee, first secretary at Koreas DC embassy. South Korea scrambled jets on Oct. 13 after North Korean warplanes flew close to the demilitarized zone between the countries. The regime of Kim Jong Un, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary, launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on Oct. 14. It has launched more than 40 missiles this year. Kim has declared that North Koreas nuclear forces are fully prepared for actual war. The Boca Raton Airport Authority wants pitches for a three-year PR and marketing communications campaign to promote its value to the community and the positive economic impact that it has on the south Florida region. A PASSENGER in a car which was rear-ended in Tullamore last year suffered whiplash, the local District Court heard. The driver of a Toyota Landcruiser which collided with a Toyota Yaris pleaded guilty to careless driving at Arden Road, Tullamore. Sergeant James O'Sullivan told that court that at about 4.30pm on September 11 last year gardai attended the scene of a minor road traffic collision. It was established that a Landcruiser driven by Ciaran Doolin (44), Ballincloghan, Kilcormac, struck a Yaris from behind as that car had slowed down and stopped to turn right. Sergeant O'Sullivan said a male front seat passenger in the Yaris suffered whiplash as a result of the collision. Donal Farrelly, solicitor for Mr Doolin, said his client, a father of two who had no previous convictions and had never been in trouble before, had a momentary lapse of concentration, resulting in the accident. Judge Andrew Cody said it was a usual kind of accident where somebody was turning right and he gave Mr Doolin credit for an early plea of guilty. Mr Farrelly said his client was fully insured. Judge Cody imposed a fine of 400 and said there would be no disqualification from driving. Annmarie Kirwan an anticoagulation nurse at the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore has received a Warrior Award at Thrombosis Ireland VTE Exemplar Awards on World Thrombosis Day. Annmarie was nominated by her patients and Thrombosis Ireland for her exceptional care and dedication to her patients and VTE, Patient Safety & Optimal recovery of each of her patients. Enda Dowd from Athlone is a patient of the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore and he presented the Warrior Award to Annmarie. Speaking about his experience of his diagnosis he said, I went on holidays to America April 2014 and I noticed my left leg was showing signs of swelling and discolouring so I got it checked while there but I was told it was ok. When I got home it got significantly swollen, red, hard, like concrete. I knew I had to get it checked so I went to my GP and they sent me to Tullamore Hospital and I was diagnosed with a DVT and was transferred immediately into intensive care where the blood clot in a short amount of time started to move towards my heart and by all accounts, I am very lucky to be here today. I have been at the Tullamore clinic ever since and they have been brilliant. I am thankful my condition is extremely stable and the team have kept a very good methodical look at it and its all good so far. I would appeal to anyone who suspects a clot to act fast and see a doctor, its no joke. Dont take any chances with your health. Tullamore Hospital is lighting up the front entrance as part of the Thrombosis Ireland Awareness Campaign and encouraging people to educate themselves on the signs of blood clots and act fast if they suspect a clot, which they say can happen to anyone, young or old. Clots are preventable in many cases and very treatable if caught on time but can be potentially fatal if the signs are ignored. The latest figures suggest that 1 in 12 Irish people will experience a blood clot in their lifetime. Thrombosis occurs when a blood clot blocks a vein or artery. If the clot later breaks off and travels to the lungs it can prove fatal. One in four people who get a clot will die from it. Annmarie Kirwan, Clinical Nurse Specialist from the Anticoagulation Clinic at Tullamore Hospital says, I am delighted to receive this award from our patients and Thrombosis Ireland. This is recognition of all the work and support being provided by our team in Tullamore Hospital. Prevention and awareness is key when we dealing with blood clots. We ask our patients and wider community to know and understand the signs and symptoms and to act fast if you suspect a blood clot. Blood clots can be very serious and need to be treated quickly. While staying healthy and active can help prevent blood clots, people should seek medical help immediately if they have one or more of the following symptoms; swelling or pain in one leg or calf with associated warmth or redness in a leg, shortness of breath or rapid breathing, chest pain, which may be worse when you breathe in, or if you have a cough and are coughing up blood. Research has discovered you are more likely to get a clot if; You are admitted to the hospital and for 90 days after you go home, Are pregnant or have had a baby less than 6 weeks ago, Have active cancer or are receiving cancer treatment, Have one or both legs immobilised, for example in a leg cast Are overweight or have a BMI greater than 30 Other factors which can heighten your risk of clots include increasing age, smoking, using oral contraception or having had a blood clot before. Louisea Burke, Director of Nursing at Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore says, If you're at risk of blood clots for example, you're in hospital follow the advice of your Doctor about preventing clots. This may involve wearing stockings that improve your blood flow or taking medicine to reduce the risk of clots (anticoagulants). There are also things you can do to help avoid clots. Keep moving even if youre sick in bed, try to move your legs and feet every 90 minutes and drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration. You should also avoid sitting for long periods, smoking and drinking alcohol. Catriona McDonald, Hospital Manager Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore says, On behalf of the management team at the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore I would like to congratulate Annmarie and the VTE team for all their work and support for patients. The Hospital is delighted to support Thrombosis Ireland in raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of blood clots and the key steps that people can do to manage their health and prevent serious illness. Thrombosis Ireland founding member and Thrombosis Patient, Ann Marie ONeill, remarked: We would like every person in Ireland to be aware of Thrombosis and know their risk and not to be afraid to ask for a blood clot risk assessment. We would like them to be informed of the signs & symptoms of a blood clot and to seek immediate action if they experience symptoms by, contacting their doctor. The HSE and Thrombosis Ireland have developed a Blood Clot Alert Card, to be given to all patients as they are discharged from the hospital. Click the following link to view it https://bit.ly/3VuJAAO or log in to Thrombosis Ireland www.thrombosis.ie INTERNATIONAL Credit Union Day is an important date in the credit union calendar. It is a date that is celebrated in credit unions throughout Ireland and across the world. This year International Credit Union Day will be marked on Thursday, October 20 You might ask what does International Credit Union Day mean to me? There is a simple answer to this question International Credit Union Day reminds members (and potential members) of the benefits of being a credit union member, both for themselves and for their community. On the 20th Oct credit unions, across Ireland and around the world, will mark the day with different events but, they will all have one thing in common and that is people! It is worth remembering that members around the world may have different cultures, speak different languages or hold different beliefs but they all have one and the same goal to make a better life for themselves, their families and their communities. Being a part of your local credit union can help you reach this goal! Like all credit unions, Tullamore Credit Union holds its members at the centre of everything it does we know that the strength of our credit union comes from the strength of our members you, the people of Tullamore and its surrounding areas! We also recognise, support and are involved with many local community groups, sporting events and local charities and that is why this years International Credit Union Day will be celebrated in style! 248 women and children have lost their lives through domestic violence in this country since 1997. The women were poignantly remembered last Thursday at a conference in the Court Hotel, to mark the 25th Anniversary of Offaly Domestic Violence Support Service (ODVSS). Among the long list of names displayed, was our own Ashling Murphy who was killed in January of this year during what was a violent attack along the canal line in Tullamore. The Chief Executive Officer of ODVSS, Ann Clarke said it was fitting to remember all of the women that have died since the inception of ODVSS. But she added, ''one life is too many.'' She said the conference, with RTE journalist and broadcaster Eileen Dunne as MC, was about what we know now, and how we can shape the future to eliminate violence in the country. The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, had been due to attend but was called to Brussels. Instead she sent a video message in which she expressed her admiration for ODVSS. ''You are making such a real difference to the lives of women, men and children'' she said. ''The breath of your work is striking.'' She noted that the service had 2,700 client interactions just last year and these Included 188 new client contacts. ''Each of whom would have been met with support, empathy and hope at a time when they needed it the most,'' she said. She also noted that ODVSS was the only service in the midlands to support male as well as female clients. She remembered Ashling Murphy, adding, ''as you gather in Tullamore today it's only right that we remember Ashling, who is never far from our thoughts. The killing of Ashling Murphy led to mourning throughout the country, not just for Ashling, but for so many other victims, and led to a determination that we must have zero tolerance regarding violence against women.'' In June the Minister launched her Zero Tolerance strategy, which she termed in her video message as an ambitious 5 year programme, to reform and achieve a society which does not accept these forms of abuse or the attitudes that underpin them. ''It's informed not just by the two previous strategies but by the experiences of victims, including those working on the front line. I was really glad to accept in person the views of 51 different groups right across Offaly, collated into one submission by Tullamore Rotary Club,'' the Minister said. She also said Offaly was on the priority list for refuge accommodation and she along with other agencies including TUSLA were at an early stage of engagement with key stakeholders to see how best to take forward the development of safe accommodation in the county. ''I really look forward to the successful outcome of this,'' she added. Councillor Clare Claffey who launched the conference said she supported the Minister in her call for Zero Tolerance. ''There is no place for violence. Everybody deserves to feel safe, in their own home, and on the streets. We all deserve that and it should be our norm. I don't understand why it isn't our norm and why we have to continue this fight,'' she said. She praised ODVSS for their work, remarking how they often go above and beyond what is expected of them. June Kelly Chair of ODVSS spoke of the humble beginnings of the service, which started with a part time voluntary group in 1997. ''St Vincent de Paul donated space in Offaly Street, supported by a donation by Tullamore Lions Club for basic needs such as carpet tiles and furniture,'' she said. She outlined how volunteers identified the stigma attached to victims who were described as battered women. She said ''ODVSS can credit the success of the service to the huge support given by local businesses and front line services, who share the desired outcome to help to keep women safe,'' she added. She also paid tribute to CEO Anne Clarke for her tremendous work with the service. Other speakers included Lisa Marmion who spoke about how children are affected by domestic violence and how they are often forgotten. Detective Superintendent Sinead Greene highlighted the work of the Gardai. These were followed by a panel discussion and questions with panellists including Molloy Buckley who was one of the founding members of ODVSS and has worked with the organisation since 1997. 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. Issa Rae is calling out the people in Hollywood who have been making an effort to save Ezra Millers career amid all of the controversy surrounding the actor. For some backstory, Ezra was arrested multiple times in Hawaii this year for assault, was accused of harassing a woman in Germany, was accused of choking someone [...] A new Canada-U.S. dispute has been quietly simmering for months, and boiled over on a public stage Thursday. Canada's ambassador says the U.S. is holding a trusted-traveller program 'hostage' as part of an ongoing disagreement, and she unloaded on the move at a Washington event. Rumble 15 Oct 2022 Two climate campaigners managed to evade security at the National Gallery in central London on Friday before defiling Vincent Van.. The father of schoolgirl Molly Russell has urged social media companies not to drag their feet waiting for legislation, as a.. Belfast Telegraph 14 Oct 2022 Some 502 settlements have been liberated in the northeast Kharkiv region where Ukrainian forces last month advanced deep into Russian lines, Ukraine said. North Korea early Friday launched a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters and flew warplanes near the border with South Korea, the Souths military said, further raising President Biden released an official White House memo Friday demanding a comprehensive assault weapon ban in the wake of the fatal mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina. The worlds richest man, whose Starlink internet service is critical to the Ukrainian Army, said he could not indefinitely fund the systems use in Ukraine. WASHINGTON (AP) The Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces during the war with Russia, U.S. officials said Friday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions. A Pentagon spokesperson said the department has been in touch with SpaceX regarding the Starlink system, but declined to answer whether a letter was received or provide any details about the communication and whether it involved the pay issue. Sabrina Singh also would not say to whom any letter may have been sent or when the communications with Musk began. Musk's Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraines communications needs. In addition to the terminals, he tweeted that the company has to create, launch, maintain and replenish satellites and ground stations. CNN was the first to report the Musk request. The Starlink satellite internets vital role in Ukraines defense cannot be overstated. It has, for example, assisted front-line reconnaissance drone operators in targeting artillery strikes on key Russian assets. A senior military official on Friday made it clear that the U.S. believes the system has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide U.S. assessment of the Ukrainian battlefield. In a tweet on Friday,... The King has praised the importance of the countryside as he sent a special message to the Emmerdale cast and crew for their 50th anniversary at the National Television Awards. 'This means so much to us every year, especially this year,' Philip Schofield told fans RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) A North Carolina mayor said that five people including a police officer were killed in a shooting in a residential area. Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said that multiple people were shot on the Neuse River Greenway around 5 pm. She said that the police department told her around 8 pm that the [...] The shooter who killed five people along a walking trail in North Carolina's capital city is a 15-year-old boy who has been hospitalized in critical condition, police said Friday. 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 : Jill Wellington) Mealtimes with kids can be stressful as some kids tend to be fussy eaters. Parents consider it more challenging when children decide they don't want to eat a particular food served on the table or food they know kids used to enjoy, per Safe Splash. Many parents argue and resort to promising rewards to get their children to have a few bites of healthy food without having any meltdowns or tantrums. Parents do everything they can and make it their mission to make mealtime more calm and efficient, as it usually appears chaotic and loud. Kids who regularly enjoy family meals are 35 percent less likely to have eating disorders while 24 percent are more likely to eat healthier foods, and only 12 percent less likely to be overweight, per the 2011 study, "Family Meals Can Reduce the Risk of Eating Disorders," published by Cornell University. Despite being a draining activity, family meals are considered an important routine that brings enormous benefits to everyone's well-being. Read Also: Eating Habits: Feeding a Child With Autism Spectrum Activity that involves kids getting ready to eat To avoid having a difficult mealtime with kids, give them an allotted time, approximately five minutes, to prepare and wrap up their current activities so they won't cry for being made to eat a meal immediately. This way, parents can feed their toddler or younger child without making the experience difficult. Parents are highly encouraged to establish an activity or routine that would remind their kids that they're about to eat meals. For instance, you can ask them to wash their hands before they sit down and explain the essence of good and proper hygiene. If kids are old enough, you can also treat the pre-meal time as an opportunity to introduce them to household tasks such as setting up the table and laying out napkins. Additionally, parents need to make a routine or fixed mealtime routine so kids would know if they're getting their main meals or just snacks. It also gives parents more chances to relax without keeping kids hungry and waiting for food, which usually leads to tantrums. Set a time for meal time, Baby Bum Shower says. Creating a positive relationship with food For kids to avoid having tantrums during mealtime, parents should know how they can make their children fall in love with food so they can enjoy it without actually forcing them to eat. If kids have a positive relationship with the food, you don't have to constantly call their names and repeatedly remind them that they should wrap up before the food gets cold. When kids are stressed at the table, their stress hormone cortisol rises, which reduces the kid's appetite making them less likely to eat. Thus, it is important to make them love food so they can stay calm at mealtimes. On the other hand, parents should also practice staying calm as negative energy can be transferred to the young one. Dr. Jennifer Cohen suggests parents give their kids a calm environment and choose the food they're certain their kids would like to have. Related Article: Does Eating Fried Food Have Negative Effects on Children's Health? Photo: (Photo : ANGELA WEISS) American rapper, Kanye West, opened up about his status with his former wife, Kim Kardashian. The "Gold Digger" rapper praised her business success, adding that the American media personality is like a hybrid and she's not just Marilyn Monroe as she's a fashion person, a mom, an activist, a lawyer, and a multibillionaire. The "Praise God" rapper told US Magazine that his ex-wife is one of the most beautiful people. After almost seven years of marriage, the two filed for divorce in February 2021. Now the exes share four children, North, nine years old; Saint, six years old; Chicago, four years old; and Psalm, three years old. The two were legally declared single in March. However, the "Praise God" rapper expressed his disappointment, claiming that the school where his kids are studying indoctrinated them to make them another part of the system, and they are also not in favor of their schools. While the "Flashing Lights" rapper remains vocal about his criticisms of his kids' school, he always ensures he puts the children's wellbeing first as it also remains his main priority. Read Also: Scary Movies: Should Parents Allow Kids to Watch Horror Movies? Kardashian reflects on special moments with four kids The SKIMS founder previously debuted the "Ciao, Kim" she co-designed with Dolce & Gabbana at their show during Milan Fashion Week, while her four kids watched from the audience along with Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian. On Sunday, the 41-year-old mom shared a photo on Instagram from the event where she poses with her kids. She captioned the adorable family shot, "Amore." Everyone was smiling in the photo except Psalm in the sweet black-and-white photo, which shows the kids each wearing their unique ensembles. North made her runway debut, modeling Balenciaga's 51st Couture Collection presentation during Paris Couture Fashion Week. She attended the event serving her signature grunge style as she wore a tattered Balecianga Speed Hunters sweatshirt with tattered denim jeans. She also received attention for her fashion choices when she was filmed stepping out for the fashion week while wearing her dad's Pastelle varsity jacket from the never-released 2009 fashion line. The kids also shared a special moment with their dad, who shared a photo hugging his three kids as the "Dark Fantasy" rapper discussed how the legacy he made for them influences his decisions. He writes in the caption that his kids don't know what their daddy has gone through the many years to secure brands that will one day be handed down to them, People reported. Ye argued that men's voices also matter The "Heartless" rapper claims in an exclusive interview that he had to fight with his former wife for his voice to be heard in their co-parenting relationship, adding that he was his kid's father. The set-up has to be co-parenting, and decisions should not only depend on a woman, as men have a choice as well, "Men's voices matter." The "Runaway" rapper also added that he has a right to have a voice when making decisions about the four kids he shares with the social media influencer. The "Niggas in Paris" usually uses his social media platform to express his opinions, per Good Morning America (GMA). Related Article: Christine Brown Announces Her Spiritual Marriage to Kody Is Finally Over Photo: (Photo : Shlomaster) There may be nothing more crushing to a parent's heart than knowing that someone is being mean to your child or is excluding your child from almost all plays and activities. Such things might affect your child or could make memories of childhood traumas. According to Banner Health, bullying and excluding others is not new, as today's social interactions do not just occur in person with a whole social network online to navigate, which only means there are things for kids to feel excluded and let down. Parents and adults can notice the changes if the child suddenly gets awkward and uncomfortable doing things they used to do. As kids grow old, they encounter many adjustments in life that appear new to them, and at some point, they are bound to feel left out. They may experience being ignored on the playground or singled out of a certain event. Whatever the case, the child may be a victim of relational aggression. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, it refers to the harm only within relationships caused by cover bullying, such as excluding someone from a group or giving someone in the group a silent treatment. Relational aggression is also associated with manipulative behavior. Read Also: Arizona Mom Speaks out After Teenage Daughter Is Denied Arthritis Medication Due to Abortion Law Many kids want to get along and fit in Dr. Adeola Adelayo, a practicing psychiatrist with Banner Behavioral Health Hospital, told the outlet that social exclusion is profound and can take or happen in many forms. Humans are social animals, meaning we want to get along and fit in, especially when younger; hence, maintaining peer relationships during such time can be fraught with complications. Being excluded causes tremendous pain, especially since kids think peer relationships are essential; thus, they must maintain them. This event can make kids suffer not just emotionally but also academically. As they grow into adulthood, they would feel worthless and less valued, which eventually causes them mental health issues. Dr. Siggie Cohen added that kids who experience being excluded or singled out at school would not thrive as they will lose interest in doing almost everything and think no one wants to befriend them. However, Dr. Cohen suggests parents appropriately respond to their child's needs as they are the only people their kids will talk to; thus, they must know to validate emotions as they can make a huge difference in a child's life. Furthermore, if parents are worried about their kid's situation, they can discuss these things with the child's teacher and not in front of their child. Doing so will only cause the child more fear as they will think low of themselves for telling the incident to their parents, per Empowering Parents. Friends usually look highly at themselves, and there's a common rule that you can't tell adults as it will be considered a complaint against the group. What parents can do for their children? Dr. Andy Brimhall, a therapist and professor at East Carolina University specializing in marital and family conflict and child behavioral problems, suggests parents not shame their kids for being left out in a class or excluded from a group and instead support them, remind them of their worth. Discuss with them that no one deserves to be excluded and note that they have a lot to offer the world; thus, they must not settle in such a setup as it will not bring any good to them. Try to listen and allow them to express their feelings regarding the incident, as it will help them to calm down. Dr. Brimhall added that parents should also remind their kids that they have no power or control over what other people say or do. However, they can control how they respond. Teach them how to handle the possible situation and overcome the pain of being singled out. The goal is not to feel helpless but instead to feel empowered. Parents should avoid taking over the situation and allow their children a chance to handle the issue instead of jumping in right away to fix problems. Dr. Brimhall told Very Well Family to only give kids advice and let them handle things. Related Article: What Teens Need From Their Parents: "I Love You" Photo: (Photo : JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images) Kids as young as five can now receive the updated booster shots targeting the coronavirus's omicron variant after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signed off on the COVID vaccines on Wednesday, October 12. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky gave the final OK hours after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the updated booster shots. The FDA authorized Pfizer-BioNTech's modified COVID vaccine for children 5 to 11, while Moderna's vaccine was cleared for children 6 through 17. The FDA said in a statement that children who have received a two-dose primary series of any COVID vaccine and those who have received a booster are eligible to get the updated boosters as long as two months have passed since they got their last dose. Booster shots will target the dangerous omicron subvariants Both COVID vaccines target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants, in addition to the original strain of the coronavirus, in a single shot, according to NBC News. The CDC said BA.5 remains the dominant strain in the United States, making up about 79 percent of all new COVID cases. The FDA authorized the new vaccine of Pfizer in late August for use in people 12 and older, as well as Moderna's new COVID vaccine for adults aged 18 and older. The authorized shots replaced the first iteration of the boosters, which Pfizer and Moderna designed to target the original strain of the coronavirus. Wednesday's much-awaited authorization comes as vaccination remains low in the United States for the two-dose primary series in young kids, although rates have improved. CDC data showed that only about 31 percent of kids ages 5 to 11 had received two doses of any COVID vaccine. CDC data also revealed that the rollout of the updated boosters in older age groups had been off to a slow start. Only 11.5 million eligible people have received one booster shot in the U.S. Read Also: Parents Worry After Florida Schools Ask Female Student-Athletes About Their Menstrual History Pandemic fatigue is the reason behind slow vaccine rollout in children Sean O'Leary, vice chair of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), attributed the slow vaccine rollout in kids and adults to COVID pandemic fatigue and people wanting to move on. O'Leary said that, unfortunately, they still see kids get sick with this. The authorization comes as the number of children under 18 diagnosed with COVID rises. AAP reports that nearly 40,700 child COVID cases were reported in the week ending on October 6, a slight increase in the number of cases over the prior week. Experts said that it is important for people to receive the updated shots because the country could face yet another potential wave of COVID infections this coming winter. O'Leary said that the boosters are important because data has shown that any COVID vaccine greatly decreases the risk of severe outcomes from the virus. He added that hospitalizations are preventable. Related Article: Atlanta Dad Shares Emotional Message on Mental Health After Daughter's Tragic Suicide Photo: (Photo : SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images) Babies born into lockdowns because of COVID have taken longer to reach certain developmental milestones than babies who were born before the pandemic, a study has found. Before the COVID pandemic, parents commonly observed their infants pointing at objects by nine months old. Many babies were already saying their first words by the age of one. The new study, however, which was published by researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, on Tuesday, October 11, revealed that Irish infants who were born from March to May 2020 had a harder time communicating at the age of one than those born between the years 2008 and 2011 had. Study compared infants born between 2008 and 2011 and those born during the COVID pandemic Around 89 percent of babies born between 2008 and 2011 could already articulate a full word like "cup" or "bowl" at 12 months old, compared to around 77 percent of infants born during the early months of the COVID pandemic. The portion of babies who could point at objects dropped from 93 percent to 84 percent, and the share who could wave goodbye decreased from 94 percent to 88 percent. The study results were based on a questionnaire given during the pandemic to parents of 309 babies in Ireland. The babies' parents were asked around the first birthday of each infant whether their child could perform ten different tasks, such as stacking bricks or standing up. The researchers then compared the results they got during the pandemic to a longitudinal study that assessed the same ten skills of infants between 2008 and 2011. Both groups of parents were asked to answer the surveys as close to their kids' birthdays as possible. Ireland had a strict lockdown between March 2020 and April 2021, requiring people to stay home except for essential activities. Irish residents were not allowed to dine inside restaurants, and people who could work at home were advised to do so. Those who did not follow the rules were threatened with fines. Read Also: Texas Mom Gets Life Sentence for Murder After Leaving Bedridden Daughter Alone so She Can Party A quarter of babies in the study did not meet another kid their age before their first birthday Dr. Susan Byrne, a pediatric neurologist at the Royal College of Surgeons and the study's author, said that a quarter of the babies in her study had never met another kid their age by their first birthday. Byrne said that when the babies were six months old, their families only saw, on average, four other people outside the home. Each infant had only been kissed by three adults, including their parents. Byrne said that it is no surprise, then, that the communications skills of babies were delayed. She added that if no one is coming to your house to leave again, you will not learn how to say "bye, bye." Byrne told NBC News some of the babies probably were not hearing or seeing as many people speak. Related Article: Long Waiting Lists and High Costs Hinder Many Children's Access to Mental Health Care Photo: (Photo : Getty Images/Charles McQuillan) The new Princess of Wales excels in her new position as she brings a fresh perspective to the role and yet exudes the same charm and fervor exactly like everyone's beloved woman whose shoes she wears today. A source close to the Royal family spoke to People and revealed that the family is having quite a stressful time as they go back to their work and responsibilities and continue to mourn the late Queen Elizabeth. Kate Middleton, most especially, as she now holds the new title of becoming the first Princess of Wales, following her husband's mother, Princess Diana. As Prince William steps up the hierarchy and embraces broader responsibilities that come with his new position, such as managing the $1.3 billion Duchy of Cornwall and assisting in King Charles' coronation plans, the next in line to the throne prepares for the future alongside Middleton. "She is a matriarch. Not in the sense of an older woman in a twin set and pearls, but she guides the family and advises [William] when he wants it," Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, Prince William's former private secretary, expressed. Determined to pave her own path Middleton's popularity soared higher after King Charles III bestowed the titles of Prince and Princess of Wales to Prince William and her following the Queen's death. Along with the popularity, however, comes pressure from the public's comparison with the best-loved royal in modern history, Princess Diana. Yet, she is keeping up by undertaking ambitious projects across the United Kingdom on essential matters like child development, mental health, and family well-being. Asked about Diana's legacy, the palace sources revealed that the current Princess of Wales appreciates the significant history associated with her current role, but she is determined to take on the future, paving her own path with all humility. Read Also: Kate Middleton is Labeled as "Expert" in Parenting Royal family doing the normal family life One close family friend of the "modern Royal family" declared that Prince Williams and Princess Kate ensure they are doing normal family things as much as possible. The couple, both 40, relocated at the end of summer with their three children, Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 7, and Prince Louis, to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor from London. As they transition and settle into their new home, they are also trying to manage the kids as they settle into their new school. The couple, however, decided to keep Prince George close to home rather than put him in a boarding school to keep their son's life as normal as can be. They try to do the school drop-off and pick-up on most days, as Lambrook is just a 15-minute drive from their new home. Insiders revealed that this Royal family enjoys the cottage life as the kids and their friends are in and out of the swimming pool. Prince George comfortably flops onto the sofa beside his father while Charlotte welcomes and entertains familiar guests like a true host. Related Article: Debate Sparks Over Kate Middleton's Parenting After Prince Louis Behaved Like a Brat in Public Photo: (Photo : PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images) Carly Miller, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse in the state of Texas, spent six months alongside one of her critically ill patients, an infant named Conrad. Now the 27-year-old nurse at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston gets to spend the rest of the young boy's life by his side as his godmother. Miller told "Good Morning America" that she feels very honored. She said that it was something she never expected and that they wanted her to do that for him means the absolute world. Conrad born with a rare birth defect Miller first met baby Conrad on December 15, 2021, shortly after he was born. She was the first nurse assigned to care for him when the infant was admitted to the NICU. According to Conrad's parents, Branden Williams and Austyn Evans, he was born with a rare birth defect known as lower urinary tract obstructions (LUTO) which impacts his bladder and kidneys. Williams and Evans learned of their son's congenital disability while she was pregnant. The couple moved to Houston from Florida when Evans was in her third trimester of pregnancy so she could receive specialty care at Texas Children's Hospital. Evans said that it was a terrible diagnosis to get as many of these children do not survive past zero or just survive a few days past birth. When Miller met baby Conrad in the NICU, she recalled that the infant was medically sedated and on a ventilator. She added that dozens of tubes and wires were connected to Conrad and those were the things keeping him alive. What stood out to Miller amid all the medical equipment connected to Conrad were the child's adorable newborn cheeks, which Evans said left a lasting impression on them. Evans said that one of the first things she remembers Miller saying was not how sick her child was but how cute he was. She added that Miller was talking about his cheeks, everything that she expected having a child would be like. Evans said that for everything they thought they would get robbed of, Miller gave back to them in a sense. Read Also: Connecticut Mom Gives Birth to Son on American Airlines Plane Mid-flight Conrad needs to undergo a kidney transplant Miller often worked the night shift over the next several months, which meant that when Evans called to check on her child overnight, Miller was the one who answered the phone. When baby Conrad was able to go on a state-of-the-art machine that allowed the infant to be on a type of dialysis, Miller became an expert on it so she could continue to care for him. That was a request of the parents, who know the tight bond between the two. When baby Conrad was discharged from the NICU in June, Evans said she and her husband knew that Miller would remain part of their family's lives. The couple knew they wanted Miller to be the godmother of their son. The next step in Conrad's health journey is undergoing a kidney transplant, and Miller will be there to help her godson. Related Article: Tampa Teen Who Drove Stolen Maserati Reached 123 mph Before Fatal Crash This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions In 2021 Brazil's Consumer Protection Agency fined Apple US$1.9 million for not including a charger with new iPhones. On September sixth, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Prior to Apple's iPhone 14 Launch tomorrow, the Brazilian Government orders to Stop selling iPhones without a Charger." It's being reported today by the Agence France-Presse, that a Brazilian Judge has fined Apple US$20 million (about NT$630 million) for selling iPhones without chargers, finding it was an "abuse of market advantage" to force consumers to buy Extra product. Brazils Ministry of Justice fined Apple Inc. nearly $2.5 million (about NT$79.6 million) in September for selling iPhones without chargers regarding the iPhone 12 and 13 models. Now, the judge has fined Apple again for the same reason. Apple is likely to appeal. Apple has stopped providing socket chargers in new iPhones since October 2020, saying it wants to help reduce electronic waste. But Judge Francisco (Caramuru Afonso Francisco) mentioned in the judgment that this move is actually "requiring consumers to buy a second product in order to use the first product." He ordered Apple to provide chargers to all consumers who have purchased an iPhone 12 or 13 model in the past two years, and to include them with new products. The forward-thinking, proactive posture and actions of the primary financial sector regulator the Bank of Ghana (BoG) guarantees the nation will be at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial and digital financial revolutions on the continent, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AZA Finance, Elizabeth Rossiello, has suggested. Over the course of the last two decades, the regulator has fostered an enabling regulatory environment with the introduction of tools such as the Ghana Interbank Settlement (GIS) system, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), Payment Systems and Services Act in 2019, the establishment of a dedicated FinTech and Innovation Office the year after, as well as the introduction of a regulatory sandbox. These, in addition to the relative ease of doing business, clarity of the regulatory regime, in addition to the rapidly-expanding pool of local talent, she argues, will ensure the country attracts critical investment and serve as a blueprint for its peers. In all my recent interactions, I have had to mention how great it is to see how active the regulator is. Here in Ghana, we are seeing licenses being processed in a reasonable time without sacrificing due diligence, she said at the conclusion of a recent working visit to the country. She added that inasmuch as some FinTechs are apprehensive over interactions with regulators, the future of digital finance demands regulated entities; ones that adhere to standard Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) protocols. Although some FinTechs struggle with the concept and application of regulation in some way, I believe it is the path forward because, without regulatory oversight, many institutions would not want to work with you. As innovative as we come, we need to have that to offer a standard of certainty and security, she added. Mrs. Rossiello who co-chairs the World Economic Forum's Council on Blockchain and sits on the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution agrees with other international bodies such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that, with adequate funding, the local talent compete with their peers from other regions. One of the most exciting things for me is the abundance of local tech talent and I believe if the digital drive is sustained and there is adequate investment in developing this talent, it would be tremendous. The IFC estimated that between 2020 and 2030, Ghana could have business-to-business and business-to-government opportunities that reach about 18 million people who require digital skills with revenue potential in excess of US$4 billion. Sector Efficiency Offering thoughts on the growing partnership between banks and FinTechs, the AZA Finance CEO said she expects continued collaborations which would lead to more efficient and streamlined offerings. I foresee a streamlining of banking operations, with banks getting smaller headcount wise, and banks will, perhaps, focus more on corporate lending whilst the FinTechs participate more in consumer offerings. 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 Minerals Commission has guaranteed the increased listing of mining businesses on the local stock market, as a step to further promote local content and ensure value retention in the mining sector. This comes after the transition period for the Minerals and Mining Local Content and Local Participation Regulations, 2020 (L.I. 2431) expired in December 2021. This regulation mandates that as part of the localisation programmes, mining firms must list at least 20 percent of their equity on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). Per the regulations, this will take place within five years after the commencement of mining operations. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Minerals Commission, Martin Kwaku Ayisi, in a discussion on minerals in the country organised by the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) said the regulator will rigorously implement the local content law to ensure more Ghanaian participation, accordingly retaining value in the country. The local content law came into force in December 2020. There was a one-year transition period that ended in December 2021. Now Asante Gold has gone ahead of the curve by listing on the market. The law requires that at least a minimum 20 percent of their equity should be listed on the local stock exchange. So, we are going to force all of them to list on the stock market, the CEO said. The regulator mentioned that, currently, there are engagements regarding a mining licence for lithium in which it keenly intends to ensure the localisation programme is adhered to according to the new law. The regulations say that the minister shall, on recommendation of the Commission and in consultation with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), determine the limits of local equity for capital expenditure when listing on the Accra bourse. The regulations further state that the holder of a mineral right whose planned capital expenditure exceeds the limits determined under sub-regulation (1) shall list at least twenty percent of that holders equity on the GSE within five years after commencement of mining operations. Currently, there are two mining stocks listed AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Asante Gold Corporation on the local stock market, whereas NewGold is listed as an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Also listed are the Depository Shares of AngloGold Ashanti. In total, this makes up GH19.11billion in market capitalisation; about 30 percent of the entire market. ASG The last company from the sector to be listed on the market was Canadian exploration firm Asante Gold Corporation, which at the end of June this year listed 315 million shares on the main board of the Exchange worth GH2.79billion. In July 2022, Asante Gold Corporation (ASG) completed the first US$100million tranche of a US$140million financing package from strategic financial institutions in Ghana. The initial drawdown of US$100million will be used to cover local operating costs and the companys near-term broader funding and strategic objectives. ASG is also in advanced discussions on additional senior secured debt facilities to provide for ongoing sustaining capital, it emerged. Source: B&FT 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 Hand washing is the single most effective way to reduce the spread of infections and contamination. Although common knowledge, it has taken a global pandemic to reinforce a practice as simple as washing ones hands with soap under running water, to curb the spread of a deadly disease. Today as the world moves on and adjusts to life with a virus that has seemingly become part of us, it is more so pivotal to ingrain the message and practice of hand hygiene into all. Together, we must ensure that healthy handwashing habits are built to mitigate the risks and effects of the spread of pathogens. It is for this reason that every year on October 15, Global Handwashing Day is celebrated as a day dedicated to advocating for handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives. This year the theme for the day is Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene. A global call to action, regardless of role, age, gender, religion, race, or political affiliation to address the matter of hand hygiene with the urgency it requires. We may remember that when COVID-19 emerged some two years ago, one of the most critical activities used for preventing infection was hand washing. A practice with benefits that have been known to curb the spread of infectious diseases since its discovery by Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847. Relating to benefits, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that handwashing with soap could protect about 1 out of every 3 young children who get sick with diarrhea and almost 1 out of 5 young children with respiratory infections like pneumonia. Similarly, due to its immense socio-economic benefits, one of the targets under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, is for the global community to achieve access to hygiene for all by 2030. According to UNICEF, approximately half a million people die each year from diarrhea or acute respiratory infections, causing significant financial costs resulting from sickness and death that could be avoided with proper hygiene, precisely hand hygiene. Essentially, hand hygiene is one of the most important elements of overall hygiene, begging the question of why there is limited access to the basic act of cleaning hands when it can save lives and reduce illness which is essential to the socio-economic wellbeing of a country. Therein lies a unique opportunity to position hand hygiene as an important long-term safety and public policy issue and increase as well as hasten investments on facilities for good hand hygiene. The UN states that hygiene targets by 2030 requires an increase in the pace of progress, otherwise at current rates by the year 2030, 1.9 billion people will lack basic hand hygiene facilities. In effect, nations should tackle the issue of hand hygiene wholistically - inclusive of both the private and public sectors. Not as a temporary public health intervention when crisis looms but as an everyday practice that contributes to health and economic resilience. The government as the leader should be responsible for public policies backed with regulation and enforcement of the availability of water and hand washing facilities in public spaces such as hospitals and schools. In addition, investments should be made in education, sensitization, and capacity building. The citizenry, inclusive of households and individuals should adapt and maintain the best practices of hand hygiene and hold themselves accountable to standards that have been set to accelerate the progress of the policy and practice of basic hand hygiene. The private sector must not be left out as they have the capacity to work closely with authorities to make key investments that will provide accessible and affordable facilities for all. From the media, civil society, community and thought leaders, the private sector, the old and the young, there is a part to be played by all as we push for policies and initiatives that can be a pathway towards creating communities that have the resources to practice hand hygiene and do so habitually. Source: Nana Adwoa Twumwaa Baafi 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 Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress, Abraham Amaliba has advised the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman, Freddie Blay to recuse himself from defending Chinese illegal miners in court. The former Chairman is representing some Chinese nationals standing trial for their alleged involvement in illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey in the country. Critics say Mr. Blays move defeats the governments effort in fighting the menace which has left many water bodies and forest reserves destroyed. Commenting on the issue on Starr Today with Joshua Kodjo Mensah, the NDCs legal director indicated that Mr. Blay should not be seen as compounding issues for the government as it wages war against the galamsey menace. So for the sake of the people of this country who are also fighting the galamsey menace,let me not involve myself in the matter. Sometimes your conscience should tell you what you should do. "What has even compounded the issue is that in this whole saga of galamsey, the government officials have been fingered to be engaging in it. That is a new dimension. Our fight against galamsey, we are now seeing that names of appointees have been mentioned. Then you (Freddie Blay) compound the problem for the government by defending those who have been mentioned as accomplices, Mr. Amaliba stated. He continued: I think he is a senior lawyer, it is not always that you follow money. He will get his money alright but his image will be tarnished. "I have done similar cases and where I feel that the people see my services will create the wrong impression Ive given those cases to colleagues, who are not in the same situation that I find myself. The NDC legal director further added that Mr. Blay should hand over the case to any of his lawyers who are not connected to the NPP to handle it. Dont forget Nkrabea Effah is also there as a lawyer and you are also there as lawyer and the government officials have been fingered as contributing to the menace, he said. Source: Ghanaweb.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 former Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority, Mr. Adjenim Boateng Adjei, is expected to appear again in court today, Thursday, October 13, 2022, following charges preferred against him by the Special Prosecutor earlier this year. The ex-PPA Boss has been slapped with 17 charges by the Special Prosecutor. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges when he was arraigned on May 25, 2022, before the Criminal Division of the Accra High Court. Mr. AB Adjei denied seven counts of using Public office for-profit and 10 counts of directly and indirectly influencing the Public Procurement process using his office. The second accused person Francis Kwaku Arhin, his brother-in-law also pleaded not guilty to one count of using Public officers for profit. The two were months ago granted bail in the sums of GHc5 million cedis each with two justified sureties. Source: starrfm.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 Former President John Dramani Mahama has called for youth in Africa to be empowered with tools and skills they need to thrive in this fast-changing globalised world. He wants young people on the continent to also be encouraged to take an active role in the governance of their countries. Speaking at the 2022 Liberty University Convocation in Virginia, USA, the ex-President said, We must collectively work to create an enabling environment for the optimal development of the talents of the youth. According to him, the issues and challenges of conflict, unemployment, gender, corruption, education, health, poverty, hunger in Africa and many developing countries are well-documented. What is relatively less discussed is the capacity of the institutions we have established and mandated to ensure that the government fulfills its social contract to the people in the spirit of fairness, justice, inclusiveness, and absolute accountability, he indicated. Mr. Mahama argued that absolute accountability, not just by the government, but by the institutions of state in service to the people and not themselves, will go a long way to remedy many of the systemic problems that affect African people. In Africa, we need ethical and moral uprightness as guiding principles, and a stoic fidelity to the truth and to do right by our people above all other considerations, he asserted. The Liberty Universitys Convocation is one of the worlds largest gatherings of Christian students. Each year, the programme hosts more than 80 nationally known speakers from a variety of fields. Source: dailyguidenetwork.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 Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has introduced an electronic payment system to allow employers and self-employed workers pay their SSNIT contributions with ease. The payment platform, ssnitpay, went live on October, 10 2022, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, disclosed at the 2022 Employers Breakfast Meeting held in Accra on Tuesday. Third in the series and attended by employers from Greater Accra and Eastern Region, it was on the theme Sustainability of the SSNIT Scheme The Role of Employers. He said members could now pay SSNIT contributions using their mobile money wallet via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) short code, Mobile Money POS walk-in and Debit Card via the Trusts Web Portal portal.ssnit.org.gh. Dr Ofori-Tenkorang indicated that the innovation formed part of new measures to enhance service delivery to members and clients. The adoption of the e-payment platform is expected to bring relief and convenience to employers and members, who hitherto, had to travel long distances to a SSNIT branch or a SSNIT partner banks to pay their contributions, he said, adding that payment of contributions via ssnitpay was E-Levy exempt. He encouraged the employers and self-employed workers to use the mobile money channels to pay their contributions. The Trust has also enhanced its self-service portal. The portal now allows members and clients to perform a number of activities including viewing and downloading Clearance Certificates and requesting for negotiation meetings for outstanding debts among others, he said. He encouraged employers to pay the right contributions for their workers by consolidating the earnings of their workers for enhanced pensions. We advise you to pay SSNIT contributions on or before the 14th day of the ensuing month. We also urge you as employers to pay contributions for yourselves because you also deserve a pension, he stressed. Touching on the breakfast meeting, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said it was aimed at strengthening the relationship between the Trust and employers to help deepen their understanding of the operations of the First Tier Social Security Scheme. He said the meeting provided a platform to discuss challenges facing employers concerning the SSNIT Scheme and how they can be resolved. Source: dailyguidenetwork.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 Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a former United Nations Senior Governance Adviser, has observed that Ghana as a country boasts of a lot of hypocritical leaders. Speaking in relation to the fight against galamsey, Prof Agyeman-Duah noted that the leaders of the country, whether religious or political, know the cause of galamsey, yet are playing the usual blame game. One thing we have to understand is that this country, our political leaders and leaders across board - religious leaders and all - there are a lot of hypocrites and dishonest people in leadership across board. That is a fact. We are hypocrites and we are very dishonest. On galamsey, everybody knows what is going on but for the sake of politics, to win power, when one government is doing something those in opposition will go around and say look when we come we will restore you but of course, when they come they will not restore them. That is the level of hypocrisy and dishonesty we have, that is what is killing us, the Chief Executive Officer of the John Agyekum Kuffuor Foundation said in a TV3 interview. Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated his commitment to deal with the galamsey menace in the country. Addressing the Chiefs in Kumasi on Wednesday, October 5, the President said, 80 per cent of the lands in this country continue to be under your custody, much of it having been acquired through the blood and sacrifices of your ancestors. "The remainder of 20 per cent which I hold in trust of the people of Ghana, is derived from state acquisition from you. What this means is that ultimately, the welfare of the state of the lands is our joint responsibility, although by statute the minerals in the soil belong to the president in trust for the people. Source: ghanaweb.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 Kwasi Kwarteng was dramatically sacked by Liz Truss today as she prepares to make a monster U-turn on the disastrous mini-Budget in a bid to save her premiership. The Chancellor was given his marching orders after being hauled back to Downing Street from a US summit, with the PM facing a potentially terminal Tory rebellion. In a letter, Mr Kwarteng confirmed he had been 'asked to stand aside' rather than quitting - and suggested he still believes that the tax-cuts should go ahead. Ms Truss is due to front a make-or-break press conference within hours to abandon a major strand of her radical economic reforms just weeks after taking power. She will also want to unveil a new Chancellor, with former leadership hopeful Jeremy Hunt being tipped for a shock return as a 'safe pair of hands'. The press call had been promised at 2pm, but now looks likely to slip. Ms Truss is widely tipped to bow to political and economic pressure to increase corporation tax, having previously cancelled plans to increase it by 6p in the pound. But she is due to face the cameras alone without long-term ally Mr Kwarteng by her side after tearing up another central strand of his tax-cutting mini-Budget for growth. His departure would make him the second shortest-serving chancellor in modern British politics, behind Iain Macleod, whose career was ended by his death after 30 days in office in 1970. Since 2019, the UK has had four chancellors, including Nadhim Zahawi who served the third shortest tenure with 62 days during a short-lived reshuffle under Boris Johnson, and Sajid Javid who served 204 days - the fourth shortest tenure on record. Truss made scrapping plans to up the corporation tax rate from 19 per cent to 25 per cent - at a cost of 18billion - a central part of her leadership campaign and it was unveiled as a policy three weeks ago as a major growth lever. But she is expected to announce the rate will go up next year after all, after weeks of economic and political turmoil in Westminster that now threaten her position. Mutinous Conservative MPs have given the PM 17 days to save her job, with claims that Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, both failed leadership challengers in the summer, are being lined up to replace her. Tory whips warned she could face a leadership challenge if Kwasi Kwarteng's economic statement on October 31 fails to end the turbulence in the financial markets. It has been suggested they could be installed in a 'coronation' if no one else runs to be leader, avoiding the need to consult party members who overwhelmingly backed Ms Truss to replace Boris Johnson. Read Full Story .... Dailymail >>> : Source: Daily Mail UK 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 Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is to conduct a nationwide survey to gather information on the health status of the citizenry in relation to their age brackets. Known as the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), it will sample the views of scientifically identified populations for information on their health status, age brackets, nutrition, immunisation, maternal health, among others. The 90-day exercise, which will begin on Monday, October 17, 2022, will sample the views of 13,577 women and 5,812 men of the reproductive age from 18,540 households across the country. The survey, which will be the seventh, after the last one was conducted in 2014, is estimated to cost $4.2 million. More than 200 enumerators and officers will gather data from the field until January 24, 2023, taking into consideration the Christmas and the New Year festivities and holidays. The GDHS is a population and health-related survey to guide the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on interventions to solve challenges. It cuts across maternal and child health, malaria, vaccination, fertility, family planning, nutrition status of mothers and children, child marriage, water and sanitation, toilet facilities, salt consumption, among others. The GSS has already identified 618 clusters in the 16 regions where inferences will be made. Launching the survey in Winneba in the Effutu municipality in the Central Region yesterday, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said the exercise would be a "life-saving opportunity for us". He said the GDHS started in 1988, with a five-year period interval, and that although there had been slips, the GSS was going into the field to undertake the seventh one. Prof. Annim said the targeted number of households was representative of the population the GSS had from the perspective of the eight million households that were captured during the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC). He added that the GDHS would update statistics from demographic, social, economic and health-related issues. Also, he said, the survey was to assess the determinants of maternal and neonatal issues around mobility and mortality, which he said were critical to the work. During the 2021 PHC, he said, the GSS mounted data monitors to check data in real time and developed a dashboard to monitor data, saying the GDHS would incorporate that and also take it a notch higher. On dissemination, he said the GSS would ensure that results were ready in record time. Source: Graphiconline 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 lifestyles of many Ghanaian preachers do not reflect the gospel they preach, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, has indicated. According to the man of God, this was the reason why the campaign against rottenness in the Ghanaian society was not getting any better, because fake pastors, prophets and evangelists were multiplying by the day. Apostle Nyamekye made this known during the launch recently of the Great Asanteman Gospel Crusade to be held in Kumasi in November this year by the Christ for All Nations (CfaN) Ministry. People are looking for Jesus in his pastors and they are not seeing it. The light, which the gospel of Jesus Christ was supposed to shine into the world, has become ineffectual because some pastors and prophets are, by their deeds, blocking the light. The spiritual head who is also the Vice President of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council, was giving the exhortation at the crusade launch attended by over 1,500 heads of denominations, pastors, prophets and evangelists. The three-day crusade, featuring Rev. Daniel Kolenda, successor of the late Reinhard Bonnke, is targeting to win two million souls for Jesus Christ. Apostle Nyamekye, endorsed the crusade and urged all Christians in Ashanti to invite non-Christians to attend. Apostle Nyamekye also reminded the ministers that they are jars of clay containing the light of God. Unless we do something about ourselves, the light of God will not shine through us. What we offer must not be anointing oil, good as it was originally intended to be used for. We must offer our lifestyle. The minister is holy in the pulpit and holy outside of it. People must see Christ in the streets through us, as pastors transformed into the image of Jesus. The CfaN Executive Director for Africa, Rev. John Kwasi Darku, said the November 2022 event in Kumasi had been dubbed Asanteman Crusade because the main crusade will be preceded by the arrival of 200 evangelists from across the world. Rev. Darku disclosed that the CfaN Ministry, founded by the late Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, took the gospel of Jesus everywhere but concentrated much of its work in Africa. He told newsmen that with the passing of Bonnke, God had prepared his successor, Evangelist Daniel Kolenda, for the work of ministry. Like Elisha inheriting the mantle from Elijah, Kolenda has received a double portion of the anointing, and it is showing in the number of souls who are being saved in droves and the miraculous attestation. Source: dailyguidenetwork.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 Repented priestess, Patricia Asiedua commonly called Nana Agradaa, now founder of Heaven Way Church in Accra has again been remanded into Police custody for further investigations. Nana Agradaa who has been arrested for allegedly scamming some members of her church has been remanded into police custody again after being denied bail. She appeared in court for the second time on Thursday, October 13, 2022 after her arrest. The first was on Monday October 10, 2022 but her case was adjourned to Thursday October 13. She was arrested on Sunday October 9, 2022 following allegations of money doubling scam levelled against her by some members of the public. She is currently assisting police in investigation. Anyone who is a victim of the alleged money doubling scam should report to the Accra Regional Police Command for further action to assist the investigation, the Police said in a statement on Sunday October 8. Source: dailyguidenetwork.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 Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, has described as 'quite historic' a move where the Group of Seven (G7) nations called on Finance Ministers from some African countries for a meeting in Washington DC. The G7 is made of an informal grouping of seven of the worlds advanced economies; namely: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America and the European Union. This group invited finance ministers from South Africa, Senegal, Togo, Zambia, Ghana, Guinea, Rwanda, Chad, Tunisia and Morocco for the all-important meeting. It was reported by Accra-based 3news that the G7 instructed the World Bank to provide financial support to Ghana and other African countries who were at the meeting. This financial support, according to the report, is to enable the African countries to deal with the impact of the economic crisis caused by force majeures. It was actually quite a historic meeting because for the first time the G7 has called African Finance Ministers to deliberate on the crisis that they see. ...these are exogenous factors that have really (affected), even their own economies (and) put it under serious stress and are, therefore, looking for ways in which they can add to the capital needs to make sure that things do not deteriorate. So countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, and Morocco were there, Ken Ofori-Atta said as quoted by 3news. He added The empathy is clear, the need to [introduce] something new and therefore, their interest in encouraging the World Bank to find more resources, tapping into the private sector so that they will stabilize where things are going. They have reduced growth rate to 2.7 per cent expecting a grim and difficult period, they dont want to make sure that things deteriorate from liquidly to insolvency to chaos. The meeting brings together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, parliamentarians, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academia to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness. Source: ghanaweb.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 Governance Lecturer at the Central University, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, has called on government to use brute force against illegal miners. According to him, this is the only way to stop the galamsey menace in the country. He noted that no amount of advice or words will convince the people engaged in galamsey to quit this illicit trade. "If we have the will, we should be able to stop galamsey in two months . . . If the government is willing to fight galamsey, it can fight it. Let's push them until they act," he said on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show. "Do you know the amount of money the person mining the gold gets?", he queried, believing the surest approach to ending the illegal mining is when force is applied. "If you tell such a person to stop, he won't. There is no advice you can give to stop such a person. Let's apply the force. Let's apply it; until that is done, let's forget it," he emphasized. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has officially declared his intention to contest the chairmanship position of the NDC. Mr. Nketia made the declaration in a joint interview on Accra100.5FM and CTV morning shows, today, Thursday, 13 October 2022. Yes I have the intention of picking up a form to contest the chairmanship position when nominations are opened, the NDC scribe told joint hosts Emmanuel Quarshie (The Hitman) and Nana Out Darko. The NDC goes to congress on the 17th of December 2022. Mr Nketia also debunked assertions that the General Secretary position might be weakened when he hangs his boots from that role. He stated that Ill have to leave some position to fit into another position. Ive done a good job so the new person will build on what Ive done. Its only dictators that dont want people to take over after them. He quizzed: How do people know Ill be better than the future general secretary when we dont know who will be occupying that position in the future? Questioned on whether his stance of contesting the chairman position will not bring rivalry between him and the incumbent, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Mr. Nketia said democracy is meant to bring competition and so he sees nothing wrong competing with the incumbent. Is there democracy without rivalry or are we taking a decision to abandon democracy? That thinking is anti-democratic, he stated adding democracy must bring competition so that the best will emerge Mr. Nketia is the longest-serving General Secretary of the NDC. He became NDC's General Secretary in 2005. Source: classfmonline.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 Electoral Commission of Ghana has listed 17 political parties who have no regional and national presence and therefore risk having their registrations cancelled. The EC has therefore given the 17 political parties up to Thursday, October 20, 2022 to show proof why their registrations should not be cancelled under the Politicall Parties Act of 2000, Act 574. The parties include the United Progressive Party (UPP) formed and being led by Kumasi-based Akwasi Addae, popularly known as Odike. Another one on the list is the United Front Party (UFP), which was also formed by Akwasi Addai Odike and Nana Agyenim Boateng popularly known as Gyataba but following disagreements, Odike moved out or was moved out to form a new party, the UPP. Also on the list is the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), formed by Dr Obed Yao Asamoah and some other members from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who were unhappy with some developments in the NDC and therefore moved away to form the DFP after the 2005 national executive elections in the party. The National Reform Party (NRP) led by Goosie Tanoh and other breakaway members from the NDC in year 2000 is also on the list. The Reform Patriotic Democrats, originally led by Kofi Akpaloo, who has also moved to lead a new party, Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) is also on the list. The Electoral Commission undertook a nationwide exercise to inspect the offices of all registered political parties in Ghana. This exercise was conducted from May 16, 2022 to June 9, 2022. Following the nationwide inspection, it came to light that the 17 under-listed Political Parties have no offices at the National and Regional levels as required by Section 15 (1) (Act 574), the EC said in a notice, published in the Daily Graphic. The Commission intends to invoke Section 15 (3) (c) of the Political Parties Act of 2000, Act 574, which mandates it to cancel the registration of Political Parties which do not have offices at the National and Regional levels. In this vein, the following Political Parties are by this notice requested to show cause in writing to the Electoral Commission why their registration should not be cancelled, it added in the notice published on Thursday, October 13, 2022. The parties are; Democratic People's Party (DPP) United Front Party (UFP) United Development System Party (UDSP) Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE) Yes People's Party (YPP) United Ghana Movement (UGM) Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) New Vision Party (NVP) Ghana Democratic Republican Party (GDRP) Ghana National Party (GNP) Power Unity Party (PUP) United Progressive Party (UPP) Reform Patriotic Democrats (RPD) People's Action Party (PAP) United Renaissance Party (URP) National Reform Party (NRP) United Love Party (ULP) 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 This should be the last time Ghana is going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support, former President John Dramani Mahama has said. He said the government must develop homegrown policies aimed at transforming the economy to ensure investor confidence. He spoke in a television interview with Voice of America on the programme, Straight Talk Africa. "I think that in going into this programme, it will bring back debts to sustainable levels... in other to achieve policy credibility so that investors, again feel confident that they can bring their money to Ghana, then we start from there and maintain that prudence. This should be the last time that we go to the IMF," he said. Former President Mahama also said the Presidency should clean up its house first by showing the way in this regard. If the President himself is cutting the budget of government machinery, then everyone must be prepared to make a sacrifice. He also said the next NDC government will undertake a constitutional review as part of strategy to sustain the economy. "We've been operating this constitution for more than 26 years, and I think that the time has come for us to look at it again and do some tweeking, in other that we can have a more constitutional environment to grow the economy," he added. 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 These are my very good friends and if theres something happening to them and Ive been told theyre innocent, it is not against the efforts of galamsey to represent them, says Freddie Blay. The immediate past National Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has emphasized that his law firm, Blay & Associates, is not offering any legal representation for En Huang, the Chinese national, who is popularly known as Aisha Huang, in the illegal mining case before the Accra Criminal High Court 5. According to him, Blay & Associates are only representing Shi Yang alias Philip, Li Wei Guo and Shi Mei Zhi, all Chinese nationals, and a fourth accused person, Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen, a Vietnamese national. "I am not representing Aisha Haung and definitely not Blay and Associates; we dont represent Aisha Haung," he told Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo', adding he accepted to represent the FOUR after "a good friend" asked for his assistance. Explaining further he said his four clients, "were arrested in their homes in Kumasi; one is even married to a Ghanaian and they operate a supermarket and so he pleaded with me to represent them. Per his (friend) explanation, there might have been a mistake or an issue of stereotyping and so I instructed my office to make a representation to defend them". Freddie Blay disappointment Freddie Blay's critics including members from his party have said he should have stayed away from the case. In response he said: "Im disappointed in those saying I cant represent the four . . . this is the work I do; I practice law and we dont discriminate or judge them. I find nothing wrong (to represent them) . . . it is part of our judicial system . . . Those asking me to recuse myself: these are my very good friends and if theres something happening to them and Ive been told theyre innocent, it is not against the efforts of galamsey to represent them". "I support governments efforts against galamsey but not all people put before court are involved in galamsey," he added. 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 Private legal partitioner, Captain (Rtd) Nkrabea Effah Dartey insists that there is nothing absolutely wrong for a lawyer to defend illegal miners in Ghana hence, the attack on Freddie Blay for defending other Galamsayers is unfortunate. The former National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party(NPP), Freddie Blay, has been in the news for defending four accomplices standing trial in court with the embattled galamsey kingpin, Aisha Huang. Many Ghanaians claime his decision to defend the four accomplices when his party is fighting illegal mining is sinful. But, Mr Freddie Blay has vowed to continue with his process and will only bow out if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo asked him to do so. According to him, such a decision from the President will be painful but it will be the only condition that will get him to withdraw the services of his law firm for the accused persons. Reacting to the issues in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show, 'Ghana Montie', Captain (Rtd) Nkrabea Effah Dartey noted that lawyers have every right to defend who they want to. We [lawyers] are under oath to defend all clients, he told host Mac Jerry Osei Agyemang. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/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 Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, has said Parliaments all over the world should act collectively to ensure that no one, especially women and girls, is left behind in any aspect of their national life. Mr Bagbin said a just and peaceful world would be realized when women and men would enjoy the same rights and opportunities in all sectors of society, such as cultural, social, political, economic participation and decision-making. For there can be no peace without justice and the much talked about peace, prosperity and sustainable development will continue to elude the world without gender equality, he said. Mr Bagbin was speaking at the 145th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly in Kigali Thursday (Oct 13). He said, since women constitute the majority of the worlds population, their interest must equally find expression in whatever we do." "This is a sine qua non to ensuring a more resilient and peaceful world. The reverse produces an antithesis a polarised, divisive, bitter, poor, unjust, undeveloped and war-prone world, he said. The event, which is being held on the theme Gender equality and gender-sensitive parliaments as drivers of change for a more resilient and peaceful world, has attracted over 1,200 delegates, including Speakers and deputy speakers of parliaments, representative of diplomatic corps and international observer bodies. The meeting will facilitate the exchanges on good practices to make parliaments more gender-sensitive. Mr Bagbin said given the current demographics of more than 50 per cent of the global population being females, their equal participation in whatever society did was an imperative to ensure inclusive and responsive governance. According to the Speaker , gender equality, when promoted through gender-sensitive parliaments, would be one of the most reliable and effective drivers of change for a more resilient and peaceful world. It is against this background that goal five of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target seeks to ensure womens full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of the public life, he said. Mr Bagbin said the legislature is the heart and life blood of democracy and good governance. He said parliament was the House, in fact the home, of the people and as such its composition ought to be a true reflection, a mirror of the people it represented. This means all the people must be equally represented, heard and given equal opportunities. Mr Bagbin said parliament itself could play a significant role in the creation of a gender-sensitive institution. "Through legislation, regulation and policy adaptation mechanisms parliaments could remove barriers to the full participation of all sections of society, such as women, the youth, physically-challenged and minorities," he said. This is to ascertain whether the gendered differentiated outcomes put women, girls, the youth, physically-disabled on equal footing with boys and men, he added. Touting the success story of Ghana in promoting gender equality, Mr Bagbin said the country had definitely made conscious effort to support gender equality since 1958. The Parliament of Ghana, he said, had been working to ensure the realisation of that goal. The need to be a driver of change through a number of policy measures has therefore not been lost on Ghanas Parliament. Among others, Mr Bagbin spoke about how legislation were made by Ghanas Parliament to remove social, cultural and political barriers to gender equality and women empowerment. Those initiatives found expressions in the provisions of the 1992 Constitution and had produced two women Chief Justices in a row and the first lady Speaker, one of my predecessors of Parliament. Source: Emmanuel Akorli/Parliamentary Correspondent, Peace FM 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 Former President John Mahama has admitted that global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have contributed to the current economic crisis in the country. He noted that the economic meltdown that has hit many parts of the world has also taken a toll on Africa and Ghana too. In an exclusive interview with Hayde Adams on his popular Straight Talk Africa on VOA News, John Mahama said I think that its a period of adversity for the whole world because its triggering a kind of global recession. His statement contradicts previous assertions he made which blamed President Akufo-Addo and his administration for the distressed state of the economy. The 2020 Presidential candidate for the opposition NDC has always maintained the stance that government has mismanaged the economy and further rejected the arguments by government spokespersons that the twin events of COVID-19 and the Russia Ukraine war crisis are not responsible for the economic woes of Ghanaians. The incontrovertible fact is that, Ghana is in a mess due to the BAD POLICIES of this government, which have contributed massively to the dire state of affairs, he said in a Facebook post in September. Reacting to comments from IMF boss, Kristalina Georgieva, he said the consequences of the governments ill-adviced policies such as the botched, insensitive and dubious cost in closing down locally owned banks, unbridled levels of corruption and lack of accountability including the mismanagement of COVID-19 funds, unconventional borrowing practices riddled with opaqueness and conflicts of interest, resulting in an unsustainable debt envelope, costly, experimental and untested programmes, etc., cannot be ignored in understanding the current dire state of the Ghanaian Economy. Madam Kristalina Georgieva had earlier corroborated governments point that external exigencies, not bad policies, were the cause of Ghanas economic crisis. However, in his recent interview on VOA, Mr. Mahama accepted that COVID-19 and the raging war between Russia and Ukraine have triggered a global recession, contrary to his constant insistence in Ghana that such claims are untrue. When asked about Mahamas latest twist, a Deputy National Communications Officer of the NPP, Ernest Kofi Owusu-Bempah, said that government has been vindicated. John Mahama, has been exposed big time. He blames President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia for the challenges we are going through but goes out there to speak the truth. Clearly, as we have always emphasized and even the IMF Boss recently reiterated, our challenges are not home brewed but largely due to COVID-19 and the Russia/Ukraine war, a fact John Mahama has been rejecting all this while. His interview with the VOA is a testament to the fact that indeed the challenges we are facing are attributable to the deadly coronavirus pandemic and the never-ending Russian/Ukrainian conflict Mr. Owusu-Bempah stressed. Source: ghanaweb.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 Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health, speaks at a press conference at the legislature in Toronto on Monday, April 11, 2022. Moore says he is "actively looking" at whether the province can declare the monkeypox outbreak officially over.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette - Descripcion We are looking for a strong QualityAssurance profile to join an important Pharma/Biotech company as Operational Excellence Lead on its facilities near Donostia-San Sebastian Detalles del cliente Important Pharma/Biotech company driven by world-leading group with strong project in the Basque Country Descripcion de la oferta Reporting to QA Manager, the hired person will lead QA functions as Senior Technicial, and the main functions are: Create, review, approve and maintain GMP documentation Assist the technical teams on daily quality events with the support of all the Quality Assurance team Support on project activities such as validations executions, creation of protocols, and writeups of summary reports Prepare and review: API, raw materials, bulk and finish product, release specifications Review and approval of Pharma bulk and packaged batch records Review and approve batch records for placing on the market or for regulatory purposes on different countries to be commercialized Evaluation of daily problems encountered during the review of batch documentation and production necessities Monitoring deviations reports raised on batches for approval Review, maintain and approve all master batch records and their validation on SAP to manufacture according to the marketing authorization Evaluate all requirements/requests made by the client (documentation request or information pertaining to product registration). Perfil del candidato Pharmacist, Chemical Engineer, Chemist, Biologist, or similar University Degree Solid Quality Assurance expertise and extensive knowledge on revision of GMP documentation, with 2-3 years experience within the sector (desirable EMA or FDA) Knowledge on working environment with LIMS, Trackwise and SAP will be an asset Biologics experience and sterile process is desirable Familiar with GMP environment Fluent in English and Spanish Ability to multi-task and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure, independently and in a team environment Proactive management and positive attitude to change and challenges Communication skills and self-management Oferta de empleo Strong career opportunity to join a leading company with a fast-growing proffesional project #LI-DNP Evan "ballz222" Sandberg Scores First WSOP Bracelet in Event #25: $2,000 No- Limit Hold'em 8-Max October 13, 2022 Kirk Brown On Wednesday, the 2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online continued with Event #25: $2,000 No-Limit Holdem 8-Max, a tournament that drew 162 players who rebought 66 times. The field resulted in a $421,800 prize pool, and after just over nine hours of play, it was Evan "ballz222" Sandberg who scored the victory to capture a $94,567 top prize and his first gold bracelet. Sandberg, who defeated Kijoon "standardiu" Park in heads-up play, is California native with over $950,000 in live tournament earnings according to The Hendon Mob. Sandberg is regular in the World Series and his last notable cash was this year in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em (Event #49) where he placed seventh for $76,912. His largest live cash to date is from a first-place finish in the $1,600 Mystery Bounty at the 2021 Wynn Fall Classic for a handsome sum of $293,322. He can now add a shiny new piece of hardware to his trophy case, a WSOP gold bracelet. Final Table Payouts PLACE PLAYER COUNTRY PRIZE 1 Evan "ballz222" Sandberg United States $94,567 2 Kijoon "standardiu" Park United States $67,488 3 Jason "Jaybangs" Obinge r United States $48,211 4 Tony "Panoramic" Dunst United States $34,672 5 Krista "Pollux" Gifford United States $25,139 6 Matt "Berkey11_S4Y" Berkey United States $18,221 7 Martin "Bathroomline" Zamani United States $13,286 8 Julio "PrsFinest" Clavell United States $9,701 Final Table Action Once the bubble burst it took only 25 minutes before the first casualty. The action got off to a hot start when Matt Berkey11_S4Y Berkey moved all in with ace-jack suited and was called by Julio "PrsFinest" Clavell with his pocket queens. Unfortunately for Clavell, an ace appeared on the flop and Berkeys superior pair held to eliminate Clavell in eighth place. Twenty minutes later, Martin "Bathroomline" Zamani then moved all in with pocket tens but ran into pocket aces held by Park. Zamani was sent out in seventh place when the board didnt improve his hand. A few hands later, it was Berkey who moved all in with ace-seven offsuit and was called by Jason "Jaybangs" Obinger with pocket eights. Although there was a seven on the flop, Berkey couldnt improve to beat Obingers overpair and he was sent to the rail in sixth place. Short-stacked Krista "Pollux" Gifford found herself in a flip situation with pocket deuces against the queen-jack suited of Park. When the board flopped a jack, Gifford couldnt find any improvement on the turn or river and was eliminated in fifth place. Tony Dunst Four-handed play went back and forth for a while until Dunst moved all in with queen-seven offsuit and was called by the jack-ten offsuit of Sandberg. The flop gave Sandberg a pair of jacks and the river resulted in a full house which sent Dunst out in fourth place. A short while later, Obinger got it all in with king-ten offsuit versus Sandbergs ace-jack. Sandberg was already ahead going into the battle but he paired his jack on the turn and the river bricked to seal his victory and Obinger was sent home in third. After around thirty minutes of back-and-forth heads-up action, Park moved all in on a five-of-hearts river against Sandberg. Sandberg quickly made the call and his eight-three of hearts was tabled which showed he had made a flush on the river to take down the pot and eliminated Park in second place, awarding himself the coveted bracelet and the first place prize. This concludes coverage of WSOP.com Event #25: $2,000 NLH 8-Max. Be sure to keep it with the PokerNews team for live updates from your favorite events over the rest of the series. Sharelines Check out the latest results from WSOP.com Event #25: $2,000 NLH It's Back! The PokerStars EPT Returns to London From Oct. 18 October 14, 2022 Matthew Pitt Editor The PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) is heading to London for the first time in eight long years, and PokerNews' live reporting team will be with you every step of the way, bringing you live and exclusive coverage of some of the festival's biggest and most eagerly anticipated events on the schedule. You have to go back to 2014 to find the last time EPT London crowned a Main Event champion. EPT London was a main stay on the EPT since the tour's launch in 2004 and up to 2014 when the EPT had a change in strategy and direction. Now it is returning to the place famous for its black cabs, red double-decker buses, and cosmopolitan vibes, and we cannot wait to get started. The 2022 EPT London festival runs from October 18-29 at the Hilton Park Lane, and you need to be aware that the series is cashless. Cash will not be accepted at the Hilton Park Lane. Instead, cash must be loaded onto a Hippodrome Card at the Hippodrome Casino. Alternatively, you can buy into any of the tournaments using a debit card, via your PokerStars account (com/eu/uk/fr only) or via Luxon Pay. Please be aware you may need bank statements when using your debit card for the first time. In addition, it can take up to a week for bank wired funds to appear on your Hippodrome Card. Furthermore, a government-issued ID or passport is required for entry into the Hippodrome Casino. EPT London Events PokerNews Is Covering Sebastian Pauli is the reigning EPT London Champion First up for the PokerNews Live Reporting special treatment is the 10,200 Mystery Bounty from October 18-19. This event runs alongside the UKIPT Main Event, which PokerNews is also covering. Other events on PokerNews' radar include the 25,000 Single-Day High Rollers, the UKIPT High Roller, a 50,000 EPT Super High Roller, and, of course, the much anticipated EPT London Main Event. We will also be on the ground throughout the 3,000 Mystery Bounty event from October 24-26 where someone will win a $30,000 PSPC Platinum Pass. A second Platinum Pass is awarded to the winner of a live "all-in shooutout," which is only open to players who qualify for UKIPT and EPT London online at PokerStars; get hitting those last-minute satellites! Every Past EPT London Final Table Including Coren Mitchell's Famous 2006 Win Past EPT London Champions Victoria Coren Mitchell EPT London has always proved popular, and some of poker's most well-known names have returned home with the EPT London Main Event trophy under their arm. John Shipley won the inaugural EPT London Main Event back in 2004; he collected 200,000 for his efforts that day. Other champions include Mark Teltscher, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Michael Martin (the first and only 1 million top prize winner), David Vamplew, Benny Spindler, Robin Ylitalo, Ruben Visser, and Germany's Sebastian Pauli, the latter essentially being the reigning champion as he triumphed in 2014. Will your name be added to the list of EPT London Main Event winners? Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rep. Adam Schiff from California presented new evidence as proof that the Secret Service anticipated the violence at the Capitol well before January 6th and on the morning of January 6th. Schiff introduced an email proving that the Secret Service was aware of the plan to attack the Capitol and had the evidence as far back as December 24. On December 31st, the Secret Service presented rhetoric on the net that captured social media messages which included We are the storm, and 1776 rhetoric. You will, of course, recall that Lauren Boebert declared January 6th was 1776 as just an interesting aside. newly obtained Secret Service emails pic.twitter.com/jKuilrBo9k Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2022 Schiff also presented communications between the Secret Service, which said it felt like the calm before the storm. And that members of the USS noticed that certain rally-goers were not going into the Elipse (large crowds), and they deduced that the crowd outside the Elipse was armed. Again, the USS knew the crowds had weapons. Schiff: "The documents we obtained from the Secret Service make clear that the crowd outside the magnetometers was armed, and the agents knew it." pic.twitter.com/wO53CCak1y Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2022 On January 5th, the USS was aware of new chatter regarding threats to Pence. They knew that many planned on storming the Capitol and harming Pence and members of Congress if they dont do the right thing. "Our 'lawmakers' in Congress can leave one of two ways: 1. in a bodybag. 2. after rightfully certifying Trump the winner." pic.twitter.com/duG64IlJS6 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2022 On that night (January 5th) Trump could tell that his supporters were riled up and thus susceptible to suggestions that Trump might make regarding threats to Pence. The USS also knew of the danger. The Committee caught Secret Service members lying in their statements: Schiff says that testimony from certain White House and Secret Service witnesses about them not knowing about violent threats against protectees on January 6 is "not credible" pic.twitter.com/lN4oIqbPP6 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2022 And again, proof that the USS knew that Pence was in danger on January 6th. a newly obtained Secret Service text from January 6 warns of threats against Pence pic.twitter.com/FgQCbt5xEX Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2022 This new evidence is devastating to the Secret Service, and we also know that most of the communications between agents were erased or destroyed. This evidence is tragic and new to this hearing. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Newly released documentary footage appears to show Roger Stone losing it and calling Ivanka Trump an abortionist b*tch after her dad refused to give him another pardon. Video of Stone: Unreleased subpoenaed footage: Stone angry that Trump didnt grant him a second pardon melts down calling Ivanka Trump abortionist bitch daughter. pic.twitter.com/aAAOZLC5fu Christoffer Guldbrandsen (@cguld) October 14, 2022 Stone says in the clip, Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. Hes coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly. He will be leaving very quickly, very quickly. He has a hundred security guards. Ill have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight? Lets fight. Fk you. Fk you, and your abortionist b*tch daughter. The January 6th attack, Trumps coup plot, and narcissism that fueled the decision-making process of people who were committing crimes to have documentary filmmaking crews following them around have provided an inside look at how Trump and the people around him operate. Roger Stone was upset because Donald Trump refused to give him a second pardon, ostensibly to cover his activities in the 1/6 attack. Heres Stone video released on Thursday by the January 6th committee from the documentary filmmaker who released the above footage: Recently, the Select Committee obtained footage of Roger Stone before and after the election. pic.twitter.com/6mRdWwMSmE January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 13, 2022 Even before the hearing yesterday, Zachary Petrizzo reported in the Daily Beast that Stone was threatening to file a $25 million lawsuit against the Danish filmmakersFrederik Marbell and Christoffer Guldbrandsenwho filmed him back in November saying, Fuck the voting, lets get right to the violence.' Stone is probably headed back to prison, where he belongs. The long-time Trump adviser was the middle man for the Trump campaign and Russia and performed the same function for Trump with the militias on 1/6. The failed former president is surrounded by fellow criminals like Roger Stone, who are only interested in themselves. Aiken, SC (29801) Today A clear sky. Scattered frost possible. Low 34F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A clear sky. Scattered frost possible. Low 34F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick guaranteed Thursday evening that the Republicans will have a supermajority in the South Carolina House after the Nov. 8 general elections. He issued a guarantee at an Aiken County Republican Party meeting hosted by the Precinct 64 (Cedar Creek) Republicans that the GOP would gain five seats. Republicans currently hold 80 of the 124 seats, Democrats currently hold 43 seats, and one seat is vacant. S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, resigned from the House after the session ended this year. With five additional seats, Republicans would have over two-thirds, 85, of the members of the chamber. "We are going to have a supermajority in the state House before this election is over," McKissick said. "Matter of fact, I'm going to go on the record right now, Bill, we are going to pick up five state House seats in this cycle. Go ahead, mark it down, we're picking up five seats." S.C. Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken, was among the people attending the meeting Thursday evening at the Big Red Barn. McKissick did not specify which House seats the Republicans could gain but the party has gained one seat from the redistricting that followed the 2020 Census. Three seats have moved from Democratic strongholds to Republican strongholds as a result of the state's redistricting effort. In specific, House District 61 moves from lower Florence and western Marion counties to Horry County. House District 66 moves from Orangeburg County to York County. And House District 80 moves from lower Richland County to suburban Charleston. Four other seats held by Republicans combined into two districts. One of those involved seats in Lancaster and Kershaw counties. There is one candidate, Republican Cody Mitchell, running to replace Lucas. There are 20 other races in which a Democratic incumbent faces a Republican challenger: House Districts 12, 15, 41, 49, 50, 54, 55, 64, 70, 77, 79, 90, 93, 95, 102, 105, 116, 117, 119 and 121. None of these races are in Aiken, Edgefield or Barnwell counties. S.C. Rep. Bill Clyburn, D-Aiken, the representative from House District 82, and S.C. Rep. Lonnie Hosey, D-Barnwell, do not face opponents in the general election. There is also one race where the Democratic incumbent, S.C. Rep. Leola Robinson, D-Greenville, decided not to run for reelection; and Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the seat. McKissick said later in his 32-minute speech the Republicans have a good opportunity to gain seats during the election. "Democrats are doing everything that we can to make our job easier right now," McKissick continued. "Joe Biden is a wonderful spokesman [for the Republican Party]. I think we need to just give him a microphone and let him talk louder. Everyday, it's like what's the latest thing that's going to come out of Joe's mouth." McKissick also said he had recently seen a CNN video he said he did not watch the network but would occasionally receive a video in which a Democratic strategist said that white liberals are not the heart of the party anymore. "They're dragging them further and faster off to the left," McKissick said. "Smart Democrats are realizing that they're powerless to stop it. They're moving further and faster to the left, and that is moving more and more people away from the Democratic Party." McKissick said the job of the Republicans is to be there to bring those left behind by the Democratic Party into the Republican fold by sharing a message that is relevant to them rather than the "woke garbage that's coming out of Washington." He said the keys to getting that message to those voters left behind by the Democratic Party were manpower to spread the word and to work on behalf of candidates and the party, the communication to get the right message to the right person, and the money to be able to fund candidates and the party's ability to get their message out there. Since 2015, a property in unincorporated Aiken County, just beyond the Country Club Hills neighborhood of North Augusta, has been called a number of things. A harborage for rats, snakes, and vermin. Unsafe and a public safety hazard. Thick vegetation has grown over its garage and snaked around its structurally dubious gazebo (the roof is lopsided). Its swimming pool has seen its fair share of stagnant water; water that at least at one time had become the final resting place for some kind of dead animal. But this spring, four neighbors apparently had had enough and made a formal complaint with the Aiken County Sheriffs Office. That action led to Aiken County filing a complaint against property owners James F. Nelson and Christopher L. Freeman in the Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 4. Read: Aiken County v. Nelson, Freeman A complaint was filed in Aiken County Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 4 regarding a property on Mayfield Court just beyond the North Augusta cit According to the complaint, the property at 1 Mayfield Court has been cited for nuisance violations eight times between May 2015 and May 2022. The series of citations began on May 27, 2015, when the sheriffs office received an anonymous complaint forwarded by South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) that the property was overgrown and had become a harborage for rats, snakes, and vermin, according the complaint. Aiken County code enforcement officers, according to the complaint, had given defendant Freeman a verbal warning to abate the nuisance and by end of July that year had determined that Freeman had complied. That first case, though, would play out another seven times over the next 7 years in an almost routine order of citation, verbal warning and Freemans compliance with that warning. Many times it was overgrown vegetation and stagnant water in the swimming pool; junk or debris piled up or other dangers to health, safety, or welfare, the complaint reads. Once, in March of last year, it was a dead animal of some kind in the pool. That particular inspection was prompted by a residents complaint alleging that a neighbor had been bitten by a snake. Finally, this year, on May 2, four neighbors of the problem property filed a joint complaint with the Aiken County Sheriffs Office, saying that conditions at 1 Mayfield Court were worse than before and that one neighbors young son had fallen into the pool after trying to get a closer look at the turtles in the pool, the complaint reads. Prior to Aiken County filing the complaint, letters were sent late in September via certified mail to both Freeman and Nelson at 1 Mayfield Court, as well as to alternate addresses in Augusta, one of these at the Thornberry Apartments and the other at the Parliament Resort on Gordon Highway, according to court filings. The letters included photographs that officers had taken this May and in March last year, as well as the terms of the South Carolina statute permitting the county to take action in nuisance abatement. That letter, from Aiken County attorney Bradley T. Farrar, also warned Freeman and Nelson of his commencing an injunction action against the property should they not abate conditions at the property within 10 days. The defendants did not comply, and Farrar filed the countys complaint against them. The county, in its complaint, is asking the court to order Freeman and Nelson to abate the nuisances at 1 Mayfield Court. And, should they refuse, to permit the county to do so and with the guarantee that all associated costs be reimbursed to Aiken County. Despite the repeated nuisance violations at 1 Mayfield Court, Aiken County tax records show that Freeman and Nelson have timely paid all property taxes on it. But now, Aiken County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Hinson in an Oct. 10 filing noted the sheriffs office was unable to serve the court summons for defendant Freeman at the Mayfield Court address and noted in that filing that the property is likely abandoned. Building components for diesel engines might not appear to be the greenest of industries, but Cummins Inc. sees its new North Charleston plant as a major push toward carbon neutrality by the middle of this century. The $27 million factory will take old turbochargers and rebuild them to the same specifications and performance standards as the brand-new parts the company builds just up the street at its other Palmetto Commerce Park site. "We fundamentally realize that we are part of the problem, and we're also part of the solution," Shon Wright, vice president of Cummins Turbo Technologies, said during an Oct. 14 ribbon-cutting event. The new site will employ more than 250 workers, adding to the Fortune 500 company's workforce of about 725 in the Charleston region. Wright said the company plans to reach its net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050, a strategy called "Destination Zero," as its engines become more energy efficient. "Remanufacturing is an important part of that strategy," he said, adding the rebuilt turbochargers will give customers a cost-effective and environmentally sound way to replace old equipment. The plant will be able to salvage roughly 70 percent of the metal by weight, reducing the global impact of mining and refining. The market for turbochargers accelerated during the pandemic with the boom in retail-driven trucking and has remained strong, with volumes exceeding company projections. The remanufacturing facility was relocated to North Charleston from Memphis, where Cummins last year shut down a plant that had employed about 300 people. At the time, a company spokeswoman said the relocation "will improve operational efficiency, allowing us to remain competitive and to continue to invest in our communities." The move wasn't without its challenges. North Charleston plant manager Marvin Solowo-Coker said the transition "took two years of hard work during a pandemic and a supply chain crisis." Wright called the relocation "an extensive exercise," but added the new factory "really is a testament of the capable workforce that we have in Charleston, a competitive manufacturing industry and, finally, our deep ties to the community." Columbus, Ind.-based Cummins has had a presence in the Charleston region since the 1990s. In addition to the new plant debut, the company distributed nearly $2 million in donations to area nonprofits that help low-income and minority residents. That includes: $1 million to Metanoia SC, which will use the money to build 20 homes and repair 15 more for people on fixed incomes; $650,000 to Community Works, which offers low-interest and low-cost loans to Black-owned businesses; and $250,000 to Lowcountry Street Grocery, a mobile farmer's market that brings local produce and healthy foods to neighborhoods without grocery stores. Others getting grants included: Lowcountry Local First, which received $75,000 for its economic development and training programs for local businesses; and the YWCA of Greater Charleston, which received $24,000 to provide racial equity training to North Charleston's police department. "In Charleston, we have a history of supporting community organizations in the areas of education, environment and equality of opportunity, Wright said. "Cummins goal is to improve communities where our employees are located, and we are committed to bringing together all of Cummins' capabilities its people, its balance sheet and the companys philanthropy to drive racial equity and combat the impact of racism on our employees, communities and economy. Bill Stanfield, Metanoia's CEO, compared the charitable giving to the work Cummins will do rebuilding turbochargers at its new plant, calling both "redemptive." "People bring things here that are of lesser value, and when it leaves here it is of greater value," Stanfield said of the recycled materials. "At Metanoia, we are about pulling alongside communities that are, unfortunately, looked at for their deficiencies and problems ... but with a little investment we can bring some redemption here, something of greater value." COLUMBIA A taste of Southern brunch is coming to an iconic spot in Five Points. Ruby Sunshine, a restaurant chain from Louisiana with branches across the Southeast including Charleston, will open in the space occupied for decades by Yesterdays Restaurant & Tavern. The move will bring a new restaurant to fill the space at the heart of Columbia's oldest shopping and restaurant district, continuing its shift from being dominated by college bars to focusing on dining. The Devine Street location is expected to open in summer 2023, according to an Oct. 14 statement from the company. "Columbia and the iconic Five Points neighborhood felt like a natural choice for Ruby Sunshine, which prioritizes neighborhoods that share their passion for community," the company said in a statement. Ruby Sunshine is an offshoot of the Ruby Slipper Cafe restaurant, which first opened in New Orleans. The company now has 19 locations from Louisiana to North Carolina. That includes a location on East Bay Street in Charleston and another set to open in Avondale in October. Ruby Sunshine plans to offer a "full menu of Big Easy twists on Southern brunch staples and creative cocktails," the company said. "We set out to create a place that celebrates the craveable and creative flavor and spirit of brunch front and center, every day," according to the restaurant's website. That will be a dramatic change from the clubby, old-school feel of Yesterdays, which was much more of a college-town tavern, with bars and ballgames on TV on one side and a menu of hearty Southern classic dinners served on the other. Yesterdays, with its cowboy in a bathtub overlooking the main Five Points intersection, was an icon of Columbia and the neighborhood next to the University of South Carolina for 44 years before it closed in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, the owners decided not to reopen. In the interim, renovation work on the site has continued, with plans in place to take the historic building back closer to a more historic appearance predating its time as Yesterdays. Two national chains had inquired about the restaurant space in the past six months in addition to Ruby Sunshine, according to building owner Dominic Como. The Louisiana-based chain looked like a strong business concept with an energetic team, and one that will fit well in Five Points, Como said. Five Points has seen numerous restaurants and boutiques open in the district in the past year, and more are looking for available space, said Steve Cook, owner of Saluda's restaurant and board chairman for the Five Points Association. Bars for the college crowd were always just one part of the district's business, Cook said. College students also shop and dine in the district, in addition to the larger Columbia community, he said. Ruby Sunshine has had success elsewhere and should be a good fit for the district in the famous Yesterdays space, Cook said. "They have got some big shoes to fill." COLUMBIA The University of South Carolina has commissioned Jamaican sculptor Basil Watson for a statue honoring the three Black students who integrated the state's largest college some 60 years ago. The sculpture will be located near the Osborne Administration building where the famous photo of Henrie Monteith Treadwell, Robert Anderson and James Solomon Jr. descending the premises stairs was taken the morning of Sept. 11, 1963. "These three students changed USC history, and with your decisions today, we are making sure that not only history but also many, many future generations will remember that," President Michael Amiridis said. The now-iconic photograph inspired Watson's concept for a 12-foot bronze, mounted on a granite base. The university hopes to unveil the statue in 2023 on the 60th anniversary of the students' arrival to campus, board of trustees President Thad Westbrook said. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the son of painter Barrington Watson, Basil Watson has sculpted other Civil Rights-era leaders, including the late Sen. John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. His works also have depicted famous Jamaican athletes, like Olympic sprinters Usain Bolt and Merlene Ottey. I hope every piece that I do can create even a little change, even in one person," Watson said in a statement. "To have a public audience like this is magnificent because it gives me the opportunity to go wider and bigger and deeper trying to make that change." Trustee Alex English said he thinks the statue will be something the students and university professors can be proud of. S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman believes the sculpture could "inspire young people in South Carolina for a long time" and added it is likely to become a field trip stop for K-12 students from across the state. Placing the statue for the three prominent African American alumni, who trustee Dorn Smith said "opened the door for future generations," will help fulfill an earlier pledge by the university to honor more people of color, following the work of a special presidential commission. Former university president Bob Caslen had charged the special commission with examining the names of buildings and landmarks on campus that were named after historical figures with racially insensitive records. USC ultimately did not push to rename any buildings. Instead, the schools board said it would focus on names of any new or unnamed buildings to honor the universitys notable Black and minority figures. I hope that alumni, faculty, students will continue to think of ways of permanently recognizing the value of what has been done on that campus, Monteith Treadwell said in a statement. People must understand that my walking across that threshold was not the end of the story. My walking across that threshold was the beginning of a story. A lawsuit filed by Monteith Treadwell was the impetus for Anderson, Solomon and herself to step onto campus that day, following a nearly two-year court battle. She would go on to become the universitys first Black graduate since Reconstruction, earning a bachelors degree in biochemistry in 1965. Anderson, who died in 2009, was a transfer student from Clark College. The Greenville native worked as a social worker in New York City for many years, followed by a 12-year career with the Veterans Administration. Solomon, a graduate student, had been on the faculty of Morris College. After USC, he held a number of government positions, retiring as commissioner of the Department of Social Services. The day the students arrived on the USC campus in 1963 was highly scripted with State Law Enforcement Division officers stationed around campus to avoid disruptions that took place at other colleges. There had been riots at the University of Georgia in 1961. In 1962, riots at the University of Mississippi left 300 people injured and two dead. Watson said he wants his latest statue to move people in the way seeing the three students' photo from all those years ago moves him. All of my sculptures are about heroes, he said in a statement. My hope is that this sculpture inspires others to find that hero within themselves and recognize that a hero is not somebody else out there. A hero lies within us, and we can make that kind of contribution. HOPKINS The wild and woodsy Congaree National Park will close several days this month while staffers conduct a hunt to eliminate some of the hundreds of roaming wild hogs that have increasingly wreaked havoc in recent months. The animals have turned their attention to digging up and destroying areas along trails in the park, which makes the pathways hard to recognize and causes some visitors to get turned around. Jon Manchester, a federal park ranger at Congaree, said the hogs can cause quite a bit of ecosystem damage, too. People go to the park to see the wildflowers and other wildlife. But with pigs rooting around and making a mess, areas can become quite barren. National Park Service staffers and members of other federal entities will use high-powered rifles to kill some of the pigs and hopefully decrease damage to the Southeast's largest intact area of old growth bottomland hardwood forest. Several backcountry areas of the park will close to anglers, paddlers, hikers and campers Tuesday through Thursday on Oct. 18-20 and Oct. 25-27 while the wildlife management operations are performed. Manchester said staff will perform a ground shoot to kill as many of the hogs as possible. The carcasses will be left in remote areas where trails aren't located close by. "And within like two to three days, scavengers will have pretty much taken care of it," Manchester said. "Vultures, coyotes, even other feral hogs will basically have taken care of it." It is hard to get a sense of how many wild pigs are in the park's nearly 27,000 acres southeast of Columbia because they breed quite fast. One female pig can produce about 30 more pigs within a calendar year, Manchester said. There could be well over a thousand feral hogs in the park. The animals are an invasive species that have been in the state for hundreds of years but have become a problem all over South Carolina. They are known to damage crops and whole ecosystems, plus carry a number of diseases that can affect humans and other animals. Hunters can trap, kill and remove the hogs at anytime in most parts of the state. But that excludes places like national parks. People can even register their properties with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources for night hunting authorization. Some people get lucky with controlling hogs. But other, like select farmers, have to deal with depredation of crops. Kenneth Cordray of Cordray's Taxidermy in Ravenel said he has trapped more than 530 wild hogs in three years on his property. "If you can, get rid of them," said Cordray, who is not connected to the Congaree hunt. "That's the key to managing your wildlife and managing your land." The wild pigs become "excellent table fare," Cordray said. And he tries to give away as many as he can. Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver introduces the panel of speakers at the Opioid and Fentanyl Crisis forum on Oct. 13 in Georgetown. Randal Seyler/Staff GEORGETOWN A Charlotte, N.C., man was arrested Oct. 13 after he allegedly attacked his wife in a Murrells Inlet motel room. Todd Anderson Abernathy, 51, was arrested by Georgetown County Sheriff's Office deputies in connection with charges of attempted murder, domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Deputies were called to Hampton Inn on Courtfield Drive, Murrells Inlet, shortly after 1 a.m. Oct. 13 following a 911 hang-up telephone call, according to a press release from the sheriff's office. Outside the motel room, deputies heard a woman call for help. When deputies entered the room, they found a man and woman seriously injured. Both were taken to an area hospital. During the course of the investigation, authorities said evidence was gathered supporting charges that Abernathy attempted to kill his wife with a knife. Abernathy also inflicted injuries upon himself, according to the release. Abernathy was detained at the Georgetown County Detention Center where he remains incarcerated pending a bond hearing. PAWLEYS ISLAND Sampit resident Joe Cooper presented the Georgetown County Water and Sewer District board with a petition of over 300 signatures Oct. 13 signifying the rural community's desire to see their homes connected to the county sewer system. Georgetown County Councilman Everett Carolina addressed the board and noted that in the late 1990s, sewer infrastructure was put in place along Pennyroyal Road up to Saints Delight Road to accommodate the area of Sampit Elementary School, which was required to maintain a sewer connection. The school opened in 2000 but more than two decades later, Carolina said, residents in half of the community are still relying on septic tanks. "It will stimulate economic development, economic development such as residential economic development, commercial economic development and industrial economic development," Carolina said of a sewer connection to Sampit homes. Carolina's district spans much of southern Georgetown County from the Williamsburg County border to the Atlantic Ocean and includes the communities of Sampit, North Santee and Lambertown as well as western Andrews. He said that when he held town hall meetings after being elected to the Georgetown County Council in 2016, the Sampit area was not as concerned about sewers. But now faced with rising water tables, forecast sea level rise and the cost of septic tank maintenance, a sewer connection is at the forefront of their minds. "It's essential at this time for the health of the community that we make this move to press upon Georgetown County Water and Sewer to bring sewer to the community," Carolina said. "It helps improve the health scenarios, it opens up the possibilities for residential development, it opens up the opportunities for big commercial and big industrial development. And if Georgetown is to grow, Georgetown needs this water and sewer infrastructure." Rev. Kelly Spann of St. Paul AME Church told the board that the present sanitation conditions at Sampit Community Park pose a health risk. "All the young boys and girls go there every day to play," Spann said. "And while they are there, every now and then they have to relieve themselves. They got to go to a portable (toilet). And coming out of the portable, there is no adequate water to wash their hands." Rev. Franklin Nelson echoed Carolina's message that a sewer connection would stimulate development in the area. "We're trying to get (a) car wash, restaurant, laundromats back in the area so that our folk don't have to drive 20 miles to get to a laundromat," Nelson said. "And if we can get the sewer, it will help." Board chairman William Schwarzkopf told residents who attended the meeting that the petition will be taken under advisement. Curtis Smith, the disabled Walterboro trucker who authorities claim laundered money and trafficked drugs with disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, failed a polygraph exam earlier this year as investigators questioned him about his role in the killings of Murdaugh's wife and son, according to new court filings. In an Oct. 14 motion, Murdaugh's defense attorneys cite never-before-seen records of Smith's interviews with investigators. Columbia lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin raised questions about Smith's alibi on the June 2021 night Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were fatally shot and suggested Smith is their real killer. Harpootlian and Griffin also again criticized the state investigation that ultimately charged their client with two counts of murder, claiming the S.C. Attorney General's Office "caved to public interest in this case" in indicting Murdaugh on a "weak circumstantial case." "Smith decidedly failed a polygraph when questioned if he murdered Maggie and Paul," Murdaugh's attorneys wrote. "Nevertheless, the Attorney General has represented that the State intends to present Smith as a cooperating witness against Alex in the upcoming murder trial." The filing is the latest escalation in a bitter battle between Murdaugh's lawyers and state prosecutors ahead of a highly anticipated Jan. 23 trial in Colleton County. That trial date, previously announced as Jan. 30, was moved up a week in a recent order by Circuit Judge Bentley Price. Murdaugh's lawyers used the filing to request more evidence from the Attorney General's Office about Smith's involvement in the 13-month investigation that led to Murdaugh's indictment in July. Specifically, they want data and notes from Smith's May 5 polygraph exam with state investigators, all evidence collected from a search of Smith's home and cellphone in September, any DNA test results involving Smith, and the terms of any agreements prosecutors have reached with Smith. The fallout Murdaugh's attorneys declined to comment further on their motion. Curtis Smith's defense attorney, Aimee Zmroczek, dismissed the allegations when reached for comment and described her client as one of Murdaugh's victims. "He has an actual alibi, unlike (Murdaugh)," she said of Smith. "If they think he had anything to do with that murder, you don't think he would have been arrested?" Robert Kittle, a spokesman for the S.C. Attorney General's Office, said prosecutors would file a response to Murdaugh's motion on Monday. Kittle pledged prosecutors would not withhold any relevant evidence from Murdaugh before the January trial. "To date, we have provided over three-quarters of a terabyte of information to the defense," Kittle said. "No Brady material will be withheld and, as always, we will address these issues in our pleadings and in the courtroom and will not try this case outside the courtroom." Brady material is generally considered evidence a prosecutor is required to disclose to opposing counsel and includes items that would be favorable to someone charged criminally. The polygraph test According to the new court filing, Smith was hooked up to a polygraph machine and questioned by a State Law Enforcement Division agent in May, nearly a year after the grisly killings at the Murdaugh family's hunting lodge in Colleton County. During that interview, Smith maintained he was at home with friends the evening of June 7, 2021, when Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed. "I know I was nowhere near the place where Maggie and Paul got killed at," he told the investigator. The agent asked three questions during the polygraph exam about Smith's role in the deaths, the motion states. Twice Smith was asked if he shot either victim, and once he was asked if he was present during the killings. Smith answered in the negative to all three questions, but the exam found there was evidence of "attempted deception" on his part, according to the motion. The investigator questioned Smith's truthfulness, but the trucker was adamant, records reflect. "I wasn't there, there ain't no way, shape or form nobody can put me there when I was not there," he told the investigator. Smith offered his own theory for how Maggie Murdaugh and her son were killed. He said Maggie was having an affair with a groundskeeper, whose name he did not know, and that Paul caught them during a tryst in the barn. Angry, Paul shot his mom with a rifle and then tried to turned his gun on the groundskeeper, Smith suggested. "But the groundskeeper already went to his truck and got a shotgun," Smith said. Such polygraph tests, while still used by law enforcement, are generally not admissible in court. Questions abound In their filing, Murdaugh's attorneys also raised questions about Smith's alibi and how SLED verified it. Smith told investigators there were three people who could support his alibi. SLED agents waited two weeks to interview two of those witnesses, "giving Smith an opportunity to tell them what to say," Murdaugh's attorneys wrote. Both witnesses had been friends with Smith for decades, and they both backed his story, Griffin and Harpootlian wrote. SLED didn't interview the third witness at all, they wrote. Smith, whom Murdaugh's attorneys have described as his personal drug dealer, "regularly delivered drugs to Moselle near the dog kennels where Maggie and Paul were murdered," Griffin and Harpootlian wrote. "In other words, the man who could not honestly say he did not shoot Maggie and Paul often committed other crimes at the location of the murders - crimes which he presumably would want to conceal but which Maggie and Paul certainly would not allow to be concealed if they were present." Smith, a former legal client of Murdaugh's, first landed in trouble in September 2021 after authorities say he shot the 54-year-old Hampton attorney as part of a botched insurance fraud scheme. Murdaugh was airlifted to a hospital after the shooting. He initially claimed someone shot him from a passing truck while he inspected a flat tire on the side of a rural Hampton County road. He later reversed course, telling state investigators that in a fit of depression over the deaths of his wife and son he asked Smith to shoot him so his surviving son could collect from his $10 million life insurance policy. The Walterboro man made a poor assassin as the bullet only winged his skull, Murdaugh's lawyers said. Smith told a different story the next month in interviews with NBC and CBS. Murdaugh had requested Smith kill him on the side of the road, the trucker said, but he instead wrestled with the attorney for control of the gun to stop Murdaugh from killing himself. The gun went off, but Smith insisted the bullet never hit Murdaugh. "I didn't shoot him," Smith told a national audience. "I'm innocent. If I would have shot him, he'd be dead. He's alive." Smith admitted he took the gun from the scene and ditched it, but claimed he did it so Murdaugh couldn't use it to kill himself. 'Clearing my name' Criminal allegations have continued to pile up against the former logger since his initial arrest on charges that included assault and battery, assisted suicide and insurance fraud. In June, Smith and Murdaugh were indicted by a state grand jury on money laundering and drug-trafficking charges. Murdaugh stole millions of dollars from his former law clients, investigators allege, and Smith was responsible for laundering some of it. Murdaugh wrote Smith at least 437 checks totaling $2.4 million between October 2013 and February 2021. The former logger and handyman used some of it to purchase narcotics, but a "substantial" portion was converted to cash that remains unaccounted for, according to state authorities. Smith denied selling drugs after his arrest. He told Circuit Judge Clifton Newman at a June 28 bail hearing he was "pulled into it not by choice." I look forward to clearing my name," he said in a gravelly voice. In August, Newman found that Smith repeatedly violated his house arrest, leaving his Lowcountry home more than two dozen times over a two-week span in July. Creighton Waters, a prosecutor in the S.C. Attorney General's Office, also revealed that Smith had nearly $58,500 in his bank account, despite claiming at a previous bail hearing that he was broke. Newman ordered Smith back to jail, where he remains. MYRTLE BEACH The former owner of a Myrtle Beach gentlemen's club was arrested Oct. 13 by state revenue agents on charges of tax evasion. David Joseph Bean, 68, of Myrtle Beach, faces four counts of tax evasion. He was arrested by agents from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, according to a news release issued Oct. 13 by the department's Public Information Office. Bean operated Seaboard Ventures Inc., doing business as Derriere Gentlemens Club of Myrtle Beach, and was responsible for filing state Admissions Tax returns, according to the release. For tax years 2016-2019, Bean failed to report at least $882,783 in admissions revenue, according to the arrest warrants. Bean evaded at least $44,142 in state Admissions Tax, according to the warrants. In November 2021, The Post and Courier reported that the club was temporarily closed in March 2020 after allegations it was operating as a brothel. According to a February 2020 report by WPDE, Bean was charged with 183 counts of prostitution and one count of failure to report in connection to a New Year's Day shooting in January 2020. A total of eight people were arrested and charged in connection to the prostitution investigation at Derriere's Gentlemen's Club. While Myrtle Beach police were investigating the Jan. 1 shooting at the strip club, police said they found evidence of additional criminal activity, prompting further investigation, according to news reports. Bean was incarcerated in the J. Reuben Long Detention Center at 11:50 a.m. Oct. 13. LONGS Three Longs residents were arrested Oct. 13 on charges of trafficking in persons under the age of 18. Kwame Lawan Vereen, 33, Lashon Alvin Ladson, 37, and Brittany Marquita Rutledge Jackson, 24, all of Longs, were arrested and booked at the J. Rueben Long Detention Center in Horry County, according to an Oct. 14 news release from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). Vereen was arrested in connection with charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and trafficking in persons, victim under 18, first offense. No bond was set as of the afternoon of Oct. 14. Ladson was arrested in connection with charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and trafficking in persons, victim under 18, first offense. No bond was set as of the afternoon of Oct. 14. Rutledge Jackson was arrested in connection with a charge of trafficking in persons, victim under 18, first offense. A bond of $40,000 was set for her, according to the Horry County Detention Center website. Law enforcement partners on the South Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force believe there may be more victims involved, according to the release. SLED agents, along with our law enforcement and community partners who make up the SC Human Trafficking Task Force, are committed to finding those responsible for exploiting vulnerable individuals to ensure justice is served for survivors, SLED Chief Mark Keel stated in the release. It is so important for anyone who may suspect human trafficking to report it. If you or someone you know is being trafficked, help is available, Keel said. SLED agents worked with investigators from Horry County Police Department, Horry County Sheriffs Office, Myrtle Beach Police Department, Williamsburg County Sheriffs Office, and Homeland Security Investigations, as well as multidisciplinary team partners from the South Carolina Department of Social Services, the Dorchester Child Advocacy Center, and the Julie Valentine Center. To report suspected human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline 1 888-373-7888 or text BeFree to 233722. Victims of human trafficking in South Carolina may call the SLED Human Trafficking Unit at 803-896-5591. DANIEL ISLAND Jeff Highsmith is on a mission to find the sister he never met. Melissa Highsmith was snatched from their mother's Texas apartment in 1971, nine years before he was born. She was just 21 months old at the time, making her now 52. In the intervening 50-plus years, at least three women have come forward believing they might be the missing infant, he said. But DNA eliminated them. Then, last month, an anonymous caller left a tip with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying Melissa Highsmith had been spotted on Daniel Island. I think three times, where we've had hopefuls, where we've been so confident that that we finally found her, Highsmith said during a recent video call. This feels a lot different. Its not a lot to go on, but he is sure his long-lost sister, the missing part of their family, is in the Charleston area. And its his purpose to find her. I can't explain it, but I just feel like she's there, he said. This is it. We're about to have a final chapter close on this horrible story. Later this month, Highsmith, wife Rachel and his father, who Jeff is named after, will travel from Texas to Charleston. On Oct. 22-23, they plan to go door-to-door in Daniel Island posting 10,000 flyers, hoping one might find its way to Melissa, or the anonymous tipster, who might share more information. John Bischoff, vice president of the missing children division for the NCMEC, said tips in long-cold cases are rare, but do happen. Melissa Highsmiths case is one of the longest-running for the center. We were overjoyed to see that the public did not forget about Melissa, Bischoff said. We haven't, law enforcement hasn't, and certainly her family hasn't. The center does not investigate the hundreds of tips it receives each week, but passes them to law enforcement. Bischoff said the Highsmith tip was sent to Fort Worth police, who investigated the kidnapping 51 years ago. In 1971, Alta Apentenco, Melissa and Jeff Highsmiths mother, placed an advertisement in the local paper seeking a babysitter. A woman answered the ad. She wore long white gloves and a hat despite the August heat when she picked up the child from a roommate while Apentenco was at work. She never returned. His mother cant bear to talk about the daughter who was taken, Highsmith said. But his father reminded the couples other four children of their missing sibling, especially on her birthday, Nov. 6. Melissa, born in 1969 with a birthmark on her upper back, is the oldest of the siblings; Jeff, the youngest. Becky was born three years after Melissa disappeared. A year later, Vicky came along. Then, Sharon, and finally Jeff, who was born in 1980. None of us have ever met her. We were all born after she was taken Jeff Highsmith said. So I didn't really understand or even know about anything, probably until I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. When he was 19, Highsmith said he had a vision that he would be the one to reunite the family. It wasnt until about six years ago that he started the search in earnest. Along with his wife, he appeared on podcasts and in television interviews to bring attention to the case. They started a Facebook page, which has 1,500 members, and expanded to other social media. Since the sighting on Daniel Island, media outlets across the country have picked up the story. The Texas police department did not respond to inquiries from The Post and Courier about the case. Highsmith said police in Texas and South Carolina told him that there was nothing to go on. It's hard after so many years, he said. It's hard not to get my hopes up when I see the excitement. And I can see the possibility that it could be her. But hes also considered that this could be another dead end. If they dont find Melissa, the trip to Charleston will be a proper goodbye to the sister he never knew. We've done all we could. And there's nothing else we can do, he said. This is like a final moment, a memorial. If we can't find her this time, we had to memorialize her. For more information, or to reach Highsmith family members who are asking for volunteers to pass out flyers in Charleston, visit the "Finding Melissa Highsmith" Facebook page. The family is also raising funds for their trip on GoFundMe. NORTH CHARLESTON A cigarette discarded in a flowerpot ignited the flames that ripped through an apartment building last week, displacing dozens, according to the authorities. An investigation by the North Charleston Fire Department found that the Oct. 7 blaze that engulfed two stories of Cedar Grove Apartments was started by a used cigarette tossed in a flowerpot, according to Chief Fire Investigator David Biser. The pot was located on the balcony of a second-floor apartment, and the fire spread across the building's exterior before pushing inside. The cigarette, the investigation determined, was discarded roughly five hours before the fire ignited around midnight, sending firefighters to Evangeline Drive south of Dorchester Road. The fire, which spread to the third floor of the three-story building, took authorities two hours to extinguish. No residents were injured in the flames, but 64 people including 25 children were displaced. The Red Cross of South Carolina is providing shelter, food and clothing. Biser described the source of the fire a cigarette put out in a flower pot as "quite common." "Something in the can was combustible, such as other cigarette butts or the potting soil," he explained. "There was still enough heat inside the cigarette that, once it was discarded, it sat there and smoldered for a few hours and ignited combustible (material) around it." The timing of the fire was unfortunate. The streets were dark and mostly empty, Biser said, which enabled the flames to spread throughout the exterior without discovery. The fire department concluded its investigation Oct. 11. Biser advised people who smoke at home to extinguish their cigarettes in a "non-combustible container," such as a metal can, that is full of water. The North Charleston fire ignited one week after flames tore through an apartment complex in Summerville, killing a mother and her 15-year-old son. Four other residents were injured and roughly 70 residents displaced. That fire remained under investigation as of Oct. 7. A local group that has greatly influenced recent Charleston County School Board races has endorsed eight candidates in next months election, though an equal number in the crowded field said they intentionally ignored inquiries from the Charleston Coalition for Kids. The coalition organized four years ago. Of the nine candidates it backed in the past two elections, six won board seats. Our slate represents the strongest people in every single race, said Dustin Daniels, the coalitions new executive director. They pass the eye test, they pass the credentials test, they pass the passion test. The coalition began reaching out to the field of more than 30 candidates in late August with a request to complete a questionnaire, continuing with requests to interview some. Half of all candidates did not complete the survey, Daniels said. At least eight a quarter of those running told The Post and Courier that they declined to respond because of their opposition to the group. Those opponents say the poor engagement could be a sign the coalitions power is waning. Daniels said his organization is just introducing itself to the community and that the coalition had no problem filling its slate: all eight candidates offered the groups endorsement accepted, he said. The nonprofit group's mission on its federal tax form states: "We advocate for changes to unlock the power of public education for every student. We identify qualified school board members and hold them accountable for change we know is possible." Its stated purpose is to work to inform school board members on key policy issues related to educating all children and build public awareness around school board elections. The coalition says that it "recruits, identifies and supports qualified candidates" running for the Charleston County School Board. Coalition for Kids launched five months before the 2018 election and had a successful first year. It endorsed four candidates. All four won. The coalition is supported by entrepreneur and Meeting Street Schools founder Ben Navarro along with other funders who have chosen to remain anonymous, as is allowed by South Carolina law. In 2020, Coalition for Kids backed five candidates in Charleston County. Two won. In that election cycle, the group spent more to support its slate than all other candidates combined, records show. This years race is different. Gov. Henry McMaster in 2020 signed a bill assigning the Charleston school board into single-member districts instead of at-large seats. All nine board positions are up for grabs. Three incumbents are still on the ballot, with the coalition endorsing two of those. Vying for board control The coalition recommends electing Keith Grybowski in District 1, Grace Bouldin Cowan in District 2, Ashley Peele in District 3, Courtney Waters (incumbent) in District 4, Eric Thome in District 6, Jen Mieras in District 7, Helen Davis-Frazier (incumbent) in District 8, and Graham Smith in District 9. The coalition did not endorse any candidates in the District 5 race. Grybowski also is endorsed by the Charleston County Republican Party and the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, making him one of two candidates to be endorsed by three of the four groups that have released broad slates. The other is the Charleston County Democratic Party. District 6 candidate Lee Runyon also received three endorsements, from both county political parties and Moms for Liberty. The Democratic and Republican parties also both endorsed Kevin Hollinshead in District 4 and Darlene Dunmeyer in District 8. Moms for Liberty, a conservative parent group known for advocating against COVID-19 mask policies and vaccine mandates in schools across the country, did not respond to a request for comment. In addition to Grybowski and Runyon, the group also endorsed Ed Kelley in District 2, Pam McKinney in District 3, Carlotte Bailey in District 5, Leah Whatley in District 7, Travis Bedson in District 8 and Forrest Bjork in District 9. They did not endorse any candidates in District 4. Along with Moms for Liberty, the GOP also endorsed Bailey, Bjork and Kelley. Other than Grybowski, Coalition for Kids endorsed candidates are not backed by the other groups. Aside from its slate and others who responded to its questionnaire, Daniels said some candidates tried to negotiate with the coalition, asking to meet and talk instead of filling out the survey. The Post and Courier reached out to all 32 candidates. Of those, 19 responded that they had received the survey. Eight said they declined to fill it out because they disagreed with the coalitions politics. Two said it was because they werent answering any groups surveys during this years increasingly partisan election. Runyon said he received the survey and chose not to complete it or seek the groups endorsement. While I do know several Charlestonians who have supported CFK, and I believe those I know to be well intentioned, collectively CFK as an organization does not resonate with me, Runyon said. I have observed their group's divisive work in Charleston education and its politics since their inception and see no improvements as a result of their efforts. The coalition endorsed Thome in the District 6 race. He was one of the organizations founding members and said he was proud of the work the coalition had done in the community. He expected to receive their support. "I believe in the coalitions mission to support board members that will put students first and will work to ensure quality education outcomes for all students," Thome said. Waters in District 4 previously received the coalition's support and has again accepted its endorsement. "I'll continue to work with any organization that believes all children deserve opportunity and that leadership and strong governance create conditions to narrow the gap in opportunity that exists for over half our system," Waters said. Leah Whatley, in District 7, said she turned down all political surveys. I wish to avoid the polarizing issue that seems to follow the political parties these days. As I am sure youre aware, CFK also seems to have that affect (sic), she said. I am genuinely running to serve my community. I am attempting to avoid the noise that would cloud my true intentions. Responding to criticism Daniels said the coalition operates similarly to South Carolina member-based organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, but undergoes much more scrutiny. The coalition has been pegged as this organization that's doing something wrong or doing something unethically, and that's just, in my opinion, unequivocally false, he said. If folks want to be super critical of how we operate, just keep that same energy about the same organizations that I mentioned. Daniels said the coalition has chosen not to disclose their donors to prevent unfair public scrutiny during this heightened sort of partisan environment. He declined to say who was on the coalitions selection committee. Sarah Shad Johnson, a District 2 candidate endorsed by the local Democratic Party, is an education advocate who has rallied against the coalition since previously participating in its questionnaire and interview process. Johnson said she received an unsigned email from the coalition on Sept. 8. After inquiries about who was sending the survey went unanswered, Johnson chose not to complete it. I do not want the support of an anonymous group that has spent an unlimited amount of untraceable dollars to influence our school board elections and school district, she said. The coalition endorsed Grace Bouldin Cowan in District 2. She did not respond to an email about this story. Daniels said he believes his groups most outspoken adversaries, such as Johnson, are people who previously wanted its support. I think there are candidates like that who, for whatever reason, sought our support and didn't receive it in the past and so they have a little bit of an ax to grind, Daniels said. Johnson disputed that. She said she participated in their process when she ran for school board in 2018 before she knew the full scope of the organizations goals and operations. Johnson lost that race. She also unsuccessfully ran for the school board in 2014, though she was elected to the District 2 constituent board in 2016. Chance to tell our own story Daniels knows he is stepping in to lead the Charleston Coalition for Kids during a tumultuous time right before an incredibly unique election, while the district searches for a new superintendent and after distrust has grown about his group. It is fair to say that the coalition hasn't done a good job of telling its own story, he said. That's what I am coming in to change. We're going to tell our own story. But Daniels rebukes the idea that Charlestonians dont trust the coalition. He said that most people still dont know who they are. Thats why he views this year as an educational opportunity for the community to learn more about the coalition. If people knew and understood, I think that we'd have a lot of a lot of support, he said. Since last summer, Daniel worked for a year as a consultant for Charleston County School Districts Acceleration Schools. He officially moved to Charleston this summer. In the consulting job, he said he forged strong bonds that he hopes will be valuable in his new role and gained insight into what needs to change at CCSD. He mentioned that some CCSD administrators have been promoted out of loyalty instead of qualifications, and as a result, are out of touch with the education world outside of Charleston. Thats why new leadership on the board is essential, Daniels said change starts at the top. The election is Nov. 8. Editor's note: A version of this story was posted online and was temporarily removed. It has been republished following additional reporting and editing. CHESTER On the day Chester Countys former sheriff was set to report to a federal lockup for public corruption, the countys former supervisor was sentenced to seven years in state prison for abusing his office by selling methamphetamine. Shane Stuart, a Democrat who spent half a decade as the most powerful elected official in this rural county of 33,000 just south of Charlotte, pleaded guilty Oct. 14 to four counts of drug trafficking, criminal conspiracy and misconduct in office. The former sheriffs deputy will report to prison immediately, Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith Jr. ruled. He must cooperate with the state grand jury's ongoing investigation or face even more prison time. Stuarts conviction resolves a peculiar case that began in September 2020 with shocking charges that the 43-year-old had trafficked drugs out of his county car and participated in a conspiracy to steal catalytic converters off other county vehicles. In court Oct. 14, state grand jury prosecutor Creighton Waters explained how Stuart was introduced to drug trafficking by a man he met on a dating site and later hired as a county dog catcher. Stuart developed an intimate relationship with the man, co-defendant Ace Hembree, and started buying drugs in March 2020, just six months before his arrest, Waters said. Stuart used his county vehicle to sell meth in Chester, Lancaster and York counties for a reason, Waters said. "What law enforcement officer is going to stop the county supervisor in his county vehicle?" the prosecutor said. "That, of course, is part of the public corruption aspect of this case and really a slap in the face of the citizens of Chester County to use the seal of this county in order to conduct drug trafficking." Waters said Stuart at first cooperated with the state grand jury's investigation of a larger drug conspiracy, wearing a wire and buying drugs from other targets. But after helping investigators arrest Hembree, Stuart suddenly stopped cooperating, Waters said. Waters said Stuart told investigators, "(Expletive) Alan Wilson," cursing the state's attorney general, and stopped talking with them. Stuart's conviction ends his short but turbulent career in public office, which featured power struggles with County Council and a series of scandals that brought state law enforcement scrutiny to the county government complex. Stuarts case also lengthens a growing list of public officials in Chester County and the state at large who have run afoul of the law. Chesters former sheriff, Alex Big A Underwood, was also required to report to prison on Oct. 14. A political ally of Stuart, Underwood, a Democrat, was convicted in federal court in April 2021 on charges he abused his position by skimming money from his deputies, ordering them to build a party barn on his property, flying first class on the public dime and illegally arresting a Chester man for merely taunting him. Stuart was previously expected to plead guilty at a hearing in October 2021, but he backed out at the last minute and hired a new attorney. His case progressed mostly behind the scenes. Stuart had no experience in politics or government when he surprisingly won election to Chester Countys highest civilian office in 2015. County supervisor is a powerful job that today exists in just three of South Carolinas 46 counties. Stuart enjoyed little oversight as he ran the countys day-to-day operations. And he frequently butted heads with County Council and other elected officials. Among Stuart's questionable moves: repeatedly hiring a convicted felon against County Councils wishes, secretly directing a lucrative social media contract to his roommate, and doling out tens of thousands of dollars in county money to friends and allies without approval. Still, county voters reelected Stuart to a new four-year term in 2018. It took a criminal indictment to depose Stuart from the job. Gov. Henry McMaster suspended him shortly after the charges were announced. Stuarts critics held up his tenure as proof Chester County should get rid of the elected supervisor position and allow County Council to hire a professional administrator to run the government. Chester residents voted to do just that in a November 2020 referendum two months after Stuarts arrest. Stuart faced up to 30 years in prison on charges of distributing methamphetamine, drug trafficking, misconduct in office and criminal conspiracy. Investigators said they witnessed Stuart selling meth out of his county car. Waters said investigators used criminal informants to purchase drugs from Stuart on several occasions before arresting him. Authorities said Stuart sold more than 400 grams of the drug. A search of his home produced meth, drug paraphernalia and five firearms. Stuart and his lawyers offered no defense or explanation in court, letting Waters do all the talking. Stuart spoke only to answer a series of questions from the judge. He confirmed he understood the gravity of his guilty plea and admitted his crimes. Are you in fact guilty to these four offenses? Griffith asked. Yes, sir," Stuart replied. ISLE OF PALMS The police chief appeared at a city council meeting the day after accidentally shooting himself while cleaning his gun inside the public safety building. His bandaged left hand peaked out of his suit jacket the only indication of his injury. Kevin Cornett, who has served as police chief of the small island since 2019, spoke briefly at an Oct. 11 meeting about an unrelated matter. The shooting was not mentioned during nearly two hours of back-to-back meetings held that day, which were posted online. Cornett was not placed on any type of administrative leave as a result of the Oct. 10 incident, said City Administrator Desiree Fragoso. She initially declined to comment further on "personnel matters," and directed additional questions to the Police Department. When contacted Oct. 11 via email, Cornett told reporters Fragoso would be the point of contact regarding the shooting. Fragoso said Oct. 13 the city was conducting an internal investigation into the accidental discharge. Once it's complete, the city will request State Law Enforcement Division to review its findings. Fragoso said Cornett would not be involved in the internal process. The Criminal Justice Academy South Carolinas lone law enforcement training center will not impose disciplinary actions on the chief or require additional training from Cornett, said Maj. Florence McCants. If that were to happen, it'd be Isle of Palms' judgment call, she said. The Isle of Palms Police Department isnt required to report the incident to the Academy, and Cornetts law enforcement certification is not at risk, she added. The department could use the incident as a reminder for all its officers, who sometimes grow accustomed to cleaning and handling these weapons, McCants said. An Isle of Palms officer responded just after 3 p.m. Oct. 10 to police headquarters in reference to an accidental firearm discharge, according to an incident report. Cornett's hand had already been bandaged and he was being taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, it states. No one else was injured in the shooting. What happened to Cornett is an example of how even the most experienced gun owners might be at risk of an unintentional shooting. He is far from the first police officer to accidently shoot himself, or someone else. A 2019 investigation by the Associated Press documented 1,422 officers who unintentionally discharged a gun since 2012 at 258 agencies. The AP report only provided a snapshot of the issue, because law enforcement agencies are not required to report such shootings and no one tracks them. Maurica Manyan, 25, was fatally shot in August while training to become a library police officer in Washington, D.C. A retired police lieutenant is charged with involuntary manslaughter in her death, which some witnesses described as the result of a joke gone wrong, according to The Washington Post. A Charleston police officer was shot in the arm when a gun was unintentionally discharged during a department training session in 2019. Seth Stoughton, a law professor for the University of South Carolina, said its always concerning when a police officer unintentionally discharges his or her weapon. They almost always result from a violation of one or more of the basic rules of firearm safety, he said. Stoughton, a former police officer, said that following a negligent discharge, officers usually face a combination of discipline and training. Sometimes officers including police chiefs mess up, Stoughton said. Still, administrative discipline and remedial training should be and often is imposed. It doesnt necessarily raise questions about the officers judgment or fitness of duty, he said. Accidental firearm discharges are an unfortunate reality in any context where there are guns, said Ian Adams, a former police officer and USC criminology professor. By nature, accidental shootings rarely result in criminal charges, he said particularly if the shooting involved only one person and there were no serious injuries. These cases can be described as a workplace accident, he said, acknowledging there was outcome bias. Theres a lot of accidents in life that we dont consider crimes until they cause somebody elses life to be taken or seriously injured, he said. It is standard protocol that most agencies conduct an internal affairs investigation into any accidental discharge, he said. The Charleston Police Department, for instance, requires its officers to submit a detailed report to the chief in the instance of an accidental shooting. A critical incident review board will review the facts and evidence of all firearm discharges, according to the department's policy. Isle of Palms has its own policies on handling firearms, which requires a report detailing the weapon used and injuries reported. If the weapon's discharge resulted from a malfunction, the department's armorer is required to submit a report about the serviceability of the weapon. On its face, theres a potential compliance issue, Adams said of Cornetts case. His accidental discharge seemed relatively minor, though still worth considering through the lens of general officer safety. Accidents happen, Adams said, but firearm safety is extraordinarily important. Lapses in judgment could be the cause of someones injury or death. All instances of an officer mistakenly firing their weapon should be given a thorough internal investigation so officers can learn from their errors and make their workplace safer, he said. An investigation would also reveal whether the discharge was a result of a mechanical or human error. If a mechanical error is discovered in either the gun, its holster or the interaction between the two, it would have even more serious implications for workplace safety, Adams said. He suspected the vast majority of accidental discharges were caused by the person firing the weapon and not the gun itself. Isle of Palms should outsource its internal investigation to another agency, given the departments small size and potential discomfort of the chiefs involvement, Adams said. NORTH CHARLESTON One hundred nonprofits and government agencies that support crime victims will benefit this year from $32 million in federal grants. S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson visited the Lowcountry on Oct. 13 as part of his tour across the state to present local agencies with new federal funding. At a news conference held in North Charleston's City Hall, Wilson commended roughly 50 people in attendance who represent local nonprofits and law enforcement. Roughly one-third of the federal grants awarded to the state this year were distributed to agencies based in the Lowcountry and Grand Strand. "Nearly $10 million is being put on the streets of this region of South Carolina by the people standing up here today," Wilson said. "The men and women standing up here representing these organizations ... they're here to give a voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless and give power to the powerless." Ninety percent of the federal grant money comes from the Victims of Crime Act, passed by Congress in 1984 to provide aid for local and state agencies that assist crime victims. The funds are generated through fines and penalties paid by those convicted of federal crimes. The Crime Victim Services Division, housed within the S.C. Attorney General's Office, is tasked with distributing the funding each year. The grant money will help pay for projects that serve victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and human trafficking, Wilson said. Doors to Freedom is a Dorchester nonprofit that provides survivors of sex trafficking with holistic support, including education, therapy and health care. This year, it received $330,000 from the federal fund. Its director, ChristaBeth Turner, thanked Wilson's office at the press conference. "We would not be able to do what we do at the level of excellence that we strive for without the support of this grant," she said. More than $5.2 million will be distributed across 17 organizations throughout Charleston County. Michelle Harrington attended the Attorney General's news conference Oct. 13 on behalf of Carolina Youth Development Center. The organization's roots date back to 1790 when the Charleston City Council passed an ordinance to establish an orphanage in the city, known as the Charleston Orphan House. The organization has relocated to North Charleston, but it continues to function as a group home for roughly 100 children up to the age of 21 who are in crisis. "When kids come to us, a lot of times, we're kind of the last stop," Harrington said. She said some clients enter the program after being homeless. With the center's continuous support and guidance, many undergo a transformation. "We've had several youth just this past year, who went from kind of failing out of school, to not only attending high school, but graduating," she said. "We have a few that have gone on to college this fall." Federal grants make up a "large percentage" of the organization's budget, Harrington added. In other counties, such as Williamsburg, Hampton and Berkeley, the only agencies to receive the federal grants are the local Sheriff's Offices. North Augusta City Council on Oct. 3 awarded the Public Safety headquarters project to Columbia-based Hood Construction. Pictured here, from left, are council members Kevin Toole, Jenafer McCauley and Bob Brooks. Theres no confusion about how S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster handled the COVID-19 pandemic. And if anyone forgot, Mr. McMaster has reminded us several times: He never went as far as other governors in closing businesses, and he was much quicker than most to lift what restrictions he did put in place. Theres no question that those decisions allowed South Carolinas economy to recover faster than most states although they also were a factor in giving our state some of the nations highest hospitalization and death rates. Theres no question either about the fact that Mr. McMaster never issued a mask mandate or that he forced schools to lift their mask mandates while most students still didnt have the option of being vaccinated, thereby inviting parents to send their unmasked children to school to infect other parents children. (Fortunately, he never denied that COVID was a real threat, as too many Republicans did.) Also unquestioned is the fact that U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham urged the governor to impose a statewide mask requirement, as did we, and that he criticized Mr. McMaster for going so long without urging South Carolina to get vaccinated, as did we. (Mr. Cunningham also criticized the governor for fighting federal efforts to require vaccinations in some workplaces, before declaring to voters that Whether it's abortion bans or vaccine mandates, the government shouldnt make medical decisions on our behalf.) Youd think all of what Mr. McMaster and his Democratic opponent actually did and didnt do would be enough to convince COVID-deniers that Mr. McMaster is their candidate for governor and more significantly, to convince mainstream voters that Mr. McMaster is a champion of economic growth. But for the past 10 days, a supporter has been telling voters in a McMaster TV ad that the governor protected our jobs from the federal government during the worst days of the pandemic. When the so-called experts in Washington wanted everything shut down, Governor McMaster said no, the man says. He declared our business and almost every business in South Carolina essential. I've never been so proud of our governor. If Henry McMaster didn't have the courage to stand up to Washington, thousands of hardworking people would have lost their jobs. That last sentence, about standing up to Washington to save jobs, is simply not true. Saying you stood up to Washington has a very clear meaning in our society: It means you refused to do what Washington ordered. Mr. McMaster never stood up to a Washington mandate to shut down businesses because there never was a Washington mandate to shut down businesses. The U.S. House would have been happy to issue one, and clearly public health officials wanted much more of the economy shut down, but the U.S. Senate didnt agree to a lockdown, and the Trump administration certainly didnt. The only shut-down orders that were issued came from state and local governments. The Biden administration did issue a vaccinate mandate, but it was blocked by federal courts, and in any event it didnt require anybody to shutter their business or lay off anyone; unvaccinated workers could have kept their jobs if they wore masks and were tested regularly. If you think this is nitpicking, we would urge you to think again, because words matter. And the words in Mr. McMasters ad further the narrative that the federal government was far more intrusive during the pandemic than it ever was. It also assumes that voters dont remember that Donald Trump was the president and Republicans still controlled the Senate during the lockdown era. Its reminiscent of the rhetoric we heard in the S.C. Legislature when lawmakers passed a bill to protect our churches from lockdowns, which were never forced on any church in our state. As for those so-called experts in Washington yes, as the governors campaign pointed out when we asked about this commercial, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health officials wanted lockdowns. But they didnt have the power to require them, so they didn't get them in much of the country. And heres what all the people who were and still are so angry at Dr. Fauci overlook: Its the job of public health officials to tell politicians and the public what they consider the best public health response to a public health emergency. Its the job of elected officials to balance the public-health needs with other needs, including the economy. Given our national fixation on all things federal and our ignorance of whats happening in our own states and communities, its easy to see why a lot of people would accept those legislative claims about churches and the McMaster ads claim about standing up to the big, bad federal government on lockdowns, and get all that much angrier about government. The publics trust in government at all levels has been frayed to a dangerous degree as a result of things government has actually done. It is grossly irresponsible for any public official to further damage that trust by reinforcing widespread misperceptions. Mr. McMaster should pull that ad and apologize for feeding that false narrative. The National Wild Turkey Federation announced Sept. 27 that its Wild Turkey Center in Edgefield, including the museum and headquarters, would be relocating. Intersectionality is a favorite lib word. It refers to the idea that there is a hierarchy of oppression, so that, for example, Native American women are more oppressed than homosexual white men. All of the allegedly oppressed groups ostensibly make up the liberal coalition, and liberals expect them to take their places in the pecking order. This works, sort of, as long as everyone is on board. But as we have often seen, divisions often appear between allegedly allied groups. A particularly enjoyable instance of the collapse of intersectionality happened in Dearborn, Michigan, when hundreds of Muslim parents attended a school board meeting to protest homosexual porn in the public schools libraries. Megan Fox has the story: [W]hen hundreds of Muslim parents, upset at gay porn in the school libraries, showed up to a school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., and it devolved into shouting and chaos with board members running away and gay protesters being chased to their cars, the fallout was absolutely hilarious. The headline in the Detroit Free Press after the event went haywire was LGBTQ and Faith Communities Struggle for Unity. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Can you imagine what the headline would have been if it were a Baptist church chasing gay protesters to their cars? Fascist White Supremacist Book Burners Bash Gay Man in Parking Lot, or Rabid Religious Zealots Terrorize Gay Man Defending Right to Read, or something equally terrible. I dont know about you, but Im enjoying this disaster. Yeah, me too. Here are scenes from the school board protest: Overflow crowd here at Dearborn Public Schools Board meeting for debate over LGBTQ books. AFT union here in support of books. pic.twitter.com/3Rduf03Y5h Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo) October 10, 2022 Shouting between various factions as groups take over Dearborn public schools board meeting. Board members have left. Unclear if they are coming back or if meeting will restart. Heavy police presence. pic.twitter.com/XIMEqIRR1X Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo) October 11, 2022 Heighten the contradictions, Comrade! as a friend of mine likes to say. I will only add that no library has ever censored a book. Millions of books have been published, of which any library selects only an infinitesimal percentage to stock its shelves. Here, public school libraries are conferring a real honor on the tiny handful of books that they think will be most valuable to the children and young people whom they serve. They are not censoring the millions of books they do not choose, they are privileging a few. Why, as these parents sensibly ask, should Dearborns school libraries single out gay porn for the rare honor of being chosen to educate the districts children? Okay, one more thing: one of the best trends in contemporary America is the growing frequency with which unhappy parents attend school board meetings. They are not domestic terrorists, they are Americans, parents, taxpayers and voters. Many more should follow their example. Hot Airs Ed Morrissey my old friend is sitting in for Hugh Hewitt this morning. Ed had me on to talk about this post and invited listeners to check it out. Having rotated off our home page, it is easy to miss. With thanks to Ed, I am taking the liberty of reposting it. * * * * * Derek Chauvin could not afford an attorney to appeal his convictions in the case of George Floyd. Chauvins insurance did not extend to appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court denied him a public defender. Although I thought Chauvin could not have received a fair trial in Hennepin County, it looked like he wouldnt be able to raise the issue on appeal either. I put out the call on Power Line for some member of the Minnesota bar to represent Chauvin on appeal. In the best tradition of the American legal profession, my friend Bill Mohrman answered the call. Chauvins legal defense fund is here at GiveSendGo. I spoke to Bill this morning about the appeal. The states brief was written by a team of lawyers led by Neal Katyal, volunteering his and his firms services to the prosecution of Chauvin. Katyal is easily one of the most prominent appellate lawyers in the United States. I asked Bill if he didnt feel like he was up against Goliath. He laughed, which I interpreted in the affirmative. He said he thought that everyone is entitled to an attorney representing him. He added, If were getting away from that in this country, were in big trouble. Briefing of the appeal was completed last week. Bill anticipates that oral argument will be scheduled before a panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals in January. I should note that they are elected judges who must be cognizant of the consequences of decision requiring retrial at a venue outside Hennepin County. It wouldnt be pretty. The Hennepin County District Court page on the Chauvin case is here. It affords access to each of the appellate briefs including Appellants Brief (Chauvin), Respondents Brief (the state or the prosecution), and Appellants Reply Brief. Virtually every time I wrote about the trial on Power Line I noted the riots that preceded it, the riots that occurred during it, and the concrete and barbed-wire construction around the courthouse that gave visible form to the lynch-mob atmosphere of the proceedings. National Guard troops were stationed outside the courthouse along with two armored personnel carriers. Security concerns were such that the jurors assembled at an undisclosed location each morning during the trial and were driven to and from the courthouse by Hennepin County Sheriffs officers in unmarked vans. The Star Tribune reported: The unprecedented effort aimed at protecting jurors from danger and outside influence cost $21,905 in van rentals. One more thing. Governor Walz began deploying National Guard troops around Minneapolis and St. Paul as early as Wednesday, April 14, 2021-before jury sequestration-in the event riots occurred post verdict, as Bill puts it at page 29 of Appellants Brief. Post verdict should be translated as in the unlikely event of a not guilty verdict. Everyone in his right mind understood the secondary effects of a not guilty verdict. Bill does a good job of leading with the pretrial publicity, security issues, and other events that precluded a fair trial. Bill relies on the two-tier analysis set forth in the United States Supreme Courts Skilling case to argue that prejudice should have been presumed under the circumstances of this case. Turning to the states brief, this statement leaps out at me on page 17 (footnote omitted): The United States Supreme Court has likewise cautioned that a presumption of prejudice applies only in the extreme casesuch as those involving kangaroo court proceedings, bedlam, a carnival atmosphere, or a disturbing lack of judicial serenity. Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 379-381 (2010) (cleaned up). Again, that is the state speaking in Respondents Brief on the law applicable to Chauvins Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial under controlling case law. This is me speaking. If this wasnt the extreme case, there never was one and there will never be one. The Management of Polaris Bank Plc has restated the Banks firm commitment to the right of every individual to freedom of worship in accordance with his or her faith devoid of hindrance or discrimination. A statement issued on Friday by the Banks Management said its attention has been drawn to a shared screenshot of an internal mail sent by one of our Yes Centre team supervisors to staff in the department. The statement reads in full: RESPECT FOR EMPLOYEE RIGHT TO WORSHIP Our attention has been drawn to a shared screenshot of an internal mail sent by one of our Yes Centre team supervisors to staff in the department. In the said mail, which has become widely circulated in the media, we note that the issue in question was a communication to her colleagues on the implication of everyone leaving the office at the same time and disrupting service delivery to customers. This communication was issued by the said officer without understanding its implications and does not reflect the policy of the Bank. We wish to state that Polaris Bank recognizes the right of every individual to practise his or her faith in line with constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria and accordingly does not discriminate on the basis of religion. We thank all our customers and other stakeholders for the trust and confidence reposed in us and reassure of excellence service delivery at all times. When Godswill Akpabio, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, and some federal lawmakers squared off in July during a National Assembly investigative hearing, the ministers aides and his political supporters celebrated it as a victory for him. Rattled by Mr Akpabios assertion that National Assembly members were involved in contract-awards in the tainted Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the chairman of the panel, Thomas Ereyitomi, asked the minister to discontinue his testimony which was broadcast live. Honourable minister, its okay, its okay. Off your mic! Mr Ereyitomi told Mr Akpabio. An enraged Mr Akpabio, after the public hearing, went ahead to name lawmakers who got contracts from NDDC. Off your mic However, much to Mr Akpabios disadvantage, the infamous remarks by Mr Ereyitomi has become well-known among Nigerians, much more than any programme or project of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, in fact, has been overshadowed by corruption scandals in NDDC which it supervises, although some of the corruption cases predate Mr Akpabios appointment as minister. The notable corruption cases in NDDC during Mr Akpabios first year as minister include the admittance by the acting Managing Director of the commission, Kemebradikumo Pondei, that the commission spent N1.5 billion for its staff as COVID-19 relief funds. A recent report by the Senate said top management of the NDDC paid themselves N85.6 million to attend a graduation ceremony in the United Kingdom at a time Nigeria was on lockdown and airports shut because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Senate also said NDDC officials paid themselves scholarship grants at a time hundreds of deserving scholarship beneficiaries had not been paid for years and were stranded in different countries. Two directors in the NDDC were arrested and detained in August by the Independent Corrupt Practices & Other Related Offences Commission over corruption allegations, while a former managing director of NDDC forfeited N250 million to the federal government a few days ago. Mr Akpabio himself has been accused of inserting N500 million worth of projects into the 2017 budget of the NDDC when he was the Senate minority leader, an accusation the ministers spokesperson, Anietie Ekong, dismissed as nothing extraordinary. In fact, it would have been a dereliction of duty if Senator Akpabio did not try to influence projects to his constituency. It was part of his legislative duties as the Senate minority leader to attract projects to his constituency. I dont know what the hue is about, a smug Mr Ekong said. A former acting managing director of NDDC), Joy Nunieh, said Mr Akpabio had wanted her to take an oath which would have restrained her from exposing fraud at the commission. For instance, he told me to raise a memo to fraudulently award emergency contracts for flood victims in the Niger Delta, she said. Ms Nunieh also said she once slapped the minister at his guest house in Abuja for sexually assaulting her. Mr Akpabio denied Ms Nuniehs allegations and has sued her for defamation. Project ministry The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was created in 2008 by the administration of President Umaru Yaradua to promote and coordinate policies for the development, peace and security of the Niger Delta Region. It is generally seen as a project ministry meant to take roads, jetties, bridges, modern school and hospital buildings to the nine states that make up the Niger Delta region. The ministrys budget in 2019 was N37 billion, with more than 70 per cent of it allocated to capital projects. The budget, which increased to N69 billion in 2020, with N21 billion allocated to capital projects, is replete with several roads, water, school building and other projects which could help improve the standard of living in the region. But it unclear to what extent the ministrys budgets have been implemented. PREMIUM TIMES could not get the list of the actual projects undertaken by the ministry since Mr Akpabio assumed office. The projects section on the ministrys website had no item when this newspaper checked it out on Monday. When contacted, the ministers spokesperson, Mr Ekong, said he would have to contact a senior ministry official for the list of the ministrys projects. But Mr Ekong, for almost seven days, did not respond to further calls from a PREMIUM TIMES reporter. And when he eventually did, he requested he should be given some hours to gather information on the ministrys projects. Again, he did not respond when the reporter called him. Thousands of uncompleted NDDC projects, many of them poorly executed, have been abandoned across the Niger Delta region, as shown in recent investigative reports by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ). Even Mr Akpabio, on assumption of office, said about 12,000 projects have been abandoned by NDDC. A group, Niger Delta Rights Advocates (NDRA), said there was no clear cut roadmap to the completion of the abandoned projects. On February 5th 2020, the FEC gave approval for the completion of 12,000 abandoned projects and setting-up of nine (9) skills acquisition centres in each of the mandate states of the NDDC. As at today, 7 months down the line, nothing has been heard of these skills acquisition centres which to our mind will take the teeming unemployed youths in the region off the streets, NDRA spokesperson, Darlington Nwauju, said in a statement on Tuesday. Forensic audit of NDDC The planned forensic audit of the NDDC appears to be Mr Akpabios signature project he speaks about it at various forums and even said it was the reason his enemies within and outside the National Assembly were fighting him and the current interim management of NDDC which enjoys his backing. But the planned audit appears to be at very slow pace, to the consternation of many. The Federal Executive Council only recently, in August, approved the appointment of auditors, 10 months after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the forensic audit which could possibly uncover decades of corrupt dealings at the commission. Besides, some people feel the NDDC forensic audit is being unnecessarily politicised by Mr Akpabio. The NDRA frowns strongly at the dramatisation and politicisation of the forensic audit. Audits all over the world are diligently, thoroughly and silently executed not dramatized, the group said. It is quite strange for managers of agencies under probe to bamboozle Nigerians with pedestrian stories such as, if we release the names of contract beneficiaries/looters, Nigeria will break. The NDRA considers this an alibi to confirm our fears that those trumpeting and sloganeering the forensic audit exercise may actually be acting out a script or intending the exercise as a tool for blackmail. East-West Road Project The East-West Road, an ambitious project meant to connect the various states of the Niger Delta region, remains uncompleted 14 years after it was initiated by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Mr Akpabios spokesperson, Mr Ekong, said the project has just been moved from the Presidential Intervention Fund to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and that the contractors handling the project have just been mobilised to resume work. Several people who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES said Mr Akpabios ministry, in the past one year, has not created any noticeable impact in the Niger Delta. They have failed, Ken Henshaw, the Executive Director of We The People, a non-governmental organization, said of the ministrys performance. Mr Henshaw said the Presidential Amnesty Programme has been a flagship project of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. The fact that after 2009 when the amnesty programme was initiated and up till now we are still talking about the payment of stipends to ex-combatants, simply shows that that system has failed. We are still seeing the escalation of insecurity and violence in the region, it shows that something is not right, Mr Henshaw said. He said the uncompleted East-West Road is another indicator that the ministry has failed. I can tell you authoritatively that I have not in my various survey seen any tangible infrastructural project which is credited to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, I work in the region and I have traveled around extensively. So, my rating of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs in the last one year is that nothing has really changed, he added. Mr Henshaw said the East-West Road, as far as he is aware, has always been a project of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. And guess what? The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has been more known for the corruption in that place than any developmental strides, Mr Henshaw said. Bassey Henshaw, a youth leader in the Niger Delta, said the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs is work in progress even though it might not be where we want it to be. Mr Henshaw, who is the secretary of Niger Delta Ethnic Nationality Youth Leaders Council, said there was, therefore, no need to castigate the ministry. Solutions Ken Henshaw said there is need to re-evaluate how people are appointed to lead the NDDC and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. This presidency alone has replaced the leadership of NDDC six times in five years, he said while advising the government not to use the commission and its supervising ministry to settle politicians. He said the lack of monitory and evaluation of NDDC was another loophole. I said it on radio the other day, why did it take us 20 years to know that NDDC was not living up to its mandate? he said. It was created in 2000 and it took us up to 2020 to realise that the NDDC wasnt working. The same thing with the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. Have we carried out any evaluation to know whether the ministry is living up to its mandate? I think we should put robust monitoring and evaluation frame-work in place to ensure there is a match between projects and objectives and to ensure that those projects actually speak to the issues in the Niger Delta region, he said. During the launch of PTCIJs report on NDDC, in August, experts called for the prosecution of those who have stolen money from the commission and the overhaul of Nigerias procurement process. The NDRA called for removal of NDDC from the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to the presidency where it was before. We remind Nigerians and President Buhari that we do firmly believe that if the Dubai desert could be transformed with $12 billion in six years, the Niger Delta region could have been transmogrified in the last 20 years, if there was the political will, the NDRA said. As Nigerias federal budget proposal surges past an unprecedented N20 trillion, capital expenditure which covers projects with direct impact on citizens is receiving no extra funding from last year, according to details of the 2023 budget announced by President Muhammadu Buhari. The government will instead spend less on capital projects than it did in 2022. Government capital spending typically covers allocations to new hospitals, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure. Despite being a key driver of economic growth, the so-called CAPEX has perennially received lower amounts than personnel and overhead costs in Nigerian government budgets. Of N4.72 trillion the government spent between January and April, only a N773.63 billion went to capital projects. President Buhari says his government will again give more money to the usual big spenders in 2023: personnel cost will receive a 21 per cent rise, overheard will get 40 per cent and debt repayment 90 per cent over the previous year, helping to push the overall budget to 20.51 trillion, from 17.1 trillion in 2022. Capital expenditure will get two per cent less than it did in 2022 when it received a N5.46 trillion allocation. The president acknowledged the infrastructure gap nonetheless. Nigeria requires a huge outlay of resources to close current infrastructure gaps and boost its economic performance. Government will develop projects that are good candidates for Public Private Partnership (PPP) by their nature for private sector participation, he said while submitting the budget proposals to the National Assembly on Friday. The lop-sidedness has not surprised analysts. Unfortunately, this is the last year of the president in office. In all of the promises that they have made in terms of cutting waste in governance, it looks like nothing has been done, said Adeboye Adegoke, a senior manager at Paradigm Initiative. Mr Adegoke said the proposed amount budgeted for capital expenditures is a reflection of a lack of vision and political will, which has been affecting governance delivery over the years. Even a layman knows that the bulk of the budget should go into infrastructural development because that is really where the government should come in in an economy. But in this case, we see that the government spends most of its money on servicing loans and paying recurrent expenditures which we know for a fact that it is bloated and is not being judiciously used, he said. Budget Credibility There are even more concerns as the government is unlikely to spend the proposed amount. Nigeria has struggled with revenue problems for years with significantly reduced oil returns, a challenge expected to persist in 2023. Joshua Olufemi, chief executive officer of the Abuja-based Dataphyte said Nigerian should worry about the budgets budget credibility, which he said is about the governments ability to release the amount it budgets. Over the years, up until 2021, there has been no time that Nigeria has spent up to N4 trillion on capital expenditure, Mr Olufemi said. Even if the government is budgeting N5.35 trillion this year, what we should be asking for is that whatever the government is budgeting should be released. We should also be ensuring that what is budgeted and released is used for the purposes for which it was budgeted for. Editors Note: This article has been updated to show that the government is proposing even less capital budget than earlier reported. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has resolved to suspend its indefinite strike action. ASUUs decision was taken at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union in Abuja early Friday. A formal announcement is expected to be made Friday morning. A member of ASUU-NEC who was at the meeting told PREMIUM TIMES Friday morning that the suspension of the strike was based on last weeks ruling of the Court of Appeal which asked the union to obey an order of the National Industrial Court. The industrial court had, by granting an injunction sought by the Nigerian government, ordered the lecturers to suspend the strike pending the determination of the substantive suit. Our source said the government was yet to meet the demand of the lecturers. A few days after the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, referred the dispute with ASUU to the industrial court, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, began holding talks with the union. While proceedings continued in the court, the leadership of the House of Representatives facilitated meetings between ASUU and affected Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. At the meetings, the government made a staunch stance of not adopting the preferred payment platform of the lecturers. Instead, it said the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) will be modified to accommodate the peculiarities of the university and its staff. The government also included, in the proposed 2023 budget, N170 billion for the revitalisation of tertiary institutions and N300 billion for salaries. It is, however, unclear if those budgetary provisions meet the demands of the lecturers. On the No Work, No Pay stance of the government, Mr Gbajabiamila appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to make concessions. Another source had earlier told PREMIUM TIMES that the union was waiting for President Buharis decision on the payment of the lecturers salaries for the period they were on strike. Demands When ASUU announced a four-week strike on 14 February, the union was demanding better funding for the universities and increased pay for its members as contained in several agreements it had with the government. Specifically, ASUU is requesting the release of revitalisation funds for universities, payment of its members earned academic allowances, the release of whitepapers from the reports of the presidential visitation panels as well as the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as the preferred payment platform for university workers. ASUU rejected the IPPIS which the government uses to pay all civil servants salaries, arguing that the platform is fraudulent and does not recognise the peculiarities of the universities. ASUU continued to extend the strike from February until August when the union announced an indefinite strike. 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 The federal government has allocated N169 billion to the National Assembly for the 2023 fiscal year. The amount is contained in the 2023 budget of N20.51 trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly last Friday. A copy of the budget published by the Ministry of Finance revealed the breakdown of the budget for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as statutory transfers a category under which the National Assembly falls. The N169 billion is the highest annual budgetary allocation ever made to the Legislature. Until 2015, the annual allocations to the National Assembly had been N150 billion and between 2015 and 2020, the budget was N125 billion. In 2021, Mr Buhari upped the lawmakers allocation to N128 billion but during passage, the lawmakers increased it to N134 billion an act the president overlooked. For the 2022 budget, the president allocated N134 billion to the National Assembly and this sum was increased by over N500 million when the National Assembly passed it. With the president proposing N169 billion for the lawmakers for the coming year, there are concerns that the latter would augment the sum when it is approved. The allocation, disregard for the nations dwindling economy, comes amid calls to reduce the cost of governance. It also comes amid plans by the federal government to borrow to fund the 2023 budget. Nigerian lawmakers are among the highest paid in the world, earning millions of naira monthly as allowances besides their salaries. The huge salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly, over the years, have generated public outcry. Zero transparency Details of the legislatures budgetary allocation were not published in the document an act which is not new to Nigerians. Unlike other MDAs in the budget where line items and a breakdown of the allocation were disclosed, the National Assembly was blank. There have been calls to lawmakers for transparency in their annual budget. And many Nigerians have berated both past and present assemblies for always shrouding their budgetary allocations in secrecy. Others have also said the budgets for the legislature increase annually with zero accountability. Since its inauguration, the Ahmad Lawan-led assembly has only attempted to publish details of its allocations once and that was in 2021. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Barau Jibril, explained at the time that it was an attempt at transparency. Before then, the Bukola Saraki-led eight assembly only published a breakdown of its budget in 2017 after an #OpenNASS campaign was done across social media platforms to mount pressure on the lawmakers. Although a breakdown of the National Assemblys budget has not been made public, the N169 billion allocation will most likely be shared among the Senate, House of Representatives, legislative aides, National Assembly Management and the National Assembly Service Commission. The allocation is also expected to cover the budget for the office of retired clerks and permanent secretaries, the service-wide vote of the legislature and other services. Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has made fresh allegations against the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Iyorchia Ayu. Mr Wike spoke on Friday during a live media chat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He accused Mr Ayu of receiving double pay for a single project for the party. If we release what we have, Ayus children will go to him and say we are no longer your children, he said. The Rivers governor had accused the PDP national chairman in September of collecting N1 billion as bribe from a PDP presidential aspirant from Lagos ahead of the partys primary in May. Asked why he thinks Mr Ayu was yet to respond to the allegation, Mr Wike said, There cannot be any comment. He (Ayu) cannot say anything. In fact, let me also tell you, Ayu collected N100 million from a governor that he was going to renovate our democratic institute and then he (Ayu) went back to the (PDP) NWC and took the same N100 million naira for doing the same work. The governor challenged Mr Ayu to deny it and he would reveal more details about the double pay. A leader must be a man of integrity. You are presenting a man (Ayu), the chairman of the party, who has no integrity to be the one to lead the campaign to take the reigns of governance, he added. Calls for Ayus resignation Mr Wike, who was a presidential aspirant of the PDP, is leading a group of party chieftains who are demanding the resignation of Mr Ayu, in order to achieve a regional balance since Messrs Ayu and the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, are both from the north. But Mr Ayu has insisted he would not resign because he was elected for a four year-term. READ ALSO: Mr Wike, during the Friday media chat, claimed that Mr Ayu promised to relinquish his position if a presidential candidate of the party emerges from the north, and not when the candidate wins the general election to emerge president. He said the party found itself in the leadership crisis because of its failure to zone the partys presidential ticket to southern Nigeria in line with the partys constitution. The two major positions have now gone to the same (northern) zone. We said lets play the role that everyone will take his cake. Take and let me take and there will be peace, there will be unity. But if you take everything, thats where you have a problem. What were contending with is that the chairman (should) go to the South (because) the presidential candidate is in the north. They are denying my people their own right. It will be foolish of me from the South to abdicate that position of chairmanship, he said. Nobody should talk to me about the interest of the party. You have to talk to me about the interest of my people. Our integrity is at stake. Zone the chairmanship position to anywhere you want in the South. But let it be that the chairmanship position is in the South. The governor said the position of governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, as the vice-presidential candidate of the party was not a a major position. He faulted those arguing that the national chairmanship position of the party should be zoned to the South if Mr Atiku emerges president in 2023. If after the election, Atiku wins the presidential election, what role will the national chairman play again? he said. Aloy Ejimakor, special counsel to the leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has faulted the position of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, on a court judgement ordering the release of the IPOB leader. The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the custody of the State Security Service (SSS). It held that the IPOB leader was extra-ordinarily renditioned to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the countrys extradition treaty and also a breach of his fundamental human rights. But Mr Malami, in a statement, late Thursday, by his spokesperson, Umar Gwandu, argued the Court of Appeal only discharged Mr Kanu and did not acquit him. He hinted that the government would not release Mr Kanu, despite the court ruling. The attorney-general said the government is reviewing its legal options and could institute other charges against the IPOB leader. He said that the decision of the Court of Appeal was on a single issue that borders on rendition. Let it be made clear to the general public that other issues that predate rendition on the basis of which Kanu jumped bail remain valid issues for judicial determination. The Federal Government will consider all available options open to us on judgment on rendition while pursuing determination of pre-rendition issues, Mr Malami said. He said the governments decision on the case would be announced to the public after the review of available legal options. Response But reacting, Mr Ejimakor said the AGFs position on the court judgment was flatly wrong and perverse to boot. He insisted that Mr Kanu must be released first before any fresh charges against the IPOB leader. If the federal government refuses or stalls on releasing Kanu solely because it desires to levy further or new charges, it will amount to a burgeoning holding charge which is impermissible in our jurisprudence, he said. The lawyer explained that fresh charges cannot stick against the IPOB leader because, in the present circumstances, the extraordinary rendition is an abiding factor that has created a permanent barrier to his prosecution. He said the trial of Mr Kanu could not have proceeded if he had not been illegally renditioned. So, it is not legally possible to lose jurisdiction in the extant charges and at once obtain jurisdiction in the next round of charges, Mr Ejimakor said. He said the judgment of the Court of Appeal has grandfathered a continuing lack of prosecutorial jurisdiction that will, in the interim, be very hard to overcome. Similar argument Meanwhile, human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, had made a similar argument, stating that the government must release Mr Kanu, even if it decides to appeal the court ruling discharging and acquitting him. Should the federal government decide to appeal the discharge and acquittal of Nnamdi Kanu by the appeal court, it must still release Kanu, Mr Effiong said on Twitter, hours after the ruling. This is because the liberty of a citizen cannot be stayed. There is no room for stay of execution in this kind of case, he said. On 30 September, disgruntled army officers staged a coup that toppled Burkina Fasos transitional military leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba. Eight months earlier, Mr Damiba had himself taken over after deposing civilian president Roch Kabore. The latest revolt was reportedly sparked by anger over extra payments to special forces linked to Damiba. The situation highlights deep divisions in Burkina Fasos security apparatus that complicate the transition to constitutional rule. The coup also compounds insecurity due to rising violent extremism in the country. Captain Ibrahim Traore led the recent coup and took over as interim leader. He accused Mr Damiba of failing to restore security in the country and deviating from the vision of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration the junta in place since January. Mr Damibas conciliatory posture towards former president Blaise Compaore and those allied to him was deemed as undermining the junta. Mr Damibas removal and the tensions that have simmered since then raise the possibility of clashes between officers loyal to him and those of Mr Traore. Conflict has so far been stalled by the intervention of traditional, religious and community leaders, but tensions remain between officers from rival camps. The divisions stem from Mr Compaores establishment of the Presidential Security Regiment in the army and the longstanding privileges given its officers over other military units. His policy of favouritism and clientelism made regiment officers better trained and equipped than their colleagues. The security and survival of Mr Compaores regime was the ultimate goal, which meant military policy and practice were not merit based. This led to deep-seated resentment among various ranks and insubordination and division in most units. In October 2017, the governments national security forum, comprised of security forces, civil society and political parties, highlighted these divisions and called for comprehensive security sector reform. This wasnt wholly supported by Mr Kabore, who was wary of an army politicised by his predecessor. Reform efforts tended to be hasty and inconsistent and did little to restructure the security sector. Mr Kabores administration passed the military programming law in 2017 and legalised self-defence groups such as the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland. In 2020 it formed cobra units dedicated to combating terrorist groups. The following year, a national strategy to prevent violent extremism and a national security policy were adopted. However, these piecemeal measures lacked coherence and failed to unite the countrys security forces against armed groups. When Mr Damiba took power in January, no attempts were made to improve past policies and practices. Despite announcing a governance audit of the armed forces to improve their functioning, there was no follow-up. And the investigation into the Inata attack of November 2021, during which 53 gendarmes died, was never completed. There was almost no progress on security sector reform, and violent extremism in northern Burkina Faso continued. In Djibo in the Sahel region, violent extremists imposed a seven-month blockade and carried out attacks. A 26 September assault destroyed a convoy carrying supplies to the city, highlighting the governments inability to deal with the security and humanitarian situation. Decisions about the general reorganisation of the armed forces and their employment also deepened tensions and undermined the armys chain of command. For example, in February, a national theatre operations command centre was created without sufficient clarity about its reporting lines to the armys chief of staff. This led to conflict in the mobilisation of troops against terrorist groups. Relations between the army and the gendarmerie are strained following the latters refusal to submit to the army chief of staff. Not only are the national police and paramilitary bodies marginalised, but special forces have been confined to protecting state officials instead of working on counter-terrorism. Recent promotions to the rank of general, which were perceived as gifts to officers allied with Mr Damiba, also heightened tensions. Adding to the situation are persistent rumours in the military due to the lack of transparency around the choice of strategic partners, collaboration with neighbouring countries, and the strategy for dialogue with terrorist groups. The absence of a cohesive security sector has seriously undermined Burkina Fasos capacity to deal with the urgent problem of violent extremism. The countrys new authorities must break from past practices that have fueled tensions and divisions in the army, police and other security structures. Comprehensive security sector reform is vital to instil trust and confidence among the various units, boost morale and restore unity. The management of the army should be transparent and accountable, with specific attention to addressing injustices and perceptions of favouritism. The new leadership also needs to strengthen social ties among soldiers and revive morale, which are essential for bringing units together to tackle violent extremism. The strategic and operational structure of the army also needs improving, and the chain of command should be clarified. Coordination between units and their particular missions is vital and requires a coherent institutional framework. The forthcoming national consultation to adopt a new transition charter is an opportunity to insert security sector reform into the transition priorities. This should facilitate the adoption of the draft national security strategy and national security legislation. Finally, the efforts of the Economic Community of West African States, United Nations and European Union to resolve the Burkina Faso crisis should include substantial and appropriate support for security sector reform. Fahiraman Rodrigue, Senior Researcher and Hassane Kone, Senior Researcher, Sahel Programme, ISS Regional Office for West Africa, the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin This article was produced with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. (This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish). BudgIT, a civic-tech organisation leading the advocacy for fiscal transparency and accountability in Nigeria, said Rivers State maintained its overall fiscal performance position, ranking first, just as in 2020 and 2021. Iniobong Usen, BudgITs Research and Policy Advisory lead, said this at the presentation of the State of States report for 2022, with the theme, Sustainable Governance Reforms for a New Era, on Thursday in Abuja. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the report assesses and ranks the fiscal performance of all 36 states, from the most sustainable to the least sustainable. Mr Usen said for the 2022 edition, all 36 states were ranked using five metrics. Index A examines states ability to meet Operating Expenses (Recurrent Expenditure) with only their Internally Generated Revenue; Index A1 looks at the percentage year-on-year growth of each states Internally Generated Revenue. Index B reviews states ability to cover all operating expenses and loan repayment obligations with their Total Revenue (Internally Generated Revenue + Statutory Transfers + Aids and Grants) without resorting to borrowing. Index C estimates the debt sustainability of the states using four major Indicators: A. Debt as a per cent of GDP, B. Debt as a per cent of Revenue, C. Debt service as a per cent of Revenue and D. Personnel Cost as a per cent of Revenue. Index D evaluates the degree to which each State is prioritising capital expenditure concerning their operating expenses (recurrent expenditure), he explained. According to him, two states, Kaduna and Cross River, made it to the top five on the overall fiscal performance ranking; Yobe dropped to the bottom five having fallen 13 places from 21st in 2021 to 34th position in 2022. Mr Usen said on Index A, two states (Lagos and Rivers) generated enough revenues internally to take care of their operating expenses. Comparatively, the operating expenses of Yobe and Bayelsa (the least ranked states on index A) were more than seven times the revenues generated by both states internally, reinforcing the heavy reliance on federal transfers and budget support to fund their budgets. On index A1, save for three states, which ranked the least Anambra, Kogi and Kebbi 33 states experienced an increase in their IGR from the previous year, with 13 states growing their IGR by more than 50 per cent. Jigawa, Delta, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom and Nasarawa ranked first to fifth respectively on Index C, which assessed the debt sustainability of the 36 states, he explained. Furthermore, Mr Usen said Cross River, Ogun, Imo, Osun, and Plateau were the bottom five states on Index C. Lagos State, with a capital importation of 31.78 billion dollars between 2019 and 2021, received 99.19 per cent of the cumulative capital importation for 36 states of the federation. Interestingly, 11 states received no capital importation between 2019 and 2021, he said. Speaking on debt sustainability, Mr Usen said the cumulative debt stock of the 36 states grew by 8.68 per cent from N5.86 trillion in 2020 to N6.37 trillion in 2021. A more disaggregated view of the subnational debt shows that 11 states reduced their total debt liability, with Delta having the most impressive decline of 33.84 per cent. Four states Oyo, Yobe, Ogun and Sokoto grew their total debt stock by more than 40 per cent from 2020, he said. He added that the five most indebted states: Lagos, Kaduna, Rivers, Ogun, and Cross River were responsible for 37.09 per cent of total subnational debt. Kogi, with a foreign debt year-on-year growth of 85.65 per cent ranked first among the 17 States that grew foreign debt in 2021. The four states with the highest dollar-denominated debt (250 million dollars and above) Lagos, Kaduna, Cross River and Edo are the most susceptible to exchange rate volatility, he explained. He said the cumulative expenditure of the 36 states increased by 27 per cent from N5.23 trillion in 2020 to N6.64 trillion in 2021. Notwithstanding, while 31 states increased their total expenditure from the previous year, five states reduced their expenditure with Zamfara having the highest decline of 15.59 per cent. However, the cumulative personnel cost of the 36 states grew by 5.38 per cent from N1.46 trillion in 2020 to N1.54 trillion in 2021. Interestingly, nine states reduced their overhead cost from the previous year, signalling a reduction in the cost of governance. Conversely, 11 states increased their overhead cost from the previous year by more than 40 per cent, with Akwa Ibom having the highest growth, he said. READ ALSO: He said commendably, cumulative spending on capital expenditure by the 36 states grew by 52.52 per cent from N1.77 trillion in 2020 to N2.70 trillion in 2021. Eight states increased their capital expenditure year-on-year by more than 100 per cent. However, just five states including Anambra, Ebonyi, Cross River, Kaduna, Rivers prioritised capital expenditure over operation expenses, signalling the prioritisation of investments in infrastructure, job creation and human capital development. On fiscal transparency, the 36 states of the federation currently publish promptly their proposed budgets, approved budgets, budget implementation reports, and audited financial statements for both the States and the Local Governments. In the same vein, many states have enacted an Audit Law that grants operational and financial autonomy to the Offices of Auditors-General of the State and Local Governments, thereby empowering their supreme audit institutions to effectively hold governments accountable, he said. He stated that 35 states, excluding Taraba, had captured the biometric and BVN data of at least 70 per cent of the civil servants and pensioners on their payroll, and linked the captured data to their payroll management system. Cumulatively, 35 states (excluding Taraba), have a total of 848,483 civil servants and 498,097 pensioners on their payroll. As a result, at least 15,397 ghost workers have been identified and eliminated in 13 states across the federation. On the flip side, only a few states have been able to establish and operationalise a state-level functional Treasury Single Account (TSA) to ensure that it covers at least 70 per cent of all its finance, he said. Similarly, he stated some states were yet to ensure that all the schedules of contracts awarded for the year were published online as required under the Open Contracting Data Standards and in line with the procurement laws/guidelines. (NAN) The Nigerian government has indicated that it would not release Nnamdi Kanu despite Thursdays Court of Appeal judgement. Instead of releasing Mr Kanu as ordered by the court, the government says it is reviewing its legal options and could institute other charges against him. The government said it would consider its legal options after the Court of Appeal discharged Mr Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), of all pending charges. The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, in the governments first official reaction, said the federal governments decision on the case would be announced to the public after a review of available legal options. Mr Malamis reaction is contained in a statement by his spokesperson, Umar Gwandu, late on Thursday. It excluded any commitment to the release of the separatist leader from custody as ordered by the appeal court. The statement, devoid of clarity or concrete position on any issues raised in the courts decision, also insisted that the Court of Appeal only discharged the IPOB leader and did not acquit him. The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has received the news of the decision of the Court of Appeal concerning the trial of Nnamdi Kanu. For the avoidance of doubt and by the verdict of the Court, Kanu was only discharged and not acquitted. Consequently, the appropriate legal options before the authorities will be exploited and communicated accordingly to the public, Mr Malamis spokesperson wrote. PREMIUM TIMES reported how a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, struck out all the remaining seven charges against Mr Kanu. It followed an earlier ruling of the trial judge, Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja, in April, dismissing eight of the 15 amended counts filed against him by the federal government. The charges were a fallout of the separatist activities of Mr Kanu, a dual citizen in Nigeria and Britain. Mr Kanu is championing the secession of the Igbo-dominated Southeastern states along with some states in the South-south, as an independent Biafra nation. The charges included treasonable felony first filed against him after he was arrested in 2015. It also included terrorism-related counts introduced into the case after he was rearrested outside Nigeria and brought back to face his trial in June 2021. Mr Kanu, displeased with the partial dismissal of the charges against him by the Federal High Court in April, had approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja to challenge the validity of the remaining seven charges. The Court of Appeal panel led by Jummai Sankey struck out all the remaining charges against Mr Kanu, on Thursday, ruling that the lower court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The court held that Mr Kanus extradition from Kenya in June 2021 to Nigeria without following the extradition rules was a flagrant violation of Nigerias extradition treaty and a breach of the IPOB leaders fundamental human rights. It held there was no denial by the Nigerian governments lawyer, David Kaswe, in the appeal as to the submissions of Mike Ozekhome, Mr Kanus counsel, that the separatist leader was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya. The appellate court held that the failure of the federal government to adequately respond to Mr Kanus arguments gave merit to the appeal. The appeal court also said the Federal High Court failed to examine the findings of the prosecution as it would not have tried Mr Kanu based on the prosecutions claim that the IPOB leader was not illegally brought into the country. Although the Court of Appeal ordered the release of Mr Kanu from the custody of the State Security Service (SSS), many have expressed doubts, particularly on social media, that the federal government would obey the order. The secret police repeatedly violated court orders granting bail to Mr Kanu from 2015, when he was first arrested, until 2017 when Mrs Nyako granted him a fresh bail. Only one issue determined Mr Malami said the decision of the Court of Appeal was on a single issue that borders on rendition. He added, Let it be made clear to the general public that other issues that predate rendition on the basis of which Kanu jumped bail remain valid issues for judicial determination. The Federal Government will consider all available options open to us on the judgment on rendition while pursuing determination of pre-rendition issues, he said. Background The Court of Appeals decision terminating Mr Kanus trial on Thursday came months after the federal government, through Mr Malamis office, amended the charges against the IPOB leader. The amendment was necessitated by the ruling of Mrs Nyako, striking out eight of the 15 counts including terrorism and treasonable felony earlier brought against Mr Kanu. Mrs Nyako, in her ruling on Mr Kanus application on 8 April, threw out counts 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12,13 and 14 which she ruled were repetitive and invalid. But she approved counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 15. The pending charges had to do with Mr Kanus alleged membership of the proscribed IPOB and incitement via social media channels of members of the group to kill innocent persons in the South-east. The prosecution also alleged that on diverse dates between March and April 2015, Mr Kanu illegally imported into Nigeria and kept in Ubulisluzor in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, a radio transmitter known as Tram 50L. He allegedly concealed it in a container of used household items which he declared as used household items. The alleged offence was said to be contrary to section 47(2)(a) of Criminal Code Act CapC45 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. Chequered history Mr Kanus trial, since 2015 when he was arrested, has had a chequered history. It has been punctuated by developments that have bogged it down for almost seven years till it was terminated by the Court of Appeal on Thursday. The Biafra nation agitator who was first arrested in 2015 over his separatist activities has been re-arraigned before different judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja after the first set of charges were filed against him and his former co-defendants on 18 December 2015. Mrs Nyako took over the case in 2016 after two judges Ahmed Mohammed, and John Tsoho (the current Chief Judge of the Federal High Court) had previously handled it. Mrs Nyako later granted bail to Mr Kanu in April 2017. But months later, the defendant fled the country after soldiers invaded his home in Abia State in September 2017. Amid military confrontation with IPOB members and escalation of violence in South-east states, the federal government, on 20 September 2017, obtained the order of the Federal High Court in Abuja for the proscription of the group as a terrorist group. On 28 March 2018, following Mr Kanus continued absence from court, the judge separated his trial from that of his four co-defendants. Exactly a year after, on 28 March 2019, the judge ordered Mr Kanus arrest and directed that his trial on charges of treasonable felony would proceed in his absence. The case against Mr Kanu did not make any progress until he was arrested abroad and brought back to the country by the federal government in June 2021. The federal government filed amended charges raising the number of counts from seven to 15 to incorporate terrorism offences he allegedly committed through broadcasts while he was abroad. Mr Kanu pleaded not guilty to the charges in January. But following Mr Kanus objection to the charges, the trial judge, Mrs Nyako, dismissed eight of the charges in a ruling delivered in April. The IPOB leader proceeded to the Court of Appeal to seek an order dismissing the remaining seven charges, a request the court granted on Thursday. Lusaka, October 13, 2022 A South African court judgment banning the publication of an intelligence report about alleged U.S. efforts to gather intelligence about South Africas ruling African National Congress party must be made public and should be overturned on appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On October 5, Gauteng High Court judge Daisy Sekao Molefe issued a final order banning the Daily News newspaper and Independent Online (IOL) news website from publishing a leaked November 5, 2020 intelligence report marked secret by South Africas State Security Agency and ordered that all copies of the document in Daily News reporter Thabo Makwakwas possession be returned to the agency, according to a statement by IOL and a tweet by Anton Harber, the executive director of local rights organization the Campaign for Free Expression. However, the court order has not been made public, contrary to the international legal principle of open justice whereby court processes and records should as a general rule be transparent and open to the public and as of Thursday, October 13, neither Harber nor CPJ had been able to obtain a copy of the judgment from the judges office and the court registrar. Harber told CPJ via messaging app that he called the judges office on October 6 requesting a copy but the judges clerk told him that she had been instructed not to release it. He said that a formal request sent via his lawyer to the judge on October 7 also received no response. CPJ emailed Molefes office October 12 requesting a copy of the judgment and also called and emailed the office of the chief court registrar in Pretoria on October 13 for a copy but received no responses at the time of publication. Independent Media, which owns Daily News and IOL, and Makwakwa will appeal the judgment, according to the IOL statement. In the spirit of open justice, the court ruling banning the publication of this intelligence report must be made public immediately, said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal, in New York. An appeals court must reverse this ruling regarding a publication that is a matter of public interest, especially when information appears to have been classified incorrectly or exposes criminal activity. Too often the default when it comes to intelligence classification is secret, even when the information is public and the subject of robust debate. The courts should guard against giving the intelligence service a blank check to censor at will. The report, titled Intelligence brief: US interest in ANC party dynamics, reportedly describes attempts by the United States to gather intelligence about the ANC and influence its policies. The October 5 order confirmed a late-night interim order by the same court on December 22, 2021, after an application by South Africas State Security Agency in the absence of the media outlets representatives, which barred Independent Media, the Daily News, Makwakwa, and any other person from publishing or disseminating the report, according to Daily News editor Ayanda Mduli, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. State Security Agency spokesman Mava Scott did not respond to a request for comment via messaging app from CPJ. Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike said in Port Harcourt on Thursday that rent seekers in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were frustrating his efforts for amicable resolution of the crisis rocking the party. He made the declaration while hosting the Cross River PDP governorship candidate Sandy Onor, and party stalwarts who visited him. Mr Wike explained that the seemingly intractable crisis in the PDP lingered because some vested interests, whom he described as hyenas and rent-seekers, remained obstinate and averse to justice, fairness and equity. He said he would not support the current situation where the partys presidential candidate, the national chairman and the director-general of the Presidential Campaign Council are all from the northern part of the country. The governor said it was hypocritical of the PDP members to criticise the Muslim/Muslim ticket while supporting that a particular region of the country should keep the presidency for another eight years. He insisted that, for the sake of peace, PDP should adhere to its constitution. The National Chairman said, if the presidential candidate comes from the north, he will resign; which means he has had this in mind. Now, the thing has come to reality; now resign, he said `no and people are saying go and talk to Wike. I have accepted the presidential candidate. I have accepted the vice-presidential candidate, whats the problem again? You, fulfil your part. Let the south have something; that is all I am preaching. You cannot have a presidential candidate, national chairman, director-general of the campaign, he stressed. Mr Wike said there were more things wrong with the arrangement. Nobody wants to speak the truth, he said. According to him, refusal to cede the national chairmanship position to the south will be a recipe for crisis in the party. He said the clamour for the chairmanship of the PDP to be zoned to the south would persist until justice, fairness and equity prevailed. Mr Wike said the visit of the Cross River delegates would spur him to continue to support the party in Cross River ahead of the 2023 general elections. He announced the donation of 25 buses to the party in Cross River and said while he would not go to the state to vote, he would support the candidates as his friends. He thanked Cross River PDP delegates for the support given to him at the PDP presidential primary election. Earlier, Mr Onor, who led the delegation, said Governor Wike remained a trailblazer for justice, fairness and equity. Mr Onor stressed that no person in the contemporary history of the PDP had made more sacrifices for the party than Governor Wike had done. He commended Mr Wike for his steadfast support for the party in Cross River, and said the visit was to express the partys gratitude for his unparalleled benevolence. Similarly, a senator, Agom Jarigbe, (PDP-Cross River-North), said without Mr Wikes support, PDP would have been made extinct in Cross River. The PDP Chairman in Cross River, Venatius Ikem, thanked Mr Wike for his unrelenting support of the party. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the South-South PDP National Vice-Chairman, Dan Orbih, and other party members were in the delegation. Also in the delegation were Cross River PDP senatorial, House of Representatives, House of Assembly candidates and PDP local government party chairpersons. (NAN) The apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has lauded Appeal Court ruling, which ordered the release of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), from the custody of the State Security Services (SSS). The Court of Appeal, Abuja, Thursday, held that the IPOB leader was extra-ordinarily rendition to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the countrys extradition treaty and also a breach of his fundamental human rights. The court, therefore, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release. Reacting, in a statement on Thursday by its spokesperson, Chiedozie Ogbonnia, Ohanaeze Ndigbo described the ruling as a plus to the Nigerian democracy and a sign that brighter days lie ahead. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide led by Ambassador Professor George Obiozor, CON, has maintained that Nnamdi Kanu is a phenomenon that expresses the injustice, orchestrated alienation and inequity against the Igbo. On the other hand, all the oppressed groups in Nigeria are symbolised in Nnamdi Kanu. Nnamdi Kanu therefore, symbolises the Igbo collective-unconscious, it said. The group said the ruling sparked excitement in the south-east because the IPOB leaders detention and trial had caused tremendous apprehensions in the region, which resulted in every Monday sit-at-home, its enforcements by the unknown gunmen, the roadblocks on the major roads in all parts of Igbo land and ultimately the monumental loss of goods, especially in the South-east of Nigeria. Ohanaeze hailed the Court of Appeal justices for their courage and uprightness in delivering this landmark judgement in favour of Mr Kanu, whom the group described as a hero. Our joy knows no bounds. This is because the South-east of Nigeria used to be the most peaceful geopolitical zone in the country. But, since April 2021 when the Owerri Correctional Centre was overwhelmed by unknown gunmen and over 1800 prison inmates discharged, the South-east has not known peace. Today, it is Eureka! A glorious day, a day of peace re-found; a day of peace profound; a day of rebirth and indeed a day that injects grassroots impetus and momentum to the Igbo renaissance. Above all, it is a remarkable day that clears the coast for the irreversible contagious Nigerian movement for 2023, Ohanaeze said. The government has, however, maintained that it would not release Mr Kanu, despite the court ruling. Nigerias Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, in a statement, late Thursday, by his spokesperson, Umar Gwandu, argued that the Court of Appeal only discharged Mr Kanu, and did not acquit him. Mr Malami said the government is reviewing its legal options and could institute other charges against the IPOB leader. The attorney-general said that the decision of the Court of Appeal was on a single issue that borders on rendition. Human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has given reason the Nigeria government must release Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), even if they decide to appeal a court ruling discharging him. The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the government and ordered his release from the custody of the State Security Service (SSS). It held that the IPOB leader was extra-ordinarily rendition to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the countrys extradition treaty and also a breach of his fundamental human rights. Should the federal government decide to appeal the discharge and acquittal of Nnamdi Kanu by the appeal court, it must still release Kanu, Mr Effiong said on Twitter, hours after the ruling. This is because the liberty of a citizen cannot be stayed. There is no room for stay of execution in this kind of case, he said. The lawyer told PREMIUM TIMES that the warrant of arrest issued by Justice Binta Nyako of Federal High Court, Abuja against Mr Kanu was ineffectual and unenforceable outside Nigeria, arguing that the government cannot predicate a charge on the warrant which he described as flawed and legal contravention. He further said that Mr Kanu, as a human being, was not perishable and that there was no condition for a stay of execution, even if the court ruling is appealed. A human being, in the first place, is not perishable. It is not as if the court is saying, handover Nnamdi Kanus property to him and the government is saying if you hand over this property and we succeed on appeal, the property might not be recoverable because of the nature of the property, he said. READ ALSO: So, when the court said has been discharged and acquitted, acquittal in law means absolute exculpation. So, you cannot, under the basis that you have appealed, hold Kanu back, Mr Effiong stated. When asked to comment on the position of law if the government should fail to release the IPOB leader from detention, the lawyer responded, As at today (Thursday), Nnamdi Kanu has no business sleeping in the SSS custody. So, if they are still holding on to him, they are already committing an infraction of the constitution. That is a violation of his rights to personal liberty under section 35 of the constitution. He added, The moment the judgment of the court was pronounced, they should have released him, forthwith, because having been discharged and acquitted, he is longer facing a trial or charge. Mr Effiong stressed that Mr Kanu was not convicted by the Federal High Court, Abuja, pointing out that the IPOB leader can return to the SSS custody only if the government succeeds with any appeal against the judgment. He said the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, should be sacked or honourably resign for allowing alleged abduction and extra-ordinary rendition of Mr Kanu. He said the ruling was an indictment of President Muhammadu Buharis administration. The lawyer claimed Mr Buhari had done similar things during the military regime without consequence, but such action cannot be allowed in this democratic era. If the court should allow the extra-ordinary rendition of Mr Kanu to stand, that will amount to putting fire on the constitution, he said. Nigeria govt reacts The government has, however, indicated that it would not release Mr Kanu despite the court ruling. Mr Malami, in a statement, late Thursday, by his spokesperson, Umar Gwandu, argued that the Court of Appeal only discharged Mr Kanu, and did not acquit him. The attorney-general said the government is reviewing its legal options and could institute other charges against the IPOB leader. He said that the decision of the Court of Appeal was on a single issue that borders on rendition. Let it be made clear to the general public that other issues that predate rendition on the basis of which Kanu jumped bail remain valid issues for judicial determination. The Federal Government will consider all available options open to us on judgment on rendition, while pursuing determination of pre-rendition issues, Mr Malami said. He said the governments decision on the case would be announced to the public after the review of available legal options. President Muhammadu Buhari has again summoned security chiefs to deliberate on successes being recorded from ongoing onslaught against terrorists and other criminals across the country. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the security chiefs would be updating the president on various military operations against criminals in the country. The security agencies have been recording what has been described as impressive results against the terrorists and other criminals in the North-east, North-west and other parts of the country. A terrorist kingpin, Ali Dogo, popularly known as Yellow, and 30 of his fighters were killed in airstrikes by the Air Component of Operation Whirl Punch on 8 October at a location in Kaduna State. READ ALSO: Yellow and his fighters reportedly fled military onslaught from their location in Niger, to take refuge in one Alhaji Gwarzos house at Yadi in Giwa Local Government area of Kaduna State, when they were bombed. Similar fruitful results are being recorded by the military in the ongoing fight against terrorist groups in the North-east zone and other parts of the country in recent times. Those attending the security meeting include some cabinet ministers, security chiefs as well as some presidential aides. (NAN) The All Progressives Congress (APC) has written the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise Bashir Machina as the candidate for Yobe North Senatorial District. APC, in a letter signed by its National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, and the National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, dated 12 October, asked the electoral commission to recognise Mr Machina as directed by Federal High Court, Damaturu. We write to notify the Commission of the attached judgment dated 28th September 2022 and Order dated 5th October 2022 from the Federal High Court, Damaturu Judicial Division, directing the Commission to accept and recognize BASHIR SHERIFF as the Partys candidate for Yobe North Senatorial District, Yobe State and to publish same accordingly. Above is for your information and necessary action, please, the statement reads. The Federal High Court had rejected the nomination of Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the candidate of the APC, and ruled that Mr Machina is the authentic candidate of the party having won the legally recognised primary supervised by the electoral body. Background Mr Lawan lost the 8 June APC presidential primaries. However, the ruling party had submitted his name as the candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District. The development prompted Mr Machina to file a suit praying the court should rule that he was the bona fide candidate of the party. He also asked the court to order the INEC to include his name in its final register of candidates for the National Assembly election. The court ruled that Mr Lawan did not participate in the legally recognised primary election of the APC to select its candidate in the election held on 28 May. PREMIUM TIMES had reported that Mr Lawan announced his decision not to appeal the ruling of the court. Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, has announced a new date for its post-UTME screening for admission seekers. The new date is 1 November 2022, the university said on Friday. Previously, the university had scheduled the exercise to hold between 17 October and 23 October 2022. The postponement, according to the institutions post-UTME Screening Planning Committee, was to allow more candidates to complete registration. This is to inform the general public and most especially our prospective students who chose Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife as their University of first choice in the 2022 UTME Exercise, and have registered for the 2022 Post-UTME screening exercise that the exercise has been postponed till 1st November, 2022. This is to permit some candidates who are having issues with registration to complete their registration. Please Check https://admissions.oauife.edu.ng for further information and our prospective students should also check their dashboard on the admissions portal, the university said. In a further statement to PREMIUM TIMES, the schools spokesperson, Abiodun Olanrewaju, said the end date for the exercise starting 1 November will be communicated to the candidates. Its starting 1st November, the end date will be communicated to the candidates. Abiodun Olarewaju, OAU Spokesperson just confirmed. After eight months strike, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) said the government is yet to satisfactorily meet its demands. Following a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union on Thursday night, ASUU announced the suspension of the strike that began on 14 February in a statement by its president, Emmanuel Osodeke, a professor of soil science, on Friday. In the statement, ASUU said the suspension of the strike was in obedience of the ruling of the court of Appeal and respect for President Muhammadu Buharis appeal that the strike be suspended. As a law-abiding Union and in deference to appeals by the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, and in recognition of the efforts of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and other well meaning Nigerians, ASUU NEC resolved to suspend the strike action embarked upon on 14th February 2022, the professor said. Consequently, all members of ASUU are hereby directed to resume all services hitherto withdrawn with effect from 12:01 on Friday, 14th October, 2022. Demands not met The academic union, however, noted that the government is yet to satisfactorily resolve the issues that led to the dispute. The issues, according to ASUU, include the release of revitalisation funds of public universities, earned academic allowances for its members, a halt to the proliferation of public universities, the release of White Papers from the reports of the presidential visitation panels to the universities and the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a payment platform for university staff. READ ALSO: The union said: While appreciating the commendable efforts of the leadership of the House of Representatives and other patriotic Nigerians who waded into the matter, NEC noted with regret that the issues in dispute are yet to be satisfactorily addressed. In September, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, referred the dispute with ASUU to the National Industrial Court. At the court, the government sought for an injunction to order ASUU to suspend the strike while the court heard the substantive matter. ASUU then said: The National Industrial Court in its wisdom gave an order compelling ASUU to resume work pending the determination of the substantive suit. Given the nature of the order, and in the opinion of our counsel, there was the need to appeal the interlocutory injunction granted against our Union at the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal acknowledged the validity of the grounds of the Unions appeal but still upheld the order of the lower court and ordered our Union to comply with the ruling of the lower court as a condition precedent for the appeal to be heard. Progress ASUU added that the series of meetings with the leadership of the House of Representatives led by the speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, as well as intervention efforts of other Nigerians both within and outside government ,yielded some progress. The leadership of the House of Representatives facilitated meetings between ASUU and affected Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. At the meetings, the government agreed to modify the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) with the feature of UTAS to accommodate the peculiarities of the university and its staff. The government also included, in the proposed 2023 budget, N170 billion for the revitalisation of tertiary institutions and N300 billion for salaries. It is, however, unclear if those budgetary provisions meet the demands of the lecturers. On the No Work, No Pay stance earlier announced by the government, Mr Gbajabiamila has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to make concessions, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. A source within ASUU NEC had earlier told PREMIUM TIMES that the union was waiting for Mr Buharis decision on the payment of the lecturers salaries for the period they were on strike. Mr Buhari is yet to make a pronouncement. 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 The PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) wants the partys National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to assure members and Nigerians that he will resign his position after the 2023 general elections. This was part of the resolutions reached at the end of the boards meeting at the party secretariat on Friday. The call comes amid the lingering crisis in the party with many aggrieved members led by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, calling for the resignation of the chairman. Their demand, they said, is aimed at balancing the lopsidedness in the leadership structure of the party and providing better representation for southern members. The aggrieved members said since the presidential candidate is from the north, Mr Ayu should give way for a southerner to occupy the position. To calm aggrieved persons, Walid Jibrin, also a northerner, resigned his position as BoT chairman in September. The partys Presidential Campaign Council had denied shelving its campaign activities in order to reconcile with aggrieved members. The Councils Director General, Aminu Tambuwal, announced that the PDP will take its campaign train to Kaduna on Monday. Addressing journalists after the meeting, the BoT acting chairman, Aldolphus Wabara, hinted that the party has resolved to urge the National Chairman as an eminent leader, to give a firm assurance that he will resign his position after the 2023 election. In the same vein, the BoT Chairman said he has been authorised to offer apologies on behalf of all members who feel maligned or aggrieved by the public statements made by its members nationwide that has sharpened the current division in the party. While he called on party leaders and their supporters to desist from making further inflammatory remarks or granting press interviews, Mr Wabara called on the Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Mr Tambuwal, to convene a meeting of the forum without further delay. Mr Wabara also asked the partys presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to review the membership of the Campaign Council, and other advisory appointments to make it all inclusive. Leaders of the party were asked to match words with action and where commitments are made, to unconditionally fulfill the same. Mr Wabara also assured that the BoT will refer some of the recommendations and appropriate action to NEC of the party in due course. Iyorchia Ayu, the PDP national chairman, has broken his silence on the N1 billion bribery allegation levelled against him by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike. The chairman said he did not collect such an amount from anybody in the party. He cited fear of altercations in the party as and hope for reconciliation as the reasons for his silence on the allegations. He, however, said it was necessary to respond as there have been attacks on his person and family members since the end of the partys presidential convention in May. Mr Ayu was reacting to comments from Mr Wike weeks ago where he accused the former of collecting up to N1 billion in Lagos from a member of the party The governor also accused Mr Ayu of bribing some members of the partys National Working Committee to have them on his side. Mr Wikes allegations generated more controversies when some members of the NWC began to return money to the chairman. PREMIUM TIMES reported how at least four NWC members returned over N120 million. The sum ranged from N28 million to N36 million. In separate letters to the chairman, they said they had to return the money which was tagged housing allowance because of allegations in the media that it was a bribe. In a recent interview on Friday, Mr Wike alleged that the chairman also received double pay for a single project. Mr Ayu, he said, collected N100 million from a governor to renovate the partys democratic institution and then he (Ayu) went back to the PDP NWC and collected N100 million naira for doing the same job. He vowed to mention the name of the governor should Mr Ayu deny the allegations. If people know what we know, if we release what we have, Ayus children will go to him and say we are no longer your children, Mr Wike said. Allegations not true In a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle, Mr Ayu said he never collected N1bn from anybody. He narrated how the party had difficulties in funding when he was elected and how the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, had suggested that the party take a loan of N1 billion from a bank whose owner was also an influential member of this party but has left the party. But when we discussed with him, we discarded the idea, he said. And the party never took any loan or any money from anybody. And I as a person never collected N1billion from anybody. Any money advanced to the party was declared before the National Working Committee (NWC) and handed over to the National Treasurer of the party. While he maintained that the partys accounts are straight, he promised to present the audited account to the public at the end of the year. N100m donation effectively used Mr Ayu also acknowledged that a governor donated N100 million for the revival of the Peoples Democratic Institute (PDI) which was housed in a portacabin. He denied taking another N100 million from the NWC. He said the partys Board of Trustees had briefed him about the donation and the sum has been judiciously used for the purpose it was given. He further said soon, the Institute will be commissioned and party leaders, including the governor in question will be present to witness it. So, it is not true. Neither I nor the NWC ever took any party money to carry out the renovation. In fact, we have not even exhausted that N100m which was donated by one of the governors. The current diatribe between the duo shows that the crisis in the party is far from over, especially since Mr Wike recently declared that there will be no peace in the party until Mr Ayu resigns his position. Nigerias population is forecast to increase to over 450 million by 2050, by which time it will be the third most populous country in the world. Although Nigeria has great agricultural potential, the sector is unable to meet the nutritional demands of a rapidly growing population. Nigeria has made little progress in export diversification Macroeconomic instability, a skills shortage, an unfriendly business environment and infrastructure deficits constrain productivity and growth in the non-oil sector. This week, Nextier organised a workshop to deliberate on a report by the Institute of Security Studies in South Africa on Nigeria in 2050: Global Player or Poverty Capital of the World? Its a trend analysis of where we are headed if we keep to the current pathway annihilation. It is, therefore, above all a warning that to survive as a people, we must change our ways and move away from the massive level of public corruption that makes it virtually impossible for governments to do their work of producing public goods for the people security, welfare, good health, infrastructure and so on. We must improve governance or perish. The problem is: Who in government will listen? Who has power and at the same time the empathy to listen to what the people need desperately? I recalled a similar study we conducted under the OECD and the World Bank in 1993-94, known as the West African Long-Term Perspective Study 1995 to 2020. We spent two years in a detailed study, reading the tea leaves of where Nigeria was headed in the next 25 years then. Sadly, all our projections of the dangers ahead that should be avoided have come to pass. We drew attention to rapid population growth rate, producing a youth bulge due to a significant decline in infant mortality, and posed the question whether we would benefit from the demographic dividend if we educate and train the youth and diversify the economy to provide jobs or we do nothing and suffer the blows from a demographic bombshell. We did nothing and the bombs have gone off. We observed the rapidity of rural-urban migration and pointed out that the cities were developing vast slums, as young people left their villages to cities with neither training nor education, thereby transferring rural poverty to concentrated urban squalor. A society with a vast lumpen hustler population surviving day-by-day in a difficult informal economy, creates a vast precariat that would promote instability. That is what we now have. We warned the governments that the universal compulsory primary school scheme introduced in 1976 had been abandoned by most Northern state governments. We drew attention to the urgent need to implement it, as our future depended on it. No one in government cared. Today, Nigeria has the largest population of school-age children in the world, who are out of school and no government has seen it as a national emergency in the past three decades. The current study presented this week covers very much the same grounds but draws attention to what the data is saying today that everything is more dire now than it was before. Over four decades after the introduction of compulsory universal basic education, over 30% of the population is illiterate. The country is in chronic crisis, with an essentially bankrupt economy that has sank into a debt trap. We drew attention to the rise of religiosity and the penetration of the religious arena by informal religious actors, following the outbreak of the Maitatsine violence in the early 1980s, which we said could balloon into significant levels of violent extremism. We drew attention to the socio-economic crisis in the Sahel as a possible trigger and many in power thought it was mere speculation, until Boko Haram became part of our lived realty. We also drew attention to the rapid expansion of both agriculture and pastoralism in the same space, leading to violent conflicts and a run on arable land in the Middle Belt, which is where we are today. These were our projections for the 2020s, handed over to governments in 1994. The current study presented this week covers very much the same grounds but draws attention to what the data is saying today that everything is more dire now than it was before. Over four decades after the introduction of compulsory universal basic education, over 30% of the population is illiterate. The country is in chronic crisis, with an essentially bankrupt economy that has sank into a debt trap. Nigerians have never been so unsafe, with multiple insurgencies, widespread banditry, separatist agitations, policy discontinuities, massive corruption and a level of poor governance that presents an existential threat. The study shows graphics demonstrating that Nigeria and Malaysia where at a similar level of economic performance at independence, but today the latter country has transformed its economy and moved far ahead, while we remain in crisis. Nigeria is not on track to achieve most of the SDGs by 2030, and is forecast to have the highest number of poor people globally by 2050. Internally, there is a poverty polarity between Northern and Southern Nigeria, with the North lagging far behind. Nigeria has one of the worlds lowest tax revenue-to-GDP ratios, leaving little fiscal space for productive expenditure. The public health and education sectors are incapacitated by mismanagement, corruption and inadequate funding. Nigeria can and must address the security challenges it faces by providing the leadership for the security forces to be properly equipped and encouraged to do its work. It is still possible to promote national cohesion and social inclusion by ensuring a fair distribution of socio-economic amenities across the states. The government needs to set up a national social protection programme to support the poorest and most vulnerable to reduce poverty and inequality. Nigerias population is forecast to increase to over 450 million by 2050, by which time it will be the third most populous country in the world. Although Nigeria has great agricultural potential, the sector is unable to meet the nutritional demands of a rapidly growing population. Nigeria has made little progress in export diversification. The country remains a rentier economy but, currently, even that is lost as most of the petroleum produced is stolen and sold by government and security cabals that have become pipeline bandits. Macroeconomic instability, a skills shortage, an unfriendly business environment and infrastructure deficits constrain productivity and growth in the non-oil sector. The situation is bad. Nonetheless, with aggressive but reasonable policy interventions, Nigeria could have a significantly brighter future if we have a leadership with vision and competence. This is the major challenge posed to Nigerian citizens today. Nigeria can and must address the security challenges it faces by providing the leadership for the security forces to be properly equipped and encouraged to do its work. It is still possible to promote national cohesion and social inclusion by ensuring a fair distribution of socio-economic amenities across the states. The government needs to set up a national social protection programme to support the poorest and most vulnerable to reduce poverty and inequality. Also, there is the necessity of intensifying the struggle against corruption, improving public financial management and domestic revenue mobilisation by accelerating digitalisation to enhance tax efficiency, and addressing the infrastructure gap by creating an enabling environment for public-private-partnerships in infrastructure development. A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES. While it was easy for the Bauchi APC to waive the enquiry by the press aside, the larger implication is that AM Sadique Babas (rtd) candidacy can be challenged on grounds of the Electoral Act fraud, which says that the person whose election is questioned, had submitted to INEC an affidavit containing false information of a fundamental nature in aid of his qualification for the election Sadique Babas candidacy can be a subject of litigation in a competent court or tribunal, if not now, then possibly in future, if he secures a victory in the March governorship election. As the race for the 2023 general elections formally began recently, the need for scrutiny of candidates justling for various positions has become more important for political parties and gladiators. At this stage of the electoral process, the least you would expect from a candidate or party is to be found on the wrong side of the law the Electoral Act and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) guidelines, that is. But in Bauchi State, the All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be walking a tight rope and undermining itself wittingly or inadvertently, going by the allegation of faulty documentation of its candidate, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar Baba (rtd). Again, the last person you would expect to run foul of the law is a top notch, well-decorated retired general of the Nigerian Airforce, whose glorious career was crowned with the highest honour in his profession as an Air Marshal; having also served as the Chief of Air Staff from 12 July, 2015 to 26 January, 2021, before veering into the murky waters of politics. He got elected as the candidate of the ruling party for next years election in May this year. Therefore, when information filtered in that the accomplished Air Marshals documents filed with INEC, in what is called form EC-9, were either not adequate or perceived to have been doctored, the issue got tongues wagging about his sincerity of purpose and how a man of such stature could make such a mistake, to have left out vital information in such an important form. Or was it deliberate? Form EC-9 is an INEC document to be filled by those wishing to stand for elective offices; it contains personal particulars, such as age, nationality, sex, address, educational qualification, etc. As simple as providing this basic credential is, it could be a banana peel for anyone aspiring for office, if wrongly done. And since the opposition, the media and civil society organisations (CSOs) are always out searching for loopholes in their claims to sanitise the electoral process, it is not a surprise that this became Sadique Babas albatross, as revealed in a PREMIUM TIMES publication recently. The publication, in a nutshell, not just drew attention to Air Marshal Sadique Babas credentials, but questioned their validity, including his nationality. In this era of deep politics, any serious candidate desirous of winning clean would have to come to equity with clean hands, otherwise the result could be disastrous. While I hope this will not be the case with the amiable ex-Chief of Air Staff, it does not look like he has done due diligence with regards to his earned academic laurels, otherwise what does it take to collect and submit the citizenship form, birth certificate (or declaration of age), primary and secondary school certificates, if he could submit his first and second-degree certificates? Quoting a civil society organisation, Accountability and Democratic Project (ADEP), the PREMIUM TIMES report said that the group called on INEC to disqualify Sadique Baba for withholding vital information in the document he supplied to the commission. Coming under further scrutiny, the retired Air Marshal was accused of not providing information about his citizenship of Nigeria. He has been accused of being a Cameroonian (laughable you may say but politicians need any straw anyway), and for not providing all supporting documents about his date of birth and academic qualifications. In that petition to INEC signed by the Executive Director of ADEP, Ahmad Muhammad, the group demanded for more transparency and accountability by those seeking public office and as provided by the commission, in a petition to the same commission. As part of our scrutiny of candidates aspiring for political office for the February 2023 election, we are currently going through submissions made by candidates to your commission as required by the law. In the course of this, we have found with concerns the submission made by the candidate of the APC for the governorship of Bauchi state, AM Ababakar Sadique Baba (rtd) where he filed incomplete information and withheld important credentials that should be part and parcel of his form EC-9. A cursory look at the form shows the candidate claimed that he was born in Azare. He also claimed to have attended St Pauls Primary School and finished in 1973 and graduated from GSS Bauchi in 1978. Curiously, However, the candidate did not annex documents to prove all these claims that are vital to his overall credentials. Ahmad Muhammad further stated that persons aspiring for positions must prove that they are citizens of Nigeria beyond reasonable doubt which Mr Sadique Baba failed to do. Surprisingly, however the very document that should prove to us the citizenship of the candidate in question was not supplied. Anybody reviewing the documents is also left doubtful about the primary and secondary schools the candidate claimed to have attended as there is no evidential document to confirm that. We view this as a flagrant disregard of the electoral Act and the INEC guidelines as all candidates are clearly directed to attach all credentials they claim to possess to the EC-9 form. The CSO also said in the petition that the deliberate omission of the information in the form keeps it guessing if the APC candidate was not hiding something. This deliberate omission also keeps us guessing if AM Sadique Baba has anything he is hiding thus choosing to declare only a part of the credentials he claims to possess are necessary requirements for him to stand as a candidate in the upcoming elections. It is in this light that we write your good office to draw attention to this grave disregard for the law and ask that you apply the law appropriately by disqualifying the said Abubakar Sadique Baba. The call is hinged on the fact that the candidate is guilty of disregard for the guidelines as clearly indicated, and for holding unto information which he has sworn to possess so far. In addition to the publication of names and addresses, Section 31(3) of the Electoral Act requires INEC to publish particulars of a nominated candidate in the constituency where he/she intends to contest the election One element of the requirement is the publication of personal particulars of candidates which should be within 7 days of receipt of candidates list. This has since has elapsed, thus validating ADEPs petition to INEC. Considering his pedigree, it should be a given that Sadique Baba would have his documents intact, genuine and legitimate. The question now is, if he had these documents and they are genuine, why did he not make them public? Conversely, not making them public raises questions and concerns. There is either a case of invalid or inadequate documentation or failure in such certificates, which may make it shameful for a man of his calibre to present to them to the public. That also raises another question of how he was able to rise to the top of his career if he didnt submit these documents to the right quarters. While it was easy for the Bauchi APC to waive the enquiry by the press aside, the larger implication is that AM Sadique Babas (rtd) candidacy can be challenged on grounds of the Electoral Act fraud, which says that the person whose election is questioned, had submitted to INEC an affidavit containing false information of a fundamental nature in aid of his qualification for the election. Im afraid, on this basis, Sadique Babas candidacy can be a subject of litigation in a competent court or tribunal, if not now, then possibly in future, if he secures a victory in the March governorship election. This will not be a good development for both the candidate and the party; therefore, APC should make hay now, while the sun still shines. Section 140(3) of the Act goes further to say that an election of a person not qualified to contest can be nullified, while an offence of providing false information or documents for inputting false data into the voters register is punishable with a fine or imprisonment. All these may seem far off, but a smart legal team and pliable court could upturn a legitimate victory on the basis of this technical ground, which might not augur well for the gentleman and the APC. In the last few years, Nigeria is referenced as a model in democratic transitions in Africa, especially since 2015, when ex-president Goodluck Jonathan successfully handed over to the opposition, coupled with the string of transparent off-season elections conducted so far by INEC. This should not be truncated. INEC should also be cognisant of the concerns of citizens expressed through petitions, protests or complaints. Zainab Suleiman Okino is an online publisher and a syndicated columnist. She chairs the Editorial Board of Blueprint. She can be reached thus: zainabokino@gmail.com. Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has condemned the killing of three vigilante operatives in Igbo-Ukwu, a community in the Aguata Local Government Area of the state. PREMIUM TIMES reported how some gunmen, on Sunday evening, opened fire on the vigilante operatives at a bar in Nkwo Market of the community, killing all of them. The victims, who are members of the Anambra Vigilante Group (AVG), have been identified as Emeka Okeke, Nnayelu Orizu and Chukwuma Ubaego. One of the victims, Mr Okeke otherwise known as Shaba, was a senior officer with the AVG in the state. Sources had said Mr Okeke was a member of the Ebubeagu Security Network, a South-east security outfit which has been accused of extrajudicial killings in the region. Other sources claimed that it was a retaliatory attack carried out by members of a kidnapping syndicate whose leader was reportedly exposed by Mr Okekes team recently. Reacting in a statement on Friday by his spokesperson, Christian Aburime, Mr Soludo described the attack as inhuman and totally unacceptable. The governor said it was painful that the victims were killed while they were on official duty in the area. The perpetrators will surely not go scot-free as we are fully determined to fish them out to pay dearly for their crimes, Mr Soludo said. The attack on the vigilante operatives came about one month after gunmen ambushed a Nigerian senators convoy, killing about five people, including two police officers. It also came two weeks after gunmen killed five soldiers in Umunze, a community in the Orumba South Local Government Area of the state. Mr Soludo assured that the government was still making efforts to track down those behind the attack on the senators convoy and the killers of the five soldiers. The governor commiserated with the families of the deceased vigilante operatives, assuring them that the deaths of the victims would not be in vain. COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- To announce net-zero targets is one thing, to implement them is another. One tool that supports implementation that aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to maximum 1.5C is the One Earth Climate Model (OECM), commissioned by the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance and other entities. It explores and provides open data sets for energy-related carbon budgets for 12 main industry and service sectors, on scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and in line with a maximum temperature rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures on a no/limited overshoot path. Last year's long-awaited COP26 in Glasgow kept the goals of the Paris Agreement just within reach and provided a strong push - in particular from the private and finance sector, whose participation included the US$130 billion total collective commitment from the Climate Investment Coalition, towards effective climate solution investments by 2030. To keep the momentum up for COP27 in 2022, businesses, investors and governments that are serious about fulfilling net-zero emissions pledges before 2050, must design and enact transition plans that are legitimate, robust, and scientifically sound backed by global reporting and tracking framework on 1.5C no/low overshoot as outlined in the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The OECM datasets provide open datasets for download not only for the financial sector to align their investment, insurance, lending and underwriting activities, but to everyone; for businesses, policymakers, and other scientists to have access to powerful tools that allow them to advance towards a true net zero economy around the world. Investors from all parts of the globe can utilise the OECM framework to ensure their net-zero transition plans are in line with Paris Agreement 1.5C no/low overshoot targets. "OECM is an extremely valuable basis for asset managers, especially smaller ones like us, in setting portfolio carbon reduction targets as it provides essential sector level granularity for evaluating the decarbonisation efforts of investee companies. As it stands, we are likely to make use of it in our portfolio decarbonisation efforts," says Valdur Jaht, Partner & Investment Manager at Avaron Asset Management. "The Climate Investment Coalition understands that beyond new net-zero commitments, short-term, actionable targets must be set and implemented in order to achieve transition plans that are in line with Paris Agreement 1.5C targets. OECM framework provides a tool that will support investors in their net-zero target-setting and portfolio steering for real world impact" says Peter Damgaard Jensen, Co-Chair, Climate Investment Coalition Find the data sets and more information here: The Climate Investment Coalition continues its investment roadmap to COP27 and COP28 in support of the OECM and are engaging with global organisations, initiatives and stakeholders leading the change in catalysing the net-zero economy. The World Climate Foundation is proud to act as Secretariat to the Climate Investment Coalition. Connect with us to engage on a journey towards a better future together at info@climateinvestmentcoalition.org For more information: Pauline Ledermann, Project Manager, World Climate Foundation pauline.ledermann@worldclimatefoundation.org, +4540830497 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/21920/3648057/1638411.pdf Press Release (PDF) SOURCE World Climate Foundation TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AACSB International (AACSB) announced today the appointment of Ronald (Ron) Tuninga as its new vice president and managing director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). He will lead continued growth within EMEA, including strategic planning, operations, outreach and engagement activities, and advocating for the value of business education and AACSB accreditation. Ron Tuninga Tuninga will continue the work of Tim Mescon, executive vice president and chief officer of EMEA, who will retire in December 2022 after having established the Amsterdam (the Netherlands) office in 2014 and growing membership in EMEA by nearly 60 percent. "Ron's natural ability to connect and engage with members and stakeholders will be an incredible asset to AACSB as we continue to expand in EMEA and deepen our relationships with educators, business, and government," said Geoff Perry, executive vice president and global chief membership officer and managing director of Asia Pacific. "We are focused on improving the quality of business education worldwide and helping schools contribute to society in positive and meaningful ways. Ron's experience and network will have an immediate impact on the value we provide across the EMEA region and globally." An innovative and entrepreneurial leader with global expertise in both the public and private sectors of higher education, Tuninga is the former vice president of academic affairs at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, chair of the Research Centre International Business at HAN University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands), pro vice chancellor (Enterprise) and dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at Kingston University London (United Kingdom), and dean at AVT Business School in Copenhagen (Denmark). He was also the former director dean at the Maastricht School of Management (the Netherlands). Tuninga holds a PhD from Temple University (Philadelphia, USA), an MA in economics, an MBA in international business, and an MSc in marketing. "I am so excited to welcome Ron to the AACSB leadership team and look forward to seeing the impact he will have in growing AACSB's reach and influence within EMEA," said Caryn L. Beck-Dudley, president and CEO of AACSB. "He's dedicated his entire career to advancing and supporting quality education globally and will be one of the driving forces behind AACSB's vision to accelerate transformation and innovation within business education." Tuninga has been involved in international projects funded by the Dutch government, World Bank, European Union, United Nations, and other international organizations. He has also been actively involved as a volunteer with AACSB. Tuninga is based in AACSB's office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and will be connecting with AACSB members at the EMEA Annual Conference, November 2325, 2022, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. About AACSB International Established in 1916, AACSB International (AACSB) is the world's largest business education alliance, connecting educators, learners, and business to create the next generation of great leaders. With a presence in more than 100 countries and territories, AACSB fosters engagement, accelerates innovation, and amplifies impact in business education. Learn how AACSB is transforming business education for a better society at aacsb.edu. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1919601/Tuninga___Headshot___October_2022.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492010/AACSB_Logo.jpg SOURCE AACSB International LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- For World Sight Day 2022, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, an NGO founded by Nepalese 'God of Sight' Dr Sanduk Ruit and London philanthropist Tej Kohli, has announced the results of its first projects in Bhutan and Ghana. 1,619 patients have been screened at two surgical outreach camps in Bhutan in August, where 246 people were cured of blindness over a six-day period, with Dr Sanduk Ruit performing 171 surgeries. 444 patients have been cured of blindness in Ghana at an inaugural surgical outreach camp in September, marking the NGOs first move into Africa. Patients line the corridors to await surgery at a Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation microsurgical outreach camp in Bhutan. Photo: Michael Amendolia. Needless blindness remains a public health challenge throughout the developing world that worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic when eye health services faced severe disruption and delay. Tej Kohli has committed to spending a portion of his wealth eradicating this needless blindness from low-income communities. Since launching their NGO in March 2021, Ruit and Kohli have already screened 164,616 people and cured 21,159 of cataract blindness in Nepal, Bhutan and Ghana. In November their NGO will start to cure blindness at scale in Tanzania, followed by Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation aspires to cure as many as 500,000 of cataract blindness in the developing world by 2030. In Bhutan the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is seeking to completely eliminate cataract blindness from the Kingdom in a joint project with the Ministry of Health. Bhutan has already achieved a 33% reduction in blindness since its first Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey in 2009. Now a joint program of outreach and surgical interventions combined with the training of new ophthalmologic surgeons will seek to clear the backlog of 10,460 people who are currently awaiting cataract surgery. In Ghana 54.8% of all blindness is due to cataracts but the average cataract surgical rate of 523 surgeries per million of population falls well below the WHO target of 3,000 per million. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation will cure 1,000 of blindness in the country by the end of 2022 and will ramp up its efforts throughout 2023. In Tanzania the NGO will also provide medical training to improve the rate of success of cataract surgeries in the country, which stands at 58.7% compared to a global average of 85%. Tej Kohli, co-founder of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation said: "World Sight Day 2022 is an opportunity to take stock of the many NGOs like ours who are contributing toward global efforts to prevent and cure the unnecessary blindness that restrains social and economic progress in the developing world. We know that the socio-economic return of curing someone of blindness in a low-income country is 1,500% of the cost of surgery in just one year. That is very good value in terms of impact. I hope the international community will soon play a bigger role in spreading this impact further." About the Tej Kohli &Ruit Foundation The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund, registered UK charity number 1099682. The Foundation targets the #1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing poverty by making large-scale surgical interventions to cure blindness at the grassroots in the developing world. All treatments are provided completely free, with 100% of the funding coming from Tej Kohli and the Kohli family. For more information visit: Website: www.tejkohliruit.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejkohliruit/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tej-kohli-ruit-foundation/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tejkohliruitfoundation Medium: https://tejkohliruitfoundation.medium.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tkrfoundation Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1914078/Tej_Kohli_Ruit_Foundation_Bhutan.jpg SOURCE Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation Arizona-Centric Venture Capital Firm Closes Record Setting Fund to Support Local Companies Beyond the Desert PHOENIX, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AZ-VC, the Arizona-centric venture capital firm, today announced the close of its first fund, with an oversubscribed total raise of $110 million. AZ-VC (formerly invisionAZ Fund) is led by Jack Selby, an original employee and former executive at PayPal. The fund is backed by an almost Arizona-exclusive list of LPs, many of whom will be actively engaged as advisors in helping source, mentor and grow portfolio companies. As a 20+ year resident of Arizona, Selby believes the state is a massive untapped resource of entrepreneurial activity. Phoenix is the 5th largest city, and the country's fastest growing metropolitan region. Pandemic newcomers from neighboring California and elsewhere continue to fuel the Arizona economy, especially refugees from Silicon Valley looking for higher quality of life and more affordable housing, while maintaining manageable proximity to their former state. Despite these tailwinds, Selby laments what he has described as the Sonoran "Funding Desert" paradox, which begins with a lack of local capital sources positioned to write a Series A check of $2-5 million. This financial void forces Arizona's best companies to fundraise outside of the state, which is problematic for two reasons. First, raising capital for start-ups is always hard, and even harder as an out-of-town prospective portfolio company. As such, many Arizona companies have simply failed to launch beyond seed-level funding. Second, out-of-state VCs recycle any financial windfalls in their respective home ecosystems, preventing any flywheel effects from benefiting Arizona. AZ-VC will focus on Series A and beyond opportunities. The strategy will be sector agnostic and entrepreneur centric. The fund will leverage Selby's "PayPal Mafia" background and open doors for portfolio companies in Silicon Valley and around the world. To date, AZ-VC invested $3 million in Mosaic , the first elastic national general contracting service for digitally empowering the homebuilding industry; led an investment round in Uplinq, a provider of advanced bookkeeping solutions that rely on data automation and machine learning to small and medium-sized businesses; and is ready to add more impressive logos to the family. "This fund is a litmus test for Arizona in two respects," Selby said. "First, we could have gone to long-standing allocator relationships in places like London, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, et al, and raised the fund in a straightforward manner. Instead, we chose to challenge local investors to choose if they wanted to see a fund like ours rise up in our home community and back Arizona-based companies. I knew raising the fund would be a challenge, but I am heartened with the outcome. I salute our investors, led by Pinnacle West Corporation (PNW), our $25 million anchor. Selby continued, "The second test will be finding the companies to deploy $110 million in the local ecosystem. I am certain the Arizona start-up community will gladly accept the challenge." "Our focus is to back exceptional local startups and provide them with the resources to win on a national stage" said Benjamin Brockwell, Principal at AZ-VC. "In addition to creating a top-notch investment portfolio, we are heavily committed to providing opportunities for the state's best talent." About AZ-VC AZ-VC is a $110 million Series A and beyond venture capital fund based in Phoenix and focused on Arizona technology companies. The strategy is sector agnostic, and the fund aims to deploy investments between $2-5m. The fund is managed by Jack Selby, a 20-year Arizona resident and former PayPal executive. For more information, visit AZ-VC's website and their LinkedIn profile. SOURCE AZ-VC WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The redevelopment of the 2.2-acre Bond Bread Factory / WRECO Garage site at Howard University received unanimous approval by the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) on Thursday, September 29, 2022. Redevelopment of Bond Bread/WRECO will be led by a master development team consisting of DC-based developers The Menkiti Group, Fivesquares Development, and EDENS. The project advances the guiding principles of the Duke District Plan, with an intention to emphasize the centrality of a "university district" to the future of the neighborhood and position that district as a dynamic, mixed-use area. With this approval, the project can move forward with design and permitting. Bond Bread Project Rendering, Corner of U Street and V Street | Studios Architecture "Urban transformation is about so much more than bricks and mortar; it is also about the intangible and how well a project preserves and transforms the identity of the community. For me, this project is deeply personal as a local Black developer and real estate professional who has spent the last two decades building an organization in the District that is focused on transforming lives, careers, and communities through real estate," said Bo Menkiti, Founder & CEO of The Menkiti Group. "I have witnessed firsthand the power and impact of being able to incorporate both the cultural history and the restoration of historic buildings into transformative new developments. I am truly honored to have our firm leading this special project in partnership with Howard University and alongside our fellow developers at Fivesquares and EDENS. Together we share a collective vision and goal of preserving the history of the Bond Bread and WRECO buildings as well as reconnecting the community to its cultural history." The vision for the project is to enhance the cultural heritage and character of DC, the historic Shaw, Pleasant Plains and LeDroit park neighborhoods, and Howard University. The 9-story redevelopment, designed by Studios Architecture, includes 469 residential units, a 180-room lifestyle hotel, 50,100 SF of retail space, and a 19,800 SF open public courtyard with the historical truss reveal of the former WRECO bus garage. Facade retention of the two historic buildings will seek to respect the scale of the neighborhood while creating a harmonizing blend between preservation of existing design and contemporary design. By creating a vital neighborhood center, the development team aims to highlight the inextricable link to Howard University and will ensure the project reflects the culture and character of the University, the neighborhood and its history, and the surrounding community. "This project will be the 18-hour, destination anchor for what is emerging as one of the most exciting districts in Washington DC where Howard University and the city come together in a new vibrant central square," said Andy Altman, Principal & Co-Founder of FIVESQUARES. "As the former planning director for the city, it is especially rewarding to partner with the talented team of The Menkiti Group and EDENS to bring a community vision generated over a decade ago to life." In late 2017 Howard University released a highly competitive developer selection process which received more than 20 responses to its Request for Qualifications. After careful review and deliberation, Howard selected a development team comprised of diverse, locally based, locally operated experts in the areas of neighborhood building, retail development, and multi-family housing. "Receiving this approval represents a critical next step in enhancing Howard University's strategic efforts to energize and revitalize the community surrounding our campus," said Howard University President Wayne A. I. Frederick. "The Bond Bread Partnership has enabled us to move forward with this development that will enhance the Shaw and Pleasant Plains neighborhood and create value for D.C. residents and businesses, while respecting the historic structures on this site." The Bond Bread Partnership comprised of The Menkiti Group, Fivesquares, and EDENS has defined their vision for this project as one that focuses on maximizing the benefits to the university as well as the neighboring communities. Together they are committed to reinforcing and expressing Howard's historical legacy as a world-class and globally significant institution by defining the urban gateway of Georgia Avenue as a dynamic entrance to the university as it meets the city and dynamic surrounding neighborhoods. "In repurposing this historic project, we acknowledge that these two landmarks have witnessed significant cultural shifts while embracing the nuances of their own stories - a time where one building fed the city and the other serviced the buses at Howard University's front door," said Steve Boyle, Chief Development Officer at EDENS. "Without diminishing the heritage of this site, we reflected on how the revitalization could lead the dialogue of the past, present, and future while continuing the interwoven story of service and legacy on the Georgia Ave corridor. The design of this emblematic project required active listening and discovery to craft a cohesive tapestry that amplifies the stories and voices of today while allowing for future stories to be told." The current design concept seeks to open up the site through various connections from W to V Street as well as a passageway through Georgia Avenue. The project design encourages and invites the local community to experience the robust programming and gather in a courtyard steeped in historical expressions of art, poetry, and literature of the neighborhood. "We believe deeply in the power of preserving the cultural history and legacy of a place, and that is evident in the plan we are committed to executing." said Bo Menkiti. "When this site is effectively preserved and carried forward into the future, we know it has the potential to be one of the great iconic sites in the city that will be a feature of the neighborhood and Howard University's historical identity, as well as a beacon to their future impact." About The Menkiti Group Founded in 2004, The Menkiti Group is a 100% minority-owned Certified Business Enterprise headquartered in Washington, DC, with additional offices in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Menkiti Group is an integrated real estate services company focused on a double bottom line, measuring success in terms of positive social impact and financial returns. The company was founded with the mission to transform lives, careers, and communities through real estate, and they are committed to driving neighborhood impact and engaging in communities with a long-term lens. Their focuses include urban investment, residential and commercial development, residential sales, and a commercial brokerage. The company's approach to urban neighborhood transformation and investment is centered upon partnerships with capital investors, local developers, community stakeholders, and small business owners to create thriving urban spaces that drive sustainable neighborhood impact and produce economic growth. The enterprise is dedicated to making smart investments in neighborhoods that are often on the "other side of perception," to directly impact community vitality. Projects range from residential renovations and the development and tenanting of main street commercial properties to large-scale, mixed-use, transit-oriented development projects. Over the past 18 years, The Menkiti Group has invested over $350MM in emerging urban neighborhoods, worked on the development of over 3MM SF of real estate, and has assisted over 2,000 families in purchasing their first homes. For more information, please visit MenkitiGroup.com or call (202) 733-5455. SOURCE The Menkiti Group NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- William Benson CEO of the New BR Electric, LLC; the First Company addressing a solution to the growing issue of converting gas powered automobiles to fully Electric Vehicles. Creating a better society and a cleaner world is a priority for the three powerhouse black entrepreneurs forming BR Electric, LLC. BR Electric, a state-of-the-art retro-fitting company, utilizing proprietary systems, plans to convert gas powered vehicles to fully Electric Vehicles within a few days. Nathaniel Anderson new COO BR Electric, former Vice President of Government Affairs/Sales and Business Development Derek Automotive Technologies and Nothing But Green Living Enterprises COO, has a vast background in both the public and private sectors. Dr. Michael Mota, Chairman of the Board for BR Electric, former Vice President of Marketing at Alex & Ani and Seven Swords Media. "We live in a new world where people are focused on purchasing EVs to solve climate change issues," said Benson, CEO. "There are more folks in this world that cannot afford gas in their vehicle, never mind buying an electric vehicle. We decided to step into this industry to focus on fixing what is really broken." A true game-changer in the industry: solving environmental issues with unprecedented swiftness easing the use of fossil fuels. Consumers will save money on gas and maintenance. People will feel good about helping our environment without being forced into buying a new vehicle. "We have a strategic solution to a very complicated problem working with municipalities and dealerships we will pilot a program to convert 100,000 vehicles; opening a showroom in my home state of Rhode Island," said BR Electric Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Mota. Helping the environment, creating jobs and allowing the 'average Joe' to become a part of the solution. In coming months more key technological components will make BR Electric Retro-Fitting an automotive industry interrupter. "BR Electric will work directly with the Federal Government and around the globe to create incentive programs via grants to create affordable/free consumer conversions. BR Electric will transform the automotive business inviting systematic change within the industry," said Nathaniel Anderson, COO of BR Electric. For Information email: [email protected] http://brelectricco.com/ SOURCE BR Electric, LLC The annual program aims to promote startup business development by providing pathways for startup funding and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit across the nation CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Covira, a Chicago-area based microbiome-focused biotech company focused on developing novel therapeutic agents that modulate the gut microbiome to prevent diseases, is pleased to announce that it achieved a Gold recognition to the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School "2022 Most Fundable Companies" list. The 16 winning companies were selected from more than 4,000 startup companies from all 50 states. "We are honored to be named to the Pepperdine Graziadio 2022 Most Fundable Companies List," said Peter Farmakis, Covira CEO. "As a young company, having undergone the rigorous financial vetting and scrutiny from world-renowned experts required to complete the program and ultimately being awarded this recognition brings us one step closer to achieving significant medical milestones and positioning us well for future capital fundraising rounds." The Pepperdine Graziadio Business School launched the Most Fundable Companies program in 2018 to help entrepreneurs prepare for private investment. All startups that complete the program's pre-screen and qualifier surveys receive a customized report with feedback on how to structure and position their business to improve investment opportunities. The companies are evaluated on several company variables, including financial projections, market opportunity, intellectual property, competitive advantage in their market, and the strength of the executive leadership team's expertise. The Pepperdine Graziadio Business School's Most Fundable Companies Showcase took place on October 13, 2022, at Pepperdine University. To see a complete list of winners and learn more about them, visit the 2022 Most Fundable Companies webpage. About Pepperdine Most Fundable Companies The Most Fundable Companies List is an annual program hosted by the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School aimed to promote startup business development by providing pathways for startup funding and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit across the nation. More than 4,000 companies across all 50 states applied for the 2022 program. The Pepperdine Graziadio Business School's Most Fundable Companies Showcase presented by the Singleton Foundation for Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship took place on October 13, 2022 at Pepperdine University's Villa Graziadio Executive Center. The Most Fundable Companies program was launched by the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School in 2018 as a free resource to help entrepreneurs assess their readiness for private investment. The initiative involves a multi-phase assessment that evaluates several company variables, including financial projections, market opportunity, intellectual property, and the strength of the management team, all of which are used to generate objective and customized feedback and scoring to improve readiness for funding. Pepperdine Graziadio Business School's Most Fundable Companies is powered by The Venture Alliance. About Covira A spinout from The University of Chicago (Sept 2018), Covira is a biotech company developing drugs that work by modulating the biological activity of the gut microbiome to prevent diseases. This microbiome-focused company is based on the work of Dr. John Alverdy, MD, a world authority on the molecular basis of post-surgical infections. Covira's platform technology generated a lead asset (CS-0003) that modulates bacterial virulence and restores microbial communities to prevent post-surgical infection. Covira's approach is transformative to the field and the world is taking notice...in the 4th quarter of last year Business Worldwide Magazine named Covira Among the 2021- Top 20 Most Innovative Companies to Watch. Learn more about Covira Surgical at covirasurgical.com. Follow us on LinkedIn @Covira. Investor and Media Contact: Julie Ferguson [email protected] (312) 385-0098 SOURCE Covira DENVER, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA), announced today that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss third quarter results on Friday, October 28, 2022, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The company plans to release its results before market open the same day. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed at the DaVita IR web page. You can join this call as follows: Friday, October 28, 2022 Starting at 8:30 a.m. ET Webcast can be accessed using this link Dial in number: 877-918-6630 International dial in: 517-308-9042 When calling in, please provide the operator the password "Earnings" and provide your name and company affiliation. Investors unable to listen to the conference call will be able to access a replay via our website at investors.davita.com. There will be no telephone replay. About DaVita Inc. DaVita (NYSE: DVA) is a health care provider focused on transforming care delivery to improve quality of life for patients globally. The company is one of the largest providers of kidney care services in the U.S. and has been a leader in clinical quality and innovation for more than 20 years. DaVita cares for patients at every stage and setting along their kidney health journeyfrom slowing the progression of kidney disease to helping to support transplantation, from acute hospital care to dialysis at home. As of June 30, 2022, DaVita served 198,000 patients at 2,808 outpatient dialysis centers in the United States. The company also operated 349 outpatient dialysis centers in 11 other countries worldwide. DaVita has reduced hospitalizations, improved mortality, and worked collaboratively to propel the kidney care industry to adopt an equitable and high-quality standard of care for all patients, everywhere. To learn more, visit DaVita.com/About. Contact Information Investors: [email protected] SOURCE DaVita Increase in the geriatric population, surge in incidence of cancer across the world, and rise in government expenditure on healthcare drive the growth of the global hereditary cancer testing market. PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Hereditary Cancer Testing Market by Cancer Type (Breast Cancer, Gastric Cancer, Ovarian Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Other Cancers), by Test Type (Predictive Testing, Diagnostic Testing), by End User (Diagnostic Centers, Hospitals, Clinics): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031." According to the report, the global hereditary cancer testing industry was estimated at $3.5 billion in 2021, and is anticipated to hit $10.1 billion by 2031, registering a CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2031. The report offers an explicit analysis of the changing market trends, top segments, key investment pockets, value chains, competitive scenarios, and regional landscapes. Determinants of growth- Increase in the geriatric population, surge in incidence of cancer across the world, and rise in government expenditure on healthcare drive the growth of the global hereditary cancer testing market. On the other hand, lack of skilled professionals and high cost of the tests impede the growth to some extent. However, lucrative growth potential in untapped emerging economies is expected to create lucrative opportunities in the industry. Download Free Sample Report- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/11503 Covid-19 scenario- The outbreak of the pandemic gave way to the closure of non-emergency departments in hospitals. Medical procedures with high priority were only being performed in the medical centers, which impacted the global hereditary cancer testing market negatively, especially during the initial period. However, as the global situation started getting normal, the market for hereditary cancer testing also started getting back to shape. The colorectal cancer segment to cite the fastest CAGR- By cancer type, the other cancers segment contributed to nearly two-thirds of the global hereditary cancer testing market share in 2021, and is expected to lead the trail by 2031. This is attributed to increase in the prevalence of breast cancer and rise in the geriatric population as they are more prone to chronic diseases. The colorectal cancer segment, however, is expected to exhibit the fastest CAGR of 13.4% from 2022 to 2031. This is due to surge in the number of breast cancer patients and increase in the number of cancer testing products available in the market. The predictive testing segment to dominate by 2031- By test type, the predictive testing segment garnered more than two-thirds of the global hereditary cancer testing market share in 2021, and is expected to retain its dominance by 2031. The same segment would also portray the fastest CAGR of 11.9% during the forecast period. This is due to upsurge in demand for predictive testing performed in the hospitals and rise in the preference for predictive testing. The hospitals segment garnered the major share in 2021- By end user, the hospitals segment garnered nearly half of the global hereditary cancer testing market share in 2021, and is expected to retain its dominance by 2031. This is due to increase in the number of hospitals, surge in healthcare expenditure, and rise in the hospital visits of cancer patients for early diagnosis of cancers. The diagnostic centers segment, on the other hand, is expected to exhibit the fastest CAGR of 12.2% from 2022 to 2031, due to rise in the number of diagnostic centers and increase in adoption of hereditary cancer testing in the diagnostic centers. For Purchase Inquiry- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/11503 North America grabbed the highest share- Based on region, North America held the major share in 2021, generating nearly two-fifths of the global hereditary cancer testing market. This is due to rise in the geriatric populatio, and surge in number of diagnostic procedures in the province. The Asia-Pacific region, however, would cite the fastest CAGR of 13.8% throughout the forecast period. This is due to the increasing prevalence of cancer types and the rising number of product launch & product approvals across the region. Key players in the industry- Agilent Technologies, Inc. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. Danaher Corporation Abbott Laboratories Eurofins Scientific SE Illumina, Inc. Myriad Genetics, Inc. Qiagen N.V. Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG The report analyzes these key players in the global hereditary cancer testing market. These players have incorporated various strategies such as expansion, new product launches, partnerships, and others to increase their market penetration and strengthen their position in the industry. The report is helpful in assessing the operating segments, their business performance & product portfolio, and so on. Similar Research Reports for Information, Communication and Technology: Internet of Things in Healthcare Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 Medical Tourism Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 3D Cell Culture Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 Neurovascular Devices Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 Viral Vector and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 AVENUE- A Subscription-Based Library (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model): AMR introduces its online premium subscription-based library Avenue, designed specifically to offer cost-effective, one-stop solution for enterprises, investors, and universities. With Avenue, subscribers can avail an entire repository of reports on more than 2,000 niche industries and more than 12,000 company profiles. Moreover, users can get an online access to quantitative and qualitative data in PDF and Excel formats along with analyst support, customization, and updated versions of reports. Get an access to the library of reports at any time from any device and anywhere. For more details, follow the link: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access About Allied Market Research: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domains. AMR offers its services across 11 industry verticals including Life Sciences, Consumer Goods, Materials & Chemicals, Construction & Manufacturing, Food & Beverages, Energy & Power, Semiconductor & Electronics, Automotive & Transportation, ICT & Media, Aerospace & Defense, and BFSI. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Toll Free: +1-800-792-5285 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1-855-550-5975 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Allied Market Research With its new feature-packed mobile trading application, the award-winning broker places an all-round trading experience at client fingertips. PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global multi-asset broker HFM announced the release of its new mobile application, featuring in-app trading to better cater for the needs of its ever-growing client base. The improved app, available for both Android and iOS users, combines HFM's industry leading conditions with cutting-edge technology offering traders a fully customized mobile trading experience. New HFM Trading App (PRNewsfoto/HFM) Among the newly implemented features, the award winning HFM app now allows traders to access their accounts and trade CFDs on more than 1200 assets straight on the app. The easy-to-use interface allows for simple and ultra-fast trade execution, whereas traders are given the opportunity to customize their trading with three trading options (Amount, Lots or Units), access a detailed history of each trade and analyze their performance, monitor their positions 24/7 and enjoy effortless trading anywhere, anytime. An HFM spokesperson said: "After months of development and rigorous testing, we are proud to release our new HFM mobile trading app. Our global audience, many of them are mobile first, so we wanted to make mobile trading as intuitive and practicable as possible to empower them to access the global financial markets and enjoy seamless trading from within the application." HFM's mobile application provides traders with real time prices, automatic market notifications, advanced charting functionality, powerful trading tools and market analysis among other helpful features. With promises for many more updates and functionalities to enhance effective user experience, HFM continues to exceed expectations for over 3.5 million live accounts worldwide and growing. Visit the HFM App page to learn more about the app's newest features. About HFM HFM, formerly known as HotForex and a brand name of HF Markets Group, is an internationally acclaimed multi-asset broker of choice to over 3.5 million live accounts worldwide that has earned over 60 coveted industry awards in its twelve-year history. The company offers a wide variety of account types, innovative products, cutting-edge platforms, tools and educational resources besides outstanding customer service and unparalleled trading conditions to facilitate individuals and institutional customers to seize opportunities in the financial markets. Contact: HF Markets Ltd, [email protected], +44-2030978571 Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1920869/HFM_Trading_App.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1810957/HFM_Logo.jpg SOURCE HFM JEFF LORBER FUSION comes to Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club with 3x-GRAMMY Award-Winner & 17x-GRAMMY Award Nominated Bassist JIMMY HASLIP as well as World-Renowned GRAMMY Award-Winning Drummer SONNY EMORY of Earth, Wind & Fire. Tickets for Jeff Lorber Fusion at Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club, as well as the current list of 2022 shows, can be found on Jimmy's Online Event Calendar at: http://www.jimmysoncongress.com/events. PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club Features GRAMMY Award-Winner & 7x-GRAMMY Award Nominated Keyboardist & Composer JEFF LORBER and his band JEFF LORBER FUSION on Saturday October 29 at 7 & 9:30 P.M. Jeff Lorber will be joined by 3x-GRAMMY Award-Winner & 17x-GRAMMY Award Nominated Bassist JIMMY HASLIP who is a founding member of the acclaimed jazz fusion group The Yellowjackets. Lorber will also be joined by World-Renowned GRAMMY Award-Winning Drummer SONNY EMORY of Earth, Wind & Fire, who has most recently has been touring with Eric Clapton. Jeff Lorber's last 9 Albums have all hit the Top 10 on Billboard's Jazz Album Chart Tweet this GRAMMY Award-Winning Keyboardist & Composer JEFF LORBER brings Jeff Lorber Fusion to Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club on Saturday October 29 at 7 & 9:30 P.M. Tickets available on www.jimmysoncongress.com/events and Ticketmaster. Over the course of 42 years and 24 albums, Jeff Lorber pioneered the post-fusion sound of contemporary jazz with his radio friendly, groove-oriented instrumental music. Lorber has woven together elements of Funk, R&B, Rock and Electric Jazz into an appealing hybrid that has consistently won over listeners from coast to coast and resulted in numerous #1 radio hits. After six previous nominations, Lorber won his first GRAMMY Award in 2018 for "Best Contemporary Instrumental Album" for 'Prototype' by his band Jeff Lorber Fusion. From 1977's self-titled 'Jeff Lorber Fusion' to 2021's acclaimed 'Space-Time', Lorber has shown a knack for creating fresh vibes and funky grooves while layering on jazzy improvisations on piano, synthesizer, and his signature Fender Rhodes electric piano. "Lorber is a master" ALL ABOUT JAZZ "Jeff Lorber is the original gangster when it comes to Jazz-Funk-Fusionif there were a Hall of Fame for funkin' up the groove, he'd be in it" LONDON JAZZ NEWS "As a whole, 'Space-Time' (2021) is flawless, resonant, and stands with Lorber's best recordings," ALLMUSIC Legendary keyboardist Jeff Lorber's last 9 albums have all hit the Top 10 on Billboard's Jazz Album Chart. Lorber's continuous artistic growth has resulted in considerable praise and recognition for his albums: 'Now Is The Time' (2010, GRAMMY Award Nominated and reached #8 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart), 'Galaxy' (2012, GRAMMY Award Nominated and reached #7 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart) 'Hacienda' (2013, GRAMMY Award Nominated and reached #5 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart), 'Step It Up' (2015, reached #9 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart), 'Prototype' (2017, GRAMMY Award-Winning Album, reached #6 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart), 'Impact' (2018, reached #5 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart), and 'Eleven' (2019, with Mike Stern, and reached #4 on the Billboard Jazz Album Chart). JEFF LORBER FUSION Tickets & 2022 Schedule of Shows Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club's 2022 Schedule of Shows now includes 9 NEA Jazz Masters, 51 GRAMMY Award-Winning Artists, 45 Blues Music Award-Winners, and a comprehensive list of talented musicians with 575+ GRAMMY Award Nominations amongst them. Tickets for JEFF LORBER FUSION at Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club, as well as the current list of 2022 shows, can be found on Jimmy's Online Event Calendar at: http://www.jimmysoncongress.com/events or on Ticketmaster.com. ABOUT JIMMY'S JAZZ & BLUES CLUB The mission of Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club is to provide guests a one-of-a-kind, world-class experience featuring serious jazz and blues music served with exceptional cuisine. Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club features a spectacular and visually breathtaking environment engineered to deliver the highest quality acoustics while utilizing state-of-the-art production, sound and lighting technologies. Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club is located within a beautifully restored 1905 building at 135 Congress Street in the heart of historic downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. For more information visit www.jimmysoncongress.com or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JimmysJazzBlues and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jimmysjazzblues/. PRIVATE EVENTS AT JIMMY'S An architecturally breathtaking center of arts and culture in the heart of historic Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club offers a rare and spectacular venue to host important corporate functions, weddings, intimate or large-scale social gatherings, private parties, and memorable celebrations. The team at Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club put heart and soul into creating a stunning full-service event space with new state-of-the-art production, sound & lighting technologies delivered with outstanding next-level culinary experiences. Our high-touch approach with professional and experienced event staff ensures that everything is tailored to exceed your expectations. To start a conversation about hosting your event at Jimmy's Jazz and Blues Club, please call us at 888-603-5299, or fill out Jimmy's Private Event Request Form. Website: http://www.jimmysoncongress.com Contact: Suzanne Bresette [email protected] 888-603-JAZZ SOURCE Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club DUBLIN, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Medtronic plc (NYSE:MDT), a global leader in healthcare technology, today announced the company will host a webcast to provide an update on its Medtronic Coronary and Renal Denervation business during the American Heart Association annual scientific sessions (AHA 2022) on Monday, November 7, 2022, at 5 p.m. CST. The webcast will feature remarks from Medtronic Coronary and Renal Denervation management, including comments on the 6-month results from the SPYRAL HTN-ON MED Randomized Trial (ON MED). These data will be presented as part of a late-breaking science session at AHA 2022 on November 7, with the ON MED data presentation scheduled to begin at approximately 3:38 p.m. CST. The company intends to issue a press release discussing the ON MED results on November 7 at the start of the ON MED late-breaking science session presentation. The live audio webcast of the investor and analyst briefing can be accessed by clicking on the Investor Events link at http://investorrelations.medtronic.com on November 7, 2022. Within 24 hours of the webcast, a replay will be available on the same webpage. The investor and analyst briefing is not part of the official AHA 2022 program. About Medtronic Bold thinking. Bolder actions. We are Medtronic. Medtronic plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is the leading global healthcare technology company that boldly attacks the most challenging health problems facing humanity by searching out and finding solutions. Our Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life unites a global team of 95,000+ passionate people across 150 countries. Our technologies and therapies treat 70 health conditions and include cardiac devices, surgical robotics, insulin pumps, surgical tools, patient monitoring systems, and more. Powered by our diverse knowledge, insatiable curiosity, and desire to help all those who need it, we deliver innovative technologies that transform the lives of two people every second, every hour, every day. Expect more from us as we empower insight-driven care, experiences that put people first, and better outcomes for our world. In everything we do, we are engineering the extraordinary. For more information on Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), visit www.Medtronic.com and follow @Medtronic on Twitter and LinkedIn. Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those described in Medtronic's periodic reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results. Contacts: Erika Winkels Ryan Weispfenning Public Relations Investor Relations +1-763-526-8478 +1-763-505-4626 SOURCE Medtronic plc MONTREAL, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pow.re Holdings Limited ("Pow.re" or the "Company"), a leading sustainable proof-of-work mining enterprise, is pleased to announce the commencement of construction of two new data centers in the region of Asuncion, Paraguay. These two new facilities will secure 12 megawatts of hydroelectric power for the company. The first site is expected to be operational in Q4 2022 and the second should be completed by Q1 2023. The Paraguay expansion will make significant contributions towards the Company's goal of achieving hashing power of 0.5 exahash per second (0.5 EH/s) by Q2 2023. "We are very excited to have broken ground on our two first data centers in Paraguay and are on track to start our digital mining operations in the country later this quarter" said Mike Blais-Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Pow.re. "Executing on our LATAM expansion will help diversify the provenance of our hashing power and increase our uptime, a key metric in our global business strategy. Paraguay has been a welcoming jurisdiction for our activities with competitive infrastructure costs, abundant hydroelectric power, a skilled workforce and tremendous potential for growth", added Blais-Cohen. Miner purchase Additionally, the company has purchased 3600 premium MicroBT Whatsminer, totaling 396 petahash per seconds (PH/s), with an average efficiency of approximately 31 joules per terahash (31J/TH) and consuming 12.3 megawatts of power at full capacity. Delivery of the equipment is scheduled for later in October 2022, and should arrive in Paraguay prior to the completion of the first site. "MicroBT units have been the workhorse of our operations in the last two years and have proven their outstanding performance and reliability," said Ian Descoteaux, Co-Founder and CTO of Pow.re. "These new units, purchased in line with our counter-cyclical asset acquisition strategy, keeps our acquisition cost below market averages and should enable us to provide industry-leading ROIC to our investors", added Descoteaux. About Pow.re Holdings Limited Established in November 2019, Pow.re has deployed data center infrastructure using stranded renewable energy sources for the production of hashing power used in PoW mining. Pow.re aspires to leverage its growing proprietary hashing power to drive the commodification of digital asset mining. Official Company Link: https://pow.re SOURCE Pow.re Holdings Limited ATLANTA, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Volato , the most efficient way to experience a luxury private jet, will attend this year's NBAA-BACE in Orlando, Florida from October 18-20. The team will be at Booth #4260 celebrating significant growth as they have executed their business plan and evolved into a full-service private aviation company. Over the last year, Volato has expanded its private aviation business and initiated technology solutions, unlocking their ability to service a much greater share of the market. Volato launched in August of 2021 in the southeast with their unique fractional program featuring the HondaJet. The company experienced early success with the aircraft and now has 11 HondaJets in fleet with more on order. They recently expanded their offering with a fleet order of Gulfstream G280 aircraft. Volato operates nationally and now has bases in Atlanta GA, St Augustine and Ft Lauderdale FL, Baltimore MD, Houston TX, and Carlsbad CA. Volato attributes their success to building a strong team which has grown to over 160 employees. "The foundation of an innovative company is a smart workforce that celebrates diversity and adopts insights from both inside and outside the industry." Said Matt Liotta, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "Our goal is to continue to innovate across all facets of the industry to develop unique solutions and provide the best customer experience in private aviation." By expertly focusing on evolving customer needs while maximizing operational efficiency, Volato has experienced significant growth. Volato entered the market in 2021 with the HondaJet, coupling it with Volato's unique fractional model which includes unlimited hours and a revenue share. Volato's general charter program launched shortly thereafter, followed in March by Volato's acquisition of Gulf Coast Aviation (GCA), a fixture in the Houston private aviation market for the past 25 years. In conjunction with this integration, Volato launched Volato Aircraft Management Services, allowing private aircraft owners to partner with Volato to manage and charter their aircraft through a bespoke agreement covering all aspects of ownership. Recent announcements include the innovative Volato Stretch Jet Card; the first and only jet card that rewards itinerary flexibility when booking a flight on a private jet, and through customer demand to fly farther and with more passengers, a fleet order of four Gulfstream G280 aircraft which Volato will fractionalize and sell in shares of eighths. Volato provides the most flight-efficient aircraft for each mission -reducing fuel consumption- while offsetting the CO 2 on every gallon of fuel used across its fleet through their partnership with 4AIR. "We are not only creating a strong business and brand," said Nicholas Cooper, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, "we are building the most innovative, efficient and future-focused solutions in private aviation, with sustainability a key driver of our model." The combination of these achievements uniquely positions Volato to become a leader in the category. Over 30 employees representing all facets of the business, including senior management, will be attending NBAA. To schedule time, please email [email protected] or visit booth #4260. For more information on Volato, visit www.flyvolato.com About Volato : Volato is a full-service private aviation company providing modern ways to enjoy luxury jets through innovative, friendly, and sustainable solutions. Volato provides a fresh approach to fractional ownership, aircraft management, jet card and charter programs. Volato's fractional program uniquely offers flexible hours and a revenue share on every live mission for owners, in a fleet of bespoke HondaJet Elite aircraft which are optimized for missions of up to four passengers, and Gulfstream G280 aircraft which are optimized for missions of up to ten passengers. All Volato flights are operated by its DOT/FAA-authorized air carrier subsidiaries (G C Aviation, Inc., FlyDreams, LLC d/b/a Volato) or by an approved vendor air carrier. CONTACT: Teddy Burnette [email protected] SOURCE Volato MENDRISIO, Switzerland, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sintetica, a Swiss pharmaceutical company headquartered in Mendrisio specializing in injectables in the field of pain therapy, has taken another important and significant step in its 100-year growth strategy. On July 14, 2022 Sintetica established its subsidiary Sintetica US, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, headed by leading pharma expert Frank Mullery (President-Sintetica US). Frank Mullery brings with him more than 20 years of outstanding experience in the pharmaceutical industry including as President of Mylan Institutional, President & Chief Commercial Officer of STI Pharma, and in key roles at Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Viropharma Inc. He established Mylan Institutional as a key player in the US injectable market successfully launching new products and establishing strong relationships with key customers. Nicola Caronzolo, Corporate CEO of Sintetica states: "I am very proud of this further important step in the growth of our company, which is increasingly establishing itself on international markets through the quality of its products and the reliability of its services. With the establishment of our US subsidiary we will be able to focus equally on B2B as well as B2C markets in the US. Frank will be instrumental in setting up the B2C business of Sintetica in the US by working closely with GPO's, IDN's, hospitals, and other key stakeholders. Sintetica will also continue to service its B2B partners in the US through its existing agreements. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people involved (employees, stakeholders and KOLs) who make our ongoing success story possible every day". Frank Mullery, President of Sintetica US affirms: "I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the Sintetica US team. It is a very exciting time for our company. Sintetica is uniquely positioned with a strong core business, best in class research and development, high quality Swiss manufacturing, and a valuable pipeline. I look forward to working with Nicola, our board, the management team and all Sintetica employees to continue to grow the business and bring innovative products to the US customers and patients". CONTACT: Daniele Fontana, Sustainability & HR Corporate Director, +41 79 218 90 57 Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1909742/SINTETICA_Logo.jpg SOURCE Sintetica TOKYO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Group Corporation (hereinafter "Sony") is launching a new social media campaign on October 13, 2022, titled "U THE WORLDBUILDER," a co-creation project on social media featuring popular actor Finn Wolfhard in which users discover and share the extraordinary in the ordinary. Sony's purpose is to "fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology." The project aims to give opportunities to those who want to put their creativity on full display, with Sony providing overall support for the campaign, offering a platform for social media users to participate, share their work, and experience the joy of creating. (Image1: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M107315/202210117958/_prw_PI2fl_XsfFN899.jpg) Taking place from October 13 until November 30, the campaign prompts creators "to discover an extraordinary world in ordinary settings" by viewing their daily lives with a different perspective and urges them to discover and photograph a scene that reminds them of a movie or game to post it with the hashtag "#UTHEWORLDBUILDER" on Instagram. Wolfhard will also play an active role in urging users to participate in the campaign. The only thing people need to participate is their imagination. Innovative creators, including professional photographers, will join the campaign and use Sony devices to capture a scene from daily life that reminds them of their favorite movies or games. They will then post a breakdown of the tools and techniques they used, helping provide value for both serious creators looking to take their photography to the next level and beginners who only have access to a camera via their smartphones. As the finale of this campaign, Wolfhard will hand-select his favorite pieces posted by creators to make a collective work to be exhibited on Sony Group's official Instagram account (@sonygroup.global), allowing creators' work to gain exposure. (Image2: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M107315/202210117958/_prw_PI1fl_qRx2Ecbe.jpg) How to enter: Find a familiar everyday scene that reminds participants of a movie or game. Take a photo. Post it as it is or with as much post-processing as participants like and add the name of the movie or game that inspired them, #UTHEWORLDBUILDER, and mention @sonygroup.global. Check the highlight and feed on Sony Group's Instagram account for more details. "U THE WORLDBUILDER" Official website: https://www.sony.com/en/brand/social_sp/utheworldbuilder Sony Group Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonygroup.global/ Sony Group Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/SonyGroupGlobal Sony Group Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonyGroup.Global/ About Finn Wolfhard (Photo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M107315/202210117958/_prw_PI3fl_3178uq3p.jpg) Finn Wolfhard (born December 23, 2002) is a Canadian actor and musician. He gained recognition for playing Mike Wheeler in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016 - present). He can be also seen next in the highly anticipated feature "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," a new chapter in the "Ghostbusters" universe from director Jason Reitman. SOURCE Sony Group Corporation MIAMI, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This year, Spirit of Children, the fundraising arm of Spirit Halloween specialty retail stores across America, has reached its $1 million milestone in donations to support the Child Life program at Nicklaus Children's Hospital. With a mission to make hospitals less scary for kids and their families, Spirit of Children brings fun and funding to hospitals on Halloween and all year round through monetary donations, as well as by providing costumes, accessories, decorations, and most needs for a Halloween party including volunteers from local Spirit Halloween stores. Spirit of Children reaches $1 million in donations to support the Child Life program at Nicklaus Children's Hospital. Tweet this Members of Spirit of Children pose with Nicklaus Children's Hospital Child Life specialists during yesterday's event. Nicklaus Children's Hospital patient and father play a "spooky" game of tic-tac-toe during yesterday's event. Nicklaus Children's Hospital patient shows off a new Rainbow Fairy Halloween costume courtesy of Spirit of Children and Spirit Halloween. Yesterday's event at Nicklaus Children's Hospital offered patients and their families a break from the challenges of being in a hospital by allowing them the opportunity to celebrate Halloween with a costume party, reverse trick-or-treating, a seasonal parade, and other fun activities. Spirit of Children added to the fun by donating activity books, crayons, and treat bags, ensuring everyone gets a chance to enjoy Halloween this year even those that couldn't join in on the fun in the lobby. "Everyone at Spirit Halloween is incredibly dedicated to supporting Spirit of Children and helping to sustain the Child Life Programs at our partner hospitals throughout the year," said Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spirit Halloween. "What is most important to us is that, through the events and activities, children and their families have the opportunity to celebrate during the Halloween season and experience a sense of normalcy during a very trying time." Child Life specialists play a vital role in helping sick children and their families cope with what can be a complex and challenging time in the hospital. While an estimated 50 percent to 75 percent of children develop fear or anxiety before and during a hospital stay, patients who benefit from Child Life services experience less emotional distress, better coping during the hospital stay, and a more positive physical recovery. "At Nicklaus Children's Hospital, our Child Life specialists help normalize the hospital experience for children and promote the best possible outcomes through different interventions and activities, including play," explained Matthew A. Love, president and CEO of Nicklaus Children's Health System. "These individuals are crucial to the work that goes on behind the scenes at our hospital, so we thank Spirit of Children and Spirit Halloween for the funding they provide to expand on the work that we do." Support from Spirit of Children's allows Nicklaus Children's to add staff, extend hours, and provide a wide variety of therapy programs and sensory times to equip staff with the resources needed to support patients throughout the year. To support the Child Life program at Nicklaus Children's Hospital, visit https://www.nicklauschildrens.org/patient-resources/family-centered-care-services/child-life. About Nicklaus Children's Hospital Founded in 1950 by Variety Clubs International, Nicklaus Children's Hospital is South Florida's only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children, with approximately 800 attending physicians, including more than 500 pediatric subspecialists. The 309-bed hospital, known as Miami Children's Hospital from 1983 through 2014, is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine with many specialty programs routinely ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report since 2008. In the 2022-2023 ranking, the hospital tied with two other hospitals as the number one children's hospital in Florida. The hospital is also home to the largest pediatric teaching program in the southeastern United States and since 2003 has been designated an American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet facility, the nursing profession's most prestigious institutional honor. For more information, please visit www.nicklauschildrens.org About Spirit of Children At the heart of Spirit Halloween is Spirit of Children, a program which focuses on making hospitals less scary for kids and their families. Since its creation in 2007, Spirit of Children has raised more than $93 million for the Child Life department at hospitals across the United States and Canada. Donations to Spirit of Children stay within local communities, with 100 percent of funds going to Child Life Services. For the 2022 Halloween season, Spirit of Children will be supporting more than 150 hospitals across the country, with a goal to raise a record $18 million. Spirit encourages customers to help make a difference in a child's life this Halloween season by donating at their local Spirit Halloween or spreading awareness via Facebook and Instagram using #SpiritofChildren and #MoreCowbell in their photos. For more information, please visit: www.SpiritOfChildren.com. About Spirit Halloween Spirit Halloween ( SpiritHalloween.com ) is the largest Halloween retailer in the country, with over 1,450 locations in strip centers and malls across North America. Celebrating more than 39 years of business, Spirit is the premier destination for all things Halloween, offering one-stop shopping for everything from costumes to decor and party goods to accessories. In addition to being a fun and interactive event for shoppers, Spirit stores offer complete selections of costumes and accessories for infants/toddlers, children, 'tweens, teens, and adults, along with exclusive decor you won't find anywhere else. For more information, please visit: SpiritHalloween.com. For more information: Fuad Kiuhan Nicklaus Children's Hospital [email protected] 786 449 4797 SOURCE Nicklaus Childrens Health System NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The strategy consulting market in the Research & Consulting Services industry is expected to grow by USD 57.76 bn from 2021 to 2026. Technavio's latest market research report estimates that the strategy consulting market will decelerate at a CAGR of 17.40%. This report offers an up-to-date analysis of the current market scenario, the latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Strategy Consulting Market 2022-2026 The rising need for improved customer digital experience, maintaining sustainable competitive advantage, and strategy consulting firms providing custom-made solutions will offer immense growth opportunities. To leverage the current opportunities, market vendors must strengthen their foothold in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Request Free Sample Report. Strategy Consulting Market Segmentation Organization size Large enterprises SMEs Geography North America Europe APAC MEA South America North America will account for 36% of the market's growth over the forecasted timeframe. The US is North America's primary market for strategy consulting. The research provides a current review of the market's geographic distribution. Given its recent rapid growth, North America is anticipated to present a number of chances for market vendors to expand over the forecast period. Over the projected period, maintaining a durable competitive edge will help the strategy consulting market in North America thrive. Buy Sample Report. Strategy Consulting Market Vendor Analysis and Scope The growing competition in the market is compelling vendors to adopt various growth strategies such as promotional activities and spending on advertisements to improve the visibility of their services. Some vendors are also adopting inorganic growth strategies such as M&As to remain competitive in the market. The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors, including: A.T. Kearney Accenture Plc Bain and Co. Inc. Boston Consulting Group Inc. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. Ernst & Young Global Ltd. Marsh and McLennan Companies Inc. McKinsey and Co. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Roland Berger Holding GmbH Find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report. The report also covers the following areas : Strategy Consulting Market size Strategy Consulting Market trends Strategy Consulting Market industry analysis Market trends such as the rising need for improved customer digital experience is likely to emerge as one of the primary drivers of the market. However, factors such as increased risks related to data security and privacy is may threaten the growth of the market. Strategy Consulting Market Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period Detailed information on factors that will assist strategy consulting market growth during the next five years Estimation of the strategy consulting market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the strategy consulting market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of strategy consulting market vendors Related Reports: Automotive Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) Market by Type and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Testing, Inspection, and Certification Market in Japan by Type and Service - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Strategy Consulting Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Decelerate at a CAGR of 17.40% Market growth 2022-2026 $57.76 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 19.96 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, MEA, and South America Performing market contribution North America at 36% Key consumer countries US, China, UK, Germany, and Japan Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled A.T. Kearney, Accenture Plc, Bain and Co. Inc., Boston Consulting Group Inc., Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., Ernst & Young Global Ltd., Marsh and McLennan Companies Inc., McKinsey and Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and Roland Berger Holding GmbH 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 Conten ts Executive Summary Market Landscape Market ecosystem Value chain analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market segment analysis Market size 2021 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021 - 2026 Five Forces Analysis Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of suppliers Threat of new entrants Threat of substitutes Threat of rivalry Market condition Market Segmentation by Organization size Market segments Comparison by Organization size Large enterprises - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 SMEs - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Market opportunity by Organization size Customer landscape Geographic Landscape Geographic segmentation Geographic comparison North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 MEA - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Key leading countries Market opportunity by geography Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Vendor Landscape Vendor landscape Landscape disruption Vendor Analysis Vendors covered Market positioning of vendors A.T. Kearney Accenture Plc Bain and Co. Inc. Boston Consulting Group Inc. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. Ernst & Young Global Ltd. Marsh and McLennan Companies Inc. McKinsey and Co. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Roland Berger Holding GmbH Appendix Scope of the report Currency conversion rates for US$ Research methodology List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio CORREGGIO, Italy, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In Italy, the land of culinary excellence, mortadella is synonymous with good food and the joy of life. Veroni, the first brand for the Italian charcuterie* in the US, celebrates the mortadella tradition and taste, bringing the largest one ever seen in the US to the Big Apple's biggest culinary Festival. Veroni brings the largest ever-seen giant mortadella in the Big Apple (PRNewsfoto/Veroni) The giant mortadella, the queen of Italian charcuterie, 661 lb in weight, 6.4 ft long, and 18 inches in diameter is ready to delight every palate during the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF) presented by Capital, where Veroni is the event's Platinum sponsor. "Mortadella has great potential in the US as it can offer a real Italian culinary experience. Americans are starting to understand the value and taste of mortadella, a cold cut completely new in its culinary culture", explains Marco Veroni, president of Veroni US. ". "With its deep connection to our territory and the long tradition, mortadella is one of the Italian excellences that enhance the cult of Italian taste. Over the years, we have respected the ancient recipe passed down from generation to generation while using advanced technologies to improve its superior quality. As a specialist in this cold cut, we are proud to bring a giant mortadella to New York". Forget the Mortadella you have eaten so far, Veroni Mortadella is a different story both in terms of meat cuts used and for its taste, soft and irresistible to the palate. This made-in-Italy excellence is being showcased during the many events of the NYCWFF calendar at Pier 76, Hudson River, until October 16th. Since slicing a giant mortadella is a job for experts, a specialist will arrive directly from Italy during the two days of Grand Tasting at the NYCWFF, a unique opportunity for New Yorkers to taste authentic products from all over the world. But that's not all! Veroni will also present at two special dinners with prestigious chefs, which will take place in one of the most exclusive clubs in New York - the CORE, known for its international clientele. The dinners are cooked by exceptional chefs such as Michele Brogioni, Eric Canino, Francois Payard, and again Dario Cecchini, and Stefano Secchi. *Data source: IRI segment US Luncheon Meat Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1921621/Veroni.jpg SOURCE Veroni CHENGDU, China, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On Oct.10, Chengdu Tianfu Global International Biocity saw the signing of ten project agreements totalling nearly 9B CNY in value and covering modern biopharmaceuticals, innovative chemical drugs, sophisticated medical apparatuses and other important fields. Geneseeq, a Chinese genetic disease testing giant, intends to invest in a local facility and industrialization base of genetic infection and tumor diagnosis as southwestern China-based its headquarters. They're devoted to becoming Geneseeq's second head office in China as well as the pacesetter of testing & diagnosis in midwestern China. Shanghai Siyi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese soft robotics manufacturer, will build a rehabilitation platform that integrates the hospital, community and family. At the same time, Siyi will locate its operating head office, listed company office and manufacturing facility to Tianfu International Biocity. "Tianfu International Biocity helps us with both investment and subsidy to support the projects and solve investment and financing problems. From the perspective of upstream and downstream analysis, improve the industry chain and save us a lot time in upstream-downstream communication," said Yin Ganggang, founder of Siyi. "The signing of these agreements will make bioindustrial innovation transformation. In the future, the biocity will continue to build more project clusters that consistently gain in magnitude and promote the industry of pharmaceuticals," said the spokesman of Chengdu Tianfu International Biocity. Commenced in March 2016 and located in southwestern Shuangliu (part of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan), Chengdu Tianfu International Biocity has a planned area of around 44 square kilometers. The Biocity includes five industries, i.e. biopharmaceuticals, innovative chemical drugs, high-performance medical equipment, professional outsourcing service and health service. These industries are intended to promote the close combination of the industry chain, innovation chain and supply chain, therefore adding to the local driving force and competitiveness of the modern industry. Since foundation, Tianfu International Biocity has seen its bioindustry gain in economic contribution and competitiveness. The first-phase 9-km city framework is already in place. In order to attract investments from biopharmaceutical professionals, Chengdu Tianfu International Ecocity attaches importance to urban livability, constant improvements in urban functions, worker-inhabitant balance improvement and life convenience in order to meet the residential requirements of local people and company employees. Yong'an Lake Urban Forest Park, Incubator Shopping Street, community complexes and other business models are contributing step by step to such consumer markets as food, hospitality, travel, tourism, shopping and recreation. Now, Chengdu Tianfu International Biocity is on its way to becoming a global base of innovative biopharmaceuticals. SOURCE Chengdu Tianfu Global International Biocity Program Recognizes Founder of Urban Alliance in its 25th Anniversary Year WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In a partnership with the Urban Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution, Bank of America is providing $800,000 to form an internship program designed to support youth employment and increase representation in arts and culture organizations. This program is in addition to the 500 Urban Alliance interns the bank has hosted over the past 10 years. This most recent partnership brings the bank's total commitment with Urban Alliance up to $3.2 million since 2020. "Bank of America's continued commitment to Urban Alliance and young people further proves that public and private partnerships work," said Elizabeth Lindsey, Chief Executive Officer of Urban Alliance. "We are excited to be working alongside the Smithsonian to further connect young people to paid work experiences." The newly created Andrew Plepler Internship Program will provide paid internships at Smithsonian museums and locations for 45 high school students from communities of color across Greater Washington, DC. Urban Alliance will recruit and train students and place them at positions across the Smithsonian network for exposure to career paths in history, science, art, education, and museum operations. "The Smithsonian is honored to join the Urban Alliance in building a diverse talent pipeline to build the next-generation workforce," said Monique Chism, Under Secretary for Education "The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum complex, and students will have a unique experience that sparks curiosity and develops transferable skills." The announcement of the program coincides with the 25th anniversary of Plepler founding the Urban Alliance. Plepler, Bank of America Global Head of Environmental, Social, and Governance, has connected high school students with early-career internship experiences since serving as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in 1996. "Andrew has built a career that combines his professional expertise with his passion for creating meaningful opportunities for young people to build their own careers," said Larry Di Rita, President, Bank of America Washington, DC. "As a leader at Bank of America, Andrew has been instrumental in shaping programs to enhance economic mobility, and the Plepler Internships recognize his long-time commitment to that." Since 1996, Urban Alliance has connected more than 6,000 young people to paid internships and 23,000 more with workforce training and professional development. Through its flagship High School Internship Program, Urban Alliance connects approximately 500 students annually to paid internship experiences with more than 200 employers across the Greater Washington, DC area, Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Over the course of a year, a high school senior can gain 500 hours of paid work experience and receive 100 hours of skills training, professional development, and mentoring. One hundred percent of Urban Alliance interns graduate from high school with a post-high school plan, and 88% of students plan to attend college. 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. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit Bank of America newsroom and register for email news alerts. Reporters May Contact: Andy Aldridge, Bank of America Phone: 980.387.0514 [email protected] SOURCE Bank of America Corporation Current Bank General Counsel SVP Jason Klein role expands to include Corporate Governance oversight SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- USAA announced that Bank General Counsel Senior Vice President Jason Klein role will expand to become USAA's chief corporate governance officer. He will succeed Amy Cook, the current chief corporate governance officer who will retire from USAA next year. Jason will continue to report to USAA Chief Legal Officer Bob Johnson. USAA Bank General Counsel SVP Jason Klein's role will expand to become USAA's chief corporate governance officer. Tweet this Jason Klein named Chief Corporate Governance Officer for USAA "As a member-owned association, USAA considers good corporate governance an essential part of serving our members with excellence," Johnson said. "I'm grateful to Amy for her dedication and leadership in ensuring that we maintain a strong corporate governance program and I know it will continue to be in great hands under Jason's leadership. His legal experience and deep understanding of USAA make him the perfect fit for this expanded role." Jason brings vast corporate and private law experience to help lead corporate governance at USAA. He joined USAA in August 2020 after 17 years in the legal departments at JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) and Washington Mutual. At JPMC, he was general counsel, legal operations and chief of staff for the company's general counsel. Prior to that he was general counsel for the company's consumer banking and wealth management business and general counsel for its small business banking line of business and was involved in civil litigation and government and regulatory investigations. Prior to working in the financial services industry, he was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle, Washington. "I am honored to have the opportunity to work more closely with USAA's leadership and our Boards of Directors," Klein said. "USAA is a special place, and I look forward to supporting the company and its mission as it starts its second century of helping our members and military families secure their financial futures." About USAA Founded in 1922 by a group of military officers, USAA is among the leading providers of insurance, banking, and investment and retirement solutions to more than 13 million members of the U.S. military, veterans who have honorably served and their families. Headquartered in San Antonio, USAA has offices in eight U.S. cities and three overseas locations and employs more than 38,000 people worldwide. Each year, the company contributes to national and local nonprofits in support of military families and communities where employees live and work. For more information about USAA, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@USAA), or visit usaa.com. Contact: USAA Media Relations [email protected] 210-498-0940 SOURCE USAA NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The 3PL market in Germany in the Air Freight & Logistics industry is expected to grow by USD 10.55 billion from 2021 to 2026. Technavio's latest market research report estimates that the 3PL market in Germany will progress at a CAGR of 5.03%. This report offers an up-to-date analysis of the current market scenario, the latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. Request Free Sample Report. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled 3PL Market in Germany 2022-2026 The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. ACP Freight Services Ltd., Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P., Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA, C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., CMA CGM Group, DB Schenker, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Expeditors International of Washington Inc., FedEx Corp., GEODIS, H. P. Therkelsen AS, Kintetsu World Express Inc., NTG Nordic Transport Group AS, United Parcel Service Inc., and XPO Logistics Inc. are some of the major market participants. The growth of the e-commerce industry and the rising adoption of omnichannel retail, increasing use of multimodal transport, and cost benefits of using 3PL will offer immense growth opportunities, to leverage the current opportunities, market vendors must strengthen their foothold in the fast-growing segments while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Buy Sample Report. 3PL Market Segmentation In Germany End-user Automotive Chemical Consumer Goods Healthcare Others Service Transportation Warehousing And Distribution Others 3PL Market in Germany Vendor Analysis and Scope To help businesses improve their market position, the 3PL market in Germany provides a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the market. Some of these vendors include: ACP Freight Services Ltd. Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA C.H. Robinson Worldwide inc. CMA CGM Group DB Schenker Deutsche Post DHL Group Expeditors International of Washington inc. inc. FedEx Corp. GEODIS H. P. Therkelsen AS Find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report. The report also covers the following areas: 3PL Market in Germany size size 3PL Market in Germany trends trends 3PL Market in Germany industry analysis The 3PL market in Germany is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate. The growth of the e-commerce industry and the rising adoption of omnichannel retail will offer immense growth opportunities. However, the High cost of technology will hamper the market growth. 3PL Market in Germany Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period Detailed information on factors that will assist the 3PL market in Germany's growth during the next five years growth during the next five years Estimation of the 3PL market in Germany size and its contribution to the parent market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the 3PL market in Germany Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of the 3PL market in Germany vendors Related Reports: Logistics Market in Europe by Type and End-user - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Same Day Delivery Market by End-user, Service and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 3PL Market In Germany Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.03% Market growth 2022-2026 $10.55 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 5.42 Regional analysis Germany Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled ACP Freight Services Ltd., Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P., Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA, C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., CMA CGM Group, DB Schenker, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Expeditors International of Washington Inc., FedEx Corp., GEODIS, H. P. Therkelsen AS, Hansa express logistics GmbH, Imperial Logistics Ltd., Ital Logistics Ltd., Kintetsu World Express Inc., NTG Nordic Transport Group AS, United Parcel Service Inc., and XPO Logistics Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Country Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by End-user Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Service Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 07: Parent market Exhibit 08: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 09: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 10: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 11: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 12: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 13: Chart on Germany : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Germany : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 15: Five forces analysis - Comparison between2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 16: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 17: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 18: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 19: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 20: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 21: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by End-user 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 22: Chart on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 23: Data Table on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by End-user Exhibit 24: Chart on Comparison by End-user Exhibit 25: Data Table on Comparison by End-user 5.3 Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 26: Chart on Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 27: Data Table on Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 28: Chart on Automotive - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Automotive - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Chemical - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 30: Chart on Chemical - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Chemical - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 32: Chart on Chemical - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Chemical - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Consumer goods - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 34: Chart on Consumer goods - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Consumer goods - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 36: Chart on Consumer goods - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 37: Data Table on Consumer goods - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.6 Healthcare - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 38: Chart on Healthcare - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Healthcare - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 40: Chart on Healthcare - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 41: Data Table on Healthcare - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.7 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.8 Market opportunity by End-user Exhibit 46: Market opportunity by End-user ($ million) 6 Market Segmentation by Service 6.1 Market segments Exhibit 47: Chart on Service - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 48: Data Table on Service - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 6.2 Comparison by Service Exhibit 49: Chart on Comparison by Service Exhibit 50: Data Table on Comparison by Service 6.3 Transportation - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 51: Chart on Transportation - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Data Table on Transportation - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 53: Chart on Transportation - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 54: Data Table on Transportation - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.4 Warehousing and distribution - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 55: Chart on Warehousing and distribution - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Data Table on Warehousing and distribution - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 57: Chart on Warehousing and distribution - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 58: Data Table on Warehousing and distribution - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.5 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 59: Chart on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Data Table on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 61: Chart on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 62: Data Table on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.6 Market opportunity by Service Exhibit 63: Market opportunity by Service ($ million) 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 64: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 65: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 66: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 67: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 68: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 69: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 70: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 ACP Freight Services Ltd. Exhibit 71: ACP Freight Services Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 72: ACP Freight Services Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 73: ACP Freight Services Ltd. - Key offerings 10.4 Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. Exhibit 74: Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. - Overview Exhibit 75: Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. - Business segments Exhibit 76: Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. - Key news Exhibit 77: Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. - Key offerings Exhibit 78: Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C.P. - Segment focus 10.5 Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA Exhibit 79: Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA - Overview Exhibit 80: Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA - Product / Service Exhibit 81: Baltic Logistic Solutions SIA - Key offerings 10.6 C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. Exhibit 82: C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - Overview Exhibit 83: C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 84: C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - Key news Exhibit 85: C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 86: C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - Segment focus 10.7 CMA CGM Group Exhibit 87: CMA CGM Group - Overview Exhibit 88: CMA CGM Group - Business segments Exhibit 89: CMA CGM Group - Key news Exhibit 90: CMA CGM Group - Key offerings Exhibit 91: CMA CGM Group - Segment focus 10.8 DB Schenker Exhibit 92: DB Schenker - Overview Exhibit 93: DB Schenker - Business segments Exhibit 94: DB Schenker - Key offerings Exhibit 95: DB Schenker - Segment focus 10.9 Deutsche Post DHL Group Exhibit 96: Deutsche Post DHL Group - Overview Exhibit 97: Deutsche Post DHL Group - Business segments Exhibit 98: Deutsche Post DHL Group - Key news Exhibit 99: Deutsche Post DHL Group - Key offerings Exhibit 100: Deutsche Post DHL Group - Segment focus 10.10 Expeditors International of Washington Inc. Exhibit 101: Expeditors International of Washington Inc. - Overview Exhibit 102: Expeditors International of Washington Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 103: Expeditors International of Washington Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 104: Expeditors International of Washington Inc. - Segment focus 10.11 FedEx Corp. Exhibit 105: FedEx Corp. - Overview Exhibit 106: FedEx Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 107: FedEx Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 108: FedEx Corp. - Segment focus 10.12 Kintetsu World Express Inc. Exhibit 109: Kintetsu World Express Inc. - Overview Exhibit 110: Kintetsu World Express Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 111: Kintetsu World Express Inc. - Key news Exhibit 112: Kintetsu World Express Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 113: Kintetsu World Express Inc. - Segment focus 10.13 XPO Logistics Inc. Exhibit 114: XPO Logistics Inc. - Overview Exhibit 115: XPO Logistics Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 116: XPO Logistics Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 117: XPO Logistics Inc. - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 118: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 119: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 120: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 121: Research methodology Exhibit 122: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 123: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 124: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio BEIJING, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from chinadaily.com.cn Anren is a small association of hamlets in Jiande, Zhejiang province that may have big implications for the future of the country as a pilot zone for common prosperity. It was established in June 2021, about a month after the central government designated Zhejiang as an experimental zone for common prosperity, which is a plan to reduce inequalities throughout the country. It consists of the eponymous Anren village and five other less well-off nearby villages. All six settlements share resources and develop jointly. They have consolidated their 250 hectares of land to enable comprehensive planning and development, forming an integrated association of hamlets known as a lianheti in Chinese. As one of its initiatives to distribute wealth more equitably, the lianheti has built such public facilities as a senior care center with equal access to all residents. Retirees ages 60 to 89 pay no more than 5 yuan for each meal at the center, and people older than 90 dine for free. The canteen is partly funded by regular donations from local enterprises and charitable villagers. Anren lianheti offers a vivid specimen of what China is working to build since it has eliminated extreme poverty. Join our trip to Zhejiang province to find out more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFbgsNRPZWI SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn Manufacturing industry needs to fill 2.5 million jobs by 2030, upskill existing workers CARLETON, Mich., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Approximately 130 students at Airport High School in Carleton now have access to new manufacturing education opportunities for the 2022-23 school year through the SME Education Foundation, the philanthropic arm of SME, a 90-year-old non-profit association committed to advancing manufacturing technology and developing a skilled workforce. Rob Luce, Vice President, SME Education Foundation (PRNewsfoto/SME Education Foundation) An event celebrating the launch of Airport High School's PRIME School program was conducted on Oct. 14th, which included additional details about the program, including educational content and involved participants. Supported and informed by private industry, SME PRIME (Partnership Response In Manufacturing Education) builds cost-effective and tailored manufacturing/engineering programs in high schools across the country, providing equipment, curriculum, professional development, scholarships, and manufacturing-focused extra-curricular activities to students and teachers. Nationwide, the SME Education Foundation provides hands-on manufacturing and engineering education to more than 81 schools in 22 states. The SME Education Foundation received $6 million from the state of Michigan as part of the 2021 education budget to scale the SME PRIME initiative across the state. The award increases the number of schools participating in the unique manufacturer/educator partnership-driven SME PRIME initiative by 16 there were already 17 SME PRIME schools in Michigan. "Coordinated by our staff of highly qualified education program managers, SME PRIME schools are a model; a unique approach to manufacturing education and career preparation implemented by scores of schools across the nation," said SME Education Foundation Vice President Rob Luce. "They include a curriculum plan of three foundational pathways teaching Metrology/Quality, CAD/CAM, and additive manufacturing or 3D printing, and include one elective pathway that is informed by local industry needs." Luce said that the Foundation is focused on helping secondary education students start careers in manufacturing and fill an estimated 2.5 million jobs that will be available by 2030. The Foundation will continue to work with the Michigan Manufacturers Association to solicit input from area manufacturers to inform the developmental curriculum. The MMA, which represents traditional and advanced manufacturing enterprises across the state, has been a partner in developing Michigan SME PRIME schools and is critically important in supporting efforts by an industry facing a limited talent pipeline and misperceptions about work environments and opportunities for young people. "This significant expansion of the SME PRIME school initiative benefits students and Michigan manufacturers who need qualified, prepared employees," said Mike Johnston, MMA's executive vice president of Government Affairs & Workforce Development. "Michigan manufacturers need ambitious, creative, and prepared young people ready to find their bright futures in advanced manufacturing. We are proud to advocate for our manufacturing partners and for Michigan students." The foundation's 2021 SME PRIME Outcomes Report indicates that 89% of SME PRIME seniors nationwide pursued careers or education in manufacturing or engineering upon graduation. "Airport Community Schools understands the importance of preparing students to become college and career ready, said John Krimmel, superintendent of Airport Community Schools. "Our students and staff members are fortunate to be able to take advantage of the opportunities the PRIME grant will bring immediately and in the future. Not only will our students receive extensive hands-on, state-of-the-art training that is applicable in the manufacturing field, but our community business partners also will reap the benefits of our graduates being prepared to support the workforce they desperately need." About the SME Education Foundation The SME Education Foundation inspires, prepares, and supports the next generation of manufacturing and engineering talent. Since its organization by SME in 1979, the SME Education Foundation works to bring students, educators, industry, and communities together through its SME PRIME program; awards annual student scholarships and conducts the Student Summit Event Series held at SME events in North America. Visit the SME Education Foundation at smeeducationfoundation.org . Follow @mfgeducation on Twitter or at facebook.com/SME.Education.Foundation . SOURCE SME Education Foundation WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Land Title Association (ALTA), the national trade association of the land title insurance industry, has announced the winners of the 2022 Title Webbies, an awards program recognizing member companies that have created or redesigned the best industry consumer-facing website within the past year. The winners were honored during ALTA ONE, being held Oct. 11-14 in San Diego. Nominees were judged on mobile friendliness, user experience, social media integration, image/video use and content quality. The three award winners were CertifID, D.Bello and The Title Team. CertifID, located in Grand Rapids, Mich., provides wire fraud recovery and prevention services to real estate professionals and consumers. A 2022 ALTA Elite Provider, the company was awarded a Title Webbie because its website breaks its services down by roles, helping consumers understand their exposure to real estate wire fraud scams when buying or selling property and how they can protect themselves from fraudsters. "CertifID is focused on protecting customers from wire fraud, which continues to reach new highs annually," said Tyler Adams, CEO of CertifID. "We knew that education would be key to ongoing prevention and designed our website with that purpose in mind." A customizable title production process company, D. Bello took a Title Webbie back to its homebase in Newport Beach, Calif. The company's website includes a tutorial on the benefits of title insurance, features ALTA videos on real estate wire fraud and the role of title insurance in protecting property rights and provides resources to find a local title agent through ALTA's consumer-facing website, HomeClosing101.org. "When we looked at redesigning our website, we wanted a website that would stand out," said Andrew Acker, D. Bello's chief operating officer. "D. Bello prides itself on providing the highest quality, customized title production services for our clients, and we love that our website reflects that." A title insurance company headquartered in Duluth, Minn., The Title Team was the sole title agent to be awarded a Title Webbie. The Title Team website is filled with a wealth of information for homebuyers and sellers, including ALTA videos as well as the company's own curated library of content. "We are honored to receive the 2022 Title Webbie Award from the American Land Title Association," said Nick Hacker, president and CEO of The Title Team. "Our new site not only highlights our core values and our community-focused culture, but it also allows our customers to connect with their local Title Team and learn about our services and other important title industry topics." "Congratulations to the winners of the Title Webbie Awards," said ALTA CEO Diane Tomb. "It is incredibly important that title industry professionals think about how to provide consumers with the knowledge they need to be prepared for the real estate transaction. I am proud that these ALTA members have chosen to realign their websites to ensure consumers have what they need to make informed choices." Media Contact: Megan Hernandez Director of Public Relations and Marketing American Land Title Association [email protected] SOURCE American Land Title Association The demand in China Milk Tank Cooling System Market is expected to increase by 4.1% CAGR between 2022 and 2029 on value basis. Asia-Pacific and Europe together are the largest producers of milk globally accounting for a share of over 65%. NEWARK, Del., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global milk tank cooling system market is projected to reach a value of US$ 822.5 by 2029, with the market growing at a stagnant CAGR of 3.3% from 2022 to 2029. Valued at US$ 636.5 Mn in 2021, the target market is expected to reach an estimated US$ 656.7 Mn in 2022. The rise in the usage of machinery along with the demand for superior-quality products in multiple industry verticals fuels the growth of the milk tank cooling system market. The integration of smart devices in various machinery further aid in the expansion of the milk tank cooling system market during the forecast period. Industries all over the world are adopting automation to boost efficiency and diminish labor costs. A growing shift in preference towards utilizing magnetrons for industrial coating because of its advantages like the ability to coat heat-sensitive substrates, ease of sputtering, high deposition rate, and high adhesion of films will augment the demand in the target market. Besides, considerable investments in dairy farming, incentives from regulatory agencies to make use of bulk tanks, the provision of a sustainable milk supply worldwide, and the swift evolution of cooperative dairy businesses in rural areas all over the world will likely induce market growth during this period of observation. Request a Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8018 With more and more collection points found in remote areas, the market scope of these systems in milk transportation also increases. The surge in the volume of exported milk is also assisting the growth of cooling systems for milk tanks. Other factors like temperature differences on different continents and an increase in milk production in African and Central American countries are also supporting the growth of the target market during the forecast period. "Increasing investment in dairy farming, export and distribution of milk within countries, and implementation of advancing technology will propel the global growth of the milk tank cooling system market over the forecast period," says an FMI analyst. Key Takeaways: Increasing the application of advanced technology will strengthen market prospects during 2022-2029. In 2022, milk tank cooling system market in Germany will generate revenue worth over US$ 53.9 Mn . will generate revenue worth over . The milk tank cooling system market in the United States will record a 2.2% CAGR. will record a 2.2% CAGR. India's milk tank cooling system market will expand at 4.7% CAGR over the assessment period. milk tank cooling system market will expand at 4.7% CAGR over the assessment period. By capacity, the 1000-5000 segment will observe high demand. On the basis of application, the milk farm segment will account for about 86.4% of the market share by 2029. Competitive Landscape Danfoss , Paul Mueller Company, Delaval, GEA Group AG, Packo Cooling, Dairymaster, Fabdec Ltd, Serap Group, Boumatic, Wedholms AB, Daviesway Pty Ltd., Fil S.P.A, Milkplan, and Macrold Ltd., among others are some of the major players in the milk tank cooling system market profiled in the full version of the report. Major market players are increasing their mergers and acquisition activities to enhance their supply and distribution routes. Some of the other businesses in the market are keen on incorporating new technologies into their product to gain a competitive advantage. Get More Information on this Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/milk-tank-cooling-system-market More Insights into Milk Tank Cooling System Market Report In its latest report, FMI offers an unbiased analysis of the global milk tank cooling system market, providing historical data from 2014 to 2021 and forecast statistics for 2022 to 2029. To understand the global market potential, growth, and scope, the market is segmented on the basis of application (milk farm, milk processing plant), configuration (closed end (horizontal, vertical), open end), capacity (less than 1000L, 1000-5000L, 5000-10000L, above 10000L), and region. According to the latest FMI reports, based on segmentation, the 1000-5000 Lt capacity segment is likely to register high demand, particularly from large dairy farms. This segment is anticipated to account for 1/3rd of the revenue share and generate a growth opportunity of US$ 58.6 Mn. In terms of application, the milk farm segment is expected to dominate the market due to the high demand for milk and its related products from consumers. By 2029, the milk farm segment will hold about 86.4% of the global market share. Based on region, the milk tank cooling system market in Germany is predicted to undergo significant growth and surpass revenue worth US$ 53.9 Mn by the end of 2022. Availability of a wide range and high quality of dairy products coupled with the use of advanced approaches in milk and cattle maintenance will aid the growth of the target market in this country. Other nations like the United States and India will also present notable growth of the milk tank cooling system market in this country during the forecast period. Report for Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-8018 Global Milk Tank Cooling System Market by Category By Application: Milk Farm Milk Processing Plant By Configuration: Closed end Horizontal Vertical Open end By Capacity: Less than 1000 L 1000 - 5000 L 5000 - 10000 L Above 10000 L By Region: North America Latin America Europe South Asia East Asia MEA Oceania Request for Methodology @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/request-report-methodology/rep-gb-8018 Table of Content 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Global Market Outlook 1.2. Demand Side Trends 1.3. Supply Trends 1.4. Analysis and Recommendations 1.5. Key Strategy Analysis 2. Market Overview 2.1. Market Definition 2.2. Market Taxonomy 2.3. Key Success Factor 3. Market Background 3.1. Macro-Economic Factors 3.2. Industrial Refrigeration Import & Export Scenario 3.3. Milk Value Chain Analysis 4. Market Dynamics 4.1. Drivers 4.2. Restraints 5. Global Milk Tank Cooling System Market Demand Analysis 2014-2021 and Forecast, 2022-2029 5.1. Historical Market Volume (Mn Units) Analysis, 2014-2021 5.2. Current and Future Market Volume (Mn Units) Projections, 2022-2029 TOC continued..! Top Reports Related To Industrial Automation Market Insights Conveyor System Market Share - The Conveyor system market will register steady growth with the overall valuation forecast to surpass US$ 13.7 Bn in 2021. The market's worth will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5% between 2021 and 2031. In-Chassis Cooling Market Trends - In- Chassis Cooling is necessary for the ejection of excessive heat produced by computer peripherals namely CPU (Computer Processing Unit), GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) & Hard disk since heat produced may result in decreased stability & performance of laptop & desktop which in turn leads to reduction in overall efficiency of the system. Surge Tanks Market Demand - The surge tanks market is poised to witness a CAGR of 4.2% from 2022 to 2032. Over this projection period, the market share for surge tanks is estimated to reach a net worth of US$ 2.9 Billion by 2032. Flexible Water Tanks Market Growth - Flexible water tanks are also came with different name segmentation such as Irrigation water tanks, drinking water tanks, horticultural tanks, and prefabricated water tank. Ink Tank Printer Market Outlook - The Global Ink Tank Printers market is expected to gain traction in its usage due to low procurement and operation costs, long product shelf-life and varied range of applications with respect to printing types. Increasing product awareness amongst end users, preference for low cost printing and high print yield have been identified as primary factors responsible for market growth. 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. Contact Us: Future Market Insights Inc. Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 For Sales Enquiries: [email protected] Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1197648/FMI_Logo.jpg SOURCE Future Market Insights ST. LOUIS, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Arch Resources, Inc. (NYSE: ARCH) will discuss its third quarter 2022 financial results in an investor conference call on Thursday, October 27 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. The call will be webcast live at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/n6238jod. To access the conference call via phone, participants will need to register using the following link, where they will be provided with a telephone number and an access code: https://register.vevent.com/register/BIcf349b78c8f5431e9aa5ebade83ef397. (Note that this registration process represents a change from the company's past practice of publishing a dial-in number in advance of the call.) Arch's third quarter 2022 earnings release will be distributed via PR Newswire before the market opens on October 27 and will be posted to the company's website at that time. Arch Resources is a premier producer of high-quality metallurgical products for the global steel industry. The company operates large, modern and highly efficient mines that consistently set the industry standard for both mine safety and environmental stewardship. SOURCE Arch Resources, Inc. NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Battery Monitoring Systems Market by End-user and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026" has been added to Technavio's offerings. The market size is expected to grow by USD 9.48 billion from 2021 to 2026. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will accelerate at a CAGR of 21.87% during the forecast period. Get a comprehensive report summary that describes the market size and forecast along with research methodology. The FREE sample report is available in PDF format Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Battery Monitoring Systems Market 2022-2026 Top Key players of the Battery Monitoring Systems Market ABB Ltd., Analog Devices Inc., BMS Powersafe, C and D Technologies Inc., Crucial Power Products, Curtis Instruments Inc., Eberspaecher Vecture Inc., Elithion Inc., General Electric Co., HBL Power Systems Ltd, Infineon Technologies AG, Johnson Matthey Plc, Lithium Balance AS, Lithium Werks, NXP Semiconductors NV, Raytheon Technologies Corp., Renesas Electronics Corp., Schneider Electric SE, Texas Instruments Inc., Vertiv Holdings Co., among others, are the key vendors in the market. The offerings of some of these vendors are listed below: ABB Ltd. - The company offers battery monitoring systems to check battery voltage and temperature; verify that all connections are free of dust, corrosion, or leakage; and check ventilation. The company offers battery monitoring systems to check battery voltage and temperature; verify that all connections are free of dust, corrosion, or leakage; and check ventilation. Analog Devices Inc. - The company offers battery management that offers a broad portfolio of high-performance battery management IC devices, including battery chargers, companion battery charge controllers, and battery backup managers. The company offers battery management that offers a broad portfolio of high-performance battery management IC devices, including battery chargers, companion battery charge controllers, and battery backup managers. Infineon Technologies AG - The company offers battery cell balancing and monitoring in order to keep Li-ion cells within their allowed operational ranges regarding voltages, currents, and temperatures dedicated cell monitoring controllers are being used. Identify key trends, drivers, and challenges in the market, which will help vendors improve their strategies to stay ahead of their competitors. View our FREE PDF Sample Report Market Segmentation Battery Monitoring Systems Market Split by End-user Automotive: The automotive segment will be the largest contributor to market growth during the forecast period. The growth of the automotive industry in the coming years are expected to drive the growth of this segment during the forecast period. Energy Telecom and data center Battery Monitoring Systems Market Split by Geography APAC: APAC will account for 50% of the market's growth during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to factors such as the need to improve the environment as well as energy security in fast-growing economies such as Japan , China , and India . China and Japan are the key countries for the battery monitoring systems market in APAC. However, market growth in this region will be slower than the growth of the market in Europe . , , and . and are the key countries for the battery monitoring systems market in APAC. However, market growth in this region will be slower than the growth of the market in . North America Europe South America Middle East and Africa Imperative Insights on the following aspects What was the size of the global battery monitoring systems industry by value in 2020? What will be the size of the global battery monitoring systems industry in 2026? What factors are affecting the strength of competition in the global battery monitoring systems industry? How has the industry performed over the last five years? What are the main segments that make up the global battery monitoring systems market? Related Reports Carbon Black in Lead-acid Battery Market by Battery Type and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026: The carbon black in lead-acid battery market share is expected to increase by USD 116.06 million from 2021 to 2026. Solar Batteries Market by Technology and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026: The solar batteries market share is expected to increase by USD 7.89 billion from 2021 to 2026. Battery Monitoring Systems Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 21.87% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 9.48 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 17.11 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution APAC at 50% Key consumer countries US, China, Japan, Germany, and UK Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled ABB Ltd., Analog Devices Inc., BMS Powersafe, C and D Technologies Inc., Crucial Power Products, Curtis Instruments Inc., Eberspaecher Vecture Inc., Elithion Inc., General Electric Co., HBL Power Systems Ltd, Infineon Technologies AG, Johnson Matthey Plc, Lithium Balance AS, Lithium Werks, NXP Semiconductors NV, Raytheon Technologies Corp., Renesas Electronics Corp., Schneider Electric SE, Texas Instruments Inc., and Vertiv Holdings Co. 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 Utilities Market Reports Table of Content 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 End-user 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 between2021 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 End-user 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by End-user Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by End-user Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by End-user 5.3 Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Automotive - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Automotive - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Automotive - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Energy - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Energy - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Energy - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Energy - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Energy - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Telecom and data center - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 36: Chart on Telecom and data center - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 37: Data Table on Telecom and data center - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 38: Chart on Telecom and data center - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Telecom and data center - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.6 Market opportunity by End-user Exhibit 40: Market opportunity by End-user ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 41: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 42: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 44: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 45: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: 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 50: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: 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 54: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: 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 58: Chart on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: 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 62: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) and - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: 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 66: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 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 (%) 7.11 Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 78: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 79: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 80: Chart on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 81: Data Table on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 82: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 83: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 84: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 85: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.13 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 86: 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 87: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 88: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 89: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 90: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 91: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 92: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 ABB Ltd. Exhibit 93: ABB Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 94: ABB Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 95: ABB Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 96: ABB Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 97: ABB Ltd. - Segment focus 10.4 Analog Devices Inc. Exhibit 98: Analog Devices Inc. - Overview Exhibit 99: Analog Devices Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 100: Analog Devices Inc. - Key offerings 10.5 General Electric Co. Exhibit 101: General Electric Co. - Overview Exhibit 102: General Electric Co. - Business segments Exhibit 103: General Electric Co. - Key news Exhibit 104: General Electric Co. - Key offerings Exhibit 105: General Electric Co. - Segment focus 10.6 Infineon Technologies AG Exhibit 106: Infineon Technologies AG - Overview Exhibit 107: Infineon Technologies AG - Business segments Exhibit 108: Infineon Technologies AG - Key news Exhibit 109: Infineon Technologies AG - Key offerings Exhibit 110: Infineon Technologies AG - Segment focus 10.7 NXP Semiconductors NV Exhibit 111: NXP Semiconductors NV - Overview Exhibit 112: NXP Semiconductors NV - Product / Service Exhibit 113: NXP Semiconductors NV - Key news Exhibit 114: NXP Semiconductors NV - Key offerings 10.8 Raytheon Technologies Corp. Exhibit 115: Raytheon Technologies Corp. - Overview Exhibit 116: Raytheon Technologies Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 117: Raytheon Technologies Corp. - Key news Exhibit 118: Raytheon Technologies Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 119: Raytheon Technologies Corp. - Segment focus 10.9 Renesas Electronics Corp. Exhibit 120: Renesas Electronics Corp. - Overview Exhibit 121: Renesas Electronics Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 122: Renesas Electronics Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 123: Renesas Electronics Corp. - Segment focus 10.10 Schneider Electric SE Exhibit 124: Schneider Electric SE - Overview Exhibit 125: Schneider Electric SE - Business segments Exhibit 126: Schneider Electric SE - Key news Exhibit 127: Schneider Electric SE - Key offerings Exhibit 128: Schneider Electric SE - Segment focus 10.11 Texas Instruments Inc. Exhibit 129: Texas Instruments Inc. - Overview Exhibit 130: Texas Instruments Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 131: Texas Instruments Inc. - Key news Exhibit 132: Texas Instruments Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 133: Texas Instruments Inc. - Segment focus 10.12 Vertiv Holdings Co. Exhibit 134: Vertiv Holdings Co. - Overview Exhibit 135: Vertiv Holdings Co. - Business segments Exhibit 136: Vertiv Holdings Co. - Key news Exhibit 137: Vertiv Holdings Co. - Key offerings Exhibit 138: Vertiv Holdings Co. - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 139: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 140: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 141: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 142: Research methodology Exhibit 143: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 144: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 145: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide 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 Us: 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 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- BioVaxys Technology Corp. (CSE: BIOV) (FRA: 5LB) (OTC-QB: BVAXF) ("BioVaxys" or the "Company") announces that, further to its news release dated October 6, 2022, it has settled an aggregate of $300,000 in debt through the issuance of common shares issued at a deemed price of $0.15 per common share. About BioVaxys Technology Corp. Based in Vancouver, BioVaxys Technology Corp . is a British Columbia-registered, early stage biotechnology company that is developing viral and oncology vaccine platforms, as well as immuno-diagnostics. The Company is advancing a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine based on its haptenized viral protein technology, and is planning a clinical trial of its haptenized autologous cell vaccine used in combination with anti-PD1 and anti-PDL-1 checkpoint inhibitors that will initially be developed for ovarian cancer. Also in development is a diagnostic for evaluating the presence or absence of a T cell immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. BioVaxys has two issued US patents and two patent applications related to its cancer vaccine, and pending patent applications for its SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) vaccine and diagnostic technologies. BioVaxys common shares are listed on the CSE under the stock symbol "BIOV" and trades on the Frankfurt Bourse (FRA: 5LB) and in the US (OTCQB: BVAXF). ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Signed "James Passin" James Passin, CEO +1 646 452 7054 Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating the future operating or financial performance of the Company, are forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements in this news release relate to, among other things, the proposed debt settlement and the overall development of BioVaxys' vaccines and diagnostic technologies. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates, primarily the assumption that BioVaxys will be successful in developing and testing vaccines and diagnostic tools, that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies including, primarily but without limitation, the risk that BioVaxys' vaccines and diagnostic tools will not prove to be effective and/ or will not receive the required regulatory approvals. With regards to BioVaxys' business, there are a number of risks that could affect the development of its biotechnology products, including, without limitation, the need for additional capital to fund clinical trials, its lack of operating history, uncertainty about whether its products will complete the long, complex and expensive clinical trial and regulatory approval process for approval of new drugs necessary for marketing approval, uncertainty about whether its autologous cell vaccine immunotherapy can be developed to produce safe and effective products and, if so, whether its vaccine products will be commercially accepted and profitable, the expenses, delays and uncertainties and complications typically encountered by development stage biopharmaceutical businesses, financial and development obligations under license arrangements in order to protect its rights to its products and technologies, obtaining and protecting new intellectual property rights and avoiding infringement to third parties and their dependence on manufacturing by third parties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. SOURCE BioVaxys Technology Corp. City Girls and Latto to Headline the FAMU Experience Concert on October 29th at the Al Lawson Center in Tallahassee, FL. TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As Rattlers from all over the country come to Tallahassee to celebrate Homecoming, the city transforms into a vibrant orange and green each year. Rattlers of all ages continue to come together for the ultimate experience at homecoming. The festivities extend the full week and include a range of activities for Rattlers and FAMU supporters. The Homecoming concert proves year after year to be the epicenter of a dynamic mix of music and culture. Students, alumni and fans of the highest ranked public HBCU prepare for an electrifying performance from top artists. Chart-topping Hip hop duo City Girls, currently on a national tour alongside Jack Harlow, will headline the FAMU Experience Concert. Support will include Latto and Saucy Santana, both of which are currently touring with Lizzo. The star studded line up will also include rapper Seddy Hendrinx and breakout R&B artist Eli Derby of LVRN & more. The FAMU Experience Homecoming Concert, sponsored by African Pride and Celsius, will take place at the Al Lawson Center on October 29th hosted by DJ Demp and DJ Loosekid. Doors will open at 8 pm. Tickets are available at homecomingatfamu.com. For all inquiries and media requests: Bright Concepts Media Group Tabitha Higgs (904) 735 - 3850 | [email protected] About Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. About City Girls City Girls is an American hip hop duo consisting of Yung Miami (Caresha Romeka Brownlee) and JT (Jatavia Shakara Johnson). The duo originate from Miami, Florida and are signed to Quality Control Music. Their releases include debut mixtape, Period (2018); as well as studio albums: Girl Code (2018), which spawned the (RIAA) Platinum-certified singles "Twerk" (featuring Cardi B) and "Act Up"; and City on Lock (2020). About Latto Rising rapper Latto has been making a name for herself since she was 10 years old. She has released music since 2016.The December 2019 release of her follow-up project, Hit The Latto, contained the remix version of the track featuring Saweetie & Trina. The From Da Souf (Remix)" went RIAA-certified Platinum, making Latto the first solo female rapper from Atlanta to accomplish this feat. She's proven that Big Latto is bigger and better than ever before. Media Contact: Tabitha Higgs [email protected] Photos: https://www.prlog.org/12936164 Press release distributed by PRLog SOURCE Florida A&M University Veloxis Pharmaceuticals has served as a partner in the consortium since 2017 CARY, N.C., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Critical Path Institute (C-Path) announced October 13, 2022 that its Transplant Therapeutic Consortium (TTC), of which Veloxis Pharmaceuticals is a member, received a draft qualification opinion for the iBox Scoring System through the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) qualification of novel methodologies for drug development. This significant qualification means that the iBox Scoring System, which supports the evaluation of novel immunosuppressive therapy (IST) applications with EMA, will soon be available to be used as a secondary efficacy endpoint in kidney transplant clinical trials. The draft qualification opinion is going through a public consultation stage through Nov. 17, 2022. After the public consultation period, the iBox Scoring System will represent the first qualified endpoint for any transplant indication and, importantly, the scoring system with or without biopsy can be used to demonstrate the superiority of a new IST compared to the standard of care (SOC) at six months up to 24 months post-transplant in pivotal or exploratory drug therapeutic studies. Improving the long-term outcomes in kidney transplant recipients is the ultimate goal. Tweet this The iBox Scoring System is a composite biomarker that utilizes multiple clinically relevant patient features to fully reflect the heterogeneity of graft failure, including measures of renal function (eGFR and proteinuria) and immunologic response to the graft (donor-specific antibody), with or without direct assessment of allograft health through histopathology (Banff lesion scores). The TTC, in collaboration with the Paris Transplant Group, has been key in adapting the iBox Scoring System from a tool in patient-level decision-making to application as an efficacy endpoint in clinical trials. Improving the long-term outcomes in kidney transplant recipients is the ultimate goal and, as such, the qualification of the iBox Scoring System has been TTC's primary initiative since its inception in 2017. This important accomplishment is the first step to enhance development of innovative therapies in kidney transplant and was made possible by the international transplant community's ongoing collaboration, data sharing, expertise and dedication. "Veloxis is proud to be a part of the Transplant Therapeutics Consortium and the incredible work to achieve draft qualification opinion status for the iBox Scoring System," says Mark Hensley, CEO of Veloxis. The TTC is also working on its next regulatory milestone the regulatory endorsement of the iBox Scoring System as a reasonably likely surrogate endpoint by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to whom the qualification plan has been submitted and is under review by the agency. Veloxis Pharmaceuticals, Inc, an Asahi Kasei company, is a fully integrated specialty pharmaceutical company committed to improving the lives of transplant patients. Headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, USA, Veloxis is focused on the global development and commercialization of medications utilized by transplant patients and by patients with serious related diseases. The Asahi Kasei Group contributes to life and living for people around the world. Since its foundation in 1922 with ammonia and cellulose fiber business, Asahi Kasei has consistently grown through the proactive transformation of its business portfolio to meet the evolving needs of every age. With more than 40,000 employees around the world, the company contributes to sustainable society by providing solutions to the world's challenges through its three business sectors of Material, Homes, and Healthcare. Its healthcare operations include devices and systems for acute critical care, dialysis, therapeutic apheresis, transfusion, and manufacture of biotherapeutics, as well as pharmaceuticals and diagnostic reagents. The Transplant Therapeutics Consortium (TTC) was launched in April 2017 and co-founded by the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS). TTC brings together pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic companies, academic and nonprofit partners working toward a common goal of moving the field forward toward drug development solutions in transplantation. TTC is managed and supported by the Critical Path Institute (C-Path). Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is an independent, nonprofit organization established in 2005 as a public and private partnership. C-Path's mission is to catalyze the development of new approaches that advance medical innovation and regulatory science, accelerating the path to a healthier world. An international leader in forming collaborations, C-Path has established numerous global consortia that currently include more than 1,600 scientists from government and regulatory agencies, academia, patient organizations, disease foundations, and hundreds of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. C-Path U.S. is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, C-Path in Europe is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands and C-Path Ltd. operates from Dublin, Ireland with additional staff in multiple other locations. For more information, visit c-path.org. 3 Critical Path Institute is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and is 54.2% funded by the FDA/HHS, totaling $13,239,950, and 45.8% funded by non-government source(s), totaling $11,196,634. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, FDA/HHS or the U.S. Government. SOURCE Veloxis Pharmaceuticals STONINGTON, Conn., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coast Guard Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to strengthening the Coast Guard community and service by supporting members and families, announced it launched a matching gift opportunity to support Coast Guard members who lost homes to Hurricanes Ian and Fiona. Since Hurricane Ian decimated southwest Florida, Coast Guard members rescued more than 1,000 people and 100 pets in less than seven days, including bringing relief supplies and evacuating residents from communities that were wholly isolated after the storm. The Coast Guard Foundation provides emergency grants to help Coast Guard members rebuild and recover from Hurricane Ian. Tweet this Coast Guard National Strike Force members scan Pine Island, Florida for people in need on Oct. 1, 2022. The National Strike Force team in Southwest Florida comprises members from the Pacific, Gulf, and Atlantic strike teams. Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard Among the rescuers and first responders are Coast Guard members who lost homes or suffered other damages from Ian. The Coast Guard Foundation is providing emergency grants to Coast Guard members who suffered losses from Hurricanes Ian and Fiona so they can quickly get resources to bounce back from the devastation as they continue to serve our nation. "Thanks to the Coast Guard Foundation and its donors for all of the support," shared Coast Guard Commander Shawn Lansing, executive officer for Coast Guard members on the West Coast of Florida. "I know some members took advantage of the grants and were effusive on how quick and easy the process was. It was a huge relief and let them quickly address their situations and refocus on their Coast Guard duties." To keep pace with the number of requests for assistance, the Foundation launched a matching gift appeal on Oct. 11. Every donation to the Foundation's emergency relief program up to $40,000 will be doubled by an anonymous donor. "We are here now, and we will continue to be there in the future to lend a helping hand to Coast Guard members and families," said Susan Ludwig, Coast Guard Foundation President. "Our emergency support program is made possible by the generosity of our Coast Guard Foundation community who stands side-by-side with us in being there for Coast Guard members and families where and when they need us most." Coast Guard Foundation senior leadership is available to speak more about how the organization supports Coast Guard members in their time of great need. Visit coastguardfoundation.org/emergency-relief-grant to learn more about the grant process. To donate to the emergency response effort to assist in this natural disaster and others in the future: coastguardfoundation.org/emergencyrelief SOURCE Coast Guard Foundation BEIJING, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from chinadaily.com.cn: Anren community in Jiande city of East China's Zhejiang province is not big but is very special. Anren community in Jiande city of East Chinas Zhejiang province. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn] Senior citizens enjoy abundant meals at low price at Anren community, Qiantan town, Jiande city, Zhejiang province, in September 2022. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn] It was established in June 2021, about one month after the province was designated by the central authorities as a demonstration zone for common prosperity. It consists of the eponymous Anren village and five other less well-off villages nearby. The grouping allows the six villages to share resources and develop jointly. The six villages put their 3,700 mu (250 hectares) of land together so that the land could be planned and developed as a whole. For example, they have jointly developed a strawberry farm of 400 mu for rental, among which 60 mu are contracted to low-income farmers. These low-income farmers will receive technical support as well as sales help from larger planters to ensure their incomes. As for industrial development, a production base of coating giant Nippon Paint has settled down in Anren. Though located in Anren village, the job opportunities at the base are open to all people in the community. Jin Yu from Houshan village is one beneficiary. He used to work in the e-commerce industry in a city and returned home to join Nippon Paint. Now he earns a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan. Once fully operational, the base is expected to offer jobs to more than 300 people. Other businesses, such as homestay tourism and a mini-industrial park, have also been tapped to increase the overall welfare of the community. "To achieve common prosperity, fundamentally, we need to make the cake bigger, while at the same time share it fairly," said Li Shi, dean of the Institute for Common Prosperity and Development at Zhejiang University. The community has designed special programs to distribute benefits more fairly. 70-year-old Wang Changfa, who used to live high up in a mountain, bought a 368-square-meter new house for more than 790,000 yuan ($112,645) at the foot of the mountain. "This makes it easier for children to go to school and for the elderly to see doctors," Wang said. The houses were built by Anren village and allocated to those in need in the community. More than 200 households, including Wang, have made the move. Public service facilities, including a senior care center, have been built for all people to enjoy equally. At the canteen of the care center, senior citizens from the six villages enjoy an abundant meal that costs no more than 5 yuan ($0.7). Patrons over 90 pay nothing at all. The canteen is partly funded by regular donations from local enterprises as well as charitable villagers. Anren community offers a vivid example of what China is aiming for after eradicating absolute poverty. Li said that over the past decades since the reform and opening-up, China has realized rapid economic growth by giving better play to the role of market economy and encouraging entrepreneurship. While sticking to these successful practices, China is exploring how to share the benefits of economic growth in a fairer manner, Li said. He said China should invest more in basic public services in rural areas so as to bring them on a par with their urban counterparts. Meanwhile, low-income groups should be educated and trained to have better opportunities of development, Li said. Nicholas Hope, former director of the World Bank's China program, also emphasized the role of education in achieving common prosperity. "Education, particularly that of the rural poor, is an essential part of ensuring against relapse," he said. Hope is optimistic about the prospect of China's common prosperity pursuit. "In just two generations you can make a country that's by any definition desperately poor into a country that's moderately prosperous. That should give everybody confidence you can move in the era of common prosperity," Hope said. SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DOAS Market is projected to grow from USD 3.9 billion in 2022 to USD 5.9 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 8.8%, during the forecast period, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. Improving government regulations, higher adoption of DOAS for residential and commercial applications, and a growing focus on indoor air quality are among the key factors expected to boost the growth of the DOAS market in the next five years. During the forecast period, the development of the DOAS market for new construction types is expected to create high demand as construction activities are growing globally. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=1899977 Browse in-depth TOC on "DOAS Market" 150 Tables 55 Figures 266 Pages DOAS with 2040 ton capacity to register highest CAGR during the forecast period. DOAS vary in size or capacity range for various applications and building dimensions. The demand for 2040 ton DOAS is expected to be the highest in 2022 and remain the same during the forecast period. The 2040 ton DOAS segment is likely to grow because they are preferred in regions with water scarcity; they are portable and can be easily installed on the roof; they reduce indoor noise and are among the most efficient and energy-saving models. The 2040 ton DOAS are preferred for residential and commercial use. Additionally, as the number of startups and small and medium-sized companies is increasing globally, the preference for 20-40 ton DOAS is higher. Heating requirement of DOAS to lead the market in 2022. DOAS units bring fresh air into a building independent of heating or cooling efforts. Heating equipment is a critical part of DOAS, which maintains the optimum temperature in an enclosed space or a building. The heating segment is expected to be driven by higher demand from residential and commercial buildings. China is one of the key markets driving the demand for the heating requirement from DOAS equipment. Furthermore, as conventional heating systems take up to 35% of the energy consumed within a building, energy-efficient DOAS are being implemented to improve the building's energy efficiency. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=1899977 Asia Pacific to hold significant opportunities for DOAS market during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is the leading DOAS market for commercial and residential verticals, with major demand driven by countries such as China and Japan. Asia Pacific is predicted to offer ample opportunities for the growth of the DOAS market during the forecast period attributable to large investments and increasing real estate development activities. Increasing construction activities, rising population, and changing climate conditions are among the major factors contributing to the market growth in this region. Several government regulations, acts, and associations support the adoption of DOAS in Asia Pacific, driving the DOAS market. Major vendors in the DOAS market include Johnson Controls (Ireland), Trane Technologies (Ireland), Carrier Global (US), Daikin (Japan), Mitsubishi Electric (Japan), LG Electronics (South Korea), Samsung Electronics (South Korea), and Greenheck Fan (US), among others. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=1899977 Browse Adjacent Market: Semiconductor and Electronics Market Research Reports &Consulting Related Reports: HVAC System Market with COVID-19 Impact, by Cooling Equipment, Heating Equipment, Ventilation Equipment, Implementation Type, Application (Residential, Commercial, Industrial) and Region (North America, Europe, APAC, RoW) (2021-2026) HVAC Controls Market by Component (Sensors, Controllers, and Controlled Equipment), System, Implementation Type (New Construction, Retrofit), Application (Residential, Commercial, Industrial) and Region - Global Forecast to 2027 Refrigeration Monitoring Market by Offering (Hardware, Software, and Service), Sensor (temperature, defrost, touch, liquid level, gas detector, contact, motion detector, pressure), Application, Industry, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025 Cryocooler Market with COVID-19 Impact and Analysis by Type (GM, PT, JT, Stirling, Brayton), Offering (Hardware, Services), Heat Exchanger (Recuperative, Regenerative) Operating Cycle (Open,Closed loop), Application, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2025 Compressed Air Filter and Dryer Market with COVID-19 Impact Analysis by Product (Air Dryer (Refrigeration, Desiccant, Deliquescent, Membrane), Air Filter (Particulate, Coalescing, Compressed Intake, Activated)), Industry & Region - Global Forecast to 2027 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. 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Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/dedicated-outdoor-air-system-market.asp Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/dedicated-outdoor-air-system.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg SOURCE MarketsandMarkets VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vancouver, Canada-based brand, Earth Baby Outfitters, has officially launched its newest sustainable luxury collection EBO Bohemian Charms, available at high-end retailers like Macy's, Nordstrom, and The Bay. Nature-inspired, gender-neutral colors and patterns borrowed from the lush forests of British Columbia have made this children's clothing and accessories line an instant favorite amongst eco-conscious parents. Earth Baby Outfitters Silicone Teether Ring + Deluxe Lovey Earth Baby Outfitters Tencel Mondal Bodysuit and Lovey Earth Baby Outfitters partnered with New York packaging designer Fen Wang to bring EBO Bohemian Charms to life. The clean, minimalist teal blue packaging emphasizes the company's focus on ethical, sustainable manufacturing and materials with essentials like silicone teethers and bibs, Tencel sleepers and rompers, and keepsake milestone blankets. EBO Bohemian Charms pieces are thoughtfully crafted from hypoallergenic, antimicrobial, non-toxic, and breathable natural materials that are delicate on the infant's skin. Featuring sustainable, low-impact TENCE Lyocell, organic cotton, and BPA-free, food-grade silicone, each Earth Baby Outfitters design is not only inspired by our earth. Eco-conscious families can feel confident that their EBO item was manufactured ethically and with minimal environmental impact Learn more here: https://www.earthbabyoutfitters.com/our-brand-ebo/ From EBO Founder, Sharon Thomson "This collection is all about the colors we see when we go hiking in our British Columbia forests," says EBO's owner, Sharon Thomson. "Our mission is to make products that have less impact on the earth and are safe for babies to wear daily. So, we wanted the packaging and color palette of EBO Bohemian Charms to truly reflect that. We design our products thoughtfully, in neutral colors and patterns that can be worn and enjoyed often AND stand the test of time! That's true sustainability to me." About Earth Baby Outfitters Founded in 2014 by concerned mother and environmentalist, Sharon Thomson, Earth Baby Outfitter's mission is to protect babies from the toxic chemicals, unsafe dyes, and low-quality, fast-fashion materials present in mainstream children's clothing. This safety pledge means the brand uses only heavy metal free, AZO-free dyes. Pieces are crafted with GOTS, USDA, and OEKO-TEX 100 Certified fabrics and 100% BPA-free, food-grade silicone. This means no chemicals harmful to human health are ever next to baby's skin or in baby's mouth. EBO also strives to protect our planet through sustainable, ethical manufacturing and thoughtful, durable designs. Each piece is crafted using quality, pre-shrunk fabrics that stand the test of time. Their durable, soft, unisex designs can be passed down from one Earth Baby to the next. EBO supports fair wages, safe working conditions, and no child labor. To uphold these strict ethical standards, we own our own clothing factory and Earth Baby Outfitters ensures that our brand only works with factories that share EBO's commitment to employee safety and health. Contact: Clair Jones LoudBird Marketing 606-776-6703 [email protected] SOURCE Earth Baby Outfitters The London born medical marijuana company Eden Pharma Limited has seen huge success. LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Eden Pharma Ltd is pleased to announce its successful listing on the MERJ Exchange. Eden Pharma listed on 25th May 2022. Eden Pharma Market Capitalisation upon listing was circa 650 million pounds. The company share price closed on its first day of trading at 25.50. Change to Eden Pharma listed on the exchange with an opening price of 25.31 per share. Trading in Eden Pharma shares has seen the share price rise by 15% since listing, with the company valuation standing at over 770 million GBP currently. The closing price in Eden Pharma shares on the 23rd June was 29.50 per share. The current trading hours for the exchange are Monday to Friday: 10:00am to 06:00am (GMT+4). The MERJ Exchange is an award winning internationally recognised securities exchange. Eden Pharma are proud to have listed on the exchange. Eden Pharma limited continues to embark on its global growth plans. The Company announced its plans to build the world's largest cannabis research and development site located in Uganda. The successful partnership, fully licensed by the Ugandan government, is proposed to cover 5000 Acres. Further updates on the progress of the company will be announced through the Stock Exchange and on the Company's website Company Overview Eden Pharma limited, established in 2017 by Martin Booth, is now the world's 12th largest medical marijuana company by market capitalisation. The Eden Pharma Company is the UKs, Europes and Africas largest licensed marijuana company by market capitalisation. The Company began with a focus on research and development of the versatile marijuana plant to create innovative health and beauty products, and further develop new strains of marijuana. Eden Pharma is creating a bespoke, luxury brand for health and wellness products that primarily include CBD or other holistic compounds. Today, the company also has an award nominated range of CBD products that aim to assist with mental and physical well being. Eden Pharma also have, what is believed to be the largest cannabis R & D cultivation site in the world. The site is fully licensed and stands at 5000 Acres, making the site larger than some countries. Disclaimer Neither this document nor any of its contents constitute an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to any person to enter into any transaction or adopt any hedging, trading or investment strategy, nor does it constitute any prediction of likely future movements in rates or prices or any representation that any such future movements will either exceed or not exceed those shown in any text or illustration herein. No information provided in this document in relation to any investment should be construed as advice on the suitability or otherwise of that investment to any person, such suitability depending on all the circumstances of the person concerned. Nothing contained in this document constitutes investment, legal, tax or any other advice nor is it to be relied on in making an investment or any other decision. You, the reader of this document, are to make your own independent judgement with respect to any matter contained herein and to seek your own independent professional advice where appropriate. All recipients are strongly recommended to take independent professional advice where appropriate. This document does not constitute a formal offer, being capable of acceptance, or invitation to purchase or acquire any securities in any company or any interest therein, nor shall it form the basis of any contract for the sale of securities in any company. If you are in any doubt as to the action that you should take, you are recommended to seek your own professional advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant or any other independent financial adviser authorised to give such advice under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended). SOURCE Eden pharma ltd On Global Handwashing Day, 15 October 2022, the GHC is calling for investment in handwashing education and resources to achieve universal hand hygiene, prevent disease and save lives. LONDON, Oct. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Handwashing with soap is one of the most important steps for reducing the spread of infectious diseases. It is substantially less expensive than other public health interventions and has many socio-economic benefits beyond the reduction of diseases such as increased productivity and a reduction in healthcare costs. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts were made to improve hygiene habits but, according to the World Health Organization, we need to quadruple current progress to achieve the hygiene targets that are outlined by the United Nations in the Sustainable Development Goals. If current trends persist, 1.9 billion people will still be without basic handwashing facilities at home by 2030, highlighting the need for increased investment in handwashing programmes across the globe. When COVID-19 emerged, access to handwashing facilities, education and funding fell short: 30% of the global population didn't have handwashing facilities with soap and water; and almost half of healthcare facilities (43%) lacked basic hand hygiene facilities at points of care. The GHC aligns with the theme of Global Handwashing Day 2022, which is 'Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene', and calls for health authorities to prioritise hand hygiene to help prevent infections. Research estimates that national handwashing programmes could yield fruitful economic returns, doubling return on investment, with some nations drastically surpassing that. One study highlights that a national handwashing programme in India could yield a 92-fold return on investment. Professor emerita Elizabeth Scott PhD, chair of the Global Hygiene Council comments: "The GHC is championing hygiene, including handwashing, as a leading way to prevent infections. It is unconscionable that, in the 21st century, billions of people around the world are still without access to basic handwashing with soap and water. A massive collaborative effort is required across all levels of society, including increased investment in hygiene infrastructure by governments. We need to get back to basics and raise the profile of hand hygiene, including washing with soap and water or using alcohol-based sanitiser when access to soap and clean water isn't available, to ensure this remains a frontline infection prevention method in healthcare and community settings." Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1915576/Global_Hygiene_Council_Logo.jpg SOURCE Global Hygiene Council (GHC) Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab may have violated state and federal overtime laws by not paying employees for all hours they worked. TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Feldman Legal Group is investigating potential claims on behalf of therapists working for Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab. The investigation concerns whether the two companies have engaged in practices that deny workers overtime pay that those workers earned. Overtime pay is required under state law and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). By law, all hourly paid employees are entitled to overtime pay at no less than time and a half of the employee's regular rate of pay. Alleged Practices Related to Denial of Overtime Pay Productivity Requirement Scheme: The lawsuit alleges that Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab used a productivity requirement scheme to avoid paying overtime wages. Under this alleged scheme, if overtime hours were reported, a therapist would fail the productivity standard and would be subject to disciplinary action, including termination of employment. Discouraged Full Reporting of Hours Worked: The lawsuit also alleges that Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab discouraged reporting of overtime hours and encouraged off the clock work in an attempt to keep employees from complaining and reporting their overtime hours. Mitchell Feldman, an attorney at Feldman Legal Group, explains that the companies allegedly used this practice "to maximize Medicare billing which could lead to profits of many millions of dollars. This practice would allow the companies to increase profits with unpaid wages of employees who worked off the clock." Retaliation Against Employees Who Speak Out: Not only did Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab possibly force employees to work unpaid overtime, they may have retaliated when workers complained as well. The lawsuit alleges that the companies sometimes fired or demoted employees who sought full pay for the overtime hours they worked. Such retaliation violates federal and state laws. "Present and even former employees can face retaliation by being fired, black listed, or demoted unjustly for reporting behaviors of their employers which violate the FLSA," Feldman says. Who Are Similarly Situated Persons which these Class and Collective Action Lawsuits Seek To Recover Wages For?? Past and present employees of Select Rehabilitation and Reliant Rehab in several positions including the following classes of workers may have their state and Federal Wage Rights Affected by this case and whom the named Plaintiffs seek to obtain a recovery of unpaid overtime wages for: a) Directors of Rehabilitation and Program Managers; b) physical, occupational and speech therapists; c) Physical Therapy Assistants and Occupational Therapy Assistants,; and potentially, other hourly paid employees. "Workers can talk to an employment attorney specialized in wage and hour claims to protect their rights and ensure they get full compensation for their work," says Feldman. Many employees who are denied overtime don't realize they may be able to recover not only months and years of unpaid overtime wages, but also two to three times the sums owed. This is in addition to the required time and a half overtime pay. "With the aid of an employment lawyer, these employees may seek several forms of compensation, including reinstatement, promotion, recovery of lost wages, and punitive damages. Also, the FLSA mandates employers must cover the lawyer's fees directly," explains Feldman. About Feldman Legal Group With over two decades of experience in civil litigation, including serving as lead counsel in numerous Nationwide, Federal Class and Collective Wage and Hour Overtime wage cases, the Feldman Legal Group has proven proficiency in representing clients to receive adequate compensation for damages. Their attorneys represent individuals and their loved ones in cases involving employment litigation, workers' compensation, and personal injury. Feldman Legal Group provides legal support for people in Florida and Georgia and nationwide to seek justice for workers and champion the rights of the injured. This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com. SOURCE Feldman Legal Group LAKELAND, Fla., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Southern College is proud to announce that Entrepreneur-In-Residence Justin Heacock, the College's Director of the Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship, has been named to Business Observer's exclusive 40 Under 40 List. Heacock, 32, is in his second year as the head of the Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship. Under Heacock's leadership, the Center has helped several Florida Southern students earn more than $30,000 for business ideas. Justin Heacock, Director of the Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship at Florida Southern, and his father, Ford Heacock, at the 40 Under 40 Awards celebration. The Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship's mission is to instill an entrepreneurial mindset and reinforce free enterprise principles for Florida Southern College and the Central Florida community that result in the creation of new ventures and innovations. The Center helps create an entrepreneurial mindset and reinforces free enterprise principles through academic programming, experiential learning, and student-driven engagement. "It's a good feeling to be recognized for the hard work you do," Heacock said. "Typically, in the academic world, we are sometimes disconnected from the business community, so it's good to see awards like this to allow individuals from all parts of the community to be recognized." Business Observer has printed its 40 Under 40 issue of the magazine since 2003 with the goal of finding, honoring, and celebrating the best of the best of the up-and-comers. To be honored as a 40 Under 40 recipient, applicants must demonstrate success in their field. Another key factor Business Observer looks for is people that "hustle, go after it and create their success. People who are willing to go against conventional wisdom, and the movers and shakers that, if you're new to town, you have to meet," according to the nomination page on its website. The 40 Under 40 award is open to entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals in any field or industry, including nonprofits, from Polk through Collier counties. Heacock attended the 40 Under 40 Awards celebration on Oct. 13 in Lakewood Ranch and is preparing to head to Las Vegas to accept four more awards for the College potentially. From Oct. 27-30, at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Heacock will attend the annual convention for the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC). Heacock said the Center is up for four awards but will not know if Florida Southern won until the awards ceremony on Oct. 29. Florida Southern's Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship is nominated in the following categories: Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center, schools with less than 5,000 students Outstanding Student Engagement & Leadership, schools with less than 5,000 students Outstanding Contributions to Venture Creation Exceptional Activities in Entrepreneurship Across Disciplines Florida Southern will be up against schools worldwide in the final two categories. The annual GCEC Awards showcase and celebrate the best of university entrepreneurship. The nine distinct categories allow centers and leaders to select areas where they feel they are making the most impact. About Florida Southern College Founded in 1883, Florida Southern College is the oldest private college in the state. The College maintains its commitment to academic excellence through 70+ undergraduate and distinctive graduate programs in business administration, education, nursing, and physical therapy. Florida Southern has a 14:1 student-to-faculty ratio, is an award-winning national leader in engaged learning, and boasts 30 NCAA Division II National Championships. Florida Southern is ranked at #8 among the "Best Regional Universities in the South" by U.S. News & World Report in its 2023 "Best Colleges" guide and is included in The Princeton Review's 2023 Best 388 Colleges guide and the "Fiske Guide to Colleges 2023." The 2022-2023 Colleges of Distinction guidebook praises Florida Southern's AACSB-accredited Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise alongside the College's School of Education and its Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences. Poets&Quants, U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, and The Princeton Review further laud the Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise and the Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences as foremost programs in the nation for business and nursing education. Home to the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, FSC has appeared on The Princeton Review's top 20 "Most Beautiful Campus" national listing for 13 consecutive years. Connect with Florida Southern College. SOURCE Florida Southern College BALTIMORE, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Day Animations , an award-winning explainer video company, is opening the Illustrating Awesomeness Scholarship for the sixth consecutive year. Illustrating Awesomeness is a scholarship opportunity for young women or gender non-conforming individuals of color who are actively working to change the world. Since the program launched in 2016, the Illustrating Awesomeness Scholarship has been awarded to young people pursuing degrees in fields such as Nursing, Cinema & Media Studies, and Computer and Electrical Engineering. Recipients have attended universities and colleges across the country, including the Ohio State University, Alabama A&M, and the University of Southern California. A certified B Corp, Next Day Animations is committed to using business resources to address social problems like systemic opportunity gaps and support young people doing great work in their communities. "Since our work here at Next Day Animations is highly creative, it feels right that we are supporting the creative minds of tomorrow through our scholarship," says Bess Zafran, Marketing Specialist. "The winners are always deeply passionate about making a difference, and learning about their goals and visions for the future is one of my favorite parts of the year." You can read more about the 2021 winners here. The scholarship is open to undergraduate students attending college in the United States and will be applied to tuition for the 2023 Spring semester. Four $750 scholarships will be awarded. Eligible applicants can view more information at https://nextdayanimations.com/scholarship/ . This scholarship reopens amidst Next Day Animations' reception of a Torch Ethics Award from the Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland and recognition from Fortune and Great Place to Work as one of the Best Workplaces in Advertising & Marketing. 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 SHANGHAI, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's leading index company Morgan Stanley Capital International ("MSCI") recently announced its latest annual Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") rating results. In recognition of its outstanding performance in ESG, MSCI upgraded the ESG rating of Fosun Pharma (stock code: 600196.SH, 02196.HK) from BBB to A, ranking the top level in China. Fosun Pharma's MSCI ESG rating has been upgraded from BB in 2020 to BBB in 2021. The continuous upgrade to A this year demonstrates the high recognition of Fosun Pharma's ESG management by the capital market, and shows Fosun Pharma's long-term investment value. The MSCI ESG rating is one of the top ESG evaluation systems recognized by investment institutions around the world. The latest rating upgrade is based on Fosun Pharma's outstanding performance in environmental, social and corporate governance. Regarding environmental protection, Fosun Pharma has established an EHS committee, built a perfect EHS management system, and continued to promote the ISO14001 certification of its member companies. In addition, based on the comprehensive achievement of the last five-year strategic goal of EHS management, the second five-year (2021-2026) strategic goal was set to continue to promote the reduction of waste gas, waste water and waste disposal, to reduce the consumption of energy and water, as well as the greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding social responsibility, Fosun Pharma is committed to meeting unmet clinical needs, continuously improving product accessibility and affordability, and benefiting more patients. By the end of 2021, Artesun has been used to treat over 48 million severe malaria patients worldwide. As of today, 175 million children in high malaria transmission African countries had benefited from the "Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Program", for which SPAQ-CO Disp is used as the core drug, effectively reducing morbidity of malaria in children under five years old in Africa. During the pandemic, Fosun Pharma has worked actively in various aspects such as drug research and development, supplies donation, etc., and made an effort to ensure the supply of testing kits, emergency drugs, medical equipment, etc. In addition, in terms of product quality, Fosun Pharma has established a product life-cycle quality management system, which strictly controls the quality of each step from raw material procurement, and production to product storage. In terms of talent training, Fosun Pharma has established diversified recruitment channels and continued to attract talent. It also established a corporate university - Fosun University of Healthcare Management, to give employees sufficient support for learning and self-development. Regarding corporate governance, Fosun Pharma has set up an ESG Committee under the board of directors to supervise the group's ESG matters. The ESG Committee has set up an ESG working group to fully implement the group's ESG strategy, thereby integrating ESG management into daily operations. The company has a complete anti-corruption system, which is promoted by an independent integrity inspection department, and ensures the compliance of the company's internal and external stakeholders through training, auditing and other methods. In addition, the company also continues to uphold professional, branded, digital and compliant marketing control. Founded in 1994, Fosun Pharma is a global innovation-driven pharmaceutical and healthcare industry group deep-rooted in China. It has always been actively promoting ESG management and information disclosure, continuing to improve its ESG system, aiming for long-term sustainable development. Fosun Pharma has issued Corporate Social Responsibility Report for 14 consecutive years and disclosed the ESG Report in the annual report for two consecutive years, disclosing the company's ESG performance to stakeholders continuously. In terms of awards and ratings, Fosun Pharma was awarded WIND ESG rating A and was listed in China's Top 500 ESG Companies. In August 2022, the first Fortune China ESG Impact List selected 40 companies with Fosun Pharma topping the list. Fosun Pharma's 2021 Corporate Social Responsibility Report was awarded a Five-star rating (excellence), and won Outstanding Enterprise in Corporate Social Responsibility and Technology Innovation in "2021 China Benefit Corporation". In the future, Fosun Pharma will constantly improve its ESG management system and promote ESG governance. Taking concrete action to fulfill social responsibility, Fosun Pharma will continue to enhance the satisfaction of investors and other stakeholders. 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. SOURCE Fosun Pharma -- New Platform Offers Debt Solutions and Credit to Institutional Borrowers -- BOSTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- GID, a leading real estate investment and management firm with $28.5 billion in assets under management, today announced the launch of GID Credit, the company's new lending platform aimed at providing commercial real estate debt solutions for some of the industry's largest institutional borrowers. The platform will complement GID's overall strategy of growing its private market platforms in sectors with attractive risk-adjusted returns. GID Credit's leadership team boasts an average of 25 years in real estate investing and has managed funds through multiple real estate and credit cycles. The team includes Jeff Thompson, former Head of Private CRE Debt for Pimco Alternative Investment Strategies serving as Co-Head and President; Adam Gibbons, former Principal and Head of Originations at CIM Group, serving as Co-Head and Chief Investment Officer; Dan Jagoe, former Head of Asset Management and Underwriting at Annaly Commercial Real Estate Group, serving as Head of Asset Management; and Jennifer Keller, currently a Vice President in GID's Debt Capital Markets and serving as Head of Capital Markets for GID Credit. GID Credit will offer transitional, floating rate bridge loans across all asset classes within the United States. The platform complements the firm's existing products while having the benefit and synergies of being part of a large owner, operator, and developer of commercial real estate. With the team's extensive experience in risk management, asset management, capital raising, and originations, GID Credit is well positioned to maintain the company's reputation as a responsible investor, operating under the principles of quality, service, and integrity. "The addition of GID Credit to our business is true to our company's purpose and reputation as a trusted real estate fiduciary," says Greg Bates, President and CEO of GID. "GID Credit continues our company-wide focus on sectors that present good relative value while prioritizing risk management rigor and stability for the investors who rely on us." "The real estate credit market has diversified and grown significantly in recent years, creating new opportunities for investors," says Mr. Thompson. "Our talented team aims to build a respected credit platform that offers unique value to our clients and aligns with GID's mission of providing superior real estate solutions that create economic value and advance sustainability." "The leadership team at GID is heavily invested in the credit platform," adds Mr. Gibbons. "The company's culture of growth and commitment to its values is tangible. The infrastructure that GID has built over its 60+ year history, combined with decades of direct lending and risk management expertise within the GID Credit team, provides a distinct advantage in the marketplace," says Mr. Gibbons. GID's expansive portfolio includes over 48,000 multifamily units, 23 million industrial square feet, one million square feet of retail and office space, and visionary mixed-use development projects in major U.S. markets. GID also operates an industry-leading ESG program that has earned recognition from GRESB, PREA, and other benchmarking organizations. GID Credit plans to leverage best practices from across GID's various ESG efforts. To learn more about GID, visit www.gid.com . About GID GID is a privately held, vertically integrated real estate company that owns and operates a portfolio of multifamily, industrial and retail assets, and develops mixed-use projects in all major U.S. markets. With corporate offices in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, New York City, and San Francisco, GID is an experienced real estate private equity investor and manager supported by an integrated operating platform and has 60+ years of experience across multiple asset classes. GID's existing and under-development properties are valued at over $28.5 billion as of June 30, 2022. More information is available at www.gid.com . SOURCE GID Real Estate More and more surgeries are expected to shift to outpatient settings in the coming years owing to technological advancements in minimally invasive surgeries that enable faster procedures and quick recoveries. FREMONT, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- BIS Research, the global leader in providing market intelligence on deep technologies, has released its latest study titled Ambulatory Surgical Center Operating Room Integration Systems Market A Global and Regional Analysis. According to this study, the market size of the global ambulatory surgical center (ASC) operating room integration systems market was valued at $2.07 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $5.66 billion by 2032. The following factors are responsible for the increase in demand for ASC operating room integration systems: Benefits provided by OR integration, such as improved surgical workflows and better patient outcomes Cost savings in ASCs benefit all stakeholders, including, but not limited to, patients, payers, and healthcare providers Growing demand for outpatient care Growing government support and funding to ASCs Increasing patients' safety concerns in the OR The detailed study is a compilation of 35 market data tables and 183 figures spread through 279 pages. Check out the detailed table of content here https://bisresearch.com/requestsample?id=1378&type=toc Analyst's Take on the Market Projection According to Satyendrsingh Rajput, Lead Analyst, BIS Research, "The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the migration of surgeries from hospitals to outpatient facilities such as ASCs. This was owing to the unprecedented burden on hospitals and the various benefits of day surgeries in ASCs, such as shorter recovery times and improved patient outcomes." Request a FREE sample of this report here https://bisresearch.com/requestsample?id=1378&type=download Existing Competitive Landscape The companies that are profiled have been selected based on input gathered from primary experts and analyzing company coverage, product portfolio, and market penetration. Some of the established names in the market are Arthrex, Inc., Avante Health Solutions, Barco NV, Canon Inc., EIZO Corporation, FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, General Electric Company, Getinge AB, KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Olympus Corporation, Richard Wolf GmbH, Siemens Healthineers AG, STERIS plc, and Stryker Corporation. Recent Developments in the Global Ambulatory Surgical Center Operating Room Integration Systems Market In July 2022 , Arthrex Inc. partnered with Skytron to expand operating room technology and infrastructure solutions for U.S. hospitals and surgical centers. , Arthrex Inc. partnered with Skytron to expand operating room technology and infrastructure solutions for U.S. hospitals and surgical centers. In April 2022 , General Electric Company partnered with Medtronic to meet the growing needs for ambulatory surgery centers and office-based labs. Under this collaboration, customers can access extensive product portfolios, financial solutions, and exceptional service. , General Electric Company partnered with Medtronic to meet the growing needs for ambulatory surgery centers and office-based labs. Under this collaboration, customers can access extensive product portfolios, financial solutions, and exceptional service. In January 2022 , Philips Healthcare announced physicians would have access to advanced new 3D image guidance capabilities through its Image-Guided Therapy Mobile C-arm System Zenition. , Philips Healthcare announced physicians would have access to advanced new 3D image guidance capabilities through its Image-Guided Therapy Mobile C-arm System Zenition. In November 2021 , Eizo expanded its product offering, CuratOR surgical panel, with 4K touchscreen surgical displays. , Eizo expanded its product offering, CuratOR surgical panel, with touchscreen surgical displays. In July 2021 , HillRom launched the Helion Integrated Surgical System in the U.S. to enhance connectivity and communication in the operating room and improve patient outcomes. Single Specialty ASCs to Gain Momentum During the Forecast Period Single-specialty ASCs are outpatient facilities focused on conducting surgical procedures relating to a single specialty. According to the study conducted by BIS Research, the benefits of ambulatory surgery centers are maximized in single-specialty settings. In single-specialty ASCs, physicians are primarily engaged in the same medical practice specialty. Want to learn more about the latest trends in MedTech and the overall healthcare industry? Speak to our analysts Exclusive DeepTech MAP Analysis For MedTech by BIS Research: OR Integration Systems Market About BIS Research: BIS Research is a global B2B market intelligence and advisory firm focusing on deep technology and related emerging trends which can disrupt the market dynamics in the near future. We publish more than 200 market intelligence studies annually that focus on several deep technology verticals. Our strategic market analysis emphasizes on market estimations, technology analysis, emerging high-growth applications, deeply segmented granular country-level market data, and other important market parameters useful in the strategic decision-making for senior management. BIS Research offers syndicate as well as custom studies and expert consultations to firms, providing them with specific and actionable insights on novel technology markets, business models, and competitive landscapes. Contact: Bhavya Banga Email: [email protected] +1-510-404-8135 BIS Research Inc. 39111 PASEO PADRE PKWY STE 313, FREMONT CA 94538-1686 Visit our Blog @ https://bisresearch.com/news Get Expert Insights @ https://community.insightmonk.com Connect with us on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/company/bis-research Connect with us on [email protected] https://twitter.com/BISResearch Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/495163/BIS_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE BIS Research DUBLIN, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Automotive 3D Printing Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global automotive 3D printing market reached a value of US$ 2.13 Billion in 2021. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to reach a value of US$ 7.39 Billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 23.04% during 2021-2027. Keeping in mind the uncertainties of COVID-19, we are continuously tracking and evaluating the direct as well as the indirect influence of the pandemic. These insights are included in the report as a major market contributor. Three-dimensional (3D) printing refers to automated additive manufacturing technology that assists in creating rapid prototypes for fabricating layer-by-layer materials to design patterns, physical models, and tooling components. It aids in creating various lightweight intricate geometric pieces, including internal channels and wire mesh, reducing prototyping cost and manufacturing complex parts, while ensuring minimal wastage of materials. On account of these properties, 3D printing is extensively used in the automotive sector to enable automobile designers to validate prototypes, conceptualize, design and customize vehicle parts in a shorter period. At present, it is commercially available in metal, polymer and ceramics material types. The significant expansion in the automotive sector, along with the increasing demand for lightweight materials to enhance fuel efficiency in automobiles is primarily driving the market growth. Automotive 3D printing solution is widely adopted in the sector for manufacturing various complex parts of vehicles, while reducing lead time, which represents a key factor primarily driving the market growth. This can be attributed to the various advantages, such as reduced capital investments and high performance, associated with the deployment of automotive 3D printing systems. In line with this, the introduction of fused deposition modelling (FDM) solutions for manufacturing prototypes and concept model parts is acting as another major growth-inducing factor. The computer-aided system assists in deriving inputs from the processing unit, which further commands the model to start printing materials that are usually made from high-performance thermoplastics. Other factors, such as the emerging trend of customized automotive parts and extensive strategic collaborations amongst key players and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for introducing innovative automotive 3D printing systems to meet the evolving consumer needs, are creating a positive outlook for the market. Competitive Landscape: The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being 3D Systems Inc., 3DGence, Autodesk Inc., Desktop Metal Inc., EOS GmbH, Formlabs Inc., Hoganas AB, Materialise NV, SLM Solutions Group AG, Stratasys Ltd., Ultimaker BV and voxeljet AG. Key Questions Answered in This Report: How has the global automotive 3D printing market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years? What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global automotive 3D printing market? What are the key regional markets? What is the breakup of the market based on the component type? What is the breakup of the market based on the technology type? What is the breakup of the market based on the material type? What is the breakup of the market based on the application? What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry? What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry? What is the structure of the global automotive 3D printing market and who are the key players? What is the degree of competition in the industry? Key Topics Covered: 1 Preface 2 Scope and Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Introduction 4.1 Overview 4.2 Key Industry Trends 5 Global Automotive 3D Printing Market 5.1 Market Overview 5.2 Market Performance 5.3 Impact of COVID-19 5.4 Market Forecast 6 Market Breakup by Component Type 6.1 Hardware 6.1.1 Market Trends 6.1.2 Market Forecast 6.2 Software 6.2.1 Market Trends 6.2.2 Market Forecast 6.3 Service 6.3.1 Market Trends 6.3.2 Market Forecast 7 Market Breakup by Technology Type 7.1 Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 7.1.1 Market Trends 7.1.2 Market Forecast 7.2 Stereo Lithography (SLA) 7.2.1 Market Trends 7.2.2 Market Forecast 7.3 Digital Light Processing (DLP) 7.3.1 Market Trends 7.3.2 Market Forecast 7.4 Electronic Beam Melting (EBM) 7.4.1 Market Trends 7.4.2 Market Forecast 7.5 Selective Laser Melting (SLM) 7.5.1 Market Trends 7.5.2 Market Forecast 7.6 Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 7.6.1 Market Trends 7.6.2 Market Forecast 8 Market Breakup by Material Type 8.1 Metal 8.1.1 Market Trends 8.1.2 Market Forecast 8.2 Polymer 8.2.1 Market Trends 8.2.2 Market Forecast 8.3 Ceramic 8.3.1 Market Trends 8.3.2 Market Forecast 9 Market Breakup by Application 9.1 Production 9.1.1 Market Trends 9.1.2 Market Forecast 9.2 Innovation and R&D 9.2.1 Market Trends 9.2.2 Market Forecast 9.3 Prototyping 9.3.1 Market Trends 9.3.2 Market Forecast 10 Market Breakup by Region 11 SWOT Analysis 12 Value Chain Analysis 13 Porters Five Forces Analysis 14 Price Analysis 15 Competitive Landscape 15.1 Market Structure 15.2 Key Players 15.3 Profiles of Key Players 15.3.1 3D Systems Inc. 15.3.1.1 Company Overview 15.3.1.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.1.3 Financials 15.3.1.4 SWOT Analysis 15.3.2 3DGence 15.3.2.1 Company Overview 15.3.2.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.3 Autodesk Inc. 15.3.3.1 Company Overview 15.3.3.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.3.3 Financials 15.3.3.4 SWOT Analysis 15.3.4 Desktop Metal Inc. 15.3.4.1 Company Overview 15.3.4.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.5 EOS GmbH 15.3.5.1 Company Overview 15.3.5.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.6 Formlabs Inc. 15.3.6.1 Company Overview 15.3.6.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.7 Hoganas AB 15.3.7.1 Company Overview 15.3.7.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.8 Materialise NV 15.3.8.1 Company Overview 15.3.8.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.8.3 Financials 15.3.9 SLM Solutions Group AG 15.3.9.1 Company Overview 15.3.9.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.9.3 Financials 15.3.10 Stratasys Ltd. 15.3.10.1 Company Overview 15.3.10.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.10.3 Financials 15.3.11 Ultimaker BV 15.3.11.1 Company Overview 15.3.11.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.12 voxeljet AG 15.3.12.1 Company Overview 15.3.12.2 Product Portfolio 15.3.12.3 Financials For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/fft2x5 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 BEIJING, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) will convene its 20th National Congress on October 16 to bring China's development to the next stage. This congress is being held after China has accomplished its first centenary goal of building xiaokang - a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2021 - and to start the second centenary goal of building a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by 2049. From the founding of the CPC in 1921, the Chinese people took more than two decades to throw off oppression as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and found the People's Republic of China in 1949. After the launch of reform and opening-up in 1978 and through the continuous efforts of the Chinese people, China experienced the transformation from a huge, poor and backward country in the East into a thriving socialist China. Today, after having lauded the great achievements that China has made in the past 100 years, the international community is paying close attention to how it will create a new miracle in a more complicated international environment. It is also necessary to review how the CPC has led the Chinese people to accomplish the first goal, as history always carries the secrets of future success. This is the first installment of the Global Times' special coverage of the special event. Jiaxing, a city in East China's Zhejiang Province, has become a "must-visit" place for many Chinese people, especially in recent days, as the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) gets set to convene. The red boat that anchors off the bank of the Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing and the story that 13 people representing more than 50 CPC members across China adopted the Party's program and proclaimed the founding of the CPC on the boat brought visitors back to the CPC's starting point of leading the Chinese people out of humiliation, poverty and the scourge of war. The founding of the CPC a hundred years ago was a pivotal event in Chinese history. From the outset, the CPC and the Party members have made the well-being of the Chinese people and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation its abiding goals. In October 2017, when the 19th CPC National Congress concluded, the CPC's newly elected top leadership, headed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, visited Nanhu Lake, where they vowed to stay true to the Party's original aspiration and founding mission and serve the people. This was Xi's first domestic trip after the 19th CPC National Congress, and it was also at this congress that China set out a clear timetable and road map to complete building xiaokang a moderately prosperous society. On July 1, 2021, at the ceremony marking the centennial of the CPC's founding, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and president of China, declared that China had realized its First Centenary Goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, which means that China has put an end to absolute poverty, and is now marching in confident strides toward the Second Centenary Goal of building a great modern socialist country. From 1949 to 2021, the city of Jiaxing, where the red boat remains as the physical birthplace of the CPC, together with thousands of other cities across China, witnessed the perseverance of generations of Chinese people, led by the CPC, progressing step by step from a subsistence level of living to piecemeal prosperity, then to moderate prosperity throughout the country. All the stories that have happened in these Chinese cities make up the greater chapter of China's rise and also revealed the secrets of how the CPC has led the Chinese people to make such achievements. Starting with an abiding dream Xiaokang, a term that means moderate prosperity, has carried Chinese people's desire for a better life and has been a consistent aspiration of the Chinese nation since ancient times. However, for millennia, moderate prosperity remained a dream, and the modern history of China was filled with the bitterness of being reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and subjected to terrible external oppression. With its aspiration and founding mission of seeking happiness for the people and rejuvenating the Chinese nation, the CPC, since its founding in 1921, has united the Chinese people in achieving one success after another. They earned victory in the New Democratic Revolution; founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and started the socialist construction. Through accumulating small achievements in various fields in different cities, China eventually built a comparatively sound industrial system out of a war-torn country, laying the foundation for a future economic leap. Strengthening strategic planning and policy design, formulating phased objectives, reviewing experience and summarizing findings in practice are the valuable lessons that the CPC and Chinese people have drawn from the early years of the PRC. For example, to develop modern industry, agriculture, transportation and defense, from 1953 to 1957, China began to implement its First Five-Year Plan (1953-57). In the 1960s, the CPC also set the goal of achieving the Four Modernizations - modernization of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology - by the end of the 20th century, and devised a two-stage development plan to this end. As the city of Jiaxing witnessed the founding of the CPC, more cities across China witnessed the rapid development in the first decade after the founding of the PRC. For example, Anshan in Northeast China's Liaoning Province saw the first batch of melted iron produced in 1949; China's first steam locomotive was made in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province in 1952; the first batch of "Jiefang (Liberation)" homemade trucks came off the production line in 1956 in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin Province; the first black and white television was manufactured in North China's Tianjin in 1958. Hard work brought achievements. China's GDP in 1952 was 67.9 billion yuan with per capita GDP at 119 yuan, while in 1978, the GDP increased to 367.9 billion yuan and the per capital GDP in that year was 385 yuan, according to a white paper on China's xiaokang issued in 2021. Despite the fundamental changes China had made, it still had a long way to go to catch up with many other countries in the world. China's per capita GDP in 1949 was only $23, roughly a similar level with neighboring India for about a decade. While the US's GDP in 1949 was $272.5 billion with the per capital GDP of $1,798.33. Leaping through opening-up The year 1978 was a shining year in the history of Chinese people's struggle to build a better-off society through China's reform and opening-up. Also, in the early years of reform and opening-up, Deng Xiaoping for the first time used the term xiaokang to present his vision of China's modernization. The top Chinese leader also set the goal of delivering a xiaokang life for the Chinese people and building a xiaokang society by the end of the 20th century. By xiaokang, we need to achieve a per capita GNP of $800, Deng elaborated in multiple occasions. More cities in the country have experienced the launch of the Chinese miracle since 1978, and Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, stands out among them. In July 1979, a huge explosion leveled the mountains in Shekou in southern Shenzhen, firing the "first shot" of China's reform and opening-up - a path that differed greatly from the planned economic mechanism of the time. The flattened land and scattered earth, which had filled the sea, were used to create infrastructure for China's first special economic industrial park and marked the prelude of China's rise as a global economic power that is strong enough to unnerve the US today. But for pioneers in Shekou, even communicating with the outside world was a big headache, as only people in Beijing and Shanghai were able to make international calls back in 1979. The central government then "specially approved" 800 automatic exchanges for Shekou, giving the very first special economic zone the ability to make direct calls overseas and initiated 24 national reform firsts. The first joint-stock enterprise, the first joint-stock bank, and the first joint-stock insurance company, were all born out of Shekou, and most of these "firsts" are the normal state of China's market economy. Shekou's experience soon inspired the rest of the country. In August 1980, China approved the establishment of special economic zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou in South China's Guangdong Province and Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province. In May 1984, China further opened 14 coastal port cities including Tianjin, Dalian in Liaoning, and Yantai and Qingdao in Shandong. The CPC and the Chinese people have seized the historic opportunities and properly managed the enormous changes. By staying committed to deeper reform and broader opening-up to the world, China has realized the greatest economic and social transformation in contemporary history. In 1987, Shenzhen had already seen its GDP grow 30 times compared with the figure in 1979. The Shenzhen government also took the lead in introducing the first provisional regulations in the country to encourage scientific and technological personnel to invest in technology patents, management and other elements and set up private technology enterprises. In the same year, 43-year-old ex-military officer Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei. That's also when the 111-year-old Ericsson entered China for the first time and participated in the construction of China's very first mobile communication base station. Twenty-two years later, in 2009, Huawei was identified by Ericsson as the "most serious competitor" in mobile systems. The Chinese high-tech giant has now become a world leader in the fifth generation of telecommunications technology, topping the market with a 31 percent market share in terms of global telecom equipment revenue in 2020, followed by Ericsson with a 15 percent share. In 40 years, Shenzhen has grown from a small fishing village with a population of only 30,000 to an international metropolis with a population of over 10 million. Its urban area has expanded from 3 square kilometers to more than 2,000 square kilometers, and with GDP volume swelling 10,000-fold, Shenzhen's story is seen as a mirror of China's economic miracle. By 2021, Shenzhen's GDP at current prices exceeded 3 trillion yuan ($475 billion), bringing it close to Norway's GDP of $482.44 billion and far more than the $396.99 billion of Singapore. In yet another milestone, the Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee in November 1993 approved the decision to establish a socialist market economic system. Hereinafter, a vibrant private sector has risen to prominence. The small commodity market in Yiwu, a once landlocked county in Zhejiang Province and home to the largest number of the country's small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, has since grown into the world's largest wholesale market and the barometer of China's foreign trade. Yiwu is now known as the "world's supermarket" as it is home to 2 million small and medium-sized enterprises. Commodities ranging from toys, socks, hair accessories and festive decorations are sent to more than 200 countries and regions around the world every day. According to the locals, Yiwu traders dominate global rivals due to their "hard work, flexibility and willingness to do businesses with lower profits," which are also believed to be the secret of China's initial manufacturing success. The most well-known representative of Yiwu traders is Lou Zhongping, who is often referred to as the "King of Straws" by media outlets for owning one of the world's largest producers of drinking straws. Born into an impoverished family of six siblings in Yiwu in 1965, Lou dropped out of school at the age of 14 to eke out a living as an itinerant peddler. At that time, to earn 0.5 yuan, Lou would ride his tricycle for 6 kilometers for delivery. Starting the low-margin straw business from scratch in the 1990s, Lou's company now does businesses with the likes of McDonald's, KFC and Starbucks, becoming one of the world's largest producers of drinking straws. The company churns out more than 10 billion straws each year for domestic use and export to Japan, Europe and the US. Lou's business success also mirrors the shift of global value chains and transnational production lines. China's manufacturing industry has also become dominant in producing just about anything from commonplace household items to integral pieces in automotive manufacturing. China's list of trading partners, which numbered in the 40s in 1978, grew to 231 economies in 2017. The country's total value of import and export of goods grew by an annual average of 18.6 percent from 1978 to 2017 to reach 27.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 11.5 percent of the world's total. In the same period, Chinese exports grew to 15.3 trillion yuan from just 16.8 billion yuan, up on average 19.1 percent year-on-year. Zhejiang, the province where Yiwu is located, is now one of the country's most economic prosperous areas along with South China's Guangdong Province. In July 2021, Zhejiang was granted a new mission in China's development - it launched a document detailing the specific plans to develop itself into a common prosperity pilot zone - an integral part of China's second centenary goal, embarking on a journey that will become an example in the country of how to reduce disparities between regions, urban and rural areas, and incomes. The miracles in Shenzhen and Yiwu are the epitomes of the quick development of China. China's GDP increased from 367.9 billion yuan in 1978 to 1,887.3 billion yuan in 1990, 10,028 in 2000 and 41,211.9 in 2010. While its per capital GDP grew from 1978's 385 yuan to 30,808 yuan in 2010. Right now, Chinese people enjoy bigger houses, have faster and more comfortable transportation and have full access to daily necessities. Personal incomes have grown steadily, with the average per capita disposable income up from 171 yuan in 1978 to 12,520 yuan in 2010. In turn, the quality of life has improved, with the Engel coefficient of urban residents down from 57.5 percent in 1978 to 31.9 in 2010. In 2010, China's per capita GDP tripled from the India's $1,358. While back in 1978, China's per capita GDP was only $156, which was far below the US' of around $10,000 at that time. It was also significantly lower than India's $206. In 2010 - the same year China accomplished its 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) - China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy, just behind the US, in terms of GDP expressed in dollar terms. Together, all aspects in the Chinese society have experienced fundamental changes with the Chinese people taking a step further to the goal of xiaokang. Perseverance over generations At its 18th National Congress in 2012, the CPC announced that China would realize the First Centenary Goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2021. One month after the 18th CPC National Congress concluded, Xi visited Fuping county in North China's Hebei Province, where the first anti-Japanese invasion base area behind enemy lines was built by the CPC. In Fuping, Xi sent out the mobilization order for the poverty alleviation campaign. Since then, people in the county have worked hard to fight poverty. Tang Furong, a farmer born in Fuping, has witnessed the changes taking place in his county firsthand. In 1940, Tang left Fuping due to starvation and went to find his uncle in adjacent Shanxi Province. But in 1962, he returned to Fuping. Although life had generally improved by then, Tang and his fellow villagers were striving for a better one. In 2012, the county was going through remarkable changes. To facilitate poverty alleviation, it was divided into eight areas with local officials taking the lead. Excellent Party members were selected to become Party chiefs in various villages. Together with 62 special teams deployed by the provincial government, they embarked on a journey to eradicate poverty in 209 villages across Fuping. Teaching villagers to grow edible mushrooms, helping them to apply for loans to build greenhouses, finding investments to boost local tourism and services industries, launching programs to relocate impoverished residents, upgrading local infrastructure With the help of provincial assistance and the persistence of local residents, Fuping residents' lives have gradually improved. Drinking safe water and walking on the newly built roads, residents in Fuping have also enjoyed upgraded grid network and telecommunication services. The per capita disposable income for local villagers grew from around 950 yuan in 2012 to more than 15,600 yuan in 2017. Since 2013, 13 schools were built and 93 schools were upgraded. On February 29, 2020, 108,100 registered impoverished residents were announced to have escaped poverty, marking a phased victory of poverty alleviation in Fuping. Currently, Tang, who is over 100 years old, is living in a new apartment with endowment insurance and subsidies from the local governments at different levels. Similar stories of poverty alleviation like those in Fuping happened in every remote area across China since 2012. According to data from a whitepaper the State Council released in 2021, by the end of 2020, all of the 99 million rural poor, and all of the 832 counties and 128,000 villages classified as poor under China's current poverty line, had emerged from poverty. The per capita disposable income of rural residents in poor areas reached 12,588 yuan in 2020. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 9.2 percent in real terms from 2013 to 2020, 2.2 percentage points higher than the average growth for rural residents nationwide. Formerly impoverished households now have adequate food, clothing and bedding for every season and all weather conditions. In 2020, China's GDP stood at 102.6 trillion yuan and the per capita GDP was 72,000 yuan. In February 2021, Xi solemnly declared "complete victory" on eradicating extreme poverty in China. Several months later, at the ceremony on July 1, 2021marking the centennial of the CPC's founding, the Chinese leader declared that China had succeeded in the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects through the continued efforts of the whole Party and the entire nation. Analysts across the world praised these achievements and said that it also showed China's development is entering a new phase, with a more ambitious goal expected in the next hundred years under the leadership of the CPC. By reviewing the long journey of poverty alleviation, analysts pointed out that its success in eradicating extreme poverty was based on the principles that it used to achieve the goal for xiaokang - CPC leadership, commitment to time-phased objectives, achieving developments through reforms and opening-up and the persistence and hard work of the Chinese people. They noted that China's realization of xiaokang represents the fulfillment of an intermediate target on the way to modernization and national rejuvenation and the CPC and the Chinese people have already embarked on the new journey forward with more history and miracles waiting ahead for the Chinese people to make when pursuing the second centennial goal of building "a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious" by 2049. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277119.shtml SOURCE Global Times BOSTON , Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States settled a False Claims Act case brought Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, client against DermaTran Health Solutions, LLC, a compounding pharmacy based in Rome, Georgia, its parent State Mutual Insurance Company, President Delos Yancey, and other defendants. Under the agreement, Defendants paid over $6.87 million to resolve allegations that they defrauded government payers in a scheme to sell compounded drugs. State Mutual Insurance Company hired our client to provide accounting services for DermaTran. She repeatedly expressed concerns about the practices she witnessed. However, in 2017, after being repeatedly ignored by her employers, she approached our firm seeking assistance in reporting the alleged fraud. As alleged in our Complaint, Yancey caused State Mutual Insurance subsidiaries to bankroll DermaTran, to sell "compounded" pain creams. These are often very expensive drugs created by a pharmacy rather than drug manufacturer. Pharmacy Insurance Administrators, LLC, a subsidiary of Insurance Administrative Solutions, LLC; which was a subsidiary of Gulfcoast Administrators, LLC; which was majority-owned by Life & Health Holdings, Inc.; which was a subsidiary of State Mutual Insurance Company, was created to handle the billing. Government-backed health insurance programs such as TRICARE often reimbursed thousands of dollars for these prescriptions, but required pharmacies charge them no more than what they charged cash-paying, uninsured patients. In the interests of profit, defendants ignored these rules and charged TRICARE hundreds of dollars while selling the same prescriptions for as little as $30. Defendants also avoided charging copays to patients to make them indifferent to the high prices they charged insurers and paid kickbacks to doctors to induce prescriptions. Under the False Claims Act , private citizens (known a "relators") who know of fraud against the government can act as a whistleblower and bring claims on the government's behalf. If successful, the relator receives a share of the government's recovery. Our client received $1,434,775 or nearly 21% of the settlement plus payment from defendants compensating for retaliating against her. Our client praised the results: "The process was long, stressful and sometimes scary - but it was necessary. When you see people in business who take advantage of the system, without regard to the harm it causes to veterans, hard-working citizens, and taxpayers, you can't stand by silently. I am grateful to my amazing legal team, for standing by my side throughout." WLC attorney David W. S. Lieberman praised the outstanding work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony DeCinque, Neeli Ben-David, and Armen Adzhemyan. "This was an extremely complex fraud, but the attorneys in the Northern District of Georgia worked hand in glove with relator to understand the scheme and bring the case to a successful resolution." WLC attorneys Bruce Judge and Suzanne Durrell added their appreciation for their courageous client who sounded the alarm on this important issue. "Our client could easily have kept silent about the fraud she witnessed, but she did the right thing and came forward to tell the government about a serious fraudulent scheme that was draining millions from veterans and other vulnerable patients. We view this settlement as a clear vindication of her difficult choice to come forward." We are grateful for the work of our co-counsel, Julie Bracker and Jason Marcus of Bracker and Marcus and Joshua Russ and Allison Cook of Reese Marketos . The Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, based in Boston, devotes its practice to representing clients actions under the federal and state False Claims Acts and other whistleblower programs . Among the firm's many recent successes is a $6.5 million settlement under federal and state False Claims Acts for opioid treatment fraud. For more information, contact the Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC at 617.366. 2800. SOURCE Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC HONOLULU, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HEI) (NYSE: HE) will announce its third quarter 2022 financial results on Monday, November 7. In addition, American Savings Bank, F.S.B. (ASB), a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of HEI, will announce its third quarter 2022 financial results on Friday, October 28. HEI will conduct a webcast and conference call to discuss third quarter 2022 consolidated earnings, 2022 earnings guidance and regulatory and other matters on Monday, November 7 at 11:15 a.m. Hawaii time (4:15 p.m. Eastern time). To listen to the conference call, dial 1-844-200-6205 (U.S.) or +1-929-526-1599 (international) and enter passcode 162868. Parties may also access presentation materials and/or listen to the conference call by visiting the conference call link on HEI's website at www.hei.com under "Investor Relations," sub-heading "News and Events Events and Presentations." A replay will be available online and via phone. The online replay will be available on HEI's website about two hours after the event. An audio replay will also be available about two hours after the event through November 21. To access the audio replay, dial 1-866-813-9403 (U.S.) or +(44) 204-525-0658 (international) and enter passcode 881525. HEI and Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (Hawaiian Electric) intend to continue to use HEI's website, www.hei.com , as a means of disclosing additional information; such disclosures will be included in the Investor Relations section of the website. Accordingly, investors should routinely monitor the Investor Relations section of HEI's website, in addition to following HEI's, Hawaiian Electric's and American's press releases, HEI's and Hawaiian Electric's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings and HEI's public conference calls and webcasts. Investors may sign up to receive e-mail alerts via the "Investor Relations" section of the website. The information on HEI's website is not incorporated by reference into this document or into HEI's and Hawaiian Electric's SEC filings unless, and except to the extent, specifically incorporated by reference. Investors may also wish to refer to the Public Utilities Commission of the State of Hawaii (PUC) website at dms.puc.hawaii.gov/dms to review documents filed with, and issued by, the PUC. No information on the PUC website is incorporated by reference into this document or into HEI's and Hawaiian Electric's SEC filings. About HEI The HEI family of companies provides the energy and financial services that empower much of the economic and community activity of Hawaii. HEI's electric utility, Hawaiian Electric, supplies power to approximately 95% of Hawaii's population and is undertaking an ambitious effort to decarbonize its operations and the broader state economy. Its banking subsidiary, American Savings Bank, is one of Hawaii's largest financial institutions, providing a wide array of banking and other financial services and working to advance economic growth, affordability and financial fitness. HEI also helps advance Hawaii's sustainability goals through investments by its non-regulated subsidiary, Pacific Current. For more information, visit www.hei.com . Contact: Julie Smolinski Phone: (808) 543-7300 Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Sustainability E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- During HUAWEI CONNECT 2022 Dubai, Huawei unveiled the upgraded capabilities of its Intelligent Cloud-Network Solution at the "Intelligent Cloud-Network, Unleashing Digital Productivity" summit. These capabilities, which center on three major scenarios CloudFabric 3.0, CloudCampus 3.0, and CloudWAN 3.0 are provided to meet network development trends. Huawei also released the L3.5 Data Center Autonomous Driving Network White Paper, together with IEEE-UAE Section and pioneering customers, to contribute to the thriving data communications industry and unleash digital productivity. Daniel Tang, CTO of Huawei Data Communication Product Line, delivers a speech entitled "Intelligent Cloud-Network, Leading Future Digital Innovation" The changes in enterprise business are driving the development of enterprise ICT infrastructure, and IP networks serving as the bridge between IT and CT and covering all production and office procedures of enterprises, constitute the connectivity foundation for industry digital transformation. Networks have never been more important than they are today. Daniel Tang, CTO of Huawei Data Communication Product Line, shed light on how to respond to future development trends and address network challenges. According to Daniel Tang, Huawei keeps innovating data communications technologies in areas such as Wi-Fi 7, 400GE, IPv6 Enhanced, multi-cloud synergy, autonomous driving network, and ubiquitous security. With these innovative technologies, Huawei has upgraded its capabilities in three scenarios: CloudFabric 3.0, CloudCampus 3.0, and CloudWAN 3.0. CloudFabric 3.0 Huawei CloudFabric 3.0 offers full-lifecycle intelligent capabilities for multi-cloud and multi-vendor networks based on L3.5 ADN technology. Stand-out features include unified management and control, flexible orchestration and collaboration, simulation & verification, risk prediction, and unified O&M for applications and networks. Plus, this solution facilitates easy interconnection with customers' IT management systems to achieve end-to-end automation. Key results include easy deployment, easy O&M, and easy evolution. By leveraging Huawei's ADN and hyper-converged Ethernet technologies, Ankabut is building the world's first HPC supercomputing center with Ethernet and InfiniBand co-cluster. At the summit, Huawei, together with IEEE-UAE Section, Ankabut of UAE, and CBK of Kuwait, released the L3.5 Data Center Autonomous Driving Network White Paper. CloudCampus 3.0 Huawei further upgraded its CloudCampus 3.0 offerings by unveiling a host of flagship products, including the first enterprise-class Wi-Fi 7 AP AirEngine 8771-X1T, next-generation flagship core switch CloudEngine S16700, and 4-in-1 hyper-converged enterprise gateway NetEngine AR5710. Huawei CloudCampus 3.0 helps enterprises simplify their campus networks from four aspects: access, architecture, branch, and Operations and Maintenance (O&M). CloudWAN 3.0 In the WAN field, Huawei continues to innovate technologies such as SRv6, FlexE slicing, and application-based IFIT measurement, and all of these technologies rely on IPv6 Enhanced. Huawei has further upgraded its CloudWAN 3.0 offerings to achieve agile connectivity, deterministic experience, and agile O&M and launched an ultra-high-density multi-service aggregation router NetEngine 8000 F8 to improve digital productivity with agile connectivity. With Huawei's help, the Gauteng province successfully deployed the first 100GE private network in South Africa GBN. The future digital world is full of uncertainties. As the saying goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Mindful of this, Huawei strongly advocates partnerships and will continue to cooperate and innovate with more customers and partners in the data communication field. Vincent Liu, President of Huawei's Global Enterprise Network Marketing & Solutions Sales Dept, highlighted that Huawei has set up many regional joint innovation labs and OpenLabs. Through these labs, Huawei is well poised to jointly innovate with customers from sectors such as public service, oil and gas, electric power, finance, education, and ISP. These concerted efforts pay off in many high-value application scenarios and achieve remarkable results. To date, Huawei has already trained and certified 188,000 data communication engineers, providing a large pool of ICT talent for digital transformation across industries. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1921355/image_986294_38236382.jpg SOURCE Huawei Within just a few hours, U.S. students who solved more than 228,000 Imagine Math problems, converted earned math points to $5,000 for the American Red Cross Hurricane Ian Fund SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Students across the U.S. who use Imagine Learning's Imagine Math program completed math problems and donated earned points from the program to raise $5,000 for the American Red Cross Hurricane Ian Relief Fund in just a few hours. Throughout the school year, students solved more than 228,000 math problems to earn more than 5 million math points, which translates to $5,000 for Hurricane Ian relief. On Monday, Oct. 10, Imagine Learning representatives presented a $5,000 check to the American Red Cross chapter in Tampa, Florida. The funds will be dedicated to supporting relief efforts in Lee County, Florida. Presentation of a donation that was raised by Imagine Math students who solved more than 228,000 math problems to earn 5 million math points, which translated to $5,000. Students across the country decided to donate their points to the American Red Cross Hurricane Fund, which reached the $5,000 goal in a record time of three hours. L to R: Nicole Sowards, Imagine Learning; Rosimar Freitas, American Red Cross; Mary Lynn Jensen, Imagine Learning. "The Red Cross is grateful for the generosity of community partners like Imagine Learning, which makes a life-changing difference to neighbors facing unimaginable loss from Hurricane Ian," said Kristin Burke, Chief Development Officer for the American Red Cross of Central Florida. The donation is a part of Imagine Learning's charitable giving program. Since the incentive program's inception in 2008, students who have used Imagine Math have donated 1.7 trillion math points, completed more than 2.6 million math lessons, and worked through more than 84 million math problems for a total giving of $172,173 to the American Red Cross. Over the years, students have converted their hard-earned point donations to a variety of American Red Cross causes, including the Haitian Relief Fund, the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund, numerous hurricane relief funds, and most recently the Jackson, Mississippi water crisis. "When Imagine Math students learned they could contribute to the Red Cross to help people affected by Hurricane Ian, they responded in record time," said Jeff Pendleton, SVP and General Manager of Supplemental and Intervention for Imagine Learning. "Normally, it might take up to a week for student donations to reach the $5,000 level but in this instance, it only took 3 hours, which is both astonishing and inspiring." Students from schools all over the country donated their Imagine Math points. Top donations came from schools in Illinois and Texas, in addition to Renaissance Middle Charter School in Doral, Florida. "We could not be prouder of our students; they are an amazing example of our Charter School USA tenets, Integrity of putting others first, and Passion for providing the best education for every child," said Renaissance Middle Charter School Principal, Elaine Castellanos. "On behalf of Renaissance Middle Charter School, I commend 6th grade accelerated math teacher Mr. Beck and his students for their dedication and kindness." Imagine Math combines a rich curriculum with fun, adaptive digital experiences to help students become confident math learners. Recent studies have shown that students who utilize Imagine Math demonstrate significant academic gains on standardized assessments. Ideal as a supplement to standards-based PreKGeometry core instruction, Imagine Math's two age-appropriate learning environments are designed for student engagement. In grades 3 and above, students are invited to a meaningful exploration of mathematical understanding. Rigorous, standards-rich content adapts to the unique needs of each learner to develop essential foundations and conceptual understanding they need to achieve grade-level mastery. In addition, students in grades 3 through 8 can earn points by completing lessons which can be turned into charitable donation dollars. More information about Imagine Math is available at imaginelearning.com/imagine-math. About Imagine Learning Imagine Learning is a PreK12 digital learning solutions company that ignites learning breakthroughs by designing forward-thinking solutions at the intersection of people, curricula, and technology to drive student growth. Imagine Learning serves more than 15 million students and partners with more than half the school districts nationwide. Imagine Learning's flagship products include Imagine Edgenuity, online courseware and virtual school services solutions; supplemental and intervention solutions for literacy, language, mathematics, and computer science; and high-quality, digital-first core curriculum, including Illustrative Mathematics, EL Education, and Odell Educationall on the Imagine Learning Classroomand Twig Science. Read more about Imagine Learning's digital solutions at imaginelearning.com. SOURCE Imagine Learning LLC NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global in-vitro diagnostics market size is expected to increase by USD 33.16 billion, accelerating at a CAGR of 6.89% during the forecast period. According to the report by Technavio, the market will observe the highest incremental growth in North America. The region will account for 35% of the global market share over the forecast period. Factors such as increased insurance coverage, rise in R&D expenditure, and the growth of the geriatric population with chronic diseases are significantly contributing to the growth of the regional market. Explore future growth opportunities across various regions in detail. Buy Report Now Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global In-vitro Diagnostics Market 2022-2026 The market is driven by factors such as the increasing geriatric population, chronic, and infectious diseases, high demand for personalized medicine, and increasing investments in drug discovery. To leverage the current opportunities, market vendors must strengthen their foothold in the fast-growing segments while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. The report covers the following areas: In-vitro Diagnostics Market 2022-2026: Segmentation Technology Immunoassay Molecular Diagnostics Clinical Chemistry Hematology Others The market growth in the immunoassay segment will be significant during the forecast period. Immunoassay is a technique that primarily focuses on the identification and documentation of high-resolution cellular components within cells and tissue constituents such as proteins and lipopolysaccharides in clinical diagnostics and medical research laboratories. It is used to diagnose diseases, for biological research, and for drug development applications, which is driving the growth of the segment. Geography North America Europe Asia Rest Of World (ROW) About 35% of the overall market growth is expected to come from North America during the forecast period. The growth of the regional market can be attributed to high healthcare spending and an increase in promotions about the use of POC tests for the early detection of diseases. Get deeper insights into the contribution of each business segment and region toward the growth of the global market by purchasing our full report. Start by Downloading a Free Sample In-vitro Diagnostics Market 2022-2026: Vendor Analysis and Scope To help businesses improve their market position, the in-vitro diagnostics market provides a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the market. Some of these vendors include: Abbott Laboratories: The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Alinity H-Series and CELL DYN Ruby. The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Alinity H-Series and CELL DYN Ruby. Danaher Corp.: The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as HemoCue Hb 801 System. The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as HemoCue Hb 801 System. DiaSorin SpA: The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as DiaSorin LIAISON Calprotectin Assay. The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as DiaSorin LIAISON Calprotectin Assay. F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd.: The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Elecsys Anti SARS CoV 2. The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Elecsys Anti SARS CoV 2. Illumina Inc.: The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Illumina COVIDSeq Test. The company offers in vitro diagnostics such as Illumina COVIDSeq Test. Agilent Technologies Inc. ARKRAY Inc. Becton Dickinson and Co. and Co. BGI Group Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. bioMerieux SA Grifols SA Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc QIAGEN NV Quest Diagnostics Inc. Siemens AG Sysmex Corp Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. In-vitro Diagnostics Market 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist in-vitro diagnostics market growth during the next five years Estimation of the in-vitro diagnostics market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the in-vitro diagnostics market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of in-vitro diagnostics market vendors Related Reports: In-vitro Diagnostics Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6.89% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 33.16 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 6.03 Regional analysis North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW) Performing market contribution North America at 35% Key consumer countries US, Canada, Germany, China, and Japan Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Abbott Laboratories, Agilent Technologies Inc., ARKRAY Inc., Becton Dickinson and Co., BGI Group, Bio Rad Laboratories Inc., bioMerieux SA, Danaher Corp., DiaSorin SpA, F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Grifols SA, Illumina Inc., Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc, QIAGEN NV, Quest Diagnostics Inc., Siemens AG, Sysmex Corp, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. 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 Technology 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 ($ billion) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) 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 Technology 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on Technology - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on Technology - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Technology Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by Technology Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by Technology 5.3 Immunoassay - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Immunoassay - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Immunoassay - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 30: Chart on Immunoassay - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Immunoassay - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Molecular diagnostics - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Molecular diagnostics - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Molecular diagnostics - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 34: Chart on Molecular diagnostics - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Molecular diagnostics - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Clinical chemistry - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 36: Chart on Clinical chemistry - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 37: Data Table on Clinical chemistry - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 38: Chart on Clinical chemistry - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Clinical chemistry - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.6 Hematology - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 40: Chart on Hematology - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 41: Data Table on Hematology - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 42: Chart on Hematology - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Hematology - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.7 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 44: Chart on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 45: Data Table on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 46: Chart on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.8 Market opportunity by Technology Exhibit 48: Market opportunity by Technology ($ billion) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 49: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 50: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 51: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 52: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 53: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 55: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 56: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: 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 58: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 59: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 60: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: 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 62: Chart on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 63: Data Table on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 64: Chart on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 67: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 68: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 71: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 72: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 75: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 76: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 78: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 79: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 80: Chart on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 81: Data Table on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 82: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 83: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 84: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 85: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 86: Chart on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 87: Data Table on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ billion) Exhibit 88: Chart on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 89: Data Table on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 90: Market opportunity by geography ($ billion) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 91: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 92: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 93: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 94: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 95: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 96: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Abbott Laboratories Exhibit 97: Abbott Laboratories - Overview Exhibit 98: Abbott Laboratories - Business segments Exhibit 99: Abbott Laboratories - Key news Exhibit 100: Abbott Laboratories - Key offerings Exhibit 101: Abbott Laboratories - Segment focus 10.4 Danaher Corp. Exhibit 102: Danaher Corp. - Overview Exhibit 103: Danaher Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 104: Danaher Corp. - Key news Exhibit 105: Danaher Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 106: Danaher Corp. - Segment focus 10.5 DiaSorin SpA Exhibit 107: DiaSorin SpA - Overview Exhibit 108: DiaSorin SpA - Business segments Exhibit 109: DiaSorin SpA - Key news Exhibit 110: DiaSorin SpA - Key offerings Exhibit 111: DiaSorin SpA - Segment focus 10.6 F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. Exhibit 112: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 113: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 114: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 115: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 116: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Segment focus 10.7 Illumina Inc. Exhibit 117: Illumina Inc. - Overview Exhibit 118: Illumina Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 119: Illumina Inc. - Key news Exhibit 120: Illumina Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 121: Illumina Inc. - Segment focus 10.8 Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc Exhibit 122: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Overview Exhibit 123: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Business segments Exhibit 124: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Key offerings Exhibit 125: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Segment focus 10.9 Quest Diagnostics Inc. Exhibit 126: Quest Diagnostics Inc. - Overview Exhibit 127: Quest Diagnostics Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 128: Quest Diagnostics Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 129: Quest Diagnostics Inc. - Segment focus 10.10 Siemens AG Exhibit 130: Siemens AG - Overview Exhibit 131: Siemens AG - Business segments Exhibit 132: Siemens AG - Key news Exhibit 133: Siemens AG - Key offerings Exhibit 134: Siemens AG - Segment focus 10.11 Sysmex Corp Exhibit 135: Sysmex Corp - Overview Exhibit 136: Sysmex Corp - Business segments Exhibit 137: Sysmex Corp - Key offerings Exhibit 138: Sysmex Corp - Segment focus 10.12 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Exhibit 139: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Overview Exhibit 140: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 141: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Key news Exhibit 142: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 143: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 144: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 145: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 146: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 147: Research methodology Exhibit 148: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 149: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 150: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio Partnership to develop state-of-the-art manufacturing research facility aimed at transforming productivity and boosting skills LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor, the industry cloud company, today announced a long-term strategic partnership agreement with the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS). Infor's investment will underpin the development of Model Digital Factory Demonstrators (MDFD) for the NMIS Digital Factory environment at the new NMIS 11,500-square-meter headquarters. This follows Infor's role as founding sponsor of The Smart Factory @ Wichita, an immersive experience centre launched by Deloitte and Wichita State University in Kansas, U.S. NMIS, operated by the University of Strathclyde, is a group of industry-led manufacturing research and development centres with a network of partners brought together to boost the manufacturing community. It is part of the UK's High Value Manufacturing Catapult. Situated alongside Glasgow airport in the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS) in Renfrewshire, the new NMIS headquarters, supported by the Scottish government and its enterprise agencies, will provide facilities where ground-breaking manufacturing and related supply chain research is undertaken to transform productivity levels, making companies more competitive and boosting the skills of the current and future workforce. Once completed, it will play host to business leaders and visitors from across Europe. Infor's investment will fund dedicated MDFDs that will showcase end-to-end manufacturing use cases in the NMIS Digital Factory environment, integrating with the facility's IT backbone and the digital and automation cells. They will demonstrate how modern, advanced technology and solutions can help companies automate processes and transform workplaces. The MDFDs, which are working facsimiles of manufacturing systems, will demonstrate: How new technologies, physical and digital, can be developed and/or deployed, transforming the workplace and boosting productivity. How a representative system for a typical client group e.g., demonstrating key business outcomes for food & beverage process manufacturing or industrial manufacturing companies delivers key business outcomes. How the ecosystem i.e., customer, machine tool company, software partners and NMIS partners can work together in a representative environment. Speaking about the partnership, Chris Dungey, research director at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, said: "I am delighted Infor has decided to join the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland's community and is committed to working with us to transform manufacturing in Scotland and the wider UK. "When it comes to solving problems, growing businesses and ultimately becoming more competitive, data is invaluable to manufacturers and, by partnering with Infor, we can, together, help companies embrace the digital revolution, boost productivity and futureproof their offering," Dungey said. "With over 60,000 customers across more than 175 countries, Infor has 20 years of experience and expertise in implementing industry-specific business software throughout the manufacturing sector," comments Kevin Samuelson, Infor chief executive officer. "As with our sponsorship of The Smart Factory @ Wichita, Infor's support of NMIS demonstrates our commitment to delivering high-value capabilities to the manufacturing sector, and we're looking forward to showcasing the many benefits that smarter manufacturing can bring to industries the world over." "At a time when manufacturing is beset with local and global business challenges, there has never been a greater need for government, industry and academia to join forces to help drive transformational change," comments Anwen Robinson, Infor GM and SVP for UK and Ireland. "Infor is wholly owned by Koch Industries, one of the largest industrial companies in the world, and our investment in NMIS highlights Infor's commitment to supporting manufacturing through not only the latest advancements in technology but through the continual development of key skills right across the sector." About NMIS The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) is a group of industry-led manufacturing R&D, innovation and skills facilities supported by a network of partners across Scotland, all working together to transform the future of manufacturing. The group has a national mandate to create and deliver inspiring, sustainable and translational research and skills for all by accelerating innovation in the manufacturing community. It is where industry, academia and the public sector work together on ground-breaking manufacturing research to transform productivity levels, make companies more competitive and boost the skills of our current and future workforce. The NMIS Group includes the University of Strathclyde's Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), Lightweight Manufacturing Centre, Digital Process Manufacturing Centre and the NMIS Digital Factory all with teams of industry experienced engineers and researchers working with companies across the manufacturing community in Scotland, the wider UK and beyond from aerospace giants to renewable energy disruptors, first-time inventors to household automotive names. It also includes the Manufacturing Skills Academy, which is transforming the manufacturing workforce of today and tomorrow and a Capability Network bringing together leading organisations from across the Scottish research and innovation, education and training communities. NMIS is operated by the University of Strathclyde. It is supported by the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, Renfrewshire Council and the Scottish Funding Council. It is part of the UK's High Value Manufacturing Catapult. NMIS is headquartered at the heart of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland in Renfrewshire. The flagship 11,500-square-meter heather-coloured building, when opened, will house the NMIS Digital Factory, Manufacturing Skills Academy and publicly accessible collaboration hub, with a window to the world welcoming all who pass to look inside the world of advanced manufacturing. Visit www.nmis.scot. About Infor Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. We develop complete solutions for our focus industries. Infor's mission-critical enterprise applications and services are designed to deliver sustainable operational advantages with security and faster time to value. Over 60,000 organizations in more than 175 countries rely on Infor's 17,000 employees to help achieve their business goals. As a Koch company, our financial strength, ownership structure, and long-term view empower us to foster enduring, mutually beneficial relationships with our customers. Visit www.infor.com. Media contact Richard Moore Infor PR Manager, EMEA +447976111243 [email protected] Copyright 2022 Infor. All rights reserved. The word and design marks set forth herein are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Infor and/or related affiliates and subsidiaries. All other trademarks listed herein are the property of their respective owners. www.infor.com SOURCE Infor 6-in-1 appliance combines smart indoor grilling with air frying, baking, and more to deliver perfect chargrilled results and save energy DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Instant Brands, a leader of innovative and iconic housewares and appliance brands, announces the perfect solution for grilling all year round with the Instant Indoor Grill. As the only indoor grill with an OdorErase carbon filter, it reduces odors up to 30% and provides a true chargrill experience typically only offered through an outdoor grill. The Instant Indoor Grill and Air Fryer is now available for $199.99 at InstantHome.com, Target, and Amazon. Instant Brands has added its EvenCrisp technology into the Indoor Grill to truly make this multifunctional appliance a must-have, using 90% less oil than deep frying to deliver healthier and crispier tender foods. Its unique venting technology circulates hot air around the food for even heating for the best air frying results. The launch of the Instant Indoor Grill is just one example of how Instant Brands is striving to save time, energy, and money for its community of 30 million people worldwide. By making more of its appliances multifunctional like the Indoor Grill, households can reduce their reliance on traditional kitchen appliances which can use up to 60% less energy, according to Instant Brands*. "The introduction of the Instant Indoor Grill is an exciting moment for the brand as we continue to offer our consumers innovative products for more versatile cooking at home," said Ben Gadbois, CEO of Instant Brands. "The Indoor Grill not only allows you to be able to grill any day of the year, but it can also help reduce overall energy use at home which is currently a priority for many families." Instant Indoor Grill, from America's #1 multicooker brand Instant Pot, offers six different functions, allowing users to grill, air fry, bake, broil, roast, and dehydrate their food all in one appliance. No matter which method you use, the see-through ClearCook window allows you to see the cooking progress while following step-by-step cooking instructions via the easy-to-use message display. Cleanup is effortless with its dishwasher-safe detachable grill plate and clear lid until the next grill session. The Instant Indoor Grill and Air Fryer is now available for $199.99 at InstantHome.com, Target, and Amazon. For more information on this launch, please visit InstantHome.com or follow them on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest. Be sure to download the Instant Brands Connect App for easy-to-follow recipes and more. ABOUT INSTANT BRANDS Instant Brands designs, manufactures and markets a global portfolio of innovative and iconic consumer lifestyle brands: Instant, Pyrex, Corelle, Corningware, Snapware, Chicago Cutlery, ZOID and Visions. With people-first and purpose-driven solutions in mind, Instant Brands is reimagining how people live, eat, connect, and play inside the homeand in the spaces where people gather. The Cornell Capital-backed company is headquartered in Downers Grove, Ill., and employs more than 2,000 people across four continents. Today, Instant Brands' products are in millions of homes worldwide. For more information visit Instant Brands or join the community at LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. *[CNET] Air fryers and electric pressure cookers use less energy than conventional ovens Contact: Maria Ryder Litzky Public Relations (201) 222-9118 [email protected] SOURCE Instant Brands ONTARIO, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- Jesus Landa, a radio communications graduate, has completed his new book "La Raya": a potent read about the line that separates the United States from Mexico. Jesus Landa is someone who knows what it feels like to live and survive, inside and outside the line. In this intimate storytelling, he shares his first-hand experiences as a Mexican migrant trying to make it big in America. Jesus M. Landa Landa shares, "The line can be a river, a simple wire, a huge wall, or just that, a simple line, a dividing line. If it were possible to build the famous wall along the entire border between Mexico and the United States, and it could be seen in its entirety from some point, surely it would resemble just that, 'a line.' The same that defines throughout history, or a dream or a nightmare. The line is the door of entry and exit to the United States of America, and it is a book that in its pages shows us the way of life inside and outside of it, of thousands and millions of migrants over time, of all parts of the world. To read her lines is to live inside and outside of her even without being there." Published by Page Publishing, Jesus Landa's insightful tale that will make a migrant think. Did you really go out of your land or did you take your land with you? It's a tale that shows the personal struggles of a migrant who is trying to fit in without losing a significant part of his identity. Readers who wish to experience this interesting work can purchase "La Raya" at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors' books, including distribution in the world's largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Page's accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at www.pagepublishing.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917622/1.jpg SOURCE Page Publishing The premium paint line offers ten timeless colors for interior and exterior spaces and will be featured throughout the new season of Fixer Upper: The Castle SANTA ANA, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Joanna Gaines & KILZ announce the launch of The Castle Collection, a new paint palette curated by Joanna Gaines for the Magnolia Home line. The collection is composed of ten distinctively classic colors including a beautiful range of warm neutrals to moody accents, inspired by the historic castle restoration project located in Waco, Texas and featured in this season of Fixer Upper: The Castle. The Castle Collection "I wanted to honor the history of the castle with rich, unique colors that would complement its grand and traditional aesthetic, while still creating a timeless palette for any style of home," said Joanna Gaines. In speaking about the personally-inspired curation of hues used to transform spaces in this season of Fixer Upper: The Castle, Joanna Gaines reflects on some of her favorite shades from the new collection: Rosy Pink : "This color is inspired by my grandmother, Agnes Rose . It's a subtle pink with a vintage style." "This color is inspired by my grandmother, . It's a subtle pink with a vintage style." Cottage Grove: "A rich blend of navy and green, this color can take on either tone in different light, which makes it both dramatic and cozy all at once." "A rich blend of navy and green, this color can take on either tone in different light, which makes it both dramatic and cozy all at once." Drawing Room: "Named after one of my favorite rooms in the castle, I love the subtle character and charm this gray shade brings to a space." Fixer Upper: The Castle premieres October 14 at 9/8c on Magnolia Network, HBO Max, and discovery+. Viewers can follow along weekly as Joanna Gaines and her husband Chip transform the historic landmark, and get a look at the journey to creating the Castle Collection paint palette. The collection is now available in interior, exterior, chalk and cabinet paint offerings at Ace Hardware and Magnolia.com, and in chalk and cabinet paint offerings at Lowe's. To view the full Magnolia Home by Joanna Gaines paint line, and interact with the Castle Collection palette, visit www.kilz.com/magnolia . About KILZ Since 1974, the KILZ brand has served professional painters and do-it-yourselfers with a trusted line of professional grade, hardworking coatings products, including the #1 selling primer in the industry. With a durable, long-lasting finish, the quality of KILZ products has been trusted for generations, creating a legacy of quality and performance. Also included in this award-winning product lineup is the Magnolia Home by Joanna Gaines Paint collection. For more information, and to find a nearby KILZ brand retailer in the United States or Canada, visit KILZ.com. About Magnolia Magnolia is a Waco, Texas-based home and lifestyle brand founded by Chip and Joanna Gaines. What started in 2003 as a tiny home decor shop has since evolved into a national portfolio of businesses spanning retail, media, hospitality and real estate, including Magnolia Market at the Silos, Magnolia Journal, Magnolia Table, Magnolia Network -- a joint venture between the Gaineses and Warner Bros. Discovery -- and Silos Baking Co., among others. CONTACT: [email protected]om SOURCE KILZ Capriotti's Fans Can Get their Hands on Award-Winning Sandwiches in Bee Cave BEE CAVE, Texas, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, known for its award-winning, hand-crafted cheese steaks, turkey subs and more, will debut a new location in Bee Cave at 3944 RM-620, Suite 130, on October 15. Capriotti's brings the Bee Cave community its 47-year tradition of slow-roasting whole, all-natural turkeys in-house and hand-pulling them every morning along with other favorites all made with fresh ingredients. Capriotti's is known for its wide array of sandwiches including The Bobbie, made with fresh oven-roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and mayo, the Capastrami, made with hot pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing and homemade coleslaw and the cheesesteak is made with premium steak, chicken or Impossible plant-based meat and melted cheese plus hot or sweet peppers. The Bee Cave Capriotti's will offer a convenient order-ahead option, in addition to third-party delivery services. The new shop will bring 15 new jobs to the Bee Cave community. The Bee Cave Capriotti's location is owned and operated by business partners and close friends, Julian King and Warren Shu. King, a graduate of the nationally renowned Restaurant Management Program at Cornell University, has worked in casual-upscale and fine-dining restaurants for over 20 years. Shu, a graduate of the University of Michigan and UCLA business school, specialized in portfolio management at his family investment office, but always had an interest in the restaurant industry. After meeting, Shu introduced King to Capriotti's by having him taste the infamous Capriotti's sandwich, 'The Bobbie'. After his first bite, King was sure that Capriotti's was going to be a success. King and Shu own one other Capriotti's location in Mueller, TX and have committed to bringing six total locations to Austin's surrounding areas in the next four years. "We are very excited to open up our second Capriotti's location in Bee Cave. We love the community and surrounding areas, and we look forward to serving all the wonderful residents and businesses in the area," said King and Shu. "Capriotti's is known for its high-quality, delicious ingredients that make the perfect combination for hoagies and catering. Our team can't wait to provide our delicious options to the Bee Cave community." Bee Cave Capriotti's fans can download the CAPAddicts Rewards app on iOS and Android to earn and redeem rewards and score free food. The Bee Cave Capriotti's will offer a convenient order-ahead option, online ordering, and third-party delivery services. Capriotti's in Bee Cave offers catering for any event, from corporate events to birthday parties, with items such as party trays with cold subs, box lunches, or a hot homemade meatball bar. For additional information, visit www.capriottis.com or call the location at 512-467-4232. About Capriotti's Sandwich Shop Founded in 1976, Capriotti's Sandwich Shop is an award-winning national franchised restaurant chain that remains true to its 45-year tradition of slow-roasting whole, all-natural turkeys in-house every day. Capriotti's fresh ingredients, homemade subs, and unique menu items have won numerous accolades including being named one of the "10 Great Places for a Surprising Sandwich" by USA Today and many "Best of" awards across the country. Capriotti's cold, grilled and vegetarian subs, cheese steaks, and salads are available at more than 170 locations across the U.S. Capriotti's signature sub, The Bobbie, was voted "The Greatest Sandwich in America" by thousands of readers across the country and reported by AOL.com. Capriotti's fans can also download the CAPAddicts Rewards app for iOS and Android, where they can earn and redeem rewards. For more information, visit capriottis.com. Like Capriotti's on Facebook, follow on Twitter or Instagram. Media Contact: NAME, Fishman PR | [email protected] | 847-945-1300 SOURCE Capriotti's Sandwich Shop Legacy Collective and Real Mama Bears Raise Funds for Nonprofits Empowering the LGBTQ+ Community AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Legacy Collective's Mama Bears Giving Circle has raised over $80,000 to issue grants to nonprofits supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Each of the four LBGTQ+ focused nonprofits chosen in the first grant round received $17,500 to continue their work. The participating partner organizations receiving funding are Trevor Project, Gender Spectrum, GLSEN, and Tyler Clementi Foundation. In addition to these nonprofits, Real Mama Bears has received over $10,000 to help further their reach. Founder of Real Mama Bears, Liz Dyer, shares her feelings about the success of the first grant round and the future of the Mama Bears Giving Circle. "I'm so excited about what the Mama Bears Giving Circle has already accomplished and I'll never forget what it feels like to award these first four grants," states Dyer. "But, we have only just begun! There is so much more work to be done, so many more LGBTQ+ lives to touch and encourage. My hope is that this great beginning will inspire thousands of others to join the Mama Bears Giving Circle and take advantage of this opportunity for us to collectively invest in making the world a kinder, safer, more loving place for all LGBTQ+ people to live and thrive." The Mama Bears Giving Circle donors have voted on four new nonprofit partners. The second round of funding raised from the giving circle will be allocated to the following organizations: Texas Health Action: The Kind Clinic: Since 2015, Texas Health Action has provided health services without stigma or judgment and has empowered the community through outreach and education. Texas Health Action operates Kind Clinic, TeleKind, and Waterloo Counseling Center. Resource Center: Resource Center empowers the LGBTQIA+ communities and all people affected by HIV through improving health and wellness, strengthening families and communities and providing transformative education and advocacy. Covenant House Greater Washington: Covenant House Greater Washington serves the region by supporting and transforming the lives of youth ages 18-24 experiencing homelessness, disconnection, and exploitation by offering a safe harbor and supportive services to help these young adults in achieving housing, career, and economic stability. Keshet: Keshet equips Jewish organizations with the skills and knowledge to build LGBTQ-affirming communities and create spaces in which all queer Jewish youth feel seen and valued, and advance LGBTQ rights nationwide. To learn more about the Mama Bears Giving Circle, visit https://legacycollective.org/mamabears/ About Legacy Collective Legacy Collective works to engage systemic problems related to social issues by resourcing what we believe to be the most innovative efforts and funding the most critical projects. Follow Legacy Collective online: Contact: Juliana Jordan [email protected] 512-920-3755 SOURCE Legacy Collective CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Jory Berg has joined the Chicago office of McDonald Hopkins LLC as an Associate in the Strategic Advisory and Restructuring Department Berg's practice focuses on providing sound counsel to clients on complex matters and transactions. While Berg works with a wide variety of clients on various strategic advisory and restructuring challenges, he has particular expertise assisting with insurance coverage matters. This includes analyzing polices, providing comprehensive coverage analysis, and assisting insurers in disputed claims arising under primary and excess commercial general liability and directors and officers liability. He also works to advise on policy drafting, risk management, indemnity contract disputes, and other risk-shifting contract provisions. Prior to the start of his legal career, Berg served as a forensic and litigation consultant for a global advisory firm where he provided independent dispute advisory, investigative, data acquisition/analysis, and forensic accounting services to the global business and legal community. Berg earned his J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law and his Bachelor of Science in business from Indiana University. He can be reached at 312.642.6943 and [email protected] About McDonald Hopkins Founded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Baltimore/Annapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com . CONTACT: Cynthia Stewart McDonald Hopkins LLC 600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Phone: 216.348.5733 Email: [email protected] SOURCE McDonald Hopkins Completion of Phase 1 Hangar Upon completion of project, MHIRJ will add over 100,000 sq. ft. of hangar space Enables MHIRJ's diversification strategy in supporting up to narrow body aircraft BRIDGEPORT, W.Va., Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - MHI RJ Aviation Group (MHIRJ), the largest regional maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) service provider in the US, announced today that it has completed Phase 1 of its expansion project at the West Virginia Service Center, located at North Central West Virginia Airport. Upon completion of the expansion project, MHIRJ will add over 100,000 sq. ft. of hangar space, adding six additional lines of heavy maintenance to its MRO infrastructure. This expansion solidifies MHIRJ's position as the largest regional MRO in the US, offering state-of-the-art facilities to the CRJ Series customer base. In addition, this new expansion will allow MHIRJ to continue pursuing its diversification strategy, enabling MHIRJ to support MRO activities on larger aircraft up to and including narrowbody aircraft. MHIRJ Completes Strategic Expansion of Its West Virginia Facility (CNW Group/MHI RJ Aviation Group) MHIRJ Completes Strategic Expansion of Its West Virginia Facility (CNW Group/MHI RJ Aviation Group) In commemorating this important milestone, MHIRJ hosted an unveiling ceremony of their new hangar in Bridgeport, WV. In attendance were Federal, State and Local dignitaries, current and future customers, members of the Regional Airlines Association (RAA), Mitsubishi Heavy industries, Mitsubishi Heavy industries America and MHIRJ Executives, as well as several hundred WV and international team members to celebrate this significant event. "The CRJ Series aircraft is an integral part of the infrastructure of the Regional Airline network in North America and around the globe. It will continue to play an important role in the future, connecting communities to major aviation hubs," said Hiro Yamamoto, President and CEO of MHIRJ. "With the expansion of the West Virginia facility, MHIRJ continues to invest in building an infrastructure to support the CRJ customers and allows us to advance our diversification strategy." "As the largest Regional MRO provider in the US, the WV Expansion adds new capabilities and capacity to our formidable infrastructure," said Ismail Mokabel, Senior Vice President, Head of Aftermarket. "This generational investment cements MHIRJ's commitment to our customers, the State of WV, the local community, and our valued team members. Today's event is a catalyst for MHIRJ's growth plan, and I am very honored and proud to share this milestone with the MHIRJ team in WV and worldwide." I would like to personally thank all the local stakeholders for their continued support in realizing this significant achievement," said Anthony Hinton, Head of Service Center Network. "This has truly been a team effort by many and brings a continued opportunity to the State of WV and the local community. I am very proud to have been a part of this project." About MHI RJ Aviation Group MHI RJ Aviation Group (MHIRJ) provides comprehensive critical operational, engineering and customer support solutions including maintenance, refurbishment, technical publications, marketing and sales activities for the global regional aircraft industry. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, and bolstered by an Aerospace Engineering Centre, MHIRJ's network of service centres, support offices and parts depots are positioned in important aviation hubs in the U.S., Canada and Germany. MHI RJ Aviation Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. For more information about MHI RJ Aviation Group, please visit: www.mhirj.com About MHI Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), headquartered in Tokyo, is one of the world's leading industrial firms with 80,000 group employees and annual consolidated revenues of around US$38 billion. For more than 130 years, the company has channeled big thinking into innovative and integrated solutions that move the world forward. MHI owns a unique business portfolio covering land, sea, sky and even space. MHI delivers innovative and integrated solutions across a wide range of industries from commercial aviation and transportation to power plants and gas turbines, and from machinery and infrastructure to integrated defense and space systems. For more information, please visit MHI's website: www.mhi.com/index.html *CRJ, CRJ Series and MHIRJ are trademarks of MHI RJ Aviation ULC or its affiliates. SOURCE MHI RJ Aviation Group COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Moo Moo Express Car Wash recently celebrated the Grand Opening of its 24th Central Ohio express car wash location with 10 days of free car washes and a monetary donation campaign for The Marcus Project. Throughout the Grand Opening period at 2615 London Groveport Rd. in Grove City, Ohio, Moo Moo gave away more than 2,272 free car washes at a retail value of more than $40,000. The Company also collected $15,730.96 in monetary donations for The Marcus Project, to help further their mission of assisting children and families in need by creating opportunities, sourcing necessities, and building a feeling of significance. Moo Moo Express Car Wash presented The Marcus Project with a donation of $15,730.96 raised during the Companys 24th Central Ohio Grand Opening. During the Grand Opening, Moo Moo Express Car Wash offered a free signature "Creme de la Creme VIP" car wash ($18 value) to every customer in exchange for a monetary donation to The Marcus Project. Moo Moo also offered discounted retail gift cards with all proceeds donated back to The Marcus Project. ChemQuest, an industry leading car wash chemical products and service provider for Moo Moo, generously donated $1,000. "Our first Grove City location off Stringtown Road opened in 2013. We have been a part of this community for almost 10 years, which is why we could not be prouder to utilize our second Grove City Grand Opening to raise money for a community that has shown us so much support," said John Roush, Express Wash Concepts CEO. "The Marcus Project will continue their efforts in improving the lives of those in this this area, and we will continue to look for ways that we can support organizations like theirs in order to improve the communities we are privileged to be a part of." Moo Moo Express is Central Ohio's leader in the high-end, express car wash market. The company currently operates 24 express washes, with two additional locations expected to open by December, 2022. About Moo Moo Express Car Wash: Founded in 2008, Moo Moo Express Car Wash is Central Ohio's award-winning, premier express car wash with 24 locations and growing. Moo Moo Express is part of the Express Wash Concepts family of express car washes, operating 72+ locations in five states under the brands Moo Moo Express Car Wash, Flying Ace Express Car Wash, Clean Express Auto Wash, Green Clean Express Auto Wash, and Bee Clean Express Car Wash. For more information, visit www.moomoocarwash.com. SOURCE Moo Moo Express Car Wash Book by Entrepreneur and Advocate lisa wise Now Available WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Part memoir, part business guide and part manifesto, Self-Elected: How to Put Justice Over Profit and Soar in Business, the debut book by entrepreneur and social justice advocate lisa wise, provides a blueprint with concrete recommendations for entrepreneurs to center businesses in justice while building successful companies. Self-Elected cites research and case studies to build a compelling argument that prioritizing people and place is the truest path, not only to financial success, but also to a more equitable society. Self-Elected charts the unfazed hustle of passionate entrepreneur and servant leader, lisa wise. Tweet this It tells a deeply authentic and personal story intertwined with powerful guidance for both budding and experienced entrepreneurs. It is the story of how one woman, raised with housing insecurity in rural Idaho, saw her entrepreneurial endeavors transcend from her parents' backyard toolshed to build a thriving family of property management companies. Self-Elected charts the unfazed hustle of a passionate entrepreneur and servant leader, beautifully illustrating how a starting point short on resources and stability, but with an abundance of love, paved the way for a relentless drive and fierce resolve to do more, for good. "If you read lisa's book you'll be able to turn her teachings into a difference-making organization of your own," said Ari Weinzweig, CEO of Zingerman's, the gourmet food business group headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "If the world were led by women like lisa wise, this would be a far more caring, more collaborative, and more creative planet." Self-Elected is available to buy at a range of national and independent bookstores, including Politics and Prose, and Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC. All versions of the book are now available on Self-Elected.com. About lisa wise lisa wise is an entrepreneur, change maker, thought leader, writer, and philanthropist. She is the founder and CEO of Flock DC, a family of real estate management companies overseeing $2 billion in residential real estate throughout Washington DC. SOURCE lisa wise BEIJING, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. ("New Oriental" or the "Company") (NYSE: EDU and SEHK: 9901), a provider of private educational services in China, today announced that it will hold its annual general meeting of shareholders at No. 6 Hai Dian Zhong Street, Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China, on November 18, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. (local time). No proposal will be submitted for shareholder approval at the annual general meeting. Instead, the annual general meeting will serve as an open forum for shareholders of record and beneficial owners of the Company's American depositary shares ("ADSs") to discuss Company affairs with management. The board of directors of the Company has fixed the close of business on October 28, 2022 (Beijing time) as the record date (the "Record Date") for determining the shareholders entitled to receive notice of the annual general meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Holders of record of the Company's common shares at the close of business on the Record Date are entitled to attend the annual general meeting and any adjournment or postponement thereof in person. Beneficial owners of the Company's ADSs are welcome to attend the annual general meeting in person. The Company has filed its annual report on Form 20-F, including its audited financial statements, for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2022, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Form 20-F can be accessed on the Company's website at http://investor.neworiental.org, as well as on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. The Company has also published its annual report for Hong Kong purposes pursuant to the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited ("HKEX"), which can be accessed on the Company's investor relations website at http://investor.neworiental.org as well as the HKEX's website at http://www.hkexnews.hk. About New Oriental New Oriental is a provider of private educational services in China offering a wide range of educational programs, services and products to a varied student population throughout China. New Oriental's program, service and product offerings mainly consist of educational services and test preparation courses, online education and other services, overseas study consulting services, and educational materials and distribution. New Oriental is listed on NYSE (NYSE: EDU) and SEHK (9901.SEHK), respectively. New Oriental's ADSs, each of which represents ten common shares. The Hong Kong-listed shares are fully fungible with the ADSs listed on NYSE. For more information about New Oriental, please visit http://www.neworiental.org/english/. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Ms. Rita Fong FTI Consulting Tel: +852 3768 4548 Email: [email protected] Ms. Sisi Zhao New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. Tel: +86-10-6260-5568 Email: [email protected] SOURCE New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. A Center for Health Information and Analysis report released October 13 details the impact of comorbidities among behavioral health patients on longer stays and unplanned readmissions MNA nurses and healthcare professionals have long fought to protect mental healthcare services and improve staffing to reduce avoidable readmissions CANTON, Mass., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A report released October 13 by the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) focusing on patients with comorbid behavioral health conditions and avoidable readmissions sheds light on structural problems in our healthcare system that the nurses and healthcare professionals of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) have been seeking to address since long before the COVID-19 pandemic. "Patients deserve better from our healthcare system, especially patients who come to hospitals in desperate need, suffering from a combination of mental health, substance use or medical issues," said Katie Murphy, a practicing ICU nurse and President of the MNA. "The hospital industry has long failed these patients by shuttering mental health services or operating with barely enough staff to keep the lights on." "The government must also take responsibility for not protecting essential healthcare services and not treating mental health equally despite the parity law," Murphy said. "Hospital executives have made this crisis worse through their focus on profit margins over providing the level of care needed by patients with mental health challenges and comorbidities. Since the industry only responds to financial incentives, increased reimbursement for mental healthcare may be the carrot that convinces hospitals to help alleviate this crisis." The CHIA report is part of a statewide, all-payer examination dating back to 2016 of the prevalence of comorbid behavioral health conditions and readmissions among hospitalized adults in Massachusetts acute care hospitals. The latest report, entitled "Behavioral Health and Readmissions in Massachusetts Acute Care Hospitals SFY 2020," is the first to include data from the pandemic, covering March to June 2020. Among the report's findings: Almost half (46%) of adults hospitalized in Massachusetts acute care hospitals had at least one comorbid behavioral health condition, representing a majority of discharges (54%) in SFY 2020. This pattern continued during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April- June 2020 ). acute care hospitals had at least one comorbid behavioral health condition, representing a majority of discharges (54%) in SFY 2020. This pattern continued during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April- ). Over sixty percent (62%) of hospitalized adult Medicaid patients had a comorbid behavioral health condition. Patients with any behavioral health comorbidity had inpatient stays that were, on average, 1.4 days longer than patients with no behavioral health comorbidity (6.0 days vs. 4.6 days). Readmission rates for patients with any behavioral health comorbidity were nearly double the readmission rates for patients without any comorbid behavioral health condition (20.6% vs. 10.6%). Loss of Mental Health Beds in Massachusetts MNA nurses and healthcare professionals have for many years fought to preserve mental health beds and services. The association's efforts have included strongly advocating for laws that give the public more time and ability to provide feedback on healthcare closures, and that provide the state greater enforcement powers. The MNA is currently researching the impact of mental health boarding on patients, caregivers, and healthcare facilities in Massachusetts. Closures or proposed closures of mental health services in Massachusetts: All (22) mental health beds at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield. All (28) mental health beds at Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer. All (20) mental health beds at Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield . . The three above proposed closures are part of an ongoing plan by Baystate Health to open a for-profit mental health facility in Holyoke . In 2020, Trinity Health closed 74 child and adult mental health beds at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital. These included at the time the only child mental health beds from New York to Worcester . to . Norwood Hospital: Flooding caused a closure of the hospital in June 2020 . Reopening plans do not include a replacement for the hospital's mental health unit. . Reopening plans do not include a replacement for the hospital's mental health unit. In 2021, Good Samaritan Medical Center announced plans to permanently close its inpatient detox unit, located in Foxborough. DPH found it to be an essential service, and the company then issued notice that it was closing anyway. In 2017, UMass Memorial Medical Center closed 13 psychiatric beds and then opened with US HealthVest a standalone for-profit mental health hospital. Vibra Hospital in Springfield , a psychiatric facility, nursing home behavioral health unit and a long-term, acute care services, closed in 2017. , a psychiatric facility, nursing home behavioral health unit and a long-term, acute care services, closed in 2017. The state closed 125 of 170 beds at Taunton State Hospital in 2012. Westborough State Hospital, a mental health facility, closed completely in 2010. In 2010, UMass Health Alliance Burbank Campus closed a 15-bed inpatient psychiatric unit. In 2009, Cambridge Health Alliance closed 60 of 127 mental health beds at Whidden Memorial Hospital. In addition, a December 2021 report by the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and Massachusetts Association of Behavioral Health Systems showed that psychiatric units and hospitals in Massachusetts had taken at least 154 mental health beds offline solely because of staffing needs within the previous 10 months. "Patients are losing mental health care in their communities because our healthcare system is failing them," Murphy said. "In Massachusetts, after all we have learned about mental health and the effects of trauma, this is an absolute disgrace. Patients should be getting more high-quality care near where they live, not less care many miles away because a hospital CEO decided profits and executive pay are more valuable than caring for the most vulnerable members of our society." Staffing Crisis and Mental Health Just as the COVID-19 pandemic is no excuse for the overall caregiver crisis, it is no justification for not having enough staff in place to care for patients with mental healthcare needs and comorbidities. As WBUR has documented, there is not a shortage of nurses in Massachusetts. Rather, there is a shortage of nurses willing to work under the current conditions at the bedside. "The poor staffing conditions that have affected mental healthcare did not start with the COVID-19 pandemic," Murphy said. "For years, the hospital industry has been exploiting nurses and other healthcare workers by overburdening them with patient assignments and forcing them to work overtime. Hospitals increasingly use just-in-time staffing models, scheduling barely enough nurses to be able to move patients through a revenue-generating system. This approach maximizes profits and leads to growing executive pay. It absolutely fails nurses who are trying to fulfill their professional and moral obligations to provide safe, high-quality patient care." Nurse Survey Results Show Understaffing Impact 55% of nurses in the 2022 State of Nursing in Massachusetts survey said understaffing was the biggest obstacle to providing quality care, and particularly for newer nurses, with 68% of nurses with 0 to 5 years of experience saying understaffing is the biggest obstacle they face. survey said understaffing was the biggest obstacle to providing quality care, and particularly for newer nurses, with 68% of nurses with 0 to 5 years of experience saying understaffing is the biggest obstacle they face. The number of RNs who said they do not feel that they have enough time to provide patients with the care and attention each one needs jumped to a record high of 71%, up from 60% last year. The percentage of nurses who said this year that the overall quality of care in Massachusetts hospitals has gotten worse (83%) is higher by nearly 30 points than any other year. hospitals has gotten worse (83%) is higher by nearly 30 points than any other year. Almost two-thirds (64%) of nurses said inadequate pay or benefits is a major challenge. This response is up from 48% reporting lack of pay or benefits in 2021 and 27% in 2019 a 37-point increase in nurses having a concern about pay and benefits over three years. 33% of RNs reported planning to leave nursing sooner than originally planned. Among newer nurses with 0 to 5 years of experience, 37% are planning to leave sooner the highest percentage of any experience group. Staffing Improvement Efforts of MNA Nurses and Healthcare Professionals For decades, the MNA has advocated for safe staffing levels and enforceable patient limits at the local, state, and national level. The impact of how many patients a nurse is assigned at one time is one of the most studied topics in healthcare. Voluminous peer-reviewed evidence shows maintaining a safe patient limit helps protect the quality of patient care, including by reducing avoidable re-admissions. MNA legislation entitled The Workforce Development and Patient Safety Act would examine current nursing practice, including the impact on quality of patient care, the makeup of the current nursing workforce, and future needs of nursing care in the state. Across Massachusetts , MNA nurses and healthcare professionals work together as union members to negotiate improved staffing levels, wages, benefits and working conditions. These are key to recruitment and retention of caregivers. Highlighted MNA Solutions Regarding Mental Healthcare The Commonwealth should designate an agency or department to collect comprehensive information on all aspects of mental healthcare. The Commonwealth should streamline overlapping responsibilities of Departments of Public Health, Department of Mental Health and the Department of Children and Families to facilitate agency accountability. To ensure that profitability is not the only factor in maintaining essential health services, the state should have the legal power to mandate the establishment or maintenance of "essential health services." Improve and expand access to a 24/7 centralized bed search tool to find appropriate placement quickly. Require parity for mental health reimbursement rates. **A bill passed by the legislature last summer takes steps to address MNA solutions 4 and 5, though it has yet to be implemented. Establish criteria for distance traveled to access "essential health services." Establish Intensive Stabilization and Treatment Units within the state system for highly assaultive patients who board longer due to a lack of available placement. Establish an ED Diversion program for high acuity, dual diagnosis patients to decrease boarding and provide appropriate care while waiting for permanent placement. The state should require comprehensive workplace violence prevention programs at all healthcare facilities. Promulgate regulations requiring staffing levels and the removal of other procedural barriers preventing transfers and admissions on weekends. MassNurses.org Facebook.com/MassNurses Twitter.com/MassNurses Instagram.com/MassNurses Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 25,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public. SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association SHENZHEN, China, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NSELED, a global leader in manufacturing LED display solutions, will attend Viscom Italia in Fiera Milano, Italy. The Viscom Italia trade exhibition is scheduled for October 13th to October 15th, 2022. NSELED team will be in hall 8/12 Fiera Milano, Italy, booth No. C9, D10, and D12, HALL 12. NSELED will showcase its patented and revolutionary technologies in the visual communication industry such as LED posters, P4 outdoor LED displays, indoor wall-mounted LED displays, and rental LED displays. LED Poster NSELED To Attend Viscom Italia 2022 "Understanding the dynamic consumer needs in the ever-changing visual communication industry remains a great pillar to our continued innovations," said Simon Lan, NSELED Marketing Manager. "With our patented, world's No. 1 Taxi Top LED display, and other LED display solutions, Viscom Italia provides an opportune moment to interact and share new developments in the industry. It's wonderful we will interact during the Viscom Italia." About Viscom Italia 2022 Viscom Italia is an exhibition that brings together all key players in the visual communication industry. It provides a rare opportunity to learn and appreciate future trends in graphic advertising, branding, sign marketing, interior decoration, and promotional gifts. This is an interactive event, allowing you to meet all stakeholders, and expand your knowledge in the visual communication market. About NSELED For over 10 years, NSELED has been designing and manufacturing innovative LED motion displays. Known for its patented Taxi Top LED display, NSELED continues to bring modern, practical, and affordable solutions in the visual communication industry. Media Contact : Tel: +86 755 2823 7438 Email: [email protected] Contact Person: Simon Lan SOURCE NSELED DALLAS, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC ("Oncor") plans to release its third quarter 2022 results on November 3, prior to Sempra's (NYSE: SRE) (BMV: SRE) third quarter 2022 conference call. Oncor's earnings release will be available on Oncor's website, oncor.com. Sempra executives will conduct a conference call at 12 p.m. ET, Thursday, November 3 that will include discussion of Oncor's third quarter 2022 operational and financial results. Investors, media, analysts and the public may listen to a live webcast of the conference call by registering on the Investors section on Sempra's website, sempra.com and clicking on the appropriate link. Prior to the conference call, an accompanying slide presentation will be posted on Sempra's website. For those unable to participate in the live webcast, it will be available on replay a few hours after its conclusion on Sempra's website. Oncor's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2022 will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after Sempra's conference call and, once filed, will also be available at oncor.com. *** Headquartered in Dallas, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC is a regulated electricity distribution and transmission business that uses superior asset management skills to provide reliable electricity delivery to consumers. Oncor (together with its subsidiaries) operates the largest distribution and transmission system in Texas, delivering power to more than 3.8 million homes and businesses and operating more than 140,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines in Texas. While Oncor is owned by two investors (indirect majority owner, Sempra, and minority owner, Texas Transmission Investment LLC), Oncor is managed by its Board of Directors, which is comprised of a majority of disinterested directors. For additional information, contact: Oncor Communications: 877.426.1616 Oncor Investor Relations: 214.486.6035 SOURCE Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) was recognized in Forbes' World Best Employers 2022, ranking first among China's financial companies, 5th among global insurance companies, 8th among all China companies on the list and 211th in the world overall. The World's Best Employers ranking, released on October 11, was jointly prepared by Forbes and Statista, a market research firm. To determine the top employers in corporate impact and image, talent development, gender equality and social responsibility, Statista surveyed 150,000 full-time and part-time employees from multinational companies and organizations in 57 countries and selected 800 companies with the highest overall ratings. According to Forbes, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, employees said they care about goal-oriented work, higher salaries, better benefits and promotion opportunities, and work-life balance. Ping An has always been inclusive for talent. Ping An attracts first-class professionals from China and around the world to empower the Group's management. Ping An aims to build a strong team through continuous training and development. The Group's talent strategy has driven Ping An's business development and transformation, lifting Ping An's corporate governance to international standards and internationalizing Ping An's business management. Of the five foreign experts in China's financial sector who have been awarded the Friendship Award by Chinese government, all are from Ping An. While supporting Ping An's sustainable and steady development, these executives have also contributed to the innovation, management and system improvement of China's financial sector. Talent is the core asset of an enterprise. Ping An endeavors to diversify its talent pool and continue to improve standards and systems in talent acquisition. It also continues to innovate in talent development. In August 2022, Ping An's mobile learning platform Zhi Niao won the Progress Award in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and Progress Award in Learning Technology Implementation in Brandon Hall Group's Human Capital Management Excellence Award for its outstanding technology and innovative practices. Ping An's Statement on the Rights and Interests of Employees of Ping An Group promises to protect the legitimate rights and interests of every employee and adopt anti-discrimination regulations to eliminate unfair treatment in recruitment, onboarding, training, promotion and rewards. The Group strictly complies with national regulations and policies and requirements of local governments, including protecting the legitimate rights and interests of female employees through comprehensive support for pregnancy and childbirth. Ping An will continue to uphold its core philosophy of "Expertise Creates Value", adhere to the "finance + healthcare" technology-driven strategy, and value employees' growth and protection of their rights and interests. As a team, Ping An will promote sustainable growth for employees, customers, shareholders and society. About Ping An Group Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") strives to become a world-leading retail financial services group. With over 225 million retail customers and nearly 668 million internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Ping An advances intelligent digital transformation and employs technologies to improve the quality and efficiency of its financial businesses and enhance risk management. The Company believes "Expertise Creates Value" and "Expertise makes life simple". Ping An develops the "integrated finance + healthcare" service system and builds the "finance + elderlycare" and "finance + healthcare" industry ecosystems to provide professional "financial advisory, family doctor, and elderlycare concierge" services. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The Group is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Ping An ranked 17th in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2022 and ranked 25th in the Fortune Global 500 list in 2022. For more information, please visit www.group.pingan.com and follow us on LinkedIn - PING AN . SOURCE Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. BANGALORE, India, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Polysilicon Market is Segmented by Type (Solar Grade Polysilicon, Electronic Grade Polysilicon), by Application (Solar Photovoltaics (PV) Industry, Semiconductor Industry): Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20232028. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Energy & Utilities Category. Considering the economic change due to COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine War Influence, the global Polysilicon market is projected to reach USD 21680 Million by 2028 from an estimated USD 11720 Million in 2022, at a CAGR of 10.8% during 2023 and 2028. Major factors driving the growth of the Polysilicon market are: The need for solar photovoltaics is anticipated to rise as a result of the declining supply of fossil fuels, which will ultimately drive the Polysilicon market. Additionally, the Polysilicon market will expand due to the quick increase in demand for communication devices. Get Your Sample Today: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-35G419/Global_Polysilicon TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF POLYSILICON MARKET: The polysilicon market is expected to grow due to a rise in the number of solar PV installations. The modern era has also led to an increase in global demand for electronic devices. More and more people are embracing newer technology. All of this is causing the market for polysilicon silicon to expand. In addition, the government provides incentives to the public to promote the use of solar photovoltaics (PV). The supply chain for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems' primary raw material is polysilicon, a very pure form of silicon. High-temperature melting of polysilicon results in ingots, which are then cut into wafers and processed into solar cells and solar modules. The demand for electronics-grade polysilicon resources from the semiconductor and electronics sector is rising as more people utilize consumer electronics and other electronic gadgets. The general populace's familiarity with electronics has spread as a result of rising urbanization. Electronic gadgets are now an essential component of daily life and will remain so. Without semiconductors, all of these devicesincluding well-known ones like mobile phones and televisionswill become obsolete. Without polysilicon, which is a chemical that is widely employed in semiconductor fabrication, the industry would essentially cease to exist. This has fueled the Polysilicon market expansion over the last ten years and will continue to be important during the projected period. Browse The Table Of Contents And List Of Figures At: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-35G419/global-polysilicon POLYSILICON MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS: China has been the world's greatest consumer of polysilicon in recent years, and it will continue to be so in the years to come. In 2015, the Chinese market accounted for around 56% of the global market, followed by the US (18%), Europe (about 7%), and Korea (about 7%). The major players in the worldwide polysilicon market include GCL Group, WACKER CHEMIE, Hemlock Semiconductor, OCI, REC Silicon, TBEA, SunEdison, Sichuan Yongxiang, KCC, and Tokuyama. 60% of the global market was accounted for by the top four. The largest provider in the world is GCL Group from China, and the top three domestic suppliers in that country are GCL Group, TBEA, and Sichuan Yongxiang, with a combined local market share of roughly 44%. The leading supplier in Japan is Tokuyama. Get Regional Data: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/QYRE-Auto-35G419/Global_Polysilicon Key Companies: GCL Group WACKER CHEMIE Hemlock Semiconductor OCI REC Silicon TBEA SunEdision Sichuan Yongxiang KCC Tokuyama HanKook Silicon Daqo New Energy Dun'an Group LDK Solar Hanwha Chemical Luoyang China Silicon Asia Silicon Yichang CSG Inquire for Chapter Cost: https://reports.valuates.com/request/chaptercost/QYRE-Auto-35G419/Global_Polysilicon Buy Now for Single User + Covid-19 Impact : https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=QYRE-Auto-35G419&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: - Solar PV market size is estimated to be worth USD 49630 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 55570 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 1.9% during the review period. - Polysilicon for Electronics market size is estimated to be worth USD 483.3 million in 2021 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 483.3 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 1.7% during the review period - Global and United States Electroplated Diamond Wire for Polysilicon Market Report & Forecast 2022-2028 - Global Ultra Pure Polysilicon Market Research Report 2022 - Global Polysilicon Ingot Casting Furnace Sales Market Report 2022 - Global Solar and Electronic Grade Polysilicon Market Research Report 2022 - Global Polysilicon Chip Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Granular Polysilicon Market Insights and Forecast to 2028 - Global Electronic Grade Polysilicon Market Insights and Forecast to 2028 - Global Photovoltaic Polysilicon Market Research Report 2022 - Global and United States Electroplated Diamond Wire for Polysilicon Market Report & Forecast 2022-2028 - Global Hydrogen Bromide (CAS 10035-10-6) Market Outlook 2019-2024 - Graphite Electrodes market size is projected to reach USD 10420 Million by 2026, from USD 9333.1 Million in 2020, at a CAGR of 1.9% during 2021-2026. - Global Semiconductor Grade Polysilicon Sales Market Report 2021 Click here to see related reports on Polysilicon 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 [email protected] 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/1082232/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg SOURCE Valuates Reports PARIS, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ProLogium Technology will be attending the Paris Motor Show - "Revolution is on", from 17 to 23 October 2022 at Porte de Versailles. The motor show presents a great opportunity for ProLogium to showcase its proprietary technologies of next generation solid-state battery (SSB) and to unveil its latest innovations to industry experts and international audience for the first time. Solid-state batteries are among the most promising technologies to offer advantages in terms of safety, energy density, fast-charging, recyclability, weight optimization, costs, and lifetime. "It's imperative for ProLogium to be part of the global mobility community with our participation at the Paris Motor Show 2022. With our innovations to be presented at the show, ProLogium has once again proved its ability to imagine, design and develop breakthrough technologies that enable sustainable mobility," said Gilles Normand, ProLogium's Executive Vice President of International Development. ProLogium will be demonstrating its latest technology breakthroughs on the show floor - disruptive next-generation battery products designed to empower the world's transition towards electrification and net zero, covering a comprehensive SSB product portfolio from inlay, cell, to module. Visitors are also welcome to join EVP Gilles Normand's 1-on-1 interview on the mainstage on 21 October at 12 pm to learn more about ProLogium's R & D efforts and results: how EV drivers can benefit from the next-generation battery, how ProLogium delivers environmentally friendly batteries, and Gilles's demo of actual solid-state battery products on stage. PROLOGIUM'S INNOVATIONS - NOT TO BE MISSED World Premiere of 100% silicon oxide anode the end of the EV driver's range anxiety. Higher battery energy density is crucial to longer EV driving range, and high-silicon anode material is a key enabler. For current liquid type batteries, silicon rarely takes up more than 10% of the anode composition due to safety concerns caused by silicon swelling. However, we have found the direction to overcome this limitation, and ProLogium is well positioned to become the world's first battery maker to adopt 100% silicon oxide anode, which increases energy density to 295-330 Wh/Kg, or 695-770 Wh/L. It should also be noted that this is achieved without consuming large amounts of expensive and limited lithium resources. The innovative SSB with 100% silicon oxide anode will be available in 2023 Q1 as prototype samples. With 9 years of commercialization experience for consumer electronics, selling graphite and high-silicon anode batteries from 2013 to 2022, ProLogium is now ready to scale - way ahead of industry and academia's estimated SSB mass production timeline of 2025 to 2030. The Paris Motor Show is one of the world's leading motor shows in terms of attendance (more than 1 million visitors in 2018). The show has been the proving ground of an industry at the forefront of innovations, attesting to the central role of the automobile in the mobility of the future. Companies across the entire auto-mobility ecosystem, including energy companies, start-ups, electric terminal manufacturers, and innovative players in energy transition and road safety, will all be present at the Paris Motor Show 2022. ABOUT PROLOGIUM Founded in 2006, ProLogium is a global leader in innovative next-generation battery technologies for vehicle, consumer, and industrial applications. ProLogium is the first battery company in the world to mass-produce solid-state lithium ceramic batteries. Its proprietary technologies cover nearly 600 (applied or awarded) patents worldwide. ProLogium's automated pilot production line has provided nearly 8,000 solid-state battery sample cells to global car manufacturers for testing and module development. ProLogium's GWh level solid-state lithium ceramic battery plant will be the first in the world to go online in early 2023, and it aims to begin scaling up by the second half of the year, followed by capacity expansion plans in major markets worldwide. Further information can be found at www.prologium.com SOURCE ProLogium Technology Crain's New York Business honors quantilope, the automated consumer insights company's rapid growth. NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Crain's New York Business has named quantilope on its annual Fast 50 list of the fastest growing companies in the New York City metro area. Increasing revenues by 1198% since 2018, quantilope's outsized success demonstrates the strength of quantilope's automated research technology alongside the market demand for a modernized, technology-powered approach to consumer insights. "Growing our New York business has been a remarkable experience over the past three and a half years," said Thomas Fandrich, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at quantilope. "Market research is one of the last industries to be fully disrupted by technology. Our growth has been rooted in our ability to empower brands and insights leaders with a scalable platform-approach to obtaining high quality consumer insights faster than ever before. An approach that not only democratizes advanced research but also elevates the role of insights manager into strategic advisors for their executive teams." The full Crain's New York Business Fast 50 List 2022 measures growth in revenue from 2018 to 2021. The full list can be found here. About Crain's New York Business: Crain's New York Business is the leading source of information on the New York economy, the companies, industries and institutions that operate here, and the entrepreneurs and innovators who drive the city's growth. About quantilope: quantilope automates consumer research to unlock high quality insights with speed & ease. Our Insights Automation Platform offers AI-driven advanced quantitative and qualitative solutions to support data-driven decision making. Founded in 2014, quantilope was named the #2 top technology provider for consumer research and one of the top 50 most innovative suppliers for insights worldwide (Greenbook GRIT Business & Innovation Report 2022). quantilope powers consumer insights in brand awareness, market segmentation, advertising testing, product concepts and pricing analysis for over 300 brands including Nestle, Pepsi, Dannon, Deutsche Telekom, PBS, OMD, and more. SOURCE quantilope SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- RackWare today announced it is pleased to be hosting two speaking sessions at Oracle CloudWorld being held in Las Vegas Oct. 17-20, 2022. The first session, "OCI in a Multi/Hybrid CloudWorld", will be held at 11am, Tuesday Oct. 18th at the DevNucleus Fishbowl, Developer Hub, Caesars Forum, room CFB4935. Multicloud and Hybrid cloud environments are becoming commonplace. Enterprises are increasingly deploying private Clouds and certifying two, maybe three, major public cloud providers. This session discusses how to leverage Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in a multicloud/hybrid cloud environment focusing on distributing workloads and implementing disaster recovery to reduce costs and minimize risk with cloud outages. The second session, "Practical Disaster Recovery and Backup for Kubernetes and IaaS Workloads" will discuss how Disaster Recovery demands have evolved in the Cloud age and the optimal way to incorporate and protect Kubernetes environments. The session covers assessment of Origin workloads including OCI cost prediction, optimal protection and recovery of virtual environments, physical servers and container clusters (Kubernetes, OpenShift and Tanzu) from ransomware, natural disasters, outages, and deletions. This session will be held at 1:15pm, Thursday Oct. 20th in room Summit 215, Caesars Forum. Both sessions will be led by RackWare's Chief Technology Officer, Todd Matters. About RackWare RackWare makes data and applications mobile and secure. We empower our customers to run their applications and store their data in any cloud of their choice. Seamless mobility allows our customers to take advantage of cutting-edge services or reduced costs as they become available throughout the cloud universe. And if disaster strikes, whether that be of the natural or cyber-criminality type, our proprietary replication and sync technology has our customers protected. RackWare is based in Silicon Valley with offices in Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, London and Pune, India. PR Contact Linda Eldredge [email protected] SOURCE RackWare AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- 2023 Ram 1500 Limited wins Texas Full-Size Truck of the Year 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe wins Texas Off-Road SUV of the Year and Texas Mid-Size SUV of the Year Both the Ram and Jeep brands earned honors at the annual Texas Motor Press Association Off-Road Invitational this year. The group awarded the 2023 Ram 1500 Limited as the Texas Full-Size Truck of the Year and the 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe received honors as the Texas Off-Road SUV of the Year and Texas Mid-Size SUV of the Year. "The 2023 Ram 1500 sets the standard for luxury pickup trucks again this year. It is hard to find a better combination of functionality and luxury in a pickup truck," said Michael Satterfield, president Texas Motor Press Association. "The Jeep Wrangler has always been a leader in off-road, and the new 4xe continues that trend of blazing trails by offering a plug-in hybrid in one of the most off-road capable vehicles ever made. It can tackle any trail, but still offer enough electric range to cover most people's daily commuting. It's the best of both worlds." Texas Motor Press Association Texas Motor Press Association (TxMPA) is a registered 501(c)3 organization that is focused on bringing together automotive industry professionals to create informed content highlighting various facets of the industry in ways that register with a Texas-based audience and beyond. The membership is made up of automotive industry journalists that cover cars, trucks, SUVs, ATVs, and UTVs in a variety of media as well as professionals that represent corporate interests in the automotive community. TxMPA members represent the best of the Texas automotive industry. Media members have engaged, interested, enthusiastic, and influential audiences that span the media landscape. The membership is as diverse in coverage and membership as the state itself. Ram 1500 The 2023 Ram 1500 is the no-compromise benchmark for durability, technology, efficiency, performance and convenience with features never before offered in a pickup. The Ram 1500 features up to 12,750 pounds of towing capability and 2,300 pounds of payload. The eTorque 48-volt mild hybrid system delivers improved fuel efficiency in both V-6 (standard) and V-8 configurations. The Ram 1500 is America's most powerful half-ton diesel pickup with 480 lb.-ft. of torque, delivering up to 1,000 miles of range on a single tank of fuel. The 2023 Ram 1500 TRX has been rigorously tested to handle the most punishing conditions with extreme capability and durability on its way to being the quickest, fastest and most powerful mass-produced half-ton pickup truck in the world. The Uconnect 5 system with a 12-inch touchscreen features advanced technology that includes split-screen capability, 360-degree camera views, and content from SiriusXM with 360L and Personalized Stations Powered by Pandora. The 2023 Ram 1500 lineup includes the Know & Go mobile app, featuring an immersive experience for customers who want to learn more about their vehicles. Active safety and security systems include adaptive cruise control, Forward Collision Warning, Blind-spot Monitoring and Ready Alert Braking. Class-leading ride and handling are accomplished via a segment-exclusive link-coil rear suspension system with optional active-level four-corner air suspension. Jeep Wrangler The iconic Jeep Wrangler the most capable and recognized vehicle in the world delivers unmatched off-road capability and is produced with more than eight decades of 4x4 engineering experience. Powertrain options include a 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6, a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine, a 6.4-liter V-8 and the first ever Wrangler PHEV, the 4xe, which uses a 2.0-liter turbocharged gas engine, two electric motors and a high-voltage battery pack to deliver 21 miles of all-electric range and 49 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe). Wrangler continues to offer a body-on-frame design, front and rear five-link suspension system, solid axles, electronic lockers and is one of the few midsize SUVs to offer a six-speed manual transmission in addition to its available eight-speed automatic. Jeep Brand Built on more than 80 years of legendary heritage, Jeep is the authentic SUV brand that brings capability, craftsmanship and versatility to people who seek extraordinary journeys. The Jeep brand delivers an open invitation to live life to the fullest by offering a broad portfolio of vehicles that continues to provide owners with a sense of safety and security to handle any journey with confidence. The Jeep vehicle range consists of the Cherokee, Compass, Gladiator, Grand Cherokee, new three-row Grand Cherokee L, Grand Cherokee 4xe, Renegade and Wrangler and Wrangler 4xe. Jeep Wave, a premium owner loyalty and customer care program that is available to the entire Jeep 4x4 lineup, is filled with benefits and exclusive perks to deliver Jeep brand owners the utmost care and dedicated 24/7 support. The legendary Jeep brand's off-road capability is enhanced by a global electrification initiative that is transforming 4xe into new 4x4 in pursuit of the brand's vision of accomplishing Zero Emission Freedom. All Jeep brand vehicles will offer an electrified variant by 2025. Follow Jeep and company news and video on: Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com Media website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.com Jeep brand: www.jeep.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/jeep Instagram: www.instagram.com/jeep Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeep LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/jeep YouTube: www.youtube.com/thejeepchannel or https://www.youtube.com/StellantisNA Ram Truck Brand In 2009, the Ram Truck brand launched as a stand-alone division, focused on meeting the demands of truck buyers and delivering benchmark-quality vehicles. With a full lineup of trucks, the Ram 1500, 2500/3500 Heavy Duty, 3500/4500/5500 Chassis Cab and ProMaster, the Ram brand builds trucks that get the hard work done and families where they need to go. Ram continues to outperform the competition and sets the benchmarks for: 1,075 lb.-ft. of torque with Cummins Turbo Diesel Towing capacity of 37,090 lbs. with Ram 3500 Segment first 1,000 lb.-ft of torque with Cummins Turbo Diesel Payload of 7,680 lbs. with Ram 3500 Most luxurious: Ram Limited with real wood, real leather and 12-inch Uconnect touchscreen Best ride and handling with exclusive link coil rear and auto-level air suspensions Most interior space with Ram Mega Cab The most cargo space available in any traditional full size cargo van Most capable full-size off-road pickup Ram Power Wagon Ram 1500 TRX is the quickest, fastest and most powerful mass-produced pickup truck in the world Most awarded light-duty truck in America Highest owner loyalty of any half-ton pickup The latest J.D. Power APEAL study, which rates the emotional bond between customers and their vehicles, named the 2022 Ram 1500 as the best vehicle in the large light-duty pickup category. This marks the third straight year Ram 1500 has received top honors. The Ram 1500 lineup includes the Know & Go mobile app featuring an immersive experience for customers who want to learn more about their vehicles. Ram is part of the portfolio of brands offered by leading global automaker and mobility provider Stellantis. For more information regarding Stellantis (NYSE: STLA), please visit www.stellantis.com. Follow Ram and company news and video on: Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com Media website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.com Ram Truck brand: www.ramtrucks.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/RamTrucks Instagram: www.instagram.com/ramtrucks Twitter: www.twitter.com/RamTrucks and @StellantisNA YouTube: www.youtube.com/RamTrucks, https://www.youtube.com/StellantisNA SOURCE Stellantis Featuring best-sellers like Mango Supreme Cake, Butter Mamon and Chicken Empanada, the new store marks the international bakery brand's 39th location in the U.S. WEST COVINA, Calif. , Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Red Ribbon Bakeshop, Inc., the international bakery brand beloved for its unique array of delicious, sweet and savory baked goods, will celebrate the opening of its premiere location in Philadelphia on Saturday, October 15, 2022. Located at 2201 Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia, the new Red Ribbon will be primely situated within the Great Northeast Plaza shopping center near the area's busy "Cottman and Bustleton" intersection. Red Ribbon's much-anticipated arrival in Philly marks the brand's first-ever location in the State of Pennsylvania and its 39th in the U.S., as the bakery brand continues to grow its presence nationwide. Red Ribbon Bakeshop - Philadelphia, PA Mango Supreme Cake Chicken Empanada Butter Mamon Red Ribbon specializes in offering delectable, superior-tasting baked goods that you won't find anywhere else. While the bakeshop is best known for its beautifully crafted cakes considered a special celebration "must have" for many fans Red Ribbon also features a mouth-watering line-up of both sweet and savory pastries that are perfect for everyday snacking occasions. For Philadelphians who are curious to try the deliciousness of Red Ribbon for the first time, here are some of the brand's best-selling items that are sure to tempt your taste buds: Shareable Cakes Mango Supreme Cake The signature dessert that put Red Ribbon on the map. Instantly recognized for its vibrant golden hues, it is made with the Philippines' best mangoes, considered to be the sweetest in the world. It features three layers of moist white chiffon cake filled with cream and a golden, mango-filled glaze; it is topped with a generous amount of mango chunks and a maraschino cherry. The signature dessert that put Red Ribbon on the map. Instantly recognized for its vibrant golden hues, it is made with best mangoes, considered to be the sweetest in the world. It features three layers of moist white chiffon cake filled with cream and a golden, mango-filled glaze; it is topped with a generous amount of mango chunks and a maraschino cherry. Ube Overload Cake This iconic Filipino confection is known for its striking shade of purple. The unique coloring comes from its star ingredient: real Philippine ube halaya (purple yam), a flavor that has gained mainstream popularity in recent years. The cake is finished with beautiful white cream frosting rosettes and bright purple ube cake crumbs. This iconic Filipino confection is known for its striking shade of purple. The unique coloring comes from its star ingredient: real Philippine ube halaya (purple yam), a flavor that has gained mainstream popularity in recent years. The cake is finished with beautiful white cream frosting rosettes and bright purple ube cake crumbs. Yema Caramel Cake Perfect for those who love the smoothness of caramel combined with a bit of crunch, this Filipino favorite is made of a soft, moist white chiffon cake filled and covered with yema (Philippine custard) caramel filling and finished with toasted cashew nuts. Snackable Pastries Butter Mamon This exquisite pastry provides the perfect combination of moist chiffon and 100% butter for a melt-in-your-mouth treat. Not too sweet and delightfully tender, it's the all-time favorite of loyal Red Ribbon fans. Also available in Ube, Mocha, and Cheesy flavors. This exquisite pastry provides the perfect combination of moist chiffon and 100% butter for a melt-in-your-mouth treat. Not too sweet and delightfully tender, it's the all-time favorite of loyal Red Ribbon fans. Also available in Ube, Mocha, and Cheesy flavors. Cheesy Ensaimada This pastry offers soft, moist bread topped with butter, sugar, and cheesy deliciousness for the perfect sweet and savory flavor combination. This pastry offers soft, moist bread topped with butter, sugar, and cheesy deliciousness for the perfect sweet and savory flavor combination. Chicken Empanada This savory pastry is generously filled with tender chicken and a unique blend of spices deep-fried to a crisp golden brown a fan-favorite. Sweet Standouts for Those Craving Chocolate: Black Forest Cake This one is for chocoholics. Layers of liqueur-moistened chocolate cake, brimming with maraschino cherries and cream, rich chocolate shavings and chocolate curls. This one is for chocoholics. Layers of liqueur-moistened chocolate cake, brimming with maraschino cherries and cream, rich chocolate shavings and chocolate curls. Mocha Flan The perfect combination of cake and custard. This rich mocha chiffon cake is topped with delicious, creamy leche flan. The perfect combination of cake and custard. This rich mocha chiffon cake is topped with delicious, creamy leche flan. Choco Mocha Crunch Brimming with both chocolate and coffee flavors, this chocolate chiffon cake is filled with honeycomb candy in every layer; finished with rich mocha cream and topped with more honeycomb candy and chocolate shavings. "We are so excited to finally be opening our doors in the wonderful city of Philadelphia, where we can't wait to serve both our loyal fans and newcomers our special bakery brand," said Agnes Briones, Business Unit Head, Red Ribbon Bakeshop, Inc. "As the city's most culturally dynamic area known for its diverse food scene, Northeast Philly provides the perfect place for us to entice new audiences who want to treat themselves to something deliciously different, like our mouthwatering Mango Supreme Cake and our melt-in-your-mouth Butter Mamon pastries." For those eager to check out Red Ribbon's new Philadelphia location , here are the key details to know before you go: Address : 2201 Cottman Avenue, Suite 113, Philadelphia, PA 19152 : 2201 Cottman Avenue, Suite 113, 19152 Located within the Great Northeast Plaza shopping center Hours of Operation : 9AM 9PM , seven days a week : , seven days a week Bakeshop features cafe-style seating for those who want to enjoy their treats right on the spot Online Ordering Channels: Red Ribbon ordering app (available at the App Store and Google Play); the Red Ribbon website; and the DoorDash delivery platform (activated a few days after opening). To learn more about Red Ribbon, including its U.S. locations, featured menu items, and nationwide shipping services, please visit redribbonbakeshop.com. Red Ribbon fans can follow @RedRibbonUSA on Facebook and @redribbonusa on Instagram for the latest news, including new products, upcoming store openings and special offers. About Red Ribbon Bakeshop Since being founded in 1979, Red Ribbon Bakeshop Inc. has become one of the largest and fastest-growing bakeshops in the Philippines. For the past 40 years the brand has offered superior tasting cakes and pastries and has proved itself as a staple for most Filipino families to mark every special occasion, celebration, and milestone. Today, the international bakery brand boasts over 500 total locations and over 30 bakeshops across the U.S. with locations in California, Nevada, Washington, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. The Los Angeles Times has twice cited the brand's cakes as the "Best of L.A." and Eater also named Red Ribbon Bakeshop among the best restaurants for ube desserts in Las Vegas. Most recently, Red Ribbon entered the "Top 500 Chain Restaurants in the U.S." list, which is published annually by leading foodservice research and consulting firm, Technomic. Additionally, Red Ribbon's California-based manufacturing facility recently received its Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from SGS, the global benchmark for quality and integrity. HACCP is an internationally recognized process control system that identifies where hazards might occur in the food production process and puts into place the safety measures that a facility should take to prevent the hazards from occurring. About Jollibee Group Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC, also known as Jollibee Group) is one of the fastest-growing restaurant companies in the world. It operates in 34 countries, with over 6,300 stores globally with branches in the Philippines, United States, Canada, the People's Republic of China, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Panama, Malaysia, South Korea, India, and Australia. Jollibee Group has eight wholly owned brands (Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Yonghe King, Hong Zhuang Yuan, Smashburger); six franchised brands (Burger King, Panda Express, PHO24, and Yoshinoya in the Philippines; Dunkin' and Tim Ho Wan in certain territories in China); 80% ownership of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf; 60% ownership in the SuperFoods Group that owns Highlands Coffee and PHO24; and 51% ownership of Milksha, a popular Taiwanese bubble tea brand. Jollibee Group, through its subsidiary Jollibee Worldwide Pte. Ltd. (JWPL) owns 90% participating interest in Titan Dining LP, a private equity fund that ultimately owns the Tim Ho Wan brand. It also has a joint venture with the THW Group to open and operate THW restaurants in Mainland China. Jollibee Group also has a business venture with award-winning Chef Rick Bayless for Tortazo, a Mexican fast-casual restaurant business in the United States. Jollibee Group was named the Philippines' most admired company by the Asian Wall Street Journal for ten years. It was also honored as one of Asia's Fab 50 Companies and among the World's Best Employers and World's Top Female-Friendly Companies by Forbes. In 2020, Gallup awarded the Jollibee Group with the Exceptional Workplace Award, making it the first Philippine-based company to receive the distinction. Jollibee Group has grown brands that bring delightful dining experiences to its customers worldwide, thus spreading the joy of eating to everyone. To learn more about Jollibee Group, visit www.jollibeegroup.com SOURCE Red Ribbon Bakeshop PITTSBURGH, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This past July, The African Centered Cooperative Research Project was announced as a new initiative to identify ways in which African-centered organizations are practicing collectivism and to find ways to enhance the practices of shared wealth and shared assets in the City of Pittsburgh. The project will soon be entering its second phase, which includes hosting Sankofa Circles over the next few months. These Sankofa Circles will be held via Zoom and will be focused on different topics found in the survey responses. (It will provide an opportunity for dialogue on topics related to Cooperative Economics.) The African Centered Cooperative Research Project is a cooperative effort between Ujamaa Collective, Cocoapreneur LLC and Sankofa Research Institute. "There has been a legacy of cooperative efforts between Black businesses here in Pittsburgh. The value of 'we are who we seek to serve', has shown up in the efforts of our collective ancestor Ella Baker, who contributed to the Young Negro's Cooperative League (they held their first meeting in Pittsburgh) along with several other organizations, and is present in Ujamaa Collective's value system today, says LaKeisha Wolf, Executive Director of Ujamaa Collective. "Black cooperation is about protecting the Black community and its future," says Assata Richards, Director of Sankofa Research Institute. "We want to engage Black people who are already participating in Black cooperation, keep the conversation going, and awaken others to this concept." As the organizers move into the Focus Group Phase of the project, the Survey Links will continue to be open to gather as much input from the community as possible. Survey participants will be included in a raffle for gift certificates to various local Black businesses, with a grand prize of a $250 gift certificate from Ujamaa Collective in each survey pool. The deadline for the next raffle is Saturday, October 1st, 2022. Black and Africana-centered organizations and individuals can select the appropriate survey link below: Survey for Groups businesses & organizations who can inform on state of cooperation and join a focus group: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BetterCommunities. Survey for Individuals to inform community Sankofa conversations to build knowledge and context for cooperation: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BlkPASankofa The African-centered Cooperative Research Project has been made possible through support from The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation. About Ujamaa Collective Ujamaa Collective is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded with a social mission to act as a catalyst to advance Africana Women by providing a fair-trade marketplace for cultural, artistic and entrepreneurial exchange through cooperative economics in the Historic Hill District and beyond. "We lift as we climb." The concept of Ujamaa has roots in Tanzania and is borrowed from the fourth principle of the holiday Kwanzaa, meaning "cooperative economics: to build and maintain our own shops, stores and other businesses and to profit from them together." In 2008, the founders of Ujamaa Collective used this concept to put forth a call to action for Black women to come to the table and share ideas about business and community development, which heavily included Africana examples of financial exchange. About Cocoaprenuer Pgh, LLC Cocoaprenuer Pgh, LLC was founded in February 2018. The mission of Cocoapreneur is to foster an environment of economic prosperity to ensure more sustainable neighborhoods for the historically African American communities and neighborhoods around Pittsburgh, PA. Through support to businesses via advertising, marketing and consulting, Cocoapreneur aims to normalize the idea of entrepreneurship. We want to make becoming a business owner a more feasible and attainable goal for African Americans in the greater Pittsburgh area. Sankofa Research Institute Using Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), Sankofa Research Institute unites professional researchers, local community stakeholders and leaders in their goals. Through Training, Mentoring and Collaborative Dialogues, SRI prepares community members to partner in research with academics and stakeholders. We work as a partner and catalyst within the community during the research development and implementation process. The resulting evidence-based research establishes credibility for the community in their search for resources to mobilize the changes that will provide residents with dignity and opportunities to live more meaningful lives. SOURCE The African Centered Cooperative Research Project Presented by the Henry T. and Elizabeth Segerstrom Foundation in Association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts COSTA MESA, Calif., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 12, 2022, renowned ballet dancers from around the world will gather for an intimate one-night-only special ballet performance, Reunited in Dance, in the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Reunited in Dance brings together dancers with ties to Ukraine and Russia. Many formerly danced with Russia's preeminent companies, including the Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Mikhailovsky Ballet, Stanislavsky Theatre, and others and left Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The program, under the artistic direction of British dancer Xander Parish, former principal dancer at the Mariinsky, is made possible by Elizabeth Segerstrom and the Henry T. and Elizabeth Segerstrom Foundation and presented in association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Nov 12 Performance in California: Reunited in Dance brings together ballet dancers impacted by the war in Ukraine Tweet this Photo: Andrea Lassakova and Jacopo Tissi rehearsing Le Corsaire at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Photo by Karolina Kuras, Courtesy of Henry T. and Elizabeth Segerstrom Foundation. Reunited in Dance will feature new choreography as well as beloved classics: The world premiere of a new ballet choreographed by Parish to Tchaikovsky's Children's Album performed by special guest artist pianist Behzod Abduraimov , who appears in collaboration with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County performed by special guest artist pianist , who appears in collaboration with the A performance of Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain Selections from Le Corsaire, Raymonda, Paquita, La Bayadere, Don Quixote and more "On this special evening, all these artists, wherever they came from, will become a single remarkable group, not just standing up for what we believe but dancing for it," Xander Parish said. "We are deeply grateful to Elizabeth Segerstrom for giving us this unprecedented opportunity to perform together and bring the light of our art to new audiences, despite the difficulties of the past months." Elizabeth Segerstrom said "I know the arts have always had the power to bring people together. I am humbled to be able to play a role in bringing together these artists, who come from many different countries and backgrounds to bring unification to us all." Participating dancers, in addition to Xander Parish, will be Jacopo Tissi (Italy, formerly with the Bolshoi), Svetlana Bednenko (Ukraine, formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Christine Shevchenko (Ukraine, currently with ABT), Andrea Lassakova (Slovak Republic, formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Adrian Blake Mitchell (U.S., formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Boris Zhurilov (Russia, formerly with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre), Ilya Jivoy (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Lizi Avsajanishvili (Georgia, formerly with the Mariinsky), David Motta Soares (Brazil, formerly with the Bolshoi), Jasmine Sophie Henry (Australia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Vsevolod Maevsky (Ukraine, formerly with the Mariinsky), Anastasia Demidova (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Katia Raj (U.S., formerly with the Saint Petersburg State Academic Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre), Veronika Selivanova (U.S., formerly with the Mariinsky), Alexis Tutunnique (Ukraine, formerly with National Opera of Ukraine and currently with The United Ukrainian Ballet), Joy Womack (U.S., formerly with Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theatre), Maxim Zenin (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), and Laura Fernandez (Switzerland and Ukraine, formerly with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre). Many of the dancers who will perform in Reunited in Dance have appeared over the years at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. This extraordinary performance is in part a tribute to Judy Morr, the Executive Vice President behind the longstanding tradition of world-class ballet programming at Segerstrom Center. "We are delighted to bring this new, special, one-night performance for our patrons and to honor Judy's contributions," said Casey Reitz, President of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. "Judy has been instrumental in growing and cultivating our dance and education programming with great ardor over the past decades. Judy gets it; dance connects us in numerous ways for various reasons, as is evident in the dance programming she has created for the Center for the past decades. Her understanding for the art of dance performance, her passion to bring talented performers and choreographers, and her commitment to bolstering and advancing the development of new works with international and national dance companies, season after season, is the driving force that continues to unite and bring people together at the Center." Jane Fujishige Yada, Chairwoman of Segerstrom Center's Board of Directors, said "Judy has built a globally-respected dance audience at the Center over the years. Without her, our Center would not have the foundation or infrastructure to welcome these beautiful dancers to our side of the world and bring them back together in this most unexpected way. She dedicated her life to introducing patrons to new cultures and traditions through music and the art of physical dramatic movement that expresses cultural heritage and identity in a unique, storytelling way. Judy is always a step ahead, knowing what will entertain our audiences. We are excited to welcome this new performance at Segerstrom Center for the Arts that so meaningfully encapsulates Judy's lifetime work for the Center." Gavriel Heine, formerly of the Mariinsky, is the music director. Christopher Minev, formerly an international tour producer for the Mariinsky, is the executive producer. The performance will feature digital scenic design created especially for the evening by The Hettema Group. Reunited in Dance Saturday, November 12 Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall 8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $59 and are on sale at www.scfta.org Complete program available HERE . Media Contacts Todd Bentjen, Polskin Arts [email protected] Carla Cruz, Segerstrom Center for the Arts [email protected] SOURCE Reunited in Dance Company Issues Request For Proposals (RFP) to secure 600 to 1,000 MW of Offshore Wind to Power Rhode Island PROVIDENCE, R.I., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rhode Island Energy announced today that it is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit an additional 600 to 1,000 MW of offshore wind to help power the state's energy needs. Adding to the nation's first offshore wind farm that sits in waters off Block Island and the proposed Revolution Wind project, this additional procurement could help meet over 70% of the state's estimated 2030 electricity demand with carbon-free energy. The new procurement alone has the potential to power about 700,000 homes each year. "We promised that we would lead when it came to helping Rhode Island meet its clean energy goals, and achieving this latest milestone is proof of our commitment," said Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy. "This procurement is critical to meeting the state's 100% renewable generation goal by the 2033 target and accelerating growth in the local clean energy economy." On Sept. 6, Rhode Island Energy filed a draft RFP with the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (RIPUC), allowing for 30 days of public comment. The final RFP, which will be available for review at www.ricleanenergyrfp.com, takes into consideration many of the comments offered by various stakeholders. As part of the solicitation, required under the state's Affordable Clean Energy Act, Rhode Island Energy is seeking bids from potential developers to enter into long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) for energy from newly developed offshore wind projects. Any potential long-term contract durations would be between 15 and 20 years. "While this is just the start in securing more of Rhode Island's clean energy future, it is another significant step forward. I want to thank the Office of Energy Resources, the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, and our valued stakeholders for their engagement in this process, and our team at Rhode Island Energy for all their work in getting us here," Bonenberger added. As outlined in the RFP, responding bids will be received through Feb. 1, 2023, with any winning bidder(s) announced in early August 2023. Any PPAs agreed to by Rhode Island Energy will be subject to review and approval by the RIPUC. The goal would be to have any winning project(s) operational to support the state's achievement of its 100% renewable target by 2033. Rhode Island Energy provides essential energy services to over 770,000 customers across Rhode Island through the delivery of electricity or natural gas. Our team is dedicated to helping Rhode Island customers and communities thrive, while supporting the transition to a cleaner energy future. Rhode Island Energy is part of the PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) family of companies addressing energy challenges head-on by building smarter, more resilient and more dynamic power grids and advancing sustainable energy solutions. For more information visit www.RIEnergy.com and stay connected on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Note to Editors: Visit our media website at www.pplnewsroom.com for additional news about Rhode Island Energy and PPL Corporation. Contacts: For news media: Ted Kresse 401.799.7000 [email protected] Rhode Island Energy SOURCE Rhode Island Energy Homebuyers and agents can tour completed homes at eight area communities WINDSOR, Colo., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Richmond American Homes of Colorado, Inc., a subsidiary of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MDC), is pleased to announce that it will be hosting a Parade of Quick Move-in Homes at eight exceptional northern Colorado communities. The single-, two- and three-story homes along the parade route represent multiple home collections, and all are ready to close by the end of the year. Event Details ( RichmondAmerican.com/NOCOParade ) Richmond Americans Northern Colorado Parade of Quick Move-in Homes will showcase homes that are ready to close in 2022 at eight area communities. The builder's Northern Colorado Parade of Quick Move-in Homes will take place from Saturday, October 15 through Sunday, October 23. Prospective homebuyers and area agents can tour homes at all seven communities or choose from a three-community north or four-community south tour, which will begin at Windsor Villages at Ptarmigan in Windsor and Silverstone in Frederick, respectively. North tour communities: Windsor Villages at Ptarmigan in Windsor Urban Collection at Kinston in Loveland Seasons at Hunters Crossing in Severance South tour communities: Silverstone in Frederick Colliers Hill & Seasons at Colliers Hill in Erie Karl's Farm in Northglenn Haskins Station in Arvada Tours are available from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday through Thursday and from 12 to 6 p.m. on Friday. When attendees arrive at Windsor Villages at Ptarmigan or Silverstone, they will receive a map detailing the parade route and community addresses. Complimentary refreshments will be available throughout the tour, and participants can enter for a chance to win a prize giveaway. All homes featured in the Parade boast prime locations near shopping, dining and recreation, as well as the designer details and incredible included features for which the builder is known. Call 303.850.8750 or visit RichmondAmerican.com for more information. About M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. Operating under the name Richmond American Homes, MDC's homebuilding subsidiaries have built more than 230,000 homes since 1977. Among the nation's largest homebuilders, MDC's subsidiary companies have operations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Mortgage lending, plus insurance and title services are offered by the following MDC subsidiaries, respectively: HomeAmerican Mortgage Corporation, American Home Insurance Agency, Inc. and American Home Title and Escrow Company. M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MDC." For more information, visit MDCHoldings.com. SOURCE M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. ST. LOUIS, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Royal House Partners ("RHP") a leading provider of residential and commercial HVAC, plumbing and electrical services in Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma welcomes the addition of Total Comfort Heating & Air Conditioning based in Saint Louis, Missouri, to their family of businesses. Total Comfort (CNW Group/Royal House Partners) RHP was founded in 2021 by CPS Capital, a Toronto-based investment firm, and 1801 Holdings, a Dallas-based group of seasoned home services professionals, who have spent a considerable amount of time developing a residential and light commercial HVAC, plumbing and electrical roll-up strategy. As a leadership team, we have been busy the last several months acquiring businesses in the HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical & Home Services space. The addition of Total Comfort allows Royal House Partners to further expand its footprint in Missouri. Total Comfort's service team consists of experienced, licensed journeymen technicians/installers and licensed apprentice technicians/installers. Total Comfort has been caring for their loyal residential and light commercial clients for 40+ years. Paul Adams, Chief Growth Officer & Founder of RHP, notes "We are super excited to welcome the Total Comfort team. Tom & Kimberly Donahue have carried on the Total Comfort legacy and further built it to one of the most reputable HVAC operations in Missouri." Tom Donahue, Owner, notes, "Their business model, service and care of their customers and employees keep with our standards and is exceptional. The Total Comfort team is excited to merge and grow operations with Antons Heating and A/C. We are looking forward to a successful future for our employees and customers with Royal House Partners/ Antons." Craig Denton, Regional Vice President Missouri, notes, "We are excited to add Total Comfort Heating & Air Conditioning to our home services family. This addition will strengthen our HVAC division and give us a stronger reach in the Saint Louis & Saint Charles area." HVAC businesses interested in joining the RHP team should contact Paul Adams [email protected] For more information about RHP, visit https://www.royalhousepartners.com/home About CPS Capital: CPS Capital is a lower middle market private equity firm, based in Toronto, founded by owner-operators who look to partner with business owners to realize their growth and transition goals. CPS Capital is focused on North American opportunities to invest in exceptional businesses in growing industries with attractive characteristics. We look to become value-added partners with every business we work with. We bring significant capability, expertise, and capital to provide business owners with an attractive option compared to traditional financial or strategic buyers. For more information, please visit us at https://cpscapital.com/ SOURCE Royal House Partners LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- RW Digital, a leading programmatic solutions provider, announced today it has successfully graduated from the Stellantis-NBL National Black Supplier Development pilot program. In 2021, Stellantis, an automotive manufacturing corporation, and the nonprofit organization, National Business League (NBL), formed a national partnership to develop Black suppliers for future contracting and procurement opportunities in the pursuit of greater racial equity in the marketplace. RW Digital was one of 13 Black-owned businesses that represented geographic diversity, and a range of disciplines and commodities selected for the newly formed pilot program. "It was an honor to participate in this innovative program alongside prominent Black-owned businesses making an impact in their respective communities. The Stellantis-NBL Black Supplier Program will continue to magnify entrepreneurs for years to come, leaving a legacy of Black excellence for future generations to embrace," said Donnell Beverly, Jr., Russell Westbrook Enterprises President. Since graduating from the program, which ran through the first quarter of 2022, RW Digital has gone on to support Stellantis' media investment team heighten the awareness of various models across both the Dodge and Chrysler portfolio within multicultural communities via the proprietary approach RW Digital has architected to enable advertisers to navigate cultural bias within programmatic environments. "The intent of the Stellantis-National Business League National Black Supplier Development Program is to ensure that all Black business enterprises and suppliers have an equitable and inclusive stake in the global marketplace," said Marvin Washington, Vice President & Global Head of Mechatronics & Modules Purchasing at Stellantis. "Our successful pilot, launch of the inaugural collective and addition of outstanding corporate partners ensure the program will be a sustainable source of significant business and development opportunities for Black businesses, entrepreneurs, and communities for many years to come. We thank RW Digital for their outstanding contributions to this important program." About RW Digital RW Digital is a programmatic solutions provider powered by creative minds and advanced technology. Our advertising experts leverage data to build authentic relationships within an ever-evolving media landscape. We combine relentless work ethic with an earnest pursuit to uplift global communities. Certified by the Southern California Minority Supplier Development Council as a Minority Owned Business, the responsibility to uplift other diverse-owned businesses and support under-served communities is central to each venture Russell Westbrook introduces to market. Alongside it's 501(c)3 registered charity, the Why Not? Foundation, our core focuses are in creating both educational and employment pathways through investments in both digital and physical infrastructure. For more information, contact: Jake Davis Director of Advertiser Partnerships & Solutions [email protected] RWDigital.com About Stellantis Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) is one of the world's leading automakers and a mobility provider, guided by a clear vision to offer freedom of movement with distinctive, affordable and reliable mobility solutions. In addition to the Group's rich heritage and broad geographic presence, its greatest strengths lie in its sustainable performance, depth of experience and the wide-ranging talents of employees working around the globe. Stellantis will leverage its broad and iconic brand portfolio, which was founded by visionaries who infused the brands with passion and a competitive spirit that speaks to employees and customers alike. Stellantis aspires to become the greatest, not the biggest, while creating added value for all stakeholders, as well as the communities in which it operates. About National Business League The National Business League is the first and largest nonprofit, non-partisan, and non-sectarian Black business and professional trade association, which was founded on August 23, 1900, by the iconic Booker T. Washington. The NBL has more than 120,000 members nationwide, with regional offices in Atlanta, GA, Detroit, MI, Los Angeles, CA, and Washington, D.C., as well as more than 367 local league chapters across the country. The organization provides access to 2.6 million Black businesses throughout the United States. Visit www.nationalbusinessleague.org, Twitter @theNBL1900, Instagram @NBL1900, and Facebook @theNBL1900 Contact: Chelsea Thomas Lede Company PR [email protected] SOURCE RW Digital New Early Childhood Education Center Hosting Inauguration on October 18 REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Safari Kid, a leading group of preschools and afterschool programs with a global presence, is pleased to announce the opening of its new location in Redwood City at 1709 Woodside Rd. The location offers Infant, Toddler, Pre School and After School programs catering to children from 3 months of age to 6th graders. Safari Kid's proprietary, research-based teaching methods (inspired by the best components of Montessori methods and Reggio Emilia philosophy) lays the foundation for countless young and curious minds and foster a love for learning that will last a lifetime. To celebrate the launch of Redwood City Safari Kid, there will be a Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on Tuesday, October 18 at 12 pm. Safari Kid is proud to announce that this celebration will be attended by Redwood City Mayor, Giselle Hale. Safari Kid is also offering a special "Welcome!" price for the first three months to those who enroll during the October inauguration period. This new Safari Kid location is proudly owned and operated by San Mateo resident Shanu Mathur. With more than 20 years of experience in customer service, project management, and childhood education, Shanu's love for children and teaching plays an integral role in the success of her first Safari Kid location in San Mateo, founded in 2019. As Safari Kid became an integral part of the San Mateo community, Shanu set her sights on Redwood City. She is enthusiastic about providing a whole new group of parents with peace of mind as they leave their children in a safe, caring, thoughtful and education-minded hands. "Safari Kid is more than just a daycare center. We take into consideration the high amount of brain development that happens to children before the age of five and focus on age-appropriate skill building for the children. Our programs are designed with this in mind and support growth in all domains of learning," said Shanu Mathur. "Safari Kid encourages children to confidently explore and interact with materials while simulating communication between peers and adults enabling children to become critical thinkers and responsible global citizens." Safari Kid offers a balanced approach based on research and best practices. It combines play, skill-building, social-emotional development opportunities and structured activities through its range of programs to promote success. Safari Kid's Infant, Toddler and preschool programs are available for children from 3 months age to 6 graders. Safari Kid Summer Camp, which offers various activities, such as creative writing, critical thinking, robotics, chess, public speaking, dance, music, and technology, is available to transitional kindergarteners through sixth graders. Safari Kid also offers an after-school program that helps children master their current schoolwork, and challenges them to build their skillsets, employ critical thinking, refine study skills, and learn new things. For more information on Safari Kid in Redwood City, please call (650) 410-8716, email [email protected] or visit https://safarikidusa.com/redwoodcity-location/ About Safari Kid Safari Kid is a global chain of Preschools and After School Programs, founded by Ms. Shy Mudakavi in the heart of Silicon Valley in Newark, California. Over fifteen years, 35,000 children going through the program have shown consistent excellence in elementary and middle schools. Safari Kid provides a research-rich curriculum and a foundation of excellence that has been studied and developed by leading experts in the field. Media Contact: Rachel Patton, Fishman PR, 847.945.1300 or [email protected] SOURCE Safari Kid Scania and Rio Tinto are developing more agile autonomous haul trucks at a mine in Western Australia's Pilbara region to pursue potential environmental and productivity benefits. SODERTALJE, Sweden, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The two companies have established a long-term research and development collaboration agreement for the continuous advancement of this autonomous technology under which Rio Tinto's Channar mine has become the first active partner site for Scania's autonomous mining solution. The partnership also includes options for the future transition to electric-powered vehicles. Rio Tinto and Scania launched new trials on Scania's 40-tonne-payload autonomous mining trucks in April 2022 and quickly reached a key milestone of driverless operation in a simulated load and haul cycle environment. Rio Tinto Group Technical Managing Director Santi Pal said, "Rio Tinto is excited to partner with Scania to develop a mining solution which will create optionality across our diverse portfolio. Collaboration and partnership is key to reimagining mining in the future." "Our climate action plan includes phasing out the purchase of new diesel haul trucks by 2030, and partnering with industry leaders, such as Scania, across a range of fields, is an important step towards achieving that. As well as the potential decarbonisation benefits, this partnership provides a path to potential productivity improvements." Scania Vice President and Head of Autonomous Solutions Peter Hafmar said "With its dedication to achieving cleaner, more energy-efficient operations, Rio Tinto is the ideal partner and first customer for Scania as we seek to put mining on a pathway to net zero emissions. This is a major step towards the goals of a sustainable autonomous mining solution, and builds on our already fruitful long-term collaboration." Scania's trucks have potential advantages over traditional heavy haulage trucks, both in terms of emissions and productivity. In utilising Scania's autonomous mining trucks, energy requirements, mining footprint and infrastructure requirements can be reduced, meaning that capital and operating expenses may also be reduced at suitable sites. See the autonomous truck in this video For further information, please contact: Erik Bratthall, Corporate Public and Media Relations Manager, Scania Phone: +46 76 724 45 27, E-mail: mailto:[email protected] The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/209/3647959/1638557.pdf Scania and Rio Tinto agree to develop autonomous haulage solutions supporting a pathway to lower emissions mining https://news.cision.com/scania/i/rio-tinto--16-7,c3100713 Rio-Tinto- 16-7 https://news.cision.com/scania/i/rio-tinto-16-9,c3100714 Rio-Tinto-16-9 SOURCE Scania DUBLIN, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Consulting Engineering Activities in South Africa 2022" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This report focuses on the consulting engineering industry in South Africa, covering the effects of the mining and commodity boom and reduced spending on infrastructure and development. It includes information on the state of the industry, trends in terms of projects and fee income and various influencing factors. There are profiles of 35 companies including AECOM SA, majority-owned by US company AECOM, and local players such as Bigen Africa, Bosch, BVi Consulting Engineers, Ilifa Africa, JG Afrika, Knight Piesold, Mariswe, SRK Consulting and Zutari. Consulting Engineering Activities in South Africa Conditions in the consulting engineering industry are challenging, largely due to weak economic growth and the slow rollout of infrastructure projects, as reflected by a sharp decline in total fee income in 2020, followed by a slight recovery. However, mining companies' demand for consulting engineering services is expected to grow due to the commodities boom and, over the longer term, as a result of large volumes of metals and minerals needed for the global clean energy transition. Another growth area is renewable energy projects, especially locally, due to the electricity crisis. Africa is a key long-term growth market for infrastructure development and mining, providing opportunities for local consulting engineering firms to contribute to these projects on the continent. Trends Civil and structural engineering are the largest disciplines in terms of fees earned, while the share of mining and chemical engineering has been growing over the past five years. Mining, transportation and water accounted for the largest share of fee income recorded. In the design and implementation of projects, factors such as environmental and social impacts, governance, health and safety and sustainability are becoming increasingly important. Renewable energy projects are a growth area in engineering aspects and in social and environmental impact assessments. Mining companies are increasingly using consulting engineers, especially in the areas of health and safety, and environment, social and governance and the engineers are also becoming more involved at operational level at mining clients. Consulting engineers, architects and sustainability consultants are constantly incorporating new ideas into building designs to minimise a building's impact on its environment. Key Topics Covered: 1. INTRODUCTION 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE INDUSTRY 2.1. Industry Value Chain 2.2. Geographic Position 2.3. Size of the Industry 2.4. Key Success Factors and Pain Points 3. LOCAL 3.1. State of the Industry 3.2. Key Trends 3.3. Notable Players 3.4. Corporate Actions 3.5. Regulations 3.6. Enterprise Development and Social Economic Development 4. AFRICA 5. INTERNATIONAL 6. INFLUENCING FACTORS 6.1. COVID-19 6.2. Economic Environment 6.3. Performance of Key Clients 6.4. Labour 6.5. Technology, Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation 6.6. Environmental Issues 6.7. Input Costs 7. COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT 7.1. Competition 7.2. Ownership Structure of the Industry 7.3. Barriers to Entry 8. SWOT ANALYSIS 9. OUTLOOK 10. INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS 11. REFERENCES 11.1. Publications 11.2. Websites APPENDIX Summary of Notable Players COMPANY PROFILES AECOM SA (Pty) Ltd Arup (Pty) Ltd Betts Townsend (Pty) Ltd (Pty) Ltd Bigen Africa Group Holdings (Pty) Ltd Bosch Holdings (Pty) Ltd BVI Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd CKR Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd Delta Built Environment Consultants (Pty) Ltd DRA Projects SA (Pty) Ltd Elevate Project Management (Pty) Ltd GIBB (Pty) Ltd Hatch Africa (Pty) Ltd (Pty) Ltd Ilifa Africa Engineers (Pty) Ltd Iliso Consulting (Pty) Ltd Independent Development Trust JG Afrika (Pty) Ltd Knight Piesold (Pty) Ltd Mariswe (Pty) Ltd Mitchell du Plessis Projects (Pty) Ltd Mott MacDonald Contracting (Pty) Ltd MPAMOT Africa (Pty) Ltd Msingi Construction Project Management (Pty) Ltd Multi-Pro Cost Engineering (Pty) Ltd Origin Africa Project Management (Pty) Ltd Profica Management (Pty) Ltd Royal HaskoningDHV (Pty) Ltd S I P Project Managers (Pty) Ltd SeCo Project Managers (Pty) Ltd SRK Consulting ( South Africa ) (Pty) Ltd ) (Pty) Ltd Synergy Property Solutions CC Turner and Townsend (Pty) Ltd Virtual Consulting Engineers VCE (Pty) Ltd Worley RSA (Pty) Ltd WSP Group Africa (Pty) Ltd Zutari (Pty) Ltd For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/hz3h6r 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 Video technology company hiring 300 by 2026, receiving $7M in IEDC state tax credits and grants FISHERS, Ind., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- spokenote, LLC today announced the company's multi-year growth plans including the creation of 300 jobs by 2026 along with a new headquarters location in the Certified Technology Park in Fishers. spokenote allows you to add video to anything. Just scan, smile and share. spokenote stickers come in packs of 10 and are available on spokenote.com and Amazon "We are very excited about our prospects for growth, and having the support from our state and local government makes a real impact in our expansion plans," said spokenote Founder and CEO, John Wechsler. "Between the thriving innovation ecosystem in Fishers, and the financial incentives from the State, we're confident in our ability to generate new jobs and create economic value in Indiana." The company which launched its first product this June will graduate from space in the Indiana IoT Lab to a 4,000-square-foot office located at the Techway building currently being redeveloped by Fishers-based Rebar Development. The company plans to grow its team to 300 by the end of 2026. Helping to fuel the company's growth plans, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) has committed an investment in spokenote of up to $7 million in the form of incentive-based tax credits and up to $165,000 in training grants. These tax credits are performance-based, meaning the company is eligible to claim incentives once Hoosiers are hired and trained. As a state, we are focused on advancing future-focused industries by investing in innovative, high-growth companies like spokenote," said Indiana Secretary of Commerce Brad Chambers. "Indiana was named one of the top global emerging destinations for startups, and our robust network of entrepreneurs and innovative companies like spokenote will continue to elevate our reputation as a leader in the tech sector." The City of Fishers has also pledged $55,000 in training grants to assist in the skilling up of spokenote employees. Additionally, spokenote is utilizing the state's Venture Capital Investment (VCI) tax credit program, which helps entrepreneurs and startups attract capital more quickly by giving investors an additional incentive to invest in early-stage, growing Indiana companies. The company was previously approved to leverage the program to raise up to $4 million. "John Wechsler and his spokenote team have built an incredible product platform as they join the growing list of companies that have graduated from Launch Fishers," said Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness. "As spokenote creates connections around the world, we can all be proud of the fact that it all began here in Fishers." The company's technology allows customers to "add video to anything," and their initial product called spokenote stickers features a unique, machine-readable spokenote code that users can pair with a recorded or uploaded video. Once the code and video are paired, anyone who scans the code on the sticker can view (and share) that video. The company's products are currently available on Amazon and spokenote.com, and plans for a retail launch are in the works for 2023. Additionally, the company will be developing and launching several new products and capabilities for consumer and enterprise customers next year. "Attracting and retaining the very best talent is one of the main ingredients of our recipe for success," said Wechsler. "We believe our new location and the broad support we are receiving at the state and local level will fuel interest in spokenote and significantly enhance our ability to execute our business plan." About spokenote, LLC spokenote develops technology that improves how people communicate, providing tools for human expression and communication via digital media. The company's initial product spokenote stickers connect users to the company's video creation and sharing platform. Each spokenote sticker features a unique spokenote code that, when scanned by a mobile device, can be paired with a video created by the user. Once the code and video are paired, anyone who scans the code on the sticker can view the video. The company is headquartered in Fishers, Indiana. For more information or to purchase spokenote stickers, visit spokenote.com. About IEDC The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) is charged with growing the State economy, driving economic development, helping businesses launch, grow and locate in the state. Led by Secretary of Commerce Brad Chambers, @SecChambersIN, and governed by a 15-member board chaired by Governor Eric J. Holcomb, @GovHolcomb, the IEDC manages many initiatives, including performance-based tax credits, workforce training grants, innovation and entrepreneurship resources, public infrastructure assistance, and talent attraction and retention efforts. For more information about the IEDC, visit iedc.in.gov. Media Contacts: Mike Harmon (spokenote) 317.319.0093 [email protected] Erin Sweitzer (IEDC) 317.296.2556 [email protected] SOURCE spokenote BETHLEHEM, Pa., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In partnership with PINC AI Applied Sciences and GE Healthcare, St. Luke's University Health Network has implemented the first One-Stop Clinic in the United States serving as a national model for how to help accelerate breast cancer care through a multi-modality approach. The One-Stop Clinic for Breast model, which originated at the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in France, has been shown to improve clinical workflow and speed up breast cancer diagnosis and treatment planning. "We've seen this model surpass expectations in France and Colombia, and with the support of PINC AI Applied Sciences, we're proud to be working with St. Luke's to bring these same benefits to women in the United States to help redefine the patient experience through a personalized approach to breast care from screening and diagnosis to treatment planning," said Celeste Slade, Clinical Leader of Breast Imaging for GE Healthcare. The St. Luke's Regional Breast Center is located in Center Valley, Pa., and employs a staff of 20 breast imaging professionals who serve the entire region. To date, more than 300 patients have benefited from this rapid diagnostic approach that lessens the average waiting time for a diagnosis from a national average of 26 days to just three to seven days. Dr. Karl Yaeger, radiologist and Section Chief of Women's Imaging at St. Luke's University Health Network, said the partnership with PINC AI Applied Sciences and GE Healthcare represents "a paradigm shift in the way we deliver breast care" in the area. St. Luke's Network Director of Women's Imaging Michele Brands said, "Our number one guiding light for this program is to reduce the time patients wait for results and to reduce their anxiety around the entire process." With this model, she said, a woman presenting with concerning breast symptoms such as a lump, breast pain or nipple discharge will be "scaffolded with care. She meets with her breast nurse navigator, and we conduct all imaging and biopsy right onsite." Patients are prepared for appointments in advance, greeted by their care team, and presented with the appointment plan. Typically, this includes a diagnostic mammogram often contrast-enhanced as well as a diagnostic ultrasound and, if needed, a biopsy. If a biopsy is performed, pathology results are shared with the patient within 48 hours. In cases where further intervention is warranted, the team assists the patient in securing an appointment with a breast surgeon. About St. Luke's Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 18,000 employees providing services at 14 campuses and 300+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $3 billion, the Network's service area includes 11 counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke's is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. SOURCE St. Luke's University Health Network SMITHFIELD, Va., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Steve Evans, vice president of community development for Smithfield Foods, was recognized with the Future Leader Award at the World Sustainability Congress in Munich, Germany. The Future Leader Award, a category in the 2022 World Sustainability Awards, recognizes "an individual to watch for the future a high performer passionate about environment and social justice who is set to have a lasting impact on sustainability, whether as a future CSO or leader elsewhere in the business." In accepting the award, Evans said, "It's an extreme honor to be recognized as an emerging leader in the work of sustainability, particularly as it relates to agriculture and food delivery. I am equally honored to represent Smithfield Foods in a way that's meaningful and impactful." Individuals selected for this award are those who have "made a significant contribution to sustainability in the company; gone above and beyond the expected to deliver ESG improvements; displayed creativity, inclusivity, and innovation in how they work; and have stood out from the crowd and shown initiative." Smithfield Foods was also recognized as a finalist in the 2022 World Sustainability Awards for its work in developing renewable energy and embedding diversity and inclusion into its business model. Business Transformation Award Smithfield Renewables was named as a finalist in this category for dramatically transforming its business models to deliver sustainable growth. The award recognizes companies that have "transitioned to a sustainable business model without compromising growth; developed a new strategy and targets that prioritize sustainable growth; managed and communicated change to relevant stakeholders; and met or exceeded pre-determined goals for the transformation." Diversity & Inclusion Award As a finalist in this category, Smithfield Foods was recognized for its programs in diversity and inclusion, and its initiatives to promote access for Black and other minority farmers. The award recognizes companies that have "developed a robust and ambitious D&I program and strategy, with targets in place that proactively address representation; made significant progress to percentage of workforce from diverse backgrounds and percentage of senior leadership from diverse backgrounds; and created a governance structure that enables D&I and will lead to greater equity in the future." More information about Smithfield's sustainability strategy may be found in the company's 2021 Sustainability Impact Report at https://smithfieldfoods.com/sustainability-reports. About the World Sustainability Awards The World Sustainability Awards is a stand-out celebration of the individuals, teams and organizations driving positive change in corporate and social sustainability. Judges for this year's awards represent a group of industry experts and trailblazers in their field. For more information, visit https://worldsustainabilityleaders.com/events/awards/. About Smithfield Foods, Inc. Headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia, since 1936, Smithfield Foods, Inc. is an American food company with agricultural roots and a global reach. With more than 60,000 jobs globally, we are dedicated to producing "Good food. Responsibly." and serve as one of the world's leading vertically integrated protein companies. We have pioneered sustainability standards for more than two decades, including our industry-leading commitments to become carbon negative in our U.S. company-owned operations and reduce GHG emissions 30% across our entire U.S. value chain by 2030. We believe in the power of protein to end food insecurity and have donated hundreds of millions of food servings to our communities. Smithfield boasts a portfolio of high-quality iconic brands, such as Smithfield, Eckrich and Nathan's Famous, among many others. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com, and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. SOURCE Smithfield Foods, Inc. 5G companies exhibit at Taiwan Expo USA 2022 WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Taiwan Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) under Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs coordinated an exhibit of Taiwanese 5G companies including HTC, QCT, Ufi Space, Lions, Askey, MTI, Lite-On, Compal, Edgecore and TMYTEK at the "5G Open RAN and AIoT Showcase" in the "5G & Smart City Pavilion" at Taiwan Expo USA 2022, held from October 12-14, 2022 in Washington, D.C. This showcase demonstrates how Taiwan offers great business potential for U.S. companies catering to the needs of both public and private networks in the global marketplace. Taiwan and U.S. companies collaborate to strengthen 5G supply chain resilience. Tweet this Taiwan 5G companies led by the Industrial Development Bureau, MOEA, are visited by the Minister of Economic Affairs of Taiwan, Mei-Hua Wang, former Vice President of Taiwan, Chien-Jen Chen, Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, James Moriarty, and Deputy Director General of Industrial Development Bureau, Pei-Li Chen, at the 5G Open RAN Showcase at Taiwan Expo USA 2022 in Washington D.C. Recent trade relations between the U.S. and China have caused disruptions to the global supply chain. Taiwan's crucial position in the global economy has resulted in more attention from the U.S. To promote substantive cooperation, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs established the Technology Trade and Investment Collaboration (TTIC) on December 7th, 2021, according to a joint announcement. Through the initial focus areas, including 5G, semiconductors and electric vehicles, U.S. and Taiwanese companies are developing closer partnerships to achieve supplier and supply chain diversity. Throughout the past year, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) has liaised with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) under the U.S. Department of Commerce to promote bilateral cooperation in 5G and broadband infrastructure. Through this cooperation, NTIA invited IDB to support The Prague Proposals on Telecommunications Supplier Diversity released at the Prague 5G Security Conference in 2021. Through Taiwan's contributions to open and interoperable 5G network architectures, Taiwan is helping to drive progress on shared telecommunications security, resilience, and innovation priorities. Therefore, IDB supports the Prague Proposals on Telecommunications Supplier Diversity and will continue to deepen the bilateral 5G partnership through substantive actions through Taiwan-U.S. cooperation structures such as TTIC. In March and July 2022, IDB hosted events such as the "Taiwan-USA Open Networking & Broadband Infrastructure Opportunities Seminars" and "Taiwan-USA 5G Ecosystem Partnership Business Forum," in which an NTIA representative spoke about relevant policies of the U.S. to encourage Taiwan-U.S. cooperation. Global partners helped extend invitations to U.S. firms, including telecom operators, system integrators and software solution providers, to meet with Taiwan's firms like QCT, HTC and 16 other companies to explore joint business opportunities in 5G and broadband infrastructure. Through information sharing, business to business seminars and forums along with the "5G Open RAN Showcase" at Taiwan Expo USA 2022 to demonstrate Taiwan's ICT capabilities, IDB also intends to welcome the delegation led by industry leaders and with participation by NTIA to Taiwan next year to promote Taiwan-U.S. cooperation, strengthen supply chain resilience, and encourage U.S. and Taiwanese firms to jointly explore overseas business opportunities to promote bilateral economic prosperity. For more information about IDB, visit moeaidb.gov.tw. About Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) Currently led by Director General Ching-Chang Lien, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) is the administrative agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan. IDB serves the role to formulate industrial policies, and to oversee various industries including information technology, metal & mechanical, consumer goods & chemical, knowledge services, as well as sustainable development in Taiwan. In recent years, IDB is responsible for industry promotion efforts to strengthen development of 5G and Open RAN within our industry. IDB has also been strongly supportive to bringing Taiwan's top-notch solution providers to global trade shows, and to demonstrate the capabilities of Taiwan ICT supply chain in the global marketplace. SOURCE IDB, Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan Torres Protected His Community Courageously, Selflessly Throughout Career RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is mourning the loss of Raleigh Police Officer Gabriel Torres, a member of the Raleigh Police Protective Association, an affiliate of Teamsters Local 391. Torres gave his life during the tragic shooting on Oct. 13 in East Raleigh. "Officer Gabriel Torres made the ultimate sacrifice on his way to work, where he went every day to uphold the oath he took: to protect and serve his neighbors, his friends, and all those he held dear in the City of Raleigh," said Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien. "There are no words that can fill the void in the hearts of those left behind." "Gabriel Torres embodied the core values of the Raleigh Police Department service, courage, fairness, integrity and compassion," said Carl Bailey, President of the Teamsters Law Enforcement League. "From his time in the military to his service as a law enforcement professional, Officer Torres lived his entire adult life as a hero and dedicated guardian both of his country and his community. Teamsters everywhere can honor him by following the example he set." In addition to being a law enforcement professional and a veteran, Torres was a husband, and father to a two-year old girl. The Teamsters encourage making a donation to assist his family during their time of immense grief at https://gofund.me/c575e425. Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.2 million hardworking men and women throughout the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org to learn more. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters. Contact: Matt McQuaid, (202) 624-6877 [email protected] SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters UAGC celebrates the graduation of 8,674 students from around the world CHANDLER, Ariz., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC), a leading provider of fully online higher education, celebrated the graduation of 8,674 students located worldwide during a virtual commencement ceremony held Saturday, October 8, 2022. "We couldn't be prouder of our most recent graduating class. For the faculty and staff at the University of Arizona Global Campus, commencement is a very uplifting and exciting time," shared UAGC President Paul Pastorek during the 2022 Virtual Fall Commencement. "We strive every day to empower every student, support every student, and enrich every student. Most importantly, we strive to graduate every student." UAGC students come from all walks of life with many facing challenges and adversity on their path to a higher education. Tweet this UAGC graduates reside in all 50 states and around the world in American Samoa, Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Liberia, Luxembourg, Thailand, United States Virgin Islands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. The average age of all graduates this fall is 37 years old; the youngest is 19 years old; and the oldest graduate is 78 years old. UAGC students come from all walks of life, with many facing challenges and adversity on their path to a higher education. Jocelyn Province of Fort Worth, Texas, completed her bachelor's degree in Human Resources Management and celebrated her graduation from UAGC during the virtual fall commencement ceremony. "I started my journey four years ago," shared Jocelyn. "It has not been easy being a single mother with a daughter in high school and working full time. With so many ups and downs, I finally made it to the end. I graduated with a 3.4 GPA in Human Resources Management. I am so proud of myself and my accomplishment." Keynote speaker Kevin "Special K" Daley, former Team Captain of the Harlem Globetrotters and an Ashford University (now UAGC) Class of 2010 graduate, shared his congratulations, words of wisdom and inspirational messages for the most recent UAGC graduates. "I cheer you; I applaud you, and I celebrate each of you!" said Daley. "My new alumni family, it is my honor to welcome you into the University of Arizona Global Campus Alumni Association." Editor's note: Interviews can be arranged with our graduates to learn more about their experiences attending and graduating from the University of Arizona Global Campus. To schedule an interview, please contact Linda Robertson, Director of University Communications, at [email protected]. About the University of Arizona Global Campus The University of Arizona Global Campus ("Global Campus" or "UAGC") is an independent university that is operated in affiliation with the University of Arizona. Global Campus is designed to provide flexible opportunities for working students from diverse backgrounds who seek to gain knowledge and skills that will help them to achieve their life and career goals. Global Campus is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) and is one of the nation's most innovative online universities with approximately 25,000 students. UAGC offers more than 50 degrees at the associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels. For more information visit uagc.edu. SOURCE University of Arizona Global Campus LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market is reckoned to amass a valuation of USD 538.6 Million by 2028 from USD 121.5 Million in 2021, registering a CAGR of 23.7% over 2022-2028. Thin Film and Printed Battery are nano-sized flexible, rechargeable, and stretchable batteries that are predominantly used in electronic products such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablets, among others. These batteries are mainly made up of lithium ion and are specifically designed to be mounted according to the shape and size of any end use product. The increasing adoption of electronic devices among the masses, rising disposable income levels, and widespread technological advancements are primarily fueling the growth of this business vertical. Due to their flexible and stretchable nature, these batteries can be integrated in a wide range of electronic devices irrespective of their shape and size. This is further adding traction to the development of this market. Moreover, surging trends of device miniaturization in order to make them easily portable is further escalating the demand for thin films and printed batteries across the globe. These batteries are energy efficient in nature as compared to their traditional counterparts. It is evident that widespread population expansion and industrialization has increased the energy needs of the masses. This in turn has led to the depletion of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources, thereby increasing the environmental consciousness of individuals. Due to their power saving nature, thin film and printed batteries are being extensively adopted by consumers worldwide. Get Sample of [email protected] https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestSample/PostId/2088 Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Competitive Landscape Cymbet Corporation Blue Spark Technologies Enfucell Imprint Energy STMicroelectronics NV Excellatron Solid State Ilika plc Printed Energy Pty Molex (Koch Industries) BrightVolt Others. These Companies are amplifying their global footprint by engaging in mergers & acquisitions, product launches, R&D investments, collaborations, and partnerships, among others. Also, the rising adoption of wireless sensors across various verticals such as public security, healthcare, and communication is escalating the demand for thin film and printed batteries across the globe. On the flipside, high costs pertaining to these batteries is hindering the remuneration scope of this business vertical. Historical Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Outlook Compared to Forecast 2022-2028 The marketplace has been registering notable gains over the last few decades. With prompt technological advancements and emergence of innovative electronic devices, the sale of thin film and print batteries has surged exponentially. People have started depending on consumer electronic goods for various daily tasks including cooking, travelling, and communication, among others. This has shifted their inclination towards portable electronic items, thereby popularizing the trends of device miniaturization. Thus, the beneficial features of these batteries make them convenient for consumer electronic devices. Moreover, manufacturers are investing whopping amounts to facilitate the development and launch of technologically advanced printed and thin film batteries. Country-wise insights What are the growth propellants for U.S. Thin Film and Printed Battery Market? Rising popularity of wearable devices in the U.S. is accelerating industry growth There has been a widespread adoption of wearable electronic devices like smartwatch among the masses across U.S. This is attributable to the increasing disposable income levels, rising digital literacy among consumers, and presence of leading industry players. Wearable devices are compact in nature and therefore are powered by thin film and printed batteries. This in turn is stimulating the dynamics of the marketplace in the U.S. How is the healthcare sector in China contributing to the growth of Thin Film and Printed Battery Market? Apart from consumer electronics items, thin film and printed batteries are also used in medical electronics devices like hearing aids. China is witnessing a rapid evolution in its healthcare sector as leading companies are launching innovative medical devices for fast paced diseases diagnosis and treatment. Flexible, energy efficient, and stretchable batteries are a pivotal component of every such equipment of device. Thus, technological advancements in the Chinese healthcare domain are positively influencing the overall industry growth. Get Methodology @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestMethodology/PostId/2088 Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Segmentation: - By Type Printed Batteries Thin film Batteries By Voltage Between 1.5V & 3V Below 1.5V Above 3V By Capacity Between 10 MAH & 100 MAH Below 10 MAH Above 100 MAH By Rechargeability Secondary Batteries Primary Batteries By Application Smart Packaging Consumer Electronics Medical Devices Wireless Sensors Smart Cards Others Category-wise insights Which is the fastest growing capacity segment in the market? The 10mAh capacity segment is slated to capture substantial returns over the forecast duration owing to their widespread integration in e-cigarettes, motorized toys, and portable media players, among others. Recent developments in the Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market On November 22, 2021, LionVolt BV, a Dutch Startup raised a funding of EUD 4 million from Prime Ventures and Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. The company intends to use the fresh funds for the development of its 3D solid state thin film battery range meant for electric cars and wearables. North America is Expected to Dominate the Global Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Geographically, North America is expected to dominate the global thin film and printed battery market within the forecast period due to the increasing adoption of smartphones, higher adoption of medical electronic devices and growing sales of wearable electronics in this region. The increasing adoption of smartphones is also driving the growth of the market. For instance, according to scientist research publishing, in June 2018; the number of smartphone users worldwide reached 2.5 billion, which is 33% of the world's population. In addition, the higher adoption of medical electronic devices is also supplementing the market growth in this region. The Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region in the global thin film and printed battery market due to the increasing adoption of printed battery technology in consumer electronics such as wireless sensor networks, remote controls, and smart cards, rising sales of wearable electronics and medical electronic devices such as hearing aids and respiratory aids, and the presence of key players in this region. On Special Requirement Thin Film and Printed Battery Market Report is also available for below region: North America U.S, Canada Europe Germany , France , U.K., Italy , Spain , Sweden , Netherland, Turkey , Switzerland , Belgium , Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific South Korea , Japan , China , India , Australia , Philippines , Singapore , Malaysia , Thailand , Indonesia , Rest Of APAC Latin America Mexico , Colombia , Brazil , Argentina , Peru , Rest of Latin America Middle East and Africa Saudi Arabia , UAE, Egypt , South Africa , Rest Of MEA Purchase Copy of Report @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/Checkout?report_id=2088 Related Reports: Automotive Rain Sensors Market is valued at USD 4.61 Billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 7.26 Billion by 2028 with a CAGR of 6.71% over the forecast period. 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At 12.4% CAGR, Wood Plastic Composite Market Size is projected to reach USD 13418.6 Million by 2028, Brandessence Market Research Electric Air Taxi Market to Surpass USD 2342.73 Million at a CAGR of 29.36% by 2028 | ImagineAir, Airstream Jets, Skymax, Propair Automotive Luxury Vehicle Market to Cross USD 659.34 Billion with a CAGR of 7.10% by 2028 | Tesla, Inc., BMW, Denso Corporation, Daimler AG At 18.3% CAGR, Language Learning Market to hit USD 191.06 Billion by 2028 Global Growth Industry Trends, Value, Analysis & Forecast By Brandessence Market Research i-Factor: Live Market intelligence platform I-Factor is our guaranteed seal to keep our clients ahead of the competition, always. This knowledge platform delivers real-time updates on key economic indicators, competitive landscape, changing demand, trends, customized regional insights, and more. The platform visualizes key data points to help make decision making agile, trustworthy, and holistic. 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Read more of the latest energy-related releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRNenergy on Twitter. Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists. Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers and freelancers have access to the following free features: Customization: Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Subject Matter Experts: Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Related Resources: Read and subscribe to our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, for media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more. About PR Newswire and PR Newswire for Journalists For more than 65 years, PR Newswire has been the industry leader with the largest, most comprehensive distribution network of print, radio, magazine, television stations, financial portals and trade publications. PR Newswire has an unparalleled global reach of more than 200,000 publications and 10,000 websites and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. PR Newswire for Journalists (PRNJ) is an exclusive community that includes over 20,000 journalists, bloggers and influencers who are logging into their PRNJ accounts specifically looking for story ideas. PR Newswire thoroughly researches and vets this community to verify their identity as a member of the press, blogger or influencer. PRNJ users cover more than 200 beats and verticals. For questions, contact the team at [email protected]. SOURCE PR Newswire A roundup of the week's most newsworthy technology industry press releases from PR Newswire NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists covering the business technology industry stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a roundup of stories from the week that shouldn't be missed. The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download. Read more of the latest business technology releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRNtech on Twitter. Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists. Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers and freelancers have access to the following free features: Customization: Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Subject Matter Experts: Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Related Resources: Read and subscribe to our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, for media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more. About PR Newswire and PR Newswire for Journalists For more than 65 years, PR Newswire has been the industry leader with the largest, most comprehensive distribution network of print, radio, magazine, television stations, financial portals and trade publications. PR Newswire has an unparalleled global reach of more than 200,000 publications and 10,000 websites and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. PR Newswire for Journalists (PRNJ) is an exclusive community that includes over 20,000 journalists, bloggers and influencers who are logging into their PRNJ accounts specifically looking for story ideas. PR Newswire thoroughly researches and vets this community to verify their identity as a member of the press, blogger or influencer. PRNJ users cover more than 200 beats and verticals. For questions, contact the team at [email protected]. SOURCE PR Newswire CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Two Envoy Solutions companies, WAXIE Sanitary Supply and North American Corporation, were the recipients of the Green2Sustainable's 2022 Sustainability Recognition Plaque handed out each year at the ISSA Show North America. The show was held in Chicago in October of this year. To select the recipients, Green2Sustainable uses advanced analytic tools to measure and monitor an organization's use of natural resources, fuel, energy, waste, and other metrics. They also conduct semiannual, one-on-one performance reviews with the recipients, suggesting ways to reduce their consumption, environmental impact, and operating costs. "We are so impressed with how much WAXIE Sanitary Supply and North American Corporation have accomplished," says Katrina Saucier, program manager for Green2Sustainable. "Your efforts to measure and reduce your organization's consumption has direct results on the associated environmental impacts." According to Mark M. Fisher, CEO of Envoy Solutions, the parent company of WAXIE and North American, it is an honor to be recognized by Green2Sustainable. "We are committed to being a leader that promotes responsible business practices in the communities we serve, so it's meaningful to receive this recognition for our ongoing efforts," said Fisher. "With the help of Green2Sustainable's program, we've taken significant steps forward in our sustainability journey as well as improved operational efficiencies." Through its partnerships with WAXIE and North American, Envoy Solutions has enhanced its sustainability efforts by converting several facilities to receive energy from solar panels and transitioning to LED lighting at some buildings to be more energy efficient. In addition, the specialized distributor and solution provider has developed the Green Partner Support (GPS) Program to help its clients achieve their sustainability goals. Envoy Solutions, a family of regional distributors serving the U.S. market, is looking for additional ways to advance sustainability efforts across its national platform in the future. About Envoy Solutions: Glenview, Ill.-based Envoy Solutions is a specialized distributor and solution provider serving the U.S. market through a family of regional distributors. We specialize in Jan-San, foodservice, packaging, and marketing execution. Envoy Solutions offers a broad catalog of top brands and products, along with deep expertise and advice, to help our client-partners succeed. We are driven to make facilities cleaner and more sustainable, people safer, and operations more productive, every day. For more information, please visit www.envoysolutions.com . About Green2Sustainable Green2Sustainable provides comprehensive facility performance data management services, including data gathering, data analysis software, the Sustainability Dashboard, and performance reporting, to various business sectors. The Sustainability Dashboard is an advanced reporting system for business owners, managers, and property developers involved in sustainability programs. The system measures and monitors energy, water, fuel consumption, and other metrics; it is specifically designed to be easy to use, reduce environmental impacts, save money, and create a culture of sustainability. For more information, please visit http://www.green2sustainable.com/contact. SOURCE Envoy Solutions DUBLIN, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "United States Air Purifier Market, By Filter Type, By End Use, By Distribution Channel, By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2027F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The United States air purifier market was valued at USD3217.17 million in 2021 and is expected to grow at a steady CAGR of 7.17% in the forecast period to reach USD4750.11 million by 2027. Factors such as the massive adoption of air purifiers in the residential sector and consumers' growing health-consciousness and expenditure capacity are the primary factors driving the demand for the United States air purifier market. The advent of smart air purifiers and advanced filters that can efficiently maintain indoor air quality and the growing popularity of the online sales channel is expected to create new growth avenues for the United States air purifier market players in the coming years. Residents of the United States use excessive chimneys throughout the year to combat the cold weather outside their homes. The remains obtained from these chimneys are the primary reason for the growing indoor pollution. Also, the flowing industrial effluents in the country with the wind and the emission from the automobiles affect the air quality. Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and many other countries are witnessing degrading air quality and rising pollution levels. Therefore, consumers invest in air purifiers to prevent the adverse effects of low air quality. The high demand for air purifiers within the country to suit the improved living standards of consumers is expected to fuel the United States air purifier market growth over the next five years. Based on regional analysis, the south region dominated the market in 2021 and captured 42.30% of the overall market share. The region boasts of high population density and industrialization. The increase in the number of factories and industries and the rise in the installation of air purifiers in corporate offices, schools, and hospitals are driving the market demand in the region. Objective of the Study: To analyze the historical growth in the market size of the United States air purifier market from 2017 to 2021. air purifier market from 2017 to 2021. To estimate and forecast the market size of United States air purifier market from 2022 to 2027 and growth rate until 2027. air purifier market from 2022 to 2027 and growth rate until 2027. To classify and forecast the United States air purifier market based on filter type, end use, distribution channel, regional distribution, and competitive landscape. air purifier market based on filter type, end use, distribution channel, regional distribution, and competitive landscape. To identify the dominant region or segment in the United States air purifier market. air purifier market. To identify drivers and challenges for the United States air purifier market. air purifier market. To examine competitive developments such as expansions, new product launches, mergers & acquisitions, etc., in the United States air purifier market. air purifier market. To identify and analyze the profiles of leading players operating in the United States air purifier market. air purifier market. To identify key sustainable strategies adopted by market players in the United States air purifier market. Competitive Landscape Detailed analysis of the major companies present in United States air purifier market. Austin Air Systems Ltd. IQAir North America, Inc. Blueair Inc. Honeywell International, Inc. Whirlpool Corporation Rabbit Air Sharp Electronics Corporation Winix America Inc. Coway USA Inc. Inc. Alen Corporation Key Target Audience: Air purifier manufacturers Market research and consulting firms Government bodies such as regulating authorities and policy makers Organizations, forums, and alliances related to domestic heat pump water heater market Report Scope: United States Air Purifier Market, By Filter Type: HEPA + Activated Carbon Pre-Filter + HEPA HEPA Others United States Air Purifier Market, By End Use: Residential/Household Non-Residential/Commercial UV United States Air Purifier Market, By Distribution Channel: Direct/Institutional Sales Offline Retail Sales Online Retail Sales United States Air Purifier Market, By Region: South West Mid-West North-East Years considered for this report: Historical Years: 2017-2020 Base Year: 2021 Estimated Year: 2022 Forecast Period: 2023-2027 For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/tk27h0 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: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets At the three day mega event ( October 10-October 13), light was shed on how geospatial is relevant to tackle some of the most pressing global challenges, address systematic imbalances, ensure social equity, inclusion, and empower citizens HYDERABAD, India, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - The Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC 2022) that began on October 11 2022, came to an end on October 13 after three exciting days. Convened by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), the Second UNWGIC 2022 was organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations and hosted by the Department of Science & Technology Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. With the theme 'Geo-Enabling the Global Village: No one should be left behind,' the Second UNWGIC 2022 reflected on the importance of integrated geospatial information infrastructure and knowledge services to support implementation and monitoring of sustainable development goals. The event focused on addressing multifaceted challenges, including environmental destruction and climate change mitigation. In his inaugural address through a video message, the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, said that global organizations like the United Nations could lead the way in taking resources to the last mile in every region, even in fighting climate change, hand holding and technology transfer are crucial. "The possibilities that geospatial technology offers are endless; there is so much that we can do for our planet through this technology," Shri Modi said. He highlighted that geospatial technology has been driving inclusion and progress in national development projects like SVAMITVA, PM Gati Shakti master plan, Jam Trinity, etc. In his keynote address, Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of Science and Technology, Government of India said that India has witnessed a lot of transformations in the past few years, jumping in the global innovation index. He said, "Tech is increasingly becoming available to generations, but there is no uniformity in adaptation. This needs to be taken into consideration at a global level. Definition of geospatial has evolved from a traditional one to a dynamic one. When we talk of futuristic themes, it's very important to keep in mind the requirements of stakeholders for a synergistic association between industry, academia and others. India has been one of the earliest adopters of geospatial and the credit goes to coordination between different agencies." The occasion also received a congratulatory video message by Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations, which read, "We need geospatial expertise on two fronts: To make progress, and to mark progress. We need you to drive innovation and action through the power of data focused on the most marginalized ad vulnerable communities and place." In his welcome address Stefan Schweinfest, Director, Statistics Division United Nations, said, "Geospatial is a community of solidarity and solutions. Everything happens somewhere and that somewhere is often a village." Ingrid Vanden Berghe, Co-chair of UNGGIM, said, "UNGGIM is focusing on key elements for many local to global challenges, from operationalization to implantation for integration. Location undergirds everything we do. Stats and data are key to better knowledge, insights, sharing, understanding, and to achieve 2030 SDGs and to enable better livelihood for future generations. We will continue to geo-enable the global village, bridge the digital divide, build back better, and leave no one behind, she added. Over three days, the distinguished panelists took a deep dive into the realm of geospatial, exploring its convergence with other technologies for a marked social transformation and demonstrative impact. At the closing ceremony, many notable people gave their concluding remarks. In the true spirit of fostering inclusivity, what started as all-in-one space for geospatial, ended up opening its space for stakeholders across the gamut of industries and sectors. "We visualize new geospatial age as both a challenge and an opportunity," says Surveyor General of India, Sunil Kumar. "Spatial thinking will empower us towards a sustainable development process, stimulating the understanding of young minds. The event deliberated on different aspects of geospatial information systems," notes Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, Dr. Srivari Chandrashekhar. "All outcomes of our shared endeavors should enrich the lives of the citizens, and this is what India has done. We have achieved significant progress in geo-referencing of land parcels. Land, land resources and land records are geo fabrics of any nation. Changes in land systems have relied on uptake of geospatial technologies in India," states Ajay Tirke, Secretary, Department of Land resources, Government of India. "Undoubtedly, geospatial technologies will play a crucial role in the road to recovery, and India becoming a five trillion-dollar economy. Geospatial technologies provide a unique approach for solutions locally, regionally, as well as globally, empowering stakeholders through data insights and tools. We have conceptualized and planned a national integrated geoportal. This will harness and leverage on the schemes and programs of government of India," he adds. "We need to keep the momentum and work with the committee of experts to make the world a better place, says Tulu Besha Bedada, Co-Chair, UNGGIM. "We focus on Substantive goals for an overarching information framework. I thank the Indian government and the high-level dignitaries for generous hosting. I also thank the national organizing committee under the leadership of Ministry of Science & Technology. IGIF needs to be implemented in all countries. Let's take our community home and forward," observes Stefan Schweinfest, Director, Statistics Division United Nations. "United Nations has been at the forefront of evolving a global framework for a better world. Sustainable focus of United Nations has made it a forum for global development. UNWGIC allows stakeholders to discuss applications of geospatial technology as a force for good, and to exchange ideas. Indian competence, capacity and capability make it ideal to become an end-to-end in global geospatial. Indian innovators provide 360-degree geospatial view," declares G. Kishan Reddy, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region of India. "Geospatial is the bedrock of many national development projects. Discussions and deliberations at the UNWGIC 2022 have set the benchmark for future conferences," he adds. "As a doctor, I am very happy that geospatial was very useful in reaching out to people for vaccination during Covid. Geospatial technology is also applicable in tribal welfare, and in analyzing their health conditions. It also plays a crucial role in ensuring gender equality. There's a need to create more awareness in people about geospatial technology usage. It has use-cases from the simplest to the most advanced," notes Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, Honorable Governor of State of Telangana, Hyderabad. "Government schemes can reach to the last person via geospatial technology. India is a young country with an average age of 29 years, so we are equipped to use technology for maximum benefits," she adds. About UNWGIC United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) aims to provide a convening, participatory and inclusive environment to enhance the communication, understanding, knowledge, and application of geospatial information management. In 2011, the United Nations Economic and Social Council, "encouraged the Member States to hold regular high-level, multi-stakeholder discussions on global geospatial information, including through the convening of global forums, with a view to promoting a comprehensive dialogue with all relevant actors and bodies." SOURCE Geospatial Media and Communications Pvt. Ltd. KATY, Texas, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SLCA) announced today that it will release its third quarter 2022 financial results before the New York Stock Exchange opens on Friday, October 28, 2022. Conference Call This release will be followed by a conference call for investors on Friday, October 28, 2022 at 7:30 a.m. Central Time to discuss the results. Hosting the call will be Bryan Shinn, Chief Executive Officer, and Don Merril, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Investors are invited to listen to a live webcast of the conference call by visiting the "Investors- Events & Presentations" section of the Company's website at www.ussilica.com . The webcast will be archived for one year. The call can also be accessed live over the telephone by dialing (877) 869-3847 or for international callers, (201) 689-8261. A replay will be available shortly after the call and can be accessed by dialing (877) 660-6853 or for international callers, (201) 612-7415. The conference ID for the replay is 13733714. The replay will be available through November 28, 2022. About U.S. Silica U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. is a global performance materials company and is a member of the Russell 2000. The Company is a leading producer of commercial silica used in the oil and gas industry and in a wide range of industrial applications. Over its 122-year history, U.S. Silica has developed core competencies in mining, processing, logistics and materials science that enable it to produce and cost-effectively deliver over 600 diversified products to customers across our end markets. U.S. Silica's wholly-owned subsidiaries include EP Minerals and SandBox Logistics. EP Minerals is an industry leader in the production of products derived from diatomaceous earth, perlite, engineered clays, and non-activated clays. SandBox Logistics is a state-of-the-art leader in proppant storage, handling and well-site delivery, dedicated to making proppant logistics cleaner, safer and more efficient. The Company has 28 operating mines and processing facilities and is headquartered in Katy, Texas. Investor Contact: Patricia Gil Vice President, Investor Relations (281) 505-6011 [email protected] SOURCE U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Venzee Technologies Inc. (TSXV: VENZ) (OTCQB: VENZF) ("Venzee'' or the "Company"), the artificial intelligence platform for product data, is pleased to update shareholders on the closing of its non-brokered private placement as previously announced on June 23, 2022, July 23, 2022, July 28, 2022 and August 30, 2022. The principal sum of Debentures issued in all tranche closings totals CAD $275,000. In connection with the Debenture Offering, the Company paid finder's fee to certain registered brokerage firms, comprised of cash payment of $18,000 and the issuance of 360,000 finders' warrants upon the same terms and conditions as the Warrants. Venzee CEO John Abrams said, "We deeply appreciate continued support from our investors. Our recent progress validates for clients and investors the enormous potential of Venzee to eliminate supply chain inefficiency with our modern Artificial Intelligence platform." The Debentures have a maturity date of three (3) years from the date of issuance and shall bear interest at a rate of 5% per annum, payable every six (6) months. The principal sum of the Debentures, or any portion thereof, are convertible at the option of the holder, anytime after six (6) months, into debenture units (each, a "Debenture Unit") at CAD $0.05 per Debenture Unit for the first year. In subsequent years, the Debentures are convertible at the greater of $0.10 or Market Price. Each Debenture Unit consists of one common share (a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") with each Warrant exercisable at CAD $0.08 for 36 months from the date of issuance. The Warrants will also be subject to an acceleration clause whereby, in the event the volume weighted average trading price of the Company's shares trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), or any other stock exchange on which the Company's Shares are then listed, is equal to or greater than $0.25 for a period of 30 consecutive trading days, the Company will have the right, but not the obligation, to accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by giving written notice to the holders that the Warrants will expire on a date that is not less than 30 days from the date of notice. The Debentures, Debenture Units, Warrants and any Common Shares resulting from the conversion of the Debentures or the exercise of Debenture Warrants will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day after the date of issuance thereof. The Company will use the proceeds of the Debenture Offering for general working purposes. On August 30, 2022, the Company announced a grant of 7,536,430 performance share units under the Company's Omnibus LTIP Plan. The Board of Directors of the Company subsequently determined this grant does not serve the best interests of employees and management of the Company at this time. About Venzee Technologies, Inc. Venzee (TSXV: VENZ) (OTCQB: VENZF) is the leading artificial intelligence platform for product data used by global brands to speed time to market and create competitive supply chain advantages. Venzee's intelligent platform automates inefficient last-mile retail processes with a frictionless, machine-driven solution for sending and receiving product data. Venzee believes intelligent supply chain functionality is inevitable and will significantly benefit growers, makers, brands, sellers, regulators, and consumers. Venzee is building the foundation for a future where seamless, accurate, automated data flow simplifies processes, removes friction, and creates value for all those that rely on the myriad of data and information surrounding any product, anywhere. Venzee unlocks shareholder value by carrying out its mission to create intelligent technology that removes friction from the global supply chain. Its Mesh Connector product disrupts and displaces inefficient manual processes in favor of integrated, machine-driven solutions. To learn more about the Venzee platform, visit venzee.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/venzee-inc/ Podcast: https://www.rethinkingsupplychain.com/ Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the terms of the Offering, the completion of the Offering and the expected use of the net proceeds received by the Company. 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 state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is 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: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; and regulatory risks. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors and Uncertainties" in the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2018, and the quarter ended August 29, 2019, which are available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Although 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 information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws. Neither TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Venzee Technologies Inc. REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Washington State Veterinary Medical Association (WSVMA) held the Pacific Northwest Veterinary Conference Sept. 30 Oct. 2 at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center. Veterinarians and veterinary staff were honored at WSVMA's award ceremonies on Sat., Oct. 1. Veterinarian of the Year Award Michael Murphy, DVM, Olympia, received the 2022 Veterinarian of the Year Award. Dr. Murphy is the much-loved founder and Chief Pet Officer of People, Pets and Vets veterinary clinics located across Washington and other U.S. regions. He is known for his passion for veterinary medicine and for mentoring hundreds of veterinarians, not just in medicine, but in leadership, business, and practice management. He has worked tirelessly to build strong positive cultures within each of his veterinary hospitals and he provides exceptional medicine and service to his patients and clients. Countless animals have been helped, clients' lives have been touched, and team members inspired due to Dr. Murphy's example and leadership. Dr. Murphy truly believes in the good in all people and focuses on the positive in every situation surrounding him, a true inspiration in the veterinary profession. 2022 Outstanding Veterinary Service Award Nora Hickey, DVM, veterinarian at Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission in Olympia, Wash., received the 2022 Outstanding Veterinary Service Award for her leadership in fish medicine and for improving tribal aquaculture in Washington State. Through her fish and wildlife veterinary services, she helps endangered Chinook Salmon and provides veterinary care for culturally important species that further tribal food sovereignty. In addition, she dedicates herself to the profession by teaching veterinary students and serving as the current president of the American Association of Fish Veterinarians. WSU Faculty Member of the Year Award Claude Ragle, DVM, DACVS, Professor of Equine Surgery at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, was presented the 2022 WSU Faculty Member of the Year Award. Dr. Ragle has devoted many years supporting continuing education to the veterinary profession in Washington state and has assisted in program selection for the annual conference and being an active presenter to attendees. He has been active in leadership roles as a mentor to practitioners and students, and has conducted advanced research in surgical techniques, especially in the field of arthroscopic surgery on horses. Dr. Ragle excels as a teacher, mentor and role model for the veterinary profession. 2022 WSVMA Humane Animal Welfare Award Mariel Small, LVT at Seattle Humane, Bellevue, Wash., was presented the 2022 Humane Animal Welfare Award in recognition of her hard work and dedication to people and their pets along with her deep devotion to providing quality care and advocacy in animal sheltering. In her work, Ms. Small advocates for even the most misunderstood and fractious pets, and her humility and empathy shine through in working with people of diverse experiences, socioeconomic statuses, and differing communication needs. 2022 President's Award Michael Kiefer, DVM, Olympia, received the 2022 WSVMA President's Award for his dedication to the WSVMA and the veterinary profession throughout his career. He generously served the WSVMA as treasurer for 19 years monitoring association finances and providing guidance to the Board of Directors and CEO. His volunteer service also includes being the treasurer of Thurston County Humane Society and previously as a board member of a local veterinary laboratory. 2022 President's Award Kimberly Coyner, DVM, DACVD, location, posthumously received the 2022 WSVMA President's Award for her dedication and service to the veterinary community. Dr. Coyner was well-liked and respected among her colleagues and generously donated her time to educate and assist veterinarians on veterinary dermatology cases. She was the author of multiple articles in scientific journals and participated in cutting edge clinical drug trials to improve the health of animal patients everywhere. Dr. Coyner and her husband Marc, died earlier this year in an automobile accident. 2022 Distinguished Veterinary Staff Award Kacey Burton, LVT, Pullman, Wash., licensed veterinary technician in the Oncology Dept. at the Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, received the 2022 Distinguished Veterinary Staff Award for her excellent skills, her unwavering cheerful attitude, and the love and care she shows for her patients and clients. Ms. Burton serves the Teaching Hospital, their clinicians, patients, and clients with dignity and determination. 2022 Allied Industry Award Josh Schulz, DVM and Kristen Fisher, MBA of Zoetis Animal Health received the 2022 Allied Industry Award for their unwavering support of Washington state's veterinary practitioners by helping the WSVMA provide exceptional educational opportunities. Their generous support can be experienced at the Pacific Northwest Veterinary conference and other WSVMA CE programs. The WSVMA is a statewide, not-for-profit, professional organization for the benefit of veterinary medicine. The WSVMA has over 1,900 members, representing veterinarians, veterinary students and a broad spectrum of veterinary practice. The Association's mission is to "advance the cause of veterinary medicine to better the lives of those touched by it." Visit the WSVMA Web site, www.wsvma.org, to learn more about the association, veterinary medicine, and animal care. SOURCE Washington State Veterinary Medical Association DUBLIN, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Western Europe Pay TV Market Forecasts to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Western Europe will lose 7 million pay TV subscribers between 2021 and 2027 to reach 100 million. Pay TV subscriber counts will fall for 14 of the 18 countries between 2021 and 2027. Germany will lose 2 million subs, with the UK down by 1.4 million and France nearly 1 million. Simon Murray, Principal Analyst, said: "Pay TV revenues will decline by $5 billion - 18% - between 2021 and 2027 to $22 billion. The pay TV subscriber count will drop by 7%, so revenues will fall faster - revealing lower TV ARPUs and less emphasis on TV from the operators. IPTV will overtake satellite TV in 2026 to become the most lucrative platform." Key Topics Covered: This 152-page PDF, PowerPoint and excel report comes in three parts: Insight: Detailed country-by-country analysis in an 72-page PDF document. Outlook: Forecasts for 18 countries in a 39-page PowerPoint document full of charts, graphs and bullet points; Excel workbook covering each year from 2010 to 2027 for 18 countries by household penetration, by pay TV subscribers, by pay TV revenues and by major operator. As well as summary tables by country and by platform; Companies Mentioned Allente Altibox Bouygues Boxer BT Canal Digitaal CanalSat Digita DNA DT/T-Home eir Elisa Eltrona Euskaltel Free Freenet Go HD Austria HD+ KPN/Digitenne Liwest Magenta Melita Meo/PT NOS Nowo Orange Proximus Riks TV SFR Siminn Sky Stofa Sunrise Swisscom TalkTalk TDC Tele 2 Tele des P&T Telecolumbus Telecom Italia Telefonica/Movistar Telekom Austria Telenet Telenor Telesat/TV Vlaanderen Telia TNT UPC Virgin Vodafone VOO You See Ziggo For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/fkqac5 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 NORTHAMPTON, Mass., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Winning Writers is pleased to announce the results from its 30th annual Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest. CB Anderson of Maine and Massachusetts won the $3,000 first prize for fiction for her story "Blood Ties". Elizabeth Becker of Charlottesville, Virginia won the $3,000 first prize for nonfiction for her essay "Manny". The contest received 2,441 entries from around the world. CB Anderson and Elizabeth Becker are the winners of the 30th annual Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest The Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest is sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by Duotrope "Blood Ties" is the story of two sisters, one adopted into a wealthier family and the other who stayed with their mother in their working-class New England town. Their reunion in adulthood takes them in a surprising direction, as each has something the other lacks. Mina Manchester, judge of the 2022 Fiction & Essay contest, said, "This unforgettable story will leave you rooting for this family and the bonds that are made of love." "Manny" chronicles a nurse's experience caring for an 18-year-old boy with terminal cancer, who fights the reality of his condition every step of the way. Manchester said, "Narrated starting at the end, the sense of time marching backward is a brilliant choice to catalog the suffering and insights Manny leaves with the living." Ten Honorable Mentions of $200 went to Ryan Collett, Michael Foote, Shannon Hancock, Ronald McGuire, Sandra Sidi and Lauren Serrano (co-authors), Byron Spooner, Cynthia Stock, P.L. Watts, Debbie Weingarten, and Jeffrey Weinstock. The top 12 entries and the judge's comments are published on the Winning Writers website. The 31st contest is open now through April 30, 2023. The fee is $22 for each entry, maximum 6,000 words per piece. $9,000 will be awarded. Mina Manchester returns as judge. See the guidelines and submit online. In addition to the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, Winning Writers sponsors the North Street Book Prize, the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest, and the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. Writer's Digest has named it one of the "101 Best Websites for Writers" in 2022. Media Contact: Adam Cohen 413-320-1847 [email protected] SOURCE Winning Writers Rising electric vehicles sale across the globe, Technological developments in the automobile industry, as well as innovations in the electronics and telecommunications industries, all contribute to the Wireless EV Charging Market growth. JERSEY CITY, N.J., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Verified Market Research recently published a report, "Wireless EV Charging Market" By Vehicle Type (Electric Commercial Vehicle, Electric Bike), By Propulsion Type (BEV, PHEV), and By Geography. As per the deep research carried out by Verified Market Research, the global Wireless EV Charging Market size was valued at USD 8.95 Million in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 2,744 Million by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 85% from 2022 to 2030. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/download-sample/?rid=7083 Browse in-depth TOC on "Wireless EV Charging Market" 202 - Pages 126 Tables 37 Figures Global Wireless EV Charging Market Overview Electric vehicles without cables Charging is a very efficient, practical, and simple technique for wirelessly recharging electric automobiles (EV). It consists of a transmission coil that generates a magnetic field and inducts energy into a nearby reception coil. A property of the distance between the two coils is the proportion of the magnetic field generated by the transmitter coil that reaches the receiving coil and helps with power transfer. Qualcomm has played a significant part in the development of practical wireless charging technology. Wireless charging is the primary factor driving the market. Compared to conventional public charging stations, wireless EV charging technology is more efficient, versatile, and damage-resistant. Rarely does the user need to exit the EV to deal with difficult connectors, lengthy wires, or a difficult user interface. Overall, the EV charging procedure has been made simpler, which improves the user experience. The demand for wireless EV charging will rise as a result of reasons such as rising global electric vehicle sales and the desire of auto OEMs for autonomous driving technology. Wireless EV charging is a technique for charging electric vehicles at charging stations whether they are moving or idle. A power transmission coil must be mounted on the charging station and a power collecting coil must be fitted below the bodywork of the car in order to deliver electricity. The autos' batteries need to be charged. Electric vehicles integrate into a charging station to draw power from the grid. Key Developments In May 2022 , Continental announced the launch of new sensors that will protect the battery of EVs. They are actually designed for electric mobility to enhance road safety and electric technology. , Continental announced the launch of new sensors that will protect the battery of EVs. They are actually designed for electric mobility to enhance road safety and electric technology. In May 2022 , Toshiba and Japan Semiconductor collaborated to develop an improved Analog platform having embedded non-volatile memory for various applications in the automotive industry. Key Players The major players in the market are Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental AG, PowerbyProxi, WiTricity Corp, Toyota Motor Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, WiTricity Corporation, Qualcomm, Inc., Evatran Group, and Integrated Device Technology. Verified Market Research has segmented the Global Wireless EV Charging Market On the basis of Vehicle Type, Propulsion Type, and Geography. Wireless EV Charging Market, By Vehicle Type Electric Commercial Vehicle Electric bike Passenger Car Wireless EV Charging Market, By Propulsion Type BEV PHEV Wireless EV Charging Market, by Geography North America U.S Canada Mexico Europe Germany France U.K Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India Rest of Asia Pacific ROW Middle East & Africa & Latin America Browse Related Reports: Automotive Wiring Harness Market By Material (Copper, Aluminum), By Propulsion (ICE Vehicles, Electric Vehicles), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV)), By Application (Engine Harness, Chassis Harness), By Geography, And Forecast Commercial Vehicle Electrification Market By Vehicle Type (Light Commercial Vehicle, Heavy-Duty Commercial Vehicle), By Hybridization (Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV), Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV)), By Geography, And Forecast EV On-Board Chargers Market By Charging (AC, DC), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Light commercial vehicles), By Geography, And Forecast Vehicle to Grid Chargers Market By Product (AC Vehicle to Grid Chargers, DC Vehicle to Grid Chargers), By Application (Residential Chargers, Commercial Chargers) By Geography, And Forecast Leading Electric Commercial Vehicles providing HOHO facilities between uptown and downtown Visualize Wireless EV Charging Market using Verified Market Intelligence -: Verified Market Intelligence is our BI Enabled Platform for narrative storytelling in this market. VMI offers in-depth forecasted trends and accurate Insights on over 20,000+ emerging & niche markets, helping you make critical revenue-impacting decisions for a brilliant future. VMI provides a holistic overview and global competitive landscape with respect to Region, Country, Segment, and Key players of your market. Present your Market Report & findings with an inbuilt presentation feature saving over 70% of your time and resources for Investor, Sales & Marketing, R&D, and Product Development pitches. VMI enables data delivery In Excel and Interactive PDF formats with over 15+ Key Market Indicators for your market. About Us Verified Market Research is a leading Global Research and Consulting firm servicing over 5000+ customers. Verified Market Research provides advanced analytical research solutions while offering information enriched research studies. We offer insight into strategic and growth analyses, Data necessary to achieve corporate goals and critical revenue decisions. Our 250 Analysts and SME's offer a high level of expertise in data collection and governance use industrial techniques to collect and analyze data on more than 15,000 high impact and niche markets. Our analysts are trained to combine modern data collection techniques, superior research methodology, expertise and years of collective experience to produce informative and accurate research. We study 14+ categories from Semiconductor & Electronics, Chemicals, Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Energy & Power, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Automotive & Transportation, Information & Communication Technology, Software & Services, Information Security, Mining, Minerals & Metals, Building & construction, Agriculture industry and Medical Devices from over 100 countries. Contact Us Mr. Edwyne Fernandes Verified Market Research US: +1 (650)-781-4080 UK: +44 (753)-715-0008 APAC: +61 (488)-85-9400 US Toll Free: +1 (800)-782-1768 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/ Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1315349/Verified_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Verified Market Research The electric vehicle motor market is projected to grow by 6.8x by 2032. China electric vehicle motor market is projected to create an incremental opportunity of more than US$ 86.5 Bn in the upcoming decade. Total sales of EV motors in the Germany are projected to grow by 6.2x NEWARK, Del., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global electric vehicle motor market is worth US$ 8.68 Bn as of now and expected to reach US$ 18.09 Bn by the year 2032 at a CAGR of 8.5% between 2022 and 2032. Electric vehicles are being increasingly asked for due to strict government regulations regarding carbon emissions. As per the European Climate Foundation, employment, with the expansion of electric vehicles, would cross 850K by the year 2030. Thus, increasingly adopting high-performance motors in the electric vehicles is bound to take the electric vehicle motor market to a new 'High' in the forecast period. At the same time, high maintenance costs coupled with higher initial costs on the part of electric motor are bound to restrain the market going forward. Get Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7661 Though there are complexities involved, the electric vehicles are helpful in the long run. As renewable energy resources are depleting, electric vehicles are a good alternative. Electric vehicle motor market is an ancillary market to electric vehicles market. With exorbitant demand for electric vehicles, the electric vehicle motor market is expected to grow on an unstoppable note in the years to come. Future Market Insights has etched these findings with future perspectives in its latest market study entitled "Electric Vehicle Motor Market". Key Takeaways from Electric Vehicle Motor Market North America holds the largest market share with the US alone contributing for more than 90%. This data, however, pertains to the year 2021. It could lose 162 BPS points by the year 2032, which would take its share to 89.7%. holds the largest market share with the US alone contributing for more than 90%. This data, however, pertains to the year 2021. It could lose 162 BPS points by the year 2032, which would take its share to 89.7%. Europe is expected to witness a CAGR of 20.1% in electric vehicle motor market in the forecast period with Germany expected to witness growth 6 times in 2032 to the year 2022. Luxury electric vehicles are expected to rule the roost. is expected to witness a CAGR of 20.1% in electric vehicle motor market in the forecast period with expected to witness growth 6 times in 2032 to the year 2022. Luxury electric vehicles are expected to rule the roost. Coming to the Asia-Pacific , China is expected to create a lucrative opportunity worth US$ 86.5 Bn between 2022 and 2032. The government has also started giving subsidies to facilitate the proliferation of electric vehicles. , is expected to create a lucrative opportunity worth between 2022 and 2032. The government has also started giving subsidies to facilitate the proliferation of electric vehicles. AC motors holds the largest market share and the status quo will continue even in the forecast period due to stronger grip provided on the bumpy routes. "With environmentally-friendliness being the top priority, the electric vehicle motor market is bound to grow at an astounding rate in the forecast period", says an analyst at Future Market Insights. Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/electric-vehicle-drive-motor-market Competitive Motors Mabuchi Motors, in June 2021 , declared finishing 100% acquisition of Electromag SA for CHF 0.1 Mn or US$ 0.11 Mn . , declared finishing 100% acquisition of Electromag SA for or . Wolong Electric, in March 2020 , did acquire small industrial motors' business of GE for US$ 160 Mn with the objective of helping it to obtain a significant position in the market. , did acquire small industrial motors' business of GE for with the objective of helping it to obtain a significant position in the market. Nidec Corporation, in February 2020 , tabled 2 novel traction motor systems; viz 50 kW Ni50Ex and 200 kW Ni200Ex based on original 150 kW E-Axle (100% integrated traction motor system encompassed with a reduction gearbox, an electric motor, and an inverter). , tabled 2 novel traction motor systems; viz 50 kW Ni50Ex and 200 kW Ni200Ex based on original 150 kW E-Axle (100% integrated traction motor system encompassed with a reduction gearbox, an electric motor, and an inverter). WEG, in October 2019 , installed LV electric motor plant in Hosur ( India ). This new-fangled 13K square meter facility holds the capability of manufacturing 250K electric motors/year. , installed LV electric motor plant in Hosur ( ). This new-fangled square meter facility holds the capability of manufacturing electric motors/year. Allied Motion Technologies, in May 2019 , came up with EnduraMax 75i Series, brushless DC motor comprising an all-digital integrated drive. The application areas include AGV vehicle traction/steering, rotary/linear actuators, medical patient-handling equipment, mobile HVAC blowers, pumps, and material handling systems. , came up with EnduraMax 75i Series, brushless DC motor comprising an all-digital integrated drive. The application areas include AGV vehicle traction/steering, rotary/linear actuators, medical patient-handling equipment, mobile HVAC blowers, pumps, and material handling systems. ABB, in March 2019 , floored stainless steel motors to address food and beverage plants. This motor is capable of forbearing high pressure spray with complete compatibility with the high standards. , floored stainless steel motors to address food and beverage plants. This motor is capable of forbearing high pressure spray with complete compatibility with the high standards. TECO Westinghouse ( Canada ), in January 2018 , announced entering into new distribution partnership with Westech Industrial for gaining access to uncharted and new markets all over Canada . Key Players: Tesla Inc. Aisin Seiki Co Ltd Bosch Mobility Siemens AG Nidec Motor Corporation ABB Ltd Toshiba Corporation Magna International Mitsubishi Electric Hitachi Astemo Parker Hannifin Corp. Delta Electronics Inc. BYD Mahle GmBH Vitesco Technologies Download PDF Brochure @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/brochure/rep-gb-7661 Key Segments Covered in Electric vehicle motor Industry Analysis By Product Type: AC DC By Power: Up to 100kW 101-200kW Above 200kW By EV Type: BEV HEV PHEV By Region: North America Latin America Europe East Asia South Asia & Pacific & Pacific Middle East & Africa What does the Report Cover? Future Market Insights offers an exclusive perspective and various real-time insights on the electric vehicle motor market in its latest study, presenting historical demand assessment of 2016 2021 and projections for 2022 2032. The research study is based on product type (AC and DC), by power (up to 100 kW, 101-200 kW, and above 200 kW), and by EV type (HEV, BEV, and PHEV). Table of Content 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Global Market Outlook 1.2. Demand Side Trends 1.3. Supply Side Trends 1.4. Technology Roadmap 1.5. 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 Electric Vehicle Motor Market Demand Analysis 20172021 and Forecast, 20222032 5.1. Historical Market Volume ('000 Units) Analysis, 20172021 5.2. Current and Future Market Volume ('000 Units) Projections, 20222032 5.3. Y-o-Y Growth Trend Analysis 6. Global Electric Vehicle Motor Market - Pricing Analysis 6.1. Regional Pricing Analysis By Product Type 6.2. Global Average Pricing Analysis Benchmark Speak to our Research Expert: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-question/rep-gb-7661 About FMI Automotive and Transportation The Automotive and Transportation division of FMI provides exclusive coverage and actionable insights about automotive and transportation industry encompassing automotive, aviation, shipping and marine, and railway sectors. Market findings and competition intelligence of OEM, aftermarket, services and technology landscape have helped numerous industry stakeholders' right from automakers, component manufacturers, channel partners and service providers in taking informed decisions and keeping them up-to-date with market behaviour. Have a Look at Related Research Reports of Automotive Domain The global electric vehicle battery market is set to strengthen its market hold in global market at a promising CAGR of 8.5%, while it is forecasted to hold a revenue of USD 18.09 Billion in 2032: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/electric-vehicle-battery-market The sales of electric bikes are expected to increase at a CAGR of 10% during the forecast period. The electric bike market size is anticipated to rise from US$ 52.05 Bn in 2022 to US$ 122.1 Bn in 2032: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/electric-bike-market The global Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles market is set to enjoy a valuation of US$ 120.87 Bn in 2022, and further expand at a CAGR of 8.6% during 2022-2032: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicles-phev-market Sales of electric cargo bikes is likely to exceed a valuation of US$ 3.15 Billion by 2032. Demand for electric cargo bikes is likely to grow at a CAGR of 7.7% through 2032.: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/electric-cargo-bikes-market Sales of EV tires are projected to increase at 12% -14% CAGR over the next ten years (2021-2031). North America is projected to be one of the most lucrative markets for EV tires: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ev-tires-market 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. Contact: Future Market Insights, Inc. Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 Enquiries: [email protected] Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1197648/FMI_Logo.jpg SOURCE Future Market Insights SHANGHAI, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi Biologics ("WuXi Bio") (2269.HK), a leading global Contract Research, Development and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO), announced that it has received the "Best CDMO Award of the Year" at the Asia-Pacific Biologics CMO Excellence Awards (APBCEA) 2022 hosted by IMAPAC. Over the years since 2017, WuXi Biologics has received multiple awards in various categories at IMAPAC's events. APBCEA 2022 seeks to give recognition to exceptional CMO and CDMO that facilitate biologics manufacturing at enhanced speed, reduced cost, and superior quality from the biologics contract manufacturing space. The winners were determined through voting by more than 200 biopharma companies and service providers involved in biologics manufacturing in the APAC regions. WuXi Biologics won the "Best CDMO Award of the Year" with the highest number of votes in this category. Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, said, "We are honored to be recognized by IMAPAC again. The 'Best CDMO Award of the Year' reflects the trust and confidence our customers have in us. As a valued CRDMO partner and enabler, WuXi Biologics is committed to providing the industry with end-to-end biologics solutions. We will continue to enable global partners by accelerating and transforming the discovery, development and manufacturing of innovative biologics, for the benefit of patients worldwide." About WuXi Biologics WuXi Biologics (stock code: 2269.HK) is a leading global Contract Research, Development and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO) offering end-to-end solutions that enable partners to discover, develop and manufacture biologics from concept to commercialization for the benefit of patients worldwide. With over 10,000 skilled employees in China, the United States, Ireland, Germany and Singapore, WuXi Biologics leverages its technologies and expertise to provide customers with efficient and cost-effective biologics discovery, development and manufacturing solutions. As of June 30, 2022, WuXi Biologics is supporting 534 integrated client projects, including 14 in commercial manufacturing. WuXi Biologics views Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) responsibilities as an integral component of our ethos and business strategy, and we aim to become an ESG leader in the biologics CRDMO sector. Our facilities use next-generation biomanufacturing technologies and clean-energy sources. We have also established an ESG committee led by our CEO to steer the comprehensive ESG strategy and its implementation, enhancing our commitment to sustainability. For more information about WuXi Biologics, please visit: www.wuxibiologics.com . SOURCE WuXi Biologics Company to present findings on underlying reasons and high costs associated with lung re-transplantation during a rapid oral session Zambon to host learning theater on immunopathogenic and clinical considerations in the early diagnosis and management of Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS) Zambon representatives will be at booth #1223 in the CHEST 2022 Exhibit Hall MILAN and BOSTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zambon, a multinational pharmaceutical company focused on innovating cure and care to improve people's health and the quality of patients' lives, announced today that the Company will present findings examining how Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD) is the leading cause of re-transplantation and associated with high healthcare costs during a rapid oral session at the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) 2022 Annual Meeting being held October 16 19, 2022 in Nashville, TN. CLAD is a severe progressive lung disease where the immune system attacks the airways of the lungs, also known as chronic lung transplant rejection, and is consistently the most prevalent and fatal complication in lung transplant recipients.1 There are various phenotypes of CLAD, however, the most common is CLAD obstructive phenotype, known as Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS).2 Data suggest BOS accounts for two-thirds of CLAD deaths, underscoring need for new treatments to address the primary cause of death following lung transplantation.2 The findings being presented show that the costs paid by Medicare are substantially higher for re-transplantation. "There is an urgent unmet need for the nearly half of lung transplant recipients who, after receiving a second chance of life, unfortunately go on to develop BOS five years post-transplant3 and then are faced with no approved treatment options4," said Paola Castellani, CMO and R&D Head at Zambon. "We are pleased to be joining the medical community at CHEST to help advance education and conversations about the pathology and clinical nature of BOS as we work in parallel to potentially bring the first therapeutic option to market for this unmet need, globally." The presentation, "Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD), The Leading Cause for Re-Transplantation Associated with High Cost" was accepted by the CHEST Scientific Program Committee and will be presented in a rapid oral session on October 19, 2022, between 11:15 AM 12:15 PM CDT. In addition, Zambon is sponsoring a learning theater focused on the current understanding of BOS, including its clinical features, diagnosis, progression and treatment options. Details are as follows: Title: Immunopathogenic and Clinical Considerations in the Early Diagnosis and Management of Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS)* Presentation Time: Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 12:30 PM 1:15 PM CDT Presenters: Marie M. Budev , D.O., M.P.H., Medical Director, Lung and Heart Transplantation Program, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH D.O., M.P.H., Medical Director, Lung and Heart Transplantation Program, Cleveland Clinic, Deborah J. Levine , MD, Professor of Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Stanford University , Stanford, CA Location: Music City Center, Learning Theater 4, Nashville, TN Zambon medical representatives will be at booth #1223 in the CHEST 2022 Exhibit Hall to discuss the CLAD data as well as the company and its mission. Zambon is currently advancing a global Phase 3 clinical development program consisting of the BOSTON-1 and BOSTON-2 studies, both designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of investigational Liposomal Cyclosporine A for Inhalation (L-CsA-i) in patients with BOS following either single or double lung transplantation, respectively. L-CsA-i has received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Orphan Drug designation from FDA and European Medicines Agency for the treatment of BOS, reflecting the high unmet need of the disease. If approved, L-CsA-i would be the first treatment indicated for BOS. *This is a non-CME event and does not qualify for CME, CE or MOC credit. This event is not part of the official CHEST Annual Meeting 2022 conference sessions. This event is not endorsed by CHEST and does not reflect the views or opinions of CHEST. About Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS) Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS), also known as obliterative bronchiolitis (OB), is caused by T-cell mediated inflammation that leads to blockage of bronchioles, the small and medium airways in the lungs, resulting in respiratory failure and death. BOS most commonly affects people who have received lung transplant, although it is also associated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (alloHSCT), autoimmune disease and exposure to environmental contaminants. An estimated 30,000 lung transplant and alloHSCT recipients worldwide are affected by BOS.5 About Zambon S.p.A. Zambon S.p.A. is a global pharmaceutical company established in 1906 in Vicenza, Italy, and built on the values of an Italian family committed to innovating cure and care to improve patients' lives. With innovative quality products commercialized in 87 countries, Zambon has a global presence with 2,400 employees across Europe, America, and Asia, including production facilities in Italy, Switzerland, China, and Brazil. Alongside its three historical therapeutic areas of focus, which are diseases of the respiratory system, urinary tract infections, and pain management, Zambon is also focused on developing treatments for Parkinson's Disease and Cystic Fibrosis. Additionally, Zambon is currently advancing its clinical development programs of potentially first-in-class treatments for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFB) and bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS). If approved by regulatory authorities, the Company intends to launch the NCFB and BOS treatments globally, including in the U.S., which is the latest market entry for Zambon as an organization. In Europe, Zambon also plans to market and distribute, upon regulatory approval, an innovative oral formulation of riluzole for patients suffering with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). For further information, please visit www.zambon.com . For more information, please contact: Zambon USA Ltd. Bonnie Ortega Corporate Communications, USA +1 858-245-3983 [email protected] Zambon USA Media Contact: Elixir Health Public Relations Lindsay Rocco +1 862-596-1304 [email protected] 1 Byrne B, et al. Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction: Review of CT and Pathologic Findings. Radiol Cardiothorac Imaging. 2021;3(1):e200314. https://doi.org/10.1148/ryct.2021200314 2 Brun A-L, Chabi M-L, Picard C, et al. Lung Transplantation: CT Assessment of Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD). Diagnostics. 2021;11(5):817. 3 Weigt, SS, et al. Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome: The Achilles' Heel of Lung Transplantation. Semin Respir Crit Care Med. 2013;34(3):336351. 4 Verleden GM, et al. Chronic lung allograft dysfunction: Definition, diagnostic criteria, and approaches to treatment-A consensus report from the Pulmonary Council of the ISHLT. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2019;38(5):493-503. 5 Sheshadri A, Sacks NC, Healey BE, et al. Lung Function Monitoring After Lung Transplantation and Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation. Clin Ther. 2022;44(5):755-765. SOURCE Zambon S.p.A. NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The zero-energy buildings market size is expected to grow by USD 107.34 billion from 2021 to 2026. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will accelerate at a CAGR of 25.18% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. The growing use of sustainable energy is driving the zero-energy buildings market growth. However, factors such as the low conversion efficiency of solar PV may challenge the market growth. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026 Get a comprehensive report summary that describes the market size and forecast along with research methodology. The FREE sample report is available in PDF format Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026: Segmentation Application HVAC And Controls Insulation And Glazing Lighting And Controls Water Heating Product Public and Commercial Buildings Residential Buildings Geography North America Europe APAC Middle East And Africa South America Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View a FREE PDF Sample Report Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026: Revenue-generating Application Segment The HVAC and controls segment will be the largest contributor to market growth during the forecast period. HVAC systems consume a large amount of energy in zero-energy buildings. They can also be integrated with other systems, such as domestic hot water (DHW), into buildings. This helps in improving energy efficiency and minimizing energy consumption. Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026: Scope The zero-energy buildings market report covers the following areas: Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the zero-energy buildings market, including Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, Altura Associates, Canadian Solar Inc., Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA, Daikin Industries Ltd., DPR Construction, General Electric Co, Honeywell International Inc., Johnson Controls International Plc, Kingspan Group Plc, LafargeHolcim Ltd., Lamington Group, Mohawk Industries Inc., Premier Modular Group, ROCKWOOL International AS, Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, SunPower Corp, TotalEnergies SE, and Trane Technologies plc. The key offerings of some of these vendors are listed below: Canadian Solar Inc. - The company offers net-zero building products such as BiHiKu 5 and BiHiKu 6. The company offers net-zero building products such as BiHiKu 5 and BiHiKu 6. Daikin Industries Ltd. - The company offers net-zero building products such as the VRV series. The company offers net-zero building products such as the VRV series. General Electric Co - The company offers net-zero building products such as LV5 plus series. The company offers net-zero building products such as LV5 plus series. Honeywell International Inc. - The company offers net-zero building products through its subsidiary Trend Controls. The company offers net-zero building products through its subsidiary Trend Controls. Johnson Controls International Plc - The company offers net zero buildings through the OpenBlue Platform. Subscribe to our "Basic Plan" billed annually at USD 5000 that enables you to download 5 reports and view 100 reports per month Zero-energy Buildings Market 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist zero-energy buildings market growth during the next five years Estimation of the zero-energy buildings market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the zero-energy buildings market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of zero-energy buildings market vendors Related Reports HVAC Equipment Market in North America Research Report, Size, Growth, Trends, Opportunity Analysis, Industry Forecast - 2022-2026: The HVAC equipment market share in North America is expected to increase by USD 10.22 billion from 2021 to 2026. Current Transformer Market Growth by Application and Geography - Forecast and Analysis - 2022-2026: The current transformer market share is expected to increase by USD 219.65 million from 2021 to 2026. Zero-energy Buildings Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 25.18% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 107.34 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 26.67 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, Middle East and Africa, and South America Performing market contribution APAC at 33% Key consumer countries US, Canada, China, Germany, and UK Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, Altura Associates, Canadian Solar Inc., Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA, Daikin Industries Ltd., DPR Construction, General Electric Co, Honeywell International Inc., Johnson Controls International Plc, Kingspan Group Plc, LafargeHolcim Ltd., Lamington Group, Mohawk Industries Inc., Premier Modular Group, ROCKWOOL International AS, Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, SunPower Corp, TotalEnergies SE, and Trane Technologies plc 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 Industrials Market 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 Application Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Product Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 09: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 10: Parent market Exhibit 11: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 12: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 13: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 14: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 16: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 17: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 18: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 19: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 20: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 21: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 22: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 23: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 24: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Application 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 25: Chart on Application - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 26: Data Table on Application - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Application Exhibit 27: Chart on Comparison by Application Exhibit 28: Data Table on Comparison by Application 5.3 Public and commercial buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 29: Chart on Public and commercial buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Data Table on Public and commercial buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 31: Chart on Public and commercial buildings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 32: Data Table on Public and commercial buildings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Residential buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 33: Chart on Residential buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Data Table on Residential buildings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 35: Chart on Residential buildings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 36: Data Table on Residential buildings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by Application Exhibit 37: Market opportunity by Application ($ million) 6 Market Segmentation by Product 6.1 Market segments Exhibit 38: Chart on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 6.2 Comparison by Product Exhibit 40: Chart on Comparison by Product Exhibit 41: Data Table on Comparison by Product 6.3 HVAC and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on HVAC and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on HVAC and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on HVAC and controls - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on HVAC and controls - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.4 Insulation and glazing - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on Insulation and glazing - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Insulation and glazing - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on Insulation and glazing - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on Insulation and glazing - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.5 Lighting and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on Lighting and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on Lighting and controls - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on Lighting and controls - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on Lighting and controls - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.6 Water heating - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on Water heating - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on Water heating - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on Water heating - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on Water heating - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.7 Market opportunity by Product Exhibit 58: Market opportunity by Product ($ million) 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 59: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 8 Geographic Landscape 8.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 60: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 8.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 62: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 63: Data Table on Geographic comparison 8.3 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 64: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 65: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 66: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 67: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.4 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 68: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 69: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 70: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 71: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.5 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 72: Chart on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 73: Data Table on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 74: Chart on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 75: Data Table on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.6 Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 76: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 77: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 78: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) and - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 79: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.7 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 80: Chart on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 81: Data Table on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 82: Chart on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 83: Data Table on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.8 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 84: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 85: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 86: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 87: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.9 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 88: Chart on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 89: Data Table on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 90: Chart on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 91: Data Table on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.10 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 92: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 93: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 94: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 95: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.11 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 96: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 97: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 98: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 99: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.12 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 100: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 101: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 102: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 103: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.13 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 104: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 9.1 Market drivers 9.2 Market challenges 9.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 105: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 9.4 Market trends 10 Vendor Landscape 10.1 Overview 10.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 106: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 10.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 107: Overview on factors of disruption 10.4 Industry risks Exhibit 108: Impact of key risks on business 11 Vendor Analysis 11.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 109: Vendors covered 11.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 110: Matrix on vendor position and classification 11.3 Canadian Solar Inc. Exhibit 111: Canadian Solar Inc. - Overview Exhibit 112: Canadian Solar Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 113: Canadian Solar Inc. - Key news Exhibit 114: Canadian Solar Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 115: Canadian Solar Inc. - Segment focus 11.4 Daikin Industries Ltd. Exhibit 116: Daikin Industries Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 117: Daikin Industries Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 118: Daikin Industries Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 119: Daikin Industries Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 120: Daikin Industries Ltd. - Segment focus 11.5 General Electric Co Exhibit 121: General Electric Co - Overview Exhibit 122: General Electric Co - Business segments Exhibit 123: General Electric Co - Key news Exhibit 124: General Electric Co - Key offerings Exhibit 125: General Electric Co - Segment focus 11.6 Honeywell International Inc. Exhibit 126: Honeywell International Inc. - Overview Exhibit 127: Honeywell International Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 128: Honeywell International Inc. - Key news Exhibit 129: Honeywell International Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 130: Honeywell International Inc. - Segment focus 11.7 Johnson Controls International Plc Exhibit 131: Johnson Controls International Plc - Overview Exhibit 132: Johnson Controls International Plc - Business segments Exhibit 133: Johnson Controls International Plc - Key news Exhibit 134: Johnson Controls International Plc - Key offerings Exhibit 135: Johnson Controls International Plc - Segment focus 11.8 Kingspan Group Plc Exhibit 136: Kingspan Group Plc - Overview Exhibit 137: Kingspan Group Plc - Business segments Exhibit 138: Kingspan Group Plc - Key news Exhibit 139: Kingspan Group Plc - Key offerings Exhibit 140: Kingspan Group Plc - Segment focus 11.9 Schneider Electric SE Exhibit 141: Schneider Electric SE - Overview Exhibit 142: Schneider Electric SE - Business segments Exhibit 143: Schneider Electric SE - Key news Exhibit 144: Schneider Electric SE - Key offerings Exhibit 145: Schneider Electric SE - Segment focus 11.10 Siemens AG Exhibit 146: Siemens AG - Overview Exhibit 147: Siemens AG - Business segments Exhibit 148: Siemens AG - Key news Exhibit 149: Siemens AG - Key offerings Exhibit 150: Siemens AG - Segment focus 11.11 SunPower Corp Exhibit 151: SunPower Corp - Overview Exhibit 152: SunPower Corp - Business segments Exhibit 153: SunPower Corp - Key news Exhibit 154: SunPower Corp - Key offerings Exhibit 155: SunPower Corp - Segment focus 11.12 Trane Technologies plc Exhibit 156: Trane Technologies plc - Overview Exhibit 157: Trane Technologies plc - Business segments Exhibit 158: Trane Technologies plc - Key offerings Exhibit 159: Trane Technologies plc - Segment focus 12 Appendix 12.1 Scope of the report 12.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 160: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 161: Exclusions checklist 12.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 162: Currency conversion rates for US$ 12.4 Research methodology Exhibit 163: Research methodology Exhibit 164: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 165: Information sources 12.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 166: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide 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 BEIJING, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zvision, a leading provider of automotive-grade MEMS LiDAR solutions in China, and NVIDIA, a pioneer in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), signed a collaborative agreement recently, whereby the Chinese firm joined the NVIDIA Jetson ecosystem as one of the platform's key LiDAR sensor partners. Zvision Partners with NVIDIA to Accelerate the Industrialization of Solid-State LiDAR AI Technology As part of the ecosystem, Zvision will enhance its cooperation with NVIDIA in terms of technology and products. In a move to accelerate the iteration of its own algorithms and sensing technologies, Zvision plans to leverage NVIDIA's leading AI chip hardware and full-fledged software toolchains to develop a range of solid-state LiDAR-based autonomous driving sensors and systems, The firm will also be committed to improving intelligence in the development of LiDAR sensing software and creating autonomous driving perception solutions that deeply integrate LiDAR sensors and AI computing platforms. Powered by the NVIDIA Jetson hardware platform, Zvision can significantly shorten the prototype testing time and R&D cycle for its LiDAR products, enhance efficiency, and meet the fast-paced development needs of the sensor industry, and, by doing so, accelerate the commercialization and safe implementation of LiDAR systems. In a future stage of the collaboration, Zvision will join hands with NVIDIA to develop a wide range of custom LiDAR sensing solutions for various autonomous driving application scenarios, including vehicle-road coordination, low-speed unmanned intelligent logistics, high-speed trunk logistics, robotaxi and robotics, with the goal of empowering the build-out of an autonomous driving infrastructure. Creating a win-win future with a shared ecosystem. Relying on the rich resources made available through the NVIDIA Jetson platform, Zvision will be able to reach the goal of commercializing solid-state LiDARs all that much faster. In concert with NVIDIA, Zvision is also on track to create more advanced industry solutions that drive the autonomous machine industry forward, especially in the field of self-driving vehicles. The NVIDIA Jetson ecosystem features a series of AI computing platforms and products, including the Jetson AGX Xavier Series and the Jetson AGX Orin Series, which can deliver accelerated AI capabilities to the edge in an energy-efficient, compact form factor. Moreover, the NVIDIA Jetson family of modules uses the same NVIDIA CUDA-X software and supports cloud-native technologies such as containerization and orchestration to build, deploy and manage edge AI. The ecosystem built on the Jetson platform includes collaborative efforts with partners in every aspect of the production chain including AI software and services, hardware and design services, machine vision and sensors, system software and development tool chains. Upon accession to the ecosystem, partner companies gain access to a dedicated technical team from NVIDIA to help them develop their own products. By joining the NVIDIA Jetson ecosystem, Zvision will get strong support for solid-state MEMS LiDAR technology, products and business expansion. At the same time, as an automotive-grade MEMS LiDAR solution provider, Zvision will also make the ecosystem more robust. Since its establishment, Zvision has been dedicated to the creation of front-mounted long-range and short-range solutions that provide full coverage of blind spots by continuously iterating and innovating its products, aiming to develop lightweight solid-state MEMS LiDARs with high reliability and high resolution at low cost. At present, Zvision's LiDARs have been commercially deployed in several self-driving application scenarios, including end-of-line delivery systems, high-speed logistics self-driving trucks and Robotaxi, with partners ranging from self-driving tech firms, logistics companies to car makers, such as Jingdong Logistics, Inceptio Technology and DeepRoute.ai. Next, Zvision's solid-state LiDARs for passenger cars will also achieve mass production. SOURCE ZVision Sao Paulo, Oct 14 : As many as 4,500 health workers died in Brazil after contracting Covid-19 while working to save lives during the pandemic, a global federation representing public service workers said. Among the victims were 1,184 nurses, and eight out of 10 were women, according to Public Services International (PSI), which is associated with the International Labour Organisation published on Thursday. The deaths were registered between March 2020 and December 2021, according to a PSI report which, based on official data, was compiled to analyse public policy amid an event of such magnitude in Brazil and other countries, Xinhua news agency reported. With 687,026 Covid-19 deaths so far, Brazil has the world's second-highest death toll, after the US, and the third-largest Covid-19 breakout, after the US and India, according to figures released by the Brazilian Health Ministry. The PSI gathers more than 700 trade unions representing 30 million workers in 154 countries, according to its website. New York, Oct 14 : Three Sikh recruits, working to join the US Marine Corps, fought for an emergency appeal in District of Columbia's federal court to get an immediate exemption to the Corps' boot camp rule of cutting their hair and shaving their beards. The three plaintiffs -- Aekash Singh, Milaap Singh Chahal and Jaskirat Singh -- want to attend Marine Corps basic training without having to shave their beards or forgo their traditional turbans during boot camp. A three-judge panel expressed skepticism that the Marine Corps had a good reason to deny religious exemptions to its grooming standards but questioned why the plaintiffs required emergency relief, the Marine Corps Times reported. No decision on the motion was made by the judges. The trio had appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September after a lower-court judge denied their request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the men to enter boot camp with their articles of faith, the Marine Times reported. In Sikh faith, men wear turban and they do not shave off their beards or cut hair. The Marine Corps previously denied all these requests, due to which the trio for years have remained poolees -- an individual who has already signed up to become a Marine but has not yet left for the recruit training at boot camp. "We continue to believe that the Marine Corps is doing a disservice to both our clients and itself in denying basic rights that are recognised by other branches of our military and under the US law," said Giselle Klapper, Sikh Coalition Senior Staff Attorney. In April 2022, the Sikh Coalition -- a New York-based advocacy group, Winston & Strawn, the Becket Fund and BakerHostetler, with support from the Sikh American Veterans Alliance had filed suit against the US Department of Defence on behalf of the trio. "Time and again, Sikhs in the US Army and Air Force -- along with military forces around the world -- have proven that their articles of faith pose no barrier whatsoever to capable military service," said Amandeep S. Sidhu, partner at Winston & Strawn LLP. "Prohibiting Sikhs from joining the Marine Corps is out of step with the rest of our military, as well as the most basic values that our country holds dear," Sidhu added. New York, Oct 14 : The accused in the kidnapping and killing of four members of an Indian-origin Sikh family in California, including an eight-month-old baby, pleaded not guilty to all the charges in court. On Thursday, Jesus Salgado appeared in Merced County Superior court wearing shackles and a safety garment, ABC30 reported. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, along with arson and possession of a firearm by a felon. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Salgado will be back in court on December 15. Relatives announced that the family would be laid to rest on Saturday in Turlock. The funeral will be closed to the public but anyone who would like to support the family can gather outside the venue. The bodies of eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 were found in an "extremely remote" area near the intersection of Indiana and Hutchins roads. Salgado is said to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee in their trucking business. In a mindless act of revenge, he murdered the family. It was reported that the suspect was undergoing medical treatment after he attempted to kill himself before officials arrived to arrest him on October 4. Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke has called for Salgado to face the death penalty. Lucknow, Oct 14 : The Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Police are now engaged in a blame game after a woman was killed in cross-firing between Uttar Pradesh Police and alleged sand mafia in an Uttarakhand village. Police of both the states have registered cross FIRs in connection with the incident in which five police personnel were also injured. The clash between the police and locals took place when a Uttar Pradesh police team was chasing one Zafar Ali, said to be a mining mobster, at Bharatpur in Uttarakhand on Wednesday evening. Zafar carries a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head. Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Moradabad range, Shalabh Mathur said the Moradabad police registered an FIR invoking several sections of the IPC that cover rioting, harbouring an offender, resisting arrest, attempt to murder, dacoity, causing hurt to public servant, criminal conspiracy and others against the residents of Bharatpur near Jaspur town of Uddham Singh Nagar district. Moradabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Hemant Kutiyal said the FIR was registered against Zafar, a wanted criminal, and 35 others who were not named. Meanwhile, Uddham Singh Nagar SSP Manjunath T.C. said the Uttarakhand Police have registered an FIR against 10 to 12 Uttar Pradesh Police personnel for murder and other relevant sections of the IPC, on the complaint of the deceased's husband lodged at the Kunda police station. "The Uttar Pradesh Police had come here to nab a criminal who has a bounty of Rs 50,000 on his head, but did not inform the local police about their arrival," the officer added. He said the Uttar Pradesh Police from the Thakurdwara station in Moradabad district raided the farmhouse of Gurtaj Singh Bhullar, the block pramukh of Bharatpur, that falls under the Kunda police station upon information that Zafar was taking shelter there. He added that Zafar was wanted in connection with illegal confinement and misbehaviour with Thakurdwara SDM Parmanand Singh and Mining Inspector Ashok Kumar on September 13. The Moradabad SSP said Bhullar, his father Sukhbinder Singh a.k.a. Chindar Singh and two uncles Jagtar Singh and Satnam Singh Satta had long crime records. Contradicting the Uttarakhand Police's claims, the SSP added that the Moradabad police had constantly kept their counterparts in the loop. "When the Moradabad police team reached there, Zafar was taken into custody. The locals, later, forcibly took away Zafar from the police custody," he said. Earlier, the Moradabad range DIG had said Zafar and his aides had crossed into the Uttarakhand border, and kept firing at the police team that was chasing them. "Five of our policemen were injured, two of them have been hit by bullets fired by the mafia and his aides. Three others were hurt in stone pelting. Besides, Ali and his aides outnumbered the Moradabad police and snatched their weapons," he added. Seoul, Oct 14 : North Korea on Friday fired a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) and about 170 artillery shots into maritime "buffer zones" set under a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction accord, the Seoul military said. The provocative move came after more than 10 North Korean warplanes staged menacing flights close to the inter-Korean border, prompting the South Korean Air Force to scramble its F-35A stealth fighters and other assets to the scene, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JCS said it detected the SRBM launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 1.49 a.m., and that the missile flew some 700 km at an apogee of 50 km at a top speed of about Mach 6, reports Yonhap news Agency. It also detected the North's firing of some 130 artillery shots into the Yellow Sea from Majang-dong, Hwanghae province, between 1.20 a.m. and 1.25 a.m., and of some 40 artillery shots into the East Sea from Gueup-ri, Gangwon province, between 2.57 a.m. and 3.07 a.m. The artillery shots landed in eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border, which were delineated under the two Koreas' Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) signed on September 19, 2018, to reduce tensions. The North's Korean People's Army said later that it took "strong countermeasures" in response to what it claims to be a 10-hour-long South Korean artillery exercise. In response to the latest provocation, South Korea said Friday it has put 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions on its blacklist in its first unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang in nearly five years. The people on the new list include officials at shipping firms and organisations related to the North's missile program, as well as those involved in the procurement of supplies for weapons of mass destruction. "We strongly condemn North Korea for staging a series of missile provocations with unprecedented frequency recently and suggesting the use of tactical nukes against us," the Foreign Ministry said. This marks the first time the South Korean government has slapped sanctions on the North since 2017, following Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test. It is the first set of sanctions against the North since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in May. Bareilly : , Oct 14 (IANS) The nephew of state minister Arun Kumar Saxena, who had allegedly tried to mow down workers of a restaurant when they refused to serve him food after closure of the outlet, has been arrested. The car used in the incident has also been recovered. According to the police spokesman, the accused Amit Kumar Saxena, nephew of UP minister Arun Kumar Saxena, had abused the staff for failing to serve his colleague as the restaurant had closed. He allegedly tried to ram his car into a group of restaurant workers for refusing to serve him. The workers were standing outside the restaurant when the incident took place. Superintendent of Police (SP) City Bareilly Rahul Bhati said that the staff had to flee to save their lives and the car ended up destroying a cot lying there. A case had been registered on the complaint of the hotel owner Naresh Kashyap's son Sushant Kashyap under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including attempt to murder. Inspector Meher Singh, in-charge of the police station of Prem Nagar said that the accused was being interrogated regarding the incident. Chennai, Oct 14 : Social activists in Tamil Nadu are worried about the increase in child marriages in the state. According to the activists, many cases are reported but more than around ten times of these cases go unreported. A couple of days ago, the parents of a Class 9 girl student were booked by the Tenkasi police after information about her marriage with a 22-year-old youth was confirmed. Police said that the information was available after the student stopped attending classes. On a detailed inquiry by the school authorities, it was found that the girl was married off to a 22-year-old youth who was her distant relative. The school administration brought the matter to the notice of the district child protection officer who lodged a formal complaint with the police and the parents of both the boy and girl were arrested. The boy was also arrested by the police. In another incident at Tirunelveli, a Class 10 girl was married off to a 24-year-old youth who was her mother's brother. It may be noted that in Tamil Nadu among several Hindu sub-communities, marriages to mother's brothers are common. Police got information after the local people informed the Child welfare officer who lodged a complaint to the police and when the parents of the girl were questioned, they spilled the beans. The girl was taken to a childcare home and the parents of the both boy and girl, her uncle, aunt, and the boy were arrested. Sujith Narayanan, Director, of Child Knowledge Centre, an NGO working among children in Tiruchi while speaking to IANS said, "Child marriages are on a rise in Tamil Nadu. While there are more than ten marriages that are taking place in each district on average, in the whole state maybe two to five cases are reported which is totally a much lesser figure." He said that the government must enforce stringent action on the perpetrators of child marriage and also conduct a detailed awareness campaign against this. It may be noted that during Covid -19 lockdown ,a lot of children were married off and the child welfare department and several social organisations working among the children conducted an active campaign that led to the dip in figures. However, sources told IANS that there are many cases of child marriages on the rise but gross underreporting is taking place. Mumbai, Oct 14 : Former 'Bigg Boss 13' contestant Dalljiet Kaur has given a response to her former husband Shalin Bhanot, who is currently seen in the 16th installment of the reality show, and said that they are not "best friends." Shalin had stated that Dalljiet and him have remained close friends, even seven years after their divorce while he was speaking to co-contestant Tina Dutta in the show. Tina asked Shalin about his first marriage on a recent 'Bigg Boss 16' episode. He denied when she asked if his marriage was abusive, and added that he is still best friends with his ex-wife without naming Dalljiet. Dalljiet took to Twitter and wrote: "No I am not your best friend Shalin. Meeting once a month or two months for the sake of my child does not qualify as friendship. "I wish you luck with your love life but leave me out of your fiction and stories, please. And u r calling it funny? Really? Tina no hard feelings for you." Dalljiet and Shalin got married in 2009 and walked separate ways in 2015. The actress had accused Shalin of being abusive and even hitting her when she tried to leave their home. Latest updates on Bigg Boss Season 16 Hyderabad, Oct 14 : A 78-year-old man and his son were brutally hacked to death by unidentified assailants in Uppal area of Hyderabad on Friday. The assailants barged into Narasimha Murthy's house and murdered him and his son Srinivas (35) with sharp edged weapons. The shocking incident occurred in Hanuman Sai Nagar under the limits of Uppal Police Station of Rachakonda Police Commissionerate. The murder came to light around 6 a.m. when the help reached the house and found the bodies of the deceased. She informed Murthy's elder son who lives separately. Srinivas, a software engineer, had recently come from Malaysia to stay with his father. He was living on the first floor while his father was on the ground floor. Family members suspect that Srinivas was killed when he tried to save his father. Property dispute is suspected to have led to the murders. Rachakonda police have formed teams to nab the culprits. A case relating to property dispute was pending in the court. Murthy was attacked during Covid-19 lockdown but the family members had dismissed it as the handiwork of some petty thief. United Nations, Oct 14 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed a historic deal between Lebanon and Israel on the resolution of their maritime boundary dispute, said his spokesman. "The Secretary-General welcomes the announcements that the governments of Lebanon and Israel have formally agreed to settle their maritime boundary dispute, as mediated by the US. He strongly believes this encouraging development can promote increased stability in the region and enhanced prosperity for the Lebanese and Israeli peoples," Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday. The UN remained committed to assisting the parties, as requested, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying. The Secretary-General reiterated the commitment of the UN to support the effective implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which deals with the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as other relevant resolutions that remain essential to the stability of the region, it added. On Tuesday, Israel and Lebanon made a "historic breakthrough" and agreed to establish a permanent maritime border between them. A finalised deal would allow the neighbours, which remain formally at war, to exploit natural gas fields under the Mediterranean Sea. While Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid said it would strengthen its security and inject billions into its economy, Lebanese President Michel Aoun described the terms as "satisfactory". The details of the agreement, which covers an 860 sq.km triangle of the Mediterranean, have not been released. Kanpur, Oct 14 : A 12-year-old boy from Nautanwa in Maharajganj district, left home to 'see' Samajwadi patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav when he learnt of the latter's demise. The boy, who gave his name as Sarnath Yadav, said he was distressed on learning about the leader's demise and left home to go to Etawah. "I reached Gorakhpur and then Lucknow. Someone gave me wrong directions and instead of reaching Etawah, I landed up in Kanpur," he said. In Kanpur, the GRP personnel saw him wandering around and brought him to their station. "We have contacted his parents and they are coming here to take him back," said a GRP official. The boy said that he was an ardent supporter of Mulayam Singh and would continue to work for the late leader. New Delhi, Oct 14 : Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday launched a blistering attack on Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and blamed him for the statements made by AAP's Gujarat's chief Gopal Italia. "Italia insulted 100-year-old Hiraben, the mother of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She was maliciously attacked by AAP. I say the words of Kejriwal are being spoken by Italia. And I dare Kejriwal to come to Gujraat and speak such words... You (Kejriwal) are not sparing a 100-year-old woman who has nothing to do with politics. I dare you Mr. Kejriwal to come to Gujarat and speak your own words," Irani said while speaking to mediapersons here. She said that attacking a 100-year-old woman will turn into a big political defeat for the AAP. She said the people of Gujarat have now decided to teach the AAP a political lesson. "If you (AAP) think that attacking a 100-year-old woman, just because she is mother of the PM, will help you gain in politics, you are mistaken. This is Gujarat and Gujarati will make you pay for this in the upcoming elections," she said. Irani said that by such statements which were made by Italia at the instructions of Kejriwal, the Gujarati sentiments were hurt. She said that it was not the first time Italia did that, and while Kejriwal was well aware of his record, the whole party supported the serial offender. "You (AAP) abuse us, abuse our organisation but don't hurl abuses at a 100-year-old woman. This is unacceptable. People will not spare such a political attempt. Gujaratis will now bring AAP to political justice," said Irani. She repeated that it was a malicious attack on the PM's mother which was being done at the behest of Kejriwal. She said that to be in the limelight, AAP can do anything. "For a mere political profit AAP can stoop to such a low. This is your character Mr. Kejriwal. How can you hurl abuses at the mother of someone just because he is your political rival. Everything is happening at Kejriwal's order," she again claimed. Irani said that how Kejriwal can call him the 'Avatar of Lord Krishna' even after abusing a 100-year-old woman, and added, "what was stopping Kejriwal to throw Italia out of his party". "Kejriwal, why are you making someone (Italia) say your words, I dare you to speak your words openly, if you have guts. How can women feel safe under your regime," she said. Recently, two old videos of Italia surfaced, one in which he criticises Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "neech" politics, and another in which he makes derogatory remarks against women. Chennai, Oct 14 : Father of the 20-year-old Sathyapriya, who was killed after a stalker pushed her before a moving train at St. Thomas Mount Railway station in Chennai, died of a heart attack. Manickam (56) died at a private hospital in Chennai late on Thursday night. He was hospitalised after he collapsed on learning about the death of his daughter. Early this morning, police arrested Satheesh (23), who pushed Sathyapriya before a moving train on Thursday. He was absconding after committing the heinous crime and though the onlookers had tried to catch hold of him, he had managed to escape. The victim's mother is a head constable of police at Adambakkam police station, Chennai. Sathyapriya was a degree student at Jain College, Chennai, and was going to attend her classes when suddenly Satheesh reached the spot and the duo entered into a heated argument leading to the stalker pushing her before the moving train that was heading towards Tambaram from Egmore. Police at St Thomas Mount police station told IANS that Satheesh who was an eighth standard drop out was the son of a retired police sub-inspector and was stalking Sathyapriya for the past couple of years. Last week, she filed a complaint against him at the local police station. Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 14 : After coming under heavy attack from various quarters on the recent European tour of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his Ministers who took their families along, State Education Minister V. Sivankutty on Friday slammed the critics. Sivankutty was one of the members of the touring party who took his wife along. "If the husband is a minister, does it mean his wife has to sit inside the house? I took my wife and not someone else's wife. There is nothing wrong in it and the expenses were met by self," said Sivankutty to the media, here. Social media, Congress and the BJP in Kerala have been criticising the Chief Minister over taking a big entourage to Finland, Norway and the UK. They have been asking him about the outcome of his previous visits and the need for the latest visit when the state was passing through one of its worst ever financial crises. While Sivankutty and his wife Parvathy have since returned, Vijayan took off to the UAE on a private visit, as his son and family work in Dubai. "Our trip has just ended and do you expect to get results the next day of the visit? Rewards of the visit will take time and one has to wait for it," said Sivankutty, and added the Chief Minister will brief about the details of the visit. Islamabad, Oct 14 : A man hurled abuses at Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar at the Washington airport, the media reported. In a video that has gone viral on social media, the man is seen mistreating and hurling abuses at the Minister, Geo News reported. However, a person accompanying Dar responded, after which the man seemed to have stopped. Dar is currently in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Although it is not clear what was the person's political inclination, PTI and PML-N supporters have been at loggerheads ever since former Prime Minister Imran Khan's ouster in April. Several scuffles between supporters of both parties have broken out abroad, especially in London, where PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif is residing these days, Geo News reported. Recently in London, PTI supporters stopped PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz's son, Junaid Safdar but the latter handled the situation well. Junaid told the protesters that they have the right to protest, but they should also ensure that they stay within their limits. Chennai, Oct 14 : If sources in the industry are to be believed, dubbing has begun for megastar Chiranjeevi's upcoming film, tentatively being referred to as 'Mega 154', even as shooting continues on one hand. Helmed by director Bobby (KS Ravindra), the film is currently being shot in Hyderabad. Industry insiders say that the team is canning an important action sequence in the film in which Ravi Teja is playing a powerful and lengthy role. Sources say that the film has been scheduled for release for Sankranthi in 2023 and works are progressing as per schedules. In accordance with that, the team has begun dubbing from Friday. Shruti Haasan plays the leading lady opposite Chiranjeevi in the movie billed to be a mass-action entertainer laced with all the commercial ingredients. Naveen Yerneni and Y Ravi Shankar are producing the film, while GK Mohan is the co-producer. 'Mega154' has music by Devi Sri Prasad, while Arthur A Wilson is handling its cinematography. Niranjan Devaramane is the editor and AS Prakash is the production designer. Sushmita Konidela is the costume designer. While the story and dialogue were written by Bobby himself, Kona Venkat and K Chakravarthy Reddy have penned the screenplay. The writing department also includes Hari Mohana Krishna and Vineeth Potluri. New Delhi, Oct 14: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be on a two-day visit to Egypt starting Saturday as India continues to put an age-old partnership between two of the world's oldest civilisations on a new trajectory. Ateet Sharma New Delhi, Oct 14: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be on a two-day visit to Egypt starting Saturday as India continues to put an age-old partnership between two of the world's oldest civilisations on a new trajectory. Jaishankar's first bilateral trip to the African nation comes nearly a month after his colleague and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited Cairo to pave way for the enhancement of military and security cooperation between the two countries. Just around the same time, Jaishankar too met Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in New York during a high-level meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, while meeting with Rajnath Singh on September 19, stated that his country takes pride in the close historical ties it has with India and aspires to activate the partnership "commensurate with their capabilities in all fields". As India continuously grows its capability to manufacture advanced cutting-edge technologies and systems in the defence sector under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, Egypt is one of the several countries which has maintained its interest in acquiring made-in-India Tejas fighter aircraft for its air force. With Egypt proposing joint manufacturing of military hardware with India, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries during the defence minister's visit was described as a "milestone event" by New Delhi. In New York, Shoukry hoped that India's upcoming G20 Presidency in 2022-23 - Egypt has been invited as a 'Guest Country' by the Narendra Modi government - will not only strengthen consultation and coordination mechanisms between the two countries but also contribute to restoring activity in the global economy and ensure that the "negative repercussions of the current international tensions" are contained. He also welcomed the Indian companies' interest in investing in Egypt, especially in the field of green hydrogen production in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE) in Ain Sokhna located in the Gulf of Suez, northwest of the Red Sea. Discussions between Jaishankar and Shoukry will continue, this time in a much more detailed way in Cairo as they sit down for talks on a range of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest over the weekend. Jaishankar will also be interacting with the Indian community based in Egypt, including students, and address a gathering of the Egyptian and Indian business communities. Egypt has also been one of India's largest trading partners in Africa and the promotion of bilateral trade, commerce and investments will be one of the focus areas during the EAM's visit. The MEA, in a statement on Thursday, mentioned that India-Egypt bilateral trade touched a record high at US$ 7.26 billion during FY 2021-22. Indian investment in Egypt exceeds US$ 3.15 billion. Over 50 Indian companies are actively present in Egypt in a range of sectors like manufacturing, chemicals, energy, infrastructure, retail, among others. "EAM's visit to Egypt will provide an opportunity to review the entire gamut of our bilateral and multilateral relations and to exchange views with the Egyptian leadership covering the whole range of issues of mutual interest. The visit provides an opportunity to deepen cooperation and explore new initiatives in the bilateral partnership," said the ministry. The warm and friendly relations between the two nations, which are underpinned by historical and cultural linkages, are expected to get only stronger in the coming times. Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to visit Egypt after coming to power in 2014. The closest he came to visiting Cairo was in March 2020 but the trip had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As things pan out, it may not be a big surprise if PM Modi visits the largest city in the Arab world soon. (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative Nagpur, Oct 14 : In a significant development, the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) on Friday acquitted former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba and five others in an alleged Maoist links and conspiracy case. In their verdict, a division bench of Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare acquitted Mahesh K. Tirki, Hem Keshawdatt Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Nan Tirki and Pandur Pora Narote who died in August this year. Earlier, the court had allowed their appeals against conviction and life sentences awarded under the UAPA provisions. Saibaba, who suffers from a polio-related paralysis and is bound to a wheelchair, had previously filed a plea seeking suspension of his sentence on medical grounds, saying he is also suffering from multiple ailments, but it was rejected. Currently in Nagpur Central Jail, Saibaba is likely to be freed soon unless required in any other case. All the accused, arrested in 2014, were tried under various sections of IPC and UAPA and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court in March 2017, for links with the banned Maoist groups, charges of waging war against the nation, conspiracy, among others. Kabul , Oct 14 : The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has ordered male teachers and high-school students in Kandahar province to sign a written pledge that they will adhere to the militant group's extremist interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. That includes following the Taliban's strict dress code for men, including growing a beard, wearing a turban or Islamic cap, and donning the "pirhan tumban", the traditional baggy shirt and pants common in rural Afghanistan, RFE/RL reported. Failure to sign or adhere to the pledge can lead to students being expelled from school or teachers losing their jobs, according to locals. The order for male teachers and students in the ninth grade and above to sign the pledge has been widely criticized. "This is an irrational step and must be strongly discouraged," a high-school student in Kandahar, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution said. "I want the Taliban to stop curbing our freedoms." "They should stop imposing such extremist ideas," another high-school student in the province, who said he was forced to sign the pledge. The pledge is the latest attempt by the Taliban to police the appearances of Afghan men and women in public, RFE/RL reported. Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban has ordered male government employees to grow beards and wear traditional attire or risk being fired. In some areas, men have been forced to attend prayers. In some parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned Western-style clothing and haircuts. The militants have also imposed strict gender segregation in schools, universities, hospitals, government offices, and public transport. Couples who eat out in restaurants are often questioned and harassed by the Taliban's notorious morality police, RFE/RL reported. Kolkata, Oct 14 : A youth, allegedly a cattle smuggler, was killed in a firing by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel near the Indo-Bangladesh border at Phansidewa block under Siliguri sub-division in West Bengal's Darjeeling district. The villagers said that they heard a firing sound at around 3.30 a.m. Sources said that the youth was killed while he was trying to cross the border along with three cows. One of his cows also died in the firing. The identity of the youth is yet to be established. As per the last information, tension has gripped the area where the incident took place. The BSF personnel and the cops from the Phansidewa Police station are constantly patrolling the area to prevent aggravation of tension. This is the second cattle smuggler killed in BSF firing in the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal within a span of just six days. Earlier, on the late night of October 8, a Bangladeshi cattle smuggler Muntaz Hossain, 32 and a resident of Choto Baldia village under Damurhuda sub-district in Bangladesh, was killed in BSF firing at the border area in Nadia district while he was trying to cross borders with cattle. On being intercepted, Hossain attacked a BSF janwan with a sharp weapon and injured him. In self-defence, the BSF personnel opened fire, killing Hossain. Chennai, Oct 14 : The families of people working in various parts of Kerala who had left their native villages for seeking better jobs are returning to their respective villages after cases of human sacrifice were unearthed. Padma (52), one of the victims of the twin sacrifice in Kerala, was a native of Erapetty in Dharmapuri of Tamil Nadu and had gone to Kerala 15 years ago seeking better fortune. It may be noted that the wages in Kerala are more than double than what they were getting in Kerala. Several people in Dharmapuri and other parts of the state are now moving back from Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Kottayam districts of Kerala where a large number of Tamil people are working. Shanthi (42), a vegetable vendor in Ernakulam along with her husband, Saminathan at Kaloor market has come back to Erapetty in Dharmapuri. While speaking to IANS, Shanthi who is fluent in Malayalam said, "We have been working in Ernakulam for the past 18 years and the city has given us everything. But the brutal human sacrifice in which a Tamil woman was murdered and chopped into pieces is haunting me. We can't stay anymore in Ernakulam and we think that even if we get half the wages, we have decided to settle in our home town." Two women, Padma and Roslyn were lured by Mohammed Shafi alias Rasheed promising them a huge amount if they worked in a movie. Roslyn was the first to be killed after luring her to Elanthur at the residence of Bhagaval Singh and Laila. Her body was chopped to pieces and blood splattered in all corners of the home as part of Arabic Black magic for getting fortune and wealth. This incident occurred in June and in September Padma was also brought to the same place, brutally killed, and her body chopped into pieces. Krishnaveni, (36) along with her husband Sukumaran was into ironing at Thiruvananthapuram and are natives of Theni. Sukumaran while speaking to IANS from Theni said, "Thiruvananthapuram was more than a home to me, but I am fed up now and will not stop there again. Will do some small menial jobs here in Cumbum and Theni and will survive. I will stay in my hometown along with my relatives and family rather than in a place that is not safe for us." Meanwhile, the family of Padma has petitioned the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to take efforts to bring her mutilated and chopped body parts back home. Her elder son, R. Seddu, who is a lecturer at government polytechnic, requested the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu to bring her body back to her hometown. Padma's husband, Ranga, was at Erupetty, Dharmapuri for the past few months, as he was not keeping good health, and Padma, was also to join the family after working for a few more months in Ernakulam when the tragedy struck her. It may be noted that from Erupetty village only nine families were living in Ernakulam and all of them are back home now. Sunitha Mani, (48), a manual labourer in Ernakulam while speaking to IANS said, "I am from Dharmapuri and have been living at Ernakulam for 15 years. Now I want to go back. Better to be at home with poor funds rather than getting killed in unknown places." London, Oct 14 : UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has dramatically cut short his visit to the International Monetary Fund, flying home early from Washington in response to the mounting political crisis over his tax-cutting budget. Adding to signs that the government is preparing to announce a U-turn over its plan to scrap a rise in corporation tax, the Chancellor left the US capital a day earlier than planned, The Guardian reported. Treasury sources said the chancellor had two constructive days in Washington but was keen to get back to London to engage with colleagues over his medium-term fiscal plan, due to be announced on October 31. But his unscheduled departure on a late-night flight from Washington capped a day of drama for the Liz Truss government and prompted comparisons with the sterling crisis suffered by the Labour government in 1976, The Guardian reported. The then Chancellor Denis Healey turned around at Heathrow rather than fly out to an IMF meeting in Manila after pressure mounted on the pound. Treasury sources refused to comment on whether Kwarteng's decision meant a U-turn on corporation tax was imminent, but the chancellor was under pressure to make a decision before the financial markets open for business on October 17. The pound and government bonds, or gilts, rallied on Thursday at rumours of a change of heart on tax. But the Bank of England's support scheme for bonds comes to an end on Friday. Jaipur, Oct 14 : Three days ahead of the voting for the election of the Congress President, a major controversy has erupted here after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot sought votes for candidate Malkarjun Kharge flouting guidelines of the party's Central Election Authority which clearly has said that no leader can campaign for any candidate while being in office. Gehlot on Thursday shared a video message on social media appealing for Kharge's win. This is being considered open campaigning in favour of Kharge, whereas according to the guidelines of the Congress Election Authority (CEC), no candidate can do this while holding the position of leader of the legislature party. The CEC Chairman, Madhusudan Mistry, had issued a 7-point guideline on September 30 regarding the election of Congress president. According to this guideline, the general secretary in-charge, secretary in-charge, national office-bearers, leader of the legislature party, spokesperson of the party cannot campaign for any candidate for the post of president. If they want to campaign for a candidate, they have to leave the post first. Despite this guideline, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has openly campaigned for Kharge. The Rajasthan CM in the video said, "Congress President should be the one who keeps in touch with the organisation, leaders and workers with experience. His position should be such that he can negotiate with all opposition parties. The Speaker should be such a person who has the ability to take everyone along. Seeing his merit, we became his proponent. "I wish Kharge sahib to be successful with huge votes. Mallikarjun Kharge sahib is rich and experienced personality. He has more than 50 years of experience including being nine times MLA and two times MP. We have become his proponents. Kharge is such a person who has imbibed the policies, ideology and programs of the Congress. Have command in Hindi and English," he added. These statements of Gehlot had come at a time when another presidential candidate for Congress Shashi Tharoor had alleged that the state presidents and office-bearers of Congress in the states were giving more importance to Kharge. Tharoor had raised questions on not being given a level playing field. The response of the Central Election Authority in this matter is now awaited. If Shashi Tharoor or any leader complains, then action can be taken for violation of guidelines, said sources from the party. Washington, Oct 14 : US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly wanted to "punch (Donald) Trump in the face and go to jail if he came to Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, when supporters of the former President invaded the Congress building. A new footage of the Speaker on the day of the riot shot by her daughter Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker, showed an enraged Nancy Pelosi at the invasion on Capitol Hill's saying: "If he (Trump) comes, I'm going to punch him out". "I've been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I'm going to punch him out and I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to be happy," she said. In the footage released by CNN on Thursday evening, Nancy Pelosi and others are seen scrambling to request help to secure the Capitol. She was furious with the former President over his plans to march to the Capitol. The footage showed Nancy Pelosi watching Trump's speech at the "Save America" rally that preceded the riot, during which he said they were all going to march to the Capitol in protest of the 2020 presidential election results, media reports said. A staffer informs the Speaker that the secret service told Trump not to join the march to the Capitol because it would not be safe, adding, "so at the moment he is not coming but that could change". Trump ultimately did not march to the Capitol with his supporters, but that march devolved into the mob that broke into the building, forcing lawmakers to flee, CNN reported. The footage followed Nancy Pelosi as she evacuated from the building, constantly making phone calls to request help to secure the Capitol and continue the election certification process. Shewas moved to a secure location at Fort McNair, along with Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell and Representatives Steny Hoyer and Kevin McCarthy. The footage shows Nancy Pelosi and Schumer scrambling to request help from the Trump administration, including the activation of the National Guard. Some of the footage was shown publicly for the first time earlier on Thursday, during the House select committee's hearing. During the hearing, which may be the last, the committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony. Ultimately Vice President Mike Pence called up the National Guard for help while Trump remained reportedly inactive for 187 minutes. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The ongoing Diwali festival season is all set to bring cheers for the trading community of the country as it is expected that there will be fresh infusion of about Rs 2.5 lakh crore in the markets by way of shopping and sale of goods and usage of services, said the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT). This substantial inflow of money is also expected to liberate the business community from financial crunch. After two years, the festival of lights will be celebrated with no Covid restrictions which has prompted consumers to throng commercial markets in every city of the country for making purchases for Diwali. CAIT said the hike in DA by the Centre of 4 per cent on October 8 and another announcement of the government about Productivity-Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days of wages to non gazetted railway employees for financial year 2021-22 is going to help the consumers in their spending during the festive season. It will certainly trigger the market and the economy. These two decisions of the government will pump thousands of crores of rupees into the economy. The increasing urbanisation will boost demand for vehicles & real estate and will increase economic activity in urban areas. The bumper agriculture crop is expected to bring money in rural India and it is expected that much of the liquidity accrued to these sectors will in turn boost the festivity sales. CAIT said that as per an estimate, the Diwali festivity business is expected to register a whopping turnover of more than Rs. 1.5 lakh crore and more than Rs 1 lakh crore is expected to be incurred on travel and other services. As per a report released by FADA recently, overall retails of Automobiles increased by a massive 57 per cent during the period of Navratri. All categories also showed extremely high growth with 2W, 3W, CV, PV and Tractors increasing by 52 per cent, 115 per cent, 48 per cent, 70 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively. These figures show expected robust business during Diwali festivity. As per an estimate about 5 crore gifts from small to high range of all sorts of items are being exchanged during the festival period which does form a substantial contribution to the Diwali sales. Such growth is attributed to the sale of Indian products having no influence of any Chinese product. Indian traders and consumers are going to create a loss of about 60 thousand crores of rupees business to China which earlier China was exporting to India pertaining to Diwali sales. The change in consumer behaviour for not opting for Chinese goods post Galwan incident has contributed a lot in sales promotion of Indian products, CAIT said. Latest updates on Diwali Festival 2022 Bengaluru, Oct 14 : Infosys is the latest entry to list of IT firms clamping down on moonlighting employees. However the IT behemoth is mulling a system that will allow employees to work on external projects too. Without elaborating on the numbers, Infosys CEO Salil Parikh said that over the last one year, the company has let go its employees found working with other companies. "Where there are confidentiality issues, we have let them go," Parikh said on Thursday at the press conference announcing the Q2 results. Parikh however said that Infosys is mulling a policy that allows employees to work on other projects within and outside of Infosys. Earlier Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji had expressed concerns over the issue of moonlighting employees. A few weeks ago, Premji had stated that Wipro had fired 300 employees on this count. Amid reports of IT companies delaying or putting fresh recruitments on hold, Infosys CFO Nilanjan Roy said that there was no delay in onboarding freshers. He said that Infosys hired 40,000 freshers in the first half of the financial year. Wellington, Oct 14 : New Zealand signed a new partnership agreement with the Cook Islands on Friday. The new Statement of Partnership reflected a commitment to work together on issues of shared interests and importance, recognised the two countries' special links, and elevated the bilateral relationship to a new level of expanded cooperation, said New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta after signing it with the Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown in Rarotonga. This statement emphasizes shared priority areas and common goals, such as addressing climate change and strengthening resilience, enhancing security, and ensuring a sustainable economic recovery from Covid-19, Xinhua news agency quoted Mahuta as saying. New Zealand has supported the Cook Islands since the outset of the pandemic through vaccine rollouts, budget support, and improved access to advice and finance for businesses, she said. The Minister added that further pandemic support to the Pacific country was also announced on Friday. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that the electoral bonds scheme is an absolutely transparent mode of political funding. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, submitted before a bench comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and B.V. Nagarathna that the methodology of receiving money is transparent, and emphasized that nothing is black now, rather everything is transparent. The bench queried Mehta, does the system provide information where the money is coming from? Mehta said absolutely! Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners, said this is a very interconnected issue which affects the democracy -- one is electoral bonds issue and the other is whether political parties can come under RTI. Bhushan added that anybody can get foreign money by virtue of this and queried, can this be done through a money bill? Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing a petitioner, submitted that he has a suggestion, since this is an important issue, it could be heard by a larger bench. The bench asked the Centre's counsel for views on referring the matter to a larger bench. The petitioners' counsel said the matter should be heard as early as possible, as state elections are coming up in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. Mehta said this is not an election related issue. Bhushan said just before every state election electoral bonds were issued. After hearing submissions from the counsel, the bench scheduled the matter for hearing on December 6. The top court was hearing a batch of five petitions led by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), that have challenged the validity of the Centre's electoral bonds scheme as a source of political funding. The matter came up for hearing after a gap of more than 18 months. The apex court, in March 2021, declined to entertain two stay applications moved by ADR to stop the sale of the electoral bonds ahead of elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry. The top court had noted that there was no justification to block sale of electoral bonds over concerns of anonymity in political party funding or apprehensions of their misuse. In April 2019, the apex court directed all political parties to submit details of receipts of the electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in a sealed cover. The top court had tagged petitions by CPI-M and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, with the ADR petition, which have also raised issues in connection with electoral bonds. Chennai, Oct 14 : Maverick Indian filmmaker Aravindan Govindan's acclaimed film 'Thamp'(1978) has been selected as the only Indian film to be screened in the Treasures Section of the BFI London Film Festival 2022. The screening, which is to happen on Friday, was a sell out in a few hours of going live. Film Heritage Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, joined forces with Prasad Corporation to embark on a mammoth mission of restoring the acclaimed film in association with The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna. The restoration was selected for a red-carpet premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival this year as the only Indian film to have a world premiere in the Cannes Classic section of the festival. Establishing yet another colossal achievement, the restoration has now been selected as the only Indian film to be screened in the Treasures Section of the BFI London Film Festival 2022. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director, Film Heritage Foundation states, "I'm so proud that Film Heritage Foundation's restoration of Aravindan Govindan's 'Thamp' is the only Indian film that has been selected for the Treasures section of the BFI London Film Festival this year and the October 14 screening is already completely booked. "Ever since the restoration premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, this poignant masterpiece shot in black and white with a cinema-verite approach has, not surprisingly, captured the imagination of festival curators and audiences around the world. We are so happy that we were able to restore this film which had no original negative surviving and which was in danger of vanishing from circulation." The son of the legendary filmmaker Aravindan Govindan, Ramu Aravindan, said: "It's just wonderful that Aravindan's restored 'Thamp' is getting screened at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. Thamp was screened at the 1979 London Film Festival. And, his next film, 'Kummatty', also recently restored, was screened at the 1980 edition. It's special that this film is getting screened again after 43 years at the same event. I think the restoration brings back to life a very specific kind of visual-poetic sensibility that the present generation of film viewers may have heard about but couldn't get to watch earlier." Aravindan Govindan's 'Thamp' is a poetic, allegorical film, that gently explores the transience of human relationships and the rootlessness of the marginalised through the ripples created in the bucolic existence of a village on the banks of a river by the arrival of a roving circus troupe. In cinema-verite style, G. Aravindan rounded up a troupe of actual circus artistes and travelled with them to the village of Thirunavaya on the banks of the Bharathapuzha river. On the first day, the circus was set up and all the villagers were invited to watch the show. Aravindan said in an interview: "We did not have a script and we shot the incidents as they happened... There were a lot of people who had not seen a circus before. We shot their responses as they were watching. After the initial hesitation, they forgot the lights and the shooting and got completely involved in the circus." For three days, the circus is the centre of attention of village life, but soon the villagers lose interest and move on to the preparation for a local festival and the circus troupe packs up and trundles away leaving no trace. Aravindan Govindan was one of India's most extraordinary filmmakers and a leading light of the New Indian Malayalam cinema of the 1970s and '80s. A true Renaissance man - he was a painter, cartoonist, musician, theatre director, and filmmaker. An autodidact, his films were free from the weight of film canon, marked by an entirely original approach to cinema. In a tragically short career spanning from 1974 to 1991, he made 11 films and 10 documentaries with almost all of his films receiving national or state awards. New Delhi, Oct 14 : Several Indians, including Nithin Kamath, the CEO of Zerodha, have criticised the newspaper after it featured a caricature of a snake charmer while reporting about the Indian economy. On the microblogging website Twitter, Kamath called out the Spanish daily by drawing attention to the "racist stereotype" caricature made in the newspaper. "Quite cool that the world is taking notice, but the cultural caricaturing, a snake charmer to represent India, is an insult. Wonder what it takes for this to stop; maybe global Indian products?" he tweeted. Meanwhile, other Twitter users also shared their opinions on the matter. "Arguably India is still a very poor country. Leave the top 10 per cent of the population aside, the rest of India lives in miserable conditions. Until the time that changes, it is pointless to feel bad about such caricaturing. How the world perceives us, stems largely from how we actually are," a user wrote. "How come it's an insult? Maybe it's our shortcoming that they don't see India more than that," another user wrote. Zerodha is a domestic brokerage firm that offers low cost brokerage for trading in Equity, Equity F&O, Commodity and Currency F&O segments at BSE, NSE and MCX. Varanasi, Oct 14 : In a jolt to Hindu petitioners, a Varanasi court, on Friday, rejected the petition seeking carbon dating of the purported 'Shivling' found in the Gyanvapi mosque complex. Hindu petitioners said that they would study the verdict and then decide whether to approach the high court. The petitioners had claimed that the 'Shivling' found in the 'wuzu khana' or reservoir of the mosque during survey work on May 16 was part of the property. The Hindu side demanded carbon dating and other scientific tests of the Shivling-like structure. Carbon dating is a scientific process that ascertains the age of an archaeological object or archaeological finds. The Gyanvapi Masjid committee had opposed the carbon dating plea filed by the Hindu side. Last month, four of the five Hindu women petitioners filed a plea seeking "scientific investigation" on the 'Shivling'. They contended that it was necessary to determine its age. The women have claimed that ancient idols of Hindu Gods and Goddesses are located inside the mosque. The mosque committee objected to scientific investigation, arguing that the case was about worshipping at a shrine inside the mosque and had nothing to do with its structure. The object being called a 'Shivling' is actually a "fountain", they argued. Last week, the court asked if the purported 'Shivling' can be made a part of the case and whether a scientific investigation can actually be ordered. Vishnu Shankar Jain, lead advocate for Hindu women, told reporters that he tried to convince the court on both counts. "We said two things - that in our prayer we asked for rights to pray before visible and invisible deities inside the mosque complex. The Shivling was earlier covered by water and when the water was removed it became a visible deity and so it is part of the suit," he said. On September 12, the Varanasi district judge dismissed a challenge by the mosque committee that argued that the case by the Hindu women seeking permission for year-long worship inside the mosque complex has no legal standing. Their challenge was rejected on all three counts they cited. The most important of these is the 1991 law, which freezes the status of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. The petitioners do not want ownership, just the right to worship, the court ruled. Earlier this year, a lower court in Varanasi ordered the filming of the centuries-old mosque based on the women's petition. The videography report, controversially leaked by the petitioners, claimed a 'Shivling' was found in a pond used for 'Wuzu' or the mandatory purification rituals before Muslim prayers. The Gyanvapi mosque, located in Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is one of the several mosques that Hindu hardliners believe were built on the ruins of temples. It was one of the three temple-mosque rows, besides Ayodhya and Mathura, which the BJP raised in the eighties and nineties, that gained national prominence. New Delhi, Oct 14 : National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL), a CPSE under the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, joined hands with IIT, Patna with a view to introduce innovative technologies and find pragmatic solutions to the highways construction issues in challenging hilly and border areas. While the latest MoU with IIT, Patna was signed on October 11, NHIDCL has signed Memorandum of Understandings with various institutes including CSIR-CRRI, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur and NSDC during the current year 2022-23. Earlier, partnership with IIT Bombay and IIT Guwahati were signed for sharing knowledge of innovative ideas and technologies in the field of Highway Engineering to upgrade skill and capacity of the core engineering professionals of NHIDCL who are working for construction of Highways, tunnels and other infrastructure in the very tough geographical areas of NE region, UT of Ladakh, UT of J&K and UT of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Union Road, Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari in June 2022 had proposed setting up an Innovation Bank for new ideas, research findings and technologies to focus on 'Quality' in infrastructure development. He had said that new initiatives are expected from Indian Roads Congress (IRC), innovation should be the focus area for all Engineers. He had said IRC should develop a World-class state-of-art laboratory with the help of IITs and global institutions in the world. New Delhi, Oct 14 : India on Friday said that the "unfortunate" attack on a 28-year-old Indian student from Agra in Australia on October 6 should be taken seriously and swift action must be taken against the perpetrators. "The Indian national is in hospital, his treatment is on... Our High Commission in Canberra and Consulate in Sydney are in close touch with the local authorities, and family here. Our officials have met him in the hospital. Our expectation is that the issue must be taken seriously and action must be taken against the perpetrators," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in his weekly briefing. Shubham Garg, 28, who is pursuing PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales, was stabbed multiple times on his face, chest and abdomen when he was walking along the Pacific Highway while returning to his place of residence. A 27-year-old man Daniel Norwood was arrested at the scene and was taken to Chatswood Police Station where he was charged with one count of attempted murder. Norwood was refused bail when he appeared in Hornsby Local Court. He will remain in custody with the next court appearance on December 14, The Australia Today reported. Norwood allegedly threatened Garg while demanding cash and his phone. He refused and was allegedly stabbed a number of times in the abdomen before the assailant fled, The Australia Today quoted local media reports as saying While Garg's family called the attack against his son an act of "racism", Bagchi said: "At the moment our main focus is that he should be out of danger and the perpetrators must be brought to book." "We have asked the Australian HC to expedite the visa process so that family members can urgently go." The attack came close on the heels of another Indian, Varun Manish Chheda, a student at the Purdue University in the US, who was stabbed to death by his roommate earlier this month Chennai, Oct 14 : The issue of a worker's union getting affiliated to an outside organisation and the company management not recognising the same led to an agitation in India Yamaha Motor's plant near here on Thursday, a trade union official said. Around 350 workers belonging to the India Yamaha Motor Thozhilalar Sangam (IYMTS), affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), are on strike, demanding that the management hold wage talks with their union, Sudhanthiram (Independent) India Yamaha Motor Thozhilalar (workers) Sangam (SIYMS) President U. Velmurugan told IANS. "We have negotiated the wage settlement and were on the verge of inking the deal when the strike cropped up," Velmurugan said. He said as per the talks, the India Yamaha Motor has agreed to offer a wage hike of Rs 25,000/three years and several welfare measures. "Our wages are getting at par with other two-wheeler makers," Velmurugan added. According to him, in 2018, the IYMTS was formed and affiliated to the CITU. The management refused to recognise the union on the ground that it was affiliated to an outside organisation. "Later at the talks with the state government officials, the CITU agreed to move out and the IYMTS became an independent union," Velmurugan said. In 2019, the IYMTS under Velmurugan's leadership had inked a three year wage agreement. "About 350 workers wanted the union to be affiliated to the CITU and demanded the management to hold talks with it. The management refused to hold talks with a CITU affiliated worker's union. We recently formed another union - SIYMS - having majority membership," Velmurugan said. He said the India Yamaha Motor has 1,095 permanent workers. Including temporary and casual workers, the total number of workers on three shift basis will be about 4,500. "About 350 workers are on a sit-in strike from Tuesday. Production at the plant is on with the help of other workers - permanent, temporary and casual," Velmurugan said. He said the plant rolls out about 1,600 vehicles - majorly scooters - per day. India Yamaha Motor management declined to comment while CITU officials were not reachable. Singapore, Oct 14 : Telecom company StarHub on Friday launched an app to link patients to their doctors with Fitbit data for better healthcare management. LifeHub+ is a personalised health service app in collaboration with Alexandra Hospital and ConnectedLife with Fitbit. The company said it has 300 patients on-board for the launch. The app provides two different 'ConnectedCare' plans to the patients-- $9.99 monthly plan and $99.99 annual plan. "We believe in the massive potential of technology in transforming healthcare and improving patient experience", said Johan Buse, Chief of Consumer Business Group, StarHub. "With LifeHub+, clinicians can access the latest health data and evaluate their patients' wellness quickly and accurately, and intervene early when they discover risk factors", he added. The health and wellness data in the application include Fitbit metrics which can be shared, such as steps, exercise, sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature variation, breathing rate, oxygen saturation (SpO2) and more. More than 30 general practitioners have expressed interest in the app to better manage their patients' health. "Wearable health trackers which are linked to health and care teams in the hospital and the community can help empower users to proactively manage their chronic conditions before deterioration", said Dr Jason Phua, CEO of Alexandra Hospital. Greater Noida, Oct 14 : A Greater Noida-based businessman was wrongly detained at the Abu Dhabi International Airport in a case of mistaken identity. The Abu Dhabi police took the Switzerland-bound businessman Praveen Kumar, mistaking him for a criminal they were searching for. His wife was sent back to India. Following the incident, his family has sought help from Gautam Budh Nagar District Administration, Uttar Pradesh government, Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Atul Sharma, a resident of Habibpur village in Greater Noida, has said that his brother Praveen Kumar and sister-in-law Usha Sharma were traders of steel and cement. As a reward for his outstanding performance, Ambuja Cement Company had sent the couple on a Switzerland tour. They left Delhi on October 11 through Thomas Cook Tours Limited and were to fly with an Etihad Airways plane to Switzerland. They had stopped at the Abu Dhabi International Airport for a connecting flight to Switzerland. Praveen has nothing to do with any criminal and has no case pending against him. He is a simple businessman and has been wrongfully held by the Abu Dhabi Police as they have misunderstood, he added. "There has been some misunderstanding with the Abu Dhabi Police. This is a case of mistaken identity. Praveen Sharma has nothing to do with any criminal incident. Their passport, Aadhaar card, PAN card and all other documents have been checked here. All this information has been sent to the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Ministry of External Affairs. I hope Praveen Sharma will be sent back to India soon," said DM Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj. Sharma's family is very upset about this incident and they haven't heard or had any contact with him for many days. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The Centre has rushed a high-level multi-disciplinary team to Uttar Pradesh to collaborate with the state health authorities in instituting public health measures for Dengue management in Firozabad, Agra, and Etawah districts. The 6-member Central team to UP comprises of experts drawn from the National Centre for Disease Control, National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control and RML Hospital, New Delhi. The team is headed by Dr VK Chaudhary, Senior Regional Director, Regional Office of Health and Family Welfare, Lucknow. The team shall work closely with the state Health Department, take a stock of on ground situation and recommend necessary public health interventions to manage the increasing cases of dengue being reported by the state. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The Maharashtra government has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench order, acquitting former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case. As Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the appeal before a bench comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli and sought urgent listing of the case, it directed the case to be listed before an appropriate bench after the Chief Justice provides his administrative approval. The bench said the state government could move an application seeking an earlier hearing on Saturday. Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court' Nagpur bench acquitted former Delhi University professor Saibaba and five others in an alleged Maoist links and conspiracy case. A division bench of Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare acquitted Mahesh K. Tirki, Hem Keshawdatt Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Nan Tirki and Pandur Pora Narote who died in August this year. Earlier, the court had allowed their appeals against conviction and life sentences awarded under the UAPA provisions. Saibaba, who suffers from a polio-related paralysis and is bound to a wheelchair, had previously filed a plea seeking suspension of his sentence on medical grounds, saying he is also suffering from multiple ailments, but it was rejected. Currently in Nagpur Central Jail, Saibaba is likely to be freed soon unless required in any other case. All the accused, arrested in 2014, were tried under various sections of IPC and UAPA and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court in March 2017, for links with the banned Maoist groups, charges of waging war against the nation, conspiracy, among others. New Delhi, Oct 14 : A woman, who had been on the run in connection with the murder case of Delhi Police Head Constable Ratan Lal, who was killed while pacifying North East Delhi's rioters, had been arrested from Noida. Delhi Police didn't disclose her name but said that a reward of Rs 50,000 was also declared on her head. "She had been frequently changing her accommodations to evade her arrests. She also changed her number multiple times. While scanning her call details records, we found that she was in touch with one of her relatives. We traced the relatives and reached her hideout," the police said. The official said that since long, operations wing of North East district had been working hard to trace the whereabouts of absconding accused in Head Constable Ratan Lal murder case but was not getting specific lead. The official said that during technical surveillance, it surfaced that mobile number of the accused was not in use but while thorough analysing of the CDR, one mobile number of her close relative was found to be frequently calling customer care number of a particular company situated in Noida which created the suspicion. "Based on the inputs received, human sources were deployed and a round the clock close watch in the areas near locations of both the mobile numbers was mounted. We got a tip-off and a raid was conducted in Noida sector 63. The police then apprehended the accused woman," the official said. She confessed her crime and disclosed that during riots in February 2020, she had been actively involved in protests against CAA/NRC. She was named as accused in murder case of head constable Ratan Lal. Since then, she fled from her house and had been residing at different rented accommodations to dodge the police teams. During this period, she married to a person who arranged a job of customer care executive for her in a Noida-based company. She further revealed that she never used her mobile phone and used only Internet calling through Apps. She had been using the customer care number to contact her relatives and family members. Chandigarh, Oct 14 : Just weeks ahead of the statewide panchayat polls and bypoll in the Adampur assembly in Haryana, self-styled jailed godman and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is undergoing a 20-year sentence for raping his two disciples, has been released on a 40-day parole - the third time this year. His family had sought the parole for him. "The decision of parole has be taken in accordance with the law," state Jails Minister Ranjit Singh told the media. During the parole, he will be staying on the Dera's premises in Rajasthan. He has been lodged in Sunaria jail since 2017 after being convicted in rape and murder cases. Last year he was also released from the jail thrice for various reasons, including his plea to meet the ailing mother. Patna, Oct 14 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday asserted that he will not go with the BJP again for his entire life. "I will never go with them (BJP) for my entire life. The previous leaders of BJP like Atal ji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee), Advani ji, (L.K. Advani), Joshi ji (Murli Manohar Joshi) were the real leaders who believe in work. The present leaders of the BJP are only talking and have nothing to do with working," he said during the inauguration of an engineering college at Samastipur. "Bihar Engineering College, Patna is the oldest institute in the country and I was a student of it. When I became the minister in the Centre, I requested Joshi ji (the Human Resource Development Minister in the Vajpayee government) to recognise it as a National Institute of Technology and he immediately did so. Those leaders think for the common people while the leaders of today's BJP only talk," he added. "I went with the BJP in 2017, expecting that they would be the successors of Atal ji, Advani ji, Joshi ji and work for the people. As they have nothing to do with the common people, I separated from them. Now, we have a socialist government in Bihar. All socialist leaders came together and we will work for the common people. We bring Bihar as well as the country on the development path," he said. "When I was with the the BJP, they were silent. When I went with Mahagathbandhan, they reopened the case against Lalu ji (RJD chief Lalu Prasad) despite him having no role in scam (IRCTC scam)," Nitish Kumar said. New York, Oct 14 : As high-speed 5G wireless networks roll out across the world, pilots in the US are reporting frequent problems with the aircraft's radio (radar) altimeters, which they rely on during takeoff and landing, and to help avoid crashing into mountains. These altimeters also feed into critical autopilot, auto-throttle, and instrument landing systems. According to an analysis of reports by IEEE Spectrum (the world's leading engineering magazine) made to NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), complaints of malfunctioning and failing altimeters soared after the rollout earlier this year of high-speed 5G wireless networks, which use similar C-band frequencies. In January this year, at least three flights above Tennessee in the US simultaneously experienced altimeter errors that made it "impossible to maintain assigned altitude", according to one of the pilots. One jet lost its autopilot completely, and reportedly had fire trucks waiting for it on landing. According to the report, in February, a passenger plane on approach to the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans experienced erratic low-altitude warnings as it flew below 1,000 feet. In March, a commercial jet landing on autopilot at Los Angeles International Airport suddenly went into an aggressive descent just 100 feet above the ground. All three incidents -- and many more this year -- were linked by pilots to problems with the aircrafts' radio altimeters, according to the report. "Between January and May, there were 93 reports of faulty or failing radar altimeters, where a normal year might see only a handful," according to ASRS, a public database maintained by NASA. ASRS contains at least 40 reports of possible 5G interference in the vicinity of the 50 airports with buffer zones. With six reports, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport had the most complaints. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has reviewed over half of the reports, and was unable to rule out 5G interference in around 80 incidents. According to the report, the FAA "did provide high-level data that indicates it has received around 550 such submissions since January". The FAA concluded that the mitigations it had agreed with wireless providers "are working". In June, it agreed with the carriers to extend those mitigations for another year. The US FAA had initially played down concerns that the new cell towers and devices might interfere with commercial jet radar altimeters, which operate a few hundred megahertz higher in the radio spectrum. In the US, wireless providers led by Verizon and AT&T paid over $80 billion for the 5G frequencies. Although altimeter complaints on ASRS seem to be declining, many pilots still want tighter controls on 5G technology, said the report. Chandigarh, Oct 14: The hiring of Delhi-based lawyers by the erstwhile Congress government in Punjab at unprecedented high fees to contest its case related to the sacrilege of the holy Guru Granth Sahib and another case of ex-DGP Sumedh Saini, has brought into critical focus the functioning of former Advocate General Atul Nanda. On the recommendation of Nanda, the Punjab government hired senior advocates, Hiren P. Raval, Sidharth Luthra, and Gopal Subramanium. They, respectively, raised bills to the tune of Rs 8.60 crore, Rs 4.53 crore, and Rs 22 lakh. But suspecting something amiss in the matter, the government has now held back the payment of Rs 4.25 crore to Hiren Raval and Rs 2.15 crore to Sidharth Luthra out of the total amount of the bills raised. Gopal Subramanium "officially" charged for one appearance only and was promptly paid Rs 22 lakh. Two of these lawyers raised bills at the rate of Rs 25 lakh and above per appearance which is unprecedented. Questions are being raised as to how a cash-strapped state that has often not been able to pay the salaries of its teachers and health staff in time was approving such huge fees for these lawyers. Former Punjab A-G Rupinder Khosla disclosed that during his tenure senior advocate Harish Salve was engaged by the state for most of the Supreme Court hearings at a maximum fixed rate of Rs 4.40 lakh per appearance. In fact, it was only during his tenure that Salve's remuneration was increased from Rs 3.30 lakh to Rs 4.40 lakh, Khosla explained. Sources revealed that according to a Punjab government circular containing a list of over 100 category A and B lawyers the maximum fee prescribed was Rs 3.30 lakh per appearance starting from Rs 1.50 lakh. Inquiries with the present Advocate General, Vinod Ghai's office confirmed that never before in its history, such exorbitant fees were paid to the lawyers hired by the state from outside. Besides, it was only for the Supreme Court that private counsel had been hired but never for the High Court in Chandigarh. Information available on the websites of the Supreme Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court shows that Hiren Raval made a total of 30 appearances, Sidharth Luthra made a total of 33 appearances, and Gopal Subramanium made 6 appearances in different courts. Hiren P. Raval took up the Punjab government assignment in July 2019, Sidharth Luthra in September 2019, and G. Subramanium in September 2020. They made appearances in the Supreme Court, the High Court, and even the Sessions Court, Mohali. Going by the Punjab government records, Hiren Raval was paid Rs 25 lakh per appearance for 9 hearings and Rs 10 lakh per appearance for the other 21 hearings. Most of these proceedings were conducted virtually due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Interestingly, Raval had raised 17 bills at a rate of Rs 25 lakh per appearance, but the government disputed the claim and refused to release the full payment. Payment to Sidharth Luthra was staggered. For five hearings, he charged Rs 27.50 lakh per appearance, for the other 3-hearings, he charged Rs 9.90 lakh each, Rs 14.85 lakh on another date, and Rs. 11.55 lakh for yet another date. One more hearing cost the state Rs 11.50 lakh, Rs. 9 lakh for another hearing, Rs 6.60 lakh for each of the 2-hearings, and Rs 4.95 lakh per appearance for another 2-hearings. The Punjab government has refused to release payments of his 15 bills. The High Court website also shows that Hiren Raval and Sidharth Luthra jointly argued on 12-occasions, implying that the government paid both senior lawyers separately on the same date of the hearing of the same case. G. Subramanium, jointly argued with Sidharth Luthra and Hiren Raval on 5-occasions, while on one of the hearings, he argued alone. The Punjab government is pleased with G. Subramanium as he did not seek full payment for his 6 appearances and went home satisfied with the fee of Rs 22 lakh for a single appearance only, providing financial relief to the state exchequer. According to the Supreme Court website record, G. Subramanium appeared virtually before the Apex court on September 25, 2020, with Luthra and Raval in attendance. Then again, on October 1, 2020, he appeared with Luthra and Raval. On October 9, 2020, Luthra and Raval accompanied G. Subramanium. On October 5, 2020, Luthra and Raval assisted him. On the 5th hearing on October 14, 2020, G. Subramanium was in the company of Luthra and Raval again. Lastly, on January 5, 2021, he appeared alone. Importantly, during all these hearings Advocate General Atul Nanda was also part of the state lawyers' team to contribute his bit. A senior High Court lawyer explained that the right and the need to position one or more than one senior counsel for the state could not be questioned. It was the sole discretion of the Advocate General and his team to recommend to the government to hire lawyers that he thought to be competent to deliver positive results. Ex-AG Nanda, when contacted to ask about the exorbitant fee paid to Delhi lawyers during his tenure said, "Get your facts right -- I did not hire anybody, you are levelling allegations... I don't want to comment." He abruptly hung up the phone. It is common knowledge that the Advocate General only recommends names of lawyers to be hired; it is the government that hires them after paperwork. Sidharth Luthra said: "It is something between me and my client (Punjab government). I don't know who you are -- Why are you asking this? A lot of my money is held up... I have taken up the matter." He refused to comment if the fee charged was exorbitant. Hiren Raval said, "I don't talk to strangers... It is (charging an exorbitant fee) between me and them... I am not obliged to answer any of your questions." He hung up the phone. To seek clarification about Subramanium's magnanimity, Karan Bharihoke was contacted, who was an advocate on record for Punjab earlier. He said, "I am no longer on the Punjab government panel as an advocate on record -- I am sorry, I don't know you... It is between him (Gopal Subramanium) and them... I have no comments to make." (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative Chennai, Oct 14 : The old age homes in Tamil Nadu are under scanner with state Social Welfare Department directing all the district collectors, to take stock of the old age homes in their respective districts. A team of officials from the Vellore district administration had shut down an old age home at a village in Tiruvalam in the district, St. Josephs Hospice. According to officials in the district collector's office, the action was initiated after the collector, Kumarvel Pandyan received a tip-off that the old age home was ill-treating the inmates and that proper food was not given to them. During the raids, it was found that while the accommodation at the home was good, the residents complained that they were provided only porridge and the food did not include any elements with nutrition. After the shutting down of the St. Josephs Hospice at Vellore, the state Social Welfare Department directed all the district collectors in Tamil Nadu to conduct a detailed study on all the homes in their respective districts. While there are homes with both state and Central government registration availing fund from respective governments, complaints have come up from various corners of the state that the inmates were not treated properly at many of these homes. While speaking to IANS, Aroghyasamy, a social activist at Tiruchendur, said, "We have been monitoring around six old age homes in the district and I can say that except for two, the rest are not performing well. There should be proper intervention from the government to bring in required correction." In most of the old age homes that receive grants from the Central government and state governments, regular audits are taking place and in most places accounts are also perfect. However, the inmates in many homes have complained about poor living conditions and poor quality food. Proper and regular monitoring of old age homes would help raise the standards of these homes with better food and better living conditions. While speaking to IANS, Sundardas Ramanarayanan, social activist and director, Centre for Research and Development Studies and Geriatric care, said, "The situation in most of the old age homes are poor but if there are regular inspections and checks by the district authorities, things will definitely improve and would give solace to the old people who don't have anywhere to go." New Delhi, Oct 14 : Aiming to strengthen the financial inclusion framework in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate 75 digital banking units (DBUs) to the nation on October 16 at 11 a.m. via video conferencing. As part of the Union budget speech for 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the setting up of the 75 DBUs in 75 districts of the country to commemorate 75 years of Independence. The DBUs are being set up with an objective to ensure benefits of digital banking all over the country, a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office said. Eleven public sector banks, 12 private sector banks and one small finance bank are participating in the endeavour. DBUs will be brick and mortar outlets which will provide a variety of digital banking facilities to people such as opening of savings account, balance-check, print passbook, transfer of funds, investment in fixed deposits, loan applications, stop-payment instructions for cheques issued, apply for credit and debit cards, view statement of account, pay taxes, pay bills and make nominations. They will enable customers to have cost effective, convenient access and enhanced digital experience of banking products and services all round the year, the statement added. Imphal, Oct 14 : The Manipur government has restricted the number of children to four in a family to be eligible for government jobs or benefits in various schemes. Manipur's Information and Public Relations Minister S. Ranjan on Friday said that the council of ministers in its meeting on Thursday decided that any person or family having more than four children would be excluded from various government schemes besides jobs. Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh presided over the cabinet meeting which took the decision and approved establishing the Manipur State Population Commission. Ranjan said that the state Assembly had earlier adopted a private member resolution to establish the population commission in Manipur. BJP legislator, Khumukcham Joykisan had moved the resolution over the alleged infiltration of outsiders into the state affecting the demographic pattern in the state. Referring to the official statistics, the MLA had told the house that the population growth of 153.3 per cent in Manipur's hill districts from 1971-2001 increased drastically to 250 per cent from 2001-2011. Naga, Kuki and Zomi and other tribals mostly reside in the hill districts. The Assam government had also, more than a year ago, adopted a two-child policy which would be a criteria to get government jobs and to avail benefits from state-sponsored welfare schemes. Chennai, Oct 14 : Heavy to very heavy rains in many parts of Tamil Nadu has led to an increase in prices of vegetables including shallots and tomatoes in the state. While the price of tomatoes in the wholesale markets of Salem, Erode, Tiruchi, and Tiruchandur was Rs 25 a kg a week ago, after the heavy rains this week, the price has now doubled to Rs 50 a kg. This means the price would be much higher in retail markets with many traders charging according to the demand and the price increases by even Rs 20 per kg in the retail markets. The price of shallots has also shot up hugely with the vegetable at Rs 100 per kg in the Chennai retail market, against less than Rs 50 kg a week before. Talking to IANS, Muthuswamy. N, a wholesale distributor of vegetables in Erode, said: "The heavy rains have taken a toll on the vegetables and most of the goods perished. When goods are not there naturally, the price in the wholesale market shoots up and this leads to an increase in the retail market. There are cases wherein the retailers jack up the price by even Rs 20 per kg thus taking the rate astronomically." He said that with Diwali, 10 days away, the price of the vegetables will go to the higher side and both shallots and tomatoes may be more costlier in the days to come. Ranganathan, a trader from Salem, however, said that if the rains are not there and crops are not destroyed, then the price may not shoot up like it has come up now. "Rains became the main villain and we don't have any choice as the supply becomes less. If the rains take a back seat, the market will respond favourably and we are certain that it will happen this year," he told IANS. Haryana for starting SYL canal construction, Punjab says not even drop of water to share (Lead) Image Source: IANS News Haryana for starting SYL canal construction, Punjab says not even drop of water to share (Lead) Image Source: IANS News Chandigarh, Oct 14 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday failed to reach a consensus over the contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue at a crucial meeting on the issue held here. After the two-hour long meeting, Khattar told the media that as directed by the Supreme Court, the meeting was held with the Punjab Chief Minister but both States reached no consensus on the construction of the SYL canal. Outrightly rejecting Haryana government's proposal to start construction of the SYL canal, Mann categorically told the media that there "is no question of initiating this work, as the state does not have even a single drop of water to share with Haryana". "At the time when agreement for the canal was inked, Punjab was getting 18.56 million acre feet (MAF) of water which has been now reduced to 12.63 MAF. At present, we don't have any surplus water to share with any state," he said, while interacting with the media separately. Khattar said the Supreme Court has asked for the construction of the SYL canal, with which Punjab has disagreed. "The construction of SYL is the lifeline for Haryana," said the Chief Minister adding that now he will meet Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to brief him about this meeting. He said earlier also a tribunal was formed to resolve the water issue, after that a new tribunal of three judges was again formed and as per the tribunal's decision, the construction of the SYL canal is necessary. Justifying his decision not share even a drop of water with Haryana, Mann said Haryana is currently getting 14.10 MAF of water from the Satluj, Yamuna and other rivulets whereas Punjab is getting only 12.63 MAF. He said despite being smaller in area, Haryana is getting more water than Punjab and ironically it is demanding more water at the cost of Punjab. In wake of this fact, Mann said how can "we give water to Haryana if our own fields are starving for it". The Chief Minister said 1,400 km of rivers, canals and rivulets have dried up in the state due to which pressure had increased on groundwater. He said currently 27 per cent of Punjab's agriculture is dependent on surface water whereas the remaining 73 per cent is being done through using the groundwater. Mann said this has resulted in depletion of groundwater level in the state and most of the blocks have gone into dark zones. The Chief Minister said instead of seeking water from Punjab, Haryana should give water to the state from the Yamuna river. He further said that if Haryana really needs water, then he is ready to go with his Haryana counterpart to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for solving the issue. However, he said before the Prime Minister the state government will reiterate its stand that Punjab does not even have a single drop of water to share with Haryana. Mann said rather Punjab and Haryana should forcefully plead the case of water sharing from Ganga and Yamuna before the Prime Minister. Shimla, Oct 14 : The political landscape in the cool environs of Himachal Pradesh heated up with the Election Commission on Friday announcing the poll schedule for the 68-member Assembly - polling on November 12 and counting of ballots on December 8. Political observers told IANS the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed an edge over its seemingly somnolent rival Congress by already launching a statewide campaign with a back-to-back public meetings by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party's national leadership comprising J.P. Nadda and Anurag Thakur. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday formally launched the party's election campaign after paying obeisance at Maa Shoolini Temple in Solan town. She addressed the Parivartan Pratigya Rally. The fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), it seems, is attempting to conquer the state with an army without a general. So far, the party in power in the national capital and neighbouring Punjab has not been able to rope in any prominent leader to head the team in the Hill state. Political pundits believe the situation is not very different from Punjab where the party had only Bhagwant Mann at the helm of affairs. But it may not work in Himachal where the political parties almost always announce the Chief Ministerial candidate's name well before the polls. The Congress is also dithering over the Chief Ministerial face in the absence of its stalwart and six-time Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. With the passing away of Virbhadra Singh, who literally 'ruled' the political landscape single-handedly for almost six decades, the somnolent Congress seems fractured and divided in his absence. No other leader enjoys the mass appeal and popularity that he had. Political observers believe the BJP, which is facing anti-incumbency, has somehow managed an edge over its rival Congress by making it clear that the party will go to the polls under the leadership of first-time Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. Most probably, the party is likely to retain him for the post, if the BJP comes back to power. The Election Commission announced that the state would vote for a new assembly on November 12 and the counting would be held on December 8. The term of the assembly ends on January 8 next year. While Chief Minister Thakur has already carried out a whirlwind tour of the state ahead of the announcement of polls, the Congress is banking on its Central top leadership, with minimal chance of Rahul Gandhi touring the state owing to his preoccupation with 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. Its state senior leaders -- Mukesh Agnihotri, Kaul Singh Thakur, Sukhvinder Sukhu, Harsh Vardhan, Sudhir Sharma and Asha Kumari -- are concentrating on their respective seats only. The BJP had won a majority in the 2017 Assembly polls with 44 seats in the 68-member Assembly. Sounding the poll bugle with an emphasis the government "lays the foundation stone of a project and inaugurates itself", the Prime Minister on Thursday launched projects related to pharmaceuticals, education, railways and rural roads with saying these will have positive impact on the region's progress. And also with a message that this became a reality with the state's double-engine government that has ensured "approvals for projects and their fast progress". This was the Prime Minister's ninth visit to the state in the five years and second in almost a week. Earlier, Modi inaugurated development works and laid foundation stones of over Rs 3,650 crore spread across various sectors, comprising AIIMS Bilaspur, on October 5. On that day, Modi became the first Prime Minister to pay obeisance to Kullu Valley's chief deity Lord Raghunath in the Dussehra festivity in Kullu town amidst the presence of nearly 300 deities. Unlike her husband Virbhadra Singh, who had a direct connect even at the grassroots, Congress state unit chief Pratibha Singh, who has never contested the Assembly poll, is spearheading the campaign by banking on its promise to bring back the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) that will benefit 225,000 employees, a crucial vote bank. However, the "divided" Congress is struggling to speak with one voice over key issues to put the government in the dock over corruption, deteriorating law and order situation, rising debt, an education scam of selling more than 45,000 fake degrees and the constable recruitment question paper leak that was sold for Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. The only saving grace for the Congress is induction of former BJP chief Khimi Ram, once a close confidante of former Chief Minister and BJP veteran Prem Kumar Dhumal. He served as a legislator from Banjar assembly constituency twice from 2003 to 2012. Also the Congress managed to rope in BJP leader Indu Verma, who is the wife of late Rakesh Verma, a three-time legislator. The family has a base in Shimla district. But leaders foresee more trouble in the Congress with the granting of tribal status by the Central government to nearly 2.50 lakh voters settled mainly in Sirmaur district, a demand pending for five decades. The state party leadership fears an exodus of its leaders, comprising two sitting lawmakers -- Harsh Vardhan and Vinay Kumar, an HPCC working president, who have been "hobnobbing" with the BJP. The Hatti community, who got the Scheduled Tribe status this month, is based mainly in the 133 panchayats dotting the trans-Giri area, which is part of the Shimla (reserved) seat. Union Home Minister Amit Shah is coming on Saturday to attend a thanks-giving rally in Sataun in Sirmaur district being organised by the Hatti community. State BJP President Suresh Kashyap said the people of the Hatti community are extremely happy on getting the tribal status after a long struggle of 55 years. "This rally will be landmark rally as the people of Hatti will be taking part in massive numbers," Kashyap, who also belongs to the area dominated by the Hattis, told IANS. The BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had won all the four seats of Himachal that saw 72.25 per cent polling. (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) Hyderabad, Oct 14 : Telangana state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy on Friday launched a scathing attack on Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for what he called trying to buy voters in Munugode by-election. He said both the parties were trying to influence the voters with money and muscle power. The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief was addressing a rally in Chandur on the occasion of Congress candidate Palvai Sravanti filing her nomination for November 3 by-election to the Assembly seat. Revanth Reddy stated that the people of Munugode are not ready to be sold to TRS or BJP. He claimed that the Congress party's strength is its workers. "Our workers are not contractors to sell themselves,a he said in a dig at BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who recently admitted that his company bagged Rs 18,000 crore contract from the Central government. Rajagopal Reddy, who was elected from Munugode on Congress ticket in 2018, resigned from the party recently to join BJP. He also quit as MLA, causing the vacancy. Revanth Reddy said the by-election was not caused for the development of the constituency but because of a person who sold himself. "This man out of his thirst for wealth betrayed a mother-like party and joined the enemy," he said and urged people to teach him a lesson. The Congress leader ridiculed the promise made by TRS leader K.T. Rama Rao to adopt Munugode if TRS candidate wins the by-election. He recalled that Rama Rao had made a similar promise to defeat him in Kodangal Assembly constituency in 2018 but went back on his word. Revanth Reddy said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will also make tall promises to people of Munugode but after the by-election he will forget all the promises. The TPCC chief said in 2014 people of Munugode elected TRS candidate but there was no development in the constituency. Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, MP Uttam Kumar Reddy, MLA Seethakka and others were present. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The Supreme Court will hear on Saturday a plea by Maharashtra government challenging the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench order, acquitting former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case. A bench comprising Justices M.R. Shah and Bela M. Trivedi will hear the matter. As Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the appeal before a bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli and sought urgent listing of the case, as, in all likelihood, the respondents may be released from the jail, it directed the case to be listed before an appropriate bench after the Chief Justice provides his administrative approval. "At this stage, we deem it appropriate to mention that the proceedings have been mentioned before this since the bench presided over by the Chief Justice has risen for the day. The Solicitor General states that he will move an application before the Registry for obtaining administrative directions of Hon'ble the Chief Justice for listing of the Special Leave Petition tomorrow (15.10.2022)", said the top court, in its order. Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court' Nagpur bench acquitted former Delhi University professor Saibaba and five others in an alleged Maoist links and conspiracy case. A division bench of Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare acquitted Mahesh K. Tirki, Hem Keshawdatt Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Nan Tirki and Pandur Pora Narote who died in August this year. Earlier, the court had allowed their appeals against conviction and life sentences awarded under the UAPA provisions. Saibaba, who suffers from a polio-related paralysis and is bound to a wheelchair, had previously filed a plea seeking suspension of his sentence on medical grounds, saying he is also suffering from multiple ailments, but it was rejected. Currently in Nagpur Central Jail, Saibaba is likely to be freed soon unless required in any other case. All the accused, arrested in 2014, were tried under various sections of IPC and UAPA and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court in March 2017, for links with the banned Maoist groups, charges of waging war against the nation, conspiracy, among others. New Delhi, Oct 14 : India's power demand is set to double by 2030, which will require capacity addition and this will entail huge capital investment, Minister for Power R.K. Singh said on Friday. He also noted that to achieve energy transition towards green hydrogen, distribution companies or DISCOMS across the country will have to follow prudent and sustainable financial practices to ensure that they are viable. Singh made these observations while inaugurating the state power ministers conference in Udaipur. "Capital investments would also be required for modernising the power systems and promoting new technologies like green hydrogen, storage, offshore wind etc. to help India achieve its energy transition trajectory. To this end, it is absolutely imperative that the DISCOMS across the country follow prudent and sustainable financial practices to ensure that they are viable," he said. He also highlighted the achievements made in the recent years in power sector in terms of surplus generation capacity, development of national grid, universal access to all households and improved supply to rural areas. At the same time however, he cautioned that there are existing challenges like continuous availability of 24x7 quality power, cyber security of the national grid and renewable energy integration, which need to be addressed through policy action and through collaboration and cooperation with all stakeholders. It was highlighted that for the last four to five months, the demand for electricity has been growing at about 11 per cent, but the government has managed to meet the demand, even at a time when there is a global energy crisis. "Coal prices have increased internationally but we have managed to keep electricity prices under control," Singh said. Hyderabad, Oct 14 : The Telangana government has penalised 33 officials, including six Municipal Commissioners, for the delay in processing applications for building permissions. It levied penalty on six officials of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) under TS-bPASS Act 2020, which is aimed at getting hassle-free building permissions online and to facilitate building approval process to citizens in an objective and time-bound manner. The government said it has come to its notice that there is an extreme delay by some of the officers in processing applications in the Municipalities/Municipal Corporations/ HMDA. It on Friday instructed the District Collectors concerned to impose penalty on 33 officials. Six Municipal Commissioners and 27 scrutiny officers will be penalised for delaying the process of TS-bPASSA applications within time frame. The government stated that it is reviewing the performance of different officials regularly and imposing penalties on erring officials. So far, penalties have been levied six times since commencement of TS-bPASS in 2020 and a total of 56 officials penalised. The government also advised the District Collectors to review the approval process under TS-bPASS more frequently so that there are no delays in future. Washington, Oct 14 : Former US President Donald Trump has reacted angrily to January 6 Congressional panel's subpoena issued to him to testify before it saying the panel is a "total BUST" and termed them as "highly partisan political hacks and thugs". In a 15-page statement issued on Friday, the former president denounced the panel as being made up of "highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs" and criticized Congress for funding the investigation into the Capitol riot despite being what he calls a "Charade and Witch Hunt". The statement also comes after all the nine members of the January 6 committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump to offer testimony to the panel as part of their investigation. "The double standard of the Unselects between what has taken place on the 'RIGHT', and what has taken place with Radical Left, lawless groups such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, is startling and will never be acceptable, even to those who will be writing the history of what you have done to America," Trump said in a statement. In his initial reaction, Donald Trump on Thursday slammed the nine-member January 6 House panel, calling it a "sham committee" after it voted unanimously to subpoena the former president to testify before it, the Washington Examiner and Independent and several other media outlets reported. In her opening remarks, committee co-chair Liz Cheney suggested Trump will be held responsible for the events surrounding and leading up to the attack on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol, noting that he was the "central cause" and that "none of this would have happened without him". Following the vote, Trump took to Truth Social to ask the "Unselect Committee" why he was not asked to testify "months ago". On Thursday, members of the House select committee investigating January 6 returned to the US Capitol and met for their first meeting in several weeks, taking both historic action as well as laying out more damning testimony. Secret Service was aware of plans for violence on January 6, the Independent said. Emails and messages among members of the US Secret Service at least 10 days before the attack on the US Capitol reveal that the agency was well aware of violent threats and plans to occupy the halls of Congress, according to the House select committee investigating the assault. A Secret Service field office relayed one tip sent to the FBI warning that members of the far-right nationalist gang the Proud Boys planned to march, armed, into Washington DC. Newly released material showed the Secret Service was aware of plans for violence on January 6. Agents shared social media messages and law enforcement tips with talk of violence in the days before the Capitol attack. Hyderabad, Oct 14 : Hyderabad has won the overall 'World Green City Award 2022' and another award in the category 'Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth' at the International Association of Horticulture Producers (AIPH) 2022 World Green City Awards 2022 held in Jeju, South Korea on Friday. AIPH invited entries for 'World Green Cities Awards 2022' across six categories. A total of 18 finalists across six categories were selected and final category wise winners were announced on Friday. The 6 categories and shortlisted countries are Living Green for Biodiversity (Columbia, Australia, France), Living Green for Climate Change (Turkey, Australia, Mexico), Living Green for Health and Wellbeing (Brazil, Netherlands, Australia), Living Green for Water (Canada, Australia, South Africa), Living Green for Social Cohesion (Argentina, South Korea, France) and Living Green for Economic Recovery & Inclusive Growth (Canada, Iran, India). Image Source: IANS News Hyderabad is the only Indian city that was selected and it is a matter of pride that Hyderabad has won not only the category award but the overall 'World Green City 2022' award that is the best across all six categories, the state government said. In the category 'Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth', the greening of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) was submitted as Hyderabad's entry. The category focuses on creating systems and solutions that allow all city residents to overcome economic distress and thrive and the ORR greenery called as 'Green Necklace to the State of Telangana' was adjudged the best in this category. Minister for municipal administration K.T. Rama Rao congratulated entire Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) team and Special Chief Secretary, MA&UD, Arvind Kumar, for this achievement. Rama Rao has been emphasising on ensuring greenery along the ORR and under the guidance of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, massive greenery efforts have been undertaken. This award is a testimony to the continued efforts and focus of the government of Telangana on increasing the green cover in the state through its flagship programme 'Telangana ku Haritha Haram' (TKHH), the government said. -- Syndicated from IANS New Delhi, Oct 14 : Almost 36 per cent respondents have termed the performance of the current BJP government in Himachal Pradesh, where polls will be held on November 12, as poor, while almost 35 per cent describe it as good, as per an opinion poll. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Jairam Thakur's performance has been rated as good by 35.2 per cent of respondents, according to opinion poll conducted by CVoter for ABP News. Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh are to be held on November 12 while results would be announced on December 8. Asked about the performance of the state government in Himachal Pradesh, 35.9 per cent respondents described it as poor, while 34.9 per cent respondents termed its performance as good, while 29.1 per cent as average. The percentages have been derived after taking the average of two percentage figures, as respondents were surveyed in September and October. On Thakur's performance as Chief Minister, 35.2 per cent of respondents described it as good. However the percentage of respondents who found his performance as poor were a close behind at 34.6 per cent. As many as 30.1 per cent respondents found the Chief Minister's performance average, according to the ABP CVoter survey. Sao Paulo, Oct 14 : A court in Brazil has fined Apple nearly $19 million for not selling iPhones with a charging socket unit, saying it must provide chargers with its iPhones in the country. Apple has said it will appeal the decision. According to Barron's, the judge called the non-inclusion of chargers in phone purchases an "abusive practice" that "requires consumers to purchase a second product in order for the first to work." The tech giant stopped giving power adapters with its iPhones in 2020 with iPhone 12, citing environmental concerns. The company now only gives charging cable with new iPhones. According to Apple, not bundling chargers with iPhones will save 861,000 tonnes of copper, zinc and tin. However, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice told Apple that it can help the environment by allowing USB-C support in its devices. "It is evident that, under the justification of a 'green initiative,' the defendant imposes on the consumer a required purchase of charger adaptors that were previously supplied along with the product," said the court's ruling. Tech giant Apple might bring USB-C port to AirPods and Mac accessories by 2024. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company might introduce USB-C to its newest AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods by the year 2024, while Mac accessories like the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad may convert to USB-C as soon as the next year. "It's a safe bet that those accessories will move to USB-C in their next incarnation", Gurman was quoted as saying in a recent report. As the European Union moves to mandate USB-C charging on new smartphones, tablets, and headphones introduced in the territory in late 2024, there has been a rumoured shift away from Lightning ports. Jamnagar, Oct 14 : A BJP corporator in Gujarat's Jamnagar city, tired of bureaucratic delays and red tape, offered to fund an underground drainage project himself. Following his offer, the Municipal Commissioner swung into action, sent a deputy engineer on compulsory leave and started a survey and cost estimation. Nilesh Kagathra, who represents ward number 9 in the city, told IANS since the last six months, he has been requesting the corporation to lay an underground drainage in his ward, where a Jain temple, as well as a Lakshmi and Ganesh Temple is visited daily by hundreds of devotees - and all had to walk through overflowing drainage water from an open gutter. But the corporation's drainage department did not act on it. "As people complain regularly, I got tired and on Thursday I made this offer. After which the Commissioner has swung into action, deputy engineer Jayesh Kamani is asked to go on compulsory leave, survey work has started from Friday morning... had the corporation not started work, i would have," said Kagathra. He is not the only one to complain, even the Deputy Mayor has written at least three letters to the commissioner to lay down underground drainage in his ward number 11. New Delhi, Oct 14 : An 11-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a cleric of a mosque in Delhi's Karawal Nagar area. Police said that they have nabbed the 24-year-old accused, who has confessed to his crime. According to a senior police official, the victim's mother, a resident of Gurugram, has filed a complaint at Karawal Nagar police station in which she stated that her boy studies at the Madarsa and was sexually abused by a cleric in August. "Acting on the complaint, an FIR under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 6/8 POCSO Act was registered and investigation was taken up," said the senior police official. "During investigation, the cleric Mohammad Javed was arrested by the police. He confessed to his crime and revealed that he had sexually abused the boy," the police official said. Meanwhile, following the incident, Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) issued a notice to Delhi Police seeking details of the SIT and the action taken by the police in the incident, within three days. According to the DCW statement, the Delhi Commission for Women has received a complaint regarding sexual assault on an 11-year-old boy inside a madarsa at Delhi's Karawal Nagar area. "The child said that he had been studying in the madarsa for four years and lived on the above floor in the same building as that of the Maulvi (cleric). He has alleged that in the midnight of August 14-15, during the preparation of Independence Day, the Maulvi took him into a room and sexually abused him and also threatened him to not reveal the ordeal to anyone," the DCW said in a statement. "Allegedly, the teacher again sexually assaulted the child a week later. Thereafter, the child went to his home in Gurugram on August 18, but his mother sent him back to the madarsa on October 7. The child then ran away from the madarsa and informed his mother about the incident on October 11. This is a very serious matter," the DCW notice said. "Maulvi of a madarsa in Karawal Nagar sexually assaulted an 11-year-old child. The child ran away from the madarsa and reached Gurugram where he narrated his ordeal to his mother. The boy told that the cleric used to ask him to massage his feet and he used to sexually abuse him. I am issuing notice to the police in the matter. Will punish the guilty," DCW chief Swati Maliwal wrote on Twitter in Hindi. Bhubaneswar, Oct 14 : Veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday met Odisha Congress leaders and sought their support for his candidature in the AICC Presidential election, scheduled to be held on October 17. Speaking to reporters here, Kharge said he has resigned from Leader of Opposition and filed nominations for the AICC President's election after receiving calls from many of his party leaders. The Congress leader said he has no other manifesto to contest the election within the party. He will implement the outcomes of the Chintan Shivir held at Udaipur in Rajasthan four months ago. "About 1,000 Congress leaders across the country had participated in the deliberation and the outcomes, also called 'Udaipur Declaration', is my priority," he said. Kharge said he is committed to implementing the party's decision to give priority to leaders of less than 50 years old in decision making. Kharge and Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor are in the fray for Congress Presidential poll as the party high command has decided that, this time, no one from Gandhi family will contest for the post. New Delhi, Oct 14 : Anti-incumbency weighs heavily on the poll-bound BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh government. According to an opinion poll, conducted by C-Voter for ABP News, 45.5 per cent respondents are not happy with the Jairam Thakur government's performance and want to change it. The survey, which was conducted with a sample size of 100 respondents in September as well as October, has revealed that only 22.1 per cent of them were satisfied with the state government's performance and did not want to change it. Those respondents who were angry with the state government but did not want to change it were 32.4 per cent. The hill state goes for assembly polls on November 12 while results would be declared on December 8. Colombo, Oct 14 : Stressing the need to work with India on energy development projects, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Friday that Sri Lanka would not have faced an energy crisis, which lead to a political catastrophe expelling a President and a government, had Trincomalee oil tanks in the island's eastern port city been handed over to the neighbouring country under the 2003 agreement. Joining a special discussion on the Trincomalee District Development Plan, he said Sri Lanka is working with India on renewable energy projects to make the eastern port city, Trincomalee, an energy hub. "Many objections were raised by the trade unions since 2003 against the provision of the oil tanks to India. Had the Trincomalee oil tank farm been given to India, we would have had fuel; we would have neither had to stay in queues nor to resort to riots. These problems arose because of the shortage of fuel. If we had given the oil tank farm to India back then, there would not have been any problems today," Wickremesinghe contended, referring to the recent political crisis with street fights starting from March which toppled the last government leading to then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa quitting and fleeing the country. The President recollected the objections raised when the Trincomalee oil tanks were to be handed over to India, adding that the country would not have faced a fuel crisis if the decision to provide the oil tanks had received the green light to be fully implemented. In 2003, as the Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe worked on handing over 99 giant World War II-time tanks at Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm to Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) PLC, an overseas venture of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, on a 35-year lease for an annual payment of $100,000. However a section of the same Government lead by the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga was working against the decision to give all the tanks to India and protesting trade unions took to streets against Wickremesinghe's decision. President Wickremesinghe, who said that currently, India is discussing several energy projects with Sri Lanka, reiterated that they would not be stopped despite obstacles. "We have to continue with the work on the Sampur Power Plant. If there are objections to it, we will have no choice but to take them directly under the government and continue with the work," he said. He said with the development of renewable energy with India, there would be value additions such as green hydrogen and green ammonia. " Therefore, we need a port to export green hydrogen. As such the potential in Trincomalee should be taken into consideration. "When considering the North, North Central and Eastern provinces the Trincomalee port should be the central hub. Perhaps, in the future, this would pave a route to Singapore. There is immense potential for such improvement," the President noted. He said working with India, Trincomalee should be transformed into a strategic deep water port. "It is important that we work together with India when we plan these activities because India is located much closer to us. "It will take another 10-15 years to achieve that development. Thailand's development has yet to reach the western Bay of Bengal region. It is yet to kick off in Myanmar. This development has just started in Bangladesh; accordingly, work is being done in Java and Sumatra. It will become a significant port only in the next 10-15 years. Our endeavour is to make Sri Lanka a strategic port," President Wickremesinghe said. He also said that India has agreed to develop industries in Trincomalee region. "We should create an industrial zone. I have proposed a joint mechanism between India and Sri Lanka towards this endeavour. Then, the port will also be connected to it and we are planning to establish a joint task force for this purpose," he said. New Delhi, Oct 14 : India's overall exports went up to $61.10 billion in September, according to data released by Commerce Ministry on Friday. These were 10.2 per cent higher than the corresponding period of last year. Imports in September 2022 were estimated to be $76.26 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 10.73 per cent over September 2021. Trade deficit, however, widened to $148.46 billion in September 2022 against $76.25 billion in September 2021, the data revealed. During April-September 2022, exports recorded a growth of $16.96 billion to touch $231.88 billion. Imports rose by 38.55 per cent to $380.34 billion during the same period of current fiscal. Merchandise exports contracted by 3.52 per cent to $32.62 billion in September. Panaji, Oct 14 : A day after All Goa Bar and Restaurant Owners Association (AGBROA) said that arranging cabs for drunk customers is not possible, BJP's Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik on Friday said that bar owners will suffer if the norm is implemented. "Goans drink alcohol, but they do not fall over, neither do they sway. So there is no problem," former Home Minister Naik said, when he was asked whether implementation of this norm would be easy or not. He said that if it is made mandatory that bar owners should arrange a cab for drunk persons, then they will suffer. "Arranging a taxi? Bar owners will suffer. There are many tourists who come to Goa from Karnataka, Maharashtra and other places. They drink and get drunk. They drink (alcohol) worth Rs 5 or Rs 10 or Rs 100. Will they hire a taxi by paying Rs 1,000?" Naik questioned. All Goa Bar and Restaurant Owners Association (AGBROA) has opposed the government move to arrange cabs for inebriated customers to drop them home or hotels in case of tourists. Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho on Monday had said that arranging cabs for inebriated customers will be a new norm in the coastal state. Michael Carrasco, president of AGBROA, on Wednesday had said that their association does not accept it. "Minister says that accidents occur because people drink and drive. But drinking is not the only cause of accidents. There are various other reasons," Carrasco said. According to him the roads are not in good condition, there are potholes due to which accidents occur. He said the faulty design of some roads leads to accidents. "Speed breakers are not properly painted, there are no indicators on roads," he lamented. According to Carrasco, if they try to convince their customers in that situation, then they might even fight with them saying when they have their own vehicle, why should they opt for a cab. Last year too, Godinho had announced this initiative but it had not fructified. Recently, the police have intensified checks at night and had fined drunken drivers. New Delhi, Oct 14 : With the schedule of of the Gujarat Assembly elections likely to be announced soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah and senior leaders from the state, including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, to take stock of the party's preparations. BJP state President C.R. Patil was also present at the ongoing meeting, where, according to sources, the agenda was the forthcoming elections to the 182-member Assembly. It is expected that the Election Commission, which announced elections to the Himachal Pradesh Assembly on November 12, is likely to announce the dates for Gujarat after Diwali (October 24). With the BJP setting a target of crossing 150 seats, the nature of the campaign, of the rallies etc was discussed at length while the issue of how many events the Prime Minister will participate in, which Union Ministers will be drafted for poll management, as well the strategy to counter the Aam Aadmi Party, which is seeking to emerge as a major force in the state, were also expected to figure. New Delhi/Guwahati, Oct 14 : The Union Home Ministry has accorded Z plus security cover to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, from his existing Z category, officials said on Friday. Officials said that the security arrangement of Assam Chief Minister was recently reviewed in consultation with the central security agencies. "The Chief Minister would be provided Z plus security cover on an all India basis," an official said. Sarma's predecessors - Sarbananda Sonowal, Tarun Gogoi, and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta - enjoyed NSG protection based on threat perception in insurgency-hit Assam. Three-term Chief Minister (2001-2015) Gogoi's NSG cover was replaced with the CRPF in 2016 after BJP came to power. Similarly, Mahanta's NSG cover was reduced by the Union Home Ministry in 2019 but he was granted Z plus security in 2017. Sarma had been a CRPF protectee since 2017 while he was Minister in the previous Sonowal government. Hyderabad, Oct 14 : Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President K.T. Rama Rao has reacted sharply to the Rs 22,000 crore one-time grant approved by the Union Cabinet for three oil marketing companies (OMCs) and demanded similar package or subsidy to gas users who are bearing a heavy financial burden. Rama Rao, who is also state Industries and Commerce Minister, questioned why special packages are not offered to women who are burdened with financial distress as subsidy on gas cylinders has been scrapped and its prices have increased. Noting that the price of a gas cylinder was Rs 400 before Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister but the price has now gone up to Rs 1,100, he said that PM Modi has positioned himself as a Vishwa Guru in terms of the cylinder prices as they are the highest in the world. The TRS recalled that Modi had questioned the then PM when the price of a gas cylinder was Rs 400, and asked what answers he has now for the nation. He said that the Central government offered a subsidy of Rs 827 on each cylinder in 2014, which was brought down to zero by the Modi government. The TRS leader said that the BJP government is insensitive towards the middle class whose savings plummeted in the past two years because of Covid-19 and lockdown. The BJP government has shifted the burden of Rs 42,000 crore subsidies of last year on 39 crore gas connection holders, he said. KTR asked people to choose if they want Modi or subsidies. He questioned why aren't problems faced by women addressed when oil companies issues are being resolved. The TRS Working President called on women who constitute half of the nation's population to take a firm decision not to bear anymore atrocities inflicted by the BJP, and said that its downfall should start from the kitchens of poor and middle class women. Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 14 : Congress' Kerala unit chief K. Sudhakaran on Friday served an ultimatum to party's Perumbavoor MLA Eldhose Kunnapilly, who has been absconding for the past few days since a sexual assault case and subsequently rape charges have also been lodged against him, to give an explanation or face action. Two-time MLA Kunnappilly faced trouble after a woman teacher here levelled serious allegations of assault, and sexual harassment against him, and after her detailed statement was taken by the Crime Branch, rape charges also have been included. "What has surfaced now is a very serious allegation and such a thing should never be heard about someone who is in public life. Hence we have asked an explanation from him and if it doesn't come up with it before the 20th, then he will have to face disciplinary action," said Sudhakaran. Kunnappilly's anticipatory bail plea will be heard by a court here on Saturday. For the past few days, he has gone incommunicado as his mobile phones were switched off. Even the phones of his personal assistant and his friend were not on. While on Thursday, in a social media post, the MLA said he has done no wrong or anything against the law, on Friday, it was reported that he had sent a text message to the complainant's friend, saying that God will punish her for cheating him, as he has done no wrong at all and he will come out of this unscathed. The teacher approached the Thiruvanthapuram Police Commissioner last week and complained that she was assaulted by the Congress MLA at the famous tourist destination at Kovalam near here. She alleged that she was also assaulted while travelling in a car with Kunnappilly. The woman on Wednesday appeared before the media and said for the past few months, they were allegedly in a close relationship, but after there was a change in his behaviour, she was trying to withdraw, which he was not allowing. On Thursday, the woman presented herself before the Crime Branch, who recorded her statement. The ruling CPI-M, in a statement issued here on Friday, said the charges against the Congress legislator are of a grave nature and appropriate steps should be taken so the victim gets justice and the Congress should seriously think if such people should be allowed to continue. Meanwhile sources indicate that the Vigilance Department is also likely to register a case against the beleaguered legislator after the victim claimed that she was offered Rs 30 lakh by him to settle the present matter. Now, all eyes are on Kunnappilly's anticipatory bail plea. Bengaluru, Oct 14 : Haryana and Sikkim states top in economic justice, political justice and social justice indicators as per the objectives of the constitution according to the Public Affairs Index 2022 (PAI 2022) study of the Public Affairs Centre (PAC). Haryana is ranked first among 18 large states and Sikkim number one among 10 small states, a PAC release stated on Friday. The PAC is a 27-year-old think tank, a non-partisan and independent effort that provides evidence-based insights into governance in Indian states. The study was taken up to commemorate 75 years of Indian Independence and the spirit of the Constitution. In the 'Amrit Kaal' of Indian Independence, PAI 2022 evaluates state governments' commitment to realise the constitutional covenant that guides Indian democracy. It said that the analysis of governance experiences a shift from the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to a constitutionally enshrined principle of justice. This conceptualisation of justice is operationalised through three themes - social, economic, and political justice, five sub-themes, and 22 indicators. Accounting for variation in the states in terms of population and size, an elbow method was used to categorise them into 18 large states and 10 small states. PAI 2022 exempted Union Territories from the analyses owing to data unavailability and irrelevance of certain constitutionally mandated functions in their governance. As per the study, Tamil Nadu stands second and and Kerala and Chhattisgarh stand in third and fourth positions among large states. After Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand rank second and third among small states. PAC Director G. Gurucharan said: "This seventh edition of the PAI makes a paradigmatic shift in its approach adopting the constitutionally mandated framework of the roles and responsibilities of the States in India as the basis to assess the quality and adequacy of their governance performance during the year 2021-2022. New Delhi, Oct 14 : The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo moto cognizance of a media report on the continued menace of Devadasi system in various temples, especially in the southern part of India. The Commission has issued notices to the Secretaries of Union Ministries of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the Chief Secretaries of the governments of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra, calling for a detailed report in the matter at the earliest but not later than six weeks. The report must contain the supporting data mentioning the steps taken or proposed to be taken by the authorities to prevent the Devadasi system and to provide the Devadasis rehabilitation and social security so that they could lead their lives with dignity. It should also mention whether any local laws have been enacted in the states to prevent such social evil, and if not what steps have been proposed to be taken to eradicate it. Issuing the notice, the Commission has observed that a few years ago, it had received a complaint regarding the malpractice of Devadasi in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In response to its notice, the state authorities had denied the allegations. Reportedly, the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh governments had declared this tradition of Devadasi as illegal in the year 1982 and 1988, respectively. However, reportedly, more than 70,000 women are leading their lives as Devadasi in Karnataka alone. A Commission constituted under the chairmanship of Justice Raghunath Rao had reportedly held that there are 80,000 Devadasis in the States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Various laws have also been enacted in the past to stop the malpractice of Devadasi system but it is still prevailing, as the news report indicates, the NHRC said. The Apex Court has also taken a stern stance in condemning the malpractice of dedicating young girls as Devadasis. It has described the practice as an evil done to women by subjecting them to sexual exploitation and prostitution. This is a serious issue of violation of Right to Life, Dignity and Equality of these victim women, said the commission. New Delhi, Oct 15 : Foreign universities will come to India once the guidelines are fixed for them, and then establish their campuses in the country will be established, officials of the University of South Australia said. The Education Ministry and the University Grants Commission are already working on these guidelines. In an interaction with IANS, the Australian varsity officials said that foreign universities, which are planning to set up the campus in India, will not only provide normal courses but also introduce industry-linked technical education, prepared after consultation with Indian and multinational companies. In view of this, institutes that offer higher education have started adopting concepts like experiential learning and work integrated learning (WIL) that allows them to prepare their students for the highly competitive market. WIL is gaining momentum nowadays as varsities collaborate and liaise with businesses to set up bespoke job roles specifically for learners which enable them to gain work experience and apply what they have learned in their studies to the job. "Work-integrated learning needs are the demand from industries. They want to hire graduate students who can add value on day one without retraining them. So, they don't want to hire someone who hasn't worked in a workplace, or with clients or in teams," Tom Steer, Chief Academic Services Officer, University of South Australia, told IANS Echoing similar sentiments, Rishen Shekhar, Director, Global Recruitment & Engagement, UniSA International, University of South Australia, said: "When we bring work-integrated learning into the degree and include that as part of the qualification, graduates can contribute to the bottom line from day one as opposed to having to retrain. And I think when you talk to sectors across the board, this is what we are hearing from the sectors at the moment. The corporates want job-ready graduates, not just those with theoretical knowledge but also application. The application can only happen through work-integrated learning or internships or placement." Technology has subjugated all sectors and education is no exception. In recent years, technology has helped teachers to acquire the necessary skills that assist learners to build successful careers. Of course, much credit goes to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which replaced the previous version, launched in 1986. The mandates laid under the Policy have paved a path for educational institutions to adopt new pedagogies, train teachers and management, restructure institutions and introduce new-age technologies, creating a more holistic learning environment. Bhopal, Oct 15 : Congress leader Shashi Tharoor who is pitted against veteran party colleague Mallikarjun Kharge for the post of party president -- election for which is scheduled to be held on October 17 -- thanked the party's Madhya Pradesh unit after he was given a warm welcome upon his arrival here on Friday. The MP from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, who arrived here to seek support from the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates, also expressed his disappointment over some Congress leaders openly expressing their support for Kharge. Kharge had also visited Bhopal two days ago and had appealed to the Congress delegates in Madhya Pradesh to support him, describing himself as "the candidate of a collective leadership of the party" and therefore, he expects "100 per cent support from all delegates". Addressing a press conference at Congress headquarters here, Tharoor reiterated that senior party leaders should not openly express support towards any particular candidate. Responding to questions on this issue, particularly on Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's announcement to support Kharge, Tharoor, with smile on his face, said: "I think the election committee of the Congress should take cognizance in this subject." Interestingly, Madhya Pradesh unit Congress head Kamal Nath had also made it open that he would support Kharge for the party's presidential post. Kamal Nath, however, had also mentioned that delegates would be free to take decisions on their own. Tharoor on Friday has received a warm welcome from the state leadership, including former chief minister and state head Kamal Nath and Leader of Opposition (assembly) Govind Singh. "I am glad at the reception I received in Madhya Pradesh. MP Congress president Kamal Nath, Leader of the Opposition Govind Singh met me," Tharoor said. There are a total of 502 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates from Madhya Pradesh of which around 50-55 delegates were present to welcome him at the Congress headquarters. During Kharge's visit to Bhopal on October 12, around 300-350 delegates were present to welcome at party headquarters. "All PCC delegates will have the total freedom to vote for the candidate he or she wants to. This election is to elect a member to the party's highest post which is a subject of dignity for each Congress worker. More number of delegates were present during Kharge's visit to office because there was a party programme before his arrival," said a senior Congress functionary. Meanwhile, Digvijaya Singh's brother Laxman Singh also shared the stage with Tharoor. New Delhi, Oct 15 : Murky politics and shenanigans of backroom games have been unleashed in Nagaland during the last 36 hours. Are the developments linked to the fate of Naga peace talks or just electoral games ahead of the elections which are due early next year? The Chief Minister's Office issued a statement on Friday evening calling the news item carried in a national newspaper as 'Fake News'. Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio's party NDPP also issued a statement saying there was no truth in the claims made in the news report. The Congress lawmakers in parliament are likely to take up the matter in the Standing Committee on Home. Based on the news report filed by a reporter who covers CBI/ED regularly, Nagaland Congress chief K. Therie and former Chief Minister K.L. Chishi told IANS that Chief Minister Rio - who heads the NDPP-BJP-NPF government - should be dismissed. The denial by the CMO came after a day on Saturday while NDPP had reacted on Friday itself. The CMO statement says: "The Media Cell, Chief Minister's Office Nagaland has issued a press release stating that on 13th October 2022, Amit Mukherjee representing the 'New Indian Express' published a fake news item in which it is alleged that the Enforcement Directorate had questioned Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio in connection with 'the non-existent High Court, etc.' for several hours in a military facility at Rangapahar in Dimapur". "The same news has been circulating through various media and social media platforms. In this regard, it is made explicitly clear that the Chief Minister of Nagaland was never called by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with any matter connected with the High Court," the CMO said adding: "Action, in accordance with the law, is being initiated against those concerned and those who are responsible for this reckless dissemination of this fake news. And the concerned Department will clarify the other aspects of the news item." Meanwhile, the newly-floated Rising People's Party (RPP), in a statement, said: "The Chief Minister is now a 'prisoner' of the BJP and this will have intense ramifications for the state. Secondly it has come to the notice of the RPP that the ED is also vigorously chasing 10 NDPP sitting MLAs. Speculation is rife that the ED has built up cases of corruption against the 10 MLAs. According to sources, these 10 MLAs may strike a bargain with the BJP to join the party. The RPP, headed by Joel Naga, also states that: "It's not surprising that the ED should interrogate the Chief Minister for 6 hours. This interrogation is not the last and we expect more grilling in the days to come." Despite the NDPP table thumbing and their protests that the ED grilling the CM is fake news, there's no smoke without fire. Firstly, according to newspaper reports the army has declined to comment which means that something is fishy." The BJP and the NPF - two allies of Rio in Nagaland - have maintained silence. Meanwhile, Congress sources told IANS that party MPs and especially members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee are likely to take up the matter. Senior MPs Digvijaya Singh and P. Bhattacharya are two Congress members from Rajya Sabha while party floor leader of Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Ravneet Singh are also members in the parliamentary panel. "To be questioned in a corruption is not a crime ....it is only to help the probe," says a source adding even Rahul Gandhi has been questioned by the ED while in connection to the 2002 Gujarat riots, even then Chief Minister Narendra Modi was questioned for long hours by the SIT. So, by implications Congress sources say - the plain denial is not necessary. "And even if there is any denial, this does not mean the case related to defalcation does not exist." According to charge sheets, 40 people are accused in two cases of No. 6 and No. 7 of 2021 in CBI special court, Imphal (in Manipur which has jurisdiction in Nagaland). Moreover, the ED has fled five separate cases earlier. Several issues could be raised and questions remain unanswered. For instance, in other states such probe are given enough publicity and cases are pursued, they done either in the office of the directorate or police stations. Why was army cantonment chosen, if at all ? If the denial version is to be taken at face value, it would be very difficult to presume a concerned reporter or a newspaper will have any personal agenda against NDPP or Chief Minister Rio. One argument being Nagaland is not a large state like Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan. Essentially now the ball is in the court of the ED and things could be clarified at its level. The RPP statement seems to make things murkier. It says even Rio could be persuaded to join BJP formally. "....given the aggressive pursuance of the case by the ED, the Chief Minister too joining the BJP cannot be ruled out either," the RPP claims adding the NDPP is in a precarious position and there's absolutely nothing the party can do anything about it. The NDPP was floated in December 2017 after Rio developed differences with NPF (his original party) stalwarts Shurhozelie and T.R. Zeliang. In July this year the BJP entered into an alliance with the NDPP announcing seat sharing in favour of Rio's party. Several BJP leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Y Patton and a number of BJP 'ticket aspirants', have urged the central leadership including President J.P. Nadda to review the move as they claim the saffron party is much more popular and can win many seats if it intends to contest at least 30 seats in the 60-member Assembly. In 2018, the BJP's strike rate was better as it could win 12 after contesting 20 and NDPP of Rio could win only 18 after contesting 40. There is another interpretation at the political level. A section of BJP leaders in Delhi feel, it is Chief Minister Rio alone among Naga politicians who can deliver a final solution to Naga peace talks. The two warring sides NNPG and NSCN-IM are now likely to meet outside Nagaland later this month to hammer out differences and take the peace process to a logical conclusion. Rio reportedly enjoys good working relations with NSCN-IM leader Thuingaleng Muivah. "Rio's is a case of a bright student not performing according to his best vis-a-vis peace talks. Is BJP central leadership now being a demanding guardian asking him to score 90 per cent and more to join some technical colleges?" a senior Naga politician said on the condition of anonymity. (Nirendra Dev is a New Delhi-based journalist. He is also author of books, 'The Talking Guns: North East India' and 'Modi to Moditva: An Uncensored Truth'. Views are personal) Bengaluru, Oct 15 : The world's largest passenger plane Airbus A380 operated by Emirates' arrived at the Kempe Gowda International Airport in Bengaluru on Saturday. Bengaluru became the first southern city in the country where services of world's largest passenger aircraft is launched. Minister for Co-Operation, S.T. Somashekar and Bengaluru International Airport (BIAL) Managing Director and CEO Hari Marar described the moment as historical and thanked Emirates for reposing faith in Karnataka government. Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy and Development officer at BIAL, said that Bengaluru has become the first city in southern India to be served by Emirates flagship A380 services. The arrival of this wide-body aircraft shows the operation capability and rising passenger demand at Bengaluru airport. The enhanced premium experience that the new A380 service brings to the Dubai-Bengaluru route will not only meet the strong travel demand but also help to stimulate traffic between the two markets, Raghunath added. Adnan Kazim, Chief Commercial Officer, Emirates, said, "The special relationship that we share with Bengaluru and the state of Karnataka is one of mutual growth and prosperity." "We are delighted to introduce A380 services to this vital gateway for travellers in south India. Today's flight is testament to the fruitful relationship that we share with the city and we look forward to providing the flagship experiences across all cabins for travellers travelling to and from Bengaluru when we begin our scheduled daily A380 services later this month," he added. Emirates' flight took off from Dubai at 10 a.m. and landed in Bengaluru at 3.40 p.m. The occassion was marked by celebrations. The special flight operating as EK562 was greeted with a procession of follow-me vehicles, arrived ahead of the launch of scheduled A380 services, which will begin on October 30, an official statement said. Starting on October 30, Emirates' A380 flights between Dubai and Bengaluru will operate as EK568 and EK569. The daily flight leaves the airline hub at 21:25 hour, arriving in Bengaluru at 2:30 local time the next day. The return flight departs Bengaluru at 4:30 hour and arrives in Dubai at 7:10 hour. Currently, Emirates operates A380 to more than 30 destinations across the globe. The airbus is loved for its extra legroom. The flight has premium economy. The other features include shower spa and onboard lounge. Business class cabins provide superior levels of comfort and privacy and spacious seats in economy class. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Addis Ababa, Oct 15 : The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has warned over the spread of the cholera outbreak in the southeastern part of Ethiopia amid growing cases. The UNOCHA, in its latest situation update report issued late Thursday, said as of October 10, nearly 191 cholera cases were reported in three districts of the Bale zone, including Harana Buluk, Berbere, and Delo Mena. It added that four associated deaths were reported during the stated period, with a cumulative case fatality rate of 2.09 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported. The first cholera case was reported in Harana Buluk district on August 27. On September 18, Berbere district became the second reporting cholera cases, followed by Delo Mena district where suspected cases were reported on October 3, according to the UNOCHA. The UNOCHA said that the use of unsafe water from contaminated water points is the most likely cause of this outbreak. Limited access to water and sanitation services, poor hygiene practices that include open defecation, as well a lack of water treatment options are among the factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease across these three districts, it added. Figures from the UNOCHA show that new suspected cases are reported daily in the three affected districts. Presently, there are 15 active cases in the existing Cholera Treatment Center across the three districts, with 71 per cent of the patients experiencing severe dehydration symptoms. Due to people's mobility, the UNOCHA warned that there is a high risk that the outbreak could propagate into bordering zones, including Southern and Eastern Oromia, the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region, and Somali Region. The Bale zone remains one of the most drought-affected areas with increasing malnutrition cases and reports of a measles outbreak. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) recently indicated that the latest cholera outbreak is drought-related as Ethiopia is currently experiencing one of the most severe droughts in recent history. The IFRC said the drought-related cholera is due to a number of compounding factors, which includes the limited accessibility and availability of safe drinking and cooking water, particularly in rural areas where many people are exposed to untreated water sources. Tehran, Oct 15 : Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that the unipolar world order is not accepted, Iran's state media reported. "Nations have been awakened" and they do not accept the unipolar world order, which "is gradually losing its legitimacy," he told the International Islamic Unity Conference held in Tehran on Friday. In a unipolar system, arrogant powers such as the US would design their own schemes and dictate them to other countries such as Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon, he said as quoted by Xinhua news agency report. The world is now opposed to countries bullying others into obedience, the Iranian top leader noted. We find that theres an interplay between taking care of your talent and taking care of your customers. The National Association for Business Resources (NABR) has released their Summer 2022 Best and Brightest Companies To Work For in the Nation, and Aventis Systems, Inc. was among the winners. All winners were evaluated by an independent research firm, which assessed a number of key metrics with Aventis Systems versus other nationally recognized companies. With over 20 years of experience conducting the Best and Brightest competitions, the NABR has identified numerous best human resource practices and provided benchmarking for companies with an aptitude for leadership in employment standards. The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation offers four timelines of applications throughout a given year: spring, summer, fall and winter. In the case of the aforementioned award, NABR honored 175 winning organizations from across the nation from a pool of 1,400 nominations for the summer of this year. The proud winners are slated to be honored during the virtual Illuminate Business Summit week in November 2022 as well as in the spring of next year. Aventis Systems is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia where it caters to smaller businesses with hardware, system and application software, plus custom configurations. In 2019, Aventis Systems founded Cortavo as a managed IT services provider. Cortavo is currently the only managed IT services provider to offer an IT solution that handles technology completely in a simple plan. And like Aventis Systems, they serve businesses of all sizes. The Elite categories under which Aventis Systems was evaluated include: Compensation, Benefits and Employee Solutions; Employee Enrichment, Engagement and Retention; Employee Education and Development; Recruitment, Selection and Orientation; Employee Achievement and Recognition; Communication and Shared Vision; Diversity and Inclusion; Work-Life Balance; Community Initiatives; Strategic Company Performance, and the Best of the Best: Small Business, Medium Business and Large Business. To meet this challenge, both Aventis Systems and Cortavo offer a generous array of perks that distinguish them from the competition while attracting and retaining top-flight talent. Unlimited PTO Remote work Incentivized airline tickets Corporate personal trainer Company cell phone plan Student debt relief program Team building events Volunteer opportunities Tesla auto program Child care stipend Full-time employees are eligible for medical, dental and vision insurance Unlimited snacks and drinks When learning about securing this award yet again, Tiffany Bloomer, President of Aventis Systems and Cortavo noted their 100% customer-centric model and outstanding employee benefits program. We find that theres an interplay between taking care of your talent and taking care of your customers. You cannot do one without the other. When our team is undistracted and happy in their work, they pass that energy onto the customers in everything they do. This has allowed us to grow and make more happy employees who do the same. All 2022 Best and Brightest Company to Work For winners will be featured in the online edition of Corp! Magazine as well as in the Wall Street Journal. More About Aventis Systems Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Aventis Systems, Inc. offers custom IT solutions to build and operate complete physical and virtual infrastructures. Their comprehensive solutions include hardware, system and application software, along with an array of in-depth managed services including Cortavo, an all-inclusive Managed Services Provider that offers all the hardware, software and cloud services to address small business technology needs and challenges at a flat monthly fee. Since 2008, thousands of small business owners have entrusted Aventis Systems as their preferred IT provider because they "Get IT Done." Call 1-855-AVENTIS, visit http://www.AventisSystems.com or connect with Aventis Systems on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. More About Cortavo Cortavo is the only all-inclusive managed IT solution providing unlimited service desk support, cybersecurity, internet connectivity, cloud data storage, computer hardware and software necessary to manage small to medium-sized business technology needs at a flat monthly fee. Cortavo is based in Atlanta, GA and supports thousands of small business employees throughout the southeastern United States. Their service is award-winning, garnering recognitions from Inc. 5000, 2021 Big Awards for Business, being named The #1 Managed IT Services Provider in Atlanta by Clutch.com, and now securing the Best and Brightest award. For customer service or media inquiries, please call 1-866-267-8286, visit http://www.Cortavo.com to connect with Cortavo. Reach Cortavo on social media: LinkedIn Twitter Facebook A group of Air Force and Army nonprofit organizations will host the Antelope Island 30th Anniversary Memorial at Antelope Island State Park, UT on October 29 at 10 a.m. Mountain Time. This memorial will be held to commemorate the 12 lives lost in the helicopter crash near Antelope Island 30 years ago. The hosting group includes the Combat Control Foundation, Air Commando Association, Combat Control Association, 75th Ranger Regiment Association, Three Rangers Association and US Army Ranger Association. On October 29, 1992, four MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters departed from Hill Air Force Base in a joint training exercise enroute to Michael Army Airfield. Torrential rain, lightning and heavy cloud coverage caused one of the aircrafts to crash into the Great Salt Lake. The aircraft burst into flames on impact and killed 12 of the 13 Special Operators onboard the aircraft. The ceremony will celebrate the lives of the 12 Special Operators who died in this tragic crash and will rededicate the memorial in their honor. The program will include an opening prayer, followed by a description of the operation, guest speakers and the unveiling of the updated memorial. The ceremony will conclude with a 21-gun salute, ceremonial Taps and a benediction. For more information on how to register for the event and how to donate to this event, visit https://combatcontrol.team/event-4978067 and put Antelope Island in the comments of your donation. PRESS RELEASE Contact: Gina Cubero FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Marketing & Communications Director October 6, 2022 (808) 333-0392 gina.cubero@combatcontrol.team Were delighted to have Mr. Hurwitz collaborate with us in California and the United States. His depth of knowledge and experience in US-based M&A transactions will be a great addition to the Beacon platform. Beacon Mergers & Acquisition (Beacon) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with US-based M&A Advisor KEMA Partners LLC (KEMA). Cary Hurwitz will be leading the effort for KEMA to provide investment banking services to clients across the United States. This partnership is another milestone in establishing the Beacon brand as a truly global one and focusing on servicing clients across North America seamlessly and efficiently, says Managing Partner Alex Shteriev. Cary will serve as Beacons US partner, servicing clients in California and across the United States. Cary will leverage Beacons 15-year track record, its staff, network, and back-office support, which is at the heart of the value-added proposition in this service and geographic expansion. M. Will Fischtein, the Managing Partner at Beacon Mergers & Acquisitions, commented on the expansion, Were delighted to have Mr. Hurwitz collaborate with us in California and across the United States. I have known Cary for many years, and his depth of knowledge and experience in US-based M&A transactions will be a great addition to the Beacon platform. Mr. Hurwitz is the founder and Managing Director of WestCape Advisors, a Los Angeles-based corporate advisory firm. Before WestCape, he was the Managing Director of Investment Banking at MDB Capital Group, a boutique investment bank focusing on companies with transformative technologies and extensive intellectual property assets. Over his six years with MDB, Cary managed a wide range of private and public financings, including initial public offerings, private placements, and bridge financings. He also guided clients through complicated restructurings and other merger and acquisition activities. Having advised on M&A and growth capital financings totalling over $500 million in successfully completed transactions, Cary is now partnering with Beacon to offer the best quality sell-side advisory services to small and medium-sized firms in the United States with Beacons track record of success in both Canada and internationally. About Beacon Mergers & Acquisitions Beacon Mergers & Acquisitions is a full-service M&A advisory firm headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Beacons services include transaction advisory, business valuations, debt financing, and consulting to private companies in the lower middle market. Beacons team of experienced M&A professionals, CBVs and intermediaries is focused on delivering maximum value for business owners through a technology-enabled approach and streamlined processes. http://www.beaconadvisors.com About Cary Hurwitz Cary Hurwitz, a registered representative of, and conducts all US securities business through KEMA Partners LLC, a FINRA/SIPC member and SEC registered broker-dealer. He obtained his law degree and MBA from Pepperdine University after finishing his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia. He is also a member of the California State Bar and holds Series 7, 63, and 79 securities licenses. About KEMA Partners LLC KEMA Partners, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Tampa, is an investment bank focused on meeting the financial and strategic advisory needs of companies in the technology, media, life sciences and clean-tech industries both domestically and globally. KEMA has partnered with professionals who share a passion for providing clients with the highest level of service and never sacrificing the integrity of the firm. http://www.kemapartners.com Mode's new VP of Data, Taylor Holland, will help to position Mode for success in building the new era of Modern BI We are confident that Taylor Hollands deep expertise and perspective will help to position Mode for success as we continue to build the new era of Modern BI for data teams, said Gaurav Rewari, Chief Executive Officer, Mode Analytics. Mode Analytics, the modern Business Intelligence (BI) platform that helps businesses scale quickly, today announced the addition of Taylor Holland as Vice President of Data. Holland will be joining us at Coalesce in New Orleans, October 18-20, 2022. Modern BI is about enabling successful collaboration on analysis and generating collective understanding across the entire business, said Gaurav Rewari, Chief Executive Officer, Mode Analytics. We are confident that Taylor Hollands deep expertise and perspective will help to position Mode for success as we continue to build the new era of Modern BI for data teams. As Vice President of Data, Taylor Holland will help accelerate Modes next phase of growth by continuing to build a world-class data team and optimizing the use of data in the companys product offerings. He will also partner with Heads of Data at Mode customers and prospects to help evolve their approach to partnering across the business and driving strategic value from their teams. Prior to Mode, Holland served as Head of Data Science for Facebooks AI Platform and was the Head of Data Science & Machine Learning at GitHub. He also held analytical and operational roles at Heroku and Salesforce. The role of a data team leader is expanding at a rapid pace, and now includes setting vision for how data can transform company strategy and unlocking deeper, organization-wide value from their data stack investment, said Taylor Holland, VP of Data, Mode Analytics. Meeting this change in the market often requires new ways of working: engaging on high-leverage data projects to grow and optimize the business, and enabling richer self-service analytics - all on top of a unified foundation of data and tooling. Mode is the best-positioned platform to deliver on that promise, with a product that combines code and no-code tools in one surface area and unifies the workflows of data teams and business users in new ways. Modes modern Business Intelligence (BI) platform enables analysts to provide best-in-class decision support, answering even the most complex business questions quickly and efficiently. It also empowers business stakeholders to answer their own questions, and in doing so, transforms data culture and improves business decisions company-wide. Modes customers realize greater ROI on their data stacks and greater operational efficiency powered by data. Unlike legacy BI tools, Mode offers a single platform that flexes based on organizational needs and decreases cycle time between data teams and business teams as the company scales. The Mode platform provides a better way to quickly answer questions and advance knowledge across the organization, in order to drive high-quality, high-velocity decisions. In 2022, Mode has earned four awards for Visual Explorer, its best-in-class visualization suite that helps data analysts explore data faster and provides easy-to-interpret insights to stakeholders. The 2022 SaaS Awards included Modes Visual Explorer on a short list for Best Data Innovation in a SaaS Product, The 2022 SIIA CODiE Awards selected it as Best Business Information or Data Delivery Service, The 14th Annual 2022 Golden Bridge Business and Innovation Awards named it as Best Business Intelligence Innovation, and The 17th Annual 2022 Information Technology Awards recognized Modes entire Visual Explorer team in the category of Business Intelligence and Analytics. To learn more about Modes Modes Modern BI platform, please visit https://mode.com/. If you plan to be at Coalesce in New Orleans, please stop to meet Taylor Holland in person at booth 204. About Mode Analytics Modes modern BI platform provides a streamlined workflow for heads of data responsible for defining, distributing, and maintaining their companys core metrics for business intelligence. It allows data scientists and analysts to visualize, analyze, and share data using a powerful end-to-end workflow that covers everything from early data exploration stages to presentation-ready shareable products. Unlike legacy BI tools, Mode offers a single platform that flexes based on organizational needs and decreases cycle time between data teams and business teams as your company scales. Mode's customers realize greater operational efficiency by bringing together the best of BI and data science together in a single platform. Mode empowers everyone across the organization to use data to make high-quality, high-velocity decisions. Mode also supports the analytics community with free learning resources such as SQL School, open-source SQL queries, and free tools for anyone analyzing public data. To start a free trial or learn more, visit https://www.mode.com. ### Hanover Research, a leading provider of data and insights to K12 school leaders, has released new findings from the National Mental Health and Wellbeing Needs Assessment Survey in collaboration with the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS). The report provides a breakdown of wellness self-perceptions and identified needs among secondary students throughout the country as well as, the perceptions of parents and staff nationwide examining how their perceptions of student wellness compare to help district leaders addressing current mental health concerns in schools. Students and staff have returned full-time, in-person to schools after their routines were disrupted because of the pandemic," says Maria Armstrong, Executive Director, ALAS. We found that the mental health needs of students, staff, and parents have become more urgent than before; therefore, multi-level support of academic, cultural, and social-emotional needs that create a positive school climate must be implemented in districts across the country." Drawing from insights gathered from more than 2,000 respondents (students, teachers, administrators, and parents) across the country, the report includes key findings on: The Overall Mental State of Students and Staff The Influence of the Pandemic on Districts Students Seeking Support Perceived Mental Health Support And More This study underscores that district leaders must build a high-performing administration team that prioritizes students, parents, and staff mental health, according to Dr. Leila Nuland, Ph.D., senior managing director, Hanover Research. With so many diverse students having specific needs, successful districts will need to listen to student, staff, and community viewpoints and find ways to address their needs as they evolve. Our hope is that school districts use this report to understand and build strategies around the factors that influence overall student, staff, and community wellness, especially in times of uncertainty. Dr. Nuland, alongside Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, superintendent of Hartford Public Schools in Hartford, CT, also presented results of the findings at the 19th ALAS Annual National Education Summit on October 7, 2022, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. To access the full report, click here. About Hanover Research Founded in 2003, Hanover Research is a global research and analytics firm that delivers market intelligence through a unique, fixed-fee model to more than 1,000 clients. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Hanover employs high-caliber market researchers, analysts, and account executives to provide a service that is revolutionary in its combination of flexibility and affordability. Hanover has been named a Top 50 Market Research Firm by the American Marketing Association and Insights Association from 2015 to 2021. To learn more about Hanover Research, visit http://www.hanoverresearch.com Ed brings a passion for improving cancer care along with a strong background in using technology to bring about a digital transformation in healthcare. Mary Crowley Cancer Research (MCCR) announced today the addition of Edward Marx to their Board of Directors. Marx currently also serves as Chief Executive Officer of Divurgent, a solutions provider focused on what matters most to their client partners. Prior to Divurgent, Marx served as Chief Digital Officer (CDO) for Tech Mahindra Health and Life Sciences, a $6B digital transformation company. Prior to that role, Marx was the global Chief Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic. Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic, Marx served as CIO for The Advisory Board/NYC Health & Hospitals, Texas Health Resources, and University Hospitals. Concurrent with his healthcare career, Marx served 15 years in the Army Reserve as a combat medic and combat engineer officer. Marx is the author of five books including the 2019 healthcare bestseller, Voices of Innovation and the 2020 bestseller, Healthcare Digital Transformation; How Consumerism, Technology, and Pandemic are Accelerating the Future. Marx is currently writing a book for the Mayo Clinic on Patient Experience. Marx received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master of Science in Design, Merchandising, and Consumer Sciences from Colorado State University. Marx is currently active on Boards, writing books, and speaking globally. Ed brings a passion for improving cancer care along with a strong background in using technology to bring about a digital transformation in healthcare. [Mary Crowley CEO,] Jon Friedenberg and I are excited about Ed's passion and his ability to contribute to us as we begin to explore our expansion opportunities, stated Roy Lamkin, Chairman of MCCR Board of Directors. Marx was voted upon and approved as an addition to the MCCR Board of Directors at their August 24, 2022, Board meeting and will attend his first meeting in November 2022. About Mary Crowley Cancer Research Mary Crowley Cancer Research is a specialized clinical research center in Dallas, Texas that offers access to new investigational therapies through the administration of Phase I and II clinical trials. The mission of Mary Crowley Cancer Research is to bring HOPE to cancer patients through innovative clinical trials while advancing treatment globally for all patients in the future. The MCCR approach is to rapidly advance the discovery of potential new therapies and positively impact the care of cancer patients in their lifetime. The development of this first set of professional micro-credentials reflects the next step in Saint Joseph's College's continuing evolution as a thought and practice leader in higher education serving the needs of learners in a values-based context. Focus EduSolutions, in partnership with Saint Josephs College of Maine, is excited to announce the launch of its first series of professional micro-credentials in Catechism, Early Childhood Education, and Teaching Children with Disabilities. This will provide greater educational opportunities for anyone looking to deepen their faith and knowledge of the Catechetical mission of the Church or looking to further their career in the Catholic education system. These credentials are six to eight-week-long self-paced programs. Saint Josephs College professional micro-credentials were made by subject matter experts with decades of experience, education, and leadership in the faith. The development of this first set of professional micro-credentials reflects the next step in Saint Joseph's College's continuing evolution as a thought and practice leader in higher education serving the needs of learners in a values-based context. We look forward to expanding our offerings and presence in this exciting new learning space. These professional Micro-Credentials include: Becoming an Effective Catechist: Catechetical Education Certificate: This credential presents the foundations of Catholic theology and educational pedagogy to facilitate catechesis at all levels. Unique to this program is that the modules present a Catholic worldview by using Catholic Social Teaching as the springboard for the explanation/application of pedagogical practices from planning, and classroom management to common 'teacher hacks'. The 2020 Directory for Catechesis, Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Acts of the Apostles are the main references during the credential. Early Childhood Education: Teaching from a Catholic Framework: This program is designed to prepare aspiring and current early childhood professionals with mastery knowledge in the growth and development of the young child within a Catholic education framework. Topics include foundations in early childhood development, moral education for developing minds, cognitive and physical development of the young child, language acquisition, curriculum development, lesson planning, classroom management, health and safety guidelines, and family/community relationship building. The Inclusive Classroom: A Certificate in Teaching Children with Disabilities for Catholic Educators: This credential will equip teachers with the knowledge to understand how neurodivergent brains learn and the skills needed to teach a wider scope of learners. Knowledge will be gained in the areas of common learning disabilities, strategies for meeting the needs of an academically diverse classroom, and church teachings and documents that support the reasons why all students should be included in Catholic schools. Leading for the Catholic Mission: Administrator Pathway for Implementing Special Education Programming: As administrators and teachers, we know that there are children in every school with learning disabilities, but we also know that not every school is equipped to meet the needs of all learners. This certificate addresses the skills and knowledge that administrators must have to create a strong special education framework in the Catholic school environment while allowing themselves to become encouraging and supporting administer of the work of teachers for the success of exceptional learner programs. Enrollment is now open for Becoming an Effective Catechist and The Inclusive Classroom. Later this fall Early Childhood Education and Leading for the Catholic Mission will open for enrollments. For more information and to enroll please visit: https://partnerships.focusedusolutions.com/sjc/home About Focus EduSolutions: Focus EduSolutions is a Boston-based company that works with colleges, universities, and industries to create micro-credentials to meet the needs of industries throughout the country. These micro-credentials are developed by Focus EduSolutions in partnership with subject matter experts directly from the industry and industry associations. Its mission is to create an education system that truly addresses the needs of the industry, provides alternative methods of education for future generations that are cost and time effective, and creates stronger relationships between higher education institutions and industry, for permanent culture change and workforce development solutions. Their certificates address the skills gaps that currently exist in the workforce, assist industries in their transformational changes, and provide educational opportunities for future generations of the industry. For more information on Saint Josephs College of Maine, visit http://www.sjcme.edu. Deb Belfatto, founder of Let's Talk: Women's Health & Wellness "Through my years of leadership at Komen North Jersey, my platform was based on a personal belief that every woman is deserving, entitled, and worthy of the highest standards of healthcare" - Deb Belfatto Deb Belfatto, Founder of the Susan G. Komen North Jersey Affiliate, community activist, two-time cancer survivor, and a trailblazer for women's causes has launched Let's Talk: Women's Health & Wellness, a one-day event to support womens health awareness. The event will be hosted at NJPAC in Newark, NJ on October 15th, 2022. This unique experience will bring women of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities together to learn, celebrate, and share their health journeys. Although there has been tremendous progress since 1988 when Deb was first diagnosed with breast cancer, there is still more work to be done. Deb leads a healthy life surrounded by blessings including her supportive family, friends, doctors, and access to resources. Despite the vast knowledge she gained from her diagnosis experience and her own commitment to healthy living, she was shell-shocked when, during the height of the pandemic in 2021, she was diagnosed with cancer for a second time. Debs personal motto is that its not enough to simply count your blessings, its all about sharing them. It is with this in mind that shes spearheading the Lets Talk: Womens Health & Wellness Event and gathering leading experts in their field to share how women can care for their own breasts, brain, body, and mindno matter their age, background, ethnicity or how they identify. Through my years of leadership at Komen North Jersey, my platform was based on a personal belief that every woman is deserving, entitled, and worthy of the highest standards of healthcare, says Deb Belfatto. Let's Talk: Women's Health & Wellness Event will educate and remove stigmas about womens health and wellness. The event will include panel discussions that include nuanced conversations about womens health, and focus on the following eight pillars of wellness: physical, nutritional, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, financial, and environmental. There will be expert speakers such as Psychiatry Specialist Marra G. Ackerman, MD, Chief, Section Breast Surgery at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Michele Blackwood, MD, FACS and Body Positive SuperModel, Emme- plus a whole lot of girl power! The full list of expert speakers is available to view at https://letstalkwellwomen.org/experts/. Guests will leave with new ideas and takeaways, as well as a swag bag of health-inspired goodies. Everyone in the community is invited to attend this all-day gathering. To purchase tickets, visit LetsTalkWellWomen.org/Tickets/. Guests are also welcome to support another woman in her journey by donating a ticket. This donation can be made in honor or in memory of someone special. Sponsors include Minettes Angels, Pfizer, RWJBarnabas Health, William E. Simon Foundation, Leslie and Eileen Quick, Nanar and Tony Yoseloff, Atlantic Health System Cancer Care, The MCJ Amelior Foundation, Women in Business on behalf of Valley Bank, Deb and Joe Belfatto, East Coast Advanced Plastic Surgery, Julie and Eric Epstein, Kelson Group, Neiman Marcus, New Jersey Imaging Network, Prudential Financial, Rutgers UniversityNewark, RWJ University Hospital Somerset, Women@SQ on behalf of Simon Quick Advisors. Let's Talk: Women's Health & Wellness is produced by Gail P. Stone Events, Inc. More About Lets Talk: Womens Health & Wellness Event: Lets Talk: Womens Health & Wellness Event is an all-day gathering created by Deb Belfatto, a two-time cancer survivor. The event is for women of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities to learn, celebrate and share about womens health journeys. The event will take place on October 15 at NJPAC. Leading experts in the field will gather to share with women how to care for their breasts, brain, body, and mindwith or without a breast cancer diagnosis. There will be information, friends, laughs, and interesting thoughts and alternatives for a healthy and well lifeno matter the age, background, ethnicity or how our attendees identify. We are thrilled to announce the collaboration with Ceed Learning. The complementary products and services they offer are a perfect match with the FLOWSPARKS platform. Ceed Learning is the ideal partner to help us expand in South Africa, says Vincent Blommaert, FLOWSPARKS Global Channel Director. FLOWSPARKS, the leading provider of digital learning software, today announced a new partnership with Ceed Learning, a specialist provider of custom e-Learning solutions and digital learning ecosystem design. The partnership will bring FLOWSPARKS award-winning software to the South-African markets as FLOWSPARKS continues to expand its footprint globally. A mission to implement digital learning in South Africa A first action of this partnership is attending the virtual ATD Africa L&D conference. Visitors can book a free demo at the Ceed Learning virtual booth to experience the power of FLOWSPARKS first-hand. FLOWSPARKS Chief Commercial Officer, Cedric Herregodts commented: The new partnership with Ceed learning offers a lot of new perspectives in a completely new market. By giving them access to the most advanced digital learning tools, Ceed Learning will be able to empower new and existing clients. We can rely on each other to offer not only best in class learning products but are also aligned on striving for the most excellent customer care. Ceed Learning CEO, Bernadine Sprighton, shares Cedrics enthusiasm: In a complex world and vulnerable economy, the challenge for learning and talent leaders is to deliver more using less. More impact, more engagement, and better results at scale and with speed. Our partnership with FLOWSPARKS allows us to enable our clients as they strive to deliver on this monumental ask with ease and the peace of mind that comes with a partnership focused on customer success. International Expansion After successful partnerships with local learning partners in other countries, FLOWSPARKS is on a fast track to establish itself within the international markets. Their new Partner Program gives this process the boost it needs. It supports the growth strategy of FLOWSPARKS. Just like their last addition, GuyKat UK, Ceed Learning has a strong market share in their location South Africa. We are thrilled to announce the collaboration with Ceed Learning. The complementary products and services they offer are a perfect match with the FLOWSPARKS platform. They are skilled to design digital learning experiences and support our customers to adapt and grow during the learning process. Ceed Learning is the ideal partner to help us expand in South Africa, says Vincent Blommaert, FLOWSPARKS Global Channel Director. About FLOWSPARKS FLOWSPARKS is a cloud-based e-Learning software suite offering standard Learning Formats that already include technical, graphic, and instructional design aspects, which makes the solution unique worldwide. The authoring tool is the heart of FLOWSPARKS and gives users all the necessary elements to create interactive digital training courses. FLOWSPARKS just obtained the Fall Leader Badge 2022 on the renowned review platform G2. They are also the winner of the Brandon Hall Gold Medal Award for 2021s Best Advance in Content Authoring Technology, FLOWSPARKS has been adopted by more than 1600 companies in over 150 countries since its international launch in 2017. About Ceed Learning Todays world is fast-paced and continuously changing. At Ceed Learning, we support clients as they shape and secure their spot in the future helping organizations develop essential skills to adapt and learn at speed through learning strategies, digital learning, change management, learning platforms, capacity building and offering learning as a service (LaaS). Symphony accepted into Forbes Technology Council "I am looking forward to joining the Forbes Technology Council and sharing my experiences regarding distributed work, digital transformation, venture building, and bootstrapping. - Muamer Cisija, Co-Founder and President of Symphony Symphony, a global software development and design company with hubs and consulting offices across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America and 600+ engineering and product experts, has been accepted into Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives. Symphony was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of their experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors. We are honored to welcome Symphony into the community, said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Technology Council. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world. As an accepted member of the Council, Muamer Cisija, Co-Founder and President of Symphony, has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help Symphony reach peak professional influence. Muamer Cisija will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum. Muamer will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts. Finally, Muamer Cisija will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team. Since its founding, Symphony went from augmenting the fastest-growing Silicon Valley startups with talented technologists to partnering with the worlds top organizations and Fortune 500 companies. On our expansion journey, we have kept that Silicon Valley culture, accelerating large enterprises with agility, product empathy, and expertise. I am looking forward to joining the Forbes Technology Council and sharing my experiences regarding distributed work, digital transformation, venture building, and bootstrapping. - Muamer Cisija ABOUT SYMPHONY Symphony is a software development and design company working with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 companies and the fastest-growing startups in the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Symphony has 600+ employees in 12 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. To learn more about Symphony, visit http://www.symphony.is, or contact us at hello@symphony.is ABOUT FORBES COUNCILS Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive. For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit forbestechcouncil.com. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com. PCA&D Viewbook, Neographics Power of Print Award Winner We are grateful for our partnership with PCA&D and Lewis Advertising Design Inc. and thrilled to have won the Power of Print award back-to-back. At this year's Neographics Print Competition, The Standard Group had another astonishing performance. Competing against hundreds of regional entries from printing and graphic firms throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York, The Standard Group received nine Best of Category Awards, ten Franklin Awards for Excellence, three Best of Show Awards, and once again captured the Power of Print Award (Best of Show). The Power of Print award winner, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design's Viewbook, was designed by Lewis Advertising Design Inc. and manufactured by The Standard Group and is a culmination of thoughtful brand strategy, excellent design, and first-class LED-UV offset printing. The viewbook is recognized for its stunning printing results, critical color matching, cross-page lineups, and unique folding. "I'm delighted that PCA&D (Pennsylvania College of Art & Design) won the Power of Print Award," stated Daina Savage, Vice President of Strategic Communications for PCA&D. "The viewbook was our rebranding statement piece and is an amazing tactile, visual experience. "Daina continued, "The execution by The Standard Group was above and beyond. We are so grateful that The Standard Group was able to bring our vision to life and created a printed piece representative of our art and design school." "PCA&D's Graphic Design Chair said that this is the best viewbook the college has ever had, in her opinion," shared Rick Lewis, President / Creative Director of Lewis Advertising Design, Inc. "I'm both humbled and happy to have been a collaborative part of The Standard Groups receiving the Power of Print Award. Not many printers could have produced this project that's why we selected to work with The Standard Group." "We love competing in the Neographics. It's one of our industry's oldest and most respected awards," said Jim Rowland, CEO of The Standard Group. "I'm so happy with our team's achievement. As an employee-owned company, our employees have a vested interest and are even more committed to amazing print quality and unparalleled customer experience." "I love this viewbook. It's truly a combined effort of strategic vision, beautiful photography and design, and a dedication to the craft of printing," Keegan Worley, CFO of The Standard Group. "We are grateful for our partnership with PCA&D and Lewis Advertising Design Inc. and thrilled to have won the Power of Print award back-to-back." About Neographics: The Neographics' Power of Print Competition is one of the nation's largest regional graphic communications contests. Hosted by the Graphic Arts Association, it reviews visual arts, packaging, converting, design, and publishing excellence to showcase annually. The Neographics is a contest dedicated to recognizing and rewarding the highest quality and service within the print industry. The call for entries is sent to more than 6,000 companies, including printing and graphic firms throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Submission review spans several days by teams of judges. The Neographics' winners are finally selected and recognized based on quality, service, the finished product, and how a particular job fulfills its intended goal. About The Standard Group: The Standard Group helps brands tell remarkable stories through print. We work with marketers, designers, and buyers to create excellent print results and streamline and automate their processes for print. We leverage innovative technologies to facilitate online orders, improve quality, manage inventory and reduce print obsolescence. For more information on The Standard Group, visit http://www.standardgroup.com. Law Office of Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP For more information about the class action lawsuit against California Hydroponics Corporation, call (800) 568-8020 to speak to an experienced California employment attorney today. The San Francisco employment law attorneys, at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP, filed a class action lawsuit against California Hydroponics Corporation alleging the company violated the California Labor Code. The lawsuit against California Hydroponics Corporation is currently pending in the Alameda County Superior Court, Case No. 22CV018191. To read a copy of the Complaint, please click here. According to the lawsuit filed, California Hydroponics Corporation allegedly failed to provide employees with timely off-duty meal and rest breaks. Additionally, the company failed to provide employees with overtime wages from missed meal breaks. This resulted in a loss of wages for Plaintiff and others. California Hydroponics Corporation allegedly failed to reimburse employees for required business expenses. California Labor Code 2802 expressly states that "an employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties..." During employment, Plaintiff and other California Class Members were allegedly required to use their personal cellular phones and home offices as a result of and in furtherance of their job duties. For more information about the class action lawsuit against California Hydroponics Corporation, call (800) 568-8020 to speak to an experienced California employment attorney today. Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP is a labor law firm with law offices located in San Diego County, Riverside County, Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, Santa Clara County, Orange County, and San Francisco County. The firm has a statewide practice of representing employees on a contingency basis for violations involving unpaid wages, overtime pay, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and other types of illegal workplace conduct. ***THIS IS AN ATTORNEY ADVERTISEMENT*** Survey results indicate that an overwhelming 92% of Americans somewhat or strongly support medical debt forgiveness. MedicarePlans.com, a trusted platform for affordable healthcare resources, has published a survey report that examines how Americans feel about the prospect of forgiving medical debt. The study generated responses from 1,500 Americans and provides insight into the conditions for their support of medical debt forgiveness. Survey results indicate that an overwhelming 92% of Americans somewhat or strongly support medical debt forgiveness. However, older Americans were noticeably less in favor of medical debt forgiveness, with only 81% of respondents aged 54 and up saying they are somewhat (44%) or strongly (37%) supportive. Survey results showed a 20-point difference between Republicans who support medical debt forgiveness and those who support student loan forgiveness. Sixty-four percent of Republicans somewhat (27%) or strongly (37%) support student debt forgiveness, while 84% of Republicans somewhat (40%) or strongly (44%) support forgiving medical debt. However, nearly one in five Republican respondents (19%) say that if President Biden chooses to support medical debt forgiveness, it will make them less in favor of the issue. Of the total sample, 31% of respondents say they currently have medical debt, 30% have had medical debt in the past, and 30% also have a close friend or family member who has been affected by medical debt. As expected, support for medical debt forgiveness is even higher with this group than with the total sample, with only 5% saying they do not support forgiving medical debt. For the full survey results, please visit MedicarePlans.com at https://www.medicareplans.com/despite-opposition-to-student-loan-forgiveness-84-of-republicans-support-forgiving-medical-debt/. ABOUT MEDICAREPLANS.COM MedicarePlans.com provides access to affordable health care through educational programs, interactive resources, and functional tools. The website is managed by experts and researchers who strive to support the elderly and people with disabilities through community-based education and actionable solutions for Medicare. To learn more, visit https://www.medicareplans.com/. Elgin Volkswagen is Offering Top Dollars to Buy Old Vehicles in Elgin, Illinois There is a piece of amazing news for drivers around the Elgin area in Illinois who plan to sell or trade in their old cars. Elgin Volkswagen, a local automotive dealership, is offering top dollars for used vehicles in Elgin, Illinois. Elgin Volkswagen uses Edmunds True Market Value (TMV) as its official tool to determine the right price for a vehicle. This tool is derived from a proprietary algorithm that was developed by statisticians, pricing analysts and data collection/processing experts. This algorithm also considers many other factors like make, model, age, original and current market pricing, mileage, seasonality, geographic region and more to determine a vehicle's value. Essentially, prospective car sellers can be assured that they can get the right price for their old cars. Also, since there is a used car shortage at Elgin Volkswagen, the dealership is willing to offer top dollars for used cars even if the customer does not buy a car from their dealership. Interested parties are encouraged to visit the Elgin Volkswagen dealership located at 2630 Auto Mall Dr., Elgin, Illinois, 60124. Customers can visit the dealerships official website and enter the details of their car to get the True Market Value of their vehicle in less than a minute. For more information, shoppers can contact their friendly and knowledgeable customer support team at 847-428-2000. Messages He Gave Me: a selection of impactful sermons in five sections, - Women and Grandparents, Spiritual Growth, Christian Living, Encouragement, and Christmas Blessings. Topics include Grandparenting, Complaining, The Best Places to Live, Keeping Up Appearances, Christians Under the Influence, Helping God and Window Shopping. It is written for easy reading in the conversational style in which the messages were preached. All messages are Bible based with appropriate supporting references, suitable for individual or group Bible Study. They include challenging questions that encourage introspection, and hopefully motivate the readers to pursue a close, meaningful personal relationship with God. Hope shares, Joan Hope was born in Guyana in South America. She grew up in the Beterverwagting/ Triumph area and attended elementary and high school in Georgetown. She was part of the leadership of the youth fellowship of the Elim Pentecostal Church on Albert Street. She lived in Nassau, Bahamas, attended Bahamas Faith Ministries, was a part of BFMs Woman of the Word and a member of the islands Womens Aglow Fellowship. There she became aware of her heart for Womens Ministry. In Georgia, attends The Redeemed Christian Church of God, in Douglasville and is a part of the Womens Ministry leadership. Joan, a professional teacher for many years, was a lecturer in microbiology and head of the Medical Technology Department at the University of Guyana. In Nassau Bahamas, she was head of the Science Department at Kingsway Academy. She established and still coordinates the Vacation Bible School for Children in The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Praise Chapel, Georgia. Her zeal for teaching is reflected in her sermons. She is truly grateful to God for the opportunities afforded her over the years to be useful in various areas of His kingdom. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Joan Hopes new book brings a thoughtful offering to add to anyones daily faith practices. Hope shares with the intent of aiding others in their personal spiritual journey as she delivers one thought-provoking message after another. Consumers can purchase Messages He Gave Me at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Messages He Gave Me, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Moriah Taliaferro Moriah Taliaferro is a passionate ambassador of Sarasota, Florida, and an accomplished team leader and producer. Moriah Taliaferro is a passionate ambassador of Sarasota, Florida, and an accomplished team leader and producer. As a community advocate, she leads initiatives for the creation and preservation of shared green space, including Bay Park and the first-ever public park in the historic Rosemary District. In addition to her direct service to both buying and listing clients, Moriah produces multimedia content to offer valuable insight to anyone exploring the Sarasota lifestyle. Her digital engagement surpasses 3,000 unique views per month, and she especially enjoys fielding questions from residents interested in relocating to the Gulf Coast. In addition to founding and leading the MKT Team within the Premier SIR brokerage, Moriah welcomed her first child, a daughter, in February 2022. Visit Moriah Taliaferro's Haute Residence Profile: https://www.hauteresidence.com/member/moriah-taliaferro/ ABOUT HAUTE RESIDENCE Designed as a partnership-driven luxury real estate portal, Haute Residence connects its affluent readers with top real estate professionals, while offering the latest in real estate news, showcasing the worlds most extraordinary residences on the market, and sharing expert advice from its knowledgeable and experienced real estate partners. The invitation-only luxury real estate network, which partners with just one agent in every market, unites a distinguished collective of leading real estate agents and brokers and highlights the most extravagant properties in leading markets around the globe for affluent buyers, sellers, and real estate enthusiasts. HauteResidence.com has grown to be the number-one news source for million-dollar listings, high-end residential developments, celebrity real estate, and more. Access all of this information and more by visiting http://www.hauteresidence.com Brockman Real Estate Joins William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty The landmark Berkshires brokerage Brockman Real Estate has joined williampitt.com [William Pitt Sothebys International Realty __title__ ], the company announced today. Brockman Real Estate broker/owners Chapin Fish and Jared Kelly will now operate out of the preeminent luxury real estate firms Great Barrington, Mass., brokerage. The new partnership combines the local renown and expertise of Brockman Real Estate with the world-renowned reputation and global reach of the Sothebys International Realty brand, creating a new standard of excellence in the Berkshires. Brockman Real Estate has been synonymous with the best of the Berkshires since its founding 45 years ago. Together, Fish and Kellys wealth of experience, exceptional local expertise and devotion to superior service has helped Brockman Real Estate achieve collective sales of more than $1 billion dollars in real estate in Berkshire County, according to the Berkshires FlexMLS system. We are thrilled that Chapin and Jared have chosen to align their prestigious firm with our brand. Our world-class offerings and their market-leading status are a perfect match that will greatly benefit the Berkshires community, said Stephanie McNair, brokerage manager for William Pitt Sothebys International Realtys Great Barrington and Lenox brokerages. We look forward to many years of success together. Brockman brings to this partnership the highest standard of personal service and ethics and a legacy of nearly half a century of success. We are excited to take full advantage of the opportunity to leverage our strengths with the unparalleled local and global marketing and support William Pitt Sothebys International Realty offers. This is a perfect match for the Berkshires, said Chapin Fish, Broker-Owner of Brockman Real Estate. In 2020, Chapin and I partnered in order to offer our clients unmatched expertise and service. Today, in joining this iconic and globally recognized brand, we are elevating that standard even further, creating an unparalleled service offering for our clients, said Jared Kelly, Broker-Owner of Brockman Real Estate. Fish and Kelly were the top-selling co-listing agents in Berkshire County in 2021,with more than $34 million in sales, per Berkshires FlexMLS. Fish has spent nearly 20 years with Brockman Real Estate and more than a decade as Broker-Owner. Over those 20 years, he has consistently ranked as one of the top three agents in the Berkshires by closed dollar volume. His portfolio of sold properties includes significant and complex estates and land parcels, waterfront escapes and historic, generational homes. With a diverse background including prior careers in the travel/airline industries and as a professional actor, Fish prides himself on viewing real estate not as a sales business but as a people business, where he is focused on being conscientious and mindful of his clients needs. Kelly is making a return to William Pitt Sothebys International Realty, where he began his real estate career as an Associate Broker in 2016. He transitioned to the industry after a successful legal career in order to plant roots in the Berkshires and raise his growing family. Kelly quickly established himself as a rising star in the region, culminating in his recognition as William Pitt Sothebys International Realtys top-producing agent in Berkshire County in 2019. Since joining forces with Fish as Broker-Owner at Brockman Real Estate in 2020, Kelly helped lead that firm to record sales levels. He has solidified a reputation for impeccable honesty, an ability to simplify complex issues, and unmatched levels of dedication and professionalism. Fish and Kelly are both devoted to serving their community. Fish has been a volunteer firefighter for almost two decades and serves as a trustee of the Bidwell House Museum of Monterey, while Kelly serves as Chair of the Egremont Planning Board. Fish also purchased and has been restoring the 1780 Monterey General Store, which is set to reopen in 2023 as a community hub, cafe and the future home of the Brockman Group at William Pitt Sothebys International Realty. About William Pitt - Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty Founded in 1949, William Pitt - Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty manages a $7 billion portfolio with more than 1,100 sales associates in 27 brokerages spanning Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Westchester County, New York. William Pitt - Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty is one of the largest Sotheby's International Realty(R) affiliates globally and the 37th-largest real estate company by sales volume in the United States. For more information, visit the website at williampitt.com. Sotheby's International Realty's worldwide network includes 1,000 offices throughout 79 countries and territories on six continents. Click here for old website With censorship and book bans still on the rise, defending intellectual freedom remains vital. And one powerful way to defend intellectual Freedom is is to honor those who fight for it. In that spirit, the American Library Associations Intellectual Freedom Round Table Committee is soliciting nominations for three annual Intellectual Freedom Awards: The John Phillip Immroth Award honors "the courage of a living individual, group, or organization setting an example for the defense and furtherance of the principles of intellectual freedom. The award consists of a citation and $500. Applications are now open and are due December 1. Immroth was a teacher, author, scholar, advocate, and defender of First Amendment rights, and founder and first Chair of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table in 1973. The award, was established upon Immroth's death in 1979, honors the courage, dedication, and contribution of a living individual, group, and is administered by the Immroth Committee, which seeks out and recognizes personal courage and contributions to intellectual freedom. The Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award honors a literary work or series of works in the area of intellectual freedom. This can include matters of ethical, political, or social concerns related to intellectual freedom and the work can be nonfiction or fiction, youth, teen, or adult. Last year, the award was expanded to include journal articles (though this year's award will focus on books, committee members told PW). The award is $500 and a certificate and is presented at the ALA Annual Conference each year. Applications are now open and the submission deadline is December 1. The award was named for Eli M. Oboler, the extensively published Idaho State University librarian known as a champion of intellectual freedom who demanded the dismantling of all barriers to freedom of expression. The award was given first at the 1986 Annual Conference in New York. The Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award recognizes "an intellectual freedom focused organization that has developed a strong multi-year, ongoing program or a single, one-year project that exemplifies support for intellectual freedom, patron confidentiality, and anti-censorship efforts." It consist a citation and $1,000 award. Applications are now open for the 2023 award and are due by January 1. The award is named after Gerald Hodges, a former director of membership services whose passion was intellectual freedom. Upon his death in 2006, Hodges willed a portion of his estate to support ALA's intellectual freedom efforts. The Hodges Award is administered by the Coalition Building Committee which recognizes that effective coalition building and collaboration between organizations provide the necessary framework to defend censorship at the ground level. During her two-decade career as a full-time labor organizer and negotiator in California and the Pacific Northwest, Yvonne Martinez managed to squeeze in an hour, maybe two, every day to write her debut memoir, Someday Mija, Youll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman, out Oct. 18 from She Writes Press. About multigenerational personal and political trauma and resilience, Martinez's memoir is made up of 30 essays and covers the authors harrowing childhood as well as her coming-of-age story. At age 18, Martinez, a Mexican American, fled domestic violence at the hands of her mother and stepfather and moved in with her dying grandmother, who would reveal disturbing facts about their familys history. One fact uncovered was that her grandmother was trafficked as a child in Depression-era Utah and blamed for her own rape. Before her death, Martinezs grandmother told her grandchild, Someday, Mija, youll learn the difference between a whore and a working woman. Determined to take her grandmothers advice and to not sell herself short, Martinez obtained an education and started a family. Along the way, she also learned to fight for herself while teaching others to do the same. Additionally, Martinez exposed sexual harassment and corruption in the labor unions where she worked. The essays started with questions I dared to ask, Martinez says, like What really happened to my grandmother? and led to a search for answers that, once started, did not stop until I got to this point in the stories. It took Martinez 25 years to write her memoir, which illustrates that trauma, once revealed, can be transformative. The shared trauma of racism/sexism was not distinct, one from the other, Martinez says. Delving into painful events was like a clearinghouse of contracted (as in a body holding it in) and psychic (unseen) trauma that not only cleared away but explained or provided insight into what happened. Nothing was lost. Martinez says that while she was writing the memoir, a path to freedom emerged. Ultimately, the decades-long project proved cathartic. In the books short afterword, Martinez writes, As an organizer/activist, writing these essays and doing the work to unlock the trauma, I found that hidden sources of resistance and resilience were unlocked too. I posit that trauma and resistance, like a double helix, are bound together and are both passed down. That a healing journey unlocks both. Telling her story in essay form was a matter of expedience, Martinez says. The essays seemed to both complete themselves and set up new essays. Finally, as the direction of inquiry became clearer, the essays revealed some answers and more questions. While answering the difficult questions that arose during writing was not easy, Martinez says that finding time to dedicate to the page at first was the most difficult part of writing Someday Mija, Youll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman. As the full scope of the story began to reveal itself, she says, it was a matter of overcoming the emotional Billy Goats Gruff troll at the gate to get to the insights and healing. Martinez cites Tara Westover (Educated), Trevor Noah (Born a Crime), and Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend) as among the authors who gave her inspiration while writing her memoir. In her brave book Educated, Westover found a way out of no way through education and healing, Martinez says. Her survivalist family was a subset of Mormonism. My family was a Mexican/Catholic minority under Mormonism. The power of overarching patriarchal structures made an escape from its abuses nearly impossible. She was able to, through education. Martinez partnered with She Writes Press, a hybrid publisher, to publish Someday Mija, Youll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman. What I appreciate about She Writes Press is the behind the curtain break down of the publishing business, Martinez says. It saved me from a fools errand in search of a traditional publisher. Not only that, it provides the network and resources to get a professionally produced book to market. Premium online access is only available tosubscribers. If you have an active subscription and need to set up or change your password, please click here New to PW? To set up immediate access, click here. NOTE: If you had a previous PW subscription, click here to reactivate your immediate access. PW site license members have access to PWs subscriber-only website content. If working at an office location and you are not "logged in", simply close and relaunch your preferred browser. For off-site access, click here. To find out more about PWs site license subscription options, please email Mike Popalardo at: mike@nextstepsmarketing.com. In a major pre-Frankfurt deal, Peter McGuigan at Ultra Literary closed a two-book, seven-figure agreement for Jennette McCurdy with Ballantine that will see the former iCarly star and surprise bestseller write her debut novel. McGuigan, who said the advance is for several million dollars, sold North American rights to the currently untitled works to Sara Weiss. He also confirmed that international offers have started coming in for the titles, though, at press time, he could not confirm details. McCurdy, a former child actress, has become one of this year's biggest bestselling authors after publishing her memoir, Im Glad My Mom Died, in August. The Simon & Schuster title, which details the authors relationship with her abusive stage mother and her struggles with addiction, has been a revelation, sales-wise. McGuigan said the book had sold out of stores two days after publicationit bowed August 9and that, currently, there are roughly 500,000 hardcovers in print (in addition to sales of 400,000 audiobooks and 200,000 e-books). According to NPD BookScan, Im Glad My Mom Died has sold 281,000 copies to date at the outlets that report to the service. We were number one for eight weeks straight, McGuigan said, referring to the titles perch atop the New York Times bestseller list. I'm Glad My Mom Died has consistently ranked high on the PW adult nonfiction bestsellers list and is currently #3. The memoir has also been racking up foreign rights sales with McGuigan confirming that it has sold in 14 countries to date, including Italy, England, and Brazil. This new deal, the agent added, marks a step McCurdy has long wanted to take. Jennette wants to write fiction, McGuigan said. Being a novelist is her dream job. Correction: This piece originally mistitled McCurdy's memoir. Broadway's marquee lights will be dimmed for a minute Saturday night in honor of stage legend Angela Lansbury, who died Tuesday at the age of 96. ADVERTISEMENT "On October 15, the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of Broadway theaters in New York for one minute at exactly 7:45pm in honor of Dame Angela Lansbury , the six-time @thetonyawards winning actress whose career spanned six decades on Broadway," The Broadway League tweeted Thursday. Lansbury's credits include Hotel Paradiso, Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, Blithe Spirit, The King and I, A Little Family Business, Deuce, A Little Night Music and The Best Man. "Angela Lansbury was without a doubt one of Broadway's most endearing leading actresses and her influence in the world of musical theater will forever live on," Charlotte St. Martin, president of The Broadway League, said in a press release. "It is impossible to think of Broadway and not be reminded of Ms. Lansbury and some of her most iconic roles -- from Mame and Gypsy to Sweeney Todd -- just to name a few. We think of her as Broadway royalty and a member of our family, while recognizing that Hollywood thinks of her the same way. We're just proud she's ours too! Along with her legendary career and outstanding talent, it will be her grace, charisma, and kindness that we will fondly remember of the great Angela Lansbury." Best known for playing crime-solving, mystery writer Jessica Fletcher in the TV drama, Murder, She Wrote, from 1984-1996, Lansbury was one of the last stars of Hollywood's Golden Age -- a BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, who also received the honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures. Lansbury appeared in more than 70 movies, including the classics Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Samson and Delilah (1949), The Court Jester, (1955), The Long, Hot Summer (1958), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Mame (1966), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Death on The Nile (1978), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Anastasia (1997), Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018). Netflix has ordered 10 episodes of The Abandons, a western series from Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter. ADVERTISEMENT Sutter will serve as showrunner on the drama, which will follow a group of diverse families defending their homes from the wealthy and corrupt in 1850s Oregon. No casting has been announced yet. "That was an actual term of the period where it was this kind of catchall phrase that described the outliers, the orphans, the prostitutes, the cripples, the bastards -- basically the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society," Sutter told Deadline, referring to the show's title. "That is my favorite neighborhood. We are on the Western Frontier, somewhere between the Dakotas and California, small cattle town, circa 1850. So, it's post-Gold Rush, pre-Civil War, and then, some natural resource is discovered." Sutter retweeted the article about the project, but did not comment further. Sons of Anarchy, a drama about an outlaw biker gang in contemporary California, initially ran 2008-14. Sutter has candidly spoken about his love for the HBO western Deadwood and even hired several actors -- including Dayton Callie, Titus Welliver, Robin Weigert and Ray McKinnon -- from the show to play roles on Anarchy. South Africa: Capa to hand over mini fresh produce packhouse to Mzinti villagers In commemorating the International Day of Rural Women, Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Deputy Minister, Zoleka Capa Capa, will on Saturday hand over the Mzinti fresh produce mini packhouse in the Nkomazi Local Municipality in Mpumalanga. The mini fresh produce packhouse situated in Mzinti Village, Nkomazi is a component of the Farmer Production Support Unit, which seeks to address transformation challenges in the agricultural sector by creating market opportunities for small and medium size cooperatives and businesses in rural areas. The department said the crops that will be processed at the packhouse include butternut, tomatoes, cabbages, sweet potatoes and onions. These crops are grown by the Nkomazi farmers cooperative, which was established in 2013 by 17 primary cooperatives in different wards in Nkomazi Local Municipality. The female dominated cooperative has been appointed to supply fresh produce for the school nutrition programme, the department said in a statement. Rural women play a key role in supporting their households and communities to achieve food and nutrition security, generating income, and improving rural livelihoods. Women also contribute to agriculture and rural enterprises and fuel local and global economies. The International Day of Rural Women is observed on 15 October every year, where the United Nations calls for action to support rural women and girls and grow their capacities to respond to climate change through agricultural production, food security, and natural resources management. The theme for the International Day of Rural Women, Rural Women Cultivating Good Food for All, highlights the essential role that rural women and girls play in the food systems of the world. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. Vision Video, a goth-pop band from Athens, has recently drummed up attention with the release of their second album, Haunted Hours, on Oct. 11. The band pushes the boundaries of punk rock music. The intentional pairing of dark clothes and eccentric makeup with the comfort of emotionally relatable lyrics sets them apart from other bands. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center held its 15th Annual Domino Toppling Extravaganza on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Veteran domino toppler and YouTube superstar Lily Hevesh returned with her team to assemble over 25,000 dominos in two and half days that covered the museums Wolf Kahn & Emil You are the owner of this article. Students walk into the front doors at Hinsdale Middle High School, in Hinsdale, N.H., on the first day of school on Aug. 30. The dam in Bellows Falls. Hydro-Quebec is buying the 13 hydro-electric dams along the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts owned by Great River Hydro for $2 billion. 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. Relatives grieve during a funeral procession of a child, a victim of a boat accident in Koh Chamroeun village, east of Phnom Penh, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them to school sunk in a river in Cambodias southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA. Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them home from school sank Thursday in the Khouk River in Cambodias southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA. The Kandal police confirmed Friday that authorities rescued four students from the Khouk, a tributary of the Mekong River, and are still searching for the missing student. They found the bodies of the other 10 students who drowned and estimated that they were all about 10 years old. Kandal Provincial Police Commissioner Chhoeun Socheat told RFAs Khmer Service that the boat was very small and that it sank at around 7 p.m. on October 13. According to preliminary conclusions, the boat likely sank due to overcrowding, he said. Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed his condolences over the incident on Facebook, but stopped short of calling for an investigation. The relevant authorities must continue to search for the victims and help with the victims funerals and offer services needed, he said. To those who live along the rivers, please be vigilant, especially during flooding. Cambodia is in the final weeks of its rainy season, which lasts from May to October. Coffin of a child, a victim of a boat accident, is transported in a ferry during a funeral procession in Koh Chamroeun village, east of Phnom Penh, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them to school sunk in a river in Cambodias southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA. Photo:AP Kandal Provincial Governor Kong Sophoan told RFA that as of Friday night, the missing victim has not yet been found. He blamed the boat operators for their carelessness and said the boat was very old. The boat operators lack experience, he said. Authorities are investigating the incident. Though authorities must ensure a boat is in good condition in order for owners to legally operate it, he acknowledged that loopholes exist. The 10 students were kind, smart and diligent, and were working hard to learn both in Khmer and English, Rong Chhun, the former president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association and president of the Cambodian Trade Union Confederation, told RFA. Those were active children who really paid attention to their studies. They had to cross the river from their houses to study on the other side, he said. They were dedicated hard-working kids. I am deeply saddened." UNICEF wrote a message of condolence on Facebook that also called on the public to refrain from sharing pictures and video of the incident on social media because it could cause distress for friends and family. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Up to 12 refugees with UN status were detained at a market, accused of illegal entry to Thailand. Khmer Krom refugees are taken by Thai police to an immigration detention center in Pathum Thani province, Oct. 14, 2022. UPDATED at 6:20 p.m. EDT on 10-14-2022. Thai immigration police on Friday arrested as many as 12 Khmer Krom refugees found working illegally in Thailand, taking them to a detention center for processing and trial for entering the country without permission, sources told RFA. The group, including seven men and five women, were taken into custody at a vegetable market in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok, said another member of the ethnic minority group who escaped arrest because she had arrived late for work. I got there about five minutes late otherwise I would also have been detained, the woman, who only gave her name as Chanthy, said, adding that when she arrived she saw four uniformed Thai police officers put the 12 refugees into a police van and take them away. However, an immigration officer said there were only 10 detainees five Vietnamese nationals and five Cambodian nationals who were arrested and charged with illegal entry, overstaying their visa or working without a permit. The officer was not permitted to speak publicly with journalists and asked not to be named. The group are now being held by Pathum Thani immigration police. The refugee agency UNHCR is working with Thai authorities for their release, said Lim Keo Samnang, president of the Khmer Krom Refugee Association in Thailand, amid concerns they could face deportation and persecution. The immigration officer told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service, that all the detainees have UNHCR-issued cards but were arrested because they lack travel documents and have broken Thai laws. He said the police are stepping up security measures ahead of Thailand hosting a high-profile APEC summit of Asia-Pacific leaders next month. Khmer Krom, ethnic Khmer who live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia, face widespread discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese. Scores of Khmer Krom asylum seekers reside in Thailand. Chanthy, the woman who narrowly escaped arrest, called on refugee assistance groups to urge Thai authorities to release all Khmer Krom detained in Thailand. One is my own son-in-law, whose wife has a 5-month-old baby who needs a father, she said. A Khmer Krom refugee named Si Veth, who escaped from Vietnam to Thailand five years ago, said her father and mother were among the group arrested Friday. They had only wanted to work there to earn money because they are living as refugees in Thailand, where it is difficult to find a legal job, she said. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney. BenarNews journalist Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed. This story has been updated to add sourcing from a Thai immigration official and to replace the original photo that was published in error. Activists and lawyers say the demise of civil society groups will likely mean more, not less, social unrest. Relatives of those detained in what is known as the "709" crackdown on lawyers and human rights activists protest in front of the Supreme People's Procuratorate in Beijing, China, July 7, 2017. The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA Cantonese and Mandarin examined the 69-year-old Xi's decade at the helm of the world's most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, Chinese intellectuals, civil society and rural poverty. Ten years after ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping came to power, China's once-nascent civil society appears to have died in infancy, activists and rights lawyers told RFA, as Xi gears up to seek a third, possibly indefinite, term in office at the forthcoming party congress. China was described back in 2008, after the Sichuan earthquake, as being "on the threshold" of having a functioning civil society. Fast forward a decade, and a research paper penned by civil society researchers at Peking University describing the development of civil society as one of China's greatest achievements, looks like a moldering historical document from a bygone era. Human rights attorney Wang Quanzhang said the Xi administration has largely nipped that development in the bud, because civil society is seen by the authorities as a thorn in their side. Wang said the government has gotten it wrong, because civil society groups ease social tensions and offer aid where the government doesn't, contributing to social stability. "If civil society cannot develop, then the rest of society will be less and less balanced, giving rise to continual and extreme cases of social conflict," said Wang, who was released in 2020 after a four-and-a-half year jail term for subversion in connection with the public interest cases he was involved in. "Chinese people have been oppressed by various organizations for a long time, throughout their history, without any independent civil entities to support them," he said. "The stress on the individual can be enormous." China started the 21st century on a note of hope, with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) already in the bag, and appearing to presage an era of unprecedented liberalism. But rapid economic development began to expose growing social inequality, and its attendant social problems. Fireworks explode over the National Stadium during the opening ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing on Aug. 8, 2008. Credit: Associated Press Pressed to shut down A number of non-government groups took advantage of what was once a relaxed regulatory environment to offer assistance and services to people in need, among them a group called the Beijing Transition Research Institute, or Chuanzhixing, which said it was "committed to investigating issues and phenomena related to freedom and justice in the process of social transformation." Group founder Guo Yushan once helped rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng with his daring escape from house arrest at his home in the eastern province of Shandong, enabling him to take refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Guo also helped the families of children sickened during the melamine-tainted infant formula scandal of 2008, and grew into one of the better-known rights groups. U.S.-based activist Yang Zili, who used to work for Chuanzhixing, dates the beginning of the end for the group when Xi Jinping came to power at the 18th party congress in 2012. "Civil society was suppressed very soon after Xi Jinping came to power," Yang told RFA. "It started with a growing number of restrictions on the organization's activities, before it was banned outright." "We used to hold a weekly lecture, and it started when the authorities wouldn't let us have a politically sensitive guest speaker who was going to talk on a politically sensitive topic," he said. "They eventually interfered to the extent that they wouldn't let us hold [the lectures] at all," Yang said. The Beijing municipal government banned Chuanzhixing outright in July 2013, saying it had failed to register with the authorities in the correct category. Other civil society groups were soon to meet the same fate. The Liren Rural Library grassroots educational project, which built libraries in rural schools, health rights advocacy group the Beijing Yirenping Center, and the Unirule Institute of Economics all gradually disappeared from view. "Organizations like Liren and Chuanzhixing, where I worked, have all been wiped out now," rights activist Chen Kun told RFA. "Their employees have either gone abroad, been imprisoned, or have no way to speak out on these matters any more," he said. Newly elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping waves as he leaves after meeting with the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Nov. 15, 2012. Credit: Reuters Harsh environment Josef Benedict, a researcher at the Asia-Pacific Department of the Global Civil Society Engagement Coalition (CIVICUS), an international non-profit organization headquartered in South Africa, said China is now one of the world's most closed societies. Activists have to work in extremely harsh environments, with the recent crackdown meaning that NGOs have basically lost any autonomy, and with most of the better-known groups shut down by the government, Benedict said in comments emailed to RFA. Elizabeth Plantan, an assistant professor of political science at Stetson University who studies Chinese civil society, said the government appears to be encouraging environmental groups, however. Activists and NGOs working on environmental issues locally, regionally and nationally are still able to operate relatively freely, especially in the area of environmental public interest litigation, Plantan told RFA. Groups promoting government transparency around pollution data and that cooperate with state actors via official think-tanks are also tolerated, she said. But she said that Chinese leaders' antipathy toward civil society is well-documented, and unlikely to wane. Civil society is clearly listed as one of the "seven taboos" in the CCP's Document No. 9, a leaked secret policy document from 2013 that also bans public discussion of judicial independence, universal values, press freedom, citizens' rights, the historical mistakes of the CCP and the country's financial and political elite. Maya Wang, senior China researcher at the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the banning of civil society groups has weakened social cohesion rather than threatening it. "Currently, Chinese society can be said to be atomized, which means that under a totalitarian regime, people are isolated and can only rely on their families for any kind of assistance," Wang told RFA. "It is difficult for people to connect with each other or to do anything together," she said. Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang speaks via video link from his home in Jinan, in China's eastern Shandong province, April 23, 2020. Credit: AFP Changed forever Wang Quanzhang, who was one of dozens of prominent rights lawyers detained, imprisoned or otherwise targeted during a nationwide operation targeting the profession in 2015, said that crackdown had changed the situation of rights attorneys forever. While they had been targeted in the past, the authorities began pursuing them at a far greater rate during the second five years of Xi Jinping's tenure at the helm of party and state. In the 18 years from 1998 to 2015, 29 Chinese lawyers were stripped of their right to practice for representing human rights cases. Between 2016 and 2021, that number had risen to 42. "The July 2015 arrests were yet another small peak in the authorities' crackdown on citizens' rights protection and human rights lawyers," Wang told RFA. "Since then, the activities of civil society groups like human rights law firms have been further restricted and compressed," he said. Rights lawyer Wang Yu told a recent online conference organized by U.S.-based groups that her license to practice was revoked in 2020, and that she has so far had little success in offering legal assistance to clients without it. Wang was suddenly rendered incommunicado in 2021, after being named by the U.S. State Department as an International Woman of Courage. Sources told RFA at the time that the authorities had prevented her from attending the online award ceremony and from speaking to the media. Guangzhou-based rights lawyer Sui Muqing, who was also targeted in the 2015 crackdown, said his license was revoked in 2018. "I think the environment for civil society has obviously gotten very bad," Sui told RFA. "It's not just human rights lawyers and activists." "Intellectuals and people inside the system [of government] are affected by the chilling effect, too," he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. The protester is linked to social media accounts using the name Peng Zaizhou, a likely reference to popular anger The protester who hung two banners off a Beijing overpass on Oct. 13, 2022 can be seen on the bridge at the left edge of the banner. A protester who hung two protest banners--one of which called for the removal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping -- on a Beijing overpass on the eve of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s 20th National Congress is being hailed as a hero on social media, as authorities blocked two rock songs being used overseas to sing his praises. The protester, seen in a video being loaded into a police car Thursday, has been named as Peng Lifa, who used the handle Peng Zaizhou on social media, in a reference to an ancient essay describing the people as the water that holds up the boat of government, and might overturn it if they are unhappy with its rule. While RFA has been unable to confirm the identity of the protester independently, content posted earlier to Peng's social media accounts was consistent with the tone of his banners, which were displayed from the Sitong flyover on Beijing's Third Ring Road on Thursday. "Remove the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!" read one banner, video and photos of which were quickly posted to social media, only to be deleted. A post linked from the account called for strikes and class boycotts to remove Xi. "Food, not PCR tests. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections not leaders," read the second, adding: "Dignity, not lies. Citizens, not slaves." Peng's whereabouts remained unclear, and keywords and accounts linked to the protest were rapidly deleted from China's tightly controlled social media platforms, as the ruling party's well-oiled censorship machine swung into action. Searches for "Haidian," the district where the banners appeared, and "hero" were all blocked by Friday, amid reports that social media users who talked about the incident were getting their accounts shut down. Government filters were also blocking access to a rock ballad by Hong Kong pop star Eason Chan titled "Warrior of the Darkness," the theme to animated series Arcane: League of Legends, which includes the lyric "I love that you walk the dark alleys, love that you don't kneel to anyone, love that you look despair in the face but never cry." Traces of a song released a few years ago titled Sitong Bridge by Mr. Graceless were also rapidly removed from China's tightly controlled internet. The Baidu search engine page for the song carried only the message: "Oops. The page you were visiting does not exist" when accessed on Friday. The protester [in orange] who hung the banners off a Beijing overpass on Oct. 13, 2022 is placed in a police car. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video Deleted and blocked WeChat users in mainland China said the platform was abuzz after the protest, but that many comments and posts on the topic were being deleted, and their senders blocked from group chats. Comments seen by RFA on the Peng Zaizhou accounts read: "You are a hero. I respect you," and "I hope you get home safe!" The Peng Zaizhou Twitter account on Thursday commented on a tweet from the U.S.-based China Digital Times, before the banners appeared: "We are all on the same path. We are about to take action. I hope you can retweet this." "Tell dictator Xi Jinping that there are still some men left in China who walk the path to freedom," the comment said. The Twitter account was still visible on Friday, but content relating to the banner had been taken down. Prominent 1989 student protest leader Wang Dan said the protester was "the new Tank Man," in a reference to the lone shopper who faced down a column of People's Liberation Army (PLA) tanks during the military crackdown on weeks of mass protests in Tiananmen Square. The fact that Xi will be re-elected for another term has made countless people feel desperate, he said in a comment on his Facebook page. "Only underneath that despair will there be resistance," Wang wrote. "This isn't the first time someone has come forward, and it won't be the last ... Xi Jinping's rebellious actions are sure to spark more political agitation." An officer who answered the phone at the Dazhongsi police station, in the vicinity of the Sitong flyover, and an officer who answered the phone at the Haidian district police department both declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Friday, saying they didn't know about the situation. Calls to the cell phone of a 2021 scientific journal article author using the name Peng Zaizhou rang unanswered on Friday. The Twitter page for Peng Lifa, who has been named as the protester. Credit: RFA screenshot 'I saw it' A Chinese social media user who gave only the pseudonym Hu said posts and photos linked to the flyover protest were being blocked very fast on WeChat. "I didn't know the entire story of what happened ... but I couldn't enquire too closely in the WeChat group, and nobody dared to explain it to me in detail," Hu told RFA. "The moment anyone mentions the specifics, the entire group and account get blocked by WeChat. We will find out about it through external channels," Hu said, in a reference to circumventing the Great Firewall to read uncensored news on overseas sites. Hu said Peng's banner had expressed what many in China are thinking, but have no way to express under widespread censorship and intimidation. Another social media user who gave the pseudonym Tang said people refer to the incident by saying simply: "I saw it." Tang said he didn't think the protest was carried out by a lone activist. "The person who hung the banner posted a link to a website," he said. "Everything he did was within the scope of the constitution of the People's Republic of China." "He asked for the recall of the CCP general secretary [Xi Jinping] and also put forward his own views on how to elect [a new leader," Tang said. "This is all legal and in accordance with the party constitution, so I think he is someone within the [party or government]," he said. 'Bridge-watchers' wanted The protest sparked an instant tightening of security from authorities in Beijing, with dozens of police officers going door-to-door in nearby buildings to check IDs. The Beijing city government dispatched militia personnel to direct traffic and guard all overpasses and pedestrian bridges round the clock to prevent any similar incidents. District governments across the city posted recruitment ads seeking "bridge-watchers" -- fully vaccinated males aged 18-55, taller than 1.68 meters -- to guard potential protest sites round the clock for 320 yuan a day over 15 days, more than the duration of the party congress. Political commentator Si Ling said government censors are now able to filter people's messages in real time. "We know that the Chinese government has developed a powerful keyword filtering system, and that sensitive words [like Sitong bridge or 20th National Congress] are deleted in seconds," Si told RFA. "At least some people are now a bit more awake than they were before." In Hong Kong, where no Great Firewall yet limits what internet users can do or see online, the city's mainstream media didn't report on the protest. A full report from pro-democracy site HK01.com was taken down a few hours after being posted. "This is similar to mainland China when it comes to news about [the Tiananmen massacre of] June 4 [1989]," independent journalist Lam Yin-bong told RFA. "Nobody talks about it, nobody mentions it, and nobody writes about it," he said. "They just act like it never happened, and gradually, it starts to feel like it never happened." Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Xi has been preparing for total power and lifelong rule for the past decade, political commentators say. Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he walks ahead of other members of the Chinese Politburo Standing Committee including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to the left during a dinner reception at the Great Hall of the People on the eve of the National Day holiday in Beijing, Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA Cantonese and Mandarin examined the 69-year-old Xi's decade at the helm of the world's most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, Chinese intellectuals, civil society and rural poverty. Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping will seek a third term in office at the 20th party congress, which opens on Sunday, amid tightened security in the capital, after a rare and anonymous public protest called for his resignation. Photos circulating on social media showed guards keeping watch at major traffic flyovers in the city after someone hung two huge banners from the Sitong flyover on the Third Ring Road in Beijing, one of which called for Xi's resignation. "Remove the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!" read one banner, video and photos of which were quickly posted to social media, only to be deleted. "Food, not PCR tests. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections, not leaders," read the second. Keywords and accounts linked to the protest were rapidly deleted from China's tightly controlled social media platforms, as the ruling party's well-oiled censorship machine swung into action. Searches for "Haidian," the district where the banners appeared, and "hero" were all blocked by Friday, amid reports that social media users who talked about the incident were getting their accounts shut down. Tightened security is in place across the country, even 3,600 kilometers (2,200 miles) west of Beijing in Tibet's regional capital and other major cities, where even emojis were being monitored. On October 12, the Chinese government sent out orders to the heads of counties and cities in and around Lhasa, Shigatse and Phenpo stating that no one should engage in religious activities or gatherings, or share religious material on their social media," said a resident of Tibet. Sharing general greetings carrying images or emojis of religious deities on social media is also forbidden, and "they are threatening that the administrator of the chat group and the members will all be punished if caught doing so," the source told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for personal security reasons. People watch while smoke rises as a banner with a protest message hangs off Sitong Bridge, Beijing, China October 13, 2022 in this image obtained by Reuters. 'Core' leader On the eve of the CCP 20th National Congress, Xi Jinping has been hugely successful in gathering the reins of power into his own hands, reeling in control from disparate branches of party and government, and feeding a growing cult of personality around his personal brand of political ideology, analysts told RFA on Friday. Xi currently holds, like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping before him, the moniker of "core" leader and CCP general secretary, alongside the presidency of the country and the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which commands the People's Liberation Army (PLA). By 2018, six years into his tenure, China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC) had removed presidential term limits from the country's constitution, paving the way for a third term in office and breaking with the post-Mao political convention that leaders step down after two terms. "After a decade of rule, Xi Jinping appears to have no intention of emulating his predecessors Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao, and has no intention of handing over the reins of supreme power to anyone," political commentator Lu Chen wrote in a commentary broadcast on RFA's Mandarin Service. "[This] abolished the administrative reforms that Deng Xiaoping had worked hard to implement in response to the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976], and restarted the system of lifelong party leadership begun in the Mao era," Lu said. "Technically, Xi Jinping can now be re-elected until the end of his life." Despite sporadic signs of public protest and dissent from within the ranks of the CCP, political analysts are largely agreed that a third term in office for Xi is now extremely likely. "Xi Jinping's impending re-election is part of a process by which Chinese society has centralized power," Lu said. "As Xi has drawn power to himself from the rest of the party, so the Chinese government has taken all power away from civil society." Liang Wen-tao, professor of political science at Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University, said there have been rumors of dissent within party ranks, including wild claims of a political coup attempt that placed Xi under house arrest. "This is, after all, a break with convention, and will naturally be challenged [by some]," Liang, who is also known in Cantonese as Leung Man-to, said in a recent commentary for RFA's Cantonese Service. "There have been different opinions on whether Xi could be voted back in." "But he has been planning to move to a system of lifelong tenure for a long time now," he wrote. Taming the elders Xi's anti-corruption campaign has long since disposed of the biggest hitters loyal to party elder Jiang Zemin, once believed to wield huge influence long after he stepped down after two terms in office, Liang said. "By gradually replacing them with his own cronies, Xi has successfully suppressed the power of the Jiang faction in the military," he said. A string of corruption cases involving once-powerful chiefs of law enforcement has also seen off serious challenges to Xi's rule from within the police, armed police and political and legal affairs committee system, Liang said. Xi managed this by bringing the People's Armed Police under the sole command of the CMC, when it had formerly been under the control of the CMC and China's cabinet, the State Council. He has also managed to eclipse the influence of party elders, who once ruled China from behind the scenes, according to New York City University politics professor Xia Ming. "China now controls the whole of society since the pandemic," Xia said. "Elderly people were the most vulnerable during the pandemic, so [the leadership] has been able to put huge pressure on elderly members of the Politburo, who take their health very seriously." A behind-the-scenes package of "services" for party elders, in conjunction with the Health Code COVID-19 tracking app, has also enabled the leadership to know where they are at any time, he said. "This means the elders aren't able to make political connections as they have done in the past, nor to make rash comments about the current government," Xia said. "Even if they are dissatisfied with Xi Jinping, and have opinions about him, it's much harder for them to exert the huge influence they did in the past." Meanwhile, Xi's constant political pressure on state media and on China's once-powerful internet conglomerates has suppressed not just outright dissent, but almost any public point of view not pre-approved by government censors, Liang said. "With the establishment of party supremacy ... over the media, Xi Jinping has been able to significantly curtail premier Li Keqiang's political influence and thereby mitigate any political threat from him, albeit in a disguised manner," he said. Shanghai party chief Li Qiang drinks during a group discussion held on the sidelines of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Tuesday, March 6, 2018. Credit: AP Future leaders What is less predictable than whether Xi will stay in power for a third term is how long that term will be, analysts said. In the absence of major political leaks, commentators are still unsure of who will make it into the 25-member Politburo, still less of the makeup of the next Politburo standing committee, currently a seven-member body at the heart of political power in China. The Asia Society has suggested five potential scenarios, including the promotion of current Shanghai party chief Li Qiang to the post of premier. If Xi unveils a Politburo standing committee packed with his allies, this will send a signal that his power is now supreme, while a more balanced line-up could hint at intense negotiations behind the scenes at Zhongnanhai, analysts have told RFA in recent interviews. Chen Chien-fu, associate professor of international relations at Taiwan's Tamkang University, said three main factors will go into deciding who is in key positions of power: the age of candidates, internal power structures within the party, and the extent to which Xi feels psychologically secure. Chen said he believes current propaganda chief Huang Kunming, Chongqing municipal party chief Chen Min'er, Ding Xuexiang, who currently directs the CCP's powerful General Office and Shanghai CCP chief Li Qiang are all likely contenders for a seat on the Politburo standing committee. "The key point to look out for will be whether the next generation of leaders are dependent on Xi Jinping for their position, or whether they have a strong and independent power base of their own," Chen said. Chen said it is also worth looking at which officials under the age of 60 are promoted into the 25-member Politburo. "These people could become important future contenders for the leadership succession in China," he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Additional reporting by RFA Tibetan. Translation by Tenzin Dickyi. An employee makes chips at a factory of Jiejie Semiconductor Company in Nantong, in eastern China's Jiangsu province on March 17, 2021. It could take five years for manufacturing facilities subsidized under the Biden administrations $280 billion CHIPS Act to come online, with tens of thousands of new specialist engineers needed before the U.S. domestic semiconductor industry catches up with Asia, experts and officials say. The CHIPS Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Aug. 9, aims to coax American computer chip producers like Intel, Micron and AMD into moving more production back to the U.S., as concerns grow about the national security risks of relying on China to supply the goods. It earmarks $52.7 billion in subsidies for companies to carry out research and manufacture the chips domestically. Beijing has said it is firmly opposed to the legislation, which it said reflects a Cold War mentality. Yet even with the new subsidies, it will be years before these manufacturing facilities go fully online, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said at a Washington Post virtual event about the CHIPS Act on Thursday. It will take three to five years to even build these out in some cases even longer, said Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and whose state is home to key chipmakers. But he said the subsidies were needed to help shore-up Americas production capabilities. If we hadn't done this legislation, if this was not the law of the land, the one thing I could say unequivocally: None of these facilities would be in America, because it is cheaper to build in Asia, he said. The global share of chips manufactured in the U.S. has fallen to just 12% today, from 37% in 1990, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The bulk is now produced in Asia, with lawmakers like Warner expressing concerns about the potential impacts on the U.S. military and broader economy if supply was cut. Non-Chinese plants, such as this Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) factory in Nanjing, received one-year exemptions from the new U.S. export controls. Credit: AFP Engineer shortage But the efforts to revive U.S. chipmaking capabilities are not meant to decouple American and Chinese industries, experts say. Self-sufficiency in semiconductors isnt viable for any country, including the U.S. and China, said Scott Kennedy, an expert in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I dont think thats the purpose of the U.S. government's efforts, he told RFA. Instead, it is looking to reduce its over-dependence on overseas production and other parts of the supply chain. That means some modification of global supply chains, but not an elimination. Carol Handwerker, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who teaches students that go on to work in the industry, said the CHIPS Act was about ensuring the United States builds back the capability to produce world-class chips. Part of that, she told RFA, would come down to training more engineers. We dont have enough people going through our programs right now to meet the needs, Handwerker said. The estimate is about 80,000 new engineers in five years. Thats a lot of people in a short period of time. Even within firms, she noted, training workers could be an arduous and yearslong task, with orders for manufacturing equipment themselves taking more than two years to even arrive. To circumvent the wait, firms are sending workers to Taiwan to train them so that when the facility here is in operation, theyll be able to operate the equipment. Gap in knowledge But Handwerker said the industrys top schools the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California-Berkeley, Stanford and Purdue also likely need to do more to train the labor force. Im from Purdue, and were training engineers at the undergraduate, masters and PhD level, and I think were providing an excellent education, she said. What were hearing, though, is that even for all of us at the top tier, when companies are putting out job descriptions, theres a gap between what the students know and what the companies need. To help keep talent in America the Biden administration on Oct. 7 also unveiled export controls that ban U.S. citizens and permanent residents from supporting the development or production of chips in China. Chinese firms have said the restrictions will introduce instability, and the China Semiconductor Industry Association slammed the United States for abruptly disturbing international trade in such an arbitrary way. Not only will such unilateral measures further harm the global supply chains of the semiconductor industry, more importantly it will create an atmosphere of uncertainty, the trade association said on Oct. 7. The rules are expected to affect hundreds of Chinese Americans, according to Nikkei Asia, including executives of some of Chinas biggest chipmakers, many of whom worked for decades in the United States before returning to China under its Thousand Talents program. But bringing more outsiders into the industry over coming years will also be needed to fill the tens of thousands of estimated job vacancies. Speaking at the same event as Warner on Thursday, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, noted that the bipartisan push to revive the U.S. chip industry could face limits due to its extensive labor requirements amid what he described as peak private sector employment levels. Fortunately, for the state of Indiana, our population is growing, Holcomb said. Were going deep into the bench, into the farm team if you will, into high schools, and actually building programs, pathways and pipelines. The chipmaking industrys ability to attract top high school and college talent could make or break the successes of the CHIPS Act, he said. We have to have world-class research and development. Universities like Purdue and Notre Dame and Indiana University, and our community colleges all these pieces snap together to form talent pipelines that will be necessary on Day One, which was yesterday, Holcomb said. We have slipped, we have fallen behind, and we have a lot of ground to make up. This has to do equally with our national security and with our economic security. They go hand-in-glove. Escaping to South Korea first, and then going to Canada, often leads to being excluded from refugee status. A North Korean refugee holds a pin badge showing the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at the offices of the Free North Korea Radio station in Seoul on February 28, 2019. Canada has deported 242 North Korean escapees since 2018, and is in the process of sending home 512 more, after finding that many had gained South Korean citizenship before coming to Canada, RFA has learned from two Canadian government agencies. Most of the deportees are sent back to South Korea, where they initially landed after escaping from the North usually a harrowing journey through China where they must avoid capture and forced repatriation. And because Seoul claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, escapees are granted citizenship upon arrival. But some then go on to Canada, after having a hard time adjusting to life in the South and thats where the problem arises in obtaining refugee status. Typically, to be granted refugee status, an asylum seeker must present evidence of being persecuted in their home country. But because the North Korean escapees found refuge in the South, and were granted citizenship there, they could be excluded from refugee protection, the government agency that provides protection to refugees, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), told RFA. Essentially, if the asylum-seekers had gone directly to Canada, they would have a better chance of gaining refugee status and be allowed to stay in the country. The IRCC said that while there may still be instances in which a North Korean requires protection, many asylum petitions have been turned down due to applicants South Korean citizenship. The statistics on deported North Korean escapees were compiled by the Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for border control, immigration enforcement and customs services. The Canada Border Services Agency places the highest priority on removal cases involving national security, organized crime, crimes against humanity, and criminals regardless of country of origin, the agency told RFAs Korean Service. Removals of failed refugees and individuals with other immigration violations are also necessary to maintain the integrity of Canadas immigration system, it said. The Nav Centre in Cornwall, Ontario, awaits the next wave of refugees on August 19, 2017. Photo: AFP Difficult Adjustment More than 33,000 North Koreans have found their way to the South and resettled over the years, most of them having arrived after the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed as many as 2 million people by some estimates, and pushed the country to the brink of collapse. They risked their lives to escape, most having traveled more than 3,000 miles through China, all the while avoiding capture and forced repatriation and dealing with shady brokers and traffickers. From there they navigated through several southeast Asian countries in the hope of one day boarding a plane headed for Seoul's Incheon International Airport. The South welcomes such escapees. They are sent to government-funded orientation programs and given startup money and a living stipend as they settle into their new lives. But for many escapees, the South is not the land of milk and honey they expected. The fast-paced life of South Korea seems too hectic, and the people speak Korean peppered with unfamiliar loan words from the English language. Job skills the escapees may have had in the North might not translate into an equivalent position in the South Korean workforce. And while they may physically blend in, many are made to feel that they are on the lower end of the social hierarchy in the South, due to discrimination and a resulting lack of opportunity to make their situation better. Almost half of all North Korean refugees that settle in the South said they experienced discrimination in a 2017 poll by the South Korean government-backed National Human Rights Commission of Korea. Discrimination against North Korean defectors [in South Korea] is a very serious problem, Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal Analyst at the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group, told RFAs Korean Service. Shin used the politically charged colloquial term defector which describes both defectors, who were part of the military or government at the time of their escape, and refugees, civilians who flee starvation or North Koreas depressed economic situation. The term can, in some contexts, carry a negative connotation. International Rights groups prefer to differentiate between defectors and refugees, depending on the circumstances of their escape. Of course, going abroad does not mean that there is no discrimination, but there is no such thing as being branded as a defector [outside of South Korea], he said. Hundreds therefore made the decision to move on from South Korea to Canada, where under the Resettlement Assistance Program they can get benefits that may include a household startup allowance and monthly income support. Hiding immigration history Since having a Republic of Korea passport is grounds to immediately reject an asylum application, many of the North Korean asylum-seekers in Canada try to hide evidence that they ever naturalized in South Korea. According to a Canadian federal court document published Sept. 16, a North Korean refugee surnamed Kim, her husband with the family name Shin and their children were deprived of their refugee status in 2018 for concealing their South Korean citizenship. The document said deportation proceedings were to start. Another refugee, surnamed Kang, was on the verge of being deported after it was discovered that he resided in South Korea in 2019. Once the deportation order goes out, the refugees have a few options if they wish to remain in Canada. According to a 2019 RFA report, over an 18-month period starting in January 2018, some 352 North Korean refugees in Canada lost their refugee status as the government at that time began revoking it in cases where they had lived in South Korea in 2013 or later. The Canada Border Services Agency explained that a removal decision by an immigration officer can be subject to judicial and administrative review, during which the individuals involved in the case may seek leave to remain in the country. Additionally, many of the refugees can apply for the Humanitarian and compassionate considerations program, said Sean Chung, the executive director of HanVoice, a Toronto-based nonprofit organization that assists North Koreans with settling in Canada. Successful applicants to the program can obtain permanent residency in Canada if they are an exceptional case, such as when they have lived in Canada for a long period of time, or if there are special reasons that prevent someone from returning to their home country, he told RFA. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Saifuddin Abdullah, a supporter of democrats ousted in the coup, is unlikely to remain Malaysias foreign minister. Malaysias Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah (left) with Csaba Korosi, president of the 77th United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Sept.27, 2022. Malaysia's upcoming election could cost the Myanmar shadow government one of its biggest allies Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah. Following Myanmars military coup in Feb. 2021, Saifuddin was the first ASEAN foreign minister to contact the parallel, civilian National Unity Government (NUG), publicly meet with the NUG foreign minister and push for the regional bloc to actively engage with it. But with most analysts giving Saifuddin's party little chance of winning the next election, the question is whether a new Malaysian government would be as active in engaging the Burmese politicians ousted in the coup. Saifuddin has been actively pushing for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members to engage with other stakeholders and to find better solutions to the post-coup crisis in Myanmar, said Thomas Benjamin Daniel, Foreign Policy senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia. He is a progressive minister who supports humanitarian and democratic objectives and has been very vocal in holding the junta accountable for its actions, Daniel told BenarNews. We could see a more muted Malaysia if Saifuddin is no longer foreign minister. Since becoming foreign minister in August 2021, Saifuddin has emerged as the Southeast Asian diplomat most actively trying to resolve the crisis, Daniel said. Through his diplomacy, Malaysia in April became the first member-state of the regional bloc to officially contact Myanmars NUG, which many consider to be the legitimate government in exile. A month later, he had his first in-person meeting with Zin Mar Aung, his counterpart from the NUG, in Washington, D.C., after the U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. Saifuddin was also the first ASEAN foreign minister to broach the idea of scrapping a five-point consensus the regional bloc made with Myanmar, a kind of roadmap to return that country to democracy, because the junta has done nothing to implement the accord. Until today, there has been no real progress on the 5PC [five-point consensus]. The violence continues, and in fact [has] gotten worse. It shows the junta is making a mockery of the 5PC, Saifuddin wrote on Facebook in July. And last month in New York, Saifuddin said that Kuala Lumpur planned to press ASEAN into deciding the fate of its five-point consensus on Myanmar before the regional blocs summit Nov. 8-13 summit in Phnom Penh. Between now and November ASEAN must seriously review if the 5-point consensus is still relevant and decide if it is still relevant, Saifuddin told reporters after meeting with Burmese opposition members on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly proceedings. By the time we meet in November, we must ask hard questions and have an answer." Now, however, Saifuddin wont be attending the ASEAN summit, his press aide told BenarNews on Thursday. Thats because after Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced elections on Oct. 10, his government became a caretaker government and his ministers caretaker ministers, until the polls. Each minister has their own style Daniel of ISIS Malaysia said it is uncertain whether Saifuddin Abdullah would continue to serve in the cabinet or as a member of parliament in the next government. Saifuddin belongs to the Bersatu party, which is headed by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, the man widely seen as the turncoat who brought down the Pakatan Harapan government Malaysians voted for in the 2018 election. Political analyst Oh Ei Sun of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs believes this will have turned many voters against them. It would be an uphill struggle for them to retain their seats, Oh told BenarNews. Betraying the popular mandate is a cardinal sin for those educated voters. Additionally, said analyst Jeniri Amir, Bersatu does not have much grassroots support. Bersatu in general is a weak party. If we look at the party grassroots, they will definitely lose in the next general elections, Jeniri, a senior fellow at the Malaysian Council of Professors, told BenarNews. Saifuddin will most likely not be part of the new government even if he wins his seat. Would a new Malaysian foreign minister continue Saifuddins approach and retain contact with Myanmars NUG? One former foreign minister thinks yes. This policy will continue although the way it is presented will be different, said ex-top diplomat Syed Hamid Albar. Of course, in the management of foreign policy, each minister has their own style. BenarNews is an RFA affiliated news service. A mine went off outside the womans home in Kyauktaw township sending a fragment into her chest. Members of a local welfare group put the injured woman in an ambulance after the blast on Oct. 13. A 35-year old woman was injured in her home when a mine exploded just outside a village in Rakhine State, which has seen an upturn in fighting between junta forces and the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) in the past four months. A resident of Kyauktaw township, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said the blast happened on Thursday night near the fence of the juntas 9th Military Operations Command (MOC-9) Headquarters adjacent to Pa Laung village. She went downstairs after praying. A mine exploded about 30 feet (9 meters) away from her but a fragment hit her right in the chest, said the local, adding that the cause of the blast is still unknown. The injured woman was taken to Kyauktaw Hospital for treatment, residents said. Fighting between junta forces and the AA intensified in July after a two-year lull. A total of 11 civilians were killed and 38 injured due to mines and artillery blasts since then, according to data compiled by RFA. Kyauktaw township residents have borne much of the brunt of civilian casualties caused by the resumed hostilities. On Sept. 21, four members of the same family were injured in shelling by MOC-9 in Na Ga Yar village. Four days later, a seven-year-old child was killed and a man was injured when shells hit the same village. Experts say it is likely to continue claiming nine-tenths of the waters and resisting Western interference. The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA has examined the 69-year-old Xi's decade at the helm of the world's most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, Chinese intellectuals, civil society and rural poverty. Chinas Communist Party kicks off its important Congress this Sunday, with Xi Jinping set to retain his position as the countrys paramount leader for another five years. Analysts say they dont expect much change in Beijings policy in the South China Sea. China has become more assertive in supporting its claims to almost 90 percent of the South China Sea and demarcating its maritime boundaries with the controversial nine-dash line, as well as developing and militarizing a number of rocks and reefs that are also claimed by other countries in the region. Chinas large fishing fleets, assisted by coast guard vessels, have been accused of swarming regional waters, pushing neighboring countries fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds. Philippine fishermen arriving from a week-long trip to the disputed Scarborough Shoal, in Infanta, Pangasinan province, July 6, 2021. Credit: Reuters In 2016, an international tribunal ruled that most of Chinas claims in the South China Sea, including the nine-dash line, were invalid but Beijing has so far ignored the ruling. The increasing coercion and risk tolerance is a result of Xi Jinpings policies, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Xi put maritime issues at the core of the China Dream way back in 2013 and hasnt changed course since. No reason to think that would change now, said the Washington-based maritime expert. China Dream is an inspirational slogan and doctrine that is considered the hallmark of Xi Jinpings leadership since he came to power in 2012. In his first presidential address to the nation in March 2013, Xi called on the public to strive to achieve the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Under this slogan, China as seen by the outside world has become more nationalistic and assertive than before. Assertive maritime China This approach has shaped Chinas vision towards its interests, including those in the South China Sea, said Huynh Tam Sang, a Vietnamese analyst. Vietnam, one of the six claimants in the South China Sea, is considered one of the more forceful opponents of Chinas stance. To consolidate his supreme leadership, Xi Jinping may take an even harder line on issues concerning Chinas core interests, including the South China Sea, Sang told RFA. Taking a softer stance would undoubtedly undermine Xis status - which is on the rise to be a symbol of Chinas national rejuvenation, he said. China, Vietnam and other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been discussing a so-called Code of Conduct (COC) a set of rules of the road in the South China Sea. However, there is almost a consensus among observers that an agreement is nowhere near. The COC remains as far away today as it was in 2002 when ASEAN had to settle for a non-binding DOC because of Chinas intransigence, said AMTIs Greg Poling. DOC, abbreviation for Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, is the first political document signed by China and ASEAN in order to set up basic principles for negotiation and foster dialogue among claimants with a COC as the eventual target. Never-ending disputes During the last twenty years since the signing of DOC, ASEAN has watched China become a powerful maritime power with growing naval capabilities as described by analyst Huynh Tam Sang. China no longer hides its maritime ambition and it would potentially continue to harbor pressure over smaller states in the South China Sea, Sang said. Economic coercion by Beijing and a rift inside ASEAN also play a role in the dispute solving process. Many ASEAN countries have China as their biggest trading partner, and in some cases, biggest supplier of foreign direct investment (FDI). Diplomatically, most of the other claimant states continue discussions with China closely to uphold their interests but also mitigate risks. With these claimants, China has the added advantage of time, said Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow at the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). China has slowly but consistently moved to change the status quo in the South China Sea, especially in terms of its presence and ability to control the escalation dominance, said Daniel. The U.S. Navys guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins in the South China Sea, Sept. 12, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy 7th Fleet A game changer, in his opinion, would be how China responds to extra-regional stakeholders who may continue to demonstrate their maritime and aerial presence in and around the South China Sea to signal their disagreement on Beijings approach. Beijing has repeatedly protested against what it calls the involvement of external forces in the region such as the United States which claims to be an Indo-Pacific power. The latest U.S. National Security Strategy released on Wednesday said Washington will work with other regional states to keep the Indo-Pacific open and accessible and ensure that nations are free to make their own choices, consistent with obligations under international law. We will affirm freedom of the seas and build shared regional support for open access to the South China Sea, it said. Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, said in a recent speech that as a major maritime country, China cannot and will not be separated from the sea and the South China Sea. From Chinese leaders statements, it is obvious that Chinas proactive struggle to uphold its core interests and baselines are paramount, Party congress or no Party congress, said Thomas Daniel from Malaysias ISIS. They fear that the technology will be used to further monitor and control Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. A man talks on his phone near Chinese national flags in Peyzawat county, Kashgar prefecture, in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, Aug. 18, 2018. Recently installed 5G infrastructure in Xinjiang is helping Chinese authorities extend their surveillance of the Uyghur population. Chinas rollout of thousands of 5G base stations throughout its far-western Xinjiang region has raised suspicions that the technology will not be used for economic development but for enhanced digital surveillance of Uyghurs and other Muslims, experts say. The build-out in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is part of a nationwide expansion of the fifth-generation, or 5G, technology standard for broadband cellular networks that mobile phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019. China is rolling out 5G to further digitize its economy and society. With an area of 642,800 square kilometers (248,200 square miles), Xinjiang has the largest land area of all the provinces and autonomous regions in China, though most of the vast region consists of uninhabited deserts and mountains. Xinjiangs regional capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) was one of Chinas first cities to adopt 5G technology in October 2019, followed by a network rollout that covered other urban areas in prefecture-level cities. The 5G network rollout across the entire region will augment an existing pervasive digitized system that monitors the movement of residents through surveillance drones, facial recognition cameras, mobile phone scans as part of Chinas efforts to control the predominantly Muslim population, experts said. China has built more than 30,000 5G base stations in Xinjiang, adding another roughly 10,000 this year at a cost of 1.65 billion yuan (U.S. $230 million), according to an Oct. 10 report by state-run Tianshan Net-Xinjiang Daily, the official news website of Xinjiang. There are nearly a dozen 5G base stations for every 10,000 people in the region with a total population of roughly 12 million, the report said. All prefecture-level urban areas and county urban areas, and 90.5 percent of townships and towns, now have 5G network coverage. The 5G network will further deepen the coverage of counties and townships, and county and county access to 5G will further consolidate the foundation of digital Xinjiang, the report said. 5G applications are injecting strong impetus into enabling the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry and promoting high-quality economic development, the state-run report said. Xinjiang already employs technology in more than 70 5G applications, primarily in manufacturing, agriculture, medical care, education and cultural tourism. But experts on surveillance in Xinjiang say that the new 5G infrastructure is helping authorities keep a closer eye on the Uyghur population, already subject to tight digital scrutiny for years. "Its definitely an interesting development. I have to imagine it will only make surveillance that much more pervasive and efficient," said Josh Chin, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal and co-author of Surveillance State: Inside Chinas Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. 'See everything, know everything' China has used digital technology to monitor and censor Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in Xinjiang, amassing huge amounts of data from cell phones, personal computers, and security cameras to impose political and social control of the Muslim groups. For years, Chinese authorities have subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang to arbitrary arrests and restrictions on their religious practice and culture. Geoffrey Cain, a U.S. journalist who wrote the book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future, said the rollout of 5G base stations across the vast, sparsely populated region is overkill. Its very extreme, and it also strikes me as very suspicious, he told RFA. Any technology deployed in Xinjiang will be used for surveillance, Cain said. The government of China has made it clear that the purpose of technology is first to develop the region, but that's the optimistic version, he said. The second reason is to control the people of the region, to control the Uyghur people, and the goal is to create a total security state. The government of Beijing wants to be able to see everything and know everything. This year, China introduced a fleet of 20 driverless electric patrol vehicles in Karamay (Kelemayi), an oil-rich city in the northern part of Xinjiang as a new method of surveillance. The self-driving cars are equipped with eight surveillance cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and equipped with facial recognition and tracking technology to collect data on suspicious incidents to send to the Integrated Joint Operation Platform, the main system for mass surveillance in Xinjiang. As part of the repression, it is believed that as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been held in a vast network of internment camps purportedly set up to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the region. Beijing has insisted that the camps were vocational training facilities and that they are now closed. One of the reasons the government is closing camps and releasing the Uyghurs people is because theyve turned the whole region into one concentration camp, Cain said. They have the tools they need to monitor everyone to control them, and they dont need to spend all this money on camps to make it happen. The predominantly Muslim groups have also been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. A report issued by the U.N.s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in late August documented widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including torture, arbitrary arrests, forced abortions, and violations of religious freedom, and said the repression there may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity. This is a very extreme form of surveillance because a data network is the easiest way to spy on people, Cain said. More than any other technology that we have for the population, installing a data network all over the region will guarantee that everybody is constantly being monitored. Their data is on the network, he said. They cannot escape the network no matter where they go. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Vietnamese police have been cracking down on rumors about mass withdrawals from Saigon Commercial Bank. A 28-year-old Facebook user with the initials T.H.Q., who lives in Cam Pha city, in Vietnams Quang Ninh province, has been fined the equivalent of U.S.$310. Police say the social media user was "posting false information about people withdrawing money from banks, simultaneously creating a sense of insecurity and causing confusion among the public." The fine was handed down on Wednesday. State-controlled media reported that the Internal Political Security Department of Quang Ninh provinces Police Department was the unit that tracked down the Facebook user and administered the fine. Quang Ninh police said the Facebook post appeared on Oct. 8, the day after the news that Truong My Lan, Chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, had been arrested. T.H.Q.posted on his or her page that people reacted to the report by rushing to withdraw money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB). Truong My Lan was arrested on fraud allegations related to the issuance and trading of bonds. Vietnamese media said SCB has made it clear that she has no executive position at the bank and a real estate firm that belongs to Van Thinh Phat Group is also not a SCB shareholder. In the past few days, police agencies in provinces and cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Binh Thuan, Ha Nam and Binh Phuoc have clamped down on social media users who have been accused of spreading false information about people withdrawing money from SCB on their personal pages. SCB is Vietnam's fifth-largest commercial bank, according to Bloomberg News. Russia's use of Iranian-made drones to attack Ukraine shows that Russia is both politically and militarily bankrupt, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on October 18 after saying that Russian air strikes in the past week had destroyed almost one-third of Ukraine's power stations. 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. Zelenskiy said for decades Russia spent billions of dollars on its military-industrial complex, "and in the end they bowed to Tehran to get rather simple drones and missiles." Speaking in his nightly address, he said strategically, this will not help Russia in any way. "It only additionally proves to the world that Russia is on a losing path and is trying to draw someone else into its accomplices," he said. "We will definitely ensure an appropriate international reaction to this." Iran denies supplying drones to Russia, and the Kremlin said it had no information about whether Iranian kamikaze drones were used. But British intelligence early on October 18 identified the drones used by Russia as being Iranian-made, and the U.S. State Department assessed that Iranian drones were used on October 17 in an attack on Kyiv. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre accused Tehran of lying when it said Iranian drones were not being used by Russia in Ukraine. Jean-Pierre on October 17 told reporters that the White House strongly condemns Russias missile strikes and said the attacks continue "to demonstrate Putins brutality. The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, said Washington would "not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions" against companies and countries working with Iran's drone program. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel also said a deepening alliance between Russia and Iran "is something the whole world -- especially those in the region and across the world, frankly -- should be seeing as a profound threat." Moscow began the recent wave of air attacks last week, hitting residential areas in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Zelenskiy tweeted early on October 18 that the attacks had caused massive blackouts across Ukraine and that there was "no space left for negotiations" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kyiv's prosecutor office said two people were killed in the October 18 strikes in Kyiv after five others lost their lives in the drone attacks of the previous day in the capital. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will deliver air-defense systems to Ukraine in the coming days. Speaking at a security conference in Berlin, Stoltenberg said the systems would help Ukraine defend itself against attacks, including by drones made in Iran. Earlier on October 18, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said there had been three Russian strikes on an unspecified energy facility in northern Kyiv. "The situation is critical now across the country. It's necessary for the whole country to prepare for electricity, water, and heating outages," Tymoshenko told Ukrainian television. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack was on "critical infrastructure." The northern Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr was left without water and electricity supply after Russian air strikes, but its mayor told RFE/RL that the services had been largely restored. "Around noon, we connected the main sewage plant, and the water supply was more or less operational. Currently, approximately 80 percent of the city has electricity, but the central part of the city remains without it," he said. Russian troops also shelled energy facilities in Dnipro and blasts were reported in Kharkiv. Explosions also shook the cities of Kriviy Rih and Mykolayiv, local officials said, a day after Russia launched waves of kamikaze drone strikes that killed at least seven people, four of them in Kyiv, and damaged infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital and several other cities across the country. "Kriviy Rih. Explosions in the northern part of the city. We are in shelters," Oleksandr Vilkul the head of the central Ukrainian city's military administration said on social media, adding that so far there were no reports of casualties or damage. In the southern port of Mykolayiv overnight shelling killed at least one person, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkovych said early on October 18. The Russian-appointed head of the Kherson region announced on October 18 that the civilian population will be evacuated from part of the region as he warned of an expected escalation of hostilities. Vladimir Saldo on October 18 announced an "organized, gradual displacement" of civilians from four towns on the right bank of the Dnieper River. The new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, said the situation in Kherson "is difficult," telling state-owned Rossia-24 television news channel in an interview, "The enemy is deliberately striking infrastructure and residential buildings in Kherson." With reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP The family of Iranian activist Hossein Ronaghi is concerned over the civil rights leader's health condition after he was arrested during the recent protests rocking the country over the death of a 22-year-old woman while in police custody. Hassan Ronaghi wrote in a tweet on October 14 that officials have kept his brother "in prison without his medicine, with broken legs and a sick body while he is vomiting blood. Subscribe To RFE/RL's Watchdog Report RFE/RL's Watchdog report is a curated digest of human rights, media freedom, and democracy developments from our vast broadcast region. It arrives in your in-box every Thursday. Subscribe here. Ronaghi had his leg broken by prison officers, according to journalist Masoud Kazemi, while Ronaghi's mother has 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 and 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. Ronaghi followed through with his promise and went to the Evin prison prosecutor's office, where he was violently apprehended, even though he showed up on his own volition. The arrest came amid anti-government protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was taken into custody by morality police for allegedly improperly wearing a head scarf. Many high-profile activists, rights advocates, and intellectuals -- including Majid Tavakoli, Fatemeh Sepehri, and Arash Sadeghi -- have been arrested during the protests amid a harsh police crackdown that rights groups say has seen more than 200 people killed. Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda Amnesty International says that at least 23 children are among the hundreds of people killed in Iran in widespread protests sparked by last month's death of a young woman arrested by the morality police over how she was wearing a headscarf. "Iranian security forces' unlawful killings of at least 23 children sheds further light on the authorities' deadly resolve to crush the widespread, ongoing protests, which were sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16 and grew into what many in Iran say is a broader uprising against the Islamic republic establishment," Amnesty said in a statement published on October 14. The 23 children are among at least 201 people estimated to have been killed in the nationwide protests since Amini died. In the statement, Amnesty lists the names and circumstances surrounding the killing of the 23 children during 10 days of protests last month. It says the victims included 20 boys aged between 11 and 17 and three girls, two of whom were 16 years old and one 17 years old. Most of those killed were shot by security forces, while four of them -- three girls and a boy -- were fatally beaten. Ten of the victims belonged to Iran's Baluch minority and were shot dead by security forces on September 30, the deadliest day of the crackdown, in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, Amnesty said. "Iran's security forces have killed at least two dozen children in an attempt to crush the spirit of resistance among the country's courageous youth," Amnesty's Heba Morayef said. "Member states engaging at the UN Human Rights Council should urgently hold a special session and adopt a resolution to establish an international independent investigative and accountability mechanism on Iran," Morayef added. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, said on October 10 that it was "extremely concerned" over reports of "children and adolescents being killed, injured, and detained" in Iran. As scattered anti-government and anti-hijab protests continue across Iran, members of one beleaguered ethnic and religious minority who joined in the demonstrations are still assessing the toll from "Bloody Friday." Zahedan, the capital of the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, was the scene of the violent crackdown carried out by security forces on September 30 that observers say left more than 90 people dead -- and possibly scores more. The victims were overwhelmingly Baluchis -- a mostly Sunni ethnic group that makes up the majority in the impoverished region, and who have long faced disproportionate discrimination at the hands of the Iranian authorities. Rape Allegation Sparks Protests Demonstrations have taken place in cities and towns across Shia-majority Iran since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd who was detained on September 13 by the morality police for allegedly violating the countrys hijab law. She died three days later. But in Sistan-Baluchistan, public anger at the authorities was raised further by reports that a 15-year-old Baluch girl had been raped by a police official in the province's southern port city of Chabahar. After the rape accusation was aired publicly last month by Mawlana Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi, the interim Friday Prayers leader in Rask, protests spread from that city about 170 kilometers north of Chabahar all the way to the regional capital. The scene for protest was set when worshipers gathered on September 30 at the Great Mosalla of Zahedan, a prayer site near the city's central mosque that right groups say was targeted in the bloody crackdown. During his Friday Prayers sermon, influential Sunni cleric Mawlana Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi said that the "demands of the people should not go unanswered" and called for "serious measures to be taken" to investigate the alleged rape. Chaos ensued. According to rights groups, including Amnesty International, a crowd assembled in front of a police station across the road to protest. Images on social media appeared to show some members of the crowd chanting anti-government slogans and some throwing rocks. Security forces responded with deadly force by firing on the crowd from the station, according to Ismaeelzahi, who alleged in a video message on October 2 that pre-positioned plainclothes police used live rounds and aimed at the heads and hearts of protesters. Videos on social media also appear to show the scenes inside the mosque as people prayed when security forces arrived. Many of the dead were reportedly killed outside the mosque, and security forces allegedly fired tear gas into the mosque's women's section. People returning from Friday Prayers were also fired upon by snipers positioned on rooftops, according to Amnesty International and groups such as the British-based Baluch Activists Campaign (BAC), which has posted videos purportedly showing violent police action well into the night. Blackout In Effect Details of what happened have been difficult to determine, in part due to an Internet blackout in Zahedan that went into effect during the September 30 clashes. Despite the digital void, gruesome images of dead bodies have emerged on social media, supporting reports that men, women, and children as young as two years of age were killed and wounded. Hundreds more, including minors, have been reportedly arrested as house searches continue, allegedly leading to more deaths and injuries. "There are no exact statistics on the wounded, local sources say the number is more than 300 people," Baluch activist Farzin Kadkhodaee told RFE/RL's Radio Farda. "Many of the dead have not been taken to the morgue and we do not know where they are, and this is one of the reasons why verification becomes difficult." According to the activist, security forces at hospitals have told those wounded in the crackdown that they must state their acceptance of the authorities' narrative before they can be treated. The government has blamed the violence on militant groups operating in the region. Official Blame Game Amnesty International, in an October 6 report, said that "in an attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for the deaths, the authorities have shared false narratives blaming the deaths on 'terrorists,' 'rioters,' and 'separatists' who they claim were acting for foreign governments." The rights watchdog also said that detainees alleged to have carried out attacks on security forces have been trotted out on television with bags over their heads, and forced to make self-incriminating statements about their involvement in the violence. Iranian state media has also reportedly said that Ismaeelzahi has admitted the role of militants and foreign actors in the protests, a claim that the cleric later denied. Tehran has specifically blamed the violence on Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group that is recognized as a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States and which has previously claimed deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan targeting Iranian security forces. Local and independent sources, including Ismaeelzahi and Naqshbandi, have rejected the authorities' claims of any Jaish al-Adl involvement. The authorities have also reported a much smaller number of fatalities, announcing that only 19 people, including several members of the security forces, were killed. In its latest report, the BAC placed the number of confirmed dead at 93, with 350 injured, contributing greatly to the at least 201 people killed nationwide since protests erupted after Amini's death in mid-September. Other Baluch activist groups and political organizations have claimed that as many as 350 people were killed on September 30, which they have referred to as "Bloody Friday." More than 50 anti-riot vehicles as well as officers have been transferred to Zahedan since then, according to Ismaeelzahi. Media reports and activists have also said that the city is under strict lockdown, with groups of no more than two people allowed to be on the streets or to attend mosque services together. Internet blackouts also continue, with the cybersecurity watchdog Netblocks saying they have observed disruptions in Iran as recently as October 12 while nationwide protests rage on. Despite the restrictions, protests appeared to resume in Zahedan on October 14, with unverified videos on social media showing residents taking to the streets after Friday Prayers, some chanting for the demise of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the country's Basij paramilitary forces. A Beleaguered Minority Rights groups have long accused Iran's clerical establishment of suppressing and discriminating against the Baluch people, along with Kurds, Arabs, and other ethnic minorities. As evidence, critics often point to the disproportionate number of Baluchis who are subjected to capital punishment in Iran. While Baluchis make up only about 5 percent of Iran's 84-million population, according to Amnesty International, they accounted for 21 percent of the executions carried out in the country in 2021 and 26 percent in the first half of 2022. The figures have raised serious concerns among rights watchdogs that the executions are part of a broader effort to sow fear among members of the disadvantaged Sunni community. Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, is the most impoverished of Iran's 31 provinces. It is also considered the most arid area in Iran, which has been hard-hit by drought in recent years. Written by RFE/RL correspondent Michael Scollon based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Prague and other Czech cities are donating old trams and buses to war-torn Ukraine where public transit systems across the country have been damaged by Russian bombing. Ukraine's military has recaptured more than 600 settlements from the Russian forces over the the past month, the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories said, as Moscow continued to strike dozens of cities, killing a number of civilians. Some 502 settlements have been liberated in the northeast Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces last month advanced deep into Russian lines and 75 localities were recaptured in the highly strategic Kherson region, the ministry said late on October 13. 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 ministry said 43 settlements were liberated in the Donetsk region and seven in the Luhansk region. "The area of liberated Ukrainian territories has increased significantly," the ministry said in a statement on its website. The report could not be independently verified. The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on October 14 that at least nine civilians were killed and 15 wounded over the past 24 hours. On October 13, Russian missiles and drones targeted dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns for a fourth day in a row. Most victims were in the southern city of Mykolayiv, officials said. Mykolayiv, a shipbuilding center and a port on the Southern Buh River, has been a frequent target of Russian attacks. The Ukrainian military General Staff said the latest attack involved eight S-300 missiles. The region around Kyiv was also targeted in the bombardment, setting off air-raid sirens multiple times. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said the strikes by Iranian-made drones hit critical infrastructure facilities. Elsewhere, Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence bulletin on October 14 that over the past three days, pro-Russian forces had made tactical advances towards the center of the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region. Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on October 13 that "brutal" fighting continued in Bakhmut, and that Ukrainian troops were defending Bakhmut with "skillful and heroic actions." In the Donbas, the British intelligence bulletin said Russia continued with offensive operations and was "very slowly" making progress. Four Ukrainian regions under partial Russian occupation -- Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhya, were seized by Moscow late last month as a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces rapidly advanced in the northeast, east, and south. The seizures were denounced by Kyiv and the West as illegal. Zelenskiy called on Ukrainians to be especially careful about more possible Russian strikes on October 14, when the country celebrates the Day of Defenders of Ukraine. "Tomorrow we will definitely celebrate -- everyone in their place -- one of our most important days. Protection Day, Day of Defenders of Ukraine," Zelenskiy said. He also lashed out at the International Committee of the Red Cross, accusing it of inaction in upholding the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war and urged it to undertake a mission to Olenivka -- a notorious camp in the Russian-occupied east of the country where dozens of Ukrainian POWs died in an explosion and fire in July. "I believe the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a club with privileges where one receives a salary and enjoys life," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "The Red Cross has obligations, primarily of a moral nature. The mandate of the Red Cross must be fulfilled. It is necessary to immediately do what is entirely logical for the Red Cross." The Prosecutor-General's Office in Kyiv said on October 14 that 423 Ukrainian children had been killed and 810 were wounded since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion. Zelenskiy told international representatives at the Council of Europe on October 13 that Ukraine needs to protect its skies. If this is done, it will be a fundamental step to end the entire war in the near future, Zelenskiy said. Responding to Zelenskiy's pleas, the British government announced it would provide missiles for advanced NASAM antiaircraft systems that the Pentagon plans to send to Ukraine in the coming weeks. Britain also is sending hundreds of aerial drones for information-gathering and logistics support, plus 18 howitzers. Other NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels this week promised to supply systems offering medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks. Meanwhile, evacuees from Kherson were expected to begin arriving it Russia on October 14 after a Moscow-installed official suggested residents should leave for safety in a sign that Ukrainian forces are making consistent advances in the region that Moscow claims to have seized. "We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if they wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes...go to other regions," Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says Ukraine will find a solution to keep the Starlink Internet service working after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company could not indefinitely fund it. Podolyak wrote on Twitter on October 14 that, like it or not, Musk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. He told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Ukraine should be thankful and also acknowledged that Musk is a businessman running a private business, not a state business, and "his business development strategy says that it is not profitable for him to lose [money]." That's why Ukraine "will take care of how to conduct negotiations so that Starlink works," but added in his tweet that Ukraine expects the company to provide stable connections until the end of negotiations. Musk activated Starlink, a network of more than 2,000 satellites orbiting the Earth and thousands of terminals on the ground, in late February after Internet services were disrupted because of Russia's invasion. Podolyak made the statement after Musk tweeted that SpaceX cannot fund the network indefinitely amid reports that he has asked the Pentagon to step in. Starlink has cost SpaceX $80 million thus far and the cost will exceed $100 million by end of year, Musk said on Twitter on October 7. Musk also asked whether the United States owes protection to a commercial vendor that is targeted while assisting the United States. "Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder," said the billionaire, who is also CEO of Tesla. CNN reported on October 13 that SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon last month saying it could not continue to fund the Starlink service in Ukraine and that it may have to stop funding it unless the U.S. military gives the company tens of millions of dollars a month. An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity was quoted on October 14 by AP as saying the Defense Department has received a request from Musk to take over funding for the satellite network. The official said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. A senior defense official later told reporters that the Defense Department would not confirm that ongoing talks were related to payment. But the official said the Pentagon was "continuing to talk to SpaceX and other companies about SATCOM capabilities." The discussion about Starlink comes after Musk came under criticism for asking his 107 million Twitter followers to weigh in on his proposal to end the war in Ukraine under which Ukraine would cede Crimea, which it seized in 2014. Musk also suggested that four regions Russia illegally annexed following Kremlin-orchestrated referendums should hold repeat votes under UN supervision and Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO. As part of his proposal, Musk launched a Twitter poll asking whether the will of the people" should decide if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia. That prompted President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has pledged to recover all the territory captured by Russia in the war and reclaim Crimea, to post his own poll asking his followers which Musk they like more: One who supports Ukraine or One who supports Russia? Musk replied to Zelenskiy that he still very much supports Ukraine but is convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. With reporting by Reuters and AP Valentina is from Siberia, but she welcomed Ukrainian troops as liberators when they recaptured the village where she lives in southern Ukraine with bowls of hot borscht. Despite her Russian heritage, the soup is, she insists, the Ukrainian version of the dish, which is popular in several countries in the region. Massive Russian missile and drone attacks since October 10 have damaged about 30 percent of Ukraines civilian energy infrastructure. Power stations, transformers, transmission networks, and more have been targeted and hit in the barrage. Although Ukrainian Minister for Communities and Territorial Development Oleksiy Chernyshov insisted on October 13 that heating will be available as usual "as soon as the average daily temperature is below 8 degrees Celsius for three days," the government has urged citizens to minimize electricity consumption to help stabilize supplies. Residents of some areas have been warned of possible scheduled blackouts as workers scramble to repair the damage. Ukraine has temporarily halted exports of electricity to the European Union, reversing a gesture intended to help allies cope with irregularities in the supply of natural gas from Russia. "Electric heating plants in virtually every region of the country have been damaged," former Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov said in an interview with Current Time, a Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. "There has also been significant damage to high-voltage power lines and distribution networks." "The situation is extremely difficult and critical," said Plachkov, who has worked in the energy sector for five decades, served as energy minister in 1999, and as fuel and energy minister in 2005-07. Nonetheless, he said, the electrical network as a whole has continued functioning and will be fully restored in the coming weeks. "It is easier to repair the distribution networks," he said. "The teams are at work." Repairing high-voltage transformers is more of a problem, he added, because they taken up to six months to produce and the number of producers globally is quite small. "For the most part, our transformers are from the Zaporizhzhya Transformer Factory," he said. "We are using our reserve supplies, but they are limited. We are talking about some expensive equipment, tens or hundreds of millions of hryvnyas (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars). We are hoping for help from our partners in Eastern Europe. Poland, Hungary, Romania." 'Hard Weeks And Months Ahead' For the foreseeable future, the country will experience problems generating electricity. "So there will be restrictions on the use of electricity," Plachkov said. "We need to conserve as much as possible in order to keep the grid running." As winter approaches, problems with heating will increase. On October 11, the mayor of the western city of Lviv, Andriy Sadoviy called on everyone to "brace ourselves for hard times...perhaps the worst-ever period for our country." "We are in for hard weeks and months ahead," Sadoviy said in a public address. "It is hard right now to predict what will happen tomorrow. We will do all we can to keep medical facilities operating." Plachkov said that, "until [Russian forces] run out of missiles, it will be impossible to predict when things will return to normal. "All citizens of Ukraine living in cities must be prepared," he said. "They should find friends or relatives in the country in case there arises a need for them to relocate, to move their children or their elderly and wait things out there for a while." Robert Coalson contributed to this report LYMAN, Ukraine -- Sweeping low along a river near the eastern Ukrainian town of Lyman, a military helicopter flew east toward Russia past the gleaming spire of an Orthodox church. In the bright morning light, the yellow and blue Ukrainian flag on its nose cone was unmistakable. Just a week earlier, such a sight would be unimaginable. At that time, elite Russian forces were entrenched in Lyman, a strategic rail hub that served as a launching pad for Russian assaults on the major Donetsk region cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Many of those soldiers are now lying in Ukrainian morgues, after an encirclement by Ukrainian forces and, later, the retreat of the surviving Russian troops -- one of the main achievements of a counteroffensive in recent weeks in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. This image contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing. Click to reveal This image contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing - Click to reveal Local residents pass by the dead bodies of Russian soldiers on a street in Lyman on October 6, shortly after the town was liberated. The retreating Russians left enormous quantities of ammunition and supplies in their wake, Ukrainian soldiers told RFE/RL. "Everything was done beautifully and precisely, said Oleksandr, a 30-year-old soldier sitting in a Ukrainian Army SUV on the main square in Lyman earlier this week. In a humiliating defeat for Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on October 1 that it was withdrawing its forces from Lyman, three months after they seized control of the town. One day earlier, at a televised Kremlin ceremony, President Vladimir Putin signed documents that Moscow baselessly claims mean Donetsk and three other partially occupied regions of Ukraine now belong to Russia. Russian positions in the town were first compromised when Ukraine launched its sweeping counteroffensive in the adjacent Kharkiv region, north of the Donetsk region, in early September. The push, which liberated over 3,000 square kilometers, served to cut off northern supply lines for the Russian troops in Lyman. Ukrainian forces then pushed forward to the villages surrounding Lyman, encircling the town on three sides and pounding exit routes with artillery. Soldiers interviewed by RFE/RL pointed toward NATO weapons as being key to victory. Oleksandr and Dima, a 25-year-old fellow soldier who works to correct artillery fire, both said that artillery provided by NATO nations was devastating to Russians attempting to flee. Their losses were large, Oleksandr said, because Russian troops moving into and out of Lyman traveled in large columns that were highly vulnerable to precise artillery strikes. By contrast, he added, Ukrainian losses were piecemeal cases. The soldiers did not want their last names published, citing security concerns. According to Oleksandr, Russian soldiers began their escape only after Ukraine destroyed a relief column along the road to Drobysheve, northwest of Lyman, one of the main roads back to Russian lines. Signs Of Panic The Russians started their escape far too late, though. By the time they began, all roads out of the city had been cut off except one to the northeast, to the village of Torske. This road, though, was covered by Ukrainian artillery, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based conflict research group. Panic appears to have set in among the units, which included elite formations such as the 144th Motorized Rifle Division and 752nd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 20th Combined Arms Army. "We'd take off, and they'd have already run away," said Dima, the artillery spotter, referring to the drones his unit uses to correct cannon fire. The evidence of these strikes littered one forest road into Lyman, on which a column of seven vehicles lay scorched in a straight line. On the ground lay hundreds of AK-47 bullets that had spilled from a destroyed ammunition truck, as well as mounds of supplies such as uniforms, medical dressings, and deodorant. While its unclear how many troops Russia may have lost, Serhiy Hayday, the top Ukrainian official in the neighboring Luhansk region, said that more than 5,000 Russian soldiers were in the town on the day Russia withdrew its troops. On the next day, October 2, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukrainian forces were in full control of Lyman. Analysis by the ISW suggested that yet another factor may have played into the rout: After heavy losses among elite units in the weeks after Putin launched the invasion on February 24, many of the remaining units have been unable to fight effectively. 'Russian Lend Lease' The Russian soldiers were not poorly supplied, according to Oleksandr and Dima, who pointed out abandoned Russian body armor with a manufacturer date of 2022. Vasyl, a soldier at a checkpoint leading into Lyman, mockingly referred to the masses of captured ammunition captured as Russian lend lease -- a play on the name of a U.S. program for supplying weapons to Ukraine. The combination of weapons from NATO countries and captured or abandoned Russian weapons makes a marked contrast to the early days after the Russian invasion, the soldiers said. Wed have one packet of Grad rockets for the day, Oleksandr said of the first month of fighting. Five wouldnt work, and three would zig-zag off somewhere. But cutting-edge Western weaponry and training is hardly the rule among Ukrainian military units. At the checkpoint, Vasyl and Ihor, who are members of Ukraines territorial defense force, basked in the unusual warmth of an October morning. The territorial defense forces are a reserve unit with minimal training, with many joining these units in the first days of the war. Vasyl said he and his unit had fought for two months near Kyiv at the start of the invasion, then had a month of training, and then four months at the front. The unit hasnt been rotated out once since the Russian invasion. Their training and command structure is minimal, Vasyl said, pointing at a soldier with prior military experience as a voice of wisdom. When asked whether or not his unit was empowered to make decisions, a claim sometimes touted in the West to explain Ukraines successes on the battlefield, Vasyl shrugged and smirked. A certain amount of decentralization exists, he said. Sitting on the ground cleaning the units PK machine gun, a standby of the Soviet Army first introduced in 1961, Ihor described the Soviet-era weapons its members are using with an expletive. While they had plenty of food and ammunition, he and Vasyl said, they each had a single uniform and one pair of boots, and not all of the soldiers had received winter clothing. Still, after weeks of Ukrainian advances, the soldiers were upbeat and confident. When asked about Putins recent mobilization order, which could throw hundreds of thousands of new Russian troops into the war, Vasyl said that just meant more targets. (miningmx.com) - Bar a couple of notable exceptions such as the Rainbow Rare Earths project at Phalaborwa and the Renergen helium and gas project in the Free State province South Africas junior mining and exploration industry is in dire straits. Just how dire was laid out in blunt terms at this years Junior Indaba conference by two of the South African mining sectors most straight-talking participants: financial services and mining consultant Paul Miller and mining lawyer Hulme Scholes. There was none of the corporate speak typically used by mining executives on public podiums: these guys went for the jugular. The duo behind the podcast sit down for an honest conversation about balancing babies and careers Both documents underscore our intention to further our long-standing ties. El Canciller @CesarLanda0 y el Alto Representante de la UE @JosepBorrellF suscribieron un Acuerdo de Participacion del Peru en Operaciones de Gestion de Crisis y un Memorandum de Entendimiento Peru-UE, dos importantes instrumentos que fortaleceran las relaciones bilaterales. pic.twitter.com/vkOhXern77 El Alto Representante de la Union Europea @JosepBorrellF recibio al Canciller @CesarLanda0, en la sede del @eu_eeas, donde discutieron sobre el escenario internacional, la relacion bilateral y el fortalecimiento de la cooperacion con la Union Europea. pic.twitter.com/6zk7zJ6uHE 15:27 | New York (U.S.), Sep. 20. "I think these are elements for investors to say: there is noise there, but entrepreneurship, the government's vocation, and the adequate conditions of our mega-diversity prevail to reaffirm the path of economic reactivation and democratic stability," he added. As is known, the President of the Republic Pedro Castillo is in New York and participates in the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations. The Head of State is joined by Ministers Cesar Landa (Foreign Affairs), Kurt Burneo (Economy-Finance), Roberto Sanchez (Foreign Trade-Tourism), and Rosendo Serna (Education). Minister Sanchez highlighted the meeting that Peru's Head of State and some State ministers held with investors and representatives of companies grouped in the Americas Society/Council of the Americas "The meeting held yesterday with the Americas Society/Council of the Americas is important, with more than 35 high-ranking American businesspeople, many of whom are already making significant investments in Peru," Sanchez affirmed. "Thanks to this participation, we have been able to dialogue and put on the agenda the great need to promote investments in Peru. Besides, a commitment has been made to hold this meeting again during the course of the year in Lima," he added. The Cabinet member commented that, since there is great concern worldwide about the rise in food and fuel prices, as a result of the international crisis, President Castillo reaffirmed in said meeting the Government's vocation to strengthen legal and macroeconomic stability in Peru. "President Pedro Castillo has come with a speech that promotes investment and open arms, mentioning the benefits that Peru offers, because reactivation is essential for our country," he pointed out. "Our vocation is due to the great need for political stability as a favorable environment for the country's economic reactivation," he said. Tourism Minister Sanchez also highlighted the favorable results achieved by the tourism sector in Peru. "Concerning tourism, more than 1.3 million foreign tourists have been registered, of whom nearly 300,000 are from the United States, and that is very important. In addition, last year we (Peru) exceeded US$16 billion in bilateral trade with the United States; and as of July this year it increased 49%," he specified. "Then, as in tourism, agro-exports and services (sectors), we do not only require a sectoral view, but a country view by involving different ministries," he concluded. Case in Brief R. v. Tessier The Supreme Court restores an Alberta mans murder conviction after finding his statements to police were admissible as evidence at trial. In 2007, police in Alberta questioned Russell Tessier in connection with the murder of his friend, whose body had been found in a ditch by a rural road near the town of Carstairs. Officers interviewed Mr. Tessier twice at the police station without placing him under arrest. They did not advise him that he could choose not to speak to police and that what he said could be used as evidence in court (this is known as a caution). In 2015, police charged Mr. Tessier with first degree murder after his DNA was matched to a cigarette butt found near the crime scene. At trial, the Crown tried to introduce evidence from the 2007 police interview with Mr. Tessier. Under the confessions rule, statements with police are generally considered voluntary and therefore admissible as evidence if the person had a functioning mind at the time and made the statements without being threatened or tricked by police. Mr. Tessier claimed his statements were involuntary. He alleged that he had been psychologically detained by police, which triggered rights that apply to people who are detained or arrested. For instance, section 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that everyone has the right on arrest or detention to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right. The trial judge determined that Mr. Tessier had a functioning mind and made the statements without being threatened or tricked by police. The judge also determined that Mr. Tessier had not been detained when he spoke with police. As a result, the statements were voluntary and admissible as evidence at trial. The jury eventually convicted Mr. Tessier of first degree murder. Mr. Tessier appealed his conviction to Albertas Court of Appeal, arguing that his statements to police should not have been admitted at trial. The Court of Appeal found errors in the trial judges analysis about whether the statements were voluntary and it ordered a new trial. The Crown then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court has allowed the Crowns appeal and restored Mr. Tessiers conviction for first degree murder. The statements were voluntary. Writing for a majority of the judges, Justice Nicholas Kasirer found that despite the absence of a caution, Mr. Tessiers 2007 statements to police were voluntary under the confessions rule and therefore admissible as evidence at trial. The majority wrote that Mr. Tessier had an operating mind at the time of his interviews, had exercised a free or meaningful choice to speak with police and was not unfairly denied his right to silence. Given that there was a reasonable basis to consider Mr. Tessier a suspect at the time of questioning, the absence of a caution could mean his statements were involuntary. However, the Crown discharged its burden by proving that the absence of a caution was without consequence and that the statements were, beyond a reasonable doubt and in view of the context as a whole, voluntary. The majority also rejected Mr. Tessiers arguments that he had been psychologically detained, which means the Charter rights that apply to people detained or under arrest were not applicable. At the event, the Cabinet member invited a European parliamentary delegation to visit Peru in 2023, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has reported. The Peruvian government representative began a work trip that will take him to Belgium, France, Italy, the Holy See, and Mexico. Besides, the government official will meet with high-ranking authorities of the EU and the Kingdom of Belgium, in order to address the common agenda with the EU bloc and the aforementioned country. From October 15-16, Minister Landa will travel to Paris, France, in order to hold working meetings at the Peruvian Embassy regarding Peru's accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) . He will also participate in a meeting with the South American country's community residing in Paris. Page Content SHRM President and Chief Executive Officer Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is answering HR questions as part of a series for USA Today. Do you have an HR or work-related question you'd like him to answer? Submit it here. I run a company with just under 200 employees. In recent years, many political and social discussions have made their way into our workplace, taking a toll on our morale. The George Floyd killing, Roe v. Wade being overturned, the 2020 election and school shootings have spawned extremely contentious interactions among our employees and even led to some disruptions in work. Some companies have banned certain topics among their employees or tried to remain neutral. Is this even realistic? How can we get out in front of some of the divisive topics without necessarily taking a side? Avila Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.: Banning a particular topic, like politics, is not a realistic option for workplaces. Workers will always talk about the pressing news of the dayin recent times, this means politics. As an employer, I'm sure you value diversity of thought, but you also want to avoid counterproductive conflicts. Suppressing employee communication in one area might signal that you do not value your employees' opinions or, worse, your employees themselves. Suppressing workplace conversation isn't a good idea on many fronts. On top of this, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protects those conversations if they veer toward political parties and their labor policies. According to NLRB regulations, employers cannot restrict employees from discussing workplace conditions, such as salary and benefits. So how can you get in front of this issue without necessarily taking a side? Start by reiterating your company's values and commitment to a diverse, inclusive workplace. Create a workplace conduct policy with expectations for respectful communication if you don't already have one. Many leaders do not want any distractions brought on by the midterm elections, as they could lower productivity. Here are a few steps you can take to limit distractions and reduce heated discussions in the workplace: Walk the talk and encourage respectful discussion. Set the tone for professionalism in the workplace. Teach positive communication and conflict resolution to show how those tactics can be used when co-workers disagree. The goal should be to foster understanding between colleagues, not win an argument. Ultimately, people should be able to disagree politically or otherwise without being disagreeable. I have had some negative experiences with my company's HR department. It seems that they put my employer's interest ahead of the employees' at every turn. Is HR responsible for the interest of workers? Meena Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.: I'm sorry you've had negative experiences with your HR team. They should represent the mutual interests of the employer and employees. When members of your HR department handle situations differently from what you would expect, they aren't necessarily putting the employer's interest ahead of yours. Many employees may not realize how laws affect every aspect of an employee's relationship with a company, from the hiring process to the benefits and compensation provided to addressing performance issues and conflictseven termination. HR is responsible for ensuring the protection of employees' rights as outlined in federal, state and local laws. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against candidates and employees based on prescribed characteristics, like race, gender, national origin and religion. HR professionals must be vigilant as they work at all organizational levels to ensure compliance with applicable laws. Outside of compliance, the HR function, like most departments and positions, is typically tasked with achieving business objectives, such as supporting the company's operations, profitability and growth. HR teams often work to achieve goals by developing policies and practices, hiring qualified employees, providing fair benefits and compensation, and engaging with and developing strategic initiatives to help employees continue working at their best in a professional environment. A good HR team should represent the interest of the employer and also be acutely aware of the expectations and preferences of the workforce. Without a viable functioning enterprise, workers' livelihoods are in jeopardy. Conversely, good HR should also understand the value of workers. CEOs consistently cite talent among their chief concerns, even above raising financial capital. So, acquiring and retaining people should also be a top priority for HR. It's possible that in your situation, there could be a very valid reason why your HR team made a decision or took action that you perceived as being in the employer's favor. If they did not communicate it clearly, then ask. Asking clarifying questions in a nonconfrontational way may help you better understand why decisions are made and can help you have a more trusting, open and honest relationship with your HR team. Page Content Washington State's Department of Labor and Industries recently released a draft administrative policy with updated guidance on the modified pay transparency requirements, beginning Jan. 1, 2023. This draft policy aims to clarify issues raised by stakeholders in the feedback process for the development of the final administrative policy. The draft policy gives some new insight on several important topics. The guidance clarifies that the 15-employee threshold for covered employers "includes employers that do not have a physical presence in Washington, if the employer has one or more Washington-based employees." Covered employers sponsoring foreign national employees for legal permanent residence (green cards) through the PERM process will have to comply with these requirements when conducting PERM recruitments. Job postings include openings for internal transfers, as well as remote jobs, according to the new guidance. Stating in a posting that the employer will not accept Washington applicants does not excuse compliance with this law. Information Required Each job posting must include "the wage scale or salary range and a general description of all the benefits and other compensation for a specific available position to be offered to the hired applicant." The new guidance provides detailed examples of information that should and should not be included. For example, the wage scale/salary range should have a low and high number, rather than open-ended descriptions, such as "up to $29/hour" or "$60,000 and up." Any starting pay or range should be specified. If there are multiple levels for a job, the pay scale for each level should be provided. If the employer offers a different job than what the applicant applied for, the employer should provide the postings for both jobs. Postings also must include a general description of all benefits and other compensation. Benefits include health care benefits, retirement benefits, paid days off, and any other benefits that must be reported for federal tax purposes, such as fringe benefits. The guidance explains that "other compensation" can be discretionary bonuses, stock options, travel allowance, relocation assistance, profit-sharing, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant along with their established salary range or wage scale. Employers need not include monetary values, but providing them does not excuse the requirement to present the general description. The guidance states that employers should update postings as this information changes. The guidance also addresses how to use links regarding benefits and other compensation. The posting must have the general description of the benefits and other compensation, but employers can choose to link to more details, which must remain updated. If the benefits and other compensation information is available on the original or subsequent webpages, then the information needs to only be listed at least once. According to the department, "it is the employer's responsibility to assure continuous compliance with functionality of links, up-to-date information, and information that applies to the specific job posting, regardless of any use of third-party administrators." Sherry L. Talton is an attorney with Jackson Lewis in Seattle. 2022. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal. Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. 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! Salta is now the biggest industrial landowner in the area, with 403 ha on its books tipped for $3 billion of development. The site had been at the centre of controversy after local developer John Woodman attempted to have the land rezoned residential, sparking an investigation by the independent broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission. In 2020, after the rezoning was refused, logistics player ESR paid $75 million for the neighbouring 79 ha site at 620 Western Port Highway. Pratt office The Pratt familys Pratt Corp. is exiting a Box Hill office building it has held since 1999. The four-level building is on a large 3839 sq m parcel of land at 818 Whitehorse Road, backing on to Prospect Street. It sits in the fast-growing high-rise office and apartment precinct of the eastern suburban CBD and is expected to fetch more than $50 million. It last changed hands for $7.5 million on a 10 per cent yield. The 6600 sq m building is 96 per cent leased to a range of tenants, including the Commonwealth Bank. JLLs Josh Rutman, Nick Peden Tim Carr and MingXuan Li are handling the campaign. It is the largest undeveloped parcel left in Box Hills activity centre, and one of two sites running between Whitehorse Road and Prospect Street. The draft structure plan for the precinct suggests a 40-level limit on any new building, which would not be out of place in the neighbourhood. CBD listings The generous Helen Macpherson Smith Trust is selling up in the CBD at 27 Windsor Place. The Helen Macpherson Smith Trust is selling up in the CBD at 27 Windsor Place. The trust, established in 1951, has had its offices in the east-end location for 70 years. It bought the building, a former RSL venue, in 2011 for $2.45 million. The 127-year old property is one of few houses standing in the CBD. JLL agents Nick Peden, Josh Rutman and MingXuan Li are handling expressions of interest. The trust has distributed more than $130 million to various causes and institutions in the 70 years since the death of Helen Schutt (nee Smith). It has outgrown the space and is moving on. The property is expected to fetch about $4.5 million. Also in the CBDs east end is the now vacant space once occupied by the Alcaston Cafe. The shop at the foot of Alcaston House, at 2 Collins Street, has a liquor license and full kitchen. Alcaston House, at 2 Collins Street Tiga Commercial agents David Sia, Martin Leong and Griffin Barrett are handling the sale and expect it to fetch more than $1.8 million. Records show it last sold in 2010 for $838,000. In the west end, a small apartment complex at 21-23 Anthony Street across the road from the student accommodation building is also for sale. The three-storey property comes with a permit for an 11-storey student housing project. Records indicate it was built in 1954 as an office and workshop before being converted into six apartments in 1996. The property changed hands just last year for $5.84 million. Its chief attraction is its 291 sq m of land. Tiga Commercial also has carriage of this listing and is quoting more than $7 million. Strata auctions CBD strata property sales are ticking over. A dentist has purchased part of level 10 at 15 Collins Street a modernist-era building which recently made the heritage list. It sold under the hammer for $1.03 million on a building rate of $10,000 a sq m. Colliers agent George Davies, who ran the campaign with Anthony Kirwan, said a mix of commercial and potential residents contested the auction. The dentist, who leases elsewhere in the Paris end, is planning to set up a new practice following a fresh refurbishment. Down the road, an owner-occupier has snapped up a New York-style office complete with double-height ceilings, timber floors and arched windows at 20 McKillop Street for $520,000. Davies said the buyer is downsizing from a larger office in the vicinity. Lilydale flip An empty Lilydale fitness centre that was purchased just last year is about to be flipped. The property at 446 Maroondah Highway was bought in 2021 for $5.54 million as a private venture by the directors of syndicator group Forza. Houston, 68, did not specify the details of the criminal charges, which he pleaded not guilty to in March, but a fortnight ago he asked Instagram followers to pray for him as he prepares to fight allegations he concealed his fathers child sexual abuse. Houston is set to face a special fixture hearing for at least three weeks in December. In February he stepped aside from all church activities while he defended the charges, having already stepped aside as a director of all Hillsong boards in September last year. In March, he announced his resignation as Global Senior Pastor following an internal investigation that found he breached the churchs moral code in his behaviour towards two women. His replacement, long-term friend Pastor Phil Dooley, said the alleged first incident involved a female church member who quit after making a complaint about an inappropriate text message from Houston 10 years ago. It was along the line of if I was with you, Id like to kiss and cuddle you, words of that nature, Pastor Dooley said. Houston reportedly paid the woman several months salary to compensate her. The second alleged incident followed complaints from a woman who had attended Hillsongs annual church conference at Homebush in 2019, who ended up having Houston in her hotel room afterwards for 40 minutes. Houston denied he engaged in any sexual activity. On both occasions of alleged misconduct, the church reported the senior pastor had been under the influence of either alcohol or sleeping tablets. Shortly after Houstons resignation, his wife Bobbie was made redundant from the church she co-founded with her husband in the Hills district nearly 40 years ago. ROCK N ROLLERS It wouldnt be an 80s style RocknRoll show if it wasnt for a bit of behind-the-scenes diva drama. Star-power: Jimmy Barnes heads to Lightouse Rock in Queensland today. Credit:Getty Starting with clashing egos over star billing resulting in the exit of one of Australias big music names, the histrionics backstage leading to todays sellout inaugural Lighthouse Rock festival, which will see nearly 6000 fans converge on a far-flung beach near Bundaberg to watch Jimmy Barnes, Jon Stevens, Ian Moss and the Choirboys, have sent tremors all the way to Sydney. Veteran music publicist Kerrie-Anne Pratt, who has worked with everyone from Bono to Annie Lennox and spent the past year setting up the festival, claims she is banned from attending. Banned: Veteran music publicist Kerrie-Anne Pratt. Credit:Helen Nezdropa I was warned if I turned up Jon Stevens would walk, Pratt told PS. Stevens manager denied any knowledge of this, while Pratts former boss, festival owner Gavin Hales initially said it was her decision not to attend, only to call PS back saying he no longer wanted to comment on the dispute. Pratts sudden departure followed a run-in with her fellow Lighthouse Rock promoter Michael Condon, after she apparently broke a cardinal sin in the music business and called heritage act Jon Stevens direct. Jon Stevens will take the stage at Lighthouse Rock today. Credit:James Alcock Condon cited sensitivities of the situation and declined to say more, while Pratt, a seasoned player says she only called Stevens to discuss publicity opportunities and he was totally fine. However, Stevens manager Tony Kopa told PS it was pretty unusual an event publicist would call talent direct rather than through a manager, which he relayed to Pratt and Condon. But to be honest, weve heard nothing more about it, Kopa said, who maintained he was unaware of Pratts diminished status at todays concert. STAR ATTACHED TO FREEDMAN PROJECT With a writers room busily toiling away on bringing media entrepreneur Mia Freedmans 2017 memoir Work Strife Balance to the small screen, PS can reveal a major star has already been lined up to play the lead role: Asher Keddie. Asher Keddie is set to star in the small screen production of Work Strife Balance. Credit:Melissa Cowan Keddie would make an interesting choice, given she has already played another Australian media maven, with her critically acclaimed performance as Ita Buttrose in the excellent Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo in 2011. Mia Freedman. Credit:Cybele Malinowski But the screen version of Work Strife Balance promises to be rather different to Keddies interpretation of steely, driven and thoroughly unflappable Buttrose. Rather inisiders say Freedmans book is the loose inspiration for Keddies character, who will not be called Mia in the final series but will share striking similarities. The series is being produced by Freedman along with good friend, A-list producer Bruna Papandreas production company Made Up Stories. Freedman, who recently revealed her ADHD diagnosis, has long used her foibles and mishaps of her imperfect life as fodder for her burgeoning media empire. Asher Keddie has said of her performance as Ita Buttrose in Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo as the biggest accomplishment in my work in 25 years. Credit:ABC One of the chapters in Work Strife Balance was written by Freedmans then 19-year-old son Luca, who described his mum as having no filter and recalls, by way of illustration, an incident in which he once confessed his first agonising crush to her, only to later discover shed written down their whole conversation, ready to use in a story. And Freedman herself has previously admitted to sharing too much about those whose lives become entangled with hers. But has she shared enough to entertain audiences? MAX MARKSON Getting Sydney spin doctor Max Markson spruiking his various reality TV has-been clients off the phone has been one of the great challenges for many journalists in this town, so when the king of tabloid scandals doesnt return your calls, something is clearly up. Celebrity publicist Max Markson. Credit:Ellis Parinder But Markson, who has represented everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the bikini artist formerly known as Lara Bingle, hosed down rumours - via email - swirling about his health, finally responding to questions two weeks after PS first approached him. Director Phil Noyce was a year 12 student from the sedate northern suburbs when he noticed a poster near the University of Sydney, where he was planning to study law, advertising underground movies. I had no idea what underground movies were, but I knew I wanted to go there, the director of Newsfront, Patriot Games and Rabbit-Proof Fence says from Los Angeles. For an 18-year-old in 1968, that was a siren calling. I had no idea what underground movies were but I knew I wanted to go there: Phil Noyce at a Sydney Filmmakers Co-op meeting in 1973. Credit:Matt Butler So Noyce, who is currently finishing work on the James Caan and Pierce Brosnan crime thriller Fast Charlie, went along to a screening of short films at what is now the Footbridge Theatre, including eight by Australian filmmakers. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the 9 November 2020, 11 January and 26 November 2021 agreements signed between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan lay the foundation for the normalization of all aspects of relations between Yerevan and Baku. Lavrov made the remarks during a meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Kazakhstan. Events in various directions are being held here. This enables to have contacts as part of international meetings around regional issues, including around the relations between our close friends Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the context of the agreements reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on 9 November of 2020, 11 January and 26 November of 2021. These statements signed on the high level lay the foundation for normalization of all aspects of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and establishment of peace and stability in South Caucasus, Lavrov said. Lavrov added that agreeing upon the peace treaty is a separate topic, in addition to the agreements on unblocking of economic and transport connections and implementing delimitation through the bilateral commission between Armenia and Azerbaijan with advisory support of Russia. Time passes quickly, developments are taking place quickly. Thats why I think today is a good occasion to talk about this topic and to see what we can report to our leaders regarding the implementation of the agreements they signed. I am sure that during this meeting we will be able to have a better understanding on how to move forward, the Russian FM said. But thats not why Im here at least, not today. As a marijuana user myself, Ive come to talk with Balderstone about why he loves the stuff, how it has shaped his life and whether therapeutic qualities aside he acknowledges any downsides after decades of daily use. On the morning I arrive, groups of these people symbolic of the drugs mainstream future are buying books about medicinal cannabis in the Embassy shop, downing hemp smoothies at the bar and chatting with Balderstones team of volunteers about their ailments, potential treatments and access to local cannabis providers. (The Embassy does not sell any drugs, advises its online mission statement. That trade is quite adequately catered for on the street. ) Many of these typically middle-class, law-abiding folk have been legally prescribed medicinal cannabis for a range of (TGA-approved) conditions, including pain, anxiety, depression and PTSD. But because of teething problems within the system, many medicinal users are still getting their pot from illicit sources. But after 2016, when Australia legalised medicinal cannabis (joining a global industry predicted to be worth about $75 billion by 2025), everything began to change. Not so much for Balderstone and other Nimbin denizens, but because it brought streams of medicinal-cannabis seekers to the only place in Australia where the prohibited drug has been openly available via street sellers since the Aquarius Festival in 1973. The biggest joint in the mural has been bestowed upon one-time stockbroker Michael Balderstone, president of both the Embassy and the Legalise Cannabis Australia party, former senate candidate and unofficial mayor of this little NSW Northern Rivers town, some 70 kilometres west of Byron Bay. On any given day, Balderstone, 74, can be found perched at the Hemp Bar tapping away at his iPad. For decades, most of his efforts involved campaigns to decriminalise marijuana and highlight the relentless war being waged against those who ignored its illegality. I n Nimbins famous HEMP Embassy, a ramshackle temple to the worlds most debated weed, the past and the future mingle uneasily. Attached to the Embassy is the Hemp Bar, a non-alcoholic hangout where the past or illicit cannabis is best represented by an old wall mural showing Nimbins pioneering hippie fathers and mothers (but mostly fathers) defiantly brandishing large joints against a backdrop of jungle-fringed mountains, flourishing dope crops and eternally hovering police helicopters. This seems to be true. Over the next few hours, Balderstone genially fields queries from volunteers about stock for the busy Embassy shop, the lease on the building, and the Legalise Cannabis Australia party. He also takes phone calls about The Hemp Hour, his weekly show on community radio, plans for coming themes and guest speakers at Embassy-run medicinal cannabis workshops, and a young woman who has just been arrested for something and needs his help. I explain that I dont smoke while working because its too distracting. Of course, Balderstone disagrees: I can work stoned, and there are lots of people around here who are stoned all day yet work like navvies. Balderstone rolls his first whopper of the day, I tell the recorder. My host shakes his head. We settle on a couple of wonky chairs in a sunny spot behind the Embassy, where the old campaigner in the woolly beanie gets busy making a hefty joint. At that moment, oddly enough, I notice Balderstone squinting into the sun, and that one of his bushy eyebrows has somehow tumbled down to cover his squinting eye. (All this, I swear, without touching the joint.) Does he want to move to get the sun out of his eyes? Balderstone bursts out laughing. Ive only got one eye, he says. It was [a childhood accident]. We try to distil what being stoned actually means for us. I settle for glad-heartedness; Balderstone offers richness, fullness a sense that as Aldous Huxley wrote of perception the veils have been lifted and Im seeing everything for the first time. There are heaps of bachelors around here who cant handle society and theyre living in their little shacks in the bush with their weed. And theyre happy. He stopped using cannabis several times over the years. I thought, Its a crutch! I dont need this, but always returned to the habit. Is it psychologically addictive? Yeah, probably but these days Im happy to tell people Im addicted to cannabis Its a friend, a comfort, a mate Do the kids of hippies tend to rebel and go straight? There is a bit of that, he concedes. None of my [now grown] kids will smoke dope, and they all went to university and got proper jobs, and theyre into money a bit. Between distractions, he describes his traumatic boyhood as the son of a god-fearing farmer who packed him off at age 10 to become a boarder at Scotch College, Melbourne; becoming a heavy drinker and self-important young stockbroker; being posted to London, then dropping out and hitting the hippie trail to Afghanistan, where he had his first cannabis experience with some hashish (I could see all this energy running up and down inside the orange trees! It blew my mind! ); and searching for years for the truth about God and the meaning of life in India and elsewhere, before buying a share in a commune near Nimbin and settling here with his then-girlfriend in the mid-1980s. Several partners and children later, Balderstone still occupies the same feral bush cottage on an isolated hillside. Recreational use is now legal in 19 US states. The fastest-growing user demographic: American seniors, with many abandoning prescription pharmaceuticals in favour of pots natural therapeutic qualities and diminished side effects Our joints never ache boasts one seniors website. (Cannabis contains hundreds of different compounds called cannabinoids. The therapeutic CBD compound, with no high effects, is widely used in medicinal products for the treatment of conditions including anxiety, depression, mental disorders and migraines. THC, short for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive cannabinoid that gets us stoned, but its also used medicinally for pain, insomnia, nausea and other conditions typically associated with advanced cancer. Cannabis plants can be genetically modified to produce high or low levels of both these compounds. Medical users can also ingest varying amounts of CBD and THC separately, using oils, sprays and other manufactured products.) Were interrupted by Dan (not his real name), a clean-cut young Embassy volunteer who needs to check something with the boss. Renowned for his skills in growing cannabis variations, Dan tells me he smokes every day and pretty much all day using strains high in CBD while working and switching formally to powerful THC varieties at night. Balderstone in downtown Nimbin: None of my [now grown] kids will smoke dope, and they all went to university and got proper jobs. Credit:Paul Harris Balderstone: No, no! [More laughing] The eyebrow did it all by itself! Jesus, Frank, I think this is the first time Ive been interviewed by a journo who admits to being a smoker. Its a lot more fun. A hundred years ago, he says, cannabis was in most medicine cabinets. So was opium and cocaine. Then, after [the prohibition of these substances in most Western countries], they brought in pharmaceuticals for pain, and synthetic textiles in place of hemp, and have fought like shit ever since to keep it that way. In 1993, artist Nigel Quinlan established the Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party, later running as a Senate candidate under the name Nigel Freemarijuana. Balderstone became the partys president. By then he was a vocal supporter of efforts to break the stranglehold on the pain-relief market held by Big Pharma. Feeling like an extra in the worlds busiest stoner movie, I await his return while browsing old newspaper clippings in the Embassy, which opened in 1992. Balderstone ran a junk shop and then a museum in a building across the street before helping to establish the Embassy as a non-profit association whose shop and bar helps fund its cannabis law-reform activities. Distracted yet again by the phone call telling him someones been arrested Balderstone dumps whats left of his joint on the ground and hurries off to the police station to help. For younger users, recreational pot growers in California are competing to produce knockout hybrids with almost 100 per cent THC. Balderstone isnt a fan: Id rather smoke local bush weed thats got the whole plant balance (of CBD and THC) because CBD is the anti-psychotic element, and skunk with massive THC just makes you into a couch potato. These days, more Australians support the legalisation of recreational pot than oppose it by 41 per cent to 37 per cent, according to the 2019 National Drug Household Survey. As things stand, the ACT is the only jurisdiction where the possession and growing of small amounts of marijuana for personal use has been decriminalised. Federally, the Greens plan to introduce a private members bill to legalise its use some time next year, helped along by recently released constitutional advice suggesting federal legislation could override existing state laws. In 2021, the HEMP Party changed its name to Legalise Cannabis Australia, and became the national body for independent Legalise Cannabis parties formed in 2020 in Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Western Australia. In the 2021 WA state election, LCWA won two seats in the Legislative Council. In this years federal election, the party drew between 2 and 7 per cent of the Senate vote in most states and territories. To widespread amazement, the LCA in Queensland outpolled high-profile right-wingers Clive Palmer and Campbell Newman and almost beat One Nations Pauline Hanson to the final Senate seat a jump of about 5 percentage points on the vote it received in 2019. The main reason for this, apart from changing perceptions of cannabis in the wake of the medicinal revolution, seems to be the LCAs choice of a conservative candidate in Noosa Heads lawyer, Bernie Bradley, who not only doesnt smoke dope but opposes aspects of his own partys legalisation goals. A few weeks before visiting Nimbin, I meet Bradley, 52, at the Noosa Yacht & Rowing Club, where he stores his trailer sailer and once served as commodore. He jokes about his choice of venue Yeah, the party wanted someone who didnt fit the public perception of a marijuana candidate! but admits his wife and parents werent thrilled by his decision to run. Yet, image aside, Bradley is a practical type whose job as a duty solicitor at Noosa Magistrates Court provides rare insights into the so-called war on drugs as it applies to cannabis. The lawyer says it was his long experience with poorer clients charged for things like growing small amounts of their own medicinal dope, or losing their drivers licences through roadside drug testing laws, that put him and the LCP on the same path. Lawyer and non-user Bernie Bradley is a Legalise Cannabis Australia candidate: If marijuana was to be legalised, Id like to see the legal age set at 21. Credit:Paul Harris Because the THC in cannabis is fat-soluble, it can remain in saliva for days after the user has stopped being affected. As a result, six years after medicinal cannabis was legalised, roadside tests or lick sticks continue to catch out patients who use medicinal cannabis and whose low-THC formulas still show up in the tests. The drug-test laws, which vary from state to state, were introduced years before the advent of medicinal cannabis to deal with the danger of truck drivers using amphetamines to stay awake. According to former NSW magistrate David Heilpern, who resigned over the issue in 2020, the medicinal cannabis industry wont be financially viable until the absurd laws are reformed. The levels of detection for cannabis are so low five nanograms, or 5000-millionths of a gram that people were appearing before me regularly, saying, Im just taking my medication; heres my prescription and doctors instructions, or saying they hadnt used cannabis for, in many cases, days before their tests, Heilpern tells Good Weekend. So I was forced to take away their licences for something that was clearly a hangover from [pre-medicinal cannabis] days I saw it as something that had nothing to do with road safety and everything to do with prohibition. It was ill-affecting many peoples lives and I just couldnt stomach it any longer. In my view, this is part of an ideological and [selective] drug war with western Sydney and northern NSW being targeted as the main areas for this offending. Now back in private practice, the former Lismore magistrate is campaigning for the laws to be changed in line with those in Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and most of the US. In those jurisdictions, holders of medicinal cannabis prescriptions whose driving isnt impaired have an automatic defence against the charge of driving with a detectable level of drug in their systems. That is [already] the law in NSW with respect to [synthetic opioids, benzodiazepines and sedating antidepressant drugs], notes Heilpern. In my view, this is part of an ideological and [selective] drug war with western Sydney and northern NSW being targeted as the main areas for this offending. A NSW Legislative Council inquiry is examining a bill from Greens member Cate Faehrmann calling for changes to road laws to enable a medicinal cannabis exemption. Queensland is also reviewing its drug-testing legislation. David Heilpern resigned from his NSW magistrate position over absurd roadside drug-testing laws that punish medicinal cannabis users. Credit:Paul Harris Bernie Bradley tells of clients so devastated by losing their licences, and subsequently their jobs and homes, that theyve had suicidal thoughts. He estimates that at any given fortnightly session in the Noosa court, 20 per cent of his cases involve clients apprehended in roadside tests, a deeming offence that leads automatically to loss of licence, with no legal challenge available. But cant lawyers argue that the tests dont reliably show whether the detected THC is too old to have any effect on the drivers abilities behind the wheel? Bradley offers a grim laugh: Weve tried that, of course. Ive had clients whove gone off the record to swear to me they hadnt used cannabis for many hours, even days, before testing positive, but the magistrates wont hear of it. Apart from ending drug-driving inequities, LCA wants a regulated cannabis market with legal recognition for small producers and home-growers, and more accessibility to the drug for medicinal users. But not all aspects of his partys support for recreational pot sit well with Bradley. He doesnt like the prospect of it being legally available to 18-year-olds, arguing like some GPs that not enough is known about the possible adverse effects of long-time use: Im not talking about occasional use at a party, but of young people being chronic users all day long. And with many year 12 students being 18 well, do we really want a law that permits kids [doing final exams] to go to school with marijuana in their school bags? Yet they can drink alcohol at 18? Well, the horse has bolted on that My party colleagues dont agree with my personal stance on this, but if marijuana was to be legalised, Id like to see the legal age set at 21. Loading Bradley caused an uproar within the party when he argued this on social media during the federal election. (Everyone attacked him, and he retreated in haste, saying, Youre all f...wits! explains party president Balderstone. Ive never met Bernie, but I told him by phone that although I disagreed with him on this, I supported him having the freedom to have his own view. ) For adult users, Bradley praises marijuana as a non-violent drug: In 30 years doing criminal law I havent come across a single case of domestic violence, or indeed violence, where the only drug involved was cannabis Asked by another reporter to interpret his partys high vote, Bradley said, It tells us that, far from being a fringe issue, there are many discreet cannabis users who are law-abiding, responsible citizens who should not have to fear the long arm of the law intruding into their lives. Chronic users (all day, every day) tend to be forgetful, disorganised and unmotivated, just like abusers of legal drugs. In the 1980s, during a marijuana shortage in my area, a friend helpfully hollowed out a Biggles book, inserted a bag of his finest home-grown and sent it winging my way via a courier service. It was sniffed out by a brace of meddlesome beagles in a holding warehouse, then resealed and delivered to my door by three cops wearing the couriers uniforms. Five minutes later, as I was nervously examining the torn packaging, the cops returned dressed as cops. Busted! The police were polite, even a little apologetic We dont make the laws, sir and I accepted the ensuing fine, and conviction for possession of a dangerous substance, as the consequences of my foolishness. But what did the world gain from this comical intrusion into one otherwise law-abiding dope smokers life? Did I see the error of my ways and stop using cannabis? Nope. By then Id been an unrepentant user for years, and it had become my end-of-day stimulant of choice. Unlike booze, which Id seen destroying the bodies and minds of colleagues who shared my addictive traits, cannabis was something I could control. It offered a few hours of fun and relaxation per joint, without hangovers, and, like Bradley, Ive never seen it cause the sort of ugly behaviour exhibited by some drinkers. Im not a medicinal user, but from personal experience I know it banishes headaches, stops nausea and stimulates appetites especially for sweet things, a side-effect known as The Munchies. Cannabis remains the worlds most widely used illicit drug, with roughly 200 million users worldwide aged 15 to 64. Credit:Paul Harris Being illegal, and thus inevitably part of an industry controlled globally by criminal tiers, from small-time dealers to murderous cartels, it has become ridiculously expensive: about $350 for 28 grams, or one ounce, on todays black market. Its also hell on respiratory systems (unless used in edible form) and can be socially isolating, due both to its effects and its illegality. Chronic users (all day, every day) tend to be forgetful, disorganised and unmotivated, just like abusers of legal drugs. Pot doesnt suit everyone: some first-timers spin out or get paranoid and understandably never touch it again. Its also believed to be associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia in adolescents but because adolescence is when people in general develop the disorder (as well as experiment with cannabis and other drugs), prolonged research has yet to establish whether cannabis actually causes them to develop schizophrenia. Pot doesnt suit everyone: some first-timers spin out or get paranoid and understandably never touch it again. Risks aside, it remains the worlds most widely used illicit drug. Roughly 200 million people, aged 15 to 64 (or 4 per cent of the global population), reported using it at least once in 2019 with Australians and Kiwis exceeding the global user average by a whopping 8 per cent. The 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey showed also that recreational marijuana users had the highest reported prevalence of lifetime and recent consumption, compared with users of other illicit drugs. These figures havent diminished Australias war against weed. In fact, as public and expert opinion in favour of legislation rises, so do law-enforcement busts, with 51 per cent of all national drug seizures in 2019-20 being for cannabis. (The number of seizures rose from 50,073 in 2010-11 to a record-breaking 62,454 in 2019-20.) Of course, this is nothing new. Cannabis use by humans (for fibre, rope, medicine, food and its psychoactive properties) is believed to have begun as early as 10,000BC, with periodic prohibitions occurring in various parts of the world since the Middle Ages. The recent history of prohibition in the US (and subsequently in most Western countries) shows how facts and scientific opinion were consistently ignored in favour of fearmongering and racist propaganda. The man who almost single-handedly brought about the ban was US Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Anslinger, known as the godfather of prohibition. In Chasing the Scream, his acclaimed 2015 bestseller about the nature of addiction, British author Johann Hari describes how Anslinger began a long media campaign to demonise marijuana only a short time after rejecting claims of it causing violent crime as an absurd fallacy. His about-face came when he realised that pot could be used to play into public fears about Mexican immigrants and African Americans, who used the drug more than white people. Loading The politically well-connected Anslinger drafted the Marijuana Tax Act, which became law in 1937 effectively taxing cannabis (until then widely used as a medicine in the US) out of existence. By that stage, various US states had already prohibited the plant. In Australia, where the regulation of drugs is spread across federal, state and territory laws, two jurisdictions (Victoria and NSW) had earlier bowed to the 1925 Geneva Protocol a US-initiated international treaty banning the recreational use of opium and the coca plant, with marijuana controversially included at the last moment. Australia initially resisted the inclusion of cannabis, saying opium was the only drug of concern. But after Anslingers marijuana tax became law, the US brought more pressure to bear on Canberra. Australias then external affairs minister, Robert Menzies, responded by formally agreeing to the inclusion of cannabis in the Geneva Protocols prohibition meaning states and territories that hadnt already banned it had to do so. Australian newspapers took up Anslingers scare stories about the Mexican drug that induced madness, and Reefer Madness a 1936 church-funded propaganda film about the burning weed with its roots in hell helped to spread the fear. By the late 1960s, even cannabis medicines (previously available in Australia by prescription or across the counter) had been prohibited. The left tend to see [legalisation] as a human rights issue, and the right see it as an economic opportunity. Like a stubborn fog, Anslingers misinformation campaign cloaked the facts for decades. But by the turn of the century, due mainly to scientific discoveries involving how cannabinoids interact with similar molecules called endocannabinoids within the human body, the staggering potential of the worldwide medicinal market was emerging. Predictably enough, Big Pharma along with tobacco and alcohol multinationals has been buying into the medicinal gold rush ever since. The hypocrisy is outrageous, says Balderstone. Theyve even managed to make it so you can only buy it through a doctor, grown in a laboratory by someone with a white coat! And with savage dogs and cameras all around, because its such a dangerous substance! The contempt runs both ways. Within Australias burgeoning medicinal cannabis industry, hippie dickheads as one businessman calls them are seen as a threat to ongoing efforts to convince doctors and politicians who remain sceptical that correctly prepared marijuana is a proper medicine. Not long ago, at an Australian Medicinal Cannabis industry symposium, the CEO of a large, ASX-listed cannabis production company told journalist and publisher Martin Lane, Im really pleased no one is smoking weed, and that the Nimbin crowd arent here its all very professional and medicinal. But he spoke too soon, Lane tells me, because moments later, this waft of weed smoke came through the room and I was like, I dunno about you, but Im getting as high as a kite! Soon afterwards, Lane co-founder of Cannabiz, a media platform serving what he assiduously calls the legal cannabis industry went to a Hemp Health & Innovation Expo in Sydney, where he mixed with an entirely different crowd: It was mostly HEMP Embassy folk, people selling bongs and that sorta thing. Welcome to the Brave New World of duelling pot promoters, where one persons soothing soma is anothers ticket to corporate success. (Some theories have it that the calming soma in Aldous Huxleys famous novel was marijuana.) For Lane, who also co-founded the trade and media platform Mumbrella, both sides of the illicit/legal dope debate are grist for the Cannabiz information mill. A mix of medicinal marijuana cultivators/manufacturers, doctors, media outlets, healthcare professionals and ASX-listed companies subscribe to Cannabiz, which was launched in 2020. Cann Group chief executive Peter Crock. The manufacturer was the first company to receive cannabis production and research licences from the federal Office of Drug Control (ODC) in 2017. Among them is the Cann Group, one of more than 50 medical marijuana cultivators/manufacturers now operating throughout Australia. With three farms in Victoria, Cann was the first company to receive cannabis production and research licences from the federal Office of Drug Control (ODC) in 2017. Large facilities like Canns, which manufacture scores of different medicinal cannabis products on-site, cost a lot of millions to develop, license and operate. Yet the potential returns are such that would-be participants are lining up for the long and complex process of acquiring ODC permits. Mirroring elements of Australias natural gas dilemma, most of the medicinal pot produced here so far is being exported to Germanys lucrative market, while Australian users have to pay a premium for prepared medicinal products imported mostly from Canada. The majority of people using medicinal cannabis here still get it from the illegal market, says Lane. (Hence their pilgrimages to Nimbin, or online purchasing from various other sources of illicit marijuana now propping up the legal industry.) Lane believes recreational pot will be legal in Australia, or at least in another state or two, within five years. If youd asked me six months ago, Id have said five to 10 years. The factors that changed his mind include the unprecedented voter support for the LCA party, the balance of power in the Senate going to the pro-legalisation Greens, and increasing bipartisan agreement on the issue: The left tend to see [legalisation] as a human rights issue, and the right see it as an economic opportunity. Declaring the working day over, I vape a little Kush THC resin and for the rest of the evening we interrupt one anothers penetrating insights while dissecting the meaning of life. At Balderstones bush cottage, where I spend a night, a long-abandoned swing set peeps from the undergrowth, and the textbooks he used to home-school his kids still gather dust in a vacant room. With a vegie stew simmering, Balderstone and his partner, Caroline Todd, invite me to join them at the kitchen table, where an array of locally produced medicinal cannabis awaits inspection. Declaring the working day over, I vape a little Kush THC resin (Use for pain, sleep, appetite and joy) and for the rest of the evening we interrupt one anothers penetrating insights at key moments while dissecting the meaning of life. Balderstone produces a copy of a Good Weekend Two of Us column published in 2001 about him and his younger brother Simon, a former journalist who, among other things, scaled Mt Everest, was an adviser to two Labor PMs and a SOCOG executive, and now runs his own events consultancy in Sydney. Loading The brothers speak fondly of one another in the piece, but it ends with what sounds like a bit of a backhander from Simon: Mike is one of those people who could have done anything. He has certainly been something. Me: Does he mean you could have done anything if you werent sitting around smoking weed? Balderstone laughs. He means I could have been really successful. But what is success? For most people, it boils down to how much money youve made I confess to my own qualms over whether I might have produced a brace of bestsellers over the years if my spare time had involved less dope-smoking. Balderstone: Possibly, but what is the purpose of life? When youre happy the purpose is self-evident and you dont question it any more. And if that means getting stoned every night, instead of writing five books in angst, I reckon its okay. Because the rest is an ego trip, really. I mean, were all gonna be dead soon, and everyone will f...ing forget us! The possession, use, supply and unlicensed cultivation of cannabis is illegal in most Australian states and territories. Penalties vary between each state and territory. More information about the health effects of cannabis use can be found at the Alcohol and Drug Foundation and drug counselling websites. To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times. A man has been arrested after police raided a house in Sydneys west that detectives say was involved in the manufacture and supply of cocaine. Investigators executed two search warrants, at properties in Toongabbie and Carlingford, about 2pm on Thursday as part of an investigation into an alleged drug syndicate. During raids, police allegedly found more than nine kilograms of cocaine. Credit:NSW Police During the raids, police allegedly found more than nine kilograms of cocaine, more than $360,000 in cash, a semi-automatic pistol and equipment and chemicals consistent with the manufacture and supply of prohibited drugs. A 27-year-old man was arrested at the Toongabbie address and taken to Merrylands police station. A man who admitted murdering a woman whose body was found in a western Sydney park, will spend at least 13 years behind bars, a court has heard. Chulsoo Jung, 56, pleaded guilty in February to murdering Min Sook Moon, 49, whose family reported her missing in March 2021 after falling out of contact. Min Sook Moons killer has been jailed for 18 years with a non-parole period of 13 years and six months. Credit:NSW Police Moon was last seen walking along Rawson Street in Epping on March 8 last year and her body was found in a Silverwater park later that month. On Friday, Jung faced the NSW Supreme Court where Justice Ian Harrison sentenced him to 18 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 13 years and six months. Older people can remember 1946, when bridges across south-west Victoria were swept away, five members of a single family drowned near Macarthur when their horse-drawn cart toppled off a flooded track and every fencepost that wasnt altogether underwater had a tiger snake curled at the top. Fewer can recall the catastrophic flood of 1934. More than 140 millimetres of rain fell over two days in Melbourne, and more than double that in Gippsland. From Warburton to Melbourne the Yarra has become a series of vast lakes connected by swirling rapids, The Argus reported on December 3, 1934. Thirty-six people died, and many thousands of people were left homeless. On Thursday, householders along the valley of Melbournes other significant river, the winding Maribyrnong, went to sleep on Thursday evening content that their homes were safe. Many of them were to learn that when the sky opens up over a rivers higher catchments, safety is not a reliable word downstream. But to have imagined the extent of what peril might occur they would need to have consulted the record of 1906, when Footscray and Kensington were hit by a flood that measured 5.18 metres on the Maribyrnong gauge. Flooded streets in Melbournes west after the banks of the Maribyrnong River burst. Credit:Chris Hopkins The course of the Yarra has been altered over the years to spill its waters more readily into the sea and to reduce the risk of flooding. By Friday afternoon, however, even residents along the Yarra from the high reaches of the Yarra Ranges to suburbs like Kew and Balwyn and Abbotsford were being warned to keep a close watch on their rivers rising waters. Those living north already knew all about the meaning of emergency. By midday Thursday at Echuca, where the swollen Goulburn and Campaspe rivers spill into the Murray itself running hard and wide, its giant feeder dams upstream overflowing residents were told to boil their water because stormwater had overflowed into their drinking water storage. Loading It was an inconvenience rather than the tribulation engulfing other towns on Victorias river systems, where hundreds in places like Seymour and Rochester were being rendered homeless and some towns such as Benalla were split clean in two by rising waters. Back in Melbourne, where the Melbourne Cup carnival is scheduled to begin with the Victorian Derby on October 29 just 14 days away a 3.5-kilometre flood mitigation wall built early this century to protect Flemington Racecourse managed to hold back the encroaching waters spilling over the banks of the Maribyrnong. However, a popular feeder event to the carnival, the Avoca Cup in western Victoria, scheduled for Saturday, was abandoned because of flooding. An anxious Racing Victoria announced it will continue to monitor forecasts and its potential impact on scheduled race meetings, with significant rainfall predicted in parts of Victoria. Truth is, the weather gods began setting up Victoria for its current flooding disaster months ago. The state was delivered rainfall 12 per cent above the average from January to September. And then, during September itself, some areas of the state, from Manangatang in the far north-west to Lake Eppalock near Bendigo in central Victoria, experienced the highest rainfalls ever recorded for the month, according to the bureau. Several other districts, in a sweep from Kyabram in the north-central down through Elmore, north of Bendigo, Redesdale east of Maryborough and Blackwood near Ballarat, copped their biggest September rains for 20 years. Minor to moderate flooding was recorded during September in numerous catchments through northern and central areas. Late in the month, the states biggest water storage, the Dartmouth Dam, full to the brim with snow melt and high country inflow, began spilling over its wall for the first time since 1996. Most of Victoria also experienced below-average temperatures over September. High rainfall meant the soil became sodden, unable to absorb further rainfall. The cool weather denied the land the relief of evaporation. And, of course, it happened to be Australias third La Nina year in a row. Loading Could La Nina yet reprise the catastrophe it delivered in early 2011? That event, weather watchers would recall, was the culmination of a two-stage shock that began in September the previous year. The disaster of January 2011 across western and central Victoria occurred on land already saturated by widespread flooding in September 2010. It inundated more than 1730 properties in 51 communities, forced the closure of hundreds of roads, destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of crops and pasture and killed thousands of sheep. A resident of Murchison for the past 10 years, Leay had never experienced a flood there. He said the water rose frighteningly quickly. His two horses were still stranded. Victoria is not yet under a state of disaster, but Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said a declaration would continue to be explored over coming days. Troy Leay, a resident in Murchison, and his two dogs were evacuated from the flood. Credit:Eddie Jim On Friday evening, the government said it would reopen the Mickleham quarantine facility for people who needed crisis accommodation. Work has begun on preparations to reopen the site for use early next week. The facility will reopen with capacity of 250 places for six to eight weeks, however actual use will depend on the emergency response and accommodation demand, a spokesman said. SES chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch said 5600 properties could be flooded by Tuesday. He said the state was looking at up to eight weeks of rain, which would exacerbate already sodden conditions. Premier Daniel Andrews has written to Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, ANZ, Westpac, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to ask if they can provide some relief to people in flood zones by deferring mortgage repayments or by other measures available to them. We anticipate this situation will continue for many weeks as we see extended rainfall in already saturated catchments. Emergency Management Victoria said late on Friday that major flooding was expected at Echuca and Moama late next week, with water levels higher than the 2016 flood and similar to or greater than the 1993 flood. The Murray River at Echuca Wharf is likely to hit the major flood level of 94.4 metres AHD mid to late next week, it said, and may top 95 metres AHD between October 21 and 24. Loading The SES had received almost 1600 calls for assistance in the 24 hours to 5.30pm on Friday. A Victoria Police spokesman said a man was rescued at Newbridge near Bendigo after ignoring a roadblock and driving his Toyota Landcruiser into floodwaters at 10.45am. He was found clinging to a tree branch about half an hour after he was reported missing. Two others were rescued in Maude, near Geelong, after their truck became stranded in floodwater as they attempted to cross the Moorabool River. The pair, both in their 60s, were winched from their vehicle by the police helicopter. Victorian emergency services sent out almost 37,000 text messages to residents in flood-affected areas across the state overnight as water catchments surged. More than 200 arterial roads are closed. About 2100 homes were without power on Friday evening. Water levels in Seymour had broken the May 1974 record of 7.64 metres early on Friday morning. Deep potholes have formed on the Hume Freeway near Seymour, where the flooded Goulburn River threatened the town. Victorian floods by the numbers 1572 calls to the SES over 24 hours to 5.40pm Friday 234 SES rescues due to floodwaters since Thursday 2161 homes without power as of 4.30pm Friday. At least 500 homes already flooded 500 properties isolated due to floodwaters 5600 properties could be flooded by Tuesday Werribee River peak of 5.24m at 12.12pm, Friday Goulburn River at Seymour peaked at 8.26m at 3am Friday On Friday morning, a boat plucked Joy Day, 82, and her family out of her flooded house, her cat unceremoniously stuffed in a bag. Day was told her two-storey house, which was spared inundation in the 1974 floods, would be OK after they sandbagged all the entrances. And then: We got about two feet of water in 10 minutes. As soon as I heard the water, I could see it. It came up through the floor. And then it just went wherever there was a gap. We had sandbagged everywhere, she said. Day is not sure how much damage her house suffered. I dont know its very muddy, the water. The centre of Seymour on Friday morning. Credit:Jason South Daniel Foley was one of several people living in Ace Caravan Park, right next to the banks of the Goulburn River at Seymours lowest point. He was evacuated by boat as an aluminum cabin from the campground floated downstream into the town centre. Police later told him the water had reached the top of his caravan. The guys who do live there, Im not the only one, everyone has lost everything. Its all gone, he said. Foley said he, like many, was not insured. The Goulburn River peaked at a record 8.26 metres in Seymour about 3am on Friday. It is expected to remain above major flood level for the next few days. Weather bureau duty forecaster Ilana Cherny said more rainfall was expected in parts of northern Victoria from mid-next week. However theres a lot of uncertainty around that and at this stage it does not look like it will be as intense as we saw over the last few days, Cherny said. Early on Friday, John Muscovich was optimistic his shop in Seymour had survived the flooding. By mid-afternoon that optimism was gone. Legs covered in mud after a kayak tour, he confirmed the shop was just a giant mess. Carolyn Bohm takes to a kayak on Oakland Street, Maribyrnong. Credit:Chris Hopkins In Maribyrnong, where the river peaked at 4.22 metres at midday, many families went to sleep on Thursday not expecting things to escalate. Oakland Street resident Carolyn Bohm said the first time she had an inkling her newly renovated home would be flooded was when she saw text messages from authorities at 6am on Friday. But she said warnings didnt suggest her house would be one of the affected properties. By 7am, the water was lapping up her driveway. I started to pack up some clothes for me and the kids toothbrushes, she said. We just tried to lift as much as we could off the ground. Its gut-wrenching, horrible. Bohm said she was disappointed with the lack of warning. There was a lot of rain last night, but we thought everything was fine. We werent too concerned, she said. We just had to make our own judgment call on what we should do very quickly. Authorities said the Bureau of Meteorology issued a major flood warning for Maribyrnong about 2am and an evacuation warning at 5.30am. Loading Joe Cymbalista, who was knee-deep in water trying to protect his daughters home, said there was a mad scramble to save what they could. SES volunteers are among residents unhappy with the level of warning provided to locals. Jen, who asked for her surname not to be used, said she felt let down. I didnt get an alert until after 6 this morning, she said. I didnt take as much stuff as I would have ... It hasnt sunk in yet. Another volunteer, who also did not want to be named, said not enough homes near the river were door-knocked and many residents missed the evacuation text messages because they were sleeping. Premier Daniel Andrews said it would take some time to determine when residents in evacuation areas could return home. Joe Cymbalista in his daughters flooded house in Oakland Street, Maribyrnong. Credit:Chris Hopkins He said 1500 Victorians had applied for emergency payments via the state governments website by midday Friday. The government was also working with the Commonwealth to ensure the Mickleham quarantine facility would be ready to reopen if needed. Weve got 500 homes where theyve got water over the floorboards and also another 500 that are cut off. That number will definitely grow, Andrews said. Local federal MP Bill Shorten said the focus in the next 24 to 48 hours would shift to the recovery, as residents deal with damaged homes and lost belongings. Craig Sherwood and Craig Watts return after taking hay to cattle stranded on a small patch of high ground in Seymour. Credit:Jason South Its going to be a very difficult recovery time for the residents, Shorten said. The Victoria Racing Club came under fire from angry Maribyrnong residents concerned about the impact of the flood wall built at Flemington Racecourse in 2007. Maribyrnong and Moonee Valley councils warned the state government before its approval that building the wall could cause nearby houses to be flooded. On Friday, a tweet by former VRC chief executive and chairman of Harness Racing Victoria, Dale Monteith, praising the wall drew the ire of residents. Ah yeah as a resident of the area its so fantastic that the racecourse is fine while all the local roads are under a metre of water, one user responded. The VRC declined to comment. The Lake Eildon spillway gates open for flood operations for the first time since 1996. Credit:@GMWater/Twitter Elsewhere in Melbourne, top kayakers Anton King, Triston Speed and Aiden OCallaghan were out at Darebin Creek, which was transformed from a benign water course to a raging torrent. Dog-walkers and locals meandered along Merri Creek in Melbournes inner north, taking photos of the gushing water, which had exceeded its banks and swallowed parts of the walking trail. Loading The northern suburb of Heidelberg was expected to see flooding on Friday afternoon. In Werribee, west of Melbourne, an evacuation order was issued then downgraded to a major flood warning. Water was expected to peak at 6pm, potentially threatening 70 properties and a shopping centre on Cottrell Street. By 3pm, the Werribee River had broken its banks along Wyndham Park, leaving paths, signs and steps on the nature reserve underwater. Resident Andrew Phillips was prepared in case he needed to evacuate his home. Weve got two hours from when they open Melton weir until it floods here, he said. So its not long. In Rochester, south of Echuca in the states north, police and the SES were evacuating people by boat at 6pm as water levels continued to rise. Hundreds of houses had already been inundated by floodwaters. SES volunteers responded to dozens of calls for help overnight, but unit volunteer Judith Gledhill said that members could only attend traffic accidents and fallen trees if road access was possible. We are not able to respond to calls for flooding because, unfortunately, our town is now going under, Gledhill said. Many roads were now blocked in Rochester and more would be shut. Bruce Kilpatrick was among those who decided to stay in the town. By early morning, he found floodwater lapping at this front porch. Were going to stay but if it hits the floorboards, then were going, he said. Weve lifted everything up. Weve been preparing for a week now. The weather bureaus Diana Eadie said while the rain had largely eased across Victoria, the flood situation was still very much evolving. Flooding is expected in Shepparton and Mooroopna late on Saturday morning as the rainfall on the swollen Goulburn River moves downstream. This could affect more than 4000 properties between Saturday and Tuesday. Charlton, west of Rochester, was expecting major flooding from Friday night, peaking on Saturday afternoon. Forty properties are expected to be inundated. Major flooding is also expected in Murchison on Friday night, peaking late Saturday night. Loading The Lake Eildon spillway gates opened for flood operations for the first time since October 1996. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there were already Australian Defence Force personnel on the ground and the federal government stands ready to provide support and assistance. This is a difficult time, he said. My heart goes out to those communities who are affected. With Benjamin Preiss, Aisha Dow, Lachlan Abbott, Marta Pascual Juanola, Rachel Eddie, Miki Perkins, Josh Gordon, Rachael Dexter and Robyn Grace Im not a monster, Id never do something like that, Higgins said. I cared about my job, but I would never do that. On her final day giving evidence in the ACT Supreme Court trial, the former Liberal staffer also denied fabricating the allegation that her colleague had sexually assaulted her in former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds office in Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019, to keep her job. Brittany Higgins turned to Bruce Lehrmann from the witness box, telling her alleged rapist nothing was fine after what you did to me, nothing. Under cross-examination by Lehrmanns barrister, Steven Whybrow, Higgins rejected his suggestion that she had taken her own dress off after arriving at the office with Lehrmann before passing out. Mr Lehrmann did not sexually assault you, Whybrow said, to which Higgins replied, I obviously dont agree. He raped me. He was in there, he was physically violating me. He was in my body, I know. Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent and alleges he never went into Reynolds office after the pair entered the suite during that time. Higgins also alleged the systemic culture of abuse in parliament she has previously spoken out about continues to be rife. Higgins, who was given several breaks on Friday, was challenged on various aspects of her testimony with the use of evidence given by witnesses this week when she was unavailable. The Albanese government wants Australia to urgently begin manufacturing its own missiles, saying the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the need for supplies to be available swiftly and not dependent on imports. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the government was working on a plan with defence companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to develop a sovereign missile manufacturing industry. Australia currently imports almost all its missiles from overseas. Credit:US Department of Defence Australia currently imports its missiles from overseas, mostly from the United States. The lessons from the Ukraine war are that we use missile stocks [and] particularly guided weapons very fast in a conflict, Conroy said. The drenching of Victoria over the past few days has added to a year when the weather gods have rarely been restful. From Asia to Europe and Africa to North America, much of the world has been disrupted by record-breaking droughts, hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires and floods. It has caused enormous loss of life and economic damage. Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt is right to declare that Australia must have a national discussion about reducing risks to lives and property from increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters. In March and June this year, the deluge in the Northern Rivers and western Sydney damaged more than 14,000 properties and destroyed 5303 houses. Nine lives were lost. The floods caused $500 million of agricultural losses and $2.7 billion of damage to infrastructure. Queenslands damage bill also exceeded more than $2 billion. With several towns in regional Victoria underwater, and extensive flooding along the Maribyrnong river in Melbournes west, it will be some time before the full cost is calculated of this weeks weather let alone the wet summer ahead. At some point, we are going to have to accept that just cleaning up and rebuilding after each disaster, whether it be floods or fire, is only setting the nation up for more tragedy down the track. As long-awaited new laws to overhaul the states stamp duty regime were introduced to NSW Parliament this week, the states Treasurer was quick to point out that this reform was not his. This is a signature piece of legislation for the Premier, Matt Kean told parliament as he introduced the property tax bill on behalf of his boss, Dominic Perrottet. The Premier has led the way to deliver an innovative and exciting policy that puts power back in the hands of first home buyers across the state. Above all else, his policy is about choice. Stamp duty reform is, without doubt, Perrottets baby. Treasurer Matt Kean made it clear that stamp duty reform is Premier Dominic Perrottets baby. Credit:Peter Rae Perrottet has desperately wanted to overhaul stamp duty the hugely lucrative tax which generated more revenue for NSW in 2021-22 than payroll tax since his time as treasurer under former Premier Gladys Berejiklian. He has told colleagues that he could leave politics fulfilled if it was the single piece of reform he achieved. But more pressing issues facing the state drought, bushfires and the pandemic sidelined his plans. That is, until he took over the top job a year ago this month. Kean, Perrottets successor as treasurer, used his first budget in June to focus on boosting womens workforce participation, including a major intervention into childcare. In exchange, Perrottet was given the space to push ahead with his stamp duty reform. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan calls the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Astana a good opportunity to talk and try to find a solution to the issue on settling the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. As you have noticed, it's a good opportunity to use our meetings in international platforms to talk and try to find a solution to the issue of settling the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in all terms, as well as around the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement issue based on the trilateral statements of our leaders, the FM said in his remarks during the meeting. High-rise city buildings can often be relatively steely in their materials and street presence. Many of these structures might be attractive to the corporate world but often create a chilly sense for visitors. However, that is certainly not the case with 60 Castlereagh Street, near Sydneys Martin Place, where there is a real sense of welcoming inside its new glazed front doors. The atrium at 60 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. Originally built in the early 2000s in a relatively nondescript style, the two foyer areas (one fronting Castlereagh Street and the other Elizabeth Street) have been cleverly reworked by Aeta Studio for its client, Australian Real Estate Investment Trust Dexus. Home to Paribas, Australias oldest French bank, which has been at the address since the building was constructed, now presents as a considerably less corporate entity. Kyiv/Kupiansk: Evacuees from Ukraines southern Kherson region were expected to begin arriving in Russia on Friday after a Moscow-installed official suggested residents should leave for safety, a sign of Moscows weakening hold on territory it claims to have annexed. We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if they wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes ... go to other regions, Russian-installed Kherson administration chief Vladimir Saldo said in a video message. People should leave with their children. A Ukrainian serviceman checks the trenches dug by Russian soldiers in a retaken area in Kherson region. Credit:AP The offer applied foremost to residents on the west bank of the Dnipro River, he said. That includes the regional capital, the only major Ukrainian city Russia has captured intact since invading in February. The first civilians fleeing from Kherson were due to arrive in Russias Rostov region on Friday, TASS news agency reported. PHILIPSBURG:--- The suspended statutory director of NV GEBE Merril Temmer has dispatched a lawyers letter to the Supervisory Board of Directors, and Shareholder representatives demanding that he be reinstated since he was not responsible for the ransomware attack of March 16th, 2022. Represented by Berman Keuning the letter that was sent on Wednesday states that Temmer had limited power when he was appointed Temporary Manager and his only assignments were to deal with urgent matters. The letter went on to state that even though Temmer was the IT manager for a number of years he is not responsible for the state of affairs of GEBE IT department because he as manager sounded the alarm several times, which he said can be proven by the various reports he wrote over the years. The attorneys representing Temmer attacked the legality of the two-member Supervisory Board of Directors and even stated that the Shareholder was responsible for appointing an incompetent Supervisory Board. Berman and Keuning also rejected the claims by the Prosecutors office saying that NV GEBE did not cooperate with the investigation launched by KPSM and the prosecutor's Office, they claimed that Temmer cooperated with law enforcement as best as possible. The law firm in its letter said that the shareholder has a responsibility to defend the statutory director and the company instead of ordering an illegal investigation. The letter further stated that if government had doubts or questions about the role the statutory director played during the hack then the shareholder should have ordered the prosecutor's office to conduct an inquiry. The law firm further concluded that Troy Washington was illegally appointed as he as the statutory director had annulled the appointment of Troy Washington as such they are calling on the Supervisory Board of Directors and the Shareholder to reinstate Merril Temmer as the Chief Operations Officer or face court litigations. Click here to read the letter sent by Merril Temmer. Click here for English Version. ~GEBE has $29M in liquidity, investigation ongoing.~ PHILIPSBURG:--- The continuation of the meeting called by parliament on Friday did not bear much fruit when it comes to answers to critical questions posed by various members of parliament. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said she requested more time, but she did show up when parliament calls despite not having all the answers to the questions that were posed. Jacobs informed the parliament of St. Maarten that the special representative and Temporary Manager Troy Washington and his teams are working diligently on finalizing their reports on the investigation and assessment of NV GEBE. Jacobs said that NV GEBE paid over $5.000.00 to Fast Data Recovery for the decryption of the data related to payroll. She said while the company also decrypted other data the only usable data was the payroll data. Jacobs said that no data from the SAP system was recovered Besides that, NV GEBE paid Aurora InfoTech to conduct an assessment post the cyberattack on March 16th, 2022. Jacobs indicated that the now Temporary Manager Troy Washington is in contact with the Prosecutors Office and KPSM as they continue with the Freya investigation. As for the financial stability of the company, Jacobs said that the company now has $29M as its liquidity, which she said is just under the threshold of the $30M that the company normally has on its accounts. Appointment of Shareholder representatives. PFP leader Mellissa Gumbs asked the Prime Minister what exactly changed because the Minister of VROMI was the one who would report to parliament on matters related to NV GEBE, she asked the Prime Minister to tell parliament why she is the one now reporting to parliament as the shareholder representative of NV GEBE. Questions were also asked why the Minister was and VROMI Egbert Jurendy Doran and the Minister of Finance the only two Ministers that were meeting with NV GEBE and Aurora InfoTech post the cyber-attack. Gumbs asked if these two Ministers provided feedback to the Council of Ministers on the meetings they held. In the meantime Leader of the United Peoples Party and coalition partner of the National Alliance MP Rolando Brison to give parliament clear-cut answers as to why she as the Prime Minister of the country is not appointing shareholder representatives for each of the government-owned companies. Brison asked the Prime Minister is she will now attend all parliament meetings related to government-owned companies. The UPP leader said he wrote several emails, and had several discussions with the Prime Minister on this matter but since his pleas are falling on deaf ears, he believes it's time that he brings the matter to the floor of parliament. Brison basically asked Prime Minister Jacobs if she is having trust issues with her Ministers and if that is the case, then why should he or parliament trust and defend them? Alpha Lithium Files Preliminary Technical Report for Salar De Tolillar Project Alpha Lithium Corporation (NEO: ALLI) (OTC: APHLF) (Germany WKN: A3CUW1) (aAlphaa or the aCompanya https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/alpha-lithium-corp/ ) is pleased to announce that, in connection with its news release dated August 23, 2022, the Company has prepared and filed a technical report titled NI 43-101 Technical Report of Results of Years 2020/2021/2022 Exploration Activities and Lithium Resource Estimate for the Salar De Tolillar Project in Salta Province, Argentina with an effective date of September 8, 2022. The full report is available under the Companya?s profile at www.sedar.com and will be available on its website at www.alphalithium.com. A ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF ALPHA LITHIUM CORPORATION aBrad Nichola Brad Nichol President, CEO and Director For more information: Alpha Lithium Investor Relations Tel: +1 844 592 6337 relations@alphalithium.com A www.alphalithium.com A In Europe: Swiss Resource Capital AG Jochen Staiger info@resource-capital.ch www.resource-capital.ch About Alpha Lithium (NEO: ALLI) (OTC: APHLF) (Germany WKN: A3CUW1) Alpha Lithium is a team of industry professionals and experienced stakeholders focused on the development of the Tolillar and Hombre Muerto Salars. In Tolillar, we have assembled 100% ownership of what may be one of Argentinaa?s last undeveloped lithium salars, encompassing 27,500 hectares (67,954 acres), neighboring multi-billion-dollar lithium players in the heart of the renowned aLithium Trianglea. In Hombre Muerto, we continue to expand our 5,000+ hectare (12,570 acres) foothold in one of the worlda?s highest quality, longest producing, lithium salars. Other companies in the area exploring for lithium brines or currently in production include Orocobre Limited, Galaxy Lithium, Livent Corporation, and POSCO in Salar del Hombre Muerto; Orocobre in Salar Olaroz; Eramine SudAmerica S.A. in Salar de Centenario; and Gangfeng and Lithium Americas in Salar de Cauchari. For more information visit: www.alphalithium.com. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as \will\, \may\, \should\, \anticipate\, \expects\ and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company\-s expectations include the results of further brine process testing and exploration and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by applicable law. The NEO Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No securities regulatory authority has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. Labrador Uranium Signs Purchase Agreement to Acquire Anna Lake and Moran B Assets in the Central Mineral Belt and Appoints New VP of Exploration Labrador Uranium Inc. (aLURa, aLabrador Uraniuma, or athe Companya https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/labrador-uranium-inc/ ) (CSE: LUR, OTCQB: LURAF, FRA: EI1) is pleased to announce that it has signed a definitive purchase agreement (the aAgreementa) with Beaconsfield Ventures Ltd. (aBeaconsfielda) to acquire (the aAcquisitiona) 100% interest in the Anna Lake Project (License No. 34834M) and the Moran Lake B-Zone prospect (License No. 027543M), (together, the aAssetsa). The Assets are two strategically located properties within the Central Mineral Belt (aCMBa) that provide LUR with new exploration targets with known mineralization (Figure 1). Pursuant to the Agreement, LUR has agreed to acquire the Assets in exchange for the issuance of 5,000,000 common shares of LUR (the aCommon Sharesa). As part of the Acquisition, LUR will also assume Beaconsfielda?s obligations to pay an existing 2% net smelter royalty with respect to the Assets to a third party. The Common Shares issued pursuant to the Acquisition are subject to approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange and will be subject to a hold period expiring four months and one day from the date of issuance. Highlights: Historic mineral resources in the heart of the CMB a Anna Lake Project contains historical Inferred Mineral Resources of 5.1 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.044% U3O8 containing 4.91 million lbs of U3O8. This estimate is considered to be a ahistorical estimatea under National Instrument 43-101 a Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (aNI 43-101a) and is not considered by LUR to be current. See below for further details. Anna Lake is located along strike from the Melody Hill prospect previously owned by Bayswater Uranium Corporation (aBayswatera), where high grade uranium values of up to 28.2% U3O8 occur in granite boulders. See Anna Lake Project description below for further details. Reconnaissance fieldwork conducted by LUR to the northeast of the Anna Lake Property during the 2022 field season revealed a similar boulder train to that described by Bayswater at the Anna Lake Deposit. Addition of the Moran Lake B Zone strategically adds to the Moran Lake Trend, and is 3 km from the Moran Lake Deposit, where drilling is currently underway. Stephen Keith, CEO of LUR, commented, aWe are very pleased to announce this purchase. This Acquisition will add additional uranium properties to the LUR portfolio with historical mineral resources at Anna Lake and additional exploration targets at both Anna Lake and the Moran Lake B Zone prospect, which we believe will create potential upside for the Company and its shareholders. The Anna Lake Project completes a strategic land package that contains multiple uranium and polymetallic targets. The Moran Lake B zone prospects strategically adds to our Moran Lake Project and provides LUR with additional exploration targets.a Anna Lake Project The Anna Lake Project (Figure 2) is located approximately 35 kilometers southwest of the coastal community of Postville, Labrador, and 15 kilometers northwest of the Michelin Deposit held by Paladin Energy. The deposit occurs 9 km to the west along strike from the Melody Hill prospect where high grade uranium values of up to 28.2% U3O8 occur in granite boulders. Mineralization was first identified on the property in the 1970a?s by Brinco who discovered an extensive radioactive boulder train which occurs along the southeast margin of a NE-SW trending linear, narrow magnetic high in association with a radiometric anomaly. Numerous large boulders and blocks (1 meters to 5 meters) of pegmatitic rock and metapelite occur in an area outlined by the magnetic high and rugged terrain, with topographic relief ranging from 10 m to 50 m. Radiometric response ranges from 200 cps to 6,000 cps on individual boulders, but also varies on the same boulders. Brinco collected 11 grab samples, taken from over 2,000 radioactive gossanous garnet-biotite schist boulders which assayed from 0.132% to 3.05% U3O8. Initial grab sampling was followed-up with limited drilling on potential source rocks which produced intercepts of 0.118% U3O8 over 1.5 metres and 0.10 % U3O8 over 2.0 metres in two separate, closely spaced drill holes (Bayswater Press Release a July 12, 2007). Bayswater subsequently drilled a total of 22,355 meters of core drilling in 67 drill holes during their 2007 and 2008 field seasons. Based on these drilling campaigns, Bayswater produced an initial mineral resource estimate on the property. As stated by Bayswater in their October 15, 2009 press release, the Anna Lake Project covers a strike length of 750 meters and extends down-dip in the plane of mineralization to 663 meters within a broadly undulating sheetlike body. The deposit is open in all directions. Reconnaissance fieldwork conducted by LUR to the northeast of the Anna Lake Project during the 2022 field season revealed a similar boulder train to that described by Bayswater at the Anna Lake deposit. The boulder train is along strike from the Anna Lake boulder train and consistent with the trend of the regional magnetic anomaly. Radiometric response from individual boulders ranged from 200 cps to 500 cps. LUR has subsequently staked additional ground to cover the extents of the boulder train. Moran Lake B Zone The Moran Lake B Zone (Figure 3) prospect is located approximately 3 km northeast of LURs Moran Lake C Zone deposit and occurs near the edge of a large gabbroic intrusion. This intrusion is associated with a pronounced aeromagnetic anomaly that is much more widespread than the intrusions mapped surface expression, suggesting it is more extensive at depth. This was explored and drilled by Crosshair Exploration and Mining Corp. (aCrosshaira) in 2006 and 2008. Previous work on Moran Lake B Zone included the completion of eighteen historical drill holes. The target is hosted in feldspathic sandstones of the Heggert Lake formation of the Bruce River Group Intruded by a suite of mafic dykes. There is a radioactive area of approximately 900 meters in length that is discontinuous and consists of two smaller zones of concentrated radioactivity. A A Previous results indicate polymetallic mineralization grading 0.087% U3O8, 0.28% Cu, 13.23 g/t Ag over 11.8 metres were returned from chip sampling surface mineralization. Grab sampling reporting from a 2003 property visit returned 0.295% Cu, 1.2 g/t Ag and 1.03 g/t Au (Crosshair Exploration and Mining Corp press release a November 4, 2004-11-04). Drill campaigns in 2006 and 2008 intersected significant uranium mineralization in several holes. Appointment of New Vice President of Exploration LUR is also pleased to share that Ms. Nancy Normore, M.Sc., P.Geo has been promoted from Director, Exploration to VP, Exploration as a product of the quality of her work and dedication. Ms. Normore will be responsible for all exploration activities moving forward. Ms. Normore has over 18 years of experience exploring for uranium, copper, and nickel from start-up to discovery. While completing a mastera?s degree in geology, she led the field team that discovered the ?rora uranium deposit with UEX Corporation. Her experience includes working at Vale, UEX Corporation, CanAlaska Uranium, Axiom Group, Areva Resources, and Dennison Mines, among others. Stephen Keith, CEO of LUR, commented, aWe are extremely happy that Nancy has accepted this new role with us. She has done a tremendous job on this first exploration campaign and, although it was a challenging year in the field, we were able to move the program forward. This, in spite of the fact that the Company only started trading in March of this year. With her demonstrated leadership and coordination, we will be in much better shape next year as we focus on being driven by geology.a In connection with the appointment of Ms. Nancy Normore to the role of VP Exploration, LUR has granted 50,000 stock options pursuant to LURa?s long-term omnibus incentive plan. Each option is exercisable to acquire one LUR common share at an exercise price of $0.70 for a period of five years, subject to the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange. Technical Disclosure and Qualified Person The scientific and technical information contained in this news release was reviewed and approved by Matthew Melnyk, M.Sc., CPG, an advisor to LUR, who is a aQualified Persona (as defined in NI 43-101).A About Labrador Uranium Inc. Labrador Uranium is engaged in the exploration and development of uranium projects in Labrador, Canada and holds a dominant land position covering over 139,000 ha in the prolific Central Mineral Belt (CMB) in central Labrador and the Notakwanon Project in northern Labrador. Currently, the Company is advancing the district scale CMB Project which includes the Moran Lake Deposit and Mustang Lake Project. The CMB Project area surrounds several known uranium prospects, including Paladin Energya?s Michelin deposit, with substantial past exploration work completed, and numerous occurrences of uranium, copper and IOCG style mineralization. Cautionary Statement Regarding aForward-Lookinga Information This news release contains \forward-looking information\ within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to completion of the Acquisition, the Companya?s future plans with respect to the Assets including planned exploration activities, the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange and other activities, events or developments that are expected, anticipated or may occur in the future. Generally, but not always, forward looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as aplansa, aexpectsa, ais expecteda, abudgeta, ascheduleda, aestimatesa, aforecastsa, aintendsa, aanticipatesa, or abelievesa or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results amaya, acoulda, awoulda, amighta or awill be takena, aoccura or abe achieveda or the negative connotation thereof. Forward-looking information and statements are based on our current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about LURa?s business and the industry and markets in which it operates. Such forward information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, that the Canadian Securities Exchange will approve the Common Shares issuable in connection with the Acquisition, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that historical mineral resources estimates could be verified as current mineral resource estimates, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms, and that third party contractors, equipment and supplies and governmental and other approvals required to conduct the Companya?s planned exploration activities will be available on reasonable terms and in a timely manner. Although the assumptions made by LUR in providing forward looking information or making forward-looking statements are considered reasonable by management at the time, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information and statements also involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performances and achievements of Labrador Uranium to differ materially from any projections of results, performances and achievements of Labrador Uranium expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or statements, including, among others: limited operating history, negative operating cash flow and dependence on third party financing, uncertainty of additional financing, delays or failure to obtain required permits and regulatory approvals, no known mineral resources/reserves, aboriginal title and consultation issues, reliance on key management and other personnel; potential downturns in economic conditions; availability of third party contractors; availability of equipment and supplies; failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry; changes in laws and regulation, competition, and uninsurable risks, community relations, delays in obtaining governmental or other approvals and the risk factors with respect to Labrador Uranium set out in LURa?s listing statement dated March 2, 2022 filed with the Canadian securities regulators and available under LURa?s profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although LUR has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information or implied by 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 forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. LUR undertakes no obligation to update or reissue forward-looking information as a result of new information or events except as required by applicable securities laws. States seek to generate taxes and royalties from mining operations The mining sector, the buyers of the raw materials and the states involved have different interests. Mining companies have to invest a lot of money in the development and exploitation of deposits, so one of the things they need is investment security. The buyers of the raw materials hope for low prices and security of supply. The governments of the countries in which mining is carried out are looking particularly at the taxes and levies they can generate. For example, recently the Finnish government is planning to launch a new tax on minerals. Finland has some of the largest known mineral deposits in the European Union. About 40 active mines exist in Finland, there are battery metals, for example, cobalt, nickel, gold, zinc or lithium. Until now, no taxes have been levied on minerals in Finland, but now a royalty of 0.6 percent is to be levied on the taxable value of metallic minerals and of 0.2 euros per extracted ton for other minerals. The Finnish government calculates that this will bring around 25 million euros a year into the government coffers. The central government intends to keep 40 percent of this, while 60 percent is to remain with the communities affected by mining. According to government statements, this is intended to be an appropriate compensation to society for the use of resources. After all, society is dependent on a functioning supply of raw materials, see currently the keyword energy crisis. Mining should be sustainable, safe and pay attention to social compatibility, the environment and security of supply. Battery metals are also available from ION Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu0HcV0vEdA -. In mining-friendly Mongolia, the company owns two promising lithium projects. This is to the benefit of the Mongolian economy and the transition to clean energy. Li-Metal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVFlCAZ3584 specializes in the development of lithium metal anode and lithium metal production technologies. The lithium pilot production plant is designed to provide more energy dense and sustainable products. Current company information and press releases from Li-Metal (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/li-metal-corp/ -). In accordance with A34 WpHG I would like to point out that partners, authors and employees may hold shares in the respective companies addressed and thus a possible conflict of interest exists. No guarantee for the translation into English. Only the German version of this news is valid. Disclaimer: The information provided does not represent any form of recommendation or advice. Express reference is made to the risks in securities trading. No liability can be accepted for any damage arising from the use of this blog. I would like to point out that shares and especially warrant investments are always associated with risk. The total loss of the invested capital cannot be excluded. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the correctness of all contents. Despite the greatest care, I expressly reserve the right to make errors, especially with regard to figures and prices. The information contained herein is taken from sources believed to be reliable, but in no way claims to be accurate or complete. Due to court decisions, the contents of linked external sites are also co-responsible (e.g. Landgericht Hamburg, in the decision of 12.05.1998 312 O 85/98), as long as there is no explicit dissociation from them. Despite careful control of the content, I do not assume liability for the content of linked external pages. The respective operators are exclusively responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG also applies: https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/disclaimer/ Nuclear energy is green and a must in the energy mix Around 440 nuclear power plants are in operation worldwide and they all need uranium. For a long time, uranium was not very popular. But today, with the immense prices for fossil fuels and the necessary climate change, the picture has changed. Uranium and nuclear power plants have become respectable again and they are environmentally friendly. The supply of uranium lags far behind the demand. It is estimated that uranium demand will increase by 27 percent by 2030. The sword of Damocles of the energy crisis hangs over Europe and especially Germany. Whether there will be problems with heating and power supply this winter is anyone\-s guess. Renewable energy, all well and good, but more is needed to meet demand. This could make uranium shares a lucrative investment. Because there\-s pretty much consensus, uranium is going to go up in price because it\-s getting scarcer. France is building new power plants and Germany is extending the lifetimes of two nuclear power plants. In addition, the construction of new reactors is progressing worldwide. Even Japan wants to rely more on nuclear power. There are nuclear power plants in 14 EU countries. Poland is planning to build its first reactor, with five more to come. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are also investing in nuclear power. The turning point for the uranium industry seems to have arrived. Uranium companies such as IsoEnergy or Consolidated Uranium can look positively into the future. IsoEnergy owns 100 percent of several prospective uranium projects in the eastern Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan. Consolidated Uranium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Zilt9gkcs has uranium projects in its portfolio in Australia, Canada, Argentina and the USA. This includes a package of previously producing uranium and vanadium mines in Utah and Colorado. Current corporate information and press releases from Consolidated Uranium (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/consolidated-uranium-inc/ -) and IsoEnergy (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/iso-energy-ltd/ -). In accordance with A34 WpHG I would like to point out that partners, authors and employees may hold shares in the respective companies addressed and thus a possible conflict of interest exists. No guarantee for the translation into English. Only the German version of this news is valid. Disclaimer: The information provided does not represent any form of recommendation or advice. Express reference is made to the risks in securities trading. No liability can be accepted for any damage arising from the use of this blog. I would like to point out that shares and especially warrant investments are always associated with risk. The total loss of the invested capital cannot be excluded. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the correctness of all contents. Despite the greatest care, I expressly reserve the right to make errors, especially with regard to figures and prices. The information contained herein is taken from sources believed to be reliable, but in no way claims to be accurate or complete. Due to court decisions, the contents of linked external sites are also co-responsible (e.g. Landgericht Hamburg, in the decision of 12.05.1998 312 O 85/98), as long as there is no explicit dissociation from them. Despite careful control of the content, I do not assume liability for the content of linked external pages. The respective operators are exclusively responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG also applies: https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/disclaimer/ YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Armenian, Russian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan, Sergei Lavrov and Jeyhun Bayramov, discussed the joint efforts aimed at settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations during their meeting in Astana on October 14, Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministers confirmed their adherence to the observance of all provisions of the 2020 November 9 and 2021 January 11 and November 26 statements of the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan. A substantive discussion was held on issues relating to the unblocking of economic and transportation communications in the region within the frames of the trilateral working group co-chaired by the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan. A discussion was also held on the work of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border delimitation commission with the consulting support of Russia and the dialogue of public representatives and experts of the three countries. A special focus was paid on the process of the negotiations around the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. An agreement was reached to continue the trilateral contacts at different levels in the future, the statement says. Client: Samantha Doyle, the daughter of a fireman who has disappeared, asks Robyn to find her father. The client story this week didnt hold my attention as strongly as they usually do. I think it was mostly because I didnt really care about the missing firefighter. Especially once the whole theft element came into play.I think I might have cared more if Doyles disappearance had actually been related to the brawl that opened the episode. Maybe if, somehow, his disappearance had been more noble or even more tragic.It was easy to understand how this teen ended up seeking Robyns help. Her father is a recovering alcoholic, and most of the adults she spoke to just assume that hed fallen off the wagon and is hold up somewhere sleeping it off.Instead, he and some buddies committed arson and robbery. Unfortunately, they targeted the wrong restaurant.It wasnt just a matter of getting the money back, but the owners reputation was at stake. Thats the kind of thing that Im sorry cannot fix.It was an interesting way to highlight the failures of the system to take care of the people who sacrifice themselves for the greater good of others.But, in the end, the justification was nothing more than lies they told themselves to justify doing something they knew is wrong.(I thought that, as police departments and the military added more support for their employees, fire departments had as well.) But, at the end of the day, these guys decided to solve their problems by stealing. It just wasnt enough to make me care.Did they mention whether the firefighters would be facing charges or dismissal for their actions? Family Life: Robyn, Vi and Delilah recover from the trauma of her kidnapping. The more interesting part of the episode was how Vi and Delilah reacted to Robyns kidnapping.Vis reaction seemed to focus on having been blindsided by the kidnapping.She wanted Robyn to keep her informed as to whether a case was going to be dangerous or not, so she could be prepared if something happened to Robyn.She also went shopping for a gun. This surprised me a bit. Something about the way shes spoken about her college years left me as convinced as Vi herself was, that she would never buy a gun.Did she buy the gun?Her reaction was understandable, but not something that is ever going to happen.If a case had the potential to touch Vi and Delilah definitely, but otherwise definitely not.Robyn compartmentalizes.Robyn had to tell Vi that she would never tell her everything and apologize for making her worry by not responding to all of those texts.That was one thing that felt really out of character for Robyn. Vis texts were increasingly frantic sounding. I dont believe, for a moment, that Robyn would ignore Vis texts unless she were incapable of responding.Worst case scenario, Robyn would have lied to calm Vis fears.But ignore the texts and make her worry more, after being kidnapped in front of her? It didnt work.By the same token, it was out of character for Delilah to ignore her mothers texts unless she was actively angry, which, when Robyn finally caught up with her, did not seem to be the case.If my mother had been texting to find out where I was...I wouldnt even consider not responding. Even as a teenager and even if I were angry with her. (I would have lost the phone as punishment.)It was a little easier to accept the out of character behavior from Delilah. A teens reactions can be irrational.Both moments felt like the writer gave up character consistency to get to the set up the family works everything out scenes.I was a little confused by Delilahs reactions though. Should I believe Delilah when she said she was really fine?If so it fits with my interpretation of the kind of person Delilah is growing into. A good thing in my opinion.I know some people are going to assume that Delilahs request for training equates to Delilah asking her mother to teach her to be a spy.But it doesnt have to be. (I hope it isnt and dont really believe thats what the writers intend.)They live in New York, Delilahs already had a friend gunned down before her eyes; basic self defense and lessons in how to spot trouble in her environment are things anyone living in a big city could (and probably should) be trained to do.So, from a story point of view, they can easily keep Delilah from ending up in the middle of one of Robyns cases, but still teach her to take care of herself.It wasnt a perfect episode. As I said, the family story resonated with me more than the client story.While I felt they had characters acting out of character in order to achieve it, I did enjoy the conclusion scenes.Robyns talk with Vi and her talk with Delilah were nicely done and almost worth the contortions to get there.I appreciated the fact that Robyn confessed to Delilah that she was having some trouble processing the trauma herself.What did you think of the episode? London, October 05, 2022 (SPS) - The Western Sahara Campaign UK told the High Court in UK, on Wednesday that a post-Brexit UK-Morocco trade agreement was concluded without obtaining the consent of people from the disputed Western Sahara territory. The Western Sahara Campaign UK (WSCUK), which supports self-determination for the Saharawi people of the north-west African territory, has brought legal action against the Department for International Trade and the Treasury over the UK-Morocco Association Agreement (UKMAA). Morocco is unlawfully occupying Western Sahara, and that controlling and trading in the territorys resources without consent lacks any legal basis and is akin to expropriation WSCUK told the High Court . WSCUK lawyers have previously claimed that extending the agreement to goods and resources from Western Sahara a non-self governing territory over which Morocco claims sovereignty would put the UK Government in breach of its obligations under international law. Victoria Wakefield KC, representing WSCUK, told a hearing on Wednesday that there was a need to obtain the consent of the people of Western Sahara, adding: I say that consent was not obtained. In written submissions, she said the UK Government was misinterpreting and misapplying regulations and fell into error when making them. She said that the proper interpretation of the UKMAA is that it applies only to goods lawfully in the control of Morocco and that it does not apply to goods originating from Western Sahara, until consent is obtained. Non-self governing territories have rights, under both the UN Charter and customary international law, to determine for themselves how their resources are used and traded with third countries, Ms Wakefield said, adding that the UKMAA precludes Western Sahara from establishing its own, different, trading arrangements in respect of those products with the UK. She claimed that the UK did not seek to obtain consent in respect of the UKMAA, with the Government referring to a previous manifestly inadequate EU Commission consultation exercise. None of the huge number of Saharawi refugee population, which fled to refugee camps in Algeria and elsewhere following Moroccos invasion were consulted, Ms Wakefield said, adding that the commission asked the wrong people the wrong questions. She said that EU courts had repeatedly held that the application of the EU-Morocco Association Agreement (EUMAA) to goods originating from Western Sahara is unlawful. Ms Wakefield added that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had established that Morocco has no right to sovereignty over Western Sahara and that the latter has the right to self-determination. There is no basis under international law by which Morocco can control, and trade in, Western Sahara resources, Ms Wakefield said. Doing so without consent, lacks any legal basis and is akin to expropriation. SPS 110 Caracas, 13 October 2022 (SPS) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reiterated, in a tweet on the occasion of the Declaration of National Unity on Western Sahara whose anniversary is celebrated on October 12 of each year, his support for the struggle of the Sahrawi people, affirming that the victory of his cause was imminent. "Salutes to the Sahrawi people on the occasion of the celebration of the day of Sahrawi national unity, please accept the admiration, solidarity and unwavering support of Venezuela to the Sahrawi people," he wrote, adding that "the victory of the cause of Western Sahara is imminent. Venezuela has consistently expressed its unwavering position on Western Sahara, calling for a fair and peaceful political solution that allows the Sahrawi people to exercise its right to self-determination. Venezuela continues to advocate for a fair and mutually acceptable solution to the Western Sahara cause within the framework of the relevant UN resolutions. 062/T Dublin (Ireland) - In a speech during a debate in the Irish Parliament, Prime Minister, Bushraya Hamoudi Bayoun, praised Ireland's firm position in support of the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination. A Saharawi delegation headed by the Prime Minister is on a working visit to Ireland for several days within the framework of raising awareness of the developments of the Saharawi issue in the continent. The delegation had a panel discussion at the Irish Parliament, moderated by MP Patrick Castello, on "Ireland and the decolonization of Western Sahara" at the invitation of Parliament. In his speech the Irish Parliament, the Sahrawi Prime Minister, on behalf of the Sahrawi people, appreciated Ireland's firm position in support of the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination. He also reviewed the experience of the Sahrawi state in building national institutions, and concept of a just solution to the conflict that guarantees security and stability in the region. The Sahrawi official also talked about the latest developments of the Sahrawi cause, especially the return of war in Western Sahara due to the failure of the United Nations and its lack of seriousness in pushing for a solution, stressing in this regard the determination of the Sahrawi people to carry on its national struggle, as well as concern for the security and prosperity of all the peoples of the region. The delegation accompanying the Prime Minister, includes Ubbi Bushraya Bashir, representative of Polisario Front in Europe and EU, Souilma Biruk, Minister of Women and Social Affairs, Sidi Braika, representative of the Polisario in the UK, and Nafei Rais, representative of the Polisario Front in Ireland. 062/T Shahid Al Hafed,13 October 2022 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Mr. Brahim Ghali, will start Tuesday an official visit to the Republic of South Africa, at the invitation of his South African counterpart, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa. "The visit aims to consolidate bilateral relations and strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between the two brotherly peoples, which date back to long years of struggle against colonialism and apartheid," indicated a statement of the Presidency of the Republic. "The visit will be an occasion to renew thanks and gratitude to the Government and people of South Africa, under the leadership of H.E President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the firm and principled positions, and to reaffirm the determination of the Sahrawi Republic to strengthen relations of brotherhood, friendship and cooperation, for the interest of the two countries and peoples, as well as the countries and peoples of the African continent, and to consolidate the position of Africa and its continental organization, the African Union, on the international stage," added the statement . 062/T YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh doesnt oppose the relations of Armenia and Azerbaijan to be improved, but considers it unacceptable to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister of Artsakh Davit Babayan told reporters. He said that recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan would lead to a war, bloodshed, genocide or exodus of Armenians from Artsakh. Speaking about the October 6 statement released after the EU-mediated meeting between Armenian PM Pashinyan and Azeri President Aliyev, which noted that both Armenia and Azerbaijan confirm that they recognize each others territorial integrity, Babayan said: We dont oppose the improvement of relations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Who can oppose the improvement of those relations? But, we must understand that recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan is unacceptable for Artsakh and I believe for all Armenians. Babayan is part of an official Artsakh delegation visiting Armenia. Asked whether or not they received clarifications around this issue during the visit, he said: During the two meetings, of course there were explanations that no one is planning to abandon Artsakh or recognize it as part of Azerbaijan. Now we must engage in a very flexible policy. The delegation had meetings with the Secretary of the Security Council and the Speaker of Parliament. The delegation will meet with PM Pashinyan and Foreign Minister Mirzoyan on October 15. A meeting with President Vahagn Khachaturyan is expected before that. We will meet with representatives of the top leadership who are dealing with, or are engaged in the negotiations, have direct participation in all processes with the fate of Artsakh, the Armenian people, Babayan said. He said the discussions were very sincere. New York, October 14, 2022 (SPS) Angola expressed, on Thursday, before the Fourth Committee on Political and Decolonization Issues, its continued interest in the issue of Western Sahara, calling in this regard to find a peaceful and lasting solution that would enable the territory of Western Sahara to achieve independence. Angola's Permanent Representative to the AU, Ambassador Maria de Jesus Ferreira, stressed in her statement before Fourth Committee, on Thursday, that Western Sahara continues to deserve our attention as the last non-self-determination territory in Africa, reaffirming that Angola supports a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara in accordance with the objectives and principles of the Constitutive Act of the African Union and all relevant resolutions of General Assembly on this matter. She welcomed the efforts of the Special Envoy for Western Sahara, Mr. Steffan de Mistura, to advance the political process in Western Sahara within the regional commitments, including efforts to resume negotiations between Morocco and the Front Polisario. In this regard, she added we call on the parties to resume negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations and the states concerned to achieve a just, peaceful, and mutually acceptable solution to re-establish peace and stability in the region. She further recalled that the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) will be renewed soon. In this regard, we reiterate the Security Council resolution 690 of 1991 that indicated the MINURSO to facilitate a referendum in accordance with the mutually acceptable settlement plan of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations also adopted by the Security Council, to ensure that the Saharawi people exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. She emphasized that Self-determination is a legitimate right of people in accordance with the principles of international law, calling on the international community to make urgent decisions on the fate of the (remaining) non-self-determination Territories to honor the principles assumed in the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, in accordance with resolution 1514, on the self-determination of peoples of 14 December 1960. (SPS) SPS 110 TRA New York (United Nations) 14 October 2022 (SPS)- Namibia Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ms. Helena Ndapewa Kusee, reiterated Namibias call to the UN General Assemblys 4th Committee to send a visiting mission to the occupied territories of Western Sahara to report about the situation, in her countrys statement before the Committee on Thursday. We reiterate our long standing call for a visiting mission to Western Sahara to provide more accurate accounts of the situation on the ground, she said. The Question of Western Sahara has been on the agenda of the UN since what now feels like time immemorial and still we struggle to find a lasting solution to this long standing conflict, she regretted, adding however that Namibia is testimony to the reality that the aspirations towards self-determination and decolonisation do not have to be pipedreams. It should be recalled that Nambia had been on the Committees list of colonies until it attained independence thanks to the efforts of the UN. She thanked the UN Secretary General for his report on the Question of Western Sahara and applauded the efforts by Steffan di Mistura to engage the parties in the conflict, she regretted however that, as enumerated in the report of the Secretary General Mr. Di Mistura was forced to call off his visit earlier this year referring to the obstacles put in front of that visit by the Moroccan authorities of occupation. She also regretted that the continued disregard for the UN-brokered referendum and the lack of implementation of Security Council Resolution 658 of 1990 offers no hope for generations of Saharawi who have been born into a state of desolation, characterised by colonial occupation. (SPS) 090/500/60 (SPS) This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan hosted today the delegation of Artsakh led by President Arayik Harutyunyan, the Parliaments press service said. Issues relating to Armenians of Artsakh and the political agenda of Armenia were discussed during the meeting. Speaker Simonyan presented the details of the recent meetings with international partners, including the recent visit to Russia. The sides stated that the high-level contacts between Armenia and Artsakh never stop. During the two-hour meeting comprehensive answers were given to the questions of Artsakh partners. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Vahram Dumanyan received today Rector of the V. Bryusov State University Karine Harutyunyan, the ministry told Armenpress, adding that a constructive conversation took place. The ministry also said that Deputy Minister Karen Trchunyan will participate in the extended-format session of the Academic Council of the University, as Minister Dumanyan cannot attend it because of a busy working schedule. The session of the Academic Council of the University will be held today and will relate to the enlargement of universities, particularly the merger of the Bryusov University, the State Pedagogical University and the State Institute of Physical Culture and Sport. Minister Dumanyan said yesterday that the government is circulating a decision on the merger of these three universities. 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According to IGPF, at the border points nationwide on Tuesday, approximately 160,500 people, Romanian and foreign citizens, were checked both on the way in and on the way out of Romania, as well as almost 45,000 means of transport. Starting February 10, 2022 (pre-conflict time) 2,573,567 Ukrainian citizens entered Romania. The border police detected 50 illegal acts (23 crimes and 27 misdemeanors) in the areas under their jurisdiction - the crossing points and the green border - committed by both Romanian and foreign citizens, levying over 19,400 lei in fines in the process. Twenty-one foreign citizens who did not meet the conditions provided by the law were denied entry. Also on Thursday, 12 Romanian citizens were not allowed to leave for various legal reasons. The total value of the production recorded by the Romanian agricultural field in 2021, in current prices, was 103.878 billion lei, according to data provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published on Friday, told Agerpres. In 2021, agricultural crops still hold the largest share (71.2pct) in the structure of the total value of the production in the whole agricultural sector, followed by animal production (27.0pct) and agricultural services (1.8pct). The value of crops in 2021, compared to 2020, recorded increases in the South-Eastern (+82.5pct), Bucharest-Ilfov (+51.6pct), South-Muntenia (+31, 4pct), North-East (+24.9pct), Central (+12.2pct) and South-West-Oltenia (+4.7pct); decreases were registered in the West (-4.8pct) and North-West (-3.9pct) development regions. In 2021, compared to the previous year, the value of animal production recorded increases in the development regions of North-East (+5.1 percentage points), North-West (+2.8 percentage points) and South-West Oltenia (+2, 2 percentage points); and in the other development regions, the value of animal production recorded decreased between 27.1 and 1.2pct. The value of agricultural services increased in the North-Eastern (+27.4pct), South-Muntenia (+23.5pct), North-Western (+17.4pct), South-Eastern (+ 11.2pct) and Central (+7.6pct) development regions, while the other development regions saw decreases between 36.4 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points. Agricultural production has the largest share in the production of the agricultural sector as a whole in all the development regions of the country, with values between 63.1pct in the Central development region and 78.6pct in the South-Eastern development region. In 2021, compared to 2020, the structure of the production value of the agricultural branch recorded the main increases in the South-Eastern (+5.0pct) and South-Muntenia (+1.3pct) development regions. The most important decreases were seen in the development regions North-Western (-2.1pct), Western (-2.0pct), South-West Oltenia (-1.2pct) and Central (-1.1pct) development regions. The largest share in terms of the agricultural production was recorded in the following development regions: South-Muntenia (20.7%), South-East (20.3%) and North-East (15.6%), while in the structure of animal production of the same year, the development regions have the largest share: North-East (20.4%), North-West (14.9%), Center (14.6%) and respectively South-Muntenia (14.5%). The aluminum producer Alro has been selected, following an engaging selection process organized by the Oltenia Energy Complex, to jointly build the natural gas power plant at Isalnita, with a capacity of 850 MW, told Agerpres. Alro's participation will account for 40.1pct of the share capital of the joint venture (SPV) established for the implementation of the Isalnita project. According to a press release of the power plant, the association is to be approved by the corporate bodies of the two companies. "In the final stage, nine companies participated, confirming the increased interest in investments in the field of energy sources with a low impact on the environment," the cited source emphasizes. The Isalnita project is part of the Restructuring Plan of CE Oltenia, which was approved by the European Commission in January 2022 and which provides, among other things, the building of two gas plants and eight photovoltaic parks in order to diversify the energy mix and transition to sources of less polluting energy, as well as restoring the viability of the company. The Oltenia Energy Complex is the largest coal-based energy producer in Romania, which owns 9 energy groups, with an installed capacity of 2,595 MW. The main shareholders of CE Oltenia are the Ministry of Energy (77%) and Fondul Proprietatea (21.5%). Chairman of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) George Simion criticized, on Friday, the amendment adopted by the Parliamentary Committee for Justice Laws eliminating the magistrates' misconduct for non-compliance with the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), told Agerpres. "This is of unprecedented seriousness. Many times, in the last 20 years, there have been attempts to attack the Constitution. But the way in which the CCR and the Constitution were undermined and emptied of meaning in the sovereign state of which we should be a part is unprecedented. Any punishment for magistrates who neglect the decisions of the CCR has been eliminated. The form adopted by the Chamber of Deputies was mutilated on Thursday, in the committee, by these amendments. On Wednesday, most likely, it will be voted on in the plenary of the Senate," Simion told a press conference on Friday, held in front of the Ministry of Justice. Simion submitted, on Friday, a Memorandum on behalf of AUR to the Ministry of Justice and expressed his hope that the amendments made by the select Committee in the draft law on the Statute of Magistrates will be reversed. "I want to remind the Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, that any treaty that Romania is a part of, including the constitutive treaties of the EU, have no greater power than the Constitution of Romania. (...) I call on the whole society to mobilize and to defend the Constitution of Romania. (...) We are submitting a memorandum to the Ministry of Justice and we are waiting for Mr. Predoiu to return to conferring real powers to the Constitutional Court. I reiterate the appeal to all the pro-sovereignty forces in Romania and to all those who believe that we should live in an independent sovereign state, as provided for in Article 1 of the Constitution, to take a public stance against this unprecedented decision," said George Simion. The Parliamentary Committee on the Justice Laws on Thursday removed from the body of disciplinary violations those aimed at "obvious and unjustified non-compliance with the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the decisions adopted by the High Court of Cassation and Justice in the resolution of appeals in the interest of the law or in resolving some legal issues, in accordance with the provisions of art. 20 and art. 148 of the Constitution of Romania, republished" from the form adopted by the Chamber of Deputies of the Statute of prosecutors and judges. The Coronation Centenary. Alba Iulia. 1922 exhibition will be inaugurated, on Saturday, at the Peles National Museum in central Sinaia mountain resort, a press release sent by the National History Museum of Romania (MNIR), reads. The exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the Coronation in central Alba Iulia was carried out in collaboration with prestigious institutions from the country, such as the MNIR (main partner), the King Ferdinand I National Military Museum, the National Archives of Romania and with the support of private collectors, Agerpres informs. The symbolic pieces of the Coronation, designed by the painter Costin Petrescu, are brought together, for the first time, in the most important exhibition project dedicated to this event, the source says. The National History Museum of Romania offered the gold crown of Queen Maria, made by the Parisian firm Falize, the scepter of King Ferdinand I, created by the House of Rene Boivin, also from Paris, and jubilee coins issued on the occasion of the event and the fifth anniversary of the Coronation of the first kings of Greater Romania (1928/29). The King Ferdinand I National Military Museum offered for display the uniform of a general of the cavalry corps, which belonged to King Ferdinand I, and the cloaks of the rulers Vlad IV and Bogdan II, also created according to the project of the painter Costin Petrescu, for the historical procession that paraded in Bucharest on October 16, 1922. The National Archives of Romania have made available the Daily Journal of Queen Maria, from the year 1922, the programmes of the Coronation Celebrations, as well as the eulogies addressed to the sovereigns of Greater Romania, the aforementioned press release says. The exhibition will be opened at the Peles National Museum between October 15, 2022 and May 15, 2023 and will be accompanied by the Coronation Centenary. Alba Iulia. 1922 album, which contains exhaustive studies on this defining moment for Romanian history. The studies are carried out by personalities of the academic and museum world: Ioan Aurel Pop, president of the Romanian Academy, Razvan Theodorescu, vice-president of the Romanian Academy, Nicolae St. Noica, director of the Library of the Romanian Academy, Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, general director of the National History Museum of Romania, Cornel Ilie, deputy director of the National History Museum of Romania, Ioan Opris, Ion Giurca, Archimandrite Policarp Chitulescu, Carmen Tanasoiu, Mircea -Alexandru Hortopan, Corina Dumitrache. The Royal Train begins on Friday the symbolic journey organized on the occasion of the Centennial of the Coronation in Alba Iulia, the starting point being the Cluj-Napoca Railway Station, where a military ceremony will take place, told Agerpres. The Royal Train, on which will be Her Majesty Margareta, the Crown Custodian, and Prince Radu, together with Princess Sofia, will leave Cluj-Napoca on Friday and stop at Campia Turzii, Aiud, Teius. On Saturday, the train will arrive in Alba Iulia. During the journey by the Royal Train, the Royal Family will be accompanied by volunteers of the Romanian Red Cross, Olympic students and representatives of projects under High Royal Patronage. The Royal Train will depart from Cluj-Napoca Railway Station on Friday, at 1:05 p.m. At 12:50 p.m., a military ceremony will take place on the station platform. The first stop will be in Campia Turzii Station, at 2:08 p.m., then Aiud, at 2:55 p.m., and Teius, at 3:20 p.m. will follow. In each of these stations, the Royal Train will stop for ten minutes, and the public will have access to the platforms. The Royal Train will enter Alba Iulia Station on Saturday, at 10:30 a.m., access to the station platform being free. After the arrival ceremony, the Royal Train can be visited by the public, that day, between 11.00 and 18.00. Also on Saturday, starting at 11:00, the Royal Family will take part in a Te Deum at the Orthodox Cathedral of the Coronation in Alba Iulia and in the Coronation Parade, as well as in the presentation of royal volumes in the Union Hall. "Her Majesty Margareta and His Royal Highness Princess Radu, together with Her Royal Highness Princess Sofia, will make this journey with the Royal Train in honor of a historical moment with profound significance for the development of the modern Romanian state," stated the Press Office of the Royal House. Keeping the memory of diplomat Nicolae Titulescu alive should be an inspiration for political leaders, in their endeavor to refresh the political class, and Romania needs, more than ever, statesmen for people to look up to with respect, Minister of Culture Lucian Romascanu stated on Friday, told Agerpres. Attending the international conference called "Nicolae Titulescu - leader of Romanian and European diplomacy," Lucian Romascanu showed that out of the three important pillars of diplomacy - traditional, parliamentary, cultural - the cultural diplomacy now has a key role in opening Romania and any other state to the world, that understands to use this tool, because it has the great merit of addressing "from soul to soul and smoothing the path for what traditional diplomacy must do further." "Nicolae Titulescu was one of those who, through his solid cultural formation, used this component, too, and let's not forget that he carried out his activity in extremely complicated times. (...) It is vital to understand, Romania needs, more than ever, statesmen for people to look up to with respect. Unfortunately, this is also a well-known aspect and it should not necessarily be interpreted as a political statement, Romania largely fails to produce this type of personalities, and keeping Titulescu's memory alive must be an inspiration for political leaders in their endeavor to refresh the political class. Let us not forget that today, yet again, we are at a turning point of history. A few kilometers from us, an unfair, unjustified conflict is taking place, but which, from the rhetoric of the day, can expand and take on a scale that none of us want. Now, just as back then, when Titulescu made a name for himself by defending national interests, now, as back then, we need diplomats on all three levels to put their talent, patriotism, grace in the service of the country, in order to guard us from the worst and to obtain, in the national interest, what can be obtained in these critical moments," the Minister of Culture stated. He added that he wishes for the political class to take the example of Nicolae Titulescu. "Culture is the one which weaves that fine fabric between us and if we see how determinedly Ukrainians defend their country in these moments of crisis, we cannot help but think that the main engine is culture. (...) I wish our political class take the example of Titulescu. We had a Prime Minister, Adrian Nastase, who established museums, who endorsed publications. We want for the cultural dimension of the governing act to retrieve the importance it had in the past. I am glad, at the moment, I'm part of a government which allocated culture the highest budget in years. (...) Titulescu remains a light for all that diplomacy means, but not only. Patriotism is an essential condition to access political dignity, and the example which Titulescu offered us over the years should continue to be an inspiration for us all," Culture Minister Lucian Romascanu conveyed. The event was organised by the Titulescu European Foundation with the support of Romania's Government, under the aegis of the Romanian Academy and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, within the anniversary programme "Nicolae Titulescu - 140 years since his birth." The current account of the balance of payments recorded, in the period January - August 2022, a deficit of 16.986 billion euros, compared to 10.742 billion euros in the period January - August 2021, the National Bank of Romania informs in a press release. In its structure, the balance of goods recorded a deficit greater by 6.690 billion euros, the balance of services recorded a greater surplus by 2.323 billion euros, the balance of primary incomes recorded a greater deficit by 2.423 billion euros, and the balance of secondary revenues registered a surplus higher by 546 million euros, told Agerpres. According to the BNR, between January and August 2022, the total external debt increased by 5.136 billion euros. In terms of structure, the long-term external debt amounted to 96.378 billion euros on August 31, 2022 (68% of the total external debt), down 1.2% compared to December 31, 2021. The short-term external debt recorded on August 31 2022 the level of 45.343 billion euros (32% of the total external debt), increasing by 16.1% compared to December 31, 2021. The long-term external debt service rate was 15.2% in the period January - August 2022, compared to 17% in 2021. The degree of coverage of imports of goods and services on August 31, 2022 was 4.2 months, compared to 4.9 months on December 31, 2021. The degree of coverage of the short-term external debt, calculated at the residual value, with foreign exchange reserves at the BNR on August 31, 2022 was 74.3%, compared to 79.4% on December 31, 2021. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan released details from the meeting held with the delegation of Artsakh led by President Arayik Harutyunyan. The Speaker told reporters that the delegation of Artsakh was satisfied with the results of the meeting. These contacts are not being held for the first time. Yes, there are some partners with whom this format contact is taking place for the first time, but there are always these contacts. We discussed my recent visit to Moscow, I presented the meetings and the discussions held. I answered their questions, as well as listened to our colleagues, and I can say that this is something new in terms of its format, but these contacts as such happen almost every week, the Speaker said. The division of labor between the European Union and NATO needs to be clarified, and the joint declaration that recently reappeared on the discussion table should clarify this, expert in European security and defence policies Mihai Sebastian Chihaia with the European Policy Center NGO told AGERPRES on Friday, in Brussels. "Obviously, NATO takes care of European defence, but the EU can contribute, for example, to the resolution of various international crises. If we look back, we have the crisis in Afghanistan and the withdrawal from Kabul. An instrument would have been necessary there, that rapid reaction force, Rapid Deployment Capacity, had it existed in practice it could have been used there. There may be another case in the future in Sahel. That would probably be the division of labor in my opinion: the European Union would deal with external crises - with personnel and military, but also civilian - while NATO could focus only on traditional defence," estimated the expert in European security and defence policies, Agerpres informs. Asked what would happen to European defence and cooperation within NATO if former American president Donald Trump returned to power, Chihaia stated that even during the government of the former republican leader there has been a trend of supporting European investments for the development of defence capabilities . As regards the Strategic Compass, the EU's defence plan for the next ten years, Chihaia said that it contains over 50 objectives and many of them are connected to the rapid reaction force, which should be operational in 2025 and have up to 5,000 soldiers. Asked what would be the most vulnerable areas in which EU-NATO cooperation should be focused in the context of the conflict in Ukraine, Mihai Chihaia said that they are "innumerable", citing, among others, the coordination of arms production and joint arms purchases, climate change, fields related to software security, energy, protection of critical infrastructures. Almost 900 million euros from the Modernization Fund will be invested in Gorj and Dolj counties, the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, wrote on Facebook on Friday. "On today's anniversary, I sent a clear message to the CEO (Oltenia Energy Compound, ed. n.): we are not closing anything, but, on the contrary, we are investing in modernization and preparing the compound for the future. Yes, Oltenia produces most of the electricity that Romania needs. That's why, in the last 3 years, the Government has allocated approximately 1 billion euros for the optimal functioning of the CEO," the government official claimed. He pointed out that, for modernization, the CEO is currently going through a stage of change, but it is not closing. Also, there is no question of people going home, Agerpres informs. "And I want us to be a team together, to complete this modernization project. In this sense, almost 900 million euros, from the Modernization Fund, will be invested in Gorj and Dolj counties. We are preparing for the future, for the energy independence of Romania," added Popescu. In a previous post, he said that he participated in the 50th anniversary of the Rovinari power plant. "Today I participated in this anniversary moment together with colleagues from the Parliament, from the local administration, from the CEO management, but also with former and current employees of the Rovinari Thermal Power Plant. In the 50 years of operation, the results are the following: over 220.5 TWh electricity produced, more than 1040 thousand total operating hours of the energy groups. The peak of the energy produced in the 50 years was recorded in 2006: approximately 7 TWh. I thank all those who contributed and contribute to the operation of the power plant. We are still concerned with modernizing the activity," Popescu said. Romania will support the goal of creating a special tribunal for the "crime of aggression in relation to the situation in Ukraine," Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Friday, told Agerpres. Aurescu gave a speech to the release of "Vespasian V. Pella and the ideal of peace through law" by Aurora Ciuca. "We will continue to play our part in the unprecedented collective effort to render justice to the victims of the most serious crimes committed in Ukraine. Perpetrators have to pay, and our collective efforts must be efficient in this regard, as Ukraine seeks the justice it deserves," said the Romanian chief diplomat. Aurescu also spoke about the recent UN General Assembly. "Romania's message was loud and clear and it was in line with the vision of Vespasian Pella that we have to make sure that justice is being served and accountability is pursued, that we cannot allow for the rules-based international order to be undermined," he said. At the same time, he emphasised that "accountability is essential when dealing with what was happening in Ukraine and it's happening right now to the Ukrainians." Moreover, Aurescu reiterated that Romania is a strong supporter of the efforts to seek accountability for all serious crimes committed in Ukraine. Aurescu spoke of the relevance of Vespasian Pella's thinking. "During these complex and difficult times, as the ones we are living today, marked by Russia's brutal, unprovoked, unjustified, illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, the importance of international law, of international rule of law, of the instruments of international law becomes more obvious than ever. International law is crucial and vital," said Aurescu. According to Aurescu, Pella "had a modern, forward thinking and a sophisticated view of the world, through the prism of international law, he was a pioneer and a founding father of the international criminal law". "The creation of the International Criminal Court, in 2002, can also be considered as a direct result of the tireless work of Vespasian Pella, which was fuelled by his belief that a world without impunity may be created through collective contribution and sound legal responsibility of states," Aurescu also said. Almost 220,000 people have entered Romania through Isaccea customs since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the daily flow of refugees being on the increase compared to two months ago. According to the Coast Guard, in the last 24 hours, some 930 people with about 200 cars entered Romania through the Romanian-Ukrainian border crossing point in Isaccea and about 650 people left Romania by 200 means of transport, told Agerpres. "Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, through Isaccea customs, about 220,000 people by almost 52,000 means of transport have entered Romania and 185,000 people have left Romania by almost 51,000 means of transport," the spokesperson for the Coast Guard, Adrian Ene said. This week, the border police of the Coast Guard registered in 24 hours 1,270 people who entered Romania through the same border crossing point with Ukraine. For comparison, on August 8, through Isaccea customs, 270 people entered Romania by 90 cars and 500 people left by 1,000 means of transport. The increased flow in recent days is also explained by the restrictions temporarily imposed on the border between the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, so that some people were forced to change the route and use the customs point in Isaccea. The citizens of the European Union "must constantly participate in the democratic process" and we must "cherish democracy", because "it is not for granted" and it is subject to "great challenges at the moment", declared on Friday, in Bucharest, in an interview for AGERPRES, the Vice-President of the European Commission for democracy and demography, Dubravka Suica, who also assessed as "positive" the situation related to Romania's accession to the Schengen Area, specifying, however, that the decision belongs to the European Council. She also said that more than half of the proposals that European citizens made through the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe can be easily put into practice, but that others require the change of European treaties, which the European Commission, together with the European Parliament is willing to discuss, but the final decision belongs to the European Council, where the unanimity of the 27 member states is needed. Although rural areas in the European Union are going through a process of depopulation, they can be made attractive again and repopulated in the future, and life in villages, including in Romania, can be sustainable, if European funds are used properly and if basic services, especially a broadband Internet network, are provided, Croatian Dubravka Suica also declared, Agerpres informs. She also reiterated the position of the European Commission according to which Romania is ready to become a member of the Schengen Area and evaluated as "positive" the situation related to Romania's accession, stating at the same time that the European Council has the last word. Dubravka Suica started a visit to Romania on Thursday, during which she met with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, with Gabriela Firea, Minister of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities, with Daniela Gitman, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and with Nicusor Dan, the General Mayor of Bucharest, and visited the Ominis complex for integrated social services intended for vulnerable people, including Ukrainian refugees, in the Capital city. On Saturday, the European dignitary will be in central-western Cluj-Napoca, where she will meet with the mayor of the city, Emil Boc, after which she will visit the Babes-Bolyai University (UBB). AGERPRES: What is the assessment of the European Commission at this moment regarding the chances that Romania will be accepted in the Schengen Area this year? Dubravka Suica: As you know, the European Commission has decided long ago that Romania is ready to join the Schengen zone. Also, this position has not changed. We are in favour, and the European Parliament is also in favour. However, as I said this morning, the destiny of Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia is in the hands of the European Council. When I say the European Council, that means there are leaders, there are ministers, they have to decide on this. So far, as I can judge, I think the situation is positive, but of course, I cannot speak on behalf of the European Council. AGERPRES: You are also dealing with the Conference on the Future of Europe, an important topic now. What guarantees can you offer that the proposals that European citizens have made through this Conference will really be put into practice in the end? Dubravka Suica: I'm in lead on the conference on the Future of Europe on behalf of the European Commission. But, you know that there are three institutions who are dealing with it, and there was no voting, so every proposal, every measure was brought in consensus. Everything is fine, we have now 49 proposals, which are made by the citizens. Next week we will adopt the next Commission's working programme for 2023. 50% of the Commission's ideas are based on the citizens' proposals, so what we are doing, we are replying to the citizens' ideas, hopes and concerns. One is, for example, mental health. Another one is food waste. Then is gender equality. There are many ideas; we incorporated them. You also might have heard President Von der Layen ahead of her State of the Union address sent a letter of intent to leaders with different ideas, all of which stem from the conference on the Future of Europe. So we committed ourselves that we will reply and there will be a follow-up, so we expect that there will be a follow-up event on the Conference on the Future of Europe on the 2nd of December when we will invite all the citizens who participate in the conference plenary and in the panels. They will be there, and we will honestly tell them: This can be done, and this can't be done. More than half of this could be done easy, without any changes. Some of the ideas ask for treaties' change. At this moment, the Commission is also ready to start a Convention, as well as the Parliament, but again, it depends on the Council and the 27 member states to decide on it. It's now politically sensitive to say whether it is the right moment, in the middle of the war, on European soil, to open the Treaty, to start a Convention, because it's an institutional change. But, if you listen carefully to what our president said, she wants to enshrine in the treaties solidarity between generations, because now it's all about demography, so we saw how important and vital this solidarity was during COVID, how important it is all the time; you know that we have this Recovery and Resilience Programme, which is not by coincidence called Next generation EU, which means we are borrowing money from the capital markets. The money will be given back by 2059, which means we are borrowing money from the next generation. However, at the same time, we are preparing Europe and Romania for the next generation, together with young people, so this is the best example of inter-generational solidarity ever. Of course, when we talk about inter-generations, we can say that grand-daughters and grand-sons will be helping the grannies how to use digital, and so on. There are many examples of this solidarity, and I think this is our continent's most precious thing. So you asked me about how can we guarantee. This is how we can guarantee: we have citizens in the process again. We also want to introduce the deliberative democracy into the policy-making process, so we will first organize a new citizen panels on food waste because the President promised that she would invite citizens before any key legislation, and this is the first one. We will select citizens randomly, talk to them, listen to them to see what they want, and then we will incorporate this. We, the Commission, talk about daily issues which can help people's lives. Institutional issues are also important, but they are more important for MEPs. We will see what the Council will say because, if I may be open, smaller member states and medium-sized member states are not in favour of changing treaties on institutions, because they think that they will lose the power in the Council, which is the case. You know that there is a letter, signed by 12 leaders, which says that they are against it. So, let's see how this situation is developing, but at this moment, we will see. I have a General First Council on Tuesday, I will be there on behalf of the Commission, and we will listen to the 27 ministers of European Affairs, including your State Secretary, and see their position. AGERPRES: Romania has a big demographic problem, just like the entire EU, and it is particularly facing depopulation in rural areas. What do you think Romania should do better to limit this direction? Dubravka Suica: It is hard to limit anyone because we live in a free Europe, and one of the freedoms is freedom of movement, so whoever wants to go is free to go, of course, but to anticipate what is going to happen, first of all, we adopted a long-term vision for rural areas. Why? Because we realized, after we did a first report on demography, we realized that more than 80% of Europe, and this is also valid for Romania, is covered by rural areas. So, there is a huge potential for being populated and we are trying to make these regions' perspective attractive, by proper use of cohesion policy and funding, this including financing through the Recovery and Resilience Programme and the new 2021-2027 envelope. If these funds are used in a proper way, if they are directed to rural areas, if the services are opened again, if you have healthcare, kindergartens, schools, you have shops, if you have intermodal transport and, above all, if you have broadband Internet, then the life in the villages and the countryside in Romania could also be sustainable, and this is the reason why the first priority of the European Commission is Digital Europe. The second one is the Green Deal. So these are two big European priorities, but they are underpinned by the demographic change, which is obvious. This is the reason why this new portfolio has been established, because we see that there is a phenomenon, in Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, people tend to go towards the West, but at the same time there is a phenomenon where people tend to move from rural to urban areas, in Romania, in Spain, in Portugal, so we are trying to establish and create a good environment, good standards, so that people can stay there. And not only those people who are born there, but we can also attract new-comers, and this is the idea, but it's a long-term process, and the results of our work won't be seen soon, so this is a big process and it should also be followed by local authorities, regional authorities and national authorities, and there is no solution, one-size fits all, it's different in Finland, it's different in Romania, because we have to take care about tradition, about culture, so we are working on it, cross-sectorial. My portfolio is horizontal, so I work with all commissioners on this and I think that we will manage to do this, but we have to have a good cooperation with local authorities. Without this, it won't be possible. AGERPRES: I don't know if you and the European Commission are aware, but now, in the Romanian Parliament, there is a proposal to change the Law on the protection of children, so that they are "protected" against the "promotion of homosexuality" and including sex education. And there have been voices that have expressed concerns about these proposals, saying that they are similar to what happened in Hungary. Dubravka Suica: I've heard something about that, but I am not competent to comment on national laws, and I am not interfering into the member states' competencies, but as you might know, we adopted first ever European strategy on the rights of child, and for us, this is a precious text, with six priorities, so as long as these laws are not in contradiction with European Strategy for the Rights of Child, we are fine, but I am not commenting this, because I do not know anything more about this. AGERPRES: What would you say are the biggest challenges to democracy in the European Union in these difficult times? Dubravka Suica: There are big challenges at the moment. We are talking about democracy vs. autocracy, which is evident, so now we see that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Nothing is taken for granted, so we really have to cherish it, we have to talk to our citizens, and we have to keep citizens involved in the process. So, this is why I was talking about the liberty of democracy, because they have to be constantly involved in the process and they have to be participants of the democratic process, they are not objects of democracy, but they are participants. This is something that we have to cherish, so there are big challenges. Other member states also have autocratic tendencies, so we will have to deal with it. My portfolio is titled "Democracy," but it's much broader than I can explain in a few minutes. The participation of citizens and keeping citizens informed and involved is our best tool. More than 13,500 pilgrims spent the night between Thursday and Friday standing in a line of several kilometres, while braving the cold, in order to worship at the reliquaries with the holy relics of Saint Paraskeva and Saint Paisie, who were brought to Iasi from the Neamt monastery, told Agerpres. Due to the cold, fatigue and lack of food, several people needed medical care from the first aid teams from the County Ambulance Service, the Red Cross or SMURD. Since Saturday, October 8, when the pilgrimage began, 201 people needed medical care, 14 of them being transported to the hospital. Since then, according to the estimate of the Gendarmerie, until Friday morning at 7.00 am, approximately 166,800 pilgrims passed by the canopy specially set up in the Metropolitanate Courtyard. Most of the pilgrims who are still standing in line arrived here as early as Thursday, especially to reach Saint Paraskeva's reliquary on the day when she is the saint patron, on Friday, along with the reliquary of Saint Paisie from Neamt. The relics of the two saints are placed in an especially arranged canopy in the Court of the Metropolitanate of Moldavia and Bucovina. During the night, the pilgrims received tea and coffee from the volunteers, as well as a food package. Starting at 9.00 am., on an especially arranged stage in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi, the Holy Liturgy will be celebrated, a religious ceremony dedicated to the patron saint Paraskeva. Every year, around October 14, when Orthodox Christians celebrate the Shrine of Saint Pious Paraskeva, Iasi turns into one of the biggest pilgrimage centres in the country. Venerable Parascheva, known especially by the Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian Orthodox churches, was born in the village of Epivat in Eastern Thrace, today Boiados, not far from Constantinople, at the beginning of the 11th century. She died at the age of 27. In 1641, her relics were given to the lord of Moldavia, Vasile Lupu, as gratitude for the payment of the Patriarchate's debts to the Turks. In the same year, the relics arrived in Iasi, being placed with honour in the church of the Holy Three Hierarchs, currently under the patronage of UNESCO, which was designed to become the shrine of Saint Paraskeva. They stayed there until December 1888, when they miraculously escaped from a fire, being later transferred to the new Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi, where they are still today. The generalization of the cult of Venerable Paraskeva was decided in 1955 by the members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. It was also then that the date of the celebration of St. Paraskeva - October 14 - was established. The Bucharest Declaration signed at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference 2022 (PP-22) conveys Romania's concern to participate in the development of new technologies and highlights the creativity and professionalism of our specialists, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Friday. "For three weeks we had the privilege of hosting relevant debates for the telecommunications and digitization sector in Bucharest. The Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union brought to the same table elite specialists in the field, political leaders, ambassadors and high-level representatives of international organizations. I congratulate all of them for the outstanding contributions made to the technologies of the future - telecommunications, artificial intelligence and to all topics of interest," mentioned Nicolae Ciuca, in a message sent at the closing of the meeting, Agerpres informs. The Head of the Executive said that Romania owes a new mandate in the ITU Council to the experts with the National Communications Administration and Regulation Authority (ANCOM) and the Ministry of Research. "Thanks to them, our country will continue to have an important say in establishing the development axes of telecommunications worldwide in the next four years," mentioned Ciuca. In this context, the Prime Minister congratulated Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who will take over the position of Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union next year, for a four-year term, and also thanked Houlin Zhao, for all the activities carried out since year 2015, and for the very good collaboration with Romania. Ciuca thanked the delegates from all over the world participating in the event and expressed the hope that they will return to our country either in an official capacity or as tourists. Gas storage facilities in Romania exceeded the 90% filling level on Friday and Romanians and the economy will have at their disposal the entire amount of gas needed to get through this winter well, regardless of the weather, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca announced. "We have 477 million more cubic meters of gas stored than last year, that is 2.774 billion cubic meters of the total storage capacity of 3.07 billion. Romanians and our economy will have at their disposal the entire amount of gas necessary to go well through this winter, no matter what the weather will be like. Of the 55 million cubic meters required for an average daily winter consumption, almost half is produced domestically, currently, and the difference is covered by the quantities in storage. Assessments show that there is absolutely no problem in the supply of gas for the population, industry, business milieu," Ciuca said in a post on the Government's Facebook page. The head of the Executive specified that he asked the responsible institutions to continue the intense pace of gas storage and to manage with great care the quantities necessary to get through this winter well. "Having capped gas prices for Romanians and enough gas for the functioning of the economy, the Government will continue to actively support both our citizens and our industries," the prime minister said, told Agerpres. Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Marcel Ciolacu met on Friday, on the sidelines of the European Socialists Congress in Berlin, with Germany's Labor Minister Hubertus Heil with whom he discussed EU-wide support for a strong social agenda. "I let Mr. Minister know that, just as the German Social Democrats pushed through an increase in the minimum wage this fall, the PSD succeeded in convincing its coalition partners of the need to increase the minimum wage to 3,000 RON starting January 1, 2023," Ciolacu wrote on Facebook, Agerpres informs. He added that the talks also covered common principles for protecting the population and the economy amid the current international political and economic conundrum. The two officials also examined work conditions for Romanian employees in Germany. "I am glad to see that Mr. Heil has maintained a close relationship with [Labor] Minister Budai ever since they visited together the farms where Romanian workers are at the job. It is obvious that our parties share the same vision: Europe can overcome the present difficulties only by building mechanisms that bring more solidarity, equity, capable to offer concrete and quick help to all its citizens in a vulnerable situation," said the PSD leader. National leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Marcel Ciolacu said on Friday that former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven showed his support for PSD's proposal to set up an energy working group within the Party of the European Socialists (PES), where solutions can be identified applicable to European countries to protect the public and the economy, told Agerpres. "I had an excellent meeting earlier with one of the most important leaders of the European left, former prime minister of Sweden, Mr Stefan Lofven, in which the full support of the European socialists for Romania's joining the Schengen area was reconfirmed. At the same time, Mr Lofven showed his support for the PSD proposal to establish an energy working group within PES, where we can identify solutions applicable to European countries in order to be able to protect both our people and the economy," Ciolacu wrote on Facebook. He told Lofven that PSD supports his candidacy for the PES presidency. "We are convinced that this way the European left will reconfirm its role as the main pillar of the recovery and resilience of the European Union in the face of the political and economic crises that the continent has to overcome," concluded Ciolacu. Ciolacu is participating, October 13-15, in Berlin, in the Congress of European Socialists (PES Congress), where a resolution for firm support of Romania's accession to the Schengen area will be voted on. According to a PSD press statement released on Thursday, the resolution, which will be adopted by the convention, sends a strong message of solidarity of the European social-democratic family with the Romanians. "Solidarity is not proclaimed, but created. All left-wing parties in Europe fully support Romania's accession to the Schengen area, and the resolution that will be adopted at the PES Congress in Berlin is extremely concrete proof of this," Ciolacu is quoted as saying in the statement. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The authorities of Armenia have always proposed that Artsakh must be involved and is involved in all discussions and issues, Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan told reporters following the meeting with the delegation of Artsakh led by President Arayik Harutyunyan. We propose Artsakh what we have always proposed: Artsakh must be independently involved and is involved in all discussions and issues. At the same time, the Republic of Armenia must be maximally involved in those talks, the Speaker said. Commenting on the statement of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev that they will negotiate with Artsakh whenever they want and in what way they want, the Speaker said that there have been many issues until now which Azerbaijan has discussed and negotiated with the authorities of Artsakh. At the same time, Azerbaijan is in a constant contact with the legal authorities of Artsakh on many issues. There are even cases when the authorities of Artsakh are more informed in terms of information than we. Its understandable that the leadership of the neighbor country must give other wordings, call Stepanakert in an Azerbaijani name and so on. I ask to consider this within that logic. Meanwhile, lets remember that the negotiation process has not ended, there is no document that we can refer to, he said. Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation Sebastian Burduja met on Friday with European Commissioner for Innovation and Research Mariya Gabriel, with talks focusing on European aerospace technology projects, the Ministry said in a statement, told Agerpres. Also present at the meeting at the "Elie Carafoli" Aerospace Research and Development National Institute (INCAS) was the Qube robotics team of the "Mihai Viteazul" National College in Bucharest, one of the best in Romania and in the world. The two officials discussed opportunities to generate European and Romanian innovation, challenges to entrepreneurs and ways to access more European funds for the innovation ecosystem. "We had a free discussion with Romanian entrepreneurs, we looked at examples of excellence in artificial intelligence, health innovation, forward-looking financing, and it's a great chance for Europe and Romania to have in the position of European Commissioner for Innovation and Research a professional who understands that we have a set of things to do: get out of the way of those who innovate, remove bureaucratic barriers, support everyone with lofty dreams to fulfill them," Sebastian Burduja said according to the cited source. The RADAR new media art festival, an annual panorama of the profile industry, will take place over October 14-16 in three heritage buildings, the Oscar Maugsch Palace, the Bursa Palace - CCI and the GHICA House, which hosts the Romania de Maine Foundation, in the Capital City Bucharest, told Agerpres. This year's edition, the third, will host a selection of over 30 multidisciplinary projects belonging to Romanian artists from all over the country and three talks by international guests from festivals recognized in this segment. The categories of the event, a large festival dedicated to the new digital environments in Romania, are divided into Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Video Mapping, Interactive Installations, Artificial Intelligence and Metahumans, Game Art and NFTs. The selected artists are: Aural Eye, Adistu, AMC Ro Studio, Anca Damian, Augmented Space Agency, Cote.ggml, Denis Flueraru, Dan Adrian Ionescu, Dragos Iulian Matei, Dragos Dogioiu, Emil Dragan, Ioana Mischie, Ionut Moldovanu, Cristina Bodnarescu, Les Ateliers Nomad, Lucian, Noiseloop Studio, Rizi studio, Sandu Milea, Stefan Damian, Tammy Lovin, Toma Herciu. The themes and guests of the three debates will be: * New media centres and museums, October 14; * Metavers, NFT and the Web3 community, October 15; * Immersive spaces and new media festivals, October 16. The meetings, which will take place between 3.00 and 5.00 pm, will be moderated by Alexandru Berceanu, mixed reality director&UNATC university lecturer, and Adrian Posteuca, Creative Technologies and Metaverse consultant. The winners of the FAR funding and mentorship programme who will have projects exhibited at RADAR are: Cristina Bodnarescu - Imagined Critters; Noiseloop - Metaverse; Stefan Damian - Sonic Avatars. The theme of this edition is "Metaverse," bringing closer the notion of Avatar and its meaning throughout history. The avatar is both a primitive and modern concept, specify the organizers, recalling that, at this moment in history, human identities also have a digital side that is constantly looking for a functional and aesthetic form. The RADAR programme will be: October 14, between 2.00 pm and 11:00 pm; October 15 and 16, between 11.00 am and 11.00 pm. Tickets can be purchased from iabilet.ro (RADAR and RADAR Kids), at the price of 50 lei (adults) and 25 lei (pupils, students), and more information can be found on the dedicated Facebook and Instagram pages. Based on the ticket, all three exhibition spaces can be visited. The event is also dedicated to children, the recommended age being over 6 years. RADAR is a project co-financed by Bucharest City Hall through ARCUB, within the Affective Bucharest Programme 2022. Member states of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have reached consensus on a number of key decisions at Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) on Wednesday, on topics including space sustainability and the role of telecommunications/ICTs in mitigating global pandemics, told Agerpres. A new resolution on the sustainability of the radio-frequency spectrum and associated satellite orbit resources used by space services underscores the urgent need to review technologies used in satellite networks in the geostationary satellite orbit (GSO), as well as the increased numbers of satellites within non-GSO satellite systems, with a view to addressing them in the Radio Regulations, if necessary, and in the processing of frequency assignments by the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau (BR). The resolution also notes the urgency of addressing issues associated with non-GSO satellite systems before they are launched and operational. As such, Member States instructed the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA) to urgently perform the necessary studies through ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) study groups to address the increasing use of radio-frequency spectrum and associated orbit resources in non-GSO orbits and the long-term sustainability of these resources. The resolution also instructs the RA to have ITU-R study groups investigate equitable access to, and rational and compatible use of, GSO and non-GSO orbit and spectrum resources in line with Article 44 of the ITU Constitution. Delegates noted additional concerns that fall outside the scope of ITU's mandate, such as environmental impacts, space safety and debris, pollution, and other critical issues, should be studied where necessary. "Space technology and applications, as well as data derived from space, contribute to a range of sustainable development activities, from environmental protection to disaster risk reduction and emergency response, energy infrastructure to agriculture and food security, and more. According to this new resolution, ITU should support the implementation of the Space2030 Agenda, especially the parts related to space services, given the organization's unique role in facilitating access to radio spectrum and associated satellite orbits per Article 44 of the ITU Constitution. At the same time, the resolution notes how national frequency assignments and allotments, especially those of developing countries, have been severely degraded over time, making it difficult for those countries to use them. Thus, the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23) and subsequent WRCs are therefore instructed to continue prioritizing equitable access to satellites orbits with the special needs of developing countries in mind," reads an official press release of the organizers. Finally, Resolution 186 was revised to strengthen ITU's role in transparency and confidence-building measures in outer space activities by instructing the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) Director to make satellite monitoring facility information available to governments. Along with the National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) and the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Tourism (MAT), partners in organizing the conference were: the Senate of Romania, the Chamber of Deputies, the General Secretariat of the Government, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Culture, the Bucharest City Hall, the Special Telecommunications Service, the Protection and Security Service and the Romanian Television Society. The ITU is the international organization in the United Nations system specialized for information and communication technologies (ICT), which promotes innovation in this field, together with the 193 member states and with more than 900 members from companies, universities and organizations international and regional. Established 157 years ago, the ITU is an intergovernmental organization whose main objective is to coordinate the safe use of the radio spectrum at the global level, promote international cooperation in the assignment of satellite orbits, improve communications infrastructure in developing countries and establish of worldwide standards to encourage the seamless interconnection of a wide range of communication systems. Romania will be present again this year at the Frankfurt International Book Fair, from October 19 to 23, with the Romanian stand, organized by the Ministry of Culture, to host public readings, meetings with Romanian writers, book presentations, debates, negotiations between publishing groups, printers and authors. The guests of the Ministry of Culture at this year's edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair are writers Jan Cornelius and photographer Marc Schroeder, informs the institution, in a press release sent to AGERPRES on Friday. "The two will participate in events together alongside the guests of publisher Traian Pop, who for more than three decades has been making known the works of Eastern European authors in Germany through his small publishing house in Ludwigsburg. Thus, Mrs. Barbara Zeizinger, Mr. Walter Fromm and translator Georg Aescht, who will also take care of the translation of the discussions for the participants, they will present and debate on the latest appearances of the Pop publishing house," states the quoted source. As every year, authors and publishing houses from the Republic of Moldova also have a consistent exposure at the stand. This year, the Ministry of Culture from Romania is collaborating with the Ministry of Culture from the Republic of Moldova for the best possible representation of Romanian literature and culture on both banks of the Prut, the press release states. In the same regional context, as part of international efforts to support and promote Ukrainian culture in this demanding period of war, Frontiera Publishing House presents, with the support of the Romanian Ministry of Culture and the organizers of the Frankfurt Fair, an event dedicated to children from Eastern Europe, for which fairy tales and poems signed by Romanian authors will be read, followed by a cocktail. The series of Romanian events will end, on October 22, with the presentation of the album Order 7161, by photographer Mark Schroeder, which illustrates, through a thorough documentation work, the course of Germans from Romania deported to Siberia during the Second World War, followed by a discussion about the recent publication in German of the volume "De ce nu-s romanii ca nemtii?" [Why aren't Romanians more like Germans?], signed by Jan Cornelius and Adina Popescu. One of the oldest and most prestigious international fairs in the world, considered to be the largest copyright fair, the Frankfurt International Book Fair annually hosts approximately 300,000 visitors and over 200 foreign exhibitors, adds the Ministry of Culture. The guest of honor at this year's edition is Spain. In the last 20 years, Romania has been constantly present at the Frankfurt International Book Fair, with a stand organized by the Ministry of Culture. As many as 635 new cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 were recorded in the last 24 hours in Romania, down 44 from the previous day, with over 12,000 RT-PCR and rapid antigenic tests performed, the Health Ministry informed on Friday, told Agerpres. Of the new cases, 117 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 - 114, Cluj County - 36, Brasov County - 35, and Timis County - 35. The highest 14-day notification rate is in Bucharest City - 1.16, followed by Cluj County - 1.05, and Timis County - 0.9. As of Friday, 3,279,145 cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus were confirmed in Romania. - Hospitalisations - As many as 976 people with COVID-19, up 18 from the previous reporting, including 51 minors, are hospitalised in Romania at specialist care facilities. Out of the total number of hospitalised patients, 106 are in intensive care, up six, including one minor. Of the 106 patients admitted to ICU, 94 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 50-59 years, and two in the age group over 80 years. All deaths were in patients with comorbidities, and one death was in a vaccinated patient. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 67,113 people diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 infection have died in Romania. Romania's final energy consumption, in the first eight months of 2022, totalled over 35.151 billion kWh, lower by 5.3pct compared to the corresponding period of 2021, whereas in economy, it declined by 4.5pct, the data published on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) informed, told Agerpres. Public lightning registered an increase by 3.8pct and the household consumption dropped by 7.7pct. The own technological consumption of grids and stations was 3.506 billion kWh, declining by 224.7 million kWh. Energy export stood at 4.391 billion kWh, up 84.4 million kWh. Between 1 January and 31 August 2022, primary energy resources declined by 2.3pct and the electricity resources dropped by 4.6pct compared to the same period of 2021. The main primary energy resources totalised 22.035 million toe, declining by 521,400 toe compared to the same period of last year. Internal production stood at 11.697 million toe, declining by 589,800 thousand toe (-4.8pct) compared to the first eight months of 2021, whereas the import stood at 10.337 million toe, increasing by 68.4 thousand toe (+0.7pct). In the mentioned period, the energy resources stood at 43.050 billion kWh, lower by 2.090 billion kWh compared to the corresponding period of 2021. The production in thermal power plants was 14.217 billion kWh, down 184.8 million kWh (-1.3pct), hydropower production reached 9.730 billion kWh, down 3.456 billion kWh (-26.2pct), and the production at the nuclear power plant totalled 7.088 billion kWh, down 168.3 million kWh (-2.3pct). Production from wind power plants amounted to 4.883 billion kWh, up 757.4 million kWh compared to the same period of last year, whereas the solar energy produced in photovoltaic installations during this period totaled 1.360 billion kWh, up 70.8 million kWh against the corresponding period of 2021. Romania's new orders in the manufacturing industry increased, in nominal terms by 18.9pct in the first eight months of 2022 compared to the similar period of last year, the data published on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) showed. According to the INS data, new orders in the manufacturing industry, between 1 January and 31 August 2022, compared to the same period of 2021, increased overall by 18.9pct, in nominal terms, as a result of the increases recorded in the intermediate goods industry (+24.5pct), the durable goods industry (+20.6pct), the current goods industry (+19.2pct) and the capital goods industry (+15.4pct), told Agerpres. New orders in the manufacturing industry, in August 2022 compared to the previous month, declined overall by 12.7pct, in nominal terms, following drops recorded in the capital goods industry (-19.3pct), the intermediate goods industry (-5.1pct), the current goods industry (-3.5pct). The durable goods industry increased by 4.0pct. According to the INS data, new orders in the manufacturing industry, in August 2022 compared to the corresponding month of 2021, increased overall by 22.1pct, in nominal terms, due to increases recorded in the capital goods industry (+29.4pct), the current goods industry (+20.2pct), the durable goods industry (+18.4pct) and the intermediate goods industry (+13.9pct). Romania's Crown Custodian, Her Majesty Margareta and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, were awarded on Thursday, as a sign of homage, with the Honorary Diploma and the Medal of the "Babes-Bolyai" University (UBB) of Cluj-Napoca, handed over by the UBB rector, Professor Daniel David, PhD, within a festivity, in the attendance of the other rectors of universities of Cluj, told Agerpres. These distinctions were also awarded to Prince Guillaume, Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg. "It is a great honor and a great pride for me to be here again and have you all here, in Cluj. It is a wonderful possibility for us to welcome all here, in Romania. It is a great pride for us. (...) We are all a big family, which, currently, is a very important thing, especially at this time, taking into account the fractioned world of our days, being all together it is an example for everyone and I am very pleased that it's taking place in Cluj. Thank you very much for this honor. It means a lot to me, personally, but also for my predecessors, who have done a lot for Cluj. (...) It is a paramount thing that we are able to be together, work together and make the world a better place," Romanian Crown Custodian Margareta stated, upon being awarded the UBB distinctions. In his turn, Prince Edward said he is honored by the distinctions he received. Prince Edward wanted to thank the rector and the entire community for the medal of honor, adding that he accepted the distinction on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award foundation for its hard work. The Earl of Wessex and Forfar also wanted to mention that the university is not only the place for learning and research, but also a place for thinking, exchanging opinions, for questioning perceptions, for innovation and collaboration in terms of sharing knowledge, taking wisdom further. International leaders, among whom Prince Edward, the brother of King Charles III, participates until Friday in the forum of the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award foundation. The Global Forum 2022 began on Tuesday, with the opening ceremony, attended by Her Majesty Margareta, the Custodian of the Romanian Crown, and HRH Prince Radu of Romania, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, who is the Chairman of Trustees of the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award Foundation, Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg, The Right Hon The Lord Boateng, who is the Chair of the International Council (IC) of the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award Foundation. It is for the first time that the Global Forum is held outside the Commonwealth. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan said that the option of separate negotiations in the format of Artsakh-Azerbaijan has been discussed but Armenia has rejected this option. Simonyan told reporters that Armenia must be maximally involved in these talks. It was discussed, there was an option where Artsakh would be on its own, Armenia did not agree to this. Options are being discussed, various partners are making certain proposals. Armenia did not agree to this. Negotiations will show what will happen next, Simonyan said. AWARDS Veterans Home Care earned gold in the 2022 McKnights Excellence in Technology Awards for tech innovation in home care, senior living and skilled nursing. Veterans Home Care was recognized for its SmartCompanion technology that uses a voice-activated, Alexa-powered medical alert system. Friendship Village senior living community, which piloted the SmartCompanion system, received a gold and a silver award. EXPANDING Moneta is expanding with a new office in Chicago. The firm now has offices in St. Louis, Denver, Kansas City, Boston and Chicago. EyeCare Partners expanded its presence in Northern Ohio through a partnership with three practices Novus Clinic, Corrective Eye Center and Retina Specialists of Ohio. Additionally, the company plans to build a new Ambulatory Surgery Center as well as a 16-exam lane clinic, both of which will be dedicated to supporting the eye care of Cleveland area patients beginning in 2023. MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS TricorBraun agreed to acquire German glass packaging distributor Glaser & Flaschen GmbH. Interior Investments LLC joined the Paric Holdings family of companies. NEW BUSINESS Toberman Wealth, a fee-only financial advisory firm, opened at 1741 South Big Bend Boulevard. PROJECTS Trivers completed work on the Steelcote Square development, which includes Steelcote Lofts, Steelcote Crossing and Steelcote Flats. Trivers was selected by developer Pier Property Group, along with construction partner Holland Construction. Contegra Construction Co. is building a new distribution facility at Blue River Commerce Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The facility will be the fourth of seven buildings planned at the 226-acre Blue River Class A industrial campus launched by NorthPoint Development in 2021. Holland Construction Services broke ground on a new $101 million apartment complex in Clayton. The project, Bemiston Place at 9 North Bemiston Avenue, is expected to be completed by May of 2024. Peter Shinkle toiled for almost two decades as a newspaper reporter, including a stint at the Post-Dispatch. But in recent years, he has turned his hand to history of a longer-lasting sort. Three years ago, he wrote Ikes Mystery Man an account of Shinkles own great-uncle Robert Cutler. He worked as Dwight D. Eisenhowers national security adviser and worked at covering up his homosexuality in an unfriendly era. Now, Shinkle gives readers Uniting America, the subtitle of which says it all: How FDR and Henry Stimson Brought Democrats and Republicans Together to Win World War II. Stimson stood among the Republicans of his era, serving under William Howard Taft as secretary of war from 1911-1913 and under Herbert Hoover as secretary of state from 1929-33. Then, in 1940, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt called Stimson back to duty as secretary of war. He served Roosevelt and fellow Democrat Harry S Truman until after VJ Day in 1945. In those days, the Cabinet lacked a secretary of defense. So the secretary of war (and the secretary of the navy) wielded real power. The point of Shinkles book is that Stimson (and fellow Republican Frank Knox, FDRs secretary of the navy), put the public good ahead of politics. For example, in 1940, Roosevelt and Stimson prevailed upon influential Republican editor William Allen White to lean on GOP presidential nominee Wendell Wilkie to go along with FDRs plan to transfer dozens of old destroyers to Britains hard-pressed Royal Navy. Shinkle writes that had this been revealed at the time, it would likely have caused a scandal. Republicans could have credibly accused FDR of using Stimson to limit the speech of the Republican presidential candidate. At times, Stimson disagreed with the president. For example, Stimson wanted to cast the Army he was building onto the shores of France instead of North Africa and Italy. He also wanted to integrate his racially segregated Army. But Stimson also has successes. Shinkle notes that Stimson beat back a movement to strip Germany of its industry after Allied victory, reducing that powerful nation to a pastoral status. And he favored the use of the atomic bomb against Japan as a rein on the Russians. Alas, Shinkles account may prove to a tough slog for some readers. He fills his pages with unessential facts for example, scores of details about who Simson had dinner with, and where. At books end, Shinkle muses how the nonpartisan bent of the wartime years contrasts with todays American politics, when Republicans and Democrats have changed from mere opponents into sworn enemies. Shinkle cites William Webster, a Missouri Republican who won strong support from Democrats for his dedication to the rule of law as a federal prosecutor for Eisenhower, as FBI chief under Jimmy Carter and as CIA chief under Ronald Reagan. In Shinkles account, Webster leaned a valuable lesson when he served in the navy during World War II: I didnt have to prove I was a Republican or a Democrat. I had to prove I was a good officer. Quentin Tarantino's first film, released 30 years ago this weekend, almost turned the stomach of reviewer Joe Pollack. Here's his original take. THE STORY is as phony as the names the robbers take - Mr. White, Mr. Blue, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink and Mr. Brown - and it's also a hymn to violence, blood and sadism that reaches repulsive levels. Harvey Keitel (Mr. White), one of the stars and a co-producer, described ''Reservoir Dogs'' as a ''brilliantly written piece dealing with issues of betrayal, trust and loyalty.'' Writer-director-actor Quentin Tarantino, less pretentious, says it is ''the pulp novel I always wanted to write.'' Tarantino is a lot closer to the truth, it seems, but in my opinion, ''Reservoir Dogs'' is the kind of film that doesn't need to be made. The story of five robbers whose jewel heist goes awry lacks a single pleasant moment but includes gruesome scenes of torture of a policeman, criminals bleeding to death, moments of agony, pain and disbelief. The gang is put together by a crime boss played with great toughness by Lawrence Tierney. He finds men who have the right criminal backgrounds but who do not know one another, so he provides the names and insists they do not speak of anything personal. He and his son, played with true meanness by Chris Penn (brother to Sean), plan the robbery and wait to share the diamonds. When it fails, the men panic. One is killed, another is wounded, and they make tracks for the abandoned warehouse were they are to rendezvous. Several are convinced they have been set up, that one of their quintet is a traitor, maybe even a cop. Were it not for the continual, gratuitous violence, Tarantino might have an interesting story, but the performances of the five crooks put me off totally. Each has to show how tough he is, and the machoism and preening are overdone in every direction. It wasn't very long before I did not care about any of them and waited only for a squad of police to arrive, guns blazing, to wipe them all out. Instead a policeman is taken hostage, and Michael Madsen, frighteningly vicious, begins to torture him in a sequence where sadism, brutality and violence come right to the surface. Tarantino, making his first feature, uses flashbacks from the warehouse to show the hiring of the men and the planning of the robbery, but even when they meet with Tierney, the men bicker with undertones of violence, as if their masculinity were at stake with every sentence. The acting is good. Steve Buscemi is especially powerful in a restaurant scene where he refuses to leave a tip for the waitress and defends himself against the jibes of the others. Because Cornish hens are so petite, it means they are the perfect bird to air-fry whole. Thanks to the short cooking time (a smaller size hen will only take around 35 minutes!), the meat stays juicy while the skin gets nice and crispy. Each serving is one whole hen per person, which means its perfect for dinner parties. Its also a quick and easy Thanksgiving turkey substitute if youre thinking of a low-key celebration. Bonus for any scenario: No carving required! What are Cornish hens? Cornish hens, also known as Rock Cornish game hens or Cornish game hens, are not actually game birds, nor are they all females! The name is given to a chicken that has been slaughtered at a younger age than the average chicken, which means they can weigh as little as one pound and are usually never more than about two pounds. A few tips Heat your air fryer for 10 minutes. After experimenting with different temperatures, I found air frying at 380 F in a preheated air fryer gave the best results, turning the skin a deep golden-brown without drying out the interior. Adjust the cook time according to size. As the sizes of Cornish hens can differ from 1 to 2 pounds, the smaller size hen will only take around 35 minutes to air fry. If you air-fry a 2-pound Cornish hen, it can take up to 40 minutes. For larger hens, start checking the internal temperature at 35 minutes in the thickest part of the thigh. A hack for repairing a tear in the skin covering the breast Some Cornish hens are sold frozen or defrosted, which can damage the delicate breast skin. Some are even sold with tears. To fix this, thereby preventing the meat from drying out, pull the skin over the exposed area and use a toothpick to secure the skin in place. Or pull the skin over the exposed area and then cover the hen with a slice of bacon, securing the bacon in place with a toothpick under the hen. No tear? This recipe gives you the option to add the bacon regardless. Because, why not? Air Fryer Cornish Hen Serves 2 to 4 2 (1 to 1 1/4-pound) Cornish hens 1/2 small lemon 2 large sprigs fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon kosher salt 3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning, or 1/2 teaspoon ground sage plus 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder 3/4 teaspoon onion powder 3/4 teaspoon sweet paprika 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 2 slices bacon (optional) 1. Pat two Cornish hens dry with paper towels, including behind the wings, legs, and inside the cavity. Place on a wire rack fitted over a large plate. Refrigerate uncovered for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight to dry the exterior and help create crispy skin. 2. Heat an air fryer to 380 F for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the following: Cut 1/2 small lemon in half again to create 2 quarters and remove any visible seeds. Cut 1 of the large rosemary sprigs in half crosswise. Place 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning, 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 3/4 teaspoon onion powder, 3/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar in a small bowl and stir to combine. 3. Pat the Cornish hens dry again with paper towels. Rub 1 tablespoon of the olive oil on each hen, including the underside, wings, and thighs. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of the spice mixture inside each the cavity of each hen. Sprinkle the outside of the hens with the remaining spice mixture, liberally rubbing the spices into the oil to create an even coating so that there are no spice clumps, which will burn in the air fryer. Place 1 lemon quarter and half a rosemary sprig inside each cavity. Wrap 1 slice bacon lengthwise over the center of each hen, and secure with a toothpick underneath, if using. 4. Brush the air fryer basket with a very thin layer of the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, reserving the rest. Carefully place both hens in the air fryer basket breast-side down. If you have a small basket, alternate the direction of the hens, so they face each other to ensure they snugly fit in the basket. You may need to use tongs to arrange the hens in the basket. Drizzle any remaining olive oil over both hens. 5. Air fry for 20 minutes. Flip the hens and continue air frying until an instant-read thermometer registers 165 F in the thickest part of the thigh, 15 to 20 minutes more. Meanwhile, pick the leaves from the remaining large rosemary sprig and finely chop until you have about 1 teaspoon. 6. Transfer the Cornish hens from the air fryer with tongs to a large plate or clean cutting board. Let rest for 10 minutes. Discard any toothpicks and garnish with the chopped rosemary. Remove the lemon wedge from the cavity with a fork and carefully squeeze the juice over the Cornish hen if desired. Recipe notes Cornish hens can range from 1 pound to 2 pounds; for air frying, the smaller size (1 to 1 1/4 pounds) is better, as you can fit two hens in the basket. If you can only get the larger 2-pound Cornish hens (which can be shared between two people), the cooking time will be longer if cooking two larger hens at once (if they can fit in your basket). Start checking the internal temperature after 30 minutes. If you have an air fryer with a small basket, you may only be able to fit one 2-pound hen in at once. To serve a larger 2-pound hen to share, use kitchen shears to cut each hen in half down the breast bone and along the backbone. Leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to four days. 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 Ten years ago, Hailey Koob was living overseas with her family and planning to come back to the United States for college. She had been born and raised in St. Louis before they moved to Doha, Qatar. Because she would only have one summer to visit colleges, she researched extensively and made a list of 30 to 40 schools she wanted to see in person. No, thats not possible, her mom said. She told her to cut the list in half. Koob, her mom and a friend ended up visiting 20 colleges on the East Coast and in the Midwest over two weeks. At some points, the tours blurred together. But the visits helped her narrow down her long list. Some, I knew I didnt want to go there because of the tour guide, Koob said. Other campuses were so large that she felt lost. Several would create a significant financial burden because of the price tag. When they were finished with their tours, they went to stay with family in Missouri for the rest of their trip. Koob realized she still hadnt found the right school despite all the tours and research. At the last minute, she decided to visit a few schools in the state. As soon as she stepped on the campus at Truman State University, a small public university in Kirksville, she loved the size. She connected with the other students on the tour. When the tour guide talked about the communication disorders program at the school, she was intrigued. She had planned to study biochemistry. This visit was making her rethink her entire list and future major. College counselors say students should try to visit four to six campuses if they are unsure of what they might be looking for. Some students wait until they receive admission offers and financial aid packages to visit campuses and use those experiences to help decide where to attend. We have taken each of our children to visit four colleges to help inform their decisions. I was struck by how the process has changed considerably from when I applied to college three decades ago. The information sessions and tours are designed to make as many students as possible want to apply and attend the college. A larger application pool at selective colleges means a lower admission rate, ultimately helping the university in its rankings. The info sessions are slick marketing campaigns designed to sell the school, and its important that prospective students and parents understand that, as well. During one presentation at a highly selective school known for its academic rigor, I wondered why the video made their college experience look like an extended trip to Disneyworld. Also, high schoolers can be influenced by a random detail during a campus visit that ends up playing an outsize role in their decision. A friend shared how her 17-year-old son landed on his No. 1 choice for college: During the tour, he was deeply impressed by the attractive girls he noticed on campus. Another friend confided that her child ruled out a university based on the tour guides response to a single question. I remember moving a college up to my first choice after seeing its bookstore. It looked like the kind of place I wanted to shop. A very mature and thoughtful way to make a life-altering decision, I know. While the benefits of visiting colleges are obvious a chance to see how you feel on the campus, talk to other students and experience the vibe there are potential hazards. You may fall in love with a dream school you might not get accepted to or may not be able to afford. Parents and students should keep reminding themselves that there are several places to get an excellent education and have a great experience. And keep an open mind throughout the process. Koob, who had spent hours planning out tour routes and filled a binder with notes from nearly two dozen college visits, ended up graduating from Truman State with a major in communication disorders, neither of which was on her radar prior to the last-minute tour. Looking back on it, I feel like it was the best choice for me, she said. CLAYTON A former teacher's aide in the Ferguson-Florissant School District pleaded guilty Friday to child sex abuse charges. Joseph Guyre, 33, of Hazelwood, was convicted of felony child molestation and two counts of statutory sodomy. He admitted to molesting a child in both 2013 and 2017 when he was a teacher's aide at Wedgewood School in the Ferguson-Florissant School District teaching English as a second language, according to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's office. The victim reported the abuse to Florissant police in 2021. Guyre was last employed by the district in January 2020, according to a news release last year from the Ferguson-Florissant School District. The district said no criminal history surfaced in Guyre's criminal background check. Sentencing in the case is set for 11 a.m. January 13. EDWARDSVILLE A man was sentenced to 9 years in prison for slamming his pickup into the front of a Granite City home, killing a 73-year-old woman inside, prosecutors announced Friday. Jonathan M. Beasley, 48, of Granite City, had been drinking at several bars before driving the night of July 5, 2021, according to the announcement from Madison County State's Attorney Thomas Haine. Beasley about 10:30 p..m. crashed his pickup into the home of Virginia Ann Ohren in the 1900 block of Joy Avenue. Ohren was pinned by the vehicle and killed in the crash. When police arrived, Beasley was found standing next to his truck in the demolished home and invited the officers inside, according to prosecutors. His blood alcohol level was 0.255%, above the legal limit of 0.08%, police found. Beasley pleaded guilty last month to aggravated DUI resulting in death and was sentenced by a judge to 9 years in prison. Prosecutors sought a 12-year sentence in the case, according to a statement from Haine's office. A 99-year-old woman whom Ohren drove to doctors appointments submitted a victim impact statement at sentencing. She was a lifeline for me a compassionate friend I could depend on all the time, the woman wrote. She had a servants heart and never took advantage of anyone. PINE LAWN Investigators are running out of leads in a double shooting in Pine Lawn that paralyzed a new father in September. Detectives have worked a lot of leads, but its dried up, police Maj. Ron Martin said Friday. Martin is with the North County Police Cooperative, which patrols Pine Lawn and is investigating the Sept. 16 shooting at 6103 Grimshaw Avenue. A 27-year-old man and his brother, 21, were shot after getting out of a minivan and heading to the porch of the home on Grimshaw. The older brother, who was father to a baby born a week earlier, is now paralyzed, Martin said. The younger brother was shot in the leg and is recuperating. Martin released video to the Post-Dispatch on Friday that shows the brothers walking to their porch about 4 p.m. as a black pickup truck pulls up. A passenger in the pickup gets out and opens fire. The gunman then returns to the truck, it pulls forward a bit, but the gunman steps out to toss the gun into a storm drain. Then he returns to the truck and it drives away. The video is from a business surveillance camera a half-block away. Martin said the brothers told police they didnt know who shot them and police arent speculating on a motive. Police recovered the gun from the storm drain and swabbed it for DNA. Martin said investigators are waiting for results from the crime lab to see if they have a match. The North County Police Cooperative is asking for the publics help in finding the gunman. CrimeStoppers is offering up to a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. The gunman shown in the video was wearing designer jeans and bright red shoes. The truck has a silver running board and a hard shell over the pickup bed, upgrades that arent seen on most trucks. Somebody knows this truck, Martin said. Its not your typical truck. To submit an anonymous tip, people can call 866-371-8477, complete an online form, or use the P3 app. ST. LOUIS A man was shot and killed in a flurry of gunfire Friday morning in the city's Walnut Park East neighborhood. The man, in his 40s, was found on a porch in the 4700 block of Wren Avenue just after 6:53 a.m. surrounded by bullet casings. He has not been identified, police said. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan said that Armenia expects broader involvement by Russia in regional processes. All my meetings in Russia were with the purpose of presenting the situation and expecting a response. I mostly waited to understand whats happening in our region and whether Russia is perceiving whats happening correctly and is planning to take action. There was a conversation about Artsakh too, but in terms of the general regional context. Russia says they will be more active. We will see when, Simonyan told reporters. He said that his Russian colleagues are often focusing on why he has criticized them in his interviews. But I have the answers to what Ive said and I have presented my answers. We are waiting and expecting broader involvement by Russia in this process, Simonyan said. Speaking about Russian FM Lavrovs statement on the deployment of CSTO observers to the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Simonyan said Armenia doesnt oppose this. We have agreed to all formats of Russia, it is Azerbaijan which still hasnt signed the Russian peacekeeping mandate for example. Lets not forget this. And what is our Russian colleagues response in this case? UPDATED at 10:30 a.m. Saturday with victim's name ST. LOUIS Police on Friday said a woman was found shot to death in the city's Dutchtown neighborhood. The woman, identified Saturday by police as Tabitha Peppers, 26, of the 1700 block of Locust Street, was discovered before 12:30 a.m. Friday in an alley behind the 3600 block of Montana Street. Police said they were called to the scene for a report of a shooting. Shot in the head, Peppers died in the alley. Homicide detectives are handling the investigation. CLAYTON A St. Louis County jury on Thursday found a man guilty of second-degree murder after a trial that centered on a 911 call that captured the killing. Caran Hatchet, 29, of St. Louis, in November 2019 shot and killed his ex-girlfriends new boyfriend Daniel Smith, 33, in a parking lot of the Victorian Village Townhomes in the Spanish Lake area of north St. Louis County. He was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder and armed criminal action after about four hours of jury deliberation. Prosecutors case focused on recordings of 911 calls made by Brianna Parker, the woman who connected the two men. Parker has a young daughter with the shooter, Hatchet, and had started dating Smith just a few months before the killing. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Chris Klaverkamp said in closing statements the two men got in a fight a few weeks before the shooting when they first met at the scene of a car crash involving Parker. The morning of the shooting, Nov. 27, 2019, Parker called 911 at about 4:39 a.m. to report Hatchet banging on the door of her apartment. Police came to the apartment but did not find Hatchet, according to testimony in the trial. Parker called 911 again about 40 minutes later and told a dispatcher that Hatchet slashed the tires of Smiths car before Smith had to leave for his job as an electrician. Yall need to get here now, she says on the recording. My boyfriend and him are about to fight. Parker testified that Hatchet and Smith were standing by her in the parking lot as Hatchet held a phone to his ear and repeated: Should I do it? On the 911 recording, she screams: Caran, no! Moments later, the recording captures loud bangs. You just killed my boyfriend! Parker screams on the call. Smith was shot multiple times in the abdomen. Babe I got you, Parker is recorded yelling after the gunshots. Defense attorney Greg Smith argued Hatchet shot in self defense. Hatchet himself took the stand, telling jurors he was trying to give Parker a share of his casino winnings that morning. He testified that Smith threatened him and reached into the trunk of his car before the shooting. Defense attorney Smith highlighted Parkers inconsistencies, including that she inaccurately told police she had a restraining order against Hatchet when she called 911 to get them to arrive faster. Prosecutor Klaverkamp argued that Hatchets decision to flee after the shooting disproved any claim of self defense. If you shoot somebody in self defense, you stay, he told the jury. What did Mr. Hatchet do? He ran. He ran like hell. The jury recommended Hatchet be sentenced to 20 years in prison on the murder charge and four years for the armed criminal action count. A sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 9. ST. LOUIS Classes at KIPP St. Louis High School were canceled this week and will move online for another week to tighten security after weapons were found on campus. A student brought a gun Friday to the charter school at 706 North Jefferson Avenue in the Downtown West neighborhood, the third time a weapon has been discovered this fall. Classes will be held virtually next week and resume in-person on Oct. 24. The decision to cancel school is a decision we dont take lightly, but the safety of our students is our number one priority. We are grateful to our families for being flexible and partnering with us on solutions for our school community, reads a statement Thursday from KIPP. The school plans to hire an in-house security director, which has been a contracted position, according to a spokeswoman for KIPP. Other plans for increasing security include adding metal detectors, and adding more guards and cameras. The school will also boost its mental health services for students. KIPP operates six schools in St. Louis as part of a national network of 280 charter schools. The high school opened in 2017. Charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently of the school district. While shifts to virtual learning for COVID-19 outbreaks have been a regular occurrence in the last few years, a two-week shutdown for security reasons is unusual. Mehlville High School closed its campus for the last day of school in May after a student received an anonymous threat. Mehlville and Oakville high schools have both gone on temporary lockdowns this year in response to separate threats. Last month, Normandy High School also shut down for one day after a student was found with an unloaded gun along with a large fight and an intruder who was later charged with trespassing and fourth-degree assault after being accused of touching a student inappropriately in a bathroom. The incidents come amid rising concerns for the well-being of children and teenagers during the pandemic. Schools have reported an uptick in threats, fights, truancy and other behavior issues in the last two years as students experience disruptions like virtual learning and staffing shortages. In 2021, about two in five high school students reported declines in mental health during the pandemic, including persistent sadness or hopelessness, according to a study released earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black students, who make up the majority of students at KIPP and Normandy high schools, are at higher risk for experiencing traumatic stress at home and in their communities, researchers said. Gun violence remains a serious threat to young people in St. Louis. As of Sunday, 18 children have died this year in shootings across the region. At least 73 others have been injured in shootings. JEFFERSON CITY Gov. Mike Parsons administration is preparing to launch a new feature on the states online payroll portal that could shine some light on how cities and counties are spending their tax dollars. As part of a 2021 law sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-OFallon, the state has added a local government feature to its searchable database of state spending. The site, called the Missouri Accountability Portal, allows users to see state employee salaries, vendor payments and contract information, as well as information on how federal COVID-19 pandemic rescue funds are being distributed. For now, the local government database is empty as the state rolls out a soft launch to check how the site will work. Chris Moreland, a spokesman for the Office of Administration, which oversees the site said a letter to local governments outlining the program has been drafted and is expected to be sent out by the end of the month. Under the law, municipalities and counties can voluntarily participate in the database beginning Dec. 31. But local governments could be required to participate if voters successfully approve a petition calling for officials to post the information. The database must include extensive information about a given municipalitys or countys expenditures and the vendors to whom payments were made, a summary of the law notes, The database must be accessible by the public without charge and have multiple ways to search and filter the information. In addition to being available on the state website, a link to the database on a municipal or county website is required. The legislation also authorizes the state to reimburse local governments for the costs associated with complying with the law. An earlier analysis of the legislation found that Columbia estimated it would cost $40,000 to collect and supply the information. OFallon estimated the cost at $3,000 to $5,000, as well as additional staff work to remove any confidential information from the records. Wiemann, who is term limited and wont be returning to the Legislature in 2023, pushed for the law during multiple legislative session, saying it will increase transparency in local government. But Richard Sheets, executive director of the Missouri Municipal League, which advocates on behalf of cities, said he is doubtful there will be a high participation rate. While the measure was being negotiated, Sheets said he heard some grumbling from city officials. Among the issues are whether a citys payroll information will be compatible with the states format. That was our argument from the get-go, Sheets said Friday. Although larger cities may be able to get their information to the state, he said some smaller communities may have trouble due to budgetary constraints. In the end, he predicted the database will be limited. I dont think that many cities will participate, Sheets said. PHOENIX (AP) Scores on the ACT college admissions test by this year's high school graduates hit their lowest point in more than 30 years the latest evidence of the enormity of learning disruption during the pandemic. The class of 2022's average ACT composite score was 19.8 out of 36, marking the first time since 1991 that the average score was below 20. What's more, an increasing number of high school students failed to meet any of the subject-area benchmarks set by the ACT showing a decline in preparedness for college-level coursework. The test scores, made public in a report Wednesday, show 42% of ACT-tested graduates in the class of 2022 met none of the subject benchmarks in English, reading, science and math, which are indicators of how well students are expected to perform in corresponding college courses. In comparison, 38% of test takers in 2021 failed to meet any of the benchmarks. Academic preparedness is where we are seeing the decline," said Rose Babington, senior director for state partnerships for the ACT. Every time we see ACT test scores, we are talking about skills and standards, and the prediction of students to be successful and to know the really important information to succeed and persist through their first year of college courses. ACT scores have declined steadily in recent years. Still, the magnitude of the declines this year is particularly alarming," ACT CEO Janet Godwin said in a statement. "We see rapidly growing numbers of seniors leaving high school without meeting college-readiness benchmarks in any of the subjects we measure. The results offer a lens into systemic inequities in education, in place well before the pandemic shuttered schools and colleges temporarily waived testing requirements. For example, students without access to rigorous high school curriculum suffered more setbacks during pandemic disruptions, Babington said. Those students are from rural areas, come from low-income families and are often students of color. The number of students taking the ACT has declined 30% since 2018, as graduates increasingly forgo college and some universities no longer require admissions tests. But participation plunged 37% among Black students, with 154,000 taking the test this year. Standardized tests such as the ACT have faced growing concerns that they're unfair to minority and low-income students, as students with access to expensive test prep or advanced courses often perform better. Babington defended the test as a measure of college readiness. Now more than ever, the last few years have shown us the importance of having high-quality data to help inform how we support students, Babington said. Test scores now are optional for first-year student admission at many institutions. Some colleges, such as the University of California system, even opt for a test-blind policy, where scores are not considered even if submitted. But many students still take the tests, hoping to get an edge in admissions by submitting their scores. Tyrone Jordan, a freshman at test-optional Arizona State University, said he took the ACT and the SAT to get ahead of other students and help him receive scholarships. Jordan, who wants to pursue mechanical engineering, said he thinks his rigorous schedule at Tempe Preparatory Academy prepared him for college, and the standardized tests helped support him and his family financially. All the test did for me was give me extra financial money, Jordan said. While Jordan was always planning to take the test, many students struggle with access or choose not to take the test since their universities of choice no longer require it. In Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and Wyoming, everyone is tested. The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content. LOS ANGELES (AP) The effort by three Latino politicians to maximize their influence in Los Angeles backfired after a leaked recording of their meeting exposed crude and, at times, racist banter that has already led to one city councilmember's resignation and could have broader legal and political consequences. If the other two councilmembers heed calls to step down, their constituents will have lost some of their most powerful leaders and a state investigation into their private meeting could lead to criminal charges and undo efforts to draw districts in their favor. Pressure mounted Thursday on Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon to resign a day after former council President Nury Martinez stepped down for comparing another colleagues Black son to a monkey, belittling Mexicans from the state of Oaxaca and making crass remarks about Armenians and Jews. Acting City Council President Mitch OFarrell canceled Fridays scheduled meeting, saying members couldnt conduct business until the two step down. The recording from a year ago of the three speaking with a labor leader revealed a rare glimpse of behind-the-scenes maneuvering during the politically charged process of redrawing political boundaries every decade. Aside the from the shocking and salty dialog, the unusual element was that the conversation was recorded and aired publicly, said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College and member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission that draws district boundaries for congressional, legislative and other state-level races. What we hear in those tapes is classic backroom negotiations of redistricting," Sadhwani said. "We hear politicians who are not looking out for the interests of their constituents but are looking out for the interests of themselves towards reelection ... drawing districts in such a way that their friends can win seats as well. Its the worst kind of abuse of power." Whether it crossed the line into criminal activity or results in civil action, possibly leading to the redrawing of district boundaries, will depend on what Attorney General Rob Bontas investigation finds. Bonta did not mention what type of crime may have been committed. But Gregory Totten, chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Association, said it could focus on whether the politicians had a conflict of interest that influenced their actions. Totten and Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who was a member of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, said criminal charges would be less likely than an order to draw new maps for districts. Investigators could look into whether the rights of a particular racial or ethnic group were diluted in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. In the recording, the issue of race frequently surfaced. Latinos, who make up nearly half the city's population, only had four or just over a quarter of the 15 seats on the council at the time. Black people, who make up less than 10 percent of the population have three a fifth of the seats. De Leon says Bonin, who is white, is like the fourth Black on the council and implied he wouldn't stand by Latinos. Hell never say a (expletive) word about us," de Leon said. The group discussed how to fill the seat held by Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Black member facing federal corruption charges, who was eventually suspended by the council. Martinez said the African Americans look at this as a hostile takeover if they appointed an ally. The one who will support us is Heather Hutt, said Cedillo, referring to the Black woman who eventually was picked to fill Ridley-Thomas' seat. Hutt has joined other members calling for Cedillo and de Leon to resign. She said in a statement that she was unaware of the conversation the three had and said she was legitimately chosen for the council. The audio tapes released this week lay out a dangerous plot to weaken Black political representation across Los Angeles County, Hutt said. Let me be clear I am a Black woman, not a pawn. Levinson said the recording gives the impression they are explicitly drawing lines on the basis of race. She said she would not be surprised to see a lawsuit designed to throw out the maps. Its all boiling down to: Did they draw the lines to hurt Black voting power? Levinson said. What Bonta is ultimately going to have to determine is (are they) essentially saying, We want to make it difficult for African American voters to elect the candidate of their choosing. Challenges to district maps drawn through a partisan process are not uncommon in other states, and the U.S. Supreme Court just last week heard arguments on a challenge out of Alabama. But the Attorney General's office and experts could not point to other cases in California since voters in 2008 adopted the independent citizens redistricting commission that has drawn the maps after the last two censuses. Local jurisdictions operate under different rules. The city of Los Angeles has a commission appointed by councilmembers to draw up maps that can then be approved or rejected by the council. The recording was of a discussion over frustration with the proposed maps. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has called on City Council to call a special election in the spring with an amendment to redraw the lines for the 2024 elections, independent of influence by city officials. This ultimately is about political power in this city, Feuer said. The credibility of those (redistricting map) lines, and the power those lines reflect, will be tainted now given this conversation for sure, until there is some substitute provided. The council, meanwhile, has been thrown into chaos by the scandal. Raucous protesters shut down a meeting Wednesday. O'Farrell said he has spoken with Cedillo, who was unseated in the primary and due to leave office at the end the year, and thinks he will resign. O'Farrell and others haven't been able to reach de Leon, who is not facing reelection until 2024. De Leon has apologized for his remarks and for what he said was appearing to condone Martinez's comments. Cedillo said he should have intervened. Both men appeared at Tuesday's meeting and left after being booed and yelled at. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan took part in the session of the CIS Heads of State Council in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. PM Pashinyan delivered a speech during the narrow-format meeting. Below is the full speech as published by the Prime Ministers Office: "Dear Heads of State, Before moving on to the agenda of the session of the CIS Heads of State Council, I would like to thank Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and our Kazakh friends for organizing today's event at a high level and congratulate them on their effective presidency in the CIS and the successful implementation of the priorities of Kazakhstan's presidency. Also, I sincerely wish success and effective work to the Kyrgyz colleagues during their future presidency in the CIS. Dear colleagues, As you know, we are working towards normalization of our relations with Azerbaijan. I consider it necessary to mention the importance of the role of the CIS in this context. The work of border delimitation and border security commissions is important in the settlement process, the formation of which was agreed upon on November 26, 2021, during the trilateral meeting of the President of Russia, the President of Azerbaijan, and the Prime Minister of Armenia in Sochi. As a result of our meeting with the President of Azerbaijan held in Prague on October 6 with the mediation of the President of France and the President of the European Council, an agreement was reached that in the delimitation process we will rely on the fundamental documents of the CIS, according to which the former administrative borders of the Soviet republics bacame state borders between the already independent states, including between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the above is also an important factor from the point of view of our today's agenda, because we are also discussing the issue of the application of the CIS to obtain observer status in the CSTO. Before making a decision, I consider it important to make clear on the following issues. Does the CSTO recognize the state borders of the CIS countries established in 1991 as fundamental documents of the CIS? This is an important issue, because it is about the zone of responsibility of the CSTO and, let me say, the functionality of the organization itself. If we rely on comments according to which there are no borders between the CIS countries, because these borders are not delimited, it means that the zone of responsibility of the CSTO is not determined, that is, it does not exist. And that blurs the CSTO's functionality. It is also very important to give a clear answer to the following question: do the CIS member states recognize the borders established between them in 1991 based on the fundamental documents of the CIS? A positive answer to this question is very important for stability and security in the CIS area. Without a clear clarification of these issues, I consider it premature to make a decision on the request of the CIS to obtain an observer status in the CSTO. These issues have become particularly important for us due to Azerbaijan's recent military aggression against Armenia. On September 13, Azerbaijan launched a totally unprovoked military aggression against Armenia. Using heavy artillery, rocket launchers and attack drones, the Azerbaijani military shelled 36 settlements and communities of the sovereign territory of Armenia, including the cities of Goris, Jermuk, Vardenis, Kapan, and Geghamasar settlement. I would like to clearly state that this was not a border conflict or clash, but a direct, unquestionable attack against Armenia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. This aggression of Azerbaijan was discussed in the UN Security Council, the majority of whose members condemned Azerbaijan's illegal military operations. The aggression was also condemned by the international community. The Azerbaijani attack was deliberately directed against the civilian population and vital civil infrastructures. The total number of temporarily displaced persons from Gegharkunik, Vayots Dzor and Syunik provinces of Armenia was more than 7,600, mostly women and old people, as well as 1,437 children and 99 disabled people. About 192 residential buildings, 3 hotels, 2 schools, 1 medical facility were partially or completely destroyed. 7 electricity supply facilities, 5 water supply facilities, 3 gas pipelines, 1 bridge were damaged. 2 ambulances and 4 private cars were targeted. The Kechut reservoir was also shelled. The number of victims and missing persons as a result of the aggression has now exceeded 210, of which 3 civilians were killed and 2 are missing. 293 servicemen and 8 civilians were injured. The number of missing soldiers is 28. The Azerbaijani side itself spread shocking videos of torture, mutilation of the bodies of captured persons or already dead soldiers, numerous cases of extrajudicial reprisals and cruel treatment of Armenian prisoners of war, murders, as well as humiliating treatment of the bodies of the dead. The bodies of Armenian female servicemen were mutilated with particular brutality, and then "proudly" filmed by Azerbaijani soldiers. The footages of these apparent war crimes and crimes against humanity are being shared and praised by a number of Azerbaijani social media users. Undoubtedly, the perpetration of such indescribable atrocities is a direct consequence of the long-lasting policy of the political leadership of instilling hatred against Armenians and enmity in the Azerbaijani society After this attack, the rhetoric of official Baku and other Azerbaijani sources shows that Azerbaijan has intentions to occupy more territories of Armenia, which must be prevented. I would like to emphasize that the risk of new aggression by Azerbaijan remains very high, especially considering that Azerbaijan continues to consistently violate the ceasefire regime, trying to attribute their provocative actions to the Armenian side. Another factor of further escalation may be the inadequate response of the regional security organizations to the created situation, which has caused very sharp questions in the Armenian society. Colleagues, Since the signing of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, Azerbaijan has constantly speculated over the issue of repatriation of prisoners of war in order to achieve political interests. In the post-war period, Azerbaijan linked the release of prisoners with the provision of maps of minefields, although the obligation arising from the trilateral declaration consisted in the immediate exchange of absolutely all prisoners. Armenia provided Azerbaijan with all the minefield maps it had, but it was a gesture for our part. After receiving all minefield maps, Azerbaijan stated that the accuracy of these maps is only 25%. Armenia has expressed readiness to verify this statement with the involvement of international experts. On the other hand, even if this claim is true, the Republic of Armenia has given all of its maps to Azerbaijan and has no "better or more accurate" maps left behind. Now, after receiving the maps, Azerbaijan is trying to condition the return of prisoners of war, captives and other detained persons with the clarification of the fate of those missing as a result of the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. I would like to mention that after the first and second Artsakh wars, there were also missing persons from the Armenian side. 777 people are considered missing after the first war, and 217 people are considered missing from the second war, of which 196 are military personnel and 21 are civilians. During our meetings earlier this year, Armenia expressed its willingness to fully cooperate in the entire spectrum of the issue of missing persons and has already unilaterally handed over several maps of graves and, after the 44-day war, the remains of hundreds of victims of the first Nagorno Karabakh war. Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani side, which for 30 years rejected offers of cooperation in the field of demining or any other humanitarian activities, remembered about its missing citizens or mines only after the aggression against Nagorno Karabakh and after that the whole civilized world started talking about the military crimes carried out by the Azerbaijani military, or about Armenian prisoners of war held illegally in Azerbaijan. Without delving into the details, this fact alone clearly shows Azerbaijan's true intentions. In this context, I would like to emphasize that until now, Azerbaijan is creating obstacles for the removal of the bodies of those who died during the latest aggression, while the bodies of several of our soldiers continue to be left in inter-positional zones, which are located in the sovereign territory of Armenia. There is an agreement to organize the removal of the bodies in the next few days. I hope that this agreement will be fulfilled. Dear colleagues, In the context of the unblocking of all regional communications, Azerbaijan's constant circulation of the "corridor topic" is nothing but a distortion and sabotage of the implementation of the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020. I would like to emphasize that the word "corridor" is not mentioned anywhere and in any way in Article 9 of this statement. In the statement of November 9, 2020, the word corridor is used only in connection with the Lachin corridor in the context of ensuring the security of Nagorno-Karabakh and has nothing to do with the topic of unblocking transport links, and we consider drawing any parallels between these agreements to be manipulative. Manipulation of the text of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020 has unfortunately become Azerbaijan's policy, and this is also reflected in that despite the fact that the statement clearly mentions the existence of Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan claims that Nagorno Karabakh does not exist. As for the implementation of Article 9 of the trilateral declaration, this issue is fully clarified in the next trilateral statement of January 11, 2021 in Moscow. Moreover, the trilateral working group, co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation, decided that the transport infrastructures to be restored and built should operate under the full sovereignty of the countries through the territory of which they pass. I officially announce that we are ready to open the roads as soon as possible on this basis. Moreover, the draft decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia to open three checkpoints to ensure the transport connection between the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan has been in official circulation for a long time, but the president of Azerbaijan himself speaks against such a decision. And it is connected with Azerbaijan's desire to isolate the movement of people, goods and transport as much as possible, which proves that they are not interested in the logic of establishing stable peace in the region. As for the construction of new transport communications, we are ready for it according to the above-mentioned principles, but it is hindered by the aggressive policy of Azerbaijan and the manipulation of the text of the trilateral declarations. Azerbaijan is trying to create the impression that the construction of new roads is the obligation of Armenia, but the trilateral statement says that the parties must agree on this issue. And we are ready for such an agreement, moreover, we are interested in it, and the only thing we expect from Azerbaijan in this matter is constructiveness. I also want to respond to some statements of the president of Azerbaijan. As for mining, it takes place entirely within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. And it is our right to take some security steps to protect the territorial integrity of our country. I also want to say that attempts to give a religious context to this situation are unacceptable. We are in very close relations with many Muslim countries, and a very clear proof of it is that the majority of our allies in the CSTO are Muslim countries. We have very close relations with Iran and many Arab states and the Nagorno Karabakh problem has never had a religious basis. I am simply surprised by the statements of the president of Azerbaijan that Armenia has organized attacks against Azerbaijani embassies in European countries and the United States of America. They are completely baseless statements, and I think it is obvious that if there were such facts, Azerbaijan would have published them long ago. In general, I would like to say that Armenia is really sincerely aiming for peace in the region. Of course, this is not a simple issue, it is a very deep issue, but it seems to me that based on the results of several meetings we had with both the mediation of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and other international leaders, we have come to a common understanding that we should strive and undertake concrete steps to establish peace and stability in our region. It is obvious that actions are needed for this, and the Republic of Armenia, I think we have shown it, our government is ready for such actions. I want to say once again that the only expectation from Azerbaijan in that process is constructiveness. Thank you." The leaders of the CIS countries signed the protocols of the adopted decisions at the extended-format session. TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2022 / Gratomic Inc. ("Gratomic", "GRAT," or the "Company") (TSXV:GRAT) (OTCQX:CBULF) (FSE:CB82) provides its fifth progress update on the bench-mining program at its Aukam Graphite Project in Namibia, further to the press release dated September 21, 2022. The benching process typically involves successively cutting berms alongside the mountain edge in order to steadily expose underground material, at the same time ensuring the stability of the mountain structure. This process allows for the collection of graphite in stages as the platforms are constructed on the Aukam mountain. As the benching advances, wider benches are scheduled to improve liberation of graphite at Aukam. This will aid unnecessary mineral loses during the bench-mining operations. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of graphite have been transferred from the mountain to the ROM (Run of Mine) pad in preparation for processing. Another 1,600 tonnes of mineral have been extracted bringing the cumulative total to 2,600 tonnes. The ROM stockpile has been separated by estimated grade, ensuring constant feed into the plant, securing more consistent recoveries and improved tailings management. Bench-mining is progressing as planned. The safety of the benching operation is a major priority, with no incidents having been recorded during the process. Operator training is also a high priority to ensure the health and safety of machine operators, due to the benching process in the mountain area. Arno Brand, President & CEO, states, "One of the main foundational pillars at Gratomic is to build a sustainable operation in an environmentally friendly, people-centric manner, so that we can leave a lasting legacy for future generations." "Our mining team understands the importance of ensuring safety as a fundamental value at Gratomic. At the same time, they are always looking for ways to improve productivity and yield the results that we need", says Armando Farhate, COO & Head of Graphite Marketing & Sales. Gratomic wishes to emphasize that no Preliminary Economic Analysis, Preliminary Feasibility Study or Feasibility Study has been completed to support any level of production. In fact, no mineral resources let alone mineral reserves demonstrating economic viability and technical feasibility, have been delineated on the Aukam property. The Company is working towards completing a Feasibility Study (FS) on the Aukam Processing plant. The study, its recommendations, and their subsequent implementation, will provide conclusions and recommendation at a FS level of comfort relating to the scale up of the existing processing plant to a commercial scale processing facility capable of producing the desired concentrate grades and production rates. Gratomic wishes to emphasize that the supply of graphite is conditional on Gratomic being able to bring the Aukam project into a production phase, and for any graphite being produced to meet certain technical and mineralization requirements. Risk Factors No mineral resources, let alone mineral reserves demonstrating economic viability and technical feasibility, have been delineated on the Aukam Property. The Company is not in a position to demonstrate or disclose any capital and/or operating costs that may be associated with the processing plant until the FS (Feasibility Study) is completed. The Company advises that it has not based its production decision on even the existence of mineral resources let alone on a Preliminary Feasibility Study or FS of mineral reserves, demonstrating economic and technical viability, and, as a result, there may be an increased uncertainty of achieving any particular level of recovery of minerals or the cost of such recovery, including increased risks associated with developing a commercially mineable deposit. Historically, such projects have a much higher risk of economic and technical failure. There is no guarantee that production will begin as anticipated or at all or that anticipated production costs will be achieved. Failure to commence production would have a material adverse impact on the Company's ability to generate revenue and cash flow to fund operations. Failure to achieve the anticipated production costs would have a material adverse impact on the Company's cash flow and future profitability. About Gratomic Gratomic is a multinational company with projects in Namibia, Brazil, and Canada. The Company is focused on becoming a leading global graphite supplier and aims to secure a strong position in the EV battery supply chain. With the continued development of its flagship Aukam project and further exploration on the Company's Capim Grosso property, Gratomic sets itself apart by seeking out unique top-quality assets around the world. True to its roots, the Company will continue to explore graphite opportunities displaying potential for development. The Company ranked third place in the top 10 preforming mining stocks on the 2022 TSX Venture 50". Large quantities of high-quality vein graphite have been shipped for testing to confirm its viability as an anode material. Gratomic is confident that the test results will provide a unique competitive advantage in its desired target markets. The Company will continue to update the public on the status of these tests and will provide results as soon as they become available. The Company has formed a collaboration agreement with Forge Nano. With its patented ALD coating, this cooperation with Forge Nano is a key element to support Gratomic's strategies towards the value-added phases of production of graphite for anode applications, namely micronization, spheronization and coating, making Gratomic graphite a preferred choice for use in lithium-ion batteries. For more information: visit the website at www.gratomic.ca or contact: Arno Brand at [email protected] or (416) 561- 4095 Subscribe at gratomic.ca/contact/ to be added to our email list. For Marketing and Media information, please email: [email protected] "Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release." Forward Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at www.sedar.com). SOURCE: Gratomic Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Broadmark Realty Capital Inc. (NYSE: BRMK) (Broadmark or the Company), an internally managed secured real estate finance company, today announced that David Schneider, Chief Financial Officer, intends to resign from his position in connection with accepting an opportunity at a private company that does not compete with Broadmark. To assist with an orderly transition, Mr. Schneider intends to remain in his role at the Company until December 31, 2022, or the appointment of his successor if earlier. David has made an indelible contribution to the organization during his tenure. On behalf of the Board of Directors and our entire team, I want to thank David for his successful leadership as CFO during our first few years as a public company and I wish him well in his next adventure, said Brian Ward, Broadmarks Chief Executive Officer. Davids willingness to ensure a seamless transition, along with the strong team he has built, well positions the organization to support the ongoing efforts of our growing lending platforms and the business as we move ahead. Mr. Schneiders resignation is not the result of any dispute or disagreement with the Company, including any matters related to the Companys accounting practices or financial reporting. The Company plans to launch a search for a new Chief Financial Officer. About Broadmark Realty Capital Broadmark is a specialty real estate finance company, providing financing solutions generally in the $2 to $75 million range per transaction. The company provides smart, reliable, rapid solutions across the entire debt capital stack, including senior, subordinate, and participation investments with fixed and floating rate structures available. Broadmark invests in a variety of new construction and existing properties across all asset classes throughout the United States, including hotel, industrial, medical, mixed-use, office, retail, self-storage, warehouse, multifamily, senior living, student housing, condos, larger scaled single-family, townhome, and multiplex. It has the competitive advantage of being an internally managed balance sheet lender, and the companys proactive approach delivers dedicated in-house underwriting, asset management, loan servicing, and draw administration. More information can be found at Broadmark Realty Capital Specialty Real Estate Investments. Forward Looking Statements Certain statements made herein are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as may, should, would, plan, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, seem, seek, continue, future, will, expect, outlook or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These statements are based on the current expectations and are not predictions of actual performance. In addition, actual results are subject to other risks and uncertainties that relate more broadly to the Companys overall business, including those more fully described in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance, and speak only as of the date made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005101/en/ Investor Relations [email protected] 206-623-7782 Media Relations Megan Kivlehan & Greg Michaels [email protected] Source: Broadmark Realty Capital Inc. FANNIN COUNTY, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) officially dedicated Bois d'Arc Lake in Fannin County, TX, today, celebrating the completion of the state's newest major reservoir. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005478/en/ North Texas Municipal Water District Executive Director Jenna Covington speaks at the Bois DArc Lake Dedication (Photo: Business Wire) Around 300 officials attended the ceremony near the lake's dam and spillway. The surging growth of North Texas underscores the need for additional water supplies to prepare for the future. Bois dArc Lake will help meet the needs of the Districts current customers and the estimated 55,000+ people moving to its service area annually. NTMWD serves one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation, with a population expected to double by 2050. The 16,641-acre (26-square-mile) lake is owned and operated by NTMWD and the first major reservoir built in Texas in over 30 years. It has 172 miles of shoreline with a two-mile long and 90 feet tall dam. Over 17,000 acres of nearby land were also mitigated, including planting 6.3 million trees and restoring 70 miles of streams. After nearly 20 years of planning, permitting, and construction, Bois dArc Lake is now becoming a reality, said NTMWD Executive Director Jenna Covington. Today we celebrate and honor all who have made this new, vital resource possible. A secure regional water supply is critical for the public health and safety of the communities we serve. The lake and its components were built over four years, requiring the support of five major contractors, dozens of subcontractors, and a workforce of about 1,000 at the peak of construction. A new water treatment plant is under construction in Leonard, TX. When operational next year, it will be able to treat up to 70 million gallons of drinking water per day from Bois dArc Lake, with future expansions totaling up to 280 MGD. The $1.6 billion project costs are shared by the communities that receive water from NTMWD. The Texas Water Development Board committed $1.477 billion in-low interest financing for the lake through the State Water Implementation Fund of Texas (SWIFT), saving more than $240 million in interest costs. Bois dArc Lake will provide essential access to safe, reliable water for future generations of North Texans, said NTMWD Board President Jack May. The lake's primary purpose is to provide drinking water. It will also be a recreation destination once it fills to safe water levels and is approved to open for boating, fishing, and hunting. For more information, visit https://boisdarclake.org/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005478/en/ Wayne Larson, APR, CPC Director of Communications [email protected] 214-449-8092 Source: North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) September 5-7, 2023 in Christ Church, Oxford, UK Sponsored by EY, Global Horizons Has Helped Shape Thought Leadership and Spur Action on Critical Issues Facing Policymakers, Corporate Executives Since 1984 Prior Speakers Include Tony Blair, Kofi Annan, Robert Gates, Jose Manuel Barroso, Mary Robinson OXFORD, United Kindom & WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oxford Analytica, a geopolitical intelligence leader and part of AI-driven market and policy intelligence SaaS company FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE), today announced the scheduling of its highly-respected Global Horizons Conference, to take place September 5-7, 2023 in Christ Church, Oxford, UK. The gathering will mark a return of the much-anticipated conference after a two-year hiatus due to restrictions on in-person events resulting from the global pandemic. The Global Horizons Conference has come to symbolize Oxford Analyticas longstanding market leadership in geopolitical and market intelligence, and is a much-sought after global forum for solution-driven engagement by the worlds foreign policy and political leaders. The gathering personalizes customer relationships and products for Oxford Analytica - accentuating its industry-leading data, independent analysis, and world-class expertise to ensure a deep understanding of client needs and attaining goals through innovative, actionable solutions that consistently align with customer business objectives. Held since 1984, the conference represents the durability of FiscalNotes products and the business needs for its products throughout history. At a time of extreme upheaval and volatility around the world, the conference continues to be a seminal event for senior executives, policymakers, experts, and thought leaders from around the world seeking timely analysis, exclusive engagement with peers, and results-oriented discussions on the most pressing issues and challenges of the day, as well as guidance on mitigating the urgent political and market risks which continue to challenge and impact business and policy leaders. Global Horizons 2023 promises to be particularly timely and thought-provoking amidst increased global uncertainty and complexity driven by geopolitical, marketplace, and societal events on an increased scale. Given rising geopolitical tensions and their impact on businesses and governments, more than ever organizations need the powerful combination of purpose-built market intelligence solutions to inform and power critical decisions and workflows, said David K. Young, Managing Director, Oxford Analytica. The return of Global Horizons provides an engaging forum to facilitate multi-stakeholder engagement to innovate actionable solutions addressing the many pivotal issues shaping politics, the economy, business, and society. We are delighted to do this alongside EY, a long-standing Global Horizons sponsor and pioneer in thought leadership." Oxford Analytica will leverage FiscalNotes global client base - including more than half of the Fortune 100 - to convene more than 250 influential senior executives, principal policymakers, thought leaders, and analyst experts from a range of private sector industries, public sector government departments, and multilateral organizations across 40 countries. Past speakers have included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Roberts Gates, former President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, and former President of Ireland and U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, among others. Planned 2023 session tracks include: changes in the trade and financial system; populism and global politics; decarbonization; tech supremacy and digital transformation; global inequality; and the proliferation of trade sanctions and the challenges of compliance, among many others. Regionally-focused, closed-door sessions are also planned, featuring Oxford Analyticas experienced and acclaimed team of analysts. In addition to Oxford Analyticas in-house speakers, other experts from across FiscalNotes portfolio will lead incisive and informative discussions, including executives from FrontierView, FiscalNote ESG Solutions, Predata, and CQ Roll Call. Benefits of participating in the Global Horizons Conference for customers and attendees include: an unparalleled program of incisive analysis; discovery of new approaches and best practices; engaging with thought leaders and industry experts; networking to build new relationships; and, building brand reputation and influence among peers. Global Horizons is honored to welcome EY as the first global sponsor for the 2023 conference. Past sponsors have included Thomson Reuters, General Electric, APCO Worldwide, The New York Times, WillisTowersWatson, Manpower, and Chevron. For sponsorship and/or partnership opportunities for the Global Horizons 2023 Conference, please visit: https://globalhorizons.live/sponsorship/contact/ About Oxford Analytica We are an independent geopolitical analysis and advisory firm drawing on a worldwide network of experts to advise our clients on their strategies, operations, policies and investments. Our trusted insights and seasoned judgements on global issues enable our clients to navigate complex markets where the nexus of politics and economics, business and society is critical to success. Founded in 1975, we are the pioneer of geopolitical risk analysis, and today work with the worlds most influential businesses, governments and international organisations. For more information, please visit www.oxan.com. About FiscalNote FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE) is a leading technology provider of global policy and market intelligence. By uniquely combining AI technology, actionable data, and expert and peer insights, FiscalNote empowers customers to manage policy, address regulatory developments, and mitigate global risk. Since 2013, FiscalNote has pioneered technology that delivers mission-critical insights and the tools to turn them into action. Home to CQ, Equilibrium, FrontierView, Oxford Analytica, VoterVoice, and many other industry-leading brands, FiscalNote serves more than 5,000 customers worldwide with global offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. To learn more about FiscalNote and its family of brands, visit FiscalNote.com and follow @FiscalNote. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005129/en/ Media Nicholas Graham FiscalNote [email protected] Investor Relations Sara Buda FiscalNote [email protected] Source: FiscalNote TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vietnam's leading IT services provider, FPT, today announced its investment in Japanese business consulting services provider LTS Inc., becoming its strategic shareholder. The investment is expected to help FPT strengthen its capabilities in Japan's consulting industry and target more double-digit million-dollar deals. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221013006099/en/ FPT Corporation Chairman Dr Truong Gia Binh (attended online), together with FPT Japan and LTS Inc. representatives at the signing ceremony (Tokyo, Japan) (Photo: Business Wire) LTS Inc. is a Japan-based company specializing in delivering business process management, consulting services, and digital transformation solutions. As a part of FPTs ecosystem, LTS Inc. will join hands with other subsidiaries to provide consulting services to existing and new customers. According to the agreement, the focused fields include ERP-related services, low-code development-related services, and business management-related services. The customer-centric alliance will help FPT enhance its consulting knowledge across industries, and engineering resources, thereby improving customers business result. Through this collaboration, Vietnam's leading IT services company provides LTS Inc. with strengthened software services and strong expertise in new emerging technologies. Also, FPT helps LTS Inc. target current and new customers, especially in the manufacturing industry, by combining the power of operational and information technology to support accelerating their digital transformation movement. LTS Inc. contributes to building a high-quality workforce and a system for employee retention based on the company's know-how. This includes a strategy for human resource development, plans to provide necessary educational opportunities, and an engaging working environment for FPT's employees. Additionally, LTS Inc. can leverage FPT's global presence across 28 countries to compete worldwide. Opening the ceremony, FPT Corporation Chairman Dr Truong Gia Binh shared his thoughts on the impacts of digital transformation as it shifted how global businesses select their alliances. He emphasized: If we want to compete with global consulting giants, we must provide complete solutions from consulting, implementation to maintenance, and most importantly bring continuous innovation and co-create values with our customers. I believe that together with LTS Inc., we can provide that. During the discussion, LTS Inc. CEO Mr Hiroaki Kabashima and COO Mr Ryosuke Ueno expressed excitement about this strategic partnership. We would like to accelerate and grow through this capital tie up as one of FPTs group companies. LTS Inc. will support FPT to become a global number one IT company in the future, while we aim to become a global-level consulting firm," LTS Inc. CEO Mr Hiroaki Kabashima commented. FPT Japan CEO Do Van Khac also shared: Today, on behalf of FPT Corporation Chairman Dr Truong Gia Binh, its my honour to sign on our strategic contract. We believe that with this new partnership with LTS Inc., FPT Consulting Japan & FPT Japan can contribute and achieve much more in the future. This marks the first chapter in our long-lasting relationship. I believe that together we can gain success as it is one of our missions to grow with LTS Inc. in Japan as well as on a global scale, he added. The two companies relationship dates back to 2019 when FPTs subsidiary in Japan and LTS Inc. formed FPT Consulting Japan Co., Ltd. The joint entity focuses on developing large-scale systems utilizing advanced digital and data analysis technologies from SAP, Salesforce, and so on, to provide comprehensive management and operating solutions for enterprises. By doing this, FPT Consulting Japan aims to help its clients achieve digital transformation success and maximize their future business propositions. This investment is one of FPT Corporation's efforts to expand its global outreach and strengthen its position in a well-guarded market like Japan. Recently, FPT Japan welcomed its 2000th employees and celebrated the opening of its 13th office, FPT Japan Tokyo Innovation Center. The company expects to continue expanding its size to 4,000 employees by 2025. It also sets sights on being among Japans top 20 largest IT Service companies by 2025 and reaching 1 billion USD in revenue by 2027. About FPT Corporation FPT Corporation is a globally leading technology and IT services & solutions provider headquartered in Vietnam, with nearly US$1.6 billion in revenue and 54,000 employees in 28 countries. As a pioneer in digital transformation, FPT delivers world-class services in Smart factories, Digital platforms, RPA, AI, IoT, Enterprise Mobility, Digital Product Development, Cloud, AR/VR, Business Applications, Application Services, Managed Services, and so on. The company has served over 1000+ customers worldwide, 85 of which are Fortune Global 500 companies in Aerospace & Aviation, Manufacturing & Automotive, Banking, Finance, Insurance, Logistics & Transportation, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Retail e-Commerce, Utilities & Energy, and more. For more information, please visit www.fpt-software.com/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221013006099/en/ Media Mai Duong (Ms.) FPT Software PR Manager Email: [email protected] Website: https://www.fpt-software.com/newsroom/ Source: FPT Corporation GRCs Chief Revenue Officer Jim Weynand will join data centre and telecom experts to discuss immersion cooling as a key component in reducing the consumption of natural resources by telco infrastructure LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GRC (Green Revolution Cooling), the leader in immersion cooling for data centres, announced today that Chief Revenue Officer Jim Weynand will join a panel to discuss how immersion cooling is a necessity for ensuring sustainability in telecom deployments at Capacity Europe 2022 in London, taking place October 17-20 at the InterContinental London The O2 in Greenwich. His panel is titled Utilising Our Environments Natural Resources in Your Telco Infrastructure Strategy and will take place on October 19 at 15:55-16:35 GMT. Liquid immersion cooling is positioned to be the primary technology enabling sustainability for data centres today and into the future, to equip data centres to tackle rising energy costs and server energy consumption, and facilitate Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) policies. With data centres striving to meet the European Commissions climate neutral targets by 2030, immersion cooling is a critical component of any sustainability-oriented solution. Jim will join co-presenters Ali Moinuddin of Uptime Institute, Colm Shorten of JLL, Dominic Ward from Verne Global, Gary Aitkenhead of Equinix, and Lex Coors from Digital Realty to discuss running ICT infrastructure facilities like data centres close to where power is generated, the industrys goal to meet European Commissions climate neutral targets by 2030, and defining your market by latency rather than by geography. Capacity Europe is an exciting opportunity to discuss the environmental sustainability impact of immersion cooling, said Jim Weynand, Chief Revenue Officer at GRC. Im thrilled to be joining these global leaders to help data centre designers and operators learn how immersion can address their cooling needs and power consumption challenges with a sustainable, responsible, and efficient infrastructure. About GRC GRC is The Immersion Cooling Authority. The company's patented immersion-cooling technology radically simplifies deployment of data centre cooling infrastructure. By eliminating the need for chillers, CRACs, air handlers, humidity controls, and other conventional cooling components, enterprises reduce their data centre design, build, energy, and maintenance costs. GRCs solutions are deployed in twenty-one countries and are ideal for next-gen applications platforms, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, HPC, 5G, and other edge computing and core applications. Their systems are environmentally resilient, sustainable, and space saving, making it possible to deploy them in virtually any location with minimal lead time. Visit http://grcooling.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005134/en/ Milldam Public Relations Adam Waitkunas 978-828-8304 (mobile) [email protected] Source: GRC FHLB Dallas Partnership Grant Program Provides 3:1 Match of Members Donations MANDEVILLE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Home Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) recently awarded $5,000 in Partnership Grant Program (PGP) funds to Northshore Housing Initiative (NHI), a Community Land Trust that supports affordable housing initiatives in St. Tammany Parish. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005539/en/ Representatives from Home Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas awarded $5,000 in grants to Northshore Housing, an affordable housing nonprofit in Slidell, Louisiana. (Photo: Business Wire) Awarded annually through FHLB Dallas member institutions, Partnership Grant Program (PGP) funds help promote and strengthen relationships between community-based organizations (CBOs) and FHLB Dallas members. FHLB Dallas matches member contributions of $500 to $4,000 at a 3:1 ratio. Northshore Housing Initiative supports Home Banks mission of serving our communities needs with affordable workforce housing, said Kelvin Luster, community development director at Home Bank. We are incredibly honored to support Northshore Housing Initiative alongside FHLB Dallas, which has allowed our investment to go further. NHI will use its PGP grant proceeds to expand its Community Trust Fund. The trust acquires land and maintains permanent ownership of it. It enters into a long-term, renewable lease instead of a traditional sale with homebuyers. When the homeowner sells, the family earns a portion of the increased property value and the remainder is kept by the trust to preserve the affordability for future low- to moderate-income families. NHI is one of seven local nonprofit organizations that Home Bank is supporting with PGP funding this year. Together, Home Bank and FHLB Dallas contributed more than $67,000 to seven CBOs across Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Home Bank pours its resources into communities, said Greg Hettrick, first vice president and director of Community Investment at FHLB Dallas. It is an honor to partner with a financial institution that shows this level of commitment to caring for the affordable housing needs in its community. See the complete list of the 2022 PGP grant recipients. For more information about the 2022 PGP grants and other FHLB Dallas community investment products and programs, please visit fhlb.com/pgp. About Home Bank, N.A. Home Bank, N.A., founded in 1908 as Home Building & Loan, is the oldest financial institution founded in Lafayette Parish. Home Bank now serves markets in South Louisiana and Mississippi in 40 locations. Home Bank is committed to serving the needs of our communities. Personal banking has always been Home Banks trademark and that tradition continues as we grow, invest and serve our clients and community. We live our values each day, focusing on integrity, innovation and a commitment to serving others. For more information about Home Bank, visit www.home24bank.com. About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank System created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $77.7 billion as of June 30, 2022, serves approximately 800 members and associated institutions across our five-state District of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. FHLB Dallas provides financial products and services including advances (loans to members) and grant programs for affordable housing and economic development. For more information, visit our website at fhlb.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005539/en/ Corporate Communications Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas fhlb.com (214) 441-8445 Source: Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas Mega savings on brands up to 60% off, free and fast shipping and blockbuster Hudsons Bay Reward point incentives! TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Prepare your shopping carts! The Bays highly anticipated Bay Days shopping event is back, delivering outstanding savings in-store and on TheBay.com. Right now until October 30th, customers can shop deep discounts across womens, mens, kids, home and beauty. Whether shopping for gifts ahead of the holiday season, refreshing your home or simply looking to treat yourself, Bay Days is an event that you wont want to miss. 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Get Rewarded for The Things You Love Receive 20% off Bay Days pricing when you apply for the new Hudsons Bay Neo Mastercard2. 1 Express shipping charges are calculated at checkout. 2 Terms and conditions apply. ABOUT THE BAY Through a digital-first, purpose-driven lens, The Bay helps Canadians live their best style of life. The Bay operates thebay.com featuring Marketplace, one of the largest premium life & style digital platforms in Canada, with a seamless connection to a network of 84 Hudson's Bay stores. The Bay has established a reputation for quality and style through an unrivaled assortment of products and categories including fashion, home, beauty, food concepts and more. Follow us on our social media channels: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. The Bay and Hudsons Bay operate under the HBC brand portfolio. Founded in 1670, HBC is North Americas oldest company. The signature stripes are a registered trademark of HBC. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005459/en/ Lauren Polyak PR Director [email protected] Shanaz Hack PR Specialist [email protected] Source: Hudson's Bay Company TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nextech AR Solutions Corp. (Nextech or the Company) (OTCQB: NEXCF) (CSE: NTAR) (FSE: N29), a Metaverse Company and leading provider of augmented reality (AR) experience technologies, wayfinding technologies and 3D model services is pleased to announce that it has now received Shareholder approval at the annual and special meeting of shareholders of the Company held on October 12, 2022 to proceed with its proposed plan of arrangement (the Arrangement) under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) to spinout the Companys ARway platform and associated assets to Nextechs wholly-owned subsidiary 1000259749 Ontario Inc. (Spinco). All as more particularly described in the management information circular of the Company in respect of the Meeting dated as of September 1, 2022 (the Circular), available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. As previously announced, the Arrangement will result in, among other things, Nextech receiving an aggregate of 16,000,000 common shares of ARway (Spinco Shares'') and an aggregate of 4,000,000 ARway (Spinco) Shares being distributed directly to the shareholders of Nextech on a pro rata basis, all pursuant to an arrangement agreement dated effective July 29, 2022 between the Company, (Spinco) and a special purpose financing company, 1373222 B.C. Ltd. (FinanceCo''). About ARway ARway is a no-code spatial computing platform, with an augmented reality indoor wayfinding solution for large, multi-purpose venues activated with visual marker tracking. Users can access a venue map to navigate to any Point of Interest (POI) with step-by-step directions and interact with rich augmented reality experiences and content. ARway only requires end-users to scan a QR code with their smartphone to activate. ARway Videos London Science Museum - click here to watch Trend Hunter Future festival - click here to watch RC Show 2022 - click here to watch The ARway Platform Includes: Web Creator Platform The Web-Based Creator Platform provides 'advanced' authoring capabilities compared to the mobile app, including the ability for creators to upload their own OBJ/GLB files, and create their own 3D objects. Placing content in a large area using only mobile app required the user to physically be in the specific location which was unscalable. The web studio allows the user to place and author content remotely and at scale. Mobile App With the ARway mobile app, anyone can spatially map their location within minutes using their smartphone, and populate it with interactive 3D content, augmented reality wayfinding, audio, text, images, and more. Nextech AR provides several pre-loaded 3D objects which creators can leverage to populate their metaverse. Download the Mobile App Apple iOs - click here Google Play Store - click here ARwayKit SDK The Software Development Kit contains code libraries and API information that allows developers to build their own white label & private label mobile apps on both iOs and Android leveraging ARway's technology and creator tools to build AR wayfinding and spatial experiences. Creators will be able to develop white label and private label apps and access ARway APIs to author maps using the Web Creator Portal. The SDK features the latest and greatest of the ARway mobile app. To learn more about ARway, please follow on Social Media: Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and visit our website: www.arway.ai For further information, please contact: About Nextech AR Nextech AR Solutions is the engine accelerating the growth of the Metaverse. Using breakthrough AI, Nextech AR is able to quickly, easily and affordably ARitize (transform) vast quantities and varieties of existing assets at scale making products, people and places ready for interactive 3D use, giving creators at every level all the essential tools they need to build out their digital AR vision in the Metaverse. Our platform agnostic tools allow brands, educators, students, manufacturers, creators, and technologists to create immersive, interactive and the most photo-realistic 3D assets and digital environments, compose AR experiences, and publish them omnichannel. With a full suite of end-to-end AR solutions in 3D Commerce, Education, Events, and Industrial Manufacturing, Nextech AR is in a unique position to meet the needs of the worlds biggest brands and all Metaverse contributors. Nextech funds the development of its AR and Metaverse growth initiatives through its eCommerce platforms, which currently generate most of its revenue. Nextech's eCommerce platforms include: vacuumcleanermarket.com (VCM), infinitepetlife.com (IPL) and Trulyfesupplements.com (TruLyfe). VCM and product sales of residential vacuums, supplies and parts, and small home appliances sold on Amazon. These eCommerce platforms serve as an incubator for developing and testing Nextech's leading edge AR, AI and machine learning applications for powering next-generation eCommerce technology. To learn more, please follow us on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or visit our website: https://www.Nextechar.com. Disclaimer: The Arrangement remains subject to regulatory approval, including the approval of the CSE, and final court approval, as well as standard closing conditions. The Arrangement cannot close until the required regulatory and court approvals are obtained. There can be no assurance that the Arrangement will be completed as proposed, or at all. Further details about the proposed Arrangement are set forth in the Circular. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the Circular, any information released or received with respect to the foregoing matters may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Forward-looking Statements The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. Statements about the closing of the Arrangement, expected terms and structure of the Arrangement, and the parties ability to satisfy closing conditions and receive necessary approvals, as well as the prospective nature of the products of Nextech and Spinco and the potential growth of the associated markets on a going forward basis, are all forward-looking information. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on managements reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that the Arrangement will occur or that, if the Arrangement does occur, it will be completed on the terms described above. None of Nextech, FinanceCo nor Spinco assumes any responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. In the event that insiders of Nextech receive any Spinco Shares in connection with the Transaction, it may be deemed to be a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61- 101). The Company will provide further details of the applicability of MI 61-101 and any requisite additional details in due course. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005075/en/ Investor Relations Lindsay Betts [email protected] 866-ARitize (274-8493) Ext 7201 Source: Nextech AR Solutions Corp. LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- nVent Electric plc (NYSE: NVT) (nVent), a global leader in electrical connection and protection solutions, will report third quarter 2022 financial results on Friday, October 28, 2022. The company will also hold a conference call with analysts and investors at 9:00 a.m. ET. The financial results will be posted on the companys website at http://investors.nvent.com. The company will issue an alert over a news wire when the earnings materials are publicly available, including a link to those documents. Conference Call and Webcast Details The call can be accessed via webcast at http://investors.nvent.com or by dialing 1-833-630-1071 or 1-412-317-1832. Once available, a replay of the conference call will be accessible through November 11, 2022 by dialing 1-877-344-7529 or 1-412-317-0088, along with the access code 9032499. Related presentation materials will be posted to http://investors.nvent.com prior to the conference call. About nVent nVent is a leading global provider of electrical connection and protection solutions. We believe our inventive electrical solutions enable safer systems and ensure a more secure world. We design, manufacture, market, install and service high performance products and solutions that connect and protect some of the world's most sensitive equipment, buildings and critical processes. We offer a comprehensive range of enclosures, electrical connections and fastening and thermal management solutions across industry-leading brands that are recognized globally for quality, reliability and innovation. Our principal office is in London and our management office in the United States is in Minneapolis. Our robust portfolio of leading electrical product brands dates back more than 100 years and includes nVent CADDY, ERICO, HOFFMAN, RAYCHEM, SCHROFF and TRACER. nVent, CADDY, ERICO, HOFFMAN, RAYCHEM, SCHROFF and TRACER are trademarks owned or licensed by nVent Services GmbH or its affiliates. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005049/en/ Investor Contact Tony Riter Vice President, Investor Relations nVent 763.204.7750 [email protected] Media Contact Stacey Wempen Director, External Communications nVent 763.204.7857 [email protected] Source: nVent Electric plc YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The Switzerland-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group condemns Azerbaijans latest aggression against Armenia, Member of the parliament of Switzerland Stefan Muller-Altermatt said during a press conference in the Armenian Parliament. Armenia is part of our community and shares our values. Thats why we are here to protect that values. We are here to condemn the military aggression that happened against Armenia on September 13. We have seen crimes and want to state that we are with Armenia and we condemn the actions of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan bears full responsibility for the incidents that happened, he said. The Swiss lawmaker said that their Friendship Group came to Armenia to say clearly who the aggressor is and tell that they are aware of what is happening on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. We see that there is a concrete aggressor. We are here to say that you are not alone, we are part of the international eye and ear. And they are open so that we can carefully listen to you. Criminally condemnable acts, as for example the footage showing execution of Armenian prisoners of war, are war crimes. War crimes must be punished. The territorial integrity of Armenia is the most important for achieving long-term peace in this region. And the international community must condemn in order to protect Armenia, Stefan Muller-Altermatt said. LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School revealed its list of 16 Most Fundable Companies during its reveal event at the Villa Graziadio Executive Center. Presented by the Singleton Foundation for Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship, among the events startup recognitions were EarthGrid, PBC., Genesis Systems, LLC., and One Health Group, Inc., all of which received a Platinum designation, the highest recognition attainable. More than 4,000 early-stage US companies across all 50 states participated in the Most Fundable Companies initiative, which is a free resource to assist startups in securing capital to accelerate meaningful innovation across industries and communities. The companies on the fifth annual list are located across the US and come from a variety of industries including healthcare technology, energy, horticulture, and consumer products. The Most Fundable Companies represent highly credible business concepts and visionary leaders who are determined to succeed, said Deborah Crown, dean of the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School and speaker at the Most Fundable Companies event. The expertise of these founders and their ability to meet rigorous qualifications should send a signal to investors that these are companies teed up to generate sales and profits. The Most Fundable Companies are evaluated on several company variables including financial projections, market opportunity, intellectual property, competitive advantage in their market, and the strength of the management team expertise. Each of these variables is then used to generate objective and customized feedback and scoring to improve readiness for funding. The Pepperdine Graziadio Business Schools Most Fundable Companies is powered by The Venture Alliance. The Most Fundable Companies event featured a keynote address from Graziadio alumna Kim Folsom, founder and CEO of Founders First Capital Partners. She was joined by an impressive lineup of speakers including Cary Singleton and Ryan Groves of the Singleton Foundation, Stevan Calvillo of the George and Reva Graziadio Foundation, Vince Monteparte of Sway Ventures, Gary Hewamadduma, founder and CEO of CFO Plans, Inc., Guy Baker of Wealth Teams Alliance and BTA Advisory Group, and James Casparie of The Venture Alliance. To learn more about the winners and vote for your favorite startups now through October 24, visit the 2022 Most Fundable Companies webpage. Pepperdine Graziadio 2022 Most Fundable Companies List (alphabetically listed by category): Platinum: EarthGrid, PBC (Richmond, CA) Genesis Systems, LLC (Tampa, FL) One Health Group, Inc. (Cazenovia, NY) Gold: Covira Surgical, Inc. (Chicago, IL) Kneevoice, Inc. (Santa Monica, CA) Live Music Streaming Technology, Inc. d/b/a Trubify (Coto de Caza, CA) OmniVis, Inc. (San Francisco, CA) Silver Circle Optics, Inc. (Rochester, NY) GravyStack, Inc. (Phoenix, AZ) Lively Root Technologies, Inc. (San Diego, CA). Nanocan Therapeutics Corp. (Princeton, NJ) Veloce Energy, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) Bronze Bridge Therapeutics, Inc. (Birmingham, AL) NecoBrands, Inc. d/b/a necoTECH (Delaware, OH) OOLI BEAUTY, LLC (Brookyln, NY) VIBE, LLC d/b/a Glo Pals (Starkville, MS) Disclaimers: The Pepperdine Graziadio Most Fundable Companies List does not represent an offer to sell securities. It does not constitute investment advice, nor is it an endorsement of any product or service. Pepperdine University is not a broker-dealer and does not perform services provided by a broker-dealer, including but not limited to any financial or investment advising. About Most Fundable Companies The Most Fundable Companies List is an annual program hosted by the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School aimed to promote startup business development by providing pathways for startup funding and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit across the nation. The Most Fundable Companies program was launched by the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School in 2018 as a free resource to help entrepreneurs assess their readiness for private investment. All startups that complete the programs pre-screen and qualifier surveys receive a customized report with feedback on how to structure and position their business to improve investment opportunities. The Most Fundable Companies List winners receive national exposure and publication. About Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School For more than 50 years, the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School has challenged individuals to think boldly and drive meaningful change within their industries and communities. Dedicated to developing Best for the World Leaders, the Graziadio School offers a comprehensive range of MBA, MS, executive, and doctoral degree programs grounded in integrity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The Graziadio School advances experiential learning through small classes with distinguished faculty that stimulate critical thinking and meaningful connection, inspiring students and working professionals to realize their greatest potential as values-centered leaders. Follow Pepperdine Graziadio on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221013006080/en/ Hillary Doran Director of Brand Marketing Pepperdine Graziadio Business School (310) 568-2339 [email protected] Source: Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Q4 Inc. (TSX: QFOR), a leading capital markets communications platform, intends to release its third quarter 2022 results before the market opens on Friday, November 4, 2022. In conjunction with this release, the company will hold a video webcast led by CEO Darrell Heaps, on the Q4 Virtual Events Platform at 9:30 a.m. ET on November 4, 2022. Participants can register in advance or access the webcast live at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/328493037. Supplemental materials will be available at least fifteen minutes prior to the start of the event. A replay of the webcast will be available at investors.q4inc.com shortly after the event concludes. Audience questions will be taken real-time via the Q4 Platform. Investors can also submit their questions in advance to [email protected] or via our IR website. We will do our best to respond to your questions either on the webcast, if time permits or shortly thereafter. We appreciate your interest. About Q4 Inc. Q4 Inc. (TSX: QFOR) is a leading capital markets communications platform that is transforming the way publicly traded companies, investors and investment banks make decisions to efficiently discover, communicate and engage with each other. The Q4 end-to-end technology platform facilitates interactions across the capital markets through its IR website products, virtual events solutions, capital markets CRM, shareholder and market analytics tools. The firm is a trusted partner to more than 2,650 public companies globally including many of the most respected brands in the world. Q4 is based in Toronto, with offices in New York and London. Learn more at q4inc.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005023/en/ Investor Relations: Sara Pearson, [email protected] Media Inquiries: Heather Noll, [email protected] Source: Q4 INC. Special promotions and discounted prices are available exclusively at Lenovo.com RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Lenovo is kicking off the holiday shopping season with an exclusive Black Friday Sneak Peek Sale where shoppers can take advantage of special door busters that will change weekly. Starting October 17 and ending October 30, consumers can find huge discounts with up to 70% off ahead of Lenovos highly anticipated Black Friday Sale. Customers enrolled in the MyLenovo Rewards loyalty program will receive rewards points that can be redeemed on future purchases at lenovo.com. Check lenovo.com to take advantage of newly announced discounts on Lenovos best-selling products. Below is a selection of deals and promotions included in this years Sneak Peek Sale: Laptops for under $300 Up to 60% off ThinkPads Over 20% off monitors Tablets starting at $225 Up to 25% off Gaming PCs PC accessories starting at $10 and under Our Sneak Peek sale is the perfect time to get a head start on holiday shopping, said Carlo Savino, vice president of North America and Latin America eCommerce at Lenovo. Our customers can find great deals on PCs, monitors and tech accessories whether it is for the perfect gift or an upgrade to devices for school, work and play. For more details on all the great offers included in this years Black Friday Sneak Peek Sale, visit Lenovo.com. *Offers good while supplies last. Shop early for the best availability. About Lenovo Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a US$70 billion revenue global technology powerhouse, ranked #171 in the Fortune Global 500, employing 75,000 people around the world, and serving millions of customers every day in 180 markets. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, Lenovo has built on its success as the worlds largest PC company by further expanding into key growth areas including server, storage, mobile, solutions and services. This transformation together with Lenovos world-changing innovation is building a more inclusive, trustworthy, and sustainable digital society for everyone, everywhere. To find out more visit https://www.lenovo.com, and read about the latest news via our StoryHub. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221014005399/en/ Lisa Marie L. Ferrell, Lenovo [email protected] Ph: +1 (919) 805-1919 Source: Lenovo According to translated reports from Nikkei.com, American automobile company, General Motors (NYSE: GM) will simultaneously launch electric vehicles (EVs) in overseas markets such as Asia and Europe. The company will release its own electric vehicle in Japan for the first time in 2023. The vehicle will also mark a returned presence in Europe where the company had previously withdrawn. Since going bankrupt in 2009, it has scaled back most of its foreign operations, with the exception of China and South America. Shilpan Amin, GM's senior vice president and head of GM's overseas division, explained the company's future strategy. The division has operations in more than 60 countries around the world, outside of North America and China. Amin said, "All (over 60) countries will consider EV launches." In Japan, we plan to release the EV Lyric of the luxury car brand Cadillac within 2023. An EV from another brand, Chevrolet, may also be introduced. In Japan, Cadillac Chevrolet currently sells only 1,500 units a year, and we aim to increase it. The Lyric is an SUV equipped with an on-board battery "Altium" developed as the axis for future EV development. The SUV has an expected range of more than 400 kilometers on a single charge and will be marketed as a luxury car with driving performance. For GM, their alliance with Honda (NYSE: HMC) will be an important strategy for chasing economies of scale. The two companies have agreed to jointly develop EVs. Amin said, "The partnership gives us more scale, lower costs, lower prices". EVs will also be launched in Europe in the middle of 2023. Although the specific brand and model have not been revealed, there is a high possibility that this will also be a Cadillac or Chevrolet model. By 2025, the company plans to introduce 30 EV models worldwide and increase the annual production capacity of EVs in North America to 1 million units. Shares of GM are down 0.06% in early trading on Friday. By Michael Elkins | [email protected] Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. today announced that Pershing Square, L.P. (PS), Pershing Square International, Ltd. (PS International) and Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (PSH and together with PS and PS International, the Purchasers) have commenced a cash tender offer to purchase up to an aggregate of 6,340,000 shares of common stock, $0.01 par value per share (each, a Common Share), of The Howard Hughes Corporation, a Delaware corporation (NYSE: HHC) (the Company), at a price not greater than $60.00 nor less than $52.25 per Common Share, net to the seller in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest (the Offer). The exact price will be determined through a modified Dutch auction described in the offering materials referred to below. If the Purchasers accept any Common Shares for purchase pursuant to the Offer, PS, PS International and PSH will purchase approximately 7.47%, 2.27% and 90.26%, respectively, of those Common Shares and their purchase obligation will be several in accordance with those percentages and not joint. The Offer is being made on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase and the Letter of Transmittal, each dated as of October 14, 2022. The Purchasers are making this Offer because they believe the Companys current stock price is below the Companys long-term intrinsic value per share. The Offer is scheduled to expire at 12:00 Midnight, New York City time, at the end of November 10, 2022 (the Expiration Date) unless the Offer is extended or earlier terminated. Any extension of the Offer will be announced publicly on the first business day after the Expiration Date. The Offer is subject to customary closing conditions. There is no financing condition to the Offer. Holders interested in tendering their Common Shares must do so in accordance with the procedures set forth in the Offer to Purchase. Complete terms and conditions of the Offer are set forth in the Offer to Purchase, Letter of Transmittal and other related materials, which are being filed today by the Purchasers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). Copies of the Offer to Purchase, Letter of Transmittal and other related materials are available free of charge from D.F. King & Co., Inc., the information agent for the Offer. Questions regarding the Offer and requests for assistance in connection with the Offer may be directed to D.F. King by contacting (800) 848-3402 (toll-free). Banks and brokers may contact D.F. King at (212) 269-5550 or the dealer manager, Jefferies LLC at (877) 821-7388 (toll-free). Computershare Trust Company, N.A. is acting as depositary for the Offer. Jefferies LLC is acting as Dealer Manager in connection with the Offer. FILE PHOTO: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Raphael Bostic speaks at a European Financial Forum event in Dublin, Ireland February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo By Michael S. Derby NEW YORK (Reuters) -Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic on Friday said that over the last few years some of his personal investing activity inadvertently happened in periods where it was forbidden by U.S. central bank ethics rules at the time. Bostic explained in a note that accompanied revised financial disclosure forms going back to the start of his tenure as Atlanta Fed president in 2017 that trades violating the ethics code were made by financial advisors and were not done under his direction. "Since I assumed office, I have ensured that my assets were held in managed accounts that neither I nor my personal investment adviser had the ability to direct," Bostic wrote. "Due to my reliance on a third-party manager, I was unaware of any specific trades or their timing, including a limited number that took place during Federal Open Market Committee ... blackout periods or financial stress periods," Bostic wrote. "Similarly, I was unaware of when my holdings of U.S. Treasury funds in 2021 exceeded the limits set forth by the FOMC's trading and investing rules." "At no time did I knowingly authorize or complete a financial transaction based on nonpublic information or with any intent to conceal or sidestep my obligations of transparent and accountable reporting," Bostic said, adding that he sincerely regretted if his actions had raised questions about his or the Fed's standards and behavior. Under the rules then in place, Fed officials were prohibited from owning stocks in banks overseen by the central bank. They were also prohibited from trading during the so-called blackout periods around the meetings of the Fed's policy-setting FOMC, when officials are not supposed to speak publicly on economic or monetary policy issues. The rules also told Fed policymakers and senior staff to avoid engaging in investments that would create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Fed ethics rules are designed to ensure that officials who set the central bank's policy are not profiting off their decisions and knowledge. In the revised disclosure form for 2020, Bostic noted a number of sales of various investment funds that happened in the days leading up to a key announcement by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Feb. 28 of that year that indicated the central bank was about to act as the global economy was slammed by the shock of the coronavirus pandemic. Amid high volatility in financial markets, in short order the Fed slashed interest rates and started buying massive amounts of bonds, while launching emergency lending programs to help shore up financial markets. In his statement, Bostic said he thought he was complying with the rules as they stood then and had communicated to those managing his money about blackout trading restrictions. He said that once he understood there were problems with his disclosures he acted quickly to address them. INDEPENDENT REVIEW Bostic's revised financial statements are the latest development in a broader controversy facing the central bank. Just over a year ago, the leaders of the Dallas and Boston Fed banks resigned after their financial disclosure forms showed both had been actively trading in financial markets while also helping to set monetary policy. Robert Kaplan, who was then the leader of the Dallas Fed, had reported trading millions of dollars in stocks and other investments since taking over as head of that regional bank. Eric Rosengren, who had led the Boston Fed since 2007, reported more modest trades. At the start of this year, Richard Clarida, who was then second-in-command of the central bank, resigned from his position early amid questions about his trading in 2020. Earlier this year, the Fed imposed a much more stringent code limiting what officials and senior staff can invest in, while also requiring pre-approval of trades. It extended the new ethics restrictions to family members of central bank leaders and senior staff. In his statement on Friday, Bostic said that as soon as he realized his financial activities strayed beyond what the rules allowed, he brought it to the attention of the Atlanta Fed's board of directors and top lawyer, as well as the U.S. central bank. It is unclear when Bostic recognized his disclosure information was incorrect. With the first news of the trading issues at the Fed coming in September 2021, Bostic wrote "only in recent months did I learn that the approach I was taking for managing my assets generated several issues." Elizabeth Smith, who chairs the Atlanta Fed's board, said in a statement that the panel "acknowledges the violations and accepts President Bostic's explanation. My board colleagues and I have confidence in President Bostic's explanation that he did not seek to profit from any FOMC-related knowledge." A Fed spokesperson said in a statement that Fed Chair Jerome Powell "has asked the Office of Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board (of Governors) to initiate an independent review of President Bostic's financial disclosures." "We look forward to the results of their work and will accept and take appropriate actions based on their findings," the Fed spokesperson said. A spokesman for the Inspector General said "we are aware of the matter and will conduct an independent and comprehensive investigation. We have no further comment at this time." Bostic's investing issues echoed those of Powell. In July, a report from the central bank's Inspector General identified that he also had some trades that happened during blackout periods in 2020. The Inspector General cleared Powell and Clarida of wrongdoing, but said an investigation of regional Fed trading activity is ongoing. Of the 12 regional Fed banks, 11 reported 2021 financial disclosures for their respective leaders in June. Bostic had an extension for the release of his disclosure forms. (Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Paul Simao) WESTPORT, Conn., Oct. 14, 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, is excited to be hosting its 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit at The Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View, CA on October 27. 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. World-class technology leaders and industry experts speaking at this popular in-person event will explore different ways in which technology executives have adapted their leadership styles to help galvanize the team around a shared mission, to stimulate a collaborative and inclusive culture that can spark innovation and drive successful business outcomes. As members of the C-suite, technology executives are playing a deeper role in fostering the culture of the organization and motivating team members to achieve its strategic goals, said Hunter Muller, Founder and CEO of HMG Strategy. To do this, technology leaders are placing a heightened focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion so that all voices are being heard and to bring a variety of perspectives into innovation that can fuel next-generation business models. World-class technology executives speaking at the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit will include: Snehal Antani , Co-Founder and CEO, Horizon3.ai , Co-Founder and CEO, Horizon3.ai Chris Bedi , CIO, ServiceNow , CIO, ServiceNow Eddie Borrero , VP & CISO, Blue Shield of California , VP & CISO, Blue Shield of California Bruce Burroughs , CTO, AAA Northern California Nevada & Utah , CTO, AAA Northern California Nevada & Utah Dr. Sarah Cortes , Privacy Engineering, Netflix , Privacy Engineering, Netflix Tom Cullen , CIO, Corsair , CIO, Corsair Mark Egan , Partner, StrataFusion , Partner, StrataFusion David Hahn , CISO, CDK Global , CISO, CDK Global Emily Heath , Board of Directors, Chair of Technology & Cyber Security Committee, Member of Audit Committee, Norton LifeLock , Board of Directors, Chair of Technology & Cyber Security Committee, Member of Audit Committee, Norton LifeLock Rohit Jain , VP of Technology, Applications and Analytics, iRhythm Technologies, Inc. , VP of Technology, Applications and Analytics, iRhythm Technologies, Inc. Datta Junnarkar , CIO Marine, Boeing , CIO Marine, Boeing Tony Leng , Managing Director, Practice Lead and OMP, Diversified Search , Managing Director, Practice Lead and OMP, Diversified Search Adhir Mattu , SVP & CIO, Marvell Semiconductor , SVP & CIO, Marvell Semiconductor David Morris , Founder & Chairman, HiPER Solutions , Founder & Chairman, HiPER Solutions Wendy M. Pfeiffer , CIO & SVP, Nutanix , CIO & SVP, Nutanix Sahaar Rezaie , Executive Director, Genesys Works , Executive Director, Genesys Works Sarah Richardson , SVP, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Tivity Health , SVP, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Tivity Health Matthew Rosenquist , CISO, Eclipz.io , CISO, Eclipz.io Parul Saini , Global Head of Business and Enterprise Applications, Uber , Global Head of Business and Enterprise Applications, Uber Chris Starling , Associate VP, NPower , Associate VP, NPower Cynthia Stoddard , SVP & CIO, Adobe , SVP & CIO, Adobe Ravi Thadani , Interim CIO/Head of IT Business Applications, AMD , Interim CIO/Head of IT Business Applications, AMD Kathryn Ullrich , Managing Partner, Technology and Diversity, DHR Global , Managing Partner, Technology and Diversity, DHR Global Dr. Branden Williams, Business Identity Specialist, Ping Identity Valued Partners for the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit include 8x8, Akamai, Automation Anywhere, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, LastPass, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, Qumulo, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, ServiceNow, Strata, Tonkean, Transmit Security, Upwork, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit and to register for the event, click here. HMG Strategy will also be hosting its 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine on October 25. This popular and long-standing CIO summit will bring together the top CIOs, CISOs, technology executives and industry experts from the Greater San Diego area who will share their insights on the roles that technology executives can play in helping to design fresh go-to-market business models. Top tier technology executives and industry experts speaking at the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego on October 25 will include: Mike Anderson , Chief Digital and Information Officer, Netskope , Chief Digital and Information Officer, Netskope Joshua Barons , Head of Information Security, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance , Head of Information Security, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Amy Benton , VP, IT, Travere Therapeutics , VP, IT, Travere Therapeutics Louise Brandy , SVP & CIO, Quidel , SVP & CIO, Quidel Eric Dube , President & CEO, Travere Therapeutics , President & CEO, Travere Therapeutics Todd Felker , Executive Healthcare Strategist, CrowdStrike , Executive Healthcare Strategist, CrowdStrike Todd Friedman , CISO, ResMed , CISO, ResMed Suresh Gunasekaran , President and CEO, UCSF Health , President and CEO, UCSF Health Houman Haghighi , Partner, Business & Corporate Development, Menlo Ventures , Partner, Business & Corporate Development, Menlo Ventures Dan Hedstrom , VP & CIO, Cubic Corporation , VP & CIO, Cubic Corporation Steve Hoyt , Executive Director Information Technology, Aspen Neuroscience , Executive Director Information Technology, Aspen Neuroscience Abe Lietz , SVP & CIO, KinderCare Education , SVP & CIO, KinderCare Education Christopher Longhurst , Chief Medical Officer & Chief Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health System , Chief Medical Officer & Chief Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health System Aviva McPherron , CIO, NuVasive , CIO, NuVasive Barb Munro , Co-Founder and Membership Chair, SIM San Diego; Co-Founder, Partner, The Carrera Agency , Co-Founder and Membership Chair, SIM San Diego; Co-Founder, Partner, The Carrera Agency Tony Olzak , CTO, Trace3 , CTO, Trace3 Albert Oriol , CIO, Rady Childrens Hospital , CIO, Rady Childrens Hospital Gautham Pallapa , Senior Executive Advisor, VMware, Inc. , Senior Executive Advisor, VMware, Inc. Steve Phillpott , President, SIM San Diego; CIO/CDO, Solidigm , President, SIM San Diego; CIO/CDO, Solidigm Bhavin Shah , Founder and CEO, Moveworks , Founder and CEO, Moveworks Yasmin Shah , CEO, CIO, SeenADriver , CEO, CIO, SeenADriver Jessica Sica , CISO, PETCO Animal Supplies , CISO, PETCO Animal Supplies Mark Taylor , CEO, Society for Information Management , CEO, Society for Information Management Maria Zack , Professor and Chair of Mathematical, Information and Computer Sciences Point Loma Nazarene University , Professor and Chair of Mathematical, Information and Computer Sciences Point Loma Nazarene University John Zavada, Chief Administrative Officer, PETCO Animal Supplies Valued Partners for the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego include 8x8, Akamai, Automation Anywhere, BetterCloud, Centripetal, CrowdStrike, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, Intelliswift, LastPass, LogicMonitor, Moveworks, Netskope, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, ReliaQuest, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, SentinelOne, SHE Information Technology, Sigma, SIM San Diego, Slalom, Snowflake, Tanium, Tonkean, Trace3, Upwork, Varonis, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 San Diego Technology Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with SIM San Diego and to register for the event, click here. HMG Strategy will also be hosting its 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit on October 17. In this digital summit which is designed by female technology executives for female technology executives, CIOs, CISOs and other female technology leaders will explore the role of the future-forward female tech leader in inspiring performance through purposeful leadership. Top-tier female CIOs, CISOs and industry leaders speaking at the 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit on October 17 will include: Alissa Abdullah , Deputy CSO, SVP of Cybersecurity Technology, Mastercard , Deputy CSO, SVP of Cybersecurity Technology, Mastercard Robin Brown , CIO, Protein North America, Cargill , CIO, Protein North America, Cargill Christine Converse Hogan , CIO Advisor, Zoom , CIO Advisor, Zoom Kirsten Davies , CISO, Unilever , CISO, Unilever Candice Dixon , Coalition Development Director, NPower , Coalition Development Director, NPower Cindy Finkelman , Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal , Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal Chandy Ghosh , COO & General Manager, Sinch , COO & General Manager, Sinch Dax Grant , CEO, Global Transform , CEO, Global Transform Klara Jelinkova , VP and University CIO, Harvard University , VP and University CIO, Harvard University Ebele Kemery , Managing Director, Head of Global Technology Diversity Equity & Inclusion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. , Managing Director, Head of Global Technology Diversity Equity & Inclusion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Rashmi Kumar , SVP & CIO Global IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise , SVP & CIO Global IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Laura Whitt-Winyard , Former CISO, Malwarebytes , Former CISO, Malwarebytes Angela Yochem, EVP, Chief Transformation & Digital Officer, Novant Health Valued Partners for the 2022 HMG Live! Global Women in Technology Summit include 8x8, Akamai, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Delphix, Fortinet, LastPass, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Ping Identity, RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, Tonkean, Upwork, Zoom, and Zscaler. To learn more about the 2022 HMG Live! Global Leadership in Technology Summit and to register for the event, click here. To learn more about HMG Strategys upcoming CIO and CISO Summits, click here. About HMG Strategy HMG Strategy is the world's leading digital platform for 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 the 7 Pillars of Trust for 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/6e03d724-18f6-4ec3-900c-ba2479b7e753 The 2022 Silicon Valley CIO Executive Leadership Summit Join the top CIOs and technology executives from the Greater Bay Area as we explore the role of technology leaders in fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture. Source: HMG Strategy PASCAGOULA, Miss., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HIIs (NYSE: HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division recognized its latest apprentice program graduates at a ceremony this month. Ingalls celebrated 136 apprentice graduates in the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022, who have invested time in the classroom and shipyard to prepare them for a shipbuilding career. It was the first in-person graduation ceremony in two years. I am honored to celebrate this elite group of graduates who have committed their unique talents and abilities to advancing national security, Ingalls Shipbuilding President Kari Wilkinson said. Together we will continue to build on Ingalls legacy of service to our country by delivering ships to our customers. Enrollment for the apprentice program is competitive, and students work full-time while learning a craft through classes and on-the-job training. The prestigious workforce development program has produced nearly 4,000 graduates since its inception in 1952. The 2022 Overall Apprentice of the Year, Robert Cowan, provided remarks during the ceremony, sharing why individuals should consider participating in the program. Ingalls has empowered me to learn a new craft that I knew nothing about, which has allowed me to take part in building Navy ships for our country, Cowan said. If someone is willing to learn a new trade and able to work while they are learning, then its a great opportunity. Photos accompanying this release are available at: https://hii.com/news/hii-ingalls-shipbuilding-celebrates-apprentice-program-graduates-2022/. The apprentice program at Ingalls Shipbuilding School involves a comprehensive two- to four-year curriculum for students interested in shipbuilding careers. Apprentices earn competitive wages and receive a comprehensive benefit package upon entering the program. This allows apprentices to receive an education, build work ethic, gain experience and develop into world-class journeymen of their crafts. About HII HII is a global, all-domain defense partner, building and delivering the worlds most powerful, survivable naval ships and technologies that safeguard our seas, sky, land, space and cyber. As Americas largest shipbuilder and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national defense, we are united by our mission in service of the heroes who protect our freedom. HIIs diverse workforce includes skilled tradespeople; artificial intelligence, machine learning (AI/ML) experts; engineers; technologists; scientists; logistics experts; and business professionals. Headquartered in Virginia, HIIs workforce is 44,000 strong. For more information, visit: HII on the web: https://www.HII.com/ HII on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamHII HII on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/WeAreHII HII on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WeAreHII Contact: Kimberly Aguillard [email protected] (228) 935-6821 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3f3a3749-5f89-4b1a-82be-071a65651714 Ingalls Shipbuilding Apprentice School Graduation 2022 Graduates of the Ingalls Shipbuilding Apprentice Program were recognized during an on-site commencement ceremony on Sat., Oct. 8, 2022. Source: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. TACOMA, Wash., Oct. 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pierce County Alliance (PCA), founded in 1972, will celebrate its 50th Anniversary on November 2nd from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. at its Tacoma headquarters. A nationally recognized substance abuse treatment provider, Pierce County Alliance has been serving the people of the Pacific Northwest and has received national recognition for its pioneering work with Drug Treatment Courts, medication assisted treatment (MAT) and Child Placing Agency Services, including foster home licensing. PCA 50th Anniversary CelebrationNovember 2, 2022 from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.;510 Tacoma Avenue South in TacomaRSVP to Phi Rhea at 253-304-1971 PCA invites all interested parties to its 50th Anniversary celebration. We are excited to join with our many community partners to celebrate a half-century of success in the provision of substance abuse treatment and youth services. said Terree Schmidt-Whelan, PCAs Executive Director. PCA is one of the leaders in the development of programs, systems and public policy regarding criminal justice treatment and was one of the first in Washington State to collaborate with local courts to develop drug treatment alternatives to incarceration, said Barry J. Reid, PCAs Board President. Due to its achievements, PCA is regularly awarded significant governmental grants to expand its work in helping persons struggling with substance abuse. PCA has become a nationally recognized agency in the field of drug courts, continued Reid. PCA is regarded as a great place to work, where dogs are welcome to work with their person in the agency, and the work environment reflects the agencys people-centered philosophy towards both clients and staff. About Pierce County Alliance The Pierce County Alliance is a nationally recognized agency providing substance abuse treatment in the Pacific Northwest. The agency has worked in collaboration with federal, state, and local justice systems to address treatment issues of the offender population with programs such as TASC (Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime). These efforts were substantially expanded with the advent of drug treatment courts in the early 1990s. PCA, in conjunction with the Pierce County Superior Court and the Pierce County Council, began one of the earliest felony drug court programs in the country. Over its 50-year history, PCA has expanded into many complementary areas including: the Family Recovery Court, mental health therapy, substance use, medication-assisted treatment, problem gambling disorders, youth services and foster care programs. PCA also provides drug court treatment services for the Thurston County Superior Court. In 2021, Terree Schmidt-Whelan, PCAs Executive Director was inducted into the Stanley M. Goldstein Treatment Court Hall of Fame by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Contact: Barry J. Reid, President, PCA Board of Directors 253.946.6119 Terree Schmidt-Whelan, Ph.D., PCA Executive Director 253.572.4750 Source: Pierce County Alliance SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tech CU (Technology Credit Union) celebrated the grand opening of its Idaho Virtual Branch via a private, online event earlier today. Event speakers included Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, Bill Connors, President and CEO of the Boise Metro Chamber, Reid Stephan, the CIO of St. Lukes, and Jay Larsen, the CEO of the Idaho Tech Council. Were excited to open our Virtual Branch in Idaho and formally expand outside our borders for the first time, said Todd Harris, the CEO of Tech CU. Treasure Valley, and Boise in particular, have been a goal of ours for several years now. Not only are the people who live there super friendly, but it is a burgeoning technology hub with a rapidly growing population, and a strong concentration of well-respected employers, making it an ideal location for Tech CU. The Virtual Branch allows members to receive the same high-touch, personalized face-to-face banking experience they typically receive in person, from the comfort of their homes. Virtual Branch customers can talk to an expert virtual banker about their banking questions and can take care of the types of transactions typically done at an in-person appointment including credit card and loan requests, account or debit card issues, savings/CD requests, IRA/HSA, and more. Im pleased to welcome Tech CU to Boise, said Mayor Lauren McLean Its great to have a new banking option with a particular focus on our growing array of entrepreneurs and employees in the technology sector. Thank you for choosing our community and becoming a member of our local economy. Over the past several years, Tech CU has been a huge supporter of our technology community, said Jay Larsen, CEO of the Idaho Technology Council (ITC), a member-driven organization committed to the success of Idahos technology ecosystem. Most recently, they sponsored ITCs 2022 Capital Connect event aimed at start-ups that have received series A funding rounds. Were excited they are opening up a Virtual Branch in our community and what that means for local technology businesses in the area. Consumers are used to doing many things virtually now, and banking is no exception, said Robert Reed, the Chief Retail Banking Officer at Tech CU. Weve spent the past year and a half refining our Virtual Branch model across our entire field of membership and are confident we can deliver the same in-person experience our members have come to expect in a virtual way. Virtual Branch appointments are secure, convenient, and FREE. Appointments are available Monday-Saturday and can be made as early as 30 minutes from the time of scheduling online. To make an appointment with one of Tech CUs virtual bankers, visit https://www.techcu.com/Resources/Make-an-Appointment-with-Tech-CU/, and select Virtual Branch Video Appointment. About Tech CU Tech CU is a $4.5 billion credit union founded in the heart of Silicon Valley. As a federally insured not-for-profit organization, Tech CU has invested its resources to deliver superior rates, lower fees, and outstanding service and member benefits for more than 60 years while also supporting quality of life in local communities. It serves more than 160,000 members throughout the United States and provides financial products for all stages of its members lives, including personal banking, wealth management, private banking, commercial lending, and business banking. In 2021, Tech CU was named one of Americas best-in-state credit unions by Forbes. Since 2017, S&P Global Market Intelligence has named Tech CU as one of the top five best-performing credit unions with assets of $100 million or more in California (with three of those years in the number one spot) and one of the top 30 nationally. To learn more, please visit www.techcu.com. Contact:Linden KohtzPublic Relations, Tech CU[email protected] Source: Technology Credit Union YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan received today members of the National Council (lower house of the Federal Assembly) of Switzerland Stefan Muller-Altermatt and Michel Matter, the Parliaments press service said. The Swiss lawmakers arrived in Armenia on a working visit. They are planning to visit the settlements that were affected by the latest Azerbaijani shelling. During the meeting the sides stated that there is a broad cooperation framework for parliaments and called for using all opportunities in this regard. In this context the activity of Friendship Groups and the operational response to the issues voiced during mutual visits were emphasized. The meeting participants also discussed the consequences of the latest Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia. In this respect the Speaker presented details about the casualties and the infrastructures that were bombarded. You are going to visit Jermuk where you will witness the consequences of Azerbaijani aggression. Your Ambassador has already visited Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor provinces where he got acquainted with the damages caused to the civilian infrastructures in various settlements as a result of the attack unleashed by Azerbaijan, he said. Alen Simonyan also expressed gratitude to Swiss partners for talking with the Swiss government about the Azerbaijani aggression and its consequences, stating that he is expecting practical steps. It was stated that the withdrawal of Azerbaijani armed forces from Armenias sovereign territory is priority, and the use of force or threat of force is unacceptable. At the end of the meeting the Speaker expressed confidence that after the visit to Armenia the lawmaker will multiply their efforts to impartially present the reality, support Armenia and the Armenian people, and the independent Armenian statehood, at the same time, not forgetting about the Artsakh peoples right to live freely and safely in their homeland. Following the meeting the Swiss delegates gave a press conference during which they made a statement. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trans Canada Trail, steward of the worlds longest recreational trail network, and Destination Canada, the national organization responsible for sustaining a vibrant and profitable Canadian tourism industry, are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), marking the two organizations commitment to work together and share expertise that supports the development of trail destinations across the country. A first-of-its-kind national initiative, the MOU between Trans Canada Trail and Destination Canada is focused on sharing resources, knowledge and expertise, including identifying opportunities and maximizing connections with destinations and communities. Todays announcement is a first step in creating a long-term relationship that enhances Canadas trail network and will ultimately generate wealth and wellbeing for all of Canada and enrich the lives of our communities as well as guests to Canada. Eleanor McMahon, President & CEO, Trans Canada Trail and Marsha Walden, President and CEO, Destination Canada signed the MOU at the Teahouse in Stanley Park, Vancouver, this morning in the company of the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance and Chepximiya Siyam, Janice George, Hereditary Chief of the Squamish Nation, who opened the signing ceremony. Todays partnership between Destination Canada and Trans Canada Trail is a win for Canadians and international visitors, says the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance. As the home to the longest trail network in the world, Canada is uniquely positioned to meet the growing demand for outdoor experiences and sustainable tourism offerings. Our recreational trail network connects our communities together, fueling economic growth and promoting healthy lifestyles. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. I look forward to seeing the results of this partnership in the months and years to come. We are incredibly proud to partner with Destination Canada for this first-of-its kind initiative, to elevate Canadas trail network to the significant asset that it is, and to collaborate with both Destination Canada and Minister Boissonnault in driving the renaissance of tourism in Canada post-pandemic in a way that is sustainable and meaningful for local communities, says Eleanor McMahon, President & CEO, Trans Canada Trail. Our research tells us that trails are vital in supporting the well-being of Canadians, and that trails tourism is an underleveraged opportunity in Canada. We have a tremendous opportunity to activate Canadas trail-based tourism economy, supporting job creation, economic development in local communities and regenerative tourism. Trails that engage travelers across the country from city seawalls to spectacular wilderness are a critical component of our visitor economy. Not only do they connect people from coast to coast to coast, they support the sustainable development of communities, generate fulfilling jobs, protect our natural assets, and strengthen our understanding of Canada, says Marsha Walden, President and CEO, Destination Canada. We are thrilled to be collaborating with Trans Canada Trail to share knowledge and seize opportunities. Im confident, together, we can help bolster Canadas global tourism competitiveness, while generating wealth and wellbeing for our communities and enriching the lives of our guests. Trans Canada Trail initiated Canadas first-ever National Trail Tourism Strategy in 2020 for the benefit of all trails and the communities they connect across the country. The Trans Canada Trail links over 15,000 communities from coast to coast to coast across 28,000 kilometres. Facts and Figures: The Trans Canada Trail spans over 28,000 km across land and water, across every province and territory. 80% of Canadians live within 30 minutes of a Trail section. Since the onset of COVID, trail use increased by close to 50% 95% of Canadians say their increased use boosts their mental and physical health 99% of Canadians intend to keep using trails in their communities, and beyond, post-pandemic Resources: About Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail (the Trail) is the longest recreational trail in the world, spanning over 28,000 kilometres on land and water. Linking three oceans the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic the Trail connects 15,000 rural, urban and Indigenous communities across every province and territory. It is a ribbon that connects Canadas diverse landscapes, seasons, people and experiences, and fosters unity, collaboration and connectedness. Trans Canada Trail is a registered charity and stewards this national trail in collaboration with local Trail partners. With funding from the Government of Canada through Parks Canada, and investments from all levels of government and generous donors, Trans Canada Trail is the largest investor in trail infrastructure projects in Canada, supporting improvements, growth and enhancements for generations to come. tctrail.ca About Destination Canada At Destination Canada, we believe that tourism enhances the wealth and wellbeing of Canadians and enriches the lives of visitors. Our mission is to influence supply and build demand for the benefit of locals, communities and visitors through leading research, alignment with public and private sectors, and marketing Canada nationally and abroad. Knowing that diversity is our greatest asset, we promote Canada as a premier four-season leisure and business tourism destination around the country and world in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, our Business Events team leverage in-depth global market analysis to target international clusters aligned with Canada's priority economic sectors. Destination Canada is a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Government of Canada. www.destinationcanada.com Media Contacts: Angela Garde Jennifer Peters PR & Communications Manager Senior Manager, Corporate Communications and Trans Canada Trail Outreach | Destination Canada T: 1.800.465.3636 ext. 4358 T. 1.604.638.6187 [email protected] [email protected] A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1578e630-204d-406e-9719-6d61a5f90dbe Trans Canada Trail map Trans Canada Trail and Destination Canada announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), marking the two organizations commitment to work together and share expertise that supports the development of trail destinations across the country. Source: Trans Canada Trail VANCOUVER, British Columbia and LISBON, Portugal, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TUGA Innovations, Inc. (CSE: TUGA) (FRA: DQ5) (OTC: TUGAF) (TUGA Innovations, or the Company), which is developing solutions for urban mobility challenges with the TUGA, a new type of electric vehicle (EV), is pleased to announce and welcome Mr. Lucas Leonardi to its board of directors with immediate effect. Mr. Leonardi is currently the Automotive Global Accounts Team Director at Amazon Web Services EMEA based in Paris, France. He brings over 25 years of sales & product marketing experience (business development, original equipment manufacturer agreements and profit and loss statement management) in software and related software as a service industry endeavour. Lucas is recognized as an agile strategist with entrepreneurial leadership and managerial skills in international and multicultural environments. He recently served as SVP Mobility for Valtech (a software integrator) developing vertical strategies for group mobility as a service offering. Previously he served under Peugeot Citroen SA Group (now Stellantis) as Head of Worldwide Strategy & Partnerships Connected Cars, then as COO for Free2Move (Stellantis Mobility brand). His career began at Hewlett-Packard in California followed by the creation and sale of his own encryption software company to Gemalto and subsequent executive positions as EMEA Snr. Business & Marketing Manager at Logitech Switzerland, and Snr. Business Development Director EMEA at Lookout in London. Lucas Leonardi, newly appointed director at TUGA Innovations comments, The TUGA project seems right on target in so many ways. The vehicle, along with the digital elements, is an extremely attractive package; and the go-to-market concept is innovative and compelling. The management team has an excellent focus to successfully develop the company. In related news, Mr. Kraig Schultz has announced his resignation from his role on the board of directors. John Hagie, TUGA Innovations CEO and Chairperson of the board of directors, notes First of all, I want to wish Kraig the very best on his future endeavours, as he was instrumental in helping us to start the Company, and his efforts remain greatly appreciated. At the same time, we are delighted to welcome Lucas to the team and look forward to working with him. Hagie continues, Lucas brings great insight, perspective, and access to an outstanding network of industry colleagues from his far-reaching career experiences. We are always looking to build value in our venture, and with ever-stronger leadership we continue to move the needle forward towards commercialization for our exciting products. On behalf of the Board of Directors,Sincerely, ~John Hagie~ John HagieChief Executive Officer & Director TUGA Innovations, Inc. As part of the Companys disclosure obligations as a public issuer, ongoing financial and material filings can be found under the Companys profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com. We invite the public to visit our website at www.tugainnovations.com and to sign up to our news alerts to be advised of future news and events. Please watch our video which is now available on the website, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. About TUGA Innovations, Inc. (CSE: TUGA) (FRA: DQ5) (OTC: TUGAF) TUGA Innovations is a development-stage electric vehicle company undertaking the conception, design, and production of specialized EVs to improve the urban mobility experience. The Company is looking to reduce urban mobility difficulties by developing a family of three-wheeled, fully electric fore-and-aft 2-seat vehicles. The vehicle is no wider than a motorcycle for agility and offers a patent pending expanding rear axle for high-speed stability along with a patent pending expandable chassis designed for passenger comfort. The vehicle will offer advanced connectivity technology to maximize safety, performance, environmental impact, comfort, maintenance, and navigation. The TUGA vehicle is being designed to deliver an estimated 160 km range, have an estimated top speed of 140km/hour with the comforts of a car, and with more protection than a motorcycle in an interchangeable multi-body, multi-function platform. Find out more at: https://tugainnovations.com/, watch our video, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. For further information, please contact:TUGA Investor RelationsTel: +1 415.799.7911Email: [email protected] Forward-Looking Statement This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding future plans, objectives, or economic performance, or the assumption underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as aim, aims to, may, would, could, will, will be likely, expected, anticipated, proposed, believe, intend, plan, forecast, project, estimate, outlook, hope, the potential to or the negative thereof or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Examples of such statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the Company addressing challenges faced when driving in, between, and around urban centres and metropolitan areas; the Companys commercialization of its automotive concepts; the Companys go-to-market concept for its vehicle; the Company moving the needle forward towards commercialization for its exciting products; the width of the vehicle, the expanded rear axle feature of the vehicle, the advanced connectivity features of the vehicle and anticipated benefits, the km range and top speed of the vehicle, and the safety, performance, and comfort offered by the vehicle. Forward-looking information is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis, and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information contained in this news release include, but are not limited to, key personnel and qualified employees continuing their involvement with the Company; the Companys ability to secure additional financing on reasonable terms; the competitive conditions of the industries in which the Company operates; and laws and any amendments thereto applicable to the Company. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks relating to the future business plans of the Company; risks that the Company will not be able to retain its key personnel; risks that the Company will not be able to secure financing on reasonable terms or at all, as well as all of the other risks as described in the Companys final prospectus dated November 30, 2021 under the heading Risks Factors. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking information. Further, any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Companys management to predict all such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Companys business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information or events after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law, including securities laws. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Source: TUGA Innovations, Inc. MONTREAL, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Velan Inc. (TSX: VLN) (the Company), a world-leading manufacturer of industrial valves, announced today its financial results for its second quarter ended August 31, 2022. Highlights: As the volatility across various macro economic factors continues across the globe, the Company has managed to improve performance over its first quarter by prudently managing the business while facing headwinds in logistics, operations and their related impact on deliveries. Sales for the quarter amounted to $85.1 million, an improvement of $10.1 million or 13.4% compared to the first quarter of the current fiscal year, but a decrease of $16.8 million or 16.5% compared to the second quarter of the previous fiscal year. The decrease in sales for the quarter compared to the prior year is partly due to the continued weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar, stronger shipments in the prior year related to one major contract and the timing of the delivery schedule on open orders in the current quarter. During the second quarter of the current fiscal year, the company shipped a large order which was expected to reach its destination prior to the closing of the quarter. As a result of logistics delays, the final acceptance of this shipment will be completed in the third quarter. The impact of this delayed shipment on the quarter was $10.9 million. Gross profit for the quarter amounted to $23.5 million or 27.6%, an improvement of $3.4 million or 80 basis points compared to the first quarter of the current fiscal year, but a decrease compared to last years $31.4 million or 30.8%. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the quarter was primarily due to the previously explained lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease was also due to the unfavourable effect of the product mix. Finally, the gross profit was lower than last year by $0.5 million as the Company did not receive funds from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidies (CEWS) program. Net loss1 of $3.7 million and EBITDA2 of $1.4 million for the quarter compared to a net income 1 of $5.0 million and EBITDA 2 of $10.7 million last year. The decrease in EBITDA 2 is primarily attributable to the previously mentioned reduction in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs in the quarter. of $5.0 million and EBITDA of $10.7 million last year. The decrease in EBITDA is primarily attributable to the previously mentioned reduction in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs in the quarter. Order backlog 2 remains strong at $477.6 million, a decrease of $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the year which is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar and lower upstream oil and gas net new orders (bookings) 2 for the half year. The portion of the current backlog 2 deliverable in the next twelve months increased to $347.2 million primarily due to the shipment delays encountered in the quarter. remains strong at $477.6 million, a decrease of $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the year which is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar and lower upstream oil and gas net new orders (bookings) for the half year. The portion of the current backlog deliverable in the next twelve months increased to $347.2 million primarily due to the shipment delays encountered in the quarter. Bookings 2 of $73.5 million for the quarter, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to last year. The decrease in bookings 2 compared to last year resulted mainly from the current geo-political uncertainties which created slower project awards. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The Companys book-to-bill ratio 2 for the half-year remains favorable at 1.04. of $73.5 million for the quarter, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to last year. The decrease in bookings compared to last year resulted mainly from the current geo-political uncertainties which created slower project awards. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The Companys book-to-bill ratio for the half-year remains favorable at 1.04. The Companys net cash amounted to $29.7 million at the end of the quarter, a decrease of $23.7 million since the beginning of the fiscal year. The decrease in net cash for the quarter is primarily attributable to the lower EBITDA2, combined with unfavorable non-cash working capital items. The overall available liquidity remains strong with $137.8 million of available cash-on-hand and facilities. Bruno Carbonaro, CEO and President of Velan Inc., said, As the volatility across various macro economic factors continues across the globe, we managed to improve our performance over our first quarter by prudently managing our business while facing headwinds in logistics, operations and their related impact on deliveries. We are nonetheless not pleased with our second quarter results and believe that our success in the second half of the fiscal year will rely on our plant effectiveness, with continuous improvements that will lead to sustainable performance, and a strong performance in bookings, targeting certain key projects that will allow us to maintain our strong backlog. Important to note that the decrease in backlog this fiscal year is largely related to foreign exchange conversion as our book-to-bill ratio is positive since the beginning of the fiscal year. Finally, we believe that our success will be possible thanks to our highly qualified employees who have continued to show great discipline and dedication. Financial Highlights: Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended (thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding per share amounts) August 31,2022 August 31,2021 August 31,2022 August 31,2021 Sales $85,054 $101,893 $160,059 $176,422 Gross profit 23,482 31,391 43,555 51,385 Gross profit % 27.6% 30.8% 27.2% 29.1% Net income (loss)1 (3,676) 5,015 (11,028) (58) Net income (loss)1 per share basic and diluted (0.17) 0.23 (0.51) (0.00) EBITDA2 1,365 10,657 (1,513) 9,716 EBITDA2 per share basic and diluted 0.06 0.49 (0.07) 0.45 Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 (unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in U.S. dollars and all comparisons are to the second quarter of fiscal 2022): Sales amounted to $85.1 million for the quarter, decreasing by $16.8 million or 16.5% compared to the same quarter last year. The negative effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on sales for the quarter amounted to $6.0 million compared to the second quarter of last fiscal year. The decrease in sales for the quarter is primarily attributable to the delivery of significant orders by the Companys Italian operations destined to the upstream oil and gas sector in the prior fiscal year. The decrease is also attributable to the timing of delivery dates on open orders caused by lower bookings recorded in the second half of the previous year. The Company still faced, in the current quarter, supply chain delays as well as customer related issues which had a negative effect on sales. Bookings2 for the quarter amounted to $73.5 million, a decrease of $8.1 million or 9.9% compared to the second quarter of last year. The effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings2 for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $4.5 million in the second quarter compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the quarter is primarily attributable to lower orders recorded in the Companys Italian and German operations. The decrease for the quarter is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $1.5 million of bookings2 in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year. Finally, the decrease for the quarter was partially offset by an increase in the Companys MRO bookings2 compared to last year. Gross profit for the quarter amounted to $23.5 million, a decrease of $7.9 million or 25.2%. The gross profit percentage for the quarter of 27.6% was a decrease of 320 basis points compared to last years second quarter. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the quarter is primarily attributable to the lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease in gross profit percentage was also due to the unfavorable effect of the product mix delivered. Additionally, The Companys gross profit for the quarter was negatively impacted by less favorable foreign exchange movements, when compared to similar movements from the previous year, which were primarily made up of unrealized foreign exchange translations related to the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar against the euro and Canadian dollar. The gross profit in the prior year was positively impacted by the recording of $0.5 million for the quarter of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current fiscal year. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. Prior years gross profit percentage without CEWS would have been 30.2% for the quarter. Administration costs for the quarter amounted to $24.7 million, an increase of $0.7 million or 2.9%. The increase in administration costs for the quarter is primarily attributable to the reassessment of the Companys long-term legal provision. The increase is also due to higher outbound freight costs caused by the current global supply chain issues which are impacting freight costs and shipping delays. The administration costs in the prior year benefited from the recording of $0.5 million for the quarter of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current quarter. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. The increase for the quarter was partially offset by lower sales commissions recorded on the delivery of large orders over the course of the quarter and a general reduction of the remaining administration costs. Net loss1 amounted to $3.7 million or $0.17 per share compared to a net income1 of $5.0 million or $0.23 per share last year. EBITDA2 for the quarter amounted to $1.4 million or $0.06 per share compared to $10.7 million or $0.49 per share last year. The unfavorable movements in EBITDA2 for the quarter is primarily attributable to the previously explained decrease in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs. A portion of the effects on the EBITDA2 caused by the weakening of the euro against the U.S. dollar were hedged by the company. The negative movement in the Companys results was primarily attributable to the previously mentioned factors, partially offset by favorable movements in finance costs and in income taxes for the quarter. First Six months Fiscal 2023 (unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in U.S. dollars and all comparisons are to the first six months of fiscal 2022): Sales for the half year totaled $160.1 million, a decrease of $16.3 or 9.3% compared to the last fiscal year. The negative effect of the weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on sales for the half year amounted to $10.5 million compared to the first half year of the last fiscal year. The decrease for the half year is also attributable to the timing of delivery dates on open orders caused by lower bookings recorded in the second half of the previous year. The Company still faced supply chain delays as well as customer related issues which had a negative effect on sales for the half year. Bookings2 for the half year amounted to $166.9 million, a decrease of $31.0 million or 15.7% compared to the prior fiscal year. The weakening of the euro average rate against the U.S. dollar on order bookings2 for the Companys European operations resulted in a negative impact of $7.8 million on the half year compared to the prior year. Additionally, the decrease for the half year is primarily attributable to lower upstream oil and gas and marine orders recorded in the Companys Italian and North American operations. The current geo-political uncertainties have created slower project awards resulting in lower bookings2 for the Company in the half-year. The Company nonetheless continues to observe a strong amount of activity ongoing. The decrease for the half year is also attributable to the disposal of the Companys Korean foundry at the end of the previous fiscal year. The Korean foundry had recorded $4.3 million of bookings2 for the six-month period of the previous year. The total backlog2 decreased by $23.6 million or 4.7% since the beginning of the fiscal year, settling at $477.6 million at the end of the quarter. The decrease in backlog2 is primarily attributable to the weakening of the euro spot rate against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the fiscal year which represented $30.5 million for the six-month period. The decrease since the beginning of the fiscal year was partially offset by a positive book-to-bill ratio2 of 1.04 as a result of bookings outpacing sales for the half year. Gross profit for the half year amounted to $43.6 million, a decrease of $7.8 million or 15.2%. The gross profit percentage for the six-month period of 27.2% represented a decrease of 190 basis points compared to the same period last year. The decrease in gross profit percentage for the half year is primarily attributable to the lower sales volume which impacted the absorption of fixed production overhead costs. The decrease in gross profit percentage was also due to the unfavorable effect of the product mix delivered. The Companys gross profit for the six-month period was positively impacted by more favorable foreign exchange movements, when compared to similar movements from the previous year, which were primarily made up of unrealized foreign exchange translations related to the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar against the euro and Canadian dollar. The gross profit in the prior year was positively impacted by the recording of $1.1 million for the half year of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current fiscal year. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. Prior years gross profit percentage without CEWS would have been 28.5% for the half year. Administration costs for the half year amounted to $50.5 million, an increase of $2.7 million or 5.7%. The increase in administration costs for the half year is primarily attributable to the reassessment of the Companys long-term legal provision. The increase is also due to higher outbound freight costs caused by the current global supply chain issues which are impacting freight costs and shipping delays. The administration costs in the prior year benefited from the recording of $0.9 million for the half year period of CEWS while the Company was not eligible for such subsidies in the current six-month period. The subsidies were allocated between cost of sales and administration costs. The increase for the half year was partially offset by lower sales commissions recorded on the delivery of large orders over the course of the quarter. Net loss1 for the half year amounted to $11.0 million or $0.51 per share compared to $0.1 million or $0.00 per share last year. EBITDA2 for the half year amounted to negative $1.5 million or negative $0.07 per share compared to $9.7 million or $0.45 per share last year. The unfavorable movements in EBITDA2 for the six-month period are primarily attributable to the previously explained decrease in gross profit combined with an increase in administration costs. A portion of the effects on the EBITDA2 caused by the weakening of the euro against the U.S. dollar were hedged by the company. The negative movement in the Companys results was primarily attributable to the same factors as previously explained combined with an unfavorable movement in income taxes, partially offset by favorable movements in finance costs. Dividend For the current quarter, no dividend will be declared. The Company will revisit the declaration of dividends in subsequent quarters. Conference call Financial analysts, shareholders, and other interested individuals are invited to attend the second quarter conference call to be held on Friday, October 14, 2022, at 4:00 p.m. (EDT). The toll free call-in number is 1-800-908-1236, access code 22020915. Live content to support the discussion will be presented to participants at the following link for the duration of the call: https://cc.callinfo.com/r/1f133bi14afpj&eom. A recording of this conference call will be available for seven days at 1-416-626-4100 or 1-800-558-5253, access code 22020915. About Velan Founded in Montreal in 1950, Velan Inc. (www.velan.com) is one of the worlds leading manufacturers of industrial valves, with sales of US$411.2 million in its last reported fiscal year. The Company employs approximately 1,650 people and has manufacturing plants in 9 countries. Velan Inc. is a public company with its shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol VLN. Safe harbour statement This news release may include forward-looking statements, which generally contain words like should, believe, anticipate, plan, may, will, expect, intend, continue or estimate or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar expressions, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are disclosed in the Companys filings with the appropriate securities commissions. While these statements are based on managements assumptions regarding historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that it believes are reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may differ materially from those expressed herein. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by the applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Non-IFRS and supplementary financial measures In this press release, the Company has presented measures of performance or financial condition which are not defined under IFRS (non-IFRS measures) and are, therefore, unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. These measures are used by management in assessing the operating results and financial condition of the Company and are reconciled with the performance measures defined under IFRS. Company has also presented supplementary financial measures which are defined at the end of this report. Reconciliation and definition can be found on the next page. Net earnings (loss) before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended (thousands, except amount per shares) August 31,2022$ August 31,2021$ August 31,2022$ August 31,2021$ Net income (loss)1 (3,676 ) 5,015 (11,028 ) (58 ) Adjustments for: Depreciation of property, plant and equipment 2,023 2,394 4,184 4,808 Amortization of intangible assets 556 451 1,124 1,009 Finance costs net 378 526 614 1,055 Income taxes 2,084 2,271 3,593 2,902 EBITDA 1,365 10,657 (1,513 ) 9,716 EBITDA per share - Basic and diluted 0.06 0.49 (0.07 ) 0.45 The term EBITDA is defined as net income or loss attributable to Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares plus depreciation of property, plant & equipment, plus amortization of intangible assets, plus net finance costs plus income tax provision. The terms EBITDA per share is obtained by dividing EBITDA by the total amount of subordinate and multiple voting shares. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Definitions of supplementary financial measures The term Net new orders or bookings is defined as firm orders, net of cancellations, recorded by the Company during a period. Bookings are impacted by the fluctuation of foreign exchange rates for a given period. The measure provides an indication of the Companys sales operation performance for a given period as well as well as an expectation of future sales and cash flows to be achieved on these orders. The term backlog is defined as the buildup of all outstanding bookings to be delivered by the Company. The Companys backlog is impacted by the fluctuation of foreign exchange rates for a given period. The measure provides an indication of the future operational challenges of the Company as well as an expectation of future sales and cash flows to be achieved on these orders. The term book-to-bill is obtained by dividing bookings by sales. The measure provides an indication of the Companys performance and outlook for a given period. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. _____________________________1 Net earnings or loss refer to net income or loss attributable to Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares.2 Non-IFRS and supplementary financial measures See explanation above. Consolidated Statements of Financial Position (in thousands of U.S. dollars) As at August 31, February 28, 2022 2022 $ $ Assets Current assets Cash and cash equivalents 32,938 54,015 Short-term investments 9,097 8,726 Accounts receivable 109,106 115,834 Income taxes recoverable 5,570 2,955 Inventories 216,666 223,198 Deposits and prepaid expenses 6,078 6,877 Derivative assets 694 553 380,149 412,158 Non-current assets Property, plant and equipment 68,403 73,906 Intangible assets and goodwill 15,605 16,693 Deferred income taxes 3,665 4,774 Other assets 699 897 88,372 96,270 Total assets 468,521 508,428 Liabilities Current liabilities Bank indebtedness 3,213 550 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 69,517 80,503 Income taxes payable 1,985 3,806 Customer deposits 47,306 41,344 Provisions 15,204 18,444 Derivative liabilities 284 560 Current portion of long-term lease liabilities 1,274 1,360 Current portion of long-term debt 7,744 8,111 146,527 154,678 Non-current liabilities Long-term lease liabilities 9,536 11,073 Long-term debt 21,980 22,927 Income taxes payable 1,079 1,244 Deferred income taxes 4,178 4,025 Customer deposits 23,547 30,139 Provisions 16,204 13,101 Other liabilities 5,056 5,731 81,580 88,240 Total liabilities 228,107 242,918 Total equity 240,414 265,510 Total liabilities and equity 468,521 508,428 Consolidated Statements of Income (loss) (in thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding number of shares and per share amounts) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Sales 85,054 101,893 160,059 176,422 Cost of sales 61,572 70,502 116,504 125,037 Gross profit 23,482 31,391 43,555 51,385 Administration costs 24,678 23,977 50,490 47,756 Other expense (income) 7 (79 ) (134 ) 42 Operating profit (loss) (1,203 ) 7,493 (6,801 ) 3,587 Finance income 78 118 168 290 Finance costs (456 ) (644 ) (782 ) (1,345 ) Finance costs net (378 ) (526 ) (614 ) (1,055 ) Income (loss) before income taxes (1,581 ) 6,967 (7,415 ) 2,532 Income tax expense 2,084 2,271 3,593 2,902 Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Net income (loss) attributable to: Subordinate Voting Shares and Multiple Voting Shares (3,676 ) 5,015 (11,028 ) (58 ) Non-controlling interest 11 (319 ) 20 (312 ) Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Net income (loss) per Subordinate and Multiple Voting Share Basic and diluted (0.17 ) 0.23 (0.51 ) (0.00 ) Dividends declared per Subordinate and Multiple - - 0.02 - Voting Share (CA$ - ) (CA$ - ) (CA$0.03) (CA$-) Total weighted average number of Subordinate and Multiple Voting Shares Basic and diluted 21,585,635 21,585,635 21,585,635 21,585,635 Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss (in thousands of U.S. dollars) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Comprehensive loss Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Other comprehensive loss Foreign currency translation (7,760 ) (4,817 ) (13,591 ) (3,422 ) Comprehensive loss (11,425 ) (121 ) (24,599 ) (3,792 ) Comprehensive income (loss) attributable to: Subordinate Voting Shares and Multiple Voting Shares (11,437 ) 254 (24,619 ) (3,448 ) Non-controlling interest 12 (375 ) 20 (344 ) Comprehensive loss (11,425 ) (121 ) (24,599 ) (3,792 ) Other comprehensive loss is composed solely of items that may be reclassified subsequently to the consolidated statement of income (loss). Consolidated Statements of Changes in Equity (in thousands of U.S. dollars, excluding number of shares) Equity attributable to the Subordinate and Multiple Voting shareholders Share capital Contributed surplus Accumulated other comprehensive loss Retained earnings Total Non-controlling interest Total equity Balance - February 28, 2021 72,695 6,260 (21,007 ) 239,136 297,084 3,137 300,221 Net loss for the period - - - (58 ) (58 ) (312 ) (370 ) Other comprehensive loss - - (3,390 ) - (3,390 ) (32 ) (3,422 ) Comprehensive loss - - (3,390 ) (58 ) (3,448 ) (344 ) (3,792 ) Balance - August 31, 2021 72,695 6,260 (24,397 ) 239,078 293,636 2,793 296,429 Balance - February 28, 2022 72,695 6,260 (32,223 ) 218,092 264,824 686 265,510 Net income (loss) for the period - - - (11,028 ) (11,028 ) 20 (11,008 ) Other comprehensive loss - - (13,591 ) - (13,591 ) - (13,591 ) Comprehensive income (loss) - - (13,591 ) (11,028 ) (24,619 ) 20 (24,599 ) Dividends Multiple Voting Shares - - - (366 ) (366 ) - (366 ) Subordinate Voting Shares - - - (131 ) (131 ) - (131 ) Balance - August 31, 2022 72,695 6,260 (45,814 ) 206,567 239,708 706 240,414 Consolidated Statements of Cash Flow (in thousands of U.S. dollars) Three-month periods ended Six-month periods ended August 31, August 31, August 31, August 31, 2022 2021 2022 2021 $ $ $ $ Cash flows from Operating activities Net income (loss) for the period (3,665 ) 4,696 (11,008 ) (370 ) Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to cash provided (used) by operating activities 6,072 3,645 4,317 6,057 Changes in non-cash working capital items (13,931 ) (6,808 ) (7,898 ) (3,259 ) Cash provided (used) by operating activities (11,524 ) 1,533 (14,589 ) 2,428 Investing activities Short-term investments 107 (1,232 ) (1,181 ) (1,418 ) Additions to property, plant and equipment (616 ) (1,830 ) (1,536 ) (3,569 ) Additions to intangible assets (1,200 ) (522 ) (1,209 ) (810 ) Proceeds on disposal of property, plant and equipment 24 - 40 3,132 Net change in other assets 14 (15 ) 28 (27 ) Cash used by investing activities (1,671 ) (3,599 ) (3,858 ) (2,692 ) Financing activities Dividends paid to Subordinate and Multiple Voting shareholders (497 ) - (497 ) - Net change in revolving credit facility 16 (3,378 ) 16 6,248 Increase in long-term debt - 5,889 2,160 5,889 Repayment of long-term debt (2,108 ) (1,379 ) (2,677 ) (4,546 ) Repayment of long-term lease liabilities (362 ) (444 ) (732 ) (857 ) Cash provided (used) by financing activities (2,951 ) 688 (1,730 ) 6,734 Effect of exchange rate differences on cash (1,781 ) (1,728 ) (3,563 ) (1,292 ) Net change in cash during the period (17,927 ) (3,106 ) (23,740 ) 5,178 Net cash Beginning of the period 47,652 71,237 53,465 62,953 Net cash End of the period 29,725 68,131 29,725 68,131 Net cash is composed of: Cash and cash equivalents 32,938 76,448 32,938 76,448 Bank indebtedness (3,213 ) (8,317 ) (3,213 ) (8,317 ) Net cash End of the period 29,725 68,131 29,725 68,131 Supplementary information Interest paid 15 (484 ) (208 ) (834 ) Income taxes paid (2,180 ) (463 ) (3,997 ) (1,584 ) For further information please contact:Bruno Carbonaro, Chief Executive Officer and PresidentTel: (438) 817-7593orRishi Sharma, Chief Financial OfficerTel: (438) 817-4430 Source: Velan Inc. SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VELO just announced its innovative product of hard-side luggage that can expand to suit the needs of any traveler. This durable and sleek suitcase can instantly transform into 3 different sizes with 2 simple steps: Press - Pull/Compress! Designed to be an all-in-one solution for either business or leisure travel, VELO is the perfect choice to travel smarter and more efficiently. Now this unique piece is launching soon on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/veloluggage/3-in-1-expandable-hardside-luggage VELO is a revolutionary suitcase that combines 3 sizes into one compact body using a clever and patented expandable design. The design allows VELO to instantly transform between a 16" carry-on suitcase, a 22" compact check-in suitcase, and a 26" extra-large check-in suitcase. It's the world's first hard-side luggage that can expand to twice its volume in seconds. The secret lies in the patented extra-wide handle that keeps the suitcase stable while being towed, and at the click of a button that allows the hard sides of the suitcase to slide up or down. When the appropriate size is reached, the handle locks the configuration and then retracts into a recessed area for safety and style. Speaking of choosing the right luggage, VELO is the best for saving time, money, and storage space. It lets you travel conveniently with the perfect-sized luggage at all times, eliminates the need to purchase multiple luggage, and saves storage space for them. "As business travelers ourselves, we know the pain of traveling with improperly sized luggage. A carry-on is not enough for several days, but often a full-size suitcase is too much. Not to mention the difficulty of storing multiple pieces of luggage at home or in an apartment. Our goal with VELO 3-in1 expandable luggage was to create the ultimate suitcase, one that could transform as needed to perfectly suit the nature of the journey. All travel is not created equally so VELO grows and adapts to any trip regardless of duration or distance. Along with incredibly high-quality components and life-long durability, we believe it is the last suitcase you will ever need!" - Markus, VELO Founder VELO is built to last, beginning with its durable AAA class 6063 aluminum frame, and shell that is surrounded by 70% polycarbonate material from Bayer. VELO also works with the top manufacturer that serves major global brands such as Samsonite, Delsey, and Kirkland. Moreover, the 360-degree silent wheels let it roll smoothly on a variety of surfaces. The suitcase features the newest version of the tamper-proof TSA luggage lock for extra safety when traveling. VELO 3-in-1 Expandable Hardside Luggage can effortlessly switch between 3 popular sizes to perfectly suit the needs of any journey. This space-saving & eco-friendly design is the ultimate all-in-one travel solution. VELO is launching on Kickstarter at 11 AM, 18th October EDT with special pricing and incentives for early adopters. To learn more visit here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/veloluggage/3-in-1-expandable-hardside-luggage Contact Information: Lilia Tang Marketing Executive [email protected] Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Featured Image for VELO Featured Image for VELO Source: VELO Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - Dynasty Gold Corp. (TSXV: DYG) (FSE: D5G1) (OTC Pink: DGDCF) ("Dynasty" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, subject to the Exchange's approval, it closes Tranche 1 non-brokered flow-through private placement of 3,458,000 units for gross proceeds of $363,090. Each unit consists of one flow-through common share at $0.105 and one common share purchase warrant at $0.15 for a period of two years. The Company shall have the right to call the outstanding Warrants for expiry upon 20 days notice in the event that the closing price of the common shares of the Company on the TSX-V is above $0.25 for 7 consecutive trading days. The units issued under the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period from the date of closing. The proceeds from the private placement will be used for core drilling on the Thundercloud gold property. About Dynasty Gold Corp. Dynasty Gold Corp. is a Canadian exploration company currently focused on gold exploration in North America with projects located in the Manitou-Stormy Lake greenstone belt in Ontario and in the Midas gold camp in Nevada. The Company is currently advancing its Thundercloud gold deposit which contains 182,000 oz gold. The 43-101 Mineral Resource report and related press release with details on the resource are available on the Company's website and were filed on www.sedar.com. The 100% owned Golden Repeat gold project in the Midas gold camp in Elko County, Nevada, is surrounded by a number of large-scale operating mines. In addition, Dynasty owns a 70% interest in the Hatu Qi2 gold mine in the Tien Shan Gold belt, Xinjiang, China, with which it is in legal dispute with Xinjiang Non-Ferrous Industrial Metals Group and its subsidiary Western Region Gold Co. Ltd. For more information, please visit the Company's website www.dynastygoldcorp.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DYNASTY GOLD CORP. "Ivy Chong" _________________________________ Ivy Chong, President & CEO For additional information please contact: Vancouver Office: Ivy Chong Phone: 604.633.2100. Email: [email protected] This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept 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/140650 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - This report details the most recent portfolio holdings for Precious Metal Managed Funds and summarizes changes in portfolio holdings. A Copy of the Full Report is Available to Read by Following the Link Below: https://mineralfunds/portfolio-holdings-update-september-2022 Gold & Precious Metal Funds included in this report: A portfolio holding ' attribution analysis ' is undertaken on the portfolios of gold funds that report asset allocations monthly, and on any fund with assets in excess of $1 Billion USD reporting during the period. The analysis includes a list of companies which are new to a portfolio in the period 'New Company Holdings', and companies which have been eliminated from a portfolio during the period 'Companies Divested'. 'Increasing Shareholding' and 'Decreasing Shareholding' fields identify companies to which a fund is either increasing or, alternatively, decreasing exposure. FUNDS REPORTING MONTHLY Fidelity Select Gold Fund 31.Jul.2022 $1,325 M USD New Company Holdings Companies Divested None None Largest Position: Newmont Corp. (NYSE: NEM) 12.4% Franklin Gold & Precious Metals Fund (USA) Franklin Gold and Precious Metals Fund (Lux) 31.Aug.2022 $903 M USD 31.Aug.2022 $352 M USD New Company Holdings Companies Divested New Company Holdings Companies Divested Moneta Gold Inc. Gold Standard Ventures Corp. Moneta Gold Inc. Gold Standard Ventures Corp. Largest Position: Largest Position: Endeavor Mining (TSX: EDV) 5.3% Endeavor Mining (TSX: EDV) 5.7% Increasing Shareholding Decreasing Shareholding Increasing Shareholding Decreasing Shareholding Orla Mining Ltd. Eastern Platinum Ltd. Integra Resources Corp. Gascoyne Resources Ltd. O3 Mining Inc. Gascoyne Resources Ltd. Matador Mining Ltd. Perseus Mining Ltd. Perseus Mining Ltd. Orla Mining Ltd. VanEck International Investors Gold Fund VanEck VIP Global Gold Fund 31.Aug.2022 $611 M USD 31.Aug.2022 $39 M USD New Company Holdings Companies Divested New Company Holdings Companies Divested None None None None Largest Position: Largest Position: Franco-Nevada Crp. (TSX: FNV) 9.5% Franco-Nevada Crp. (TSX: FNV) 9.2% Increasing Shareholding Decreasing Shareholding Increasing Shareholding Decreasing Shareholding None BonTerra Resources Inc. None BonTerra Resources Inc. Nighthawk Gold Corp. Nighthawk Gold Corp. Wallbridge Mining Co. Ltd. Wallbridge Mining Co. Ltd. Perpetua Resources Corp. Perpetua Resources Corp. Franco-Nevada Corporation Agnico Eagle Mines Limited Endeavour Mining PLC Barrick Gold Corporation Newmont Corporation Wheaton Precious Metals Corp B2Gold Corp. Kinross Gold Corporation Yamana Gold Inc. Northern Star Resources Ltd Alamos Gold Inc. SSR Mining Inc. Royal Gold Inc. Evolution Mining Ltd. Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. Eldorado Gold Corporation Equinox Gold Corp. FUNDS REPORTING MONTHLY ATTRIBUTION ANALYSIS AUM in all monthly reporting gold funds decreased through July and August respectively. Fidelity Select Gold Fund AUM for Fidelity Gold Fund decreased in July from $1,380 M USD to $1,325 M USD (-4.0%). A significant decrease in value for the Fund's largest holding Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) (-26.5% on the month) which began the month $61.17 USD and closed the month at $44.94 USD contributed to a relative decrease in the largest holding from 15.0% to 12.4%. The Fund did not take on any new names and did not complete full liquidation of any existing positions during the month. Franklin Gold & Precious Metals Fund (USA) AUM for Franklin Gold and Precious Metals Fund (USA) decreased in August from $986 M USD to $903 M USD (-8.4%). The Fund took up a new position in Moneta Gold Inc. (TSX: ME). During the month Moneta Gold reported high-grade intercepts at the Tower Gold Project near Timmins, Ontario. Subsequent to month end Moneta reported a positive PEA and an updated NI 43-101 report for the Tower Gold Project in Ontario. The Fund increased positioning in junior producer Orla Mining Ltd. (TSX: OLA) which closed on the acquisition of Gold Standard Ventures Corp. (NYSE: GSV) on August 12th. The Fund also increased positioning in Osisko Group company O3 Mining Inc. (TSXV: OIII). The Fund reduced holdings in: Eastern Platinum Ltd. (TSX: ELR), Gascoyne Resources Ltd. (ASX: GYC) and Perseus Mining Ltd. (TSX: PRU). On September 23rd, subsequent to month end, Eastern Platinum Ltd. announced a financing facility with Investec Bank Ltd. Franklin Gold and Precious Metals Fund (Lux) increased exposure to Integra Resources Corp. (CVE: ITR) which closed an oversubscribed financing on August 4th, 2022, and which continues to advance permitting for the DeLamar Gold-Silver Project. The Luxembourg based Fund also increased exposure to Australian listed Matador Mining Ltd. (ASX: MZZ) which is exploring for high-grade gold in the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, Canada. VanEck International Investors Gold Fund AUM for VanEck International Investors Gold Fund decreased in August from $687 M USD to $611 M USD (-11.1%). The Fund did not add any new holdings and did not increase positioning in any holdings. The Fund continued to reduce holdings of Nighthawk Gold Corp. (TSX: NHK) and Wallbridge Mining Co. Ltd. (TSX: WM), and also began reducing its holdings of BonTerra Resources Inc. (CVE: BTR) and Perpetua Resources Corp. (TSX: PPTA). VanEck VIP Global Gold Fund AUM for VanEck VIP Global Gold Fund decreased in August from $44 M USD to $39 M USD (-11.4%). The Fund did not add any new positions or increase positioning in any gold company names. The Fund reduced positioning in 21 of 51 holdings. VanEck VIP Global Gold Fund mirrors VanEck International Investors Fund. A complete list of Precious Metal Managed Funds and their respective portfolio holdings can be found at: https://mineralfunds.com/gold-funds/ Reported by: Khadijah Samnani, Analyst Supported By: Christopher Berlet BSc, CFA For further information please contact: (416) 525 - 6869 [email protected] To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140595 IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The new SkyDock Pro 100 Watt USB-C charging devices offer superior charging and power efficiency for charging personal electronics on the flight deck, main cabin, and galley. Our personal device charging technology started with our SmartDock USB A and SkyDock FJ USB A charging ports (installed on the new Falcon Jet 6X). Aerospace Devices Inc. has added the SkyDock Pro Single & Dual 100-watt USB-C charging ports to our portfolio of inflight USB A & C charging devices for general aviation aircraft. The SkyDock Pro Single and Dual USB C 100-watt chargers deliver more power than competing products while achieving best-in-class DO160G testing and passing the spilled liquids and touch temperature tests. Visit our website for DO160G sectional testing. The SkyDock Pro 100-watt USB C charger supplies Output Voltage Ranges 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/2.5A, 20V / 5A for laptops, smartphones, tablets, electronic flight bags (EFBs), and headphones. The SkyDock Pro USB C offers intelligent, device-driven communication that efficiently supplies each device the right amount of power and will determine a USB C cable's power rating. SkyDock Pro USB C 100 Watt meets the new European USB C 100-Watt Personal Device Charging requirements and regulations. In May of 2022, the EU announced a mandate that required all new portable devices utilize a standard charger by 2024 via USB C. As Europe will be the first to enforce the law, it could have implications worldwide as companies prefer to streamline products to minimize production costs. Now the US Senate and Congress are encouraging the Department of Commerce to enact the same requirements. With the increasing dependance on mobile devices in the flight deck, the SkyDock Pro USB C 100 Watt Single and Dual charging ports leading the future as many aircraft are moving away from the 110 AC universal outlets. About Aerospace Devices Inc. Aerospace Devices Inc. is based in Irvine, CA. We specialize in designing and manufacturing the highest quality, most advanced, and reliable USB charging devices for the aerospace, defense, marine, and rail industries. Our SkyDock USB devices were the first of their class and remain the highest quality and most reliable USB charging devices on the market. Visit our website www.aerospacedevice.com or give us a call at (949) 795-2889 to learn more about our products. Media Contact: Robert Pecanic (949) 795-2889 [email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aerospace-devices-inc-introduces-the-skydock-pro-first-single-and-dual-100-watt-usb-c-ports-for-inflight-device-charging-301650120.html SOURCE Aerospace Devices Inc. THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The government of the Netherlands welcomes experts and policy makers from all over the world to help combat existing and newly emerging cyber threats. At the ONE Conference in The Hague next week, a new Dutch cybersecurity strategy will be presented. At this two day event, experts will discuss today's key issues in online threats, like the impact of the massive cyber war after Russia invaded Ukraine, dealing with ransomware attacks, and money laundering via cryptocurrencies. Over the past few years, the Netherlands has been conducting innovative research into threats in cyberspace. Dutch security services have caused a stir by tackling online crime, not just technically but also tactically. The Encrochat investigation into encrypted communications between criminals is a gamechanger in the fight against serious organized crime. And very importantly, new deciphering methods have also been locating criminal earnings that were laundered via cryptomoney. Investigators will reveal their newest tactics at the ONE Conference. Intelligence operations have been successful in blocking hacking attacks by state actors, such as when they apprehended the hackers who tried to penetrate the networks of the OPCW. At the ONE Conference on 18 and 19 October in World Forum - The Hague, the Dutch government, experts and participants will share their knowledge about combatting cyberthreats and about how cybersecurity makes a positive contribution to our economy. Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate Policy): "We really need secure digital products and services to guarantee a properly-functioning online economy. We also need to actively work on making businesses and consumers digitally resilient. Digitisation is offering us many opportunities but we can only take advantage of them when the basics are in order. There are still improvements to be made. That is why it is important to share knowledge about cybersecurity with businesses, researchers, government agencies and experts at the ONE conference in The Hague." Minister for Justice and Security, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius: "Digital threats are on the rise, with criminals and hostile states threatening our interests. That is why action is needed now, to increase our digital resilience, strengthen the system and tackle the threat. Only then will we be able to safely capitalize on the economic and social opportunities of digitization, while protecting our safety and public values at the same time. The Netherlands is one of the most digitized countries in the world. We work digitally, shop digitally and meet each other digitally. Digital systems are the 'nervous system' of our society. That's why we need to protect these systems and make sure we're prepared if something does go wrong." Saskia Bruines, alderman for the municipality of The Hague. "Whereas a lock on the front door is the most normal thing in the world, digital security is still unexplored territory for many people. Cybercrime and digital crime are on the rise and pose a major risk to social stability. The ONE Conference being held during The Hague Cyber Security Week is one of the most important international conferences in the field of digital security. I'm very proud to be able to welcome international experts from all over the world to The Hague. After all, this is the city of Peace and Justice, and now the city where we are working on important innovations in this essential field together with businesses, the education sector and government organisations." But the Dutch approach is much broader than this and shows that a strong focus is also essential in business and education. That is why, for the first time, ONE Conference 2022 includes an innovation market where start-ups and other companies can exhibit the solutions they have developed. There is also a strong focus on the human dimension, which after all is just as important in countering digital threats. These threats are constantly changing shape but are also becoming more and more sophisticated. Communication and a good understanding of human behaviour are becoming increasingly important in cybersecurity. Leading scientists will present research on this subject and participants will discuss practical tips with each other. For more information, visit https://one-conference.nl/programme/ or send an email to [email protected]. Journalists can also apply for accreditation for the conference here. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/after-revolutionising-online-crime-fighting-the-netherlands-is-looking-for-new-ways-to-combat-security-threats-301646300.html SOURCE ONE Conference City Girls and Latto to Headline the FAMU Experience Concert on October 29th at the Al Lawson Center in Tallahassee, FL. TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As Rattlers from all over the country come to Tallahassee to celebrate Homecoming, the city transforms into a vibrant orange and green each year. Rattlers of all ages continue to come together for the ultimate experience at homecoming. The festivities extend the full week and include a range of activities for Rattlers and FAMU supporters. The Homecoming concert proves year after year to be the epicenter of a dynamic mix of music and culture. Students, alumni and fans of the highest ranked public HBCU prepare for an electrifying performance from top artists. Chart-topping Hip hop duo City Girls, currently on a national tour alongside Jack Harlow, will headline the FAMU Experience Concert. Support will include Latto and Saucy Santana, both of which are currently touring with Lizzo. The star studded line up will also include rapper Seddy Hendrinx and breakout R&B artist Eli Derby of LVRN & more. The FAMU Experience Homecoming Concert, sponsored by African Pride and Celsius, will take place at the Al Lawson Center on October 29th hosted by DJ Demp and DJ Loosekid. Doors will open at 8 pm. Tickets are available at homecomingatfamu.com. For all inquiries and media requests:Bright Concepts Media GroupTabitha Higgs(904) 735 - 3850 | [email protected] About Florida Agricultural and Mechanical UniversityFlorida Agricultural and Mechanical University is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. About City GirlsCity Girls is an American hip hop duo consisting of Yung Miami (Caresha Romeka Brownlee) and JT (Jatavia Shakara Johnson). The duo originate from Miami, Florida and are signed to Quality Control Music. Their releases include debut mixtape, Period (2018); as well as studio albums: Girl Code (2018), which spawned the (RIAA) Platinum-certified singles "Twerk" (featuring Cardi B) and "Act Up"; and City on Lock (2020). About LattoRising rapper Latto has been making a name for herself since she was 10 years old. She has released music since 2016.The December 2019 release of her follow-up project, Hit The Latto, contained the remix version of the track featuring Saweetie & Trina. The From Da Souf (Remix)" went RIAA-certified Platinum, making Latto the first solo female rapper from Atlanta to accomplish this feat. She's proven that Big Latto is bigger and better than ever before. Media Contact:Tabitha Higgs[email protected]Photos:https://www.prlog.org/12936164Press release distributed by PRLog View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/black-girl-magic-on-display-for-famu-homecoming-301649226.html SOURCE Florida A&M University Agreement Includes Significant Wage Increases and Protections WORCESTER, Mass., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Clark University graduate student workers represented by Teamsters Local 170 have voted unanimously to ratify a strong first contract. The three-year agreement includes wage increases of up to 90 percent, increased subsidies for health insurance, seven sick days, two personal days, and a grievance procedure. There are about 170 graduate student workers in the bargaining unit. The workers voted overwhelmingly to join the Teamsters in February. When negotiations with the administration stalled over the summer, the workers escalated their campaign to get a strong contract by rallying, holding actions, enlisting the support of other students, faculty, and parents, and handing out fliers during move-in day. After voting 97 percent in favor of authorizing a strike, on October 3, the workers walked out to the sound of horns from Teamster 18-wheelers. They picketed around the clock for five days until they reached an agreement with the private research university. "I couldn't be prouder of the solidarity that this group showed during negotiations, and a five-day strike, fighting for a fair contract and livable wages," said Shannon George, Local 170 principal officer. "The proof of all these efforts is in the contract itself," the committee of workers wrote in an online post. "Joining the Teamsters was one of the best decisions we made. The Teamsters brought a commitment to rank and file militancy to our campaign. No one has to accept poverty wages and exploitation in the course of their academic apprenticeship. We are Teamster strong, and Worcester is a union town!" "Since first voting to join Teamsters Local 170, these workers never lost sight of the end goal a Teamster contract and they worked around the clock to succeed," said Thomas G. Mari, Secretary-Treasurer of Joint Council 10. "Working alongside Local 170 leaders and the negotiating team, Clark University graduate workers now have a three-year contract that includes significant wage increases, a grievance procedure and health insurance. I'd like to thank the leadership of Local 170 for helping these members secure a strong first contract." Teamsters Local 170 represents approximately 4,000 members in various industries, including freight, brewery, package delivery, public services, and more. Contact:Shannon George, (508) 799-0551[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clark-university-graduate-student-workers-fight-for-and-win-strong-first-contract-301649202.html SOURCE Teamsters Local 170 YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Stefan Muller-Altermatt, Co-Chair of the Switzerland-Armenia Friendship Group, member of the parliament of Switzerland, doesnt rule out the possibility of imposing sanctions against Azerbaijan. During a press conference in Yerevan, Armenia, the Swiss lawmaker said that Armenia first of all needs security guarantees. I think this is the most important issue that needs to be discussed here in the next months. Switzerland must be one of the countries that must clearly speak about this. The territorial integrity of Armenia is not being discussed, it first of all must be announced, he said. As for the possible sanctions by Switzerland against Azerbaijan, the lawmaker said that all sanctions, that were imposed in other conflicts, for example, in case of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, undoubtedly, must be applied especially in Azerbaijans case. And it cannot be that aggressor is left without sanctions. I think we should do the following: we need to treat all aggressors in the same way. Switzerland has many assets of Azerbaijan, and we must very clearly express our position, we must do everything so that they understand that Switzerland is not just a secure and safe place to keep your money with which you then buy weapons and fight against Armenia. We have to do this, the MP said. Another Swiss lawmaker Michel Matter stated that today, on October 14, the issue of adopting a resolution condemning Azerbaijans aggression will be discussed in Geneva. Today a discussion will be held in Geneva regarding an adoption of a resolution which will condemn Azerbaijans actions, Michel Matter said. 10-Year Sandy Anniversary Update NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly 10 years after Superstorm Sandy took lives, wrecked homes and caused widespread power outages, Con Edison has fortified its energy systems and is planning for the hotter, stormier weather that climate change will continue to bring. The company's investments in its electric delivery system over the past decade have prevented 1.1 million weather-related customer outages. Those upgrades have included placing overhead lines underground, installing stronger poles and wires and deploying smart switches on lines to minimize service interruptions when a tree or branch falls on the wire. Con Edison's climate change experts consult with peers in private industry and academia to stay abreast of the latest climate science. Con Edison is using those findings to plan investments that will make its energy systems more resilient and reliable. The company has also improved its response to weather events to get customers back in service faster and its communications with customers before and during emergencies. "Our climate change studies are driving the strategic infrastructure investments needed to protect customers and prevent outages," said Tim Cawley, the chairman and chief executive of Con Edison. "Our customers, and the region as a whole, are experiencing increasingly more frequent and severe weather events. We must continue to address climate change by planning, building and operating a more resilient grid." Climate Change ExpertiseThe region's future will bring more heat waves, severe floods, heavier snow and stronger winds. The changing climate threatens the company's electric, gas and steam systems, according to a study the company's experts developed with ICF and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Con Edison followed up with a report detailing how the company will integrate climate considerations into power supply forecasting, planning, engineering, operations, and emergency response practices. "The work by Con Edison to anticipate and prepare for extreme events caused or worsened by climate change advances the global state of the art," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. "Recent hurricanes that have knocked out the power systems in Florida, Puerto Rico, and other places, and extreme heat that nearly caused blackouts in California, highlight the importance of these efforts." The company now builds new facilities that are expected to be in operation for 80 years to withstand flooding from a 100-year storm plus an additional three feet of sea level rise. Building Reliability and ResilienceIn the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Con Edison developed a number of system resiliency plans and invested $1 billion in strengthening its energy systems. Then, following two destructive storms in March 2018, the company initiated a $100 million program to further fortify its systems in Westchester County. To address the impact of flooding events, Con Edison has hardened its delivery system by raising equipment, building walls, and installing pumps. Crews have also installed submersible transformers and other equipment that can withstand a deluge of salty water and stay in service. Con Edison also reconfigured two electrical networks in Lower Manhattan to better withstand severe flooding events. New switching technology in those networks allows company operators to selectively turn off service to flood impacted areas near the coast while allowing inland customers to stay in service. The company last year placed certain overhead lines in the Middle Village area of Queens and in northern Westchester underground. That protects the equipment from storms that can knock branches and trees onto lines. Con Edison has a proposal pending with the state to make additional storm fortification improvements, including placing more overhead lines underground. Improved Storm ResponseA fleet of new utility trucks allows mutual aid workers to arrive by plane and get right to the task of restoring service to Con Edison customers after a storm. Con Edison marshalled a massive response to Sandy, bringing in more than 5,000 external workers, some from as far away as California, to restore service. But the trucks, which are in Pomona, about 40 miles north of New York City, speed restoration because the company can fly workers to the area, rather than wait for them to arrive in their own vehicles. The company took delivery of 90 trucks this year. The trucks, leased property and other expenses represent an investment of about $34 million. The company also has improved on its storm response by negotiating contracts that guarantee access to outside workers when the company needs them. Since the March 2018 storms, the company has increased its mutual aid resource contracts by seven times and gotten access to more than 1,000 workers. Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $14 billion in annual revenues and $64 billion in assets. The utility delivers electricity, natural gas and steam, and serves 3.5 million customers in New York City and Westchester County. Through Consolidated Edison Inc.'s subsidiary, Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, the company is the second-largest owner of solar electric projects in North America. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/con-edisons-investments-and-climate-research-prevent-outages-protect-customers-301649945.html SOURCE Con Edison of New York MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited (ASX: TLX, Telix, the Company) announces that Health Canada has approved Illuccix [kit for the preparation of gallium (68Ga) gozetotide injection] for use in staging and re-staging intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer and localizing tumour tissue in recurrent prostate cancer. Illuccix [kit for the preparation of gallium (68Ga) gozetotide injection], after radiolabeling with gallium (68Ga), is indicated for use with the positron emission tomography (PET) of prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positive lesions in men with prostate cancer: with suspected metastasis who are suitable for initial definitive therapy with suspected recurrence with elevated serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) level. "PSMA PET" (or the imaging of Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) via a positron emission tomography (PET) scan) is a diagnostic tool demonstrated to detect advanced prostate cancer. Illuccix is the first PSMA PET imaging agent to be granted regulatory approval in Canada. Health Canada is the third regulatory body worldwide to approve Illuccix, which is commercially available in Australia and the United States. Dr. Norman Laurin, current president of the Quebec Association of Nuclear Medicine Specialists and past president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine said, "On average, 67 men in Canada are diagnosed with prostate cancer each day. Early detection, along with better understanding of the spread and stage of the disease can lead to more informed disease management decisions. Tools such as Illuccix are valuable as we look for better ways to detect prostate cancer in men." Kevin Richardson, CEO Telix Americas said, "PSMA PET imaging has been one of the most important developments in prostate cancer detection in recent years and we are very pleased that we can now bring this important diagnostic imaging agent to physicians and their patients across Canada." Illuccix will be made available in Canada to physicians and eligible patients through Telix's partner, Isologic Innovative Radiopharmaceuticals (ISOLOGIC), whose distribution network services 265 hospitals and clinics nationwide.[1] About Prostate Cancer in Canada According to the Canadian Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the third-leading cause of death from cancer among Canadian men. More than 24,000 men in Canada are estimated to be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, and 4,600 will die from the condition.[2] Reliable and flexible diagnostic tools are essential for medical teams in narrowing the gap between understanding the spread of disease and the development of individualized treatment plans. About Illuccix [kit for the preparation of gallium (68Ga) gozetotide injection] ILLUCCIX [kit for the preparation of gallium (68Ga) gozetotide injection], after radiolabeling with gallium (68Ga), is indicated for use with the positron emission tomography (PET) of prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positive lesions in men with prostate cancer: with suspected metastasis who are suitable for initial definitive therapy with suspected recurrence with elevated serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) level. About Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited Telix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialisation of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. Telix is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with international operations in the United States, Europe (Belgium and Switzerland), and Japan. Telix is developing a portfolio of clinical-stage products that aims to address significant unmet medical need in oncology and rare diseases. Telix is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: TLX). For more information visit www.telixpharma.com and follow Telix on Twitter (@TelixPharma) and LinkedIn. Telix Investor RelationsMs. Kyahn WilliamsonTelix Pharmaceuticals LimitedSVP Corporate Communications and Investor RelationsEmail: [email protected] This announcement has been authorised for release the disclosure committee of Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited. Legal Notices This announcement is not intended as promotion or advertising directed to any healthcare professional or other audience in any country worldwide (including Australia, United States and the United Kingdom). This announcement may include forward-looking statements that relate to anticipated future events, financial performance, plans, strategies or business developments. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words such as "may", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "outlook", "forecast" and "guidance", or other similar words. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's good-faith assumptions as to the financial, market, regulatory and other risks and considerations that exist and affect the Company's business and operations in the future and there can be no assurance that any of the assumptions will prove to be correct. In the context of Telix's business, forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about: the initiation, timing, progress and results of Telix's preclinical and clinical studies, and Telix's research and development programs; Telix's ability to advance product candidates into, enrol and successfully complete, clinical studies, including multi-national clinical trials; the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals, manufacturing activities and product marketing activities; the commercialisation of Telix's product candidates, if or when they have been approved; estimates of Telix's expenses, future revenues and capital requirements; Telix's financial performance; developments relating to Telix's competitors and industry; and the pricing and reimbursement of Telix's product candidates, if and after they have been approved. Telix's actual results, performance or achievements may be materially different from those which may be expressed or implied by such statements, and the differences may be adverse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. You should read this announcement together with our risk factors, as disclosed in our most recently filed reports with the ASX or on our website. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Telix disclaims any obligation or undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or a change in expectations or assumptions. The Telix Pharmaceuticals and the Illuccix name and logo are trademarks of Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited and its affiliates all rights reserved. [1] Source: Isologic Innovative Radiopharmaceuticals.[2] Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/prostate-cancer.html View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/health-canada-approves-illuccix-for-prostate-cancer-imaging-301649214.html SOURCE Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited FRANKLIN, Tenn., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- J.P. King is excited to announce their upcoming auction of Berrys Chapel Estates, two premier 5 acre countryside tracts in Franklin, TN. Don't miss this unprecedented and limited-time opportunity to own one or both of the finest single-family residential land parcels in beautiful Franklin. The auction will take place online only, with bidding opening today, Friday, Oct 14th and closing Thursday, October 20th at 2:00 p.m. CST. Additional Information and Register to Bid Here These two 5 acre countryside tracts make for a rare investment opportunity in the historic and highly desired Berrys Chapel and Berry Farms area, which is world-renowned for its natural beauty and long legacy of generational farming. Dr. Berry, owner, grew up in the area and a lifelong resident of Tennessee, stated: "This property and its surroundings have deep historical roots in Franklin, TN - dating all the way back to the early 1800s. This pristine land has been beloved by the family for many generations and has never been offered until now. We're offering this rare opportunity in the hopes that the land goes to families who are ready to build their dream homes and enjoy the character, beauty, and warmth that these lots and the great town of Franklin offer." The rolling hills and lush wooded areas of these beautiful Franklin tracts combine countryside charm with the convenience of a close by metro. Peacefully secluded from the city, the property is just a short drive away from lively downtown Nashville and the high-end town of Brentwood, TN. Franklin itself is a warm, inviting, and historic Tennessee town, lined with galleries, antique shops, and restored Victorian buildings. For additional information on Berrys Chapel Estates visit the J.P. King website at www.jpking.com or call 800-558-5464. About J.P. King Auction Company J.P. King, headquartered in Gadsden, Ala., has specialized in selling exclusive and unique properties on a national level for over 100 years. J.P. King Auction Company pioneered the use of auctions for high end real estate of non-distressed clients. They are the nation's leading real estate auctioneer of high value assets, including private estates, ranches, commercial property, land tracts, and more! Individuals seeking additional information on how J. P. King can benefit you, please contact (800) 558-5464 or visit www.jpking.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jp-king-auction-company-takes-5-acre-tracts-to-auction-in-historic-franklin-tn-301649876.html SOURCE J.P. King Auction Company WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the signature by the Commission and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of an arrangement to strengthen cooperation on preparedness and response to public health threats, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, and Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra today met in Washington DC to reaffirm their shared commitment for the EU and the U.S. to work closely in the area of health. The discussions during the meeting focused on health preparedness and response, cancer, and global cooperation. The Commissioner and the Secretary emphasized that strengthening global pandemic prevention, preparedness and response is a common responsibility that requires strong commitment and international cooperation. They underlined that strong research and manufacturing ties between the EU and the U.S. have contributed to the successful deployment of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. Both sides agree on the importance of continuing collaboration on research and development of new vaccines that elicit broader, stronger, and longer-lasting immune responses and stand ready to engage with developers of such promising new vaccines and to work with partners to facilitate their development. The Commissioner and the Secretary also discussed Europe's Beating Cancer Plan and the U.S. Cancer Moonshot in view of exploring further cooperation and support under the respective initiatives. Both sides emphasised the shared priority of improved cancer prevention, detection and care and welcomed the renewed discussions on research and innovation in the EU and the U.S., notably on topics related to pediatric, rare, and adult cancers. They also expressed commitment to work together with a view to facilitating the exchange of health information, in line with data protection rules. In light of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, they confirmed their support and solidarity to Ukrainian patients in need of urgent treatment. Finally, they reconfirmed their cooperation in the context of the ongoing work to negotiate a new instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, the reform of the International Health Regulations (IHRs) as well as the reform and strengthening of the WHO. The newly established Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for pandemic preparedness and global health security aims to contribute to this work. They underlined their joint commitment towards a common leadership in ensuring global health security and fostering equitable access to vaccines for low and middle-income countries, building on the experience gained from the ACT-Accelerator and its COVAX pillar. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/joint-eu-us-press-release-on-strengthened-cooperation-in-the-area-of-health-301649206.html SOURCE Delegation of the European Union to the United States HOUSTON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lopez Negrete Communications, the largest independently owned and operated full-service agency specializing in Hispanic marketing, received six awards on behalf of Walmart, Unilever, the Ad Council for FEMA, and Mattress Firm at the 2022 ARF David Ogilvy Awards. "The pandemic has challenged many aspects in the marketing world, but to be successful, we've always believed it is vital to lean on consumer insights and the data in order to find powerful, relevant ways to communicate with and understand our consumers," says Alex Lopez Negrete, president and CEO of Lopez Negrete Communications. "It's a privilege for us as an agency to work and partner with clients who are committed to engaging with our Hispanic community and, of course, for the privilege to create meaningful work," he added. The winning clients and campaigns include: Walmart: "Together Somos Mas" GOLD in the Multicultural Category and GOLD in the Retail Category "Together Somos Mas," which translates to "Together We Are More," is a campaign that drove awareness and recognition of Walmart's support of the Hispanic community while it increased the company's awareness and attention among young bicultural Hispanics by producing consequential engagement with them. Ad Council for FEMA: "Prepare to Protect" SILVER in the Multicultural Category The "Prepare to Protect" campaign was created to increase the Hispanic community's confidence and interest in doing advance preparation for natural disasters by showcasing the segment's impeccable skills and enthusiasm for planning milestones, such as weddings, quinceaneras and other occurrences for their loved ones. Unilever: "Nos Inspiras Tu" BRONZE In the Multicultural Category "Nos Inspiras Tu," which translates to "You Are Our Inspiration," is a multi-channel integrated media campaign created to pave the way for Unilever and its wide variety of brands to create a deep bond with Hispanics' passion points for Hispanic Heritage Month, on issues such as beauty, self-confidence, community and food equality. Mattress Firm: "Hablemos de tu Descanso" SILVER in the Retail Category and BRONZE in the Multicultural Category "Hablemos de tu Descanso," which translates to "Let's Talk About Your Sleep," invites Hispanics to get educated about what makes for quality sleep, thanks to the counsel of Mattress Firm's Sleep Experts. Through playful lip-syncing, the campaign highlights two objectives: to drive brand value proposition awareness and establish the credibility of the brand's Sleep Experts at retail. The ARF David Ogilvy Awards identify work that shows creative effectiveness and insight-driven campaigns. ABOUT LOPEZ NEGRETE COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Lopez Negrete Communications stands as the largest independent, Hispanic-owned-and-operated, full-service agency in the United States, specializing in providing marketing services to corporations wishing to reach and engage with America's large and influential Hispanic consumer segment. Founded in 1985 by Alex and Cathy Lopez Negrete, the agency offers thought leadership and a full range of marketing, advertising, and communications services, including strategic planning, brand strategy, creative and production, research and consumer insights, media planning and buying, digital/social/mobile marketing services, public relations, and promotions. Award-winning throughout a rich, 37-year history, Lopez Negrete counts as clients some of the nation's largest corporations and their prestigious brands, such as Bank of America, Walmart, McDonald's, Hyundai Motor America, Sam's Club, Mattress Firm, Phillips 66 Company, Motiva Enterprises LLC, and United Airlines. With headquarters in Houston, Texas, Lopez Negrete employs over 100 professionals who are dedicated to delivering the promise of Maximum Return On Cultural Intelligence and is a founding agency member of both the Hispanic Marketing Council and the ANA's Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM). ABOUT THE ARF Founded more than 80 years ago, the ARF is dedicated to creating, curating, and sharing objective, industry-level advertising research to enable members to make a true impact on their advertising and build marketing leadership within their organizations. It has more than 400 members from leading brand advertisers, agencies, research firms, and media-tech companies. For more information, visit www.thearf.org. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lopez-negrete-wins-in-multiple-categories-at-the-arf-david-ogilvy-awards-show-301649853.html SOURCE Lopez Negrete Communications, Inc. MONTREAL, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - MY01 Inc. today announced that interim data from an ongoing, prospective multi-center study was presented at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida. The data represents the first 95 of 100 patients enrolled in MY01's inaugural post-market study. Data from a paper titled, "Clinical Trial of a New Device for Real-Time Muscle Pressure Measurements in Patients with an Upper or Lower Extremity Fracture at Risk for Acute Compartment Syndrome" was given in a podium presentation by Dr. Ross Leighton, professor of surgery at Dalhousie University. Results showed that as a complement to clinical signs, the use of the MY01 Continuous Compartmental Pressure Monitor resulted in all cases of ACS being accurately diagnosed, with no missed cases and no false positives. "We want to make sure we reduce non-indicated fasciotomies but we also want to make sure we perform surgery on the patients that do require them," said Dr. Ross Leighton. "The trends shown by continuous monitoring have been very enlightening and are a good indicator if the patient is developing ACS, helping support our decision-making process." This data is the result of a multi-center, prospective trial of the MY01 device as an adjunct to the standard clinical monitoring for ACS. This cohort study was performed for patients with long bone trauma of lower or upper extremities at risk of developing compartment syndrome in six Level 1 trauma centers across Canada. "We're happy to see such positive results from this study, as we believe that continuous pressure monitoring is a key component in the accurate diagnosing of ACS," said Charles Allan, CEO of MY01, Inc. "MY01 is setting the gold standard in terms of providing actionable data to all members of a patient's care team." About MY01, Inc. MY01, Inc. is on a mission to empower healthcare professionals with the objective data to aid in the diagnosis of compartment syndrome, thereby improving patient outcomes. MY01 believes that adding actionable, quantitative data at the bedside can augment clinical assessments to provide more effective care. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec since 2015, MY01, Inc. leverages its expertise in microsensing technology to provide innovative diagnostic solutions. Related Linkswww.my01.io View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/my01-presents-clinical-trial-data-at-orthopaedic-trauma-association-annual-meeting-301649119.html SOURCE MY01, Inc. TORONTO, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Nurosene Health Inc. ("Nurosene" or the "Company") (CSE: MEND) (Frankfurt: 8TV) (OTC: MNNDF), is pleased to announce that it has completed a closing of a non-brokered private placement in which it issued 2,910,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.25 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds to Nurosene of $727,500. Each of the Units is comprised of one common share (each a "Common Share") and one common share purchase warrant (each a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles its holder to acquire one additional Common Share at a price of $0.40 for a period of 36 months from the closing date. Nurosene intends to use the net proceeds from the private placement for working capital purposes. Two directors and one officer of Nurosene (the "Insiders") purchased, indirectly, an aggregate of 840,000 Units for a total consideration of $210,000. The issuance of Units to the Insiders constitutes a related party transaction, but is exempt from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") as Nurosene' securities are not listed on any stock exchange identified in Section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101 and neither the fair market value of the Units issued to the Insiders, nor the fair market value of the entire private placement, exceeds 25% of Nurosene' market capitalization. Nurosene did not file a material change report with respect to the participation of the Insiders at least 21 days prior to the closing of the private placement as the insider participation was not determined at that time. In connection with the closing of the private placement, the Company paid finder's fee commissions in the aggregate amount of $34,475 and issued 137,900 broker warrants (each, a "Broker Warrant"). Each Broker Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.40 per share for a period of 36 months from the closing date. The securities issued by the Company in connection with this financing will be subject to a 4-month and a day "hold period" expiring February 14, 2023, as prescribed by applicable securities laws. As a result of closing the private placement, there are 45,431,102 Common Shares of Nurosene issued and outstanding. About Nurosene Nurosene is a company focused on the development of AI-Healthtech solutions for the Health and Wellness, Neurodegenerative and Oncology markets We have developed an ecosystem of innovative products that directly support brain-related conditions. Our world- renowned team and partners are disrupting traditional mental wellness treatments and are positioned at the forefront of critical research and innovations. NetraMark, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nurosene Health Inc., is providing proprietary next-generation AI solutions for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across the spectrum of disease. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation regarding use of proceeds which is based upon Nurosene's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs, and views of future events. Forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expect", "likely", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", "proposed", "estimate" and other similar words, including negative and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "would" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy. Forward-looking information includes estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, targets, guidance, or other statements that are not statements of fact. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, Nurosene does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Nurosene to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, readers should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in Nurosene's Final Long Form Prospectus dated May 20, 2021 and Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended September 30, 2021 ("MD&A"), and filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The risk factors and other factors noted in Nurosene's Final Long Form Prospectus and MD&A could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking information. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nurosene-health-inc-announces-closing-of-private-placement-301649983.html SOURCE Nurosene Health Inc. ATLANTA, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Volato, the most efficient way to experience a luxury private jet, will attend this year's NBAA-BACE in Orlando, Florida from October 18-20. The team will be at Booth #4260 celebrating significant growth as they have executed their business plan and evolved into a full-service private aviation company. Over the last year, Volato has expanded its private aviation business and initiated technology solutions, unlocking their ability to service a much greater share of the market. Volato launched in August of 2021 in the southeast with their unique fractional program featuring the HondaJet. The company experienced early success with the aircraft and now has 11 HondaJets in fleet with more on order. They recently expanded their offering with a fleet order of Gulfstream G280 aircraft. Volato operates nationally and now has bases in Atlanta GA, St Augustine and Ft Lauderdale FL, Baltimore MD, Houston TX, and Carlsbad CA. Volato attributes their success to building a strong team which has grown to over 160 employees. "The foundation of an innovative company is a smart workforce that celebrates diversity and adopts insights from both inside and outside the industry." Said Matt Liotta, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "Our goal is to continue to innovate across all facets of the industry to develop unique solutions and provide the best customer experience in private aviation." By expertly focusing on evolving customer needs while maximizing operational efficiency, Volato has experienced significant growth. Volato entered the market in 2021 with the HondaJet, coupling it with Volato's unique fractional model which includes unlimited hours and a revenue share. Volato's general charter program launched shortly thereafter, followed in March by Volato's acquisition of Gulf Coast Aviation (GCA), a fixture in the Houston private aviation market for the past 25 years. In conjunction with this integration, Volato launched Volato Aircraft Management Services, allowing private aircraft owners to partner with Volato to manage and charter their aircraft through a bespoke agreement covering all aspects of ownership. Recent announcements include the innovative Volato Stretch Jet Card; the first and only jet card that rewards itinerary flexibility when booking a flight on a private jet, and through customer demand to fly farther and with more passengers, a fleet order of four Gulfstream G280 aircraft which Volato will fractionalize and sell in shares of eighths. Volato provides the most flight-efficient aircraft for each mission -reducing fuel consumption- while offsetting the CO2 on every gallon of fuel used across its fleet through their partnership with 4AIR. "We are not only creating a strong business and brand," said Nicholas Cooper, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, "we are building the most innovative, efficient and future-focused solutions in private aviation, with sustainability a key driver of our model." The combination of these achievements uniquely positions Volato to become a leader in the category. Over 30 employees representing all facets of the business, including senior management, will be attending NBAA. To schedule time, please email [email protected] or visit booth #4260. For more information on Volato, visit www.flyvolato.com About Volato: Volato is a full-service private aviation company providing modern ways to enjoy luxury jets through innovative, friendly, and sustainable solutions. Volato provides a fresh approach to fractional ownership, aircraft management, jet card and charter programs. Volato's fractional program uniquely offers flexible hours and a revenue share on every live mission for owners, in a fleet of bespoke HondaJet Elite aircraft which are optimized for missions of up to four passengers, and Gulfstream G280 aircraft which are optimized for missions of up to ten passengers. All Volato flights are operated by its DOT/FAA-authorized air carrier subsidiaries (G C Aviation, Inc., FlyDreams, LLC d/b/a Volato) or by an approved vendor air carrier. CONTACT: Teddy Burnette[email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/private-jet-company-volato-celebrates-a-year-of-substantial-business-growth-at-nbaa-bace-301650031.html SOURCE Volato AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- 2023 Ram 1500 Limited wins Texas Full-Size Truck of the Year 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe wins Texas Off-Road SUV of the Year and Texas Mid-Size SUV of the Year Both the Ram and Jeep brands earned honors at the annual Texas Motor Press Association Off-Road Invitational this year. The group awarded the 2023 Ram 1500 Limited as the Texas Full-Size Truck of the Year and the 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe received honors as the Texas Off-Road SUV of the Year and Texas Mid-Size SUV of the Year. "The 2023 Ram 1500 sets the standard for luxury pickup trucks again this year. It is hard to find a better combination of functionality and luxury in a pickup truck," said Michael Satterfield, president Texas Motor Press Association. "The Jeep Wrangler has always been a leader in off-road, and the new 4xe continues that trend of blazing trails by offering a plug-in hybrid in one of the most off-road capable vehicles ever made. It can tackle any trail, but still offer enough electric range to cover most people's daily commuting. It's the best of both worlds." Texas Motor Press AssociationTexas Motor Press Association (TxMPA) is a registered 501(c)3 organization that is focused on bringing together automotive industry professionals to create informed content highlighting various facets of the industry in ways that register with a Texas-based audience and beyond. The membership is made up of automotive industry journalists that cover cars, trucks, SUVs, ATVs, and UTVs in a variety of media as well as professionals that represent corporate interests in the automotive community. TxMPA members represent the best of the Texas automotive industry. Media members have engaged, interested, enthusiastic, and influential audiences that span the media landscape. The membership is as diverse in coverage and membership as the state itself. Ram 1500The 2023 Ram 1500 is the no-compromise benchmark for durability, technology, efficiency, performance and convenience with features never before offered in a pickup. The Ram 1500 features up to 12,750 pounds of towing capability and 2,300 pounds of payload. The eTorque 48-volt mild hybrid system delivers improved fuel efficiency in both V-6 (standard) and V-8 configurations. The Ram 1500 is America's most powerful half-ton diesel pickup with 480 lb.-ft. of torque, delivering up to 1,000 miles of range on a single tank of fuel. The 2023 Ram 1500 TRX has been rigorously tested to handle the most punishing conditions with extreme capability and durability on its way to being the quickest, fastest and most powerful mass-produced half-ton pickup truck in the world. The Uconnect 5 system with a 12-inch touchscreen features advanced technology that includes split-screen capability, 360-degree camera views, and content from SiriusXM with 360L and Personalized Stations Powered by Pandora. The 2023 Ram 1500 lineup includes the Know & Go mobile app, featuring an immersive experience for customers who want to learn more about their vehicles. Active safety and security systems include adaptive cruise control, Forward Collision Warning, Blind-spot Monitoring and Ready Alert Braking. Class-leading ride and handling are accomplished via a segment-exclusive link-coil rear suspension system with optional active-level four-corner air suspension. Jeep WranglerThe iconic Jeep Wrangler the most capable and recognized vehicle in the world delivers unmatched off-road capability and is produced with more than eight decades of 4x4 engineering experience. Powertrain options include a 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6, a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine, a 6.4-liter V-8 and the first ever Wrangler PHEV, the 4xe, which uses a 2.0-liter turbocharged gas engine, two electric motors and a high-voltage battery pack to deliver 21 miles of all-electric range and 49 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe). Wrangler continues to offer a body-on-frame design, front and rear five-link suspension system, solid axles, electronic lockers and is one of the few midsize SUVs to offer a six-speed manual transmission in addition to its available eight-speed automatic. Jeep BrandBuilt on more than 80 years of legendary heritage, Jeep is the authentic SUV brand that brings capability, craftsmanship and versatility to people who seek extraordinary journeys. The Jeep brand delivers an open invitation to live life to the fullest by offering a broad portfolio of vehicles that continues to provide owners with a sense of safety and security to handle any journey with confidence. The Jeep vehicle range consists of the Cherokee, Compass, Gladiator, Grand Cherokee, new three-row Grand Cherokee L, Grand Cherokee 4xe, Renegade and Wrangler and Wrangler 4xe. Jeep Wave, a premium owner loyalty and customer care program that is available to the entire Jeep 4x4 lineup, is filled with benefits and exclusive perks to deliver Jeep brand owners the utmost care and dedicated 24/7 support. The legendary Jeep brand's off-road capability is enhanced by a global electrification initiative that is transforming 4xe into new 4x4 in pursuit of the brand's vision of accomplishing Zero Emission Freedom. All Jeep brand vehicles will offer an electrified variant by 2025. Follow Jeep and company news and video on:Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.comMedia website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.comJeep brand: www.jeep.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/jeep Instagram: www.instagram.com/jeepTwitter: www.twitter.com/jeepLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/jeepYouTube: www.youtube.com/thejeepchannel or https://www.youtube.com/StellantisNA Ram Truck BrandIn 2009, the Ram Truck brand launched as a stand-alone division, focused on meeting the demands of truck buyers and delivering benchmark-quality vehicles. With a full lineup of trucks, the Ram 1500, 2500/3500 Heavy Duty, 3500/4500/5500 Chassis Cab and ProMaster, the Ram brand builds trucks that get the hard work done and families where they need to go. Ram continues to outperform the competition and sets the benchmarks for: 1,075 lb.-ft. of torque with Cummins Turbo Diesel Towing capacity of 37,090 lbs. with Ram 3500 Segment first 1,000 lb.-ft of torque with Cummins Turbo Diesel Payload of 7,680 lbs. with Ram 3500 Most luxurious: Ram Limited with real wood, real leather and 12-inch Uconnect touchscreen Best ride and handling with exclusive link coil rear and auto-level air suspensions Most interior space with Ram Mega Cab The most cargo space available in any traditional full size cargo van Most capable full-size off-road pickup Ram Power Wagon Ram 1500 TRX is the quickest, fastest and most powerful mass-produced pickup truck in the world Most awarded light-duty truck in America Highest owner loyalty of any half-ton pickup The latest J.D. Power APEAL study, which rates the emotional bond between customers and their vehicles, named the 2022 Ram 1500 as the best vehicle in the large light-duty pickup category. This marks the third straight year Ram 1500 has received top honors. The Ram 1500 lineup includes the Know & Go mobile app featuring an immersive experience for customers who want to learn more about their vehicles. Ram is part of the portfolio of brands offered by leading global automaker and mobility provider Stellantis. For more information regarding Stellantis (NYSE: STLA), please visit www.stellantis.com. Follow Ram and company news and video on:Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.comMedia website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.comRam Truck brand: www.ramtrucks.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/RamTrucks Instagram: www.instagram.com/ramtrucks Twitter: www.twitter.com/RamTrucks and @StellantisNAYouTube: www.youtube.com/RamTrucks, https://www.youtube.com/StellantisNA View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ram-and-jeep-brands-take-honors-at-texas-motor-press-association-off-road-invitational-301649703.html SOURCE Stellantis Presented by the Henry T. and Elizabeth Segerstrom Foundation in Association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts COSTA MESA, Calif., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 12, 2022, renowned ballet dancers from around the world will gather for an intimate one-night-only special ballet performance, Reunited in Dance, in the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Reunited in Dance brings together dancers with ties to Ukraine and Russia. Many formerly danced with Russia's preeminent companies, including the Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Mikhailovsky Ballet, Stanislavsky Theatre, and others and left Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The program, under the artistic direction of British dancer Xander Parish, former principal dancer at the Mariinsky, is made possible by Elizabeth Segerstrom and the Henry T. and Elizabeth Segerstrom Foundation and presented in association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Nov 12 Performance in California: Reunited in Dance brings together ballet dancers impacted by the war in Ukraine Reunited in Dance will feature new choreography as well as beloved classics: The world premiere of a new ballet choreographed by Parish to Tchaikovsky's Children's Album performed by special guest artist pianist Behzod Abduraimov , who appears in collaboration with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County performed by special guest artist pianist , who appears in collaboration with the A performance of Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain Selections from Le Corsaire, Raymonda, Paquita, La Bayadere, Don Quixote and more "On this special evening, all these artists, wherever they came from, will become a single remarkable group, not just standing up for what we believe but dancing for it," Xander Parish said. "We are deeply grateful to Elizabeth Segerstrom for giving us this unprecedented opportunity to perform together and bring the light of our art to new audiences, despite the difficulties of the past months." Elizabeth Segerstrom said "I know the arts have always had the power to bring people together. I am humbled to be able to play a role in bringing together these artists, who come from many different countries and backgrounds to bring unification to us all." Participating dancers, in addition to Xander Parish, will be Jacopo Tissi (Italy, formerly with the Bolshoi), Svetlana Bednenko (Ukraine, formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Christine Shevchenko (Ukraine, currently with ABT), Andrea Lassakova (Slovak Republic, formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Adrian Blake Mitchell (U.S., formerly with the Mikhailovsky), Boris Zhurilov (Russia, formerly with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre), Ilya Jivoy (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Lizi Avsajanishvili (Georgia, formerly with the Mariinsky), David Motta Soares (Brazil, formerly with the Bolshoi), Jasmine Sophie Henry (Australia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Vsevolod Maevsky (Ukraine, formerly with the Mariinsky), Anastasia Demidova (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), Katia Raj (U.S., formerly with the Saint Petersburg State Academic Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre), Veronika Selivanova (U.S., formerly with the Mariinsky), Alexis Tutunnique (Ukraine, formerly with National Opera of Ukraine and currently with The United Ukrainian Ballet), Joy Womack (U.S., formerly with Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theatre), Maxim Zenin (Russia, formerly with the Mariinsky), and Laura Fernandez (Switzerland and Ukraine, formerly with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre). Many of the dancers who will perform in Reunited in Dance have appeared over the years at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. This extraordinary performance is in part a tribute to Judy Morr, the Executive Vice President behind the longstanding tradition of world-class ballet programming at Segerstrom Center. "We are delighted to bring this new, special, one-night performance for our patrons and to honor Judy's contributions," said Casey Reitz, President of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. "Judy has been instrumental in growing and cultivating our dance and education programming with great ardor over the past decades. Judy gets it; dance connects us in numerous ways for various reasons, as is evident in the dance programming she has created for the Center for the past decades. Her understanding for the art of dance performance, her passion to bring talented performers and choreographers, and her commitment to bolstering and advancing the development of new works with international and national dance companies, season after season, is the driving force that continues to unite and bring people together at the Center." Jane Fujishige Yada, Chairwoman of Segerstrom Center's Board of Directors, said "Judy has built a globally-respected dance audience at the Center over the years. Without her, our Center would not have the foundation or infrastructure to welcome these beautiful dancers to our side of the world and bring them back together in this most unexpected way. She dedicated her life to introducing patrons to new cultures and traditions through music and the art of physical dramatic movement that expresses cultural heritage and identity in a unique, storytelling way. Judy is always a step ahead, knowing what will entertain our audiences. We are excited to welcome this new performance at Segerstrom Center for the Arts that so meaningfully encapsulates Judy's lifetime work for the Center." Gavriel Heine, formerly of the Mariinsky, is the music director. Christopher Minev, formerly an international tour producer for the Mariinsky, is the executive producer. The performance will feature digital scenic design created especially for the evening by The Hettema Group. Reunited in Dance Saturday, November 12Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $59 and are on sale at www.scfta.org Complete program available HERE. Media ContactsTodd Bentjen, Polskin Arts[email protected] Carla Cruz, Segerstrom Center for the Arts[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reunited-in-dance-a-one-night-only-performance-featuring-a-cast-of-international-ballet-artists-november-12-2022-301649218.html SOURCE Reunited in Dance YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. On October 13, Human Rights Defender Ms. Kristinne Grigoryan held a meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Estonia to Armenia, H.E. Ms. Riina Kaljurand, the Office of the Ombudsperson said. During the meeting, the Defender presented the functions, role and mandate of HRD. She also presented the activity and the objectives of the Council on Women's Rights adjunct to the Defender. Ms. Kristinne Grigoryan emphasized that most NGOs and human rights lawyers involved in the Council on Women's Rights are from RA provinces. The Defender also presented the role of women in the context of security and peace, highlighting the importance of more active engagement of women in law enforcement bodies. During the meeting, reference was made to the consequences of the military attack of the Azerbaijani armed forces on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia on September 13-15, during which more than 7,600 people were displaced from 3 provinces, including 1,437 children, 99 persons with disabilities. She noted that vital civil infrastructures, including schools, were targeted; 7 civilians were injured, and 4 were killed. Ms. Kristinne Grigoryan also presented the facts of the torture of Armenian prisoners of war, extrajudicial killings and mutilations of captives by the Azerbaijani armed forces, which are summarized in the ad hoc reports published by the Defender. In addition, the Defender introduced the regional subdivisions of the Office of Human Rights Defender and emphasized their role in the ongoing activities. She also noted that the opening of the 5th territorial subdivision is envisaged for the upcoming year. The Ambassador expressed her gratitude to the Defender and the HRD staff for their work, fact-finding activities and statements. The parties expressed their readiness to continue effective and reliable cooperation. HANOI, Vietnam, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Viettel Group officially launched the Viettel Cloud Ecosystem, affirming its position as the largest cloud computing service provider in Vietnam and enabling enterprise clients globally with personalized and specialized solutions, to accelerate enterprise-wide cloud enabled transformations. This event confirmed Vietnam's determination to ride global trend of digital transformation. In the digital economy development strategy, Vietnam sets a target to have 100 percent of government agencies using cloud computing by 2025, and 70 percent of Vietnam's businesses using cloud computing services provided by Vietnamese firms. Currently, Vietnamese enterprises account for only 20% of the cloud computing market share while 80% belongs to foreign companies. Viettel Cloud can address the issue through comprehensive suite of cloud computing services with tightening cybersecurity. Viettel Cloud has the largest data center infrastructure in Vietnam with 13 data centers, 9.000 racks and 60.000 m2 gross floor area. In 2025, Viettel Cloud will be invested over 400 million USD to expand the scale to 17.000 racks. Following the roadmap, in 2030, the total investment can reach 1.6 billion USD with 34.000 racks, meeting international standard. Viettel Cloud proudly presents the ultra-wideband connection with the largest fiber optic backbone cable systems in Indochina, 5 international undersea cable routes and 500,000km of fiber optic cable covering 63 provinces. Viettel Cloud offers most trusted end-to-end security meeting security requirements for E-commerce, and is the only company in Vietnam accredited by SOC 1,2,3 Certification of American Institute of CPAs. Viettel Cloud applies cutting-edge technology with open-source codes such as OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, Prometheus, Grafana, committing to the highest stability. Viettel engineers also directly build, own and deploy these open source codes. Viettel Cloud unleashes an avalanche of offerings, with a total of more than 70 products and services ranging from server hosting, to AI platform and IoT platform. This ecosystem includes 5 groups: Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud Platform, Cloud Software, Consulting, Deployment & Operation, Colocation. Looking ahead, Viettel Cloud will continue to enable industries through Infrastructure as a Service, Technology as a Service, and Expertise as a Service, to unleash digital with Everything as a Service and make cloud services accessible to everyone, build the cloud foundation for an intelligent world. At the ceremony, Tao Duc Thang - Chairman and General Director of Viettel Group affirmed: "Viettel commits that every citizen, household, organization and enterprise will have a data warehouse on Viettel's cloud computing platform. Viettel is committed to universalizing cloud computing like the way we have universalized telecommunication services, bringing mobile phones to all Vietnamese." Delivering speech at the event, Minister of Information and Communication, Nguyen Manh Hung, affirmed "The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) acknowledges Viettel's efforts in the "Make-in-Vietnam strategy" and highly appreciates Viettel Cloud's infrastructure. Viettel has accompanied the Government and the MIC in several digital solutions such as the National Immunization Information System, the PC-COVID application, the surveillance cameras for medical facilities, etc., contributing to Vietnam's successful battle against the pandemic. Viettel Cloud is not only about providing specific solutions but also fueling cloud adoption and digital transformation aspiration in Vietnam." For more details, please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYIy9rpWuY About Viettel Viettel has built a large 4G telecommunications infrastructure covering 97% of Vietnam population and has become a pioneer in forging a digital society in Vietnam. Viettel Solutions Corporation takes the lead in applying and providing the world's leading modern technology solutions for the government and businesses, making digital services safe and simples for all Vietnamese people and partners in the international market. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/viettel-make-in-vietnam-cloud-computing-to-gain-market-share-at-home-301649657.html SOURCE Viettel Group UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 Schedule 14A Information Required in Proxy Statement Schedule 14A Information Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Filed by the Registrant Filed by a Party other than the Registrant Check the appropriate box: Preliminary Proxy Statement Confidential, for Use of the Commission Only (as permitted by Rule 14a-6(e)(2)) Definitive Proxy Statement Definitive Additional Materials Soliciting Material Pursuant to 240.14a-12 Perception Capital Corp. II (Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter) (Name of Person(s) Filing Proxy Statement, if Other Than the Registrant) Payment of Filing Fee (Check the appropriate box): No fee required. Fee paid previously with preliminary materials. Fee computed on table in exhibit required by Item 25(b) per Exchange Act Rules 14a-6(i)(1) and 0-11. PERCEPTION CAPITAL CORP. II 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301 Wayzata, MN PROXY STATEMENT FOR EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING IN LIEU OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF PERCEPTION CAPITAL CORP. II Dear Shareholders of Perception Capital Corp. II: You are cordially invited to attend (in person or by proxy) the extraordinary general meeting in lieu of the annual general meeting of Perception Capital Corp. II, a Cayman Islands exempted company (the company, we, us or our), to be held on October 28, 2022 at 11 a.m., Eastern time, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 (the general meeting), or at such other time, on such other date and at such other place to which the meeting may be postponed or adjourned, or to attend virtually via the Internet. You will be able to attend the general meeting online, vote, view the list of shareholders entitled to vote at the general meeting and submit your questions during the general meeting by visiting https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only if (i) you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and show proof of such vaccination, (ii) complete a visitor health form upon arrival and (iii) reserve your attendance at least two business days in advance of the general meeting by contacting Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, at One Manhattan West, New York, NY 10001, telephone (212) 735-3000. The accompanying proxy statement is dated October 14, 2022, and is first being mailed to shareholders of the company on or about October 14, 2022. Even if you are planning on attending the general meeting online, please promptly submit your proxy vote by completing, dating, signing and returning the enclosed proxy, so that your shares will be represented at the general meeting. It is strongly recommended that you complete and return your proxy card before the general meeting date to ensure that your shares will be represented at the general meeting. Instructions on how to vote your shares are in the accompanying proxy statement and the other proxy materials you received for the general meeting. The general meeting is being held to consider and vote upon the following proposals: 1. Proposal No. 1 The Extension Proposal as a special resolution, to amend the companys Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (the charter) pursuant to an amendment to the charter in the form set forth in Annex A of the accompanying proxy statement to extend the date by which the company must either (i) consummate a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination (the initial business combination), or (ii) cease its operations, except for the purpose of winding up if it fails to complete an initial business combination, and (iii) redeem all of the Class A ordinary shares, par value $0.0001 per share, of the company (Class A ordinary shares), included as part of the units sold in the companys initial public offering that was consummated on November 1, 2021 (the IPO), from November 1, 2022 to May 1, 2023 (the extension, such date, the extended date, and such proposal, the extension proposal); 2. Proposal No . 2 The Adjournment Proposal as an ordinary resolution, to approve the adjournment of the general meeting to a later date or dates, if necessary, to permit further solicitation and vote of proxies in the event that there are insufficient votes for, or otherwise in connection with, the approval of the extension proposal (the adjournment proposal), which will be presented at the general meeting if, based on the tabulated votes, there are not sufficient votes at the time of the general meeting to approve the extension proposal, in which case the adjournment proposal will be the only proposal presented at the general meeting; and 3. to transact such other business as may properly come before the general meeting or any adjournments or postponements thereof. Each of the proposals is more fully described in the accompanying proxy statement, which you are encouraged to read carefully. The purpose of the extension proposal is to allow the company more time to complete our initial business combination. The charter provides that the company has until November 1, 2022 to complete an initial business combination. While the company is currently evaluating several initial business combination opportunities, the board of directors of the company (the board) has determined that there may not be sufficient time before November 1, 2022 to consummate an initial business combination. Therefore, the board has determined that it is in the best interests of our shareholders to extend the date by which the company must complete the initial business combination to the extended date. In connection with the extension, public shareholders may elect to redeem their shares for a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account established in connection with the IPO (the trust account), including interest not previously released to the company to pay its income taxes, divided by the number of then-issued and outstanding Class A ordinary shares, regardless of how such public shareholders vote on the extension proposal or if they vote at all. If the extension is approved by the requisite vote of shareholders, the remaining public shareholders will retain their right to redeem their Class A ordinary shares upon consummation of our initial business combination if and when it is submitted to a vote of our shareholders, subject to any limitations set forth in the charter, as amended. In addition, public shareholders will be entitled to have their shares redeemed for cash if the company has not completed an initial business combination by the extended date. Based upon the amount held in the trust account as of September 30, 2022, which was approximately $234,410,709, the company estimates that the per-share price at which public shares may be redeemed from cash held in the trust account will be approximately $10.15 at the time of the general meeting. The closing price of a Class A ordinary share on October 13, 2022, was $10.18. The company cannot assure shareholders that they will be able to sell their Class A ordinary shares in the open market, even if the market price per share is higher than the redemption price stated above, as there may not be sufficient liquidity in its securities when such shareholders wish to sell their shares. The companys sponsor, Perception Capital Partners II LLC (the sponsor), has agreed that, if the extension proposal is approved, the sponsor will contribute to the company as a loan (each loan being referred to herein as a contribution) $0.04 for each Class A ordinary share of the company that is not redeemed in connection with the shareholder vote to approve the extension proposal, for each month (or a pro rata portion thereof if less than a month) until the earlier of (i) the date of the extraordinary general meeting held in connection with a shareholder vote to approve an initial business combination and (ii) $720,000 has been loaned. Each contribution will be deposited in the trust account within three business days of the beginning of the extended period which such contribution is for. Accordingly, if the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed, and the sponsor makes contributions totaling the full $720,000, the conversion amount per share at the meeting for such business combination or the companys subsequent liquidation will be approximately $10.18 per share, in comparison to the current conversion amount of approximately $10.15 per share. The sponsor will not make any contribution unless the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed. Up to $720,000 of the loans may be settled in whole warrants to purchase Class A ordinary shares of the company. The contribution(s) will not bear any interest and will be repayable by the company to the sponsor upon consummation of an initial business combination. The companys board of directors will have the sole discretion whether to continue extending for additional months until $720,000 has been loaned, and if the board determines not to continue extending for additional months, the sponsors obligation to make additional contributions will terminate. If this occurs, the company would wind up the companys affairs and redeem 100% of the outstanding public shares in accordance with the procedures set forth in the companys charter. Pursuant to the charter, a public shareholder may request that the company redeem all or a portion of such public shareholders public shares for cash if the extension proposal is approved. You will be entitled to receive cash for any public shares to be redeemed only if you: (i) (a) hold public shares or (b) hold public shares as part of units and elect to separate such units into the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising your redemption rights with respect to the public shares; and (ii) prior to 5 :00 p.m., Eastern time, on October 26 , 2022 (two business days prior to the vote at the general meeting or any adjournment thereof), (a) submit a written request to Continental Stock Transfer & Company, a New York limited purpose trust company ( Continental ), the company s transfer agent, that the company redeem your public shares for cash and (b) tender or deliver your shares (and share certificates (if any) and other redemption forms) to the transfer agent, physically or electronically through The Depository Trust Company ( DTC ). Holders of units of the company must elect to separate the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising redemption rights with respect to the public shares. If holders hold their units in an account at a brokerage firm or bank, holders must notify their broker or bank, as applicable, that they elect to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants, or if a holder holds units registered in its, his or her own name, the holder must contact the transfer agent directly and instruct it to do so. Your broker, bank or other nominee may have an earlier deadline by which you must provide instructions to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants in order to exercise redemption rights with respect to the public shares, so you should contact your broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary. Public shareholders may elect to redeem all or a portion of their public shares even if they vote for the extension proposal . If the extension proposal is not approved and we do not consummate an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, the charter provides that we will (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up; (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible, but not more than ten business days thereafter, redeem our public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses and which interest shall be net of taxes payable), divided by the number of then issued and outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public shareholders rights as shareholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any); and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining shareholders and the board, liquidate and dissolve, subject, in each case, to the companys obligations under Cayman Islands law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete the our initial business combination by November 1, 2022 or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date. Approval of the extension proposal requires a special resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of at least two-thirds of the Class A ordinary shares and the Class B ordinary shares, par value $0.0001 per share, of the company (the Class B ordinary shares, and together with the Class A ordinary shares, the ordinary shares), who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. Approval of the adjournment proposal requires an ordinary resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the ordinary shares who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. THE COMPANYS BOARD OF DIRECTORS UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS A VOTE FOR THE EXTENSION PROPOSAL AND, IF PRESENTED, THE ADJOURNMENT PROPOSAL . The board has fixed the close of business on September 29, 2022, as the record date for the general meeting (the record date). Only shareholders of record on September 29, 2022, are entitled to notice of and to vote at the general meeting or any postponement or adjournment thereof. Further information regarding voting rights and the matters to be voted upon is presented in the accompanying proxy statement. You are not being asked to vote on an initial business combination at this time. If the extension is implemented and you do not elect to redeem your public shares in connection with the extension, you will retain the right to vote on an initial business combination if and when such transaction is submitted to shareholders and the right to redeem your public shares for cash from the trust account in the event a proposed initial business combination is approved and completed or the company has not consummated an initial business combination by the extended date. If an initial business combination is not consummated by the extended date, assuming the extension is implemented, the company will redeem its public shares. All of our shareholders are cordially invited to attend the general meeting via the Internet at https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022 . To ensure your representation at the general meeting, however, you are urged to complete, sign, date and return your proxy card as soon as possible. If your shares are held in an account at a brokerage firm or bank, you must instruct your broker or bank on how to vote your shares. You may revoke your proxy card at any time prior to the general meeting. A shareholders failure to vote in person or by proxy will not be counted towards the number of ordinary shares required to validly establish a quorum. Abstentions and broker non-votes will be counted in connection with the determination of whether a valid quorum is established but will have no effect on any of the proposals. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT. Please sign, date and return your proxy card as soon as possible. You are requested to carefully read the proxy statement and accompanying Notice of General Meeting for a more complete statement of matters to be considered at the general meeting. If you have any questions or need assistance voting your ordinary shares, please contact Morrow Sodali LLC, our proxy solicitor, by calling (800) 662-5200, or banks and brokers can call collect at (203) 658-9400, or by emailing [email protected] . On behalf of the board, we would like to thank you for your support of Perception Capital Corp. II. October 14, 2022 By Order of the Board, /s/ Scott Honour Scott Honour Chairman of the Board If you return your proxy card signed and without an indication of how you wish to vote, your shares will be voted FOR each of the proposals. TO EXERCISE YOUR REDEMPTION RIGHTS, YOU MUST (I) IF YOU HOLD CLASS A ORDINARY SHARES AS PART OF UNITS, ELECT TO SEPARATE YOUR UNITS INTO THE UNDERLYING PUBLIC SHARES AND PUBLIC WARRANTS PRIOR TO EXERCISING YOUR REDEMPTION RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO THE PUBLIC SHARES, (II) SUBMIT A WRITTEN REQUEST TO THE TRANSFER AGENT AT LEAST TWO BUSINESS DAYS PRIOR TO THE VOTE AT THE EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OR ANY ADJOURNMENT THEREOF THAT YOUR PUBLIC SHARES BE REDEEMED FOR CASH AND (III) TENDER OR DELIVER YOUR CLASS A ORDINARY SHARES (AND SHARE CERTIFICATES (IF ANY) AND OTHER REDEMPTION FORMS) TO THE TRANSFER AGENT, PHYSICALLY OR ELECTRONICALLY USING DTCS DWAC (DEPOSIT WITHDRAWAL AT CUSTODIAN) SYSTEM, IN EACH CASE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROCEDURES AND DEADLINES DESCRIBED IN THE ACCOMPANYING PROXY STATEMENT. IF YOU HOLD THE SHARES IN STREET NAME, YOU WILL NEED TO INSTRUCT THE ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE AT YOUR BANK OR BROKER TO WITHDRAW THE SHARES FROM YOUR ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO EXERCISE YOUR REDEMPTION RIGHTS. This proxy statement is dated October 14, 2022 and is first being mailed to our shareholders with the form of proxy on or about October 14, 2022. IMPORTANT Whether or not you expect to attend the general meeting, you are respectfully requested by the board of the company to sign, date and return the enclosed proxy promptly, or follow the instructions contained in the proxy card or voting instructions provided by your broker. If you grant a proxy, you may revoke it at any time prior to the general meeting. PERCEPTION CAPITAL CORP. II 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301 Wayzata, MN NOTICE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING IN LIEU OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON OCTOBER 28, 2022 Dear Shareholders of Perception Capital Corp. II: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the extraordinary general meeting in lieu of the annual general meeting of Perception Capital Corp. II, a Cayman Islands exempted company (the company, we, us or our), will be held on October 28, 2022 at 11 a.m., Eastern time, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 (the general meeting), or at such other time, on such other date and at such other place to which the meeting may be postponed or adjourned, and will be available to attend virtually via the Internet. You will be able to attend the general meeting online, vote, view the list of shareholders entitled to vote at the general meeting and submit your questions during the general meeting by visiting https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only if (i) you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and show proof of such vaccination, (ii) complete a visitor health form upon arrival and (iii) reserve your attendance at least two business days in advance of the general meeting by contacting Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, at One Manhattan West, New York, NY 10001, telephone (212) 735-3000. The general meeting will be held to consider and vote upon the following proposals: 1. Proposal No . 1 The Extension Proposal as a special resolution, to amend the companys Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (the charter) pursuant to an amendment to the charter in the form set forth in Annex A of the accompanying proxy statement to extend the date by which the company must either (i) consummate a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination (initial business combination) or (ii) cease its operations, except for the purpose of winding up if it fails to complete an initial business combination, and (iii) redeem all of the Class A ordinary shares, par value $0.0001 per share, of the company (Class A ordinary shares), included as part of the units sold in the companys initial public offering that was consummated on November 1, 2021 (the IPO), from November 1, 2022 to May 1, 2023 (the extension, such date, the extended date, and such proposal, the extension proposal); 2. Proposal No . 2 The Adjournment Proposal as an ordinary resolution, to approve the adjournment of the general meeting to a later date or dates, if necessary, to permit further solicitation and vote of proxies in the event that there are insufficient votes for, or otherwise in connection with, the approval of the extension proposal (the adjournment proposal), which will be presented at the general meeting if, based on the tabulated votes, there are not sufficient votes at the time of the general meeting to approve the extension proposal, in which case the adjournment proposal will be the only proposal presented at the general meeting; and 3. to transact such other business as may properly come before the general meeting or any adjournments or postponements thereof. The above matters are more fully described in the accompanying proxy statement. We urge you to read carefully the accompanying proxy statement in its entirety . Approval of the extension proposal requires a special resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of at least two-thirds of the Class A ordinary shares and the Class B ordinary shares, par value $0.0001 per share, of the company (the Class B ordinary shares, and together with the Class A ordinary shares, the ordinary shares), who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. Approval of the adjournment proposal requires an ordinary resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the ordinary shares who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. In connection with the extension, public shareholders may elect to redeem their shares for a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account established in connection with the IPO (the trust account), including interest not previously released to the company to pay its income taxes, divided by the number of then-issued and outstanding Class A ordinary shares, regardless of how such public shareholders vote on the extension proposal, or if they vote at all. If the extension is approved by the requisite vote of shareholders, the remaining public shareholders will retain their right to redeem their Class A ordinary shares upon consummation of our initial business combination if and when it is submitted to a vote of our shareholders, subject to any limitations set forth in the charter, as amended. In addition, public shareholders will be entitled to have their shares redeemed for cash if the company has not completed an initial business combination by the extended date. Pursuant to the charter, a public shareholder may request that the company redeem all or a portion of such public shareholders public shares for cash if the extension proposal is approved. You will be entitled to receive cash for any public shares to be redeemed only if you: (i) (a) hold public shares or (b) hold public shares as part of units and elect to separate such units into the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising your redemption rights with respect to the public shares; and (ii) prior to 5:00 p.m., Eastern time, on October 26, 2022 (two business days prior to the vote at the general meeting or any adjournment thereof), (a) submit a written request to Continental Stock Transfer & Company, a New York limited purpose trust company (Continental), the companys transfer agent, that the company redeem your public shares for cash and (b) tender or deliver your shares (and share certificates (if any) and other redemption forms) to the transfer agent, physically or electronically through The Depository Trust Company (DTC). Holders of units of the company must elect to separate the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising redemption rights with respect to the public shares. If holders hold their units in an account at a brokerage firm or bank, holders must notify their broker or bank, as applicable, that they elect to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants, or if a holder holds units registered in its, his or her own name, the holder must contact the transfer agent directly and instruct it to do so. Your broker, bank or other nominee may have an earlier deadline by which you must provide instructions to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants in order to exercise redemption rights with respect to the public shares, so you should contact your broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary. Public shareholders may elect to redeem all or a portion of their public shares even if they vote for the extension proposal . The companys sponsor, Perception Capital Partners II LLC (the sponsor), has agreed that, if the extension proposal is approved, the sponsor will contribute to the company as a loan (each loan being referred to herein as a contribution) $0.04 for each Class A ordinary share of the company that is not redeemed in connection with the shareholder vote to approve the extension proposal, for each month (or a pro rata portion thereof if less than a month) until the earlier of (i) the date of the extraordinary general meeting held in connection with a shareholder vote to approve an initial business combination and (ii) $720,000 has been loaned. Each contribution will be deposited in the trust account within three business days of the beginning of the extended period which such contribution is for. Accordingly, if the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed, and the sponsor makes contributions totaling the full $720,000, the conversion amount per share at the meeting for such business combination or the companys subsequent liquidation will be approximately $10.18 per share, in comparison to the current conversion amount of approximately $10.15 per share. The sponsor will not make any contribution unless the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed. Up to $720,000 of the loans may be settled in whole warrants to purchase Class A ordinary shares of the company. The contribution(s) will not bear any interest and will be repayable by the company to the sponsor upon consummation of an initial business combination. The companys board of directors will have the sole discretion whether to continue extending for additional months until $720,000 has been loaned, and if the board determines not to continue extending for additional months, the sponsors obligation to make additional contributions will terminate. If this occurs, the company would wind up the companys affairs and redeem 100% of the outstanding public shares in accordance with the procedures set forth in the companys charter. If the extension proposal is not approved and we do not consummate an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, the charter provides that we will (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up; (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible, but not more than ten business days thereafter, redeem our public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses and which interest shall be net of taxes payable), divided by the number of then issued and outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public shareholders rights as shareholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any); and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining shareholders and the board, liquidate and dissolve, subject, in each case, to the company s obligations under Cayman Islands law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete our initial business combination by November 1, 2022 or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date. The sponsor and the companys directors and officers have agreed to waive their respective rights to liquidating distributions from the trust account in respect of any Class B ordinary shares held by it or them, as applicable, if the company fails to complete an initial business combination, although they will be entitled to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to any Class A ordinary shares they hold if the company fails to complete its initial business combination by the applicable deadline. If the company liquidates, the sponsor has agreed that it will be liable to us if, and to the extent, any claims by a third party (other than our independent auditors) for services rendered or products sold to us, or a prospective target business with which we have discussed entering into a transaction agreement, reduce the amount of funds in the trust account to below (i) $10.15 per public share or (ii) such lesser amount per public share held in the trust account as of the date of the liquidation of the trust account due to reductions in the value of the assets in the trust account, in each case net of the interest which may be withdrawn to pay taxes, except as to any claims by a third party who executed a waiver of any and all rights to seek access to the trust account and except as to any claims under our indemnity of the underwriters of the IPO against certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Moreover, in the event that an executed waiver is deemed to be unenforceable against a third party, the sponsor will not be responsible to the extent of any liability for such third-party claims. The company has not independently verified whether the sponsor has sufficient funds to satisfy its indemnity obligations and believes that the sponsors only assets are securities of the company and, therefore, the sponsor may not be able to satisfy those obligations. None of the companys officers or directors will indemnify the company for claims by third parties, including, without limitation, claims by vendors and prospective target businesses. Based upon the amount held in the trust account as of September 30, 2022, which was approximately $234,410,709, the company estimates that the per-share price at which public shares may be redeemed from cash held in the trust account will be approximately $10.15 at the time of the general meeting. The closing price of a Class A ordinary share on October 13, 2022, was $10.18. The company cannot assure shareholders that they will be able to sell their Class A ordinary shares in the open market, even if the market price per share is higher than the redemption price stated above, as there may not be sufficient liquidity in its securities when such shareholders wish to sell their shares. If the extension proposal is approved, such approval will constitute consent for the company to (i) remove from the trust account an amount (the withdrawal amount) equal to the number of public shares properly redeemed multiplied by the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest not previously released to the company to pay its taxes, divided by the number of then outstanding public shares and (ii) deliver to the holders of such redeemed public shares their portion of the withdrawal amount. The funds remaining in the trust account after the removal of the withdrawal amount shall be available for use by the company to complete an initial business combination on or before the extended date. Holders of public shares who do not redeem their public shares now will retain their redemption rights and their ability to vote on an initial business combination through the extended date if the extension proposal is approved. The withdrawal of the withdrawal amount will reduce the amount held in the trust account, and the amount remaining in the trust account may be significantly less than the approximately $234,410,709 that was in the trust account as of September 30, 2022. In such event, the company may need to obtain additional funds to complete its initial business combination, and there can be no assurance that such funds will be available on terms acceptable to the parties or at all. Only shareholders of record of the company as of the close of business on September 29 , 2022 (the record date ) are entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the general meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Each ordinary share entitles the holder thereof to one vote. On the record date, there were 28,750,000 ordinary shares issued and outstanding, including (i) 23,000,000 Class A ordinary shares and (ii) 5,750,000 Class B ordinary shares. The company s warrants do not have voting rights in connection with the proposals. YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT. Proxy voting permits shareholders unable to attend the general meeting in person to vote their shares through a proxy. By appointing a proxy, your shares will be represented and voted in accordance with your instructions. You can vote your shares by completing and returning your proxy card or by completing the voting instruction form provided to you by your broker. Proxy cards that are signed and returned but do not include voting instructions will be voted by the proxy as recommended by the board. You can change your voting instructions or revoke your proxy at any time prior to the general meeting by following the instructions included in this proxy statement and on the proxy card. It is strongly recommended that you complete and return your proxy card before the general meeting date to ensure that your shares will be represented at the general meeting. You are urged to review carefully the information contained in the enclosed proxy statement prior to deciding how to vote your shares. If you have any questions or need assistance voting your ordinary shares, please contact Morrow Sodali LLC, our proxy solicitor, by calling (800) 662-5200, or banks and brokers can call collect at (203) 658-9400, or by emailing [email protected] . October 14, 2022 By Order of the Board, /s/ Scott Honour Scott Honour Chairman of the Board IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING THE AVAILABILITY OF PROXY MATERIALS FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON OCTOBER 28, 2022 This Notice of General Meeting and Proxy Statement, our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) on April 15, 2022 (our annual report), and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2022 and June 30, 2022, as filed with the SEC on May 16, 2022 and August 15, 2022, respectively, are available at https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. TABLE OF CONTENTS i PERCEPTION CAPITAL CORP. II PROXY STATEMENT FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING IN LIEU OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING To Be Held at 11 a.m., Eastern time, on October 28, 2022 This proxy statement and the enclosed form of proxy are furnished in connection with the solicitation of proxies by our board of directors (the board) for use at the extraordinary general meeting in lieu of the annual general meeting of Perception Capital Corp. II, a Cayman Islands exempted company (the company, we, us or our), and any postponements, adjournments or continuations thereof (the general meeting). The general meeting will be held on October 28, 2022 at 11 a.m., Eastern time, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, and will be available to attend virtually via the Internet. You will be able to attend the general meeting online, vote, view the list of shareholders entitled to vote at the general meeting and submit your questions during the general meeting by visiting https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only if (i) you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and show proof of such vaccination, (ii) complete a visitor health form upon arrival and (iii) reserve your attendance at least two business days in advance of the general meeting by contacting Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, at One Manhattan West, New York, NY 10001, telephone (212) 735-3000. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This proxy statement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements may relate to the companys initial business combination (as defined below) and any other statements relating to future results, strategy and plans of the company (including statements which may be identified by the use of the words plans, expects or does not expect, estimated, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, targets, projects, contemplates, predicts, potential, continue, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, should, might, will or will be taken, occur or be achieved). Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management of the company as of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: our being a newly incorporated company with no operating history and no operating revenues; our ability to extend the date by which we must complete an initial business combination to the extended date; the amount of redemptions by our public shareholders in connection with the extension or initial business combination; our ability to select an appropriate target business or businesses; our ability to complete our initial business combination; our expectations around the performance of a prospective target business or businesses; our success in retaining or recruiting, or changes required in, our officers, key employees or directors following our initial business combination; 1 our directors and officers allocating their time to other businesses and potentially having conflicts of interest with our business or in approving our initial business combination; our potential ability to obtain additional financing to complete our initial business combination; our pool of prospective target businesses; our ability to consummate an initial business combination due to the uncertainty resulting from the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and other events (such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters or a significant outbreak of other infectious diseases); the ability of our directors and officers to generate a number of potential business combination opportunities; our public securities potential liquidity and trading; the lack of a market for our securities; the use of proceeds not held in the trust account (as defined below) or available to us from interest income on the trust account balance; the trust account being subject to claims of third parties; our financial performance; and the classification of our warrants as derivative liabilities. Additional information on these and other factors that may cause actual results and the companys performance to differ materially is included in the companys periodic reports filed with the SEC, including, but not limited to, our annual report including those factors described under the heading Risk Factors therein, and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Copies of the companys filings with the SEC are available publicly on the SECs website at www.sec.gov or may be obtained by contacting the company. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligations to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. 2 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE PROXY MATERIALS AND OUR EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING IN LIEU OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING These Questions and Answers are only summaries of the matters they discuss. They do not contain all of the information that may be important to you. You should read carefully the entire document, including any annexes to this proxy statement. Why am I receiving this proxy statement? This proxy statement and the enclosed proxy card are being sent to you in connection with the solicitation of proxies by our board for use at the general meeting to be held in person or virtually on October 28, 2022, or at any adjournments or postponements thereof. This proxy statement summarizes the information that you need to make an informed decision on the proposals to be considered at the general meeting. The company is a blank check company incorporated on January 21, 2021 as a Cayman Islands exempted company for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses (initial business combination). On November 1, 2021, the company consummated its initial public offering (IPO) of its units, with each unit consisting of one Class A ordinary share and one-half of one redeemable warrant to purchase one Class A ordinary share, which included the full exercise by the underwriters of their over-allotment option in the amount of 3,000,000 units. Simultaneously with the closing of the IPO, the company completed the private sale of 10,050,000 private placement warrants at a purchase price of $1.00 per private placement warrant to the sponsor, generating gross proceeds to us of $10,050,000. Following the closing of the IPO, a total of $233,450,000 ($10.15 per unit) of the net proceeds from the IPO and the sale of the private placement warrants was placed in the trust account established in connection with the IPO (the trust account), with Continental Stock Transfer & Company, a New York limited purpose trust company (Continental), acting as trustee. The companys Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (the charter) provides for the return of the IPO proceeds held in the trust account to the holders of Class A ordinary shares if we do not complete our initial business combination by November 1, 2022. The purpose of the extension proposal is to allow the company more time to complete an initial business combination. While the company is currently evaluating several business combination opportunities, the board has determined that there may not be sufficient time before November 1, 2022 to consummate an initial business combination. Therefore, the board has determined that it is in the best interests of our shareholders to extend the date by which the company must complete an initial business combination to the extended date. What is being voted on? You are being asked to vote on the following proposals: (a) Proposal No. 1 The Extension Proposal as a special resolution, to amend the charter pursuant to an amendment to the charter in the form set forth in Annex A of this proxy statement to extend the date by which the company must either (i) consummate our initial business combination or (ii) cease its operations, except for the purpose of winding up if it fails to complete such initial business combination, and (iii) redeem all of the Class A ordinary shares, from November 1, 2022 to the extended date; and (b) Proposal No. 2 The Adjournment Proposal as an ordinary resolution, to approve the adjournment of the general meeting to a later date or dates, if necessary, to permit further solicitation and vote of proxies in the event that there are insufficient votes for, or otherwise in connection with, the approval of the extension proposal, which will be presented at the general meeting if, based on the tabulated votes, there are not sufficient votes at the time of the general meeting to approve the extension proposal, in which case the adjournment proposal will be the only proposal presented at the general meeting. If the extension proposal is approved, we plan to hold an extraordinary general meeting prior to the extended date in order to seek shareholder approval of our initial business combination and related proposals. You are not being asked to vote on an initial business combination at this time. If the extension is implemented and you do not elect to redeem your public shares in connection with the extension, you will retain the 3 right to vote on an initial business combination if and when such transaction is submitted to shareholders and the right to redeem your public shares for cash from the trust account in the event a proposed initial business combination is approved and completed or the company has not consummated an initial business combination by the extended date. If an initial business combination is not consummated by the extended date, assuming the extension is implemented, the company will redeem its public shares. Can I attend the General Meeting? The general meeting will be held on October 28, 2022, at 11 a.m., Eastern time, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, or at such other time, on such other date and at such other place to which the meeting may be postponed or adjourned, and will be available to attend virtually via the Internet. You will be able to attend the general meeting online, vote, view the list of shareholders entitled to vote at the general meeting and submit your questions during the general meeting by visiting https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. The general meeting will comply with the meeting rules of conduct. The rules of conduct will be posted on the virtual meeting web portal. We encourage you to access the general meeting webcast prior to the start time. Online check-in will begin fifteen minutes prior to the start time of the general meeting, and you should allow ample time for the check-in procedures. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only if (i) you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and show proof of such vaccination, (ii) complete a visitor health form upon arrival and (iii) reserve your attendance at least two business days in advance of the general meeting by contacting Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, at One Manhattan West, New York, NY 10001, telephone (212) 735-3000. You may submit your proxy by completing, signing, dating and returning the enclosed proxy card in the accompanying pre-addressed postage-paid envelope. If you hold your shares in street name, which means your shares are held of record by a broker, bank or other nominee, you should contact your broker, bank or other nominee to ensure that votes related to the shares you beneficially own are properly counted. In this regard, you must provide the broker, bank or other nominee with instructions on how to vote your shares. Why should I vote to approve the extension? Our board believes shareholders will benefit from the company consummating an initial business combination and is proposing the extension to extend the date by which the company has to complete an initial business combination until the extended date. The extension is expected to give the company the opportunity to complete its initial business combination. The companys sponsor, Perception Capital Partners II LLC (the sponsor), has agreed that, if the extension proposal is approved, the sponsor will contribute to the company as a loan (each loan being referred to herein as a contribution) $0.04 for each Class A ordinary share of the company that is not redeemed in connection with the shareholder vote to approve the extension proposal, for each month (or a pro rata portion thereof if less than a month) until the earlier of (i) the date of the extraordinary general meeting held in connection with a shareholder vote to approve an initial business combination and (ii) $720,000 has been loaned. Each contribution will be deposited in the trust account within three business days of the beginning of the extended period which such contribution is for. Accordingly, if the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed, and the sponsor makes contributions totaling the full $720,000, the conversion amount per share at the meeting for such business combination or the companys subsequent liquidation will be approximately $10.18 per share, in comparison to the current conversion amount of approximately $10.15 per share. The sponsor will not make any contribution unless the extension proposal is approved and the extension is completed. Up to $720,000 of the loans may be settled in whole warrants to purchase Class A ordinary shares of the company. The contribution(s) will not bear any interest and will be repayable by the company to the sponsor upon consummation of an initial business combination. The companys board of directors will have the sole discretion whether to continue extending for additional months until $720,000 has been loaned, and if the board determines not to continue extending for additional months, the sponsors obligation to make additional contributions will terminate. If this occurs, the company would wind up the companys affairs and redeem 100% of the outstanding public shares in accordance with the procedures set forth in the companys charter. If the extension proposal is not approved and we do not consummate an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, the charter provides that we will (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up; (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible, but not more than ten business days thereafter, redeem our public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (less 4 up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses and which interest shall be net of taxes payable), divided by the number of then issued and outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public shareholders rights as shareholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any); and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining shareholders and the board, liquidate and dissolve, subject, in each case, to the company s obligations under Cayman Islands law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete our initial business combination by November 1, 2022 or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date. We believe that the provisions of the charter described in the preceding paragraph were included to protect the companys shareholders from having to sustain their investments for an unreasonably long period if the company failed to find a suitable initial business combination in the timeframe contemplated by the charter. We also believe, however, that given the companys expenditure of time, effort and money on pursuing an initial Business Combination, and our belief that an initial business combination is in the best interest of the company and our shareholders, the extension is warranted. The sole purpose of the extension proposal is to provide the company with additional time to complete an initial business combination, which the board believes is in the best interests of the company and our shareholders. In connection with the Extension, public shareholders may elect to redeem their Class A ordinary shares for a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest not previously released to the company to pay its income taxes, divided by the number of then-issued and outstanding Class A ordinary shares, regardless of how such public shareholders vote on the extension proposal, or if they vote at all. We will not proceed with the extension if redemptions of public shares cause us to have less than $5,000,001 of net tangible assets following approval of the extension proposal, as provided in the charter. Liquidation of the trust account is a fundamental obligation of the company to the public shareholders and the company is not proposing, and will not propose, to change that obligation to the public shareholders. If holders of public shares do not elect to redeem their public shares, such holders shall retain redemption rights in connection with an initial business combination. Assuming the extension is approved, the company will have until the extended date to complete its initial business combination. Our board recommends that you vote in favor of the extension proposal, but expresses no opinion as to whether you should redeem your public shares. When would the board abandon the extension proposal? Our board will abandon the extension if our shareholders do not approve the extension proposal. Additionally, we are not permitted to redeem our Class A ordinary shares in an amount that would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001, and we will not proceed with the extension if redemptions of our Class A ordinary shares in connection with the extension would cause us to have less than $5,000,001 of net tangible assets following approval of the extension proposal. How do the company insiders intend to vote their shares? The sponsor, the companys directors, officers and initial shareholders and their permitted transferees (collectively, the initial shareholders) collectively have the right to vote 20% of the companys issued and outstanding Ordinary Shares, and are expected to vote all of their shares in favor of each proposal to be voted upon by our shareholders at the general meeting. The sponsor or the companys directors, officers or advisors, or any of their respective affiliates, may purchase Class A ordinary shares in privately negotiated transactions or in the open market prior to the general meeting, although they are under no obligation to do so. Any such purchases that are completed after the record date (as defined below) may include an agreement with a selling shareholder that such shareholder, for so long as it remains the record holder of the ordinary shares in question, will vote in favor of the proposals and/or will not exercise its redemption rights with respect to the ordinary shares so purchased. The purpose of such share purchases and other transactions would be to increase the likelihood that the proposals to be voted upon at the general meeting are approved by the requisite number of votes. In the event that such purchases do occur, the purchasers may seek to purchase shares 5 from shareholders who would otherwise have voted against the proposals and elected to redeem their shares for a portion of the trust account. Any such privately negotiated purchases may be effected at purchase prices that are below or in excess of the per-share pro rata portion of the trust account. None of the funds held in the trust account will be used to purchase public shares or warrants in such transactions. Any Class A ordinary shares held by or subsequently purchased by our affiliates may be voted in favor of the proposals. Additionally, at any time at or prior to the general meeting, subject to applicable securities laws (including with respect to material non-public information) the sponsor or the company s directors, officers or advisors, or any of their respective affiliates, may, although they are under no obligation to do so, enter into transactions with investors and others to provide them with incentives to acquire public shares, vote their public shares in favor of the proposals or not redeem their public shares. The sponsor or the company s directors, officers or advisors or any of their respective affiliates are restricted from making any such purchases when they are in possession of any material nonpublic information not disclosed to the seller or during a restricted period under Regulation M under the Exchange Act. What vote is required to approve the extension proposal? Approval of the extension proposal requires a special resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of at least two-thirds of the ordinary shares, who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. What vote is required to approve the adjournment proposal? Approval of the adjournment proposal requires an ordinary resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the ordinary shares who, being present and entitled to vote at the general meeting, vote at the general meeting. What if I want to vote against or do not want to vote for any of the proposals? If you do not want any of the proposals to be approved, you should vote against such proposals. A shareholders failure to vote by proxy or to vote in person or online at the general meeting will not be counted towards the number of shares required to validly establish a quorum, and if a valid quorum is otherwise established, such failure to vote will have no effect on such proposals. Abstentions and broker non-votes will be counted in connection with the determination of whether a valid quorum is established but will have no effect on any of the proposals. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. Will you seek any further extensions to liquidate the trust account? Other than the extension until the Extended Date, as described in this proxy statement, we do not anticipate seeking any further extension to consummate an initial business combination. What happens if the extension proposal is not approved? If the extension proposal is not approved and we do not consummate an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, the charter provides that we will (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up; (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible, but not more than ten business days thereafter, redeem our public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses and which interest shall be net of taxes payable), divided by the number of then issued and outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public shareholders rights as shareholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any); and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining shareholders and the board, liquidate and dissolve, subject, in each case, to the companys obligations under Cayman Islands law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete our initial business combination by November 1, 2022 or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date. The sponsor or the companys directors and officers have agreed to waive their respective rights to liquidating distributions from the trust account in respect of any Class B ordinary shares held by it or them, as applicable, if the 6 company fails to complete an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date, although they will be entitled to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to any Class A ordinary shares they hold if the company fails to complete its initial business combination by the applicable deadline. The company will pay the costs of liquidation from $100,000 of interest from the trust account and its remaining assets outside of the trust account. If the extension proposal is approved, what happens next? The company is continuing its efforts to complete an initial business combination. The company is seeking approval of the extension because the company may not be able to complete an initial business combination prior to November 1, 2022. If the extension proposal is approved, the company expects to continue evaluating initial business combination opportunities in pursuit of entering into a business combination agreement and seeking shareholder approval of an initial business combination. If shareholders approve such initial business combination, the company expects to consummate the initial business combination as soon as possible following shareholder approval and satisfaction of the other conditions to the consummation of the initial business combination. Upon approval of the extension proposal by the required number of votes, the amendment to the charter in the form attached as Annex A hereto will be effective. The company will remain a reporting company under the Exchange Act, and its units, Class A ordinary shares and public warrants will remain publicly traded. If the extension proposal is approved, any removal of any withdrawal amount from the trust account will reduce the amount remaining in the trust account and increase the percentage interest of Ordinary Shares held by the sponsor through the Class B ordinary shares. We will not proceed with the extension if redemptions of Class A ordinary shares cause us to have less than $5,000,001 of net tangible assets following approval of the Extension, as provided in the charter. If the extension proposal is approved, an affiliate of the sponsor will continue to receive payments from the company of $10,000 per month for office space, and administrative and support services pursuant to the Administrative Services Agreement, dated as of October 27, 2021, by and between the company and the sponsor (the Administrative Services Agreement). Where will I be able to find the voting results of the General Meeting? We will announce preliminary voting results at the general meeting. We will also disclose voting results on a Current Report on Form 8-K that we will file with the SEC within four business days after the general meeting. If final voting results are not available to us in time to file a Current Report on Form 8-K within four business days after the general meeting, we will file a Current Report on Form 8-K to publish preliminary results and will provide the final results in an amendment to such Current Report on Form 8-K as soon as they become available. Would I still be able to exercise my redemption rights in connection with a vote to approve a proposed initial Business Combination? Yes. Assuming you are a shareholder as of the record date for voting on a proposed initial business combination, you will be able to vote on a proposed initial business combination. If you disagree with an initial business combination, you will retain your right to redeem your Class A ordinary shares upon consummation of such initial business combination, subject to any limitations set forth in our charter. How do I change my vote? If you have submitted a proxy to vote your shares and wish to change your vote, you may send a later-dated, signed proxy card to the companys secretary at 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301, Wayzata, MN 55391, so that it is received by the companys secretary prior to the vote at the general meeting (which is scheduled to take place on October 28, 2022). Shareholders also may revoke their proxy by sending a notice of revocation to the companys secretary, which must be received by the companys secretary prior to the vote at the general meeting, or by attending the general meeting, revoking their proxy and voting in person (including by virtual means). Attendance at the general meeting alone will not change your vote. However, if your shares are held in street name by your broker, bank or another nominee, you must contact your broker, bank or other nominee to change your vote. 7 How are votes counted? Votes will be counted by the inspector of election appointed for the meeting, who will separately count FOR and AGAINST votes, abstentions and broker non-votes for each of the proposals. A shareholders failure to vote by proxy or to vote in person or virtually at the general meeting will not be counted towards the number of shares required to validly establish a quorum, and if a valid quorum is otherwise established, will have no effect on the proposals. Abstentions and broker non-votes will be counted in connection with the determination of whether a valid quorum is established but will have no effect on any of the proposals. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. If my shares are held in street name, will my broker automatically vote them for me? If you do not give instructions to your broker, your broker can vote your shares with respect to discretionary items, but not with respect to non-discretionary items. We believe that each of the proposals are non-discretionary items. Your broker can vote your shares with respect to non-discretionary items only if you provide instructions on how to vote. You should instruct your broker to vote your shares. Your broker can tell you how to provide these instructions. If you do not give your broker instructions, your shares will be treated as broker non-votes with respect to all proposals. Abstentions and broker non-votes will be counted in connection with the determination of whether a valid quorum is established but will have no effect on any of the proposals. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. What is a quorum? A quorum is the minimum number of shares required to be present at the general meeting for the general meeting to be properly held under our Charter and Cayman Islands law. The presence, in person, virtually, by proxy, or, if a corporation or other non-natural person, by its duly authorized representative or proxy, of the holders of a majority of the issued and outstanding Ordinary Shares entitled to vote at the general meeting constitutes a quorum. Proxies that are marked abstain and proxies relating to street name shares that are returned to us but marked by brokers as not voted (so-called broker non-votes) will be treated as shares present for purposes of determining the presence of establishing a quorum on all matters. If a shareholder does not give the broker voting instructions, under applicable self-regulatory organization rules, its broker may not vote its shares on non-discretionary matters. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. Who can vote at the General Meeting? Holders of Ordinary Shares as of the close of business on September 29, 2022 (the record date), are entitled to vote at the general meeting. On the record date, there were 28,750,000 Ordinary Shares issued and outstanding, including (i) 23,000,000 Class A ordinary shares and (ii) 5,750,000 Class B ordinary shares. The companys warrants do not have voting rights in connection with the proposals. In deciding all matters at the general meeting, each shareholder will be entitled to one vote for each share held by them on the record date. Holders of Class A ordinary shares and holders of Class B ordinary shares will vote together as a single class on all matters submitted to a vote of our shareholders except as required by law. The initial shareholders collectively own all of our issued and outstanding Class B ordinary shares, constituting 20% of our issued and outstanding Ordinary Shares. Registered Shareholders . If our shares are registered directly in your name with our transfer agent, Continental, you are considered the shareholder of record with respect to those shares. As the shareholder of record, you have the right to grant your voting proxy directly to the individuals listed on the proxy card or to vote in person at the general meeting. Street Name Shareholders . If our shares are held on your behalf in a brokerage account or by a bank or other nominee, you are considered the beneficial owner of those shares held in street name, and your broker or nominee is considered the shareholder of record with respect to those shares. As the beneficial owner, you have the 8 right to direct your broker or nominee as to how to vote your shares. However, since a beneficial owner is not the shareholder of record, you may not vote your Ordinary Shares at the general meeting unless you follow your broker s procedures for obtaining a legal proxy. Throughout this proxy statement, we refer to shareholders who hold their shares through a broker, bank or other nominee as street name shareholders. Does the board recommend voting for the approval of the proposals? Yes. After careful consideration of the terms and conditions of these proposals, the board has determined that each of the proposals are in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. The board recommends that the companys shareholders vote FOR each of the proposals. What interests do the companys directors and officers have in the approval of the proposals? The companys directors and officers have interests in the proposals that may be different from, or in addition to, your interests as a shareholder. These interests include ownership of Class B ordinary shares, private placement warrants that may become exercisable in the future, any loans by them to the company that will not be repaid in the event of our winding up and the possibility of future compensatory arrangements. See the section entitled Proposal No. 1 The Extension Proposal Interests of the sponsor and the companys Directors and Officers for more information. Are there any appraisal or similar rights for dissenting shareholders? Neither Cayman Islands law nor our Charter provides for dissenters rights for dissenting shareholders in connection with any of the proposals to be voted upon at the general meeting. As a matter of Cayman Islands law, dissenters rights only apply in a statutory merger where the company is a constituent company, which is not the case with any of the proposals. Warrant holders do not have appraisal rights in connection with any of the proposals to be voted upon at the general meeting. What happens to the companys warrants if the extension proposal is not approved? If the extension proposal is not approved and we do not consummate an initial business combination by November 1, 2022, the charter provides that we will (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up; (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible, but not more than ten business days thereafter, redeem our public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses and which interest shall be net of taxes payable), divided by the number of then issued and outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public shareholders rights as shareholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any); and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining shareholders and the board, liquidate and dissolve, subject, in each case, to the companys obligations under Cayman Islands law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete our initial business combination by November 1, 2022 or, if the extension proposal is approved, the extended date. What happens to the companys warrants if the extension proposal is approved? If the extension is approved, the company expects to continue to attempt to consummate an initial business combination until the extended date, and will retain the blank check company restrictions previously applicable to it. The warrants will remain outstanding in accordance with their terms. How do I vote? If you are a holder of record of Ordinary Shares on the record date for the general meeting, you may vote in person or by virtual attendance at the general meeting or by submitting a proxy for the general meeting. You may submit your proxy by completing, signing, dating and returning the enclosed proxy card in the accompanying pre-addressed postage-paid envelope. If you hold your shares in street name, which means your shares are held of record by a broker, bank or other nominee, you should contact your broker, bank or other nominee to ensure that votes related 9 to the shares you beneficially own are properly counted. In this regard, you must provide the broker, bank or other nominee with instructions on how to vote your shares or, if you wish to attend the general meeting and vote in person, obtain a valid proxy from your broker, bank or other nominee. If you hold your shares in street name and wish to vote online by virtually attending the general meeting, you must email a copy (a legible photograph is sufficient) of your legal proxy to Continental at [email protected] If you email a valid legal proxy, you will be issued a 12-digit meeting control number that will allow you to register to attend and participate in the general meeting. If you wish to attend the general meeting virtually you should contact Continental no later than October 25 , 2022, to obtain this information. Your broker, bank or other nominee may have an earlier deadline by which you must provide instructions to it as to how to vote your shares, so you should read carefully the materials provided to you by your broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary. How do I redeem my Ordinary Shares? Pursuant to the charter, a public shareholder may request that the company redeem all or a portion of such shareholders public shares for cash if the extension proposal is approved. You will be entitled to receive cash for any public shares to be redeemed only if you: (i) (a) hold public shares or (b) hold public shares as part of units and elect to separate such units into the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising your redemption rights with respect to the public shares; and (ii) prior to 5:00 p.m., Eastern time, on October 26, 2022 (two business days prior to the vote at the general meeting or any adjournment thereof), (a) submit a written request to Continental Stock Transfer & Company, a New York limited purpose trust company, the companys transfer agent, that the company redeem your public shares for cash and (b) tender or deliver your shares (and share certificates (if any) and other redemption forms) to the transfer agent, physically or electronically through DTC. Holders of units must elect to separate the underlying public shares and public warrants prior to exercising redemption rights with respect to the public shares. If holders hold their units in an account at a brokerage firm or bank, holders must notify their broker or bank that they elect to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants, or if a holder holds units registered in its, their own name, the holder must contact the transfer agent directly and instruct it to do so. Your broker, bank or other nominee may have an earlier deadline by which you must provide instructions to separate the units into the underlying public shares and public warrants in order to exercise redemption rights with respect to the public shares, so you should contact your broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary. Public shareholders may elect to redeem all or a portion of their public shares even if they vote for the extension proposal. What should I do if I receive more than one set of voting materials? You may receive more than one set of voting materials, including multiple copies of this proxy statement and multiple proxy cards or voting instruction cards, if your shares are registered in more than one name or are registered in different accounts. For example, if you hold your shares in more than one brokerage account, you will receive a separate voting instruction card for each brokerage account in which you hold shares. Please complete, sign, date and return each proxy card and voting instruction card that you receive in order to cast a vote with respect to all of your shares. Who is paying for this proxy solicitation? Our board is soliciting proxies for use at the general meeting. All costs associated with this solicitation will be borne directly by the company. We have engaged Morrow Sodali LLC (Morrow) to assist in the solicitation of proxies for the general meeting. We have agreed to pay Morrow a fee of $32,500, plus disbursements, and indemnify Morrow and its affiliates against certain claims, liabilities, losses, damages and expenses for their services as the companys proxy solicitor. We will also reimburse banks, brokers and other custodians, nominees and fiduciaries representing beneficial owners of Class A ordinary shares for their expenses in forwarding soliciting materials to beneficial owners of Class A ordinary shares and in obtaining voting instructions from those owners. Our directors and officers may also solicit proxies by telephone, by facsimile, by mail, on the Internet or in person. They will not be paid any additional amounts for soliciting proxies. 10 Who can help answer my questions? If you have questions about the general meeting or the proposals to be presented thereat, if you need additional copies of the proxy statement or the enclosed proxy card, or if you would like copies of any of the companys filings with the SEC, including our annual report, and our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, you should contact: Perception Capital Corp. II 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301 Wayzata, MN 55391 Telephone: (952) 456-5300 You may also contact the companys proxy solicitor at: Morrow Sodali LLC 333 Ludlow Street 5th Floor, South Tower Stamford, CT 06902 Telephone: (800) 662-5200 (banks and brokers can call collect at (203) 658-9400) Email: [email protected] You may obtain additional information about the company from documents filed with the SEC by following the instructions in the section entitled Where You Can Find More Information . If you are a holder of public shares and you intend to seek redemption of your shares, you will need to tender or deliver your shares (and share certificates (if any) and other redemption forms) to the transfer agent, physically or electronically through DTC, at the address below prior to 5:00 p.m., Eastern time, on October 26, 2022 (two business days prior to the vote at the general meeting or any adjournment thereof). If you have questions regarding the certification of your position or tender or delivery of your shares, please contact: Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company 1 State Street, 30th Floor New York, NY 10004 E-mail: [email protected] 11 THE EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING IN LIEU OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Date, Time, Place and Purpose of the General Meeting The general meeting will be held in person or by proxy on October 28, 2022 at 11 a.m., Eastern time, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, or virtually via live webcast at https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022, to consider and vote upon the proposals to be put to the general meeting. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only if (i) you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and show proof of such vaccination, (ii) complete a visitor health form upon arrival and (iii) reserve your attendance at least two business days in advance of the general meeting by contacting Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, at One Manhattan West, New York, NY 10001, telephone (212) 735-3000. At the general meeting, you will be asked to consider and vote upon proposals to: 1. Proposal No . 1 The Extension Proposal as a special resolution, amend the companys Charter pursuant to an amendment to the charter in the form set forth in Annex A of this proxy statement to extend the date by which the company must either (i) consummate an initial business combination or (ii) cease its operations, except for the purpose of winding up if it fails to complete such initial business combination, and redeem all of the Class A ordinary shares included as part of the units sold in the companys IPO, from November 1, 2022 to the extended date; and 2. Proposal No . 2 The Adjournment Proposal as an ordinary resolution, approve the adjournment of the general meeting to a later date or dates, if necessary, to permit further solicitation and vote of proxies in the event that there are insufficient votes for, or otherwise in connection with, the approval of the extension proposal, which will be presented at the general meeting if, based on the tabulated votes, there are not sufficient votes at the time of the general meeting to approve the extension proposal, in which case the adjournment proposal will be the only proposal presented at the general meeting; and 3. any other business as may properly come before the general meeting or any adjournments or postponements thereof. Voting Power; Record Date Only shareholders of record of the company as of the close of business on September 29, 2022, are entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the general meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Each of the ordinary shares entitles the holder thereof to one vote. If your shares are held in street name or are in a margin or similar account, you should contact your broker to ensure that votes related to the shares you beneficially own are properly counted. On the record date, there were 28,750,000 Ordinary Shares issued and outstanding, including 23,000,000 Class A ordinary shares (that were initially sold as part of the IPO) and 5,750,000 Class B ordinary shares. The companys warrants do not have voting rights in connection with the proposals. Quorum and Vote of Shareholders A quorum is the minimum number of shares required to be present at the general meeting for the general meeting to be properly held under our Charter and Cayman Islands law. The presence, in person, virtually, by proxy, or, if a corporation or other non-natural person, by its duly authorized representative or proxy, of the holders of a majority of the issued and outstanding Ordinary Shares entitled to vote at the general meeting constitutes a quorum. Proxies that are marked abstain and proxies relating to street name shares that are returned to us but marked by brokers as not voted (so-called broker non-votes) will be treated as shares present for purposes of determining the presence of a quorum on all matters. If a shareholder does not give the broker voting instructions, under applicable self-regulatory organization rules, its broker may not vote its shares on non-routine matters. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. 12 Votes Required Approval of the extension proposal requires a special resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of at least two-thirds of the ordinary shares, represented in person or by proxy and entitled to vote thereon and who do so in person or by proxy at the general meeting. Approval of the adjournment proposal requires an ordinary resolution under Cayman Islands law, being the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the ordinary shares represented in person or by proxy and entitled to vote thereon and who do so in person or by proxy at the general meeting. If you do not want any of the proposals to be approved, you should vote against such proposals. A shareholders failure to vote by proxy or to vote in person or online at the general meeting will not be counted towards the number of shares required to validly establish a quorum, and if a valid quorum is otherwise established, such failure to vote will have no effect on such proposals. Abstentions and broker non-votes will be counted in connection with the determination of whether a valid quorum is established but will have no effect on any of the proposals. We believe that each of the proposals is a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. Voting You can vote your shares at the general meeting by proxy or online by virtually attending the general meeting. If your shares are owned directly in your name with our transfer agent, Continental, you are considered, with respect to those shares, the shareholder of record. If your shares are held in a stock brokerage account or by a bank or other nominee or intermediary, you are considered the beneficial owner of shares held in street name and are considered a non-record (beneficial) shareholder. Shareholders of Record You can vote by proxy by having one or more individuals who will be at the general meeting vote your shares for you. These individuals are called proxies and using them to cast your ballot at the general meeting is called voting by proxy. If you wish to vote by proxy, you must (i) complete the enclosed form, called a proxy card, and mail it in the envelope provided or (ii) submit your proxy over the Internet in accordance with the instructions on the enclosed proxy card. If you complete the proxy card and mail it in the envelope provided or submit your proxy over the Internet as described above, you will designate each of Rick Gaenzle, Scott Honour and Corey Campbell or the Chairperson of the general meeting to act as your proxy at the general meeting. One of the aforementioned individuals will then vote your shares at the general meeting in accordance with the instructions you have given them in the proxy card with respect to the proposals presented in this proxy statement. Proxies will extend to, and be voted at, any adjournments or postponements of the general meeting. Alternatively, you can vote your shares online by virtually attending the general meeting. Beneficial Owners If your shares are held in an account through a broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary, you must instruct the broker, bank or other nominee how to vote your shares by following the instructions that the broker, bank or other nominee provides you along with this proxy statement. Your broker, bank or other nominee may have an earlier deadline by which you must provide instructions to it as to how to vote your shares, so you should read carefully the materials provided to you by your broker, bank or other nominee or intermediary. If you wish to attend and vote your shares at the general meeting, you must first obtain a legal proxy from your broker, bank or other nominee that holds your shares and email a copy (a legible photograph is sufficient) of your legal proxy to Continental at [email protected] Beneficial owners who email a valid legal proxy will be issued a 12-digit meeting control number that will allow them to register to attend and participate in the general meeting. Beneficial owners who wish to attend the general meeting virtually should contact Continental no later than October 25, 2022, to obtain this information. 13 If you do not provide voting instructions to your bank, broker or other nominee or intermediary and you do not vote your shares at the general meeting, your shares will not be voted on any proposal on which your bank, broker or other nominee does not have discretionary authority to vote. In these cases, the bank, broker or other nominee or intermediary will not be able to vote your shares on those matters for which specific authorization is required. We believe each of the proposals constitutes a non-discretionary matter. Proxies Our board is asking for your proxy. Giving our board your proxy means you authorize it to vote your shares at the general meeting in the manner you direct. You may vote for or against each proposal or you may abstain from voting. All valid proxies received prior to the general meeting will be voted. All shares represented by a proxy will be voted, and where a shareholder specifies by means of the proxy a choice with respect to any matter to be acted upon, the shares will be voted in accordance with the specification so made. If no choice is indicated on the proxy, the shares will have no effect on either of the proposals described herein and as the proxy holders may determine in their discretion with respect to any other matters that may properly come before the general meeting. Proxies that are marked abstain and proxies relating to street name shares that are returned to us but marked by brokers as not voted (so-called broker non-votes) will be treated as shares present for purposes of determining the presence of a quorum on all matters. If a shareholder does not give the broker voting instructions, under applicable self-regulatory organization rules, its broker may not vote its shares on non-discretionary matters. We believe each of the proposals constitutes a non-discretionary matter, and therefore, there will not be any broker non-votes at the general meeting. Shareholders who have questions or need assistance in completing or submitting their proxy cards should contact our proxy solicitor, Morrow, at (800) 662-5200, or banks and brokers can call collect at (203) 658-9400, or by sending a letter to 333 Ludlow Street, 5th Floor, South Tower, Stamford, CT 06902, or by emailing [email protected] . Revocability of Proxies Shareholders may send a later-dated, signed proxy card to the companys secretary at 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301, Wayzata, MN 55391, so that it is received by the companys secretary prior to the vote at the general meeting (which is scheduled to take place on October 28, 2022). Shareholders also may revoke their proxy by sending a notice of revocation to the companys secretary, which must be received by the companys secretary prior to the vote at the general meeting or by attending the general meeting, revoking their proxy and voting in person (including by virtual means). Attendance at the general meeting alone will not change your vote. However, if your shares are held in street name by your broker, bank or another nominee, you must contact your broker, bank or other nominee to change your vote. Attendance at the General Meeting The general meeting will be held in person or by proxy at 11 a.m., Eastern time, on October 28, 2022, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP located at 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, or virtually via live webcast online at https://www.cstproxy.com/perceptionii/2022. While shareholders are encouraged to attend the meeting virtually, you will be permitted to attend the general meeting in person at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP only to the extent consistent with, or permitted by, applicable law and directives of public health authorities. You may submit your proxy by completing, signing, dating and returning the enclosed proxy card in the accompanying pre-addressed postage-paid envelope. If you hold your shares in street name, which means your shares are held of record by a broker, bank or nominee, you should contact your broker, bank or nominee to ensure that votes related to the shares you beneficially own are properly counted. In this regard, you must provide the broker, bank or nominee with instructions on how to vote your shares or, if you wish to attend the general meeting and vote in person, obtain a valid proxy from your broker, bank or nominee. Solicitation of Proxies Our board is soliciting proxies for use at the general meeting. All costs associated with this solicitation will be borne directly by the company. We have engaged Morrow to assist in the solicitation of proxies for the general 14 meeting. We have agreed to pay Morrow a fee of $ 32,500 , plus disbursements, and indemnify Morrow and its affiliates against certain claims, liabilities, losses, damages and expenses for their services as the company s proxy solicitor. We will also reimburse banks, brokers and other custodians, nominees and fiduciaries representing beneficial owners of Class A ordinary shares for their expenses in forwarding soliciting materials to beneficial owners of Class A ordinary shares and in obtaining voting instructions from those owners. Our directors and officers may also solicit proxies by telephone, by facsimile, by mail, on the Internet or in person. They will not be paid any additional amounts for soliciting proxies. You may contact Morrow at: Morrow Sodali LLC 333 Ludlow Street 5th Floor, South Tower Stamford, CT 06902 Telephone: (800) 662-5200 (banks and brokers can call collect at (203) 658-9400) Email: [email protected] If any additional solicitation of the holders of our outstanding ordinary shares is deemed necessary, we (through our directors and officers) anticipate making such solicitation directly. Dissenters Rights and Appraisal Rights Neither Cayman Islands law nor our charter provide for appraisal or other similar rights for dissenting shareholders in connection with any of the proposals to be voted upon at the general meeting. Accordingly, our shareholders will have no right to dissent and obtain payment for their shares. As a matter of Cayman Islands law, dissenters rights only apply in a statutory merger where the company is a constituent company, which is not the case with any of the proposals. Warrant holders do not have appraisal rights in connection with any of the proposals to be voted upon at the general meeting. Shareholder Proposals No business may be transacted at an annual general meeting, including an extraordinary general meeting in lieu of an annual general meeting, other than business that is either (i) specified in the Notice of General Meeting (or any supplement thereto) given by or at the direction of the directors of the company or (ii) otherwise properly brought before the general meeting in accordance with the requirements set forth in the charter. Other Business The board does not know of any other matters to be presented at the general meeting. The form of proxy accompanying this proxy statement confers discretionary authority upon the named proxy holders with respect to amendments or variations to the matters identified in the accompanying Notice of General Meeting and with respect to any other matters that may properly come before the general meeting. If any additional matters are properly presented at the general meeting, or at any adjournments or postponements of the general meeting, the persons named in the enclosed proxy card will have discretion to vote the shares they represent in accordance with the recommendations of our board with respect to any such matters. We expect that the Class A ordinary shares represented by properly submitted proxies will be voted by the proxy holders in accordance with the recommendations of our board with respect to any such matters. Principal Executive Offices Our principal executive offices are located at 315 Lake Street East, Suite 301, Wayzata, MN 55391. Our telephone number is (952) 456-5300. Our corporate website address is https://www.perceptionii.com/. Our website and the information contained on, or that can be accessed through, the website is not deemed to be incorporated by reference in, and is not considered part of, this proxy statement. 15 PROPOSAL NO. 1 THE EXTENSION PROPOSAL Background We are a blank check company, incorporated on January 21, 2021 as a Cayman Islands exempted company for the purpose of effecting an initial business combination. On November 1, 2020, the company consummated its IPO of 23,000,000 units, with each unit consisting of one Class A ordinary share and one-half of one redeemable warrant to purchase one Class A ordinary share, which included the full exercise by the underwriters of their over-allotment option in the amount of 3,000,000 units. Simultaneously with the closing of the IPO, the company completed the private sale of 10,050,000 private placement warrants at a purchase price of $1.00 per private placement warrant to the sponsor, generating gross proceeds to us of $10,050,000. Following the closing of the IPO Form FWP CITIGROUP INC Filed by: CITIGROUP INC Tweet Share E-mail 0 shares Get inside Wall Street with StreetInsider Premium. Claim your 1-week free trial here. Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. Free Writing Prospectus to Pricing Supplement No. 2022-USNCH[ ] Registration Statement Nos. 333-255302; 333-255302 -03 Dated October 13, 2022; Filed pursuant to Rule 433 gin: 0"> Trigger PLUS Securities with Auto-Callable Feature Based Upon the Performance of the S&P 500 Index Due November , 2024 Principal at Risk Securities This document provides a summary of the terms of the securities. Investors must carefully review the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement referenced below, product supplement, underlying supplement, prospectus supplement and prospectus, and the Risk Considerations on the following page, prior to making an investment decision. Summary Terms Issuer: Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. Guarantor: Citigroup Inc. Underlying index: The S&P 500 Index (ticker symbol: SPX) Stated principal amount: $10 per security Pricing date: October 31, 2022 Issue date: November 3, 2022 Maturity date: November 5, 2024 Valuation dates: Expected to be November 7, 2023 (the interim valuation date) and October 31, 2024 (the final valuation date), each subject to postponement if such date is not a scheduled trading day or certain market disruption events occur with respect to the underlying index Automatic early redemption: If, on the interim valuation date, the closing level of the underlying index is greater than or equal to the initial index level, the securities will be automatically redeemed on the third business day following the interim valuation date for an amount in cash per security equal to $10 plus the interim redemption premium. If the securities are automatically redeemed following the interim valuation date, they will cease to be outstanding. Interim redemption premium: 16.60% of the stated principal amount Payment at maturity1: If the securities have not previously been redeemed, you will receive at maturity, for each $10 stated principal amount security you then hold, an amount in cash equal to: If the final index level is greater than or equal to the initial index level: $10 + leveraged return amount If the final index level is less than the initial index level but greater than or equal to the trigger level: $10 If the final index level is less than the trigger level: $10 + ($10 x the index return) If the securities are not automatically redeemed prior to maturity and the closing level of the underlying index on the final valuation date is less than the trigger level, your payment at maturity will be less, and possibly significantly less, than $7.50 per security. You should not invest in the securities unless you are willing and able to bear the risk of losing a significant portion of your investment. Initial index level: The closing level of the underlying index on the pricing date Final index level: The closing level of the underlying index on the final valuation date Trigger level: 75% of the initial index level Index return: (i) The final index level minus the initial index level, divided by (ii) the initial index level Leveraged return amount: $10 index return x the leverage factor Leverage factor: 125% CUSIP/ISIN: 17330U470 / US17330U4702 Preliminary pricing supplement: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/200245/000095010322017716/dp182359_424b2-us2206901.htm Hypothetical Payout at Maturity1 (if the securities have not previously been redeemed) Change in Underlying Return on Securities +50.00% 62.50% +40.00% 50.00% +30.00% 37.50% +20.00% 25.00% +10.00% 12.50% +5.00% 6.25% 0.00% 0.00% -10.00% 0.00% -20.00% 0.00% -25.00% 0.00% -26.00% -26.00% -30.00% -30.00% -40.00% -40.00% -50.00% -50.00% -60.00% -60.00% -80.00% -80.00% -100.00% -100.00% 1All payments are subject to our credit risk On the date of the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement, Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. expects that the estimated value of the securities on the pricing date will be at least $9.135 per security, which will be less than the public offering price. The estimated value of the securities is based on Citigroup Global Markets Inc.s (CGMI) proprietary pricing models and Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc.s internal funding rate. It is not an indication of actual profit to CGMI or other of Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc.s affiliates, nor is it an indication of the price, if any, at which CGMI or any other person may be willing to buy the securities from you at any time after issuance. See Valuation of the Securities in the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement. Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. and Citigroup Inc. have filed registration statements (including the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement, product supplement, underlying supplement, prospectus supplement and prospectus) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement, product supplement, underlying supplement, prospectus supplement and prospectus in those registration statements (File Nos. 333-255302 and 333-255302-03) and the other documents Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. and Citigroup Inc. have filed with the SEC for more complete information about Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc., Citigroup Inc. and this offering. You may obtain these documents without cost by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, you can request these documents by calling toll-free 1-800-831-9146. Underlying Index For more information about the underlying index, including historical performance information, see the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement. Risk Considerations The risks set forth below are discussed in more detail in the Summary Risk Factors section in the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement. Please review those risk factors carefully prior to making an investment decision. You may lose a significant portion or all of your investment. The trigger feature of the securities exposes you to particular risks. The securities do not pay interest. The term of the securities may be as short as one year. Investing in the securities is not equivalent to investing in the underlying index or the stocks that constitute the underlying index. Your return on the securities depends on the closing level of the underlying index on two days. The securities are subject to the credit risk of Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc. and Citigroup Inc. The securities will not be listed on any securities exchange and you may not be able to sell them prior to maturity. The estimated value of the securities on the pricing date, based on Citigroup Global Markets Inc.s proprietary pricing models and Citigroup Global Markets Holdings Inc.s internal funding rate, will be less than the issue price. The estimated value of the securities was determined for Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc. by its affiliate using proprietary pricing models. The estimated value of the securities would be lower if it were calculated based on Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc.s secondary market rate. The estimated value of the securities is not an indication of the price, if any, at which Citigroup Global Market Inc. or any other person may be willing to buy the securities from you in the secondary market. Governmental regulatory actions, such as sanctions, could adversely affect your investment in the securities. The value of the securities prior to maturity will fluctuate based on many unpredictable factors. Immediately following issuance, any secondary market bid price provided by Citigroup Global Market Inc., and the value that will be indicated on any brokerage account statements prepared by Citigroup Global Market Inc. or its affiliates, will reflect a temporary upward adjustment. Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc.s offering of the securities does not constitute a recommendation of the underlying index. The level of the underlying index may be adversely affected by Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc.s or its affiliates hedging and other trading activities. Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc. and its affiliates may have economic interests that are adverse to yours as a result of the business activities of Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc.s affiliates. The calculation agent, which is an affiliate of Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc., will make important determinations with respect to the securities. Adjustments to the underlying index may affect the value of your securities. The U.S. federal tax consequences of an investment in the securities are unclear. Tax Considerations You should review carefully the discussion in the accompanying preliminary pricing supplement under the heading United States Federal Tax Considerations concerning the U.S. federal tax consequences of an investment in the securities, and you should consult your tax adviser. DANSENBERG, Germany Story time at Villa Winzig kindergarten on Thursday came courtesy of the U.S. 3rd Air Force. A very young audience listened intently to Maj. Gen. Derek France read Maurice Sendaks Where the Wild Things Are, the classic story about a boy named Max with a big imagination. The children hear English each day as part of the Kindergarten Ambassadors project, which is supported by the U.S. military and the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. The program needs American volunteers at three German kindergartens around Kaiserslautern, an area that includes tens of thousands of people affiliated with the U.S. military. The only skill required is the ability to speak English. An ounce of patience might also help, since the job calls for spending time with preschoolers. The program began at Villa Winzig, a small day care center in Dansenberg, for children 2 to 6. The school has had an English teacher on staff since 2009 and regularly hosts volunteer English speakers. Ramstein Air Base sends two volunteers per month to read English stories to the kids for about an hour, a base official said. France told the schools teachers he will encourage more airmen and soldiers to also volunteer. It was a great opportunity to read one of my favorite books, France said Thursday, adding that it provided an example of how partnerships are built at a grassroots level. Villa Winzig teachers told France the children are like sponges at this age, able to rapidly absorb many new English words. This fall, the program expanded to kindergartens in Moelschbach and Hohenecken. Children there in just three weeks of being exposed to English are already repeating words like apples, bananas and door, said John Constance, who leads Welcome to Rheinland-Pfalz, a state program created to help integrate Americans into their German communities. The goal is to extend the program throughout the region, he said Thursday, adding that English-speaking volunteers are needed for as many hours as they can give. Constance said that since his Facebook post last month about the program, hes heard from just over a dozen people. Anyone interested in volunteering can email constance@atlantische-akademie.de. Cyber warriors active in one of the worlds busiest digital battlefields took up the challenge of securing their networks this week in a competition sponsored by U.S. Army Central. Some 56 teams from the U.S. military and five Middle Eastern countries worked through such tasks as finding network weak points and reverse-engineering malware as part of the Best Cyber Warrior Competition, which ran Tuesday through Thursday. The events tested soldiers mettle on things they encounter on deployment to the Middle East, said Maj. Kellan Sams, the lead planner for the competition and a lead cyber security officer deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. This helps our cyber readiness capabilities, sharing techniques and honing our skills to better defend our networks against threats, Sams said Friday. U.S. troops competed remotely, with some competitors participating while deployed to the Middle East. The region is a highly contested electronic battlespace, as highlighted by the activities of Israel and Iran. The rivals have tried to breach each others infrastructure, which led to attacks on ports and gas terminal systems in the two countries, The Washington Post reported in July. Washington sanctioned Irans intelligence ministry in September, accusing it of launching a cyberattack that shut down NATO ally Albanias government services and websites. The U.S. military command for the Middle East also has been targeted. Hackers reputed to be linked to the Islamic State group in 2015 replaced the profile pictures of CENTCOMs social media sites with an image of a man with his face covered, and text including the phrase i love you isis, The Washington Post reported at the time. Some 26 teams, or about half the field, came from troops in Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman. These countries face many of the same cyberthreats that deployed U.S. troops do, Sams said. In one challenge, troops were confronted with the aftermath of a cyberattack and had to examine the hardware and digital footprints to figure out what had happened. In others, cyber soldiers played capture the flag. These are competitions in which teams must defend a network from accessing vulnerabilities. The competition split the field into divisions based at home and overseas. A team from the Saudi Defense Ministry won the overseas division. A U.S. Army team from Fort Gordon, Ga., won the American division. This year marked the eighth annual completion of the competition. YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan Vice President Kamala Harris during her visit to Tokyo last month spoke with the Japanese prime minister about a U.S. naval officer serving a three-year prison term in Japan, a White House official told Stars and Stripes on Thursday. Harris and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis during a Sept. 26 meeting, the official said in a Thursday email. The official spoke with Stars and Stripes on condition of anonymity to disclose information about a private, diplomatic meeting. Alkonis, 34, of Claremont, Calif., is serving three years for negligent driving causing the deaths of two people and injuring a third in Shizuoka prefecture in May 2021. He was convicted by a three-judge panel in Shizuoka District Court in October 2021, a verdict upheld on appeal by the Tokyo High Court in July. The case is tragic for all involved and we are working to find a compassionate resolution, the White House official said. He did not disclose what was said during Harris conversation with Kishida. Harris was in Tokyo to attend a state funeral for Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese prime minster assassinated July 8 at a campaign rally outside a train station in Nara. Harris met this week with Alkonis wife, Brittany Alkonis, at the White House and sent a supportive message to the couples children in a video shared Friday by Alkonis supporter Andrew Eubanks on Twitter. Im thinking about you guys, and Im so proud of you, Harris said in the video. Your voices are so important and Im counting on you. Alkonis was driving on May 29, 2021, when his car plowed into pedestrians and parked cars outside a soba restaurant in Fujinomiya, a city about two hours from Yokosuka, where Alkonis was stationed as a weapons officer aboard the destroyer USS Benfold. Alkonis, his wife and their three children were returning that day from a hike at Mount Fujis fifth station. A woman, 85, died the same day as the crash; her son-in-law, 54, died June 11, 2021. A second woman, 53, the daughter and wife of the other victims, was injured. Throughout his trial, Alkonis and his defense attorneys maintained that acute mountain sickness, a form of altitude illness, caused him to lose consciousness while at the wheel. The district and appellate courts rejected that defense. On Sept. 15, Stars and Stripes requested the traffic accident report, the Navy Criminal Investigative Services report on the incident, the Navys court observer report and Alkonis medical exam by Navy doctors after the crash. NCIS on Sept. 30 denied the request for a copy of its report and the results of Alkonis medical exam, citing policies that prohibit Stars and Stripes from making Freedom of Information Act requests and NCIS from releasing personal information. The remaining requests were still being processed by the Navy as of Friday. Alkonis reported to the Tokyo Detention Center on July 25 to begin his sentence and was transferred to the Yokosuka Branch Prison in Kurihama on Sept. 15, Naval Forces Japan spokeswoman Cmdr. Katie Cerezo told Stars and Stripes by email Friday. Partially the result of lobbying by Brittany Alkonis, her husbands case has attracted the attention of members of Congress, including Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif. They and 30 others wrote President Joe Biden on Oct. 3 asking that he use all tools available to ensure Lt. Alkonis be returned to the United States. Their letter repeats a series of allegations made by Alkonis family and supporters regarding the handling of his case, including inhumane treatment, lack of due process and violations of the status of forces agreement between the U.S. and Japan. SOFA lays out the rights and responsibilities of service members and Defense Department civilian employees, contractors and their families in the country. WASHINGTON The future of global military operations in space will be shaped by the United States, and success will rely heavily upon elements such as private partnerships and new advances in the cyber realm, a top Space Force general said Friday. Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, who is the chief of Space Operations Command, made the remarks during an interview at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank that studies policy and security issues worldwide. Whiting said the command has so far led the way in creating an environment in space that will serve U.S. defense interests and capabilities in the years to come. The origins of Space Operations Command date back to 1982 when a predecessor was established under the Air Force. A year after the Space Force was formed, Space Operations Command, or SpOC, became a component of the new military branch in October 2020. Throughout the 60s, 70s and even into the 80s, space was highly competitive, Whiting said. We have a history of this kind of competitive, contested domain, but we did go through a long [dormant] period after the [Berlin Wall] came down in the early 1990s until the Chinese [anti-satellite] test in 2007. But from 2007 until today, it is all about the threat, he added. Whiting said Space Force and SpOC are guided by three main cornerstone responsibilities to create optimal capabilities and conditions for space defense providing freedom of action in space, enabling maximum effectiveness for joint forces and providing independent options to the defense secretary and president. We take very seriously that responsibility to provide those effects but to do that, we have to create the freedom of action, he said. Three of the most important elements of achieving SpOCs mission in space warfighting, the general noted, are intelligence gathering, partnering with commercial space entities and enhancing cyber defenses. We are paying attention to what is happening in Russia and Ukraine and certainly I think we have seen the importance of commercial space in that conflict, Whiting said. And that kind of validates what we have seen now for, certainly, a decade or more of how fast commercial space is moving. Shoring up cyber defenses, however, is expected to be more difficult. This is a tough nut for us, he said. How do we measure risk in the cybersecurity area? Whiting said the answer is challenging because decades of success involving physical security conditions such as those that protect military installations and government buildings cannot merely be applied to cyber defenses. We do not have the same tools or intuitive understanding of how to assess our cyber risks, he said. I dont want to act like we dont have any of those tools, but its not the same comprehensive understanding we have for physical security. Various space threats to U.S. interests such as satellites include electromagnetic attacks, GPS signal-jamming and directed energy capabilities, Whiting said. And again, the private sector is expected to offer some of the solutions. Those are all threats that we now face and its not just the Space Force, he added. Much of the things that were going to be interested in are now being accounted for by commercial industry. Whiting expanded on the importance of private partnerships to include protection. Russia, for example, has said it considers private companies that are working with Ukraine to be legitimate military targets. No distinction is being made between Ukrainian troops and commercial personnel from whom they receive support. I think we will see that same dynamic play out in space. And there are processes for how we go about working with companies ... to defend [them], he said. Whiting, 55, served for more than 30 years in the Air Force before he took over as the first commander of Space Operations Command in 2020. He was deputy commander when the command was a component of the Air Force. A dip in a hot spring isnt the hoped-for relief anyone craves in the sweltering tropical heat of Australias Northern Territory. And few people associate the great southern continent with geothermal activity. Australia has almost 150 volcanoes, but none has erupted for more than 4,000 years. Thats because Australia, unlike Japan and New Zealand, is far from the Pacific Ring of Fire where plate boundaries meet, and eruptions and earthquakes are common. Beneath Australias red soil, however, theres plenty of rock, heated by the earth, and that means there are hot springs to be found at various places in the Outback. One of them is in Katherine, home to about 6,000 people. The town is 10 miles drive from Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal, which frequently hosts U.S. military forces training in the country. Katherine Hot Springs, walking distance from the towns main street, is officially open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., although it doesnt appear to have a fence, gate or anyone keeping an eye on it. Theres a big parking lot near the springs, which are reached via a short downhill trek along a path that leads into a shady grove of gum trees. The springs feature several pools linked by a meandering stream. Someone has built a steel walkway and steps that lead down to the largest pool. The water in the pools is crystal clear with no sign of crocodiles. The largest pool is about 30 feet across and perhaps 5 feet at its deepest point. You climb down a steel ladder to get in. The water is only lukewarm 75-86 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Katherines official website - but its quite pleasant to float in first thing in the morning, under the shade of the gum trees. After your swim, you can head back up the hill and find plenty of tables and chairs and the Pop Rocket Cafe serving food and drinks out of a shipping container. Access to the pools may be restricted during the territorys wet season, from September to April depending on water levels, according to the towns website. If you go Location: Riverbank Driver, Katherine South NT 0850, Australia Directions: Take the Stuart Highway and head north from central Katherine, then turn left onto the Victoria Highway before crossing the river and drive about a mile. A sign for the hot springs will direct you to the carpark. Hours: Open daily, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Cost: Free. Food: The onsite Pop Rocket Cafe serves fancy coffee, snacks and meals. Information: +61 8 8972 5500; tinyurl.com/83h4a5bz My least favorite Japanese word is yoyaku, which means reservation. Last-minute planner that I am, I dont often make one. Also, not every restaurant in the United States requires a reservation, but in Japan, the yoyaku is king. Im embarrassed to admit the number of times I have walked into a delightfully aroma-tinged restaurant with open tables; heard the host utter, yoyaku? and then sheepishly turned away with a twinge of regret. My husband and I made that mistake when we went on a date recently. We planned on going to a local sushi restaurant a place that deserves its own write-up. The restaurant was nearly empty the last time we ate there, but this evening it was a full house. Yoyaku? the host asked. And I knew we wouldnt be having sushi that night. We turned away, a little defeated, and drove around Sagamihara, Japan, looking for an alternative, until we decided to try Soi Gapao in a last-ditch effort to rescue date night. Soi Gapao has been recommended by many of our friends at Camp Zama, but wed never given it a try. When we walked through the door, I was struck by the fun, warm and eclectic Thai decor. Yoyaku? When we tentatively shook our heads no, the host replied in Japanese, Just a moment please. I felt relief when he turned back around, smiled and asked in Japanese, Two people? By now, we were both hungry. We ordered several dishes to split, including Chinese spinach, chicken satay, green chicken curry, soft-shelled crab and fried chicken wings. Everything was delicious. The spinach was perfectly simmered in a flavorful sauce with garlic and spicy-sweet red peppers. The chicken satay had a crunchy char on the outside and came with a pungent fish sauce and plenty of herbs. I questioned whether the soft-shelled crab was even seafood. The green curry was spicy, sweet and creamy. And if you ever see Thai fried chicken wings on a menu, order them. Theyre always amazing, but these ones especially because the chef had added bits of herbs in the batter. Soi Gapao is a must-try for anyone, whether on a date or on your own. You can bring your dog along too, since pets are welcome on the patio. But I would recommend making a yoyaku on Soi Gapaos website for your next visit, just in case. Soi Gapao Location: 252-0303 Kanagawa, Sagamihara, Minami Ward, Sagamiono, 5 Chome2910-1 shino-plaza1F, Japan Directions: About a 20-minute drive from Camp Zama, Japan, or a short walk from Sagami-Ono Station Hours: Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Prices: Most dishes are around 990 yen, or about $6.80 Dress: Casual Information: Phone: 042-851-5598; Online: www.soigapao.com/en.html Tunisian bakers called a one-day strike amid growing discontent in the cash-strapped North African country that's trying to secure an International Monetary Fund deal and saw major fuel shortages this month. The bakers' guild's call for the protest comes on the heels of an unprecedented fuel shortage earlier this month, raising concerns among Tunisians that months of scarcity in key staples such cooking oil, subsidized wheat flour and pasta will be getting worse. Tunisia is heavily reliant on food and energy imports, and its economy has also been hit by unrest amid the worst political tensions in a decade. Last week, the central bank surprised markets with an interest-rate hike that added to the difficulties of a government that has increasingly been turning to domestic money markets to raise funds while it holds talks over a new loan program with the IMF. Authorities are already facing opposition by the powerful UGTT trade union over plans to substantially reduce subsidies on key items such as bread and electricity for most Tunisians and to cut spending on a bloated public sector. Authorities are hoping to get between $2 billion and $4 billion from the IMF and an agreement will be crucial to shoring up the finances of a country that's been on investors' default watch list for months. The U.S. on Thursday announced $60 million in "rapid assistance" to help the poorest Tunisians, while the country tapped its "security reserves" of refined oil products this month mostly because international prices are high, the head of the country's sole refiner told Mosaique FM on Thursday. The nation's bakers' guild called on its members to stage a sit-in on Oct. 18 and not produce bread that day, local media reported, citing the guild's treasurer Al-Sadek Alhaboubi. The group is pressing authorities over the non-payment of state subsidies for bread for 14 months and also over insufficient supply of wheat flour, he said. President Kais Saied on Tuesday suggested that some shortages may be artificial as he urged his prime minister to "maintain the continuity of public services and the administration's primary role in meeting the needs of citizens." He also stressed "the need to rationalize expenditure." YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan held a meeting today with President of the Supreme Judicial Council Karen Andreasyan, the Presidential Office said. The President congratulated Andreasyan on assuming office and expressed hope that the judicial reforms in Armenia will continue with a principled path. In turn Karen Andreasyan thanked for the reception and specifically emphasized that the Presidents consistent focus on ongoing judicial reforms is very obliging. The meeting also touched upon the activities of the judicial system and the current stage of ongoing reforms. Medical training kicked in for a group of American Marines and sailors who recently chanced upon a fatal traffic accident near a former U.S. naval base in the Philippines. The troops were in the islands for the 12-day Kamandag drills involving 1,900 U.S. Marines, as well as Filipino, South Korean and Japanese forces, that wrapped up Friday. The five Marines and sailors came across the accident while riding in a van back to their hotel in Zambales province on the Philippines main island of Luzon after a day of medical training with local and Japanese forces Oct. 7. What is all this training for if Im not going to get out of the van and maybe help save a life? Navy Lt. Katelyn Morton said of her thoughts at the crash site. Whether its U.S. service members or local nationals I think its our job to help. Two other sailors, Petty Officer 3rd Class Brianna Gausden and Seaman Jason Toro, and two Marines, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Angelo Alvarez and Staff Sgt. Rochae Petgrave, helped aid the crash victims, according to a report released by the 3rd Marine Division on Wednesday. The troops saw police but no local medical personnel tending to victims in the road near Subic Bay, she told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday. Subic and nearby Clark Air Base were home to Americas largest overseas military community before the facilities were vacated by U.S. forces following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The crash involved a moped and a jeepney, said Morton, 27, of Camden County, Ga. A jeepney is a type of bus modeled on jeeps left behind by U.S. forces at the end of World War II. Three victims were at the site a male teenager with the least severe injuries, an unresponsive man who was later pronounced dead and another man with a broken femur, Morton said. Morton, a nurse with the 3rd Medical Battalion at Camp Foster, Okinawa, said shes dealt with trauma patients in hospitals but never responded to a crash site before going to the Philippines. Its the first time I have come upon a scene like that and had to do mass casualty triage, she said. Morton assigned other service members to tend to two victims and focused her efforts on the man with the broken femur, putting pressure on his wound to slow bleeding until an ambulance arrived. The two surviving patients were taken to a hospital; one remains in critical condition, she said. Im glad we were there to help, she said. Moscow and NATO are both proceeding with nuclear exercises, even as tensions escalate over Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats to use "all means available" including atomic weapons to defend land he claims to be Russian. The drills come as Russia steps up its missile attacks on Ukraine, nearly eight months into its invasion and as its troops struggle to make headway on the ground. Putin has recently moved to annex parts of Ukraine, and is mobilizing as many as 300,000 Russian reservists. The difficulties facing Russia's military in Ukraine have raised concerns that Putin could yet resort to some sort of nuclear strike, although U.S. and European officials say they have detected no change in Moscow's nuclear posture or any unusual movement of its atomic stocks. The Russian defense ministry said in a statement Thursday that it conducted exercises involving an unspecified number of Yars mobile ground-based missile systems, with troops testing how to hide them from aerial reconnaissance systems and protect them from saboteurs on the ground. More than 3,000 troops and about 300 vehicles took part, according to the statement. It's unclear if those drills will continue into Friday or beyond. Moscow has not yet stated if it plans to conduct a Grom strategic nuclear exercise, which traditionally takes place in October and generally involves submarines, planes and missiles. Russia did not hold the drills in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, although Grom exercises were held in February of this year, shortly before it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko watched those strategic tests with Putin from a monitoring center at the Kremlin. Asked about the potential for another Russian nuclear exercise soon, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg replied "we have monitored Russian nuclear forces for decades and of course we will continue to monitor them very closely." "What I can say is that this exercise, the Russian exercise is an annual exercise, an exercise where they test their nuclear forces," he told reporters Thursday in Brussels. "We will monitor that as we always do." Russia has conducted other military drills since its invasion of Ukraine, and they were not a prelude to bigger action against Kyiv. Still, "if I were going to hide an attack, that's how I would do it, exercises," said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. He noted Russia had previously used exercises to mask preparations for attacks, including in its invasion of Georgia in 2008. In the case of Ukraine, Russia did not attempt to hide its military buildup on the border before it went in. Moving from exercise to an operation could be fairly swift, making the window to assess and react to any switch very tight, according to a European defense official who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. Meanwhile, around 14 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will take part in "Steadfast Noon" starting Monday and located in the western part of Europe, more than 621 miles from Russia's border, according to a NATO official. The exercise, which runs for two weeks, will test a mix of more than 50 fighter, escort and surveillance jets as well as tankers needed for a nuclear mission, but will not use any live bombs. The drills will involve flights from an air force base in the northeast of Belgium to test procedures related to the dropping of nuclear bombs, Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS reported, citing a person it did not identify. Asked at a briefing earlier in the week whether there were concerns the NATO drills could further raise tensions with Russia, Stoltenberg said "it would send a very wrong signal if we suddenly now canceled a routine, long time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine." Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said allies continue to monitor for any shift by Russia toward using nuclear weapons. "We've not seen any indicators at this point that would lead us to believe that," Austin said. "But again, it's not something we look at once and leave alone; this is something we remain focused on 24 hours a day, seven days a week." 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. ANKARA, Turkey Turkey's parliament passed a contentious bill Thursday that amends press and social media laws with the stated aim of combatting fake news and disinformation. Critics fear that as elections loom, the measure will be used to further crack down on social media and independent reporting. The 40-article legislation was approved with the votes of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's governing party and its nationalist allies, which together hold a majority in parliament. The vote came following raucous sessions in parliament, which saw opposition legislators clap and shout to disrupt proceedings, hold up signs denouncing what they called the "censorship law" and one lawmaker smash a smartphone with a hammer. Amnesty International said after the vote that it was "yet another dark day for online freedom of expression and press freedom in Turkey." "These new measures enable (the government) to further censor and silence critical voices ahead of Turkey's upcoming elections and beyond, under the guise of fighting disinformation" said Amnesty's regional researcher, Guney Yildiz. The most controversial provision, Article 29, mandates up to three years in prison for spreading information that is "contrary to the truth" about Turkey's domestic and international security, public order and health for the alleged purpose of causing "public worry, fear and panic." Critics warn that social media users could be jailed for posting or reposting information the government deems to be fake news. "Those who say, 'There is poverty.,' will go to jail. Those who say, 'There is corruption.,' will go to jail," said Engin Altay, a senior legislator from the main opposition Republican People's Party. Erdogan argued for a law to combat disinformation and fake news, saying false news and rising "digital fascism" are national and global security threats. His Justice and Development Party and nationalist allies say disinformation prevents people from accessing the truth, undermining freedom of expression. But the wording of the article is so vague that opposition parties say it could be abused by the government and lead to self-censorship in newsrooms. The Republican People's Party has said it will seek the legislation's annulment by taking it to the Constitutional Court. "You are bringing the censorship law before the 2023 elections so that you can silence the voice of (the public) and political opposition," said Saruhan Oluc, a legislator for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party. Turkey is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in June. Erhan Usta, a legislator from the opposition Good Party, argued that the measures would "push Turkey further down the democracy league." Mahir Unal, a senior governing party lawmaker, rejected the opposition's claims, saying the legislation does not target criticism, the expression of opinions or information "that does not exceed the limits." On Wednesday, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe the continent's democracy and human rights body called on Turkey not to enact the legislation. It said plans to criminalize the dissemination of "false or misleading information" would "cause irreparable harm to the exercise of freedom of speech before elections." The organization's constitutional experts, the Venice Commission, raised concerns in an urgent opinion released last week that warned of the measure's "chilling effect, risk of self-censorship." The law also updates several clauses of Turkey's controversial social media regulations that passed in 2020, which placed requirements on companies like Facebook and Twitter to remove content or face advertisement bans and bandwidth reductions. That law required social media companies to appoint a representative in Turkey to deal with complaints. The new amendment now requires that the representative be a Turkish national who resides in Turkey. "Either Twitter and other social media companies will have to do what the government wants or risk closure," lawyer Kerem Altiparmak said on Twitter. "The possibility of going to elections without this platform is higher than ever before." Hundreds of thousands of domains and links are already blocked in Turkey. With the government controlling most news outlets, many in Turkey have turned to social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter for independent news. On Wednesday, legislator Burak Erbay, a member of the Republican People's Party, hammered and smashed a smartphone while addressing parliament, saying the clampdown on social media would make the phones obsolete. Other changes are the inclusion of digital news sites into the press law that previously covered broadcast and print media, a wider eligibility for press cards beyond journalists that would be approved by Erdogan's Directorate of Communications, and provisions on advertising. Turkey was rated "Not Free" for 2021 on the Freedom of the Net index by Freedom House. Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey at 149 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index. Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul. KYIV, Ukraine - Elon Musk said Friday that his space company could not keep funding the Starlink satellite service that has kept Ukraine and its military online during the war, and he suggested he was pulling free internet after a Ukrainian ambassador insulted him on Twitter. A Starlink cutoff would cripple the Ukrainian military's main mode of communication and potentially hamstring its defenses by giving a major advantage to Russia, which has sought to jam signals and phone service in the eastern and southern combat zones. The world's richest man by Bloomberg estimates, Musk tweeted from the United States that his company, SpaceX, does not want reimbursement for its past expenses in helping Ukraine. But, he tweeted, it "also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable." He also taunted Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, who had some choice words for Musk last week after the Tesla chief executive tweeted a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would favor Russia. "F--- off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk," Melnyk said at the time. "We're just following his recommendation," Musk tweeted early Friday. The ambassador declined to comment on Friday, while his press representative told The Washington Post his previous comment had been a specific response to Musk's tweet about peace negotiations. Starlink, a unit of Musk's SpaceX company, uses terminals equipped with antennas that are usually mounted on roofs to access the internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas. Ukrainian forces have used it to live-stream drone feeds, correct artillery fire and contact home since Musk began sending terminals earlier in the war as Ukraine faced the threat of internet outages from Russian strikes and cyberattacks. One Ukrainian commander said Friday that "fighting without Starlink service at the front line is like fighting without a gun." Ukraine has received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies. The system has proved "very effective," the country's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, told The Post in a March interview. From tweets on Taiwan to the rap star Ye, Musk's remarks have raised alarm about what he could do with Twitter if he comes to own the platform. The latest scrutiny came this month when Musk declared his proposal, a four-point plan that could help the Kremlin lock in territorial gains and included Ukraine forgoing aspirations to reclaim Crimea, which Russia controls since annexing the peninsula in 2014. In a jab at the billionaire's Twitter peacemaking attempt, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted a poll asking his followers which Elon Musk they preferred: "One who supports Ukraine" or "One who supports Russia." Before the peacemaking foray that set off an online firestorm, and the tweets in question, SpaceX had already warned the U.S. Defense Department that it could no longer afford funding the Starlink system in Ukraine in a letter dated Sept. 8, CNN first reported Thursday. The report said the letter asked the Pentagon to cover a new request from Ukraine and costs for the rest of the year, acknowledging that others, including Kyiv's allies, had also helped fund the terminals sent so far. A senior U.S. defense official confirmed late Thursday that Musk had privately urged the Pentagon to pay up. The official said there was no comparable system with such widespread applicability. The bill is likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The official described it as a scenario in which Musk "dangles hope over the heads of millions, then sticks the DoD with the bill for a system no one asked for but now so many depend on." "Elon's gonna Elon," the official added. Another senior defense official, Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Friday that the Defense Department "continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine's armed forces." "We do not have anything else to add at this time," he said in a statement. Musk said Friday that the Starlink operation in Ukraine has cost SpaceX $80 million and that it would reach $100 million by end of year, including the expense of providing terminals, maintaining satellites and ground stations and other costs. "We've also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder," he wrote. The Ukrainian military has become dependent on Starlink to quickly share information with senior commanders. Roman Kovalenko, a company commander in the 72nd Mechanized Brigade fighting on the front line in the eastern Donetsk region, said units use radio less now because they're not as dependable. "I honestly have no idea how the communication between us will look like here without any Starlink service," he said. The satellite internet is especially helpful for the Ukrainian military's expanded use of drones. With a stable connection, air reconnaissance units can watch their drone feed, allowing artillery forces to identify targets and correct their fire in real time. Before that, Kovalenko said, infantry soldiers in trenches had to locate the artillery strikes themselves, which was less effective and put them in danger. "I'd say the effectiveness of our work without Starlink would drop something like 60 percent or more," Kovalenko said. "And we would have to use more ammunition, which we are now saving." He and others said they had experienced some outages near the front line in recent weeks, but one soldier in an air reconnaissance unit called them "insignificant." Another drone unit in the southern Kherson region was able to work only a short distance into recently reclaimed territory before its Starlink stopped working. A 25-year-old junior sergeant who uses the call sign Vognyk said Ukraine's military and volunteers would pay for the service themselves if necessary. "In my opinion, this is his right, his property," he said of Musk. "We can thank him for the number of Starlinks he provided to Ukraine." After Ukrainian troops recaptured the city of Izyum in the northeastern Kharkiv region in recent weeks, residents crowded around a Starlink system that was brought so they could get some connection until the mobile network was restored there. In his brigade, Kovalenko said, soldiers often visit his position to use his Starlink to connect to the internet and send their families a quick message that they're alive and well. "I hope even if the situation would not be resolved officially, our volunteers would fundraise the money needed to pay for this service," he said. "We need Starlink badly." Francis reported from London. The Washington Post's Kamila Hrabchuk in Kyiv contributed to this report. KYIV, UKRAINE Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects a mobilization of army reservists he ordered to bolster his country's troops in Ukraine to reach the targeted number of recruits in two weeks, a milestone that would allow him to end the hugely unpopular call-up. Putin told reporters after attending a summit in Kazakhstan that 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defense Ministry set as a goal have been mobilized. A total of 33,000 of them are already in military units and 16,000 are involved in combat, he said. The call-up, announced by Putin in September as his forces lost occupied ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive, has aroused public discontent in Russia, where almost all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. At the same time, Russian nationalists have criticized the Kremlin's handling of the war, increasing pressure on Putin to do more to turn the tide in Russia's favor. Despite Putin and other top officials stating the mobilization would affect some 300,000 people, the decree the president signed to get the draft going did not mention a specific number. Russian media reports have suggested the actual number could be as high as 1.2 million reservists. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has implied that a classified clause of the decree contained the number of people the authorities intend to be mobilized, among other details. Putin initially described the mobilization as "partial" and said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. However, Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience or who were ineligible for service for medical reasons. In the wake of Putin's order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. Reports have surfaced since then of recruits getting deployed to the front lines in Ukraine with little training and inadequate equipment. Several mobilized reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, several days after they were drafted. Putin said all activated recruits should receive adequate training and that he would assign Russia's Security Council "to conduct an inspection of how mobilized citizens are being trained." Putin also said Friday there was no need for more widespread attacks against Ukraine, such as those Russia launched Monday in retaliation for an Oct. 8 truck bomb explosion on a prized bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. The Kerch Bridge explosion followed Ukraine's recapturing of occupied areas in the country's east and south in continuing counteroffensives that have restored Ukrainian confidence and embarrassed Russia's military. Russia has promised free accommodation to residents of Ukraine's partially occupied Kherson region who want to evacuate to Russia, a sign that Ukrainian military gains along the war's southern front are worrying the Kremlin. The Moscow-installed leader of Kherson, one of four regions illegally annexed by Putin last month, asked the Kremlin to organize an evacuation from four cities, citing incessant shelling by Ukrainian forces. Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Moscow-appointed regional administration, said a decision was made to evacuate Kherson residents to the Russian regions of Rostov, Krasnodar and Stavropol, as well as to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. "We, residents of the Kherson region, of course know that Russia doesn't abandon their own, and Russia always offers a hand," Saldo said Thursday. Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases those are the only evacuation routes residents of occupied areas can or are allowed to take. Reports have surfaced that some Ukrainians were forcibly deported to "filtration camps" with harsh conditions. In addition, an Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children - some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions - to be raised as Russian. The evacuation announcement came as Ukrainian forces pushed deeper into the Kherson region, albeit at a slower pace than a few weeks ago. Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 populated places in the region in the last month, Ukraine's Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said late Thursday night. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in most of the Kharkiv region returning to Ukrainian control, as well as parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said. Putin illegally annexed Kherson, as well as the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine last month following "referendums" in the four regions that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine's armed forces, vowed Friday that his forces would succeed in "getting ours back." "No one and nothing will stop us," Zaluzhny said in a video message. "We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army." While reiterating calls for local residents to evacuate to Russia, Saldo's deputy, Kirill Stremousov, also insisted the evacuation preparations did not mean the Russian-installed officials anticipated Ukrainian forces taking all of the Kherson region. "No one's retreating. ... No one is planning to leave the territory of the Kherson region," he said. For a fifth day, Russia continued missile strikes on critical infrastructure that started Monday in retaliation for an explosion on the Kerch Bridge last weekend that Moscow has said was caused by a truck bomb. The span, which links Crimea to the Russian mainland, holds important strategic and symbolic value to Russia in its faltering war in Ukraine. In the last 24 hours, at least nine civilians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Ukrainian president's office reported Friday morning. The victims included an 11-year-old boy and six other people who died after a missile strike in the city of Mykolaiv, where a residential building was destroyed, the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, said. Russian forces on Friday carried out at least four missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second- largest city. Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported several explosions in the northeastern city without offering any details on the extent of the damage or saying if there were any casualties. The Ukrainian army recaptured most previously occupied areas of the Kharkiv region, which includes the city of the same name, during a fierce counteroffensive last month that forced Russian troops to withdraw and inflicted a stunning blow on Moscow's military prestige. The region's governor, Oleh Syniehubov, urged residents not to ignore air raid sirens and to get to bomb shelters. Earlier Russian strikes on Thursday night cut off the electricity in the regional capital, which had a pre-war population of 1.4 million. Multiple Russian missile strikes shook the city of Zaphorizhzhia overnight. The capital of the annexed region remains in Ukrainian hands and has come under repeated bombardment as Ukraine pushes its southern counteroffensive. Several explosions were reported overnight at infrastructure facilities, causing fires, regional Gov, Oleksandr Starukh said. There were no victims in preliminary reports, and further details about specific damage were unavailable. Starukh told Ukrainian state television that Russian soldiers remained unable to enter the city but their "missiles remind us of the evil and grief that the army of the occupiers carries." In addition to the missile strikes on the regional capital, there was also shelling in three cities closer to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. In Nikopol, Marhanets, Chervonohryhorivka, drone and artillery strikes destroyed residential buildings and damaged water supply and power lines. The regional capital is about 100 miles by road from the plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Two days ago, it was forced to revert to diesel-fueled generator power to maintain its reactor cooling systems after an Russian missile attack on distant electrical substation. Friday is Defender's Day in Ukraine, but celebrations were muted because of the war. In Kyiv, a concert at the central opera house was canceled because of planned, rotating power outages across the city as repairs to the city's energy infrastructure continue following Russia's wide-ranging missile attacks. Missile, drone and rocket attacks on Ukraine have kept the country on edge with air raid sirens occurring more frequently and bringing a heightened sense of urgency after Monday's strike killed 19 people and wounded more than 100, including many in the capital. Putin has vowed to retaliate harshly if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russian officials reported Friday that Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine. An unspecified number of people were killed and wounded in the incident, according to Russia's Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded. The Kerch Bridge explosion temporarily halted rail and road traffic on the 12-mile span, undermining a vital supply route for the Kremlin's forces. The Russian government said Friday that repairs were scheduled to be completed by July 2023. Also on Friday, a court in Simferopol, the second-largest city in Crimea, formally arrested and placed five suspects in pre-trial detention in connection with the explosion, according to Russian news agency Interfax. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) stated on Wednesday that it had identified 12 suspects involved in the explosion. The FSB reported the involvement of Ukrainian, Armenian and Russian citizens in what it described as a "terrorist act". KYIV, UKRAINE Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory. Putin facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and "did not set out to destroy Ukraine" when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago. "What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly," he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstan's capital. "But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, that's all. So my actions are correct and timely." Russia's difficulties in achieving its war aims have become apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday. Even some of Putin's own supporters have criticized the Kremlin's handling of the war and mobilization, increasing pressure on him to do more to turn the tide in Russia's favor. In his comments on the army mobilization, Putin said the action he ordered last month had registered 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defense Ministry set as an initial goal. A total of 33,000 of them have joined military units, and 16,000 are deployed for combat, he said. Putin ordered the call-up to bolster the fight along a 1,100-km (684-mile) front line where Ukrainian counteroffensives have inflicted blows to Moscow's military prestige. The mobilization was troubled from the start, with confusion about who was eligible for the draft in a country where almost all men under age 65 are registered as reservists. Opposition to the order was so strong that tens of thousands of men left Russia, and others protested in the streets. Critics were skeptical the draft would end in two weeks. They predicted only a pause to allow enlistment offices to process regular conscripts during Russia's annual fall draft for men aged 18-27, which was postponed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1. "Do not believe Putin about 'two weeks.' Mobilization can only be canceled by his decree. No decree - no cancellation," Vyacheslav Gimadi, an attorney for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on Facebook. Asked about the possibility of an expanded mobilization, the Russian president said the Defense Ministry had not asked him to authorize one. "Nothing further is planned," Putin said, adding, "In the foreseeable future, I don't see any need." Putin and other officials stated in September the mobilization would affect some 300,000 people, but his enabling decree did not cite a specific number. Russian media reports have suggested it could be as high as 1.2 million. Putin had also said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. He later admitted military officials had made mistakes, such as enlisting reservists without the relevant background. Men who received minimal training decades ago were drafted in droves. Reports also have surfaced that some recruits were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with little preparation and inadequate equipment. Several mobilized reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, just days after they were drafted. Putin responded to the criticism Friday, saying all activated recruits should receive adequate training and that he would assign Russia's Security Council "to conduct an inspection of how mobilized citizens are being trained." Before launching the invasion on Feb. 24, Putin questioned Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign nation, portraying the country as part of historic Russia. Asked about this on Friday, he repeated his claim that Russia was prepared for peace talks and again accused the Ukrainian government of quitting negotiations after Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv early in the war. Ukraine rejected any possibility of negotiating with Putin after he illegally annexed Ukraine's Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions last month based on "referendums" that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. The battlefield momentum has shifted toward Ukraine as its military recaptures cities, towns and villages that Russia took early in the war. After occupied Kherson's worried Kremlin-backed leaders asked civilians to evacuate to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability, Moscow offered free accommodations. Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases they aren't allowed to travel to Ukrainian-held territory, and reports have surfaced that some were forcibly deported to "filtration camps" with harsh conditions. An Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions to be raised as Russian. Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 populated places in northern Kherson in the last month, according to Ukraine's Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in most of the Kharkiv region returning to Ukrainian control, as well as parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said. As they retreat, Russian forces are adding to their losses by abandoning weapons and ammunition. In the U.S., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence presented a slide deck Friday stating that at least 6,000 pieces of Russian equipment have been lost since the start of the war. The presentation outlines enormous pressure on Russia's defense industry to replace its losses and says that because of export controls and international sanctions, Russia is expending munitions at an unsustainable rate. Konstantin, a Kherson resident who spoke to the AP only if his last name was withheld for safety reasons, said columns of military trucks had moved around the region's capital and eventually left. Most government offices have reduced working hours, and schools have closed, he said. "The city is now in suspense. Primarily the Russian military from the headquarters and the family of collaborators are leaving," Konstantin said. "Everyone is discussing the imminent arrival of the Ukrainian military and preparing for it." Russian forces on Friday carried out missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, and in the Zaphorizhzhia region, home to Europe's biggest nuclear power plant. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has warned that fighting at or near the Russian-controlled Zaphorizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, now shuttered, could trigger a catastrophic radiation release. Putin has vowed to retaliate if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under attack for a second day Friday. According to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the shelling damaged an electric substation, five houses in the village of Voznesenovka and a power line, leaving several nearby villages temporarily without electricity. No casualties or injuries were reported. Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region on Thursday, according to Russia's Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded. Vowing to liberate all Russian-occupied areas, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine's armed forces, said in a video message Friday, "We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army." Yuras Karmanau contributed reporting from Tallinn, Estonia. A defense lawyer lashed out Thursday at a star witness in a trial related to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, accusing the Army veteran of stolen valor and questioning why he wasn't given a Purple Heart if he was truly injured in Iraq. The ruckus broke out in front of jurors and continued after they were excused. Defense attorneys and prosecutors raised their voices over each other. At one point, an FBI agent firmly told lawyer Leonard Ballard to back up, please. Judge, it's literally hurting my ears. I just can't listen to it anymore, state Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani pleaded. The commotion occurred on the ninth day of trial in Jackson, Michigan, where three members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen, are charged with providing material support for a terrorist act. Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar are not accused of directly participating in the Whitmer kidnapping scheme. But state prosecutors said they provided training and support to key players who were subsequently convicted of conspiracy in federal court. Just like in the federal case, a crucial witness against the three men is Dan Chappel. He agreed in 2020 to become an informant, embedding himself for months inside the Watchmen after reporting to the FBI that the group talked chillingly about attacking police. In response to questions from prosecutors, Chappel, 36, explained that he was simply looking for a way to maintain his gun skills when he joined the group, years after serving with the Army in Iraq. He told jurors that he suffered back and head trauma overseas that sometimes affected his memory. Ballard, who is Morrison's lawyer, pounced during cross-examination, challenging Chappel over his lack of a Purple Heart, a medal typically given to people injured in combat. It's relevant because they have put his combat, and his combat ability, and his combat wounds and everything into evidence," Ballard said, referring to prosecutors. They said this is who and what he is. It goes to his credibility. Ballard, a former Marine, said a Purple Heart for Chappel's injuries should have been automatic under Army regulations. But Chappel said his injuries weren't diagnosed by doctors until later. This witness cant get away with misrepresenting his conduct, his service, his valor which I would argue is stolen valor in this matter to these 15 people," Ballard said of the jury. Assistant Attorney General Bill Rollstin fired back, accusing Ballard of "besmirching this mans integrity. What's (Ballard's) point: He does or doesn't have a Purple Heart so now you shouldnt believe his testimony? Rollstin asked. Judge Thomas Wilson said Chappel would get an opportunity Friday to more fully explain his injuries to the jury. Then Ill allow you to ask him if he ever had the Purple Heart, Wilson told Ballard. White reported from Detroit. WASHINGTON The House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena Donald Trump, demanding the former president's personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video from his closest aides describing his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss that resulted in the assault on the U.S. Capitol. "We must seek the testimony under oath of January Sixth's central player," said Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee's vice chair. Trump is almost certain to fight the subpoena and decline to testify. On his social media outlet he blasted members for not asking him to testify earlier though he didn't say he would have and called the panel "a total BUST." In the committee's 10th public session, just weeks before the congressional midterm elections, the panel summed up Trump's "staggering betrayal" of his oath of office. That was how Democratic Chairman Bennie Thompson put it, describing Trump's unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory. With vivid new details and evidence, including from the former president's Cabinet secretaries and U.S. Secret Service, the panel showed Trump was told repeatedly by those around him that the election was over, yet he still orchestrated the far-reaching effort to stop Biden from taking office. Several former aides testified that Trump had said privately that he knew he had lost to Biden. In other striking new video, the panel showed previously unseen footage of congressional leaders phoning officials for help during Capitol siege. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer can be seen talking to governors in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Later it shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders as the group asks Trump's acting attorney general for help. "They're breaking the law in many different ways quite frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States," Pelosi is heard saying at one point. "Do you believe this?" she exclaims. The video comes from a documentary being produced by Pelosi's daughter, according to two people familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it. Earlier, in never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the panel produced evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the fight for Trump's presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington. The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020, email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber the police in a march in Washington on Jan. 6. "It felt like the calm before the storm," one Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat. The House panel warned that the insurrection at the Capitol was not an isolated incident but a warning of the fragility of the nation's democracy in the post-Trump era. "None of this is normal or acceptable or lawful in a republic," Cheney declared. "There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational. No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic, period." Statements from Thompson and Cheney were laden with language frequently seen in criminal indictments. Both lawmakers described Trump as "substantially" involved in the events of Jan. 6. Cheney said Trump had acted in a "premeditated" way. To illustrate what it said were "purposeful lies," the committee juxtaposed repeated instances in which top administration officials recounted telling Trump the actual facts with clips of him repeating the exact opposite at his pre-riot rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. The committee may well make a decision on whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Thursday's hearing opened at a mostly empty Capitol complex, with most lawmakers at home campaigning for reelection. Several people who were among the thousands around the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now running for congressional office, some with Trump's backing. Police officers who fought the mob filled the hearing room's front row. In one recorded interview, former White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin said that Trump looked up at a television and said, "Can you believe I lost to this (expletive) guy?" The committee is also drawing on the trove of 1.5 million documents it received from the Secret Service, including an email from Dec. 11, 2020, the day the Supreme Court rejected one of the main lawsuits Trump's team had brought against the election results. "Just fyi. POTUS is pissed," the Secret Service wrote, according to documents obtained by the committee. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled Trump as being "livid" and "fired up" about the court's ruling. Trump told Meadows "something to the effect of: 'I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,." Cabinet members including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia also said in interviews shown at the hearing that they believed that once the legal avenues had been exhausted, that should have been the end of Trump's efforts to remain in power. "In my view, that was the end of the matter," Barr said of the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote. But rather than the end of Trump's efforts to stay in power, the committee signaled it was only the beginning as the president summoned the crowd to Washington for a rally to fight the election on Jan. 6. Thursday's session was serving as a closing argument for the panel's two Republican lawmakers, Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who have essentially been shunned by Trump and their party and will not be returning in the new Congress. Cheney lost her primary election, and Kinzinger decided not to run. The committee, having conducted more than 1,500 interviews and obtained countless documents, has produced a sweeping probe of Trump's activities from his defeat in the November election to the Capitol attack. "He has used this big lie to destabilize our democracy," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-N.Y., who was a young House staff member during the Richard Nixon impeachment inquiry in 1974. "When did that idea occur to him and what did he know while he was doing that?" This week's hearing was to be the final presentation from lawmakers before the midterm elections. But staff members say the investigation continues. The Jan. 6 committee has been meeting for more than a year, set up by the House after Republican senators blocked the formation of an outside panel similar to the 9/11 commission set up after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Even after the launch of its high-profile public hearings last summer, the Jan. 6 committee continued to gather evidence and interviews. Under committee rules, the Jan. 6 panel is to produce a report of its findings, likely in December. The committee will dissolve 30 days after publication of that report, and with the new Congress in January. House Republicans are expected to drop the Jan. 6 probe and turn to other investigations if they win control after midterm elections, primarily focusing on Biden, his family and his administration. At least five people died in the Jan. 6 attack and its aftermath, including a Trump supporter shot and killed by Capitol Police. Police engaged in often bloody, hand-to-hand combat, as Trump's supporters pushed past barricades, stormed the Capitol and roamed the halls, sending lawmakers fleeing for safety and temporarily disrupting the joint session of Congress certifying Biden's election. More than 850 people have been charged by the Justice Department in the Capitol attack, some receiving lengthy prison sentences for their roles. Several leaders and associates of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been charged with sedition. Trump faces various state and federal investigations over his actions in the election and its aftermath. CHICAGO AT&T Illinois has agreed to pay a $23 million fine to resolve a federal probe into its illegal efforts to influence former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, prosecutors announced Friday. The U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago said in a news release that under the agreement, the company admits that it arranged to make payments to an associate of Madigan, who was one of the state's most powerful political figures at the time, in exchange for Madigan's help in pushing through legislation favorable to the company. In exchange for agreeing to pay the fine, prosecutors suspended their criminal case against the company alleging that it used an interstate facility to promote legislative misconduct. If, after two years, the company "abides by certain conditions, including continuing to cooperate with any investigation related to the misconduct alleged in the information," the charges will be dropped. The announcement comes about seven months after Madigan was charged with a nearly $3 million racketeering bribery scheme. According to that indictment, Madigan used his speaker role and various other positions of power to further his alleged criminal enterprise. That indictment and Friday's announcement mark a dramatic fall for one of the nation's most powerful state legislators and the longest-serving state House speaker in modern U.S. history. Madigan resigned from the Legislature a year ago. According to prosecutors, AT&T admits that in 2017, it arranged for a Madigan ally to receive $22,500 in payments through a lobbying firm that had done work for the company. Prosecutors contend that arrangement was made to "disguise" why the ally, who didn't work for the company, was being paid. Elon Musk's recent pronouncements on major foreign policy issues are ratcheting up national security concerns about his takeover of Twitter, a global speech platform used by hundreds of millions, 75 percent of them outside the United States. In the 10 days since Elon Musk agreed again to buy the social media platform, he has proposed solving the war in Ukraine by letting Russia keep territory and won praise from a top Chinese diplomat for suggesting China take control of Taiwan. On Friday, U.S. and Ukrainian officials were sent scrambling as news broke that Musk had asked the Pentagon last month to take over paying for his Starlink satellite communications service in Ukraine. Musk complained that he could not shoulder the costs and keep sending new terminals to Ukraine, even though many have been subsidized by the U.S. and other nations. Ukraine quickly noted the critical nature of Musk's contributions. Musk's attempts to shape foreign policy in 280 characters or less have raised new fears about how he will wield the platform's outsize influence over politicians and global leaders who rely on Twitter if he takes control of the company. Since autocrats already use the platform to spread lies about opponents and whip up violence and mayhem, Musk's pursuit of approval from two of the most powerful is especially unnerving. "It's a very good illustration as to why it would be a disaster if Musk does come to own Twitter," said Paul Barrett, deputy director of New York University's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. "You could have provocations, whether engineered by Musk himself or by others, that could have global implications." The latest scrutiny began this week when prominent geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer said Musk had been speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin before tweeting out a three-point plan for Ukraine that would leave Crimea, taken by force in 2014, in Russia's hands. "I spoke with Elon two weeks ago, and he told me Putin (in a direct conversation with him) was 'prepared to negotiate' . . . and had outlined the minimum the Russian president would require to end the war," Bremmer wrote to newsletter subscribers. As word spread on a second day of intensive Russian attacks on civilian population centers in Ukraine, law professors speculated on whether Musk should have registered as a foreign agent. "Logan Act" became one of Twitter's trending topics in the country, referring to the 223-year-old law that bars private citizens from conducting foreign policy. Only then did Musk deny having spoken to Putin, since a conversation a year and a half ago about space issues. Bremmer, a Time magazine columnist and author as well as head of the Eurasia Group consultancy, stood by his account, tweeting that "Elon Musk told me he had spoken with Putin and the Kremlin directly about Ukraine. he also told me what the Kremlin's red lines were." Four days earlier, Musk said in a Twitter conversation that he was in touch with "quite a few" parties in the war. The exchange has left lawmakers questioning the nature of Musk's communications with Putin. "Clearly, it's something we should keep an eye on," Rep. John Katko (N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said during a Post Live interview on Thursday. The argument over whether Bremmer was mistaken, Musk had been exaggerating, or Musk was backtracking from the truth failed to obscure two deeper points Bremmer made in his newsletter: First, given opposition to aiding Ukraine among some Republicans, Musk's Twitter takeover and the likely reinstatement there of former president Donald Trump and some of his allies would spread opposition further and divide the country, threatening Ukraine's backup. Second, Musk's acquisition would pit his new, free-speech business against his old businesses: SpaceX, which relies on the Pentagon and NASA, and Tesla, which relies on China for scarce physical resources. "Each of these three are huge bets on completely different futures for a technopolar world. They're also the most geopolitically opposed business models I've ever seen a single person pursue. Or maybe it's the world's biggest hedge," Bremmer wrote. Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy, said Musk's communications with Chinese and Russian officials and business interests abroad will create unprecedented dilemmas if he closes his deal to buy Twitter. "Most owners of these platforms have had to remain neutral on issues related to politics and geopolitics," Schafer said. "His freewheeling style of communicating with authoritarians is certainly going to create challenges with how the platform is perceived." Though Musk has said he will rid Twitter of automated bots, Schafer said there has been little clarity around how Musk would respond to other types of foreign influence operations. He said it is unclear how Musk would handle a Russian hack and leak operation, such as occurred in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, or whether Chinese government officials should be allowed to join a platform that citizens cannot access. A Saudi prince is planning to keep a stake in Twitter as the deal closes, even though a former Twitter employee was convicted of spying on dissidents for the Saudi government. In recent years, major social media companies "have taken a stand on the side of democracy over autocracy," Schafer said. "It will be interesting to see what direction that shifts in if and when Musk takes over." Because Twitter is much smaller than other social networks such as Facebook and YouTube, Musk will have a greater ability to micromanage content moderation decisions and dealings with foreign leaders than executives at other social networks, said Rose Jackson, the director of the Democracy and Tech Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Yet despite Twitter's smaller size, it wields immense influence over key decision-makers in media and politics, creating unique national security risks. Jackson said that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a cross-government group that reviews foreign transactions involving American firms, "probably isn't sufficient" in addressing the national security risks presented by the Musk deal. "It brings to the fore whether we have sufficient tools to address genuine national security risks and how tech companies, and particularly information tech companies, are financed," said Jackson, a former entrepreneur and State Department official. What worries many about Twitter is that the lion's share of Musk's wealth is his stake in Tesla, so that in any conflict among worldviews, the platform would be most likely to suffer. Tesla had record sales of its vehicles in China in September, even as its competition with local electric vehicle makers intensifies. And Twitter already has issues with China potentially gathering information about its critics through advertising and spying, according to a recent whistleblower complaint and testimony by former security chief Peiter Zatko. He said the FBI warned the company that a Chinese intelligence operative was working there. After Musk's Ukraine tweet a week ago, a commentator for the Chinese Communist Party's Global Times cited it and wrote to a half-million Twitter followers that Musk "believes too much in the U.S. and West's 'freedom of speech.' He will be taught a lesson." Within days, Musk opined in a Financial Times interview that Taiwan should be governed like Hong Kong, winning praise from China's ambassador to Washington: "I would like to thank @elonmusk for his call for peace across the Taiwan Strait and his idea about establishing a special administrative zone for Taiwan." Barrett and others said they were not afraid of Musk bringing Twitter to China and back into Russia, saying that could help citizens communicate more. Instead, they fret that a Twitter without much moderation would allow propagandists for those governments to wreak more havoc than they already do. "Elon Musk is entitled to his opinions and speech, but let's just say Freedom House would welcome the opportunity to brief him more thoroughly on the egregious human rights violations in Russia, China and elsewhere in the world before he takes ownership of one of the largest tech platforms," said Michael Abramowitz, president of the nonprofit Freedom House, which tracks rights globally. "Ukrainians are fighting to protect their fundamental freedoms. Taiwan is a democracy where people enjoy those freedoms every day, and they know the threat they are facing from the PRC. We believe that all democracies and democracy-supporting businesses should support and defend these freedoms globally." Accountable Tech, a left-leaning group that has advocated for regulation of tech giants, sent a letter last week to congressional leaders that called for an investigation into Musk's relationships with foreign actors. The letter says Congress should use its subpoena powers to determine whether Musk is in communication with senior officials at the Kremlin or in China "who could use this acquisition to undermine American national security interests." "It is critical that Congress immediately investigate the national security implications of this acquisition and take steps, as necessary, to protect American democracy and independence," the group's leaders, Nicole Gill and Jesse Lehrich, wrote. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The President of the Republic of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan received the delegation led by the President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the President's office, the existing challenges and opportunities for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict were discussed during the meeting. "One fact should be recorded that all representatives of the Armenian government cannot make any decision behind your back or keep it secret from you. I am aware of any discussion, even if I am not present, I familiarize myself with all the documents. The issue of Artsakh is always raised and is on the agenda, this issue cannot but be on our agenda. We just need to discuss the solution option together and make our citizens aware of how we envision the future," the President of Armenia said. Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan thanked the President for the reception, emphasized that he is always aware of the discussions and possible options regarding the settlement of the issue. During the meeting, Arayik Harutyunyan presented the general situation in Artsakh to President Khachaturyan. A wide range of security and other issues were discussed. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to rapidly pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia in the immediate aftermath of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, alarming senior aides who feared doing so would have "catastrophic" consequences, according to congressional testimony aired Thursday. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) cited Trump's order during a House select committee hearing scrutinizing the former president's actions and directives ahead of the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. It was evidence, the congressman said, that Trump knew his days in office were numbered as he sought to overturn Biden's election win and "rushed" to complete "unfinished business" despite the national security implications. "He disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against [the Islamic State] and al-Qaeda terrorists," Kinzinger said. "Knowing he was leaving office, he acted immediately and signed this order on November 11th, which would have required the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan, all to be complete before the Biden inauguration on January 20th." Trump's withdrawal order was reported previously by Axios and in the book "Peril," by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Kinzinger's presentation, however, marked a dramatic moment in Thursday's hearing, as the committee played video and audio segments of testimony provided over the past several months by key officials troubled by the president's plans, including Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. The Afghanistan plan ultimately was set aside. Milley called the order "odd" and "potentially dangerous," telling the committee he did not think it was feasible or wise. Kellogg said the proposition was "very contested," and that carrying it out would have been a "tremendous disservice to [the] nation." "It's the same thing with President Biden," Kellogg said, comparing the situation to the chaotic and deadly withdrawal carried out at Biden's direction in August 2021. "It would have been a debacle." John McEntee, an adviser to Trump, recalled typing up the order to withdraw from Afghanistan and securing Trump's signature on it. He did not offer an assessment similar to Milley's and Kellogg's in testimony aired Thursday. Their comments add to public understanding of key military moves that bridge the two presidencies, and the often erratic nature of deliberations under Trump. The Trump administration, in February 2020, signed a deal with the Taliban agreeing to remove all U.S. troops by spring 2021. It included a handful of concessions, including that the Taliban would hold fire against U.S. troops as they departed. The Afghan government was cut out of those discussions. Trump later undermined that agreement, tweeting in October of that year that all U.S. troops should be "home by Christmas!" Then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper sent Trump a memo advising the president that ongoing Taliban attacks, potential danger for remaining U.S. personnel and risks to U.S. alliances made that timeline unworkable. Trump fired Esper on Nov. 9, one day after the election loss, installing loyalists at the Pentagon at a moment when administrations typically seek a smooth transition on issues of national security. Biden decided in April 2021 to follow through with the Afghanistan withdrawal, prompting the collapse of the country's government four months later. Biden administration officials blamed Trump, saying his deal with the Taliban left few alternatives, while former Trump administration officials sought to distance themselves from the agreement by arguing that it was meant to be implemented only if the conditions warranted. Trump has criticized Biden for the haphazard exit, calling it a "humiliation" and "total surrender," and claiming it would not have happened on his watch. "We could have gotten out with honor," Trump said at a rally last year. "We should have gotten out with honor. And instead we got out with the exact opposite of honor." Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official who has become a frequent critic, tweeted Thursday that as "someone who remains highly critical of Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal," she'd be curious to hear how Trump supporters defend "Trump's order for an even hastier withdrawal." Under Trump's direction, hundreds of U.S. troops were withdrawn from Somalia in the waning weeks of his administration. Some were redeployed to nearby Kenya while continuing to visit Somalia to advise local troops battling al-Qaeda-affiliated militants. In May, Biden reversed Trump's Somalia order, deploying hundreds of U.S. troops there. Pentagon officials sought presidential approval to do so, advising that it was becoming increasingly unsustainable to only appear on the ground episodically to carry out operations. The Pentagon has conducted a handful of airstrikes in Somalia since then. The former teacher, who later became a principal, worked at the school from 1967 until 2008. A RETIRED Dublin school principal, accused of sexual abuse of 21 former pupils, has been served with a book of evidence and sent forward for trial. Gardai charged Patrick Harte, 80, in May with 83 indecent assaults, one attempted indecent assault and six sexual assaults from 1967 to 1995. It followed an investigation by the Divisional Protective Services Unit at Kevin Street Garda station. The alleged offences involved pupils at Sancta Maria Christian Brothers primary school on Synge Street, Dublin. The former teacher, who later became a principal, worked at the school from 1967 until 2008. He denies the allegations and appeared again at Dublin District Court today when Detective Garda Colleen Gallagher served him with a book of evidence. State solicitor Brian Coveney told Judge Treasa Kelly the Director of Public Prosecutions consented to trial on indictment. Judge Kelly told him that he was being returned for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he will face his next appearance on November 11. The pensioner, who was granted legal aid, spoke once to confirm he understood the order. The judge warned him to notify the prosecution within 14 days if he intended to rely on alibi evidence in his defence. He remains on 30,000 bail with conditions which include signing on three days a week at his local garda station. The judge refused a defence application to reduce that requirement to once weekly. She directed gardai to provide copies of the interview videos to the defence while typed versions were handed over in court. Sligo-born Mr Harte, with an address at Glendown Park, Templeogue, was also ordered to obey strict terms and had to provide cash lodgements and surrender his passport earlier. Detective Garda Colleen Gallagher voiced "flight-risk" concerns at a previous bail hearing. She had said the "allegations are similar in nature"; however, the injured parties were "unknown to each other". The officer said the allegations indicated "prolonged, systematic abuse", but she added that Mr Harte denied all the allegations when gardai put them to him. Today, she objected to Mr Harte's request to change the signing on condition. Defence counsel John Griffin told the court having to go to the garda station three days each week interfered with his client's medical appointments. He argued that the condition was disproportionate and pointed out that his client's trial may not get underway until 2025. However, in view of the garda objection, Judge Kelly refused the defence application at this point. But she added that a further application could be made as time goes on. The officer is accused of assaulting two female soldiers following a social function held at an army base at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic AN army officer charged with sexual assault should not be "scapegoated" over the "misogynist culture" in the Irish defence forces, his lawyer has told a trial. The officer is accused of assaulting two female soldiers following a social function held at an army base at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. A prosecutor said the case went to "the heart of what it means to be a leader" in the defence forces and urged a military board to convict him. Closing speeches were delivered in the six-week trial before the board - the equivalent of a jury - retired to begin deliberations this evening. The General Court Martial is being held at the Military Justice Centre in Dublin's McKee Barracks. The defendant, a married father in his 30s who cannot be named, denies six charges including four sexual assaults and two physical assaults on two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) on the night of June 25, 2020. He originally faced a total of 17 charges but he earlier pleaded guilty to five - two counts of drunkenness, one of disorderly conduct and two physical assaults. Seven other charges inclduing sexual assault, assault and further counts of alleged misconduct have either been withdrawn by the prosecution or will be subject to acquittal by direction of military judge, Colonel Michael Campion. The incidents allegedly happened at an army base which also cannot be identified under reporting restrictions ordered by the judge. Earlier, closing speeches were delivered by Commandant Sean Coffey BL for the prosecution and Feargal Kavanagh SC, defending. Comdt Coffey said the complainants were discreet, trustworthy, highly experienced NCOs and clear, reliable" witnesses. He said the case went to the heart of what it means to be a leader in the defence forces. When female members of the defence forces carrying out their duties are at risk from our own members, action needs to be taken, discipline must be upheld and members must be called to account, Comdt Coffey said, urging the board to find the accused guilty. Mr Kavanagh told the board there had been "a misogynist atmosphere and culture" in the army for years, and "its time it was dealt with and it all came out in the wash." "But you dont want to be labelled or have it suggested there is some scapegoating going on here, he said. He said the board had to restrict its considerations to the evidence. Theres somebodys life on the line, Mr Kavanagh said, telling the board the accused was hard-working, diligent and loyal with years of exemplary service to his country. Hes brave, hes honest, he was not sober - we accept that, Mr Kavanagh said. He now finds himself in a situation where his career is over, effectively, he said. You might bear in mind its a serious matter with serious repercussions. Deal with him fairly. During the trial, evidence was given by both alleged victims, the accused and several other defence force members. However no details of their evidence can be published by order of the judge. In the sexual assault charges, the accused allegedly placed one hand around the first NCOs back and used his other hand to pull her head towards him, leading her to believe he was attempting to kiss her, and separately pulling her head towards his genital area. He allegedly placed both his arms around the second complainant's torso in an inappropriate manner and without her consent as well as subsequently moving his open palms up and down her back while saying: Come on, come on. One physical assault charge relates to the alleged pulling of the first NCO's head towards his face. A second alleges he moved towards the second NCO, causing her to apprehend she would be physically assaulted. He denies all these counts. The charges he pleaded guilty to were disorderly conduct by saying "I'm a prick" in the soldiers' presence, physically assaulting one NCO by grabbing her wrist and the other by placing his arms around her torso. The state withdrew counts of disorderly conduct that alleged the accused said "me dick" and "me cock" in the NCOs' presence, and asked two male soldiers "do you know who I am?" The judge directed the board to acquit for legal reasons one charge of moving towards the second complainant, causing her to apprehend a sexual assault, one count of physically assaulting the first complainant by placing his hand on her shoulder and a count of disorderly conduct by telling a male soldier to "f**k off." Extensive reporting restrictions on the identity of soldiers, the location of the incidents and other evidence relating to military details were imposed by the judge. The board consists of five male and two female senior ranking officers from the army, Naval Service and Air Corps. Under court martial rules, convictions require at least a 5-2 verdict of the board. On conviction, a sentence, if any, is decided by the judge. On September 22 the defendants travelled to Northern Ireland by ferry and then from there on to the Republic of Ireland Two men who are on trial for the fatal stabbing of another man in the UK fled to Ireland after the killing, a court has heard. Both men Kane Hull (29) and Liam Porter (33) acted together with a "joint plan" to knife Ryan Kirkpatrick to death outside a bar, Carlisle Crown Court was told. Kirkpatrick (24) died at the scene of the stabbing in Carlisle, Cumbria, on September 18, 2021. The jury was told there had been "bad blood" and "a history" between Mr Hull and Mr Kirkpatrick with a "short fight" taking place at Carlyle's Court bar. Mr Hull and Mr Porter Hull, who both deny murder and manslaughter, then left in a blue Volvo S40. However, they returned 15 minutes later wearing dark clothing and with their faces covered as they pulled up in the car, with Mr Hull carrying a knife "clearly visible" on CCTV and stabbing his victim multiple times. The prosecution said the defendants then fled in the Volvo following the attack at the bar, off Fisher Street. "Tragically, despite the best efforts of his friends, and then the police and then paramedics, Mr Kirkpatrick was pronounced dead at Carlyle's Court at 9.22pm," prosecutor Tim Evans said. He alleged the stabbing "was at the hand of Hull" - who was said to have been identified despite his disguise attempt - and that Mr Porter was there "as a party to, supporting the plan to stab Mr Kirkpatrick". "They were, in other words, in it together," said Mr Evans. "They came to the bar together with the joint plan that Ryan Kirkpatrick was to be stabbed." Jurors heard the Volvo was found burnt out near Burgh-by-Sands, north-west of Carlisle, soon after the incident. Mr Evans told the court the pair "took significant steps to evade the police" including changing their phones several times, checking into new addresses and using different vehicles. On September 22 the defendants travelled to Northern Ireland by ferry and then from there on to the Republic of Ireland. Their 'flight', said Mr Evans, ended ten days after the murder, on September 28, when the defendants were arrested in the Republic of Ireland and, after an extradition process, they were brought back to the UK. Earlier in the trial, Mr Evans had outlined the background to the fatal stabbing on the evening of Saturday, September 18 last year. Mr Kirkpatrick had been to a christening at Wreay village, south of Carlisle. After this, he went with friends to Carlyles Court in the city centre to continue socialising. While he was there, Mr Kirkpatrick was twice confronted by two men. During the first encounter, the barrister said that Hull, who was with Porter, had tried to assault Mr Kirkpatrick with a glass. Fifteen minutes later came the second confrontation, involving two men who had their faces covered. The prosecution say the two men were Hull and Porter, and that there was 'powerful' evidence to justify that link, including clothing which showed the men in both confrontations were the same people. It was during this second confrontation, the court heard, that Mr Kirkpatrick was fatally stabbed. Opening the case, Mr Evans told the jury: Focusing first on the murder, although the fatal stabbing was at the hand of Kane Hull, Liam Porter was there, a party to and supporting the plan to stab him. Describing the first incident in Carlyles Court on the evening of the stabbing, Mr Evans said that Hull arrived there after leaving the Royal Scot pub in Morton, Carlisle, and met up with Porter. Hull can be seen on CCTV to pick up a glass, throw its contents out and walk towards Ryan Kirkpatrick, following which there is a short fight, which takes place off the CCTV camera footage, said the barrister. Hull and Porter then left the area in a blue Volvo S40, the court heard. Tragically, said Mr Evans, that incident was not the end of it. He continued: About 15 minutes later, what the Crown say is plainly the Volvo comes back and two men get out. Both are wearing dark clothing and some items are identical to those worn by Hull and Porter just 15 minutes earlier. But both this time have their faces covered. The first male who the Crown say you can be sure is Kane Hull is carrying a knife, clearly visible on the CCTV. Kane Hull runs directly up to Ryan Kirkpatrick and stabs him multiple times. The two men then fled, leaving in the blue Volvo, said Mr Evans. Despite the best efforts of his friends and then the police and paramedics, Ryan Kirkpatrick died of his injuries at 9.22pm. Later that evening, said Mr Evans, the blue Volvo which was used by the men was found burning in the Burgh area. Before Ryan Kirkpatrick had even been pronounced dead, [the defendants] car was ablaze and no clothing of the sort worn on the night has ever been recovered, said Mr Evans. Hull, of no fixed address, and Porter, of Fulmar Place, Carlisle, both also deny an alternative allegation of manslaughter. The trial continues. Patrick Lawlor was sentenced to seven years while Ross Hanway was given four George 'The Penguin' Mitchell and two men, Ross Hanway and Patrick Lawlor, jailed this week A man who was the main money launderer for international drugs baron George The Penguin Mitchell and was jailed for seven years this week is the focus of an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab). Patrick Lawlor (56) was jailed for seven years on Wednesday after he admitted possession of nearly 500,000 in cash, which was the proceeds of crime, at his home in north Dublin home on May 26, 2000. His close associate Ross Hanway (32) pleaded guilty to possessing 412,000 on the same date at his home in Ashbourne, Co Meath. Lawlor is also a target of Cab, which seized a top-of-the range car and froze money in bank accounts connected to that investigation in May last year. Hanway and Lawlor were arrested following a lengthy garda surveillance operation into the long-running operations of Mitchells gang. Mitchell (71), who is based in Germany, is one of Irelands most notorious drug traffickers. From Ballyfermot, he is believed to have become a millionaire due to his involvement in drug trafficking from the early 1990s to the present. Ross Hanway He has connections with the Kinahan cartel and also had links to Gerry The Monk Hutch. After the Regency Hotel bloodbath in February 2016, it is understood he made it clear to both factions he did not want to be dragged in to their feud, which has claimed 18 lives to date. Mitchell is believed to have moved between Holland, Germany and Spain for a number of years, and is suspected of having organised huge shipments of drugs including heroin and cannabis into Ireland and other countries. At the sentencing hearing at Dublin Circuit Court on Wednesday, evidence was given that Hanway and Lawlor had been laundering money for a gang that had an income of nearly 12m in 2019. Patrick Lawlor While Mitchell was not mentioned by name during the proceedings, it was previously confirmed the Cab operation was targeting his organisation. Details of how the gang operate were revealed in court. Lawlor received monthly cash payments of 5,000 from the transnational organisation while Hanway was initially paid 1,250, which rose to 4,000 by 2019. Lawlor, who worked as a labourer, was recruited by Mitchell because he was regarded as an unknown with no previous convictions. With Lawlor pleading guilty to possession of an encrypted mobile phone, previous evidence from Detective Garda Ronan Doolan revealed that the gang, which has operations in and outside the State, spent more than 98,000 on encrypted mobile devices during 2019. George Mitchell Kevin Mc Nulty When Hanway and Lawlor were arrested in Hanways taxi, both had Android mobile phones and dual-partition encrypted phones. Det Gda Doolan said the encrypted phones are used by criminals to communicate with each other. He added that such phones have a dummy screen that looks like an ordinary phone, until the user opens a certain app the calculator, for example and a different screen loads once a code is entered. Mitchells organisation is one of the longest-established drug-trafficking networks in the history of the State. In the 1980s he had links to major criminals including John Gilligan and murdered gang boss Martin The General Cahill. Mitchell, who fled Ireland because of the garda crackdown on gangland figures following the murder of Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996, has never been targeted in a shooting. He arrived first in Amsterdam where he had built up relationships with Dutch drug suppliers. Mitchell became notorious in Irelands criminal under- world after setting up a massive ecstasy processing plant here nearly 30 years ago. Around that time, he was arrested by English police near Luton and found to be in possession of 575,000 in cash, which was a down payment for a shipment of drugs. The money was seized, but Mitchell was released without charge and has never served any serious prison sentence. In August, he failed to attend the funeral of his sister, Margaret, in Ballyfermot. He was also a no-show at the funeral of his brother and close criminal associate, Paddy, in 2020. Sources said he did not attend because he feared attention from gardai and the media. Despite his wealth, Mitchell lives a low-key existence while moving regularly around Europe. The jury heard how Mongan made threats to the assistant governor that he would be killed with the defendant. A Belfast man who threatened and tried to intimidate a prison assistant governor was given a 30 month prison sentence today. Following a two day trial at Craigavon Crown Court last week where he defended himself without a lawyer, 35-year-old Martin Mongan was convicted by a jury of attempting to intimidate the assistant governor from his home on 19 April 2019. Reviewing the case today, Judge Patrick Lynch KC offered Mongan the opportunity to have a pre-sentence report from probation but he declined and told the judge I just want it dealt with as that meant he could start the appeal process. The jury heard how Mongan made threats to the assistant governor that he would be killed with the defendant making clear that he knew where the ass. gov. lived. Martin Mongan Bizarrely, the jury also heard how Mongan had even written a letter to his victim alleging that he had information that the governor was in his attic and masturbating while he was having sex with his wife. Giving evidence at the trial, the assistant governor said the threats were part of a continuing saga between himself and the defendant but that knowing Mongans previous offences and record for violencehe had to undertake extra security measures to protect himself and his family. Jailing Mangan today Judge Lynch ordered the sentence to be served half in custody and half on licence. He had previously grabbed womens bottoms and touched their breasts at bus stops, in church grounds and on a main road on dates in 2004 and 2005. A SERIAL sex offender groped a young woman on her breast and started to perform a sex act on himself as they were standing at a bus stop, a court has heard. James Sweeney (53) and the woman both then got on to a Dublin Bus, and he was identified from CCTV footage on the bus. Before he sexually assaulted her, Sweeney had asked the woman if she would like to go for a coffee. Judge Dermot Dempsey convicted and sentenced Sweeney to eight months in prison. Swords District Court heard Sweeney had seven previous convictions for similar offences. He had previously grabbed womens bottoms and touched their breasts at bus stops, in church grounds and on a main road on dates in 2004 and 2005. The defendant, of Blackberry Rise in Portmarnock, admitted sexually assaulting the woman in Portmarnock on July 13, 2021. Garda Ciaran Sally said the 27-year-old victim and the defendant were standing at a bus stop when Sweeney, who was unknown to her, asked her to go for a cup of coffee. She refused and tried not to interact with him, but Sweeney started to touch himself and masturbate. Gda Sally said Sweeney then lunged toward the woman and groped her breast. Both parties got on to a Dublin Bus, with Sweeney getting off the bus in Baldoyle, and the woman heading further into town. Gda Sally said Sweeney was identified as the culprit through CCTV footage on the bus. Defence solicitor Bernard Stobie said Sweeney, who was on disability allowance, had been suffering from panic attacks about what the court might do in this matter and he realised he was in trouble. The solicitor said Sweeney was the main carer for his elderly mother, who was not well. He also had mental health difficulties. Mr Stobie asked the judge to consider imposing a suspended sentence. Judge Dempsey refused, saying that ship has sailed, adding that Sweeney had previously benefited from working with the probation services. Imposing an eight-month sentence, Judge Dempsey recommended that Sweeney receive any mental health treatment required while he was in custody. The operation followed the arrest of Morrissey, identified by US authorities in April as a key aide of the Kinahan Organised Crime Gang Spanish cops have revealed how they have taken down Europes biggest Hawala narco bank following the arrest of Kinahan bag man Johnny Morrissey in Spain. The money-launders, based in Southern Spain, are believed to have washed more than 300 million in drug money every year and were converting crime funds into cyrptocurrencies. In a statement today, Spanish police said more than 200 law enforcement officers raided a total of 21 locations in the Spanish provinces of Malaga and Toledo on September 27. The operation resulted in 32 arrests and the seizure of almost 3 million of criminal assets. Spanish authorities were backed up by Europol and Eurojust, the Spanish National Police (Policia Nacional) and Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) during the investigation. As well as 428,205 in cash, 19 cryptocurrency accounts worth 1.5 million were also seized alongside 11 luxury vehicles, 70 kilos of hashish, 1.2 tonnes of marijuana and a plantation with 995 marijuana plants The operation followed the arrest of Morrissey, just two weeks previous to the raids, who was also using the Hawala system to launder cash. Johnny Morrissey is arrested in Spain Veteran criminal Morrissey was identified by US authorities in April as a key aide of the Kinahan Organised Crime Gang, and was held on suspicion of money laundering after being arrested at his Costa del Sol home. His wife, the CEO of a Glasgow-based vodka firm called Nero Drinks police are saying was used as a front, was also held although she was released after a court appearance. According to Europol, the criminal network running the narco bank busted in the wake of Morrisseys arrest, was composed mainly of Syrian nationals. They provided financial services to criminal organisations linked to drug trafficking in more than 20 countries, Europol stated. Active since 2020, this criminal gang is believed to have laundered over 300 million per year, they added in a statement. These seizures follow that of 2.9 million in cash made over the course of the investigation. Organised crime groups could make payments, receive funds and even have their proceeds laundered by this internationally structured financial network. According to Europol, the Spanish city of Fuenlabrada appeared to be the centre of the underground bank. The criminals ran their money laundering activities from a local restaurant where their customers would come to deposit or collect bulk cash. The hawala informal money transfer system was the main money laundering typology used to avoid law enforcement detection. Essentially, Hawala is an informal funds transfer system that allows for funds to be moved through intermediaries known as hawaladars, without the money itself ever moving across jurisdictions. A hawaladar in one country can take receipt of the funds before contacting a hawaladar in another country who will pay out the equivalent sum in cash or goods but the money itself does not have to cross borders. No documentation is kept or recorded and the system works on trust between the hawaladars making it the almost perfect system for terrorists and narcotics traffickers. We recently revealed how the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) cracked the untraceable money transfer system used by Morrissey to launder 200 million in drug cash seven years ago. Under Project Cassandra, the DEA began investigating the Hawala money transfer system in Europe in 2015 after it established that Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror organisation, was using it to facilitate the movement of large quantities of cocaine into Europe and the United States. Under the same operation, the DEA said it had identified participants in the intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East. Following Morrisseys arrest, at which DEA officers were present, a spokesperson for Spains Guardia Civil was able to give an overall estimate of 200 million as the sum he laundered through the system in just 18 months or 350,000 a day. It is not thought all this money was laundered on behalf of the cartel as Morrissey is also believed to have had contact with other criminal organisations. Following his arrest, Morrissey now faces the possibility of being extradited to the US to face charges. Money laundering penalties in the US can be extremely harsh. In Morrisseys case this means he is likely to be charged over his activities facilitating international drug shipments and his enforcement activities. These crimes could see him sentenced to life imprisonment. Unless, of course, he agrees to turn on his associates. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. On October 14, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan met with the members of the EU Technical Assessment Mission. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the office of the Security Council, Armen Grigoryan welcomed the visit of the members of the EU Technical Assessment Mission to Armenia and reaffirmed Yerevan's readiness to support the mission in all matters. Grigoryan also highlighted the mission's role as an additional security guarantee in the region. The parties discussed a number of issues related to the scope of the mission's functions. Hugh Kelly has been described as a cheery man and a gentleman. Family and mourners arrive at St Michaels Church in Creeslough, Co Donegal for Martina Martins funeral. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire PA Hugh Kelly, 59, one of the ten victims of the explosion at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday. Picture date: Sunday October 9, 2022. PA Mr Kelly (59) was the oldest person to die in tragedy, which struck the Donegal town last Friday afternoon. His funeral will take place at 11am this morning, in St Michaels Church, Creeslough, followed by a burial in Doe Cemetery. Hugh Kelly has been described as a cheery man and a gentleman. The popular local worked in construction and farming. "Deeply regretted and sadly missed by his partner Linda, her daughter Mary and grandchild, Rosey, his sisters Agnes Gallagher and Tessie Friel and brother Frank and all his family and friends. Predeceased by his parents, Josie and Sally and sister Susan Gallagher, the funeral notice reads. Mr Kellys funeral is the eighth to take place this week, in the wake of the devastating explosion which claimed 10 lives. Yesterday, the funerals of Martina Martin (49) and Leona Harper (14) were held. Speaking at Ms Martins funeral, Creeslough parish priest, Father John Joe Duffy, said she was a big part of the local community and a natural, beautiful, lovely person. Tina was one of those naturally friendly people that once you met her in life, she became your friend, said Father Duffy. Meanwhile, teenage sport enthusiast Leona Harpers older brother Anthony told mourners about how his parents were told they would not be able to have any more children. But seven years later, something unexpected happened. Leona arrived, hence the little miracle, he said. Family and mourners arrive at St Michaels Church in Creeslough, Co Donegal for Martina Martins funeral. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire PA You, her mum and dad, talk of your daughter as a gem. It is often a line we use about somebody we love, but given how unexpected and welcome Leona was, your daughter was indeed a precious gem. Think of gems. Gems shine, gems sparkle, gems attract. Leona shone brightly and beautifully throughout her short life. She sparkled with energy and fun and attracted so many friends to her circle. The funeral details have been announced for father and daughter Robert Garwe (50) and Shauna Flanagan Garwe (5), who also died in the tragedy. A joint funeral mass will be held for them tomorrow morning at 11am, in St Michaels Church, Creeslough, followed by a private cremation. "Deeply missed by a heartbroken Aine, Taona, Gabriel, Darren, Tessa, Alex, Conrad and their extended families and many friends, the funeral notice reads. It is understood that Mr Garwe and Shauna had gone to the petrol station to buy a birthday cake for Shaunas mother Aine, at the time of the explosion. Shauna was the tragedys youngest victim. The primary school pupil has been described as a delightful and energetic little girl who loved to ask for a lollipop when visiting the local pharmacy with her parents. Her uncle described her as a great little character, adding that everyone loved her. Creeslough parish priest, Father John Joe Duffy said the whole community has been strengthened by the support from people across Ireland and further afield. I think we have been able to give strength to our community through the strength we have got from prayers around the world, the vigils and so on. Strength has permeated from those vigils, from the rosaries, masses, the messages of support from people all over this country; from people beyond this country, he said. Speaking on RTEs Morning Ireland, Fr Duffy said he was heartened to hear messages from the Englands King Charles and UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, and he knows Pope Francis is keeping us very much in his prayers. The cleric has been the chief celebrant at several funeral masses for the victims this week and he will once again lead the prayers at Hugh Kellys mass this morning. President Higgins has been present at a number of the funerals and Fr Duffy described Mr Higgins as a strength, a rock among us here. The reality of it is, that we and the people of this community saw things or experienced things that nobody should ever have to experience in any community, he said. While the body is fragile and weak, the human mind is even more fragile and what we need to go forward is we need that continued prayer, that continued practical support, we need lots of support going forward. The support we have been getting, we need that support going forward. He added: I am taking the offer of counselling. The local doctor and health centre and others here have been urging me to do so, as have been my bishop and so many others including I was just talking with the President yesterday and he emphasised how important our counselling support is. Not that we need anyone to emphasise it, but everyone was doing it out of goodness and thank them for it. And I encourage everyone who experienced this tragedy to avail of support because this is an area where we are also surrounded by sea and on the shore, we see rocks and we see sand and we are certainly not rocks, we are at the sand. We need all the help we can get. The 5-year-old was tragically killed in the shock explosion in the Donegal village wrapped in her daddys embrace. Tributes have been paid to the youngest victim of the Creeslough tragedy and her father ahead of their funeral this Saturday, a week on from the devastating explosion. Shauna Flanagan Garwe was just five-years-old when she passed away in the accident that has shocked the country. She died wrapped in her daddys embrace her uncle said. Shauna and her father Robert (50) had popped into the shop when a suspected gas leak sparked a blast that took 10 victims. The father and daughter will be deeply missed by a heartbroken Aine, Taona, Gabriel, Darren, Tessa, Alex, Conrad and their extended families and many friends, family have shared. Since their deaths last week, heart breaking tributes have poured in from the small Donegal village and beyond. "I cannot even begin to imagine the pain, one writes. One family posts that it is clear from the photo that they loved each other so much. "I hope Aine (and everyone close to Shauna and Robert) will someday be comforted by the memories you have made as a family together. One mother writes to Shaunas mum. "From one mum to another I am so truly sorry for your loss. Please know that every mum I know is thinking of you and sending you strength and love for the days and months ahead. Unconditional love in that photo, another poster says, sharing their sympathies. Hundreds of tributes have been paid to the father and his little girl, with one mourner posting a short poem to express their condolences something many say is hard to find the words to do: "Those we love dont go away, They walk beside us everyday, Unseen, unheard but always near, Still loved, still missed and very dear. Their funeral is set to take place this Saturday at 11am in St Michaels Church, Creeslough. Speaking to UTV, Shaunas uncle Killian Flanagan shared heart breaking details about the passing of his young niece and her dad. "The emergency services told us that Shauna and Robert were found with Robert's arms around Shauna," he said. "She was wrapped in her daddy's care, in her daddy's embrace, and please God that that still remains, and he's keeping her safe wherever they are." Shauna had just started school while her dad Robert, originally from Zimbabwe, worked in construction. "Everybody knew Shauna and everybody loved Shauna, she was out and about with her dad all the time, they loved each other's company," Killian continued. "Shauna started school a few weeks ago, five years of age, most charming and beautiful girl. "You can picture the most mischievous, most lovable five-year-old, think of that and multiply it by two - that was Shauna." In the aftermath of the tragedy, people across the country paid their respects to all ten victims of the devastating events in the small Donegal village. The other eight victims were James O'Flaherty (48); Leona Harper (14); Catherine O'Donnell (39) and her son James Monaghan (13); Hugh Kelly (59); Jessica Gallagher (24); Martin McGill (49); and Martina Martin (49). Gardai continue to investigate the cause of the blast and tragic accident that took their lives last Friday. Antoin Duffy was jailed seven years ago for hatching a plot to murder former loyalist paramilitary leaders Adair and Sam Skelly McCrory. Paintings by a jailed republican gunman who plotted to assassinate ex-UDA chief Johnny Mad Dog Adair went on sale in a public auction this week. Expensive art works by Donegal man Antoin Duffy include a stunning psychedelic painting of American guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, as well as a series of local landscapes of Donegals famous Errigal Mountain. And it seems the artists terrorist past isnt putting off interest dealers and private buyers have been advised to attend early, as several of the paintings were expected to reach premium prices. But artist Duffy didnt appear in person at the exhibition at the Caislean Oir Hotel in the Gaeltacht village of Annagry because hes still languishing behind bars in Scotland where he is serving a sentence for conspiracy to kill. Duffy was jailed seven years ago for hatching a plot to murder former loyalist paramilitary leaders Adair and Sam Skelly McCrory. Johnny Mad Dog Adair Duffy and his team were snared in a major MI5 sting operation in Scotland, after the Donegal man attempted to purchase an AK-47 assault rifle. In 2015, Duffy was sent down for 17 years when he was jailed alongside other members of the would-be republican gun gang. Duffy is also wanted in connection with the murder of IRA spy Denis Donaldson. Donaldson was killed in a shotgun attack at his secret Donegal hideaway in 2006. Earlier this year, the Sunday World revealed that gardai in Donegal plan to extradite Duffy back to Donegal in connection with Donaldsons death. Anton Duffy's painting Donaldson had been a previously trusted member of the Gerry Adams leadership team and headed Sinn Fein administration at Stormont. He dramatically outed himself as a British spy and fled without trace. But less than three weeks after the Sunday World tracked him down to a remote cottage near Glenties in Co Donegal, he was shot dead. Three years later, a spokesman for the Real IRA claimed the killing. Its understood that gardai believe Duffy could have been that gunman. Duffys plot to assassinate Mad Dog Adair was hatched when the Donegal man was in a Scottish prison, having been jailed for having a gun in a nightclub in Glasgow during a fight. And it was while serving time in HMP Castle Huntly, near Dundee, that Duffy hatched a plot to murder Adair and his right-hand man McCrory. He had spotted the two loyalists visiting a friend from Northern Ireland. Duffy knew the prisoner had a young son who was ill and he asked him for his photograph so as he could paint the boys portrait. Antoin Duffy He used the connection to glean information about Adair and McCrory. And on his release, he hatched a plot to murder them. Duffy planned to shoot Skelly through the side of the head as he walked along a country lane near his home in Ayr. The Skelly killing was to be followed up by shooting Adair with an AK-47 a short time later. But because Duffy couldnt keep his mouth shut, the blueprint for murder soon came to the attention of MI5 and Duffy was arrested by armed police at Buchanan Street Bus Station in Glasgow. A jury found him guilty of conspiracy to murder and he was handed a 17-year prison sentence. Earlier this year at a court in Donegal, a senior garda officer told a judge that he hoped to press charges relating to the murder of Donaldson, following the release of a man from prison in another jurisdiction. Yesterday, artist Morag McCafferty a well-known artist from Rannafast in Donegal who helped organise this weeks exhibition said she was expecting a large turnout. His painting of Jimi Hendrix is truly excellent. It is 3x2-inch in size and his painting of Mount Errigal is 6x4. It would be suitable for a big wall or a hotel lobby. Duffy's landscape painting But I have no idea how much Antoins paintings will sell for. There has been a great interest in the whole exhibition. But the paintings will be sold on a first come first served basis, so my advice is to get here as early as possible, she said. Instead of switching on the lights in the house, officers used torches while rummaging around the master bedroom where Fox kept the controls for his extensive CCTV system. Police and paramedics at the scene of a shooting incident at the Donegal Celtic FC in west Belfast Plain clothes cops swooped on the home of murder victim Sean Fox in a shock late-night raid on the suspected drug dealers CCTV Plain-clothes cops swooped on the home of murder victim Sean Fox in a shock late-night raid on the slain drug dealers CCTV, the Sunday World can reveal. But given the clandestine nature of their operation, fearful residents mistook them for gangsters. Instead of switching on the lights in the house, officers used torches while rummaging around the master bedroom where Fox kept the controls for his extensive CCTV system. The Lisburn property was well guarded by cameras, which is not surprising given the fact 42-year-old Sean Fox had been repeatedly warned he was a dead-man-walking. Ever since murder victim and previous occupant Jim Donegan moved in, residents have had to put up with a steady stream of gangsters arriving and they say that continued when Fox took over the property in November 2019. The Sunday World visited the area last week and met a number of residents who agreed to speak to us anonymously. They explained how uniformed officers had conducted door-to-door inquiries on Monday and asked for information and if they had CCTV. But it was the late-night swoop on Foxs home that caused some concern. Two unmarked cars arrived at 9 Ayrshire Crescent at 10.30pm last Monday around 32 hours after Fox was executed in a west Belfast social club to retrieve CCTV footage from the house, presumably in the hope it might throw up a lead as to who carried out the Sunday lunchtime murder. Plain clothes cops swooped on the home of murder victim Sean Fox in a shock late-night raid on the suspected drug dealers CCTV But the cops behaviour has just added to unease of residents. One plain-clothes officer stood guard on the drive while another used ladders to work on the camera above the front door, according to an eye-witness, who says they eventually turned on the lights in the hallway. We saw these two cars loads of people arrive at the house late at night, said one witness. We thought they were more gangsters weve had plenty of them coming round over the years. They didnt look like police. Nobody was in uniform and they went into the house but didnt turn the lights on. Instead they went upstairs and were using torches, which was weird. Im relieved to hear they were police but I think they could have handled it all a bit better. They didnt have any officers in uniform and they looked really shifty using torches instead of the lights. They will know the people in this street have had a lot to put up with over the years. There has been a steady stream of dodgy people in and out of that house. The police should have come round during the day and they should have been more visible as cops to help reassure the local residents. People are genuinely scared now that a second person who lived in that house has been murdered and they just want to live a quiet life without all this going on. The PSNI refused to put on record that they had specifically entered the home of Sean Fox last Monday night but rather said they were in the Ayrshire area. Police and paramedics at the scene of a shooting incident at the Donegal Celtic FC in west Belfast In a short statement they told us: As part of the investigation into the murder of Sean Fox, officers were in attendance in the Ayrshire area of Lisburn on Monday night, 3 October. Neighbours in Ayrshire Crescent have dubbed the property as The Murder House now that the two previous occupants have both been murdered, apparently by the same gunman. And they are holding their breath to see and dreading to see who moves in next. Ayrshire Crescent is where Sean Foxs right-hand man Jim JD Donegan had lived with his wife Laura and kids. He was gunned down in December 2018 in front of his kids as he collected them from school on the Glen Road. As the house was not in Donegans name or his wifes, she moved out a year later and fled to Spain. Sources say that within weeks Fox had moved in with his wife and two children. They too appear now to have left the house. Family members were escorted to the property to collect belongings during the week and Foxs son was spotted on Thursday night packing up the boot of the familys Range Rover. I remember when the police were called in November 2019 because it looked like someone was breaking into the house but in fact it was Sean Fox moving in, said another resident. We dont know whats coming next. Its a genuine concern for people living here. Daniel McKenna has more than 120,000 followers on two Instagram pages, one of which posted high-energy workouts. A Peloton instructor known as the Irish Yank has sued the company after an executive allegedly disparaged his ethnicity and ridiculed him for seeking a Covid-19 vaccination exemption. In a complaint filed in Manhattan civil court, Daniel McKenna also alleges Chief Content Officer Jennifer Cotter said he could be fired for taking short-term disability leave after a work-related injury and surgery. The leave was at odds with the culture of corporate America, the suit alleges Cotter said. The fitness equipment company did not respond to a request for comment from US media. McKenna was invited to audition for the company after building a following as a personal fitness instructor, the suit says. McKenna has more than 120,000 followers on two Instagram pages, one of which posted high-energy workouts. He experienced an 80% growth in followers and highest percentage growth of any Peloton instructor, the suit claims. According to the complaint, McKenna underwent an unexpected surgery in October 2021, and he didn't want to get the COVID-19 vaccine for fear it could impede his recovery. Cotter is alleged to have made disparaging remarks toward McKenna about wanting a medical exemption, the lawsuit said, and McKenna eventually got the vaccine out of fear of losing his job. Cotter also allegedly used Irish stereotypes toward McKenna, including asking him if he was drunk on the job and pointing out his accent, telling him, "Nobody understands what you are saying, Daniel," the lawsuit said. "That's Daniel our Irish instructor, he's rough around the edges and hard to understand but the members love him," she told the CEO, according to the suit. When McKenna asked Cotter to stop the comments in a phone call, she "unapologetically stated that she was mostly joking," the suit claims. In spring 2022, McKenna experienced sharp and debilitating pain in his pectorals. He underwent immediate surgery, and his doctors told him recovery would take six months. By May, McKenna was feeling better and told Cotter and his bosses that he could return to work on July 1. Before he returned to work, Cotter met with McKenna and told him that he should be fired for taking short-term disability and that he was on "thin ice," according to the lawsuit. On Sept. 12, Peloton fired McKenna "for cause," but according to the lawsuit, McKenna had not received any written notices regarding his behaviour or misconduct that violated any Peloton employment agreements. During the meeting in which he was fired, McKenna was not provided with any reasoning for his termination, the lawsuit said. The suit claims unlawful retaliation, breach of contract and disability and national origin discrimination. He's now seeking damages for the harm to his career, as well as mental and emotional distress. McKenna is seeking $300,000 in compensatory damages, $1 million in punitive damages and $500,000 in salary, interest and benefits, according to the suit. "Sometimes Im just like 'ugh, not again. So I did it. I unfollowed Britney. I had to do it. It was time. Vogue Williams has urged pop star Britney Spears to take her nude posts to OnlyFans. In a chat with Joanne McNally on a new episode of their podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me, the Irish influencer revealed she did a big thing recently and unfollowed Britney Spears on Instagram. "Im not being mean, okay? she first clarified. I just don't want peoples naked bodies in my face. "Sometimes Im just like 'ugh, not again. So I did it. I unfollowed Britney. I had to do it. It was time. The news was met with a gasp from co-host and comedian Joanne McNally. "Lads, we all need to tread very carefully around poor Britney, she told Vogue and their listeners. "I love Britney, right, Vogue replied. I loved her dancing, what she used to do. I dont love having to see nearly nakedness. "I do feel sorry for her kids as well because her kids were pissed off about the naked sh*t. And then when people say theyre pissed off about the naked sh*t she keeps, like, pushing more on it. "Go to OnlyFans. Go to OnlyFans, Joanne disagreed with Vogue, saying she doesnt see Britneys Instagram posts as OnlyFans worthy because she uses emojis to cover up and put little flowers over her nips. Vogue reels at Joannes defence, saying the emojis are little use and Britneys body parts are still on show to see. "Ah, you can't now. You cant, Joanne said. "I think the vibe with her, right, as we know, is that shes been silenced. She feels like shes had her voice taken away from her and now shes just screaming from the rooftops. "She wants to express herself and part of that is nakedness. Britney Spears Getty Images Vogue insisted Britneys old music videos like Slave 4 U are different to what the star is currently posting but also admitted that shes not one to talk. The model described the photos she used to take on the beach and post on her own social media like an absolute loser, she said. But I had a bikini on. Britney came under social media fire last week when she posted a selection of nude photos taken on a Hawaiian beach on her Instagram, with three heart emojis to cover up. Her teenage sons said in an interview with ITV that they werent on board with how their mom was using her social media. "Its almost as if she has to post something to get attention, one said. This has gone on for years and years and years and this actually may never stop. The Toxic superstar was released from a decades long conservatorship this year, regaining control over her image, finances and career after a long legal battle with her family. Engineers are moving forward with plans to manufacture a new base isolation system that will make Kiwi houses safer in an earthquake. A prototype of the system was tested last year by a University of Canterbury team led by Civil and Natural Resources Engineering Professor Tim Sullivan and postdoctoral fellow Tom Francis. It showed very promising results and with the encouragement of University of Canterbury Research and Innovation staff, the project team has now won funding from KiwiNets Emerging Innovator Programme. The programme supports scientists to develop their innovations through a business-lens and take them into the world where they can make a difference. KiwiNet has also provided $40,000 in Tier 1 PreSeed Funding. Dr Francis is using the Emerging Innovator funding to work on commercialisation of the base isolation system over the next six months, as well as designing a second prototype. He says next year they plan to set up a company with the goal of supplying the devices to housing developers and overseeing their construction. He would take up a role as managing director of the new company. Im quite driven to do this commercialisation work and starting a company would be really rewarding. Its not something that I was expecting at the start of my research, but Ive discovered that its my interest as time has gone on. The Emerging Innovator Programme also provides him with a mentor, experienced engineer John Cunningham, Executive Director at Ignition Partner Ltd, who is helping him work on the commercialisation process. Im developing another prototype - were calling it a phase two system - which will have even more cost-effective construction than our original design, says Dr Francis. Were planning on talking to housing developers because we think the system will be a good selling point for new houses, making them safer for people to live in. He is excited about bringing the new system to market. I was optimistic about completing a PhD that would have potential real-world benefits and after working with future stakeholders in this system, I feel positive this product will be able to be implemented. The testing we did of the original system using a shake table in the Structural Engineering Laboratory went even better than we expected and showed that the device weve created does help prevent damage to residential houses in a large earthquake. The base isolation system is designed to help homeowners avoid costly repairs and stressful insurance claims in the event of a major earthquake. Testing showed that it limits building deformation, preventing damage to walls and cladding, and keeps floor and roof accelerations low which helps to protect building contents. Last year, a mock-up room with gib lined walls was positioned on top of the newly-developed steel base isolation units, with the University of Canterburys shake table underneath. The table one of the largest in New Zealand recreated ground movements recorded at various locations during the damaging Canterbury earthquakes as well as other strong earthquakes and a simulated Alpine Fault quake. Results showed the base isolation units were effective and would have withstood the 2010-2011 Canterbury quakes and 2016 Kaikoura earthquakes (7.1 and 7.8 magnitude respectively), as well as an Alpine Fault scenario, without the room needing any repairs. Professor Sullivan and Dr Francis goal is to keep the seismic system as low-cost as possible so it can be widely adopted by homeowners around the country, making their houses significantly safer. We think what weve come up with will prevent damage, and it doesnt cost an arm and a leg. It also promises to reduce the disruption caused by a major quake, helping communities recover more quickly, says Professor Sullivan. Base isolation systems, developed to prevent or minimise damage during an earthquake, are primarily used in commercial or civic buildings in New Zealand because they are usually expensive and require specialised engineering. The aim with the new residential system is to keep the total cost of manufacturing and installing the base isolation system to less than 5% of the total construction cost for a house. Professor Sullivan says houses in New Zealand currently perform well in terms of saving peoples lives, but there is room for improvement in terms of preventing damage to the structure and its contents. Research has shown that the most upsetting thing for a lot of people wasnt the earthquake itself, it was dealing with insurance claims, the potential loss of value for their houses, and the damage to their belongings. If we can avoid that, then I think there will be psycho-social benefits. The main hurdle to overcome during the design stage for the innovative system was balancing the need for a house to be stable in high winds but also able to flex and absorb shock from an earthquake. The system is created by installing several steel base isolation units under the concrete foundation of a house, which work in a similar way to traditional piles. The concrete slab includes steel plates that float and slide on small round discs in the units, called pucks, allowing the house to move around in a quake and absorb the displacements and accelerations imposed by ground shaking. The system is compatible with common building techniques for New Zealand houses and can be used under steel and timber-framed buildings or other typical structures. Its designed to be sustainable and easy to repair after an earthquake. Tomorrow is an exciting moment for Tauranga Moana and local business, as the first cruise ship will dock up at our port after two-and-a-half years. At 5.30am on Saturday, October 15, the Majestic Princess cruise ship will arrive at the Port of Tauranga, carrying more than 3500 passengers. After borders closed in 2020, the cruises arrival is even more special as its the first cruise to arrive in all of New Zealand for the summer. Tourism Bay of Plenty general manager Oscar Nathan thinks its a privilege that our region will be the first host of summer cruise guests. After a pause in cruise ships coming into our waters due to Covid-19, to see tourism pick up again in the Bay of Plenty is a significant milestone for everyone involved in the tourism and cruise industries locally and nationally, says Nathan. He adds that the buzz that cruise guest bring will make the Bay of Plenty more vibrant for everyone. With approximately 171,000 cruise ship manuhiri (visitors) and almost 73,000 crew members expected for the 2022/23 season, more people will be shopping, dining, and adventuring in the Bay of Plenty, which will be fantastic to see. In total, there will be 103 cruise ships that will dock at the Port of Tauranga this cruise season, with the last full summer cruise season contributing $89m to our local economy. Members of Mount Maunganui Business Association Destination are eager to see the cruises return and excited to see how this season will turn out, says marketing manager Claudia West. With the changes that Covid cause for business, Claudia says they are keen to see how the make-up of cruise guests will spend their time while here. Regardless of what they choose to do, there is so much on offer from experiencing the delights of the coastal Bay of Plenty, wandering the Mount Mainstreet shops and cafes, learning to surf at the main beach, or stand up paddle boarding at Pilot Bay we want to provide tourists a taste of our slice of paradise. In celebration of cruise ships return, locals are encouraged to farewell the Majestic Princess from spots around Pilot Bay and Mauao when it leaves port at 5.30pm on Saturday, October 15. Young journalists from Mount Maunganui Primary school will share what they think we should be seeing more of in the news in the show New News News. Held this Saturday, the show is part of Tauranga readers and writers arts festival, Escape, and has been created by UK theatre makers Andy Field and Beckie Darlington, in collaboration with New Zealands Rosabel Tan. The show gives children the chance to talk about community issues that matter to them, and tell the news through their eyes. Normally its adults that get the chance to do that so we thought itd be really interesting for young people to set the agenda for this big conversation, says Andy. During their school holiday time, the 12 Mount Maunganui Primary School students have been reporting in Tauranga and rehearsing to put the show together. Over the last week, the children have been making essentially three mini news stories. The three story topics that emerged and will be covered in the show is bullying, the beach and the future. The kids wanted to do stories that were more about ordinary people, stories about small things, some happy stories as well as the sad stories and some stories about the future. One of the interviews the children did was with commission chair Anne Tolley who said soon Tauranga is potentially going to become the fourth biggest city in Aotearoa. The show will be an amalgamation of live theatre and the pre-recorded news interviews for a one of a kind show experience. The first part of the show is like a behind the scenes at the news agency, says Andy, who adds that the stage will be turned into a child sized news studio. The audience watch as the children run around and get the last news stories that they need for their news program. Its genuinely very funny giving the news over to these 10 year olds and their wild sense of humour. Its also a really interesting way of getting a different perspective on the city so hopefully its the kind of show that has a little bit of something for everyone. The purpose of the show is to bring a place together and in this case to think about the city of Tauranga to listen to what these children have to tell them. Held on Saturday, October 15, at Baycourt Community and Arts Centre, the show starts at 6pm. To purchase tickets visit: www.taurangafestival.co.nz/event/escape-2022-401 Widespread reports of people not receiving their voting packs in time for the local government election have led Whakatane District Councillor Nandor Tanczos to call for a Parliamentary inquiry into what he describes as a shambles of an election. I heard multiple accounts of registered voters not receiving their voting papers in time for the election, says Tanczos. Some households received papers for a couple of people while others in the family missed out. Some people got their papers the day before close of voting, way too late to post their votes in. People who had updated their details online still had papers go to the wrong address. Tanczos says while he didnt think it will have made any difference to the Whakatane election outcome, there are some places in New Zealand where it might have tipped the balance. While he encourages people to phone Electoral Services to ask for voting forms, he feels many people would be put off. The thing is, why would you put obstacles in the way of people voting? A Facebook post by Tanczos after the election asking people to contact him if they had not received voting papers had 43 responses. About five of them, the papers arrived too late to post, the others said papers didnt arrive at all. Some people said no one in the household got their papers. In some households, one or more persons received their papers and the rest didnt. One woman said she had no problems for 44 years, then there were no papers this time. Someone updated their address online and papers still went to the wrong place. In at least one case papers were received after voting had closed. Outgoing Mayor Judy Turner agrees there needs to be changes to how local government elections are held after a poor voter turnout at this election. Im not saying it would have changed the outcome of the election, its not about that at all. Turner has written a letter to send to central government asking for a review of the election process. Ive spent about 40 hours door-knocking during my campaign. What hit me, considerably, was the number of people whose door I knocked on who still hadnt received their voting papers two weeks after everybody else had. There were even cases where a wife got them, but her husband hadnt got his. The other day I came across a woman who got two sets of papers, one at her new address and one at her previous address. Having door-knocked in a similar fashion at several local elections, Turner says this year the issue of people not receiving their forms was much more noticeable than usual. She says there's also a lack of engagement generally in the community especially in more remote areas. Parliament needs to take this extremely seriously, says Tanczos. Your right to vote shouldnt be dependent on random chance, whether the papers turned up or not. There needs to be a full examination as to why this was allowed to happen, and what will be done to make sure it is different next time. He also questions whether having private companies such as Elections NZ and Electoral Services running the local government elections is appropriate. Unlike parliamentary elections, which are run by independent Crown entity the Electoral Commission, the local government elections are the responsibility of individual councils who hire private companies to conduct them. Electoral Services managing director Dale Ofsoske says at each election there are always electors contacting them to say that they have not received their voting packs. Non-delivery could be one of a number of reasons, and that is why legislation has special votes available, says Ofsoske. The reasons vary but mainly fall into one of five categories - they moved house and did not change their address, they changed their address after the roll closed, they enrolled to vote after the roll closed, their name did not appear on the electoral roll (it may have been removed by the Electoral Commission in their recent roll update campaign - pack returned GNA) or their voting pack was undelivered by NZ Post. Ofsoske says this has occurred in several instances around the country and NZ Post has investigated. I think the number of non-delivery is slightly up from 2019 and I am putting this down to the population now being so transient and busy and simply not updating their details. Tanczos says it's time New Zealand looks at the way local government elections are run. Postal voting is a challenge for many people as it is, with a lack of post boxes and an unreliable service, especially in rural areas. For people to not even get their voting papers is completely unacceptable. Maybe postal voting has done its dash and we need to do local government elections differently. Turner feels the whole electoral process needs a rejig, but that it's unrealistic to pretend that online voting will be an option any time soon. I know that online voting is 10 years away, if ever, because of cybersecurity. Turner feels that the elections need to be conducted in a similar manner to parliamentary elections. I wonder if they just need an election day like central government, or an election weekend, where youve got a couple of days where you can register your vote. Then you can have some [voting booths] stationed around the district. Opotiki mayoral candidate Louis Rapihana is also in support of a government inquiry into the election. He had already made a complaint to Elections NZ about Opotiki District Council running short of special vote forms when it took a mobile ballot box to the Coast. From what I can gather there was about 30 people who were disadvantaged because of that. It wouldnt have made a difference to the results, but they still hadnt been given the opportunity to cast their votes. He says the response from Elections NZ has been that when distributing the special voting forms to councils they based the number of forms on how many were used at the last election. Both Tanczos and Turner commended the job Whakatane District Council staff did to make voting easier. Council staff in Whakatane did their best to take up the slack, with a drive-in voting booth on the day and staff at the service centres trained to assist with special voting, but NZ Post let the country down, says Tanczos. -Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. Artsakh does not oppose a dialogue with Azerbaijan, but says that the negotiation must take place within the frames of an internationally recognized platform, and that platform is the OSCE Minsk Group. October 14, 2022, 13:59 Stepanakert doesnt oppose dialogue with Baku, but says negotiations must take place within int'lly recognized platform STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: We have never opposed the Stepanakert-Baku dialogue, Foreign Minister of Artsakh Davit Babayan told reporters in Yerevan. Quite the contrary, when after 1996 Artsakh, in fact, was left out of a part of the negotiation process, we were always calling for resuming the full format. And now the restoration of this format has also remained on our agenda. But these negotiations must not take place out of internationally recognized platform. There is one internationally recognized platform the OSCE Minsk Group, he said, commenting on Yerevans statements that the discussions between Stepanakert and Baku are important. Babayan added that it is mentioned in a number of documents that Artsakh is a party to both the negotiations and the conflict. He said that Azerbaijan, however, says that it doesnt want and will not negotiate with Artsakh as a party. We say let the format be restored and lets negotiate. But if anyone thinks that the negotiations could be in the tone of some aboriginal tribe in person of Artsakh changing its mind and going to its mother country, Azerbaijan to ask forgiveness and ask to take it back to its composition, this is not going to happen, the FM said. Babayan said that they have told this also to the leadership of Armenia, who, of course, understands it. A commercial fishing company has been fined $12,500 and the skipper of its vessel ordered to do 40 hours community work, for fishing in a Marine Reserve. Pursuit Fishing Limited and Nathan Marc Thomas, 46, were sentenced in the Westport District Court on Thursday following a successful prosecution by the Ministry for Primary Industries. Both the company and Mr Thomas pleaded guilty to a charge each of commercially fishing in the Punakaiki Marine Reserve. "Trawling in marine protected areas is prohibited. We expect commercial fishers to know where they are fishing and to follow these rules closely," says MPI fisheries compliance regional manager Howard Reid. "Our digital monitoring of the commercial fleet, which tracks fishing vessels in near real time, detected this offending and should serve as a warning to all commercial fishers we will take action when protected areas are threatened." On April 14 this year, fishing vessel, the Marie Ann, skippered by Nathan Thomas went to sea from Westport to trawl for flat fish. By April 17, they dropped their trawl net about 1.8km north of the marine reserve. The crew headed south, entering the reserve, towing the net for the entire length of the reserve about 11km. Based on position reporting and information provided by Pursuit Fishing Limited, about 60 per cent of that four-hour trawl was through the Punakaiki Marine Reserve. Their catch was 38kg of Gurnard, along with a small amount of rig and sole. "Mr Thomas told MPI he knew he was fishing close to the marine reserve but thought he was outside the boundary and it seems this boundary was not marked on the vessels electronic plotter. "Our message is simple mistakes come at a cost and we make no apologies for upholding the rules to ensure the protection of important marine reserves and other areas closed to fishing." The Punakaiki Marine Reserve was established in 2014 and covers a total area of 3,520ha. This reserve extends along approximately 11km of the coastline near Paparoa National Park, between Perpendicular Point and Maher Swamp, and extends about 3.7km offshore. MPI encourages people to report suspected illegal activity through the ministry's 0800 4 POACHER number (0800 47 62 24). Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan said that Armenia expects broader involvement by Russia in regional processes. October 14, 2022, 15:01 Russia said they will become more active Speaker Simonyan on Moscow visit STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: All my meetings in Russia were with the purpose of presenting the situation and expecting a response. I mostly waited to understand whats happening in our region and whether Russia is perceiving whats happening correctly and is planning to take action. There was a conversation about Artsakh too, but in terms of the general regional context. Russia says they will be more active. We will see when, Simonyan told reporters. He said that his Russian colleagues are often focusing on why he has criticized them in his interviews. But I have the answers to what Ive said and I have presented my answers. We are waiting and expecting broader involvement by Russia in this process, Simonyan said. Speaking about Russian FM Lavrovs statement on the deployment of CSTO observers to the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Simonyan said Armenia doesnt oppose this. We have agreed to all formats of Russia, it is Azerbaijan which still hasnt signed the Russian peacekeeping mandate for example. Lets not forget this. And what is our Russian colleagues response in this case? 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. On October 14, the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan was held in Astana, the Armenian Foreign Ministry stated. October 14, 2022, 14:30 The meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan held in Astana STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: The sides discussed the implementation process of the agreements reached by the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020, January 11 and November 26, 2021, touched upon the work within the framework of the commissions on border delimitation and border security, as well as in the direction of unblocking economic communications and transport infrastructures in the region. During the meeting, they exchanged views on the development of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty and the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Ararat Mirzoyan emphasised the need for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, the immediate release of all Armenian prisoners of war and the unconditional observance of the ceasefire regime. The introduction of international mechanisms for monitoring and controlling the border situation was highlighted in terms of preventing new aggressions. Furetank signs agreement to sell two dual-fuel tankers to Neste Furetank Rederi AB sells two 17,999 dwt dual-fuel product tankers in the VINGA series to Neste in 2023 and replaces them with new-buildings. Furetank has signed an agreement to sell Fure Valo and Fure Ven to the Finnish company Neste, the worlds leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. The vessels will be delivered in October and December 2023, when the first of the seven new-buildings already ordered by Furetank and partners are scheduled to be delivered from the shipyard in Yangzhou. It is good news for us that we can continue to advance our environmental efforts and develop new vessels. We perceive it as a great acknowledgement that yet another big player in our market and an important customer of ours chooses to invest in our ships, because of the environmental benefits they bring through reduced emissions and less noise, says Lars Hoglund, CEO of Furetank. Since Furetank has a long-term contract for transporting renewable fuels for Neste, the company has had the chance to evaluate the VINGA sister vessels. They suit Nestes profile as the company aims to become a global leader in renewable and circular solutions. Fure Valo and Fure Ven are equipped with Wartsila engines, with dual-fuel capability to run on LNG/LBG. They are designed in collaboration with FKAB Marine Design with a battery hybrid solution and several innovative features that reduce fuel and energy consumption. This extensively lowers emissions of CO2, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide and hazardous particles. The ships have scored the best EEDI value in their segment globally, meaning that they are the most energy efficient vessels according to the IMO. 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. A still taken from a video recorded by Lexy Gurule of Questa shows the large bull moose that has been spotted this fall in Taos County. On October 14, the delegation led by Artsakh Republic President Arayik Harutyunyan met in Yerevan with RA President Vahagn Khachaturyan. October 14, 2022, 17:00 The delegation led by Artsakh Republic President Arayik Harutyunyan met with RA President Vahagn Khachaturyan STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: In his remarks, President Harutyunyan noted that the efforts of the RA authorities to establish long-term peace and stability in the country and the region are appreciated in Artsakh, stressing, however, that they should not contradict the interests of an integral part of the Armenian people, the Artsakh Armenians. Certain issues related to overcoming the challenges faced by the two Armenian states with joint efforts were discussed during the meeting. frankmehta Senior - BHPian Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mumbai Posts: 3,971 Thanked: 3,352 Times View My Garage Abysmal experience at Bhavna Ford (Kalina, Mumbai) I know how difficult it is to build a business, and how easily poor publicity can ruin years of hard work, especially for the Ford service centres that are battling multiple issues that other dealerships aren't, for obvious reasons. I am forced to post here, maybe not for the desired results, but to apprise people of the perils of giving the car for service to a Ford Authorised Service Centre, in today's times. My Ford Aspire TDCI Titanium+ is turning 4 this year and has clocked 35.9k km (personally driven, single handed use, we don't have a chauffeur) since December, 2018. The car has seen a lot of love and care and has ONLY been serviced at Ford Authorised Service Centres. (Even the battery and windshield have been changed there, so we had a trust thing going on with both Rudra Ford, Mira Road and Bhavna Ford, Kalina) The only time I actually let someone outside of Ford do anything out of routine, was when at 34k km, I felt the oil levels on the dipstick to be a little low, so being a true petrolhead so as to not mix Ford's oil with an aftermarket oil, I had all the oil drained, and used Motul 8100 fully synthetic oil and a brand new original Ford filter at my mechanic. This is the level of attention I have given to the car. This time, the car was slated to go in for it's yearly service (10000km intervals but we had done only 8k this year owing to the new EV in our family) and I decided to hand over the car in usual style to Bhavna Ford, Kalina. This was the list of things I wanted to be done: 1. Rubbing noise from the car on vertical motion (source unidentifiable by me) 2. Physical Headlight levelling (not what the levelling motor does) (I switched back to my stock headlights but I was not sure if they were leveled correctly, so I wanted to be doubly sure they're not throwing light anywhere other than intended to) 3. Full service (which at the mandatory 40k service would actually involve an oil change, air filter change, cabin filter change and a wash!) I had changed the oil and oil filter, and I am running a conical performance filter so I only opted for the cabin filter change. 4. 2018-19 Figos of a particular production batch had one or two characteristic areas of rust around the door handles, which has been addressed by Ford for many on the Figo groups out of goodwill warranty (MUCH like our DSGs, which VW tries to offer goodwill warranty, because they know there's a defect) Check the photo for details. Hence I requested my service advisor, Mr. Ashwin Tiwary to help me proceed on how to take the next step. Everything seems normal till now, but here is what followed, in a chronological manner! 30th of September 2022, Friday: I walked into the service centre with my car by 1030 am, hoping that they would be able to do the regular service and return the car for me, and apply for the warranty at least, so I can bring the car back to the workshop once they get approvals for the same. Ashwin told me the 'warranty guy' has not come, and I offered to wait. He said ok. I waited 1.5 hours for the same, without any intimation from Ashwin. No response. At 12 pm,I walked up to him and asked, he said he hasn't come today. I left upset, and in a huff, because I knew I wouldn't get my car back that day. 4 calls that day by me to Ashwin, with no concrete reply except SIR WARRANTY CLAIM REJECTED. I was wondering how the claim was rejected without the warranty guy there. Anyway, next day 1st of October, 2022, Saturday NO CALLS from him. I called him once, and he said, "sir the sound is due to external accessories." I asked him to double-check his claim, as nothing new was fitted, and the 'so-called accessories" were installed since a good 3 years. At this point, I gave up on following up, and thought the service centre must be unusually busy. 2nd of October 2022, Sunday: Holiday so I didn't expect a call that day, and rightly so, it's unreasonable to expect anyone to work on a holiday. 3rd of October 2022, Monday: NO CALLS from them! I was wondering whether they found the cause of the sound. NO COMMUNICATION whatsoever! I called Ashwin at 3 PM, and he shocked me by saying, "Sir, car is ready, it has gone for a wash!" I asked him if the sound was resolved. He said NO! We can't find the cause for the sound! It's the accessories. I was livid! I was sure it was to do with the suspension bump stop rubber bush, but I am a Dentist by profession and my diagnosis is by and large correct, only when it comes to the Oral Cavity, so I decided to trust them. He asked me to make payments online, because their 'credit card' link generation has been discontinued (cost-saving, perhaps) and I did within an hour of him sending me the QR code. It was 630 PM and he told me the car would leave by 7 730 pm. I was upset, but happy that the car was coming back at least! I waited. 7 PM. 8 PM. 9 PM. 930 PM. I called up Ashwin. He didn't pick up my calls. But he had the GALL to send me a message to say "I didn't send it today. It will reach you by tomorrow, 7 AM." I was OUTRAGED! WHICH WORKSHOP issues a gate pass at 7 am? I suspected that the car was with the pickup and drop boys and they took it home (my suspicion, and hence I demanded my car reach me that day itself, even if it reaches by 11 PM.) A few (15 back-to-back missed calls by me ) to Ashwin, and he said he was in traffic, for which I asked him if it's ok to text in traffic and not park in the side and take my calls, when I am desperate. HE said, "sir, car wasn't ready so I couldn't send it. I Called you many times..." (not even one missed call at his aforementioned timing, except for 2 missed calls to follow up on prompt payment, so he can 'release the car on time!' A few moments later, I called up another mechanic (who I don't wish to name here and taint, because he's been very fair and nice to me) who I had given the car to, the last time and had a very good relationship with him. His answer shocked me! He said, "Sir, I recognized your car and took a drive at 4 pm, and also made my mechanic take a drive, and he said the noise definitely exists! So we decided to keep the car back with us!" NOW, this was the breaking point for me. I wanted my car back. I didn't trust these guys anymore! I waited for days and this was the outcome! I waited for the next day, and managed to get the number of the Service Head there, Mr. Syed. His response shocked me! He had no idea what was going on with the car, and gave me canned apologetic responses without assuring me about the status of my car. Which is when the aforementioned mechanic came into play, and sent me pics of my car hurriedly placed on a lift with the front suspension taken apart.) A hurried diagnosis within half an hour by their 'expert' was that the ENTIRE front suspension will have to be changed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (for a rubbing sound!) (a usual Service centre response when they can't diagnose a niggle is to replace, but I expected better from Ford, especially after keeping a car for 4 days) I was given a quote of Rs. 16904, which I was totally OK with, but I didn't trust this service centre, and decided that if I am spending the same amount, I will give it to favourite (Rudra Ford, Mira Road. It is 38km from my house, which is why I always choose Kalina, but now I had lost Kalina, so Rudra would do it for me) I asked for my car back. In my last call from them, I mentioned that the car doesn't look washed at all, in the pics, and to make sure it is washed. Here are the pics he sent: The car arrived. WHAT A SIGHT SHE WAS!!! Here are the immediate pictures for all of you to behold. VIDEO DISCLAIMER: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TRUE PETROLHEADS. CAN LEAD TO HEART PROBLEMS IF YOU LOVE YOUR CARS AS MUCH AS I DO https://youtu.be/GIgJag8OOW8 Have a look at the job-sheet. NO HEADLIGHT levelling, not even mentioned in the work to be done. I paid 3000 rupees (not a large amount, but I am wondering what I paid for, actually) for this harrowing experience. The issues 1. Rubbing Noise: NOT RESOLVED 2. Headlight Levelling (WHAT DO YOU THINK :-))-- of course not done. Not touched at all, with the beam being as erroneous as it was when it went, and no mention of it on the job sheet. 3. Service: Cabin filter changed. WASH? You see the results and tell me. 4. Rust Issue: REJECTED, SAAR! The ride quality has gone to the dogs, and I was suspecting something amiss. I first thought that they had changed some parts with old parts(ANYTHING can happen now, seeing what they did to me), but I found the culprit in the boot. They disassembled one side RogerAb suspension buffer from one side, and left the other one in the suspension. Leaving to the car being totally disbalanced and tilted to one side. OF COURSE, THE SUSPENSION GEOMETRY GONE TO THE DOGS! Which none of their EXPERTS identified in their 'apparent numerous test drives.' The Mangled Culprit in the boot, for which they had no courtesy to put back, or even inform me. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY: I have a pressure horn fitment in the car. This is how they dismounted it to check if it was the source for the sound, and then left the compressor in the car, disassembled and suspended mid air, waiting for a larger catastrophe to happen. https://youtu.be/YXJN0AXBSo0 I have no words. I have mailed Ford. I have put in on Social Media. I get a call from Ford, DAILY at 430 pm since a week from someone called Mr. Lokesh. Sir, give us a day more. Dealership is delaying. YESTERDAY, the same guy called and said SAAAR, YOU HAVE GIVEN THE WRONG VIN NO. So since 5 days, you are running a wild goose chase with the wrong VIN?I fail to believe this! I will update this as it develops! I wish to keep the car for a few more years, but I am not convinced that the company wants us to. NO OFFICIAL STAND FROM FORD, AS OF 11/10/22, 11 days after the car has come back and is lying in a corner of my building, as I don't intend to drive her around with this distorted suspension geometry and do further damage. Hi everyone! I think this will be my first negative post on Team-BHP in years! I was in a dilemma whether to post this thread or wait for someone from Bhavna Ford, Kalina or even Ford Customer Care to come around.I know how difficult it is to build a business, and how easily poor publicity can ruin years of hard work, especially for the Ford service centres that are battling multiple issues that other dealerships aren't, for obvious reasons.I am forced to post here, maybe not for the desired results, but to apprise people of the perils of giving the car for service to a Ford Authorised Service Centre, in today's times.My Ford Aspire TDCI Titanium+ is turning 4 this year and has clocked 35.9k km (personally driven, single handed use, we don't have a chauffeur) since December, 2018. The car has seen a lot of love and care and has ONLY been serviced at Ford Authorised Service Centres. (Even the battery and windshield have been changed there, so we had a trust thing going on with both Rudra Ford, Mira Road and Bhavna Ford, Kalina)The only time I actually let someone outside of Ford do anything out of routine, was when at 34k km, I felt the oil levels on the dipstick to be a little low, so being a true petrolhead so as to not mix Ford's oil with an aftermarket oil, I had all the oil drained, and used Motul 8100 fully synthetic oil and a brand new original Ford filter at my mechanic. This is the level of attention I have given to the car.This time, the car was slated to go in for it's yearly service (10000km intervals but we had done only 8k this year owing to the new EV in our family) and I decided to hand over the car in usual style to Bhavna Ford, Kalina.This was the list of things I wanted to be done:1. Rubbing noise from the car on vertical motion (source unidentifiable by me)2. Physical Headlight levelling (not what the levelling motor does) (I switched back to my stock headlights but I was not sure if they were leveled correctly, so I wanted to be doubly sure they're not throwing light anywhere other than intended to)3. Full service (which at the mandatory 40k service would actually involve an oil change, air filter change, cabin filter change and a wash!) I had changed the oil and oil filter, and I am running a conical performance filter so I only opted for the cabin filter change.4. 2018-19 Figos of a particular production batch had one or two characteristic areas of rust around the door handles, which has been addressed by Ford for many on the Figo groups out of goodwill warranty (MUCH like our DSGs, which VW tries to offer goodwill warranty, because they know there's a defect) Check the photo for details. Hence I requested my service advisor, Mr. Ashwin Tiwary to help me proceed on how to take the next step.Everything seems normal till now, but here is what followed, in a chronological manner!: I walked into the service centre with my car by 1030 am, hoping that they would be able to do the regular service and return the car for me, and apply for the warranty at least, so I can bring the car back to the workshop once they get approvals for the same.Ashwin told me the 'warranty guy' has not come, and I offered to wait. He said ok. I waited 1.5 hours for the same, without any intimation from Ashwin. No response. At 12 pm,I walked up to him and asked, he said he hasn't come today. I left upset, and in a huff, because I knew I wouldn't get my car back that day.4 calls that day by me to Ashwin, with no concrete reply except SIR WARRANTY CLAIM REJECTED.I was wondering how the claim was rejected without the warranty guy there.Anyway,next dayNO CALLS from him. I called him once, and he said, "sir the sound is due to external accessories." I asked him to double-check his claim, as nothing new was fitted, and the 'so-called accessories" were installed since a good 3 years.At this point, I gave up on following up, and thought the service centre must be unusually busy.: Holiday so I didn't expect a call that day, and rightly so, it's unreasonable to expect anyone to work on a holiday.: NO CALLS from them! I was wondering whether they found the cause of the sound. NO COMMUNICATION whatsoever! I called Ashwin at 3 PM, and he shocked me by saying, "Sir, car is ready, it has gone for a wash!" I asked him if the sound was resolved. He said NO! We can't find the cause for the sound! It's the accessories. I was livid! I was sure it was to do with the suspension bump stop rubber bush, but I am a Dentist by profession and my diagnosis is by and large correct, only when it comes to the Oral Cavity, so I decided to trust them. He asked me to make payments online, because their 'credit card' link generation has been discontinued (cost-saving, perhaps) and I did within an hour of him sending me the QR code. It was 630 PM and he told me the car would leave by 7 730 pm.I was upset, but happy that the car was coming back at least!I waited. 7 PM. 8 PM. 9 PM. 930 PM. I called up Ashwin. He didn't pick up my calls. But he had the GALL to send me a message to say "I didn't send it today. It will reach you by tomorrow, 7 AM." I was OUTRAGED! WHICH WORKSHOP issues a gate pass at 7 am? I suspected that the car was with the pickup and drop boys and they took it home (my suspicion, and hence I demanded my car reach me that day itself, even if it reaches by 11 PM.) A few (15 back-to-back missed calls by me) to Ashwin, and he said he was in traffic, for which I asked him if it's ok to text in traffic and not park in the side and take my calls, when I am desperate. HE said, "sir, car wasn't ready so I couldn't send it. I Called you many times..." (not even one missed call at his aforementioned timing, except for 2 missed calls to follow up on prompt payment, so he can 'release the car on time!'A few moments later, I called up another mechanic (who I don't wish to name here and taint, because he's been very fair and nice to me) who I had given the car to, the last time and had a very good relationship with him. His answer shocked me! He said, "Sir, I recognized your car and took a drive at 4 pm, and also made my mechanic take a drive, and he said the noise definitely exists! So we decided to keep the car back with us!"NOW, this was the breaking point for me. I wanted my car back. I didn't trust these guys anymore! I waited for days and this was the outcome!I waited for the next day, and managed to get the number of the Service Head there, Mr. Syed. His response shocked me! He had no idea what was going on with the car, and gave me canned apologetic responses without assuring me about the status of my car.Which is when the aforementioned mechanic came into play, and sent me pics of my car hurriedly placed on a lift with the front suspension taken apart.) A hurried diagnosis within half an hour by their 'expert' was that the ENTIRE front suspension will have to be changed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(for a rubbing sound!) (a usual Service centre response when they can't diagnose a niggle is to replace, but I expected better from Ford, especially after keeping a car for 4 days)I was given a quote of Rs. 16904, which I was totally OK with, but I didn't trust this service centre, and decided that if I am spending the same amount, I will give it to favourite (Rudra Ford, Mira Road. It is 38km from my house, which is why I always choose Kalina, but now I had lost Kalina, so Rudra would do it for me) I asked for my car back. In my last call from them, I mentioned that the car doesn't look washed at all, in the pics, and to make sure it is washed.Here are the pics he sent:The car arrived. WHAT A SIGHT SHE WAS!!! Here are the immediate pictures for all of you to behold.VIDEO DISCLAIMER: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TRUE PETROLHEADS. CAN LEAD TO HEART PROBLEMS IF YOU LOVE YOUR CARS AS MUCH AS I DOHave a look at the job-sheet. NO HEADLIGHT levelling, not even mentioned in the work to be done. I paid 3000 rupees (not a large amount, but I am wondering what I paid for, actually) for this harrowing experience.The issues1. Rubbing Noise: NOT RESOLVED2. Headlight Levelling (WHAT DO YOU THINK :-))-- of course not done. Not touched at all, with the beam being as erroneous as it was when it went, and no mention of it on the job sheet.3. Service: Cabin filter changed. WASH? You see the results and tell me.4. Rust Issue: REJECTED, SAAR!The ride quality has gone to the dogs, and I was suspecting something amiss. I first thought that they had changed some parts with old parts(ANYTHING can happen now, seeing what they did to me), but I found the culprit in the boot. They disassembled one side RogerAb suspension buffer from one side, and left the other one in the suspension. Leaving to the car being totally disbalanced and tilted to one side. OF COURSE, THE SUSPENSION GEOMETRY GONE TO THE DOGS! Which none of their EXPERTS identified in their 'apparent numerous test drives.'The Mangled Culprit in the boot, for which they had no courtesy to put back, or even inform me.I have a pressure horn fitment in the car. This is how they dismounted it to check if it was the source for the sound, and then left the compressor in the car, disassembled and suspended mid air, waiting for a larger catastrophe to happen.I have no words.I have mailed Ford.I have put in on Social Media.I get a call from Ford, DAILY at 430 pm since a week from someone called Mr. Lokesh. Sir, give us a day more. Dealership is delaying.YESTERDAY, the same guy called and said SAAAR, YOU HAVE GIVEN THE WRONG VIN NO. So since 5 days, you are running a wild goose chase with the wrong VIN?I fail to believe this! I will update this as it develops!I wish to keep the car for a few more years, but I am not convinced that the company wants us to.NO OFFICIAL STAND FROM FORD, AS OF 11/10/22, 11 days after the car has come back and is lying in a corner of my building, as I don't intend to drive her around with this distorted suspension geometry and do further damage. Last edited by frankmehta : 11th October 2022 at 12:59 . humyum Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Mumbai Posts: 2,693 Thanked: 5,071 Times Kerala - Help with a 15 day roadtrip from Mumbai My parents and me want to go on a roadtrip to Kerala from Mumbai. The dates we can leave are from 15th October and till 30th October is when I have my leaves. I know its late in the day to plan but we were dilly dallying on the location since sometime before freezing on Kerala We have a brand new Innova Crysta Automatic Diesel which we just got on 5th of October, we are done with 850 km and tomorrow its going for its free service after which it will be ready for the trip. We are fans of scenic places but would not want to see more than 2-3 places on our trip as we want to stay at every place for somedays and explore nearby areas at a leisurely pace Since mom been in her cancer remission since 10 months only, other than the travelling bit to Kerala and in between locations, we will want to stay in Airbnb's where in we can cook her food. Please help me out with the places to checkout with possible stops to take in-between so that I can start booking Airbnb's. Thanks a ton in advance. PS: Since I am a photography enthusiast, as a treat, I will try and click amazing pictures of the trip and post it here. Hi Team,My parents and me want to go on a roadtrip to Kerala from Mumbai. The dates we can leave are from 15th October and till 30th October is when I have my leaves. I know its late in the day to plan but we were dilly dallying on the location since sometime before freezing on KeralaWe have a brand new Innova Crysta Automatic Diesel which we just got on 5th of October, we are done with 850 km and tomorrow its going for its free service after which it will be ready for the trip.We are fans of scenic places but would not want to see more than 2-3 places on our trip as we want to stay at every place for somedays and explore nearby areas at a leisurely paceSince mom been in her cancer remission since 10 months only, other than the travelling bit to Kerala and in between locations, we will want to stay in Airbnb's where in we can cook her food.Please help me out with the places to checkout with possible stops to take in-between so that I can start booking Airbnb's.Thanks a ton in advance.PS: Since I am a photography enthusiast, as a treat, I will try and click amazing pictures of the trip and post it here. Forward-looking: Windows 7 will exit extended support very soon, but "micropatches" offered by 0patch are ready to take Microsoft's place in keeping the old operating systems safe and sound against Internet threats. At least for the most dangerous flaws discovered in modern Windows versions. Created and managed by Slovak company ACROS Security, 0patch is a platform designed to deliver, apply and remove "microscopic" security updates to unsupported software products. The service is particularly interesting for consumers and companies still working on legacy Windows versions, as it offers a third-party alternative to keep the OS secure where Microsoft's official support is no longer available. Patches released through the ACROS service belong to the "micropatch" category. These tiny, targeted updates are applied in memory (with no actual file modification on disk). Thus they don't require a system restart to become active. The 0patch support list includes Windows 7, its server counterpart Server 2008 R2, and older versions of Windows 10. Updates provided by 0patch focus only on vulnerabilities that are "sufficiently severe and likely to be exploited," which should be enough for the 10% of internet users still using Windows 7. Organizations and business users can still apply for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, paying Microsoft a hefty sum to continue receiving security patches for Windows 7 machines until January 2023. An additional year of support is offered for Windows Server 2008 R2. There are also "unofficial" methods home users can use to install ESU patches. However, after October 2024, all support for any version of Windows 7 will be unavailable. At that point, the only viable solution to keep the OS secure will be 0patch micropatching system. The company has already promised "two more years" of critical security patches for the Windows 7 codebase, extending the support period "at least" until January 2025 with a possible further extension dependent on client demand. 0patch highlights the ongoing viability of Windows 7 as a no-fuss operating system. It's stable and does not force unneeded upgrades or worsen the user experience with ubiquitous ads and telemetry data sent to Microsoft servers. For many, it's a platform worth keeping safe and costs a fraction of the price business users pay for the ESU program. The big picture: In case you weren't paying attention, Apple is now a bank. I jest, but only a little. It started with the Apple Card, and now the tech giant wants to hold your money, too. Of course, it is completely optional, but it does have some advantages if you are already an Apple cardholder. As of May 2021, there were 6.4 million Apple Card users. Backed by Goldman Sachs, the overall service is popular for its convenient features, including Apple Pay and wallet app integration, real-time balances, on-device account management, cash back, and secure card/CVV numbers. Apple Card has been successful enough that Cupertino now wants to hold your savings. On Thursday, the company announced it would soon offer "high-yield" savings to Apple Cardholders. "Apple announced a new Savings account for Apple Card that will allow users to save their Daily Cash and grow their rewards in a high-yield Savings account from Goldman Sachs," Cupertino said. Here's how it works. Apple Card is already set up to give users three percent back on Apple purchases (in-store or digital) and two percent for transactions with participating vendors like Walgreens, ExxonMobil, T-Mobile, and others. All other charges get a one-percent return. Currently, this money is stored on a separate virtual card in iPhone owners' wallets called "Apple Cash." It acts like a pre-paid debit card drawing against the Apple Cash balance. Customers can also transfer funds to their regular bank account. In other words, the money sits there until they do something with it. Apple is proposing to put that money into a high-yield Goldman Sachs savings so that it can earn even more. Once users set up an account, Daily Cash will automatically start depositing into the savings instead of Apple Cash. However, customers can still opt to have the money go into the virtual card if they like. "Users can change their Daily Cash destination at any time," the press release said. Apple didn't define "high yield," but anything is better than nothing, which is what most banks give patrons on savings accounts. The feature might be another enticing perk for Apple Card customers if it's truly high-yield, especially considering the few banks that still offer interest-baring accounts usually provide significantly less than one percent. Like all cards stored in the Wallet app, the savings account will have a management screen with similar options like viewing rewards and other activities. Users can also transfer funds to and from their attached checking accounts (used for making Apple Card payments), making it like a regular cash deposit account, just without the brick-and-mortar bank. Increasing the growth potential of Daily Cash is a nice little incentive to set aside a little "free money," especially for those that rarely touch it anyway. It could come in handy for sudden expenditures or occasional splurging. If it truly is high-yield, it might even be a better option than users' current savings accounts. Regardless, it's hard to imagine current cardholders saying "no thanks" to extra money, regardless of the yield. A hot potato: Elon Musk has been praised for supplying Ukraine with SpaceX Starlink terminals to help in the war against Russia, but the world's richest person has warned that his company can't continue its donations or fund the existing system indefinitely and is asking the Pentagon to start paying for the service. SpaceX has supplied around 25,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine since the war began. Musk says the donations have cost the company $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year. Ukraine vice prime minister Mykhailo Federov has thanked Musk for the deliveries, which have allowed the country's military and civilians to continue communicating and accessing the internet even as Russia targets its comms infrastructure. But it seems SpaceX's generosity isn't without its limits. According to a CNN report, SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon last month warning that it can no longer continue funding the Starlink service. It's estimated that costs could reach almost $380 million over the next 12 months, and it wants the US government to pay for additional terminals and ongoing service costs. CNN writes that included in the SpaceX documents delivered to the Pentagon was a request sent to Musk from the Ukrainian military's commanding general, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for almost 8,000 more terminals. Musk seems to have confirmed the report's accuracy in several posts today. In reply to a tweet showing a list of the largest US defense contractors, he wrote, "Strange that nothing was leaked about our competitors in space launch & communications, Lockheed & Boeing, who get over $60B " Strange that nothing was leaked about our competitors in space launch & communications, Lockheed & Boeing, who get over $60B Wouldn't be surprised to find this particular individual working there when he retires from DoD. Corruption at its finest. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 Replying to another tweet about how much SpaceX is spending to maintain Starlink in Ukraine, Musk wrote: "In addition to terminals, we have to create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to Internet via gateways. We've also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder. Burn is approaching ~$20M/month." Musk also echoed the letter's assertion that SpaceX could not fund the existing system while supplying Ukraine with more terminals, which have data usage 100x greater than typical households. Musk recently incurred the wrath of Ukraine and much of the West for posting a peace plan that involved the country ceding territory to Russia and remaining neutral. Ukraine's outgoing ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, told Musk he should "F**k off." When someone suggested Starlink is looking to end support over this comment, Musk said, "We're just following his recommendation." We're just following his recommendation Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 Russia has previously threatened Musk over his support of Ukraine and warned that the Starlink satellites could be targeted, but much of the goodwill the billionaire earned from Ukraine was lost due to his peace plan poll. It was recently reported that Musk posted the poll after a conversation with Vladimir Putin in which the Russian president warned he would use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine tried to retake Crimea. Musk denies this, claiming he last met with Putin 18 months ago. Why it matters: Hackers have a new attack vector they have been toying with over the last couple of years drone penetration kits. Drones have become much more capable in the last several years, making them a viable option for covertly placing intrusion equipment near a network. Once just a field of theoretical security research, now hacking drones are being found in the wild. This week, The Register reported on a drone attack that happened over the summer. The compromised private investment firm kept the incident quiet but agreed to speak on it to security researchers under a nondisclosure agreement. Network administrators discovered the company's internal Confluence page was exhibiting strange behavior within the local area network. Confluence is a web-based remote collaboration software developed by Atlassian. While investigating the incident, security personnel discovered two drones on the roof of the building. One was a "modified DJI Matrice 600," and the other was a "modified DJI Phantom." The Matrice had crashed but was still operational, and the Phantom had landed safely. The Matrice was outfitted with a penatration kit (pen kit) consisting of a Raspberry Pi, a GDP mini laptop, a 4G modem, a WiFi device, and several batteries. The Phantom carried a network penetration testing device developed by Hak5 called a WiFi Pineapple. Security researcher Greg Linares, who spoke to the firm's IT team, said that the bad actors used the Phantom a few days before the attack to intercept an employee's credentials and WiFi. They then coded the stolen information into the Matrice drone's penetration equipment. The Matrice drone compromised the company's Confluence page from the roof using the employee's MAC address and access credentials. They poked around the Confluence logs attempting to steal more logins to connect to other internal devices but had "limited success." The admins knew the network was under attack when they noticed the compromised employee's MAC address was logged in locally and from his home several miles away. The security team isolated the WiFi signal and used a Fluke tester to trace and locate the device on the roof. Linares said this is the third drone-based cyberattack he has seen in the last two years but says the attack vector still needs work. The only reason this one had some success was that the company was on a temporary network that wasn't fully secured. "The attackers specifically targeted a limited access network, used by both a third-party and internally, that was not secure due to recent changes at the company (e.g. restructuring/rebranding, new building, new building lease, new network setup or a combination of any of these scenarios)," Linares told The Register. Even on this weakened network, the attack still required weeks of "internal reconnaissance." "This was definitely a threat actor who likely did internal reconnaissance for several weeks, had physical proximity to the target environment, had a proper budget, and knew their physical security limitations," Linares said. Security researchers have experimented with drones since as early as 2011. At that time, commercially available drones were too weak to carry the required payloads. Their range was also so limited that the attacker would have to be on-site for an intrusion, defeating the purpose. Today, drones are much more advanced and powerful, as seen in this example. Continued drone advancements and refinement of this attack vector could make it a more severe threat in the coming years. Billionaire Dennis Tito bought SpaceX Starship tickets to fly around the moon for himself and his wife. The entrepreneur and his wife will be part of the third passenger space flight of the Elon Musk tech giant, SpaceX. (Photo : Stephen Chernin/Getty Images) NEW YORK - JUNE 18: Dennis Tito, the worlds first space tourist in 2001, speaks about his experiences as a space traveller at a press conference June 18, 2003 in New York City. Space Adventures Ltd., the company which brokered Tito's space flight, announced plans to launch the world's first privately funded mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Billionaire Dennis Tito Buys SpaceX Starship Ticket As per the latest report by CNBC, the billionaire, Tito, previously flown as a private space tourist when he boarded a Russian rocket to go to the International Space Station or the ISS way back in 2001. The 80-year-old entrepreneur is well-known as the first-ever space tourist. According to a news story by Space News, Tito spent roughly more than a week in space before returning to his home planet via the Soyuz spacecraft of Russia. And this time, the billionaire is set to make his comeback to outer space. Tito has reserved two seats in the upcoming passenger flight of SpaceX, wherein its Starship rocket would fly to the moon. The first-ever space tourist, Tito, said in a press conference that he has "been wanting to go to the moon since [his] first trip to space." CNBC reports that the billionaire is flying together with his wife, Aikiko, who is a pilot and a real estate investor. Given that, the news outlet notes that the couple is set to make a record as the first-ever married couple to have flown around the moon. The entrepreneur reveals that there are still ten other seats on the Starship flight which are available for purchase. How Much is the Starship Ticket? A ticket to fly to space is assumingly astronomical in price, given that those buying tickets are well-known billionaires. However, when Tito was asked about the cost of the two seats on the Starship mission, he declined to disclose how much he spent on it, CNBC notes in its report. The space venture of Musk, SpaceX, also failed to give details about the pricing of its tickets. However, the tech giant has confirmed that Tito and his wife are joining its second crewed mission to the moon. Read Also: NASA Requests for Another Artemis Moon Lander - How About SpaceX's Starship Lander? SpaceX Starship Mission The tech behemoth has also confirmed that a dozen passengers are flying around the moon for its next Starship mission. (Photo : Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images) CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 05: In this handout photo provided by NASA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASAs SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina onboard at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on October 05, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. But it is worth noting that the schedule for the said flight has yet to be publicly announced. As of writing, SpaceX has only confirmed two passengers. Related Article: SpaceX Starship Fired 7 Engines in Static Fire Test, All 33 to Test in a Few Weeks Says Elon Musk This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Teejay Boris 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. NASA's robo-balloon prototype was able to complete its test. This aerial robotic balloon (aerobot) is expected to help the international space union to explore Venus. (Photo : Screenshot from official YouTube channel of NASA JPL ) NASA's Robo-Balloon Prototype Completes Test! Aerobot Reaches an Altitude of 4,000 Feet NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers and scientists conducted two test flights above the Black Rock Desert, located in Nevada. "The success of these test flights is a huge deal for us: We've successfully demonstrated the technology we'll need for investigating the clouds of Venus," said Paul Bryne, an aerobot science collaborator. NASA's Robo-Balloon Prototype Completes Test! According to Gizmodo's latest report, the two test flights for the aerobot are a part of NASA's preparation for its upcoming mission to the Venusian atmosphere. (Photo : Screenshot from official YouTube channel of NASA JPL ) NASA's Robo-Balloon Prototype Completes Test! Aerobot Reaches an Altitude of 4,000 Feet Also Read: [LOOK] NASA Webb Telescope Discover 'Fingerprint' Rings on WR 140 Stars-How Did it Form? However, the one tested was not the actual robo-balloon. Instead, the aerospace agency used a smaller prototype of the aerobot. During the test flights, NASA's aerobot was able to reach an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,000 meters). Thanks to this, the space union was able to check if the aerobot could survive in Venus' atmosphere. Experts stated that an altitude of 4,000 feet on Earth is comparable to the conditions found on Venus. Bryne, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, explained that the successful test flights would allow NASA to create a long-term robotic exploration presence on the neighboring planet. NASA Aerobot's Goal NASA JPL explained that the main mission of the aerobot is to travel across Venus. Once the robo-balloon is complete, it is expected to float the planet's atmosphere from east to west. The international space union will allow this floating machine to stay on Venus for around 100 days. NASA also stated that the aerobot would serve as a platform for a range of space investigations. These include atmosphere monitoring, Venusian cloud chemical composition analysis, and other similar experiments. The aerobot will work with an orbiter, which will receive the essential data gathered by the robo-balloon. After that, the orbiter will send the information back to Earth. This will allow NASA to understand Venus further. You can click here to see more details about the robo-balloon. Meanwhile, the NASA DART mission is confirmed to have changed Dimorphos' orbit. Recently, the NASA InSight Mars lander was able to push through the Red Planet's dust storm. For more news updates about NASA's aerobot and other space machines, keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: NASA's Planet-Hunting Mission TESS is Now in Safe Mode After Computer Glitch This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. If you are looking to switch from iPhone to Pixel 7, then this may be the right time for you to do so, as Google offers higher values for the Apple smartphone to trade in for its latest release. Users may avail up to $1,055 worth of savings for their iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB, and they may avail it via the Google Store's latest update for its prices. The higher incentives for switching to Google's new smartphone give users a better nudge to help them make their decisions, especially in this massive switch. Google Offers Higher Trade-in Value from iPhone to Pixel 7 (Photo : Google) Google Pixel 7 renders from I/O 2022. Venturing to the Google Store would get one a massive head-turner for the banner on its homepage, saying that they pay none of $0 for trading in their iPhones to the latest Pixel 7 smartphones. It is the latest update for Google's higher trade-in values for switching to the latest smartphone of the company, with as much as $1,000 in savings or a direct trade-in. The Pixel 7 starts at $599 for its 128GB variant, openline, available in all colors, and here, Google said that users may trade in their iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices without having to pay anything. Users with the iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB may trade their smartphones directly, as it is valued at $900 via the Google Store. Other tiers and models of the iPhone also get a quotation from Google for their trade-in value, with the top tier iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB valued at as much as $1,055. Google also offers this for the Pixel 7 Pro, with the top tier iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB trade-in will only cost the public $44 for the 512GB variant of Google's Pro version. Read Also: Google Password Manager: Passkeys Android, Chrome Sync Info for a Passwordless Future Is it Worth it Switching to Pixel 7 from iPhones? The Pixel 7 series features the latest there is to Android from Google's release, and it centers on the Tensor G2 chipset, the famed silicon SoC internals from the company. Google's Pixel 7 series is a great choice at the present, and it is on par with Apple's iPhone 13, so the choice will boil down to preferences and features, for the Android or iOS smartphone. Google's Pixel 7 and its Features The MadeByGoogle event last October 6 brought the world its take on the latest smartphone development from Google, centering on the Pixel 7 series that was released a month after the iPhone 14. It is the latest smartphone from Google with the company's best offers, featuring the current-gen chipset for the device, the Tensor G2. But what improved with the Pixel 7 series in its latest release? One of the highlights of the smartphone is its new camera features focusing on the Macro for the Pixel 7 Pro, and the other is the Pixel 7 series' Cinematic Blur. The good thing about the latest Pixel 7 series' pricing is it held the same value for the smartphone in this year's release. Users may have a massive trade-in value of as much as $1,000 for the switch, with Google upping the stakes to get its latest smartphone. Related Article: Google Says Pixel 7 Features Are Coming to Older Phones This December This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Isaiah Richard 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Armenian population, residing in Nagorno Karabakh, should have the right to self-determination, Stefan Muller-Altermatt, a member of the Swiss-Armenian friendship group and a member of the Swiss-Armenian Parliament, said this at an October 14 press conference in Yerevan, news.am informs. October 14, 2022, 17:09 Swiss MP: Karabakh people cannot be under Azerbaijani power STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: The right to self-determination is one of the most important points in terms of human rights, he noted. The MP said that there is a problem of human existence. It is under threat. A political solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has simply been left out of the sight of the international community. A political solution must be found, rather than resorting to weapons, which would lead to a new genocide. Azerbaijan clearly rejects this, and we are fighting against it, the MP added. Stefan Muller-Altermatt said the atmosphere of ethnic intolerance towards Armenians has prevailed in Azerbaijan for many years. And therefore, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be allowed to come under the power of Azerbaijan. NASA's newly-minted telescope has found strange compounds swirling around supermassive black holes. As reported first by Space.com, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered carbon-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in three galaxies that were previously thought to be unable to exist at the centers of these active galaxies. The findings also imply that the radiation near the supermassive black holes in these galaxies has changed the general characteristics of the PAHs, which may complicate a crucial method used by astronomers to assess star formation and may also have an impact on their role as biological building blocks. (Photo : NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI) Three Active Galaxies A team of astronomers under the direction of Ismael Garcia-Bernete, an astrophysicist from Oxford University in the United Kingdom, have examined these three active galaxies captured by JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The three galaxies are NGC 6552, which is located 370 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco; NGC 7319, which is one of the famous Stephan's Quintet's five galaxies and is located 311 million light-years away in Pegasus; and NGC 7469, which is also located in Pegasus and is about 200 million light-years away. PAHs are molecules distinguished by carbon atom rings. These molecules are extremely prevalent across the cosmos, from far-off galaxies to comets in our solar system, according to Space.com. Due to their abundance, they serve as both useful tracers for star formation and ideal building blocks for life. PAHS s radiate at infrared wavelengths observable by MIRI when they are irradiated by ultraviolet radiation in starlight, astronomers who use this method to discover PAHs can be certain that there are young stars nearby. Garca-Bernete wanted to know if the PAH emissions in the active galaxy's dense, ultraviolet-rich core were the same as those in the spiral arms of galaxies, which are more tranquil star-forming areas. Read Also: A New York Art Exhibit Features NASA's James Webb Images in 3D, VR, Holograms, and More! Rich in PAHs In accordance with earlier simulations, all PAH molecules would be vaporized by the intense radiation surrounding the supermassive black hole in the center of an active galaxy. Instead, MIRI found that the central areas of all three analyzed galaxies were rich in PAHs. Observations, however, revealed that the emission originated from bigger, electrically neutral PAH molecules, proving that radiation had actually wiped off smaller, electrically charged PAHs, as per Space.com. The team hypothesized that the larger PAH molecules may have survived because they were shielded by thick, engulfing clouds of molecular gas. The depletion of the smaller electrically charged PAHs is an issue for astronomers who use these compounds to detect star formation because star-forming regions are frequently higher in electrically charged PAHs. If stars are destroyed in the centers of active galaxies, astronomers are unable to predict where they might form. The next stage, according to Garca-Bernete, is to evaluate a bigger sample of active galaxies with various characteristics. "This will enable us to better understand how PAH molecules survive and which are their specific properties in the nuclear region of galaxies. Such knowledge is key to using PAHs as an accurate tool for characterizing the amount of star formation in galaxies, and how galaxies evolve over time," Garcia-Bernete said in a statement. Related Article: 'New Era in Astronomy': NASA James Webb Space Telescope's New Stunning Images and The Stories Behind Them This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Japanese government is looking into constructing bomb shelters on the southernmost Okinawa islands near Taiwan to protect its residents from missile attacks should there be a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. (Photo : OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images) Children sit in a bomb shelter located in the basement of kindergarten during an educational air raid alarm and safety lesson organized by the Ukrainian Emergency Service in Odessa on September 12, 2022. The Cabinet Secretariat has requested 70 million yen for fiscal 2023 to conduct research to look into various aspects, such as technical and cost issues, as reported by Nikkei Asia. The government will prioritize building shelters on the Sakishima Islands in southern Okinawa, such as Yonaguni and Ishigaki. Currently, only six officially designated evacuation shelters in all of Okinawa Prefecture, but all are on the main island. And there are many islands in Okinawa Prefecture that doesn't have underground facilities that can serve as shelters. Therefore, the government also plans to build above-ground shelters. Also Read: Singapore's Bomb-Resistant Homes for Ukraine: Aims to Protect and Shelter Those Afflicted by the War Will China Invade Taiwan? China's invasion of Taiwan seem possible with the tensions rising in the Taiwan Strait. However, not much progress has been made in discussions of how to protect and evacuate residents on those islands. In July, municipal representatives from the islands most vulnerable to the Taiwan conflict petitioned the Okinawa prefectural government to construct shelters. In addition to this, calls are growing from ruling and opposition party lawmakers in Tokyo that is urging the government to build shelters as North Korea continues to test-fire ballistic missiles. Currently, there are only 1,278 shelters underground and no clear standards for how powerful a blast a shelter can withstand. With the varying depths below ground of these underground shelters, the expected level of damage mitigation is unsure.Ten percent of the designated underground shelters are in Tokyo, which means that the rest of these shelters are spread thinly across the country. The development of these shelters is being set as a long-term initiative by the government. Unfortunately, it was overlooked; therefore, the government is now picking up the pace to put more focus on their construction to better prepare for missile attacks. It should also be noted that earlier this month, a North Korean missile flew over the country that triggered the J-Alert warning system for Aomori Prefecture and Hokkaido. Unfortunately, the prefectures only have eight and 16 underground shelters that are not fully equipped. This brought on light to the lack of facilities in these underground shelters, and the consideration for older adults and children with disabilities that require special accommodation. In addition to this, several facilities will also need refurbishing with doors that can withstand bomb blasts. In conclusion, our world is rapidly changing and the establishment of bomb shelters is not just a luxury. Everyone should be aware of the possible dangers that are on the horizon, and be prepared to safeguard their household and loved ones. Related Article: US President Biden Warns That the World is Nearing a Nuclear 'Armageddon' Amid Ukraine-Russia War This article is owned by Tech Times Written by April Fowell 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Apple faces another fine in Brazil for failing to include chargers in its new iPhones. A Brazilian court now requires the renowned tech giant to pay millions of dollars for selling chargerless smartphones in the South American country. (Photo : Getty Images / Stringer) WUHAN, CHINA - SEPTEMBER 16: (CHINA OUT) New Apple iPhone 14's are put on display at an Apple store on September 16,2022 in Wuhan. Hubei, China. Apple's Chargerless iPhones According to a recent report by Phone Arena, Apple started selling phones without chargers in its box when it debuted the iPhone 12 back in 2020. Not to mention that the Cupertino-based tech giant also ditched the wired EarPods inclusion. But the renowned tech giant touted that its surprising move to sell chargerless iPhones is an environmental move. Apple explains that ditching the charger and the headphones ends up taking less space when shipping its flagship device. Surprisingly, the phone maker could now ship 70% more iPhones in the same space after getting rid of the charger. On top of that, Apple claims that the move allows the tech firm to cut around 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. Phone Arena notes that it is nearly the same as removing roughly half a million of 500,000 cars from the roads. Read Also: Apple iPhone 5C is Going to be Obsolete by November-Look Back on Cupertino's Plastic Smartphone Apple vs. Brazil: Selling iPhone without Chargers All that said, it looks like ditching the necessary iPhone accessory does help the environment after all. But the court of Brazil argues that selling chargerless phones is hitting consumers. (Photo : BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) An iPhone 6S is plugged into a battery charger on March 18, 2019 in Washington,DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) As per the latest report by 9to5 Mac, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice ordered Apple to suspend selling its mobile devices without chargers in the country last September. It comes after it has concluded that selling iPhone without any chargers harms consumers in Brazil. However, 9to5 Mac notes in its story that Apple still sells its iPhones in Brazil anyway. It comes despite the suspension order from its Ministry of Justice. And as such, the Brazilian court has hit Apple with another fine for failing to include a charger on its new iPhones. A recent story from Reuters reports that the Sao Paulo state court now requires Apple to pay a fine to the tune of $19 million or 100 million reais, which the currency in the South American nation. Apart from the fine, the Brazil court also ruled that Apple should sell its new iPhones in the country with battery chargers included in the box. So it appears that none other than the state court is now requiring the tech giant to stop selling chargerless phones in the country. Reuters adds in its report that the Cupertino-based phone maker is reportedly looking to appeal the decision of the Sao Paulo state court. Related Article: Apple's Refurbished Studio Display is Now Available: Here's How Much is it Priced This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Teejay Boris 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The United States played a key role in hindering China from achieving its 5-year-goal to transform the country as a global technology leader, particularly with its massive growth in the industry. The recent Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress saw reports which were not favorable for the plans of the country and its president. China's growth towards technology saw a few significant roadblocks including several restrictions and bans, as well as its limited access to American technology on chips, 5G, and more. The US Hindered China's Growth in the Tech Industry (Photo : Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) CNBC reported that President Xi Jinping's latest speech to the Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress yielded mixed results for his goals to bring China's tech development to soar high. It is due to the United States' continued effort to ban products and development for China's use, and it surely brought a staggering effect on the Asian superpower. In 2017, President Xi Jinping declared their goals to improve the country's tech and economic landscape by focusing on developments and innovation which will center on its growth. However, many issues and hindrances were present, leading to the decline in many of its projects. Read Also: China's New Main Battle Tank is Likely Ready for Service After State TV Appearance China Still Faces US Restrictions for its Tech Still, China was able to deliver many technologies for the country and its partners, as its first bullet train export for Indonesia recently arrived in the country for their use. On the other hand, Channel News Asia also details the upcoming high-speed railway it made for Bangkok. Despite the country's advancement, it still faces US restrictions that ban or prevent the country's access to certain needs, especially in developing supercomputers, AI, 5G, and an assortment of technology for the Chinese. The US and China's Relationship The United States of America and China are two of the world's known superpowers who have their ways in the tech industry, seemingly in a race against each other to bring the top developments in the world. However, there are many restrictions from the US on China's access to technology, rendering the country unable to pursue its goals of creating supercomputers and AI developments. America also banned the export of Nvidia's products to China, hindering the country from using its technology and offers for its advancements. It also means that citizens wanting to create their PCs and enjoy the many US products available also face these restrictions. Still, these restrictions do not stop China from developing its technology, particularly with many reports and claims regarding its goals to rise to the top and deliver technology that trumps the United States from its position. President Xi Jinping's latest speech saw mixed results for his 5-year-plan which he announced last 2017 for the tech advancements in the country and its goals of tech domination in the world. The latest National Congress to which the Chinese President addressed is still looking to develop said tech, even without US products or help. Related Article: Chinese Officials Warn About The New US Chip Restrictions That May Hurt the Global Supply Chains This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Isaiah Richard 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. SpaceX recently donated its Starlink satellite terminals to Ukraine. The independent space company decided to do this to support the country during the peak of the Ukraine-Russian conflict. (Photo : Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. Musk answered a range of questions relating to SpaceX projects during his appearance at the conference. But, it seems like SpaceX can no longer provide its broadband services in Ukraine for free. This is not surprising since the aerospace firm still relies on its advanced satellite-based internet service to generate revenue. However, instead of asking the Ukraine government to pay for its Starlink internet terminals, SpaceX requested Pentagon to shoulder the cost for the remaining months of 2022. SpaceX Requests Pentagon to Pay for Starlink Service in Ukraine According to CNN Politics' latest report, Elon Musk sent a letter to Pentagon. Leaked documents revealed that the letter requested Pentagon to shoulder the Starlink costs in Ukraine. (Photo : Photo by PHILIP PACHECO/AFP via Getty Images) SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses members of the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft, at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019. (Photo by Philip Pacheco / AFP) This means that the charitable contributions of SpaceX in the country are coming to an end. "We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time," said the space agency in its letter. On the other hand, another separate cover letter explained that SpaceX could no longer provide additional terminals in Ukraine. The aerospace company also confirmed that it is no longer in the right position to accommodate the previous request of Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhniy, who recently asked for additional 8,000 Starlink terminals. Did Ambassador Melnyk's Statement Trigger It? The Independent U.K. reported that Ukrainian Ambassador Andrij Melnyk said a rude statement to Elon Musk. Previously, the billionaire suggested that the Ukraine government should allow Russia to annex Crimea. However, the Ukrainian official was not happy with Elon's suggestion. "F*** off," said Ambassador Melnyk. Days after the official's rude statement, news about Musk pulling out of Starlink terminals in Ukraine appeared. In his official account, the billionaire replied to a tweet regarding SpaceX's Starlink pull-out decision, saying that he is just following Andrij's recommendations. Were just following his recommendation Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022 How Much Should Pentagon Shoulder? SpaceX shared its estimation regarding the costs that Pentagon needs to shoulder. For the remaining months of 2022, the aerospace agency claimed that the defense organization needs to pay around $120 million. On the other hand, the cost for the next 12 months after 2022, Pentagon must pay around $400 million if the U.S. government wants SpaceX to retain its Starlink service in Ukraine. While SpaceX shared its intent to pull out the donated Starlink terminals in Ukraine, efforts are also made for its expansion in Asia. SpaceNews reported that SpaceX and KDDI, a Japanese telco company, secured a deal on Oct. 12. You can click here to see more details about this partnership. In other stories, the SpaceX Antarctica expansion finally started. Previously, SpaceX and T-Mobile announced their new collaboration. For more news updates about SpaceX's Starlink and other popular internet service providers, keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: SpaceX's Starlink Flat High Performance Arrives! Here's Why This Square Antenna is a Big Deal for Sea Vessels This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A Cambridge academic argues that governments should not always stick to "magical software solutions" in the form of artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to dealing with child safety. According to the expert, the process should happen naturally, which means there's a need to coordinate with the authorities and other people who know the case. Government Should Not Resort to 'Magical Thinking' (Photo : ROBIN WORRALL from Unsplash) More governments are resorting to "magical thinking" rather than addressing the root of the child safety issue. Ross Anderson from the University of Cambridge refuted an earlier discussion paper entitled "Thoughts on child safety on commodity platforms" by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson. According to him, the government should always explore the point of view of the children rather than relying on organizations that sell the computer software. The two GCHQ senior directors stated in the paper that there's a need to scan the encryption messaging apps of the children to detect potential threats and unwanted activities which endanger their security and privacy. Additionally, Levy and Robinson also mentioned that society should not be pressed between establishing communications or paving the way for "safe spaces for child abusers." Anderson, who also teaches at Edinburgh University, wrote a 19-page rebuttal about the paper. He said that resorting to AI in detecting terrorism, child abuse, and other illicit events wouldn't entirely solve the problem. For Anderson, "client-side scanning" only poses privacy risks for all people in society. Meanwhile, the law enforcement side could be problematic if that's implemented. "The idea of using artificial intelligence to replace police officers, social workers, and teachers is just the sort of magical thinking that leads to bad policy," he wrote in his paper entitled "Chat control or client protection?" Furthermore, the Cambridge professor highlighted that the idea of scanning messages via encrypting apps could most likely create a ripple across societal groups and industries. Related Article: Google Brain Demonstrates AI-Generated Encryption: Yes, Machines Can Keep Secrets From Us Language Modeling is Flawed According to Computer Weekly, Levy and Robinson stated in their paper that the language models should be (entirely) locally run on a smartphone or a PC to identify clues to grooming and other activities. This concept has made its way to the European Union and UK laws. However, Anderson disproved that the natural language processing models are very exposed to errors. The expert stated that there is an error rate of under 5 to 10% when running the models. In short, if governments stick to the use of AI when it comes to child safety, billions of false alarms all over the world would be processed in just a single day. Anderson also noted in his paper that more tech firms frequently fail to address the complaints because of the expensive employment of human moderators. He wrote in the same paper that the companies should not ignore requests from other citizens in the society who want to reach out regarding the abuse. If they could quickly respond to the police, they could do the same thing with the ordinary residents in the community. Read Also: AI Evolution: Art Copying is Massive Now, Copyright Laws Soon? This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joseph Henry 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Molly Russell's death made huge headlines after authorities confirmed that content on various social media platforms contributed to the child's decision to take her own life. (Photo : Photo by ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images) A woman uses a laptop on April 3, 2019, in Abidjan. - According to the figures of the platform of the fight against cybercrime (PLCC) of the national police, nearly one hundred crooks of the internet, were arrested in 2018 in Ivory Coast. Recently, the inquest for the 14-year-old girl's death said that the kid used Instagram and Pinterest. The investigation claimed that Molly accessed these online websites to view a large amount of harmful content. These include posts about depression, self-harm, as well as suicide. Because of these, authorities blamed the content that the young girl saw before she died in November 2017, as reported by The Conversation. Molly Russell: Social Media Platforms for Adults, Children Should be Separated? According to The Guardian's latest report, the senior coroner for Russell's inquest, Andrew Walker, suggested that there should be separate social media platforms for adults and children. (Photo : Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A computer screen displays the newly launched Google eBooks online bookstore on December 7, 2010 in San Anselmo, California. Google's much anticipated Internet bookstore launched Monday in the U.S. Also Read: China COVID-19: Cyberspace Administration to Remove Fake News, Misinformation Because the death of Molly showed what harmful online content could do, Walker decided to issue a prevention of future deaths report. He asked the government to review the provision of social media platforms to young users. In his report, authorities should look at separate online platforms for adults and children. Aside from this, he also recommended checking users' ages before they can create their social media accounts. Other Things Discussed by Coroner Walker Coroner Walker's report included more suggestions that government can follow further to protect young users from harmful social media content. Among these are the following: Using algorithms to provide content Providing age-appropriate content to children. Parental or guardian access to a young user's social media account. Aside from the government, Walker also sent his prevention of future deaths report to Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Twitter, the platforms that Molly used before she died. If you want to learn more details about Walker's suggestions to protect children from harmful social media content, you can click here. In other stories, Meta suspended Facebook accounts copying European news outlets. The Online Safety Bill delay caused concerns among parents. For more news updates about social media platforms and other internet topics, keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: The Molly Russell Inquest: Social Media Firms, Including Meta, Must Re-Evaluate Their Safety Measures This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. AUBURN A Brooklyn man is getting prison time after admitting to entering into an enclosed porch at a Mentz home and taking a pair of snow pants and a cross bow earlier this year. Hassan Glenn, 34, was before Judge Thomas Leone in Cayuga County Court Thursday for sentencing. Glenn originally faced charges of first-degree burglary, a class B felony; second-degree burglary, a class C felony; second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a class C felony, and fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a class D felony. He pleaded guilty in August to the first-degree burglary count and second-degree weapon possession charge, satisfying the other two charges. On Thursday, Leone sentenced Glenn to eight years in state prison and five years of post-release supervision for both the first-degree burglary charge and the second-degree criminal possession of a weapon charge, with those sentences running currently. Acting Cayuga County District Attorney Brittany Grome Antonacci said before the sentencing was announced that she felt Glenn took responsibility for his action in his pre-sentence investigation report and did not give the DA's office a reason to deviate from the agreed-upon sentence. Norm Chirco, Glenn's attorney, said Glenn expressed regret for his actions. "This is an incredible sequence of events that he found himself in," Chirco said. Glenn admitted to entering an enclosed porch in Mentz on March 2 with a loaded 9 mm handgun, Grome Antonacci said in August. He stole a pair of snow pants and a crossbow. He fled from law enforcement, and was observed throwing the handgun near the New York State Thruway during the pursuit. Officers also recovered methamphetamine, she said. Also in court Another man is getting time in state prison. Shane T. Stokes Sr., 51, was sentenced to two to four years in state prison for a third-degree criminal possession of a weapon charge. For a second-degree menacing count, he was sentenced to 364 days in the Cayuga County Jail. Those sentences are being served concurrently. An Auburn man is set to receive jail time. Harry Cruz, 56, with a previous address of 7 Grover St., Apt. 3, originally faced charges of third-degree burglary and petit larceny. As a part of a previously agreed-upon sentence, Cruz was sentenced to 364 days in the jail for the petit larceny charge, with the plea satisfying the burglary count. Evan D. Forest, 44, with a previous address of 26 Parker St., Auburn, was sentenced by Leone to a previously agreed-upon sentence of 365 days in the Cayuga County Jail for a second-degree attempted robbery charge. Forest's sentence included an order of protection against him for the victim in the case, plus a mandatory surcharge and a $50 DNA fee. Students and staff sheltered in place as the Wells College campus was locked down for a little under two hours Friday after a threat was reported to police. Wells President Jonathan Gibralter said a 911 call was reported to the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office regarding an "unconfirmed threat" to the safety and security of the campus in Aurora. The sheriff's office contacted Wells' Campus Safety personnel around 11:10 a.m. and asked the college to go into lockdown and shelter in place until the office investigated. Law enforcement told the college around 1 p.m. the situation was all clear "based upon their investigation," Gibralter said, the threat was determined to be unfounded and students and personnel could come out of their shelter in place locations. "All we could do was comply with their directive, and we just sat and waited until they lifted the shelter in place," he said. Gibralter said no one was harmed and he wasn't aware of any arrests being made. "I'm glad that the threat proved not to be credible and that in the time that we're in right now, with so many reported untoward incidents occurring across the nation, acting out of an abundance of caution is always the best course of action," he said. Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck told The Citizen said the 911 caller was a person who is not from New York state and not connected to Wells. The caller was in their car and happened to be on the Wells campus Friday morning. Schenck said another person drove up next to the caller's car and made a strange comment about "shooters," which prompted the caller to reach out to 911. "We don't have any reason to think that this other vehicle is connected to the college either, so this incident does not involve any students that we can confirm or anybody connected to the college that we can confirm. It sounds like some type of incident where people in two different vehicles have an exchange of words and it just happens to be on the property of the college, Schenck said. "And in that exchange, allegedly, somebody says something about shooters, but it's not anything directed toward the college, allegedly, or anything along those lines." Schenck said the sheriff's office, including Sgt. Brian Myers, took precautions and "wanted to make sure that everybody was locked down and safe in case it was connected to the case, but we don't have any evidence at this point that suggests that there was any threat at all against anybody at the college or that anybody related or connected to the college was even involved in this incident at all." The sheriff said this other person who allegedly made the comment about shooters and their alleged vehicle has not been located. So far this yer, gun violence has led to nearly 35,000 deaths across the United States, according to the latest data from Gun Violence Archive. On Friday, Police identified five victims of the Raleigh shooting in North Carolina, as a suspect is in custody with life-threatening injuries. "This is an extremely, extremely painful event for our officers, for me, for this entire community," Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said, adding that the deceased victims, aged between 16 and 53, include off-duty police officer Gabriel Torres. The suspect, described as a 15-year-old White male, was taken into custody on Thursday night and is said to have been in critical condition. More details about the identity of the shooter have not been released due to his age. The mass shooting occurred in a residential neighborhood in Raleigh on Thursday evening, in which two other people were also wounded, including one critically. According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been 532 mass shooting incidents in the United States so far this year (4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter). That's an average of more than 50 mass shootings per month. Let that sink in for a moment. #GunReformNow pic.twitter.com/YILrkgwtnA Edge (@TheLesson55) October 14, 2022 Investigation remained active as of Friday morning. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper pointed out said that no U.S. community should feel the pain of gun violence. "We're sad, furious and have many questions that'll soon be answered. We're standing with the victims and their families in this moment of unspeakable agony," he said. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin echoed the sentiment, saying that "we must work to stop this mindless gun violence in our country." So far this yer, gun violence has led to nearly 35,000 deaths across the United States, according to the latest data from Gun Violence Archive. [Focus on the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China] Hong Kong people pay attention to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: Only a prosperous and stable Hong Kong can have a better life-Chinanews.com video On October 13, at the initiative of Germany, 15 European countries signed a protocol of intent to create a pan-European air defense system. As part of the defense project initiated by Berlin, it is planned to combine the various air defense systems of these countries in order to increase the protection of the NATO and Finnish space from air and missile threats. However, according to experts, at this stage, Germany and its allies in the project do not have the necessary funds to implement this plan. On October 13, at the initiative of Germany, 14 member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance and Finland signed a protocol of intent to create a European air defense system (air defense) European Sky Shield. The information was posted on the NATO website. "The new capabilities, which are fully interoperable and seamlessly integrated into NATO's air and missile defense, will significantly increase our ability to defend the alliance against all air and missile threats," said Mircea Geoana, Deputy Secretary General of the alliance, speaking to NATO defense ministers. According to him, this initiative is especially important now, when Russia is launching supposedly indiscriminate missile strikes on Ukraine. The declaration was signed by 14 NATO members: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Great Britain, as well as Finland, which is not yet a member of the alliance. German media note that the document was signed on the sidelines of a meeting of defense ministers of the North Atlantic Alliance in Brussels. In turn, German Defense Minister Christina Lambrecht explained the need for such an initiative by gaps in the supply of air defense to the countries of the alliance. A total of 15 states have rallied to organize, under the coordination of Germany, the joint supply of European air defense. This is where we have gaps, the German media quoted her as saying. The benefits of such a system, Lambrecht said, would be interoperability, convenient pricing for air defense equipment, and the ability for participating countries to help each other with technical support. This is a win-win situation for all participating countries, said the German defense minister. one system Recall that earlier the initiative to create a single air defense system with European neighbors was announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Speaking at the end of August at the Charles University in Prague, he said that a joint system would be less expensive and more effective than single steps on this issue at the national level. In Europe, we have a serious amount of unfulfilled tasks in terms of air defense, (defense. - RT ) against air and space threats, he said. As Scholz noted, in the coming years, "Germany will invest significantly in its air defense, all these funds will be able to be deployed within NATO." In addition, developments in this area will be carried out in such a way that Germany's EU neighbors can take part in them, the German chancellor added. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz AP Markus Schreiber If the air defense system in Europe is developed jointly, it will not only be more effective and cost-effective, but will also increase the security of Europe as a whole, and will also become an excellent example of strengthening the European pillar of NATO, Scholz emphasized. It is worth noting that the North Atlantic Alliance already has a joint air defense system called IAMD - Integrated Air and Missile Defense (Joint Air and Missile Defense). NATO Joint Air and Missile Defense is a fundamental continuous mission aimed at ensuring the safety and protection of the territories, populations and forces of the countries of the alliance from any air and missile threat or attack, both in peacetime and in times of crisis and conflict, it says. in the section on IAMD on the official website of the alliance. The same site claims that IAMD is capable of repelling the full range of potential threats, from tactical to strategic, from any direction: air, land or sea. This system is administered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces of NATO in Europe. Military experts interviewed by RT believe that the European countries that signed the declaration want to create an additional air defense system, which would be an alternative to IAMD, to strengthen their military autonomy. This problem is far from new. Periodically, it materializes in the form of proposals either to create a single European army, or to create its own unified air defense system, said military observer Alexander Khrolenko in a RT commentary. In turn, a retired military expert, Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Knutov, believes that in order to create a new unified air defense system, Germany and its allies will have to overcome some difficulties. Difficulties will arise at the stage of creating a command post that will manage this system, because it will be necessary to create a new unified automation system. Perhaps the Europeans will take advantage of the American experience and simply buy from them such complexes that are used in the NORAD system covering the airspace of the United States and Canada. But if the Europeans decide to create such a system on their own, then this process can take up to five years, the expert said in a comment to RT. Germany, obviously, acted as the instigator of this concept in order to seize the initiative and potential buyers of its weapons from the United States, Knutov added. The United States dominates the North Atlantic Alliance, but Germany does not want the Americans to supply their products, air defense systems and control system for this decision, as this will lead to the fact that the Europeans will not be able to control it completely, the RT interlocutor explained. Most likely, the German IRIS-T systems will form the basis of the new air defense system, the expert believes. Perhaps this initiative is being started so that Germany sells its air defense systems to other countries. Now competition among Europeans will grow, but agreements can be reached when they all participate in the production of even German complexes. That is, orders will be distributed that will relieve tension, and all countries that participate in this will receive profits, Knutov believes. Lack of air defense It is worth noting that the declaration of intent to create a European air defense system was signed amid reports that the countries of the bloc are experiencing a shortage of air defense equipment due to the regular destruction of weapons and equipment supplied by NATO to Ukraine by Russian troops. Thus, the Financial Times, citing Western officials, reported that the member states of the North Atlantic Alliance do not have enough air defense systems to meet the needs of the Kyiv regime. NASAMS Air Defense System of the Finnish Army Legion Media Hannu Mononen Countries have already provided something, but there is a shortage of production capacity, admitted the source of the Financial Times. The interlocutor of the publication added that "some NATO members themselves are facing many years of delays in terms of their own air defense platforms." Recall that earlier Germany handed over to Ukraine the first of the four promised air defense systems IRIS-T. In turn, the coordinator for strategic communications at the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said that the US authorities expect to transfer the first two NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems to Kyiv in the near future. However, according to Alexander Khrolenko, the problem in creating a unified European air defense system will lie not so much in the lack of air defense systems themselves, but in their technical characteristics. If these countries individually do not have air defense systems that can intercept ballistic or cruise missiles, how can they come together to create something more effective than individually? Now, in the context of Ukraine, they are constantly talking about Western medium-range air defense and missile defense systems: Patriot, NASAMS, IRIS-T. But they are ineffective in the fight against Russian cruise missiles, the expert said. According to Zelenskys words, the NASAMS complexes that the United States uses to guard the White House are already in Ukraine. If so, then why were they unable to protect the targets hit by Russian missiles? the expert stressed. Now, Germany and other countries that signed the declaration on the creation of the European Sky Shield want to create a unified air defense system based on these systems that have not been tested in real combat operations, Khrolenko added. If on the scale of one country there was no air defense system, then when several countries are combined into a single system, it will still remain none. These are the Europeans' panicky attempts to collect something that supposedly can protect them. The myth about the power of Western weapons is collapsing, and in return comes the understanding that something needs to be done and united. However, so far all this exists only at the level of protocols, the expert concluded. A new mailer seeks to provide a side-by-side comparison of Democratic state Sen. Rachel May and Onondaga County Legislator Julie Abbott, a Republican, in the 48th Senate District race. The problem: It misses the mark on two claims. The mailer was paid for by the New York State Democratic Committee in support of May's reelection bid. May, D-Syracuse, is seeking a third term in the state senate. She is running in the newly drawn 48th district that includes all of Cayuga County and most of Onondaga County. Abbott, R-Skaneateles, is hoping to unseat May. The mailer Claim 1: Abbott is "allied" with the Conservative Party One page of the mailer has images of Abbott and May with the claim that Abbott cannot be trusted because she is "allied" with the Conservative Party. But Abbott does not have the Conservative line in the election. She was authorized to run on the line by the state party, but faced a primary because some Conservative members, especially those in Cayuga County, did not believe she shared the party's values. Justin Coretti, an Owasco attorney, challenged Abbott for the Conservative line and won the primary in August. He is on the Conservative ballot line for the general election, making it a three-way race. Claim 2: The Conservative Party "trusts Abbott to oppose women's reproductive rights and even commonsense gun safety laws" The main reason Abbott lost the Conservative line is her abortion and gun rights positions. Her opponents within the Conservative Party referred to a questionnaire she filled out when she first ran for Onondaga County Legislature in 2019. One question asked her about government funding for Planned Parenthood. Abbott responded, "I do believe in funding Planned Parenthood and I am in favor of women's right to choose." She added that she opposes late-term abortions. The Conservative Party opposes abortion. On its website, one of the party's 2022 priorities is that New York's "expanded abortion law should be repealed." The party does support "therapeutic abortions only under the most clearly defined conditions hazardous to the life of the mother." Abbott's pro-choice stance does not align with the Conservative Party's position. The party's 2019 questionnaire also asked about guns. Abbott said she supports the right to bear arms but opposes conceal-carry reciprocity that if someone is licensed to carry a firearm in one state they should be allowed to do so in another. She also supports "red flag" laws, or extreme risk protection orders, that are designed to take guns away from individuals who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or the public. The Conservative Party opposes red flag laws. New York state has its own red flag law, and the party believes it should be repealed. Other facts It cannot be disputed that Abbott sought the Conservative line. Thanks to fusion voting, which allows candidates to be cross-endorsed by other parties, Republicans typically run on the Conservative line in federal, state and local elections. But Abbott's history with the Conservative Party is complex. When she ran for Onondaga County Legislature in 2019, she did not have the party's support. That changed in 2021. She had the Conservative line for her first reelection bid as a county lawmaker. This year, she hoped to have the Conservative line for her state senate campaign. However, the Conservative Party committees in Cayuga and Onondaga counties declined to endorse her candidacy. Because the district is comprised of two counties, the state party had the final say. State Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Kassar told The Citizen that he interviewed Abbott and received assurances from Republican leaders. The party authorized Abbott to run on its line. Local Conservative leaders were not happy with the state party's decision. After Coretti decided to challenge Abbott, the Cayuga County Conservatives wrote on its Facebook page that it was "time we took a stand and said NO, to politicians who want our line as a source of votes, but who are not in line with our clearly stated values." Conclusion The mailer makes it appear that Abbott is "allied" with the Conservative Party. It also claims that she shares their positions on abortion and gun rights. The goal of the mailer was to highlight May's work on abortion rights and gun safety legislation. One of the first bills May voted on in the state senate was the Reproductive Health Act, which codified the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision into state law. But Democrats make false claims about Abbott's standing with the Conservative Party and her abortion and gun rights positions. Abbott, who told The Citizen that she is "socially moderate," supports abortion rights and red flag laws two positions that do not align with the Conservative Party's platform. She does not have the Conservative line in the 48th Senate District race, so she is not "allied" with the party. New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two teenagers were shot outside his Long Island home. Police said two 17-year-old boys suffered injuries that weren't life threatening Sunday when they were hit by gunfire from a passing car. Zeldin says he and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting but that their teenage daughters heard gunshots and screaming. The wounded teens then tried to hide in Zeldins yard, ducking under his porch and into the bushes, while the person who was with them fled. These films are a deep dive into art-making, and making things that are beautiful and poetic and move and shift our hearts and minds, Newell says. But regardless of a films real-life impact, Newell says what means the most are the beautiful relationships that you hold onto for your whole life. Im going to have a very full life by the time Im an old person because I have all these connections, Newell laughs. She tells me she has picked up a godchild for every film shes made, that she visits her films subjects whenever she can, and that even her own family spends time with them post-production. Maya Newell at Big Esso, Mabu Mabu. Credit:Chris Hopkins While filming In My Blood It Runs a feature documentary about 10-year-old Dujuan, an Arrernte/Garrwa boy trying to reconcile a state education with his Aboriginal upbringing Newell relocated to Alice Springs for two years. She went hunting with Dujuans community, dug up yams and sat with the family through tough conversations about how to protect Dujuan and provide him with the best possible future, even if that meant moving away from his mother. I suppose thats the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Its that that person has to continue living after the film is made. They have lives that extend before and after this, Newell says. The cameras may have stopped rolling in 2019, but Newell didnt say goodbye. Shes now the godmother of Dujuans younger sister and is planning to visit them in November. Newells upbringing in inner western Sydney was one of love and activism. She tells me of the times she waved placards alongside her two mothers at protests for Reconciliation and walked in the Mardi Gras. Loading Newell says children who grow up in LGBTQI+ families are often spoken about but not listened to. Enter Gayby Baby, a film about same-sex families told by four 10-year-olds. Relating to these children was not so difficult given her own experiences growing up in a queer family. What was challenging was the backlash the film received upon release in 2015. After complaints from parents and uproar on social media and talkback radio, the then NSW government decided to ban the film from being screened in schools across the state. That was incredibly formative, but also a really scary time, Newell says. The children in that film used their voices and they spoke truth to power, and the world really responded. It was incredibly horrible in some ways. It was community and family that allowed Newell and the children in the film to persevere. There were cafes that had little signs that said calm down and watch Gayby Baby, and the local fire brigades had little signs that said watch the film, well put out the fire, Newell recalls. She had embarked on a mission to provide space for those often consigned to the periphery to involve them in the process so they could take the power back after a lifetime of having others talk about you, tell you what you need, tell you whats good for you, and tell you that youre wrong. The Chilli Brussels Sprouts at Mabu Mabu. Credit:Chris Hopkins Competing with the background sounds of laughing school children and grinding coffee machines, we come to Newells most recent documentary, The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone. The 29-minute film spans 19 years in the life of the Melburnian transgender teen who finds her voice and helps change laws for other young transgender and gender-diverse people in Australia. Newell says she saw the real attack from the far right throughout the election campaign and ongoing around the world. Once again, real people people with their own background and unique lived experience were being silenced and used as political tools, she says. To begin reversing that pattern, Newell and her team (including Sophie Hyde, Alex Kelly and Matthew Bate) decided to document Georgies memories. Newell witnesses some of Georgies most personal experiences. One moment, shes capturing a conversation between Georgie and her mother, Beck, speaking about who gets what in the parents divorce; another moment, shes standing in a hospital room as Georgie and her twin brother share an affectionate hug before Georgie undergoes gender-affirmation surgery. A still of Georgie Stone in Maya Newells most recent documentary. Its a lot of time and trust, and building in intentional processes that give over power to the people who are sacrificing a lot to be on screen and courageously share their stories, Newell says as our deconstructed rocky road is placed on the table in front of us, the pepperberry-spiced rosella jelly glinting in the sunlight. You have not only the power to transform the audiences that you reach, but also the people that you work with. Humans are in-built to care and especially hungry for meaning now, Newell insists. But to actually use the intrinsic empathy we possess, we must truly understand the context and nuance of someones struggle. I remark that she must be quite extroverted to be able to delve so deep into someones personal life. I dont think Im particularly extroverted, Newell laughs. Its a weird thing, documentary-making. I love connecting with people and talking to them, but then I also love sitting and watching people and being sort of invisible and a shadow. So, I think it actually aligns more with being an introvert. Getting to the heart of Georgies story wasnt about asking the right questions or saying the right things, it was allowing space to sit back and listen and allow other people to take the platform. Once subjects really deeply understand they have the agency and control over what their story is going to be, then youre able to kind of open up and just film so much more because you genuinely have trust in the process and the person that youre sharing all of that with, she says. I think thats important to say because historically that hasnt been the status quo in documentary. Receipt for lunch at Mabu Mabu with Maya Newell. As we clear off the dessert plate (clearly the favourite dish of the meal, given not a trace was left uneaten, including the saltbush caramel hazelnut brittle which by now was well and truly stuck in my teeth), Newell speaks with excitement about the beautiful launch party they had for the film over the weekend. Trans and gender-diverse families, and those from Transcend Australia, an organisation that supports families and carers and their trans, gender-diverse and non-binary children, gathered to celebrate both Georgie and the significance of the film for many kids navigating their way through childhood. From the beginning of the six-year process, when Georgie was just 14 and Newell didnt even know what form the film would take let alone if there would be a film to release to the final product, Newell says there was never one correct way to connect with the person youre planning to document over an extended period. This story is part of the October 15 edition of Good Weekend. See all 17 stories . Australia is rushing towards a shortfall in filmmaking talent within the next five years, says acclaimed producer Tony Ayres, as the demise of Neighbours and other long-running TV series leaves nowhere for upcoming writers, directors and other key creatives to develop their skills. Ayres whose hit shows include Glitch, Stateless, The Slap, Barracuda, Seven Types of Ambiguity and Clickbait says that while the local industry is enjoying an unprecedented boom in high-end production, much of it with the international market in mind, those shows offer few opportunities for emerging writers, directors and producers to hone their craft. Tony Ayres: shows like Neighbours gave younger directors an opportunity to direct, gave newer writers an opportunity to write. Credit:Louie Douvis My concern is that there is a systemic flaw, which is that if we only do the kind of top-end, bigger-budget, more elite work, there is going to be a gap in about five years, when one generation moves on and another generation has to emerge, says Ayres. Who are those people going to be if they havent had the opportunities to learn? There is a real and significant gap in our production output [which was once filled by things] like Neighbours, great shows like Packed To the Rafters, Offspring, All Saints the basic, longer, returning series, which gave younger directors an opportunity to direct, gave newer writers an opportunity to write. Light plane makes dramatic emergency landing in Victoria Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss The NSW government is disputing claims by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has not spoken to him about a controversial plan to increase the Warragamba Dam wall. The premier revealed he had personally raised the issue with Albanese. Yesterday, Albanese insisted that Perrottet had not spoken to him about funding arrangements to increase the western Sydney dam wall, and refused to speculate whether the Commonwealth would stump up cash for the project. The NSW government announced last week that it was ramping up efforts to increase the Warragamba Dam wall by 14 metres in a bid to abate concerns over flooding in western Sydney. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet are at odds over a key conversation regarding Warragamba Dam. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Critics of the $1.6 billion project say increasing the wall wont adequately address the flooding risks in the Hawkesbury-Nepean region, and have warned that it will result in the destruction of World Heritage-listed bushland as well as scores of important Aboriginal cultural sites. Beijing (Gasgoo)- Dongfeng Motor Groups premium new energy vehicle brand, VOYAH, saw its first sedan model listed on the declaration catalogue of Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Photo credit: MIIT Judging from the photos released by the MIIT, the new sedan model has the characters, Zhui Guang (Chinese for chasing light), embedded on the rear end of the body. Measuring 5,088mm long, 1,970mm wide, and 1,505mm tall with a 3,000mm wheelbase, the sedan is a mid-to-large size intelligent battery-electric vehicle, vying with NIOs ET7 in terms of size. The model offers three rim styles in size 245/45 R20. The model is installed with a liftable tail in the back. Inheriting VOYAHs signature design element of the i-Land concept car, the battery-electric sedan features a wing-type LOGO light set across the vehicles width. The design language of the new model is similar to that of the VOYAH FREE and Dreamer. In terms of power, the new pure-electric sedan will be equipped with ternary lithium-ion battery provided by CATL. The model will come standard with a dual-electric motor intelligent four-wheel-drive system. The highest power of the front motor is 160kW and the rear motor is 215kW, reaching a maximum speed of 210km/h. Army dinghies patrol Navigator Street in Maribyrnong. Credit:John Hart In Wangaratta, residents are preparing to evacuate as floodwaters from the Ovens and King rivers overflow into low-lying land around the town. Police fear the flood danger in Seymour, Benalla, Wangaratta and Kyabram will increase as run-off from the catchment areas spills into the Goulburn, Broken, Ovens and King rivers and heads south. At Avenel, 73 miles north of Melbourne, 30 soldiers sandbagged the town. Late last night it was isolated by floodwater from the Goulburn and Hughes Creek. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam surveys the flood damage at Seymour. Credit:The Age Archives At the height of the floods in Melbourne at 6pm yesterday, a car with two people in it was swept off Heatherton Road in Doveton North into the Dandenong Creek. An ambulance officer, Bob Spence, said it appeared the car was trying to cross the flooded creek. He said the car went up to its windows in water, but once in the stream could go no further. Aerial view of floodwaters at Wangaratta. Credit:The Age Archives At 3.30pm a man was pulled from the Merri Creek behind Containers Limited in Normanby Road, Northcote. Ambulance officers revived the man, who was taken to PANCH (Preston & Northcote Community Hospital) for observation and was later allowed to leave. The RACV emergency road service reported a heavy demand with up to 500 calls an hour for help in the afternoon peak. Later in the evening the number dropped to around 130 an hour. At the Containers factory, hundreds of square feet of the basement area were under eight feet of water. A company spokesman said damage to stock and equipment could total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nearby Anderson Road was under six feet of water and the Merri Creek was expected to rise even higher. Flemington Racecourse submerged by the floodwaters. Credit:The Age Archives The Melbourne Fire Brigades vehicle maintenance workshop in Anderson Road Was flooded. A brigade spokesman said damage would amount to thousands of dollars. More than a dozen homes in Fyffe Street, Thornbury, which runs into Anderson Road, were under water. Residents were using boats to move their possessions to dry ground. In Mitchell Street, East Brunswick, police used boats to save people stranded by the Merri Creek floodwaters. Eyewitnesses said many people refused to leave their homes until police removed them. Merri Creek was more than 300 feet wide in places. The Darebin Creek at Settlement Road, Thomastown, was about 200 feet wide and running swiftly. At least four homes had water inside. First published in The Age on May 17, 1974 The toll: Thousands evacuated, crops ruined Thousands forced from their homes the wheat crop devastated and Flemington Racecourse submerged. Thats part of the toll in Victorias worst floods in nearly 60 years. Aerial view of flooded wheat paddocks in Horsham. Credit:The Age Archives In Shepparton, where a thousand have already been evacuated from homes, the worst is yet to come. The swollen Goulburn River will reach a record peak later today. Shepparton can expect a bigger flood than the big ones of 1956 and 1934. In Wangaratta, another 1000 people have been evacuated from more than 400 flood-damaged houses. Prisoners from nearby Beechworth training prison have headed rescue operations and become local heroes. Hundreds more have been rescued from isolated farms and small towns. And a flash flood in Melbournes western suburbs early yesterday forced 200 people in Maribyrnong and Flemington to flee their homes. A flotilla of army and coast guard boats were called in at 2am. The boats ran a shuttle service from swamped homes to two churches on high ground. Loading By last night the Maribyrnong River had receded, but many of the 200 evacuated from 60 homes could not go home. Furniture, bedding and food were swept away. As much as half of Victorias wheat crop could be ruined. So far only half the wheat crop has been sown. And theres bad news for racegoers. Flemington Racecourse is under four feet of water and black mud. The Victoria Racing Clubs clubrooms are flooded and the carpet covered in mud. About 200 horses at the course have been re-stabled at the Showgrounds. There are various ways to measure success in journalism. The one that really matters to enable us to keep doing our job is whether our reporting is interesting enough, valuable enough and of sufficient quality every day to prompt people to part with their money to subscribe to us and then stay with us. It hasnt always been that way. Under the old business model, journalists were memorably described by Fred Hilmer, a former chief executive of our precursor company, Fairfax Media, as content providers for an advertising platform. And I wont forget the scenes outside the old Spencer Street printing presses on Friday nights when the first editions of The Age were rolling out the door and people eager for an early glimpse of the (enormous) Saturday newspaper would line up to buy a copy. It was disheartening, then, to see that the first thing many of them threw in the waiting bins were the sections containing the journalism we had spent the week sweating over. It was an early look at the classifieds people were really after. Nick McKenzies exclusive revelations about Crown and The Star casinos are a compelling example of journalism that has real impact. Credit:Getty Those days are gone. Advertising is still one of the key commercial legs on which our journalism stands, but the classifieds have largely disappeared, and subscriptions are increasingly crucial. As a result, we know much better what people actually want to read and by and large that is breaking news and sport and high quality, exclusive news and analysis, as well as a mix of culture, lifestyle and features to round out their reading. I find that encouraging: striving to produce those things because people actually want them is a much better feeling than watching the old Spencer Street scramble. But there are other measures of success. One of them, as investigative reporter Nick McKenzie keeps telling me, is impact. And he should know. His exclusive revelations about Australias two casino giants, Crown Resorts and The Star, have continued to reverberate through Australias political, social and commercial fabric. Theyre not his only high-impact stories. Nick, along with another one of our star journalists, Adele Ferguson, has the highest strike rate of stories that have forced change in public policy of any reporter in Australia. Journalists asking the right questions and following the evidence can prompt serious inquiries by regulators, governments, even royal commissions, and effect real, beneficial change. Now with secrecy provisions lifted they can reveal what happened in the confidential hearings that they hoped would finally resolve the case that has stretched over four decades. We got the call from the OPP to have an urgent meeting with them because something significant had transpired, says Rod Millers widow Carmel Arthur. A court hearing over several days was held in secret because if there was no deal and it became public it could prejudice a jury at the later trial. It was a very respectful process, says Arthur. We did victim impact statements. It was a closed court, and it was made very clear this was confidential and we had to keep it within the family. Eventually, Kaye said the maximum sentence would be 40 years. We were quite taken aback with the length of the sentence he indicated, says Gary Silks brother Peter, believing it would be closer to 35. We were bloody shocked. It was about 10 days between the time the OPP told us this was on the table until we were told that he was going to roll the dice, says Arthur. We went from Oh my god this is finally over. If he pleads guilty ... it was also right that he didnt have to serve life because it was off the table. It was almost a win-win. John Silvester with Carmel Arthur and Peter Silk for the Naked City podcast. Credit:Paul Jeffers You think finally this nightmare is over for all of us. No trial, no witnesses retraumatised, [Garys brothers] Pete, Ian and [mother] Val get the outcome they need, and we can all finally move on with our lives. Roberts chose to exercise his legal rights and went to trial. (A sentence indication is not an admission of guilt.) In July, he was acquitted of the murder charges. Some time ago, Peter and Carmel agreed to talk to me for the Naked City podcast once all legal procedures were completed. Their stories are inspirational, showing how they refuse to be defined as victims and will not allow themselves to be consumed by bitterness. About eight years after the murders they married and Arthur served for 18 years on the Sentencing Advisory Council and nine on the Adult Parole Board. She has been awarded an OAM for services to the law and sits on the Victorian Post-Sentence Authority. She is a star. When the government changed the law to effectively ban police killers from seeking parole, she felt it was unfair on Roberts, who was originally sentenced to a minimum of 35 years. She believed that if he had reformed, he should be able to seek parole. On the night he was ambushed and murdered, Rod Miller had only been back at work for a week after six weeks leave following the birth of their first child, Jimmy. After an afternoon shift and in the early hours he signed more than 60 handwritten thank you letters that Carmel posted on the Saturday. By the time they arrived, Rod was gone, she says. Carmel with baby James. He would never know his father. Credit:Simon ODwyer After Miller was shot and was losing his battle for life, Arthurs brother took the call and told her that her husband had been injured in an accident at work and she was needed at the hospital. When I realised he had been shot I asked wheres his sergeant? I want to know what happened, and his sergeant said, Carmel, Gary [Silk] is dead. The surgeon came out and told me of the injuries and I told him, look you just have to save him, I have a little baby. This isnt the way it is supposed to play out, so go back in there and save him. About 20 minutes later the doors opened, and it was like one of those movies where they open up to doors of the operating theatre and the doctor walks out really slowly - it was like he was in slow motion and I knew then he was coming to tell me Rod had died. The three Silk boys, Ian, Peter and Gary, grew up in sight of the Glen Waverley Police Academy and Peter was the one who initially wanted to join. I failed the test, he says. I knew I was colour-blind, but I thought I had the system beaten. I was kidding myself. Devastated, he went home and his father, Morrie, rang his old friend chief commissioner Mick Miller to see if anything could be done. Mick leapt into action. The next day he changed the order making the colour-blind test the first rather than the last, to weed people like me out. The separate funerals of Silk and Miller were conducted at the Police Academy with full honours. For Peter it is something that will never leave me. Rod Millers funeral Honour Guard. Credit:Simon ODwyer The families were unaware of the size of the funeral. We were told if we had some friends coming they should get there a little bit early. A little bit early? They should have camped overnight, says Peter. For Carmel, it was the long procession outside with the honour guard of police, shoulder to shoulder stretching more than a kilometre. As she looked out she could see cars moving through traffic and thought: Your lives are going along normally and mine has done this unbelievable pivot. You are completely numb. I just thought, what now? When Debs and Roberts became suspects, Lorimer Taskforce detectives picked up Debs on listening devices considering killing Arthur and her infant son to make investigators think the murder of Miller in Cochranes Road was a targeted killing and not related to the series of armed robberies. When Arthur was told, she refused to be relocated because she wanted Jimmy to live a normal life. One night I went out into the front yard and yelled, Just come and get me. But I knew we were safe. I just knew Rod wouldnt let anything happen to us. As police closed in on the suspects, Garys father, Morrie, was battling terminal cancer and would not live to see the arrests. The head of the taskforce, Paul Sheridan, decided to take Morrie Silk into his confidence. What a beautiful heart Paul has, Peter says. He came to the family home and dad was desperately ill and couldnt get out of bed. Paul just said to mum, I just want to go upstairs and see Morrie. He went into the bedroom, shut the door, bent down next to him, grabbed his hand and reassured him that they were in control of the investigation and knew who the offenders were. Carmel Arthur and Peter Silk Credit:Paul Jeffers Carmel and Peter grew closer and about eight years after the murders they married. They may have been thrown together by tragedy but they are connected by much more than grief. Like many comfortable couples they can finish each others sentences, share the same sense of humour and look to have fun. They want to honour the past while looking forward. When in 2002 Debs and Roberts were convicted, Arthur hoped that would be the turning point for her. She felt relief and elation but that night at a function she burst into tears. You think you will be a new person, but I didnt get that feeling. You realise the hard work was to commence in terms of rebuilding my life. From 2013 they have lived with a public campaign that Roberts was wrongly convicted. In 2020, his Supreme Court appeal was successful, he won a retrial and ultimately a jury acquittal. We are two or three months down the track now [since the acquittal] and it is now over for everyone. We can finally live a life free of legal process. There is no more. Its done. These were the cards we were dealt and we all have to find the best way to play them. Glenys Mulcahy woke on Friday morning and began sweeping the floors of the fastidiously neat Rochester home she has lived in for 54 years. A few hours later, those pristine floors were covered in murky water and Glenys was watching the level rise ominously up the walls. The Mulcahys home was one of hundreds affected by floodwater in Rochester on Friday as the bloated Campaspe River broke its banks and spilled out into the town. Although it quickly became obvious their home would soon be inundated, Glenys remained cheery and often laughed, insisting it was important to stay positive, while chatting to The Age. Glenys and her husband Brian have lived through five floods since moving into the house, a few blocks back from the river, 54 years ago. Only once in 2011 has floodwater entered their home. Advertisement Roads are generally made up of three layers. There are between five and 10 centimetres of asphalt on top, followed by a sublayer of natural materials and a base layer of soil. Loading As with anything, roads suffer from wear and tear. The top surface of the asphalt eventually ends up with small cracks as a stream of vehicles, weighing anything from 2000 to 7000 kilograms, drive over them in the same spot. Thats not a problem. The roads remain structurally sound until the rain comes, says Dr Behzad Fatahi, an associate professor of civil and geotechnical engineering at the University of Technology, Sydney. Because the road is no longer fully sealed, rainwater gets under the pavement and then washes away the soil, Fatahi explains. Theres one factor influencing whether this wet soil becomes a pothole: drainage. A well-designed road will allow water to quickly flow out of the area. But if it doesnt, it continues to weaken the soil. Then you [have] an empty cavity, with very soft material, he says. Fatahi says we should think about rain-damaged roads as a creme brulee: road surfaces are hard on top, but soft underneath where it matters. When a vehicle goes over asphalt with little structure beneath it, the only way is down, and a pothole is born. Advertisement Of course, this quickly becomes a vicious, tyre-eating cycle: more water leads to more cracks which lead to more loosening, which means bigger potholes. What kind of damage do they cause? And what should you do if you hit one? Damage from potholes can rack up hefty bills, says Alex Khoury from the NRMA. Road surfaces are covered with water, so motorists cant see them and theyre driving right into them, Khoury says. And then you start to see some significant damage to the wheel, the axle and the suspension. So, its structural damage to the vehicle, which cant be fixed on the side of the road, which means we have got to call a tow truck. If drivers hit a pothole they should stop to check for damage as soon as its safe to do so, says Andrew Kirk, principal technical researcher at the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland. Check the wheels and tyres for signs of physical damage. If the tyre is damaged in any way, or if there are any bulges or gouges, replace it with the spare tyre, says Kirk. Credit:Nine If there is no visible damage, you can drive the vehicle but check if theres any abnormal noise or the steering pulling sideways. If you do notice any abnormalities, arrange to have the vehicle towed to a repairer. NRMA mechanic Terry Smith has seen a few potholes in his time. When hes called to one pothole-damaged car on a highway, hell often find two or three cars behind it with the same issue. He urges drivers to move off the road before calling for help. Advertisement In a situation where you have blown a tyre, youre not going to make the damage any worse by continuing to drive on to a safe place, he says. Sometimes you see people just stop right in the middle of the road. And if youre swerving to avoid a hole, be extra cautious not to drive on to the wrong side of the road. How are potholes fixed? Why do they come back? The good news or expensive news, depending on who you ask is that potholes are entirely avoidable. As Fatahi says, it comes down to good road maintenance. Simply, cracks should be fixed as soon as they appear. But that doesnt always happen. Advertisement When they see cracks on the surface, [councils] have to come and fix it, says Fatahi. And if they dont fix these holes, then definitely youre going to see those potholes there. Its tied to the poor maintenance of our roads. Loading Australian Road Research Board chief executive Michael Caltabiano says the Band-Aid solutions motorists often complain about are necessary for traffic stability, but that doesnt mean theyre as effective as we would like. Water is kryptonite to roads, says Caltabiano. So you must maintain the road system so that you prevent water getting into the road structure ... all the preventative maintenance really comes to the fore when we have weather events. If a pothole isnt fixed immediately, says Caltabiano, it turns into a very significant failure. Fixing them involves using a cold asphalt mix, which is less effective at staying in place over long periods of time and is the reason they keep returning. A hot asphalt mix is far more effective, but it cant be applied during wet weather. So, were stuck with numerous temporary fixes. A pothole in Sydney during rains in July. Credit:Peter Rae But it also comes down to the material we use on our roads. While roads that use concrete surfaces are far stronger and less likely to crack, theyre also far more dear up to five or 10 times more expensive than their asphalt counterparts, says Fatahi. That makes them an unattractive option for governments building new roads. (He hasnt done specific calculations, but Fatahi estimates that repairs of broken potholes would cost nearly the same amount in the long term as upfront costs for concrete roads.) Advertisement Former federal politician John Spender, who served as Australias ambassador to France during the Howard government, has died. He was 86. Spender, the former husband of fashion designer Carla Zampatti and the father of independent MP Allegra Spender and fashion designer Bianca Spender, was a long-serving Liberal who earlier this year endorsed his daughters successful bid to win the blue-ribbon seat of Wentworth. He was also known as one of the principled members of federal parliament who defended journalist Laurie Oakes against claims of contempt of parliament for claiming there were drunks and bludgers in the chamber. John Spender in 1986 with his then wife Carla Zampatti and children Bianca, Alexander and Allegra. Credit:Ian Charles Cugley He is someone who reflected on the world, always questioned it, loved good conversation and was gracious to the end, Allegra Spender said in a statement late on Friday. Voters would prefer to see a famous Australian on the $5 note rather than seeing King Charles replace Queen Elizabeth on the currency, but there is no clear majority for either option amid a growing debate about the most worthy candidates to gain the honour. Only 34 per cent of Australians name King Charles as their choice for the countrys most widespread banknote while 43 per cent would rather see somebody else, such as a famous Australian, given the position and another 23 per cent are undecided. A narrow majority of Coalition voters 51 per cent want the new monarch on the note but only 31 per cent of Labor voters and just 13 per cent of Greens voters share that view, highlighting the political gulf in a decision being debated within the government. The exclusive survey, conducted by Resolve Strategic for this masthead, found that 47 per cent of Labor voters wanted an Australian on the note but only 32 per cent of Coalition voters took the same view, compared to 69 per cent of Greens voters. LOS ANGELESAxel Abysse, the Tokyo-based, French director and zBUCKz resident "kinkster-in-chief," is celebrating the fifth anniversary of his eponymous AxelAbysse.com with an ambitious 25-minute, five-person orgy video, "Stains." Starring Abysse and cohorts Yoshi Kawasaki, nonbinary Reid Rose, with Jordan Tannahill and Jake Rockard, Stains contains kink, fisting, raw fucking, and watersports. Watch Stains starting today, at AxelAbysse.com. Director Matt Spike explains the intent and uninhibited action of the group sex menage, lensed at Londons Fetish Daddy Studios. I have never filmed something as exciting as this. I barely needed to press the stop button on the camera. The action took place on a central table in the middle of the dungeon and I walked around the edge with the camera. It seemed everywhere I pointed the camera, something exciting happened. The guys let me in close to the action when needed. It was primal and very, very kinky. The groans, the look of intense pleasure on faces, mixed with the heady scent of anticipation. A sea of sweaty bodies groaning and grinding, no words needed, the sound doing all the work. I absolutely loved it and would jump at the chance to film this again. Since his site premiered in 2017, Abysse has earned numerous accolades and awards. His videos have been included in prestigious festivals worldwide, and hes maintained production schedules across Japan, Europe, and the US. Hes eager to present Stains to commemorate the occasion. After two years of pandemic stuck in Japan, without being able to travel anywhere, maintaining extra levels of precaution with each session, this new movie feels like things are finally back to normal and we can fully enjoy our sleazy lifestyle again," Abysse says. "With Stains, I wanted a polished, more classical approach to the studio aesthetic I often try to avoid, because why not? Its fun to once in a while go back to this old-school fantasy of aroused pigs getting together in a dungeon. The difference from gay studio work is were still doing whatever we like, how we like, were not pretending to be rougher or more masc than we actually are and not following any direction other than where our primal instincts lead us... towards being total pigs. Nothing is fake, nothing is in control, we just let go. "Yoshi and I were touring Europe together. Stopping in London, we had to collaborate with Matt Spike again. You dont reach that level of trust with every videographer, it takes a really talented artist to create something that clean in such a relaxed environment. "Ive met Jake Rockard before as we performed a fisting show at Hard On before, but it was the first time playing with Reid and Jordan. I always get nervous beforehand but as soon as we got together, the magic started and we simply fucked like animals without holding anything back, fully connected to each other. Its always a risk when organizing a group or an orgy. You can never be certain everybodys going to click. When it happens like this, it creates such a bubble of intimacy, its mind-blowing to me. For a moment, you can let go of everything and just let the fists go through you in bliss. "The porn industry has been transformed by amateur creators like me and many others on fan sites. It will probably never be the same, as porn merges into other cultures and supports, in the pop world, etc. But recreating this kind of classic porn tableau is a way to keep the old days fantasies alive. zBUCKz CEO Danny Zeeman offered his congratulations and encouragement to Abysse for the occasion. It has been awesome watching the evolution of Axels brand these past five years and with 'Stains' going back to his roots of showing primal passionate sex like we watched from the beginning. Congratulations and heres to many more great years! To mark the anniversary, Abysse is releasing four all-new scenes in October. To view the videos, visit AxelAbysse.com. London: Climate change protesters threw soup over Vincent Van Goghs Sunflowers at Londons National Gallery on Friday, the Just Stop Oil campaign group said. The group, which has been holding protests for the last fortnight in the British capital, released a video showing two women walking into the gallery and throwing tins of Heinz tomato soup at the painting. It is one of five versions of the Van Gogh painting on display in museums and galleries around the world. Both women were arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass, police said. Russia launches deadly air strikes in Ukraine Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss Onstage together or apart, Brandon J. Dirden and Crystal A. Dickinson are one of the contemporary theater's most talented acting couples. Currently, at Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, Dirden is directing his wife in the rarely seen Alice Childress play Wine in the Wilderness (before he heads back to Broadway in the return of Take Me Out). Wine is a difficult experience for both of them it's a tough play, and neither was sure that the time was right. But diving in head first, Dickinson as leading lady and Dirden as director, has proved more rewarding than they ever imagined. Crystal A. Dickinson and Brandon J. Dirden ( David Gordon) This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. I came to Alice Childress's plays late like many people, the Roundabout revival of Trouble in Mind last year was the first time I'd ever experienced her writing and it made me feel ashamed that i hadn't really heard of her before. What is your experience with her work? Brandon Dirden: I did a production of Trouble in Mind in 2011 at Arena Stage, but before then, I felt just like you. I'd heard of her work as a novelist, and I had friends who would work on her monologues, but I didn't know much about Alice Childress or her body of work, or how insightful she was. She's just a radical writer, and it's so lean and surprisingly funny. Crystal A. Dickinson: I actually came to Alice Childress in graduate school. We did Wedding Band in one of our scene study classes, and then I found Wine in the Wilderness. Black girls had a hard time looking monologues back when I was in graduate school, so that was one of the first things that spoke to me. I understood it. I feel like that's how you come to Alice Childress's plays in general in graduate school, through the anthology that Kathy Perkins put out. Brandon: I met Crystal when we were in school together at the University of Illinois, and Kathy Perkins was our mentor. She was running the lighting department, but I think she was one of two Black faculty members at the time, so she was the mother hen to us. And Kathy is doing the lighting for our production of Wine in the Wilderness here at Two River, so it feels like a full-circle moment. We're celebrating Alice Childress, but we're also celebrating the way Kathy has been a guiding force for us, and now for the world, to experience Alice Childress's plays in the way we have. Crystal: She knew Ms. Childress very well. They were friends. She gave us a lot of information that was tremendously helpful. Did Two River come to you with this play, or did you two go to them? Brandon: This was [artistic director] John Dias. It may surprise you, but it's not in the wake of the new Alice Childress moment that we're in. John has been asking me about this play for four years now. They had done Trouble in Mind and John was really hungry to do this play, but it wasn't really coming together with the urgency John wanted. Now that we're in this moment, I think the timing is better. There's a wider appetite to know more about Ms. Childress now. So I'm glad it didn't come together four years ago. Crystal: But even when he asked us this time, we weren't so sure. The language in the play, the ideas in the play, they challenge the viewer. Some of the language is just not things we would say now, and not ideas that we would have. They're not things that are acceptable today. We told John that we don't think it's the right moment, but he kept at us and I'm so glad he did. Because it turned out to be a rich, rich experience. Crystal, as an actor having first encountered this play in graduate school, what is it like for you to actually sink your teeth into it for a full production? Crystal: Much harder than I thought. Brandon: She doesn't make it look that way. Crystal: Thanks. What struck me about the play was that, where I'm from, Tommy is like people that I know intimately. When I first encountered it, I was like "Yeah, I can do this." But I really believe that had I had the chance back then, I don't think I would've known what I was doing. A the end of the play, Tommy has to stand up in herself and say "This is who I am. I can be whatever I want to be and whoever I want to be, and I don't need anybody to define that." I don't know if I would've been able to do that as a younger person, but I can do it now. It's just bringing me such value to stand in my womanhood, and it demands you do that. And Brandon, what is it like for you to not only have the pressure of directing a play that people don't see very often, but directing your wife in it? Brandon: I don't think I would've directed this play if I didn't have Crystal in this role. This play deserves the best that we can possible give it, and there's nobody better than Crystal working in the American theater today. Crystal: That's nice. Brandon: It's just the truth in terms of what this role demands of you. Crystal has a fearlessness and a willingness to explore all of those challenges that it presents, and she has an appetite for the impossible. Crystal was talking about our early hesitancy about this play, and part of the impossibility that I saw was not just the language, but the male-female social dynamics that are involved. How are they going to land on our ears today? The real challenge is, how do we take a piece that was written of its time, and without commenting on it because you can't do that either thread the needle by presenting it in its truth, while still asking an audience to accept it without judging it so hard that you're going to turn off from the sexual politics. And you just need a charismatic, smart, brilliant actor, and in Crystal, we have that. I think we have a shot at making it work, and hopefully it will be something that Alice Childress would have been proud of. This feature first appeared in the October issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES Mind-controlling alien bugs meet hot girls on the new site Parasited from the producers of Hentaied. Part suspense thriller and part comedy, the cinematic scenarios deliver over-the-top sex featuring some of the leading performers in the EU with a clear mission: to be the go-to destination for possessed girls porn. Its exactly like the title: girls possessed by strange creatures! says Romero, the Budapest, Hungary-based creator of Hentaied, the 2022 AVN Award-nominated site billed as your No. 1 tentacle porn source. Its just somehow those creatures remove the shyness in them, unleash their sexual desires, and turn them into wild, fearless and aggressive sex zombies. So theyd do almost everything to get what they wantlike jumping on other uninfected men and women, seeking sexual pleasure and trying to convert them. Romero launched Parasited in September after more than a year of development; this past summer he also unveiled Futanari.xxx, which explores hermaphroditism and cloning with A-list talent in a tongue-in-cheek tone. I shot the first Parasited with Amirah [Adara] and Tiffany [Tatum] and it was released on Hentaied initially, Romero explains, noting the scene titled A new roommate debuted on Hentaied on March 19. Soon after the release it became one of the best-rated movies on the website, and still is ranking high until today. It was then a natural decision to develop it further into a project, which is the Parasited.com that is in front of you now. Parasited titillates with disarming visuals, Hollywood-level special effects, exaggerated facial expressions, energetic sex and credible acting from several high-profile stars. Its wild, aggressive, edgy, over the limit, Romero says. It escalates to the extreme really fast. We include elements like slime drooling, massive orgasms, demonic possession and everything that you can and cannot imagine of sex zombies having sex. Romero tells AVN the inspiration started with a simple premise. I have always found the concept of mental control fascinating, he tells AVN. Our brain is the most powerful computer known, its where the thoughts are generated, and our thoughts have a significant influence on our behavior, emotions or decisions. And yet, it is so vulnerable at the same time: we can develop mental illness; others can twist and manipulate our mind using tricks and techniques. Actually, extensive research and experiments have been run to explore the possibility of brain hacking whether through substance use or psychological tricks, taking the secret CIA program MK-Ultra for example. He continues, So I wanted to find a way to incorporate this concept in my production, but men losing control and going rough on women is just too edgy to film. So I decided to go for the opposite and make the girls the possessed and the dominant ones in the scene. He reached out to the respected veteran Roberto DiSuna, who is not only the director for Parasited, but also a partner. I am glad that weve set up a really constructive collaboration which is full of fun, enjoyment and at the same time hard work and growth, Romero says. I have known Roberto since forever. I moved to Budapest six years ago and he is one of the most reputed directors in town. Ive always wanted to work with him and weve been in discussions about different projects. The collaboration didnt happen earlier due to many factors. But I guess we just need the right timing and right project. When I had the idea of Parasited I thought it through and I approached him immediately through Mikey and Amirah Adara and we hit it off. Were both cinema enthusiasts and having a project that isnt restricted by limitations of commercial porn production leaves us a lot of freedom to work on the storyline and the set. Plus, for film nerds like us, nothing is more electrifying than shooting with the top cinema gear available on the market, and we definitely share that excitement together. We have a common vision of making proper movies together somewhere in the future. Romero says the setups are not what he would consider scary, however he says for sure there is a lot of tension created throughout the scene. The word thrilling would be more accurate, he suggests. Romero says the budgets for Parasited is a bit higher than a classic mainstream production, but is way less than Hentaied. Well increase the budget gradually as the project develops, and it can reach hundreds of thousands Euros per movie in one or two years from now, he reveals. Most of the budget will be invested in the team, the set and editing. The creator says he and DiSuna make use of classic filmmaking techniques such as dramatic lighting and sound effects to build the suspense in each scene. Imagine Psychos shower scene without the sound effects, Romero says. To create that noir and moody lighting, we have to completely darken an environment and recreate the light artificially. And for this reason we dont find many suitable locations available for renting, as most of them are super bright because thats what most productions are looking for. Someone would say: Shoot in the night! But nights are too short, considering the length of our shootings. It gets challenging. So before we are able to find a better solution, we will continue to work with this kind of dark room setting. Music and sound effects are extremely important for creating the atmosphere and ambiance needed. I used to be the one who produced the music and soundtrack. Now we have a musician that works on this aspect, and he is doing an excellent job. He also points to the acting as one of the key factors in making Parasited scenarios come to life. We have some of the best performers, namely Jia Lissa. Her part in Date was so convincing that it gave us chills. We were actually scared of her! Well, we are always scared of her! Romero jokes. Jia Lissa also collaborated with Romero on the moody song that goes with the scene. In Date, Jia welcomes co-star Mark Zane over to her place for wine and a scary movie, but things take a sinister turn when Jia gets Parasited and then she cant control what happens next. Each scene tends to get messy as the possessed performers drool all over the place, spew lots of cum and deal with slimy bugs. We have to kill about five thousand snails each time to collect enough slimes so its definitely tricky, Romero cracks. It took us time to figure things out, how to make it look natural and credible. Theres a subtle line between trashy and cool when doing an unconventional production like this. We really pay attention to such details, and thats exactly what makes the difference. On this one I really have to give the credit to Eve, our amazing prop wizard with magic hands. Shes in charge of manipulating the bug/parasite on set, and she is also dedicated to creating different effects like cum explosion, slime dropping. Eve has been working with us for years; she was working on Hentaied and soon became an expert in tentacles. Shes amazing in what she does and for sure an essential part of these projects. Some of the other performers in the initial Parasited scenes include Cherry Kiss, Valentina Nappi, Vince Karter, Alissa Foxy and Eve Sweet. Vehicle traffic is on its way to being demoted in Flagstaff. After Flagstaff City Council gave direction at Tuesdays meeting, the city will be moving forward with plans and code updates that prioritize pedestrian safety and multimodal transportation above private vehicle traffic. The direction regards certain key ingredients to what city sustainability director Nicole Antonopoulos described as the recipe of The Big Shift a framework for planning and developing the City of Flagstaff in a way that emphasizes pedestrian and multimodal transportation over private vehicle use. The Big Shift is critical to achieving Flagstaffs carbon neutrality goals, Antonopoulos said, as well as supporting the Active Transportation Management Plan and upholding commitments to cyclist and pedestrian safety. Council gave direction Tuesday for city staff to investigate implementation of four Big Shift actions, including adoption of a transportation safety program, adoption of vehicle-miles-travelled (VMT) as a performance measurement for transportation impact analysis, level-of-service (LOS) exception zones, and changes to standard design speeds for future roadways. Here's the breakdown. Safety program Understanding of the transportation safety program is critical. Between 2016 and 2021, Flagstaff has seen 221 traffic collisions that have resulted in serious injuries and 40 collisions that have resulted in death. Of the fatal collisions, 35% were pedestrian related. With the percentage in mind, the council has directed city staff to investigate development of a comprehensive transportation safety program in line with Vision Zero a nonprofit group that leads a collaborative campaigns to help communities eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries. Vison Zero programs have already been implemented in places such as Boulder, Colorado, and Phoenix as early as 2014. Council unanimously agreed that it was time for Flagstaff to similarly step up. Moving forward with Vision Zero amounts to the creation of a new safety program that needs to be supported continuously, explained city traffic engineer Jeff Bauman. It will be a big lift that the city will have to develop resources for over time, particularly in terms of staffing. In Boulder, for example, the Vision Zero program is supported by $450,000 annually and by a traffic planning department that retains 10 full-time employees. The comparable department in Flagstaff has one full-time employee. There is quite a disparity, Bauman said, both in people and in projects. But with Tuesdays OK from Council, Flagstaff will be on its way toward developing a Vision Zero transportation safety program. LOS and VMT In order to understand the next two directions, it helps to first examine some traffic management lingo: the difference between LOS and VMT. LOS is the traditional measurement used to evaluate the performance of roadways and it is generally determined by delay, density and flow conditions on a particular roadway. Under these metrics, free flow with less than or equal to 10 seconds of delay is A grade LOS, while congestion resulting in greater than 80 seconds of delay is F grade LOS. Under current city code, the city is required to maintain D level or better LOS throughout roadways. But new schools of thought in the science of traffic management have been gravitating toward the use of VMT to evaluate traffic systems. VMT is determined through calculating every vehicle trip multiplied by the length of each trip in a specific area. In other words, VMT evaluates the amount of traffic on a roadway, where LOS evaluates the flow conditions of that traffic. By using VMT over LOS to evaluate traffic systems, it opens up the conversation to alternative mitigation strategies, explained Bauman. These could include enhancing public transit, car shares or other multimodal opportunities. Whereas LOS-influenced strategies for traffic management typically result in widening roads ad nauseam, VMT-minded traffic strategies are more likely to keep roadways from widening by implementing other solutions. During Tuesdays meeting, Council unanimously directed staff to investigate implementation of VMT as a traffic system performance measurement, and the possibility of opening Flagstaff to LOS exception zones where LOS could be allowed to drop below the city-coded D level. The latter is something that other cities such as Scottsdale -- have begun allowing as a means to prioritize multimodal transportation in appropriate areas, Bauman said. He gave the example of designated activity cores, or urban roadways where walkability and transit access are a priority. Essentially, allowing for LOS exception zones allows the city to be more flexible in how it designs transportation systems in certain areas and accept the consequence that this may mean congestion for personal vehicle travel. But we really have to be careful with this, Bauman warned, noting that LOS exception zones are best advised by fairly extensive modelling processes. Also in the interest of city flexibility, Council gave direction to investigate changes to standard design speeds for future roadway planning. At current, roadway design speeds are more or less locked in by their functional classification. Major arterial roads are designed to accommodate travel at 45 mph, minor arterials at 40 mph, all the way down to residential local roads designed at 20 mph. City stay will investigate how design standards might be influenced by other factors, such pedestrian traffic and collision data. The major example given was Butler Avenue, which was designed as a minor arterial road to accommodate 40 mph travel, but has also proved a hot spot for collisions. Last year, Butler Avenue was also the site where a tow truck driver ran through a red light and struck a large group of cyclists, resulting in many serious injuries and one death. Following the incident, the biking community submitted a petition to lower the speed limit on Butler. According to Councilmember Adam Shimoni, the petition was ultimately unsuccessful because of the rigid nature of speed design standards, but with new Council direction, city engineers should be enabled to design roads with more flexibility. According to Shimoni, Tuesdays directions equated a massive shift in the citys approach to transportation management. What we do today puts cars first, and then everything else is secondary, he said. We as a council gave unanimous direction to flip that priority. Every project moving forward should be better dealt with because of the decision made on Tuesday. Shimoni did note that the priorities and plans directed on Tuesday will not likely impact transportation projects already underway, such as the Lone Tree Overpass or the Cedar-Locket-Fourth Street roundabout, but that they will have an impact on capital improvement projects to come. I feel good about the direction the city is heading in, he said. This direction was clearly given. These are massive changes -- the ripples might take some time to see. Also in support was public commenter Tyler Denham, who chimed in at meetings end to voice his commendation. He also addressed hesitancy around embracing Big Shift policies. I think a lot of hesitancy is motivated by the view that the status quo balance of transportation modes is natural, but that is mistaken, Denham said. Theres nothing natural about Americans generating 16,000 VMT per capita while the British produce only 7,000. Or about American dying to traffic fatalities at a rate 13 per 100,000 residents while in Japan it's only four. Theres no secret American gene that makes us drive more and die more than other similarly developed nations. We have these poor outcomes because our infrastructure prioritizes vehicle traffic. And our infrastructure doesnt happen organically; its dictated by the choices of policy-makers like yourself. Tuesdays directions will also play into Flagstaffs Active Transportation Management Plan, which will come before Council within the month. Protesters gathered in Flagstaff and across the country on Saturday for a series of Womens Wave Marches to protest the overturning of Roe v. Judge Rick Schreiner of Gage County District Court was presented with the Supreme Courts highest honor on Oct. 12 during the annual judges conference. Justice William Cassel presented Schreiner with the "Service to the Community Award" on behalf of the chief justice. The award, given annually, recognizes members of the judiciary for meritorious projects and exemplary accomplishments beyond their day-to-day duties as a judge. Schreiner is honored for his efforts to promote and improve the Nebraska judicial system and the publics perception of the system. In June, the State Bar Foundations Bench-Media Committee and the Judicial Branch Communications Division released a video of Schreiner where he discusses the responsibilities and limitations of a judge. Schreiners message regarding ensuring the judicial system's integrity applies to a broad audience, ranging from students to journalists to professors. The message is shared at judicial meetings, posted on the Judicial Branch Website, and promoted through social media. He has engaged in media-related projects, including rule review and education of attorneys about news cameras in the courtroom. In addition to the video, Schreiner has also demonstrated service to the community by representing district judges statewide during the first Trial Court Week proclamation signing ceremony highlighting the critical role of trial court judges, court clerks, and court staff. He also chairs the Nebraska District Court Judges Association Bench Book Committee; serves on the Bench Media Committee, the Expanded Media Rules Committee, and the Probation Services Committee. During the same ceremony, Judge Randin Roland, Cheyenne County Court, received the Improvement of the Judicial System Award for promoting judicial efficiency through expanding courtroom technology beginning with the 2020 pandemic. Schreiner began his judicial career in 2016 as Gage County District Court Judge, first judicial district. I just show up every morning and try, the same as all of you," he said. "I appreciate you allowing me to serve and be of service. Batavia, NY (14020) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to occasional showers overnight. Low near 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to occasional showers overnight. Low near 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Phoenix Rademacher, 3, took his blue stuffed rabbit, Bingo, everywhere he went. Earlier this month Phoenix had gone to the community preschool to play on the playground with his cousins and had forgotten Bingo when he left. Ashley Rademacher, Phoenixs mom, said that she and several other people had gone back and looked for Bingo, but were unable to locate the toy. I knew it was a long-shot, but posted on (the Facebook page) Beatrice Neighborhood Watch hoping someone would find Bingo and return it, said Rademacher. Rademacher said Phoenix had gotten Bingo when he was a baby as a gift from his grandparents. Hes seen some rough days," she wrote of Bingo. "His face is a little smooshed in and he has black beady eyes. Phoenix chewed on his nose when he was teething. Bingo has been loved a lot, but its Phoenixs favorite stuffed toy. Beatrice police officer Ethan Jordan said he was field training a new officer and had seen the post. We found it at the preschool behind a trash can and were able to get it to his mom," Jordan said. "He was sleeping, but he was able to wake up with his bunny rabbit the next morning. It was a good opportunity to show the new officer that we dont just answer calls for service or make traffic stops. We can go out of our way to do some things that might mean a lot to someone." Ashley was so appreciative that Officer Jordan had returned Bingo that she posted a follow-up Facebook post thanking him. Phoenix had the opportunity to meet Officer Jordan on Friday afternoon, and although he was shy, he offered a thank you while holding tightly to Bingo. Coincidentally, Phoenix will be dressing up as Chase, a police officer on his favorite television show, "Paw Patrol," for Halloween. Russian analyst Igor Danchenko (C) arrives at the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse with his lawyers in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Another Dossier Source Viewed Clinton Favorably and Other Key Moments From Day 3 of Danchenkos Trial ALEXANDRIA, Va.Key moments in the third day of the trial of Igor Danchenko, a key source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier by his own admission, included the revelation that another person connected with the dossier was supportive of Trumps political rival Hillary Clinton. Clinton helped fund the dossier, which was compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele with assistance from Danchenko, a Russian national, and others. Heres new information that emerged during the proceedings on Oct. 13. Danchenko Never Provided Information to Corroborate Dossier Danchenko never gave the FBI any information that corroborated allegations in the dossier, special agent Kevin Helson, one of Danchenkos handlers, testified. During the course of your relationship and dealing with Mr. Danchenko, did he ever provide any corroborating information of the sort of series of allegations made in the dossier? special counsel John Durham asked. No, Helson said. Danchenko also provided no documents that were corroborative. Danchenko also made up at least one source, Helson indicated. In one message, Danchenko said he was seeking information on a certain topic. The question is from a construction company from Switzerland, he said. Helson said he didnt think Danchenko was representing such a company. Because that would be false? Durham asked. Yes, Helson said. That would be made up? Durham pressed. Yes, Helson said. Dossier Sub-Source Viewed Clinton Favorably Steele wanted Clinton to beat Trump in the 2016 election, and Danchenko said he was working against Trump, according to previously published messages. One of the people Danchenko said he received information from was also supportive of Clinton, Charles Dolan testified in court. Do you have a recollection, if any, if you discussed presidential candidate Clinton with Ms. Galkina? Dolan was asked. Yes, Dolan said. And do you have an understanding of how Ms. Galkina viewed Ms. Clinton? Yes. Very favorably, Dolan said. Galkina has denied being a source for the dossier. Dolan himself is a longtime associate of the Clinton family, and has worked on Democrat political campaigns over the years. He said he had a fairly negative opinion of Trump. Republican Lobbyist Identified as Source Gregg Hartley, a lobbyist, was part of a 2016 meeting that featured Danchenko, Dolan, and Galkina, Dolan also said. Danchenko was connecting Galkina with Dolan for a potential business partnership. We thought there might be a government relations play in this. It turned out there wasnt, Dolan said of Hartleys being part of the meeting. A message Danchenko sent to Dolan indicated Hartley supplied information to Danchenko. Could you please ask someone to comment on Paul Manaforts resignation and anything on Trump campaign? Off the record of course! Any thought, rumour, allegation. I am working on a related project against Trump. I asked Gregg three months ago but he didnt say much although shared a couple of valuable insights, Danchenko wrote. Gregg referred to Hartley, Dolan said. Hartley did not respond to a request for comment. Russian analyst Igor Danchenko walks to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Dolan Says He Lied, Has Deep Connections With Russia Dolan acknowledged he was lying when he claimed to have received information from a Republican friend. I had a drink with a GOP friend of mine who knows some of the players and got some of what is in this article, which provides even more detail. She also told me that Corey Lewandowski, who hates Manafort and still speaks to Trump, regularly played a role. He is said to be doing a happy dance over it, Dolan told Danchenko in a message. I lied. I got it off cable news, Dolan said. Mr. Danchenko had brought me some business. I wanted to tell him that his sources were good. The woman was on cable news. Dolan also went over his deep connections with Russia, including how he worked with Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin. While working as a consultant for a firm called Ketchum, Dolan worked with Peskov as he tried to bring foreign investment to Russia. Dolan said he would have regular meetings with Peskov and traveled to Russia to meet with Peskov and other Russian officials. Dolan also worked with Peskov later as part of his work for The Walt Disney Company in Russia. Danchenko also has Russian ties. He was born in Russia and communicated with known Russian intelligence officers, according to the FBI. FBI Thought a Second Dossier Was Possible The publication of the first dossier, by Buzzfeed, shook the political world. It helped spark special counsel Robert Muellers investigation and triggered unsubstantiated claims that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia. Muellers probe found no evidence for the claims. At that time, correct me if Im wrong, there was concern in the FBI about a dossier No. 2 being released? Stuart Sears, one of Danchenkos lawyers, asked Helson. It was, Helson said. Danchenko notified the FBI he was going to meet Steele in late 2017. The FBI had started paying Danchenko as an informant and you were having Mr. Danchenko fish information from Mr. Steele about what Mr. Steele was up to? Sears said. Yes, Helson said. By that time, Danchenko was concerned about sharing any more information with Steele because he felt Steele had embellished details from Danchenko when placing them in the dossier. Danchenko had stipulated the information was rumor and speculation, drawn from sources who had spoken to other people, Danchenko told FBI agents. Danchenko thought Steele had since become obsessed with trying to prove the allegations, Danchenko said. And that, I think it was your words, that Mr. Steele was willing to burn everyone around him to make the dossier true? Sears asked Helson. Thats true, Helson said. Danchenkos Payments Revealed Danchenko was paid $219,000 for being an FBI informant for about three years, Helson said. Helson said Danchenko gave the FBI information from his vast network of contacts and lamented losing Danchenko as a source when his identity as a dossier source became public. Helson tried to make up for the danger Danchenko faced when his identity was exposed by asking the Department of Justice to pay Danchenko another $346,000 but the request was denied. Danchenko is on trial for allegedly lying to Helson and other FBI personnel when he said that Dolan did not provide him information that ultimately was part of the dossier. Danchenko also allegedly lied when he said he thought he received a phone call from Sergei Millian, a pro-Trump businessman. Danchenko faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. John Haughey Follow John Haughey has been a working journalist since 1978 with an extensive background in local government, state legislatures, and growth and development. A graduate of the University of Wyoming, he is a Navy veteran who fought fires at sea during three deployments aboard USS Constellation. Hes been a reporter for daily newspapers in California, Washington, Wyoming, New York, and Florida; a staff writer for Manhattan-based business trade publications. Are We Witnessing the End of Western Dominance? Commentary On Sept. 26, the Nord Stream pipeline was attacked. Who was responsible? Many people, including German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, were quick to blame Russia. Others pointed the finger at the United States. While millions of people are busy playing whodunit, millions of Europeans are praying for a mild winter. The attack must be viewed as a watershed moment. As the macroeconomist Philip Pilkington recently warned, the Nord Stream sabotage could be the point at which future historians mark the end of Western dominance. Hes right. Last year, the pipeline, which runs from the Russian city of Vyborg to the German city of Greifswald, supplied European Union countries with 40 percent of their gas supplies. The energy crisis may not weaken Europes climate resolve but will certainly weaken its economic resolve. Germany, home to the largest economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world, was, up until very recently, hooked on Russian gas. Now, it must find a new supplier, and fast. This search will take time, and time is the one thing that Germany doesnt have. Winter is almost upon us. If Germany collapses, then the European economy will collapse. If the European economy collapses, then the U.S. economy will also suffer. After all, strong relations between the United States and Europe havent been built on goodwill alone. They have been forged through trade deals, massive investments, and financial markets. Europe and the United States share one of the mostif not the mostintegrated economic relationships in the world. If the German domino falls, which looks more likely by the day, many other dominos will collapse suddenly and tragically. Of course, if Europe and the United States fall, the world will suffer, right? Maybe, then again, maybe not. As Pilkington alluded to, a rival economic bloc, known as BRICS, could find itself comfortably insulated from the chaos. An acronym that refers to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, BRICS could soon become BRICS SITE, with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt also rumored to be interested in joining the rapidly developing bloc. Pipes at the landfall facilities of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline are pictured in Lubmin, Germany, on March 8, 2022. (Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters) Pilkington noted that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, BRICS members have ramped up trade deals and strengthened financial ties. It appears that the goal is for these economies to decouple as much as possible from the West. If they are successful in doing thatand it looks like they may bethey may avoid the depression, wrote Pilkington. We are witnessing the birth of a new world order, a dramatic change in political affiliations and ideologies. BRICS brings together countries with real economic and militaristic clout. Of all its members, China is the most powerful. Africa, once a continent that looked to the United States for guidance, now looks to China for support. The EU, once a somewhat cohesive, respectable union, is in shambles. At the same time, China is busy forging relationships with Indonesia, another supposedly BRICS-bound country, and the United Arab Emirates, home to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Interestingly, according to researchers at Harvard, Indonesia is expected to have one of the more robust economies by the end of the decade. Another interesting point involves Saudi Arabia, a BRICS member and close ally of China. The Middle Eastern giant now boasts the worlds fastest-growing major economy. This growth has been boosted by phenomenal levels of trade with China, the unelected BRICS leader. Of course, China is not without its own sizable weaknesses. However, its important to remember that many of Chinas weaknessesa rapidly aging population, fewer people getting married, disgruntled, unemployed youthsare also shared by other superpowers, including the United States. Its also important to remember that China is working to establish a new payment system to disrupt the U.S. dollars dominance. The CCPs Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which offers clearing and settlement services in Chinese yuan, now has over 1,300 participants, covering 106 regions and countries. Communist China wants to replace the United States as the worlds leading superpower. Only a fool would bet against the despots in Beijing fulfilling this ambition. When discussing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its worth remembering the proverb, tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. With Xi Jinping, a dictator-for-life, in power, China can plan accordingly. The CCP is in a truly unique position. Its members can sit down and make plans that will last years, maybe even decades. The CCPs dream of Sino-forming the world is fast becoming a reality. China, the worlds No.1 trading partner, makes rules that dozens of other countries are willing to abide by. On the other hand, the United States has a genuine image problemit appears to be losing its global appeal. Ostensibly, the world is moving toward multipolarity, with power being distributed somewhat equally among a number of countries. In truth, though, we could be entering a period of profound unipolarity, with China pulling the strings. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Arizona Woman Says Father-In-Law Was Denied Basic Care at Hospital After Refusing to Take Remdesivir Ali Shultz now advocates for others through her organization, Hands for Health and Freedom Ali Shultzs firsthand experience with hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols ignited her effort to help those who have found themselves being treated as experimental subjects that bring in federal reimbursements, rather than patients. Its not so much a protocol as its a modus operandi, Shultz told The Epoch Times. Both her mother-in-law and father-in-law were admitted to separate hospitals at the same time for COVID-19 in Arizona. Though her father-in-law escaped, her mother-in-law died as a direct result of the protocols, Shultz alleged. From this experience came Hands for Health and Freedom (HHF), a patient advocacy organization Shultz said she founded to thwart a trend of authoritarian medical treatment that hijacked the medical profession during COVID-19. Shultz, HHF chairwoman and CEO, alleged that her father-in-law, Chuck Shultz, who was admitted on Aug. 20, 2021, was deprived of nourishment for six days. Eventually, Chuck was able to receive electrolyte water, but Shultz said it came only after she had to plead for it. Without informed consent, he was experimented on, given morphine despite explicit refusal, and secluded for 24 days, she said. Just as it was with her mother-in-law, Shultz said she felt like Chuck was being punished because of his refusal to be treated with remdesivir. In a study of Ebola virus therapeutics in the New England Journal of Medicine, a safety board found remdesivir to be the least effective and deadliest drug in the trial before it was suspended after 53 percent of the Ebola patients who took it died. Its known to cause kidney toxicity and failure, which ultimately leads to more pulmonary congestion, Shultz said. Shultz said she had almost given in to allowing Chuck to be treated with remdesivir when a physician told her that if she had permitted the remdesivir, Chuck would get hydration. The fact that remdesivir is pushed by physicians as the leading treatment for COVID-19 despite its bad track record could have to do with its federal reimbursements. Though it varies, in some states, hospitals get a reimbursement of up to $17,000 per patient for the use of remdesivir. Arizona Medical Board Shultz filed a complaint against the hospital in October 2021, and on Sept. 1, 2022, the Arizona Medical Board heard her three-minute presentation. The board dismissed the case the next day. The Arizona Medical Board did not respond to The Epoch Times request for comment. Shultz told the board her father-in-laws standard of care had been purposely lowered, with coordinated restrictions on visiting rights. On multiple occasions, there were discrepancies and contradictions in his record, she said. Chuck was told he needed to be put on a ventilator or he would die, Shultz said. Our refusal of the [ventilator] is one of the main reasons I feel he is alive today, Shultz said. Dr. Mike Yeadona, a pharmacologist who retired as chief scientist and vice president of the allergy and respiratory research division of Pfizer, has stated publicly his medical opinion that people who are conscious with open airways should never be put on a ventilator. Despite multiple attempts by the hospital to stop Chuck from leaving, Chucks family was able to coordinate an escape on Sept. 16, and he is now home and doing well after taking ivermectin, Shultz said. We ended up getting him out only by saying he was going home on hospice with 20 minutes notice, she said. We had the equipment and transport care set up, and we were able to get my brother-in-law into the hospital to help get him out. Shultz said he had not been given basic hygiene care during his entire 27-day stay. At one point, Shultz was escorted out of the hospital by security when she attempted to see Chuck, she said. Chuck and Christi Shultz. (Courtesy of Ali Shultz) They Murdered Her Just as when she tried to see her father-in-law, Shultz said she was handcuffed and taken out of the hospital when she tried to see her mother-in-law, Christi Shultz, who checked into a separate hospital in Arizona for COVID-19 treatment on Aug. 22, 2021. They murdered her, Shultz said. For the family, it had become clear that Christi was not going to make it, so they decided that it would be better for her to not die in the hospital, but at her barn surrounded by family and her horses, Shultz said. The family was able to say goodbye in person before Christi died of kidney failure on Sept. 7, 2021. Hospitals dont have the right to take that away from a family, Shultz said. No one should have to die alone in a hospital. Like Chucks, Christis medical records had been altered, Shultz said. Because of the altered records, Shultz said she cant say for sure that her mother-in-law was given remdesivir, but that she thinks its safe to assume so because her mother-in-law died of kidney failure. They called me in the middle of the night and said that because she coded, she had to be vented or she would die, and I fell for it, which is something Im still trying to work through, she said. After reading her medical records, Shultz alleges that she found hospital staff lied to Shultz frequently while they were keeping Christi on narcotics like morphine, fentanyl, and midazolam. They are drugging these people to death, Shultz said. Today, her work is focused on making sure no one has to experience these death protocols, she said. I had a lot of incredible people helping me during that time, and I felt like I needed to pay it forward, Shultz said. Weve helped over 100 families get out of hospitals, and thousands of families advocate for their rights while in the hospitals. Every single person we helped get out of the hospital lived. The hospitals did not respond to The Epoch Times request for comment. Christi Shultz. (Courtesy of Ali Shultz) Being Done With Malice Among those who assisted Shultz was Todd Callender, an international attorney with the Colorado law firm Disabled Rights Advocates (DRA) that has been representing those who have been facing multiple issues stemming from the vaccine mandate. DRA is serving as counsel for two medical freedom organizationsthe Truth for Health Foundation spearheaded by Dr. Lee Vliet and the resource hub Vaxxchoicethat have worked together to circumnavigate the mandates and hospital protocols. If hospitals want to receive federal reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, they have to go by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols using the given codes from the International Classification of Diseases (ICE-10), Callender told The Epoch Times. Complex COVID-19 patients who are put through the protocols can bring an average charge rate of up to $500,000 for a hospital, which many have argued incentivizes physicians to use the these protocols, even when they know they arent working. Not only that, Callender said, it appears that the implementation of the protocols has been carried out with a parallel plan for legal immunity for hospitals using the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. The immunity granted by the PREP Act, Callender said, doesnt allow families to sue for COVID-19 claims in state courts, so hospital attorneys are pushing the cases into federal courts. However, Callender said some federal courts are deciding that if there is pure negligence without any allegation related to COVID-19, then the case can return to the state courts because theres no federal remedy for negligence. Pure negligence is a state claim, so what were seeing with hospital attorneys moving the case to federal court is the federal courts pushing it back to state courts, saying Yes, this is negligence or malpractice conduct on the part of the hospital as it relates to non-COVID treatment and the PREP Act doesnt apply, Callender said. This has been a welcome breath for us because what weve come to find is that while hospitals enjoyed that immunity, they didnt care about the wellbeing of patients. Examples of this, Callender said, are found in testimonies and medical records that report deprivation of fluids and nutrients. Almost all of the people who die in these hospitals under these COVID protocols are starved to death, Callender said. They are overdosed on drugs and dehydrated even if they dont go on the ventilator. No reasonable physician would decide that the best way to make a sick person better is to dehydrate, starve, and overdose a patient on fentanyl, Callender said. But those are the actions that are being protected under immunity found in the PREP Act, Callender said. And its all being done with malice aforethought. Callender proposed that physicians in these hospitals know what theyre doing. Every doctor using the protocols knows damn well remdesivir is dangerous, so how is it that we are somehow in the kindness of our hearts assuming these doctors couldnt be so evil? Callender asked. And the reality is theyre just turning a blind eye. Physicians now operate as mere servants to the ICD-10 codes the computer spits out, Callender said. But all of them know exactly where it leads to, Callender said. Protocols Enforced And these protocols are enforced, Callender said. The U.S. entered into a multinational treaty with the World Health Organization (WHO) known as the International Health Regulations 2005 that hands sovereignty over to the WHO in the case of a pandemic, Callender said. In 2006, the Department of Justice created the Bureau of Justice. When a pandemic is declared, the bureau merges four government activitiespublic health, law enforcement, judiciary, and correctionsinto one office. Thats why when Ali [Shultz] calls the local sheriff to come do a welfare check on her mom, the next thing she knew the cops are there to arrest her, Callender said. Shultz proposed that there is a way to override these directives handed down to local law enforcement agencies by connecting with each member of law enforcement as a person and asking what they would personally want for their family. They need to be reminded that they took an oath to defend our Constitution, she said. Is this how they want to be remembered? Nuremberg Code and Geneva Convention Shultz said federally funded hospitals are violating the Nuremberg Code, which outlined 10 ethical research principles for human experimentation established by the United States v. Brant case in Nuremberg, Germany, after the Second World War. The Nuremberg trials were conducted to hold Nazi physicians and scientists accountable for their experiments on people. Tenets of the code are listed on the NIH website. Experimentation shouldnt be performed if the subject hasnt given consent. The experiments should also be conducted without causing unnecessary pain and suffering and should not result in injury or death. If there is a reasonable belief that an experiment may result in disabling injury or even death, then only physicians may serve as subjects in the experiment, according to the NIH. Shultz also referred to the Geneva Conventions, international laws that established protections for prisoners and noncombatants in war and prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons. The U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996 classifies a war crime as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, defining a grave breach as killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. Shultz said hospitals have gravely departed from their mission of preserving life in exchange for federal funding incentives involving the use of opioids, medical experimentation, and the deprivation of nutrients. A Crime Syndicate For Shultz, the story isnt just about a few hospitals, but an entire crime syndicate playing with biological weapons while committing taxpayer fraud. Hospital CEOs and [chief medical officers] are colluding across the hospital networks, she said. They are not just condoning; they are actively participating in getting medical experimentation through on patients without their knowledge or consent. Physicians dont outrank the patient or the patient advocates direct instructions for themselves, Shultz said, and nurses have a responsibility to advocate for patients in their scope of ensuring adequate nutrition assessments and hydration requests. A persons instructions with their own body cant be denied, Shultz said. This is a matter of principle, not policy. Both of my parents had explicit instructions, and those were violated. Shultz classified a patient not allowed to leave as false imprisonment, andin combination with isolation, malnourishment, and drugsa form of torture, which is prohibited in the War Crimes Act. As a solution, Shultz suggested building intentional communities with like-minded people to educate each otheras well as law enforcement, local governments, and medical professionalson what is happening, while learning about alternative treatments that bypass the need for the medical-industrial complex. When these people find out that they dont have jurisdiction over other peoples bodies and their fundamental rights, its going to be a rude awakening for those who have perpetuated this crime when they learn they have no immunity, Shultz said. A passenger jet of Taiwan's China Airlines at Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 8, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters) Asian Air Travel Industry Gaining Momentum as Pandemic-Era Travel Curbs Ease Passenger airline traffic in the Asian Pacific region is on the mend, with most countries easing pandemic-era travel curbs, but Chinas prolonged border closures are slowing recovery, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. Philip Goh, IATA regional vice president, said Tuesday that passenger airline traffic in the region is expected to rebound to roughly 73 percent of 2019 levels by year-end as travel restrictions ease. The latest figures also take into account Chinas impending reopening of its borders, though it remains unclear when this will occur. There is no mistaking I think the momentum is very strong, especially with all major markets in the Asia-Pacific now open except for China, Goh told reporters. IATA estimates that international passenger traffic in the region will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2025, as August traffic was just 38 percent of 2019 levels. Asias aviation recovery has lagged compared to other regions in large part due to Chinas border closures, which have kept its international passenger number averaging 2 percent to 3 percent of pre-pandemic levels, according to IATA. China has maintained its zero COVID-19 strategy of mass lockdowns and strict border controls in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus. Reopening of Borders Airlines in North Asia have seen a drop in consumers, but the outlook is expected to improve as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea relax quarantine and testing requirements. Japan has lifted its ban on visa-free travel and resumed accepting individual travelers. South Korea has scrapped the requirement for a pre-travel COVID-19 test, and Hong Kong no longer requires travelers to quarantine in hotels. Taiwan reopened its borders on Thursday, allowing international visitors to enter without having to undergo quarantine for the first time in more than two and a half years, Taiwan News reported. Taiwans China Airlines and Korean Air remained profitable through much of the pandemic on the back of a surge in cargo rates. The freight market is starting to weaken, but a rise in passenger traffic will help offset revenue loss. Japan Airlines Co. Ltd. and ANA Holdings Inc. will benefit from Japans opening to visa-free tourist travel this week, with a weak yen making it an attractive destination for overseas visitors. Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., which parked much of its fleet in the desert during the pandemic because of a lack of demand, is struggling to hire enough staff and bring planes back quickly as rules ease. Reuters contributed to this report. Local and federal law enforcement recovered thousands of fentanyl pills last month, and four people have been indicted in connection to the drug bust. Two people from Billings and two Washington residents are facing multiple counts of drug trafficking crimes in U.S. District Court. All four were arrested in September after police searched a Billings home and hotel room and allegedly found thousands of illicit pills, cocaine and heroin. Agents with the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force arrested Gunnar Rutledge Johnson, one of the four indicted, outside of his Billings home on September 7. The task force, comprised of multiple agencies aimed at halting the flow of drugs through the region, had been investigating the 20-year-old more than a year prior to his arrest. Johnson had several outstanding warrants, according to court documents, and data pulled from his cell phone allegedly showed his involvement in distributing fentanyl, cocaine and crack cocaine. EMHIDTA, assisted by the Billings Police Department, searched Johnson at the scene and were granted a search warrant for his home on Miles Avenue. Police allegedly found fentanyl and oxycodone pills, cocaine and just over $1,600 in a bag carried by Johnson, court documents said. Inside Johnsons home, they allegedly recovered around 1,300 fentanyl pills, 80 grams of cocaine and another $1,000 in cash. Johnson agreed to speak with agents, court documents said, allegedly telling them he bought the drugs from a dealer at a Billings hotel. Agents narrowed their search to a South Billings Boulevard hotel later that same day. Hotel staff assisted police in identifying three people at the hotel suspected of trafficking in drugs, and which room they were staying in. Two women, Charis Lou Adair Furlong and Shaylene Jo Suchy, were arrested on their way to the room. Joel David Lund, 40, was apprehended in the parking lot while he was in his truck. Search warrants were granted for Lunds truck, his bags and the hotel room. Inside Lunds truck were allegedly some 1,700 fentanyl pills, nearly 195 grams of meth, about 21 grams of heroin nearly three grams of cocaine and a loaded handgun. Charging documents also allege investigators found about $9,200 in cash inside the truck. Officers allegedly found a safe in the hotel room, which contained more fentanyl pills, heroine and Furlongs personal credit card. Furlong was allegedly carrying the key to the safe at the time of her arrest. Charging documents allege Suchy and Lund travelled from Washington State with the trove of drugs. Furlong, a Billings resident, allegedly acted as a broker to bring in buyers. All four suspects were booked into Yellowstone County Detention Facility on September 7, and have remained in custody since. A federal grand jury indicted the four in early October. The four suspects have been charged with possessing and conspiring to possess fentanyl with intent to distribute. Lund, Suchy and Furlong are also facing counts of possessing and conspiring to possess meth with intent to distribute. Lund and Furlong have been charged with possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The four could face up to 40 years in prison, if convicted of the most serious crime. Lund, Johnson and Furlong have pleaded not guilty to the accusations. Suchy is scheduled to be arraigned later this month. In this photo a man uses a COVID-19 rapid antigen test kit at home in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 29, 2021. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) Australia Drops Mandatory COVID-19 Isolation Rules All Australian states and territories have dropped the mandatory five-day COVID-19 isolation requirement. The decision to end the rule was made by National Cabinet in a meeting in September. Victoria was the first state to drop mandatory isolation on Wednesday, with other states following on Friday. Residents in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria will also no longer be required to report a positive rapid antigen test online. Governments continue to encourage people who test positive to COVID-19 to stay at home if they feel unwell, and to wear a mask if it is necessary to leave home. It is also advised that workers in high-risk settings, such as health and aged care, stay away from the workplace for seven days when COVID-positive, if feasible. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the country was moving towards a system of good faith with people looking out and caring for each other. We may have further waves of COVID in the future; in fact, we probably expect that. So by testing, youre looking after yourself, looking after your family, he told reporters. South Australias Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said she trusted that the community would take individual responsibility. Quite often, we didnt have things as legal directions, and people still did them. I am very confident that will continue over the next month, she said. Perrottet led the push to drop all isolation rules, saying it was the right decision. Its time for Australia to move forward, he told reporters on Oct. 3. I believe in freedom I believe in liberty. Australia Winds Down Pandemic Response, Except Western Australia Most states have ended their emergency powers after determining further extensions were inappropriate, including Victoria, which had one of the longest lockdowns in the world in its capital city of Melbourne. But Western Australia looks set to pass a law for the ongoing management of COVID-19 that grants law enforcement extensive powers. This includes the authority to break into and enter any place or vehicle to enforce health orders. Labor MP David Templeman, the leader of the house, said the new proposal was supposed to allow for a temporary fit-for-purpose legal framework to manage COVID-19. The reason it is important for the bill to be dealt with as quickly as possible is that it will allow COVID-19 to be managed outside of a state of emergency, with these arrangements to expire after two years, he told Parliament on Sept. 21. Shane Love of the Nationals Party said the state was out of step with the rest of the country. Those states have made dramatically different decisions from this government about these measures and the way they have gone about moving to the next phase, he said. I hope that the government does not jump up and make some cheap shot and say, See how they manage everything else. Australias Pacific Pivot Continues to Counter Beijings Pacific Push The Australian government is continuing its counter to Beijings Pacific push, with the Foreign Minister Penny Wong announcing a new media deal with the Marshall Islands on Oct. 14. Wong is carrying out her eighth official bilateral visit, since her appointment in May, to the Pacific region where she is visiting the nations of the Marshall Islands and Nauru to enhance diplomatic and cultural ties in the region. Announcing the new media deal between the Marshall Islands broadcaster V7AB and Australias national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for eight radio shows, Wong said that the deal demonstrated Australia and the Marshall Islands desire to have closer bilateral ties. We are very keen, and I am personally very committed as Foreign Minister, to telling the stories of our First Nations peoples as part of talking about and communicating who we are, and I know from talking to the minister and others here in the Marshall Islands that the relationship, in particular with the Torres Strait First Nations peoples, is so important, and those connections go back such a long time, Wong said And we want to work together to make sure the region we share, the ocean we share, that is so much a part of your life, your lives and your culture is a region that reflects our shared dreams of sovereignty, of peace, of stability, of respectrespect for each other and respect for the region. The comments from Wong come as Australia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands celebrate 35 years of diplomatic relations after Australia became the second nation to recognise the country. Wong Warmly Greeted By Pacific Nation Wong is the first international minister to visit the Pacific nation and received a warm welcome from the Marshall Islands government. The foreign minister of the country, Kitlang Kabua, noted that if the opportunity had arisen, she thought the whole of the nation would have gathered to witness the arrival of the Australian foreign minister. Welcoming the media deal, Kabua said that the agreement would further connect the small Pacific country to other parts of the world. The coming of Honourable Minister Penny Wong and her delegation really marks this unique and strong friendship that both of our governments have, Kabua said. We look forward to a fruitful and strengthened partnership between our two countries as we work together to find ways to improve the quality of life for both of our peoples. Kabua also alluded to the growing geostrategic competition in the region, saying that both countries face geopolitical situations that put them in a precarious position. It is important that we hold each others hands, stand together and try to find solutions to improve the quality of life for people in the region, for people in the world, she said. Western Nations Countering Beijing with Pacific Pivot The visit from Wong follows Australia, the U.S., and New Zealands decision to pivot their foreign affairs focus to the region to counter Chinas Pacific push, which has seen Beijing already ink a security deal with the Solomon Islands that could allow it to establish military facilities at a key strategic location in the region. The pivot, according to Rand Corporations senior defence analyst Derek Grossman, is making headway. Grossman argued in a post on The Rand Blog in July said that Beijing is facing an uphill battle in its push into the region. He notes that this year alone, there have been numerous examples of multiple Pacific nations leaders stepping up their resistance to Beijings pushy diplomatic efforts; for example, Tuvalu withdrew from a United Nations ocean conference because Beijing blocked Taiwans participation. Additionally, when Beijing tried to push through its ChinaPacific Island Countries Common Development Vision through the Pacific Islands Forum, it generated criticism among the pacific leaders, with Micronesian President David Panuelo calling the plan (pdf) a smokescreen for a larger agenda to ensure Chinese control of traditional and nontraditional security of our islands. Meanwhile, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna lambasted Chinas push, saying: If anybody knows what we want, what we need, and what our priorities are, its not other people. Its us. Yet concern about Beijings intentions is not replicated towards countries like Australia and the U.S, Grossman argues. The problem for China is that the United States, along with traditional neighbourhood friends, Australia and New Zealand, remain the dominant and likely preferred force, thus making it difficult for Beijing to break into the region and build its own influence, he said. It is incumbent on those who oppose Beijing in the Pacific to hone their engagement strategies to prioritize the existential challenge of climate change, pandemic recovery, and economic programs that align with Pacific Islander needs. Doing so should keep China comfortably in the rearview mirror. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek speaks during a stand-up in the Press Gallery at Parliament House on March 24, 2021 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Sam Mooy/Getty Images) Australias Water Minister Hints at Extending Murray-Darling Basin Plans Deadline Australias federal water minister Tanya Plibersek has hinted at the potential extension of the Murray-Darling Basin Plans 2024 deadline, acknowledging the states difficulty in achieving the plan within the set time-frame. In a meeting with basin states on Oct. 12the first since Plibersek was appointed the portfolio in MayPlibersek said the federal government was committed to the full delivery of the plan but flexible on how it will be achieved. I have to take into account, realistically, what states and territories are saying to me, but Im not taking my foot off the accelerator just yet, Plibersek said at the water ministers meeting on Oct. 12 in Canberra. Im pushing for 2024 implementation, but Im acknowledging that its hard to get there we need a pathway to getting to the full implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Both NSW and Victoria have previously said they would be unable to meet the 2024 deadline, with NSW requesting more time and funding and Victoria saying the deadline was unrealistic. Further, Victoria has said that additional water recovery towards the 450 gigalitre efficiency project would only be considered if there were no negative socio-economic impacts, and without buybacks. Plibersek has not committed to introducing water buybacks, which have been opposed by NSW and Victoria, but sees voluntary buybacks very beneficial to achieving the 450 gigalitre target. As a matter of priority, the Commonwealth will work with relevant communities and basin states on options to bridge the remaining gap in water recovery, including through strategic purchase, and to consider carefully opportunities to achieve the 450 gigalitres [environment water target], a communique released following the water ministers meeting said, reported The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Current State of the Murray Darling Basin Plan Since the plan was legislated in 2012, more than 2,100 gigalitres of water have been relocated back into the environment. Under the plan, the basin states agreed to remove 2,750 gigalitres of water from irrigated agriculture and relocate that back into the basin by 2024. An additional 450 gigalitres of water was to be recovered through efficiency measures however, only two gigalitres have been recovered. This target was set in 2018. Part of the agreement under the efficiency measures was that strict conditions were to be met under which the water could be recovered, such as having no negative socio-economic impact on river communities. Then-Victorian Minister Lisa Neville said the socio-economic test would be applied to all basin states. We will each be applying the same criteria to every single proposal and every single project to ensure that only those projects that are neutral or provide better socio-economic outcomes will be approved through this process, Neville said in 2018. However, South Australias Water Minister Susan Close called for an end to the socio-economic test ahead of the water ministers meeting on Oct. 12. I am putting the eastern states on notice, she said, adding that her state will not settle for anything less than the full 450 gigalitres promised to us, regardless of how its achieved. Meanwhile, NSW water minister Kevin Anderson has called for greater flexibility among basin water ministers. We have heard the message loud and clear from communities that they need certainty from the government about how these key challenges will be addressed, Anderson said in a statement. This action will provide a pathway to achieve the outcomes intended by the Basin Plan in a way that does not come at the expense of the communities that live and work in the Basin. Anderson said that NSW was committed to completing all of its water resource plans by the end of this year. NSW is responsible for 20 of the 33 Basin water resource plans, which were originally due to be in place in 2019. The basin ministers are expected to meet again in February 2023 to negotiate a decision to extend the basin plan. Plibersek has previously said that delivering the Murray Darling Basin Plan before the 2024 deadline would be next to impossible. President Joe Biden, left, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, arrive for the family photo during the Jeddah Security and Development Summit (GCC+3) at a hotel in Saudi Arabias Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on July 16, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/Pool/AFP/Getty Images) Biden Plays the Old Ugly American Commentary The left used to accuse imperialist, resource-hungry Yanquis in Washington of cutting selfish deals with illiberal dictatorships in Latin America to grab their natural resources. How odd then that President Joe Biden is now begging the despicable Maduro regime in Venezuelacorrupt, murderous, and anti-Americanto produce more of its oil solely to send northward to America. Biden is quite willing to ease sanctions and condone the human rights abuses of Maduroif his dictatorship will just open its oil spigots before the November midterm elections. Biden in 2020 campaigned on the supposed evil nature of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Yet, after vainly entreating Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, it was inevitable that Biden would once again supplicate the Saudis to pump more oil. Biden even pleaded with OPEC to increase its output and thus lower the world price of energy, again before the midterm elections. Biden, remember, has a bad habit of bragging that hes lowered gas prices at the pump, when the natural volatility of the petroleum markets leads to a fractional decrease. But once prices spike, hes utterly silent about his own role in limiting U.S. oil and gas output. So, was it any surprise that the Saudis became the fourth nondemocratic regime to refuse Bidens entreaties? During the 2020 campaign, when gas prices were dirt cheap, and when then-candidate Biden was demagoguing about ending fossil fuels, he opportunistically libeled the Saudis a pariah state. Biden also claimed that his opponent, former President Donald Trump, had cozied up to these supposedly awful Saudi royals. That accusation was especially ironic given that Trump was the first American president who had no need for Saudi oil. His administration had managed to make the United States the largest producer of gas and oil in historyprecluding any energy dependence on illiberal regimes abroad. Trump was the first U.S. president whose interest in Gulf State monarchies wasnt energy-driven. Instead, he partnered with the Arab nations to end their hostilities with Israel. The ensuing Abraham Accords saw a historic thaw between the Jewish state and moderate Arab nationsgiven their shared worries about the unhinged Iranian theocracy. The Saudis are enjoying the schadenfreude of seeing their former American critic now on his knees, demanding the purportedly dirty, polluting oil produced by a supposed pariah state. In response to their no, a desperate Team Biden is getting nasty. Almost immediately, the administration raised the idea of a pre-midterm retribution of suing the OPEC cartel as a price-rigging monopoly. It even maneuvered allies in Congress to take action to punish Riyadh for not playing the American pawn. The American public is repelled as they watch Bidens pathetic theatrics of global oil begging to help himself in the midterms. They are ashamed that their recently energy-autonomous country is now imploring nondemocratic regimes for every drop of their oil, to the extent of threatening former allies and coaxing current enemies. More bizarre still, the public was once told that Biden and the left wanted high energy prices. Why else did Biden, upon entering office, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline? Did he not fulfill his green promises to the radical environmentalist left by shutting down oil fields in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? Did Biden not dutifully hector lending agencies, pensions funds, and money managers not to loan to, or invest in, oil and gas companies? Did Biden not issue fewer new energy leases on federal lands than any prior president? Was it not Biden on the eve of the Ukrainian war who jawboned the Europeans to reject the EastMed pipeline? That project was a much-needed joint effort by three of our closest alliesGreece, Israel, and Cyprusto bring clean-burning natural gas to an energy-starved Europe. In sum, did Biden not brag to the left that he kept his campaign promises to strangle fossil fuelsboth curbing supply and spiking pricesto hasten the transition to wind, solar, and batteries? Why then is Biden humiliating Americans by playing the hard-nosed ugly American? Why is he demanding foreigners pump what we ourselves have in plentitude but will not fully produce? The answer is, of course, raw politics. Biden knows he wrecked the economy by deliberately surging oil prices in pursuit of the lefts utopian green nightmare. Or put another way, if its a question of avoiding a historic midterm wipeout, Biden will now do anything. And that anything means all the human rights sermons about ostracizing pariah states such as oil-rich Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela go out the window. In winter 2021, Biden lectured us that fossil fuels were dirty obstacles to our green future. In winter 2022, Biden believes that he can strong-arm his enemies to send us more of such taboo energy that we wont produce ourselves. Good luck with all these utter absurdities. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Bidens National Security Strategy Versus Xis 20th Party Congress Commentary The Biden administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) this month, its first, just before the Chinese regime holds its 20th National Congress. The NSS highlights Beijings desire to dominate global politics and warns of the decisive decade in the competition with China. The document also points to the problem of Russia as an immediate and ongoing threat, but not one that is equal to China. Finally, it highlights transnational security issues, including climate change and global health. The NSS states that the Biden administrations strategy toward China is threefold: 1) to invest in the foundations of American strength at home; 2) to align efforts with allies and partners; 3) to compete responsibly with China to defend U.S. interests. Reading the document, one is reminded of the old W.C. Fields joke about the contest where the first prize is a week in Philadelphia and the second is two weeksall should be thankful that the NSS is not longer. It is a profoundly flawed document regarding the China threat. Its vices are anchored in an inability to recognize the size and scope of the threat from the Chinese regime to the U.S. homeland and the U.S. and allied interests. At best, the rhetoric of NSS on the China threat and of the Biden administration since it entered office is a faint echo of former President Donald Trumps. Unlike Trump, Biden does not implement the rhetoric but rather sustains the failed policies of the administrations before Trumpall of which sought to accommodate and support Chinas rise. The NSS states that the United States will work with China on issues like climate change and coexisting peacefully rather than confronting and defeating it. The NSS is a rare and precious opportunity to explain the nature of the threatwhy China is an enemy of the United States and its allies and thus should be confronted, and how the United States and its allies will do so. The decisive decade identified by the NSS was, in fact, decades past when the United States might have stopped the Chinese regime by denying its legitimacy, investment, and entrance into the Wests economic ecosystem. It was the result of the failed strategy of accepting the regime and promoting Chinas growth, the pernicious influence of which animates the NSS. The document anticipates that the decisions the United States takes now will set the course for the future. Indeed, the failure to identify the Chinese regime as a threat and act boldly to counter it ensures that the future will be plagued by the absence of strategic clarity concerning the nature and gravity of the United States enemy, as well as the urgent need to respond immediately. The response needed includes informing Wall Street, Silicon Valley, media, universities, and the public about the nature of the threat, its adaptability, the need for perpetual awareness regarding it, and ensuring that they do not act contrary to U.S. interests. A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on May 19, 2022. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo) Senior Biden administration officials are no better than the document. In a presentation on the document, national security adviser Jake Sullivan stated that advanced technologies need to be protected through a high fence, small yard strategy, by which he means creating chokepoints for critical U.S. technologies. The technologies have to be inside the yard, and the fence must be high to protect them. As Sullivan noted, Foundational technologies have to be inside that yard, and the fence has to be high because our strategic competitors should not be able to exploit American and allied technologies to undermine American and allied security. Indeed, they should not. As desirable as this is, based on the lamentable record of U.S. efforts to protect its technologies from consistent penetrations, it is unlikely this will be effective. To continue Sullivans metaphor, the U.S. fence has colossal gaps through which the Chinese have been acquiring U.S. and allied technologies through legal and illegal means for decades. At the same time, Wall Street often finances the entities responsible. If this mindset does not change, foundational technologies will also be lost. Sullivan and the NSS should have stated that technology and knowledge transfer are ending today because the threat compels itand woe to any U.S. or allied entity that provides these technologies and knowledge to Beijing or finances it. There are reports that UK Prime Minister Liz Truss will update the 2021 Integrated Review policy document that labels the Chinese regime as a threat to the United Kingdom. Britain, like the United States, ignored China for decades in a pernicious and lasting case of threat deflation. The label of communist China as a threat rather than an enemy remains inaccurate and only contributes to the sense that the UK and the United States are not serious about confronting and defeating their enemy. Half a world away, Chinas 20th Party Congress certainly will not highlight climate change and global health. It will not discuss peaceful coexistence like the NSS or Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev 60 years ago. It will explain why the Chinese regime must achieve global dominance. It will be a master class in the determination to work the will of the regime on the rest of the world. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party have clarity about their enemy and are determined to bring about the defeat of the United States and its allies. The CCP is serious about defeating its enemy, but the NSS shows the Biden administration is not. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. A sign for BlackRock Inc. hangs above the company's building in New York on July 16, 2018. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) BlackRock Downgraded by UBS Over Growing ESG Investing Risks BlackRocks focus on the latest Wall Street crazeenvironmental, social, and governance (ESG) investinghas turned into a risky affair for the worlds largest asset manager, a UBS analyst recently said. Brennan Hawken, an analyst at the bank, downgraded the stock of BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) to Neutral from Buy and slashed the stock price target to $585 from $700 over growing pushback to its ESG efforts. We are downgrading BLK to Neutral based on environmental pressure to earnings and risk from the firms ESG positioning, Hawken wrote in a note, stating that BlackRock could face increased regulatory inspection and the possibility of diminished fund management business. BLKs early and energetic adoption of ESG principles in its fund management and shareholder proxy activities have positioned the firm as an ESG leader in our view. However, as performance deteriorates and political risk from ESG has increased, we believe the potential for lost fund mandates and regulatory scrutiny has recently increased. According to Market Beat, the average analyst rating is a Moderate Buy, with a price target of $776.46. But could BlackRock CEO Larry Fink witness the Wall Street titan come under pressure over sustainable investing? BlackRock recently launched a new webpage with a focus on setting the record straight on its ESG investments, dispelling some of the misconceptions being spread and regaining control of its corporate messaging. The energy industry plays a crucial role in the economy, and, on behalf of our clients, BlackRock has invested $170 billion in U.S. public energy companies, the company wrote. We are also partnering with energy companies and start-ups to fund new technology and innovations that will power the global economy, now and in the future. Despite these investments, BlackRock has recently been accused of boycotting oil and gas companies. The company offers a long list of ESG-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that concentrate on climate change, data privacy, accounting practices, product liability, and ethics. Republicans Uninterested in ESG Investing In recent weeks, a plethora of Republican officials have divested from BlackRock over its ESG policies. Recently, Louisiana Treasurer John Schroder wrote a letter (pdf) to Fink, explaining that the state would liquidate approximately $800 million from the financial institutions exchange-traded funds (ETFs), money market funds, and mutual funds within three months. Schroder cited BlackRocks ESG standards that promote green energy over conventional fossil fuels. Your blatantly anti-fossil fuel policies would destroy Louisianas economy, Schroder wrote. This divestment is necessary to protect Louisiana from actions and policies that would actively seek to hamstring our fossil fuel sector. In my opinion, your support of ESG investing is inconsistent with the best economic interests and values of Louisiana. I cannot support an institution that would deny our state the benefit of one of its most robust assets. South Carolina announced on Oct. 10 that the state would be divesting its roughly $200 million in BlackRock holdings by the years end. I will not allow our financial partners to undermine my fiduciary responsibility to maximize investment returns while accepting a prudent level of risk for the benefit of our citizens. It is imperative that we stand up to BlackRock and resist the pressure to simply fall into line with their leftist worldview, South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis explained. Other U.S. jurisdictions have begun to divest tens of millions of dollars in state funds from BlackRock, including Arkansas, Utah, and West Virginia. In August, Texas and 18 other states penned a letter to Fink, threatening to remove state funds from these banks over BlackRocks ESG objectives. Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRocks climate agenda. The time has come for BlackRock to come clean on whether it actually values our states most valuable stakeholders, our current and future retirees, or risk losses even more significant than those caused by BlackRocks quixotic climate agenda, the letter reads. Writing in an op-ed on the Fox Business Network website, Nebraska Treasurer John Murante stated that BlackRock and other asset managers have lost credibility on ESG investing. Wall Street firms market themselves by referencing solid objectsa black rock. For firms making ESG commitments, the appropriate image would be a black box. Asset managers cannot have it both ways: either they maximize financial returns, or they push ESG and net zero, he wrote. While Florida didnt specify BlackRock, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and trustees of the State Board of Administration (SBA) approved a measure to remove ESG criteria from $186 billion in state pension funds. Corporate power has increasingly been utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people through the perversion of financial investment priorities under the euphemistic banners of environmental, social, and corporate governance and diversity, inclusion, and equity, the governor said in a statement in August. But it isnt only BlackRock that Republican-led states are divesting from because of so-called responsible investing. West Virginia announced that other financial institutions would be ineligible for state banking contracts, such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. Despite the pushback from a host of Republican-led states, a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers states that the demand for ESG investments outstrips supply. The study shows that nearly 90 percent of institutional investors think asset managers should be more proactive in manufacturing new ESG products. Close to 80 percent of U.S. investors plan to bolster their allocations to ESG financial products over the next two years. BlackRock shares fell about 2.7 percent on Oct. 14, to close below $551. Since the beginning of the year, the firm has lost 40 percent of its market value, or about $55 billion. Facial recognition technology is operated in Sydney, Australia, in this file photo. (Ian Waldie/Getty Images) British Police Consider Using Data to Predict Future Criminal Activity The Met Police want to use data to predict which men will commit violent crimes against women or girls, according to its most senior officer. Speaking to the Exceptional Policing conference on Oct. 12, Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley talked about wanting to use behavioural data to make predictions about future crimes which would stop would-be offenders before they attack. He said that the Met is working to build a city-wide data picture of men who we know prey on and commit abhorrent crimes against women and girls across London, which is more sophisticated than ever before. Rowley said, sadly, we know it is many tens of thousands of men. With thousands of people repeatedly identified as suspects, but where there is sometimes insufficient evidence to prosecute, but could we start to rank-order some of the most dangerous offenders now at large in our city? he said. Forecasting Rowley said that he wanted the police to go further to see if the police can build a clearer picture of future risk, forecasting, and interdicting men who will commit violent crimes against women or girls, based on previous behaviour as statistically-tested risk factors. Rowley is a former head of the Mets Counter Terrorism Command but left Scotland Yard in 2018 and had been consulting on specialist security projects and working on technology and data. Sir Mark Rowley takes an oath to King Charles III at New Scotland Yard in central London on Sep. 12, 2022 (PA). He was appointed by the former Home Secretary Priti Patel as the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, replacing Dame Cressida Dick who resigned in February. The Met commissioner said he could not give the full analysis today. However, he added that he could say that the success rate of this approach is proving impressive. Were increasingly able to understand the likelihoods of who will commit some of societys most serious crimes, and use that to inform our thinking about prevention, said Rowley. Could it help us catch some of the worst offenders, to find the women and children most at risk as a priority and protect them? Could it also help our partners and other agencies best focus their efforts too? he added. In January, preliminary research into a two-year pilot programme run by Durham Constabulary with Cambridge University found that AI can predict reoffending. The Harm Assessment Risk Tool (Hart) was tested to see if it was better at predicting reoffending rates than human custody sergeants. Both the machine-learning program and human custody officers assessed whether offenders brought into custody were at high, medium, or low risk of reoffending. Harts algorithm did better than its human counterparts, with an accuracy rate of 53.8 percent, compared to a 52.2 percent accuracy rate for custody officers. Durham Constabulary claimed that it stopped using Hart in September 2020. Welsh police have trialed a futuristic technology that will identify wanted individuals almost instantly. A Met Office spokesman told The Epoch Times by email: We dont have any further details to share at this time. Chris Summers contributed to this report. California Flunks Fiscal Report Card Commentary A new study of the 50 states by the Cato Institute affirms what Ive been writing in my columns here in The Epoch Times: California is over-taxed and over-regulated. Released Oct. 12, the Fiscal Policy Report Card on Americas Governors 2022 gives Gov. Gavin Newsom and California an F grade for fiscal and regulatory policies. Its main conclusion: Despite the record $100 billion budget surplus this year, Californias good fortune may be ebbing. The state was long a magnet for entrepreneurs and capital, enjoying net in-migration from other states. But high taxes, high regulations, and high housing costs are making the state less attractive, and California now suffers from net out-migration. I talked to co-author Chris Edwards, first asking why that $100 billion surplus doesnt make California an example to the country, what Newsom calls the California Way. The surplus is a good thing, Edwards said. But heres what California is doing wrong. California has switched from an in-migration state to an out-migration state over many decades. It was the Golden State. But now high-earners in particular are leaving. Elon Musk is the most famous. The study itself provided the numbers: IRS data show the state lost a net 114,652 households to other states in 2020. The state is losing two households earning more than $200,000 for every one that it gains. For this high-income group, that migration ratio is the third worst after New York and Illinois. Edwards told me the reason for the exodus: Taxes are what drive people to move between states. Theres lots of evidence for that. Entrepreneurs often say thats why theyre leaving. Musk complained about the high cost of taxes and regulations. What can California do to make things better? Lots of states have high surpluses. They should be using their surpluses to cut taxes permanently, to stop driving away people. He said one-time refunds, such as the $9.5 billion in tax refund checks currently being sent to Californians, are OK. But better to use that surplus to permanently change the tax code so they stop driving away entrepreneurs. One good thing, Edwards said, is California has built up its Rainy Day Fund. According to the tally in Newsoms June 27 Enacted Budget Summary for fiscal year 2022-23, which began on July 1, The Budget includes $37.2 billion in budgetary reserves. These reserves include: $23.3 billion in the Proposition 2 Budget Stabilization Account (Rainy Day Fund) for fiscal emergencies; $9.5 billion in the Public School System Stabilization Account; $900 million in the Safety Net Reserve; and $3.5 billion in the states operating reserve. We well may be in a recession now, Edwards said. So they have the money to handle the downturn. Is Newsoms California Way a model for America, especially as he obviously is running for president? No. California is becoming a less free state, Edwards said. California is one of the lowest ranked states. There are many reports about how California is excessively regulated. Housing costs are too high due to heavy regulations. It has the highest gas prices, taxes, and regulations. The CATO study ranks freedom in the 50 states, including not only taxes, but regulations. He pointed to the legalization of marijuana in California with Proposition 64 in 2016. California cant even legalization right, he said. Regulations and taxes are so high, most of the marijuana market still is in the black market. California legislators would do their residents a favor by reducing regulations in this and other areas. The Cato Report Card scores states from 0 to 100. Scores 34 and below get an F. The worst state was Washington, with a 28 score. Next worst was California, with 29. Surprisingly, two states Californians flee too did not score that well. Texas scored 47, a C grade. Florida got 52, also a C. An A grade comes with scores above 65. The best states were Iowa with 78, New Hampshire at 74, and Nebraska at 73. The Report Card praised Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican in office since 2017: Reynolds says that her politics are based on the ideas of limited government, personal responsibility, and individual initiative. As governor, she has translated those beliefs into lean budgeting and major tax reforms, earning her the highest score on this report. Reynolds signed tax reforms into law in 2018. The reforms cut the top individual income tax rate from 8.98 percent to 8.53 percent, with a further cut to 6.5 percent and tax bracket consolidation if revenue targets are met. The reforms also cut the top corporate tax rate from 12 percent to 9.8 percent. It quoted Reynolds from her 2022 State of the State Address: All of these tax cuts have one thing in common they reward work. Thats never been more important, as the country is facing an unprecedented worker shortage. New Hampshire is famous as the only state with both no state income tax and no sales tax. The Report Card praised Republican Gov. Chris Sununu: Sununu has resisted pressure to increase taxes and spending, and he has defended New Hampshires status as a low-tax state with no individual income tax. One battle has been over legislation for a paid leave program funded by a payroll tax, which Sununu has repeatedly vetoed. Instead, he signed a bill in 2021 allowing businesses to voluntarily opt into a paid leave fund and receive a tax credit to help cover costs. Although New Hampshire is free of an individual income tax, it imposes two major business taxes, the Business Profits Tax (BPT) and the Business Enterprise Tax (BET). In 2017, Sununu signed legislation to cut the rates of both. These states show the right way to help citizens: reduce the immense cost of government by slashing taxes and regulations, while reducing spending on wasteful programs. California could do the same if the people told the politicians to ease our government burdens instead of increasing them. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Gas prices over $7.00 a gallon displayed at a Chevron gas station in Menlo Park, Calif., on May 25, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) California Gas Prices Dip Slightly After Retailers Permitted to Use Cheaper Winter Blend Californians are finding some relief at the gas pump this week after retailers transitioned early to a cheaper winter blend, but consumers are still paying the highest rates in the nation, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. Gas prices retreated to an average price of $6.20 Oct. 13 in the Golden State22 cents lower than last weeks record high. The national average was $3.91 on Thursday, which was 4 cents higher than a week ago. [Californias] gas prices would have to come down by about $1.20 a gallon from last weeks records in most areas to completely erase the spike that began in September, and there is a possibility they could drop even more if wholesale gasoline prices continue downward, Los Angeles-based Auto Club spokesperson Doug Shupe said in a statement on Thursday. The average price of regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area was $6.26 per gallon, which is 23 cents lower than last week, 85 cents higher than last month, and $1.81 higher than last year, according to the auto club. In Orange County, the average reached $6.15 a gallon, which was 29 cents less than last week but $1.75 a gallon more than last year. And, the average price was $6.20 in San Diego, which is 23 cents lower than last week, 83 cents higher than last month, and $1.80 higher than last year. Despite the price drop, California consumers were still paying the highest prices in the nation to fill up. Alaska had the second-highest gas price average at $5.52, followed by Oregon recording a $5.46 average price. Georgia has the lowest price at $3.27. Californias high fuel costs can be attributed to planned and unplanned maintenance at refineries in the state. Additionally, the state and federal government tacks $1.28 onto each gallon of gas for taxes and environmental policies. For each gallon, California consumers pay the following: 54 cents for the state excise taxthe highest in the nation 18 cents in federal excise tax 23 cents for Californias cap-and-trade program to lower greenhouse gas emissions 18 cents for the states low-carbon fuel programs 2 cents for underground gas storage fees About 3.7 percent in state and local sales taxes The Western States Petroleum Association told The Epoch Times the states policies become more restrictive every year, adding to fuel costs. Keep in mind, the first $1.28 per gallon we all pay at the pump today goes to taxes, fees and regulatory programs imposed by the state, said Kara Green, spokeswoman for the petroleum association. Our policy environment matters when it comes to energy costs, and is getting more restrictive and costly every year. Windfall Tax Proposal To temper skyrocketing fuel costs last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the California Air Resources Board, a state regulatory agency, to allow retailers to transition early this year into using less-expensive winter-blend gasoline, saving as much as 25 cents per gallon. Newsom, who blames oil companies for higher fuel prices, has asked the State Legislature to convene a special session to consider a windfall profits tax. The session is set for Dec. 5, when the Legislature is back in session for the 202324 legislative season. Some industry experts warn that such a windfall tax could add more cost for consumers and destabilize oil businesses. Valero, an oil company with a refinery in the state, responded to Newsoms accusations, saying the state was the most costly location for refining. For Valero, California is the most expensive operating environment in the country and a very hostile regulatory environment for refining, Valeros Scott Folwarkow wrote to the California Energy Commission Oct. 3 after a request for answers to the high prices. California policy makers have knowingly adopted policies with the expressed intent of eliminating the refinery sector. Several factors contributed to the challenging market, including requiring fuel blends not readily available in the state and aggressive environmental regulations. A windfall profits tax would only create higher fuel costs, he said. Adding further costs, in the form of new taxes or regulatory constraints, will only further strain the fuel market and adversely impact refiners and ultimately those costs will pass to California consumers, Folwarkow wrote. California lawmakers also weighed in on the governors proposal to increase taxes on oil companies. Only in California would someone propose to increase taxes as a solution to lowering gas prices, Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) wrote on Twitter. State Assemblywoman Jaqui Irwin (D-Camarillo) told The Epoch Times she welcomed the proposal and recent actions to combat the higher prices. As shared by Speaker [Anthony] Rendon, the Assembly has been diligently working to understand the market forces at play, and the Select Committee on Gasoline Supply and Pricing has been investigating long term solutions to address Californias high gas prices, Irwin said in an email. The select committee focused on gasoline pricing has met twice this year. Irwin, who is chairwoman of the committee, said the group was releasing a report in the next few weeks with recommendations, based on testimony from numerous stakeholders and industry experts including the California Energy Commission and the Legislative Analysts Office, for the Legislature to consider in the upcoming session. Californias near-term relief, the Middle Class Tax Refund, will soon put money directly into the pockets of Californians, which can help with the rising costs of gas and groceries, Irwin said. California Makes Digital License Plates a Legal Option for All Drivers California will now allow digital license plates as a legal alternative to conventional plates. After a pilot program, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill last month making the option available to all residents and businesses across the state. The way that the governments been set up, when it comes to compliance and dealing with your license plate, its usually kind of an arduous process. And our biggest thing is to simplify it, Neville Boston told NTD News, a sister media of The Epoch Times. Boston is the co-founder of Reviver, the only company that currently makes digital plates approved for use by the California DMV. Their digital plate is an e-ink bi-stable screen that is bluetooth enabled and has an LTE connection. It allows the owner to renew their registration without going to the DMV and also includes visual personalization options and safety features, according to Boston. We have safety and security alerts. Like, if your vehicle was stolen, you can actually put STOLEN on the plate. Inclement, weather alerts and things like that. Our platform enables the ability for you to do that, Boston said. Also you have the ability to customize the plate. Theres probably about 1,000 different messages that you have access to. Happy birthday, Im a Bruin, went to UC Berkeley, Im a fan of whatever. Those are the kind of messages that you can put on the plate. A man installs a digital license plate. (Courtesy of Reviver) Boston says that within about 30 days customers will be able to arrange towing through the plate. In 2023 they plan to integrate parking. In addition to personal use, digital plates for business fleets are also available. Were able to track your mileage, geofence, particular locations, be able to streamline your maintenance, and all kinds of other things through our platform. When asked about the security risks Boston said that the platform is more secure than an online banking session. We are more like Apple than Google, Boston said. Peoples information is sacrosanct. And I would say that we are focused on making sure that the data that you have, you control. So with our GPS unit, you have the ability to turn it on and off so the user has control over that data and information. In addition to California, drivers in Michigan and Arizona also have the option for digital plates. In Texas they are available for commercial fleets and in Florida for government use. Personal plates run $19.95 a month or about $215 if paid yearly with a four-year commitment. Commercial plates are $24.95 a month or $275 if paid yearly. A Nevada woman was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to eight years in prison for bringing an underage girl to Billings to engage in commercial sex. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a ceremony to mark the island's National Day in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei on October 10, 2022. (Photo by Sam Yeh / AFP) (Photo by SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images) Canadian MPs Visiting Taiwan Voice Support for Nation to Join International Organizations Amid Beijings Threats A group of Canadian parliamentarians visiting Taiwan are voicing support for Taiwans participation in international organizations where Beijing has long opposed the islands membership. Liberal MP Judy Sgro and several MPs from the Canada-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group arrived in Taiwan ahead of the self-ruled democracys 111th National Day on Oct. 10. Other members of parliament on the trip include Liberal MP Angelo Iacono, Bloc Quebecois MP Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, and Conservative MPs Richard Martel and Chris Lewis. Myself and the rest of the Parliamentary Friendship group with Taiwan had the honour of meeting with President Tsai Ing-Wen to recognize Taiwans relations with Canada and their importance to the international community, Sgro wrote on social media on Oct. 11, following the groups meeting with the Taiwanese president a day earlier. Myself and the rest of the Parliamentary Friendship group with Taiwan had the honour of meeting with President Tsai Ing-Wen to recognize Taiwans relations with Canada and their importance to the international community.#HoC #Taiwan #IndoPacificRelations@iingwen pic.twitter.com/cAfPQSFSzx Judy Sgro (@JudySgroMP) October 12, 2022 During the meeting, Tsai noted that earlier this year Canada and Taiwan had begun exploratory discussions of a possible foreign investment promotion and protection arrangement (FIPA), which she said would build a more open, transparent, and friendly investment environment, as well as strengthen bilateral economic and trade links. Tsai also said that last year Taiwan officially applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and called for Canadas support in its accession into the organization. Taiwan, in my opinion, has demonstrated a very solid record on complying with the CPTPP and we hope as a parliamentary group, and I believe most of the parliamentarians in Canada, hope that that accession into the CPTPP will happen sooner than later, Sgro said in response, adding that things have continued to progress very well in regards to the FIPA discussions. Sgro also voiced support for Taiwans participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) during the Friendship Groups meeting with You Si-Kun, Speaker of the Taiwanese legislature, on Oct. 12. Our Prime Minister and our government are very aware of your desires for the ICAO and the [WHO] and have passed many motions and spoken of that very issue in Parliament, she told the delegation. I believe if ever Taiwan was going to have the opportunity to be advanced into those two organizations, the time is now. Symbol of Freedom and Democracy Sgro announced the plan to visit Taiwan with members of the Parliamentary Friendship Group in August after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a stop in Taiwan during her Asia tour earlier that month. Pelosis visit sparked outrage from the communist regime in Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory, and has taken steps to isolate it from the international community while making increasingly aggressive threats toward the island nation. Prior to Pelosis visit, China slapped a temporary ban on food imports from over 100 Taiwanese companies and conducted several military exercises near Taiwan before and after Pelosis trip, causing the cancellation of dozens of international flights. In a white paper released on Aug. 10, the Chinese Communist Party withdrew a promise that it would not send troops or administrative personnel to be based in Taiwan, if ever it took control of the island. The paper also reiterated the regimes stance that it will not renounce the use of force to invade Taiwan. Part of the reason for our visit at this particular time was because when your friends are having difficulties, you always want to be by their sidewhether its your own personal family or your parliamentary family, Sgro said in the Taiwanese legislature on Oct. 12. Taiwan is so, so important to the world; you are such a symbol of freedom and democracy. We want to see that continue, we want to see freedom and democracy spread in other countries around the world and respect for human rights, she added. Together, with Taiwan and Canada, we will continue to do that work as we move forward. CBC Interview Alluding to Russian Involvement in Trucker Protests Breached Journalistic Standards: Ombudsman The CBCs ombudsman has found that the national broadcaster breached its journalistic standards and practices (JSP) during an interview on its Power & Politics program in January. Ombudsman Jack Nagler said questions in the interview that alluded to Russian involvement in the trucker protests were out of context, and the ideas and language surrounding the questions were too bold. He said there should have been evidence backing the claim and advised CBC programmers to be aware of the impact of [their] work. CBC released correspondence regarding a complaint made to the ombudsman by James Sali on Oct. 6. During the Power and Politics interview on Jan. 28, just before the Freedom Convoy protests began in Ottawa, the host asked Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino: Weve heard references to potential outside actors. Who could these outside actors be? Where might they be from? Mendicino responded, I would certainly direct those questions to law enforcement who are best positioned to answer and to make decisions police services and other partners within the public safety community are putting all eyes on the situation, putting additional resources into the area to make sure that there can be peaceful protest, as well as providing direction and guidance to residents so that everybody can stay safe. The interviewer followed with the question, I do ask that because, you know, given Canadas support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I dont know if its far-fetched to askbut there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset? Mendicino again deferred to partners in the public safety community and reiterated that authorities were watching the protest closely. Escaping the Realm of Journalism In his complaint, Sali said the CBC reporter was escaping the realm of journalism with this line of questioning. At face value this appears that it is an effort by the CBC to misrepresent the protest, the people representing or attending the process, or otherwise try and manipulate the natural public discourse around this issue, he wrote This is astonishing behaviour, since this protest is in relation to existing public policy. It is not in the scope of the CBCs mandate on journalism to try and steer the outcomes of that discussion on policy to something which would be acceptable and aligned with the CBCs own political views. CBC issued a clarification five days after the original interview was aired, stating, The question should have referenced experts concerns that during the current tension over Ukraine, Moscow could use its cyber and disinformation capabilities to sow confusion among Ukraines allies during a crisis. Chris Carter, the managing editor of CBCs Parliamentary Bureau, responded to Salis complaint, but it only made Sali more concerned about CBCs reasoning. Carter admitted the question was framed wrongly, and cited some sources that Sali found to be illegitimate. It was a loaded question specifically aimed at Russia, when most foreign donations arent from that country, Sali wrote, adding that the article Carter quoted about donations to the protest does not say anything about them coming from Russia. Any citation to outside donations has to be put into context when asking questions about security, otherwise it makes listeners/watchers/readers think that the foreign donations are mostly from hostile nations, he wrote. Although on the surface Chris makes good arguments, the fact remains that there were little donations from Russia if any, no evidence that any donations were tied to the Russian government, and no evidence of initial Russian instigation. Ideas and Language Too Bold Your complaint raised interesting questions about CBCs conduct, Nagler wrote in his response to Salis complaint. It also raised interesting questions about the way information gets shaped in a broader media environment which can be highly partisan. Nagler said it was legitimate to ask the minister of public safety about foreign actors supporting the protest or whether Russia might use the protest to advance its cause, but the questions were phrased wrongly. He said the interviewers use of the term far-fetched was credible, but the language and ideas put forward in these questions were too bold, considering there was no concrete evidence attached to them. The fundamental flaw, in my view, was the use of a speculative question when it was not called for, he said. These questions, as phrased, did not meet the standard to clearly explain the facts or contribute to the understanding of issues of public interest, Nagler wrote, quoting CBCs JSP and concluding that there was a breach. Nagler then cited a section in the JSP that called on staff to be aware of the impact of [their] work, advising programmers to pay more attention to this area. So producers should prepare their programs with that in mind. Make sure to provide sufficient context, attribution, or evidence for whatever CBC reports and when required, for the questions that its journalists ask. A woman uses her cellphone to scan a venue code for health registration before entering an outdoor ice rink in Beijing, China on Jan. 12, 2021. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images) CCP Arbitrarily Turns Health Codes Red Mainland China lawyer: 'There is no legal basis, but they are done without any obstacle.' Local authorities in east China turned the health QR codes (for COVID-19) for 63,000 residents red, resulting in them being denied entry to public places. A Chinese lawyer says there is no legal basis for authorities to change peoples health codes but that it is done without obstacle. The Chinese communist regime adopted a health codeQR code system on cellphonesto track and monitor the whereabouts of people. The system issues green, yellow, and red codes based on their digital footprint or their travel history over 14 days. People must have a green code to enter public places and for travel. The health QR codes are an extension of mainland Chinas social credit system that assigns each citizen a score of social trustworthiness. A person with a low social credit score may not be allowed to board a train or airplane, or their child may not be admitted to a reputable school. It is a component of the regimes pursuit of what they euphemistically call data-driven governance or social control. Mandatory Concentrated Quarantine On Oct. 8, the health QR codes of 63,000 people from Henan Province, but who are living in Ningbo, turned red, and authorities started to put them in concentrated living quarters. According to an Oct. 9 notice issued by the Beilun District government in Ningbo city of Zhejiang Province, the scope of so many peoples health codes being turned red was too large due to a simplified operation and had been corrected, and they apologized for the inconvenience. However, the notice said that the mandatory concentrated quarantine of the people would still be implemented. Miss Dong (pseudonym) from Henan, who lives in Zhejiang, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 10 that anyone in Zhejiang from Henan, no matter where they are from in Henan, they have been given a red health QR code. It doesnt matter if there is COVID-19 in the area or not. I came back from Henan and had to be quarantined at home for 7 days, said Dong. Mr. Zhao (pseudonym) returned to Ningbo from Zhumadian city in Henan on Oct. 5. He told The Epoch Times, After I arrived in Ningbo, I did PCR tests every day, and my health code had always been green until Oct. 8 when it was turned red. He said, On Oct. 9 it was turned green again, but I was still told to stay in at home. A security guard checks health codes on peoples smartphones at a tourist shopping street in Beijing, on Aug. 3, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo) Mr. Peng (pseudonym), a resident of Shangqiu city in Henan province, is currently in Ningbo. He told The Epoch Times, Zhejiang authorities said that they apologized [for turning so many peoples health codes red], but they did not correct it. It said that in some areas it was too much and would be corrected, but the reality is still the same. The Zhejiang governments manipulation of residents health QR codes drew criticism on Chinese social media. A netizen posted, They apologize everyday but dont change at all. Unable to Live and Work Normally Some netizens questioned why the red health QR code can be issued to people by the government at will, and how they can disregard it by saying it is a simplified operation? The practice of changing the health QR codes not only occurred in Ningbo but also in Fenghuang County of Hunan Province where some residents codes were turned yellow, mainland Chinese media reported on Oct. 7. This also causes peoples movement to be restricted. A mainland lawyer, who used the surname Wang, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 10 that the red or yellow QR codes given to people have a great impact on their lives and work. Wang didnt provide his given name for fear of retaliation by the regime. Wang said that they cant take the subway, bus, plane, train, or go to shopping malls, supermarkets, or restaurants with a red code or a yellow code. They cant travel at all nor check into hotels. Wang said that the owner of a restaurant in Jilin Province told him that PCR tests must be done every day for everyone, otherwise their health codes will be turned yellow and their children will not be able to go to school because of it. If you refuse to take regular PCR tests you will not be able to work and live normally if your code is turned red and yellow, he said. No Legal Basis Wang said that many lawyers have encountered the problem of health QR codes. Even when they have filed for administrative reconsideration in accordance with the legal procedures for clients whose codes were turned yellow or red by the authorities, they did not receive any response. The government simply ignores you and treats you as if you did not exist, he said. There is no legal basis for turning peoples codes red or yellow, he said. There is no law conferring on a certain agency or administrative unit the power to issue people a yellow code or a red code. As long as you have the power, you can do anything, said Wang. I feel that it is impossible to survive in this environment at present, Wang said. In some areas, according to the [officially] released data, there is not a single COVID-19 case. But all residents are required to do PCR tests. Its illegal, he said. If you dont take the testing for a few days, you will be given a red or yellow code. This is complete nonsense. There is no legal basis, but they are done without any obstacle. Nicole Hao, Xiao Lusheng, and Hong Ning contributed to this report. The logo of the Chinese social media app TikTok is shown in a picture taken in Paris on Dec. 14, 2018. (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images) China Conducting Influence Campaigns to Interfere in US Midterm Elections: Report Chinas communist leadership is attempting to interfere in the Nov. 8 U.S. midterm elections by spreading propaganda and disinformation, according to researchers. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is conducting influence campaigns with the apparent intent of increasing political polarization among Americans and damaging the reputations of people running for Congress who have been critical of the regime, according to a report (pdf) published on Oct. 13 by intelligence firm Recorded Future. Chinas state-sponsored influencers are almost certainly conducting malign influence operations targeting English and Chinese-speaking U.S. audiences with divisive political multimedia content on social media, the report states. China is likely to conduct malign interference efforts against congressional candidates and members who are outspoken opponents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and who support policies that will negatively affect China. The report comes less than a month after tech giant Meta Platforms said that it had dismantled a China-based disinformation campaign ahead of the elections. That campaign intended to increase political polarization among American voters by amplifying extreme viewpoints on both sides of the political spectrum. Likewise, the Recorded Future report found that China-based influence operations were aimed at promoting extremism and sowing discord among American voters. Many of these [efforts] appear to criticize both the Republican and Democrat parties and promote extreme views on both sides, the report reads. CCP Seeks to Undermine US Like Russia, the report states, the CCP appears to be seeding social media with narratives designed to undermine the United States by exploiting political wedge issues, including abortion, gun laws, fascism, homelessness, immigration, race, technological decoupling, Russias war in Ukraine, and others. While the bulk of these efforts could indirectly affect the outcome of the midterm elections, the report states, there was one case in which the CCP attempted to interfere directly. That was the case of Xiong Yan, a U.S. Army veteran and congressional hopeful in New York City, who was targeted by the CCP earlier this year. The Justice Department has charged known CCP affiliates with plotting to extort and even physically attack Xiong to remove him from the race and prevent his anti-communist views from entering the political landscape. Xiong Yan, Democratic candidate in New Yorks 10th Congressional District, in July 2022. (Cai Rong/The Epoch Times) The reports authors note that they anticipate more direct involvement from the CCP. We believe that Chinas malign interference activities, including harassment, surveillance, and physical threats, will likely target congressional candidates and members who are outspoken opponents of the CCP and legislators who support policies that will negatively affect China, the report reads. To that end, the report states that CCP authorities rely on diplomats, journalists, and pundits to spread anti-U.S. narratives online. Those narratives, in turn, are amplified by fake personas and other inauthentic social media accounts to artificially mimic real engagement and encourage people to believe that negative feelings about the United States are more widespread than they really are. One such example, the report states, was the Pacific Dialogue, a social media channel managed by the CCP Central Committees propaganda department. The Pacific Dialogue has posted more than 600 anti-Western videos and has worked tirelessly for more than five years to spread them across platforms, including Douyin, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Weibo, and YouTube, according to the report. The CCP is also likely to lean on people in positions of power in the United States ahead of the elections, the report adds, in order to launder its anti-American ideals through domestic actors. We believe that the CCP is likely to attempt to manipulate U.S. state, local, and business leaders to support Beijing-friendly policies and advance CCP geopolitical interests through political donations, incentives, and coercion stemming from malign cyber intrusions operations, the report reads. A Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft with the second crew of three astronauts to China's new space station, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert in northwest China early on Oct. 16, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) China, Russia Could Launch Space Pearl Harbor on Aging US Satellites: Expert The United States is not prepared for strategic space competition against a united China and Russia, according to one expert. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is nearing technological parity with the United States in key space domains, according to Brandon Weichert, an independent geopolitical analyst. That means that it will soon threaten the United States ability to project power in space. Youre already seeing China being able to catch up to us in certain areas, Weichert said during an Oct. 13 interview with NTD, a sister media outlet of the Epoch Times. They are still able to do things that we were not anticipating that they would be able to do, such as getting this new space station of theirs in orbit as quickly as they did and getting many of our key allies to sign on in support of the new China space station. And thats just the beginning. Weichert said that the United States was not ready to face the combined aggression of the CCP and Vladimir Putins Russia simultaneously because the nation had failed to capitalize on its dominance in space following the end of the Cold War. Were not ready, Weichert said. And the reason were not ready is because we have wasted the last 30 years since the Cold War ended, not advancing and not enhancing our hard-won strategic dominance in space. If you merge the Russian and Chinese space power together, you now have a real challenge, not only to the United States, but to our very powerful, dynamic, private space companies. That means there is a developing risk, Weichert said, that CCP or Russian forces could launch a surprise attack on U.S. space assets in the event of a global conflict. Such an attack would be devastating as current U.S. satellite architecture is based on a limited number of old systems, meaning that one downed satellite could cause catastrophic consequences across multiple vital systems such as GPS or missile guidance. Were in a position now where space Pearl Harbor, a surprise attack by Russia or China, or even Iran or North Korea, on our vital yet vulnerable satellite networks could happen at any moment, Weichert said. And so, now, what we really need to be thinking about is not just how we prevent [that], unfortunately [but also] how we survive it. Experts have long warned that the CCP poses a direct military threat to the United States in space. To remedy that, Weichert said that the Pentagon would need to hasten its adoption of a decentralized satellite architecture similar to that of Elon Musks Starlink. Such a system would be characterized by the deployment of numerous decentralized and inexpensive satellites, as opposed to a few vital and expensive ones. Basically, Musk has built hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of very small, unsophisticated satellites that hes put into orbit and in doing so that he has basically created redundancy, Weichert said. So, while those satellites may be small and unsophisticated, theyre so easy to replace that its hard to destroy it and, even if they are destroyed, they will be able to be replaced at relatively cheap levels. As such, Weichert said, the U.S. military would need to quickly adopt commercial technologies and concepts like Musks Starlink to its own ends. We need to take that model and scale it up, use it for all of our satellites system or as many as possible, and to also then make existing satellite constellations make them more interoperable with civilian satellite constellations, as well as allied constellations, Weichert said. Huawei consumer CEO Richard Yu speaks during the presentation of a Kirin 990 5G chip set at the international electronics and innovation fair IFA in Berlin on Sept. 6, 2019. (Tobias Schwartz/AFP via Getty Images) Chinas Chip Industry Crippled by Low Output, Closures, New Restrictions 6 reasons why industry was already in trouble: tech insider New U.S. restrictions on technology exports are bad news for Chinas semiconductor industry. The industry has been struggling for some time, with Chinas chip productivity reportedly shrinking for eight straight months in 2022. Meanwhile, a record number of Chinese chip companies are closing, heralding an industry that has dramatically failed to meet expectations. Data released on Sept. 16 by Chinas Bureau of National Statistics showed that Chinas output of integrated circuits fell 24.7 percent year-over-year in August, and cumulative chip production decreased by 10.0 percent to 218.1 billion units. That decline runs counter to the countrys trend of continued growth in annual chip production since 2009. Further, this year saw more Chinese chip companies unable to maintain operations, with 3,470 chip companies closing in the first eight months of 2022. That number compared to 3,420 in 2021 and 1,397 in 2020, according to a Sept. 15 article in the South China Morning Post. Stuck Neck Technologies Chip technology has long been regarded as one of the key high-tech industries that China has had difficulty conquering. In September 2020, state-run newspaper Science and Technology Daily listed 35 stuck neck technologies that restrict Chinas industrial development. Photolithography for chip-making ranked first on the list, followed by chip technology. As early as 1999, China launched its Starlight China Chip Project to support the semiconductor industry. Over the ensuing decades, it invested tens of billions of dollars in the semiconductor industry. In recent years, the ruling Communist Chinese Communist party (CCP) doubled down on the Whole Nation System, a strategy of mobilizing resources nationwide to accelerate development in priority areas. The new-type whole nation system is focused on advancing technological progress, as outlined in a document approved Sept. 6 by the CCPs Central Comprehensive Deepening Reforms Commission. The whole nation system has been widely questioned by domestic scholars and insiders, a prime example being Chinese economist Wu Jinglians critique at a Tsinghua University public lecture in 2018, in which he sternly warned against developing the chip industry at all costs, a strategy he called dangerous. Case in Point: Huaweis Gloomy Chip Outlook Troubles at telecommunications giant Huawei, which owns semiconductor company HiSilicon, are symptomatic of the Chinese chip industrys woes. The company said on Jan. 1 that it would continue to set out on a core journey, but in the first half of this year, shipments of Huaweis HiSilicon chips plummeted by 81.5 percent year-on-year, according to a report by CINNO Research, a research and consulting company. Among global smartphone applications processors, HiSilicon has fallen to 0.4 percent market share by shipment. The company is down from 3 percent by revenue in the second quarter of last year, to 1 percent in the second quarter of this year, said Counterpoint Research, a Hong Kong-based industry analysis firm, in a Sept. 21 report. The chairman of a Japanese tech company, who spoke to The Epoch Times under the pseudonym Desen, said HiSilicon, Huaweis chip design company, does not itself have the ability to produce chips. In the short term, TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] wont produce chips for HiSilicon because of the U.S. sanctions, hence chips that HiSilicon designed cannot be turned into products in a timely manner, and the industry revenue is bound to be affected, the industry executive said. On May 16, 2019, the U.S. Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) placed Huawei and 68 of its non-U.S. affiliated companies on its Entity List in order to further address the continuing threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. U.S. companies may not supply products to Huawei and these affiliates without obtaining permission from the Department of Commerce. Further, on May 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce required that any chips produced using U.S. technology and equipment would need approval by the U.S. before they could be sold to Huawei, a response to what it called Huaweis efforts to undermine U.S. export controls. As a result, semiconductor manufacturers that relied on equipment from U.S. companies, even those in Chinasuch as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC)stopped producing parts and equipment for Huawei. SMIC was added to the Entity List in December 2020. In the long run, if HiSilicon cannot maintain and upgrade its chip design software, its future industry revenue is likely to continue to go down, Desen said. An employee makes chips at a Jiejie Semiconductor Company factory in Nantong, in eastern Chinas Jiangsu province, on March 17, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Six Reasons for the Tide of Closures As part of the CCPs whole state system, a huge number of chip companies were established in China. However, many of those start-ups were short-lived and even established companies are struggling. Desen cites six major reasons for the waning of Chinas high-tech industry: Reason 1: Some chip companies are formed simply to pursue government subsidies. China established its Big Fund of $22 billion for chip investments in 2014, followed by a second fund of about $30 billion in 2019. Soon tens of thousands of Chinese companies were registering as semiconductor businesses, even some in completely unrelated sectors such as cement making. It stands to reason that such companies are bound not to produce any results, the tech company executive said. Reason 2: A large number of chip companies were set up in a short time with an inadequate number of employees, resulting in increased hiring costs and frequent personnel changes. This is detrimental to product development and causes operational woes, even if the companys founding team has a background in relevant chip technology resources. Reason 3: In order to attract huge investments, newly established chip companies often deliberately exaggerate industry prospects, ignoring technical problems or shortening time estimates for projects. The chip industry requires continuous research and development over a long period of time, and enormous capital. The investors may have been accustomed to the short and quick profit model represented by real estate, so when a company does not perform as well as expected, disagreements may arise between investors and the company, triggering the withdrawal of investors, Desen said. Reason 4: In order to meet investors desire for quick profits, chip companies tend to build surface prosperity. If the focus is only on surface appearance, lack of solid talent and trust will inevitably lead to blindly money-burning and expansion Focusing only on the surface performance, no one can quietly focus on product development. In some cases, the company just gives investors [promotional materials] to read and employees show their superiors only PPT [PowerPoint Presentations] without doing any concrete work. Obviously this is not conducive to actual chip production. Desen added, This results in a huge waste of capital, eventually [leading] to a break in the capital chain. Reason 5: Chinese companies look for outside talent, but display a lack of trust that is a barrier to success. The experience of Chiang Shang-Yi, former chief of operations at TSMC, illustrates this. Chiang joined SMIC as vice-chairman in late 2020. In a March interview (pdf) with Silicon Valleys Computer History Museum, Chiang said for the first time that joining SMIC was a mistake and one of the foolish things Ive done. Chiang had worked in the semiconductor industry for many years and had a high reputation. However, he said he was not trusted by the Chinese because he is Taiwanese and holds U.S. citizenship as well. When he was hired by SMIC, the companys co-CEO resigned in protest. Chiang left the company less than a year later. Reason 6: Even if many companies produce chips, they cannot make profits in the short term because of their initial overestimation of products and inability to control yields and costs. At the same time, they cannot absorb capital in the stock market. The inability to make profits also undermines investor confidence, ultimately dooming them. The best-known examples are Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation and Quanxin Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Jinan) Company. Chinese officials invested hundreds of millions in the two semiconductor start-ups, but the companies never commercially made a single chip. New Restrictions Add to Deep-Seated Issues All in all, while U.S. restrictions continue to hobble the Chinese semiconductor industry, deep-seated problems have plagued the industry for years. The problems can be found in almost every aspect of the industry, due to government-led blind expansion and lack of scrutiny, Desen concluded. The result: a wave of tech closures and hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain. Kathleen Li Follow Kathleen Li has contributed to The Epoch Times since 2009 and focuses on China-related topics. She is an engineer, chartered in civil and structural engineering in Australia. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) greets U.S. President Joe Biden with a fist bump after his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 15, 2022. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP) Congressman Urges Probe of Claims Biden Admin Officials Asked Saudi Arabia to Delay Oil Cuts Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) on Thursday urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to formally investigate whether Biden administration officials suggested Saudi Arabia delay the decision of a group of key oil-producing countries to cut oil output until after the midterms. Tiffany wrote to Pelosi asking for the Congressional probe after Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud suggested in an official statement that the Biden administration asked the kingdom to postpon[e] the OPEC+ decision for a month. This statement was released hours after White House national security adviser Ned Price denied reports that Biden administration officials had requested the delay. These are very serious allegations, and if the Biden administration did, in fact, attempt to coordinate with a foreign government to influence the U.S. election, thats something the American people deserve to know, Tiffany said in a statement. Speaker Pelosi and Congress have a responsibility to get to the bottom of these deeply troubling reports as soon as possible. (L-R) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi participates in a ceremonial swearing-in with new Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), with wife Christine, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on May 19, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) It Is the Houses Responsibility In a letter (pdf) to Pelosi, Tiffany said that if the Saudi officials claim is true it may very well constitute an illegal solicitation of a foreign in-kind contribution by the White House on behalf of Democrats midterm campaign efforts. The Wisconsin Republican urged Congress to convene hearings to get to the bottom of what requests were made of officials from Saudi Arabia or OPEC+ by Biden administration officials. Tiffany also demanded the White House immediately release the transcript from the last month of any calls between President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Cabinet officials, or other senior administration officials and representatives of Saudi Arabia about oil production. He also urged Congress to identify any Biden administration official who may have asked any Saudi government official to delay the decision to cut oil production by a month. It is the Houses responsibility to exercise its oversight responsibilities and get to the bottom of these troubling reports as soon as possible, Tiffany wrote. In 2019, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a similar letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) urging him to stop former President Donald Trump from withholding an Intelligence Community whistleblower complaint. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the press as he makes a surprise visit to pick up lunch alongside U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) (C) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis (R) at Tacos 1986 in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 13, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) While visiting Los Angeles on Thursday, where gas prices are $7 a gallon in some places, Biden was asked what message he had for Saudi Arabia with respect to gas prices. Were about to talk to you,' Biden said without further explanation. Were about to talk to them, he added. When asked what he plans to say to the kingdom, Biden replied, Stay tuned. Saudi Arabia Rejects White House Criticism The White House framed OPECs decision on Oct. 5 to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day as taking a position of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin with respect to the UkraineRussia war. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the decision a mistake and accused OPEC+ of aligning with Russia, which is a key member of the oil producer group. Responding to the criticism, Saudi Arabias foreign minister insisted OPECs decision was purely about maintaining a balance of supply and demand and limiting volatility in the oil markets. The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would first like to express its total rejection of these statements that are not based on facts, and which are based on portraying the OPEC+ decision out of its purely economic context, bin Farhan Al Saud said. Cultural Revolution Absurdity is Coming to Hong Kong Commentary The Chinese Communist Partys history is full of forbidden subjects, and the most paramount of them is undoubtedly the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s, right after the publication of the Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the Peoples Republic of China at a 1981 CCP committee meeting, in which the Cultural Revolution was characterized as totally wrong, Chinese society was relatively free, and a number of historical works on the Cultural Revolution appeared, with Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution by political scientist Yan Jiaqi and his wife Gao Gao being most well-known and republished in Hong Kong by Ta Kung Pao. However, distribution of the article was prohibited after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre as the authors were labeled by the CCP as masterminds behind the events. The history of the Cultural Revolution is sometimes written in the form of collected anecdotes. I have two such books in hand. The stories, though some may regard them as funny, reflect how crazy the Cultural Revolution was. For example, the Red Guards accused Qu Yuan, a famous poet and politician from the state of Chu during the Warring States Period (476 BC221 BC) who supported a union of the six states against Qin, of being a fake patriot who engaged in the Seven Chinas conspiracy and resisted the historical trend of One China represented by Qin that would soon unify China by annexing the other states. Another example concerns Wing On (literally translated as eternal peace) a Hong Kong department store that has branches in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Shanghai Red Guards thought that the name Wing On was reactionary and had to be replaced. They considered options like Eternal Struggles and Eternal Red, and actually preferred Eternal Chaos, because Lin Biao, then the second most important leader next to Mao, said, The world shall be in great chaos, the more chaotic the better. Why is Chinese history written in a form that ridicules national catastrophes? Are there similar book titles, such as. Jokes about Nazi Germany? I am not sure. This probably unique Chinese way of writing history deserves a deeper look. In the preface of one of the books I have, writer Liu Shahe notes, I think the farce of the Cultural Revolution is most suitable for laughing about and most inappropriate for serious discussions to tell black from white . All the suffering turned out to be a wild dream. Idiots wake up feeling good about themselves, and think they are awake enough to make comments of various kinds, which is actually stupid. What he means is that the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China, and the Chinese people are hard to fathom, and it is way too early to say that the way of thinking during the Cultural Revolution no longer exists. In fact, the Cultural Revolution was not only about political struggles; essentially it was a way of everyday life. The following is an anecdote about a pale patient standing unsteadily on a bus. A young man near him was advised to give up his seat. The young man said, Who can afford to make a mistake of political stance? Its not a big deal to give up my seat, but ones ass also has a class character. Who can prove that he is not a landlord, a rich person, a counter-revolutionary, a bad element, a rightist, a spy, a traitor, or a stinking intellectual? All on the bus were speechless. Isnt such thinking absurd? Absurdity is everywhere in China in which politics permeates every corner of life. As Hong Kong is now part of China, the absurdity has spread to this ex-British colony. Recently, 14 secondary school students were suspended for three days for continuing to eat their breakfast when the national flag was being raised in a morning assembly. Although details told by the school and the students differ, the disproportionatelyif not unprecedentedlyheavy penalty is almost certain to be political in nature. Such absurdity is reminiscent of a popular anecdote about the Cultural Revolution. At many struggle meetings, participants sat on the floor, some on a newspaper. Later, when some people were found to be sitting on a picture of Chairman Mao, they were immediately turned from participants to victims of the meeting, and labelled as counter-revolutionaries. Hong Kong people love the in-law joke, If your mom and I fall into water, whom will you save first? In new Hong Kong, when parents consider a school for their kids, they may similarly ask a principal If the national flag and my kid fall into water, which one will you save first? Answering I would save the child first is unlikely for any principal, as this may gain the school a headline in the fearsome leftist papers and in turn, invite political problems. Though no satisfactory answer to the question is possible, such questions need to be asked. At least, they make us face the reality that a school in Hong Kong is no longer a safe place. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Culture of Quiet No-Platforming Constraining Free Speech at Universities: Report Student societies are quietly no-platforming suitable speakers out of fears of a backlash, according to a new report. British universities, historically known for having long traditions of hosting guests to deliver speeches and engage in debates, are preemptively canceling guests. The research, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) think tank, looked at the role of student societies and the speakers they invite, or sometimes do not invite. Very often what you dont hear is just as important as what you do hear about, author and philosopher Frank Furedi told The Epoch Times. Furedi has long argued that freedom of speech is our most fundamental freedom and that a cultural Taliban is taking over campuses. HEPI was set up by a member of the Liberal Democrats in 2002 to influence the higher education debate with evidence. In June, the same organisation found that students are significantly less supportive of free expression than they were just a few years ago. Denied a Platform Events around no-platforming, a form of student boycott where a person or organisation is denied a platform to speak on campuses, are more well-known and documented. However, quiet no-platforming, a type of behind-the-scenes self-censorship vetting process, was more common. This was where students decided not to invite otherwise suitable speakers for their debates because of their views or past comments and were, therefore, put off from inviting them because of the risk of controversy. HEPI said that debating unions are among the UKs oldest protectors of free speech and noted that Cambridge and Oxford Unions, established in 1815 and 1823 respectively, are well known and have a long tradition of hosting guests to deliver speeches and engage in debates. Members are increasingly more concerned about their careers and worried about being attacked by the student press, HEPI said. Some indicated the need to avoid topics that were too personal and could cause harm. Speakers quietly no-platformed include Scottish MP Alex Salmond, the actor Liam Neeson, the comedian Harry Enfield, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Mail on Sunday journalist Peter Hitchens. Some publications have reported that Enfield was quietly no-platformed by the Oxford Union debating society. A spokesman from the Oxford Union told The Epoch Times by email that he had reviewed our records and [can] find no such evidence to verify the content of the student interviews referred to within; such allegations go against our policy of host and challenge.' We acknowledge that certain speakers may hold views that are regarded by some as unacceptable but nonetheless believe that it is more important to debate an issue in full rather than shy away from a difficult subject or to silence certain voices. As per our Guest Speaker Invitation Policy, we only host speakers who agree to be challenged in the context of a debate or an interactive discussion, he added. On the wider issue of deplatforming, the spokesman said that the Oxford Union Society exists to challenge, inform, and educate through open debate and civil discourse. We will continue to defend, as we have done for the past 199 years, the right for any person to express their opinion on a given topic as long as it is legal. We do not support deplatforming. We believe that the discussion of complex, sometimes controversial, topics should not only be encouraged but is an essential element of any free, progressive society, he added. Report author Josh Freeman said, How are students supposed to learn or decide what they believe if they are not even exposed to the full range of mainstream ideas? Students are shying away from difficult topics and controversial speakers because they fear a backlash, he added. Legislation The report also argues that upcoming free speech legislation at universities could make things worse. The Conservative government has introduced legislation targeting cancel culture in UK universities, which could include the appointment of official free speech tsars on each campus. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill tightens existing legislation to make the promotion of free speech a statutory duty. This means that if universities fail to uphold free speech, they could be taken to court. However, HEPI said that the most common student response to controversy is not more free speech, but more caution. Students scared of legal action might therefore host more safe options and fewer alternative perspectives. If so, the Bill may make it harder, not easier, to host the best advocates and debate the most critical issues on campus, it said. Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, told The Epoch Times that this shows theres a very risk-averse culture that has been institutionalised. People who actually support limiting freedom of expression at universities use the whole language of risk management as a way of implementing their policies, he said. For every instance when you are not allowed to say or express your thoughts, there are hundreds of people who are censoring themselves anyway, said Furedi. Cultural Taliban On upcoming legislation, Furedi said he doesnt think governments can provide the solution. Its a cultural pressure. Whatever the government does, the universities will get around it. It is because they are so institutionally committed to this way of being, that the key thing is to challenge the culture more aggressively, rather than imagining that just because you are going to pass a bill is going to change everything, he said. Furedi recently claimed in an opinion piece in the Daily Mail that there is a kind of cultural Taliban that has taken over higher education in the UK. It seems like these are just bureaucratic procedures, but they are metaphorically beheading people from expressing themselves and promoting a culture that just silences people from expressing their views in accordance with their standpoints, he told The Epoch Times. The city of Damascus, Syria, on April 14, 2018. (SANA/Handout via Reuters) Deadly Bus Attack Kills at Least 18 Syrian Soldiers in Damascus Countryside: Media DAMASCUSAt least 18 soldiers were killed and 20 wounded on Thursday when an explosive device detonated on a military bus in the Damascus countryside, local outlet Sham FM said. It represents one of the deadliest attacks in months against Syrian government troops not on an active front line. Bus attacks in particular have been on the rise, including in the Damascus countryside. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursdays attack and no comment from Syrian authorities. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor that counts casualties and covers military developments in the 11-year-old conflict, said that 17 soldiers were killed in the blast. A decade of conflict in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left the country fractured. Syrian government troops have managed to recapture much of the territory they had lost to opposition fighters. Security incidents have been on the rise around Damascus and other parts of Syria controlled by the government. Two Public Service Commission seats will be decided in the general election. Incumbent Republican Julie Fedorchak will face off against Democrat Melanie Moniz for a six-year term. Incumbent Republican Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, who was appointed to fill a vacancy, is running against Democrat Trygve Hammer for the remaining four years of the term. The three members of the PSC regulate electric and gas utilities and permit energy projects. The commission also handles issues related to coal mine reclamation, telecommunications, railroads, auctions, weighing and measuring devices, gas pipeline safety and underground damage prevention. The position carries an annual salary of $117,610. Julie Fedorchak Fedorchak, who has served on the commission for nearly a decade and chairs the three-member panel, is seeking another six-year term. "Im in a really great spot to make a significant impact now because I understand the issues. Its a pretty technical job, Fedorchak said. Its complicated to understand the utility industries and figure out the right balance for regulating them, keeping costs low, reliability high and making sure that the utilities are making the proper and necessary investments in their infrastructure without going overboard." Affordability and reliability are two important priorities for Fedorchak as states transition into more renewable sources of energy. As the electricity system nationwide is converted from the traditional more fossil-fueled oriented fuels to renewable fuels and renewable power generation, that needs to be done at a pace that is supported by technology and doesnt jeopardize reliability, Fedorchak said. Its a pretty complicated endeavor. Its not a plug-and-play system so you cant plug a gas-powered generator and plug in a renewable power generator and have the same effect on the electric system. They function very differently. And so you have to make sure that this is done in a manner that is not going to jeopardize the reliability because we cant live without power. Fedorchak said she also wants to focus on thoughtful and orderly permitting of the states energy infrastructure and work on enhancing the states pipeline reclamation program. As a North Dakota utility rate regulator, Fedorchak noted that rate cases can take up to six months to a year. She strongly encourages public input when those cases come to life, adding it helps us make better decisions when we know and have that kind of public input. Fedorchak noted that this era is a pretty dynamic time in the utility industry, especially with aging infrastructure. All of this costs money. And so, unfortunately, we are in a time where rates are rising and are probably going to continue to rise, she said. But with good information from the public, from other rate payers and from our staff tearing apart the companies cases and asking good questions, we will always do our best to ensure that the investments are prudent, needed and at a level that is necessary to keep the system reliable but also affordable and sustainable long-term for the people that are paying for it, using and counting on those services. Melanie Moniz Moniz, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, said she decided to run for the PSC because "disenfranchised communities bear a disproportionate burden when decisions are made with only big industry in mind." "I am running out of urgent necessity," Moniz said in an email interview. "It is critical that we have more leaders at the table who are going to put North Dakota, the people, and future generations first." Moniz, of Halliday, cited her background in advocacy "on all levels of government" as preparing her for serving on the PSC. She did not elaborate on her background in advocacy. On candidate filing paperwork, she lists herself as an organizer for the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition. The PSC "must embrace a role in the climate solution," Moniz said, adding that the board should develop a strong plan to move forward. Moniz advocates for greater diversity on the PSC, including office staff. "It is critical that we build a commission that is reflective of our diverse state and ensure that the staff makeup includes dedicated units for issues around climate justice, income qualified programming, and energy equity initiatives," she said. "I also believe that we must focus on making the decision-making process more transparent for constituents. We cannot make decisions that impact the people of North Dakota without hearing from them and centering their voices. I would like to see the PSC move past their current lens and toward a peoples first approach." Moniz believes she is an honest leader with the expertise needed to solve issues disenfranchised communities in the state are seeing, she said. "I carry with me traditional Indigenous knowledge that is key to our collective future. I bring a bold fresh perspective to the table and my experience from poverty to the working class gives me what it takes to ensure the North Dakota Public Service Commission prioritizes the health and safety of all North Dakotans. Its time for action, equity, and change if Im elected into office I will bring all three," she said. Trygve Hammer Hammer, a military veteran and former oil field worker from Velva, decided to challenge Haugen-Hoffart to create change within state government. I want to be a voice thats independent for North Dakotans and look out more for the North Dakota consumer ahead of industry and make sure that industry understands that they need to behave, Hammer said. Hammer enlisted in the Navy as a nuclear power machinist mate. He was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated with a chemistry degree and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He has served as a helicopter pilot and as a leadership instructor at the Naval Academy. Hammer joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 2001 and became an airline pilot. He was deployed to Iraq in 2003. He has also served as an assistant Marine attache and speechwriter at the U.S. Embassy in Rome and held other military and security jobs. Hammer later taught science to grades 7-12. He has also worked as a workover rig floorhand in North Dakota's oil fields. I know my experience is kind of all over the place, but I have a lot of leadership experience," Hammer said. One of the more pressing issues that Hammer sees with the PSC is the carbon dioxide pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. He has concerns about the treatment of landowners and does not think the PSC should permit the pipeline if the company uses eminent domain. Hammer also believes the PSC should be more strict on companies that have violations. Being appointed to the PSC by the governor doesnt make you qualified for anything. As far as Im concerned, it just means youre another one of those people floating around in Doug Burgums orbit. And if I was on the PSC, Id be the only person sitting on that board whos not always asking, What would Doug Burgum want? Hammer said. Sheri Haugen-Hoffart Haugen-Hoffart replaced Brian Kroshus on the PSC earlier this year after he became tax commissioner. She previously worked as a human resource manager in the tax commissioner's office and served as first female board chair for both Central Power Electric Cooperative and Capital Electric. Her past jobs have included deputy state treasurer, director of education in the North Dakota Securities Department, coordinator for the University of North Dakota's Division of Continuing Education in Bismarck and emergency service director for the Burleigh-Morton chapter of the American Red Cross. She is a Rugby native with a bachelor's degree from UND and a master's degree in management from the University of Mary. I believe with my background in the electrical industry along with my prior work experience in state government and just my resume, I was really able to hit the ground running in doing my job, she said. One of the items in her portfolio includes overseeing pipeline safety. Haugen-Hoffart said shes proud that North Dakota received its highest rating 99 out of 100 with the pipeline safety program that was conducted this summer. Cybersecurity will continue to be another priority for Haugen-Hoffart. We want to serve the citizens of North Dakota to the best of our ability. So to be an advocate not only for the consumers but also to the environment, she said. I really want to be seen as a peoples commissioner, to be accessible, to be fair, to be consistent and know that Im in this position to serve them and continue to protect our environment. Haugen-Hoffart said that her knowledge, skills and ability to do the job make her the best candidate out there and she hopes to continue to demonstrate that confidence to North Dakotans. I have the passion. I have the drive and as I said, Im in it to win it. And I will do whatever it takes. I will work very hard to gain their trust And once I have that trust, I, on my day-to-day, basis will demonstrate that trust that they invoked in me to be a great Public Service Commissioner. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (L) speaks as he stands with Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, during a news conference in Largo, Fla., on Sept. 26, 2022. (Chris O'Meara/AP Photo) DeSantis Expands Early Voting Options for Counties Hit Hardest by Hurricane Ian PUNTA GORDA, Fla.Voters in three Southwest Florida counties that were devastated by Hurricane Ian will have more options to cast their ballots on Nov. 8 under an emergency order signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Oct. 13. Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties will see changes as the result of residents being displaced because their homes were destroyed in the Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Sept. 28. The Supervisors of Elections in Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties requested the changes and Floridas Secretary of State Cord Byrd agreed. The executive order will extend early voting and designate additional poll locations. Voters were able to cast their early ballots from Oct. 29 through Nov. 5, but those dates have been widened to Oct. 24 and Nov. 6. Voters cast their ballots for the Florida presidential primary, in Bonita Springs, Fla., on March 17, 2020. (Elise Amendola/AP Photo) Supervisors of Elections in those three counties can relocate and consolidate polling places and designate new locations for vote-by-mail drop boxes or what the state calls secure ballot intake stations. In addition, voters who are registered in the three counties will be allowed to call in requests for vote-by-mail ballots that can be sent to locations that are not the addresses listed in a state voter-registration system. The governors order also ensures that enough poll workers will be available in those counties. DeSantiss office said supervisors havent lost any voting machines and that equipment and ballots have remained secure. However, it added the storm did damage some polling places and early voting sites, along with displacing a number of poll workers. In 2018 after Hurricane Michael caused massive damage to the Panhandle the state made similar changes for eight Florida counties. In a prepared statement a group, All Voting is Local Florida asked for changes to be extended to other counties affected by Hurricane Ian. Voters in any storm-affected county in Florida, not just the three where local elections officials asked for help, deserve extended time and resources to adequately cast their ballots, Brad Ashwell, the groups state director, said in a prepared statement. The state must consider the needs of voters across the state, not just the needs of supervisors of elections in a few counties. The political makeup of the three counties of 1.01 million registered, 44 percent were registered Republicans and 26 percent were registered Democrats, according to state Division of Election numbers. Christian Ziegler, Florida Vice Chairman of the Republican Party. (Courtesy, Sarasota County Commission) Vice chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Christian Ziegler said that party preference did not play a part in the decision to make the changes. Were trying to get people, you know, back to normal as quickly as possible, Ziegler told the Epoch Times. Thats making sure electricity is on, the internets on, the water is on, and also making sure that they have the ability to vote. Ziegler also said that election integrity is paramount, but people having access to exercise their right to vote is more important. You know, our main concern is when you have a natural disaster like this, whether its in the Panhandle or down in Miami is to make sure that citizens have the ability and the access to vote, he said. Hurricane Ian displaced thousands of Florida residents as homes were totally wiped away with wind and storm surge, he said. As people are focused on getting their lives back in order, an important election looms ahead of which people want to exercise their right to vote. There have to be rules in place, which are obviously in place to protect our elections, but also at times like this, you do have to work to ensure that citizens have full access, he continued. Ziegler gave credit to the governor for having the foresight to put forth initiatives that made sense such as requesting a ballot by phone and extending early voting. To be able to request your ballot by phone and send it to a different address rather than just the address you have on file that makes sense, he said. Because if homes are impacted, and you cant get mail there, you should be able to ship it through another address. And then I know extending early voting a little bit, he said. That makes sense as well so people can get to the early voting sites. All in all, Ziegler said the governor was opening up additional avenues to make sure people have the ability to securely, and easily vote, and political ramifications were not discussed. We have Floridians that were impacted and that, you know, we need to make sure that their vote can be counted, Ziegler said of the new changes. And thats it, period, end of story. The Epoch Times attempted to contact the state Democratic Party but did not respond by press time. Former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 31, 2022. (The Epoch Times) DOJ Asks Court to Halt Trump Special Master in FBI Mar-a-Lago Case The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal with a federal court to halt the use of a special master to review documents that were taken by FBI agents from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago home in August. The DOJ claimed that federal U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannons decision to appoint a special master was erroneous, alleging the decision is interfering with their investigation. Government lawyers then asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate Cannons order, which was handed down in September. District courts have no general equitable authority to superintend federal criminal investigations, the DOJ said (pdf) in court papers submitted Friday. Instead, challenges to the governments use of the evidence recovered in a search are resolved through ordinary criminal motions practice if and when charges are filed. Here, however, the district court granted the extraordinary relief Plaintiff sought. Raymond Dearie, a New York-based judge, was assigned last month to inspect the thousands of records taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and weed out from the investigation any that may be protected by claims of legal privilege. The 11th Circuit last month lifted a temporary bar on the departments ability to use the seized classified documents as part of its criminal probe. If the review is allowed to continue, he has until Dec. 16 to complete the review of the documents under Cannons order. Meanwhile, DOJ lawyers returned to the court Friday to ask for the entire special master review to be shut down, saying the judge who made the appointment had no basis for doing so and Trump was not entitled to an independent review of the seized records or to claim privilege over them. They wrote that Cannon issued an unprecedented order restricting an ongoing criminal investigation by prohibiting the Executive Branch from reviewing and using evidence that was taken during the FBI search. A day before, the Supreme Court refused a request from Trump to ask the high court to intervene in the special master dispute. The DOJ argued to the Supreme Court that the 11th Circuit court found Cannon caused a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the Executive Branchs authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records. Federal officials said in court they are investigating whether Trump broke the law by taking presidential records, including about 100 allegedly classified documents, to his Florida estate after he left the White House last year. Trump has repeatedly said that he declassified those materials while he was president and argued the DOJ has been weaponized by Democrats to target their political opponents. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Dozens Protest Outside Embattled LA Councilman Kevin de Leons Office A couple dozen of protesters showed up outside Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leons El Sereno offices Oct. 13, pressuring him to resign for his participation in a recorded conversation involving four elected officials that included a series of racially charged remarks and discussions over redistricting. Two of themformer Council President Nury Martinez and former LA County Federation of Labor Ron Herrerahave resigned, but de Leon and fellow councilman Gil Cedillo have resisted the growing calls. In the tapes, de Leon compared Councilman Mike Bonins handling of his son at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade to when Nury brings her little Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag. He did not interject as Martinez belittled Bonin, who is white and openly gay, and called Bonins child ese changuito,Spanish for that little monkey. Nury Martinez attends Womens March Action: March 4 Reproductive Rights at Pershing Square in Los Angeles on Oct. 2, 2021. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images) Martinez also said of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon: [expletive] that guy. (inaudible) Hes with the blacks. When Cedillo dismissed black voters by saying the 25 blacks are shouting, de Leon responded, But they shout like theyre 250. de Leon also made comments about last years process of redrawing council district boundaries, which included discussions of how to avoid giving Councilwoman Nithya Raman renter-heavy districts like Koreatown. In the conversation, de Leon called Ramans district the one to put in the blender and chop up, left or right. After the tapes were released, de Leon said in an Oct. 9 statement: There were comments made in the context of this meeting that is wholly inappropriate, and I regret appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments made about a colleague and his family in private. Ive reached out to that colleague personally. On that day, I fell short of the expectations we set for our leadersand I will hold myself to a higher standard, he said. de Leon has not commented since. Mitch OFarrell attends the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceremony honoring Kenan Thompson at the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2022, (David Livingston/Getty Images) de Leon, 55, has been on the council since 2020 and made an unsuccessful run for mayor this year. Prior to the city council, he was in the state Senate and Assembly from 2006 to 2014. Acting Council President Mitch OFarrell said Thursday that hes been unsuccessful in trying to reach de Leon. The council has come to a standstill while calling for de Leon and Cedillo to resign, with OFarrell canceling a scheduled meeting on Oct. 14. In the court of public opinion, the verdict has been rendered and they must resign, OFarrell said of de Leon and Cedillo. Theres too much pain, theres too much deep injury to the soul, to the spirit in the city. And this must happen and the people have spoken. Among the couple dozen protesters who showed up outside Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leons El Sereno offices Thursday was Melina Abdullah, his former teacher. Abdullah, a professor at Cal State LA and head of the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter, said de Leon was one of her 15 students when she taught a class called Voting, Campaigns, and Elections at Scripps College around two decades ago. Melina Abdullah speaks during the BLD PWR and Black Lives Matter Los Angeles final march to the polls in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2020. (Rich Fury/Getty Images) Abdullah said that in her class, de Leon presented himself as pro-worker, pro-people of color, pro-black and talked often about the labor movement. And then what was revealed is that behind closed doors, he was anti-all of those things, she said. Im beyond disappointed. Im enraged. Many cars driving by the corner of Huntington Drive and Rosemead Avenue during the protest honked in support, with a few people rolling down their windows to make passing comments. Other speakers criticized de Leon for voting for the 41.18 ordinance that bans homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers. They held signs such as, KDL Hates The Poor, and We Are With The Blacks. We know we deserve better now, said Martha Escudero, a member of the housing group Reclaiming Our Homes. Were not stupid and were not going to get fooled again. Just because they look like you and me [doesnt mean] they are for your interests. Its what they actually do. Mario Correa, a member of J-Town Action and Solidarity who was critical of the city clearing encampments in Little Tokyo, said he isnt surprised that de Leon has not yet resigned. He thinks that LA doesnt care, Correa said. He thinks that LA will stand for it. Hes gambling, and its up to the people to put on the pressure. By the end of the 90-minute gathering, a sign hung on the door of de Leons office that read: Kevin, Resign Now!! City News Service contributed to this report. Election Software CEO Surrenders to LA Authorities; Prosecutors Allege Massive Data Breach LOS ANGELESLos Angeles prosecutors on Oct. 14 accused the CEO of a Michigan-based election software company of involvement in a massive data breach affecting at least a thousand victims, including minors. Eugene Yu, 64, who heads Konnech, a company that provides software to electoral districts for the management of poll workers, was charged with the felony crime of embezzlement of public funds. He appeared in a Los Angeles County court on Oct. 14. The Los Angeles County district attorneys office has accused Yu of stealing personal identifying information of poll workers. The office alleged that such data was stored on servers in China, in violation of Konnechs contract with Los Angeles County. Superior Court of Los Angeles County Judge Victoria Wilson ruled that Yu be released on a $500,000 bond and remain under house arrest until his next hearing, which is set for Nov. 17. Yu was ordered to remain in Los Angeles County and wear an ankle monitor. Donning a gray suit, metal-rimmed eyeglasses, and a white N95 mask, the 64-year-old CEO seemed to be in good spirits in the courtroom, where he appeared alongside his four lawyers. Astounding Data Breach Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Eric Neff alleged in court that the amount of data involved in the breach was astounding, adding that this is probably the largest data breach in United States history. In Los Angeles alone, there were probably thousands of victims, Neff said. They have contracts all over the country. He alleged that many minors data had been compromised because during the 2020 election, in the midst of the pandemic, the government had encouraged them to work at poll stations so that the elderly, who generally make up a large portion of poll workers, could stay at home. Its a massive data breach, Neff said. The office of Konnech Corp. in Okemos, Michigan, near Lansing, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Steven Kovac/Epoch Times) Yus lawyer, Janet Levine, rejected the allegations, saying there was no evidence of personal identifiable information being distributed. Theres no breach in this case, Levine said. Neff argued against bail for Yu, a naturalized American who was born in China, for fear that he may be able to return to China, where he lived for 33 years and had business operations. Yus alleged crimes, he said, pose a broad danger to the community. He has extensive friends and family contacts out there, the prosecutor said. The company is still operating, still uses Chinese contractors to conduct its business, he alleged. Levine rebuffed allegations that Yu had extensive ties in China, calling it disingenuous. Its all shenanigans, she said. She noted that Yu doesnt have a Chinese passport and has lived in the United States for most of his adult life. Neff confirmed that Yus U.S. passport is in their possession. Prosecutions Allegations Konnech first began supplying poll worker management software to Los Angeles County in 2019. In October 2020, Yus company entered into a $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county. The contract required Konnech to keep the countys data in the United States and allow access only to U.S.-based staff who are citizens or lawful permanent residents, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. Despite these obligations, Konnech employees were sending personal identifying information of Los Angeles election workers to third-party software developers in China who assisted in creating and fixing Konnechs software, known as PollChief, according to the complaint filed by California prosecutors on Oct. 14. In August, Luis Nabergoi, a Konnech project manager overseeing the Los Angeles contract, wrote in a Chinese-owned messaging app that any employees for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software would have superadministration access to the client data, the complaint states. The message also described the situation as a huge security issue, according to the complaint. On Oct. 4, the day of Yus arrest in Michigan, Nabergoi allegedly told employees in an internal email that the company was moving to a new stage in the company maturity and we need to ensure the security privacy and confidentiality, according to the court filing. Nabergoi added that to accomplish this, personal identifying information would no longer be included in the fixing of Konnechs PollChief software, the complaint said. Investigators have searched Yus Michigan home and two other locations, and are still examining evidence, a spokesperson for the county district attorneys office told The Epoch Times. The company before and after Yus arrest has repeatedly denied it has stored data in China and any ties to the Chinese Communist Party. It also brought a lawsuit against True the Vote, a Texas nonprofit that first alleged that they had evidence of Konnechs data on Chinese servers. Konnech has acknowledged that it had a subsidiary in China, which, it said, it closed last year. After Yus arrest, Konnech assured its customers that its data are stored in a data center in Lansing, Michigan. We have never hosted your data or system in servers outside of the United States, the company said in an Oct. 6 email to customers. The company said in an earlier statement that the detention of Yu was wrongful. Any LA County poll worker data that Konnech may have possessed was provided to it by LA County, and therefore could not have been stolen as suggested, Konnech said in a statement. Fairfax County in Virginia and the city of Detroit in Michigan say they have severed ties with Konnech in light of the arrest. Virginias Prince William county said they have suspended their use of the PollChief software and have erased data from Konnechs server. DeKalb County in Georgia voted earlier this week to keep the contract but said it will store data on a government-controlled server rather than Konnechs, and monitor access control and logging 24/7 to protect poll worker data. Yus lawyer didnt respond by press time to a request for comment regarding the allegations. SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on June 29, 2021. (Nacho Doce/Reuters) Elon Musk Says SpaceX Cant Indefinitely Fund Internet for Ukraine Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk said Friday that SpaceX cannot indefinitely fund the Starlink internet service in Ukraine, after a report said his rocket company had asked the Pentagon to cover the costs of the service that have helped Ukrainian forces with battlefield communications. Musk made the remarks in a post on Twitter as part of a thread that linked to a CNN report claiming that SpaceX had sent a letter to the Pentagon requesting it take over funding for Ukraines government and military use of Starlink. SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households, Musk said in the post. This is unreasonable. The letter cited by CNN claimed that SpaceX told the Pentagon that it could not continue bearing the cost of supplying the Starlink service in Ukraine, which reportedly would be almost $400 million for the next 12 months. SpaceX has not returned a request from The Epoch Times for confirmation of the contents of the reported letter to the Pentagon. The rocket company has so far donated around 20,000 Starlink units to Ukraine, with Musk saying in an earlier post on Twitter that the move has cost SpaceX $80 million so far and would climb to over $100 million by the end of the year. In citing the Starlink costs, Musk was responding to a report from the Financial Times that claimed Ukrainian forces had reported Starlink outages during their military counteroffensive against Russia, hampering their efforts to retake territory captured by Russian forces. Bad reporting by FT, Musk said, referring to the articles claims that Starlink terminals and service had been paid for, adding that only a small percentage have been. As for whats happening on the battlefield, thats classified, Musk added. Starlink in Ukraine Days after Russias invasion of Ukraine in late February, Musk announced that the Starlink satellite broadband internet service was being provided to Ukrainians. While Starlink delivered an information lifeline to darkened swaths of the war-torn country, it also served as a link to enable Ukrainian military drones to target Russian tanks and positions more effectively. A Ukrainian soldier identified as Dima, whose last name was withheld for security reasons, told journalist David Patrikarakos that Starlink is what changed the war in Ukraines favor. Russia went out of its way to blow up all our comms. Now they cant. Starlink works under Katyusha fire, under artillery fire. While its unclear how crucial Starlink has been to Ukraines military efforts, a report in the British news outlet The Telegraph suggested Musks technology was helping Ukraine win the drone war. Shortly after Musks announcement regarding supplying Ukraine with Starlink, Dmitry Rogozin, then head of Russias space agency Roscosmos, issued a strongly worded statement criticizing Musk for providing the communications service that was being put to battlefield use by Ukrainian forces. This is the West that we should never trust. When Russia implements its highest national interests on the territory of Ukraine, Elon Musk appears with his Starlink which was previously declared as purely civilian, Rogozin said. I warned about it, but our muskophiles said he is the light of world cosmonautics. Here, look, he has chosen the side. Musk later suggested Rogozin had issued a veiled threat against his life over the Starlink service to Ukraine. If I die under mysterious circumstances, its been nice knowin ya, Musk said in a Twitter post, commenting on Rogozins message to Russian media, in which the former Roscosmos chief said Musk will be held accountable like an adultno matter how much youll play the fool. Musk recently suggested a peace plan for the RussiaUkraine conflict, including formalizing Russian control over Crimea, setting off a torrent of critical reactions. Ukraines outgoing Ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, condemned Musks proposal in harsh terms, saying on Twitter: [expletive] off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk. Musk reacted to Melnyks remark while responding to a post by Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Smart, who cited Melnyks comment, called Starlink a game changer in the war, and said SpaceX had asked the Pentagon to start paying for the service. Were just following his recommendation, Musk said in the post, referring to Melnyks expletive-laden remark. Victoria De La Ronde, left, and Zexi Li, the first witnesses to appear at the Public Order Emergency Commission, react as audio of truck horns from the protest is played during their testimony, in Ottawa, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Emergencies Act Inquiry: Ottawa Residents Say Protest and Police Stance Made Them Feel Helpless Ottawa residents whose lives were disrupted for three weeks during the winter Freedom Convoy protest told the Public Order Emergency Commission on Friday they felt helpless, with one saying shes experiencing long term effects. The impact on my physical well being is quite extensive. I certainly during the experience had difficulty sleeping, I had an effect on my lungs and my throat because of the fumes and other smells, and I also have long term effects, said Victoria De La Ronde, a retiree with a mobility disability. De La Ronde, who lives near Laurier St. in the downtown area, said she had difficulty going anywhere due to transportation services not functioning normally, and this also impacted grocery and prescription deliveries she usually relied on. I felt trapped and helpless, she said. De La Ronde said she has lingering effects such as physical reactions when hearing loud noises or smelling gas fumes. A large number of trucks arrived in Ottawa on Jan. 28 after completing a cross-country convoy to protest the border vaccine mandate for truckers and other COVID-19 restrictions. They settled in the city core, honking their horns regularly and at all hours, and idling their engines. This led the other witness testifying before the inquiry on Friday morning, Zexi Li, to seek and help obtain an injunction against the honking on Feb. 7. Li also became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the protesters. Sleep deprivation was one of the first things that affected me personally, and it also affected the animals that I live with as well. They seem to be quite distressed, Li told the commission. Li, who also lives near Laurier St. in a high-rise apartment building, spoke of being harassed by protesters for wearing a mask while walking outside. The lawyer representing the Freedom Convoy at the hearing, Brendan Miller, asked Li whether it was Ottawa councillor Catherine McKenney and Ottawa NDP MPP Joel Harden who had encouraged her to file the claim. That is not correct, said Li. Miller then asked whether Li knew McKenney was handing out lawsuit-related releases for protesters to avoid being used. I think it was mentioned that McKenney was out doing this, however I was not directly involved other than agreeing to offer this agreement, she said. The Purge Miller also revisited a previous statement made by Li in which she compared downtown Ottawa to a scene from the movie The Purge. The movie is about a day in the U.S. when no laws are enforced and citizens can kill with impunity. So you believe that the opportunity was there for a purge type scenario? Is that right? asked Miller. I believe the opportunity was there, and it was an environment where these people who had been illegally occupying our streets felt that they have the ability to do anything they wanted, as they were not privy to the regulations that the rest of us members of society, Li answered. Laws were being broken in front of police officers who were not doing anything to combat them, she said. Miller asked Li whether she had seen any instances of violence committed by protesters or truckers. Li said she only witnessed what she described as intimidation with a truck. When prompted, she also said she had not seen attempts to set buildings on fire. The public hearings of the commission started on Oct. 13 in Ottawa and will run until late November. The commission has been established as required by law after the government invoked the Emergencies Act in February to clear cross-country border blockades and protests. Commissioner Paul Rouleau said in his opening remarks to the hearings the inquirys focus would be on actions of the federal government as required by Parliament, rather than on the protesters as mandated by cabinet. This week, we feature two biographical dramas: one about the fate of a severely deformed man and the other a rousing epic about a Spanish hero. New Release Summit Fever Intrepid British mountaineer Michael (Freddie Thorp) has his sights set on three of the most dangerous peaks in the world. Despite seeing the terrifying fatalities of climbers scaling the mountains, he remains undeterred. But then his own climb and friends are put in jeopardy by an unexpected storm. This film is a hodgepodge of disparate elements that dont always come together. Although it features incredible shots of natural scenery and has some thrilling cliffhangers (pun intended), its melodrama somewhat holds it back. Drama Release Date: Oct. 14, 2022 (United States) Director: Julian Gilbey Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Thorp, Hannah New Running Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes MPAA Rating: R Where to Watch: Theaters Rated: 2.5 out of 5 stars Family Pick Wolfwalkers Its 1650, and the town of Kilkenny in Ireland has been taken over by the cruel British Lord Protector (Simon McBurney). The lord orders hunter Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean) to kill a local pack of wolves. But when Bills daughter Robyn (Honor Kneafsey) befriends a tribe that can transform into wolves, she tries to save them. This splendid cartoon harks back to the days of hand-crafted animation. It offers plenty to ponder and valuable lessons about resisting tyranny and good triumphing over evil. (Perhaps scary for wee ones.) Animation | Adventure | Family Release Date: Nov. 13, 2020 Directors: Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart Starring: Honor Kneafsey (voice), Eva Whittaker (voice), Sean Bean (voice) Running Time: 1 hour, 43 minutes MPAA Rating: PG Where to Watch: Apple TV+ Rated: 4 stars out of 5 A Powerful Biographical Drama The Elephant Man In Victorian England, brilliant Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) rescues a severely deformed man, John Merrick (John Hurt), from being exploited in freak shows. Despite his setbacks, Merricks deep humanity is soon revealed. This is an incredibly powerful film about a societal outcast who, despite being degraded and ostracized, manages to maintain his dignity, passion for life, and sensitivity. Its tough to watch at times but evolves into a rich story about the inherent humanism we all share. Biography | Drama Release Date: Oct. 10, 1980 Director: David Lynch Starring: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft Running Time: 2 hours, 4 minutes MPAA Rating: PG Where to Watch: DirecTV, Vudu, Hoopla Rated: 4.5 stars out of 5 A Rousing Epic About a Spanish Hero El Cid Charlton Heston stars as the Spanish hero El Cid, who struggles with internal politics in his valiant quest to defend Spain against the Muslim hordes of Africa. With stunning cinematography, exotic locales, and some of the best acting performances of any of Hollywoods epics, this films incredible battle scenes never overshadow the intimate drama between the main characters. Biography | Drama | History Release Date: Dec. 14, 1961 Director: Anthony Mann Starring: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone Time: 3 hours, 2 minutes Not Rated Where to Watch: YouTube, Amazon Rated: 4 stars out of 5 European Prosecutor Investigating COVID-19 Vaccines A European prosecutor said Oct. 14 it is investigating COVID-19 vaccines. The European Public Prosecutors Office (EPPO) said it has an ongoing investigation into the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines in the European Union. This exceptional confirmation comes after the extremely high public interest. No further details will be made public at this stage, the office said in a statement. The office declined to answer questions about the investigation, including whether the probe spans the entire European Union (EU) or only certain countries. We cannot share more than we did in our statement. If there are any developments we can share, we will do so proactively (as we did today), a spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email. The prosecutors office was only recently created by the Council of the European Union. It started operating in 2021. A spokesperson for Charles Michel, the councils president, did not return a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the European Parliament. The EPPO is independent. We have absolutely no comment to make on announcements it makes on its investigations, a spokesperson for the European Commission told The Epoch Times in an email. The prosecutors office is described as an independent office of the union that is responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes against the financial interests of the EU. That includes types of fraud, money laundering, and corruption. Vaccines Six vaccines are available in the EU. They are made by Valneva, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer-BioNTech. Altogether, some 3.8 billion doses have been secured from the companies, according to the European Commission. About 1.7 billion doses have been delivered as of Sept. 7, with 83.4 percent of the adult EU population receiving at least a primary series. Like other countries and areas, the EU has started buying and administering booster doses because the initial set of doses has proven increasingly ineffective against newer virus variants. The commission in September authorized two boosters with updated formulas, one from BioNTech and Pfizer and the other from Moderna. The boosters target the BA.1 Omicron subvariant in addition to the original Wuhan strain. LNG gas storage tanks are shown at the Woodside operated North West Shelf Gas Venture in the north of Western Australia, on June 17, 2008. (Greg Wood/AFP via Getty Images) Europes Rising Demand For Gas Provides Gains For Australian LNG Exporters Australian gas exporters are expected to benefit from high gas prices caused by the intensifying war in Ukraine and a drop in Russias gas exports to Europe following the recent destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. Multinational investment bank UBS has raised its forecast for the prices of Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Asian market by 40 percent and 50 percent for the European market. UBS analyst Tom Allen said Europe could lose seven billion cubic metres of gas supply by March 2023 due to the shutdown of the pipeline to Germany and an interruption of Russian gas supply via Ukraine. The bank said Europe had substantially increased its LNG imports to make up for the lost gas supply. This could be a boon for Australian gas companies as the country is one of the worlds top LNG exporters. Many important LNG projects are located in Western Australia and its offshore waters, such as the North West Shelf, Pluto, Gorgon, Wheatstone, and Prelude. At the same time, the countrys eastern coast is also a major player in the gas market. We expect gas markets to remain tight until prices normalise in 2026 when the next wave of LNG projects come online, Allen said in a note to clients. New Gas Hub to Be Built in the Europe Meanwhile, Dutch gas grid operator Gasunie has signed deals with relevant parties to build a new LNG terminal in Brunsbuettel to increase gas imports and reduce Europes dependence on Russia. In September, Australias largest independent oil and gas company Woodside signed a 16-year supply agreement with Germanys industrial giant Uniper to supply up to 12 cargoes (equivalent to one billion cubic metres) of LNG per year. As the energy crisis is impacting the continent, European households are forced to cut down on energy consumption due to power shortages and price hikes. Many countries, including France, are calling on their citizens to reduce energy use to avoid energy rationing and cuts during the winter. While there had been a significant increase in coal prices, gas still remained more expensive, which USB said could prompt some countries to rely more on coal for power generation. This supports further gas-to-coal switching in the power sector, particularly in the coal-dependent countries, the bank said. We expect the situation to persist for upcoming years due to the extremely tight gas market. Russian analyst Igor Danchenko walks to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse during a break in his trial in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) FBI Paid Steele Dossier Source $220,000 for 3 Years of Informant Work ALEXANDRIA, Va.The FBI paid the primary source of the notorious debunked Steele dossier nearly $220,000 between March 2017 and October 2020 to be a confidential human source for the bureau. Russian business analyst Igor Danchenko was worth every penny of it, FBI special agent Kevin Helson said during the third day of testimony on Oct. 13, in Danchenkos trial on five counts of making false statements to investigators in connection with his role in the anti-Donald Trump dossier. Testifying before U.S. Eastern District of Virginia Judge Anthony Trenga, Helson said during that 42-month span, information from Danchenko generated 40 intelligence reports and spurred 25 investigations, calling his network of contacts the best he had seen in his 20-year career and changing the way the agency runs its Russian counterintelligence programs. When then-Attorney General William Barr in July 2020 released a redacted transcript of Danchenkos three-day interview with agents in January 2017when he allegedly made the false statementshe became a target because of the political environment and potentially exposed to Russian operatives, Helson said. Outed and embroiled in high-profile political drama during the summer of 2020, Danchenko could no longer function effectively. The agency closed his confidential human source status, Helson said, meaning he also lost a significant component of his income. On Oct. 21, 2020, Helson submitted a final lump sum payment request of $346,000 for Danchenko, which was rejected by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The arrangement ended with that. Would you agree that losing Mr. Danchenko was a blow to national security? defense attorney Stuart Sears asked Helson. Yes, he said, noting he routinely gets calls from fellow agents asking to speak with Danchenko about counterintelligence issues, especially since Russias invasion of Ukraine. It was a big deal for the FBI to have access to someone like Mr. Danchenko, wasnt it? Sears asked Helson. Yes, he replied. In my opinion, it would have been a big win for the FBI if he had come aboard sooner. Special counsel John Durham arrives at federal court in Washington on May 18, 2022. (Teng Chen for The Epoch Times) A Virginia resident, Danchenko is charged with five counts of making false statements to FBI supervisory counterintelligence analyst Brian Auten and FBI special agent Stephen Somma during three January 2017 interviews. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, which could carry a 25-year prison sentence if convicted. Danchenko was a political risk analyst with London-based Orbis Business Intelligence, where he was the primary source of information for Christopher Steele, a former British spy who compiled allegations about Trumps ties to Russia in 2016 in 17 reports that became known as the Steele dossier. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign and orchestrated by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based strategic intelligence firm implicated in a range of alleged skullduggery on behalf of Clinton and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign. According to Auten, Danchenko lied to him and Somma by concealing his contacts with Charles Dolan Jr., a longtime Democratic operative and Clinton family associate, who is among the sources Danchenko tapped to feed Steele information in the dossier. Danchenko is also accused of lying about an alleged July 2016 meeting with Sergei Millian, a Belarusian American businessman and former president of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce, arranged during an alleged phone call from a Russian-speaking man who never identified himself. As a result of the phone call, which the FBI maintains theres no record of and never happened, Danchenko told Auten and Somma that he went to New York for the arranged meeting with the anonymous caller, who he said he assumed was Millian but never claimed to be certain who it was. The meeting was a bust because no one but Danchenko showed up, he told Auten and Somma during interviews from Jan. 24 to Jan. 26, 2017. Danchenkos attorneysSears and Danny Onorato of Washington-based Schertler Onorato Mead & Searsmaintain he told the truth in interviews and say investigators didnt ask follow-up questions to clarify his responses to what they describe as vague queries. John Durham, appointed in 2020 by Barr to investigate the FBIs 2016 Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence probe into Trump, his campaign, and Russia, questioned Helson for more than three hours on Oct. 13 about what he learned about Danchenko as his handler from March 2017 to October 2020. Durham repeatedly pointed out how Helson was apparently unaware of some of Danchenkos unreported contacts with Dolan and Olga Galkina, his childhood friend and former schoolmate who also worked for Steele. According to Danchenko, Galkina was on of his sources for the dossier. Galkina has denied that claim. Dolan testified before Helson took the stand on Oct. 13. As the clock neared 6 p.m., Durham in his redirect close of Helsons five-plus hours on the stand, apparently had heard enough praise for Danchenko from one of his own witnesses. After excoriating Auten for a litany of inadequacies after the analyst was on the stand for nine hours spanning two days, Durham closed another long day of often laborious testimony with a fiery rebuke of an FBI employee. In paperwork filed in establishing Danchenkos status as a confidential source, Durham said he noticed Helson left a derogatory information section blank. You wrote none. And thats not true, he railed, noting Danchenko was a subject of a 2009 FBI counterintelligence probe that Auten actually participated in. You knew that Danchenko had been investigated by the agency, Durham said. Did you go back when you found out that there had been an open espionage case on Mr. Danchenko, to correct that? Helson said the case was like 10 years ago and dropped after Danchenko left the country because his visa had expired. He left and came back a year later, he said. Not true, Durham said. Did you know he remained in the country despite his expired visa? Are you aware he was supposed to leave the country but didnt? The 2009 espionage case stemming from the FBIs Baltimore field office is closed, he said, but the allegationsthat Danchenko offered to connect people with money in exchange for classified informationare serious with at least one witness who can testify to it. Helson shot back, stating there is at least one counter-witness who can refute the allegations, dismissing the case as not worth investigating. Durham asked Helson if he subjected Danchenko to a polygraph test, looked into his overseas travel, asked him to go through the agencys human validation assessment, and checked to ensure his confidential source isnt committing immigration fraud. Did you do that? Durham asked testily with each query and to each, Helton replied, No. Durham will resume his discussion with Helson when court convenes on Oct. 14 at 9:30 a.m. Also scheduled to testify are FBI intelligence analysts Brittany Hertzog and Amy Anderson, and FBI agent Ryan James. Correction: This article has been revised to specify that Galkina denies Danchenkos claim that she was one of the sources for the Steele dossier claims. The North Dakota Stockmen's Association and its Foundation have distributed nearly $250,000 in aid to ranchers impacted by a string of severe spring storms that battered the state during the heart of calving season. Meanwhile, drought that reemerged in the state in late summer is intensifying as autumn progresses, and the word "snow" has appeared in the state forecast for the first time this season. The rancher aid money is through the Hope After Haley Disaster Relief Fund that was launched in late April with about $50,000 in Stockmen's funding. Donors from the Dakotas, Minnesota and Montana boosted the total. The application deadline was Aug. 1, and the money was doled out last week. North Dakota cattle ranchers were hard hit not only in the disastrous spring storms, but in the serious drought that preceded them, Stockmen's Foundation President Jeff Schafer said in a statement. I am grateful to all those who supported our Hope After Haley Disaster Relief Program and helped reinspire hope for these ranch families. A three-day blizzard in mid-April dropped 2-3 feet of snow over a wide area of western and central North Dakota, and an Easter Sunday storm that followed added several inches more. A late-month blizzard dumped another 1 to 1 feet of snow in the west and also brought freezing rain to the region. Heavy rain fell in many areas of eastern North Dakota. "Applications came from all across the state, every corner of the state, every region, with almost half of the counties represented," Stockmen's Executive Vice President Julie Ellingson said in an interview. Forty-five aid applications were approved. The applicants had, on average, a 14% death loss due to the storms -- amounting to about 2,000 total animals. That's likely a small fraction of the actual total of lost livestock. A North Dakota State University study concluded that the counties of Ward, Mountrail, Golden Valley, Billings and Stark had estimated losses from the blizzards of more than 10% of their 2021 cattle inventory, and most other western counties had estimated losses of up to 5% of their cattle inventory. Gov. Doug Burgum declared a statewide emergency and a statewide disaster in the wake of the storms. President Joe Biden in July granted a presidential disaster declaration for 40 counties. Ranchers also are getting assistance through the federal Livestock Indemnity Program, which compensates ranchers for livestock deaths in excess of normal mortality, paying 75% of the fair market value, with national payment rates set annually by the U.S. agriculture secretary. About 2,100 North Dakota ranchers submitted notices of loss by the deadline last spring, according to Ellingson. The deadline for applications isn't until next spring, but based on the notices of loss, animal deaths could total in the tens or hundreds of thousands. "We know it's substantial," Ellingson said. The aid administered through Hope for Haley amounts to about 25% of the value of the lost animals. When we work together, we can accomplish incredible things, and lifting up our own in their time of need is certainly one of them," Stockmen's President Jason Leiseth said in a statement. Drought expands Drought disappeared in North Dakota after the wet spring but has become a concern again after a dry summer. A large portion of central North Dakota, including the very northern part of Burleigh County, is now in severe drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Thursday. Most of the western fifth of the state also remains in severe drought. Overall, severe drought covers nearly 17% of the state, up from 12% last week. Nearly 72% of North Dakota is in moderate drought -- including the rest of Burleigh County and much of Morton County -- up from 60% last week. Eleven percent of the state is considered abnormally dry. The only area that remains free of any drought category is the very northeastern corner. "Soil moisture indicators supported expansion of moderate drought throughout northern and eastern North Dakota," Climate Prediction Center Meteorologist Brad Pugh wrote in this week's report. "Based on a consensus of indicators, severe drought was added to central North Dakota." The latest North Dakota crop report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service rates topsoil moisture supplies in North Dakota as 59% short or very short, with 58% of subsoil moisture in those categories. The percentages a week ago were 53% and 51%, respectively. Pasture and range conditions also degraded, at 27% poor very poor, compared to 22% last week. Stock water supplies improved slightly, at 41% short or very short, compared to 45% a week ago. The report also shows that the soybean harvest in North Dakota has reached the halfway point at 53% complete, slightly ahead of the average pace. Corn is 12% harvested, near the average, and sunflowers 10% in the bin, equal to the average. The condition of all three crops is rated mostly fair to good. Winter wheat planting is nearing completion, at 90% seeded. Winter wheat is planted in the fall, goes dormant over winter, and resumes growing in the spring. The U.S. Drought Monitor is a partnership of the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wind and snowflakes Cold fronts moving through the region have brought cooler temperatures to North Dakota along with windy conditions. Peak wind gusts on Wednesday and Thursday included 56 mph in Mandan, 58 mph in Watford City, 62 mph in Bismarck, 64 mph in Williston and 67 mph in Hettinger, according to the National Weather Service. The cold fronts are ushering in colder northern air, along with snow in some parts of the Upper Midwest. A few snowflakes were briefly in the air in Bismarck early Friday, and the weather service state forecast called for a chance of light snow in the state. Snow was more likely in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, according to AccuWeather. The weekend forecast for Bismarck-Mandan calls for highs in the mid-50s on Saturday and the mid-40s on Sunday, with overnight lows in the 20s. Both days are expected to be blustery. President Joe Biden signs an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure access to abortions while Vice President Kamala Harris, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco look on at the White House in Washington on July 8, 2022. (Samuel Corum, AFP/Getty Images) Federal Government Extends COVID-19 Public Health Emergency The federal government on Thursday extended its COVID-19 emergency for another 90 days despite President Joe Biden declaring the pandemic over weeks earlier. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra confirmed the extension of the emergency in announcement posted on its website. No other details were provided. He said that a public health emergency exists and has existed since January 27, 2020, nationwide, and it will continue to remain in effect. The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 and renewed every 90 days since, has dramatically changed how health services are delivered. The declaration enabled for the emergency authorization of COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments. It also expanded Medicaid coverage to millions of people, many of whom will risk losing that coverage once the emergency ends, and it temporarily opened up telehealth access for Medicare recipients, enabling doctors to collect the same rates for those visits and encouraging health networks to adopt telehealth technology. Some Republicans have called on the White House to rescind the public emergency, while Biden and Democrats have asked Congress to pass more COVID-19-related spending bills. However, COVID-19 has largely faded from the public eye as government-reported deaths and case numbers have plummeted in recent months. During a September interview, Biden declared that the pandemic is over, which prompted White House officials to scramble to try and re-frame what the president had said. Immediately after he made that comment, unnamed administration officials told the Washington Post that his remark would now make it harder to push COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots. It came on the heels of approvals signed off by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on updated booster vaccine doses made by Pfizer and Moderna. White House adviser Anthony Fauci, claimed the presidents remark was problematic because, according to him people would interpret it as its completely over and were done for good, which is not the case no doubt about that. The White House has said it would provide 60 days notice before it ends the public health emergency. Along with suspending travel from China and other places, former President Donald Trump had declared a national COVID-19 emergency in early 2020 to free up some $50 billion in federal aid. That came weeks after reports of the virus emerged in mainland China as the first cases were being detected in the United States. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Not Rated | 1h 25min | Drama, Thriller, Documentary, Animation | Oct. 14, 2022 (USA) On March 5, 2002, practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong hacked Chinas state-run television in order to broadcast videos exposing their persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP condemned the act as a hijacking by enemies of the state. In an animated scene from the documentary Eternal Spring, CCP agents capture one of the people who hacked Changchun media. (Lofty Sky Pictures) Combining slow-moving exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, the spiritual discipline aims to help practitioners attain spiritual enlightenment. Falun Gong is as far removed from enemies of the state as one could possibly imagine. For the first few years after Falun Gong was introduced to the public, the CCP even actively promoted it, due to its beneficial effects on public health. But the CCP suddenly changed tack in the late 90s, when the practices membership grew to more than 70 million by the regimes estimates. In July 1999, the CCP launched a full-blown suppression of the spiritual practice and instructed its propagandist television arm to begin airing highly negative, thoroughly false information about what the group stood for and its benign and peaceful mission. Just how far the CCP would go to quash Falun Gong is detailed in the first act of the animated documentary Eternal Spring. An illustration depicting how the full force of the CCP regime came into play to capture people who hacked media in Changchun, in Eternal Spring. (Lofty Sky Pictures) Nothing Lost in Translation Determined to set the record straight, roughly a dozen Falun Gong practitioners began meeting in secret to determine the best possible way to do so. Best is subjective here, as all the participants knew going in that there would be no foolproof option, and all of them understood the possible dire consequences of their actions. Their base of operations was in Changchun, the capital and largest city in the northeastern province of Jilin. The literal English translation of Changchun () is eternal spring. One of the participants in the film project was Daxiong (born Guo Jingxiong), a Changchun native and a multiple award-winning comic book artist whose work provides the basis of the films animation, which was produced by animators Carl Beauchemin and Alex Smith. In addition, Daxiong appears in the live-action portions, telling us of his own experience while also interviewing Jin Xuezhe, one of the surviving participants, who made it out of China and now lives in South Korea. Daxiong transcribes Jins responses in the form of illustrations, which act as on-screen storyboard lead-ins to the animated portions of the film. Jin Xuezhe, one of the surviving participants to make it out of China, and now living in South Korea, recounts the torture he endured, in award-winning documentary Eternal Spring. (Lofty Sky Pictures) This highly unorthodox narrative choice might take a little getting used to, yet its handled with seamless precision by two-time Canadian Screen Award-winning cinematographer John Tran (Our Man in Tehran, Borealis) and editor David Schmidt. You know youre in for a treat with the five-minute opening title sequence, in which some of the participants are identified via pop-up headshot icons within a single uninterrupted shot, reminiscent of those displayed in Orson Welless Touch of Evil and Robert Altmans The Player. Guo Jingxiong, a Changchun native and a multiple award-winning comic book artist, provided the basis of the animation in Eternal Spring. (Lofty Sky Pictures) There are also portions of the film that would usually be included as bonus features on hard-copy home video releases, such as footage of Daxiong working alongside CGI technicians and offering advice on tweaking images based on his own in-the-flesh memories of the events, as well as international archival news footage. Canadian director Jason Loftus (Ask No Questions), who also wrote and co-produced the documentary, has been working on the film for close to six years. Usually, it takes rearview-mirror reflection and sometimes years of assessment to label any work of art a masterpiece, yet Eternal Spring is exactly and immediately that. Director-writer-co-producer Jason Loftus (L) discusses production issues with Guo Jingxiong, whose drawings were the basis for the animation in Eternal Spring. (Lofty Sky Pictures) While not the first nonfiction film to blend live action and animation, its easily the most daring, moving, and creative movie of its kind ever made. Accolades Aplenty The industry awards and accolades for Eternal Spring are already beginning to pile up. Thus far, it has been nominated 15 times at 11 film festivals, winning a staggering 11 awards, including two each at the Hot Docs Canadian Festival, the Lighthouse International Festival, the Mammoth Lakes Festival, and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece. Last month, Eternal Spring was named Canadas official submission to the 20222023 Academy Awards ceremony in the Best International Feature category. Its entirely possible that it could also be considered for the Best Animated and Best Documentary Feature categories, a feat matched only by Flee from 2021. An animated scene from the award-winning documentary Eternal Spring. (Lofty Sky Pictures) This year has yielded a windfall crop of top-shelf documentary features, so much so that Im going to be posting (for the first time in 27 years) two year-end Top 10 lists in December: one for live-action and another dedicated solely to documentaries. Eternal Spring currently sits at the number one position on the latter list and will attain the same position in my international and animated lists as well. An Ominous Warning To refer to Eternal Spring as a cautionary tale would be a purblind understatement and a shortsighted, undervaluing minimization of its importance as both a work of art and treatise on the effects of an oppressive state-run entity on the human condition. In the totalitarian view of the atheist-espousing, intolerant CCP, anything that even remotely goes off-script, however docile and apolitical it might be, is deemed to be an eminent threat and needs to be eliminated with swift, unrelenting prejudice. Those who come to rule with iron fists exhibit their paranoia in much the same way as a high school bully. They prey on those who pose no risk to them, however negligible and passive. Their enemies merely have a differing position as to how they view the world. If the CCP was truly confident that their way was the best, it would have no issues with Falun Gong. The spiritual practice wasnt and still isnt looking for a way to overthrow the CCP. All its adherents want is the right to express their spiritual and moral beliefs. An animated scene in the documentary Eternal Spring that shows the danger encountered in telling people the truth of Falun Gongs plight. (Lofty Sky Pictures) What is most disquieting about what happened in China just over 20 years ago is how little the world in general, and we as Americans, have learned from it. This same exact thing took place in April 1775 when a few handfuls of colonial patriots decided enough was enough. Our free speech and religious rights are being slowly eroded and removed by an administration that promised unity, like a death by a thousand cuts. We need to pay better attention to what went down two decades ago in the far away province of Jilin. Its getting closer and closer to reaching our own front doors. Presented in subtitled Mandarin and infrequent English. For viewing and screening options, visit EternalSpringFilm.com Promotional ad for Eternal Spring, an award-winning documentary that uses animation, live action, and illustrations in a riveting story of how a small group in Changchun, China hacked a local media to tell the truth about Falun Gong. (Lofty Sky Pictures) Eternal Spring Documentary Director: Jason Loftus Running Time: 1 hour, 25 minutes MPAA Rating: Not Rated Release Date: Oct. 14, 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5 Campaigners against the National Crime Agency's use of data hacked from EncroChat by French police protest outside the Old Bailey in London on May 27, 2022. (Chris Summers/The Epoch Times) French Court Ruling Could Have Implications for UK EncroChat Convictions A French court ruling earlier this week has been lauded as a milestone victory by campaigners and could have devastating consequences for hundreds of convictions which the National Crime Agency (NCA) has obtained in Britain. The Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation on Tuesday quashed the judgment of the Nancy Court of Appeal in the case of Said Zaoui, who was arrested in June 2020 and indicted on charges of importing narcotics and possession of weapons and ammunition. The investigative technique used by the French police came under the category of national security, which prevented defence lawyers and the accused from knowing the details of how the hack was performed. But under French law there must be a certificate of truthfulness when national security is involved. The lower court ruled the French police did not have to produce one but the French supreme court has overruled that ruling and ordered the Nancy Court of Appeal to investigate if one existed. Wife of EncroChat Accused Speaks Out Debbie Johnson, whose husband is awaiting trial on the basis of EncroChat evidence, welcomed the French courts ruling and told The Epoch Times: I can feel it in my heart that this will help those who have been accused by the NCA. My husband is facing years in jail for drugs offences but he is innocent. On Thursday a court in Berlin reportedly suspended all EncroChat cases in Germany until after the European Court of Human Rights adjudicates in ongoing appeals. Between March and June 2020 the French police obtained access to more than 120 million encrypted messages after hacking into the EncroChat server. They shared what they had found with law enforcement agencies across Europe, including the NCA in Britain, which has made almost 3,000 arrests based on EncroChat evidence. More than 300 people have been convicted as a result of Operation Venetic, which the NCA launched, armed with evidence from EncroChat. But there has always been a question mark about whether the EncroChat evidence was data, like emails and text messages, or whether it was the equivalent of phone tapping evidencewhich is inadmissible in courts in England and Wales. The Irish police, the Garda Siochana, chose not to arrest or prosecute anyone and use the EncroChat evidence they received from the French simply as intelligence. The evidence leading to Zaouis arrest stemmed from a French police hack of an EncroChat server in Roubaix, northern France, and on April 30, 2020 the public prosecutor in Lille sent it to his counterpart in Nancy. The evidence came from one of four encrypted EncroChat phones being used by individuals using the pseudonyms Elegantcrocodile, Franceconnection, Dashingclener, and Shockinggiant. All were said to be involved in drug trafficking and dealing in the Strasbourg area of eastern France. French Lawyer Insists EncroChat Data Illegal and Inadmissible In a statement, Robin Binsard, the French lawyer who represented Zaoui, said, We will therefore continue our fight before this court to obtain the cancellation of these data collected in defiance of the most fundamental principles of criminal law. In the meantime, we invite our colleagues across Europe to pursue their appeals and to argue that the evidence from EncroChat is illegal and inadmissible, Binsard added. At a recent Investigatory Powers Tribunal hearing two NCA officers and a former officer gave evidence about what discussions there had been with the French police prior to the granting of Targeted Equipment Interference warrants, which the NCA obtained on March 25, 2020, in order to access up to 9,000 EncroChat devices in the UK and investigate the alleged owners of those devices. The tribunal is due to conclude the evidence-taking part of the hearing in December and may not make a final ruling until early in 2023. The NCA told The Epoch Times it would not comment on the French courts ruling. Jay Richards, director of The Heritage Foundations DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, in an interview for NTD's "Capitol Report" program on April 26, 2022. (Screenshot/NTD) Gender Ideology Is a Cultural Wrecking Ball Striking at Heart of the Family: Expert Gender ideology is a Marxist theory meant to destroy the family by turning children against their own bodies and often against their parents and dissolving basic categories, such as male and female, that humans use to navigate the world, a researcher said in a recent interview. Jay Richards is the director of The Heritage Foundations DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family. In an interview for EpochTVs Crossroads program, Richards said gender ideology denies the reality of male and female as a given biological category, replacing it with an entirely internal and subjective category of gender identity. What you really are isnt sort of defined or even constrained by your body, its defined by this internal kind of subjective view of your gender, which is itself a circular definition, he said. There is fundamental incoherence in gender ideology because the term trans implies a sexual binary initially, meaning a man can transition to become a woman, Richards said. To say a trans woman is a woman is to imply that a woman is something, he said. But now, even the category of trans is, in some ways, obsolete, because we have a sexual, a gender nonbinary which denies that theres a binary at all, he said. It just says like, gender is on a spectrum. But that if gender is on a spectrum, everyones nonbinary, because theres no binary. Richards said this matters because the concept affects real people and real children, and their perceptions about their bodies. The key element of the theory is that it teaches children that they could be born in the wrong body, Richards said. That is probably the most toxic idea you could possibly introduce to a child. Ultimate Goal Richards believes that gender ideology has nothing to do with individuals who have a rare disorder of sexual development. Gender ideology is a cultural wrecking ball for destroying the fundamental cell of society, which is the family. And so the very definition of family requires a sexual binary, a mother and a father who can mate and can have a child, which they raise together. [The wrecking ball] is less interested in what comes after than in destroying the present order, he said. Leftists have known for a century and a half that social institutions outside the state are the main bulwark against a totalizing state, Richards said, so they have to be destroyed. The first things that human beings learn are some of the most basic categories about the world, such as adult, child, male, female, good, bad, boys and girls, Richards said. If you can take a child at an age before he or she has actually formed those categories and dissolve it and say, Well some people are boys, some people are girls, some people are both, neither, or somewhere in betweenwhich is a direct quote from a childrens bookyou dissolve that category that they use to navigate the world, and you can replace it with something much more to your liking. Richards said its unknown how childrens thinking and mental processes will be affected by these teachings, which he called historys first experiment with this particular kind of radical ideology. This idea that there are no males and females or that a male can become a female, simply by self-identity, this is really a new idea, he said. And we dont know what it is going to do. We do know that, look, if children cant trust their perception that there are males and females, what can they trust, right? Almost all of their cognitive faculties are now sort of up for grabs. Social Consequences A transgender childrens book in Irvine, Calif., on Aug. 30, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Kids can be reached behind their parents backs through social media or in the schools, where theyre taught that their parents are the primary impediments to them realizing their true self, Richards said. This ideology pits children against their parents, he explained. Children then turn to self-supporting social networks, usually on social media, that will reinforce this ideology. It also turns children against their own bodies, Richards continued. It gets them on a sort of sterilization pathway that starts with social transition and ends with puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgery, he pointed out. My hope is that we have a cultural and a policy solution in which we can stop it before we end up with hundreds of thousands of sterilized children. How to Counter Gender Ideology Gender ideology is such a radical idea that ordinary people will think it is insane when they first hear it, Richards said. They will not believe in what is actually happening, or will think that it only takes place in California. Therefore, the first step to defeating it is persuading the public that this is real, its probably in your schools, and its certainly on your childrens social media, Richards said. The next step would be to convince conservatives and Republicans that raising this issue can help them to win elections, he said. They usually dont touch on this issue because its an uncomfortable subject for them, he added. People should also educate themselves on gender ideology, Richards said, and if they have kids, they should find out what is happening in their schools. Parents should insist on enacting bills that would protect their rights in their childrens education, like the one adopted in Florida, Richards said. Such bills should make it clear that parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, which they merely delegate to the schools, Richards said. They dont give over their parenting to the schools. In March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill that prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade, as well as instruction that isnt age-appropriate. Arkansas passed a law in April called the SAFE (Save Adolescents From Experimentation) Act that bans gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments for anyone under the age of 18. The measure empowers the parents and children with a private right of action that allows them to sue the gender clinics and doctors who performed such procedures within 20 years, Richards said. Gender Identity Policies At the end of March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a letter (pdf) to all state attorneys general warning them that they could be violating civil rights laws if they keep minors from receiving gender-affirming care, Richards wrote for The Heritage Foundation. On the same day, President Joe Biden posted a video message on Twitter saying: To parents of transgender children, affirming your childs identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy. In June, Biden signed an executive order that sought to restrict conversion therapy, a practice that attempts to change an individuals sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual or their gender identity from transgender to biological gender using either physical, psychological, or spiritual means. Jannis Falkenstern, Jack Phillips, and Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report. Ella Kietlinska Reporter Follow Ella Kietlinska is a reporter for The Epoch Times focusing on U.S. and world politics. Traffic flows over the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit on Feb. 14, 2022, after protesters blocked the major border crossing for nearly a week in Windsor, Ontario. (Paul Sancya/AP Photo) Govt Memo Shows Ambassador Bridge Blockade Cost Significantly Less Than What Feds Said Internal government documents show the costs incurred during the Ambassador Bridge blockade earlier this year were much lower than what the federal government stated publicly. At a press conference on Feb. 14the day the federal government invoked the Emergencies ActFinance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters that the protest blocking the Windsor, Ontario, crossing to Detroit cost the Canadian economy nearly $400 million a day. The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge has affected about $390 million in trade each day, Freeland said. This bridge supports 30 percent of all trade by road between Canada and the United States, our most important trading partner. Those costs are real, she said, while also mentioning the impact resulting from the blockades at the border crossings at Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson, Manitoba. They threaten businesses big and small. And they threaten the livelihoods of Canadian workers, just as we are all working so hard to recover from the economic damage caused by COVID. Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland appears as a witness at a House of Commons finance committee in Ottawa on Oct. 3, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick) The blockade at Ambassador Bridge lasted six days, from Feb. 8 to Feb. 13. The protest was one of several inspired by the Freedom Convoy protest that started in late January against the federal governments requirement that all truck drivers crossing the CanadaU.S. border need to have COVID-19 vaccination. Police cleared the Ambassador Bridge prior to cabinets invocation of the Emergencies Act. Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a state of emergency on Feb. 11, and threatened to fine protesters $100,000 and up to a year of imprisonment. Actual Losses A memo issued by the federal Department of Transport on Feb. 11 and obtained by Blacklocks Reporter said the claim of economic impact of around $390 million of trade per day represented the average amount of commercial shipments in the previous year, not the actual losses due to the blockade. [The Bridge] handled over $140 billion in merchandise trade in 2021, approximately $390 million each day, said the memo, titled Background on the Impact of a Road Blockade at the Ambassador Bridge. It is estimated that the cost to the Canadian economy of a full shutdown of the Bridge would likely be in the range of $45 million per day over the first week based on current mitigation efforts put in place by shippers and available alternative options. The memo noted that from Feb. 7 to Feb. 10, the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge has diverted traffic away to nearby crossings at Sarnia, Fort Erie, and Queenston, Ontario. In addition, the estimated $45 million lost a day comes with the scenario [assuming that] the automotive sector shuts down, which it didnt. The memo also provided an extreme case example in which the impact could hit from $86 million a day to $161 million a dayless than half the figure cited by the federal government. This scenario assumes the disruption of imports and exports crossing the Ambassador Bridge leads to widespread shutdowns and production outages across the Canadian economy, staff wrote. That scenario never occurred. In April, the federal government announced that more than $2.5 million would be provided to compensate over 200 Windsor business owners affected by the blockade. Eligible businesses can receive up to $10,000 in non-repayable funds to cover their losses. A separate federal memo obtained by Blacklocks noted that the compensation fund was under-subscribed, with only 60 applying for a total payment of $462,469. Eileen Ivers uses her violin Bluey to help people overcome hardships through music, and to teach them to look for the positive and live life with gratitude. IversGrammy-winning violinist, composer, producer, educator, author of new childrens book Will Someone Play Bluey? and nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Championhas loved playing music since she was a child. But the fear of public speaking, of going outside her comfort zone, was a serious roadblock that she had to overcome. Her personal epiphany came when she realized that by speaking to an audience from the heart, as if chatting with a few close friends, she could make a huge and important connection with the story and theme of the music being performed, no matter how large the audience. Still, she had not yet dreamed of playing music as a career. An Immigrant Tradition, Reimagined I am the daughter of Irish immigrants; both my parents hail from County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, she said. Like so many in their generation, my parents had to leave Ireland to find work to help support their parents and siblings. They chose to come to New York. My sister Maureen and I grew up hearing recordings of Irish music in the house, as well as many stories of life in Ireland. As a family, they traveled to Ireland every summer, and Ivers grew up immersed in Irish culture and music. She started Irish fiddling at the age of 8, learning from an Irish-born fiddler, Martin Mulvihill, at County Bronx, an Irish center in the Bronx, which was also known as Irelands 33rd County. At 18, she spotted her famous electric violin Bluey in the window of Mannys Music store in New York. It was so different from my acoustic, she said. The salesperson mentioned that he thought it would be cool to incorporate some electric guitar stomp box effects. Suddenly, she was transported to a magical place, with a vast array of new sounds and possibilities at her fingertips. As an immigrants daughter, education was stressed as a very crucial matter. I graduated magna cum laude in mathematics from Iona College, she said. I continued on for my masters degreebut the call of music was always there. She started playing in diverse musical projects, ranging from Irish-based music to touring with the pop band Hall and Oates for a year, after which she recorded several solo albums; collaborated with top artists such as the Chieftains, Patti Smith, and Sting; recorded movie soundtracks including Gangs of New York; and was a billed musical star, touring the world with the Riverdance dance production company for three years. Ivers with son, Aidan, and husband, Brian.(Courtesy of Eileen Ivers) It was during the time of Riverdance that I fully succumbed to the calling of music as a career choice and have never looked back, she said. Her personal life experience and wildly varied professional endeavors inspired her to create a new sound, one that would ultimately receive rave reviews worldwide and become wholly unique to Ivers. So much of the worlds folk music contains similarities, she said. After all, humans and their feelings are connected through their music, and we all share the same basic emotions. From cathartic slow pieces to mark ones passing, or a time of struggle in a society, to uplifting, rhythmic pieces that underscore a time of celebration or joy; these are present in so much of the world of music. Apart from the emotional connection, intertwining and complementary rhythm is also very apparentthis is important for connecting the musical roots. New Passions When she left Riverdance, she started her first band, Immigrant Soul, which eventually morphed into her current touring band, unIVERSal roots, approximately seven years ago. Although unIVERSal roots has traditional Irish music at its core, we love to celebrate the journey of the Irish immigrant and tell the story of how Celtic music has impacted so much of Americana music such as Bluegrass, Cajun, Old-Timey, and even French-Canadian music, she said. In short, we showcase how the blending of traditional roots music leads to these newer-formed, American-based music traditions. A deeper underpinning truth is that we are far more alike than different, and that is reflected in the connection of the music. We wont leave a theater until everyone is on their feet, singing an inspirational Celtic-gospel-infused, feel-good song, leaving with a big ol smile on their faceand hugs when we meet them in the lobby after the performance. Her album Scatter the Light was released on March 13, 2020, at the start of the pandemic; it is being re-released in 2022 because it is even more relevant now. The array of tracks was inspired by everything from meditations on family, faith, gratitude, and loss, to calls-of-action for living in the moment, taking chances, and finding the strength to survive lifes obstacles. Being a person of faith, Scatter the Light is a reinforced message in church, and even in Irish culture, and describes the way I try to live, she said. I formed my own touring production and band over 20 years ago, and have been full-on with more recordings, producing, writing of songs and music, teaching, guesting with symphony orchestras from Boston Pops to the National Symphony. I live this dream alongside my husband, Brian, who partners with me in our production company, Musical Bridge, and our 13-year-old son, Aidan, has joined the touring entourage. Her son was also one of the inspirations of her new book, Will Someone Play Bluey? I wrote the book after he experienced bullying on the school bus, she said. I was proud to see him return the next day and stand up for himself, and wanted to write something that would help children not only feel better if they had been the victim of bullying, but would also help children understand the impact of bullying and the importance of recognizing and celebrating our differences. I hope that, through the lessons presented in the book, parents and educators can explore discussions on anti-bullying, diversity, and being kind. Ivers is a nine-time all- Ireland fiddle champion and a pioneer for world music. (Courtesy of Eileen Ivers) An additional inspiration for the book was the pandemic, which inadvertently provided her the time to write it. While Covid shut down my concert tour schedule, said Ivers, this unexpected pause enabled me to refocus my creative energy into writing this wonderful book. Created for children 4 to 10 years old, the book takes place at the magical Eileens Music School. When the children go home, Drake the drum, Finn the flute, and other instruments tease and bully Bluey. But the scorned violin soon discovers a true friend in Priscilla the piano, as the story explores the concepts of self-confidence and standing up for yourself. Im just thrilled with how it turned out and how it has been received, she said. I stayed focused on the verbal rhythm and true rhyme in presenting the story. I love that the children are drawn to the character of the blue violin, how they feel for him and how he was bullied; and how they are so upset with the others that tease him. This was exactly the reaction and connection I was hoping to make. Iona College recently award her the degree of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa, for her lifelong commitment to innovation, excellence and deep dedication to bringing people together through music. Her latest project is leading a musical bus tour of Ireland with an Irish tour company, Wild Atlantic Music Tours. Were heading off for our next tour shortly. Sharing my love and knowledge of Ireland through sightseeing and daily sessions of music has become a new passion, she said. I create and play music, and share varied emotions with the audience, with the goal of leaving folks feeling joy and renewal after every performance. This article was originally published in American Essence magazine. The fact that tumor sizes have become dramatically larger since 2021, patients are younger, and recurrence and metastasis are increasing should be front-page news, but youre hearing nothing about it. Why is that? This former intelligence officer and strategist believes he knows why. After the rollout of the COVID jabs in 2021, cancer patients have gotten younger, with the largest increase occurring among 30- to 50-year-olds, tumor sizes are dramatically larger, multiple tumors in multiple organs are becoming more common, and recurrence and metastasis are increasing Before it was manipulated to eliminate the safety signal, data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) showed cancer rates among military personnel and their families tripled after the rollout of the shots Uncontrollable turbo-charged cancers the medical establishment had never seen before only started to occur after the rollout of the COVID jabs The signal is being hidden by swapping the underlying cause of death with main cause of death Analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) data suggests the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been filtering and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID deaths since April 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal In a series of Twitter posts, The Ethical Skeptic self-described as a former intelligence officer and strategist has laid out a series of charts illustrating how cancer deaths are being mislabeled as COVID deaths. The suspicion is that this is an effort to hide the fact that the COVID shots have resulted in soaring cancer rates. The Ethical Skeptic also takes a deep dive into the data in Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 1, on TheEthicalSkeptic.com.1 As noted in his article, seven out of the 11 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes tracked by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics including cancer saw sharp upticks starting in the first week of April 2021. This date of inception is no coincidence, in that it also happens to coincide with a key inflection point regarding a specific body-system intervention in most of the U.S. population, The Ethical Skeptic notes.2 In other words, April 2021 was when large swaths of the American population were getting their first COVID jabs. Cancer Diagnoses on the Rise The following graph, highlighted on Dr. Jennifer Browns Substack,3 illustrates the cyclical wave pattern of cancer diagnoses, from January 2015 and October 1, 2022. As noted in the top-right text box: We should be at or near a seasonal nadir. Instead we are at an all-time CA [cancer] excess, and heading up. Keep in mind there is substantial lag to CA reporting, so this likely under-represents true excess. At no point during the past seven years have we seen this rate of new cancer diagnoses. Are the COVID shots to blame? Probably, unless we can identify another widespread environmental factor or exposure that was introduced to the population, en masse, in early 2021, that didnt exist before. CDC Fudging Death Records to Eliminate Cancer Signal According to The Ethical Skeptics analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) data, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been filtering and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID deaths since Week 14 of 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal.4 The following two charts, posted on Twitter October 1 and 2, 2022, illustrates how cancer mortality is being artificially suppressed. As explained by The Ethical Skeptic:5,6 The set dynamics are complex, but the principle is straightforward. When a death cert lists Cancer as the UCoD [underlying cause of death] and COVID as MCoD [main cause of death] the UCoD & MCoD are being swapped, and COVID is being listed as the UCoD 100% (425/wk). This results in 20% of all COVID deaths each week, also happening to be persons dying of Cancer which is egregiously higher than it should be. This is clear over-attribution = equates to exactly the difference between the Cancer and All Other ICD-10 code lag curves. The problem facing the CDC, is What does one do when COVID Mortality is no longer substantial enough to conceal the excess Cancer Mortality? So, to rephrase, what The Ethical Skeptic is saying is that 20% of the weekly so-called COVID deaths are actually cancer deaths, which is rather astounding. But swapping the underlying and main causes of death, listing COVID as the main cause, hides (to some degree) the fact that cancer deaths are going through the roof. According to his analysis, the COVID shot is killing 7,300 Americans per week. COVID, meanwhile, is killing 1,740 people.7 So, what will the CDC blame when COVID disappears and they can no longer swap the underlying and main cause of death designations? Department of Defense Data Showed Massive Cancer Rise Uncontrollable turbo-charged cancers the medical establishment had never seen before only started to occur after the rollout of the COVID jabs.8 Data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), exposed by attorney Tom Renz and Sen. Ron Johnson (above), showed cancer rates among military personnel and their families basically tripled after the rollout of the shots.9 As you may recall, within days of the DMED data being revealed, the database was taken offline, allegedly to identify and correct a supposed data corruption problem, and when it came back, the data had been altered to hide these glaringly obvious safety signals.10 Turbo-Cancers Emerged After COVID Jab Rollout In the video above, Swedish pathologist, researcher and senior physician at Lunds University, Dr. Ute Kruger, describes the changes she has personally observed in the wake of the COVID shots. For example, shes noticed:11,12 Cancer patients are getting younger The largest increase is among 30- to 50-year-olds Tumor sizes are dramatically larger Historically, 3-centimeter tumors were commonly found at the time of cancer diagnosis. Now, the tumors theyre finding are regularly 4 to 12 centimeters, which suggests theyre growing at a much faster rate than normal Multiple tumors in multiple organs are becoming more common Recurrence and metastasis are increasing Kruger points out that many of the cancer patients shes seeing have been in remission for years, only to suddenly be beset with uncontrollable cancer growth and metastasis shortly after their COVID jab These turbo-cancers, as Kruger calls them, cannot be explained by delayed cancer screenings due to lockdowns and other COVID restrictions, as those days are long gone. Patients, despite having access to medical screenings as in years past, are showing up with grossly exacerbated tumor growths, and she believes this is because the cancers are being turbo-charged by the mRNA jabs. Dr. Ryan Cole has also discussed the explosion of cancer (see video below). He believes the shots are primarily accelerating already existing cancers, by way of immune dysregulation.13 He noticed that cancers that could normally be controlled and kept in check, giving the patient several years of quality life, once they got the COVID jab, the cancer would suddenly grow out of control and rapidly lead to death. Data Are so Corrupted, Will We Ever Get to the Truth? The sad reality is that most data sources have at this point been so corrupted, its unlikely well ever be able to get the whole truth. The CDC started manipulating the data in 2020 and hasnt stopped. DMED, which has historically been one of the best and most pristine, has now been modified. Other data sources have suffered the same fate. Its beyond egregious, and data modelers like The Ethical Skeptic show just how bad the situation is. The idea that the CDC is massaging statistics to hide clear danger signals is appalling and unethical in the extreme, yet thats what were seeing. The question is, why do they go to such lengths to protect such a lethal product? Your guess is as good as mine. Originally published Sources and References Irvine Unified Candidates Debate Board Policy, Parent Rights at Forum The three candidates running for the Irvine Unified School Board displayed three very different approaches to board policy and parent rights in a forum hosted by the Irvine Unified Council Parent Teacher Association Oct. 12. Business owner Marlene Bronson, Irvine Unified parent Katie McEwen, and health and special education advocate Debra Kamm are vying for the boards Area 2 seat, which covers the south side of Woodbridge, Westpark, and University Park. At the forum, each candidate shared their motivation for running and what they consider to be the districts top issues. Marlene Bronson, Irvine Unified School District Area 2 candidate in Irvine, Calif., on Sept. 27, 2022. (Sophie Li/The Epoch Times) Bronson, a mother of two adult children, describes herself as a business owner, former homeschooling educator, and an advocate for children with disabilities. She said she was motivated to run by a desire to serve her community. I love children. I love people. And I just want to make a difference for our community here in Orange County, Bronson said. McEwen emphasized her experience teaching English at Irvines Northwood High School and her involvement in multiple community organizations. I have a wide range of hands-on and current knowledge and these experiences would enable me to serve as an effective leader for my trustee area, she said. McEwen also noted that she is endorsed by all five current trustees as well as by U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine), the Irvine Teachers Association, the California School Employees Association, the Orange County Labor Federation, and the Democratic Party of Orange County. (Courtesy of Katie McEwen) As a school board member, I would support our teachers, she said. Doing so is critically important because they are the ones who make a difference with our kids. She additionally said supporting students mental health needs is importantespecially coming out of the pandemicand that, if elected, would work to expand college and career pathways for students and would prioritize school safety. Kamm, a mother of two children growing up in the district, said she decided to run because she was dissatisfied with the current boards alleged lack of transparency. Im running for this position because Ive been coming to these board meetings since the beginning of the year. After watching during COVID-19, Im really appalled at some of the things that are happening, Kamm said. Kamm said she experienced retaliation from board staff after she filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of a student with a disability in February. Soon after, she went to a school board meeting for the first time to alert the board about the retaliation. About a week later, she said she received notice from a district official that her emails were blocked to the board and staff. She said she returned to the board again in May, but the president of the board threatened to ban her from speaking at future meetings, referencing a decades-old board policy that prohibited criticism of employees. Debra Kamm, Irvine Unified School District Area 2 candidate in Irvine, Calif., on Sept. 21, 2022. (Sophie Li/The Epoch Times) The board eventually removed that policy in June after the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the boardon Kamms behalfclaiming the policy was unconstitutional. The series of events, Kamm said, motivated her to run. We need to remember that the board is supposed to represent the residents of Irvine [and] we need to have a board that is listening to parents and taxpayers, she said. Board Policy Though all candidates agreed that the district needed to improve academic test scores, student safety, and mental health, Kamm and McEwen found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum on board policy, while Bronson opted for the middle ground. When asked how each would deal with not being able to please all families in the district, Bronson said she would listen to all sides regarding concerns before attempting to negotiate a solution. Kamm said she considered teachers and district staff as stakeholders in the community as well. The board is supposed to represent the residents of Irvine, she said. It is not up to every single board member to agree. We do not need five-to-zero votes, Kamm said. That is what happens when you have a monopoly of thought on a board. This unanimity on the board has been the case for many years, she said, with the board frequently voting in unison. I will change that, she said. Im not afraid to have a dissenting voice. Meanwhile, McEwen emphasized what she called her collaborative approach, saying she would mediate between the board and parents to maintain a connection. We are stronger when we come together and we have conversations, she said. We are not about shutting out voices. We are about inclusion, and we are about coming together to get to resolutions. District Funding Candidates answered a question from the audience about how they would spend the funding from the state intended to address learning loss and mental health. Bronson said the district should implement extra lessons in grades with low test scores. I think we need to [look] at where [student] test scores are, where they need improvement and giving them extra curriculum with [enhanced] features both in the classroom and with extra homework at home to bring them up to standard. Kamm said she has already been following how the district has been spending the money, as theyve already received some of the funds through different grants. She said the district has used part of it to settle lawsuits brought by families who sued the district over This money should be going to all students who experienced learning loss, not just a few who can hire attorneys and file lawsuits in order to help their child, Kamm said. We need to help all students. Kamm suggested that the district hire tutors to work with students outside of regular school hours. McEwen said she would focus the funds on hiring counselors, particularly at the elementary level, to address mental health and behavioral issues. We cant even get to learning recovery until were well, she said. In order to be able to get to that point where we can recover knowledge that that was lost during the pandemic, we need support on behavioral issues as well as mental illness. Former Area 2 Trustee Sharon Wallin opted not to run for re-election after serving five terms. The election is Nov. 8. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) (L), Chair of the House January 6 committee, delivers remarks alongside Vice Chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during a hearing in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on Oct. 13, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Jan. 6 Committee Presents New Secret Service, White House Records at 9th Meeting At the end of the meeting, the committee voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump The House January 6 Committee on Oct. 13 met to unveil text messages, testimony, and other never-before-seen records from White House and Secret Service officials. Since its first hearing in June, the members of the committee, which seats seven Democrats and only two Republicans, have made their position on the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally clear. Members have in no uncertain terms blamed former President Donald Trump exclusively for the breakdown of order on Jan. 6, but their efforts to make this claim have sometimes relied on altered evidence. Before the members gathered for what Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) called a business meeting more than a formal hearing, speculation was rampant as to whether the committee would subpoena Trumpit ultimately agreed unanimously to a motion by Ranking Member Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to do just that. The hearing, briefer than many before it, opened at 1:00 p.m. ET. As on many other occasions, Thompson reiterated the committees claims about the events of Jan. 6, saying the breakdown of order was part of a multi-part plan by Trump and his allies to carry out an insurrection against the United States government. The most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans, Thompson said. The evidence that has emerged did not come from Democrats or opponents of Donald Trump, Thompson continued. Instead, look at whos written and testified and produced evidence. Who has that been? Aides whove worked loyally for Trump for years, Republican state officials and legislatures, Republican electors, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. In her opening remarks, Cheney echoed the sentiment: The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us the central cause of Jan. 6 was one man: Donald Trump. Testimony so far has come from former Attorney General Bill Barr, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the presidents daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and others. During the hearing, the committee presented new records and testimony from other Republicans and Secret Service agents. Trump Planned Election Day Victory Declaration One memo from the National Archives presented by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) allegedly showed that Trump planned to declare victory on Election Day before the final votes were tallied. The brief memo was sent to Tom Fitton, who leads the conservative group Judicial Watch. We had an Election todayand I won, the memo read. The ballots counted by the Election Day deadline show the American people have bestowed on me the great honor of reelection to President of the United States. Lofgren also referenced testimony from Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale alleging that Trump planned to say he won either way as early as July. Trump Was Livid About Supreme Court Decision A text message from a Secret Service agent that was unveiled during the hearing alleged that Trump was livid after the Supreme Courtto which he appointed three of the nine current membersrefused to hear an election lawsuit brought by Trump. Officials in the White House, notably former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said that Trump and others in the upper ranks of White House staff considered it the last chance to take back the election. The message came following the Supreme Courts decision not to hear the case. Supreme Court denied his lawsuit, the message read. He is livid now. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows whose testimony has been denied by Trump and the Secret Service alike, also suggested that Trump was irate following the news. The president was fired up about the Supreme Court decision, she told the committee during her testimony. The president just raging about the decision and how its wrong and why didnt we make more calls and his typical anger outburst at this decision. He said something to the effect of, I dont want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,' she said. Its unclear just how close Hutchinson was with the president. By Trumps own account, he hardly knew who [Hutchinson] is. Trump has also suggested that Hutchinson may have gone to the committee over a grudge she held with him for not approving her to join his team in Florida, though where exactly Hutchinson was after Trump left the White House is disputed. Secret Service Aware of Threats Other evidence suggested that the Secret Service was aware of the threat of violence on Jan. 6, an awareness prompted by social media posts and anonymous tips. The Proud Boys, an organization whose actual influence is limited but highly inflated by the committee, allegedly thought at the time that they [would] have a large enough group to march into D.C. armed and [would] outnumber the police so they [couldnt] be stopped, an anonymous tip said. Their plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further. In an email obtained by the committee, the Secret Service discussed the threat. Right wing groups responding across the nation and establishing quick reaction forces in Virginia, the email read. Additionally, agents were also reportedly concerned about the quantity of weapons brought to the Jan. 6 event at the Ellipse, where protestors gathered to hear Trump speak before marching on the Capitol. With so many weapons so far, you wonder how many are unknown. Could be sporty after dark, one agent wrote in a message to a colleague. No doubt. The people at the Ellipse said they are moving to the Capitol after the POTUS speech, another agent responded. Aguilar Doubles Down Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) doubled down on the veracity of Hutchinsons contested testimony about Trumps behavior on Jan. 6. Hutchinson made wide-reaching claims during her June testimony at a last-minute hearing about several alleged disputes between Trump and the Secret Service on Jan. 6. According to Hutchinson, Trump grew frustrated after the Secret Service refused to allow him to join supporters at the Capitol protest because the area had not been secured. Hutchinson then claimed that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent in anger after they refused to take him to the Capitol before trying to seize the steering wheel from the driver of his vehicle. Hutchinsons claims came from secondhand info, she admitted. Reportedly, Hutchinson heard it from Secret Service Agent Tony Ornato. However, Bobby Engel, the actual driver of the vehicle, has reportedly denied the claima denial he is allegedly willing to make under oath and at risk of perjury. Despite the denials from the agent most intimately involved in the altercation, Aguilar assured Americans that it actually happenedat least according to reports after the fact that White House staffers gossiped about it. The incident was so widely known, Aguilar said, that one former White House employee referred to it as water cooler talk. Aguilar has eyed further legal action, up to and including time in federal prison, against deniers of Hutchinsons account. One unnamed source reportedly testified to the committee that they were specifically informed of the presidents irate behavior in the SUV by Mr. Ornato in Mr. Ornatos office, Aguilar said. Aguilar mused that the deniers might be in violation of laws against obstruction of justice, and promised, We will address this matter in our report. Further Hearings Possible Thompson briefly alluded to the possibility of further hearings. We are convened today not as a hearing but as a formal committee business meeting so that in addition to presenting evidence, we can potentially hold a committee vote on further investigative action based on that evidence, Thompson said in his opening statement. The possibility of such hearings in large part hinges on the outcomes of ongoing legal disputes between Trump and his allies over whether their documents and testimony are protected by executive privilege. Though the committee received a PR victory with their vote to subpoena Trump, testimony by the former president is far from guaranteed. Adding to issues for Democrats, the subpoena will only last for the term of the 117th Congress, which is quickly drawing to a close. If Republicans take the House, as they are widely expected to do, it will be a race against the clock for the committee to win its case in the courts. Though Thompson cited precedent for legislative subpoenas of former presidents, the incidences of such subpoenas in U.S. history are sparse. In the 1840s, Congress subpoenaed former Presidents John Quincy Adams and John Tyler for information on intelligence activities. The subpoenas were ultimately not answered. The only other case came in the 20th century, when House Un-American Activities Committee Chairman Joseph McCarthy subpoenaed former President Harry S. Truman. As in the case of Adams and Tyler, the subpoena was unanswered. These cases taken together leave unclear the question of whether Congress even has the authority to subpoena a former president, and it is far from certain that the committee will ever have the chance to hear testimony from Trump. Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) bring down the Japanese national flag in the early evening, at the JGSDF Miyako camp on Miyako Island, Okinawa prefecture, Japan, on April 20, 2022. (Issei Kato/Reuters) Japan Plans More Evacuation Shelters in Okinawa Amid Taiwan Tensions Japan is planning to build additional evacuation shelters on the Okinawa islands to shield residents from missile threats amid the rising tensions in Taiwan, a government official said on Friday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the Cabinet Secretariat sought a budget of 70 million yen ($477,000) for fiscal 2023 to study the specifications for shelters that can house residents during a military contingency. We will conduct an extensive analysis looking into various aspects, including specification, technical and cost issues, Matsuno told reporters, according to Nikkei Asia. [accessible here] He said the government aims to build shelters in the Sakishima Islands, including Yonaguni and Ishigakiwhich are close to Taiwanto augment the existing six evacuation shelters in Okinawa prefecture. The government would also consider building above-ground evacuation shelters in the prefecture, given the lack of underground facilities on the islands, Matsuno added. Japan designated over 400 subway stations as temporary emergency shelters as of June this year following the Russia-Ukraine war. Emergency shelters allow people to take shelter for only one to two hours in the event of a missile attack. About 94,125 locations across Japan, including schools and community centers, were given that designation as of April 2021, though only 1,278 of those locations were underground, The Asahi Shimbun reported. Taiwan Tensions The expansion plan comes after China launched military drills near Taiwan following a controversial visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August, firing multiple ballistic missiles over Taiwan and imposing a naval blockade. Shigeru Ishiba, lawmaker and former Japanese defense minister, met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on July 28 to discuss laws and agreements, as well as the armed forces to be deployed to address the resulting issues. We need to work together to reach consensus on this ahead of anything that could happen, Ishiba said at the Presidential Office in Taipei. Japan devoted significant space of this years annual defense report to Taiwan, stating that Taiwans stability is critical for Japans security and must be closely monitored with a sense of urgency. China has made clear that it would not hesitate to unify Taiwan by force, further increasing tensions in the region, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said in the report released on July 22. North Korea, which has carried out a series of missile tests this year, also poses a nuclear threat to Japan. North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan on Oct. 4, prompting Japan to issue an alert for residents in several regions to take shelter. North Dakota's Department of Health and Human Services has ordered 5,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots newly available for children as young as 5. Meanwhile, the coronavirus transmission risk in Burleigh and Morton counties has been downgraded to low, and new weekly COVID-19 cases in the state have reached their lowest level in five months. The "bivalent" booster shots target todays most common omicron strain of the coronavirus. They provide protection against both the original version of the virus and also the newest omicron variant mutants, the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5. Federal health officials last month authorized the updated boosters for people age 12 and older. Officials this week authorized them for children ages 5-11. There are two kinds -- one made by Pfizer for 5- to 11-year-olds, and a Moderna version for those ages 6-17. The single-dose booster is for children who previously completed the primary vaccine series at least two months prior. The vaccine will be available at over 70 health care provider offices throughout the state," said Jenny Galbraith, adult immunization manager for Health and Human Services. "Health care providers are in the process of educating staff and updating protocols, so most providers will begin offering vaccine early next week. The hope is that the modified boosters will head off another winter surge of the pandemic that has persisted since March 2020. North Dakotans are encouraged to have a conversation with a trusted health care provider about vaccination, Galbraith said. The state has ordered 76,600 doses of the bivalent vaccine for those age 12 and up. "Our state currently has enough bivalent doses for all eligible North Dakotans who wish to receive them," Galbraith said. The omicron variant drove a winter spike in COVID-19 cases in North Dakota early this year, with weekly cases approaching 16,000 in January, according to state data. The wave ebbed in the spring, but the emergence of the omicron mutants led to a summer surge that has been waning as autumn begins. Weekly data There were 810 new COVID-19 cases over the past week, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services coronavirus dashboard, which is updated every Friday. That was the lowest total since 723 in mid-May, and close to one-third the total of the recent weekly high of 1,952 in early August. The state's weekly tally does not include results of widely available COVID-19 home tests, but is meant to provide a look at longer-term trends and also the severity of disease. There were 52 people with COVID-19 admitted to North Dakota hospitals in the past week. The weekly total has been on the decline since the recent peak of 114 in mid-August. Coronavirus patients take up less than 3% of occupied inpatient beds and intensive care unit beds in the state. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determines county risk levels based on COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalization data. They can be found at https://bit.ly/3AfSY2A. Two North Dakota counties -- Logan and McIntosh -- are at high risk this week. Seven are at medium risk, and 44 are at low risk. Burleigh and Morton counties dropped from medium risk last week to low risk this week. The CDC recommends that people in high-risk areas wear a mask indoors in public, and that people in medium-risk areas who have conditions that make them prone to severe illness wear a mask. Federal data shows eight new virus-related deaths in North Dakota over the week, after none the previous week, raising the state's pandemic total to 2,383. CDC death data fluctuates from week to week due to lags in reporting. County-level death data is not available. There have been 271,085 confirmed COVID-19 cases in North Dakota during the pandemic. More information Federal data shows that 67.9% of North Dakota adults are fully vaccinated, with the rate for all vaccine-eligible people -- age 5 and older -- at 61.6%. The national averages are 77.9% and 72.2%, respectively. North Dakota's first booster shot rate is 47.5%, compared to 50.5% nationally. The percentages are for people 12 and older and don't factor in the newly available boosters for younger children. Go to https://www.ndvax.org or https://bit.ly/3N3IMxb or call 866-207-2880 to see where COVID-19 vaccine is available. Information on free public testing and free test kits is at health.nd.gov/covidtesting. State Health Department guidance and resources for businesses is at https://bit.ly/3w0DpKj. More detailed pandemic information is at www.health.nd.gov/coronavirus and https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html. Igor Danchenko outside the U.S. courthouse in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Judge Acquits Steele Dossier Source on One Count, Jurors to Decide on Rest ALEXANDRIA, Va.A U.S. judge tossed one of the five counts against a key source for the anti-Donald Trump Steele dossier on Oct. 14, ruling that prosecutors did not present enough evidence for jurors to consider the charge. U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that Igor Danchenko, the source, did not make a false statement when he told FBI agents on June 15, 2017, that he did not talk with Charles Dolan about material that was included in the dossier. Okay, so youve had was there any but you had never talked to Chuck Dolan about anything that showed up in the dossier right? an FBI agent asked Danchenko at the time. No, Danchenko said. You dont think so? the agent asked. No. We talked about, you know, related issues perhaps but no, no, no, nothing specific. The key word was talked, Trenga said, siding with defense lawyers who had argued that a common meaning of talk is to deliver information by speech. The FBI agents made no effort to probe the matter further, Trenga said. Mr. Danchenko answered literally. Mr. Danchenkos answer was literally true in that the government never established he talked with Dolan about the information that was ultimately published in the dossier, which was funded by Democrats including Trumps rival for president in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The government fails to carry the burden of evidence, the judge added. Dolan said during the trial that he maintains he never talked with Danchenko about anything in the dossier. Dolan sent Danchenko a message on Aug. 20, 2016, claiming hed received information about drama in the Trump campaign involving officials Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort. That information appeared in similar form in the dossier. Mr. Dolan, would you agree that the information you provided to Mr. Danchenko is substantially similar to whats in report 3 of the dossier? a prosecutor asked Dolan during Danchenkos trial. Yes, Dolan said. Dolan also acknowledged during the trial that he lied about having a GOP source who provided him with information and detailed his deep ties with Russia. Jurors will still decide on the remaining four counts. Those all relate to Sergei Millian, a pro-Trump businessman. Danchenko lied when he said that he thought he spoke with Millian in 2016 when he actually well knew that the person on the phone was not Millian, according to charging documents. Danchenko was charged in late 2021 with five counts of lying to the FBI in interviews in 2021. The Russian national, who has bragged that he was responsible for most of the material in the dossier, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted after the partial acquittal. The jury was given instructions on Friday. They were set to start deliberating on Monday after closing arguments. Prosecutors wrapped up their case with several current and former FBI personnel. Defense lawyers called no witnesses. Danchenko chose not to testify. John Haughey Follow John Haughey has been a working journalist since 1978 with an extensive background in local government, state legislatures, and growth and development. A graduate of the University of Wyoming, he is a Navy veteran who fought fires at sea during three deployments aboard USS Constellation. Hes been a reporter for daily newspapers in California, Washington, Wyoming, New York, and Florida; a staff writer for Manhattan-based business trade publications. Judge Rules Federal Ban on Guns With Removed Serial Numbers Is Unconstitutional A judge has ruled that a federal law banning guns that have had their serial numbers removed is unconstitutional. Serial numbers were first required by the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 to allow guns to be traced. They were adopted in an effort to prevent illegal gun sales. The law at issue prohibits any person from transporting a gun with the serial number altered, obliterated, or removed, across state lines. It also prohibits them from possessing such a gun if it has ever been transported across state lines. The decision filed on Oct. 12 (pdf), written by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, West Virginia, blocks the law from taking effect. The decision comes in a criminal case involving an Ohio man, Randy Price, whose gun that had its serial number removed was found in his car at a traffic stop in Charleston. He was charged with illegally possessing a gun without a serial number, and also with illegally possessing a gun as a felon. Price had previously been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery. Goodwin dismissed the former charge, but left in place the latter. Price argued that the law banning possession of a gun without a serial number is unconstitutional and cited a landmark ruling (pdf) by the U.S. Supreme Court in June this year, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The ruling stated that the government cannot restrict Americans constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self defense, unless the restriction is consistent with this Nations historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nations historical tradition may a court conclude that the individuals conduct falls outside the Second Amendments unqualified command, Thomas wrote. Goodwin, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, found in his decision that the federal ban on guns with removed serial numbers is not consistent with the United States historical tradition of firearm regulation. He noted that a firearm without a serial number was not considered more dangerous compared to other firearms in 1791, when the Second Amendment was adopted. At the time, serial numbers were not required, or even in common use, he said, adding that the serial numbers arose only with the advent of the mass production of firearms, putting it outside of the historical tradition of firearm regulation. Any modern regulation that does not comport with the historical understanding of the right is to be deemed unconstitutional, regardless of how desirable or important that regulation may be in our modern society, Goodwin said in his decision. While I recognize there is an argument that firearms with an obliterated serial number are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable, that argument is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering, he also wrote. The government argued that the federal ban is constitutional because it is a commercial regulation that does not infringe on Americans Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. But Goodwin determined that the law is not a commercial regulation because it criminalizes the possession of firearms without a serial number, regardless of whether they are sold. Prices lawyer, Lex Coleman, called the decision thoughtful, measured, and accurate. A spokesperson for the office of U.S. Attorney William Thompson in Charleston, which was prosecuting the case, said the office is reviewing the ruling and assessing options. Reuters contributed to this report. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz (L) speaks with Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill as the verdicts are read in his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Juror in Parkland Shooting Case Was Threatened Before Verdict Reached: Filing A juror also disputes she had her mind made up before trial started A female juror in the Parkland, Florida, shooting case was threatened during deliberations on Oct. 13, according to a new court filing. The unnamed juror, identified in the filings as Juror X, called prosecutors on Thursday afternoon and said that while deliberations were happening, she received what she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room, the Broward County State Attorneys Office said late Oct. 13. This Court has a duty to investigate this allegation. Since this is a potential crime, the State requests that law enforcement conduct the interview of Juror X rather than the Court or the parties, prosecutors added. They made a motion for the juror to be interviewed. Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, avoided the death penalty earlier Thursday when jurors could not reach a unanimous decision to sentence him to death. Instead, hes set to receive life in prison with no possibility of parole. Cruz murdered 17 people and left 17 others wounded. The trial was for Cruzs sentence. Jurors could decide between capital punishment and life in prison. Florida rules state that any party who has reason to believe a verdict may be subject to a legal challenge can ask a court to permit an interview of a juror or jurors within 10 days of a verdict. Granting such a motion is up to the trial judge. The identity of the juror will be provided during a hearing on the matter, prosecutors said. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer was set to hear arguments on the motion on Friday. Juror Speaks Out In another filing, Denise Cunha, one of the jurors, challenged notions that she had her mind made up before the trial commenced. Another juror overheard other jurors, who voted for Cruz to receive the death penalty, stating that Cunha had already made up her mind to sentence Cruz to life in prison, Cunha said. This allegation is untrue and I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, Cunha wrote in a handwritten note to the judge. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned I would vote for life, she added. Cunha offered her phone number to Scherer if there were any questions. The number was redacted in the copy of the note that was placed on the court docket. Family members of victims, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist were among the parties expressing disappointment with Cruz not being sentenced to death. LA County Labor Federation Investigating Who Leaked Audio of Officials The Los Angeles County Labor Federation is investigating the recent leak of a racially charged conversation that sent political shockwaves reaching all the way to the White House and sparking local protests for the involved city councilors to resign. The taped conversationwhich reportedly happened at an office of the Labor Federation in October 2021captured LA City Council President Nury Martinez, City Councilmen Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, and the federations President Ron Herrera candidly discussing the controversial redistricting process and how to keep Latino control when the maps were redrawn. The conversation also included disparaging remarks about another councilors son and other ethnic groups, mostly uttered by Martinez. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez attends the LA Promise Funds Girls Build Leadership Summit at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Dec. 15, 2017. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) The recording was leaked on Oct. 9 by an anonymous Reddit user and was subsequently taken offline hours later after the powerful union group reported it. The Reddit user was also suspended. When you actually hear [the recording], its unbelievable. The labor movement is in bed with City Hall. All you have to do is look close and listen to the recording I just received of LA Fed President Ron Herrera and Nury Martinez (no relation, lol). Someone helped me connect the dots earlier this month, the post read, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Its still unclear who is responsible for the leak or the motive behind it. In the recording, Martinez could be heard calling Councilman Mike Bonins adopted black son racial slurs in Spanish, such as Parece changuitoor like a little monkeywhile recalling seeing Bonins son misbehaving on a float during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. She said the float might have tipped over if she and other women hadnt stepped in to parent this kid. Theyre raising him like a little white kid, Martinez said. I was like, This kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then Ill bring him back.' Then de Leon said Bonin treated his child the same way as when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag. Los Angeles Councilman Kevin de Leon speaks at The Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro, Calif., on Feb. 27, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) While referencing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, Martinez said [Expletive] that guy. Hes with the blacks. The conversation, which the officials did not know was being recorded, also included Martinez making disparaging comments about Oaxacans, an indigenous group from Mexico. At one point in the conversation, de Leon could be heard saying Mike Bonin wont [expletive] ever say peep about Latinos, hell never say a [expletive] word about us. The labor unions lawyer, Julie Gutman Dickinson, sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times saying the conversation was recorded in violation of Californias privacy and recording laws on LA County Federation of Labor property and that if the paper published anything from the recordings, they would be condoning this illegal conduct. The Los Angeles Times lawyer responded back Oct. 9 defending the papers right to publish. In the internal memo to other union affiliates on Oct. 9, the Los Angeles Times reported that the federation said they plan to investigate and make sure these crimes are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The union did not immediately comment in response to Epoch Times inquiries on the remarks made in the recordings. Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo (L) speaks about the US Citizenship Act of 2021 and urges action on US President Bidens immigration reform plan outside of City Hall in Los Angeles on April 29, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images) The federation represents over 300 affiliated unions with over 800,000 members. In a statement Oct. 10 Herrera, the federations president, said I apologize to all of you, Mike Bonin and his family, the affiliates and community members, specifically those in the Black and Oaxacan community. There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period. Herrera resigned on Oct. 11 and Martinez resigned Oct. 12 amid mounting condemnation by community groups and politiciansincluding President Joe Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, LA mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, and several city councilors. The LA County of Labor Federation was not immediately available for comment by press deadline. Prime Minister Liz Truss during a press conference in the briefing room at Downing Street, London, on Oct. 14, 2022. (Daniel Leal/PA Media) Liz Truss Performs U-Turn on Corporation Tax and Promises to Lead UK Through the Storm Prime Minister Liz Truss has scrapped a key part of the mini-budget Kwasi Kwarteng produced last monthreversing the cut to corporation taxand has defended her decision to replace him as Chancellor of the Exchequer with Jeremy Hunt. She said she had decided corporation tax would go up from 19 percent to 25 percent next yearas originally planned by Rishi Sunakwhich would raise 18 billion. The City of London has reacted badly in the last three weeks to the mini-budget, which involved tax cuts of around 43 billion and a big increase in government borrowing. On Oct. 3 Truss scrapped plans to abolish the top rate of income tax but that has not assuaged the financial markets. But, on Friday, when asked by one journalist if it was fair that Kwarteng had gone but she remained considering they had been in lockstep on the mini-budget, she sidestepped the question and said it had been a difficult decision to replace him. Truss said: From day one Ive been ambitious for growth. Since the financial crisis in 2008 the potential of this country has been held back by low growth. She said the mission to increase growth in Britain remains, despite global economic conditions which she said were made worse by the continuing war in Ukraine. Reassuring Markets Truss said: Its clear that parts of our mini-budget went further and faster than the financial markets were expecting. So we need to act now to reassure the markets on our fiscal discipline. Kwarteng was ordered to fly home overnight from International Monetary Fund talks in Washington and was asked to resign. In his resignation letter, Kwarteng praised her dedication and determination and said, I believe your vision is the right one. Truss said she was sorry to lose him but she praised Hunt as one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians. She said he would push through the supply-side reforms Britain needed to deliver sustained growth. The prime minister said she had acted decisively to ensure economic stability and had acted in the national interest. Truss concluded her remarks by saying: I want to be honest. This is difficult. But we will get through this storm and deliver strong and sustainable growth to transform our country for the generations to come. Truss defeated former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in a leadership contest over the summer. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the turmoil in the financial markets was a crisis made in Downing Street, and she added: We dont just need a change in chancellor, we need a change in government. Only Labour offers the leadership and ideas Britain needs to secure the economy and get out of this mess. In opinion polls published earlier this month, the Conservatives have dropped to 24 percent, 17 points behind Labour. But Truss does not have to face a general election until, at the latest, January 2025. PA Media contributed to this report. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng (second left) arrives, from the United States, at London's Heathrow Airport on Oct. 14, 2022. (PA) UK Prime Minister Sacks Treasury Chief Hours After He Arrives From US Prime Minister Liz Truss has fired the Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt after markets reacted negatively to what they perceived as un-costed tax cut plans. Kwarteng was ordered to fly home overnight from International Monetary Fund talks in Washington and was relieved of his duties by Truss, who is expected to announce a shift in financial policy during a press conference on Friday afternoon. Kwarteng uploaded his resignation letter on Twitter and in it he said: You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor, and I have accepted. Hunt is a former Foreign Secretary who ran in the summers leadership contest but bowed out early and gave his support to Rishi Sunak. He will be the fourth chancellor this year following Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi, and Kwarteng. He went on to praise Truss and said: We have been colleagues and friends for many years. In that time I have seen your dedication and determination. I believe your vision is the right one. Truss defeated former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in a leadership contest and then signed off on his mini-budget, which gave away a total of 43 billion in tax cuts, including the abolition of the top rate of income tax. On Oct. 3 she scrapped plans to abolish the top rate of income tax but that has not assuaged the financial markets. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has called for a general election. He said: This mustnt just be the end of Kwartengs disastrous chancellorship, it should be the death knell of the Conservatives reckless mismanagement of our economy. It didnt suddenly start with Kwarteng but it must end now. Enough is enough. It started with [former Prime Minister] Boris Johnson failing our country, and now Liz Truss has broken our economy, it is time for the people to have their say in a general election, Davey added. In an attempt to spur growth, Kwarteng unveiled the biggest package of tax cuts in half a century on Sept. 23. However, it sparked panic among investors concerned about increased government borrowing, causing the pound to fall and borrowing costs to soar. Earlier this month Truss told the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham they had made the right decision and would not be changing course. She said: Cutting taxes is the right thing to do morally and economically. Morally, because the state does not spend its own money. It spends the peoples. Economically, because if people keep more of their own money, they are inspired to do more of what they do best. On Friday Truss also reshuffled the team at the Treasury, appointing Edward Argar as the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, replacing Chris Philp who will be the new Paymaster General. Labours Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: Changing the chancellor doesnt undo the damage thats already been done. It was a crisis made in Downing Street: Liz Truss and the Conservatives crashed the economy causing mortgages to skyrocket and has undermined Britains standing on the world stage. We dont just need a change in chancellor, we need a change in government. Mayorkas Alerted That Border Agents Didnt Whip Illegal Immigrants, Email Shows The Biden administration was quick to condemn Border Patrol agents on horseback in Del Rio last year after photos showed agents trying to force illegal immigrants back across the Rio Grande into Mexico. At issue were the agents use of reins, which are used to keep people away from the horse to prevent injury, according to Brandon Judd, the head of the Border Patrol union. Based on the photos, politicians, including the president, condemned the agents for whipping or strapping the Haitians near the riverbank. But the photographer, Paul Ratje, said he didnt see agents whip anyone. Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses, Ratje told local station KTSM. Ive never seen them whip anyone. He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when youre looking at the picture. Marsha Espinosa, assistant secretary of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) public affairs, copied the KTSM article into an email on Sept. 24, 2021, and sent it to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas two and a half hours before he spoke at a White House press briefing. The email was obtained by the Heritage Foundation through a FOIA request. However, during the press briefing, Mayorkas didnt attempt to correct the record about the whipping, including comments made by President Joe Biden that morning. Instead, in the briefing, Mayorkas called the images horrifying and said they do not reflect who we are. We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nations ongoing battle against systemic racism, Mayorkas said. He didnt mention the photographers eyewitness account. An official from the DHS responded to The Epoch Times request for comment on the new information regarding the email. The reporting on that seems to purposely avoid the facts, the official said via email on Oct. 14. The responsible action in any such scenario is to await the findings of the investigation and not make assumptions from any single press clipping. The official pointed to other remarks made by Mayorkas at the same press briefing. First of all, the images, as I expressed earlierthe images horrified us in terms of what they suggest and what they conjure up, in terms of not only our nations history, but, unfortunately, the fact that that page of history has not been turned entirely. And that means that there is much work to do, and we are very focused on doing it, Mayorkas said at the briefing. But I will not prejudge the facts. I do not, in any way, want to impair the integrity of the investigative process. We have investigators who are looking at it independently. They will draw their conclusions according to their standard operating procedures. Hours earlier, Biden had disparaged the horse patrol agents. To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped its outrageous, he said during a news conference on Sept. 24, 2021. I promise you, those people will pay. There will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. The Border Patrol agents involved have been on desk duty since the incident, and Judd says their careers were ruined by Biden. The president accused them of a criminal act. He has not apologized for that, Judd told The Epoch Times in an earlier interview. Eight months after the incident, an internal review found there was no evidence that agents struck any person, intentionally or otherwise. Further, U.S. prosecutors declined to charge any of the agents involved, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed. Earlier, the DHS Office of Inspector General had declined to investigate the incident. However, four agents are facing disciplinary charges, CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus told reporters during a briefing on July 8. According to the report, that includes an agent who acted unprofessionally by shouting at an illegal immigrant and nearly coming into contact with a small child on the concrete ramp leading out of the river. The White House didnt respond to a request for comment. More Foods Will Be Gene-Edited Than You Think Gene editing has long been primarily used for research, treatment, and disease prevention. Currently, this technology is increasingly being applied to modify agricultural products to create more perfect species. More and more genetically edited foods are appearing on the market, including high-nutrient tomatoes and zero-trans-fat soybean oil. Some argue that gene-edited foods are safer than genetically modified (GM) foods (pdf). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) specified in 2018 that most genetically edited foods do not need to be regulated. However, are these foods, which will increasingly appear on the table, really risk-free? Gene Modification 2.0: Gene-Edited Foods May Become More Available In September 2021, the first gene-edited foodSicilian Rouge tomatoesmade with CRISPR-Cas9 technology were officially on sale. This gene-edited tomato contains high levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps lower blood pressure and aids relaxation. Japanese researchers remove a gene from the genome of the common tomato. After the gene is removed, the activity of an enzyme in tomatoes increases, promoting the production of GABA. The GABA content in this tomato is four to five times higher than that of a regular tomato. Warren H. J. Kuo, an emeritus professor of the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University, explains that both gene editing and transgenic organisms are genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering. The earliest technique was genetic modification, that is, transgenicin which a plant or animal is being inserted a gene from another species, such as a specific bacterial gene. The purpose of artificially modifying plants and animals is to improve their resistance against diseases and droughts, promote growth rates, increase yields, or improve nutrient content. However, the finished product will exhibit the foreign species genes. Kuo says that transgenic modification is genetic modification 1.0, while gene editing is genetic modification 2.0. Gene editing is directly modifies the genes of the organism itself, so most of them do not exhibit foreign genes. However, the most common gene editing technique, CRISPR-Cas9, introduces foreign genes as the editing tool, and then removes the transplanted foreign genes. While gene-edited tomatoes were on the market, Japan also approved two types of fish genetically edited with CRISPRtiger pufferfish and red seabream. These fish are genetically edited to accelerate muscle growth. Among them, the gene-edited tiger pufferfish weighs nearly twice that of the ordinary species. Back in 2019, the United States had used another earlier gene-editing technique to create soybean oil with zero trans fat and introduced it into the market. Gene-edited foods which have also been approved for sale worldwide by now include soybeans, corn, mushrooms, canola, and rice. The number of genetically edited foods on the market is likely to increase. Patent applications relating to CRISPR-edited commercial agricultural products have skyrocketed since the 2014/2015 period. Gene-Edited Foods May Pose 2 Major Risks Proponents of genetic modification believe this is a method to perfect agricultural produce and solve problems such as pests, droughts, and nutritional deficiencies. But the technology is still a double-edged sword. Genetic engineering indeed has its benefits in the short term, but it may bring long-term pitfalls, said Joe Wang, molecular biologist. Wang is currently a columnist with The Epoch Times. Hornless cattle were once the celebrity of the animal kingdom, appearing in news stories one after another. Many breeds of dairy cattle have horns, but they are dehorned to prevent them from harming humans and other animals, and to save more feeding trough space. To solve the problem of horns, the gene editing company Recombinetics successfully produced hornless cattle with gene-editing techniques many years ago. The company simply added a few letters of DNA to the genome of ordinary cattle and their offspring didnt grow horns, either. However, a few years later, an accident happened. The FDA found that a modified genetic sequence of a bull contained a stretch of bacterial DNA including a gene conferring antibiotic resistance, which has been one of the global health crises in recent years. Scientists arent clear whether this gene in gene-edited cattle will pose a greater risk than expected or not, and the FDA has stressed that its hazard-free. However, John Heritage, a retired microbiologist from Leeds University, told MIT Technology Review that the antibiotic resistance gene could be absorbed by gut bacteria in cattle and could create unpredictable opportunities for its spread. In fact, this is one of the currently perceived risks of genetically edited foods. Genetic Accidents, New Toxins? The problem with unexpected accidents in the genetic modification process occurs in GM foods because transgenic techniques cannot control where the foreign gene is embedded in the chromosome. Kuo used the example of a study that compared the protein of transgenic soybeans and non-transgenic soybeans. These transgenic soybeans were initially embedded with one foreign gene, and should have had only one protein that didnt exist before. However, the comparison showed that there was a difference of about 40 proteins between the two: Half of the proteins were originally present, but disappeared after transgenic modification; the other half were not present but were added after the transgenic modification. In contrast, emerging gene editing techniques allow for more precise modification of specific genes (pdf). Its like a tailor modifying a section of a zipper by cutting off a specific segment and replacing it with a new one. However, there may be mistakes and unexpected changes in the process of cutting and repairing, and another similar section of the zipper may also be cut off. Kuo says that this process may have unforeseen side effects; for example, if during this, new allergy-causing proteins or new toxins are produced. The genetic engineering procedure, and this includes gene editing, has the potential to damage DNA, said molecular geneticist Dr. Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at Kings College London, in an interview in April 2022. If you alter gene function, you automatically alter the biochemistry of the plant included within that altered biochemistry can be the production of novel toxins and allergens that is my main concern. More Herbicide Use? Another major concern with GM foods is herbicide residue. Most crops, whether genetically edited or genetically modified, have herbicide-resistant genes incorporated into them. This is done so that when herbicides are applied to crops for weed control, the crops themselves wont be harmed. When planting herbicide-resistant crops, farmers can use herbicides rather liberally. But, long term, the weeds the farmers are targeting become increasingly herbicide-resistant as well, resulting in a cycle of increased herbicide use and resistance. Since the introduction of herbicide-resistant GM crops in 1996, herbicides have experienced a significant growth in application every year. The herbicides residue in the crops grown are increasing as well. One of the most widely used herbicides is glyphosate under the trade name Roundup. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies glyphosate as a Group 2A carcinogen that is probably carcinogenic to humans. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher Stephanie Sene and scientific consultant Anthony Samsel said in their study that 80 percent of GM crops, especially corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, sugar beets, and alfalfa, are specifically introduced with glyphosate resistance genes. In addition to carcinogenic concerns, glyphosate may have more harmful effects. They have collected and reviewed 286 studies and indicated that glyphosate inhibits the activity of an enzyme in the mitochondria of liver cellscytochrome P450which has the ability to detoxify and decompose foreign toxic substances. Moreover, glyphosate also has adverse effects on the gut microbiota. These effects are not immediately apparent, but in the long run may contribute to inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, cancer, infertility, and developmental abnormalities. An animal study published in Environmental Health shows that long-term exposure to ultra-low doses of glyphosate still causes liver and kidney diseases in rats. Should Gene-Edited Food Be Regulated? The debate over whether GM food is safe or not has not yet settled. Many advocates of transgenic modification and gene editing believe that people have been eating GM crops for 20-plus years and still there is no evidence that they have caused problems to human health. Other argue they contribute to long term harm that is still being measured. Kuo said that GM food is not a highly toxic drug causing immediate problems. Health problems can be the result of something cumulative, and hard to relate back to a single food cause. Whether GM foods are the culprit of such health problems has not been proven, nor ruled out. At present, various countries have adopted an early warning principle for GM foods, stipulating that merchants label their products. It is the consumers decision to purchase them or not. Will gene-edited food require specific labeling? Some argue that because these foods do not exhibit foreign genes, there should not be such regulation. Kuo believes this is a misleading argument, given that the tool used to edit the original genes were in fact foreign genes, and the method carries the risk that these foreign genes may not be completely removed. Currently, the regulations for gene-edited foods in various countries are much looser than those for GM foods. The USDA has consistently stated that gene-edited agricultural products are not regulated. Plant technologists are usually given the green light within months after submitting inquiries to the agency, allowing them to grow gene-edited foods without oversight. In addition to the United States, Brazil and Australia and other countries have also adopted similar regulatory approaches. European regulations are still more stringent. Antoniou argues that since these GM agricultural products are not monitored, the unexpected genes that they carry are released into the environment and will cause harm to it. They may also cause harm to the public due to the scientific communitys insufficient understanding of their risks. Wang said that scientists who support gene editing believe that what they are doing now will also happen in nature, albeit at a slower pace. They simply speed it up. However, humans are not gods and cannot control everything. When humans do such things, the odds of mistakes and danger are definitely higher than what happens naturally, Wang said. We humans have violated the laws of nature for a long time, Kuo said. More National Security Threats Come From Domestic Left-Wing Extremists: Experts News Analysis National security analysts, scholars, and a federal indictment reveal that threats from left-wing extremist groups in the United States are more dangerous than right-wing and MAGA Republican groups recently cited by the Biden administration as threats to democracy. According to the U.S. government, some of the left-wing groups are being funded by Russian influence operations to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States. On July 29, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the indictment of a Russian national for working on behalf of the Russian government to sow discord in the United States. From at least December 2014 until March 2022, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, together with at least three Russian officials, engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States the indictment alleged. A DOJ press release stated, Ionovworking under the supervision of the FSB [Russias Federal Security Services] and with the Russian governments supportrecruited political groups within the United States, including U.S. Political Group 1 in Florida, U.S. Political Group 2 in Georgia, and U.S. Political Group 3 in California, and exercised direction or control over them on behalf of the FSB. Russia Supports Left-wing Groups Ionovs activities were not in support of right-wing groups, the operation was allegedly funding left-wing groups that promoted socialism, defunding police, and California secession, according to multiple reports. In August, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Political Group 1 named in the indictment is the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP) of St Petersburg, Florida. On the groups website, its chairman, Omali Yeshitela, is quoted as saying we need a revolution and promotes calls for reparations for slavery. On July 29, the same day the indictment for Ionov was unsealed, it was raided by the FBI, according to the APSP. When contacted for comment, a spokesman for the APSP said it was unlikely that the group would be able to answer questions from The Epoch Times based on advice from counsel. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified Political Group 2 in a July 29 article as the Atlanta-based Black Hammer Party. On May 31, 2020, the groups website featured a statement by Ionov responding to the death of George Floyd that stated: Justice for George Floyd and all Colonized people (aka people of color), who have died at the hands of White Power Colonial terrorism (aka americas racist police system). The group states it exists to take the land back for all colonized people worldwide Currently, our physical and intellectual labor is being coerced to build for the capitalist white colonial state, but it can be redirected to a noble cause. The Black Hammer Party could not be reached for comment. The Sacramento Bee identified Political Group 3 as Yes California, an organization formed to promote California secession from the United States. Louis Marinelli, the founder of the organization, had worked in Russia teaching English. According to some news sources, Marinelli may once have held conservative views, however, the Yes California Twitter feed was critical of President Donald Trump and suggested that his reactionary policies were helping to drive the California secession movement. Marinelli could not be reached for comment. Politicizing Domestic Threats Critics have accused the Biden administration of using the levers of the federal government to attack his political opposition by prioritizing what he calls threats to democracy and domestic tranquility. Bidens list of targets has included Trump supporters, election deniers, and white supremacists. In early September, bathed in a red-lit backdrop and flanked by two U.S. Marines, Biden told the nation, There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country. Bidens Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made groups and individuals that Biden considers a threat a priority for investigation. The DHS refused to be interviewed for this report but provided a Summary of Terrorism Threat to the United States which was published in the June National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin. The bulletin stated: The continued proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding current events could reinforce existing personal grievances or ideologies, and in combination with other factors, could inspire individuals to mobilize to violence. Many of the domestic threats listed in the bulletin were identifying those who question the administrations policies: Some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances related to their perception that the U.S. government is unwilling or unable to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Given a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case about abortion rights, individuals who advocate both for and against abortion have, on public forums, encouraged violence, including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies. The bulletin also predicts, As the United States enters mid-term election season this year, we assess that calls for violence by domestic violent extremists directed at democratic institutions, political candidates, party offices, election events, and election workers will likely increase. While the DHS and the Biden administration say they are expecting violence from right-wing groups, others say there is a more pressing threat from the left. Academic Report Fears Leftists In the summer of 2020, Rutgers Universitys Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience issued a report (pdf) that found evidence that left-wing groups pose a considerable threat: Anarcho-socialist militias which explicitly glorify Martyr narratives, classic authoritarian narratives, and revolutionary narratives are now formally organizingand are growing. The Miller Center cited leftist groups such as the Youth Liberation Front, John Brown Gun Club, Redneck Revolt, and the Socialist Rifle Association, among others, which claim 10,000 to 40,000 members on social media accounts. The Miller Center report says these groups use social media to promote violence: Extreme anarcho-socialist fringe online forums on Reddit use memes calling for the death of police and memes for stockpiling munitions to promote violent revolution. The report cites the example of Willem Van Spronsen who was shot and killed during a shootout with police in July 2019. Van Spronsen was fire-bombing an Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Washington state. Multiple news reports state that Van Spronsen was a member of Antifa and the John Brown Gun Club. According to the global nonprofit organization Counter Extremism Project (CEP), many of these groups operate under the wide umbrella of Antifa which is made up of individual cells and the leaders of these cells remain autonomous, states CEPs reporting. John Farmer, Director of the Miller Center, in an email response to questions from The Epoch Times, stated that he does not see a serious national security threat from either the right or left. Quite frankly, I dont view either the so-called anarcho-socialist extremists or the white nationalist extremists as a serious threat to national security, Farmer stated. However, extremists on both sides do pose problems, according to Farmer: Each in their own way is a threat to public order; each, for different reasons, seeks to destabilize our institutions and overthrow the established norms of democracy. Each has proven violent, even murderous, in differing contexts. What Political Attacks Mean J. Michael Waller, a national security and intelligence expert at the Center for Security Policy, told The Epoch Times that the Biden administration is trying to frighten the public by labeling Trump supporters as threats to democracy: They are trying to create a political, psychological, and legal pretext for cracking down on groups and larger movements that they can connect through guilt by association. Waller compares this sort of labeling to the so-called red scare period during the Cold War. If you apply subjective definitions to words, and you make the words mean what you want them to mean, and you recklessly apply those words to your opponent, you are creating a 21st-century red scare. Waller says he sees a disturbing pattern in Bidens words. You label someone you dont like with an inflammatory term that objectively does not apply, which gives you the public support you need to amass more power to create more bureaucracy. You then have the legal grounds to go after what amounts to political opponents. Look at the way they throw around the word fascists, Waller said. They are not even using the objective definition of fascist. Why Trump Supporters Emily Finley, author of The Ideology of Democratism, told The Epoch Times that the Biden administration is laying the groundwork to normalize the idea that MAGA Republicans are extremists, adding that the larger philosophical impetus behind Bidens Philadelphia speech is to segregate and marginalize MAGA Republicans. By suggesting they are outside of the democratic process, they can safely exclude these extremists from the democratic process. They can be censored, they can be disenfranchised, if they are labeled as domestic terrorists, they can be jailed. Finley stated that when politicians decide what is and is not democracy it provides them with cover to pursue their own interests outside of the democratic process. Finley calls this democratism. Its democracy as they see it, and it doesnt necessarily incorporate any actual elements of popular rule. They can even do away with the pretense that they are working toward democracy and that their actions are part of the democratic process. By declaring themselves arbiters of democracy, politicians can create extrajudicial authority for themselves, according to Finley. They can censor, they can collude with big tech to censor, and they dont even have to worry about [being accused of] a First Amendment violation because so many of the elites are in on this understanding of democracy. There is almost an unspoken agreement that certain voices can be marginalized and silenced and can be excluded. They have a very particular idea about normative politics in mind, said Finley, referring to the political class and the media, which she says explains why it appears that there is collaboration. This ideology is like the air that we breathe. There is such a widespread understanding of democracy as democratism instead of actual popular rule; the understanding of that is so wide and deep in western society now there doesnt need to be someone telling them how to interpret events, Finley said. They hold certain assumptions on social issues. They have certain assumptions about human nature, about biology, about social organization, about gender. They have preconceived ideas about what society should look like and so the vision they have in mind, to them, is considered the democracy that we should be striving toward. So, whenever the electorate goes in the opposite direction from what they think is true democracy, then they will find ways to label that opposition as anti-democratic. The White House Press office did not return calls for comment. Naked Officials Purged Before Chinese Communist Partys 20th National Congress Experts say the move is to prevent officials from fleeing a change of power Before the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) starts on Oct.16, a purge of naked officials occurred to prevent the cadres from leaving China. Experts say this maneuver indicates that the officials have no confidence in the prospects of the ruling regime. Naked officials are officials within the Communist Party system who have sent their families and large sums of money from corruption to another country. The term signifies that they have stripped themselves of practically everything and can thus leave China at a moments notice and keep the embezzled money should the CCP fall. Wang Dawei, former vice governor of Liaoning Province and former head of the Department of Public Security is one of the top officials caught in this round of investigations. In a Sept. 29 notice on the Discipline Inspection Commissions website, Wang was named as guilty of corruption and called a naked official who used a fake marriage to conceal his identity in order to maintain power. China expert and current affairs commentator Li Yanming told The Epoch Times that Wang attempted to cover up his status as a naked official even though he is a senior political and legal executive. Most officials would prepare their way out surreptitiously so they are ready to flee at any time. The CCP expects such naked officials to resign from their official positions. Official media People.cn reported on a regulation issued by the Central Organization Department in February 2014 that defined naked officials as state employees whose spouses and children have moved abroad, hence, those officials are not allowed to be the leading members of party and government organs, the principal positions of state-owned enterprises and institutions, or those involved in the military, diplomacy, national security, Confidential, and other important positions. Attendants stand near a picture of CCP leader Xi Jinping during an exhibition that showed the countrys achievements during Xis past two terms in office, in Beijing, Oct. 12, 2022, ahead of the 20th National Congress. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images) Li believes that the crackdown on naked officials before the twentieth congress is closely related to the upcoming change of government and reshuffling of personnel within the CCP. A similar crackdown on naked officials occurred in 2013, shortly after Xi Jinping took office at the 18th Congress, Li said. In 2014 alone, more than 3,200 naked officials were purged nationwide, according to People.cn on Dec. 16, 2014. The Beijing Municipal Public Prosecutors Office revealed in 2014 that, in the three decades preceding 2014, about 4,000 corrupt officials fled the country with corrupt money, accounting for 40 percent of general economic charges and up to 80 percent of bribery and embezzlement cases. On Oct. 22, 2021, discipline inspectors identified three high officials who were punished as examples of being in China but having a heart abroad and leaving a back door open. Cao Jianliao, former vice mayor of Guangzhou and former secretary of the Zengcheng municipal committee, reportedly accepted bribes of more than 70 million yuan (about $9.84 million) to obtain Hong Kong and Macau resident identity cards for himself and his family. Wen Min, former director of the Inner Mongolia Defense Science and Industry Office and former deputy director of the Economic and Information Commission, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption and bribery. Wen was convicted of transferring funds through the underground money market to buy real estate for his daughter who was studying in Australia. Zhang Shuguang, was investigated and resigned as former head of the transportation bureau of the Ministry of Railways. Zhang was later reported to have moved his wife and children out of China. According to a conservative figure published by Lin Zhe, a professor at the Partys Central School for training Chinese officials, from 1995 to 2005, at least 1.18 million spouses and children of Chinese officials settled abroad. The twentieth congress will decide the CCP next leader, while the official media report on the naked officials cases. It seems that officials have no confidence in the Party itself, reflecting that they know the end of the CCP is near and the Communist system is just holding on to its last breath, Li said. The Morton County Commission on Thursday opted to further consider a grievance filed by a fired prosecutor who says her termination was based on gender discrimination, even after the board's attorney said it has no authority to reinstate her. The commission's move followed a 3-2 vote against a motion to deny Gabrielle Goter's request to be reinstated as an assistant state's attorney. Commissioner Andy Zachmeier made the motion to deny Goter's request, citing mainly that personnel decisions rest not with the commission but with the elected state's attorney. He and Ray Morrell voted in favor. Commissioners Ron Leingang, Jackie Buckley and Nathan Boehm voted against it. The commission will hold a special meeting Wednesday to reconsider the matter. Boehm after the vote said he didn't disagree with Zachmeier that the commission lacked authority to reinstate Goter, but said he had received in the last day more information that he wanted to consider. Goter was fired a month ago over allegations that she created a hostile work environment. Goter in documents filed earlier this month with the countys Human Resources Department sought to get her job back and pushed for an independent review of the process and procedures followed in the investigation that led to her dismissal. She alleged further that County States Attorney Allen Koppy, whom she seeks to unseat in the November election, placed her on administrative leave on the day she raised the issue of him potentially having a conflict of interest. Goter during the Thursday meeting reiterated her claims to the commission. The people conducting the investigation "had not even attempted to remain neutral," and Koppy chose "the most extreme option" in firing her, instead of forming a correction plan based on employee reviews, she said. The attorney representing Morton County, Elise Heifort of Pemberton Law, told the commission that Koppy under state law has the final authority in the state's attorney office. Goter's behaviors created "an environment of fear," Heifort said, and added that Goter was not willing to accept that her behavior was intimidating. Her performance in the courtroom was exceptional, Heifort said, but she as a supervising attorney set a poor tone with what Heifort called "immature" behaviors such as silent treatment and retaliatory actions. An employee filed a complaint against Goter on June 7. Koppy placed Goter on administrative leave June 27 at the direction of the County Human Resources Department, though she still continued to handle cases. Koppy fired Goter on Sept. 12 after the investigation and report by Heifort's Minnesota law firm. The report stated Goter had not treated people well within the work environment and was consistently described as a workplace bully by witnesses. Goter maintains she was denied due process in part because she and her attorney were not given access to complaints. She also said in her grievance that Several of the allegations levied at Goter, including being intimidating, being unapproachable, and/or being demanding are terms typically used to describe discriminatory attitudes toward female leadership. Human Resources Director Wendy Bent in a statement to the Tribune earlier this week said Goter's claims of bias and discrimination were simply unfounded. The investigation was handled by a female attorney certified in anti-discriminatory law and who specializes in gender inequities, Bent said. "That external investigation independently validated the findings of the internal investigation," Bent said. Goter garnered 1,517 votes or just more than 53% in the June 14 primary election. Koppy had 1,333 or about 47%, according to the North Dakota Secretary of State's website. The top two candidates in the primary move on to the general election. There was not a third candidate. Koppy in 2018 overcame a primary deficit to beat Goter in the general election. Koppy has been the state's attorney since 1987. In 1990 and 1994, he defeated Goters father, Wayne Goter. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and U.S. Secretary for Defense Lloyd J. Austin III participate in a media conference during a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Oct. 13, 2022. (Olivier Matthys/AP Photo) NATO Chief Warns Russia Not to Cross Very Important Line BRUSSELSRussian President Vladimir Putin would be crossing a very important line if he were to order the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Thursday, as both the military alliance and Russia are due to hold nuclear exercises in the next few days. NATO is holding its exercise, dubbed Steadfast Noon, next week. The long-planned maneuvers are conducted around the same time every year and run for about one week. They involve fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but do not involve any live bombs. Russia usually holds its own maneuvers around the same time, and NATO is expecting Moscows exercise of its nuclear forces sometime this month. Stoltenberg said NATO will closely monitor what Russia is up to. Asked what NATO would do if Russia launched a nuclear attack, Stoltenberg said: We will not go into exactly how we will respond, but of course this will fundamentally change the nature of the conflict. It will mean that a very important line has been crossed. He added that even any use of a smaller nuclear weapon will be a very serious thing, fundamentally changing the nature of the war in Ukraine, and of course that would have consequences. Stoltenbergs remarks came after a meeting of NATOs secretive Nuclear Planning Group, which was held among defense ministers in Brussels, as concerns deepen over Putins insistence that he will use any means necessary to defend Russian territory. The meeting, which usually happens once or twice a year, comes amid high tension as some NATO allies, led by the United States, supply Ukraine with advanced weapons and munitions to defend itself against Russian aerial attacks. Irresponsible and reckless rhetoric is dangerous, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said of Russian threats to potentially use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. However the United States has not seen the need to make any changes to its current military posture or response, Austin said. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also warned Putin not to cross that threshold. Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated, he said in a speech in Bruges, Belgium. NATO is keeping a wary eye on Russias movements in its war with Ukraine, but has so far seen no change in its nuclear posture. Putins nuclear exercises though could make it more difficult for NATO to understand what Russias intentions might be, potentially increasing the risk of an accident. Russia will also be conducting its annual exercise, I think, the week after or just after the annual exercise, U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told reporters Wednesday. But what we dont want is to do things out of routine. This is a routine exercise and its all about readiness, Wallace said, just as NATOs meeting is all about making sure we are ready for anything. I mean, that is the job of this allianceto make sure that the 30 partners together are ready for what is thrown at us. And we have to continue to work at that. Fourteen NATO member countries will be involved in Steadfast Noon, which was planned before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The main part of the maneuvers will be held more than 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) from Russia. NATO as an organization doesnt possess any weapons. The nuclear weapons nominally linked to the alliance remain under the firm control of three member countriesthe United States, the United Kingdom, and France. But France insists on maintaining its nuclear independence and doesnt take part in Nuclear Planning Group meetings. With the Russian army retreating in some places when faced with Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons, Putin raised the stakes by annexing four Ukrainian regions and declaring a partial mobilization to buttress the crumbling front line. Putin has signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect Russian gains. The threat is also aimed at deterring NATO nations from sending more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. In an interview with France 2 television, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that France would not respond with a nuclear strike. He also warned about the responsibilities of leaders when it comes to nuclear rhetoric and said he has spoken to Putin several times. We have a [nuclear] doctrine, which is clear, Macron said. The dissuasion is working. But then, the less we talk about it, the less we brandish the threat, the more credible we are. Too many people are talking about it, he said. By Lorne Cook Nazis Started Forced Renewable Energy Transition, Expert Says The first political party to have a renewable energy program was the Nazi party in the 1933 Reichstag elections. Their goal was to transition to wind power, and use the wind to produce hydrogen, according to Rupert Darwall, a senior fellow at RealClearFoundation. The catalyst for this energy revolution in the Nazi party was an us versus them mentality and was a fundamental reaction against the original sin of the Industrial Revolutiona revolution that significantly increased living standards for humanity and was made possible by coal, Darwall told Paul Greaney of NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, in an interview. But when the Nazi party fell, the Nazi and Neo-Nazi environmental leaders had to find new ways to further their energy revolution. Thus, they assumed leadership positions in an up-and-coming environmentalist party in Germany and joined in protesting nuclear energy during the Cold War. That party later officially became Germanys Green Party in 1980, which led to the greening of Germany, the eventual greening of Europe, and is based not on science, but on insane green ideology and control, Darwall claimed. The Grafenrheinfeld plant, in operation since 1981, was taken offline in 2015 as part of the phase-out policy for nuclear power in Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) False Catastrophes and Control In the interview, which aired on NTDs Fresh Look America on Oct. 12, Darwall, whos also a policy expert, explained the underlying factors in the global push to reach Net Zero by 2050. Unlike what people have been led to believe, Darwall stated, the transition towards renewable energygenerally understood as energy derived from sources such as the sun or wind that replenish faster than theyre usedis not based on science but is instead rooted in Nazi environmentalism where the present needs to be sacrificed for the sake of some better future: a purer, cleaner, greener future. Its also about the elites controlling the population, a control they tried to accomplish through communism and socialism but have so far failed to realize fully, he said. Darwall specified that in their efforts to gain control and force the populace to bow to their energy whims, environmentalists invented imaginary catastrophes as propaganda tools to stop debate. He added that much of what people see today concerning claims to climate catastrophes involve two things: climate tipping points and a 1988 climate conference in Toronto, Canada, where those in attendance falsely claimed that climate change will be second only to a global nuclear war. Scientists claim the Arctic has been one of the regions hardest hit by climate change. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) According to Darwall, one of the climate tipping points was the melting of Greenlands ice sheet, a claim made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. However, Darwall points out that in the IPCCs own assessment report, Greenlands ice sheet melting irrecoverably only occurred under sustained warming of higher temperatures. And even in those circumstances, the Greenland ice sheet melted over multiple millennia. Concerning extreme weather events akin to global nuclear war, Darwall says, weve had how many years since 1988? Over three decades. Can anyone really say, hand on heart, youve seen anything approaching a global nuclear war in terms of extreme weather? Because climate change is manifested in extreme weather. Theres nothing that remotely justifies such a claim. Still, using terms such as catastrophe has worked to further green ideology and facilitated the forced reorganizing of society by environmentalists. Darwall points out that IPCCs 2015 report essentially says Net Zero offers the opportunity for societal transformation. A transformation made possible by giving climate activists control of energy policy to decarbonize and avert catastrophe. Real Energy Crisis In their desire to avoid imaginary catastrophes by implementing a completely insane energy policy, Darwall said environmentalists led the world into an actual catastrophe in the emerging and quickly worsening energy crisis. [In the 1970s] the higher price of oil stimulated more investment in oil production. And the result was that by the mid 1980s, the price had come down to what it had been before the Iranian Revolution. That wont happen this time because the whole point is to suppress production of oil and gas. So thats why this time is fundamentally different. Because hes committed to green ideology, Darwall added, President Biden isnt willing to increase domestic production. But because of voter blowback from higher gasoline prices, Biden made overtures to OPEC+ to bring the price down temporarily. Darwall also said that while the United States is experiencing high gas prices, it isnt in the same pickle as Europe because Congress has yet to pass a law requiring the United States to achieve Net Zero. Europe, being much further along in its renewable energy transition, has increased its reliance on wind, solar, and, irrationally, Russian oil and gas imports. Darwall further claimed that those in control in Europe are OK with higher energy costs as theyre fully committed to fundamentally changing society and purposefully reducing the standard and quality of life in their push to deindustrialize Europe. Protesters attend a rally triggered by energy price hikes in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Jan. 4, 2022. (Abduaziz Madyarov/AFP via Getty Images) [Net zero] fundamentally changes our way of life. That is the whole point of it. For environmentalism, the modern consumer society of mass consumerism, of consumption of materials, and so forth, is bad. They actually want to change that. So, of course it involves a big reduction in peoples standard of living, a big change in their quality of life. What environmentalists didnt expect, though, was a conflict between Ukraine and Russia that exacerbated the energy crisis to the point where Europe is facing a winter of high energy prices, potential blackouts, and a complete shutdown of the economy due to a lack of energy. Still, Darwall pointed out that while a rational society might pause and evaluate its policies, no such evaluation is taking place. Instead, the opposite is happening, and Europe has accelerated its renewable energy transition by closing nuclear power stations. The German government is closing its last three, even despite the energy crisis. Belgium is shutting one down. That green irrationalism, Darwall alleged, is a direct result of the Green Partys influence and, by way of Nazis originally leading the Green Party, by Nazi philosophy and their willingness to engage in complete control and tyrannyelements still at play today. If youre going to force people to live a low carbon existence, it requires a degree of control, state control over people, what people do and how they live their lives, Darwall added. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley visits "Fox & Friends" at Fox News Channel Studios in New York City on Nov. 12, 2019. (John Lamparski/Getty Images) New York Republicans Ask DOJ to Investigate State AG Over Nikki Haley Donors List Leak A group of New York Republicans is pressing the Department of Justice to investigate state Attorney General Letitia James, whom former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has accused of leaking a list of donors to her policy advocacy group. In a Tuesday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, firstly obtained by Fox News, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), alongside five other House GOPs, expressed their distinct concern of the potential delivery, receipt, and publication of private donor identities of the conservative not-for-profit group Stand For America(SFA), which could have violated federal law. As release of these records creates a dangerous precedent for the political weaponization of NYAGO, the US Department of Justice [DOJ] must investigate the malicious delivery of SFA donor information by NYAGO to an outside politically aligned organization to protect the safety and privacy of all nonprofit donor organizations registered in New York, the lawmakers said. It came after Politico obtained from watchdog group Documented and publicized on Aug. 26 an unredacted copy of SAFs 2019 tax return, disclosing a list of donors that is normally held secret. A stamp from the New York Attorney Generals charity office appeared on the last page of the leaked filings. Haley accused James office in late August of breaking tax laws over the leakage against her nonprofit, seeing it as an attempt to intimidate conservative donors. The tax filings reveal the groups funders who made anonymous contributions to the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, including a wealthy New Jersey family and some major donors of the Republican Party. Leaking a confidential tax return is against state and federal law and look whose stamp is on the last page of the @StandForAmerica filing leaked to the media this week. Liberal corruption strikes again. pic.twitter.com/JQ3hvLoDA6 Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) August 27, 2022 It is imperative that the DOJ evaluate and ascertain whether protections extended to organizations such as SFA were violated with political motivation to mitigate potential erosions of the rights to free speech afforded under the First Amendment, the six lawmakers wrote in the Oct. 11 letter. The Republicians also noted that willful disclosure of the tax return information and schedule of contributors to any unauthorized persons is considered a felonious offense punishable by fine, imprisonment, or a combination of both. As the NYAGO would be normally tasked with the investigation of such a matter and the offices potential involvement in this troubling situation, wrote the lawmakers, the DOJ must conduct an immediate investigation to avoid any impartiality and ensure equal justice is afforded to SFA and any other nonprofit organization that maybe impacted by similar matters in the future. New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference in New York City on June 11, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Joining the Tuesday letter are the states GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik, John Katko, Andrew Garbarino, Claudia Tenney, and Chris Jacobs. The DOJ and James office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Politico Not Authorized The Haley team previously attempted to hold back the Politico story, saying the outlet was not authorized to receive the confidential tax return information, nor is [it] entitled to print, publish, or even retain it, according to the August report. This disclosure of a confidential tax return was clearly a corrupt violation of state and federal law to try to intimidate conservative donors, Haley wrote via Twitter following the leakage. Liberals have always weaponized government against conservatives, and Republicans have been too nice for too long. We will make sure the buck stops here, her post reads. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks in a neighborhood impacted by Hurricane Ian at Fisherman's Wharf in Fort Myers, Fla., on Oct. 5, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) DeSantis Responds to Nikolas Cruz Sentence The man who admitted to murdering 17 people in a high school in Florida should have been sentenced to death, the states governor said on Oct. 13. I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that is a case where youre massacring those students with premeditation and utter disregard for basic humanity, that you deserve the death penalty, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told reporters at an unrelated press conference in Cape Coral. Charlie Crist, a Democrat challenging DeSantis, agreed. There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death. The Parkland families and community deserved that degree of justice, Crist wrote on Twitter. Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to shooting 14 students and three adults dead in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018. He also admitted to attempting to murder 17 others. But a jury could not reach a unanimous decision on sentencing Cruz to death, meaning he will spend life in prison without the possibility of parole. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. The seven-man, five-woman jury unanimously agreed there were aggravating factors to warrant a possible death sentence, such as agreeing that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. But one or more jurors also found mitigating factors, such as untreated childhood issues. In the end, the jury could not agree that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones, so Cruz will get life without parole. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz, seated with sentence mitigation specialist Kate OShea, left, and Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeil, in court as verdicts are read in his trial in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/Pool/Getty Images) Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences Nov. 1. Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak. Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas, in an interview broadcast on local TV station WPLG, indicated more than one juror voted for life in prison. We went through all the evidence and some of the jurors just felt that was the appropriate sentence, Thomas said. I didnt vote that way, so Im not happy with how it worked out, but everyone has the right to decide for themselves. That means that this killer is going to end up getting the same sentence as people who have committed bad acts but acts that did not rise to this level, DeSantis said. I just dont think anything else is appropriate except the capital sentence in this case. So I was very disappointed to see that. Im also disappointed that were four-and-a-half years after those killings and were just now getting this. They used to do this, he would have been executed in six months. Hes guilty. Everybody knew that from the beginning, and yet it takes years and years in this legal system that is not serving the interest of victims. Numerous family members of victims also expressed disappointment with Cruz avoiding the death penalty. Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law, Tony Montalto, father of 14-year-old Gina Montalto, said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 4, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) No Timeline for Hiring Iran Sanctions Staff, Federal Minister Says Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says that while legislation is coming within weeks to get tough on the Iranian regime, there is no timeline for hiring people to help enforce fresh sanctions. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a week ago that Canada would ban thousands of Iranian officials from entering the country, pledging $76 million to enforce new sanctions. Mendicino said Thursday this would involve hiring 30 new people as either RCMP officers or public servants Were not talking about months, I would say certainly within weeks, Mendicino told reporters. But on Friday, Mendicino clarified that timeline, saying he meant legislation will come soon. He had no target date for hiring experts to enforce the new sanctions. The time frame, of referring to weeks, is about making sure that we can move forward with that designation of the Iranian regime, Mendicino said. The Canada Border Services Agency is working on that aspect, he added. This months announcements follow sustained criticism from members of the Iranian diaspora, who have spotted officials associated with human-rights abuses moving freely in Canada. Hamed Esmaeilion, who represents relatives of those killed when Irans military shot down Flight PS752 in January 2020, testified about the issue on Oct. 6. Canada has become a safe haven for the criminals of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Esmaeilion told the House justice committee. Sanctions experts have said Canada is far behind its peers in having the capability to enforce existing sanctions. We dont have a deep bench when it comes to financial crimes and enforcement in Canada, Jessica Davis, who studies terrorism financing, said last week. She noted it can take years to train people to have the expertise to monitor people who are sanctioned. Canada is hoping to not just freeze assets but hand over cash to victims and human-rights groups, and Davis said judges will only approve such transfers if officials have gathered adequate evidence. While Mendicino had no timeline for hiring, he stressed Friday that Canada already has been enforcing sanctions, including against Iranian officials. Its not as though we are just standing up resources now to make good on the sanctions we have imposed, he said. This is not about starting from square onethis is about building on top of an already robust public safety and national security apparatus. By Dylan Robertson North Carolina police respond to an active shooter in an east Raleigh neighborhood on Oct. 13, 2022. (Courtesy of WTVD) North Carolina Police Officer Among 5 Fatally Shot, Suspect Arrested After Manhunt The suspect of a shooting that killed five people including an off-duty police officer in North Carolinas capital city on Thursday has been taken into custody after a manhunt, according to police. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin confirmed that five people were killed when a gunman opened fire just after 5 p.m. at the Neuse River Greenway in east Raleigh. Another police officer was among those transported to an area hospital, but did not have life-threatening injuries, she said. The officer was later released while one person remains in critical condition. In an update at around 10.45 p.m., Lt. Jason Borneo of the Raleigh Police Department said the suspect is a male juvenile who was arrested at around 9.37 p.m. Borneo noted it was still an active investigation and officers were interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence. They plan to provide an update at 8.30 a.m. on Friday. Police had no further information to release about the four other victims who were killed. Authorities have set up a place for families to gather at WakeMed hospital. Tonight terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh. This is a senseless, horrific, and infuriating act of violence that has been committed, said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Cooper thanked law enforcement for their efforts to capture the suspect, stressing that they ran toward the active shooter who was ready to kill people and not away. Police Response Upon initial reports of the shooting, police closed sections of the area and advised residents to stay inside while they hunted the suspect down and contained him in a residence before arresting him, police said earlier. The suspect has been taken into custody. Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) October 14, 2022 This is a sad and tragic day for the City of Raleigh, Baldwin told reporters at around 8:30 p.m. local time on Thursday night while the suspect was still at large. At about 8 p.m., Raleigh Police reported that they had a suspect contained in a residence in the area. Raleigh Police are being assisted by numerous local and state law enforcement agencies, she added. Baldwin thanked the police officers who even now, right now, are protecting us, and putting themselves in harms way to arrest the suspect. We really appreciate them, she added. Tragic Day Earlier, Borneo said it was a tragic day for the police department and asked for prayers. Borneo said Police Chief Estella Patterson was returning to Raleigh from a professional conference and was being provided minute-by-minute updates on the evolution of what was then an active investigation. As of the 8:30 p.m. press conference, Borneo was unable to provide further details about the conditions of the victims nor whether law enforcement had established communication with the suspect. What we know, as the mayor has said, [is] that the suspect is contained. That suspect is contained, he said at the time. The swift and coordinated efforts of local and state law enforcement have the suspect in custody and we are thankful for their efforts. We mourn for the victims of this horrific and infuriating act of violence. RC Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) October 14, 2022 Earlier, before the suspect was taken into custody, Raleighs mayor called for the community to rally behind the families of the victims. All of us in Raleigh right now need to come together. We need to support those in our community who have suffered a terrible loss, a loss of a loved one. We need to support the family of the police officer who was killed and also the police officer who was shot, Baldwin said. The mayor also called for an end to mindless violence in America, saying we must do more. Australians are seen evacuating a pet dog through flood water In Rochester, Victoria, on Oct. 14, 2022. (AAP Image/James Ross) One Missing as Floods Strand Hundreds in Victoria Five hundred homes have flooded, another 500 have been isolated, and at least one person is missing in Victoria. Torrential rain has affected regional and metropolitan areas alike, while authorities warn sodden catchments will mean weeks of flood risk. Evacuation orders are in place for the town of Rochester along the Campaspe River, north of Melbourne, the central goldfields town of Carisbrook near Maryborough, Skinners Flat in Wedderburn and Seymour on the Goulburn River. Strong, fast-moving water from the dam a metre deep was expected to course through Wedderburn via the Calder Highway, authorities said on Friday. About 70 residents were ordered to leave Maribyrnong in Melbourne. The State Emergency Service has responded to more than 2600 requests for help in 24 hours and rescued at least 200 people in two days. At least one person had been reported missing in central Victoria, SES chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch said. Just before coming into this media conference, we did have a report of a missing person at Newbridge and a search and rescue are out there at the moment, he told reporters on Friday. State commander Josh Gamble said complacency was the main reason for people getting into trouble. Many of these people are putting their own lives at risk, their own children in some circumstances, but more importantly, other community members and responders and thats in all parts of the state not just metropolitan areas, he told ABC. Premier Daniel Andrews has announced one-off payments of $560 per adult and $280 per child for people displaced by the floods. About 1500 applications had been made by Friday afternoon. He urged Victorians to heed warnings. Please do not drive into floodwater, Premier Andrews told reporters on Friday. We have had more than 200 rescues, and many of those could have been prevented. The key point here is its very dangerous for you, and its also very dangerous for the emergency services. Anglers Tavern, on the banks of Melbournes Maribyrnong River, was partially submerged following the unprecedented overnight rain. At this stage, we dont have access to it, a spokeswoman said. Obviously, there has been flood damage to the venue, and well assess that once we have accesshopefully, tomorrow, depending on the weather. The federal member for the Melbourne seat of Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, said the situation was devastating. Its really upsetting for residents in my local community, Shorten told reporters in Melbourne. These are areas where Ive lived for the last 30 years. The last big floods were in 1974, so for a lot of people, this would be a new and devastating experience. A Victoria SES spokesperson said more than 50 sandbag collection points had been established, with more becoming available throughout the state. Multiple emergency relief centres have been set up, including in Bendigo, Seymour, Echuca, Wedderburn and Maryborough. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spoken to the premier about using the $580 million (US$366 million) Mickleham quarantine facility as emergency accommodation a week after it was officially closed. Opposition Leader Matthew Guy called on the government to declare a state of emergency. Traffic has been disrupted across the state, and regional V/Line trains and replacement buses were cancelled on the Shepparton, Seymour, Albury, Echuca and Swan Hill lines. The historical town of Seymour, 100km north of Melbourne, is facing its highest flood level since 1974. Authorities also expect Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley to experience its worst flood in almost three decades on Saturday. Ontario Man Charged for Allegedly Intimidating Health-Care Worker An Ontario man who allegedly made intimidating phone calls to a health-care worker has been charged under a federal law created last year amid protests against the governments COVID-19 measures. Louis Mertzelos, a 58-year-old resident of Windsor, allegedly made several phone calls to the office of Ottawa family physician Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, according to an Oct. 13 news release from the Ottawa Police Service (OPS), which has issued a warrant for his arrest. Mertzelos is facing four charges, including the hate-motivated offence of harassing communication, harassment by repeated communication, mischief, and intimidation of health service. Kaplan-Myrth said she was targeted after appearing on a national television show urging people to keep wearing masks. She also told the Ottawa Citizen that the charges were laid over two calls made in early September, adding that such calls occur all the time and are primarily made by those she alleged to be anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers. As of Oct. 14, the OPS told The Epoch Times that it has yet to locate Mertzelos. The agency declined to provide details of the victim in relation to the case. Bill C-3 The charge laid against Mertzelos was the result of Bill C-3, which added two new offences to the Criminal Code aimed at preventing intimidation against health care workers and patients. The bill took effect on Jan. 16, 2022. The legislation was introduced by the federal government in December 2021 after protests broke out across the country on Sept. 13, 2021, as governments started to impose mandatory COVID-19 vaccination mandates on public employees, including health-care workers and first responders. Canadian Frontline Nurses, a medical freedom advocacy group that organized protests outside of hospitals on Sept. 1 and Sept. 13, said at the time that it was taking a stand against tyrannical measures and government overreach. In response to the protests, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that there is no place for intimidation or threats at our hospitals and clinics, pledging to make it an offence to obstruct access to any building providing health services as well as acts that intimidate/threaten any health care worker or anyone seeking treatment. Canadian Frontline Nurses later released an open letter addressed to Trudeau, saying that remarks like his generate a divisive environment that pits family and friends against one another based on medical choices that individuals have made with careful consideration. We stand with our fellow medical practitioners who also believe in media choice. Many of them have attended our events. Some of them feel voiceless, pressured, and isolated, the group said. The charge of intimidating a health worker was laid this January against at least two other individuals, both of whom are residents of Peterborough, Ontario. The man and woman were allegedly involved in a protest outside the home of the citys public health officer. The Canadian Press contributed to this report. Police and SIU investigators gather at the scene where two police officers were killed in Innisfil, Ont., on Oct. 12, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Arlyn McAdorey) Ontario Police Officers Did Not Draw Firearms Before They Were Fatally Shot: Watchdog Two police officers who died responding to a call at an Innisfil, Ont., home did not draw their firearms before they were shot, Ontarios police watchdog said Thursday, as grieving friends and colleagues remembered the two men as kind and dedicated. The Special Investigations Unit had said a day earlier that there was an exchange of gunfire Tuesday night between the two officers and a young man, who also died in the shooting. New details emerged from the agency on Thursday, including that a third officer had been at the home. Based on preliminary information, the two officers did not draw their firearms when they were fatally shot, Special Investigations Unit spokeswoman Kristy Denette said in a written statement. A third officer who was also at the house exchanged gunfire with the man. The South Simcoe Police Service has identified the officers who died as Const. Devon Northrup, 33, and Const. Morgan Russell, 54. The third officer, who hasnt been named, was not injured, Denette said. The SIU, which is still investigating, said the three officers were responding to a call from a family member about a disturbance at a home. The young man, who lived at the home, had a gun that the SIU said was a SKS semi-automatic rifle. That type of rifle is available for purchase in Canada with a valid possession license. An autopsy on the man is set for Friday, the SIU said. The agency earlier said he was 23 years old, but clarified on Thursday that he was 22. The SIU did not name the young man but a source close to the investigation identified him as Chris Doncaster. Court records show that a Chris Doncaster was charged with mischief under $5,000 in October 2018 and two failures to appear in court. All three charges were withdrawn in June of the following year. The Department of National Defence confirmed Thursday that a man named Christopher Joseph Doncaster was a Canadian Armed Forces member from May to December 2020. He was a private with no deployment history and who did not complete basic training, the department said. An Instagram account that uses the name Chris Doncaster featured a photo posted over a year ago that appeared to depict a young man posing on a South Simcoe Police Service jet ski. Residents who live in the area have expressed shock at what happened. Some said an elderly couple who had an adult grandson lived in the house where the shooting took place. South Simcoe police said words cannot describe the grief the force is experiencing. Northrup, a six-year member of the South Simcoe Police Service, worked with the community mobilization and engagement unit, and also served as a member of the mental health crisis outreach team and the emergency response unit. He is survived by his partner and parents, police said. In 2020, Northrup was given an Excellence in Emergency award by the force for his role in helping a person in crisis. The officers can take comfort in knowing they saved this mans life that day, an annual report by the police force read. Russell, a father of two, was a 33-year veteran of the force. He was a trained crisis negotiator and was assigned to uniform patrol, the police service said. Condolences and memories of the two officers continued to pour in on Thursday. Flowers were seen placed outside South Simcoe Polices Innisfil detachment, and a community vigil drew mourners together Wednesday night as the officers were remembered. From the flowers and food being dropped off at our stations, to last nights packed candlelight vigil, to Innisfil Beach Park lit up in blue, to the book of condolence in Bradford, for all the posts and notes of condolence thank you, South Simcoe Police tweeted on Thursday afternoon. Mothers Against Drunk Driving expressed sadness over Northrups passing, saying he was played a pivotal role at the organizations York Region Chapter, where he worked as a former treasurer and director at large. Devon was a gentle giant with a smile that would light up a room; he will be truly missed, MADD York Region said in a Facebook post. Georgian College said in a statement that the school community was saddened about the loss of Russell, who graduated from the Law and Security program in 1988. College president Kevin Weaver shared condolences for Northrup and said flags would be lowered at Barrie and Orillia campuses in their memory. By Holly McKenzie-Sutter A local mother and her child protest outside Oakville Trafalgar High School on Sept. 23 against a teacher wearing large prosthetic breasts to class. (Peter Wilson/The Epoch Times) Ontario Regulator Agrees to Review Standards Amid Protests Over Teacher Wearing Prosthetic Breasts in Class An Ontario regulator for schoolteachers has agreed to review its professional standards after an outcry over a high school teacher who wore large prosthetic breasts with protruding nipples in class, and protests by parents and students. The teacher at Oakville Trafalgar High School (OTHS), located west of Toronto, came to public attention after students shared videos and photos of the teacher wearing the controversial apparel, prompting parents, students, and local residents to hold a large protest on Sept. 23. Several media reported that the teacher is transgender, and before transitioning was known to students and faculty as a male and went by a mans name. The teacher now identifies as a woman and is referenced with a female name. Parents who took part in the protest said it was not about transphobia or being anti-gay, but was just about the kids. Several students told The Epoch Times in previous interviews that they found the teachers apparel disturbing, or it made them feel uncomfortable or weirded out. In response to the public outcry, Ontarios Education Minister Stephen Lecce asked the Ontario College of Teachers to review and strengthen provisions surrounding professional conduct. 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 said at a press conference on Sept. 26. The College has agreed to the ministers request and is undertaking a review, according to spokesperson Andrew Fifield. The College has been reviewing its professional standards in response to Minister Lecces request. We will provide our response to the Minister when it is ready, Fifield told the National Post earlier this week. Per the Ministers request, we are reviewing the supports and guidance the College provides to members with respect to teacher professionalism. The College is expected to share results with Lecce later this month, according to the National Post. The Halton District School Board (HDSB), which oversees the OTHS, has defended the teacher. We are standing behind this member of staff, as prescribed by the Ontario Charter of Human Rights, HDSB chair Margo Shuttleworth told The Epoch Times on Sept. 19. During a HDSB meeting on Oct. 12, questions regarding dress code were raised by public members attending the four-hour meeting but were not read aloud as questions must be submitted to the board in writing in advance, reported the National Post. The HDSB, however, said a report on dress codes for schools under its operation was previously requested, and will likely be presented at the boards meeting in November, indicating that it will also be submitted to Lecce along with the Colleges report. The College does not have power over school boards but does license, govern, and regulate the teaching profession for publicly funded schools in the province, including issuing, suspending, and revoking teaching certificates, setting ethical standards and standards of practice, and investigating complaints about members. Teachers must have a valid teaching certificate. A new Lineworker Training Center on the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives campus in Mandan aims to boost training for Bismarck State College's lineworker program and for the electric co-op workforce in the state. Officials on Friday unveiled the $6.2 million, 26,337-square-foot facility that has been in the works more than a year. The new Lineworker Training Center stands as a testament of the electric cooperative commitment to our current and future workforce, to meeting the needs of our industry and, above all, powering the lives of our members and the communities we serve, association General Manager and Executive Vice President Josh Kramer said in a statement. The facility has an 18,000-square-foot indoor training arena with 50-foot walls and 44-foot ceiling clearance, providing adequate space to train workers on the construction and maintenance of overhead and underground electrical infrastructure. It also includes two classrooms and a simulator room for Commercial Drivers License training. The former facility consisting of a classroom and shop had been around since 1970, and did not have space for indoor utility pole training. Students also had to commute to BSC's campus in Bismarck to use truck-driving simulators. The new facility was funded by a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration, $1.1 million from North Dakota's electric co-ops, and $1 million in donations. The association owns the facility and will lease it to BSC, continuing a partnership that has been in place for more than 50 years and has trained more than 1,700 apprentice lineworkers. The association also sometimes brings lineworkers from co-ops across the state to Mandan for training. It's the only program of its kind in the state. An estimated 80% of the lineworkers employed by North Dakota's co-ops go through the 10-month program. North Dakotas electric cooperatives have doubled down on their commitment to improving the quality of life of the people they serve by reinvesting in this critical workforce, Kramer said. BSC leased the previous facility for about $60,000 per year. "One of our goals was to avoid an increase in BSCs cost to deliver the lineworker program," Kramer told the Tribune. "Even with an improved $6.1 million training facility, the cost to BSC will remain close to the same." The new facility is a great investment in the future workforce that is vital to North Dakota and our economy, BSC National Energy Center of Excellence Dean Bruce Emmil said in a statement to the Tribune. Lineworkers will continue to work in difficult weather conditions but from a training perspective, having the ability to continue instruction indoors will increase student effectiveness by providing them more time on the equipment and more opportunities to practice and master their skill sets, he said. The project also included a renovated headquarters for the association, which is a trade group for 16 electric distribution co-ops and five generation and transmission co-ops operating in North Dakota. A major component of the upgrade is a Cooperative Center that offers education, training and meeting spaces with improved technology. Two electric vehicle charging stations also have been installed for future use. These investments show that, as cooperatives, we are focused on the future and ready to meet the challenges ahead for our industry, Kramer said. Different colored fentanyl pills found in the Bronx, New York, seized by authorities on Oct. 7, 2022. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) Over 300,000 Rainbow Fentanyl Pills Seized in New York, Could Have Killled 850,000 People: DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Oct. 13 announced that a seizure in the Bronx, New York state, involved fentanyl that could have killed 850,000 people. The DEA and the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York announced that some 300,000 rainbow fentanyl pills, as well as 20 pounds of fentanyl in white and blue powder form were seized on Oct. 7. Some of the fentanyl pills looked like pharmaceutical drugs, including oxycodone and Xanax. Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said in a statement (pdf) that the rainbow fentanyl pills were worth up to $6 million on the street, and the powdered fentanyl was worth an estimated $3 million. The amount of illegal fentanyl concentrated in New York City and trafficked throughout our country is staggering, Brennan also said. It is sold as powder, in bright colors, soft pastels or disguised as common pharmaceuticals. Regardless of its appearance, or whether it is purchased on the street or online, it is deadly. The seizure represents more than 850,000 deadly doses of fentanyl and fentanyl pills prevented from reaching New York communities. Some 300,000 fentanyl pills and ten kilograms of fentanyl were found and seized by authorities in the Bronx, N.Y. on Oct. 7, 2022. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) Police also found a loaded Tec-9 semi-automatic assault weapon, an extended magazine, a box of ammunition, as well as and three scales, 11 GPS devices, and a hydraulic door opener at the same location as the seized fentanylan apartment adjacent to the Bronx River Parkway. Two men, aged 30 and 32, have been charged in connection with the seizure. The DEA said the seizure was part of its work to disrupt criminal drug cartels, particularly the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartelthe two primary criminal organizations from Mexico responsible for the majority of fentanyl in the United States. Rainbow Fentanyl Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is 50 times more potent than heroin. Just two milligrams is potentially enough to be lethal. In 2021, 107,622 Americans died from a drug overdose or poisoning, of which 60 percent were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Rainbow fentanyl is a recent term the DEA has used to refer to fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes, although it is often available in pill form, and in block form as powder. It is the latest deceptive tactic the cartels are aggressively using to sell more drugs at any cost, the agency said. Rainbow fentanyl is one of many types of deadly fentanyl that ruthless Mexican drug cartels are producing to drive addiction and increase profits, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement. Every day, DEA sees Americans of all ages, including young adults and even middle and high school-aged teens, being poisoned by fentanyl in fake pills and powder. DEA is committed to protecting our communities and we will stop at nothing to disrupt the criminal drug cartels, making it impossible for them to do business. China the Primary Source of Fentanyl Trafficking Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45, surpassing suicide, car accidents, and COVID-19, according to a December 2021 report from the U.S. advocacy group Families Against Fentanyl. Most states in the United States are seeing a surge in fentanyl deaths. According to the groups report published in February, fentanyl fatalities doubled in 30 states, tripled in 15 states, and nearly five times in six states, in the last two years. Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, California, and Texas are the six states seeing a nearly five-fold increase in fentanyl deaths. A man brings shoplifted beer to sell at a homeless encampment on March 12, 2022, in Seattle, Washington. Stolen goods are sold for cash or drugs, currently most often fentanyl. (John Moore/Getty Images) The DEA previously in its January 2020 report (pdf) identified China as the primary source of fentanyl trafficked into the United States. In February this year, the Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking published a report saying that transnational criminal organizations in Mexico are buying precursor chemicalsthe underlying chemical substances of fentanylfrom China. With precursor chemicals from China, the two Mexico cartels Sinaloa and CJNG can make an unlimited amount of fentanyl, Milgram told CBS in August this year. She added that the two cartels are killing Americans with fentanyl at catastrophic and record rates like we have never seen before. For Help Treatment helpline 1-800-662-HELP (4357) National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Information www.SAMHSA.gov www.dea.gov/onepill Frank Fang and Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report. Scott Gottlieb testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 5, 2017. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images) Pfizer Board Member Accused of Getting Journalist Banned From Twitter Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson said Thursday that Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), got him banned from Twitter. Following a temporary ban in 2021, When I came back on the platform last year, in August, I was asking even harder questions about the vaccines, at a time when the Biden administration knew they were going to be pushing for mandates and boosters, they still wouldnt ban me, Berenson said on Fox Newss Tucker Carlson Tonight. And then, he added, Scott Gottlieb, director of Pfizer on the executive committee of Pfizer, which has made tens of billions of dollars from selling these vaccines, went to Twitter and said this guy is a problem and then they banned me. On Friday, Gottlieb appeared on CNBC, where he works as a contributor, and did not deny those claims. Gottlieb said he wont comment on Berensons allegation and said its due to possible litigation. My primary concerns with Twitter relate to the physical safety of people. Threats have been made on that platform by multiple provocateurs that I believe need to be carefully monitored, specifically threats by instigators who target people for harassment and even violence, he also wrote on Twitter. Respectful debate and dialogue is one thing, and should be encouraged and protected. But theres no place for targeted harassment, and misleading dialogue which can instigate a small but persuadable group of people to make targeted and dangerous threats, Gottlieb continued. In response, Berenson wrote on his Substack page that he never made any threats against him, White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci or anyone else involved in the federal COVID-19 response. Nor have I used the kind of over-the-top language that some vaccine skeptics use, such as calling Fauci a profiteer or criminal who should be tried for crimes against humanity, he wrote. I regard those accusations as inflammatory and the stakes of this debate too high for that kind of language. On Thursday, Berenson published a long Substack article that shows a chain of events, including emails that he obtained via discovery in his suit against Twitter, that pointed to Gottlieb essentially getting him banned. In August 2021, he alleged, Gottlieb wrote an email to Twitter questioning Berensons posts regarding Faucis statements around COVID-19 vaccines. Gottlieb had allegedly written that Berensons statement is whats promoted on Twitter and this is why Tony (Fauci) needs a security detail. That was, according to Berenson, the final act in a secret months-long conspiracy to suppress my basic American right to free speech. I was discouraging people from getting the vaccines, which the White House wanted and [he was] asking them why they hadnt banned me, Berenson claimed later in his interview with Carlson. The Epoch Times has contacted Pfizer for comment. Law enforcement officers congregate outside an armored vehicle at the Aldi on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh after five people were shot and killed in the Hedingham Neighborhood and Nuese River Trail area in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP) Police: Suspect in Deadly North Carolina Shooting Is 15-Year-Old RALEIGH, N.C.A 15-year-old boy fatally shot two people in the streets of a neighborhood in North Carolinas capital city, then fled toward a walking trail, where he opened fire, killing three more people and wounding two others, police said Friday. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the suspect was hospitalized in critical condition following the shootings late Thursday afternoon. Those killed ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said during a news conference. Among the dead was an off-duty Raleigh police officer, Gabriel Torres, who was on his way to work when the shooting began. A second police officer was wounded and released from the hospital, while a 59-year-old woman remained hospitalized in critical condition. The suspect, who was not immediately identified by police, eluded officers for hours before he was cornered in a home and arrested, police said. Officials have not said how the suspect was injured. The shootings set off a massive police response and manhunt, with police scouring an area of more than 2 miles to find and capture the suspect, Patterson said. She said authorities have not yet determined any motive. Law enforcement stand at the entrance to Neuse River Greenway Trail parking at Abington Lane following a shooting in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer via AP) The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Officers from numerous law enforcement agencies swarmed the area, closing roads and warning residents to stay inside while they searched for the shooter. The Neuse River Greenway runs just behind the backs of houses in the Hedingham neighborhood where the shooting began. The trail runs about 27 miles along the river and connects to the states Mountains-to-Sea Trail thats popular with thru-hikers. The stretch behind the neighborhood is paved and lies down a grassy slope from the houses. Brooke Medina, who lives in the neighborhood bordering the greenway, was driving home at around 5:15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, both marked and unmarked, race toward the residential area about 9 miles from Raleighs downtown. She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital. She and her husband, who was working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order. The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. The family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved farther away from their home. She described the neighborhood known as Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined community thats full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area. A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 30, 2014. (Tami Chappell/File Photo/Reuters) PR Firm Working for Pfizer and Moderna Embeds Staff Within CDCs Vaccine Committee A PR firm that represents big pharma companies like Pfizer and Moderna has been revealed to staff certain divisions in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the pandemic, sparking questions regarding potential conflicts of interest. Based in New York, Weber Shandwick is reportedly the second-largest PR firm in the world with revenues of over $830 million and around 4,700 employees worldwide. It has employees working inside the CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD)the section of the agency that implements vaccine programs and oversees the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), according to an expose newsletter by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker. A $50 million contract allows PR firm to be embedded at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta as part of the Division of Viral Diseases team, said Thacker in a tweet Tuesday, adding details like Linkedin information on employees of the PR firm working within the CDC. I started sending questions to the CDC last week, contacting CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, yesterday. The CDC still refuses to respond, he said. Weber Shandwick won a CDC contract potentially worth $50 million in October 2020 to promote influenza vaccines as well as the agency. Based on NCIRD documents, Weber employees would handle communications, marketing, and promotion tours for suggested actions during outbreaks and vaccine recommendations. Thacker pointed to a Linkedin account of a former Weber employee detailing his duties at the CDC focuses on boosting vaccination rates for flu, HPV, whooping cough, and COVID-19. In November 2020, Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 vaccine met all primary efficacy endpoints during clinical trials, and the following month, the FDA granted the company Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine rollout. Conflicts and Profits Weber Shandwick has worked with Pfizer since at least 2006, and partnered with Moderna in June 2022 after the success of the companys international rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. According to Daily Mail, a spokesperson for Weber Shandwick told the media outlet that the firm had a thorough vetting and mitigation process to avoid conflicts. Controlling about 70 percent of the U.S. and European markets, Pfizer brought in roughly over $81 billion in 2021, largely from its COVID-19 shot. This year, the company is on target to rake in over $50 billion globally from just the vaccine and the antiviral Paxlovid used to treat early symptoms of COVID. Last year, Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna combined brought in an estimated pre-tax profit of $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute, or $93.5 million a day. Booster jabs, currently recommended for everyone over 12 years, are expected to keep minting the coffers of the pharma companies. Pivoting Stances In a stunning admission on Oct. 10, a Pfizer executive said that the company did not know whether its COVID-19 vaccine would stop transmission before it entered the market in 2021. Did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market? No we had to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market, said Pfizers Janine Small, president of international developed markets, in response to a question by Member of the European Parliament, Rob Roos. Millions of people worldwide felt forced to get vaccinated because of the myth that you do it for others, Roos said in Twitter video on the same day. Now, this turned out to be a cheap lie and should be exposed, he added. Dr. Martin Kulldorf, Professor of Medicine at Harvard (on leave), had worked with the CDC to develop its vaccine safety evaluation system. It is concerning that CDC talking points are provided by the same public relations company that works for the vaccine manufacturers, he said, per Thackers newsletter. To ensure public trust, CDC must provide accurate, science-based evidence on vaccines, Kulldorf said. They have failed to do so. The CDC fired Kulldorf following his disagreement with the agency on discontinuing the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccinea competitor of Pfizer and Moderna, said Thacker. The Epoch Times has reached out to the CDC and Weber Shandwick. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) prepares to speak during a rally outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Protesters Shout Down Rep. Ocasio-Cortez During Town Hall Over Ukraine Aid Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was shouted down by a pair of protesters during town hall on Oct. 12 for her endorsement of military aid to Ukraine. Congresswoman, none of this matters unless theres a nuclear war, which you voted to send arms and weapons to Ukraine, one of the protesters yelled while condemning Ocasio-Cortez for backing US arms support to Ukraine against Russia thats raising concerns among some citizens of a third world war. Tulsi Gabbard, shes left the Democratic Party because theyre war hawks, the protesters said while Ocasio-Cortez was fielding questions about illegal immigration, the opioid crisis and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gabbard drew headlines on Oct. 11 when she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party. She was a candidate for the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election after having served multiple terms in the House of Representatives. You originally votedyou ran as an outsider. Yet youve been voting to start this war in Ukraine. Youre voting to start a third nuclear war with Russia and China, the protester said. Why are you playing with the lives of American citizens? Youre playing with our lives? According to the video available on Twitter, at this point the other protester who could be identified on Twitter as activist Jose Vega said therell be no neighbors if theres a nuclear bomb! This protester called Ocasio-Cortez a coward and a progressive socialist. Where are you against the war mobilization? He blamed the representative for doing nothing and praised Gabbard for show[ing] guts. I believed in you, and you became the very thing that you sought to fight against, retorted Vega. The first protester was identified by Vega as someone known on Twitter as Kynan. My friend @Noggatone and I confronted Congress woman @AOC on her support for Nuclear War and Ukrainian Nazis, said Vega in a message on Twitter. I call her out for being a coward in the face of the party that will push us all into Nuclear war right now. Will she stand up like @TulsiGabbard and fight for peace? he said. Vegas message on Twitter led to a public debate on social media, with over 33,000 netizens liking it and over 9,800 retweeting it. Some called it Russian propaganda against Ukraine while others supported Vegas message. In a subsequent message, Vega shared an email he wrote to Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 seeking help after the ceiling of his apartment collapsed and alleged that it never came. The Epoch Times reached out to Ocasio-Cortez for comment. Nuclear Threat The NYC Emergency Management sent out a July 11 public service announcement to all NYC residents about how to prepare for a nuclear attack. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, it is important that New Yorkers know we are preparing for any imminent threats and are providing them with the resources they need to stay safe and informed, NYC Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said in a statement. Vice President Kamala Harris and Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, look at a display of the Voting Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images) Racial Gerrymandering Is No Longer Necessary Commentary Democrats and their media allies are sounding the alarm that the Supreme Court is dismantling the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Washington Post warns that this term, the court will likely strip black voters of their right to elect someone who represent(s) them. Dont believe it. Truth is, the Democratic Party has converted the Voting Rights Act into a scam. Twenty-two congressional districts in the United States are engineered to guarantee that black voters are in the majority. These rigged districts elect Democrats every time, without fail, though not always a black Democrat. (Democrat Rashida Tlaib was elected from Michigans black-majority 5th Congressional District.) Not one of these racially gerrymandered districts elects a Republican. Ever. Twenty-two rigged districtsthats nearly three times the size of the Democrats majority in the House. This racial gerrymandering is being done in compliance with the Voting Rights Act, a law that was urgently needed but has outlived its usefulness. Now its being used cynically as a tool to lock in Democratic Party dominance. America doesnt need a rigged election map to ensure black candidates are elected. Most black members of Congress, including 35 out of 53 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, are elected from districts without black majorities. In Merrill v. Milligan, the Biden Justice Department is joining forces with the NAACP to keep the scam going. They are challenging the state of Alabamas election map, explicitly demanding that at least two of the seven congressional districts have guaranteed black voting majorities. Alabama currently has one. Last week, the Supreme Court heard two hours of impassioned oral argument over whether it should compel Alabama to maximize the number of minority-controlled voting districts. Alabama argues that its time to end racial gerrymandering. Creating a second black-majority district would require splitting up the states coastal region, on the premise that race is more important than the commercial and environmental concerns that seacoast residents, black and white alike, want represented in Congress. President Joe Bidens solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, told the justices that eliminating racial gerrymandering would leave black voters with no ability to elect their preferred representatives. That argument is laughable. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was scheduled to last only five years. Congress has renewed it four times for long stretches, despite the huge progress the nation has made toward a fair, multiracial democracy. In 1965, there was nearly a 50 percent gap between white and black voter turnout in Alabama. By 2012, black voters in Alabama were turning out at higher rates than whites. Black candidates compete effectively in white-majority areas. Georgia has a black U.S. senator, and his GOP challenger is also black. The John Roberts-led court has long deemed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 an anachronism. In 2013, the court struck down portions of it after Shelby County, Alabama had challenged the act in 2010 and argued that Congresss failure to modernize the law in light of the enormous improvements in minority electoral opportunities leaves no other option. Now, the Court should strike down the rest of this obsolete statute. All Americans, including blacks, deserve a fair chance to participate in our democracy. But racial gerrymandering is no longer necessary. Segregating voters by race presumes, odiously, that only a black can represent blacks, and by implication, only a white can represent whites. Americans know better. They elected a black man to be their president twice. Justice Clarence Thomas cautions that drawing district lines by race will exacerbate racial tensions rather than rewarding candidates who build bridges between racial groups. The Democratic Party, with a thin House majority, would have liked to grab control of a second Alabama election district in time for the midterm elections. The Courts decision to hear Merrill v. Milligan ended that ploy. Ultimately, the stakes are higher than one Alabama district. Across the nation, election districts are being rigged to benefit the Democratic Party, under the false pretense of protecting black voting rights. Its time to end that outrage. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. A police officer guards a cordon close to where Marius Ciolac was shot dead by police in the grounds of Ascot Drive police station in Derby on Oct. 7, 2022. (PA) Romanian Shot Dead by Police in Derby After Taser and Stun Grenade Failed The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has named a Romanian man who was shot dead by police in the English city of Derby last week and has given more details about the incident. Marius Ciolac, who was 35, was only shot by police after a Taser and a stun grenade had failed to subdue him, the IOPC said in a statement released on Thursday night. They said Ciolac had been armed with a knife and had been damaging cars and windows outside Ascot Drive police station in Derby on Oct. 7. His sister, Andreea Ciolac, 32, told the local newspaper in Derby she only heard about her brothers death on the news. Speaking from her home in Italy, Ciolac told the Derby Telegraph: Marius was clearly in the wrong, he was not innocent. We heard that he had a knife on him. But why kill him? We only found out from the news later that his lawyer said he was having mental health issues. The dead mans sister said he moved to England four years ago to work as a builder but was apparently feeling lonely and was planning to move back to Romania. The IOPC said: We can confirm that Derbyshire Constabulary officers in an armed response vehicle were called to the building by the force control room at around 9.55am after officers inside reported seeing a man with a knife in the police station car park causing damage to property. This included smashing glass in the entrance door from the car park and windows around it. 3 Knives Found at the Scene The IOPC said three knives were found at the scene of the shooting. They said: Attempts were made to stop him, including use of a multi-bang stun grenade, discharge of a baton round and a Taser, before a police firearm was discharged at about 10.03am. Ciolac, who was from northeast Romania, was taken to hospital in Nottingham where he later died. IOPC Regional Director Derrick Campbell said: A lot of rumour about the tragic events of Friday morning has been reported and while it is natural for people to want answers quickly about what happened, I would ask that people show patience and refrain from further speculation out of respect for Mr. Ciolacs family and for everyone involved. The coroner has been informed and will open an inquest later this month. It was only the second fatal shooting by police this yearthe first being that of Chris Kaba, 24, who was shot dead by Metropolitan Police officers as he drove a car in Streatham, south London, on Sept. 5. It is believed to be the first fatal shooting involving Derbyshire Constabulary since the force was set up in 1967. Police officers and soldiers inspect an area following a Russian missile attack earlier in the day, in Kupiansk, Kharkiv oblast on Oct. 13, 2022. (Carl Court/Getty Images) Russia, Under Pressure in Southern Ukraine, Captures Villages in East KYIV/KUPIANSK, UkraineRussian-backed forces have made some advances in eastern Ukraine, Britain said on Friday. A British intelligence update said forces led by the private Russian military company Wagner Group had captured the villages of Optyine and Ivangrad south of the fiercely-contested town of Bakhmut, the first such advance in more than three months. There have been few, if any, other settlements seized by regular Russian or separatist forces since early July, said the daily update from London, which normally focuses on Ukrainian battlefield successes. Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in late August against Russian forces controlling the country since the start of their invasion in February, pushing them out of a part of the northeast. Kyivs main focus now is Khersonone of four partially controlled Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed in recent weeks, and arguably the most strategically important. Russias TASS news agency said evacuees from the Kherson region were expected to begin arriving in Russia on Friday, a day after a Russian-installed official suggested people could flee to Russia, especially those around Kherson city. Kherson city controls the only land route to the Crimea peninsula and the mouth of the Dnipro river that bisects Ukraine. Since the start of October, Ukrainian forces have burst through Russias front lines in the region in their biggest advance in the south since the war began, aiming to cut Russian troops off from supply lines and escape routes across the river. Kherson lies next to the Zaporizhzhia region, also claimed by Russia, where Europes biggest nuclear power plant is based. A Russian-installed official said the plant was now working according to Russian standards. It was not clear if Ukrainian workers, who had continued operating the plant under the eye of Russian troops, were still there. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a tweet separately that Russia and Ukraine were moving closer to agreeing a protection zone for the plant, where he said the situation was untenable. Russias Wagner group was targeting Bakhmut, The British report said, to try to seize the Kramatorsk-Solviansk urban area of the eastern Donetsk region, which was among those Russia said it had annexed despite not being in full control. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported ongoing brutal fighting there in a video address late on Thursday. In his address, Zelenskyy said no one had yet visited Olenivka, accusing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of inaction in upholding the rights of Ukrainian POWs. The ICRC said it had been ready to visit for months, adding. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted. This week, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the start of the war, firing more than 100 cruise missiles mainly at Ukraines electricity and heat infrastructure. By Max Hunder and Abdelaziz Boumzar The logo of Gazprom company is seen on the facade of a business centre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on March 31, 2022. (Reuters photographer/File Photo) Russias Gazprom Says Black Sea Gas Pipeline Could Replace Volumes Lost to Nord Stream Terrorism Russias state-run energy giant Gazprom said Thursday that gas volumes that could potentially run from Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea may be comparable to that which was previously transported through Baltic pipelines that are no longer working following sabotage to the Nord Stream pipelines Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller made the comments to Russias Channel One, according to TASS news agency. Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week proposed establishing Europes largest natural gas hub in Turkey by redirecting supplies meant to run through the damaged Nord Stream pipelines to the Black Seas TurkStream pipeline. The suggestion came after explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last month. Putin met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Thursday where he again doubled down on the idea, stating that Turkey has become the most reliable route, and now it has become a much more reliable route than Europe, according to local news outlets in Turkey. Erdogan has maintained a friendly relationship with the Kremlin as he has repeatedly sought to play the role of mediator in the RussiaUkraine conflict. If we talk about volumes that may appear in the TurkStream corridor, about new gas transit capacities, then we are talking about the volume that we have lost in the Baltic, in Nord Streams due to the acts of international terrorism, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said. Miller said he believes that demand for the gas that was set to be delivered to the Nord Stream pipeline is still high and will likely attract a wave of buyers. Buyers Interested in Purchasing Those Volumes of Gas There are valid gas delivery contracts for Nord Stream 1. For reasons outside our control, we are not delivering gas under these contracts at the moment, but those contracts are still valid, and there are buyers interested in purchasing those volumes of gas, he added. The Gazprom CEO added that discussions are underway regarding the potential gas hub on the border between Turkey and Europe. Erdogan stated on Oct. 14 that the new gas hub could potentially be built in Trakya (Thrace), which is in the westernmost part of the country, according to local media. The President told reporters that he has instructed the countrys Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources to create a preliminary proposal on the issue which they will then present to both leaders. After viewing the proposal, the two presidents will move forward with the plan if both sides are in agreement. Elsewhere on Friday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service told Tass that it has data regarding the explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines but declined to give further details. We have the data, but I wont specify it, Sergey Naryshkin, Chief of Russias Foreign Intelligence Service told the publication. Officials from both the West and Russia are investigating the blasts to the crucial pipelines that occurred on Sept. 26. The United States and its allies in Europe have suggested Russian sabotage may have been behind the incident and have launched an investigation into the matter. However, Russia on Thursday condemned leaders from Germany, Denmark, and Sweden for their failure to invite the Kremlin to join the probe, with the foreign ministry stating that Russia would obviously not recognize the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved. China's ambassador to the Solomon Islands Li Ming (R), and Solomons Prime Pinister Manasseh Sogavare are cutting a ribbon during the opening ceremony of a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara on April 22, 2022. (Mavis Podokolo/AFP via Getty Images) Solomons Police Officers Heading to China for Month of Training The Solomon Islands has dispatched 32 officers to China for training in policing techniques and to improve their understanding of Chinese culture. The officers will visit different police stations in China during the visit, according to a statement from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force obtained by Reuters. Officers will stay in the country for one month. Police training has been a key area in Beijings efforts to build bilateral relations with the Solomon Islands government, with training ramping up following riots in the Solomons capital Honiara where much of the Chinatown precinct was burned down by protestors upset with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. While Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand also dispatched troops to help quell the unrest, Beijing leveraged the opportunity to dispatch trainers to conduct regular courses for Solomons police. A contentious security deal was also signed off in April 2022 between Beijing, and the Solomons, ushering in more training. The agreement also triggered concerns from developed nations as it opened the door for gradual militarisation of the region by allowing Beijing to station troops, weapons, and naval ships in the country. Solomons Deepening Ties With Beijing Meanwhile, Solomons Prime Minister Sogavare has reiterated that Australia remains the Pacific countrys security partner of choice. Yet Malcolm Davis, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said Sogavare was unlikely to resist overtures from Beijing. They came in with suitcases of money to ensure that he and the people around him would support an extension of his position, his role as prime minister, he told AAP. Sogavare has overtly deepened ties with Beijing in recent months, notably with the signing of a deal to borrow 448.9 million yuan (US$66.15 million) from the Chinese state-owned Export-Import Bank of China to fund the construction of 161 towers by telecommunications giant Huawei. Defence expert Michael Shoebridge questioned the need for another major telecommunications player in the regionHuawei is banned from the 5G networks of several developed countrieswhen it is already serviced by market leader Digicel Pacific, now owned by Australias Telstra. This deal is a demonstration that Beijing is moving fast and in a big broadway to create more leverage over the Solomon Islands government, he previously told The Epoch Times. It also shows Prime Minister Sogavare wants a broad, deep relationship with China. And it undercuts the value of his continued assurances that the partnership hes building with Beijing will not have a major security component, he added. PROVIDENCE, R.I. A New York City man who ran a scheme that sold $20 million worth of substandard counterfeit Chinese-made clothing and gear to the U.S. military potentially putting active-duty service members in danger has been sentenced to more than three years in prison, federal prosecutors said. Ramin Kohanbash, 52, was one of three people including a North Dakota man who played a role in the scam in which samples of genuine military apparel, including labels that depicted trademarks of 15 companies that make products for the U.S. military, were provided to manufacturers in China, according to a statement from the U.S. attorneys office in Providence. The Chinese manufacturers counterfeited the clothes, which were shipped to Kohanbash for distribution to suppliers that sold them to the U.S. government as American-made, authorities said. U.S. law requires that uniforms and gear sold to the Defense Department be produced in the United States or certain other designated countries. China is not among them. American servicemen and women risk their lives every day in defense of the nation, said U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Zachary Cunha. But the risks they face should never come from the uniforms they wear, and the equipment they carry. In this case, defendants actions did exactly that, substituting substandard, foreign-made knockoffs for American products. Some gear lacked crucial safety features or failed to meet safety specifications, prosecutors said. That included more than 13,000 counterfeit jackets that were supposed to be made of a fabric that made them difficult to detect with night vision goggles, but were not; and more than 18,000 hoods falsely labeled as being flame resistant, authorities said. Supplying counterfeit products to the DoD endangers the lives of American service members and betrays the publics trust, said Patrick J. Hegarty, Special Agent in Charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Services Northeast Field Office. Kohanbash pleaded guilty in 2019 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and trafficking in counterfeit goods. Kohanbash, of Brooklyn, in addition to a prison term of three years and four months, was also ordered in U.S. District Court in Providence on Wednesday to pay restitution to U.S. companies, including a Rhode Island company that reported a loss of more than $639,000 in profits. Two other men involved in the scheme have also pleaded guilty. Bernard Klein, 41, of Brooklyn, was sentenced in April 2021 to 18 months in prison. Terry Roe, 49, of Burlington, North Dakota, pleaded guilty in February and faces sentencing this month. A Long March-3B carrier rocket carrying the 24th and 25th BeiDou navigation satellites takes off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Xichang, China, on Nov. 5, 2017. (Wang Yulei/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) Strategic Intent: China Pushes to Commercialize In-House BeiDou Satellite System Experts say the move would allow Beijing to expand its reach to more countries The Chinese mapping service application Baidu Maps now prioritizes the use of Chinas in-house BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) over the U.S.-operated Global Positioning System (GPS). Analysts believe the move would allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand the reach and use of its in-house satellite navigation system to more countries. According to Chinese media Observers News, Chinese internet giant Baidu recently announced that it would adjust its mapping service application to prioritize the use of BDS over GPS. Since Google left the Chinese search market in 2010, Baidu has effectively become Chinas largest internet search engine without competition. As a state-owned enterprise, it operates unimpededly with full compliance with local laws and censorship. Baidu Maps is the Chinese equivalent of Google Maps. The CCP initially built BeiDou for military use, but it later expanded to commercial applications. In January, Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a statement promoting BeiDou applications in the public domain. The report pointed to the necessity to expand the application scale and coverage of BeiDou through commercial use, mass consumption, and forming a system solution that integrates with information technology in various fields. The civilian applications mentioned include automobiles, shared travel, map location services, mobile phones, 5G, the Internet of Things, the Internet of Vehicles, etc. In 2020, the China Satellite Navigation and Positioning Association estimated that the total output value of this industry in China would soon exceed 400 billion yuan (about $56 billion). Big Data Surveillance Regarding the risks of BeiDou being integrated into civilian applications, James Zhu, an information technology engineer in New Zealand, told The Epoch Times that it is likely to become part of the CCPs big data surveillance of the public. According to Zhu, any application that utilizes BDS can track the users location and collect data even if the program is not opened or in use, as long as it is installed on the mobile device. He said that Western nations like the United States have privacy laws in place that limit companies like Google from tracking its users or collecting sensitive personal data to an extent. But China has no such restrictions, which allows the CCP to collect the users information and location data anywhere, anytime. A Long March 3B rocket carrying the Beidou-3GEO3 satellite lifts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Xichang in Chinas southwestern Sichuan Province on June 23, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Zhu said the chipset within the device must support positioning and navigation via satellites, which would be most smart devices currently being produced. But he added that China is currently incapable of producing high-end chips and primarily relies on imports, which is especially difficult amid U.S. sanctions. As a result, the BeiDou system may be stuck in commercial use. Beijings Strategic Intents Chinas communist regime has described BDS as a pillar of great power, a global espionage tool, as it is suitable for use in various fields such as the military, transportation, communications, and urban surveillance. According to its website, BDS provides all-time, all-weather and high-accuracy positioning, navigation and timing services to global users. To compete with GPS, the Chinese regime launched the project in 1994 and spent 26 years in development, investing more than $10 billion and placing 55 satellites in orbit. BeiDou was jointly developed by the Chinese military and the National University of Defense Technology, with the support of various related government branches that focus on science, space, and technology, and state-owned companies such as China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. According to a 2020 Nikkei Asia report, for many years, China has used its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to promote BDS. BeiDou satellites were most frequently observed in the 120-plus countries that have signed on to the massive infrastructure project. Most are in Southeast Asia and Africa. In addition, more than 30 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere use the Chinese navigation system. If it becomes the standard in these countries, China will have an advantage in introducing new technologies and products, according to a 2019 Nikkei Asia report. A boy looks at the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System at an exhibition marking in Beijing, on Feb. 27, 2019. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images) Mr. Desen, chairman of a Japanese high-tech company, told The Epoch Times that the CCPs strategic intentions are undeniable. He said that the CCP would likely use economic and technological bait to sell the BeiDou service system at a very low price in the early stage. And once these countries become dependent on the system in key areas such as satellite communications, the CCP will start taking control over aspects of their local governments as it holds the nations information security and communications hostage. If things go on like this, the CCP will strengthen its control over the local government through the BeiDou system and impose its will on other countries, forcing them to take sides on certain international issues such as whether to maintain security in Taiwan Strait and other sensitive topics, Desen said. He added that the Chinese regime had demonstrated its geopolitical hegemony with its Belt and Road Initiative, and integrating the BeiDou satellite system would allow it to weaponize its influence and control over those nations, just like the unrestricted warfare it advocates. People lay flowers and light candles at the scene of Wednesday's attack on Zamocka Street in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Oct. 13, 2022. (Pavol Zachar/TASR via AP) Suspect in Killing of 2 in Slovakias Capital Found Dead BRATISLAVA, SlovakiaSlovakias police said Thursday they found the body of a suspect who allegedly fatally shot two people the previous day in the capital. Two men were killed and a woman was wounded on Wednesday evening near or at a bar in downtown Bratislava. Comenius University in Bratislava said one of the two victims was a student. Police said they were investigating but havent provided details about the motive of the shooting. They also said that authorities found the suspects body, but didnt immediately give any further details. President Zuzana Caputova and Prime Minister Eduard Heger condemned the slayings. When I say that Slovakia is a free and democratic country I meant it, Heger said Thursday. Its unacceptable that anyone should be afraid about their way of life, he said. No form of extremism is acceptable. Caputova and Heger also offered condolences to the relatives of the victims. Maj. Gen. Lin Wen-huang of the Deputy Chief of General Staff Operations and Planning Office, Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, speaks at a press conference in Taiwan on Oct. 13, 2022. (Courtesy of Taiwan Ministry of National Defense) Taiwan Defense Ministry Says Troops Can Decide How to Counter Chinese Militarys First Strike Troops stationed on Taiwans front line are authorized to counter aggressive moves by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) that are deemed a first strike, Taiwans Ministry of National Defense (MND) said on Oct. 13. The PLAs moves that are considered a first strike include planes, drones, or ships entering Taiwans territorial airspace and restricted maritime zones after the Taiwanese military has identified, intercepted, and played broadcasts to warn them away, according to Maj. Gen. Lin Wen-huang of the MNDs Deputy Chief of General Staff Operations and Planning Office. Taiwans territorial airspace includes the countrys outer islands as defined under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, Lin said at a press conference of the MND on Wednesday. The Chinese communist regime claims Taiwan, which it has never ruled, as part of its territory. Lin said that Taiwans troops could exercise the right of self-defense to counter an attack, Taiwans Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Wednesday. Taiwanese navy launches a U.S.-made Standard missile from a frigate during the annual Han Kuang Drill on the sea near the Suao navy harbor in Yilan county, Taiwan, on July 26, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images) Lin explained there is no normative definition of the term first strike in existing international conventions and customary international law. He said that the concept of first strike derives mainly from the right of self-defense in international law. Therefore, Taiwans national army is authorized to exercise the right of self-defense in accordance with the regulations, keep a close watch on the enemys subsequent attempts, and continue to deal with any threat from the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) military in accordance with the provisions of emergency handling, according to Lin. Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said two days earlier that, in the past, missile or artillery attacks by the CCP military were deemed a first strike, but now the intrusion of Chinese drones is to be defined as a first strike as well, as the CCP has constantly been using unmanned aerial vehicles or drones to intrude on Taiwan, the CNA reported. Taiwan shot down an unidentified civilian drone entering Taiwans airspace near the Lion Islet on Sept. 1, according to Reuters. Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang said that the CCP uses videos shot by drones as propaganda at home. The Taiwan Army Kinmen Defense Command drove away four drones with live ammunition for two consecutive days from Aug. 30 to 31, French media company RFI reported. According to Taiwans Ministry of National Defense, a total of 24 CCP aircraft sorties and five CCP vessel sorties were detected as of 17:00 (local time) on Oct. 14, and the CCP continued to carry out military maneuvers over the maritime area and airspace of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwans military has adopted mission aircraft, vessels, and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor and respond to such military actions of the CCP. Zhong Yuan contributed to this report. Texas Teachers Retirement System Moves to Distance Pensions From Chinese Stocks The largest public retirement system in Texas is moving to remove Chinese companies from the list of stocks it invests in as part of its pension fund for teachers. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) gained approval last month to move forward with a new benchmark that proportionally mixes two emerging markets indexes, including one with China and one without. The move will cut the $184 billion pension funds exposure to Chinese stocks in half. TRS previously stated that it was pursuing this course of action because the MSCI Emerging Markets Index that it used gave an outsized weight to China. As such, it sought to improve the diversification of the benchmark and reduce Chinas allocation. China currently represents 35.4 percent of the weight in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and accounts for 3 percent of TRS total exposure. The new benchmark will reduce Chinas weight in the index to 17.7 percent, thus lowering TRS exposure to China to 1.5 percent, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the shift. The change was approved at a previously unreported meeting in September. There is a six-month transition period to adjust the current portfolio accordingly, intended to reduce negative price impact as Chinese markets face a prolonged downward trend. Several factors are currently weighing on Chinese markets, including the heavy hand of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, whose COVID-19 lockdowns have shuttered previously bustling cities for nearly two years. Also notable are the U.S. sanctions on CCP officials over the alleged genocide of the Uyghurs in Chinas Xinjiang region, and the Biden administrations unprecedented move to limit the types of semiconductors that can be sold to Chinaa move that has caused Chinese tech stocks to shrink. While not directly related to current tensions between China and the United States, the idea to potentially restrict exposure to Chinese markets in public pension funds was floated by the Trump administration in 2019. TRS new benchmark is expected to be fully implemented by the beginning of March next year. Reuters contributed to this report. The Cruel Suppression of Tamara Lichs Freedom of Speech Commentary Everyone, says the Charter of Rights, has the fundamental freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication. Everyone, that is, except Tamara Lich, one of the organizers of the truckers Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in January and February. Most egregiously, under her bail conditions Lich must remain publicly silent pending the result of her court hearing in September 2023including no social media use whatsoeverall for exercising her right to protest in a free country. From February to July, we witnessed a shocking game of cat and mouse between the Crown prosecutor and Lich. Normally, 24 hours of incarceration upon arrest is the maximum amount of time a person is in custody until bail is set. Once the accused has bail, he or she is allowed back into the public until their trial, subject to their promises to keep the peace as the police or judge directs. This bears repeating to emphasize the outrageous treatment Lich faced: Normally, bail conditions are set within 24 hours of an arrest. However, Lich was held for almost 50 days in jail. She was released and then re-arrested multiple times, and when appearing in court, she was in shackles. She faced five separate bail hearings. That is not only abnormal, it is outrageous. All of this happened for charges that are considered minor offences. In fact, it may well be that the time she has already spent in jail will be more than ample for any sentencing, if she is convicted, when her trial ends next September. But it is already much worse. She is also required, as a bail condition, to have her mind incarcerated (my term) until September 2023. Let me explain. Lich is required by her bail conditions not to: contact or communicate in any way either directly or indirectly, by any physical, electronic, or other means, with a list of 10 prominent leaders of the Freedom Convoy including Tom Marazzo, except through legal counsel or in the presence of legal counsel; log on to social media or post any messages on social media, or allow anyone else to post messages on social media on her behalf or indicate her approval for any future protests; engage in organizing or promoting anti-COVID mandate activities or Freedom Convoy activities; verbally, or in writing, financially, or by any other means, support anything related to the Freedom Convoy. Lich is muzzled. Her ability to express her thoughts, beliefs, and opinions is quashed. She must continue living this way until her trial is over in a years time. How is that reasonable? It isnt. Consider also that the prohibition on her social media use is absolute. It is not solely connected to the Freedom Convoy or organizing new protests. It is much broader. She cannot comment on her grandchildrens Facebook posts, send a tweet announcing a family event, comment on friends milestones in life. Nothing. Radio silence is demanded. Any sentient being knows that radio silence in our minds on any given minute does not exist. And, living in an age when freedom of speech is celebrated on social media, we can understand the immense struggle this condition is having on her life. John Milton, the famous British author of the 17th century, observed that the person who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, Gods image, but the one who destroys a good booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. The expression found in a book goes beyond life. I suggest that as the book was to Milton, so social media is to Lich. It is the medium through which modern individuals are empowered to share their soultheir expression of reason through words, through pictures. Miltons point is that freedom to think and express thought is a divine gift. Expression is not mere words but constitutes the universal realities of the person. Destroying ones ability to express ones views, dreams, and ideas is to destroy the inner voice of the soul, that which makes us human. The worst and fullest tyranny to which mankind tends to be enslaved is the tyranny over the mind, the tyranny over opinion, and above all the tyranny over moral opinion, opinion as to what is right and wrong, observes Professor Thomas L. Pangle. Justice Phillips of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the restriction of Lichs free speech must continue. In his words, [S]ocial media can be a problematic feedback loop where people get egged on and caught up in group activity they would never perform on their own. In a very real way, social media undoubtedly contributed to and even drove the now impugned conduct and Ms. Lich staying away from it is necessary to lower the risk of re-offence to an acceptable level. How can it be that Lich would re-offend by causing another Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa if she had access to social media? The 2022 trucker protest was the result of circumstances that no longer exist. The travel mandates are removed (albeit the United States still requires the vaccine to enter), and the societal pressures are relaxed with many employers re-hiring the unvaccinated workers they fired. That protest was a one-off in response to the very dark, intransigent government overreach into the personal lives of its citizens to which it had no right. It is my view that the Freedom Convoy protest opened the eyes of Canadians to see that the federal government went too far. Both the federal and provincial governments have since pulled back. In recognition of the changed reality on the ground, basic humanity demands justice for one who has more than paid her dues for the cause of free speech which she is now denied. It is far past time to end the tyranny of Tamara. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The Demonization of the Unvaccinated: A Look Back Social media has been in an uproar since a member of European Parliament posted a video of a hearing in which a Pfizer director admitted the company never tested whether its Covid mRNA vaccine prevents transmission prior to its approval for emergency use. Though the fact that Covid mRNA vaccines do not prevent transmission was, of course, abundantly clear from the data soon after their implementation, this myth was a primary justification for vaccine passes and a primary cause of the unprecedented venom launched at those who refused Covid vaccines throughout 2021 and continuing through today. Not only did governments exert this pressure through policy, but in many cases politicians and officials used their office to deliberately stoke the social stigmatization of the unvaccinated. Heres a look back at some of the unprecedented vitriol that was launched at those who refused Covid vaccines from 2021 and beyond. Officials in many jurisdictions proposed making the unvaccinated pay more for healthcare. In Victoria, Australiawhere lockdowns were longer than in perhaps any other city in the worldone politician proposed cutting the unvaccinated out of the national health system entirely. A particularly disturbing idea that began to gain serious traction among the elite commentariat was to have hospitals triage emergency care to serve the unvaccinated last, or even deny healthcare to the unvaccinated entirelya fairly clear-cut crime against humanity. One vocal proponent of the idea of triaging emergency care to disfavor the unvaccinated was David Frum, Senior Editor of the Atlantic, most famous for his outspoken support for the invasion of Iraq. When his infamous tweet on the subject sparked an uproar, Frum doubled down. Piers Morgan agreed that the unvaccinated should be denied emergency care. Shockingly, this appalling idea of triaging emergency care based on vaccination status is still being proposed to this day. The demonization of the unvaccinated was, of course, far from limited to healthcare. Vilifying the unvaccinated became a kind of illiberal fad among the elite commentariat. The US CDC even paid screen writers and comedians to promote Covid vaccines, which in some cases involved paying them to mock the unvaccinated. In a bout of recidivism to the early 20th century, Austria and Germany introduced the chilling concept of lockdown for the unvaccinated. Lockdown for the unvaccinated gained traction in the English-speaking world as well. Most countries, cities, and states across the western world introduced vaccine passes that their own citizens had to show in order to partake in daily life. The World Health Organization published an extensive document on implementing a digital vaccine-pass system, including an international vaccine status registry and instructions on how to later revoke someones vaccine pass. The most dystopian of these vaccine pass systems was in Lithuania, where the unvaccinated were banned from nearly all public spaces and employment outside their homes; the few shops where they could purchase essentials had to post large red signs on their doors indicating that unvaccinated persons could be present. In just 6 weeks, the Covid Pass has transformed my country into a regime of control and segregation. This is the new society created in Lithuania, the nation furthest along the path to the authoritarianism inevitably facing all countries which impose a Covid Pass regime: 1/ Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021 And of course, who could forget Justin Trudeaus classic fuhrer-style rant about having to share public transportation with the unvaccinated, despite government documents later revealing that he had no science to back any of these claims. A year after his classic fuhrer-style rant, newly-unsealed court documents reveal that Justin Trudeaus government had no scientific basis for a ban on domestic travel by unvaccinated Canadians. Full report: https://t.co/Ttd2PVgsnxpic.twitter.com/CZCbS2aXKY LLadany (@lladany) August 2, 2022 Like so much of the response to Covid, these vaccine passes and the illiberal fad of stigmatizing the unvaccinated were unscientific, unprecedented, ineffective, totalitarian, brutal, and dumb. It was never remotely realistic for any government to expect every single person to get vaccinated, especially when the vaccine in question involved a novel genetic-based therapy. Thus, these proposals to impose draconian hardships on those who refused Covid vaccines would inevitably involve the state imposing draconian hardships on a sizable portion of the population. According to Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, one of the most credible voices on the subject, Covid vaccines likely yielded benefits for the elderly and vulnerable, but it remains entirely unclear whether Covid vaccines have yielded any benefit at all for healthy adults and especially for children. Coupled with the still-unknown risks associated with mRNA technology and the now well-documented cases of death and serious injury from these vaccines, for governments across the world to have exerted extreme pressure on children and healthy adults to get these vaccines is absolutely sickening. That some healthy young people were surely coerced into receiving an injection that led to their death or serious injury, when the data showed that the benefits did not outweigh the risks, is an unconscionable tragedy. Originally published on the authors Substack, reposted from the Brownstone Institute The Last of the Mohicans is often dismissed as a boring old novel full of dense descriptions, epitomizing Mark Twains definition of a classic as something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. Twain himself did not think much of its author, James Fenimore Cooper, whose literary offenses he lampooned in a famous essay. But Twains view is hardly impartial: As a great novelist himself, he needed a literary forebear to overthrowand what better target than Americas first great novelist? Although it is not taught much in schools these days, The Last of the Mohicans is a magnificent adventure story, and its hero, Nathaniel Natty Bumppo, is arguably the most influential character in all of American literature. Rural Inspiration Cooper was born in 1789, growing up in a New York frontier town where he passed his boyhood listening to elderly pioneers tell stories from a bygone era. As a student at Yale, his individualism often brought him into conflict with others. After being expelled for pranks, he retained a lifelong aversion to educated New Englanders. At age 17, he took up sailing, witnessing British oppression firsthand when crew members of the Royal Navy boarded his merchant ship and coerced a fellow sailor into service. After this, he joined the U.S. Navy. Stationed at Lake Ontario, he built ships and explored the wilderness in his spare time. A portrait of James Fenimore Cooper by Charles Loring Elliott, 1860. (Public Domain) These early experiences taught Cooper to admire the aging settlers he knew as a boy while resenting the civilized people who continually pushed back the boundaries of the unspoiled frontier and made the pioneers way of life obsolete. Coopers belief that society is a necessary evil bringing law and order, but also greed and cowardice, led him to espouse the morally uplifting benefits of nature. He developed this attitude in over 30 novels, in addition to writing plays, short stories, travelogues, and historical works. He is best known for his series of five novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. The second of these, The Last of the Mohicans, was published in 1826 and is regarded as his masterpiece. Set in 1757, it recounts one of the worst atrocities of the French and Indian War, in which Indian allies of the French massacre a retreating British column following the siege of Fort William Henry. Cooper dramatizes these historical events through the eyes of two fictional daughters of a British colonel and their guides, Mohicans whose tribe is on the brink of extinction (at least in the novel). It is these three protectorsChingachgook, Uncas, and the adopted frontiersman Natty Bumppowho represent Coopers ideal of virtuous men uncorrupted by urban vices. The Heroic Frontiersman The idea of the noble savage is an old one going back to the Roman historian Tacitus, who in his book Germania idealized the rustic northern tribes at the expense of their Italian conquerors. Later, when America was discovered, many Europeans associated its native inhabitants with a lost golden age where man lived in harmony with nature. Scene From The Last of the Mohicans, Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund by Thomas Cole, 1827. (Public Domain) In reality of course, tribal peoples were capable of terrible atrocities and were not particularly noble much of the time. Cooper recognized this. He portrayed frontier life with a brutal realism while capitalizing on the romantic ideal of natural virtue in his heroes. Cooper applied the noble savage stereotype to Chingachgook and Uncas, but he also updated it to create a character with no prior parallel in fiction. The protagonist of the Leatherstocking novels, Natty Bumppo, is always noble but not quite savagenor quite civilized. A white child educated by Christians but raised by Delaware Indians, his identity is both European and Indian. He embodies the best of both populations without belonging to either. In The Cowboy Hero and Its Audience, Alf H. Walle describes the way Cooper created an archetypal symbol of America by pitting a heroic frontiersman against an amoral and effete civilized world. Cooper drew on real-life settlers as models for Bumppo, whose nicknames include Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Leatherstocking, and Long Rifle. While he is skilled in fighting and wilderness survival, what makes him a compelling character is his personal moral code. He distinguishes good from bad by judging people on their own terms rather than according to abstract social norms. He does not coerce others to follow his private beliefs and always keeps his word despite the danger this causes. In Bumppo, Cooper invented a blueprint of the virtuous outsider that has been frequently copied by later storytellers. Popular Influence Coopers novel has been adapted into more media than any other single work of classic American literature, including Huckleberry Finn (a close second), Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, or The Great Gatsby. In addition to radio, opera, and comic book treatments, there have been 14 film versions (11 in the United States, 3 in Germany) and five television series, with HBO purportedly working on a sixth. Hollywood remakes occurred, on average, once every seven-and-a-half years between 1909 and 1992, and three decades have now passed without a new one. The best adaptation, at least according to film historians, is the 1920 version directed by Maurice Tourneur. It ignored the complicated politics between the various Indian tribes and their European contenders to focus on the tragic love story between Cora, the eldest daughter of Colonel Munro, and the Mohican warrior Uncas. Actress Barbara Bedfords dreamy gazes and heaving bustline made her portrayal of Cora sensual and sensational by 1920 standards. With its beautiful imagery and fast-paced fight scenes, it is considered one of the best films of the silent era. Landscape With Figures: A Scene from The Last of the Mohicans by Thomas Cole, 1826. Cora, clad in white, lies dying on a cliff beside Uncas, a Mohican who was killed while attempting to save her from Magua, a member of the enemy Huron tribe. (Public Domain) People today, however, tend to be familiar with the 1992 version directed by Michael Mann. Although it is based more on the 1936 movie than the original novel, its intense action, soaring music, lush cinematography, and charismatic performance by Daniel Day-Lewis make it the definitive adaptation for many viewers. This film has an invented scene that does not occur in the original novel but parallels chapters throughout the Leatherstocking Tales that dramatize clashes between the law and Bumppos conscience (renamed Nathaniel Poe in the movie, but known as Hawkeye). In Manns version, Hawkeye warns allied frontiersmen at Fort William Henry that Indians are attacking their homesteads. Colonel Munro refuses to honor a prior verbal agreement that they may leave to defend their families. Hawkeye helps the frontiersmen to escape, is imprisoned for sedition, and is sentenced to hang. The scene efficiently conveys how the heros moral compassion conflicts with a rigid and arbitrary legal system that places no value on a mans word. Coopers message in his novels is that society persecutes individuals who possess true virtue and destroys them when they refuse to submit. Nathaniel Bumppos descendants can be seen everywhere. Countless novelists and filmmakers are indebted to him as the prototype for their gunslingers, private eyes, and detectives. His tough, principled individualism has been imitated by such actors as John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and Clint Eastwood. Nearly every Western ever made employs the formula of the outlaw seeking refuge in the wilderness. Though the original hero may have been superseded, Coopers character type is an enduring part of Americas fictional landscape. This article was originally published in American Essence magazine. The Quarantine of Healthy Populations Commentary A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles alongside my friend and colleague, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. A month prior, we had also lectured together also at a conference in Rome (which, alas, was not recorded). Fortunately, the LA talks werelink below. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Dr. Bhattacharya turned his attention to the epidemiology of the virus and the effects of lockdown policies. He was one of three co-authorsalong with Martin Kulldorff of Stanford and Sunetra Gupta of Oxfordof the Great Barrington Declaration. Many more lives would have been saved, and much misery avoided, had we followed the time-tested public health principles laid out in this document. Jay is professor of health policy at Stanford and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in economics at Stanford. In recognition of his consequential research focusing on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, Loyola Marymount University presented him with the 16th Doshi Bridgebuilder Award on September. Named for benefactors Navin and Pratima Doshi, the award is given annually to individuals or organizations dedicated to fostering understanding between cultures, peoples and disciplines. Upon receipt of the award, Jay gave a lecture exploring The Economic and Human Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Responses. I was invited to give a twenty-minute commentary following Jays lecture. You can find both talks here (after a long introduction, Jays lecture starts at 27:50 and my remarks start at 1:18:30): I dont have a transcript of Jays talk, but for those who prefer to read rather than watch or listen, here is a longer version of my remarks: From the lepers in the Old Testament to the Plague of Justinian in Ancient Rome to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, COVID represents the first time ever in the history of managing pandemics that we quarantined healthy populations. While the ancients did not understand the mechanisms of infectious diseasethey knew nothing of viruses and bacteriathey nevertheless figured out many ways to mitigate the spread of contagion during epidemics. These time-tested measures ranged from isolating the symptomatic to enlisting those with natural immunity, who had recovered from the illness, to care for the sick.[i] Lockdowns were never part of conventional public health measures. In 1968, an estimated one to four million people died in the H2N3 influenza pandemic; businesses and schools stayed open and large events were never cancelled. Until 2020 we had not previously locked down entire populations. We did not do this before because it does not work; and it inflicts enormous collateral damage (as we just heard from my colleague Dr. Bhattacharya). When Drs. Fauci and Birx, leading the U.S. Presidents coronavirus task force, decided in February 2020 that lockdowns were the way to go, the New York Times was tasked with explaining this approach to Americans. On Feb. 27, the Times published a podcast, which began with science reporter Donald McNeil explaining that civil rights had to be suspended if we were going to stop the spread of COVID. The following day, the Times published McNeils article, To Take On the Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It.[ii] The article did not give enough credit to Medieval society, which sometimes locked the gates of walled cities or closed borders during epidemics, but never ordered people to stay in their homes, never stopped people from plying their trade, and never isolated asymptomatic individuals. No, Mr. McNeil, lockdowns were not a Medieval throwback but a wholly modern invention. In March of 2020, lockdowns were an entirely de novo experiment, untested on human populations. Alexis de Tocqueville warned us that democracy contains built-in vulnerabilities that can lead democratic nations to deteriorate into despotism. New levels of political irresponsibility in Europe and America came when we took an authoritarian communist state as the model for managing a pandemic. Recall that China was the birthplace of lockdowns. The first state-ordered lockdown occurred in Wuhan and other Chinese cities. The Chinese Communist Party advertised that they had stamped out the virus in the regions where they had locked down. This was utterly false advertising, but the WHO and most nations bought it. The United States and UK followed Italys lockdown, which had followed China, and all but a handful of countries around the globe followed our lead. Within weeks the whole world was locked down. Its hard to overstate the novelty and folly of what happened worldwide in March of 2020. We were introduced not just to a new and previously untested method of infection control. More than this, we embraced a new paradigm for societyone that had been decades in the making, but that would have been impossible just a few years prior. What descended upon us was not just a novel virus but a novel mode of social organization and controlwhat I call the biomedical security state, the New Abnormal. The term lockdown originated not in medicine or public health but the penal system. Prisons go into lockdown to restore order and security when prisoners riot. In situations where the most tightly controlled and surveilled environment on the planet erupts into dangerous chaos, order is restored by asserting swift and complete control of the entire prison population by force. Only strictly surveilled confinement can keep the dangerous and unruly population in check. Prisoners cannot be permitted to riot; inmates cannot run the asylum. Changes ushered during lockdowns were signs of a broader social and political experiment, in which a new paradigm of governance over people and things is at play, in the words of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben.[iii] This new biosecurity paradigm began to emerge twenty years earlier in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Biomedical security was previously a marginal part of political life and international relations but assumed a central place in political strategies and calculations after these attacks. Already in 2005, for example, the WHO grossly over-predicted that the bird flu (avian influenza) would kill two to fifty million people. To prevent this impending disaster, the WHO made recommendations that no nation was prepared to accept at the time, which included the proposal of population-wide lockdowns. Even earlier, in 2001, Richard Hatchett, a CIA member who served on George W. Bushs National Security Council, was already recommending obligatory confinement of the entire population in response to biological threats. Dr. Hatchett now directs the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an influential entity coordinating global vaccine investment in close collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Like many other public health officials, today Hatchett regards the fight against COVID-19 as a war, on the analogy to the war on terror.[iv] Although lockdowns and other biosecurity proposals were circulating by 2005, mainstream public health did not embrace the biosecurity model until COVID. Donald Henderson, who died in 2016, was a giant in the field of epidemiology and public health. He was also a man whose prophetic warnings in 2006 we chose to ignore in 2020. Dr. Henderson directed the ten-year international effort from 19671977 that successfully eradicated smallpox, then served 20 years as Dean of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. Toward the end of his career, Henderson worked on national programs for public health preparedness and response following biological attacks and national disasters. In 2006, Henderson and his colleagues published a landmark paper.[v] This article reviewed what was known about the effectiveness and practical feasibility of a range of actions that might be taken in response to a respiratory virus pandemic. This included a review of proposed biosecurity measureslater utilized for the first time during COVIDincluding large scale or home quarantine of people believed to have been exposed, travel restrictions, prohibitions of social gatherings, school closures, maintaining personal distance, and the use of masks. Even assuming an infection fatality rate of 2.5 percent, roughly equal to the 1918 Spanish flu but far higher than the IFR for COVID, Henderson and his colleagues nevertheless concluded that all these mitigation measures would do far more harm than good. Henderson and his colleagues concluded their review by endorsing this traditional principle of good public health: Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Quite obviously, we did not heed any of this advice in March of 2020. We instead forged ahead with lockdowns, masks, school closures, social distancing, and the rest. When faced with COVID, we rejected time-tested principles of public health and embraced instead the untested biosecurity model. According to the biosecurity paradigm, a kind of overbearing medical terror was deemed necessary to deal with worst-case scenarios, whether for naturally occurring pandemics or biological weapons. Drawing on the work of French historian of medicine Patrick Zylberman, we can summarize the characteristics of the emerging biosecurity model, in which the political recommendations had three basic characteristics: 1. measures were formulated based on possible risk in a hypothetical scenario, with data presented to promote behavior permitting management of an extreme situation; 2. worst case logic was adopted as a key element of political rationality; 3. a systematic organization of the entire body of citizens was required to reinforce adhesion to the institutions of government as much as possible. The intended result was a sort of super civic spirit, with imposed obligations presented as demonstrations of altruism. Under such control, citizens no longer have a right to health safety; instead, health is imposed on them as a legal obligation (biosecurity).[vi] This precisely describes the pandemic strategy we adopted in 2020. 1. Lockdowns were formulated based on discredited worst-case-scenario modeling from the Imperial College London. 2. This failed model predicted 2.2 million immediate deaths in the United States. 3. Consequently, the entire body of citizens, as a manifestation of civic spirit, gave up freedoms and rights that were not relinquished even by the citizens of London during the bombing of the city in World War II (London adopted curfews but never locked down). The new imposition of health as a legal obligationbiomedical securitywas accepted with little resistance. Even now, for many citizens it seems not to matter that these impositions failed to deliver the public health outcomes that were promised. The full significance of what transpired in 2020 may have escaped our attention. Perhaps without realizing it, we lived through the design and implementation of not just a novel pandemic strategy but a new political paradigm. This system is far more effective at controlling populations than anything previously attempted by Western nations. Under this novel biosecurity model, the total cessation of every form of political activity and social relationship [became] the ultimate act of civic participation.[vii] Quite the contradiction. Neither the pre-war Fascist government in Italy nor the Communist nations of the Eastern Bloc ever dreamed of implementing such restrictions. Social distancing became a political model, the new paradigm for social interactions, with a digital matrix replacing human interaction, which by definition from now on will be regarded as fundamentally suspicious and politically contagious.[viii] It is instructive to reflect on the chosen term, social distancing, which is not a medical term but a political one. A medical or scientific paradigm would have deployed a term like physical distancing or personal distancing, but not social distancing. The word social communicates that this is a new model for organizing society, one that limits human interactions by six feet of space and masks that cover the faceour locus of interpersonal connection and communication. The six-foot distancing rule was supposedly premised on the spread of COVID through respiratory droplets, though the practice continued even after it became clear that it spread through aerosolized mechanisms. Actual contagion risk depended on the total time spent in a room with an infected person and was mitigated by opening windows and other methods of improved ventilation, not by staying six feet apart. Plastic protective barriers erected everywhere actually increased the risk of viral spread by impeding good ventilation. We had already been psychologically primed for over a decade to accept pseudo-scientific practices of social distancing by using digital devices to limit human interactions. The myth of asymptomatic viral spread was another key element in our adoption of the biosecurity paradigm. Asymptomatic spread was not a driver of the pandemic, as research confirmed.[ix] Given that no respiratory virus in history has been known to spread asymptomatically, this should not have surprised anyone. But the media ran with the hypothetical asymptomatic threat story. The specter of people with no symptoms being potentially dangerouswhich never had any scientific basisturned every fellow citizen into a possible threat to ones existence. Notice the complete reversal that this effected in our thinking about health and illness. In the past, a person was assumed to be healthy until proven sick. If one missed work for a prolonged period, one needed a note from a doctor establishing an illness. During COVID, the criteria was turned upside-down: we began to assume that people were sick until proven healthy. One needed a negative COVID test to return to work. It would be hard to devise a better method than the widespread myth of asymptomatic spread, combined with the practice of confining the healthy, to destroy the fabric of society and to divide us. People who are afraid of everyone, who are locked down, who are isolated for months behind screens, are easier to control. A society grounded on social distancing is a manifest contradictionits a kind of anti-society. Consider what happened to usconsider the human and spiritual goods we sacrificed to preserve bare life at all costs: friendships, holidays with family, work, visiting and providing the sacraments to the sick and dying, worshipping God, burying the dead. Physical human presence was confined to the enclosure of domestic walls, and even that was discouraged: in the U.S. state governors and our president attempted to prohibit or at least strongly discouraged family holiday gatherings. In those dizzying days of 2020, we lived through the swift and sustained abolition of public spaces and the squeezing even of private ones. Ordinary human contactour most basic human need, was redefined as contagiona threat to our existence. We already knew that social isolation could kill. Loneliness and social fragmentation were endemic in the West even prior to the coronavirus pandemic. As Nobel Prize winning Princeton researchers Ann Case and Angus Deaton had demonstrated, these factors were contributing to rising rates of deaths of despairdeath by suicide, drugs, and alcohol related illnesses. Deaths of despair rose dramatically during lockdowns, which poured gasoline on that fire. Since the 1980s, reported loneliness among adults in the United States increased from 20 percent to 40 percent even before the pandemic. Loneliness is associated with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, premature death, and violence. It affects health in ways comparable to smoking or obesity, increasing a whole host of health risks and decreasing life expectancy. It is no accident that one of the most severe punishments we inflict on prisoners is solitary confinementa condition that eventually leads to sensory disintegration and psychosis. As we hear on the first pages of Sacred Scripture, it is not good for man to be alone. But with the acquiescence of the Church, during lockdowns we embraced and actively promoted what philosopher Hannah Arendt called organized loneliness, a social state she identified as a precondition for totalitarianism in her seminal book, The Origins of Totalitarianism.[x] Consider for example the Alone Together public service announcement produced for the U.S. government in March of 2020.[xi] The ad read, Staying home saves lives. Whether you have COVID-19 or not, stay home! Were in this together. #AloneTogether. The very conjunction of these two words, a manifest contradiction, is enough to demonstrate the absurdity. Besides not actually saving lives, being told that we were fulfilling a social duty by being alone did not mitigate any of the adverse consequences of loneliness. A hashtag where we could be alone together on screens was no remedy. Lockdowns were the first and decisive step in our embrace of the biomedical security state. This continued with forced vaccinations & discriminatory vaccine passports, mandated for novel products with minimal safety and efficacy testing. The resultant carnagesome of which Dr. Bhattacharya has summarizedwas not, as many news reports misleadingly suggested, collateral damage inflicted by coronavirus. No, this was collateral damage inflicted by our policy response to the coronavirus. Unless we learn from these policy failures we will be doomed to repeat them. Notes [i] Harper, K. The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton University Press, 2019. [ii] McNeil, D. To Take On the Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It , New York Times, Feb. 28, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sunday-review/coronavirus-quarantine.html [iii] Agamben, G. (2021). Biosecurity and Politics. Strategic Culture. [iv] Escobar, P. (2021). How Biosecurity Is Enabling Digital Neo-Feudalism. Strategic Culture. [v] Inglesby, T; Henderson, D.A.; et al., Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza, Control of Pandemic Influenza, Biosecurity and Terrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, 2006;4(4):366-75. doi: 10.1089/bsp.2006.4.366. PMID: 17238820 [vi] Agamben, G. (2021). Biosecurity and Politics. Strategic Culture. [vii] Ibid. [viii] Escobar, P. (2021). How Biosecurity Is Enabling Digital Neo-Feudalism. Strategic Culture. [ix] Madewell ZJ, Yang Y, Longini IM Jr., Halloran ME, Dean NE. Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open. 2020 Dec 1;3(12):e2031756. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.31756. PMID: 33315116; PMCID: PMC7737089. Cao, S., Gan, Y., Wang, C. et al. Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China. Nature Communications 11, 5917 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19802-w [x] Arendt, H. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New Ed. with Added Prefaces, New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973, p. 478. [xi] Covid-19 PSAAlone TogetherYoutube, May 24, 2020. From the Brownstone Institute Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. To see great art is a joy. And to see it in situ both physically (where it was meant to be seen) and historically (to understand the context in which it was made) as you travel makes the experience richer yet. I havent always loved art history. As a teenager, I struggled doggedly through Kenneth Clarks epic art series, Civilisation. Brilliant work, I thought, but lets lighten up. And I remember, back in my college days, flipping through a course catalog with dorm friends and playing name the most boring class of all. My vote: Art History. A few inspiring professors and perspective-broadening trips later, I had changed my tune. Ive learned to recognize the value of great art as a window into the culture and people we travel so far to experience and understand. As a travel writer and tour guide, Ive spent the last 40 years teaching art history in the most wonderful classrooms imaginable: Europes great galleries, palaces, cathedrals, and museums. Through those years, just as some gain an appreciation of fine wine, Ive gained an appreciation of artistic genius and the times and places where that genius flourished. Its great travel to look at a Fra Angelico fresco at his monastery in Florence and understand why, for this monk-artist, painting was a form of prayer, and that he couldnt paint a crucifix without weeping. Its great travel to gaze upon an Albrecht Durer self-portrait brimming with humanistic pride (at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich) and marvel at how, with his etchings and the new-fangled printing press, he was Europes first best-selling artist. Its great travel to stand before a Vermeer painting at Amsterdams Rijksmuseum and let it capture tranquility so intimately that you can almost hear the trickle of milk as the maid pours it. To visit one of Europes venerable music halls and realize how Baroque music Bach with his interwoven melodies, Scarlatti with his trills can be Bernini for your ears and is best played with ruffles on your sleeves. And to circle the sun-dappled Musee de lOrangerie gallery in Paris and look way too closely at Monets messy brushwork a seemingly abstract collage of competing colors then zoom out, and bam, to suddenly understand the genius of his Water Lilies. On Scotlands Orkney Islands, I lowered my head as people have for 5,000 years to squeeze through a tunnel before standing tall in a Stone Age tomb. Under that rock ceiling, I was reminded that the progress of Western civilization can be tracked by art and architecture in this case the evolution of ever-grander domes. That progress started about 1300 BC with a Bronze Age tomb constructed like a stone igloo, with stones fitted together like the beehive tomb I visited in Mycenae, Greece. Then, in Rome, I dropped my jaw under the dome of the Pantheon, built 1,400 years later and still wowing travelers with the magnificence and splendor of ancient Rome at its zenith. Two hours away by train, and about 1,400 years later again, I gazed up at Brunelleschis mighty cathedral dome towering high above Florence. It was so beloved by the citizens that when Michelangelo set out to build St. Peters Basilica in Rome, he said he would build a dome bigger but not more beautiful than its sister in Florence. Some 500 years later, summiting St. Peters, I stood where sunbeams enter the grandest church in Christendom and marveled at how a Renaissance superstar could glorify God and celebrate humanism at the same time. Art takes us backto experience it as if we lived when it was created. To be filled with wonderlike a prehistoric hunter with a torch under a dome of bisonor like a medieval peasant, stepping from an existence of hunger, shivering, and fear into a church, to be surrounded by riches and the promise of a happy eternity. To thrill at the appearance of a gothic spire on the horizon, as if a pilgrim whos hiked a thousand miles to get there. To really believe that a divine monarch was ordained by God to rule without question, and then to be wowed by giant murals of his triumphs and his halls of mirrors slathered in gold leaf. To understand why the great surrealist Dali said, I am the drug. Art transports us to other cultures and other times. It shows us both our foibles and our potential for greatnessit helps a societys culture sparkleand, of course, it gives us something to savor exquisite beauty. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference in the parliament in Yerevan, Armenia, on Sept. 18, 2022. (Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images) Thousands of Federal Officials Found Stock Trading in Companies Overseen by Their Agencies Over 2,600 officials at federal agencies invested in stocks of companies at the same time the firms were lobbying their departments for favorable policies, uncovered an investigation by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). WSJ looked at over 31,000 financial disclosure forms of over 12,000 political staff members, presidential appointees, and career employeesanalyzing data of more than 315,000 trades in stocks, funds, and bonds made by the officials, their spouses, or their children between 2016 and 2021. Close to 40 percent of officials in the Treasury department had invested in stocks of firms that lobbied the agency. Among the EPA, IRS, SEC, Fed, and Defense departments, more than 25 percent of the officials were found to have made investments under similar circumstances, the WSJ analysis shows. Over 1,800 federal officials owned or traded in big tech firms like Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet at a time when the government was intensifying its scrutiny of such companies. Around 70 federal officials used risky trade techniques like options and short selling, with some individual trades going up to $25 million in value. At the EPA, over 200 senior officials invested in firms lobbying their agency. On average, employees from the department as well as their family members owned between $400,000 and $1 million worth of shares in oil and gas firms collectively every year during the investigation period. Officials from the Defense Departments office of the secretary collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million on average in stock investments in defense and aerospace companies every year. Some of the investments were in Chinese firms at a time when Washington was considering blacklisting these firms. More than 60 officials from five agencies took stock positions in companies just before their departments announced enforcement actions against these companies. Ethics, Legislation Speaking to WSJ, Don Fox, an ethics lawyer and former general counsel at the U.S. agency that oversees conflict-of-interest rules, pointed out that several of the trades made by officials cited in the report clearly violate the spirit behind the law, which is to maintain the publics confidence in the integrity of the government. Stock trading among federal officials and legislators has been a hot topic due to the wide scope of abuse. Last year, an investigation by Business Insider revealed that 49 members of Congress traded in stocks in a manner that violated laws against insider trading. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended such trading by insisting that America is a free market economy and that members of Congress must be able to engage in such activities. In July this year, Pelosi came under scrutiny after her husband bought semiconductor stocks just before Congress planned to vote on the industry. In February, members of Congress introduced the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act 2.0 act which aims to ban elected officials from trading in individual stocks. It proposed a penalty of 10 percent of the investment value should a member violate the ban. Last month, House Democrats proposed Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest in Government Act legislation which seeks to ban officials in Congress, the Supreme Court, the executive branch, and the Federal Reserve from owning or trading in instruments like stocks, futures, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. A campaign over whether to impose term limits on North Dakota lawmakers and the governor is a mismatch so far at least financially. U.S. Term Limits, a Washington, D.C.-based group, has contributed more than $810,000 in the past two years to get the ballot proposal before voters, while lawmakers and opponents complain they can't keep up with out-of-state interests. We have no money, said Bismarck Republican Rep. Mike Nathe, who is leading a loosely organized group of GOP lawmakers and others who oppose the measure. They call it an attack on voters rights to choose the candidate they want, and argue that it diminishes institutional knowledge and shifts power to lobbyists, agencies and the governor. Supporters say term limits bring in new blood and increase voter participation. Many Democratic and Republican lawmakers have spoken out against the measure. Republican Gov. Doug Burgum supports it. Nathe said his ad hoc group is banking on social media, letters to the editor and word-of-mouth to persuade voters that term limits are a bad idea. Voters would sour on the idea if they knew more about it, and that its being led by an out-of-state group that term-limit foes believe wants to dictate how state government should operate, he said. Were just trying to educate people about the measure and about how bad we think it is for the future of North Dakota, said Nathe, a funeral home owner who has been in the Legislature since 2009. Nathe released a list of state organizations that have joined in opposing the term limit measures, including the states largest business group, and organizations representing energy, education and agriculture. But none have contributed money so far. Nathe said thats because there has been no time to organize and raise funds after the North Dakota Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the measure should be on the November ballot. The court ruled that Secretary of State Al Jaeger had erred in rejecting the measure over notary violations in some petitions. Scott Tillman, the national field director for U.S. Term Limits, said his group has always been upfront about its involvement in the North Dakota measure since it started last year. Were not trying to hide that were involved, Tillman said. The group spent about $330,000 on its signature-gathering effort, and another $275,000 in its lawsuit with the state, Tillman said. It has spent about $75,000 so far on television commercials in Bismarck and Minot markets, and will spend more money to push the ads statewide soon, he said. The measures sponsoring committee includes several lawmakers linked to the ultraconservative Bastiat Caucus, as well as several new GOP district chairmen. It has raised about $45,000 in addition to contributions from the out-of-state group, campaign filings show. Measure 1 would add a new article to the state constitution, effective Jan. 1, 2023, imposing term limits of eight cumulative years each in the House and Senate. The governor could not be elected more than twice. Term limits would not be retroactive, which means the service of current officeholders would not count against them. The measure that voters will consider makes no mention of term limits. Tillman said the ads will feature the term prominently. North Dakota is the only state where term limits are on the ballot in November, and the only state at present where Tillmans group is actively pushing for them. Fifteen states have term limits for lawmakers; 36 states have gubernatorial term limits. U.S. Term Limits also helped fund a failed term-limit campaign in 1996 in North Dakota, contributing more than $100,000 toward that effort. US dollar notes are photographed in Buenos Aires, on June 23, 2022. (Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images) Trickle Down Economics Nothing More Than Label Used to Smear Capitalism: Economist The term trickle-down economics is nothing more than a label used by opponents of capitalism to disparage free markets, according to economist John Humphreys. Humphreys, the chief economist at the Australian Taxpayers Alliance, said despite the term being widely used, it was nowhere to be found in economics studies. People who argue for free-market capitalism dont actually use the term, he told The Epoch Times in an email. The left uses loaded language in order to poison the well against their opponents, and thereby avoid honest policy debates. He said historical evidence showed that free market capitalism is the only sustainable way to bring millions out of poverty, and reducing barriers and regulations is the only way to drive productivity and wage growth. If forced to debate on the evidence or theory, then the left struggleso instead they rely on dishonest strawman arguments, and cheap emotional manipulation. The economist also points out another deliberate misrepresentation of capitalism and that it was a zero-sum game between classes in society. The standard assumption among the left (including many in the media) is that some people can only benefit if other people lose. Thats why they often frame policy debates through the lens of how money is being redistributed. In fact, in The Epoch Times editorial series, The Spectre of Communism, Marxist theory portrays society as a constant struggle between supposed classes, whether thats between men and women, teachers and students, different ethnic groups, and in the economic spherebosses and workers. Marxs theory of exploitation divides people into two opposing classes: the bourgeoisie with capital and the proletariat without. But, in fact, class mobility has increased rapidly since industrialised societies came to the fore, the series states. The degree of class mobility in the first half of the nineteenth century was similar to that in the 1970s in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Attempts to Reform Economy Met With Resistance Meanwhile, recent attempts by the United Kingdoms Truss government to cut taxes have been met with a wave of criticism from media and political commentators. Further, there have been ongoing attempts to pressure the current Australian Labor government to abandon already-legislated tax cuts set to come in 2024-25, with the Australian Council of Social Services calling them unconscionable. Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Council, said tax cuts for upper-middle income earners would not benefit those living in poverty. Yet the Stage Three Tax Cuts legislated under the previous Liberal-National Coalition government simplifies the tax rate for those earning between $45,000 to $200,000a segment predominantly made up of middle-income families. Humphreys has previously supported the tax cuts saying these reforms can help spur economic growth. He also added that the reality of capitalist societies is that everybody involved in everyday business transactions benefits. That is why they voluntarily agree to the trade in the first place. By reducing barriers to trade (lower taxes and less regulation), there are more opportunities for more people to find more ways to cooperate with each other, creating more win-win exchanges, which is the engine of economic growth. Trump Officially Responds to House Jan. 6 Committees Vote to Subpoena Him Former President Donald Trump on Friday responded to the House Jan. 6 panels vote to subpoena him with less than a month to go before the 2022 midterms. In a 15-page letter (pdf) to the panel, the former president did not indicate whether he would testify after members of the panel voted to approve the subpoena. Despite very poor television ratings, the Unselect Committee has perpetuated a Show Trial the likes of which this Country has never seen before, Trump wrote in the letter to chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), adding that his memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt. Trump also described members of the committee as being highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots. The letter was titled PEACEFULLY AND PATRIOTICALLY, making made reference to a statement he made to protesters who amassed in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, when he told them to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Protesters who attended rallies on Jan. 6, Trump wrote, were demonstrating against what he described as election fraud that swayed the November 2020 election toward Democrat rival Joe Biden. So far, more than 860 people have been charged with offenses relating to the breach of the U.S. Capitol. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) (L), Chair of the House January 6 committee, delivers remarks alongside Vice Chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during a hearing in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on Oct. 13, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Those who committed the Fraud, thereby having created the Crime of the Century but those who fought the Crime have suffered a fate that was unthinkable just a short time ago, Trump said in the letter. The House Jan. 6 committee, Trump argued, ignored that he sent thousands of National Guard troops to Capitol Hill, which was blocked by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Capitol Police, which he said was being controlled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Her spokesman, Drew Hammill, told Newsweek that Trumps allegations have no basis in fact. Subpoena While Trump did not say whether he would testify, he offered a signal that he could be considering it. He shared a Truth Social post on Friday that linked to a Fox News article claiming a source close to the former president indicated that he loves the idea of testifying. The subpoena is unlikely to succeed since it will likely prompt legal challenges from Trumps attorneys. Additionally, the subpoena will expire at the end of the current Congress, which is Jan. 3, 2023. As for actually issuing the subpoena, Thompson told reporters it would be issued as soon as we get the paperwork. Vote At its last scheduled public hearing before the midterms, the panel voted unanimously to issue a subpoena to Trump. The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of Jan. 6 was one man: Donald Trump, said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who lost her reelection bid during Wyomings GOP primary, on Thursday evening. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, she later alleged. And Trump is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him, Thompson said. He is required to answer for his actions. Frank Fang contributed to this report. Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of two protesters who have thrown tinned soup at Vincent Van Gogh's 1888 work Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, on Oct. 14, 2022. (PA Media/Just Stop Oil) UK Climate Activists Arrested After Throwing Soup on Van Goghs Sunflowers Two UK climate activists have been arrested after throwing tinned soup at one of Vincent Van Goghs most famous paintings in the National Gallery in London. The activists, who are supporters of the Just Stop Oil organisation, threw two tins of Heinz Tomato soup over the 1888 work Sunflowers shortly after 11 a.m. on Friday, before kneeling down in front of the painting and appearing to glue their hands to the wall beneath it. One of the activists, 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer from London, said in front of the painting: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. The protesters were later arrested and taken away in a police van. The painting was covered by glass. There is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed, the National Gallery later said in a statement. The Metropolitan Police said: Officers were rapidly on scene at the National Gallery this morning after two Just Stop Oil protesters threw a substance over a painting and then glued themselves to a wall. Both have been arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass. Specialist officers have now un-glued them and they have been taken into custody to a central London police station. Disruptions Just Stop Oil, a spin-off from Extinction Rebellion, has been urging the government to begin the process of winding down fossil fuel production in the country. The group began blockading fuel terminals across the country on April 1, leading to more than 1,000 arrests. The group was also filmed blockading petrol stations and damaging petrol pumps. On Aug. 26, Just Stop Oil stated on Twitter that they decommissioned pumps at 7 stations in central London. Over the past fortnight, the group has caused disruptions in central London by blocking key roads, including The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace. Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the Conservative Party conference on Oct. 4 that shell be tough on guerrilla protests by climate protesters and other rioters. You cant just start a riot or glue yourself to the roads and get away with it, Braverman said. So whether youre Just Stop Oil or Insulate Britain or Extinction Rebellion, you cross the line when you break the law, and thats why well keep putting you behind bars. PA Media contributed to this report. US soldiers walk in Poland near the border with Ukraine, on March 3, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images) US Army Veteran From Idaho Dies While Fighting in Ukraine An American army veteran who volunteered to fight in Ukraine has been killed in the Donbass region, his family has announced. Dane Partridge, a 34-year-old father-of-five from Rexburg, Idaho, flew out to Ukraine in April to help the country in its war with Russia, and was soon deployed to the front lines. He had kept his family and friends updated with his movements on Facebook. In a statement on social media, Partridges family said he passed away at Kyiv military hospital on Oct. 12 after being placed on life support following serious injuries he sustained while serving. Doctors had previously told the family that Partridge has suffered brain damage, edema, and spinal damage and that his situation was not conducive to life. I know his soul has found peace, a statement from his sister, Jenny Corry, read. He was always good for a joke, witty banter, and the occasional serious conversation. He stayed true to his faith and spiritual convictions till his dying days. While in Ukraine he messaged me occasionally to let me know he missed his children and wife something fierce. He was a fine soldier who fought with valor and bravery on the battlefield. We have been told that he was known to be at the front of his team, leading his men as he would never ask his men to do anything that he wasnt willing to do. Our lives have forever been changed by this stalwart man, the statement continued. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. We love you and will miss you so much brother! Conditions in Ukraine Worse Than Iraq A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that a U.S. citizen had recently been killed in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Partridge had previously served as an infantryman in Iraq for 15 months from 2007 to 2009. His sister Jenny Corry told ABC news that she had spoken with her brother while he was volunteering in Ukraine and that he said that the conditions there were worse than anything he had experienced during his time in Iraq. Dane and his team had been clearing trenches when they ended up in a firefight with Russian soldiers who were equipped with a tank, his sister said. Within the firefight there was some shrapnel that was discharged and hit many of the men but Dane sustained the worse of all the injuries, she added. Dane sustained the injuries on Oct. 3 in Severodonetsk, a city in Luhansk, The Washington Post reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin officially annexed four partially occupied regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, last month. Western officials have said they will never recognize the four regions as anything other than Ukrainian territory. Official numbers pertaining to the exact number of U.S. citizens who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine, or those who have died there are not currently available, however, Ukrainian officials said in March that nearly 20,000 international volunteers from 52 countries had applied to volunteer there. Trade Representative Katherine Tai speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, on May 17, 2022. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) US Trade Representative Announces Plan to Launch Online Portal for Comments on China Trade Act The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced plans for opening an online portal for public comments for the statutory four-year review of China 301 Tariffs. USTR plans to open an online portal, https://comments.USTR.gov, to the public on Nov. 15, for comments from interested parties. In May, USTR issued steps in commencing the statutory four-year review of the two tariff actions that went effective, respectively, on July 6, 2018 and Aug. 23, 2018, taken under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Step one was for domestic industries that benefit from the tariffs to submit a request for continuation of the two actions in the 60-day window prior to the four-year anniversary of the respective action. In September, USTR announced that the two actions would remain in effect because at least one representative of a domestic industry which benefits from each action submitted a request for their continuation. Under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, USTR investigated and addressed Chinas unreasonable or discriminatory acts, policies, and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation to burden or restrict U.S. commerce. Online Submission of Comments USTR invites comments on specific questionnaires such as the effects of the actions on U.S. economy and consumers, as well as the U.S. workers, small businesses, supply chain, manufacturing, technological leadership and development, etc. A copy of questions for the docket will be ready by Nov. 1 to facilitate preparation of comments prior to the opening of the web portal. According to the release, all comments must be submitted through the online portal. To be assured of consideration in this stage of the four-year review, interested parties should submit comments no later than Jan. 17, 2023. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (L) shakes hands with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (R) alongside US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (C) after trade negotiations in Washington, D.C., on May 10, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) The Tariffs In response to Chinas unfair trade practices, the Trump administration conducted a Section 301 investigation into Chinas economic practices and imposed tariffs on certain unfairly priced Chinese imports in 2018. A total of approximately $360 billion in Chinese goods were subject to additional tariffs$120 billion worth of Chinese goods at 7.5 percent and $250 billion worth of Chinese goods at 25 percent. In a release by USTR in June 2018, then-USTR representative Robert Lighthizer addressed the tariffs as strong defensive actions to protect Americas leadership in technology and innovation against Chinas theft of U.S. intellectual property, the forced transfer of American technology, and its cyber attacks on the U.S. computer networks. Trade Representative Katherine Tai addresses the Geneva Graduate Institute on the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the global economy and U.S. policy priorities ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Oct. 14, 2021. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters) In a telephonic press briefing on Sept. 18, the incumbent USTR representative, Katherine Tai emphasized that the tariffs are not punitive in nature. Tai referred to the tariffs as rebalancing tariffs. She said, [T]hey are tariffs to try to level the playing field to overcome unfairness that we have seen and the impacts on the U.S. economy. Wang Xiang contributed to this report. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy Hospitalized, Undergoing Tests After Not Feeling Well Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was hospitalized as a precaution in Washington Thursday after not feeling well, his office said. Leahy, 82, had been at his residence in McLean, Virginia, when he started feeling unwell and was subsequently taken to a Washington-area hospital to undergo tests, according to a statement from his office. His office did not specify what tests the lawmaker underwent. At the recommendation of his doctors, he is expected to remain overnight for observation, the statement read. His office said they will provide further updates on the matter as warranted. Leahy is the Senate president pro tempore; a title that is typically given to the longest-serving member of the majority party, and authorizes them to preside over the Senate, sign legislation, and issue the oath to uphold the Constitution to new senators. He is the third in the line of presidential succession, behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The Democrat was first elected in 1974 as a so-called Watergate Baby which saw a surge of Democrats elected following the revelations surrounding the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon. Health Woes Leahy announced last year that he will not be seeking reelection in November and instead retiring. By the time his term expires in January 2023, he would have served for 48 years in the Senate. This is not the first time that Leahy, who was born blind in one eye, has faced battles with his health. In January 2021, the lawmaker was rushed to a hospital just hours after he had begun presiding over the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. At the time, his office said that he had been feeling well and was examined in the Capitol by the Attending Physician before being taken to the hospital. He was sent home shortly after. In that instance, his office again did not specify the nature of his condition or what tests the lawmaker underwent. Earlier this year in June, the lawmaker fell down some stairs at his McLean home and was subsequently forced to undergo a hip replacement. Just a month later, he had to have another surgery to repair his broken hip after doctors decided a second operation would help speed up his recovery. Leahy had been using a wheelchair to get around the Capitol for some time following his surgeries but was walking around the Senate hallways in September. The Senate is now in recess until after the midterm elections in November. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Absentee ballots are one target for those seeking to steal votes. Here, election workers check-in, sort, and signature verify absentee ballots for the state's U.S. Senate runoff election on Jan. 5, 2021, in Lawrenceville, Ga. (Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Voter Fraud Comes in All Shapes and Sizes, but Can Sometimes Swing Elections News Analysis Voter fraud is surprisingly common. Prosecutions for it can range from small-scale cases, such as someone with two residences voting in both states, to large-scale crimes that changed electoral outcomes, affected hundreds or thousands of votes, and ranged across multiple states. An extensive database maintained by the Heritage Foundation has logged 1,384 proven cases of voter fraud, resulting in 1,191 criminal convictions, 48 civil penalties, and 103 defendants ending up in diversion programs. And the foundation says the list doesnt come close to being comprehensive. The database, which dates to 1992, lists 19 elections overturned due to fraud, 16 of those since 2000. Such fraud isnt linked to any particular party or ethnicity. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Blacks, whites, and Hispanics all do it. Candidates cheat to get elected, falsely registering inside a district where they dont live. Or they arrange for illegal votes in their favor. Parties and activist groups do it to win elections or to look good padding their voters-registered counts and maybe getting a bonus for making their quota. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. (Crossroads. Screenshot via The Epoch Times) That database represents only a sampling of cases. Its not comprehensive. Its only cases that were investigated and prosecuted, the foundations elections expert Hans von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times. There are plenty of examples of local prosecutors not being interested in and not pursuing these cases; also, federal prosecutors. Its a potential problem much larger than our database indicated. The database breaks down the cases in several ways. It can be sorted by date, year, the outcome such as a criminal conviction or civil penalty, and by the following categories of infractions: altering the vote count; ballot petition fraud; buying votes; duplicate voting; election overturned; false registrations; fraudulent use of absentee ballots; illegal assistance at the polls; impersonation fraud at the polls; and ineligible voting. Judges and other authorities have overturned numerous elections in recent years for voter fraud. Races in small towns or for obscure public boards seem particularly vulnerable, perhaps because the small numbers of votes make the election easier to steal. If you look at the cases in our database, some are isolated cases, one voter taking advantage of the system and voting twice, Von Spakovsky said. But others are organized efforts, which result in the election later being overturned. Here are a few elections overturned recently: A city council election in Compton, California, which hinged on a single vote, was overturned earlier this year because, prosecutors showed, voters who didnt live in the district had cast at least four ballots for the initial winner. The judge awarded the election to runner-up Andre Spicer, and initial winner Isaac Galvan, a two-term incumbent, has been charged with election rigging and bribery. Fraud is a regular practice here, Spicer told The Daily Signal, referring to Compton. This is the first time it has gotten this far. He got arrested for fraud and bribery. Thats what put him up by one vote. Compton City Council member Isaac Galvans reelection was overturned by a judge and he faces criminal charges for election fraud. Here Galvan (L) presents Ice Cube with a Celebration of Life award from the City of Compton, on June 14, 2018. (Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Dream Hollywood ) In 2018, the election for North Carolinas 9th Congressional District was overturned, and a new election was held in 2019 because an operative for the Republican winner, Mark Harris, had led a team committing absentee ballot fraud. Four defendants pleaded guilty to misdemeanors last month, six others have charges pending, and the team leader died in April while under indictment. Harris, who was not charged, didnt run in the new election. Workers said they gathered blank or incomplete absentee ballots by offering to mail them, then filling them in or forging signatures. In 2021, a city council election in Aberdeen, Mississippi, was overturned after a judge found that 66 of the 84 absentee ballots cast were invalid. A notary admitted she violated notary laws by putting her notary seal on about 30 such ballots in the home of a city alderwoman without the ballots having been signed in her presence. The first elections runner-up, who had lost by 37 votes, won the ensuing special election. In 2020, a town council election in Eatonville, Florida, decided by one vote was overturned after a judge found two of the initial winners votes invalid. One was a vote in the name of a man who later testified he never voted in the election, and the other came from a woman who testified shed been threatened with eviction by her landlord into voting. Candidate Marlin Daniels initially led by one vote but fell behind when the Orange County Canvassing Board in April added two votes that hadnt been counted for his opponent, Tarus Mack. Daniels sued and, in October 2020, was declared the winner by the judge. No venue is off-limits. Even the legendary New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch has had a case. Since it first gained the right to run its own elections in 1960, the hamlet has become a piece of American political lore as the first in the nation to vote and report its election results for each New Hampshire presidential primarythe nations first each cycleand the election itself. A dozen or two voters gather in a resort hotel ballroom. The polls open as the clock ticks midnight into Election Day, then close a minute later after all the eligible voters have cast ballots. The wire services beam the results out to the nation, and it often leads the news on Election Day morning. But two individuals voted in 2016 in Dixville Notchs primary, despite not residing or having established a domicile there. They were warned they would face criminal prosecution if they did it again. Even Dixville Notch, N.H., traditionally the home of the nations first primary and presidential election votes each cycle, has sustained voter fraud. Here local officials conduct the towns 2020 presidential primary. (Paul Hayes/The Caledonian-Record) The activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) was driven out of existence in the United Statesan international branch remainsbecause its organizers and petition gatherers were found to have fabricated so many voter registrations in at least six states between 2007 and 2011, mostly for the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. He at one time had represented the group as a lawyer. At least 30 Acorn workers in six states were convicted of crimes, with most of them sentenced to jail. Two senior organizers in Las Vegas were among those convicted after starting a scheme to pay hourly petition gatherers a $5 bonus for registering 21 people. Acorn was fined $5,000 in that case, and the state passed a law forbidding the bonus-paying practice. Acorn workers in Seattle committed what the secretary of state labeled as the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washingtons history. When Acorns national office threatened to shut the groups local office, Clifton Mitchell and his team began using fake names, addresses, birthdays, and Social Security numbers to meet voter registration quotas. In a candid interview with CNN following his conviction, Clifton relayed how he and his fellow Acorn co-workers would take addresses from homeless shelters or use baby books and phone books to generate fake information. In total, the group submitted 1,762 fraudulent voter registration forms. Mitchell was convicted of false registrations and served nearly three months in jail. Four other Acorn workers on his team also received jail time. Additionally, prosecutors ordered Acorn to increase its oversight under threat of prosecution and fined the organization $25,000 to cover the investigation cost. Despite the numerous prosecutions and convictions spread across multiple states, defenders pooh-poohed the issue and maintained that widespread voter fraud is a myth. If we are doing our jobs right, you never hear about us in the media, right? New Mexicos incumbent secretary of state, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, told the Santa Fe New Mexican in a phone interview earlier this month. That these questions [about election fraud] have arisen based on lies and misinformation, yes, the position has been elevated in the eyes of the public. The Brennan Center for Justice, in a 2017 article Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth, lists more than a dozen studies purporting to show the problem is vastly overstated. There are no known instances of fictitious people actually voting, University of Washington law professor Eric Schnapper told CNN in 2008 regarding the Acorn case. You look at some of the names: Mickey Mouse. Dr. Seuss. Mickey Mouse only votes in Disneyland. Hes not going to show up at a critical precinct in West Virginia or North Carolina. Schnapper told CNN that if anyone should be upset, its Acorn. The victims of this are the people who paid these workers $8 an hour to go out and find legitimate voters, and they didnt get their $8 worth; they put down phony names, Schnapper said. Attitudes like these are part of the problem, Von Spakovsky and co-author John Fund wrote in their book, Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote. They have pushed the false narrative that there is no fraud in our elections or that it is so minimal that we should not be concerned about it. They have also, with their willing allies in the media, falsely labeled any efforts to implement needed reform as voter suppression.' Why Accurate COVID-19 Death Counts Are Still Hard to Determine 3 Years Later News Analysis The number of deaths resulting from COVID-19 infections has been controversial and debated since the onset of the pandemic. Much of this stems from how doctors continue to report fatalities associated with the virus. Shifting numbers from major health organizations have also contributed to the confusion, fueling speculation. This is because mortality rates based on excess death estimates from officials are subject to change. The term excess deaths concerning COVID-19 refers to a theoretical number of fatalities not listed in official reports by individual countries health departments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes it as a difference between the number of observed and expected mortalities within a certain period. And like any theory, its not necessarily accurate. In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on the global excess death count from COVID-19, putting the figure at 15 million. Barely a month later, scientists from the organization admitted mistakes in their estimates, resulting in adjusted excess numbers. A sign of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 24, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) By contrast, the actual reported number of global fatalities from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic is slightly more than 6.5 million. The drastic differences in figures prompted some governments to fire back at the WHO excess death figures. Indias government openly called the estimates speculative and misinformed. In March, the CDC also made a similar adjustment and removed 72,277 COVID-related fatalities from its data tracker. A Matter Of Opinion Meanwhile, medical professionals in the United States are opening up about the dubious nature and challenges associated with reporting COVID-related deaths. Thats because even today, theres no across-the-board regulation for determining whether COVID-19 is an actual cause of death in a patient who tests positive, or just a coexisting condition. Its entirely at the discretion of the attending physician, medical examiner, or coroner. Early on in COVID that was a source of great controversy by people who said if you had an underlying illness that was severe and you got COVID, you shouldnt have those patients listed as COVID deaths, Dr William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told The Epoch Times. Schaffner explained some physicians countered the argument, saying their patient would still be alive were it not for a COVID-19 infection. The end result: COVID was often labeled as the primary cause of death, despite significant or even life-threatening pre-existing conditions, in many patients. National Guard members assisting with the transfer of COVID-19 fatalities and placing bodies into temporary storage in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan 12, 2021. (Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner via AP, File) Consequently, that pushed the associated mortality rate even higher. Its a judgment call by the doctor who fills out the death certificate, Schaffner said. Chief scientist and CEO of SyneuRx, Dr Emil Tsai, told The Epoch Times that COVID-19 death reporting has become increasingly murky and that will likely continue. Statistically, we have an average number of deaths that occured per year in the United States before the pandemic. There has been an excess of deaths, so we can assume those deaths, whether a primary or secondary cause, are COVID-related, Tsai said. He added, As the pandemic continues, those excess deaths will lessen and COVID infection will become harder to recognize. Reporting [deaths] will become increasingly more difficult. Tsai noted many coroners offices were likely overwhelmed at the beginning of the pandemic, leading to struggles in determining what deaths should be counted as COVID-related. Moreover, some experts assert that as the virus continues mingling amidst other contagious diseaseslike during flu seasonidentifying what role COVID-19 plays in resultant mortalities will be another hurdle. Testing And Misdiagnosis Challenges The availability of tests for COVID-19 presented an enormous problem for diagnosis in the early months of the pandemic. Though once antigen and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests became widely available, false positives threw another curve ball at the healthcare industry. Considered by most medical professionals as the gold standard of tests for detecting COVID-19, the PCR is considered accurate within 95 to 100 percent. Even so, that would still leave a trail of thousands of false positives since official records began in 2020. A medical worker places a nasal swab into a test tube after performing a COVID-19 PCR test in Boston, Mass., on Dec. 20, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images) This further muddles the dilemma of accurate death counts since people listed as a COVID-19 fatality are generally not retested, yet its the only way to determine if the first one was a false positive. Though testing aside, some health care insiders say part of the problem is accurate diagnostics stemming from how little time doctors are spending with their patients nowadays. In the very beginning, when I first started practicing nursing, the focus was on the patient, retired registered nurse Donna Brown told The Epoch Times. Having spent years working in hospitals, Brown has watched some big changes unfold within the healthcare industry. Chief among these is a decline in the time doctors are spending with patients to assess and diagnose a condition. These days, you can measure it with a stopwatch. Im sorry, but 10 to 15 minutes isnt nearly enough time for physicians, Brown said. She added this is especially true with elderly patients, where a deeper knowledge of previous diagnoses and existing conditions are critical. Recent studies show the average time doctors interact with patients is between 13 to 24 minutes with the low end of the average being more common. Another pre-pandemic analysis revealed only 11 percent of patients and 14 percent of physicians felt their interaction provided the appropriate amount of time needed for the highest standards of care. Tsai agrees that medical professionals have less time to spend with patients than years ago. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many more patients than physicians could help and time was stretched thin, he said. Many felt they didnt have time to make the thorough assessment they wanted for each patient. Add COVID-19 to the mix and there was even less time. While some of this is due to pandemic related staff shortages, more time is also being spent working with electronic health records v. patients directly. Due to changes in the way insurance providers and the government pay for healthcare, doctors now spend more time on computers than with their clients. This applies to more than just hospital visits. In a study of 57 U.S. physicians in different specialties, only 27 percent of their time was spent on direct clinical facetime interactions with patients. According to Brown, this trend became particularly noticeable once the Affordable Care Act went into effect under former President Barack Obama. So insurance companies started dictating the amount of time spent with patients. That certainly doesnt help doctors make an accurate diagnosis, she said. Why Your Mask Came From China Commentary The story of the shocking lockdowns, in the United States and around the world, of Spring of 2020 is impossible to tell without the central role of China, where lockdowns began and where the virus is believed to have originated. The World Health Organization (WHO), with the UK and the U.S. as signatories, proclaimed that China managed the virus properly in an influential report dated Feb. 26, 2020. This series of events did not occur in a vacuum. The United States and China were in the thick of a fiery trade war, with nearly two years of rounds of claims and counterclaims, fines and retaliations, as well as on and off rounds of negotiations that proved fruitless. There was plenty of carnage on both sides along the way. Is there a way in which the two fields of battlethe trade row and the virus responseare somehow linked? Was the selling of lockdowns as a virus response its own form of trade retaliation? Many have speculated along those lines. And theres another intriguing prospect raised by this stark reality: even while the United States was in the thick of a cruel lockdown that crushed small business and so much of American civic life, trade with China actually began to recover, due mostly to the persuasive gifts of Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner. Perhaps this was not an accident. Lets review the series of events. Starting in 2018, President Trump imposed tariffs on trade with China. It was an unusual approach by any postwar standard. Normally presidents past would impose tariffs on goods from any country in the name of protecting domestic industry, or perhaps target a single country on grounds of national security. This was differenttargeting a single country on economic groundsand it happened because Trump had a list of countries with whom the United States ran a trade deficit, which he saw as proof of how they owed us money. So he started at the top of the list (China) and went down (Mexico, Germany, and even Canada). There is no evidence that he fully understood either what it means to have a trade deficit or that these policies could not force any other country to pay anything; American consumers and businesses pay the tariffs as another form of taxation to the U.S. government. In any case, contrary to what Trump promised and expected, Xi Jinping retaliated and made it ever more difficult for the United States to export to or import from China. Consumers and producers on both sides suffered. For a while, the consequences for China were devastating. By October 2018, imports from China to the U.S. fell off a cliff. Matters became far worse with pandemic lockdowns in the United States, a period during which China had opened up completely. Trump shut down travel to China on Jan. 31, 2020, thinking that this would keep the virus out that had been in the U.S. already six months, and continually referred to the China virus. A pathogen from China was something that Trump believed he needed to stop. The result was another blow to U.S.-China trade. Anthony Faucis deputy assistant H. Clifford Lane went to China in mid-February 2020 to observe how China had supposed crushed the virus through brutal lockdowns, and, through a WHO report, urged the United States to follow the same course. Trump went along at the urging of Fauci, Deborah Birx, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Vice President Mike Pence. That was the end of U.S.-China trade. But not for long. It quickly recovered and now is back to what it was in dollar terms. This is largely because the United States started buying billions (we dont know how much exactly but someone should find out) in personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, gowns, plus swabs and everything) from China in March just after lockdowns began. This began a major recovery in U.S.-China trade. Here is the graph and it shows all the above in terms of U.S. imports from China. (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data [FRED], St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker) You undoubtedly noticed this during the pandemic. Most of the masks and other things related to equipment came from China. Thats pretty interesting, dont you think? How the heck did this happen? Trumps priority of decoupling the two countries ended up doing the opposite, at least for a time. Fascinating. Jared Kushner tells his side of the story in his book Breaking History. The system we established at FEMA unleashed a global procurement effort not seen since World War II. Boehler, Smith, and the FEMA team leaped into action, calling every major medical supplier around the globe in a race to purchase millions of masks, gowns, gloves, testing swabs, and other critical supplies. As we sourced supplies from all over the world, we discovered that the factories with the most available supplies were in China. Despite their abundance of product, the Chinese government was blocking supplies from leaving the country. I knew that in time Americans would be able to manufacture much of what we needed, but at this moment we had no time to spare. We needed to ask the Chinese government if they would allow us to purchase supplies, which meant that we needed to address the growing tension between our two governments. As the coronavirus grew from a localized problem in Wuhan into a global pandemic, the presidents rhetoric toward China had grown increasingly antagonistic . What to do? Kushner needed to persuade Trump to relax his attitude toward China trade. That would take some doing. I went to speak with Trump privately. Were scrambling to find supplies all over the world, I told him. Right now, we have enough to get through the next weekmaybe twobut after that it could get really ugly really fast. The only way to solve the immediate problem is to get the supplies from China. Would you be willing to speak to President Xi to deescalate the situation? Now is not a time to be proud, said Trump. I hate that we are in this position, but lets set it up. I reached out to Chinese ambassador Cui Tiankai and proposed that the two leaders talk. Cui was keen on the idea, and we made it happen. When they spoke, Xi was quick to describe the steps China had taken to mitigate the virus. Then he expressed concern over Trump referring to COVID-19 as the China Virus. Trump agreed to refrain from calling it that for the time being if Xi would give the United States priority over others to ship supplies out of China. Xi promised to cooperate. From that point forward, whenever I called Ambassador Cui with a problem, he sorted it out immediately. So there we go: just after U.S. lockdowns, Trump called Xi and Xi told Trump again how great lockdowns were and asked that Trump stop blaming China. Trump agreed to stop the rhetoric and stop claiming the virus was Chinas fault. Trade was on again, in the midst of what Trump was told was an emergency. He had already green-lighted a China-style virus mitigation effort. Now he was restarting trade. Some of the factories making this stuff in China were American factories, particularly one owned by 3M, an American company that had long outsourced its manufacturing to China. Trump called the CEO and asked for their PPE but the management demurred and said China would not allow it. Trump invoked the rarely used Defense Production Act (1950) and said that now 3M had to sell supplies. Kushner continues the story: Later, I called [Mike] Roman [3M CEO) and told him that we were sending him a contract for all of 3Ms masks in China. I cant sell them to you, he said. The Chinese government has taken over my factory and is controlling my distribution. Thats not your problem anymore, I said. Its our problem. Under the DPA, we technically control your company. Were going to send you a contract, and federal law requires you to sign it. You can tell the Chinese that you had no choice. Within thirty minutes, Roman signed the contract and the masks were ours. Now I had to work with the Chinese to get the masks to America. Kushner doesnt say what the contract was worth or how many tax dollars were fed to the U.S. company with manufacturing operations in China. But he does say how many masks the United States bought: forty-six million masks per month for the next six months. And the final note: Once Roman saw that we had used diplomacy to work out the situation with the Chinese government, and that we werent looking to take the rest of his global supply, he became much more agreeable. In the end, he and 3M became great partners in our effort. Looking back, its unclear whether and to what extent there really was any crisis at all beyond the hothouse frenzies generated in political circles. In this way, the PPE shortage was like the supposed ventilator shortage: speculations that drove frenzied solutions that ended up looking for a problem to solve. In the case of ventilators, they ended up using them and killing thousands of people. Masks, as we know, ended up being used everywhere but nowhere produced solid evidence of disease mitigation. Because hospitals around the country were shut to most uses but COVID patients, by government edict, parking lots stood empty and nurses in hundreds of hospitals were furloughed. Not even the idea of overwhelmed New York City hospitals holds up to scrutiny. In the early months, the number of employees working in health care fell by 1.8 million while health care spending crash by 16.5 percent. Historians will surely be very confused how this could have happened in the midst of a pandemic. (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data [FRED], St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker) There is a strange way in which U.S. lockdowns and disease panic miraculously healed the U.S.-China trade rift that had been developing for the two years prior. Most personal protective equipment and especially masks used during the lockdown period in the United States was imported from China in a deal between Trump and Xi, brokered by Trumps son-in-law. Trade recovered, beginning with pandemic-related goods. Following the installation of Biden as president, every American was forced to wear China-made clothing on their faces. From the Brownstone Institute Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. A gender neutral sign is posted outside a bathroom at Oval Park Grill on May 11, 2016 in Durham, North Carolina. The debate over transgenderism is spreading nationwide, particularly when it comes to transition surgery for young people. (Sara Davis/Getty Images) Wild Ride Begins With Court Clash Over First US Law to Ban Child Transgender Surgeries Constitutional test of Arkansas law will set precedent, send ripple effects When Americas first law banning gender transition procedures for minors was passed in Arkansas last year, it spawned a wave of similar legislation. But legislative proposals in a dozen other states withered on the vine, while the Arkansas law faced an immediate court challenge that temporarily blocked the law from taking effect in July 2021. Since then, Alabama and Arizona moved forward and passed their own versions of the Arkansas act, while California took a 180-degree turn to counteract the bans. Last month, California became the nations first sanctuary state welcoming out-of-state youths who seek puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. And now, the Arkansas law, called the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, remains closely watched from all sides as it heads to trial in Little Rock starting Oct. 17. The outcome will determine how lawmakers and activists nationwide plan their next moves in the evolving controversy over medical intervention for transgender-identifying minors. Necessary or Experimental? James Moody Jr., judge in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. (Courtesy: Judge Moody) U.S. District Court Judge James Moody Jr. must decide a case that pits the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against Arkansas officials who are defending the SAFE Act. The ACLU contends that the SAFE Act unconstitutionally denies medically necessary treatments for youths suffering from gender dysphoria, which is persistent distress about ones gender. In its lawsuit, the ACLU is representing four gender-dysphoric children, ages 9 to 16 at the time of the filing in May 2021, and two doctors who provide gender-affirming care. The childrens parents described seeing marked improvements in attitude and reduced anxiety after counseling and, in some cases, treatments with hormones. The parents worry about what would happen to their children if the law were to take effect, requiring the treatment to abruptly stop. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge counters that the state is obligated to protect juveniles from experimental treatments that can permanently alter their still-developing bodies. She and other supporters of the SAFE Act say that long-term effects of the treatments remain unknown. Multiple Appeals Likely The case serves as the nations first test of the constitutionality of this type of law, Danielle Weatherby, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law, told The Epoch Times. Regardless of which way the judge rules, this is just the beginning of a wild ride, Weatherby said. She predicts multiple appeals will follow, along with legislative proposals in a number of states. From a legal standpoint, Moodys decision will be considered a precedent only within the Eighth Circuit, a six-state federal court region that includes Arkansas. At least two Eighth Circuit states, Iowa and Missouri, had introduced bills resembling the SAFE Act. (The remaining states are Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.) If the ACLU prevails and Moody strikes down the SAFE Act, it will mean that any state that is in the Eighth Circuit will not be permitted to pass one of these laws, Weatherby said. When Moody agreed to temporarily block Arkansas from implementing the SAFE Act, he was required to base that decision on a reasonable likelihood that the ACLU would prevail in its lawsuit. Arkansas sought a reversal of Moodys decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction. Thus, Moodys court and the appeals court both appear to have telegraphed that theyre leaning toward the ACLUs contentions in the case. But Moody is expected to have five long days of testimony to mull over, leaving open the possibility that he still may uphold the SAFE Act. Court Disputes Reversible Tag On a personal level, Weatherby said she cares about the outcome of the case because she knows several transgender people and their families. I know that firsthand, having worked with transgender children, they do not make this decision lightly, to undergo gender-altering medical procedures, she said. And I think that gets lost in the conversation. She also is aware of the debate over whether gender-affirming care is safe and effective. She said thats a decision each family has to make, in consultation with doctors, and do the best we could do with the knowledge we have, because these kids are suffering from certain fear, anxiety and depression. Danielle Weatherby, assistant professor at the University of Arkansas College of Law. (Courtesy of University of Arkansas) One atypical argument in favor of the SAFE Act relies on a British court ruling, as opposed to one in the United States. When theres no precedent, we look elsewhere, Weatherby said. Rutledge, the attorney general, wrote, The SAFE Act responds to widespread, growing international concerns over body-altering medical treatments being performed on minors still-developing bodies. She noted that, a few months before the SAFE Act was approved, the high court in the United Kingdom determined that children likely cannot ever understand the irreversible consequences of using puberty-blocking drugs as a transition procedure. The UK court also disputed assertions that puberty blockers effects are fully reversible, if the patient stops using the medications. Instead, the court found: Missed development and experience, during adolescence, can never truly be recovered or reversed. In its initial complaint against Arkansas, the ACLU declared: Puberty-delaying treatment is reversible. But further down on the same page, the ACLU cites professional guidelines describing the partly irreversible effects of those prescriptions. Such conflicts arise because the science is unsettled, Arkansas officials have argued. Odd Battle Lines Drawn Another unusual aspect of the case: The unexpected mix of people on both sides. A large number of medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have thrown their support behind the ACLU, along with other groups supporting civil rights and LGBT rights, plus 20 states, predominantly Democrat, as The Epoch Times reported in a previous story. On the other side, backers of the SAFE Act include 19 mostly Republican-dominated states, along with a number of detransitioners, who say medical transitioning didnt solve their problemsit just created more issues. Those people express regret over their gender-altering medications and surgeries. Additional supporters of the SAFE Act include a handful of individual doctors, the conservative Family Research Council, and a nationwide feminist group, the Womens Liberation Front. The somewhat unexpected alliances within each camp show what an anomaly this case is, attorney Vernadette Broyles told The Epoch Times. Broyles, who holds a Harvard University law degree and an undergraduate biology degree from Yale University, is positioned as a rare authoritative voice when legal and medical battles intersect. Conveyor Belt Approach? Broyles and her team with the Child and Parental Rights Campaign filed a brief that shares stories of 10 families whom the SAFE Act would have protected. Attorney Vernadette Broyles, president of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. (Courtesy of Vernadette Broyles) The brief reveals a pattern. Medical professionals often told the parents that gender-affirming care is essentialand without it, their gender-dysphoric children would likely kill themselves. Caregivers told Kristine W.: Transgender identity is very trendy in the hospital setting right now. They said she should ask her anorexic, bulimic child: How can we help you with your gender identity? With little assessment or attempt at non-medical treatments, a conveyor belt whisks away young people into the treatment queues, as one-page marketing materials gloss over the harms, the brief said. The drugs often render the children infertile and cause numerous potential side effects, Broyles said, such as deteriorating bones and cardiovascular problemswithout solid evidence that shows the risks are worth taking. Studies are of low quality and are flawed in many other ways, she said. Sometimes, one parent gets shut out of the process. A father, Ted H., learned that his son was taking gender-affirming treatments only after his health insurer sent a statement showing payment rendered to an endocrinologist at a gender clinic: $210,000, the brief said. Rank-and-File Dissent Broyles said only a sliver of the medical community favors prescribing these treatments, but the ACLU-aligned medical groups are claiming most doctors agree with this practice. Few people realize that the large medical associations do not submit position statements to their entire membership for approval, Broyles said. Rather, committees put them together and send them to the board for a vote. These medical associations have become captive to activist professionals who made it their business to get onto the board or to get onto the critical policy-making committees, Broyles said. There is an effort to suppress any opposition to the ideological narrative. Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman who regrets surgically removing her breasts, holds testosterone medication used for transgender patients, in Northern California on Aug. 26, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Among the information that is being tamped down: puberty blockers are an off-label use for those drugs. None of these treatments have been approved by the FDA they couldnt satisfy the requirements, Broyles said. Broyles expressed grave concerns over the distorting effect on the medical community, damage to the public trust, and the impact on children and families. The idea that we would hijack a childs adolescent developing body, override their genetic operating manual, without the gold seal of appropriately controlled clinical studies It is unjust to our children, she said. She believes that mentally vulnerable children are being used in a mass experiment, which is beyond the pale. Regardless of how the case ends, one of its most important effects might be this, Broyles said: It finally brings to light, to put onto the public record, what these interventions actually do to children, adolescents, and young peoplewhat they do to their developing bodies. An American Airlines flight headed to Barbados from Miami Wednesday night had been in the air for over an hour when passengers and crew members became sick from a strong odor emanating from somebody's luggage. The plane was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing back in Miami, with an official announcing on Broadcastify, "Coming in with toxic fumes coming from a passenger suitcase," according to WSVN Miami. Once the plane landed, five crew members were sent to the hospital "out of an abundance of caution." And the odiferous culprit? Although not confirmed, witnesses think it was nail polish remover. From Insider: "HazMat units performed a hazard assessment due to reports of a strong chemical smell inside the plane," a fire department spokesperson told Insider. Five crew members aboard the plane which was carrying a total of 173 people were taken to the hospital "out of an abundance of caution" after the aircraft was evacuated, according to American Airlines and the fire department. It wasn't clear what caused the chemical smell, but one man aboard the flight told WSVN 7News that the odor was similar to nail polish remover. "Personally it didn't have an effect on me, but I understand that a couple of other passengers felt sick. They might have been vomiting," the man told the news outlet. From ABC: According to CBS Miami, passengers complained of an odor that was seeping through the plane on their way to Barbados. The odor was determined to be coming from a passenger's carry-on luggage. It turned out to be from nail polish remover, according to a source who spoke with CBS News. A passenger who did not get sick told WSVN the smell was pretty strong. The passengers were put up in a hotel for the night and took off for Barbados once again Thursday morning, hopefully without the acetone. The Yukon Legislative Assembly and government buildings in Whitehorse, Yukon, on Oct. 27, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Mark Kelly) Yukon Legislature Passes Motion to Oppose Using Police Force for Ottawas Gun Confiscation Program Governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have adopted similar positions The Yukon Legislative Assembly has adopted a motion to say that local RCMP resources shouldnt be used for the federal governments gun buyback program. The governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have taken similar positions in recent weeks. The motion was brought forward by Yukon Party Justice Critic Brad Cathers and passed with the support of the Yukon Party and the Yukon NDP MLAs. All Yukon Liberal MLAs, who formed a minority government in the territory after the 2021 election, voted against the motion. The motion says that the territorial legislature urges the Yukon government to ensure that territorial policing resources are not diverted to assist in the implementation of the Government of Canadas gun buy-back program. Cathers said its important to ensure that police resources are not diverted from focusing on organized crime and other serious public safety issues. He also emphasized the need to respect licensed firearms owners, including those who depend on hunting to feed their families. The National Police Federation, which is the union representing RCMP members, has made it clear that the Trudeau governments Order-in-Council prohibiting various firearms and the buy-back program will divert police resources away from dealing with organized crime, Cathers said. Tyler Shandro, Albertas minister of justice and solicitor general, in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Todd Korol) RCMP members said the federal Liberal governments firearms measures actually divert important personnel and resources from where they are needed most. We are happy the motion passed, and hope the territorial government will respect the will of the Yukon Legislative Assembly. The federal governments buyback program comes on the heels of its 2020 legislation banning more than 1,500 models of what it termed as assault-style firearms, including AR-15s. Ottawa has said that the buyback program will be mandatory and will require any Canadian owning guns banned by the new legislation to sell them to the government at prices determined by the feds, or else have them lawfully disposed. Alberta was the first province to announce its opposition to the buyback, with Justice Minister Tyler Shandro saying in a press conference on Sept. 26 that the provincial government will not tolerate taking officers off the streets in order to confiscate the property of law-abiding firearms owners. Saskatchewan followed suit two days later. Christine Tell, the provinces minister of corrections, policing, and public safety, told RCMP Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore in a letter that the provincial government will not authorize the use of provincially funded resources of any type for the federal governments buyback. Manitobas Minister of Justice and Attorney General Kelvin Goertzen said on Sept. 28 that his province also doesnt want to devote precious provincial police resources to the gun buyback program. Manitoba has consistently stated that our approach to gun violence is to focus on those who use weapons in crime, not law abiding gun owners, Goertzen said in a statement. Peter Wilson contributed to this report. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Cat litter is the GOPs latest talking point in their war on all the rest of us who don't look and think like them. GOP stalwarts repeating falsehoods about schools putting cat litter pans in bathrooms for children who identify as cats. What kind of idiot believes this bullshit? NBC: The week before, on Sept. 29, Minnesota GOP gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen asked during a campaign stop, "Why do we have litter boxes in some of the school districts so kids can pee in them, because they identify as a furry?" And during a legislative hearing last month in Tennessee, two Republican state lawmakers discussed the "growing crisis" of public schools providing litter boxes for children who identify as cats, and claimed it's happening across the state. At least 20 conservative candidates and elected officials have claimed this year that K-12 schools are placing litter boxes on campus or making other accommodations for students who identify as cats, according to an NBC News review of public statements. Every school district that has been named by those 20 politicians said either to NBC News or in public statements that these claims are untrue. There is no evidence that any school has deployed litter boxes for students to use because they identify as cats. These politicians have to know this is untrue as they are spreading the lies. The Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, SAN is gravely pushing Nigeria into regional and international abyss of mockery and charlatanism with far-reaching consequences on the countrys socio-economic development, regional and international human rights, rule of law and democracy ratings and trade and investment policies including foreign direct investments (FDI). Intersociety hereby strongly condemns Nigerian Governments total disregard and disobedience to the landmark judgment of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal quashing the entire criminal trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, a frontline Self Determination Agitator and Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra. The Nigerian Government disregard and disobedience to the unanimous verdict of the three Justices of the Court of Appeal was expressly contained in a press release from the Office of Attorney General of the Federation. The arrogation of the interpretative power by the Attorney General including what to obey and what not to obey in the landmark judgment is also tyrannical, vexatious and democratically calamitous. It must be clearly and strongly stated that the only option available to Nigerias Attorney General as the Law Officer of Nigeria is to fully consent to the landmark judgment or go on appeal within the stipulated timeframe. Consenting or not consenting to the landmark judgment is however immaterial to the order of the three Justices-led Court of Appeal: RELEASE NNAMDI KANU from protracted DSS dungeon!!! Should the Nigerian Government decides to head to the Supreme Court in exercise of its right under the countrys body of laws, then Nnamdi Kanu must first of all be set free-with the worst case scenario being to place him in civil liberties-compliant movement surveillance if in the sincere opinion of the Nigerian State, granting him total freedom of movement, expression and association will be injurious to the pendency of the apex appeal (if any) and its final determination. It is the informed and lettered understanding of Intersociety that the grand summary of the landmark judgment of the Court of Appeal is that something can never come from nothing. Once it is judicially established that a trial Court has erred in law by assuming jurisdiction in a case where its jurisdiction ought not to have been assumed, all the efforts of the Court become a nullity. Intersociety has severally cautioned the present Federal Government against its indiscriminate resort to short-cuts, jungle justice and prosecutorial vindictiveness and had also reminded the Government that a criminal is not a criminal until he or she is diligently and procedurally processed and subjected to unbiased suspicion, investigation, lawful arrest and detention; fair trial and fair hearing and sentencing and conviction. But in the contrary under present Federal Government, impunity and lawlessness fueled by ethnic profiling and hatred such as in the instant case, have reigned and continued to reign supreme with utter alacrity; to the extent of being its Criminal Justice policy direction. The three-man Appellate Panel have in the instant case correctly and fundamentally faulted the process (unlawful rendition or extradition) initiated by Nigerian Government upon which its preferring criminal charges against Nnamdi Kanu and his subsequent snail pace prosecution was relied upon. It is also surprising that the Attorney General has chosen to arbitrarily disobey the landmark judgment even when the same Federal Government was duly part of the entire Court processes including being THE ACCUSING AUTHORITY. Therefore, with the latest landmark judgment, the role of the trial Court of first instance (Justice Binta Nyako-led Abuja Federal High Court) is permanently put on hold pending the determination of the Apex appeal at the Supreme Court (if any). The AGF is constitutionally mandated by Section 287 (2) of Nigerias 1999 Constitution to comply and enforce the landmark judgment to the letter and he must not act like an outlaw. Signed: For: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) Principal Officers: Emeka Umeagbalasi and Chidinma Udegbunam Esquire Contacts: Mobile Phone/WhatsApp: +2348174090052, Email: [email protected] Lagos, Friday, October 14, 2022: Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has condemned yesterdays arrest and detention of Ilorin-based broadcast journalists, Mr. Dare Akogun, by the Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Police Force in an effort to coerce him to retract an allegation of corruption he reportedly made against an official of the State Government. In a statement issued in Lagos by its Director of Programmes, Mr. Ayode Longe, MRA called on the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Usman Alkali Baba, to put an end to the incessant practice whereby politicians, government officials and other powerful individuals use the Police to shield themselves from scrutiny or criticism and to harass or intimidate journalists and media organizations reporting on their activities. Mr. Akogun was invited by the Police by a letter dated October 7, 2022, which was delivered to him on October 12, 2022, to meet with the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Police, Mr. Steve Yabanet, on October 13, 2022 at 11am. The letter claimed that the office was investigating cases of inciting disturbance, injurious falsehood and criminal defamation against Mr. Akogun but said the invitation for him to report at the office was just a fact-finding invitation. However, when Mr. Akogun honoured the invitation on October 13, he was asked by the Deputy Police Commissioner to write a letter of apology to the Chief Press Secretary to the State Governor, Mr. Rafiu Ajakaye, who had petitioned the State Police Command asking it to investigate and prosecute Mr. Abdulrasheed Akogun and Mr. Dare Akogun for alleged criminal defamation against him. The spokesman of the Governor had claimed in the petition that the two men committed the offence through their WhatsApp posts on September 30, 2022 in which they accused him of facilitating the use of over N15 million in public funds to prosecute the last chairmanship election of the State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ). Without ascertaining the veracity or otherwise of the report, when Mr. Akogun arrived at the station, accompanied by his lawyer, Mr. Taiwo Olaitan, the Deputy Police Commissioner asked him to write the letter of apology to the Chief Press Secretary. Mr. Akogun, however, declined on the ground that it would amount to admitting to the charge of injurious falsehood and criminal defamation, whereupon the Deputy Police Commissioner ordered that he should be detained. Describing the action of the Deputy Police Commissioner as unlawful, an abuse of power and an abuse of his office, Mr. Longe said: It is embarrassing that the Police now consider it that it is their primary function to protect the reputation of political office holders, politicians and other powerful individuals and misusing their coercive powers to play this role. The Inspector-General of Police should immediately call his officers to order and advise them to desist from making themselves tools in the hands of the rich and powerful. He called for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Akogun, warning that if this was not done within 24 hours, MRA would take legal action to protect and enforce his fundamental rights and seek substantial damages for the oppressive violation of his rights. For further information, please contact: Idowu Adewale Communications Officer [email protected] Ahead of the 14th Convocation of Crescent University, Abeokuta, its Vice Chancellor, Professor Ibraheem Gbajabiamila has formally launched OnStage magazine, one of the projects of graduating students of the department of mass communication of the institution. Prof. Gbajabiamila launched the magazine in company with the Registrar,Barr. Zakariyya Ajibola, University Librarian, Dr Mulikat Salaam and University Bursar, Alhaji Jimoh Bankole. Reading out the names of diploma graduates, the VC said "we are proud indeed that this magazine comprises the names of all 2022 Diploma graduands. "This is a magazine that is going to be for sale on news stand," he concluded In a related development, the films diploma graduates who are members of Theatre and Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria (TAMPAN) also did a stage play titled "Never too Late" to the admiration of staff and students of the institution. It was the first of its kind in Nigeria where student practitioners would present a didactic stage drama to lighten to convocation ceremonies. In a rousing ovation, the graduating students were applauded for using the play to teach a lesson about education to all irrespective of their age. "I want to say that I truly enjoyed the stage play.I want yo use this opportunity to present to Mr Ebun Olaiya aka Igwe this portrait for his birthday, Prof. Gbajabiamila has said. He added that he was gratified to have been part of facilitators of the programme while lauding the leading roles of the head of department of mass communication, Dr Kola Adesina with his team for the diploma program tagged " Film, Theatre and Communication Studies". In his remarks, Barr. Zakariyya Ajibola went memory lane how the programme was proposed by Dr Adesina to test waters of unbundling of mass communication courses as recommended by the National Universities Commission. He therefore, recognized every member of the department of mass communication who took part in lecturing the films, theatre and communication studies to the diploma graduates. Earlier, the convocation lecturer, Professor Auwalu Yadudu had spoken extensively on the topic "Restructuring Nigeria: Crucial Lessons from 2014 Political Reforms and National Conferences". In his appreciation, Adesina explained that "it was a programme put together by department of mass communication. "It was a six-month rigorous training to train practitioners of film and theatre to acquire more skills and productivity. "TK, one of the best cinematographers in the world also delivered a masterclass apart from a couple of masterclasses delivered by the vice chancellor himself". Cabinet approves B5bn for Andaman International Health Center PHUKET: The Cabinet has approved more than B5.1 billion to build the Andaman International Health Center on the 141-rai site in Mai Khao, at the northern end of Phuket. Friday 14 October 2022, 10:21AM MHESI Permanent Secretary Sirirurg Songsivilai also touted the project as a way of producing enough medical and public health personnel to meet the needs of the Andaman area. Photo: MHESI The project is expected to boost tourism revenues by B62 billion a year, said MHESI Minister Dr Anek Laothamatas. Photo: MHESI The B5.1 billion medical centre is to be funded over five years, from 2023 to 2027. Image: MHESI The Cabinet approved the funds, precisely B5,116,262,532 in total, at its meeting on Tuesday (Oct 11), reported the official minutes of the Cabinet meeting. The bulk of the B5.1bn will be spent on building a brand-new international hospital, the Songklanagarind Hospital Phuket, for B4,762,262,532. A further B212.5 million will be spent on the International Health and Science College, marked as a building renovation project. The final B141.5mn will be spent creating the International Wellness Center and the Digital Dental Center Songklanagarind, also marked as a building renovation project. The funds are to be allocated over five years, as follows: 2023 B1,291,049,290 2024 B1,656,586,967 2025 B1,476,662,940 2026 B498,152,458 2027 B193,810,877 The decision follows the Cabinet approving the project in principle on Sept 19, 2020, amid the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The decision at that time prompted the Prince of Songkla University to proceed with the preparation of the Andaman International Health Center project details such as work plans, financial plans, operational plans, etc, the Cabinet noted. The official objectives of the project were given as: to be a place for producing personnel in health sciences such as doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, medical technicians; alternative medicine, etc; to be a research facility for academic development to solve public health problems in the Andaman provinces; to reduce costs for people in the Andaman province group in dealing with care, examination and treatment of complex diseases; to build confidence among people and foreigners [sic]; and to generate income from health tourism. The official budget request proposal was submitted by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) and the Prince of Songkla University Phuket Campus. The Cabinet marked that the project was approved following the Ministry of Public Health signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Prince of Songkla University, which operates Songklanagarind Hospital in Hat Yai, Songkhla province. Songklanagarind Hospital is a university teaching hospital affiliated to the Faculty of Medicine of Prince of Songkla University in Hat Yai. It is not to be confused with Songkhla Hospital, also in Hat Yai, which is operated by the Ministry of Public Health. The Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI), Prof Dr Anek Laothamatas, has praised the approval for the project, touting it as a medical teaching centre providing cost-effective services to people living in the Andaman provinces. The goal is to produce health science personnel such as doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, medical technicians, to develop and provide alternative medicine, and be a place for academic research in medicine and public health, he said. The hospital will be a 300-bed tertiary and specialised medical facility focusing on precision medical services, telemedicine and treating complex diseases, Dr Anek added. There is a referral system between the hospitals in the Andaman area, together capable of providing services to at least 12,500 tertiary complex patients per year and in terms of outpatients not less than 300,000 people per year, which can help reduce the cost [of treatment] for people in the area, he said. This will build confidence among people and tourists in coming to travel to the Andaman [region] and to Thailand, he added. It will also help generate income from health tourism. It will also offer premium international tourist services and become the first modern dental center in the South, in addition to taking care of the health of Thai people, he continued. The project will be able to generate direct income from medical treatment for foreigners of not less than B1.6bn a year and not less than B300mn a year from dental services, Dr Anek added. In total, the project is expected to boost the value of tourism in the Andaman area with an increase of approximately B62 billion a year, Dr Anek said. MHESI Permanent Secretary Sirirurg Songsivilai, M.D., Ph.D, who also serves as Secretary-General of National Research Council of Thailand, explained the project as a way of producing enough medical and public health personnel to meet the needs of the Andaman area. This will close the gap in the medical treatment problems of the Andaman area in the past, as well as promote the service industry and tourism for both Thai and foreign tourists, he said. More tourists caught in Phuket taxi turf wars PHUKET: The behaviour of Phuket taxi drivers made headlines again this week after a female driver of a metered taxi posted a video of her receiving threats for picking up passengers from a well-known Phuket hotel. The incident was witnessed by foreign tourists who were getting into the metered taxi when the confrontation started. transporttourismcrime By Eakkapop Thongtub Friday 14 October 2022, 05:13PM A female taxi driver received verbal threats for picking up foreign tourists from an award winning luxury Phuket hotel where there is already a queue. Photo: Supplied (Oct 13). Photo: Supplied The news became public after a video of the conflict was posted on a popular local social media channel on Thursday (Oct 13). In the clip, a man is heard talking angrily to a female taximeter driver while she picks up two foreign tourists in front of Katathani Phuket Beach Resort on Kata Noi Beach in Karon. The car is a red and yellow Phuket metered taxi, officially allowed to work anywhere on the island including Phuket International Airport. The Toyota sedan bears an SHA Plus certification sticker as well as the 1584 complaints hotline sticker and the drivers phone number enabling it to identify the driver as a legal service provider. The conversation develops in Thai language. A man, not seen in the clip, tells the female driver that she should not come here again as there is already a local taxi queue in this place to serve customers. The female driver asks if it is the hotel forbidding picking up passengers, but only gets accusations of stealing other drivers customers. Thats right, there is a queue here. What if I would be stealing guests from your queue? the man says. If you dont believe me, try and come to pick customers here again, he threatens. Speaking to reporters after the incident, the female taxi driver explained that the confrontation in front of Katathani happened at around 11am this Thursday (Oct 13). The woman said that she had been working as a Phuket taxi driver for 15 years and never had had any incidents of this kind before either at Katathani nor anywhere else. The woman proceeded to say that she did not find the case serious and thus did not report it to any officials. Yet, she would report if it happens again. Usually it is up to the customer to choose whether to use a hotel car or a metered taxi. Its good that nothing serious happened this time, the man just shouted at me and forbade me to pick up passengers at the aforementioned hotel again, the driver said. This incident was not very serious, therefore I did not report it. But what if I have other customers asking to pick them up from this hotel? I am worried there can be another incident. If I come again and face the same problem, I will report the case to authorities. And I would like the government to speed up their taxi drivers training to eliminate bad taxis and illegal taxi apps from Phuket, she added. Phuket officials are yet to react to the incident, the latest one in the whole series of resonant cases which became public amid tourism revival. On September 2, four tourists from Israel found themselves in the middle of a dispute at Rassada Pier. The foreigners were forced to take a local taxi instead of a vehicle they booked via a mobile application as the local club had a concession with the ferry operator. Police ruled both sides were in the right. On September 28, two foreign tourists were forced to leave their booked van at Phuket International Airport as the vehicle was not approved to pick up tourists at the airport. Airports of Thailand Phuket branch (AoT Phuket) claimed security as the reason for this. On Oct 1 a conflict sparked between a female taxi driver from JustGrab service and member of a local queue at Cafe fel Mar in Kamala. The womans car was damaged by one of the local drivers during the confrontation. Both parties were declared to be in the wrong. Yet, the aforementioned recent cases are nowhere close to what happened in 2013 when a US Navy aircraft carrier was caught in the middle of a local taxi dispute. The 5,500-strong crew of USS Nimitz were forced to use the services of a local taxi club instead of free shuttle buses that American sailors had enjoyed previously. Local taxi drivers physically barred any vehicles other than those "registered" with their club from coming into the port while USS Nimitz was docked there. If we allow just anyone to come in here when we dont know who they are, then if anything happens to the passengers, it will be difficult to place blame. We might be blamed for letting them in, local village headman Narong Kumban explained at the time. No sign of foul play in Russian tourists death on Koh Pha-ngan SURAT THANI: There were no indications of foul play in the death of a Russian tourist missing for four weeks whose body was found on Koh Pha-ngan on Wednesday (Oct 12), police said. deathRussiantourism By Bangkok Post Friday 14 October 2022, 05:33PM The place where the skeleton, believed to be of a missing Russian tourist, was found on Wednesday, on a hillside near a village on Koh Pha-ngan island, Surat Thani. Photo: Supapong Chaolan / Bangkok Post The still-clothed skeleton (sic) of a man was found by villagers clearing land for planting on Khao Raet mountain near Moo 4 village in tambon Koh Pha-ngan, reports Bangkok Post. The remains were believed to be Nikita Grigoryev, 30, a Russian national, who disappeared on Sept 14. His friends filed a police complaint and promised a B35,000 reward for whoever found him. Col Panya Niratimanond, Koh Pha-ngan Police Chief, said the skeleton was complete, with no broken bones, and dressed in an orange singlet and plaid shorts, the same clothes Grigoryev was wearing when last seen alive. Near the body, police found a strap bag belonging to Grigoryev and containing a wallet with some cash, a passport, pictures and a mobile phone charger. There were no signs suggesting he had been murdered, Col Panya said. The bones were being examined by forensic officials to confirm his identity and establish the cause of death. The Russian embassy had been informed, he added. Col Panya said Grigoryev and friends arrived on Koh Pha-ngan from Phuket on Sept 10 for the Full Moon Party. On Sept 14, he went to Koh Pha-ngan Hospital for a checkup, complaining he had been sleepless for several nights. The nurses put him on a bed to wait for a doctor. When the doctor showed up, Grigoryev had disappeared. His friends reported his disappearance. Police looked for him, but he could not be found. There was no record of him leaving the island, Col Panya said. Electric car charging stations coming to Wegmans Wegmans is gearing up for the expected electric vehicle boom. The supermarket chain is in the process of installing two electric vehicle charging stations at its Alberta Drive location. The Volta-brand chargers will be owned and operated by third party Volta. They're expected to be completed in the next week or two, according to Wegmans spokesperson Michele Mehaffy. More chargers are planned for other Wegmans locations. "We are exploring installation at additional Western New York-area stores for next year, but havent confirmed those potential locations yet," she said. Wegmans has chargers at its Chestnut Hill store outside Boston, and is building chargers into its first Connecticut location in Norwalk, which is expected to open in 2024. Tops Markets announced it had installed its first EV charging station at a location in Dutchess County in April in a partnership with the New York Power Authority. It now has chargers at four locations, including one in Williamsville, with plans to expand. Retailers have discovered that providing EV charging stations attracts customers particularly more affluent ones who tend to shop while they wait for their vehicles to charge. It also puts stores on maps of EV charging location apps and bring in new customers that might not have shopped the store without the draw of a charging station. It also offers retailers a way to make money from their parking space. The number of electric vehicles in use in the United States has grown from 1.2 million in 2016 to 11.3 million last year, according to IEA, a sustainability group. That number is only expected to increase. Welcome to Buffalo Next. This newsletter from The Buffalo News will bring you the latest coverage on the changing Buffalo Niagara economy from real estate to health care to startups. Read more at BuffaloNext.com. Graphic-Poetry opens in new location Graphic-Poetry, a stationery shop and invitation design studio, has moved to 38 Main St. in the Village of Hamburg. The new location is four times larger than its former one on Buffalo Street, allowing it to offer classes, events, a coloring area for kids and a larger mix of products. There is also space for a shipping area, storage room and one-on-one meeting space for wedding and graphic design clients. "Having events and other vendors on site is one thing I have always wanted to offer, but never had the space to do comfortably," owner Liz Maute said. The majority of brands in the store are owned by women and sourced from independent artists and small businesses locally and nationally. Spectrum store opens in Williamsville A new Spectrum location has opened at 5110 Main St. in Williamsville. It offers devices and accessories compatible with Spectrum Mobile, which is only available to Spectrum Internet customers. Customers can also add or manage their Spectrum internet, mobile, TV or voice services at the store. Customers can also make payments and upgrade or exchange equipment. Bloomsbury Lane Toy Shoppe reopens in new location Lancaster toy store Bloomsbury Lane Toy Shoppe has reopened in a larger location at 11 W. Main St., four doors down from its former space. The new store, which is in the village's central business district, received money from the state's Main Street revitalization grant program, which matches funds for facade improvements. Those improvements are being designed now for a new storefront in the near future. The new location has better accessibility and more space for new and expanded product lines. Spiritually Rooted and its foster cats Spiritually Rooted, a new age store on Webster Street in North Tonawanda, is known as much for its foster cats as it is for its crystals, tarot decks and psychic readings. Amid its busy retail operation, which has reached newfound popularity with the rise in new age interest, the store has fostered hundreds of animals for the Erie and Niagara SPCAs. Also known as The Root, the store has offered classes in tarot, oracle and drum circles; as well as owner Pamela Bruns' nondenominational church services. THE LATEST Catch up on the latest news from the Buffalo Niagara economy: Today, your health provider asks what medications you take, whether you smoke or drink alcohol and how much you exercise. Tomorrow, your doctors first questions are likely to be what you eat and whether you have easy, daily access to fresh fruit and vegetables. The final phase of the Colvin Estates housing development in Buffalo is getting underway. A conference examined ways to improve food security in Buffalo: The American Food Equity Conference identified programs that will help ease the food insecurity plaguing Buffalos East Side and other low-income areas. But they need money to succeed. A new microbrewery is on tap for the West Side neighborhood near the H.H. Richardson complex. Plans to turn the former Lion Brewery on Jefferson Avenue into apartments won backing from the Buffalo Planning Board. A Cleveland auto dealer plans to open a car sales business on the site of the former Parker's Great British Institution business across from the Tesla plant on South Park Avenue. The deadline for a stadium benefits plan is nearing with no sign of a final deal in sight. Pioneer Credit Recovery is cutting 230 jobs in Arcade and Perry because of declines in its student loan collection business. The president of Oishei Children's Hospital is leaving for a new job. ImmunityBio is eliminating nearly 40 jobs in Dunkirk as its plans to ramp up operations are paused. A California plastics maker is planning to turn a former pet supply company facility in Angola into its East Coast distribution center. Clarence manufacturer Seal & Design is planning to expand its facility, and it is seeking tax breaks from the town's IDA. For Kaleida, meeting the increased staffing requirements included in its tentative labor agreement with its main unions won't be easy. ICYMI Five reads from Buffalo Next: 1. For kids with autism, a different way of learning: Canisius College's Institute for Autism Research offers a unique social skills intervention that starts with young children, but could improve the quality of life for all autistic people. 2. As Micron picks Syracuse, will Genesee County ever land its own semiconductor win? The Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park, or STAMP, pitches its ability to lure workers from both Rochester and Buffalo. But is its location, in an isolated spot in the Town of Alabama, more of a liability than economic development officials think? 3. Will there be enough snowplow drivers this year? Some municipalities say they are short-staffed, and others say they are ready for the winter months. 4. A handful of solar farms proposed for sites across Western New York will be among the biggest in the state, which is pushing to get more electricity from renewable sources. 5. Let's strike! But just for a day or two: It is all part of a shifting strategy by labor unions to pressure employers, while limiting the financial pain work stoppages inflict on workers. The Buffalo Next team gives you the big picture on the regions economic revitalization. Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com or reach Deputy Business Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to get the latest in your inbox five days a week. Police arrest fake cocaine Bangla touts, wanted for attack on American tourist PHUKET: Patong Police have arrested two men who worked as venue touts on Bangla Rd on drugs charges. The men have been named as involved in the attack on an American tourist on the popular nightlife street late last month. drugsviolencecrimepolice By The Phuket News Friday 14 October 2022, 12:58PM Sunthorn and Areefun used the powder from the generic painkiller Anadol to sell to tourists as cocaine, said Patong Police Chief Col Sujin Nilabadee. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police In the arrest photo provided by Phuket Provincial Police, Sunthorn and Areefun were pictured with a third man who was not named and his role in the case was not explained. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Armed with a search warrant, officers raided an unregistered room in Soi Phra Baramee, off Phra Metta Rd, Patong, at 7pm Tuesday night (Oct 11), said a statement by Phuket Provincial Police. At the room officers placed three people under arrest. The statement named the two men as Mr Sunthorn, 48, from Pattani, and Mr Areefun, 25, from Narathiwat. Their family names were withheld. Also arrested at the room was Ms Toiyaya (family name also withheld), 44, from Narathiwat. Officers found and seized 89 tablets of methamphetamine (ya bah) and two bags containing 0.29 grammes of crystal meth (ya ice), said the statement. The three were taken to Patong Police Station and charged with joint possession of a Category I narcotic with intent to sell, the statement added. Patong Police Chief Col Sujin Nilabadee said that Sunthorn and Areefun were both touts working on Bangla Rd, and both were suspects under investigation for jointly injuring others, causing physical or mental harm (attacking tourists), the statement confirmed. The statement added that officers conducting the raid also found tabs of green-yellow capsules of the painkiller Anadol, which contains Tramadol. The two used the powder from the capsules to deceive tourists and sell it to them as cocaine. Five such packs were found, Col Sujin said. However, the statement neglected to confirm what charges Sunthorn and Areefun will face for the attack on the American tourist on Bangla Rd in the early hours of Sept 28. The American man injured in the attack was Rakkan Gassim Algassim, 35, from Pennsylvania. He was accompanied by Russian national Alena Mukhieva, 24, at the time of the attack. Mr Algassim was assaulted about halfway along Bangla Rd in front of a bar that was closed at the time. Police were first alerted to the incident at 3:30am. Mr Algassim suffered multiple contusions to his face and body, and a deep laceration to the middle finger on his left hand that required hospital treatment. DITHERING The statement by the Phuket Provincial Police defended police action in the case, saying the police were not ignoring drugs being sold openly to tourists on Bangla Rd, with full knowledge by the police. The statement made specific mention of a post on the Khao Jung, Phuket Province (Real News, Phuket) Facebook group accusing police that: ...drugs are found all along Bangla. Especially cocaine is sold like crazy. The officers have known for a long time but have not not done anything. If they are still together like this, Bangla Road only listens and breaks. There is a video clip. Notice that this motorcyclist is selling cocaine in Bangla Road The allegation, complete with a video clip, was posted online on Sept 17. However, no action was reported by police as taken until after American tourist Mr Algassim was attacked 10 days later. Of note, the attack on Mr Algassim was reported to embassy officials in Bangkok. Regardless, the statement by Phuket Provincial Police was branded as a Clarification of the case: Arresting a gang selling drugs and selling cocaine (fake) to tourists in Soi Bangla, Patong Police Station area not as the arrest of the suspects wanted for the attack on Mr Algassim. The statement repeated that the Sept 17 post online accusing police of allowing drugs to be sold openly on Bangla Rd was brought to the attention of Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Sermphan Sirikong, who in turn ordered Patong Police Chief Col Sujin Nilabadee to take action and investigate the claims. Museum to host Girl Scout celebration SHERIDAN The Museum at the Bighorns will host an event to celebrate 100 years of Girl Scouts in Wyoming Oct. 15 from 1-5 p.m. Girl Scout items from the museum collection and community members will be on display. Girl Scout cookies from the 2022 cookie season will be on sale to support local troops. There will be a special presentation led by Jean Harm at 2 p.m. about the history of Girl Scouts in the state. Others will share their experiences in Girl Scouting through the decades. Regular admission rates apply to this event. For more information call 307-675-1150 or email info@museumatthebighorns.org. The museum is located at 850 Sibley Circle. On Sunday, Oct. 16 at 3 p.m., Stewart Hall welcomes Ori Dagan Celebrates 100 Years of Nat King Cole. The year 2019 marked the centennial of the birth of Nat King Cole, who popularized some classic songs such as Unforgettable, Mona Lisa, Nature Boy, Route 66, and When I Fall in Love, among others. Ori Dagan and his musicians celebrate the life and musical heritage through ingenious arrangements imbued with this velvet touch that made him famous. The show features Ori Dagan on vocals and piano; Julien Bradley-Combs on guitar; and Leighton Harrell on double bass. Free, but telephone reservation required. Contact the receptionist at 514-630-1220, ext. 1774. Blues Delight comes to Stewart Hall on Friday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. Blues Delight is five seasoned blues veterans who fan the flames and ignite the 12 bars of the blues with their enthusiasm and intensity. The blues, the real thing, original, energetic, carried off by crazy joyrides through the pentatonic scale! Guests at major Eastern Canada festivals, they have received nominations for the Lys Blues as well as the prestigious Maple Blues awards in Toronto. They invite blues fans to warm up their souls to the passionate sounds of the fiery blue notes. The band includes Vincent Beaulne on vocals and guitar; Gilles Schetagne on drums; Marco Desgagne on bass; Laurent Trudel on vocals, guitar, harmonica, and banjo; and Dave Turner on saxophone. Free, but telephone reservation required. Contact the receptionist at 514-630-1220, ext. 1774. Then on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 3 p.m. its time for Theatre Magique. In this Hugues Pomerleau production, with performance in French for kids ages 4 to 8, a magician takes children on a journey through a zany and unusual world that appeals to the imagination. There are funny assistants, like Pika the snake who makes all the children laugh, Zora the robot who performs magic, dances and jokes around. Its a funny and magical show that encourages children to participate in the sweet madness of this whimsical magician artist. An amazingly entertaining and dramatic show! Free, but telephone reservation required. Contact the receptionist at 514-630-1220, ext. 1774. Pointe-Claire Cultural Centre, Stewart Hall is located at 176, chemin du Bord-du-Lac Lakeshore in Pointe-Claire. Call 514-630-1220 or visit www.pointe-claire.ca Stewart Hall A. Bonaparte Have an interesting bit of news youd like to see mentioned in the Along the Way column? Email it to Natasha Connolly at news@thesunchronicle.com . An Erie County judge on Friday refused to dismiss the charges against a teen accused of participating in the stabbing and beating of a 14-year-old boy outside McKinley High School in February. Judge Kenneth Case also rejected a request to send Kushal Tamang's case to Family Court. Tamang's attorneys' argument that prosecutors should have instructed an Erie County grand jury their client's actions may have been justified was "without merit," Case ruled in a written decision released during a court appearance. The judge also rejected the defense's argument that prosecutors failed to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, Tamang caused "serious physical injury" to the victim. Tamang, 17, is one of two teens charged with attempted murder and assault following the Feb. 9 violence outside the school. A fight broke out in the school parking lot and a 14-year-old suffered 10 stab wounds, including a punctured lung and a punctured kidney, and was beaten, prosecutors said. A security guard running to break up the fight was shot in the leg and a bullet grazed a 13-year-old in the arm. Case did not rule a motion from Tamang's defense attorneys to separate his case from that of Rismay Tee, the 17-year-old accused of wounding the two shooting victims. Teen accused in McKinley High shooting could see incarceration capped at 8 years An Erie County judge said he was not inclined to grant youthful offender status to the Buffalo teenager accused of wounding two people in a shooting outside McKinley High School earlier this year, according to attorneys in the case. Tamang has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault. Tee faces second-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault and second-degree gun possession charges. Tamang's attorneys, Louis Mussari and Timothy Brooks, argued that prosecutors failed to provide the grand jury with "favorable" witness statements, including from a witness who said she did not see Tamang with a weapon and that she saw another person "step to Kashal and hit him." In his ruling, the judge cited case law that prosecutors "need not present evidence that tends to exculpate a defendant." "Here, even when viewed in the light most favorable to defendants, there is no reasonable view of the evidence submitted to the grand jury that supports a defense of justification," Case ruled. Tamang's attorneys have said their client was not the person who stabbed the victim. Prosecutors charged him under a legal theory known as "accomplice liability." Under the theory, prosecutors don't have to specifically allege Tamang was the person who stabbed the victim, District Attorney John Flynn has previously said. In his ruling, The judge described as ineffective the defense's argument that the "accomplice liability" theory did not apply to adolescent offenders. Case also ruled the grand jury applied a higher standard than required by law when evaluating evidence, and noted the grand jury declined to send the case to Family Court. The judge in March rejected a prior request to move Tamang's case to Family Court. Case said last month he was not inclined to grant Tee youthful offender status. If Tee pleaded guilty to all the charges he faces, and if Case withheld the youthful offender designation, the judge said he would commit to sentencing the teen to no more than eight years in prison. Case told prosecutors and defense attorneys on Friday he would issue a decision on Tamang's attorneys' request to sever the defendants' cases "as soon as possible." A hearing on a defense motion to suppress a statement Tamang made is scheduled for Dec. 21. A woman is rescued from floodwater in Melbourne, Australia's suburb of Maribyrnong, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Rivers across Australia's most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, and the island state of Tasmania were rising dangerously with catchments soaked by months of above-average rainfall. Federal transit authorities have no plans to try to take over the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority or withhold funds from the agency despite a harsh safety review of the MBTA released in August Clancy Martin is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and Ashoka University in New Delhi. His forthcoming book is How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. This first appeared in The Los Angeles Times. Federal prosecutors say a man who presents himself as an Orthodox Christian monk and an attorney fraudulently obtained $3.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds for nonprofit religious organizations and related businesses they controlled Licensed mental health counselor Nicole Chumsky opened her first mindful living and yoga studio in Clarence in 2018 and her second in Kenmore the next year, seven months before the Covid-19 pandemic struck the region. A lot had changed by this summer, when she closed the Clarence location and moved it into a space twice the size in Williamsville. A lot also remained the same. Be Embodied continues its holistic approach with clients who understand that counseling, good nutrition and regular exercise promote better well-being. The pandemic generated more clients in touch with that mindset. A lot more people were seeking services than before, which in a way also helped destigmatize mental health, Chumsky said this week during a tour of the new location. She owns the site at 2790 Delaware Ave., Kenmore. She and Bridget Rippe, a licensed clinical psychologist, co-own the Williamsville site at Main and Rinewalt streets. Our business volume sustained throughout the pandemic, said Rippe, who previously worked in the Clarence location and also works in the Center for Cancer Care at Erie County Medical Center. Telehealth quickly became a blessing. Some clients continue to gravitate toward it, Chumsky said, but a lot of our clients really like to come in because we spend a lot of energy focused on making sure the environment is not only trauma-informed, but also aesthetically healing and cleansing. Were mindful, so people get to wear slippers while theyre here. They kick off their shoes. We have scents. We have music. Even with the visual effects in every room, were keeping it very minimalistic and yet warm and comfortable. The new site features nine offices for counselors and two mental health nurse practitioners, both of whom can prescribe medications if needed and help patients manage them. One of them can see patients as young as 13; the other can prescribe medical cannabis. Both also can order bloodwork and recommend vitamins, minerals, exercise and other steps toward better health. Practitioners in Kenmore can work with those 3 and older. The counseling side of the Williamsville operation opened in July. The yoga studio opened last month. Anything that happens in the yoga studio is open to the general public, Chumsky said. We have yoga, Qigong, meditation. We also run workshops. An upcoming program will focus on ways to address seasonal affective disorder. When youre in the waiting room, you dont know if youre sitting next to somebody whos going into a yoga class, or somebody whos going into a nutritional appointment or going into a psychiatry appointment," Chumsky said. "It doesnt matter. Theyre all there getting help. Be Embodied will host a grand opening from noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Williamsville location, 5872 Main St. It includes tours, snacks and refreshments, raffles and free yoga classes. Learn more at bemindfulliving.com or by calling 716-906-3770. Dodgy brakes, worn tyres and defective lights caused a rise in road casualties last year, new figures reveal, as experts say drivers should not cut back on car maintenance during the cost-of-living crunch. Defective and poorly-maintained vehicles were a contributing factor in 1,759 road casualties recorded in 2021, the data shows. That is a rise of 7 per cent on the previous year with faulty brakes being the biggest cause of deaths, the AA revealed as it urged drivers not to skip annual services to save money and called on government to squash reports of extending MOTs to two years. Motorists are being warned not cancel annual car servicing to save money during the cost-of-living crisis as latest road casualty stats showed a rise in the number of collisions where vehicle defects - such as badly worn tyres - were a contributing factor Faulty brakes were by far the most common defect causing a total of 750 casualties in 2021. This included 10 fatalities, according to Department for Transport records. Tyres were the second most common defect linked to accidents and being a contributing factor in 491 casualties. However, worn and underinflated tyres were the most common cause of deaths, with 12 people needlessly losing their lives in collisions involving vehicles with poor rubber. Faulty steering and suspensions completed the top three, contributing towards 255 casualties with six fatalities in total in 2021. NUMBER OF REPORTED ROAD COLLISIONS WITH VEHICLE DEFECTS BEING A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR LEADING TO CAUSALITIES OF ALL TYPES (2012-2021) Contributory factor reported in collision 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Vehicle defects 3,159 2,855 3,230 2,630 2,586 2,199 2,030 1,862 1,643 1,759 Tyres illegal, defective or under inflated 1,238 968 1,125 908 876 719 711 597 507 491 Defective lights or indicators 256 201 236 167 187 191 166 162 181 174 Defective brakes 1,086 1,046 1,100 1,000 1,016 802 741 719 644 750 Defective steering or suspension 396 451 481 380 357 391 325 283 254 255 Defective or missing mirrors 19 20 11 14 13 22 17 14 9 16 Overloaded or poorly loaded vehicle or trailer 310 317 395 264 236 162 146 149 117 140 Source: Department for Transport Reported road casualties, by severity, road user type and contributory factor, Great Britain, ten years up to 2021 All casualties N.B. The total defects will not match the sum of the itemised factors as some casualties can have multiple contributory factors These comparisons against road casualty data for 2020 should take into account the huge decline in traffic volumes during months of national lockdowns that year, though it should be highlighted that restrictions were also in place early in 2021. There was also a spike in the number of privately-owned cars taken off the road - declared as SORN - during the early Covid months, as well as the six-month MOT extension that was put in place from the end of March 2020, as businesses closed their doors to prevent the spread of the virus. With millions of drivers taking up the offer of delaying their MOTs in 2020, it has caused a spike in demand for annual roadworthiness checks around this time of year. The AA has called the phenomenon 'Frantic Fall' and is urging drivers to book MOTs early to avoid delays caused by the higher demand. Defective and poorly-maintained vehicles were a contributing factor in more than 1,700 road casualties recorded in 2021, the data shows Concerns drivers will cut back spending on car maintenance during cost-of-living crisis The motoring group said the road casualty figures highlight the importance of regular vehicle checks and servicing to ensure cars are well maintained and safe for the road. There have been growing concerns that car owners are considering delaying or cancelling their vehicle's scheduled servicing this year in order to save money during the cost-of-living crunch. A report from the Motor Ombudsman published in April found that a third of UK drivers are planning to spend less on car maintenance due to the squeeze on household budgets. With the cost-of-living crisis intensifying in the months since, driven by a rise in food and fuel prices and a huge jump in the cost of energy bills, there are growing concerns that more drivers could consider cutting corners with their motors. Faulty brakes were by far the most common defect causing a total of 750 casualties in 2021. This included 10 fatalities, according to Department for Transport records The AA said the statistics should also be a warning to the Government to throw out any suggestion of extending the annual MOT test to every two years. Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is believed to have raised the idea of allowing vehicles to be checked less often back in April as then-PM Boris Johnson rounded up his cabinet to propose ways in which to help Britons' finances during the cost-of-living crisis. While Mr Shapps had reportedly said such a move could potentially save drivers hundreds of pounds a year, he did caveat the suggestion by saying any changes would need to meet a' very rigorous safety standard'. He told the Commons' Transport Select Committee in April: 'If you look at things like MOTs cars have clearly become a lot more reliable than when the MOT, named after the Ministry of Transport, was put in place. Stuart James from the Independent Garage Association said talk of extending MOTs to every two years is 'dangerous, unwanted and unreasonable' 'I think it's always right to keep these things under review, but there's a lot of road to cover before we get to that point.' The motor industry reacted angrily to the reports in April, blasting the concept of extending MOT periods. Stuart James, boss at the Independent Garage Association, was incredibly critical of the idea, saying: 'In our opinion this whole plan is dangerous, unwanted and unreasonable.' AA President Edmund King also laid into the suggestion of a biennial MOT: '[The] AA doesn't support MOTs every two years as it will compromise safety and potentially cost drivers more in costly repairs when things go wrong.' He said the move would 'fly in face of driver opinion'. When the idea was first floated earlier in 2022, 97 per cent of AA members said the annual MOT test was important, with more than four in five (83 per cent) saying it was 'very important'. Penny Stoolman, managing director for AA Approved Garages, said the 'tragic' road casualty stats reported this week showed how many lives could have potentially been saved had some motorists carried out 'simple home checks' prior to setting off. She added: 'Likewise, MOTs and servicing are more than just a health check. They can be live-saving interventions that reduce the number of road casualties across the country. 'We are concerned that rumours about switching the MOT from every year to every two years. That would fly in the face of road safety, and we strongly urge the government to rule this out on today.' A new 'Big Brother' camera van designed to catch unsafe drivers is detecting one example every six minutes on average during the UK-first trial of the technology. National Highways, which is working with Warwickshire Police to test the van's capabilities, said 152 drivers holding a mobile phone and 512 vehicle occupants without a seatbelt have been identified on the M40 and A46 in Warwickshire over a period of just 64 hours. Passing vehicles are being filmed by a van with multiple cameras parked at the side of the road. On the hunt: The new van, which has been in use since 11 July, is being used to detect motoring offences such as holding a mobile phone at the wheel or not wearing a seatbelt. In 64 hours of use, it has already caught 664 drivers - one every six minutes The van should be easy to spot stationary at the roadside, given that it has a large metal structure that extends from the roof and contains cameras and equipment powering the surveillance systems. This allows the technology to monitor road users from an elevated position to see what is going on inside vehicles, providing a viewpoint similar to cameras installed on motorway gantries and fixed speed cameras at the roadside. Analysis of the footage by artificial intelligence and humans determines if motorists were using a handheld phone or whether anyone was not wearing a seatbelt. One driver was caught with one hand holding his phone and the other touching his face, meaning he had no control of the steering wheel. Two other motorists caught by the camera van were holding phones and not belted up. This is despite the high-profile change to the law earlier this year that introduced stricter rules about handing a device while driving. Stricter laws were introduced for mobile phone use at the wheel earlier this year. It means simply touching the device can land motorists with 200 fines and 6 points National Highways says drivers caught by the van breaking the law will be issued by Warwickshire Police with a warning letter to inform them of the dangers of their actions. The letters will remind drivers that they could be fined up to 500 for not wearing a seat belt in addition to receiving penalty points, while those caught using a handheld device will be stung with 200 fines and six points on their licence. Warwickshire Police confirmed to This is Money earlier this year that repeat offenders will face fines and penalty points during the trial. Other serious offences, such as drivers caught travelling with a small child in the front seat, will also result in prosecutions, the force told us. The van is being trialled for nearly three months in partnership with Warwickshire Police, which has issued more than 216 Notices of Intended Prosecution as a result of the scheme. Highways England describes it as a 'sensor test vehicle' that 'can record footage of passing motorists' - and it will only be operational when parked up rather than when the van is on the move. The van is also capable of being kitted with additional technology to detect tailgating offences, although this system does not form part of the trials in Warwickshire, the authorities said. The camera equipment used by the specialist police van can detect if a driver or any occupant is not buckled up. Failure to wear a seatbelt can land drivers with a fine of 500 The use of the detection van is part of National Highways' commitment to eliminating deaths and serious injuries on its roads by 2040. Government figures show 18 people died in crashes on Britain's roads in 2021 in which a driver using a phone was a contributory factor. Some 30 per cent of car occupants killed in collisions last year were not wearing a seatbelt, which is the highest proportion in records dating back to 2013. National Highways' road safety leader Jamie Hassall said: 'Sadly, the results of this trial have shown that some drivers do not feel the need to wear a seatbelt, or become distracted by their phones. 'Using any phone while driving is dangerous. Driving is a highly complex task requiring a person's full attention, as any error can be catastrophic. 'Drivers who talk on phones, both hands-free and hand-held, are four times more likely to be in a crash resulting in injuries. 'We want to see if we can change driver behaviour and therefore improve road safety for everyone. Our advice is clear: buckle up and give the road your full attention.' Police said the new van is 'a fantastic tool to support officers in changing driver behaviour' Inspector Jem Mountford, of Warwickshire Police, said: 'Whilst we prefer to educate drivers and passengers first, the new van is a fantastic tool to support officers in changing driver behaviour and enforcing the legislation for those reluctant to comply.' He added: 'We have been shocked at what we have seen during the trial.' Dr Jamie Uff, a technical director at consultancy AECOM, which is providing the technology, said: 'The data drawn from this trial has really indicated how vital it is that we have new technologies capable of detecting driving offences. 'The pioneering artificial intelligence is being utilised alongside confirmatory human assessment to make sure that the process is as efficient and accurate as possible. 'The data, which is being analysed solely in the UK, is allowing us to gain a huge amount of vital insight into driving habits.' RAC road safety spokesperson Simon Williams said the motoring group is 'extremely pleased' to see this technology being used, having called for it to be trialled for four years. 'The police cant be everywhere all of the time so it makes sense that forces look at how technology can be used to help them catch drivers acting dangerously and illegally,' Mr WIlliams said. 'These are shocking figures and, if they were applied to all roads across the country, suggest there remains a huge problem when it comes to drivers either not buckling up or using mobile phones illegally. 'Drivers are widely supportive of tougher enforcement of the law around handheld mobile phone use, with nearly half of these (47 per cent) saying that camera technology like this is the best way of doing so.' Warning letters sent to drivers caught committing an offence by the roadside van are being asked to complete a short survey which will be used to inform National Highways' research. A decision on whether to roll out the technology on motorways and major A roads across England will be made based on the results of the trial. Motorists can be handed six penalty points and a 200 fine for holding a phone when they are behind the wheel. In the most serious cases taken to court, offenders can be handed a fine of up to 2,500. The maximum fine for not wearing a seatbelt is 500. Rank Group is facing a 34million energy bill amid what bosses described as a 'challenging' backdrop. The bingo hall and casino firm has reported a surge in energy costs and weaker customer spending at its casinos. Shares in the company, which runs Mecca Bingo, fell 10.8 per cent as bosses said they expect 'challenging' conditions to continue 'in the months ahead'. Unlucky for some: Mecca Bingo-owner Rank Group has reported a surge in energy costs and weaker customer spending at its casinos Rank recorded a 2 per cent increase in group like-for-like revenues to 165.7million over the three months to September 30. Rank told shareholders it expects customers' discretionary spending 'to remain under significant pressure this year' despite the positive impact of energy bill support for households. The gambling and gaming firm said its own costs have continued to soar, with its energy bill expected to rise to 34million for the current year, up from 23million. GSK hailed a major win for its drug pipeline after announcing truly exceptional results in a key trial for its vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV is common and usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. But the disease can become serious and is a leading cause of pneumonia in toddlers and the elderly, causing around 8,000 deaths in the UK each year. Trial boost: A phase III clinical study of GSK's jab for RSV showed the vaccine caused a 94.1% reduction in the severe version of the disease A phase III clinical study of the pharmaceutical groups jab for RSV showed the vaccine caused a 94.1 per cent reduction in the severe version of the disease while the overall effectiveness was 82.6 per cent. The results were a boost for chief executive Emma Walmsley. These are truly exceptional results given that today RSV remains one of the major infectious diseases without a vaccine, despite over 60 years of research, said Tony Wood, GSKs chief scientific officer. He added the vaccine had the potential to reduce the significant global burden of RSV in older adults, many of whom have a high risk of developing severe illness due to other conditions. The results put GSKs jab ahead of US rival Pfizer, which in August reported that its own RSV vaccine was 66.7 per cent effective overall. Pfizers jab was also 85.7 per cent effective at preventing severe disease. GSK is planning to submit the trial data to regulators by the end of this year. If it receives approval, the vaccine could become the first for RSV anywhere in the world. But GSK shares were down 2.1 per cent, or 27.8p, to 1331p despite the positive news. Susie Jana, analyst at broker Shore Capital, said the sluggish stock price performance was partially due to lingering investor worries about GSKs potential liability in a US lawsuit over heartburn drug Zantac, which was pulled from shelves in 2019 amid fears it contained a cancer-causing chemical. The incident has led to more than 2,000 cases being filed in the US, raising fears the pharma giants which had sold it could pay hefty damages. Aside from its Zantac struggles, GSK also faces a battle for pole position in the race to get its RSV vaccine approved by regulators, facing down Pfizer as well as Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Danish group Bavarian Nordic. A prominent investor in Turquoise Hill Resources is intending to vote down's Rio Tinto 2.9billion proposal to take complete ownership of the company. SailingStone Capital Partners, a California-based investment group, said approval of the deal would amount to one of 'the biggest corporate governance failures' in history and represent poor value for shareholders. About six weeks ago, Rio Tinto agreed to purchase the remaining 49 per cent stake it did not own in the Canadian mineral exploration firm, whose principal asset is the Oyu-Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia. Deal: Rio Tinto recently agreed to purchase the remaining stake it did not own in Turquoise Hill Resources, whose principal asset is the Oyu-Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia This mine has some of the world's largest known copper and gold deposits, and could potentially operate for more than a century. Copper is considered a crucial element in the transition to clean energy, given its use in batteries and motors for electric vehicles, as well as technologies like wind turbines and solar panels. But SailingStone believes the Rio Tinto offer 'fails to adequately compensate' minority investors like them, even though it is a 600million increase on a previous deal that was rejected by a committee of directors formed by Turquoise Hill. It accused the mining giant and Turquoise's independent directors of supporting a bid that is too low and does not account for future growth in net asset value. The company also claimed the FTSE 100 firm had a 'well-established history of corporate malfeasance.' SailingStone pointed to an independent report published last year, which concluded that Rio's poor management was primarily behind the delays and cost overruns at the Oyu Tolgoi project. Benefits?: Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm has said the takeover of Turquoise Hill would enhance his firm's copper portfolio, simplify governance matters Rio Tinto challenged the report's findings, claiming that weak rock conditions meant the mine had to be redesigned, thereby contributing to the delays. Underground operations began at the mine in January this year after the FTSE 100 firm waived 1.8billion of debt and interest that the Mongolian Government had incurred to fund the scheme. SailingStone said that money should have been 'provided to ALL (sic) shareholders' as compensation by Rio Tinto. The group went on to say that Turquoise's management and independent directors were 'completely reliant' on Rio Tinto, which had resulted in a significant pushback against those minority investors who had called for reforms. A vote on the deal is expected on 1 November. In a strong statement, SailingStone declared: 'C$43 is a throw-away bid that is not based in intrinsic value and ignores upside potential. We will VOTE NO.' Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm has said the takeover would enhance the firm's copper portfolio, simplify governance matters and strengthen its commitment to Mongolia. This intervention comes the week before Rio Tinto is due to publish its production results for the third quarter. It achieved bumper profits and paid out record dividends to investors last year after prices of key metals skyrocketed following the loosening of lockdown restrictions. Skyrocketing prices of commodities like iron ore, copper and aluminium following the loosening of lockdown restrictions enabled the business to achieve bumper profits last year and hand out record dividends to investors. Rio Tinto shares closed trading 2.6 per cent lower at 4751.5p on Friday, meaning their value has declined by around a fifth in the past six months. Although Friday's political machinations and U-turns put a gloss on the week, several small caps have suffered badly from the market's expectation of a downturn in UK economics prospects under Downing Steet's recently arrived residents. One of the big casualties of the financial sector instability has been the property sector. Lendinvest, the property lender that floated in July last year with backing from Wall Street giants JP Morgan and Citibank, sank 36 per cent over the week to a new low of 64p after it warned of the heightened risk of falling property prices. One of the big casualties of the financial sector instability has been the property sector Although it has been bolstered by partnerships with Barclays and HSBC in the past year and this summer was confident that it would not be unduly troubled by an expected slowdown in house price growth, it said on Monday that it now believes macroeconomic factors are 'likely to reduce our growth particularly in buy-to-let in the second half of the year'. With application for new mortgages having slowed across the market, it said, 'we have tightened our credit appetite to protect investor returns' and now expects pre-tax profits to be flat for the full year, a big slowdown from the 190 per cent growth seen the year before. Bonhill Group also was forced to change recently issued guidance due to the effects of the recent market paroxysms, with the events organiser and business publisher formerly known as Vitesse Media looking at putting itself up for sale, under pressure from a major shareholder. Only five weeks after saying it expected to break even this year, the publisher of What Investment and Information Age warned that trading conditions have worsened and that it now expects to make a loss this year. U-turns such as these saw the AIM All-Share scrape 30-month lows earlier in the week, below 770 points, but despite a wider rally on Friday the index resumed the bumpy slide it has been on this year, tumbling another 3 per cent to 785 a contrast to the FTSE 100, which was roughly flat. The market turbulence was resulting in small caps being punished hard as investors veer away from any potential risk. Shareholders in Distil seemingly were seeing things with an understandable glass-half-full attitude as the maker of RedLeg spiced rum and Blackwoods gin and vodka said selling more of its products directly rather than through a distributor was hitting sales and profits. Half year turnover fell 68 per cent to 0.5 million and losses before tax mushroomed from 45,000 to 555,000. Executive chairman Don Goulding the decision to 'take direct control of relationships with our major UK retail customers' had seen 'a one-off hit' to the half-year figures but the board is confident that this move will put the company in a stronger position to accelerate future growth. Elsewhere, Autins, which makes acoustic and thermal insulation materials, screeched 35 per cent lower after warning of a larger loss for its recently completed financial year due higher costs and a dent in fourth-quarter sales into the auto industry. DeepVerge shares gave up some of the gains made this summer, dropping 60 per cent this week after the specialist in artificial intelligence analysis confirmed it is seeking a new equity funding to retire an existing loan. Europa Oil & Gas sank 49 per cent on the back of disappointing results from an appraisal well in the North Sea While the City fundraising roadshow was said to be 'progressing well' it warned 'there can be no guarantees that sufficient equity funds can be raised'. Europa Oil & Gas sank 49 per cent on the back of disappointing results from an appraisal well in the North Sea. Sareum slid 37 per cent after saying it has been told that rights for a drug licenced to Sierra Oncology are to be given up, after it was acquired by drug giant GSK. Among the rubble, there were still many success stories. Topping the risers was Evgen Pharma, which rocketed higher after signing an autism-related licensing deal worth up to US$160.5mln with Swiss group Stalicla. Stalicla, which specialises in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), will pay US$0.5 million up front for the licence to treat neuro-developmental disorders and schizophrenia, with other payments based on milestones, with royalties also to be paid on any sales. While Evgen has found evidence in previous studies of effectiveness in improving symptoms of ASD, identifying those individuals most likely to respond to therapy was a big challenge. But as Stalicla has a proprietary technology to identify autism spectrum patients who are most likely to respond, this will be the focus of an initial collaboration, with the Swiss group funding all clinical development activities. Shares in Intercede surged 39 per cent as the cybersecurity company reported 23 per cent revenue growth in the first half and said it was splashing out 3 million of its growing cash reserves on the acquisition of UK-based Authlogics. The addition of the multi-factor authentication and password security management software vendor increases the group's recurring revenue base and is expected to be earnings enhancing in the next financial year. Edenville Energy added almost third to its market cap this week after saying it expects to 'shortly' begin generating positive cashflow after restarting its Rukwa coal project in Tanzania, with an initial 4,000 tonnes a month of washed coal. Chief executive Noel Lyons noted that this 'has coincided with a dramatic uplift across the globe in the thermal coal price, which has seen prices rise more than threefold over the last year, with Tanzanian coal now also being exported to Europe'. XP Factory, the owner of the Escape Hunt and Battle Bars chains, enjoyed a big lift to its shares two weeks after it published results, as chief executive Richard Harpham made a tour of retail investor videos and podcasts where he highlighted growth plans and the 'experiential leisure' trends supporting the group's expansion. Bill Daniels decided to handle his health care costs by signing up for Medicare when he turned 65 and keep working. The federal health insurance program will cover his hospitalization expenses, should he need them, but insurance from his employer covers most of the cost for other medical needs. Roughly 28 million Americans choose a different route. They stop working full time, take Medicare hospitalization coverage and select a Medicare Advantage plan to help keep them out of the hospital. This time of year, many in their golden years might think Daniels took the easy way out. From Oct. 15 through Dec. 7, they must navigate the onslaught of pitches from private insurers who offer a multitude of the federally funded plans. Then they must pick one and file an application for coverage next year. The most common Medicare coverage includes help with hospitalizations (Medicare Part A); doctor visits, health screenings and physical, occupational or mental health therapy (Part B); and in many but not all cases, medications (Part D). Cost matters because most who apply for Medicare are on a fixed income. What gets covered and how should matter, too. Those who are healthy can roll the dice and choose a plan with a high deductible and high copays because their monthly premium costs will be lower, if they have any at all. A major health setback, however, can spell financial as well as personal doom. It helps explain why Daniels keeps working. He has been coordinator of insurance outreach and counseling with the Erie County Department of Senior Services since 1995. As many as 15 part-time staffers and volunteers help him provide free Medicare advice during the busy fall season for healthy seniors as well as those with chronic diseases who already require expensive medications, therapies and medical devices. The same holds true for 3 million Americans below age 65 who are disabled and on Medicare. I always advise people never just get original Medicare alone because there's no limit to your out-of-pocket expenses, Daniels said this week. Never go without prescription drug coverage. I don't care if you've never taken medication in your life. Youve got to look at future needs. The weak point with the Medicare Advantage plans is the high cost of meds, added Daniels, age 70. For a lot of them, it's a 20% co-insurance. You're talking thousands and thousands of dollars if you come down with cancer or another condition that gets costly to treat. He and leaders with the three largest regional health insurance companies answered some of the key questions those eligible for Medicare Advantage plans need to consider during the next several weeks, while the window is open to sign up for 2023 coverage. A: The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B enrollees will be $164.90, a drop of $5.20, from $170.10 from this year. The annual deductible next year for all Medicare Part B beneficiaries is $226, $7 less than in 2022. Most people pay 25% of the cost of the Medicare Part B benefit and the cost is dropping for next year, Daniels said. Its not a big drop but thats something people will be happy about. The federal government has raised the maximum office visit and hospital out-of-pocket costs for enrollees to $8,300, which is $750 more than this year. Most Advantage plans feature caps below that threshold. Medicare Advantage Plans Often Deny Coverage for Eligible, Necessary Care: Report THURSDAY, April 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Coverage for eligible, necessary care is denied each year to tens of thousands of seniors with private Medicare Advantage plans, U.S. federal investigators say. Low-income seniors and adults with disabilities may qualify to receive financial assistance from Medicare savings programs that help cover some premium costs, deductibles and copays. Only half of those eligible for this supplemental assistance take advantage of it, Medicare officials report. "The weak part of Medicare Advantage plans is the high cost of Medicare Part B covered medications and treatments and renal dialysis," Daniels said. "Also the Medicare Savings program net monthly income cap for an individual is currently $1,549." There is no asset limit to get this benefit in New York, he said, as is the case in many other states. Q: Does the pandemic continue to throw any wrinkles into Medicare and Medicare Advantage programs? A: The pandemic froze income-based Medicare and Medicaid benefits that remain in place through the end of the year. That could change next year, Daniels said, although most younger Americans can expect greater financial pain. The cost for some regional employer-paid health insurance plans will climb more than 30%. Q: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the three most common types of Medicare Advantage plans? A: A Health Maintenance Organization plan (MA-HMO, the most popular in the region) tends to be the most restrictive and least-expensive form of coverage, Daniels said. You must see a doctor in the plans network except for emergency or urgent care and may find you need preauthorization for medical procedures and other care. Providers also can drop you as a patient if you fail to follow treatment protocols, say by not taking medications as directed. Because HMO members are required to use hospitals and service providers within the plans network, they usually pay lower premiums. Out-of-pocket costs also can be lower, said Amber Hartmann, speaking for Highmark BlueCross BlueShield of WNY. A Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) is a nice model, in that the doctors are not restricted as much by the influence of the insurance company, Daniels said, though these plans can cost more. The copays can be higher, he said, but there are zero premium PPOs out there. Private Fee For Service (PFFS) plans are traditional Medicare plans that generally cost more and provide those who choose them greater latitude to pick doctors and get better out-of-region health cost reimbursements. Individual health needs, avoiding crippling debt should a health emergency strike and financial security should dictate choices. The whole idea for insurance companies is controlling costs, Daniels said. Usually, if its a higher premium, it's lower copays. You've got to watch the copays. Q: What do the highest-rated plans tend to have in common? A: The ratings scale runs from 1 to a high of 5. Medicare gives more money to private insurance plans that offer Medicare Advantage plans and rate higher by performing better on screenings, managing chronic health conditions and other quality clinical outcomes. Insurers also are rated on the experience, pro and con, of their members. Many insurers provide extra incentives that can beef up those ratings, including partial coverage for dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses. Many also offer a free fitness club membership, Daniels said, because healthier people tend to exercise more. The three largest regional insurers offer most of the highly rated options for next year. The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) awarded 5-star ratings to Univera SeniorChoice Basic and Extra HMO plans, and SeniorChoice Advanced, Value Plus and Secure HMO-POS plans. Most HMOs provide care through a network of doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals that plan members must use to be covered for care. You can go outside the network with an HMO-POS, but expect to pay more. Highmarks 5-star rated offerings include Freedom Valor, Freedom Nation, Forever Blue Value and Forever Blue 751 PPO plans. All Independent Health plans hit 5 stars: Encompass 65, 65 Element, 65 Edge, 65 Core and 65 Basic HMO plans and Medicare Passport Advantage and Passport Prime PPO plans. Other top-rated programs in Erie County include MVP Medicare Preferred Gold without Part D, Medicare Secure with Part D and Preferred Gold with Part D, all HMO-POS plans. Most of the highly rated plans in the county are available across the region, Daniels said. Q: What assumptions for 2023 can those on Medicare make with the plans they are on this year? A: Premiums are dropping for Medicare Part B, Daniels said, but prescription drugs are still an issue. They're going to be for a while. That is why those already on an Advantage plan need to know in advance what they should expect with copays for medications they take or may take next year or if those drugs will be covered at all. Premiums, deductibles, copays and covered drug lists, called formularies, can change from year to year on the same plan. So can in-network doctors. The variance makes vital the direct access to trusted experts who can answer questions before and after youre an Advantage plan member, said Cathy Aquino, vice president for Sales, Consumer & Small Business Markets with Independent Health. The reputation of the plan, including opinions from friends and family, and the ability to talk with someone locally and in-person should be considered, Aquino said. Those meetings make it easier to ensure doctors and other health care providers participate with the plan you choose, she said, and that pharmacies, labs and hospitals are in-network, since you may have to pay much higher costs to see a non-participating or a non-preferred provider. Look for a plan thats designed for Western New Yorkers, not a cookie-cutter plan sold across the country, said Andrew Napierala, vice president Medicare & Individual Market Sales with Univera Healthcare. Also consider the value of dental, vision and hearing care. Most importantly, you need a Medical plan that meets your budget and your needs. Q: Would supplemental policies be good for those who need medical services fairly often? A: These are good for folks who may have more complex health care needs, Daniels said. Some major insurers are not pushing supplemental prescription drug policies this year, he said, even though many Medicare enrollees with chronic health conditions would likely to save money with them. Dialysis, drugs administered by infusion and cancer therapies can cost insurance companies thousands and thousands of dollars a month, Daniels said, which means they tend to make less money on these policies. Infusion medications, for instance, can cost up to $15,000 a month; a 20% copay would mean $3,000 out of pocket. A Medicare supplement will pick that up, Daniels said. The plans run from $199 to $463 a month and tend to be higher downstate than upstate, he said. Most people call me because of the high co-insurance or high copays that they have with Medicare Advantage, he said. Sometimes I can scramble to get them into a supplemental policy. You don't find anybody advertising those. You sleep better if you buy a supplemental, but profit drives business. Q: Dental health is an important part of good overall health. Do Medicare Advantage plans help cover the cost of preventive dental work? A: Dental benefits within Medicare Advantage plans continue to expand, said Hartmann, with Highmark. "Consumers should look for coverage that is comprehensive, helping to pay for the basics, like cleanings and X-rays, as well as restorative work." Q: Can a plan be worth dental, vision, hearing or fitness benefits? A: It depends on the individual and family needs, interests and financial means. The bottom line for Daniels? You try to buy insurance for things you can't afford to pay out of pocket, he said. My agent, who I've had for at least 40 years, says, Dont look at the little things. Look at the big things you get that might otherwise drive you into bankruptcy. The No. 1 reason people are in bankruptcy is medical expenses. MEDICARE SUPPORT Medicare: Medicare.gov can help you file for Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans, compare plans and find a health care provider. You also can find the Medicare and You 2023 handbook. Talk with support staff anytime except holidays by phone at 800-633-4227. Medicare Rights Center: This nonprofit organization, based in New York City, provides free counseling and advocacy in English and Spanish for those who need help applying for Medicare plans. Visit medicarerights.org or call its national helpline at 800-333-4114 to learn more. Medicare Interactive: Powered by the Medicare Rights Center, the website at medicareinteractive.org includes answers more than 3 million questions about Medicare. Erie County Department of Senior Services: Its Insurance Outreach and Counseling Program can help eligible residents apply for Medicare and provide a free, unbiased comparison of Medicare Advantage plans for those shopping for one. Call 716-858-7883 to arrange online, phone or in-person counseling. 211: Call the number or visit 211wny.org to find agencies in your county that can answer Medicare questions. Medicare Savings Programs: Income-eligible state residents on Medicare can call the state Department of Health at 8005055678 or their local office for aging or senior services to learn more and sign up. There has been a lot of talk about the raw numbers of students getting suspended in Buffalo Public Schools. Before people focus on numbers, they need to start looking deeper, and focus on doing the work that will make sure our kids are getting what they need. First, what does the number 200 mean? We have 67 schools in the Buffalo Public School district. We have more than 31,000 students. In the first month of school, we had over 200 suspensions. You can slice and dice those numbers a lot of different ways. Two hundred sounds like a lot, until you divide it by 67 schools. Then you get 3. If you were told that each school in Buffalo has an average of three suspensions a month, would you think that is reasonable? Parents need to use their own judgment and check the facts and figures on their own. The Editorial Board: Systemic re-examination and reform are needed to reduce school suspensions The fact that suspension rates in Buffalo Public Schools have ranged well into the hundreds since the start of the 2022-23 school year and the fact that Black and Latino students are more frequently subjected to the punishment means that work has to be done, writes The News' Editorial Board. Second, do we really think that suspensions are out of hand, or is part of the problem that violence is growing after the pandemic, with much of it driven by social media? If we get stuck on talking about the number of suspensions, we might not spend enough time looking at the root causes. If kids are fighting, bringing weapons, or selling drugs at our schools, schools have to address this. Otherwise, things get out of control, and we wind up with our students feeling unsafe going to school. If kids are getting into fights after school, or if theyre trying to bring weapons into our buildings, there should be consequences from the schools. Thats how we keep violence out of the schools. That brings me to my next point: Some of the suspensions that are happening stem from problems that are going on in the community, and students are bringing their issues into school. If we dont get a handle on that, were going to have more problems. Thats going to take all of us. Parents, teach your kids not to retaliate. Teachers, show your students how to solve conflict. Principals, offer your staff professional development in restorative practices and give them the time to implement those practices. District staff and superintendent, put the priority on safety and excellence, and give everyone the time to work on this in school. Board of Education, make sure the money is going to support these initiatives. Community members, step up to help! Its going to take us all. Viewpoints: Student suspensions: Behavior must be balanced with accountability If there is one thing I have learned as a school psychologist and as a parent, it is that academia does not have all the answers to our problems, Larry Scott says. What about the unfair suspensions? Yes, they happen. Yes, they should be called out and fixed. Lawsuits and complaints by the attorney general arent the way to deal with them, though. We have a superintendent and a Board of Education that agree with the idea of lowering suspensions and offering more help to students. As parents, if we keep fighting with the district and bringing lawsuits against them, were going to wind up spending a lot of money on legal battles instead of focusing our attention where it needs to be: on the students. If students are getting suspended, it shows that they need help. What are the schools and the district doing to help once the suspension happens? Instead of putting kids out of school, how about initiating in-school suspensions? If a student is vaping in the bathroom, let them spend a day of in-school suspension learning about why vaping is dangerous, and writing a report on it. Dont just put them out on the street and let them fall behind. Back in 1970, my mother, Letha Jones, started an organization called Concerned Black Parents. She was fighting for educational equity. Some of the BPS students from those days are the education leaders of today, including our own superintendent. None of us think this system is perfect, but all of us want it to improve. Lets do whats best for our students. Theyve been through a lot over the past few years, and they need us now more than ever. Stop bringing lawsuits and outside organizations to pick the Buffalo Public Schools apart. Buckle down and do the work. We know what must be done, so lets stop pointing fingers and start linking arms to protect our children. Keith Jones is a lifelong Buffalo resident who has been involved with the Buffalo Public Schools for many years, as a student, parent, parent liaison and community activist. Thousands of people across Australias southeast were asked to evacuate their homes on Friday, including some in a western suburb of Melbourne, after two days of incessant rains triggered flash flooding and fast-moving waters burst river banks. Large parts of Victoria state, southern New South Wales and the northern regions of the island state of Tasmania were pounded by an intense weather system with some taking more than a months worth of rain since late Wednesday, officials said. Our river systems are reaching major flood levels at various times over today, through the weekend and through next week, Victoria emergency services chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch told reporters. Many rivers in Victoria, including the Maribyrnong in Melbournes west and the Goulburn further north, reached major flood levels, prompting the night-time evacuation of residents. The Goulburn River at Seymour, about 100 km (62 miles) north of Melbourne, has peaked above the record 7.64 metres (25 ft) reached in May 1974, data showed. More than 200 flood rescues were conducted by emergency crews. Upstream in Shepparton, rising flood waters are expected to surpass the 1974 peak by Tuesday and threaten over 4,000 properties. In terms of property damage, road, public infrastructure and the sheer volume of water, this is going to set new records, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said at a news conference. Andrews said a decision would be made on Saturday about reopening the states purpose-built COVID-19 quarantine facility, closed last week after Australia scrapped isolation rules, to shelter flood-impacted residents. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the federal government stood ready to provide assistance to the flood-stricken states. There are already ADF (Australian Defence Force) personnel on the ground in Victoria this is a difficult time, my heart goes out to those communities affected at this time, local media quoted him as saying. FAST-RISING RIVERS Footage on social media showed people wading through knee-deep water with their pets and some being rescued in boats, while local media reported about 200 stud horses were at risk of being washed away in the rural Victorian town of Mangalore. Everyone is in a state of how is this actually happening?' Maribyrnong suburb resident Matt Iozzi, who had to evacuate in the early hours of Friday morning, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. I spoke to a few neighbours, everyone was on their way out or planning to leave in the next 30 minutes after seeing how fast the water was rising. About 1,000 residents of Wedderburn, a small town 200 km (125 miles) north of Melbourne, were ordered to evacuate urgently due to the potential breach of a nearby dam. Agnico Eagles (AEM.TO) Fosterville gold mine, Victorias largest, paused all non-essential operations, the company said. A spokesperson told Reuters that the resumption of full operations could take several days. In Tasmania, the flooding crisis intensified with fresh evacuation orders on Friday, while hundreds of residents in southern New South Wales spent the night in evacuation centres. Rains had eased by Friday afternoon but the weather bureau has warned of another potential wild weather system next week. Devastating floods have repeatedly struck Australias east coast since early last year because of a multi-year La Nina weather phenomenon, which brings more rain. SOURCE: REUTERS The chairman of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) has been criticised for saying renters should pay more for accommodation provided by institutional landlords as it provides security of tenure. Tom Dunne also admitted that this view means effectively only those on high wages can access security of tenure through paying the higher rents that institutional landlords charge. The comments come after the Irish Examiner reported that Mr Dunne said on Thursday the best type of rental accommodation people could have in the private market is with vulture fund-owned properties. Speaking on RTEs Today with Claire Byrne programme, Mr Dunne said that in the case of small or accidental landlords, they can end the tenancy if they want to use it themselves or to sell it on. In the case of a fund, or an institutional landlord, their business is renting so theyre not going to want to get vacant possession because they want the tenant in there, and secondly, they cant regain possession for family use. So effectively youve got indefinite security of tenure if youre renting from one of those funds. He continued: In any market you pay more for reliability. If youre in the second-hand car market, you will pay more for a car that has a reliable reputation than one that has not got a reliable reputation. He said that institutional funds charge more to rent their properties than smaller landlords because they are offering a product that has dimensions which are more attractive to tenants and therefore tenants who are attracted by that will pay more and they will bid out people who are on a smaller income. What Im saying is that this notion, I think it is a notion there, that landlords charge what they want in the market is not quite the whole story. Because what happens is that tenants in a market where theres a shortage of accommodation, bid against each other to get that available accommodation. So its demand thats increasing rents. People who supply accommodation are price takers in the market. When asked whether these views represented a let them eat cake line, Mr Dunne said absolutely not, and added its just a recognition of reality. I am not saying rents should go up they should come down. But what Im saying is the way to get them down is to increase supply, he said. When asked whether those who have a lot of money are the only people who can access security of tenure, Mr Dunne said thats effectively where we are really. Responding to comments, Labour housing spokeswoman Senator Rebecca Moynihan said security of tenure should not just be available for renters who can pay the most. For the RTB to suggest that some landlords, namely investment funds, are better than others, is perverse. If renters had decent rights in the first place, it would level the playing field. We totally lag behind other countries on renters rights. Renters are expected to put up with extortionate rents, evictions at the drop of the hat and many cant make the place feel like a home. The balance of power in the rental market is heavily weighted towards landlords. They control price, security of tenure, whether or not you can have a pet, where you hang your washing, even the furnishings of your home. We all know that investment fund landlords are arms length landlords. We in Labour believe that all landlords should provide all renters greater security of tenure. The security of keeping a roof over your head simply cant be linked to your ability to pay above and beyond the odds. Labours Renters Rights Bill proposes a three-year rent freeze, a ban on no-fault evictions, and a register where people can access the rent rates paid at a rental property. Israels military has carried out an arrest raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and killed two Palestinians in gun battles Police say a 15-year-old boy fatally shot five people in an attack that stretched from the streets of a Raleigh neighborhood to a nearby walking trail We're not sure how much impact a recent statement from The Chamber holds. A prominent Missouri Republican is doubtful . . . "The city is getting desperate, and this is the latest evidence of their desperation, said Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, who sponsored the bill in the Missouri Legislature. In fairness, here's what the group of biz leaders has to say . . . In a recent statement, the chamber explained its reasons for opposing Amendment 4, saying in part: - "It has been our longstanding policy position that local budget decisions should be decided by local elected officials. This is a decision best left to the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council not the Missouri General Assembly and a statewide vote. - "Amendment 4 creates a dangerous exception to the Missouri constitution, which prohibits an increase in the level of any activity or service mandated by the general assembly or a state agency of other Missouri political subdivisions, unless the state pays for any increased costs. If passed, Amendment 4 could lead to other constitutional amendments that harm Missouris local governments and taxpayers by creating unfunded mandates on local governments." Even better . . . Insiders give us something to consider . . . * Most denizens of the KC Chamber don't live in KC proper and so their comments about local control seem exceptionally hypocritical. * Their opposition MIGHT be a less than impressive effort to win favor with the Mayor's office and a few city hall politicos who have offered resistance against this move. But here's what voters should keep in mind . . . Polling indicates 64 percent voter support in order to provide more funding for Kansas City police. And so an insider asks . . . "Who is The Chamber representing??? They're not in line with what the majority of voters have to say about funding police . . . And most of them don't live in KCMO . . . So who exactly are they speaking for when they advocate against public safety funding???" Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . AskMen Dating Awards Best Dating Apps and Services Amp Up Your Love Life With Our Picks for the Top Dating Apps & Services The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. Its no secret that dating is digital now. But whats maybe a little less clear is which app, exactly, to download. Or apps, plural? Having accounts in all the right places is no guarantee that youll finally meet your, uh, match, but it certainly couldnt hurt. And while were at it, dating apps arent the only high-tech solutions catering to the lonely and thirsty among us. To help ensure that you find your happily ever after (or at least have a really nice night) here are our picks for the best dating apps, the best date-night services, and the best sexy apps and services we know of. Welcome to the 2022 AskMen Dating Awards, dating apps and services edition: Best Dating Apps Best Overall Dating App Hinge Hinge Hinge, which was founded as an app that lets you date your Facebook friends Facebook friends, has become so much more than that. After ditching the friends-of-friends concept, the app rebranded as something thats designed to be deleted, and its not hard to see why. It actually puts work into showing you people you might get along with, as the apps construction is much more personality-oriented than the looks-forward Tinder. The buzz around its usability and thoughtful features has been growing, and it now boasts a user base thats full of people looking for dates, hookups, relationships and everything in between. Its not to be missed. Check out Hinge Best Dating App for Queer Guys Scruff Scruff Scruff may not be the most famous app for gay guys, but for overall dating its hard to beat, as it caters more to a broader swath of dating desires than its hookup-oriented competition. With a modern look and feel, a sizeable user base and fewer empty profiles or headless torsos than Grindr, Scruff is a great option if youd rather go the route of an app dedicated specifically for gay, bi, trans and queer guys rather than downloading a mainstream dating app. Check out Scruff Best Dating App for Finding Relationships Zoosk Zoosk Zoosk might not be able to boast the sheer user numbers of some of its online dating competitors, but for those seeking something a little more serious, it more than makes up for that with a learning algorithm that prioritizes showing you people youll click with over people other users have deemed attractive. Its SmartPick feature will notice if you consistently pass on people with a specific hobby or political leaning and stop showing you those people, so your time isnt wasted as you try to track down your next significant other. Check out Zoosk Best Exclusive Dating App Raya Raya Lets just say theres a reason you keep hearing about celebrities using Raya as an online dating option, and its not because its the second or third best exclusive dating app. With a signup process that involves sharing your Instagram, being vetted by existing users and vouched for by your contacts who are on the app already, Raya is not for everyone. But thats exactly the point, as the app says its looking for the most interesting people out there. Check out Raya Best Elite Dating App Luxy Luxy Perhaps the most straightforward form of exclusivity is financial exclusivity. Luxy is all about attracting the wealthy. While it is possible to sign up without actual wealth, Luxy does require new users to be vetted by existing ones to ensure not just anyone can create an account. And while it doesnt feature as many accounts as more popular apps, when youre rich, the whole world is your playground, so whats to stop you from falling for someone a country (or an ocean) away? Check out Luxy Best Free Dating App Badoo Badoo Badoo might not be super well-known in North America just yet, but it has been a hyper-popular app on other continents for years now and it offers a surprisingly good online dating experience for first-time users. Unlike many apps that gatekeep features for paid users only, Badoo offers a surprising number for free, and with a significant user base and a modern, accessible feel, its a great option if youre hesitant (or unable) to spend on your online dating experience. Check out Badoo Best Dating App for Students Tinder Tinder Tinder boasts an unbelievably large user base, and while its not oriented towards personality-matching, if youre a student, finding the love of your life may not be your immediate goal. If youre in your late teens or early 20s, youre sure to find droves of other people your age on Tinder, and college campuses bursting with users so you dont have to travel far to meet someone. Check out Tinder Best Dating App for Introverts OkCupid OkCupid Do the picture- and location-based swipe apps make you cringe a little? Looking for something more text-based that shows you people youre more likely to actually get along with? OkCupid might be the app for you. Its lengthier sign-up process might be daunting to some, but the payoff is the algorithm sending you people youre much more likely to actually connect with. Maybe old-school online dating actually had it figured out? Check out OkCupid Best Dating App for Professionals Bumble Bumble Though its a swipe-based app, Bumbles core functionality women message first filters out a lot of the chaff of online dating. What you get is a platform full of more thoughtful, intentional daters, and between the user base and the high-end design, it gives off a distinctly professional air. This fits in neatly with the apps Bumble Bizz section, where you can seek out career-minded connections like mentorships via strictly platonic networking. Check out Bumble Best Mature Dating App OurTime OurTime When you think online dating, many people picture those in their 20s. But their parents generation is also looking for love. Dating is just a bit different when youre in your 50s. Thankfully, theres options dedicated to those who were alive before the internet. The top option is OurTime, which boasts millions of monthly users and low membership fees. What are you waiting for? Check out OurTime Best Video Dating App La Vette La Vette Lots of dating apps have some kind of video-based functionality now, but La Vette was built around video from the ground up, and its a paradigm shift in the online dating world. Your profile is a series of videos where you explain what youre about and what youre looking for to help give other people a comprehensive idea of what to expect. La Vette also provides you with a host of examples and tips to help ensure your videos are up to snuff, since not everyone is a born cinematographer. Check out La Vette Best Dating App Paid Upgrade Tinder Platinum Tinder Platinum Tinder has a secret weapon up its sleeve, and thats Tinder Platinum. With unlimited likes, five super-likes a day and unlimited rewinds, plus one free boost per month, youre sitting pretty and in control of your dating destiny. Platinum helps you unlock the benefits of Tinders deep user pool advantage, and its simply a cut above the paid upgrades from other popular apps. Check out Tinder Platinum Best Matchmaking Service Selective Search Selective Search If youve reached a point in your life where you have more money than time but are looking for something meaningful, you could hire someone to swipe for you on the apps or you could cut to the chase and get a real matchmaker. Matchmaking is an ancient art that has been growing in popularity in recent years as people find themselves dissatisfied with the online dating world, and meshing the care and attentiveness of a professional matchmaker with modern access to data and tech is a fascinating concept. Operating in nearly 30 cities across the continent, Selective Search boasts the highest success rate in the industry as it caters to elite clientele looking for love. Check out Selective Search Date-Night Services Best Dating-Themed Subscription Box D8te Box D8te Box Its easy to let routine and comfort dull the romantic edges in a relationship over time. Subscribing to D8te Box could be the shot in the arm that you and your partner need, as itll send you a box of date-oriented products everything you need for the perfect date night to help you plan a romantic evening together once a month. Check out D8te Box Best Suit Rental Service 9tofive 9tofive Need to look fancy for your date but dont own a suit or have the budget for buying your own? No idea where youd even buy a suit? No worries 9tofive has got you covered. Take their simple fit quiz and boom a nice, uncomplicated suit that fits you to a T will arrive in the mail. Then you return it and pat yourself on the back for not buying a whole suit just for one night of looking fancy. Check out 9tofive Best Wine Subscription Service SommSelect SommSelect Sure, when you have someone back to your place, you can drink beer or craft them a cocktail. But wine might be the go-to drink of the classy gentleman host. And there are few better ways to guarantee youll have a bottle that your guest will actually enjoy than signing up for a wine subscription service. We like SommSelect, which aims to bring delicious wines from all over the world to your doorstep thanks to a variety of monthly clubs, as well as the option to build a case of the wine you really want. Check out SommSelect Best Date-Night Food Delivery GrubHub GrubHub Date-night food when youve just met and youre trying to impress someone is traditionally something that you make yourself, but if youre doing a date night with a long-term partner, youre allowed to switch it up by ordering in something fancy. (Or you can order something non-fancy after getting home from drinks, if youre both craving a late-night snack.) With operations in over 4,000 American cities, a mix of local restaurants and chains, low delivery fees and a hassle-free app, GrubHub is the perfect choice. Check out GrubHub Best Rideshare Service Lyft Lyft Date night and you need to get to the date quickly? Going from a restaurant to a bar? Going from a bar to your place, or your dates? Sending your date home in style after a hot hookup? The real recommendation here is to use your local taxi company, but not everyone lives in a city where there exists or remains a robust taxi union, so lets say Lyft is the next best solution. Check out Lyft Best Flower Delivery Service The Bouqs The Bouqs Need a quick bouquet to wow your partner on a special date night? (Dont bring flowers on a date with someone you just met unless youre 50 years old or more, and even then its dicey.) The Bouqs prioritizes working with farm-fresh flowers and using transparent pricing, meaning their gorgeous bouquet options are a cut above the competition. Check out The Bouqs Sexy Apps & Services Best Overall Hookup App Tinder Tinder It might not be the No. 1 place to find the love of your life, but who are we kidding? When it comes to sheer numbers of people looking for some kind of connection, Tinder has still got it. Its the go-to app for people who are just stopping by a city for a short period and want a fling. Its bursting with horny randos looking for a good time, and a new feature that lets people categorize what theyre looking for means you can find the people who also want short-term fun more easily. Win-win! Check out Tinder Best Hookup App for Queer Guys Grindr Grindr Looking for a gay hookup? Grindr has been the app to know for as long as the concept of a gay hookup app has existed. Though recent years have seen challengers to the throne, like Tinder, it boasts the biggest user-base in its category and its features and look have kept pace with the competition. It might be home to a million-and-one cringey screenshots, but if you need to have hot sex tonight or just hot sexting Grindrs still the go-to. Check out Grindr Best Kink-Forward App AdultFriendFinder AdultFriendFinder Not all hookup needs are the same, because not everyones looking for the same thing in bed. If your tastes run a little bit more kinky than the average persons, trying to find someone wholl sate your deepest desires on a normal hookup app can feel like youre sifting through a haystack looking for a very sexy needle. Youll never feel like that using AdultFriendFinder, though. While its a little old-school in its name and functionality, its a genuinely thrumming hub of activity when it comes to kinksters looking to explore. Check out AdultFriendFinder Best Non-Monogamy-Friendly App Feeld Feeld It began its life as 3nder, a threesome-oriented version of Tinder, but today Feeld is at the forefront of non-monogamous dating. Though many users are still explicitly (or exclusively) looking for threesomes, youll find a host of people of all different genders and sexualities looking for all kinds of non-monogamous and kink-friendly arrangements. Check out Feeld Pornhub Pornhub Perhaps youve heard of this site? Its become an absolute juggernaut in the adult content world in the past half-decade, and for good reason. Its got absolutely mind-boggling amounts of XXX-rated content. You can find anything you're looking for and more, and because the revenue model is advertising-funded, you can watch untold amounts of porn for free. Of course, the paid version, Pornhub Premium, is no slouch either if youre interested in upgrading. Check out Pornhub Best Paid Adult Site Vixen Vixen With all due respect to the other porn producers out there, nobody is doing it quite like Vixen. Though they dont have the same breadth of different theme options as their competitors, they make up for it with unimpeachably high production value. Every scene feels like youre being welcomed into a star-studded Hollywood affair by gorgeous people in classy locations. Want to watch a little porn together? Vixens the place to do it. Check out Vixen Best Female-Friendly Adult Site Bellessa Bellessa Lets face it most porn is made for men. Which, if youre a guy, is great! But if youre a guy who wants to watch porn with a woman, its maybe less great. Thankfully, recent years have introduced a spate of female-created, feminist-friendly porn sites that bring all the hotness of mainstream porn without some of the unpleasant aspects, like face-fucking and hyper-unrealistic plots. In their place, Bellessa brings high production value and storyline-focused action. You might be surprised by how much you like it, too. Check out Bellessa Best Cam Site Jerkmate Jerkmate Want to chat with a cam star? Jerkmates the place to do it. With thousands and thousands of X-rated streamers catering to just about every imaginable taste, the site really does live up to its never jerk off alone again slogan, and getting to watch someones Bluetooth-enabled sex toy pleasure them in real time in response to your tips is a thrill that everyone should get to experience. Check out Jerkmate Best Chat Site Arousr Arousr Want the connection that comes with a cam session but a little camera-shy? Or maybe youre simply a words person who prefers chatting over text? Enter Arousr, where you can exchange sexy messages with a host of gorgeous women willing to explore your fantasies with you. Though the site is decidedly text-first, many of the models offer voice chat and in some cases video chat options, too. Check out Arousr Best Sex Ed Service Lover Lover Unfortunately, far too many people reach adulthood knowing little to nothing about sex or worse yet, believing myths instead of facts. Theres just not a lot of good sex ed out there for young people, for a complex tangle of reasons we wont get into here. Suffice to say that if you want to be a great lover, a little knowledge base is a good place to start. Check out Lover Best Sex-Themed Subscription Box Love Drop Love Drop Who doesnt love getting packages in the mail? Well, if you want a new set of sexy goodies every two months, then you want Love Drop, a subscription box that promises to send you sexual health products and information every two months. Check out Love Drop You Might Also Dig: AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use. Kansas City, Missouri choice on cash for the cops might be the most important LOCAL decision amid upcoming midterm elections. And yet . . . Even this issue is a bit of an anti-climax according to insiders. Remember . . . Polling indicates 64 percent voter support in order to provide more funding for Kansas City police. Of course the argument is that Missouri voters shouldn't have any say at all . . . There's a nonsense "taxation without representation" debate which doesn't really make sense and ignores so many lobbyists on KCMO's pay roll asking Jeff City for money every session. Moreover . . . This is also worthy of consideration no matter how we frame the issue . . . MAYOR Q SPENDS EPIC CASH ON HIS FIGHT TO CONTROL POLICE MONEY!!! So far police supporters say the total could reach nearly half a million bucks. However . . . Given that U.S. dollars are quickly turning into confetti . . . We're far more amused by the legal debate and slap fight over a definition of terms in a ballot choice that's basically been decided and won't do much but stir up divisive local sentiment in the midst of a historic homicide surge. Accordingly . . . Check both sides of the debate . . . "Mayor Quinton Lucas is on his way to spending nearly half a million dollars of taxpayer funds including on a $1,000-an-hour New York lawyer in a lawsuit over police funding that is arguably premature and quite possibly dead on arrival. "Thats according to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, which has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit because the case is not ripe for adjudication. The board notes that the new Missouri law at the heart of the dispute isnt even close to being put into effect and that, regardless, voters will decide in just a few weeks whether or not it will be." To which the mayor replies . . . "Kansas City Council has "fully funded" the KCPD. We know. And, we know the "defund" mantra behind Amendment 4 is a farce." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . . KC Mayor Quinton Lucas using up to $450,000 in tax dollars to fund a lawsuit that could be dead on arrival Lucas lawsuit to prevent a state-ordered rise in KC police funding a lawsuit he is pressing as a private citizen, but bizarrely with taxpayer funds is filed against the Board of Police Commissioners, the state of Missouri and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt. Or . . . You decide . . . In 2014 the New York Times offered this hopeful report on the trendy, hipster future of this cowtown: Millennials Going to Kansas City, to Live and Work It's a nice idea and the reference caused a sensation but, like everything else, the bold proclamations never really lived up to the hype. Now . . . THE DEMISE OF BELOVED 'MONARCH' COFFEE SHOP SIGNALS THE DEATH OF KANSAS CITY'S MILLENNIAL DREAMS!!! Predictably, the owners blame the pandemic. Back in 2017 our blog community predicted that crime and rising prices would push them out. In the end . . . The place seemed too fancy to maintain and owners hint that they just didn't have enough love/interest for the project to continue their efforts. Yes, there's a hidden subtext which suggests that "the great resignation" and so-called "quiet quitting" might be part of the equation . . . Even for owners working for investors . . . In the end, EVERYBODY has a boss. A bit of desperation at the end of an unsuccessful biz journey is understandable . . . But the coffee shut down begs a bigger question . . . DOES MONARCH COFFEE SHUT DOWN REVEAL THAT KANSAS CITY URBANIST HYPE MISLEADS MILLENNIALS & GEN Z??!!! Back in 2017 we warned that people can "die of encouragement" and we still believe that statement is accurate. Starting a biz is one of the hardest ways to craft a living . . . For a time the crew at Monarch created one of this town's most unique spaces. In the aftermath of this closure . . . It seems unfair to neighbors and young people to dismiss the implications of their demise. Or, even worse, encourage mediocre biz people to waste their time and treasure on empty urbanist promises. For years Midtown Kansas City has been told that speculative real estate deals and the streetcar will power an economic renaissance when, IN FACT, idea hasn't really worked for any small biz or residents. Accordingly, here's a peek at what they had to say in their recent announcement blast . . . We have some news: Monarch Coffee's brick & mortar locations will be closing on Sunday, October 30th. We've been trying to find the right words to share this news with our community and customers. How do you, in a few paragraphs, sum up eight years of your life, the nuances of one of the hardest decisions you've ever had to make, and the parallel feelings of profound grief alongside a deep knowing of what is the next right thing? We opened Monarch because we were excited to create a new kind of coffee space in Kansas City. We did what we set out to do, which was to serve quality coffee and barista created drinks, in a beautiful, welcoming space, rooted in our values. We are so incredibly proud of the company we created, the team we built, and all that we offered to the community. ############## Developing . . . Earlier this evening the Jackson County Sheriff sent out word of a fatal cutting. Here's the first report from police . . . Suspicious Death 6200 block of Tracy This evening about 5pm officers were called to a residence in the 6200 block of Tracy on a medical call with EMS involving an unresponsive adult male. Officers and EMS arrived and EMS began treatment of the male. EMS declared the male deceased at the scene. Officers notified detectives and they responded to the scene along with crime scene investigators for their processing and investigation. Some of the circumstances of the scene were suspicious to the investigators so they have called in the Homicide detectives for a suspicious death investigation. Homicide detectives will be working with the crime scene investigators as well as the medical examiner to determine the cause and manner of death. They are also talking to individuals that were at the scene when officers arrived. ############### Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . . Kansas City police investigating suspicious death in 6200 block of Tracy Avenue KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City, Missouri, police are investigating the death of a man Thursday night on the city's east side. According to a tweet from Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forte', the cutting happened in the 6200 block of Tracy Avenue. Forte' said detectives are investigating the death as "suspicious." Kansas City homicide detectives called to investigate man's suspicious death Daryl Forte/Jackson County Sheriff's Office suspicious death on tracy avenue SOURCE: Daryl Forte/Jackson County Sheriff's Office Kansas City police said they are investigating a man's death as suspicious.Authorities said officers were called about 5 p.m. on Thursday to a home in the 6200 block of Tracy Avenue on a medical call involving an unresponsive man. Update . . . This case has been ruled a homicide . . . The investigation is on-going. Suspicious death Thursday in 6200 block of Tracy Avenue ruled homicide KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A suspicious death in the 6200 block of Tracy Avenue Thursday night is now being investigated as a homicide, according to Kansas City, Missouri, police. Authorities identified the victim as Karl Winn, 36. Winn was found unresponsive by police around 5 p.m. on Oct. 13. Developing . . . Actually this post and headline is part of a series and we credit Kansas City's favorite conservative podcaster with starting off the discussion . . . And so we ask . . . ARE PROGRESSIVES HYPOCRITES FOR TACITLY BACKING THE MARCH TO WAR WITH RUSSIA??? Caveat . . . We don't have any sympathy for Vlad and generally dislike Euro-trash on general principal. Honestly, TKC is skeptical about anybody on the wrong/right side of Southwest Blvd. As always, we're more concerned with the home front and nobody has convinced us that getting into a nuke war is worth it in order to support some stand-up comedian fighting a super-power. For now . . . We share KK's perspective once again . . . "AOC went "home" to NY city and is shouted down by her own voters. One man in particular let her have it for leading us towards nuclear war." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Pelosi Threatens Violence, AOC Shouted Down, Coach's Quote is Real America, Chiefs Getting Healthy, Point Spread Picks What in the world is the January 6 committee doing releasing a documentary film clip of an unhinged Nancy Pelosi, shaking in rage, threatening violence against the President of the United States. How many ways can they bungle this sham? AOC went "ho... Related . . . AOC yelled at by Tulsi Gabbard fans at town hall for backing US action to help Ukraine against Russia Fans of former Democratic presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard were seen shouting and arguing with Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supporters at a town hall on the issue of Ukraine. Ms Ocasio-Cortez was hosting a town hall on Wednesday when, as video posted on social media showed, she was heckled by supporters of Ms Gabbard. Developing . . . A question for close readers . . . There are now 4 dominant local "prog blogs" and two conservative blogs who regularly produce content to promote the perspective of their backers . . . Right now we're going with the term "hack" blogs but that seems mean . . . Anybody have any suggestions for a name to give "news" outlets that clearly produce content in support of a agenda/sponsorship rather than working for the public trust??? In fairness, TKC exists solely "for the lulz" and to provide coffee money, share the very finest in cowtown snark, fart jokes, gossip, commentary and better insights than the garbage readers will find by scrolling silicon valley spyware phone apps. Thing of it is . . . More than any of these blogs we CHALLENGE READERS with an ALTERNATIVE perspective along with many typos and bad grammar!!! Either way . . . It's always funny to watch adults take money to push an agenda and then call themselves journalists rather than PR consultants. Sure, there's not much difference nowadays and most of the public can't tell the difference . . . Even better . . . Every newsie loves using the "hack" slur against their colleagues so there's no reason that our blog community shouldn't partake in the fun. And so . . . We don't have a problems with these reports . . . In fact, they're all kind of interesting even if they represent little more than partisan efforts to engage in the longstanding pay-for-play PR news model in addition to their social media slap fighting . . . Westside neighborhood, City Barrel Brewing, Downtown attractions + more news - Downtown Council of Kansas City Westside neighbors drive 'creative use' of incentive program; VanTrust Real Estate joins Streetcar land rush; Florida fund acquires 132-unit Crossroads apartment complex; Downtown attractions dominate list of popular destinations; East Crossroads brewery wins medal at Great American Beer Festival. Mournful and hopeful, an emerging photo project portrays rural Kansas newspapers - Kansas Reflector Kansas Reflector welcomes opinion pieces from writers who share our goal of widening the conversation about how public policies affect the day-to-day lives of people throughout our state. Eric Thomas directs the Kansas Scholastic Press Association and teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the University of Kansas. Cato Institute: Governor Kelly earns a "C" in tax-and-spend policy - The Sentinel Kansas Governor Laura Kelly portrays herself as supporting sound fiscal policy as she campaigns for re-election, but Cato Institute gives her a "C" grade in their Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors, 2022. Cato gives an "A" to Governors Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Brad Little of Idaho, and Doug Ducey of Arizona. St. Louis advocates optimistic the city's reparations effort will advance * Missouri Independent This weekend , elected officials - including St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and Congresswoman Cori Bush - will gather for a " Reparations Block Party and Teach-in " with advocates and city residents to talk about what reparations could look like for Black St. Louisans. Trio of Kansas Supreme Court justices up for retention defend independent judiciary - Kansas Reflector OVERLAND PARK - Kansas Supreme Court Justice Melissa Taylor Standridge said the legislative and executive branches of government were distinct from the judicial branch because judges and justices were required to cast aside personal politics when making decisions. "We are very different," she told an audience Thursday night. Some Kansas teachers say a ban on surveys is putting some classroom lessons on hold WICHITA, Kansas - A new law requiring Kansas schools to get parental permission before surveying students' personal attitudes or beliefs has put lessons on hold in many schools. The law doesn't go as far as a proposed Parents' Bill of Rights that Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed last spring. 4-H 'Thriving Model' is grounded in equity, CRT, and Marxism - The Sentinel In the spring of 2013, 4-H launched a nationwide program of youth development called the "Thriving Model," which appears grounded in equity, Marxism, and tenets of critical race theory. Indeed, last week's story about a 4-H policy that assigns campers to dormitories based on the gender with which a child identifies rather than their biological sex at birth prompted emails from 4-H parents in several other states. 'This is in our neighborhoods': KC mom finds pornographic material in her neighborhood's free little library Kansas City mom Casey Thomas had always thought of her neighborhood's free "little library" book exchange as a blessing - until Sunday, when she was startled to find books containing sexually graphic illustrations and content. Thomas said the books were placed in the little library by Matt Sameck, who nearly won a seat as a Liberty School District board candidate in April. You decide . . . Three residential break and enters were reported in the citys East York district from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, according to Toronto Police Service. Thats up from one reported during the previous week. As a result of climate change, the world is experiencing more severe disasters, such as extreme heat waves, storms and droughts, and many governments are not sufficiently prepared to get early warnings out to their residents, according to a report from the United Nations released Thursday. The report from the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that half of countries do not have what it calls the multi-hazard early warning systems needed to ensure that their inhabitants have the earliest possible opportunity to prepare for disaster. The U.N. is trying to emphasize the need for national governments to invest in such systems, and also the need for rich countries to subsidize those systems in developing countries, which are the most at risk from climate change and the least equipped to handle its damaging effects. In a video message released Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put the issue squarely on the table for Novembers climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, known as COP27. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 22. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) Entire populations are being blindsided by cascading climate disasters, without any means of prior alert, Guterres said. People need adequate warning to prepare for extreme weather events. That is why I am calling for universal early warning coverage in the next five years. The report reveals that such services are woefully lacking for those who need them most. At the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, I will launch an action plan to provide early warning systems for all within five years. But what exactly is a multi-hazard early warning system? Experts say it has four main components: understanding disaster risk, technical infrastructure to forecast the weather, a system for communicating that forecast to the public, and a government capacity for using that forecast to mitigate harm. Any warning system is better than nothing, but ideally it should be multihazard, Omar Amach, a spokesperson for the Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, told Yahoo News. What that means is monitoring for every possible cause and the cascading effect of a disaster. Story continues Most tsunami early warning systems watch out for seismic activity, earthquakes, and you will catch most earthquakes that way and let people know a tsunami might be coming. But if you look at recent history, there were a couple of examples of tsunamis triggered by events other than earthquakes, Amach said. So there was in Indonesia a tsunami that was triggered by a landslide, and then you have an example in Tonga of a volcanic eruption that then triggered a tsunami. So the idea of multihazard is that you shouldnt just be watching for one hazard, you should be watching anything that could trigger the event. People in Semarang, Indonesia, wade through water after a tidal wave hit the northern coastline on May 24. (Daffa Ramya/AFP via Getty Images) The same need to diversify what governments monitor for and warn about applies to effects as well as causes. Another example in the context of climate change or climate disasters is: You look at any storm warning or, for example, Pakistan right now, Amach said. Its one thing to look at heavy rainfall and potential flooding, but then there are other risks that could cascade from that initial hazard. So that could be landslides. Once youve had heavy rainfall, then theres a risk of landslides. And so is the early warning system watching out for this type of hazard, and warning people that this now is an issue that they should be worried about? The early warning system shouldnt just stop at one hazard and then people are off on their own. It should take into account different hazards that could result or cascade from the initial hazard, he added. In the United States, the National Weather Service has ample technology for tracking extreme weather events and can alert the public and elected officials through mass media, so utility companies can send out cellphone push notifications, for example. When Hurricane Ian approached Florida last month, the state government issued evacuation orders for 12 counties. Had it not done so, the death toll could have been much higher. Officials in Lee County were criticized for delaying evacuation orders longer than their neighbors. But in much of the world, several of these components are missing, and the victims of natural disasters have little, if any, advance notice and chance to prepare. Debris litters the ground in Sanibel, Fla., on Oct. 8 after Hurricane Ian. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) There are many countries, this report shows, that dont even have the beginning parts of the chain, Laura Paterson, WMO representative and coordinator to the United Nations, told Yahoo News. You will struggle to find a good early warning ahead of flooding in many of the least developed countries in Africa. Im thinking of South Sudan: Their [meteorological] service doesnt have the capacity to really be ingesting all this data, making this decision on whats going to be impactful and disseminating it out to their people. And also, perhaps many of the people arent receiving any warnings that they do have. When climate-change-related floods hit South Sudan this summer, not all of the 1 million residents affected received the warnings that were issued and thus missed the chance to move their goods to safer areas, such as higher ground. One example of the kind of system that Guterres would like to see in countries such as South Sudan is a WMO program in Papua New Guinea. In 2015-16, the Pacific Island nation endured severe droughts affecting about 40% of the population, causing life-threatening food shortages, and in response the WMO launched a project there to build an early warning system to reduce the impact of drought. (Since warmer air causes more water to evaporate, droughts have become increasingly frequent and severe in many areas due to climate change.) The project includes increasing the national meteorological agencys ability to predict droughts, and advance collaboration with government agencies such as Papua's Ministry of Agriculture. Thanks to earlier warnings, Papuans in future droughts will have a chance to head off famine with such measures such as planting drought-resistant crops and stocking up on basic goods. South Sudanese residents wade through floodwater in the city of Al Manaqil on Aug. 23. (Ebrahim Hamid /AFP via Getty Images) One key aspect of forecasting that needs to be improved worldwide is what the WMO calls impact-based forecasts. This specifies the potential impact, for instance, explaining not simply, It will rain 6 inches in three hours, but It will rain 6 inches in three hours, which will flood the basements and ground floors of many homes. Forecasts of extreme weather events are often expressed in technical terms giving the temperature in degrees and wind speeds in kilometers per hour that dont make clear to the average person what is going to happen to them and what they should do to prepare. This is an issue even in rich countries. After more than 230 residents of Germany and Belgium died in floods last year, local authorities called for better preparation for extreme weather events. Even if we look at developed countries, and if you think of the example last year of the flooding of Germany and Belgium, thats an example where the forecast was good, Paterson said. "The predictions of how much rainfall was coming were good. In Germany they have weather apps, they have good weather forecasts on TV; I'm sure people would have been aware that this was coming. However, the translation from Were going to get a lot of rain to Our community is going to flood so badly that its the worst weve ever seen and there's going to be a risk to life that step was quite challenging in Germany. Disaster warning systems are also useful only to those who have the means to take precautions such as evacuating. Even in the United States, local governments have failed to make accommodations to evacuate people with disabilities in the path of hurricanes for example, during Hurricane Katrina, which took 1,833 lives in 2005. In Sindh, Pakistan, on Sept. 28, a family displaced by floods sits outside a tent at a makeshift camp. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images) Recent catastrophes attributable to climate change have included the flooding of one-third of Pakistan's land mass. Guterres, who recently visited the country to show solidarity, has called on wealthier nations to present more ambitious plans at COP27 for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and for setting up a system to compensate developing nations for loss and damage from climate catastrophes. Communities everywhere are looking down the barrel of climate-driven destruction, he said. We must act and we must act now. 'You are a hero to me': South Simcoe police Const. Morgan Russell remembered 'Remember that they were heroes in life and will ever continue to be heroes in death' Bassam Al-Rawi, convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in December 2012 after he picked her up in his cab, walks outside the courtroom during a break at Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax in 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press - image credit) A man who fled Canada while awaiting a decision on his sexual assault conviction says his case has been misrepresented by lawyers and the media. Bassam Al-Rawi was convicted of sexual assault in August 2020 by a judge of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. The former Halifax taxi driver sexually assaulted a woman in his Bedford apartment in December 2012. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal upheld Al-Rawi's conviction. But the province's highest court also agreed to release him while he tried to appeal his case to the Supreme Court of Canada. Al-Rawi had to surrender his passport and remain in Canada. That passport is still being held by the appeal court. But this May, Al-Rawi boarded a plane in Montreal and flew to Turkey. From there, he made his way to Baghdad, where he still resides. Warrant issued Immediately following Al-Rawi's flight, the appeal court held an emergency hearing. Ian Hutchison withdrew as Al-Rawi's defence lawyer during that hearing and a warrant was issued for Al-Rawi's arrest. During that hearing, Crown prosecutor Mark Scott laid out what authorities had been able to piece together about Al-Rawi's flight from Canada. The fugitive has sent an email to the court, Scott, Hutchison and Fari Faisal Jeshami, his Canadian surety, laying out his version of events. In his email, which is in the court file and has been viewed by CBC, Al-Rawi disputed Scott's information that he had travelled using a pseudonym. "My name is Bassam Al-Rawi and I have never used any other name in my life," he wrote. "This claim does not exist at all." Al-Rawi attached images to his email, showing travel documents, including an Iraqi passport, which he says was issued by the Iraqi Embassy in Ottawa. Depicts himself as a victim Al-Rawi's email goes on to state that his mother died in February, that he had not been able to see her for years and could not attend her funeral or mourning period. "Part of my life was lost," he said. Story continues As for the sexual assault, Al-Rawi tries to depict himself in the email as a victim. "The mental and psychological damage that was inflicted on me and my family, and the matter, continues to this day," he said. "I was convicted of an allegation and not direct evidence. This conviction was based on legal errors and on television hype and the insane campaign of defamation." Just days after the emergency hearing in the appeal court, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would not hear Al-Rawi's appeal of his conviction. At a hearing last month, the $25,000 Al-Rawi posted to secure his release from prison while he tried to mount his appeal was forfeited to the Crown. A portion of the money promised by Jeshami was also forfeited. Boarded Turkish Airlines flight According to Jeshami, Al-Rawi had contacted him by email, saying he was returning to Nova Scotia to serve the balance of his sentence. But rather than board a flight to Halifax as he claimed to Jeshami, Al-Rawi left Canada on a Turkish Airlines flight. This case was the second time Al-Rawi was accused of sexually assaulting someone he picked up in his taxi. He was tried and acquitted twice in a case involving another woman. Comments by the trial judge in his first acquittal garnered national headlines when the judge said "clearly, a drunk can consent" in describing the condition of the complainant. CBC News has reached out to the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Ottawa to get a response to Al-Rawi's claims that he got a passport from the embassy. There has been no reply. MORE TOP STORIES This morning , we kick off the show today with someone who is no stranger to the Morning Edi The first week of testimony and cross-examination in the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes and four associates who joined him at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally hours before the riot at the U.S. Capitol included vastly different depictions of the threat the defendants posed that day. Prosecutors have presented public declarations by Rhodes and a close adviser as well as dozens of text messages, some sent via encrypted websites, to justify the charge of seditious conspiracy, which the criminal code defines as two or more people conspiring to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States, or levy war against them. Lawyers for the defendants have sought to raise questions about how aggressive the Oath Keepers' plans and actions on Jan. 6 really turned out to be, and have elicited testimony from at least one Oath Keeper who described his lack of interest in partaking in violence at the Capitol. An artist sketch depicts the trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four others charged with seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. (Dana Verkouteren via AP) Prosecutors called jurors attention to a lengthy diatribe posted by Rhodes and his close associate Kelly SoRelle on the Oath Keepers website in December 2020. In it, the defendants encouraged supporters to take up arms to keep then-President Donald Trump in office and to block the certification of the Electoral College vote confirming Joe Bidens victory over him. Show the world who the traitors are and then use the Insurrection Act to drop the hammer on them, Rhodes told a Dec. 12 pro-Trump rally in Washington. Trump needs to know from now you are with him. If he does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we are going to have to do it for him, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war. Lets get it on now. In a Dec. 18, 2020, internet posting, Rhodes and SoRelle wrote, We now face a moment of peril as great, or greater, as what General Washington and his men faced in 1776, words that prosecutors depicted as an incitement to their followers. This is your moment of destiny. Will you take your place in history as the savior of our Republic, right up there with President Washington and Lincoln? Or will you fail to act, while you still can, and leave office on January 20, 2021, leaving We the People to fight a desperate revolution/civil war against an illegitimate usurper and his Chicom [Chinese Communist Party] puppet regime, the letter continued. Story continues Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes in 2019. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters) Private, and sometimes encoded, pre-riot message traffic exchanged among Rhodes and his supporters was less formal and more openly aggressive, the prosecution told the jury. As early as Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, Rhodes texted an Oath Keepers group, "We aren't getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit." On Dec. 14, Rhodes told a Georgia Oath Keepers online chat group, If [Trump} doesnt use the Insurrection Act to keep a Chicom puppet out of the White House, then we will have to fight a bloody revolution/civil war to defeat the traitors. Rhodes then went on to cite the case of Samuel Whittemore, a Massachusetts resident who started fighting the American Revolution at age 78. He was an example of a Dangerous old man ... May there be a thousand Samuel Whittemores, and a Thousand Bunker Hills. The next day Rhodes declared to the chat group, Defy. Nullify. Interpose and defend others and each other. I am sure with all the firepower in our group we have enough to overthrow a small third world country, one of his followers wrote in response. The interim president of the Oath Keepers, Kelly SoRelle, speaks to the media after Rhodes was brought to federal court to face seditious conspiracy charges. (Shelby Tauber/Reuters) In opening arguments, Rhodess lawyer Phillip Linder told the jury that while they might not like some of the things you see defendants did, by the same token, defendants did nothing illegal that day. ... What the government is trying to tell us is completely wrong. In late December 2020, according to evidence cited by prosecutors, Oath Keepers representatives were in contact with representatives of the Proud Boys, two of whose leaders have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges, and the Three Percenters, another far-right militia group whose members participated in the Jan. 6 riot. In a Dec. 22 message, defendant Kelly Meggs said the Oath Keepers planned to have "at least 50-100" members in Washington for Jan. 5 and 6, adding that his group had made contact with representatives of the Proud Boys, who always have a big group and could be a force multiplier. On Dec. 29, Brian Ulrich, an Oath Keeper who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges (as did two other members of the group) and is now cooperating with prosecutors, sent a message advising that some Proud Boys heading for D.C. would be dressed in their colors but will look like Antifa. That same day, according to prosecutors, defendant Thomas Caldwell sent a message to a member of the Three Percenters expressing an interest in meeting group members. Proud Boys member Jeremy Bertino, second from left, at a rally in support of President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., December 2020. (Luis M. Alvarez/AP) In the days before the riot, Caldwell messaged others that the Oath Keepers had organized a well-armed Quick Reaction Force, but would need one or more boats to ferry them and their weapons, which jurors were told were stored at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River. In a Jan. 1 Facebook post, Caldwell wrote, It begins for real January 5 and 6 in Washington DC when we mobilize in the streets Let them try to certify on Capitol Hill with a million or more patriots on the street. This kettle is set to boil. Several thousand Trump supporters attended the presidents speech at the Capitol Ellipse on Jan. 6, and a smaller subset headed for the Capitol and engaged in violence there, among them an Oath Keepers group that an FBI witness testified was smaller than two dozen. Lawyers for the defendants highlighted that number, saying it showed the government was exaggerating the threat posed by the Oath Keepers. Terry Cummings, a retired Portland, Ore., public transit worker and Oath Keepers member, was called as a prosecution witness and told the jury he learned in late December that the group was planning to travel to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally. Members of the Oath Keepers march down the East Front steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Cummings testified that he brought an AR-15 rifle with him to Washington and a case containing ammunition. Once in the D.C. area, though, he said, he stashed his weapon and ammunition in an Arlington hotel where he was told a Quick Reaction Force would be based. At the hotel, he testified, he had not seen that many weapons in a location since serving in the military himself. After stashing his weapon and ammo, Cummings testified that he moved to a different hotel in Washington itself where he overnighted in a room booked by a fellow Oath Keepers member. Cummings testified that he attended the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse and was admitted to a VIP section near the White House. He left the rally early, he said, to escort an African American woman VIP, who he could not otherwise identify, to the Capitol. Cummings said that when he got to the Capitol, it seemed to him that the Oath Keepers were not playing a leadership role in the clashes between Trump supporters and police. After dropping off the VIP he and others were escorting, he went to the east side of the Capitol, where at one point Oath Keepers and others set up stack formations to breach the building. Cummings testified that he didnt believe it would be a good idea to enter the Capitol because Vice President Mike Pence was there, and he broke away from his group to find a toilet. After he returned to the Capitol, he could not immediately find fellow Oath Keepers but eventually ran across Rhodes, who commented on what he said were fumes of CS riot gas. Suck it up. A little tear gas isnt any big deal, Cummings said Rhodes told him. Trump supporters climb the west wall of the the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo) Caldwell's lawyer David Fischer has argued that inflammatory social media messages posted by defendants were selectively edited to appear incriminating. He told the jury that the Oath Keepers had organized Quick Reaction Forces on multiple occasions before Jan. 6, including during civil disorders in Ferguson, Mo., and Louisville, Ky. He insisted that those forces, which defendants were involved in organizing for Jan. 6, were not in any way designed to attack the U.S. Capitol building. Cummings said his group returned to their hotel in time to comply with a 6 p.m. curfew imposed by local authorities, and the next morning he headed home. After Jan. 6, he said, he did not participate in any Oath Keepers activities. He testified that during events including his walk to the Capitol, he never heard discussions of any plan to forcefully stop Biden from taking office. Under defense cross-examination, he said he had joined the Oath Keepers after becoming disturbed by riots in Portland staged by the antifa movement and came to believe that local government had practically encouraged the rioters. Cummings also testified that as he initially made his way to Washington, he heard nothing about a plan to storm the Capitol. I would not have continued to D.C. Had I heard of such a plan, I probably would have reported it, he added. The trial is expected to continue into mid-November, and Rhodes is expected to testify in his own defense. Guyanese nationals with valid passports will be able to travel to the UK as tourists for a s To replenish its manpower losses, the military leadership of the Russian Federation continues the practice of recruiting mercenaries, including foreign ones. This is stated in the report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of 06:00, October 14, published on Facebook. "The aggressor continues to focus its efforts on reaching the administrative border of Donetsk region, holding the captured districts of Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv regions. The enemy shells the positions of our troops along the entire contact line, reinforcing its positions in some directions and conducting aerial reconnaissance, redeploying reserves, carrying out mobilization, and recruiting mercenaries," the report reads. The enemy does not stop striking the critical infrastructure and civilian facilities throughout Ukraine. Over the past 24 hours, civilian objects and residents of Brody, Nalyvaykivka of Kyiv region, Mykolaiv, and Nikopol came under enemy fire. The enemy used cruise, aviation, anti-aircraft guided missiles and Iranian-made combat drones to launch strikes. In general, over the past day, the occupiers launched two missile strikes, 16 airstrikes, and more than 70 MLRS attacks. The situation in Volyn and Polissia directions has not changed significantly. The enemy opened fire in other directions: In Siversky direction: mortars and tube artillery were fired in the areas of Ukrainyske, Atynske, Velyka Rybytsia of Sumy region and Mykolaivka of Chernihiv region; In Slobozhansky direction: mortars, tube and rocket artillery were fired in the areas of Strilecha, Ohirtseve, Starytsia, Hatyshche, Dvorichna and Hrianikyvka settlements; In Kramatorsk direction: artillery of various types was fired in the areas of Spirne, Terny, Zarichne, Nadiya, Olhivka, Torske, Bilohorivka, Yampolivka, and Travneve settlements; In Bakhmut direction: tanks, mortars, tube and rocket artillery were fired along the entire contact line, particularly, in the areas of Bilohorivka, Yakovlivka, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Ivanhrad, Zelenopillia, Soledar, Mayorsk, Chasiv Yar, and Opytne; In Avdiivka direction: tanks and artillery were fired in the areas of Avdiivka, Krasnohorivka, Vodiane, Marinka, Novomykhailivka, Nevelske, Pervomaiske, and Zolota Nyva settlements; In Novopavlivka and Zaporizhzhia directions, the areas of Vuhledar, Novoukrayinka, Vremivka, Novoandriivka, Novodanylivka, Dorozhnianka, Huliaypole, and Komyshuvakha came under fire. In Southern Buh direction, the settlements near the contact line, particularly Nikopol and Vyshchetarasivka, came under fire. In the town of Enerhodar on October 10-11, an increase in the personnel of the Russian-occupation forces in the territory of the nuclear power plant was noticed. According to the available information, the occupiers use the plant as a base to deploy personnel as the plant is not fired upon. The enemy intensifies regime measures. At the checkpoints around Melitopol, FSB agents conduct out thorough searches along with Russian military personnel. To replenish the manpower losses, the Russian military leadership continues the practice of recruiting mercenaries, including foreign citizens. It is known about the arrival of about 400 foreign militants in the temporarily occupied Crimea on October 9. They are expected to be involved in hostilities in the territory of Ukraine. Over the past day, the Ukrainian troops repelled the enemy attacks near Terny, Opytne, Vesele, Nevelske, Odradivka, Ivanhrad, Bakhmut, Nova Kamyanka, and Sukhyi Stavok settlements. Over the past 24 hours, Ukraines Air Force launched 25 strikes, hitting more than 19 areas of weapons and military equipment build-up, as well as six air defense systems of the enemy. In addition, the Ukrainian air defense units shot down five enemy cruise missiles and nine UAVs. The missile and artillery units hit three Russian command posts, five areas of manpower, weapons, and military equipment build-up, and two ammunition depots. An enemy electronic warfare station also fell into the fire damage zone. As reported, the Defense Forces of Ukraine eliminated about 63,800 Russian soldiers from February 24 to October 13. ol Ukrainians have withstood a powerful enemy blow, dispelled the myth of the Russian armys invincibility, and are now bringing back what is theirs and moving forward. The relevant statement was made by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi on Facebook, as he congratulated the Ukrainian military on Day of Defenders and Defendresses of Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Winter 2022 is already part of world history. We withstood a powerful enemy blow. We showed what it means to be Ukrainian, to have the courage to fight for our freedom. In fierce battles, under the steel rain of Russian projectiles, we were holding on to each piece of our land. We have stopped the enemy onslaught and dispelled the myth of the Russian armys invincibility, Zaluzhnyi stressed. In his words, no one and nothing will stop the victorious progress of the Ukrainian Army. Now we are bringing back what is ours. No one and nothing will stop us. We have chosen the path of warriors and are moving forward. The whole world is looking at us enthusiastically and with hope, Zaluzhnyi added. A reminder that, on October 14, Ukraine marks its Day of Defenders and Defendresses and Day of Ukrainian Cossacks. mk Ukraine's Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said that by using high-precision missiles to hit civilian targets, Russia not only affirms itself as a terrorist state, but also deprives itself of its military advantages, which will lead to its inevitable defeat on the battlefield. According to Ukrinform, Reznikov reported this on Twitter. He also published a scheme for Russia's use of long-range precision missiles from the start of the full-scale invasion in February to October 12 inclusive. Demilitarization of russia. By using hundreds of high-precision missiles against civilian objects of Ukraine, the aggressor state reduces its ability to strike the military targets. Two conclusions: - russia's military defeat is inevitable; - russia is a terrorist state. pic.twitter.com/KHeM7AaGlb Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) October 14, 2022 According to these data, as of February 23, Russia had about 900 Iskander ballistic missiles, about 500 Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles and 444 air-launched cruise missiles (Kh-101 and Kh-555). As of October 12, the Russian armed forces had 124 Iskanders, 272 Kalibrs, and 213 Kh-101s and Kh-555s in their reserves. In total, Russia has 609 long-range precision missiles left from the 1,844 it had before the invasion of Ukraine in February. Reznikov called such a massive use by Russia of its missile reserves "demilitarization of Russia." "By using hundreds of high-precision missiles against civilian objects of Ukraine, the aggressor state reduces its ability to strike the military targets. Two conclusions: - Russia's military defeat is inevitable; - Russia is a terrorist state," he wrote. Rescuers have completed dismantling works at the site of a 5-storey apartment block, which was struck with a Russian missile on the night of October 13, 2022. In general, six civilian bodies were recovered from under the rubble, and one victim died in hospital. The relevant statement was made by Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych on Telegram, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Rescuers have completed a search and rescue operation. [] In general, six civilian bodies were recovered from under the rubble. Therefore, eight Mykolaiv residents were killed in Russias missile attack launched on October 13, 2022: seven residents of the house and one rescuer, who was on duty at a boat station, the report states. An 11-year-old boy was rescued from under the rubble but later died in hospital. Generally, according to Sienkevych, four apartment blocks were damaged. In one of them, two entrances are now in critical condition. A reminder that, on the night of October 13, 2022, Russian troops fired eight S-300 missiles at the city of Mykolaiv. A number of civilian objects were struck, namely a 5-storey apartment block and a boat station. mk The Armed Forces of Ukraine already use German IRIS-T air defense system in the southern direction. "We have very few air defense systems now. Many countries have pledged to help us and deliver air defense systems. Ukraine is the first to receive IRIS-T system from Germany now, this system cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The Armed Forces of Ukraine already use this system somewhere in the southern direction. We are waiting for the rest of the systems that Germany is going to send us," Yuriy Ihnat, spokesperson for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said during a nationwide telethon. He added that IRIS systems can work in a single information field along with such systems as NASAMS and Patriot. "NASAMS is a proven system that has a good reputation in the world and is in service with 12 countries around the world It is necessary to ask the countries that have this system to help Ukraine to strengthen our air defense capabilities," the Air Force spokesperson noted. In this way, he noted, it will be possible to completely replace outdated Soviet equipment samples in a few years. As reported, on October 13, during an online speech at the PACE session, President Zelensky expressed his belief that ensuring the protection of the Ukrainian sky from Russian missile terror would be a fundamental step for ending the war in the near future. The President thanked Germany for the delivery of the first IRIS-T systems and expressed his belief that this would open the possibility of further provision of air defense and missile defense systems to Ukraine both by German partners and other manufacturers. Ukraine's air defense capabilities were among the priority issues discussed at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Ramstein-6) meeting held under the auspices of the USA on October 12. ol The Dutch authorities intend to allocate 70 million euros to help Ukraine ensure a normal heating season. "As winter approaches, the problems of Ukrainians only increase. Buildings, water supply and heating systems need urgent repairs. I told the World Bank that the Netherlands was ready to allocate 70 million euros specifically for this winter," Liesje Schreinemacher, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands, posted on Twitter. As reported, Dutch Minister of Defense Kajsa Ollongren said that her country would send anti-aircraft missiles worth 15 million euros to Ukraine in response to "despicable attacks on the Ukrainian cities." On the morning of October 10, Russia launched a massive missile attack on the territory of Ukraine, killing 19 people and injuring more than 100. The critical infrastructure facilities were damaged, in some areas there were interruptions in electricity supply and mobile communication. In the following days, Russia continued its missile attacks on Ukraine. ol In a phone call, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko and German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck discussed support from Germany for Ukraines energy sector. The relevant statement was made by the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. The parties discussed the aftermath of Russias massive missile attacks on Ukraines energy facilities, progress in recovery works and the needs of Ukrainian energy companies for equipment and materials, the report states. According to Galushchenko, the equipment that Germany had provided to Ukraine is now helping Ukrainian power engineers to restore power supply services in the regions affected by the war. Habeck noted that the German side is ready to continue providing support for Ukraines energy sector. In addition, Germany will promote intensified support from European countries to ensure that Ukrainians are provided with reliable power supply services this winter. In addition, the parties paid attention to energy security issues and counteracting Russias energy blackmail. Galushchenko and Habeck discussed the current situation at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is remaining Russian-occupied at the moment. mk Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko has been elected as Governor for 2023 at the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Such a decision was taken unanimously by all governing member countries of the World Bank Group and the IMF. This happened for the first time in Ukraines 30-year membership in the World Bank and the IMF, Marchenko wrote. In his words, over the long period of membership in international financial organizations, Ukraine has established reliable and transparent partnership relations. Marchenko thanked his friends and partners for their trust. It is a great honor to represent Ukraine in the international financial arena, Marchenko added. According to Marchenko, the new status will increase the effectiveness of cooperation with international financial organizations and member countries of the World Bank and the IMF. A reminder that Ukraine joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in 1992. This year, during the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group in Washington, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko met with the leadership and representatives of the two financial institutions. mk Yonhap News Agency: According to reports, the DPRK fired an unidentified ballistic missile off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula in the early morning of October 14. The ROK government, on the other hand, decided to add 15 individuals and 16 institutions related to the DPRKs development of nuclear missiles and sanction evasions to a list of unilateral sanctions. Whats Chinas comment? Mao Ning: We have noted relevant reports and the statement made by the DPRK. All parties need to face the crux of the persistent impasse on the Korean Peninsula squarely, continue to seek a political settlement, avoid a spiral of escalation and work to create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue. Shenzhen TV: The US government introduced new export bans on Chinas chip industry not long ago. According to reports, the US is scrambling to tackle unintended consequences of the new policy that could inadvertently harm the semiconductor supply chain. What is your comment? Mao Ning: China firmly opposes the USs overstretching of the national security concept and abuse of export control measures to wantonly hobble Chinese enterprises. The global industrial and supply chains come into shape as a result of both the law of the market and the choices of businesses. Arbitrarily placing curbs for political purposes destabilizes the supply and industrial chains, hurts others and backfires on oneself. It will only further weaken the already fragile world economy. China plays an important role in global supply and industrial chains and in shoring up their security. This year, China and six other countries, including Indonesia, launched and supported the Initiative of International Cooperation on Resilient and Stable Industrial and Supply Chains. We will work with the international community to oppose unilateralism, protectionism and bullying practices in sci-tech, uphold the principle of openness, fairness and non-discrimination, jointly safeguard the stability of the system, rules and foundation of the world economy, and promote the steady recovery of the world economy. Global Times: According to reports, a total of 14 Palestinian factions, including the National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), signed in Algerias capital Algiers a reconciliation deal, formally known as Algiers Declaration, on October 13. What is your comment? Mao Ning: China welcomes the agreement reached among the Palestinian factions and commends Algerias efforts in this regard. China always supports the internal reconciliation of Palestine, and believes this could help achieve unity within Palestine and promote peace talks between Palestine and Israel. China firmly supports the Palestinian peoples just cause to restore their national rights. We will work with the international community to make relentless efforts until an independent state of Palestine is established and peaceful coexistence between Palestine and Israel is realized. Peoples Daily: We noticed that China expressed readiness to offer technological support to the best of its capacity for countries in Central and South America in the wake of hurricane Julia. Could you share more with us? Mao Ning: We attach great importance to and have assisted in the disaster relief efforts in countries in Central and South America. At the request of relevant countries, we have promptly supported local flood and disaster response with space technology enabled by remote sensing satellites. We will continue to stay in communication with countries in need and support their efforts in disaster monitoring and post disaster assessment. This is not the first time that China has assisted fellow developing countries in their disaster prevention and relief efforts with scientific and technological supports. Since China joined the International Charter Space and Major Disaster in 2007, it has played an active part in global efforts in disaster monitoring and relief. China has constantly provided full support to the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) Beijing Office since 2010. Chinas Fengyun satellite meteorological data service system has covered 124 countries and regions and provided space technology support and other emergency response service to more than 40 countries for nearly 70 times, including the Philippines and Mozambique. Enabled by high-resolution observation and hyperspectral imaging, Chinas Gaofen satellite system effectively responded to over 100 major disasters in 36 countries and regions. It has provided a large number of images of the disaster-stricken areas in the wake of the floods in Sri Lanka, the earthquake in Ecuador, the typhoon and ensuing floods in Laos, the droughts in Afghanistan and the volcanic eruption in Tonga, which have greatly supported the disaster relief work. Chinas Beidou navigation satellites, equipped with payloads that are up to the standards of international search and rescue organizations, provide global users with distress alarm and positioning services. They have effectively increased the rate of success in the rescue work. At the ongoing 16th Meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems, parties highly commended the useful, open and compatible Beidou navigation system. Chinas scientific and technological progress will continue to be guided by the principle of openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit for all. It will not only serve its own people, but also benefit the international community. TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 12, 2022 /CNW/ - Primo Water Corporation (NYSE: PRMW) (TSX: PRMW) (the "Company" or "Primo"), a leading provider of sustainable drinking water solutions in North America and Europe, today announced that Primo Water North America ("PWNA"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Primo, has acquired substantially all the assets of Crystal Spring Water Company, a bottled water company based in Rhode Island. PRMW_Logo (CNW Group/Primo Water Corporation) Crystal Spring Water Company manufactures and distributes spring water to customers in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1907 in Middletown Rhode Island. The acquisition will add approximately 2,500 customers to PWNA, strengthening its footprint in the Northeast region. "Crystal Spring Water Company offers high-quality spring water solutions and delivers superior customer service that aligns with our mission of inspiring healthier lives through water your way," said Tom Harrington, CEO of Primo. "We are excited to welcome these customers and associates to our Primo family." For more information on the hydration solutions Primo offers, please visit www.water.com. ABOUT PRIMO WATER CORPORATION Primo Water Corporation is a leading pure-play water solutions provider in North America and Europe and generates approximately $2.1 billion in annual revenue. Primo operates largely under a recurring razor/razorblade revenue model. The razor in Primo's revenue model is its industry leading line-up of sleek and innovative water dispensers, which are sold through retailers and online at various price points. The dispensers help increase household penetration which drives recurring purchases of Primo's razorblade offering. Primo's razorblade offering is comprised of Water Direct, Water Exchange, and Water Refill. Through its Water Direct business, Primo delivers sustainable hydration solutions across its 21-country footprint direct to the customer's door, whether at home or to businesses. Through its Water Exchange and Water Refill businesses, Primo offers pre-filled and reusable containers at approximately 14,000 locations, water dispenser sales at approximately 9,000 locations and water refill units at approximately 24,000 locations, respectively. Primo also offers water filtration units across its 21-country footprint. Story continues Primo's water solutions expand consumer access to purified, spring, and mineral water to promote a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle while simultaneously reducing plastic waste and pollution. Primo is committed to its water stewardship standards and is proud to partner with the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) in North America as well as with Watercoolers Europe (WE), which ensure strict adherence to safety, quality, sanitation and regulatory standards for the benefit of consumer protection. Primo is headquartered in Tampa, Florida (USA). For more information, visit www.primowatercorp.com . Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/primo-water-corporation-announces-acquisition-of-crystal-spring-water-company-301643697.html SOURCE Primo Water Corporation Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/12/c1118.html The situation in Ukraine is developing rapidly, so EU countries must be prepared for an increased influx of Ukrainians, especially as winter nears. European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said this in Luxembourg before a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "Today we'll have the opportunity to discuss Ukraine - what is happening right now, how we will continue with our support, our readiness to welcome more Ukrainians who flee to Europe, if necessary. We will also discuss the possibility of prolonging temporary protection, at least until March 2024, and, of course, we'll also support Ukrainians who would like to go back. We have to be prepared for different scenarios when it comes to Ukraine, because things are changing more or less while we are speaking," she said. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved an agreement with the government of the Republic of Indonesia on mutual abolition of visa requirements. Taras Melnychuk, governments representative in the Verkhovna Rada, wrote this on Telegram, Ukrinform reports. "The agreement provides for the possibility for citizens of the states of the contracting parties, who are holders of valid passports to travel abroad, to enter, transit and stay in the territory of the state of the other party without visas for a period of: up to 30 days during each visit of citizens of Ukraine to Indonesia; up to 30 days within 60 days for trips by citizens of the Republic of Indonesia to Ukraine," Melnychuk wrote. As Ukrinform reported, in late June, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba and his Indonesian counterpart Retno L.P. Marsudi signed an intergovernmental agreement on the abolition of short-stay visa requirements. iy German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed support for Ukraine with Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez and Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa at a meeting on Friday. "Their discussion was focused on the current security situation in Europe in view of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The three leaders confirmed their full support for Ukraine as long as it is necessary," German Federal Government Spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said. In addition, the three leaders discussed some issues on the agenda of the European Council meeting scheduled for next week. These issues, according to Hebestreit, also relate to the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, namely energy and economic issues, as well as climate change. The heads of government agreed on the importance of urgent joint European responses to the challenges associated with high energy prices, the spokesperson noted. Scholz, Costa, and Sanchez emphasized the importance of diversifying energy sources to ensure the security of supplies in Europe. In this context, they emphasized the importance of accelerating the construction of interconnectors within the EU, including gas infrastructure capable of using clean hydrogen, and agreed to work on this issue together. As a reminder, the meeting of the European Council will take place on October 20-21 in Brussels. Photo: rnd.de ol A South Sudanese refugee assesses her mood on a pictorial scale during a psycho-social counselling session in Uganda's Bidibidi settlement. UNHCR/Rocco Nuri GENEVA Refugees demonstrate great resilience in the face of life-altering circumstances but need increased support for mental health services, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said. According to new figures out this week, UNHCR provided mental health and psychosocial support services to over 472,000 refugees, asylum-seekers and their families and caregivers in the first half of 2022. Although strides are being made to improve access to psychosocial support, UNHCR is concerned that the worsening socio-economic outlook and rising food insecurity in many refugee hosting countries could compound existing pressures on refugees. The best way to improve the mental health of refugees is to find lasting solutions to the crises they are fleeing, said Sajjad Malik, Director for the Division of Resilience and Solutions. We know that the experience of displacement takes a huge toll on emotional and social well-being and it is the right of every refugee to be able to access appropriate care and support. Refugees are exposed to stress at every stage of their displacement. Pressures include separation from families, xenophobia, lack of livelihood opportunities, perilous journeys and exposure to conflict and persecution. A recent survey conducted by UNHCR and the World Bank in Uganda found rates of depression among refugees were markedly higher than among people living in host communities. Today, UNHCRs Executive Committee adopted a conclusion acknowledging the mental fortitude of forcibly displaced people, urging increased availability of mental health and psychosocial support services to refugees and other displaced and stateless people, including access to national health and social services. In 2021, 1,683 primary healthcare staff in refugee settings were trained to identify and manage mental health issues across 19 countries. Speaking about the conclusion, which came days after marking World Mental Health Day on Monday, Malik said he was encouraged by the commitment of states to prioritize mental health and psychosocial support in the international response to displacement. Part of ensuring that refugees are well cared for, is to make sure that humanitarian staff are also in good mental health, he added. The priority is to improve mental health support for refugees, but we must also ensure that humanitarians are in the best possible condition to serve the people who need us most, Malik said. The Executive Committee conclusion also highlights the need to include mental health and psychosocial support when planning for refugee responses and encourages states to integrate refugees and displaced people into national services and existing care systems. Its adoption represents a significant acknowledgement by states in different regions and circumstances of the importance of mental health and psychosocial support for displaced and stateless people worldwide. The UNHCR Executive Committee is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, comprising 107 member states, that advises the High Commissioner on international protection and approves the programme budget. For more information on this topic, please contact: Ibrahim* sits in the waiting area of a UNHCR community centre in Tripoli to see psychiatrist Dr. Hanan Al-Shremi. UNHCR/Mohamed Alalem These days, Dr. Hanan Al-Shremis work diary is fully booked. As a psychiatrist working in the Libyan capital Tripoli, she helps refugees and asylum-seekers deal with mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression, both of which, she says, have increased significantly in the wake of COVID-19 and after last years security crackdown in the city. The security sweeps in Gergaresh and other neighbourhoods created a heightened sense of fear among asylum-seekers and refugees, who are regarded by the Libyan authorities as illegal migrants, liable to arrest and detention. Many saw their shelters destroyed in the operations, leaving them homeless and worried about their safety and well-being, while thousands were put in detention. On average, I receive 10-12 cases a day. Previously it was five to seven cases, says Dr. Al-Shremi, who works for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) at public health clinics and a community centre in the city run by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. A lot come with anxiety and panic attacks. Some cant go out to work. Physically, they are able to, but they are afraid. They feel no one is going to help them. When they come here, they feel comfortable. "Most of them tell me We just want safety, we want to live with dignity, our ambition is not Europe. Nobody leaves their country willingly. The most difficult thing for a person is to not have a home, she says. See also: Refugees need better mental health support amid rising displacement According to the World Health Organization, the COVID-19 pandemic created a global crisis for mental health, with a 25 per cent increase in cases of anxiety and depression during the first year of the pandemic. At the same time, mental health services were severely disrupted, due to movement restrictions, making it hard for people to get the help and treatment they needed. In Libya, many asylum-seekers and refugees rely on casual labour to support themselves and their families work that dried up as strict movement bans came into force, especially in the first year of the pandemic. "Anxiety increased, explains Dr. Al-Shremi. The lockdown has had a huge [negative] impact. On some days, we were working, but people could not reach us." Continuing treatment for her existing patients was difficult, but taking on new cases was even harder. She needed to meet them face-to-face to be able to assess their condition and provide a diagnosis and a treatment plan. Dr. Hanan Al-Shremi consults with a pharmacist about medication prescribed for a patient. UNHCR/Mohamed Alalem Nowadays, there are other challenges facing those needing urgent care in Libya, Dr. Al-Shremi says. Public psychiatric hospitals will not admit refugees and asylum-seekers, while admissions to private clinics are extremely expensive. There is also a shortage of medication. Another issue is the stigma surrounding mental health. Some patients wrongly fear it will affect their chances of being considered for resettlement or evacuation flights and ask for their files to be closed. Some discontinue treatment when they get a little better, she adds. Despite the challenges, Dr. Al-Shremi says there are also many success stories. "With some cases, I myself have doubts, given their circumstances. But then I get surprised when they tell me theyve got better," she says. She mentions the case of a divorced refugee mother and her son who came for help with serious health and mental problems. "Little by little, their conditions got better. She came to see me a week or so ago She told me she was [being resettled] to Canada, Dr. Al-Shremi says. "There's no health without mental health." Another patient is Ibrahim*, a 22-year-old who started losing his eyesight, which had a huge impact on his mental health. He has been seeing Dr. Al-Shremi for treatment for the past seven months and said the help hed received has given him hope to continue living. I couldn't sleep before the treatment, thinking about my situation, feeling unsafe and not being able to see. Now I feel better, he said. Being able to talk more openly about mental health and getting help for those who are struggling are crucial, says Dr. Al-Shremi. It is so important. Distress, depression, and psychological trauma can cause destructive thoughts. Mental illness can make a person desperate, and they can lose hope, she says. "Theres no health without mental health. *Name changed for protection reasons. Jerome Dillard is executive director of EXPO (EX-incarcerated People Organizing). The Rev. Marian Boyle-Rohloff is president of WISDOM. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Screenshots of a text thread between the Popcorn Tavern's owner and two staff members were released Wednesday, revealing racist comments, slurs and discrimination against the Black and Jewish communities. Owner Dan Parisey and manager Ben Tremain, in a group text with an employee who has now quit and shared the messages on Facebook, discussed a potential hire. Discussing the interviewee, a Black man, Parisey wrote, "Should we have another black person here to translate?" and "How many times do I have to tell you guys we don't hire colords (sic)." Tremain in a message says of the interviewee, "Everyone deserves a fair shake. But when u told me the black guy from (a restaurant) in my head I was thinking like, 'hope it's not the guy I'm thinking of.'" Tremain later stated his reasoning as witnessing the man being "overly verbal" and unresponsive with staff at his place of employment. The former employee suggests waiting to see how the interview goes before discounting the man, to which Parisey responds, "Here's the things about these (n-word) and Jews...," adding of potential hires, "As long as they're not black or Jewish" and later, "No way we're turning into a black bar," with a winking tongue out emoji. The former staffer says in her post she is "ashamed" of participating in the thread without calling out the behavior and was compelled to "do the right thing" in identifying the words and actions as unacceptable. In a response on its Facebook page Wednesday evening, the Popcorn Tavern stated Parisey had resigned and "his words in no way reflect the feelings of our establishment or space. The Popcorn Tavern embraces diversity within our community." In effort to explain Parisey's behavior, the post states Parisey has been "struggling with his health for a long period of time," and brain injuries have "deteriorated his ability to properly think and filter his words." The post also called out the former employee by name, claiming she is aware of Parisey's "condition" and the intent behind her releasing the messages is "appalling." As of Thursday morning, nearly 300 comments appeared below the post, the vast majority calling out the "embarrassing" apology and inappropriateness of excusing racism on a health condition. Facebook members also expressed anger at the business calling out the former employee as a way to shift blame and asked if the potential hire was given an apology. Bobbi Rathert, local advocate with Hope Restores, said in an interview with the Tribune the "sickening" messages offer proof systemic racism is "alive and well," in La Crosse and noted, "Mr. Parisey is not the only one to believe in these racist ways, he's just the unfortunate soul to do so openly." Parisey's words are "likely not new to him, as it just falls out in his expression so clearly." The hiring practices, Rathert says, are "likely standard" to the business, and the "vile thoughts not a slip of the tongue." Nine hours after the initial apology from the business, Parisey posted on the Popcorn Tavern Facebook page, starting with a comment under the post reading,"Jesus Christ...just let me apologize without getting mad." In a separate post, under the Popcorn Tavern account, Parisey said his health was not an excuse, and claimed he "never ha(s) been and never will be racist," as he is a supporter of women's rights, the LQBT (sic) community and Black Lives Matter, causes to which he has donated "a lot" of time, money and effort. Parisey further apologized for his "stupid comments" but used the justification that "both other parties know I joke about that (expletive) which I now understand is very inappropriate." Later on Parisey wrote: "Again this is all on me and I own up to it. I'm sure this post will make people mad at me for some reason. All I can say is I'm sorry and wish nothing but the best for everyone in this community and everywhere. Peace out." Rathert says the apology from The Popcorn Tavern and Parisey "only excuses the behavior through denial, claiming supportiveness of diversity work, and using health problems that 'made me do it.'" Rathert says flagrant racism is the consequence of both actions and inactions in the community, calling for a city that practices and participates in inclusivity, social justice, anti-racism and acceptance. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and prejudice "should not be tolerated to any degree whatsoever by anyone," Rathert says. The Tribune attempted to call the Popcorn Tavern, which opens at 4 p.m., on Thursday morning. There was no option to leave a voicemail. An email message from the Tribune was sent Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. Another call will be attempted following opening hours. October 14 2022 Glasgow City Council is considering a raft of recommendations on how to create and manage public spaces to prioritise economic growth, health and social benefits. People make Places, prepared by the Place Commission for Glasgow, calls for the transfer of assets to communities, similar to the housing stock transfers of the last decade, as a means to kickstart physical and social regeneration at a neighbourhood level. Billed as a 'Place Stock Transfer' this would see 'stranded' assets such as property, land and public goods passed on for management at a neighbourhood level where the local authority lacks resources to undertake proper maintenance. Led by city urbanist professor Brian Evans the report lays out the challenges ahead in becoming a post-carbon city. Evans said: "Place is increasingly seen as the lens through which we need to plan, design and manage our quality of life within communities, neighbourhoods and across towns and cities. Placemaking is the hopeful complement to climate action to effect a just transition for people and their lives." Council leader Susan Aitken added: Professor Evans report provides a detailed picture of the progress - and indeed the lack of progress - of Glasgows transformation in recent decades and, crucially, how and where we need to go next. Council officers have been instructed to work with Evans to implement the recommendations at a later date; building on placemaking initiatives such as Clyde Gateway and Hamiltonhill Claypits. (@Abdulla99267510) World Bank President David Malpass has assured Finance Minister Ishaq Dar that the Bank would continue to work with Pakistan to help it overcome socio-economic challenges due to the floods. WASHINGTON: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Oct 14th, 2022) The International Monetary Fund has appreciated Pakistan's policies and assured its continued support to the country. Deputy Managing Director of IMF Ms Antoinette Sayeh was talking to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in Washington DC today. Ishaq Dar apprised her of the damages caused by the unprecedented floods in Pakistan. He also shared the government's vision for stabilizing the economy and carrying out sustainable and resilient recovery. The Finance Minister, in his meeting with President of World Bank David Malpass thanked the Bank for its continued support in the socio economic development of Pakistan. President Malpass assured that the Bank would continue to work with Pakistan to help it overcome socio-economic challenges due to the floods. In a separate meeting with World Bank's Vice President for South Asian Region Martin Raiser, the Finance Minister thanked him for undertaking a visit to Pakistan to see first-hand the devastation caused by the floods. Ishaq Dar also met with President of Islamic Development Bank Dr Muhammad Sulaiman Al Jasser and appreciated that the bank and Pakistan had remained trusted partners for decades. President Al Jasser appreciated the measures being taken by Pakistan's government to stabilize the economy while providing relief to the flood victims. Meanwhile, Ishaq Dar in his meeting with the leadership of Deutsche Bank and J.P Morgan elaborated upon the government's vision to stabilize the economy while also providing relief to the flood victims. He assured that Pakistan is committed to completing the IMF's program. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Negotiations between the delegations of Turkey and Russia on gas hub will begin next week, a source in Ankara told Sputnik on Friday, adding that the venue is yet to be determined. "As you already know, the leaders of the two countries instructed the relevant departments to start discussions and study the possibilities of this idea very quickly. We will start negotiations next week, the venue will be determined in the coming days," the source said. Following the talks, a detailed report will be presented to the leaders of the two countries, who personally control the process, the source added. KIEV, Oct. 14 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2022 ) :Ukraine has considered expanding the range of goods for exports via its seaports and stands ready to discuss the issue with Trkiye, the government-run Ukrinform news agency reported Thursday. "We are raising a question about the possibility of expanding the range of export of goods from Ukraine in the future," Ukraine's Ambassador to Trkiye Vasyl Bodnar was cited by the media outlet as saying. Currently, the "green corridor" from the Ukrainian ports is working smoothly under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Bodnar said. Soon Ukraine and Trkiye are due to hold talks over the extension of the deal, Bodnar said. The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Friday suspended the arrest warrants of Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah in an inquiry related to the purchase of plots in a private housing society RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2022 ) :The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Friday suspended the arrest warrants of Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah in an inquiry related to the purchase of plots in a private housing society. Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan, while hearing the case, stopped the Anti-Corruption Department of Punjab from taking action against the minister. Rana Sanaullah had filed an application in the LHC through his lawyer Razzaq A. Mirza for the cancellation of his arrest warrants issued by Special Judicial Magistrate Ghulam Akbar on October 8 in an alleged graft case. Justice Sadaqat also summoned the Director General Anti-Corruption, Punjab and the investigation officer along with the record on October 17. The Supreme Court on Friday issued a written order regarding the interpretation of Article 63-A of the Constitution with regard to the counting of the vote of a dissident member against the party policy in the House of Parliament ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2022 ) :The Supreme Court on Friday issued a written order regarding the interpretation of Article 63-A of the Constitution with regard to the counting of the vote of a dissident member against the party policy in the House of Parliament. A 95-page majority judgment issued by the top court said a dissident member's vote cast against his party guidelines would not be counted, however, the period of disqualification of a dissident member should be determined by the Parliament. It further said the Constitution had mentioned the parliamentary party for the instructions, not the party head. "The members of Parliament have complete freedom of expression but this could not be demonstrated at the time of exercising the vote in the light of Article 63-A." The majority judgment rejected the objections raised on the admissibility of the presidential reference, saying the court had already given answers to the objections in another case. The decision said that if the prime minister or chief minister lost confidence in the parliamentary party then he had to face a vote of no-confidence. A member voting against party directives was destructive to the parliamentary democratic system, the apex court added. The right of assembly members to express their opinion had also been protected in the lawyers' front case, the verdict said. Members of the Assembly could discuss, agree or disagree within the party on the issue of vote, however, when "it comes to the voting, the situation would be different". The judgment said the parliamentary party's instructions had to be followed while voting under Article 63A. It was argued that not counting the dissident member's vote would give rise to authoritarianism in the parliamentary party but "we didn't agree with the argument". Counting votes cast against party policy was a threat to the democratic system, it added. Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar had decided not to count the vote of the defiant member, while Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail had contradicted with the majority decision.. MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2022 ) :Head of Anatomy Department Nishtar Medical University (NMU), Dr Mariam Ashraf clarified on Friday that unidentified bodies handed over to medical university by police were being used for MBBS students studies. In a video message, she rebutted the stories in media about recovery of 500 or 5,000 putrefied bodies on Nishtar Hospital rooftop saying that police deliver unclaimed bodies to varsity for purely study purposes of the students. She stated that NMU has a mortuary where bodies were kept safely adding that decomposition started in unidentified bodies delivered by police which were placed on rooftop of the hospital. Some of these bodies were used for studies, training of student about human beings, Dr Mariam explained. She maintained that people related to medical professional can easily understand this notion. All the process is carried out according to rules and regulations of health and home dept. The university has record of each and everything which has been shared with all dept concerned, HoD Anatomy maintained. (@ChaudhryMAli88) WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2022) China is not engaging the United States to firm up plans for a prospective meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Bali next month, Politico reported on Friday. Chinese officials are not working with the Biden administration to draft an agenda for the meeting, which could prevent the face-to-face encounter from happening at all, the report said, citing a person familiar with the planning. Last month, Biden said he would surely see Xi at the G20 summit in November. However, the White House could not confirm any official plans between the two leaders to meet at the time. Biden and Xi spoke in late July prior to heightened tensions between the two nations,stemming from a contentious trip to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August and the unveiling of a new national security strategy this month that cemented China as a leading threat in the US's view. Chinese diplomats are reluctant to plan a bilateral meeting amid frequent slights against China by the Biden administration, the report said. China is questioning whether to hold the meeting if they cannot expect a positive outcome or working environment, according to the report. The White House denied any problems negotiating a meeting between Biden and Xi, the report said. However, a meeting still has not been confirmed between Biden and Xi in Bali, a Washington-based diplomat also reportedly said. China's hesitation to formalize aspects of the meeting may also show their intent to delay major decisions until after the Chinese Communist Party's congress, which is set to begin on Sunday, according to the report. Xi is expected to be given a five-year extension as head of the party at the congress, the report said. Both leaders are likely to have a chance to engage in-person during the G20 summit regardless of whether a bilateral meeting is officialized, the report also said. BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Croatia is engaged in talks with France on the purchase of short-range air defense systems as part of its national defense strategy, Croatian Defense Minister Mario Banozic said on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Banozic took part in a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. The minister said that at the initiative of Germany, which was supported by 14 member states of the bloc, the arming of the participating countries with Arrow 3 or Patriot air defense systems is being prepared as part of the European Sky Shield Initiative. Banozic noted that Croatia postponed its participation, as it is already negotiating with France on short-range air defense systems. "After the drone crash in Zagreb in March this year, we identified air defense as a priority, first of all, short-range systems, and in bilateral conversations with France we have already provided material resources at the level of one battery, and our goal is to provide five batteries in a short time," the minister said, adding that the acquisition of medium- and long-range air defense systems is also on the agenda. The aircraft crashed in the early hours of March 11 on the outskirts of the Croatian capital of Zagreb, triggering a loud blast and creating a crater. The Croatian police found two parachutes at the site. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, as well as the Romanian defense ministry, said that the drone came from Ukraine. The next day, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has sent a letter to the EU and NATO leadership calling on them to strengthen cooperation and prevent such incidents. Coincidentally, several hours before the incident, Croatian Prime Minister announced the need to modernize the country's air defense, to acquire short-range air defense systems in 2023-2025. In November 2021, Zagreb signed an agreement with France for the supply of 12 Rafale jet fighters worth almost $1 billion. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday informed Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on the upcoming deployment of the bloc's civilian mission to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. The Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders agreed last week that the European Union would have a civilian mission deployed on the Armenian side of their shared border for up to two months starting in October to build confidence and improve the work of border delimitation commissions. "High Representative Borrell briefed on the ongoing technical preparations for the deployment and underlined his determination to engage with EU Member States to ensure rapid deployment of this mission," a press statement read. Borrell called Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Monday to brief him on the progress and reaffirm the EU's commitment to contributing to a deescalation in the restive South Caucasus region after the two countries traded fire in September. To hear the candidates tell it, a vote for either Republican Sen. Ron Johnson or Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in Wisconsins U.S. Senate race could spell disaster if the wrong person wins. Electing Johnson, one side says, can save the country from financial ruin, protect the border from an existential threat and reduce crime. A Barnes victory, the other side says, will guarantee womens right to abortion and ensure passage of landmark climate legislation and Medicare for all. In reality, in a body with 100 seats, the ability of any one senator to deliver on the vast promises the candidates are making is limited. But depending on how Democrats perform elsewhere especially in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia theres one issue that could make the election here especially consequential: The desire by most Democrats to abolish the filibuster. Under Senate rules, most legislation requires 60 votes to pass. But many Democrats, including Barnes, want to change the rules and allow measures to pass on a simple majority. At least two Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, and Joe Manchin, of West Virginia oppose the move now. But if the party can pick up two more seats in November, Democrats could end the filibuster early next year without their votes. Doing so could allow Democrats to extend abortion protections to all 50 states, pass voting rights measures and enact far-reaching climate change legislation. Of course, if Republicans regain control of the legislative body later, they could just as easily repeal those measures and promote their own agenda with a simple majority instead of 60 votes. What youre going to have is just ping-pong in policy, Johnson said of abolishing the filibuster last month. It would be incredibly destabilizing. The Senate, as dysfunctional as it is, is at least a stabilizing body. And if you want real strong economic growth and stuff, you need a stable government, you need a stable business environment. Barnes spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said Republicans, including Johnson, have used the filibuster to take away our freedoms, partially in reference to the Oshkosh Republican voting to block an effort to codify abortion protections. Whether Democrats pick up two seats or Republicans regain control of the U.S. Senate does hinge largely on how the Nov. 8 election goes in Wisconsin. If Barnes wins in Wisconsin, Democrats would have a 95-in-100 chance of winning control of the U.S. Senate, according to political analysis website FiveThirtyEight, which as of Thursday afternoon says the race leans toward Johnson. If Barnes wins, the analysis goes, U.S. Senate races in Ohio and North Carolina which right now lean Republican would become toss-ups. It would also mean Pennsylvania is safely in Democratic hands, meaning Democrats could pick up as many as four seats more than enough to abolish the filibuster. If Johnson wins in Wisconsin, Democrats would still have a 54-in-100 chance of winning control of the U.S. Senate, FiveThirtyEight concluded. But the only seat currently held by a Republican that would have a good chance of flipping under that scenario would be Pennsylvania, meaning Democrats probably wouldnt have enough votes in favor of abolishing the filibuster. Back and forth Far more Democrats than Republicans currently support eliminating the filibuster. Doing so would benefit whichever party is in charge by making it easier to adopt new laws and repeal old ones. The catch is: Theres no guarantee Democrats will be in charge. From the 1930s until the early 1980s, Democrats held the U.S. Senate majority far more often than Republicans. Since 2003, Republicans and Democrats have each held the majority in five congressional sessions. If you are in a period like were in right now, where majority control flips back and forth every few years, then (abolishing the filibuster) absolutely could be a source of policy instability, UW-Madison political science professor David Canon said. Members of both parties have increased support for eliminating the filibuster when theyre in the majority, Canon said a sentiment that often goes away when they become the minority party. Democrats dont like filibuster now; they would love the filibuster in the future when theyre in the minority party, he said. A brief history Under a Democratic majority in 2013, the Senate voted to lower the threshold to cut off debate for most presidential nominations from 60 to a simple majority. Republicans criticized the move at the time. Johnson accused Democrats at the time of changing the rules to distract public attention away from the failure of Obamacare and to make it easier to pack the federal courts with ideologically extreme judges who will rubber stamp the radical agenda of the Democratic Party. Four years later, under a Republican majority, Republicans with Johnsons support decreased the threshold to advance Supreme Court nominations from 60 to a simple majority. This time, Democrats were angered by the move used to confirm now-Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. (But the rule change would later allow Democrats to confirm Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.) The following day, in April 2017, more than 60 senators sent the bodys Republican and Democratic leaders a letter urging them to maintain the 60-vote threshold for legislation. Johnson did not sign on to the letter. In 2019, Senate Republicans, with Johnson in support, deployed the so-called nuclear option to limit debate on some judicial and executive branch nominations. Harry Reid forever damaged the Senate by deploying the nuclear option in 2013, Johnson said at the time. (Then-Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer has further harmed the Senate with his senseless obstruction. Republicans were forced to use Harry Reids precedent to end Democrat obstruction. Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden advocated for ending the filibuster in order to codify abortion protections. Sinema and Manchin came out against the idea, sinking the proposal. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Jeremy Hunt will be the next UK chancellor of exchequer, with the relevant announcement made shortly by Prime Minister Liz Truss, The Times reporter said on Friday. Kwasi Kwarteng, the incumbent finance chief, announced his resignation earlier in the day. According to the Sky news broadcaster, the UK finance minister has been sacked three weeks after his appointment over a controversial tax cuts plan for big corporations. (@FahadShabbir) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) North Korean troops have taken "strong military countermeasures" in retaliation to the provocations conducted by the South Korean army in the vicinity of a forward defense area, the Korean Central news Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday, citing the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army (KPA). "According to a report on enemy movements in the front, the south Korean army conducted an artillery fire for about 10 hours near the forward defense area of the KPA Fifth Corps on Oct. 13. Taking a serious note of this provocative action by the south Korean military in the frontline area, we took strong military countermeasures," a General Staff spokesperson said, as quoted in the report. It did not specify the nature of the "countermeasures. " The report also said that the KPA had sent a "stern warning" to the South Korean army which it said was "inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action." Earlier in the day, North Korea fired a total of 170 artillery shells toward the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea and launched a short-range ballistic missile. The missile flew about 650 kilometers (404 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone. Pyongyang has carried out eight test launches since September 25 and over 25 since the beginning of 2022. North Korea has emphasized that its test launches are being carried out in response to the refusal of the US and South Korea to stop joint military drills, which Pyongyang believes threaten regional stability. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) North Korea fired about 170 artillery shells toward the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea on Friday, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to the report, North Korea fired 130 artillery shells toward the Yellow Sea and 40 more shells toward the Sea of Japan at dawn on Friday. The shells fell outside South Korea's exclusive economic zone. The North Korean shelling violated the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, which established a maritime buffer zone between Seoul and Pyongyang to reduce military tensions, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said. "We're looking into everything one by one. But it's correct that it's a violation of the Sept. 19 accord," Yoon said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency. The president added that Seoul was building "a readiness posture against North Korea's provocations. " Earlier in the day, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan. The missile traveled about 650 kilometers (404 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, some 370 kilometers from the country's coast, Kyodo reported, citing Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada. Hamada said that the missile flew on an irregular trajectory. North Korea has carried out eight test launches since September 25 and over 25 since the beginning of the year. North Korea has emphasized that its test launches are being carried out in response to the refusal of the US and South Korea to stop joint military drills, which Pyongyang believes threaten regional stability. (@FahadShabbir) BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Sweden, Denmark and Germany refused to jointly investigate the sabotage at Nord Stream pipelines, each of these countries will conduct its own probe, the ARD broadcaster reported on Friday, citing sources in government circles. First Sweden withdrew from the joint investigation team, and then Denmark, the broadcaster said, adding that Sweden expressed concern about secrecy. (@FahadShabbir) GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Switzerland considers the introduction of sanctions against Russia in the scientific field to be absurd, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said on Friday. Science cannot be stopped and it would be absurd to assume that a person is capable of this, Cassis told reporters at the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipation Summit, adding that not a single war in the past could stop human intelligence and research into the future. (@FahadShabbir) The United States still believes that Riyadh and Washington have multiplicity of mutual interests, US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Friday WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) The United States still believes that Riyadh and Washington have multiplicity of mutual interests, US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Friday. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that The Kingdom affirms that it views its relationship with the United States of America as a strategic one that serves common interests of both countries. When asked whether he believes that the relationship with Saudi Arabia is of mutual interest and Riyadh is a partner when it comes to countering terrorism or ending the war in Yemen or confronting Iran, Patel said, "Absolutely." "We continue to have a multiplicity of interests as it relates to our bilateral relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Patel said. "And of course, a big piece of that is a security relationship, one that is important towards regional stability, but also, approximately or more than 70,000 American citizens live in that Kingdom. And so we continue to keep in mind, their safety but also the broader national security interests of the United States in the region and ensuring that the steps that we take do not infringe on those interests either." The OPEC+ alliance agreed last week to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day from November and will take production levels agreed for August as a reference point. The move was made in response to uncertainty in global oil market outlooks, in part caused by Western sanctions on Russian energy deliveries and the G7 plans to introduce a price cap on Russian crude. The decision was met with a backlash from the United States, which demanded an increase in production to combat rising domestic prices. On Thursday, the Saudi foreign ministry denied that the OPEC+ decision to cut oil production was politically motivated against some states. (@FahadShabbir) The United States is planning to send a new $725 million package of military assistance to Ukraine that will include additional munitions and the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HUMVEE) amid Russia's ongoing special military operation in the country, Reuters reported on Friday, citing two US administration officials WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) The United States is planning to send a new $725 million package of military assistance to Ukraine that will include additional munitions and the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HUMVEE) amid Russia's ongoing special military operation in the country, Reuters reported on Friday, citing two US administration officials. The new package is not expected to include either significant new capabilities or counter-air defense systems, the report said. Timeless: USM Arts and Sciences Faculty Members Ball, Meade Cite Love for Students, Teaching as Keys to Longevity in Profession Fri, 10/14/2022 - 09:08am | By: David Tisdale Left: USM English Professor Dr. Angela Ball is presented a portrait of the Aubrey K. Lucas Administration Building by USM College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dr. Chris Winstead, a gift signifying 40 or more years of service, along with induction into the universitys Centennial Legacy Circle Right: USM Art Professor Jim Meade is presented his 50-year service pin by USM College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dr. Chris Winstead. A teacher affects eternity; he or she can never tell where their influence stops. Henry B. Adams Long before social media, cell phones and Zoom meetings expanded the physical spaces between us, University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Professors Angela Ball and Jim Meade began establishing an in-person legacy cementing their reputations as among the best to hold forth in a classroom at the institution. Meade came to the USM Hattiesburg campus in 1971 to join the faculty of its then Department of Art, as an assistant professor, with Dr. Ball following at the close of the decade as a visiting instructor of English in 1979. Together they have logged nearly 100 years in classrooms at the institution, and this fall resisted yet again the siren call of retirement, returning to do what they love most - teaching and inspiring their students products on canvases and through the written word. For Meade, the pathway in life that led to USM wasnt easy. He grew up in poverty, and the tragic deaths of close family members in his teen years left him with the responsibility for three younger siblings. But he found great joy during that time as a Boy Scout in teaching the lessons of scouting to his younger cohorts in their quest for badges, along with working as a swimming instructor during the summer months. These experiences, he says, eventually revealed for him a career he felt suited for and wanted that of an educator - and his passion for it has not waned, even in the autumn of his life. After studying for two years at the University of Virginia-Wise, Meade transferred to East Tennessee State University, where he earned bachelors and masters degrees in art before attaining an MFA from the University of Georgia. He has studied under established international artists, and his work has been on display in approximately 140 exhibitions, including 40 one-man shows and 17 overseas. Hes also lectured at universities in Asia and Europe. As he pondered his job options upon approaching graduation at ETSU, one of Meades professors, Morton Brown, shared some sage advice. The real action in higher education is at the state universities, Brown told him. These kids heading to the elite private schools - Harvard, Yale, Princeton - theyve got everything already education, money, privilege. Even if they dont graduate from college, they can fall back on their familys wealth or make their way in life through their talent, political, and economic connections. The majority of our (ETSU) students are blue collar, working-class, first-generation college students much like those at other state (public) universities, Brown continued. These are the students working their way up from less privileged circumstances, and at these schools you get an opportunity to be a part of their success story. USM Art Professor Jim Meade confers with a USM art student about the collection of compositions she will include in her senior project. Meade feels USM holds a similar profile, and hes proud of his own students from the same kind of backgrounds who have gone on to paint self-portraits of success. Many of the kids Ive taught here over the years are now living all around the world, enjoying interesting and rewarding careers in the arts, he said. Its gratifying to see what theyve accomplished. As for his teaching philosophy, Meade says it is important to set the terms for instruction and be honest and consistent with your students. Voltaire (the French philosopher) once said Gentlemen, define your terms. Well, teaching is a kind of deviation of that expression, Meade said. As an educator, I believe you should define the terms that make up your instruction and stay in the boundaries of those terms. I spend a good bit of the first part of a semester defining the terms. Dr. Ball is a member of the USM English Programs prestigious Center for Writers faculty. She holds a bachelors degree from Ohio University, and MFA in Creative Writing (poetry emphasis) from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Ball was USMs Moorman Distinguished Professor of Humanities. Her extensive vita includes six volumes of poetry and hundreds of individual poems in prestigious publications such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly. She has served as editor of the Mississippi Review and as a Poet-in-Residence at the University of Richmond; shes been listed in Whos Who of American Writers and Editors and included in the Best American Poetry anthologies. She earned the Susan B. Herron Award for highest ranked fellow by the Mississippi Arts Council, along with multiple awards from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. I'm as dumbfounded as anyone that I have been doing this for so long, she said. But I enjoy meeting the students and feel grateful every day for the immense variety of them that we have, both undergraduate and graduate students. It's particularly great to see some who perhaps struggled in the past to open up, like slightly late blossoms, to reading and learning. I find if I encourage them to respond honestly to the readings, good things are bound to happen. There's a constant back-and-forth of ideas and inspiration, most intensely with the graduate poets and writers, but also often with undergraduates. Dr. Ball recounts when, for an advanced composition class, she gave an assignment based on Studs Terkel's book of interviews, Work. A student in that class interviewed a sanitation worker, who at length extolled the virtues of his job: good pay and benefits, and best of all, you are always finding stuff! People throw out lots of valuable things. This is one of the best interviews I've read anywhere. It's experiences like these and others that bring Dr. Ball back to the classroom, what she sees as opportunities to get out of myself, be surprised, help, and learn. I come back to get out of myself -- to avoid a tendency to brood and/or feel sorry for myself, she said. My life, like most people's, has had a measure of heartache and I would much rather hear my students' poems, essays, and class discussion than give in to that. This past August, Dr. Ball taught an intersession class in world literature, and a student woke her up to a detail in a story she has taught several times, misreading it because she had previously ignored it. The same class was asked, on the example of Jamaica Kincaid's brief story, "Girl," to impersonate a parent giving harsh advice, Dr. Ball continued. A Black student read an inspired list of things to avoid doing as a young Black man, a list that ended up dauntingly long. The class responded with a burst of appreciative finger-snaps. And there's nothing more satisfying for her as a teacher, she explains, than finding out a poem shes helped a student edit has been published, or even an entire dissertation. But yet, maybe there is something more satisfying, she reconsidered. To see a light go on somewhere inside a student who has struggled with writing and sees, "Yes, I can say things simply and clearly. " Dr. Angela Ball discusses the latest assignment with students in a USM Center for Writers fall 2022 graduate seminar. Kevin Walters, a Hattiesburg native and two-time graduate of USM who lives in Nashville, says a day does not go by that hes not benefitted in some way -- either directly or indirectly -- from what he learned in the classes he took from Professors Ball and Meade. Professor Ball's poetry classes -- particularly those focusing on the work of poet Elizabeth Bishop -- broadened my perspective about art, writing, and the world in ways I had never experienced before. Similarly, Professor Meade was the kind of instructor who enlightened you about the history of art, even as he pushed you to do more and better drawings yourself. I would be remiss if I did not mention their accomplishments outside the classrooms, and how their work as artists fed what they taught in their classes. Earlier this year, Meade and Dr. Ball were recognized for their years of service to the university in an event hosted by the USM Department of Human Resources, where Dr. Ball was presented a portrait of the Aubrey K. Lucas Administration Building, a gift signifying 40 or more years of service, along with induction into the universitys Centennial Legacy Circle; Meade was presented his service pin for 50 years-plus as a faculty member. The ceremony had been delayed due to the COVID-19 gathering restrictions of the last two years. I so appreciated the lovely ceremony where the wonderful Jim Meade and I were recognized, Dr. Ball said. To be lauded for doing what we love is indeed lucky. I will treasure the special portrait of the Dome given to me. In my imagination it is a portrait of me standing in front of a blackboard - or a white board - marveling at what my students have to say. USM President Emeritus Dr. Aubrey K. Lucas says hes honored to count Meade and Dr. Ball as treasured colleagues and friends from their time together at the university. Theyre both great artists and effective teachers, and certainly deserving to be honored for their exemplary work over the years as senior members of our faculty, Dr. Lucas continued. Reflecting on his half century-plus career at USM, Meade has no regrets. I wouldnt change a thing, he said, adding that he hasnt set a date for calling it quits. Ive done it for so long, I dont think I can break the habit. I really cant imagine doing anything else. The City of Columbus goal to connect all of the trails in town became one step closer to reality on Thursday during a grand opening for the new Powerhouse Trail. The nearly 1-mile long concrete paved trail is located between the south bank of the Lost Creek flood control and the north side of Lost Creek Parkway from Wilderness Road to 33rd Avenue. It provides a connection to the Columbus High School, Columbus Community Hospital and Sunset Park area to the trail system north of Columbus around Lake Babcock, Lake North and Loup Power Park and Campground. These trails, as most of you here know, have become extremely popular in our community, Mayor Jim Bulkley said during the grand opening/ribbon cutting. They're used every day. Everywhere you look in town where we have trails, any time of the day, there's somebody on them, walking and running. Bulkley noted a recent parks and recreation department survey that asked Columbus community members what they wanted to see. What were those things that really make people excited and make them enjoy their community? Bulkley said. Trails were listed as a need in the survey, he added. We're looking forward to where you'll be able to go from one end of town to the other, completely utilizing the trails, Bulkley said. We know it's important for the health of our community, the recreation in our community. Again, it's something people want. Bulkley noted the first phase of the Powerhouse Trail could not have happened without the collaboration of many people from different entities. CART, the Columbus Area Recreational Trails group, Lower Loup NRD and the Nebraska Game and Parks for their help in funding this broad project. I want to thank Rick Bogus and our engineering department. They drew up the plans and they oversaw this project. And finally, I'd like to thank Diamond construction for constructing the project, Bulkley said. All those people helped make this come together and make it an asset for our community. Dave Scharff, treasurer of CART, added the group committed to the project three years ago. We did make a pretty substantial contribution, Scharff said. I'd like to say a lot of people that have been in CART in the past did a lot to come up with those funds. I'm just glad to be here today and I'm glad to see this trail. The project which had a cost of around $500,000 was funded by a grant from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission with funding also coming from the City of Columbus, Lower Loup NRD and CART. The second phase of the project would be located along the Lost Creek Flood Control/Lost Creek Parkway from Wilderness Road to Third Avenue. In the foreseeable future, the Nebraska Department of Transportation has been working towards replacing the U.S. Highway 30 Bridge that extends over the Loup River. Bulkley said at the Powerhouse Trail grand opening that there will eventually be a trail on the new bridge. When the bridge is completed in a few years, a trail will connect the north side and the south side of the Loup, he added. That's pretty awesome because you've never had that, Bulkley said. File photo of a Ukrainian woman and her children at the Hungarian border with Ukraine as the flee violence "Kordon", a docufilm produced by Vatican Media and Tenderstories is presented at the 2022 Rome International Film Festival. By Linda Bordoni Kordon is the title of a docufilm directed by Alice Tomassini that tells the story of five Ukrainian volunteers based at a railway station in the Hungarian town of Zahony close to the border (kordon) of war-ravaged Ukraine. The stories of the five women featured in the film are the stories of the over seven million women and children who have fled violence in their home country, leaving everything behind as they cross the border. Traveling between Ukraine and Hungary, the five protagonists are seen and interviewed as they help fellow Ukrainians in their sorrowful quest for safety and hope. They are powerful witnesses of the role of women, peacemakers in a broken world. Kordon is a moving portrait of female resistance, courage and solidarity, and most importantly, it is a clarion call to everyone not to look away in the face of war and seemingly unsurmountable challenges, but to join forces and ultimately create change. A Ukrainian refugee child waits for transport at a Hungarian border station A Vatican Media co-production The film which premiered on Friday at the prestigious Rome International Film Festival is co-produced by Vatican Media and Tenderstories. In the words of Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication of which Vatican Media is part, this film tells the story of the war through the tearful eyes of women and children, of those who did not want it, did not even believe it possible, but found themselves in the midst of it as if the world had fallen upon them. The word kordon he explained, means border and clearly refers to the geographical border between Ukraine and Hungary. But it also speaks of the innumerable borders that pass through Zahony and through many other unknown villages, joining cities and nations. It also refers to the boundaries that cross our hearts, dividing good from evil, present from future. An act of resistance Alice Tomassini, at her second experience directing a full-length film, said that she had the honour of meeting hundreds of exceptional people when she spent time, as a volunteer on the Ukrainian border with Hungary, one of the main passages of exodus after the Russian invasion. It is the story of five ordinary women who do something extraordinary to help a people under siege, she said, and it is also a documentary that aims to raise awareness on the importance of non-violent action. It is an act of resistance that aims to give voice to the power of women and their capacity to transcend pain and find within themselves the courage to become peacemakers. The U.N. Security Council is considering creating a sanctions regime to impose an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo on anyone who threatens the peace, security or stability of Haiti, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Thursday. The first person to be sanctioned would be Jimmy Cherizier, who goes by the nickname "Barbecue" and is described in the U.S.- and Mexico-drafted resolution as one of Haiti's most influential gang leaders. "Cherizier and his G9 gang confederation are actively blocking the free movement of fuel from the Varreux fuel terminal," the text says. "His actions have directly contributed to the economic paralysis and humanitarian crisis in Haiti." Gangs last month blocked the entrance to Varreux to protest a government announcement of a cut in fuel subsidies. Fuel supplies dried up, and Haitians also face a shortage of drinking water amid a deadly outbreak of cholera. "One of the challenges in effectively dealing with insecurity is the nexus between the gangs and some of the elites in Haiti and outside of Haiti who are supporting them and directing them for their own purposes," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington on Thursday. "So we've been working together at the United Nations ... to impose sanctions on those who are actually taking actions that support violence and support gangs," he said at a joint news conference with visiting Mexican officials. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed that one or several countries send "a rapid action force" to help Haiti's police remove a threat posed by armed gangs, according to a letter to the Security Council, seen by Reuters on Sunday. In July, the council threatened targeted sanctions against criminal gangs and human rights abusers in Haiti and called on countries to stop a flow of guns to the Caribbean country. The U.S. State Department this week announced visa sanctions against those who support Haitian gangs, responding to the humanitarian crisis created by the gang blockade. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols, who is leading a delegation of officials to the Caribbean nations, said in an interview with a local television station that Cherizier and the G9 gangs are directly contributing to the deaths of Haitians. "Yesterday, the United States designated 11 individuals for visa sanctions," Nichols said, adding that he could not name the individuals per U.S. policy. He said 1.2 million people in Haiti are at risk for cholera. Health experts say the gang blockade is making it more difficult to control the outbreak, which was announced this month. The 15-member Security Council could vote as early as Monday on the draft sanctions resolution, diplomats said. To be adopted, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, France or Britain. China has been pushing for the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on criminal gangs in Haiti. A U.N. mission in Haiti works with the government to strengthen political stability and good governance, rights protection and justice reform and to help with organizing free and fair elections. U.N. peacekeepers were deployed to Haiti in 2004 after a rebellion led to the ouster and exile of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Peacekeeping troops left in 2017 and were replaced by U.N. police, who left in 2019. The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling on both Russia and Ukraine to grant it unimpeded access to all prisoners of war being held by each side. The ICRC has been working since late February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, to obtain access to all prisoners of war. The Swiss-based aid agency says its teams have been trying to check on their condition and treatment and keep their families informed about their loved ones. However, the effort has been largely frustrated. ICRC head of media Ewan Watson said Red Cross teams only have been able to visit several hundred POWs on both sides. But there are thousands more who we have not been able to see, and we are concerned about their fate, he said. The third Geneva Convention obliges parties to an international armed conflict to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross immediate access to all POWs and the right to visit them wherever they are held. Watson noted all states have committed to respect the Geneva Conventions. He said they are legally obliged to grant the ICRC visiting rights to the POWs. He said it is for the benefit of both sides of the conflict for ICRC staff to conduct visits on a regular basis. However, he added little headway has been made in weeks and months of trying. He said working in a conflict zone is always risky, but these are risks the ICRC willingly takes every day. At the same time, he said practical arrangements and security guarantees must be worked out with the warring parties, so ICRC teams are able to move about in relative safety. Still, Watson said the ICRC has been able to achieve a lot in alleviating concerns of many families, despite the many frustrations and continued lack of access to most of the POWs. We have been able to get 3,000 or more families news about their loved ones, he said. Now, every single person who receives that news is receiving a lifeline, an emotional connection to their family member who is in detention. So, that is vital work. However, it is not enough. Watson said the ICRC will keep repeating its message until it is understood by the warring parties. He said the ICRC needs unimpeded access to places of detention and will continue asking for it until it is available to each and every Russian and Ukrainian POW on a regular basis. Editor's note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. UNGA declares Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories invalid In its strongest show of support for Ukraine since Moscows February 24 invasion, the U.N. General Assembly voted 143-5 on a resolution condemning and rejecting Russia's move to annex Ukrainian territory. The only countries supporting Russia in Wednesdays vote were Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says the resolution means in the eyes of the world Ukraine remains Ukraine. UN General Assembly Rejects Russias 'Referendums,' 'Annexation' in Ukraine Separately, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says missile attacks by Russias armed forces against civilian targets and infrastructure across several cities this week in Ukraine could amount to war crimes. UN: Russian Missile Attacks on Ukraines Civilian Targets Could Amount to War Crimes The International Atomic Energy Agency director general conducted shuttle diplomacy this week between Kyiv and Moscow in a bid to urgently establish a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The Russian-occupied facility has been repeatedly shelled during the conflict, raising fears of a nuclear incident or accident. Haiti seeks international armed force to help curb gang violence Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the international community this week to respond to a request from Haitis government and urgently consider sending an international specialized armed force to the Caribbean island nation to address spiraling insecurity due to widespread gang violence. The request comes as humanitarian conditions further deteriorate. The Security Council has moved up to Monday a meeting to discuss the situation and the secretary-generals recommendations. UN Chief Backs Haitian Call for International Armed Force The situation is exacerbating Haitis food insecurity. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase (IPC) report published Friday says an unprecedented 4.7 million Haitians nearly half the population are experiencing emergency levels of acute food insecurity, including 19,000 people in Phase 5 Catastrophic hunger. More from IPC here. Possible vaccine trials for latest Ebola outbreak Uganda and the World Health Organization are planning to try out two vaccines for the Ebola Sudan virus to try to curb the spread of the rare strain. The virus has so far killed 19 people and infected at least 54 people in five districts in Uganda. After meetings in Kampala on Wednesday, the WHO's director general described the new outbreak as troubling. Both vaccines are in clinical trials, pending regulatory and ethics approvals from the Ugandan government. They are expected to arrive in the country next week. Uganda, WHO to Try Two Vaccines for Rare Ebola Virus Strain In brief U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned Monday that his agency urgently needs at least $700 million from donors between now and the end of this year or severe cuts with negative and sometimes dramatic consequences will have to be made affecting refugees and host communities. The UNHCR says the number of people forcibly displaced has grown to a record high of 100 million. The secretary-general sent a letter to the finance ministers and heads of the central banks of the G20 on Wednesday ahead of the groups November summit in Indonesia. He told them that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis are wreaking havoc on economies worldwide. In developing countries, the impact of these shocks is compounded by what he said is an unfair global financial system that relies on short-term cost-benefit analyses and privileges the rich over the poor. Guterres called on them to reinforce the U.N.-proposed Sustainable Development Goals stimulus and to increase public sector commitments toward development, humanitarian and climate mitigation and adaptation by 2% of global gross domestic product (GDP). The General Assembly elected 14 countries to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday. With nearly all the 193-member states voting, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam were voted onto the 47-member Geneva-based rights body. South Korea and Venezuela lost their re-election bids and Afghanistan failed to win a seat, receiving only 12 votes. The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that the electricity supply from clean energy sources must double within the next eight years to limit a global temperature increase. If not, WMO warns there is a risk that climate change, more extreme weather and water stress will undermine energy security and possibly jeopardize renewable energy supplies. Currently, the energy sector is the source of around three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. Good news On Thursday, the secretary-general welcomed announcements by the governments of Lebanon and Israel that they have formally agreed to settle their maritime boundary dispute, as mediated by the United States. Guterres said this encouraging development can promote increased regional stability and enhanced prosperity for both nations. The deal between the two enemies, who have fought multiple wars, removes a hurdle to each country being able to exploit hydrocarbon fields along the border. What we are watching next week On Monday afternoon, the Security Council will meet to discuss the secretary-generals recommendations for an international force as requested by the Haitian government. The council is also considering imposing new sanctions on armed gangs in Haiti that are terrorizing civilians and making the movement of people and important commodities, like fuel, dangerous and difficult. The general election may be a few weeks away, but registered voters in Cumberland County still have some opportunities to take a more active role in the election process. The Cumberland County Bureau of Elections this week started training its volunteer poll workers, but Director Bethany Salzarulo said the bureau will likely keep accepting volunteers through mid- to late October. Salzarulo said her office has even fielded phone calls on the day of the election in past years from those looking to volunteer, though those callers tend to be added to the volunteer list for the next election. Right now were doing very well [with the number of volunteers]," she said. "Well always accept more because people tend to drop out the closer you get. Usually we have, give or take, 1,000 volunteers, sometimes a little more. For larger elections, we have a few more. These thousand volunteers will staff each of the 118 precincts in Cumberland County, and Salzarulo said they are vital to the election process. We couldnt do it without them, for sure," she said. "Theyre the front lines of Election Day every year. Theyre extremely important. Salzarulo said each poll worker will participate in training courses in groups that take about an hour-and-a-half to complete. Theyre taught how to do their responsibilities," she said, adding that this means learning how to operate the voting machine, how to sign in voters, how to open and close the polls and how to handle other paperwork, including provisional ballots. The number of workers sent to each precinct will depend on the size of the precinct. Salzarulo said there could be two to six volunteers who take care of the sign-in books, depending on the precinct's population, and the county aims to have one volunteer for every two voting machines. Volunteers can be residents from the voting precinct they're staffing, but the county may move them to other nearby precincts where there may be greater need, assuming they agree. If theyre willing, we can do that," she said. "Some let us know theyre willing to go anywhere in the county. Though poll workers are around the machines all day, it's the judge of elections at each precinct who will handle the actual voting data and deliver it to the Bureau of Elections staff, who handle all the work with the votes and ballots after the polls have closed. The judge of elections, along with two inspectors of election, are the only ones required to be at each precinct for the entire time that the poll is open. Those positions are elected positions within the county. Poll watchers While the only requirement to volunteer as a poll worker is to be a registered voter in Cumberland County and not be an employee of a federal, state or local government entity, there's another step in the process for residents who'd like to be poll watchers or those who monitor the voting process inside the polling place. According to Salzarulo, each poll watcher must have a certificate from the county elections office that they will show to the judge of elections at the precinct. To get one, a poll watcher must submit their name to the bureau on the letterhead of either a candidate or a party. With poll watchers being representatives of candidates or parties, state law has a limitation on how many can be at each precinct. Salzarulo said that at each precinct, each party is allowed two poll watchers and each candidate is allowed three poll watchers, though there is a limit on how many people can be at a precinct at once. They cant all be there at the same time," she said, adding that it's in a poll watcher's best interest to get in touch sooner rather than later since there may not be an open spot at a precinct for poll watching. Cumberland County Democratic Committee Chairman Matt Roan said the committee has been recruiting poll watchers for the last several weeks, with a goal of having 100 volunteers covering "high-priority" locations across the county. Roan did not go into detail about how "high-priority" precincts are determined, saying that it's a confidential strategy for the committee. "Poll watchers must undergo a training, which is focused on how to report concerns, including engaging Democratic Party voter protection team, and guidelines for appropriate behavior at the polls," he said. "We have the utmost respect for the nonpartisan staff who operate our county's polling locations and county elections operations." The Cumberland County Republican Committee has a larger operation and Chairman Lou Capozzi expects it will have hundreds of volunteers who will be able to cover every precinct in the county on Nov. 8. There are 118 precincts [in Cumberland County], and we try to have two people working outside the polls, and we have poll watchers working inside the polls," he said. While poll watchers inside the polling places are expected to watch silently and not carry an electronic device, the party volunteers outside are able to speak freely to those arriving to vote, including answering any questions voters may have about candidates or handing out pamphlets and other material. Like the Democratic committee, the GOP committee also trains its volunteers. We dont just throw them to the wolves," he said. "Last week, we had poll watchers training. Any issues at a polling place can be reported to the Cumberland County Bureau of Elections, where the county's solicitor may handle the complaints, though the Pennsylvania Department of State also can receive complaints at polling places. One final way voters can view the election process is to watch the pre-canvassing process of the mail-in ballots. Like the poll watchers, those who wish to monitor the pre-canvassing should submit their names for approval, but unlike the poll watchers, they are not required to receive a certificate from the bureau. Because of that, requests to view the pre-canvassing process can come relatively late. However, only one representative from a party and one representative from a candidate are allowed to view the process. Both the Democratic and Republican committees said they are still welcoming any resident interested in volunteering. U.S. Senate debate Oct. 25 Nexstar Media Inc. will host a primetime telecast of a debate between U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The debate will air on WHTM at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25. The event, which will be shot at the ABC27 studio, is the only scheduled face-to-face meeting between the two candidates. The one-hour debate will be moderated by ABC27 News anchor Dennis Owens and WPXI (Pittsburgh) anchor Lisa Sylvester. The two will ask questions focused on local and regional issues. Benin's army has said it foiled a "terrorist" attack in the country's northwest, killing eight gunmen suspected of operating from neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Security forces have faced more than a dozen militant incursions since last year, as concerns mount over the spread southward of violence from the Sahel linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. In the early hours of Wednesday, "terrorists attempted to infiltrate Materi [town] ... where they were planning to launch a complex attack," military spokesperson Ebenezer Honfoga said. The gunmen were ambushed in a "security set up" and detonated an improvised explosive device they had been about to install, he added in a statement released on Wednesday. They then "tried to attack the Beninese armed forces position that was in the area" but faced retaliation. "At least eight terrorists were killed" and important equipment was retrieved, the official added, without giving further details. Benin has suffered attacks on troops defending against Islamist militants from Burkina Faso and Niger, but criminal gangs and smugglers also operate in the area. Benin's government admitted in May that the north of the country had been the target of around 20 attacks by armed groups, though it did not use the word "jihadists." Two brothers were each sentenced to 40 years in prison Friday after admitting to the slaying of Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in a stunning turnaround on the first day of their trial. Alfred and George Degiorgio had submitted not-guilty pleas when the case opened earlier in the day, almost exactly five years after Caruana Galizia's killing, but later agreed to acknowledge guilt in exchange for a more lenient sentence. They had faced life imprisonment if convicted at trial. Paul Caruana Galizia, one of Caruana Galizia's three sons, welcomed the move, describing it in a tweet as "a break in the clouds." The brothers' guilty pleas mean four people have now admitted to taking part in the killing. A fifth man, local tycoon Yorgen Fenech, is still in jail pending trial. Prosecutors believe he commissioned the killing, which he denies. In an interview with Reuters earlier this year, George Degiorgio confessed to the crime. A lawyer for the brothers also said the two men were seeking a pardon in return for divulging "everything we know about other murders, bombs and crimes." Their request for a pardon has not been accepted, and the jurors were instructed at the start of proceedings to consider only what they heard in the courtroom. Caruana Galizia, 53, was a household name in Malta for her investigative reporting. Her killing on October 16, 2017, raised questions about rule of law in the European Union's smallest member state. During the morning session of the trial, prosecutors said the Degiorgios and another accomplice, Vincent Muscat, had originally planned to shoot Caruana Galizia but then procured a bomb that they placed in her car. George Degiorgio set off the bomb from a yacht off Malta's coast as Alfred Degiorgio and Muscat acted as spotters. Muscat last year admitted his role in a plea bargain in return for information and is serving a 15-year prison term. The Degiorgios and Muscat were arrested in December 2017 and have been behind bars since. A bus bombing on Thursday killed 18 Syrian soldiers in a Damascus suburb and wounded at least 27 others, Syria's state media reported citing a military source, as fighting in the country's north picked up. Similar attacks over the past years have killed and wounded dozens of soldiers in government-held parts of the war-torn country. Last March, militants attacked a military bus near Palmyra in central Syria, killing 13 troops and wounding 18 others. Syrian authorities in the past have blamed such attacks on Islamic State group militants who have been active in southern and central Syria, despite losing territorial control in the country since 2019. Syrian authorities in the past have blamed such attacks on Islamic State group militants who have been active in southern and central Syria, despite losing territorial control in the country since 2019. In northern Syria, members of an al-Qaida-linked group captured a town that had been held by Turkey-backed opposition fighters since 2018. The capture of the town of Afrin by members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for the Levant Liberation Committee, which is the strongest militant group in the rebel-held northwest, came after days of fighting between rival insurgent groups in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said HTS captured some 30 military posts in the area from Turkey-backed groups. The fighting was triggered by last week's killing of a citizen journalist and his wife who were shot dead while on a motorcycle in the northern town of al-Bab. A Turkey-backed group was blamed for the killing and since then it has come under attack by several insurgent groups, including HTS. The Syria Humanitarian Response, a nongovernmental organization in northern Syria, said the latest round of fighting left four civilians dead and 28 injured while about 1,000 families have fled their homes. There was no immediate comment from Turkey, which has launched three major operations inside Syria since 2016, targeting the Kurdish militia the People's Protection Units or YPG which Ankara considers to be a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The PKK has for decades waged an insurgency within Turkey. The YPG, however, forms the backbone of U.S.-led forces in the fight against Islamic State militants and has been a proven top U.S. ally in Syria. Officials in Cameroon and Chad say heavy rainfall this week caused the Logone river, which forms their border, to overflow, displacing more than 100,000 people and leaving 70,000 homeless. Cameroonian officials brought assistance to flood victims, who say more help is needed. Tandembe Noah, a thirty-three-year-old farmer in Guizi, a village near Cameroons border with Chad, says his wife and three children have been hungry for a week since heavy floods swept away millet, maize and 13 goats from their family food store. Noah, who was interviewed by Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV as heavy rain fell, said the downpour has forced many people to flee to neighboring villages, where they expect to find safety. He said he prefers to stay and die in Guizi, where he and his forefathers were born. Cameroons government says Noah is one of over 43,000 people threatened by waters from nearby Lake Maga and the Logone river on the border with Chad. Government officials say heavy rainfall this week has caused both to overflow their banks and sweep away houses, crops and animals. At least 12 people have died in the floods, and the government says hunger looms as water has ruined several hundred hectares of rice fields. Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroons territorial administration minister, said the president dispatched him to lead a delegation to provide food and blankets to 43,000 flood victims. "President Paul Biya instructed us that we should bring back a clear picture of what is on the field with suggestions so that the government can put in place proper mechanisms to avoid the floods, he said. The take-home message is that we have to be proactive, project what will be the challenges in the future and [determine] how prepared are we, the government, to tackle floods in the future. Some civilians say they want the government to help rebuild their houses. Nji promised to channel flood victims' grievances to Biya. Meanwhile, Chad's public broadcaster, Tele Tchad, said on Thursday that water from the Logone river displaced more than 60,000 people in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, this week.It said tens of thousands of people have been rendered homeless and are in dire need of food and humanitarian supplies. Simon Pierre Madou, a Roman Catholic priest in N'Djamena, said several hundred displaced persons are seeking refuge in local Catholic churches. Speaking Friday to Radio France International, Madou said Chad's government either neglected or failed to anticipate the floods. He said when he sounded an alarm that water was rising in the Logone river and threatening civilians, plantations, houses and animals, Chad's officials said they were preoccupied with a national dialogue the government organized among civilians, armed opposition groups and the ruling junta. He said the consequences of the floods are now difficult for the government to handle, as tens of thousands of people need emergency assistance. VOA could not independently verify if Chad's government neglected warning signs of the floods as Madou claimed. Last month, Chad said the heaviest seasonal rainfall in its territory in over 30 years left parts of N'Djamena navigable only by boat and forced tens of thousands to flee their flooded homes. Cameroon and Chad both blame climate change for the unusually heavy rain and flooding. Under President Xi Jinping, China's engagement with Africa reached new heights, economically and diplomatically. During nearly 10 years in power, Xi's trademark Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) saw massive infrastructure projects rolled out across the continent, his government tripled China's financial commitments at the first Forum on ChinaAfrica Cooperation (FOCAC) held under his tenure, and also swayed more African governments to support Beijing's positions at the United Nations. With Xi now set to be confirmed for a third term in power at this months' Communist Party Congress in Beijing, analysts say what happens at the meeting with Xi and other top leaders is closely followed by African governments. "It matters very greatly and this is because the relationships with Africa tend to be highly personalized, so if the leader at any one particular time has a personal interest in Africa, depending on how that leader perceives the African continent, you're going to have very stable and multifaceted relations," Paul Nantulya, a China expert at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, told VOA. Under the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong, China and Africa had a close relationship, especially as Beijing supported liberation movements on the continent. But under his successor Deng Xiaoping, China was more focused on engaging with the West and reforms at home than on relations with Africa, Nantulya said. "Xi Jinping has taken the China-Africa relationship to the highest level that it's ever been since the era of Mao Zedong," he said, adding that with Xi sure to get a third five-year term, and perhaps even stay in power longer, he expects those relations to strengthen even more. Xi himself is only able to run for a third term this year because he changed the constitution in 2018 to allow for it. Some analysts say he's setting himself up to be leader for life. "It could inspire a mood in Africa to further change or manipulate constitutions so that party leaders can remain in office, this has been a trend that we've seen unfortunately coming back on the African continent," said Nantulya. But other analysts were less convinced that Xi accounts for the direction of China-Africa relations. "It's hard to disentangle the impact of one individual from the broad trends of China's globalization and the shifting demand and absorptive capacity on the African side," said Deborah Brautigam, head of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. Cobus van Staden, a China expert at the South African Institute for International Affairs, said Beijing's engagement with Africa predates Xi and is driven by many actors. "Xi continuing as the head of the party is significant but it doesn't, I think, fundamentally change the nature of the engagement itself," he said. However, Van Staden noted, Xi has "refined and repackaged" the two regions' relationship, and he does define the diplomatic tenor of the engagement. Diplomatically winning over global south The success of China's soft power overtures in Africa have been illustrated by how many countries have followed Beijing's lead when it comes to remaining neutral on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Analysts say China certainly wants nations in the so-called global south in its ideological corner and the U.S. and Europe have been scrambling to play catch-up. "My view is that Xi's administration has increasingly created a pro- and anti-China world, where countries divide into those who seek pragmatic relations with China for self-benefit, accept its transactional approach to diplomacy and on the whole care far less about values-issues, and then the other part of the world, largely around the U.S. and its European and other close allies, who of course do believe that values matter," Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese studies at King's College London, told VOA. "China has become less and less interested in relations with the latter group where they involve it lecturing or seeming to speak down to China, and more aware of having a wide network of alternative relationships particularly in the global south where these issues are not part of the mix," he added. Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, said pursuing relationships with such countries will likely remain a foreign policy priority for Beijing. "Xi is also determined to compete against the West or the democracies, and to do so, his China will need to woo African countries, particularly the autocracies," Tsang said. However, he noted, "under Xi, China's economy is likely to slow down, as his policies have not been helpful to growth. A slowing economy will mean less finance for the BRI and thus less money to be spent to woo African countries." Shifts in China's Africa lending Amid economic troubles at home and the Chinese Communist Party's unpopular "zero-COVID" policies, as well as constant allegations of "debt-trap diplomacy" from the West over China's lending, economists say lending is already down, leaving African markets vulnerable. At the last regional trade forum FOCAC in 2021, Beijing announced $20 million less in funding for the continent could China be scaling back in Africa? "China will never turn away from Africa, for political and economic reasons. But for the time being, the old model of infrastructure-driven financing loans appears unsustainable, given China's own economic shifts," Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, told VOA. Already the nature of the engagement is changing, with Beijing moving away from hard infrastructure projects like roads and railways, toward investment in information and communications technology, agriculture, green energy and other areas in Africa. Another means by which China under Xi continues to increase its soft power on the continent is through promoting its governance and party model to Africa's politicians, even starting a political party training school in Tanzania this year that some critics are worried could undermine democracies in the region. "The training of African politicians and officials will continue despite a scaling down of the BRI," said Tsang. The Chinese Communist Party will hold its most important meeting starting Sunday. And with the party exerting exclusive control over the world's most populous nation and second-biggest economy, it's a big deal. At the party's national congress, held every five years, officials will be appointed to the top echelons of the party and the country. It will also provide clues to how China will deal with a host of domestic and international challenges in the next five years, from COVID-19 and a slowing economy to difficult relations with the United States, which has become increasingly worried about China's growing economic and geopolitical influence. Decisions made at the roughly weeklong meeting will have a huge impact not only on China's 1.4 billion people but on the rest of the world. Why this year's party congress is especially important The 20th Communist Party congress will almost certainly see the election of leader Xi Jinping to a third term as general secretary of the Communist Party while remaining China's president and chairman of the Central Military Commission. That will make him the first Chinese leader since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 to serve for more than two terms and the most powerful leader since Mao and his successor Deng Xiaoping a clear sign that he has consolidated power since his 2012 appointment and that the country is returning to having a strong leader in power rather than passing the torch among the party's top brass. "My personal belief is [Xi] will continue to be paramount leader with different combinations of positions for all the way up to 2035," said Victor Gao, vice president of the Chinese think tank Center for China and Globalization and a former English interpreter for Deng. "He will be only 83 years old then, and when Deng Xiaoping was 83 years old, it was in 1987, and in 1987, Deng Xiaoping was in the prime of his career. He was very acute he made the best decisions at the time." If receiving a third term isn't remarkable enough, the congress may also give Xi the title "renmin lingxiu," or "people's leader," a title previously given only to Mao. This would be "very significant," according to Chen Gang, an assistant director and senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute. "He would reach the political status of Mao, which would make him push through policy implementation more easily," Chen said. What else will happen at the party congress The Chinese Communist Party has more than 96 million members. At the party congress, some 2,300 delegates who represent them will meet in Beijing to select the more than 200 members of the party's top decision-making body, the Central Committee, as well as the 25 members of its Politburo and, most importantly, the seven members of the Politburo's Standing Committee the highest tier of party leadership. The selections, however, are widely believed to have been decided in advance. At the end of the weeklong congress, the appointments will be announced, and the Standing Committee's members will come out on stage, in order of ranking, to be photographed. Some analysts predict the Central Committee, Politburo and Standing Committee will undergo major reshuffles. Gao expects new faces to fill as many as five of the seven positions in the Standing Committee, up to two-thirds of the 25 posts in the Politburo, and up to half of the roughly 200 seats in the Central Committee. What will the personnel reshuffle say about Xi? The new lineup is expected to include many of Xi's political allies. "Xi will emerge from the congress more powerful than ever by placing more loyalists in the party's apex bodies, the Politburo and its Standing Committee," Chen said. "More than half [of the seven Standing Committee members] will be closely connected to him." Premier Li Keqiang has announced he will retire in March. Analysts have speculated about who might replace him, including prominent Xi allies. These include Li Qiang, the Shanghai party secretary; Vice Premier Liu He, an economist and the top negotiator in the U.S.-China trade war talks; Chen Min'er, party boss of Chongqing municipality; and Cai Qi, Beijing's party secretary. Also tipped as likely candidates are Wang Yang, head of China's top advisory body and a reputed economic reformer, and Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, who is considered a close ally of Xi's predecessor, former President Hu Jintao. If Hu Chunhua or Wang Yang becomes premier, analysts say, it would show Xi has had to compromise, perhaps because of frustration over his strict COVID-19 lockdowns, which have hurt economic growth and sparked rare public outcry in Shanghai and elsewhere. But Andy Xie, Morgan Stanley's former chief Asia economist and now an independent consultant, says it is unimportant who becomes premier because Xi "has reasserted party control everywhere. The party boss has the final say." Xie added that the State Council, which is led by the premier, "has become a bit like a consulting agency." Will the party congress provide clues on how China will deal with challenges? This party congress is the first since China has been hit with a host of challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S.-China trade war, the highest tensions in decades in the Taiwan Strait, and the Ukraine war. At the same time, China is facing slower economic growth, exacerbated by its strict COVID-19 lockdowns and a property bubble that has exposed serious flaws in its economy. Other drags on growth include an aging population and low birth rate. Analysts say that while the party will try to fix these problems, including by providing bailouts for some property developers, it will continue to focus on alleviating poverty and building what Xi has called common prosperity a redistribution of wealth. "I don't think China wants to have high growth anymore. It's to make the country strong, throw money into developing technology and break through the U.S. embargo" on semiconductor and other tech exports, Xie said. The Congress will also likely reaffirm China's stated commitment to free trade, a market economy and globalization. While the congress typically focuses on domestic issues, the policy directions it adopts may also provide clues about how China will deal with growing mutual distrust between Beijing and the United States, especially over Taiwan. Will there be any major policy changes? No major policy changes are expected, according to analysts. But many expect a move away from China's strict zero-COVID policy as early as next spring and toward tolerating the virus as long as cases are not high. Gao predicted a policy in which isolated lockdowns close off single buildings rather than entire districts or cities. Young researchers and students are competing in a disaster challenge at a natural hazards forum in the Australian city of Brisbane. The government-funded organization Natural Hazards Research Australia has said more Australians "than ever before are exposed to the damage and destruction of floods, bushfires, cyclones, heatwaves and storms." It reported that Australia has experienced 28 disasters that have cost more than $630 million, and 16 of these have occurred since 2000. Experts have said that research is essential to improve Australia's readiness for natural calamities. At the inaugural Natural Hazards Research Forum in Brisbane, young researchers have been asked to solve a key conundrum in preparing communities for floods, fires and storms; how can disaster authorities get potentially life-saving advice to the "unengaged, the moving," such as tourists or "the hard to reach"? The winning entry aims to reach international tourists through Wi-Fi essentially captive portals that compel visitors in flood or fires zones, for example, to watch a survival video before they can log onto the Internet at hotels, cafes or other destinations. Mark Owens from the Country Fire Authority, an emergency service in the Australians state of Victoria, told VOA that the videos would be tailored for various locations and seasons. "Making sure the message we actually get to them will actually change their behavior but also get them to do that for the future again and again, and that is why the videos will be tailored and changed seasonally, or, you know, if there is a La Nina coming through again, he said. So, you know, it might then really focus on floods for a big period of time instead of bushfire." Parts of Victoria state are currently facing one of the biggest floods in decades. There have been rescues and evacuations along the Maribyrnong River in the city of Melbourne. Thousands of people are also under evacuation orders for flooding in the states of New South Wales and Tasmania. Two climatic phenomena La Nina and the Indian Ocean Dipole are fueling the flooding. Both occur naturally and are influenced by warmer ocean temperatures. They are dumping above-average rainfall across much of Australia, and experts say they are being super-charged by climate change. Sydney is having its wettest year on record. More than 2 meters of rain have fallen on Australia's biggest city, breaking the previous record set in 1950. Less than two weeks after senior U.S. officials warned that Russia, China and other adversaries were set to launch a variety of influence operations and disinformation campaigns aimed at the upcoming midterm elections, researchers are finding traces of the malign efforts online. A report Thursday by the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future warned that Russia and China, in particular, have resurrected dormant social media accounts or have amplified other ongoing influence operations to sway U.S. voters or sow chaos and discontent as Americans go to the polls. Compared to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the researchers found that such behavior has likely only intensified against the backdrop of conventional and hybrid warfare in Ukraine, broad international ramifications of said conflict, lingering effects of a global pandemic, and a broadening distrust in traditional democratic institutions. Both Russia and China have long denied election meddling, but the findings would seem to bolster concerns recently voiced by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI warned last week that while the countys election infrastructure is secure, malicious cyber actors like Russia, China and also Iran could seek to spread or amplify false or exaggerated claims of compromise. According to Recorded Future, Russia so far appears to be the most active, despite a deterioration of its U.S. influence capabilities, which have likely been drained by Moscows efforts against Ukraine. Russia Specifically, the researchers found indications that Russias infamous troll farm, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), is back at work, targeting U.S. voters with covert and overt influence campaigns. Part of the effort, the researchers said, has involved reactivating accounts on social media platforms like Gab and Gettr that cater to conservative audiences in the United States. One such account under the name Nora Berka began posting on Gab in August after a yearlong absence. In almost all cases, Nora Berka maintains a highly negative stance toward the policies of U.S. President Joe Biden, with a clear preference for former President Donald Trump, as well as sitting Republican U.S. representatives and candidates for state offices, the report said. Comments posted by the persona further maintain that the result of the 2020 election was fraudulent. Another recently reactivated account under the name PaulPedhoven has been resharing content on the patriots[.]win forum, much of it critical of the Biden administrations economic policies and questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, the report said. China Like Russia, Recorded Future found China is also seeding social media with narratives denigrating the U.S. and with what the researchers described to VOA as political wedge issues related to the midterms. Unlike Russia, however, the report said Beijing is mostly relying on diplomats, journalists with Chinese state-run media outlets and political pundits, whose messages are then amplified by fake personas and other inauthentic accounts. Recorded Future said Chinas influence operations, such as a recent campaign that began last month, span platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Douyin, described as a Chinese-language version of TikTok. Many of these [posts and comments] appear to criticize both the Republican and Democrat parties and promote extreme views on both sides, the Recorded Future report said. Iran Analysts from Recorded Future's Insikt Group found few traces of Iranian malign influence campaigns currently targeting U.S. voters, though they told VOA by email that Iranian actors have used the elections to share propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation leveraging themes such as an impending U.S. civil war, economic collapse, and a decline in U.S. stature on the world stage. Responses Requests by VOA to the Russian embassy and to the Iranian Mission to the U.N. for comment on U.S. warnings and the Recorded Future report were not immediately answered. Chinas embassy on Friday rejected allegations in the Recorded Future report, accusing the researchers and others of spreading disinformation about China. We are firmly opposed to this allegation, which is totally groundless and malicious, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in a statement. China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, Liu added. China has no interest in and has never interfered in the U.S. domestic elections. Iran has previously rejected U.S. government accusations of election meddling in 2020 as baseless. Violent domestic extremists Not all the threat streams are from overseas. Like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which warned that domestic extremists might seize upon the midterm elections to engage in violence, the Recorded Future report found reason for concern. Violent anti-law enforcement sentiment has proliferated on message boards such as Patriots[.]win and alternative social media platforms such as Gab and Truth Social, where comments about a new civil war and suggestions to execute FBI agents are now commonplace, the report said. And just as Russia has been amplifying its messaging, some of the extremists are doing the same for the Kremlin. Were seeing many election deniers and domestic extremist groups who are completely witting to Russias influence and who choose to amplify the lies anyway, Insikt Group told VOA. Its a symbiotic relationship, and Moscow knows it will receive support/compliance from the U.S. fringe without having to obscure its own hand. Impact Officials, as well as researchers, caution it is difficult to measure the impact of influence campaigns targeting the U.S., whether foreign or domestic in nature. But Americans appear to be worried. A new Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 91% of adults surveyed called the spread of misinformation a problem, while about 70% said it contributes to extreme political views and hate crimes. More than half of those surveyed further said misinformation works to increase political engagement. Recorded Future believes the concern is justified. Malign influence campaigns that seek to exploit and exacerbate existing social cleavages, which we have observed Russian entities specifically engaging in, are likely to find fertile ground, according to Insikt Group, responding to questions from VOA. The tendency of these campaigns to proliferate on alternate social media platforms suggests that the audiences found there are considered most susceptible to manipulation, the researchers added. A roadside bombing and a separate gun attack Friday in southwestern Pakistan killed at least four people, including a former chief justice. The deadly late-evening violence occurred in sparsely populated Baluchistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. Officials said that an improvised explosive device hit two vehicles carrying civilians and security forces in the Mastung district, about 75 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital, Quetta. The blast killed three people and wounded five others, including security forces. No one immediately claimed responsibly for the roadside bombing. Separately, senior provincial police officials said gunmen ambushed and killed a former chief justice of the high court in Baluchistan while he was returning home after offering evening prayers at a mosque in his native Kharan district. An outlawed insurgent group, the Baluch Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for the assassination of Muhammad Noor Meskanzai. The slain judge had retired in May as chief justice of Pakistans constitutional Islamic court, known as the Federal Shariat Court, which is separate from the civil courts and has the power to examine whether national laws comply with tenets of Islamic law. Ethnic Baluch insurgent groups routinely carry out attacks against Pakistani security forces and government officials in Baluchistan. The insurgents claim they are fighting for the independence of the impoverished province that is rich in natural resources. Pakistani officials maintain that years of security operations have largely degraded the Baluch insurgency, though attacks in the region persist. Islamabad accuses archrival India of supporting the insurgents, charges New Delhi denies. Baluchistan is lately at the center of a massive China-funded development program, which has built road networks and power plants in Pakistan over the past seven years. The multibillion-dollar collaboration is known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an extension of Beijings Belt and Road Initiative. It also has developed Baluchistans strategically located deep-water Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea, which is operated by Beijings state-run China Overseas Ports Holding Company. A prison term handed to a journalist last week shows how Hong Kong is using its laws to assert more power over the citys media, analysts say. A court sentenced Edmund Wan Yiu-sing to 32 months in prison on charges of sedition and money laundering. Wan, also known as Giggs, hosted online radio shows on local station D100. He has been held in custody since February 2021. The 54-year-olds charges relate to 39 episodes of two shows he hosted between February and November 2020, during which the journalist is accused of promoting the idea of Hong Kong independence and resistance against the government and Chinese Communist Party. The court also convicted the radio host of money laundering, related to crowdfunding campaigns. Local reports say the funds were raised to support pro-democracy protesters. Iris Hsu, the China representative for media rights group the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said Hong Kong is using laws to silence outspoken journalists. It is clear by now that authorities will continue to use the law to deter critical reporting and assert more power in the city's news media industry, Hsu, who is based in Taiwan, told VOA in an email. Hong Kong introduced its national security law in 2020 as a measure to bring stability after months of anti-government protests. A colonial-era sedition law has also been brought back into use in the past three years. Media analysts say both laws are being used to silence independent media and opposition voices. One of the most prominent cases is that of Jimmy Lai, founder of the pro-democracy Apple Daily, who is in prison on charges including under the national security law. Hong Kong officials have dismissed criticism of legal cases filed against media. Authorities have said previously that the national security legislation brought stability and denied that those arrested were targeted for their journalism or activism. Instead, officials say, those arrested had breached laws or endangered national security. CPJ research on journalist arrests shows how Hong Kongs national security and sedition laws affected the media scene. Hong Kong in 2021 appeared for the first time on the CPJ annual census of jailed journalists, with eight detained for their media coverage, Hsu said. Of those journalists, seven were charged with collusion under the national security law. And in December 2021, police cited the national security law as the basis for their raid of Stand News, Hsu said. The news website Stand News announced it would close in December 2021 after police officers raided its newsrooms as part of a sedition investigation. Independent news sites Citizen News and Mad Dog Daily soon followed in closing their outlets, citing uncertainty within the city. Political risk The laws and media arrests bring uncertainty to the city, journalists say. To me, there certainly [is] no way that journalists can work freely in Hong Kong without facing political risk, said Lam Yin-Pong, who founded the independent outlet reNews, this year. If you are worried or concerned, you better quit or even leave the city for good. But if you are determined to go on, you must leave those fears behind, he told VOA. The journalist says he has taken measures to avoid being targeted by authorities. I sure didnt touch on issues about Hong Kong independence movement anymore, as that would surely be accused of breaching the National Security Law. Another highly sensitive matter that I would avoid is exiled opposition figures calling for sanctions against China and Hong Kong officials, he said. Other journalists quit the industry altogether. Lee, who asked to be identified only by his first name, used to work for Apple Daily. But when the pro-democracy outlet was forced to close in 2021, he took a job for a pro-Beijing media outlet. Lee said he soon found himself having to self-censor on politically sensitive topics. My supervisor, who was very experienced in news editing except China news, was always in a nervous stage. He cross-checked our articles meticulously every single time, Lee told VOA. If the stories focused on the Communist Party, the editor was even more nervous, Lee said, and any reports on Chinas government were scarcely negative. Lee said that when he reported on the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands under Japanese control but claimed by China, the article was turned down. That was a turning point. Lee quit his post in July and now works in finance. I knew it was time to leave when there was no room for me to write even the simplest facts, he said. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says Hong Kongs free media experienced an unprecedented setback when authorities implemented the national security law. Hong Kong registered a dramatic decline in RSFs Press Freedom Index, going from 80 to 148 in the rankings where 1 shows the best conditions for media. For radio host Wan, the journalist was ordered to hand over $620,000 in assets in addition to his prison sentence. As part of a plea deal, four sedition and two money laundering charges against Wan remain on file. Similar to many of the local races on the Nov. 8 ballot, the race for the 88th Legislative District seat features a Democrat challenging a Republican incumbent. Rep. Sheryl Delozier is looking to retain her seat after an uncontested primary and fend off challenger Sara Agerton, a member of the Mechanicsburg Borough Council. The 88th Legislative District includes Hampden Township, Mechanicsburg Borough, New Cumberland Borough, Shiremanstown Borough and all but the second precinct of Lower Allen Township. Here is a look at the two candidates: Sara Agerton Party: Democratic Party Age: 42 Residence: Mechanicsburg Education: Masters of social work from Temple University; bachelors in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania Occupation: Social worker and a Mechanicsburg Borough council member Endorsements: Vote Pro Choice, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals (PASNAP) What is the first issue you want to address if youre elected or re-elected to office? As a social worker, Ive spent my career helping others. I have seen the full potential of what government can do to improve peoples lives, and where it falls short. I know that banning abortion in Pennsylvania has nothing to do with improving the lives of people in our community the reason why Im running for office. And I know that reproductive health care is a personal matter that should be between a woman and her doctors, not her legislators. When Im elected, my number one priority will be protecting reproductive rights. Well stop SB106 dead in its tracks a bill that was passed by the Republican legislature last year that could pave the way to banning abortion in our state. Id support legislation that would codify the protections afforded by Roe v. Wade, as well legislation that would protect the licenses of reproductive health providers, the safety of those who seek abortion services and doctors who provide abortion services. I would also support legislation to cut off state funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) anti-choice organizations that masquerade as legitimate health providers to women seeking abortions that receive upwards of $7 million a year in our state budget. Sheryl Delozier Party: Republican Age: 55 Residence: Lower Allen Township Education: Masters in business administration from Penn State University; bachelors in political science from University of Delaware Occupation: Legislator Endorsements: The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, The Greater Harrisburg Association of Realtors, Farmers Allied for Responsive More Effective Representation, National Federation of Independent Business What is the first issue you want to address if youre elected or re-elected to office? Iraqi lawmakers on Thursday elected former minister Abdul Latif Rashid as the country's next president, defying threats of further violence following a barrage of rocket attacks earlier in the day and taking a key step toward ending a crippling political vacuum. At least nine rockets targeted Iraq's parliament inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of the government, ahead of a much-anticipated session where lawmakers forged ahead with the formation of the next government despite the political crisis. At least five people were wounded. Per Iraqi law, the president must call on parliament's largest bloc to nominate a premier. Iraq's parliament seats 329. The Iran-backed Coordination Framework, composed of largely Shiite parties, has named Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as their premier-designate, after submitting a formal letter claiming to be the largest bloc Thursday. Rashid, 78, was elected with a vote of 162 out of 261 votes cast. He served as water resources minister from 2003 until 2010 and has been an adviser to the head of state since. Outgoing President Barham Saleh reportedly walked out of the parliament building as the votes were tallied. He lost with 99 votes. Iraqi law gives Rashid 15 days to nominate a prime minister, likely in this case al-Sudani, to present his Cabinet lineup to parliament to face another vote. In Iraq's power-sharing system, the presidency is reserved for Kurdish groups to nominate while the premiership falls under Shiite blocs. The speaker of parliament is a Sunni. Political wrangling and repeated crises prevented the appointment of a new government after federal elections were held in October 2021. The stalemate has been driven largely by a tense political rivalry between influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is backed by Iran. The real test going forward for the crisis-hit country's bickering factions will be in officially voting in the new prime minister and Cabinet lineup with al-Sadr ostensibly out of the political process after he withdrew his lawmakers from parliament and since announced his withdrawal from politics. The rocket attack delayed but did not postpone the legislative session. At least one rocket landed close to the parliament building ahead of the session, Iraqi officials said. More fell in other areas inside the Green Zone perimeter. At least five people were wounded in the attack three were civilians and two were military personnel security officials said, without giving more details. The culprits were not immediately known. The attacks, which appeared to be an attempt to derail the session, occurred after the Coordination Framework, an alliance made up of mostly Iran-backed Shiite parties and led by al-Maliki, delivered a formal letter claiming to be the largest bloc in Parliament. The alliance named al-Sudani as their nominee for the premiership. Al-Sadr had previously rejected al-Sudani's candidacy and directed his supporters to storm the parliament on June 30 to derail his nomination. Al-Sadr's party won the largest number of seats in the October 2021 federal election, but he ordered his lawmakers to resign after failing to secure a quorum to vote in a government that would exclude his Iran-backed rivals. Violent street fighting erupted for 24 hours between al-Sadr's supporters and Iraqi security forces on Aug. 29, bringing the country to the brink of a civil war. Many feared protests by the followers of al-Sadr, a political opponent of the Framework, ahead of Thursday's session. Mark Bryson-Richardson, Britain's ambassador to Iraq, called the rocket attack "completely unacceptable." "Violence has no part in the political process and state institutions must be allowed to operate," he tweeted. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. It was not the first time rocket attacks have targeted the parliament building as lawmakers prepared to attend a session. On Sept. 28, three rockets targeted the Green Zone as a session was convened to renew confidence in parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi. Jeremy Hunt was named Britain's new finance minister on Friday, the latest senior ministerial role for the self-proclaimed entrepreneur regarded by many in his Conservative Party as a safe pair of hands but whose days in top jobs had seemed over. After being the longest-serving health secretary in British history and stints running the foreign office and culture ministry, Hunt returns from government exile after two failed bids to become Britain's prime minister himself. While he made it to the run-off to replace Theresa May before losing to Boris Johnson in 2019, he fared much less well in the leadership contest this year in which Liz Truss triumphed. "Its become obvious to me you only get one big shot at this, and I had mine in 2019," he said after he was eliminated from the running, appearing to concede that his ambitions to get to the top of politics had been ended. He also later backed Truss' rival Rishi Sunak, and he was overlooked for a ministerial role as she chose a top team of close allies and people who had backed her. However, he now becomes the figure to whom she has turned to become Britain's fourth finance minister in as many months, tasked with reassuring the markets after his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng's economic plans caused turmoil. It is also an attempt to reach out to angry lawmakers in her ruling Conservative Party who have voiced discontent with her performance just a month into the job, with polls showing the opposition Labor Party as many as 30 points ahead. "The appointment of Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor is a wise choice," Conservative lawmaker Bernard Jenkin said on Twitter. "He is trusted and respected across parliament. We must now be calm. Rash talk of ditching the PM, or calls for a general election, will not calm the financial markets." Tax slashing Hunt has a history of supporting tax cuts, and Truss said she views him as someone who shares her same aim of creating a high growth, low tax economy. "He's one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians and he shares my convictions and ambitions for our country," she told reporters. Truss was speaking as she announced she would keep a planned increase in corporation tax paid by businesses, scrapping plans to keep it at 19% after negative market reaction to last month's announcement of her and Kwarteng's economic package. During his own failed bid to succeed Johnson, Hunt had pledged to cut corporation tax to 15%, help ignite the stagnating British economy and remove business rates, the charge levied on commercial properties, for five years for economically struggling areas. "We need to start up Britain now," he told the Sunday Telegraph when he announced his candidacy. "That means sending a signal that in the first chapter in our post-Brexit future, were going to be the most pro-business economy in the Western world." Ironically, though, while Truss has said she will press ahead with a cut to income tax, Hunt said at the time that could wait. He also promised to press ahead with a plan to raise the National Insurance payroll tax to fund health spending a measure that Truss will reverse. Commentators said he was faced with some of the same problems as his predecessor how to balance the books to make billions of pounds of tax cuts while maintaining public spending. Government and private sector The son of a senior naval officer and later admiral, he studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, and he then worked for a management consultancy firm before going to Japan for two years where he taught English and learned to speak fluent Japanese. On his return, he set up an educational publishing business and was later elected to parliament in 2005 holding a number of government roles since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. He was the culture minister who oversaw the initial proposed buyout of BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, during which time he was accused of being too close to the media mogul. He is best known in Britain, though, for his stint as health minister, a role he held from 2012-2018, longer than any other politician. He later became foreign secretary, until his unsuccessful 2019 leadership bid, and during the Johnson premiership he voiced criticism of some aspects of the handling of the COVID pandemic. Other critics said some of the problems that the state-run health service faced were a consequence of his role as health minister. However, his own assessment of what has been his biggest error was something much closer to home. During a trip to China in July in 2018, he mistakenly described his wife Lucia, who hails from China, as being Japanese. Asked in the leadership contest the following year what was his greatest weakness, he replied: "Some might say as foreign secretary it's getting my wife's nationality wrong." The Kenyan government has denied media reports that Chinese banks have fined the country $11 million for failing to pay back loans used to finance a major railway. Kenya's ministry of finance, Ukur Yatani, said Thursday the country never defaulted on any of its creditors. The East African nation borrowed $4 billion to construct the Standard Gauge Railway from the port of Mombasa to Naivasha town, some 100 kilometers from the capital. Senator Samson Cherargei, a member of the ruling United Democratic Alliance party, told VOA the government is in a solid position to pay its debt of 10 trillion Kenyan shillings, equal to 82 billion U.S. dollars. "I am confident the 10 trillion debt that is facing the republic of Kenya is still sustainable and the government can still pay and as parliament, we have ensured that we receive a regular medium-term update in terms of the government payment of the public debt. So, I have a lot of confidence that the government will be able to pay its public debt," Cherargei said. In June, the previous parliament increased the public debt limit to $83 billion to help the incoming government borrow more to help it run its programs. Samuel Nyandemo, who teaches economics at the University of Nairobi, said Kenya cannot sustain itself without borrowing but must make good use of the money it borrows locally and internationally. "I don't think Kenya has reached where it can sustain itself. The best they can do is minimize borrowing, borrow where necessary and whatever they borrow, they put it into productive use," he said. The Kenyan government is blamed for over-borrowing in the past and overvaluing major projects, leaving the country with gigantic loans to pay back. China accounts for a third of Kenya's external debt. New President William Ruto insists on reducing foreign borrowing and finding alternatives to finance government projects. Nyandemo said Kenyan officials will need to speak to China and agree on ways to pay back the money in coming years. "Those loans are quite huge. The first attempt the new government will do is either renegotiate these loans on new terms which will be a bit difficult and most of them are commercial loans and commercial loans are always expensive," Nyandemo said. "I think the best the new government can do is to go for concessionary loans and scale down the borrowing proportion it borrows, put it into productive use and cut down public expenditure." Last month, Ruto ordered the treasury to cut $2.5 billion in government spending. Sabina Chege, an opposition member of parliament, said the government, through the Kenya Revenue Authority, or KRA, needs to raise money through taxation and fighting corruption. "The Kenyatta government emphasized on paying taxes and there was the second issue of fighting corruption, so there was a lot of savings from the government," she said. "What we are seeing currently with the current government is that people who are politically correct with the current regime, even the graft cases, are being dropped. KRA officials are currently afraid of following any individual because they don't know whether they will be touching the wrong person. But the performance has been going down." The Kenyan government has challenged the Kenya Revenue Authority to collect $25 billion by the end of the year, which will help support development programs. The congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol wrapped up what may be its last public hearing Thursday, voting to subpoena former President Donald Trump in connection with the riot by a mob of his supporters. The hearing reiterated the committees central conclusion that Trump was the central player in a multipart, monthslong conspiracy to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election by encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol. Trump and his supporters have dismissed the investigation as a partisan witch hunt. But Bennie Thompson, the committees Democratic chairman, noted that the most striking fact about the panels investigation is that all of this evidence came almost entirely from Republicans. The hearing showcased excerpts of interviews with former Trump Cabinet secretaries, as well as previously unseen footage showing congressional leaders pleading with officials for military assistance. Here are six key takeaways from the hearing: Trump had a 'premeditated' plan to declare victory The panel previously alleged that the plan to undo the 2020 election results had been in the works for months before Jan. 6. But panel members used Thursday's hearing to advance another allegation: Trump long had a premeditated plan to stay in power. Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren said Trump had planned to declare victory before any of the results had been determined. It was a plan concocted in advance to convince his supporters that he won, Lofgren said. As far back as July 2020, Trumps former campaign manager Brad Parscale has told the committee, Trump planned that he would say he won the election, even if he lost, according to Lofgren. And shortly before the election, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon made a similar point in comments to a group of associates from China, Lofgren said. Trump will declare victory, but that does not mean anything, Bannon said in an excerpt from an audio recording played during the hearing. He is not going out easy. If Biden wins, Trump is doing some crazy stuff. Trump ordered immediate troop withdrawals While publicly claiming victory, privately Trump admitted to aides that he had lost the election, according to testimony from several former Trump administration officials. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recalled Trump telling his chief of staff Mark Meadows in December 2020 something to the effect of, I dont want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. ... I do not want people to know that we lost. Knowing that his term was coming to an end, Trump signed a memo on Nov. 11 ordering an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia, Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the panel, revealed. Trumps order had been previously reported. During Thursdays hearing, the committee aired excerpts of its recent interviews with top officials corroborating the directive. General Mike Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee in a deposition that by issuing the order, Trump was effectively trying to pass the issue to the next guy, meaning President Biden. Inside the Trump administration, national security and military leaders warned that the order would have catastrophic consequences. The Trump administration had agreed with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. The Biden administration extended the deadline and eventually pulled out the military at the end of August. Had Trumps immediate withdrawal order been carried out, "It would have been a debacle, said retired General Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence. Secret Service knew about the potential for violence In recent months, the panel received nearly 1 million pages of internal Secret Service emails, recordings or electronic records that shed light on the events of Jan. 6 and the days leading up to it, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said. While the committees review of the records is ongoing, the panel revealed excerpts of internal Secret Service communications showing that the presidential protection service had been warned about the possibility of violence at the Capitol. A Dec. 24, 2020, email warned that protesters could march into the chambers, while a December 31, 2020, intelligence brief issued a warning about a proposed movement to occupy Capitol Hill. The hashtags #WeAreTheStorm, #1776Rebel, and #OccupyCapitols have gained attention as the protest on January 6, 2021, approaches, it read. A Jan. 5, 2021, Secret Service email warned about right-wing groups responding from across the nation and establishing quick reaction forces in Virginia. Congressional leaders sought help during the attack The panel aired previously unseen video of top congressional leaders being evacuated to a secure location as the Capitol came under siege. The video, shot by House Speaker Nancy Pelosis daughter, showed Pelosi and other leaders reaching out to administration officials and governors of neighboring states for military assistance to protect the Capitol. Pelosi has been criticized by Republicans for security failures at the Capitol. But the footage aired on Thursday showed her calling the governors of Virginia and Maryland for support. At one point, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pleaded with then Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, the nations top law enforcement official, to get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol. Chiming in, Pelosi told Rosen, Theyre obviously ransacking our offices. Thats nothing. The concern we have is about personal safety. It just transcends everything. Cabinet secretaries gave depositions The committee aired excerpts of depositions from two Trump Cabinet secretaries interviewed in recent months. Former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the committee that he believed the election was over on Dec. 14, 2020, when the Electoral College met to elect Biden. Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and resigned the day after the Jan. 6 attack, testified that the episode was so shocking that it made it impossible for her to remain in her job. I came as an immigrant to this country, she said. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power and democracy. Committee seeks Trumps testimony The committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Thompson said "the need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump extends beyond fact-finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people, he said. But the subpoena is seen as largely symbolic because Trump is not expected to comply and the Justice Department is not likely to pursue the matter. On his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that the panel waited until the last minute to subpoena him because the committee is a total BUST that has only served to further divide our country For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine. The latest developments in Russias war on Ukraine. All times EDT. 3:15 p.m.: Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe, told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine he believes the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula could be liberated by summer, Al Jazeera reported. When I look at the situation, I see that the situation of the Russians is getting worse with every week, Hodges said. They say war is a test of will and logistics and on both counts Ukraine is far superior. The Russians have to lose [the war]; otherwise, theyll try again in two or three years, he added. Hodge said he believes Moscows one hope is that the West will waver in its support for Ukraine. 10:01 p.m.: Some of oilfield service firm Schlumberger's more than 9,000 Russian employees have begun receiving military draft notices through work, Reuters reported, and the company is not authorizing remote employment to escape mobilization, according to people familiar with the matter and internal documents. Schlumberger's cooperation with authorities by delivering the military call-ups and its refusal to allow Russian staff to work outside the country has caused a backlash, according to the sources. They view the actions as tacit support for the war in Ukraine by Schlumberger. Russian law requires companies to assist with delivering a summons to employees and to conduct a military registration if at least one of its employees is liable for service, according to advocacy group Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which tracks corporate performance on human rights issues. Schlumberger suspended new investments and technology deployment in Russia, but unlike some of its peers and customers, decided to remain. 9:02 p.m.: Kremlin-backed authorities in the eastern Luhansk region of Ukraine, illegally annexed by Moscow last month, say 10 captured servicemen have returned to the area in a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. They are currently undergoing rehabilitation, Russian-backed human rights official Victoria Serdyukova told Russian state news agency Tass on Friday. The announcement follows a prisoner exchange on Thursday, in which 20 Ukrainian soldiers and 20 Russian soldiers were swapped. The last large-scale exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, involving nearly 300 people, took place at the end of September. 8: p.m.: The retreating Russian forces left enormous quantities of ammunition and supplies in their wake, Ukrainian soldiers told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "Everything was done beautifully and precisely, said Oleksandr, a 30-year-old soldier sitting in a Ukrainian Army SUV on the main square in Lyman earlier this week. 7:10 p.m.: Kyiv will find a solution to keep the Starlink internet service working in Ukraine, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Friday, Reuters reported. Elon Musk said earlier on Friday that his rocket company SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine. "Let's be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies. Ukraine will find a solution to keep #Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations," Podolyak wrote on Twitter. 6:33 p.m.: Forces from the United Kingdom are training Ukrainian recruits "how to survive and be as lethal as possible on the battlefield." 5:55 p.m.: The Biden administration's next security assistance package for Ukraine is expected to include munitions and vehicles but not significant new capabilities or counter-air defenses, two U.S. officials briefed on the $725 million package told Reuters on Friday. The package is the first aid package since Russia's barrage of rocket attacks on civilian population centers in Ukraine in recent days. One of the officials said that while the aid package was not expected to include material to defeat missile attacks like the ones seen over the last week, it was designed to bolster Ukraine's ability to beat back Russia in the counter offensive that has yielded large territorial gains in recent weeks. 5:15 p.m.: A 50-year-old Russian man has been detained in Arctic Norway with two drones and is suspected of flying the unmanned aerial vehicles somewhere in the country, police said Friday, according to The Associated Press. Numerous drone sightings have been reported near Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms in recent weeks. The Russian citizen, who was not identified, was detained on Tuesday. On Friday, the suspect who had confessed to flying a drone in Norway, was ordered held for two weeks in custody. Customs officers found two drones and several electronic storage devices in his luggage during a routine check at the Storskog border crossing, the sole crossing point between NATO-member Norway and Russia, prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjr said in a statement. Norways Arctic border with Russia is 198 kilometers long. 4:48 p.m.: 4:20 p.m.: Women in Russia make up a rising proportion of those being detained in protests against President Vladimir Putin's mobilization for the war in Ukraine, data show, as many Russian men fear being sent to the frontlines if they demonstrate. Court documents also show more women in Moscow being charged in relation to anti-war protests in February and March in the early weeks of the conflict than in anti-Putin protests in previous years, Reuters reported. 3:55 p.m.: The European Union is set to announce next week that its setting up a military training mission in Europe for thousands of Ukrainian troops and will provide around half a billion more euros (dollars) to help buy weapons for the war-torn country, diplomats and officials said Friday, according to The Associated Press. The aim is to train almost 15,000 Ukrainian troops in a number of EU countries, chiefly Poland and Germany, the officials said. It would range from standard military training to specialized instruction, based on Ukraines needs. The EU hopes to have it operational by mid-November. EU foreign ministers will endorse the plans at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. The officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details before the plans are officially announced. 3:07 p.m.: European foreign ministers will on Monday discuss the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia and could come to a political agreement on future sanctions related to such activity, two diplomats said on Friday, according to Reuters. Ukraine has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks. Iran denies supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented. Three drones operated by Russian forces attacked the small town of Makariv, west of Ukraine's capital, early on Thursday, with officials saying that critical infrastructure facilities were struck by what they said were Iranian-made "suicide drones." The diplomats said although an agreement on new listings was not possible on Monday, there could be a political agreement that would pave the way for sanctions at a later stage. 2:30 p.m.: Valentina is from Siberia, but she welcomed Ukrainian troops as liberators when they recaptured the village where she lives in southern Ukraine with bowls of hot borscht. Despite her Russian heritage, the soup is, she insists, the Ukrainian version of the dish, which is popular in several countries in the region. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report. 2:05 p.m.: NATO said on Friday it would launch its annual nuclear exercise "Steadfast Noon" on Monday, with up to 60 aircraft taking part in training flights over Belgium, the North Sea and Britain to practice the use of U.S. nuclear bombs based in Europe, Reuters reported. The nuclear drills - which do not involve live bombs - are taking place amid heightened tensions after Russia repeatedly threatened nuclear strikes in Ukraine following major military setbacks on the battlefield there. "Steadfast Noon" is likely to coincide with Moscow's own annual nuclear drills, dubbed "Grom", which are normally conducted in late October and in which Russia tests its nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles. NATO said the Western drills were not prompted by the latest tensions with Russia. 1:40 p.m.: 1:20 p.m.: Belarus said on Friday that Russian troops would soon be arriving to take part in a "regional grouping" of forces to protect its borders, Reuters reported. "Troops from the Russian component of the Regional Grouping of Forces will start arriving in Belarus in the next few days," the Minsk defense ministry said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said earlier this week that his troops would deploy with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing what he said were threats from Ukraine and the West. 1:10 p.m.: 12:50 p.m.: Large sections of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines built to supply gas to Europe might need to be replaced, the head of Gazprom said, while Turkey on Friday backed Russian proposals to build a gas hub there as an alternative supply route, Reuters reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week proposed Turkey as a base for gas supplies after the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were damaged last month by blasts. The European Union, which previously turned to Russia for about 40% of its gas needs, is however seeking to wean itself off Russian energy following the invasion of Ukraine in February. 12:35 p.m.: 12:10 p.m.: A French and a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization have filed a complaint for complicity in war crimes against TotalEnergies, which they accuse of having operated a gas field that allegedly produces kerosene used by Russian warplanes in Ukraine. The French oil giant denied producing kerosene for the Russian military, The Associated Press reported. The Paris counterterrorism prosecutors office confirmed on Friday that it formally received the complaint and is going to examine it. A statement from TotalEnergies denounced outrageous and defamatory accusations which are an insult to the integrity of our teams and go against our values. The move by Ukrainian human rights group Razom We Stand (Together We Stand) and French organization Darwin Climax Coalition follows the publication in August of an investigation by British NGO Global Witness and French newspaper Le Monde. We are very determined to hold Total accountable, Svitlana Romanko, the director of Razom We Stand, told the Associated Press. We expect from the prosecutor that he and his bureau will open the case and investigate to show connections with Russia ... and all financial tools that have enabled bombarding the civilians in my country, she said. 11:45 a.m.: French-based food conglomerate Danone says it will transfer control of its essential dairy and plant-based business in Russia, retaining only its infant-nutrition branch, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Friday. Danone is one of the few multinationals to have remained in Russia since the Ukraine war began. The company said in a statement on October 14 that it had decided to look for a buyer in a move that could lead to a write-off of up to 1 billion euros ($980 million). "Danone considers that this is the best option to ensure long-term local business continuity, for its employees, consumers and partners," the group said in the statement. Danone will however retain the activities of its "specialized nutrition" arm, which includes infant milk. "Danone's priority remains to act responsibly and respectfully to its local employees, consumers, and partners throughout the process," the statement said. Danone employs 8,000 people in Russia. 11:20 a.m.: 11:05 a.m.: The head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said on Twitter Friday that he has arrived in Poland after an intensive week of consultations with Russia and Ukraine. He said that the parties are moving closer to the establishment of a protection zone for Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant the plants situation is untenable and we need immediate action to protect it. Grossi traveled to the region to hold intensive negotiations with leaders from both countries aimed at improving security at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility. His meeting with Ukrainian officials Thursday took place in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, due to Russian missile attacks there and in other Ukrainian cities this week. 10:45 a.m.: A heavily armed U.S. battalion is set to remain in Lithuania until at least 2026, amid fears about Russias intentions in the region following its invasion of Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. The Baltic NATO members defense minister announced the decision Friday after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Bucharest. The decision to extend the presence of the rotational battalion in Lithuania shows that the U.S. takes Baltic security seriously, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said. It also sends a message to Russia. The Americans are here, and they are not going anywhere. The U.S. Army deployed a contingent of some 500 soldiers to Lithuania on a troop rotation basis in 2019. The forces include the U.S. Armored Brigade Combat Teams that have been on exercises in the eastern flank countries since 2017. Additional U.S. forces arrived in Lithuania, a month after Russias attack on Ukraine, and the rotation of the U.S. 3-66 Armor battalions rotation has been extended. 10:30 a.m.: The United States on Friday warned it can impose sanctions on people, countries and companies that provide ammunition to Russia or support its military-industrial complex, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow over the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, at a gathering of officials from 32 countries to discuss sanctions on Russia, said the department will issue guidance on Friday making clear that Washington is willing and able to impose such a crackdown. 10:15 a.m.: 10:00 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there was no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia was not looking to destroy the country, Reuters reported. We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not, Putin said. He said there was no need for massive strikes now because most designated targets had been hit. Putin told a news conference at the end of a summit in Kazakhstan that his call-up of Russian reservists would be over within two weeks and there were no plans for a further mobilization. He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine was prepared to take part. Taken together, Putins comments appeared to suggest a slight softening of his tone as the war nears the end of its eighth month, after weeks of Ukrainian advances and significant Russian defeats. 9:50 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin reckons a mobilization of army reservists he ordered last month to bolster his countrys deployment in Ukraine will to be completed in two weeks, The Associated Press reported. Putin told reporters after attending a summit in Kazakhstan on Friday that 222,000 reservists have been mobilized. The Russian Defense Ministry had said it was aiming for a total of around 300,000 reservists. A total of 33,000 of them are already in military units, and 16,000 are involved in the military operation in Ukraine. The call-up, announced by Putin in September, has proved hugely unpopular in Russia, where almost all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. The Russian leader initially described the mobilization as partial and said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. However, a decree he signed outlined almost no specific criteria. Russian media reports have described attempts to round up men without the relevant experience, including those ineligible for service for medical reasons. In the wake of the presidents mobilization order, tens of thousands of men left Russia. 9:35 a.m.: 9:20 a.m.: Russian forces have launched at least four missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraines second largest city, The Associated Press reported. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported the explosions on Friday afternoon. He offered no details on the extent of the damage or possible casualties. The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, urged local residents to heed air raid sirens and take cover in bomb shelters. On Thursday evening, two Russian strikes left Kharkiv, where the pre-war population stood at 1.4 million, without electricity. The Ukrainian army has retaken most of the previously occupied areas of the Kharkiv region, but the Russians continue to shell the regions capital with missiles. 8:30 a.m.: 8:15 a.m.: Elon Musk said on Friday SpaceX cannot "indefinitely" fund the Starlink internet service in Ukraine and send it several thousands more terminals after a report suggested that his rocket company had asked the Pentagon to pay for the donations, Reuters reported. Musk's comment on the question of support for the internet service in Ukraine comes after he angered many Ukrainians with a proposal to end Russia's war in their country that included ceding some territory. "SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable," Musk said on Twitter. The billionaire boss of Tesla said Starlink was spending nearly $20 million a month, he called it a "burn", for maintaining satellite services in Ukraine. He recently said that SpaceX had spent about $80 million to enable and support Starlink in Ukraine. Musk drew widespread criticism from Ukrainians over his peace plan in which he proposed that Ukraine permanently cede the Crimea region to Russia, that new referendums be held under U.N. auspices to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality. 8:00 a.m.: 7:50 a.m.: The International Committee of the Red Cross says it shares frustration about incomplete access to prisoners amid Russias war in Ukraine, according to The Associated Press. However, the humanitarian organization notes that there are limits on what it can do. ICRC spokesman Ewan Watson said Friday that we have been able to visit hundreds of POWs on both sides, but there are thousands more who we have not been able to see. He noted that the third Geneva Convention obliges parties to international armed conflicts to grant the ICRC immediate access to all POWs, wherever they are held. On Thursday, the head of the Ukrainian presidents office, Andriy Yermak, said Kyiv was giving the ICRC three days to send a mission to the Olenivka penal colony, located in a Russian-run part of the Donetsk region, where many Ukrainian POWs are held. Olenivka was the scene of a deadly explosion in July, for which Russia and Ukraine blamed each other. Watson said that our teams are ready on the ground and have been ready for months to visit the Olenivka penal facility and any other facility where POWs are held. But he added that beyond being granted access by high levels of authority, this requires practical arrangements to materialize on the ground. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted. Watson said that the call for full and regular access to prisoners of war goes to both sides. 7:40 a.m.: 7:20 a.m.: Repairs to the bridge between the annexed Crimean peninsula and southern Russia, which was damaged in an explosion last Saturday, are to be finished by July 2023, a document published on the Russian government's website said, according to Reuters. The Crimea bridge, a showcase project of Russian President Vladimir Putin's rule, was damaged in a blast that Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Some Ukrainian officials celebrated the incident but Kyiv has not claimed responsibility. 7:10 a.m.: 6:55 a.m.: Train operations were suspended early on Friday near Novyi Oskol, a town in Russia's Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, after remains of a missile fell near the railway, said regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, according to Reuters. Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app that anti-craft defenses shot down missiles near Novyi Oskol, a town of about 18,000 people which lies about 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the border with Ukraine. "Power lines are damaged. Trains are temporarily suspended," Gladkov said, adding that there were no casualties. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports and there was no immediate reaction from Kyiv. 6:45 a.m.: 6:25 a.m.: Russia is keeping up its targeted attacks on critical infrastructure across Ukraine, in a fifth straight day of intensified bombardments, The Associated Press reported Friday. Multiple Russian missile strikes shook the capital of the Zaphorizhzhia region overnight as the city continued to be a focal point for Russian fire. Zaporizhzhia regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said Friday morning several explosions were reported in the city overnight at infrastructure facilities, causing fires. Preliminary reports mentioned no victims. The heavier Russian barrage began last Monday and comes as Ukraine pushes its military counteroffensive on the southern front. Ukraines presidential office says Friday that over the previous 24 hours at least nine civilians were killed and 15 injured. Friday is Defenders Day in Ukraine, which traditionally is a public holiday, but celebrations are muted because of the war against Russias invasion. In Kyiv, a concert at the central opera house was cancelled because of planned, rotating power outages across the city as energy infrastructure damaged by bombing is repaired. In the Kherson region, which is a key link to Crimea, the Ukrainian army continued to slowly advance along the right bank of the Dnipro. Ukraines armed forces commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhny vowed to forge ahead with a counteroffensive launched last month. Were getting (what is) ours back. No one and nothing will stop us, Zaluzhny said in a video message. We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army. 6:10 a.m.: 5:55 a.m.: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked Ukraine's Defenders Day holiday on Friday by promising victory over Russia and freedom for Ukraine, Reuters reported. In a video address delivered on hills outside the capital Kyiv, Zelenskyy thanked Ukraine's armed forces for defending their country. He said everything that had been taken away from Ukraine would be returned, and no soldier left in captivity. "It seems that the current enemy in its evil unites all the enemies of our statehood that we faced before," Zelenskyy said on the wooded hills outside the village of Vitachyv, site of an historic military outpost overlooking the Dnipro River. 5:40 a.m.: 5:28 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said that in the past three days, pro-Russian forces have made tactical advances towards the center of the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast. Russia likely views seizing Bakhmut as a preliminary to advancing on the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk urban area which is the most significant population center of Donetsk Oblast held by Ukraine. However, the update noted, its overall operational design is undermined by the Ukrainian pressure against its northern and southern flanks, and by severe shortages of munitions and manpower. 4:28 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that public reports of the first deaths of ill-prepared mobilized Russian troops in Ukraine have sparked renewed criticism of the Russian military command. Russian forces are continuing defensive operations in anticipation of potential Ukrainian attacks towards Kreminna, while Ukrainian forces made gains northwest of Svatove. 3:19 a.m.: In the small town of Velyka Oleksandrivka in southern Ukraine that has been retaken in a Ukrainian counteroffensive, signs of Russian occupation and fighting are clearly visible, The Associated Press reported. The village is in the Kherson region, which Moscow illegally annexed. Now wrestled away from Russias hold, the town is fraction of what it used to be. Bridges have been blasted into pieces and blackened vehicles are left on damaged roads. Public buildings and private homes bear the scars of shelling. Tattered Ukrainian blue and yellow flags flew outside of municipal centers, sign of defiance against the Russian occupiers. Ukraine recaptured the town of some 7,000 people a week ago, but residents say recovery from the occupation will take time. Constant threat of shelling and the fear of Russian soldiers breaking into homes and demanding information about Ukraines army were unbearable, said Oleksandr Soltan, 58. Tetyana Patsuks house was turned into a pile of rubble. Its a disaster, the 72-year-old woman said. Ive been crying for a month. I am still shocked. I cant recover from that feeling that I have lost everything now and thats it. I was left with nothing. All the clothes are here, everything! Patsuks basement was used as a shelter for her and some of her neighbors during the heaviest bombardments. There is no house which was not damaged by them (Russians), everything here, everything, she said. 2:13 a.m.: Agence France-Presse, citing a source close to the case, reported that French energy giant TotalEnergies is facing legal action for "complicity in war crimes" for allegedly helping fuel Russian planes that have bombed Ukraine. 1:20 a.m.: Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Russia's State TV Channel One on Thursday that a big section of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines might need to be replaced, TASS news agency said, according to Reuters. A section of the pipeline was now filled with water across a significant distance, TASS paraphrased Miller as saying, in a series of bullet points on the agency's Telegram channel. Separately, Prime news agency paraphrased Miller as saying the affected length covered hundreds of kilometers on the Russian side of the pipeline. On Wednesday, Miller, head of the Russian state-controlled natural gas monopoly, said repairs to the damaged Nord Stream pipelines would take at least a year. 12:02 a.m.: Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended decisions made during her time in power to buy natural gas from Russia, The Associated Press reported. You always act in the time you are in, Merkel said Thursday, adding she doesnt regret decisions she made. She said that it was clear that Germany needed to diversify its energy supplies as it moved away from nuclear and coal-fueled power generation and that gas would be needed for the transitional period. Merkel said that from the perspective of that time, it was very rational and understandable to get pipeline gas, including from Russia, that was cheaper than LNG from other parts of the world. But the former German leader said that Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine is a turning point, and the new government of course has to deal with that and it is doing so. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Iran is ready to "return to its commitments" under the 2015 nuclear deal when other parties uphold their commitments. Rouhani's office issued a statement Monday after his talks in Tehran with the new European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell. Iran's official news agency quotes Rouhani as saying that Iran will continue cooperating with international nuclear inspectors "unless we face a new situation." IRNA did not elaborate on what kind of situation Rouhani was talking about. Iran has been backing away from the nuclear deal since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out in 2018 and imposed sanctions. Britain, France, and Germany are working to keep the agreement alive. Borrell's trip to Tehran is part of what is called the dispute settlement mechanism under which Iran would enter negotiations to keep the deal alive and avoid taking matter to the U.N. Security Council, where the agreement could end. Under the 2015 deal also signed by China and Russia, Iran would curb its uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from sanctions that have wrecked its economy. After the U.S. killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in January, Iran announced it is no longer bound by the limits on enrichment spelled out in the agreement. Nigerian university teachers have suspended an eight-month strike after authorities agreed to invest $1 billion to improve pay and working conditions. The Academic Staff Union of Universities in Nigeria announced the suspension in a statement early Friday after an overnight national executive council meeting and directed its members to resume their services immediately. The lecturers' union said the decision followed weeks of intense negotiations with Nigerian authorities and a court order to suspend the strike. University lecturers walked away from classes February 14 to protest pay disputes. The union also said Nigerian authorities had reneged on an earlier promise to invest about $3 billion into public schools. But last week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari presented a national budget for 2023 and earmarked about $690 million for universities, and $390 million for polytechnics and colleges of education. Authorities also resolved to pay lecturers for the months they were away from class. Peter Adamu, a member of the ASUU executive council, said authorities have not completely met the union's demands but there is progress and both sides have made arrived at a middle ground. So we are hopeful that both sides will keep to this agreement, Adamu said. The union has kept their own side of the agreement, so we are hoping the government will also fulfill their own part of the agreement. Protests by teachers unions over pay, welfare and crumbling facilities have been common in Nigeria's education system for decades and sometimes last many months. A previous strike in 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic lasted nine months, the longest in Nigeria's history. ASUU said negotiations will continue as the schools open. Many hope issues between unions and the government can be resolved for good. An appeals court in the Nigerian capital of Abuja has annulled charges against separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu and declared his arrest, detention and trial unlawful. For months, Kanu faced numerous charges, including terrorism and treasonable felony, which Nigerian authorities had leveled against him in federal court. Authorities say the offenses were committed during his separatist campaigns. A three-judge panel held that Nigerian authorities breached local and international treaties to unlawfully arrest and detain Kanu. One of the justices, Oludotun Adefope-Okojie, explained that authorities failed to publicly disclose where they arrested Kanu and therefore could not proceed with his trial. He said, "No government is permitted to abduct anybody without following due process of extradition. Nigeria is not an exception." The court also said authorities did not clearly state where and when Kanu committed all the offenses leveled against him. Kanu was captured last year in Kenya and has been on trial since October 2021 from state police detention. His lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, posted the court verdict on social media and said, "We have won," but could not immediately respond to calls for further comment. Imo state resident Susan Ifeoma said the news has been heartwarming. People are rejoicing here, [even] me, she said. I was just jumping and dancing. We've been praying, asking God to intervene. And he has." Kanu is leading decades-old agitation for the secession of Nigeria's southeastern region, fueled by a feeling of marginalization among the residents. The separatists want to form a republic called Biafra. In the late 1960s, the Biafran agitation snowballed into a civil war that killed an estimated 1 million people, mostly from famine. Nigerian authorities are yet to respond to the court ruling. One of Hong Kongs last remaining pro-democracy activist groups has had its account with online payments processor PayPal terminated. The League of Social Democrats says that PayPal, a multinational financial technology company headquartered in California and Nebraska, sent an email stating it can no longer provide its services to the activist group. The group said PayPal Hong Kong Limited had sent an email on Sept. 19 about the termination and that it hasnt been able to accept any new donations since. The text of PayPal's email sent to the League of Social Democrats in September has been seen by VOA. It outlines the termination and says the decision is final. "Unfortunately, upon review of your account we have determined there to be excessive risks involved. Therefore, we will no longer be able to provide our services to you. While we wish you the best of success in your future business endeavors, we respectfully ask that you seek another payment solution to process transactions on your behalf, part of the email read. Founded in 2006, the League of Social Democrats is one of the last functioning activist organizations in Hong Kong. Over the years, several of its core members have served jail terms after pressure from authorities over the groups ideology and activism. Although the league is still active, in todays Hong Kong, civil society and activist groups are a rarity amid a political crackdown. At least 50 have shut down in the last two years, fearing the risks of violating a Beijing-imposed national security law. Avery Ng, the group's former chairman, said the group feels helpless after PayPals decision. We feel helpless and [that there is] not much we can do. The political situation and pressure cause corporations to stop providing even basic normal services to opposition parties, further hindering basic fundraising activities. [We received] no warning. No response from them for further explanation. Only response on how to withdraw the remaining funds from the account. It needs to provide us and the public with a clear answer, Ng told VOA. PayPal is one of our key tools for online fundraising. Their unexpected and unexplained discussion hinders our effort to raise funds for our court cases in an already struggling environment. Ng was recently released from prison after serving a 12-month sentence for unauthorized assembly during anti-government protests three years ago. He told VOA in August there is no guarantee about the future of the group, which depends on donations to operate. Its founding member, Leung Kwok-hung, also known as Long Hair, is currently in prison and facing a national security charge. It remains unclear whether Hong Kong authorities asked PayPal to cancel the League of Social Democrats account. VOA has contacted the PayPal Hong Kong media relations department for comment but has yet to receive a reply. PayPal recently came under scrutiny in the United States after the company updated its Acceptable Use Policy that would have charged a $2,500 penalty fee to users that spread misinformation. Amid criticism from advocates and politicians, the platform said the update was filed in error. Anna Kwok, the strategy and campaign director at the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, told VOA there is a lack of accountability for U.S. companies that may bow to pressure over politically sensitive issues. American companies in Hong Kong do not hesitate to kowtow to the regime, as they know the consequence of supporting the political crackdown is pathetically trivial. Together with the upcoming November 2nd global financial summit, where multinational financial sector giants enable and endorse the regime in Hong Kong, these recent developments expose a lack of accountability on American corporates, she told VOA in an email. This isnt the first time a prominent pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong has faced complications in accessing funds from an international financial corporation. Ted Hui, a former lawmaker with Hong Kongs Democratic Party, had his HSBC bank accounts frozen in 2020 after the banking giant received a request from local authorities. Hui, who later fled the city, faces multiple charges in Hong Kong and last month was sentenced in absentia to three years and five months in jail for jumping bail. Hui fled to Britain before relocating to Australia. Apple Daily, the defunct pro-democracy newspaper, also saw its financial assets frozen after some of its executives were charged under the security law, forcing the company to close in June 2021. Jimmy Lai, the media outlets founder, has been in prison since the end of 2020. He faces three charges under the security law and could face life in prison. Across the US, theres a shortage of police officers that is often blamed on a tight labor market and negative perceptions of the job after a spate of incidents in which officers killed unarmed Black people. Even so, many signing up for law enforcement jobs in and around Washington say they hope to build a better and kinder force, as VOAs Laurel Bowman discovered. Camera: Adam Greenbaum Diane tearfully describes how her step-children alternate between yelling at her and convincing her husband, Jack, that Diane is spending all of his money. Diane is especially upset because she and Jack had a plan when they married. The plan did not, however, include any thought about a decline in health and the need for long-term nursing care. When each of them lost their first spouse after many years of marriage, Diane and Jack had found comfort in each others company. Instead of being alone in their later years, they had grown to love each other and entered into a second marriage. Each had children from the previous marriages and enjoyed a pleasant relationship with the step-children. They had celebrated holidays with their step-children and remembered them on birthdays. Like most people who enter a second or third marriage, however, Diane and Jack intended when they died to leave their savings to the children from their first marriages. So Diane and Jack had taken the steps commonly recommended by attorneys and financial advisers. Here is what Jack and Diane had done to establish their estate plan and how the plan is failing. Prenuptial agreement Diane and Jack had entered into a prenuptial agreement that set forth the property that each of them brought to the marriage. The agreement had made clear that their intent was to leave their premarital property to the children from the first marriage. Pennsylvania law normally entitles a surviving spouse to elect to receive one-third of the deceased spouses estate, but Diane and Jack had waived that election in the agreement. In keeping with the agreement, each of them had maintained separate bank and investment accounts, retirement accounts and life insurance policies that they had before the second marriage. The problem with prenuptial agreements is that they only plan for the distribution of property after a spouse dies. When Jack developed dementia and physical ailments that limited his mobility, it became clear that Jack needed skilled nursing care. Like most families in Central Pennsylvania, Jack and Diane could not afford to pay $13,000 every month for that level of care. Diane came to Keystone Elder Law P.C. for guidance toward eligibility for long-term care Medicaid, which would pay for almost all of Jacks care. Diane learned that the prenuptial agreement would not work. The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which administers Medicaid, simply does not recognize prenuptial agreements. That means that all of the accounts and life insurance policies owned by Jack and Diane would be examined together. In order to become eligible for Medicaid, their total savings would need to be reduced to $2,400 for Jack and $137,400 for Diane. There are a number of ways to accomplish Medicaid eligibility while keeping significantly more of Jack and Dianes life savings in the family, but the gist of Medicaid planning for a married couple is that the healthier spouse ends up getting all the money after eligibility is achieved. It is not possible to simply give away excess money to Jacks children, because Medicaid penalizes gifting done in the five years before applying for benefits. At the end of the Medicaid planning, Jack would be eligible for Medicaid to pay for his care, but Diane would have all of the money and property other than $2,400 left in Jacks bank account. This is why Jacks children are now yelling at Diane and accusing her of violating their fathers plan. Updated wills Of course, Diane and Jack had known that they would acquire new property during their marriage. Each of them had updated their wills. Although the property from the first marriage listed in the prenuptial agreement would go to their own children upon their death, the house they had purchased together would remain with the spouse who lived longer. The updated wills also had addressed joint bank accounts that Jack and Diane opened together. A persons will only distributes the property that the person owned in his or her own name during life. Because Medicaids strict financial eligibility rules forbid a Medicaid recipient from having more than $2,400, Jacks will became nearly meaningless. Medicaid planning essentially settles the estate of a person who is still living, and in this case it required a very different plan to save the significant sums of money saved by Jack before he got sick. When Jack ultimately died, his remaining $2,400 went to his children, but that was a few hundred thousand dollars short of what he intended to leave them. All of that money was in Dianes accounts. Jack and Diane are not multi-millionaires, and there was no other way to pay for care that Jack needed. Diane tried to salvage the prenuptial agreement by updating her will again to make sure that her estate would leave the money from Jack to Jacks children. But what will happen if Dianes health declines and she needs to spend money on her care? Updated beneficiary designations Jack and Diane each had IRAs for retirement savings and life insurance policies. They had wisely removed the names of their first spouses and identified the children from the first marriage as their beneficiaries. Under the Medicaid rules, however, the person applying for Medicaid must liquidate retirement accounts and surrender any life insurance policy that has a cash surrender value. The money from Jacks IRAs and life insurance was preserved, but only by transferring it to Diane. The common advice on steps to take when entering a second marriage did not work for Jack and Diane. They had no plan for declining health and long-term care. Next weeks column will show you what Jack and Diane should have done to make sure that money and property would be preserved for the children from their first marriages. The next column will show you how elder law attorneys address the need for long-term care that two out of every three people will have. Planning well in advance achieves the best results for the family. In the meantime, you may be able to take steps that Jack and Diane should have taken. Keystone Elder Law maintains a Facebook group called Later in Life Planning and Resources. If you join the group, you will find videos and articles explaining the right way to plan for the later years of life. You may still have questions after reading the columns and taking in the information in the Facebook group. We will be holding free workshops to go over these concepts and answer your questions. Contact our Care Coordinator at Karen@KeystoneElderLaw.com to reserve your seat at a workshop. If you would like to meet one-on-one with an attorney to start planning, call Keystone Elder Law at 717-697-3223. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Thursday for the fourth time in as many months. The frequent meetings and close ties are fueling concerns among Turkeys Western allies that Ankara is circumventing sanctions against Russia. The latest encounter was in Astana on the sidelines of the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. Speaking to reporters after his meeting, Erdogan said he wants to build on the success of the United Nations-brokered deal that allows Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russian naval forces to enter world markets. Erdogan said Turkey is determined to strengthen and continue the grain exports under the Istanbul agreement and the transfer of Russian grain and fertilizer to less developed countries via Turkey. Ankara played a pivotal role in assisting the United Nations in brokering the grain deal between Ukraine and Russia, known as the Istanbul agreement. Putin on Thursday criticized the deal's implementation, claiming countries in need are not benefiting from the agreement. The deal comes up for renewal next month. Galip Dalay of Londons Chatham House said the Ukrainian grain deal is seen as a vindication by Erdogan of his policy of maintaining close ties with Putin. The role Turkey can play is very much contingent upon having a working relationship with Russia, he said. The Ukrainian grain deal is one of them. Turkey can play a more humanitarian role down the road or a more diplomatic role. All of them require Turkey to have some sort of functional relationship with Moscow as well. Stressing the need to maintain close ties with Moscow, Ankara refuses to enforce western sanctions against Russia. The European Union, in a report this week, strongly criticized Ankara for not enforcing sanctions and warned that European companies could use Turkey to circumvent the restrictions. Washington has also voiced concern. Such complaints are likely to grow with Putin on Thursday repeating a suggestion to use Turkey as a hub for distributing Russian gas that was originally intended for Europe. Erdogan has not commented on the proposal. Senior strategist Timothy Ash of Bluebay Asset Management said Putin is seeking to create divisions among his western adversaries and is finding a willing partner in Erdogan. For Putin, the relationship with Turkey is important (because) it's about dividing Europe, he said. Turkey is a key NATO member. The more he can pull Erdogan and Turkey away from the West, that's all the better. For Erdogan, he's got elections due by June of next year, and he's got a very difficult balance of payments issue. And he thinks by helping Russia getting around sanctions, he thinks Turkey can earn key balance of payment receipts, and that will help. Ankara denies it is sanction-busting. But observers say Erdogan is walking an increasingly fine line by looking to keep close ties with Russia, knowing at the same time that his dealings with Moscow could trigger retaliation from the U.S. and Europe in the form of secondary sanctions. Saudi Arabia rejected as "not based on facts" criticism of an OPEC+ decision last week to cut its oil production target despite U.S. objections and said on Thursday that Washington's request to delay the cut by a month would have had negative economic consequences. The White House pushed back, saying it presented the Saudis with an analysis that showed the cuts could hurt the world economy, and alleging the Saudis pressured other OPEC members on a vote. Officials from both countries are expected to discuss the situation shortly. The back-and-forth has added to what has been a frosty period of relations for the two countries, who have had an energy-for-security alliance for decades. OPEC+, the producer group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) plus allies including Russia, last week announced a cut of 2 million barrels per day to its production target after weeks of lobbying by U.S. officials against such a move. The move came even though fuel markets remain tight, with inventories in major economies at lower levels than when OPEC has cut output in the past. The OPEC+ cut has raised concerns in Washington about the possibility of higher gasoline prices ahead of the November U.S. midterm elections, with the Democrats trying to retain their control of the House of Representatives and Senate. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged earlier this week that "there will be consequences" for U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia after OPEC+'s move. Asked on Thursday about the situation during a Los Angeles trip, Biden told reporters "We're about to talk to them." The OPEC+ decision was adopted through consensus, took into account the balance of supply and demand and was aimed at curbing market volatility, the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Saudi foreign ministry statement referred to consultations with the United States before the October 5 OPEC+ meeting in which it was asked to delay the cuts by a month. "The Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultations with the U.S. administration that all economic analyzes indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested would have had negative economic consequences," the Saudi foreign ministry statement said. The United States accused Saudi Arabia of kowtowing to Moscow, which objects to a Western cap on the price of Russian oil in response to its invasion of Ukraine. "We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed," said White House spokesman Jack Kirby, in a statement, which added that other OPEC nations told the United States that they felt "coerced" to support the Saudi decision. The Saudi foreign ministry statement, quoting an unnamed official, stressed the "purely economic context" of the oil cut. Oil demand has weakened worldwide, with OPEC, the U.S. Energy Department, and the International Energy Agency all lowering forecasts for 2023 demand this week. However, the IEA on Thursday added that OPEC's move could worsen demand, saying "higher oil prices may prove the tipping point for a global economy already on the brink of recession." The Saudi statement said the kingdom views its relationship with the United States as a "strategic one" and stressed the importance of mutual respect. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a statement in support of Saudi Arabia's comments praising the kingdom's efforts to protect the market from volatility. In research last week, Goldman Sachs said in the last 25 years OPEC has never cut production when inventories in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, composed of 38 of the world's richest economies, were so low. OECD stocks are 8% below their five-year average. However, they noted that OPEC reduced output during periods of weak demand. A 15-year-old male suspect was in a North Carolina hospital in critical condition on Friday after he went on a shooting spree that led to an hours-long manhunt and left five people dead in the state capital, Raleigh's police chief said. Police have yet to determine a motive for the shooting, which turned a quiet middle-class neighborhood into a 2-mile-wide (3.2-km-wide) crime scene on Thursday, Police Chief Estella Patterson said during a news conference on Friday. Patterson did not identify the suspect by name or say how he was injured. The shootings began at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) on the streets of Raleigh's Hedingham neighborhood, where residents were told to remain in their homes for hours as police conducted a massive search. The suspect was later found near the Neuse River Greenway, a walking and biking trial where he shot more people, Patterson said. After a standoff, police apprehended him at a residence near the trail. Officials said the shootings rattled residents throughout the state capital, a city of about 500,000 people known as a center for high-tech research. "No one should feel this fear in the communities no one," Democratic Governor Roy Cooper said during the briefing, calling the incident an "infuriating and tragic act of gun violence." The shooting comes with gun violence again on the minds of many Americans. In May, a gunman murdered 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas, just days after a man shot dead 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store. Two months later, seven people were killed during a Fourth of July parade in Illinois. Democratic President Joe Biden reiterated his call for a ban on assault weapons in a statement about the latest shooting Friday, and he said federal law enforcement was assisting with the investigation. "Enough. Weve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings," he said. Three women ages 52, 49 and 35 and a 16-year-old boy were among those killed in the Raleigh shooting spree. A 29-year-old officer who died in the shooting was identified as Gabriel Torres, who was headed to work when the incident unfolded, Patterson said. Two people were wounded: a police officer who was treated and released, and a 59-year-old woman who was hospitalized in critical condition, Patterson said. The police chief did not provide details on the shooting itself and could not say whether the suspect is related to the victims. On Friday morning, the streets in the neighborhood where the shootings occurred were still blocked by yellow police tape, and squad cars remained parked outside of several homes, footage from local media showed. More than 80 Taiwanese companies brought their wares to Washington this week in a bid to connect the democratically governed island with the nation widely viewed as its strongest backer. Taiwan Expo USA, the island republics first such show in the United States, was held over three days in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown Washington, close to the White House. Organizers that included Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs were proud to point out that in 2021, Taiwan rose to become the eighth-largest trading partner of the United States, outranking both India and Vietnam. On a global scale, Taiwan became the 16th-largest trading economy that same year. Visitors to the expo were greeted with an array of high-tech products including 5G and metaverse applications, advanced batteries for electric vehicles, and compound semiconductors 65% of which are made in Taiwan. Traditional cultural items, such as drums used in Buddhist and Taoist temple processions, were also on display. "We brought the best of technology [and] culture here in hopes that our dear American friends will feel even closer affinity with Taiwan," James Huang, chairman of Taiwan External Trade Development Council, told VOA at the expo. Marisa Lago, the U.S. under secretary of commerce for international trade, told audiences gathered for the opening ceremony Wednesday that the U.S. administration led by President Joe Biden is "laser focused" on broadening and deepening its partnership with Taiwan. Some U.S. lawmakers believe the Biden administration could do more to bolster Taiwan's geostrategic position in the face of seemingly constant and increasingly belligerent threats from Beijing. Representative Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky, was among dozens of U.S. lawmakers who have traveled to Taiwan this year to show support in the face of increased Chinese military activities in and above the Taiwan Strait. "What the [Chinese Communist Party] needs to understand is that the more belligerent their military activities are, the more provocative their exercises are, the more threats they make, the more committed and determined the United States becomes to defend the island of Taiwan," Barr told VOA in a recent interview. Speaking of the discussions he and his congressional colleagues held with President Tsai Ing-wen and legislators in Taipei, Barr said, "We're committed not only to our security relationship but also to our bilateral trade relationship." Barr underscored the importance that Taiwan be included in a U.S.-led multilateral trade initiative. "We need to urge the Biden administration to rethink its exclusion of Taiwan from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. It's very important that Taiwan be included in that, to send a signal to Beijing that our multilateral trade commitment to the Indo-Pacific includes Taiwan, in addition to pursuing a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan," he said. Overall, Barr said, U.S. lawmakers and Taiwanese officials "reaffirmed our strong commitment to our two democratic societies, that we stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of communist aggression." By strengthening its ties with Taiwan, the U.S. serves the interest of international peace and prosperity, said Taiwan Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua, speaking to an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies ahead of this week's expo. "The waters surrounding Taiwan are home to the busiest shipping lane in the world," she said. "This area is densely filled with cargo ships and cruisers. China, Japan, South Korea and many other countries all depend on the shipping lanes to deliver their goods to the world, and vice versa." Wang noted that Taiwan's sends 32% of its total exports to China, down from as much as 80% a decade ago. She attributed the change to "growing uncertainty of China's political and economic environment" as well as changes in the global environment. Taiwan's investment in both the United States and other countries in Asia has grown significantly, she added. The ambassadors of Palau and the Marshall Islands were among the VIPs who attended the expo. The two Pacific Island nations are among the dozen or so nations that recognize Taiwan diplomatically. "Our relationship with Taiwan is rock solid," Hersey Kyota, Palau's ambassador to the U.S., told VOA. Gerald Zackios, the top diplomat from the Marshall Islands, said his country values its relationship with Taiwan. "We value our shared democratic principles, human rights," he said, as well as economic development and a people-to-people relationship with Taiwan. After imposing a series of restrictions on Afghan journalists, including mandatory face masks for female television anchors, the Taliban now appear to be targeting foreign journalists they deem biased and critical of their governance. In the latest move, Taliban authorities banned Stefanie Glinski, a freelance journalist, from returning to Afghanistan. Glinski had covered Afghanistan for various international media outlets over the past four years and recently reported on the desire of some Afghan women to flee Taliban rule. The Taliban contacted me regarding my work. I was told that relevant [Taliban] departments have a few concerns & that they want details. I was also accused of making allegations when I had clearly stated that it's others making these allegations; I was simply reporting, Glinski wrote on her verified Twitter account on October 10. Glinski said the Taliban sought information, via WhatsApp, about her sources, but she refused, fearing doing so would put her contacts at jeopardy and compromise her journalistic integrity. They told me that the government will be holding all sides accountable from now onwards, and anyone found breaking the law or unable to substantiate reports [] will be dealt with according to the law, which includes cancellation of visas & non-entry to Afghanistan, Glinski said on Twitter. VOA reached out to Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid and foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi for comment, but neither answered his phone. Lynne ODonnell, a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine who was briefly detained by the Taliban in July, says she was threatened, abused, detained, interrogated and forced to make false confessions, on Twitter & on video. Speaking to VOA, ODonnell condemned the Taliban as liars, fantasists, murderers, drug dealers, and terrorists. Why would they want the truth of their method of staying in power through violence, arbitrary detention, torture and killing with impunity to be revealed to the world by journalists with integrity when their biggest aspiration is to gain the diplomatic recognition that would give them legitimacy? she asked. Rejecting ODonnells allegations, Taliban authorities have accused her of openly supporting anti-Taliban forces and falsifying reports of mass violations by Taliban forces. In August, the Taliban also detained a Pakistani journalist working for an Indian channel when he was seen filming the site of a U.S. drone strike in Kabul where al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed. An Indian journalist who did not want to be named told VOA she was fearful of the Talibans new vetting and security procedures and had therefore delayed her return to Afghanistan. Not surprising, no coincidence If visas have been stopped or withdrawn, its hardly surprising, said Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist and author who was detained for 11 days by the Taliban in 2001 for illegally entering Afghanistan. She said many countries, including the United States, deny visas to journalists suspected of biased reporting. U.S. officials have occasionally barred entry to journalists in recent years, such as a Yemeni journalist who was denied entry for a Pulitzer Prize ceremony in 2019. Ridley said she recently visited Afghanistan without facing any restrictions. I managed to get access to all key ministers, and a main focus of my last trip was interviewing ordinary Afghan women who had never been given the chance to voice their opinions or views, ever, she told VOA. The Taliban are widely condemned for their restrictions on womens education, livelihood and rights, but some Taliban officials, including high-profile Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, have sat for exclusive interviews with foreign female journalists. Most foreign media outlets left Afghanistan immediately after the Taliban seized power last year. An exodus of Afghan journalists has ensued as hundreds of Afghan media personnel have left the country over the past year. At least 215 of the country's 540 media outlets have closed because of financial, social and political problems since last year, according to Reporters Without Borders. Two female foreign journalists have been targeted [by the Taliban], and we don't think it's a coincidence, Pauline Ades-Mevel, editor in chief of Reporters Without Borders, told VOA. We consider it a big problem. Holding power to account Backed by foreign donors, Afghanistan had a vibrant media landscape and progressive press laws prior to the return of the Taliban to power last year. While Taliban officials say they are committed to a free press within the boundaries of Islam, independent observers point to their actions in limiting media freedoms and the many restrictions the Taliban have imposed on journalists. As access to facts becomes more difficult in Afghanistan, rumors and misinformation often distort descriptions of actual events in the country. Access to information is [a] basic and internationally recognized right of every human being, and that doesn't exempt Afghanistan, said Ades-Mevel. She said an information blackout will not serve the Taliban. From ODonnells perspective, journalists should hold groups like the Taliban accountable for their actions. Those who are not doing that are not doing their job, she said. Media freedom activists in Uganda have decried President Yoweri Museveni's signing of the Computer Misuse Act into law, saying its vague wording will be used to silence government critics. The law, which Museveni signed Thursday, bans the use of social media to publish, distribute or share information prohibited under the laws of Uganda. It also bans the use of a disguised or false identity online. Violators could face jail terms of five to 10 years. In June, Ugandan journalist Agather Atuhaire tweeted and broke a story about how parliament approved the procurement of luxury cars for Speaker Anita Among and her deputy, Thomas Tayebwa. The vehicles cost over $730,000, causing an uproar from the public. A week later, Kampala Central Legislator Muhammad Nsereko introduced the bill to control social media use. Atuhaire told VOA the new law duplicates others on the books and is designed to cripple investigative journalism. "Everything in there is ridiculous," Atuhaire said. "It is saying that we cant publish unsolicited information. The freedom of expression that the constitution guarantees doesnt require me to first seek solicitation for my information. Freedom of expressing talks about imparting information, receiving it, disseminating it, so thats really limiting. Other penalties The law also mandates jail sentences of up to five years and penalties of $3,900 for users who share information about children without the authorization of parents or guardians. Using a video or voice of an individual without authorization could lead to a 10-year prison term. The Committee to Protect Journalists' sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo, said the law, right from its creation, was surprising. She said she was dismayed at the definition of hate speech in the law. Hate speech is defined to include things like demeaning or ridiculing an individual," she said. "That is a personal reputational concern. If you look at the provisions about spreading malicious information, is it going to be malicious if you investigate and publish allegations of corruption of political actors, if you critique their behavior? And depending on whos interpreting that, we are going to see people being muzzled. Recently, the presidents son Muhoozi Kainerugaba was promoted to the position of general despite boasting on Twitter that Ugandan forces were capable of invading and taking over Kenya. Museuveni was forced to send a written apology to Nairobi. Human rights lawyer Eron Kiiza expressed fear that the new law would curb those who dare to criticize such tweets. "For example, if youre in the military and you fall out with the military top guys, this law would be used against you as long as you speak something," Kiiza said. " ... People who are going to oppose the Muhoozi project, they are the primary target and will be the worst victims. And any verbal opposition will be strangulated with ruthlessness using the prism of this law. Responsible use Speaking to VOA, Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said the law was meant to promote responsible use of social media and the internet. "The message from the amendment is that please do not forward messages which are insulting, which are immoral, which do not meet the standards of the country. Do not initiate offensive messages. Its an innocent law, in my view, the minister said. Press freedom activists said they were going to challenge the law in court, with hopes of having it repealed. Russian forces continued to bombard Ukrainian cities, launching at least four missile strikes on the second largest city of Kharkiv as Ukraine fought back by firing artillery inside Russia and hitting an ammunition depot. Multiple explosions were reported Friday at the facility in the Belgorod region of Russia. The attack was announced by the regional governor on the social media site Telegram. Ukrainian officials have made no claims of responsibility for the attack. The fighting in Ukraine comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended recent moves to escalate the war by deploying more troops in the country. Putin said Friday there was no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia was not looking to destroy the country. At the same time, the Russian leader maintained he had no regrets about the war in Ukraine and the recent mobilization of 222,000 Russians reservists to fight in the conflict. At a news conference Friday in Astana, Kazakhstan, Putin said 16,000 of the new recruits already have been deployed in units involved in fulfilling combat tasks. Russian media reported at least seven deaths among the recently drafted recruits. The casualties come as Russias defense ministry faces criticism from prominent pro-war Russian military analysts for deploying untrained recruits into combat. Despite the rising death toll, Putin told reporters his actions to launch a military offensive in Ukraine was timely and right. Hours before Putin spoke, Russian missiles and drones targeted more Ukrainian cities and towns for a fourth consecutive day. At least five people in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv were killed, officials said. Meanwhile, Ukraine's military said it had recaptured more than 600 settlements from Russian forces over the past month, according to the country's Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, as Russian forces continued to strike dozens of Ukraines cities, killing a number of civilians. Some 502 settlements have been liberated in the northeast Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces last month advanced deep into Russian lines and 75 localities were recaptured in the highly strategic Kherson region, the ministry said late Thursday. The ministry said 43 settlements were liberated in the Donetsk region and seven in the Luhansk region. "The area of liberated Ukrainian territories has increased significantly," the ministry said in a statement on its website. The report could not be independently verified. Civilians in the Russia-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine are expected to start evacuating Friday for Russia. Vladimir Saldo, the regions Russian-appointed leader, asked Russia for evacuation assistance. The move is an indication that Ukraines forces are advancing closer to the illegally annexed region. The first evacuees are expected to arrive in eastern Russia Friday. The announcement comes as the country marks Defenders Day to celebrate the nations fighters. Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to everyone who is fighting for it now, in a statement released Friday. In other developments, the United States warned it can impose sanctions on people, countries and companies that provide ammunition to Russia or support its military-industrial complex, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, at a gathering of officials from 32 countries to discuss sanctions on Russia, said the department will issue guidance Friday making clear that Washington is willing and able to impose such a crackdown. In addition, the Biden administration's is set to unveil a new security assistance package for Ukraine. The military aid is expected to include munitions and vehicles but not significant new capabilities or counter-air defenses, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the $725 million package. Information from RFE/RL, Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report. VOA Persian Service correspondent Farhad Pouladi spoke with U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby about Iranian protests and the stalled diplomatic process on the Iran nuclear deal, the latest on the war in Ukraine, and the Biden administration's plan to deal with Saudi Arabia following the decision by OPEC+ to cut oil production targets. The following transcript has been edited for clarity. VOA: President Joe Biden maintains that diplomacy is still a viable option in stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. There have been many critics of that approach, especially in the Iranian opposition, whether inside or outside Iran, and they are demanding that negotiations be stopped and that maximum pressure be resumed or amplified. Does the U.S. believe Iran still has the legitimacy to pursue diplomacy with? John Kirby: Oh, there is no diplomacy right now underway with respect to the Iran deal. We are at an impasse right now, and we're not focused on that. Yes, the president still believes that it's really important that Iran not achieve nuclear weapons capability. And yes, the president would prefer to do that through diplomacy. But right now, that diplomacy is not moving forward. We are too far apart to be close to a deal here with Iran. They have made some irresponsible demands that are way beyond the scope or the limit of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the Iran nuclear pact]. So that's not a focus right now. What is a focus is making clear that we're going to continue to hold the Iranian regime accountable for the way that it's been treating its citizens, citizens who are trying to peacefully protest and to make their voices clear. And we have done that in the past with sanctions; we'll do that going forward. But that's the focus. VOA: On Wednesday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at Georgetown University noted the Biden administration's steps in support of the Iranians, like exerting sanctions and the waiver for the internet. He said this, and I'm quoting him, That does not mean we can stop every bullet or hold back every baton. However, people are dying in the streets in Tehran. Isn't it time for the U.S. to do more? Kirby: The United States will continue to look at our options going forward to hold the Iranian regime accountable. We've done it in the past, in just the last week or so, and we'll continue to look at options going forward. And we'll work with allies and partners both in the region and outside the region to continue to do that. VOA: Does the administration have any plan to meet with the Iranian opposition leaders or opposition? Kirby: I dont have anything on the schedule to speak to. VOA: Is the U.S. offering any particular help for Ukraine to combat Iranian drones besides sanctioning the Iranian drone industry? Kirby: We have been providing the Ukrainian military a full range of capabilities to help better defend themselves. We knew that these drones were going to be introduced onto the battlefield when we said publicly that the Russians were going to Tehran to buy them. It remains to be seen how much of a factor they are, but clearly, they have lethal capabilities. And so, one of the things that the president spoke about with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy was additional air defense capabilities. And you just saw in Brussels this week, Secretary of Defense [Lloyd] Austin holding yet another contact group, and out of that contact group meeting, some nations like Germany and Spain agreed to provide some additional air defense capabilities. And we'll take a look as well, and if there's things that we can do to improve Ukrainian air defense, we'll do that. VOA: Have there been any decisions or timelines for any decisions on whether and if the U.S. will confront Saudi Arabia with their OPEC+ decision to cut oil production? Kirby: The president has asked us as a team to review this bilateral relationship, and to see what we need to do to make sure that that bilateral relationship going forward serves our interests. So, he wants a comprehensive look at this. He also wants time to talk to members of Congress, not all of whom are in town right now. So, as Mr. Sullivan said just a few days ago, the work of reviewing this bilateral relationship is ongoing now, here, on the National Security Council and in the staff. And we will broaden that conversation out over coming days and weeks to include members of Congress. The president wants to make sure that he takes advantage of a full range of views and perspectives and options. VOA: Who will be the point person and what is the timeframe? Kirby: It's not about having a single point person, and it's not like a formal review process where there'll be some sort of master document produced at the end. The president wants his team to look at how we should recalibrate this relationship. He also wants to take in the views of members of Congress, and we'll do that. VOA: On Ukraine some American experts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin is using recent escalation and the nuclear threat just to intimidate and push Ukraine to negotiations. Do you think Putin is escalating out of weakness, and how confident are you that the European leaders wont crack under pressure and press Ukraine to negotiate? Kirby: Well, what I will tell you is that the actions Mr. Putin is taking clearly are not the actions of a confident leader, of a leader who feels certainty about the way this war is being prosecuted. It is brutal. It's bloody. It's ugly. And as the [U.S.] president has said, it has included war crimes and atrocities. He [Putin] is deliberately going after civilian targets and trying to kill the Ukrainian people, let alone their soldiers, to instill fear into them. He's having the opposite effect. He has helped unite NATO. He has stiffened the resolve of the international community, and he absolutely has not put fear into the hearts of the Ukrainian people. You could see them singing after the weekend attacks in the subways and they were out in the streets. They are brave. They are skillful. They are resolute. And the United States, with our allies and partners around the world, is going to continue to provide security assistance to their armed forces and their abilities to defend themselves. And we have seen nothing and in Brussels this week, the Contact Group is a great example we've seen nothing but unified resolve by our allies and partners. Not just in Europe [but in] countries around the world, [allies doing] what they can and making their own decisions to support Ukraine and that continues. VOA: Do you see any indications that Belarusian troops might join Russia in its invasion of Ukraine from the north, and how seriously might their participation impact dynamics on the battlefield and the ability of Ukrainian forces to defend themselves? Kirby: We haven't seen indications that Belarusian troops are preparing to go in or will go in. We'll obviously watch this as best we can. So, I don't want to get ahead of where we are in terms of speculation about what that could mean. Clearly, any additional troops that are going to be commanded by Russian leaders inside Ukraine is obviously something to be concerned about, but we're just not there yet. VOA: Have you seen any movement regarding Putins threats to use tactical nuclear weapons? Kirby: We're monitoring as best we can. We have not seen any indication that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction, or nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise. We haven't seen any indications by his military forces that they're preparing for such a use. And I would just add that we see nothing that would give us reason to change our own strategic deterrent posture. VOA: Before the Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress meeting, some protesters hung banners calling for the impeachment of Xi Jinping. Now, related online posts are censored on Chinese internet. What is the White House take on possible political change in Beijing and the censorship of Chinas citizens? Kirby: We continue, as we have all around the world, to make clear that we believe in the basic right of peaceful protest and that the people around the world, no matter where they live, no matter under what government ... they subsist, should have the right to peacefully protest and to make their voices heard without fear of retribution or violence in return. VOA: The White Houses new national security strategy lists China as the biggest challenge to the world order, even with Russia invading Ukraine. China just responded that this is Cold War thinking. Your take? Kirby: I think Mr. Sullivan was very clear when he laid out the National Security Strategy this week. This is not about a new Cold War. It's not even about the old Cold War. It's about making sure that we have the capabilities, the resources and the strategy to be able to defend our interests around the world. And in the end, the National Security Strategy makes it clear that China is a predominant challenge right now: a nation like Russia [that wants] to disrupt the international world order, but unlike Russia actually has the means to affect that outcome over coming years. And that's why we're going to stay laser-focused on the challenges that Beijing presents to the rest of the world. As we've said many times, competition and this is an era of strategic competition does not have to mean conflict. VOA: We're approaching the midterm elections. What are you seeing in the cyberspace when it comes to the attacks on the midterm elections? Russia, Iran, North Korea, or some other malign actors? Kirby: All I'll tell you is that we constantly monitor our cyber infrastructure and review our ability to be resilient in cyberspace. And we're constantly working at that. I'm not going to speculate about the upcoming midterm elections. All I can say is that this is an ongoing, iterative process across the government, across the interagency, to constantly review our cyber defenses and our health and vitality inside the cyber realm. We're constantly working to improve that to improve that capability. And we'll do that going forward, certainly, into the fall. Europe faces a higher-than-usual chance of a cold blast of weather before the end of the year, but the winter overall is likely to be warmer than average, the continent's long-range weather forecaster said Thursday. Temperatures this winter will be crucial for homeowners worried about the record cost of heating their homes, and for European policymakers seeking to avoid energy rationing because of reductions in Russian gas supplies. "We see the winter as being warmer than usual," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service that produces seasonal forecasts for the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). "Nevertheless, there is a still a significant chance of a block situation, which can lead to cold temperatures and low wind over Europe," he told AFP as the service issued a monthly update to its forecasts. A so-called block or blocking pattern in the winter can bring stable, often wind-free weather accompanied by freezing temperatures. "This was looking more likely in November, but there now looks like a pronounced probability of a cold outbreak in December," Buontempo added. The ECMWF produces weather modelling with data from a range of national weather services around Europe. Its forecasts are based on indicators such as ocean and atmospheric temperatures, as well as wind speeds in the stratosphere, but do not have the accuracy of short-range reports. The models provide the "best information possible, to give a hint, to guide our decisions," Buontempo said. The European winter was expected to be warmer than usual because of the La Nina global weather phenomenon, which is related to cooling surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. "We know that in a La Nina year, the latter part of the European winter tends to favor westerly winds, so warm and wet," Buontempo said. The agency will update its winter season forecast next month when it will have greater confidence because "all the drivers for the winter will be more active," he said. Independent energy experts expect Europe to be able to withstand Russia's gas cuts this winter, providing temperatures stay in line with or above the long-term average. Governments have almost filled their strategic gas reserves and consumers are being urged to reduce their consumption. The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy consultancy, believes that temperatures about 10% below average over the winter would put strain on the European gas system. It has also said a late cold spell, when gas stocks are expected to be low, could be the "Achilles heel of European gas supply security." Backers of Burkina Faso's latest coup cited the military's failure to stem a deadly Islamist insurgency that is spreading across the Sahel and has displaced millions of people. A new analysis shows more civilians died in the Western Sahel conflict during the first half of 2022 than in all of 2021. War has raged between Western Sahel countries and militants linked to Islamic State or al-Qaida for more than a decade. Analysts say failure to stop attacks helped spark two coups in Burkina Faso, the most recent coming September 30. Both military juntas that carried out the coups cited the inability of the previous government to improve security. "There was this expectation that a military leader would perform better than a civilian one," said Constantin Gouvy, an analyst for the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think tank. "What weve seen instead is that since January, the security situation has continued to deteriorate." Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project show that nearly 2,300 civilians were killed in the Western Sahel conflict during the first half of 2022. Thats about 400 more than the number killed in the whole of 2021. In Burkina Faso, one of the previous military juntas flagship policies for reducing violence was to create military interest zones. It called for civilians within conflict-affected provinces to leave for a period so the army could carry out operations against terrorists. VOA traveled close to one of the military zones and met Jonas Sawadogo, who said he was forced to leave his home because of the policy. Sawadogo said the military "should have come and done something before it got to this point. Since we have left, we have no idea what they have done to protect our village. Gregoire Sawadogo said he had received no support from the government since leaving his home, also in a military zone. "Since I left, I have been working as a laborer with stone masons," he said. "I get about $4 a day to feed my family: my mother, my wife and my four children. I have to pay the rent, too." Despite the terrible violence and more than 2.6 million displaced in the Western Sahel, aid workers worry this war will become a forgotten crisis. Sandra Lattouf, the representative of the U.N. Childrens Fund in Burkina Faso, just returned from Djibo, a town in the countrys north, where for months militants have blocked deliveries of food. Trucks carrying supplies can be seen here, halted because it is too dangerous to travel farther north. One convoy was recently attacked. Lattouf said children in Djibo are starving to death. "It hurts to see the children suffering," she said. "The population is suffering. We need to talk about Burkina Faso. We need to talk about the Sahel. This is a situation that needs the attention of the world." As the war in the Sahel intensifies, attacks by militants have begun to spread to coastal West African countries, the next phase in the jihadists' efforts to destabilize the region. The National Gallery of Art (NGA), the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum held a joint ceremony Tuesday in Washington, DC, to mark the return of 31 Benin bronzes from their respective collections to Nigeria, marking the latest milestone in a growing movement to return the looted treasures. The repatriation ceremony took place behind closed doors at the NMAfA, where 13 Benin objects have featured in a farewell display for the past two weeks. Nigerias National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) will now assume ownership of 29 artifacts that were deaccessioned earlier this year from the Smithsonian collections, including brass plaques, commemorative heads and figures. The NGA has repatriated a sculpture of a cockerel following a vote held in 2020 by its board of trustees to deaccession the work. The sculpture the only Benin bronze in the museums collection was first acquired by a British merchant who worked in Nigeria and consigned the piece to Sothebys London in 1954. It entered the museums collection in 1955 via donors who acquired the piece through the New York-based dealer John J. Klejman. This depiction of a king's head was one of 29 items returned by The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art. - Franko Khoury/NMAfA-National Museum of African Art The cockerel was one of up to 10,000 artifacts stolen by British troops from the royal palace in the Kingdom of Benin (in present-day Nigeria) in 1897. The pieces were dispersed throughout the world and, in the decades that followed, several were acquired by or donated to US museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chicagos Field Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and others. The repatriated pieces from NMAfA and the NGA are joined by a bronze head of an Oba (king) from the RISD Museum, also deaccessioned in 2020. (The term Benin bronzes is a catch-all description encompassing objects in brass, ivory and wood as well as bronze.) Story continues This event opens a new vista regarding American cultural institutions relationship with Nigeria, said Abba Isa Tijani, director general of the NCMM, according to an NGA press release. He also hailed the move as a harbinger of greater things to come as other museums and institutions here in the United States with collections of Benin bronzes are expected to follow suit. Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the National Museum of African Art, speaks at the repatriation ceremony in Washington, DC. - Rodney Choice/AP By returning the artifacts, these institutions are together writing new pages in history, said the Nigerian minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement. He anticipated future collaborations between Nigerian and US museums, including joint exhibitions and educational exchanges. Under a new agreement, Nigeria will make nine Benin bronzes available to the NMAfA as loans, a Smithsonian spokesperson says. The Smithsonian announced the decision to return most of its Benin bronzes in March, several months after the objects were removed from display at the NMAfA. We cannot build for the future without making our best effort at healing the wounds of the past, the museums director Ngaire Blankenburg told The Art Newspaper last November. In June, the Smithsonian Board of Regents voted to deaccession 29 pieces that were definitively traced back to the 1897 British raid on Benin, in line with a new ethical returns policy adopted across the worlds largest museum complex. The policy authorizes each of the Smithsonians 21 museums to deaccession and return objects that were acquired legally but in circumstances that are considered unethical today, including items that were stolen, taken under duress or removed without the consent of their owners. Twenty Benin items remain in the collection of the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History, pending further provenance research. A selection of the Benin bronzes returned to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. - Rodney Choice/AP Tuesdays joint ceremony marked another significant watershed in the global movement for restitution to African claimants, said Dan Hicks, a professor of contemporary archeology at the University of Oxford and the author of the 2020 book The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. The leadership offered by colleagues at the Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art and RISD is very welcome, and throws into relief the sustained silence and inaction in other significant collections, including the Metropolitan Museum and the British Museum. The Met repatriated two looted Benin items to Nigeria last November, but retains around 160 in its collection one of the largest in the US. With more than 900 pieces, the British Museum in London has the worlds biggest collection of Benin bronzes. An 18th-century cockeral statue was returned by the National Gallery of Art. - National Gallery of Art By their decision, the Smithsonian has allowed us to ask other museums that acquired looted Benin artifacts under the same circumstances whether they would continue to shield themselves with the dirty cloak of law, or with ethically sound institutional ideals, said Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Nigerian artist, art historian and professor at Princeton University. The return of the Benin bronzes to Nigeria could contribute in significant ways to the necessary task of repair, of healing long-festering psychological wounds inflicted on Africans during that moment of violent, rapacious encounter with European colonial machinery and ideology, he argued. The Nigerian-American artist Victor Ehikhamenor, a trustee of the nonprofit that is building the future Edo Museum of West African Art in Benin City to house the Benin bronzes, described the artifacts as story books for us (Nigerians) with immense cultural value for future generations. They are important both as spiritual symbols for rituals that can now be re-established in the palace of the latter-day Oba of Benin, he said, and as visual cues that we can use to tell our children about the kind of life our ancestors led. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com During his more than nine-year-long tenure Xi Jinping, who looks set to take on a third term as head of Chinas Communist Party at its party congress this week, has emphasized the importance of China-Africa relations. In South Africa, which counts China as its biggest trade partner, not one of about a dozen South Africans interviewed by VOA at a bustling mall in Johannesburg this week knew the name of the man many consider to be among the most powerful people in the world. Neither Gundo Dzivhani, a banker in his 30s, nor his brother Mulanga, an entrepreneur, could name the Chinese leader. Michelle Stoltz, a 51-year-old who works in the pharmaceutical industry, did not know either. Um, ah, his names on the tip of my tongue, she said. What most did agree on, however, was that they were happy for Xi Jinping to retain power as long as China and South Africas trade, investment, and economic relations remained strong. Last year, two-way trade reached $29 billion. Fiyin Kupolati, a 27-year-old legal analyst, noted that both countries are also members of BRICS, a group of emerging economies. The relationship between South Africa and China for now is good and if the president now remains in power, I think for the foreseeable future, it would still be good, Kupolati said. Asked if they were worried that South Africa, the continents foremost democracy, was such close friends with an authoritarian regime, most people interviewed thought it was fine that Pretoria maintains relations with countries with different political systems -- and brushed off concerns over human rights in China. With such a population Im sure they could revolt and stuff, but they seem happy, they seem to like whats going on there, said Gundo Dzivhani. Aubrey Netshikweta, a 55-year-old Uber driver, said he would prefer the Chinese system. In China, he said, he believes there is order and things work well -- even if Xi stays in power indefinitely as some analysts predict is his intention. Being the president for life, as long as everything works, then to me it doesnt matter, because here in South Africa the problem we got, weve got from the leaders, from top downwards, the leaders are corrupt, he said. Netshikweta said it appears that in China, the president gets things done, whereas South Africa might be a democracy, but its politicians dont care about the people. They remember the people only when there are elections, when they come around with these big cars, giving people these fake T-shirts, vote for our party, and then theyll be calling people, Our people, our people, but then after that nothing happens, he said. Some analysts told VOA they thought Chinese-African relations, not only economically but diplomatically, had been at their highest level ever under Xis tenure over the past decade and expected them to be as robust as ever heading into an expected third term. Cobus van Staden, a China expert at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said he thought African governments would appreciate the continuity. I dont think therell be massive complaints coming out of Africa if Xi ends up taking on a third term, he said. One change analysts do expect, however, is a move away from the massive infrastructure projects in Africa seen under Xis Belt and Road Initiative, toward a focus on other areas like information and communications technology. Ukrainian officials said Thursday the countrys capital region was hit by Iranian-made drones operated by Russian forces, while Ukraines military said Russian missiles had hit 40 different settlements throughout the country during the past day. Deputy head of Ukraines presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said the drones hit critical infrastructure facilities around Kyiv. Officials described the drones as so-called kamikaze aircraft, which carry explosives and crash themselves into a target. Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkovych also reported Thursday overnight shelling in the southern Ukrainian city that destroyed a five-story apartment building. The aerial attacks came as Ukrainian partners worked to supply additional air defenses to the country. The more audacious and cruel Russian terror becomes, the more obvious it is to the world that helping Ukraine to protect the sky is one of the most important humanitarian tasks for Europe of our time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday. Britain announced Thursday it would send Ukraine rockets capable of shooting down cruise missiles, as NATO defense ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss support for the Ukrainian military. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that while Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to force untrained, unwitting Russian civilians to the front lines through the conscription of 300,000 reservists, Ukraine has shown the world that the military and military power of a free people fighting for their democracy and their sovereignty prevails. Their courage inspires us all, Austin said. Putin chose war. But Ukraine chose to defend itself. And it has done so magnificently. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, accused Russia of committing war crimes with its recent attacks. He said Moscow has increased their strikes on civilian infrastructure, power generation, and dams. Russia has deliberately struck civilian infrastructure with the purpose of harming civilians. They have targeted the elderly, the women, and the children of Ukraine. Indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on civilians as targets is a war crime in the international rules of war. Putin has said Russias missile attacks this week on cities throughout Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, came in direct response to the truck bombing last Saturday that destroyed part of the strategic Kerch Bridge linking mainland Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. Russia seized the peninsula in 2014. On Wednesday, Moscows FSB security service announced it has arrested eight people, including five Russians, linked to the incident. It said three Ukrainians and Armenians helped carry out the attack. The FSB statement accused Ukraines military intelligence service of launching the attack, what it characterized as a terrorist act. The FSB blamed it on explosives hidden in the back of a cargo truck that was detonated on the bridge. The FSB contended that a 22-ton bomb deployed in the attack was shipped from the Ukrainian port of Odesa before following a circuitous route through Bulgaria, Armenia and Georgia. Ukrainian officials have strongly signaled they carried out the attack but not officially claimed responsibility. Ukraines Ministry of Internal Affairs called the Russian investigation nonsense. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Members of Operation Dudula, a group advocating for foreign nationals to be chased out of South Africa, has launched a national campaign advocating for the removal of foreign teachers and students from South African schools. In this campaign, the Operation Dudula activists are visiting education offices, demanding that foreign teachers and students should leave. Daniel Hadebe, leader of the Gauteng chapter, said, All what we are saying is that they must employ South Africans first before they can consider employing foreigners. Grace Mamonyane, another leader of the same group, added that we know that our own are not getting jobs because the posts have been occupied by foreigners. They urged education officials to also remove all students at South African schools, claiming that their presence is compromising the quality of education in the country. Zimbabwean teacher, Bongani Nyathi, said Operation Dudulas actions are shocking. It is very painful to see such things happening in South Africa, especially the crackdown on teachers at the moment. Themba Ntabekhulu Phiri, another Zimbabwean teacher based in South Africa, scoffed at Operation Dudulas activities, saying it is a waste of time. VOA Studio 7 was unable to get comment from education officials as top officials were not responding to calls on their mobile phones. Thousands of Zimbabwean teachers live and work in South Africa due to the harsh economic situation back home. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. NATO defense ministers on Wednesday discussed ways to bolster Ukraines air defense systems to combat the barrages of missiles from Russia on civilian targets throughout Ukraine -- a bombardment the top U.S. general has called a war crime. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, integral nationalist general Valeri Zaluzhnyi, asked SpaceX a month ago for a supply of 8,000 additional terminals. His army had previously received 20,000 terminals worth between 1,500 and 2,500 dollars depending on the model largely funded by Poland, the United States and the United Kingdom. According to General Zaluzhnyi, about 500 terminals are being destroyed on the battlefield every month. Without these terminals, the army and the civil authorities no longer have any means of communication. A failure has already occurred which apparently resulted in a disaster, the details of which are classified Secret-Defense. The price of the terminals and their communications, which are borne by SpaceX, currently amounts to 80 million dollars. It should climb to 100 million by the end of 2022 and to 400 million by the end of 2023. Despite its public commitment at the start of the war in support of Ukraine, SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon asking it foot the bill because the company could no longer afford it. Starlink CEO Elon Musk has recently exchanged some caustic tweets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The billionaire, who is privy to a lot of information that we dont know considering that he has access to all the messages exchanged by the Ukrainian authorities on Starlink, has taken a stand for the recognition of Crimea and Donbass as Russian provinces. The sum requested by SpaceX is negligible when compared to the value of the company (127 billion dollars). Elon Musk, who lived in South Africa until he was 17, is aware of what a supremacist ideology like the integral nationalists means. If he cuts off access to Starlink, the Ukrainian military will crumble within days. This month marks a tragic anniversary as 43 years have passed since the murder of 18-year-old Bobby Gene Moore Jr. of Valles Mines. Decades later, the search for the person responsible for the man's death continues. Moore was just beginning his adult life in 1979, trying to earn an honest wage and provide for his wife and 7-week-old son when the young man's life was senselessly ended by someone who would sooner kill before leaving behind a witness to a relatively small theft. Now, more than four decades later, Moore's murder remains unsolved and his young family has grown older, missing the moments and milestones that should have been shared with a husband and father. Shortly before 11 p.m. on Oct. 10, 1979, Moore was gunned down and robbed of $214 while working as a service station attendant at Bonne Terre Fina (later called Barney's and now the location of a Dollar General) about seven miles north of Bonne Terre on US 67. The shooting reportedly happened at about 10:50 p.m. that October night. At the time of the initial investigation, then-St. Francois County Chief Deputy Sheriff Gene Archer estimated the shooting time based on a report from Moore's wife. She told police her husband had a telephone conversation with her at 10:45 p.m., and the shooting was reported to the sheriff's department at 10:57 p.m. Moore's body was discovered by a waitress from a nearby restaurant who was summoned by a customer who could not find the attendant to pay for fuel. The chief deputy explained that no eyewitnesses to the incident had been found, and he said noise from diesel engines and the small size of the weapon could account for a lack of report of gunfire. The sheriff's department recovered one slug from the base of Moore's skull, another from the floor near his body, and the third from a pack of gum in a candy rack located behind the counter in the station. Moore's body was discovered on the floor of the station behind the counter. In the subsequent investigation, Archer painted what he described as a speculative reconstruction of the murder. He said from the appearance of the wounds, the robber's first shot at Moore apparently deflected off the man's hand, which he had raised in defense, and glanced off his chin, landing in the gum. Archer then speculated that Moore collapsed on the floor, and his attacker shot him directly in the head and through his side into his rib cage. "It was a brutal murder," Archer said at that time. "We're going to investigate this to the best of our ability." The chief deputy said it was clear that the shooter's intent was not to leave any witness to the robbery. At the time, Archer said deputies spent between five and six hours at the service station after the shooting, combing the scene for evidence. However, he said the evidence had been sparse. "At this time, we have no good suspects," the sheriff's department spokesman said a day after the murder. "It's going to take a lot of work, but we're here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for any assistance anyone can give us. Every lead we get will be checked thoroughly." Four decades later In Moore's absence exists his family's desire for closure and justice. Moore's widow, Ann Williams, said she would never forget that night her husband was taken from them. She said it had been hard to go this long without any answers. "We don't know what to do anymore," she said. "Forty-three years is a long, long time to have to carry that memory with you and to have to live it every day. I can still in my mind see that whole situation every year. It's a memory that I'll never ever forget, and I'll never stop loving him." Williams said her son, Bryan Moore, has only known his father through photos and stories. "My son didn't even get a chance to know his dad at all," she said. "He goes by pictures and things that our family tells him. I feel so sorry for my son. He's a grown man now and never had anyone to call 'Dad' or have that fatherly figure. He needed his dad, and somebody robbed us of that 43 years ago. "We've never gotten peace, justice -- nothing. It's just not fair that someone is guilty of killing my husband, and we are still trying to find out who killed him 43 years later." Some leads have developed over the decades but have either led to dead ends or nowhere at all. Jeff Black attempted to solve the case when he was a detective but he's now retired. As reported in previous stories, Black was just a teenager when Moore was murdered. Around the time the shooting happened, he was working at the other Fina Station in Bonne Terre. He knew Moore and his family. "When I started in law enforcement, I always asked about it because I knew him," Black said while still working for the department. He mentioned detectives always gave him the same suspect's name. That suspect was a local man who was never charged in connection with the murder. During Black's time as a detective, he worked on the case from time to time. He has since retired. He said it is Sheriff Dan Bullock's policy never to close a murder investigation. Bullock has been the county's sheriff since first elected in 1993. Bullock said the department's detectives have continued to investigate unsolved murders that have occurred within the county, including Moore's. The sheriff has checked with his detectives to ask about any newer developments in the investigation as recently as this week but said there had not been any new clues uncovered in some time. He said he believed the department's last substantial lead was information Black had obtained in the mid-2000s. "That [lead] was in Arkansas," said Bullock. "They made several trips down there for more information, but it never worked out to be anything we could use." Black said at the time that the information he had gotten was the most promising they had received in a long time. But nothing came of it. He explained that he followed up on the lead, but it came "to an end -- not because the information was not good but because the suspect was not as cooperative as he could have been." When the trail went cold, Black said some of the former investigators still believed it was the local man who did it; however, he said the new information he had received seemed to fit much better than the old details. Bullock noted that the age of the case means potential witnesses or people who would possibly have information are getting older and passing on. He said it is getting to a point where all the officers who initially worked the case are retired or have passed on as well. Moore's widow said she hopes to get the case into the hands of a group dedicated to investigating cold cases. She mentioned sending the case to the A&E Network's true crime docuseries Cold Case Files but said the show needs the case files turned over from the sheriff's department. Bullock said he would work with a cold case investigation group as long as their motives were to solve the case and not just to put together a good show. "I would be happy to cooperate with a group if they came in interested," the sheriff said. "But we can't hardly justify, on a case this old, spending taxpayers' money paying them to come here and do that. "If they're out to make money, I'm probably not going to fool with them," he said. "If they're actually wanting to help solve the case, we'd be more than happy to work with them." The passage of the decades could have eroded Williams' steadfast determination, but it seemingly had the opposite effect. Moore's widow said she still holds hope for the truth to one day shine, and she would keep searching for answers for the rest of her days. "It's hard," she said. "I know God will take care of it one of these days if we don't ever find out who [did it], but we won't see that justice, and it's heartbreaking; it really is." "I relive it every year," said Williams. "Every year, it comes back. It's never going to stop until I take my last breath. And I'll never stop trying. I'll never stop looking." Anyone with any information regarding the murder of Bobby Gene Moore Jr. is urged to contact Lt. Det. Matt Wampler with the St. Francois County Sheriff's Department at 573-756-3252 or through Central Dispatch at 573-431-3131. JEFFERSON CITY A Republican-backed law requiring voters to present a photo ID at their polling places survived a court challenge with less than a month to go before Missourians head to the polls. In a 10-page decision issued Wednesday, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem dismissed a lawsuit challenging the new voting law. A separate lawsuit on other provisions of the measure is still pending. The new law, which was approved by the GOP-led Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Mike Parson earlier this year, has been touted by supporters as ensuring clean elections, even though there have been few examples of voter fraud. Beetem said the individuals and groups that filed the lawsuit could not prove the law had injured them in their right to vote in the Nov. 8 election. The court finds that Missouri voters do not have a legally protectable interest in avoiding the everyday burdens of getting an expired license renewed, Beetem wrote. Beetem said he was tossing the case because they seek relief on a hypothetical situation, and they lack a legally protectable interest in the case. The American Civil Liberties Union pledged to appeal, calling the decision a "procedural pitstop." "Voter ID restrictions disenfranchise Missourians, particularly people of color, people with disabilities, rural Missourians, voters with limited income, seniors and students. Similar attempts to create unnecessary and burdensome obstacles have been struck down multiple times by the courts over the past decade in a half," the group said in a statement Thursday. In the other lawsuit, the groups say four provisions within the new elections law violate the state constitution. The provisions targeted include a new rule banning paid solicitation of voter registration applications, a second requiring volunteers who attempt to sign up more than 10 voters to register with the state, a third saying volunteer solicitors must be Missouri voters, and a fourth provision blocking people from soliciting a voter into obtaining an absentee ballot application. The NAACP, for example, said the new rules will stifle voter registration and absentee voting activities heading into the midterm elections. The groups said the law is so vague that the ban on absentee ballot solicitation could be used to criminalize a volunteer who tells a voter that will be out of town on Election Day that they can vote absentee. The new law is the result of an election-year push by Republicans to enact stricter voting requirements as a way to ensure election integrity. It came against the backdrop of former President Donald Trump falsely alleging the 2020 election was stolen from him in key battleground states. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, deemed the 2020 election fair and secure. Missouri is among 18 states that have voter photo identification laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The law requires voters to show government-issued photo ID at the polls to cast a regular ballot. Voters without proper ID can cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted if they return with valid ID that same day or if their signature is verified by local election officials. The legislation is House Bill 1878. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Five weeks ago, the world watched in awe as Britain bid farewell to Elizabeth II and welcomed Charles III with impeccable pomp. Today, its watching aghast as the government shatters into smithereens and the British economy goes into convulsions. Oh dear, oh dear, the king was heard to mutter as he met Prime Minister Liz Truss for the first of their routine weekly meetings. The political situation is both depressing and surreal. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng flew back from a meeting of the worlds most powerful financiers to be sacked, after only 38 days in office. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has declared, unprompted, during a radio interview that changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but economically. Tory MPs from the Cabinet level down are engaged in a frenzy of plotting, as opinion polls show MPs with majorities of 20,000 losing to Labour. A Tory insider said that this is the worst crisis hed seen in his lifetime and then declared that only the showdown with Egypt over Suez in 1956 or even May 1940 during World War II could compare: a government trying to survive with its defining policy in tatters. At least in 1940 we had Churchill, the insider said. Advertisement Here is a sample of what MPs have been telling the newspapers in the past few days. The mood at a meeting of the 1922 Committee on Wednesday, where Truss tried to justify her policies to backbenchers, was funereal and unspeakably bleak. Expecting Truss and Kwarteng to fix the situation is a bit like asking the gas engineer who has just blown up your house to come back and have another go. I dont see how there is any way back for her. Her whole economic policy has come apart. We are all suffering from depression and anxiety. Were trying to work out what to do. Trusss decision to sacrifice her chancellor and tear up much of his mini-budget might buy a little time for her and restore some stability to the market. But it raises a further question: If Kwarteng can go, then why not Truss? The only point of Truss as a politician is that shes a radical reformer who wants to shock a sclerotic system into growth; take that away, and shes nothing more than an empty vessel, in office but not in power. Nobody calls in Truss if theyre looking for oratorical brilliance, human empathy, organizational skills or popularity. A new opinion poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies has her approval rating at minus 48, the lowest theyve ever recorded for a prime minister. Getting rid of a sitting prime minister only weeks after she has been appointed would obviously look absurd. Britain would make Italy look stable by comparison. Changing the pilot would also mean changing the selection rules because nobody has the appetite for another long drawn-out leadership contest involving Tory Party members. Tories are increasingly convinced that absurdity is better than oblivion, with several options being openly discussed in the bars and corridors of Westminster. Advertisement One suggestion is to replace Truss with a neutral grandee just as the party replaced the hapless Ian Duncan Smith with Michael Howard in 2003. Sajid Javid and Kit Malthouse are names that are often mentioned. Few outside the Conservative village have heard of Malthouse, and the public would be dumbfounded to find him suddenly foisted on them as a caretaker prime minister. A second is to replace Truss with Rishi Sunak, who beat her among MPs and was clearly right in warning party members that Trussonomics would lead to disaster. But this might be seen as a partisan move at a time when the party needs unity. The third option that is gaining momentum is to have a joint ticket between Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who, between them, got three-quarters of the votes of Tory MPs. Mordaunt, a popular figure among party members, has a talent for reaching blue-collar Tories who have been particularly alienated by Trusss enthusiasm for cutting taxes and shrinking the state. Advertisement The mood is so febrile that its quite impossible to predict what will happen. But three things are clear from the turmoil and trauma of the past week. The first is that the Conservative Party has to reform the way it selects leaders. A majority of MPs voted for Sunak, an experienced former chancellor who knew that Truss was playing with fire. Truss only got the job because she appealed to the Tory Partys 172,000 members who dont have either the numbers to confer democratic legitimacy on their decision or the knowledge to make an informed choice. The fashion for giving decision power to party members at a time when membership is becoming a hobby for fanatics and eccentrics doomed the Labour Party to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Now it has doomed the Conservatives to Truss in 2022. The choice of leaders should be limited to MPs. The second is that, whatever its impact on the British economy, Brexit has been a disaster for British politics. It robbed the Tories of talent as Remainers were frozen out of the party or left in disgust. This is at a time when the political system is hardly oversupplied with talented people. It encouraged a reckless and domineering attitude among Brexiteers. And it provided confused instructions to the party. Brexiteers were divided into two camps who were only united by their hatred of Brussels: traditionalists who wanted to return to the good old days by taking back control from foreign bureaucrats and global markets; and radical free marketeers who wanted to unleash the power of creative destruction. Advertisement Whatever his faults, Boris Johnson at least tried to reconcile these opposites. Even if Truss hadnt chosen creative destruction so artlessly that she alienated the markets, she would have antagonized a good chunk of her own party who thought Brexit meant something very different from her. The third is that the Labour Party is now a government-in-waiting rather than a struggling opposition. Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are inundated with offers for shrimp cocktails in the City. Middle-of-the-road voters are celebrating Starmers dull normality, with its promise of competence and stability. Its often said that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. But nobody in Labour high-command expected the Tory Partyan organization that had the reputation as the most ruthless political machine in the Western world to lose the next election, which must be declared within the next two years, in such a spectacular fashion. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Advertisement Were Witnessing the Hollowing Out of the Tory Party: Adrian Wooldridge Liz Truss Faces Four Traps of Her Own Making: Therese Raphael How the BOE Could Get Away With Ending the Pension Rescue: Marcus Ashworth 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 St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and Congresswoman Cori Bush will participate in a reparations block party and teach-in on October 15 with advocates and city residents to talk about what reparations could look like for Black St. Louisans (Wiley Price/St. Louis American). Reparations is often something people hear about in an international setting such as ongoing reparations that are paid to Holocaust survivors or reparations South Africa paid to apartheid victims. This weekend, elected officials including St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and Congresswoman Cori Bush will gather for a Reparations Block Party and Teach-in with advocates and city residents to talk about what reparations could look like for Black St. Louisans. Its really important to ground ourselves in a history that is specific to St. Louis that has led to a lot of structural divestment, which has a real impact on our reality, said Kayla Reed, executive director of the advocacy group Action St. Louis, one of the events organizers. On Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., they will gather at Central Baptist Church downtown to learn about the history of racial inequities in St. Louis. Organizers are hopeful the mayor will have news to share about a plan to create a reparations committee for the city. A spokesman for the mayor couldnt say if Jones would make an announcement in an interview with The Independent, but said that she looks forward to conversations on Saturday. In December, a coalition of over 25 local community organizations delivered a memo to the mayor asking her to map out a plan for reparations. Then in June, the coalition published the memo, again asking Jones to establish a reparations commission to explore the history of race-based harms in the city. Their request includes six months of deep engagement with community members to allow them to discuss past harms and envision the citys future. What needs to be built to raise the life expectancy of Black residents in North City? Reed said. What needs to be built to create equitable containers around housing development that actually creates investment in North City and other pockets? Residents living in some majority Black neighborhoods in St. Louis have a life expectancy thats 18 years lower than residents of majority white neighborhoods less than 10 miles away, according to a 2015 regional health study. Another study in 2018 found that for over a century, Black St. Louis residents experienced housing policies and development strategies that trapped generations in segregated and disinvested neighborhoods. The St. Louis Board of Aldermen passed legislation in April establishing two reparations funds to support African Americans who have been victims of the effects of slavery and provide economic development for disinvested neighborhoods. Jones supported and signed the bill, making her the first St. Louis mayor to publicly support a local reparations action. Other cities have already started to implement reparation strategies, said Blake Strode, executive director of the nonprofit law firm ArchCity Defenders. He pointed to Evanston, Illinois, where the city council committed $10 million in 2019 to fund local reparations for the harm done to Black residents from its past discriminatory practices in housing and economic development. The council found sufficient evidence that city zoning ordinances between 1919 and 1969 led to gaps in wealth and opportunity for Black residents. Now they are providing grants to impacted Black families up to $25,000 to purchase a home, home improvement or mortgage assistance. If you live in St. Louis, you have a stake in this, Strode said, and should have an interest in the important work of telling the truth, repairing harms, and fighting for justice for all St. Louis. A separate march and rally for reparations was coincidentally planned for Saturday by another group, The Uhuru Solidarity Movement, which is touring the country. It underscores the level of interest and passion around this in St. Louis, he said, because those were conceived differently and led by different groups of people. But it shows the solidarity around this work. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Discrimination against workers based on their age is illegal in many countries. Yet legal experts say that such unfair treatment, particularly of older workers, is widespread. Ageism is a growing concern for societies with advanced economies as their workforces grow increasingly old. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight 1. What is age discrimination? Age discrimination is when someone is disadvantaged or treated unfairly because of age. Both young and older people can face it. In the US, the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 applies only to those 40 and older, although some state laws cover the young. The ADEA protects job applicants and employees against discrimination in hiring, promotion, termination, compensation, and the terms, conditions or privileges of employment. The UKs 2010 Equality Act covers both discrimination that is direct, when an employee is treated differently from others because of age, and indirect, when work policies or procedures put an age group at a disadvantage. It also covers harassment -- humiliating, offending or degrading someone for their age -- and victimization -- treating someone badly for calling out age discrimination. Advertisement 2. How common is it? Polls suggest that age discrimination is very common in the workplace, and it appears to be especially prevalent in the technology and finance industries. In a survey conducted by the American Association of Retired Persons in 2018, 61% of workers 45 and older reported seeing or experiencing it. A study by the Urban Institute and ProPublica published that same year found that 56% of workers 50 or older were pushed out of longtime jobs before they chose to retire. Research suggests that discrimination against elderly job applicants is pervasive. When researchers have submitted to employers fictitious resumes designed to be as identical as possible except for age, older applicants received fewer callbacks than younger ones. 3. Are gender and race factors? Yes. In one study using fictitious resumes, researchers found that discrimination is more severe and starts much earlier for older women than for older men. In the AARP poll, disproportionately high percentages of women and Black workers (64% and 75% respectively) reported witnessing or experiencing age discrimination. In the UK, discrimination complaints involving menopause are increasing, with more older women ready to challenge companies that are failing to recognize their health needs. Advertisement 4. How common are lawsuits? There were just over 14,000 age discrimination claims filed in 2020 in UK employment tribunals, which judge legal disputes concerning labor law. Some included additional complaints, for example concerning disability. According to the Justice Ministry, the number was elevated by the pandemic, which led large numbers of older employees to leave the workforce sooner than expected, some of them involuntarily. In the US, roughly 13,000 complaints were filed in 2021 under the ADEA; these numbers dont capture cases filed under state laws. Legal experts say the number of complaints represents a sliver of the actual incidents. 5. Why are lawsuits relatively rare? For one thing, lawyers say, many cases are settled out of court, largely through severance payments made to older employees whove been dismissed. In other cases, employees may not know their rights or are intimidated from filing suits. Job applicants may not have evidence that they were rejected because of their age. Advertisement 6. Can age discrimination ever be legally justified? Yes. In the UK, age is different from gender and race in that the law allows employers to discriminate on the basis of it if they can show their action was justified, for example for reasons of health and safety or fitness. For example, UK-registered pilots are forced to retire from flying at age 65, even though mandatory retirement ages arent generally allowed. In the US, the ADEA provides a similar exemption to a ban on compulsory retirement, as well as an exception for certain employees in executive positions. 7. How difficult is it to win a case? Like any other discrimination case, ageism lawsuits can be challenging to win. At the England and Wales employment tribunals, the success rate of such cases in 2021 was around 2%, according to data compiled by the law firm GQ Littler. In the US, because of a 2009 Supreme Court ruling, its necessary to prove that age was the deciding factor in an employers action. Legislation introduced in Congress in 2021 would establish that its sufficient to show that age was one motivating factor, as is the case with race and sex discrimination suits. Advertisement 8. How much money could you be awarded in a case? Awards for unfair dismissal are usually capped in UK employment tribunals at just over 93,000 ($112,430). But if discrimination is proved, the cap doesnt apply and damages are unlimited. A Citigroup Inc. banker who was dismissed after being called old at the age of 55 won an age discrimination suit in 2020 and was awarded nearly 2.7 million, although Citi in July successfully appealed to have the case reconsidered. The largest ADEA resolution to date is a case filed against the California Public Employees Retirement System, Californias pension plan for state employees, by 1,700 disabled police officers, firefighters and other safety officers whose disability benefits were reduced based on their age when they were hired, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a government agency that enforces federal laws against workplace discrimination. The pension manager agreed to pay $250 million to resolve the case in 2003. 9. How are aging workforces relevant? Its been estimated that about a quarter of all workers in developed countries will be over 55 by 2030. To ensure vacancies are filled in the future, labor experts argue, employers will need to reduce bias against this group. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share What will we remember from the House hearings investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol? Certainly not partisan squabbling, because with just two Republicans opposed to Trump on the panel, there was none. Congress scholar Molly Reynolds thinks this will be the only congressional committee in history to have all of its recorded votes be unanimous. Nor did individual committee members or witnesses stand out, though there were exceptions. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney both exerted a powerful moral presence Thompson as a Black man from Mississippi who appreciated the importance of democracy from a legacy of its absence; Cheney as a forthright conservative whose every sentence stood as a rebuke to a party that has lost its way. Instead, the stars of these hearings were the people who obtained, compiled and edited video. And texts. And tweets. It was the tightly controlled presentations that will be the Jan. 6 committees lasting legacy. Advertisement Missing from these hearings were the stark confrontations that were central to, say, the Iran-Contra hearings in the late 1980s. That select committee heard live testimony from hostile witnesses, most memorably from former National Security Council staffer Oliver North. Similarly unscripted moments were the hallmark of the Watergate hearings, especially during the testimony of former White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and of John Mitchell, Richard Nixons ex-campaign chair and former attorney general. In contrast, the Jan. 6 hearings gave us a committee leaving nothing to chance. In addition to having a united committee, witnesses who might have been more friendly to Trump didnt show up and those who did shielded themselves (in taped depositions) with the Fifth Amendment. Another way the Jan. 6 hearings were different from their legendary predecessors: Former President Donald Trump was a dominant figure in these proceedings in a way that Richard Nixon never was during the Watergate sessions. Nixon wasnt entirely absent; perhaps the most famous episode of that effort was former White House Counsel John Deans testimony about exactly how Nixon had directed him to conduct the cover-up of the Watergate break-in and other crimes. Advertisement But it wasnt the same as watching video of Trump urging on the crowd in his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. Or hearing him exhort Georgia officials to find him enough votes to overturn the results in that state, a chilling clip that the committee replayed on Thursday. Or even reading Trumps tweet castigating Vice President Mike Pence while seeing video of rioters calling for Pences death. The committees use of video was especially deft on Thursday. To make the point that Trump knew that he was deliberately lying to his supporters (and the entire nation) about the election, the panel repeatedly interspersed tapes of White House officials and campaign aides explaining the facts to Trump with video of Trump subsequently saying the exact opposite in public. Even the comic relief from these hearings Senator Josh Hawley running from the mob he had saluted moments before, or White House lawyer Eric Herschmanns amusing tales of attempting to bat down Oval Office schemes were on tape, not live. There was nothing like the live testimony of Watergate bag man Anthony Ulasewicz or Oliver Norths lawyer Brendan Sullivan objecting that he wasnt a potted plant. Advertisement None of this could have happened had individual committee members insisted on using the platform for self-promotion. Senator Howard Baker of the Watergate committee memorably asked what the president knew and when he knew it; its hard to think of any lines from the live testimony of the Jan. 6 hearings taking the same place in the public lexicon. We dont yet know whether the presentations will change public perceptions or lead to concrete action against Trump. But I wouldnt ignore the importance of placing a down payment on history. A lot of journalists watched these hearings, and a lot more saw clips or read summaries. The basic story that Thompson, Cheney and their colleagues told will be absorbed by those who tuned in. Thats why the choices the committee made in emphasis and presentation matter. No one gets the last word when it comes to history, and there is still the real possibility of further indictments and trials, not to mention future books and perhaps new evidence. But sometimes the first telling of the story is the one that leaves its mark. Advertisement For weekend reading, here are some of the best recent items from political scientists: Natalie Jackson on why polls may be shifting to Republicans even if the underlying races arent changing. Dan Drezner on Russia and China. Norm Ornstein on what House Republicans might do with a majority. Elizabeth Meehan at the Monkey Cage on the Corporate Transparency Act. David A. Hopkins on leadership, Joe Biden and marijuana. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics. 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 race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker in Georgia may determine which party controls the US Senate. It will also show how much voters care these days about character. My guess: more than the cynics say. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Its certainly true that, as recently as 10 years ago, America would not have had a debate about whether a candidate for Senate could survive credible allegations of paying for a girlfriends abortion and then lying about it, or the disclosure of the existence of two previously unacknowledged children, or the candidates own admission of past domestic violence. His polling would have plummeted. His party would have concluded that he had no chance of winning and that continued support for him would bring it discredit. But the abortion accusation, which Walker denies, does not seem to have cost him many points in polls, even as he continues to advocate a ban on abortion. Politics, it seems, is too important these days for questions of character to matter, writes Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen. Donald Trump got elected president in 2016, after all, even after the Access Hollywood tape. Advertisement Voters are holding politicians to lower standards than they once did. Trump has contributed to the trend, as did Bill Clinton before him. One result is that politicians such as Representative Scott DesJarlais, a Republican from Tennessee, remain in office after a series of scandals that would have made the Borgias blush. Misconduct can, however, still bring politicians down. In 2017, the Republican candidate for Senate from Alabama, Roy Moore, lost in that deep-red state after accusations of sexual assault, including assaults of minors. Even in recent years, many officeholders, including members of Congress such as Representatives Katie Hill and Joe Barton, have decided not to face voters after scandals. Perhaps the abortion story isnt hurting him in the polls because voters had a low assessment of him beforehand. The same poll that found it had not changed his standing in the race showed him running five points behind Brian Kemp, the Republican governor who is seeking re-election in the state. Walker is running seven points behind Kemp among Republicans and eight points behind among independents. Most voters consider him dishonest. Advertisement Pundits and political strategists may have learned the wrong lesson from 2016. Trump was running against a very unpopular Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, one who had been a figure of controversy for decades. Walker does not have a similarly helpful circumstance: His opponent, Warnock, still has more voters who view him favorably than unfavorably. (Thats even though his ex-wife claims that he ran over her foot with a car.) It may also make a difference that Trump was running for president while Walker is running for Senate. You might think that a minimum level of probity is more important in presidents than in senators. Presidents have vastly more power and responsibility than senators. A senator can neither start a war nor end one; modern presidents can and do. But in a political era defined by negative partisanship in which people are more likely to hate the party they oppose than to love the one they support the logic flips. Letting the other side capture the presidency is a more devastating loss than letting it take one Senate seat precisely because the presidency matters more. If youre a voter who leans strongly toward one party or the other, the cost of insisting on a moral test for office is therefore highest when it comes to the White House. Advertisement My theory, that is, is that moral principles are a kind of luxury for voters, one they indulge more in lower-stakes races. If thats right, the perverse result is that voters have a higher standard for character for senators than for presidents. Unless theres a big Republican wave this year, it may still be too high for Herschel Walker. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Why Republicans Wound Up With Herschel Walker: Jonathan Bernstein The One Thing That Can Save Herschel Walker: Joshua Green Democrats Try to Persuade While Republicans Try to Mobilize: Julianna Goldman This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Ramesh Ponnuru is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 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 Ruminating out loud at a fundraiser the other day, US President Joe Biden expressed whats on many peoples minds: Were trying to figure out, what is Putins off-ramp? Where, where does he get off? Where does he find a way out? Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight This question about Russian President Vladimir Putin is echoing through halls of power across the Western alliance and indeed across the whole world. Even Beijing and New Delhi dont want the Kremlin to go nuclear in its war against Ukraine. After all, even a so-called limited first strike by Putin could, as Biden warned, spin out of control and escalate to Armageddon. The last time the world seriously contemplated this darkest of all scenarios was the Cuban Missile Crisis, exactly six decades ago. At that time, the leaders in Washington and Moscow did find an off-ramp, in the form of a secret deal that only came to light much later. This crisis, however, is different. For starters, Biden and Putin unlike John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev appear not to be talking. Advertisement The assumption that motivates the Western search for an off-ramp is that Putin can no longer de-escalate by himself by withdrawing from Ukraine or even conceding defeat because he would lose power and maybe his life. Therefore he needs the Wests help, a sort of trap door to another narrative in which he could declare victory to his Russian home audience and politically survive. Some experts, such as Timothy Snyder at Yale University, regard this Western obsession with supplying off-ramps for Putin as deeply perverse. Putin does not need our help in the real world to craft reassuring fictions for Russians. He has been doing this for 20 years without our help by controlling Russian media and creating a virtual reality in which he always has an escape route. Whenever things dont go his way, he just declares victory and changes the subject. And Russians pretend to believe him. The counter-argument is that Putin may have lost control over the virtual reality hes created. His army has been routed too embarrassingly on too many Ukrainian battlefields for his propaganda fictions to remain plausible. As a result, hes come under pressure not so much from Russian moderates or doves, but from even more radical hawks. Advertisement Cornered like a rat, at home more than abroad, Putin therefore appears to see no options other than escalation. He mobilizes hundreds of thousands. He recklessly annexes four additional Ukrainian regions, then spreads his nuclear umbrella over them. He bombs Ukrainian civilians. He steps up sabotage and hybrid warfare inside NATO countries. The path hes on, the fear goes, will eventually lead him to nukes, unless we give him that off-ramp. That reasoning however, highlights another difference between the Ukraine war and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, the only antagonists that mattered were the two major nuclear powers, and the off-ramp consisted of a secret concession by one to the other. In return for the Soviet withdrawal of nukes from Cuba, the US would also remove its warheads from Turkey. Today, by contrast, all conceivable off-ramps would involve things that are not Americas to give. The US-led West would have to offer Putin something hes been demanding in his many otherworldly rantings over the past year. Most obviously, that would be Crimea or other Ukrainian territories hes seized. Advertisement But only Kyiv can make such deals. And after its heroic resistance, and its string of battlefield victories, its understandably in no mood to do so. The West can hardly nudge Kyiv by restraining arms shipments, for example into a compromise that would amount to surrender. Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are not Bidens to trade. Any such off-ramp would amount to granting Putin actual victory and setting a disastrous precedent. By defending itself, Ukraine is also fighting for the principles of sovereignty, legitimacy, self-determination and democracy that are the foundation of the Western and international orders. If the West forfeits these principles, it rewards aggression, and specifically nuclear blackmail. Putin would start planning his next invasion, as would dictators elsewhere. By the same logic, the off-ramp Biden seeks cannot take the form of a pledge by NATO to shrink or limit itself. Putin wants the alliance to withdraw forces from countries that used to be in the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact. But it is precisely these allies especially Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland that feel most threatened by Putin. Theyre demanding more and stronger fortifications along their eastern front. For the same reasons, the Finns and Swedes want to join the alliance. Advertisement Any concession by NATO in this context would again amount to rewarding, rather than deterring, Putins aggression. Worse, it would cast doubt on NATOs premise Article 5 that an attack on one is an attack on all, and that the alliance will defend every square inch of its territory. Are there other off-ramps the West could provide? Its hard so see any. Dropping sanctions erected since Feb. 24 isnt going to impress Putin or his domestic target audience. Even a Finlandization of Ukraine wouldnt work the West would still need to arm the country in case Putin attacks again in two years, and Russians therefore wouldnt believe that Ukraine is actually neutral. The depressing conclusion is that we may have no off-ramp to offer. Neither Biden nor anybody in the West deserves the blame for that. Its instead a consequence of Putins many disastrous miscalculations. Hes been burning his ships, one by one, forgetting that hes no Hernan Cortez and the Ukrainians arent Aztecs. Advertisement Its always good to keep looking for off-ramps, in case we have overlooked any. But the reality is that we are back in the darkest scenarios of the Cold War, playing out game theory about prisoners dilemmas and chicken, and signaling threats of mutual assured destruction. MAD it is. That is Putins legacy. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Putin Is Already Attacking NATO, Just Not All At Once: Andreas Kluth An Unhinged Putin Is A Warning to China and Xi: Clara Ferreira Marques Putins Air-Terror Campaign Against Ukraine Is Already Failing: James Stavridis This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European politics. A former editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist, he is author of Hannibal and Me. 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 More than half the students in Baltimore County Public Schools, many of them socioeconomically disadvantaged, showed notably lower rates of achieving reading and math benchmarks than their peers in the district, and some student groups experienced disproportionate suspension rates, according to an equity report presented to the school board this week. The 2021-2022 Equity Metrics Report for Baltimore County schools found achievement gaps across elementary, middle and high schools for American Indian, Black/African American students, Hispanic/Latino students, students eligible for free and reduced-priced meal services, English-language learners and special education students. American Indian, Black/African American students and Hispanic/Latino students accounted for 54.4 percent of the countys students that school year, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education. Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of teachers and 77 percent of principals in the county school system were White. Advertisement After the school system was cited in 2018 by the state education department for disproportionately disciplining special education students and Black students, the school board established an equity committee to examine such issues and related achievement gaps. The committee, however, did not hold its first meeting until June 2020. The committees new report for 2021-2022, presented Tuesday, found that such disparities continue for those student groups, as well as for students on free and reduced lunch. Black elementary students had a suspension rate 1.9 percentage points higher than their peers. That gap increased to 10.8 and 6.9 percentage points in middle school and high school, respectively. Mary McComas, the school systems chief academic officer, said progress is being made across all levels but that we fully recognize that our work is not yet finished. Advertisement English learners had the highest gaps in achievement compared with other groups covered by the report. English learners rates of meeting baselines on standardized reading and math tests the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP tests were 24 to 35.6 percentage points lower than their elementary and middle school peers. In high school, the gap expanded to 46.5 percentage points for the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing exam. Across racial or ethnic groups, Black students have the highest achievement gaps save for kindergarten readiness. For the elementary MAP Math, Black students rate is 21.5 percentage points lower than their peers; the middle school MAP Math gap was 20.3 percentage points. Many of the gaps listed have narrowed somewhat since October 2020, but gaps mostly widened for Hispanic/Latino students. The gap for this ethnic group grew in the elementary MAP Math and Reading, middle school MAP Reading and the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing exam. Advertisement These findings confirm the existence of persistent, predictable patterns of unequal and inequitable educational outcomes, the report reads. When examining the included measures, student groups, schools, and school systems included, the identified gaps may vary in degree or severity, but they remain consistent across various contexts. That is, without exception, these inequitable student outcomes do not occur in isolation, but endure across time. The report also compared Baltimore County schools data with that of Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince Georges counties. The comparisons showed that Baltimore County had the second-highest four-year graduation rate for Black and Latino students, according to 2020-2021 data. Erin Hager, a Baltimore County school board member and vice chair of the equity committee, said at the meeting that she was grateful both to the school system and committee Chair Makeda Scott for making the metrics transparent, which will help guide decision-making. Fellow board member Moalie Jose declared that such data should be shared automatically each quarter. Advertisement Scott asked what the system is doing to address these inequities and increasing achievement gaps. Superintendent Darryl L. Williams said every school has a student support team and that interventions can be applied on a continuum. In terms of system, these are high-level data points, he said. We look at every school for the types of support they may need. How do we customize that support? ... Were looking at all 176 schools, then [prioritizing] what kind of supports may be needed. McComas, the chief academic officer, discussed various resources, including pupil personnel workers and school attendance teams. Doug Handy, who oversees the school systems department of equity and cultural proficiency, said interventions such as professional development will help educators. Its helpful that the system now has timely data, Williams said. But Kevin Connelly, executive director for the school systems department of research, accountability and assessment, said he has found similar data sets dating back to 2004. The need for continued progress is urgent, Handy said. Baltimore Sun GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share MIAMI A Florida-based oilman who pleaded guilty for taking part in a $1 billion conspiracy to pay bribes to Venezuelan officials received a major break in sentencing after providing standout cooperation to U.S. prosecutors investigating corruption at the countrys state-run oil monopoly. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Abraham Shiera was one of the first witnesses to come forward and cooperate with a sprawling, multi-district federal probe into PDVSA, as the oil giant is known, following his arrest in 2016. Judge Gray Miller on Thursday sentenced Shiera, who was born in Venezuela, to 12 months and a single day in prison well below the statutory maximum of 10 years he faced after pleading guilty to two criminal counts of corrupting a foreign official. The light sentence means hes unlikely to serve much if any time behind bars. Advertisement Shiera and his business partner, fellow Venezuelan oil magnate Roberto Rincon, were accused of paying bribes in exchange for lucrative contracts to build electricity generators for PDVSA at a time Venezuela was suffering widespread power outages. In exchange for rigging seemingly competitive bidding processes, the two paid bribes to several officials in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wire transfers to overseas bank accounts, a $14,502 hotel reservation at the ritzy Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami and, in one case, a bottle of whisky. Its unknown exactly whom Shiera testified against as part of his cooperation. Most records in the case even the governments memo seeking leniency filed this week have been sealed for years. But in the years since his arrest, numerous other Venezuelan insiders, including a deputy energy minister and multiple officials working for PDVSA and its affiliates, have been indicted on similar charges. Advertisement Judge Miller in going below even the governments recommendation of a 55% sentencing reduction recognized Shiera what prosecutors called Shieras platinum cooperation, according to a person in the courtroom who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proceedings. One of Shiera and Rincons bribe recipients referred to in a related indictment as Official B is Venezuelas former oil czar, Rafael Ramirez, a U.S. official told The Associated Press in 2018. Ramirez, who has not been criminally charged, has denied any wrongdoing and says that accusations of corruption are being promoted by his political opponents as well as overzealous U.S. prosecutors seeking to dismantle the Bolivarian revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez. While professing loyalty to the leftist ideals of his former boss, Ramirez is a staunch critic of Chavezs handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, and has been living in exile in Italy after quitting as the countrys ambassador to the United Nations in 2017. Mr. Shiera is happy to put this matter behind him, his attorney, Daniel Fetterman, a partner at Kasowitz Benson Torres, told the AP. Rincon is scheduled to be sentenced in December. Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share BEIRUT Lebanons President Michel Aoun said Thursday that the cash-strapped country has approved a U.S.-mediated maritime border deal with Israel. Lebanon and Israel both claim around 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea that are home to offshore gas fields. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The agreement to demarcate the maritime border comes after months of talks mediated by senior U.S. official Amos Hochstein, and would mark a major breakthrough in relations between the two countries, which have formally been at war since Israels creation in 1948. This indirect agreement responds to Lebanese demands and maintains all our rights, Aoun said in a televised speech. Aoun made the announcement hours after meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker Nabih Berri, who had received copies of Hochsteins latest iteration of the agreement earlier this week. Advertisement U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that both countries agreed to formally end their maritime border dispute, and that their leaders both told him they were ready to take next steps. Israels Cabinet on Wednesday voted in favor of the U.S.-brokered deal by a large majority of its ministers. The agreement will be forwarded to the Knesset, or parliament, for a two-week review period before a final Cabinet vote. Lebanon hopes that demarcating maritime borders will pave the way for gas exploration to help lift it out of its crippling economic crisis. I hope the end of these negotiations is the promising start to placing the cornerstone for the economic growth that Lebanon needs through extracting oil and gas, Aoun said. Which would add stability, security, and development that our nation Lebanon needs. Advertisement Israel meanwhile also hopes to exploit gas reserves and hopes the deal will reduce the risk of war with Lebanons Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. The agreement stipulates that the disputed waters would be divided along a line straddling the Qana natural gas field. Gas production would be based on the Lebanese side, but Israel would be compensated for gas extracted from its side of the line. Lebanon has been working with French energy giant Total on preparations for exploring the field. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share BRUSSELS The European Union is set to announce next week that its setting up a military training mission in Europe for thousands of Ukrainian troops and will provide around half a billion more euros (dollars) to help buy weapons for the war-torn country, diplomats and officials said Friday. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The aim is to train almost 15,000 Ukrainian troops in a number of EU countries, chiefly Poland and Germany, the officials said. It would range from standard military training to specialized instruction, based on Ukraines needs. The EU hopes to have it operational by mid-November. EU foreign ministers will endorse the plans at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. The officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details before the plans are officially announced. Several EU and NATO nations are already helping to train the Ukraine armed forces on a bilateral basis, but diplomats said that this would be more cost effective and efficient with a centralized command structure better able to address Ukraines needs when done as a collective effort. Advertisement NATO started training military instructors in Ukraine after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The military alliance believes that training the trainers is the most effective way of helping Ukraines armed forces as it does not require troops needed for battle to leave the country. At their meeting in Luxembourg, the ministers will also approve a sixth tranche of money, worth around 500 million euros (dollars), from European Peace Facility a fund being used to reimburse member countries that provide weapons, ammunition and non-lethal military support to Ukraine. It will bring to just around 3.1 billion euros the total EU sum in security support being made available for Ukraine. Individual countries are also spending more on top of that. The decisions are set to be announced almost eight months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized the 27-nation bloc for being too slow to come to the countrys aid. We had been discussing about the Ukrainian training mission before the war. Before the war. For months, for months before the war, Borrell, who will chair Mondays meeting, told a conference of EU ambassadors. Then the war comes and people said, Oh, we should have done it. GiftOutline Gift Article Officers were called to a dispute between two 29-year-old men and a 35-year-old woman in the western town of Ginsheim-Gustavsburg shortly after midnight. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. The trio acted in an extremely aggressive and uncooperative fashion, police said in a statement. Officers were only able to overpower one of the men by using massive physical force, it said. SKOPJE, North Macedonia North Macedonias state broadcaster MRT announced Friday that the country will not participate in next years Eurovision Song Contest in the English port city of Liverpool to save money on electricity bills. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. The decision is in the best interest of the public, given the increased costs due to the energy crisis, which take up a large part of the budget for public services, the broadcaster said in a message posted on its website. While University of Virginia students bombard Reddit, Twitter and Yik Yak and other social media with complaints about Grounds construction projects being seemingly every 10 feet, the University of Virginia has unveiled the big project behind one pile of dirt. After breaking ground last week, UVa will unveil a brand new hotel and conference center in the summer of 2025. The grassless hill on the Emmet Street/Ivy Road corridor is the site for a new hotel and conference center owned by UVa and operated by Pyramid Global Hospitality. The $130.5 million project will be constructed on the northern edge of the Emmet-Ivy entrance corridor to greet visitors at one of the central points of the university grounds. This will be a crossroads for the university, and the universitys front door, UVa President Ryan said during the groundbreaking ceremony last week, according to UVa Today. The hotel and conference center will play an important role as a place where people can gather and stay; prospective students and their parents, data scientists, faculty from the Law School can meet there with members of the Medical School faculty. This will be a bridge that makes the community stronger, bring worlds together in ways that are predictable and unpredictable. UVa Today reports that the space is being designed to host visiting scholars and lecturers, prospective faculty members and students, returning alumni, career recruiters and other visitors. With enough space to host a conference, meeting and gala all in one day, the hotel will include meeting and terrace spaces on the third floor. Outdoor dining and a ballroom are slated for the second floor and an event suite with a private terrace space on the top floor. Guests will have 214 rooms that boast views of the Rotunda and about 25,000 square feet of conference space from which to choose. Weve partnered with a number of design firms, contractors and consultants to ensure the hotel is well designed and built, said Colette Sheehy, UVa senior vice president for operations and state government relations. It creates a welcoming and inclusive place where the UVa community, local residents and visitors can gather and interact. With shovels in hand, Ryan, Sheehy, UVa COO J.J. Davis and UVa Foundation CEO Tim Rose broke ground last week along with representatives from Handbury Architects, the firm leading the project and its design, and Pyramid Global Hospitality officials. Pyramid Global also operates the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Perimeter at Villa Christina in Georgia as well as the Westin Grand Cayman Resort & Spa in the Cayman Islands. The UVa Board of Visitors approved the designs for the 223-square-foot hotel and conference center last year. Construction will begin on the southwest corner of the Emmet/Ivy parking garage across from Newcomb Hall. Maintaining the universitys sustainability goals and mission to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across grounds by 2030, the hotel and conference center will be certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an extension of the U.S. Green Building Council, UVA Today reports. The roof will be compatible with solar panels and storm water runoff from the building will flow to a retention pond near the Emmet/Ivy garage. To complement the signature design of UVa buildings, the hotel exterior will be crafted with red brick similar to the material used on the School of Data Science building located southeast of the new inn. The UVa Foundation will manage the latest addition to the university while Benchmark Hospitality, a subsidiary of Pyramid Advisors Unlimited, will operate the hotel. According to UVa Today, Benchmark plans to establish relationships with local high schools, community colleges and trade schools to offer job training for those looking to work in the hospitality industry. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share COLOGNE, Germany The Islamic call to prayer was sounded in public for the first time from one of Germanys biggest mosques on Friday, but at limited volume, as part of a project agreed with authorities in Cologne, which has one of the countrys largest Muslim communities. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight Authorities in Germanys fourth-biggest city last year cleared the way for mosques to apply for permission for the muezzin to call for a maximum five minutes between noon and 3 p.m. on Fridays, with a noise limit being set for each mosque according to its location. The call to prayer wasnt a first for Germany but did bring it to a particularly prominent mosque. The Central Mosque, a modern building with two tall minarets, is located on a busy road just west of downtown Cologne. Run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, or DITIB, it was inaugurated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018. Advertisement Until now, the call to prayer was heard only inside the building. Early Friday afternoon, it was broadcast through two loudspeakers, though authorities stipulated that it should be limited to 60 decibels for nearby residents. The call lasted less than five minutes and could be heard only immediately outside the mosque. On the other side of the road, around 20 protesters gathered with banners including one demanding No Muezzin Call in Cologne! Public space should be ideologically neutral They were joined by a group of women protesting against a crackdown on protests in Iran. DITIB said an agreement for a two-year trial of the call was reached with the city on Wednesday. This is an important step in the perception of Muslim religious communities as part of society, Abdurrahman Atasoy, a senior official with the group, said in a statement. Advertisement That Muslims have arrived and been accepted with their representative mosques as a visible part and with the call to prayer as an audible part of society is the core message of this long process, he said one that, he added, has taken Muslims out of unseen and unpleasant backyard mosques into the fold of society. Mayor Henriette Reker said last year that Muslims, many of them German-born, are a firmly established part of society in Cologne, a city whose main landmark is its imposing Catholic cathedral. If we also hear the call of the muezzin in our city alongside church bells, that shows that diversity is appreciated and lived in Cologne, she said. Still, the restrictions imposed on the project point to enduring sensitivities over Islams place in European society. And the construction of the Central Mosque itself drew opposition from right-wing groups, Colognes then-archbishop and others in the late 2000s. Advertisement DITIB has frequently drawn criticism in Germany, in part because of its links to the Turkish state. Susanne Schroeter, director of the Frankfurt Research Center on Global Islam think tank, told public broadcaster WDR she worries that the muezzin call at the Central Mosque could be viewed as a win on points by Islamist hardliners, and that this signal also goes to the Turkish president. ___ Geir Moulson reported from Berlin. GiftOutline Gift Article SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico A former student at the University of Puerto Rico has been sentenced to more than a year in federal prison after authorities accused him of breaking into womens Snapchat accounts and sharing their nude images with others. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share ANKARA, Turkey An explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 25 people, local officials announced, while rescuers working through the night were trying to bring dozens of others trapped to the surface. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The explosion occurred 6:45 p.m. at the state-owned TTK Amasra Muessese Mudurlugu mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin. Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said a preliminary assessment indicated the explosion was likely caused by firedamp a reference to flammable gases found in coal mines. There were 110 people in the mine at the time of the explosion, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who traveled to Amasra to coordinate the rescue operation, told reporters. Most of the workers were able to evacuate following the blast, but 49 were trapped in a higher risk area of the facility, the minister said. Advertisement Soylu would not provide a number for those still trapped, saying some among the 49 had been lifted to safety. We are faced with a picture that we truly regret, that we regret to have to share (with the public), Soylu said. The Bartin governors office said 25 were killed in the blast. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reported at least 17 injured, including eight who were being treated in intensive care units. Several rescue teams were dispatched to the area, including from neighboring provinces, Turkeys disaster management agency, AFAD, said. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was canceling a planned visit to the southeastern city of Diyarbakir and would travel to Amasra instead to coordinate the rescue operation. He said three prosecutors had been assigned to investigate the incident. Advertisement Our hope is that the loss of life does not increase further, that our miners are saved, Erdogan said in a statement. All our efforts are geared in that direction. The private DHA news agency quoted one worker as telling Bartin Gov. Nurtac Arslan that he came out of the mine by his own means. He described feeling a pressure but said he could not see anything due to the dust and dirt. People rushed to the mine for news of trapped friends or colleagues, DHA reported. In Turkeys worst mine disaster, a total of 301 people died in 2014 in a fire inside a coal mine in the town of Soma, in western Turkey. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share TUNIS, Tunisia Tunisian authorities have recovered the bodies of 15 migrants who died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, the coast guard said Friday. A coast guard statement said the bodies were found Wednesday and Thursday on beaches near the town of Mahdia, 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of the capital, Tunis. It said most appeared to be Tunisians, and others were from sub-Saharan Africa. Because of its proximity to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, Mahdia is frequently a starting point for migrants from the Middle East and Africa trying to escape poverty, conflict and persecution. In a separate incident Monday, the coast guard recovered the bodies of eight migrants off Tunisias southern port town of Zarzis, near the Libyan border. The Tunisian Red Crescent said they were part of a group of 18 young Tunisians, mostly aged 16-18, from the Zarzis region who had sailed for Europe on Sept. 26 in a makeshift boat. Advertisement Rescuers were still seeking other survivors Friday. Residents of Zarzis accuse authorities of moving slowly to start the search and rescue operation, and staged a protest this week shouting: Bring our children back to us. Demonstrators burnt tires and blocked traffic on the citys main road. Faced with bleak economic prospects and a protracted political crisis, Tunisians are increasingly risking their lives in search of a better life in Europe. The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, an NGO that closely monitors migration, says 507 Tunisian migrants have died or gone missing so far in 2022 in the Mediterranean. According to National Guard spokesman Houssameddine Jebabli, the coast guard thwarted more than 1,500 attempts at illegal migration to Italy from January to September 2022, involving entire families including nearly 2,500 children. Last weekend alone, nearly 200 migrants, including eight children, were intercepted at sea, the defense ministry said. - Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration GiftOutline Gift Article This is our fourth this month, the funeral home director quietly said to me. It was only Jan. 13; I was in Colorado for the funeral of a service member who had committed suicide. The tiny funeral home was seeing more than one suicide a week by people who took an oath to serve the nation. Today, active duty and veteran service member suicides are at an all-time high. Post-traumatic stress disorder is common in the military, and is correlated with suicide. The Department of Veteran Affairs estimates 6% of adults suffer from PTSD at some point, whether or not they serve in the military. The military has struggled to find solutions, despite acknowledgement of the PTSD issue. There is promise for PTSD treatments, however. The treatment involves psychedelics such as psilocybin. Psilocybin is the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms. Research suggests psilocybin is an effective therapy for depression. In fact, in 2018 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated psilocybin as a breakthrough treatment for treatment-resistant depression. Other research has shown promise for psilocybin to treat alcohol and tobacco addiction. Psilocybin itself is not addictive. Studies that show psilocybin therapy effectiveness employs one to three doses. The positive impact from a single high dose can last for months or even years. One Johns Hopkins University study showed 12 of 15 heavy tobacco users abstained from tobacco use for six months after two or three doses of psilocybin. This is a far better rate than that of other tobacco cessation programs. Linn County and Lebanon are pro-veteran and support service members. Roughly 10,000 Linn County residents are veterans. If estimates for PTSD rates are correct, then around 600 veterans in Linn may have PTSD. Those 600 veterans might benefit from psilocybin therapy as well as the 17,000-plus Linn County adults who smoke tobacco and the 8,700 who have a serious health issue caused by tobacco consumption. Last year Oregon legalized psilocybin therapy. This brings hope to people of Oregon who suffer from mental health issues or addiction. However, the Linn County Commissioners and the Lebanon City Council proposed a two-year moratorium on psilocybin-related activities. Their proposed moratorium is on this Novembers ballot. Linn County and Lebanon City Council two-year bans on psilocybin treatments are reminiscent of COVID-19 vaccine mandates from other parts of government. In both cases, government officials seek control over what you do to your body. With Lebanon and Linn Countys psilocybin moratorium, government officials say you cannot put something in your body, regardless of your specific need. There is no choice for the individual, or consideration of their specific health circumstances. Fortunately, the psilocybin moratorium is on the ballot and you can vote no. Your no vote demonstrates you respect individual liberty especially when it comes to health care. Your no vote says, Nobody should be prevented from accessing safe and promising mental health and addiction treatments. Your no vote demonstrates Linn County and Lebanon residents support veterans or other service members when military suicides are at an all-time high. If you are uninterested or dont need psilocybin therapy, then you can abstain. Oregons legalization of psilocybin just gives Oregonians the option to try. Magic mushrooms themselves do not cause addiction seen with drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. As a result, there is no public safety threat. Veterans and other residents who suffer from mental health or addiction issues deserve a choice, just as everyone does when it comes to their health. This fall, when you are voting, make sure to vote no on the Linn County Commissioners and Lebanon City Councils two-year psilocybin moratorium. Elon Musk is under a federal investigation related to his $US44 billion ($70 billion) takeover deal for Twitter, the social media company said in a court filing made public on Thursday. While the filing said he was under investigations, it did not say what the exact focus of the probes were and which federal authorities are conducting them. Elon Musk has until the end of the month to close the Twitter deal. Credit:Bloomberg Twitter, which sued Musk in July to force him to close the deal, said attorneys for the Tesla Inc CEO had claimed investigative privilege when refusing to hand over documents it had sought. In late September, Musks attorneys provided a privilege log identifying documents to be withheld from discovery. The log referenced drafts of a May 13 email to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission, Twitter said. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Here is a short list of things a journalist does not expect an author, of some fame, to say at the beginning of a phone interview: Im so glad you called. I have been looking forward to this all day. Or, at any point during that interview, if the author is Booker Prize-level famous: You know, Im so nervous about the next book. Im just kind of a bumbler. I never really have been able to figure out the right path. Im sorry Im talking so much, but one more thing Advertisement Or, ever, if you are a journalist who is also a novelist, and has an absolute intention not to raise that fact with a literary voice of a generation, even if they have been some source of inspiration: Let me tell you something. I read your book. Here is what will happen if George Saunders does say that, and he was actually all of your inspiration. If, in fact, George Saunders is the only reason your last novel exists and that youre still a writer. You will say oh, but listening back later, you will hear how the word came out as a strangulated little yelp as though you had just slammed your finger in a drawer and were trying to pretend to a witness that the pain was not shocking. Should he add, and I thought it was [here he gives you the greatest compliment of your life, which can never be repeated, by you, to anyone, for how sickly self-aggrandising that would be, also you will sound like a fantasist], well then, after the briefest pause, just long enough to remember and dismiss your beforehand commitment not to say anything, out of you will pour a torrent of words. Author George Saunders won the Booker in 2017 for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Credit:Janie Barrett Maybe not the whole story, of how you wrote a manuscript, it took a year, it was terrible, you deleted it, you were devastated, you quit fiction forever, even though fiction had been your singular, lifelong ambition but then, one day, you read a thing George Saunders said about writing, you went looking for more such things and copied them out, and when you dragged your miserable carcass back to your tiny backyard writing shed to try again, you started sticking them up where you could see them until the walls were eventually shingled with scraps of paper, advice that might not make sense to a less-desperate person Lets continue, What were doing in writing is not all that different from what weve been doing all our lives, i.e. using our personalities as a way of coping with life, Bob is an asshole, - but if ink faded every time it was read, it would have disappeared by the end of that year, when you finished your book. Whether it is anything close to [the thing he said], it saved you as a writer. So, definitely, you will tell George Saunders some of that. Advertisement And goodness, he will be kind about it. He was so kind about it, my breathless monologue, even though he was in the middle of packing the house in upstate New York that he and his wife, writer Paula Saunders, have lived in for 15 years, with the shed in which he has always written. And I thought, I can do it by myself, but its just unbelievable, the most epic thing Ive ever attempted. Its like youre walking into a snow globe of all the selves you ever were. Ill find some old letters and suddenly, theres one from 1978 and one from 2015, and there are pictures, and its really... its pretty moving and a little exhausting. And he has two weeks to finish. But separately, hes in no rush to get back to it. As a critic elsewhere noted of Saunders ... part of his greatness is that reading him feels very much like being spoken to kindly. I know I should not have been surprised, I was just too paralysed by surprise to remember that besides his literary reputation - greatest prose stylist of our time, modern master of the short story, et cetera - Saunders has a reputation for kindness, eliciting a kind of personal affection from readers, and writers-about-him, that authors of equal eminence, his fellow Booker winners, do not. Author Meg Mason. Credit:Grant Sparkes-Carroll That is, Im not sure Ian McEwan has ever been described as everyones favourite literary uncle in a profile for the prestigious Lit Hub. Perhaps Julian Barnes is also a hugger, but no journalist has led with that fact in a major Times interview a hugger who arrives early and makes you feel as if he is in some deep and inviolable way, yours. In another few paragraphs, the journalist is crying, over a line of Saunders prose. Probably because, as a critic elsewhere noted of Saunders, and might not of Jonathan Franzen, part of his greatness is that reading him feels very much like being spoken to kindly. Advertisement Loading In real life, Saunders, who is 63, the father of two adult daughters, both writers, speaks like a dad. But also, charmingly, like a teenage girl, conveying whole worlds of empathy and thoughtfulness and uncertainty, likes and you knows. To the question, has he noticed and wondered about the affection thing? Oh yeah, I mean, I love that and I dont really quite understand it. The only thing is, Im thinking it has to do with well, ok, so, I was going to say good manners? What I mean is, if somebody writes me an email, Im going to write them back. What he doesnt mean is that the readers perception is entirely correct. Its just that if the perception already exists, you cant go around not writing back to people. You have to, he says, try and live up to that guy. I can be pretty grumpy, Im just normal. But, I think ok, I have an effect on people who know a certain rarefaction of the person that comes through writing? And you could say, Oh its false, or you could say, Well, its partly true and let me do the best I can with that. If somebody can find you lovely, then that gives you something to shoot for, for sure. George Saunders books include the Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo, new story collection Liberation Day and non-fiction collection A Swim in the Pond with Rain. Saunders oeuvre includes five short story collections, the Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the exquisite novella Fox8; endless award-winning journalism; and the recent non-fiction collection A Swim in the Pond with Rain, based on his two decades teaching creative writing at Syracuse University in New York State. Advertisement Yet, still, as an author? He thinks, Youre also there to be on the same level as somebody. You know, like somebody comes up to me... And lets imagine they do, very often, for advice - because as well as being a vastly technical study of Russian short stories, A Swim in the Pond is an incredibly encouraging guide to writing that sold like the clappers - and it could be draining, another writer as successful might decline to engage with the unpublished but, to Saunders, its like, that thing they used to say in Catholic school, if Jesus appeared to you in the form of an old man, would you be happy with the way you behaved? I think thats something I really believe. I dont know. The only thing I can say is Im always worried about letting people down. When I was younger if anybody didnt like my work, it killed me! And then you get older and youre like, oh! Most people dont like me! George Saunders Raised Catholic, Saunders became a Buddhist in his 30s and maybe some of his intent to be present, to notice and be generous, comes from that practise. But since he once said, my understanding of Buddhism is that you should just shut up about it, its hard to conclude. Either way, those qualities are evident in the portrayal of his own characters. The men and women who populate his stories are not, generally speaking, lifes winners. They are ordinary, exhausted, not-very-good parents with sad cars and big, unmet dreams. You wonder if they are some of the people that Saunders, who grew up in working-class Chicago, met before he became a writer late, unpublished until he was 38 when he was a roofer, convenience store worker, a knuckle-puller at an abattoir, eventually a tech writer for an engineering company, where he started experimenting with fiction on company time. Saunders after winning the 2017 Man Booker Prize and, right, Mason at the 2022 Womens Prize For Fiction ceremony in London. Credit:AP They are definitely Brenda, a low-level office worker with a debt problem, two deadbeat adult children, and a situation with her manager, in A Thing at Work, from his new story collection Liberation Day. As often, the story is told in and out of a characters voice, which per his gift, Saunders captures precisely, but does not unkindly imitate. Brenda thinking, Probably shouldnt have said that thing about stealing coffee. Because now Gen might think I actually have done that. Which, in fact, she had been doing that If the story is funny it is, they all are - Saunders doesnt make a joke of Brenda of the bouncing cheques, either. Even in telling you, others do: Like when Greggie, her son, called her stubby little arms her T.rex arms. He didnt mean it. It was his way of saying he loved her. In all this, I would hate to give you the impression that I understand short stories and how they operate, that I absolutely get how someone could be fanatical about Tolstoy, the way Saunders is, and that nothing brings me more personal joy than a bit of Gogol. Russian short stories are too hard for me. So are non-Russian ones. Its like, I dont even understand the goal of short stories generally I tell the modern master of them. Who says, Well. One is to break your heart. One is to convey the essence of life. Also, to be a really efficient little machine. But, its a difficult form. I dont think anyone should feel bad, you know. If you cant read a Russian short story, then theyre just not for you. No problem. It might just be a place where my neuroses has found a perfect home, in artistic form. Like, make it efficient motherf---! Advertisement While driving between appointments, my husband and I alternated between crying and debating the feticide. Given Tobys prognosis, my husband felt it would be unfair to bring him into the world. Logically I agreed, but I was horrified. My body was a safe place for my baby; to allow a stranger to penetrate my womb and kill him by poisonous injection was a betrayal of him. I hugged my belly, wishing I could hug my son. Meanwhile, the media was full of abortion news, most specifically the overturning of Roe v Wade, the famed 1973 US Supreme Court decision that had allowed legal abortions in that country. American women were being denied a choice I wished I didnt have to make. The foetal medicine specialists were concerned about my impending due date. Feticide could occur legally at any point before I went into labour but, once I did, Toby would have to be born. Once he was here, theyd be obligated to do everything they could to keep him alive regardless of his levels of pain, or of the horrendous way in which he might die, or of the profound disabilities hed certainly live with. The clock ticked as I wrestled with the decision. The day I hit 37 weeks, I woke up wishing I could run away; Id never felt so trapped. My pregnancy was now full-term; Toby could be with us within days. I was running out of time. It was becoming clear that I had no real choice: I had to let him go. No matter how desperate I was to keep him, I was Tobys mummy and, ultimately, my needs had to come second. I knew motherhood required sacrifice, but I could never have imagined it would require this of me. Feticide is a terrifying word, but I came to realise it can be an act of maternal love. Peaceful death was the only gift I could give my son. Abortion is legal in all states and territories in Australia but after a certain gestational point, which differs from state to state, all except the ACT require approval from at least two doctors, usually only given for foetal or maternal health reasons. Performing a feticide on a full-term pregnancy in NSW, where I live, also requires sign-off from the director of the hospital in which it is performed. All this was granted to us. Driving to hospital, I felt the cruellest echo of the previous time we had done this, so excited for the birth of our daughter. There was no excitement this time, just fear of what was to come. Loading We were taken into a darkened room filled with six masked and robed medical staff. I lay on the bed and a curtain was drawn between my head and the rest of my body. Cold liquid was poured over my stomach, and ultrasound was used to guide the needles. I had naively thought only one needle would be needed, but the procedure took an hour and involved multiple needles, so painful they made me gasp and cling to my husbands hand. At one point I started to cry, and was told that I needed to stop. To not cry, to not move, to not even breathe deeply. Its hard to breathe normally when youre in pain, and its hard not to cry while your baby dies. We had to pause halfway through as I became so nauseous I had to roll onto my side, clutching a vomit bag. I frequently thought I was going to pass out. On the other side of the curtain I could hear the doctors referring to Toby as the baby. The procedure may be called feticide but, at 37 weeks and five days, everyone understood what Toby was. The medical team were also devastated. A noticeably emotional nurse gave me sips of water and mopped my head with a damp cloth. When we were finally finished, I sat up and felt Toby give three big kicks before going still. I never felt him move again. That night, I felt like a tomb. The next day, I delivered, via C-section due to Tobys head being swollen and oversized. I could see love on my husbands face the minute he saw him. An absolutely beautiful baby boy, he said. I always knew he would be, I replied. We kept Toby in our hospital room for the next two nights. My mum, mother-in-law and daughter all came to visit. Our daughter rocked Toby in his little cot. The day we left the hospital, I clung to my son as I placed him into the cot on which hed be wheeled to the morgue. Im sorry, Im just having a bit of a difficult time letting go, I told the midwife between hysterical sobs. I held my arms the way Id held my daughter as a newborn, imagining Toby in them instead of empty air. The first few nights back home were the worst. When our daughter woke, my husband went to sleep with her. I lay awake, alone, and cried. My postpartum body ached for Tobys; it felt like Id severed a limb. The thought of him in the morgue was unbearable. My breast milk leaked and, in desperation, I held my arms the way Id held my daughter as a newborn, imagining Toby in them instead of empty air. I felt phantom kicks, which for a second made me forget everything and think Toby was alive and healthy in my belly. In selfish moments, I wished Id made a different decision. Toby died because he had a stroke, but thats not what killed him. I killed him. I had to do it to save him from suffering but I will spend the rest of my life mourning him and the person he would have been. The absence of Toby is infinite. Each day brings new loss. Each day, I have to fight to not let it consume me. Loading When my daughter passes another milestone, Im reminded I will never see Toby do the same. Every family photo from now on will be incomplete. Every Christmas morning will be tinged with sadness. At every table there will be an empty place. I chose this life of continual pain to spare my son. Feticide allowed me to take the pain from him when nothing else could have done so. It was my gift to our son. Our Toby. Warning: This story contains graphic content Bruce Lehrmann described the evening he spent drinking with colleagues on March 22, 2019 as an innocuous night when giving police his account of events in the hours before he is accused of raping his fellow political staffer Brittany Higgins in Parliament House. In a recorded police interview played to the jury in the second week of his sexual assault trial, Lehrmann said he never went into Linda Reynolds office the night Higgins alleges she woke to him having sex with her on the senators couch. Bruce Lehrmann arriving at court on Friday morning. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Lehrmann told police in the interview in April 2021 it was possible he could have acted intimately with Higgins during a night out with colleagues, but denied raping her in the early hours of the next morning in Reynolds office, and said, I wouldnt dream about going into the ministers office at all. Asked whether he behaved intimately with Higgins, he said, I know we were close, but I just cant remember. He agreed it was possible but said his behaviour wouldnt have gone beyond flirtatious. He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. Read the full story here. Beijing: Beijing authorities removed rare banners of political protest from an overpass in the Chinese capital, according to images circulated widely on social media, just days before the start of a twice-in-a-decade Communist Party congress. The banners bore several slogans, including a call for President Xi Jinpings removal and an end to strict COVID-19 policies, according to numerous images and videos circulated on Twitter, which is blocked in China. Image of the protest in Beijing that was shared on social media. Credit:Twitter Smoke could be seen emanating from the roadway above where the banners were hung in Beijings northwestern Haidian district on Thursday, according to the images. Haidian is home to several prestigious universities. The incident comes at a very sensitive time in the Chinese capital, with authorities on high alert in the run-up to the 20th congress of the ruling Communist Party, where Xi is expected to secure a third leadership term. It's kind of like a rematch, but with a third challenger. Roen Hogg first faced then-upstart Charles Maughan in 2016, where the former squeaked by the latter with a 230-vote separation in a bid to represent Ward 2. Now they meet again, this time vying for the mayoral seat. To be successful, Hogg will also have to best Vice President Andrew Struthers of Ward 9. Hogg is retired and formerly worked in systems, software and project management roles at Oregon State University, HP Inc. and for the state of Oregon. He was elected in 2010 and lost a mayoral race in 2018. Hes lived in Corvallis for 29 years and earned a science masters degree from Montana State University. While on council, Hogg worked with OSU on neighborhood issues in his ward. He said the colleges expanding population drove concerns about livability and housing affordability. He also noted his work with community members to help people experiencing homelessness. I believe theres strong support in our community to help others with programs that have a proven track record of being successful, Hogg said. We should be looking at what other cities are doing and seeing what works. Inspired by former State Rep. and Benton County Commissioner Barbara Ross, Hogg said her advocacy for a housing-first approach to homelessness, based on data from other programs, mirrors how he would work the problem, making feedback-driven, evidence-based decisions. Hoping to improve access to elected officials, Hogg plans for a Walk with the mayor initiative, under which he would stroll different areas of the city with constituents in sort of a regularly scheduled mobile listening session. People take a very active interest in the politics of the city and in the decision making, he said. Land use changes, such as the climate-friendly development mandates coming from the state, are a top issue for Hogg. He fears residents arent being informed and less public input is being sought. He also feels the lack of council advisory groups is slowing progress making information gathering harder. Adair Villages city manager would love to be able to walk out the door of City Hall and across the road to get lunch. Thats the possibility he sees in the grass fields, chain-link fences and former military buildings where two generations of city residents have met, planned and dreamed of a real downtown Adair Village. Holy City Administrator Pat Hare said, stopping himself, the work theyve put in on this over the years is incredible. The city and its county oversight signed off Tuesday, Oct. 13, on a proposed expansion of the citys urban growth boundary. Adair Village now awaits approval from Benton Countys executive board to bring two properties, about 50 acres combined, within the chunk of land Oregon says the city may eventually annex. It probably will, Hare said, likely giving Adair Village the fastest growth rate of any Benton County city in the next two decades. City leadership wants to make sure theres room to grow. Big, then small, then? Adair Village was once the second largest city in Oregon. At the height of U.S. involvement in World War II, the nation expropriated land for training soldiers to use the strategies, vehicles and weapons in its military doctrine of the day. That doctrine was big. Historians and archaeologists estimate the U.S. displaced some 6,000 people and 10 cemeteries from its training grounds between Corvallis and Monmouth. At its peak, a force of 40,000, mostly U.S. Army personnel and the civilians that go along with running a makeshift town, called a cluster of temporary buildings home. The barracks, hospital, artillery and other training ranges sprawled across a 56,000-acre reservation, Camp Adair. The U.S. Air Force built a base in the 1950s in what is now Adair Village the ranch-style duplexes at the citys heart were base housing during the Cold War era, when personnel were assigned to detect and, if needed, defend against a nuclear attack. But then the military pulled out and left behind roads, curious buildings and houses, and parceled its holdings out. The city got some. The county got some. The state got some, Hare said. Charlene King, the citys first mayor, oversaw the portion that homeowners pushed to incorporate in 1976. The King of Adair Village Hare said Kings Adair Village made one of its first priorities establishing a dog catcher. There were dogs everywhere is what I heard, Hare said. The next task for King, he said, was trying to figure out how to bring a downtown to town. Efforts in the 90s and early 2000s netted a city strategic plan and a call for a mixed-use section of the city where businesses could develop next to a museum. Thats been this kind of dream, to have a sense of community, Hare said. Adair Village has long held one of Benton Countys fastest growth rates. Housing is cheaper there, commanding less cash than nearby cities. People who sleep in Adair Village work in Albany, Corvallis, Monmouth and Salem, he said. But cities have to have people to support businesses, Hare said, and houses to support people. Hare said he doesnt know what the citys critical mass is for population, but he knows Adair Village hasnt reached it, especially when attempts to increase housing stalled in the 2000s. Our store closed three times, he said. Our coffee shop went through five owners because there werent enough people to support it. Curiously, the citys three businesses the third is a restaurant are in two city-owned buildings. Adair Villages population was still in the three digits in 2019, counted at 900. The Population Research Center at Portland State concluded the city didnt create enough housing to meet the demand of would-be buyers, and the population plateaued in the mid-800s for nearly a decade. Hare said the city came close to expanding in 2008 when developers wanted to build housing that would overtax outdated water treatment infrastructure left over from Air Force housing. The city wasnt ready for it, Hare said. The developer would have left Adair Village in a really bad way. The city began an upgrade to its infrastructure starting with a wastewater treatment plant, then estimated to cost $9 million. And the housing followed. Calloway Creek saw 178 houses built on the south end of the city with plans for 29 more. The development filled most houses with buyers before they were constructed. On utility bills alone, Hare said the new houses are worth $20,000 each month and boosted the citys annual budget by about one-quarter. To a $300,000 budget, thats a pretty big deal, Hare said. Boom days The research center at Portland State now estimates the citys population will nearly double in the next 23 years, to 2,649. The current population is 1,416, and the city is looking for somewhere to put the next 1,500 forecasted to move in. The properties included in its proposed boundary expansion would add to the northeast and southeast portions of the city. Adair Village has a unique blend of nearby features, like an archery range, a large county park, and some industrial land that may need to undergo environmental cleanup as a brownfield site. To the north is the E.E. Wilson wildlife refuge, established on the remains of Camp Adair. Protected forests and a fast-moving highway lie to the west. That leaves the farmland south of the city. Were not crossing 99. Were not heading into E.E. Wilson. The place for us to head is south, Hare said. Farmland is jealously protected in Oregons urban density rules, established nearly a half-century ago by the administration of Republican Gov. Tom McCall. But the forecasted need for housing now outweighs the states impetus to drive density inside the existing city limits. The states requirements work like this: A citys decade-long growth is forecasted by Portland State. The state Land Conservation and Development department requires housing suitable for low-income and high-income renters or owners, and everyone between to meet the forecasted needs. Developers typically gravitate to more profitable larger houses, so cities have to incentivize townhouses, duplexes, cottage clusters and other buildings to ensure a mix of housing. A city has to have enough land to site its potential mix of housing for its forecasted population. What to do about traffic? Feedback late in the process appeared to center mostly on the flow of vehicles between Highway 99 and the anticipated housing. The city should consider serious and fatal crashes now, rather than waiting for proposed developments to trigger traffic studies, city resident John Steeves said in a letter filed with the county. Steeves, a former emergency dispatcher, called 99 in his letter the monster on the west edge of town. He also questioned why Adair Village is pushing for building out, rather than packing in more homes. If you want walkability, youve got to have increased housing density, Steeves wrote. Sprawl will only lead to more vehicle traffic. Hare said the citys assigned density rate will encourage housing like Calloway adding to Adair Villages revenue while offering less expensive options than Corvallis. Housing will lead to a need for services, he said. Services will need business space to grow. Im excited to see what people would want to bring out here. Will it be a knick-knack store? I picture people sitting outside at tables and sidewalks with awnings, Hare said. Intermountain contributes to WSU medical programs, students October 13, 2022 OGDEN, Utah Intermountain Healthcare is providing vital funding to Weber State University to help increase the number of students accepted into its current programs and build the foundation for future programs. The funding of more than $1 million will help support Weber States new physician assistant program, the Diversity in Healthcare scholarship program, and the Office of Community Development Ogden Civic Action Network, better known as OgdenCAN. Weber State will launch its physician assistant program next year, pending receiving approval from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant. The program will train 20 future physician assistants per session, and the first cohort of students will begin their studies in January 2023. Weber State University has been a stalwart for education, improving the community and helping to provide the next generation of healthcare providers. We are proud to assist them in their work, said Judy Williamson, registered nurse and administrator of Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital. The physician assistant program will add its second cohort of students in 2024 with an annual enrollment of 40 students. Intermountains contribution will help build the program, which will be located in Weber States Ezekiel R. Dumke Jr. & Katherine W. Dumke Center for Interprofessional Education in Healthcare building. Weber State and Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital have a long tradition of training the next generation of healthcare providers, including the hospitals recent donation of ultrasound, cardiac sonography and EKG equipment to the university. In addition, Intermountain has funded Diversity in Healthcare scholarships at Weber State. Weber State truly benefits from having such a strong partnership with Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital, said Yasmen Simonian, dean of the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke College of Health Professions at WSU. Theyve helped us secure the best equipment and space, which allows us to provide hands-on education to our students so theyre confident and ready to join the healthcare workforce when they graduate. Simonian said that in addition to funding and support, Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital has also provided expert representatives to serve on advisory boards in each area of the college to assist with future healthcare needs. Intermountain also supports OgdenCAN in advancing community development work in Ogdens East-Central neighborhood. To learn more about the Intermountain Diversity in Healthcare scholarship at Weber State University, go to WSUs Scholarship website at weber.edu/financialaid/. If you know of local business openings or closings, please notify us here. PREVIOUS OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS - The Palmer Township Board of Supervisors denied a conditional use for two warehouses proposed by developer Abe Atiyeh. - B. Braun bought Starboard Medical's Clif-FIX line of devices that secure catheters for an undisclosed price. - The Lowhill Township Planning Commission denied a plan for a warehouse at 7503 Kernsville Road, saying it would change the character of the rural township. - Just A Dream Frozen Yogurt in Forks Township closed its doors after 10 years. - Khanisa's Pudding Bar held a grand opening at its new Downtown Allentown Market location after having moved from Easton. - Mussel Polymers Inc. says its glue for bonding carbon and synthetic fibers is a big step toward creating lighter and stronger fiber-reinforced materials. - Poke Bar 25 & Bubble Tea in the Shops at Bethlehem (the Giant shopping center on Easton Avenue in Bethlehem Township, on the border with the City of Bethlehem) will open in late November or early December. - The former Rosanna's Restaurant in Bethlehem, which closed in February, will reopen as a deli and bar called Rosa's Corner. - Victaulic has expanded in Tennessee with the acquisition of Tennessee Metal Fabricating, price not disclosed. - The old Forks Diner will be serving auto-repair customers by early spring of 2023 with a six-bay garage known as Wrenchtec. - Lehigh County-based Shift4 Payments stepped in to help the owners of Better on the Bone Butcher and Deli in Pottstown finally open their doors. - Mid Penn Bank opened a new, bigger location in Blue Bell. - Balloon Junction held a grand opening in Pottsville for its store offering custom balloon creations. - Rentschler's Ice Cream has reopened just a few doors down from its former location in Ringtown after it was destroyed by a fire in February. - Mill Street Aesthetics, a day spa and skincare boutique, held a grand opening in Belvidere, New Jersey. - Provident Financial Services agreed to acquire Lakeland Bancorp in a stock deal valued at $1.3 billion, creating a bank that will hold 4% of the deposits in New Jersey. NWS Weather Alert NOTE: This information is provided by the National Weather Service. Forecast may differ from local information provided by our own 69News Meteorologists ...FREEZE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 9 AM EDT WEDNESDAY... * WHAT...Temperatures in the lower 30s. * WHERE...In New Jersey, Morris, Hunterdon and Somerset. In Pennsylvania, Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, Western Chester, Western Montgomery and Upper Bucks. * WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM EDT Wednesday. * IMPACTS...Frost and freeze conditions will kill crops and other sensitive vegetation. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold. && WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) The nearly $1 billion judgment against Alex Jones for spreading false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre brought long-sought relief to family members and hopes the eye-popping figure would deter others from broadcasting falsehoods. But Jones has given no signs of tempering his bluster a headline on his website Thursday blared that the show trial verdict signals the death of free speech. And lawyers say its not certain that relatives who lost loved ones in the mass shooting will see the full dollar amount after promised appeals and a bankruptcy proceeding play out. Every plaintiffs lawyer knows from often bitter experiences that it is usually easier to get a judgment than to enforce it, said Columbia University law professor John Coffee. So while the judgment may be a milestone, it's not an end point. Experts say the Sandy Hook families likely face a long fight ahead as they try to collect the $965 million awarded to them by a jury in Connecticut Wednesday and a separate $49 million judgment from a Texas jury in August. Here's a look at some of the issues raised by the judgment. WHAT IS THE CASE ABOUT? After 26 people were killed by a gunman at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, Jones made a false conspiracy theory a centerpiece of his programing on his flagship Infowars show. He promoted a theory that the shooting was a hoax, staged by actors, and that no children died all in an effort to increase gun control. His shows drew legions of followers, some of whom then spent years harassing the parents and siblings of the victims, as well as an FBI agent who had responded to the school. Jones was found liable by default in multiple defamation lawsuits after judges ruled that he and his lawyers were improperly withholding information and records from the plaintiffs. Trials were held in Texas and Connecticut to determine how much he owed the families for lying about them. Jones faces a third trial in Texas, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting. DOES ALEX JONES HAVE $1 BILLION? Jones has maintained he doesn't have the kind of money being sought by the family members suing him. Jones has repeatedly said he doesnt even have $2 million to his name. When the reality sets in that theyre not going to silence me and theres no money, its all an exercise in futility," Jones said outside the Connecticut courthouse during the trial. "So whatever they do in here is a Pyrrhic victory. A different picture was presented at the Texas trial. During his testimony, Jones was confronted with a memo from one of his business managers outlining a single days gross revenue of $800,000 from selling vitamin supplements and other products through his website. Jones called it a record sales day. Also, a forensic economist testified that Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, have a combined net worth that could be as high as $270 million. You can't invent money. If $270 million is the maximum, youre not going to get more than that, at least without finding some new sources that havent yet been uncovered, Coffee said. Russ Horton, a Texas attorney, said dramatically large civil judgments often get cut down on appeal. But he said even if the Connecticut verdict is reduced, it will likely be ruinous for Jones. This is a judgment that is very likely to exceed his net worth, however it comes down, said Horton, noting the uncertainty about Jones assets. IS BANKRUPTCY A BARRIER? Complicating matters is the fact that Jones is seeking bankruptcy protection for his company. Free Speech Systems, Infowars' parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July. Jones told a court his company had estimated assets of $50,000 or less and estimated liabilities of $1 million to $10 million. He said at the time that he was totally maxed out financially. The Sandy Hook families have alleged in bankruptcy court filings that after they brought their defamation cases Jones began diverting assets out of Free Speech Systems, totaling in 2021 and 2022 to more than $60 million. They say Jones also drew a $1.4 million annual salary from the company at a time that he claimed it was operating at a net loss. Horton said that Jones companys bankruptcy is likely to complicate and draw out the Sandy Hook families efforts to collect on their judgments. The judgments against Jones personally can still be collected, he said, but their scale might force him to file for individual bankruptcy. But bankruptcy doesnt get Jones off the hook. Bankruptcy is not the place you want to be if youre hiding assets or behaving badly, said Horton. Last month, Houston-based bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez dismissed Jones attorney and chief restructuring officer citing a lack of transparency by his company and empowered a Department of Justice-appointed trustee to hire lawyers to investigate Free Speech Systems. On Wednesday, Lopez approved a new restructuring officer to handle Jones company and appointed another judge as a mediator to hash out disputes in the federal case. SILENCING JONES William Sherlach, whose wife Mary Sherlach was killed at Sandy Hook, told reporters after the judgment that "people like Alex Jones will have to rethink what they say. On his show Thursday, Jones continued to assail his critics and said we have two years of appeals. While Jones in recent years has acknowledged the shooting happened, he claims the families are being used to push a gun control and anti-free speech agenda. They try to shut me off. It aint happening, he said Thursday. The judgment has been compared to pro wrestler Hulk Hogans invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the gossip blog Gawker, which ultimately bankrupted the business. But it's not clear if the judgment would have a chilling effect on others who broadcast false and defamatory statements, said Thomas Hentoff, a Washington-based First Amendment attorney who has represented major media companies. It can take years or even decades to collect judgments, Hentoff said, and Jones' cases were outliers because he had default judgments against him, meaning he never staged a merits defense. There are a lot of people who make money by expressing extreme views, and I would hesitate to think that a large jurys monetary judgment in itself would cause them to change course, Hentoff said. WHAT'S NEXT? The judge in Connecticut will soon decide the amounts of punitive damages, which will be added to the $965 million. After that, Jones can formally appeal. Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said on MSNBC after the verdict that they were prepared for the long haul. Whatever assets he has, Mattei said, these families are going to chase him to ground and enforce every cent of this verdict against him. Hill reported from Albany N.Y. Bleiberg contributed from Dallas. Find APs full coverage of the Alex Jones trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/alex-jones This story corrects the spelling of attorney Thomas Hentoff's last name. READING, Pa. - Penn State Berks held its tenth annual Latino Forum Friday. High school students were welcomed to the event, which is part of Hispanic Heritage Month. Attendees were treated to a new one-man show called "The Perfect Latino." It aims to blend poetry and comedy while examining the American Latino experience. Games, food and music celebrating the culture were also available. BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. - A drive-through COVID-19 testing and vaccination site in Northampton County is set to close. The site at Coordinated Health at 3100 Emrick Boulevard in Bethlehem Township will be closed after Friday, according to a news release from the county. Beginning on Monday, vaccines and boosters will be available by appointment only for those 6 months and older at the LVH-Hecktown Oaks Hospital Campus, on 3780 Hecktown Road in Easton, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month. To schedule an appointment call the hotline at 833-584-6283. The hotline is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Walk-in COVID-19 testing is available at: Palmer Township Express Care 3701 Corriere Road, Suite 14 Easton, PA 18045 Monday through Friday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday through Sunday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Coordinated Health Care on Demand 2300 Highland Avenue Bethlehem, PA 18020 Monday through Friday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday through Sunday: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A physicians order is not required for a COVID-19 test. The testing sites are open to everyone, but only residents of Northampton County will have the cost covered by the county if they do not have health coverage. All testing will be through Health Network Lab Medicine unless insurance requires an alternate laboratory. Participants should bring a photo ID and their insurance card, if they have one, with them to the testing site. While the chaos of the early days of COVID are hopefully behind us, the virus is still causing illness in our communities, says County Executive Lamont McClure. I want to thank our partners at LVH-CHA for their continued dedication to making these services available to Northampton County residents. The walk-in testing centers and vaccination clinic are a collaboration between the Northampton County Department of Community and Economic Development, Emergency Management Services and LVH-CHA. During National Hispanic Heritage Month, we celebrate the cultures and many contributions of Hispanics in the U.S. In part two of her three-part series, 69 News Reporter Jaccii Farris talks to a Lehigh Valley Hispanic leader about his decades in public service. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - If you want to talk to a pillar of the Hispanic community, look no further than Julio Guridy, a man who has truly lived a life of service. He came to Pennsylvania from the Dominican Republic 46 years ago at the age of 15, and was one of only a handful of Hispanics at Freedom High School. "Most of the Hispanics that came at that time, came to work at the Bethlehem Steel, and then some of them came to work into farms, and some of them worked in the sewing industry in Allentown," said Guridy. Guridy says the only Hispanic role model he had was a counselor for the upward bound program, who encouraged him to become a role model. So, Guridy went to college, got his masters degree, went into business, and eventually ended up at the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission. "But I also wanted to contribute to the community that has given to me and contribute 100-fold more than what they've given to me," said Guridy. Guridy was one of the first Hispanics elected to Allentown City Council. He spent 20 years serving Queen City residents and advocating for the Hispanic community, which has more than doubled in the last two decades, to 54 percent of Allentown residents. In the Allentown School District 72 percent of students are Hispanic, which Guridy says is an indication the Hispanic population will continue to flourish. "We have to be prepared for it. We have to make sure that they get well educated, that we contribute to the school district," said Guridy. Guridy says today, there's definitely a lot more opportunity for Hispanic youth to become the role models of tomorrow. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - It's National Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of 62 million Hispanic residents in the U.S. It's a rainy day on Allentown's 7th Street. At Pares Appliance, Leandro Pares is getting ready to go on a service call. He's been in business on the corridor for 27 years. "When I started to open my business not too many Spanish people lived around here," said Pares. Economic development officials say 73 percent of businesses on 7th Street are now Hispanic owned, something celebrated during National Hispanic Heritage Month. "We do have a significant Latino population. We have about 60% Latinos in Reading, approaching 57% in Allentown, and just over 40%, in Bethlehem," said AJ Suero, Chair of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the Greater Lehigh Valley. Suero says Hispanics have made significant contributions to the community. Some of the earliest Lehigh Valley Hispanic residents came to help with a labor shortage at Bethlehem Steel in 1928. Since then, the Hispanic population has grown to nearly 1 million people statewide or 8.4% of state residents who raised families, built businesses and broke barriers. Like Eddie Moran, the first Hispanic Mayor of Reading. "It does give me great honor and privilege to know that I made history and that I represent and give hope to a community, that they have seen somebody that look like them," said Moran. Hispanic Heritage Month was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 to celebrate the cultures and contributions Hispanics have made in the U.S. But Hispanic leaders it's also a time to talk about their challenges and how to keep the momentum of the community going. BERLIN (AP) Germany's health minister on Friday urged the country's 16 states to consider stepping up their measures against the coronavirus amid a rise in new cases. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he favors requiring mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in Germany except on public transport, in medical facilities and care homes. The direction were going in isnt a good one," Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. He added that it would be better for states to impose limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. The sooner we step on the brake the better it will be, he said. German authorities registered over 114,000 newly confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, and 165 COVID-related deaths. The number of newly confirmed cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a seven-day period stood at 760, compared with 695 a week earlier. Lauterbach said the actual number of cases could be three-to-four times higher, as many positive results with rapid tests are never reported to authorities. A rise in cases in Bavaria has been linked to the recent Oktoberfest, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Lauterbach said more could have been done to limit the spread of the virus at the beer festival in Munich, such as offering or mandating on-site testing for visitors. The Health Ministry launched a new nearly 33 million-euro ($32 million) advertising campaign Friday, using 84 case studies of real people affected by COVID-19 to encourage vaccinations. Lauterbach said getting the shot remains an important way of protecting recipients and others. The risk of death for people over 60 drops by 90% if they get a fourth shot, he said. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea fired a ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells toward the sea Friday and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the Norths recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the Norths capital region at 1:49 a.m. Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters. It was North Koreas 15th missile launch since it resumed testing activities Sept. 25. North Korea said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their dangerous military exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. Soon after the latest missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, South Koreas military said. On Friday afternoon, South Koreas military said North Korea fired 90 additional shells off its east coast. It said it also spotted about 300 other North Korean artillery launches from two separate western coastal areas. In both cases, the North Korean shells were believed to have landed in the buffer zones again, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Observers said it was North Koreas third and most direct violation of the 2018 agreement, which created buffer zones and no-fly areas along their land and sea boundaries to prevent accidental clashes. South Koreas Defense Ministry said it earlier sent North Korea a message asking it not to violate the agreement again. North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries. It was reportedly the first time that North Korean military aircraft have flown that close to the border since 2017. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Koreas provocations are becoming indiscriminative but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent. The decision to attack cant be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome, Yoon told reporters. The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North). South Koreas Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Koreas nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seouls first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are largely a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters he supports South Koreas decision to impose the sanctions. Most of the Norths recent weapons tests were ballistic missile launches that are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions. But the North hasnt been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the U.N. over U.S. disputes with Russia regarding its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition. The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. Whatever the intentions are, North Koreas repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan remains ironclad. Other recent North Korean tests included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam; long-range cruise missiles; and a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country. After Wednesdays cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Koreas state media. Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday that is expected to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing Friday that all related countries should work to prevent tensions from escalating and move toward restarting meaningful talks. North Koreas ongoing testing spree is reminiscent of its 2017 torrid run of missile and nuclear tests that prompted Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump to exchange threats of total destruction. Kim later abruptly entered high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump in 2018 but their negotiations fell apart a year later due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief Kim should be provided in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability. Kim has repeatedly said he has no intentions of resuming nuclear diplomacy. But some experts say he would eventually want to win international recognition of his country as a nuclear state and hold arms control talks with the United State to wrest extensive sanctions relief and other concessions in return for partial denuclearization steps. The urgency of North Koreas nuclear program has grown since it passed a law last month authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations when it may perceive its leadership as under threat. Most of the recent North Korean tests were of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Some analysts say North Koreas possible upcoming nuclear test, its first bomb detonation in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles. These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the U.S. to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats. North Koreas military early Friday said it took unspecified strong military countermeasures in response to South Koreas artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border on Thursday. South Koreas military later confirmed it conducted artillery training at a frontline area but said its drills didnt violate the conditions of the 2018 agreement. Maj. Gen. Kang Ho Pil of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a televised statement that South Korea issued a stern warning to (North Korea) to immediately halt its weapons tests. South Koreas military said it will begin an annual 12-day field training Monday to hone its operational capabilities under various scenarios of North Korean provocations. It said an unspecified number of U.S. troops plan to take part in this years drills. Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (AP) The Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since almost the beginning of its war with Russia, U.S. officials said Friday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions. In a statement later Friday, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, We can confirm the Department received correspondence from SpaceX about the funding of Starlink, their satellite communications product in Ukraine. We remain in communication with SpaceX about this and other topics. During a Pentagon briefing, she declined to provide any details about the communication or say to whom the correspondence was sent and when the communications with Musk began. Musk began sending Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine just days after Russia invaded in February. On Feb. 28, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted a photo of the first Starlink kits arriving on the back of a truck. You are most welcome, Musk tweeted back. Musks generosity was hailed by Ukrainians and seen as a game changer in war tactics the Russians could try to cut Ukrainian ground communications but it could not control space. The Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraines communications needs. In addition to the terminals, he tweeted that the company has to create, launch, maintain and replenish satellites and ground stations. CNN was the first to report the Musk request. The Starlink satellite internets vital role in Ukraines defense cannot be overstated. It has, for example, assisted front-line reconnaissance drone operators in targeting artillery strikes on key Russian assets. A senior military official on Friday made it clear that the U.S. believes the system has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide U.S. assessment of the Ukrainian battlefield. In a tweet on Friday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak said Ukraine will find a solution to keep Starlink working. "Lets be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies," he tweeted. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations. In response to multiple questions during the briefing, Singh said the Pentagon was working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. "We know that there is this demand, and (satellite communications) capability ... is needed and we want to be able to ensure that there are stable communications for the Ukrainian forces and for Ukraine. The request from the world's richest man to have the Pentagon take over the hundreds of millions of dollars he says the system is costing comes on the heels of a Twitter war between Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And in tweets overnight Musk referred to the friction, suggesting it may affect his decision to end his company's largesse in funding the systems. In a Twitter exchange last week, Musk argued that to reach peace Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014. He also said Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO. Musk also started a Twitter poll asking whether the will of the people should decide if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia. In a sarcastic response, Zelenskyy posted a Twitter poll of his own asking which Elon Musk do you like more?: One who supports Ukraine or One who supports Russia. Musk replied to Zelenskyy that I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world. Andrij Melnyk, the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, responded to Musks original tweet with an obscenity. Its not clear how much of the cost of deploying Starlink satellite uplinks in Ukraine has been covered by U.S. funding. In April, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it had delivered 5,000 of the terminals. The Pentagon had no response to that question. Musk's commitment to spend $44 billion to purchase Twitter has to factor into his decision that he can no longer afford to do this for free, said retired Army Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Musks request that the Pentagon begin to pick up the tab comes as the Space Force and Pentagon have been looking at how commercial vendors will play a role in national security. Musk's threat to withdraw highlights the risk of leaning too much on commercial capabilities, Ferrari said. Commercial vendors always get to change their mind, " Ferrari said, adding that the reliance on Starlink to provide communications for Ukraine also serves as a reminder that the Pentagon has to expand this service beyond SpaceX, he said. The government needs many vendors for key capabilities, of course that often means more money, but it is an insurance policy and insurance costs money, Ferrari said. In March, commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James Dickinson said that having vendors provide needed capabilities, such as Maxars satellite imagery of stalled Russian convoys, has become essential, because it frees up limited military satellite assets to focus on other things. In his tweets, Musk also raised a question that various vendors and the Pentagon are considering as space becomes a more critical part of wartime operations: If a commercial vendor is assisting the U.S. and is targeted, does the U.S. owe it protection? Weve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder, Musk tweeted. Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report. This story has been corrected to reflect that Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla, not the founder of the electric vehicle maker. Stage and screen legend Robbie Coltrane has died aged 72. Coltrane, who was born in 1950 in Scotland, was perhaps best known as Hagrid in the Harry Potter franchise, though has a variety of stage and screen credits to his name. A regular presence on the stage in the 1960s and 1970s, Coltrane appeared in The Slab Boys at the age of 28 at the Traverse Theatre, as part of John Byrne's famous trilogy. A couple of years later, he appeared in Threads at the Hampstead Theatre in London. Byrne reunited with the Slab Boys cast in 2011 to reflect on the show's impact. Other credits included a Borderline theatre company production of Dick Whittington, as well as a one-man show Your Obedient Servant at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in 1987. In 1990, Coltrane appeared in a Borderline production of Mistero Buffo, later to be screened on BBC2. His most recent stage appearance came in 2005, when the actor appeared in Peter McDougall's The Brother's Suit at Oran Mor in Glasgow. He also played the role of Falstaff in Kenneth Branagh's seminal filmed version of Henry V on screen held as one of the most influential filmed productions of a Shakespeare play. According to reports, Coltrane had been battling illness for the last couple of years, and passed away in hospital near his Larbert home. Coltrane's agent Belinda Wright said in a statement: "My client and friend Robbie Coltrane passed away on Friday 14 October. Robbie was a unique talent, sharing the Guinness Book of Records' Award for winning three consecutive Best Actor Baftas for his portrayal of Fitz in Granada TV's series Cracker in 1994, 1995 and 1996 with Michael Gambon. "He will probably be best remembered for decades to come as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, a role which brought joy to children and adults alike all over the world, prompting a stream of fan letters every week for over 20 years. "James Bond fans write too to applaud his role in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough. "For me personally I shall remember him as an abidingly loyal client. As well as being a wonderful actor, he was forensically intelligent, brilliantly witty and after 40 years of being proud to be called his agent, I shall miss him. "He is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his children Spencer and Alice and their mother Rhona Gemmell. They would like to thank the medical staff at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert for their care and diplomacy." By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Fifteen Russian enterprises have been allowed to export livestock products to Azerbaijan, Azernews reports per Russias Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor). Azerbaijans Food Safety Agency granted the right to Russian enterprises for exporting products of animal origin, on the basis of companies guarantees of compliance with the veterinary and sanitary requirements of Azerbaijan. At present, 1,088 Russian enterprises have the right to export their products to Azerbaijan. Rosselkhoznadzor continues to work on expanding the list of enterprises from Russia that have the right to export to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan and Russia cooperate in different sectors, such as the economy, agriculture, customs, communications, high technology, and others. Over 230 intergovernmental and intercompany documents have been signed between the two countries and six "road maps" are being implemented. Azerbaijan's investments in the Russian economy have exceeded $1.2 billion, with the lions share of it being in the non-oil sector. In addition, Russian investments in Azerbaijan's economy totaled $6.3 billion, with $5 billion in the oil sector and $1.3 billion in the non-oil sectors. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia amounted to $2.9 billion in 2021, making Russia Azerbaijans third-largest partner. Operator Airtel Africa and payments company Cellulant have announced deals that will help them to expand their presence in the Zambian market. Cellulant Zambia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Lusaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) to offer digital payments to its member businesses. This means that Lusaka Chamber of Commerce members can now access payment solutions that will enable them to accept payments from their customers preferred mobile money wallet. This is another newsworthy deal for Cellulants payment platform Tingg, which integrates over 290 banks across Africa. Tingg is a one-stop payments aggregator for multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hence, Celulant points out, the significance of this partnership. In fact says Cellulant, Tinggs uptake across Africa is in high gear, with products like in-store payments which leverage mobile money and mobile banking as payment methods through USSD and QR codes. This streamlines business administration processes for merchants while expanding the range of payment options they can offer customers. Meanwhile Airtel Africa has followed up yesterdays announcement regarding spectrum acquisition in Tanzania with the news that its Zambian subsidiary, Airtel Zambia, has purchased 60MHz of additional spectrum spread across the 800MHz and 2600MHz bands from the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA), for a gross consideration of US$29 million, payable in local currency. As with the Tanzanian acquisition, the additional spectrum will support network expansion in the market for both mobile data and fixed wireless home broadband capability, including 5G rollout. Airtel says that Zambia is one of its largest markets by revenue. Guineas telecom minister Ousmane Gaoual Diallo has affirmed the governments commitment to re-launching state-owned Societe des Telecoms de Guinee (Sotelgui) in the first half of 2023. Agence Ecofin reports that the operator will launch with 4G and 5G technology so that it can compete effectively in the market with established rivals. However, this will require additional time for Sotelgui to generate funds and upgrade its infrastructure. Guineas state operator went bankrupt in 2012, with mismanagement widely cited as the cause. The government has prioritised reviving the operator ever since, and in March 2021 procured support for the initiative from the African Development Bank. According to Guineas Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPT), there are 14.6 million subscribers in the market, which is split between three private operators. At the end of Q1 2022, Orange led the market with 59.8%, while MTN has a 31% share and Cellcom 9%. Big things happen when people of purpose team up around a shared goal. In this case, that goal is the construction of much-needed affordable housing for the people of Winona County. Sept. 29 marked a major milestone toward that goal with the sale of the South Fork Fourth addition land to Habitat for Humanity serving Winona County the culmination of more than a years work designed to bring 11 new affordable homes for ownership to Saint Charles, Minnesota. Construction of the first two of those 11 homes is slated to begin in 2023. This multi-faceted public-private collaboration brought together a wide array of partners. The South Fork addition was organized as a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district by the City of Saint Charles to incentivize the development of affordable housing in their community. Southeast Minnesota Multi-County Housing Redevelopment Authority (SEMMCHRA) owned the land and was committed to finding an affordable housing developer to build there. Habitat for Humanity stepped forward to be that developer but needed financial resources to make such a large-scale development possible. The Winona County Board, recognizing the severe housing shortage for people with limited income throughout Winona County, invested significant American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars in the initiative. This partnership is a model for the future of affordable housing, said SEMMCHRA Executive Director Buffy Beranek. We will look back on this partnership as a benchmark for creating affordable housing to build positive economic impact from combined local support in communities across southeastern Minnesota. Now that the land purchase is complete, Habitat for Humanity has begun accepting homeownership applications. Qualified applicants earn less than 60% of the area median income by family size and have a demonstrated need for affordable housing. Previous Habitat homebuyers have been school teachers and small business owners, retail and manufacturing employees, healthcare workers and more. Habitat homebuyers are united by a need for safe, affordable housing, often facing issues such as overcrowding, accessibility concerns, unsafe or unsanitary conditions, high rent compared to income, or high heating costs, to name a few. Winona County commissioner Steve Jacob says, providing affordable housing is a top priority in our community. It is important that we value both those in need and those being required to pay for the services that are provided. This project is an excellent example of government and the private sector working together to bring the much-needed service to our community in the most efficient method. Habitat for Humanity builds safe, decent, affordable homes known for their durability and energy efficiency, and the volunteers who build those homes are the heart and soul of the work. Community volunteers and students from the Minnesota State College-Southeast Construction Technology program will build the homes under the skilled supervision of the Habitat for Humanity construction team. There is nothing quite like seeing neighbors rally around neighbors in the spirit of mutual aid, said Amanda Hedlund, Habitat for Humanity executive director. This labor of love answers the problem of a familys affordable housing crisis today, and builds stability that lasts for generations. Habitat for Humanity will host three community information sessions with snacks and refreshments to answer questions about the application process, how to qualify, and more. Sessions will take place at the Saint Charles Elementary School Library on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 4 p.m., at the Saint Charles City Hall Community Center on Sunday, Nov. 19, at 1 p.m., and at the Saint Charles Public Library on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 4 p.m. Habitat for Humanity is an equal housing opportunity lender. To learn more about the homeownership program or complete an application, visit the Habitat website at habitatwinona.org or call 507-457-0003. ST CLOUD, Minn. Eleven individuals including a Winona County Sheriffs deputy were recognized by Minnesota Toward Zero Deaths program representatives at the 2022 TZD Conference Wednesday for their innovative efforts to reduce the number of traffic deaths and injuries in the state. The prestigious traffic safety awards are presented annually by the Minnesota departments of health, public safety and transportation at the annual TZD Conference. The awards recognize excellence and innovation in reducing the number of life-changing crashes and improving traffic safety on Minnesota roads. Nearly 900 traffic safety professionals attended this years TZD conference in-person in St. Cloud, or online. Dakota County Traffic Engineer Kristi Sebastian received the Kathy Swanson Outstanding Service Award, TZDs top honor, for exceptional leadership in efforts to improve traffic safety in Minnesota. Two individuals in law enforcement received the Distinguished Public Leadership Award for efforts that improve public safety policy and programs in ways that benefit society. Boyd Huppert, long-time KARE-11 television journalist and host of the weekly Land of 10,000 Stories, is recipient of the TZD Media Award for his high-profile coverage of the life-changing impacts of traffic crashes. A summary of all 2022 TZD Awards presented on Oct. 12 is listed below. More details on each award, along with more information and photos of each award winner, can found on the 2022 TZD Awards website. Greater Minnesota winners TZD Enforcement Star Award Deputy Chad Myers, Winona County Sheriffs Office TZD Distinguished Public Leadership Award (Greater Minnesota) Sheriff Kevin Torgerson, Olmsted County Sheriffs Office TZD Emerging Leader Award Ava Chen, Kylie Karsky and Molly McCloud, 2021 interns for the Shreya R. Dixit Foundation TZD Emerging Leader Award Princeton High School SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Organization TZD Emergency and Trauma Services Star Award Flight Paramedic Josh Duda, North Memorial Health Air Care, Brainerd TZD Education Star Award TZD Coalition Coordinator Mary Erickson, Renville County Twin Cities Metro area winners TZD Kathy Swanson Outstanding Service Award Dakota County Traffic Engineer Kristi Sebastian TZD Distinguished Public Leadership Award (Twin Cities Metro area) Chief Jeff Tate, Shakopee Police Department TZD Media Award Boyd Huppert, KARE-11 television journalist TZD Traffic Safety Innovation Award Richfield Police Department TZD Child Passenger Safety Star Award Officer Ryan Kuffel, Eden Prairie Police Department TZD Engineering Star Award State Traffic Safety Engineer Derek Leuer, MnDOT TZD Star Awards are presented annually to individuals and organizations in Minnesota that show excellence in TZDs emphasis areas of enforcement, emergency medical and trauma services, education, engineering, child passenger safety and judicial/court systems. Award recipients have shown their leadership and creative capacities in efforts to improve traffic safety throughout the state and build partnerships. The Minnesota TZD program is an interdisciplinary partnership led by the state departments of health, transportation and public safety. This collaboration began in 2003 and has worked to reduce roadway fatalities by 25 percent. Learn more about TZD or how to get involved at www.minnesotatzd.org. Gulf Bridge International (GBI) is increasing its international network capacity with optical upgrades from Nokia to enable high-speed connectivity between Doha, Qatar and Milan, Italy. Nokias PSE-V coherent technology will allow GBI to provide capacity upgrades to its existing subsea cables and terrestrial links to meet customer demand for additional bandwidth between the Middle East and Europe. GBI will upgrade its Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) optical transport platforms with new network interface cards powered by Photonic Service Engine V (PSE-V) digital signal processors. This will allow it to upgrade wavelength connections from 50 Gbps to 200 Gbps over its existing end-to-end subsea cable and terrestrial links, as well as enabling the introduction of 400 Gbps services in the future. The solution maximises the capacity of two existing subsea cable links by greatly improving the optical spectrum efficiency through advanced techniques such as continuous baud rate adjustment. It also eliminates regeneration of the optical signal over two long-haul terrestrial links. Removing the need to convert between optical and electrical signals to boost the optical signal at intermediate regeneration points increases network efficiency and reduces latency and cost. Gavin Rea, Chief Technical Officer at GBI, said: We will be able to meet our customers increasing demand for the best connectivity services between the Middle East and Europe while ensuring that we can increase speed and capacity in the future. These routes are critical to our international carrier-grade fibre-optic Smart Network that connects service provider, cloud provider and enterprise customers to important financial and communications hubs across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. Manuel Ortiz Fernandez, Senior Vice President of EMEA Webscale Business, said: There is a growing need for wholesale services that provide higher speed, reliable connectivity between cloud data centers, co-location facilities and interconnection hubs in the Middle East and Europe. GBIs customers will benefit from the scale, reliability and efficiency of our optical solution while GBI will be able to increase network capacity while reducing network operations costs. Top-performing matriculants get a glimpse of student life at Wits Wits VC, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, hosts the best of the class of 2022 matriculants to become part of the future at Wits University Wits University welcomed some of the country's top-performing matriculants to its illustrious campus recently for the Vice-Chancellor's Top Applicant Event. This annual event is aimed at matriculants who have applied to study at Wits, with an admission score of 53 to 56 points calculated using final Grade 11 results. The would-be Witsies got an opportunity to explore student life, with an added glimpse of some of the impactful and progressive courses offered in the institution's five Faculties. The Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi was among Wits leaders speaking at the event, a gathering of the best of the class of 2022. "We believe that people in this university have different social classes, but they will emerge here as citizens who will be among the greatest in the world," said Vilakazi. He told learners and parents about some of Wits University's pioneering research in medicine, science, commerce, engineering and the arts. "We are ranked among the top 100 universities in the number of alumni who have become CEO's of fortune 500 companies. We were among the first to model the evolution of the Omicron virus strain in November last year, using the most sophisticated algorithm done by our physicists and data scientists." During the event learners engaged with Faculty leaders and staff who helped to answer individual questions from the top achievers and their parents. Learners were able to interact with some world-class resources like the retired Mirage Fighter Jet located in the Barlow Laboratory for aeronautical engineering studies. They also got to experience The Adler Museum of Medicine on the Parktown campus which preserves the history of the health sciences in Southern Africa. Those interested in the Humanities made a quick visit to the William Cullen Library on East Campus, which houses some of the country's most prized historical records like that of the Nelson Mandela trial papers, containing preparatory notes by Mandela himself, together with annotated typescripts that relate to the trials 'State vs Nelson Mandela' in the Pretoria Regional Court from 1962. Learners concluded the day with a light lunch and networking session to better understand what it is they want to pioneer as future Witsies. "I would like to study Actuarial Science here at Wits. I've learned so much, Wits has exceeded my expectations and I really can't wait to study here," said Rethabile Moeketsi, a pupil from Sasolburg High School in the Free State. Limpopo matriculant Salmondia Nethengwe applied to study in the Science Faculty once he matriculates from the Northern Academy. "The most interesting thing about my visit today was Wits' computer and robotics lab. They are doing such cool things there. I would consider Wits because of their academic excellence and how diverse this place is," said Nethengwe. Psychology lecturer Enid Schutte reflected on how both learners and parents appeared to be wowed by the offerings at Wits during their morning tour. "You could see the excitement build in the learner's minds when they interacted with the professors. The types of questions they asked were really deep. The more information they got, the more in awe they became as if they wanted to do everything. You could also see parents' faces light up as the day went," said Schutte. The Top Applicants' event is organised by the Wits Schools Liaisons Office, responsible for recruiting student talent. The ancient cities of Egypt have remained important subjects of research and discourse thousands of years after their creation and demise. Their rich history and intriguing structure and function make them the perfect sites for research and investigation to better understand how ancient Egypt functioned. Most of the ancient cities of Egypt were built along the river Nile because of how fertile the land was around it. All these ancient cities and towns were divided into lower and upper regions. Cities like Alexandria which was around the Mediterranean sea and the Nile delta was lower while cities like Memphis and Thebes which were located in the deep north were upper. Every city in ancient Egypt had its own unique function. Some of them were political and were home to government workers while the others were religious. Here are some of the largest, most crucial cities of ancient Egypt. 1. Memphis Statue of Ramses II in Memphis, Egypt. Image Credits: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons The city of Memphis was the first capital of Egypt between 2950 BC to 2180 BC. Located south of the Nile River delta, Memphis was largely associated with necropolises where the pyramids of Giza are located. The temple of Ptah was one of the most renowned temples in Memphis and was created after the ancient god Ptah who was a creator god and a patron of artisans. From the 8th century BCE Memphis began falling to Nubia, Assyria, Persia, and Macedonia. With the rise of Christianity and Islam, the ancient city started losing its significance. Despite that, it is still remembered as one of the most prominent cities of ancient Egypt. Some relics of ancient Memphis that survive even today include an alabaster Sphinx and the statue of Ramses II. 2. Thebes Temple of Ramses III in Thebes, Egypt. Image Credits: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons Thebes is perhaps one of the most renowned cities of ancient Egypt. It was once a bustling hub and a place of religious and political significance. Thebes remained the capital of Egypt until the end of the Middle Kingdom. After a few years of obscurity due to a series of foreign invaders, Thebes began to rise in significance again when the New Kingdom period began. This ancient citys decline began in the 12th century BCE. Today, Thebes remains a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its historical significance. The ruins left behind from what was once a flourishing city include the Abu Simbel temples built by Ramesses II. 3. Amarna A carved stone slab from the Amarna period. Image Credits: Gary Todd via Wikimedia Commons Amarna was an ancient city in Egypt that was its capital under the reign of Pharoh Akhenaten. It was built between the ancient capitals of Memphis and Thebes. Akhenaten was a powerful king and he was in charge of maintaining the harmony and balance of the land. During his reign of 20 years, he erected many monuments to honor the god of the sun, Aten. Today, Amarna remains a historical site and is mostly a wide, barren expanse of land with ruined foundations. It is preserved and excavated by the Amarna project. 4. Alexandria Modern-day Alexandria in Egypt. Image Credits: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons Alexandria is one of the most well-known cities in Egypt and was founded in 332 BCE by Alexander the Great. The Library of Alexandria was one of the greatest during its time and went down in history as an iconic cultural institution. With the rise of Cairo, Alexandria began its decline but was commercially revived in the 19th century. Today, Alexandria is an important city in Egypt for many reasons. It exports cotton and has many oil fields around it. 5. Abydos Temple of Seti I in Abydos, Egypt. Image Credits: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons The ancient city of Abydos was one of the oldest cities in ancient Egypt. The city became a place of worship of Osiris. Many pharaohs had cenotaphs at Abydos because of its religious significance. The temple of Osiris in Abydos was rebuilt over many centuries by several rules that included Pepi I, Ahmose I, and Thutmose III. Several pharaohs also built mortuary temples in Abydos of which the temple of Seti I remains the most prominent and continues to stay a famous landmark even in modern times. 6. Elephantine Temple of Satis on the Nile Valley Island of Elephantine near Aswan in Egypt. Image credit Frank11 via Shutterstock Located on an island in the Nile opposite the city of Aswan, Elephantine was an important city for defense in ancient Egypt. During the Old Kingdom, Elephantine was called the door of the south because it was the southernmost city in ancient Egypt. Today, Elephantine has transformed to become the site of two Nubian villages in Egypt. It has several ruins of temples and columns that continue to be excavated and studied even today. 7. Nubt (Kom Ombo) A temple in Kom Ombo, Egypt. Image Credits: Codex via Wikimedia Commons Formerly known as Nubt during ancient times, Kom Ombo was a crucial agricultural and trade city in ancient Egypt. The ancient city prospered immensely during the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty (305-30BCE). It lies on the east bank of the Nile River and is renowned for being home to a double temple of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek and the falcon-headed god Horus. In 2012, a crocodile museum was constructed in Kom Ombo that has several mummified crocodiles on display. It serves as a prominent tourist destination. 8. Hermopolis Hermopolis, Egypt. Image credit: Cortyn via Shutterstock Hermopolis was an ancient city in Egypt that was located on the border between Upper and Lower Egypt. At one point in time, it was also one of the wealthiest cities in ancient Egypt. Thoth was the great deity worshiped in Hermopolis and a temple was constructed to honor the god. A German expedition between 1929-1939 explored the site of Hermopolis and excavated a part of the temple. Several excavations have taken place in Hermopolis to uncover what remains of the ancient city. Over the years, labyrinths of underground streets and catacombs have also been discovered in Hermopolis. In Summary Ancient Egypt was home to a variety of cities that were unique in their own ways. While some were religious centers others were known for their politics and defense. Every city in Ancient Egypt served a crucial purpose and remains significant to historians and archeologists even today. Do you have any interesting facts about the largest cities of ancient Egypt? Comment below and share it with us! Situated in Wyoming's Sweetwater County, Rock Springs is the state's fifth-most populous and the County's most populous city. Rock Springs was developed due to the expansion and growth of the local coal mining industry and was named after a rock spring that flowed through the northern portion of the town. The Union Pacific Railroad built hundreds of miles of track in 1868 using the coal mined nearby to power its steam engines. As immigrants flocked to Rock Springs to work in the Union Pacific coal mines, the expanding railroad and mining industry left behind a flourishing city with a rich cultural heritage. And this is how Rock Springs got its moniker, "Home of 56 Nationalities." Geography And Climate Of Rock Springs Aerial view of Rock Springs, Wyoming. Rock Springs is situated approximately 21 km east of Green River City along Bitter Creek in the state's southwestern portion at an elevation of 2060 m. Rock Springs covers a total area of 51.16 sq. km, all of which is occupied by land. The city also serves as the entrance to the picturesque regions in the north, such as Jackson Lake, the Wind River Mountains, the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone National Park. According to the Koppen Climate Classification, Rock Springs experiences a semi-arid climate with warm summers and cold, snowy winters. The average annual temperature ranges between 15F and 84F; it is seldom below 0F or over 91F. July is the year's warmest month, with an average high temperature of 86.3F and a low temperature of 52.5F. December is the year's coldest month, having an average high temperature of 33.2F and a low temperature of 12.4F. Rock Springs receives an average yearly precipitation of 10.45 inches and a snowfall of 31.3 inches. History Of Rock Springs Rock Springs Coal sign. Image Credit: Milonica at en.wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons The earliest settlement at Rock Springs was established near Killpecker Creek in 1862 as an Overland Trail stop. With the development of coal mines and a modest hotel in 1868, the town began to flourish. With the introduction of the Union Pacific and other coal firms, the mines got larger. Many immigrants arrived in Rock Springs to work because the expanding mining business required a sizable labor force. Chinese miners were the largest ethnic group in the mines by 1870. The Rock Springs Chinese Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of 28 Chinese people and the burning of Chinatown, was the result of racial hostility toward the Chinese in 1885. The restored Chinatown was guarded by U.S. Army troops, who constructed Camp Pilot Butte and stayed there until 1898. The city was able to thrive and develop as the region's social and economic hub because of coal mining. Rock Springs recently created a walking tour around its downtown historic area, complete with a booklet that features images of the locations, a map, and explanations. The Population And Economy Of Rock Springs As per the latest US Census, Rock Springs has a population of 23,526 residents, where 48.5% are females and 51.5% are males. The city's racial makeup is 78.6% white (non-Hispanic/Latino), 15.1% Hispanic or Latino, 2.2% African-American, and 0.6% Asian. The remaining are distributed among American Indians, Alaska Natives (AI/AN), and other mixed races. English is spoken by 89.2% of the population. The rest speak Spanish (8.7%), Indo-European languages (1.4%), Asian and Pacific Islander languages (0.7%), and other foreign languages (0.1%). Only 40.5% of the population in Rock Springs are naturalized US citizens. Veterans make up 9.1% of Rock Springs' population, of which 95.3% are males, and 4.7% are females. The employment rate in Rock Springs is 68.7%, with a poverty rate of 10.2%. The homeownership rate is 73.3%, where the median gross rental cost is $876 per month, with a median household income of $74,625. Moreover, over the previous years, the job market in Rock Springs has decreased by -2%. Compared to the US average of 33.5%, future job growth in Rock Springs is expected to be 10% during the next ten years. Attractions In And Around Rock Springs Killpecker Sand Dunes Killpecker Sand Dunes in Wyoming. The Killpecker Sand Dunes, located north of Rock Springs, are the world's second-biggest sand dunes and the largest in North America. With its 11,000 acres of dunes, Killpecker Sand Dunes will interest and provide one with nonstop excitement for its various sports, such as dunes surfing and ATV riding. The youngsters might also enjoy themselves by bringing a frisbee or a beach volleyball. The descendants of the wild horses that the Spanish introduced to Rock Springs in the 16th century can also be seen here. Rock Springs Historical Museum In 1894, the Rock Springs Historical Museum was constructed. For nearly a century, the building housed the city hall, a jail and police station, a fire station, a courtroom, judge's chambers, and municipal offices. After remaining vacant for some time, the Centennial Museum opened during the 1988 Rock Springs Centennial Festival. The museum pays tribute to those who worked arduously and devotedly to build it, the town's coal mining heritage, and the Union Pacific Railroad. Visitors who seek a more profound knowledge of Rock Springs' history can use the research library inside the museum. The museum also has a timetable for group tours for students, friends, and families who desire a more participatory learning experience. Bunning Park Bunning Park's calm atmosphere makes it the ideal spot to unwind, reflect on significant moments in your life, or simply enjoy living as it is. Because it offers a secure atmosphere for toddlers, the park is also perfect for families with small children. There are several picnic places where parents may set up family tables and a playground outside for the kids to play. Dogs are permitted in the park as well. Bunning Park occasionally has musical performances by bands, which enhances the atmosphere. The mini-concerts, which begin early in the evening, draw more people, particularly teens. Dane Partridge, 34, from Rexburg, Idaho, had been fighting in Ukraine since the end of April, his sister Jenny Corry said. Liz Truss architect of her own misfortunes says First Minister Mark Drakeford has said the prime minister is the architect of her own misfortunes adding it was her economic plan which has led to chaos and confusion. Wales first minister also called for stability and certainty to help people and businesses through this crisis. Liz Truss sacked her chancellor of 38 days Kwasi Kwarteng today then went on to reverse a planned cut to business tax amid the ongoing fallout from the mini-budget. During a short press conference on Friday afternoon, Truss said: I want to deliver a low tax, high wage, high growth economy. Its what I was elected by my party to do. That mission remains. She said it was clear that parts of our mini budget went further and faster than markets were expecting. So the way we are delivering our mission right now has to change. We need to act now to reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline. I have therefore decided to keep the increase in corporation tax that was planned by the previous government. The scheduled rise in corporation tax is from 19% to 25% next year. This will raise 18 billion per year. She said. The PM is the architect of her own misfortunes. It is her decisions that have led to the confusion and chaos that has put more pressure on families struggling with the cost-of-living. We now need stability and certainty to help people and businesses through this crisis. Mark Drakeford (@PrifWeinidog) October 14, 2022 Truss said: We will do whatever is necessary to ensure debt is falling as a share of the economy in the medium term. We will control the size of the state to ensure that taxpayers money is always well spent. Our public sector will become more efficient to deliver world-class services for the British people. The prime minister said she was incredibly sorry to lose Kwasi Kwarten. He is a great friend and he shares my vision to set this country on the path to growth. She said. Today I have asked Jeremy Hunt to become the new chancellor. He is one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians. Truss said. She said: I have acted decisively today because my priority is ensuring our countrys economic stability. As Prime Minister, I will always act in the national interest. Welsh Government lacks Fiscal Firepower for true change, according to a new report The Welsh Government lacks the fiscal firepower for larger-scale or more transformative policy measures, according to a new report by the Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA) The IWA is recommending reform of the Welsh Governments borrowing powers to better enable transformative policy making in Wales. Despite having fairly strong powers and a budget in the tens of billions, IWA research found the Welsh Government only has a limited ability to kickstart major projects to improve peoples lives. Wales faces urgent challenges including climate change, a cost-of-living crisis, dealing with the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on public services, a broken housing system, and more. These are big problems that will require equally big solutions. The IWA has said. Thier report finds that the Welsh Government has a lack of fiscal firepower, with a huge part of its budget essentially pre-committed to public service delivery. It has relatively little available finance over-and-above that, required to effectively conduct major projects that could set the Welsh economy and society on the different path it clearly needs. The Many policy proposals can only expand to the limits that finance allows it to. IWA says. The Welsh Government is limited in its ability to conduct policy even in devolved areas such as transport and housing by its fiscal limitations. The UK Government on behalf of England in devolved areas can borrow money to its own priorities. However the Welsh Government has a strict borrowing cap, meaning that it is largely left to hope that the UK Government increases spending in devolved areas in England, in order to release funds to the Welsh Government. This is due to 82% of the Welsh Governments budget coming from the block grant which is predicated on Barnett Consequentials from UK Government spending in England. The IWA paper finds that this means in practice the Welsh Government has strong restrictions on policy-making measures, even in areas that are ostensibly fully devolved. It also finds that the Welsh Government has had to use more expensive forms of borrowing such as the Mutual Investment Model (MIM) to increase its access to finance, raising the question of whether this framework increases the cost of borrowing for government projects in Wales in comparison to England. The paper seeks to open a debate about the impact of fiscal limitations on policy-making, and recommends reforms to the Welsh Governments borrowing powers to partially mitigate this. The IWA has published a number of recommendations including: The IWA supports the Welsh Governments calls for it to have prudential borrowing powers and it should continue to explore the case for this. It should publish its up-to-date case for having these powers in response to this report in order to push this important issue more fully onto the political agenda. The UK Government should accept the insufficiencies of the Welsh Governments fiscal framework and accept the Welsh Governments case for prudential borrowing powers via the National Loans Fund, if it is able to protect its own position from the moral hazard of implicit bailouts by means such as further tax devolution or strong repayment guarantees. An increased borrowing cap would provide an improvement on the current system, but is less preferable to prudential borrowing powers for the Welsh Government. Any future amends to the fiscal framework should seek to maximise flexibility for the Welsh Government in the use of reserves and borrowing, and between resource and capital. For example, greater flexibility within borrowing powers should be explored, including allowing borrowing for revenue as well as capital expenditure in order to increase the number of policy options available to the Welsh Government. The lack of fiscal firepower for the Welsh Government should be a core consideration for all policy-makers, academics, and the Constitutional Commission. The IWAs Director, Auriol Miller said: Our report finds that the Welsh Government finds its actions significantly limited by its fiscal settlement, even in fully devolved areas. We are calling for a more mature debate about the impact of Fiscal Firepower on the Welsh Governments ability to enact policy in devolved areas, in order to ensure that voters in Wales have a full range of policy options available to them. We are also calling for the reform of Welsh Government borrowing powers, in order to ensure that it is able to prioritise the cheapest forms of borrowing, rather than having cheaper means of borrowing capped, and being pushed towards more expensive options. Wrexham-based business celebrates 4 million milestone A Wrexham-based business is celebrating after helping Welsh companies claim millions in tax benefit. Reclaim Tax Wales, based in Chirk, are experts in specialist areas of tax relief, including Capital Allowances, Research & Development, Remediation of Contaminated Land and the Patent Box. With over 10 years experience the company has recently celebrated helping Welsh business claim more than 4 million in tax benefit including many local firms in North Wales. The Mayor of Wrexham, Councillor Brian Cameron along with the Leader of the Council, Councillor Mark Pritchard visited the companys HQ last week to congratulate employees. It was a real pleasure to meet Joshua and the team at Reclaim Tax Wales and to congratulate them on their achievement, said the mayor of Wrexham. It was good to learn about the work they do and how theyre helping other Welsh businesses, and its important we recognise and celebrate the success of local companies. Councillor Mark Pritchard said: Its always encouraging to hear about firms that are going from strength-to-strength. Local businesses play a crucial role in our economy they create wealth and employment, and help put Wrexham on the map. Helping Welsh businesses claim 4 million in tax benefit really is a stunning achievement, and I hope Reclaim Tax Wales continues to grow and thrive. Helping to stimulate the economy Joshua Davies, Managing Director of Reclaim Tax Wales, said: We were delighted to welcome the Mayor and Leader of the Council to our Wrexham office to celebrate the business surpassing 4 million in Welsh business tax relief. Were extremely proud of the work we carry out in uncovering specialist tax reliefs for limited companies which lead to substantial cash injections or tax savings. Many of these companies are on our doorstep in Wrexham, with us now having over 45 local clients. The support shown from local councils, communities and clients has been truly spectacular, and long may it continue. Our long-term goal is to continue to stimulate the Welsh economy and we look forward to welcoming back both the Mayor and Leader of the Council when we surpass 10 million in client benefit! Take up the fight for rank-and-file control! Join the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee by sending an email to railwrfc@gmail.com, texting (314) 529-1064 or filling out the form at the bottom of this page. The Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee held its third successful public meeting Wednesday night, titled No more delays! Organize the rank-and-file to fight for strike action! It was attended by hundreds of railroad workers and their supporters, who discussed a strategy for building opposition to the sellout contracts being pushed by the rail unions. Earlier that day, members of the RWRFC organized an informational picket outside of the BNSF Hobson Yard in Lincoln, Nebraska. This followed an earlier successful picket two weeks ago at the BNSF Argentine Yard in Kansas City. A dozen workers took part in the demonstration in Nebraska and passed out copies of the latest statement of the committee, After rejection of BMWED contract: Fight against union sabotage! Prepare a strike before the midterm elections! Railroaders at the informational picket outside of the Hobson Yard in Lincoln, Nebraska, Wednesday, October 12 2022. [Photo: WSWS] One of the organizers of the picket spoke at the public meeting. The reception we got from the general public was excellent, fantastic, he said. We had lots of people honking their horns, we had people slowing down and waving at us, and they were very, very friendly. We did have some workers come out and join us. The look of our superintendent seeing us as he pulled in for the day was definitely worth it alone. The opening report to the meeting from WSWS writer Tom Hall emphasized the importance of the vote by Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWED) workers to reject the contract at the start of the week. The vote shows the power you have, and was also a debacle for the government, Hall said. One outlet noted that only weeks after Bidens high-profile victory lap, the possibility of strike action is now back on the table. This recalls Bushs infamous Mission Accomplished speech following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The report also contrasted the Rank-and-File Committee meeting with the BLET national convention being held on the Las Vegas strip. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who earlier threatened to issue anti-strike legislation against railroaders, was given pride of place by the BLET bureaucracy. You are more powerful than the apparatus, and yes, more powerful even than the White House, Hall concluded. What you need is to know how to concentrate and direct this power. That is what the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee is fighting to build. That is the purpose of these meetings. Were are not here just to sound off our anger and frustration. These meetings are strategy sessions, in which the rank and file can work out its own response. What you decide here, each of you must then go and fight for at your own workplace. At the conclusion of the meeting, workers voted on two poll questions related to the next steps that railroad workers must take. The first question asked, If a walkout took place at another facility, do you believe that workers at your facility would honor the picket line? 86 percent responded yes, 2 percent no, and 12 percent not sure. The second question asked whether workers would support the rank-and-file committee setting a deadline for strike action. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said yes, 5 percent no, and 19 percent not sure. During the discussion following the opening report, many workers spoke on the necessity for the independent organization of railroad workers. It was opened up by a member of the committee from Kansas City, who said: Tomorrow, were having a representative from the International Association of Machinists, a special assistant to the president, and one of our general chairmen come to the Argentine Yard to answer questions about the contract. This is pretty unprecedented we believe that its because they know Argentine is a big thorn in their side. There will be a large turnout, a lot of questions will be asked and it will probably be heated. I know the main question that most of us have is, why did IAM President Kyle Loos nullify two strike votes? Why did he unilaterally decide to extend the cooling-off period longer than the cooling-off periods we already had gone through? We find this to be a huge crush on our democratic right to strike. It was an overwhelming strike vote [at the start of September.] He ended with a quote by Eugene Debs, the famous 19th and early 20th socialist railroader and strike leader: I would not be a Moses to lead you into the promised land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it. And I think that rings true today. We cant rely on one person, or 12 leaders of 12 unions. Its very evident theyre not going to lead the way they should be. We, the rank and file workers, railroad workers, the united front, are going to have to come together and try to pull this off. A committee member and maintenance of way worker from CSX said, I just wanted to congratulate the brothers and sisters of BMWED for standing up and voting down this trash agreement. This kind of thing has been going on far too long, and its not going to stop until we stop it. It seems like the unions not going to help us out, no politician is going to do anything for us. We have to take it into our own hands. I hope the engineers and conductors do the same thing and send an even more powerful message than is already being sent. They have to know the days of laying back and doing nothing are over. WSWS writer Eric London also reported on the results of a survey conducted by the RWRFC of electricians on the IBEW contract vote, which the union claimed passed by 150 votes. In fact, there is significant evidence that the contract was rammed through with fraud. The survey revealed that nearly a third of respondents never received a mail-in ballot and nearly one-quarter did not receive theirs in time to return it before the deadline. Ninety-one percent said they were opposed to the deal, 90 percent said they did not believe the votes were counted honestly or fairly, and 93 percent supported a re-vote. The moderator for the meeting also read out a prepared statement from a railroad electrician from Nebraska, which read: The upper echelon of the union expect us to not fight them. Actually, they push us towards that. So, laying down and rolling over now will only empower them to do what they want, which is NOT for the betterment of the rank and file, those of us who actually keep the whole company going. The lack of ballots going out or being received with no time to get them back in time to be counted, to me is a major red flag that there's corruption at the top. Right now would be such a great time to strike back at the corrupt as we can see in full light the corruption of this administration. We The People have the power. We outnumber them 1000:1. If we all come together, We can end their greed and truly make lives for us and our families so much better! I stand firmly on the idea of a strike! Throughout the discussion, many workers asked about the legality of both the rank-and-file committee and of strike action. Moderators responded that the Rank-and-File Committee and its activity were 100 percent legal and protected by workers First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of association. They also clarified that the anti-strike provisions of the Railway Labor Act were official exhausted on September 16, and that although the unions have deliberately left it ambiguous, workers have had no legal restraints on their right to strike since then. The extensions to the cooling-off period, it was explained, did not have the force of law, but were merely voluntary arrangements worked out behind closed doors between union and management negotiators. The poll results and the meeting as a whole expressed the powerful determination of workers to fight against the sellout contracts, including by taking strike action, which is being blocked by the apparatus of the unions. Dozens of workers also left their contact information at the end of the meeting for more information about joining the committee. Mechanics union claims narrow passage of contract, prompting suspicion from workers The Mechanics Division of International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-MD) announced last night that its contract had narrowly passed by 54 percent. SMART-MD is different from the much larger Transportation Division (SMART-TD), which includes train crews, and for which balloting has not yet started. As with the IBEW vote two weeks ago, the announcement was met with immediate suspicion from workers. The number one source of concern was the fact that vote results were not expected for another two days, on October 14. To date, this is the only contract result which has come in early. Many workers also took to social media to claim that they had never received a ballot, just as with the IBEW. Clearly anticipating a backlash, SMART-MD was remarkably defensive in its announcement of the result. We hear the concerns of our members who may be disappointed in the outcome of this vote, and I promise that we will never stop fighting to ensure that they receive the wages, benefits and working conditions that they deserve for keeping the American economy running, SMART General President Joseph Sellers said. As winter approaches, and with new immune-evasive variants emerging around the world, Britain is already facing a surge in COVID infections and hospitalisations. Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a 25 percent rise in infection rate over one week, with 1.7 million people testing positive in the week ending October 3, a huge rise from the 1.3 million the previous week. Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [AP Photo/Neil Hall Pool via AP] Scientists are warning of a potentially devastating new wave of the pandemic over the autumn, combining with a massive rise in flu cases in a twindemic that will wreak havoc in an already overloaded National Health Service (NHS). The situation exposes again the criminal indifference of the ruling class to the threat posed by the pandemic to public health and lives. Government policies and downscaling of testing have created a lethal situation, described by virologist Professor Lawrence Young of Warwick University as a perfect storm of inadequate surveillance, people not coming forward for vaccination and the economic situation. COVID infections have significantly increased to one in 35 people in England (2.8 percent of the population), one in 40 in Wales and Northern Ireland, and one in 50 in Scotland. Data from the ZOE Symptom Tracker app show a 34 percent rise in the last two weeks alone. The data currently show an estimated 235,829 new daily symptomatic cases, up from 176,090 two weeks ago. Hospitalisations are also on the rise. On October 12, NHS England reported a total of 10,608 hospital beds occupied by confirmed COVID-19 patients. This was 10 percent up on the previous weeks 9,631, and roughly double the total a month ago. It is the highest figure since July 29. Hospitals around the country are reporting their highest level of COVID patients in months. Increasing infections are resulting in a surge of deaths. In the week to October 8, there were 793 deaths recorded, a nearly 39 percent increase on the previous seven days. Even with revisions of the criteria for recording deaths aimed at restricting the numbers, the official figures record a total of more than 190,000 (191,681) dead with COVID. The more accurate fatality figure (recording the number of people who died with COVID mentioned on the death certificate) is 207,948. Dr Mary Ramsay, Director of Public Health Programmes at the UK Health Security Agency, downplayed the impact, saying that deaths with Covid-19 have also started to rise. Whilst this is concerning, it is too early to say whether these are deaths due to Covid-19 The longer-term effects of the virus are becoming ever more apparent. ONS figures from early September report 2.3 million people in the UK living with Long COVID, up 300,000 on the previous reporting period. This is around 3.5 percent of the population, one in every 28 people. Of these, nearly half (1.1 million) say they were first infected more than a year ago, while 514,000 say they were first infected at least two years ago. The COVID surge is exacerbating the crisis in the systematically underfunded NHS. This can be seen acutely in a small hospital, St Marys on the Isle of Wight, which has just declared its fourth critical incident in as many months. A major contributory factor has been the sharp rise in COVID hospitalisations, up from 12 at the end of September to 41. Professor Tim Spector, co-founder of the ZOE app, said that the UK is already at the start of its next wave of coronavirus, which is affecting older people earlier than the last wave. He told the Independent that one problem was out-of-date official information. Many people are still using the government guidelines about symptoms which are wrong. At the moment, COVID starts in two-thirds of people with a sore throat. Fever and loss of smell are really rare nowso many old people may not think theyve got COVID. Theyd say its a cold and not be tested. These are the results of the governments policy of malign neglect in pursuit of profit. Their determination to downplay or disregard the health implications of the pandemic in order to keep the economy open has led to continued resurgences of the virus. The ditching of all testing and surveillance has not only led to under-reporting of infection, it has prevented the elimination of the virus which was both medically possible and socially necessary. Instead, the policy of living with the virus has resulted in the government welcoming the supposed mild character of new variants, with more cold or flu-like symptoms. The virus has been allowed to develop and mutate, resulting in more variations that will resist or evade vaccines and immunity. Scientists are now reporting convergent mutations, where variants are different but share the same mutations, making them more effective at evading immune responses. Yunlong Cao, whose co-authored research paper on this is in pre-print, told New Atlas, Seeing this convergent evolution pattern would mean that SARS-CoV-2 would evolve immune-evasive mutations much more frequently than before, and the resulting new variants would be much more immune-evasive. This means patients are less able to fight off the infection. Virologist Marc Johnson said the result is that the virus, because theres no bottlenecks from spreading from person to person, it just hits the evolutionary fast forward button. This is the direct result of the let it rip policies adopted by the ruling class internationally. While the British government continues to boast of its vaccination programme, the effect of such policies is to threaten the vaccination immunity achieved so far. The variant Omicron BA.2.75.2, which was gaining ground in the UK, was described by scientist Eric Topol as the most immune evasive variant to date, although at present it does not yet account for a majority of cases. It emerged from the BA.2.75 variant, which is responsible for 88 percent of infections in India. However, Topol warned, even this has been surpassed by the XBB variant, first detected in Cyprus. Some have called this a super strain, emerging from a combination of two forms of Omicron. Although not relatively widespread yet, there is concern that if XBB is as transmissible as other forms of Omicron, it will sweep through health systems like wildfire. Lawrence Young noted the convergent mutations of BA.2.75.2 and BQ1.1: although theyre slightly different in how theyve come about theyve come up with the same changes to get around the bodys immune system. What were finding is the virus is evolving around the immunity thats been built up through vaccines and countless infections people have had. Discontinuing comprehensive testing and surveillanceincluding ending free testing, closing research labs and ending funding to the ZOE Health Study in Marchhas meant an under-reporting of infection rates and a corresponding inability to respond to new variants. Young pointed to the downscaling of testing following the governments Living with Covid plan. Weve really taken our eye off the ball with Covid tests. We can only detect variants or know whats coming by doing sequencing from PCR testing, and its not going on anywhere near the extent it was a year ago. People are going to get various infections over the winter but wont know what they are because free tests arent availableits going to be a problem. He pointed too to the economic situation, where if people do feel poorly theyre not likely to take time off work. This will only encourage further the spread and mutation of the virus. The New Zealand Herald reported on October 8 that unnamed representatives of the countrys Ukrainian community held a high-level meeting with the Labour Party-led government where they raised concerns with government officials over the ongoing recruitment of Russian fishing crews. Fishing trawler Mainstream docked in Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand. One of several vessels used by Sealord. (Photo taken October 2016; Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC0) In response, Immigration Minister Michael Wood told the newspaper: I have encouraged fishing companies to consider their reliance on Russian workers given the unstable situation created by Russias abhorrent invasion of Ukraine. While a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said current travel bans and sanctions are not aimed at everyday Russian citizens, only those with links to the Putin regime, Woods statement suggests that preparations are underway to extend such measures. The Herald article is part of an intensifying xenophobic campaign to demonise all Russians, including workers who have no responsibility for the Putin governments invasion of Ukraine. The aim is to justify New Zealands further integration into the US-NATO imperialist war against Russia, which is developing into a third world war. The US and its allies are seeking to resolve their worsening economic crisis by establishing their hegemony over both Russia and China. The dangers facing the worlds population cannot be overstated, as Moscow and Washington are recklessly threatening to use nuclear weapons to secure their geopolitical interests. New Zealand, a close ally of the US, has already sent 230 troops to Europe to assist with training Ukraines armed forces, and has contributed military equipment, money and intelligence to the war effort. All of this has been accompanied by a barrage of propaganda aimed at overcoming broad anti-war sentiment in the New Zealand population. New Zealands largest fishing company Sealord, and others in the industry, have for decades used foreign crews as cheap labour. In 2011, journalists and researchers exposed abusive and slave-like working conditions that many of these crews were subjected to, triggering a major scandal. Fishing crews are recruited from Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Asia, as well as Russia and Ukraine. Radio NZ reported on May 17, 2021, that in 2019, prior to the pandemic, 31 percent of the industrys workforce were temporary migrants, about 4,000 workers. Now, a significant number of these highly exploited workers are being denounced in the most hysterical terms as agents of Moscow. According to the Herald, questions over the morality of hiring Crimeans, in particular, have been raised with Sealord and Independent Fisheries Limited. Crimea is claimed by both Russia and Ukraine and was formally annexed by Russia in 2014, following the US and NATO sponsored coup, spearheaded by fascists, which installed an aggressively anti-Russian regime in Kiev. The Ukrainian government has said it intends to retake Crimea by force, and recently organised a terrorist attack on the Kerch bridge aimed at escalating the war. Ukrainians who spoke to the New Zealand Herald, however, equated Crimeans with Russians. One unnamed source told the Herald that the employment of Crimeans was indirect sponsorship of Russias war crimes. Another accused these crews of being aggressively pro-war and pro-Putin. A Ukrainian described as familiar with the crews who come to New Zealand made the blatantly racist comment that employing Crimeans was the same as [employing people from] Syria or Iran or North Korea. Nobody will think about hiring a Somalian fishing crew. The Herald also quoted the Ukrainian Association of New Zealand (UANZ), a group that is routinely cited as the unchallengeable voice on all matters relating to the war in Ukraine. The organisation questioned why Crimeans were being allowed to work on New Zealand fishing vessels despite widespread condemnation of the Russian aggression, which is currently threatening to destroy the world in a nuclear apocalypse. The implication of all these repugnant statements, presented uncritically by the Herald, is that all Russians, including ordinary working people, must be regarded as enemy aliens. This is of a piece with the vilification of Russian musicians, athletes and performers throughout Europe and North America. The article also recalls the hysteria whipped up against Germans living in New Zealand during the First and Second World Wars. With the outbreak of war in 1914, people from German families, whether naturalised or not, found themselves harassed and spied upon by police and hounded by nationalist thugs. Many were forced out of their jobs or had their businesses vandalised, and hundreds were imprisoned on Somes Island. The UANZ held a pro-war rally in June, where Auckland Mayor Phil Goff and Minister for Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan promised more weapons and support for the Ukrainian armed forces. The rally was backed by the Greens (who are part of the Labour-led government) and the pseudo-left Auckland Peace Action group. In a September 26 Facebook post, UANZ chairperson Yuriy Gladun denounced calls for Russians fleeing Putins mobilisation order to be allowed entry into New Zealand. The post, which was reported uncritically by media outlet Stuff on October 7, slandered the entire Russian population as complicit in the destruction of Ukrainian cities and villages and war crimes. No political tendency in New Zealand has opposed the reactionary demands aired by UANZ and the media for the banning of Russian migrant workers. This includes the Greens, who sometimes pose as defenders of migrants and refugees, as well as the various pseudo-left groups which support the governments alignment with the US and NATO against Russia. The pro-government Daily Blog, for its part, has concentrated on justifying New Zealands integration into the war preparations against China. It has declared that Chinas fishing militia aims to take over the Pacific and has called for a stronger military to protect our fisheries. The Maritime Union (MUNZ) took a nationalist position when questioned by the World Socialist Web Site. Communications spokesperson Victor Billot said: We dont see the [Russian or Ukrainian] workers on those vessels as necessarily responsible for what their governments are up to, in either case. So, we wouldnt want to have some kind of prejudice against any workers. He added, however, that a large part of the problem is because the industry has been reliant for many years on using overseas labour and that is a way that theyve driven down wages and conditions. The union wanted vessels in New Zealand waters to have more New Zealand workers on good wages and conditions, he said. Last year, MUNZ supported a government decision to ban a cruise ship from entering New Zealand, based solely on the nationality of its workers. This nationalism is aimed at dividing workers and covering up the responsibility of the unions themselves for the dire working and social conditions that exist. For decades, the unions have overseen the destruction of full-time jobs and the cutting of wages, in the maritime industries as in every other. Opposition to all forms of nationalism and xenophobia, including that promoted by the union bureaucracy, is a crucial part of the fight to build a global anti-war movement. Only the independent political intervention of the working class, united across national borders, can disarm the ruling class, in every country, and stop its insane drive towards a catastrophic world war. This requires a socialist strategy and internationalist strategy, aimed at putting an end to capitalism and the division of the world into nation states, which is the source of war. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) have resolved to build a movement of workers and youth against imperialist war. We call on those who agree with this perspective to contact us. Recently released figures from the Office of the Correctional Investigator show that indigenous women comprise almost 50 percent of Canadas female inmate population in federally run prisons. Indigenous men are also grossly overrepresented among Canadas prison inmates, albeit not to the same degree. Overall, indigenous people account for 37 percent of the federal prison population despite comprising just 5 percent of the Canadian population. The report notes that the indigenous inmate population has risen by some 18 percent over the past decade, even as the number of non-indigenous inmates dropped by 28 percent during the same period as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rates of indigenous incarceration are even higher than the average in Ontario and Canadas western provinces. In the period from 2011 to 2012, for example, indigenous inmates comprised 78 percent of the total prison population in Saskatchewan, while the indigenous population comprises only 12 percent of the provinces inhabitants. Female prisoner being held in segregation cell. (Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator 2016-2017) These tragic figures underscore the savage mistreatment of indigenous peoples by the Canadian capitalist state for over a century and a half, beginning with the forcible dispossession of the native people and the destruction of their communal forms of property. Historically, Canadas ruling class ruthlessly cleared the native populations from their land to make way for capitalist economic development and suppressed native culture in an effort to transform them into a docile workforce. The most notorious method employed was the state-created, church-run residential school system, which forcibly separated indigenous children from their families for long periods of time and sought to erase their cultural and linguistic heritage. The inhumane conditions within the residential schools led to the deaths of as many as 6,000 indigenous children, while tens of thousands of others were physically and sexually brutalized. The last of such institutions closed as recently as the late 1990s. The intolerable social conditions which Canadian capitalism has meted out to the indigenous peoples have created generations of mentally distressed individuals living in extreme poverty. Figures from a Statistics Canada study based on 2016 data found that as many as 44 percent of residents on native reserves live in low-income households, standing in stark comparison to the 14 percent of Canadas total population living in poverty. The reserves themselves often lack basic social infrastructure, including things as fundamental as access to clean drinking water. Today, 32 long-term boil water advisories remain in effect across Canadas indigenous reserves, including the Neskatanga First Nation in Ontario, which has been without clean water for over 25 years. The deepening of Canadas social crisis has pushed more vulnerable sections of society into the desperate conditions that increase incarceration rates. Many indigenous women relocate to cities to escape the poverty rampant on the reserves, leaving their families and communities behind. Once in an urban environment, they often face problems in securing housing and employment, which are exacerbated by the lack of social supports and isolation from their culture and family. The rampant opioid epidemic, expressed above all in the deadly wave of fentanyl overdoses, has also devastated many urban indigenous communities. Both on- and off-reserve, the lives of many indigenous people, have been scarred by the residential school systemeither having lived through the traumatic experience themselves, or having been raised by parents and family members who did. These conditions of social deprivation also make indigenous people even more likely targets for discriminatory practices by law enforcement and the Canadian judicial system. A 2004 Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Research Branch report titled A Needs Assessment of Federal Aboriginal Women Offenders, assessing indigenous women during incarceration and post-release, found that over two-thirds (69 percent) were rated at a high needs level for programming, whereas 29 percent were rated at moderate and only 2 percent at low-level needs. Noted among the most pressing needs were personal and emotional orientation, substance abuse treatment and securing employment. Figures from 2009-2010 showed abysmally long wait times for gaining access to such rehabilitative programming. For Metis women, indigenous peoples with mixed native and French ancestry inhabiting Canadas western provinces, the average wait time took 264 days. For a First Nations woman the wait time was 238 days, and no Inuit women were receiving program support at all. The 2004 CSC report noted that the vast majority of indigenous women have become entangled in Canadas criminal justice system for more serious offences. Between 2009 and 2010, the average sentence length for incarcerated indigenous women was 3.52 years, and the majority (68.08 percent) were serving sentences ranging between two to five years. Indigenous women inmates generally had low levels of education and employment. Many had a previous criminal history, often involving youth convictions that led to their being ensnared in the penal system at an early and especially vulnerable age. In a further reflection of the social misery imposed upon Canadas indigenous reservations, most women endured some form of childhood dysfunction and difficulties within their family or community. As among all sections of the working class, the growing social crisis resulting from increased economic insecurity and the evisceration of public and social services has been particularly hard on native young people. On average, incarcerated indigenous women were younger than the average Canadian inmate. As of 2010, roughly 50.9 percent of new admissions were under the age of 30 (as compared to 37.8 percent of non-indigenous incarcerated individuals) and the average age of all female indigenous inmates was 34 years old. By 2016-17, indigenous youth aged 12-17 accounted for 46 percent of youth admissions to correctional services in 10 jurisdictions while comprising on average only 8 percent of the general young population within the same jurisdictions. The conditions of incarceration for indigenous women are also typically worse than that of their non-indigenous counterparts. They are segregated more frequently and for longer periods of time than non-indigenous women. One woman was reported in 2003 to have been held in segregation for 567 days, for example. In 2006, another report showed an indigenous woman actually spent the majority of her sentence in isolationfor a period of over 1,500 days. Isolation or solitary confinement is known to have serious deleterious effects on psychological well-being, especially for individuals with prior mental health issues. The United Nations considers more than 15 consecutive days of 22 hours or more of confinement without meaningful human contact' to be torture. Outdoor segregation yard at a womens prison. (Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator 2016-2017) Reports note that due to a lack of resources, the CSC often responds to mental health issues (including acts of self-harm) by segregating inmates rather than providing them with treatment. Indigenous prisoners are less likely to be granted either day or full parole. In the period of 2009-10, over 75 percent of all indigenous inmates remained incarcerated until their release datea number over 10 percent higher than their non-indigenous counterparts. Indigenous individuals also comprise 33.42 percent of total overall detentions past their statutory release date, a number disproportionate to their population size. Overall, only 1.2 percent of indigenous inmates were granted full parole during the 2009-10 period compared with 3.8 percent of non-indigenous ones. The massive over-representation of indigenous people in Canadas prisons is yet another example of the fraudulent character of the Trudeau Liberal government and ruling elites policy of nation to nation reconciliation with Canadas native people. This policy is not aimed at addressing the urgent social and economic needs of the native population, but at advancing the predatory interests of Canadian capitalism. Through the cultivation of a tiny petty-bourgeois native elite and its incorporation into the structures of bourgeois politics, Canadian capitalism seeks to gain a fig-leaf of legitimacy for socially and environmentally destructive resource development projects on historic native lands, and to suppress opposition among the native population and segregate it from the rest of the working class Native reconciliation is enabling a privileged minority to become business owners, government officials and judges, as exemplified in the person of Governor General Mary Simon, the Kings representative in Canada, while the vast majority of indigenous people live in abject misery akin to social conditions in the lesser developed, historically oppressed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaunow approaching the end of his seventh year as prime minister and the most conspicuous proponent of reconciliationproposed a palliative measure to the imprisoning of large numbers of native people in the form of a bill to do away with mandatory minimum sentences. Even were Bill C-5 to be adopted by parliament, it would only repeal certain minimum penalties and is difficult to enforce by design. Critics of the bill have made clear that the bill will do nothing to reduce the number of indigenous women housed within federal penitentiaries. Trudeaus government has failed to fulfill any of the promises it touted, in the name of reconciliation on coming to office, including doing away with boiled-water advisories and lifting indigenous reservations out of poverty. As the political representative of the Canadian capitalist class, the Trudeau government is far more concerned with defending the wealth of the super-rich and waging war and aggression around the world than securing the needs of the indigenous, as all working people. The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 fascist attack on the Capitol held its final hearing Thursday, or at least its last before the midterm election, whose results could rapidly put an end to any congressional effort to gather evidence on the attempted coup by then-President Donald Trump. The hearing ended with a unanimous vote by the nine members of the committee, seven Democrats and two Republicans, to subpoena Trump to testify under oath about his actions leading up to and during the attack on Congress. Trump will certainly defy the subpoena, and litigation could delay any enforcement action until after the subpoena expires at the end of the current congressional term, January 2, 2023. If the Republicans win control of the House on November 8, they will certainly abolish the select committee and rescind any subpoenas and other investigative actions which are still outstanding at that time. The hearing, which lasted slightly more than two hours, presented considerable new evidence detailing the circumstances of the attack, particularly on the role of the Secret Service and other federal agencies in allowing violence to explode after a rally of Trump supporters outside the White House. Whipped into a frenzy by Trump and encouraged by him to go to the Capitol and fight against the certification of Democrat Joe Bidens victory in the 2020 election, the mob marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, broke through barriers and police lines and then stormed into the Capitol itself. Congressmen and senators fled, hiding in underground shelters until police and National Guard troops were mobilized to retake control of the building. Many hours later, they reconvened and certified Bidens victory in the Electoral College, which followed his victory in the popular vote by a massive margin of nearly 8 million votes. The new evidence presented during the Thursday hearing fell into two main categories: an account of what the Secret Service and other government agencies knew about the impending attack on the Capitol, based on more than 1.5 million messages, including texts, chats and emails, turned over to the committee by these agencies; and a video showing the congressional leaders, both Democrat and Republican, huddling in their shelters under police protection and pleading with the White House, other federal agencies and the military to mobilize police and troops to clear the building of the attackers. As in previous public hearings of the committee, the evidence presented was compelling and narrated in a coherent fashion by the nine representatives, who divided up the two hours into roughly equal blocks. No live witnesses testified, but there were numerous excerpts played of recorded testimony of such witnesses as White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, among others. An audio recording of former President Donald Trump talking to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is played as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. [AP Photo/Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo] The combined effect of the testimony was to give a picture of the sweep of events from Trumps initial threats to ignore the election results if he lostdelivered with increasing bluntness from the summer of 2020 through the final days of the election campaignto January 6 itself, when Trump clashed with his own Secret Service detail because he wanted to march with his supporters to the Capitol and lead the attack, but the agents charged with protecting him objected that it was too dangerous. And as at previous hearings, the nine congressmen and congresswomen refused to draw any conclusions about the scale of the conspiracy to overthrow the US government and install Trump as a president-dictator. It was all put down to Trumps personal determination to remain in office, and his role in directing the various elements in the coup attempt, from legal challenges to the vote, to efforts to induce state legislators or the Department of Justice to back his bogus claims of election fraud, to the ultimate violent attack on the Capitol. Among the most striking evidence was the text of various communications between Secret Service agents or between the Secret Service and other federal agencies. These established that the federal security forces were carefully monitoring the social media postings of fascist groups and other Trump supporters. These forces planned the attack on the Capitol and issued directives to bring weapons to the January 6 rally at the White House and then go to the Capitol and use them to kill members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence if they did not agree to overturn Trumps election defeat. Despite this clear understanding, the security agencies did nothing to protect the Capitol from an attack involving thousands of attackers, many of them armed. Only a thin line of Capitol Police were in place, quickly overrun by the mob. Units of the Metropolitan Washington Police joined the melee, along with scattered units from various federal departments, but only the arrival of substantial forces from Virginia and Maryland, followed hours later by the National Guard, made it possible for Congress to reconvene and finish the certification. This demonstrates that there was wide support for the coup inside these federal agencies. Trump was not a lone wolf but the leader of an effort to overturn the election that involved mobilizing substantial forces to attack the Capitol and at the same time engineering a stand-down of the forces that would, in other circumstances, have been expected to defend it. The committee also continued its practice of whitewashing the role of the Republican Party in the coup attempt. Chairman Bennie Thompson and senior Democrat Zoe Lofgren emphasized that the evidence that had been presented to the committee had come largely from Republican witnesses, and that many Republican government officials had done their duty on January 6. These statements covered up the role of leading Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who remained silent during the months before the election while Trump made repeated statements that he would not accept the result of the vote unless he won. McConnell publicly defended Trumps post-election efforts to dispute the outcome, claiming the president was doing nothing more than asserting his legal right to recounts and challenges, even as the campaign to mobilize fascists against the election escalated. Nor was there any mention of the 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives and eight senators who voted against certifying Bidens election victory only hours after the mob had been cleared from the House chamber. No one at the hearing discussed the role of Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a longtime Republican activist who was interviewed by the committee only days before the hearing. Thomas was at the center of the White House campaign to persuade state legislators in battleground states won by Biden to overturn the decision of voters and award their states electoral votes to Trump. She sent dozens of emails to legislators in Arizona and Wisconsin and visited or contacted the White House several times during the weeks leading up to January 6. What came across in testimony and documents presented Thursday is the intensity of the conflict within the capitalist state and within the ruling class as a whole, driven largely by differences between Trump and the Democratsand sections of the Republicansover foreign policy. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Afghanistan war veteran, touched on this issue directly in his section of committee presentation. He cited Trumps orders for a complete withdrawal of all US military forces from Afghanistan and Somalia by January 20, 2021, in order to end these operations before the next guy could countermand the order. The ostensible purpose was to demonstrate that Trump was well aware that he had lost the election and would be replaced as commander-in-chief on Inauguration Day. But Kinzinger also gave voice to the outrage in the military brass, which resisted implementation of the order and succeeded in keeping US forces in both countries well after Trump left the White House. Another significant detail, not cited at the hearing but noted in media coverage afterwards, testifies to the sharpness of the conflict within the security agencies themselves. Biden apparently insisted on a complete changeover of the Secret Service detail assigned to protect the White House. He would not allow anyone assigned to protecting Trump to play any role in insuring his own security, viewing them as potentially disloyal. In the second week of the seditious conspiracy trial against five members of the fascist Oath Keepers militia group, prosecutors presented more text evidence that the US Secret Service had contact with the leader of the group, Stewart Rhodes, leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Stewart Rhodes, founder of the extreme-right Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington on June 25, 2017 [Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh] Last week, former Oath Keeper John Zimmerman testified that Rhodes told him that he had a contact within the Secret Service. Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer and former Army paratrooper, allegedly told Zimmerman that this Secret Service contact had previously spoken to him about Oath Keepers providing security services for a Trump campaign event in September 2020. Zimmerman said Rhodes discussed with the Secret Service what kind of weapons the Oath Keepers were allowed to carry while working the rally. After Zimmermans testimony emerged last week, the agency refused to confirm if it had previous contact with Rhodes. However on Wednesday, the Washington Post wrote that a Secret Service official confirmed that members of the agencys protective intelligence division reached out to the Oath Keepers in advance of protests in D.C. in November and December as well as the January 6 Stop the Steal rally. The Post reported that Rhodes, and other leaders from the fascist militia group, were in contact with Secret Service officials multiple times in late 2020. The so-called Million MAGA marches, held in Washington D.C. on November 14 and December 12, 2020, helped to galvanize Trumps militia elements in support of the coup and served as nexus points for further coordination between the groups and the White House itself. At each march, fascists engaged in street fights with local residents and anti-fascist activists. That the Secret Service was actively in touch with Rhodes during these rallies dispels any pretense that the intelligence agencies and Washington D.C. police department were unaware that a fascist attack animated by Trumps lie that the election was stolen was being planned. The question now is how much of Rhodes activities were directed, or at least passively encouraged, by the agency closest to the aspiring dictator Trump? Prosecutors presented revealing text messages on Thursday illustrating how Rhodes saw the relationship between himself and the Secret Service. The messages were exchanged between Florida Oath Keeper leader Kelly Meggs and Rhodes. Meggs and his wife Connie were both cited in Thursdays January 6 Select Committee hearing as being two of at least seven Oath Keepers who have been charged in the coup and have also previously provided security to Trump political crony Roger Stone. Rhodes was one of dozens of fascists who belonged to the Friends of Stone text group which was used by Stone to coordinate Stop the Steal efforts. After the Oath Keepers were granted VIP passes to protect Republican officials during the Ellipse rally outside the White House on January 6, Meggs asked Rhodes how the Secret Service would feel about the fascist militia group protecting Trump. Rhodes responded that the group would only bring guns if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and federalized them as a militia. Im not talking about us just walking onto the White House lawn with rifles, Rhodes wrote to Meggs. However, Rhodes added that he thought the Secret Service would be happy to have us there, based on previous conversations he had with other agents. In those same Signal chats with Meggs, Rhodes advised that the group adopt the fascist QAnon slogan WWG1WGA (Where We Go One We Go All). In addition to revealing the close coordination between the Secret Service and the Oath Keepers leading up to the attack on the Capitol, testimony from former Oath Keepers has shed further light on the massive amount of weaponry the group brought with them in support of Trumps coup. That there were not massive fatalities on January 6 appears to be more a result of luck and inexperience on the part of the fascists, as opposed to any action taken by the police or intelligence agencies to prevent violence. On Wednesday, Oath Keeper Terry Cummings provided testimony on his activities with the group leading up to and during January 6. While Cummings is not charged with a crime, he did admit he was only testifying because a subpoena compelled him to. Cummings confirmed he was in the Air National Guard for 21 years and that his first deployment was to Germany in 1978. Cummings testified that after joining the militia group while living in Florida in 2020, he spoke with Oath Keepers Jason Dolan and Kenneth Harrelson about coming to Washington D.C. on January 6. Cummings, who did not have a leadership role in the group, said that he, Dolan and Harrelson met up with Connie and Kelly Meggs at a rustic camp in North Carolina on January 4, 2021. From there the group headed to a Virginia hotel outside of D.C. (District of Columbia) where the quick reaction forces, or QRFs, were gathering. Cummings brought his AR-15 with him to the hotel, but he claimed that this was for defensive purposes. Upon seeing the weapons cache the Oath Keepers had already amassed less than 48 hours before January 6, Cummings remarked: I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military. Prior to the attack on Congress, Cummings was one of several Oath Keepers who received VIP passes to go backstage and protect Republican politicians and operatives. During his security mission on January 6, Cummings was told by Kelly Meggs that he had contact with the organizers of the Save America rally. After Trumps speech, Cummings joined fellow Oath Keepers in marching on the Capitol but due to a fortuitous bathroom break, he got separated from the group and did not participate in the military stack breach of the Capitol. Cummings said that he did reconnect with Rhodes outside the Capitol as the siege was underway. Cummings recalled Rhodes telling him to just suck it up when police started to use tear gas. Dominican President Luis Abinader announced the deployment of troops to the Haitian border on October 9 to stop the flow of refugees fleeing poverty and violence in crisis-stricken Haiti. Speaking at a press conference in Dajabon, on the northwest frontier with Haiti, Abinader echoed his Haitian counterparts in calling for a foreign military intervention to quell the popular uprising against the US-installed regime of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Dominican President Luis Abinader with troops being deployed on Haitian border (Credit: Mide.gov.do) Abinader, speaking for the venal ruling elite of the Dominican Republicitself a deeply unequal and poverty-stricken nationno doubt views the mass movement of the Haitian working class with extreme nervousness. He praised the Haitian governments plea for foreign troops as wise, reasonable and patriotic. He went on to declare that, in the event of an intervention, his government would seal the border and accept no refugees: We understand that this international force will have the methods to prevent a massive migration of Haitian citizens to our country, because we, in that case, would block the border. Its very dangerous for the integrity of the Dominican Republic to receive asylum seekers in the country. Abinader promised even harsher controls on migrations, while boasting that the Migration Directorate has deported the largest number of Haitian people that has been documented in recent years. The president added that the government would purchase six helicopters, 10 aircraft, 21 armored vehicles and four anti-riot trucks, the nations biggest military procurement since 1961. Troops and tanks were deployed in Dajabon, with Abinader announcing the construction of 400 residences as well as pay raises for the soldiers. The wealthiest public official in the Dominican Republicwith an official net worth of some $70 millionAbinader was elected in 2020 on a platform of law and order and cracking down on migration from Haiti. During the election, he cultivated close ties with the likes of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and then-Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo, signaling his desire to faithfully serve the interests of US imperialism. In 2021, he was named in the Pandora Papers leak, which revealed the hidden wealth that he and other world leaders had stashed away in tax havens. In February 2021, aiming to cultivate support among far-right chauvinist elements, Abinader announced plans for a Trump-inspired border wall to cover nearly half of the 244-mile (392 km) border with Haiti. Construction began last February. No expenses will be spared in equipping the wall with advanced facial recognition cameras, thermal and motion sensors, and military-grade drones to patrol its length. Emboldened by the tacit support of the government, outright fascist organizations such as the Antigua Orden Dominicana (AOD) have carried out violent provocations against the Haitian immigrant community and their defenders in the Dominican working class. On October 12, an Anti-Colonial Day demonstration in Columbus Park in Santo Domingo was violently dispersed by a mob of fascists chanting anti-Haitian slogans, while police looked on from the sidelines. Fourteen social and human rights organizations petitioned the Office of the Attorney General of the Dominican Republic for firm action to end the impunity that covers racist hate crimes and human rights abuses committed against the Haitian migrant community. The letter reads, We have seen the proliferation of racist speeches and criminal actions against the Haitian immigrant community in the country continue in the face of the authorities passive gaze, when it is not under their direct incitement. The letter recounts one of these crimes, carried out in Rancho Manuel, in Puerto Plata province. Earlier this month, the local Haitian community was subjected to a brutal lynch mob assault after a rancher and two of his employees were found murdered. Videos posted on social media show the migrants makeshift dwellings being ransacked and torched, while the perpetrators shouted racist and xenophobic curses. A 2017 census recorded some 500,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, though the true number may be twice that. Haitian immigrants make up the majority of the workforce in agriculture and in the burgeoning construction industry. With no legal protections, they are subject to the most brutal exploitation. On the sugar cane plantations, the laborers are subject to slave-like conditions, including 12-hour days, arbitrary wages and in some cases even physical abuse. Forbidden from striking or organizing, they are at the mercy of their employers, who can dismiss them at will and even call the authorities to round them up, sometimes before wages are paid. The Dominican constitution had guaranteed birthright citizenship until 2010, when an amendment was made that denied citizenship to the children of undocumented migrants. In 2013, the Constitutional Tribunal, stacked with right-wing nationalists, handed down a draconian ruling that retroactively denied citizenship to anyone born to non-Dominican parents since 1929. Hundreds of thousands were rendered stateless overnight and subject to deportation. Many of them were children of Haitian parents, who were born in the Dominican Republic, speak Spanish and have never set foot in Haiti. Tens of thousands were deported over the following years, while others self-deported to Haiti out of fear. Many settled in makeshift camps on the border, living in abject squalor amid disease and starvation. As the flow of refugees has increased due to growing deprivation and political instability in Haiti, the Dominican government has stepped up its attacks on migrants, deporting more people in the first half of 2022 than in all of 2021. In cultivating anti-Haitian chauvinism and xenophobia, Abinader and the rotten comprador bourgeoisie that he represents are following a well-worn path. Historically, the Dominican elitewhile profiting enormously from the cheap labor of Haitian workershave stirred up the most backward and disoriented elements of the population by scapegoating Haitian migrants for depressed wages and unemployment. The 1937 Parsley Massacre, also known as El Corte (The Cutting), provides the most notorious example. The US-backed dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo was then faced with an economic crisis and growing social opposition, triggered by a precipitous fall in the price of sugar, the countrys primary export. Haitian laborers living in the borderlands provided a convenient scapegoat, and in October of that year, seizing upon a few murky allegations of crimes, Trujillo ordered the extermination of Haitians living on the Dominican side of the border. Some 20,000-30,000 Haitians and dark-skinned Dominicans were slain, many of them butchered with machetes in order to make it appear a spontaneous action by the campesinos. Cynically, Haitians working on American-owned plantations were left untouched. No Dominican official was ever charged or prosecuted, and the crime was never officially acknowledged until after Trujillos assassination in 1961. In December 1962, the first free-elections in 30 years saw the accession of nationalist reformer Juan Bosch to the presidency. His limited reforms provoked the ire of the possessing classes and their imperialist sponsors, and nine months later he was overthrown in a coup and replaced with a military junta. In April 1965, workers rose up against the military dictatorship. Arms in hand, they took over Santo Domingo and beat back the efforts of the junta to dislodge them. US President Lyndon Johnson ordered the invasion and occupation of the country to restore order. Four thousand died in pitched street battles fought in the slums of Santo Domingo, with poorly armed workers giving battle to US Marines and junta troops equipped with tanks and heavy artillery. After the carnage, free elections were held and Joaquin Balaguer, a former henchman of Trujillo, was installed as president. He would rule for the next 12 years through a combination of fraud and police terror, facilitating the exploitation of the nations natural resources and cheap labor by American capital. With this bloody history in mind, Abinaders call for a military intervention in Haiti has sinister implications. The Dominican bourgeoisie would also not hesitate to call upon their imperialist sponsors for military assistance in the event their own working class threatened their grip on power. In irreconcilable opposition to the reactionary chauvinism of the bourgeoisie, Dominican workers must fight on the basis of the objective class interests that they share with their Haitian neighbors for the building of a united, socialist Hispaniola. This requires the building of a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International to provide the Marxist leadership necessary for the struggle against the comprador bourgeoisie and their imperialist overlords. Supporters of Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker running for president of the United Auto Workers union, spoke to Ford workers in Michigan and Ohio in recent days. On Tuesday, campaign supporters visited Ford Ohio Assembly (OAP) in Avon Lake outside Cleveland, which employs 1,600 hourly workers building the Ford E Series and Super Duty light trucks. Like other Ford plants, production has been hampered by periodic shortages of parts. In early 2021, Ford announced it was cancelling plans for the expansion of OAP that it had previously claimed would bring 1,500 new jobs to the plant. The UAW did nothing to oppose the cancellation, despite the fact that the pledge by Ford to bring new jobs to the plant had been used by the union to push the concessionary 2019 national auto agreement The campaign team received a warm response from OAP workers and distributed hundreds of campaign flyers. A number of workers said they had transferred to OAP after their plants closed. Supporters of Will Lehman campaign at Ford Ohio Assembly (WSWS media) [Photo: WSWS] Workers without exception said they wanted to eliminate the tiers and ridiculed the claim of UAW President Ray Curry that tiers had been eliminated in previous contract negotiations. A Ohio Assembly worker said he started in 2012 as a temp, but did not get hired full time until 2015 and only this year was promoted to top rate. Many other workers expressed anger over the tiers. One woman complained that recent hires had no pension and only get a 401k that they have to put money into themselves. Another worker told campaign supporters, I am a tier worker. We really got sold out in the last contract. We are really suffering. A veteran worker said, Tiers are terrible, they have got everyone divided up. I have got four more years until retirement. I am afraid they are going to take pensions from the traditional workers, he said, expressing concern that the UAW would pit the lower tiers against the veteran workers to strip benefits from retirees. He added, The international has cost of living on their pensions, but we dont even have it. Another worker pointed out, We need to get rid of tiers and bring back COLA. They are eliminating jobs. Honestly, weve got people doing four to five peoples work and the union is not doing anything about it. When a campaign team member explained to a worker that Will Lehman was fighting to put the rank and file in power, abolish the UAW bureaucracy and win back cost of living and pensions and end tiered work, another worker said, I agree thats what we need. We need our own control over contracts. Two workers, one with 10 years the other with 18, stopped to talk when a campaign supporter explained there was a socialist running for UAW president. They have given away everything, he said, referring to the UAW. At first I thought you were with the union and I was going to tell you what I feel, he said, adding, We need rank-and-file control. Supporters of Will Lehman discuss election with Ohio Assembly workers (WSWS media) One worker told a campaign supporter, Thank you for coming all the way here to tell us about this. No-one else has been talking to us about this election. Another worker said, All the unions have done for us since I got here eight years ago is give away concessions in our contact renewals. Supporters of Wills campaign also leafleted the afternoon shift change at the Ford Cleveland Engine Plant, where workers were eager to learn about the campaign. An engine plant worker said she had been laid off for 17 years and called back only a few years ago. She was on tier 1, but said there were a lot of people in the plant on tier 2. She was furious how long it takes tier-two workers to be brought to top pay. Ford Cleveland Engine Plant (WSWS media) The campaign also spoke with Ford workers in Dearborn, Michigan. A supporter of Will Lehman from the Ford Dearborn Truck Plant (DTP), just west of Detroit, where the new electric pick-up trucks will be produced, reported that many workers in the plant are talking about Wills campaign. They are discussing the various candidates in the election and recognize that Will is the only candidate who is against the whole system. She said that the shop chairman at DTP had recently boasted about the fact that his son was promoted by UAW President Ray Curry from the Ford Flat Rock plant to the International union. This was an obvious attempt by the incumbent Curry, she said, to buy votes in one of the largest locals in the union. The shop chairman posted news of his sons promotion on the local union Facebook page as if there was nothing improper with such a blatant political payoff in the run up to the election. Originally he seemed like a radical without a plan, the Dearborn Truck worker said, referring to Will. But he does have a plan. You just have to think about it to understand it. She went on to explain that rank and file workers have to build a network of committees to take control of negotiating contracts and protecting their fellow workers within the plants. This is the first election we have ever had. Naturally, the Curry Solidarity team is being pushed by the union. But a lot of people want anything but Curry. And they see Will as an alternative to the current system. She went on to explain the impact of four decades of concessions contracts that culminated in the corruption scandal, which engulfed the entire UAW apparatus, has had on the thinking of many workers. I lost faith in the union four years ago. I used to go to every union meeting and participate wherever I could. But I have seen that the chairman at DTP does whatever the plant manager tells him to do. And if he doesnt the International comes down and tells him he has to do what they say. People are getting fired for reasons that are not their fault. Very often they dont even have the proper training and they get fired for something they do not understand. We have been lied to and stolen from and all that. On Thursday, Will Lehman, candidate for United Auto Workers president, denounced the decision of Stellantis to eliminate the third shift at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in suburban Detroit and called on autoworkers to fight the corporate terrorism of the global automaker. Will Lehman (left) and supporters speaking to midnight shift workers at Warren Truck in August 2022 [Photo: WSWS] The companys announcement followed the provocative visit to the plant by Stellantis Chief Operating Officer Arnaud Deboeuf last week. Deboeuf told union officials they had until March to improve quality and reduce absenteeism, or face the potential closing of the plant, which currently employs 5,500 workers. UAW Local 140 President Eric Graham joined managements threats and denounced workers for the unacceptable level of defects at the plant and for taking time off. Fiat Chrysler, which later merged with PSA to form Stellantis, added the third shift in 2012, exploiting the massive concessions handed over by UAW officials who were later convicted of taking millions in company bribes. Most workers on the midnight shift are so-called supplemental employees (SEs), who start at $15.78 an hour, are forced to work 10-12 hour shifts, and can be fired for the slightest infraction, including missing work to care for a sick child. To add insult to injury, they are forced to pay dues to the UAW. A company spokesman claimed the cutback was due to the microchip shortage and that the return to two-shift production was needed to improve production efficiency. In fact, the brutal action is a shot across the bow to Stellantis and all autoworkers. It is aimed at intimidating workers who are determined to win substantial gains in next years contract battle, including major wage improvements, ending the two-tier wage system and immediately rolling over temporary part-time workers into full-timers. On Thursday, Will Lehman issued a statement, titled Mobilize the rank and file against Warren Truck job cuts! that declared: As candidate for UAW president, I am outraged by Stellantis decision to eliminate the third shift at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant. This is an act of corporate terrorism which every worker must oppose. I campaigned at Warren Truck in August, and spoke to midnight shift workers whose jobs are under threat. Many are single mothers who are now losing their incomes as the winter approaches and as the cost of heat, electricity and other expenses continues to surge. Others quit full-time jobs with vacation time and other benefits because company, city, and UAW officials claimed their jobs were secure. In response to the job cuts, UAW Local 140 President Eric Graham declared, No one is being laid off. This is a lie, and he knows it. In a letter to the state of Michigan, copied to Graham, the plant manager says the move may result in a job loss which are considered to be permanent. It continues, Affected employees who are represented by UAW Local 140 will not have bumping rights Hundreds of supplemental and temporary workers may lose their jobs on the third shift or be bumped off from other shifts. The UAW bureaucrats may consider SEs as nobodies who can be tossed out like garbage, but these are our brothers and sisters, and we must defend them. The statement continued: My campaign for UAW president is aimed at building a mass movement of the rank and file to stop this type of corporate terrorism. I am the only candidate for UAW president who is advancing a workers agenda and a socialist agenda. I am not concerned with the privatized profits of the corporations and the payouts to the corporate executives, shareholders and UAW bureaucrats. My only concern is with the welfare of workersSEs, second-tier, legacy and retirees. If the companies say they need fewer workers to build cars, trucks and electric vehicles, what they really mean is they require fewer hours of labor. If thats the case, then the rational solution is to reduce the number of hours we work, from 40 to 30 hours, with no loss of pay, rather than cutting jobs. The company has pocketed more than enough from our labor to secure the jobs and living standards of the workers who build these vehicles. To stop the competition between workers to see who is going to work for the worst pay and conditions, and to protect all jobs, we must build rank-and-file committees to transfer power from the corrupt UAW apparatus to workers on the shop floor. It is time for the autoworkers in Detroit and other cities to draw a hard line: No to corporate terrorism. Yes, to the right of every worker to a secure and good paying job! To help carry forward this fight, support my campaign for UAW president. For assistance in forming a rank-and-file committee, contact my campaign at willforuawpresident@gmail.com The morning shift arrives at Warren Truck [Photo: WSWS] Also on Thursday, supporters of Lehman spoke to midnight and morning shift workers at the plant. This is terrible, one worker said. They are putting us out just before the holidays and not giving us any info. Its already tough out here and its going to get tougher. Everything is going up. There are also a lot of single moms here and this is going to hurt their children. It was the TPTs [temporary part-timers] who kept the plant running during COVID and were the first ones to be kicked out. I quit a parts supplier to come here because I thought this is the Big Three, not just a supplier, so its got to be better. Theyve been working us like crazy and you cant enjoy your family life. A lot of workers have two jobs just to survive and they have no time to sleep, no time to be with their families. I wont accept that. The CEOs are making millions and workers are coming in at 3 a.m. and not leaving until 3 p.m. And you can get $15.50 working at Kroger instead of taking the physical and mental abuse here. Another SE said, Its like we dont have a union, they only work for management. Many full-time workers also denounced the job cuts. One said, You cant have temporaries and never roll them over to full-time and having them working next to someone making twice the wage, and expect not to have high absenteeism. Why come here when you can make the same thing at McDonalds? Another full-time worker said, The union bends over backwards to do whatever the company wants. Graham was praised by the manager for issuing that ass-kissing letter. They dont give workers job security or decent wages and then they have the nerve to demand better quality. A Veterans and Seniors Community Health Fair will be held Oct. 20, providing free screenings and information. The Building Opportunities towards Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), a nonprofit extension of Dothan Housing, in partnership with Troy University and AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP, will host the event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. inside the Our Community Housing and Enrichment Center (OCHEC) auditorium at 1001 Montana St. in Dothan. It is important for our residents to take good care of their health, and we are proud to host this event alongside over 14 community partners, Samuel Crawford, CEO and President of Dothan Housing, said. I encourage our valued area veterans and senior citizens to attend this beneficial event. Free screenings and information will be available at the health fair on cholesterol, blood pressure, mental health, diabetes, behavioral health, womens health, and emergency preparedness. The opportunity to team up with such notable organizations and community members has been rewarding, said Stacy Parris, Dothan Housings vice president of employee and customer experience. We are excited to be able to offer a health fair at a critical point before the height of flu season and cold weather. Local business partners that will present and offer services include the Houston County Department of Human Resources, Amedisys Home Health, Wiregrass 211, the Alabama Department of Public Health, and the Social Work Department. Dothan Housings BOSS program will also be accepting nonperishable food donations for its holiday program, Thanksgiving Blessing Baskets, for those in need. For more information on the Veterans and Seniors Community Health Fair, contact Dothan Housings community relations manager via email at lgunn@dothanhousing.org or by phone at 334-589-3357. Storm Son Ca, the fifth storm formed along the Vietnam coast this year, brought heavy rains to Da Nang from Friday afternoon until early Saturday morning, inundating the entire central city, with houses submerged by 1-1.5 m of floodwaters in many places. At around 11 p.m., the intersection of Hoang Hoa Tham and Le Duan streets in Da Nang's Thanh Khe District was under one meter of raging water, leaving about 30 cars stuck in the middle of the road. Power outage hit many areas in Da Nang at around midnight Friday, and many residents could not contact the authorities for held as their phones were out of batteries. The police, military and local authorities were dispatched to flooded areas with boats and strings to get people to safety. Locals said they had never seen floodwaters rising that fast before. A man picked his child up from school at 5 p.m. but under heavy rains, they had to leave their motorbike at a repair shop to take a taxi. The taxi cab was later stuck in floodwaters and the father and child had to walk for more than two km, only to stand on Le Duan Street waiting for the water to recede. "I have lived in Da Nang for 30 years and I have never seen floodwaters rising so high, so fast and over such large areas," the father said. Da Nang's neighbor Thua Thien Hue has also suffered serious impacts from heavy rains. At around 8:30 p.m., flash floods blocked the Hai Van tunnel linking Da Nang and Thua Thien Hue, interrupting traffic on National Highway 1. Hours of heavy rains flooded many streets in tourist town Hue, including Le Thanh Ton, Ngo Duc Ke and Nhat Le around the former Imperial Citadel, Hue's most popular attraction. The National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting has recorded rainfall above 500 mm in many places in the central region from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday. Suoi Da station in Da Nang recorded rainfall of 720 mm during the period, Thuy Yen Lake station in Thua Thien Hue 650 mm, and Cham Island in Quang Nam Province, not far from tourist town Hoi An, 530 mm. Son Ca storm has weakened into a tropical depression which entered Quang Nam and Quang Ngai Provinces to the south of Da Nang by 4 a.m. Saturday. It is forecast to continue bringing rainfall from 200 to over 400 mm in Da Nang, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue until the end of Sunday. Nearby provinces could receive rainfall of 100-250 mm over the two days, according to the national center, which warned about flooding in urban areas and landslides in mountainous areas. The Government Inspectorate has launched an investigation into 15 gasoline suppliers and two refinery operators with a focus on their operations in the past 4.5 years. The ministry-level agency will investigate these companies for 60 days starting Thursday. The scope of the investigation is from January 2017 to June this year. Among the 15 gasoline suppliers are top companies like Petrolimex and PVOil. Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical, the operator of Dung Quat Oil Refinery, and Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical, operator of Nghi Son Oil Refinery, will also be inspected. These facilities account for around 70% of domestic demand. The investigation was announced after hundreds of gasoline stations, mostly in the south, ran out of fuel in recent weeks due to a disruption in supply and a decline in retailer commission, which resulted in loss. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has instructed the two refineries to crank up gasoline production to maximum capacity as the south continues to report shortages. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said Thursday mentioned the lack of efficient cooperation between government agencies as the main reason for the recent shortages, with authorities studying the possibility of reducing the interval between gasoline price adjustments to ensure more efficient market intervention. In Vietnam there are 36 suppliers who either import gasoline from other countries or source from the two domestic refineries, 500 distributors, and 17,000 gas stations. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan has exported 8.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe in the first nine months of 2022, Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said, Azernews reports. He noted that 6.1 billion cubic meters of gas were exported to Turkiye and 1.9 billion cubic meters of gas to Georgia in January-September. Moreover, the minister added that gas export grew by 22.6 percent during this period. "8.2 bcm of gas exported to Europe in 2021 were reached within 9 months of the current year. 8.3 bcm of gas was exported to #Europe in January-September. 6.1 bcm of gas was exported to #Turkiye and 1.9 bcm to #Georgia. During this period, #GasExport grew by 22.6%," Parviz Shahbazov tweeted. Earlier, the minister stated that Azerbaijan is expected to supply 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe by the end of 2022. With the completion of the TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline) construction on December 31, 2020, Azerbaijan began commercial gas supplies to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor. Last year, TAP transported 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe. In 2023, Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Europe to 11 billion cubic meters. A scene at a truck collision that killed one driver on Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway on October 14, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Duc Thinh A driver died on the spot after his truck was caught in a collision with two container trucks on Trung Luong My Thuan Expressway between HCMC and the Mekong Delta. The collision occured at 4 a.m. Friday in Tien Giang Province in the delta when one truck hit a container truck in front before another slammed into it. The accident killed the driver of the truck in the middle and caused a tailback exceeding one kilometer over several hours. Trung Luong My Thuan Expressway stretches across 51 kilometers. Costing VND12 trillion ($494 million) in its first phase, the expressway has four lanes for vehicles to travel at 80 kph. It was open to traffic on April 30 this year after 13 years of construction. The section, which is connected to HCMC Trung Luong Expressway, reduces the time to travel from the city of Tien Giang by 75 minutes to one hour and 45 minutes. The expressway has 11 emergency stops and does not have an emergency lane. Its investor said the emergency lane will be built in the second phase, of which work has been started recently and set for completion within three years at the cost of more than VND9.5 trillion. Two months into operation, the expressway had recorded more than 40 accidents killing three people. Why Malaysia keeps arresting Vietnamese fishermen, what can be done about it October 13, 2022 | 05:17 pm PT We are used by now to almost regular news of Vietnamese fishermen being arrested and their fishing vessels confiscated by neighbors like Malaysia. Why does this happen? On September 22, 37 Vietnamese fishermen were freed by Malaysia, but just five days later, 19 fishermen in two Vietnamese vessels were arrested by the same country. This isn't new. The Philippines, Indonesia and many other countries have also arrested Vietnamese fishermen before. But our fishermen have affirmed that they were operating in waters belonging to Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). There have been cases where Vietnamese authorities have managed to show proof that the captured vessels were located in waters where Vietnam is allowed to exploit resources in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But the other sides invariably claim that the fishermen deliberately intruded into their own EEZs. So what's going on? As an ASEAN country on the edge of the East Sea, known internationally as the South China Sea, Malaysia has waters that overlap with Vietnam; more specifically, in the region near the Gulf of Thailand. Between Vietnam and Malaysia, there's an overlapping of continental shelves spanning 2,800 km2. The overlapping is the result of differences between the continental shelf boundaries announced by the Saigon administration in 1971, and the continental shelf boundaries as shown on the nautical charts that Malaysia announced in 1979. When the Saigon administration announced its continental shelf boundaries, they also counted the Hon Khoai Island (about 6.5 nautical miles from the shore) and other islands on both sides, but Malaysia only counted its coastal islands, not Vietnam's Hon Khoai. While the area of the overlapping continental shelves between Vietnam and Malaysia is not much, it has great oil and gas potentials. Vietnam and Malaysia signed a Memorandum of Understanding for oil and gas exploration cooperation in the overlapped areas on June 5, 1992 in Kuala Lumpur. The memorandum has three main points. First, both countries would confirm the coordinates of overlapped areas in accordance with continental shelf boundaries announced by Vietnam's general department of oil and gas in 1977 (which coincides with the Saigon administration's version issued in 1971) and the continental shelf boundaries as shown on the nautical charts that Malaysia announced in 1979. Second, both countries would temporarily suspend the issue of determining which continental shelf belongs to whom; and cooperate on exploring and exploiting oil and gas sources, splitting costs and profits equally. Oil and gas exploration would be done under commercial settlements between Malaysia's Petronas and Vietnam's Petrovietnam once they are approved by both countries' governments. Such an agreement would not affect either country's stance or demand regarding the overlapped area. Third, if oil and gas fields partially overlap with either Malaysia's or Vietnam's continental shelves, both sides would negotiate with each other on exploration and exploitation. Once the agreement went into effect, the two countries' national oil and gas companies signed commercial settlements and performed oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the overlapped regions. Since 1997, barrels of oil extracted from those overlapped regions have been exported and profits have been split between both sides per their agreement. Despite the existence of an agreement regarding overlapped continental shelves between Vietnam and Malaysia, there is no such agreement regarding the two countries' EEZs. This is part of why both sides accuse each other's fishermen of having trespassing into their fishing zones. Recently, most cases of Vietnamese fishermen being captured by Malaysian authorities have happened when their vessels were located in the southern regions of the Spratly Islands. The Vietnamese government has affirmed that it has full historical and legal basis to assert sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, but Malaysia is also a claimant over certain entities in the archipelago. Malaysia's claims are based on its respective claims over continental shelves as determined by laws and other documents issued in 1966, 1979 and 2009. In a map published on December 21, 1979, Malaysia showed that its boundaries of territorial waters overlapped with sea regions in the south of the Spratly Islands, including the Amboyna Cay and the Barque Canada Reef controlled by the Vietnamese army, and the Commodore Reef illegally controlled by the Philippines. On April 29, 1980, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a diplomatic note to Malaysia protesting its actions, and on May 8, 1980, in a visit and dialogue with Malaysia, the then foreign minister Nguyen Co Thach had asserted that the Amboyna Cay belonged to Vietnam. In June 1983, Malaysia illegally occupied the first entity, Swallow Reef, among the entities it has laid claim to. In December 1986, the Malaysian army further occupied the Mariveles Reef and the Ardasier Reef. In June 1999, they moved on to the Erica Reef and the Investigator Shoal, increasing the total number of Spratly Islands entities illegally occupied by Malaysia to five. Malaysia has also unilaterally claimed rights over sea regions surrounding these entities. This is one of the reasons why many Vietnamese vessels operating in Vietnam's fishing zones are still captured by Malaysian authorities. It is one of the important reasons why Vietnamese vessels are accused of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Possible solutions Regarding overlapping sea regions in the Gulf of Thailand area, both Vietnam and Malaysia should continue to negotiate for a common fishing zone on the overlapping areas of the two countries' EEZs. Regarding the southern region of the Spratly Islands, territorial disputes between Vietnam and Malaysia might be difficult to resolve, especially amidst current global tensions. However, both countries can reach an agreement for a common fishing zone for their fishermen, and in the spirit of the UNCLOS, such an agreement would not affect either country's sovereignty claims. Vietnam and Malaysia can also consider cooperation to patrol the area together, both for mutual protection and to instruct fishermen not to intrude into exclusive fishing zones. Lesley Murphy wedding photos credit chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto Lesley Murphy's wedding celebrations have officially begun! The Bachelor alum, 35, and her fiance Alex Kavanagh, 35, kicked off their destination wedding weekend at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua on Oct. 13th with a luau welcome party. "It just kind of grew into this big celebration of a rehearsal dinner," Murphy tells PEOPLE. "We wanted to have everyone there as a thank you for coming so far for our wedding." Murphy and Australian-born Kavanagh will exchange vows on Oct. 14. The welcome party took place on the oceanfront Casa Bella lawn, where beer and guava spritzers were served as a nod to the groom's Australian heritage and love of beer. Lesley Murphy wedding photos credit chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto During the event, guests enjoyed an open bar and passed hors d'oeuvres, followed by a seated dinner and a luau with hula dancers and music. "I really wanted everybody to experience that sense of place: Hawaiian food, a luau, the culture," says Murphy." It was perfect." The couple, who are parents to 20-month-old-daughter Nora, got engaged in Feb. 2020 after a year of dating. Lesley Murphy wedding photos credit chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto "It was such a special night on the beach during sunset. We met a couple of years ago through a drone, and being the exceptional drone pilot he is, I loved that he incorporated a drone in the most unique way during the proposal," Murphy tells PEOPLE about Kavanagh, who is a professional drone pilot from Australia. "I can't wait to marry this man! 202? is our year!" Murphy and Kavanagh made their relationship public in January 2018 with a photo of them kissing while sitting on the edge of a cliff in Norway. "Boy meets world World, meet boy," she captioned the stunning photo. "Thought it was about time to let y'all in on the newest addition to The Road Les Traveled! We're 3 continents down togetherwith the next one being Alex's home country soon." Murphy first appeared on Sean Lowe's season of The Bachelor in 2013. She was sent home the episode before hometown dates. Story continues Lesley Murphy wedding photos credit chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto chris J. Evans/@chrisjevansphoto She made her reality TV return on The Bachelor Winter Games, where she met and started dating Dean Unglert. In February 2018, Unglert got down on one knee during the special Winter Games: World Tells All finale to ask Murphy to move in with him, but they split that April. A British army veteran seeks peace and forms an unlikely bond with an ocelot in the rainforests of Peru in Prime Video's upcoming documentary Wildcat. In a preview of the film exclusive to PEOPLE, the documentary's subject, Afghanistan war veteran Harry Turner, unpacks his life's journey after he was discharged from the British military and diagnosed "with recurrent depression and PTSD." "After Afghanistan, I struggled so badly," Turner further explains in the clip via voiceover, while footage shows him riding a boat along a river. "I felt that life wasn't worth living and maybe I should just pack up all my things and just go where no one knows where I am, no one knows if I'm alive, no one knows if I'm dead." In the clip, Turner says that his life "really took a turn" when he met PhD candidate Samantha Zwicker, who works with wildlife in the rainforest. "When I came across Harry, he was extremely misunderstood. This boy who went to war instead of going to college, which is what a lot of people see when they look at him," Zwicker says in the clip. "But I obviously saw something super special in him. He spent his time in the jungle volunteering and helping me with this greater cause." 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. Wildcat Prime Video documentary Trevor Frost Wildcat (2022) RELATED: Vanessa Hudgens Announces Documentary About Her Journey with Witchcraft: "A Coming-of-Age Story" In the film, the army vet gets hands-on with an ocelot in need. "Carrying this sloth on my back through the jungle," Turner tells a handheld camera as he walks with a sloth in a carrier. "Gonna get him back, give him some food, put him back up a tree." And he found comfort in his company. "Sam could have easily stayed at home and just studied at university," Turner adds in a voiceover. "it would be usual. But she was out there in the jungle physically doing it." Story continues "Suffering from depression and PTSD after a tour in Afghanistan, British Army veteran Harry Turner intends to take his own life in the Amazon rainforest far from his family and home," an official synopsis reads. "But once there, he meets Samantha Zwicker, an American scientist with a plan to return an orphaned ocelot to the wild for the first time." "Falling in love with the kitten and Samantha, Harry agrees to act as surrogate parent to the ocelot, teaching him to hunt, defend himself, and, most importantly, become wild and leave Harry behind," the synopsis adds. "While Samantha heals from her own traumatic past, Harry will have to wrestle with his internal demons if he and the cat are to survive." Wildcat Prime Video documentary Trevor Frost Wildcat (2022) Turner tells PEOPLE of participating in the documentary, "My life is slightly different than most, but I want people to walk away knowing they're not alone." "The film touches on themes that will resonate with everyone on some level from their love of animals to struggling with mental illness," he adds. He adds that the ocelot at the center of the film, Keanu, has been released back into the wild since production on the project wrapped. "It would be almost impossible to know where he is now because he doesn't wear a tracking collar," Turner tells PEOPLE. "I'm hoping that he has moved on to a different territory and has created his own ocelot family." Wildcat Prime Video documentary Trevor Frost Wildcat (2022) RELATED: Ryan Reynolds and Colin Hanks Are Making a Documentary About John Candy: "Expect Tears" When asked what he would tell men who feel hesitant about seeking help for their mental health, Turner says, "Some men might be ashamed to feel vulnerable and seek help. I encourage them to seek a support system that feels right for them." He adds, "For me, being in nature has been the best mental-health support. Eventually I hope to help veterans with mental-health issues, possibly by bringing them into the jungle so they can feel what I felt." The film was directed by documentary filmmaker Melissa Lesh, founder of production company Emerging Earth Films, and former National Geographic and Washington Post photojournalist Trevor Frost. Wildcat is produced by Alysa Nahmias of AJNA Films and Joshua Altman of Harmonium Pictures. Wildcat will premiere in theaters on Dec. 21. and begin streaming globally on Prime Video Dec. 30. A different approach to leading the city of Columbia emerged at the city mayoral forum hosted by Maury Alliance Tuesday at the Ledbetter Auditorium at Columbia State Community College, drawing a couple of hundred constituents. Both Columbia natives incumbent Chaz Molder, a lawyer who also works in real estate, and challenger Debbie Matthews, a realtor and co-owner of a small record label, discussed pertinent topics including how to manage growth, expand infrastructure and maintain a strong economy. Matthews focused on fighting to preserve Columbias character and identity, while Molder outlined the current successes of the city and how to maintain its prosperous momentum, proclaiming the city's character could never be lost. While Matthews, who serves as the current chairman of the Maury County Republican Party, proudly emphasized her endorsement for city mayor by the MCRP, Molder strayed away from emphasizing political affiliations in the nonpartisan election. Matthews highlighted her focus on striving to control unfettered growth in the city, while Molder praised the progress that Columbia has made over the last four years of his tenure, even throughout the effects of the pandemic. Over the past several years, Columbia has experienced unprecedented prosperity, including the creation of 1,200 jobs, over $300 million in investments, and ribbon cuttings galore, Molder said. Molder, who was first elected at 35 to his first term as the youngest mayor in state at the time, attributed the citys successes to a robust chamber of commerce Maury Alliance and wise decisions made by the Columbia City Council. He also pointed out that the city experienced higher revenue in sales tax than property tax last fiscal year, while city expenditures have also gone down. And, there has been no city tax increase during his tenure, he said. Candidates:Maury County Election Commission releases list of Nov. 8 qualifying candidates Meanwhile, Matthews said a top priority would be to preserve her hometown. Story continues I sell Tennessee dirt, which is my favorite thing to do, Matthews said. Columbia is home, and there is no other place like it. Our little jewel box downtown is so special, but its the people of this town that make it so great. She said the city is attracting people from all over the country, which she sees as a realtor. The country is now tuning in, and everybody wants to live here, everybody. Thats why I am running. Molder emphasizes uniting community About his current role as mayor, Molder said he believes, people want the mayor to unite the community. We are a community first and theres unity in that word. I believe we need to focus on the issues that bring us together rather than the issues that drive us apart, Molder said. Although the city mayor is also a voting member of the seven-member city council, Molder emphasized the ceremonial power of his position in having many opportunities to speak whether people agree or disagree. I disagree that this is a rah-rah position, ceremonial position, Matthews said. She said the Bible says, without a vision, the people will perish. We have a jewel box with no plan, she said. Molder said his main priority would be to maintain the citys prosperous economic momentum as well as focus on connecting and expanding the parks of Columbia, calling the countys natural resources among the most beautiful in the world. Matthews highlights areas of improvement Matthews criticized the high number of building permits pulled for residential development over the past several years and the number of new subdivisions approved throughout the city, increasing traffic and a strain on infrastructure. According to city and county leaders, over 15,000 new residential rooftops are planned to be constructed over the next several years. Matthews says she worries that if Columbia does not implement more controlled, well-managed, strategic growth, decision could lead to Columbia losing its identity. Debbie Matthews, a Columbia realtor who once served on the Columbia City Council, opposes the proposed property tax increase. She believes that other solutions, such as building impact fees could be implemented. Experience leading city government Matthews and Molder outlined experience that would contribute to being a successful mayor. I am living it every day, Molder said. Its the honor of my lifetime. Matthews served two terms on the Columbia City Council from 2008 to 2017, which she said shows consistent knowledge and a successful record. I served with two great mayors from 2008-17, nine years, on the city council, a conservative council, during the greatest recession since Great Depression. We had no building permits for two and a half years, unemployment was 25% and downtown was empty. We made strategic growth plans invested in ourselves, made historic downtown an economic engine, built Ridley Field, an arts district, and Riverwalk Park. Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder attends a meeting regarding affordable housing at City Hall in Columbia, Tenn., on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021. Matthews, who said she is not opposed to development, said the council at the time had a strategic vision to grow Columbia into the future. For example, with an arts district, Matthews said the council had a vision to develop Columbia into an authentic craftsman paradise, which it is, she said. Matthews also praised former Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, now a candidate for the 5th Congressional District, for defying pandemic-based policies in closing nonessential businesses for a time, which she said contributed to the countys buzzing economy. I believe growth needs to pay for growth, Matthews said. I want to make sure we have freedom in Columbia, no mandates, and we are free and open to keep our businesses open and churches open. Plans laid for the future However, Molder argued that Columbia city council and leaders are managing infrastructure for the future of Columbia, citing a $200 million investment by Columbia Power and Water Systems to expand and improve drinking water capacity in the city, the citys investment in a new wastewater plant to serve the community over the next 50 years and the citys investment of $5 million to pave roads. We are doing things daily in managing growth [and investing in Columbia's future]," Molder said. Matthews also said she is concerned about Columbias high crime rate and its previous ranking in the bottom 8% of safe cities across the state. She also said law enforcement and firefighters need a higher salary to retain the best workers, which would be a priority if elected mayor. We are losing people, Matthews said, citing that many had left the department over the past 60 days for various reasons such as seeking higher pay in other counties. However, Molder cited the recent Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report released this week showing an 11% decrease in crime in Columbia, based on statistics by the Columbia Police Department, though Matthews says there's still room for improvement. Molder also said the prosperity and charm of Columbia is apparent to all who visit. "If you were at First Fridays, you have to walk away slightly amazed," he said regarding the amount of positivity, activity and people supporting downtown. "It didnt matter what they looked like, doesnt matter the political party, young or old ... ," he said. Building impact fee a must A topic that both candidates agreed upon is the need for a building impact fee on new developments in Maury County, a bill proposed by Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, last legislative session, which failed in a House committee. Matthews addressed the need for a building impact fee and her involvement in testifying before the legislature during the legislative season last spring. Molder also said he looks forward to joining Mayor Sheila Butt in the fight to secure the impact fee. Matthews expressed disappointment that the lack of collaboration between the city and county on the initiative. Though Molder, emphasized elected officials should be the primary drivers of the bill, not unelected constituents or leaders of a political party. Overarching ideals remained for the candidates until the end of the forum, led by moderator Wil Evans, president of Maury County Chamber & Economic Alliance. "We get drawn in to the things that drive us apart. As mayor my focus is to make sure we are not focused on things that are driving us apart," Molder said. "The city and county need to work together because Columbia is disappearing. I am running to protect it," Matthews said. This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Columbia mayoral candidates spar over city's future growth at forum Frank Zappas Zappa 75: Zagreb/Ljubljana is out now through Zappa Records/UMe. The collection features the best performances of Frank Zappa & The Mothers Yugoslavian concerts sequenced in the exact order of the shows setlist to present the creme da la creme from each night for the first time ever. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the 27-track live album boasts nearly two and half hours of completely unreleased music and is available digitally (26 tracks without disc breaks) or on 2CD complete with a 32-page booklet filled with photos of the era and lineup by Gail Zappa and John Rudiak with insightful liner notes from Travers, an interview between him and recording engineer Davy Moire who recorded the show and worked with Zappa from 1975-78, plus a firsthand account and illustration from drummer Terry Bozzio. uDiscover Music is exclusively offering a limited edition version of the 2CD with three photo prints by Gail Zappa and John Rudiak. Previously the only recording ever released from these concerts was a performance of Black Napkins from Ljubljana included on the 1996 release, Frank Zappa Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa: A Memorial Tribute; the version of Black Napkins featured here is from Zagreb. In the fall of 1975, towards the tail end of a typically productive and prolific year that included finishing production on the One Size Fits All album, a spring tour with Captain Beefheart (immortalized on the live album, Bongo Fury, released in October of that year), and a performance of orchestral works, Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers played their first and only shows in Yugoslavia while in the midst of their fall tour. The Mothers of Invention Yugoslavian Extravaganza as Zappa called it took place in Zagreb and Ljubljana (now the capital cities of Croatia and Slovenia respectively) on November 21 and 22, 1975 with the short-lived and slightly stripped-down lineup of Andre Lewis (keyboards), Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax and lead vocals), Norma Bell (alto sax, vocals), Roy Estrada (bass) and Terry Bozzio (drums). In characteristically Zappa fashion, The Maestro made sure to record these historical shows behind the Iron Curtain. Story continues The details surrounding the concerts recordings are unknown but somehow it was organized that the shows were semi-professionally recorded. Despite Zappa usually touring with his Scully 4-track recorder that machine was not used and instead the Zagreb and Ljubljana shows were recorded on an obscure format of 8-track. After painstakingly baking the tapes and running multiple passes, the tracks were successfully transferred and have all been re-mixed by Craig Parker Adams at Winslow Ct. Studios and mastered by John Polito at Audio Mechanics, who both also aided in restoring the audio as needed. One notable exception is the track San Berdino from Ljubljana which somehow wasnt captured on the 8-track master and so the line mix from Zappas Nagra tape was used. Zappa arrived in Yugoslavia on the heels of releasing Bongo Fury, his collaborative album with Captain Beefheart released in October. While several songs from the record were included in the setlist, such as souped-up versions of Advance Romance, Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy, and Muffin Man, Zappa treated the audiences to songs from his then already expansive catalog, from I Aint Got No Heart, How Could I Be Such A Fool and Im Not Satisfied from The Mothers Of Inventions 1966 debut, Freak Out!, and a three-song suite of songs from 1968s Were Only In It For The Money (Lonely Little Girl, Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, Whats The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?) to 1973s Over-Nite Sensation standouts Camarillo Brillo, Im The Slime, and Dirty Love, plus tracks from 1974s Apostrophe () and 1975s One Size Fits All. One of the highlights of the album is the improvisational instrumental jams of the concert, specifically Chungas Revenge and Zoot Allures, which Zappa used as a palette to experiment with soloing and bounce new riffs off the band in real time. Here we get to hear works in progress such as the embryonic versions of Filthy Habits, (1979s Sleep Dirt), Five-Five-Five (1981s Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar) and Wind Up Workin In A Gas Station (1976s Zoot Allures). In addition to experimenting with new ideas, Zappa also used the opportunity to preview more fully fleshed out compositions such as early versions of his signature songs, Black Napkins and Zoot Allures, which would end up on the album of the same name the following year. Zappa 75: Zagreb/Ljubljana is a significant piece of Zappa history as it not only captures Zappas sole performances in Yugoslavia, early versions of songs that fans would come to know and love, but also this unique and rare lineup that would dissolve shortly after the shows. As Travers writes in the liners, Norma Bell would leave the group before 1976. Although Andre Lewis and Roy Estrada would eventually be dismissed after the touring was over in early 1976 (making this the final Zappa band Roy would play bass in), Frank and Roys friendship would continue. Napoleon would leave and eventually come back in 1984. Terry would go on to achieve iconic stature and although he would leave the group in 1978, his contribution to Zappas music will live on forever as one of the most special and important drummers of FZs career. Buy or stream Zappa 75: Zagreb/Ljubljana, out now. 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. Peppered among the lush green oak and palm trees of the Rio Grande Valley, a mostly Hispanic region along the U.S.-Mexico border that has voted solidly Democratic, there are Republican outposts popping up. The Hidalgo County GOP headquarters was busy on the mid-September day when CBS News knocked on its doors in McAllen, Texas. The foyer was filled with candidate signs and stickers from a slate of Republican candidates. Inside, Hidalgo County GOP Chair Adrienne Pena-Garza was running a phone bank for GOP candidates something she says was unheard of just a few election cycles ago. Slate of Republican candidates, at Hidalgo County GOP headquarters in McAllen, Texas. / Credit: CBS News "Family, faith and freedom. I mean, that's the messaging that's been working for us," Pena-Garza said in an interview airing on the special "CBS Reportes: El Poder" streaming on CBS News. A similar slogan worked for newly elected Rep. Mayra Flores, who became the first Mexican-born woman sworn into Congress in June. Her campaign, with the help of the GOP, spent over a million dollars. "God, Family, Country" is front and center on the Flores campaign signs that dot the highways and front lawns of homes. The 36-year-old, who is married to a U.S. Border Patrol agent, won Texas' 34th Congressional District special election to fill Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela's seat. "The Republican Party is investing in the Hispanic community, because they understand that the Hispanic community is the future of this country," Flores told CBS News in Washington, D.C. "It is time that we talk about our faith and not allow anyone to shame us for believing in God and for fighting for strong family values." It's a message Pastor Luis Cabrera of City Church of Harlingen preaches from the pulpit on Sundays. Cabrera, who identifies as Republican, calls himself Flores' spiritual counselor. Pastor Luis Cabrera's evangelical church sits on the access road off a busy highway. A new kind of MAGA flag hangs from the rafters it reads His evangelical church sits on the access road off a busy highway. A drum kit, along with guitars and other instruments sit on the stage for the musicians who play and pray. A new kind of MAGA flag hangs from the rafters it reads "Make America Godly Again." Story continues Cabrera says Flores approached him and said she liked the message and wanted to use it for her campaign. "I'm like, Are you serious, Mayra? Like, [those are] fighting words. Not everyone's going to agree," Cabrera recalled. But Cabrera says Flores insisted. Cabrera says Hispanic Republican candidates in the Rio Grande Valley who openly talk about their faith are finding sympathetic ears. One issue Cabrera highlighted was gay marriage, which he says shows a stark difference between Democrats and Republicans. "Their God to them is just obsolete. You know why? Because of our traditional values of a marriage between one man and one woman. They don't believe in that. They believe in gay marriage, which is that's their right. But as a Christian, that affects us. I don't want my son and daughter to be told it's okay to be gay. No, it's not okay to be gay. It's against the word of God. And so, that right there speaks volumes," explained Cabrera. Recent CBS News polling of registered voters shows that nearly half of registered voters, 49%, believe that LGBTQ people will have fewer rights and freedoms if Republicans win control of Congress in the fall. While campaigning from the pulpit may be taboo in some churches, Cabrera says his church is not a 501(c)3, not a non-profit, so he has no problem talking about his politics to his flock. "We have the power to elect and we have the power to fire people. That's awesome. That's the greatest weapon that we have, but we don't use. Why not?" Cabrera asked. Flores supporter Celina Tafolla openly talks about her political views and her faith. Tafolla says she was raised a Democrat, but after President Trump's election, she decided to not be quiet about being a Republican in the Rio Grande Valley. "You know, God first. Your loyalty isn't to a political party, your loyalty is God. And that's why you should be voting red, because it aligns with our values," she said. Discussions about border security envelop the region. Government data shows that this fiscal year, the border patrol made more than 400,000 arrests in the Rio Grande Valley, a record for the sector. Hidalgo County Democratic chair Richard Gonzales said key issues of the Democratic Party like abortion, gun control and the environment, are not as important to some as the economy, crime and immigration a major focus for Republicans. "The biggest misconception is that we are (a) cartel-run, open-borders, poor, crime-ridden city, crime-ridden community. That is absolutely not true," said Gonzales. "The national [GOP] message was basically, Hey, the Valley is just an open borders area. It's full of illegal immigrants. They are taking your jobs...taking your money." But as campaign season comes to a close, which issues will be decisive in the outcome of the midterm elections? University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley Political Science professor Mark Kaswan says it's worth watching the Rio Grande Valley, though he's not expecting a red wave. There's a better-than-even chance Democrats will win back Flores seat, Kaswan predicts, though he said her victory has given Rio Grande Valley Republicans hope. "They have cracked that door open," Kaswan said. "They see an opportunity to make gains." Republicans are continuing to hold onto their lead in the House, though their margins for capturing the majority are growing narrower, according to the CBS News Battleground Tracker. Republicans and Democrats alike are concerned they would have fewer rights and freedoms than they currently have if the opposing party wins, CBS News polls show. FCC expected to ban all sales of Huawei and ZTE telecom equipment Trump responds to Jan. 6 House committee's vote to subpoena him DOJ appeals special master appointment in Mar-a-Lago investigation Leonardo DiCaprio could assume one of his most high-profile roles yet: A witness in a federal trial. In 2019, the Justice Department charged Fugees rapper Prakazrel "Pras" Michel and Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, for allegedly conspiring to funnel more than $21 million in illegal foreign campaign contributions into former President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign. Michel pleaded not guilty to the charges, while Low's rep also denied wrongdoing by his client. In June 2021, they were both hit with additional charges, indicted for allegedly "orchestrating an unregistered, back-channel campaign" to influence the the administration of then-President Donald Trump to drop a federal investigation of Low and others over the embezzlement of money from 1MDB, a Malaysian development fund. Michel has also denied wrongdoing in this matter, and awaits trial. Low remains at large and is believed to be in China. On Oct. 9, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a proposed witness list in connection with the case. DiCaprio, who had ties to Low, is the 25th person on it. E! News has reached out to DiCaprio's rep and has not heard back. Michel's attorney declined to comment. Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars In July 2016, the Justice Department filed lawsuits seeking to seize assets tied to 1MDB, alleging that more than $3.5 billion was misappropriated to buy real estate, art, a yacht and a jet and to help finance movies such as The Wolf of Wall Street, which stars DiCaprio and was largely produced by Red Granite, a company co-founded by the former Malaysian prime minister's stepson. Prosecutors also moved to seize from DiCaprio a Picasso painting they said was purchased with $3.2 million in stolen funds and given to him by an associate of Low's, according to the Washington Post. In October 2016, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation said in a statement that the actor "first learned through press reports of the government's civil action against some of the parties involved in the making of The Wolf of Wall Street," and that he "immediately" had his representatives reach out to the Department of Justice to determine whether he or his foundation "ever received any gifts or charitable donations directly or indirectly related to these parties, and if so, to return those gifts or donations as soon as possible." Story continues Getty Images DiCaprio's rep said in 2017 that the actor had recently begun proceedings to transfer ownership of the Picasso to the U.S. government and that he also returned Brando's Oscar, Reuters reported. In addition, Low's rep issued an emailed statement, saying the Justice Department was continuing its "inappropriate efforts" to seize assets and that its recent activity marked a "further example of global overreach in pursuit of a deeply flawed case," the outlet said. In 2018, federal prosecutors charged Low for conspiracy to commit money laundering, bribery and circumvention of accounting controls for allegedly masterminding the embezzlement of $4.5 billion from 1MBD. The same year, Red Granite reached an agreement with prosecutors to pay $60 million to the U.S. government in order to resolve allegations that it profited from the corruption scandal, Variety reported, adding that under the deal, it did not admit to any wrongdoing. Also in 2018, DiCaprio gave secret testimony to a Washington, D.C. grand jury to testify as part of the Justice Department's investigation into the scandal, people familiar with the case told the Washington Post, adding the actor was not a target of the probe. Michel's trial is set to begin March 2023. For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App Roughly 1,500 jobs will be added to the Sioux Falls community by Amazon, as the company begins its operations at a multimillion-dollar fulfillment center in the northern part of town. The new fulfillment center is known as 'FSD1,' like an airport code. It's a six-story building with five floors and massive square footage, which Seroka estimated to be a footprint of roughly 640,000 square feet. The Amazon plant could fit everyone in the state of South Dakota even if there were three feet separating everyone. The Sioux Falls media got a closer look at the facility on Thursday morning. The fulfillment center is currently in its initial launch phase. It's about 20% occupied, Amazon Regional PR Manager Scott Seroka said. Those with Amazon hope to make about 144 hires weekly and hit full-scale production by mid-February; reaching that goal of 1,500 jobs. Earlier:Sioux Falls' Amazon facility to open in few weeks despite reports of possible two-year delay "Our fully launched phase building should be in March. Our hiring will start long before that," Choate said. That'll be after the "peak season," as the holidays roll around. Currently, the facility outbounds about 200,000 units a day. Choate said at peak, capacity for volume out is over 8 million units per week. Currently, the center brings in and out about seven trucks a day. That number is expected to ramp up to 60 trucks in and 80 trucks out a day when production hits full swing. "Our goal is to finally bring next day and same day shipping to this area, which I think is incredibly exciting," Choate said. "... We're one of the biggest buildings in South Dakota." The fulfillment center is stocked with items smaller than a microwave roughly 92 million options and gets products from Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Chicago and Minneapolis. The latter option is the closest air hub to Sioux Falls, Choate said. Not only is the fulfillment center for expedited shipping for Sioux Falls residents, but the plant also services North Dakota, parts of Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Story continues "We'll be able to ship that all across the country, not just local," Choate said. Amazon uses "pods," for products. That includes a moving structure that contains products and travels to workers, all by themselves. "Pickers" are then shown which cubby to draw from pods and how many. Pods have sensors on them in order to not run into workers, Seroka said. The company hopes Sioux Falls's labor market is able to support the business, and currently, there are employees from other plants helping at South Dakota's newest Amazon addition. The company hopes to hire more than 30 managers, with some of those locally and plans to entice with wages. "We're pushing to have competitive wages," Choate said. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: See inside the Sioux Falls Amazon Fulfillment Center as it opens This is my fourth update in as many years, concerning the Bureau of Land Managements Wild Horse and Burro Program. I feel it important to review these numbers as wild horse populations continue to rise. In my opinion, the BLMs Wild Horse and Burro Program is broken in its present state. The 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act charges the BLM with maintaining healthy populations of wild horses on western landscapes. Yet, this is the one thing not happening today. In the middle of a drought, wild horse populations are rising, and range conditions are declining. The captured horses held in off-range facilities are receiving most of the yearly funding. This disconnect is at the national level. I know three BLM wild horse specialists in northeastern Nevada. Each has impressed me with how much they care about the horses and how hard they work to take the best care of wild horses on our public lands. The Bureau of Land Management provides a website for the Wild Horse and Burro Program, at http://blm.gov/whb. They can also be emailed at wildhorse@blm.gov. Elko County has no wild burros, so I try to limit the following numbers to wild horses, but in some cases, the two populations of animals are hard to separate. Let me introduce some terms. Horse Management Areas (HMA) are discrete areas where the BLM manages wild horses. Horses outside these HMAs are typically removed since only horses in these HMAs are recognized. The BLM manages 177 HMAs nationally, comprising 31 million acres. Of those, Nevada contains most, at 83 HMAs, on over 15 million acres. Appropriate management level (AML) describes the maximum number of wild horses that should be living on public land. (There is also a low AML number for the minimum number of horses that should be on an HMA.) The BLM evaluates each HMA to determine how much forage is available for use among wildlife, wild horses, and domestic livestock. The maximum number of horses which can graze without causing damage to the range is called the high AML. Lets start with the largest population numbers first. The BLM manages 64,604 horses on western public lands, (as of March 2022). The national high AML is 26,789 horses. The current wild horse population exceeds that number by almost 40,000, over two times the national AML. Closer to home, Nevada contains 41,853 wild horses, almost two-thirds of the nations wild horses. The state AML is 11,987, so Nevadas public lands contain almost four times the number of horses the BLM says should be there. Of course, not all wild horses are living on public lands. Many have been gathered off public lands and are being maintained (for their lifetime) in holding facilities (the BLM calls these off-range horses). The BLM manages around 40,000 off-range horses (actual numbers are not available). During the BLMs 2021 fiscal year, $112.2 million was spent on the wild horse and burro program. Of that, caring for the off-range horses received over half, or $74 million. The horse adoption program got $10 million, gathering excess horses off public lands got $5.6 million, and the caring and monitoring of wild horses got $18 million. So the money used to maintain wild herds and HMA landscapes was a little over 10% of the total budget. During 2021, 13,666 excess wild horses were removed from public lands, or approximately 20% of the total number. Of these, 7,000 horses were removed in emergency gathers. This total number is more than in the last three years. During 2021, 3,465 off-range horses were adopted or sold. During 2021, 1,160 horses were treated to reduce fertility, mostly using the drug PZP. Most of these doses were administered to horses gathered and then released. In Oregon, 43 horses were darted with PZP, a technique not practicable in Nevadas large herds. In Wyoming, eight horses were treated with PZP using an inserted IUD in a trial. Seth Green is the latest actor to come forward with a story accusing Bill Murray of inappropriate behavior. The Robot Chicken co-creator and Austin Powers actor revealed on the Good Mythical Morning YouTube show (via Uproxx) that he was only nine years old when he had a physical altercation with Murray backstage at Saturday Night Live. When I was nine years old, I did a spot on Saturday Night Live when Mary Gross was one of the on-the-scene anchor people for the news, and she did a whole thing about what kids think about the Christmas holiday, Green said, adding that he killed time backstage by watching television. Murray was the host of that particular SNL episode. More from Variety [Murray] saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat, Green said. And I was like, That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly eff off. And he was like, Thats my chair. Although Greens mom suggested that her son move so that Murray could sit wherever he wanted, Green remained steadfast and refused to give up the seat. The comedian said, Are you this much of a jerk? This rude to tell a nine year old to get out of your chair. What is this power play? He picked me up by my ankles, Green said. Held me upside downHe dangled me over a trash can and he was like, The trash goes in the trash can. And I was screaming, and I swung my arms, flailed wildly, full contact with his balls. He dropped me in the trash can, the trash can falls over. I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room and just cried. Story continues Variety has reached out to Murrays representative for comment. Greens story comes on the heels of Geena Davis revelation that Murray was allegedly inappropriate with her during the making of their 1990 comedy Quick Change. Davis said Murray tried to use a massage device on her during their first meeting and later screamed at her on set. Murrays on-set conduct was in the news earlier this year after Searchlight Pictures suspended production on Aziz Ansaris feature directorial debut, which was to star Murray. As reported by Variety, filming was halted over complaints about Murrays inappropriate behavior on set. The film has yet to back back into production. Watch Greens full appearance on Good Mythical Morning in the video below. 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. South Dakota is poised to expand its state Medicaid program to more than 40,000 people in November, the culmination of a years-long strategy from progressives to broaden Obamacares reach in deeply red states. If voters approve the referendum, South Dakota will be the seventh Republican-controlled state in the past five years to expand the low-income insurance program at the ballot box and likely the last for some time to come. There are 11 other states that have not expanded Medicaid, but only three Florida, Mississippi and Wyoming allow voters to collect signatures for a ballot measure, and none appear likely to take up the effort in the near term. For Democrats who hoped Medicaid expansion would be a step toward universal access for low-income Americans, South Dakota signals the end of a protracted battle that has added 17 million low-income Americans to the insurance rolls but has fallen short of reaching every state. Some 4 million Americans about half of whom live in Florida and Texas still fall into a coverage gap, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The lower-hanging fruit has been picked on that strategy, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families and a research professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. The ballot path is coming to the end. In Florida, a Medicaid expansion ballot measure remains a possibility, though the states 60 percent voter approval threshold makes the prospect of doing so challenging, as does the cost of running a campaign in the nations third-most populous state. In Mississippi, the state Supreme Court in 2021 quashed a nascent expansion effort when it effectively declared the entire ballot initiative process unconstitutional. And in Wyoming, expansion advocates are pressing to pass the policy legislatively, rather than at the ballot box. Many Democratic policymakers have for years thought that the deal having the federal government pay nearly the entire cost of health insurance would be too good to refuse, but a handful of GOP-controlled states remained opposed, prompting proponents to take Medicaid expansion to voters. Story continues Maine voted to expand Medicaid in 2017; Idaho, Nebraska and Utah did so in 2018; and Missouri and Oklahoma followed suit in 2020. Of those, Oklahomas measure passed by the narrowest margin 50.5 percent support while Idahos passed in 2018 with an overwhelming 60.6 percent of votes. It's easy to lose sight of how long of a fight it has been for Medicaid expansion in so many states around the country, said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which supports Medicaid expansion ballot measures across the country. Were almost working ourselves out of a job when it comes to expanding Medicaid through ballot measures. In South Dakota, an American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network poll from August found that 62 percent of likely voters support the Medicaid expansion ballot measure. The measure also has a long list of supporters, including the South Dakota State Medical Association, the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce and the South Dakota Farmers Union. We're feeling the energy here on the ground, and obviously we're excited by the fact that we have this broad coalition of organizations and supporters who are working to engage their membership, and engage volunteers and voters and adding to it all the time, Zach Marcus, campaign manager for South Dakotans Decide Health Care, the coalition backing the ballot measure, told POLITICO. We're working hard, but we're feeling confident. The coalition released its first TV ad last month backed by a seven-figure investment appealing to South Dakota farmers, and a second ad released last week features an uninsured leukemia patient. Under the American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed in 2021, Congress incentivized states to expand Medicaid by having the federal government cover an extra 5 percent of the costs of the program on top of covering 90 percent of costs for the newly eligible population. The additional incentives would send $110 million to South Dakota, offsetting $50 million in state costs, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicaid expansion opponents, including Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, argue the proposal would be costly to the state in the future, would force the state to raise taxes and would discourage able-bodied adults from securing well-paying jobs with benefits. In South Dakota, the Foundation for Government Accountability, the Family Heritage Alliance and the South Dakota Farm Bureau are opposing the measure. Opponents also tried to make it harder for the ballot measure to pass, asking voters in June to raise the threshold for approval to 60 percent, but that effort was soundly defeated, meaning Medicaid expansion only needs 50 percent support to pass. Keith Moore, state director for Americans for Prosperity South Dakota, said the groups will spend the next few weeks knocking on doors, making phone calls, putting out digital and paper ads, and releasing op-eds against the measure. But he acknowledged itll be a difficult fight. It certainly feels like an uphill climb, Moore said. But, like we said from the beginning, we all knew that. That doesn't mean obviously that we shouldn't try. Noem has said she would accept expansion if voters approve the measure even while she remains opposed. Looking at this measure, it appears to be written constitutionally. So if the people pass it, itll be implemented, Noem said at a gubernatorial debate in September. The path forward for Medicaid expansion in the eight states without a ballot measure process is less clear. Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, for instance, appeared to be nearing a deal with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to expand Medicaid last month, but have continued to run into snags with hospitals over a state law restricting the facilities ability to expand services without permission from the state health department. In Mississippi, deep-seated hostility toward Medicaid expansion sank a proposal this spring to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months after birth even as legislators tried to draw a bright line between the two distinct policies. Still, some contend that momentum is on their side and its just a matter of time before all states expand the program. At the end of the day, I do believe all states are going to pick this up, its just a question of how many years it takes, Alker said. All of the doom-and-gloom predictions by opponents of Medicaid expansion have not come to pass. When youre in a situation where 40 states are already doing it, its hard to continue making those same kinds of arguments with a straight face. (From left) Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley in Claire Denis Stars At Noon Claire Denis continues a career preoccupation with ex-pat life in Stars At Noon, an update of Denis Johnsons 1986 novel about an American woman who uses sex as currency to survive when shes stuck in politically unstable Nicaragua. The screenplay, adapted by Denis, Lea Mysius, and Andrew Litvack, stays faithful to the source materials characters and geographic setting, but transports events to the Covid era of face masks and PCR tests. The plot drips with so much misogyny that even synopsizing it induces cringes, but if anyone can get away with telling such a story in this day and age, its probably Denis. She filters the goings-on through proverbial rose-colored glasses that strip away much of the inherent cynicism in the transactional nature of the relationship at the films core. Margaret Qualley (Maid, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) plays Trish Johnson, an American freelance journalist covering political kidnappings in Nicaragua, who finds herself without an outlet, an assignment, a passport, or dollarsperhaps not surprising given shes inexplicably pitching hard-hitting stories to a luxury travel magazine. The cordobas she carries are no longer worth anything due to the black market. Out of desperation, she resorts to turning tricks to earn cash and curry favor with local authority figures, hoping to extract herself from the country. Every time before she performs sex work, she is seen wiping tears awayan act the film most definitely does not regard with dignity or respect, at least for Trish. Read more When she leaves her own dumpy hotel for a bar at the swanky Intercontinental to bait her next $50 john, she meets the mysterious Daniel DeHaven (Joe Alwyn, The Favourite), a British contractor for an oil company, or so he claims. After shaking a Costa Rican police officer (Danny Ramirez) following Daniel, they wind up in her hotel room for sex. But unlike with her previous patrons, Trish visibly enjoys herself with Daniel, and they grow closer as they increasingly depend on each other for a getaway. Story continues The film has several of Denis signature flourishes: Theres one scene in which Trish and Daniel twirl on an otherwise empty dance floor while a DJ cues up a slow jam by the Tindersticks, and another where a restaurant employee circles Trish in the same way Denis Lavant got down to Coronas Rhythm Of The Night in Beau Travail. Theres also a persistent colonial gaze, for which critics seldom take Denis to task. What stands out is how Denis and DP Eric Gautier frame everything like a romance, when what transpires on screen is often anything but romantic. Trish endures seemingly endless indignities to get by, and the circumstantial lovers face ominous threats that ultimately escalate to violence, but the Tindersticks contribute a tender, jazzy score. Perhaps Denis does perceive this as a romance, though the press notes characterize the film as a romantic thriller. Stars at Noon | Official Trailer HD | A24 The thriller part is not apparent from the visuals or filmmaking techniques, though the story does maintain a certain John le Carre vibe with its international intrigue. Despite the constant sight of armed patrols lurking in the background, and Benny Safdie appearing out of nowhere possessed with knowledge of everything there is to know about Trish and Daniel, the film never builds up any real sense of suspense, urgency, or imminent danger. It doesnt feel like a true erotic thriller, at least not the kind that Paul Verhoeven or Adrian Lyne might have helmed. Perhaps Johnson and Denis have tried to expose rather than exploit the materials misogyny, but Trish doesnt evidence any agency, despite being a competent and knowledgeable journalist who speaks Spanish fluently. The film goes out of its way to reiterate how degraded Trish feels to sell her body, but she makes an exception for the gringo, though hes arguably no less shady than the rest of her clients. Ultimately, Trish learns a lesson in the end, but its unclear if she understands the role her own prejudices may have played in learning itrendering Stars At Noon an occasionally seductive but muddled examination of a complex physical and emotional relationship. Stings second solo album, 1987s ...Nothing Like the Sun, is now available via A&M/UMe in a digital-only 35th-Anniversary expanded edition. The 26-track set features the original 12 songs on the album and 14 bonus tracks, including B-sides, remixes, alternate versions, and instrumentals. Shop the best of Stings discography on vinyl and more. I look back on this album, and I realize that the record is about my mother, although I didnt see it at the time, says Sting in the liner notes of the new edition. Its about mothers and daughters, mistresses and wives, sisters...every song has one of these themes. It surprised me. Stings mother died in late 1986, not long before he and his band started four months of intensive recording sessions at AIR Studios in Montserrat in early 1987. The album followed the triple platinum success of Stings first solo album, 1985s The Dream of the Blue Turtles. Its title was a reference to Shakespeares Sonnet No.130 (My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun). The emotional circumstances determined a largely reflective tone, the exception being the uptempo first single Well Be Together, which featured Annie Lennox among its backing vocalists and became an instant hit. Other songs on the album that became enduring signatures for the global star included Englishman in New York, Stings nod to English expat and raconteur Quentin Crisp, and Fragile, written about an American civil engineer who was killed in Nicaragua by the Contras. Lyrical inspiration also came from his participation in Amnesty Internationals Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986. Notably, They Dance Alone addresses those tortured and murdered by the then-military dictatorship in Chile, through the eyes of their wives and daughters. The album was produced by Sting, Hugh Padgham, Bryan Loren, and Neil Dorfsman, and featured a number of stellar guitarists including Police bandmate Andy Summers on The Lazarus Heart, Hiram Bullock on the version of Jimi Hendrixs Little Wing, and Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Fareed Haque on They Dance Alone. Story continues Other collaborators on the set included keyboardists Gil Evans and Kenny Kirkland, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, and drummer Manu Katche. Sting oversaw all arrangements and sang all of the lead vocals, also playing bass and double bass, Spanish guitar on History Will Teach Us Nothing, and acoustic guitar on Fragile. The album won the BRIT Award for Best British Album at the 1988 awards, had three Grammy nominations and has been certified double platinum by the RIAA, topping the album charts in the UK and Japan. Buy or stream ...Nothing Like The Sun. The full tracklist is: 1. The Lazarus Heart 2. Be Still My Beating Heart 3. Englishman in New York 4. History Will Teach Us Nothing 5. They Dance Alone 6. Fragile 7. Well Be Together 8. Straight To My Heart 9. Rock Steady 10. Sister Moon 11. Little Wing 12. The Secret Marriage 13. Conversation With A Dog [Bonus Track] 14. If You There [Bonus Track] 15. Up From The Skies [Bonus Track] 16. Someone To Watch Over Me [Bonus Track] 17. Ghost in The Strand [Bonus Track] 18. Englishman in New York / Ben Liebrand Mix [Bonus Track] 19. Englishman in New York / Ben Liebrand Mix (Edit) [Bonus Track] 20. Fragile / dj MONKs Extended Vocal Remix Version [Bonus Track] 21. Fragile / dj MONKs Radio Edit Version [Bonus Track] 22. Fragile / dj MONKs Hard Rain Dub Version [Bonus Track] 23. Fragile / Bedroom Rockers Remix Version [Bonus Track] 24. Well Be Together / Extended Mix [Bonus Track] 25. Well Be Together / Alternate Version [Bonus Track] 26. Well Be Together / Instrumental [Bonus Track] 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. UC Berkeley students on campus in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to soon decide whether race-based programs in admissions are lawful. California, where voters banned affirmative action in 1996, has already been down that road, and University of California officials have asked the court to allow race-conscious admissions policies elsewhere. The proof of their need, officials and college access advocates say, is in UCs series of failed efforts to increase diversity without affirmative action. The systems latest attempt to make admissions more equitable was its high-profile decision to eliminate standardized test scores, but that too has so far had little impact in improving racial diversity. The conservative-leaning Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Oct. 31 in two cases, against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and could overturn a long-standing precedent allowing the consideration of race in college admissions. California voters in 1996 approved Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action in college admissions. UC has since implemented a number of policies designed to increase diversity, from outreach efforts targeted at low-income students to admission guarantees to more students. But while those policies improved geographic diversity and increased enrollment among low-income students, they have failed to bring racial diversity to UCs student body thats representative of the state, UC acknowledged in an amicus brief it filed to the Supreme Court this summer. Related: UC told the Supreme Court that despite its extensive efforts, UC struggles to enroll a student body that is sufficiently racially diverse to attain the educational benefits of diversity. The shortfall is especially apparent at UCs most selective campuses, where African American, Native American, and Latinx students are underrepresented and widely report struggling with feelings of racial isolation. Story continues The states high school seniors in 2021 were 54% Latino and 5.4% Black. But that fall, UCs incoming freshmen were 26% Latino, and 4.4% Black. UC concluded to the court that its decadeslong experience with race-neutral admissions demonstrates that highly competitive universities may not be able to achieve the benefits of student body diversity through race-neutral measures alone. The universitys newest policy change eliminating standardized tests could be the latest evidence that even admissions policies that remove barriers cant achieve racial diversity to the degree that affirmative action would. Critics of the SAT and ACT have said the tests are biased in favor of affluent, mostly white and Asian students with better access to test preparation, tutoring and the ability to take the exams multiple times. In 2020, the system of nine undergraduate campuses eliminated standardized tests in admissions, a decision that college access advocates hoped would result in higher enrollments of Black and Latino students. But in fall 2021, the first term when incoming students werent required to take the SAT or ACT, UC enrolled roughly the same percentage of new Black and Latino students as it did in previous fall terms. Enrollment data for fall 2022 likely wont be released until January, but UC admitted about the same proportion of Black and Latino students as it did last year. Since eliminating the tests, UC has seen a large spike in the number of Black and Latino students applying to the system, but more white and Asian students have also been applying. Some UC officials say it shouldnt be surprising that eliminating the tests hasnt made a major difference in the racial makeup of UC students. Thats mostly because test scores were already a small part of admissions decisions, which considered 14 factors, said Michelle Whittingham, associate vice chancellor of enrollment management at UC Santa Cruz. I think individuals all throughout the country and throughout the world that were watching the University of California kind of made an assumption that things drastically changed. And thats not the case, Whittingham said. At the same time, officials note that test scores are just one barrier for underrepresented students. Access to supports like college counseling, Advanced Placement classes and small class sizes remain unequal across California and the country. Others are cautioning, though, that its too early to draw conclusions because the system has only been through two admission cycles without standardized tests and because there have been many other factors at play since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the brief UC filed to the Supreme Court, the university wrote that its not yet clear what the impact of eliminating the tests will be. I would hesitate to draw conclusions from any singular data point over the last two years. Combining the effects of the global pandemic, with all the various things that went on, and then with the SAT requirement changes on top of that, I think its going to take a while before any of that makes sense in context, said Dale Leaman, executive director of undergraduate admissions at UC Irvine. A real dampening effect After Proposition 209 banned UC from considering race in admissions, freshmen enrollees from underrepresented minority groups dropped precipitously at UC, the system wrote in the brief it filed to the Supreme Court. That was true for each of UCs campuses, but especially at its most selective campuses: UCLA and UC Berkeley. At UCLA, for example, Black students made up 7.13% of the freshman class in 1995 but just 3.43% in 1998. The proportion of Latino students dropped from 21.58% to 10.45% over the same period. Theres no question that when Prop. 209 passed, there was a real dampening effect on racial equity efforts, said Audrey Dow, senior vice president at Campaign for College Opportunity, a group that advocates for better access to California universities. Since Proposition 209 was approved by voters, UC has tried to increase diversity through several initiatives. The system has spent more than half a billion dollars implementing outreach programs, such as its Early Academic Outreach Program in which UC works directly with students from underserved high schools and helps them complete all admission requirements and apply for financial aid. While those kinds of programs have helped UC enroll more low-income students, they havent been as effective in enrolling higher percentages of Black and Latino students enrolling, according to the Supreme Court brief. In 2001, UC also implemented a local program that now guarantees admission somewhere in the system to California residents who are in the top 9% of their high school class. The program is a way to ensure that students at schools across the state have access to UC, and it has helped the system improve its geographic diversity. However, like the outreach programs, the local guarantees have not substantially increased the racial diversity of students admitted to UC, and they have had little impact at the most selective campuses, UC wrote in the brief. Also in 2001, UC introduced holistic review in admissions. The system went from primarily using grades and test scores to determine whether a student was admitted to instead using the 14 factors now 13 with the elimination of test scores. Among the factors that UC now considers is the location of a students high school as well as a students accomplishments in light of special circumstances, such as whether the student is low-income or the first in their family to attend college. But UC acknowledged in its Supreme Court brief that holistic review has not been sufficient to counteract the declines in diversity after Proposition 209. California voters recently had a chance to reverse course and allow UC to consider affirmative action. Proposition 16, on the ballot in 2020, would have repealed Proposition 209, but it was defeated. Admissions without test scores Before UC got rid of standardized tests from admissions decisions, admissions officials were already considering test scores in context, said Whittingham, the UC Santa Cruz official. For example, if one applicant scored a 1200 on the SAT and had the highest score at their school, that might be more impressive to application readers than an applicant who scored a 1300 but went to a school where that score was only average. Thats the critical piece, Whittingham said. That may explain why UCs freshman cohort that entered in fall 2021 didnt look significantly different from previous fall cohorts. About 4.4% of the class were Black students, compared to 4.1% in fall 2020. The share of Latino students was 26%, compared to about 25% the previous year, and that slight uptick may be attributed at least partly to demographic changes in Californias high school students. Whittingham added that she thinks theres potential for the elimination of test scores to eventually lead to more enrollments of Black and Latino students, but she doesnt expect it to be a dramatic change. Dow of the Campaign for College Opportunity said that eliminating the SAT and ACT from admissions was a huge signal to students that you have a spot, you are welcome at the University of California. Thats why, Dow said, UC saw a huge increase in applications for fall 2021 admissions, when freshman applications were up by about 18%, which included large spikes in the number of Black and Latino students applying. Dow added, however, that UC wont see those application trends translate into enrollments unless it can significantly expand capacity. There simply isnt the capacity to fit everybody that is eligible and deserving of a seat, Dow said. I think as we figure out the capacity challenge, we will continue on the track of eliminating barriers to students of color to the UC. UC has made it a priority to expand capacity and plans to add another 23,000 students by 2030. However, that could be challenging at some campuses, especially the most competitive ones like Berkeley, which already is overcrowded to the point that it turns away thousands of students from on-campus housing every year. Some UC officials are optimistic that eliminating the SAT and ACT will eventually translate to more enrollments of Black and Latino students. Leaman from UC Irvine as well as admissions officials with UC San Diego and UCLA told EdSource that they think its possible their campuses will see a higher percentage of those students enrolling in the coming years. That could be especially true if the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic lessen since Black and Latino students have been more likely to have their educational plans disrupted by the pandemic. If that happens, it would be a divergence from UCs past measures that have failed to increase racial diversity across the system. In its brief to the Supreme Court, UC wrote that its own experience demonstrates that universities need to engage in limited consideration of race in admissions. Such consideration remains justified by universities compelling interest in achieving the educational benefits of diversity in bringing together young adults from all walks of life, who have had varying experiences informed by their localities, socioeconomic background, upbringing, and race, and instilling in them a capacity to appreciate each others viewpoints, UC wrote. Michael Burke is based in Los Angeles and among other topics writes about higher education This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: University of California offers cautionary tale in affirmative action policies Mississippi is facing a serious challenge: a labor shortage. I talk to employers from every corner of the state, and they are having trouble finding the help they need. As a result, the burden for making our economy hum falls on the smaller and smaller group of people who do work. The labor shortage is a nationwide problem, but in Mississippi its even more acute. Our labor force participation rate the percentage of adults who are working or are looking for work is worse than every other state except West Virginia. The good news is there is a way to address our labor shortage. We can encourage people to enter the workforce through something called the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. The EITC is simple. If you go from being unemployed to being employed, the EITC provides a tax credit to you. Thats why they called it earned youve got to work to earn it. As you make more money at your job, the tax credit increases. Eventually the tax credit plateaus and then goes to zero. The idea is that the EITC provides an incentive to get moving, go to work, get out of poverty and get off government assistance. Mississippi does not have an EITC, but we have the money to implement this now with no tax increase necessary. Mississippi receives millions of dollars every year in TANF funds from the federal government. TANF, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is more commonly known as welfare. At this very moment, the state has access to a large pool of available TANF funds. And TANF money is allowed to be spent on an EITC. TANF may ring a bell to some readers, because its become famousor infamousin Mississippi in the last two years. In 2020, the auditors office uncovered the largest public fraud case in state history, and it involved TANF money. The investigation revealed for the first time that tens of millions of dollars of TANF funds had been misspent. The auditors office arrested six individuals for their role in that fraud. Five have pleaded guilty, including the agency head who handled TANF funds. Several others are facing lawsuits from the state, which is seeking repayment of those funds. Story continues While those criminal and civil cases work their way through the courts, its important to think about better ways to spend TANF money. The TANF fraud in Mississippi happened because the state gave large chunks of the money to a nonprofit to deliver services to the poor, and then that nonprofit defrauded the public. Instead of these large grants, the money would be better spent on direct tax credits to people if they join the workforce, like the EITC. Tons of studies have been done on EITCs. Theyre proven to work. Economists agree that EITCs are one of the best ways to improve the economy and help working people. Whats more, implementing and administering an EITC costs virtually nothing because its as easy as adding one line to a state income tax form. That secrets out, too. Other states, from Maine to Louisiana, have adopted the EITC. In total, 29 states have a program like this, and 20 of those states use their TANF money to fund the tax cut. Mississippi needs an EITC just to keep up. Now is the time to act to put the pool of TANF money we have into action. The EITC would directly attack a critical problem facing the state. More people working means stronger families, more tax revenue, and a better economy. Policymakers should put money into the hands of working people and get Mississippi moving forward. Shad White is the 42nd State Auditor of Mississippi This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: State auditor: Mississippi tax credit through TANF will boost employment lottery ticket Getty A last-minute decision to play the lottery made one North Carolina woman hundreds of thousands of dollars richer. Stephanie Israel, 39, won a whopping $501,544 after buying a Quick Pick ticket just minutes before Saturday's Cash 5 drawing, according to a press release from the NC Education Lottery. However, the Guilford County woman didn't realize she'd won on her $1 ticket until the next morning, when she opened her email. "When I went in and saw it, I screamed for like 20 minutes," Israel told lottery officials. "I think I scared my family a little bit." RELATED: S.C. Man Wins $100K From Lottery by Using Strategy He Saw on TLC's 'Lottery Changed My Life' Israel purchased the ticket with "only four minutes" before Saturday's drawing, according to the news release. "It was late at night and I was lying in bed and the spirit just told me to go online and buy one," she told lottery officials. 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. Israel claimed her winnings $356,147 after state and federal withholdings at the lottery headquarters on Monday. The Browns Summit woman now hopes to use the money to invest in her family. "We are constantly thinking of new ideas for businesses," she explained, adding, "Our boys already have a landscaping business." Doen is putting down East Coast roots. The Los Angeles brand is opening a store at 384 Bleecker Street in New Yorks West Village. More from WWD The 1,000-square foot boutique is under construction and will open this winter. We know were so much more than a California brand. And we know from our customer demographics that we actually have more traffic to our sites from New York than we do from Los Angeles, which I think is really interesting. Were really excited to be part of the revival of Bleecker Street, said the brands cofounder Margaret Kleveland. Holly Soroca joined Doen as president in May of 2021, bringing with her experience as a buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Shes been developing an expansion plan, including strategic retail. And she has a deep understanding of New York and the New York customer, Kleveland added. Doen was built on this amazingly strong community and we share a lot of experiences through our Brentwood store, online, on our social media and through our email channels, said Soroca. But from the day that the brand launched, people were saying when can we come shop in person and be part of this community in New York.The customer has an amazing loyalty to us online, but theres probably categories that will be better for us in-store because the customer can touch and feel. One of those could be its newest category Doen Delicates, launched with a brief, cami and bralette. Earlier this month, the brand also launched a punny re-commerce program called Hand Me Doen. Weve been having a great year so far. I think we have a really unique price point and customers feel like theyre getting incredible value out of our product, said Soroca. Like Doens Brentwood Country Mart and Montecito Country Mart stores, the New York outpost is being designed by Nickey Kehoe. Doen launched in 2016 with womens dresses, nightgowns and tops, and has expanded into childrens clothing, outerwear, handmade heirloom knits, denim, T-shirts and swimwear, as well as velvet ballet flats, clogs, sandals and leather bags. Prices are $115 to $898. And fans include actress Busy Philipps, Zoe Kravitz, Lily Aldridge, Zoey Deutch, Laura Brown, Samantha Traina and hairstylist Tracey Cunningham, a partner in the business. The Klevelands opened their first store in Brentwood Country Mart in 2019, and have collaborated with Net-a-porter on capsule collections, as well as with Liberty and home accessories designer Heather Taylor. Story continues Female empowerment and motherhood are brand touchstones, and the dreamy, visual style begins with seasonal look books photographed by founding partner and creative consultant Hilary Walsh in nature-filled destinations around the world. Curated by content director and partner Phoebe Dean, an online journal spotlights women of the Doen community (sometimes photographed with their children, and always wearing the brand), such as chef Lori Stern, surfer Tori Praver and Room to Reads Heather Simpson. No doubt lots of New Yorkers will be next. Best of WWD Click here to read the full article. The Oak Ridge Branch of AAUW (American Association of University Women) would like to make a public statement about the four amendments to the Tennessee State Constitution that will be on the Nov. 8 ballot. An account of the proposed amendments was featured in the Oct. 6 issue of The Oak Ridger. It described the method that ties the number of votes for a governor to the number of votes for an amendment. That is, an amendment passes only if the number of yes votes is a majority of the vote total in the gubernatorial election. An argument against this method is that people can omit marking the ballot for a governor to try to defeat the amendment. A Vote Here sign is seen outside Austin-East Magnet High, Aug. 31, 2021. AAUW believes Amendment 1 is not needed, since Tennessee already has a Right to Work Act. And there is a federal law, the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees collective bargaining, giving workers the right to negotiate with management. Tennessee is one of 27 states to have Right to Work laws. According to the FindLaw website, Workers in states without right to work laws are generally required to join the union if their workplace is a part of a collective bargaining agreement, but still have the option of opting out. This is the wording of Tennessees Right to Work Law: It is unlawful for any person, firm, corporation or association of any kind to deny or attempt to deny employment to any person by reason of that persons membership in, affiliation with, resignation from, or refusal to join or affiliate with any labor union or employee organization of any kind. This wording, in effect, gives workers the right not to have collective bargaining that is, meeting with management to negotiate better working hours, wages, health coverage, time off for family illness, pregnancy, work conditions, etc. In the future, conditions may change and the legislature might want to enact other measures that are not in line with the amendment. It takes several years of legislative approval to put amendments on the ballot. The people cannot propose amendments to the Tennessee Constitution; only the state legislature can, and it has to move slowly in doing so. This lengthy process would hamper the legislature in making any change to state law that they might want to make. Story continues On the ballot: Candidates and amendments on the ballot for East Tennessee Nov. 8 Therefore, AAUW recommends voting No on Amendment 1 to the Tennessee Constitution on Nov. 8. Amendment 2 has to do with the possibility of the incapacity of a governor. This seems a prudent addition to the Constitution. Amendment 3 says: Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this state, which also seems prudent. Amendment 4 would align Tennessee law with the Supreme Court ruling in 1978 that said it's unconstitutional to forbid clergy from holding public office. This seems a housekeeping provision. AAUW is an organization established in 1881 to seek the betterment of women and girls and families. This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Four amendments Tennessee Constitution on Nov. 8 ballot dog in cage at a dogfighting operation Courtesy of Meredith Lee / HSUS TABLE OF CONTENTS On This Page What Is Dogfighting? The Recovery Process Preventing Dogfighting Authorities recently rescued 305 dogs from an alleged dogfighting operation in South Carolina, yet these pups could soon be on their way to foster homes and eventually their forever families. Even though these dogs lived their lives in agonizing conditions, they are fully capable of living full, happy lives just like any other pooch, says Janell Gregory, South Carolina state director for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). They just need help adjusting to their new lives. "I don't know how long [recovery] takes. I think that's case-by-case basis depending on the dog, but we've certainly seen success in these dogs going on to live wonderful lives as pets and in homes for the remainder of their lives," Gregory tells Daily Paws. On Sept. 25, HSUS assisted federal agents in seizing dogs from properties in six South Carolina counties. Of the 305 rescued dogs, 275 of them were thought to be directly involved in dogfighting. The Justice Department called the action, which resulted in more than 20 arrests, "the biggest takedown of a dogfighting operation in South Carolina history." Gregory was at two of the sites where HSUS assisted. She says she saw many of the dogs chained to trees with little to no shelter. Some of the dogs were covered in open wounds, scarring, and lacerations. Yet, they were in good spirits. Gregory says the most surprising thing she saw was many of the dogs' pure excitement when they greeted the rescuers. Although some of the dogs appeared hunched over and timid, Gregory says many of them were "wiggling, whining, and wanting all the attention," showing the rescuers plenty of love. "The collars that [the dogs] had on were quite massive and they had on very large chains that were very heavy looking," Gregory says. "When the rescuers took them off of those chains they would kiss them the whole way to the medical table." Story continues Other dogs weren't as happy. At the second property the HSUS helped clear, Gregory says there were not only adult dogs, but also many puppies. These puppies didn't act like typical sprightly youngstersthey were "sullen" with personalities that seemed withdrawn. What Is Dogfighting? HSUS defines dogfighting as when "dogs who have been bred, conditioned, and trained to fight are placed in a pit to fight each other for spectator entertainment and profit." Some dogs are even used as "bait dogs" to train other canines how to fight. RELATED: Haddie Lost an Eye and Part of Her Face, But She's Still Smiling Janette Reever is the program manager of animal crimes with HSUS and Humane Society International (HSI). She says dogfighting is a global issue and can occur anywhere, contrary to the belief that it only happens in inner cities or rural areas. (The ASPCA estimates that tens of thousands of people are involved in dogfighting in the U.S.) Reever says it is oftentimes a "cluster crime," meaning it's associated with other illegal activities such as illegally selling drugs and guns. (The South Carolina raids, for example, yielded 30 guns and $40,000 in cash.) American pit bull terriers are one of the most common breeds used for fightingunfortunately because of one of their best qualities. Reever says their endearing loyalty sadly makes them useful in fights, as they "do everything they can to please their owner." "I think that's the saddest thing when you look at these dogs where they are is that they're so incredibly forgiving and so passionate about the person when it comes to human contact. That's all they crave and all they want," Reever says. It's important to remember a dog's breed does not determine their behavior. In a study conducted on breed and behavior, pit bulls scored very high in the "human sociability" category, meaning they get along very well with new people. The Recovery Process The rehabilitation process looks different for every former fighting dog. Bobbie Bhambree, CDBC, CPDT-KA, is the director of behavior services at Behavior Vets in New York. When working with a dog who has experienced trauma, her main goal is to help them feel safe and secure. One technique Bhambree likes to use when altering a dog's behavior is called "relaxation conditioning." "It's not the same as teaching a dog to lay down and stay," Bhambree says. "It's more about shifting their internal state to help them get back down to baseline physiologically. The intention of that is by changing what's happening internally, they can feel more at ease in their surroundings and their environment in general." Bhambree says this technique can be thought of almost like meditation in humans, and it can help dogs relax after experiencing stressful events. Reever says it's important to remember these dogs will be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, and each dog is going to recover at their own pace. Some dogs may acclimate quickly, while others will take a longer time. RELATED: How a Little Pup Who Was Hit By a Car Is Inspiring Animal Rescuers in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Fiona Some of the dogs have to recover from physical wounds, too. Physical health is the main priority for the rescued South Carolina dogs, Reever says. HSUS rescued two dogs, Albert and Ray J, who needed extensive help. A severe fracture on one of Albert's legs required amputation while an open, festering wound on Ray J's chest necessitated complicated surgery. As of last week, Ray J was still recovering from his surgery while Albert was getting used to three legs as he prepared to join a foster home. Although the rehabilitation process can be long, Gregory says around 80 percent or more of fighting dogs who arrive at HSUS go on to live as pets in homes, and many of them even go on to live in multi-pet homes with other dogs and cats. For example, the vast majority of the dogs involved in this country's most infamous dogfighting bust went on to live normal livesdespite calls to euthanize them. Of the 51 dogs rescued from NFL star Michael Vick's dogfighting operation in 2007, 47 of them went on to live with new families or in sanctuaries. Preventing Dogfighting Reever says one of the best ways to prevent dogfighting is by educating not only law enforcement on the signs of dogfighting but also the younger generation in hopes that they will speak up if they are exposed to family members who are participating in dogfighting. "If you see something, say something," Reever says. "Always pick up the phone and call. It's a lot better for law enforcement to get a complaint and have to not file it then not say something and an animal or a person suffers." James Dean Leavitt and Maria Gall Policy, politics and progressive commentary My opponent is qualified for only half the job, judicial candidate James Dean Leavitt says of Clark County District Judge Maria Gall, referring to her lack of experience in criminal law. Shes never handled a criminal matter. And frankly, the only thing that distinguishes the two of us is Ive practiced civil and criminal law for 30 years. Shes practiced civil for 15 years. Gall currently has a civil docket, and District Court has a backlog of civil cases. Im trying to clear that backlog through enhanced case management in my department, but Im also trying to be very mindful of attorneys ability to go to trial back-to-back, Gall says. Leavitt says he hasnt had any trials, criminal or civil, in recent years. I dont believe in trials. If you have to go to trial, that means the parties werent able to reach an agreement, he says. So Im very proud to say that Ive been able to successfully negotiate every one of my criminal cases. 97% of cases plea bargain in state court. My rate is 100%. Leavitt says he hopes to avoid trials as a judge. Litigants in District Court often complain that justice is out of reach, given the price of hiring counsel. While Gall cant offer assistance to litigants who represent themselves, she says she can direct them to resources for information or even to pro bono attorneys. Civil defendants do not have a right to counsel and I dont have the perfect solution for this, but I firmly believe that we as a bench and a bar need to do what we can to help people access justice because the system is complicated, its very difficult for a pro se or pro per litigant to navigate. And weve got to ask ourselves, are they obtaining justice? Leavitt calls Gov. Steve Sisolaks appointment of Gall to the bench in June to replace Cristina Silva pure political pandering and shameless. He says filling a seat months before an election gives someone the label as the incumbent and an advantage in fundraising. Why not leave it vacant? Leavitt raised no money as of June 30th. He says candidates in the special election were not allowed to fundraise until just days before the deadline. Gall raised $28,909 through June and spent all of it. Gall, who unsuccessfully sought appointment to the bench last year, is best known during her short time in Dept. 9 for ruling that Republican gubernatorial candidate and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardos emails sent from his Metro address to his campaign consultants, are not subject to Nevadas open records law because the documents are of a personal nature. A research group working for Democrats filed the suit. While it is undisputed that Sheriff Lombardo engaged in political activity using his government email account, the Group has provided no basis upon which to obtain disclosure of what would otherwise be non-public records merely because the Sheriff may have violated policies on conflicts of interest, political activity, and/or personal use of government e-mail accounts, Galls order says. Gall ordered a limited number of emails be released to the plaintiff. Leavitt, elected twice to the Nevada Board of Regents in 2004 and 2010, says running for the bench is a logical progression to a 30-year career as an attorney that includes practice in both civil and criminal law. Since 2016, hes added gaming law to his practice. Four years ago Leavitt was critically injured when he says his gun accidentally discharged. He says he was suffering from depression and 100% suicidal at the time. He acknowledges that mental well-being is relevant to serving as a judge. The states application for appointment to the bench queries applicants about mental health. Leavitt says he doesnt think the incident should define him. I dont think I need to be the poster child for mental health, he says. My private battles with depression go back to being a teenager. They go back far further than that, because theres a substantial history of clinical depression on both sides of my family. Leavitt, a graduate of University of Idaho Law School, says hes been unable to secure any endorsements, but has only applied for a handful. Gall, a graduate of University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law, is endorsed by Culinary Local 226, SEIU Nevada, AFL-CIO, Hispanics in Politics, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, and a variety of other organizations. Early voting begins Oct. 22. Election Day is Nov. 8. Conspiracy theorist and huckster Alex Jones has been ordered by a Connecticut court to pay almost a billion dollars to people who suffered from his lies. Meanwhile, another notorious conspiracy theorist, the founder of the extremist gang the Proud Boys will appear at an event at Penn State University later this month. And there was a pretty explosive Jan. 6 committee hearing, too. It's the week in extremism. InfoWars founder Alex Jones speaks to the media outside Waterbury Superior Court during his trial on September 21, 2022 in Waterbury, Connecticut. Jones is being sued by several victims' families for causing emotional and psychological harm after they lost their children in the Sandy Hook massacre. A Texas jury last month ordered Jones to pay $49.3 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of 26 students and teachers killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Curtains for Alex Jones? It was a bad week for Jones, who has made a living by lying to his audience and feeding Americans a steady stream of conspiracy theories and propaganda via his platform "Infowars." In the second civil case he has faced this year, Jones was ordered to pay almost $1 billion to victims who suffered from his lies about the Sandy Hook massacre. In August, Jones was ordered to pay victims almost $50 million after a similar civil trial. The cases stream from his years-long spreading of lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that led to years of harassment and suffering for the families of the victims. Jones responded to the judgment in typical fashion, asking on his televised Infowars show: "Do these people actually think they're getting any money?" Infowars' parent company has filed for bankruptcy protection, but an expert told the Texas court Jones and his company could be worth as much as $270 million. Next: Jones still faces a third trial in Texas. Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, left, discusses a lawsuit he filed against the Southern Poverty Law Center during a news conference in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. His attorney, Baron Coleman, listens on the right. McInnes contends the nonprofit organization wrongly labeled the far-right Proud Boys a hate group. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler) ORG XMIT: ALKC101 Proud Boys founder at Penn State Gavin McInnes, the right-wing provocateur who founded the extremist street gang the Proud Boys, is set to appear at an event at Penn State University later this month. Students at the university are not impressed and have launched a petition to have the event canceled. McInnes, a Canadian citizen, allegedly quit the Proud Boys in 2018 after the group became increasingly notorious for its street violence and political activity. He has claimed the creation of the gang was largely a joke. Despite their insistence they are a harmless drinking club, exposes from inside the Proud Boys show that they are a hateful and racist organization. Proud Boys have also driven protests on far-right touchstone issues including drag events and school board meetings. High-profile members of the group were charged with seditious conspiracy for their role at the Jan. 6 insurrection. The petition to have McInnes' event canceled had almost 1,700 signatures by Thursday afternoon. Local anti-fascist groups announced on Twitter they were organizing a "direct action" against the event. Story continues More: They joined the Wisconsin Proud Boys looking for brotherhood. They found racism, bullying and antisemitism. Leader? McInnes has recently shown signs he is taking a more active role in the Proud Boys again, posting on Telegram about the group. Bombshell Jan. 6 committee meeting Thursday's meeting of the house select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection was a wild one. The headline is that the committee voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump for questioning. But plenty of other revelations came out of the meeting, including: Some Trump supporters were armed on Jan. 6, committee members said, and the US Secret Service knew in advance that some of the pro-Trump protesters were carrying firearms. If he's ever forced to testify to the committee, Trump is likely to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. If so, he would join 30 other individuals who have pleaded the Fifth to the committee, according to Rep. Liz Cheney. The committee showed footage that had previously not been viewed publicly showing several senior politicians including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleading with law enforcement and military officials to secure the Capitol during the attack. Trump himself wanted to join the protesters. If that had happened, one Secret Service official told the commission, "this would move from a normal, democratic, public event into something else." What now? It was the last scheduled meeting of the committee. Trump will almost certainly fight the subpoena in court. Friday morning update: We're monitoring last night's shooting spree in Raleigh, N.C. which left five people dead including a police officer. Police have not released the identity of the 15-year-old suspect. Extremism experts tell us they have not so far found online evidence of postings or extremism behavior that has been seen in other recent mass shootings. Follow USA TODAY's updates here. Last week in extremism: Extremists cheer Musk Twitter deal; Oath Keepers trial heats up & more LGBTQ harassment This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes and Donald Trump Jan. 6 hearings A screen grab from a home security video submitted by Williamson County resident shows the moment a storm rolled through Bon Aqua in Williamson County on Wednesday. A previous version of a statement from Belmont University included the incorrect reference for a cited Bible verse. This story has been updated to correct the error. A 22-year-old woman is dead in Williamson County after severe storms blew through Middle Tennessee early Wednesday evening. The storms triggered tornado warnings, ripped down trees and power lines and damaged structures. Laurel Flaherty, originally from Massachusetts, was killed when a tree fell on her car along Old Natchez Trace on Wednesday afternoon, officials said. Flaherty graduated with a Bachelor's degree in social work from Belmont University in May and was in her first year at the university's law school. Belmont president Greg Jones released a statement Thursday about her death. "We are all devastated by todays news, and we have reached out to her family, faculty and classmates to offer our support and deepest condolences," Jones said. "I am again reminded of Psalm 34:18: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Our prayers today are with Laurels family and all who knew and loved her. Belmont will also extend support services and resources to the campus community, Jones said. NWS: 75 mph straight-line winds swept through Williamson County Tornado warnings and rolling severe thunderstorm warnings rippled across Nashville and Middle Tennessee during rush hour early Wednesday evening. The National Weather Service in Nashville later confirmed that 75 mph straight-line winds tore through Williamson County. FROM WEDNESDAYSevere storms trigger tornado warnings across Middle Tennessee A metal awning over the Jingo Market in Fairview was destroyed, and reports of downed trees and power outages were widespread in the surrounding areas. The storms knocked out power to over 6,000 customers across Middle Tennessee at one point. The Williamson County Emergency Management Agency received a dozen reports of downed lines, three reports of transformer fires and 29 roadway hazard reports, spokesperson Jill Burgin said. Story continues Watch: Video captures moment storms swept through Bon Aqua Scott Unger, a meteorologist with NWS Nashville, said that the areas around Fairview and Bon Aqua, in Williamson County, were among the hardest hit in the storms. Williamson County was one of several that went under a tornado warning Wednesday evening. A resident submitted a video to The Tennessean that captured the severe winds tearing through her front yard in Bon Aqua, near the Williamson County line and Fairview. Manchester, in Coffee County, also sustained damage Wednesday. Coffee County Emergency Management Deputy Director Matt Aussiker said the damage was from straight-line winds. Two gas stations lost awnings, a roof at a co-op building partially folded over and shingles were ripped off an academy. Multiple trees were also down, Aussiker said. NWS Nashville encourages residents to share photos and reports or damage by using the #tspotter hashtag on social media. Don't forget If you received any damage from the storms today, be sure to tweet using #tspotter so that we see the report! NWS Nashville (@NWSNashville) October 13, 2022 Reporter Craig Shoup contributed to this story. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 1 dead in Williamson County after severe storms, tornado warnings PANAMA CITY A Springfield man was sentenced to four life sentences and more than 125 years in prison after he broke into a home, sexually assaulted two people and threatened to have them killed if they called the police. According to a press release from the State Attorney's Office of the 14th Judicial Circuit, Jason Dowdell, a 38-year-old Springfield resident, was sentenced Friday to serve four life terms, three 30-year terms and seven five-year terms in prison for 15 convicted offenses. Dowdell was convicted in August of three counts of sexual battery, three counts of false imprisonment, three counts of tampering with a witness or victim, three counts of aggravated assault and battery, one count of burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery, one count of child abuse and one count of battery. "(Dowdell) will not receive any gain time, (and) he must serve every day of the sentences," the release reads. "Judge Gray also ordered the sentences to be served consecutively, or one after the other." Callaway man: sentenced to prison for shooting at Bay County deputies Two Panama City men: sentenced to prison after car-chase shooting The State Attorney's Office notes Dowdell was declared a prison-release reoffender and sexual predator. Prosecutors Barbara Beasley and Jennifer Lieb presented evidence at Dowdell's trial that showed he forced his way into a home in May 2021 armed with a knife. There were three people in the home, two of which Dowdell sexually assaulted, and he assaulted one victim twice. Officials with the State Attorney's Office said he also threatened to have the three people in the home killed if they called the police. The prosecutors presented jurors with almost 30 pieces of evidence, including DNA findings and the knife used in the crime. "Beasley and Lieb called 14 witnesses during the one-day trial Aug. 18, including three victims, Florida Department of Law Enforcement experts and five Springfield police officers," the release reads. This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Springfield man gets 4 life terms for home-invasion sexual batteries Nostalgic train experiences are popping up across Southeast Asia. Courtesy of The Vietage A private cabin on board the Vietage. These days, people want to move at a more relaxed pace, and trains are perfect for slower journeys, says Dan Fraser, founder of Smiling Albino, a travel outfitter based in Bangkok. Thats particularly true in Thailand, where the company recently launched a rail-themed tour of the countrys Pak Chong district, the gateway to Khao Yai National Park, about two hours northeast of Bangkok. Highlights include a guided tour of historic Khlong Phai Railway Station and its vintage machinery, a picturesque ride on a local commuter train, and a visit to a night market to snack on mango sticky rice and taro-stuffed Chinese buns. Courtesy of InterContinental Khao Yai Resort The InterContinental Khao Yai Resort, a new Bill Bensleydesigned property in northern Thailand. The excursion should pair perfectly with a stay at the InterContinental Khao Yai Resort, which opened in September. The resort pays homage to the golden age of King Rama V, in the early 20th century, when Khao Yai was a gateway for railroad travel to northeastern Thailand, says celebrated designer Bill Bensley, who upcycled old train carriages to create the resorts 19 suites, spa, and teahouse. An additional 45 guest rooms will evoke a first-class train voyage with decorative flourishes such as station signage and special luggage tags. Its a time warp into a bygone era filled with train memorabilia that Ive collected myself over the past several years, Bensley adds. In Vietnam, a new 12-person train carriage called the Vietage offers luxurious round-trips between Da Nang Railway Station, near Hoi An, and the beach town of Quy Nhon. At six hours each way, Fraser says, travelers have the time to really savor the beauty of central Vietnam. A three-course meal, cocktails, wine, and Wi-Fi are all included, as are treatments from an onboard massage therapist. While guests can do the out-and-back in a single day, breaking up the trip with a night at the beachside Anantara Quy Nhon Villas is more in keeping with the Vietages slow-travel vibe. A version of this story first appeared in the October 2022 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Romance on the Rails." For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois on Tuesday endorsed Democrats Katie Hobbs and Adrian Fontes for governor and secretary of state. Those who are responsible for the violence on January 6th and those who have pushed the Big Lie since the 2020 election must not gain higher office, wrote Kinzinger, a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the nations Capitol. The fate of our Republic depends on that. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming traveled to Arizona last week to warn against voting for Republicans Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, a pair of election deniers who have actually called for arrests of their opponents based upon some fantasy belief that the 2020 election was stolen. The first thing that we have to understand is that weve never been where we are, Cheney told a group of ASU students last week. Weve never been in a phase, a place where were facing this kind of a threat. And thats because were facing a threat from a former president who is attempting to unravel the Republic. Meanwhile, here in Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey has been unable to locate his spine. Blake Masters, the GOP U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona, holds a press conference with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence at a school choice event on Oct. 11, 2022. Ducey called Lake 'misleading,' then endorsed her In July, he called out Lake, taking to CNN to warn that she was misleading voters about election integrity and claiming that her whole campaign was an act. This is all an act, he said at the time. Shes been putting on a show for some time now and well see if the voters of Arizona buy it. In August, he endorsed her. Post-Trump GOP?: Republicans must move past Trump for sake of the party's future and the nation's This is going to be an important election given the issues our state is facing and its important for Arizona Republicans to unite behind our slate of candidates, Ducey tweeted, shortly after the primary election. Former President Donald Trump (R) watches Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake speak at a Save America rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The governor who in 2020 defended Arizonas election the one who certified the results even as then-President Donald Trumps Hail to the Chief ringtone was chiming on his cellphone apparently has no interest in defending his state from a MAGA slate that seems intent on dismantling democracy. Story continues Other Republicans have been more outspoken Clearly, it wouldnt be good for his political career, as Kinzinger, Cheney and any other traditional conservative who dared to stand against the partys America First stampede has already found out. Fortunately, there are a few Republicans left in our state who are still possessed of a backbone, real patriots willing to put country before party or personal ambition, and stand up to the extremists who have taken over the once-Grand Old Party. Mesa Mayor John Giles has endorsed Hobbs, calling Lake dangerous. Its not a choice between Republicans and Democrats, he said on Sunday, as Trump rallied elsewhere in his deeply conservative city. Its a choice between sanity and chaos. Rise of conservative media: Conservatives build own media ecosystem to fight cancel culture House Speaker Rusty Bowers on Monday called Finchem a very dangerous man and a threat to the Constitution given his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. I dont plan to support anybody who doesnt pass my litmus test of honesty and that honesty is, was it stolen or not. And if you can still believe, after all weve been through and all the rounds of audits and reviews of the processes, that yes it was stolen then you fail my litmus test, he told CNNs Anderson Cooper. I would never vote for Mark Finchem. Im not looking for a fight with Mark Finchem but I know Mark Finchem and frankly, in my opinion, hes a very dangerous man. He won't take a stand when it matters most One who might very well become Arizonas next secretary of state a candidate who has made it clear he would work to overturn any election with which he doesnt agree. One who, along with Lake, has spent nearly two years telling us that Arizonas elections are corrupt, that dirty elections officials have conspired with global elites to steal that which is most sacred: our vote. And theyre really good at it. Despite any shred of actual evidence that any of it is true, a shockingly high number of Republicans believe it. Its how we have arrived at this tipping point, with the most extreme slate of candidates that Arizona has ever seen. Is GOP's 'big tent' shrinking?: Traditional conservatives find themselves without a home. And a shockingly high number of prominent Republicans traditional business-oriented conservatives have stood silently and declined to defend democracy. Or at least, to defend it now, when it counts the most. Blame it on Biden, who promised to govern from the center then ran to the left to embrace progressive policies. Biden, who has bungled the border, opening the door for extremists to scream "invasion". Blame it on Trump, whose grip on the party remains ironfisted demanding fealty only to one man and his grievances and who cares if it tears this country apart. Blame it the absense of courage to take on a campaign built on a mountain of lies and fueled by absolute, unending outrage. How does democracy survive? Don't ask Ducey Less talk, more arrests, Finchem tweeted on Monday. So says the man who, along with Lake and attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh, just might succeed in shredding the Constitution. Its just a piece of paper, after all. How does a democracy survive when half the people dont believe in it? Id ask Gov. Ducey but he was busy on Tuesday, campaigning to send Blake Masters to the Senate -- a guy who has said he wouldnt have voted to certify America's vote in 2020. Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Doug Ducey won't stand up to Arizona's MAGA slate when it counts A Spartanburg man, who discovered one of his checks had been fraudulently altered after a break-in at the downtown Post Office, wants to warn others to be on the lookout. On Wednesday, Sept. 21, Rick Beltram was checking his bank account online, when he discovered that a check to Verizon - dropped off at the Post Office Sunday, Sept. 18 - had been altered to $5,000 and made payable to "Hirazena D Anieiro." Beltram called his bank, Arthur State Bank (ASB), and verified that it was an altered check. The bank manager advised Beltram to come to the bank and sign an affidavit to stop payment. Then, on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 5, Beltram discovered a second mailed check was altered to $3,000. Beltram said he visited the Post Office at 250 S. Church St. to find out why the batch of five checks, including the altered one, had not been delivered. He said post office employees told him that between Sunday, Sept. 18 and Monday, Sept. 19, a USPS mailbox had been broken into. S. Church St. postmaster Alan Smith told the Herald-Journal any comment and confirmation of a break-in would need to go through USPS public relations. Jessica Adams, postal inspector and South Carolina public information officer for the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), said that there is an active investigation by the agency into mail theft and fraud across the state, but declined to comment on specific instances or the size of the investigation. Adams did say that postal inspectors based from Greenville were handling investigations of alterations in the area. Related:USPS workers charged for $1.3m of credit card fraud, identity theft scheme in NY, NJ What is check washing? Beltram is a victim of "check washing," a type of financial fraud that involves the chemically washing of checks to alter the payee and dollar amount information, before fraudulently depositing them. A host of cities including Philadelphia, Toledo, Baltimore, Boston and Chicago have all seen similar instances of check washing. Story continues Eighty people were arrested in California recently and face grand theft, money laundering, and conspiracy charges for their part in a massive mail theft and fraud scheme that dates back to 2018. The members of the ring stole nearly $5 million from hundreds of victims across California. Beltram said Arthur State Bank employees informed him about three other customers with similar issues. Daniel Cook, CFO of Arthur State Bank, said he could not provide any information about check washing, total number of customers who had been victims of fraudulent attempts, or the number of altered checks ASB has seen at their 20 locations in South Carolina "There is fraudulent activity going on and we are doing everything we can to help prevent it and encouraging our customers to always be on the watch and to really use their mobile and online banking," Cook said. "Our staff is trained to do their very best in recognizing fraudulent activity and stopping it before it happens when they can." While ASB put Beltram on notice of the fraud and stopped payment of the altered check, he worries others, particularly residents who still pay predominantly by mail-in checks, could become victims. "I was able to move on it quickly, but who knows how many are out there?" Beltram said. Safety measures against check washing Beltram said he regularly uses online banking and has been checking bank statements for his 96-year-old grandmother. The incident report Beltram filed with the Spartanburg Police Department references the "check washing," which is evident from parts of the lines on the check missing. The SPD report also states that there are no cameras in the area of the postal boxes outside the post office. "My concern is there are no cameras or security, so they're very vulnerable," Beltram said. Beltram said he replaced all the checks he mailed out, but did not stop payment on the checks in limbo until the bank reported them as altered. "There's a lot of people that have sufficient balances that could have several hits before they knew something had gone wrong," Beltram said. If you encounter what you believe to be a case of fraudulent check alterations, contact your bank or credit union to stop payment on the check before filing a report with USPIS. If you have mailed any checks and have reason to believe they have not reached the payee, contact the payee before stopping payment with your bank, if necessary. The Herald-Journal will continue an investigation into the issue of check washing and will publish any updates. This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Check alterations, mail theft reported in Spartanburg. What to know Opeyemi Awoyemi, one of Nigeria's well-known serial founders, is back with another outfit. It's not a tech company this time -- Awoyemi co-founded online jobs site Jobberman (which was acquired by ROAM Africa in 2016) and Whogohost, a bootstrapped hosting platform -- but instead, a venture studio: Fast Forward Venture Studio. Awoyemi choosing this route is quite interesting, especially as many African founders either launch syndicates or venture capital funds post- or during their entrepreneurial journies. But if anything, he and his co-founder, Omolara Awoyemi, bring much-needed operational expertise to scale a venture studio, a rare feat in these parts. After exiting Jobberman, Awoyemi, the firm's managing partner, was a senior technical product manager at Indeed. On the other hand, Omolara, its operating partner, has worked as country manager of Jumia's fintech arm in Nigeria and was a senior program manager at Facebook. With such roles, including as angel investors, brainstorming ideas and citing opportunities based on trends and tailwinds within the tech space is inevitable (for instance, the managing partner co-founded a digital bank for migrants last year that has since pivoted from serving customers to businesses). However, with little or no capacity to individually pursue these ideas, launching a venture studio and bringing capable hands to run these projects was the next best thing. Here's how Fast Forward operates, as the managing partner explained in an interview with TechCrunch. It starts with an "impact-focused" idea that Fast Forward can build a solid business around. The venture studio firm's idea selection is grand--keen on those it believes can impact at least 10 million people and generate at least $10 million in annual recurring revenue in 3-5 years. When the idea is established, the venture studio finds an experienced operator they believe can achieve product-market fit, scale the product and lead the company. Once the parties are on the same page, Fast Forward provides the operator or founder with $100,000 -- and value-add such as co-founder recruitment, engineering support, initial product strategy, execution on the growth side, administrative operations such as accounting and legal -- in exchange of up to 20% of the company. Fast Forward acts as the company's co-founder. Story continues "We back entrepreneurs from day one, so almost exclusively, we're the first money in the company. Lara and I are entrepreneurs that have scaled businesses in Africa, so we don't see ourselves as only investors but also as builders," said managing partner Awoyemi. "We understand the market and believe that the best way to unlock some of these opportunities, even most people are not thinking about, is to put entrepreneurs at the centre. The ideas can come from us, but they are a dime a dozen; the real work is execution." Fast Forward is interested in the following sectors: B2B and B2B2C services, infrastructural fintech, e-commerce, future of work, edtech, healthcare, logistics, deep tech, blockchain and globally scalable SaaS out of Africa, to name a few. Yearly, FastForward plans to work with 10 ideas within these sectors and spin-off 3-5 companies that will receive follow-on funding from other investors and gain acceptance into accelerators such as Y Combinator and Techstars. Here are some of the startups in the venture studio portfolio. Bumpa is a social commerce platform for over 100,000 small businesses (Lara is a founding executive); it recently integrated with Meta to sync between apps and is currently closing a seed round. AltSchool is a Techstars-backed platform for learning coding and other tech-related skills. TalentQL, a subsidiary of AltSchool, is a platform connecting tech talent with employers (Awoyemi is a co-founder). Dojah is a YC-backed identity verification and KYC platform for African businesses also in the process of closing a round. And Buzzline, a mobile OS for solo entrepreneurs. Fast Forward also runs a syndicated fund that selectively invests $20,000-$50,000 in some companies from the studio -- Bumpa is its sole recipient, according to its site -- at the pre-seed stage. The fund, which also consists of deals its partners conducted before it was instituted, has invested in startups outside the venture studio such as Casava, Convoy, Odiggo and Reliance Health. Besides the progress made by Fast Forward Venture Studio, another compelling outcome for the studio is that it has begun logging exits and returns in beta despite a generally exit-light tech space. It's one of the points Awoyemi made while arguing that venture studios are typically better placed to help founders succeed than incubators, accelerators and funds. For Fast Forward, Awoyemi noted that startups also have the advantage of riding on the back of the partners' backgrounds and their relationship with previous international employers, as well as venture partners whose roles include providing investor relations, strategic communications and portfolio company support. Jake Bright, the former Africa correspondent for TechCrunch, is one of its venture partners. "First, we're more hands-on than funds and incubators or accelerators. We back expressed entrepreneurs and operators while working very closely with them on our ideas," said the managing partner. "The returns are also much higher in terms of liquidity. It's better for backers, and also for us. With all the checks we've written so far, overall, we already have a 64x multiples on invested capital, which many small funds or seed funds cannot boast about." However, it's worth noting that while several venture studios have debatable pros over other investment entities, the model hasn't been particularly successful and has become less appealing to founders and operators. Yet, Fast Forward hopes to be an outlier whose learnings others can follow. Also, if recent activities that TechCrunch has covered from the industry are a harbinger of what's to come, the model might make a comeback. In the last couple of months, for instance, Adanian Labs, a Kenyan-based studio, said it's looking to build 300 startups over the next five years and Purple Elephant Ventures, another based studio Kenya-based venture raised $1 million pre-seed funding to build about four startups at the intersection of tourism, climate and technology yearly. French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris, December 9, 2019 Ludovic Marin/Pool via REUTERS Macron suggested he wouldn't use nuclear weapons to retaliate if Russia used them in Ukraine. In a sometimes-unclear interview answer, he said it may fall short of a threshold for retaliation. It struck a different tone from a statement by France, the US, and others warning of "severe consequences." France's President Emmanuel Macron suggested that he would not use nuclear weapons against Russia in retaliation for a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine. Macron, in a TV interview Wednesday night, gave a long and sometimes-ambiguous discussion of how France might react if Vladimir Putin's threats to use nuclear force were to come true. His answer , to the France 2 network, suggested that such an event may fall short of France's own threshold for striking back. The position was at odds with a much firmer statement by G7 countries Monday, in which France and other nations warned of "severe consequences" to the Russian use of nuclear weapons. Macron was asked: "Would France consider a tactical strike by Russia as a nuclear strike?" He replied: "France has a nuclear doctrine. It lies in the nation's fundamental interests that are clearly defined. They wouldn't be questioned should there be a ballistic nuclear attack." France's current nuclear policy is to use nuclear weapons only in self-defense, a definition Macron suggested would not be met by an attack on an allied nation like Ukraine. Macron also tweeted on Wednesday: "We do not want a World War." But France has been criticized for giving low levels of support compared to many other of Ukraine's allies in Europe and the West. Macron in the weeks before the war made public efforts to negotiate with Putin to prevent an invasion, without success. Macron said in the interview that France having nuclear weapons give it "strength and protection" but added ""the less we talk about the threat, the more credible we are." Story continues Other nations have not explicitly said how they will respond if Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon. But Macron is the only leader of a nuclear-armed nation who strongly suggested he will still not use them if Ukraine is attacked. And his comments could potentially threaten a coordinated NATO response. NATO plans A senior NATO official said that a nuclear attack by Russia would "almost certainly" trigger a military response from Western nations. He said Russia using nuclear weapons would "almost certainly be drawing a physical response from many allies, and potentially from NATO itself" and said that "Russia would face "unprecedented consequences." It came after the joint G7 statement, in which member states including the nuclear-armed US, France, and UK, said: "We reaffirm that any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences." The G7 and NATO did not say what those consequences would be, and whether they would be nuclear or not. Russia's repeated threats Russia has repeatedly warned that it could use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. How likely Russia is to use nuclear weapons is unclear, and some experts and wold leaders say the threats may be a bluff designed to get the West to weaken its military support for Ukraine. But they say those threats should still be taken seriously. US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that the risk of nuclear "Armageddon" is the highest it's been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Read the original article on Business Insider The people are the foundation of the country. In the past decade, China has given top priority to people's lives and their sense of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Click here to watch the video. A juror who opposed the death penalty for the man who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 wrote the judge a letter denying rumors of bias and explaining that the jury discussions were very tense. The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life, wrote juror Denise Cunha in the letter, according to The Associated Press. Cunha told the judge that the allegation that she had made a decision against the death penalty before the trial began was untrue. I maintained my oath to the court that I would be fair and unbiased, she said. Defendant Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to the murders, was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after a three-month long trial. The jury deliberated over the sentence for seven hours over the course of two days, rejecting the death penalty because of mitigating factors. Cruzs lawyers argued that the defendant suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, causing brain damage, and saw his adoptive father die at five years old. They claimed that Cruz was raped by an older child when he was nine. At least one juror of the 12 decided that the mitigating factors were enough to deny Cruz the death penalty, failing to meet the threshold of unanimity that is required for a death sentence under Florida law. Family members of Cruzs victims said that they were beyond disappointed at the verdict, the AP reported. We are beyond disappointed with the outcome, said Lori Alhadeff, the mother of a 14-year-old murdered at the high school. This should have been the death penalty, 100% I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also condemned the decision, saying: I just dont think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence. Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law, he said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Mike Lindell. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Mike Lindell was seen giving out pillows in Fort Myers, Florida, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. He told Insider his company was sending over 12,000 bedding items to Florida. He also went on Steve Bannon's podcast for a MyPillow promo code shoutout. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was down in Florida this week giving out pillows to those affected by Hurricane Ian, and he took the chance to promote his products on Steve Bannon's podcast. Lindell was seen going around Fort Myers on Thursday, meeting people whose property was destroyed by Hurricane Ian, one of the worst storms the state has seen. The hurricane made landfall on September 28 as a Category 4 storm and left a wide swath of wreckage in its wake. Lindell told Insider that his company 12,386 items to Florida, including 7,264 MyPillows, 2,566 "Bible pillows," and 2,556 blankets on a truck that got to Florida on Thursday. "The people were so grateful. They were very friendly and we prayed with many," Lindell told Insider. In a Facebook post on Thursday, Franklin Graham, the president of the Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, thanked Lindell for his visit. "These will mean so much to people who have lost everything. He even brought children's pillows that have a Bible story picture," Graham said of Lindell's visit. Lindell also used the opportunity to plug a MyPillow promo code on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast. "They can get themselves one and it helps support everything today, using the promo code 'War Room,'" Lindell told Bannon, the backdrop of a home that appeared to have been destroyed by the hurricane behind him. This is not the first time that Lindell has sent pillows to support a cause. In February, he pledged to send MyPillows to truckers protesting in the Freedom Convoy a convoy of disgruntled truckers that blocked major roads across the US-Canada border. The shipment of the 12,000 pillows was later delayed at a border crossing from Michigan to Canada. Read the original article on Business Insider CHILLICOTHE Adena Health System is expanding its care for patients with the addition of five health care providers across multiple service lines. These incoming physicians and advanced practice providers are delivering even more options for comprehensive, close-to-home care for patients throughout the region. Rebecca Ekstrand, DO, comes to the Adena Counseling Center in Chillicothe. Dr. Ekstrand was part of the Adena Graduate Medical Education Program class of 2022 completing her psychiatry residency with the health system and signing to continue her career with Adena. She earned her medical degree from the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Emily Leonard, Certified Nurse-Midwife, joins Adena Womens Health OB/GYN seeing patients in Chillicothe and Jackson. Emily brings over seven years of labor and delivery experience to Adena serving patients in Ohio and Texas throughout her career. She earned her masters degree in Nursing from the University of Cincinnati. Kristen Pertuset, Certified Nurse Practitioner, is accepting new patients at Adena Family Medicine Piketon. Kristen brings over 12 years of nursing experience to the health system having cared for patients across southern Ohio. She earned her masters degree in Nursing from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Holly Pummel, Certified Nurse Practitioner, is now caring for patients at Adena Urgent Care locations in Chillicothe, Circleville, Hillsboro, Jackson and Waverly. Holly has been with Adena since 2018 serving as a nurse at urgent care locations and in the Emergency Department at Adena Greenfield Medical Center. She earned her Family Nurse Practitioner degree from the Mount Carmel College of Nursing in Columbus. Victoria Zysek, DO, is welcomed back to the growing team of providers in Adena Cardiology in Chillicothe. A board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Zysek served as a non-invasive cardiology consultant with the health system from 2013 to 2021 and as medical director for Adenas Cardiac Rehabilitation. She also held several physician-led committee leadership positions with Adena. Dr. Zysek earned her medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Pennsylvania. She completed her residency at the Cleveland Clinic and fellowship at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. For more about Adena Health System, its health care providers, and full range of services, visit Adena.org This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Adena Health System welcomes new providers BravoCon has only just started, but Andy Cohen is already spilling the tea, confirming that there will be some big news about The Real Housewives of New York City this weekend. I think youre gonna get a New York announcement, and I think youre gonna get a lot of sneak peeks of new shows, Cohen told Variety. I think youre gonna get some announcements of new shows that you didnt even know were happening. More from Variety In March, Variety reported exclusively in an interview with Cohen that there would be a full reboot and recast of Real Housewives of New York City, as well as a second RHONY series with former stars. However, casting announcements have yet to be made for either show. Since its premiere in 2008, RHONY has been a Bravo mainstay, running for 13 seasons. Cohen said fans should expect the unexpected during the convention, joking that hes not even aware of every bit of news that may break. The thing about this is you actually never know whats going to happen with anybody. Theyve got me at two Ask Andy panels, and I dont know if PR is worried, because sometimes you put me in front of an open mic, and we dont know what hes gonna say. So well see. Hopefully I dont say anything that Im not supposed to. One Real Housewife whos expected to stir the pot this weekend is Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna, who posted to her Instagram Story on Thursday, You know what I love about being live live with an audience? You cant edit me to fit your narrative. You get Lisa Fucking Rinna. All day and all night. See you at #bravocon. When asked about Rinnas post and the fairness of her edit, Cohen appearred to be visibly exasperated. I do think it was fair. I think blaming the editing is the oldest living reality show trope. So there you go. Story continues Cohen also addressed The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member Jen Shahs guilty plea on criminal fraud charges stemming from an alleged telemarketing scheme, confirming it will have a major impact on the franchise: Shes going to be sentenced to likely prison time. So yes, I would assume its going to affect her time on the show. Shahs sentencing is currently scheduled for Dec. 15. As for whether Shah has a future on Bravo after her potential prison time, Cohen wouldnt speculate just yet: Lets see how long her sentence is. 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. Auburn has landed a major piece of its 2023 recruiting class. Clay Wedin, a four-star offensive lineman, announced his commitment to the Tigers on Friday. Wedin was originally committed to Michigan State before backing off his pledge on Oct. 10. The Tampa, Florida native has made multiple trips to Auburn and was on campus for the Tigers game against LSU. The 6-foot-6, 295-pound Wedin is ranked as the No. 383 overall prospect and No. 22 interior-offensive lineman in the 247Sports Composite ranking. He is Auburns third offensive lineman of the 2023 recruiting class, joining four-star center Bradyn Joiner and three-star Gernorris Wilson. While Wedin is ranked as an interior offensive lineman, Auburn believes he can play tackle or guard at the next level and is recruiting him as a swing player. Wilson is also being recruited as a swing lineman. Wedin is the highest-rated member of the group and if Auburn signs all three it will be the first time they landed three high school offensive linemen since 2017, when they signed Calvin Ashley, Nick Brahms, and Austin Troxell. Auburn now has 11 commits in their 2023 recruiting class, it features eight four-stars Jeremiah Cobb, Adam Hopkins, Terrance Love, Daquayvious Sorey, Ashley Williams, Wilky Denaud, Wedin, and Joiner. It is rounded out by three-stars Jamarrion Harkless, JC Hart, and Wilson. List Five reasons Auburn could struggle against Ole Miss Story continues Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow JD on Twitter @jdmccarthy15. Let us know your thoughts, and comment on this story below. Join the conversation today! Story originally appeared on Auburn Wire (Getty Images) President Joe Biden offered words of condolences after a mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina killed five people and called for legislative action to end gun violence. A shooter opened fire on Thursday evening and killed five people, including an off-duty police officer. Another officer from a Raleigh K-9 office was shot and was being treated. Police caught the suspect after four hours in a home and arrested him. Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America, Mr Biden said in a statement. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer. Mr Biden said he offered assistance to Governor Roy Cooper to assist local authorities. Enough, he said. Weve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever. This year, and even in just the five months since Buffalo and Uvalde, there are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that dont even make the national news. DANONE Press release Paris, October 14, 2022 Danone announces it plans to transfer the effective control of its EDP business in Russia Danone announces today it has decided to initiate a process to transfer the effective control of its Essential Dairy and Plant-based (EDP) business in Russia. Danone considers that this is the best option to ensure long-term local business continuity, for its employees, consumers and partners. Over the first 9 months of 2022, the EDP Russia business represented around 5% of Danone net sales and had a dilutive contribution to Danones like-for-like sales growth and recurring operating margin. The transaction could result in a write-off of up to 1 billion1. Once closed, the transaction, which will be subject to regulatory approvals, will result in the deconsolidation of Danones EDP Russia business. Danones priority remains to act responsibly and respectfully to its local employees, consumers, and partners throughout the process. o o O o o FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning Danone. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by forward-looking words, such as estimate, expect, anticipate, project, plan, intend, objective, believe, forecast, guidance, foresee, likely, may, should, goal, target, might, will, could, predict, continue, convinced and confident, the negative or plural of these words and other comparable terminology. Forward looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, predictions of future activities, operations, direction, performance and results of Danone. Although Danone believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. For a detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the Risk Factor section of Danones Universal Registration Document (the current version of which is available at www.danone.com ). Story continues Subject to regulatory requirements, Danone does not undertake to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements. This document does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy Danone securities. About Danone ( www.danone.com ) Danone is a leading global food and beverage company operating in three health-focused, fast-growing and on-trend categories: Essential Dairy & Plant-Based products, Waters and Specialized Nutrition. With a long-standing mission of bringing health through food to as many people as possible, Danone aims to inspire healthier and more sustainable eating and drinking practices while committing to achieve measurable nutritional, social, societal and environment impact. Danone has defined its Renew strategy to restore growth, competitiveness, and value creation for the long-term. With 100,000 employees, and products sold in over 120 markets, Danone generated 24.2 billion in sales in 2021. Danones portfolio includes leading international brands (Actimel, Activia, Alpro, Aptamil, Danette, Danio, Danonino, evian, Nutricia, Nutrilon, Volvic, among others) as well as strong local and regional brands (including Aqua, Bledina, Bonafont, Cow & Gate, Mizone, Oikos and Silk). Listed on Euronext Paris and present on the OTCQX market via an ADR (American Depositary Receipt) program, Danone is a component stock of leading sustainability indexes including the ones managed by Vigeo Eiris and Sustainalytics, as well as the Ethibel Sustainability Index, the MSCI ESG Indexes, the FTSE4Good Index Series, Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, and the Access to Nutrition Index. By 2025, Danone aims to become one of the first multinational companies to obtain global B Corp certification. 1 Based on the accounts and foreign exchange rates as of June 30th, 2022 Attachment French agribusiness Danone said Friday it planned to transfer control of its essential dairy and plant-based business in Russia, retaining only its infant nutrition branch. One of the few multinationals to have remained in Russia since the Ukraine war, Danone said the move to "transfer the effective control" of the dairy business could result in a write off of up to one billion euros ($980 million). The arm represented five percent of Danone's net sales in 2022 so far. "Danone considers that this is the best option to ensure long-term local business continuity, for its employees, consumers and partners," the group said in a statement. The transaction will be subject to the approval of authorities, the group added. Danone will however retain the activities of its "specialised nutrition" arm, which includes infant milk. "Danone's priority remains to act responsibly and respectfully to its local employees, consumers, and partners throughout the process," the statement said Friday. In March, the French group said it would continue its business in Russia, where it employs 8,000 people, as many international companies suspended operations in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. But Danone spoke in July of the "extremely tense" operational conditions in Russia and Ukraine. - Multinational exodus - A large number of major western companies have pulled out of Russia in an exodus since Moscow invaded its pro-Western neighbour on February 24. Starbucks and McDonald's were among American corporations to announce their exit. McDonald's -- which had employed 62,000 workers in Russia -- was bought by Russian businessman Alexander Govor and renamed "Vkusno i tochka" ("Delicious. Full Stop"). The Russian operations of Starbucks were also bought and reopened with a new name and logo. Denmark's Lego, the world's largest toymaker, said in July that it would "indefinitely cease commercial operations" in Russia, ending its partnership with the retail group that operated 81 stores on the brand's behalf. Story continues French automaker Renault left the country in May, handing over its assets in the country to the Russian government. Other firms to wind down their Russian business include clothing brands Nike, Adidas and H&M, Swedish furniture giant Ikea, and US tech giant Cisco. cla/ico/rox/jmm An online auction in October 2020 did not yield a qualifying bid to purchase the Avalon Hotel & Conference Center in downtown Erie. It is shown on Nov. 5, 2020. Springfield isn't the only place David Mitchell wants to leave his imprint on. In Erie, Pennsylvania, Mitchell's New York City real estate development company, GoodHomes Communities, LLC, is looking to purchase the downtown Avalon Hotel and turn it into a 219-unit apartment complex. GoodHomes won zoning board approval late last year to convert the former Sheraton Hotel overlooking the Warwick, Rhode Island, airport, into single and double bedroom apartments. Speaking to the Springfield City Council twice over the summer about his bid to buy the Wyndham City Centre, 700 E. Adams St., Mitchell said he had converted 1,100 apartment units in Las Vegas and had been involved in developments in Birmingham, Chattanooga and Glenview, Illinois. Mitchell declined to talk to The State Journal-Register ahead of the council's Oct. 18 vote on a "variance for density" that would pave a path to that sale. Under plans of the proposed sale, Mitchell would sink $40 million into the old Forum 30, which dates back to 1973, keeping 125 hotel rooms and converting 275 rooms into apartments. Read this:For Wyndham City Centre and its prospective buyer, another city council vote looms Mitchell needs a variance for anything north of 200 apartments. This is the third time the issue has gone in front of the city council since July, but unlike the two previous votes, it will not need a super majority of votes because of Sept. 21 action by the Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission. Regarding GoodHomes' other projects, Mitchell referred a reporter to the company's website. It lists projects in Omaha; Tulsa; Groton, Conn.; Ringgold, Ga.; Lynchburg, Va. and Burlington and Fayetteville, N.C., but did not offer specifics. More:Former SNL comedian Chris Kattan trades LA glitz for love and easy living in Springfield An attorney for Mitchell told GoErie.com that the developer also had ventures in Detroit and Columbus, Ohio. In one of his splashier purchases, Mitchell acquired Herald Square Hotel, now the Life Hotel, in Manhattan for a reported $38.5 million in 2015. The mid-1890s Beaux-Arts building once housed Life Magazine. Story continues Like the Wyndham City Centre, the Avalon in Erie struggled with upkeep. And like Springfield, Mitchell was seeking a variance to convert the troubled hotel into a destination for younger city dwellers. The one-bedroom and studio apartments in Erie will reportedly rent for $750 to $1,000, including utilities. Mitchell's proposal in Springfield called for mostly "studio apartments," between 350 to 400 square feet, though some would be one-and two-bedroom apartments. Rent would go for $700 to $1,200 per month, he said. More:Lanphier High School placed on lockdown late Tuesday afternoon because of police chase "(Mitchell) has the wherewithal to do it," attorney Michael Agresti told a reporter about the Avalon project. In the article, Agresti claimed a large number of 30- to 40-year-old hotel and senior living facilities were becoming "obsolete for their original purpose" and that Erie and other cities were facing a shortage for "new, clean safe workforce housing." GoodHomes pushed for a variance for the 219 apartment units. The square footage would have capped the number of rooms at 150, but Mitchell said that wasn't financially viable. The former hotel in Warwick would seek a similar "workforce" clientele who will pay $850 to $1,100 in monthly rent, according to the Warwick Beacon. Some 207 apartments are slated for the former five-story hotel. There, Mitchell proposed to build a "parking lift" that would store cars vertically. Ryan McCrady, the president and CEO of the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance, said he talked to his economic development counterparts in Warwick about Mitchell's involvement with the project. More:The Illinois 48th District Senate race gets heated as candidates lob attack advertising "As far as the development process went, getting the necessary approvals and so forth, (people said) that (Mitchell) was good to work with, that he was able to finance the project, didn't have any issues go through design or code compliance and that they felt like it was a good experience working with him," McCrady said. McCrady cautioned that the situation in Warwick "would not be an apples to apples comparison" to Springfield in terms of the hotel's location or whether it's part of the convention group. "Every community's situation is very individual," he said. "My questions to them were: did this developer perform as they said they would? Did they provide the information they needed?" Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley called Mitchell "a creative developer who has done some really interesting projects." Conley, who voted against the variance on Aug. 3 and continues to be proponent of having more hotel rooms in the Wyndham, said she didn't think Mitchell's model would fly in Springfield. More:Incumbent County Board chair Van Meter faces political newcomer Bommarito in District 24 "I just think people would expect more space for the amount of rent he's currently proposing," Conley contended. "I don't know if a modified hotel room is going to draw a lot of people to apartments. I would not disagree with his contention that there is a demand and desire to have residential apartments downtown. I just disagree with the size and location." Early last year, the Beacon reported, the hotel, then a Wyndham, was in danger of going to a tax sale because its owners owed about $850,000 in back taxes, but it was eventually averted. As previously reported in The State Journal-Register, the city put a lien on the Wyndham City Centre for non-payment of a $1 million utility bill to City Water, Light and Power. Mitchell said he would assume all liens if a sale goes forward. Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie. This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: David Mitchell has history of turning hotels into apartment buildings The Communist Party of China Central Committee has solicited opinions and suggestions from non-CPC personages on the draft report to the Party's 20th National Congress, an important way to practice socialist consultative democracy and build up broad consensus before decisions about major issues are made. A symposium, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, was held on Aug 31 to make preparations for the 20th CPC National Congress, according to a statement released on Thursday. During the meeting, Xi stressed the need to strengthen cooperation between the CPC and the non-Communist parties, further consolidate and develop the broadest patriotic united front, pool all wisdom and strengths to the greatest possible extent to enable people from all social strata to strive for building a modern socialist country in all respects, and comprehensively advance national rejuvenation, the statement said. Multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC is the basic political system in China. Non-Communist parties participate in the discussion and management of State affairs. It has been a long-held practice for the CPC to solicit suggestions and opinions from the non-Communist parties, leading figures of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and those with no party affiliation, on major policies and decisions of the CPC and the country. The symposium came as the CPC is expected to unveil at the 20th National Congress, which will open on Sunday, its road map for the next five years and beyond, a key period for realizing national rejuvenation. At the meeting, Xi introduced to the non-CPC personages how the draft report was produced. Leaders of the eight non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, as well as a representative of personages without party affiliation, hailed the glorious achievements and the historic transformations the nation has made in the past years under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi at the core. They also gave their comments and suggestions with regard to building up consensus about national rejuvenation, promoting high-level opening-up, strengthening construction of the united front and the new type of political party system, and improving the capacity for independent innovation. After hearing their comments, Xi said that in order to draft a report that conforms with the aspirations of all the Chinese people, meets the requirements of the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics and is adapted to the new situation and the new tasks that the Party and the State are facing, the CPC Central Committee fully practices democracy, strengthens research and investigation, and engages in extensive consultations to pool more wisdom. Soliciting opinions and suggestions from non-CPC personages is an important part of political consultation, and it also provides an effective approach for those outside the Party to contribute their suggestions and wisdom in terms of China's development and national rejuvenation, Xi said. Noting that upholding the united front is an important historical experience drawn from the struggles of the century-old CPC, Xi stressed that the historic accomplishments and transformations in the new era resulted from the leadership of the Party, the arduous struggles of the Chinese people and the joint efforts made by the members of the united front, including the eight non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and those without party affiliation. He expressed his hope that those outside the CPC could continue to support the decisions and policies of the CPC Central Committee, strengthen their sense of political responsibility and historical mission in uniting and cooperating with the CPC, and form mighty forces to carry out the blueprint to be unveiled by the 20th CPC National Congress. Xi also urged them to leverage their positive roles in coordinating social relations, defusing social conflicts and upholding social stability, and carry on the fine tradition of multiparty cooperation. Expanding their space opens the door to new therapy opportunities. ALBUQUERQUE, NM / ACCESSWIRE / October 13, 2022 / Enhancement Center, based in Albuquerque and serving all of New Mexico, has long been an innovative model in mental health. Their business model allows therapists the support of an office staff while providing the flexibility of choosing their work location, schedule, and more. Now, Enhancement Center provides even more flexibility to their providers with their new space. InterestSpring LLC, Friday, October 14, 2022, Press release picture To learn more about The Enhancement Center, visit http://ecmentalhealth.com/. One thing Enhancement Center owner, Jim Shotwell, has noticed since the pandemic is how many therapists and clients continue to take advantage of the flexibility of telehealth. More than ever, therapists working with the Enhancement Center only need an in-person space to see clients one or two days a week. The rest of the time, they serve patients via telehealth. Shotwell explains, "Even people who are in person (therapy) still do a lot of telehealth. They'll do some appointments in person and some with telehealth. That might be the new way that we end up doing things." With this observation in mind, the new Enhancement Center location right across the parking lot from their current home base offers shared spaces that therapists can reserve for a day at a time. The room is furnished comfortably for therapy sessions, and different practitioners use it throughout the week as needed. Shotwell also shared, "Being able to rent a room for just one or two days a week also allows new therapists to build up their private practice without the overhead of renting a space full-time." Additionally, the new location has a larger room for future group therapy. Enhancement Center hopes to add recovery support and family/parenting group therapy in 2023. The new office space is located at 3901 Georgia St. NE Ste E3, Albuquerque, NM 87110. Along with the new office, Enhancement Center recently welcomed six new therapists. Juan (Buck) Sanchez, LMFT, specializes in family and couples therapy. Jennifer Carter, LPCC, does a lot of work with clients with autism. And Karen Wall, LMFT, enjoys working with veterans. Story continues Kelly Campbell, LMSW, Brandi Aceves, LMSW, and Christine Loidolt, LPCC, work with people with developmental disabilities through the DD Waiver program. These clinicians develop person-centered plans to improve quality of life. They support the individuals and caregiving teams of those with autism, cerebral palsy, Downs syndrome, and other intellectual/developmental disabilities. Enhancement Center welcomes the new staff and celebrates the opportunities to reach more people their new space will provide. About The Enhancement Center The Enhancement Center is a group of over 30 mental health providers offering proven, compassionate therapy in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Corrales, and statewide via telehealth. Their therapists are all licensed and specialize in various methodologies and presenting problems. Media Contact Jim Shotwell info@enhancement-center.com 505 891 1583 3901 Georgia St. NE, A4 Albuquerque, NM 87110 Albuquerque, New Mexico SOURCE: Enhancement Center View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/720429/Enhancement-Center-Onboards-Six-New-Therapists-Adds-Group-Therapy-Space When they met on a debate stage for the second and final time on Thursday, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes had the same goal: make their opponent a wholly unacceptable choice to voters. The Wisconsin Senate race, which has featured months of attack ads, got even uglier at Marquette University in Milwaukee. The two candidates accused each other of being extremists on abortion, not supporting law enforcement and traveling on the taxpayer dime. The tone of the evening was even nasty when the two candidates were asked to name something they found admirable about their rivals. Barnes said Johnson has proven to be a family man. Johnson first said I appreciate the fact that Lt. Gov. Barnes had loving parents, and then added, What puzzles me about that is with that upbringing, why has he turned against America? His response prompted booing from the crowd. Johnson is widely seen as the most vulnerable Republican senator facing reelection in November. With his persistently low favorability ratings, Johnson and his GOP allies have had little choice but to try to drag down Barnes to his popularity level. They have assailed him with negative ads calling him soft on crime, while Democrats have painted Johnson as an out-of-touch plutocrat serving his wealthy donors. Despite getting off to a rocky start, Johnson has led the polls in recent weeks, leading to growing concern among state and national Democrats about the race. Still, the contest remains close, with Johnson ahead by about three percentage points in polling averages. Johnson and Barnes were allowed to give 30-second rebuttals when they were named, leading to a fiery, fast-paced exchange. The audience at times was so loud in cheering and jeering of the candidates that the moderators were forced to ask them to quiet down. The two politicians were asked about inflation, abortion, Social Security and a number of other hotly debated topics. On the issue of crime, Johnson said Barnes has been a big supporter of the movement to defund police and criticized him over violent prisoners being paroled by Gov. Tony Evers administration. Story continues Barnes responded by saying that no police officers in this country were more dispirited than the ones who were present at the United States capitol on January 6. He also accused Johnson of hypocrisy, saying that he had voted for the First Step Act that expanded early-release programs for inmates. While Barnes signaled support for reducing funding for law enforcement in the past, he has said during the campaign that he does not back defunding police. Johnson and Barnes also took shots at each other over their career experiences. Johnson said Barnes claims to be part of the working class, but I havent really found evidence that he actually had a real job in the private sector. Barnes said Johnson, who has long touted the fact that he owned a plastics business as evidence that he knows how to create jobs, merely married into the company: Senator Johnson has taken a whole lot of credit for his business-in-law. Amid inflation and high gas prices, Johnson sought to frame the race as a referendum on the White House, asking, Are you better off or worse off since Democrats took control? Barnes, meanwhile, argued that Johnson was a threat to Social Security and democracy, pointing to his chief of staffs ties to a fake electors scheme. Johnson has denied involvement in that effort. He initially planned to object to the 2020 election results, but ultimately voted to certify them. He tried to send fake electors to the vice president, said his involvement lasted a matter of seconds, as if you get to use the five-second rule for election subversion, said Barnes. For many, over-politeness is merely inconvenient. For Geena Davis, it was almost fatal. The actor, now 66, says she nearly died when she was 8 on a harrowing drive with her 99-year-old great uncle Jack. As Jack veered in and out of oncoming traffic, Davis and her parents declined to comment on his driving even with a car fast approaching. At the last moment, Jack swerved back in his lane, narrowly missing a head-on collision. Still, the experience sent Davis a clear message: Never say anything impolite, no matter the circumstances. This struggle of being too polite to stand up for oneself serves as the through line of Davis' memoir, "Dying of Politeness" (HarperOne, 277 pp., out now). The Academy Award winner details her humble Massachusetts upbringing, starry film career, three marriages, extensive archery training and many, many instances of detrimental politeness along the way. "Because of certain roles I played, people sometimes think I've been a badass my whole life or something, and that's not the case," Davis, who starred in "Thelma & Louise" and the action film "The Long Kiss Goodnight," says over Zoom. In the "Dying of Politeness," Academy Award-winner Geena Davis details her humble Massachusetts upbringing, starry film career, three marriages, extensive archery training and many, many instances of detrimental politeness along the way. Crippling politeness hasn't just landed Davis in awkward social situations: It's also kept her from speaking out about mistreatment. In her book, Davis alleges she suffered harassment while working with Bill Murray on the 1990 film "Quick Change." She writes that the comedian pressured her into letting him give her a massage in a hotel suite during her meeting for her role. Another day, Murray screamed at her in front of more than 300 people on set while she waited for wardrobe. "I was shaking all over, dying from shame," Davis writes, adding Murray intended "to make sure I knew my place." USA TODAY has reached out to a representative for Murray for comment. Story continues For many, over-politeness is merely inconvenient. For Geena Davis, it's almost been fatal. Davis says sharing painful memories with the world through her book gives her a "strange" feeling. "It's much different than a movie that's going to come out that you were in, because it's not a character, it's me," she says. "I can't even remember writing it in a way." Davis also writes of a traumatic childhood experience: When her neighbor molested her when she went to deliver him his newspaper. Like others who have suffered similar abuse, Davis says she didn't grasp the gravity of what happened until she was an adult. "You don't realize how bad it is at the time," she says. "You don't let yourself realize what has happened to you, and it's only later you go, 'Wow, wait a minute. That was horrible.'" Davis' mother confronted the neighbor about the incident, but no police report was ever filed. "My big lesson in life was you can't ever complain about anything," Davis says. "You can't draw that kind of attention to yourself by complaining about something. So I didn't talk about it, but I wanted to talk about it." A formative friendship helped teach Davis to speak up for herself her bond with her on-screen partner-in-crime and "Thelma & Louise" co-star Susan Sarandon, a woman who, Davis writes, "very simply and clearly said what she thought." Geena Davis' 'Dying of Politeness,' comics mastermind Alan Moore's 'Illuminations': 5 new books Davis has also since spoken out against Hollywood inequity through her organization, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which strives to increase media diversity. The research her institute conducts hits close to home for Davis, who says she experienced Hollywood ageism and sexism firsthand when her acting opportunities plummeted as soon as she turned 40. A recent study by her institute found that characters over 50 made up less than a quarter of all characters in top-grossing domestic films and popular television from 2010 to 2020. Of those characters, men made up 4 out of 5 of them in film, 3 out of 4 in broadcast TV and 2 out of 3 in streaming TV. "That's an incredibly small slice of the pie for everybody 50 and over that's female," Davis says. "I thought, 'Well, it's not going to happen to me, because I got all these great roles.' I was sure that things were going to change before I got to 40, but they didn't." Geena Davis recalls director who made her sit on his lap: 'I didn't know you could say no' The key to becoming the strong woman she is now is speaking her mind sooner rather than wishing she had later. "That should be absolutely natural for everybody to be able to just say what they think," Davis says. "So many of us don't ever get there and really live authentically in the moment. My life's goal was to close the gap between when something happens and when I react authentically to it." It's a goal she hopes readers will want to strive for after reading her book. "Most everybody actually can relate to feeling like they're not living authentically and that they're hiding parts of themselves in order to get approval from someone or from the world," she says. "At least through my experience, it's possible to get past that, no matter how long it takes." Geena Davis says Hollywood could achieve parity: 'Cross out' men in scripts and sub women This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Geena Davis reveals Bill Murray harassment left her 'dying from shame' Hiker Who Fell While Taking Photos Rescued After Passengers on Train Spotted Her Calling for Help Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County Colorado Facebook After spending two nights in the Colorado wilderness, an injured woman was rescued after a passenger on a train spotted her calling for help. The woman, identified by authorities as a "20 something female from the Aztec New Mexico Area," was rescued after spending "two nights in the wilderness," according to a Facebook post from the Office of Emergency Management for San Juan County, Colorado. During a day hike on the Colorado Trail in the Deer Park area, she "left the trail" and was walking along the Animas riverbank when she "fell" and "broke her leg," authorities said. D&SNG Superintendent Darren Whitten told reporters that the victim fell from a cliff-face while taking pictures, according to The Durango Herald. RELATED: 28-Year-Old Hiker Rescued After Getting Trapped Underneath Boulder the 'Size of a Refrigerator' After the second night, the woman "managed to get herself to a visual spot" along the riverbank and "flagged down the morning's first train," the Office of Emergency Management wrote. "Once the train passenger noticed the distressed woman across the river on the bank, they alerted train staff who then initiated an emergency response," the authorities added. Hiker Who Fell While Taking Photos Rescued After Passengers on Train Spotted Her Calling for Help Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County Colorado Facebook Crews from Silverton Medical Rescue arrived at the scene a short time later, and helped rig a trolley-like system to transport the injured victim to a location where she could more easily be reached by helicopter. She was then airlifted to Montrose Hospital, according to the San Juan County OEM. 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 hiker was first reported missing by her parents on Saturday, Witten told the Herald. In the wilderness, she faced tough conditions as temperatures dropped into the 20's overnight, according to CBS affiliate KCNC-TV. Story continues "It's an amazing feat that she survived two nights in the cold snap we are having," said emergency management spokeswoman DeAnne Gallegos, per the Herald. "Our team thought that was pretty miraculous." Hiker Who Fell While Taking Photos Rescued After Passengers on Train Spotted Her Calling for Help Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County Colorado Facebook The team was also impressed that the victim "was aware the train was still running," and managed to get someone's attention after crawling to the bank of the river with her injured leg, Gallegos told the newspaper. RELATED: Hero Honeymooners Rescue Sleeping Babies from Burning Nursery in Spain: 'Instinct Took Over' Kylah Breeden, a conductor and fireman on the train, said the victim "was clearly injured" and "really cold" when rescuers arrived at the scene, according to CBS affiliate KCNC-TV. Hiker Who Fell While Taking Photos Rescued After Passengers on Train Spotted Her Calling for Help Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County Colorado Facebook RELATED: Pregnant Firefighter Goes into Labor After Car Crash, Helps Another Victim and Then Gives Birth The San Juan County OEM applauded rescuers' efforts in its statement shared on Facebook. They went on to thank the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad "for their support and partnership in this successful search and rescue mission." "Another person in a moment of need was successfully brought home due to teamwork and collaboration," the office wrote on Facebook. Alex Wong/Pool via Reuters The Secret Service has too many secrets. The Federal Bureau of Investigation requires a thorough investigation. These are among the most striking conclusions that emerged Thursday from the last public meeting of Congresss Jan. 6 committee. Laying out its meticulously crafted case against former President Donald Trump for leading an insurrection against the government he had sworn an oath to protect, the committee made it clear that there were many targets that warranted further investigation. Not least of these were the two law enforcement agencies that had long prided themselves on being among the U.S. governments most shining examples of integrity and service. The Jan. 6 committees last planned public event before the November elections made headlines when, at its conclusion, it unanimously voted to subpoena the man who its many months of work had made clear was the architect of multiple illegal schemes to steal the 2020 election. The hearings also left much unresolved, in large part due to the amount of damning evidence about electoral fraud the committee uncovered, the assault on Capitol Hill, and the other consequences of Trumps Big Lie. For all the good the committee has doneand it is already clear that its investigative thoroughness has established for the public the definitive narrative to date of the multi-layered effort by Trump to claim an election he lost decisivelythe abrupt ending of its proceedings left viewers enraged by the transgressions of the former president with a bad sense of due process interruptus. While the subpoena vote was intended to serve as a climax, it could not because all involved already knew that it was unlikely Trump would comply or be compelled to comply, and that if he did, he would likely lie or plead the Fifth, as many of his confederates had done. The real culmination of the inquiry must be left to the Sphinx-like Department of Justice, whose silence might reveal its commitment to the secrecy that should surround an historically significant investigation. Or that silence might be followed by inaction. We just cannot know at this point, even though the Jan. 6 committees revelations made it clear that inaction in the face of the evidence that exists would be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history and would set a dangerous precedent, leaving our entire system at risk. Story continues But there were other disturbing threads that emerged from the congressional inquiry that themselves appeared to require their own independent inquiry. Several of these concern the seeming existence of what might be called the dark state. This is not the conspiracy theory fantasy spun by the far right about a deep state permanent government that was foiling the will of the people: That was always such a stalking horse, a concept that would enable MAGA officials to root out public servants who placed fealty to the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a political party. Rather it was a real loose alliance among Trump allies in the government who were willing to set aside the rule of law in the service of Trump himself. At the core of this movement were officials within key government agenciesincluding the Department of Homeland Security and within it the Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the intelligence communitywho had been placed in positions of responsibility because they could be counted upon to bend the rules for Trump. Prior meetings of the Jan. 6 committee had already brought some dimensions of these rogue actors to light. The testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson revealed that the Secret Service knew that some of the MAGA crowd on The Ellipse, in Washington, D.C., on the morning of Jan. 6 were armed. It revealed they let the event proceed even as the president argued with them to turn off the metal detectors and let armed people in because they were his people. It revealed that Trump got into an argument with the Secret Service because some on his detail refused to take him with the mob to the Capitol as he wanted. Ketchup Dripping Down the Wall: Bombshell After Bombshell at Jan. 6 Hearing Later, the details of that altercation were disputed. But then we learned that one of those seeking to argue against them was Tony Ornato, a former Secret Service agent who in an unprecedented twist had been made Trumps deputy chief of staff. We also learned that the Secret Service had mysteriously wiped text records from key phones that could shed light on what happened on Jan. 6. This was especially important because Vice President Mike Pence was revealed to have been unwilling to leave the Capitol with the Secret Service because he did not trust them. He was unsure where they might take him if they were working on Trumps behalf. The case of the missing texts extended elsewhere within the dark state as well, for example, to Team Trump appointees at the Department of Defense. When the text erasure scandal blew up, there was an effort to cooperate. One element of this was an effort to get Ornato to testify before the committee, but he suddenly retired from the government rather than do so. Another involved the agency sending to the committee something like 1 million pages of documents. The contents of some of those documents were revealed on Thursday. They made it clear that reports of an intelligence failure related to Jan. 6 were nonsense. The agency had clear and specific warnings describing an armed attack on the Capitol and threats against members of Congress as part of plan to block the certification of votes. And nonetheless, they let the presidents speech go on. And they did not do much to prevent the attacks from happening. While some in the agency reported on the escalating dangers during the day of Jan. 6, others clearly chose to let events transpire. They were even planning to bring Trump to the Hill until shortly after the Capitol barricades were breached. Rather than presiding over an intelligence failure, they had actually actively enabled the insurrection to take place, with some among their ranks content to look the other way and ignore established protocols. Meanwhile, the same story was true for the FBI, which had also garnered intelligence about the coup attempt but did not take all the measures available to stop it. One study revealed by NBC News showed that a large percentage of FBI agents were actually sympathetic to Trump and the MAGA crowd. Despite all this, two years after the mayhem of the event, FBI Director Christopher Wray has failed to undertake the investigation within his ranks that is clearly warranted. Will these investigations ever take place? Should they not, the risk of a precedent is dangerous. The risk of sending a message that agents can ignore their oath with impunity to advance their political agendas is dangerous. And, perhaps most dangerous of all, the existence of major elements within key federal law enforcement agencies that are sympathetic to the extreme right in a country in which, Wray himself has indicated, far-right extremists pose the greatest security threat the country faces could be a fatal flaw in our system come future political upheavals. These are issues that call for additional deep dives from the Congress, but it is clear those wont come if Republicans win in November. That means that as distasteful and divisive as investigations into these profound failures within our law enforcement system might be to institutionalists or leaders seeking to heal a broken government, the executive branch is going to have to police itself. This could include investigations by inspectors general (if those inspectors general are reliable, which is not the case with some of those still in place who were selected by Trump) or by the Department of Justice, or perhaps by an independent counsel. What is clear, though, is that as important as it is to hold Trump and those who sought to steal the 2020 election accountable, our democracy will not be safe until we pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the activities of our most elite law enforcement agencies at a moment of national peril they may have exacerbated. Further, once understanding the truth, and we are a long way from doing so, we must fully enforce the laws that those law enforcement officials may have broken in the service of the criminal to whom they effectively declared allegiance. 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. Jennifer Hart engaged Courtesy Jennifer Hart Rob Ricotta and Jennifer Hart Earlier this year, country music songstress Jennifer Smestad changed her professional name to Jennifer Hart. And if all goes as planned, she will also soon change her personal name to Jennifer Ricotta. "He's a songwriter, a drummer, an actor and a voiceover actor," Hart, 30, raves to PEOPLE following her recent engagement to 32-year-old Rob Ricotta. "There's nothing he can't do. He even does home and studio designing. The only thing I found that he can't do is foosball." The Arizona native reminisces with a laugh about the man that came into her life when she was least expecting it. "We actually met in a writing session that he wasn't supposed to be at," Hart remembers. "I was not wearing makeup or anything. I wasn't expecting a guy to come over to my place." Jennifer Hart engaged Courtesy Jennifer Hart Rob Ricotta and Jennifer Hart RELATED: Shaylen Opens Up About Her Move from Pop to Country: 'Something in My Heart Wasn't Happy Anymore' After that fateful writing session, there was another one, and then another one after that. And with every song they created together, Hart says she found herself falling for him more and more. So, she went and made the first move. And the rest is history. Coincidentally, one of the songs that the two wrote during those initial writing sessions was about Hart's sister, titled "Find Me Here." And when it came to recording a demo for the heartfelt song, Hart decided to bring her mom along to not only give the sweet song a listen, but to also share her opinion on her daughter's sweet new man. "My mom met Rob very early on, and I didn't find this out until probably a couple years later called my sister right after she met him, saying, 'I think I just met Jen's future husband,'" remembers Hart, who officially started dating Ricotta on Aug. 5, 2019, exactly one year to the day after Hart had broken up with her ex. Fast forward to last month, when Hart and Ricotta embarked on a hike with some friends at Stephens Gap Cave Preserve in Woodville, Alabama, a trip that would ultimately result in Ricotta popping the question Hart had long been waiting for. Story continues Jennifer Hart engaged Courtesy Jennifer Hart Jennifer Hart and Rob Ricotta "Rob reserved this cave for us," says Hart of the picturesque setting for their engagement. "We hiked down to the cave and the only thing I remember him saying is, 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'" Hart says she initially thought he was joking, but then, Ricotta got down on one knee and gave her the ultimate surprise. "He gave me zero hints," she says of the lead-up to the proposal. Making the moment even more special was that right after the proposal, Ricotta led Hart back up the cave, where he had a cello and violin player playing the song "18," which Hart co-wrote alongside songwriters Paul DiGiovanni and Derrick Southerland with her future fiancee in mind. The ring Ricotta slipped onto Hart's finger in that secluded cave also had a special story attached to it. "The center diamond of the ring that he proposed with is the same diamond that my grandpa used to propose to my grandma," says Hart, who went viral in May of 2019 with her touching song "Half the Man." "My real ring hadn't come in yet, so for him to use this ring instead meant so much to me." In fact, Hart says she will now wear this ring with her actual engagement ring, which arrived a few days after Ricotta's proposal. Jennifer Hart Robby Stevens Jennifer Hart RELATED: Country Singer Hailey Whitters Marries Jake Gear and Ends the Night with a Keg Stand: 'Best Day' "This ring is just absolutely gorgeous," she says. "I had a family friend growing up who was a jeweler and I always thought it would be really special if he made my engagement ring. Rob reached out in 2020 over quarantine, and they started designing [the ring] together. While working on it, the family friend retired, but he still agreed to finish my ring." The couple is now hard at work planning their nuptials, which they hope will take place either later this year or the early part of next year. "We don't want to wait too long," Hart says. There is also the added stress of being able to fit a date into the two's already packed schedules. "I had my 30th birthday, my debut EP 1992 was released, and I got engaged all in the same week," she states with a laugh. "My life has just completely shifted. I'm excited to get married to him. I'm still going to continue making music, and he's going to still continue all his stuff. We will just be doing it officially together." NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global mobile phone accessories market size is expected to grow by USD 32.73 billion during 2021-2026, at a CAGR of almost 6%. The integration of advanced functionalities in smartphones, the growing preference for wireless mobile phone accessories, and the proliferation of low-priced smartphones are some of the major factors propelling the market growth. However, factors such as the growing market for counterfeit mobile accessories and the short shelf life of smartphones may impede the market growth. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Mobile Phone Accessories Market 2022-2026 Key Mobile Phone Accessories Market Driver One of the key factors driving market growth in the mobile phone accessories market is the integration of advanced functionalities in smartphones. The competition in the global smartphone market has intensified as smartphone manufacturers are focusing on integrating innovative features and technologies in their products to stay competitive in the market. Such latest innovations will allow users to employ their devices for several applications, such as taking high-definition videos and selfies, accessing mobile applications quickly, and playing high-definition games. All these activities will generate the demand for accessories such as power banks, earphones, headphones, protective cases, screen protectors, and others to use smartphones in effective ways, triggering the growth of the focused market during the forecast period. Request a Sample Report Key Mobile Phone Accessories Market Trend One of the prominent market trends in the mobile phone accessories market is the increasing focus on improving telecommunication network infrastructure. Smartphone manufacturers, government organizations, and telecommunication service providers are working in collaboration to improve the telecommunication network infrastructure to support high network bandwidth capacity. This is accelerating investments in the 4G/5G networks and developments in 4G/5G compatible devices. For example, in September 2018, Celcom Axiata Berhad, a Malaysia-based mobile telecommunications provider, announced that it had signed an agreement with Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. Under this agreement, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson will supply Celcom Axiata Berhad with radio access network (RAN) equipment from its Ericsson radio system portfolio. This will accelerate the use of mobile phones for accessing online audio and video content which, in turn, result in high demand for mobile phone accessories. Key Mobile Phone Accessories Market Challenge One of the prominent market challenges that are hindering the growth of the mobile phone accessories market is the growing market for counterfeit mobile accessories. The counterfeit mobile accessories market records high growth in emerging economies such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Taiwan in APAC. This demand is driven by the increased preference for low-cost products in the region and the high availability of counterfeit products. The easy availability of these products on every distribution channel, including physical and online retail stores, in each country, makes it difficult to control the sales of counterfeit items. The increasing sales of these products are reducing the total potential market for mobile accessories creating a challenge for the growth of the global mobile phone accessories market. To know more about additional Drivers, Trends, and Challenges. Download a Sample Report Now! Global Mobile Phone Accessories Market Segmentation Product Type Geographic Landscape The mobile phone accessories market share growth in the protective cases segment will be significant during the forecast period. There are several types of protective cases, such as slim and transparent covers, which are mostly for aesthetics, as well as ultra-rugged ones available in the market, which can survive even an intense impact facilitating the growth in the segment during the forecast period. For more insights on segments Request a Sample Report Mobile Phone Accessories Market 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist in mobile phone accessories market growth during the next five years Estimation of the mobile phone accessories market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the mobile phone accessories market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of mobile phone accessories market, vendors Related Reports: PC peripherals market by End-user and Geography Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Thermal Energy Storage Market by Technology and Geography Forecast and Analysis 2021-2025 Mobile Phone Accessories Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 32.73 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 4.98 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution APAC at 63% Key consumer countries US, Canada, China, India, and Brazil Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Anker Technology UK Ltd, Apple Inc., AUKEY, Bose Corp., GN Store Nord AS, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., HP Inc., Intex Technologies India Ltd., JVCKENWOOD Corp., Koninklijke Philips NV, LG Electronics Inc., Logitech International SA, Otter Products LLC, Panasonic Holdings Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sennheiser Electronic GmbH and Co. KG, Skullcandy Inc., Sony Group Corp, Vinci Brands LLC, and Xiaomi Inc Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, 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 Product Type 5.1 Market segments 5.2 Comparison by Product Type 5.3 Protective cases - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.4 Screen protectors - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.5 Headphones and earphones - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.6 Wired Chargers - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.7 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.8 Market opportunity by Product Type 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation 7.2 Geographic comparison 7.3 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.4 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.5 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.6 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.7 Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.8 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.9 India - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.10 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.11 Brazil - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.12 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 7.13 Market opportunity by geography 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 Anker Technology UK Ltd 10.4 Apple Inc. 10.5 AUKEY 10.6 Bose Corp. 10.7 Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. 10.8 LG Electronics Inc. 10.9 Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. 10.10 Sony Group Corp 10.11 Vinci Brands LLC 10.12 Xiaomi Inc 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/ Global Mobile Phone Accessories Market 2022-2026 Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mobile-phone-accessories-market-size-to-grow-by-usd-32-73-bn-driven-by-integration-of-advanced-functionalities-in-smartphones---technavio-301647609.html SOURCE Technavio One of the largest hospital chains in the country has confirmed a ransomware attack has caused hospital-wide outages across multiple health systems this month, including facilities in Iowa. Certain systems, including online patient portals and electronic health records, have been taken offline for more than a week at MercyOne facilities following the cybersecurity breach at CommonSpirit Health. Other hospitals across the country, including those in Nebraska, Tennessee and Washington, are also facing disruptions. CommonSpirit, the Chicago-based nonprofit health care system that operates 140 hospitals in 21 states, said in a statement it took "immediate steps" to protect its systems and contain the incident once the ransomware attack was detected. Officials said they notified law enforcement and have engaged with "leading cybersecurity specialists." "We continue to conduct a thorough forensics investigation and review of our systems and will also seek to determine if there are any data impacts as part of that process," the statement said. More:3-year-old given too much pain medication after cyberattack shut down MercyOne computers, parents say MercyOne Central Iowa region officials said in a statement that information systems were affected as part of the cyberattack on CommonSpirit Health, but declined to offer more details. It's unclear whether ransomware successfully invaded MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center's computer systems and other affiliated care sites, which have been offline since Oct. 3. Officials would only say last week that systems were taken offline "as a precautionary step." Health care providers are required by law to notify the federal Department of Health and Human Services if a breach has compromised the private information of 500 or more patients. It's unclear how many hospitals invaded by ransomware Ransomware is software used by hackers to steal data and encrypt an organization's computer systems, blocking access until the hackers' demands for a ransom fee are met. These cyber criminals can be inside an organization's network for weeks, or even months, before they strike. Story continues CommonHealth Spirit did not provide details on the number of facilities within its chain that were hit by the attack. In some cases, organizations are able to detect the malicious software before it encrypts is systems. However, in CommonSpirit's case, it's more likely that ransomware had already attacked its system, said Brett Callow, a threat analyst with Emsisoft, a cybersecurity provider. "My guess would be based on amount of time systems have been out of action, there actually was some encryption," he said. "But that's a guess." Responding to ransomware is a complex and time-consuming process, and it can often take health care systems weeks to fully recover. However, in the past, hospitals have been able to bring their most important systems back online "fairly quickly," Callow said. "But what happened in the past can't necessarily be assumed to happen in future incidents," he said. More details emerging on other impacts to patient care Other Iowa-based hospitals affected include CHI Health-Iowa, which operates facilities in Council Bluffs, Missouri Valley and Corning. A banner displayed on CHI Health's website provided further insight on the scope of the issue, stating providers are following offline processes to manage prescription medications for patients. Officials note Iowa law allows for handwritten prescriptions "in emergency situations." MercyOne officials said all care locations are open and are able to serve all patients' health needs "with some disruption to normal operations." "MercyOne is working with CommonSpirit to resolve the issues as soon as possible," officials said in a statement. "We are grateful to our colleagues and physicians, who are doing everything possible to minimize the impact to our patients. We take our responsibility to our patients very seriously. Our team is committed to ensuring safe, quality care for our patients and community." Ransomware attacks are historically known to cause major disruptions to patient care, often leading to delayed procedures, canceled appointments and diverted ambulances. It's unclear how many patients nationwide are affected by this ransomware attack, but ripple effects have been felt locally. One Urbandale family told the Des Moines Register their 3-year-old son was given a "megadose" of pain medication much too large for his age and size when he was admitted to MercyOne hospital last week. Kelley Parsi, the child's mother, said the only explanation she was given was that the mistake was caused by the downed computer system. That appears to be the case in this scenario as well, with news outlets nationwide reporting on patients who have faced disrupted care due to offline systems. That can have serious consequences for patient health. A report published last year by the Ponemon Institute found that about one in four health care organizations reported an increase in mortality rates following a ransomware attack. "The biggest concern has to be what impacts this will have on patient care and outcomes, both in the short and long term," Callow said. "Health systems are already under a massive amount of stress some beyond the breaking point and adding a cyberattack into the midst is going to create an enormous challenge for them." So far this year, 18 health systems nationwide have been hit by ransomware attacks, with data stolen in at least 13 of those cases, Callow said. There were at least 168 ransomware attacks against health care organizations in 2020 and 2021, affecting more than 1,700 clinics, hospitals and other health care settings across the country, according to Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2018, most ransomware victims were small businesses, and the average ransom demand was $5,000, Callow said. The situation has changed drastically since then, Callow said. Hackers are targeting local governments, public school districts and other major sectors, in addition to health care, demanding upwards of tens of millions of dollars in ransom. That's on top of the major financial toll these attacks can take on hospitals. A 2021 attack on California-based Scripps Health cost the system $112.7 million, mostly in lost revenue. "What it really highlights is that governments didnt take enough action sooner to deal with this problem, and it has spiraled. The attackers are now better resourced and motivated than ever have been," Callow said. Michaela Ramm covers health care for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at mramm@registermedia.com, at (319) 339-7354 or on Twitter at @Michaela_Ramm. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: MercyOne hospital's parent company confirms ransomware attack Shell Pipeline Co. and a contractor hired to build Shells Falcon Pipeline will pay Pennsylvania $670,000 in civil penalties for environmental and permit violations spanning two years. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday announced the company and its contractor, Minnesota Limited LLC, will pay for a series of violations documented during the construction of the companys now-completed Falcon Pipeline. The lines Pennsylvania route travels more than 45 miles through Allegheny, Beaver and Washington counties to deliver ethane to Shells petrochemical complex in Potter Township. The system travels 97.5 miles total to processing plants in Houston, Pa., Scio, Ohio, and Cadiz, Ohio. From March 2019 to April 2021, the DEP and local conservation districts conducted at least 67 inspections of the pipeline construction sites to determine compliance, ultimately documenting multiple sediment and drilling fluid leaks into area waterways including the Ohio River, Ambridge Reservoir and Raccoon Creek. More:DEP: No impact from spill at Falcon pipeline site The violations included five inadvertent returns, eight sediment discharges, failure to comply with permit conditions, failure to implement or maintain effective erosion and sediment best management practices and failure to properly stabilize sites. No visual aquatic impacts were observed during the inspections, the DEP noted. More:Falcon Pipeline whistleblowers fired for reporting hazards,' complaint says State regulators also cited both companies for failure to report spills and cease operations as required. DEPs portion of the money will be added to the states Clean Water Fund and Encroachments Fund. In addition to the $670,000 settlement, Shell Pipeline will pay $27,000 in cost recovery to the DEP and conservation districts in Allegheny, Beaver and Washington counties. The Beaver County Conservation District will receive $1,496. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Shell Pipeline Co. to pay $670K for Falcon violations in western PA Quinn McBride with author Fred Koehler, who spearheaded the writing of "Quinn's Monsters" as part of fulfilling the girl's Make-A-Wish request. Five-year-old leukemia survivor Quinn McBride could have asked for anything in the world from the Make-A-Wish Southern Florida Foundation. Go on a Caribbean cruise? Meet your favorite move star? Throw the first ball at a Marlins game? Take the family to Disney World? Nope, not for Quinn. What the Lake Worth Beach girl really wanted was someone to write a book about her so that her story can inspire other children. That would make me feel happy, Quinn said. But when her parents suggested Quinn combine her favorite things, true inspiration struck. More on fighting cancer: Learn how FAU researchers are battling cancer at free town hall Wednesday More seasonal news: Best pumpkin patches, fall festivals in Boca, Delray Beach, Boynton, Wellington, West Palm 'Your dedication to others is inspiring': Letter to a longtime lymphoma survivor from a fellow cancer warrior She absolutely loves books, Halloween and monsters, Quinn's mother, Lisa Harris, said. She loves spooky things. So, Quinn asked for a book that would showcase the monsters she watched in videos during her time at home and in hospitals while she battled leukemia. Oh, and one condition: She had to be one of the characters in the book. This is where Lakeland-based author/illustrator/publisher Fred Koehler came in. Make-A-Wish had never had this kind of request before, so they reached out to the writing community, and Koehler stepped up. Her wish was for someone to tell her story, Koehler said. I dont think it gets any deeper than that. Koehler also has a personal connection with Quinns story. During his childhood, he lost a friend to leukemia. Koehler played board games with his bedridden friend for days. Anything to take his mind off his illness. With a deadline looming, Koehler who has written and illustrated more than eight childrens books knew he needed help. Lakeland author taps his network to give girl a special story collection So he asked members of his vast writing network to submit one illustrated monster accompanied by a short story about Quinn. Story continues The ultimate goal: A collection of stories, each detailing Quinn's journey on an adventure with a monster (picture mini tales of Where the Wild Things Are). More than 70 writers submitted a story. The generosity of the writing community was incredible, Koehler said. They delivered for Quinn. Quinn McBride, 5, center, with her parents, Lisa Harris and Daniel McBride, at The Learning Experience in Deerfield Beach. The party was in celebration of "Quinn's Monsters," a book created to fulfill Quinn's Make-a-Wish request. Quinn received the first copy of Quinns Monsters, a 35-page monsterpiece, in August at an unveiling at The Learning Experience in Deerfield Beach. Family, friends, a cupcake party, a slide, life-size animals and monsters set the party scene. But Quinns smile shined brightest as she accompanied Koehler to a classroom where a group of her peers were the first to hear the stories and see how the illustrations in Quinns Monsters were created. It wasn't just Quinn who made it onto the pages; some of the people and things most dear to her, including her giraffe security blanket Rif-Raf, are featured as well. As Koehler read to the children from a plush chair, Quinn ran around the room in excitement. Then it was time, Quinn decided, for the two to sit on the floor together and stack blocks. Koehler signed that first copy of Quinns Monsters and gave it to her dad, Daniel McBride, for safe keeping. For Make-A-Wish to put so much into one day to make a kid smile, to make her happy, its incredible, McBride said. These are memories shell never forget. Marissa Shea, Make-A-Wish mission delivery director, said that Quinns Monsters was beyond what she could have imagined. Theyre beautiful little stories, fun monster stories that every kid could love, Shea said. A lot of people in the community had to come together in order to make this wish come true, and thats what made it so beautiful. Well-known authors such as Don Tate and Henry Neff were quick to sign on for the project; but the Make-A-Wish book also offered Koehler the chance to showcase the work of unpublished writers such as Aixa-Perez Prado of Miami and Andrea Tripke of Melbourne. Lynne Marie of Palm Beach, author of Moldilocks and The Three Scares, wasted no time submitting a scary story for the project. Koehler was careful in selecting tales that aren't too scary or mature for a young audience. I wanted stories that embodied what its like to be 5 and in love with a monster, Koehler said. Koehler met Quinn for the first time at the book reveal. He brought his 15-year-old daughter to the event. It was important to my family to participate in something thats a lifelong memory, Koehler said. I want to see the best in the world and know the world is a better place. Quinn was the star of the show. The book had a limited release, published soley for Quinn to give to her family, friends, pastors, medical staff who helped with her treatment. Each author and illustrator involved with the book also got copies. Now that Quinn is healthy, her parents have begun to talk about growing their family. Quinn, however, has more immediate priorities. The lover of monsters has her eyes set on Halloween. There's a costume to plan. . Do you know someone who's worthy of a profile? Send your suggestion, along with details and contact information, to neighborhood@pbpostcom. About Make-A-Wish Make-A-Wish Southern Florida has granted more than 13,000 wishes since 1983 for children who have critical illnesses. For more information or to donate, go to wish.org/sfla. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Make-A-Wish connects Lake Worth leukemia survivor with authors The number of universities from the Chinese mainland that appeared on the world's top 100 increased from six last year to seven, said a world university ranking released on Wednesday. Among them, Tsinghua University and Peking University were ranked 16th and 17th respectively while the other five were Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, University of Science and Technology of China and Nanjing University, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2023. Although Western universities still dominate the top rankings, East Asia and the Middle East are gaining ground, THE's chief knowledge officer Phil Baty was cited by the Evening Standard newspaper as saying. "I thinks this shift -- a global levelling up -- is good news for the world. A rising tide is lifting all boats," Baty said. "Access to top quality education is opening up globally and helping to diminish the brain drain from developing countries." The THE World University Rankings 2023 included 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making it one of the largest and most diverse university rankings. It evaluated five core aspects of a university's performance: teaching, research, citations, international outlook, and industry income. This year's world top two are Oxford University and Harvard University in order, with University of Cambridge and Stanford University tied at third. The Wine Industry Is Worried About the Spread of Spotted Lanternflies GH Photos / Alamy Stock Photo Frost, fire, disease: Vineyards face all sorts of pitfalls that can damage their yields. One of the biggest consistencies in winemaking is inconsistency something that's become even more common with climate change. And in recent years, vineyards on the American East Coast have been battling a new literal pest: spotted lanternflies. The winged insect indigenous to China was first seen in the U.S. in Pennsylvania in 2014, and according to the USDA, has since spread to 14 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. The pests can feed on a wide range of trees and vines including those producing apples, cherries, grapes, and hops with the government warning of their potential to "seriously impact the country's grape, orchard, and logging industries." Some Eastern vineyards have already felt the effects. CNBC reports that Maryland's Fiore Winery has seen its 2022 production cut in half as lanternflies attack its vines and deprive them of nutrients. In Virginia, winemakers are already bracing themselves for similar issues as the pests move south. "I know we don't have to figure it out today. We may not even need to next year. But eventually we'll need a solution," Karl Hambsch, head winemaker at the state's Loving Cup Vineyard, told Radio IQ back in August. Helping to impede that spread is the lanternflies' own physiology which limits their flight range, however the insects and their eggs can travel longer distances by stowing away in cars, trains, or planes. In June, researchers at North Carolina State University made the dire prediction that spotted lanternflies could arrive in America's top wine-producing state California as early as 2027 and are likely to infest its grape-producing regions by 2034. "This is a big concern for grape growers; it could lead to billions of dollars of losses in the agricultural sector," lead author Chris Jones stated. "We hope this helps pest managers prepare If they can start early surveillance, or start treating as soon as the spotted lanternfly arrives, it could slow the spread to other areas." Back on the East Coast, states where the spotted lanternfly has already been seen all have reporting systems in place to try to track its spread and keep it in check as best they can. But it's of little consolation for vineyards that have already been hit. "For quite a while, we thought we were just going to be out of business," Larry Shrawder told CNBC. His Stony Run Winery in Pennsylvania was one of the first to deal with an infestation four years ago. "The 15 percent of the vineyard we lost translates to about 30,000 bottles per year and about $525,000 worth of product a year that was taken out by the flies." Calgary Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - October 14, 2022) - TransGlobe Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: TGA) (TSX: TGL) ("TransGlobe" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that it has now closed its previously announced merger with VAALCO Energy, Inc. by way of plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") pursuant to Section 193 of the Business Corporations Act (Alberta). On October 14, 2022, it is expected that common shares of TransGlobe ("TransGlobe Common Shares") will be delisted on NASDAQ and trading of TransGlobe Common Shares on AIM will be cancelled, and the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") delisting is expected to occur at the close of trading today. In order for holders ("TransGlobe Shareholders") of TransGlobe Common Shares to receive the consideration to which they are entitled pursuant to the Arrangement, TransGlobe Shareholders are required to deposit the certificate(s) or direct registration statement ("DRS") advice(s) (if any) representing TransGlobe Common Shares held by them along with the letter of transmittal, validly completed and duly executed, and all other documents required by the terms of the Arrangement and the letter of transmittal, with Computershare Investor Services Inc. ("Computershare") at the addresses specified on the back page of the letter of transmittal. Registered holders of TransGlobe Common Shares who do not deposit a validly completed and duly executed letter of transmittal, together with the certificate(s) or DRS advice(s) representing their TransGlobe Common Shares and the other relevant documents, will not receive the consideration to which they are otherwise entitled pursuant to the Arrangement until the deposit of such materials is made. Letters of transmittal were previously sent to registered TransGlobe Shareholders. All questions, including any request for another letter of transmittal, should be directed to Computershare, which can be contacted at 1-800-564-6253 (toll free) or 1-514-982-7555 (outside North America) or corporateactions@computershare.com. Story continues Advisors Evercore Partners International LLP acted as financial advisor to TransGlobe. Legal advice was led by Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer LLP and supported by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (SEC and US), Bird & Bird LLP (LSE and UK) and Sharkawy & Sarhan Law Firm (Egypt). For further information, please contact: TransGlobe Energy Corporation Randy Neely, President and CEO Eddie Ok, CFO +1 403 264 9888 investor.relations@trans-globe.com http://www.trans-globe.com Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws and is based on the expectations, estimates and projections of management of TransGlobe as of the date of this press release, unless otherwise stated. The use of any of the words "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "objective", "ongoing", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information. In particular, this press release contains, without limitation, forward-looking information and statements pertaining to the anticipated timing of the delisting of the TransGlobe Common Shares from the TSX and NASDAQ and the cancellation of the trading of TransGlobe Common Shares from AIM. With respect to the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, TransGlobe has made assumptions, including but not limited to expectations that the TSX, AIM and NASDAQ will complete the delisting or cancellation of trading of TransGlobe Common Shares, as applicable, on the timeline anticipated. Although TransGlobe believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, and the assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are made, are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements included in this press release, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which the forward-looking statements are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that forward-looking statements will not occur. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the TSX, AIM and NASDAQ may not complete the delisting or cancellation of trading of TransGlobe Common Shares, as applicable, on the timeline anticipated. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and TransGlobe does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing lists of factors are not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com) and at TransGlobe's website (trans-globe.com). Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as at the date of this press release and TransGlobe does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140540 Find voter resources and full coverage of the Nov. 8 election at the YHR Election Center. Data from map files filed with and approved by the Court in Aguilar v. Yakima County. Murdered, missing and mysterious deaths of Indigenous girls and women on or near the Yakama Reservation, in urban areas and in other states: Why WA has seen a big increase in these community college degrees Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan delivers the speech at the event. (Photo: VNA) In her speech, Vice President Xuan suggested that CICA should uphold the spirit of cooperation, action and responsibility to create a peaceful and stable environment for development in line with the UN Charter and international law, especially the principles of respect for independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of countries, and settlement of disputes by peaceful means without the use of or threat to use force. CICA should actively engage in shaping and leading strong transformation trends of a new Asia, ensuring a rapid, sustainable and inclusive recovery and development process following the pandemic. CICA needs to promote complementarity and interweaving between regional and inter-regional cooperation and linkage mechanisms in order to form an open, multi-centre, multi-tiered multilateral network, she said. The Vietnamese Vice President highlighted ASEAN's efforts to maintain a peaceful and stable Southeast Asia region, ensure freedom of navigation and overflight, and settle disputes by peaceful means in line with the law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. On the occasion, Xuan affirmed that with the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship, cooperation and development, multilateralisation and diversification of relations, always being a friend, a trustworthy partner and an active and responsible member of the international community, Vietnam is ready to join all efforts for dialogues, coordinated actions and trust building within the framework of CICA for the sake of peace, cooperation and development. Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo: VNA) In a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xuan affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to its comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia. She wished both countries would maintain and enhance effective cooperation, continue working closely to tackle difficulties in bilateral economic, trade and investment ties. Putin stressed that Russia always considers Vietnam a top important partner in its foreign policy and agreed to deepen ties between the two nations in a practical and effective manner. Meeting Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, Xuan said Vietnam consistently considers the consolidation and development of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with China a top priority in its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation and diversification of ties. Vietnam always wishes to constantly promote the relationship between the two Parties and countries with higher political trust, more practical cooperation and solid foundation for friendship, she said. Wang, for his part, consented to continue with the exchange of delegations at all levels in the near future. Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan meets with Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. (Photo: VNA) Talking with Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif, Xuan expressed hope for practical cooperation activities toward the 50th anniversary of Vietnam-Pakistan diplomatic ties and the 30th anniversary of Vietnam-Qatar diplomatic ties next year. Leaders of Qatar and Pakistan said they wish to visit Vietnam soon, adding that there is a huge room to further expand bilateral links, especially in economy, trade and investment. CICA is an inter-governmental forum initiated by Kazakhstan in 1992. It now has 28 member states, namely Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Republic of Korea, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, China, UAE, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Kuwait was admitted at CICA 6. Since its entry to CICA in 2020, Vietnam has made active and responsible contributions to promoting dialogues, building trust within the framework of CICA and strengthened cooperation with member countries./. This female grizzly cub, yet to be named, arrived at Woodland Park Zoo in early October and will soon join Juniper, the zoos other orphaned cub, in the Living Northwest Trail bear habitat. 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. Featuring Black Country, New Road, Ben Narcis, Charlotte Cornfield, Efterklang, Jimi Somewhere, Michelle Gurevich, Night Beats, Sister Ray, THE GOA EXPRESS, Willie J Healey, Westerman. Step inside Akvarium Klub for a day of some of todays most exciting performers. For example, Westerman, whose 2020 debut record Elton John described as much better than my first album, is coming to Budapest. Another highly-anticipated act at the festival is Black Country, New Road, hailed by The Times as the most exciting new band of 2021. The MainHalls performers include the Danish Efterklang, who ten years ago gave the concert of the year on the A38 Ship, and THE GOA EXPRESS, who are part of the line-up at this years Glastonbury Festival. Michelle Gurevich, who was born in Toronto to Russian Jewish parents and sings hugely popular ballads that are dark and intimate to equal measure, is also a headliner at Isolation Budapest. This program of the Liszt Fest is presented by Mupa Budapest as a joint event with Akvarium Klub. Program: Nagyhall 19:00 20:00 Efterklang (DNK) 20:45 22:00 Michelle Gurevich (CAN) 23:00 23:45 Black Country, New Road (ENG) Kishall 18:15 19:15 THE GOA EXPRESS (ENG) 20:00 21:00 Willie J Healey (ENG) 21:45 22:45 Westerman (ENG) 23:30 00:30 Night Beats (USA) 01:00 02:00 Superflake (HU) VOLT Lokal 17:00 17:35 Barany Judit (HU) 17:45 18:30 Lituma (HU) 19:00 19:45 Ben Narcis (ENG) 20:15 21:15 Charlotte Cornfield (CAN) 21:45 22:45 Sister Ray (CAN) 23:15 00:15 Jimi Somewhere (NOR) More: Akvarium Klub The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Wednesday voted to place Hungary under a full monitoring procedure, citing long-standing rule-of-law issues. A country report said the issues cited remained largely unaddressed. The widespread use of cardinal laws, which require two-thirds majorities, severely restricts political pluralism, which is the hallmark of a democratic system. It added that the current electoral system does not ensure a level playing field conducive to fair elections. The assembly also raised concerns about Hungarys using a special legal order since 2020 and said it allows the triggering of a state of danger. Such orders, the assembly said, should be strictly necessary, proportionate and must be limited in time. The assembly, at the same time, acknowledged 17 amendments the Hungarian government announced last month, aimed at improving the operations of democratic institutions, increasing transparency and making conflict of interest rules more stringent. Fidesz Lawmaker: PACE Backs Illegal Migration in New Report A recent Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) report backs illegal migration, Fidesz Barna Pal Zsigmond said on Thursday in Strasbourg on the sidelines of PACEs autumn session. Europes left wing is again talking about taking in illegal migrants, Zsigmond told MTI. The report, Zsigmond said, contained proposals on managing migration and accepting illegal migrants, while failing to address the importance of border protection. He accused the left wing of attacking Hungary in view of the countrys position that migration should be prevented rather than managed. The government, he said, has enacted measures that help to protect Europe, Hungary and the security of Hungarians. Hungary is protecting its borders in line with obligations set down in international treaties, he said, adding it maintains its position that Europe must be protected against limitless waves of illegal migrants. War refugees, however, must be provided all possible support, he said. An "unprecedented" wage hike awaits teachers if the government reaches agreement with the European Commission on EU funding currently withheld due to the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism, the prime minister's chief of staff has said. The government is hoping to raise teachers wages to 80% of the average salary of university graduates by 2025, Gergely Gulyas told a regular press briefing. Wages may be raised by 21% in January 2023, by 25% in 2024, and by 29-30% in the two subsequent years, he said. In 2025, the average graduate salary is expected to be around 972,000 forints (EUR 2,253) gross, with teachers likely to earn 778,000 on average, he said, adding that even without EU funding, the government would hike teachers wages by 10% next year. Meanwhile, the government has agreed with the European Union to take 17 measures, mostly in connection with the public procurement system. The proportion of single-bid procurements will be reduced and cooperation with the European Unions anti-corruption taskforce OLAF intensified, Gulyas said. Orban on Thursday thanked in a letter the EU leaders for their decision to extend the deadlines, he noted. Hungary is striving for a fair agreement, and the government is totally committed to fulfilling its pledges, he added. MTI Photo: Tibor Illyes RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Multiple people were wounded Thursday in what authorities described as an active shooting in a neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe, Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted. The Raleigh Police Department said it was on the scene of an active shooting in a statement on Twitter, and advised residents in multiple neighborhoods to stay in their homes. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Get more updates here: Delegates at the event in Hanoi (Photo: vtv.vn) The event was held by the Business Association of Overseas Vietnamese (BAOOV), Association for Liaison with Overseas Vietnamese and Union of Associations of Vietnamese Businesses in Europe under the auspices of the State Commission for Overseas Vietnamese under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Vice President of BAOOV Peter Hong said that the number of overseas Vietnamese amounts to some 5.3 million people, they live and work across 130 countries and territories worldwide. Wherever they are, overseas Vietnamese are always an integral part of the Vietnamese community and are an important resource in contribution to the nations construction, development and defense, he said. Peter Hong said that he is looking forward to receiving comments from participants of the event in a bid to connect Vietnamese entrepreneurs around the world; call for and attract resources of Vietnamese individuals and collectives abroad to build and develop the economy at home. According to Mr. Nguyen Phu Binh, Head of the Association for Liaison with Overseas Vietnamese, in 2021, the amount of remittances to Vietnam still increased to reach 18.1 billion USD and saying that the overseas community invested more than 1.7 billion USD in nearly 400 projects in Vietnam, while their enterprises have contributed to job creation, technology transfer, and socio-economic development in many localities throughout the country. He said he hopes to promote the effectiveness of the remittance and investment sources. Deputy Head of the Foreign Ministry's State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs Ngo Huong Nam said in each stage of the country's development, there has always been a significant contribution from the overseas Vietnamese, including overseas Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Over the past years, attention has been paid to mobilizing and promoting resources from the overseas community, with works underway to push for the formation of a network of presidents of business associations abroad, he stressed. At the event, participating businesses said that they want to strengthen their connection with domestic businesses to boost the exports of Vietnamese goods to foreign markets./. A 15-year-old boy has been hospitalized and a 14-year-old boy is in custody after a reported stabbing Thursday in Waverly's Wayne Park. Lancaster County Sheriff's deputies responded to the park, a green space located near all of the town's schools, shortly before noon Thursday. The 14-year-old stabbed the older boy "multiple times" and was taken into custody by the Nebraska State Patrol at the scene, the sheriff's office said in a news release. The 15-year-old was taken by ambulance to a Lincoln hospital where he is being treated for "possible life-threatening injuries," the agency said. Crime scene technicians remain on scene at the park, which will remain closed as authorities collect evidence. The sheriff's office will release additional details on the stabbing Friday morning. YORK As the 17th annual Czechfest vastly approaches on Sunday, Czechs from all around York are preparing food, performances, activities and everything in between to celebrate their Czech culture. JoAnn Kuester, club president of Nebraska Czechs of York, is going all out this year, making over 800 potato dumplings in honor of a very special woman in the Czech community, Jean Lamp. Kuester and Lamp met at the Emmanuel Lutheran Church in York. Kuester said, One time, we were sitting at a womens Bible study and I dont know how we got on the topic, but Jean said, Im Czech and I said, Im Czech too, and that about did it. After plenty of chatter about their heritage and background, Kuester and Lamp thought it would be neat to attend meetings at the Lincoln Czech Club. By the time the third meeting rolled around, they had the Czech national anthem memorized. Since we memorized the anthem, I said we might as well become members and start our own club, said Kuester. Kuester said she never made dumplings prior to meeting Lamp. Lamp taught Kuester everything she needed to know about kolaches and dumplings. As well as being the president of the Czech Club, she was the queen of dumplings and everyone knew it too. She was always so particular about the size and appearance of her dumplings, said Kuester. Taking Lamps place in the kitchen, Kuester has changed one ingredient of the dumplings and that is using instant potatoes rather than real potatoes. Before, Kuester and Lamp would boil, peel, chop and grind 50 pounds of russet potatoes to make the perfect dumplings. Now, Kuester mixes two cups of instant potatoes, two cups of cool tap water, two eggs, two cups of flour and one tablespoon of salt to make a couple dozen dumplings. This year, Kuester invited five other Czech members and friends to take part in the cooking. Czech member Jan Tiffany said shes known Jean for years before she passed. When Kuester had called her about making dumplings for Czechfest, Tiffany was up for the challenge. I guess Ive been adopted, chuckled Tiffany. Kuester made the dough and her helpers kneaded the dough in flour and divide it into thick, cylinder shaped pieces, each measuring four inches long and an inch wide. The dumplings then get put in a pot of boiling salt water, until they float to the top and simmer for a couple of minutes. The dumplings are removed carefully from the pot, placed on a tray and are glazed with warm, melted butter as the finishing touch. Rosalie Hilmer, a friend of Kuester, said, Taste, texture and presentation is everything. All 800 dumplings are cooled on a rack, placed in ice cream buckets, and are refrigerated in a cooler at Hunters Lounge in Waco. The dumplings will be served with sauerkraut, roast pork loin, Czech wieners and other trimmings to satisfy all the cravings on Sunday. Czech Festival Schedule of Events: 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.: Coffee and kolaches at the Holthus Center lobby 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Czechfest opens 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.: Accordion jam in the ballroom 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.: Dinner served 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Opening ceremony and tribute to Jean Lamp 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.: Queen introduction 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Dance to Milligan Czech Brass Band 2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.: Dance breaks, announcements and activities A merger of Vistara and Air India may be in a confidential discussion between Singapore Airlines and Tata Group. Before, the aforementioned airlines were rumoured to be merging, but the parties involved refuted this. This time, Singapore Airlines has released a formal statement that sheds light on the predicament. It should be emphasised that Tata SIA Airlines Limited, which runs the Indian full-service airline known as Vistara, is owned by Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA), which has a 49 percent equity stake in the company. A 51 percent equity stake in Vistara belongs to the Tata Group. The SIA Group now has a stake in India's rapidly expanding aviation industry thanks to the formation of Vistara in 2013. "SIA is currently in confidential discussions with Tata to explore a potential transaction in relation to the securities of Vistara and Air India Ltd, a subsidiary of Tata (the `Potential Transaction`). The discussions seek to deepen the existing partnership between SIA and Tata and may include a potential integration of Vistara and Air India," said the Singapore airline in a statement on Thursday. Also read: Singapore Airlines announces big policy change, pregnant crew members won't be FIRED now "The discussions are ongoing, and no definitive terms have been agreed upon between the parties. There is no certainty or assurance whatsoever that (a) any definitive agreement will be entered into or (b) the Potential Transaction will materialise or proceed to completion arising from these discussions. Even if a transaction were to materialize, it would be subject to the relevant regulatory approvals, amongst other matters," it said. "India has strong domestic and international traffic flows, which is expected to more than double over the next 10 years. This is an integral part of the SIA Group`s multi-hub strategy, allowing it to get access to important sources that complement its strong Singapore hub," said the Singapore airline. The airline said that shareholders and potential investors are advised to exercise caution when dealing or trading in the securities of the Company. "Shareholders and potential investors should consult their stockbrokers, bank managers, solicitors, or other professional advisers if they have any doubt about the actions they should take. The company will make the necessary announcements as appropriate or when there are any material developments regarding the Potential Transaction in compliance with the relevant provisions of the Listing Manual of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd," it said. With inputs from IANS Vistara has announced the launch of a new route between Pune and Singapore, with four flights per week beginning on December 2, 2022. As the airline improves the connection between India and the "Lion City," it will fly its cutting-edge A321neo aircraft on the route in a three-class configuration. The airline also recently disclosed that beginning on November 15, 2022, it will operate daily flights between Mumbai and Kathmandu, making it easy to go on to well-liked overseas locations, including Dubai, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, and others. Bookings for flights are gradually becoming available through all available channels, including the Vistara website, mobile app, and travel agencies. The Vistara flights between Pune and Singapore will have a starting price of Rs 17,799 for economy tickets and goes up to Rs 82,999 for business class tickets. The consumers can book flight tickets for their Pune-Singapore journey for Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. The Singapore-Pune tickets will be available on the same days as mentioned above. Similarly, Mumbai to Kathmandu flight tickets can be bought for Rs 17,899 for economy class and Rs 51,999 for a Business class journey. The Mumbai to Kathmandu flights will be available daily. Also read: Singapore Airlines in 'confidential' talks with Tata Group over potential Vistara, Air India merger Mr. Vinod Kannan, Chief Executive Officer of Vistara, said, We are very excited to be able to launch the long-awaited connection between Pune and Singapore. Singapore is a key market for business and leisure travel from various points in India, and we are glad that the new route will offer enhanced connectivity to our customers. We are also delighted to introduce another international route between Mumbai and Kathmandu, thereby offering the customers the option to avail seamless connections beyond Mumbai across our domestic as well as international network. We continue to densify our network for the convenience of our customers and offer them the experience of flying with Indias best airline. DOCTOR G IN CINEMAS TODAY: Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh and Shefali Shah's Doctor G opens in theatres today. Junglee Pictures presents yet another interesting storyline featuring Ayushmann in the role of a gynaecologist for the very first time. It has been directed by Anubhuti Kashyap. DOCTOR G MOVIE REVIEW LIVE UPDATES: The actors took to social media urging fans to watch the film First Day First Show. Take a look here for some early reactions: #DoctorG meanders between comedy and making a statement! The case of gender norms, equality & pro choice may be its intention but its execution can be best termed as a hit and a miss What was once a novelty has become routine with #AyushmannKhurrana films. pic.twitter.com/HMiGSt9Hae ANMOL JAMWAL (@jammypants4) October 14, 2022 #DoctorG Review : Fantastic Film. Hilarious, Complicated Subject Beautifully With a Touch Of Comedy And Emotions. @ayushmannk Excellent Performance. @Rakulpreet Looking Beautiful & Brilliant Performance. Very Good Direction Anubhuti Kashyap..#DoctorGReview. Rating : 1/2 pic.twitter.com/2tPgWljplr Vishwajit Patil (@_VishwajitPatil) October 14, 2022 #AnubhutiKashyap's #DoctorG is a quirky concoction with lots of vaginal humour.Audacious fearless cocky and cute. 3.5 stars October 14, 2022 #DoctorG has sold approx. 18,000 tickets in three national chains - PVR, Inox, Cinepolis - for the opening day. The first day biz will majorly depend on the walk in audience Himesh (@HimeshMankad) October 13, 2022 Coming to watch movie #DoctorG first show in pvr, saket new delhi, imagine movie tickets only 222 and one burger price in pvr 340 bucks Amazing na @ayushmannk pic.twitter.com/Ff1gPhogHV DK (@Dineshkartikk) October 14, 2022 #DoctorG is releasing today in theatres near you.. film made with a lot of heart give it all your love guys .. big thankyou to everyone who made this process so enjoyable. @anubhuti_k @ayushmannk @JungleePictures we really hope to bring smiles to your faces Rakul Singh (@Rakulpreet) October 14, 2022 Doctor G trailer showed the fun-filled journey of a hopeful orthopaedic who turns a Gynaecologist (Ayushmann) and the struggles he faces being the only male doctor in a class full of women. With a plot of how a man navigates his way in a womans world, this high-on-comedy drama highlights a riveting subject in a light-hearted manner. Written by Sumit Saxena, Saurabh Bharat, Vishal Wagh and Anubhuti Kashyap Doctor G releases in theatres on October 14, 2022. Junglee Pictures upcoming slate also includes Woh Ladaki Hai Kahan?, Dosa King, Ulajh and Click Shankar to name a few. New Delhi: Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt plans to expand her fashion direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup Ed-a-Mamma's business to UAE and Europe next year. The actor told PTI that Ed-a-Mamma is her first entrepreneurial venture which focuses on sustainable clothing for kids at affordable price points. "I would like to focus on expanding outside India and add more categories to the brand. We started with a kids wear brand and are launching maternity wear this year. "I would like to expand more into the infant segment. I would like to even add more vertical categories in and around the space of family care," Bhatt said when asked about her plans for the next two-three years. Ed-a-Mamma was started in October 2020, after Bhatt saw a lack of presence of a world class home-grown brand providing sustainable clothing options for kids at affordable prices. The company has been selling through online platforms like FirstCry, AJIO, Myntra etc. When asked about international business plans, the actor said "UAE is first on our list. Once that gets kicked off, I think by next year, we should be up and kicking in UAE and then kind of expand to Europe as well. Maybe, a year after that, focus on the rest of the world," Bhatt said. The actor has put a team of 60 people to work at the company. Ed-a-Mamma started with 160 options and now has over 1,800 options, which has been designed and made by the company at its own facility, she said. "In the first two years, I did not associate my name with the brand to test if the product will sell on its own or not. In the last three months our sales have gone up by 10 times. Now we are getting into retail. We have partnered with Lifestyle and Shoppers Stop. Our products will be available at 40 outlets by the end of this month," Bhatt said. The actor said that along with the business, Ed-a-Mamma, as a brand, is more about storytelling to create better understanding of the planet and make children more sensitive about it. "You are investing in children because you want them to be more sensitive towards the planet and the generations to come should also have the same ethos. The storytelling should tie-in from all aspects. While retail is one part of it, education and storytelling is another part of it. That's also something that I would like to look at," Bhatt said. India's second largest IT services company Infosys on Thursday made it clear that the company does not support moonlighting and said it has fired employees who were into dual employment over the last 12 months. Infosys, however, did not divulge the exact number of people who were "let go" on account of moonlighting. Last month, Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji revealed that some 300 employees were fired as the IT services company had no place for any employee who chose to work directly with rivals while being on Wipro payrolls. Put simply, moonlighting refers to employees taking up side gigs to work on more than one job at a time. On Thursday, during the Q2 earnings' briefing, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said the company does not support dual employment. "We don't support dual employment... If we found... In the past, employee doing blatant work in two specific companies where there is a confidentiality issue, we have let go of them n the last 12 months," Parekh said. Also Read: FD with Rs 10 lakh life insurance cover: THIS bank offers 7.1 percent interest rate on 3-year fixed deposit Infosys is among the companies who have taken a strong stance on moonlighting. It recently shot off a missive to its employees asserting that moonlighting is not permitted, and warned that any violation of contract clauses will trigger disciplinary action "which could even lead to termination of employment". "No two timing - no moonlighting!" the company had said. The issue of moonlighting emerged as a big talking point after Rishad Premji flagged the issue. Premji had taken to Twitter to highlight the issue saying: "There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating - plain and simple." HCL Technologies too has weighed into the issue of moonlighting and has said it does not approve of dual employment, although it hastened to add that the issue is not a major one within the company. Also Read: Flipkart Diwali Sale 2022: Get Apple iPhone 11 at effective price of Rs 17,090 or less Parekh said where gig opportunities in the external environment is concerned, Infosys supports aspirations of employees to learn beyond their work but after prior approval of manager has been obtained. "We will support them to work on certain gig projects after the prior approval of the managers. We are also developing more comprehensive policies for that, while ensuring contractual and confidentiality commitments are fully respected. However to be clear, we do not support dual employment," he said. New Delhi: Work from home (WFH) may no longer be a novel concept. Another choice is now available: work from a bar (WFP). On WFP, there are several promotions now running in the UK. More than 350 pubs in the UK's Fuller brewing chain now offer WFP packages starting at 10 (or Rs 933) per day, which include lunch and a beverage (non-alcoholic beverages are also available). Young's, a prominent brewery with 185 pubs, offers a deal for 15 (or Rs 1,400) each day that normally includes lunch and unlimited tea and coffee. Independent pubs are reportedly offering equivalent discounts as well, according to a Guardian report. A "work and play" package for 15 ( Rs 1,400) at The Flintgate in the London suburb of Weybridge includes a "quiet station" lunch, unlimited tea and coffee, and even a pint of beer or gin and tonic (G&T) at five o'clock. (Also Read: 'Crying CEO' gets brutally trolled for sharing news of grandmother's death) The business is prepared for a difficult fall as suppliers withdraw the long-term fixed-price energy contracts that many pubs in the UK rely on. In line with the government's energy support programme, which was introduced in September, businesses received comparable assistance with their expenses. This will only partially alleviate the pressures on hospitality businesses brought on by rising energy costs, food and drink prices, personnel costs, and the impact of British consumers' tightened purse strings. Many pubs' operational costs have already quadrupled recently, and the government's plan offers only very small aid to country pubs that use heating oil and liquefied natural gas. According to a poll conducted earlier in September, Indians indicated they would prefer to work from home an average of 2.1 days per week, as opposed to the global average of 1.7 days. The amount reported by workers in numerous other countries, including Singapore, Brazil, Canada, the US, and Canada, was either the same or higher. Indians find WFH to be quite alluring because they may escape the commute to work. The average travel time across the globe is 65 minutes, while Chinese workers take the longest route, clocking in at 96 minutes. Indians closely follow because the average travel there lasts 93 minutes. New Delhi: As the festival of Karwa Chauth was celebrated all over the nation on Friday, residents of Delhi`s Lajpat Nagar also marked the occasion by performing rituals upon the sighting of the moon. Karwa Chauth is one of the most important festivals celebrated mainly by Hindu married women in India. It is the celebration of marriage, wherein the wife fasts the entire day so as to be blessed with long and healthy life for her husband. On this auspicious occasion, in Lajpat Nagar, married women, dressed in bright festive coloured attires, were seen celebrating Karva Chauth by breaking their fast after sighting the moon. Speaking about the festival to ANI, one of the residents said, "In Hindu traditions, Karwa Chauth holds great importance as the fast is kept for the good health and prosperity of their husband. We pray that every year this festival brings a day of happiness for all married women." "This occasion comes once a year so that we can keep a fast praying for our husband`s long life. During the fast, nothing should be eaten the entire day, in the evening after listening to the Katha and making an offering to the chand we give each other water, all for the long life of our husband," added another lady. On Karwa Chauth, married women follow the `nirjala` fast without food and water, and the moon plays extremely important in fasting. Women can break their fast after the sighting of the `chandrama`. This year, Karwa Chauth was celebrated on October 13. (Disclaimer: Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Zee News staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) India's economic growth story is grabbing global attention and there is no doubt about it. Be it International Monetary Fund's remark terming India a bright star or India's elevation to the world's fifth-largest economy overtaking the United Kingdom, India has gained all-around praise for its economic prowess. However, it appears that some western and European nations have still failed to see India beyond its colonial past and still consider it a land of snake charmers. Spanish daily La Vanguardia's latest Dinero issue is proof of such a shallow mindset. The lead story of the issue was 'La hora de la economia india', or 'The hour of the Indian economy'. However, while the discussion point should have been the analysis done in the story, the daily came under sharp criticism for its graphic used to support the story where it portrayed India's economic growth through a snake-charmer. "The hour of the Indian economy- is the top story of a #Spanish weekly. While #India's strong economy gets global recognition, portraying our image as snake charmers even after decades of independence is sheer stupidity. Decolonising the foreign mindset is a complex endeavour," said PC Mohan, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bengaluru Central. "The hour of the Indian economy" is the top story of a #Spanish weekly. While #India's strong economy gets global recognition, portraying our image as snake charmers even after decades of independence is sheer stupidity. Decolonising the foreign mindset is a complex endeavour. pic.twitter.com/pdXvF7n4N7 P C Mohan (@PCMohanMP) October 13, 2022 Founder & CEO of Zerodha Nithin Kamath said that cultural caricaturing, a snake charmer to represent India, is an insult. "The hour of the Indian economy, says La Vanguardia, a leading Spanish daily. Quite cool that the world is taking notice, but the cultural caricaturing, a snake charmer to represent India, is an insult. Wonder what it takes for this to stop; maybe global Indian products?" said Kamath. "The hour of the Indian economy," says La Vanguardia, a leading Spanish daily. Quite cool that the world is taking notice, but the cultural caricaturing, a snake charmer to represent India, is an insult. Wonder what it takes for this to stop; maybe global Indian products? pic.twitter.com/YY3ribZIaq Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) October 13, 2022 Spain is currently the world's 15th largest economy with a GDP of around $2 trillion while India is currently the world's fifth largest economy with a GDP of around $3.5 trillion. A woman presents an artifact at a festival to celebrate the Palestinian National Heritage Day, in Gaza City, Oct. 11, 2022. A festival featuring Palestinian folklore was held in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday to celebrate the Palestinian National Heritage Day. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) by Sanaa Kamal GAZA, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- A festival featuring Palestinian folklore is being held in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday to celebrate Palestinian National Heritage Day. Traditional Palestinian art forms such as Dabkeh and Dehia dances, folk songs and embroidered products were displayed at the festival. "We launched this event to promote the concept of national heritage among the Palestinian public through art," Mohammed Abu Shamala, one of the organizers told Xinhua. "Palestinian heritage is what keeps our identity," said the 22-year-old, noting that the Palestinians need to revive their traditional trades and handicrafts by encouraging creative artists to explore in this field and supporting such projects. Noha Abu Owaimer, a 29-year-old young woman from Gaza, came to the event to promote the traditional Palestinian-style wedding. The young woman said she came up with the idea of starting her own wedding business after wearing a traditional embroidery wedding dress at her own wedding. "At that time, my relatives and friends were surprised that I gave up the white wedding dress and wore my grandmother's traditional one," the young woman recalled. Later, her friends came to her and asked if they could borrow her dress. It was then that she was hit by the idea to turn this into her career. "All nations are proud of their heritage," she said. "I wanted to encourage others to organize their wedding ceremonies in a purely traditional Palestinian way." "The Palestinian heritage is distinguished not only in the local area but also on the international stage," she said, adding that she had lots of customers in Gaza." The same is for Iman Abu Hatab, a Gaza-based coordinator of a project called "Fanar," which introduces the Palestinian heritage to visitors to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "Such a festival is important as it spreads historical and cultural awareness and promotes community tourism, encouraging citizens to preserve the cultural heritage of Palestinian society," she explained. 65-year-old Abu Mohammed Ibrahim brought his four grandsons to the event to let them learn more about their heritage. "Such festivals would help the younger generations not to forget their history in this fast-developing world," he told Xinhua. A woman arranges artifacts at a festival to celebrate the Palestinian National Heritage Day, in Gaza City, Oct. 11, 2022. A festival featuring Palestinian folklore was held in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday to celebrate the Palestinian National Heritage Day. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Editor: JYZ DU Merit List 2022: Delhi University released the Simulated merit list today, October 14, 2022. Candidates can now download the DU Simulated Merit List 2022 or the mock allotment list from the official website- du.ac.in. Delhi University is expected to release the final merit list on October 18, 2022 once the students have reviewed their information, submitted their modifications for this simulated list, and checked their preferences Candidates need to be aware that the admissions process has altered starting with this year. DU Merit List 2022: Heres how to download Visit the official website admission.uod.ac.in Secondly, you should click on the Delhi University Merit List 2022 Link on the homepage. Now you have to enter your Registration Number with Password and wait for the next page to open. On this page, you can see your Delhi University Seat Allotment Result 2022 and the name of the college in which admission is offered to you. Download the Allotment Slip and then confirm your admission by submitting documents and paying admission fees. This year, admission in the DU are being done on the basis of CUET 2022 or the Common University Entrance Test unlike previous years when the students were given admission according to merit list made on basis of 12th board marks. Delhi University began its admissions process in September by publishing its admission-cum-allocation policy, or CSAS, following the CUET. This year, the admission process is being done through CSAS in three stages. Across 67 colleges, departments, and centres, 79 Undergraduate programmes at DU sought applications for admission. While politicians are always surrounded by supporters, some are their true followers. And when these leaders are gone forever, there emerge stories of surprise and shock. Some even leave us amused. A 12-year-old boy from Nautanwa in Maharajganj district, left home to `see` Samajwadi patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav when he learnt of the latter`s demise. The boy, who gave his name as Sarnath Yadav, said he was distressed on learning about the leader`s demise and left home to go to Etawah. "I reached Gorakhpur and then Lucknow. Someone gave me wrong directions and instead of reaching Etawah, I landed up in Kanpur," he said. In Kanpur, the GRP personnel saw him wandering around and brought him to their station. "We have contacted his parents and they are coming here to take him back," said a GRP official. The boy said that he was an ardent supporter of Mulayam Singh and would continue to work for the late leader. DU Merit List 2022: Delhi University will be releasing the Simulated merit list today, October 14, 2022. The simulated list which essentially refers to mock allotment will be released in the evening at 5 pm on du.ac.in. After students have reviewed their information, submitted their modifications for this simulated list, and checked their preferences, Delhi University will only release the first merit list. On October 18, 2022, the first merit list is expected to be released. Candidates need to be aware that the admissions process has altered starting with this year. This year, admission won't be determined by university cutoffs, unlike past years. CUET, or the Common University Entrance Test, is used for admission. Delhi University began its admissions process in September by publishing its admission-cum-allocation policy, or CSAS, following the CUET. This year, the admission process is being done through CSAS in three stages. The CSAS-2022 application form must be submitted first, followed by the selection of programmes and the entry of preferences, and finally, the assignment of seats and admission. DU Merit List 2022: Heres how to download Visit the official website admission.uod.ac.in Secondly, you should click on the Delhi University Merit List 2022 Link on the homepage. Now you have to enter your Registration Number with Password and wait for the next page to open. On this page, you can see your Delhi University Seat Allotment Result 2022 and the name of the college in which admission is offered to you. Download the Allotment Slip and then confirm your admission by submitting documents and paying admission fees. Candidates had until October 12 to complete the application. After today's publishing of the simulated rank, applicants will have two days to change their preference. Across 67 colleges, departments, and centres, 79 Undergraduate programmes at DU sought applications for admission. New Delhi: Former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba's wife A S Vasantha Kumari on Friday thanked his supporters and the judiciary following his acquittal in the case of a Maoist link. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court acquitted Saibaba on Friday and ordered his immediate release from jail. A division bench of justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare also allowed an appeal filed by Saibaba challenging a 2017 trial court order convicting him and sentencing him to life imprisonment. Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound, is currently lodged at the Nagpur central prison. "We had faith that he would be acquitted because he did not do anything wrong. There was no crime and no evidence. I am thankful to the judiciary and all those who supported us," Vasantha Kumari told PTI over phone. The couple's daughter is currently pursuing MPhil from Jamia Millia Islamia. Asked how they coped with his absence in the last eight years, Vasantha Kumari said, "Don't ask! There was a lot of struggle and patience involved in the last eight years. It was difficult for Sai also since his health deteriorated and he lost his job." In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district convicted Saibaba and other people, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country. The court had held Saibaba and the others guilty under various provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Ambedkar Nagar: At a time when Uttar Pradesh is reeling under a flood situation, its Ambedkar Nagar District Magistrate`s (DM) video with local people went viral where the official is heard saying that the government is not running "Zomato" to provide door-to-door service or relief materials to people in the flood-hit areas. "...If you need, you will be provided with chlorine tablets, and a doctor will come to see when one falls sick, this is the reason why flood posts (baadh chowki) are established. We are not running any Zomato service, the government is not running Zomato," the DM said addressing the flood-affected people in Ambedkar Nagar asking them to collect relief materials. Zomato is an Indian food delivery company which provides door-to-door food service. Addressing the people here, he asked them to fix their time so that the food could be prepared accordingly. "Firstly, you all prepare a time for feast at the flood post, then as many people would be present in the morning, the food for the same number of people can be prepared in the evening," he said mentioning that the persons whose name is mentioned in the list are not even available here. Also Read: Weather Update: IMD predicts showers in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and THESE states - Check rainfall prediction here This came at a time when the flood water started entering the houses of the locals here. Nearly a month ago, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on September 18 directed the administration to be on alert, following the increase in the water level of the Kuwano river at Chandradeep Ghat. In a high-level meeting chaired by Yogi Adityanath earlier this week, instructions were issued to expedite the relief and rehabilitation work in all the districts affected by heavy rains. CM Yogi also ordered to keep the District Control Room functional 24x7 under the leadership of Joint Magistrate level officers. Yogi instructed the officials of Gonda, Basti, Ambedkar Nagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, Deoria, Mau, Ballia, and Ayodhya to be on alert in view of the possible threat of floods. "Due to excessive rains in the last few days, adverse effects have been seen on life, livestock, and agriculture. Loss of lives and money has been reported in many districts. The State Government is committed to making necessary arrangements for the safety and maintenance of all the affected people", an official release said quoting Yogi Adityanath. "Immediate help should be provided to the common people in the flood-affected areas. There should be no delay in the distribution of relief packets. There should be adequate arrangements for lighting etc. in relief camps," said the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. Notably, the river at Chandradeep Ghat has crossed the danger mark, hence instructions were given to the District Magistrates and Senior Superintendents of Police (SSP), and Superintendents of Police (SP) of these districts to make systematic arrangements for the safety, rescue and relief of people in villages and cities. Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh): The Varanasi district court on Friday rejected the plea seeking carbon dating and scientific investigation of the purported `Shivling` claimed to be found in the Gyanvapi mosque complex. Varanasi District Court Judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha rejected the plea by the Hindu petitioners citing the Supreme Court's May 17 order, which directed that the object found by the commission had to be protected so that no tampering can be done. The order of the SC will prevail, so the object cannot be opened. The Hindu side had claimed that a 'Shivling' was found in the premises near the 'wazukhana' during the videography survey of the mosque premises, which was ordered by the court. However, the Muslim side said that the structure found was a 'fountain'. The Hindu side had then submitted an application on September 22 that sought a carbon dating of the object they claimed to be 'Shivling'. Carbon dating is a scientific process that ascertains the age of an archaeological object or archaeological finds. Also Read: Gyanvapi Mosque Case LIVE Updates: Varanasi Court rejects Hindu side's demand seeking carbon dating of 'Shivling' Speaking to ANI, Vishnu Jain, representing the Hindu side said, "The Muslim side said that Shivling is not a part of the suit property and its carbon dating cannot be done. We have given our clarification on both of these points. The court will deliver its verdict on October 14. "Earlier on September 29, the Hindu side demanded a scientific investigation of the `Shivling` by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the carbon dating of `Argha` and the area around it. The court had reserved the order in the Gyanvapi Mosque-Shringar Gauri case after hearing both sides` arguments. Akhlaq Ahmed, representing the Muslim side had said that the plea by the Hindu side is not maintainable as it is against the order of the Supreme Court that stated protecting the structure (which the Muslim side claims to be a fountain and the Hindu side claims to be a Shivling). "We responded to the application on carbon dating. Stone does not have the capacity to absorb carbon. According to the Hindu side, the process will be scientific, even if it is so, there will be tampering with the object. Chemicals will be used for the test. We will take action based on the order by the court on October 14," Ahmed told ANI. Another lawyer representing the Muslim side, Tohid Khan said, "The court will deliver its verdict on whether the application seeking carbon dating is acceptable or should be rejected. The structure is a fountain and not Shivling. The fountain can still be made operational. "Earlier, an appeal had been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Allahabad High Court which had dismissed a PIL that sought the appointment of a committee/commission under a judge to study the nature of the structure found in the Gyanvapi Mosque, Varanasi. The appeal filed by seven devotees sought direction from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to ascertain the nature of the structure found on the Gyanvapi campus. The Allahabad High Court had on July 19 dismissed their plea seeking the appointment of a committee/commission headed by a judge of the High Court or supreme court (sitting/retired) to study the nature of the structure found in the Gyanvapi Mosque. The PIL moved before the High Court seeks direction from a committee to ascertain whether a Shivaling, as claimed by the Hindus, had been found inside the mosque or if it is a fountain as claimed by Muslims. The appeal in the top court stated that the Allahabad High Court had erred in dismissing the plea. On May 20, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of the case related to worship at Gyanvapi mosque from the civil judge to the District Judge, Varanasi. (With ANI inputs) Varanasi: The Varanasi court will deliver its verdict on the Hindu sides plea seeking carbon dating of the structure found inside the Gyanvapi mosque which they claimed to be a Shivling, on Friday. Four of the five Hindu petitioners have sought the carbon-dating of 'Shivling' said to have been found inside the Gyanvapi Mosque during the videography survey ordered by the Varanasi local court. Carbon dating is a scientific process used commonly in archaeology to understand the age of an object. The Gyanvapi Mosque committee has opposed the plea for carbon dating. The Varanasi court had heard the arguments of the Muslim side earlier in connection with the case. Vishnu Jain, the lawyer representing the Hindu side, said, "The Muslim side said that Shivling is not a part of the suit property and its carbon dating cannot be done. We have given our clarification on both of these points. The court will deliver its verdict on Friday." Akhlaq Ahmed, representing the Muslim side said that the plea by the Hindu side is not maintainable as it is against the order of the Supreme Court that stated protecting the structure (which the Muslim side claims to be a fountain and the Hindu side claims to be a Shivling). "We responded to the application on carbon dating. Stone does not have the capacity to absorb carbon. The Supreme Court in its May 17 order, according to which, the object that was found by the commission, had to be protected. The order of the SC will prevail, so the object cannot be opened. According to the Hindu side, the process will be scientific, even if it is so, there will be tampering with the object. Chemicals will be used for the test. We will take action based on the order by the court on October 14," Ahmed said. Another lawyer representing the Muslim side, Tohid Khan said, "The court will deliver its verdict on whether the application seeking carbon dating is acceptable or should be rejected. The structure is a fountain and not Shivling. The fountain can still be made operational." Earlier on September 29, the court had reserved the order in the Gyanvapi Mosque-Shringar Gauri case after hearing both sides` arguments. The Hindu side had claimed that a `Shivling` was found in the premises near the `wazukhana` during the videography survey of the mosque premises, which was ordered by the court. However, the Muslim side said that the structure found was a `fountain`. The Hindu side had then submitted an application on September 22 that sought a carbon dating of the object they claimed to be `Shivling`. Carbon dating is a scientific process that ascertains the age of an archaeological object or archaeological finds. Earlier on September 29, the Hindu side demanded a scientific investigation of the `Shivling` by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the carbon dating of `Argha` and the area around it. Earlier, an appeal had been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Allahabad High Court which had dismissed a PIL that sought the appointment of a committee/commission under a judge to study the nature of the structure found in the Gyanvapi Mosque, Varanasi. The appeal filed by seven devotees sought direction from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to ascertain the nature of the structure found on the Gyanvapi campus. The Allahabad High Court had on July 19 dismissed their plea seeking the appointment of a committee/commission headed by a judge of the High Court or supreme court (sitting/retired) to study the nature of the structure found in the Gyanvapi Mosque. The PIL moved before the High Court seeks direction from a committee to ascertain whether a Shivaling, as claimed by the Hindus, had been found inside the mosque or if it is a fountain as claimed by Muslims. The appeal in the top court stated that the Allahabad High Court had erred in dismissing the plea. On May 20, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of the case related to worship at Gyanvapi mosque from the civil judge to the District Judge, Varanasi. New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party named Punjab School Minister Harjot Singh Bains in charge of the party's political affairs in election-bound Himachal Pradesh on Friday. The party's decision comes on the same day that the Election Commission announced the schedule for the hill state's assembly elections. Himachal Pradesh's election notification will be issued on October 17, and voting will take place on November 12. The ballots will be counted on December 8. "Big announcement before Himachal elections. The AAP appoints Harjot Singh Bains as the 'prabhari' (in-charge) for Himachal Pradesh," The party tweeted from its official account. Following the announcement of the poll panel, the Aam Aadmi Party stated that it is ready for the Himachal Pradesh elections and is confident of receiving the people's mandate. When asked about his party's reaction to the announcement, AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said at a press conference, "We are ready for the elections." NDTV reported in an article. He claimed that the party's teams in every village in Himachal Pradesh have been "working hard" to reach out to the masses and convey the AAP's message to voters. Mr Pathak is an MLA from Rajinder Nagar in Delhi and a member of the AAP's political affairs committee, the party's highest decision-making body. "I am fully confident that the people of Himachal Pradesh will definitely give a chance to AAP this time after looking at the work done by the Kejriwal government in Delhi," Mr Pathak said, referring to the way the Congress and the BJP looted the state during their reigns. The AAP government in Punjab, led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, is now doing the same "amazing work," he added. Also Read: Amid freebies debate, EC bans parties from distributing sarees, shirts during rallies So far, Himachal Pradesh politics has remained bipolar, with the Congress and the BJP remain the main contenders for the throne. The hill state, which is currently ruled by the BJP, is set to see a three-cornered fight this time, with the Kejriwal-led AAP joining the fray after a spectacular victory in the Punjab elections earlier this year. AAP appoints Punjab School Minister Harjot Singh Bains in-charge of party' political affairs in poll-bound Himachal Pradesh October 14, 2022 The AAP is preparing to run for every seat in the assembly elections. Himachal Pradesh has a 68-member assembly, and the BJP won a clear majority in the 2017 elections by winning 44 seats. The Congress won 21 seats, while the Independents won two and the CPI(M) won one. According to the Election Commission, over 55 lakh voters in the hill state are eligible to vote in the upcoming elections. (With agencies inputs) New Delhi: India said on Friday that it supports normal relations with Pakistan as long as the environment is conducive and free of terrorism. Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, stated during a weekly press conference. He quoted, "We want normal relations with Pakistan, is a statement that we have always said. But it has to be in an atmosphere that is conducive and free from terrorism. I think that part is pretty well-known. I really don`t need to get into details." He said this in response to a question about Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi slamming Pakistan for speaking on the Kashmir issue at the CICA summit, Bagchi stated that her intervention has been made public and that he will not comment further because India has made its position on terrorism emanating from Pakistan clear. During yesterday's Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit, MoS Lekhi slammed Pakistan, saying that Islamabad had misused the platform to spread false and malicious propaganda against India, and advised the neighbouring country to put its house in order before lecturing the global community. Also Read: Protest erupts after UP Police raids in Uttarakhand BJP leader's house, his wife dead in cross-fire "It is unfortunate that Pakistan has chosen to once again misuse the CICA platform to propagate false and malicious propaganda against my country and distract from the theme and focus of today`s discussions and cooperation among the member states. The union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been and will remain an integral part of India. Pakistan has no locus standing to comment on India`s internal affairs," MoS Lekhi said at the CICA Summit in Astana. You'd have seen the statement by MoS Meenakashi Lekhi who went as Spl Envoy of PM.We had made her intervention public. I'm unable to comment anything beyond that because we've made clear our position on terrorism emanating from Pakistan:MEA on Pak raising J&K issue at CICA Summit pic.twitter.com/26qJ81P76d ANI (@ANI) October 14, 2022 "Pakistan`s remarks today constitute gross interference in India`s internal affairs, sovereignty, and territorial integrity which is inconsistent with the CICA declaration on the principles guiding relations between the CICA member states of September 1999," she states. Also Read: BJP, Congress hand in glove with each other: AAP state chief slams PM Narendra Modis visit to Himachal Lekhi said it should cease cross-border terrorism against India."Pakistan is the global epicentre of terrorism and continues to be the source of terrorist activities including in India. Pakistan continues to make no investment in human development but provides their resources for creating and sustaining the infrastructure of terrorism," she quotes. (With agencies inputs) New Delhi: The Indian Space Agency has announced that it would be having a wee hour launch for the first-ever commercial flight of the GSLV Mk3 rocket, which is India's heaviest launch vehicle. Indian Space Research Organization specified that the launch would be carried out during the wee hours of Sunday, 23rd October, at 0007hours, or seven minutes past midnight hour. ISRO will be carrying out this launch, as part of a contract between NewSpace India Limited (ISRO's commercial arm) and OneWeb, the UK-based Low Earth Orbit Satellite communications company. With this launch, OneWeb will have over 70% of its planned Gen 1 LEO Constellation in orbit. The company is working towards delivering high-speed, low-latency connectivity services around the world. "Cryo stage, equipment bay(EB) assembly completed. Satellites are encapsulated and assembled in the vehicle. Final vehicle checks are in progress" ISRO said. The GSLV MK3 rocket is a three-stage heavy lift launch vehicle developed by ISRO. The vehicle has two solid strap-on motors(burns solid fuel), a core-stage liquid booster(burns a combination of liquid fuels) and a cryogenic upper stage(burns liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen). GSLV Mk III is designed to carry 4-ton class of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) or about 10 tons to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is about twice the capability of its predecessor, the GSLV Mk II. Thus far, ISRO has purely relied on its PSLV rocket(that can carry upto 1.75tons to Low Earth Orbit), to do commercial launches. The addition of the GSLV MK3 to this list would mean that India can make a greater impact in the International market and thereby earn revenue from launching heavier customer satellites. While India's GSLV Mk3 has flown all four Indian national missions successfully till date, this will be the first time that the rocket will be performing the paid service of ferrying customer satellites to space. LVM3 - M2/OneWeb India-1 Mission: Launch scheduled at 0007 hrs. IST on October 23, 2022. Cryo stage, equipment bay (EB) assembly completed. Satellites are encapsulated and assembled in the vehicle. Final vehicle checks are in progress. @NSIL_India @OneWeb pic.twitter.com/pPbqjDjFmS October 14, 2022 Around the third week of September, a Ukrainian Antonov-124 transporter plane, ferrying the 36 OneWeb satellites flew all the way from Florida in the US to the Indian city of Chennai. The satellites were then transported by road to India's spaceport in Sriharikota, Southern Andhra Pradesh. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan exported 19.7 million tons of oil during the period of January-September 2022, Azernews reports, citing Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov. According to the operational data, 24.5 million tons of oil were extracted in the country in the first nine months of 2022, he added. Moreover, the minister noted that 34.4 billion cubic meters of gas were produced during this period, adding that 16.3 billion cubic meters of this volume were exported, which is an increase of 8.6 percent. "According to operational data for the 9 months of this year, 19.7 out of 24.5 million tons of extracted oil was #exported. Compared to the same period last year, 16.3 out of the 34.4 bcm gas produced with an increase of 8.6% was #exported," Parviz Shahbazov tweeted. In 2021, Azerbaijan exported 27.1 million tons of oil worth $13.2 billion. The top five countries in terms of oil imports from Azerbaijan were Italy, Israel, Croatia, Germany, and Portugal. In addition, Azerbaijan produced 34.6 million tons of crude oil in 2021. The slight increase in oil production last year was primarily due to the gradual elimination of voluntary oil output cuts under the OPEC+deal. By Zhang Zhou and Wang Xinyuan Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists visiting the exhibition section on Chinas diplomatic achievements in the past decade at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a visitor watching the display boards showcasing the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists reviewing China's aid to numerous countries around the world combating Covid-19 at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists appreciating the national gifts between China and foreign countries exhibited at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the exhibits demonstrating the concept of "putting people first" at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists visiting the preface area of the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists visiting the exhibition section on Chinas economic development in the past decade at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the ladder of progress over the past ten years at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the view of Beijing Exhibition Hall, where an exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is held. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists visiting the exhibition section on Chinas green development in the past decade at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows tourists visiting the exhibition area celebrating the Olympic spirit at the "Forging Ahead in the New Era" exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. Editor: JYZ NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: Reacting to the split verdict given by the Supreme Court on petitions challenging the Karnataka hijab ban, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has slammed the Centre for ''forcing the Muslim girls to remove their hijab.'' Reacting to the split verdict given by the top court on the hijab ban, Owaisi said, if Muslim women want to cover their heads, it does not mean, they are covering their intellect." He further alleged, They say that Muslims are forcing little children to wear hijab. Are we really forcing our girls?" The AIMIM leader went on to say, Let our daughters wear hijab, you wear your bikini if you like During his interaction with a gathering at the Golconda Fort, the AIMIM leader also sought to question whether hijab shows the 'backwardness' of Muslims and whether Muslim women are not contributing to the development of the country. "If you come to Hyderabad, you will see the most notorious drivers are our sisters. Don't even put your vehicle behind them. No, this is from my personal experience. I tell my driver to be careful. Sit behind them on the motorcycle wearing a helmet and then you will understand whether they are being forced," Owaisi said in his speech. Referring to the Karnataka hijab ban row, Owaisi said, "When a Hindu, a Sikh and a Christian student is allowed to enter the classroom with their religious clothing and a Muslim is stopped, what do they think of the Muslim student? Obviously, they will think Muslims are below us." Amid the raging hijab row, Owaisi said that "One day, a girl wearing a hijab will be the Prime Minister of India. It is my dream". His remarks came after the Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a split verdict in the Karnataka hijab ban case. While one of the top court judges dismissed the petitions challenging the old Karnataka High Court order upholding the hijab ban in educational institutions, the another - Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia - allowed them. "There is a divergence of opinion," said Justice Hemant Gupta, who then asked 11 questions to the petitioners before dismissing their plea. He said he agrees with the Karnataka High Court's order. "It's ultimately a matter of choice and nothing else. Uppermost in my mind was the education of the girl child. I respectfully disagree with my brother judge," Justice Dhulia said. Supreme Court Justice Hemant Gupta, while dismissing the petitions against the hijab ban, also referred the matter to the Chief Justice Of India for appropriate direction "Its a matter of choice, nothing more, nothing less," Justice Dhulia said while pronouncing the order. The top court passed the order in response to various petitions challenging the Karnataka High Court order which upholds the ban on Hijab in educational institutes. Various petitioners have approached the apex court challenging the Karnataka HC order upholding the Karnataka government`s order which directs strict enforcement of schools and colleges` uniform rules. A bench of Karnataka High Court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S Dixit, and Justice JM Khazi had earlier held that the prescription of uniform is a reasonable restriction that students could not object to and dismissed various petitions challenging a ban on Hijab in education institutions saying they are without merit. The Hijab row erupted in January this year when the Government PU College in Udupi allegedly barred six girls wearing the hijab from entering. Following this, the girls sat in protest outside the college over being denied entry. After this, boys from several colleges in Udupi started attending classes wearing saffron scarves. This protest spread to other parts of the state as well leading to protests and agitations in several places in Karnataka. As a result, the Karnataka government said that all students must adhere to the uniform and banned both hijab and saffron scarves till an expert committee decided on the issue. On February 5, the pre-University education board released a circular stating that the students could only wear the uniform approved by the school administration and no other religious attire would be allowed in colleges. New Delhi: The Election Commission today skipped Gujarat in order to announce poll dates for Himachal Pradesh, despite the fact that the schedules for the two states are traditionally released at the same time. The fact that the Gujarat election dates, which had been widely anticipated, had not been announced was surprising given that the terms of both assemblies expire within the next six months. In such cases, state election dates are announced together, and the results are announced on the same day. Responding to questions, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar stated that no rules had been broken. "The two states' assemblies end 40 days apart. According to the rules, it should be at least 30 days so that one result does not influence the other "Mr Kumar told reporters. The Gujarat assembly's term ends on February 18, and Himachal Pradesh's term ends on January 8. Both states are ruled by the BJP. "There are several factors to consider, such as the weather. "We want to hold the Himachal elections before the snow falls," he explained, adding that the Commission had met with "a variety of stakeholders." The Model Code of Conduct will apply to Himachal Pradesh for a shorter period of time 57 days rather than 70 the election chief explained. As reported by NDTV. Given the unusually long period between voting and results in Himachal Pradesh, many questioned this defence. The state goes to the polls on November 12th, and the results will be announced almost a month later, on December 8th. The extended period fueled speculation that the Election Commission was keeping a window open to declare elections in Gujarat soon and had only postponed the announcement for unknown reasons, and that votes could still be counted on the same day. When asked if votes would be counted in Gujarat on December 8, the Chief Election Commissioner said, "When we come for Gujarat, we will tell you this." Also Read: Balasaheb's Shiv Sainiks are HAPPY now: Eknath Shinde after ECI allots 'two swords & shield' symbol to his faction The only other time the two states' election announcements were separated was in 2017. Himachal Pradesh voted on November 9th, and Gujarat voted twice, on December 9th and 14th. However, both results were announced on December 18. In Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, the ruling party is being challenged this time by Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is aggressively campaigning to expand its national presence following its massive victory in Punjab earlier this year. New Delhi: Congress is all set to kick off Himachal Pradesh's upcoming polls campaign on Friday, October 14, 2022, with partys General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra addressing a mega-rally in Solan district. Taking to Twitter, the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) informed that this rally of Priyanka Gandhi would officially mark the beginning of the party's election campaign in the state. "All Himachalis are warmly welcomed in the 'Parivartan Pratigya Maharally' of Congress Party's National General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi ji in Solan. For the first time on the land of Devbhoomi, Priyanka ji will address the Maharally, for which your heartfelt greetings from every Himachali," the HPCC tweet reads. Following are the key points you need to know about Vadras official comeback in the politics game: Priyanka Gandhi's public event has been named 'Parivartan Pratigya Rally' by the Congress. A PTI report said that she would attend the rally after visiting the Maa Shoolini Temple at around 12:00 PM. Priyanka Gandhi will be launching the maha rally a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the state. During his visit, the Prime Minister announced the various infrastructure projects. He also launched off the high-speed Vande Bharat Express from Una in Himachal Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee has urged every citizen to attend the maha rally and ordered all executive members, MLAs, former legislators, district and block presidents and other office-bearers to attend the Solan event without fail. For the first time, Congress will be contesting the assembly election in the absence of the longest-serving Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh Virbhadra Singh, who passed away last year. He has served 6 times and 21 years as the 4th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. Himachal has been witnessing a bipolar contest between Congress and the BJP for the past three decades but this time Aam Aadmi Party is also in the fray. AAP also becomes the first party to announce the candidates in September. The CPM has extended unconditional support to the AAP in seats as they are not directly contesting in the elections. According to media reports, Congress is likely to announce the Chief Ministerial candidates for the upcoming state assembly elections after the maha rally. BJP have been aggressively campaigning in Himachal Pradesh over past few months with Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh among others visiting the state for rallies. The Election Commission had recently concluded a three-day visit to the state and will be announcing the election schedule today at Vigyan Bhawan at 3 PM through Press Conference. (With agency inputs) New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday in the Supreme Court recommended the pre-mature release of Nalini Sriharan and RP Ravichandran, convicts who are serving life imprisonment in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Tamil Nadu government in its affidavit said that its 2018 aid and advice for the remission of their life sentence is binding upon the Governor. Nalini and Ravichandran have approached the apex court seeking release from the prison-like fellow convict AG Perarivalan. Tamil Nadu government said that in the cabinet meeting held on September 9, 2018, it had considered mercy petitions of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and resolved to recommend the Governor for the remission of their life sentences invoking the power granted under Article 161 of the Constitution. It said, "The said recommendation in respect of seven life convict petitioners was sent to the then governor of Tamil Nadu individually for approval on September 11 and the same was pending with his office since then." The law relating to the power of the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution and the power of the state government in dealing with the offences (302 of IPC) falls within the exclusive domain of the state government and is also well settled, said Tamil Nadu. The state government said that it is the competent authority to take a decision on the petition filed by Nalini and Ravichandran under Article 161 of the Constitution and "the decision of the state cabinet dated September 9, 2018, thereon is final and it can be exercised by Governor of Tamil Nadu as per the aid and advice of the cabinet". The recommendation of the state government remitting the life sentence of the petitioner was sent to the Governor of Tamil Nadu for approval on September 11, 2018, and the same was kept pending with his office for more than two and half years and the recommendation was finally forwarded by the Governor to the President on January 27, 2021, and it still remains undecided for the past one year and nine months, it said. Nalini and Ravichandran had approached the Supreme Court citing the judgment of the top court in the case of co-convict AG Perarivalan where he was released. Earlier, both had knocked the Madras High Court seeking the same relief, however, the High Court had refused to entertain the petition. The Madras High Court while turning down the petition had stated that it did not have special powers that the Supreme Court has under Article 142 of the Constitution. Hence, it cannot order their release, as the Supreme Court did for Perarivalan in May 2022. The High Court had said they could approach the Supreme Court if their plea were based on Perarivalan`s release. Ravichandran, who has been in jail for 30 years now, sought interim bail until his case for formal release reached a conclusion. On May 18, the Supreme Court evoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to release AG Perarivalan, who was one of the seven convicts in the assassination case. Following Perarivalan`s release, Ravichandran sent a letter to Chief Minister MK Stalin seeking the release of the remaining six convicts, including him and mentioned that the Governor has kept the files of release without consideration for over three years which he condemns as an anti-constitutional approach. Deciding Perarivalan`s plea for premature release from jail based on the recommendation made by the Tamil Nadu government in September 2018, the apex court ordered his release, while the six other convicts remain in jail. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber, identified as Dhanu, at a poll rally. RRB Group D 2022 Cutoff Marks: The Railway Recruitment Board released the RRB Group D Answr Key 2022 today, October 14. Candidates who appeared for the RRB Grup D exam 2022 can now download the RRB Answer Key form the official website of regional RRBs or rrbcdg.gov.in. Here's how to Download RRB Group D Answer Key 2022 Visit the website of your regional RRB or rrbcdg.gov.in On the homepage, click on the link to download RRC Group D Answer Key - 'CEN-RRC-01/2019 (PayLevel-1 Posts) : CBT Objection Tracker Weblink to view question-paper, responses, keys and raising of objections (if any) to questions/options/keys' Login into your account using your details RRB Group D Expected Cut-Off Marks RRB has conducted the Group D examination in 5 phases from August to October, 2022 and the dates of the release of the RRB Group D Result 2022 is not announced. As per trends, the board releases the result along with the Railway Group D cut-off marks. After analysing the exam experts have rolled out the expected RRB Group D cut off. RRB Expected Cutoff RRB Ajmer 74-77 RRB Allahabad 75-78 RRB Ahemdabad 72-73 RRB Bhopal 77-79 RRB Bilaspur 72-73 RRB Bhubaneswar 74-77 RRB Chandigarh 76-79 RRB Chennai 72-74 RRB Gorakhpur 75-77 RRB Guwahati 79-81 RRB Kolkata 81-84 RRB Mumbai 69-72 RRB Patna 80-83 RRB Ranchi 78-80 RRB Secunderabad 70-74 Candidates who are not satisfied with the answer key can challenge the RRB Group D Answer key by raising objections from 15 October to 19 October 2022. Candidates will be required to Pay Rs 50 per question to submit their objection. New Delhi: Union Minister and firebrand BJP leader Smriti Irani has made a big attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party for insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modis 100-yar-old mother. Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Irani said that the Gujarat unit of the Aam Aadmi Party insulted the 100-year-old mother of the Prime Minister just for cheap politics ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat. The BJP leader warned that by insulting the PMs mother, the AAP leaders hurt the sentiments of Gujarat and the people there for cheap politics. Gujaratis will teach them a lesson in the elections. Slamming Delhi CM Kejriwal for shielding his Gujarat unit leaders, Irani said, With blessings of Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP leadership in Gujarat maliciously attacked PM's 100-yr-old mother. That Kejriwal could fall to new lows isn't surprising...Her only crime is that she gave birth to PM Narendra Modi. Your (AAP) leaders & workers seek to punish abuse her. With blessings of Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leadership in Gujarat maliciously attacked PM's 100-yr-old mother. That Kejriwal could fall to new lows isn't surprising...Her only crime-she gave birth to Narendra Modi. Your leaders &workers seek to punish&abuse her: Union Min Smriti Irani pic.twitter.com/oaoYXZZF1W ANI (@ANI) October 14, 2022 She alleged that the Gujarat AAP leaders were brazenly using foul language against PM Modis old mother at the behest of Arvind Kejriwal. She alleged that a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat insults a 100-year-old woman because she gave birth to a son who has been discharging his responsibilities of a Pradhan Sevak after getting the blessings of the country twice. Irani warned that Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP will face a humiliating defeat in the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections. I want to tell Arvind Kejriwal Ji today that words fall short, to express anger, but Gujarat and Gujaratis have taken a pledge that they will destroy the Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming elections. Smriti Irani also tweeted a new video of AAP Gujarat chief Gopal Italia and accused him of stooping so low for petty political gains. Irani, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development and Minority Affairs, also called him a 'gutter mouth'. . 100 . AAP . . https://t.co/116fSRtia0 Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) October 13, 2022 Gopal Italia was released three hours after he was arrested by Delhi Police in connection with a video where he used abusive terms for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His arrest triggered a row between the BJP and AAP. Italia was summoned by the NCW after a video of him using derogatory language for Prime Minister Narendra Modi went viral on social media. In the viral video, Italia can be seen berating PM Modi and making casteist remarks about him. Kolkata: Hitting out at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led government over the Mominpur violence, Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Friday alleged that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) wants to remove Hindus from certain areas in Kolkata. "They (TMC) want to remove Hindus from Mominpur, Eqbalpur and Khidirpur. This is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee`s vote bank politics. Hindu vote is going towards BJP and CM Banerjee is taking minority votes by threatening and doing communal campaigns," Adhikari told ANI. Earlier, Adhikari wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Governor La Ganesan demanding an urgent deployment of central forces in the region. "The Hindu community has come under attack in Khidirpore Mominpur area of Kolkata on the eve of Lakshmi Puja," Adhikari, also the leader of the opposition, said in the letter. Also Read: 'Soon, central agencies will pull you out of your house holding your ears': Mamata Banerjee warns BJP He said many shops and bikes belonging to Hindus were vandalised by hooligans and anti-social elements in the violence. "The onslaught has similarities to the Panchla violence which happened in June in the Uluberia area of Howrah district. At that time, the violence spread across West Bengal, especially in Nadia and Murshidabad districts," Adhikari wrote. Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed West Bengal Police to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the Mominpur incident. After the investigation, the SIT will have to submit its report in court. The Calcutta High Court has also directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner to take steps so that there is no further violence. The tensions flared up in Mominpur on Sunday after religious flags put up in the area for the Milad-un-Nabi festival were allegedly torn up, which soon turned violent with the vandalization of several vehicles and shops. Reports said a group of people later in the night surrounded the Ekbalpore police station in protest against the violence and demanding the arrest of the accused. Some police personnel have been reportedly injured. Security has been tightened in the area since then. The West Bengal Police on Monday imposed section 144 in the Ekbalpur area of the state for two days. The two-day curfew (from October 10 to October 12), has been imposed amid the ongoing law and order situation in the region due to the violence that erupted in Mominpur and the ransacking of Ekbalpur police station on Sunday evening. New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the southwest monsoon will withdraw from several parts of India during the coming weeks. According to IMDs latest weather forecast, conditions are very likely to become favourable for the withdrawal of southwest monsoon from some more parts of northwest and central India during the next two to three days. The weather department said that the monsoon is likely to further withdraw from the remaining parts of Gujarat state, some parts of Maharashtra and some parts of east India during the subsequent two days. According to the latest forecast, an isolated Heavy rainfall spell is expected to continue over south Peninsular India during the next five days. The IMD predicted heavy rainfall over southern states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, during the next few days. Heavy rainfall is expected over Andaman and Nicobar Islands till October 17. Check IMDs rainfall prediction here: - Fairly widespread/widespread light/moderate rainfall with isolated heavy falls & thunderstorm/lightning very likely over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry & Karaikal and Kerala & Mahe during 13 th -17 th; Chhattisgarh, Rayalaseema and North Interior Karnataka on 13 th; South Interior Karnataka during 13 th - 15 th & 17th; Coastal Andhra Pradesh on 13th&14th and Coastal Karnataka on 17 th October, 2022. - Fairly widespread/widespread light/moderate rainfall with isolated heavy falls very likely over Andaman & Nicobar Islands during 15th 17th October, 2022. - Fairly widespread/widespread light/moderate rainfall with isolated heavy falls & thunderstorm/lightning very likely over Arunachal Pradesh and Assam & Meghalaya on 13th October, 2022. - Mainly dry weather very likely to prevail over most parts of Northwest India from today, the 13th October onwards. Samastipur: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday declared that he will not realign with the BJP as long as he is alive, accusing the former ally of using investigating agencies for targeting political opponents like RJD president Lalu Prasad. Addressing a function in this north Bihar district, where he inaugurated a government engineering college, Kumar charged the current BJP leadership with arrogance and wistfully recalled the era of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. "They lodged a case against Lalu Ji, which caused me to sever my ties with him. Nothing came of it. And now when we are together again, they are lodging fresh cases. You can figure out the style of functioning of these people," Kumar told the gathering, without mentioning the BJP by name. Prasad was named in an IRCTC land for a hotel scam a few years ago in which his son Tejashwi Yadav, then serving his first tenure as Deputy CM, was also named an accused. This had unsettled Kumar, who sets many stores on his reputation for personal probity, and led to his return to the NDA. The RJD president and his family members were recently charge-sheeted in another land for a jobs scam, about Prasad's tenure as railway minister in the UPA-1 government. Also Read; 'Abused me, my sister...': Tej Pratap accuses general secretary Shyam Rajak, storms out of RJD meet "So different were the leaders of the same party of the past like former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in whose cabinet I had the privilege to work, and LK Advani who was then the Deputy PM. I have fond memories of Murli Manohar Joshi too who honoured my request to upgrade my alma mater, the Bihar Engineering College, as a National Institute of Technology," said Kumar. "In contrast, those currently at the helm of affairs listen to nobody and have scant respect for any person and his or her concerns. I want to assert that I will not go back to them as long as I am alive," said the JD(U) leader, who had dumped the BJP two months ago over accusations of attempts to split his party. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar declares he will not realign with BJP till he is alive, accuses saffron party of using investigating agencies for targeting political opponents like RJD president Lalu Prasad Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) October 14, 2022 Referring to the multi-party 'Mahagathbandhan' he has joined, which includes RJD, Congress and three Left parties, Kumar vowed: "we are all socialists by conviction. We will remain together and work for the progress of the nation". After snapping ties with the BJP, the longest-serving chief minister of Bihar has become a strong votary of "opposition unity" and claims that it would ensure the defeat of the BJP, which at present appears formidable. NEW DELHI: In a first, Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan went Live via Roposo's show 'Red Carpet Premiere'. The actor graced the platform to connect with audience across India, post his latest release 'Vikram Vedha'. The Live interaction was an unfiltered conversation where Hrithik Roshan answered questions sent by Roposo audience. Hrithik is presently basking love and accolades from worldwide viewers for his eccentric performance as 'Vedha' in Pushkar-Gayatri directorial 'Vikram Vedha', alongside Saif Ali Khan. In a heart-to-heart chat with Roposo audience, Hrithik spoke about the importance of family in his life, his favourite song, food, onscreen character from his past films, love for reading and more. In answer to a user asking Hrithik about the importance of family in the actor's life, Roshan said, "Family is Life. It is what makes me - ME. Family are the people I enjoy my life with and to enjoy that life I go to work. I go to work, build things there and bring it back to my world so that I can enjoy it with my people. Family is the most important for me." The actor further emphasized on his philosophy of maintaining a work-life balance and having a strong mindset of not mixing family & work. Pointing out to the fact that Vikram Vedha marks to be Hrithik's 25th film as an actor, he was asked about his most favourite onscreen character. Replying, Hrithik said, "Very very difficult question. If I had to say which is the character that I had the most fun doing, that would be a tough choice between Kabir (War 2019) and Vedha (Vikram Vedha 2022). They both were equally stimulating." Speaking about the activity he enjoys indulging in during his free time, Hrithik shared, "I like to read in my free time. I love finding a place where I can just sit and read. When I read it means that I am stress free, I can't read if I'm in character for my films or attending to work commitments. I can only read when my mind is absolutely free. It's an activity that I cherish." Hrithik who is known to be a disciplined fitness enthusiast, spoke about his favourite food & go-to cheat meal, It has got to be samosa, and specifically the ones that you get in theatres. It's amazing how many I can eat at one time, said the actor. The actor was seen at his candid best as he named and proceeded to sing one of his favourite songs - 'Gore gore banke chhore' sung by Amirbai Karnataki & Lata Mangeshkar from the 1950 film 'Samadhi'. One of Indias most love dancer, Hrithik Roshan said, "If I could dance like Ishaan Khatter, I'd be very happy and proud of myself." Signing off, Hrithik shared "My next film is 'Fighter'. It is starting in November and is directed by Siddharth Anand. Currently I'm prepping for the film and I'm confused & uncertain what can I do with my character. The search is on." By Zhang Zhou and Wang Xinyuan Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a GEO satellite model of Beidou-3 geostationary orbit displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a Chang'e-4 lunar rover model displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the Shenzhou-12 return capsule displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the model of the core cabin of China Space Station displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a tourist exploring space in VR at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows simulated sand plates of a multilevel, 3D remote sensing ecological monitoring system involving a space-air-ground integrated network featuring the coordinated use of space-based satellites, aerial platforms and drones, ground-based monitoring vehicles and observation facilities displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows simulated sand plates of a multilevel, 3D remote sensing ecological monitoring system involving a space-air-ground integrated network featuring the coordinated use of space-based satellites, aerial platforms and drones, ground-based monitoring vehicles and observation facilities displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows simulated sand plates of a multilevel, 3D remote sensing ecological monitoring system involving a space-air-ground integrated network featuring the coordinated use of space-based satellites, aerial platforms and drones, ground-based monitoring vehicles and observation facilities displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows the CyberOne, a full-size humanoid bionic robot, displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a dual-arm cooperative robot displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a set of high-speed maglev train models displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows an unmanned automatic delivery vehicle displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2022 shows a model of smart COVID-19 vaccine production workshop displayed at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China's capital city. An exhibition themed with "Forging Ahead in the New Era" is on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall, showcasing the great achievements and extraordinary reforms and changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade since the 18th CPC National Congress. Independently-developed key products and models that demonstrate the great achievements China made in terms of science and technology level as well as manufacturing capacity are exhibited. (Photo by Zhang Zhou/Guangming Picture) Editor: ZJY NEW DELHI: Mouni Roy, who became a household name for her role in Ekta Kapoor's daily soap 'Naagin', celebrated her first Karwa Chauth with her husband Suraj Nambiar. The actress took to social media and dropped a few glimpses from the festivities, leaving her fans in complete awe. In the images, Mouni looked extremely beautiful in a golden saree which she teamed with red bangles and statement earrings. She styled her hair in a bun and complemented it with red roses. Suraj, on the other hand, was seen in a white kurta pyjama set, and looked handsome. In the first image, Suraj is seen giving a peck on Mouni's cheek. In the next, Mouni looks at Suraj's face through a sieve. She captioned the image writing, "My happy place." Mouni Roy and Suraj Nambiar, an entrepreneur, got married this year on January 27 in Goa. The couple had two ceremonies - per Bengali and South Indian rituals. Her wedding was attended by family and close friends including Mandira Bedi, Aashka Goradia, Meet Bros Manmeet Singh with his wife, Arjun Bijlani, and Rahul from DID fame among others celeb buddies. Suraj is a Dubai-based businessman and banker. He hails from Bangalore and studied investment science and International Management at Stanford University. On the work front, Mouni will be seen in the upcoming film Brahmastra co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt which will be released on September 9. It has been helmed by Ayan Mukerji. Retail investors now have one more option to invest in the nation's development and that too by earning a decent return on their investment. The National Highways Infra Trust (NHAI InvIT), the infrastructure investment trust sponsored by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to support the government's National Monetization Pipeline, has raised Rs 1,430 crore from domestic and international investors through the placement of its units, for part funding its acquisition of three additional road projects from NHAI. In addition to the above, NHAI InvIT has also filed a prospectus with SEBI for the issuance of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) to raise Rs 1,500 crore. The minimum application size would be Rs 10,000 (i.e. 10 NCDs) and thereafter in multiples of Rs 1,000 (i.e. 1 NCD) thereof. Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed that the NHAI InvIT aims to garner Rs 1500 crore from domestic investors through Non-Convertible Debentures or NCDs, which have a long-dated maturity of 24 years. Also Read: FD with Rs 10 lakh life insurance cover: THIS bank offers 7.1 percent interest rate on 3-year fixed deposit "The coupon is 7.9% payable half yearly, which works out to 8.05% interest for the year. While the NCDs are not guaranteed by the government or NHAI, it carries AAA rating from two rating agencies," said Gadkari. The Issue opens on Monday, October 17, 2022 and closes on Monday, November 7, 2022 with an option of early closure. "The proposed issue has a base issue size of Rs 750 crores with an option to retain oversubscription up to Rs 750 crores, aggregating up to Rs 1,500 crores (Issue). The NCDs are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE (collectively, the Stock Exchanges) with BSE as the Designated Stock Exchange for the Issue," said the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways in a statement. Also Read: 'An Insult': Spanish daily slammed for using snake charmer to portray India's economic growth story The Union Road Transport and Highways Minister further said that Government under the National Monetisation Pipeline, plans to monetize assets worth Rs 6 lakh crore, so that the funds raised can be utilised to build new infrastructure. NHAI launched its InvIT last year not only to facilitate the monetisation of roads and also to attract foreign and domestic institutional investors to invest in the roads sector. So far, NHAI InvIT has raised more than Rs 8,000 crore and is now looking to raise additional Rs 2,850 crore. New Delhi: In a remarkable revelation, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the 5G technology in India is completely indigenous, one that is not imported from somewhere else and is the country's own product. She said India can now provide 5G technology to other countries whoever wants it. "Our 5G is not imported from somewhere else and it's our own product. The spread of this is very rapid." ALSO READ | Diwali Bonanza! Union Govt announces BONUS for non-gazetted Central employees "The story is yet to reach the public. The 5G which we have launched in our country is completely indigenous, standalone. There could be some critical parts coming from countries like Korea, but certainly not from somebody else...," Sitharaman said at the John Hopkins University event in Washington. ALSO READ | Flipkart diwali sale 2022 iPhone 13: BIG DISCOUNTS on the iPhone 13 Pro, Mini Sitharaman said the private companies that have made this product have said by 2024 end most of the country will be able to avail of this technology. "On 5G we can be immensely proud of India's achievement." Ushering in a new technological era, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services this month. Industry leaders expressed their views on this historic occasion. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the Prime Minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India. Addressing the gathering the Prime Minister said that the Summit might be global but its repercussions and directions are local. "Today, 130 crore Indians are getting a wonderful gift in the form of 5G from the country and from the telecom industry of the country. 5G is a knock on the doors of a new era in the country. "5G is the beginning of an infinite sky of opportunities. I congratulate every Indian for this", he added. He noted with satisfaction that in this launch of 5G and the march of technology, rural areas and workers are equal partners. Stressing one more message of the 5G launch, the Prime Minister said" New India will not remain a mere consumer of technology, but India will play an active role in the development and implementation of that technology. India will play a big role in designing the future wireless technology, and manufacturing related to it. The Prime Minister pointed out that India was dependent on other countries for 2G, 3G and 4G technologies. But with 5G, India has created a new history, he said. 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 five questions and its answer for October 14, 2022: 1. World No.1 Iga Swiatek has recently withdrawn from a team competition named after which legend due to a scheduling clash with the WTA finals? Answer: Billie Jin King 2. The movie 'Goodbye' starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rashmika Mandanna is directed by whom? Answer: Vikas Bahl 3. A day before Dussehra a new temple in Jebel Ali officially opened. Jebel Ali is located in which country? Answer: UAE 4. This is the famous Euromast located in which city? Answer: Rotterdam 5. What was the first name of the founder of this brand, and after whom it is named? Answer: Ferdinand How to play the quiz? - Open the Amazon app. - Click on the search bar. - Search Fun zone. - Click on the Amazon daily quiz option available at the bottom of the fun zone. New Delhi: Garena Free Fire releases redeem codes on an everyday basis. The 12-digit redeem code consists of alphabets and numbers. Players can get rewards such as skins for in-game weapons and characters to improve their gaming experience. ALSO READ | Microsoft Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9 Tablet launched in India- Check all specs and details, in PICS Garena Free fire is banned in India. However, if you are located outside India, you can access the reward codes and redeem them. For that you will be required to visit official Garena Free Fire reward site and log in to your Facebook, Google, and Twitter IDs to access the Free Fire redemption page. Check out the Garena Free Fire Redeem Codes for October 14, 2022 GCNVA2PDRGRZ 8F3QZKNTLWBZ SARG886AV5GR J3ZKQ57Z2P2P FF7MUY4ME6SC X99TK56XDJ4X WEYVGQC3CT8Q 3IBBMSL7AK8G B3G7A22TWDR7X 4ST1ZTBE2RP9 FF9MJ31CXKRG FFCO8BS5JW2D FFAC2YXE6RF2 FFICJGW9NKYT ALSO READ | Diwali Bonanza! Union Govt announces BONUS for non-gazetted Central employees How to Redeem Garena Free Fire codes for today, October 14, 2022 Step 1: Go to the official Garena Free Fire redemption portal Step 2: Log in on the portal with either your Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, VK, or Huawei ID. Step 3: Enter a redeem code in the designated text box. Step 4: Click on the Ok button to get free rewards in your game account. (Disclaimer: Garena Free fire is banned in India. Hence we advise people to adhere to government rules) In a move that may further boost production of iPhones in India, the Cupertino-tech giant is planning to move its assembly businesses outside China amid the rising geo-political tensions between the US and China. According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's plan may see Tata Group partner with Pegatron or Wistron thus boosting Apple's iPhone assembly capacity in India. Ming-Chi Kuo said that at present, 80 per cent of iPhone are manufactured in India is to meet domestic demand. "Apple's global supply chain management strategy continues to change in response to the de-globalization trend, mainly to reduce the assembly business in China...According to Apple's plan, the Indian company Tata Group may cooperate with Pegatron or Wistron in the future to develop the iPhone assembly business. More than 80% of the iPhones made in India (by Foxconn) are currently to meet domestic demand," he said. The analyst further added that the potential cooperation of Tata Group and Pegatron or Wistron can accelerate the increase in the proportion of non-China iPhone production. Also Read: Flipkart Diwali Sale 2022: Get Apple iPhone 11 at effective price of Rs 17,090 or less Ming-Chi Kuo further said that the main non-China production site for MacBook maybe Thailand in the future. Currently, all MacBooks are assembled in China. He said that in the next three to five years, around 25-30 per cent supply of Apple products to the US market could be from assembly sites located in the non-China region. This will reduce potential impacts from political risks including the US-China tariff war. (1/6) Apple's global supply chain management strategy continues to change in response to the de-globalization trend, mainly to reduce the assembly business in China. Here are the latest major survey updates. October 11, 2022 "In the long run: (1) The non-Chinese markets will be supplied by assembly sites located in non-China, while the Chinese market will be supplied by assembly sites located in China. (2) Assemblers can conduct NPI (new product introduction) in China and non-China," said the analyst. According to a Nikkei Asia report, Apple is already asking its suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India. It reported that iPhone assembler Foxconn is working to make Beats headphones in India and gradually may start producing AirPods here as well. New Delhi: Over the years, even though smart devices have gained traction, there exist compatibility issues between brands that ultimately cause headaches for users. According to GSM Arena, with the Matter protocol aiming to make it easier to control a smart home that has a mix of devices from different makers, a major step forward toward that goal has now been announced. In order to resolve compatibility problems, Samsung and Google have agreed to build a bridge between SmartThings and Google Home devices. That bridge is built on Matter`s multi-admin feature, which allows different apps to connect to one or more devices and control them. (Also Read: How much RADIATION your smartphone emits? Are you SAFE? Find out by just dialling THIS number) This means that a device set up in Google Home will also appear in the SmartThings app and vice versa, so users no longer have to remember which app controls the lights and which controls the smart speakers, reported GSM Arena. This will also free users up to buy the smart device they want rather than looking for one that uses the same app/ecosystem as the rest of their smart home. (Also Read: Video of an idli ATM vending idlis goes viral, Netizens go crazy-- watch video here) As long as a device supports the Matter protocol, users will be able to control and automate it with either Samsung`s SmartThings or Google`s Home, whichever app they prefer. Google and Samsung are not the only supporters of Matter as the list includes Amazon, Ikea, LG, Midea, Tuya, and several others, as per GSM Arena. Sydney: A 28-year-old Indian student has been stabbed multiple times in the face, chest and abdomen in Australia by a man who allegedly demanded cash, authorities said. The incident took place on October 6 at about 10.30 pm, as Shubham Garg walked along the Pacific Highway, NSW Police Force said in a statement on Monday. Police have arrested Daniel Norwood and the 27-year-old suspect is charged with attempted murder after Garg, allegedly suffered multiple stab wounds to the face, chest and abdomen, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. The man (Garg) suffered multiple stab wounds to his face, chest, and abdomen; he sought assistance from a nearby house before being taken to Royal North Shore Hospital. The man underwent surgery and remains there in a serious but stable condition, the NSW Police Force statement said. Garg was approached by an unknown man near the Pacific Highway Lane Cove on Thursday. The unknown man allegedly threatened him while demanding cash, In The Cove newspaper reported. The man refused and was allegedly stabbed a number of times in the abdomen before the assailant fled, the report added. The emergency services were called. The North Shore Police Area Command attended and located the injured man and established a crime scene, it said. Officers attached to North Shore Police Area Command have been investigating the stabbing and formed Strike Force Prosy, it said. Following extensive inquiries by Strike Force Prosy detectives, a search warrant was executed on a home on the Pacific Highway at Greenwich at about 3.40 pm on Sunday. Norwood, of Gosford, who was arrested at the scene and was taken to Chatswood Police Station, where he was charged with one count of attempted murder after the alleged stabbing, the statement said. A number of items were seized from the home and have been taken for forensic examination, it said. He was refused bail and appeared at Hornsby Local Court on Monday and will remain in custody with the next court appearance. The Police Media Unit advised the following to In The Cove, We can confirm the men are not believed to have known each other before the incident. New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the CICA event at Kazakhstan's capital Astana. It was the sixth CICA event. After attending the summit Putin spoke tot he reporters on various topics, including NATO, Joe Biden, and whether he is willing to join the G20 summit or not. The Russian President said that he saw "no need" for talks with US President Joe Biden. He further added that he has not yet taken any decision on attending a Group of 20 summits in Bali, Indonesia next month, and a direct clash of NATO troops with Russia would lead to a "global catastrophe." President Putin says he expects a call-up of army reservists he ordered to supplement his country's troops in Ukraine to reach the target number of recruits in two weeks, allowing him to end the hugely unpopular call-up. Following a summit in Kazakhstan, he announced that 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists set as a goal had been mobilised. According to him, 33,000 of them are already in military units, and 16,000 are engaged in combat. The call-up, which Putin announced in September as his forces lost occupied territory to a Ukrainian counteroffensive, has sparked public outrage in Russia, where nearly all men under the age of 65 are registered as reservists. Simultaneously, Russian nationalists have criticised the Kremlin's handling of the war, putting more pressure on Putin to do more to turn the tide in Russia's favour. Despite Putin and other top officials claiming that the mobilisation would affect 300,000 people, the presidential decree authorising the draught did not specify a figure. Also Read: Indian student stabbed multiple times in Australia, attacker held; Indian consulate assisting for visa to kin According to Russian media reports, the actual number could be as high as 1.2 million reservists. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, a classified clause of the decree contained the number of people the authorities intend to mobilise, among other details. Russian President Putin says that any direct clash of NATO troops with Russia would lead to a "global catastrophe": Reuters pic.twitter.com/QFiapU3heO ANI (@ANI) October 14, 2022 (With agencies inputs) Seoul: North Korea on Friday fired a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) and about 170 artillery shots into maritime "buffer zones" set under a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction accord, the Seoul military said. The provocative move came after more than 10 North Korean warplanes staged menacing flights close to the inter-Korean border, prompting the South Korean Air Force to scramble its F-35A stealth fighters and other assets to the scene, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JCS said it detected the SRBM launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 1.49 a.m., and that the missile flew some 700 km at an apogee of 50 km at a top speed of about Mach 6, reports Yonhap news Agency. It also detected the North`s firing of some 130 artillery shots into the Yellow Sea from Majang-dong, Hwanghae province, between 1.20 a.m. and 1.25 a.m., and of some 40 artillery shots into the East Sea from Gueup-ri, Gangwon province, between 2.57 a.m. and 3.07 a.m. The artillery shots landed in eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border, which were delineated under the two Koreas` Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) signed on September 19, 2018, to reduce tensions. The North`s Korean People`s Army said later that it took "strong countermeasures" in response to what it claims to be a 10-hour-long South Korean artillery exercise. In response to the latest provocation, South Korea said Friday it has put 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions on its blacklist in its first unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang in nearly five years. The people on the new list include officials at shipping firms and organisations related to the North`s missile program, as well as those involved in the procurement of supplies for weapons of mass destruction. "We strongly condemn North Korea for staging a series of missile provocations with unprecedented frequency recently and suggesting the use of tactical nukes against us," the Foreign Ministry said. This marks the first time the South Korean government has slapped sanctions on the North since 2017, following Pyongyang`s sixth nuclear test. It is the first set of sanctions against the North since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in May. The shareholders of Alfa-Bank Ukraine confirm their readiness to capitalize it by $1 billion, however, in the event of a decision by the government or the National Bank on the need to transfer control in the bank to the state or another shareholder, they are ready to donate its shares, according to a letter from co-owner of the bank Mikhail Fridman to NBU Governor Andriy Pyshny. "In our opinion, private investment is the best option ... At the same time, if the government or the National Bank is inclined to the decision that Alfa-Bank Ukraine should be controlled by the state or another shareholder, we are ready to transfer the bank's shares free of charge," the statement says. Fridman explains the need for such an appeal with a coordinated media attack against the bank and loud statements in the press about its future, causing concern for customers. According to him, meetings of the bank's representatives with the EU regulatory authorities are to be held in Brussels in October regarding the possibility of practical implementation of additional capitalization by $1 billion at the expense of funds frozen by sanctions. "We believe that in this situation this is an absolutely correct, loyal, responsible behavior in relation to the bank, clients, the country, taking into account the investments necessary to restore the infrastructure of Ukraine. The entire banking system will inevitably face the need for additional capitalization. The question is at whose expense this will be done - private investors or the state," Fridman said. In his opinion, such additional capitalization will be a good and bold example for other investors. "I would like to note that we have never identified investments in the bank's capital with the lifting of personal sanctions. We are very sorry that the information was distorted in Ukraine," Alfa-Bank Ukraine's shareholder added. At the same time, he said that the shareholders would respect the decision of the state authorities to transfer control over the bank to the state or another shareholder and would not appeal the decision in the courts. "We will do our best to make the transition period seamless for customers," Fridman stressed. He recalled that over 20 years of operation of Alfa-Bank of Ukraine, its shareholders have invested more than $1 billion in the bank without paying a single hryvnia of dividends. Rebels on the backbenches of the UK's governing Conservative Party are said to be plotting to replace Liz Truss as party leader and Prime Minister with a so-called "unity" joint ticket team involving former leadership rival Rishi Sunak, it emerged on Friday. It comes as a YouGov poll for the ?The Times' found that almost half of Tory party supporters believe the party chose the wrong candidate in the leadership election. The poll found that among those who voted for the Conservatives at the last election, 62 per cent said that party members had made the wrong choice when the race was shortlisted between Truss and Sunak, compared with 15 per cent who said they had got it right. It has led panicked Tory members of Parliament to start considering alternatives in the candidates who secured the most votes within the parliamentary party, the 42-year-old British Indian former Chancellor, who was the frontrunner with his colleagues, and Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, who came in third. The government, meanwhile, is reeling from the impact of the controversial mini-budget at the end of last month, with UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng flying back from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington a day earlier than planned. While further U-turns on the tax-cutting plans are expected following crunch meetings at 10 Downing Street, the Tory backbenchers are said to be weighing up the prospect of changing the party leader yet again. Given that Truss, 47, technically cannot face a leadership challenge unless until 12 months unless the powerful 1922 Committee of backbench MPs vote to change their rules, MPs are said to be considering the possibility of rallying behind a joint team of Sunak and Mordaunt where the former is the Prime Minister and the latter his Deputy. Another option is for Mordaunt, 49, to take over as party leader and Prime Minister and Sunak as Chancellor, given his track record in office at the Treasury and that he had warned of much of the turmoil that has since unleashed under Truss. A coronation won't be that hard to arrange,? a senior Tory was quoted as saying in ?The Times'. The party believes a pact is possible between Sunak, who lost to Truss in the party membership vote 57 to 43 per cent, and Mordaunt who came in third in the early stage of the voting among MPs and then threw her support behind Truss. However, former prime minister Boris Johnson loyalists have condemned such plotting as anti-democratic by disgruntled Sunak backers. No offence to Sunak or Mordaunt but government is not a game of spin the bottle, where if you don't like the result you can just keep spinning again,? tweeted Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a fierce Johnson loyalist. Those absurdly called grandee MPs (men) agitating to remove Liz Truss are all Sunak supporters. They agitated to remove Boris Johnson and now they will continue plotting until they get their way. It's a plot not to remove a PM but to overturn democracy,? she said. It comes a day after UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly fired a warning shot for rebels that it would be a ?disastrously bad idea? to think about replacing Truss as the Tory leader, just over a month after she was elected by the party membership. I think that changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but also economically, and we are absolutely going to stay focused on growing the economy,? he said. JSC Ukrtelecom has ordered production of a significant number of Valkyrja unmanned aerial systems and has already handed over the first three of them to the Ukrainian military. According to open data, the cost of one such complex is about $18,100. "After completing training at the manufacturer's base, we are ready to perform combat missions aerial reconnaissance and artillery fire adjustment day and night. Valkyrja systems are our eyes that see and report on the movement of the enemy without the need to approach him directly, which means they save lives Ukrainian soldiers," a representative of the Ukrainian Armed Forces unit that received the equipment was quoted in a statement released by the operator on Friday. Starting today, Valkyrja systems will begin to carry out combat missions at the front. Under martial law, the Ukrtelecom team is making every effort to ensure uninterrupted communications for our defenders today the level of accessibility of Internet services is about 90% of pre-war coverage settlements. "Ukrtelecom has systematically helped and will continue to help the Ukrainian army. We have already allocated about UAH 50 million to support the combat capability of our defenders. And now we are handing over to the Ukrainian army the first batch of equipment from a Ukrainian manufacturer three Valkyrja complexes," the company's CEO Yuriy Kurmaz commented on the transfer of drones. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrtelecom has acquired and donated almost 3,000 tactical first aid kits, 4,000 medical tourniquets, 2,000 hemostatic bandages and dressings, 50 stretchers, 23 generators, more than 180 walkie-talkies, more than 100 active satellite phones suitable for uninterrupted use, as well as many other necessary things and equipment for the needs of our defenders. Also, 171 vehicles of the company were handed over to the military. In the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, about 350 employees of Ukrtelecom protect the Ukrainian land. Joint stock company Ukrtelecom is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Ukraine. Since 2013, Ukrtelecom has joined Rinat Akhmetov's SCM business. Deficit of Ukraine's foreign trade in goods in Sept 2022 down to $500 mln - Customs Service The deficit of Ukraine's trade in goods in September this year amounted to $502 million, which is 32.5% less than in September last year ($744 million), the State Customs Service reported. According to its data, exports of goods in September fell by 35.6% compared to last year, to $4.12 billion, while imports fell by 35.3%, to $4.62 billion. Geographically, in trade with the EU, exports even grew by 5.8%, to $2.78 billion, while imports decreased by 12.7%, to $2.35 billion. At the same time, imports from the CIS countries fell 13.5 times, to $130 million, and exports - 3.9 times, to $170 million, resulting in a positive balance - to $40 million. With other countries, imports decreased by 21%, to $2.14 billion, while exports decreased by 62.4% to $1.17 billion, resulting in a negative balance of $980 million. In August this year, the deficit of foreign trade in goods, according to the State Customs Service, amounted to $1.23 billion against $50 million of surplus in August last year. In general, over the nine months of 2022, the deficit of Ukraine's foreign trade in goods increased 2.6 times - to $6.10 billion, as imports fell by 22.4% - to $39.19 billion, while exports - by 31.4%, to $33.09 billion. The State Customs Service indicated that the countries of largest imports to Ukraine in January-September this year were China - $5.8 billion, Poland - $3.8 billion and Germany - $3.3 billion, while the largest export was recorded to Poland - $5.1 billion, Romania - $2.6 billion, Turkey - $2.2 billion. Most of all, according to the agency, the following categories of goods were imported to Ukraine: machinery, equipment and transport - $10.9 billion, fuel and energy products - $9.7 billion and chemical products - $7.1 billion. The top three most exported goods from Ukraine included food products - $16 billion, metals and metal products - $5.1 billion, machinery, equipment and transport - $3.3 billion. The Cabinet of Ministers approved the budget of the Pension Fund of Ukraine for 2022. As the representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Verkhovna Rada Taras Melnychuk said in his Telegram channel, the decision was made at a government meeting on Friday. The total amount of the revenue budget is set in the amount of UAH 594.4 billion, of which own income is UAH 386.5 billion. The total amount of expenditure is projected at UAH 594.4 billion. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Valeriy Zaluzhny notes the importance of increasing the firepower of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and creating an integrated air and missile defense system in the current situation at the front. "As for the battlefield situation. It's complicated but controlled. The enemy has artillery superiority, the issue of increase of the fire capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is still relevant. The issue of the integrated air missile defense system development is also essential," Zaluzhny wrote on Facebook on Thursday evening following a telephone conversation with US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that he had discussed with the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States the results of the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein format, which took place on October 12. "Grateful to Partner Nations for support of Ukraine and military assistance due to which we successfully counter Russia. Thanks to General Milley for his leadership in this essential endeavor," he said. Zaluzhny also said that Milley conveyed congratulations to all Ukrainian military on the upcoming Defenders Day of Ukraine. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky considers the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to recognize Russia as a terrorist state "a political signal." "We have a powerful response from PACE, which is the first international organization to designate the current regime in Russia as terrorist. It is very important that this is a political signal. A signal to all states members of the Council of Europe and all states of the world, that there is nothing to talk about with this terrorist group, which appropriated Russia and unleashed the most heinous war in Europe in 80 years," he said in a video message on Thursday. "The world sees what is happening. It knows the price of the farce that Russia staged in the occupied territory under the guise of sham referenda. A total of 143 UN member states supported the resolution, which protects the basic principles of the UN Charter and condemns Russia for the criminal attempt to annex our territory," he said. "This is a record number of states supporting Ukraine today. But I believe that there will be more," the president said. "We do not relax! We beat the enemy! We follow the safety rules! We listen to the air alarm signal! And we do everything to strengthen Ukraine!" he said. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called for the creation of an International Red Cross Mission in Ukraine on the model of the IAEA Mission. "The mission of the Red Cross can work on the model of the mission of the IAEA. But this requires leadership. Conscientiousness is required. Understanding of who and why created such an institution as the Red Cross is required," he said in a video message on Thursday. "Today, an important meeting of our team, which deals with the issue of the release of prisoners, took place in the online format with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations related to this process. Very important things were said. In particular, those concerning the institutional work of the Red Cross to guarantee the safety of those held in Russian captivity," he said. "I believe that the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a club with privileges where they get paid and enjoy life. The Red Cross has obligations, primarily of a moral nature. The mandate of the Red Cross must be fulfilled," Zelensky said. "It is necessary to immediately do what is completely logical for the Red Cross. There is Olenivka. In fact, a concentration camp where our prisoners are kept. Access to them is required, as it was stipulated. The Red Cross can make it happen. But you have to try to make it happen. Ukraine is ready to facilitate this," he stressed. Ukraine denies allegations by Russia of allegedly planning or taking actions against energy infrastructure in Europe, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. "Russia's attempts to persuade European governments to make concessions, including the lifting of sanctions, with the energy blackmail have been defeated. Demands to pay for gas in rubles, stoppage of gas supply due to allegedly 'technical' reasons and other methods did not have any success. Instead, Europe showed strength and began fast diversification and refusal of the blackmailer's energy resources. Therefore, Putin decided to move from blackmail to terrorism physical damage to the energy infrastructure. His goal is to disrupt supply routes and issue an ultimatum: launch Nord Stream 2 because you have no other choice. Public hints of such a scenario have already been heard from Russian officials," according to a commentary published by the ministry's press service. "Ukraine constantly monitors Russian actions that show signs of preparation for the implementation of this strategy, and informs its partners about them. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly warned about Russia's preparations for possible damage to the Ukrainian gas transport infrastructure, in particular under the pretext of provocations on the territory of Russia itself, in order to force Germany to launch Nord Stream 2. We also have information on possible similar plans of Russia regarding the Turkish Stream," the ministry said. "Part of the Kremlin's strategy is its obsessive accusations of Ukraine and other Western countries of allegedly planning or carrying out actions against the energy infrastructure. Ukraine categorically rejects such accusations and calls on its partners not to succumb to Russia's manipulations and attempts to accuse others of its own terrorist actions. This is an informational cover for the malicious plans of Russia itself. In this context, we consider the false statements about the alleged detention of saboteurs who planned to damage the Turkish Stream as part of the Russian disinformation strategy," the commentary said. The Ukrainian side insists that the only way partners can prevent the Russian energy terrorism is to take a firm position now and publicly declare that there will be no conditions for the launch of Nord Stream 2 or the lifting of sanctions from Russia. "We urge our partners not to delay sending a clear message to Moscow that will make it abandon its terrorist plans. By remaining firm and united, we will defeat Russian energy terrorism just as its energy blackmailing has been defeated," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. By Trend The program for informing the population in the field of energy efficiency will be presented to the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan by the end of November 2022, Expert on sustainable energy policy at COWI international consulting group specializing in engineering, ecology and economics Bilyana Chobanova told Trend. "The project began in February this year. It's aimed at supporting the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan in the development of energy efficiency acts. COWI has developed rules for the certification of buildings and the labeling of electrical appliances. Trainings were held for civil servants in June. At yesterday's training, the group discussed how an information campaign on energy efficiency should be developed, and what ideas should be conveyed to the population. COWI will prepare a program for the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan to inform the population about the importance of energy efficiency by the end of November," she said. According to her, the project concerns not only Baku but also the regions of the country. "After Azerbaijan adopted a law on energy efficiency, the interest of donors to participate in such projects has increased significantly," she said. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated the Ukrainian military on Ukraine's Defenders Day. "You are fighting for Ukraine, independence and freedom for all subsequent generations. Absolute heroes. Upper class. Our defenders," Zelensky wrote on the Telegram channel on Friday morning. In turn, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny also congratulated the military on Ukraine's Defenders Day. "The 2022 winter is already a part of world history. We withstood a powerful enemy blow. We showed what it means to be a Ukrainian, to have courage to fight for your freedom," Zaluzhny wrote on the Telegram channel. He noted that "in fierce battles, under the steel rain of Russian shells, we held on to every piece of our land. We stopped the hostile invasion and buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army." "And now we are returning ours. Nobody and nothing will stop us. We have chosen the path of warriors and are moving forward. The whole world is looking at us enthusiastically and with hope. Congratulations on the holiday and thank you for your service!" the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said. Repaired Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH2000) self-propelled artillery mounts are returning to Ukraine, Lithuanian Minister of National Defense Arvydas Anusauskas said. "PzH2000 repaired in Lithuania are being returned to the battlefield in Ukraine. Good luck!" he said on Twitter. Earlier, the minister said that the repair of self-propelled 155 mm PzH2000 artillery mounts, which Germany had previously transferred to Ukraine, would be carried out by the Lithuanian side. Deteriorating morale, discipline and combat readiness of Russian troops in combat zones could lead to the suspension of offensive operations, according to a report by Western analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Analysts believe that Russian units are increasingly degrading, holding relatively small and insignificant settlements throughout Donetsk region, in particular in Bakhmut district. "As these units become more degraded, they are likely reconstituted ad hoc with disparate combat elements, which leads to further demoralization and incoherence in the conduct of offensive operations," the report notes. Russian attempts to seize additional territory are likely to contribute even more to lower morale and to the general exhaustion of combat capabilities. In addition, disagreements between Russian military groups continue. The creator of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is trying to mark his militants at the front. On Thursday, he said his unit had single-handedly taken control of Ivanhrad, a village south of Bakhmut. In turn, the "DPR" militants stated that they had taken the settlement together with the "LPR" grouping. They also claimed to have taken over Opytne. Prigozhin said that fighting continues in Opytne. IAEA head announces moving to creation of security zone for ZNPP after visits to Ukraine, Russia IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi positively assessed the results of the latest consultations with Ukraine and Russia on the creation of a security zone around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (NPP). "Moving closer to the establishment of a protection zone for Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant the plant's situation is untenable and we need immediate action to protect it," he tweeted after visiting Ukraine and upon his arrival in Poland on Friday, where he had a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. The day before, Grossi recalled that his return visit to Kyiv after talks in St. Petersburg with Russian President Vladimir Putin was agreed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he had met a week earlier. In turn, Kuleba, at a meeting with the IAEA head, reiterated Ukraine's position that Russia should withdraw from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to ensure its nuclear safety. In case of a real nuclear threat from Russia, the aggressor country will receive a response from the world, and the Russian authorities understand this, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podoliak said in an interview with the German publication Bild, according to the press service of the President's Office. "NATO is monitoring everything that is going on in Russia with nuclear weapons. And NATO categorically warns Russia that even if there is an attempt to use nuclear weapons, there will be a response. Today, Russia is gradually reducing its rhetorical threats with nuclear weapons. There is a protocol according to which nuclear states operate," he said. Podoliak said that the world is already doing a lot to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons, in particular, warning statements have been made by U.S. President Joseph Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also called on Russia to immediately stop the rhetoric on nuclear threats. The adviser to the Head of the President's Office noted that Russia invaded the territory of Ukraine with conventional weapons, and the Ukrainian troops launched a counteroffensive and repelled the Russian army also with conventional weapons. "Russia says, 'If Ukraine does not allow us to leave the territories that we have invaded and which we cannot hold with conventional weapons, we will use nuclear weapons'," Podoliak said. "This is how a nuclear state threatens a non-nuclear state. If Russia is not stopped now, other countries will abandon the NPT [the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons], since any war against a nuclear state will lead to losses. These countries will try to find nuclear weapon components on the black market or elsewhere. Russia not only threatens Ukraine, it breaks the key element of global security," he said. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) asks for immediate access to all prisoners of the war between Russian and Ukraine, including those held in the colony in Olenivka in the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region, and says that it has not received access to a number of detention facilities. "We share the frustration regarding our lack of access to all prisoners of war (POWs) held in the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We have been working since February to obtain access to check on the conditions and treatment of POWs and keep their families informed about their loved ones. We have been able to visit hundreds of POWs but there are thousands more who we have not been able to see," the ICRC said in a statement posted on its website on Friday. "The Third Geneva Convention obliges parties to an international armed conflict to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) immediate access to all POWs, and the right to visit them wherever they are held. We want to stress that our teams are ready on the ground and have been ready for months to visit the Olenivka penal facility and any other location where POWs are held. However, beyond being granted access by high levels of authority, this requires practical arrangements to materialize on the ground. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted," it said. All States that have committed to respect the Geneva Conventions have a legal obligation to give the ICRC access to visit POWs. "It also helps preserve humanity in an international armed conflict that has created immeasurable loss for countless families. Our mission can only be achieved through coordinated efforts with parties to the conflict. And we ask them and the international community to support the role we have been given," the ICRC said. As reported, on October 13, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called for the creation of an International Red Cross Mission in Ukraine on the model of the IAEA Mission. "I believe that the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a club with privileges where they get paid and enjoy life. The Red Cross has obligations, primarily of a moral nature. The mandate of the Red Cross must be fulfilled," Zelensky said. "It is necessary to immediately do what is completely logical for the Red Cross. There is Olenivka. In fact, a concentration camp where our prisoners are kept. Access to them is required, as it was stipulated. The Red Cross can make it happen. But you have to try to make it happen. Ukraine is ready to facilitate this," he stressed. JYSK, a chain of furniture and home goods stores, opened a new store in Rivne at the Happy Mall shopping center (5, Bachynskoho Street) on Friday, October 14, the retailer's press service told Interfax-Ukraine. This is the second store of the chain in Rivne, it meets the standards of the 3.0 concept, its area is 1,239 sq. m. "Despite the martial law, JYSK continues to open new stores, update the activities of temporarily closed stores, of course, only where it is safe for staff and customers. This year and next year we will continue to develop to be closer to the domestic buyer," Yevhen Ivanitsa, country manager of JYSK in Ukraine, said. According to the press service, JYSK plans to open a store in Ivano-Frankivsk at the end of 2022. Recently, a lease agreement was signed with the Karavan Outlet shopping center in Kyiv, the opening of which is scheduled for February 2023. The restoration of the JYSK store in the Riviera shopping center in Odesa, which was seriously damaged by a missile strike in the spring of 2022, has also begun. Its opening is scheduled for the end of the calendar year. The JYSK network began to develop in Ukraine as a b2c business in 2004. This is the third JYSK opening since February 24, 2022, at the moment the JYSK network has 81 stores in Ukraine. As of February 24, 2022, 85 chain stores were operating. The Russian occupation forces launched three missile and ten air strikes against Ukraine in the past 24 hours, as well as mounted up to ten shelling attacks using multiple rocket launch systems, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) said on Facebook in the updates on Russia's invasion of Ukraine as of 18:00 on Friday. "The enemy does not stop to mount attacks on the critical infrastructure and civilian objects in our country. In the past 24 hours, the infrastructure and civilians in Kostiantynivka, Chumaky, Lebedynske, Zaporizhia, Davydiv Brid, Myrne and Ochakiv suffered. The enemy used cruise, aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and Iranian-made drones for the attacks," it said. South Sinai and the Greater Cairo area will enjoy warm daytime temperatures while Upper Egypt will see warmer ones through the weekend, according to the Egyptian Meteorology Authority (EMA). Egypts Ministry of Finance announced on Tuesday that the delegations participating in the 27th session of the United Nations Conference on Climate change (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh in November will be exempted from taxes on entering the country. By Trend Intensive working meetings of the delegation of MUSIAD [Independent Industrialists and Businessmen's Association] Azerbaijan in Uzbekistan continue, Trend reports on October 14 via the association. Within the framework of the visit, the delegation headed by MUSIAD Azerbaijans Deputy Board Chairman Sait Yinanc held meetings with representatives of official structures and businessmen. During the visit to MUSIAD Uzbekistan, issues of mutual cooperation were discussed with the Board Chairman Serdar Kelebek and the board members. Then a meeting was held with the Deputy Chairman of the Entrepreneurship Development Agency under the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction of Uzbekistan Ilkhom Kholpayev and businessmen. A meeting was also held with the Deputy Board Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan Farhodjon Toshpulatov and businessmen, information was exchanged, and meetings were held in the B2B [business-to-business] format. At all three meetings, issues of joint investments and enterprises, and projects that can be implemented by businessmen working in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan were put on the agenda, and the first meetings were held. Besides, during the visit, acquaintance with the textile exhibition of Uzbekistan took place. Russia's forces occupying Ukraine's southern Black Sea region of Kherson have suffered serious territorial losses to Kyiv's troops over recent days, maps published by Moscow's defence ministry showed Tuesday. The maps included in Tuesday's daily military briefing showed that Russian forces were no longer in control of the village of Dudchany on the west bank of the river Dnieper, where Ukraine's forces have been pushing to reclaim territory captured at the start of Moscow's offensive. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, defence ministry maps showed that Russian forces have left positions on the west bank of the Oskil river, in the aftermath this month of a counter-offensive by Kyiv's army. The Ukrainian military claimed in a statement Tuesday that Russian forces in Kherson are "demoralised" and were falling back on their positions, destroying ammunition depots and bridges in their wake. "All this in order to slow down the offensive of our troops," the defence ministry said in their statement. Ukraine's deputy interior minister Yevhen Enin said Tuesday that Ukraine's forces had recaptured 50 towns and villages in Kherson, without specifying when. Kyiv's forces have been slowly clawing back territory in Kherson for several weeks but the advance has accelerated in recent days. With a population of one million before the war, Kherson is a key agricultural area and forms the gateway to the Crimean peninsula. Its main city, also named Kherson, was one of the first to fall to Russian forces after they launched what the Kremlin calls its "special military operations" in February. The Kremlin last week formally annexed the region along with three others even though Russian troops do not fully control it. Search Keywords: Short link: Ukraine said Thursday it had recaptured swathes of fresh territory from Russian troops as Kyiv urged Europe to help its forces expel Moscow's army once and for all. The proclaimed wins in the southern region of Kherson are the latest in a series of Russian defeats undermining the Kremlin's claim to have annexed around 20 percent of Ukraine. Russian missiles early on Thursday struck the central city of Zaporizhzhia, killing several civilians, as rescue workers clawed through rubble with their bare hands searching for survivors, AFP journalists saw. "The Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated more than 400 square kilometres of the Kherson region since the beginning of October," southern army command spokeswoman Natalia Gumeniuk said in a briefing online. She said that the recaptured territory was home to nearly 30 towns and villages that had been occupied by Russian forces for months. Kherson, a region with an estimated pre-war population of around one million people, was captured early and easily by Moscow's troops after their invasion launched February 24. Russian-installed officials have renewed a call for residents to remain calm, with deputy pro-Moscow leader Kirill Stremousov saying Kremlin forces were holding back the advance. Addressing a meeting in Prague of European heads of state, President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Western capitals to supply his army with more weapons "to punish the aggressor". He said Ukraine must fend off Moscow's invasion "so that Russian tanks do not advance on Warsaw or again on Prague". 'Pure hatred' The EU imposed its latest round of sanctions on Russia, expanding bans on trade and individuals over Moscow's formal annexation last Friday of four Ukrainian regions. On Thursday, seven Russian missiles struck downtown Zaporizhzhia just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the artillery battles of the southern front. A woman, whose body was carefully removed from the rubble by rescuers, looked as though she had been asleep in bed when the building around her was destroyed. "For the first time in my life, I feel pure hatred," said Igor Osolodko, a 25-year-old musician, one of dozens of volunteer rescuers. "It's absurd, it's unreal. We need to rely on our army and cope with this terror until it's all over, until we win," he said. Ukraine's military has also said it is reclaiming territory in the eastern Lugansk and Donetsk regions, that have been partially controlled by Kremlin proxies since 2014. Ukrainian forces have made gains on the west bank of the river Dnieper that cuts through Kherson, but the Russian military in a briefing said Thursday that its forces rebuffed "repeated attempts to break through our defences" in the area. Further west, on Ukraine's contact line with Russian forces from the Mykolaiv region -- where Kyiv's forces had been hunched in fox holes for months and pounded by Russian artillery -- the mood was shifting along with frontlines. 'End of the tunnel' Bogdan, 29, from northwest Ukraine who re-enlisted in the military this year, has spent most of the summer holding the line in Mykolaiv some four kilometres from the Russians. "We see their successes and it inspires us," he said of Ukrainian wins elsewhere in the country. "If some thought before that we weren't moving fast enough, well now that's not the case!" "There is light at the end of the tunnel," agreed commander Yaroslav, a sturdy 39-year-old man wearing a black cap. The Ukrainian push deeper into Kherson is putting further strain on the Kremlin's announcement last week that it had annexed the territory -- alongside three others -- and that its residents were would Russian "forever". The four territories -- Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia -- create a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. Together, the five regions make up around 20 percent of Ukraine. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russian forces of "deliberately striking civilians to sow fear". "Russian terror must be stopped -- by force of weapons, sanctions and full isolation", he said. In Russia, opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza -- jailed in April for denouncing the war -- has been charged with high treason, his lawyer told the TASS news agency. The UN nuclear agency chief was due in Kyiv to discuss creating a security zone around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia atomic plant -- the largest in Europe -- after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his government to impound it. Search Keywords: Short link: In an interview with an Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC, Samuel Warburg, the regional spokesman for the US State Department, stressed the importance of the coming climate change summit in Sharm El-Sheikh (COP27) and discussed various regional issues. During the interview, Warburg also reiterated the USs commitment to mitigating the effects of the Ukraine war on Egypt and other regional countries, especially when it comes to energy and food security. He discussed the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations in Vienna, saying that Washington was prepared for any outcome. The regional spokesman echoed the administrations support for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians towards a two-state solution, saying that Washington does not want to focus on other files, such as full Palestinian membership in the United Nations. Finally, he addressed the situation in Libya, acknowledging its importance to Egypt and stressed that any solution must come from within Libya itself, and cannot be imposed from abroad. Ahram Online: First, how do you see the Egyptian efforts to make the climate summit a success? And what can the US administration offer in this regard? Samuel Warburg: There is no doubt that the climate summit, which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh next November, is of great importance as it comes at a crucial stage the world is going through, evidenced by the participation of high-level officials from the United States in it. It is necessary to stress that the United States and other major countries such as China bear the responsibility and should not unload them on the developing countries, but rather help them to take the necessary measures to address climate change. The summit will come out with positive results. There is a common vision. The exchange of ideas and the development of proposed solutions must be a collective effort. AO: Do you think that President Biden's speech attacking Russia might affect Putin's decision-making and cause him to retract his threats to use a nuclear weapon or do something else? SW: Regarding President Joe Biden's warning to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin against the use of a nuclear weapons, I say that so far it seems that this war was chosen by one person without a doubt, and without the will of the Russian people who know nothing about it and do not support it because the Russian government has prevented any news about it. In this war, the United States, in coordination and cooperation with our allies, will continue to provide defence and military assistance to the Ukrainian people. Putin and his government bear all [responsibility for] the negative repercussions and effects on food security, supply and energy in Europe. As long as Putin continues this war against the Ukrainian people, we will continue to provide military and defence assistance to Kyiv, and also help countries that suffer from the repercussions of this war, including challenges from food security, energy, etc. President Biden, in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, talked about how we are providing an additional $3 billion for food security and related projects. We know that many Middle Eastern countries and their people suffer from food shortages, especially since all wheat sources are now closed in Ukraine, and this is a big challenge. Therefore, the United States, through the International Development Agency and through our participation and contribution to the World Food Program, will continue to support them. Al-Ahram Correspondent in Washington DC Sahar Zahran interviews Samuel Warburg, the regional spokesman for the US State Department AO: The negotiations in Vienna over the Iranian nuclear agreement have reached a dead end. What are the USs options? SW: We do not see that we have reached the end of these negotiations if we take into account the course of the negotiations through 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. I mean, these negotiations took us a lot of time. But this does not mean that we should sit silently for several years. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken were clear that it is imperative that the negotiations lead to a result. Biden was clear from the beginning that he would not allow the Iranian regime to possess nuclear weapons. Washington is ready for all scenarios, whether with a return to the nuclear agreement or without it. AO: Could Israel take a unilateral step that would surprise the world? SW: It is not possible for me to speak on behalf of the Israeli government. The United States, as we have heard for years from different administrations, supports Israels right to self-defence. If we talk about Irans role in financing terrorism or we talk about Hamas and Hezbollah, we say that Israel has the right to self-defence. AO: There are demands for Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations. How can the United States of America support this request? SW: In this regard, I would like to express my gratitude to the Egyptian government for the role that President El-Sisi played in ending the recent violence in the Gaza Strip and for all the efforts made by the Egyptian government to calm things down. As President Biden has said, the Palestinian and Israeli people deserve prosperity, stability and security. The United States believes that the two-state solution is the most appropriate solution. We in this administration have resumed dialogue and relations with the Palestinians, which were unfortunately severed by the previous US administration. We have resumed humanitarian and economic assistance not only to the Palestinian people, but also to the United Nations and UNRWA. The United States does not dictate to Israel what steps it should take to achieve this, but we are talking about the current situation and the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Biden administration urges all parties to refrain from any unilateral steps, including settlements and anything else, because these steps do not create the appropriate conditions for the resumption of dialogue between the two sides. In general, we have contact now with the Palestinian people and Palestinian officials, and we will continue to do so and will build on this communication to urge the two sides to sit at the negotiating table. Regarding Palestines request for full membership in the United Nations, I think that the Palestinians should focus on direct negotiations and the United States supports the right of the Palestinians to have a homeland in which the Palestinians live side-by-side with the Israelis, and this is our focus now. The administration believes that the most appropriate solution is the two-state solution. AO: What about Security Council reform? SW: President Biden, in his address to the General Assembly, called for reforming the Security Council and said the time has come for that at the General Assembly. AO: Regarding the existing divisions in the Middle East, especially in Libya, do you think that the US involvement in this regard is weak? SW: The US supports the sovereignty of the Libyan state and believes that any solution in Libya must be between the Libyans themselves. It is not possible for the United States, Russia, Turkey, or any other country to impose any solution on the Libyan people. Therefore, the special envoy is in contact with all parties and had some meetings in New York on the sidelines of the General Assembly, and dialogue took place with all parties. We know that some countries in the region have a great interest in the affairs inside Libya. There are challenges, no doubt, and without a government, consensus or a common vision, this will lead to a vacuum that will unfortunately be exploited by the militias. Therefore, we are in contact with the Egyptian government because we know that the chaos in Libya will affect our friends in Egypt. Search Keywords: Short link: A member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and a Basij militiaman were killed early Friday while chasing individuals spray-painting slogans during protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, state media reported. They "were martyred while on duty" in the southern province of Fars, state news agency IRNA said. Their deaths bring to at least 20 the number of security personnel killed in the wave of unrest that has swept Iran since Amini died on September 16 after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women. Six more have been killed in violence in southeastern Iran where demonstrations erupted on September 30 over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander. "Around 5:00 am (0130 GMT) on Friday, in the city of Beyrom, two people on a motorcycle, who were writing slogans, became the target of a chase by two officers," Fars judiciary chief Kazem Mousavi told IRNA. The two officers were killed by "shots to the head and chest" from the motorcyclists, Mousavi added. Iranian officials have blamed the unrest on the country's foreign enemies, particularly the United States. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said late Thursday that some protesters were "trained abroad and financed from outside the country". He played down the scale of the protests. "On the busiest day of the recent gatherings, 45,000 people participated in the rallies," out of a population of more than 83 million, IRNA quoted Vahidi as saying. "In the universities, at the peak of gatherings, 18,000 people... took part in the rallies, out of a student population of 3.2 million." Search Keywords: Short link: A line of cars snaked through the garbage-strewn streets of the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, as Palestinians waited to pass an Israeli checkpoint. Alaa Gharib was sunk down behind the steering wheel at an intersection that resembled a ragged war zone, littered with burnt tires, gutted appliances and the charred carcass of a car. It was the first time she could leave the camp since last Saturday night, when a Palestinian gunman fired at the checkpoint from close range, killing a 19-year-old female Israeli soldier and severely wounding a security guard before disappearing toward Shuafat. The attack prompted a large-scale and ongoing manhunt. As part of the search, Israeli security forces choked off the camp's entry and exit points, bringing life to a standstill for its estimated 60,000 residents. The restrictions set off an explosion of anger in Palestinian neighbourhoods across the city. Palestinian shops shuttered in protest by day and crowds of young men skirmished with Israeli troops by night, the fiercest unrest in months. Clashes in Jerusalem, the holy and bitterly contested city, became a rallying cry last year that triggered a bloody 11-day Gaza war. ``No one could go to work, go to the hospital, get food, go out,'' Gharab, a 24-year-old nurse, said from her car window. ``Everyone was scared. Everything stopped.'' The restrictions eased on Thursday, allowing food and supplies to enter and residents to return to work in the city. But the outrage was undimmed in Jerusalem's only refugee camp, a neighbourhood long left in a vacuum of governance. Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Jerusalem deputy mayor, described the closures as a matter of security. But to camp residents, it felt like a siege. ``It was like being in prison,`` said 14-year-old Sadeen Rajabi, who stayed home from school for the week because of the difficulty of crossing and her parent's fears for her safety. Even in normal times, Shuafat is a lawless slum full of smouldering garbage heaps and lacks municipal services. The camp falls within the Jerusalem municipal limits, but outside the hulking separation barrier that Israel says it built to stem militant attacks from the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have decried the barrier, which often slices through communities, as a land grab. Palestinian-populated half of Jerusalem and declared the entire city its capital in a move not recognized internationally. After the 1967 Mideast war, Israel annexed eastern Jerusalem. Moreover, the Israeli occupation government expanded the municipal limits far past the Old City, home to Jerusalem's holy sites, taking in far-flung Palestinian villages like Shuafat and the adjacent refugee camp. At the time, the camp had just a few thousand residents. Anger has been building across the Israeli-annexed sector of the city, where many Palestinians say they feel abandoned by Israel. Residents complain of home demolitions and the near impossibility of obtaining Israeli building permits. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem pay Israeli municipal taxes but receive a fraction of the services that Jewish residents do. The feeling of being in limbo is perhaps no more acute than in the Shuafat camp, one of several Palestinian neighbourhoods that are formally part of Jerusalem but are on the ``West Bank side'' of the separation barrier. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control in parts of the West Bank, has no jurisdiction. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees runs part of the camp, providing educational and sanitation services. Hassan-Nahoum acknowledged the challenges of providing services in the camp. She said the city fears attacks on its personnel working on the other side of the barrier. ``It's a very difficult thing to control,'' she said. Omar Sarhan, a shop owner restocking his shelves on Thursday for the first time this week, said the camp feels cut off from the city. ``We do not feel we're in Jerusalem,'' he said. ``We have nothing.'' Water and electricity shortages are frequent. Sewer services are unreliable. Roads are potholed. There's virtually no garbage pickup. Israeli police rarely enter to crack down on surging crime. The road into the rest of Jerusalem is both a lifeline and a potential chokepoint. Most residents have permanent residency in the city, meaning they have freedom of movement, unlike West Bank Palestinians who need special entry permits. But the access is strictly controlled. When Israeli occupation forces escalated searches at the main Shuafat checkpoint this week, residents said it upended their lives. Patients couldn't reach Israeli hospitals because of hours-long waits. Ambulances idled in snarled traffic. Deliveries of food and medicine stopped. Most of the camp's 15,000 children missed school. Residents shared stories of desperation. ``Yes, the attacker is from the camp, but why are tens of thousands of people held accountable?`` said Hassan Alequm, a health official who reported that 50 patients with kidney disease missed their dialysis appointments at Israeli hospitals this week. Dr. Saeed Salameh said his medical centre was flooded with requests to help patients who couldn't make it to hospitals. The clinic offered painkillers until it ran out of IVs. Then it was struck by tear gas canisters and forced to close. Hiba, a 50-year-old hepatitis patient with diabetes who gave only her first name, hadn't received an insulin injection in five days. ``I couldn't leave my house because of the gas,'' she said, her face ashen. Many families stayed inside as tear gas veiled the camp. But thousands rushed into the streets to confront Israeli security forces in what residents described as the worst clashes in recent memory. Israeli forces unleashed rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas on young men hurling stones and firebombs. ``It was the first time I've seen that kind of violence in the camp,'' said Mohammed Salah, 32. On Wednesday night, clashes spread across east Jerusalem neighbourhoods. The surging tensions in Jerusalem come as violence rises across the West Bank, where more than 120 Palestinians have been killed so far in 2022 _ the deadliest round of fighting in seven years. Confrontations have escalated since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel last spring. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others uninvolved in clashes have also been killed. Palestinians want the occupied West Bank and Gaza as territories for their future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. But adjacent to Shuafat refugee camp and other Palestinian enclaves neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, Israel has built Jewish settlements home to some 220,000 people. Israel's police said Friday it was calling up reserve units of the border police, a paramilitary force is known for using tough tactics to quell Palestinian unrest. ``The fighters will continue to act with a heavy hand, using all advanced means, against violators of public order,'' said Amir Cohen, the commander of the border police. Search Keywords: Short link: Iraqi lawmakers have elected a new president who swiftly named a prime minister in the hope of ending a year of political gridlock and deadly violence. But major challenges lie ahead for the crisis-hit nation. How will government talks play out? Iraq's parliament, dominated by the pro-Iran Coordination Framework of Shia Muslim factions, elected on Thursday a new president, 78-year-old Kurdish former minister Abdul Latif Rashid. The new head of state moved immediately to task Shia politician Mohammad Shia al-Sudani with forming a government, capping a whole year of deadlock between major parties since Iraq last went to the polls in October 2021. In multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Iraq, where political alliances and coalitions constantly shift, divisions between feuding factions might resurface and complicate Sudani's efforts in the 30 days afforded to him to form a government capable of commanding a majority in parliament. In the past, constitutional deadlines have been routinely missed amid protracted political wrangling. "Once we start discussing who becomes minister, but even more critically who gains more leverage over the senior civil service, government agencies, state coffers -- that's when we will continue to see the fragmentation and stalemate play out," said Renad Mansour of British think-tank Chatham House. He explained that Iraq is headed for "another power-sharing government", where political parties will "try and divide the country's wealth". And the stakes are high. A colossal $87 billion in revenues from oil exports are locked up in the central bank's coffers. The money can help rebuild infrastructure in the war-ravaged country, but it can only be invested after lawmakers approve a state budget presented by the government, once formed. What will Sadr do? The future government's hands may be tied by influential Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, capable of mobilising tens of thousands of his supporters with a single tweet. In June, he had ordered the 73 lawmakers in his bloc to resign, leaving parliament in the hands of the rival Coordination Framework, which now controls 138 out of 329 seats in the legislature. This pro-Iranian alliance includes the political arm of the former paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi, as well as Sadr's longtime rival, former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. Political analyst Ali al-Baidar noted the Sadrist movement has kept uncharacteristically "quiet". It may be that their leader has been "giving the political forces a chance", but it could also be the result of "an agreement offering the movement some" government positions in return for their tacit approval of Sudani's nomination, Baidar said. Tensions between the two rival Shia camps boiled over on August 29 when more than 30 Sadr supporters were killed in clashes with Iran-backed factions and the army in Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions. "It remains a precarious state of affairs," Mansour said. "Sadr will remain on the margins of the political scene, trying to disrupt and use protests to replace the political capital" he lost in parliament, the researcher added. Sadr is "hoping to force an early election using controlled instability as he always has, to maintain his power and leverage in negotiations. "But mistakes in the past few months have... put him in a difficult bargaining position," Mansour continued. Is there hope for change? Political analyst Baidar said the "consensus" on Rashid's appointment means a government will be formed relatively easily, but stressed the "colossal tasks" ahead. Nearly four out of 10 young Iraqis are unemployed and one-third of the oil-rich country's population of 42 million lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. Prime minister-designate Sudani vowed on Thursday to push through "economic reforms" that would revitalise Iraq's industry, agriculture and private sector. He also promised to provide young Iraqis with "employment opportunities and housing". According to Baidar, a "growing" global interest in Iraqi politics -- specifically from Washington, Paris and London -- could "force politicians to perform better". "While Iraq is by no means a poor country, private and partisan interests conspire to divert resources away from critical investment in national development," UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert told the Security Council last week. "Iraq's political and governance system ignores the needs of the Iraqi people," she charged. "Pervasive corruption is a major root cause of Iraqi dysfunctionality. And frankly, no leader can claim to be shielded from it." A pessimistic Mansour said, "public life will remain as it is". "People will still not have their basic rights, water, healthcare, electricity." Search Keywords: Short link: Three Swedish right-wing parties will build a minority government with the unprecedented backing of the far-right Sweden Democrats, the parties said Friday, unveiling plans for new nuclear reactors and a crime and immigration crackdown. The incoming government will be made up of the conservative Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals, with the far-right Sweden Democrats remaining outside the coalition but providing key support in parliament. The four presented a 62-page roadmap Friday for their cooperation, outlining measures to address what they defined as the biggest challenges facing Sweden: rising crime, immigration, energy, healthcare, education, the economy and the climate. "All this in what is possibly the most dangerous time for Sweden since World War II," Moderates leader Ulf Kristesson told reporters in a reference to the war raging in Ukraine which prompted Sweden's historic NATO membership application. Parliament will vote on Kristersson as the new prime minister on Monday and the future government is expected to take office on Tuesday, just over a month after the right-wing won a narrow victory in a general election that ousted the Social Democrats after eight years in power. The anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats once shunned as pariahs on Sweden's political scene were the big winners of the September 11 vote. They emerged as the country's second-largest party with a record 20.5 percent of votes, behind outgoing prime minister Magdalena Andersson's Social Democrats, which have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s. Concessions to far-right While far-right leader Jimmie Akesson said he "would have preferred to sit in government", he stressed that the most important thing was that his party has influence over policy and that "the change of government represents a paradigm shift". "We are going to deliver policy, especially in those areas our voters think are extra important, and crime policy is one such area," he told reporters. While the quartet presented a united front on Friday, they have traditionally been divided on a number of key policy areas and major concessions were made in the agreement, primarily to meet the far-right's demands. As Sweden struggles to contain soaring gang shootings, the roadmap calls for body searches in some disadvantaged areas, harsher sentences for repeat offenders, double sentences for certain crimes and anonymous witnesses. These were all major concessions by the small Liberal party. It also calls for major cuts to generous refugee policies in Sweden, a country of 10.5 million that has welcomed around half a million asylum seekers in the past decade. The incoming government said it aims to reduce the number of quota refugees from 6,400 last year to 900 per year during its four-year mandate, and introduce incentives to encourage immigrants to return home. It will also probe the possibility of keeping asylum seekers in transit centres during their application process, as well as ditch Sweden's development aid target of one percent of GDP and introduce a national ban on begging. In another measure bearing the stamp of the far-right, the parties also agreed to examine the possibility of "expelling foreigners for misconduct". "Anyone in Sweden enjoying Swedish hospitality has an obligation to respect fundamental Swedish values and not disrespect the local population by their actions", the document said. It gave failure to follow regulations or having ties to criminal organisations as an example of grounds for removal. The four parties also agreed to not reduce unemployment benefits, a major concession to the far-right by the Moderates. More nuclear Meanwhile, the future government also announced plans to build new nuclear reactors to meet the country's rising electricity needs. "The goal going forward is electrification and the way there is nuclear power," the leader of the Christian Democrats Ebba Busch told reporters. Sweden has in recent years shut down six of its 12 reactors and the remaining ones, at three nuclear power plants, generate about 30 percent of the electricity used in the country today. But it has struggled to find viable alternative energy sources to replace nuclear power, with renewable energy not yet sufficient to fully meet its needs. The outgoing Social Democratic government, in power for the past eight years, has traditionally been opposed to the construction of new reactors but acknowledged earlier this year that nuclear energy would be crucial for the foreseeable future. In June, Swedish energy group Vattenfall said it was examining the possibility of building at least two small modular nuclear reactors. Search Keywords: Short link: TOP 50 Women Forum launched on Wednesday the Women Towards Sustainability, the first-of-its-kind integrated climate awareness program for women in business and female leaders to support the transition to the green economy and preservation of the environment. The launch featured a seminar held in collaboration with the Institute of National Planning (INP) and DCarbon Sustainability Consultancy. The seminar was held in parallel with Egypts preparations to host the upcoming 27th UN Climate Change Forum (COP27) in Sharm El-Shiekh 6-18 November. TOP 50 Women Forum founder, Dina Abdel-Fattah, hailed the launch of qualification programmes for female cadres and women in business, in cooperation with the INP and Dcarbon. These specialised training programmes will be developed for women working in several sectors, such as financial, banking and fashion. with a prime focus on the green economy, said Dina. The forum is also discussing the idea of developing a master's programs in women's studies to compensate for the shortage in post-graduate programs available in the field, said Abdel-Fattah. INP President Ashraf El-Araby highlighted that their partnership with the forum is aligned with Egypts Vision 2030 and INPs womens empowerment strategy that was set up in 2015. El-Araby also said that the INP has been looking forward to extending cooperation in advancing womens empowerment and sustainable development for the third consecutive year. INP offers various programs of post-graduate studies, consultancy services in planning and development for public or private entities operating in several sectors. Furthermore, the INP has partnered with various international organisations including the World Bank and the Arab Planning Institute. DCarbon-Egypt CEO Ehab Shalaby stated that his organisation prioritises localisation and capacity-building for sustainability. Egyptian culture should be incorporated in sustainability in order to address the challenges that the country is facing and turn them into opportunities, Shalaby argued. TOP 50 Women Forum is the first-of-its-kind platform that brings together female prfessionals in Egypt. The forum was set up by 50 honourees recognised as the most influential women in the Egyptian economy during Egypt For the Best Summit 2016. It promotes women as key partners in socio-economic development, with members including female ministers, major executives and entrepreneurs. Search Keywords: Short link: Malpass' remarks came as he addressed the G24 meeting of ministers and governors, held in Washington, as he highlighted the efforts of WB to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate climate action. "We already supported 49 countries across all regions with $6.3 billion committed in operations that include food security and nutrition, only in the first months of the (Russian-Ukrainian) war, until June 2022... including a $500 million project in Egypt to maintain uninterrupted access to bread for poor and vulnerable households, strengthen the country's resilience to food crises, and support reforms that will help improve nutritional outcomes," Malpass said. The developing world is facing an extremely challenging outlook shaped by sharply higher food, fertilizer, and energy prices, rising interest rates and credit spreads, currency depreciation, capital outflows, and a higher level of debt that adds to higher inflation, impacting especially the poor, he said. With the current trends, the risks of a global recession in 2023 are high, he added. In this context, the World Bank Group stands ready to support you, both IDA and IBRD countries as the availability and cost of financing are challenging, more so as global interest rates increase. He pointed out that the world is not going to meet the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. COVID-19 impacts have been devastating and the impacts of the war in Ukraine increased the challenges. Its a crisis facing development, according to him. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed about 70 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 the largest since our monitoring began, he said. And the global median income declined by 4 percent in 2020 the first decline since our measurements of median income began. Geopolitical conflicts and extreme weather events have hurt countries and people worldwide, with the poor bearing the brunt, especially women and girls. Search Keywords: Short link: By Trend Azerbaijani exporters have started supplying their products to the Russian X5 Group, the leading grocery retail company, the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Agency (AZPROMO) told Trend on October 14. According to the agency, Azerbaijani companies signed export contracts with the Russian X5 Group, which owns more than 19,000 stores. "Since May of this year, X5 Group has signed agreements with Azerbaijani Aznar, Agroazerinvest, Goygol Sharab, Absheron Sharab and TAJ companies for the export of pomegranate juice, cognac, wine and soft drinks to Russia. Within the framework of some agreements, the export of relevant products has already been launched," AZPROMO noted. In May 2022, as part of the visit of X5 Group representatives to Azerbaijan, AZPROMO organized an exhibition of food industry products of Azerbaijani companies. X5 Group manages Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, Karusel, Chizhik retail chains, as well as Vprok.ru, Many Salmon and 5Post online delivery services in Russia. Russia has promised free accommodation to residents of Ukraine's partially occupied Kherson region who want to evacuate to Russia, a sign that Ukrainian military gains along the war's southern front are worrying the Kremlin. The Moscow-installed leader of Kherson, one of four regions illegally annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, asked the Kremlin to organize an evacuation from four cities, citing incessant shelling by Ukrainian forces. Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Moscow-appointed regional administration, said a decision was made to evacuate Kherson residents to the Russian regions of Rostov, Krasnodar and Stavropol, as well as to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. ``We, residents of the Kherson region, of course know that Russia doesn't abandon their own, and Russia always offers a hand,'' Saldo said Thursday. Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases those are the only evacuation routes residents of the occupied areas can or are allowed to take. Reports have surfaced that some Ukrainians were forcibly deported to ``filtration camps'' with harsh conditions. In addition, an Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children - some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions - to be raised as Russian. As Ukrainian forces sustain counteroffensives in the country's east and south to recapture occupied areas, Russian troops have retreated from some areas they overran soon after invading the country in late February. The Ukrainian gains and an Oct. 8 truck bomb explosion on a prized bridge linking Russia to Crimea have led to domestic criticism of the Kremlin's handling of the war and increased pressure on Putin to do more to turn the tide in Russia's favor. The evacuation announcement came as Ukrainian forces pushed deeper into the Kherson region, albeit at a slower pace than a few weeks ago. Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 settlements in the region in the last month, Ukraine's Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said late Thursday night. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in 502 settlements in the Kharkiv region, 43 in the Donetsk region and seven in Luhansk region returning to Ukrainian control, the ministry said. Putin illegally annexed Kherson, as well as the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine last month following ``referendums'' in the four regions that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine's armed forces, vowed Friday that his forces would succeed in ``getting ours back.'' ``No one and nothing will stop us,'' Zaluzhny said in a video message. ``We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army.'' While reiterating calls for local residents to evacuate to Russia, Saldo's deputy, Kirill Stremousov, also insisted the evacuation preparations did not mean the Russian-installed officials anticipated Ukrainian forces taking all of the Kherson region. ``No one's retreating. ... No one is planning to leave the territory of the Kherson region,'' he said. Early Friday, Russia continued missile strikes on critical infrastructure that started Monday in retaliation for the explosion on the Moscow-funded bridge that links Crimea to the Russian mainland. In the last 24 hours, at least nine civilians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Ukrainian president's office reported Friday morning. The victims included seven people who died after a missile strike in the city of Mykolaiv, where a residential building was destroyed, the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, said. Multiple Russian missile strikes shook the city of Zaphorizhzhia overnight. The capital of the annexed region remains in Ukrainian hands and has come under repeated bombardment as Ukraine pushes its southern counteroffensive. Several explosions were reported overnight at infrastructure facilities, causing fires, regional Gov, Oleksandr Starukh said. There were no victims in preliminary reports, and further details about specific damage were unavailable. Starukh told Ukrainian state television that Russian soldiers remained unable to enter the city but their ``missiles remind us of the evil and grief that the army of the occupiers carries.'' In addition to the missile strikes on the regional capital, there was also shelling in three cities closer to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. In Nikopol, Marhanets, Chervonohryhorivka, drone and artillery strikes destroyed residential buildings and damaged water supply and power lines. The regional capital is about 100 miles by road from the plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Two days ago, it was forced to revert to diesel-fueled generator power to maintain its reactor cooling systems after an Russian missile attack on distant electrical substation. Friday is Defender's Day in Ukraine, but celebrations were muted because of the war. In Kyiv, a concert at the central opera house was canceled because of planned, rotating power outages across the city as repairs to the city's energy infrastructure continue following Russia's wide-ranging missile attacks. Missile, drone and rocket attacks on Ukraine have kept the country on edge with air raid sirens occurring more frequently and bringing a heightened sense of urgency after Monday's strike killed 19 people and wounded more than 100, including many in the capital. Putin has vowed to retaliate harshly if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russian officials reported Friday that Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine. An unspecified number of people were killed and wounded in the incident, according to Russia's Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded. Search Keywords: Short link: A Palestinian was killed and another critically wounded Friday in an Israeli raid on the flashpoint city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said. "One martyr and six wounded, among them one very critically wounded (a bullet to the head)," the ministry said, revising down an earlier toll of two Palestinians killed in the military raid on the city's refugee camp. A ministry spokesman told AFP the deceased was Mateen Debaya. The militant group Hamas named him a "fighter". An AFP journalist at the hospital said a doctor seriously wounded during the raid was undergoing surgery. The Israeli occupation military said, "explosive devices and a massive number of shots were fired from armed suspects at the security forces." "The forces responded with aimed live fire towards the armed suspects. Hits were identified," an army statement said. The military did not comment on the critically wounded doctor when contacted by AFP. Three suspects were detained including an alleged Hamas member who the army said was suspected of carrying out attacks against Israeli occupation forces. Hamas on Friday called on "our resistance... to continue their steadfastness and their heroism with all means". Israel has occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in recent months during near-daily Israeli raids across the West Bank. Two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead Saturday during a raid in Jenin, while a 12-year-old boy died Monday from wounds sustained last month, according to a health ministry toll. The expansion of military operations in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank followed deadly attacks on Israelis earlier this year. Israeli forces are currently hunting for attackers who shot dead two soldiers in separate incidents over the past week. One soldier was killed Tuesday near Nablus, south of Jenin, while on Saturday another was shot dead at a checkpoint in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. The pursuit of the Jerusalem gunman has prompted a massive operation inside the city's Shuafat refugee camp, which has severely impeded daily life. Palestinians went on a day-long general strike earlier this week in the city, in solidarity with Shuafat residents. There have also been clashes involving Palestinians, Israeli forces and citizens across east Jerusalem. Washington said Wednesday there had been an "alarming increase in Palestinian and Israeli deaths and injuries, including numerous children". State Department spokesman Ned Price called on both sides to "take urgent action to prevent even greater loss of life". Search Keywords: Short link: The Egyptian Cabinet approved on Wednesday a draft law allowing Egyptians living abroad or their families to have one personal-use vehicle shipped to Egypt without paying customs duties or taxes, including the value-added tax (VAT). Instead, an Egyptian expat can deposit the value of the customs duties and taxes that they would have paid for releasing their car from customs to the Egyptian Ministry of Finance as a five-year bank deposit without interests in foreign currency, a statement by the Cabinet read. Five years later, the expat will be able to withdraw the money in Egyptian pounds at the value of the local currency at the time of withdrawal, the statement noted. Egypt has been suffering from a drop in foreign currency in recent months in light of the war in Ukraine, which has applied pressure on currency and slowed down imports. According to figures from the Central Bank of Egypt, Egypts foreign reserves declined over the past few months before they increased in September by $56 million to hit $33.198 billion by the end of September. The exemptions under the new draft law will only be allowed for a four-month period starting from the day when the law comes into effect, during which expats will have to make the deposit to the government, the statement stressed. Egyptian expats willing to have their cars shipped without custom duties should be above 16 years old and have legal residence abroad. They must also have an overseas bank account that is at least three months old. An expats spouse or children are exempted from this requirement, the statement added. Second-hand cars have to be less than three years old to apply to the new law, the statement added. If an expat fails to import their car within a year since depositing the money to the finance ministry, they will be able to immediately withdraw the money in foreign currency, according to the law. The draft law will be sent to parliament for approval, Minister of Emigration and Expatriate Affairs Soha Samir El-Gindy said in TV remarks. The bank deposit must be in dollars and expats will be able to withdraw the full value of the deposit after its maturity, El-Gindy said. Imported cars have to be less than three years old in order to not harm environment, the minister added. Search Keywords: Short link: Why has the climate and the issue of climate change often taken a backseat in Arabic literature. Climate change is humanitys most intractable challenge, with leading countries seemingly unable to offer practical solutions to the crisis threatening human existence. Despite the gravity of the issue, world literature be it in the East or the West or the developing or developed countries has lagged behind in addressing the issue of climate change. The climate and changes to the weather are part of nature. They have never been the focus of Arabic literature, even when describing the natural background, such as a flowing river, greenery, or crystalline or dark skies, said Ahmed Al-Khamisi, a professor of comparative literature (Russian and Arabic) and a short-story writer. In Arabic literature, man has generally not been seen as part of nature, and he has not been presented as particularly affected by it, not even in the writings of great literary figures such as Naguib Mahfouz and Youssef Idris, he added. Al-Khamisi has translated Russian literature into Arabic as well as works on Mahfouz and other writers. Climate change alerted scientific circles some time ago, but the international media took note only in the 1970s and 1980s following the release of Hollywood movies on the subject. The first UN Conference of the Parties (COP) on the problem was held in Berlin in 1995. However, despite the general lack, Arabic literature does contain some publications in which man is seen as part of nature, among them Taraneem fi dhil Tamara (Hymns in the Shadow of Tamara) by satirist Mohamed Afifi, who died in the 1980s, Al-Khamisi said. In this book, which was reissued by Dar Al-Hilal in 1996, Afifi writes an extended dialogue between Tamara, a privet tree, and Zahira, a lemon tree, staging himself as sitting in their shade every afternoon in autumn and listening to the talk between plants, animals, birds, and insects. Afifi made himself a window through which the reader observes nature, until he turns the pages of the book into a part of himself, according to Al-Khamisi, author of The Head of the Red Rooster among other books. According to poet and journalist Mohamed Khairallah, there are also hints about climate change in some poems in Arabic literature. If we expand the concept of the climate, we will find that poetry has paid attention to it, he said. Khairallah, also a historian, cites the works of poet Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi, such as Ashgar Al-Assmant (Cement Trees), which objects to modern civilisation and its machines that are robbing man of his humanity. In the 1950s Hegazi released his collection Madina Bela Qalb (A City without a Heart), in which he mourned the death of the urban environment, which he considers to be inhuman, said Khairallah. He added that some Arabic novels have also been concerned about the climate, among them Qadar Al-Ghoraf Al-Moqbeda (The Destiny of Confined Chambers) by novelist Abdel-Hakim Qassem and Fasad Al-Amkena (The Corruption of Places) by Sabri Moussa. For a long time, the latter was considered to be a pioneering novel for its focus on nature and the transformations it has endured owing to mans interventions. Some Nubian novels have also played a role, especially Al-Shamandoura (The Buoy) by Mohamed Khalil Qassem about the flooding of Nubian villages by the waters of the lake formed by the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. The Nubians, mostly living off date production, had to move to other places, some of which are not suitable for agriculture or housing. Despite their different points of view, Al-Khamisi and Khairallah both agree that the mentions of climate change in Arabic literature are no more than hints, because the priority was and will likely remain political and social issues and cultural and individual problems at the expense of climate change, according to Khairallah. Al-Khamisi adds that we have not been concerned with the big issues in the humanitarian sense of the word. Our priorities have been primarily societal. We were not part of the world in a sense. We went in another direction, as if we wanted to be separate from the rest of the world. Because we were formerly Western colonies, fighting for our independence, we also couldnt be part of the Western world, he said. The West controls the world, and it didnt want its colonies to be full parts of it. The colonies did not want that either, and so there was no global sense of solidarity that would lead writers to consider global issues like the climate. Newly independent countries refused to be included within colonial systems such as the Baghdad Pact in the 1950s, and several former French colonies refused to join the Francophone world in the 1960s. There was a desire to restore a sense of history and identity in India, and there was the cultural revolution in China in the 1960s. All these countries wanted to restore their national roots more than they wished to be integrated into a world led by the colonial Western countries. The causes we considered to be a priority, the West had already done with, added Al-Khamisi, citing the novel Al-Ard (The Land) by Egyptian writer Abdel-Rahman Al-Sharqawi. This novel tackled the struggle against feudalism in the Egyptian countryside, which Europe had been through more than a century earlier. Even our generation, who discussed social, cultural, and humanitarian issues and was influenced by schools of realism, addressed issues that the industrial societies had turned their backs on, such as poverty, inhumane housing, illiteracy, religious extremism, and womens rights. Above all, there has not been a science-fiction literature in Egypt and the Arab world, but only rather naive attempts suitable for children. In Egypt, science fiction commenced in the 1990s, but it did not develop further than mediocre stories for teenagers. Our societies dont strongly believe in science, and so there is no fertile soil for science fiction, Al-Khamisi noted. In this sense, Arabic literature has a limited conscience. There is no scene in Arabic literature such as in Dostoevskys novel about a girls trial for the murder of the governor of St Petersburg. When the interrogator asks the girl why she killed the governor, she replied that he was torturing prisoners. The interrogator asks her if she had a husband, a father, or a brother among the prisoners. She said no, but I cannot accept that a crime goes unpunished, Al-Khamisi said. In Arabic literature, we do not defend general, abstract principles of this sort, he added, because the literary conscience is formed over a long period, and our contemporary literary history is only 100 years old. More than a century ago, the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky lamented that Russian literature was no more than 150 years old, while English literature was more than four centuries old. There has been no literary interaction with the hardships that Arab, African, and Muslim peoples endure, said Al-Khamisi. Arabic novels have not discussed epidemics, a kind of natural phenomenon, because the last important epidemics happened before the production of contemporary Arabic novels. Literature is like the state, he said. The state cannot allocate funds to combat climate change if that means reducing spending on education, health, and social protection. Social issues take priority, much as has been the case in literature. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: A Russian missile barrage hit three Ukrainian cities this week in retaliation for the bombing of the Kerch Bridge to the Crimean Peninsula. Russia has unleashed a fierce missile barrage against the three Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Lviv in retaliation for the truck bombing of the strategic Kerch Bridge linking the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula. The violent exchange is a reflection of the two sides aims in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Kyiv has stated that not only is it intent on winning back the territories that Russia has recently annexed in the Donbas region, but also on recovering the Crimea, which Russia had annexed in 2014. Russia has made it clear that any action on that threat would meet a powerful response. In Kyiv, Russia struck the Shevchenkivskyi and Solomianskyi districts, with one missile landing close to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Immediately afterwards, Zelensky held a televised press conference in front of his official residence to brief the public and demand additional Western military support. In an evident eye-for-an-eye response, another Russian missile struck a bridge, and a third hit a water station, which was meant to serve as a reminder that Russia could make the coming winter more difficult for Ukraine. One explosion in Kyiv killed eight people, according to official Ukrainian sources. Other estimates place the number of the dead at twice that number, while dozens have also been wounded. In Zaporizhzhia, 15 people were killed as the result of 12 missile strikes, according to the Ukrainian official media. Lviv, in western Ukraine, was struck by 15 missiles. Russia fired around 70 missiles in all, of which 20 hit their target. Officials in Lviv said their defence systems had intercepted some of them. From images aired on the Russian media it appears that many of the missiles fell near critical infrastructure, exposing significant gaps in the Ukrainian defences. Nevertheless, some analysts pointed out that the fact that many Russia rockets had failed to reach their targets, despite the lack of defence platforms to intercept them, is indicative of flaws in Russian targeting systems. Washington will be delivering two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) air-defence systems to Ukraine, a US defence official announced on Monday. The system, which has been called the White House guard as the US has also used it to protect the airspace over Washington, has been on order since July. In Ukraine, the NASAMs will presumably be deployed to guard Ukrainian military command buildings and other security and diplomatic sites. In the aftermath of the Russian strikes, Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign affairs, urged the bloc to earmark more money to pay for military support for Ukraine. Germany announced that it would send four Iris-T air-defence systems to Ukraine. The first will be ready in a few days, said German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht. The West has been calibrating the quantities and quality of its weapons supplies to Ukraine in the light of developments on the ground. This graduated approach and the possibility that the weapons may not be reaching Ukraine quickly enough might hamper the Ukrainian forces ability to win definitive battles. But these forces have been equipped and trained enough to carried out counter-offensives that have recovered hundreds of square km of territory from Russia in the Kharkiv, Kherson, and Donetsk regions. In terms of strategy, the recent exchange does not necessarily mark a major shift in the rules of engagement. So far, the escalation has been incremental, calculated according to the messages each side wants to deliver to the other, and the exchanges are still within the conventional rules of engagement. In the event of other rounds, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that if Kyiv stages another what he termed terrorist attack, his response would be harsher, which is consistent with a calibrated escalation. The fact that Moscow has not yet called tactical nuclear weapons into play also lends itself to this outlook. Both sides will also be factoring in the nature and level of Western military aid to Ukraine, which could make a difference in the pace and direction of the military escalation. The same thing might apply if Russia steps up tactics that appear to be geared to accomplishing Moscows political aim of dismantling the regime in Kyiv. Meanwhile, it is doubtful that Russia has its sights set on seizing more Ukrainian territory now that it has annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. It does not have full control over all these administrative regions, especially Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and even Donetsk, parts of which have been retaken by Ukrainian forces. As a result, firing rockets at many different locations, including Lviv, a gateway for arms shipments in the far west of the country, serves another purpose, namely to signal that Russian missiles can reach many places that are remote from the front and simultaneously. It is a primarily defensive posture, although according to Ukrainian sources Russia has rearmed its warships in the Black Sea as though to signal that it is ready for further strikes deep into the Ukrainian interior. Russias most likely aim at present is to regain the initiative, not to mount another westward offensive, but rather to perpetuate the status quo and consolidate its hold over the areas it has acquired at great cost. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind the recent Russian troop mobilisation, of which some 300,000 troops are to be deployed in the newly annexed provinces. It is still too early to tell to what extent this could be a game-changer, because training will take some time. But according to footage on Russian media, the soldiers are being trained in artillery, which may offer some insight into the Russian plan for the difficult winter season that is just a few weeks away. Ukraine has every intention to fight the Russian coercion, but this resistance also comes at a very heavy price. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: The American administrations reaction to the decision by OPEC and its allies to cut production by two million barrels a day as of next month was strong enough to indicate a rising tension with oil producers, especially Saudi Arabia. Though the decision was widely expected, and in fact did not have much impact on oil prices, Washington considered it a clear message by its Gulf allies that they are not inclined to honour the American request to keep pumping oil. Democrats and Republicans alike have seen the move as an indication that the Gulf countries are siding with Russia against the American and Western stance on the war in Ukraine. OPEC officials insist the decision is purely technical, aimed at sustaining stability in global markets. But, since the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak was in the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna, the Americans were furious. OPEC+ is an alliance of OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC producers led by Russia. So Novak, who is Russias energy minister, had to be in the meeting. Though he is under American sanctions, Novak is not under EU sanctions. Sources at OPEC told Al-Ahram Weekly that the US tried to pressure Austria to ban his attendance but OPEC+ members threatened to move the organisations headquarters from there if its integrity is not preserved. Whether Russians took part or not, the meeting was destined to cut production to face dwindling demand due to anticipated global economic recession. In fact, balancing the demand-supply equation might have required bigger cuts as a preemptive measure to avoid a glut in the market and a price crash. As the decision was made just over two months after Bidens meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Jeddah, some in the US saw it as a failure of Bidens Gulf policy. Apart from the war in Ukraine and economic sanctions on Russia, the ruling Democratic Party is nervous about the Congressional midterm elections next month. High petrol prices at the pump exacerbate their gloomy prospects with opinion polls suggesting Republicans might win majority in both House and Senate. The decision by OPEC+ on Wednesday also coincided with the Jewish Yom Kippur, the 19th anniversary of the October War of 1973 when the Arabs defeated Israel and liberated part of their occupied lands. That drove many analysts in the West to compare the current energy crisis with the oil crisis of the 1970s when Arab oil countries cut their exports to countries supporting Israel. That was an entirely different situation, but the analogy remained tempting. Just after the OPEC+ decision, a veteran analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insight, Roger Diwan said in a note that the cuts marked a weaponisation of oil and suggested the timing and location of the meeting were a deliberate signal: The presence of the Russian deputy prime minister under US sanctions, to discuss tightening of oil supply heading into a winter in which Russia has already weaponised its gas exports to Europe sends a clear message... Saudi Arabias adversarial path will skew price risk even higher for oil. That, however, did not happen. And yet the move might still be an indication that the Gulf countries have changed. As Emirati professor of politics Abdulkhaleq Abdullah told the Financial Times, Some in Washington definitely dont realise theres a new Gulf and we no longer take orders from Washington. Abdullahs remark might be something of exaggeration, but the days of Americans automatically having their way in the Gulf are clearly over. Emirati Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei told reporters after the Vienna meeting that OPEC acted to ensure producers would keep investing in new oil supplies. He added, in Europe, they have their own story, in Russia they have their own story. We cant be siding with this country or that country. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman denied any political motivation, implicitly rejecting the idea that the decision involved any aggression towards the US or other consumers, saying it was not made in defence of Russia. Show me, where is the belligerence? Where is the ill intent? Prince Abdulaziz said. Yet President Joe Biden had already said he was disappointed about the decision to cut oil production and would be looking at alternatives to bolster supplies. The White House said OPEC had aligned with Russia. Two senior officials, the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese issued a joint statement suggesting the White House should reverse course and support bipartisan legislation (so-called NOPEC) that would make the oil-producing cartel legally liable for any price collusion. The other option for Bidens administration is to release more of oil from the strategic reserve which has been at its lowest levels since 1984. An announced release of tens of millions of barrels earlier didnt impact the market, but more releases might cause a supply glut justifying more cuts by OPEC. The NOPEC draft has been used for more than two decades to pressure Gulf oil producers, but it never made it through Congress, not because of Gulf countries lobbying but rather due to fierce opposition from American oil companies. There is no guarantee it will make it this time if the threat is carried out. In a measured response to the American reaction, Saudi Arabias energy minister warned in a Bloomberg TV interview that US-led plans for a price cap on Russian exports are fanning the uncertainty that drove OPEC+ to its biggest production cut in two years. The lack of details and the lack of clarity about how the price cap will be implemented add to the sense that coming two months will be a period of uncertainty We dont see what will be the reaction of the market or the participants, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said. Some Gulf sources predict the tension will not escalate into a full-blown energy crisis, noting the strategic relationship between US and Gulf countries. They even suggest it will all cool down after the midterm elections next month. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Each of the heads of Israels two right wing blocs, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, the current prime minister, is eager to tip the balance in his favour and end the current stalemate ahead of the imminent elections. On the eve of the fifth round of elections in Israel in less than four years, opinion polls show that both fronts are neck and neck in the Knesset seats they are expected to win. Although Netanyahus hardline right bloc is tipped to gain the upper hand, its rival which is now known as the anyone but Netanyahu bloc is making moves to improve its chances too. The anti-Netanyahu bloc includes parties from the right, left, and centre left, is in alliance with one Arab political party, and has almost secured the support of other Arab parties. These odd bedfellows have come together to make sure Netanyahu does not return to power in Israel. Netanyahus group includes five political parties, the largest of which is his own. Its rival bloc includes six. The Joint Arab List is deeply divided and has not yet made up its mind although there are strong predictions that it will join the ranks of Lapid. The leaders of the two blocs are vying for support from 61 out of 120 Knesset seats. Recent opinion polls show that Netanyahus bloc will probably win 60 seats, while Lapids will win 54. The Arab Joint List led by Ayman Oudeh and Ahmed Al-Tibi, which is predicted to win four seats, has not yet decided which side to support. The front opposed to Netanyahu is facing many divisions among its own member parties, who are competing over the same voter base. This will splinter votes further, and may prevent some parties from winning the quorum needed to enter the Knesset. Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who is a key figure in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, tried to block Netanyahus advance by forming a coalition that includes his own Kahol Lavan Party, Gideon Saars New Hope Party, as well as former military chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot. Including Eizenkot in the alliance is aimed at grabbing votes that would otherwise go to Netanyahus bloc, since Eizenkot is popular in right-wing circles. However, the three-way alliance known as the State Camp will probably only win 11-13 Knesset seats, which will be a failure since the three came together to compete for the office of prime minister and form the next government. Another obstacle facing Netanyahus opponents is deep fractures among Arab parties in Israel, which have negatively impacted their chances of winning Knesset seats and splintered votes. This makes it easier for Netanyahu to undercut his opponents and boost his own chances. The National Democratic Alliance (Balad) led by Sami Abu Shehadeh left the Joint List, an alliance of Arab political parties in Israel. This means that Arab parties in Israel will contest the elections as three entities: the Joint List led by Oudeh and Tibi; the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas; and Abu Shehadehs Balad Party. Opinion polls project that the United List and Joint List will each win four seats, while Balad will win none. What is more concerning, however, is that opinion polls show that Arab Israelis have lost faith in all these parties because they failed to represent them. These frustrations have impacted predictions of voter turnout by Arab Israelis in the upcoming elections. One survey conducted in Israel revealed that only 32 per cent of Arab voters will go to the polls in the next elections, which is a sharp drop from 40 per cent in previous surveys. In the 2019 elections when Arab party lists were united, they won 15 Knesset seats, which was the highest representation of Arab parties in Israel. However, divisions before the previous elections resulted in them winning ten seats only. It is predicted they will win only eight seats in the next round. Lapid realises that fewer Arab voters could weaken him and his bloc, which is why he sent several envoys to hold public meetings in Arab communities to increase voter participation and ensure Knesset seats for Arab parties, which are likely to support him in the elections. According to Israeli media, Lapids envoys warned Arabs in Israel that if they do not go out and vote then Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing government will have a better chance of returning to power, which would hurt Arab communities. Nonetheless, efforts by Netanyahu and Lapid to get ahead of each other and increase their chances of forming a stable government have had little success, according to the survey, which shows that 42 per cent of Israelis believe there will be a sixth round of elections, and that the upcoming elections will not resolve the ongoing political crisis. Meanwhile, only 31 per cent believe a new government will be formed after the elections, which reflects the level of disappointment among Israelis who believe Israeli politicians are scrambling for their own interests and not to serve their constituents. In the last days of his tenure, Lapid is trying to accomplish and promote achievements to use as political ammunition, such as statements that he can throw a wrench in US progress on the nuclear deal with Iran or help Israel succeed in deterring the Islamic Jihad during military confrontations in August. Lapid also tried to lure Arab voters by declaring his support for a two-state solution. Finally, he is trying to conclude an agreement to demarcate maritime borders with Lebanon, under which Israel will reap billions of dollars from gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea. Netanyahu, who has become a thorn in the side of the political regime in Israel, is waging a fierce media war against Lapid to undermine these achievements. However, right-wing parties, especially the Likud Party, are considering axing Netanyahu if he fails to form a government after the elections, senior party officials told The Times of Israel. But Israeli officials doubt that right-wing parties will ever agree on a strong alternative candidate, especially since Netanyahu has prepared for such a possibility and managed to eliminate the centres of power competing with him inside the Likud Party. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Ultra-conservative newspaper Javan had published a photograph of Stephanie al-Qaq, the head of the ministry's Middle East and North Africa department, in its Wednesday edition under the headline "English spy led the riots up close". But British ambassador Simon Shercliff insisted that her "short visit to Tehran last month" had been for "official talks". The visit was hosted by the foreign ministry in Tehran, and "they asked us not to say anything publicly about the visit, so we did not," Shercliff said on Twitter Thursday. "I don't remember any part of those official talks being about instigating riots," he added. A wave of unrest has swept Iran since 22-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini died on September 16 after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women. The street violence has led to dozens of deaths -- mostly of protesters but also members of the security forces -- and hundreds have been arrested. The Javan newspaper quoted "informed sources" as saying that Al-Qaq "entered the country a few days before the start of the riots and closely observed the process of managing the situation in Iran and evidence shows she had a role in leading the riots". Al-Qaq led the British delegation to currently stalled negotiations on reviving a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers. Iranian officials have accused the country's enemies, particularly the United States, of fanning the Amini protests. The figure does not cover Koreans who had already been living abroad and moved there permanently. According to the Foreign Ministry on Monday, 1,590 Koreans moved overseas last year, up from a low of 273 in 2015. Their numbers started to surge in 2017 when some 1,294 Koreans left the country. One wealthy 48-year-old woman who spoke with the Chosun Ilbo at a relocation agency in the affluent Gangnam area early this month has bought an apartment in New York and is making plans to move there. She will spend US$500,000 on a U.S. residency permit and another $1.8 million to buy real estate. She has around W5 billion in her bank account (US$1=W1,188). "I decided to emigrate after the government shifted policies more than 20 times over the last three years targeting people who own expensive real estate in Gangnam," she said. "If I get the Manhattan apartment I am looking at right now, the New York City government will offer me more than $12,000 in property tax cuts a year." Even middle-class Koreans are jumping ship. One 44-year-old housewife who lives in central Seoul is looking into emigrating to Porto, Portugal's second-largest city. "Just a few years ago, I would never have imagined emigrating. All I own is an apartment in downtown Seoul, but the price suddenly soared to a few billion," she said. "I can sell my apartment and spend half of it on a home in Europe and the rest to cover living expenses there." A staffer at the agency said, "Recently, not only wealth Koreans but more and more ordinary middle-class people in Seoul are using apartments valued at W1 billion to W2 billion to emigrate." There are also no longer any restrictions on certain nationalities being allowed to enter Taiwan. Visitors are no longer required to quarantine upon entry, or take any PCR tests. Instead, they will need to monitor their health for a week after arriving, and obtain a negative result on a rapid antigen test the day they arrive. If people want to go out during the weeklong monitoring period, they need a negative test from either that day or the day before. Hong Kong and Taiwan, together with mainland China, required most visitors to complete a mandatory quarantine period throughout the pandemic, even as most countries reopened their borders to tourists. Taiwan lifted all its COVID-19 entry restrictions Thursday, allowing tourists unfettered access to the self-ruled island after more than 2 1/2 years of border controls. Dozens of visitors from Thailand were among the first to arrive under the new rules at Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport, which serves the capital Taipei, on a Tiger Air flight that landed shortly after midnight. Tourists like 32-year-old Mac Chientachakul and his parents were excited to visit the island. "Hot pot is my favorite dish in Taiwan," Chientachakul said. "It's my first thing to do... I miss it so much." Sonia Chang, a travel agent, said the changes are good for both the tourism industry and Taiwanese residents, who can now travel abroad without having to quarantine when they get home. Valaisurang Bhaedhayajibh, a 53-year-old business development director of a design firm, called the new rules convenient. "We don't have to do the test before coming here, and also after arriving," he said. "We are still required to do the self-test every two days, and everything has been provided" by Taiwanese authorities, including the rapid testing kits. At a welcome ceremony in the Taoyuan airport's arrival hall, the travelers from Thailand were met by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau's director, Chang Shi-chung, who handed out gifts. Taiwan's tourism bureau estimated that a total of 244 tourists from some 20 tour groups will arrive Thursday. With both Hong Kong and Taiwan getting rid of restrictions and welcoming back tourists, mainland China remains one of the few places in the world adamant in keeping borders closed and sticking to a "zero-COVID" strategy to stamp out the virus. Hong Kong ended its mandatory quarantine policy for inbound travelers late last month, requiring just a three-day self-monitoring period. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova An exhibition dedicated to Azerbaijani philanthropist and oil magnate Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev has opened in Russia, Azernews reports, citing Trend Life. The exhibition is titled "Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev- industrialist and philanthropist. The role of personality in the history of Russia and Azerbaijan" was organized in Khanty-Mansiysk by the Russian Museum of Geology, Oil and Gas and the Azerbaijani National History Museum. Fuad Agayev, a researcher at the Department of International Relations and Public Relations at the National History Museum, welcomed the guests of the event on behalf of the director-general of the museum, Academician Naila Valixanli. Fuad Agayev spoke about Taghiyev's social, educational and charitable activities and major work carried out by the National History Museum to research and popularize his legacy. Ivan Yashkov, Deputy Director for Research at the Museum of Oil and Gas Geology, Candidate of Geographical Sciences, stressed the importance of the exhibition. He also provided insight into future projects, including international exhibitions, online scientific, educational, and interactive projects, to be held jointly by the two museums. Then, Fuad Agayev, on behalf of the National History Museum, presented Artur Latipov, Director of the Department of Culture of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra, with the publications of the museum "Tagiyev's Palace" and "Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev in photographs". Born in a poor family of a shoemaker in Icharishahar, the old part of Baku, on January 25, 1821 (1838), Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev had to work from childhood to support his family. He began his life journey as an apprentice of a bricklayer in Baku. Taghiyev's dedication and hard work ensured quick professional advancement and at the age of 18, he became a contractor. In 1873, along with his partners, Taghiyev rented a plot of land near the oil-booming town of Bibi-Heybat, a few kilometers to the southeast of Baku. They hired workers and started drilling for oil, but with no success. The partners gave up hope and decided to sell their shares. Taghiyev purchased them and became the sole owner of the land. He continued drilling and paid workers despite all financial difficulties. Finally, fortune smiled on him in 1877, when oil gushed out of the well with a mighty force. Oil gush instantly made him an oil baron and a millionaire. One of the first things Taghiyev did after becoming wealthy was to surface the road between the city and his oilfield in Bibi-Heybat. He then extended the road onto the Bibi-Heybat mosque. Taghiyev invested in many important projects such as the first textile factory and fisheries. He sponsored the first Azerbaijani National Theater (1883), the first Muslim School for Girls (1896), the first Technical School (1911) and covered all the expenses for the construction of what would later become the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. He also helped to solve the water crisis in the city by helping to finance the Shollar water pipeline (1916). Baku's best-known philanthropist allocated 11,000 old roubles for the construction of the head office for the Muslim Benevolent Society in Saint Petersburg, 3,000 roubles for the education of Armenian orphans, 5,000 for the St. Nina's School for Girls in Baku, 10,000 roubles for the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Baku, tens of thousands of roubles for the construction and repair of mosques and madrasas throughout Russia and Persia. Taghiyev also provided scholarships for many talented young people who strove for higher education in prestigious Russian and European universities. He built a number of schools and gave a lot of attention to mosques since he considered them to be centers for enlightenment, culture, and science. After Azerbaijan's "Sovietization" in 1920, the country's wealthy people suffered severe repressions from the Bolshevik government resulting in the emigration of many of them. Therefore, Tagiyev's house and his other possessions were confiscated. He was exiled to his summer house in Mardakan. Tagiyev's heart stopped beating on September 1, 1924. People remember Tagiyev not only for his great wealth but for how he spent it. For his outstanding contributions, Taghiyev was twice awarded the Order of Saint Stanislaus, as well as a number of other orders and medals from many countries. In 2022, a statue of the national philanthropist and oil magnate was erected in Baku. In 2020, President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva met with a group of art workers. President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the erection of a statue of Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev. Sculptor Khanlar Ahmadov's work has been chosen as the best among 26 projects that were submitted to the open sculpture contest initiated by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Culture Ministry, and the Baku City Executive Authorities. The three-meter monument is erected near the Icharishahar metro station. New Zealand has unveiled plans to tax the greenhouse gas emissions of farm animals, in a controversial proposal designed to tackle climate change. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the levy, announced Tuesday, would be the first of its kind in the world. Gases naturally emitted by New Zealand's 6.2 million cows are among the country's biggest environmental problems. The scheme would see farmers pay for methane gas emissions from their cattle as well as the nitrous oxide in the urine of livestock. Ardern told farmers they should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. She said the "pragmatic proposal" would reduce agricultural emissions while making produce more sustainable by enhancing New Zealand's "export brand." Boy band Bangtan Boys, also known as BTS, have earned three nominations at this year's MTV Europe Music Awards. MTV announced Wednesday that BTS are up for Best K-pop, Biggest Fans and Best Metaverse Performance for "BTS Minecraft." The boys won their first EMA awards in 2018 for Best Group and Biggest Fans, both of which they have won in each of the years since then. In 2020 and 2021 they additionally won two more awards -- Best Song and Best Virtual Live in 2020 and Best Pop and Best K-pop in 2021 -- receiving four trophies in each of those years, the most among all artists. North Korea launched a flurry of provocations overnight on Friday. It fired a short-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea around 1:50 early Friday morning and about 170 artillery shells into the eastern and western maritime "buffer zones" between 1:30 a.m. and 3 a.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff here said. The JCS said the provocations came after about a dozen military planes flew close to the border with the South, prompting Seoul to scramble fighter jets and other warplanes. The JCS denounced the artillery volleys as "clear violations" of UN Security Council resolutions. They came hard on the heels of two long-range cruise missiles being fired into the West Sea the previous day. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center) watches missile launches in an undisclosed location in Pyongyang on Wednesday, in this grab from [North] Korean Central Television the following day. /Yonhap Cruise missiles are hard to intercept as they fly long distances on an irregular trajectory at a low altitude. The North continues to perfect ways to avoid detection and interception by South Korean and U.S. missile defenses, firing projectiles from moving trains and reservoirs where they are hard to spot by surveillance. The South Korean defense system consists of three strike platforms -- preemptive, defensive and retaliatory -- but they may be ineffective against the North's newest missiles. "It's possible to intercept North Korean cruise missiles if detected because they're slow," a presidential official here claimed. "They pose no threat to the three-axis defense system." A missile is being fired in an undisclosed location in Pyongyang on Wednesday, in this photo from the Rodong Sinmun the following day. But a security official said, "It seems that the North is seeking undetectable ways of firing missiles and developing new missiles that fly on an irregular trajectory in an attempt to incapacitate our preemptive kill-chain and other missile defense systems." This is apparently why South Korea has asked the U.S. to share strategic nuclear weapons as a deterrent, a suggestion that has so far been met with polite silence from Washington. Asked about the request on Thursday morning, President Yoon Suk-yeol said, "There're many opinions in Korea and the U.S. about how to deter nuclear proliferation. I'm listening to them and looking into various possibilities." In response to North's latest missile provocations in recent weeks along with its possible impending nuclear test, the Foreign Ministry here said Friday that it has put 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions on a blacklist in its first unilateral sanctions in nearly five years. The list includes officials and organizations linked to the North's procurement of weapons of mass destruction. "We strongly condemn North Korea's latest series of missile provocations," the ministry said. North Korea's firing of two long-range cruise missiles early Wednesday morning shows how keen the regime is to diversify its delivery systems for nuclear warheads. Cruise missiles are capable of carrying a 200 to 300 payload, which is lighter than those of ballistic missiles. If a North Korean cruise missile can carry a nuclear warhead, it means that the North's technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads is making great strides. "We assume that the North already obtained the technology to make 500- nuclear warheads around 2017," a military source here said. "It's therefore reasonable to speculate that it has developed the technology further by now." The South Korean military has not made its estimate public. The Defense White Paper published last year simply says that the North's technology seems to have reached a "considerable level." KYODO NEWS - Oct 14, 2022 - 13:27 | All, Japan The controversial state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cost around 1.2 billion yen ($8.1 million), less than the initially estimated 1.66 billion yen, the Japanese government said Friday. The taxpayer-funded ceremony was held Sept. 27 in Tokyo for Abe, the country's longest-serving prime minister, who was fatally shot while giving an election campaign speech in early July. A month after it decided to hold the state funeral, the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in August it would spend 249 million yen to cover the cost of the venue. But the government in early September said it would allocate an additional 1.4 billion yen to cover security costs and welcome foreign dignitaries, bringing the total price tag to over 1.6 billion yen, sparking concern that the total cost would balloon further. On Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a regular news conference that spending on security and accepting overseas guests was reduced as they stayed in Japan for shorter periods than the government had originally expected. Japan's first state funeral for a former prime minister in 55 years was attended by more than 4,000 people from home and abroad, including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The figure released Friday compares with the reported 8 million pounds ($9 million) spent on the state funeral for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 19 that was attended by 2,000 people. The government announced on July 22 that it would hold the state funeral for the divisive former leader, sparking harsh criticism of Kishida and a plunge in his Cabinet's approval ratings. Calls grew for the ceremony to be canceled, with opposition lawmakers arguing there was no legal basis for staging a state funeral for a former prime minister. In consideration of lingering opposition to the state funeral, Matsuno said Friday that the government would start to collect the views of more than 20 experts on constitutional and other matters regarding the event. In the post-World War II period, Japan had previously only held a state funeral in 1967 for former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who led the country's recovery from the war. Abe, who died aged 67, was prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. Related coverage: State funeral for ex-PM Abe staged amid strong public opposition Japan PM vows to inherit Abe's will to rescue abductees from N. Korea FOCUS: Ex-Japan PM Abe's controversial state funeral may threaten Kishida KYODO NEWS - Oct 14, 2022 - 14:18 | Feature, All, Japan Japan celebrated the 150th anniversary of its railways on Friday with a series of events, observances and merchandising tie-ins in Tokyo and elsewhere. At Shimbashi, one of the terminuses of Japan's first railway line opened in 1872, the E655 Nagomi train used by the emperor and other imperial family members set off from what is now an East Japan Railway Co. station to add color to the commemoration. Also at a ceremony in the station square, which has been home to a classic steam locomotive since the railways' 100th anniversary, visitors shopped at a special market selling railway-themed merchandise, regional products and other items. Among the special products and tickets made for the anniversary are solid-gold steam train models retailing at 15 million yen ($102,000) each. According to JR East, there has been good uptake for the expensive items, and the company will continue to take orders until the end of November. A special commemorative pass allowing unrestricted train travel for three days from Oct. 23 on express and standard services on JR lines nationwide has also been well received. Hisatsugu Miyata, a JR East executive, meanwhile laid flowers at the grave of Edmund Morel, a British engineer who contributed to establishing railways in Japan, at the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery. "Our forebears had the conviction to work toward improving society. We want to inherit that conviction," Miyata said. According to the transport ministry, further events are planned by other train operators in Japan. Japan's first railway opened in 1872 between Shimbashi and Yokohama neighboring Tokyo. A first-class ticket would cost about 15,000 yen ($102) today. Another line followed between Osaka and Kobe in western Japan in 1874, and railways soon spread across the archipelago as a symbol of modernization. Related coverage: Picturesque Japan railway line fully reopens after 11 years Sounds of Tokyo train station visualized in trial for deaf travelers Gov't to ask shinkansen operators to advance quake-resistance work KYODO NEWS - Oct 14, 2022 - 21:29 | Others Yasutoshi Nishimura, economy, trade and industry minister, visited the war-linked Yasukuni shrine on Friday ahead of its autumn festival next week, sources close to him said. Past visits by Japanese leaders and lawmakers to the Shinto shrine, which honors convicted war criminals along with the war dead, have riled Japan's Asian neighbors as they view it as a symbol of the country's past militarism. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a press conference Friday that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida "will decide as appropriate" whether to visit this year. Kishida is expected to send a "masakaki" offering on the occasion of the Shinto shrine's three-day autumn festival through Wednesday but will refrain from paying a visit, people close to him said. Meanwhile, a cross-party group of more than 100 lawmakers said it will collectively visit Yasukuni on Tuesday. The group last visited the shrine en masse in April for its spring festival. Japan invaded a wide area of China while it ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. In an apparent attempt to avoid confrontation with China and South Korea, recent Japanese prime ministers have only sent offerings to the shrine at the time of its biannual festivals in the spring and autumn, as well as the anniversary of the end of World War II on Aug. 15. Sanae Takaichi, minister for economic security, visited the shrine on Aug. 15 but declined to comment on whether she would visit again next week, saying they were "private plans." Nishimura had also visited Yasukuni in August, two days before the anniversary of the end of World War II. Most of the around 2.5 million people enshrined at Yasukuni are military servicemen and civilian employees of the Japanese military, but wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo and 13 other Class-A war criminals were added to the enshrined deities in 1978, stirring controversy in Japan and abroad. KYODO NEWS - Oct 14, 2022 - 18:45 | All, Japan Japan's Cabinet approved draft legislation Friday to scrap a rule that has prevented the new husband of a woman who has remarried from assuming paternity over a child born within some 10 months of the woman's divorce from her previous partner. The change is aimed at addressing a problem in which some children of divorced women have been left off family registers to avoid former husbands being recognized as fathers, leading to difficulties in the children accessing health and other services. Under what would be the first change to the century-old Civil Code provisions regarding paternity and marriage, a rule banning women from remarrying within 100 days of a divorce, long considered discriminatory, is also set to be scrapped. The government aims to pass the amendment in the current session of parliament. The current code states that a child born within 300 days after the mother's divorce is presumed to belong to her former husband, regardless of whether she remarries after the 100-day ban. Under the amendment, the former husband would only be regarded as the father within the 300-day period if the woman does not remarry. A Justice Ministry survey found about 70 percent of 793 individuals not included in family registers as of August this year had mothers who did not submit birth notifications because of the current legal paternity rule. Many women, including those who fled domestic violence, have opted not to submit notifications of the birth of their child with their current partners in order to avoid having their former husbands recognized as the legal father. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also gave the nod to giving mothers and children the right to file for court arbitration with regard to paternity disputes. At present, former husbands can deny paternity over children born within 300 days of a divorce. The period for filing for arbitration will be set at within three years of knowledge about a birth. Under the current arbitration system, which has been limited to former husbands seeking to deny paternity, the period was set at one year. The revisions also include deleting the parental right to punish children, while clearly stating that physical punishment and verbal and physical actions that harm a child's healthy development are not permissible. Mourners carry the body of Osama Adawi, who was killed by an Israeli soldier, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Hebron, Oct. 13, 2022. A Palestinian was killed and three others injured on Wednesday during clashes with the Israeli soldiers in Al-Aroub refugee camp north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian health authorities and eyewitnesses said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that Osama Adawi, 18, was killed after he was shot by an Israeli soldier during clashes broke out in the afternoon, adding three other Palestinian demonstrators sustained gunshot injuries in their legs. (Photo by Mamoun Wazwaz/Xinhua) RAMALLAH, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian was killed and three others injured on Wednesday during clashes with the Israeli soldiers in Al-Aroub refugee camp north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian health authorities and eyewitnesses said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that Osama Adawi, 18, was killed after he was shot by an Israeli soldier during clashes broke out in the afternoon, adding three other Palestinian demonstrators sustained gunshot injuries in their legs. Palestinian eyewitnesses said that an Israeli army force stormed the refugee camp to arrest stone-throwing demonstrators, adding that clashes broke out between dozens of stone-throwers and the Israeli soldiers. The witnesses added that the soldiers fired teargas canisters, rubber bullets, and live ammunition to disperse the stone throwers, adding that Adawi was killed and three others were injured. Tension in the West Bank has been mounting since March after the Israeli army intensified its military actions and operations against Palestinian protesters. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed since early January by Israeli soldiers, including children and women, according to official Palestinian statistics. Meanwhile, since March, 18 Israelis have been killed in attacks carried out by Palestinians in Israel. In return, Israel carried out manhunts in the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the northern West Bank for Palestinian suspects involved in attacks against Israel. In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem which are claimed by the Palestinians, and has controlled the areas ever since. The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in these territories. A relative of Osama Adawi, who was killed by an Israeli soldier, mourns during his funeral in the West Bank city of Hebron, Oct. 13, 2022. A Palestinian was killed and three others injured on Wednesday during clashes with the Israeli soldiers in Al-Aroub refugee camp north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian health authorities and eyewitnesses said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that Osama Adawi, 18, was killed after he was shot by an Israeli soldier during clashes broke out in the afternoon, adding three other Palestinian demonstrators sustained gunshot injuries in their legs. (Photo by Mamoun Wazwaz/Xinhua) Indonesian President Joko Widodo (front) inspects the Tegalluar station, the last station of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway (HSR), in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, Oct. 13, 2022. Joko Widodo observed the comprehensive inspection train parked at the Tegalluar station and listened to the report on the overall construction of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway (HSR) project on Thursday. (Xinhua/Xu Qin) JAKARTA, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo observed the comprehensive inspection train parked at the Tegallur station and listened to the report on the overall construction of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway (HSR) project on Thursday. The Tegallur station is the last station of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, located in Bandung, the capital of Indonesia's West Java province, with a floor area of 15,268 square meters and a maximum gathering capacity of 1,500 people and peak hourly transmission capacity of 3,200 people. Widodo said that the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR is progressing smoothly in general. The participating parties have made painstaking efforts to overcome complex geological, epidemic and other difficulties to advance the construction with high quality as planned. He added that the project will speed up and improve the mobility of people and goods, enhance Indonesia's overall competitiveness, and new points of economic growth will emerge in Jakarta and Bandung. During the Group of 20 (G20) summit, the results of the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR will be presented, further reflecting the excellent cooperation between the governments of Indonesia and China. At present, all 13 tunnels along the railway have been completed. Over 92 percent of the subgrade, bridge and station civil works have been completed. One high-speed electric passenger train and one inspection train tailored for this project arrived in Indonesia on September 1. With a design speed of 350 km per hour, the Jakarta-Bandung HSR built with Chinese technology will cut the journey between Jakarta and Bandung from over three hours to around 40 minutes. By Azernews By Orkhan Amashov The Prague meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit, organised by the EU on 6 October, led to some results, giving rise to cautious optimism regarding the peace treaty prospects between Baku and Yerevan. The stabilising impact it is likely to have after the recent September bout of clashes on the state border, may help minimise potential snags that could derail the negotiations. Following the two quadripartite meetings, involving Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron, a joint statement was issued. Firstly, the Prague meeting achieved a commitment from both sides to recognise each others territorial integrity and sovereignty, being one of the key five principles entailed in Bakus offer, which is critical in ensuring future peace as a foundational element. Regarding this point, the document refers to the UN Charter and the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration on the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is worth recalling that the signing of the latter, at the time, did not stop Armenia continuing to occupy sovereign Azerbaijani territories during the First Karabakh War. This forms the basis upon which negotiations could lead to a conclusive deal, as it finally and irrevocably settles Karabakhs belonging to Azerbaijan, rendering the ground for a peace treaty as fertile. Yerevan will likely continue to push for some treaty-based safety guarantees for the Armenian population of Karabakh, whereas Baku will continue to insist on a pure interstate scope for a peace deal. Azerbaijan has long been seeking to increase international acceptance of the precept that the fate of the Armenian population of Karabakh is a subject between Baku and its citizens, thereby falling beyond the scope of a peace deal. Armenians living in Karabakh are our citizens and we are not going to discuss their fate and future life with any country, including Armenia, said President Aliyev in Prague, using a suitably paternalistic tone. Although this is not a new view, it is of critical import, given the current juncture when the Foreign Ministers of both countries are working on the draft text of a deal. President Aliyev has reaffirmed his governments continuous determination to embrace the Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan, via full integration, but also reiterated that if it is not suitable for someone, they can choose another place of residence for themselves. This is clearly indicative that Baku does not feel under obligation to exercise any form of extraordinary political persuasion to prove its willingness to accommodate its Armenian citizens, viewing it as something that should be taken for granted. Given how the original conflict between Baku and Yerevan started, this could be construed as the apotheosis of Azerbaijan's negotiating clout over the years. Another important takeaway from the joint statement is an agreement on a civilian EU mission to be sent to Armenia, to be posted along the border with Azerbaijan. Baku has agreed to cooperate, as far as it is concerned. This two-month-long mission could decrease the tensions and instances of escalations on the state border, thereby contributing to an environment that would be conducive to peace talks. Since the Ukrainian crisis, the EU has intensified its efforts, outweighing the lacklustre Moscow format, the focus of which has mostly been on the delimitation and demarcation of the state border and the opening of communications. It is theoretically possible to achieve a peace deal which will agree on the fundamentals, leaving other details for further adjudication. It is not impossible or unprecedented for two states to have a peace treaty and diplomatic relations, without agreeing on the delimitation of the border. Yet a treaty cannot be too basic. In the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia, it will need to ascertain all the key parameters pertaining to the tracks of the current negotiations, in all probability including the essential tenets regarding the Zangazur Corridor project. The present climate favours Brussels augmented role, backed up with Washingtons efforts, both of which have currently assumed a relatively heightened significance. It should also be noted that the statements of this kind are not legally-binding, and any change in the political climate could render its positive sides null and void. It remains a matter of nebulous nature if Pashinyan will renege on his word, as is his custom, and reinterpret the concept of Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani territorial integrity in a way that could be construed as contrary to the original intent emanating from the Prague statement. Now, there is a two-month window which offers grounds for cautious optimism. The devil is in the details. The cumulative import of Pashinyans surfeit of courage to act decisively, or lacking thereof, Azerbaijans continuous application of constructive pressure and other concomitants will have a bearing on what is to come. As British journalist Neil Watson commented: Barring radical political change in Armenia or its cohorts Russia and Iran, the inexorably slow pace of the peace process is coming to an end. We may see posturing and placating of populations, but the treaty is a foregone conclusion. YANGLING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Yangling, an agricultural hi-tech industrial demonstration zone in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has been improving crop yield at home and aboard. Located about 80 km to the west of Shaanxi's capital Xi'an, Yangling has cultivated a number of new high-quality and high-yielding wheat and corn varieties. Up to now, new varieties of wheat and corn cultivated in Yangling have been planted in a land area of more than 850 million mu (56 million hectares) across the country, increasing grain production by about 21.5 billion kg. It helps ensure the country's food security and rural revitalization. Yangling has also witnessed deepening agricultural cooperation under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) framework over recent years. Many new varieties of wheat have been planted in jointly-built modern agricultural demonstration zones in countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Produced by Xinhua Global Service BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- On August 31, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a meeting attended by non-CPC personages at Zhongnanhai in Beijing to solicit opinions and suggestions from the central committees of the other political parties, head of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation on the draft report of the 19th CPC Central Committee to the upcoming 20th CPC National Congress. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting and made an important speech. He stressed that in the face of the new tasks and requirements presented by the new era and new journey, the CPC and the other political parties must strengthen cooperation, consolidate and develop the broadest patriotic united front, pool the wisdom and strength of people from all social strata and circles to the maximum extent, give full play to the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the whole society and entire nation, and strive together to build a modern socialist country in all respects and achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng also attended the meeting. At the meeting, Xi introduced the process of how the draft report was conceived and expressed his hope to receive keen perspectives and insights from non-CPC personages about it. At the meeting, Wan Exiang, chairperson of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, Chen Xiaoguang, executive vice chairperson of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League, Hao Mingjin, chairperson of the Central Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, Cai Dafeng, chairperson of the Central Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy, Chen Zhu, chairperson of the Central Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, Wan Gang, chairperson of the Central Committee of the China Zhi Gong Party, Wu Weihua, chairperson of the Central Committee of Jiusan Society, Su Hui, chairperson of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, Gao Yunlong, chairperson of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and Gao Hongjun, a representative of personages without party affiliation, respectively gave their speeches. They considered the past five years since the CPC's 19th National Congress and the past decade into the new era unusual and extraordinary. They noted that the CPC Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has kept in mind the overall picture for national rejuvenation and major changes in the world unseen in a century, united and led the whole Party, the military and Chinese people of all ethnic groups in effectively responding to the grave and complicated international and domestic situation and a series of major risks and challenges that kept emerging, pushing forward socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era in an energetic manner. Our first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects has been achieved on schedule, and historic achievements and shifts have been realized in the cause of the Party and the country, writing a glorious chapter in history. The draft report to the 20th CPC National Congress, from a commanding height in considering both China's national rejuvenation and the drastic changes in the world unseen in a century, scientifically lays out goals, tasks, and major policies for developing the cause of the Party and the country in the next five years or even longer period to come, putting forward a series of new approaches, strategies and measures. It will serve as a guiding document for us to realize the second centenary goal and build China into a modern socialist country in all respects. The participants also put forward their opinions and suggestions regarding promoting consensus on the great national rejuvenation, building an international communication and discourse system on human rights, pursuing higher-standard opening up under the "dual circulation" pattern, boosting the revitalization of northeast China, strengthening the building of the united front and the new type of political party system as well as the ideological and political work among non-CPC intellectuals, enhancing independent innovation and encouraging entrepreneurs to be more innovative, improving the management systems in universities and forming a mechanism for ensuring sustainable and stable funding for public health. After their discussions, Xi delivered an important speech. He said that drafting the report of the 19th CPC Central Committee to the 20th CPC National Congress is an essential part of the preparation work for the congress. In order to ensure the report represents the common will of the entire Party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups, meets the requirements of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and adapts to the new situation and tasks faced in the endeavor of our Party and country, we gave full play to democracy, deepened investigations and research, solicited people's views in an extensive manner, and pooled wisdom from all parties. Soliciting opinions from non-CPC personages on the report is an important part of political consultation as well as an effective way for non-CPC personages to air their views and advice for our country's development and national rejuvenation. Xi stressed that in late February this year, the CPC Central Committee entrusted its United Front Work Department to solicit opinions and suggestions from non-CPC personages on issues related to the 20th CPC National Congress, and many valuable opinions and suggestions were put forward. Since the first half of 2022, the central committees of the other political parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation have conducted fact-finding missions in various forms, getting a number of high-quality findings and putting forward valuable opinions and suggestions. They offered some very good suggestions during their speeches at the meeting, which, Xi said, were constructive and would be seriously considered. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi expressed gratitude to all at attendance. He pointed out that maintaining commitment to the united front is an important historical experience of the Party over the past century. The historic achievements and shifts in the cause of the Party and the country over the past 10 years in the new era are the results of the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee, the hard work of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, and the joint efforts of all members of the united front, including the other political parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation. Xi hoped the central committees of the other political parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and public figures without party affiliation could closely follow, in both thinking and action, the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee. He urged them to strengthen the sense of political responsibility and historical mission in cooperating with the CPC in solidarity and focus their ingenuity and energy on realizing the inspiring blueprint, goals and strategic deployments to be laid out at the upcoming 20th National Congress of the CPC. Adhering to the right political orientation, they should closely follow the CPC Central Committee in thinking, stance, and action, keep in mind the worst-case scenarios and champion the fighting spirit, said Xi. He urged them to play a bigger role in coordinating social relationships, defusing social tensions as well as maintaining social stability. He also asked them to enhance political transition that highlights political integrity and inheritance and make it more targeted and deliverable, and pass on the fine traditions of multi-party cooperation, namely, being of one heart and mind with the CPC, loving the country and serving the people, working closely together and dedicating to the common cause. Ding Xuexiang, Wang Chen, Liu He, Xu Qiliang, Sun Chunlan, Yang Xiaodu, Chen Xi, Hu Chunhua, Guo Shengkun, Huang Kunming, You Quan, Wang Yi, Xiao Jie, Zhang Qingli, Xia Baolong, He Lifeng and other leading officials from the central departments attended the meeting. Prominent non-CPC figures including Zheng Jianbang, Gu Shengzu, Liu Xincheng, He Wei, Shao Hong, Jiang Zuojun, Li Yuefeng, and Huang Yuguang were present. SAO PAULO, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- As many as 4,500 health workers died in Brazil after contracting COVID-19 while working to save lives during the pandemic, a global federation representing public service workers said Thursday. Among the victims were 1,184 nurses, and eight out of 10 were women, according to Public Services International (PSI), which is associated with the International Labor Organization. The deaths were registered between March 2020 and December 2021, according to a PSI report which, based on official data, was compiled to analyze public policy amid an event of such magnitude in Brazil and other countries. With 687,026 COVID-19 deaths so far, Brazil has the world's second-highest death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest COVID-19 breakout, after the United States and India, according to figures released by the Brazilian Health Ministry. The PSI gathers more than 700 trade unions representing 30 million workers in 154 countries, according to its website. Over the past 16 years, Bruno Lannes, a senior partner in Bain & Company's Shanghai office, has found huge market potential and business opportunities in Shanghai and contributed his wisdom to the city's development. Produced by Xinhua Global Service BEIRUT, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Qatar has expressed its interest in participating in the oil exploration in two areas offshore Lebanon in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese energy minister said Friday. "Qatar expressed its interest, in a letter from his Excellency the Qatari Oil Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, in participating in exploring oil in blocks 4 and 9," Walid Fayad said following his meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The two blocks are now operated by an international consortium led by France's TotalEnergies and Italy's Eni. Lebanon and Qatar also discussed the latest developments regarding the maritime border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel as well as the subsequent actions that need to be taken to begin oil and gas exploration in Lebanon, according to Fayad. "Qatar's participation in oil and gas exploration in Lebanon is significant as we know Qatar's investment capacity," the Lebanese minister said. After years of negotiations, Lebanon and Israel reached a historic agreement earlier this week to demarcate their maritime borders, paving the way for offshore energy exploration within the Lebanese territories. by Xinhua writers Zhang Yisheng, Zhao Bochao BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's home-grown super-large-diameter shield tunneling machine "Jinghua" bored through water-rich and high-density sand during a reconstruction project in Beijing, creating a new monthly tunneling world record of 542 meters. The technological feat wouldn't have been imagined in the 1990s when China was unable to build the shield tunneling machine by itself. With the technology monopolized by foreign countries, China had to import such machines at very high prices. A decade ago, knowing China didn't have the ability to produce the equipment, a foreign company set the price of a super-large-diameter shield tunneling machine as high as 700 million yuan (97.51 million U.S. dollars), Yang Hui, a Chinese designer of shield tunneling machine, said in an interview. "However, this prompted us to make our own," he added. Because of that, China made up its mind to pool resources to advance its technology and has managed to produce the machine independently. Nowadays, home-grown shield machines have a domestic market share of over 90 percent, and a global market share of around 70 percent. The home-made shield machine has become a symbol of China's manufacture capability, and an example of China's fast sci-tech development despite foreign technology blockade. SCI-TECH SELF-STRENGTHENING The U.S. government has recently tightened its controls on semiconductor chip exports to China, a hegemonic sci-tech step aimed at hobbling China's access to cutting-edge technologies. Many industry insiders believe while China's chip industry has to brace for the pain, Washington's technology bullying to keep Beijing down will only accelerate Beijing's push to further improve research originality and strive for more breakthroughs, just like what it achieved in making shield machines. For years, Chinese scientists have succeeded in building the country into a leader in science and technology, and achieving self-reliance and self-improvement in sci-tech at higher levels. Take China's space industry as an example. The country has continuously made new advancements in this field, including the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) satellites, Chang'e lunar probes, Tianwen-1 Mars probe, as well as the Tiangong space station and its core module Tianhe. On Sunday, China sent a solar exploration satellite into space, furthering the country's scientific endeavor to unravel the mysteries of the Sun. The great strides China has made in space industry, in some sense, were pushed by the United States, which adopted the Wolf Amendment in 2011 to hinder China's development in the field. In a bid to prevent technology transfers with China, the law prohibited the U.S. space agency NASA from engaging in direct bilateral cooperation with Beijing, thus depriving Chinese spacefarers of access to the International Space Station since then. However, China's progress in promoting self-reliance and self-improvement in aerospace has proved the U.S. manoeuvre is but a vain attempt. Peter Wennink, head of Dutch chip printing giant ASML, was quoted in media reports as saying that Washington's anti-China tech blockade is a bad idea that will backfire. The export controls against China will not only fail to stop its technological progress but also hurt the U.S. economy. "If you shut out the Chinese with export control measures, you'll force them to strive toward tech sovereignty, in their case real tech sovereignty ... In 15 years' time they'll be able to do it all by themselves," he told POLITICO in an interview. MORE GLOBAL COOPERATION China's independent innovation does not mean working behind closed doors. The country has actually made remarkable contributions to the sci-tech innovation of humankind. China's commitment to independent innovation and global cooperation is best illustrated by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. Starting formal operations on Jan. 11, 2020, FAST has been available for scientists across the world since March 2021, which is a manifestation of the country's openness to international collaboration. Fully aware that independent innovation should be pursued in an open environment, China has been actively sharing BDS achievements with the world. BDS-related products, technologies and services have been applied in more than half of all countries around the world, said the China Satellite Navigation Office. In the tunnel-boring sector, China's home-grown products have been exported to more than 30 countries and regions, serving the construction of tunnels and subways around the world. Up to now, China has established a sci-tech cooperation relationship with more than 160 countries and regions, and joined more than 200 international organizations and multilateral mechanisms. Thanks to its greater focus on independent innovation and international cooperation, China moved up to the 11th place in the 2022 Global Innovation Index (GII) and firmly remains the only middle-income economy in the top 30, showed the latest ranking published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). "China's growth (in GII ranking) from 34th ten years ago to 11th (in 2022) ... is really spectacular. The close attention paid by the government and the country to innovation as an engine of growth is paying off," WIPO Director General Daren Tang said at the press launch of GII 2022. "China nurtures its innovation ecosystem in a holistic, comprehensive manner," he said. NAIROBI, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The alarming loss of species in Africa, fueled by climate change, unplanned development and pollution, requires bold policy and legislative measures to reverse, senior World Wildlife Fund (WWF) officials said. Speaking during the virtual launch of WWF's flagship Living Planet Report 2022 in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital on Thursday, Alice Ruhweza, Africa Regional Director, WWF-International said that African countries required greater financing and policy shift to hasten nature-positive growth. Ruhweza said that mining activities, poaching, industrial farming and urbanization had worsened loss of Africa's flagship species, to the detriment of green growth, denoting that enhanced conservation of biodiversity hotspots will boost the continent's fight against poverty, hunger and climate-induced water stress. She called upon African governments to lobby for adoption of a more inclusive and ambitious framework to protect planetary resources during the global biodiversity summit slated for Montreal, Canada, from Dec. 7 to 19. Published biannually by the WWF and the Zoological Society of London, the Living Planet Report aims to shed light on status of vital ecosystems, their contribution to human welfare and emerging threats. The 2022 edition of Living Planet Report revealed that Africa's wildlife population fell by 66 percent between 1970 and 2018, thanks to poaching, climatic shocks and degradation of their natural habitats. However, the report pointed to positive trends in central Africa where the population of mountain gorillas increased from 408 in 2010 to 604 in 2015 thanks to enhanced conservation measures. Jackson Kiplagat, the head of Conservation Programs at WWF-Kenya said that reversing habitat loss in Africa was possible subject to innovative financing towards conservation, law enforcement and greater community engagement. Kiplagat added that African governments should implement ambitious blueprints to boost conservation of species, secure a green and resilient future for local communities. NAIROBI, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- State-owned Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) and Chinese firm, Huawei said Friday they have partnered in order to scale up cyber security skills in the east African nation. Ezra Chiloba, Director-General of the CA said cyber security is critical since the future of Kenya's economy is going to be driven by the digital space. "We are working with Huawei, who are bringing on board their expansive experience in this sector, and I want to encourage young people who are undertaking courses and are looking forward to participating in the digital economy to invest their time and resources in understanding the future of cyber security," Chiloba said in a statement released in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. He noted that CA, the telecom industry regulator, and Huawei will jointly set up a special cyber security boot camp for students attending institutions of higher learning across the country. "The boot camp has attracted more than 1,700 university students across the country. The partnership targets to build capacity amongst technology students to ensure secure networks and cyberspace," Chiloba added. Official statistics indicate that Kenya has just under 2,000 certified cybersecurity professionals against an annual demand of 10,000 experts. Chiloba also revealed that the three-day intensive training session which is set to run on Oct. 17-19 is one of the highlights of the month-long celebrations to mark national cybersecurity awareness month marked every October. He observed that the boot camp includes a Huawei certification e-learning course on cyber security, virtual lab exercises, on-site training, and mentorship from experts within the field. "These jointly structured sessions and courses are geared at preparing participants for a successful career in cybersecurity," Chiloba said. Will Meng, CEO of Huawei Kenya, noted that for the past 20 years, the firm has helped build secure networks across Kenya while contributing to economic growth. "We are pleased to work with the CA to provide training to students to enhance their capacity to operate networks and systems securely, and to be safe online," Meng said. by Tamara Traubmann JERUSALEM, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The landmark maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon is expected to not only solve the longtime dispute between the two enemy countries but also prevent a potential conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group and political party backed by Iran, experts say. In a major diplomatic breakthrough, the two countries, which have been in an official state of war since Israel's statehood in 1948, announced on Tuesday that they reached a U.S.-brokered agreement over a disputed zone in the Eastern Mediterranean, where natural gas fields are located. DEAL SATISFYING BOTH The deal, a copy of which was seen by Xinhua, allocates exploration and exploitation rights to the French energy giant Total at the contested Qana gas field. Under the deal, Qana would be located mostly within the Lebanese boundary but Total will share some revenues with Israel. The deal also confirms Israel's control of Karish, a gas field south of Qana that has been developed by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid is determined to bring it for final approval by the government before the country's Nov. 1 elections. In a press conference on Wednesday, Lapid praised the deal as "a great achievement for the State of Israel, for Israel's security and for Israel's economy." On Thursday, Lebanese President Michel Aoun hailed the deal as a "historic achievement," noting his country regained 860 square km in the disputed territory. Earlier this week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who considers Israel the group's sworn enemy, expressed satisfaction, telling Lebanese media that "as far as Hezbollah is concerned, we have achieved what we wanted." Production at the Karish rig and the exploration of Qana are expected to begin immediately after the agreement enters into force, according to the deal. REGIONAL STABILITY Although the deal doesn't normalize ties between Israel and Lebanon, it marks the first time the two neighboring countries has reached an agreement over a segment of their joint border, said Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. "It means Lebanon recognizes Israel, despite Hezbollah's hostile attitude that doesn't recognize the existence of the state of Israel," said Mizrahi, also former Deputy National Security Adviser for Foreign Policy at Israel's National Security Council. "The deal has economic, strategic and security advantages for Israel and it contributes to stability in the region," she added. "It can halt conflicts that otherwise would escalate to a full-fledged war," she noted. The last full-fledged war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah took place in 2006, mainly on Lebanese soil. During the talks in the past months, Hezbollah sent several drones toward Karish, threatening to attack the rig if the Lebanese demands will not be met. According to Mizrahi, the new deal creates "a new equation based on a deterrence balance," with both sides having gas fields. The Israeli security establishment also hailed the deal. Israel's National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata said in a briefing to reporters on Wednesday that the agreement is expected to calm tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. "There is an Israeli security interest in strengthening Lebanon because it weakens Hezbollah," he said, adding it would halt Hezbollah's threats over Karish and prevent further claims over the gas field. ECONOMIC BENEFITS Gas production at the Qana gas field could bring much-needed cash and new investments to the Lebanese economy. "The deal benefits both sides. It is a positive move for the collapsing economy of Lebanon and for Israel," Michael Milshtein, a researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel-Aviv University, told Xinhua. "It's a win-win kind of deal," Elai Rettig, a researcher of the geopolitics of energy at the Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, told Xinhua. Europe is eager for new gas sources amid the crisis in Ukraine but private energy companies have been cautious to embark on gas explorations in the volatile region, Rettig said. "Once you show international companies that even two enemy states can cooperate over gas, then you can attract more energy companies for gas searching and drillings in the region," he added. Israel will receive approximately 17 percent of the revenues from Qana, according to Prime Minister Lapid. Enditem (Nick Kolyohin contributed to the story.) ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least two soldiers of Yemen's pro-government forces were killed and five others wounded in a roadside bomb blast in the country's turbulent southern province of Abyan on Friday, a military official told Xinhua. "A bomb explosion struck a military pick-up truck carrying pro-government army personnel when they were driving along a road in Al Mahfid district of Abyan Province," the local military source said on condition of anonymity. The incident occurred in an area where sporadic fighting is still going on between pro-government forces and scores of al-Qaida gunmen, according to the source. Reinforcements of the southern pro-government forces backed by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition arrived in the area just hours after the bombing, he said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet. Yemeni military and government officials often hold the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch responsible for such attacks. In September, forces loyal to the Yemeni government evicted scores of militants of the al-Qaida terrorist group from Abyan following days of armed confrontations. The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula network has exploited years of deadly conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels to expand its presence in the war-ravaged Arab country. It has carried out many high-profile attacks against the security forces in the country's southern provinces. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli The scale of reconstruction and rebuilding in the regained territories of Azerbaijan within a short period of time demonstrates the country's determination to restore and develop the war-raged lands once again, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said. The minister made the remarks during his speech at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the CIS nations in Astana on October 12. The meeting first started in a limited format, then continued in an expanded format. Bayramov added that the construction will make a significant contribution to the post-conflict stability of the region. In his speech, the minister expressed his gratitude to Kazakhstan for organizing a constructive exchange of ideas on current issues of the regional and international agenda at a high-level meeting within the framework of the CIS. Noting that security issues are more relevant in joint action against the challenges and threats of the modern world, the minister stressed the importance of conducting consultations at various levels between interested parties within the framework of the CIS. In particular, the minister stressed the importance of cooperation in the humanitarian field, which is traditionally an effective means of strengthening trust and mutual understanding between countries. Further, Bayramov informed the meeting participants about the current situation in the post-war period, including issues related to the advancement of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. He said that the end of the conflict created new opportunities to achieve long-term peace and stability in the region through the restoration of economic ties and communication. Specifically, the minister stressed that the importance of the region will increase upon the opening of the Zangazur corridor, which will serve to increase transit opportunities in the region and strengthen the investment environment in general. He talked about the large-scale construction works carried out by the government of Azerbaijan in the liberated territories, noting the active work done to ensure the return of internally displaced persons to their homes. During the speech, Bayramov also highlighted that the tripartite declarations have not yet been fully implemented by Armenia, and the Armenian soldiers have not been fully withdrawn from the territories of Azerbaijan. Also, he noted that Armenia continued its provocations on September 13-14 and its attempt to mine the supply roads of the Azerbaijani forces in the border zone caused numerous casualties. Moreover, the Azerbaijani minister pointed out that these actions of Armenia undermine efforts to ensure peace and stability in the region. He stated that Azerbaijan expects real steps to be taken by Armenia in the direction of normalizing relations and advancing the negotiation process and that Azerbaijan is determined to continue its efforts in this regard. BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter on the establishment of the Global Sustainable Transport Innovation and Knowledge Center on Friday. The opening ceremony of the Global Sustainable Transport Innovation and Knowledge Center was held in Beijing the same day. Former Malagasy Prime Minister Norbert Ratsirahonana speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Oct. 7, 2022. (Photo by Sitraka Rajaonarison/Xinhua) ANTANANARIVO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) always adheres to the principle of "serving the people" and "strives to find all means to bring a better life for the Chinese people," former Malagasy Prime Minister Norbert Ratsirahonana has said. There is a "total symbiosis" between the CPC and the Chinese people, he told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview. Having made four visits to China, 83-year-old Ratsirahonana noted during his last trip in December 2019 that "the advances have been even greater," not least the increase in real estate infrastructure, the improvement of road networks and the beautification of cities. "China's growth rate has had an impact on the daily lives of the Chinese," he said. Thanks to the firm "political will" of the CPC, absolute poverty was eradicated in China, he said. The CPC, he said, not only listens to the interests of the Chinese people, but also promotes the common interests of all humanity. In today's turbulent world, China's proposal of building a community with a shared future for mankind shows that it shoulders responsibilities not only at the national level, but also at the international level. By advancing this idea, China has shown its determination to contribute to world peace, he explained. "China is willing to share the benefits of its growth with other countries, with other populations that are still in poverty," he said. Ratsirahonana said China's help to Madagascar speaks to that truth. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, there have been relations of brotherhood, solidarity and cooperation between Madagascar and China, he said, citing tangible aid provided by China in such fields as health, agriculture and infrastructure. Highlighting the technological cooperation between Madagascar and China in the field of hybrid rice, Ratsirahonana said, "such cooperation really touches the daily life of every Malagasy." He voiced his hope that China will continue to provide support, assistance and cooperation to help Madagascar achieve food self-sufficiency in the near future. Regarding the upcoming 20th National Congress of the CPC, Ratsirahonana said the decisions that will be taken during the meeting will affect not only the lives of the Chinese people but also the lives of other countries in the world. Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian doctor killed by Israeli soldiers during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, Oct. 14, 2022. The Palestinian doctor who was severely injured by Israeli soldiers during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers on Friday in the northern West bank city of Jenin died from his wounds, the Palestinian health ministry said. (Photo by Ayman Nobani/Xinhua) RAMALLAH, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian doctor who was severely injured by Israeli soldiers during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers on Friday in the northern West bank city of Jenin died from his wounds, the Palestinian health ministry said. The death toll in the clashes has risen to two after Abdullah Abu al-Teen's death, while five others were injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a short press statement. Early in the morning, an Israeli army force stormed Jenin and raided Palestinian homes to arrest activists wanted by Israeli security, leading to fierce clashes, according to Palestinian eyewitnesses. An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers operated in the area to arrest a Hamas member who was responsible for a series of shooting attacks in the West Bank. "During the operation in Jenin, explosives were thrown, and armed Palestinians fired massive volleys of gunfire at the forces," the spokesman said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Presidency Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the Israeli army for "committing new crime" and "crossing all red lines." Tension in the West Bank has been mounting since March after the Israeli army intensified its military actions and operations against Palestinian militants and activists by storming Palestinian towns and cities. In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, all claimed by the Palestinians, and has controlled or blockaded these areas ever since. The Palestinians want to establish an independent state on these territories. Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian doctor killed by Israeli soldiers during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, Oct. 14, 2022. The Palestinian doctor who was severely injured by Israeli soldiers during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers on Friday in the northern West bank city of Jenin died from his wounds, the Palestinian health ministry said. (Photo by Ayman Nobani/Xinhua) UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to investigate U.S. infringement on human rights and release relevant reports. He also urged the United States and a few other countries to face up to and address their own poor human rights records. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Photo taken on Aug. 16, 2022 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) "Enough. We've grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings," President Joe Biden said in a statement. WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden decried the mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday. "Enough. We've grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings," Biden said in a statement. "Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever," he continued. "There are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that don't even make the national news." Raleigh police have identified five victims of the shooting that occurred in a residential neighborhood on Thursday evening, including an off-duty police officer. Two other people were wounded, including another officer. The suspect, described as a 15-year-old White male, was taken into custody on Thursday night and is said to have been in critical condition. More details about the identity of the shooter have not been released due to his age. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin tweeted Friday afternoon that "there are several families in our community who woke up this morning without their loved ones." "We grieve with them today," Baldwin wrote. "No family should ever have to feel this pain." North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has ordered flags flown at half-staff to "mourn the victims killed in a horrific and infuriating act of violence." Gun violence has led to nearly 35,000 deaths across the United States so far this year, according to the latest data from Gun Violence Archive. Students wearing bulletproof vests hold a rally near the Capitol Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., the United States, June. 6, 2022. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua) Black youth are 14 times more likely and Hispanic youth are three times more likely than white youth to die as a result of gun violence. NEW YORK, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Violent crime has been rising nationally since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many elected officials, policymakers, and media outlets have mistakenly placed the blame on young people, reported the Center for American Progress on Tuesday. "For far too long, youth have been an easy scapegoat for the rising violence in America," said the report, noting that although the real drivers of this devastating trend are complex and far-reaching, the political motivation to point to a single reason for violent crime has spawned public discourse and policy developments that have harmed generations of youth, and particularly youth of color, for a problem they did not cause. While the trends in youth arrests are going in the right direction, the data on youth victims of gun violence tell a different story -- gun violence was the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in 2020, according to the report. "Black youth are 14 times more likely and Hispanic youth are three times more likely than white youth to die as a result of gun violence. Violent crime is the consequence of historic underinvestment in communities of color," said the report. A comprehensive approach to address crime and violence should direct resources back into communities of color that have been disproportionately affected and where historic divestment has resulted in a lack of proven public health and community safety infrastructure, it added. RAMALLAH, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian gunman was killed on Friday night in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian and Israeli sources said. Palestinian media and eyewitnesses said that Israeli soldiers killed the Palestinian gunman near the village of Al-Jalazon after he opened fire and wounded an Israeli settler near Beit El settlement north of Ramallah. The Israeli army was quoted by Israeli media as saying that an Israeli citizen was lightly injured on Friday night when the Palestinian gunman opened fire toward the settlement. Israeli soldiers fired back and killed the man, whose identity remains unknown, added the army. On Friday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that two Palestinians, including a doctor, were killed, and six others were injured by Israeli soldiers during an Israeli army force raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that 66 Palestinians were injured on Friday during clashes between dozens of Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in several villages close to the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The statement said that among the casualties, four were injured by rubber bullets and two by live ammunition. The rest suffered suffocation after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli soldiers during the clashes. Tension has been mounting between Israel and the Palestinians since March after the Israeli army intensified its military actions and operations against Palestinian militants and activists by storming Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank. Since early January, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli in the West Bank, including women and children, according to official Palestinian figures. Meanwhile, more than 20 Israelis have been killed since March. WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden decried the mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday. "Enough. We've grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings," Biden said in a statement. "Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever," he continued. "There are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that don't even make the national news." Raleigh police have identified five victims of the shooting that occurred in a residential neighborhood on Thursday evening, including an off-duty police officer. Two other people were wounded, including another officer. The suspect, described as a 15-year-old White male, was taken into custody on Thursday night and is said to have been in critical condition. More details about the identity of the shooter have not been released due to his age. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin tweeted Friday afternoon that "there are several families in our community who woke up this morning without their loved ones." "We grieve with them today," Baldwin wrote. "No family should ever have to feel this pain." North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has ordered flags flown at half-staff to "mourn the victims killed in a horrific and infuriating act of violence." Gun violence has led to nearly 35,000 deaths across the United States so far this year, according to the latest data from Gun Violence Archive. Police are seen outside the Transnet port in Cape Town, South Africa, Oct. 13, 2022. (Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Xinhua) The South African mining sector said the strike by transport utility Transnet is costing the country, businesses, and the mining sector billions of rands, damaging an already fragile economy. JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The South African mining sector said Thursday the strike by transport utility Transnet is costing the country, businesses, and the mining sector billions of rands, damaging an already fragile economy. The Minerals Council South Africa said the mining sector accounts for over 80 percent of Transnet's rail business and 50 percent of the group's income. They said the continuation of the strike will further damage the fragile economy. The employees from South African state-owned company Transnet have been on strike for over a week affecting exports tremendously. "The damage caused by the strike is not just the immediate impact but the longer-term consequences, which will have a ripple effect on business and broader society. The long-term reputational damage to South Africa as a reliable supplier to global markets must be considered by all parties," said Minerals Council South Africa spokesperson Allan Seccombe. Photo taken on Oct. 13, 2022, shows office buildings of Transnet in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Xinhua) He said on average, South Africa exports about 476,000 tonnes of bulk minerals a day worth 83 million U.S. dollars, however, it is estimated that just 120,000 tonnes of minerals worth 15 million U.S. dollars are being exported daily due to the strike. He said major mineral export harbors are operating at between 12 percent and 30 percent of their daily averages. Transnet workers gather during a strike in Cape Town, South Africa, Oct. 13, 2022. (Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Xinhua) The steel makers, farmers, and freight industry have said the strike is affecting their business and will damage the economy which is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Transnet is the largest and most crucial part of the freight logistics chain that delivers goods to each and every South African. As a state-owned company, Transnet is made up of operating divisions including freight rail, rail engineering, national ports, port terminals, pipelines, and property. ABUJA, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has completed the registration of 95 million voters who are expected to participate in next year's general elections, the electoral body chief said Thursday. With the completion of the Automated Biometric Identification System a few days ago, INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu said in a statement that the process, which included combining the fingerprint and the facial authentication of registered voters, had taken the official number of the electorates to over 95 million. "There are 18 political parties in the race to produce the next president to be elected by 95 million voters. We had over 84 million registered voters in 2019," Yakubu said, describing the forthcoming general elections as "significant to Nigeria." The electoral body has fixed Feb. 25, 2023, for the presidential and National Assembly elections, while the governorship and state assembly elections will hold a week later. The INEC opened its portal from June 2021 to June this year to enable the physical registration of eligible voters on the continuous voters registration platform. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed Moscow's readiness to make its contribution to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, Azernews reports. The remarks were made during the Russian minister's meeting with his Armenian colleague Ararat Mirzoyan on October 12. Lavrov noted that a lot has already been done for the normalization process including the opening of transport routes, and the countries have 'blueprints' on the border delimitation issues. He stressed that the full normalization of relations between Russia's close neighbors and friends is in the country's best interest. To recap, a meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, French President Emmanuel Macron, and President of the European Council Charles Michel was held in Prague on October 6. Following the statement made on the meeting results, Azerbaijan and Armenia confirmed their commitment to the UN Charter and the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991 through which both countries recognized each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Earlier, a trilateral format telephone call was initiated by US State Secretary Antony Blinken with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in presence to mull the normalization of ties following the two ministers' bilateral meeting to negotiate a draft peace treaty in Geneva on October 2. Bayramov stressed the importance of efforts on normalizing interstate ties between Azerbaijan and Armenia and negotiate a peace treaty in the post-conflict period. The minister called Armenia's attention to the peace treaty provisions based on Azerbaijan's five principles in this respect. Taking into account the recent tensions on the undelimited border, Bayramov proposed conducting the next meeting of the bilateral commissions on delimitation in October, rather than November as originally scheduled. NAIROBI, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- State-owned Kenya Investment Authority (KenInvest) and the Netherlands Business Hub on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to strengthen cooperation in trade and investment between the two countries. Olivia Rachier, acting Managing Director of KenInvest, told journalists in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya that the collaboration will support efforts of Dutch companies to invest in Kenya in agriculture, life sciences, health, blue economy, logistics, energy and water sectors. "The agreement also provides a platform for conducting joint investment promotion and trade missions," Rachier said. According to Kenya government data, the Netherlands is among the top five source countries for foreign direct investment to Kenya and the European nation is the biggest export market in Europe for Kenya. Rachier said that the pact will also facilitate the compilation and information exchange of comparable, comprehensive and reliable investment statistics between the two countries. Maarten Brouwer, Ambassador of Netherlands to Kenya. said that with the agreement, the route to setting up and doing business in Kenya becomes easier for Dutch businesses. PHNOM PENH, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people are confirmed dead and three others still missing from a motorized boat accident on the Mekong River in southern Cambodia's Kandal province, a senior police official said on Friday. The accident occurred Thursday evening at around 7:00 p.m. local time when the boat, with 15 people aboard, including a boat operator and 14 students, capsized about 50 meters off the shore in Leuk Daek district, said Kandal provincial police chief Chhoeun Sochet. "As of Friday morning, eight bodies had been recovered, while four survivors, including the boat operator, were rescued," he told reporters. "Rescue efforts for the three missing are still underway." The accident happened when the boat ferried those students from school to their homes on an island village, Sochet said, adding that high speed, overload, and negligent driving were blamed for the accident. According to the Kandal provincial police's report, the ill-fated students aged between 12 and 14 years old. A man wearing a mask is seen near the Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, Oct. 14, 2022. Long Covid is now estimated to affect 2 million people in Britain, and almost 145 million globally, British newspaper "The Guardian" has reported. (Xinhua/Li Ying) LONDON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Long Covid is now estimated to affect 2 million people in Britain, and almost 145 million globally, the British newspaper The Guardian has reported. It's a complicated diagnosis to receive and those affected have to cope with both the physical symptoms and the psychological strain of having an illness that is not yet well understood and does not have well-established treatments, said the report on Thursday. The report said children are also among those affected by long Covid, unlike what was previously anticipated. Up to one in seven children and adolescents still have symptoms 15 weeks after infection -- including unusual tiredness and headaches -- while about one in 14 have five or more persistent symptoms, according to the report. "The biggest challenge is that GPs (general practitioners) don't know how to recognize long Covid, and they don't understand when to refer," Sammie McFarland, founder of the Long Covid Kids support group, was quoted as saying. "We are still fighting against that early narrative that children weren't affected. It has created a barrier to getting any support or belief," McFarland added. A flower is seen on the National COVID Memorial Wall in London, Britain, Oct. 14, 2022. Long Covid is now estimated to affect 2 million people in Britain, and almost 145 million globally, British newspaper "The Guardian" has reported. (Xinhua/Li Ying) LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- NASA's SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts aboard the Dragon spacecraft safely splashed down off the coast of the southeastern U.S. state of Florida on Friday, NASA said. The four-member international crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown at 4:55 p.m. Eastern Day Time (2055 GMT). The spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station at 12:05 p.m. Eastern Time (1605 GMT) Friday. The mission was launched to the space station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Apr. 27. Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, Govinda Raj Joshi and Resham Chaudhary Govinda Raj Joshi, a person who has been convicted of corruption by the Special Court, registered his name to contest the Nepal elections for the House of Representatives membership from Tanahun 1. He was already removed by the Nepali Congress party as its member after he showed his desire to contest the election from the constituency that senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel also claimed. Following his expulsion from the party, Joshi filed his candidacy independently. In 2017, his candidacy was voided by the Returning Officers Office. But, this time, he has been allowed to contest. Similarly, former deputy prime minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar also gave his name to contest the elections from Sunsari 3. Gachhadar has been accused of irregularity in the Lalita Niwa land case, which is currently sub-judice at the Special Court. He was released on bail of Rs 1 million by the court. Rastriya Prajatantra Partys Bikram Pandey also registered his name from Chitwan 3. Pandey had also been accused of corruption in the Sikta Irrigation Project, but the Special Court did not find him guilty. But, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has challenged the decision at the Supreme Court as it believes Pandey is guilty. If he is found guilty, he will be suspended from his position as a lawmaker should he win. It is clear that even if these people win the Nepal elections, they will not be able to become lawmakers as they have not been acquitted by the courts. However, there is no law to bar them from contesting the elections, and experts say this loophole in the election law has made people question the integrity of the parties and candidates. The legal provisions File: Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) In the anti-corruption law, there is a provision that those accused of corruption but not acquitted by the court cannot hold public office. The CIAA itself writes to the government asking it to not allow those accused or convicted to assume office. Yet, these people have time again given their names to contest the Nepal elections despite their shady past. Laws have determined the criteria to become a candidate for the House of Representatives and the provincial assemblies. If a person has been convicted of a criminal case, s/he will have to wait two years after serving the sentence to file candidacy in the Nepal elections. Unless they do that, they cannot register their names. The law also forbids people convicted of corruption, rape, human trafficking, money laundering and kidnapping from filing their names. People whove been given life imprisonment are also forbidden from contesting elections. Guru Prasad Wagle, a deputy spokesperson of the Election Commission, says that Nepals law cannot stop people in jail accused of a crime from contesting the election. Only people who have been convicted of a crime cant be candidates, says Wagle. Govinda Raj Joshi, a former minister, who has been facing corruption charges for the past 18 years has time and again tried to become a candidate. The Special Court has convicted him of corruption but the Supreme Court has asked the Special Court to review its decision. The case is still sub-judice at the Supreme Court as the Special Court believes that Joshi is guilty of corruption. As the final verdict is yet to come out, Joshi is allowed to contest the Nepal election. Gachhadar was also given a ticket, but he too has been accused of corruption in the Lalita Niwas case. Following the accusation, he was even suspended as a lawmaker but since the case is still ongoing, he is allowed to contest the election. Resham Chaudhary was accused of a murder case but was yet to be convicted when he ran and won the 2017 House of Representatives election in Kailali. Despite being elected, he remained on the run for many months before surrendering to the court and being sent to jail, thereby losing the lawmakers position. He tried to file a candidacy again on Sunday. But, the Election Commission has said that Chaudhary will not be allowed to contest the Nepal election as he is serving his imprisonment now. In response to complaints received by respective returning officers, the officers decided they do not meet the criteria to run in the polls as per the House of Representatives Election Act, 2017. Automatic suspension if elected File: Election Commission, Nepal Election Commission officials say even if people accused of crime and corruption win any of the Nepal elections, they will not be able to work as lawmakers as they will be suspended indefinitely. For those accused of corruption, the CIAA ensures that they are not allowed to work as lawmakers as it writes to the commission asking it not to allow them. The CIAA writes to the commission in these cases and we move ahead according. We did this during the local Nepal elections also, says the spokesperson of the CIAA, Shyam Prasad Bhandari. Until the court acquits them, they will remain suspended. But, this feels wrong, say experts. They argue that those who cannot take office should not be allowed to contest the elections. And if they are allowed to contest, they should not be barred from taking office if they win. This, they feel, undermines the votes of the people. CIAAs Bhandari says this will remain the case until the current Nepal election laws are in place. The law doesnt allow corrupt people to take office. We make sure that the law is followed, he says. The election laws might be different and we have nothing to say on that. The corruption-accused people are suspended for fear that these people may use their influence to hide the proof against them as the case would still be ongoing. This is why people accused of corruption are suspended and not allowed to take office. Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002, has this provision. But, the Nepal election law contradicts it and does not stop them from being candidates. Officials know that one of these laws must be amended, but the Election Commission cannot do anything to get one of them amended. CIAA officials, however, argue that since corruption-accused government workers are not eligible for promotion and cannot even participate in the competition of the Public Service Commission, the politicians should also not be allowed to contest Nepal elections if accused of corruption. This story was translated from the original Nepali version and edited for clarity and length. Gautam Dhimal. Photo: Courtesy Gautam Dhimal Kathmandu, October 14 For the first time in history, a Nepali photographer, Gautam Dhimal, has won the International Photography Award (IPA). The awards will be handed over to the winners on October 25, 2022, in Zankel Hall of the Carnegie Hall in New York City, United States of America. The chairperson of Location Nepal and Gehendra Dhimal Foundation, Dhimal has been awarded for his project Himalayan Fashion Adventure with the third prize in the professional category of advertising/fashion. Being held for the 19th year now, the International Photography Award (IPA) receives thousands of photo submissions every year for the award. Dhimal has worked with numerous local and international production teams. Some of the acclaimed international studios that he has collaborated with are BBC One, FOX, and Disney along with global brands like Red Bull, Nestea, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Vicks, Nippon Paint, Samsonite, Doosan, Kelloggs and many others. The award-winning photos of Dhimal can be viewed at www.HimalayanFashionAdventure.com. Sketch for representation only Kathmandu, October 14 The government has extended the ongoing luxury import ban by the next two months. While the ban was expiring today, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies has decided to extend it until December December 15. The cabinet endorsed the ministrys decision to publish it in the Nepal Gazette, according to an official.* In April, the government announced the ban on luxury imports considering the shrinking foreign exchange reserves of the country. Initially, the government had announced the ban would continue until the end of the fiscal year (mid-July). But, in mid-July, it was extended up to the August end. Then, the government further tightened the limits allowed for motorbikes and mobile phones, which still exist. However, the government partially lifted the luxury import ban and restricted it to just four items listed below: Liquor Mobile phones priced above USD 300 SUVs, cars and vans (except ambulances and hearses) Motorcycles above 150 CC *Updated Representational image. Photo: Pexels/ JESHOOTS Trans woman Soniya Tamang, currently an undergraduate student in Iowa of USA, started using her hormone replacement therapy course in 2020. She started with a testosterone blocker [spironolactone]. Six months later, she started taking estrogen and a year after that, she started her progesterone hormone therapy too. But, soon, she started seeing some changes in her skin and breast tissues. My skin was getting much clearer, without pimples and my breast size increased too. But, I also gained weight and got curvier. I found myself becoming more emotional than before too. Tamang was in the US, lucky enough to get access to proper hormone replacement therapy in response to her problems. But, many from the Nepali trans community just use hormone tablets that contain a higher percentage of estrogen. When Sudeep Gautam, a trans man, first thought of going through the transition, he had to procure his hormones from out of the country. Though the hormones were available in the country, like many other members of the Nepali trans community, I did not know that; I had to get in touch with a friend outside and procure them. While Tamang is getting regular medical attention and still going with the course, Gautam today regrets his decision of taking the hormones. Today, drugs are readily available here, but they are also misused often. Gautam, through his years of personal and on-field experience, says that the Nepali trans community needs to stop that and know about the hormones and their possible impacts on the body. I believe I am a trans man regardless of the hormones. It gave me the appearance of a man, but I struggle with so much today that other people do not understand. Proper consultation is a must Members of Unity for Change in discussion with the Nepali LGBTQIA+ community. Photo Courtesy: Unity For Change Hormone therapy is common in the Nepali trans community. Any individual in transition undergoes hormonal therapy (related to testosterone for trans men and estrogen and progesterone for trans women including respective hormone blockers) to stabilise their transition and look more like their straight counterparts. But, lately, queries and complaints about the side effects are on the rise, informs Gautam, who runs an organisation called Unity For Change as its president. Hence, we do not ask them to undergo the surgery. We always suggest the opposite. We only facilitate them and take them to the right place so that they get the hormones and their dosage suitable for their body, he says. What is more harmful, he says, is that many members of the Nepali trans community are taking hormones without expert consultation. Mostly, trans men tend to consume hormones by consulting their peers only. Many who do later feel the side effects, then only call us in a panic stage. That is why we strongly recommend visiting a doctor. Tamang also highlights that before and after using or stopping any course, a proper checkup is a must. I am in touch with my doctor who conducted a blood checkup to see if all my chemicals or hormones were in the normal range and if everything was healthy. Gautam says, Everyone has a different dosage requirement. It depends on the body, and its adaptability but has to be taken regularly. When I first took it, it was every 21 days. But now, it is up to a month and I go for checkups every three to six months. I have taken the hormones up to twice a month. But just two months ago, I had my breast augmentation done. So before the procedure and for the next month, I am off the hormones as recommended by the doctor, shares Tamang. Early problems Many members of the Nepali trans community start taking the hormones in their teens because they think the impact will be less that time. But, that is not true. It might help the body to adapt to the changes early in its life, but it is not easy. More hormones might mean more problems as they age including early heart and kidney problems as well as bone erosion. Gautam says he would never recommend taking the hormones even after a doctors recommendation. I have gone through the pain and the stress. But, when I suggest others to not take the hormones, they misunderstand me and accuse me that I have some personal benefits in not letting them grow. But, he says, A 30-year-old who takes hormones may look fit from the outside, but they struggle with issues like sugar, pressure, thyroid, hair growth, blood flow and urine dysfunction. Life does not get easier for many. He says if he had not taken the hormones, he could have been a better, stronger person. This is why he says the Nepali trans communitys journey should start within. One should understand that they have to accept their body first rather than taking medicines. They may afford one [sex change] operation, but that will never be the end. It comes with a lifetime of physical, economic and psychological impacts on the body that you cannot ignore. Hormones demand economic stability as well. From the first operation or hormones to the continuous dosage and the medicines for many side effects and the increasing prices of the medicine, all should be taken into consideration before anyone in the Nepali trans community undergoes the transition. If you leave the hormones in between, you face even more problems. Taking hospitals on board Representational image. Photo: Pexels/ Klaus Nielsen Apart from the medical support, Gautam says members of the Nepali trans community need other support such as legal consultations too. It includes obtaining proof of surgery. In Nepal, sex change operation is considered illegal as it cuts away healthy body parts. But, when trans individuals go for their citizenship, they need to show the sex change operation proof and a doctors prescription for hormonal therapy among others. So, we counsel and make sure everyone gets proof of surgery and not just the discharge papers. For this, the organisation has been working with hospitals also. We coordinate with many hospitals to first give them the consultations regarding how to handle the Nepali trans community, their struggles and their experiences, he shares. He feels there is the need because biologically born females and intersex people who have uterus still having menstruation are under threat for breast and cervical cancer. However, many trans men are stopped from entering female-only sections of the hospital because their appearance is male. And, there is constant judgement, mockery, comments and eyeballing that goes around. Meanwhile, hospitals are a playground for the power game. If you have contacts, you get in; but if you do not, you are denied any service. We are trying to ease that access for all, including our community. Gautams organisation has been continuing to give community consultation and help the Nepali trans community, in particular among the entire LGBTQIA+ community, to make the right choice and live a healthier, better life. The organisation has become a refuge for many lost and confused individuals struggling with their identity or establishing themselves in the heterogeneous society. Gautam began his work in the field some 10 years ago. Being an employee at the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), he had already seen a lot in the Nepali trans community. To help it further, he established Unity for Change in 2018 and registered it in 2020. Through the organisation, his team mostly facilitates the Nepali trans community in their transition, including hormonal therapy, psychosocial counselling and legal battles. A meeting of the Nepal-Italy Chamber of Commerce & Industry (NICCI) in October 2022. Kathmandu, October 14 Nepal-Italy Chamber of Commerce & Industry (NICCI) held a meeting with businesspersons from Nepal and Italy on October 10 to discuss investing in Nepal. The meeting was led by the organisations vice-president Sanjay Agrawal and was attended by the Italian ambassador to both India and Nepal Vincenzo De Luca; consulate general of Italy in Kolkata, Gianluca Rubagotti; and Nepals consulate general to Italy Pratima Rana Pande. Other members of the NICCI were also present at the meeting to discuss various business opportunities between the two countries. We want to create an environment where we can promote Nepali brands in Italy and vice versa, said Italian Ambassador De Luca. De Luca also said that he wanted to pave way for Italians to invest in businesses in Nepal and also help businesses run by Nepalis in Italy. Agrawal added that the NICCI wants to make Nepal part of the Grand International Expo that will be held in Rome in 2030. The expo will cover sectors like the evolution and regeneration of territories threatened by climate change, diversity and inclusion of communities, national and international decentralisation and mobility, and digital connectivity for economic and social development NICCI informs that it has also booked a pavilion for Nepal in the upcoming Milan Trade Fair that will happen in March 2023 to promote Nepali business, products and culture in Italy. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in Astana. Greeting, the President of Azerbaijan, President Vladimir Putin said: Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to meet with you on the sidelines of today's event. We meet on a regular basis and there is always something to talk about. There is a fairly large amount of interaction in very different areas between our countries. Russia continues to be one of Azerbaijans leading trade and economic partners. Our trade is growing. Last year it grew by 14 percent, I think, and in the first seven months of this year it has grown by more than 7 percent. Our economic operators have invested $4.5 billion in the Azerbaijani economy. The co-chairs of the intergovernmental commission meet on a regular basis. Work is proceeding according to the plan you proposed, which is calculated until 2024 inclusive and covers a number of promising and interesting projects you proposed. Naturally, we always keep issues related to the settlement of the situation in the region in the spotlight. I hope we will use this opportunity to discuss all these issues once again and make sure we are on the same page. X X X President Ilham Aliyev said: I am very pleased to see you again, Vladimir Vladimirovich. You are absolutely right that our meetings are of regular nature just recently in St. Petersburg, prior to that in Samarkand last month. Our relations are developing so dynamically that there is always a need, as you said, to synchronize watches on many issues. We are very pleased with the way relations between our countries are developing. I think they have reached the highest level, the level of allied cooperation, and we are making very active progress on many issues. You have noted, and I would like to confirm, that there is an increase in trade and economic ties. The projects we have now outlined and agreed upon at previous meetings will allow us the opportunity to further increase trade. However, there are also issues related to transport, energy and cooperation in the humanitarian sphere. We are seeing a positive momentum in all areas. Of course, at every meeting we do not bypass issues of our region, issues of security and the achievement of peace in the region. We will also talk about this today. We are committed to long-term peace. For our part, we believe that we have proposed sufficiently constructive theses for peace to be finally achieved. So thank you again for this opportunity to see you. I am sure that this meeting will also be very productive. Thank you. President Vladimir Putin: Thank you. (Recasts with new statement from IMF spokesperson) LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund is providing technical advice to Ethiopia's creditor committee working on debt restructuring and will hold further discussions with authorities on the East African country's proposed reforms and on potential IMF financial support, a Fund spokesperson said on Thursday. An IMF staff visit to Ethiopia provided an initial look at the country's plans and work to prepare for a future mission to negotiate a potential new Fund program was continuing, the spokesperson said in a statement. The statement did not provide any details on the timing of a potential mission, which Ethiopia's finance minister had said was expected in September.. But fighting has erupted again around the borders of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, shattering a ceasefire declared in March. "We are closely following the recent developments on the ground and hope that there is a quick return to peace," the spokesperson said. "The Fund has been and will continue to work closely to provide needed technical support to the work of the creditor committee," the spokesperson added. "Building on the IMF staff visit in June, we look forward to discussing with the Ethiopian authorities their reform plans and modalities for potential IMF support." (Reporting by David Lawder and Rachel Savage; Editing by Toby Chopra and Stephen Coates) PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On behalf of Argo Property Group, Agent PHL powered by Compass Commercial has formally announced the sale and settlement of 3915 Ridge Avenue (aka Ridge Park Flats) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This brand-new boutique apartment building was delivered fully leased as a turnkey multifamily investment. The transaction was brokered by Ryan McManus, Principal of Agent PHL. 3915 RIDGE AVENUE (AKA RIDGE PARK FLATS) IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA BOUTIQUE MULTIFAMILY INVESTMENT SALE BROKERED BY AGENT PHL POWERED BY COMPASS COMMERCIAL, LOCATED IN PHILLY'S PARADISE NEIGHBORHOOD. McManus said: "This asset commanded multiple offers before and during our formal listing process and we're pleased to once again deliver first-class results for our valued client, Argo Property Group." The Property was stabilized prior to sale by Agent PHL leasing services powered by Compass. Situated just across from Laurel Hill Cemetery in historic Fairmount Park (the largest urban park in the USA), the bucolic setting is coveted by renters and investors alike. Just down the hill along Ridge Avenue, the Schuylkill River Trail (the #1-rated urban trail in America) can be found a key amenity for the neighborhood known as "Paradise Hills." Also in Paradise, Argo Property Group is actively constructing 24-units at "Paradise Peak" (50% pre-sold); a collection of ESG-focused, sustainably-built, energy-efficient townhomes known as "Zero Six"; and, recently broke ground on 22-units of upscale "for sale" housing at "Laurel Ridge." Jeremy Terr, Principal of Argo Property Group, said: "We are delighted to extend our successful collaboration with Agent PHL in the Paradise neighborhood where Argo is delivering nearly 100 Units for sale alongside its substantial portfolio of rental apartment dwelling units." Additionally, APG and Agent PHL are collaborating on 1327 Marston Street known as "Milk Depot Apartments," a brand-new 17-unit multifamily asset in nearby Brewerytown, as well as "226 West Chelten," a 46-unit new development site for sale in historic Germantown. This collective real estate effort in Northwest Philadelphia is an expression of demand, as investment follows buyers and renters northwesterly into more suburban-style, edge submarkets outward from the urban core. Story continues Please direct future sales enquiries to Ryan@AgentPHL.com or visit our website at www.AgentPHL.com. About Agent PHL / Compass Commercial Agent PHL was founded in 2016 by Ryan McManus as a full-service hybrid real estate sales firm focused primarily on land development, multifamily investment and residential new construction listings. The firm has enough talent, tools and resources to compete with blue chip national real estate firms yet remains boutique and nimble enough to service the most distinct, exclusive listings with a neighborhood-based approach to sales. Agent PHL has the local expertise, reputation and connections to be considered the go-to sales team in Philadelphia. Backed by the power of Compass Commercial and its national network of top-producing agents and technology, Agent PHL services an interoffice pipeline of referrals and out-of-region enquiries on behalf of brokers, investors and developers. Compass Commercial (PRNewsfoto/Agent PHL) Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agent-phl-brokers-sale-of-boutique-apartment-building-in-philadelphia-for-2-150-000--301649663.html SOURCE Agent PHL Scientists have been given 31m by the government for research into inflammatory diseases. Better understanding of inflammation could improve care for long-term illnesses including arthritis, liver disease and cancer. The money will go to the Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre which is run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Funding for the partnership will triple as a result. The Birmingham research centre includes researchers from four universities and four NHS trusts. It is one of 20 centres across England to be allocated a combined 790m of government money by the NIHR for research into new treatments, diagnostic tests and medical technologies for patients. Professor Phil Newsome, director of the Birmingham centre, said: "Inflammation plays a central role in many health conditions, with millions of people in the UK alone experiencing inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and bronchitis." The Birmingham team will also use the money to look at how data and digital healthcare can improve patient outcomes. Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk Market Research Future Companion Animal Healthcare Market Trends and Insights by Product (Feed Additives, Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines), By Diagnostic Tests (Diagnostic Imaging, Immunodiagnostic Tests, Molecular Diagnostics, others), by Region (Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa), Competitive Market Growth, Size, Share and Forecast to 2030 New York, USA, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Companion Animal Healthcare Market Overview According to a Comprehensive Research Report by Market Research Future (MRFR), Companion Animal Health Market by Product, Diagnostic Tests, End-Users, and Region - Forecast till 2030, the market will acquire a valuation of USD 44,643.33 million by 2030, also procuring a CAGR of close to 8.80% between 2022 and 2030. Companion Animal Healthcare Market Synopsis Companion animals are domesticated animals whose emotional, physical, social and behavioral needs are readily catered to a lot like the members at home. These animals have a close relationship and connection with humans. These animals help elderly patients, allowing them to gain significant levels of dopamine that helps them fight the distress they face. Owing to this, health of companion animals has become a vital part of the global veterinary industry. Companion animals are properly brought up to care for the old-age people and improve their mental health. Get Free Sample PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1168 Report Scope: Report Attribute Details Market Size in 2030 USD 44643.33 Million CAGR 8.80% 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, Diagnostic Tests and End User Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW) Key Market Drivers Advances in animal health medicines and vaccines Rising demand of animal healthcare products Companion Animal Healthcare Market Competitive Landscape: The important companies in the companion animal healthcare market include Story continues Zoetis Animal Healthcare (U.S.) Merial (France) Elanco Animal health (U.S.) Bayer Animal Health (Germany) Merck and Co. Inc. (U.S.) Ceva Animal Healthcare (U.K) Virbac Animal Healthcare (France) Vetoquinol S.A. (France) Perrigo Company plc (Ireland) Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) Market USP Covered: Market Drivers: The animal health market has covered significant grounds in recent years, in response to the mounting consumption rate of protein food along with the drastic surge in zoonotic as well as food-borne disorders. The exponential rise in various animal diseases is compelling companies to focus on developing promising drugs and vaccines, which should have a tremendous impact on the global industry. The thriving business landscape is encouraging the players to foster their efforts to reduce the number of food-borne disease cases along with pathogen contamination risks. This is yet another factor that can have a remarkable effect on the companion animal health market in the years to come. Some major innovations in the global market include the surging use of information management systems, vaccine banks, animal owner mobile technology, and more. Players increasing focus on technical innovations has been a game-changer for the companion animal health market in recent years. The escalating number of vets in emerging regions, coupled with the rising availability of the latest treatment lines and drugs in the market will also elevate the business growth rate in the future. Market Restraints: The lack of strict standardization and significant costs of animal testing procedures can limit the expansion rate of the companion animal healthcare market. Also, the low awareness level about correct dosages of drugs as well as the fluctuations in the availability of key raw materials that raise the price of the final products can further restrain the worldwide market. Browse In-depth Market Research Report (80 Pages) on Companion Animal Healthcare: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/companion-animal-healthcare-market-1168 COVID 19 Analysis The companion animal healthcare market has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Given the pandemic scenario, numerous countries had to go under lockdown, to control the rising cases. Owing to this, the demand and supply chain has been disrupted, which has affected the worldwide market. The infrastructural projects, manufacturing units, industries, and various operations had to be put on hold owing to the pandemic situation. The volatile costs of raw materials and the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have restricted the growth rate of the market. On the bright side, the situation is getting back to normal, which means that the market in the future will see better growth. Companion Animal Healthcare Market Segmentation By Product The key products considered in the report for the companion animal healthcare industry are pharmaceuticals, vaccines and feed additives. Nutritional feed additives as well as medicinal feed additives are the two major feed additives. The types of nutritional feed additives include minerals, vitamins, and proteins, while the types of medicinal feed additives are enzymes, hormones, probiotics, prebiotics, and immune-modulators. Pharmaceutical products are anti-inflammatories, anti-infectives, and antibiotics. The vaccines segment is driven by the rise in innovations, mounting awareness levels of animal health, rising spending by government bodies as well as associations, huge consumption of animal protein, such as meat, milk, fish, and eggs, along with escalating healthcare expenditure with respect to companion animals. By Diagnostic Test Depending on diagnostic tests, the worldwide market has been considered for molecular diagnostics, immunodiagnostic tests, diagnostic imaging, and other tests. The molecular diagnostics segment is in the lead since this test allows the medical professional to accurately detect the genome of the pathogen present in the sick animal. Buy Now: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1168 By End-Users The top market end-users are veterinary clinics, home care providers, coupled with veterinary hospitals. The veterinary hospitals & clinics category has secured the top position in the market, thanks to the substantial number of sick animals that are received by this medical setting. The huge number of medical procedures conducted at these facilities from general check-ups to laboratory tests and vaccinations and surgery also foster the segmental growth. Companion Animal Healthcare Market Regional Insights Considering the high consumption rate and large-scale production of animal protein along with the escalating emphasis on food safety, the American market is all set to take the lead over the following years. Rapid surge in pet ownership combined with the mounting need for effective medicines to treat animals will further favor the American market. The companion animal health industry in the region also benefits from the soaring awareness level among people regarding the latest treatment lines as well as the presence of a flourishing healthcare sector. Share your Queries @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1168 The APAC market should gain at the fastest rate in the next few years, thanks to the expedited rate of pet adoption, and the emergence of animal welfare programs in China, Japan, and China. Sizeable R&D spending by affluent players specializing in companion animal health and their rising focus on the development of generic therapeutics at reasonable prices would translate into substantial business growth in the years ahead. Discover more research Reports on Healthcare Industry , by Market Research Future: Biologics Safety Testing Market Report: By Product (Kits & Reagents, Instruments, Services), Test (Sterility, Endotoxin, Cell Line Authentication), Application (Vaccine Development, Blood Products, Stem Cell Research) Forecast till 2027 Bioburden Testing Market Research Report: By Test Type (Aerobic Count, Anaerobic Count, and others), by Product Type (Consumables, Instruments), by Application (Raw Materials Testing, Medical Devices Testing, and others), by End-User - Forecast Till 2030 Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market : Information by Disease Type (Systemic Autoimmune Disease and Others), Localized Autoimmune Disease (Dot Blot, and Line Blot), End-User (Hospitals, Diagnostics Centers and Others )- Forecast till 2030 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. Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter CONTACT: Market Research Future (Part of Wantstats Research and Media Private Limited) 99 Hudson Street, 5Th Floor New York, NY 10013 United States of America +1 628 258 0071 (US) +44 2035 002 764 (UK) Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Website: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com Cryo-Cell International, Inc. OLDSMAR, Fla., Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cryo-Cell International, Inc. (NYSE American LLC Symbol: CCEL) (the Company), the worlds first private cord blood bank to separate and store stem cells in 1992, announced results for the fiscal third quarter ended August 31, 2022. Financial Results Revenue Consolidated revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 were $7.7 million compared to $7.5 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2021. The revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 consisted of $7.5 million in processing and storage fees, $21,000 in product revenue and $137,825 in public banking revenue compared to $7.3 million in processing and storage fees, $18,200 in product revenue and $158,936 in public banking revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2021. Net Income The Company reported net income for the three months ended August 31, 2022 of $467,000, or $0.06 per basic share and diluted share, compared to net income of $857,000, or $0.10 per basic and diluted share for the three months ended August 31, 2021. During the three months ended August 31, 2022, revenue increased 2%, cost of sales decreased 4% and selling, general and administration expenses increased 3%. For the three months ended August 31, 2022, the Company recorded an increase of $412,000 versus a decrease of $325,000 for the three months ended August 31, 2021, to the fair value of the contingent consideration liability from the potential earn out to which Cord:Use is entitled from the Companys sale of the purchased public cord blood inventory. About Cryo-Cell International, Inc. Founded in 1989, Cryo-Cell International, Inc. is the worlds first private cord blood bank. More than 500,000 parents from 87 countries have entrusted Cryo-Cell International with their babys cord blood and cord tissue stem cells. In addition to its private bank, Cryo-Cell International has a public banking program in partnership with Duke University. Cryo-Cells public bank has provided cord blood for more than 600 transplantations and operates cord blood donation sites across the U.S in prominent hospitals such as CedarsSinai Hospital in Los Angeles and Baptist Hospital in Miami. Cryo-Cells facility is FDA registered, cGMP-/cGTP-compliant and licensed in all states requiring licensure. Besides being AABB accredited as a cord blood facility, Cryo-Cell was also the first U.S. (for private use only) cord blood bank to receive FACT accreditation for adhering to the most stringent cord blood quality standards set by any internationally recognized, independent accrediting organization. Cryo-Cell has the exclusive rights to PrepaCyte-CB, the industrys most advanced cord blood processing technology. Story continues Cryo-Cells mission is to provide the premier cord blood and cord tissue cryopreservation services, to develop, manufacture and administer cellular therapies to significantly improve the lives of patients worldwide and to offer the highest quality and most cost effective biostorage solutions available. In February 2021, Cryo-Cell entered into a license agreement with Duke University that the Company believes has allowed Cryo-Cell to begin its transformation into an autonomous, vertically integrated cellular therapy company. In March 2022, Cryo-Cell launched ExtraVault to offer its expertise in biostorage and distribution to biopharmaceutical companies and healthcare institutions. For more information, please visit ( www.extravault.com ) . Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act) and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act). In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as will, may, should, could, would, expects, plans, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, forecasts, potential or continue or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Generally, the words anticipate, believe, continue, expect, intend, estimate, project, plan and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. In particular, statements about our expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance contain forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and reflect only our current views, expectations and assumptions with respect to future events and our future performance. If risks or uncertainties materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results or events could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Risks that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make include, among others, risks related to: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our sales, operations and supply chain, the success of the Companys global expansion initiatives and product diversification, including its addition of the ExtraVault services, the Companys actual future ownership stake in future therapies emerging from its collaborative research partnerships, the success related to its IP portfolio, the Companys future competitive position in stem cell innovation, future success of its core business and the competitive impact of public cord blood banking on the Companys business, the success of the Companys initiative to expand its core business units to include biopharmaceutical manufacturing and operating clinics, the uncertainty of profitability from its biopharmaceutical manufacturing and operating clinics, the Companys ability to minimize future costs to the Company related to R&D initiatives and collaborations and the success of such initiatives and collaborations and the success and enforceability of the Companys umbilical cord blood and cord tissue license agreements, together with the associated intellectual property and their ability to provide the Company with royalty fees, along with the Risk Factors set forth in the Companys Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on July 11, 2022. This list of risks and uncertainties, however, is only a summary of some of the most important factors and is not intended to be exhaustive. Given these risks and uncertainties, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, we do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update any such statements or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any such statements to reflect future events or developments. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us, or to persons acting on our behalf, are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Contact: Irene Smith 813-749-2102 Ismith@cryo-cell.com Bitcoin services company NYDIG has laid off around 100 people, according to four people familiar with the matter. The firm has cut approximately 30% of staff in the past several weeks, according to three people familiar with the matter. The layoffs had been going on for several weeks, one person added. The Wall Street Journal first reported the layoffs late Thursday, putting the figure at 110 employees. Its like a trading desk mentality where nobody talks to anyone, a former NYDIG employee told CoinDesk. You can disappear and nobody will know for months. A spokesperson for NYDIG previously declined to comment. In late 2021, NYDIG raised $1 billion in funding to build an institutional-grade bitcoin platform. The platform was expected to connect to banks and credit unions, bringing unprecedented bitcoin access to large swaths of retail banking customers. The company branded the campaign Bitcoin for all. But since NYDIGs fundraise, the crypto market has soured. The price of bitcoin fell to under $20,000 a coin, a 70% decline from its November 2021 all-time high of about $67,500. NYDIG put all their eggs in this banking strategy, but they realized that there was no way that these banks were ready, the former employee told CoinDesk. They blew through all this money telling a story that they would bring bitcoin to the masses. Their core strategy was blundered. The layoffs also come amid leadership shuffles. In early October, the company announced CEO Robert Gutmann and President Yan Zhao would be stepping down and returning to Stone Ridge Holdings Group, the parent company of NYDIG. Tejas Shah and Nate Conrad, both executives at NYDIG, would take over as CEO and president, respectively. Gutmann and Zhao are both co-founders of Stone Ridge, an alternative asset manager that specializes in niche investment strategies, including weather reinsurance and drug royalties. UPDATE (Oct. 14, 2022, 02:40 UTC): Adds additional context. Increase in volume of data within enterprise, rise in need for low-latency, real-time view and analytics on operational data have boosted the growth of the global data conversion services market. PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, titled, "Data Conversion Services Market by Service Type (HTML Conversion Services, XML Conversion Services, Document Conversion Services, Media Format Conversion Services, SGML Conversion Services, Catalog Conversion Services, Others), by Enterprise Size (Large Enterprises, SMEs), by Industry Vertical (BFSI, IT and Telecom, Government, Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031" As per the report, the global data conversion services industry was accounted for $39.8 billion in 2021, and is expected to reach $566 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 30.6% from 2022 to 2031. The report offers a detailed analysis of changing market trends, top segments, key investment pockets, value chain, regional landscape, and competitive scenario. Allied_Market_Research_Logo Download Free Sample Report (324 Pages PDF with Insights, Charts, Tables, Figures): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/31967 Major determinants of the market growth Increase in volume of data within enterprise, rise in need for low-latency, real-time view and analytics on operational data have boosted the growth of the global data conversion services market. However, dearth of understanding of source data hinders the market growth. On the contrary, continued shift to the cloud would open new opportunities in the future. Covid-19 scenario: The Covid-19 outbreak has impacted the growth of data conversion service market due to rise in number of smartphone users, developments in the e-commerce sector, and growing adoption of connected devices. Digital and artificial intelligence industry can be used as professional assistant to manage and control the outbreak of the virus. Story continues The HTML conversion services segment dominated the market By service type, the HTML conversion services segment held the largest share in 2021, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global data conversion services market, as HTML conversion services help organizations in streamlining their document management pipeline. However, the catalog conversion services segment is estimated to register the highest CAGR of 33.6% during the forecast period, due to notion of accessibility for customers and need to keep them updated about the happenings within the manufacturing product line. The SMEs segment to portray the highest CAGR through 2031 By enterprise size, the SMEs segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 32.0% from 2022 to 2031, due to rise in dependency on internet and digital transformation of the worldwide. However, the large enterprises segment held the largest share in 2021, accounting for around three-fifths of the global data conversion services market, due to increase in number of SMEs that depend on internet and digital transformation. The BFSI segment held the largest share By industry vertical, the BFSI segment held the largest share in 2021, contributing to nearly one-fifth of the global data conversion services market, as adoption of data conversion services are relied upon to develop at a critical rate owing to development in digitalization of banking exchanges and big data analytics. However, the healthcare segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 32.8% during the forecast period, owing to rise in demand for managing patient information, scheduling appointments, checking hospital inventory, and minimizing clinical errors. Purchase Inquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/31967 North America held the lion's share By region, the global data conversion services market across North America dominated in 2021, accounting for more than two-fifths of the market, owing to presence of substantial industrial base in the U.S., large purchasing power, and government initiatives to promote innovation. However, the market across Asia-Pacific is expected to showcase the highest CAGR of 33.0% during the forecast period, due to growing economies such as India and China. Major market players Amazon Web Service (AWS) Attunity Damco Group Hitachi Informatica International Business Machine (IBM) Invensis Technologies Pvt Ltd. Intel Corporation Microsoft Corporation Oracle Corporation Precisely Qlik Technologies SAP SE SAS Institute Talend Tibco Software, Inc. Vista Equity Partners The report analyzes these key players of the global data conversion services market. These players have adopted various strategies such as expansion, new product launches, partnerships, 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): Printing Software Market Expected to Reach $6.3 Billion by 2031 Label Printing Software Market Expected to Reach $936.2 Million by 2031 3D Printer Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030 Fax Card Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20222029 4D Printing Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20222029 About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web: 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 Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/data-conversion-services-market-to-garner-566-bn-globally-by-2031-at-30-6-cagr-allied-market-research-301649624.html SOURCE Allied Market Research OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Today is World Egg Day and to mark the occasion Egg Farmers of Canada is paying tribute to the humble egg and the hard-working Canadian egg farmers who deliver fresh, local, high-quality eggs, all year-round. "This World Egg Day we are celebrating the importance of made-in-Canada food and the people that make it all possible," says Roger Pelissero, Chair of Egg Farmers of Canada. "Egg farming families such as my own take pride in the fact that the food we produce is enjoyed by our friends, neighbours and fellow Canadians. Not only that, but Canada's egg farmers have also positioned themselves as leaders by living sustainably every day, through every choice they makeand the impact this will have for generations to come is something to celebrate!" It's no secret that eggs are enjoyed the world over and especially here in Canada. Thanks to the day-to-day work of over 1,200 egg farmers from Newfoundland to British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, top-quality Canadian-made foodlocal Canadian eggs that isfeeds our appetite. To help shine a light on that collective appreciation for Canadian egg farmers and Canadian eggs, Egg Farmers of Canada has put together a short World Egg Day video which you can watch, HERE. Notable Canadian chefs have also partnered with Egg Farmers of Canada this World Egg Day to create seasonal recipes made with locally-sourced ingredients from their respective region. These vibrant recipes which encourage everyone to get creative in the kitchen while showing their support for local, made-in-Canada food can be found, HERE. Now it's your turn. Join us in our World Egg Day celebrations by sharing how much you love Canadian eggs and egg farmers using the hashtag #WorldEggDay and tagging @eggsoeufs on your favourite social platform. To learn more about Egg Farmers of Canada: Website: eggfarmers.ca Instagram: @eggsoeufs Twitter: @eggsoeufs Facebook: facebook.com/eggsoeufs Story continues About Egg Farmers of Canada Now in its fifth decade as one of Canada's leading agriculture organizations, Egg Farmers of Canada manages the national egg supply and promotes egg consumption while representing the interests of regulated egg producers from coast to coast. Visit eggfarmers.ca for more information. About World Egg Day World Egg Day is an international celebration on the second Friday of October every year. The day is meant to raise awareness of the nutritional benefits of eggs and the role they play in feeding families across the globe. World Egg Day was established at the International Egg Commission conference held in Vienna in 1996. This year, World Egg Day is Friday, October 14, 2022. Egg Farmers of Canada logo (CNW Group/Egg Farmers of Canada) SOURCE Egg Farmers of Canada Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c0646.html Credit reporting company Equifax Inc. corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta, Georgia REUTERS/Tami Chappell Equifax recently fired 24 of its own employees for holding two jobs. A handful of the employees reported having three jobs simultaneously. Equifax used its own employment-tracking product to identify and investigate its employees. Credit-reporting firm Equifax fired 24 of its own employees for holding more than one job, according to a report by Insider. Equifax used its own product, The Work Number, to identify employees and contractors it suspected were using their remote status to work double duty for other companies. The Work Number contains employment records like weekly pay and work history for employees at 2.5 million companies across the country, according to Insider's review. In one instance, an employee admitted to additional full-time employment at another large company, noting that he also had a third job performing nursing work on the weekends, according to Equifax spokesperson Kate Walker. When the employee appeared on camera for his interview with Equifax which was conducted during the company's regular business hours it was clear he was sitting in a medical center environment. Medical professionals wearing scrubs walked in and out of the room behind the employee during the video call, Walker told Insider by email. Walker also told Insider by email that Equifax terminated an employee for holding three jobs at once. That employee had one part-time position that Equifax knew about, but another that he didn't disclose and actually did from Equifax's office. Walker wrote that the employee's full-time position conflicted with their work at Equifax. Ultimately, they were terminated for bringing the other company's laptop into the Equifax offices and performing work for that organization from an Equifax office. She added, "While neither of these jobs creates a conflict of interest with Equifax's business, these employees were working additional jobs that required an hourly commitment, in some cases a second full-time job, that would render them unable to fulfill their full-time commitment to Equifax employment." Story continues As Insider noted, working from home appears to have led to a surge in workers doubling up on jobs, with more than two-thirds of remote employees surveyed in 2021 saying they had multiple jobs. Read the full Insider story here. Read the original article on Business Insider An informal dinner has been organized in honor of the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Astana. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the event. Friday is officially here, and something else is almost here: Netflix with ads. After months of talking about it, Netflix has finally released more details about its newest subscription tier, "Basic with Ads." The service will launch in November but keep in mind that it won't come with all the bells and whistles Netflix's other plans offer. I'm your host, Jordan Parker Erb. I've got the deets you'll want to know about Netflix's new plan, so let's get into it. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Insider's app here. prime video netflix spotify subscriptions Prime Video, Netflix, and Spotify are three popular subscription services.Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images 1. Your next Netflix binge could come with ads. At $6.99 per month, the subscription is $3 less than Netflix's basic ad-free plan but it will also come with more restrictions. Here's what we know about the plan, "Basic with Ads," available starting next month: If you subscribe to the ad plan, Netflix says you can expect four to five minutes of ads per hour. They'll play before and during shows and movies. Some content will be missing from the ad-supported plan due to licensing agreements with other companies. You also won't be able to download shows or movies, and streaming quality will cap at 720p. Basic with Ads will become available in Canada on November 1, and in the US and UK on November 3. Everything you'll want to know about Netflix with ads. In other news: tim cook apple code Cook at Code in 2022.Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media 2. Apple is even more of a bank now if you have an Apple Card. The company announced Apple Card users could automatically deposit cash-back rewards into a high-yield savings account, which is operated through a Goldman Sachs partnership. Get the details on the savings account. 3. Wall Street is questioning Meta's "desperate" metaverse push. This week, Meta gave the world a look at its latest product reveals, which included, among other things, the launch of avatar legs and investors are not impressed. Why bipedal avatars aren't enough to placate investors. Story continues 4. MacKenzie Scott donated $15 million to help get affordable eyeglasses to millions of people. The philanthropist donated the money to VisionSpring, a social enterprise that provides affordable eyeglasses to those who couldn't otherwise afford them. Get the full rundown here. 5. VCs shared their picks for the most promising cloud-software startups of 2022. We asked top investors to name the most promising startups they've seen this year, both in and out of their portfolios. The companies they listed range from project-management to research-collaboration tools. Here are their 16 picks. 6. TikTok is already Gen Z's social platform of choice. It might be coming for Spotify next. TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is talking to music labels to expand its music-streaming services globally, per The Wall Street Journal. How TikTok is moving to compete with Spotify. 7. Dataminr will soon get a new social-media-surveillance contract for the White House. Dataminr is in Twitter's official partner program, which gives it more access to Twitter data. It will use the data to provide the White House with news alerts. What we know so far. 8. In a leaked survey, Shopify probed employees about whether they view Amazon as a rival. In its semiannual survey, the company asked workers to weigh in on their work, coworkers, and managers as well as what they think about e-commerce giant Amazon. Here's what Shopify asked its staff. Odds and ends: The Polestar 3. The Polestar 3.Polestar 9. Polestar finally took the wraps off its long-awaited third vehicle: the Polestar 3. The $84,000 electric SUV promises 300 miles of range, loads of technology, and a minimalist interior. Get a look at the EV rivaling Tesla and BMW. 10. The James Webb telescope captured a stunning image of a rare "fingerprint" in space. Once every eight years, two stars come close to each other in orbit, resulting in concentric rings of light radiating from the pair. Get a closer look at the fingerprint. The latest people moves in tech: The creator of Amazon's Kindle has left the company, along with a top Alexa executive. About 431 people left Goldman Sachs this summer. Google and Amazon are among the biggest firms poaching Goldman's talent. Keep updated with the latest tech news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here. Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email jerb@insider.com or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London. Read the original article on Business Insider The business receives $100,000 from CED to start up its business and develop a tourism destination. THORNE, QC, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) A key driver of the economy, the Canadian tourism industry generated over $100 billion in annual revenues before being decimated by the pandemic. Today, the Government of Canada is ensuring that tourism once again thrives and reaches its full potential. Sophie Chatel, Member of Parliament for Pontiac, acting on behalf of the Honourable Pascale StOnge, Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for CED, today announced a $100,000 nonrepayable contribution for Geodesic Domes (Hillhaus Domes Pontiac), an Outaouaisregion startup. Located in Thorne (Ladysmith), in the Pontiac RCM, Geodesic Domes (94489010 Quebec inc.) plans to offer different types of packages that include highend alternative accommodation (geodesic domes), such as a fishing / ice fishing package and possibly a snowmobile/quad package with onsite rentals available. This CED funding will allow Geodesic Domes to develop a tourism microdestination in line with environmentally responsible practices. The financial contribution will be used to build and install accommodation (three geodetic domes), a septic tank and a well; to purchase furniture and accessories to equip the accommodations; and to supply the accommodations with electricity. The Government of Canada recognizes and supports businesses and organizations that are a source of pride in their communities. Quebec's economic recovery relies on a strong tourism industry made up of organizations with deep roots in the regional economy. The players in this sector are major contributors to growth, as well as key assets in rebuilding a stronger, more resilient, greener and more just economy for all. Story continues Quotes "Our government continues to be there for tourism businesses and organizations, as demonstrated by the funding for Geodesic Domes announced today. Our support is a key step in the recovery efforts aimed at attracting tourists from Canada and around the world so that everyone can discover the best tourism experiences our country has to offer. I wish Geodesic Domes the best of luck as it goes ahead with this exciting project for the Pontiac region and for the entire Outaouais region." Sophie Chatel, Member of Parliament for Pontiac "The tourism industry is a forum that showcases Canada's culture and diversity to visitors from around the world. Our government will always be there to support recovery efforts by entrepreneurs and players in this sector. Today, we are announcing significant investments that will allow them to look to the future. CED's funding for Geodesic Domes is excellent news for the Outaouais region and its attractiveness!" The Honourable Pascale StOnge, Member of Parliament for BromeMissisquoi, Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for CED "The Canadian tourism sector was one of the sectors hardest hit by the COVID19 pandemic. We will work with businesses and organizations in these difficult times to make sure they get the support they need to deliver innovative products and services and grow and thrive, while making safety the number-one priority. The Tourism Relief Fund helps businesses adjust so that they can safely welcome back their clients. It also feeds into a broader strategy to help the sector recover from the pandemic and build an economy that works for everyone. The Canadian economy will not fully recover until our tourism sector has recovered as well." The Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance "We have been pursuing this dream for a long time, and with the help of CED's support and this contribution, we now have the funding to make our dream a reality." Jean-Marie Phillip, President, Geodesic Domes Quick facts Tourism accounts for $102 billion in annual economic activity, 1.8 million jobs and 2% of Canada's GDP. Today's announcement is part of a series of strategic investments by CED in projects aimed at fostering the recovery of the tourism industry and contributing to the economy of tomorrow. The funding has been granted under the Tourism Relief Fund, which was specifically created to help tourism businesses and organizations offer innovative products and services for visitors and prepare to welcome international travellers again. CED is the key federal partner in Quebec's regional economic development. Through its 12 regional business offices, CED assists businesses, support organizations and the regions of Quebec as they prepare for the economy of tomorrow. Associated links Stay connected Follow CED on social media Consult CED's news SOURCE Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c8485.html Research Nester Key Companies Covered in the Global Car Rental Market Research Report by Research Nester are Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., Fox Rent A Car, Avis Budget Group, Inc., Sixt Rent A Car, LLC, Europcar International S.A.S.U., Uber Technologies Inc., Silvercar, Inc., Enterprise Holdings, Inc., Ecos (I) Mobility & Hospitality Pvt Ltd., Carzonrent India Pvt. Ltd., and other key market players. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Research Nester has published a detailed market report on Global Car Rental Market for the forecast period, i.e. 2023 2033 which includes the following factors: Market growth over the forecast period Detailed regional synopsis Market segmentation Growth drivers Challenges Key market players and their detailed profiling Global Car Rental Market Size: The global car rental market is predicted to garner a revenue of USD 250 billion by the end of 2033 by growing at a CAGR of ~10% over the forecast period. In addition to this, the market generated a revenue of USD 100 billion in the year 2022. The market's expansion is primarily attributable to the rising demand for rental cars on a global scale. For instance, the United States rented out 29 million cars in 2021; by 2024, that number is expected to rise to 46 million. Get a Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.researchnester.com/sample-request-4421 Further, for security, freedom from driving, and recklessness, renting is a great option. It offers the chance to go on excursions or complete business travel requirements and is a suitable choice for business travelers. The demand for hired cars is estimated to increase over the coming years owing to rising fuel prices and hefty maintenance costs. Additionally, the demand for rented cars is growing among travelers as a result of recent improvements in automotive technology and increasing disposable income, which is expected to create enormous revenue potential for the leading companies competing in the worldwide car rental market throughout the forecast period. It was discovered that in July 2022, the United States disposable personal income increased by 0.2% over the previous month. Story continues Global Car Rental Market: Key Takeaways North America region gains the largest portion of the revenue Online segment to dominate the revenue graph Commercial sub-segment remains prominent in the application segment Growing Number of Connected Cars and Rising Number of Autonomous Vehicles to Boost Market Growth With developments in 5G and the internet of things (IoT). The car rental market is anticipated to develop steadily during the forecasted period as more and more vehicles become connected, and as car rental businesses increasingly rely on data. It was noted that global sales of connected automobiles were estimated to be at 47 million in 2020, and they grew by 20% in 2021. Additionally, the increasing integration of advanced safety systems in new vehicles, supported by ongoing industry innovations are anticipated to boost the market growth. For more information in the analysis of this report, visit: https://www.researchnester.com/reports/car-rental-market/4421 Furthermore, the advanced driver assistance systems that are supported by innovations in contemporary automobiles help to further improve traffic safety. Full autonomous driving becomes the ultimate objective as the automotive ecosystem progresses toward higher levels of automation and the growing adoption of autonomous vehicles to drive the growth of the global car rental market over the forecast period. It is believed that the adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is predicted to rise and more than 30 million AVs are estimated to hit the road by 2040. Global Car Rental Market: Regional Overview The global car rental market is segmented into five major regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa region. Growing Car Rental Industry to Drive Growth in the North America Region The market in North America region is anticipated to hold the biggest market share over the forecast period owing to the region's robust transportation infrastructure. An increase in the number of individuals choosing to rent automobiles, and a thriving car rental sector. For instance, in the United States, the rental automobile business generated over USD 28 billion in sales in 2021. In addition to this, the rising demand for autonomous cars and increasing disposable income in the region are predicted to propel the market growth during the forecast period. Get a Sample PDF of Car Rental Market Report@ https://www.researchnester.com/sample-request-4421 Increasing Pollution Control Laws to Drive Growth in the Asia Pacific Region On the other hand, the market in Asia Pacific region is estimated to hold a significant market share over the forecast period owing to increasing technological advancements in the field of autonomous vehicles and rising demand for sales of electric cars. Further, the rising initiatives by the government to reduce carbon footprints and the implementation of stringent pollution control law in the region is estimated to boost the growth of the car rental market over the forecast period. It was found that in June 2021, the PUC (Pollution Under Control) certificate for all cars must be uniform across the nation, and the PUC database must be connected to the National Register, according to a notification from the ministry of highways and road transportation of India. Owing to all these factors, the inclination of people toward the rental car is increasing and in turn predicted to boost the market growth. The study further incorporates Y-O-Y growth, demand & supply and forecast future opportunity in: North America (U.S., Canada) Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg, NORDIC [Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark], Poland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe) Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Rest of Latin America) Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia-Pacific) Middle East and Africa (Israel, GCC [Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman], North Africa, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa). Global Car Rental Market, Segmentation by Application Commercial Leisure By the end of 2033, the commercial segment is predicted to have the highest revenue among these segments, supported by the increasing number of travelers and the rising tourism industry across the world. For instance, the travel and tourism sector increased its contribution to the global GDP by roughly USD 1 trillion between 2020 and 2021, reaching USD 5.8 trillion. Additionally, the rising production of commercial vehicles, backed by the increasing sales of commercial vehicles is estimated to propel the market growth. For more insights on the market share of various regions: https://www.researchnester.com/sample-request-4421 Global Car Rental Market, Segmentation by Booking Type Online Offline Out of these, the online segment is estimated to gain noteworthy market share over the forecast period. The growth of the segment can be ascribed to the increasing usage of smartphones and the internet across the globe. As per the estimation, in 2022, there will be around 6.6 billion smartphone users worldwide. This means, that more than 83 percent of the world's population will be smartphone owners. Moreover, the easy availability of the internet at competitive rates and the rising launch of various car booking mobile applications are predicted to drive segment growth. Global Car Rental Market, Segmentation by Vehicle Type Luxury Cars Executive Cars Economy Cars Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) Multi Utility Vehicle (MUV) Global Car Rental Market, Segmentation by Rental Type Local Outstation Few of the well-known market leaders in the global car rental market that are profiled by Research Nester are Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., Fox Rent A Car, Avis Budget Group, Inc., Sixt Rent A Car, LLC, Europcar International S.A.S.U., Uber Technologies Inc., Silvercar, Inc., Enterprise Holdings, Inc., Ecos (I) Mobility & Hospitality Pvt Ltd., Carzonrent India Pvt. Ltd., and others. Do You Have Any Query Or Specific Requirement? Ask to Our Expert: https://www.researchnester.com/ask-the-analyst/rep-id-4421 Recent Developments in the Global Car Rental Market In September 2022, An agreement between Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. and General Motors Co. said that Hertz would order 175,000 Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, and BrightDrop electric vehicles over the next five years. In July 2022, At Texas' Houston Hobby Airport, Fox Rent A Car has announced the opening of its first dual-branded shop in the US. The dual-branded store will be the first official corporate location for Europcar in the US and the twenty-second corporate location for Fox Rent A Car in the US. Explore Our Recent Related Reports: Commercial Vehicle Market Analysis by Fuel Type (Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) and Electric Vehicle); by Vehicle Type (Light Commercial, Heavy Commercial and Buses) Global Supply & Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023-2033 Car Air Purifier Market Analysis by Product Type (Air Purifier, Air Ionizer and Hybrid); by Technology {Activated Carbon Filter, High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filter, Photo Catalytic}; by Distribution Channel {Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Aftermarket} Global Supply & Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023-2033 Electric Bike Market Analysis by Product (Pedelecs, Speed Pedelecs, Scooter & Motorcycle, and Throttle on Demand); by Battery Type (Lithium-Ion, Lithium-Ion Polymer, Nickel Metal Hydride, Lead Acid, Sealed Lead Acid, and Others); by Hub Motor Location (Rear Hub Motor, Mid Drive Hub Motor, and Front Hub Motor); by Battery Power (Under 750W, and Over 750W); and by Usage (Urban, Cruise, Trekking Bikes, Racing, Cargo, and Others) Global Supply & Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023-2033 Butterfly Valve Market Analysis by Type (High-performance and Lined Butterfly Valves); by Application (Centric Valves and Eccentric Valves); Function Type (On/Off Valves and Control Valves); and by End User (Oil and Gas, Water and Wastewater, Power Generation, Chemical, and Others) Global Supply & Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023-2033 Automotive Vehicle to Everything (V2X) Market Analysis by Connectivity (Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC), and Cellular); by Components {Vehicle to Infrastructure(V2I), Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), and others}; by Propulsion Type {Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs), and Electric Vehicles}; and by Unit (On-Board, and Roadside) Global Supply & Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023-2033 About Research Nester Research Nester is a one-stop service provider with a client base in more than 50 countries, leading in strategic market research and consulting with an unbiased and unparalleled approach towards helping global industrial players, conglomerates and executives for their future investment while avoiding forthcoming uncertainties. With an out-of-the-box mindset to produce statistical and analytical market research reports, we provide strategic consulting so that our clients can make wise business decisions with clarity while strategizing and planning for their forthcoming needs and succeed in achieving their future endeavors. We believe every business can expand to its new horizon, provided a right guidance at a right time is available through strategic minds. Contact for more Info: AJ Daniel Email: info@researchnester.com U.S. Phone: +1 646 586 9123 U.K. Phone: +44 203 608 5919 For More Update Follow: - LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Xing Concrete support for the Franco-Ontarian community: the Governments of Canada and Ontario announce a major investment in College Boreal SUDBURY, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - The Government of Canada is committed to making sure all Canadians can learn and grow in the official language of their choice. We know that investing in post-secondary institutions is the path to take in order to equip young people for their future and promote the vitality of official-language minority communities. Today, Marc Serre, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages, accompanied by Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury, announced more than $8 million in funding for College Boreal. He made this announcement on behalf of the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Thanks to this funding, College Boreal will start work to develop new bachelor's degrees that will address specific training and labour needs in Northern Ontario. In addition to responding to a great need for programs offered in Northern Ontario, the development of College Boreal's new French-language post-secondary programs will make it possible to increase access to high-quality education for the province's student population, including rural regions. The project is funded under the CanadaOntario Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction (20202021 to 20222023). The Government of Canada will provide $5.1 million over three years to improve programs at College Boreal, and the Government of Ontario will provide just over $2.9 million over three years. Quotes "Thanks to today's investment, the province will offer the Francophone and Francophile student population a wider range of training that meet the needs of the Franco-Ontarian community. Canada needs highly qualified and committed workforce in French-speaking communities. We are proud to work closely with the province on this project and to contribute to the economic, social and cultural vitality of Northern Ontario." Story continues The Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency "Thanks to this joint investment with the province of Ontario, we are enabling College Boreal to stand out with an interesting service offering. In addition to representing the college's areas of interest, the programs offered will better meet the needs of the Francophone student population and prepare them for their entry into the job market. More students who wish to pursue a career in French will now be able to do so." Marc Serre, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages "Our government understands the importance of providing learners with high-quality French-language education options, especially in Northern Ontario. That's why we are proud to support College Boreal in developing more French-language post-secondary programs over the next three years, providing flexible opportunities for Ontarians to live, learn, and thrive in the language of their choice." The Honourable Jill Dunlop, Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities "Today's $8-million investment in Sudbury, and College Boreal specifically, demonstrates the confidence our governments of Canada and Ontario have in our Franco-Ontarian future and Franco-Ontarian youth. College Boreal is a leader in providing quality, French-language, post-secondary education programs. I look forward to seeing the success of these programs, and more importantly, the success of our young people." Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury "This announcement marks an important milestone in the history of College Boreal, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. This new chapter promises to be a dynamic one, as we offer even more choices for post-secondary education in French in Sudbury and ultimately throughout Ontario. Thanks to this generous investment by the federal and provincial governments, our competent teams are ready to set up bachelor's degree programs that will prepare the next generation of Francophone and bilingual citizens." Daniel Giroux, President, College Boreal Quick Facts Founded in 1995, College Boreal is a French-language post-secondary institution. Located in Sudbury, the college has 38 access centres in 26 communities across the province, including 7 main campuses in Hearst, Kapuskasing, Nipissing, Sudbury, Timmins, Toronto, and Windsor. Since its founding in 1995, more than 18,000 students have graduated from College Boreal. The institution currently offers 25 programs that are unique in Ontario, and over $1.2 million in scholarships and bursaries. In June 2008, College Boreal became the first post-secondary institution in Ontario to receive designation under the French Language Services Act. Degree programs offered by Ontario colleges are subject to approval by the Minister of Colleges and Universities via the Ministerial consent process. Proposed college degree programs are reviewed by the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board, a quality assurance agency which provides advice and recommendations to the Minister. Budget 2021 provides $121 million over three years (20212022 to 20232024) to support high-quality post-secondary education in a minority language. These new investments will be made primarily through existing intergovernmental collaboration mechanisms to help provinces and territories address pressing needs and help stabilize the minority-language post-secondary sector. Federal funding for this project is through the Official Languages Support Programs, whose overall goal is to enhance the vitality of English- and French-speaking minority communities and promote the English and French languages in Canadian society. The project is funded under the CanadaOntario Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second Official-Language Instruction 20202021 to 20222023. Associated Links Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages Budget 2021 Action Plan for Official Languages 20182023: Investing in Our Future Official Languages Support Programs College Boreal SOURCE Canadian Heritage Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c5081.html By Summer Zhen and Patturaja Murugaboopathy Oct 14 (Reuters) - Japanese equity funds in September received their first net money inflow in six months, as investors returned to bet on a rebound in the country's tourism sector and cheaper valuations after a sharp selloff. According to Refinitiv Lipper data, Japanese equity funds obtained an inflow of $469 million in September, their first inflow since March this year. Having blocked entry to visitors for about two-and-half years, Japan has eased border control requirements this week, ending some of the world's strictest border controls to slow the spread of COVID-19. "Global economy is slowing down, geopolitical risks are still high. The place investors can hide (their money) is the reopening story, which may be the only story we have at this point," said Toru Ibayashi, head of Japanese equities research at UBS SuMi Trust. "Inflow will continue, in my opinion, especially when the yen is more stabilized, which is important for international investors who invest in Japan." The yen is at 32-year lows, but its pace of decline against the dollar has moderated this month, due to the government's dollar-selling intervention. The yen declined about 4% each in the last two months. The Nikkei 225 index has fallen about 5.8% this year, faring better than MSCI World index's decline of 25.3%, as shares of major Japanese export firms were underpinned by a drop in the yen. In September, the Nomura NF Topix ETF obtained $360.6 million, while AM-One Japan Equity Index Fund 225 and AI Japan Eq Fd UK Crp Acc Unites got $266 million and $238 million, respectively. "Some investors who had previously been relatively uninterested in Japanese equities are now seeming eager to invest in stocks related to this inbound tourism theme," said Yunosuke Ikeda, senior economist at Nomura. "While Japanese investors may have already taken their positions back up to around the neutral level, our impression is that European and North American investors are just starting to do this now." Story continues According to a recent Reuters survey, some 28% of 500 big non-financial Japanese firms think inbound tourism demand will return to pre-pandemic levels by end-2023 while 18% expect it to return to those levels in 2024 or later. Cheaper valuations could also attract investors toward Japanese stocks, some analysts said. "Valuations are still attractive, particularly on a price-to-earnings (P/E) basis given the outperformance of Japan earnings," Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report. According to Refinitiv Eikon, MSCI Japan's forward 12-month P/E stood at 12.7, lower than the MSCI World's 15.2. However, some worries still linger as a weakening yen has increased the import costs of raw materials and energy, affecting companies' margins. A recent Tankan survey showed business confidence among big Japanese manufacturers fell for a second straight month to hit its lowest in five months. However, the survey showed the sentiment for non-manufacturers improved slightly. (Reporting by Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Summer Zhen; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Sherry Jacob-Phillips) Attendees can register to win Alaska cruises, pan for gold, sample Alaska craft beers and more SEATTLE, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Holland America Line is bringing the Great Land to Phoenix, Arizona, with the all-day Alaska Cruise and Travel Show Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort and Villas. The free-to-attend, action-packed expo runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and invites locals who are dreaming about an Alaska cruise vacation to come learn, engage and see the best ways to experience this incredible destination with Holland America Line. Holland America Line Standard Photo/Logo Having celebrated its 75th Anniversary of Alaska exploration in 2022, Holland America Line is rolling out the red carpet with an immersive display of all-things Alaska for the event. Attendees will be able to meet the people who bring Alaska to life, make s'mores, take part in gold panning (and keep what they find!), try their hand at axe throwing, and enjoy live presentations and demonstrations. "No one knows Alaska like Holland America Line, and our Alaska Cruise and Travel Show enables us to show off our decades of expertise through engaging and hands-on experiences," said Bill Fletcher, senior director, destination marketing, Holland America Line. "Alaska is an easy-access, bucket-list destination for residents of the Phoenix area and a great escape from the heat. By hosting this event we'll be able to reach people who are thinking about an Alaska cruise but want to learn more from our team and our partners." Those who register and attend will have a chance to win one of seven Alaska cruises for two. Attendees who book a Holland America Line Alaska cruise or Cruisetour at the show will receive a special promotional offer, including up to $350 spending credit per stateroom. Scheduled for the Alaska Cruise and Travel Show presented by Holland America Line: Attendees can meet an Alaskan Lumberjack from the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan, Alaska, who will demonstrate axe throwing, and attendees will have the opportunity to test their own skills. Just like the prospectors of the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1800s attendees can pan for real gold and perhaps take home an authentic nugget. Attendees will feel like they are at McKinley Chalet Resort's Denali Square as they roast marshmallows and make s'mores around a faux firepit. Attendees will learn more about Holland America Line's enrichment and entertainment programming that brings Alaska on board through authentic experiences that focus on culture, cuisine and adventures ashore. All who attend will enjoy live presentations from Alaska operators to see and hear about what they can experience in Alaska. Story continues Shore excursion operators from the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway in Skagway to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan and Holland America Line representatives will be on hand to share more about what to expect when traveling to Alaska with the only cruise line that ventures into the Yukon Territory (hint: it involves river rafting, zip-lining and going deep into the wilderness to spot grizzlies and caribou). The Alaska Cruise and Travel Show is presented by Holland America Line and co-presented by Expedia Cruises in North Scottsdale. Other sponsors include Alaska Airlines, Allen Marine, Icy Straight Point and the Alaska Railroad. Cruising to Alaska in 2023 In 2023, six Holland America Line ships will explore Alaska, either roundtrip from Seattle, Washington; roundtrip from Vancouver, B.C. Canada; or one-way between Whittier (Anchorage), Alaska, and Vancouver. Every Alaska cruise includes a visit to one or more of Alaska's iconic glacier destinations. The line's cruises offer more visits to Glacier Bay National Park, the "must-see" of every visit to Alaska, and during the Glacier Bay experience all ships sail with a Huna native interpretive guide as well as a park ranger who provide commentary and information on Alaska's famed national park. Exclusive Cruisetours Explore the Denali and the Yukon The Alaska landscape is one of the few places in the world that is best seen by combining a cruise with an overland adventure, and Holland America Line's award-winning Cruisetours offer guests 16 options that showcase remote and off-the-beaten path regions. Holland America Line is the only cruise company to weave must-see sites such as Denali National Park the centerpiece of every Cruisetour with the unspoiled reaches of Canada's Yukon Territory. For more information about the Alaska Travel Show presented by Holland America Line, visit the Alaska Cruise and Travel Show website, consult a travel advisor, call 1-877-SAIL HAL (877-724-5425) or visit hollandamerica.com . To register for the Alaska Travel Show, visit AlaskaTravelShow.com. 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 EMAIL: pr@hollandamerica.com Westerdam in Glacier Bay, Alaska. (PRNewsfoto/Holland America Line) Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/holland-america-line-brings-alaska-cruise-and-denaliyukon-adventures-to-phoenix-area-with-free-travel-show-saturday-nov-5-301648978.html SOURCE Holland America Line OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Canada's once abundant natural biodiversity is in crisis, affecting the overall health of our planet and population for future generations. Together with our partners, Dougan & Associates and TD Ready Commitment, Canadian Geographic is thrilled to announce the launch of the Network of Nature initiative with our first planting day event at the Toronto Zoo. The Network of Nature is a new national program designed to strengthen our country's biodiversity by providing Canadians with the inspiration, tools and knowledge to enhance existing greenspaces and naturalize developed areas with locally appropriate native plant species. "Canadian wildlife populations have declined almost 70% over the last 50 years. Development has stressed and eliminated enormous tracts of native habitat, and we know habitat loss and degradation are the primary causes of decline for 82% of species at risk in Canada. With the help of individual Canadians, governments, and corporate landowners, we can reverse this trend." John Geiger, CEO, Royal Canadian Geographical Society Canadian Geographic is launching the Network of Nature with hundreds of backyard gardeners who will join together to plant a new, native-tree forest at the Toronto Zoo. Approximately 900 native trees will be planted in less than six hours, creating important new habitat for local and migratory animals, absorbing carbon, mitigating stormwater runoff and improving air quality. This first planting event is just the beginning. Working to engage all Canadians, the Network of Nature is a national movement to restore native plant biodiversity using balconies, backyards, and boulevards across Canada. In addition, the Network of Nature will coordinate numerous other planting activities in cities across the country, giving Canadians the opportunity to participate actively in critical restoration work. The program will also provide tools to individual Canadians to help them at home. Story continues "We're thrilled to be the first of many partners to provide a site for the Network of Nature. We're committed to enhancing our existing greenspaces, turning them into healthy, productive habitat for the local and migratory species that depend on them. Our mission is to connect people, animals and conservation science to fight extinction, and being part of this event is a great example of our commitment to our community. I encourage every other Canadian to provide what land they can to help grow the Network of Nature." Dolf DeJong, CEO, Toronto Zoo In consultation with an Indigenous and Western science expert committee, the Network of Nature will also complete the first comprehensive Canadian collection of knowledge on native plants and trees in Canada. This tool will help individual Canadians, developers, corporate property managers and landscape architects select and source appropriate native plants, seeds and trees locally. The Network of Nature native plant species database is now available at networkofnature.org and will continue to be enhanced over time. "We are honoured to be recognized as one of the founding partners of the Network of Nature. Planting the right plant in the right place is a simple act that can scale to have tremendous benefits for biodiversity. That's why we've built a free, public, native plant database to connect people to plants and help anyone identify locally appropriate native plant species for restoration, gardening, or landscape design. In transitioning to the Network of Nature, we are committed to continuing to develop the most comprehensive and accessible knowledge base of plants native to Canada. This partnership will greatly expand our ability to reach Canadians and empower them to select and source locally appropriate native plants, seeds and trees for any planting project." Steven Hill, Ph.D., Principal Ecologist, Dougan & Associates The loss of biodiversity is one of the largest environmental crises of our time but there is much we can do. Underpinned by the large reach of Canadian Geographic readership and the active Canadian Geographic Education network, The Network of Nature initiative will create and disseminate important learning tools related to teaching Canadians of all ages about the biodiversity crisis and nature-based climate solutions, inspiring them to take action, in their own yards, balconies and communities. By partnering with communities, municipalities, educators, corporations, and citizens to enhance urban greenspaces and naturalize developed areas, we can begin to repair and rebuild Canada's native landscape. "We believe we have an obligation to future generations to take care of our planet - and it starts with our actions today. Through the TD Ready Commitment, the Bank's corporate citizenship strategy, we're committed to helping open doors to a more inclusive and sustainable future. That's why we're continuing to exercise our green leadership by supporting initiatives focused on preserving nature and increasing access to green spaces for all to enjoy." Carolyn Scotchmer, Executive Director, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. Rallying Canadians in every province and territory, the Network of Nature will help support the restoration of soil productivity and water resources, preserve biodiversity, strengthen habitats and help mitigate the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thereby improving the environment for future generations. ABOUT THE ROYAL CANADIAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY Publisher of Canadian Geographic, the RCGS is dedicated to imparting a broader knowledge and deeper appreciation of Canada its people and places, its natural and cultural heritage and its environmental, social and economic opportunities. The Society is one of Canada's largest non-profit educational organizations, comprising more than 25,000 members from across the country. The RCGS is funded primarily by donations. The Society's Board of Governors and its program committees are composed entirely of volunteers. ABOUT DOUGAN & ASSOCIATES Dougan & Associates is an incorporated ecological consulting and design firm based in southern Ontario that has been providing services in terrestrial biology, ecological assessment and landscape architecture to the public and private sectors since 1981. For over 40 years, D&A's core focus has been to reimagine our role in nature through ecological interpretation and design, to realize the ecological potential of every place. Their science-based approach and use of innovative techniques allow them to balance the needs of their clients with the conservation and restoration of natural resources throughout the life cycle of every project. ABOUT TORONTO ZOO The Toronto Zoo's mission is to connect people, animals and conservation science to fight extinction and our vision is a world where wildlife and wild spaces thrive. An iconic tourist attraction and Conservation organization, the Toronto Zoo boasts a number of leading programs for helping wildlife and their natural habitats from species reintroduction to reproductive research. A world-class educational centre for people of all ages, the Toronto Zoo is open every day including December 25 and attracts approximately 1.2 million guests each year. Toronto Zoo is accredited by Canada's Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The Zoo has also achieved the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) Certificate of Good Animal Practice and is inspected by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). Social Media Handles Twitter: @RCGS_SGRC @CanGeo @networkofnature @TheTorontoZoo Facebook: @RCGS_SGRC @CanGeo @networkofnature @TheTorontoZoo Instagram: @RCGS_SGRC @CanGeo @TheTorontoZoo SOURCE Royal Canadian Geographical Society Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c7521.html The project will allow windows to turn opaque and clear with little energy and low costs. KENT, Ohio, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week, Dr. Clinton Braganza, the Manager of Research and Development and Principal Scientist at Kent Displays, Inc., visited co-researchers at Jeonbuk National University in Korea to continue research on the collaborative project, "Energy-saving bistable light shutters using carbon-based nanocomposites," with the Department of Nano Convergence Engineering at the University. Kent Displays is the maker of bestselling writing tablet, Boogie Board. Kent Displays makers of Boogie Board logo The "Energy-saving bistable light shutters using carbon-based nanocomposites" international joint research project commercializes carbon-based nanocomposites and furthers the economic prosperity of the United States and Korea. The ITECH research and development program under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology supports this collaborative work. The research project is developing switchable light shutter on flexible substrates that allow windows to turn opaque to clear and back again using minimal electric power. This version does not need power to stay in either opaque or clear states, making it sustainable and potentially very cost-effective. The technology applications make it easier to sanitize than today's plastic blinds and will last longer. The electronic background also makes it possible to integrate with mobile apps for easier control. The optical performance of these panels is unmatched in the industry, creating very high haze and opacity in the privacy state and high clarity at high angles in the clear state. In addition to constant improvement in research and development, Kent Displays also manufactured parts for the technology on their world class roll to roll manufacturing machines. Braganza's visit to Korea was partly to visit his co-researchers, Prof. Seung Hee Lee, Dr. MinSu Kim (Principal Instructor) and DaYeon Lee (Graduate Researcher) from the Departments of Polymer Nano Science and Technology and Nano Convergence Engineering in Jeonbuk National University. Story continues "This project allows our team [Kent Displays] to work on industry-leading research and to further our research team by hiring exceptional researcher David Starr," stated Braganza. "Kent Displays is located in what journalists call the new technical heartland of the United States, and we're excited to continue our work with Jeonbuk National University to commercialize this technology further." Although more research is needed, Kent Displays and Jeonbuk National University are invested in supporting an international research opportunity to improve both the United States and Korean economy and technological prowess. About Kent Display, Inc. Founded in early 1994, Kent Displays has become the world leader in reflective bistable cholesteric liquid crystal display technology. Commercialized in the 1990s, this technology was globally licensed and continues to be licensed in applications for signage and instrumentation. In the early 2000s, Kent Displays made significant advances in extending the technology toward flexible materials and manufacturing. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1593874/Kent_Displays_Logo.jpg SOURCE Kent Displays, Inc. Lee en espanol We can think of Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos as like an Indigenous beating heart underneath the skin of Catholicism. Thats how Mathew Sandoval, senior lecturer at Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University explains the colorful, annual Mexican celebration of honoring the dearly departed. Dia de los Muertos, an ancient Mexican celebration with Indigenous Aztec roots, is typically observed on Nov. 1 and 2, on the Catholic holidays of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. During these two days, people make altars or ofrendas with images of their loved ones, paint their faces with images of the skull, visit the cemeteries with offerings of food and libations and some even host parties to honor their deceased relatives. Its not so much a time of mourning, but rather a time to invite the spirits of the dead back from beyond to join their families in a two-day celebration of family and life. But Dia de los Muertos as it is known today is a different holiday than what was celebrated in ancient times. What people see today is a medley of ancient traditions and those of the Spanish who, over 500 years ago, imposed their Catholic rites on the Indigenous populations of the lands they conquered. Mexican Indigenous people, the Zapotec, Mayan and Aztec had to convert during early colonization in the 1500s and 1600s to survive in their communities,'' Sandoval said. It was like, 'accept Christianity or die.' But when they adopted Christianity, they also consciously chose to infuse that Christianity with their Indigenous traditions. But while history cannot be erased, one Phoenix couple has spent the last three decades trying to bring Dia de los Muertos back to its authentic roots, before the Spanish colonial era. Carmen and Zarco Guerrero, longtime residents and artists from the Valley, have been promoting the original ancestral lineage of Dia de los Muertos with their annual Mikiztli festival. Opening a book 'closed to us by history' The last Mikiztli festival was held on Oct. 24, 2021, at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix and featured music from groups like Mariachi Rubor, an all-female mariachi band, dances performed by Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli, masked performances, art activities and food. Most notably there were also ancient ceremonial practices, like the Danza Mexica which is a form of ancestral worship and ode to what the Aztecs described as the four sacred directions north, south, east and west. The event drew hundreds of people and has been Phoenixs longest-running celebration to honor the dead. Story continues Our Mexican ancestral heritage, which is so profound, you don't learn that by going to school in this country, even in Mexico,'' said Zarco, who is an accomplished mask maker and sculptor and also co-founded the festival with his wife, Carmen. Our history tells us that our history began with the coming of the Europeans to this continent. Well, we're changing that. We are looking beyond that. We're opening the book that has been closed to us by history and we're sharing ancient symbols and ceremonies to celebrate our ancestors at Mikiztli. Zarco Guerrero looks over painted masks with group Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli at Dia de Los Muertos Oct. 24, 2021, in Phoenix. According to Zarco, the name of the festival, Mikiztli, was inspired from a word in Nahuatl, an Indigenous Mexican language, that refers to the skull or calaca in Spanish, one of the most prominent Day of the Dead symbols that dates back over 3000 years. We saw the significance and the value in resurrecting and celebrating the ancient Dia de los Muertos tradition here in the Valley as a community celebration,'' Zarco said. I think we are one of the first organizations in the country that started celebrating as a community as opposed to an art exhibition. 'The main movers and shakers Prior to the couple creating the Mikiztli festival over 30 years ago, Dia de los Muertos was not a commonly celebrated community event in Phoenix. According to Sandoval, who has been researching the tradition for over a decade, Dia de los Muertos is a holiday and tradition that only arrived in the United States in the 1970s. It has to do with immigration patterns, Sandoval said. Day of the Dead, in terms of actual lineage and tradition, is really exclusive to central Mexico. If we look at immigration patterns into the United States, many of the Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S. weren't coming from central Mexico. In other words, they were never bringing Day of the Dead with them because it was never a part of their culture. It wasn't until relatively recently when more people started to immigrate from places like Michoacan or Oaxaca or Mexico City or even the Yucatan, who started to come into the United States that they would bring those traditions." The resurrection of Dia de los Muertos in the United States, specifically in the southwest, was also born out of a search for cultural identity amongst Mexican and Mexican Americans, Sandoval noted, and he says the Guerreros were some of the main "movers and shakers" of the movement. In the 1970s as part of the Chicano arts movement, people like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, community members and activists like the Guerreros started to bring back Day of the Dead into their communities as a way of encouraging Mexican communities to recover parts of their culture that had been forgotten or lost in mainstream American culture. Dia de los Muertos in terms of the calendar year, becomes the one time of the year in the United States, where Mexicans and Chicanos and Latinos, I would say, more generally have the opportunity to gather as a community and really be proud of our culture, be immersed in our culture and share our culture, Sandoval said. Mikiztli, a festival that has 'real soul to it' Sandoval, who has observed and participated in a number of Day of the Dead festivities in the United States and overseas for his research and his own cultural practice, says that many Dia de los Muertos festivals have become commercialized in the last 20 years or usually have some type of corporate sponsorship tie-in. Several examples Sandoval named included tequila companies and car companies sponsoring and branding entire events for profit. But this isnt only happening in the United States Sandoval explained. According to the ASU lecturer, even many of Mexicos notable Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico city, Michoacan or in Oaxaca have attracted thousands of people from all over the world as a tourist experience rather than an authentic Indigenous Mexican tradition. The Guerreros, however, set themselves apart. One of the reasons why I love Carmen and Zarcos festival so much is precisely because it's still community-oriented, and it hasn't necessarily sold out, so to speak, Sandoval said. It's still got real soul to it. Many of the vendors and artists who have attended and returned to the festival time and again also agree. The authenticity and the multigenerational nature of this festival is really what sets this apart from other festivals, said Gloria Martinez-Granados, a jewelry maker, designer and artist who has been attending the festival for over five years. Ruby Perez Soto poses with her kids as they eat lunch and watch the show at the Dia de los Muertos festival on Oct. 24, 2021, in Phoenix. Martinez-Granados also told The Republic that her husband, Reggie Casillas, who is also a Phoenix-based artist, has been attending the festival since he was a kid, when his parents were vendors. The couple was hired by the Guerreros this year to host a print-making activity for kids. My husband has grown up in the arts in the Valley and around this festival and our daughter will be here today too. It's just so touching to watch people come year after year and watch them grow and connect to this. Sugar skulls are iconic Day of the Dead symbol: Here's how to make them for 2022 'It's intergenerational and it's cross-cultural' But while the event has been known in the community as a multigenerational event, Mikiztli has also become a gathering space for people from all walks of life. The festival features not only Mexican dancers or strictly Mexican music or art. The couple has emphasized their event as an inclusive space to all cultures, even to some that dont mark their calendars for Nov 1 and 2. At the festival, there are Navajo and Apache dancers, Japanese drummers, a Brazilian dance group and even a diverse selection of cuisines. Indigenous Enterprise dances at the Dia de los Muertos festival on Oct. 24 in Phoenix. It's intergenerational and it's cross-cultural, Zarco said. It's inclusive and people are always attesting to how beautiful it is and that's what we wanted it to be. The beauty comes not just from the color and the costumes and the masks, but really from the spirit that's brought from all of these different aspects of the family, different cultures, countries and people represented here. Luis Aniceto, owner of Oaxaca Imports, a local business that specializes in selling pottery, artwork and craftsmanship from Southern Mexico, has been attending Mikiztli for 8 years. He couldn't help but smile as he spoke of the Guerreros and his time participating in the festival. They are simply great people who love Mexican culture, Aniceto said. This is such a family-oriented event, it's free and every year it gets better and better. 'Our goal is to celebrate culture' Carmen and Zarco have long promoted Indigenous Mexican and Native American heritage, history and culture in Phoenix and throughout the Southwest. In the 1970s the couple founded an organization called Xicanindio with the intent of addressing social issues through art and performance. The group was a collective of artists and activists from all over the Valley that collaborated on various projects. One of the ways the group promoted their initiatives was by painting murals in the inner city and some reservations in Arizona. According to Zarco, every time there was a new mural painted, Xicanindio threw a small festival with local musicians and dancers to inaugurate it. That initial grassroots movement to celebrate their culture and support local artists and communities snowballed into what is now a nonprofit called the Cultural Coalition. Carmen serves as the executive director, while Zarco is the artistic director. Today, the Cultural Coalition is responsible for hosting various events and public programming in Phoenix that use the arts as a way to preserve rich cultural traditions and share it with audiences from varying ages, cultures and backgrounds. Some of the events that the Cultural Coalition organizes include Mask Alive in downtown Mesa, El Puente Festival at the Tempe Center for the Arts, the El Zocalo Festival at the Herberger Theater in downtown Phoenix and the Mikitzli festival. The Mikitzli festival was originally held in Mesa at Pioneer Park for 20 years, before moving to Chandler for five years. The festival found its permanent home in Phoenix at Steele Indian School Park in 2012 To put on their events, the group gets their funding from a combination of public and private sponsorships and they also charge vendors to rent booths at their festivals. This year the Cultural Coalition got their main funding for Mikiztli from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arizona Commission for the Arts, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture. They also received additional funding from the Raza Development Fund, T-mobile and Paramount Movies. Part time volunteers assist in organizing and running the Coalition's events. Our goal is to celebrate culture and to bring people together in our city parks, to dance and to share our diverse cultural legacy, Carmen said. And we feel like we are accomplishing our goals of keeping the arts alive in the hearts of our community by providing access to these kinds of events. How to attend Mikiztli Festival 2022 When: 2 p.m.-7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30. Where: Steele Indian School Park, 300 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. Admission: Free. Details: https://culturalcoalition.com/events/mikiztli-dia-de-los-muertos-festival/ Best things to do this weekend: Sidewalk surfing, RuPaul alum, 'King Lear' You can connect with Arizona Republic Culture and Outdoors Reporter Shanti Lerner through email at shanti.lerner@gannett.com or you can also follow her on Twitter. Support local journalism like this story by subscribing today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mikiztli Festival 2022: Celebrate Dia de los Muertos in Phoenix LONDON, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Procurement Analytics Market Outlook (2022-2028) The Global Procurement Analytics Market was valued at USD 2.63 Billion in 2021 and is poised to amplify with a CAGR of 25.19% over 2022-2028, thereby amassing USD 12.67 Billion by end of the assessment timeline. BEMR_Logo Procurement Analytics involves the procedure of collecting and analyzing procurement data such as credit card expenses, purchase information, transaction history, and other work streams from the large reservoir of an enterprise. The data is extracted and assessed using the quantitate method so as to enhance the operational efficiency of an organization and help related bodies to make informed decisions. The steep rise in the promotion and marketing expenditures of various companies, technological advancements in the field along with widespread industrialization worldwide are primarily augmenting the outlook of this industry vertically. Additionally, increasing efforts of enterprises to enhance their overall operational efficiencies, the ability of procurement analytic technologies to reduce operational costs, and growing popularity of cloud-based tools are adding traction to the market development. Also, rapid digitalization, surging R&D investments in the field, and shifting inclination of small enterprises towards cost saving tools are creating lucrative opportunities for the business sphere to prosper. On the flipside, rising concerns regarding user data security and dearth of awareness regarding the benefits of procurement analytics tools are hindering the remuneration scope of this market. Get Sample of Report@ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestSample/PostId/2089 Procurement Analytics Market Competitive Landscape The Major Players characterizing the competitive terrain of this industry are Oracle, SAS Institute Inc., Coupa Software Inc., Rosslyn Data Technologies, JAGGAER, Zycus Inc., Genpact, BirchStreet Systems, LLC, Sievo, Tungsten Network, Dataction, IBM, Simfoni, Cisco Systems, Inc., Microsoft, Tamr, SAP SE, BRIDGEi2i Analytics, Proactis Holdings Plc, and others. Story continues Market Growth Comparison pertaining to the historical years and forecast timeline of 2022-2028 The Global Procurement Analytics Market has witnessed an exponential growth over the recent years due to a wide array of factors. With prompt internet proliferation and digitalization, it has become easier for companies to record and store various confidential data. Thus, the adoption of procurement analytics tools enables enterprises to assess this information which in turn will help them to reduce operational costs, improve efficient, formulate expansion strategies, and amass notable gains over time. Moreover, the emergence of cloud-based procurement analytics tools is further aiding the industry expansion since they are easily accessible and affordable in nature. Also, the emergence of numerous startups across the globe and growing focus of players to develop advanced tools in the field are positively influencing the dynamics of this marketplace. Besides, the ability of procurement analytics tools to reduce human errors within organizations is adding momentum to the progression of this business sphere. The increasing popularity of e-commerce channels, rising internet penetration, along with rising adoption of smart devices are fueling the growth of this industry. Country-wise Assessment Why has U.S. become the largest consumer of procurement analytics technologies? The United States has emerged as the largest use of procurement analytics tools and is providing lucrative opportunities for this marketplace to prosper. This is credited to the presence of leading suppliers, rise in the number of enterprises, and prompt economic growth. Category-wise Outlook Which end use Segment is presently leading the procurement analytics market? The retail and ecommerce end-use segment accounts for a substantial volume share and is reckoned to showcase similar development trends over the stipulated timeline. This is ascribed to the rising focus of enterprises to enhance their supply chain efficiency, rapid integration of advanced technologies such as machine learning and AI in the field, along with the booming retail sector. These companies are aimed at strengthening their global presence by adopting various expansion strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, R&D investments, products launch, collaborations, and partnerships, among others. Major Developments In March 2022, SAP SE announced the acquisition of a controlling share in Taulia. This will enable SAP to integrate Taulia's procurement analytics solutions into its software. In April 2022, The Kraft Heinz Business inked a partnership deal with Microsoft Corp. with an aim to jointly develop effective solutions to enable consumers to strengthen their supply chain-based operations. In April 2020, digitate announced the launch of its ignio cognitive procurement tool. This tool is equipped with the ability to track and monitor enterprise-based purchase transactions using the power of AI. Get Methodology @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/requestMethodology/PostId/2089 Segmental Analysis of Global Procurement Analytics Market By Component: Services Solution By Organization Size: Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises Large Enterprises By Deployment Mode: Cloud On-Premises By End-Use: Healthcare & Life Sciences Telecom & IT Retail & Ecommerce Energy & Utilities Government & Defense Manufacturing Others Region-wise Insights Which is the fastest growing region in the Global Procurement Analytics Market? North America presently accounts for a market share of more than 40% and thereby is the leading region in this business sphere. This is attributable to the booming e-commerce and retail sectors, rapidly evolving digital infrastructure, and rising number of SMEs across the region. Furthermore, increasing adoption of AI and IoT based tools and software across various enterprises, prompt economic developments, and presence of potential players are further paving the way for North America procurement analytics market to prosper. What are the factors propelling the growth of the Asia Pacific Procurement Analytics Market? The market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to garner significant returns over the estimated timeline due to the growing internet proliferation, rapid evolution in the field of machine learning and algorithm development along with widespread industrialization. On Special Requirement Procurement Analytics Market Report is also available for below region: North America U.S, Canada Europe Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Sweden, Netherland, Turkey, Switzerland, Belgium, Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific South Korea, Japan, China, India, Australia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Rest Of APAC Latin America Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Rest of Latin America Middle East and Africa Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa, Rest Of MEA Purchase Copy of Report @ https://brandessenceresearch.com/Checkout?report_id=2089 Related Reports: Vocal Biomarkers Market in terms of revenue was worth of USD 1901.1 Million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 5131.8 Million in 2028, growing at a CAGR of 15.45% from 2021 to 2028. OLED TV Market is Estimated at USD 7.45 Billion in the year 2021 and is projected to reach USD 22.63 Billion by 2028 growing at a CAGR of 17.2% over the period. 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Power Line Communication Market is valued at USD 7.80 Billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 18.64 Billion by 2027 with a CAGR of 11.5% over the forecast period. i-Factor: Live Market intelligence platform I-Factor is our guaranteed seal to keep our clients ahead of the competition, always. This knowledge platform delivers real-time updates on key economic indicators, competitive landscape, changing demand, trends, customized regional insights, and more. The platform visualizes key data points to help make decision making agile, trustworthy, and holistic. Register for free trial here at https://brandessenceresearch.com/i-factor/login/userRegister Brandessence Market Research & Consulting Pvt ltd. Brandessence Market Research publishes market research reports & business insights produced by highly qualified and experienced industry analysts. 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Follow Us: Linkedin Blog: Edge Data Centre Companies Contact: Mr. Vishal Sawant Email: vishal@brandessenceresearch.com Email: Sales@brandessenceresearch.com Corporate Sales: +44-2038074155 Asia Office: +917447409162 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1392316/BEMR_Logo.jpg Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/procurement-analytics-market-reach-usd-12-67-billion-by-2028-at-25-19-cagr--brandessence-market-research-301649336.html SOURCE Brandessence Market Research and Consulting Private Limited By Trend The Azerbaijani Army launched a counter-offensive operation, later called the "Iron Fist", on September 27, 2020, in response to the large-scale provocation of the Armenian armed forces along the frontline, Trend reports. The erupted 44-day Second Karabakh War ended with the liberation of Azerbaijans territories from nearly 30-year Armenian occupation. Trend presents the chronicle of the 18th day of the Second Karabakh war: - President Ilham Aliyev interviewed by France 24 TV channel. - "Azerbaijans glorious Army has liberated Garadaghli, Khatunbulag, Garakollu villages of Fuzuli district, and Bulutan, Melikjanli, Kemertuk, Teke and Tagaser villages of Khojavend district. Long live Azerbaijans Army! Karabakh is Azerbaijan!" President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a post on his official Twitter account. - Armenian armed forces destroy shopping center in Azerbaijans Tartar, Aghdam and Agjabedi districts. - Azerbaijani MoD reveals Armenian equipment destroyed over night. - Azerbaijani army destroys one more ballistic missile system of Armenia. - Azerbaijani civilian killed as result of Armenian Armed Forces' missile firing. - Azerbaijani journalists targeted by Armenian Armed Forces. - Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office lists names of wounded in Tartar. - Legitimate military targets aimed at civilian population of Azerbaijan neutralized. - Footage of Azerbaijani Jabrayil city liberated from occupation unveiled. By Jorgelina do Rosario WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's government officials from the finance ministry and the central bank held its first in-person meeting with the country's largest sovereign overseas bondholders in Washington on Thursday, three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said. The gathering on the sideline of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings convened amid debt restructuring talks for $13 billion. Some private creditors also joined the meeting virtually, the sources said. Amundi Asset Management, BlackRock, HBK Capital Management, and T. Rowe Price Associates Inc are among members of the creditor group's steering committee. The move comes after the island nation of 22 million fell into default after a 30-day grace period on a $78 million coupon payment expired earlier this year. The government did not provide any proposal on how a debt restructuring would look, said two of the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. "It was a good exchange, but we are still at an early stage," one source said, adding that creditors urged the government to provide information in real time on the country's debt-sustainability analysis. Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe and Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardena led the meeting from the government side, along with representatives of financial and legal advisers Lazard and Clifford Chance, the sources said. Sri Lanka, which is struggling with its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades, reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF for a $2.9 billion loan in September, contingent on it receiving financing assurances from official creditors. Economic mismanagement and the hit from the COVID-19 pandemic have left the country battling its worst financial problems since its independence in 1948, and a lack of foreign exchange reserves has stalled imports of essentials including fuel, food and medicines. The country also needs to renegotiate debt with bilateral creditors such as China, Japan and India. The Paris Club creditor nations last month reached out to China and India seeking to coordinate closely on Sri Lanka's debt talks, but is still awaiting a reply. (Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario; Editing by Diane Craft) The offshore Guyana-Suriname Basin emerged in 2019 as one of the worlds most exciting drilling frontiers. While the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the basin contained mean undiscovered oil resources of 15 billion barrels, disappointing exploration results saw international energy companies shun the geological formation. It wasnt until 2015 when a consortium led by ExxonMobil made the world-class Liza oil discovery in the 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block offshore Guyana. Since then, Exxon has made a swathe of high-quality oil discoveries, 33 since 2015, in the block, which is estimated to contain recoverable oil resources of at least 11 billion barrels. Those discoveries have been a boon for Guyanas economy, which expanded by a whopping 43.5% in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused most economies to contract, and then by 19.9% in 2021. The former British colonys oil-driven economic miracle is gaining momentum, with the IMF forecasting GDP growth of 57.8% for 2022. Neighboring Suriname, which saw its economy hit hard by the pandemic with GDP plunging 15.9% during 2020, is hungrily eyeing the oil wealth held in its territorial waters. Related: Saudi Arabia Expresses Its Total Rejection Of U.S. Statements About OPEC+ The Guyana-Suriname Basin is set to become one of the worlds most prolific offshore oil-producing regions, especially after it is considered that the USGS grossly underestimated the volume of crude oil contained in the basin. The combined total of the 11 billion barrels found in the Stabroek Block and the potential 6.5 billion barrels believed to be in Block 58 offshore Suriname is far greater than the USGSs May 2001 estimate of 15 billion barrels of mean undiscovered oil resources held by the basin. The latest news concerning the ongoing exploration and appraisal of offshore Suriname point to it holding tremendous oil wealth like neighboring Guyana. A series of quality oil discoveries have already occurred in Block 58 offshore Suriname. U.S. international driller Apache, along with 50% partner French oil supermajor TotalEnergies, announced the first discovery in Block 58 in January 2020. The partners then announced a further four exploration discoveries with the latest occurring during February 2022. Story continues Source: Apache Investor Update September 2022. A recent disappointing development was the August 2022 announcement that the Dikkop exploration well drilled in Block 58 did not find the presence of hydrocarbons and was capped. Apache and TotalEnergies are currently working on an appraisal well in the Sapakara South oilfield and planning to drill an exploration well at the Awari prospect in the northern part of Block 58. In total, seven exploration wells were drilled to date in Block 58, with five identifying significant hydrocarbon reservoirs requiring further appraisal, while two were found to be dry. In late 2020 U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley stated that according to its modeling Block 58 contains at least 6.5 billion barrels of oil resources, with that number potentially higher if further discoveries are made. The recoverable oil resources held by Block 58, and hence Morgan Stanleys estimate, will be quantified by the appraisal work being conducted in Block 58 by Apache and TotalEnergies. Both drillers have yet to make a final investment decision as to whether they will start to commercially exploit the block. It was widely anticipated that Apache and TotalEnergies would make an FID during 2022, but it has been delayed until mid-2023. According to the French supermajors chief executive Patrick Pouyanne, there are concerns over a conflict between what seismic data is showing in Block 58 compared to results from delineation wells. While Apache lucked out with the Block 58 Dikkop exploration well, it was announced in August 2022 by the driller and its partners that they had made the first oil discovery in Block 53 offshore Suriname. Apache is the operator of Block 53, holding a 45% working interest, with the remaining 30% and 25% held by Malaysian national oil company Petronas and Spains CEPSA, respectively. The Baja-1 well was drilled to a depth of 17,356 feet, or 5,290 meters, where 112 feet equal or 34 meters of net oil pay was identified. Apache is negotiating with Surinames national oil company and industry regulator Staatsolie to obtain a one-year extension for the exploration period which under the production sharing contract can be extended for up to four years. After accounting for Petronas and Exxons December 2020 discovery with the Sloanea-1 well in Block 52 there have been seven potentially viable oil discoveries in offshore Suriname since the start of 2020. The latest developments bode well for Suriname to experience an oil boom on a similar scale to that which is occurring in neighboring Guyana. Paramaribo is focused on attracting foreign capital to sustain the required drilling and development activity. Staatsolie recently revealed a proposal to invest $1.5 billion by 2026, with the lions share destined for the South American countrys offshore drilling program. The state-controlled energy company also disclosed plans to promote Surinames available offshore acreage, to attract foreign investment, while developing its capabilities to eventually become an operator. Staatsolie also intends to auction offshore Suriname deep-water blocks before the end of 2022 and hold another bid round for shallow-water blocks during 2023. Those plans come on the back of Staatsolies 2021 shallow water auction, which saw three blocks acquired by Chevron, TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum. Anglo-Dutch energy supermajor Shell inked a December 2021 deal that saw it acquire a 20% interest from Chevron in shallow water Block 5 While it was widely predicted that Suriname was on track to produce its first offshore oil during 2025, development delays with Block 58, mean that is more likely to occur during 2027. The volume of oil discoveries made in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, coupled with the generous PSAs established by Paramaribo, are key incentives for luring much-needed foreign capital to develop offshore Surinames considerable oil wealth. The efforts of Paramaribo and national oil company Staatsolie to attract additional investment for the development of Surinames considerable offshore oil wealth will bolster the pace of drilling. For those reasons, the first oil could occur sooner than 2027, and Suriname should undergo an epic boom like its neighbor Guyana. When production commences in offshore Suriname, it will be a boon for the deeply impoverished South American countrys ailing economy, which is forecast by the IMF to grow by a paltry 1.3% for 2022 compared to Guyanas 57.8% and an average of 3.6% for South America. By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Read this article on OilPrice.com VAUGHAN, ON, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - As of Monday October 10th, Swiss Chalet has reopened its full-service, family restaurant in Wasaga Beach. Located at 333 Main Street, Wasaga Beach, this recently opened Swiss Chalet restaurant offers all of the classic Swiss Chalet favourites, but in a newly renovated, more contemporary space. It is also opening under the new franchisee leadership of the Anselmo group, who own multiple Swiss Chalet locations across Ontario. Joe, one of the Anselmo group franchise owners commented, "Wasaga Beach is such a lively community, where people from all over Canada come together, and we're really excited to be serving the entire community again. We encourage everyone in Wasaga Beach and the surrounding areas to dine in with us to celebrate the opening as well as the upcoming holidays." From the entire Swiss Chalet family, we would like to congratulate the Anselmo group and their team for their recent opening. We wish them many years of success within the Wasaga Beach community! This opening is one of several planned for the brand across various regions over the next few years. About Swiss Chalet Swiss Chalet was founded in 1954 with more than 200 locations across Canada under the operation of RECIPE Unlimited Corporation. Swiss Chalet is an iconic brand and Canada's largest full-service restaurant company. As a Canadian brand, Swiss Chalet prides itself in bringing Canadian families together for mealtime by serving real, delicious and wholesome comfort food. The brand is known for its iconic Swiss-inspired rotisserie chicken served with Signature Chalet Dipping Sauce. For more information, visit SwissChalet.com. About Recipe Founded in 1883, RECIPE Unlimited Corporation is Canada's largest full-service restaurant company. The Company franchises and/or operates some of the most recognized brands in the country including Swiss Chalet, Harvey's, St-Hubert, The Keg, Montana's, Kelseys, East Side Mario's, New York Fries, Bier Markt, The Landing Group of Restaurants, Original Joe's, State & Main, Elephant & Castle, The Burger's Priest, The Pickle Barrel, Marigolds & Onions, Blanco Cantina, Anejo, Fresh and Ultimate Kitchens. Story continues RECIPE's iconic brands have established the organization as a nationally recognized franchisor of choice. As at June 26, 2022, Recipe had 20 brands and 1,223 restaurants, 82% of which are operated by franchisees and joint venture partners, operating in several countries including Canada, USA, Saudi Arabia, India and the UAE. RECIPE's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RECP. More information about the Company is available at www.recipeunlimited.com. SOURCE Swiss Chalet Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c9565.html (Adds arrival of Global Star, LNG Enterprise, LNG Phecda and Maran Gas Roxana, adds Arctic Aurora) Oct 14 (Reuters) - The following liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers are expected to arrive in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands in the coming weeks. Estimated arrival dates, often revised by port authorities and AIS Live ship-tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon, are updated below. Some tankers heading for Belgium and Britain may be loading at the terminal. Those expected to load are indicated with an (L). Those likely to perform ship-to-ship transfers are indicated with (STS). Tankers that have docked are indicated with (A). Floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) terminals are added to the table when they become fully operational. As of Sept. 30 2022 this includes the Eemshaven terminal in the Netherlands. For the Reuters LNG guide, click here: LNG TANKER CAPACITY in EXPECTED ARRIVAL FROM PORT cubic metres BRITAIN LNG Sakura 177,000 Oct. 13 Nigeria Dragon Global Star 170,000 Oct. 13 (A) Chile Isle of Grain Traiano Knutsen 180,000 Oct. 14 United States South Hook LNG Bonny II 173,000 Oct. 15 United States Isle of Grain Attalos 174,000 Oct. 16 Trinidad and Tobago Isle of Grain Cool Runner 158,000 Oct. 17 United States South Hook Elisa Aquila 174,000 Oct. 19 United States Isle of Grain Flex Constellation 170,000 Oct. 19 United States South Hook Sonangol Etosha 158,000 Oct. 20 Angola Isle Of Grain Bu Samra 261,000 Oct. 21 Qatar Isle of Grain Seapeak Marib 162,000 oct. 21 united States South Hook Methane Mickie Harper 167,000 Oct. 21 United States Dragon Maran Gas Ithaca 170,000 Oct. 29 United States Milford Haven Kool Boreas 167,000 Nov. 5 Peru Milford haven BELGIUM LNG Enterprise 174,000 Oct. 14 (A) Norway Zeebrugge LNG Phecda 174,000 Oct. 13 (A) N/A Zeebrugge Yenisei River 152,000 Oct. 14 Russia Zeebrugge BW Brussels 159,000 Oct. 16 United States Zeebrugge Shagra 261,000 Oct. 17 Qatar Zeebrugge Al Jasra 137,000 Oct. 19 Qatar Zeebrugge Aamira 261,000 Oct. 24 Qatar Zeebrugge Umm Al Amad 206,000 Oct. 27 Qatar Zeebrugge Gaslog Hongkong 174,000 Oct. 30 United States Zeebrugge NETHERLANDS Santander Knutsen 170,000 Oct. 10 (A) United States Eemshaven Energy Intelligence 173,000 Oct. 12 (A) Cameroon Gate Maran Gas Roxana 170,000 Oct. 14 (A) United States Eemshaven Arctic Aurora Oct. 14 N/A Gate 150,000 Arctic Discoverer 140,000 Oct. 15 Norway Gate Adam LNG 159,000 Oct. 20 Trinidad and Tobago Gate LNG Schneeweisschen 177,000 Oct. 21 Unites States Gate Diamond Gas Met Olis 174,000 Oct. 24 United States Gate Transgas Force 174,000 Nov. 28 United States Eemshaven Sources: Ports, AIS Live ship tracking, Refinitiv Eikon data. (^) Partial unload (*) Arrival date estimated based on flows data (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin) Tecogen, Inc. WALTHAM, MA, Oct. 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Tecogen Inc. (OTCQX: TGEN), a clean energy company providing ultra-efficient and clean on-site power, heating, and cooling equipment, is pleased to announce a follow-on order of two additional Tecochill systems for a large municipality in Connecticut consisting of one 200 ton Tecochill system for an elementary school and one 50 ton Tecochill system for a separate elementary school. In both cases the systems are part of a district-wide upgrade to provide air conditioning to schools that previously did not have central cooling. The two Tecochill units are in addition to three 400 ton Tecochill chiller systems ordered by the district in July . The order brings a total of 7 Tecochill units with a combined capacity of 1850 tons of Tecochill cooling for the municipality, which has been a Tecogen customer for over 20 years. The municipality is taking advantage of its allocation of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding for improvements in heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) in the school system to fund the projects. In addition to significant cost savings and additional resiliency to electric grid outages, the municipality is expected to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) savings of 1,700 tons/year in the aggregate from its Tecochill systems. We are excited that this Connecticut municipality decided to supplement its order for Tecochill systems in its school and municipal buildings, noted Benjamin Locke, Tecogens CEO. Tecogen equipment is uniquely suited to reduce both energy costs and carbon emissions as electric rates continue to increase, and our equipment enables customers to satisfy emerging GHG reduction goals. About Tecogen Tecogen Inc. designs, manufactures, installs, and maintains high efficiency and ultra-clean cogeneration products, including combined heat and power systems, air conditioning systems, and high-efficiency water heaters for residential, commercial, recreational, and industrial applications. The companys cost efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly products for energy production nearly eliminate criteria pollutants and significantly reduce customers carbon footprint. Story continues In business for over 35 years, Tecogen has shipped more than 3,000 units, supported by an established network of engineering, sales, and service personnel throughout North America. Aggregate run hours on Tecogens InVerde cogeneration systems exceeds 5 million hours. For more information, please visit www.tecogen.com or contact us for a free Site Assessment . Tecogen, InVerde e+, Ilios, Tecochill, Tecofrost, Tecopack, Tecopower, and Ultera are pending or registered trademarks of Tecogen Inc. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements which may describe strategies, goals, outlooks or other non-historical matters, or projected revenues, income, returns or other financial measures, that may include words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "likely" or "may" and similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. In addition to the Risk Factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q under Risk Factors, factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from past and projected future results include the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on demand for our products and services, the availability of incentives, rebates and tax benefits relating to our products, changes in the regulatory environment relating to our products, competing technological developments, and the availability of financing to fund our operations and growth. Tecogen Media & Investor Relations Contact Information: Benjamin Locke, CEO P: (781) 466-6402 E: Benjamin.Locke@Tecogen.com Company Logo US Post-Acute Care (PAC) Market US Post-Acute Care (PAC) Market Dublin, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "The US Post-Acute Care (PAC) Market: Analysis By Services, By Condition, By Application, By Spending, By Number of Providers Size and Trends with Impact of COVID-19 and Forecast up to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The US post-acute care market in 2021 was valued at US$338.49 billion. The value of the market is expected to reach US$443.84 billion by 2027. The market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of approx. 4.6% during the forecasted period of 2022-2027. Post-acute care is a continuum of facilities that accompanies the care delivered by an acute care hospital after a major illness or injury. Post-acute care services are required by those patients who are no longer in life-threatening conditions but still demand quality care and services for a speedy recovery. Post-acute care is primarily designed to take care and rehabilitate the family members and loved ones after surgery, major medical procedure, or illness. The goal of post-acute care is to ensure that the patient suffers no complications or problems on his or her path to recovery. In addition to that, post-acute care surgery makes the recovery process more comfortable at home by making sure that all the medical needs, health monitoring, treatment, attention, and care are provided for his or her convenience. Impact Analysis of COVID-19 and Way Forward: The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a headwind for the post-acute care market in the US in 2020. The pandemic led to overwhelmed healthcare systems. Hence, many patients suffering from non-COVID diseases patients were denied admission in post-acute care settings. However, with the rollout of the vaccine, the market witnessed positive growth. Also, the increasing use of telemedicine and pent demand for surgeries has further boosted the demand for post-acute care in the year 2021. Competitive Landscape: The US post-acute care market is highly fragmented, with a large number of small- and medium-sized manufacturers accounting for a insignificant revenue share of overall market. Story continues Some of the strategies among key players in the market for post-acute care are mergers, acquisitions, and collaborations. For instance, in 2022, LHC Group announced an agreement to purchase Three Rivers Home Health. Whereas, Select Medical Corporation and Inova Health System announced a joint venture to own and operate the first critical illness recovery hospital in Northern Virginia. The 32-bed specialty hospital would open in the first half of 2023 and be located within Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. Also, in 2021, Kindred Healthcare accounted for a share of approx. 7% in the US home health PAC market, whereas Encompass Health is the largest owner and operator of inpatient rehabilitation facilities in the US. Market Dynamics: Growth Drivers: The US post-acute care market has been growing over the past few years, due to factors such as the aging population, growing prevalence of chronic diseases, rising healthcare expenditure, rising affordability, and many other factors. The aging population in the US is anticipated to lead to a sharp increase in the demand for post-acute care services provided by home health agencies. After getting discharged from acute-care hospitals, the majority of the elderly patients require post-acute care and a large number of these patients prefer to receive such care in the comfort of their homes as the old people are not able to travel much to avail of treatments. Challenges: However, the market has been confronted with some challenges specifically, tight labor supply, changes in reimbursement policies, etc. Trends: The market is projected to grow at a fast pace during the forecast period, due to various latest trends such as integration of CMMI in payment models, growing emphasis on home-based services, etc. Home is the most affordable setting to treat patients requiring post-acute care services. The provision of care at home is preferred by consumers as compared to more costly settings such as skilled nursing facilities. Market Segmentation Analysis: By Services: The report provides the bifurcation of the market into four segments based on the services: Skilled Nursing Facilities, Home Health, Long Term Acute Care, and Inpatient Rehabilitation. The skilled nursing facilities held the highest share of 44% in the market, whereas the home health segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment in the forecasted period owing to the affordability offered by home health services in comparison to other post-acute care services. By Condition: The report further provided the segmentation based on the condition: Neurological Disorders, Brain Injury, Amputations, Spinal Cord Injury, Wound Management, and Others. Amputations segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the forthcoming years. Cancer accounted for 0.8% of total amputations and is the most common cause between ages 10 and 20 years. The increasing incidence of cancer is expected to drive amputation cases in the coming years, which would further increase the need for post-acute care. By Application: The market is also segmented based on application: Elderly, Adult, and Child. The elderly segment held the highest share in the market, i.e. approximately 62% as the old generation is more prone to chronic diseases and other medical problems as compared to the young generation. By Spending: The report provides a glimpse of market spending based on services: Skilled Nursing Facilities, Home Health, Long Term Acute Care, and Inpatient Rehabilitation. Fee-for-services (FFS) spending on inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) has increased steadily over the past decade and is estimated to increase in the approaching years. This is because an increasing number of Medicare FFS users are likely to opt for inpatient rehabilitation facilities for conditions such as stroke, brain injury, cardiac conditions, etc. By Number of Providers: The report also gives insight into the number of providers in the US post-acute care market based on the service type. In 2021, the number of inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRF) increased. Most IRFs are distinct units in acute care hospitals; about one-quarter are freestanding facilities. However, because freestanding IRFs tend to have more beds, they account for about half of Medicare discharges from IRFs. The key players in the US post-acute care market are: Amedisys, Inc. LHC Group, Inc. Encompass Health Corp. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. National HealthCare Corporation Select Medical Holdings (Select Medical Corporation) The Ensign Group, Inc. Athena Health Care Systems Kindred Healthcare ProMedica (ProMedica Senior Care) Genesis Healthcare, Inc. Vineyard Post Acute Market Dynamics Growth Drivers Aging Population Growing Prevalence of Chronic Diseases Rising Healthcare Expenditure Rapid Urbanization Rising Affordability Challenges Tight Labor Supply Changes in Reimbursement Policies Market Trends Integration of CMMI in Payment Models Growing Emphasis on Home-based Services Increasing Use of Healthcare Data Analytics For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/51ym2r Attachment CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood,Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com 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 ReportLinker The Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market size was estimated at USD 1,328. 44 million in 2021 and expected to reach USD 1,407. 74 million in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 6. 22% to reach USD 1,908. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Urinary Drainage Bags Market Research Report by Bag Type, Usage, Capacity, End-user, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342193/?utm_source=GNW 53 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Urinary Drainage Bags to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Bag Type, the market was studied across Leg Bag and Regular/Large Bag. Based on Usage, the market was studied across Disposable and Reusable. Based on Capacity, the market was studied across 0-500 ml, 1000-2000 ml, and 500-1000 ml. Based on End-user, the market was studied across Clinics and Hospital. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Urinary Drainage Bags market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Urinary Drainage Bags Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market, including Amsino International, Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Cardinal Health, Coloplast Corp., Convatec Group PLC, Cook Group Incorporated, Flexicare (Group) Limited, Healthium Medtech Limited, Hollister Incorporated, Jolfamar XXI, SL, Kiefel GmbH, Manfred Sauer UK Ltd., McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc., Medline Industries, LP, Medtronic PLC, Pacific Hospital Supply Co., Ltd., Poly Medicure Limited, Teleflex Incorporated, UROMED Kurt Drews KG, and Wujiang Evergreen EX/IM Co., Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Urinary Drainage Bags Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342193/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Venzee Technologies Inc. (TSXV: VENZ) (OTCQB: VENZF) ("Venzee'' or the "Company"), the artificial intelligence platform for product data, is pleased to update shareholders on the closing of its non-brokered private placement as previously announced on June 23, 2022, July 23, 2022, July 28, 2022 and August 30, 2022. The principal sum of Debentures issued in all tranche closings totals CAD $275,000. Venzee Technologies, Inc. (CNW Group/Venzee Technologies Inc.) In connection with the Debenture Offering, the Company paid finder's fee to certain registered brokerage firms, comprised of cash payment of $18,000 and the issuance of 360,000 finders' warrants upon the same terms and conditions as the Warrants. Venzee CEO John Abrams said, "We deeply appreciate continued support from our investors. Our recent progress validates for clients and investors the enormous potential of Venzee to eliminate supply chain inefficiency with our modern Artificial Intelligence platform." The Debentures have a maturity date of three (3) years from the date of issuance and shall bear interest at a rate of 5% per annum, payable every six (6) months. The principal sum of the Debentures, or any portion thereof, are convertible at the option of the holder, anytime after six (6) months, into debenture units (each, a "Debenture Unit") at CAD $0.05 per Debenture Unit for the first year. In subsequent years, the Debentures are convertible at the greater of $0.10 or Market Price. Each Debenture Unit consists of one common share (a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") with each Warrant exercisable at CAD $0.08 for 36 months from the date of issuance. The Warrants will also be subject to an acceleration clause whereby, in the event the volume weighted average trading price of the Company's shares trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), or any other stock exchange on which the Company's Shares are then listed, is equal to or greater than $0.25 for a period of 30 consecutive trading days, the Company will have the right, but not the obligation, to accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by giving written notice to the holders that the Warrants will expire on a date that is not less than 30 days from the date of notice. Story continues The Debentures, Debenture Units, Warrants and any Common Shares resulting from the conversion of the Debentures or the exercise of Debenture Warrants will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day after the date of issuance thereof. The Company will use the proceeds of the Debenture Offering for general working purposes. On August 30, 2022, the Company announced a grant of 7,536,430 performance share units under the Company's Omnibus LTIP Plan. The Board of Directors of the Company subsequently determined this grant does not serve the best interests of employees and management of the Company at this time. About Venzee Technologies, Inc. Venzee (TSXV: VENZ) (OTCQB: VENZF) is the leading artificial intelligence platform for product data used by global brands to speed time to market and create competitive supply chain advantages. Venzee's intelligent platform automates inefficient last-mile retail processes with a frictionless, machine-driven solution for sending and receiving product data. Venzee believes intelligent supply chain functionality is inevitable and will significantly benefit growers, makers, brands, sellers, regulators, and consumers. Venzee is building the foundation for a future where seamless, accurate, automated data flow simplifies processes, removes friction, and creates value for all those that rely on the myriad of data and information surrounding any product, anywhere. Venzee unlocks shareholder value by carrying out its mission to create intelligent technology that removes friction from the global supply chain. Its Mesh Connector product disrupts and displaces inefficient manual processes in favor of integrated, machine-driven solutions. To learn more about the Venzee platform, visit venzee.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/venzee-inc/ Podcast: https://www.rethinkingsupplychain.com/ Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the terms of the Offering, the completion of the Offering and the expected use of the net proceeds received by the Company. 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 state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is 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: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; and regulatory risks. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors and Uncertainties" in the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2018, and the quarter ended August 29, 2019, which are available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Although 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 information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws. Neither TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/venzee-technologies-closes-additional-tranche-of-convertible-debenture-financing-301650068.html SOURCE Venzee Technologies Inc. Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/14/c9117.html New Platform Aims to Meet Rapidly Growing Demand for Quality, End-to-End Rheumatological Patient Care NEW YORK, October 13, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VSS Capital Partners ("VSS"), a private investment firm investing in the healthcare, education, and business services industries, today announced it has made an investment in Center for Rheumatology ("CFR" or "the Company"), a rheumatology platform with a comprehensive suite of offerings that treat a variety of chronic rheumatic illnesses. Founder Dr. Arash Horizon, a well-known board-certified rheumatologist, will continue leading the company through its next phase of growth. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2008 and based in Los Angeles, CFR specializes in treating arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, psoriasis, lupus, gout, and certain myofascial conditions. The Company offers infusion treatments, phlebotomy and laboratory services, bone density tests, musculoskeletal ultrasounds, digital X-ray exams, and other ancillary services. "We are excited to partner with Arash and his exceptional team as we look to expand access to care for the millions who suffer from chronic rheumatic illnesses," said Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Partner of VSS. "We believe that CFR is well-positioned to partner with more private rheumatology practices. As we seek to help CFR scale, we look forward to replicating the practices high quality of care and premier patient experience." "In addition to providing a world-class patient experience, CFR offers an attractive option for physicians seeking to provide comprehensive care while minimizing their administrative burden. Through his extensive experience and expertise in the field, Dr. Horizon has established CFR as an impressive rheumatology center where doctors can practice medicine and keep their focus on their patients," added Eric Kim, Principal at VSS. Story continues According to the CDC, an estimated 24% of American adults suffer from some form of arthritis. VSS believes that this statistic is expected to worsen as the population continues to age and becomes increasingly likely to require rheumatic care. At the same time, the number of qualified rheumatologists is decreasing, creating an imbalance that will significantly curtail access to specialized care in the coming years. "My team and I are pleased to align ourselves with VSS as we work to build a premier, multi-site rheumatology practice," said Dr. Horizon. "VSSs experience building healthcare companies, along with their financial resources, will prove invaluable to CFR as we pursue efforts to deliver our "one-stop-shop" of vital, high-quality services to a wider patient population in an underserved market." Stout served as exclusive financial advisor to CFR and McDermott Will & Emery LLP served as counsel to CFR. Waller Law served as counsel for VSS. About VSS VSS is a private investment firm that invests in the healthcare, education, and business services industries. Headquartered in New York, VSS provides capital for growth financing, recapitalizations, strategic acquisitions, and buyouts to lower middle market companies and management teams with the goal of building companies organically as well as through a focused add-on acquisition program. VSS makes privately negotiated investments across the capital structure and invests in situations requiring control or non-control equity, mezzanine securities, and structured equity securities. VSS has over three decades of experience, made investments in 95 portfolio companies, with over 400 add-on acquisitions, and manages $4 billion in aggregate committed capital across 8 funds. For more information, please visit: www.vss.com. About Center for Rheumatology Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Center for Rheumatology is a specialty medical practice providing comprehensive services in a highly specialized industry. With four board-certified physicians and seven state-of-the-art clinic rooms, CFR offers a complete set of on-site capabilities including infusion treatments, phlebotomy, laboratory services, bone density tests, musculoskeletal ultrasounds, and digital X-rays, among other services. For more information, please visit www.centerforrheumatology.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221013005239/en/ Contacts PRESS FOR VSS: Katrin Lieberwirth Stanton +1 646-502-3548 (off.) klieberwirth@stantonprm.com ReportLinker The Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market size was estimated at USD 892. 12 million in 2021 and expected to reach USD 1,302. 15 million in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 46. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market Research Report by Component, Enabled Device, End-use Industry, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342482/?utm_source=GNW 21% to reach USD 8,717.87 million by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Component, the market was studied across Services and Solutions. The Solutions is further studied across Message & File Sharing, Video Calling & Conference, and Voice Calling & Conference. Based on Enabled Device, the market was studied across PCs and Smartphones & Tablets. Based on End-use Industry, the market was studied across BFSI, IT & Telecom, Media & Entertain, and Retail. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market, including ATOUN Inc., B-Temia Inc., Bionik Laboratories Corp, Cyberdyne Inc., Daiya Industry Co., Ltd., Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc., ExoAtlet, Focal Meditech BV, Hocoma AG, Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Lockheed Martin Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Myomo Inc., P&S Mechanics Co. Ltd., Parker Hannifin Corporation, ReWalk Robotics Inc., Rex Bionics Ltd., Sarcos Corporation, Skelex, Technaid. S.L., and Wearable Robotics srl. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wearable Robots & Exoskeletons Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342482/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 By Trend President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has been interviewed by France 24 TV channel. Trend presents the interview. -Hello and welcome to the France 24 interview. Today brought you from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. I am in the presence of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. President Aliyev, thank you very much for accepting to answer our questions. Of course, I will be asking you about the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Since the ceasefire which was supposed to be a humanitarian truce was signed, there has been continuing violence, continuing acts of war. Im asking you today, is that ceasefire officially now dead, over and null and void. -It depends on the behavior of Armenia. Because we are always committed to our responsibility and the decision to announce the ceasefire on humanitarian grounds as you know came from Russia and we supported it. Because I think it was a right decision in order to exchange the bodies of the dead soldiers and also hostages. Also to continue the activity on the negotiation table. Because the declaration which was announced in Moscow actually provided that negotiations will be based on the basic principles. That was always our position. Armenian side always tried to disrupt the process and was trying to introduce new approaches on negotiation table, which we rejected by us, and by the Minsk Group co-chairs. The most important part of the declaration along with other issues was that the format of negotiations will be unchanged. And thats very important because for broad international audience maybe its not very clear what it means. I will probably give some more information about that. Because for the last two years after the new government in Armenia came to power, one of their activity was to bring the so-called "authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh" to the negotiation table and thus, to change the format. Because for more than 20 years, negotiations are being held between Armenia and Azerbaijan within the framework of the Minsk Group process. So, the attempts to bring the so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh authorities" was an attempt to change the format. So, when both sides commit that the format is unchanged that means that everything just is within the framework of what has been agreed before. We were observing the ceasefire. But as you know Armenia brutally violated it and not only in Ganja. Attack on civilians in Ganja was reflection of their aggressive policy. And also, they everyday violate ceasefire. I was informed this morning that since 7 oclock to 9 oclock in the morning they more than 150 times shelled the city of Tartar and Aghdam. And unfortunately, we have one victim today among civilians in Tartar. -But Azerbaijan has also continued to fire has it not? The world has been seeing pictures of civilians under shelling in Stepanakert inside Nagorno-Karabakh. -First, since the ceasefire was announced all the shelling from Azerbaijani side was stopped, second we never deliberately attack civilians in any city or village on the occupied territories. Our targets were only military installations. Our military targets have been identified very carefully. Therefore, we only hit those targets which was a threat to the life of our people and our soldiers. But unfortunately, Armenians are using the tactics to install military equipment in the areas of the cities where people live. So, we had to protect ourselves. But since the ceasefire was established we were committed to that but Armenia violated it, so we had to respond. -So you are saying that there have been no strikes by Azerbaijan since the ceasefire was announced. Even on military targets? -No, on military targets there have been strikes, we do not deny it. But thats natural, because we have to defend ourselves. Ceasefire cannot be achieved unilaterally. Otherwise, Armenia will get advantage and will achieve its goal and actually what they are trying to do. They are trying to regain back the territories which have been liberated. Particularly, they try to regain back the city of Hadrut, but they failed. My advice to them and I already publicly addressed Armenian leadership and also Armenian people, that they should stop trying to regain what has been liberated back. That will only cause new victims and will lead to bloodshed. -What about the pictures of bombings on churches inside Nagorno-Karabakh there is not military targets, surely. -Yes, you are right. We are investigating that issue, Id like to say that Azerbaijan is a country with a very high level of religious tolerance, which was reflected by all the major international organizations, including United Nations. During the visit of His Holiness head of the Vatican, Pope Francis to Baku, he publicly declared that the level of intercultural dialogue, interreligious dialogue in Azerbaijan is very high. You have probably seen the Armenian church in the center of Baku, which was restored by us. And we protected it as the heritage of Armenian people. In that church we keep more than 5,000 ancient books in Armenian language. But what Armenia has done to our mosques? What have they done to the mosques of Aghdam, mosque of Fuzuli, mosque of Shusha? They not only almost destroyed them, but they keep animals there. They keep pigs there, thus insulting the feelings of all the Muslims not only us. I am not saying that we did it in revenge, no. We need to investigate this issue, we are not sure about what happened. We have doubts that could have been done by Armenians in order to blame us. If it was done, if it was done by Azerbaijani military units, that was a mistake and we dont have any historical or religious targets among those targets which we have. -I want to ask you about the diplomatic process now. Mediation has been ongoing with the OSCE Minsk group, the co-chairs at the moment France, US and Russia. Do you think that structure, should remain that France should remain a co-chair in those negotiations? -We are receiving the some contradictory statements and messages from the very beginning of the outbreak. But I think that due to our mutual diplomatic efforts we managed to keep the situation under control. As you know, I received several phone calls from president Macron. And our last conversation was very positive. We committed to our efforts to find a political solution to the conflict. I was informed that France as a co-chair will remain neutral, because thats the mandate for a co-chair. This morning I was informed that the French foreign minister issued a statement that due to the fact that France is a co-chair of the Minsk Group it must be neutral. We fully support this position and our position always was that all the co-chairs must be neutral. They should not take sides, because its contradicting their mandate. In a national capacity, every country has allies friends, with some countries more active relations, with some countries less active relations. This is normal and no one is objecting that. But if some countries have a mandate to be a mediator, of course, both sides, I am sure, Armenia and Azerbaijan expects neutrality, and we see this neutrality now. Therefore, I think the issue which you are referring to now is over. So, we have closed that page. -In previous interviews youve called for an apology from Emmanuel Macron, after his remarks saying that 300 fighters from Syria have been brought to fight for your side. When you last spoke to him, did you speak about this issue-him accusing mercenaries are fighting for your side? -Yes, of course. Yes, we spoke about that and I was still waiting for evidence. No evidence was presented to me. No evidence was presented to our other officials. I asked the French president to give evidence and to organize contacts between the heads of corresponding state units in order to talk, in order to exchange this information and this contact happened. And I can tell you that no evidence was presented to us. Therefore, if there is no evidence, I think these rumors should also be left back in the history. We dont have mercenaries. This is our official statement. Since the outbreak, already more than two weeks passed, not a single country presented us a single evidence of that. Moreover, we dont need that. We have an army of more than 100 thousand fighters. And what we are doing now on the ground demonstrate that our army is capable to liberate its lands itself. -Frances foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said that there is Turkish military involvement which risks internationalization of this conflict. Is he wrong about that? -Yes, he is wrong about that. Turkish military involvement is another fake news. There is no military involvement of Turkey. We are using Turkish military equipment. This is true. But we are using military equipment of Russia, military equipment of Israel, military equipment of other countries. And we buy this military equipment unlike Armenia which gets it free of charge. Turkey is in no way other than political, is present in the process. There are no Turkish forces, Turkish F-16s are here but they are left here after the joint military training. By the way, last year we had ten joint military trainings with Turkey, including air force. This year due to pandemic, we had only two and it happened that just after the military training this outbreak happened. So we decided to keep F-16 on the ground and they are on the ground. They are not on the air. -How many Turkish drones are you deploying? -We have enough in order to achieve our targets. I think that you can understand me that this is the information which I prefer not to disclose. -But are they making the difference in this conflict? -Of course, they are very modern, sophisticated weapons and I can tell you, only by the drones which we acquired from Turkey, we destroyed Armenian military equipment worth 1 billion dollars. Only by the drones and of course, we are using other drones as you know from other sources. We are using artillery, we are using broad range of military equipment. But only the drones made the damage to Armenia worth 1 billion dollars. Thats a serious damage for them. I wonder, where did they get so much money to buy all this equipment. Probably, they got them free of charge. -I am afraid we will have to leave it there. So many more questions of course we could ask you, but thank you very much, President Ilham Aliyev for answering our questions today. And thank you at home for watching. Do stay tuned to France-24 for more international news coming right up. -Thank you. -Thank you very much. It was very interesting to talk to you. ReportLinker The Global Welding Machinery Market size was estimated at USD 24. 98 billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 26. 69 billion in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 7. 12% to reach USD 37. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Welding Machinery Market Research Report by Technology, Level of Automation, End-Use, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342501/?utm_source=GNW 75 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Welding Machinery to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Technology, the market was studied across Arc Welding, Laser Beam Welding, Oxy-fuel Welding, and Resistance Welding. Based on Level of Automation, the market was studied across Automatic, Manual, and Semi-automatic. Based on End-Use, the market was studied across Automotive & Aerospace, Building & Construction, Metalworking, and Oil & Gas. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Welding Machinery market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Welding Machinery Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Welding Machinery Market, including ACRO Automation Systems Inc., Air Liquide S.A., ARCON Welding Equipment, Banner Welding Inc., capilla GmbH, Carl Cloos Schweisstechnik GmbH, Coherent, Inc., Cs Holdings Co., Ltd., Daihen Corporation, ESAB Corporation, Hobart Brothers LLC, Illinois Tool Works Inc., Kiswel Co., Ltd., Kobe Steel, Ltd, KUKA AG, Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., Manufacturing Technology, Inc., Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Panasonic Industry Europe GmbH, RME MIDDLE EAST, Sonics & Materials, Inc., Tianjin Golden Bridge Welding Materials Group International Trading Co., Ltd., Voestalpine Bohler Welding GmbH, and ZULFI. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Welding Machinery Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Welding Machinery Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Welding Machinery Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Welding Machinery Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Welding Machinery Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Welding Machinery Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Welding Machinery Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342501/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 ReportLinker The Global Wireless Charging Market size was estimated at USD 17. 65 billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 19. 92 billion in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 13. 19% to reach USD 37. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Wireless Charging Market Research Report by Technology, Implementation, Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342553/?utm_source=GNW 14 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Wireless Charging to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Technology, the market was studied across Inductive, Radio Frequency, and Resonant. Based on Implementation, the market was studied across Receivers and Transmitters. Based on Application, the market was studied across Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, and Industrial. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Wireless Charging market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Wireless Charging Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Wireless Charging Market, including B?PLUS KK, DAIHEN Corporation, Delta Electronics, Inc., Energizer Holdings, Inc., In2power NV, Leggett & Platt, Incorporated, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Ossia Inc., Plugless Power LLC, Powercast Corporation, Powermat Technologies Ltd., Renesas Electronics Corporation, Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, Texas Instruments Incorporated, WiBotic Inc., Wiferion GmbH, WiTricity Corporation, and ZENS Consumer BV. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Wireless Charging Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Wireless Charging Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Wireless Charging Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Wireless Charging Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Wireless Charging Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Wireless Charging Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Wireless Charging Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342553/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 ReportLinker The Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market size was estimated at USD 53. 99 billion in 2021 and expected to reach USD 59. 43 billion in 2022, and is projected to grow at a CAGR 10. 32% to reach USD 97. New York, Oct. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Womens Health Therapeutics Market Research Report by Type, Distribution Channel, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342574/?utm_source=GNW 38 billion by 2027. Market Statistics: The report provides market sizing and forecast across 7 major currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2020 are considered as historical years, 2021 as the base year, 2022 as the estimated year, and years from 2023 to 2027 are considered as the forecast period. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Womens Health Therapeutics to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the market was studied across Infection, Oncology, Pregnancy, and Vaginal & Vulvar Cancer. The Oncology is further studied across Cervical Cancer, Ovarian Cancer, and Uterine Cancer. Based on Distribution Channel, the market was studied across Drug Stores & Retail Pharmacies, Hospital Pharmacies, and Online Pharmacies. Based on Region, the market was studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas is further studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The United States is further studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Asia-Pacific is further studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Europe, Middle East & Africa is further studied across Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, and the long-term effects are projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report delivers insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecasts, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. Cumulative Impact of 2022 Russia Ukraine Conflict: We continuously monitor and update reports on political and economic uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Negative impacts are significantly foreseen globally, especially across Eastern Europe, European Union, Eastern & Central Asia, and the United States. This contention has severely affected lives and livelihoods and represents far-reaching disruptions in trade dynamics. The potential effects of ongoing war and uncertainty in Eastern Europe are expected to have an adverse impact on the world economy, with especially long-term harsh effects on Russia.This report uncovers the impact of demand & supply, pricing variants, strategic uptake of vendors, and recommendations for Womens Health Therapeutics market considering the current update on the conflict and its global response. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Womens Health Therapeutics Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Market Share Analysis: The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits. Competitive Scenario: The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitors strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service. Company Usability Profiles: The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market, including Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie Inc., Agile Therapeutics, Amgen Inc., Apothecus Pharmaceutical Corp., Bayer AG, F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Ferring B.V., GLS Pharma Pvt. Ltd., ICON plc, Merck KGaA, Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA., Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk AS, ObsEva SA, Pfizer Inc., Radius Health Inc., Sanofi SA, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? 6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? 7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Womens Health Therapeutics Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06342574/?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. __________________________ Story continues CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 A man who was already wanted for skipping a court hearing in Spotsylvania County last month eluded authorities again early Thursday when he sped away from police in Prince William County, police said. According to a Prince William police release, officers were on patrol in the area of Kilmer Lane and Jurgensen Drive in Triangle when they noticed a vehicle occupied by an unresponsive driver and a male passenger. The driver was identified as 22-year-old Isaiah D. Norman of Spotsylvania. Police said the driver refused an officers commands to put his 2015 Chevrolet Malibu in park and drove away. During his escape, police said he grazed two officers but neither was injured. Police were unable to find the suspect after he drove away. He was charged in Prince William with two counts of malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer, eluding, obstruction of justice, DUI and driving on a revoked license. Court records show that Norman was supposed to be in Spotsylvania General District Court on Sept. 21 for a hearing on charges of abduction, grand larceny of an auto and destruction of property. He was also charged with failure to appear after not showing up. Norman is described as being 6 feet 3 inches tall and 185 pounds. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to contact Spotsylvania or Prince William police. Recent news media coverage of school board meetings in Virginia could lead one to believe that the states parents are ready to rise up en masse and scrap the public school system. How, then, to explain a recent statewide survey done by the University of Mary Washingtons Center for Leadership and Media Studies? The survey, reported on by the Free Lance-Star last week, [Majority of Virginians approve of their local school districts] seems to indicate that most Virginians think the people charged with educating our kids are doing all right. Some 40% percent of respondents gave their local schools a grade of A or B, while 26 percent said they deserved a C. Only 16 percent gave their schools a D or an F. So, two-thirds of those surveyed said their public schools are at least satisfactory. Only about one-sixth think theyre failing or close to it. Thats a pretty rousing majority versus a tiny minority. (Of those surveyed, 18% said they had no opinion.) The squeaky wheel gets the grease, the grease in this case being attention. People who show up at school board meetings to raise a ruckus about bathrooms, books, or other issues they hold dear are not the majority and should not be dictating school policy. The survey also sent a message to Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Dont micromanage education. The survey revealed that 41% of respondents said the governor should have less control over the schools, and 25% said he should have the same level of power he has now. Only 17% thought the governor should have more power over public education, again, about one in six. About 2 times more Virginians want Youngkin to tap the brakes on school oversight than wish him to put the pedal to the metal. As with everything in the United States of late, approval and disapproval have a political tint. Blue districts are more positive about the public schools than red districts. Still, the average Virginian doesnt seem to think our schools are deserving of the dumpster-fire treatment theyre getting at some school board meetings. Parents should be involved in their kids education. However, showing up at a board meeting and trying to get your way by yelling louder and packing the gallery is not a sensible or fair method of deciding education policy. We already have a voice in the issue: School boards are elected. Most of us think public schools are doing a pretty good job, but we tend to say it with our indoor voices. We hope those boards, and anyone else involved in deciding school policy, will drown out the noise and look at the numbers. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. Greek Proverb Without fanfare, Caleb Hartmann quietly watered a recently planted tree in Van Anda Park. Hartmann is the maintenance worker II-forestry for the Fremont Parks and Recreation Department. The tree he watered is one of 20 the department has planted at parks throughout the city as part of a Fremont Area Community Foundation project. Traditionally, FACF has planted trees in Fremont area parks to honor the service of its retiring board members. But when we were approaching our 40th anniversary, we decided that it would be a wonderful way to celebrate four decades of impact throughout the Fremont area, said Melissa Diers, FACF executive director. FACFs 40th anniversary occurred in 2020, but with trees being difficult to procure during the COVID-19 pandemic and some tree grant programs being on hiatus at that time, it took a couple of years to see the project come to fruition. Diers said FACF decided it wanted to plant 20 trees in Fremont area parks and green spaces wherever the city thought theyd serve best. In addition, FACF planted five trees in each of its affiliate communities, Arlington, Hooper, North Bend and Uehling for a total of 20 in those areas. Almost all of the trees have been planted, Diers said. The trees in North Bend will be planted this Sunday in a communitywide event. To help with funding because trees can be expensive Diers joined forces with Dian Christensen Hillis, president of the Friends of Fremont Area Parks, and Nick Hansen, parks and recreation director. The three worked together to obtain trees from the Ten Free Trees program of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum and the Nebraska Forest Service. We could each apply for up to 10 trees and we were grateful to be awarded all of the trees we requested, Diers said. That totaled 30 trees. The FACF purchased the remaining 10 trees from a local business. Hansen said Fremont City Arborist Mark Luther and Hartmann planted all 20 trees in different local parks in the last 10 days. Types of trees and the Fremont parks where they were planted are: Ruwe One locust tree, one burr oak and one hackberry. Buch Three hackberries, one sycamore, one Kentucky coffee tree. Clemmons Two pecan and one cottonwood. Ronin Two Kentucky coffee, one locust, one red oak and one sycamore. Rotary One sycamore. Van Anda One red oak, one sycamore and one Kentucky coffee. An assortment of these types of trees were planted or will be planted in the remaining four communities. Its important to have a variety of trees, Diers said. If only one type is planted, many can be affected or lost to a certain disease or insect. Years ago, several local trees were lost to Dutch elm disease. More recently, trees are being affected by the Emerald Ash Borer. Diers also said trees for the program were chosen, because they do well in this climate and environment. Now, everyone can enjoy the trees in the community parks. Everybody gets to feel like theyre sharing ownership in the care of those trees, Diers said. Hansen appreciates the collaboration in bringing trees into the area. Well try to find opportunities to keep planting, he added. Christensen Hillis noted the work being done to rejuvenate local parks and make them look more attractive to people in the community. You want them to use the park, because its a beautiful park and its got shade and places to play and areas to relax, read and reflect, she said. Parks are good. They make you feel good. Diers added that parks are one of the amenities people seek when considering whether or not to move into a particular community. Hansen said the parks department has had to remove mature trees that have fallen down or succumbed to disease. Christensen Hillis pointed out that other trees in this area have been lost to harsh weather, wind and flooding. The recent drought can lead to tree loss as well. Heres where a tree-planting endeavor can help. This is a way to start re-growing trees back into our parks and having the benefits for many years down the road, Hansen said. Diers notes something else. Well always plant trees, she said. Our (FACF) logo is a tree. Its symbolic of what a community foundation is and does. We invest in our communities for the long term. We plant a seed every day through our grant-making and our funds and, sometimes, quite literally through shade trees. No candidates have filed for some races in the mid-term elections in Dodge County. At this point, one village and nine township boards are without candidates. So a local official is encouraging people to file affidavits by Oct. 28 to become write-in candidates. The general election is set for Tuesday, Nov. 8. Polls will open at 8 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters will find that many places on the ballot tell them to select three candidates, but theres only one, said Fred Mytty, Dodge County clerk and election commissioner. In many township races, the ballot says to vote for three people, but nobody is running. Laws have been changed so that now we dont have to count write-ins, unless a candidate files an affidavit of write-in, Mytty said. A person who does file an affidavit will be able to get votes if voters write in that candidates last name, reasonably close to the proper spelling. Although voters are asked to vote for up to two candidates for the board of the village of Nickerson, no one has filed to serve. Mytty said villages have a board of five people. If there are just two left on the board, theres not a majority so they cant appoint someone. By state law, if vacancies exist in the offices of one-half or more of the members of a city council or village board, the Nebraska Secretary of State shall conduct a special city election to fill the vacancies. That can be costly for a village. Various township boards in Dodge County have no filings either. Thus far, no one has filed to serve on boards for Cotterell, Cuming, Logan, Nickerson, Pebble, Platte, Pleasant Valley, Union or Webster townships. Those whod like to fill out an affidavit can go to the county clerks office or have one faxed to them, but the document needs to be notarized. For more information, contact the Dodge County Clerks office at 402-727-2767. Habitat for Humanity is launching a veterans build program. Veterans Build is Habitat for Humanitys national initiative to provide housing solutions, volunteer, and employment opportunities to U.S. veterans, military service members and their families. Veterans Build is a platform to empower local affiliated organizations to take an active role in mobilizing and serving their military and veteran communities in Habitats local and international missions. To raise aware for the program, Habitat is promoting RED Fridays, which stands for Remember Everyone Deployed. At any given time, the United States has 250,000 military members deployed and wearing red on Fridays is a way for local businesses and individuals to show their support for families making sacrifices. Fremont Area Habitat for Humanity is selling T-shirts to raise money for its Veterans Build Initiative on a preorder basis to keep everything local. T-shirts can be ordered at: https://bit.ly/3rsgkgl. The first cutoff for T-shirt orders is Oct. 16 so D&T Shirtified can have them available for both events in November. A veteran yard clean up and roof replacement event will take place on Nov. 4 while a RED Pub Crawl is set for Nov. 11 in downtown Fremont. The Nebraska Air National Guards 155th Air Refueling Wing will host an open hangar recruiting event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, at the 155th Air Refueling Wing, Nebraska Air National Guard, Lincoln. During the event the fuel cell barn and flightline, which is the home to the KC-135 Stratotanker maintenance squadron, will be the area for the event. The wing will be hosting 150-plus students from 31 local high schools registered to attend along with nine colleges/universities, two civilian employers and the Nebraska Air Guard will be showcasing more than 45 jobs they have to offer. Some of the main attractions will include: a tour of the KC-135, the explosive ordinance disposal team and their robot, the fire department, medical, communications, and much more. Our community relationship and the support of local businesses that employ our Nebraska National Guardsmen is vital to our success, so putting them all in one place really facilities that connectivity and understanding, said Col John Williams, commander, 155th Air Refueling Wing. Williams added, It will give potential members an opportunity to learn about continuing their education, the financial benefits of the National Guard, and opportunities for employment in the local area. We talk about these connections all the time, but Im very excited to host this event and bring everyone together. The Rev. Tyler Runyan remembers the rope. Runyan was in high school when she attended a Nazarene Youth Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. There, well-known Christian author and teacher Francis Chan shared his classic illustration using a rope to show how brief life is on earth compared to eternity and the importance of living with that eternity in mind. Runyan never forgot the example or the conference. Today, Runyan is pastor to children, youth and families at Fremont Church of the Nazarene and she hopes the public will participate in a family friendly fundraiser. Event proceeds will be used to help eight youth attend a conference in Tampa Bay, Florida, next summer. This is the first year the church will offer The Pumpkin Patch. From noon to 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, through Monday, Oct. 31, the church will sell pumpkins of various sizes in its parking lot at 960 N. Johnson Road. Pumpkins wont be sold on Sunday. Admission to the event is free and open to the public. From 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights during that time, the church will offer extra treats and activities such as popcorn and apple cider, face painting and yard games. Runyan learned about the fundraising idea from a church in Kansas City. It was a great fundraiser for their youth ministry, she said. The event is also a local opportunity where people can hang out and enjoy extra activities. Runyan said funds raised will help local youth attend the Florida conference expected to host 10,000 teens from across the United States and Canada. It will cost $2,000 each for the local youth for the trip. Runyan said the conference occurs only once every four years so most students only have the opportunity to attend one time while theyre in high school. Its a great time of worship and the Nazarene Youth International brings in Christian artists and speakers to come and share with the kids, Runyan said. Theres opportunities to serve the people of Tampa Bay, Florida, and theres just a great time of bonding and fellowship for our students. Runyan still recalls the conference she attended in 2011. It was a great time of learning and worshiping and serving and exploring with my friends and making new friends, she said. Runyan remembers songs the youth sang and a talk by Chan. Chans sermon involved an analogy, which now can be seen on Internet videos. With this lesson, Chan shows a very long rope with a small red end. The red end represents peoples brief time here on earth, while the rest of the long rope symbolizes eternity. Youve got a few short years here on earth and then youve got all of eternity somewhere else, Chan says. Chan says some people only think about the short red part. They want to work hard so they can travel and enjoy the very last bit of the little red part. The Bible teaches that what I do during this little red part determines how Im going to exist for millions of years forever, he said. Many people spend the small red part trying to make themselves as comfortable as they can, but Chan speaks of investing ones life for the moment when they cross the finish line and face God. We get one chance at this life on earth and it can end at any second for anyone of us and then comes eternity, said Chan, who talks about crossing the finish line well. The lesson spoke to Runyan. It reminded me how we are so small in the grand scheme of Gods story, yet he chooses to use us and we have the opportunity to make a difference even with the little speck of time of our life, Runyan said. People can choose to live their lives to honor God. Runyan invites the public to attend the fundraising event, adding: I think this is a great opportunity for a free place for families to have fun together and also be able to support our teenagers to be able to go on this life-changing trip. A meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council has been held in Astana. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the meeting. The heads of state and government attending the meeting posed together for a group photo. First, a meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council in a limited format was held. President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared the meeting open. Chairman of the Executive Committee and Executive Secretary of CIS Sergey Lebedev highlighted the issues on the agenda. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a speech at the meeting. Speech by President Ilham Aliyev - Thank you, dear Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich. I would like to inform my colleagues about the situation that is developing in our region. Colleagues are well aware that during the period of occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan by Armenian armed forces, I never brought this topic up for discussion within the framework of the CIS because it was the OSCE Minsk Group that was dealing with the conflict settlement and had a mandate. Unfortunately, for 28 years the result of the Minsk Group was zero. As it is clear now, the main goal of this structure was not to resolve the conflict but to freeze it. Negotiating was only a cover for the conflict not to be resolved for many more years. Therefore, since the conflict has now been resolved and Azerbaijan has resolved it itself in accordance with international law and the UN Charter, including Article 51 of the UN Charter, which stipulates that every country has the right to self-defense, the conflict is considered to have been settled. The post-conflict situation is developing differently. Therefore, I would like to inform my colleagues about what has been happening lately. In September, literally a month ago, clashes took place near the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. The reasons for those clashes are obvious. Terror against Azerbaijan continues first of all, landmine and sniper terror. Since the Second Karabakh War, more than 250 Azerbaijani citizens have either died or been seriously maimed as a result of landmine explosions, which were mainly planted during the years of occupation. At the same time, we have discovered 1,400 anti-personnel mines made in Armenia, which were planted near the border with Lachin district in 2021. The roads leading from one Azerbaijani military position to another were also mined. The clashes, their active phase lasted a maximum of eight hours. Azerbaijan had no intention of occupying the territory of Armenia, as some may assume. Not a single city, not a single village was occupied. As a result of the mediation efforts of the Russian side, I would like to emphasize that it was the Russian side that came up with a ceasefire proposal some attribute this to other countries, which is completely unfounded as a result of the mediation efforts of the Russian side, the clashes, as I said, were stopped. On 6 October, on the sidelines of a new platform of the European political community in Prague, a four-sided meeting was held with the participation of the President of France, the President of the European Council, the Prime Minister of Armenia and the President of Azerbaijan. At that meeting, as a result of many hours of negotiations, the decision was reached to send a civilian mission of the European Union in the amount of 40 people to the territory of Armenia near the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Subsequently, we learned that their number would be 50. They will stay there for at least two months and the purpose of this mission, as we saw it and therefore agreed to, is to help the parties to draw the border and agree on issues related to delimitation. There was an attempt to send this mission to the Azerbaijani side, which was resolutely rejected by us. Therefore, the mission will be located on the territory of Armenia, in the zone of CSTOs responsibility. The first group of European representatives arrived in Armenia yesterday in order to determine the location of this mission. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Azerbaijan agreed to the four-sided meeting, including the participation of the President of France although France has nothing to do with the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia as a co-chair of the Minsk Group, France did have a mandate for mediation, but since the Karabakh conflict has been resolved and there is no need for the services of the Minsk Group, especially since this was rather a disservice, as I said, and the Minsk Group had done nothing at all, not a single centimeter of our territory was vacated Azerbaijan showed goodwill nonetheless and allowed the French President to participate in this meeting. As for the participation of the President of the European Council, as you know, several trilateral meetings have already been held in Brussels and, in principle, we have always supported the efforts of the European Union towards the normalization of Azerbaijan-Armenia relations. Despite the goodwill shown by Azerbaijan, just a week after the meeting in Prague, the President of France made insulting, unacceptable, false and provocative statements. They are available in the media and everyone can see them. In these statements, he accused Azerbaijan of engaging in a horrific war, thereby manipulating the facts, trying to mislead the French and world public. Azerbaijan waged war on its internationally recognized territory. Karabakh is recognized by the whole world as a part of Azerbaijan. We exercised our right to self-defense and restored our territorial integrity by force. It was then stated that France would never abandon Armenia. This, as they say, is a matter of bilateral relations. Biased statements were also made against the Russian Federation, namely, that Russia played the Azerbaijani game. It is up to the French public to decide on how politically correct it is for the President of a great country to use the street lexicon. For our part, we categorically condemn and reject such statements and, given such an attitude of the French government, see no further possibility for France to play a role in the normalization of Azerbaijan-Armenia relations. In addition, the French foreign minister has also made false anti-Azerbaijan statements. During the Second Karabakh War, the French Senate and the lower house of their parliament adopted resolutions recognizing the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh although it wasnt recognized even by Armenia. We are aware that another anti-Azerbaijan resolution is being prepared in the French Senate in mid-November. Therefore, unfortunately, the current French leadership, unlike the previous ones I had the opportunity to communicate quite closely with President Chirac, President Sarkozy and President Hollande, and our relations were quite balanced, quite friendly, and we always perceived the activities of previous French presidents, despite, of course, a certain factor of the Armenian diaspora in France, as balanced. However, the current French leadership has effectively crossed out all this. Therefore, I wanted to inform colleagues about this situation. Further, the Embassy of Azerbaijan has been attacked twice in Paris. Moreover, after the first attack, the President of France, in a telephone conversation, promised to me that measures would be taken to prevent this from happening again. This turned out to be untrue, to put it mildly. The security guards that were installed in front of the Embassy of Azerbaijan after the first act of vandalism and an attempt to break into the Embassy building were removed. Most likely, this was agreed with the Armenian side. As soon as the security was removed, there was a second attempt to break through, there were insulting posters, crowds of raging radicals attacking the Embassy of Azerbaijan. This is categorically unacceptable and it is a violation of all diplomatic conventions. I must say that Armenia has also organized provocations against the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Lebanon and against the Embassy of Azerbaijan in the United States. There is video footage of that, and the latest act of aggression and terror, using firearms, when a car of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in the United States was fired at. We call on the authorities of the United States, France, Lebanon and all other countries where there are Azerbaijans diplomatic missions that can be subjected to terror, to show responsibility and fulfill their international obligations. We have no doubts that the acts of terror and vandalism were organized by Armenia. Why am I saying this? Because in the 1990s, Armenian special services carried out 32 terrorist acts explosions in the subway, buses, ferries and trains. As a result of those heinous terrorist acts, more than 2,000 Azerbaijani civilians were killed. As for other aspects of the post-conflict situation, we are now actively engaged in the reconstruction of liberated territories. Everything there has been destroyed. The footage has been published and everyone can see it. On an area of 10,000 square kilometers, there is practically not a single building left, 65 out of 67 mosques have been destroyed. Footage of Muslim shrines being insulted, when pigs and cows were kept in mosques, is also available on the Internet. All this speaks of the extreme degree of hatred for the Azerbaijani people and the entire Muslim world. This is the only way to perceive it. Another point I would like to draw your attention to is that a trilateral Declaration was adopted with the mediation of the Russian Federation in November 2020. Azerbaijan is fulfilling all the provisions of the Declaration, including ensuring unhindered access from Armenia to Karabakh. Armenia is not fulfilling its part of the Declaration. Namely, it does not provide unhindered access from the main part of Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, which is its legal obligation, and has not yet withdrawn the Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijani territory. We are still showing patience, but it is not unlimited. If these two important provisions of the trilateral Declaration of November 2020 are not implemented, we will be left with no other option but to act accordingly. In conclusion, the fate of the Armenians of Karabakh. At the meeting in Prague, we also had an exchange of views on this issue. Our position is clear and precise. Karabakh is Azerbaijan. The rights and security of the Armenian population of Karabakh will be ensured in accordance with the Constitution of Azerbaijan. We are not going to discuss our internal issues with anyone. And as far as I understood from the results of the meeting in Prague, this topic did not cause any discrepancies among participants of the four-sided meeting. Thank you for your attention. I considered it necessary to inform my colleagues about what happened, because there are different versions of what happened. I wanted you to hear our version, which is the only true one, from me. Thank you. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev: Thank you very much, esteemed Ilham Heydar oglu. X X X Then the meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council continued in an expanded format. Addressing the meeting, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Executive Secretary of CIS Sergey Lebedev noted that the Kyrgyz Republic will assume the chairmanship in the Organization in 2023. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev awarded Radik Batirshin, the Chairman of TV-Radio corporation MIR with a diploma of the CIS. At the meeting, the post of executive secretary of the CIS was renamed as general secretary. Chairman of the Executive Committee and Executive Secretary of CIS Sergey Lebedev was elected as Secretary General. The documents then were signed. The meeting of CIS Heads of State Council in Astana concluded its work. I was in college when I offered to help a nursing student type a paper for a big project. Back then, we were still using typewriters. The student gave me what shed written on paper and I merrily typed away. I stopped to proofread my work. Id made an awful typo. Instead of typing that the nurse would give a patient an injection, I typed the word, infection. No nurse wants to give a patient an infection. Im so glad I caught that typo. Years later, I was working in newspaper when I wrote a light-hearted story, which included an interview with a very nice woman. The next day, her angry husband came into the office. My story had an embarrassing typo. I was so apologetic. I felt terrible. For the first time, I understood the old adage: I was so embarrassed I wished the ground would have opened up and swallowed me. Recently, I was reading Scripture when I came across the true-life account of a time when the ground did open up and swallow people. Not because of typo. But due to outright rebellion. We find the account in the Old Testament book called Numbers. By this point, God has had Moses lead some 2 million Israelites out of Egypt, where they were slaves for more than 400 years. They forget about the horrible times in Egypt after being in the desert for a while. They complain about being hungry, so God sends manna (bread) from heaven. They want meat, so he sends quail. God then has Moses send 12 spies into the land he promised their forefathers. Ten spies return and say the land will be too tough to conquer. Only two others Joshua and Caleb say the Israelites can take the land. When the people hear this, they talk about finding another leader to take them back to Egypt. They almost kill Joshua and Caleb for trying to encourage them to move forward with Gods plan and trust in his protection. By now, God is really angry and Moses begs him not to destroy the whole bunch. God spares them, but their disobedience is costly. Theyll be in the desert for 40 years one year for every day the spies were in the Promised Land. Sometime later, four defiant men Korah, Dathan, Abiram and On and 250 other guys gather before Moses and his brother, Aaron, to challenge their authority. Korah and the other rebels wonder why Moses thinks hes the boss. Did they forget God was in charge? And God made Moses their leader? Korah and his accomplices want Aarons priestly job, too. Moses tells the mob to return the next morning with censers (vessels used to burn incense) and basically says God will decide who will be in charge. Dathan and Abiram refuse to come. They claim Moses brought them out of a good land (Egypt) to die in the wilderness. And he hasnt brought them into the Promised Land. The next morning, Korah and his gang stand with Moses and Aaron at whats called the Tent of Meeting. Ever see the movie, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral? It recounts the famous, true-life shootout between lawmen and outlaws. Ive never seen that film, but somehow it comes to mind when I picture Korah and the others meeting with Moses and Aaron. (No, they didnt have guns.) Meanwhile, Dathan and Abriam stand at the entrances of their tents with their families. God instructs Moses to have the other Israelites get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abriam. Moses then tells everybody that if these men die a natural death, theyll know God didnt send him to be the Israelites leader. But if God does something new and the ground opens and swallows these guys up and they are pitched alive into Sheol (basically their graves) then the people will know these men despised the Lord. The words are hardly out of Moses mouth when the ground under these insurgents splits apart and swallows them and their families and everything they own. The earth closes over them and they perish from the midst of the assembly. At the sounds of their cries, everyone else runs for their lives. Fire from the Lord consumes the 250 other rebels offering incense. God tells Moses to have Aarons son, Eleazar, gather the censers and hammer them into thin sheets of metal to cover the altar. This will remind the Israelites that only Aarons descendants are allowed to burn incense before God. We later learn the sons of Korah didnt die with their insubordinate father and the Fire Bible* indicates they must have refused to participate in his revolt. Why did the families of Dathan and Abiram die? Thats a tough one. Maybe this is a warning about how our families can suffer from our choices. I remember the sadness in a former firefighters voice as he told me about children whod been playing with matches and started a fire, while their parent, who had a substance abuse problem, wasnt watching them. The children were saved from the fire, but removed from their parents custody. That parent had an addiction, but Korah who was Moses cousin and the others were downright rebellious and disloyal. The tragedy could have been avoided if Korah and the others had chosen God-trusting humility over twisted ambition. Moses problems werent over. The next day the Israelites grumble, saying Moses and Aaron killed the people of the Lord. God isnt happy with this either and Moses knows it. He tells Aaron to get a censer with incense and get to the congregation as fast as he can to make atonement for them, because a plague is starting. Aaron runs into the group and the plague stops, but 14,700 people die. Centuries later, the Apostle Paul mentions these desert-wandering Israelites in a letter to Corinthian church. Paul refers to the wonderful miracles God performed for the Israelites. Yet the Israelites often engaged in disrespectful, ungrateful and even immoral behavior. Although their children made it into the Promised Land, most of that first generation of freed Israelites didnt. Paul says their experiences were recorded as a warning for us. We must be careful. We may think weve got it all together, but thats when we can fall. Yet were not alone as we struggle to resist temptation and keep doing whats right. God is faithful, Paul writes. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Ive been amazed by Gods faithfulness in many situations throughout my life. Sometime after my embarrassing typo, I was at an event when I saw the woman Id written about. She never mentioned my mistake. Instead, she was complimentary, because Id written about one of her relatives in my column. I remember her smile to this day. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. So is the love of our God, who continually guides and teaches us. And who I believe helps us avoid more mistakes than we realize. Welcome to Gandhara's weekly newsletter. This briefing brings you the best of our reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you're new to the newsletter or haven't subscribed yet, you can do so here. This week's Gandhara Briefing brings you our reporting on the two best friends killed in the bombing of a Kabul education center and the Taliban forcing students and teachers to sign pledges to follow its interpretation of Islamic Shari'a law. Afghan Best Friends United In Death Radio Azadi interviewed the families of cousins and best friends Marzia and Hajar Mohammadi. The 18-year-olds were among the nearly 60 girls and women killed after a suicide bomber struck an education center in Kabul on September 30. "They were so attached that they spent 12 out of every 24 hours together," said Maryam Mohammadi, Marzia's mother. "Both were eager to meet their two favorite writers," Marzia's uncle, Abdul Zahir Mudaqiq, said of their dream to meet Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak and American writer Rachel Hollis. Despite the tragedy, Hajar's mother, Aziza Mohammadi, said she is determined to educate her three remaining children. Many victims of the bombing were from the Shiite Hazara community, including Marzia and Hajar. Maryam Mohammadi called on the Taliban to protect the beleaguered community, which has faced incessant attacks from the Islamic State-Khorasan extremist group. "I don't want my other children to end up like Marzia," she said. Taliban's Forced Shari'a Pledges Omid Zahirmal reports on the Taliban ordering male teachers and students in Kandahar to sign pledges that they will adhere to the militant groups extremist interpretation of Islamic Shari'a law. "Ison of...promise that I will follow the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad and all the principles of Shari'a law," reads the one-page document. The pledge includes following the Taliban's strict dress code for men, including growing a beard, wearing a turban or Islamic cap, and donning the pirhan tumban, the traditional baggy shirt and pants common in rural Afghanistan. It is the latest attempt by the Taliban to police the appearances of Afghans in public. This week, Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada said that clerics were reviewing all of Afghanistan's laws as the group looked to implement a "pure" Islamic system in the country. Addicts Storm Herat's Streets Radio Azadi reports on the rapid rise in the number of drug addicts living on the streets of Herat. The Taliban has taken an extremely hard line in tackling Afghanistans massive drug problem, rounding up addicts and locking them up for months as a form of treatment. But the approach has proved ineffective, and some addicts have relapsed. "Everyone beats us or pelts us with stones," said Zmarai, one of the hundreds of addicts who live on the citys streets and in parks. "We have no one, and the government must do something for us." Mohammad Saeed, a physician who heads a drug-treatment center in Herat, says the lack of resources has severely dented their capacity to treat addicts. "We are not able to offer the complex treatment these addicts require," he said. Freezing Winter In Ghor In Ghor, residents are concerned about how they will survive the upcoming winter without adequate fuel and food The prices of coal and essential food items such as wheat and oil have skyrocketed. "The price of coal is already out of our reach, similar to that of essential food items," said Ismail. The 45-year-old is responsible for taking care of his 14-member extended family. "I often have sleepless nights thinking about what we will do this year," said Sarwar, 35, a day laborer. That's all from me this week. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do so here. I encourage you to visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.. You can always reach us at gandhara@rferl.org. Jimmy Sengenberger is host of The Jimmy Sengenberger Show Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts Jimmy at the Crossroads, a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner. 1. Denver lays claim to the invention of the cheeseburger - The trademark for the name Cheeseburger was awarded on March 5, 1935 to Louis Ballast. His Humpty Dumpty restaurant at 2776 North Speer Blvd. is pictured. Its now a Key Bank. Photo Courtesy of Rocky Mountain News. Colorado is the only state in history to turn down the Olympics 2. Colorado is the only state in history to turn down the Olympics - In 1976 the Winter Olympics were planned to be held in Denver. Voters cho 2. Colorado is the only state in history to turn down the Olympics - In 1976 the Winter Olympics were planned to be held in Denver. Voters chose not to host the Olympics because of the cost, pollution and population boom it would have on the state of Colorado, and the city of Denver. Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library via Westword. The world's first rodeo was held on July 4th, 1869 in Deer Trail 3. The world's first rodeo was held on July 4th, 1869 in Deer Trail - Santa Fe, N.M., Pecos, Texas and Prescott, Ariz. all claim to have held 3. The world's first rodeo was held on July 4th, 1869 in Deer Trail - Santa Fe, N.M., Pecos, Texas and Prescott, Ariz. all claim to have held the first rodeo as well. Well stick with Deer Trail. Photo Courtesy of Deer Trail Rodeo Facebook page. Truly a mile high 4. Truly a mile high - The 13th step of the state capital building in Denver is exactly one mile high above sea level. 4. Truly a mile high - The 13th step of the state capital building in Denver is exactly one mile high above sea level. Photo Courtesy of Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Center. The Eisenhower Tunnel is the highest auto tunnel in North America 5. The Eisenhower Tunnel is the highest auto tunnel in the world - The Dwight Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel between Clear Creek & Summit coun 5. The Eisenhower Tunnel is North America's highest auto tunnel - The Dwight Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel between Clear Creek & Summit counties is the highest auto tunnel in North America. It was the highest tunnel in the world when it was first completed in 1979. Bored at an elevation of 11,000 feet under the Continental Divide, it is 8,960 feet long and the average daily traffic exceeds 26,000 vehicles. Photo Courtesy of the Associated Press. The federal government owns more than 1/3 of Colorado land 6. The federal government owns more than 1/3 of Colorado land - In this map national forests are in red, national grasslands are in light gree 6. The federal government owns more than 1/3 of Colorado land - In this map national forests are in red, national grasslands are in light green, Bureau of Land Management land is yellow, national parks are dark green, national monuments are brown and Native American reservations are pink. Photo Courtesy of David Benbennick via Wikipedia. You can be in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah all at the same time 7. You can be in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah all at the same time - Colorado's southwest corner borders Arizona, New Mexico and Uta 7. You can be in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah all at the same time - Colorado's southwest corner borders Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and is the only place in America where the corners of four states meet. Photo Courtesy of Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette. Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America 8. Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America - At 26.5 miles long, Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous 8. Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America - At 26.5 miles long, Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous commercial street in America. Photo Courtesy of Bruce McAllister via Wikipedia. The world's largest natural hot springs pool is located in Glenwood Springs 9. The world's largest natural hot springs pool is located in Glenwood Springs - The two-block long pool is across the street from the histori 9. The world's largest natural hot springs pool is located in Glenwood Springs - The two-block long pool is across the street from the historic Hotel Colorado, a favorite stop of former president Teddy Roosevelt. Photo Courtesy of Glenwood Hot Springs. Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest railway train in the world 10. Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest railway train in the world - The Pikes Peak Cog Railway runs on cog wheels and special track with t 10. Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest railway train in the world - The Pikes Peak Cog Railway runs on cog wheels and special track with teeth that allow the train to climb the mountain. Photo Courtesy of the Gazette. Colorado once had 3 Governors in a single day 11. Colorado once had 3 Governors in a single day - On March 17, 1905, Democrat Alva Adams, left, was forced to resign because of election imp 11. Colorado once had 3 Governors in a single day - On March 17, 1905, Democrat Alva Adams, left, was forced to resign because of election improprieties (one district had 717 votes for Adams but only 100 registered voters). He was replaced by Republican James H. Peabody, center, who had run against him in the election, on the condition that he immediately resign. He did so, yielding to his Lieutenant Governor, Jesse F. McDonald, right. Courtesy photo. We have the world's largest flat-top mountain 12. We have the world's largest flat-top mountain - The world's largest flat-top mountain is the Grand Mesa near Grand Junction. 12. We have the world's largest flat-top mountain - The world's largest flat-top mountain is Grand Mesa near Grand Junction. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Leadville sits at 10,152 feet, making it the highest city in the U.S. 13. Leadville sits at 10,152 feet, making it the highest city in the U.S. - Because there were lots of "silver" named towns at the time, the f 13. Leadville sits at 10,152 feet, making it the highest city in the U.S. - Because there were lots of "silver" named towns at the time, the founding fathers suggested Leadville. Courtesy photo. The highest paved road in North America is the Mount Evans Scenic Byway 14. The highest paved road in North America is the Mount Evans Scenic Byway - Right off of I-70 near Idaho Springs, the Road climbs up to 14,2 14. The highest paved road in North America is the Mount Evans Scenic Byway - Right off of I-70 near Idaho Springs, the Road climbs up to 14,258 Ft. above sea level. Pictured is the parking lot, Crest House and Meyer-Womble Observatory. Photo Courtesy of Daniel Schwen via Wikipedia. The Park Theater in Estes Park was the state's first place to catch a movie 15. The Park Theater in Estes Park was the state's first place to catch a movie - Built in 1913, the Park Theater in Estes Park is the oldest 15. The Park Theater in Estes Park was the state's first place to catch a movie - Built in 1913, the Park Theater in Estes Park is the oldest movie theater in Colorado and among the oldest worldwide. Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. 16. Rocky Ford is the "melon capital of the world." - Located in the Arkansas Valley, Rocky Ford has been dubbed the "melon capital of the world." Their high school mascot is the Meloneer. Photo Courtesy of Teresa Farney, The Gazette. The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge 17. The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge - The Royal Gorge Bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1,053 feet. 17. The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge - The Royal Gorge Bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1,053 feet. Photo Courtesy of the Gazette. 121221-cal-july.jpg Dune field at Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve (Christian Murdock) 18. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is home to the tallest dune in North America - The tallest sand dune in North America is the Star Dune in Great Sand Dunes National Monument outside of Alamosa. It rises approximately 750 feet above the floor of the San Luis Valley. Photo Courtesy of the Gazette. About the series This ongoing series from The Gazette delves into Colorados broken mental health care system. In this series, a team of Gazette journalists investigate the gaps in care for children, for veterans, and for the community at large. The series also focuses on solutions that might come as state officials and community leaders sharpen their focus on what for many is a vicious cycle of despair and ruin. More here After more than two years of delays, an El Paso County judge has set a jury trial date of March 20 for Letecia Stauch, who is accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson Gannon in January 2020. Stauch's defense had requested that her second mental health evaluation be conducted at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and for her to wear an electroencephalographic monitor during the evaluation. The monitors are wrapped around a patients head to gather and monitor brain-wave data. But Josh Tolini, one of Stauch's defense attorneys, told the court that they would withdraw those requests and instead have the second evaluation conducted from El Paso County jail sometime in October or November. Judge Gregory Werner attempted to ask Stauch, 39, if she understood and consented to the requests being made by her attorneys, but she informed Werner through attorney Will Cook that she would not speak to the court during the hearing. Following the interaction, Werner set the trial date, which will be more than three years after the death of Gannon. Prosecutors said Gannon's blood was found on Stauch's shoe, tracking data showed she had traveled to an area near where Gannon's body was found, and her DNA was found on a gun tied to the killing. In a previous hearing, Werner said he anticipated the jury trial lasting about six weeks. Delays in the case have occurred, in part, because of the need for the mental health evaluation; initially, Stauch pleaded not guilty to the charges, but in February Werner granted her permission to change her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. The first mental health evaluation was completed earlier this year, and Werner told the court at the time that she was found "sane" by the mental health professional. The results of the evaluation are what prompted the defense to request a second mental health evaluation to be conducted by an expert picked by the defense. District Attorney Michael Allen said the defense had requested for the trial to take place without a jury, but that the prosecution would not consent to that request. As a result, Stauch will have to face a jury. Stauch and her attorneys will return to court Feb. 2 for a motions hearing ahead of the jury trial. Werner ordered that all motions must be filed by Dec. 22. Stauch's pre-trial readiness conference will take place March 9. In addition to the first-degree murder case, Stauch also faces a second case in which she is accused of attempting to escape from the El Paso County jail in May 2020. Stauch was arrested in South Carolina in March 2020 and has been in jail since then after she was extradited to Colorado. Stauch also faces charges of child abuse and tampering with evidence. If convicted of first-degree murder, she faces life in prison. A Colorado Springs man faces a first-degree murder charge after police say he raped and killed a woman before hiding her body in his garage, according to an arrest affidavit. Gregory Alan Whittemore, 39, was arrested Monday, hours after an argument and ensuing fit of "rage" led him to kill 27-year-old Allison Scarfone, Colorado Springs police said Thursday. Scarfone's death was one of three killings reported within the same hour Monday. Just before 8:20 p.m., police responded to a call from Whittemore's roommate, Jerome Fisher, reporting a dead body in their residence on the 500 block of Erie Road, near Memorial Park. Officers found Scarfone's body hidden in a black storage container in the garage, arrest records show. Whittemore was not home when police found Scarfone's body. He was at the Peak View Behavioral Health clinic on Sisters Grove in northeast Colorado Springs, where he was later taken into custody. At the time of the arrest, Whittemore was with Michael Field, 50, a friend of Whittemore's who had driven him to the clinic. Field told police that Whittemore called him around 1:30 p.m. Monday, saying he needed to talk and that it was urgent. Field said he went to the home on Erie Road to meet Whittemore, who "was crying and would not make eye contact," the affidavit said. When Field went to the garage to get a drink, Whittemore told him twice not to enter the garage. Whittemore then asked Field to drive him to Peak View and reportedly texted friends and family that "they would not hear from him again." Field said Whittemore told him he'd "done something," then said that he had met Scarfone and tried to give her clothes because she was homeless, the affidavit said. An argument arose during the interaction, when Scarfone called him a "rapist." Whittemore then reportedly choked the woman, who called him a rapist again after she recovered. This "triggered" him and sent him "into a rage" that led him to hit Scarfone, cut her clothes off, then rape and suffocate her, arrest records show. The exact location of the killing is unclear, police said in the affidavit. That day, Whittemore also made a confession to his roommate, Fisher, and told him that the victim's body was in the black container in the garage. Fisher told police both he and Field encouraged Whittemore to turn himself in before Fisher called 911 himself. Whittemore has a history of violent sexual assault and other criminal activity spanning a number of states, records show. He told police he is a convicted sex offender and is on parole for a case involving the attempted murder of a female in 2012 in Colorado Springs. According to online court records, Whittemore was charged with a slew of violent assault and sexual assault counts in connection with that case and was convicted of fourth-degree felony sexual assault. Sometime during court proceedings regarding that case, Whittemore escaped to Mount Pleasant, S.C., in 2016 as a wanted sex offender and was found living out of his car with a 16-year-old runaway girl, according to reporting by the Post and Courier in Charleston. The newspaper reported that Whittemore had brought the girl, who at the time was listed in the National Crime Information Center as a missing person from Colorado, across the country and encouraged her to "break into several motor vehicles at multiple locations and steal items" as well as use stolen credit cards around Mount Pleasant. This week, Whittemore told police that he was recently fired from his job at a 7-Eleven convenience store because he was "acting inappropriate" toward customers, the affidavit said, and police noted that Whittemore was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of his questioning. Whittemore also told police that he had been diagnosed with "several mental health disorders," which were redacted from the affidavit, and described having "psychotic and crazy thoughts." Whittemore is being held at the El Paso County jail without bond, records show. His first court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 27. Nearly five hours after a fire erupted in a homeless camp near a Stratmoor Hills neighborhood Monday, the man suspected of starting the blaze was found dead behind a nearby strip club, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office confirmed Thursday. Around 1:45 a.m. Monday, the Stratmoor Hills Fire Department responded to the fire that left RVs, motor vehicles and other belongings charred and caused propane tanks to explode, according to the department. The camp is on private property in a field near Chamberlin and Hampton streets, just north of the intersection of South Academy Boulevard and B Street. During an investigation by various law enforcement and fire agencies, residents of the camp identified a person they believed to have set the fire. That person, 49-year-old Jose Delgado-Diaz, was not in the camp at the time, the Sheriff's Office said. Later, just before 6:30 a.m., a passerby called 911 and reported a male with what appeared to be gunshot wounds in the open field behind the Deja Vu strip club at 2145 B St., about half a mile from the homeless camp. Deputies found the man with "at least one stab wound" to his chest, officials said. Deputies attempted to render medical aid, but the victim, confirmed to be Delgado-Diaz by the El Paso County coroner, died on scene. During the investigation, law enforcement questioned witnesses and later arrested Gregory Paul Lee, 64, on suspicion of first-degree murder. According to sheriff's spokesperson Lt. Deb Mynatt, Delgado-Diaz matched the description of the person who the camp's residents said started the fire. Any motive for Lee to kill Delgado-Diaz is also currently unknown. Lee faces one charge of first-degree murder after deliberation and is being held at the El Paso County jail without bond. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli Azerbaijan has set up a secretariat for the delimitation of the state border with Armenia, the Cabinet of Ministers reports. Prime Minister Ali Asadov signed a decree on measures to ensure the activities of the State Commission established on the delimitation of the state border between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Under According to the decree, the establishment of the Secretariat of the Commission, the directions and organization of its activities were determined to organize the State Commission's current activities. Kylah and Nick Breeden of Durango fell in love working on the railroad and Monday turned out to be a live-long day. The newlyweds dont always work the same shift, but on one of the final weeks of the summer season, Kylah, a locomotive firefighter, and Nick, a train engineer, were assigned to the second shift hauling 300 fall leaf-viewing passengers on the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. She watches the track, keeps the steam pressure and water level up and he drives. It's a team effort to keep the engine moving," said Nick. That quick-thinking cohesiveness they bring to the job helped save a life Monday about the last thing they expected. The day started out a routine, leaf-viewing October ride on the railroad. But the easy morning turned urgent when the Breedens got a radio call a hiker needed rescuing. They were already 38 miles into their trip. The couple didn't realize the hiker was a woman who had been missing overnight. Nick was notified that there was an injured hiker somewhere north of Elk Park, Kylah, 25, said. The couple started prepping for a rescue by grabbing equipment, water and blankets. Delton Henry, another rail crew member, had spotted the woman across the Animas River flagging the train down. Henry threw her a sweatshirt. We set the locomotive to sit and walked out to see her," Kylah said. "I walked down to the edge of the water and hollered across the river to get her name. I looked at her, saw the state that she was in and I told Nick, We cant leave now. The engineer and the firefighter jumped into the 42-degree river in their overalls and steel-toed boots and crossed. At times, the rushing water was chest-high. Kylah, who just finished paramedic school in Pueblo, got to work covering the injured woman with blankets and the sweatshirt. She stayed behind on that sliver of rock beach while Nick already wet and sodden crossed the river a second time and drove the 300 awestruck passengers the last five miles to Silverton for help. The woman explained to Kylah that she tumbled over a cliff while she was taking photos Sunday afternoon. The 20-year-old New Mexico woman, whose name has not been released by rescuers or police, had a severely broken leg and was banged up on her right side from her foot to her hip in what was likely a 100-foot fall. She was dressed only in a tank top and sweats and had no food or water. For six hours, Kylah kept the woman warm with blankets, massaged her right side and listened to her talk about her family, her dog and her job. Several interviews done by The Denver Gazette piece together the chronology of what happened Sunday-into-Monday morning. The hikers father, Anthony Montoya, said once she was able to move, she dragged herself over the dark mountainside to where she thought the train would be coming. His traumatized daughter told him, Dad, it took everything I had. Montoya said his daughter will need surgery and he plans to move her to a New Mexico hospital. The woman told Kylah that she heard animals during the night, but didnt see any. She spent the near-freezing temps near the river underneath some rocks for cover. As the sun rose, she inched along to the shore hoping that someone would see her. She did everything when it comes to the thought processes to keep herself safe, Kylah said. She found the closest point where people could see her, she stayed put and she was so positive! The area was so remote, rescue teams could only be helicoptered in and left to cross the river. To get the woman across, they devised a rope pulley system that transported her foot by foot, hanging in a cocoon just above the water, to safety. The helicopter waited in a field for the bruised and battered patient before it lifted off to Montrose Regional Hospital. There were tears as Kylah and the hiker said goodbye. "I told her I wish we didn't have to meet this way." It was Nick who, after dropping off his load of tourists, changed into dry clothes and engineered the emergency train back to the site where the rescue teams, and his bride of one year, waited for him to drive them to Silverton. Nick knew he wanted to drive a steam train when he was 14 years old. Just like he knew he had to meet the redhead the first time he saw Kylah on the job site five years ago. It took three years to convince the Colorado Springs native to choo-choo-choose him. On Nov. 5, Nick and Kylah were married in front of five people and a justice of the peace in Silvertons 114-year-old courthouse. They don't consider themselves heroes and they are not big on attention. Most passengers dont know were married because were just there to do our jobs, said Kylah. Im a big fan of our love story. Now the hiker and her family are big fans, too. The city of Colorado Springs is weighing whether to gate Old Stage Road to reduce late-night shooting across private property, vandalism, lighting fireworks, dumping and other illegal activity. You voted: FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan migrants, expelled from the U.S. and sent back to Mexico under Title 42, walk near the Lerdo Stanton International border bridge, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli European Unions advance team arrived in Yerevan to monitor the situation in the region on October 14, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar wrote on Twitter. The 27 Member States have acted rapidly to respond to Armenia's request. The aim of the EU deployment will be to monitor the situation and support the Armenia-Azerbaijan stabilization on the ground, Klaar wrote. The issue of placement of this mission was reflected in the statement adopted on October 7 following the quadripartite meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles Michel, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Prague. The EU and France wanted to create a border monitoring mission that would also operate on the territory of Azerbaijan and use it to enter the region. Azerbaijan objected to this, and after a firm position, it was decided that the mission would operate only on the territory of Armenia. Azerbaijan will cooperate with the mission in accordance with its interests. The border mission will help build confidence and contribute to the border delimitation process. Furthermore, following the quadripartite meeting, Azerbaijan and Armenia recognized each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty by reaffirming their adherence to the UN Charter and the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991. The parties confirmed that this will become the basis for the work of the commissions on the delimitation of the border, and their next meeting of the commissions will be held in Brussels at the end of October. The El Paso County assessor is taking on a former member of the Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission in the race for the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office. The clerk runs elections, issues marriage licenses, and operates the motor vehicle divisions, among other responsibilities. Support local journalism: As a public service, we have decided to put the 2022 Colorado General Election Guide in front of our paywall so you can access it for free. Would you support our work by subscribing to The Gazette? Your subscription allows us to pursue time-consuming projects, such as this voter guide, as well as other issues that shape our state. You may subscribe here. Should the sales tax that funds regional and multimodal road projects be extended another decade? Voters will decide at the polls Nov. 8 whether to extend the Pikes Peak Regional Transportation Authoritys 1-cent sales tax to share revenues among El Paso County, the cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, and the towns of Green Mountain Falls, Ramah and Calhan. Most of the money goes to the county and Colorado Springs. Fifty-five percent of the generated revenues pay for one-time capital projects, 35% of the funds go toward maintenance projects, and the remaining 10% to transit. If approved, the 10-year sales tax, which voters first approved in 2004 and extended in 2014, will finance major road projects between 2025 and 2034. Some of those projects include reconstructing North Nevada Avenue; upgrading Marksheffel Road from Woodmen Road to Carefree Circle on the countys eastern edge; connecting Powers Boulevard from Colorado 83 to Voyager Parkway; and upgrades to Woodmen from Powers to U.S. 24. Some residents have criticized the poor state of El Paso Countys roads despite previous tax increases intended to finance road upgrades and maintenance. A county Public Works report published last August that detailed local road conditions found more than 60% of the countys paved roads and 45% of its rural roads are in poor shape or need reconstructing. Weve seen how little we get in return for our tax increases. Wont Get Fooled Again, Jack Edwards wrote in a comment posted to an Aug. 10 Gazette article announcing the questions inclusion on the November ballot. Of the Colorado Springs projects, the plan would spend more than $100 million of the estimated $592 million in capital funding that it is projected to raise over the next decade on reconstructing North Nevada Avenue. Residents have questioned why such a large percentage of the citys expected future tax collections is planned for work on a 2-mile portion of the road they said wasnt particularly unsafe or congested. That project is split into four segments on the list voters will review. All four are described as projects that will improve signalized intersections and provide better transit, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to support the North Nevada redevelopment vision. Dutch Schulz, president of the Old North End Neighbors, told the regional transportation authoritys board in July redevelopment efforts would be more properly funded by a metropolitan district, typically financed by property taxes. The plan to connect Powers from Colorado 83 to Voyager Parkway was envisioned as part of a two-part project that would one day directly connect Interstate 25 to Powers Boulevard on Colorado Springs far north side. Bond revenues from Polaris Pointe, a retail complex including businesses like Bass Pro Shops, Magnum Shooting Center and dozens of others, are financing engineering on this part of the project, Colorado Springs Public Works Director Travis Easton said. Revenues from bonds and the extended road tax, if it passes, will fund the projects construction. The Marksheffel expansion is estimated to cost $47 million, and the citys portion of the extension of Powers is estimated to cost $72 million. The county also expects to contribute $30.9 million of its projected $301 million in capital funding to the Powers extension. El Paso Countys proposed $473 million budget for 2023 also includes $11.9 million for county road maintenance and improvements $10 million in one-time funds for road projects and $1.9 million to pay for gravel road maintenance. Reporter Stephanie Earls is a news reporter and columnist at The Gazette. Before moving to Colorado Springs in 2012, she worked for newspapers in upstate NY, WA, OR and at her hometown weekly in Berkeley Springs, WV, where she got her start in journalism. EDITORIAL: Keep the Springs special; vote 'no' on pot and 'yes' on roads Republican attorney general candidate John Kellner is facing a third campaign finance complaint, a historic benchmark among those seeking to become Colorado's chief legal officer. No attorney general or candidate for that office has more than one complaint in the 22 years TRACER, the campaign finance database run by the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, system has tracked those complaint. The three complaints against the Kellner campaign were all filed by Ethan Black of ProgressNow Colorado, which recently ran afoul of campaign finance laws and was fined more than $16,000. It was the go up's second such fine over its Republican-targeted "voter's guide" in the past year. The most recent complaint against the Kellner campaign, filed Oct. 4., alleges the Republican Attorney Generals Association held a fundraiser on Aug. 28 for Kellner at The Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. Kellner failed to disclose expenditures or in-kind donations related to the use of resort facilities, space, food, beverages, waitstaff, bartenders, or other goods or services for the fundraiser. The complaint alleges the campaign: "illegally failed to disclose expenditures his candidate committee made to cover these costs; RAGA covered such costs and Kellner illegally failed to disclose in-kind contributions from RAGA; or the private resort covered such costs and Kellner illegally failed to disclose in-kind contributions from the resort." All are violations of state campaign finance law, according to the complaint. RAGA, through independent expenditure committee Colorado Freedom IEC, has contributed $357,000 in support of Kellner. Kellner's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The repeated violations raise questions about Kellner's ability to follow the law, according to Bruce Brown, an attorney in Idaho Springs and the former district attorney for the Fifth Judicial District. "Colorado campaign finance rules serve an important role in assuring voters obtain transparent and timely information. A candidate for a law enforcement leadership position, such as attorney general, should and is held to a higher standard given the need to set the best possible leadership example for the rule of law," he said. "Indifference to election rules should call into question Mr. Kellners ability to fulfill the duties of the office he is seeking, since an attorney general has a legal duty to assist in the conduct of fair elections." The first two Kellner complaints were filed in May and July. The Kellner campaign was found to have violated campaign finance laws but was allowed to fix those violations. The May complaint said Kellner had taken an illegal $500 campaign contribution on Jan. 27, 2022 from Michael Fields, a professional lobbyist for Advance Colorado Action. That contribution came in during the legislative session. Statewide candidates, including for attorney general, are prohibited from accepting lobbyist contributions while the legislature is in session. Fields claimed he didn't know that was illegal. Kellner was allowed under state law to "cure" the violation. Kellner said he was unaware Fields was a lobbyist and the contribution was returned in May. Fields made another $500 contribution in July. The second violation, in July, alleged Kellner held a fundraiser at a donors residence in Douglas County. The donor, Ron von Lembke, "presumably incurred expenses for goods and services consumed" during the April fundraiser. Those expenses are considered in-kind campaign donations. Von Lembke also contributed the maximum $1,250 per cycle donation to the Kellner campaign, so the total of the in-kind and monetary contributions exceeded the allowable limit under state law. The in-kind donations were not reported, another alleged violation of campaign finance law. Kellner submitted an intent to cure in August while the investigation was underway by the Elections Division. The corrected campaign finance report said another donor, Karen Bergey of Lone Tree, contributed the food and drink for the fundraiser, valued at $150. No other costs were incurred for the fundraiser, according to the motion to dismiss filed by the Elections Division. The motion noted: "Respondent violated Colorado campaign finance law by failing to timely file an in-kind contribution related to the April 20, 2022, fundraising event." While the number of complaints lodged against Kellner is historic for the office, one other current candidate for constitutional office has more. Secretary of State Jena Griswold had five complaints filed against her this year, which are being handled by the attorney general's office and are still open. The status of those complaints is unknown. Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser also faced a complaint last year, filed by attorney Suzanne Taheri on behalf of Defend Colorado, though it was dismissed due to lack of evidence of a violation. In the 2021 complaint, Weiser was alleged to have participating in a fundraising event as part of a trip to Hawaii in June 2021 to attend the Attorney General Alliance meeting. In his response, Weiser denied the allegations. He said he had followed all applicable campaign finance laws tied to the event, paid $437.50 for attending the fundraising event, reported that expenditure as well as all contributions stemming from the fundraiser. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Turkiye is striving to achieve just peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Azernews reports, citing Fahrettin Altun, Turkish presidential spokesperson. He also added that attempts have been made from the outset, under the leadership of Turkiye's president, to stop the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. "These sincere efforts resulted in the opening of a corridor under Turkiye's auspices for the supply of grain, which has become a worldwide crisis, as well as the fulfillment of the prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine," Altun stressed. To recap, following the October 6 meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders under the auspices of EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron, all parties reaffirmed their commitment to the peace negotiations while acknowledging each other's territorial integrity. President Ilham Aliyev praised the EU's efforts in the peace talks during an interview with Azerbaijani TV channels, emphasizing that Azerbaijan and Armenia are gradually reaching peace. I do hope that we are slowly getting closer to peace, and I highly appreciate Charles Michel's work in this area. Because, as you know, several trilateral meetings have been held in Brussels, and we are getting closer to peace every time. This four-sided meeting was organized by Charles Michel and Emmanuel Macron, and this meeting discussed important issues. I believe that this meeting will be of tremendous importance in reaching a peace agreement, Aliyev stressed. Aliyev added that the peace talks are still ongoing and should not be disrupted. The ministers should meet for the second time soon, and we have suggested that after that the working groups of both countries should come together to prepare the text of the peace agreement, perhaps not in one meeting, but over the course of a few days, he underlined. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Defense Minister Col-Gen Zakir Hasanov along with the top brass inspected the Garaheybat training center on October 13, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry. Hasanov inquired about the progress of the officer course held for military personnel at the tank training area of the Azerbaijan Army Training and Educational Center. The minister was informed that the participants rehearse techniques for the successful use of tanks and combat vehicles in human settlements based on their expertise from current combat operations. Hasanov then viewed the simulation center, where sophisticated technology is used to perform fire control training. The servicemen demonstrated practical shooting using mortar pieces. The minister visited the training center's shooting range to observe the personnel fulfilling shooting exercises with small weapons and grenade launchers. The defense chief also examined a classroom with driving and shooting simulators designed to improve servicemen's driving and shooting skills. Hasanov was briefed that the trainees are taught proper targeting and shooting tactics using virtual simulators. Hasanov examined the combat vehicles and artillery pieces in the classroom, where the tactical and technical aspects of various types of artillery pieces, as well as the rules of their usage, are taught. The minister was informed that skilled professionals at the training facility use the experience gained during the 44-day war, as well as from modern combat operations in the educational process to strengthen servicemen's combat training and tactical-special abilities. Hasanov also met course participants and inquired about their concerns, underlining the recent reforms in the Azerbaijan army, notably in the military education field. Hasanov advised participants to consistently enhance their knowledge and abilities, as well as to become professional officers to further improve the Azerbaijan army's defensive capability. Finally, the minister gave instructions to the National Defense University's administration on how to properly arrange and conduct classes. More than 16,000 victims of human trafficking were identified by the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2020, and its happening right here in North Iowa. Melody Stone, a trauma therapist and founder of the North Iowa Coalition Against Human Trafficking (NIC), is doing everything she can to stop trafficking and sexploitation. Shes also working with law enforcement officers to education the public. This weekend the NIC will hold showings of Gridshock: A Film About Sex Trafficking In Iowa in Clear Lake and Mason City. Gridshock was filmed and produced by Iowa native Vanessa McNeal. It explores the hidden and disturbing reality behind the sex trafficking demand in Iowa. Iowa is a perfect place for traffickers to set up operations because a lot of people are still salt of the earth kind of people and they just think, No, no we dont have this kind of stuff going on, Stone said. Stone also cited a statistic from Shared Hope International that it has received 800 percent more calls compared to two years ago from children and adults reporting trafficking or sexploitation. She said sexploitation the grooming of children online to get explicit content from them has become a bigger and bigger problem in the last few years. A typical scenario would be... Like my grandson is seven years old and his mother traded in her phone for a new one and she was letting him play games on it, but these predators are out there on these gaming sites, Stone said. Stone said the interactions usually start out innocently enough with an exchange of non-explicit photos. The victims usually believe theyre talking with someone their own age who has their same interests. Once explicit photos or videos are sent and the youth wants to quit sending material the person threatens to blackmail them by sending the content to family, friends and youth groups. Stone said its important to learn the signs a child is being trafficked or exploited. They include: Declining grades Older boyfriend Falling asleep in class Heightened stress Depression Isolation Tattoo or marking on neck Things parents can do is require kids to only use electronic devices in common areas of the house and have frequent conversations about the subject. Stone and the NIC offer free training to anyone who would like it. I will go to any school, any youth group, Stone said. Ill work with parents and kids. If churches want to open it up and hear about online safety so parents and youth can understand whats going on with online sextortion. Making sure law enforcement and emergency responders understand how to approach victims is essential. If people dont know how to approach victims and they dont understand trauma and how it affects the brain and body, you can screw things up if you dont handle a situation correctly and maybe trigger that victim, Stone said. Ultimately, the NIC aims to help victims and teach people how to spot potential trafficking or sexploitation. Our primary mission is to create strong, safer communities in North Iowa, Stone said. The NIC covers 11 North Iowa counties. Six of the eight candidates vying for seats on the Floyd County Board of Supervisors brought their ideas about taxation, the law enforcement center and proposed carbon pipelines to the public Wednesday evening at a candidate forum. The forum, sponsored by the Charles City Area Economic Development Corporation and the American Association of University Women, allowed candidates one minute each to answer several questions throughout the 90-minute event. In August 2021, Floyd County voters approved a change in how supervisors are elected. Previously, each member of the three-member body was chosen by voters from the entire county. The new system divides the county into three districts, with voters in each district voting only for the supervisor living in that district. District One encompasses the southern and southwestern portion of the county. District Two includes most of Charles City proper, while District Three includes the northern and most of the western part of the county. Of the eight candidates, only Doug Kamm is running as an incumbent. Current supervisors Roy Schwickerath and Linda Tjaden declined to run for reelection. All of the candidates agreed that property taxes are too high and have risen too quickly over the last four years. According to the Floyd County website, total rural property tax rates have risen from $8.85 per $1,000 of taxable valuation to $10.56 per $1,000. District Two candidate Joshua Mack said the county has seen many fiscal changes in the past four years. "The most significant one we've seen is the $2 million increase in taxes, along with the $13.5 million approved by voters in 2018," he said, referring a bond referendum voters approved to renovate the law enforcement center and courthouse. Former state representative and District One candidate Mark Kuhn said he's had enough of rising taxes. "I'm running for county supervisor because every time I get a tax statement it's higher," Kuhn said. "It's becoming frustrating, and I question the way the money has been spent in some cases, and hopefully we can get it under control." District Three candidates Jayson Ryner and Jeff Hawbaker were unable to attend. Kuhn suggested the county use a portion of the more than $3 million of federal American Rescue Plan funds it has received to ease the burden on taxpayers. He also is in favor of using those funds to make sure the courthouse and law enforcement center construction is completed. Kamm, who has served on the board for 12 years, said the courthouse project has been delayed due to supply chain issues, and the contractors are still working under their original 2019 bids. "The LEC project isn't as overbudget as everybody thinks it is," Kamm said. "We're using some of the ARP funds for that, but if it wouldn't have been for COVID we wouldn't have had those funds. And if it wouldn't have been for COVID, that law enforcement project would have been done a long time ago. If you really want to know about that project, you need to ask." A firm completion date for the LEC and courthouse projects has not been released. The candidates also discussed two proposed carbon sequestration pipelines and the possible use of eminent domain. Both Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator LLC. are attempting to gain access to private and public land through the use of easements to build pipelines that would carry liquified carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be sequestered underground at locations in North Dakota and Illinois. Kuhn, along with all the other candidates, agreed that forcing landowners to allow the pipeline on their property isn't right. They also agreed the issue will mostly be decided at the state, not the county, level. District Two candidate Dennis Kiefer echoed Kuhn's sentiments. "As far as eminent domain, I don't think it's fair or just to have a money-making private company to have the power of eminent domain if the landowner is opposed to it," Kiefer said. The candidates for District One are running for a two-year term. All other candidates are up for four-year terms. The election is set for Tuesday, Nov. 8. In-person early voting at the courthouse will begin Oct. 19 and absentee ballots must be mailed by Oct. 24. More voting information can be found at the Floyd County website or the Floyd County Auditor's Office Facebook page. Midwest Construction received the Small Business of the Year award at the 106th Chamber of Commerce annual meeting. President P.K. OHandley accepted the award on behalf of the family-owned company. Were pretty honored, pretty humbled, pretty proud, and pretty surprised, but thankful nonetheless, OHandley said. Before she announced the recipient of the Small Business of the Year award Robin Anderson, President and CEO of the Mason City Chamber of Commerce, said, This is most prestigious because it recognizes a business that embodies our core mission providing jobs for people in our community so they lead better lives. Anderson explained that nominations were submitted by other Chamber businesses based on business philosophy, achievement, volunteer service and overall impact on the community. This is truly an honor bestowed on a business colleague, she said. A prerecorded video was shown of Midwest Construction CEO Kalliope Eaton and President P.K. OHandley when they heard about the award. Eaton explained how her father, Alex Despenas, was born to immigrant parents from Greece who moved to Mason City to find the American Dream and to create a home for their family. After Despenas founded his business Eaton said, He instilled in his children, and in his company, that giving back to the community is so important because the community has given so much to us. OHandley said he has been around Midwest Construction for over 30 years but only became the company president over a year ago. He described the company as third-generation, family owned. We are very proud of who we are, what we are, who we came from and where were going, he said. Sure, weve expanded and may expand again in the future, but Mason City will always be the home of Midwest Construction. When two recipients of the Distinguished Citizen Award, Dan Robeson, CEO of Iowa Business Growth, and Andrew Anderson, former chair of the Vision Iowa board, were called up to the stage, Robeson looked at Robin Anderson and said, Thank You. But were not the ones receiving the award; you are. As a video was played showing clips of colleagues and business associates Anderson, who has served as Chamber CEO since 2001 and will be retiring at the end of the year, had trouble keeping a dry eye. From a press release sent from the Chamber some of Andersons attributes are being a servant leader who has the unique ability to see the big picture, along with knowing all the little steps it will take to bring that vision to reality. And she likes to get things done and never asks for recognition in return Projects that Anderson will be remembered for include revitalizing the Historic Park Inn, bringing Sculptures on Parade to the city, creating murals on the backs of downtown buildings, moving and restoring the Egloff House and finally, after two decades, cutting the ribbon on the Principal Pavilion in downtown Mason City. Chamber members said they could think of no better way to thank her, ... because she truly embodies the definition of Distinguished Citizen. Ive loved every minute of working with all of you, Anderson stated. If Im going to be leaving behind a legacy, I hope what it will be is, Our world needs dreamers and our world needs doers. But most of all our world needs Dreamers who Do. I hope all of you will be dreamers who do because we need to grow North Iowa. Other award recipients were Dr. Noemi Cruz-Orcutt, owner of Mint Springs Dentistry, who received the Boss of the Year award based upon a nomination submitted by staff members. The Chamber in partnership with CG Public Health chose to present Kingland, a Clear Lake-based company, with the Workplace Wellness Award. This award recognizes a worksite that emulates total worker health and well-being. The Mason City Chamber Ambassadors annually present an award to one of their committee members. Mary Holmes, from North Iowa Broadcasting, was named Ambassador of the Year in recognition of her commitment and hard work. Two recipients, Des Moines attorney Andrew Anderson and Johnston businessman Dan Robeson, received the Distinguished Citizen Award, for their work behind the scenes to ensure the success of the Historic Park Inn Hotel project. As chair of the Vision Iowa Board and a Decorah native, Anderson encouraged Mason City to apply for the $9.2 million remaining in the fund. With ties to the Hotel Winneshiek, he knew the difference a downtown historic hotel could make in a community. Robeson utilized his years of experience as a banker and economic developer to mastermind the complicated financing package necessary for the project. Outgoing chamber board members receiving recognition for their service are: Andy Meyer from Bergland + Cram Architects, Jeff Gribben from First Citizens Bank, Bill Phillips from Henkel Construction Company, Fouad Daoud from WHKS Engineers, Andrew Johnston from the Laird Law Firm, Tiffany Nonweiler from First Citizens Bank, Katie Wold from Three on the Tree, and Dan Young from Young Construction. Jane Fischer, owner and broker at Jane Fischer & Associates, presided over the meeting and completed her term as chairperson of the board. Evan Raulie, plant manager at Smithfield, will fill this role in the year ahead. U.S. Senate candidate Mike Franken wants to use his international experiences to help Iowa communities and economy, he told the Greater Des Moines Partnership Thursday. The Democrat challenging longtime U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a retired Navy admiral, said his decades of military service and consulting work will help him better serve Iowans if elected in November. Iowa has a history of leading the nation on issues from desegregating education to inventive sustainability agriculture practices, he told business owners and Partnership members at the event. Weve fallen off that a little bit, Franken said. And weve got so much to offer the world, and the world needs our help. And Im happy to be a part of that cadre to make that happen. As a self-described futurist, he said wants to use his experiences to return Iowa to the front of the pack on social and technological advancements. Franken said that starts with addressing current problems in Iowa like declining population and workforce shortages. Getting more people into Iowa requires forward-thinking investments, he said, which may not seem immediately relevant. He shared a story of his time in the military when officials debated whether to fund research and expansion of GPS technology, which has evolved from a military technology to a common-place tool in many peoples daily lives. It made all these rural communities much more livable, he said, because it made it easier for neighbors to keep in touch. Franken said if elected, he wants to focus on other technologies that will help make rural Iowa more accessible and livable. Expanding rural broadband is part of that focus, he said. When asked about getting companies like Amazon and Netflix to help fund rural broadband expansion, he said these companies are stalling, because they believe there will be satellite systems that replace wired broadband connections. The pandemic has accelerated work to develop internet infrastructure in rural areas, he said, and pointed to the 2021 infrastructure bill, which will send millions to Iowa and other states. But now, its about finding the balance between funding existing infrastructure while remaining open for advancements, he said. You need to welcome the new technology moving forward, Franken said. Better internet connections in rural Iowa is also part of getting people to move into the state, Franken said or to not leave it. He called for immigration reform and updates to transportation infrastructure as other issues which would help draw people to Iowa, bringing down costs of living and bringing more workers to the state. He pointed to Iowas existing investments in sustainable energy production, and said he wants to see Iowa have the cheapest electrical grid in the country. Iowa currently exports more college graduates than surrounding states, Franken said, and more must be done to attract and retain Iowa residents. We must be more of an attractive place where that 22-year-old, that 28-year-old, that 65-year-old at least considers staying, he said. I think quality of life is a big, big factor. Grassley is scheduled to speak to the Partnership Nov. 2. Just a few weeks before Election Day, Danville School Board candidates sounded off on local education issues during a forum at George Washington High School on Thursday evening. The candidate forum, which also included candidates for Danville City Council, was hosted by the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by the Danville Register & Bee and SOVA Legal. Improving students performance and getting all of Danvilles schools fully accredited were the biggest topics covered during the forum. Hunter Byrnes, chief legal officer at Infinity Global, mediated the forum. There are six candidates running for four available seats for Danville School Board. The candidates include Keisha Averett, Kushana Galloway, TyQuan Graves, Michael Pritchett Jr., Keith Silverman and Keisha Walker. Averett and Graves are incumbents. Candidates answered five questions among dozens submitted by residents to the chamber before the forum. The biggest question was how candidates, if elected, would focus their efforts on ensuring all schools in the city are fully accredited. Byrnes pointed out that 80% of schools in Danville are not fully accredited, while 89% across the state are fully accredited. He also asked how much responsibility lies with the school administration as to schools performance. Danville was in the bottom 10% of schools for accreditation, Byrnes said. Candidate Kushana Galloway said, If elected, it would be our responsibility and mine to serve as a team player to hold the appropriate persons in position accountable. In doing so, I feel it would be our responsibility to make sure our parents and community understand where our schools are currently, what needs to be done to become accredited, as well. It would be the school boards job to evaluate all the policies and procedures to make sure they are efficient and effective, she said. Graves said the schools students showed tremendous growth throughout the district and added that accreditation results are sure to improve this upcoming school year. We are proud that our students are demonstrating the ability to rebound and exceed pre-COVID growth in many instances, Graves added. As a board member, Graves said he and the rest of the board would continue to do whats best for the districts students. We all hold a crucial responsibility moving our district forward, he said. We must acknowledge the problem and execute on a solution. Making sure all schools are fully accredited is a responsibility for everyone as stakeholders, Pritchett said. All the schools may not be fully accredited, but I think we do need to applaud and acknowledge the growth that has happened in all of our schools, he said. Teachers are working hard within the framework they are given, Pritchett said. He emphasized the importance of focusing on core skills for students: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, citizenship and community. For Silverman, a city school board is like the board of directors of a corporation. A school board is responsible for its stakeholders, to the citizenry at large and especially to the children in the schools and their families. School board members are responsible for hiring the best possible persons for the administration of our schools who, in turn, are directly responsible for the many facets of their operation including transportation, maintenance of buildings and most importantly, a regimen of unhampered and effective teaching within the schools classroom, he said. School board members are responsible for setting school policies and seeing to and insisting upon their implementation, Silverman said. In light of the school systems situation, board members must realize their positions will be a hands-on job, he said. Silverman said he plans on regularly visiting schools if elected to the board. The schools problems are multifaceted and must be observed by those of us directly responsible to the citizenry if they are to be understood, he said. This is not a small task, Silverman said. Walker said she would recommend that professional staff development be designed to meet the educational needs of students. If elected, my focus would be on enhancing efforts to increase parental involvement and communications surrounding the welfare of the students, Walker said. Averett said she would review data and trends and use that information to work alongside other board members and the superintendent to update policy relating to student achievement. She said she would also maintain open lines of communication with the community and stakeholders and continue to grow those relationships. She said she would also encourage parent and community involvement in supporting equitable learning opportunities for all students. When asking another question, Byrnes pointed out there are other school districts facing challenges similar to that of Danville, but are performing better. Pritchett said that while Danville could learn from those other area, the school system needs to focus on what needs to work for the citys students. We cant just copy and paste [what other districts are doing], we have to be very familiar with what works for our students, Pritchett said. Silverman, who said he has spoken with officials in Pittsylvania County and Martinsville, floated the ideas of imposing a student dress code and banning the use of cellphones by students. If learning is to occur, teachers need to their students full and undivided attention, Silverman said. Walker proposed an advisory committee including retired educators, law enforcement and community leaders to provide advice to the school board. While the school district can learn from other localities, there are some practices that may or may not work for us, Walker said. Galloway said the school system needs to take a deep look into violence and how mental-health issues and trauma is affecting our school system. Graves pointed out the school system has implemented policies as result of its five-year strategic and corrective plan, including new hiring procedures leading to 98% staffing levels, additional days of instruction, increased financial accountability and requiring K-8 students to pass all core classes before being promoted to the next level. An off-duty police officer was among those killed Thursday by the suspect, who police only described as a white, juvenile male. He was arrested around 9:37 p.m., authorities said. GREENSBORO If all goes well, the city could have a new police chief by Jan. 1. Im ambitious, but I feel like well be able to place someone in the police chief role by the first of the year, Assistant City Manager Trey Davis told the City Council at its meeting on Thursday. Former Police Chief Brian James retired from the department in late May and Teresa Biffle has been serving as interim chief. Since James left, the city has held a series of meetings and compiled a survey to solicit public input on what qualities they would like to see in the citys top law enforcement officer. I believe, off the top of my head, it was 144 people that took the survey, roughly around 15 to 20 people who attended the in-person sessions and then between 30 and 50 people who attended the virtual sessions that were in August, Davis recalled. The city began advertising the position on Sept. 15, and the posting closes Monday. Biffle has said she is not interested in taking the position on a permanent basis. Kerr Putney, a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, is leading the search effort on behalf of Development Associates the Chapel-Hill-based search firm hired by the city. Were up to about 13 applications now in which we have a very diverse pool from across the country, Davis said. Development Associates assured Davis that the number of applications is in line with what is expected at this point in the process. Most applications come in about the close of the process, Davis said. Once the job posting closes, Davis said he and City Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba will meet with the consultant to narrow the list. Putney will then interview those candidates by phone and the prospects also will undergo a test that measures emotional intelligence, Davis told the council members. As we narrow that pool, we hope to hold an assessment center that will not only be comprised of peer professionals but also community members, he said. After that process takes place, we strongly feel that will allow us myself and the city manager to be able to identify the right candidate for our city. By Trend The Austrian Dasfazit.at online newspaper published an article titled Azerbaijan forms foundations of Europe's energy security on October 12, highlighting the troublesome issue of the energy crisis in Europe and the role of Azerbaijan on the way to becoming a reliable partner capable of forming the foundations of the energy security of Europe, Trend reports. The article emphasized that, despite the growing attraction of EU countries to renewable energy sources, as well as a sharp drop in demand for fuels during the COVID pandemic, the post-COVID period was marked by an unprecedented rise in demand for traditional energy sources, since the expansion of industrial and economic development in the EU countries required the availability of cheaper energy sources. According to the article, the Ukrainian crisis has also contributed to the intensification of the current trend in the search for alternative options regarding energy resources. The success of the efforts of the EU countries, undertaken to get rid of dependence on Russian energy carriers, will directly depend on the potential of alternative energy sources, as well as on the capabilities of the supplier countries. At this stage, Europe is just facing a number of obstacles, the article noted. As indicated in the publication, namely specifics of potential suppliers and the conditions for transporting energy carriers which are of vital importance for European buyers, since the priority for European energy markets in the implementation of such projects are such basic principles as security, availability and sustainability. For example, according to the article, the Persian Gulf countries represented by Qatar and the UAE, which could increase the export of energy sources to Europe, lose this opportunity due to the unstable situation in the Middle East and drop out of the list [of the potential energy suppliers]. Although the Gulf countries may offer the European market new supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the price of this fuel, according to the article, will be significantly higher than natural gas, which greatly undermines the competitiveness of LNG supplies. Moreover, as the article correctly noted, the emergence of new oil importers in the Asian region - India and China - is of great concern in Europe, because these countries offer fuel suppliers more favorable export conditions, which can boost competition in the energy market and will surely impact the price growth. Touching upon Iran, the article noted that Iran's aspirations to claim the role of the savior of Europe have no basis, since the country's outdated energy infrastructure which needs modernization and additional investments, as well as the ongoing geopolitical confrontation with the US, encourage market players to hold distance. In the current conditions, Azerbaijan, which, under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, is moving towards realizing itself as an energy hub. The article reminded that in 2021, the export of Azerbaijani gas to Europe amounted to 8.2 billion cubic meters, and in 2022 it's expected to equal 12 billion cubic meters, stressing that the capacity of the gas pipeline [Southern Gas Corridor] allows boosting this figure up to 20 billion cubic meters. According to the articles author, the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (part of the Southern Gas Corridor), completed in 2020, the function of which is to transport Azerbaijani gas from the Turkish-Greek border through Albania to southern Italy, with its further sale to Central Europe, is of particular attraction for European consumers. The Southern Gas Corridor project is in the spotlight of officials from Germany (with its most powerful economy in Europe), who see it as an opportunity to get rid of Russian gas imports. The article pointed out that the representative of the German CDU (Christian Democratic Union) Party Matthias Heider, speaking about the issue of the need to use gas from various sources, mentioned EastMed [planned offshore/onshore natural gas pipeline, directly connecting East Mediterranean energy resources to mainland Greece via Cyprus and Crete] or Southern Gas Corridor. Regarding Azerbaijan's gas reserves, the article presented a figure of 2.6 trillion cubic meters as proven reserves and about three trillion cubic meters as estimated ones. The article also mentioned statement of Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov that gas reserves of Azerbaijan will be sufficient to provide itself, Turkiye and Europe with gas for a long time. The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic partnership in the energy sector between Azerbaijan and the EU, as well as the statement by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen that "the EU is turning to trustworthy energy suppliers [and] Azerbaijan is one of them", were assessed in the article as a bright example of the growing role of Azerbaijan. The publication also mentioned the commissioning of the IGB [Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria] with an annual capacity of three billion cubic meters, which in the future can be increased to five billion cubic meters, noting that within the framework of this project, Azerbaijani gas will become one of the guarantees of the energy security of South-Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria. Besides, the article highlighted the issue of investments, noting that representatives of the European political establishment several times called for investing in projects with the participation of Azerbaijan in order to contribute to the expansion and improvement of the energy infrastructure. One of the acute problems highlighted in the article was the periodic escalations of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which, according to the article, impedes the full implementation of the abovementioned projects. The words, Go home. We Love you. Youre very special! Spoken by former President Trump to his supporters during the January 6th insurrection echo in my mind even today. While some of Trumps supporters defecated and urinated in our nation's capital complex, 138 capital police officers were physically hurt, one capital police officer was killed, four others committed suicide later, and one protester was killed. Trumps MAGA supporters along with the Proud Boys, Militiamen, White Supremacists, and others damaged not only our democracy by creating fear, anger, and bigotry used by autocratic leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, and Putin, but also showed the American people the true character of some Republican Senators, Congressman, Governors, and elected officials at the local level. Staying silent and lacking the courage to speak out when you know your Republican Party is taking a sledgehammer to our democracy is unpatriotic. Voters can uphold our democracy during the upcoming midterms and presidential election in 2024 by voting for either a Democratic or Independent candidate. You may not like everything that a Democratic or Independent candidate has to offer, but, I believe, they will keep the fundamentals of our democracy from disappearing into an authoritarian abyss. DECATUR The downtown park formerly known simply as the green space on North Water Street finally has a name, and it's Preston Jackson Park. Jackson said he was still taking it in but he thanked all these beautiful faces who had attended the dedication. What's really nice about it is I still remember simple things, conversations, and wasn't there a theater down here called the Empress? he said, asking old friends nearby who confirmed that there was. We're doing a book, got some people working on this right now, and all of the research, it's just interesting to do the research about it because Decatur means so much to me, of course, all places that you were raised and you call it home, and it means a lot. He said he wanted to thank everybody who has been supportive all his life, but feared forgetting to mention some because there were so many. Dozens of people who know the artist thronged the downtown park on Friday and when the dedication was over, swarmed around him to relive old times, congratulate him, reintroduce themselves or just offer their congratulations. Jackson, a renowned artist and Decatur native, created the sculpture From the Cottonfield to the Battlefield in the center of the park and that was dedicated in 2009. Bridgett Bond attended the dedication of the sculpture and returned on Friday for the naming of the park. I was excited and I thought 'I'm going to show up for this,' Bond said. When I come to the bank, I always look over (at the park) to see if it's still standing and I think what's surprising is to see how many people utilize the park, sit here and have lunch, which is really nice. The 78-year-old Jackson specializes in bronze and steel sculpture and painting. After graduation from Stephen Decatur High School, he attended Millikin University and worked at Revere Copper, while also performing with his jazz band, Preston Jackson and the Rhythm Aces. After Millikin, he obtained a master of fine arts degree at the University of Illinois, and taught fine art at Millikin and Western Illinois University before joining the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently owner of The Raven Gallery in Peoria. His works can be found in cities throughout Illinois and in 1998, he was named Laureate of the Lincoln Academy in Illinois. It just doesn't get any better than this, said Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe. We're here to celebrate one of our very own, renowned sculptor and artist Preston Jackson. Mr. Jackson was born and raised right here in Decatur and teaches us that all things are possible if you have a dream and passion and believe in yourself and your talent. Jim Taylor, whose efforts led to the park being named in Jackson's honor, starts a lot of the stuff that happens in Decatur, Moore Wolfe said. Council member Bill Faber walks through the park every day, Taylor said, and one day when he saw Faber walking, he stopped him and suggested the park should be named after Jackson, and Faber agreed it was a good idea. I got all the pictures and the history of Preston, and I presented it to the city council, Taylor said. They thought about it for a month and they thought about it for another month and it finally came up for a vote, and they all voted for it. Every one of them voted for it. Every one. If some time in the future, somebody wants to put a building where the park is, Taylor quipped, he plans to insist they name the building after Jackson, too. Taylor handled the unveiling of the plaque bearing the park's new name, surrounded by most members of the city council. State Sen. Doris Turner congratulated Decatur for having a world-renowned artist as a native, and said a couple of Jackson's works are on display in Springfield, making the two cities sister cities. We built this monument back when I was on the city council, said Rep. Dan Caulkins, referring to Jackson's sculpture. This is a day that's been a long time coming. DECATUR There was a time when Linda Bullock worried she might never make it to London with her daughter. Their joint trip to London and Paris, coordinated through local agency Best Trips Ever Travel, was originally scheduled for summer 2020 but was rescheduled twice due to pandemic concerns. As it turns out, the date changes unintentionally led the women and their fellow travelers to a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle on Sept. 8, just days before the Best Trips Ever crew was scheduled to leave for their trip. The group saw some last-minute changes in plans, like the cancellation of their Windsor Castle tour. Bullocks daughter, Beth Sloan, said some briefly questioned if they should still go on the trip, but that thought was quickly dismissed they knew they did not want to miss being part of one of the biggest news events of the century. How often do you get to witness history? Bullock asked. Linda Roberts, owner of Best Trips Ever, wasnt on the trip herself but said it was unforgettable for many of her travelers. This is something theyll never forget, Roberts said. I think they really, really enjoyed it. Indeed, as Sloan said: Most people arent going to get to experience that. Bullock said the travelors did what they could to remember and pay tribute to the Queen, like wearing fascinator hats during afternoon tea at the London department store Fortnum & Mason. The group had a hole in their schedule because of the Windsor Castle tour cancellation, so Bullock, Sloan and a few others later decided to visit Buckingham Palace to pay their respects and leave flowers. The travelers waited in line for hours and made friends with London natives. Eventually, they were instructed to take their flowers and leave them at nearby Hyde Park, as the palace was becoming overwhelmed with memorabilia. On their way to Hyde Park, the women saw something they said theyll never forget. Bullock had edged her way closer to the street as some cars were traveling toward Buckingham Palace. At first, she didnt know that inside the cars were members of the royal family. Oh my gosh, we heard this cheering coming from down the road to our right, and we knew something was happening, Bullock said. And then here comes the first car. It had King Charles III in it. And I just said, Oh my God, its the King. It was so exciting. Soon after, another car carrying the Kings son William, Prince of Wales, drove by. The trip to Buckingham Palace was perfect timing, Sloan said. Leaving even five minutes earlier or later would have left them stuck in the crowd of mourners. As awestruck as they were after seeing members of the royal family and witnessing the grand displays of public mourning across the city, both Bullock and Sloan said the best part of the trip was that they were able to experience it together. Its a memory that Ill remember all my life, and its especially sweet because I was with my daughter, Bullock said. You know, long after Im gone, shes going to remember this time too that the two of us were together, and we were there, we saw it. Both women encourage all people to take risks and travel far if possible. If you get an opportunity to travel or you get the chance to take an opportunity outside of your day-to-day life, do it, Sloan said. Go for it. After all, she said, you never know when history will be made. The global temperature is rising. That is a verifiable scientific fact. There is a majority opinion in the scientific community that human activity is, at the very least, contributing to the temperature increase by releasing copious amounts of heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. There is a minority opinion in the general population that the fastest way to reduce human effects on warming is to make fossil fuels and fossil fuel-powered devices nonexistent. That minority is unfortunately currently in control of governments (acting on advice from climate scientists) in the U.S., Europe, Australia and other developed countries. They have enacted legislation and imposed regulations that limit and in some cases completely stop fossil fuel production and development. Such climate efforts reduce economic growth and increase poverty in all countries, most significantly in developing ones. These facts beg the question: Are the current climate mitigation efforts being made to save the planet or to save lives? The stated goal of the Paris Climate Accord is to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Scientifically speaking, the fastest way to do this is to stop using fossil fuels and stop human activity that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. That will achieve the stated goal, but, if done at the current and planned rates, at what human cost? Rapidly reducing all fossil fuel production and use will cause more global poverty and deaths. If, however, the stated goal were to include reducing human death and misery, mitigation efforts would be dramatically different. To clarify, another indisputable, verifiable fact is the number of deaths from natural climate disasters has dramatically declined in the last 100 years (Lomborg, False Alarm, page 74). This decline is happening even though our population is increasing. The reason for this is economic and wealth development world-wide. Better standard of living (resources) and better forecasting results in fewer deaths from severe weather if those impacted have adequate resources to either withstand or flee from severe weather events. There are also a significant number of deaths in developing countries from the lack of affordable fossil fuel due to burning wood and dung for heat and cooking. Making fuels such as coal, oil and gas abundant and inexpensive allows more wealth development which gives at-risk inhabitants a better life and better chance to survive weather disasters even though global warming may make such climate events more frequent or violent. Reducing fuel production to the extent prices soar thwarts economic growth. Thus, poor countries are now at higher risk while rich ones continue to fight temperature rise largely in vain. Regardless of what developed countries do, there will be little effort by developing countries to do the same because their priority is often just survival. And the population in those countries living in vulnerable areas far exceed those in developed ones. Higher energy prices drive down their standard of living and ability to survive climate disasters. We need to provide the most affordable energy for them to prosper. We can deal with slow climate change by focusing more on adaptation instead of just mitigation. Yes, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We just dont need to destroy economies and lives doing it. We have not made this decision flippantly. The Herald & Review is suspending endorsements in political races. We want to quickly add that this decision is only for the Nov. 8 election. Newspapers and their audience have both changed. We have readers who have never turned on a computer, and we have readers who have never seen or touched our print edition. Some even eschew the e-edition, preferring to plumb the depths of our website. While those are all wildly divergent ways of consuming news, they are all ways we provide to offer our content. Those options, especially the online ones, require fine lines to be drawn. Few news sources have been able to finesse their way around that line. Advertising and content are two different things. That was easy to understand with a print edition that every day could make the difference clear -- this is a story, this is an advertisement. The transition to online has been a challenge for both us and our readers. Traditional news media haven't been the only providers to stake a spot online. Fringe interests have found followers as the platform allows them to stand side by side with sources as large as the New York Times. Many of those sources approach stories from a political and partisan angle. The approach can be liberal or conservative, gender-based or color-based. They don't even pretend to attempt a neutral base for stories. Right or wrong, that approach has begun to define all media. When your audience immediately assumes all of your work is tainted with prejudice of the political bent, or any other prejudice, an entity is immediately in trouble. Alden Global Capital, the second-largest owner of newspapers in the United States, has decided against endorsements from its 200 papers. Unfortunately, as the public discourse has become increasingly acrimonious, common ground has become a no mans land between the clashing forces of the culture wars, a company editorial explaining the change read. Editorial pages are intended to be separate from the news content of the newspaper. Increasingly, however, readers are growing to view the two as locked in footsteps. If a newspaper endorses a candidate, it is seen by some readers as a servant to the candidate, toeing a line to their agenda. Of course, we regularly critical of candidates we've endorsed, and will certainly do so if and when we return to endorsements. We're accustomed to the idea that politically, readers are divided in a way that can't help be divisive. If we operate from a basic assumption that 40% of our readers are solid on one side and 40% are solid on the other, we would be trying to reach that remaining 20%. Given the cultural climate, at least 40% of our readers would see a slant in our position and spread it to the rest of our content. Alden Global Capital newspapers the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and Denver Post will proceed with endorsements this season because of how far along in the process they are and because they are viewed as state newspapers of record, and theyll end the practice after this election cycle. Newspaper giant Gannett -- which announced its own new position cuts this week -- has also scaled back political endorsements. Gannett owns the Springfield and Peoria newspapers. We're joining them, at least this year. We're re-evaluating what we want to do with our editorial pages as well as what you want us to do with them. The opinion pages won't go away. They serve a purpose and provide diverse points of view, most easily seen in the dozens of letters to the editor we print monthly. We'll visit the topic again early next year and evaluate whether this moratorium was a good or weak decision. And as always, we invite your feedback on our decisions. As a primary care physician, one of the few silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic Ive noticed over the last couple of years was milder than usual influenza seasons. The benefits of people wearing masks, social distancing and staying home resulted in my seeing fewer cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the flu among my patients. Now that people are out and about, there are more opportunities for the virus to circulate and experts are expecting a much more active flu season this year. The doctors of Illinois are urging you to get your flu shot this month. According to the CDC, its important to get vaccinated by the end of October to ensure that youll have the protection you need when flu season peaks from December to February. Its especially important for adults 65 and older to get the higher dose flu vaccine that offers greater protection against the illness. And be sure to be up to date on your COVID-19 boosters, too. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to contracting both the flu and COVID and experience more serious illnesses. You can get the flu shot in one arm and the COVID booster in the other! Skipping either of these puts you and your loved ones at greater risk of hospitalization and death. Our best defense against these airborne viruses is the available vaccines. Get your shots. Rodney S. Alford, MD, MBA President-Elect Illinois State Medical Society When my wife and I opened Cypress Grove Brewing in 2019, we did so with two goals. We wanted to help foster a sense of community in Assumption, our farming town of just over 1,000 residents, which had seen little meaningful investment in past decades. We also wanted to find a combination of fun and rewarding work in our retirement years. In the years since opening our brewery and taproom on the site of our cattle farm, weve learned several important lessons spanning technology to marketing and operations. We want to share those with our fellow small business owners in hopes we can grow our Assumption community together. 1. Think local. From local food trucks to local vendors and local music, promoting area small businesses helps us attract new customers and foster a sense of community pride in our business. When we cant partner with local businesses, we ask them for recommendations. 2. Get smart on tech. Were in our 60s, so were not the most tech savvy couple on the planet. But when we started the brewery, we knew we needed to advertise. We learned how to use Facebook ads to reach our surrounding community in a direct and cost-efficient way. Facebook is the primary platform we use to advertise our business. 3. Stay authentic. We dont try to be something were not. Were cattle farmers who want to have fun in retirement, and weve tailored our operations to meet those goals. Were open one or two days a week, and we run our business like a family reunion, with lawn chairs and board games and great conversation. Theres nothing better than someone coming to the brewery as a customer and leaving as a friend. Together, lets support our small businesses, spur investment, and grow our community in Assumption. Phil Corzine, Assumption New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Mostly clear. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable. A tile mural at the Las Vegas Healing Garden is shown. The garden is a tribute to the 58 lives lost during a shooting massacre at a Las Vegas concert in October of 2017. A similar mural is being donated to Uvalde to honor the victims of the Robb Elementary shootings this May. New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High around 70F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low 44F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. By Trend I don't see any problems in connection with the functioning of the Zangazur corridor, President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters upon his return from Kazakhstan, Trend reports. "We met with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashniyan in Prague in a narrow format. After that, we held a meeting with the participation of delegations and discussed these issues. I don't see any problems in connection with the functioning of the Zangazur corridor," he said BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. The Sullivan County, Tennessee, County Commission met at the Sullivan County Courthouse Thursday night for a work session, where Commissioner Sam Jones presented a resolution that would designate parcels of land around State Route 394 as a Tax Increment Financing District for businesses to develop. This is something weve been working on for about probably four years to get to this point, and theres a lot of firsts involved in this. Its the only intersection on the interstate thats never been annexed. Its the first time that weve ever had a development district created in the county by the county outside of the cities, Jones said. This can be a huge economic development engine for this intersection right out here. The Industrial Development Board and Networks have already met, reviewed, and approved the parcels of land being proposed as qualifying to be a TIF-designated district. Jones highlighted that the infrastructure needed for the TIF district on Highway 394 to thrive is already set up with Bristols city sewer and water lines passing underneath the interstate. We have city sewer from Bristol underneath the interstate onto the other side. We have a six-inch water line that runs down 394. So, there are a lot of things that are already in place infrastructurally to support development out there, Jones said. Commissioner Zane Vanover expressed his support for the idea but asked for more time to look over the details. I think its a great idea. But since its the first time our county has done a TIF zone in preparation to do a TIF, Vanover said. Im all for new ideas and new directions, but I want to make sure weve done our homework. BETHLEHEM Boy Scout Troop 275 sponsored by Mt. Pisgah Lutheran Church and the Bethlehem Ruritan Club recently held courts of honor in recognition of scouts receiving the Eagle Scout Award. Troop 275 has the distinction of having eight scouts in the last two years receive the Eagle Scout Award from a troop averaging 20-25 scouts during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only about 4 percent of all boy scouts attain the Eagle rank according to Piedmont Council Executive Board member Warren Hollar. Hollar praised the scout leaders including Scoutmaster Robert Duncan, Brian Heath, Fred Roupe, and others who have provided exceptional leadership during difficult times. The three most recent Eagle Scouts are Mason James, Wesley Cline and Garrett Jolly. Wesley and Garrett were recognized at a court of honor ceremony at Point Park. Mason received his award at an earlier court of honor. Each Eagle candidate must earn 21 merit badges and successfully complete a community or church-related service project to earn his Eagle. Nationally, Eagle scouts and the volunteers they led completed more than 8 million hours of work for service projects in a recent year. Mason James is a student at Alexander Early College He is the son of Chip and Lynn James. He began is scouting experience as a cub scout in Pack 275 during the leadership of Cubmaster Chip James. For his Eagle Scout project, he partnered with the Alexander County library to create a book trail at Rocky Face Recreational Area. Mason completed 23 merit badges. Some favorite merit badges included wilderness survival, shotgun shooting, kayaking, fishing, and lifesaving. He regularly attended summer camp, completed the Ordeal for Order of the Arrow membership, the Arrow of Light, and served in various leadership roles in Troop 275 including Senior Patrol Leader. Wesley Cline, son of Kevin and Teresa Cline, is a student at Alexander Central High School. He began his scouting career with Cub Scout Pack 275 under the direction of Cubmaster Chip James. His Eagle project was completed at the Alexander County Senior Citizens facility. He led a group of Troop 275 scouts to construct a library box and two benches for senior citizens. Wesley completed 27 merit badges, received the Arrow of Light Award, completed the Ordeal for membership in the Order of the Arrow, attended Camp Bud Schiele for summer camps, and served as senior Patrol Leader. Garrett Jolly is a student at Alexander Central High School and the son of Adam and Kristen Jolly. He began his scouting experience at Pack 275 with Cubmaster Chip James. Garretts Eagle project helped address the issue of hunger in the community. He constructed outdoor food boxes for two different churches. Garrett completed 25 merit badges, served as the Troop Guide, received the Arrow of Light Award, completed Ordeal to become an Order of the Arrow member, attended numerous camps at the council scout reservation, and worked with troop community service including food collection and the Bethlehem Star Lighting. Garrett, a third-generation scout, is also musically talented as shown by his winning the high school talent show. HICKORY The Catawba Valley Community College Small Business Center will host a seminar, The Top 5 Things to Know About Using Social Media to Grow Your Business," on Wednesday, Oct. 19, from 6-7 p.m. This is an in-person event and not available online. The event will be held at The Hickory Hub, located at 375 Main Ave. NE in Hickory. This program is part of the CVCC Small Business Centers Digital Happy Hour series. Participants are encouraged to arrive at 5:30 p.m. before the program for networking and socializing. Today's social media provides businesses with an opportunity to engage with current and potential customers. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok and more are all viable ways to market your business. Attend this session and become familiar with what you need to consider as you develop your social media marketing plan for your business. There is no charge to attend this seminar, but pre-registration is required. To register or for more information contact the CVCC Small Business Center at 828-327-7000, ext. 4997 or visit http://sbc.cvcc.edu to register online. The United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 had the potential to transform the Middle East by introducing democracy to a region where it was sorely lacking. Saddam Husseins Baathist regime was quickly toppled from power following the American invasion. On May 1, 2003, President Bush gave a speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in front of a large Mission Accomplished banner. The war, it perhaps seemed, had been a quick and easy victory. With Saddam Hussein out of power, Iraq could transition to stable democratic governance under the guidance of U.S. forces. But it was not to be. In the coming years, the United States would face an insurgency that utilized guerilla warfare tactics. Iraq descended into civil war. Rather than emerging from the war as a stable democracy, Iraq was beset by violence, corruption, and institutional failure. The insurgency developed in part due to several fateful decisions made by occupying U.S. forces. Too few U.S. troops were committed to stabilize Iraq (despite warnings from Army General Eric Shinseki and others that more would be needed) while a policy of de-Baathification (in which members of the Baathist Party were removed from their jobs) and the disbanding of the Iraqi military resulted in a large contingency of well-trained, armed, and unemployed young men ready to rebel. But along with such decisions, Iraq possessed a number of underlying conditions that made civil war a likely outcome. That Iraq descended into conflict came as no surprise to political scientist Barbara Walter, author of the recently published book, How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, who has spent more than three decades studying civil wars. Iraq, a factionalized society in a grey zone between democracy and authoritarianism after the invasion, was ripe for conflict. That much seems apparent. What may be surprising, though, is that Walter has found that conditions that have contributed to the outbreak of civil wars in Iraq and elsewhere are present in the United States today. Is civil war looming? One of the strongest findings concerning the outbreak of civil war is that domestic conflict is most likely when a state falls into the anocracy zone of governance in which a regime is neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian. Political disagreements can be managed peacefully in democracies through deliberation and compromise, and ultimately settled through the ballot box. Authoritarian states can maintain order through the ruthless suppression of dissent. Anocracies lack effective representative institutions to manage disagreements while also often lacking a means through which to quell opposition or manage political conflict. Those dissatisfied with the status quo might seek to seize the moment. Shifts in power create winners and losers. Those who stand to be on the losing end of regime change might be tempted to take action to protect their interests, fearing that they otherwise might be left as a vulnerable minority. And ethnic entrepreneurs may emerge in the chaos of transitions who play off of citizens fears and exaggerate the threat posed by an other in order to rally support and gain power. The Polity Project, directed by political scientist Dr. Monty Marshall, measures state regime type with a variable that ranges from fully autocratic to fully democratic on a scale from -10 to 10, with scores of -10 to -6 indicating a state is autocratic, 6 to 10 indicating a state is democratic, and -5 to 5 indicating a state is anocratic. In 2020, for the first time in over 200 years, the United States polity regime score fell to 5, indicating that the U.S. had entered the perilous anocratic zone. A second factor strongly associated with civil conflict is factionalization. A sign of factionalization is when political parties become centered on ethnic, religious, or racial identity rather than ideology. Differences in identity can be (or may at least seem to be) more rigid and absolute than ideological differences. Ethnic entrepreneurs who effectively mobilize through social media can exacerbate factionalism. To gauge a states level of factionalism, the Political Instability Task Force, a government-supported academic research group, developed a scale that ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 indicating a fully competitive political system and 1 indicating a fully repressed, or factionalized system. In 2016 and the years since, the United States has been rated at a 3 on the scale, the same level of factionalization as in Iraq. Research has shown that anocracy and factionalization are the best predictors of civil war. Yet, as Walter points out, there are many factionalized groups living in anocracies who do not rebel. What, then, sparks conflict? Downgrading in which a group loses its previously held status or feels its power slipping away can be the impetus. Psychological experiments have shown that humans tend to be loss averse more sensitive to losses than gains, and more willing to take risks to regain loses than to gain unrealized benefits. Downgrading can be particularly dangerous when it occurs among so-called sons of the soil, those who believe based on majority status or historical claims to have special rights or privileges. Not only may comparative evaluations of the present to the past be important but also prognostications. Downgraded groups may not be compelled to rebel if there is hope for the future. But if hope seems to be slipping away, a downgraded group might come to believe that there is no other option than to take action before the ability to regain status is closed off. Or if the perceived ability to regain status through peaceful means seems to have already been closed off, a downgraded group may feel as though taking violent action is the only tactic left available to try to alter the status quo. The United States is projected to have a minority-majority population by 2045. A part of the shrinking white majority, Americas own sons of the soil as Walter puts it, may become increasingly disgruntled as the groups status compared to what it once was seems to fade. And given that such a demographic change is unlikely to be reversed, there may not be much hope (among those who view the emergence of a minority-majority as a threat) that conditions will improve in the future. Social media can accelerate the drift into conflict by providing a platform for those who exploit citizens fears and a means through which extremist groups can organize. The algorithms employed by tech companies to increase engagement tend to direct users towards inflammatory content, further fueling polarization, animosity, and a sense of crisis. The United States differs in many regards from Iraq. And there are several factors that make civil war in the United States unlikely (which I will examine/evaluate next week). The evidence and direction we seem to be heading in is nonetheless disconcerting. Lets see to it that we work to reverse the trend before we end up at a point from which there is no return. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper visited Concord High School on Thursday to celebrate Jump Start Jobs Week a community-wide event to connect local employers with high school students in the Jobs for North Carolinas Graduates program. Cooper visited 11th- and 12th-grade students in the classroom at CHS to discuss the role Communities in Schools North Carolina is having on their future career choices. He first spoke with students about his own career path. Students then engaged in discussing their own career aspirations. Last week, CISNC was awarded the 5-of-5 JAG Award, which recognizes the highest-achieving states that exceed all five of the Jobs for Americas Graduates national performance metrics aimed at graduation and employment. Performance metrics include employment rate, full-time employment, total full-time positive outcomes and further education rate. Cooper spoke afterward to the media and was joined by Concord Principal Dr. Adam Auerbach, Cabarrus County Schools Superintendent Dr. John Kopicki and Jill Cox, president and CEO of Communities in Schools North Carolina. COMPANY NEWS: Silver Spring Pathfinder, a social enterprise in Singapore, has used Avaya technology to make significant progress in its mission of creating meaningful and rewarding employment for disadvantaged Singaporeans. A business process outsourcing (BPO) partner of choice to public- and private-sector organisations, Silver Spring Pathfinder (SSP) works closely with a community of social service agencies to employ people living with disability as customer service agents. Using Avaya OneCloudTM CCaaS, SSP can ensure a seamless and positive agent experience for its employees by easily customising the solutions interfaces to the unique needs of its workforce. As a result, these agents can deliver outstanding customer experiences, whether they are working from SSPs offices, or from their homes. By our very nature as a social enterprise, were more in tune than most when it comes to being mindful of our employees needs. By the same token, for the business to be successful, we need to deliver on our customers demands. Avaya OneCloud CCaaS helps us to address both of those points, said Silver Spring Pathfinder founder and managing director Tom Cheong. With Avaya, weve got an enterprise-grade solution that powers our interaction network and delivers the highest levels of quality control and CSA performance. Were able to reliably extend advanced interaction capabilities to our customers, while at the same time, develop customised interfaces for our agents with special needs so that theyre able to do their jobs effectively. The solution is already helping SSP deliver meaningful results for its clients. As an example, SSP was engaged by a long-standing client to manage print and digital media subscription sales for key customers in the education and residential segments. Using Avaya OneCloud CCaaS and various integrative technologies, SSPs agents were able to re-compile a database from various sources and manage recurring telemarketing campaigns, as well as handle renewal enquiries on behalf of its client. This is a good example of how, with Avaya OneCloud CCaaS, were able to integrate a large number of capabilities through a single interaction platform, making it easier for us to deliver on our clients priorities. Thats not only good news for our clients, but hugely empowering for our employees, said Cheong. We have a great deal of admiration for SSP, and were incredibly proud to see our technology being used to advance the companys mission. The way that SSP has taken a flexible platform and customised it to suit the unique needs of its workers, is not only inspiring from a technological point of view, but also from a humanitarian one. We look forward to supporting SSP for many years to come, said Avaya International president Nidal Abou-Ltaif. SSPs founding mission is to create meaningful employment for the disadvantaged in Singapore using technology as an enabler. With its roll-out of Avaya OneCloud CCaaS, SSP is delivering on that mission, and were proud to be supporting the organisation as it helps people with disabilities to gain vital work experience, added Unicorn Cloud Services (Avaya business partner that implemented the solution for SSP) co-founder and CEO Meng Teck Tan. The solution being employed by SSP will be demonstrated on Avayas stand at Gitex Global. Avayas presence at Gitex Global comes in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Uniphore, Verint Systems, GS Lab, Imperium, Konnect Insights, LumenVox, Nectar, Sestek and Topaz. Visit Avaya at its stand in Zabeel Hall, at Dubai World Trade Centre until today, 14 October. About Silver Spring Pathfinder Silver Spring Pathfinder (SSP) was originally set up as a social enterprise in 2018 with startup grant funding from SG Enable/Tote Board under its Enabling Lives Initiative (ELI) programme. The founding mission was to create meaningful employment for the disadvantaged in Singapore using technology as an enabler. Target beneficiaries include persons with disabilities (PWDs) and their caregivers and as a result, SSPs initial focus was on developing home-based job opportunities for mobility-challenged PWDs so that they may return to the workforce as IT-supported customer service workers operating from the safety and convenience of their homes. SSP is a current member of raiSE, the national association of social enterprises which is itself part of the Ministry for Social and Family Development (MSF). SSP is also a Gold certified corporate member in SG Enables 2022/23 Enabling Mark accreditation scheme for diversity-inclusive employers in Singapore. For more information, please refer to here. About Avaya Businesses are built by the experiences they provide, and everyday millions of those experiences are delivered by Avaya. Avaya is shaping what's next for the future of work, with innovation and partnerships that deliver game-changing business benefits. Our cloud communications solutions and multi-cloud application ecosystem power personalised, intelligent, and effortless customer and employee experiences to help achieve strategic ambitions and desired outcomes. Together, we are committed to help grow your business by delivering Experiences that Matter. Learn more here. MATTOON The Cross County Mall was filled Thursday with business representatives and community members chatting across exhibitor booths and lunch tables. That crowd was drawn by the annual Chamber Business Expo and its Taste of the Expo dining event resuming after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. Mattoon Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ed Dowd said the Expo offers a unique opportunity for business professionals to take time out during their busy week to visit with each other and potential customers in person. "The Expo has been a great opportunity for them finally to connect," Dowd said, adding he was pleased with the mix of returning and new exhibitors at the at the mall, owned by Rural King of Mattoon. More than 90 exhibitor booths were arranged throughout the mall's main concourse and its new north entry corridor, where U.S. Army Woodworks owner Alex Houser of Mattoon used a pop-up vendors space next to the Elevate CCIC, Inc. entrepreneur center. Houser, an engineering student at Lake Land College, said he began his business after completing an University of Notre Dames Innovation Lab internship through sponsorship from McHugh's. Houser said having Army veterans as mentors inspired him to create laser engraved three dimensional Army insignias and personalized messages on carving boards, coasters, ornaments, wall decorations and other wooden items. He said he plans to add the other military service branches to his selection and he appreciates being able to promote his business at the Expo. "The Expo feels like a really great way to help get my name out there. It's a really great opportunity, especially after launching my business a month ago," Houser said, adding he does not have a storefront and he does much of his business via usarmywoodworks.com. The exhibitor roster included approximately a dozen food and drink vendors at the Taste of the Expo in the former Carson's storefront, which is now known as the Rural King Event Center and has newly expanded and renovated restroom facilities. This year's Taste roster missed Lee's Famous Recipe, which had provided ice tea and lemonade for many years there. The Mattoon Lee's has been closed since a Sept. 23 fire there but is planning to eventually reopen. New Taste exhibitors included J.D.'s SmokeShack and Country Bake Shop, which served nachos topped with pulled pork and cheese sauce. Co-owner Jeff Decker said he felt like he got a good response from customers at his first Taste event, including inquiries about catering services. His wife, Kim, said they were also pleased to see familiar faces from their booth at the Celebrate Downtown Midweek Market. Aikman Wildlife Adventure was among the new exhibitors in the concourse, where the Arcola-based wildlife sanctuary displayed an albino corn snake, a bearded dragon lizard, a tortoise and a tiny sugar glider possum. "It's been fun to watch people," said Aikman marketing and event coordinator Jessica King, adding that Expo visitors kept their distance from the corn snake. King said the Expo helped introduce the sanctuary to community members who have not been there yet. "The Expo has been great exposure." Subway says its most extensive menu makeover in the company's nearly 60-year history is paying off. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 8.4% in the third quarter, the privately held company announced Wednesday. For the past 18 months, Subway said it had "record-setting sales" across its roughly 20,000 US locations, bolstered by a number of changes that include new sandwiches, soups and store remodels. Subway attributed its recent success to its new "Subway Series" menu, which was streamlined to help speed up service, and an increase in digital orders. "The results from the Subway Series launch and the positive reaction from guests and franchisees demonstrates that our transformation strategy is working," said Trevor Haynes, president of Subway North America, in the release. The Subway Series is a more neatly organized menu, divided into four categories (Cheesesteaks, Italianos, Chicken and Clubs) and consisting of three sandwiches each. All 12 sandwiches are new to the menu, with some essentially replacing previous versions with new names and slight tweaks. It was the biggest change Subway rolled out since its July 2021 refresh, which focused on upgraded ingredients and upgraded app. In another positive benchmark for the struggling chain, Subway said September sales grew nearly 11% compared to the same month a year earlier. It's a stark turnaround for the chain, which has been dealing with declining sales and store count as people gravitate toward its rivals. Sales at Subway's US locations have been falling in recent years, according to the research firm Technomic. System-wide sales at Subway's US locations were $12.3 billion in 2013, which was its best year of the past 15 years. in 2021, sales slumped to $9.4 billion, according to Technomic's analysis. The number of locations has declined for the fifth year in a row to 20,746 per Subway's website. Subway didn't provide dollar amounts for its 2022 sales Wednesday. Franchises have long been vocal with the chain about making changes to its staid menu and store's appearances. In one flashpoint last year, some Subway franchise operators have complained publicly about the company's treatment of them. Notably, Wednesday's press release features a quote from Donna Curry, a Subway franchisee that owns about 65 locations. "We are hearing from guests that they like the flexibility of ordering by name and number and are enjoying the new Subway Series sandwiches, which is reflected in the increased traffic and sales across my restaurants," she said. Soups were the latest focus of Subway's multi-year transformation plan. Last month, it rolled out three refreshed soups: broccoli cheddar, chicken noodle and loaded baked potato. SPRINGFIELD Two seats on the Illinois Supreme Court are up for vote on Nov. 8, and the outcomes of those races could flip the states high court from a Democratic majority to a Republican one for the first time in more than 50 years. In the 2nd District, longtime Judge Elizabeth Liz Rochford, a Democrat, is facing former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, a recent Republican U.S. Senate candidate who has never served as a judge. Theyre vying for a 10-year term on the Supreme Court in a seat which includes DeKalb, Kane, Kendall, Lake and McHenry counties. Its one of the states seven Supreme Court seats. Three of them are from District 1, which is Cook County, while four other geographic districts across the rest of Illinois each have one seat. Its a race thats become more visible on the airwaves in recent days, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker chipping $500,000 into the Rochford campaign war chest. Her backers have aired ads that highlight Currans long history of antiabortion rhetoric. Rochford, meanwhile, has support from abortion rights advocacy groups and her campaign website bills her as a champion of womens rights. In recent podcast interviews with Capitol News Illinois, Rochford cited her experience and record as evidence that shell approach the job with impartiality, while Curran asserted independence from party and claimed past controversial comments wont have any bearing on how he approaches his work on the bench. Those interviews can be found here and on most podcast apps. Rochford has served as a 19th Judicial Circuit judge since her appointment to the bench in 2012. Prior to that, she served more than 22 years as a commissioner on the Illinois Court of Claims, three years as an assistant states attorney in Cook County and 13 years in private practice. The Illinois State Bar Association and DuPage County Bar Association rated her highly recommended, while the Lake County Bar rated her highly qualified. That process is a very intense process, Rochford said of the ratings interviews. It's very exhaustive, and it's done by a panel of attorneys and retired judges who have worked across a vast scope of areas of practice, [and] are from different political backgrounds. She said the panel assesses integrity, impartiality, legal ability, temperament, court management, character and experience in and around the courthouse. So I am very proud to have earned those highest recommendations because I think it speaks very well to the broad scope of my experience over 35 years in law, she said. She also touted experience she believes will aid her in improving the administrative duties of the court, including setting up local programs in Lake County such as a guardianship help desk and creating a courtroom committed to serving self-represented litigants in family law. Curran is less than two years removed from his nomination as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate having unsuccessfully challenged longtime incumbent Democrat Dick Durbin and gained a reputation for not shying away from controversy. He has also practiced law for more than three decades, starting in the Cook County states attorneys office in 1988, then becoming an assistant Lake County states attorney two years later. He served as chief of the Gang Crimes Bureau at the Illinois Attorney Generals Office and in 2006 was elected Lake County sheriff as a Democrat before switching to a Republican in 2008. He was re-elected in 2010 and 2014. He went back into private practice after losing in Lake County in 2018. He was rated not recommended by the State Bar Association, and he did not participate in interviews with the county associations, resulting in not qualified or not recommended assessments. He said those ratings and the fact that he isnt a judge dont matter, emphasizing his experience as a private practice attorney and independent streak as a county sheriff. I've tried more juries than 99% of Illinois lawyers, he said when asked about the ratings. You know, I think that the people who have seen me will tell you that I'm a super talented lawyer. Curran said 70% of trial lawyer donations go to Democrats and suggested the ISBA favors that party. But in the 3rd District race for Supreme Court between incumbent Republican Justice Michael Burke and his Democratic challenger Mary Kay OBrien, the ISBA gave the Republican higher ratings across the board. Curran said in an interview with CNI his judicial philosophy is a belief in natural law, citing the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Jefferson and Socrates. In a separate interview in July on the Public Affairs show hosted by Jeff Berkowitz and published on the Illinois Channel YouTube page in July, he said he believed theres no question theres a deep state, and it was aligned against him in the GOP primary. In his interview with CNI, he said he didnt recall the post-primary interview and didnt directly define deep state or answer as to whether he believes in one, but he said he believes most Republicans are now on board with his candidacy. While running for Senate in 2020, Curran apologized for a comment he made that the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis was not much of a civil rights leader because he didnt speak out against abortion in the Black community. He said while he describes himself as Catholic and pro-life, his past claims wont have any bearing on how he rules on a laws constitutionality. Our job is not to legislate from the bench, he said. The Illinois General Assembly passed a statute, you know, allowing abortion, you know, very, very, very late, more so than any other state in the nation. And it's the job of the General Assembly to pass laws. It's not the job of the court. I have no authority to write laws and I don't see any reason to believe that these laws are going to get overturned. And while Currans Facebook page circulated claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election in a Jan. 3, 2021, post, he said other people had access to that page and he hasnt posted about the election. I've said Joe Biden won, and I absolutely believe that, he said. Curran said in previous campaigns he was kind of a bowling ball in a China shop. But as a judge, he said, his job will be to call balls and strikes, adding, theres a lot of laws that are on the books that I personally disagree with, but they're completely constitutional. As proof of his independence, he said he stood up to the brass in Lake County on the subject of wrongful convictions, calling for the firing or resignation of the head of the countys criminal division and making political enemies in the effort. Curran asserted that Pritzkers donation to Rochford was an attempt to ensure a rubber stamp on the court, and he faulted Rochford for previously donating to now-indicted Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, the husband of Supreme Court Chief Justice Anne M. Burke. We need balance in the state. And the only way we're going to really, truly get balance is by flipping that court from 4-3 Democratic court to 4-3 Republican, Curran said. Rochford said donations and endorsements play no role in how she rules. Her judicial experience, she said, has helped her strengthen the brick wall between her judicial duties and role as a candidate. I will tell you that after 10 years on the bench, when you put the black robe on all of your personal opinions, and you know, predispositions, are at the door, and you really are addressing the facts as they are before you, and applying the rule of law, she said. Curran and Rochford each cited the judicial canons of ethics, which are included in the Illinois Supreme Court code of conduct that prohibits a candidate from stating how they would rule on any given topic. We cannot speak on behalf of a political party. We cannot in any way appear to commit to outcomes on cases, Rochford said. So matters that could potentially come before the Supreme Court, I can't tell you how I might rule on them or tell you my opinion on them. Because that would be a demonstration of a potential bias. Curran was more willing to state his views on certain topics. That included a controversial decision handed down by the courts Democratic majority that blocked a constitutional amendment from appearing on the 2016 ballot. The amendment would have put the job of legislative redistricting in the hands of a nonpartisan commission rather than the General Assembly if it was approved by voters. In a 4-3 decision, the Democratic majority ruled the ballot proposal went beyond the narrow scope outlined in the state constitution that governs citizen initiatives. Why should the citizenry of Illinois go out there and get signatures for a referendum for a fair map and get it on the ballot all the work that goes to having fair maps where we're not gerrymandering the heck out of these districts solely to maintain power only to have the Supreme Court shoot it down? Curran said. I mean, I'm not promising how I'm going to rule on any decision. But I think that, you know, for people that see that, it shows that you shouldnt have a lot of confidence in the way the Supreme Court has been going. Opponents of that decision used it as the main attack against former Justice Thomas Kilbride, a Democrat, in their attempt to oust him from a 3rd District seat on the bench in 2020. Kilbride became the first sitting justice to lose a retention race, garnering 56.5% of the vote in favor of retention while needing 60%. Rochford declined to comment on the implications of that vote. There are a lot of people who are engaged in very extreme political views, she said. But that's not where I live, you know, I live in the work of the courts. That's what I do best. And really, political commentary is not my forte. Curran spoke more directly to the role of partisanship on the high court, stating that while he wouldnt rule in a partisan manner, hed rule in a manner that is a balance to the governor. Let's say Darren Bailey wins he is behind in the polls and everything but, you know, I hope Darren Bailey wins, Curran said when asked whats at stake in the Supreme Court election. Even if he wins, chances are he's going to be totally ineffective in many regards, because of the fact that the General Assembly has enough votes to override any veto by the governor. So the state will continue to be run by one party, that party being the Democrats. And there's no check and balance or anything in the state. When Rochford was asked whats at stake, she pointed to the fact that open Supreme Court races dont come up very often and elected justices serve 10-year terms I think it's essential that the Supreme Court justice has proper credentials and experience to sit on the court, she said. By Trend Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov has signed a decree in connection with the assignment of international status to Azerbaijans Zangilan Airport, Trend reports on October 14 via the Cabinet of Ministers. Zangilan Airport, meeting the international flight standards, has been granted an international status, following proposals of the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) CJSC. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan was tasked with submitting the corresponding information to the relevant international organizations. The decree comes into force from the date of its signing. A nurse who is fighting allegations that she played a role in the 2019 death of John Neville won approval to inspect certain areas of the Fors FRIDAY, Oct. 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Inflammatory breast cancer is rare and has some unusual warning signs that many women dont realize can signal the disease. Experts at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center shared those symptoms, raising awareness about this aggressive and deadly type of breast cancer. Symptoms are similar to those of a breast infection. They include an orange peel-like texture or dimpling of skin, a feeling of heaviness, tightening of the skin, engorgement of the breast and infection-like redness. Women should know that radical changes to the breast are not normal, and breast self-exams are still very important. Some 50% of inflammatory breast cancers are diagnosed as stage 4 disease, said Dr. Ko Un Park, a surgical oncologist who leads a new Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program at the center. It is important for women to recognize changes in both the appearance and feel of their breasts so that changes can be discussed quickly with a physician. Inflammatory breast cancer can occur in any part of the breast. It can even be confusing for doctors who typically dont think of a red breast as signaling cancer. Although inflammatory breast cancer only represents 1% to 5% of all breast cancers in the United States, it is a sneaky disease and challenging to diagnose," Park said in a cancer center news release. "It is critical that clinicians have a high level of familiarity with its subtle signs and be prepared to take immediate action to avoid belated diagnosis. Park and breast radiologist Dr. Amy Kerger are helping lead a team that will triage and rapidly respond to potential inflammatory breast cancer cases. The team is also working with primary care doctors and obstetricians/gynecologists to bring more awareness to this particular form of breast cancer. Our goal is to push these patients to the front of the line, rapidly mobilizing a treatment plan so that therapy can begin as soon as possible, Park said. Ohio State also surveyed 1,100 U.S. women ages 18 and up to find out what women know about cancer. While 78% of respondents recognized a lump as a sign of breast cancer, only about 44% thought of redness as a symptom, the same percentage who would flag pitting or thickening of the skin as a warning sign. About 34% were aware that one breast feeling warmer or heavier than the other could be a sign. The survey was conducted online Sept. 22 to 26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. More information The American Cancer Society has more on inflammatory breast cancer. SOURCE: Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, news release, Oct. 12, 2022 An inmate who went missing from the Community Corrections CenterLincoln just over three months ago is back in custody. The Lancaster County Sheriffs office arrested Seth Straub on Thursday, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said in a news release. Straub disappeared on July 1. He failed to return to the prison from his job in the community. Straubs sentence started on April 6, 2021. He had been serving a three- to five-year sentence on a theft charge out of Hitchcock County, the department said. Straub, who began his sentence in April 2021, had a tentative release date of July 19, 2023. Inmates at community custody facilities in Nebraska are allowed to participate in work opportunities and to attend school and religious services without supervision. Its acknowledged that a high percentage of the offenders who come into Nebraskas prison system are dogged by mental health and behavioral health problems. Yet of 18 staff psychologist positions within the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, only six are currently filled. And all three clinical psychiatrist positions are also open. I think were at a tipping point right now, one prison employee said in a recent opinion survey. If we lost one more psychologist, things would really start to go downhill. State senators said during a hearing Thursday that such behavioral health staffing shortfalls must be addressed if inmates are to be rehabilitated and the public protected. The lawmakers and others also offered a common refrain for how to close those gaps: offer more pay. We know the formula it is raising pay, said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, chairman of the Legislatures Judiciary Committee. The goal is rehabilitation, not storing people. State corrections officials acknowledged the staffing shortfalls, but said they do take the health needs of inmates seriously. While our health care staff do a remarkable job of managing a multitude of situations around the clock, admittedly, staffing challenges are a concern, said Diane Sabatka-Rine, interim director of the corrections department. She called recruiting people to work within the prison system challenging. But she also said the state is providing robust medical assistance and clinical treatment. The state is using a number of strategies to make sure the health needs of prisoners are met, she said, including contracting with outside providers and utilizing overtime. The hearing came a month after a state watchdog agency cited critical health care staffing shortages within the states prison system. The Office of Inspector General of the Nebraska Correctional System said addressing the shortfalls is critical not only for the welfare of the prisoners, but the safety of correctional staff and the public, too. Now the inspector general has initiated an investigation to determine whether the corrections department is meeting the required standard of care for inmates, said Zach Pluhacek, assistant inspector general. Prisoners are essentially entitled to the same level of care that would be provided to anyone else in the community. Questions of whether the state is meeting that standard were raised last week by an inspector general report on a 40-year-old inmate who died of cervical cancer. She had been in custody for nearly 10 years before she received a Pap smear, a preventative screening that could have revealed her treatable cancer. Sabatka-Rine, a longtime state prison administrator who took over as interim director earlier this month, said the corrections department is actively working to develop an electronic health records system. Such a system which could track needed health screenings was required by the Legislature seven years ago. Pluhacek also suggested it might be time for the state to have the University of Nebraska Medical Center conduct an assessment of the level of care provided within prison facilities. Lathrop agreed and said the Legislature next year should initiate such a review. Sabatka-Rine said the staffing issues are largely rooted in nationwide shortfalls of health care providers. She said the department has initiated targeted recruiting drives, offered hiring bonuses and increased pay in an effort to attract more workers. A new labor contract last year increased pay for workers in some health classifications by 30%. The department also has some discretion to offer higher pay for certified positions like psychiatrists. The inspector general said a survey it distributed earlier this month also found morale issues among health care and behavioral health staff. While most said they liked coming to work and felt safe, fewer than 10% felt strongly that they were supported by the corrections departments central administration. One worker suggested the central office was making clinical decisions without consulting the mental health team. Another issue causing morale problems is the higher pay offered to the outside providers who are coming in to assist with care. One nurse said the staffing agency nurses working beside her were being paid $65 to $75 an hour. The most recent state labor agreement with prison employees offers registered nurses base pay of $25 to $46 an hour. Currently, only half the prison systems registered nursing positions are filled. The executive director of the state employees union said sometimes nurses even leave state employment to take the higher-paying jobs with the staffing agencies. Its a scam, said Justin Hubly of the Nebraska Association of Public Employees. Lets fix it. ... Pay a fair wage and staff the facility. Hubly noted the state has gone a long way toward eliminating shortages of security staff by offering pay increases of up to 40%. Now the same needs to happen in the medical and behavioral health fields. When we increase wages, it works, he said. I have the receipts now. While no one has an accurate figure of what percentage of prisoners have health needs, the states chief justice has said as many as 80% of those in the court system have behavioral health or addiction problems. Those needs must be addressed, said ACLU lobbyist Spike Eickholt. We dont want them coming out worse than they went in, he said. A 14-year-old Waverly boy who is accused of stabbing a classmate at Wayne Park during a scheduled day off from school Thursday morning allegedly carried out the act in pursuit of fame, according to Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner. Both the suspect and the stabbing victim, a 15-year-old Waverly boy, called 911 in the immediate aftermath of the attack, which happened shortly before noon. Wagner called the suspect's 911 call "very unusual" at a media briefing Friday, where he declined to identify the suspect, who was taken into custody at the scene and has since been arrested on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. "Part of his motivation was notoriety, and that's why I'm not gonna say his name," Wagner said. "What he told us is that he was going to be famous. "That's pretty scary." The victim suffered multiple stab wounds including a laceration to his heart that required emergency surgery at Bryan West Campus in Lincoln, Wagner said. The boy's condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, the sheriff said. "We were just very fortunate this wasn't a homicide," he said. Authorities recovered a knife at the scene believed to have been used in the stabbing. Both teens were students at Waverly High School, which was not in session Thursday and Friday for fall break. Wagner said the boys weren't friends or even acquaintances. The suspect had recently moved to Waverly, a community of about 4,000 residents just northeast of Lincoln. Wagner said the teen had moved to Nebraska from Colorado, where he had "some issues" that the sheriff described as criminal. He said investigators are working with Colorado authorities to learn more. The teen had also had run-ins with school resource officers during his short time at Waverly High School, though Wagner said previous incidents in Lancaster County weren't criminal and dealt more with following school rules. Wagner said he wasn't sure whether the teen would be charged as an adult. At 14, he's eligible to be charged as an adult for certain crimes, including Class I and II felonies, which he is accused of. He will be held without bond over the weekend. The sheriff's office will turn the case over to the Lancaster County Attorney's Office. Waverly Superintendent Cory Worrell said the district had no comment on the matter at this time. When crews arrived, they were informed that everybody in the house had gotten out, but a dog was still inside. The dog died of smoke inhalation before it could be rescued. Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana dropped its lawsuit against Secretary of State Bob Evnen on Thursday, ending an effort to have Nebraskas multicounty signature-gathering requirement for initiative petitions deemed unconstitutional. The dismissal, filed by the ACLU of Nebraska on behalf of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, comes after a panel of judges at the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in August reversed a lower courts ruling blocking Evnen from enforcing the requirement. Crista Eggers, statewide campaign coordinator for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, sued Evnen in federal court in May, arguing the requirement that petitions obtain the signatures of 5% of voters in 38 of the states 93 counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Under the requirement, put in place more than a century ago, a single voter who signed a petition in Arthur County had the same voting power as 1,000 residents of Douglas County who signed the same petition, Eggers lawsuit argued. U.S. District Court Judge John Gerard sided with Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana in June, writing the requirement was unconstitutional and granting a temporary injunction that prevented Evnen from enforcing it. A majority of a three-judge panel from the 8th Circuit Court reversed Gerrards ruling shortly before the July 7 deadline for submitting petitions. With the multicounty requirement back in place, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana failed to qualify a pair of petitions for the ballot, with both falling roughly 9,000 signatures short of the 86,766 needed to appear on the November general election ballot. The first petition, which would have required the Legislature to enact laws protecting doctors who recommend and patients who use cannabis for medical reasons, included 77,843 valid signatures and qualified in just 26 counties. The second, which called on lawmakers to pass legislation to legalize the production, supply and distribution of cannabis for medical use, had 77,119 valid signatures and qualified in 27 counties, according to the secretary of state. In rejecting an appeal from Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, two of the three judges on the 8th Circuit Court panel said the right to petition was created under state law and not the U.S. Constitution, finding that the groups rights had not been violated. Earlier this month, the 8th Circuit also rejected a request for the entire court to rehear Nebraskans for Medical Marijuanas appeal. Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart and Sen. Jen Day of Omaha said they plan to introduce bills legalizing cannabis for medical use in the 2023 legislative session, which will begin in January. KENOSHA A local mental health care professional was honored Wednesday morning at her office and surrounded by colleagues. Katherine Flynn, an Advocate Aurora Health psychologist who lives in Racine County, was presented by with Wisconsins First Congressional Districts 2022 Health Care Hero Award by U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil. We dont always appreciate, I think as a society, the work that goes on day-in-and-day-out (with mental health care), said Steil, a Republican from Janesville. The services that you provide and the help that you provide people in this community really is so important to recognize, the work that you do. Youre putting in the long hours not because you have to, but because you actually care about your patients and you care about your work. I wanted to take time out to recognize the work that youre doing. Flynn said she believes none of us really choose this profession for the recognition ... We do it because we care, and we want to make things better for our patients... I would like to recognize all mental health workers because this has been very challenging, these last couple years especially, for all of us, she said. I want to recognize the staff that I work with. ... Its an amazing group of people. There has long been a shortage of mental health professionals, but increased attention is expected to close that gap in the coming decade. From 2015 to 2030, according to the American Psychological Association, the national baseline demand for psychologists is projected to grow by 6%. Yet baseline supply of psychologists is projected to grow by 13%. The projected rates of growth differ because the population groups growing at faster rates historically used fewer psychological services. Still, shortages remain psychologist supply is insufficient to meet unmet need or demand in the racial/ethnic equivalence scenario, according to the APA highlighting the community benefit of having people like Flynn. Heroes Recipients of this award are nominated by local Wisconsinites and selected by Wisconsins First Congressional Districts Health Care Advisory Board. The advisory board is comprised of health care professionals across this region of the state. Nominees must display exemplary service and performance in their profession, uphold the standard of providing unsurpassed care and treatment for their patients, go above and beyond their daily responsibilities and display selflessness in caring for others. Flynns nomination papers noted her extensive work during her career helping veterans, cancer patients and those in prison with critical mental health services. Flynn, who was nominated by her daughter, often works through the weekend to help ensure she is not rushing her patients and provides them the time and attention they need. How do you defend someone who has admitted to committing a crime and that there is undeniable evidence that the defendant did what they are accused of doing? You say the defendant had to do what he did, or you say no crime was committed at all, or that the prosecution is unconstitutional, or you say all three. Thats the plan for the defense of the Racine County man who admitted to requesting absentee ballots using the names of two elected officials he doesnt like to prove it is possible. DMCC - the worlds flagship free zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise and master developer of the JLT District has announced a range of sustainability projects to accelerate the decarbonisation of the Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) community, in line with the Dubai Clean Energy and Net Zero Carbon Strategy 2050. Following the announcement of the project earlier this year, DMCC signed a 20-year agreement with Etihad Esco, a wholly-owned unit of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) the Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (Wetex) 2022 that will see the majority of the JLT Clusters car parking areas provided with solar car shades. Making JLT home to one of the UAEs largest district solar car shade installations, the project will result in a significant reduction in Dewa tariffs for the district, generating savings each year for property owners, in turn making JLT more affordable for residents and tenants. The signing ceremony was attended by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Dewa. DMCC will install solar panels at OneJLT, the DMCC Tea Centre, the DMCC Coffee Centre and the Jewellery & Gemplex building. Additionally, the JLT District car parks will be fitted with higher efficiency lighting and ventilation solutions to reduce energy usage. DMCC will also expand its work with Etihad ESCO through other projects that target a 30% increase in energy and water efficiency across the entire JLT community. COO Feryal Ahmadi said: "Representing some of the most salient issues that we collectively face today, sustainability and decreasing carbon emissions have never been more important. This core belief is the driving force behind DMCCs comprehensive sustainability strategy and this full suite of decarbonisation projects that we are announcing today." "Through these projects, we look to deliver an increasingly positive impact to the 60,000 people and 21,000 businesses that call JLT home, he stated. Etihad Esco Acting CEO Dr Waleed Alnuaimi expressed delight at partnership with DMCC on such an important project. "Installing solar panels across the JLT district fully supports the various sustainable energy strategies championed by the UAE, allowing Dubai to positively tip the scales for climate change globally," he added.-TradeArabia News Service RACINE As a kid, Marc Eisch remembered handing out programs before the Racine Concert Bands Sunday night performances. His father Del Eisch was a longtime band conductor and educator, so Marcs childhood was filled with music, whether it was learning multiple instruments, hauling percussion equipment or passing out programs. An organized, faith-filled family man, Del Eisch was encouraging of his five kids passions, and Marc has tried to emulate that with his four children. Despite his numerous responsibilities, Del Eischs passion for music never waned. He enjoyed it so much, Marc said. He had such a passion for it. He was so disciplined and structured, in a good way. A pillar of the local music community and a caring, funny man, Del Eisch died last month at age 85. Eisch taught at the Racine Unified School District for over 30 years, conducted the Racine Concert Band from 1974 to 2001 and was its business manager from 2002 to 2017. He conducted over 640 concerts and in 2010 published And the Band Played On, a book chronicling the history of the Racine Concert Band. Eisch received awards from the American Federation of Musicians for excellence in teaching and community service. He also served as president of the Wisconsin Bandmasters Association and president of the Association of Concert Bands Melissa Latham was Del Eischs student for three years of orchestra in middle school. Latham, now an RUSD 4-K teacher, said Eisch, along with his wife Anne, was a selfless, integral community member who spread excitement for and knowledge of music. Hes a great person, Latham said. They lost a really good person to the community who shared their love of music with everybody they met. Del and Anne were married for 62 years and were both heavily involved in the local music scene. Its incredible the amount of commitment and the love and the passion they had for one another, said Marc Eisch, now an RUSD facilities supervisor. Growing up, Marc and his four siblings had to learn the piano and at least one other instrument, and two of them pursued careers related to music. Along with an appreciation for music, Marc learned from his father the importance of hard work. Del was a devout Catholic, and the Eisch family attended mass every week. In Marcs final conversation with his father, the last thing Del told him was, Go to church. Doug Clum said Eisch was family-oriented, a wonderful artist and a great person to be around. He was just a good soul, Clum said. He was a good man, and he was a good musician. Clum played trombone in the Racine Concert Band for a few years in the 1980s when Eisch was conductor. Clum, now the RUSD fine arts coordinator, said Eisch was a kind leader with high expectations for his musicians. He was a gentle soul with high standards, Clum said. He was devoted to bands and band music and teaching young people the wonders of music. Eisch was not overbearing but wanted the best from everyone, a leadership style Clum took with him. He recognized that being demeaning or abusive to the band members was not going to get him what he wanted, and I emulated that in my career, Clum said. His collaborative nature, his kind, respectful relationship with the people around him was inspirational. Latham agreed, saying Eisch challenged students but did so with a smile. He always pushed you to do better in a nice way, Latham said. Students wanted to go to his class because he made it fun, enjoyable and wanted to share his love of music with you. Latham learned from Eisch the importance of mutual respect between teacher and pupil. That respect included individual lessons to help students figure out a piece of music. Latham and former classmates remembered Eisch having them practice a troublesome section over and over again and then celebrating when they played it correctly. Latham said Eisch also had a great sense of humor. She took private violin lessons from Anne Eisch and said Del often popped into their sessions and cracked jokes. Marc also remembered numerous comical stories involving his father, including Dels failed attempts to reason with a misbehaving pet Doberman Pinscher. He never tried to even train the dog, Marc said. We could hear him outside the bedroom saying, You dont do this, and he would scold the dog for 10 or 15 minutes. Im thinking, This dog dont know what the hell youre talking about. In addition to a great personality, Clum said Eischs knowledge of and commitment to local music will be missed. He had such a rich sense of history of music in Racine, and he created so much of that history, Clum said. He kept the band going sometimes when it wasnt very easy to keep the band going, and he did it because he knew that it had value for the community. As a father, husband, educator and musician, Del Eisch made a lasting local impact. BRISTOL Operators of a gravel mining business and residents who live near it will have to wait until January to learn the fate of a proposed expansion at the site on property at 31st Street and 376th Avenue in Wheatland. More than 30 people showed up to the public hearing, most opposing the proposed 23.5-acre expansion on property north and east of the Meyer Material Co. LLC at LaFarge Aggregates Dyer Lake site. The Kenosha County Planning and Development Committee hosted a hearing on the project Wednesday night at the County Center, 19600 75th St. in Bristol. But, after nearly four hours of presentations, testimony and deliberation, the committee voted unanimously to defer a decision to no later than its meeting in January. To accommodate the mining expansion, the county panel would need to approve an amendment to the towns comprehensive plan for the site, which is currently a farmland protection area. According to county planning documents, the site is being proposed to change to an extractive farmland protection area, but would remain an isolated natural resource area. The property is also proposed to be re-zoned. In addition to its current designation as agricultural preservation and upland conservancy districts, the new zoning would become a manufacturing district to accommodate mineral extraction. The company has also asked for a change to its original 1996 conditional use permit to add the expansion area. Two-year permit renewal approved The committee did vote in favor of Meyer Materials request for a two-year renewal of its original conditional use permit issued in 1996 to continue its existing gravel extraction operations, an issue that has also concerned residents who have wondered when the site would be retired. In calling for the deferral, County Board Supervisor Brian Bashaw, a committee member, said that the Wheatland Town Board needed to make a decision on the project. At a meeting last month, the Town Board didnt vote on the proposal after a motion asking for a favorable recommendation to change the comprehensive plan to accommodate the expansion failed to gain support. Its not tabled, but its delayed to a future date, allowing the town an opportunity to provide an adequate response to their recommendation, being that they have not provided one, said Bashaw. And we generally do not see these come to the floor without a recommendation from the town. At the same token, we have a responsibility to ... see to the needs of the county as a general rule, as a broader context and to make sure that our due diligence is done correctly, Bashaw said. The deferral, he said, would also allow Meyer representatives to address concerns of residents who live near the site. Residents raise concerns About a third of the residents who turned out for the hearing aired their concerns from decreasing property values to health of their neighbors. Angela Reyers who owns property near the mine wondered when it would conclude. I bought what I thought was farmland. Quiet. Country. Good air to breathe. Good water table, Reyers said. Now it seems like its an industrial area with no end in sight. Reyers said the dynamite blasting was more than people could stand. This is our retirement and Im getting too old to wait for them to be done, she said. Kelly Peyron who lives on Karcher Road in Burlington just north of the site, said when the gravel operation was proposed she was told it would be done with production in 10 years. She has lived at her residence for 27 years. Im a nurse and my biggest concern is the health of all the people in the surrounding area, she said. In particular, she said she worried about the possibility of crystalline silica, a byproduct of gravel mining, in the air causing damaged lungs and possibly cancer, based on her research on the Internet. It takes 10-20 years after repeated exposure and were at 25 (years), she said. She said that 10 neighbors within an eighth of a mile have had cancer over the past several years, raising her suspicions. She encouraged the county committee to also do research. Meyer responds Meyer representatives, who responded to residents, said they do not use dynamite to extract the gravel. There is no blasting, said Randi Wille, regional manager for environmental and land services for Meyer. Sand and gravel is an unconsolidated deposit. So we dont use dynamite. He said the site is also bermed to screen out for other noises and that white noise alarms are set up on the property. Representatives said that employees are also tested randomly and routinely by the federal government for crystalline silica particle levels and that in the last six years none have exceeded exposure standards. Town Board member Andrew Lois said he, like other residents were concerned about the timeline for when the gravel operations would eventually end. He said the gravel operation is closer than ever to more homes that are being built nearby. I think we need to know if we do approve it, I think we need to know when there will be a final date, he said. Every good thing has to come to end and I think the people around really deserve to know when this is going to happen, if it is going to happen. Give em hell Harry. That was the preeminent statement applied to President Harry S. Truman, and accurately sums up his political and more general style while in the White House, and thereafter for the rest of his life. At the end of September, a statue of President Truman was unveiled in the United States Capitol, where our Congress does our nations legislative business, and conducts legislative hearings along with the more private debates, discussions and deals that have kept our great nation more or less together for nearly two hundred and fifty years. The statue, the work of gifted artist-sculptor Tom Corbin of Kansas City, is seven and one half feet tall, distinctive and captures Trumans personal style and impact. The nations chief executive is descending stairs but looking straight ahead, with straight posture, firm expression. Every state can place two statues in the Rotunda. The statue of President Truman replaces one of another Democrat, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who represented Missouri in the upper house from 1821 to 1851, an unprecedented length of tenure up until that time. The Benton statue will be moved to the Missouri State Historical Society Art Gallery. The setting is appropriate and the monument fitting. Truman was an exceptionally dedicated, effective and honest member of the United States Senate, including tireless work during World War II that paved his way to becoming Vice President, and then President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Democratic Party leaders very consciously selected Senator Harry Truman as the vice presidential candidate in 1944. He was in no way an accidental president when FDR died only 82 days into his unprecedented fourth term in the White House. Despite iron determination and discipline, President Roosevelts deteriorating health at times alarmed those around him. Long-term undertow of polio paralysis, plus enormous strains of World War II and more than a decade in office exacted a final toll. Vice President Henry Wallace, more populist left-winger than practical politician, sympathetic to the Soviet Union, was unacceptable. Truman, in World War I an artillery officer tested by combat, led effective investigation of corruption in federal contracts during World War II. Only a few months into the job, President Truman faced the decision of whether to use the just-developed atomic bomb against Japan. He decided yes. Truman along with General George C. Marshall, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, George Kennan and others led the formation of United Nations institutions; the Marshall Plan to aid devastated Europe; and as the Cold War descended, the NATO alliance. Crisis followed crisis: Soviet blockade of encircled West Berlin, communist threats to Greece, Italy and Iran, communist victory in China. President Truman was decisive in supporting UN efforts to defend South Korea against North Koreas invasion in 1950. He fought pressure to use the atomic bomb there. When influential General Douglas MacArthur publicly criticized U.S. policy, Truman fired him. At home, Truman desegregated our military and federal civil services. In 1948, Democrats nominated Truman for president but Southern Democrats and Wallace radicals ran separate tickets. Truman campaigned tirelessly. A Bremerton, Washington supporter shouted he should give em hell, and he did, and he won. At the statue unveiling in the Capitol, Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri commented insightfully that, No president in such a short period of time made more consequential decisions. On the base of the statue is the reminder President Truman kept on his desk, visible to visitors: The buck stops here. 1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day. 2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part. 3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces. 4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time. 5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear. Vote View Results While the BJP is trying hard to posit Nitish Kumar as anti-EBC after the lost case of reservation in court, Kumars party Janata Dal United (JDU) seems to be making a strong case for the caste census to counter the BJPs narrative. Sami Ahmad | TwoCircles.net Support TwoCircles PATNA (BIHAR) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is generally considered an upper caste and anti-reservation party, is staging a stunning reservation campaign for extremely backward castes (EBC) in Bihar. On October 4, a verdict by Patna High Court declared the announced reservation for Backward Castes in Bihars Urban Local Bodies election as illegal and void for procedural reasons. BJP is using this opportunity to champion the case of reservation for the EBC and declare chief minister Nitish Kumar as anti-EBC. This verdict came on a holiday when the Durga Puja celebrations were in full swing in Bihar, just six days before the first phase of voting. Bihar government approached the Supreme Court of India on October 10 to allow the conducting of the election with the earlier announced reservation plan. A statement in 2015 by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat asking for a review of reservation policy had put the BJP (as RSS is considered the parent organization of BJP) in a very difficult position and it performed very badly as Nitish Kumar had joined hands with Lalu Prasad; both used Bhagwats statement to mobilize pro reservation and anti-BJP sentiments. This reservation plan was declared by the state government which started in 2007. BJP was part of the Nitish Kumar-led state government from 2005 till August 9 this year barring the 18 months from 2015 to 2017 when Nitish had joined hands with Lalu Prasad. Three elections of local bodiesurban and Panchayatwere held with this same provision of reservation. Basis of the court verdict Patna High court referred to a Supreme Court verdict making a Triple Test mandatory for declaring reservation in 2010. This triple test mandated the formation of a dedicated commission for studying the political backwardness and then fixing the percentage of reservation which cannot be more than 50%. A member of the advocates team of the 17 petitioners in this case, Premendra Kumar Mishra told TwoCircles.net that the candidates of general and non-EBC backward castes were upset by the governments decision to reserve the post of deputies in the UBL election. We pleaded that since the due process was not followed, the reservation announced by the government be declared illegal. We are happy that our prayer got accepted, he said. He said that they were not against reservation but the arbitrarily doing this was not acceptable. Similar sentiments were expressed by Khalid Alam, who has filed his nomination paper for the UBL election. He told TwoCircles.net, High court decision has brought in the question of reservation in the limelight but the decision to suspend the entire election process by the state election commission is unjustified. He questioned the BJPs motive behind the cry for reservation as it could have raised this issue while it was sharing power with Nitish. An advocate by qualification Khalid said, BJP donon hath mein laddu chahati hai. Ek taraf reservation ke khilaf muqadma karwati hai aur dusree taraf reservation ke liye rona roti hai. (BJP wants to have the cake and eat it too. On one hand it files petitions against reservation and on the other it cries for reservation.) Analysts say that BJP is trying to woo its general caste voters for questioning the reservation in court and putting itself as the champion of EBC reservation by speaking in public. As general castes voters are considered optionless in Bihar, unlike the option of AAP in Delhi and Punjab, they are bound to vote for BJP. So, BJP is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Srikant, former director of Jagjivan Ram Institute of Parliamentary Studies & Political Research said that EBCs constitute a strong electoral base and BJP used to get its support due to its alliance with Nitish Kumar. It is natural that the BJP wants not to lose the votes of EBCs after losing Nitish Kumar as an ally who is considered to have a strong grip over the EBCs, Srikant told TwoCircles.net. He said that EBCs constitute around 35% of the votes of around 113 castes and no party can afford to lose its support in Bihar. BJP leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi, a Rajyasabha member and former Bihar deputy chief minister, are claiming that as Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys the support of EBCs, Nitish Kumar is not caring for the EBCs. In response to BJPs accusation, the senior BJP leader Upendra Kushwaha raised the issue of the caste census. He said that to get empirical data it is necessary to conduct a caste census pending since 1932. Bihar government has started conducting the caste in the state. Both Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar are demanding that a nationwide caste census should be conducted by the central government. While the BJP is trying hard to posit Nitish Kumar as anti-EBC after the lost case of reservation in court, JDU seems to be making a strong case for the caste census to counter the BJPs narrative. Sami Ahmad is a journalist based in Patna, Bihar. He tweets at @samipkb TOKYO For decades, North Korea has threatened to turn enemy cities into a "sea of fire," even as it doggedly worked on building a nuclear weapons program that could back up its belligerent words. Now, as North Korea conducts another torrid run of powerful weapons tests and threatens preemptive nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul it may be taking inspiration from the fiery rhetoric of the leader of a nuclear-armed member of the U.N. Security Council: Russia's Vladimir Putin. With Putin raising the terrifying prospect of using tactical nukes to turn around battleground setbacks in Ukraine, there's fear that this normalization of nuclear threats is emboldening North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he puts the finishing touches on his still-incomplete nuclear program. "Putin and Kim feed off each other, routinizing the right to nuke a peaceful neighbor by repeating it without repercussion," said Sung-Yoon Lee, an expert on North Korea at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. "Putin's threats sound more credible than Kim's, as there is bloodshed in Ukraine every day. But Kim's threats must not be dismissed as empty bluster." After more than 40 missile launches this year its most ever there are a host of fresh signs that North Korea is becoming more aggressive in making its nuclear bombs the centerpiece of its military. A recent two-week barrage of missile launches was meant, according to North Korean media, to simulate the use of its tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to "hit and wipe out" potential South Korean and U.S. targets. It's believed to mark the first time that North Korea performed drills involving army units tasked with the operation of tactical nuclear weapons. The tests included a nuclear-capable ballistic missile launched under a reservoir; ballistic missiles designed for nuclear strikes on South Korean airfields, ports and command facilities; and a new-type ground-to-ground ballistic missile that flew over Japan. State media announced Thursday the tests the previous day of long-range cruise missiles, which Kim described as a successful demonstration of his military's expanding nuclear strike capabilities and readiness for "actual war." There are also indications that North Korea is taking steps to deploy tactical nuclear weapons along its frontline border with South Korea. The North also adopted a new law that authorizes preemptive nuclear attacks over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations, when it perceives a threat to its leadership. North Korea is still working to perfect its nuclear-tipped missile technology, but each new test pushes it closer to that goal. "North Korea has been clearly emulating Putin's approach in his war on Ukraine while using it as a window to accelerate arms development," said Park Won Gon, a professor of North Korea studies at Seoul's Ewha Womans University. In what's seen as a reference to his nuclear arsenal, Putin has declared his readiness to use "all means available" to protect Russian territory. With a string of defeats in Ukraine leaving Putin increasingly cornered, observers worry that Putin could be tempted to explode a tactical nuclear weapon to avoid a defeat that may undermine his grip on power. Battlefield nuclear weapons are intended to crush advancing enemy troops in one frontline section, and have a low yield compared to nuclear warheads fitted on strategic weapons. But even these types of nuclear weapons would expose huge numbers of civilians in densely populated Ukraine, and possibly Russia and other places, to radiation risks. It would also have a devastating political impact, marking the first time nuclear weapons have been used since World War II and prompting rapid escalation that could end in all-out nuclear conflict. The United States and its allies have said they are taking Putin's threats seriously but won't yield to what they described as Putin's blackmail to force the West to abandon its support for Ukraine. Ukraine said it won't halt its counteroffensive despite Russian nuclear strike threats. U.S. officials have said they don't believe that Kim is going to launch conventional or nuclear attacks because of what the North Korean leader sees happening in Ukraine. Rather, they see Kim as worried that North Korea may be left behind in the international influence battle and therefore escalating because Putin is getting all the attention. North Korea's missile launches are seen by many as presaging an eventual test of a nuclear device. Such tests, besides putting Washington and Seoul on the defensive, may be meant to win talks, on North Korean terms, with Washington that could eventually get the North recognized as a legitimate nuclear power. That, in turn, would force the international community to ease crushing sanctions and, eventually, negotiate the removal of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. Pyongyang's ultimate goal, according to Lee, the Tufts professor, is to complete what Kim Jong Un's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, began in 1950 with the surprise North Korean invasion of South Korea and establish a Korean Peninsula ruled by the Kim family. During my spare moments for the last, oh, 40 years, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the magical stuff that makes us laugh. Stopping at a red light gives me just enough time to ponder the worlds problems and other weighty topics, such as this: What makes someone a humorist instead of a comedian? I always considered a humorist as someone who provokes a slight, annoyed chuckle from an unwillingly captive audience, stuck at a company cocktail party. With pieces of black bean salsa stuck in his teeth. Amusing but not really funny. Clever but not hilarious. Witty but lacking in substance. Using incomplete sentences. In 2015, I received an advanced copy of a book by Roger Welsch, obviously in hopes that I would write an article about it. The promotional copy described Roger as a humorist, a term that I had come to recognize as a title for a teller of lame jokes and barely witty repartee. I knew of Roger. I recognized his name. I think he found a place in the national spotlight during a period when I actively avoided television. So when he declined a phone interview because of his hearing problems, I found myself agreeing to drive to Dannebrog to share a pizza his treat and listen to his stories. I could think of about a hundred other places I would rather be on that cold March night. One of the first things I saw when I arrived at Dannebrog was a street sign that proclaimed Roger Welsch Avenue. How pompous, I recalled thinking, that he named a street after himself. As an avid consumer of news, Im sure you know where this essay is headed. Roger died a little more than a week ago, a day after I received a Facebook post from him notifying the world that he was going on hospice as if he intended to board a ship for a cruise to some Caribbean island. Of course our meeting eight years ago went famously. He had me in stitches with his jokes and stories as I finished off more than my fair share of the pizza. We sat in a little cafe, and everyone stopped by to greet him and pay their respects to the humorist. At one point I remember leaning in close to ask Roger the burning question always on my mind: Whats the difference between a humorist and a comedian? If he answered my question, I dont remember. I do remember a story he told me about Dick Cavett, Gibbon native, talk show host and television personality. It seems that during a return trip to Nebraska, Dick traveled to Dannebrog to visit his old friend, Roger. They had a bit too much to drink and after the bar/cafe closed for the night, they decided to walk to Rogers house instead of driving. After walking out of the bar, Dick heeded a call of nature. Considering the empty streets of the small town, Dick relieved himself against the side of the building, and the two stumbled off for Rogers house. The next day, they returned to the establishment for breakfast, and the waitress said to Dick, You look familiar. Used to such acclaim, the television personality beamed and said, Well, you might know me because of my many interviews with hundreds of famous people over the years. No, thats not it. Youre the guy who took a leak last night on the wall of our bar, the waitress said. If nothing else stuck with me from my evening with Roger, that story highlighted the difference between a humorist and a comedian a humorist shares a story and listens in return. When I heard of his death, I remembered the kindness Roger showed in allowing me, neither a comedian nor a humorist, to share a couple of my own favorite jokes and stories with him. He listened and laughed even though I probably had a piece of pepperoni stuck in my teeth. Driving back to Kearney on that cold March night, I reconsidered what makes us bubble over with glee at a story about a powerful and well-known man, Dick Cavett, who only gets recognized for answering a call of nature against the side of a building. The headlines this week proclaimed, Roger Welsch dead at 85. Instead, the headlines should have said, Roger Welsch, alive with humor all his life. Thanks for the pizza, Roger. Trump's subpoena and what's next for the Jan. 6 panel WASHINGTON (AP) In an extraordinary step, the House Jan. 6 committee has voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump a final effort to get the full story of the Capitol insurrection as the panel wraps up its work by the end of the year. Trump has been relentlessly hostile to the investigation, calling it a charade and a witch hunt in a letter to the committee on Friday. But he has not said whether he will comply with the demand for his appearance. Even if he does, there's no guarantee the committee would get anything different from the broadsides Trump sends out periodically. EXPLAINER: What to expect from China's party congress BEIJING (AP) Chinas ruling Communist Party is holding its twice-a-decade national congress starting Sunday. That's where President Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term as the uncontested head of the party, government and military of the worlds second-largest economy. The event proceedings are shrouded in secrecy, as is typical in Chinas authoritarian one-party state. But the congress, the 20th in its more than 100-year history, is expected to produce a new set of leaders handpicked by Xi. Xi faces no term limits and has yet to indicate a successor after a decade in the top spot. The 96 million-member party is led by a Central Committee and Politburo. Their top cadres, who now number seven, form the powerful Politburo Standing Committee. Los Angeles mystery: Who taped meeting with racist rants? LOS ANGELES (AP) An anonymously leaked recording of crude, racist remarks and political scheming that led to the resignation of the Los Angeles City Council president and a powerful labor leader left behind a mystery: Who made the tape and why? Five days after the disclosure of the year-old tape, it remains unknown who recorded it and posted it to the website Reddit, or even how many people are involved. The recording of the racist language led to the resignations of then-Council President Nury Martinez and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, and two other Council members who attended are facing pressure to resign. Putin calls his actions in Ukraine 'correct and timely' KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin expects his troop mobilization for combat in Ukraine to end in about two weeks. That would allow him to end the unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. Putin faces domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country increasingly armed with advanced Western weapons. He told reporters Friday he did not set out to destroy Ukraine" and doesnt regret starting the conflict. Russias difficulties in achieving its war aims are becoming apparent in the illegally annexed Kherson region. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities there urged residents to flee Friday. Police: 15-year-old boy kills 5 in Raleigh shooting rampage RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Police say a 15-year-old boy fatally shot five people in an attack that stretched from the streets of a Raleigh neighborhood to a nearby walking trail. Two others were also injured in the Thursday evening attack, which led police on an hours-long manhunt before the teen was arrested. Raleigh police Chief Estella Patterson said Friday that the teen is hospitalized in critical condition. The motive for the shooting is still not known. Some of the victims were going about their daily routines when they died. They ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s. The dead include off-duty Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres, who was on his way to work. Mel Gibson can testify at Harvey Weinstein trial, judge says LOS ANGELES (AP) A judge has ruled that Mel Gibson can testify about what he learned from one of Harvey Weinsteins accusers. The 66-year-old actor and director Gibson was one of many trial witnesses whose identities were revealed in court Friday. Weinstein is accused of sexual battery against the woman, who is a masseuse and friend of Gibson's. The judge and lawyers took a break from jury selection to argue over which witnesses and evidence will be allowed during the eight-week trial. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty. Officials: 25 dead, many trapped in Turkish coal mine blast ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish officials say an explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey has killed at least 25 people and dozens remain trapped underground. The explosion occurred Friday at a state-owned mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin. The country's energy minister says a preliminary assessment indicates the blast was caused by firedamp a reference to flammable gases found in coal mines. There were 110 people in the mine at the time of the explosion. Most were able to evacuate the mine following the blast, but the interior minister says 49 people were caught in a higher risk area of the mine. Justice Dept. seeks end to arbiter's review of Trump docs WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a judges appointment of an independent arbiter to review documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trumps Florida estate. The appeal is the latest salvo in weeks of litigation over the scope of duties of the arbiter, also known as a special master. He was assigned last month by a judge to inspect the thousands of records taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and weed out from the investigation any that may be protected by claims of legal privilege. At debate, Walker denies past support for US abortion ban SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) Georgias Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker is denying his previous support for an outright national ban on abortion, though he has insisted at various points throughout the campaign that it was a proposal he endorsed. Walker, a staunch anti-abortion politician, was recently accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging and paying for her 2009 abortion. He was asked during a debate Friday with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock about his support for a complete ban on a national level. He said the moderator had misstated his position. Walkers claim contradicted statements he had made repeatedly on the campaign trail. In July he said it's a problem that there is no national ban. 5 years on, key #MeToo voices take stock of the movement Once again, disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein sits in a courtroom, on trial in Los Angeles while the reckoning the accusations against him launched marks a significant milestone this month. Its been five years since a brief hashtag galvanized a broad social movement. It's been five years of #MeToo. The Associated Press went back to Weinstein accuser Louisette Geiss, Bill Cosby accuser Andrea Constand, and Me Too founder Tarana Burke about how their lives have changed, how hopeful they feel and the challenges ahead. Both Geiss and Constand said that coming forward was the right things to do. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) As the number of people without housing continues to rise in many California cities, Sacramento County's elections agency is working to try to make sure those experiencing homelessness have a say in the electoral process by registering them to vote. For the first time since the pandemic began, staff from Sacramento County's elections agency set up tables Thursday at Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that provides services for homeless people, to resume an initiative that launched a few years ago. They registered 13 people to vote and plan to register more at Loaves and Fishes next week, said county elections spokesperson Janna Haynes. I would certainly hope that other counties are taking the same steps that we are to make sure that unhoused people have a voice, because there is a lot of things at least on our ballot that do affect them personally, Haynes said. "It would be nice if they had a voice in things that are going to impact their daily lives." From Seattle to Phoenix, homelessness surged in many U.S. cities during the pandemic. In Sacramento alone, the homeless population grew 68% from 2020 to 2022 and now stands at 9,300 in the city of roughly 500,000. Housing shortages, the rising cost of rent, and the pandemic's economic impacts continue to drive up the number of people experiencing homelessness. While nongovernmental organizations such as the advocacy group Housing is a Human Right help homeless people register to vote, its uncommon for an initiative like this to come from a county elections agency. In 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed into law the Voters Choice Act, which expanded mail-in voting and ballot drop-off locations. Homeless voters can receive ballots at a P.O. box, shelter, or a family members household. Voters in the county can also vote in person from Oct. 29 through Election Day. Earlier Thursday, Elisha McDonald, who's been without a home since February, was unsure whether she would register to vote. The mother of three is frustrated by unfulfilled promises made by public officials to address homelessness. But she ultimately decided to take a chance. Maybe we'll get real change, McDonald said. For Texas native Donald Miller, Thursday was the first time he registered to vote. Miller, who has lived in Sacramento for about five years, echoed McDonald's statements about politicians making unfulfilled promises to address homelessness. Still, he hopes something changes so that families can be confident that they won't have to live on the streets. I felt like my voice needed to be heard, he said, sporting a blue Golden State Warriors jersey. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, hadn't heard of county elections staff specifically targeting homeless people to register to vote. He'd also like to see more vote centers placed at shelters and libraries to make voting more accessible to people without housing. Whitehead referred to voting as "the most powerful tool" for people without wealth to have a say in issues affecting their communities. Everybody, regardless of their financial status, should have the ability to do that, he said. But there are many, many barriers people experiencing homelessness have to face on a daily basis, and those barriers have prevented them from being part of the electoral process. In Los Angeles County, election officials help register people to vote at libraries, reaching those experiencing homelessness at a place many frequent, said Sara Gonzalez, project coordinator with the city's elections division. When it comes to any group, going to where the people already are is half the battle, Gonzalez said. Haynes said Sacramento County plans to expand its outreach by setting up tables at more places that serve as community hubs for people without homes. There are about 550 identified registered voters without housing in the county, a drop in the bucket in comparison to how many people we know are unhoused, she said. 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 her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophieadanna NEW YORK (AP) The wealthy founder of Nikola Corp. was convicted Friday of charges he deceived investors with exaggerated claims about his companys progress in producing zero-emission 18-wheel trucks fueled by electricity or hydrogen. A jury reached the verdict against Trevor Milton after deliberating for about five hours in federal court in Manhattan. Milton's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, signaled there would be an appeal. We're going to keep fighting, he told reporters outside court. At trial, the government had portrayed Milton as a con man while his lawyer called him an inspiring visionary who was being railroaded by overzealous prosecutors. Those prosecutors alleged that Nikola founded by Milton in a Utah basement six years ago falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors Corp. product with Nikolas logo stamped onto it. There also was evidence that the company produced videos of its trucks that were doctored to hide their flaws. Called as a government witness, Nikolas CEO testified that Milton was prone to exaggeration" in pitching his venture to investors. The lies that is what this case is about, prosecutor Matthew Podolsky told the jury in closing arguments Thursday. Mukasey urged acquittal, saying there was a stunning lack of evidence that his client ever intended to cheat investors. Milton, 40, had pleaded not guilty to securities and wire fraud. He resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikolas stock prices into a tailspin. At one point, the trial was delayed for more than a week after Miltons lawyer tested positive for the coronavirus. Sentencing for Milton was set for Jan. 27. Citing reduced membership and Mass attendance, and sundry other indicators of what Bishop Donald Hying describes as an "increasingly post-Christian culture," the Diocese of Madison is planning to roll out a major restructuring next year that would consolidate parishes and possibly sell off unused church property. According to an "initial outline" released Oct. 1, the Diocese's 102 parishes including 135 churches and other associated buildings would be consolidated into approximately 30 "pastorates," or groupings of parishes, with "each under the leadership of a single Pastor and other priests collaborating with him and serving as Parochial Vicars." The Diocese's plan is to get feedback on the proposed groupings from parishioners next month before refining the reorganization plan for Hying's final approval in January or Febru ary. Parishes would begin working together in July. In a Sept. 22 letter posted to a website the Diocese has created to share information about the effort, dubbed "Into the Deep," Hying points to "dramatic" reductions in church-related engagement. The number of registered parishioners in the Diocese has dropped from 167,013 in 2013 to 138,068 last year, according to an 89-page report compiled over the last five months with the help of a consultant, while the number of Catholic households is down from 65,317 to 54,616 all while the total population of the 11 counties covered by the Diocese grew by 8.5% between 2010 and 2021. Mass attendance was also dropping well before the COVID-19 pandemic made people wary of large public gatherings, the report found, and baptisms dropped from 5,597 in 1960 to 1,136 in 2021. "These negative trends demand that we take bold action to disrupt them, so that with Gods help we might leave the next generation a healthier and holier reality," Hying says in the Sept. 22 letter. There are a few positive signs for the Diocese in the report, or at least signs things aren't getting worse. Giving is up among all five of the generational groups the consultant looked it over the last 10 years. And the number of priests available to the Diocese has stabilized over the last approximately 25 years, such that while there are "significantly fewer" than in the past, "we project to be relatively stable into the future," the report finds. An opportunity Fr. Scott Jablonski, chair of the Into the Deep Strategic Planning Committee, points to the Madison area's population growth, especially in the Latino community, as an opportunity to "go make disciples." "This demographic cohort tends to be Catholic in large numbers and they tend to have a deep faith and devotional life," he said. "So, once again, we have an opportunity to better serve them and help them to grow in faith, and they in turn will certainly help us to renew and revitalize many of our institutions." And while there has been dissatisfaction with leadership and an enrollment decline at one of Madison's most prominent Catholic schools, St. Maria Goretti, enrollment across all the diocese's schools has declined only modestly over the last 30 years following a much steeper decline from 1960 to about 1990. Jablonski said projections are for enrollment to remain steady in the coming years, and referenced pandemic-related shutdowns of public schools as one reason "families see more clearly than ever ... the value of a Catholic education and the goodness and dedication of our teachers and staff." While Dane County's public schools were closed to in-person learning for much or most of the 2020-21 school year, the diocese's schools were mostly open. Research has since shown students, especially poor and nonwhite students, suffered academically after schools shifted to virtual learning, while the public health benefits of closing schools were negligible. Through December, Dane County's public health department recorded eight known COVID-19 hospitalizations "that were possibly or likely linked to in-school transmission," department spokesperson Morgan Finke said, and no school-related COVID-19 deaths. Vox populi Parishioners contacted by the Wisconsin State Journal after Masses last week in Madison had various levels of understanding of the still-evolving "Into the Deep" process, and many parish leaders contacted for comment on the diocese's plans did not respond or referred the newspaper back to diocese administration. "As a matter of principle, I don't talk about my personal take on things," said Rev. Mark Miller of St. Francis of Assisi in Belleville when asked about the report. But his sense of the response from parishioners to the Diocese's plans was "that it looks like a big deal." After a morning Mass at Blessed Sacrament church on Madison's Near West Side, parishioner Emily Young said that "on the whole, I have a very good impression of Bishop Hying." "He's really galvanizing this effort," she said, describing "Into the Deep" as "an organized and prayerful set of strategic efforts to understand where people are in the Diocese in their relationship with God, in their relationship with each other" and to use that knowledge to bring more people to the church or bring back those who have fallen away. The tension in the diocese, though, has long been between Catholics living in its most populous area, Madison, and diocesan leaders. The former tend to be politically liberal and favor a looser interpretation of Catholic doctrine when it comes to hot-button social issues, including abortion and gay marriage. The latter tend to be more traditional especially Hying's predecessor, Robert Morlino. As such, conflict over the years has centered around issues including Morlino's recruitment of priests from a traditionalist, Spain-based society, who some parishioners saw as unwelcoming and overly rule-bound, or similar concerns about a newly hired school principal at St. Maria Goretti. Tom Hovel, a longtime parishioner from McFarland, said that what's missing from "Into the Deep" is any investigation into why people are leaving the church. "It is easy for the diocese to blame a secular culture, rather than looking to its own faults and failings," he said, such as "the effects of "traditional-minded priests ... on parish culture and life." It's not that such priests are wrong on church doctrine, but "it is the way the message is provided and the lack of mercy, not to mention lack of understanding that have led to people I know to leave," he said. 'Complex' factors Jablonski said it was "simplistic and inaccurate" to blame the decline in church engagement on diocese leadership being out of touch with more liberal parishioners. "If it were true, then one would expect to see growth or at least substantially less decline with those denominational churches whose teachings and practices are more 'in touch,'" he said, and he didn't think this was the case. "The reasons behind a particular church's challenges and decline in recent decades are both complex and varied, ours included," he said. A 2019 Gallup poll found a sharp, 20-percentage-point decline in church, synagogue or mosque membership over the previous 20 years, such that only about half of Americans belonged to any denomination as of 2018. But it also found "the decline in church membership has been greater among Catholics" than among protestants. For her part, Young acknowledged that there are "many divisions" in the church and "many things that God is working out," but that it's not possible to heal those divisions or work those things out unless one is working within the church. Apart from Saibaba, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court discharged five other prisoners in the Maoist connection case. Afnan Habib | TwoCircles.net Support TwoCircles NEW DELHI Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba, a former professor at the Delhi University who was arrested in 2014 in a case involving alleged Maoist connections, was acquitted by the Bombay High Courts Nagpur Bench on Friday. Saibabas appeal of a 2017 trial court decision that found him guilty and sentenced him to life in jail was permitted by a panel of judges led by Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare. Apart from Saibaba, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court discharged five other prisoners in the Maoist connection case. One of the prisoners, Pandu Narote, died of swine flu this year. The delay in receiving medical attention resulted in Narotes death, alleged Nihalsing Rathod, his defense lawyer. Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound and has a physical impairment of over 90%, also repeatedly claimed medical malpractice while in detention. In March 2017, a Sessions Court in Gadchiroli sentenced Saibaba and others for alleged Maoist connections and engaging in activities akin to war against the country. They were found guilty of conspiracy, membership in a terrorist group, and providing material support to a terrorist group under various provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Saibaba was named as the prime accused in the case and according to the prosecution, was the secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), a purported front group for the outlawed Communist Party of India. Afnan Habib is a freelance journalist based in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. He tweets at @afnanhabib_ Fox News Hosts Underline Danger of Nuclear War, Highlight LaRouche Intervention Oct. 13, 2022 (EIRNS)Starting at 7:00 p.m. tonight, the confrontation of LaRouche activists with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), known as AOC, began radiating through major media in the U.S. Jesse Waters of Fox News hosted Tulsi Gabbard on his prime time show, opening the discussion with the video of Kynan Thistlethwaite and Jose Vegas intervention shaming AOC. Waters ridiculed the congresswomans skirting the issue and her commitment to war. Waters then asked Gabbard to chime in. She responded saying: I hope everyone was paying attention to what those two young men were saying, and paying attention to the pain and the anguish, and the fear and the concern that they were expressing to their representative in Congress. The fact that she was so dismissive of them really points to the bigger problem in Washington. One of the reasons that I left this Democratic Party of today is because they have become the party of war hawks. We are literally sitting on the precipice of nuclear disaster. You hear these young men saying nothing else matters if we are all destroyed in a nuclear war, that President Biden and the Democratic leaders in Congress have led us into. And they are completely failing in their responsibility, the presidents foremost responsibility, to keep us safe, to keep us free. Waters then asked her if there are any in Congress on the left who are opposing the war. She answered, no, not a single one.... These people are right. Where are the so-called progressives? Where are the peace champions, the AOCs, the Bernies, all the people who claim to be representing this movement? Theyre absolutely silent, and they are the ones leading us into nuclear war. ) Then at 8:00, Tucker Carlson gave an extraordinarily strong statement on the issue of war and the absence of rational opposition to it in the U.S. He launched a full assault on AOC as a patchwork of media concoctions, while in actuality she was ushered in as a loyal establishment boot-licker. He quoted journalist Sameera Khan, a speaker at the Oct. 15 Schiller Institute conference, who pointed out AOCs instantaneous abandonment of an anti-war stance back in 2018, and tweeted: How long will we be moaning on and on about single-payer while theres bipartisan support for nuclear Armageddon? Carlson then aired Thistlethwaite and Vegas intervention on AOC. Moving on, he said of the Ukraine conflict, that it quickly became clear what it really was about: a war against Russia, to destroy Russia. He tore into AOC as a fake and a fraud, pretending to be for the working class while her real constituency was NBC News and the establishment. He repeatedly referred to Thistlethwaite and Vegas interventionthese are real progressives, he said, while calling AOC a neocon and a fraud. On Zelenskyy, Carlson displayed the comedian president demanding more money and weapons from the West. Then he retorted: Some uppity foreigner in a t-shirt telling us he needs money for critical investments? Up yours buddy! More reports will likely follow of the radiating effects of our activity and speaking the truth, and of this intervention in particular. But what is clear is that a certain nerve has been struck in the last 24 hours, and various non-linear effects are underway. EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY OCTOBER 14, 2022 The Silent March to a Nuclear Armageddon Is BrokenMake America Good Again Oct. 13, 2022 (EIRNS)As with a summer storm, the relentless, oppressive tension of a silent march toward nuclear war, has been broken. Two LaRouche movement youth leaders refused to play footsie with nuclear war, insisting that Congresswomen Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) take in the horrifying reality of her actions. The video of Kynan Thistlethwaite and Jose Vega, confronting her at a New York City town meeting on her moral bankruptcy, her embrace of the war party, has exploded on the scene. In the first 24 hours, there were 5.5 million views, catapulting the video onto Fox News, RT, the New York Post, and a host of other locations. Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who had just quit the Democratic Party, calling them out for transforming themselves into the war-party, appeared on Foxs Jesse Waters show, calling upon one and all to pay attention to what those two young men were saying.... One of the reasons that I left this Democratic Party of today is because they have become the party of war hawks. We are literally sitting on the precipice of nuclear disaster. You hear these young men saying nothing else matters if we are all destroyed in a nuclear war. Tucker Carlson followed that up in Foxs next show with repeated references back to the intervention on AOC, saying of Thistlethwaite and Vega that these are real progressivesunlike the fraud and neocon AOC. The infamous Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformationwhose blacklist attempted to shut down the Schiller Institutes forumsjust two days earlier had let slip their nightmare: That 50% of the Republicans in the United States were now convinced that the U.S. had thrown too many weapons into Ukraine, and had gone too far. Even if it were only a sort of feral sense from the CCD, it speaks to the non-linear processes afoot in the U.S. and the world. As they say, if even Greta Thunberg, the Greenie icon, admitted that the German nuclear plants should be kept open, can spring be far behind? On that note, the Asian-centered organization, Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), came into being in Astana, Kazakhstan, after 31 years of existing as an occasional discussion group. India, China and Russia head up a list of 28 Asian-centered countries. President Vladimir Putins far-reaching address sounded the themes for CICAs role in the world, joining the SCO, ASEAN and the EAEU. He stressed Asias role in the birth of the multipolar world; the need for a new international economic arrangement, beginning with more active use of national currencies in mutual settlements; and on the deadly role of sanctions in destroying food security and starving populations. In a side meeting with Turkiyes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they put on the table a new massive hub for Russian oil in Turkey, not only for distribution to the world but also for a center for the pricing of oil. A clear trumpet has sounded. A new generation of LaRouche activists convenes on Oct. 15, sponsored by the Schiller Institute. No stopping in the middle of the stream. This school year, some students in the United States have bigger worries than completing all of their homework. Demand has been growing for childrens books that deal with traumatic events such as school shootings. Sales of books for young readers on violence, grief, and difficult emotions have increased for nine straight years. Nearly six million copies of such books were sold in 2021. That is more than double the amount sold in 2012. Those numbers come from NPD Book Scan, which examines U.S. sales of printed books. Officials say mental health issues such as anxiety and depression have risen sharply among young Americans. Educators and other supporters say childrens books can play a part in helping young people deal with such issues. Kristine Enderle is editorial director at Magination Press, the childrens publishing division of the American Psychology Association. She said it may seem like second nature to try to protect children from tragic news events. But its proving difficult to avoid big society issues, Enderle said. Kids face these issues and challenges in their day-to-day life, she added. The book Im Not ScaredIm Prepared was first published in 2014. In the story, a teacher shows children what to do when a dangerous someone is in their school. The book was reprinted several times to meet demand after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas earlier this year. Barnes & Noble is a nationwide bookseller. It said that bookstores around the country see interest in some books rise and fall depending on local and national events. Some newer books deal directly with real-world gun violence. Michele Gays 7-year-old daughter Josephine was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Gay turned to childrens books to help her two surviving daughters. One picture book she read to them was The Ant Hill Disaster. The story tells about an ant that is afraid of going back to school after it is destroyed. Gay, who co-founded the nonprofit group Safe and Sound Schools, said The Ant Hill Disaster and other books were a source of comfort for her two daughters. Experts say parents should make sure that books dealing with trauma have the support of mental health professionals. Aryeh Sova is a Chicago-based psychologist. He is working with children who attended the July 4 parade outside of Chicago where seven people were killed in a mass shooting. He said that a child who asks many questions about a traumatic event may be feeling anxious or thinking a lot about it. If its coming from the kids need, then books could be a great way for kids to learn and to read together with their parents and to review it on their own and to process it at their own speed Sova said. But bringing up violence when a child is not worried about it could increase their anxiety unnecessarily, Sova added. In her graphic novel Numb to This, writer Kindra Neely describes the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, which she survived. She also describes her efforts to heal after the event, even as mass shootings continued to happen around the country. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers published Neelys book. Andrea Colvin is the publishing companys editorial director. She said that, at first, she was shocked when Neely suggested the book idea. I had to remember that, yes this is what our stories are like now, Colvin said. This is what young people have experienced. I'm Ashley Thompson. The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. ___________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story traumatic adj. causing someone to get very upset in a way that can lead to serious problems grief n. deep sadness, especially at the death of someone depression n. a state of being deeply sad that can be a serious medical condition challenge n. to say that something might not be or might be true; to dispute ant n. a small insect that organizes into social group afraid adj. feeling fear graphic novel n. a picture book that usually deals with a serious or troubling topic Silent films established Americas movie industry. But many of these films from the early 1900s no longer exist. A new project aims to capture the flavor of these movies by digitizing old advertisements for them and publishing the materials online. The idea for the project came from Chicago-based collector Dwight Cleveland. He is cooperating on the effort with a professor and students at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Cleveland is a property developer who became interested in the silent movie advertisements, also called cards, as a high school student in the 1970s. He was introduced to some real cards by his art teacher at the time, who had a small collection. Cleveland recently told The Associated Press he fell in love with the colors, graphics and other elements used in the movie cards. The early experience made him want to start his own collection. It just sort of screamed out, Take me home! Cleveland said. The cards were made to be placed inside the area outside theater entrances, also known as lobbies. The cards informed filmgoers about what movies were currently playing as well as films that would arrive next. They publicized all that early Hollywood had to offer, including comedies, love stories and action movies. Cleveland told the AP that about 90 percent of all silent films have been lost. One of the main reasons for this is that the chemicals used to make many of the early films broke down over time. Many silent films were also destroyed in fires. What that means is that these lobby cards are the only tangible example that these films even existed, Cleveland said. The cards, traditionally measuring 28 by 35 centimeters, were placed in sets of eight or more. They showed a films name, production company, actors and more. The cards were meant to give moviegoers a preview of the films. Today, they capture the stars and storytelling methods that existed during Americas silent film period, or era. At the time, movie trailers the brief video introductions of upcoming movies we still see in theaters today were not common. The early lobby cards were produced using a process that mostly used black, white and brown designs. Other colors were often added in later by hand, writes Josie Walters-Johnston. She is a librarian in the Moving Image Research Center at the U.S. Library of Congress. By the 1920s, the images began to look more like pictures and included more complex design details. The cards were placed in theaters for many years, but production stopped in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Walters-Johnston wrote. Cleveland has been sending examples from his personal collection to Dartmouth's Media Ecology Project. The effort is led by Mark Williams, an associate professor of film and media studies. He oversees a small group of students who remove each card from its protective covering to scan and digitize. When completed, the lobby card collection will become part of Dartmouth's Early Cinema Compendium. It is a large collection of rare and valuable elements relating to early and mostly lost American films. The compendium will be published online with financial help from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Williams said the main goal of the project is to make the material available to early movie fans and scholars alike. He added that he hopes publishing the collection will catapult new interest in the silent film era. Im Bryan Lynn. The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story flavor n. the quality of something, usually related to taste graphics n. or of related to the pictorial arts tangible adj. something real that can be seen, touched, measured, etc. preview n. a short film that advertises a film or television program scan v. to use a machine to read or copy something into a computer scholar n. someone who has studied a subject and knows a lot about it catapult v. to make something move through the air quickly and with great force ____________________________________________________________________ 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. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports. Mexico has also agreed to take back Venezuelans who come to the U.S. illegally by land, the United States and Mexico said Wednesday. The order goes into effect immediately. Venezuelans who walk or swim across the border will be immediately returned to Mexico under a pandemic rule known as Title 42. The rule suspends rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Any Venezuelan who illegally enters Mexico or Panama after Wednesday will also be prevented from coming to the U.S. under the rule. The U.S. offer of parole for up to 24,000 Venezuelans is similar to a program for Ukrainians who fled Russia's invasion. Immigration parole permits migrants to enter the U.S. temporarily. The programs success depends on whether Mexico will take back Venezuelans who enter Mexico illegally, the Department of Homeland Security said. The moves are in answer to a large increase in migration from Venezuela. Venezuela passed Guatemala and Honduras in August to become the second-largest nationality arriving at the U.S. border. Alejandro Mayorkas is the Homeland Security secretary. He said: Those who attempt to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be returned to Mexico and will be ineligible for this process in the future. Those who follow the lawful process will have the opportunity to travel safely to the United States and become eligible to work here. Until now, Mexico has agreed to accept migrants expelled under Title 42 only if they are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, as well as Mexico. The U.S. struggles to expel other nationalities because of costs, poor diplomatic relations and other reasons. Poor relations with the Venezuelan government have made it very hard to apply Title 42 to Venezuelans. The pandemic rule has been used 2.3 million times since March 2020 but used only 2,453 times on Venezuelans. In August, Venezuelans were stopped 25,349 times at the U.S. southern border. That is a 43 percent increase from July and four times the amount from August 2021. An estimated 6.8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since its economic crisis in 2014, mostly to Latin America and Caribbean countries. But the U.S. economys strength since the pandemic has led Venezuelan migrants to look north. Venezuelans who successfully apply to the new program online must come to the United States through an airport. That is similar to an effort that began in April to admit up to 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing war. Venezuelans, like Ukrainians, must have someone providing financial support in the United States. They also must find a way to reach the United States. There are currently no flights permitted from Venezuela to the U.S. It is also possible that Mexico limits how many Venezuelans it will accept from the United States. Mexico said in its statement that it will temporarily allow some Venezuelan citizens to be returned. The 24,000 spots that the U.S. is offering is less than the number of Venezuelans that crossed the border illegally from Mexico in just the month of August. Im Dan Novak. Dan Novak adapted this story based on reporting by The Associated Press. ______________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story parole n. temporary permission given to a migrant to stay in the country while they opportunity n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done eligible adj. able to be chosen for something allow v. to permit LEXINGTON Applications for a subdivision and rezone for a property on North Adams St. was approved by the Lexington city council during their Tuesday, Oct. 11 meeting. The subdivision application comes by Stewart Properties, LLC, owned by Bill Stewart, for the property located at 2701 North Adams St. The new subdivision would be known as the W.A.S Second Subdivision. Development Services Director Bill Brecks said that Stewart wants to subdivide the property into three lots. Lot 1 would contain most of the parcel that includes Spring Creek running through it. Lot 2 would be a small portion on the northeast side and Lot 3 would be abutting the ground the house is on. Brecks said it is Stewarts intention to sell Lots 1 and 2 once it is subdivided, he added that the agreement with Stewart is a standard agreement for rural subdivisions. The land needed to be subdivided to provide a better legal description for sale, Brecks said. The next item was a rezone application for Lot 2 of the W.A.S Second Subdivision from A-1 Agricultural to R-1 Single Family residential. Brecks said the purpose of the rezone is to further split Lot 2 from Lot 1, which is to be sold. He said that at the moment Stewart has no near-future plans for the ground. Brecks noted that the whole area near the parcel is zoned as R-1. The Planning Commission had forwarded both applications to the city council with their approval. There was no public comment on the rezone, Brecks said, one resident had attended the Planning Commission meeting, but was more interested in the citys general plan for areas north of town. The council approved both the subdivision and rezone applications. The council considered a resolution to set the 2022-2023 final tax request. The years property tax request would be set at $1,623,977.99 and the total assessed value of the property differs from last years total by 9.26 percent. The tax rate levy would not change and be .330852 per $100 of assessed value. The City of Lexington would adopt a property tax request that will cause its tax rate to be .361502 per $100 of assessed value and based on the proposed tax request and changes in other revenue, the total operating budget of the city will decrease last years by .19 percent. The council approved the tax request resolution. The next item was a resolution approving an agreement with the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) for an access drive on Highway 283. City Manager Joe Pepplitsch said this relates to the Auto Haus Second Subdivision located near the intersection of Cattlemans Dr. and Highway 283. The property is a six acre tract that will be split into six different lots to provide for the development of commercial stores, such as, convenient stores, restaurants, car washes, etc. The lot is still split into six lots; though Pepplitsch said this could be adjusted. A proposed Cutler Drive will still run east-west through the subdivision. The city requested a right-of-way permit for Cutler Dr. access and per the agreement, the city will construct a connection between Cutler Dr. and Cattlemans Dr. Also, if the northbound to westbound traffic at the intersection of Cattlemans Dr. increases significantly, the city will construct an appropriately longer turn lane. The council also reviewed the Central Platte Natural Resources Districts 2022 Hazard Mitigation Plan. Pepplitsch said city and CPNRD staff have worked together to update the plan, a process that is done every five years. The plan, in part, details the Spring and Buffalo Creek watershed flood risk reduction plan that is under development. It also provides some recent examples of flooding in the Lexington community. One of the most significant flood events occurred in May of 2008 as a result of heavy spring rains. This flood event caused water to enter homes, inundate streets, and impacted an electrical substation resulting in a reported $100,000 in property damages. Lexington was also affected by the flooding event in May of 2005 that caused $3,000,000 in property damages throughout central Nebraska, per the plan. In July 2019, flooding caused cars to be stalled in flood waters and 23 people were evacuated from an apartment building. The city issued a disaster declaration due to the disruption of utility services, the plan stated. Pepplitsch said the city staff was satisfied with the Lexingtons section of the plan, which the council approved. The council approved a change order for the St. Anns Parish Council community development block grant project in the amount of $6,425.00 for a window change order. The second pay request for the Veterans Pavilion at Kirkpatrick Memorial Park was presented by Lacy Construction in the amount of $37,323.00. Pepplitsch said the project is underway with the curbs and foundations to be poured soon. Lacy Construction is trying to get most of the work done this fall to have the project done by the May 2023 deadline. The council approved the request. The last item was the 13th pay request from Walters Morgan Construction for the 2021 Wastewater Facility Improvement project in the amount of $304,572.64. Pepplitsch said this project is nearly halfway complete with more above ground work now occurring. The request was approved by the council. During the roundtable discussion, Pepplitsch said Paulsen, Inc. will soon begin work on the Revere and Prescott Circle Drives. Fundraising for the Lexington Racquet Complex is ongoing and the city received a notice to proceed with the planned Patriot Park in northwest Lexington, where more dredging work will occur. I write this column, have a radio show Ive been doing for three decades with my buddy Tom Clark, and appear on News 3, the CBS station in Madison, all to improve public health. Now, that may seem like a lofty statement, and it is, but public health begins with health literacy. And health literacy begins with communicating about important health problems. Thats not just by the written word, as here, but through all sorts of other media, including Facebook. The informed patient is the best patient. Thats what a mentor of mine, a gadfly named Bob Mendelsohn, believed. He held a lot of provocative views, but one view he really ascribed to was direct health communication. That was back in the 1970s, when the American Medical Association said physicians should not use the media for health education but should communicate through the doctors office, one on one. My, oh, my! How life has changed for the better there. Now, moving on to something else I happen to do work to help Tibetans in the diaspora in India and Nepal get heathier. Ive been involved with this quest for decades, since my wife, Penny, and I first visited India in 1976. For the past decade, Ive been working with my good friends at Johns Hopkins on a project to rid Tibetan children of tuberculosis. They have one of the highest rates of TB in the world, far outstripping the rate of non-Tibetans in India, which itself has one of the highest TB rates of any country. I recently came back from Dharamsala, India, home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, where I helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of Delek Hospital, the center of this TB eradication project. More than 300 people, dignitaries from all around India and around the world, listened as speakers talked about the fine work Delek has done and its success in this regard. It was a big thank you. In the wake of that visit, Id like to talk a bit about COVID-19 and how they handle it in India. There were several events leading up to and following the big Delek anniversary celebration. At all of these, everyone took a COVID test before the event. It wasnt a big deal. They all had COVID kits, or knew where to get one, and tested for COVID. If they were positive, they stayed home. What impressed me so much was that there we were in India, in an area with limited resources and a place that is much poorer financially than Wisconsin, yet they took public health very seriously. In India, everyone tests for COVID before weddings and parties of any sort. For example, there was a gala at the Radisson Hotel for the Delek staff, and it was assumed everyone would just test for COVID. No biggie. Contrast that to life back home. Penny and I have attended a couple of events in Madison in the past few months. I wont go into all the details, but both were outside in warm weather and were attended by up to 100 people. It was not expected that we would test for COVID before going to the celebration. In both of these cases, we were informed someone there had COVID. In both cases, those people were intimately involved with the event, welcoming guests and mingling in the crowd. So in India, which has far fewer COVID cases than we have in the U.S., it seems like people just take having the disease seriously and test all the time, especially before going to events, to make sure they keep everyone safe. Its not a political issue there, and it shouldnt be a political issue here. My spin: I find this very perplexing. I find that good public health in this country has, at times, gone off the rails. When it comes to helping people in hurricane-ravaged areas, no one in their right mind would say dont do it. Hurricane response is a matter of public health and so is COVID response, but somehow COVID is viewed differently here. There have been, as of this writing, just more than 100 deaths attributed to Hurricane Ian, while there have been somewhere north of 1 million deaths from COVID. We come together for Ian, but we fly apart on COVID. In India, they come together for both natural catastrophes and infectious catastrophes. Stay well. Two people were thrown from a vehicle and injured in a rollover crash in Grant County on Wednesday, authorities said. Shortly before 11 a.m., Nathan Morris, 19, of Livingston, was driving his 2002 Ford Ranger south on Doc Brooks Road south of Enke Road, just off Highway 18 near Mount Hope, when he began to slide on the gravel road, Grant County Sheriff Nate Dreckman said in a statement. Morris vehicle entered the left ditch and then came back toward the center of the road, where it began to slide. The vehicle rolled several times before coming to rest in the right ditch, Dreckman said. Morris was thrown from the vehicle, taken to Crossing Rivers Hospital in Prairie du Chien and then flown by helicopter to Gunderson Hospital in La Crosse, Dreckman said. Passenger Cheyanna Armstrong, 18, of Heber Spring, Arkansas, also was thrown from the vehicle and taken to Crossing Rivers Hospital, Dreckman said. The crash remains under investigation. A 30-year-old Mexican citizen was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison Thursday for illegally re-entering the United States. Paulino Gonzalez-Zarate came to the attention of federal authorities after he was arrested March 27 and later charged in Dane County with domestic violence offenses including strangulation and second-degree sexual assault, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Wisconsin. He was indicted by a federal grand jury for illegal reentry on May 11 and pleaded guilty to the charge on July 18. Chief U.S District Judge James Peterson noted that this was the second time Gonzalez-Zarate was convicted of illegal reentry and that a 16-month prison term was aimed at keeping him from doing it again. Peterson ordered that his federal sentence run consecutively to any sentence imposed in the pending state case on the domestic violence offenses. A Dane County Sheriffs deputy shot and killed a person at a village of Windsor motel Thursday night, the Wisconsin Department of Justice said. The deputy shot the person after they made contact with a vehicle at the Super 8 hotel on the 4500 block of Lake Circle at 6:10 p.m., the DOJ said in a statement. The person later died at the hospital. No law enforcement personnel were injured. The deputy involved has been put on leave, the DOJ said. No information was available about what led up to the shooting, the identities of those involved or how many times the deputy fired their weapon. DOJs Division of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation. It is common for the DOJ to investigate police shootings, as state law requires an outside agency to conduct such investigations. DOJ will review evidence and determine the facts of this incident before turning its findings over to the Dane County District Attorneys Office. A Dane County judge plans to issue a ruling in roughly a week in a case maintaining that local election clerks should be able to accept absentee ballots that include incomplete witness addresses. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is seeking to allow clerks to accept absentee ballots if the witness has included his or her street number, street address and municipality. While taking arguments in a motion hearing Friday, Circuit Court Judge Nia Trammell raised concern that her ruling in the case could create confusion for voters and clerks in the Nov. 8 election. More than 420,000 absentee ballots have already been requested in the state, of which more than 150,000 have been returned to election officials, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. I have concerns regarding whether or not there would be more confusion caused should this court take the action that is being requested, Trammell said, adding that a likely appeal to her decision could further delay a final ruling. The lawsuit follows a Waukesha County judges ruling in early September that election officials cant fix or fill in missing address information on absentee ballot envelopes a ruling that threatens to unlawfully disenfranchise Wisconsin voters, the latest lawsuit states. I dont believe that confusion can carry the day particularly when were faced with a real risk of disenfranchisement of various voters who have voted the same way for years and suddenly that ballot is not going to count, said Daniel Lenz, attorney for the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Aprahamian ruled against guidance issued in 2016 by the bipartisan elections commission that had allowed clerks to fix errors on witness certificates. Voters must have a witness sign a certificate, typically printed on the back of an absentee ballot envelope, for the ballot to be valid. The witness has to include his or her address on the certificate, but under the guidance, election officials were able to fill in missing or incorrect pieces such as the state or ZIP code. In a final judgment issued last week, Aprahamian prohibited the commission from advising, guiding, instructing, publishing, or otherwise communicating information to Wisconsin municipal clerks and local elections officials that clerks or local election officials have the duty or ability to modify or add information to incomplete absentee ballot certifications. Aprahamian did not specify what information is required for the witness address to be valid. State law does not specify what constitutes an address. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin earlier this month sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission seeking a declaratory judgment defining that a missing address entails when the address field is left entirely blank. Elections commission attorney Steven Kilpatrick said if the court rules in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, that decision could be denied simply by the fact that the Nov. 8 election is already underway. He also raised concern that such an order from the court could lead witnesses to believe that simply including a municipality would constitute a complete address. That contrasts with the commissions position that the address should have three components so that it likely will be counted street name, street number and municipality, Kilpatrick said. That could cause confusion in and of itself. The U.S. Attorney Generals Office on Friday submitted a statement of interest in the case, stating that the lawsuit presents an important question regarding the interpretation of Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The U.S. does not offer a view on the merits of any claims in the case, but rather offers a legal analysis of the Civil Rights Act to assist the court with its determination, according to court filings. The United States assumes, as (the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin) does, that a witness address in some form may be material to determining a voters qualification to vote under State law, according to the court filing. Accordingly, if the Court reaches Plaintiffs claim turning on Section 101, it would require the Court to consider what portion of a witnesss address is material to determining a Wisconsin voters qualification to vote and whether any pieces of address information, if erroneously written or omitted, would not be material to making that determination. Indeed, requiring voters to provide exact information that is not in fact material to their qualifications, and which merely serves to confirm their already-known identity, would invite precisely the type of harm Congress enacted Section 101 to prevent, the court filing adds. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau last year reviewed 14,710 absentee ballot certificates in 29 municipalities and found that 1,022 certificates, or 6.9%, were missing parts of witness addresses; 15, or 0.1%, did not have any witness address at all; eight, or less than 0.1%, did not have a witness signature; and three, or less than 0.1%, did not have a voter signature. Clerks corrected 66, or about 0.4%, of those certificates. Elizabeth Burnette, 80, said she and more than two dozen other residents of Cedarhurst of Madison, an assisted living facility on the East Side, were told this week they have to move out within 60 days. St. Louis-based Cedarhurst Senior Living said it will stop accepting Medicaid payments Dec. 10, in what a related organization said is a move to convert the 60-bed facility from assisted living to private apartments. I feel betrayed, said Burnette, who has lived at Cedarhurst for more than two years and has no family in the area. I dont know whats going to happen to me, and winter is coming. An Oct. 12 letter from Cedarhurst to affected residents said the company is ending its relationship with Wauwatosa-based My Choice Wisconsin. My Choice is a managed care organization that oversees care for frail older adults and people with disabilities in Wisconsins Family Care program, part of Medicaid. We found that our partnership with this provider and the restrictions on care and services because of the relationship does not align with our mission as an organization, said the letter from Sherry Kizer, divisional director of operations for Cedarhurst. Kizers letter said My Choice would help residents find other housing. Maria Ledger, CEO of My Choice, said she first heard of the action Thursday from residents, not from Cedarhurst. When she contacted Cedarhurst, she said the company explained it is converting the facility a type of assisted living known as a residential care apartment complex, or RCAC to private apartments. A similar facility in Milwaukee recently did the same, also requiring many residents to move, Ledger said. Im sorry this is happening to our members and I am concerned that it is not the last we will be seeing of it, she said. Ledger said the move at Cedarhurst of Madison has nothing to do with actions by My Choice. There have been no restrictions placed on the care and services members receive at Cedarhurst, she said. Its not clear if Cedarhursts Medicaid decision affects its four other facilities in Wisconsin, including two in Verona, one of which is also an RCAC. Kizer and others at Cedarhurst declined to answer questions sent by the Wisconsin State Journal. In a statement, Cedarhurst spokesperson Christie Schrader said, This was a difficult decision for us to make, but we genuinely believe this will provide Cedarhurst of Madison a hopeful and fulfilling future for current and prospective residents where they are cared for in the way which best suits their individual needs. Schrader said a home will be provided by Cedarhurst of Madison until a new placement is found through My Choice. Ledger said My Choice will make sure that no one is left without a safe and appropriate place to live. She said its possible some of the 27 My Choice members at Cedarhurst might be able to stay there if they can afford the private market rates, which typically are higher. Mitchell Hagopian, an attorney with Disability Rights Wisconsin, said, This is a symptom of a much larger problem. Residential providers in the Family Care program are leaving it in droves. The state Department of Health Services said it wasnt able to immediately respond to questions received Friday afternoon about how many residential providers have left Family Care. Burnette, a retired nurse who uses a wheelchair, said she and other residents who must leave Cedarhurst are distraught and confused. All of us are disabled in one way or another, she said. I feel like I have no home. RCACs, often referred to as independent living apartments, are one of three types of assisted living facilities in Wisconsin. The others are community-based residential facilities, which mostly serve the elderly, and adult family homes, which mostly serve people with developmental, mental or physical disabilities. Unlike the other two types, which must be licensed by the state, RCACs dont have regular oversight if they dont take public funding. JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) Israel's military carried out an arrest raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and killed two Palestinians in gun battles Friday, according to Palestinian reports. Later Friday, troops killed a Palestinian who carried out a shooting attack near a settlement, wounding an Israeli civilian, the army said. It was the latest bloodshed in what has become the deadliest year in the territory since 2015. Palestinian militant groups claimed both slain men in the Jenin refugee camp as members, though there were conflicting statements about the circumstances surrounding the death of one of them, a hospital doctor. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Dr. Abdullah al-Ahmed was on duty, attending to the wounded outside his hospital when he was shot. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular Fatah party, claimed he was a member. In a poster announcing his death, the group said he died in an armed clash with Israeli forces defending the homeland." The poster showed him posing with two assault rifles. The second man killed in Jenin on Friday was identified by the militant group Islamic Jihad as a field commander. The camp is a stronghold of Islamic Jihad, a Fatah rival, and has been a frequent flash point for confrontations. Five people were wounded in the fighting, including two paramedics as an ambulance was caught in the crossfire, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported. Video showed an ambulance trapped in a narrow alley of the camp trying to retrieve a dead body as gunshots rang out. The Israeli army said it entered Jenin on Friday to arrest a wanted Hamas militant who had carried out recent attacks against Israeli security forces. Diaa Muhammad Yusef Salama, 24, was armed with an M-16 assault rifle as Israeli security forces apprehended him and two other suspects, it added. The raid set off a gunfight between soldiers and armed Palestinians. Photos showed smoke billowing from the camp after militants apparently detonated explosives. The army said it opened fire on the armed men and warned uninvolved residents that they were risking their lives by being in the area. At one point, a firefight erupted outside the local hospital, witnesses said. The doctor who worked in the licensing department was shot in the head as he left the building to tend to a wounded man in the hospital yard, said hospital director Wisam Bakr, adding he knew nothing about reports al-Ahmed belonged to a militant group. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Friday's shootings as extrajudicial killings." The Israeli government has crossed all the red lines, he said. On Friday evening, the Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian attacker who opened fire and wounded a civilian near the Israel settlement of Beit El, outside the Palestinian city of Ramallah. It said a search was underway for more suspects. Also on Friday, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian houses in the village of Hawara in the northern West Bank, the Wafa agency reported. Videos posted online showed settlers from a nearby Jewish settlement throwing rocks at a house in the village. Other videos showed Israeli soldiers scuffling with Palestinians who tried to protect the houses from the settlers. Palestinian medics said 66 people were hurt in clashes with Israeli forces, two of them with live bullets. Most suffered breathing difficulties due to tear gas. A day earlier, settlers from the nearby Yitzhar settlement rampaged through the village. More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2015. The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed. Israel says the raids are needed to dismantle militant networks at a time when Palestinian security forces are unable or unwilling to do so. The Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces and are aimed at cementing Israels open-ended 55-year-old occupation of lands they want for their hoped-for state. Hundreds of Palestinians have been rounded up in such raids, with many placed in so-called administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold them without trial or charge. The tensions spilled over into east Jerusalem this week, as Israeli police fired live rounds, tear gas and stun grenades on Palestinians throwing stones and fireworks across several neighborhoods in the contested city. Two Israelis were hurt in the confrontations, Israeli police said on Friday, adding that security forces arrested 18 suspects on charges of disturbing public order. The police said they scaled up their presence at flashpoint areas across the city. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A top Indiana lawyer on Friday questioned the validity of a lawsuit brought by a group of residents who argue that the state's abortion ban violates their religious freedoms. A judge heard arguments Friday for about an hour in an Indianapolis courtroom, spurred by claims from five anonymous residents who hold Jewish, Muslim and spiritual faiths and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice. They argue the ban which is currently blocked due to a separate lawsuit violates their religious rights regarding when they believe abortion is acceptable. The lawsuit says the ban violates the Jewish teaching that a fetus attains the status of a living person only at birth and that Jewish law stresses the necessity of protecting the life and physical and mental health of the mother prior to birth." It also cites theological teachings allowing abortion in at least some circumstances by Islamic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and pagan faiths. The state simply cannot decree what is religious and what is secular, Ken Falk, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indianas legal director, said Friday. Filed in Marion County court, the religious freedom lawsuit is the second of two challenges against the ban filed by the ACLU. It cites a state law that then-Gov. Mike Pence signed in 2015 to prohibit any laws that substantially burden a persons ability to follow their religious beliefs. Critics have decried the Republican-backed measure as a thinly disguised attempt to permit discrimination against gay people. In response to the religious freedom complaint, the state attorney generals office said the anonymous stories cited in the lawsuit are too abstract to be analyzed, adding that their asserted harms regarding changes to their contraceptive and sexual practices do not outweigh the grave consequences of killing an unborn child. Solicitor General Thomas Fisher reiterated that argument on Friday, when he maintained the anonymous plaintiffs' hypothetical reasons for an abortion do not meet the religious freedom law's case-specific, factual inquiry requirement. We're not in the moment when the abortion is becoming part of the religious exercise, if ever it does, Fisher said. Marion County Judge Heather Welch said both sides must submit additional written arguments by Oct. 28 and she will make her decision within 30 days after that. The high court took over appeals of a judges decision in September that blocked the ban a week after it took effect and denied a request from the state to set aside the temporary block. A scheduled hearing on the lawsuit, filed in August by abortion clinic operators, is set for Jan. 12. Because the state Supreme Court is considering the other case, Fisher said issuing a preliminary injunction for the religious freedom one would have "symbolic significance only. Symbolic rulings are not the role of the court, Fisher, a top deputy to Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, said Friday. Falk, however, told reporters after the hearing that having a second preliminary injunction against the ban creates more certainty, especially because the lawsuits deal with separate aspects of the law. The abortion ban, which includes narrow exceptions, was approved by the states GOP-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June. No faith is monolithic on the abortion issue. Yet many followers of faiths that do not prohibit abortion have lamented that tighter abortion laws could supersede their individual rights and religious beliefs, such as the position of Judaism as outlined in the lawsuit. Arleigh Rodgers 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 her on Twitter at twitter.com/arleighrodgers TWIN FALLS With the November general election less than 30 days away, candidates for state legislature are making appearances at campaign events and public forums with greater frequency. On Thursday, four of the eight candidates in Idaho Legislative Districts 24 and 25 on Thursday held a forum at the Turf Club. The forum was hosted by the Magic Valley Liberty Alliance and was moderated by KLIX radio host Bill Colley. Candidates answered questions from the audience as asked by Colley, covering a range of topics such as taxes, affordable housing, critical race theory, free speech, refugees, drag queens, and foreign ownership of Idaho lands. Constitution candidate Paul Thompson is running for Senate in District 25. Thompson faces Republican Linda Wright-Hartgen, who did not attend the forum due to schedule conflicts. Thompson was happy to run as a Constitution Party candidate, he said, and if elected, he would be the first member of the Constitution Party elected in Idaho. I want to think of myself as very similar to the founders of the state of article, Thompson said. I whole heartedly agree with the founders of the state of Idaho who said we, the people of the state of Idaho, grateful to almighty god for our freedom. Independent candidate Liyah Babayan is running for Idaho Representative Seat B in District 25. She faces Greg Lanting, who did not attend the forum due to schedule conflicts. Babayan said forums like this served a critical role in democracy. This is almost an endangered species, Townhalls, Babayan said. I think its very dangerous for a free society to have limited ideas in exchange and conversation. Also present for the forum were Glenneda Zuiderveld and Steve Miller, both Republicans from District 24, covering rural Twin Falls County, Gooding, and Camas counties. Zuiderveld, an unopposed candidate for Senate, said she was encouraged to see the turnout for the forum. The power is all with you, Zuiderveld said. Im on a job interview; Im seeking your vote. That means you are my boss. I am really encouraged to see all the faces out here, because that is encouraging to all of us, to see that more than just a few of us are being engaged in all this. Miller is the unopposed candidate for Representative Seat B and hes looking to return to the legislature, where he served for six years until 2018. My familys been up there since the turn of the century, Miller said. The previous one. Miller talked about his background in farming and public service in numerous the conservation districts, county commissions, and in the state house of representatives. TWIN FALLS In-person early voting begins Monday on the first floor of the Twin Falls County West building at 630 Addison Ave. W. Voting will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until Nov. 4. Mail-in or absentee ballots are available to registered voters. Application forms can be picked up at the county clerks office at County West, or downloaded from the Twin Falls County website www.twinfallscounty.org/election. Election laws do not allow a ballot to be picked up by a family member or a friend. The last day for an application for a mail-in absentee ballot to be received by the county clerks office is Oct. 28 at 5 p.m. Sample ballots are available at twinfallscounty.org or at the county clerks office. Personal identification All voters will be required to provide personal identification before voting at the polls on election day or voting early. Personal identification shall be one of the following: A passport or identification card A tribal identification card An Idaho drivers license, or identification card issued by the Idaho Transportation Department A current student identification card, including photograph, issued by a high school or an accredited institution of higher education located within the state of idaho A license to carry concealed weapons Election day registration The last day to pre-register to vote is Oct. 14. However, you may register and vote at early voting or on election day. Voters are required to provide their drivers license number when registering, if they do not have a drivers license, provide the last four digits of their social security number. Voter qualifications To vote, one must be the following: A citizen of the United States 18 years of age or older A resident in the in the county for 30 days prior to election day Registered as required by law Proof of residence is required. The following are acceptable proof of residence: A valid Idaho drivers license A valid Idaho identification card Any document which contains a valid address in the precinct together with a picture ID Students may also use a current valid student ID from a post-secondary educational institution in Idaho, accompanied by a current student fee statement that contains the valid address in the precinct, along with a picture ID Questions? Contact the Twin Falls County Clerks office at 208-736-4004 BURLEY A recreational users group recently put in several hours and the manpower to clean up the Milners Historic Recreation Area. About 16 members of the Idaho Overland Association met up on Oct. 8 at the area 9 miles west of Burley. With the help of a skid steer and trailers, they filled dumpsters with garbage that had been littered at the site. Kale Satterwhite, a member of the group, said the dispersed areas had accumulated a lot of litter including large items like couches and refrigerators over the last few years. Ive heard from local community members that it had been over five years since anyones touched out there, Satterwhite said. Concerns about other recreation areas in Idaho that had been closed to the public due to an abundance of trash and misuse got Satterwhite and other members of the Overland association interested in helping keep the area open for users. We took it up amongst ourselves to do some community service and clean some of that crap up, Satterwhite said. Local companies assisted with garbage bins and tractors to haul the larger debris away. Idaho Overland Association does a cleanup every quarter in a different region, and this quarter the cleanup effort was in the south central region. Keep Idaho Clean is an initiative to help motivate current recreators in picking up trash and abolishing graffiti. Its also a movement to educate recreators about the proper way to explore, practicing leaving no trace principles and helping engage in the solution. TWIN FALLS It used to be much simpler for pet owners to seek help when they had a sick kitten or puppy. Call the vet. Schedule a prompt appointment . Those days are no more as southern Idaho, and much of the rural U.S., is facing a pet-care crisis. Now, it can be a couple of months wait for some things, said Dr. Connie Rippel of Magic Valley Veterinary Hospital in Twin Falls. The causes? Likely a combination of retirements, burnout, the pandemic, a burgeoning population of pet-owning people moving to Idaho, plus pet owners adopting more pets during the pandemic. Rippel said the situation is the worst its been in 30 years since starting the veterinary hospital on Main Avenue South. We certainly understand why people are frustrated, she said, and we are frustrated as well. Daniel Mazella of Kimberly has been looking for a veterinarian for weeks. Why dont we have a veterinarian that has a 24-hour service to help folks in need? he asked. Solving the problem isnt as easy as putting out a Help Wanted sign. Hiring veterinarians isnt easy, Rippel said, adding there are advertisements for veterinarians everywhere. Fortunately, Magic Valley Veterinary Hospital was able to hire another veterinarian this summer, which allowed the clinic to begin accepting new patients. That was just temporary until customer numbers built back up; now the clinic is no longer accepting new patients. The situation is common; many veterinarian clinics state the no new patient policy on their telephone greeting. We are probably turning about 20 people away each day, Rippel said. Veterinarians across the Magic Valley are working hard, and sometimes pets are squeezed into already tight schedules, she said. We are busy constantly from open to close, and sometimes after that, Rippel said. Their efforts dont go unnoticed by some people. I think they are superheroes and anytime Ive had to deal with them they are overwhelmed, said Mirzet Suljic of Twin Falls. Anyone who could wear their shoes for a day, I believe, would understand they are doing their best. Suljic said he had to humanely put his puppy down by himself when the pandemic was hitting hard and he couldnt find a veterinarian to look at his animal who was suffering from lymphoma. There are too few veterinarians in rural areas to go around. The U.S. needs more vets, especially in rural areas, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a growth rate of 19% through 2030, much higher than average professions. But being a veterinarian is stressful work, and statistics show mental health is a concern as vets work increasing hours, Rippel said. A recent report by the American Veterinary Medical Association said job turnover in veterinarian practices is the highest of any medical field. It cited poor work-life balance, stress and not feeling valued as the top reasons. Daniel Hume, medical director of WestVet in Boise, said hes also feeling resources stretched thin due to the veterinarian shortage. WestVet is a 24-hour facility offering emergency care to animals, regardless of whether the center has seen the animal before. In addition, it offers a range of specialty services, including cardiology, dermatology and rehabilitation. Hume didnt have numbers of Magic Valley customers who have taken pets to his center, but MKenzie Cobb is one of them. She took her Australian cattle dog there last week. He got sick really early morning, and I didnt want to wait around until the vets here opened to potentially find out they couldnt get him in any way, Cobb said. Healing Hands Small Animal Emergency Hospital in Twin Falls offers emergency care to animals until midnight most days, and has partnered with several other veterinarian clinics. Rippel advises pet owners who havent already done so is to become established with a veterinarian clinic. Doing so will make it easier to schedule an appointment when a health emergency arises, she said. Not only is there a shortage of veterinarians but veterinary techs as well. A report released in March by Mars Veterinary Health said the shortage of vet techs is expected to get worse, and that it would take 30 years worth of new graduates to meet the 10-year industry need for credentialed vet techs. The College of Southern Idaho offers the only certified veterinarian tech program in Idaho. A vet tech isnt a veterinarian, program director Dr. Jody Rockett explained. Its akin to a nurse who assists a doctor. Her students first and foremost love animals, Rockett said. They also love science and medicine. The CSI program typically graduates fewer than 20 people per year, she said, not enough to meet demand. There are a lot of clinics out there, she said. And vet techs usually dont last long in that profession, usually switching to something else in seven years on average. Idaho doesnt have a certified veterinarian program, but has an agreement with Washington State University to offer tuition discounts for up to 11 Idaho students per year. Those numbers by themselves arent enough to solve the situation, Hume said, and as far as veterinary and veterinary tech programs, Idaho has few resources. Hume said the long-term solution is to get more people interested in becoming veterinarians and vet techs. In the meantime, he said Idaho needs to step up efforts to recruit more veterinarians to the state. And its not just for the small animals, Rippel said. Ranchers and farmers need access to care for their livestock. In April, 13 U.S. senators, including Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho, co-sponsored the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act which would help meet the growing demand for veterinarians nationwide by eliminating taxes on the VMLRP that encourages veterinarians to practice in underserved areas. The legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives. Ive previously written about extremists in the Idaho Legislature who want to ban certain books and academic theories from our schools. Their claims are generally false or, at best, over-hyped. Critical race theory (CRT) is one of their favorite whipping boys. Lets talk about that because some legislators want to ban both the classroom discussion of the issue and books they claim to contain it. I recently spoke to a gathering in Twin Falls about CRT what it is and what it is not. I told the group it is a graduate school study that explores how our countrys racial history is manifested in our current laws and social practices. Nobody has been able to show that it exists in our public schools but some of our legislators have done everything possible to gain political points by falsely claiming it does. The day after my talk, an opinion piece by Ron James, a member of the Twin Falls group that sponsored the event, appeared in the Idaho Capital Sun. Ron pointed out how the CRT hysteria has chilled academic freedom in Idaho, even though it is not being taught. He referenced false claims made on the floor of our House of Representatives last year in favor of an anti-CRT bill. One legislator argued that the acclaimed novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was a prime example of CRT because students were encouraged to believe that there was an endless era of black victimization. As we know, the novel portrays a courageous lawyer standing up for a wrongly accused Black man in a segregation-era southern town. Frankly, the defendant was lucky to get a trial, because in that era many falsely-accused Blacks often ended up simply getting lynched. We have since improved as a country, but vestiges of victimization still linger. Teaching or reading about those vestiges does not constitute CRT, it is plain historic and cultural fact. Sometime in the late 1970s, a student at South Fremont High School in St. Anthony got his hands on a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which had apparently not been banned. The book inspired him to become a lawyer, just like Atticus Finch, the courageous lawyer in the novel. It changed the course of his life. That young reader, Greg Moeller, now sits on the Idaho Supreme Court. It is important that the young people of this state and nation be exposed to a wide range of books, even though some may contain words or concepts that make some people uncomfortable. Restricting the historical or cultural view of our children limits their ambitions and horizons. This nation has a proud history and our kids should be taught about it in an honest manner. On the other hand, the country has engaged in some reprehensible conduct slavery, Jim Crow laws, rank discrimination against Asians, massacres of Native Americans. That history should also be honestly taught. Our children need to be made aware of our faults as well as our virtues. Honesty in history is not for the purpose of making anyone feel personally guilty, but to recognize the wrongs that have been committed so as to prevent their repetition. Sugarcoating our past is self-deception that keeps us from taking corrective action. Parents, not schools or libraries, have the primary role of teaching values to their children. Teachers and librarians can play a supportive role by making sure that materials exposed to children are age-appropriate, but they should not be the gatekeepers, nor should they be made scapegoats for parental failure. The 3D Shop Uptown, which will open Saturday at 20 Walnut St., offers a retail space, small scale custom items and custom business items and eventually plans to hold 3D printing classes where people can learn to print their own items. The process of 3D printing creates 3-dimensional objects through layering materials like PLA, TPE, PETG and even resin. They may have fancy names, but they come out looking and feeling basically like plastic. Duncan Monroe, originally from Richmond, began his 3D printing business path by making topographical, realistic 3D landscaping, gift items for friends and family. He eventually branched out to attend a craft fair that was at first, he said, unsuccessful, but eventually flourished. People who had met him at the event began contacting him to make custom pieces, and from there the business became real. Michael Davey, who lives in Colorado, a friend of Monroes from high school, is his business partner. Davey is an aerospace engineer, and Monroe works remotely as a design engineer for Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Inc. Monroe is taking a 12-week course at MIT to further his knowledge of printing and, on the recommendation of his father-in-law Lee Prillaman, went through The Gauntlet, a business development program. This, along with his local connection through his wife Jessie Monroe, Prillamans daughter, led him to move to Martinsville and then open the storefront. He found it through Liam Kearney, who rents the storefront and an apartment connected to the back of the shop and was looking to sublease the storefront to a business. The two not only worked out a deal but became fast friends. The layout of the storefront also offers a private office and printer room for Monroes business. Monroe said there will be four different facets to his business. The first is the retail space which will begin with printed items that Monroe has bought the template and rights to sell off of Patreon, a website for creators to sell their work. However, he said, he would eventually like that work to inspire local people to print their own designs for sale. This is connected with another the second aspect that Monroe is eventually planning on diving into: classes. Monroe said that he has always wanted to teach. This way, he can teach people who are interested in 3D printing and who have a passion for creating. The idea is to show whats possible, Monroe said. Not everyone needs to know everything." There are very detailed and comprehensive classes available at places such as the Patrick & Henry Jack Dalton IDEA Center, while he plans to offer very specific classes to individual ideas and projects, he said. The final two components that The 3D Shop Uptown offers are custom items both on the small scale for individual people and on a larger scale for businesses. For these, Monroe holds an initial consultation where he helps create a physical design drawn out on a drafting table, he then creates the design on his computer in Microsoft 3D Builder or other programs for more complicated projects, and then the design is sent to the printers. Printing can take from as little as 2 minutes to up to 4 days and even longer, depending on the size and detail of a project and the type of printer that is used. The shop started out with just two printers but now has 18. There are different styles: some traditional, some with a conveyor belt for longer objects and one that makes resin objects. Monroe has already made a large variety of options ranging from practical to just for fun. Hes made table feet, centerpieces, fidget toys, wine butlers, custom merchandise and more. He said he hopes to partner with other businesses to encourage shopping uptown, such as through a Coffee and CAD class at a coffee shop. He would hold classes for children as well as for adults, he said. He currently has some promotions running. He offered free printed ghosts at the opening and a deal for businesses for 3 free design hours and one free basic prototype of the sort which take fewer than 12 hours to print. The shop will be open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekdays by appointment. Appointments can be made over the website c3dp.me. He plans to open the shop during community events such as the Uptown Trick-or-Treat on Oct. 27. More information can be found on the Facebook page The 3D Shop Uptown. If awards have value, it is this: They remind us that individuals are successful only when they place the communities theyre involved in above themselves. That realization was front-of-mind for me Monday night at the Fredericksburg City School Board meeting, where I received recognition for my education writing. A humbling experience, because my workwriting columns about educationhas meaning only because of the extraordinary work that teachers, administrators, and support staff do every day, often without recognition, and too often in the face of withering criticism. One teacher in particular was on my mind that evening, my sister-in-law Violet Nelson of Collinsville. For more than 30 years, she taught in Martinsville, a city whose natural beauty is counterbalanced by the crushing economic collapse that followed the shuttering of the textile and furniture industries. In that struggling community, Violet spent her life with the citys gifted and talented students. She helped them recognize and reach for what was possible, while instilling in each a sense of pride about where they grew up. She did this because she believed above all else in the power of education to shape a better future. Just an hour prior to receiving the award, I learned that Violet had lost her battle with cancer. Throughout the evening, I thought of her as I watched some of Fredericksburgs best and brightest students be recognized. They never knew Violet, but foundations laid by teachers like Violet propelled them to successes. Students like Nicole Webber, a freshman at Georgetown University and recent graduate of James Monroe, who last night was the James Monroe High School Donation/Girl Scout Gold Star Recipient, the Girls Scouts highest award. While at JM, aware that several students at the school did not have ready access to a washer and dryer to clean their clothes, she worked with administration to find, fund, and set up the appliances at school. Today, they are open to any student free of charge. Or students like DaNiya Johnson, who received the JM Humanitarian Award for her participation in service-learning that promotes and supports human health and welfare. She recently had traveled to Vietnam as part of a program for promising students who hope to become physicians. Her successfully scaling that height will ultimately rest in the hands of the professors and clinicians who train medical professionals. But her preparation for that arduous journey, and her commitment to reaching her goal, is in the hands of those teachers in Fredericksburg who both nurture her talents, and challenge her mind. I wondered about Martinsvilles versions of Nicole and the DaNiya whom Violet touched, and where they might be today. And I thought about the war that parents-rights advocates and their affiliated supporters on school boards and in Richmond are launching against teachers and students right now. What is driving them? Why would they demonize and criticize those who do nothing but give to their children and their community everything they have so these children can succeed? I can only conclude that somewhere along the line, these people failed to grasp a simple truth. Education is about the community. About a group of people working together for a greater good. Its a fundamental truth of democracy that parents rights supporters refuse to accept. Their concern is only for their rights, and what they can control, not those around them. And so they have declared war on the very people who want only to serve their children. Teachers and schools are not at war with parents. Teachers want parents to come alongside them as they push students to ever-greater challenges. Teachers want to build upon the lessons that students parents taught them, and then take them further. And when parents fail or are absent, teachers work to build a moral scaffolding under these students and support them with a community of other teachers and adults, thereby giving these students a chance to reach their fullest potentials. The parents right movement will fail because it places self above community. And without community, there is no meaning. Rather than elevate self, let parents give of themselves a fraction of what teachers such as Violet Nelson give of themselves. Or give as fully as Violet did throughout her too short, but highly significant, life. What we do matters, after all, only when we place community above ourselves. Heres what we have learned about the suspect in Thursdays mass shooting in Raleigh: Who is the suspect in the Raleigh shooting? Sources have confirmed for The News & Observer that the suspect in Thursday nights mass shooting is 15-year-old Austin Thompson, a sophomore at Knightdale High School and the brother of 16-year-old shooting victim James Thompson. Austin Thompson is hospitalized in critical condition at WakeMed, where he was taken after being captured by police Thursday night. Where did the suspect live? Austin Thompson lived in the Hedingham neighborhood. Neighbors said he lived with his father, a handyman in the neighborhood, and would help on odd jobs. Several described unusual behavior from the son. I used to see him at 4:30, 5 in the morning with a bookbag on, said Lavarius Thompson, a neighbor. Buses dont run till 7 in the morning. Lavarius Thompson, who is unrelated to a victim with the same last name, said he normally works out in his garage, but something kept him from the habit Thursday night. I could have been a victim myself, he said. Was the suspect shot? Austin Thompson was hospitalized after his capture late Thursday. The nature of his injuries has not been released. A long standoff unfolded Thursday evening, Police Chief Estella Patterson said. What was the motive behind the Raleigh shooting? Police declined to discuss the motive or circumstances of the shooting, but promised to share more details in five days. In North Carolina, police prepare five-day reports outlining what transpired during a significant crime incident, usually when a police officer shoots someone. Did Raleigh shooter know the victims? Its not yet clear whether the suspect knew any of the victims other than his brother. Police declined to say. Patterson said the gunman shot people in the streets of the Hedingham neighborhood, then fled in the direction of the Neuse River Greenway Trail, where he continued shooting. The victims were identified as: James Thompson, 16 Gabriel Torres, 29 Mary Marshall, 34 Susan Karnatz, 49 Nicole Conners, 53 Torres, a Raleigh police officer, was on his way to work when he was shot. Patterson said the crime scene spanned two miles and the investigation is ongoing. What kind of gun did the Raleigh shooter use? Authorities havent said what type of weapon the shooter used. A 911 caller said he was dressed in camouflage and carrying a long gun and backpack. Angolan journalists have reported in recent weeks a certain tightening of their activities. Some have been detained and others subpoenaed by the state investigative services for published articles. There are calls, increasingly loud, for demonstrations and protests by the class. The most recent case was the arrest of the journalist and correspondent of the Voice of Germany (DW), Borralho Ndomba, while he was covering a demonstration on the 8th of this month. In this scenario, the board of the Union of Angolan Journalists (STJ) met with the police chiefs and received assurances from the Interior Minister that professionals would receive differentiated treatment. The minister regretted the arrests. It is necessary that journalists are very well identified so that the police can better identify them, said Eugenio Laborinho after a meeting with journalists. The former president of the SJA, Avelino Miguel, also says he does not believe the words of the Interior Minister because, for him, the issue is beyond the minister, but he recalls that journalists have other tools to pressure the executive to change. It would not be an unusual case in the world for journalists to go on demonstration or strike. The SJA, the MISA Angola, the Organization of Women Journalists and others should take this step as a sign that things are not very good in the country in this sector, challenges Miguel. Demonstrations or strikes are also supported by Lusa Rogerio, for whom journalists can and should resort to these means, if negotiations and dialogue do not result in the demonstrations ability. It is a right and is clearly enshrined. Journalists are no exception. Malawi has asked the United Nations for more cholera vaccines in an attempt to contain an epidemic that has already killed 128 people and could worsen next month with the arrival of rain. The poor southern African country has recorded 4,420 cases since March. We have requested more vaccines from the U.N. led cholera task force, confirmed Storm Kabuluzi, director of prevention services at the Ministry of Health. He said the extra doses would be prioritized for the central and northern parts of the country, where the disease has spread from traditionally cholera-prone areas in the south. Infections are accelerating, and the epidemic now affects 24 of Malawis 28 districts. The number of cases has almost tripled since August, according to the government. If the situation is not controlled, it will be a big problem during the rainy season because it is a water-borne disease, said Maziko Matemba, a health specialist. Cholera is usually contracted from contaminated food or water and causes diarrhea and vomiting. Safe water supply and sanitation are essential to prevent and control its transmission, according to the WHO, which warned last week that Malawi was on the verge of a public health crisis. The number of complaints opened by the Mozambican Ombudsman, Isac Chande, rose 46%, reaching 700 complaints in the last 12 months, according to the annual information that the entity provided yesterday to Parliament. From 2021 to 2022, there was also an increase in the number of concluded cases (cases that had a decision by the targeted entities), which rose 84% to 604 concluded cases, said Chande, speaking in the plenary of the Mozambican parliament. The remarkable growth in closed cases was possible due to the undeniable collaboration of the various public administration institutions, which demonstrates a greater understanding on their part of the role of this body, the Ombudsman, Isac Chande, said. There were 169 cases with a favorable response to the petitioner and 207 cases without legal grounds. The courts have been at the center of the complaints due to procedural slowness, he pointed out, followed by the ministries and the National Institute of Social Security (INSS). To the deputies, the Provedor of Justice asked for more cooperation: As happens in some countries, a specialized commission of the parliament could legally request clarifications from a public administration entity that is the target of a complaint from the Provedor of Justice, stressed Isac Chande. While acknowledging that his role is to mediate between citizens and the public administration, Chande argued that it would be a mistake to devalue the role of the Ombudsman in a democratic rule of law. The answer to the role of the Ombudsman can be found in the former deputies who appealed to the body and saw their complaints attended to by the institutions they complained against, he declared. The ruling party, Frente de Libertaco de Mocambique (Frelimo), with a parliamentary majority, approved the Ombudsmans annual report, while the main opposition party, Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (Renamo), and the third party, Movimento Democratico de Mocambique (MDM), voted against the document. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain At 53, Michele Hall was at the height of her legal career. She'd just sent her three kids to college. She had decades ahead with her husband Dougafter nearly 30 years of marriage, the couple looked forward to celebrating 30 more. Then came the shocking diagnosis. Michele had Alzheimer's disease. The illness forced her into early retirement. Michele went from legal powerhouse to full-time patient. She was forced to give up her driver's license. Her independence. Her supersonic reading ability. Her family's days became consumed with worry about what Alzheimer's would take next. Michele was diagnosed younger than most, but for the better part of two years, her family has been living out a story that's not uncommon in Florida. Roughly 580,000 Floridians have Alzheimer's, a disease that causes dementia and leads patients to lose brain function over time. If Hall's condition came as a shock, it also came during a unique moment for Alzheimer's patientsa moment of hope, and controversy. Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration preliminarily approved a drug that might not just ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's but slow the progression of the disease. Known as Aduhelm, or aducanamab, it was the first time the agency had greenlit an Alzheimer's medication in nearly two decades. Some Alzheimer's experts and scientists harshly condemned Aduhelm's approval. Three members of the independent committee that advised the agency on the drug, which was manufactured by Biogen, resigned in protest, with one calling it "the worst approval decision that the (Food and Drug Administration) has made that I can remember." None of the committee's members had recommended it be approved without further study. Other doctors and advocacy groups like the Alzheimer's Association praised the agency's action as a step forward that gave patients options while tests continued. Caught in the middle were the very people the medication was intended to help. In the fallout, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in April that it would not cover the cost of Aduhelm for most patients. Families like the Halls must now decide if they want to pay out-of-pocketa whopping $28,000 a yearfor what may be, in the relatively hopeless field of Alzheimer's treatments, a miracle drug. A chance to slow the spread of a disease that robs people of the very code of who they are. Or it may have no benefit at all. Devastating diagnosis Two years ago, Michele was like any other striving, well-to-do Manatee County professional. She had a house in Bradenton's suburbs. Three grown children. A demanding job as the general counsel for the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. But slowly, starting around four years ago, the firm grip she had on her life began to loosen. First, it was imperceptible: she'd forget some paperwork here or there. But eventually, it got so bad that major events like court dates began slipping from her mind. In late 2019, she went to see a doctor. She remembers trying to fill out the intake form and seeing a series of parallel lines instead of words. In early tests, she was given more or less a clean bill of health. That's a common experience for many Alzheimer's patients: the frustrating, circuitous path to a diagnosis. But in November 2020, Michele visited Jackson's Mayo Clinic for a spinal tap. Doctors assured the couple it was a housekeeping testgiven her family history and age, it was unlikely Michele had the memory disorder. Two days before Thanksgiving, Doug, who was handling his wife's medical information, opened his email: Michele had Alzheimer's. Doug spent the holiday weekend quietly relaying the news to their children. That Sunday, he and the kids gathered in their spacious living room and told Michele about her diagnosis. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done," said her husband. "How do you tell your partner of 28 years they have a terminal disease?" At first, Michele, whose family had no history of Alzheimer's, didn't know how to take it. Once she accepted it was true, she struggled for weeks with how to move forward. She found a community of survivors like her and began speaking out about her diagnosis to congressmen, state legislators, anybody who would listen. She became active with the Florida Alzheimer's Association. She and Doug became obsessive consumers of news about treatment options that could soon be available. Then, in June 2021, the FDA made their dreams come true. Experts divided Many people say the cruelest part of Alzheimer's is its uncertainty. At first, it's not knowing if an early symptoma misplaced word or set of keysis merely a sign of fatigue or something worse. After diagnosis, it's the precarity of how much time is leftbefore a person's sense of humor fades into fog, before a child's name, then their face, slips away forever. A year after its approval, the cost and efficacy of Aduhelm is adding more uncertainty for those living with Alzheimer's. And that's if they can get it. Experts agree Aduhelm decreases the amount of amyloid plaque in the braina substance believed to be linked to the progression of the disease. But it's unclear if Aduhelm's ability to attack amyloid plaque actually slows advancement. Two large clinical studies of the drug produced conflicting results: One found possible evidence that patients taking Aduhelm experienced slower cognitive decline, the other found the drug had no benefit. Biogen ended both studies early. The Food and Drug Administration granted "accelerated approval for Aduhelmmeaning there was some clinical evidence to suggest it may benefit patients. If future tests fail to prove the treatment's efficacy, the agency could pull Aduhelm from the market. Dr. Dennis Selkoe, a professor of neurologic diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, said it's reasonable to think Aduhelm will do what it intends to do. "All evidence suggests that amyloid builds up to high levels first," said Selkoe, a leading researcher on the molecular basis of Alzheimer's. "Therefore, lowering amyloid levels, in my view should ultimately translate into less decline in patients." He understands why people have issues with the data. "But I think that this is a case where perfection is the enemy of the possiblewe are trying hard to get something that helps millions of people who are losing their most human qualities," he said. Lon Schneider, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of Southern California, looks at Aduhelm's current data and reaches a different conclusion. There's a good chance the drug has no benefit, he said. In trials, roughly 40% of patients who received high doses experienced either brain bleeding or swelling. "If you're asking, 'Who would I prescribe (Aduhelm) for?'" Schneider said. "That would be no one." 'I might as well try' The Halls know the science is mixed. To them, there's a shot the drug worksand if you had a chance, no matter how minuscule, wouldn't you take it? "There's nothing else out there," said Michele, referring to the limited options for Alzheimer's medications. "So I might as well try this." For an hour and a half each month, at a clinic nestled between an acai place and a yoga studio on 4th Street in St. Petersburg, the couple watches "Friends" reruns as an IV injects Aduhelm into Michele's arm. For many, the treatment's price tag alone has created an insurmountable hurdle. It costs more than average year of tuition at a public university. "Now no one, including myself, can afford it," said Barbara Charles, a 65-year-old Orlando resident who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in her late fifties. "It's just about what I get for my Social Security each monthso you get the medication, but you can't live." "What was the point of spending gazillions of dollars on creating this drug if now it's just sitting on the shelves?" she added. A Biogen spokesperson noted that while coverage is limited for many, Aduhelm is commercially available through some private insurance. Alzheimer's patients who meet eligibility requirements can also enroll in the company's upcoming trials for the drug, he added. Participants have a 50-50 chance of receiving a placebo for the duration of the study, however, which could span years. The Halls didn't want to take the gamble on Michele's condition further deteriorating during that time. "We feel bad, because obviously there's tons of people who can't afford that," Doug said. "But we'll do anything we can to invest in Michele's future." Michele said she has not experienced any side effects so far. Two treatments in, the couple received surprising news: Biogen was going to cover the rest of Michele's regimen. That's because the company decided to provide Aduhelm for free to all patients who began treatment before April 8 of this year, according to a Biogen spokesperson. More treatments on way Let's say Aduhelm is not the answer Alzheimer's patients have been waiting for. Could donanemab be the next great hope? Gantenerumab? Trial data for these, and several other upcoming treatments designed to attack amyloid plaque, are expected to come out this month. "If one of these other drugs shows statistically significant effects, that brings new life back into this," said Schneider of the University of Southern California. One already shows promise. Two weeks ago, Biogen and the Tokyo-based Eisai announced that lecanamab, another Alzheimer's drug they're developing, slowed cognitive decline in patients in a large, late-stage clinical trial. Though the drug has not yet been approved, its results provide the strongest evidence to date that removing plaque can slow the disease. The Alzheimer's Association called the findings "the most encouraging results in clinical trials treating the underlying causes of Alzheimer's to date." Doug believes Alzheimer's will one day be like HIVa diagnosis that was once a death sentence, but can now be managed with a medication so effective at slowing its progression it allows people to live healthy lives, free of symptoms. But the clock is ticking for his wife, who sometimes has a harder time feeling Doug's hope. "He'll tell you the sun is shining when it's not," Michele said. "No, it is shining," her husband replied with a smile. "You're just looking at it wrong." Explore further Experts encouraged by Alzheimer drug preliminary data 2022 Tampa Bay Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Despite some confusing messages this week around the value of colonoscopies, Wilmot Cancer Institute physicians and clinicians across the U.S. say the procedure remains the best and most proven way to detect cancer and prevent colorectal cancer deaths. The controversy stems from a New England Journal of Medicine article published Oct. 9, 2022, on a large Nordic-European clinical trial. National news articles covering the study highlighted a finding that colonoscopies only cut the risk of colon cancer by about 18% and didn't substantially reduce deathswhich is far different than previous multiple studies showing that colonoscopy does, in fact, significantly decrease cancer incidence and death. The news articles raised the possibility that the invasive procedure is not worth it. However, the trial had a major limitationwithin the group of study patients who were supposed to get colonoscopies, only 42% actually got one. Not getting screened is obviously going to skew the trial results because a person has to get a colonoscopy to receive the benefits of early detection, said Danielle Marino, M.D., a gastroenterologist with expertise in colon cancer screenings and Medical Director of Wilmot's Hereditary Cancer Screening and Risk Reduction Program. Many news articles glossed over this red flag and made claims in headlines that colonoscopies fail to reduce cancer deaths, ignoring important context, according to the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG). ACG issued a public statement and sent a terse letter to CNN, which led the news coverage, calling out the media for doing the public a disservice. "No one should cancel their colonoscopies," Marino emphasized. "This procedure is the best way to prevent colorectal cancer and to detect cancer early, which can lead to improvement in outcomes." Here are some key facts about the study to keep in mind: Among the 42% of European study participants who did get colonoscopies, their risk of getting cancer was reduced by 31% and the risk of dying from that cancer was 50% lower. The quality of the colonoscopies performed by about one-third of the physicians in the European study was below what is considered minimum standards in the U.S., ACG stated. The European study results show that it's difficult and complicated to investigate the risks and benefits of cancer screenings across populations in the real world, where many people are reluctant to undergo invasive tests, said Jonathan Friedberg, M.D., M.M.Sc., Wilmot's director. There's no question that colonoscopy finds cancers earlier, he said, but it's important that clinicians and scientists are open to findings, like in this case, that may point to the need for more research. In Monroe County, the rates of colon cancer deaths are higher among Black men compared to white men. Wilmot faculty and staff have made significant efforts, with the help of City Council member Willie Lightfoot, to reach out to the community and advocate for screening and early detection. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death for men and women. Marino noted that rates of colon cancer are rising in the U.S., particularly because many individuals put off colonoscopies during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is most often diagnosed in people ages 65 to 74. In the U.S., it is recommended that adults ages 45 to 75 get screened to obtain substantial benefits; younger adults starting at age 40 are also recommended for screening if they have a family history of colorectal cancer or certain medical conditions. Primary care physicians can answer questions about cancer screenings, as well. Explore further Colonoscopy-screening does not prevent colorectal cancer as well as previously assumed In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, an Aedes aegypti mosquito known to carry the Zika virus and the Dengue fever, is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. In a statement on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, the European Medicines Agency is recommending that a dengue vaccine made by the Japanese pharmaceutical Takeda be authorized, in a move that could provide a new tool for millions worldwide against the potentially fatal disease. Credit: AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File The European Medicines Agency on Friday recommended the authorization of a dengue vaccine made by the Japanese pharmaceutical Takeda that could provide a new tool for millions worldwide against the potentially fatal disease. The EU regulator said in a statement the vaccine should be cleared for anyone aged four and over, to prevent the four types of dengue. The viral disease causes more than 390 million infections globally every year, including up to 25,000 deaths, mostly in children. "The benefits and safety of the current vaccine have been evaluated in 19 clinical trials that enrolled more than 27,000 people aged between 15 months and 60 years," the EMA said. Studies showed Takeda's vaccine was about 84% effective in preventing people from being hospitalized with dengue and about 61% effective in stopping symptoms four years after getting immunized. The most commonly reported side effects included headaches and muscle pain. There is no specific treatment for dengue, which is a leading cause of serious illness and death in roughly 120 Latin American and Asian countries. While about 80% of infections are mild, severe cases of the mosquito-spread disease can lead to internal bleeding, organ damage and death. The green light for the Takeda vaccine comes after Sanofi Pasteur's dengue vaccine triggered a public health crisis in the Philippines in 2017. The Dengvaxia shot was found to increase the risk of severe disease in people who had not previously been infected with dengue and was linked to the deaths of more than 100 children. Critics charged that the Sanofi vaccine was rolled out prematurely to about 800,000 children across the Philippines. Numerous scientists and officials were indicted for introducing the vaccine "with undue haste," that prosecutors said resulted in homicide. The World Health Organization had previously concluded the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine was safe, but later said children should only be immunized if they were tested first to ensure they had already had dengue. The EMA said its endorsement of the Takeda vaccine means that "a global unmet public health need is being addressed," explaining that countries beyond the EU should have confidence that the shot is safe and effective. After malaria, dengue is the most diagnosed cause of fever in European travelers returning from developing countries. In September, Indonesia became the first country to license the Takeda vaccine. Explore further Philippines wants money back from Sanofi for dengue vaccine 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach attends a press conference on the current COVID-19 situation and the Ministry of Health's new campaign to protect against the virus, in Berlin, Germany, Friday Oct. 14, 2022. Credit: Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP Germany's health minister on Friday urged the country's 16 states to consider stepping up their measures against the coronavirus amid a rise in new cases. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he favors requiring mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in Germany except on public transport, in medical facilities and care homes. "The direction we're going in isn't a good one," Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. He added that it would be better for states to impose limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. "The sooner we step on the brake the better it will be," he said. German authorities registered over 114,000 newly confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, and 165 COVID-related deaths. The number of newly confirmed cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a seven-day period stood at 760, compared with 695 a week earlier. Lauterbach said the actual number of cases could be three-to-four times higher, as many positive results with rapid tests are never reported to authorities. A rise in cases in Bavaria has been linked to the recent Oktoberfest, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Lauterbach said more could have been done to limit the spread of the virus at the beer festival in Munich, such as offering or mandating on-site testing for visitors. The Health Ministry launched a new nearly 33 million-euro ($32 million) advertising campaign Friday, using 84 case studies of real people affected by COVID-19 to encourage vaccinations. Lauterbach said getting the shot remains an important way of protecting recipients and others. The risk of death for people over 60 drops by 90% if they get a fourth shot, he said. 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Credit: Unsplash According to the CDC, 9.4% of children and adolescents had an anxiety disorder in 2019. Up to one in five youth aged 18 or younger will experience a mental health condition at some point in their lives. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued new recommendations that children and adolescents ages eight to 18 should be screened for anxiety disorders, but the recommendations do not specify what screening should look like. Experts at the University of Cincinnati are researching best practices of how to screen children for anxiety disorders and connect them to the best treatment for each individual. UC's Jeffrey Strawn, MD, is senior author of an editorial recently published in JAMA discussing potential effective screening approaches in pediatric primary care settings. Strawn said many children with psychiatric disorders remain undiagnosed or untreated despite increasing awareness and reduced stigma surrounding mental health conditions. Anxiety disorders specifically are "incredibly prevalent" and tend to increase the risk of other disorders, additional symptoms and issues including suicidal behavior and substance misuse in the long term, he said. The new recommendation for screening anxiety disorders is encouraging, Strawn said, but he argues it reflects a "piecemeal approach" for pediatric mental health screening. He noted screening for conditions including autism spectrum disorders and depression were recommended years ago even though they are less common than anxiety disorders. "So these disorders affected a lot fewer patients which meant that we were potentially ignoring something that affects a lot more patients and is associated with substantial morbidity and long term bad outcomes," said Strawn, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience in UC's College of Medicine and a UC Health child and adolescent psychiatrist. The disorder-specific approach to mental health screenings that did not include anxiety disorders may have led to many children being misdiagnosed due to symptoms overlapping. For example, a child who has trouble paying attention may have been diagnosed with ADHD, when in reality the issues stem from anxiety. By screening for anxiety disorders, Strawn said doctors can potentially avoid inappropriate treatments and unnecessary costs of medical tests while directing patients to helpful treatments earlier. Screening approach Doctors sometimes use checklists of symptoms to screen for mental health disorders, which provides an efficient process to identify symptoms. However, Strawn said checklists should not be the sole screening method used for anxiety disorders. "The issue is that when we rely on a checklist by itself, we really fail to capture the specificity that we need," he said. "So we may be picking up other things that aren't anxiety." Strawn and his editorial co-authors argue for a more holistic approach where pediatricians begin discussions about mental health much earlier than age 8. Family history of anxiety disorders is the biggest risk factor for children, so identifying parents' mental health history may aid the effectiveness of screening techniques. "The pediatrician or pediatric clinician is well-equipped to identify anxiety disorders in youth because they know the family and they know the biggest risk factors for developing anxiety disordersfamily history," Strawn said. "Because the pediatricians have a longitudinal relationship with these families, what we would argue for is starting those discussions around mental health early on to really open the door for having these discussions over time." UC's Christine M. Burrows, MD, who is working on a study to identify and treat anxiety disorders in the pediatric primary care setting, said current American Academy of Pediatrics screening recommendations for well child care do not include recommendations for pediatric anxiety screening, but she agreed that pediatricians can take steps toward identifying anxiety in patients even before formal screening is standardized. "Given the high prevalence and effective treatment options for anxiety, pediatricians can play a vital role in identifying and connecting patients to early treatment that can be life changing," said Burrows, professor of medicine and medical director of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Practice at Hoxworth. Beginning discussions early and taking family history into account allows pediatricians to make screening more personal for each individual child and situation. For children at a higher risk for anxiety disorders, Strawn said pediatricians can do simple things before actual screenings such as more close monitoring, encouraging positive parenting techniques and providing guidance to parents on how to manage their own anxiety and identify signs of anxiety in their children. "Such early engagement may help prevent the development of an anxiety disorder and could empower the family to intervene promptly should their child develop an anxiety disorder," Strawn and his co-authors write in the editorial. New research Further study is needed to learn more about what measures and methods are best to screen for anxiety disorders and the benefits and limitations of screening. Strawn said UC has been a leading institution continuing to learn more about best practices for screening children for anxiety disorders within primary care settings. UC Internal Medicine and Pediatric Practice at Hoxworth is part of a multi-center trial funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute researching how to identify and treat children with anxiety disorders earlier and direct them to care. Children with possible anxiety disorders are connected to collaborative psychiatrists and counselors who provide evidence-based treatment within the pediatrician's office, which Burrows said makes it "easier on families to receive timely mental health care." "Dr. Strawn and I are working to better understand how to identify children that have underlying anxiety disorder, who might present to a pediatrician with abdominal pain or missing school," Burrows said. "What makes this work so rewarding is to have access to a psychiatric partnership that helps our patients get quick access to care, which can promote better follow-up and completion of effective treatments." The USPSTF's recommendation also supports the use of cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressant medications as safe and effective treatments for children ages 818 with anxiety disorders. Strawn said there are a number of studies ongoing within the Department of Psychiatry aimed at understanding how different patients respond to different treatments. "The hope is to identify the right patient for the right treatment at the right time," he said. Additional work within the Anxiety Disorders Research Program is identifying how specific treatments compare or can be optimized in some patients based on specific characteristics and, in some cases, metabolism. Strawn is working with Laura Ramsey, Ph.D., associate professor in UC's Department of Pediatrics and a Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center researcher, to compare dosing strategies of one of the most common medications used to treat anxiety disorders that leverages a patient's specific medication metabolism to guide dosing. Strawn and his colleagues' editorial has been featured in several articles discussing the new recommendation. Explore further US Preventive Services Task Force recommends depression, anxiety screening for teens There were almost 96,000 ART treatment cycles performed in Australia and New Zealand in 2020, resulting the birth of 18,462 babies. Credit: Shutterstock In 2020, one in three IVF cycles undertaken by couples trying to conceive was due to male infertility or a combination of male and female infertility, a new report by UNSW Sydney medical researchers shows. The underlying reason for the male infertility was unknown in more than 75% of cases. Previous vasectomy was the reason for IVF in 7% of cycles undertaken for male infertility, while 2.4% used assisted reproductive technology (ART) after cancer treatment in the male partner. "In the past, the focus of fertility treatment was almost always on the female patient, despite a man being equally needed to create a baby. Now that we are collecting data on the cause of male infertility, we can finally study its impact more closely," said Professor Luk Rombauts, the President of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ). "The fact that over 75% of male factor is 'unknown' reflects our lack of understanding of the reasons for poor semen quality. It highlights the need for further research and education in the determination of the causes. It's quite likely that genetic studies will reveal new risk factors that can lead to male infertility." For the first time, the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database (ANZARD) has collected data and reported on the causes of male infertility for couples undergoing IVF. In addition, there is more detailed information on the types of patients undergoing IVF and more information about pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT) and the reasons for freezing eggs to preserve future fertility. Increase in ART cycles on 2019 There were almost 96,000 ART treatment cycles performed in Australia and New Zealand in 2020, resulting in the birth of 18,462 babies. "This represents a 7.6% increase in cycles on 2019, with one in 18 babies born in Australia now conceived through IVF treatment," said Professor Georgina Chambers, from UNSW Medicine & Health and lead author of UNSW's "Assisted Reproductive Technology in Australia and New Zealand 2020 (ANZARD)" report. "The number of cycles may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with IVF services limited in some states," Professor Chambers said. "Fourteen percent of females undergoing IVF in 2020 were in same-sex relationships or were single women, indicating how important access to IVF is for many less traditional families." In Australia and New Zealand, the multiple birth ratethe proportion of twins and triplets born through IVFdecreased from last year, a previous record low, and is one of the lowest rates worldwide. Over the last decade, the multiple birth rate has decreased from 7.9% in 2010 to 2.8% in 2020. This improvement has been driven by the increased proportion of IVF cycles where only a single embryo is transferred, up from 70% in 2010 to 93% in 2020. PGT is performed to screen embryos during IVF for chromosomal errors and genetic diseases. Approximately 8% of treatment cycles undertaken in 2020 used PGT. Most of these cycles were undertaken by women in their 30s (67%), and about one in four (27%) were in women aged 40 years and over. Where PGT embryos were transferred, the success rate ranged between 22.4% and 47.2% per cycle depending on female age, with the highest live birth rate in women aged under 30 years. Petra Wale, the Vice President of the FSANZ, said that the detailed information obtained about PGT shows preimplantation testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A), which is an abnormal number of chromosomes, was the most common indication for PGT in 2020. However, the increased use of reproductive genetic carrier screening programs for severe genetic conditions has fueled awareness of PGT. As a result, PGT for heritable genetic disorders and chromosomal abnormalities could increase. The overall live birth rate per embryo transfer has increased from 26% in 2016 to 29% in 2020. It was higher in younger womenthe live birth rate per embryo transfer was around 36% for both fresh and thaw cycles in women aged between 30 and 34 years. In women older than 44 years, the live birth rate per embryo transfer was 1.2% for fresh cycles and 7.7% for thaw cycles. In 2021, UNSW developed the YourIVFSuccess website which includes a Patient Estimator that allows patients to estimate their chances of successfully having a baby using IVF based on their individual characteristics. It also includes a searchable database of the success rates for all accredited IVF clinics in Australia. Key stats from the 2020 ANZARD report There were 95,699 ART treatment cycles reported from Australian and New Zealand clinics in 2020 (87,206 and 8,493 respectively) representing increases of 7.6% in Australia and 7.8% in New Zealand from 2019. Of the 95,699 initiated ART cycles, there were 18,462 babies born (16,439 from treatments performed in Australian clinics and 2023 from New Zealand clinics). For couples trying to conceive, 20% of IVF cycles were undertaken due to male infertility and 11.2% were due to a combination of male and female infertility. In 2020, there were 7714 PGT cycles, of which 5159 were undertaken by women in their 30s and 2111 undertaken by women aged 40 years and over. Women used their own eggs in nearly 95% of cycles in 2020; 57.5% were fresh cycles and 37.1% were thaw cycles. The live birth rate per initiated cycle was 16.2% for autologous fresh (excluding freeze-all) cycles and 30.7% for autologous frozen/thaw cycles. Single embryo transfer rates have increased from 70% of embryo transfer procedures in 2010 to 93% in 2020. The multiple birth rate has decreased from 7.9% in 2010 to 2.8% in 2020. The ANZARD report contains data submitted by all Australian and New Zealand IVF clinics, and presents information about IVF cycles undertaken in 2020 and the resulting babies born in 2020 and 2021. Explore further IVF success rates have improved in the last decade, especially in older women Macrophages attacking adrenal tumor in male mouse. Credit: Julie Olabe CNRS/GReD Why are cancers of the adrenal glands more common among women? Why are prognoses worse for them? A team of scientists led by a CNRS researcher answers these questions in an article published on October 14, 2022 in Science Advances. They demonstrate that, in male mice, there is greater recruitment of immune cells known as macrophages, which can eliminate tumor cells. Hence, aggressive tumor progression is scarcely seen in male mice; while in female mice, macrophages do not slow the growth of tumors, which eventually metastasize. Through molecular analyses, the team determined that recruitment of tumor-fighting macrophages depends on testosterone. After simple administration of the hormone to females, macrophages able to eradicate tumor cells were rallied to battle. On the basis of these findings, the scientists conducted another study using data on humans, which revealed the same difference in macrophage recruitment rates between men and women with adrenal cancers. This discovery suggests the potential of hormonal stimulation as a treatment for this type of cancer, whose five-year survival rate is less than 30%. Explore further Nanoparticles train immune cells to fight cancer More information: James Wilmouth et al, Sexually dimorphic activation of innate antitumour immunity prevents adrenocortical carcinoma development, Science Advances (2022). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add0422 Journal information: Science Advances James Wilmouth et al, Sexually dimorphic activation of innate antitumour immunity prevents adrenocortical carcinoma development,(2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add0422 Ebola virus. Credit: NIAID Ugandan authorities insist that an outbreak of Ebola that has killed 19 people across the country has not reached Kampala, despite a couple testing positive for the virus in the capital. The health ministry said Friday there have been 58 confirmed cases of the highly contagious viral haemorrhagic fever since the outbreak was first reported in the central district of Mubende on September 20. Only one fatal case had been recorded in Kampala, a 45-year-old man who fled Mubende after a relative died, and sought out the help of a witchdoctor before travelling to the capital where he died. Health authorities on Thursday said the man's wife also tested positive for Ebola shortly after giving birth at a health clinic in Kampala, a city of 1.5 million people. But despite this new case, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng stressed that Kampala was still considered Ebola-free because the woman, and her husband, were exposed to the virus in Mubende. "I want to state very clearly that this does not mean Kampala has Ebola," Aceng told reporters on Thursday. "Cases that were already listed in Mubende remain cases of Mubende. Unless Kampala generates its own cases that start within Kampala, we cannot call that a Kampala case." Health officials have not commented on the status of the baby born to the woman who tested positive. The health workers who attended the birth are under medical observation in an isolation facility at Kampala's main hospital where they will remain for the next 21 days, Aceng said. Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea. Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments. Life has continued as normal in Kampala, though some schools have introduced hand washing facilities that became widespread during the coronavirus pandemic. President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday ordered traditional healers to stop treating sick people in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola, and ordered police to arrest anyone suspected of having contracted the virus who refused to go into isolation. Uganda's last recorded fatality from a previous Ebola outbreak was in 2019. The particular strain now circulating in Uganda is known as the Sudan Ebola virus, for which there is currently no vaccine. The World Health Organization says clinical trials could start within weeks on drugs to combat that strain. Explore further WHO says clinical trials soon for Ebola virus in Uganda 2022 AFP The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing sweeping changes in the way chicken and turkey meat is processed in an effort to reduce salmonella illnesses from food contamination. But those changes could require meat companies to make extensive changes to their operations. The agencys Food Safety and Inspection Service will begin a lengthy process of proposing new rules by holding a public hearing on Nov. 3 to get input from the poultry industry and others. The government wants new regulations rolled out beginning next year and completed within two years. Proposed changes include testing incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys for salmonella before they enter the slaughterhouse and limits on how much certain strains of salmonella can be on meat sold to consumers. NEW ORLEANS (AP) The Environmental Protection Agency said it has evidence that Black residents in an industrial section of Louisiana face an increased risk of cancer from a nearby chemical plant and that state officials have allowed air pollution to remain high and downplayed its threat. The agency's 56-page letter to Louisiana officials describes early findings of racial discrimination by two Louisiana departments involving the entire corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, a plant that EPA said emits large amounts of a cancer-causing chemical and a proposed plastics complex. It said EPA has significant evidence suggesting that the Departments actions or inactions" have hurt and are hurting Black residents of St. John the Baptist Parish, St. James Parish, and the 85-mile (137-kilometer) industrial corridor officially called the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor. Robert Taylor, director of Concerned Citizens of St. John who asked the EPA to investigate the state, said his community has been failed time and time again by every level of government. This is a true and dire health emergency, and we are looking for urgent action by EPA to fix the problem in St. John where huge levels of chloroprene have just been found on top of the years of already unacceptable pollution we have been breathing," Taylor said. This must end." The letter dated Wednesday and posted on EPAs website said it appears that for decades, the state Department of Environmental Quality has let a Denka polymer plant expose people who live nearby and children at an elementary school to enough chloroprene to increase their cancer risk. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says anyone who received federal funds may not discriminate based on race or national origin. The Biden administration has stepped up its enforcement of environmental discrimination, and Title VI is part of its promise to elevate environmental justice as a goal. In September, federal officials announced the creation of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights in the EPA. At the request of local environmental and activist groups, the EPA opened Title VI investigations into whether Louisiana regulators have discriminated against Black residents by failing to control air pollution in the industrial section of the state that some call cancer alley. EPA said the state needs to consider the cumulative impact of pollution from three Denka units with overdue permit renewals and from any of Formosas 14 air permits for its proposed chemical facility that it keeps or reconsiders. A state judge in Baton Rouge overturned Formosas permits, but her ruling was stayed during an appeal, the EPA noted. The state environmental department should set air permit limits in the entire corridor to reduce chemicals that can bring on cancer-causing mutations, EPA said. It said Louisiana's health department should consider all ways to protect children at Fifth Ward Elementary School from chloroprene, including finding places to move them inside and out of St. John the Baptist Parish. Jim Harris, a Denka spokesperson, rejected any suggestion the plant contributed to an increased cancer risk and said the threshold the EPA recommends for chloroprene is based on a faulty and outdated exposure model. The Denka facility has significantly reduced its emissions in recent years. The investigation into the states practices is not over. The agency wants its initial findings to lead to an agreement with Louisiana officials to make significant changes to its air permitting program. EPAs expectation is that the information contained in this Letter will help facilitate that process and result in an expeditious resolution of each of these Complaints, the agency said in a statement. The EPA's letter said it has significant concerns that LDEQ administration of air quality permits may already be putting people near Formosa Plastics' proposed complex at risk, and that these risks appear to be borne disproportionately by the Black residents. They see what we are going through and they see that this is environmental racism, said Sharon Lavigne, who founded Rise St. James to fight Formosa Plastics' $9.4 billion plans for 10 plants and four other facilities near Welcome, a mostly Black community of about 670. Lisa Jordan, director of Tulane's Environmental Law Clinic and an attorney on the Title VI complaint targeting Formosa, said the EPA's letter reflects that it's taking the complaint seriously. The letter was not a finding, but rather a step in the ongoing process, the state Department of Environmental Quality said. The agency said it will keep working to resolve any issues and is committed to being protective of human health and the environment. The Louisiana Department of Health did not immediately respond to an email and calls requesting comment. Formosa's Louisiana affiliate, FG LA LLC, "will meet all state and federal standards, which were established in order to protect the community and the environment," said spokesperson Janile Parks. She said the company believes its permits are sound and that the state met its duty to protect the environment. Michael Phillis reported from St. Louis. The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of APs environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. FRIDAY, Oct. 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A proposed ban on menthol cigarettes could have a significant impact on smoking rates, especially among minorities, new U.S. research suggests. Adult smokers who are younger, have mental health problems and are from racial/ethnic minority groups are more likely to use menthol cigarettes than other groups, according to a study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and The City University of New York. About 2 of every 5 smokers use menthol cigarettes. In 2020, that included more than 80% of Black smokers. That approximately 50% of smokers who were Hispanic, female, ages 18 to 25 and 26 to 34, lesbian/gay and adults with mental health problems used menthol [cigarettes] in 2020 is higher than previously reported and suggests use has expanded across all segments of the population of adults who smoke cigarettes, said researcher Renee Goodwin, an adjunct associate professor at Columbia. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol and flavored cigarettes last year, releasing rules to support that in April. But menthol cigarettes will likely remain on the market for a long time, experts said, because of the regulatory process required and the potential for lawsuits from the tobacco industry. Canada and the United Kingdom have already banned menthol cigarettes. Our results suggest that banning menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could have a widespread impact on public health, especially among younger people and marginalized groups, Goodwin said. For the new study, her team analyzed data from more than 128,000 U.S. adults who took part in government surveys of drug use and health between 2008 and 2020. Over that period, use of menthol cigarettes rose from 34% in 2008 to 41% in 2019. In 2020, 43% of adults who smoked in the past month used menthol cigarettes. Use of menthol cigarettes was most common among Black adults. They were also popular among women, young people, cigar smokers and people with serious psychological distress. Over the study period, menthol use rose fast among Hispanic smokers from 34% in 2008 to 48% in 2019 and then to 51% in 2020. The findings were published Oct. 13 in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Until now, there was a lack of research in this area, said Goodwin, offering many possible explanations for the increased popularity of menthols among Hispanic smokers. For one, there is evidence of greater marketing of menthol cigarettes to Hispanic adults. More information Read more about the potential U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on menthol cigarettes. SOURCE: Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, news release, Oct. 13, 2022 Here is a roundup of some business news in the Missoula area: The Chick-fil-A restaurant being built in Missoula is coming along quickly, thanks to a new type of construction. R&O Construction, the company building the project at 2800 N. Reserve Street, recently posted a timelapse video on Facebook showing how quickly the structure is going vertical. "Our team is moving fast to bring the delicious taste of Chick-fil-A to the residents of Missoula County," the company posted on Facebook. "This project is a pre-fab prototype and only the second of its kind for Chick-fil-A. We built the footings, foundation and slab while the walls were shipped in pre-fabricated." The Stone of Accord restaurant in Missoula is for sale for $5.1 million, according to Sterling Commercial Real Estate Advisors. Located at 4951 North Reserve, the restaurant features a casino, an outdoor dining space and parking. The property includes furniture, fixtures and equipment. Missoula County and the City of Missoula are seeking community input to help identify needs and gaps in services related to public infrastructure and facilities, economic development, community services and housing. The public is invited to fill out a brief and anonymous survey online at missoulacountyvoice.com. The survey opened Tuesday, Oct. 11, through 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28. According to a press release, this city-county effort will help "gauge the communitys interests and funding priorities and is the first step in determining how to effectively use potential state and federal funds, while ensuring that community development projects reflect community needs." We are joining with the city this year to help reduce survey overlap and make the process more efficient, said Missoula County grants administrator Sarah Bell. The City and County both serve Missoula County residents, and it makes our work more effective when we partner together. Feedback from all demographics is important as it helps us be responsive and accurate when seeking grant funding. Both agencies are eligible to receive funding from the Montana Community Development Block Grant Program and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (federal funding administered by the Montana Department of Commerce), along with other grant funding sources that support local housing, public facilities/infrastructure or other community needs. City and County staff will present the assessment results at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, in the Missoula County Courthouse Sophie Moiese Room, 200 W. Broadway. Comments may be submitted in writing by Friday, Oct. 28, or at the public meeting. Written comments must be submitted to at missoulacountyvoice.com. Previous county projects these funding opportunities have helped support include partial construction costs of the Poverello Center and the YWCA Family Housing Center, wastewater system updates in East Missoula and an updated wastewater system for the resident-owned Buena Vista trailer court near the airport. City projects include the Villagio and Trinity apartments, Homeword financial and rental education programs, multiple services to support the Poverello Center and homeowner rehabilitation through the Human Resource Council. Crosswinds Recovery is holding a grand opening for its expanded offices and new mens Recovery Residence. The event will take place on October 19th, 2022, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 2001 South Russell Avenue. Crosswinds is the only recovery center of its kind in the Missoula area, offering two integrated recovery residences for men and one for women. A second womens residence is expected to open by early next year. Demand for residential addiction treatment has skyrocketed, according to Dani Standley, clinical director of Crosswinds Recovery and program coordinator for The Phoenix, a partner addiction recovery program promoting healing through fitness and personal connection. The new facility will open opportunities for people in the community, not just Crosswinds residents, she says. As we expand facilities at Crosswinds, The Phoenix can expand, too. The new office space, centrally located at 2001 South Russell, will provide seven offices and two group meeting rooms to better respond to outpatient needs through clinical services. The two new recovery residences will double the nonprofits residential capacity, from 20 to 40 individuals. Also, Crosswinds Recovery will hire two new Licensed Addiction Counselors in addition to its four current LACs. Founder and executive director for Crosswinds Recovery, Stephen Ferguson, LAC, MSW, said that the expanded office space is an opportunity for community members to access addiction treatment, housing stability support, and, one day, employment assistance. We want to be the hub for reentry and addiction recovery in this area. We are working to create a job service and business development program to hire people with histories of addiction and incarceration, he said. We are developing a partnership with Missoulas treatment courts to provide emergency beds for folks to stabilize while waiting for inpatient beds to be available, and in the future to be a significant partner in the growth of Missoulas treatment court programming. Born and raised in Missoula, Ferguson said he's walked that road himself. He spent 15 years in active addiction, including methamphetamine and heroin use, resulting in his incarceration at Montana State Prison on a 20-year sentence for an armed robbery offense. Following his early release in 2015, Ferguson returned to school and obtained his Addiction Counselor Licensure, a bachelors in Psychology, and a masters in Clinical Social Work; he then started Crosswinds in 2019. "This keeps me alive and sober and allows me to make a difference," he explains. The Montana Department of Transportation and Morrison-Maierle are hosting two open houses to share information and gather community feedback about the I-90 BridgesWest of Alberton Project. The public can attend in-person or choose to participate in a virtual open house. Information presented at the open houses will include MDT's plans to improve three bridges that carry westbound Interstate 90 traffic over: Old Highway 10 and Elizabeth Lane, 9.5 miles west of Alberton Clark Fork River, near Alberton Gorge, approximately 8.5 miles west of Alberton Clark Fork River, near Cyr, approximately 5 miles west of Alberton Bob Vosen, Missoula District administrator, explained that these improvements will be done over multiple years. Gathering input is very important in this process. Community members are encouraged to stop by the Alberton School cafeteria, 306 Railroad Ave. in Alberton, on Wednesday, Oct. 19 between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. MDT will provide information about the preliminary plans for improving the bridges and answer questions at both the in-person and virtual open houses. The virtual open house will be held via zoom on Tuesday, Oct. 18 from noon-1 p.m. Registration is necessary to attend. To register, visit mdt.mt.govpuinvolve/i90alberton. Lifelong Missoula resident Chris Kaneff recently retired from the Missoula Police Department after 21 years in law enforcement and several years spent serving overseas in the Army. Kaneff got started in the Marine Corps. He joined right out of high school and went to San Diego for training about six days after graduating. He served in the first Gulf War, then moved to Montana in August of 1995 when he joined the Army National Guard in Big Sky. When he left the Marine Corps, Kaneff went to college in Missoula and eventually landed a job at the police department in 2000. I had gotten out of the Army National Guard and was focused on my family and my career and then 9/11 happened, he said. The events of 9/11 galvanized two more overseas deployments for Kaneff, which he said was rough as a young parent but a necessary response in the wake of the terrorist attacks. It was a pretty big eye-opener, Kaneff said of 9/11. Being in the Marine Corps is a tradition in Kaneffs family. He grew up watching his father serve. It was the example set for me, Kaneff said. Kaneff spent most of his adult life in public service. He was in Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991, and did his second tour as a lieutenant in 2004 and 2005. His last tour as a captain was from 2009 to 2011. Kaneff received the Bronze Star Medal during his second tour in 2004. The award recognizes ground combat operations. Kaneffs children are following in his footsteps. His oldest daughter served in the Army, and his oldest son is a Marine Corps member. When he was back home in Montana, Kaneff worked in Missoula law enforcement. He retired last year from the Missoula Police Department after 21 years as a police officer. Now, partially retired at 52, Kaneff fills his time with a part-time job at the Missoula County Courthouse as a bailiff for district court hearings. As a responding officer for over 20 years, Kaneff said seeing the courtroom operations and the whole criminal justice process has been an informative experience for him. To see how they process through the entire court system is pretty interesting, he said. Kaneff is also a member of the honor guard of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. (VFW). He helps with funerals on a regular basis at the veteran cemetery in Missoula. The difficult decision to close the Authorized Camping Site for homeless community members in Missoula illustrates the dire need to pass a crisis services levy in order to build, fund and staff alternative sites, say city and county leaders. On Thursday, Missoula County Commissioner Josh Slotnick, Missoula Mayor Jordan Hess and several staff members who work in crisis services held an open house and press conference to advocate passage of the levy. County voters will decide its fate on Election Day this Nov. 8. The levy would raise about $5 million per year, and would cost property owners approximately $27 a year per $100,000 of assessed home value. On Wednesday, city staff members announced that the Authorized Camping Site near Reserve Street that's home to about 60 people living in tents, would be closed in mid-November due to lack of running water, heat, sewer, air conditioning, staff members and funding. The site was set up as an emergency option during the pandemic after the longtime illegal encampment under the Reserve Street bridge was fenced off. The Emergency Winter Shelter on Johnson Street in Missoula has a capacity of about 135 people and will open on Halloween. City and county staff are hoping to get as many people from the ACS as necessary to move to that indoor facility for the winter. But people like Jed Hammond, who has been living at the ACS for several months with his wife, are skeptical. He said he's had problems with drinking in the past and was banned from the shelter. Although everyone who's been banned in the past will get a fresh start this winter, Hammond is still thinking he won't go there again. "I'll be out on the streets," he explained while carrying several bags of groceries to his wife. Hammond said many people at the ACS have substance abuse issues or mental health issues. He said he is often awoken to screaming in the middle of the night. For him, illegal camping somewhere in Missoula might be his only option, because he doesn't have a car and can't live out of town. "My wife and I will be out on the streets," he said. During a City Council meeting on Wednesday, several other residents spoke up and asked for the ACS to remain open somehow. Hess and Slotnick both said that the crisis services levy, if passed, would go to fund solutions for people like Hammond and everyone who has nowhere to go in the county. "If the levy passes, we will have stability and predictability of funding that will allow us to make long-term decisions and do long-term planning," Hess said. "And I would't be surprised at all if we could come up with a year-round emergency shelter option that took the place of the Emergency Winter Shelter and also provided a place of respite in the heat and smoke and other times of year and was really a replacement for both of those services." Slotnick stressed that people still have a place to go with the Emergency Winter Shelter opening. He noted that the ACS was set up in an emergency. "We pulled these efforts together with access to time, money and a whole lot of baling twine and duct tape and extra effort on the part of staff," Slotnick said. "And as for the future of these things, our commitment will not waver but our access to funding and a lot of the future depends, not entirely, but depends on the outcome of this levy, which would allow us to put together more thoughtful, robust efforts designed for the long-term." Slotnick noted that federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, which helped set up the ACS and pay for staff and security, will run out, so local funding is needed. Both Slotnick and Hess, along with others, said the crisis service levy isn't just a solution for people without homes. Instead, they say, the levy would fund programs that help people of all incomes, socioeconomic backgrounds and circumstances. For example, John Petroff with the Mobile Support Team said his EMTs and clinicians often are called to help people who live in houses that are going through a crisis. On Wednesday, City Council Member Kristen Jordan said she wanted a clearer picture of what the crisis services levy would fund. On Thursday, county officials distributed a flyer showing a list of existing programs and planned services that the levy could fund or boost, although since it hasn't passed yet there isn't exact language on what it would fund. The list includes: Calibrate, a prosecution-led pretrial diversion program operated by the Missoula County Attorney's Office that seeks to divert first-time, nonviolent offenders away from jail and criminal conviction and into a program of individualized supervision and services. The program, the county says, aims to address the root causes of why an individual became involved in the criminal justice system to reduce their likelihood of re-offending. Civil Commitment Mental Health Services, a program that provides licensed mental health professionals to evaluate and advocate for people experiencing a mental health crisis as they undergo the court-ordered emergency detention and civil commitment process. The Community Justice Department, a collaboration between law enforcement agencies, courts, the County Attorney and other partners to promote the efficient and just treatment of defendants and offenders, the ongoing improvement and coordination of the justice system's response to crime, the prevention of crime and the reduction of recidivism. The Crime Victim Advocate Program, which helps victims of relationship and sexual violence through the court process with an emphasis on early intervention services that can help prevent lethal violence down the road. The Crisis Intervention Program, which provides voluntary, hands-on, nationally vetted training to law enforcement and other first responders to recognize and help individuals having a behavioral health crisis. A Crisis Receiving Center, which is a planned medical site that will provide stabilization and services for up to 24 hours for people in crisis who may otherwise end up in an emergency room or jail. The Jail Mental Health team, which provides mental and behavioral health services to people incarcerated at the Missoula County Detention Facility. The team works with people both inside the jail and upon release to help ensure they can better re-integrate into the community. The Mobile Support Team, which sends EMTs and clinicians trained to help people experiencing a mental health crisis instead of law enforcement or other first responders. The team also connects clients to appropriate services, diverting them from the emergency room or jail. The Community Supported Re-entry Program of the Missoula County Sheriff's Office and the Pretrial Supervision Program, which both help formerly incarcerated people succeed upon release without falling into homelessness or re-offending while they await trail. The program connects people to intensive case management, drug treatment, permanent supportive housing solutions and employment programs. The Temporary Safe Outdoor Space and the Emergency Winter Shelter, which provide shelter during extreme weather and help people survive while living in makeshift camps. The barriers and services offered at these sites vary depending on the community members they serve. The Trinity Navigation Center, which will provide low-barrier services to people experiencing homelessness in Missoula, including connection to the Missoula Coordinated Entry System and housing navigation, warming space, basic health care and other support services. The assessed value of a home can be found at itax.missoulacounty.us and is often much less than the amount a home would sell for on the open market. Early and absentee voting began in New Mexico on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. In New Mexico, early and absentee voting started Tuesday, Oct. 11, for the Nov. 8 general election. Polls opened Tuesday for early voters, and those wishing to vote by absentee ballot also could request ballots today. The New Mexico Secretary of State provides information on early and absentee voting on its website. Here are some of the pertinent bullet points. What should New Mexico voters know about early voting? You may vote early in-person, instead of voting by mail. Go to your county clerks office beginning the 28th day before the election to vote. Expanded early voting is available in many counties beginning on the third Saturday before the election. Look up early voting locations here or call your county clerk for locations and dates and hours of operation. Early voting ends the Saturday before the election. How to request an absentee ballot by mail in New Mexico You can request an absentee ballot by filling out an application and returning it to your local County Clerk. Applications can be obtained by: Filling out an application online by clicking here Contacting your county clerks Office in person, by phone, by mail or through email Downloading an absentee ballot application and mailing it or hand delivering it to your County Clerks Office A ballot will be sent to voters who have properly filled out the application. If the application was not completed correctly, a notification with the reason why the application was not accepted will be sent within 24 hours of receipt of the application. To check the status of your absentee application, go here or contact your county clerks office . If you do not receive the absentee ballot, please contact the county clerks office. Additional options for registering and requesting an absentee ballot for military and overseas voters are available under federal and state law. Please visit the Military and Overseas Voter Information page for more details. Story continues What is the deadline to request an absentee ballot? The county clerk must receive the application for an absentee ballot no later than the Thursday immediately prior to the election. Within 23 days of Election Day, the county clerk must either mail the ballot or notice of rejection to the applicant as soon as practicable; provided that the ballot or a notice of rejection is sent not later than 22 days before the election. If I apply for an absentee ballot and receive it, can I change my mind and vote at my polling place on Election Day? Yes, but must you must execute an affidavit stating that the person did not and will not vote the mailed ballot that was issued. What if I do not receive my absentee ballot? If you apply for, but do not receive the absentee ballot, you may apply for a replacement absentee ballot by communicating with the county clerk and requesting a replacement mailed ballot be delivered to the voter; and execute an affidavit and the county clerk has voided the mailed ballot previously issued to the voter. You may also go to your polling place and vote on a replacement absentee ballot on Election Day, after signing an affidavit of non-receipt of absentee ballot. In both cases, you will be required to sign a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, that you did not receive your ballot. Who can take the absentee ballot back to the county clerk? A member of your immediate family or your caregiver may hand-deliver your absentee ballot, provided that the voter has subscribed the official mailing envelope of the absentee ballot. An unrelated third party may not deliver another voters absentee ballot. When does an absentee ballot have to be returned for it to be counted? Ballots must be returned to the county clerk or voters precinct by 7 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. How much does it cost to mail my absentee ballot? Return postage is pre-paid. Please ensure you return the ballot with enough time for it to arrive at your county clerks office before 7 pm on Election Day. For more details, log on to the Voter Information Portal on the New Mexico Secretary of State's website. The outer envelope of my absentee ballot requests an AV register number. Do I fill this out? You can leave that information blank. This information is for internal use only. Same-day voter registration in New Mexico New Mexicans who are eligible to vote can register to vote or update their voter registration immediately before voting in a statewide election during Early Voting and on Election Day. This is whats known as same day voter registration. Who is eligible for same-day voter registration? Any eligible voter in New Mexico can register to vote or update their voter registration and then vote on the same day at their county clerks office or at any polling location in their county on Election Day and at participating early voting locations. Where is SDR available? SDR is available for eligible voters at their county clerks office or at any polling location in their county on Election Day. Additional early voting locations may also provide SDR its best to check with your local county clerk. What do I need to bring for SDR? Whether you are an unregistered voter or an already registered voter looking to update your registration, in order to use SDR youll need to bring: A New Mexico drivers license or New Mexico identification card issued through the motor vehicle division of the taxation and revenue department; Any document that contains an address in the county together with a photo identification card; OR A current valid student photo identification card from a post-secondary educational institution in New Mexico accompanied by a current student fee statement that contains the students address in the county. Is SDR available for voters registered with a major party? Major party voters may update name, address, or other contact info during SDR. However, if you are currently registered with a major political party you cannot use SDR to switch parties during the primary election. Can I use SDR for absentee (vote by mail) voting? No. SDR is available only for voters voting in person, on the same day, at the same time they register to vote or update their voter registration at an in-person (Early or Election Day) polling location. To register for an absentee ballot, click HERE. Damien Willis is a Lead Reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News. He can be reached at 575-541-5443, dwillis@lcsun-news.com or @DamienWillis on Twitter. Others are reading: This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: How to find early voting locations, absentee ballots in New Mexico Shutterstock CVS is slashing the cost of menstrual products at its pharmacies and eliminating the pink tax still charged in many states on tampons, pads, cups and liners. The pharmacy chain has already begun paying the sales tax on all period products in a dozen states. Nationwide, the company has started cutting the price of certain menstrual products as of Thursday. CVS Health is working to reduce the costs of period care as well as the stigma associated with menstruation and period poverty, company executives wrote in a joint statement Tuesday. We will be paying the tax on period products in 12 states, and we are lowering the price of menstrual products in our stores. According to the company, prices for CVS-Health and Live Better menstrual products are being reduced by 25% across the board at all core CVS pharmacy locations. In other words, the discounts extend to CVSs store brands and do not apply to national labels. Additionally, the sales tax on menstrual products aka the pink tax is paid for by CVS regardless of brand in the following 12 states: Arkansas Georgia Hawaii Louisiana Missouri South Carolina Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Wisconsin West Virginia The companys website says that not all states allow third parties to pay sales tax on behalf of customers. According to the advocacy group Alliance for Period Supplies, 22 states still charge sales tax on period products, 23 states have eliminated the pink tax, and the remaining five states have no sales tax at all. We all know plenty of people that have a period, the organizations website states. But not everyone knows that one in four people struggle to purchase period supplies due to lack of income. This is called period poverty, and chances are we each know someone who has experienced this need a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend. Period products are essential, the organization says, and should be recognized as material basic needs rather than luxury goods. CVS says these steps are part of a broader initiative to tackle period poverty and end the pink tax nationwide. Story continues Its time that we prioritize womens holistic health by putting an end to menstrual stigma, the CVS executives wrote. More from Money: Prices for These 20 Items Are Rising Faster Than Overall Inflation Social Security Checks Are Getting Their Biggest Boost in 42 Years Time Is Running out to Buy I Bonds With Historically High Interest Rates Copyright 2021 Ad Practitioners, LLC. All Rights Reserved. This article originally appeared on Money.com and may contain affiliate links for which Money receives compensation. Opinions expressed in this article are the author's alone, not those of a third-party entity, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed. Offers may be subject to change without notice. For more information, read Moneys full disclaimer. Just after the first company has announced it is moving into the industrial park off Kathy Road, Burke County commissioners will decide whether to be a part of another industrial park. Burke Development Inc. is asking the Burke County Board of Commissioners to approve a Memorandum of Agreement with McDowell County to explore the feasibility of the joint development of the approximately 1,400 acres for an industrial park that would span the two counties. The feasibility would, in part, determine the associated costs and partnership opportunities, according to information from Burke County. The two counties would pursue grant funding to evaluate the viability of the property including wetlands delineation and endangered species assessment. Other matters that could be assessed include water and sewer utility provisions, natural gas extension, core drillings, site grading estimates, rail extension and power, according to Burke County. The property is being called the Great Meadows site, according to information from Burke County. On Monday night, the McDowell County Board of Commissioners approved the agreement to work with Burke on the mega site, according to a story in Tuesdays McDowell News. The McDowell News story said Chuck Abernathy, director of the McDowell Economic Development Association (MEDA), told McDowell commissioners the state defines a mega site as property that is approximately 1,000 acres. These properties are submitted for larger and more substantial inquiries received by the state from possible company locations. An example of this would be the creation of an automotive plant, Abernathy said, according to the story. If both counties approve the agreement, the owners of the property, Great Meadows Inc., will enter into a five-year lease of the property with Burke Development Inc. and McDowell EDA and would be subject to a second five-year extension for a total of 10 years with the approval of Burke and McDowell counties, according to Burke County. The county says if the findings are deemed to be favorable, Burke and McDowell County may negotiate an agreement between the counties and with the property owner to jointly develop and market the property subject to the negotiated terms and conditions. Whatever company chooses to locate there would purchase that particular property from Great Meadows, Abernathy told The McDowell News. It was announced earlier this year that Burke Business Park, which the county and several of its municipalities owns, will be getting its first tenant, Unix Packaging LLC, after sitting empty for 20 years. The company plans to build a 500,000-square-foot facility and create at least 65 jobs and invest $25.9 million in the overall project, according to the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority. Burke Business Park is an 83-acre site with five pre-graded industrial pads, ranging from 4 to 15.5 acres, according to BDI. BDI, along with the owners, have worked to get sufficient water to the site and in June, the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority announced the county is getting a $377,497 grant for the county to provide sewer extension to the site, according to previous News Herald stories. The Burke County Board of Commissioners will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the commissioners meeting room, located at 110 N. Green St., Morganton. One of the real joys of being on Avenue 5 is watching star Hugh Laurie and co-star Lenora Crichlow interact, Zach Woods says. Their ability to ad lib and make it sound like something that would have taken an American a week and a half to write is so humbling, he explains. You can see the obvious mutual admiration and adoration between these two actors. Its so nice to be around. In the HBO comedy, Laurie plays the captain of an interplanetary cruise ship, Critchlow is the all-knowing second engineer and Woods is the head of customer relations. What started out as an eight-week cruise now is likely to last more than eight years. And trouble ensues In the second season, the folks aboard the ship deal with the prospects of a life in space and the truth about the experts running the ship. While Woods Matt Spencer tries to calm the fears of a restless bunch of travelers, Crichlows Billie McEvoy works to set things right. While the first season ended in 2020, the second didnt get in homes until this month. The pandemic, of course, delayed production, but it also got the actors to think about what Avenue 5 was saying about the world and its priorities. When we went into lockdown, I did suddenly think, Oh, our shows way more relevant. And that was was exciting, but I have no idea what itd be like to be stuck on a ship, Woods says. Genuinely, I think it would be even more harrowing because you cant step outside. At least in the pandemic, you could step outside. I think Id be the one absorbing angst at pragmatic, practical ideas, just like Billie, Crichlow says. Mutual admiration When the actors did get back together, they had a greater appreciation for their co-stars and the roles they play. I cant imagine anyone else playing the characters, Woods says. Every actor has made the character so much their own. To me, thats who they are now. Crichlow agrees. Billie, she says, can be annoying with her low tolerance for those around her, but shes got a drive that I kind of find fun to play. Watch what you do Woods says writers pay close attention to the actors quirks and amplify them. Their antennae are so pricked to whatever is obnoxious, overblown and self-aggrandizing Im scared that if I say a word anything it will be sort of caught by those antennae. A veteran of shows by Greg Daniels (The Office), Mike Judge (Silicon Valley) and now Armando Iannucci (VEEP), Woods realizes they have an ability to fit characters to actors. If theres a unifying characteristic of the creative geniuses, its that I feel self-conscious around them. The trick for him as an actor: Stay in the mind of the character its less likely to get ham-fisted. Acting class Crichlow says a ship full of billionaires who go up into space at enormous expense, is like a nightmare sociopath cocktail party. When one -- in real life -- announces hes going into space, its just when everyone else really wants to hear that, she jokes. Still, the concept has given her that ability to spar with Laurie. Everyones kind of encouraged to improvise, Crichlow says. Whats so nice is that the other actors are always ready to catch whatever you throw. Laurie, Woods says, offers up these fully realized sort of poetic, acerbic things where youre like, How does your mind synthesize that so effortlessly?' Hes just remarkable at it. Adds Crichlow: He can improvise with a pause. Thats one of the things I honestly love watching him do. Hes telling story all the time and making more of whatever the script is. While both actors have gotten ample opportunity to experience what life in space would be like, they dont harbor a desire to actually do it. I look at the other people and think, I wish I could be living that actors life, Woods says. Avenue 5 airs on HBO. The Belmont Senior Center opened its doors in 2001. It wasnt long after that a woodcarving group formed. The fruits of their labor, individually and collectively, are on display throughout the facility at 615 E. Mercury St., whether it be the numerous miniature headframes or their most recent project, the Belmont War Memorial. The brainchild of Percy Craddock, the unofficial leader of this particular group of artisans, the memorial was recently completed and now has a place of honor just inside the main entrance. Craddock, who taught woodworking for 50 years, first at Butte High School and later as an adult education instructor, wanted to honor past Belmont woodcarvers who served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard or Air Force. His fellow woodworkers agreed and stepped in to help. Four members of the group, Ted Musselman, Una Schlaebitz, Lowell Carlson and Regan Dean sat down Thursday to talk about their hobby and newest completed project. Percy is the guru of our group, said Schlaebitz. We have learned a lot from him. Thats a unanimous sentiment among the group. Were all here because of Percy, said Dean. The basics on their latest project were completed by Craddock, including the cabinet and letters. Percy did the Army disc, explained Musselman, and each one of us did individual discs and the project evolved from there. Musselman, a Coast Guard veteran, had dibs on, of course, the Coast Guard. Now that this project is complete, the groups weekly meetings will again focus on individual projects, which can range anywhere from producing wooden hummingbirds to grizzly bears to bobcats, along with seasonal projects pumpkins and a variety of old St. Nicks. Dean got hooked on woodworking while attending an adult education class taught by Craddock. He is rather fond of hummingbirds and gives them as gifts to family, friends, and those who have lost a loved one. I have had a blessed life, said Dean. It feels good to give. Musselman has worked on several projects, at home and at the Belmont, and has replicated a number of Buttes iconic headframes. One recent project hes particularly proud of is a wooden statue he did for a friend whose horse died. I give away most of my stuff, he admitted. For Schlaebitz, her specialty is Santa Claus. While living in Frenchtown, she joined a Christmas carving class and has been making Kris Kringles ever since. She, too, doesnt sell her work. I give them as gifts, she said. For all four people, woodworking was a hobby they each wanted to improve upon. The class helps them do just that. Carlson enjoys trying a few techniques, including chip, relief and caricature carving. He has been with the group for a little over a year. Watching them work piqued his interest. I have learned so much with these guys, said Carlson, and its helped me up my game. Part of the groups charm is the fact that any and all are willing to share their ideas. The ultimate goal, however, is completing individual projects. Musselman described their hobby in simple words. You may start out with just a block of wood, but then you make something of it, said Musselman. I like that. MISSOULA U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen sentenced Shantyl Marie Giacoletto, 30, a Butte nurse who pleaded guilty in June to stealing opiates while working in Butte and area medical centers, to one year and one day in prison Thursday in Missoula. The sentence is to be followed by one year of supervised release. According to court documents, Giacoletto diverted opiates in 2021 while working at medical centers in Anaconda, Butte and Deer Lodge. In June 2021, a Community Hospital of Anaconda manager discovered that Giacoletto, for at least the previous three months, routinely obtained oxycodone from the hospitals pharmacy but did not administer that drug to the intended patients. A total of 392 oxycodone pills were unaccounted for. When confronted by management, Giacoletto denied diverting drugs, claimed she always administered them to patients and that nobody scans things. Other employees discredited her assertion and indicated it would be extremely rare for someone to not record administering a drug to a patient. The hospital terminated Giacolettos employment. Eleven days later, the government reported that Giacoletto began working at Copper Ridge Health and Rehabilitation Center in Butte. Copper Ridge officials subsequently discovered diversions of hydrocodone, and that Giacoletto had worked shifts at Copper Ridge within days of management discerning the diversions. Another diversion occurred in October 2021 at Continental Care and Rehabilitation Center in Butte, where the Butte woman worked as a traveling nurse. Dozens of hydrocodone and oxycodone tablets were unaccounted for and patient log sheets had been manipulated and destroyed in violation of record-keeping policies. Because of the diversion, a patient had to go without oxycodone for several days until a new supply arrived. Management then announced a drug screening, and most nurses provided urine samples, which were all negative for the diverted drugs. Giacoletto did not submit to the drug test and failed to return to work at that facility. Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester confirmed Thursday night that a male involved in a standoff with law enforcement since Wednesday afternoon is dead. "The situation on the 500 block of West Aluminum Street has ended," Lester said in a Thursday night release. "The male subject who was armed and had barricaded himself inside a residence is deceased. The male was found dead in the basement of the residence." Lester added that officers will remain at the scene overnight and the investigation will continue Friday morning. Normal activity can resume in the area as there is no further public safety threat. "Id like to thank Sheriff Leo Dutton of Lewis and Clark County for sending his SWAT team and bomb squad to assist in this incident," Lester said in the release. "The incident did not end the way I had hoped, but Im thankful all officers involved are safe." The Lewis and Clark County SWAT team joined the Butte-Silver Bow SWAT team Thursday at the scene of a standoff that began early Wednesday afternoon in the 500 block of Aluminum Street. Officers used an armored car and a small drone earlier Thursday to search the house. A woman was evacuated from the residence late Wednesday afternoon. Lester had asked the public to stay away from the area and said he would keep the public updated. Steve McGrath recently moved into the house next door to the home where the standoff occurred. He was walking home from dropping his vehicle for maintenance and encountered police, who asked him to leave the area. As McGrath observed the police officers and SWAT team from afar Wednesday he said he hoped for a peaceful resolution. "I just hope the lead doesn't start flying," he said, noting that he had a cat at home. Until the commotion Wednesday McGrath had enjoyed his new residence, having moved from an area in Butte with traffic and other noise. "I love this neighborhood," he said. "It's really quiet." Republican Ryan Zinke continued to outraise and outspend Democrat Monica Tranel but that margin tightened somewhat in the final stretch of the campaign according to numbers released by the campaigns this week for the quarterly period ending Sept. 30. In the race to represent Montanas new western congressional district, Zinke, a former congressman and Secretary of the Interior, has for the past year handily outraised both his primary and general opponents. Tranel, an attorney who was previously the legal counsel for the state Public Service Commission, for the first time broke the $1 million mark for quarterly fundraising. Her campaign brought in $1.1 million during the third quarter. They spent $955,000, and ended with $353,000 cash on hand. Zinke raised $1.7 million from July 1 through Sept. 30. The campaign spent $2.1 million during the third quarter, leaving $525,000 in the bank. Zinkes fundraising haul pads an existing gap between the two campaigns in total fundraising to date. Tranels third-quarter numbers bring her fundraising total to $2.4 million, while Zinkes campaign hit $5.5 million this month. Libertarian John Lamb had not previously raised enough money to require him to report campaign finance information. As of Thursday he had not filed any new reports with the Federal Election Commission. The quarterly financial reports, which include detailed information about where the campaigns cash is coming from and where its being spent, are due at the FEC this weekend. Zinkes campaign filed their full report Thursday. A Tranel spokesperson said their campaigns likely wouldnt be filed until Saturday. Outside spending has also started to ramp up in the race, with a pair of super PACs recently making dueling six-figure expenditures to benefit both candidates. Big Sky Voters PAC has spent $371,000 on communications opposing Zinke since it was created in mid-September, according to FEC filings. And the super PAC More Jobs, Less Government has spent $314,000 opposing Tranel and supporting Zinke since late August. Absentee ballots, which typically about three-quarters of Montana voters use to vote, started getting mailed out this week. Election Day is Nov. 8. I am a doctor training at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana to become a rural family physician. I am also the mother to my giggling 6-month-old son. Before this baby, we had 13-week missed miscarriage. At our second routine ultrasound, I was told, I am so sorry; there is no heartbeat. We had made it through the first trimester, but for some still-unknown reason, our tiny boy had died. When I decided I wanted to hold him, and not have him removed through surgery, my doctor prescribed misoprostol, a medication known for its use in abortions, to induce cervical dilation to make my body let go. I am immeasurably grateful for the chance my husband and I had to hold our baby, name him and bury him. LR-131 terrifies me because it would take those moments away from parents solely on whether their babys heart had, or had not yet, stopped beating. While the poorly conceived aim of bill LR-131 is to punish abortion, it will have broader effects for women and their babies who experience preterm labor and severe fetal anomalies. We see this in Texas, where pharmacies refuse to stock methotrexate, the medication used to treat ectopic pregnancies by stopping growth of the embryo, and providers hesitate to prescribe misoprostol and mifepristone, medications that treat missed miscarriages and also initiate medication abortions. Many patients who receive terminal diagnoses for their babies are told to continue until the baby either dies, or is born and placed on brief, isolating and even painful life support. I am training to become a full-spectrum family doctor, delivering babies, caring for hospitalized patients, covering the emergency room and seeing patients in clinic. Born Alive LR-131, however, makes me worried that I could not stay in Montana to provide the quality care my patients need. LR-131 would allow physicians to be charged with a felony, fined up to $50,000, or sentenced to 20 years in prison if they do not resuscitate any infant born with a heartbeat. I am not alone in this fear. Hospital recruiters are struggling to fill OBGYN slots in states with abortion bans, even amongst doctors who do not provide abortions, because of the extensive crossover between abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and caring for patients who find themselves or their fetuses at risk of death or disability. I chose medication to induce labor to give birth to my dead son for the chance to hold him. I wanted to touch his tiny fingers and look at his face. The only photo I have of him is my most important picture; he has a soft smile and one arm behind his head; he looks relaxed and mischievous. He is as small as a peach and his skin is too see-through and I adore him. When doctors and parents already know that the best choice for a family is to NOT pursue intensive medical treatment, I cannot fathom taking away those precious minutes of life to inflict pain on a baby, alone and separated from its parents. As a doctor, I refuse to harm a family like that. As a wife and a mother, I cannot risk prison time. I will leave Montana, if that is what it takes to provide compassionate, quality care to my patients. Vote NO to LR-131 to keep Montana a state that protects constituents right to privacy and decisions over bodily autonomy. Vote NO to LR-131 to keep Montana a state where doctors feel safe to practice appropriate, compassionate medicine. Vote NO to allow heartbroken parents the chance to hold and love their non-viable babies. COLUMBUS JUNCTION A Columbus Junction couple told the City Council on Wednesday the alley behind their house was so rough their trash collection service refused to drive down it. Lonnie and Cheryl Harless, 437 Second St., told the council they now had to put their trash on Second Street, and they asked city officials what they planned to do about the situation. They also wondered what they should do for the upcoming citywide cleanup on Oct. 28. Mayor Mark Huston said he had not been down the alley but assured the couple their concerns would be investigated. Well take a look at it, he said. The Harlesses also said they were concerned over a lack of enforcement involving a parked motorcycle at a neighbors house they said was abandoned. They indicated the motorcycle did not have a valid license plate and had been parked on a sidewalk for an extended time. Huston repeated his earlier assurance, prompting another response from Cheryl Harless. OK, we expect to hear something, she said as they left the council chambers. In other action, council members and city staff discussed whether the city should move forward with repair work on some city streets, even though some of the streets are expected to be part of a state detour next year. According to previous discussions, the Iowa Department of Transportation is planning to conduct widening and other improvements on Iowa Highway 92 and has discussed with local officials the need to detour traffic. Although Public Works staffer Todd Salazar said he did not think the DOT had finalized its detour route, some of the streets mentioned earlier included Colton, Gamble, Second and Main streets. Some of those streets are on the citys list for repairs, but Salazar wondered if that work should wait until the state is finished with the detour. He pointed out that state officials had acknowledged their agency would repair any damage caused by the detour. Salazar also said he and Louisa Development Group Executive Director Cole Smith had submitted a grant application to obtain street repair funds through the Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) program. However, if STBG funds are awarded, they would not be available until 2027, Salazar explained. The council did not take any action but did ask Salazar to develop cost estimates for milling and re-asphalting some of the streets. Huston also reported Park Board members Bev Nielsen and Twyla Peters had submitted their resignations. He said both had been outstanding park board members who had been heavily involved in efforts to recognize the Swinging Bridge and develop new park areas. He also praised the community effort for the recently completed Columbus Day and Bridging events, suggesting they were one of the better celebrations the city has held. Huston also pointed out the contractor was making good progress with repair work on the Columbus Community Museum. In final action, the council passed the first reading of an amendment to the citys truck parking ordinance. Under the amendment, which must still pass two readings, truck parking would be limited to 10 minutes on either side of Colonel Drive from East Access to Highway 70 Bypass. WAPELLO Rural Louisa County residents who wish to have their water wells tested and disinfected will continue to have that opportunity after the Louisa County Board of Health approved a contract during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, extending a state grant that provides funding for the program. According to Louisa County Public Health Service (LCPHS) Administrator Roxanne Smith and previous reports, the contract for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Grants to Counties will allow the testing and mitigation covered under the program to continue in the county. Under the program, residents can receive free testing and up to $300 to shock-chlorinate wells that fail to pass. Smith reported that after she had placed an advertisement for the program in one of the three local newspapers in the county, the response had been so strong she had delayed placing the ad in the other publications. County co-sanitarian Brian Thyes environmental health report, which was included in the BOHs October meeting packet, showed 11 tests were conducted in September, three more than in August and eight higher than July. A three-year 28E agreement between the BOH and the Iowa Department of Public Health, delegating the departments inspection and enforcement authority for swimming pools/spas and tattoo establishments, was also approved by the board. The agreement is similar to one the two groups had previously signed, Smith and co-sanitarian Bruce Hudson, who attended the meeting by Zoom, said. In other action, Smith reported the LCPHS staff had resumed its regular Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI) efforts, following their interruption during much of the COVID pandemic. The goal of the program is to decrease transfers and hospitalizations of home health clients by 25% by October 2023. Smith indicated the staff would use weekly care conferences, an improved discharge planning process and nursing education to accomplish the goal. She said the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would use the QAPI reports and other data to award or penalize local public health services. Under the CMS guidelines, agencies that score low would lose 5% of CMS payments, while agencies scoring high would receive a 5% boost in payments. Smith also updated the BOH members on a mosquito trapping/monitoring program she had been conducting through Iowa State University for the past several years. She said this year a mosquito species suspected of being a possible carrier for several diseases was captured in one of her Louisa County traps. Although the mosquito apparently did not carry any viruses, Smith said its capture showed the species was present and could survive in this area. The status of several flu clinics and immunization audits was also provided to the BOH. In final action, a representative of the Johnson County BOH met by Zoom with the board and updated it on upcoming confidential STD clinics that will be held in Louisa County under a partnership with Johnson County. According to the representative, two clinics will be held, both from 1 to 4 p.m. at the LCPHS office at the Louisa County Complex. The first clinic will be Oct. 20, while the second will be on Oct. 27. For more information, contact the LCPHS at 319-523-3981 or visit its Facebook page. MUSCATINE People looking for that special and unique costume to wear to a Halloween party need look no further than Muscatine Goodwill for a costume at a fraction of the cost many big box stores charge. For the past year, workers at the 18 stores of Goodwill of the Heartland have been trying to foresee what will be in high demand for Halloween. They then put aside donated Halloween items they find that would make good costume pieces. With the release of the new "Hocus Pocus" movie, Goodwill stores are reporting witch costumes are in high demand. Also popular are the old favorites such as a ghost, clown, vampire or police officer. Even if someone isnt sure what they want to be for Halloween, the racks set up in the center of the store can be browsed for ideas of what would make a good costume. Many of the accessories are separated by category. Its our biggest sale of the year, Lisa Wagner assistant store manager for Muscatine Goodwill, said. Its like everybodys Christmas at the big box. Here at Goodwill, its Halloween. Thats our big seller. She said that even before Halloween season, the items were put out so high school students could look through the costumes to find items for their spirit days. On Sept. 12, the event begins, the racks are put up in the center of the store and the items are put out. Behind the scenes, workers have been sorting items since July. Kolbi Jamison, retail project manager for Goodwill of the Heartland, said the items saved for Halloween werent just normal costumes. They include such things as vintage clothes like black, red and purple dresses or graduation gowns that can be turned into a cape. She said Goodwill specialized in providing costumes that couldnt be found elsewhere. We want our shopper to come to our store and buy a costume that is not going to look like the other pirate or the other witch at that party, she said. We want you to come in and get that one-of-a-kind outfit. She also said that 88 cents of every dollar spent at Goodwill went back into the mission of helping people reach their fullest potential. To help people assemble their costumes, Goodwill has ideas on its web site: https://www.goodwill.org/halloween/. WAPELLO The Louisa County Sheriffs Office reports seeing a major spike in the number of drug arrests in September compared to the previous months and years, having 120 arrests in August and September. According to a news release from the department, this number is double the amount from a year earlier. The release also said that most of the arrests came between the hours of 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. It reports night deputies are working hard and diligently to keep roads safe and narcotics off the streets. Commonly the Columbus Junction Police Department assists in these arrests and cases. Chief Deputy Brandon Marquardt, who issued the release, could not be reached Thursday for comment on possible reasons for the spike. According to the release, some of the arrests include: 08/01/22: Hwy 92/L Ave., Columbus Junction Male subject, 21, Columbus Junction. Charged with D felony possession of controlled substance with intent to distribute (mari), possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to obey a stop sign. 08/02/2022: G44X/160th St., Grandview Male subject, 42, Davenport. Charged with operating while intoxicated, first offense. 08/06/22: Hwy 92/N Ave., Columbus Junction Male subject, 46, Rock Island. Charged with possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. 08/11/22: Hwy 61/130th St., Wapello Male subject, 36, Burlington. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari) 3rd offense and permitting unauthorized person to drive her vehicle. 08/14/22: Hwy 61/130th St., Wapello Male subject, 40, Burlington. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari) 3rd offense and driving under suspension. 08/14/22: Hwy 92/Hwy 61, Grandview Male subject, 45, Muscatine. Charged with possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Female subject, 49, New Boston, Ill. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. Female subject, 59, Muscatine. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 8/17/22: Hwy 61/170th St., Letts Female subject, 48, Rolla Mo. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. Male subject, age 53, House Springs, Mo. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 8/19/22: Hwy 92/Hwy 70, Columbus Junction. Male subject, 51, Chicago. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari) and providing false Identification to law enforcement. 8/20/22: County Rd G56/I Ave, Wapello Male subject, 33, of Bixby Mo. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari) 3rd offense. 08/26/22: 180th St/F. Ave., Muscatine Female subject, 28 of Muscatine. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 08/26/22: Hwy 61/Mill St., Wapello Female subject, 22, Buffalo. Charged with possession of controlled substance (mari) and pending driving while under the influence charges. 08/27/22: 300 Block Vernon St., Grandview Male subject, 34, Grandview. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/01/22: E. Jackson St./S Main St., Grandview Male subject, 37, Grandview. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/01/22: Hwy 61/J. Ave., Wapello Female subject, 20, Morning Sun. Charged with possession of controlled substance (THC wax), possession of drug paraphernalia and speeding. 09/03/22: Hwy 92, 23000 block, Columbus Junction Male subject, 65, Columbus Junction. Charged with possession of controlled substance (mari) and possession of drug paraphernalia. Male subject, 42, New London. Charged with possession of controlled substance (methamphetamine) 2nd offense and possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/03/22: Hwy 61/Washington St., Wapello Male subject, 50, Galva, Ill. Charged with possession of controlled substance (mari) 3rd offense. 09/04/22: Hwy 61/145th St., Wapello Male subject, 52, Davenport. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (cocaine) 3rd offense, possession of a controlled substance (mari) 3rd offense and possession of drug paraphernalia. Female subject, 34, Davenport. Charged with possession of controlled substance (mari) and possession of drug paraphernalia. Male subject, 63, Davenport. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) 3rd offense, possession of a controlled substance (mari), operating while intoxicated, driving while barred and possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/05/22: Hwy 92/P Ave., Columbus Junction Female subject, age 41, Chicago. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/07/22: Surrey Dr., Wapello Female subject, 55, Coralville. Charged with operating while intoxicated, driving under suspension, operating non-registered vehicle and no insurance. 09/11/22: Hwy 61/G56, Wapello Male subject, 35, Wapello. Charged with operating while intoxicated 2nd offense, driving under suspension and operation without ignition interlock device. 09/11/22: Hwy 61/G56, Wapello Male subject, 38, Muscatine. Charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/14/22: 100 Block Jefferson St., Grandview Male subject, 41, Grandview. Charged with operating while intoxicated. 09/14/22: Franklin St., Wapello Male subject, 26, Wapello. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari), possession of drug paraphernalia, driving under suspension and no insurance. 09/20/22: 100 Block Madison St., Grandview Male subject, 32, Letts. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) 2nd offense, possession of a controlled substance (mari) 2nd offense, Class D felony operating while intoxicated 3rd offense, possession of drug paraphernalia and open container. 09/24/22: Hwy 61/130th St., Wapello Male subject, 56, Orlando Fla. Charged with operating while intoxicated. Male subject, age 57, Davenport. Charged with possession of a controlled substance (mari) and possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/28/22: Hwy 92/N Ave., Columbus Junction Female subject, 25, Muscatine. Charged with possession of controlled substance (psilocybin mushrooms), possession of a controlled substance (mari) and possession of drug paraphernalia. 09/28/22: Hwy 61/65th St., Wapello Female subject, 18, Burlington. Charged with possession of a controlled substance D felony 3rd offense (mari + meth), driving while barred, possession of drug paraphernalia and 5th degree possession of stolen property. As far as Jeremy Ellis is concerned, Republican Tommy Tuberville should know or learn more about the long history and struggles of the Black Alabama residents he represents in the U.S. Senate. Tuberville told people Saturday at an election rally in Nevada that Democrats support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. His remarks seen by many as racist and stereotyping Black Americans as people committing crimes cut deeply for some, especially in and around Africatown, a community in Mobile, Alabama, that was founded by descendants of Africans smuggled in 1860 to the United States aboard a schooner called the Clotilda. On September 27, St. Helena Rotary hosted a Mayoral Debate between Paul Dohring and Eric Hall. The debate was open to the public. The moderator asked questions that were deep and relevant to our community. Both candidates did a great job. Despite the lack of rain, St. Helena has been stuck in the mud since the turn of the century. Nothing gets done, except for the never-ending hiring of consultants. Name the projects: Water security; Water rates; Storm drains; Sidewalks; Trees on Main Street; Adams Street property (purchased in 2000 and has generated zero income); utilizing the City Hall property on Main St; Purple pipes; Traffic; Paving streets ... the list goes on. It's time to elect people with fresh ideas and business backgrounds that focus on results, not process. Let's elect someone who will actually make decisions rather than one who will rely on consultants and special interests who tell him what to do. It is clear that Eric Hall is the person for the job at this point in time. He is a clear thinker, a budget and numbers wonk, and has tremendous experience with real estate and community projects. With over $100 million in needed infrastructure, we need clarity and professionalism and someone willing to finally take the heat for making firm decisions in order to get the job done. Cindy Warren St. Helena American Canyon voters face a rare question in agriculture-preserving, grape-centric Napa County whether to take an initial step toward converting land long used for vineyards into industrial land. Owners of 157 acres say their rural, farming-zoned tract to American Canyon's northwest presents an exceptional case. Salty soils have doomed the vineyards and the land abuts the citys industrial area, making it "a missing jigsaw puzzle piece" ready to fit into city boundaries. 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. But opponents dont want industrial development near tidal wetlands and a popular wetlands hike-and-bike trail. They fear setting a precedent that places industrial development over farmland preservation. Landowners want their property at 1661 Green Island Road included within the citys voter-protected growth boundaries, a necessary first step toward annexation. Backers gathered enough signatures to qualify Measure J for the Nov. 8 ballot. Certainly, I would expect its going to be a very robust discussion out there in the community, on the value of this and on what values people have for the future of American Canyon, Mayor Leon Garcia said earlier this year. The land The land is owned by Green Island Vineyards LLC, with Will Nord, Ed Farver and David Gilbreth listed as managers. The Nord family has been involved in the county wine industry since the 1960s, Farver formerly worked for Jackson Family Wines and Gilbreth is an attorney who has represented wineries seeking county approvals. Farver, at the June meeting of Napa County's Local Agency Formation Commission, explained how Green Island Vineyards came to be. He and partners bought the land 25 years ago to grow grapes. After 20 years, they began to suspect continuing the effort was futile because of soils with high salinity, he said. Vines planted on 140 acres withered and died and most were removed. The group tried to sell the land for agricultural use and found no buyers, Farver said. The owners said recycled water from American Canyon is the only irrigation source. Vineyard Soil Technologies said the recycled water created salty soils that put the vines into a death spiral. Rather than lie dormant, the lands best use would be to productively serve the Napa wine and ag industry as well as provide revenues for the people and governments of Napa County, Farver said. By serving the wine industry, he didn't mean doing so with vineyards. If annexed to American Canyon, the site could join an industrial area that has wine warehouses and other wine-related businesses. The Napa County Farm Bureau opposes Measure J. CEO Ryan Klobas said the top three field crops in neighboring Sonoma County in 2019 were hay, oats and rye, and they can be grown in high-salinity soils. Passage of Measure J would set a dangerous precedent, declared Klobas, who said farmland shouldnt be lost simply because the owners havent achieved what they consider to be the right financial return. Napa Valley Vintners, Napa Valley Grapegrowers and Winegrowers of Napa County made a similar argument in a May letter. The landowners pointed to a study they had done by Wenbiao Cai of Vega Economics that concluded a rational investor wouldn't buy the property for agriculture. For example, Cai looked at barley, which can be grown in salty soils. He assumed investors bought the land for $1.8 million with a 30-year loan. Irrigated barley would cost them $979 per acre to produce and bring in $333 per acre, a $646-per-acre loss. Remove the land acquisition factor and the loss would be $43 per acre. Napa city resident Yvonne Baginski authored the ballot arguments opposing Measure J. She said industrial development would destroy habitat for migrating birds and wildlife, and negatively affect the wetlands trail. My absolute argument is, anytime you pave open space land next to an estuary, you are destroying migratory habitat, wildlife habitat, Baginski said. Gilbreth, on behalf of Measure J, said the owners don't believe there would be adverse impacts. He expects any development would be set back from the trail. People on the trail would still see something in keeping with an open-space area. The campaigns Baginski has gone door-to-door in American Canyon opposing Measure J and talked to people along the wetlands trail. Shes found an information void. American Canyon does not have any public forum, Baginski said. It does not have a newspaper. It does not have a news website, nothing. I have been walking the neighborhoods of American Canyon there is very little information about this measure out in the community. Both Measure J proponents and opponents are trying to change this as the election nears. Green Island Property LLC as of Sept. 24 had contributed $131,790 to the Yes on Measure J campaign, according to papers filed with American Canyon. That breaks down to $33,500 in cash contributions and $98,290 in non-monetary contributions, such as legal work and consulting done by the group itself. It can't be determined from the filing how much of the contributions went toward qualifying Measure J for the ballot and how much might go toward a campaign. Gilbreth said Measure J proponents have a mailer. They are talking to people. They have a campaign with the goal of explaining the measure. Baginski said the opposition raised $700, including $500 from Napa Vision 2050. That paid for door hangers and a website that was up for a while. Klobas said the Farm Bureau this past week was deciding how to get its No on Measure J message out. The agreement One issue is a 2008 agreement signed by Napa County and American Canyon. The agreement resulted from disputes over where the city should grow and what would happen to tax money if the city annexed county industrial land. The agreement created a tax-sharing arrangement and a city growth boundary that is to last until 2030. American Canyon voters locked the boundary in place, with only voters able to change it. Any party violating a provision must return four years of certain property tax money to the other and forfeit future taxes, the agreement says. One potential violation listed is if voters expand the growth boundary. Neither the county nor city have announced how much money might be at stake. But City Manager Jason Holley in an email said the city doesnt believe passage of Measure J would put the city in violation of the 2008 agreement. Holley pointed to a line that says any party who violates one of the provisions. Measure J petitioners are not party to the 2008 agreement. Moreover, voters in general could never be party to such an agreement, he said. The courts have long held the supremacy of the rights of the electorate which cannot be interfered with, nor contracted away by local government, Holley wrote. Councilmember Mark Joseph said a legal fight might ensue if Measure J passed and the county tried to enforce the tax penalty provision. Three candidates are running for two American Canyon City Council seats in the Nov. 8 election. The Napa Valley Register asked incumbents Joseph and David Oro and challenger Jesse Corpus about their stances on Measure J. Joseph said he would include the parcel if he could draw the citys growth boundary, but the sequence is wrong. The city and county are revising their general plans, and should negotiate an agreement on a boundary for the next 20 years or so, he said. Oro said the residents of American Canyon have the right to choose their city's boundaries. Where we provide water, fire services and police services and it makes sense to bring it into the city where its adjacent to us, Im all for it, Oro said. Corpus said hes looked at the pros and cons of Measure J and would like still more information, including scientific information on not being able to farm the soil. As ransomware attacks continue to target education systems, school districts across California and the nation are trying to figure out how to best reduce the risk and protect their data and information technology. 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. Its not a question of if a school system will experience a cybersecurity incident. Its only a matter of when, said cybersecurity expert Doug Levin, the national director of nonprofit K12 Security Information Exchange. Those risks need to be part of the ongoing governance and operations of school districts. Districts have turned to cyber insurance, set up backup systems and installed extra security measures such as requiring double authentication to gain access to data. And firsthand experience has pushed many to re-evaluate the data they keep. Meanwhile, both state and federal governments are beginning to take steps to more closely monitor attacks. Were just trying to double down now and do whatever we can to ensure that, if it does happen again, that we can make it as small and less impactful as possible, said Ryan Pinkerton, the superintendent of business at San Luis Coastal Unified, which suffered a ransomware attack in May. A prominent recent example was at Los Angeles Unified, which was targeted over Labor Day weekend. The crime syndicate that attacked the district posted some of its data online after the district chose not to negotiate or pay a ransom, following advice from law enforcement. While LAUSD did not pay a ransom, some experts speculate that payments may have been made by other districts. Districts do not always disclose such information, according to Levin. The sensitivity of the hacked information as well as the time and resources it would take to recover lost data all play a part in that decision, he added. So far this year, ransomware attacks have hit more than 60 school districts, colleges and universities across the country, according to data from cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, which tracks known incidents. That includes at least 30 K-12 public school systems, but the situation may be much worse because districts are not required to report such incidents, Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow said. Though the education sector is expected to close out the 2022 year with a lower number of attacks than the last two years which had more than 80 incidents each this years ransomware attacks continue to reflect a significant interest by hackers in the school sector. I do think that theres a need for more and better information sharing in the K-12 community, Levin said. I think these incidents need to be understood as being much more commonplace. Its something that school districts need to actively manage and plan for. Part of that problem is that districts tend to have small information technology teams relative to the size of their operations, and their computer systems tend to be older and out of date, Levin said. In California, there have been three incidents so far this year, including one that affected multiple districts under the Glenn County Office of Education in the Sacramento Valley. There, with computer systems down, schools and administrative offices were forced to return to pen and paper to teach and perform administrative tasks. The May attack, which affected 75% of the education offices districts, stole and then encrypted student records, financial and payroll data and impacted the districts ability to process checks. School days never had to be canceled, but its been a slow recovery since then, Superintendent Tracey Quarne said. The district had to create a second email system and a new financial system as a result. Its been a frustrating experience, he said. Talk to the smartest IT person you can find, he said, referencing the steps he hopes other districts will take. Trust them. Do exactly what they say. And do not trust your federal or state government to protect you. Quarne wouldnt comment on whether the Glenn County Office of Education paid a ransom or whether any of its data had been published since the breach, saying the incident was still under investigation. Napa Valley College ransomware attack caused possible data breach About 8,000 people with connections to NVC recently received letters informing them their personal information may have been accessed while the school responded to a June cyberattack. Districts sometimes quietly decide to pay ransoms after evaluating the sensitivity of the hacked information, and the time and resources it would take to recover lost data also play a part in that decision, expert Levin said. Neither LAUSD nor San Luis Coastal Unified, which were the targets of the other two known incidents this year, paid a ransom, but both had data posted to the darkweb, putting individuals and vendors at risk for exploitation. Both were targeted over three-day weekends and had the same crime syndicate claim responsibility for the attacks. Crime syndicate Vice Society, which appears to operate from Russia, has claimed credit for 10 different attacks on the U.S. education sector this year, causing the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to put out an alert in September warning of its disproportionate attacks on schools. At Los Angeles Unified, the impact was not as bad as expected. The ransomware attack was discovered as it was happening, so the district was able to stop it before it could spread. As a result, the crime syndicate was only able to pull 500 gigabytes of the 16 million gigabytes of data stored across the district, according to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Though the amount was small in comparison with the amount of data the district keeps, analyst Callow said that the severity of a hack depends more on what data was taken. The Los Angeles district confirmed that information from some private vendors as well as some data such as names, addresses, student identification numbers and academic information from students who attended LAUSD schools between 2013 and 2016 were posted to the darkweb after the district refused to negotiate with the crime syndicate. The district is still working to let individuals who have been affected know as it sifts through the data. The district did not have to cancel school after the attack, but some operations were disrupted. At San Luis Coastal Unified, events unfolded slightly differently. The district was attacked Memorial Day weekend but was able to quickly switch to a backup system. Though the district did not engage with Vice Society, data wasnt uploaded to the darkweb until months later, according to IT director Jeremy Koellish. Hackers put online information from around 4,000 vendors and employees who worked at the district between 2012 and this year, according to Pinkerton of the district. We had had a backup system; we had been monitoring. We felt like we were on it, Pinkerton said about the status of its cybersecurity prior to the attack. San Luis Coastal Unified is now sifting through its archive, reconsidering which records are necessary to keep and which are best to remove from its servers to minimize the impact of any future data breaches. Its really made the district go through and look at, what are we saving? And why are we saving it? Pinkerton said. The district also now has software in place to monitor its servers daily and is working toward implementing two-factor authentication, which threat analyst Callow said is one of the most important steps a district can take to ensure its security. LAUSD was in the process of implementing multifactor authentication when the attack happened in September. According to Callow, its getting more difficult to qualify for and afford cyber insurance without basic steps like multifactor authentication in place. And the insurance, he said, can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it pushes organizations to improve their security, but on the other, it may mean an organization is more likely to pay ransom demands. As LAUSD looks to increase its cybersecurity in the wake of the attack, the school board has given Carvalho broad emergency power to address it. The district has also convened a task force of cybersecurity experts to recommend additional measures, which it will outline in a report in December. It is not clear yet how much LAUSD will spend on reducing the threat. Public school systems such as Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland, which serves less than a quarter of the number of students LAUSD does, paid $8.1 million in recovery costs after an attack in 2020. Education organizations and school districts like LAUSD have been pushing for the Federal Communications Commission to allow E-rate funding, meant to make digital information services more affordable for schools and libraries, to be used toward cybersecurity. California is also taking notice. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September requiring K-12 schools to report cyberattacks and other security breaches to the state. The California Cybersecurity Integration Center will create a registry of reported cyberattacks. However, reporting will only be mandated for incidents that affect more than 500 individuals. On the federal level, Congress passed the K-12 Cybersecurity Act last year requiring the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to conduct a study still ongoing about cybersecurity risks affecting K-12 schools. The U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the Department of Education update its guidelines on cybersecurity, which have not been changed since 2010. However, these efforts have yet to bring tangible results, according to expert Levin. For now, the most important thing a district can do is actively prepare for the possibility of a ransomware attack and be sure that it understands the risks, Levin said. I think these incidents need to be understood as being much more commonplace, he said. Something that school districts need to actively manage and plan for, budget against and even sort of practice their plans for. SAN FRANCISCO Californians are voting now through Election Day on whether to approve a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion and contraception, one of several measures on ballots nationwide this November to address reproductive health care following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. 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. Proposition 1 is expected to pass in the heavily Democratic state and was part of a robust legislative package backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure California remains a haven for people seeking abortion services. Legislators placed the measure to amend the constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot days just after the court ruled in June that states could decide whether to allow abortion. Polling shows high support for the measure at least two-thirds of likely voters said yes in two surveys with minimal financial opposition from the California Republican Party and others who call the proposition expensive, extreme and unnecessary. But the measure's supporters want to send a resounding message that abortion is legal and accessible in California, and they hope a solid win will inspire other states also to enshrine the right in their constitutions. The challenge is we had a very short runway, so it really is about awareness. We know when people are aware that abortion is on the ballot, theyre likely to come out and vote for it, said Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, which supports the measure. Hope and prayer: California churches battle Prop. 1 abortion ballot measure Religious opponents of abortion, led by the Catholic Church, are mobilizing against Proposition 1 on the Nov. 8 ballot. But the numbers in fundraising and in the polls are against them. California joins Michigan and Vermont in asking voters in November to protect the right to abortion. In Kentucky, voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to declare there is not a right to an abortion. A measure in Montana asks voters whether to require medical care and treatment for infants born alive after an attempted abortion. The amendment in California would declare that 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. Opponents say the measure was put on the ballot to score political points with women and drive voter turnout in favor of Democrats. They also say the measure contains no gestational or viability limits on abortion, meaning a fetus could be aborted late in pregnancy even though it's capable of surviving outside the womb. California law currently restricts abortion to only before a fetus is viable, which is usually defined as around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions in the third trimester are rare, and in California, permitted only if the mothers life or heath is at risk. Californians don't support late-term abortions, said Catherine Hadro, spokesperson for the No on Prop. 1 campaign. The measure's supporters say a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion will have no bearing on limits placed on abortions by lawmakers. The constitution has always meant to be a broad framework of rights and the Legislature decides the scope of the laws, this wont change what is in statute right now, said Hicks of Planned Parenthood affiliates. A September survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found 69% of likely voters would support the proposition, including 33% of Republicans. An August poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, found that 71% of registered voters would vote yes. Nearly 40% of people who said they would vote yes said that abortion should be legal in most, but not all, cases, said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. It's not clear how much opponents' arguments will stick with voters, if at all. Thats something people will be asking about between now and Election Day, especially those people who say it should be OK in most cases, he said. Before Roe was overturned, the overwhelming majority of abortions in the United States around 90% occurred in the first trimester or at 13 weeks or earlier, said Katrina Kimport, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at UC San Francisco. An estimated 1% of abortions occurred at 21 weeks or later, she said. Women who have abortions in the third trimester generally fall into one of two categories, she said. They've either learned new information, such as a serious health issue with the fetus that could not be ascertained in earlier trimesters, or they faced insurmountable obstacles preventing them from getting an abortion earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Dobbs may actually increase the number of women seeking third-trimester abortions, she said. California's abortion ballot measure and new state legislation protecting abortion are all helpful but not sufficient, said Donna Crane, political science lecturer at San Jose State University and Menlo College. That's because Congress can always pass a federal ban and the conservative U.S. Supreme Court is likely to take up new conflicts that could result in more limitations, said Crane, who served nearly two decades as strategist and lobbyist with NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, D.C. and supports Prop. 1. California can pass law after law after law, she said, and the federal law will always trump us. VISALIA, Calif. At 18, Luis Avila decided not to cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election. It wasnt because he thought it was unimportant. Instead, the thought of voting for the first time left him overwhelmed. I dont know how to do this, Avila recalled telling his older brother. Like, its a huge step. I dont want to make the wrong decision. Young voters like Avila are often misperceived as too apathetic or too self-absorbed to care about elections. But rather than being dismissive of politics, some of the countrys least experienced voters say they feel unprepared to make such weighty choices. If I cant even get to school on time, or I cant make my bed in the morning ... then why should I be able to go make a big decision at a voters booth? said MacIntyre Garbani, who cast his first vote in 2016 only under pressure from his parents. He was uncomfortable with the thought that his choice could affect others, he said, gesturing toward classmates at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia. This sense of paralysis is a key, but underappreciated, dynamic among this crucial voting bloc of 18- to 29-year-olds, whom politicians tend to court with cringeworthy social media stunts. Its a sentiment pollsters pick up time and again. Oftentimes young voters say they didnt have enough information or campaigns didnt contact them, said Wasay Rasool, a lead strategist for Avalanche Insights, an information technology company that conducts polls. Rasool and other experts say voters would be better served by a more robust civic education, and by politicians visiting campuses and offering up strong and savvy social media presences to highlight issues that directly affect young people. Rasool boiled it down to the confidence piece knowing enough to actually take action to actually get out there and vote. But the problem isnt just intimidation. For about 35% of young people, the biggest barrier to voting is politicians not delivering on the issues that most resonate with them, according to a national poll Avalanche Insights recently conducted with Rise Inc., an organization that advocates for free college, and Voto Latino, a nonprofit that aims to galvanize Latino and Hispanic youth to vote. When young people show up to vote, their impact is significant: Turnout among voters younger than 30 surged in 2018, when they helped Democrats take control of the House, and in 2020, when they were instrumental to Joe Biden winning the presidency. The annual Harvard Youth Poll, released in April, found that nearly half of young Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet the poll also forecast that youth turnout is expected to meet 2018s record-breaking turnout. This midterm election, Democrats are at risk of losing control of Congress. Their slender hopes of hanging onto the House could hinge in part on two highly competitive Central Valley races. In Merced County and the surrounding area, Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray is competing with Republican farmer John Duarte for an open seat. To the South, Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas is vying to unseat Republican Rep. David Valadao in a district straddling Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. If young adults as well as Latinos show up to vote, they could create an opportunity to elect the first Latino member of Congress representing the Central Valley, said political analyst Paul Mitchell. Salas is Latino; Valadao is of Portuguese ancestry. Of the 3.5 million registered voters in the valley, about 21% are young voters, according to data Mitchell gathered. In the last few months, the overturning of federal abortion rights, high gas prices, the cancellation of some student debt, and major federal action on climate change have captured young voters attention. Recent studies have shown that grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives made young voters more aware of their power at the ballot box. This is a voting bloc of young people who are really just very involved in their communities, and are really seeing the links clearly between whats happening in their local community and the politics of whos actually representing them, said Jessica Ronan, program manager for the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University. Yet this daunting sense of responsibility could still be a barrier for newer voters, especially in places like the San Joaquin Valley, which is beset by widespread poverty and inequities in education. Those challenges make youths acutely aware of the stakes that come with voting. Many of these young adults are the first in their family to vote after their parents migrated from Mexico to work in agriculture, Ronan said, so they dont get much guidance on the mechanics of voting. I think that comes with ... a little bit of pressure, especially because young people understand the impact their vote could make at home, she said. Discussing politics puts Erika Yanez on edge. The 20-year-old college student has seen the rush of political campaign ads on TV. She is alarmed that the winter season in the valley has shortened over the years. She cares how policies might affect her goal of becoming a dental hygienist. The Tulare resident said she registered to vote in high school, but didnt go to the polls in the last presidential election. Instead, she said, she left that responsibility to her older sister. Yanez remains cautious about forming political opinions. Her parents didnt talk about politics when she was growing up, and her high school senior class on economics and U.S. government was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yanezs shaky political foundation has left her frustrated this campaign season. Its hard for me to keep up, she said, even though politics that affect her personally are important to her. For many, politics rank low on the list of personal priorities. As teens graduate high school and venture into the next chapter of life, its common for them to think about whether theyll move out of their parents home or what college theyll attend, said Tom Holyoke, a political science professor at Cal State Fresno. Typically, once you have that worked out to some degree, then you start thinking about more abstract issues like who should I vote for? he said. Garbani, 25, now feels ready to shoulder the responsibility of voting; he finds himself wanting to know more about the propositions and congressional candidates he will see on his ballot. He plans to cross-check candidates claims with library databases, talk to trusted neighbors in Visalia and watch speeches. Its often as teenagers become adults that they realize how events can directly affect them. Amid a recent triple-digit heatwave blanketing the valley, Angel Sanchez sought relief underneath a tree after working on a project with peers. He faced a five-hour gap before his next class at College of the Sequoias. Returning home to Corcoran, nearly 30 miles south of the Visalia-based school, for a few hours was not an option timewise or financially. The high cost of gas is motivating Sanchez, 21, to vote in this election. The no-party-preference voter said $15 used to buy enough gas for him to drive his 2007 Mustang GT to work at Target. The cost has since doubled to about $30, he said. Sanchez said he should have voted in the presidential election even though he doesnt truly feel represented by either party. Avilas interest in politics was piqued last year when redistricting got underway. He worried how new boundaries would affect his home of Farmersville. Then he started thinking about his father, a fieldworker toiling in unpredictable weather. Now his sense of responsibility for his parents has motivated him to step up and vote, because hes no longer thinking about just himself. My dads getting older, he said. Obviously, Im going to have to take care of him. The scene is always heartbreaking a sobbing pet owner, cradling a beloved animal companion, comes into an animal shelter to surrender a pet. But its happening every day now at some shelters, where the number of surrendered dogs and cats has doubled. The numbers are even higher for rabbits. 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. This isnt the long-anticipated, never-materialized COVID-19 bounce that predicted the record number of pandemic-era adoptions would fall apart once people returned to the office or resumed regular life. Most surrenders, according to Oakland Animal Shelter director Ann Dunn, stem more from the rapidly rising cost of living, a pandemic-driven veterinary care crisis that has seen fewer vets and shorter hours, and a housing shortage that allows landlords to be more selective, preferring tenants without pets. Part of it is people not being able to afford vet care, Dunn said. The bigger issue is the lack of affordable housing. People are often unable to find housing or to find rentals that allow pets. Specifically in Oakland, a lot of what landlords call pet-friendly really isnt. Many that allow pets, dont allow large dogs or specific breeds. Last year, Dunn said, the Oakland shelter took in 282 surrendered dogs and 158 cats. This year, the shelter had taken in 473 dogs and 328 cats by July. Its a situation we see all the time, said Dunn. The landlord tells them they are going to be evicted if they dont get rid of the animal. Many people dont have the flexibility to move or to find a place that does accept pets. They come in heartbroken. These are people who are surrendering animals who have no other choice. The twin problems of full shelters and a fall-off in adoptions are plaguing animal shelters across the state, including in Napa County, according to a local county manager. This year will be hard; we have not been able to take surrenders because our shelter is full, Katie Ribardiere of the Napa County Animal Shelter said Thursday. Its been a crisis up and down California; other places are having this same issue where the adoptions are at an all-time low. Top of the list is that adoptions are stagnant, and the rescue (centers) are completely full as well, said Ribardiere. And with other Bay Area shelters similarly strapped for space, she added, having accessibility to transfer animals to different places has gotten extremely difficult. Its not just cats and dogs flooding into the shelters. Returns may have held fairly steady at the Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA, but theres one major exception. Its been pretty steady, except for small animals rabbits and guinea pigs, says communications director Buffy Martin Tarbox. Weve got 64 rabbits, almost quadruple what we normally have, and 27 guinea pigs where we usually have about three. Its been a huge increase. No harm no fowl: Napa chicken and duck form fast friendship This Napa chicken and duck have formed a fast friendship, and are often seen traveling as a pair. Meet Gerald and Princess of Fuller Park. At Napa Countys shelter on Hartle Court, what little free space has been available in recent months has usually been set aside for housing newly recovered stray animals, which the county seeks to keep open so it fulfill that duty, according to Ribardiere. As of Friday, the Napa shelter was housing 202 animals, including 127 cats, 47 dogs and 13 rabbits. Meanwhile, a shortage of veterinarians and reduced office hours what Ribardiere of Napa County called a nationwide supply crisis that began during the pandemic meant pet owners were scrambling for appointments. The result, Tarbox believes, is that people werent able to spay or neuter their rabbits, and breeding got out of hand. East Bay Rabbit Rescue works closely with the Oakland Animal Shelter, which has more than 40 rabbits in its menagerie. Richmonds House of Rabbits, another rescue group, has 76. Joan Wegner, president of East Bay Rabbit Rescue, says theyve never seen anything like it. Our adoptions arent making a dent, Wegner says. For every rabbit adopted, there are three taking their place. Adoption interest has suddenly waned. Instead of emails from potential adopters, we are flooded with people who want to surrender their pets or need placement for a stray they rescued running loose in their neighborhood. Calls to help capture strays also are increasing, Wegner says. People think their best option is to set their rabbit free, not realizing rabbits cannot survive in the wild, she says. Rabbits are being hit by cars, starving and falling victim to predators. Weve seen an uptick of stray rabbits arriving at shelters with health issues and injuries. Its illegal to set any pet free. A website called Home-to-Home allows people to list their pets for free, then sort through the offers to find a match theyre comfortable with, avoiding the trauma of having pets brought into the shelter system, where they could stay for quite a while. If we can keep them out of the shelter, its better all the way round and less stressful for the pet, says Kelly Miott, director of Fremonts Tri-City Animal Shelter. Now shelters and rescues across the nation are banding together as they see more animals entering than leaving, and the increase in surrenders contributing to overall crowding at animal shelters. To help combat the trend, more than 100 shelters and rescues have joined together to launch Share the Care, a national campaign that encourages the general public to contribute to the care of shelter pets. The Share the Care campaign is hoping to educate the public that by adopting, fostering, volunteering, donating or even sharing adoptable animal profiles on social media, they can help give incredible animals a second chance at a wonderful life, says Jeffrey Zerwekh, Berkeley Humanes executive director. Several shelters have opened or expanded pet food banks to assist residents in their service area, offering pet food and, sometimes, discounted vet care. The first thing we ask, Dunn says, when people say they want to surrender their pet, is if there is anything we can do to help: food, supplies, medical care. From the perspective of animal shelters, its better for everybody if we put resources into keeping our pets. People will often say they have to surrender, but not many ask if theres help. Napa Valley Register city editor Howard Yune contributed to this report. This is an open letter to Napa County Supervisors Gregory and Pedroza along with Agricultural Commissioner Tracy Cleveland regarding their scheduled trip to attend the Great Wine Capitals Conference in Argentina at a cost of $17,500 to taxpayers. The Register says both supervisors participated in the 2021 conference via Zoom. My request is that they please provide what tangible results they implemented from that conference that have benefited Napa County taxpayers. Citizens paying for this trip deserve to know what return they are getting before paying for another one. Here is part of the Conference description printed in the Register. "Come to Mendoza with its blue sky, the highest peak of the American continent, nature all around, vineyards, wineries, restaurants, and world renowned hotels. The conference will also feature wine tours, eight-hands dinner with Tango Night and a sunset experience with wine and horses at Casa Davis and a gala dinner at Bodega Los Toneles." Now why would anyone think this sounds more like a paid vacation with some meetings thrown in on the side? When a person mentioned this at a Board meeting, here is what they were told: Brad Wagenknecht who attended the conference in 2014 and 2019 indicated that "the Board of Supervisors is as good as its knowledge and he found the trips valuable for knowing what's going on in the overall wine industry, not just Napa's, according to the Register. That is a response, not an answer. Can you please provide the tangible benefits those values have provided? Supervisor Pedroza said he is "looking forward to collaborating with electeds throughout the world who have similar issues we're facing" and the trip is necessary because he "sees an advantage to the live, face to face version." Another response that can't be quantified instead of an answer. What are those advantages and how do they translate to tangible benefits? Of course it's much harder to do that when you aren't enjoying a sunset experience with wine and horses at Casa Davis at the same time. Supervisor Gregory said "the Supervisors set policy for the county, including those around the economic and environmental sustainability of the agricultural industry. This is a great opportunity to visit another wine region dealing with these same issues and exchange information with each other." Another blanket response instead of an answer. These are examples of listening to someone but not hearing what they say. It's all just political babble. The Register article says "a degree of glamour is involved when scouting out how to keep Napa Valley atop the international premium wine world." What did you find and implement from the previous conference to help attain this? The conference will also include meetings of the branding and communications committee and internal collaboration committee, a presentation on Mendoza water governances (Mendoza is a desert) and sharing climate change. I have been to my share of national business conferences. Please tell us what you hope to gain from these subjects oh never mind. I know you can't and now it just feels like piling on. I wish one response would have been "yes, we know this is a lot of money but here are the benefits it has provided in the past and will continue to provide in the future. Or maybe "you know, you're right, we should just use Zoom again and spend this money on other county issues that more directly benefit our citizens." It all seems a bit tone deaf. And on that note: Supervisor Pedroza is under investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission to see if he voted with a conflict-of-interest. He has not been charged nor has he been cleared and is in the middle of a potential recall as a result. He should recuse himself from a "prestige" trip like this at taxpayer expense until that is settled. For that matter, why do three people have to go? I hope those who do attend will provide a summary of what they learned at this conference and how they will implement that into benefits for Napa County citizens. Glen Schaefer Napa Cocktails & Costumes at Wilfreds Lounge Wilfreds Lounge, Napa Valleys only Tiki bar and restaurant, will get in the spooky spirit and kick off Halloween island-style on Friday, Oct. 28, from noon to 11 p.m. The all-day Cocktails & Costumes event will feature a sangria-based drink special called Red Death, created at Wilfreds and served in a festive Halloween Skull mug. Costumes are encouraged. At the event, Wilfreds proprietor, Nat Komes, who is also general manager of Flora Springs Winery, will celebrate the annual release of the winerys All Hallows Eve Cabernet Franc. Komes began making this wine 13 years ago as a tribute to Napa Valleys ghost wineries. Each vintage features a unique Halloween-themed label; a bat hovers over a night harvesting crew in this years release from 2020, which will be available by the glass or bottle. The Greasy Gills from Oakland will play instrumental twangy rock n roll from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To guarantee a table during the live music, guests are encouraged to make reservations for dinner. Seating at the bar is first come, first served. Wilfreds Lounge is open five days a week, Wednesday-Saturday from noon to 11 p.m. (the kitchen closes at 9 p.m.) and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Reservations are not required but are encouraged and can be made by calling (707) 690-9957. Info, www.wilfredslounge.com. The Cabernet Classic at the Meritage The Meritage Resort and Spa hosts its second annual Cabernet Classic Nov. 4 to 6. The three-day gathering will bring together master sommeliers, wine aficionados, industry experts and wineries in celebration of the regions most renowned variety. The event will donate $30,000 to the SommFoundation, a nonprofit organization that assists in the education and professional development of people working in the wine industry. The weekend kicks off on Friday afternoon with a lunch featuring wines from Chiles Lapostolle followed by a panel of experts, including Jay Fletcher and Master Sommeliers Gillian Balance and Erik Elliot, who will lead guests through a flight of Cabernet that includes selections from Penfolds, Gaja, Chateau Pichon Lalande, and Heitz Cellar. The night will conclude with a winemaker dinner featuring Cardiff Scott-Robinson and the wines of Paraduxx. On Saturday, is the Cabernet Retrospective, a tasting seminar on how the variety develops secondary and tertiary complexities over time. The expert panel will be joined by Master of Wine, Ashley Hausman, and winemaker Donald Patz, who will guide participants through 12 Cabernets that span the 2004 to 2018 vintages. DAOU Vineyards from Paso Robles will be featured at a Lebanese-inspired lunch. In the afternoon, a Grand Tasting will take place on the Lawn at the Meritage with wines from more than 30 wineries from Napa Valley and beyond, including Paul Hobbs, Vasse Felix, Hall, Lapostolle, Freemark Abbey, Catena Zapata and Beringer. The final panel-led tasting, Around the World with Cabernet, takes place on Sunday following brunch. Members from the SommFoundation will virtually transport guests to vineyards around the globe via the SommGeo mapping tool. Producers will include New Zealands Villa Maria, Italys Bindi Sergardi, Washingtons Delille Cellars, Frances Chateau Cantenac Brown, and many more. The cost for the weekend is $1,650 per person. Day passes and tickets for individual experiences are also available for each of the three days. The Meritage Resort and Spa is offering the Sip & Stay Weekend Passport for $4,000 that includes accommodations for two, the Weekend Passport entrance for two to the Cabernet Classic, and all taxes and fees. An upgraded package is $5,000. For tickets, visit www.cabernetclassic.com. The Wizards of Elixirs Cocktail Competition After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the Wizards of Elixir Cocktail Competition returns on Sunday, Oct. 23, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville. Hosted by The Perfect Puree of Napa Valley and Charbay Distillery, the event invites top wine countrys top bartenders to vie for the Peoples Choice Award, with cocktails using Charbay Doubled & Twisted Whiskey. All proceeds from ticket and raffle sales will benefit the Museums nonprofit arts education programs. Tickets are $35 at the Wizards of Elixirs event page before Oct. 23; $40 at the door and $30 for Napa Valley Museum Yountville members. Guests must be 21 years old with proof of ID. Admission includes all cocktail tastings and one raffle ticket for prizes, including restaurant gift cards and bottles of Charbay. Buy additional raffle tickets throughout the event for $5 each or five for $20. Wear a Halloween costume for a chance to win prizes in the costume contest. Halloween costumes are encouraged but not required. New this year are food trucks from Di Filippo Pizza and Big C BBQ with sauce featuring The Perfect Purees flavors and Charbay whiskey. Competitors include: Tim Creedon, Blue Ridge Kitchen Melanie Amaral, Farmstead Restaurant Savannah Barto, The Q Restaurant & Bar Dylan Martini, Jax White Mule Diner Vincent Lundeen, Andaz Napa Carly Hiebert and Omar Ortiz, Solage Jessica Aitken, Lo & Behold Vanessa Aguiniga, Napa Valley Bistro Riley Cassity, Bird & The Bottle Tommy Cracraft & PJ McGinnis, Fern Bar Danny Ojinaga & Joselin Ramos, Third Pig Doc Parks, Wilfreds Lounge Chris Baker, Dukes Spirited Cocktails Kathleen Amtower, ROOF 106 at Matheson Healdsburg Napa Valley Museum Yountville is at 55 Presidents Circle, Yountville. Police in the southern Indian state of Kerala have arrested three people for allegedly murdering two women in a suspected case of human sacrifice, BBC News reported. The remains of the women, who were allegedly murdered months apart, were found on Tuesday. Police say the accuseda couple and another man"severely tortured" the victims before killing them. They say they have confessed to the crime and an investigation is underway. The accused haven't commented yet on the allegations as they are in police custody. The gruesome case has made national headlines and shocked the people of Keralaconsidered one of India's most progressive states. Police say the accused are Bhagaval Singhan ayurvedic "healer"his wife Laila, and Mohammed Shafi, an "occult practitioner" from Idukki district. Cochin Police Commissioner CH Nagaraju said the murders took place over four months and were suspected to be part of a ritual done for "financial benefits". "Black magic" is still practiced in some parts of Indiapeople believe the rituals could bring prosperity, help childless women bear children, cure illnesses, and even produce more rainfall. Nouriel Roubini: In some sense, World War III has already started EU considers paying Elon Musk to provide Starlink Internet to Ukraine U.S. will continue to take practical, aggressive steps to make it difficult for Iran to sell drones to Russia German Prosecutor's Office searches Deutsche Bank headquarters Head of Germany's national cybersecurity agency fired amid reports of ties to Russia Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies condemns Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenian territory Spanish minister: EU is far from solution to energy crisis Fake Azerbaijani names of Syunik province communities removed from Google Maps and Google Earth apps Artsakh President presents details of meetings held in Yerevan to MPs Lavrov: Russia sees no point in maintaining its previous presence in Western countries UAE: OPEC+ decision has no political motive Opposition to David Price: Right to self-determination is the right of people of Artsakh to survive Iran is ready to negotiate with Ukraine to resolve ambiguities Deputy Speaker of Armenian National Assembly: 47 PACE deputies made written statement condemning Baku's aggression Lapid will discuss Kiev request for Israeli systems with Kuleba Morawiecki: Poland is not afraid of losing EU funds Armenian President meets with Sofia Mayor Speaker of Armenian National Assembly to Norway FM: Withdrawal of Azerbaijani Armed Forces from Armenia is a priority Nikol Pashinyan receives delegation headed by Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt Iran responds to Borrell's garden and jungle statement: EU needs to accept realities or it will continue to wither Pashinyan: No one can accuse Armenia of evading its obligations Congressman: U.S. was not active in terms of security in Armenia, but now situation is changing Indian defense company Solar group says it has received orders from Armenia for 'Pinaka' missiles Price: U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan will not be used for offensive purposes against Armenia Military expert assesses possibility of new hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan Russian Embassy: Armenians' attitude towards Russians who moved to Armenia remains very friendly Clarification by Price: What Could Armenian-American military cooperation look like? Armenian Defense Minister visits DEFEXPO exhibition in India President of Artsakh talks about results of discussions held in Armenia Borrell angers UAE with his comparison of world outside Europe to 'jungle' Public Council formed in Artsakh China Daily: Party's anti-graft efforts generate fruitful outcomes Price: We demand that Azerbaijan return to its initial positions Aghajanyan: This visit should be seen as another stage in dynamic development of Armenian-American relations Ukraine will officially ask Israel for transfer of air defense systems Head of National Assembly Commission: 2023 state budget turned out to be biggest in Armenia's history Turkey conducts test launch of its own ballistic missile over Black Sea Students of Brusov State University hold protest outside building of Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia Armenia MFA: Yerevan has always openly and publicly stated its position on dialogue with Turkey Military exercises of IRGC Ground Forces on border with Azerbaijan continue for second day in Iran Blinken accuses China of violating status quo on Taiwan Armenian Foreign Minister: We see Azerbaijan's unconstructive behavior Izvestia: European banks stop accepting SWIFT-transfers from Russia Mirzoyan calls on Cavusoglu to speak for himself Norwegian FM visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and pays tribute to victims of Genocide Mirzoyan: We need to understand to what extent CSTO recognizes this aggression against Armenia MFA: Armenian authorities apply to OSCE to send observers to border with Azerbaijan NYT: Conflict between Turkey and Greece may cause split of NATO Ararat Mirzoyan Details of peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan were presented to Norwegian FM Price of gas in Europe drops to almost $1,200 per 1,000 cubic meters for first time since June Armenian Defense Minister meets with his Indian counterpart First images of damage to Nord Stream are published Erdogan's spokesman: Meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is impossible now Peskov redirects question of drone purchases from Iran to Russian Ministry of Defense Secretary of Armenian Security Council presents consequences of recent Azerbaijani aggression to Brazilian ambassador Trial of Robert Kocharyan and Armen Gevorgyan is held in Yerevan IAEA chief says he wants to meet with Putin again Pashinyan: Azerbaijan creates fake news on ceasefire violations by Armenia US House of Representatives members visit Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan Taliban, Iran border guards fire at each other Another high treason exposed in Armenia Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan armed forces violate ceasefire in Sotk-Kutakan sector World oil prices on the rise Trump slightly ahead of Biden in New York Times poll Armenia defense minister heads for India Newspaper: Karabakh dissatisfied with President's Yerevan visit, meeting with Armenia PM Azerbaijan fires toward Armenia positions at night Zelenskyy: Ukraine needs much more modern air defense systems Liz Truss is called upon to resign EU to review relations with China White House accuses Iran of lying Poland may not receive 75 billion euros in regional aid from EU Crash of SU-34 in Yeysk captured on video SJC: Criminal case will be initiated against judge Arusyak Aleksanyan Germany fines Telegram more than 5 million euros Scholz instructs ministers to prepare to extend operation of Germany's remaining three nuclear power plants Two people killed in Yeysk after military plane crashed Saudi Arabia rejects U.S. accusations of supporting Russia amid war in Ukraine Only candidate for post of military prosecutor of Armenia is named Expert: Iran is preparing for scenarios in form of attacks on Azerbaijan and sending troops to Artsakh German intelligence service opposes Chinese company's investment in Hamburg port Fire area at crash site of Su-34 in Krasnodar territory is 2,000 sq. m. EU approves military training mission for thousands of Ukrainian servicemen Supersonic Su-34 fighter-bomber crashes in Krasnodar territory Elon Musk on likelihood of World War III EU Commission intends to propose 'dynamic' natural gas price cap this week Dmitry Medvedev: Supplies of weapons to Ukraine will ruin relations between Russia and Israel Charles Michel welcomes rapid deployment of EU mission on Armenian border Swiss MPs horrified by consequences of Azerbaijani aggression: We support Armenians European Union announces new sanctions against Iran Tehran Times: Iran remains vigilant about developments in South Caucasus region Natural gas supply to Armenia will be temporarily suspended Daily Beast: Biden must stop next Armenian Genocide before it's too late Pashinyan: Azerbaijan is looking for pretext to launch new military aggression against Armenia Turkish Foreign Minister: Baku insists on equal status of 'Lachin' and 'Zangezur' corridors Foreign Ministry: Iran has repeatedly stated that it has not sent weapons to either side of war in Ukraine U.S. House of Representatives delegation arrives in Yerevan IRGC commander: Changing regions geography is red line for Iran Uzbek officials banned from being dishonest and swearing on social media Lawyer: Erik Aleksanyan does not accept charges against him France's foreign ministry said on Thursday that any transfer of Iranian drones to Russia would be a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, Reuters reported. "We note a great deal of information that reports the use of Iranian drones by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, in bombardments that were aimed at civilian targets and which likely constitute war crimes," foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre said in a daily online briefing. "Such a supply of Iranian drones to Russia would also violate United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231." Legendre said Paris was coordinating with its European partners on how to respond to the potential transfer of Iranian drones to Russia. Under that resolution, an arms embargo on Iran was in place until October 2020. Despite U.S. efforts under former president Donald Trump, who took the United States out of the deal in 2018, to extend the arms embargo, the Security Council rejected this, paving the way for Iran to resume arms' exports. However, the resolution still includes restrictions on missiles and related technologies that last until October 2023 and that encompass the export and purchase of advanced military systems. A diplomatic source said the drones in question fell under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal political understanding among states that seeks to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology and whose sale would violate the resolution. The United States insists that allies hastily build a patchwork air defense network for Ukraine using NATO-compatible equipment - cutting-edge and older - to protect strategic targets, AFP reported. What the Ukrainian leadership called most needed yesterday is air defense equipment, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after a meeting of 50 allies who are coordinating their military support for Kyiv. However, in order to protect Ukraine from various threats from Russia, an air defense system consisting of multiple layers will be necessary, Gen. Mark Milley said. These three tiers will protect major cities and key infrastructure in Ukraine from Russian ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones. Washington has promised to provide Ukraine with a short- and medium-range NASAMS air defense system, the first two of which will arrive shortly. It has also ordered six more from manufacturer Raytheon, but these deliveries could take two to three years. Germany has delivered the first of the latest generation Iris-T air defense systems, but Kiev will have to wait until next year for three more. The medium-range, high-altitude Iris-T system is designed to protect a small city. To speed up the process, the United States has urged its allies to provide their existing anti-aircraft equipment, even if it is old and if it meets NATO standards. Spain was the first to respond positively to this call: It will send Ukraine four Hawk medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, which first entered service during the Cold War but have been upgraded over the years. They are no longer used by the U.S. military, which has replaced them with the more modern Patriot. President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would provide "radars, systems and missiles to protect (Ukrainians) against these attacks. He did not specify the type of air defense system, but a U.S. military spokesman mentioned the SAMP/T high-altitude system, known as the Mamba, which is in service in France, Italy and Singapore and is a European competitor to the Patriot. The Franco-Italian-designed system is now part of NATO's air defense system. Britain has announced that it is sending AMRAAM missiles, which are launched by the U.S.-supplied NASAMS. According to a U.S. military spokesman, Washington is also interested in a variant of the Spada 2000 system, which, like the Mamba, is produced by the European company MBDA. This is a modernized version of the medium-altitude and long-range system, which has been in service since the 1980s in Italy. Washington is also considering providing Ukraine with Patriot missile batteries to defend against ballistic missiles. At the same time, Washington is lobbying other countries that have them to provide them to Kiev and is also trying to convince Israel to provide parts of its Iron Dome system. Once the systems are provided, Ukrainian forces will have to be trained in their use, and they have to make sure they can be linked to command and control systems and communication systems, and make sure they have radars so they can capture targets, he said. Only nine percent of the British population has a positive view of Prime Minister Liz Truss. According to a poll conducted by People Polling, the prime minister's personal rating has plummeted in the three weeks since the mini-budget was passed, writes The Telegraph. Meanwhile, a poll commissioned by GB News showed that Sir Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, increased his rating by six percentage points from 27 percent. Professor Matthew Goodwin, the sociologist and scholar who conducted the study, said the new results were a losing proposition for Mrs. Truss. On September 21, two days before the mini-budget, 17% of the public was positive about Truss, of which 3% were very positive and 14% were relatively positive. But by October 12, that number had dropped to two percent. Professor Goodwin explained that Truss now has the same popularity ratings as John Major after Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain withdrew from the European monetary mechanism. The poll showed that the Conservative vote share has fallen to 19 percent. Labor's gap widened to 34 points, twice what they need for an independent majority, indicating the Conservatives' electoral defeat. Since the signing of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, Azerbaijan has continuously abused the issue of repatriation of prisoners of war in order to achieve political gains. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated this in his address during Fridays regular meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member countries. "In the post-war period, Azerbaijan linked the release of prisoners of war to the issuance of maps of minefields, although the obligation arising from the trilateral statement was the exclusive exchange of all prisoners. Armenia provided Azerbaijan, but it was a gesture on our part, with all the maps of the minefields we had. After receiving all the maps of the minefields, Azerbaijan claimed that the accuracy of these maps was only 25%. Armenia has expressed its readiness to verify this statement with the involvement of international experts. On the other hand, even if this statement is true, the Republic of Armenia has handed over all its maps to Azerbaijan and does not have any "better or more accurate" maps left for itself. Now after receiving the maps, Azerbaijan is trying to condition the return of POWs, prisoners of war and other detainees on finding out the fate of those who went missing as a result of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. I would like to note that after the First and Second Nagorno-Karabakh wars, there were also people missing from the Armenian side. 777 people are still missing from the first war, and 217 people are missing from the second war, including 196 servicemen and 21 civilians. During our meetings at the beginning of this year Armenia expressed its readiness for full cooperation on the whole spectrum of the problem of the missing and has already unilaterally handed over several burial maps and, after the 44-day war, over a hundred remains of the victims of the First Nagorno-Karabakh war. Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani side, which had rejected proposals for cooperation on demining or any other humanitarian activity for 30 years, remembered about its missing citizens or mines only after the aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh and after the whole civilized world began to talk about war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani military or about the Armenian prisoners of war illegally held hostage in Azerbaijan. Without going into details, this fact alone clearly shows the true intentions of Azerbaijan. In this context I would like to stress that so far Azerbaijan has been preventing the removal of the bodies of those killed during the last aggression, and the bodies of several of our guys continue to be in the inter-positioning zones, which are on the sovereign territory of Armenia. There is an agreement today or tomorrow to organize the removal of bodies. I hope this agreement will be implemented," he said. Azerbaijan's constant exaggeration of the "corridor theme" in the context of unblocking all regional communications is nothing but a distortion and sabotage of the implementation of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated this in his address during Fridays regular meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member countries. "I want to stress that the ninth paragraph of this statement nowhere and in no way mentions the word "corridor." In the statement of November 9, 2020 the word "corridor" is used only in relation to the Lachin corridor in the context of ensuring security of Nagorno-Karabakh and has no relation to the issue of unblocking transport communications, and we consider any parallel to these agreements as manipulation. The manipulation with the text of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, unfortunately, has become the policy of Azerbaijan, and it is reflected in the fact that, despite the fact that the statement clearly states the existence of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan says that Nagorno-Karabakh does not exist. As for the realization of the point 9 of the trilateral statement, this issue was explained in detail in the trilateral statement of January 11, 2021 in Moscow. Moreover, the Trilateral Working Group co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Armenia and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation determined that the reconstructed and constructed transport infrastructure facilities should operate under the full sovereignty of the countries through whose territory they pass. I declare officially: We are ready to open the roads as soon as possible on this basis. Moreover, the draft decision of the Armenian government on the opening of three checkpoints to ensure the transport communication between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan has long been in official circulation, but the President of Azerbaijan himself is against such a decision. And this is related to the desire of Azerbaijan to unblock the communication routes and isolate the movement of people, goods and transport as much as possible, and this shows that they are not interested in the logic of establishing lasting peace in the region. As for the construction of new transport communications, according to the above-mentioned principles, we are ready for that too, and it is hindered by Azerbaijan's aggressive policy, the manipulation of the text of the trilateral statements. Azerbaijan is trying to present that the construction of new roads is Armenia's obligation, but the trilateral statement says that the parties must agree on this issue. And we are ready for such agreement, moreover, we are interested in it, and the only thing we expect from Azerbaijan in this issue is constructiveness. I also want to respond to some of the statements of the President of Azerbaijan. What concerns the mines. This is fully and completely on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. It is our right to undertake some security measures to protect the territorial integrity of our country. I would also like to say that attempts to give a religious context to the situation are unacceptable. We have very close relations with many Muslim countries. A very clear example of this is that most of our allies in the CSTO are Muslim countries. We have very close and close relations with Iran, with many Arab countries, and the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has never had any religious basis. I am simply surprised with the Azerbaijani President's statement that Armenia has organized or is organizing attacks on Azerbaijani embassies in European countries or the United States. Those are totally groundless allegations. I think that obviously if there were such facts, Azerbaijan would have published those facts long time ago. In the overall context I want to say that Armenia is truly and sincerely aiming at peace in the region. Of course this is not a simple issue. It is a very deep problem, but it seemed to me that as a result and during several of our meetings, both through the mediation of the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. Putin, and through the mediation of other foreign leaders, that we had a common understanding of what we should strive for and what concrete steps we should take to establish peace and stability in our region. Obviously, that requires steps, and the Republic of Armenia - I think we have shown this and proven it - our government is ready for such steps. Once again I would like to say that the only thing we expect from Azerbaijan in this process is constructiveness," he noted. Baku reserves the right for "adequate response" if Armenia "fails to fulfill" its obligations within the framework of the trilateral statement of November 10, 2020, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the summit in Ankara. He assured that Azerbaijan allegedly "fulfills all the points of the declaration, including providing unimpeded access from Armenia to Karabakh." "Armenia does not fulfill its part of the declaration. Namely, it does not provide unimpeded access from the main part of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, which is its legal obligation, and it still has not withdrawn Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijani territory," Aliyev said. According to him, Azerbaijan "shows patience for now, but it is not unlimited." "If these two important points of the trilateral statement of November 2020 are not fulfilled, we will have no other choice but to act adequately," Aliyev said. The president also touched on the issue of Armenians in Karabakh, reiterating that "the rights and security of the Armenian population of Karabakh will be ensured in accordance with the Constitution of Azerbaijan." "We are not going to discuss our internal issues with any party. And as far as I understood from the results of the meeting in Prague, this topic did not cause any discrepancies between all the participants of the quadrilateral meeting," Aliyev said. He noted that it was "through Russia's mediation that the hostilities on the border with Armenia were stopped." "As a result of the mediation activities of the Russian side, I would like to emphasize that it was the Russian side that proposed a ceasefire - some attribute this to other countries, which is completely groundless - the hostilities [on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia] were stopped." Liz Truss is being urged to abandon the "reckless" move of the British embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, writes the FT. Foreign policy experts are calling on Truss to reconsider the decision to move the British embassy to Jerusalem, as fears are growing that the move could damage Britain's reputation and endanger security in the region. In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid in New York last month, Truss confirmed that she would reconsider the current location of the British embassy, which could lead to Britain following the example of the United States, which moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 during Donald Trump's administration. Last summer during the Conservative leadership contest, Truss wrote a letter to Conservative friends of Israel, promising that if she won, she would "review a move to ensure we are operating on the strongest footing with Israel." The letter, along with notes to Lapid, alarmed the diplomatic community. Britain's current position is that Jerusalem should be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine, subject to a negotiated settlement. Relocating the embassy would be a de facto recognition that the city is the capital of Israel alone. Except for the United States, only Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala have stationed their embassies in Jerusalem. Former Foreign Secretary Sir Alan Duncan, who held the post from 2016 to 2019, warned that moving the embassy would be "reckless and unprincipled and would mark a fundamental shift in UK foreign policy." "If pursued to its conclusion, moving the embassy would destroy the UKs reputation for respecting international law, and it would undermine our standing in the world. Meanwhile, Alistair Burt, a former foreign secretary and deputy parliamentary secretary at the ministry, argued that the move would violate UN Security Council resolutions on Israel and Palestine, which Britain has supported in the past. "We urge other countries to work multilaterally and uphold their international commitments, and we would not want to be seen to be walking back on ours, he said. Sir Simon Fraser, a former diplomat, argued that the move could signal a "weakening" of Britain's commitment to the two-state solution. Others warned that the decision could have additional negative consequences for Britain. Sir Vincent Fean, former British consul general in Jerusalem, said the move would "antagonise the Arab and Muslim world, for no valid reason" and jeopardize the trade deal between Britain and the Gulf Cooperation Council. The government hopes that the deal will generate more than 1.6 billion pounds a year for the British economy. Vian added that the move could also have serious security implications, noting that more than 50 Palestinians have died as a result of the U.S. embassy relocation. "Jerusalem is a tinderbox. Ms Truss should extinguish her match. The Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats oppose the embassy relocation. Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, have called on the government to "reconsider" the move. Anxiety reigns in the Conservative Party as well. Former party leader William Hague warned against any such move, arguing that it would "align Britain in foreign affairs with Donald Trump. A high-ranking MP, who called the prospect of such a move "madness," said MPs were concerned about how the move would be perceived by Muslim voters and the broader impact on British foreign policy interests and regional stability. Another prominent party figure warned that the move would "send jitters around the world. Russia has always said that it is open to negotiations on Ukraine, if Kiev matures, then mediation efforts of those who offer will be in demand, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, RIA Novosti reported. "We have always said that we are open (to negotiations with Ukraine). We even reached certain agreements in Istanbul, these agreements were in fact almost initialed. As soon as the troops withdrew from Kiev, the Kiev authorities immediately lost the desire to negotiate. If they mature to this, please, then probably mediation efforts of all those who are interested in it will be in demand," Putin said during a press conference following his visit to Kazakhstan. According to him, Kiev has made a decision banning talks with Russia. "India and China always talk about the need to establish a dialogue, to solve everything peacefully. We know their position, they are our close allies, partners, we respect their position, but we also know Kiev's position. They kept saying that they wanted negotiations and sort of asked for this, but they made an official decision that forbids these negotiations. What can we talk about here?" he said, referring to the possibility of China and India joining the settlement in Ukraine. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko urged the U.S. not to dance to the tune of insane politicians on the issue of nuclear weapons, BelTA informs. "You know the main initiator of nuclear weapons use ... Can't you guess who it is? I'll tell you. Poland. It provokes you - the United States - to make some gestures in terms of nuclear weapons. Don't fall for this ploy. You are a big technological country, don't dance to the tune of crazy politicians," he said. "There are nuclear weapons - let them be in warehouses where they are. The Russian President said, "If only nuclear weapons move to, let's say, Poland, there will be a chain reaction. On the other hand, there will be reciprocal steps. Therefore, we must not go for it. We must calm down and sit down at the negotiating table," Lukashenko said in an interview to the American TV channel NBC. "Most importantly, your interlocutor and even your opponent should not be backed into a corner. So don't cross those lines, as the Russians say, "red lines." You should not cross them.... Russia has clearly stated its position: God forbid, there will be an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation, in this case Russia can use all kinds of weapons if necessary... As for the implication of your question, never, including President Putin, has the Russian leadership set itself the goal of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. There is no such need." He recalled how a few days ago Russia launched high-precision weapons strikes against Ukraine in response to actions regarding the Crimean bridge. "You notice it's a force. And a very decent one at that. But that's not all. Russia possesses, this I know for a fact, the most modern weapons. And there is no need for nuclear weapons. Russia can cope without nuclear weapons," assured the Belarusian head of state. In connection with Azerbaijan's latest aggression, Iran has very clearly expressed its position, Gevorg Papoyan, the chairman of the Standing Committee on Financial, Credit and Budgetary Affairs and an MP representing the ruling Civil Contract Party in Armenia, told NEWS.am. Gevorg Papoyan provided details about his visit to Iran. Papoyan referred not only to well-known statements of the Islamic leader and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, but also to the document adopted by the Iranian parliamentary committee on security and international affairs which emphasizes the importance of preserving Armenia's territorial integrity and stresses the inviolability of this principle for Iran. "In addition, it is noted that Armenia has the right to ensure the security and protection of its own borders by any means. Both in terms of the territorial integrity of Armenia, and in terms of the inviolability of borders, and on the economic agenda, there are no issues on which the interests of Armenia and Iran would not coincide," he added. The deputy assured that there will be no talks about corridors through the territory of Armenia, recalling that there is not a single document about it. "But there is a notion of the Lachin corridor, which is fixed in the document, and there is no other corridor, but a clause on the unblocking of roads. Both Armenia and Iran welcome the unblocking of roads, but nothing else is out of the question. Another thing is that it may be the wish of Azerbaijan or Turkey, and maybe other forces. Official Yerevan's stance fully coincides with that of official Iran on the absence of a corridor through Armenia and that there cannot be one," the MP stressed. Papoyan recalled that Iran is planning to hold military exercises in the north of the country. He said that during the Armenian delegation's visit to Iran, meetings were held within the framework of the Armenia-Iran Friendship Group, meetings were also held with the vice speaker of the Iranian parliament, other parliamentarians, representatives of the government, including the head of Iran's Foreign Ministry and the Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade. "The agenda was very broad. Relations between Armenia and Iran are of a friendly nature, and it is not easy to say. No issues were raised that would not stem from the mutual interests of both sides, ranging from political issues, border issues, pumping up economic issues. All these issues are equally important for both Armenia and Iran. Parliamentary cooperation is the continuation of political cooperation between the states and friendly peoples," the deputy concluded. Apple has been fined again in Brazil for selling smartphones without a charging adapter in the kit, reports Reuters. As it became known to journalists of the agency, on Thursday, October 13, the court of the state of Sao Paulo ruled on a lawsuit filed against Apple by the Association of Borrowers, Consumers and Taxpayers. The court banned the sale of smartphones without a charger - in addition to the obligation the American company was fined 100 million reais. The document said that Apple abused the law by selling iPhones without a charger. Apple has responded that it will file an appeal in response to the decision. According to Apple's Brazilian website, the new iPhone 14 series smartphones are available in the country by pre-order, with sales set to start on October 14. The company had previously claimed that it had abandoned the free charging accessory bundled with the iPhone in favor of the environment. "Clearly, under the justification of a green initiative, the defendant is imposing a mandatory purchase on the consumer of charger adapters previously supplied with the product, the court ruled. Apple has been selling smartphones without a charging adapter since the fall of 2020. In early September, Brazilian authorities fined Apple and banned the sale of the brand's smartphones without charging accessories bundled with them. Regulatory officials revoked the registration for the sale of all iPhones without a charger. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes the Trakya region in northwestern Turkey could be the most convenient location for the new gas hub to Europe proposed by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Anadolu reported. The Turkish leader expressed this idea in a conversation with journalists accompanying him to the Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia in Astana. According to him, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey and the relevant agencies on the Russian side were instructed to work on joint steps in this direction. "The most suitable location will be determined for the gas hub. Turkey already has a gas hub, which works to meet its domestic needs. The new hub will be aimed at international supplies. The Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Russian agencies will work together and present us the results, after which concrete steps will be taken. No delays are planned," Erdogan said. At the same time, the head of state noted that all the necessary security measures will be taken during the creation of the new gas hub. ATLANTA Emory Healthcare is grateful to DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond and the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners for supporting Emory Hillandale Hospital in the wake of Wellstar Atlanta Medical Centers (AMC) impending closure. At the Oct. 11 Board of Commissioners meeting, $12 million in critical funding was championed by CEO Thurmond and approved by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners to expand and renovate parts of Emory Hillandale Hospital. The funding will assist in ensuring and improving access to local care for DeKalb County residents as health care systems across Atlanta are strained by AMCs closure. Specifically, the funds will be used to: Expand the Emory Hillandale Hospital emergency department waiting room and add up to 15 emergency bays to support improved access for patients Renovate the Emory Hillandale Hospital intensive care unit (ICU) to improve local access to critical care services Improve emergency imaging services including replacement of a CT scanner at Emory Hillandale Hospital to support continued patient care needs Support development of a hospital-based violence prevention and trauma recovery pilot program to serve as a model for hospital-based violence interruption programs for Georgia hospitals We are very appreciative of the funding supported by CEO Thurmond and approved by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners for expansion and improvement needs at Emory Hillandale Hospital, as we prepare for an increase in patients who need our services and care, says Rashard Johnson, CEO of Emory Hillandale Hospital, Emory Decatur Hospital and Emory Long-Term Acute Care. The impending AMC closure is already creating ripple effects across the metro Atlanta health care infrastructure and this critical funding will help to ensure the needs of our community are met. Emory Hillandale Hospital, a 100-bed facility located in Stonecrest in eastern DeKalb County, opened in 2005 as a part of DeKalb Medical. In 2018, the hospital became a part of Emory Healthcare, Georgias most comprehensive academic health system, along with Emory Decatur Hospital and Emory Long-Term Acute Care. Emory Healthcare looks forward to ongoing conversations and engagement with local, state and federal government officials and with other regional health leaders to formulate additional needed solutions to serve the short- and long-term health care needs of metro Atlanta. Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 14 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Pocket HRMS today announced its availability in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Microsoft Azure customers worldwide now gain access to Pocket HRMS to take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies. This is a significant milestone for the company, which is on a collaboration streak with major technology players to offer end-to-end employee management solutions for businesses. As a Microsoft Partner, the Azure Marketplace would enable Pocket HRMS to make their payroll and HRMS software available to a broader audience of companies looking to digitize and enhance their HR processes. With offices and customers in all major cities across India, Pocket HRMS boasts its presence across the country, processing more than five million HR transactions per month. Kumar Siddhartha, Managing Director at Pocket HRMS, said, "We are honoured to announce that we are a proud Microsoft Partner. With this announcement, we aim to bring together the best in cloud-enabled infrastructure and the best in HR software. Our goal is to provide greater value to our customers and bring about a true HR transformation. It will help in increased employee engagement, faster payroll processing, and a highly scalable solution that grows with our client's business requirements. We are excited to offer our powerful smHRt suite of features to our prospective clientele." "Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure," said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. "We're happy to welcome Pocket HRMS to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem." The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. It helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use. Established almost two decades ago, Pocket HRMS is a leading HRMS software in India. Its core values are ensuring the best in customer service, cost-effectiveness, and robust module offerings. The latest update has incorporated an improved AI-based attendance system and an AI chatbot- smHRty that can interact with employees to apply leaves, answer queries, and more. Additionally, Pocket HRMS offers HRs a unique global look at their database with smHRt searcHR, which is one of the first implementations of its kind in the HR domain. To learn more, contact us: https://www.pockethrms.com | sales@pockethrms.com | 022-67687800 This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India) Kochi (Kerala) [India], October 14 (ANI/PRNewswire): 16 top-ranked universities from the UK, Canada and Australia will be attending the event. University representatives are available for students to discuss study from January 2023. Advice will include eligibility for their course, study level and post-study career opportunities. In addition, students can seek complete support from the Edvoy team for their study abroad queries and processes. Edvoy student counseling advises on documentation and essays, scholarships, application waivers, visa processing, finance and part-time job options. Link for students to register for the event: https://edvoy.com/lp/kerala-global-education-fair/?utm_source=Referral&utm_campaign=Offline-Campaigns The locations for the events are:Ernakulam - Oct 15, 11am to 5pmVenue: Taj Gateway Marine Drive Kottayam - Oct 16, 11am to 5pmVenue: Windsor Palace The universities attending are: UK universities: 1. Abertay University2. Bucks New University3. Cardiff Metropolitan university4. Coventry university5. De Montfort University6. Manchester Metropolitan university7. Ulster University8. University of Brighton9. University of Essex10. University of Law11. University of Bath Canada Universities: 1.University of Canada West (only Ernakulam)2. Cape Breton University3. Trent University4. Crandall University5. Old's College Canada6. Lasalle College USA Universities: 1. INTO Australia: 1. Australian Technical and Management College Sadiq Basha, CEO and Founder, Edvoy"Edvoy thrives on supporting students in their learning abroad ambitions, getting the best education so they can achieve their career goals. What better way to start that journey than by bringing the universities to them, so they can meet and ask questions with university representatives face-to-face. It's testimony to our strong relationships with our university partners that we have so many attend, and their enthusiasm to enroll international students." Dr Sally Clift, Associate Dean, Faculty of Engineering & Design, University of Bath 'We love working with Edvoy.' Raghev Somani, Student Recruitment Advisor, University of East London'With Edvoy, you are no longer walking alone to achieve your career goals' Edvoy is a one-stop digital platform that supports overseas applicants in their entire study-abroad journey. Borne from the success of IEC Abroad, we have been providing excellence in global education support since 2007. IEC Abroad serviced thousands of students worldwide with tailored advice to help them realise their academic ambitions; Edvoy continues this legacy, digitally. Headquartered in Manchester, UK and with a presence globally. Our team is 300+ strong. Our MissionWe want to simplify the world of education through technology. We're empowering students to make more informed decisions as they forge their educational paths. Our VisionWe believe everyone has the right to an education. Our technology connects prospective students and education providers through impartial advice. Through innovation, we will make education global. Contact details:Syed Humam Ali humam@edvoy.com(+91) 9560209970 Kate Pickering kate.p@edvoy.com+44 (0)161 233 4295 This story has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PRNewswire) There is an urgent need to allow exchange trading in palm oil and soybean oil as an absence of futures trading, which facilitates hedging, has led to "heavy financial loss" for importers of these commodities during the past three-to-four months, according to the edible oil industry body The Solvent Extractors' Association of India. The industry has sought futures trading in edible oils, at least in international commodities like crude soybean oil and crude palm oil, which it believes will boost the export of soybean meal -- a derivative of soybean which is widely used as livestock feed. It said international prices of edible oils have fallen sharply in the last five months and so have the domestic price of edible oil, which provided a great relief to consumers during the current festival period. However, a sharp fall in price, it said, also led to a drop in domestic oilseed prices, taking their rates almost near to the MSP -- a cause of concern to the government, industry, and especially the farmers. The industry body last month requested financial market regulator SEBI to resume futures trading of two of the internationally traded edible oils. For the record, in December 2021, India suspended futures and options trading in seven agricultural commodities -- chana, mustard seed, crude palm oil, moong, paddy (basmati), wheat and soybean and its derivatives -- for one year. "Also to support the domestic market, SEA has appealed to Government to consider an increase in import duty on Crude Palm Oil and RBD Palmolein by at least 10 per cent to support the farmers to receive a remunerative price for their produce during the harvest period," the industry body said in a statement on Thursday. Notably, India is the world's second-largest consumer and number one vegetable oil importer, and it meets 55-60 per cent of its need through imports. Meanwhile, import of vegetable oils -- comprising both edible and non-edible oils -- by India during September 2022 is reported at 1,637,239 tonne, compared to 1,762,338 tonne in September 2021, a 7 per cent decline year-on-year, data compiled by the industry body showed. The overall import of vegetable oils during the first eleven months of the oil year 2021-22 -November 2021 - September 2022 -- is reported at 130.1 lakh tonne compared to 124.7 lakh tonne during the same period of last year, up by 4 per cent, data showed. (ANI) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/Mediawire): Today, the start-up ecosystem can be found in every major city around the world. This is because the internet allows start-ups from all over the world to connect and share resources. United States The United States has the most developed start-up ecosystem in the world. This is due in part to the fact that it has a large number of start-ups (over 70,000) and a lot of capital available to invest in them. The main drivers of the US start-up ecosystem are high-quality universities, which produce a large number of entrepreneurs, and the presence of major technology companies, which act as mentors and investors for start-ups. Although Silicon Valley is the global epicentre of this ecosystem, other cities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles are quickly catching up. Singapore Singapore is quickly establishing itself as a start-up ecosystem leader. This is because of strong government support, a large number of investors, and vibrant entrepreneurial culture. Every year, many start-ups establish themselves in Singapore, and the government has prioritized their growth by offering business-friendly tax rates and a slew of tax breaks. China China is home to the world's second-largest start-up ecosystem, which is rapidly expanding. This is due to the Chinese government's strong support for start-ups and the implementation of several policies to promote innovation. Aside from that, it has the world's largest population, which provides a large market for start-ups to tap into, as well as some of the best infrastructure and educational institutions, which assist start-ups in obtaining top talent, funding, and market access. Startup Ecosystem In India In terms of the number of start-ups and unicorns, India now has the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world. The country is right behind two global superpowers, the United States and China. The Indian start-up ecosystem has grown exponentially as the number of unicorns has increased and venture capital (VC) inflows have increased steadily. Since 2014, annual VC funding to Indian start-ups has increased eightfold (8.4x), from USD 5 billion in 2014 to USD 42 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, India's unicorn population has increased roughly eighteenfold (17.5x), from 6 to 105. (until H1 2022). Follow @TimDraper on twitter for more tips The young population and availability of skilled engineers are the main drivers of the Indian start-up ecosystem. India has a strong entrepreneurial culture as well as an increasing number of investors. In fact, startup funding is expected to remain strong in 2022 and 2023, owing to the government's push to regulate start-up sectors and efforts to stabilize the Indian economy amid a global economic slowdown caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to Inc42's State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem Report 2022, Indian start-ups are expected to raise USD 33 billion in 2022 and USD 35 billion in 2023, respectively, through 1,692 and 1,527 transactions. Indian start-ups had raised USD 20.84 billion in 1,129 funding deals as of August 31, 2022. Check out: https://www.meetthedrapers.com/ This story has been provided by Mediawire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/Mediawire) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/GPRC): The Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau (PCEB) embarked on a preliminary promotional trip to India in the city of Mumbai and Chennai with the aim to reconnect and revive tourism and business events industry in Penang and India through press conferences and networking nights. The Preliminary Promotional Trip to India was essential for demonstrating market readiness in India. Some of the Indian local airlines have expressed interest in expanding into Penang after attending PCEB's annual roadshow last year. Following the interest, the PCEB team together with YB Yeoh Soon Hin, the State Executive Councillor for Tourism & Creative Economy had a meeting with few airlines to discuss direct flights opportunities to Penang from key cities in India. It is essential to maintain marketing momentum in order to keep airlines enthusiastic about the Penang-India link. "The efforts to ensure tourism is sustainable was taken well into consideration by incorporating the idea of Responsible Tourism into the travel and tourism sector post-pandemic. Penang is the first state in Malaysia to launch a well-designed SOS safety APP, making Penang once again the trendsetter in Malaysia's tourism environment. With your support, we can restore travellers' confidence to visit Penang and ensure that it remains a top destination for people from all over the world", said Yeoh Soon Hin. "PCEB's dedication has not wavered, and our team is dedicated to fostering mutually beneficial relationships and working closely with the Indian community. The establishment of a direct flight between India and Penang is one of the primary topics of conversation at the moment. We are already in discussion with airlines both in India and in Malaysia about the possibility of establishing additional direct flight routes between Penang and key cities in India," said Ashwin Gunasekaran, the Chief Executive Officer of Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau. India, the largest country in South Asia has been one of the top 5 visitors to Malaysia for a decade and shows no sign of hitting the brakes. India's outbound tourism market is only second to China's. With the Indian market being a key focus area for the bureau, PCEB is also planning their annual roadshow that will focus on four cities in India in the month of February 2023. The dates will be announced very soon and potential cities targeted are Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad. During the roadshow, there will also be the introduction of a special marketing campaign curated for the Indian market. Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau (PCEB) is a state bureau established to develop the Business Events and meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry in Penang. PCEB aims to position Penang as the preferred location for Business Events activities in the region. With its rich UNESCO heritage, thriving multicultural society, state-of-the-art facilities and vibrant natural attractions, Penang offers a truly eclectic tropical experience. In line with its mission to incubate the growth of Business Events in Penang, PCEB serves as Penang's focal point for the coordination of all Business Events activities, providing expert assistance to organisations and Business Events planners at every step of the planning. PCEB's team of industry experts work hand-in-hand with professional service providers and world-class hotels, convention centres and unique venues to ensure the smoothness and success of each event organised. PCEB's goal is to enhance our Business Events clients' experience and at the same time to expand the beneficial economic impact of local MICE businesses. This story is provided by GPRC. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/GPRC) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/PNN): Biofuels have contributed much towards our independence from foreign oil. The use of biofuels also rendered a positive influence on the economic growth of our nation. The conversion of waste to other reusable energies has great commercial significance in today's world. Paving our way to an eco-friendly future is only possible when we follow a futuristic business model in mind. During the ongoing decade, meeting the various socio-economic challenges poses a great challenge for all of us. The various forms of sustainable fuels are crucial for us to meet those challenges at large. Meeting India's enormous fuel consumption volume gains support from our energy strategy which revolves around biofuels of late. While counting on the regular consumption of biodiesel, the Indian government is largely inclined in favour of striking the right balance with the inclusion of ethanol. The govt. seeks the same blending process to be in use with diesel. These steps are designed to meet the needs of developing an eco-friendly India while going forward without a harmful carbon footprint. The national biofuel policy in India lays a promising biofuel roadmap for the Indian biodiesel sector, which we are currently following. A long list of oils and fats that get wasted post-consumption can help us in producing biodiesel. Used cooking oil acts as a good source for producing biofuels. However, those that are pulling up the supply chain mechanisms are seeking much support in terms of workforce and funds from the authorities. Producing fuel requires the Biodiesel industry in India to consider multiple resources e.g. agricultural oil, animal fat, and vegetable oil alongside used cooking oil. There is no presence of sulphur in these options. Compared to fossil fuels, these biofuels are known to cause pollution to much lesser degrees. A host of physical food stores and restaurants in your locality make efficient utilization of waste cooking oil. The FSSAI has initiated a RUCO program which is running successfully where the used cooking oil is collected across various restaurants, hotels and other FBOs. FSSAI enrolled companies like Uranus Oil and many other companies as cooking oil aggregators under this program, to ensure that the cooking oil is safely collected from the retail outlets in an efficient manner. This used cooking oil is supplied to Biodiesel manufacturers for manufacturing Biodiesel, through which waste hazardous oil is converted into cleaner and greener fuel. Recent studies have shown us how the various components of an automobile engine and the fuel systems gain more longevity while using biodiesel. Biodiesel production units have been put up in some regions across India, which are the centre-stage for the manufacturing and distribution of Biodiesel. Pan Oleo Energy is one of such large scale biodiesel manufacturers based in India. Pan Oleo has a fair share in the market for the distribution of industrial chemical agents and biofuels. The company is all set to supply large volumes of Biodiesel to the Indian OMCs including Indian Oil Corporation. Pan Oleo is all set to launch three new Biodiesel production units worth a daily capacity of 1000 Kilolitres. According to Sivakumar, their spokesperson, large sections of the public, in general, are becoming aware of biodiesel and biofuels in recent times, which certainly looks more promising for the growth and expansion of the industry. He also added that Pan oleo is looking forward to spearhead the production of Biofuels and becoming a pioneer in the global biodiesel sector. This story has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PNN) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/SRV): Symbiosis Law School, Pune (SLS Pune), one of the foremost law schools in India and has recently been ranked as the 3rd best law school in India under the NIRF rankings. The institute is glad to announce the setting up of the 21st Teach Skills Lab at its institute in Viman Nagar, which will be used to train various teachers in the modules that are being created under the project. This is being done by incorporating 21st Century Skills which have the potential to revolutionize the Indian system of pedagogy and is in consonance with the National Educational Policy 2020. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals also envisage ensuring quality education for all. Under the aegis of Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU), SLS Pune is the recipient of an impressive number of Erasmus+ Projects co-funded by the European Union. One such unique project is the Erasmus+ CBHE Project "Teacher training with specialization on life and information technology skills" (21st TS) which aims to carry forward the concept of 21st Century Skills that are key for creating an impact on the education system of its Asian partner countries India, China and Cambodia. As the Indian National Education Policy of 2020 focuses on teaching and learning beyond the curriculum, the skills of critical thinking and creativity need to be emphasised. The 21st-century skills include these skills along with the aspects of collaborative problem-solving skills, global awareness, lateral thinking, self-initiative, self-direction, adaptability, metacognitive skills, empathy, employability skills such as Digital Quotient, cross-cultural competencies which are essential for the modern education system for inclusive development and to promote a shared prosperous future. Furthermore, under the project, the module prepared by Symbiosis International (Deemed University) on Critical Thinking Skills and Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills also strives to bring back the indigenous Indian tenets of teachings, especially from the 'Nyaya school of thought' and Gandhian perspectives. SLS, Pune is currently hosting the 2nd Study Visit under the project in which the university leaders from all the partner organisations are participating in the project meetings and are conducting training programmes from 10th to 15th of October 2022. Press meeting was hosted to disseminate the developments, interact with experts and to impact the public. The participating organisations of this project are: Partner No.1: PANEPISTIMIO IOANNINON (UOI), University of Ioannina, Greece -Coordinator Partner No.2: Klaipeda University (KU), Lithuania Partner No.3: Novel Group Sarl (Novel Group), Luxembourg Partner No.4: Symbiosis International (Deemed University) [SIU], India Partner No.5: BANASTHALI VIDYAPITH, India Partner No.6: Southwest university, China Partner No.7: Shenzhen Polytechnic, China Partner No.8: Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Cambodia Partner No.9: University of Battambang, Cambodia The study visit includes the pilot testing of the module with selected school teachers in Higher education and University faculty members and students. Further, pedagogies such as Theatre, collaborative problem-solving, around contemporary issues of climate change, inter-continental child abduction, migrant issues, and refugees among others are being discussed. The speakers including higher education policy leaders such as Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Pro-Chancellor, SIU, Dr Shashikala Gurpur, Fulbright Scholar, Director, Symbiosis Law School-Pune (Resource person for Law theatre and media analysis and Project Manager of 21st Century Teach Skills for Symbiosis Law School, SIU), Dr Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General of Association of Indian Universities and other experts such as Dr Katerina Plakitsi, European Commission Officials, Dr. Sophia Gaikwad, Dr Madan, Dr K Parameswaran, Dr S. Shireshi, Tanuja and Dr Gargee Mitra contributed in the study visit. Further, the study visit includes field visits to Media Studio cum MOOC lab at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Gifted Education and Research Centre of the Kaveri Group nurturing student innovations, and selected schools including Symbiosis International School, Viman Nagar an IB school. The cultural showcasing at SLS Pune had an assortment of Classical Dance, Musical Genre and Skit. To know more visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6aBrR41OAc | https://www.symlaw.ac.in/ This story has been provided by SRV. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/SRV) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/PNN): Hindi bestselling book 'Dynamic DM' authored by Dr Heera Lal, IAS and Kumud Verma has been published in Gujarati language by reputed RR Sheth Publishers, Ahmedabad. It was launched on 8th October 2022 at the Ahmedabad International Literature Festival by Dr SK Nanda, IAS (Retd.) in presence of many prominent persons including both the authors. The life of a civil servant has always fascinated people. This book Dynamic DM provides a rare, inside view of the life of a District Magistrate (DM) through its protagonist Dr Heera Lal. Dr Heera Lal is a popular civil servant who has won many accolades for his development centric innovations. His work to increase voter turnout in Banda was appreciated by Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi during one of his addresses. Similarly, his water conservation efforts helped increase ground water level in Banda, which has been an erstwhile water-deficit region. Dynamic DM is a lucid and engaging compilation of real-life experiences and stories of Dr Heera Lal when he was posted as the District Magistrate of Banda. The book interestingly showcases how Dr. Heera Lal's childhood spent in a challenging and remote village of Uttar Pradesh, ignited his burning desire for growth and development. The simple yet effective writing style highlights how his early life, incidents during his education and then professional life, taught him lessons which molded his persona as a people's person. Interesting anecdotes about his handling of various sensitive situations, nationally appreciated development initiatives and touching stories make the book must-read. The book brings out the stress behind the glamour, the challenges behind the glory and the truth behind popular yet often misplaced myths around the life and persona of a DM. This book is very useful for students, aspiring civil servants, serving officers and people in general as it has real-life lessons in leadership, community building, initiative, and character building. Co-author Kumud Verma is an educationist, social worker, and author of many best-selling books. Hon. Governor of UP, Anandiben Patel has praised the book in her message, "I am confident that this book will serve well to the current and future civil servants." The book has also been endorsed by former Chief Secretaries, IAS officers and other noted personalities. Noted journalist Shekhar Gupta has also recommended this book to aspiring civil servants. Already a hit in the Hindi language and set to release in English shortly, authors hope that its Gujarati version will be equally liked by intelligent Gujarati language readers worldwide. The book is slated to be launched in many other languages as well, in future. This story has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PNN) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/NewsVoir): GEMROCK an emerging name in the business of gemstone mining, strengthens its global dominance with the recently held inaugural auction of the Mozambican Ruby roughs unearthed under the brands aegis. A subsidiary of a fine-contemporary jewellery retail brand from India, DIACOLOR, Gemrock's debut auction held between the 3rd till the 7th of October 2022, was a successful endeavor that witnessed participation from over 56 global companies bidding to procure a lot of Mozambican Ruby roughs, unearthed, and mined across the multiple holdings by the company across Mozambique, in Africa. The 5-day auction witnessed a robust sentiment amongst buyers expressing great interest in the inventory that was on offer. Companies from all around Asia and Europe, made it to the maiden auction and resulting in 442 bids for the produced Rubies. These exceptional, gem-quality Rubies of intense colour and saturation were extracted from Montepuez district. With its presence on the fields in Montepuez since 2017, GEMROCK has been exploring in both east and west of Gemfields's MRM license, and today has access to over 589 square kilometres of potential ruby bearing area located within the wedge-shaped Montepuez Comple. Speaking upon this occasion Rishabh Tongya, Founder & Chairman, GEMROCK, and Creative Director DIACOLOR said, "Ever since our journey with DIACOLOR began, it's been our priority to present to our discerning buyers with the finest quality gemstones set in timeless designs. As jewellers we would often find ourselves on a hunt to procure the best quality gemstones and thus to progression towards getting into the business of mining was an organic one. It is a proud moment for all of us at GEMROCK that our inaugural auction received a momentous response, and it reinforces our belief that we are on the right path, however it also makes me super proud to share that DIACOLOR is India's first ever jewellery house to have its own mines and bridge the gap between the mine and consumers." Tim Denning, Bonas Group, commented, "We are absolutely thrilled by the response we've had at GEMROCK's inaugural tender with one of the highest number of attendees. There is a strong demand for Mozambican Rubies, and we look forward to working with them closely for their next auction." In the recently held auction the company achieved the expected prices for its finest quality and is now planning to have the next auction in First Quarter of 2023. The proceeds of this auction will be fully repatriated to Moza Minerals in Mozambique with all royalties being paid in full on the sales price. Highlights: - 56 buyers from in and around Asia and Europe attended the auction- The companies placed 442 bids in total- Buyers requested larger quantities in terms of future auctions. GEMROCK currently holds several large-scale mining titles in the Montepuez Ruby District in northern Mozambique. The mine acquired in 2019 started exploration and mining operation soon after. The rubies produced from the mine are of fine quality and colour. GEMROCK's ambition and vision is to become a leading producer and global market supplier of fine rubies over the next few years. Very significant capital and human investment underpins that goal and ambition. GEMROCK is conscious of the importance to promote and work in an environmentally friendly and ethically sustainable way. The company is therefore strongly committed to adhere to the highest environmental standards and ensure preservation of the areas in and around the mine. DIACOLOR - Fine Contemporary Jewels, a Delhi-based high luxury jewellery brand, today stands at the paramount of couture in the industry. Known for its eclectic mix of diamond and coloured gemstone the brand may only be a couple of years old, but has risen to be one of the key players in the luxury market redefining styles and trends. The brand caters to its patrons across India through its flagship boutique at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai, it's newly opened boutique in Jaipur at the Rambagh Palace and Taj Mansigh Hotel, New Delhi. A by appointment salon at in Dubai at the Almas Towers, is yet another majestic address to experience the DIACOLOR retail rendezvous. For more information, please contact: press@gemrock.co This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/NewsVoir): Max Life Insurance Company Ltd. ("Max Life" / "Company"), has launched an enhanced variant of 'Max Life Guaranteed Lifetime Income Plan' (UIN: 104N076V14 - a Non-Linked, Non-Participating Individual General Annuity Savings Plan) designed to ensure a steady post-retirement income stream. With this plan, customers will now have the option of regular systematic investment to plan early for retirement and lock the annuity amount for life at the time of purchase. The Max Life Guaranteed Lifetime Income Plan offers customers the option to choose between immediate and deferred annuity. They also have the option of selecting a joint life option to ensure the same amount of lifelong annuity to their loved ones even after one's death. Under deferred annuity, the customer can lock the annuity amount at the time of purchase only either by paying a lump sum amount in one go or investing regularly in a systematic way as per his/her convenience. This plan provides the flexibility to choose the annuity amount one wants to receive post-retirement with the option to invest for different premium payment terms. The minimum purchase price of the Plan is subject to a minimum annuity payout being at least Rs 1,000 per month or Rs 12,000 per annum, while there is no maximum premium limit. Prashant Tripathy, MD and CEO, Max Life said, "Retirement planning is a key concern for young Indians today. In fact, as per our recent 'India Retirement Index Study' 2.0, 1 in 3 Indians believes their savings will exhaust within five years of retirement. As we focus on retirement, we are committed to protecting India from financial risks, including uncertainties of life. The Max Life Guaranteed Lifetime Income Plan in its enhanced format is one of the many competitive products we will offer in this segment." Key features of 'Max Life Guaranteed Lifetime Income Plan': - Guaranteed income for life* with Joint Life option to provide same income for life to the Spouse after one's death.- Easy to plan retirement - One can start planning retirement early to lock in the guaranteed annuity amount for tomorrow.- Option to choose premium payment term and deferment period - One can choose for how long he/she wants to pay the premium and when he/she wants to start receiving a guaranteed income stream for life.- Option to receive the return of premium on death - After the death of the annuitant(s) - Premium paid (less applicable taxes) is returned to the claimant in case of immediate annuity for life (with death benefit) option,- Minimum 105 per cent of premiums paid is returned to the nominee. In case of deferred annuity (with death benefit) option - Option to choose the mode of payout - One can choose to receive income payout on a yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, or monthly basis. Recently, Max Life had announced the receipt of the Commencement of Business (COB) Certificate for its wholly owned subsidiary, Max Life Pension Fund Management Limited that will work towards financially protecting Indians in their retirement years. The subsidiary of Max Life will manage the pension assets with investment choices under the National Pension Scheme. Max Life Insurance Company Limited is a Joint Venture between Max Financial Services Limited and Axis Bank Limited. Max Financial Services Ltd. is a part of the Max Group. Max Life offers comprehensive protection and long-term savings life insurance solutions, through its multi-channel distribution including agency and third-party distribution partners. Max Life has built its operations over two decades through a need-based sales process, a customer-centric approach to engagement and service delivery and trained human capital. As per public disclosures and annual audited financials for FY2021-22, Max Life has achieved a gross written premium of Rs 22,414 crore. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.maxlifeinsurance.com. All invitation to enquire disclaimers + PFRDA annuity disclaimers must come. Annuities purchased under NPS payable to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) / Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) are subject to Tax Deducted at Source (TDS). Further, repatriation of the corpus, if any, will be subject to applicable laws and regulatory provisions of IRDAI / PFRDA / RBI. *The guaranteed benefits are applicable only if all due premiums are paid. This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/PNN): Cellula, a Bengaluru-based health-tech startup and Swisse wellness, A HongKong based wellness organization have announced a PAN India Campaign to support and spread awareness about women safety and health. The campaign is scheduled for Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Delhi on October 16, 2022, November 5, 2022, December 17, 2022, January 7, 2023, February 11, 2023 and March 18, 2023, respectively. Both men and women can participate in the 10K, 5K & 3K Runs. This event will support a number of associated non-profit organizations that work for women's health, safety, and education. The first event will be in Hyderabad. The event is expected to see more than 2000 participants. Dr Manish Harsh, CEO, Cellula explains "Women safety and health remains primary concerns in India. We are running this campaign to support local NGOs and spread awareness about this very critical issue. In every metro, we will be supporting 7-10 NGOs who are active in the segment. Swisse Wellness, A HongKong based wellness organization is supporting the event in all 6 cities. Swisse is an Australian vitamin, supplement and skincare brand that was founded in Melbourne in 1969. It is proudly part of the H&H Group, global health, nutrition and personal care company focused on three key pillars of nutrition, movement and mind to promote healthier communities. Premium, proven and aspirational, Swisse products are formulated with premium quality ingredients based on traditional evidence and scientific research. The details of event are available at www.pinknightrun.com Event is being supported by organizations like Decathlon, Hindustan Petroleum, IDD Clinical, Adithya Mehta Foundation and Assist HELP Foundation. This story has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PNN) New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI/SRV): A new showroom will be opened in Ghaziabad by the 80-year-old Radheylal & Sons Jewellers, one of the most trusted and leading jewellery brands in India. As part of its expansion and to make the brand more accessible to patrons in Delhi NCR, the brand has consistently expanded its brand footprint and operations in the region. Jewellery has been the quintessential mark of joy and sheer opulence for every woman for ages now. As its name implies, Radheylal & Sons Jewellers represents the ultimate state of bliss and happiness in the jewellery world. By embracing the age-old tradition of jewellery, Radheylal & Sons Jewellers seeks to provide a distinct definition to the modern Indian woman, whose power and personality are enhanced. A rich heritage of jewellery that speaks for itself, that reflects one's values and stature. Announcing the opening of the brand-new showroom, the Founder Ravindar Kumar said, "We are delighted with the love and acceptance that our women's jewellery line has received, and we are proud to offer something new to our customers with the latest 'Him & Her' jewellery collection." With the same spirit and vibe, we are now opening a jewellery showroom in Ghaziabad. The styles of the collection are chic yet classic, the perfect gifting set for this festive season. Their original graphic form, vivid colour, and rich gloss seem to give a new meaning to life, and they seem to have a personality of their own. Experts and customers alike vouch for the fine quality and purity of Radheylal & Sons jewellers' jewellery. For more information, please visit: https://www.instagram.com/radheyjewellers1942/ This story has been provided by SRV. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/SRV) Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, is ready to put her turbulent past with Meghan Markle aside! According to Page Six, Kate is ready to mend her relationship with Meghan. Page Six quoted a US Weekly report that suggested is hoping to mend her relationship with Meghan Markle during her upcoming visit to the United States. "Once Kate and William's Boston plans are set in stone, she's planning to extend an olive branch to Meghan in a bid to reunite the brothers and heal the rift," according to a Page Six report quoting US Weekly. "[Prince] Harry and Meghan are knee-deep with their hectic schedules, but Meghan is willing to put in the effort as long as dates don't clash," an insider told the media outlet. Kate and Prince William are all set to attend the second annual Earth shot Prize awards ceremony in Boston on December 2, as per Page Six. This will be Kate and William's first trip to the US since 2014. Around the same time, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will travel to the east for the Ripple of Hope Award Gala of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) organization in New York. According to a press release accessed by Page Six, the couple was chosen as one of the Ripple of Hope Award laureates this year for their "effort on racial justice, mental health, and other social impact activities through their Archewell Foundation." In 2018, Meghan Markle gave an interview with Oprah Winfrey where she claimed that Kate made her burst into tears. "A few days before the wedding, (Kate) was upset about flower girl dresses and it made me cry. It really hurt my feelings," she told Winfrey. "It was a really hard week of the wedding. And she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologized. And she brought me flowers and a note, apologizing." While the two women may be ready to smooth things over, sources say William "simply can't forgive" his little brother quite yet, as per Page Six. (ANI) Actor Russell Crowe has responded to a book excerpt published months ago which likely only recently came to the Oscar-winner's attention. According to Deadline, in the excerpt from Scott Meslow's book 'From Hollywood With Love' director PJ Hogan says he originally tried to cast Crowe as the film's titular best friend opposite soon-to-be-Oscar winner Julia Roberts. However, as per the director, Crowe first, had to be ok'd by Roberts, who had casting approval. So he allegedly set up a table read. In the book, Hogan said, "It was one of the worst table reads I've ever experienced. Russell was seated opposite Julia. He gripped that script, and he stared at that script, and he didn't look at her once. He read every line in a monotone. At one point, Julia was literally leaning over the table, staring, like, inches from Russell's face, trying to make eye contact. And he wouldn't look at her." "At the end of the reading, Russell came up to me and said, 'I thought that went pretty well.' And then I knew: Russell was not going to be in My Best Friend's Wedding," he added, reported Deadline. Responding to these claims, Crowe took to Twitter and stated that he does not remember it that way. In fact, he doesn't remember it at all. "Pure imagination on behalf of this director. I did not audition for this film. I have never done a table read with the actress mentioned. Would be funny if it wasn't so pointless," he wrote. Meanwhile, Crowe has been busy in Rome, where he recently met with Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and accepted a plaque indicating he is an "ambassador" for Rome in the world, as per Deadline. (ANI) In a tragic incident, three youngsters drowned in a water-logged pit at Kaya Maya Park in south Delhi's Khanpur area. The police said the water had collected in the pit following the recent heavy rainfall in the national capital. The police said the deceased have been identified as Risabh (16), Piyush (13) and Piyush (16), all residents of Khanpur area. According to Esha Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Southeast district, around 2.38 p.m. on Thursday, a police control room (PCR) call was received at the Pul Pehladpur police station regarding the drowning of three children following which an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) and police teams rushed to the spot. "The caller, another 16-year-old boy on the spot, told the police that he along with his seven friends came to bathe in the rainwater accumulated in the park. When they were taking a bath, three of his friends, Piyush, Risabh and another boy also named Piyush, went into the pit. They started drowning and after some time they disappeared in the water," said the DCP. "On the instance of the boy, the police team jumped into the water filled pit. After an intensive search of about 30 minutes all the three children were fished out of the water and sent to Majeedia Hospital in a CAT ambulance, where they were declared brought dead by the doctors," said the DCP. Meanwhile, a senior official of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority said that Kaya Maya Park is under the jurisdiction of the DDA and rainwater has accumulated because of the recent rainfall. "The park is so designed that a depression exists which creates a natural pond. After the recent rains it was filled to around six feet, at its highest point," said the official. This comes two days after six children, aged between eight and 13, drowned in a rainwater-filled pond in Gurugram Sector 111 on Sunday. --IANS atk/bg ( 329 Words) 2022-10-13-20:44:02 (IANS) Supreme Court judge Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia on Thursday quashed the Karnataka government's decision to ban wearing of hijab inside classrooms of pre-university colleges, saying that the Constitution is also a document of trust and it is the trust the minorities have reposed upon the majority. Justice Dhulia had dissented in connection with Karnataka High Court order, which allowed Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at Idgah Maidan in Bengaluru's Chamarajpet. The matter was referred to a 3-Judge following "difference of opinion" between the two-judge comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and Dhulia. Justice Dhulia, in his judgment, said: "We live in a democracy and under the rule of law, and the laws which govern us must pass muster the Constitution of India. Amongst many facets of our Constitution, one is trust. Our Constitution is also a document of trust. It is the trust the minorities have reposed upon the majority." At the beginning of the judgment, Justice Dhulia said: "While I do so, I am conscious that as far as possible, a constitutional court must speak in one voice. Split verdicts and discordant notes do not resolve a dispute. Finality is not reached. But then to borrow the words of Lord Atkin (which he said though in an entirely different context), finality is a good thing, but justice is better." He said it is necessary to have discipline in schools, but discipline not at the cost of freedom, and not at the cost of dignity. "Asking a pre university schoolgirl to take off her hijab at her school gate, is an invasion on her privacy and dignity," he added. He said a girl child has the right to wear hijab in her house or outside her house, and that right does not stop at her school gate and the child carries her dignity and her privacy even when she is inside the school gates, in her classroom, and she retains her fundamental rights. To say that these rights become derivative rights inside a classroom, is wholly incorrect, he emphasised. Justice Dhulia said: "All the Petitioners want is to wear a hijab! Is it too much to ask in a democracy? How is it against public order, morality or health? or even decency or against any other provision of Part III of the Constitution. These questions have not been sufficiently answered in the Karnataka High Court Judgement." He said it does not appeal to my logic or reason as to how a girl child who is wearing a hijab in a classroom is a public order problem or even a law and order problem. "To the contrary, reasonable accommodation in this case would be a sign of a mature society which has learnt to live and adjust with its differences," he added. Referring to challenges already faced by a girl child in reaching her school, he said the question this court would therefore put before itself is also whether we are making the life of a girl child any better by denying her education, merely because she wears a hijab! "Another question which the school administration and the State must answer in the present case is as to what is more important to them: education of a girl child or enforcement of a dress code!" He noted that many of the senior counsel appearing for the petitioners, that the unfortunate fallout of the enforcement of hijab ban in schools in Karnataka has been that some of the girl students have not been able to appear in their board examinations, and many others were forced to seek transfer to other schools, most likely madrasas, where they may not get the same standard of education. "This is for a girl child, for whom it was never easy, in the first place, to reach her school gate," he said. In connection with determining as to what is an essential religious practice, Justice Dhulia said that "in my humble opinion courts are not the forums to solve theological questions and courts are not well equipped to do that for various reasons, but most importantly because there will always be more than one viewpoint on a particular religious matter, and therefore nothing gives the authority to the court to pick one over the other". --IANS ss/vd A A ( 729 Words) 2022-10-13-20:48:05 (IANS) Trinamool Congress lawmaker and West Bengal Board of Primary Education's (WBBPE) former President Manik Bhattacharya gave wrong information in the affidavit that he filed with the poll panel in 2021 when he contested from Palashipara Assembly constituency in Nadia district, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in the case diary in its probe into the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam. ED sources said that in the said affidavit, Bhattacharya informed that his total assets, movable and immovable combined was little over Rs 2 crore. "However, as our sleuths are going deeper in the probe in the WBSSC scam, it is becoming clear the actual worth of assets and properties owned by him is much more than what he had mentioned in the affidavit," an ED official said. In the affidavit, Bhattacharya skipped the mention of Rs 2.64 crore in the bank account of his son. In the affidavit that he filed in 2021, he mentioned his pension, honorarium as WBBPE President, and returns from a senior citizens' scheme as his sources of income. Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel probe in the WBSSC scam, has claimed that former West Bengal Education Minister, Partha Chatterjee ignored repeated complainants against former convener of the commission's screening committee, SP Sinha about the latter indulging in corrupt practices in the recruitment process. In fact, the Calcutta High Court-appointed probe committee headed by Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag (retired), had held the screening committee as the epicenter of the scam and Sinha as the principal mastermind in the matter. Both Partha Chatterjee and Sinha are currently under judicial custody. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Leader of the Opposition in Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari told newspersons that Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee too, was aware of the involvement of Chatterjee in the teachers' recruitment scam but remained silent. "A letter has been recovered by ED from Manik Bhattacharya's residence where someone complained to the Chief Minister about the ongoing irregularities. Now the Chief Minister cannot claim ignorance in the matter," Adhikari said. --IANS src/vd ( 357 Words) 2022-10-13-22:46:02 (IANS) Bihar Police has decided to take custody of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) arms supplier Danish Khan, currently lodged in a Jammu and Kashmir jail after National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him from Siwan, in a murder case, an official said. Khan is also wanted in a murder case of a leader in the district. SHO, Basantpur, Mukesh Kumar, said: "A man gunned down on September 16 last year and Danish Khan was allegedly involved in it. We were trying to nab him. By that time, the Kashmir unit of NIA asked him and his friend Faisal Khan to join the probe. Faisal Khan went with his lawyer to Kashmir. NIA had arrested Danish Khan while Faisal Khan returned home. "We have been in contact with the NIA since his arrest. The NIA official informed us that the remand will be taken only after the court grants it. We initiated the process to take his remand. He is facing the charge of murder of the Samajwadi Janata Dal President." --IANS ajk/vd ( 185 Words) 2022-10-13-22:52:01 (IANS) The J&K Police's Special Investigation Agency (SIA) on Thursday presented a charge sheet in the designated TADA court against a serving CRPF constable, accused of having terror links. Officials said the charge sheet was filed against CRPF constable, Zulfikar Ali Khatana, son of Altaf Hussain Khatana and resident of Kachawa village in Kokarnag tehsil of Anantnag district, under various sections of law for being a terrorist handler of JeM/LeT outfit and for being an agent of Pakistan's ISI. The FIR was registered against the CRPF constable under the Official Secrets Act, and the Enemy Agents Ordinance Act. "The constable, posted in 171 Battalion of the CRPF, has conspired with and acted at the behest of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations and agents of ISI and collected and provided secret/classified information regarding location of vital defence installations, shared confidential documents, thereby aided the enemy/adversary to strategise attacks on India and acted on the instructions received from the adversary in its ongoing campaign undertaken by the enemy in subverting the government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir by giving assistance to the enemy. "Investigation was set into motion for the logical conclusion of the case for judicial determination, which has been completed in less than six months period by the SIA (Kashmir)," an official said. "It is pertinent to mention here that the terrorist handlers, namely Yousuf Baloch alias Zarar alias Qari Maviah alias Hafiz alias Aziz Bai, and agents of ISI across the border (based in Pakistan) have used cyber space for instigating, enticing and motivating Kashmiri youth to join militant ranks and raise funds and provide logistics for running militant modules amongst the handlers in Pakistan. Their identities are being ascertained and action to expose them and submit evidence against them would follow during the further course of investigation which is continuing," the official added. These handlers had motivated the accused to act as their sub-agent and provide the desired confidential information besides to arrange logistics for infiltrating terrorists and other required designs for the purpose of sabotage and carrying out attacks on security forces/vital installations to meet the objective of secession of J&K, officials said. --IANS sq/vd ( 369 Words) 2022-10-13-23:20:05 (IANS) Meanwhile, police have informed the Income Tax department about the huge amount of cash, and are also investigating the source of cash and for what purpose it was meant. Bardoli police Sub Inspector M.J. Rathod told IANS that Rajendra Solanki, the AAP candidate from Bardoli Assembly seat for the forthcoming elections, had filed the complaint on Wednesday night that the pillion rider on a motorcycle had stolen the bag carrying Rs 20 lakh cash from his car, but Samaritan Adil Memon chased the robbers, who threw away the bag and fled. IANS tried to speak to Solanki, but his phone was switched off. --IANS har/vd ( 158 Words) 2022-10-13-23:28:04 (IANS) Teaching children how to manage their attention and impulses in primary school has a positive long-term effect on their later educational success, suggests the findings of a study by the universities of Zurich and Mainz. Self-regulation, i.e., the ability to manage attention, emotions and impulses, as well as to pursue individual goals with perseverance, is not a skill that we usually associate with young children. However, the school closures due to the pandemic and the increased usage of digital media by children have now shown how important these abilities are, especially for children. Studies show that people who demonstrated self-regulation as children go on to have on average higher income, better health and greater life satisfaction. They also show that the ability to exert self-regulation can already be trained in a targeted manner in childhood. How can the training of self-regulation skills be integrated into the standard elementary school day without taking up too much teaching time? Is it possible to teach young pupils an abstract self-regulation strategy in an appropriate way? Does teaching such skills have the potential to improve long-term educational success? Self-regulation improves even with short training units An international team from the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) examined these questions. Using a randomized controlled study in elementary schools involving more than 500 first graders, the research team was able to show that even a short training unit led to a significant and sustainable improvement in self-regulation. The training did not just affect self-regulation abilities; the children had significantly improved reading ability and an improved focus on careless mistakes one year after the training and were also considerably more likely to be admitted to a selective academic secondary school (Gymnasium) three years after the training. "Our study has shown how the training of this skill can be explicitly embedded in primary school teaching at an early stage. An increase in self-regulation enables children to take on more responsibility for their own learning and to set goals on their own and work toward them," says Ernst Fehr, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. According to the last author, children's comprehensive key skills that are of fundamental importance for good educational attainment and successful later life can be improved thanks to the simple scalability of the program. Easily integrated into the regular timetable Due to concerns from previous practical experience, the study authors designed the training units in an extremely cost-effective and time-saving manner, in such a way that they could be introduced in any primary school setting: the training unit lasted only five hours, and teachers participated in a three-hour training session and received completely developed teaching materials which they could integrate directly into the regular class schedule. The training units were based on the MCII Strategy ("Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions"), which has already been the subject of excellent research studies in adults and older students. The teachers presented the abstract strategy in a playful manner using a picture book and the role model of a hurdle jumper. In the first step, the children imagined the positive effects of reaching a goal. They contrasted them with the obstacles that might face on the way ("Mental Contrasting"). The children then identified specific behaviours to face the obstacles and develop "when-then" plans ("Implementation Intention"). Positive effect on society "The special feature of our study is the long-term ripple effects that this short training unit can have. These effects benefit the child, and they are transferred in many ways to society as a whole over the course of the child's life," says first author Daniel Schunk, professor of public and behavioural economics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. "The fact that early investments in such fundamental skills not only benefit the child alone but also society should be given more attention in education policy." (ANI) Zhang Jinmei, a plant expert and a delegate to the upcoming 20th National Congress of the CPC, has made great contributions to the cultivation of multiple types of lilacs blooming on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Her work also paved the way for the establishment of the first and only lilac germplasm bank in China. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Lashing out at Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal over Gujarat AAP president Gopal Italia's recent remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mother, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday said Kejriwal "falling to new lows is not surprising". "With blessings of Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leadership in Gujarat maliciously attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 100-year-old mother. That Kejriwal could fall to new lows is not surprising...Her only crime is she gave birth to Narendra Modi. Your leaders and workers seek to punish and abuse her," Irani told reporters here. Earlier, the Union Minister slammed Kejriwal in a Twitter post over Gopal Italia's remarks. "Arvind Kejriwal, gutter mouth Gopal Italia now abuses Hira Ba with your blessings. I profer no outrage, I do not want to show how indignant Gujaratis are but know this you have been judged and your party shall be decimated electorally in Gujarat. Now the people will deliver justice," tweeted Irani. Italia was detained by the Delhi Police after he was summoned by the National Commission of Women (NCW) on Thursday. The NCW chief summoned Italia over a controversial video, in which he purportedly used derogatory language against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A video of Italia had gone viral in which he is purportedly heard asking the women not to visit the temples and 'kathas' (sermons by Hindu priests) as they are "hubs of exploitation". This comes days after he allegedly made a casteist remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in yet another viral video. Amid political slugfest in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday hit out at AAP over its state chief Gopal Italia's recent remarks which have triggered reactions from BJP. BJP national general secretary CT Ravi said that AAP has an old habit of doing drama, however, the party would not succeed in Gujarat. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra slammed Italia over his remark. "Calling the Prime Minister a lowly person is against the democratic rules of the country; it is an insult to the country. Be it any caste, or any religion, no person can be lowly," Patra had said at a press conference. "An OBC Prime Minister who comes from a backward class, who comes from a poor and ordinary family, repeatedly calling him lowly, what is this abuse? Does the Aam Aadmi Party want to call the backwards-class people low? Anyone who rises from an ordinary poor family and becomes the Prime Minister is not lowly in the democratic process. No, it is against democratic values," he had added. "The Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal are the people who said that they have come to change the character of India. If the democratically elected influential and hardworking Prime Minister is called lowly, and he is calling the PM lowly in that video, not once, but somewhere it shows the mentality of the Aam Aadmi Party," he had stated. (ANI) Builder Gabbu Singh is a close aide of the national president of Janata Dal (United) Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh. Details in this matter are awaited as the IT raids are currently underway. The development has come months after JDU chief Nitish Kumar broke the party's alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party and joined hands with the opposition to form a "Mahagathbandhan" alliance in the state and took oath as Bihar CM for the eighth time. It was in 2020 when the BJP-JDU won the election in alliance with each other in Bihar and Nitish Kumar was made the chief minister despite BJP being the single largest party. In less than two years' time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a 'Grand Alliance' government in Bihar. The political scenario in the state has changed since Nitish Kumar broke the alliance with BJP and staked a claim to form a government with RJD. Nitish Kumar had broken away from the BJP and formed a government with the RJD and other parties earlier this month. The Chief Minister and his deputy - RJD's Tejashwi Yadav - took oath on August 10. The Bihar Grand Alliance has a combined strength of 163. Its effective strength climbed to 164 after Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh extended support to Nitish Kumar. The Grand alliance Bihar government comprises JD(U), RJD, Congress, CPI(ML), CPI and CPI(M) and has a combined strength of more than 160 in the 243-strong House. (ANI) In a major success on the high seas, an Indian Coast Guard ship acted swiftly to free Indian fishermen who were being taken to a Pakistani port by the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA). The incident took place on October 6 when the Indian Coast Guard ship Arinjay received information about an emergency involving an Indian fishing boat Harsiddhi-5 from Jakhau which was involved in fishing activities close to the maritime boundary line off the Gujarat coast, Indian Coast Guard officials told ANI. "On receipt of the information regarding distress onboard Harsiddhi, on radio, ICG ship on patrol immediately proceeded with maximum speed towards the reported position," they said. As soon as it reached there, the ICG ship motives debris of the fishing boat along with one survivor in the water and a few lifebuoys of Pakistan Maritime Security Agency Ship (PMSS) Barkat in the area. The ship recovered the partially conscious survivor and administered first aid to the survivor who informed that the PMSS Barkat had fired on the Indian and fishing boat and hit twice during the dark hours of October 6 which resulted in the sinking of the boat. The survivor also informed that six out of seven crew were then captured onboard by the Pak ship. The ICG ship on learning about it started moving towards the Pakistani bot and communicated to PMSS Barkat to release the Indian crew immediately as they were captured on the Indian side of IMBL. In due course, PMSS Barkat complied and released the crew to the ICG ship at IMBL resulting in the release and safety of all seven crew, the officials said. The crew were administered first aid and brought to Jakhau. The matter regarding the firing and hitting of IFB is being investigated and will be taken up accordingly through appropriate channels and FIR has been registered in the incident. (ANI) The Saket District Court has dismissed a complaint seeking direction to Delhi Police to investigate against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Cabinet Minister Gopal Rai, MLA Prakash Jarwal and others in relation to the Delhi Assembly Elections 2020. The complainant had filed the complaint under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) stating that MLA Prakash Jarwal was not eligible to contest the elections from Deoli (SC) Assembly constituency-47 which was reserved for Scheduled Caste Community. Arvind Kejriwal and Gopal Rai made him the candidate for the Assembly polls. The complainant Dal Chand Kapil stated that he is a member of the Scheduled Caste Community who had contested Legislative Assembly Elections from Deoli (SC) Assembly constituency - 47 in the year 2015 and year 2020. Prakash Jarwal had also contested these elections from Deoli (SC) Assembly constituency in 2015 and 2020. The complainant alleged that Prakash Jarwal was deliberately made a candidate from the Deoli (SC) Assembly constituency only to deprive any member of the Scheduled Caste Community to get elected from the reserved constituency. It is further alleged that Jarwal belongs to the Bairwa/Berwa Community which falls in the category of OBC in Delhi. It is alleged that the election of Prakash Jarwal from this constituency has reduced the representation of the SC Community in the Delhi Assembly by one seat. The Additional Sessions Judge Vrinda Kumari passed the order a few days ago, noted that the present complaint has been filed after two years of the filing of the Election Petition before the High Court of Delhi and after one year of the filing of a complaint before the SHO concerned. No cogent reason has been provided for this delay. It has been submitted that the complainant did not have good legal assistance and he was scared of standing upto the mighty politicians. "The perusal of the record would show that sound legal assistance was available to the complainant way back in the year 2020 when Election Petition was filed by him against respondent Prakash Jarwal," said the court. The complainant contested Delhi Assembly Elections from the Deoli (SC) Assembly constituency in 2015 and 2020. Be that as it may, the attempt of the complainant to bring the subject matter of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 within the ambit of the SC & ST Act, 1989 is an abuse of process, noted by the court. "In view of the above discussion, the circumstances put forth in the present complaint under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. do not disclose the commission of any cognizable offence. There are no grounds to direct registration of FIR or to take cognizance. The application under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. is, therefore, dismissed with a cost of Rs 1000 to be deposited in DLSA," said the Court order. The Complainant also alleged in the complaint that as a false and forged SC Certificate of respondent Prakash Jarwal was used to misinform and cheat the Returning Officer or other officials of the Election Commission of India. On the basis of this false document, the Returning Officer and other ECI Officials were caused to use their lawful power in accepting the nomination papers of respondent Prakash Jarwal allowing him to contest from the Delhi constituency reserved for the SC Community. (ANI) Hindu side will approach the Supreme Court against the Varanasi court's verdict refusing to allow a 'scientific investigation' of the purported 'Shivling', claiming to be found on the Gyanvapi mosque premises. The Hindu side demanded carbon dating of the structure they claimed to be a Shivling found inside the Gyanvapi Mosque's wazukhana. However, the Muslim side said that the structure found was a 'fountain'. The Hindu side had then submitted an application on September 22 that sought a carbon dating of the object they claimed to be 'Shivling'. The Varanasi court further added, "It would not be proper to order the survey of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and by giving such order the age, nature, and structure of the said Shivling is known, even this does not imply the possibility of a just solution" Advocate Vishnu Jain, representing the side in the Gyanvapi case, "Court has rejected our demand of seeking carbon dating. We'll move to Supreme Court against this order and challenge it there. I cannot announce the date as of now, but we'll soon challenge this order in Supreme Court." Another lawyer of the Hindu side Madan Mohan Yadav said, "Though the court has rejected the demand of seeking carbon dating, the option of going to the High Court is available and the Hindu side will place their point before the High Court as well." Referring to the order of May 17 of the Supreme Court, the Varanasi Court said that "If the alleged Shivling is damaged by taking samples, then it will be in violation of the order of the Supreme Court". "If the Shivling is damaged, the religious sentiments of the general public can also get hurt", the Varanasi Court said. Carbon dating is a scientific process that ascertains the age of an archaeological object or archaeological finds. Earlier on September 29, the Hindu side demanded a scientific investigation of the 'Shivling' by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the carbon dating of 'Argha' and the area around it. After hearing both sides' arguments, the court had reserved the order in the Gyanvapi Mosque-Shringar Gauri case. On May 20, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of the case related to worship at Gyanvapi mosque from the civil judge to the District Judge, Varanasi. Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Indresh Kumar urged people to have patience and said, "ultimately the truth will come out". The RSS leader further added that "There will be many other options to find the truth, the scientists, experts, and media persons will think about it". "Indians never destroyed any Masjid but the foreigners who invaded India destroyed our Temples and that is why we see Hindu deities in Masjids," he added. Akhlaq Ahmed, representing the Muslim side had said that the plea by the Hindu side is not maintainable as it is against the order of the Supreme Court that stated protecting the structure (which the Muslim side claims to be a fountain and the Hindu side claims to be a Shivling). "We responded to the application on carbon dating. Stone does not have the capacity to absorb carbon. The Supreme Court in its May 17 order, according to which, the object that the commission found, had to be protected. The order of the SC will prevail, so the object cannot be opened. According to the Hindu side, the process will be scientific, even if it is so, there will be tampering with the object. Chemicals will be used for the test. We will take action based on the order by the court on October 14," Ahmed told ANI. Another lawyer representing the Muslim side, Tohid Khan said, "The court will deliver its verdict on whether the application seeking carbon dating is acceptable or should be rejected. The structure is a fountain and not Shivling. The fountain can still be made operational." (ANI) The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the petition to disqualify Satyendar Jain from MLA and Minister in the state government, who is in judicial custody in a money laundering case since May 30, and declare him as "a person with unsound mind" and disqualify him from the Assembly on this ground. A bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka dismissed the plea with cost. "The petition is so misconceived and such a wastage of judicial time that it necessitates an imposition of costs of Rs.20,000/- on the petitioner," the court said and directed that the cost to be deposited with the Supreme Court Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee (MCPC) within four weeks. The petitioner Ashish Kumar Srivastava has filed his petition through Advocate-on-Record Nirmal Kumar Ambastha and advocate Rudra Vikram Singh. The Petitioner has challenged the Delhi High Court order dated August 16 2022. The petitioner submitted that the Delhi Government is clearly violating the Provisions of the Constitution of India under Article 191, which clearly states that a Person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of State if he is of unsound mind. The petitioner further submitted that one of the Cabinet Minister in the Delhi Government Satyendra Kumar Jain, also a member of the Legislative Assembly from Shakur Basti Assembly constituency since 2015 himself, declared that he lost his memory, before the Officers of the Enforcement Directorate and the same has also been informed to the Special Judge Rouse Avenue District Court, New Delhi by the Additional Solicitor General. But unfortunately, he is still continuing the important Cabinet Minister portfolio in Delhi Government and still enjoying the post of Member of the Legislative Assembly of Delhi Assembly, the petitioner said. Hence, the petitioner submitted that the Court may declare Satyendra Jain a person with an unsound mind and subsequently disqualify him for being a Member of the Legislative Assembly/ Cabinet Minister in the government of NCT of Delhi. Earlier, the Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta on September 23 agreed to transfer the Satyender Jain money laundering 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. The ED on June 6 claimed to have seized Rs 2.85 crore in cash and 133 gold coins weighing 1.80 kg from Satyendra 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) Deshmukh had filed a petition for bail in the CBI court, on which the CBI has filed its reply today, to which the lawyer of Anil Deshmukh will now argue on October 18. The next hearing of the case will be on October 18. Meanwhile, the NCP leader was taken to Jaslok Hospital from Arthur Road Jail today. He was admitted to Jaslok Hospital today after the special PMLA court had allowed Anil Deshmukh to undergo angiography in a private hospital. Deshmukh had been accused of asking policemen to collect Rs 100 crores illegally for him every month from bar owners in Mumbai. Earlier on October 11, the Supreme Court refused to cancel the bail granted to the former home minister in the money laundering case lodged against him by Enforcement Directorate (ED). A bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud refused to interfere with the Bombay High Court order which granted bail to Deshmukh. Enforcement Directorate has approached the apex court challenging the Bombay High Court's order granting bail to Deshmukh, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case. On October 4, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Deshmukh in a money laundering case being investigated by the ED. Deshmukh continues to be in judicial custody in Arthur Road prison as he is also being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a corruption case. Deshmukh was arrested by the ED in November 2021 and is currently in judicial custody. According to the ED, Deshmukh had misused his position as state home minister and collected Rs 4.70 crore from various bars in Mumbai through some police of officers. (ANI) As per the cause list issued by the Supreme Court, a bench of Justices MR Shah and Bela M Trivedi will hear the case tomorrow. Earlier in the day, the appeal was mentioned before a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta seeking urgent listing of the case. The bench granted permission to the Solicitor General, appearing for the Maharashtra government, to move an application before the Supreme Court Registry for an early listing of plea. The apex court, however, declined Solicitor General's request to stay the acquittal order of Saibaba and others. Earlier in the day, the High Court allowed an appeal filed by Saibaba and five others challenging a 2017 decision of the trial court convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). They were arrested in 2014. The High Court has ordered the immediate release of Saibaba and the other accused. They were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Sessions Court at Gadchiroli, Maharashtra in March 2017 for offences under various sections of UAPA and 120 B of the Indian Penal Code for alleged association with the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), which was alleged to be an affiliate of outlawed Maoist organisation. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be campaigning for the Gujarat Assembly elections in a phased manner by assigning leaders district-wise and seat-wise responsibilities, sources said. The state with 182 assembly seats has been divided into four phases namely, North region, West region and Central Region and Saurashtra. As per the sources, the state Ministers, MLAs, former MLAs and leaders from the RSS background have been given the region and district-wise responsibilities. Leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have been assigned the Saurashtra, West, North and Central region respectively. Scheduled Tribes hold great significance in several seats adjoining Madhya Pradesh. Looking at this, two leaders from Madhya Pradesh have been assigned two seats each. They will be sharing the reports with both the state unit as well as the central leadership, the sources said. 37 seats of the seven districts in the Central Gujarat region have been assigned to former BJP MLAs and ministers. These 37 seats are currently ruled by BJP only. It includes seats like Dahod, Mahisagar, Mehsana, and Baroda urban and rural. Minister in the Madhya Pradesh government Narottam Mishra has been assigned the Banaskantha seat. Other than him, Arvind Singh Bhadoriya and Indra Singh Parmar have been assigned the seats of Bharuch and Kheda respectively, the sources said. Migrants from Rajasthan hold great significance in the North Gujarat region, as 18-20 per cent of the voters in the state are migrants from Rajasthan. The nine seats across the 43 districts include Kutch, Bhuj, Gandhinagar rural and urban, Banaskantha, Patan, Ahemdabad North and South, Modasa, Mehsana, and Sabarkantha. Looking at this, BJP has assigned the responsibility of the region to leaders from Rajasthan, including the senior Rajasthan Minister Sushil Katara. As per the sources, the party has appointed two in charge in each district supervising two in charge in every seat. Also, an in-charge from Uttar Pradesh has also been appointed to supervise them. Three senior ministers from the Yogi Adityanath led-Uttar Pradesh government have been assigned the responsibility of the seats currently held by Congress. As per the sources, Minister Swatantra Dev Singh has been assigned the districts of Ambasa, Mandvi, Bhuj, Anjar, Gandhidham and Rapar. Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai has been made the in-charge of the Junagarh constituency. In the last Assembly election, Congress won on Junagarh, Visavadar, Mangrol and Manavadar, whereas BJP was only able to win on the Keshod seat. Minister of State JPS Rathore has been assigned the responsibility of Balasinor, Lunawada and Santrampur (ST) seats of the Mahisagar district. In the last elections, BJP won the Santrampur seat, and Congress won the Balanisor seat, while the Lunawada seat was won by an independent candidate. Minister of State Dayashankar Singh has been assigned the responsibility of Rajkot district which include the seats of Gramya (SC), Jasdan, Gondal, Jetpu and Dhoraji. Rajya Sabha MP Vijaypal Sing Tomar has been assigned Somnath, Talala, Kodinar (SC) and Una seats. In the last elections, all four seats were won by Congress. BJP is in power in Gujarat for the last 24 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself was the Chief Minister for 12 years, 227 days. Before him, Keshubhai Patel was the CM of the state for 216 days. Modi was followed by Anandiben Patel, Vijay Rupani and the current CM Bhupendra Patel. Unlike previous elections, this year Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also fighting the election with full might, led by Delhi CM and AAP National convener Arvind Kejriwal, which has made it a triangular contest. However, as per the surveys, the main competition in the election is still between BJP and Congress only. Earlier today, the ECI held a press conference for the election schedule announcement of Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh. However, The ECI did not announce the dates of the Gujarat Assembly polls which were also expected to be held by the end of this year. The term of the Gujarat Assembly ends on February 18, 2023. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi has played a pivotal role in getting global respect for the rich Indian culture and heritage, said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday. Through various social welfare policies and good governance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to touch the life of 135 crore Indians, said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday. The UP Chief Minister was speaking during the Sadhbhavana event hosted by the NID Foundation at Varanasi. "Sadhbhavana, which means goodwill and communal harmony saw more than 400 spiritual leaders, and saints belonging to the Sikh and Hindu communities, converging together on a platform to endorse the vision of Narendra Modi Ji for a unified India," said an official statement. While participating at Sadbhawna, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath launched two books Heartfelt: The legacy of Faith and Modi@20:Dreams Meet Delivery which are dedicated to the governance model adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While delivering his address, CM Yogi said, "Although it's very difficult that any political personality enjoys public trust, and popularity for a long time, PM Modi has lived up to the expectations of the 135 crore Indians and he has emerged as a leader who converts his thoughts and ideas into action. He delivers what he promises and promises only, what he can deliver". He further added that "After coming to power in 2014, PM Modi put to practice his idea of 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' through his policies. The Government delivered development, progressive and transparent governance which changed the lives of billions of Indians without discriminating on the basis of caste, religion, region, or gender. If we look at the policies such as PM Kissan Yojana, Opening of Jan Dhan accounts, Stand-up India, Start-up India, Toilets for All, and health insurance for all, the benefits of all the social welfare schemes have reached every Indian, irrespective of their caste, gender, region, creed, religion. CM Yogi emphasized, "PM Modi has ensured attaining global respect for India's old traditions, culture and faith. Whether it is the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, the 350th birth anniversary celebration of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the announcement of Veer Bal Diwas to pay respect for the martyrdom of Chaar Sahibzadas, delivering justice to 1984 riot victims and restoring the sacred places of Sanatan Dharam in a traditional way". While highlighting the work done by PM Modi in the field of restoring the heritage and religious sites in Varanasi, CM Yogi said, "Maharani Ahilyabi Holkar got the temple of Kashi Vishwanath restored and renovated while Maharaja Ranjit Singh got the gold plating of the Kashi Vishwanath done by donating one ton of gold. It has been possible after 1000 years that through Kashi Vishwanath Corridor PM Modi has made the connection between Baba Vishwanath and Maa Ganga. The redevelopment of Seer Goverdhanpur, which is the birthplace of Guru Ravidas Ji has been undertaken. The development of various religious circuits such as Ram Circuit, Krishan Circuit and Buddh Circuit has also been undertaken by PM Modi". CM Yogi further added, "Under the leadership of PM Modi, the construction of the grandeur Ram Mandir at Ayodha is currently underway. Whether the restoration and re-construction work of Kedarnath Temple in Uttarakhand is concerned or the recent inauguration of Ujjain Mahakal corridor, PM Modi has played a pivotal role in getting global respect for the rich Indian culture and heritage". The celebration of World Yoga Day on 21st June is a symbol of getting global recognition of rich Indian culture and tradition. "PM Modi has always ensured that the benefits of economic prosperity should reach to all sections of society. It is because of the vision of PM Modi, that India has today become the fifth largest economy in the world, surpassing Britain; which once used to rule it. I am sure that, with the contribution of every 135 crore Indians, India will soon become the world's number one economic power" added CM Yogi. He further said, "Today, whenever there is any global crisis, the world looks up to India with hope and trust. PM Modi through the vision of Ek Bharat Shresth Bharat has needled the 135 crore Indians into one India. An India which looks to the world with confidence and zeal to move forward". Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also launched the Gyan Kashi Scholarship of NID Foundation worth Rs 64 crores for the Sikh minority students in Varanasi. Under the scholarship, any 10+2 belonging to the Sikh community would be eligible to get an academic scholarship for higher studies at Chandigarh University based on their scores in the board examination. More than 250 students every year would get benefits under the newly launched Gyan Kashi Scholarship. While delivering his address to the audience on the occasion, Satnam Singh Sandhu Chief Patron of NID Foundation and Chancellor Chandigarh university said that "It is a matter of great pride that we are today joining together on the platform of Sadhbhavana to realise the vision of PM Narendra Modi of Ek Bharat Shresth Bharat". Detailing about the book 'Heartfelt-The Legacy Of Faith' by the NID Foundation, Sandhu said that it was an honest attempt at documenting the facts of the history of the Sikh community and the teachings and philosophies of the Sikh Gurus. "It captures the virtues of Sikhism that are Satt, Santokh, Daya, Nimrata and Pyar, and goes on to show that the values and ethos of the country are not forgotten, rather they are being implemented in our governance model because of their universal and timeless relevance. Taking the five essential virtues of Sikh living as the central theme, the book connects the various initiatives taken by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji for the cause and welfare of the Sikhs and Punjab with the Sikh way of living, thereby highlighting the Prime Minister's embodiment of upholding truthful values, compassion, humility, contentment, and love for all mankind," he said. The book details Prime Minister Narendra Modi's close association with the Sikhs and Punjab in his early days as a politician, as he rose through the political ranks to become a twice-elected Prime Minister of India, and how his respect for the teachings of the Sikh Gurus and his appreciation and affection for the Sikh community translated into action in the Government taking several landmark decisions for welfare and cause of the community, he added. (ANI) The incident is from Thursday when the woman started beating her husband after he was allegedly found shopping with his girlfriend on Karwa Chauth. The video of the whole incident went viral on social media. The Circle Officer, Kotwali, Ghaziabad, A Jain told ANI that the husband has been detained and further action is being taken in the case. "She beat her husband who was with his girlfriend. He has been detained. Further action is being taken," she said. (ANI) National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairman Priyank Kanoongo on Friday, alleged that the "goons" of the "ruling party" blocked their way and stopped them from meeting the victim's family. His statement came after the convoy of the NCPCR chief was stopped by a mob who also showed black flags when along with the complainant and BJP leader Priyanka Tibrewal arrived to meet the family of the victim minor girl who was found dead. Earlier today, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairman Priyank Kanoongo met the family of the 12-year-old girl who was found dead in West Bengal's Jangipara last week. "When this Government can't provide security to the Commission, we can imagine their failure in providing security to children. A child has been murdered. But, the goons of the ruling party are blocking the way and stopping us from meeting the family. We will leave only after meeting them," the NCPCR chief told ANI. "So far, our probe shows that there are loopholes in the action taken by police. We have called the investigation officer, other police officials and doctors who did the postmortem, today," Kanoongo told ANI. Tension sparked in Hooghly's Jangipara after the body of a 12-year-old girl, who was missing for four days, was recovered from a lake in Krishnapur village on Saturday. The girl's family alleged that she was raped and murdered. The family said that the minor had gone for pandal hopping but did not return home. After the body was found floating on the lake, locals staged a protest. A heavy police force has been deployed after the incident. (ANI) Telangana state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy on Friday launched a scathing attack on Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for what he called trying to buy voters in Munugode by-election. He said both the parties were trying to influence the voters with money and muscle power. The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief was addressing a rally in Chandur on the occasion of Congress candidate Palvai Sravanti filing her nomination for November 3 by-election to the Assembly seat. Revanth Reddy stated that the people of Munugode are not ready to be sold to TRS or BJP. He claimed that the Congress party's strength is its workers. "Our workers are not contractors to sell themselves,a he said in a dig at BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who recently admitted that his company bagged Rs 18,000 crore contract from the Central government. Rajagopal Reddy, who was elected from Munugode on Congress ticket in 2018, resigned from the party recently to join BJP. He also quit as MLA, causing the vacancy. Revanth Reddy said the by-election was not caused for the development of the constituency but because of a person who sold himself. "This man out of his thirst for wealth betrayed a mother-like party and joined the enemy," he said and urged people to teach him a lesson. The Congress leader ridiculed the promise made by TRS leader K.T. Rama Rao to adopt Munugode if TRS candidate wins the by-election. He recalled that Rama Rao had made a similar promise to defeat him in Kodangal Assembly constituency in 2018 but went back on his word. Revanth Reddy said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will also make tall promises to people of Munugode but after the by-election he will forget all the promises. The TPCC chief said in 2014 people of Munugode elected TRS candidate but there was no development in the constituency. Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, MP Uttam Kumar Reddy, MLA Seethakka and others were present. --IANS ms/pgh ( 346 Words) 2022-10-14-19:22:05 (IANS) Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar saying that EC's move regarding the amendment to the Model Code of Conduct on promises made in election manifestos was unwarranted and the proposal should be withdrawn. Yechury said CPI-M is of the considered opinion that the proposed amendment is uncalled for and should not be proceeded with. He said Article 324 of the Constitution mandates the Election Commission with the superintendence, direction and control of elections and does not provide for the panel to regulate or evaluate the policy pronouncements and promises of welfare measures of political parties to the people at the time of an election. "The proposed amendment to the Model Code of Conduct and the proforma for disclosure of the details of poll promises and their financial implications will get the Commission involved in political and policy matters which do not fall under its purview," the letter said. It said the proforma enters into areas such as quantification of the financial implications of the promises made and the fiscal sustainability of the additional resource-raising plan for fulfilling the promises. "These are political and policy issues and there can be divergent views of what constitutes "fiscal sustainability,"' the letter noted. Yechury said the Election Commission had submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court in April this year in a case being heard for reconsideration of the Subramaniam Balaji judgment and submitted that it cannot regulate State policies and decisions which may be taken by the winning party when they form the government. "This was a correct and valid stand taken by the Commission. It is, therefore, surprising that the Commission seems to have had a change of mind and proposes to be more intrusive into a sphere which pertains to political parties and the people," the letter said. It said the Supreme Court bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, N V Ramana, which heard the petition asking for a reconsideration of the judgment given in the Subramaniam Balaji case, decided on August 26, 2022 that the matter be heard by a three-member bench to be decided by the new CJI. "So, the matter of election promises and the issue of `freebies' etc. are still pending before the Supreme Court. In such a situation, the Commission's initiative to amend the Model Code of Conduct by introducing a proforma, which infringes on the rights of political parties to address people's concerns and offer them policy and welfare measures, is unwarranted. "The CPI(M), therefore, wants the Commission to withdraw the proposal to amend the Model Code of Conduct," the letter said. (ANI) The Supreme Court will hear on Saturday a plea by Maharashtra government challenging the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench order, acquitting former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case. A bench comprising Justices M.R. Shah and Bela M. Trivedi will hear the matter. As Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the appeal before a bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli and sought urgent listing of the case, as, in all likelihood, the respondents may be released from the jail, it directed the case to be listed before an appropriate bench after the Chief Justice provides his administrative approval. "At this stage, we deem it appropriate to mention that the proceedings have been mentioned before this since the bench presided over by the Chief Justice has risen for the day. The Solicitor General states that he will move an application before the Registry for obtaining administrative directions of Hon'ble the Chief Justice for listing of the Special Leave Petition tomorrow (15.10.2022)", said the top court, in its order. Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court' Nagpur bench acquitted former Delhi University professor Saibaba and five others in an alleged Maoist links and conspiracy case. A division bench of Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare acquitted Mahesh K. Tirki, Hem Keshawdatt Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Nan Tirki and Pandur Pora Narote who died in August this year. Earlier, the court had allowed their appeals against conviction and life sentences awarded under the UAPA provisions. Saibaba, who suffers from a polio-related paralysis and is bound to a wheelchair, had previously filed a plea seeking suspension of his sentence on medical grounds, saying he is also suffering from multiple ailments, but it was rejected. Currently in Nagpur Central Jail, Saibaba is likely to be freed soon unless required in any other case. All the accused, arrested in 2014, were tried under various sections of IPC and UAPA and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court in March 2017, for links with the banned Maoist groups, charges of waging war against the nation, conspiracy, among others. --IANS ss/vd ( 368 Words) 2022-10-14-19:52:02 (IANS) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday vowed that he would never ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party again, and said that he will work for the progress of the country along with Bihar. The Chief Minister hit out at the BJP for targeting him since the split of the BJP-JD(U) alliance in August this year, and alleged that the former ally is trying to create a conflict in the Mahagathbandan. Nitish's remarks came while inaugurating an engineering college built at a cost of Rs 75 crore in Samastipur. "BJP people keep talking nonsense. I had left Mahagathbandhan and joined the NDA (in 2017), but now I have returned. The BJP wants that the conflict among us should rise to such an extent that we become frustrated. The BJP is attacking me nowadays," he said. Recalling his relations with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other veteran leaders of the BJP, Kumar said, "They (BJP) have forgotten that Atal Bihari Vajpayee had become the Prime Minister in 1998. He had made me a Union Minister then. I was assigned three ministries. Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi worked for the development of the country. Those sitting at the Centre today have nothing to do with development," Kumar said. He alleged that the BJP is working to create conflict in society. "The BJP is working to create conflict in society. It has got nothing to do with the country's progress. I will never ally with the BJP ever in my life. I will stay with the Samajwadis (socialists) and take the country forward along with Bihar," the Chief Minister said. Earlier on October 11, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while apparently targetting Nitish Kumar drew a parallel with the current politics in Bihar, saying JP never did anything for power and worked for principles all his life while "people who switched sides for power is Chief Minister of Bihar". "I ask people of Bihar - leaders who achieved heights through the JP movement are sitting in Congress' lap for power; are you with them?" the Home Minister said. The Home Minister lauded JP Narayan and said he never did anything for power and worked for principles all his life. "Today, people who switch sides for power are the Chief Minister of Bihar", he added. Amit Shah further added, "This is not the path shown by him (Jayparakash Narayan). He never did anything for power and worked for principles all his life. Today, people who switch sides 5 times for power are the CM of Bihar". (ANI) With the schedule of of the Gujarat Assembly elections likely to be announced soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah and senior leaders from the state, including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, to take stock of the party's preparations. BJP state President C.R. Patil was also present at the ongoing meeting, where, according to sources, the agenda was the forthcoming elections to the 182-member Assembly. It is expected that the Election Commission, which announced elections to the Himachal Pradesh Assembly on November 12, is likely to announce the dates for Gujarat after Diwali (October 24). With the BJP setting a target of crossing 150 seats, the nature of the campaign, of the rallies etc was discussed at length while the issue of how many events the Prime Minister will participate in, which Union Ministers will be drafted for poll management, as well the strategy to counter the Aam Aadmi Party, which is seeking to emerge as a major force in the state, were also expected to figure. --IANS skt/vd ( 190 Words) 2022-10-14-22:24:04 (IANS) Officials said that the security arrangement of Assam Chief Minister was recently reviewed in consultation with the central security agencies. "The Chief Minister would be provided Z plus security cover on an all India basis," an official said. Sarma's predecessors - Sarbananda Sonowal, Tarun Gogoi, and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta - enjoyed NSG protection based on threat perception in insurgency-hit Assam. Three-term Chief Minister (2001-2015) Gogoi's NSG cover was replaced with the CRPF in 2016 after BJP came to power. Similarly, Mahanta's NSG cover was reduced by the Union Home Ministry in 2019 but he was granted Z plus security in 2017. Sarma had been a CRPF protectee since 2017 while he was Minister in the previous Sonowal government. --IANS sc/vd ( 158 Words) 2022-10-14-22:30:03 (IANS) South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Seoul scrambled military aircraft, including F-35A fighter jets, in response to North Korea's military aggression. North Korean aircraft were also spotted near the inter-Korean border in the eastern part of the peninsula, a second such incident this week, the report said. Earlier, North Korea test-fired two long-range strategic cruise missiles. Korean Central News Agency reported that leader Kim Jong-un guided the test fire of the missiles on the spot. Kim Jong-un expressed "great satisfaction" over the result of the test fire and appreciated the high reaction capabilities of the country's "nuclear combat" forces, the state media added. North Korean leader has been witnessing the country's tactical nuclear operation training over the past few days. On Monday, the state media released photos of Kim inspecting a missile launch at an undisclosed location in the country. The missile that North Korea fired over Japan on October 4 was a newly developed missile aimed at delivering stronger warnings to its enemies, the report said. Tensions are escalating in the Korean peninsula as Kim-led North Korea launched several missile tests, including one that flew over neighbouring Japan. The United States and its allies responded with bombing drills. Pyongyang has fired several missiles in the past few weeks which has raised concerns in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises this month, CNN reported. (ANI) The suspect in the shooting incident in Raleigh city, in the US state of North Carolina, that resulted in the killing of five people has been arrested in Georgia by police officials, media reports said. Earlier, it was reported that the suspect is on a loose. However later Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright confirmed the arrest, reported NBC News. "The suspect is contained, but please stay tuned to Raleigh Police Department, as they are the investigating agency for this incident," the city of Knightdale tweeted. "This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh," city Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin was quoted as saying by CNN. "We must stop this mindless violence in America," Baldwin said during a press conference as she announced the toll of the shooting incident. US media reports said two people were taken to a hospital, one of whom was a police officer. Earlier, police said an active shooter is on the loose in a residential area of Raleigh. The Raleigh Police had said that an active investigation is underway on what was described as an "active shooting". They advised residents in several to stay inside their homes. "This is still an active investigation. Sections of the Hedingham neighbourhood remain closed. Residents should follow the directions of law enforcement officials on the scene," Raleigh Police tweeted. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper had said that he has spoken to the city Mayor. "I have spoken with Mayor Baldwin and instructed state law enforcement to provide assistance responding to the active shooter in East Raleigh. State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe," Cooper had tweeted. (ANI) Pakistan's newly appointed finance minister Ishaq Dar was "welcomed" by angry protestors with chants of "liar" and "chor" (thief) at the Washington airport in the US as he arrived in the country to attend meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), reported Daily Times. When Dar arrived at the US airport, an angry protestor was heard shouting "You are a liar. You are a liar" and "Chor-Chor." Dar and his aides, visibly angry at the slew of profanity targeted at the minister were seen retorting, as seen in a video widely shared on social media. "You are a liar," Dar hit back at the person who was directing abuses at him. "Moth**r f**ker...I'll f**k you right here, don't try and be a smart a**," a member of Dar's entourage was heard saying. All of this was caught on camera and the video soon went viral. This is not the first time a Pakistani minister has been bombarded with insults in public during overseas visits. Marriyum Aurangzeb, the Information Minister, was earlier heckled at a coffee shop in London last month. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led delegation, who was in Saudi Arabia on a three-day official visit, had received a "wonderful welcome" as they entered Masjid-e-Nabawi in Madina. Pilgrims raised "chor chor" [thieves] slogans upon seeing the delegation making their way to Masjid-e-Nabawi. In a video, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and member of the National Assembly Shahzain Bugti were seen along with others. According to the Pakistani newspaper, Aurangzeb indirectly blamed former Prime Minister Imran Khan for the protest. "I will not name this person on this holy land because I do not want to use this land for politics. But they have destroyed the [Pakistani] society," The Express Tribune quoted Aurangzeb as saying. (ANI) While militancy and violence are on the rise along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the federal government in Islamabad is busy fighting its political battles with ousted former Prime Minister Imran Khan, media reports said. One of the most contentious issues between Pakistan and Afghanistan is the border between the countries where the security prospects continue to remain grim and unresolved, especially in the tribal belt, reported Times of Israel citing multiple reports. Things are rather ironic with Pakistan-Taliban relations. It is the same Pakistan that had expected strategic depth with the Taliban after its takeover of Afghanistan however the situation remains sloppy. The impact of militancy is adversely impacting many civilians as well. There have been continuous protests calling for peace in the region. Slogans of "we want peace" were raised in end-September after eight people, including a former "Aman" (peace) Committee head and two policemen, were killed by a remote-controlled bomb that struck their vehicle in the Ghlo Kandaw area of Kabal tehsil in Swat valley, reported Times of Israel. Seeking peace in the terror-stricken valley, the agitators comprised a large number of youths, elders, lawyers, transporters, traders, doctors, and students who held placards inscribed with slogans against the terrorists and seeking peace, Dawn reported. The border conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan over Durand Line that divides not just the two countries but also the Pashtuns remains a bone of contention between the two nations, however, both chose to remain silent on several issues related to human rights. According to Al Arabiya, the growing rancour between the two countries was manifested in a recent incident on September 19, wherein Afghan security guards posted at Pakistan Consulate, Jalalabad mistreated Pakistan diplomats. They also stopped the President and two members of the Nangarhar Chamber of Commerce from meeting the Pak Consulate General. The Durand Line passes through the present-day Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan. It also includes 10 provinces in Afghanistan. Disputed in the context of the struggle for the Pashtun homeland, it has of late become the cause of heightened border tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to reports. While Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring anti-Pakistan elements, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on its soil, the Taliban do not recognize the Durand Line which separates the two countries and divides the home of ethnic Pashtuns. Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan has been trying to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crack down on TTP. Instead, the Afghan Taliban mediated talks between Pakistan and TTP that led to the release of dozens of TTP prisoners in Pakistan, reported Al Arabiya. Islamabad was partly optimistic in the wake of the Taliban takeover. It hoped that the Taliban regime would accept the Durand Line's legitimacy and leverage its links with the proscribed organization Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to broker a peace agreement. While Taliban links have facilitated Islamabad-TTP talks, which led to a ceasefire, the Taliban seems reluctant to apply total pressure on the TTP. The Taliban is also in no mood to grant any concessions on the issue, given that skirmishes between themselves and Pakistani troops continue. In the wake of this, there have been repeated reports of firing and clashes between the security forces of the two countries at the border. (ANI) Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer of the British government on Friday after Prime Minister Liz Truss sacked Kwasi Kwarteng after the economic turmoil unleashed by his mini-budget. In a tweet, the Conservative Party wrote, "@Jeremy_Hunt has been appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer," confirming the Ministers's appointment. In a letter to PM which was also shared on his Twitter account, Kwarteng said, "You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor. I have accepted." This new development came after the value of British government bonds plunged in the wake of the new "mini-budget" of September 23, which created the outrage that ultimately cost him his job. Meanwhile, Liz Truss's eight-minute press conference has done little to shift the narrative that she is losing control of the Conservative Party, the public and Britain's economy, CNN reported. Tory lawmakers were notably quiet on social media after the news conference finished, but Truss was roundly attacked by opposition MPs. "None of this is fair on our country and the people whose lives and livelihoods are hanging in the balance because of this shambles of a government," CNN quoted Labour's shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting as saying after Truss's press conference. The political career of Jeremy Hunt has been vast and the minister has served numerous designations. Earlier, Hunt served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 9 July 2018 to 24 July 2019. He was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in May 2005, according to the official website of the UK government. In May 2010 Jeremy was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. Jeremy Hunt also served as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 8 January 2018 to 9 July 2018 and was first appointed Secretary of State for Health in September 2012. Earlier, on September 23, the UK Finance Minister announced the biggest tax cuts in 50 years and said that the government needed a "new approach for a new era, focused on growth." The UK Treasury said that the tax cuts, including the slash of the top rate of income tax to 40 per cent from 45 per cent, reductions in duties paid on house purchases, and the cancellation of a planned hike in business taxes, would wipe 45 billion Euros off government revenues over the next five years, according to CNN. (ANI) Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre in Astana has been organizing various activities to strengthen ties between the two countries through Indian culture and Traditions. Central Asia is a region rich in history with a blend of identities and ethnicities, diversity of scenery and culture. Amidst the shimmering mountains, highlands, lakes, ancient cities, and taller buildings, one thing that stands out for Kazakhstan nationals is the love for Indian Culture and traditions. Established in the year 1994, the major objective of the cultural centre is to facilitate cultural activities and academic cooperation that strengthen India's age-old collaboration between India and Kazakhstan. Through its activities, the centre intends to enhance the people-to-people connect between the two countries. India also provides scholarships in various disciplines under the ICCR Scholarship programmes for students from Kazakhstan. "Around 200 Kazakhstan nationals come and do activities here. We want to connect with the people here in Kazakhstan and make them aware of Indian culture and Traditions", said the Director of the cultural centre in Astana, Sanjay Vedi. Kazakhstan nationals attend regular classes in Indian dance and music and practice yoga which has been an integral part of ancient Indian cultural heritage. "I love singing Hindi songs and am very fond of Indian culture and tradition. I would want to learn more Hindi", said one Kazakhstan national who practices Hindi singing in the centre. "I have an admiration towards Indian instruments like tabla and I like dancing to Indian classical songs", said another Kazakhstan national. The relationship between India and Kazakhstan is ancient and historical going back more than 2000 years. There has been a constant and regular flow of trade in goods and more importantly, the exchange of ideas and cultural influences. The flow of Buddhism from India to Central Asia and Sufi ideas from Central Asia to India are two such examples. The size of the Indian community is about 5,300 in Kazakhstan. India was one of the first countries to recognize the independence of Kazakhstan with diplomatic relations established in February 1992. (ANI) The Indian government is in continuous touch with the Kenyan authorities and also keeping a close eye on the issue of two nationals including Balaji Telefilms' ex-COO ( Chief Operations Officer) missing in Kenya since mid-July. While addressing the weekly presser, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that the two Indian nationals, Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan and Zaid Sami Kidwai, have been missing in Kenya since mid-July and the government is keeping a close eye on this development but is doubtful about their missing. "There were two Indian nationals, Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan and Zaid Sami Kidwai, who has been missing in Kenya since mid-July. A Police complaint has been filed there soon after that. Subsequently, a habeas corpus petition was filed in the Kenyan court," MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi "We understand this issue is now sub-judice in the High Court of Kenya, and a number of hearings have taken place. I think, recently, this week one hearing took place. Our High Commission has been in continuous touch with the Kenyan authorities. We are also in touch with some family members. Let me emphasize that we are attached to the high consideration and attention to the safety and well-being of Indian nationals as we do with others...We are keeping a close eye on this development, I'm afraid they're still missing," Bagchi said during the weekly presser. According to the Kenyan publication, former Balaji Telefilms COO Zulfiqar Khan and other Indian national Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai went missing in mid-July after leaving a popular club in Westlands at 11.53 pm. Several hours later, two Indian nationals and their driver Nicodemus Mwania, were reported missing. The trio has since been missing for over 70 days. According to several Kenyan media reports, both Indian nationals were in Kenya to join President William Ruto's election campaign Information and Communications Technology (ICT) team. Police officers said that the CCTV footage had been retrieved from the scene of the abduction in a bid to retrace the missing people. In addition, a section of detectives based in Lang'ata was also detained to aid in investigations. The detained officers were ordered to hand over a file with their findings to a new team of sleuths, the Kenyan media said. Meanwhile, Khan's family urged the police to conclude the investigations in a bid to locate their kin. The family hired lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi who obtained orders for the trio to be produced in court. However, on August 4, the case was mentioned and the three were yet to be traced, according to a Kenya media publication. The family has since urged acting Inspector General of Police Noor Gabow to handle the matter and expedite the investigations. (ANI) Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that India and China supported "peaceful dialogue'' in Ukraine, Reuters reported. "India and China always speak about the necessity to establish the dialogue and resolve things peacefully, and we know their position. They are our close allies and partners. But we also know Kyiv's position. They were constantly saying that they want peace talks, but now they set the official decision which prohibits those talks," Reuters quoted Putin as saying in Astana. He made these statements during a news conference in the Kazakh capital Astana. Putin's statement comes after a month when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping seem to differ with him over the conflict at Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, according to Reuters. It is pertinent to mention that PM Modi's advised Putin that "today's era is not of war" during a meeting that occurred on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Samarkand in September. PM Modi also called for early cessation of hostilities at a bilateral meeting with Putin. PM Modi's statement grabbed the attention of leading international media organisations. He also emphasized the need to find ways to address the problems of food, fuel security, and fertilizers. "Today's era isn't of war and I have spoken to you about it on the call. Today we'll get the opportunity to talk about how can we progress on the path of peace. India-Russia has stayed together with each other for several decades," the Prime Minister said. "We spoke on the phone several times about India-Russia bilateral relations and also on various issues. We should find ways to address the problems of food, fuel security, and fertilizers. I want to thank Russia & Ukraine for helping us to evacuate our students from Ukraine," PM Modi added. In his remarks, the Russian President said that he knows about India's position and concerns regarding the Ukraine conflict. "I know about your position on Ukraine's conflict and your concerns. We want all of this to end as soon as possible. We will keep you abreast of what is happening there," Putin said. Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February this year. Uzbekistan is the current chair of SCO 2022 whereas India will be the next chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Addressing reporters later in the day, Putin said for now there is no need for massive strikes, there are other goals to achieve now. "For now there is no need for massive strikes, there are other goals to achieve for now. Out of I think 29 objectives, seven have not been hit the way the defense ministry planned. They are dealing with them, with these objectives. There is no need for massive strikes. At least for the moment, for now. As for the future - we'll see," Putin said while addressing the reporters as quoted by Reuters. (ANI) The 25th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was held on Friday, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. The Indian delegation was led by the Joint Secretary (East Asia) from the Ministry of External Affairs. In contrast, the Director General of the Boundary and Oceanic Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the Chinese delegation. Both sides reviewed the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas. Recalling the developments since the last meeting of WMCC in May 2022, they welcomed the disengagement in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs (PP-15) that was carried out in a phased, coordinated and verified manner between 8-12 September 2022, the official statement said. The two sides noted that these steps reflected the understanding between External Affairs Minister and the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister, including at their recent meeting in Bali in July 2022. Both sides agreed to continue discussions through diplomatic and military channels to resolve the remaining issues along the LAC at the earliest to create conditions for restoring normalcy in bilateral relations. To resolve the remaining issues along the LAC in the Western Sector in accordance with the existing bilateral agreements and protocols, they agreed to hold the next (17th) round of the senior commanders meeting at an early date, the press release added. (ANI) In a statement, JKNSF stressed that if the Pakistan army has to be forced to withdraw from PoK; the beginning has to be made from tourist places. Kashmir Tahaffuz Movement and other nationalist parties and organisations are also supporting the march. Comrade Nasir Liaqat, Central President of JKNSF along with other leaders visited Bagh on October 12 and held meetings with local JKNSF cadres and urged them to ensure optimum participation of people in the march, the statement added. JKNSF termed Oct 22 March as a prelude to JKLF's Azadi March on Oct 27. Nasir Liaqat and other JKNSF leaders including Agha Shabbir Chaudhry and nationalist leader Waqar Malik Awan also held meetings with local leaders and notables at Bagh, Hajira. Addressing a press conference at Ghazi-e-Millat Press Club Rawalakot on Oct 11, Nasir Liaqat called upon JKNSF activists to reach Khuiratta in huge numbers from all districts, adding that from Khuiratta the protestors will reach Seri in form of a march, where a public meeting will be held. Moreover, JKNSF overseas leaders Kamran Baig and Tauseef Niaz while supporting the October 22 march termed it a significant development and said that JKNSF's struggle is around the ouster of foreign forces and reunification of the state. Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation activists including female cadres during a meeting at Khuiratta saluted the people of Swat for rising against TTP militants and said that Swat has made it crystal clear that there will be no surrender to terrorism and barbarism, nor there any room for militancy in Swat. Earlier, female activists organised a gathering in Rawalakot to express solidarity with the revolutionary movement of Iranian women and the working class against theocratic dictatorship. (ANI) The Twitter campaign '#StopHazaraGenocide' has sparked a global uproar against the killings of the Hazara community in Afghanistan as the campaign his garnered 10 million tweets. The campaign was started by Afghan social media users to protest the bloody attack on the Kaaj education centre and recurring atrocities committed against Hazaras in Afghanistan, reported The Khaama Press. Following a terrorist attack that killed over 54 students, mostly girls, at the Kaaj education centre west of Kabul, the Afghan capital, the hashtag campaign made a splash on Twitter and quickly turned into a hot trend. With billions of views, 16 million interactions, and over 10 million tweets, the "#StopHazaraGenocide" hashtag has become one of the most popular trends in Afghanistan, reported The Khaama Press. Twitter users have implied that the hashtag and the global protests calling for an end to the "genocide" against the Hazara people could bring the Afghan people together as a nation. After the attack on the Kaaj education centre on September 30, protests around the world began in Sydney, Australia, and later spread to more than 100 cities, parallel to the Twitter campaign. The Hazara demonstrations still continue bringing numerous people to the streets screaming for justice. Thousands marched in London, the capital of England on Wednesday to raise the topic of the Hazara genocide to the British Parliament, reported The Khaama Press. Paul Bristow, a member of the British Parliament, spoke to the crowd and promised to continue speaking out until the genocide against the Hazara people in Afghanistan is put an end. The violent persecution of the Afghan Shia Hazara goes back more than a century but has reached unprecedented levels in the last year under the Taliban. The targeting of Hazara houses of worship, schools, and other public places has intensified since the Taliban took control last year. In the last year, the Islamic State of Khorasan has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras. Approximately 700 people have been killed or injured in these attacks. (ANI) A teen was taken to a hospital Thursday night after a shooting in south Charlotte, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police told the Eastover Residents Association, who then sent a letter to homeowners. Police responded around 8 p.m. to two scenes around the same time -- one at the corner of Cherokee Road and Providence Road, and the other about 5 miles south on Providence Road near Old Providence Road. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boys shooting death in south Charlotte neighborhood remains unsolved Channel 9 has now learned the shooting took place near a gas station on Old Providence Road. The victim who was shot was being driven to a hospital when their vehicle broke down near Cherokee Road, according to a letter from the Eastover Residents Association. A person in the car then went to a house on Providence Road to ask for help and call 911. MEDIC responded to Cherokee Road and took a 15-year-old victim to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to a police report. A 16-year-old also suffered minor injuries. On Cherokee Road, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police focused their attention on a white minivan with its tires worn down to the rim. The rear window also appeared to be shot out. NOW | Large police presence at scenes along Providence Rd. Working to learn more. @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/XGol5R8yAO Jonathan Lowe (@JonathanUpdates) October 14, 2022 Reporter Jonathan Lowe could see more than a dozen evidence markers placed on shell casings at the scene near Old Providence Road. A clerk working at the Exxon at that intersection told Lowe that he heard as many as 20 gunshots. Officials have not said if any arrests have been made. Anti-violence activist Lucille Pucket said she was sadly not surprised by yet another shooting with teenage victims. Story continues What are we doing as community leaders, as elected officials to really address this violent crime thats involving these teenagers, she said. The Brookdale Carriage Club, a senior living facility, was also placed on lockdown Thursday night. Staff members told Channel 9 a stray bullet hit two doors there, but nobody was hurt. The Eastover Residents Association said CMPD confirmed the shooting did not happen in the Eastover neighborhood near Myers Park. No other details have been released. VIDEO: 5 killed in Raleigh neighborhood, including officer; Suspect in custody, police say Breaking news Memphis Memphis police officers have one person in custody after an early morning shooting that left two dead, including a 10-year-old, and one hurt. Allante McAbee, 21, was charged Thursday evening on two counts of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon and using a firearm during a dangerous felony. According to the Memphis Police Department, officers arrived at the 7000 block of Dokkum Drive, in a neighborhood near Bartlett where the shooting took place, just after 1:40 a.m. and found one person killed at the scene. The victims of the shooting have not been identified by MPD yet, but investigators believe they knew McAbee. The 10-year-old was taken to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in critical condition and another adult was taken to Regional One Hospital in critical condition. In an 8 a.m. update, MPD said the 10-year-old had died. The condition of the adult taken to the hospital was unknown Thursday morning. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. Lucas Finton is a news reporter for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at Lucas.Finton@CommercialAppeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Shooting leaves two dead, one critical, near Bartlett, MPD says Rescuers pull a boy out of the rubble after the Russian attack on the city, October 13 Read also: Two people die in Russian missile attacks in Mykolaiv Oblast Kim that the boy was brought to the regional hospital for treatment, but had died there. Read also: Young woman's body found under rubble of house in Mykolaiv Im speechless, said Kim. (The Russians) are animal-terrorists. Russian missiles hit the residential building in the city of Mykolaiv where the boy lived in the early hours of Oct. 13. The top two floors of the building were completely destroyed, and apartments from the third to the first floor were badly damaged. In total, the Russian invaders fired eight S-300 missiles at Mykolaiv in the Oct. 13 attack. Read also: 11 killed and 87 injured across the country in mass Russian missile attack, says DSNS An 11-year-old boy was pulled out from under the rubble of the house after spending six hours trapped under debris. The death toll as a result of the Oct. 13 Russian missile attack on Mykolaiv has increased to four people, the Office of the Prosecutor General reported earlier. Three civilians were among them. A Ukrainian sapper from the armed forces was also killed. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Princess Amalia of the Netherlands, pictured at the University of Amsterdam on September 5, 2022. P van Katwijk/Getty Images Princess Catharina-Amalia has moved away from college in Amsterdam due to security threats. The Dutch princess is still attending university from her home in The Hague, the BBC reports. Her father, King Willem-Alexander, called it a "heavy situation" at a press conference in Sweden. Crown Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands' first experience of college life has been cut short due to security threats, the BBC reports. The 18-year-old heir to the Dutch throne was all smiles in official photographs that showed her arriving at the University of Amsterdam for her first day of term on September 5. As the BBC reported, Catharina-Amalia moved into shared student accommodation at the time, however, she has since left Amsterdam and returned home to The Hague. The move came after Catharina-Amalia was flagged as a target of a potential attack and kidnapping attempt in an investigation into organized crime communications, according to the BBC, which reports that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was also named as a possible target. Princess Amalia was staying in shared accommodation at the university prior to returning home. P van Katwijk/Getty Images Catharina-Amalia's parents, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, spoke about the potential threat to their daughter in a press conference in Sweden on Thursday during a three-day state visit. "There is no student life for her like others have," Maxima told reporters, according to the BBC. She also clarified that Catharina-Amalia will still be attending university where she is working towards a degree in politics, psychology, law, and economics despite no longer living in student accommodation, the BBC reported. Later, Willem-Alexander called it a "heavy situation," according to the BBC. Representatives for the royal house of the Netherlands declined Insider's request for comment on the matter. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, Princess Amalia of the Netherlands, Princess Alexia of the Netherlands and Princess Ariane of the Netherlands at the Palace Noordeinde on June 24, 2022. P van Katwijk/Getty Images Catharina-Amalia, whose title is the Princess of Orange, took on several royal duties when she turned 18 including becoming a member of the Dutch Council of State and its Advisory Division. The Dutch royal house website also states that, as the heir to the throne, the princess participates in the State Opening of Parliament and royal receptions, in preparation for her future as the country's head of state. Story continues But, as Insider previously reported, the princess who is first in line to inherit the throne from her father is in no rush to become queen. After "Amalia," a biography written by author Claudia de Breij, was published in 2021, a representative for the royal house told Insider the princess "has 'embraced' the fact of being the future Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, though hopefully she will fulfil the role as head of state a little 'later' (to first complete her studies.)" Read the original article on Insider Welcome to Yahoo News' Politics Briefing: Midterms Edition. Every week between now and Election Day, Yahoo News' team of political journalists will pull together everything you need to know about the November midterm elections. And it will all be in one place: your inbox. Sign up to receive free updates from Yahoo News reporters as they keep track of the biggest races all over the country. THE BIG IDEA: 2 debates that could decide the Senate Raphael Warnock, Herschel Walker (Photos: Megan Varner/Getty Images, Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images) On Friday, Oct. 14, Republican Herschel Walker will debate Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Less than two weeks later, on Oct. 25, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will face off against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. Its not much of a stretch to say that these one-off debates could decide which party controls the Senate next year. In Georgia, gaffe-prone Walker will need to prove he can go toe to toe with Warnock, who has been narrowly leading Walker in most polls. Warnock, meanwhile, will have to fend off attacks on his liberal voting record in the conservative-leaning purple state. Walker will also be under the microscope for how he responds to the series of scandals that have engulfed his campaign. National Republicans are sticking with Walker not that they have much of a choice but are worried that allegations that he paid for an abortion combined with his frequent verbal stumbles could sink his candidacy. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier this year, will also be closely watched when he debates Oz. The Democrat has seen his lead in the race shrink in recent weeks amid ongoing questions about his health. Hes also been dealing with a pummeling on the airwaves from Oz and his allies, who have attacked Fettermans approach to crime. And an interview with MSNBC this week did little to quell worries that Fetterman is still struggling with the aftermath of his stroke. Mehmet Oz, John Fetterman (Photos: Mark Makela/Getty Images(2)) Oz, a celebrity doctor and first-time candidate, will need to rebut ongoing charges that he has little connection to Pennsylvania. Over the summer, Oz released a much-mocked viral video in which he attempted to make a point about high grocery prices by buying crudites at a store he identified as Wegners. The erstwhile New Jerseyan was actually in a Redners, a Pennsylvania grocery chain, which he appeared to mix up with another regional chain, Wegmans. (Oz later blamed exhaustion for the flub.) Story continues Pennsylvania and Georgia are also home to two high-profile races for governor. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has maintained a consistent lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams. And in Pennsylvania, Attorney General Josh Shapiro appears to be way ahead of his Republican challenger, hard-right state Sen. Doug Mastriano. Oz and Warnock will likely need some help from ticket-splitting swing voters. Oz wants to win over enough Shapiro voters to score a win over Fetterman in whats expected to be a tight contest. Warnock is trying to pull off a similar strategy in Georgia, where hes been polling ahead of Abrams. Fetterman and Walker have also tried to manage expectations for their debate performances. In Fettermans case, that has involved explaining that he is still somewhat impaired by his stroke. Walker has been more blunt, telling the Savannah Morning News last month that hes a country boy whos not that smart. Warnock, Walker continued, is smart and wears these nice suits. So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate Oct. 14, and I'm just waiting to show up and I will do my best. Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt (Photos: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Whats at stake: As of now, control of the Senate is likely to be decided by the contests in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The Nevada race features two experienced candidates in Republican Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general, and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. But Masto and Laxalt have so far refused to agree to a debate. POLLS, POLLS, POLLS Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker speaks at a forum during the opening of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a meeting of international leaders that looks to help solve global problems, on September 19, 2022 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) If you want people to like you, try becoming a moderate Republican governor of a blue state. A new Morning Consult survey found that Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Phil Scott of Vermont and Larry Hogan of Maryland are Americas three most popular governors. Baker and Hogan are on their way out this year, however, and only Scott is running for reelection. Morning Consult also had some good news for Democratic governors running for reelection, with Michigans Gretchen Whitmer, Nevadas Steve Sisolak, Minnesotas Tim Walz, New Yorks Kathy Hochul and Kansass Laura Kelly all showing approval ratings at 50% or higher. Meanwhile, a new Marist poll has Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet leading his Republican challenger, businessman John ODea, 48% to 41%. A Deseret News poll finds Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee barely ahead of his opponent, former CIA officer Evan McMullin, who is backed by Democrats but running as an independent. And despite Walkers recent struggles, a new Emerson College survey has him just two points behind Warnock. SOUND LIKE A NERD Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Clinton pumps his fist during his celebration party on April 7, 1992 in New York. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images) Midterm elections have a mixed record of predicting what will happen in subsequent presidential contests. In the Republican Revolution of 1994, the GOP picked up an astonishing 52 House seats, eight Senate seats and roughly 500 state legislative seats. Tom Foley, a Washington Democrat, became the first-ever House speaker to lose reelection. Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, became the GOPs first speaker since the Eisenhower administration. For a moment, President Bill Clinton, who was elected in 1992 with a meager 43% of the vote, looked deeply vulnerable. Voters had issued a stunning rebuke to his agenda. But Clinton outmaneuvered his new Republican opponents, moderated his policies and won reelection in a landslide two years later. Theres no shortage of examples of a presidents party having a bad midterm only to triumph in a presidential race. In the 1980s, a time remembered by todays Republicans as a golden age of conservatism, Democrats scored significant midterm victories in 1982 and 1986, but that didnt stop Republicans from winning the presidency in 1984 and 1988. President Barack Obamas Democrats were thrown to the mat in 2010, but he was reelected in 2012. Midterms matter, and if Republicans win one or both houses of Congress this year, they will be a major impediment to President Bidens agenda. But know hope, Democrats: Even if the GOP pulls off a big win in a few weeks, that doesnt mean it will be any easier for them to recapture the White House in 2024. SLEEPER RACE ALERT Kevin Stitt, Joy Hofmeister (Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images, Sue Ogrocki/AP Photos) Oklahoma, a longtime Republican stronghold, just might elect a Democratic governor next month. A series of recent polls indicates that Joy Hofmeister, a lifelong Republican who became a Democrat last year, is within striking distance of GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt. As the superintendent of public instruction, Hofmeister is the top education official in Oklahoma and the only Democrat to hold statewide office there. And her allies are heavily outspending Stitt, who has been slow to go on the attack. Hofmeister, who identifies as personally pro-life but objects to Oklahomas strict abotion ban, got an additional boost this week when the states five largest Native American tribes took the unusual step of endorsing her. This did not sit well with Stitt, a member of the Cherokee Nation who nonetheless has a contentious relationship with the states large Native population. But Democrats might be wise to not get their hopes up. In 2018, when Stitt first ran for governor, polls indicated he was in a relatively tight race with his Democratic opponent. In the end, however, Stitt won in a landslide. APPOINTMENT VIEWING J.D. (JD) Vance, Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Ohio, running in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, speaks during former U.S. president Donald Trump's rally in Youngstown, Ohio, U.S., September 17, 2022. (Gaelen Morse/Reuters) Republican J.D. Vance will debate Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan on Oct. 17. It will be the second debate between the candidates for Ohios open Senate seat, which is being vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Portman. And on Oct. 18, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio will debate his Democratic challenger, Rep. Val Demings. The Democratic candidates have been polling well in both contests, although most political observers give Rubio and Vance the edge in their respective races. QUOTE OF THE WEEK U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks at the Bretton Woods Committees International Council on the third day of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings at IMF headquarters October 12, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) From the perspective of the United States, I think the United States is doing very well. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to CNBC on Wednesday, one day before a Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation report once again showed prices rising more than expected. Two men in Missouri are accused of plotting to shoot migrants at the Texas border and broadcasting their plans on TikTok, the FBI said. Details of the alleged foiled plot which also is alleged to have included threats of violence in Washington, D.C., and against U.S. Border Patrol agents come from two criminal complaints filed last Friday in U.S. District Court for Western Missouri. Bryan C. Perry, 37, of Tennessee, was charged with three counts of making a threat over the phone, unlawfully possessing a firearm and shooting at federal officials. Jonathan S. O'Dell, 32, of Missouri, was charged with one count of transmitting a threat across state lines and one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm. Threats on TikTok against migrants, government According to the affidavits, the FBI got an anonymous tip last month that Perry, using the TikTok account @trashpanda1774, had posted a video threatening an attack against the government. "I am probably the only one right now that is ready to go to war against this government and I don't mean just talk about it I mean grab my rifle and go to DC and take this country back physically, not sit in a basement and talk about it," Perry said in the video, according to documents. Perry also posted videos in which he tried to recruit "six likeminded individuals" with guns and gear to take part in his plan, according to an affidavit. Around the end of last month, O'Dell posted a video to the TikTok account @mobornfromthe90s in which he discussed his plans to "secure the southern border" and leave for Texas on Oct. 4. In other videos, Perry "discussed traveling with a group to the U.S. border to shoot migrants" and said the Border Patrol was committing treason by allowing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. from Mexico, adding that treason is punishable by death, the affidavits say. 'I'm already practically a terrorist' The FBI identified Perry as the owner of the @trashpanda1774 TikTok account after information provided by TikTok, Yahoo and AT&T matched the TikTok account to Perry's phone number and email address, according to documents. Story continues Using phone records showing frequent communication between Perry and O'Dell, the FBI identified O'Dell and found his address in Warsaw, Missouri, about 100 miles southeast of Kansas City, the documents said. Once agents had his address, they matched the exterior of his home with the exterior of a home that appeared in one of Perry's TikTok videos, in which he stated that "a war is coming," according to the documents. After having staked out the property for a few weeks last month and this month, the affidavits say, agents determined the pair were living together. On Oct. 2, two days before O'Dell had said the pair would be heading to Texas, an undercover FBI employee spoke to O'Dell on a phone call, according to the affidavit. During the call, O'Dell "said he wanted to get a group together to secure the border between the United States and Mexico," the affidavit says. O'Dell also offered to trade firearms if the undercover employee could provide amateur radios and night vision goggles. "I know Im already practically a terrorist," he is accused of saying. "I know that for a fact because Im a patriot." The day after the call, Perry posted to his TikTok account announcing their plans to travel to Texas on Oct. 8, adding that they planned to take "full kits," which, according to the affidavits, often refers to "wearable vest carriers that better enable shooters to carry extra gear including body armor, spare ammunition, and radios." Were not going down there to protest," he said in the video, according to the documents. "Were not going down there to just be a presence. No, we are going down there and were taking this country back. Authorities say Perry also said he had called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office and left a message saying he was a "cofounder of a militia" and "If yall cannot take care of this border and shut it down then we will be forced to come in and do it ourselves. O'Dell also told the governor's office he was coming, according to the affidavit. Abbott's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an Oct. 4 phone call O'Dell told the undercover FBI agent that I dont expect a good outcome from us going down there and that it will be kill or be killed," according to the affidavits, which added that he said he feared they would go through all 2,000 rounds of ammunition they planned to take. Shots fired at the FBI When the FBI executed a search warrant at ODells home on Oct. 7, Perry began shooting at the agents and later admitted it to a special agent, according to the affidavit. Agents estimated Perry fired eight or nine rounds at them, several of which hit their car. Authorities said they later found a shotgun and an AR-15 in the house. In an interview, ODell told agents the shotgun was his and admitted he was not supposed to have it, according to the affidavit. Perry told investigators the AR-15 was his, documents say. ODell and Perry are forbidden to possess firearms, ODell because of a condition of his release on bond and an order of protection filed against him last March, according to the affidavits, and Perry because of a 2005 conviction for aggravated robbery, for which he served more than a year in prison. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com The Boston Police Department announced that a Dorchester man was arraigned on several charges after an executed search warrant on his home. Anthony Mucci, 31, was arrested after the Boston Drug Control Unit found a loaded firearm, ammunition, a tactical body armor vest, heat sealers, plastic baggies, and $28,500 in cash in after searching Muccis home. Mucci was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and drug trafficking charges. He will return to court for a pre-trial conference on November 7. 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 The worst result, after buying shares in a company (assuming no leverage), would be if you lose all the money you put in. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. For instance, the price of ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) stock is up an impressive 147% over the last five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 48% gain in the last three months. Since it's been a strong week for ConocoPhillips shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals. View our latest analysis for ConocoPhillips In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). During the last half decade, ConocoPhillips became profitable. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here. Since the company was unprofitable five years ago, but not three years ago, it's worth taking a look at the returns in the last three years, too. Indeed, the ConocoPhillips share price has gained 125% in three years. In the same period, EPS is up 26% per year. That makes the EPS growth rather close to the annualized share price gain of 31% over the same period. So you could reasonably conclude that investor sentiment towards the stock has remained pretty steady, over time. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth. You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image). We know that ConocoPhillips has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? Check if analysts think ConocoPhillips will grow revenue in the future. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for ConocoPhillips the TSR over the last 5 years was 187%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective It's nice to see that ConocoPhillips shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 74% over the last year. That's including the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 23%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for ConocoPhillips (of which 1 is a bit unpleasant!) you should know about. If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). 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 BOSTON (AP) A 91-year-old education equity pioneer and civil rights activist who was stabbed while walking her dog in a Boston park released her first public statement Friday since the attack, keeping the focus on her lifetime work of helping children. We as a community can never forget that we need to stand together and continue working to empower our children through learning," Jean McGuire said in the statement released by her family. We are at our best as a people; when its about we not me. I love you all and I will see you soon. McGuire, the first Black woman to serve on the Boston School Committee, was stabbed multiple times in an apparently unprovoked attack in Franklin Park about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said. She remains in the hospital. The family of Jean McGuire would like to thank all of the doctors and dedicated health care workers who are assisting in her recovery," the family said in the statement. We greatly appreciate the outpouring of love and support that Jean has received from people in the Greater Boston area, across Massachusetts, and around the world. Jean has spent her entire professional life fighting for all families to have the best educational opportunities to achieve their dreams. The family added that they are in the process of a establishing a nonprofit to help promote the education throughout New England to support McGuire's legacy. The suspect has not yet been caught, but police say he might have been injured during the attack. In addition to being the first Black woman on the school committee, where she served for a decade starting in 1981, McGuire in 1966 helped found METCO Inc., the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, which sends students of color from Boston to predominantly white suburban schools. She became the programs executive director in 1973 and served in the position until 2016, according to a biography posted by Northeastern University's John D. O'Bryant African American Institute. She studied at Howard University and Boston State College, and taught in a city school for two years before being named the first Black pupil adjustment counselor for Boston Public Schools. Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) is putting a heavy focus on voting rights concerns in the hopes of mobilizing voters of color in her bid to defeat Gov. Brian Kemp (R). Abramss leadership committee, One Georgia, this week held multiple events in the Peach State aimed at Black voters that hit Kemp over allegations of racially targeted voter suppression. The Democrat also recently launched an ad attacking Kemp over his support of election changes. The moves come as Abrams, who has trailed Kemp in recent polls, looks to turn out Black and other minority voters, seen as a voting bloc key to helping her unseat the Republican governor in November. Black and brown voters are the arteries needed for political life of the Abrams campaign, said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright, founder and CEO of political consulting firm Blueprint Strategy. She has to be very intentional about reaching those voters right away and maximizing the turnout among those voters. Over the past few weeks, Abrams has attended events aimed at communities of color around the state. Her goal is to continue building a diverse coalition ahead of the midterms something she also tried to do in 2018. Working in her favor this time, though, are more than a million new voters. The campaign is banking on those new voters, the effects of COVID-19, the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and other issues to encourage voters to show up for early voting something that could help fight voter suppression tactics, Seawright said. Its going to put momentum in the bank before Election Day, Seawright said. We know that, historically, theres been efforts to hoodwink Black and brown voters on Election Day, so that early voting process gives us a layer of security and also an opportunity to really focus on those who have not turned out at that point. Early voting also lets the Abrams campaign get ahead of voter fraud claims, said Adrienne Jones, a Morehouse College assistant professor of political science and director of the historically Black colleges pre-law program. Story continues Their goal is to say, lets get these votes in so that theyre clearly marked or so that if you need to cure your absentee ballot, youve done that, Jones said. If you need to get into the polls, and you need to go twice because the first day you had to leave [the line] and go to work at least you got in on the second early voting day and your vote was cast. While many have claimed voting suppression to be underway around the country, Abramss emphasis on early voting is particularly important in Georgia, said Seawright. Theres been an oversized effort to suffocate and suppress the votes of perhaps the most consequential and defining voting bloc in this generation of Black voters, Seawright said. These efforts to suppress and suffocate and silence our votes have all been birthed out of the turnout that Stacey Abrams produced in Georgia to give us two United States senators, and thats why she wrapped her arms around mitigating and fixing this. Jones said part of the voter suppression tactics Abrams is fighting comes from S.B. 202, a bill Kemp signed into law in 2021. The law imposed ID requirements on mail-in ballots, eliminated paperless online ballot requests and limited drop box availability, among other things. To fight these voter suppression efforts, Abramss campaign partnered with the Georgia Votes Coordinated Campaign to create a voter protection program and with the Voter Protection Hotline. The program includes Election Day observers, early vote observers, count observers who monitor the processing or counting of absentee ballots or vote by mail and ballot cures, or volunteers who contact voters who have issues with their absentee ballot application or ballot. Still, the discussion around voter suppression hasnt been at the forefront of the election the same way it was in 2018, said Jones. In 2018, we had clear indicators that Gov. Kemp was suppressing votes, or at least making efforts to, Jones said, referring to the 2017 actions by then-Secretary of State Kemp, whose office purged more than 340,000 voters from the states registration rolls. But after Kemp refused to find votes for former President Trump in 2020, Jones said, it appeared Kemp wasnt suppressing votes. Now, when concerns of voter suppression do come up, Kemp is able to push back. This midterm cycle, Kemp has managed to maintain a solid lead over Abrams in most surveys. A poll from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Georgia News Collaborative released Wednesday shows Kemp leads Abrams 51 percent to 41 percent. But some, like Seawright, say the polls dont show the full story. Polls are simply a snapshot of the time, and they do not take into account some historical past patterns of voting history when it comes to the African American vote and voters of color in particular, Seawright said. They are a factor in the determining factors, but the only polls that matter in my viewpoint in the election for [Abrams] are the souls that she gets to the polls, both before the election for early voting and on election day. As part of encouraging higher turnout, members of Abramss campaign are visiting spaces they say have been targeted previously by Kemp for voter suppression. One of those cities is Quitman, in Brooks County a region the campaign believes to be critical to Abramss path to victory. In 2010, then-Secretary of State Kemp launched an investigation after 12 Black candidates successfully organized and flipped the majority-white school board. Armed investigators were sent door-to-door to arrest and charge the newly elected board members who became known as the Quitman 10+2 despite having no evidence of voter fraud. After four years, the charges were dropped. But the investigation left a lasting impact, the campaign said, with some Black residents in Quitman never returning to the polls to vote. In Abramss latest ad against Kemp, Diane Thomas, one of the Quitman 10+2, speaks about being targeted. Brian Kemp did not want other counties to know what we were doing, Thomas says in the ad. So he did whatever it took in Brooks County. He didnt mind using intimidation, he didnt mind saying that we were doing voter fraud, he didnt mind using disenfranchisement. Education is power. Brian Kemp knew that. Brian Kemp knew that we had the key to winning an election. Brian Kemp knew that we were going to be the ones that changed the makeup of what elections look like. Brian Kemp used his power, used his position to destroy us. The ad ends with a reminder for early voting and a number for the Voter Protection Hotline. Kemps campaign denies any attempts at voter suppression. Stacey Abrams and her desperate campaign have already lost in court on their false claims of voter suppression, but that wont stop them continuing to lie and fear monger to try and earn votes. Thankfully, Georgia voters are seeing through this garbage and rejecting Stacey Abrams radical agenda for our state, Kemps press secretary Tate Mitchell said in a statement to The Hill. Abrams has faced other hurdles recently in her public battle against the states alleged voter suppression. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled against the Abrams group Fair Fight, which had filed a lawsuit in 2018, shortly after her first loss to Kemp, alleging that Georgia had violated voters rights. Kemp and his allies applauded the judges decision. Still, Abrams has signaled shes not backing down. In an interview aired Thursday on journalist Kara Swishers podcast, the Democratic candidate argued the Georgia governor doesnt deserve praise for refusing to bow to Trumps pressure to help overturn the 2020 election results. What was the alternative? Abrams said. The alternative was committing treason. This was not an act of courage. He simply refused to commit treason. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The browned tofu can be served with a drizzle of marinade if desired. Are you ready for some new weekday flavors? This is a Chinese-inspired recipe that may encourage you to experiment with tofu. Pan frying gets you a little smokey darkness to the taste, which plays nicely with familiar brown rice and simple steamed vegetables. The marinade also doubles as a sauce, so when you're ready to eat, you can drizzle a bit over everything on your plate. The marinade will keep in the refrigerator for quite a while, so make it once and eat it two or three times. Be sure to notice the step below where you need to let the marinade cool. If you need a quicker dinner, you may want to make the marinade the day before. Char Siu marinade Makes about 6 portions, some for now and later INGREDIENTS About 4 green onions, chopped 3 garlic cloves, peeled 1/2 small, fresh chile or about 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper 1/4 teaspoon five spice powder 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/2 cup mirin 1/2 cup sake 2 tablespoons rice vinegar 6 tablespoons soy sauce DIRECTIONS To make the sauce: 1. Add all the ingredients to a small pot. 2. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for about 20 minutes. 3. Let cool completely. Strain out the solids and discard. Jar the marinade and label for your future self. Tofu For 3-4 eaters INGREDIENTS 4 tablespoons char siu marinade 16 ounces firm or extra firm tofu Kosher salt Potato starch Sesame, peanut or sunflower oil Possible toppings: a sprinkling of crushed, dried bonito flakes, finely chopped green onions, sesame seeds You'll place the cubes of tofu in a large skillet over medium heat for frying. DIRECTIONS To prepare the tofu: 1. Cut the tofu into 1-inch cubes. 2. Sprinkle liberally with some kosher salt and let sit out on a plate for about 30 minutes. 3. Add the cubes to a bowl or leave on the plate. Pour a bit of the marinade over the cubes and let soak for at least 30 minutes. Carefully turn and flip the tofu a few times. (You can do this step ahead of time. Just leave the tofu to marinate in a covered container in the refrigerator.) When ready to cook: Story continues 1. Add some potato starch to a plate and lightly coat each cube of tofu by sprinkling and flipping. As you work, move the finished cubes to another lightly dusted plate. 2. Place a large skillet over medium heat. Pour just enough oil over the bottom to cover. 3. When hot, place the cubes carefully into the pan one at a time, leaving gaps between them (or they'll stick together.) Lightly coat each cube of tofu with a sprinkling of potato starch. 4. Turn the heat down a bit and keep a close eye on those bottoms. Don't move the tofu or it'll stick. You're looking for the bottom to turn golden brown with a little darker caramelization before you flip it. When you notice this, flip to an uncooked side with tongs or your preferred tool. As you go around flipping and turning, watch out for splattering oil. Total cooking time for the tofu is about 5-6 minutes. 5. When nicely browned on most of the sides, remove from the skillet and leave the extra oil in the pan. Serve with a little drizzle of marinade, if you like. Anne Willhoit is an educator, community volunteer, and enthusiastic baker who likes to create recipes that use from-scratch techniques and are inspired by local, seasonal ingredients. Find her on Instagram at @aawillhoit or drop her an inquiry at FromScratchKS@gmail.com. Anne Willhoit This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Add Chinese-inspired marinated tofu to your weeknight repertoire An adolescent patient came into a Jacksonville Planned Parenthood center seeking an abortion for a pregnancy she said was the result of incest, according to Dr. Shelly Tien, a provider at the clinic. But the middle school-aged girl wasn't able to get an abortion in Florida she was past 15 weeks pregnant. "That is heartbreaking as physicians, as healthcare providers," Tien said during a press conference this week. "To not be able to provide that service because of a restriction for a patient in such a terrible and violent situation, it is horrible." Planned Parenthood then helped the patient leave Florida to get an abortion. Planned Parenthood did not disclose where the patient traveled to for the abortion, nor her exact age or whether she was local to Jacksonville. The story was first reported by BuzzFeed. Ohio abortion case: As Ohio restricts abortions, 10-year-old girl travels to Indiana for procedure Jacksonville-related news: Jacksonville City Council withdraws proposed legislation to cover travel cost for abortions History of abortion activism in Jacksonville: Protests, arrests and even a pipe bomb Health centers in Jacksonville and Tallahassee inundated with patients Tien described another middle school-aged patient who arrived at Planned Parenthood's Jacksonville center recently seeking an abortion after traveling from several states away. The girl arrived without shoes and basic necessities but wasn't able to get an abortion as she was also over 15 weeks pregnant. Employees at the center bought the patient shoes and other things her family needed. It's not clear whether this patient was sent out of Florida for an abortion or whether she got one. The doctor didn't mention if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. "The more we talked the more scared and frustrated she became," Tien said of the child. "Trying to find the words to calm her and support her when I knew I couldnt help her, I have to tell you, that was extraordinarily difficult. Story continues Florida's abortion law went into effect on July 1. It bans abortions after 15 weeks, even in cases of rape and incest. Gov. Ron DeSantis will not speak about what stricter limits hed support going forward, deflecting questions by saying he is focused on defending the new law against court challenges. But DeSantis also has said that he plans to work to expand pro-life protections. Advocates on both sides of the issue have interpreted that as a push for a ban after six-weeks of pregnancy a so-called fetal heartbeat ban similar to what neighboring Georgia has enacted. Crist, a St. Petersburg Democratic congressman who was a Florida Republican governor, has said he will pledge to sign an executive order protecting abortion rights. Planned Parenthood's health centers in Jacksonville and Tallahassee have been inundated with people seeking abortions, going from serving 30 to 40 patients a day to 80 or more, according to a release from the organization. More of the patients are also coming from outside of Florida as restrictions in neighboring states like Georgia and Alabama also tighten. In addition to managing a health center, we now have to be counselors, providers of basic human needs like clothing and food, and even travel agents, said Ina McDonald, health center manager of the Tallahassee clinic. Finding lodging for our out-of-state patients has become a daily responsibility. Lawmakers react to incest victim denied abortion Florida Democrats, who have hammered Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for their opposition to abortion during this years midterm elections campaign, called attention to the published report of an incest victim denied the chance to get an abortion in Florida to criticize the states leading Republicans. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist said Floridas abortion law is not just cruel its barbaric. The lengths to which these women, some just children, had to go to exercise their freedom to choose is heartbreaking. Prohibiting a middle school-aged girl, a victim of incest, from getting an abortion is not just cruel its barbaric. This is what were fighting for this November, he said in a statement. Were fighting for your sister, your daughter, your loved one. Choice, freedom, basic human decency, and womens rights are on the line. We are seeing the toll that Ron DeSantis extreme abortion ban is having on women and teenagers in Florida, and it is beyond disturbing, said Florida Democratic Party spokesperson Travis Reuther in a statement. DeSantis ban specifically targets victims of rape and incest, including children as were seeing, and forces them to either give birth against their will or travel several states away in order to make their own healthcare decisions. Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa also denounced DeSantis and Floridas abortion law. This is the heartbreaking result of Ron DeSantiss push to ban abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, Moussa said. DeSantis has to explain to every Floridian not only why he signed a law that would force child rape and incest victims to give birth and threatens to throw doctors in jail, but what further bans he wants to implement. Contributed: USA Today Network-Florida reporter John Kennedy and USA Today Network-Florida Enterprise/Politics Editor Sergio Bustos. Katherine Lewin is the enterprise reporter at the Times-Union covering criminal and social justice issues in Northeast Florida. Email her at klewin@jacksonville.com or follow on Twitter @KatherineMLewin. Contact her for her Signal number to share anonymous tips and documents. Support local journalism! This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Incest survivor in jacksonville not able to access abortion in Florida By Tim Hepher LONDON (Reuters) - Airbus and Qatar Airways fought in court in front of Boeing on Friday as a dispute over damage to A350 jets descended into a tug-of-war over confidential documents while the sums at stake in their unprecedented falling out topped $1.5 billion. Boeing was dragged into the case for the first time as lawyers quarrelled over access to a preliminary contract for its 737 MAX jets - illustrating the domino effect on a $150 billion global jetliner industry from the rare London legal battle. Qatar Airways is suing Airbus in a division of the High Court over damage to the painted surface and anti-lightning system on A350 jets, saying safety could be at risk. Backed by European regulators, Airbus acknowledges quality flaws but insists the jets are safe. The two sides must provide each other with thousands of pages of documents as their dispute - which has already altered the shape of planemaking competition - heads towards a rare London aerospace trial in mid-2023, barring a settlement. The case has shone a spotlight on the inner workings of the jet market, including contractual details and the industrial playbook for preparing delivery of new jets. The number of A350s grounded by Qatar because of surface damage rose this week to 28 out of 53 A350s in its fleet. Airbus said last month it had revoked all remaining A350 orders from Qatar Airways. Both sides raised the stakes again on Friday as they accused each other of foot-dragging over releasing documents. They are also urging the return of tens of millions of dollars of deposits to the airline and credit payments to the manufacturer. CONFIDENTIALITY ROW In a counter-claim in February, Airbus asked Qatar Airways for $220 million in damages and detailed another $185 million of credits against future deliveries which it said had been paid in advance into three funds for the development of Qatar's aviation sector as part of the original A350 deal in 2007-2009. Story continues Airbus said in a summary of arguments ahead of Friday's hearing that it was seeking reimbursement and had sought details from the airline on how the money had been spent. Qatar Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment. People familiar with the case said Qatar Airways was strongly arguing that the money had been invested as anticipated and dismissed discussion of the funds as a legal manoeuvre. For its part, Qatar Airways accused Airbus of trying to bring European regulators "on side" by controlling what they saw. It reproduced an internal Airbus email titled "Easy mtg" from the top A350 engineer asking colleagues to show the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) the worst damage, adding: "We need to damp the first impression they will have". An Airbus spokesperson said this demonstrated a "warts and all" approach. EASA did not respond to a request for comment. There was also a spat in court over access to emails of Qatar Airways' high-profile chief executive Akbar Al Baker. The airline was ordered to start a search for relevant documents, subject to Qatari law, but was given six weeks to address security concerns over information held on government servers. With the case attracting a growing army of lawyers, Boeing also marched into court 19 on Friday, putting both plane giants on stage with one of their largest buyers for possibly the first time outside air shows where jet deals get announced. Boeing insisted it did not plan to get involved in the escalating dispute between its rival and its client. But its appearance came months after the A350 dispute widened when Airbus revoked a separate deal with Qatar for 50 A321neo jets, arguing they were linked by a crossover clause. Qatar subsequently ordered the Boeing 737 MAX and this catapulted arguments over the relative merits of the jets into court, with Airbus unusually saying the MAX was as good as the A321 in a bid to avoid being forced to build the jets for Qatar. The airline has accordingly been ordered to hand over a preliminary version of the MAX contract to Airbus, but Boeing objected on Friday to Airbus internal lawyers seeing the data. "The disclosure of pricing information...that is dynamite," Boeing's lawyer Paul Stanley told the court. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter) YouTube: Municipality of Anchorage Meetings An assembly meeting in Alaska turned into a racial debacle when a community member used the public comments portion to espouse his racist views that Indigenous Americans should go home, prompting a local lawmaker to call out the mans bigoted nonsense. On Oct. 11, the Anchorage assembly held a regular meeting to discuss everyday issues, like proposed ordinances and licenses in the city. More than four-and-a-half hours in, however, a white man in a collared shirt stood up to casually argue for Alaskan Natives to be kicked out of Anchorage. The man, who identified himself as David Lazer, started by complaining about the areas homeless problem. Like, 80 percent are the Natives. I have to call them Indians, he said, grumbling that Indigenous Americans are considered Native but his white children born in Alaska are not. My children were born here, and theyre not Native. This is not a white-Black problem. This is an Indian problem. I say send them home to their native village. A Native Corporation is the problem, not a white problem, Lazer continued, using the term for partnerships of organizations formed in Alaska to protect Native culture in the area. Why should we be paying for a Native problem? Send them home. They would be happy there, and we would be happy. They could drink, smoke, do dope, and whatever they do in the villages with their own people and they would be happy. After essentially advising a separate but equal philosophy for Alaskan Natives in Anchorage, Lazer said that the city should expel them. After the Native convention next week, let them take their homeless home with them, Lazer said while also providing a financial plan on the so-called efficiency of booting Native Americans from the area. Putting them in a hotel, putting them in places, feeding them, next spring, next summer youre going to have the same problem, he said. No one talks about eliminating the problem. I say send them home. Send the bill to the Native Corporation. Story continues He also suggested shipping them to sanctuary cities, similar to what the Texas government has done with asylum seekers. I feel sorry for some of them. I know some good Natives. I know some good Black people. I know some good white people, Lazer claimed. But we need to eliminate the problem, not just put a Band-Aid on it and send them to a hotel or send them some place for the winter time. Texas Dumps Two Busloads of Migrants in Front of Kamala Harris D.C. Residence Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar, a Democrat, immediately shot back at Lazer. First of all, I find it deeply ironic to have anyone but an Alaskan Native person telling them to go home in Alaska, Dunbar said. My second thing to say: They are American citizens and Anchorage residents and members of our community, and we are responsible for taking care of members of our community. Then, Dunbar questioned whether Lazer had ever had a conversation with Alaskan Natives who are homeless. When you talk to people experiencing homelessness, where do you think they say where they are from? he asked. They have to be from a village, Lazer asserted. Dunbar attempted to correct him, but Lazer continued. Theyre Native people. Those are villages out there, and thats the Natives, he said. Again, Dunbar tried to correct Lazers generalizations and white supremacist stereotypes. [M]y experience going out and speaking with people is folks say they are from Anchorage. They have lived here for decades. Some of them were born here, Dunbar said. I think we have this stereotype that people are just brought in from somewhere else. A lot of the people experiencing homelessness in Anchorage, whether they are Alaskan Native or white or any other race, they say that they are from Anchorage. They are members of our community They dont work, Lazer interjected. They dont pay taxes. They do nothing. It looks like a septic tank where they live At that point, other members of the assembly tried to step in. Assemblywoman Jamie Allard, a Republican, said that she didnt think it was appropriate for there to be a debate but understood where the speaker was coming from. I understand both perspectives. I just hope we can move on and not debate, she said. Where did you learn all this false nonsense? Dunbar asked Lazer before the meeting moved on to the next speaker. Lazer made a sheepish smile prior to answering. I lived here for over 50 years, he said. Ive seen a lot. Racist Western Outfits at Basketball Game Against Native Team Spark Furor After Lazer finally stepped away from the podium, Roger Branson, a Republican competing against Allard for District 23 in Alaskas House of Representatives, told attendees that Lazers comments made him feel dirty. As a self-described advocate for users of mental health services, Branson said he supports people who are overly represented in both homelessness as well as corrections. That last testimony was tough. I feel dirty, he said, before talking about providing adequate resources for people dealing with homelessness. Branson told The Daily Beast that Lazers comments were offensive. [I felt] deeply offended for the people I advocate for, he said. The homeless population, we're way over-represented by behavioral health issues, whether it's just introducing mental health issues. They both kind of go hand in hand. We're way over-represented with Alaskan Natives, both in the homeless community as well as in corrections. He said comments like Lazers are dangerous for Indigenous Americans because they perpetuate harmful stigmas. In an emailed statement to The Daily Beast, Dunbar said Lazars comments were outrageous, considering he made the statements while standing in Alaska, on Indigenous land. There's a strange phenomenon you see here sometimes where folks seem to think they have an exclusive claim to the real Alaska, even if that claim doesn't include Alaska Native people, or their culture, or even most of Rural Alaska, Dunbar wrote, adding that Lazer failed to mention traumatic historical discrimination Alaskan Natives experienced. According to business registration files, Lazer owns a tour company just outside of Anchorage in Palmer, Alaska. His company was bombarded with negative reviews after footage of the assembly meeting was shared online. The owner of this business stepped to the microphone at the Anchorage Assembly and told the world that Alaska Natives should go home, a Yelp reviewer wrote under Lazer Tours profile. The horrible irony of this is that he makes his living showing tourists the Alaska Natives' home, while simultaneously having such vile disrespect for it and them. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Lazer said he felt as if people had misunderstood what he was trying to say. I think it would be better if we let these Natives go out wherever in the villages where their relatives are, he said. They could pick berries, they could fish, they could hunt, be with their own kind, sleep in the trees. They could do anything they want to do, but they'd be with their own friends. Then, he questioned why Alaskan Natives don't take care of those who are homeless, voiced his frustration about hunting laws on Indigenous property, and railed against people who don't work. He brushed aside mental illness as a possibility for many of the situations involving homelessness. I mean, they're nice people and I have good friends [who are Native], Lazer said. Why can't they take care of their own? How come they keep looking at us? 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. Defense attorneys for accused double murderer Alex Murdaugh say in a new court filing that Eddie Smith, not their client, likely killed Murdaughs wife and son in June 2021. The 11-page motion, filed in Colleton County, says that investigators gave Smith a lie detector test that he failed when asked about the killings of Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22. Smith decidedly failed a polygraph when questioned if he murdered Maggie and Paul. ... The reason Smith failed the polygraph when asked if he murdered Maggie and Paul is because he in fact did commit these heinous crimes, the motion says. A trial in the case has been set to begin in Colleton County, where the killings took place, for Jan. 30 through Feb. 17. Murdaugh was indicted for the killings in July and has since contended he is innocent. The bodies of Maggie and Paul were found on the ground near dog kennels on the familys 1,700-acre estate in Colleton County after nightfall on June 7, 2021, by Murdaugh when he returned home. Smith, 61, has for more than a year been a mysterious figure in the universe of people connected to Murdaugh. A truck driver and Murdaughs distant cousin, Smith has been charged by a state grand jury with funneling substantial amounts of drugs to Murdaugh for years as well as serving as a vehicle to cash checks totaling millions of dollars that Murdaugh is said to have stolen from clients and other lawyers for years. Fridays filing gives a rare glimpse into how investigators for the Attorney Generals office have handled the months-long investigation into Paul and Maggies killings. Since, the State Law Enforcement Division and the Attorney Generals office have released scant information about how the killings took place or what evidence they had to link Murdaugh to the deaths. The defense motion seeks to compel prosecutors to turn over all polygraph data, notes and other information related to a polygraph examination given Smith by a SLED captain on May 5, 2022, 11 months after Paul and Maggies killings. Story continues Capt. (Bryan) Jones asked Smith if he shot Maggie or Paul, and he said no, repeatedly. Capt. Jones then told Smith the questions that would be asked during the polygraph examination, and, after more small talk, began the examination. Smith failed, the motion says. The motion says the polygraph indicated deception when Smith was asked, Did you shoot either of those people at that property on Moselle Road? Did you shoot either of those people at that property on Moselle Road last June? Were you present when either of those people were shot at that property on Moselle Road? The motion also says that while prosecutors have produced some information about that polygraph test, they have not provided all data underlying the polygraph report. Under a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court, prosecutors are supposed to turn over all evidence that could be favorable to a defendant in criminal cases. This is a developing story. It will be updated. STRATHAM Pickles has big brown eyes with long silky eyelashes and his soft whiskers tickle those who pet him around his nose and mouth. The 20-year-old miniature horse is just one of many fury visitors who stops in at the New Hampshire SPCAs Alzheimers Cafe, which is held the second Thursday of each month at their Stratham location. Jean Chamberlain, 92, of Epping shares a moment with Pickles, a mini horse at NHSPCA's Alzheimer's Cafe at the Stratham facility. The cafe offers a community setting where people living with Alzheimers disease, dementia, or other memory issues and their caregivers can gather, socialize and enjoy conversation. The NH SPCA started the program in 2019. Alzheimers Cafes, also known as Memory Cafes, began in Europe in the late 1990s. Jean Chamberlain, 92, of Epping, shares a moment with Pickles, a mini horse at NH SPCA's Alzheimer's Cafe at the Stratham facility. Research indicates that interaction with animals offers therapeutic benefits for older adults and those living with Alzheimers or dementia. Spending time with animals in a calm and safe environment, improves mood, decreases anxiety, and lowers blood pressure, research shows. Jean Chamberlain, 90, of Epping, attended the cafe recently with her daughter Marsha Reidy. When I was growing up, I used to ride horses, said Chamberlain as she petted Pickles short mane. I didnt have riding lessons, but I remember it was great fun to ride them. Luke, a rescue dog who is owned by one of the employees of the NH SPCA, is gentle and waiting for a treat while he visits the facility's Alzheimer's Cafe recently. Michele Murch, equine and farm program manager, said often when people interact with the animals, it brings back memories. "It seems to spark something that they might not have remembered, said Murch. Michele Murch, equine and farm program manager, keeps an eye on Pickles as people visit the Alzheimer's Cafe at the NH SPCA. Kate Young, community programs coordinator, said the program is an amazing opportunity for people to connect with animals. The animals we choose are always friendly, personable, social and fun," Young said. "Its a nice opportunity to relax and enjoy chatting with us while meeting the animals. Often people in this group who are facing some memory challenges will be able to connect with things that have happened; happy memories and we can have conversations about that. In general, this is just a nice social time in a judgment-free space. For more information about the SPCAs Alzheimers Cafe and other community-related programs, visit https://nhspca.org. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Alzheimers Cafe at the New Hampshire SPCA offers fury visitors Apple keeps on losing court battles in Brazil over its decision to stop shipping iPhones with a charger. The Sao Paulo state court has ruled against the tech giant and slapped it with a 100 million real ($19 million) fine in a lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumers' Association, a group of borrowers, consumers and taxpayers. In addition, the court has ordered Apple to supply all customers in Brazil who purchased the iPhone 12 or 13 over the past couple of years with a charger, as well as to start including them with all new purchases. Apple, as you'd expect, told the news organization that it will appeal the decision. According to Barron's, the judge in charge of the case called the non-inclusion of chargers in phone purchases an "abusive practice" that "requires consumers to purchase a second product in order for the first to work." Apple has been at odds with Brazilian authorities over the issue for a while now. In 2021, Sao Paulo consumer protection agency Procon-SP fined Apple around $2 million for removing the power adapter from the iPhone 12, telling the company that it was in violation of Brazil's Consumer Defense Code. This September, the country's Ministry of Justice issued an order that bans Apple from selling iPhones that don't come with a charger. It also fined the company another $2.38 million and ordered the cancelation of iPhone 12's registration with Brazil's national telecoms agency. The tech giant is also appealing that decision. Apple stopped bundling its iPhones with power adapters back in 2020 with the release of iPhone 12. The company cited environmental concerns for removing chargers with every purchase of the device and claimed that the decision will save 861,000 tons of copper, zinc and tin. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice remained unmoved by that reasoning, telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support. In Europe, Apple has a couple of years to do just that after the European Parliament voted to make USB-C the common charging standard in the EU. Mobile devices like the iPhone sold in the region will have to come with USB-C charging posts by the end of 2024. Floridas attorney general is the states chief legal officer, responsible for defending the state in civil litigation, suing companies and organizations on behalf of Floridians and handling criminal cases across multiple judicial circuits. The office also mediates disputes involving public access to government records. The attorney general oversees broader statewide issues as one of three elected members of the Cabinet, which includes the states chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture. (The governor chairs the Cabinet when it meets.) The attorney general is elected to a four-year term and paid $139,988 annually. Attorney General: Aramis Ayala, Democrat Ashley Moody has squandered her time as Floridas attorney general shilling for Donald Trump, suing the Biden administration and acting as the legal wingman for Ron DeSantis as the governor pursues his presidential ambitions. But Floridians need an attorney general working here, for them, whos committed to making the justice system fairer for all, and whose independence in office is beyond question. Thats why Democrat Aramis Ayala is the far better choice. Ayala, 47, is a former state prosecutor and public defender who is now an assistant professor of legal studies at the University of Central Florida. In 2016, she was elected state attorney for Floridas 9th judicial circuit, covering Orange and Osceola counties, making history in becoming the first elected Black state attorney in Florida. Ayala ran on a promise to confront racial bias in prosecutions, to make the state attorneys office more transparent and to reach out to marginalized communities who felt unduly targeted by the criminal justice system. But she quickly made national headlines by announcing shortly after taking office that she would not seek the death penalty in capital cases handled by her office, saying that pursuing death served neither the interests of the community nor of justice. Then-Gov. Rick Scott reacted by reassigning dozens of murder cases from Ayala to another circuit, prompting legal action by Ayala that ended when the Florida Supreme Court, in a split decision, upheld Scotts reassignment of the cases. In response, Ayala created a panel to review death penalty cases to decide whether to seek capital punishment. She also declined to seek a second term, citing among the reasons her continued opposition to the death penalty. Story continues Ayalas concerns about bias in capital prosecutions and the death penaltys effectiveness as a deterrent are legitimate. But she was obligated to examine each case and make individual determinations on whether pursuing death was appropriate. This was a mistake on her part that ultimately damaged her own ambitions for criminal justice reform. Still, Ayalas rounded experience, principled agenda and appreciation for the attorney generals broad responsibilities make her the best choice in the race. Ayala would use the full range of her office for the public good. She promises to protect the hard-won rights of women, minorities and the LGBTQ community. She calls Floridas new 15-week abortion law unconstitutional and vows to protect a womans sacred right to choose. She pledges to investigate shady nursing homes, fraudulent insurers and predatory lenders, and to crack down on slumlords and discriminatory mortgage practices. Ayala would also target illegal polluters and investment scams. As attorney general, and a member of Floridas Cabinet, Ayala would be in a position to police abuses across a wide spectrum of society, helping to better protect consumers, seniors, homeowners and Floridas natural environment. Moody, 47, is a former federal prosecutor and Hillsborough County circuit court judge and descendent of a well-known legal family. (DeSantis appointed her brother as a Hillsborough County court judge in 2020, and in April, elevated him to the circuit court bench.) Moody has put the spotlight on the opioid crisis and human trafficking, but shes also increasingly careened into the partisan culture wars. Moody filed a brief in a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn Trumps loss in the 2020 election that even her own lawyers mocked, one calling it batst insane. Shes sued the Biden administration over vaccine mandates, masking requirements and immigration, criticized the Justice Department for the seizure of documents at Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate and defended the DeSantis-backed dont say gay law, calling the outcry over restrictions on gender identity instruction in schools a big farce. In September, Moodys office said it thinks the Florida Supreme Court should reverse a decades-old position that a privacy clause in the state Constitution protects abortion rights. Four years ago, this editorial board recommended Moody, and shes turned out to be a serious disappointment. Unfortunately, too much of her agenda has been nonsense, if not outright dangerous, and its beyond time that Floridians had a fair advocate in that office. Having both prosecuted and defended criminal cases, Ayala knows the strengths and weaknesses of Floridas criminal justice system. She isnt blind to bias or abuse in the pursuit of public safety. And she would be a good check on the excesses of what is effectively one-party rule in Florida. For Florida Attorney General, the Tampa Bay Times recommends Aramis Ayala. Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news. Oct. 13Athens Arts League will host a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) event Nov. 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at High Cotton Arts in Athens. The event will include food trucks, vendors and a Catrina and Catrin costume contest. For more information, visit athensartsleague.com or call 256-262-9022. High Cotton Arts is located at 103 West Washington Street. erica.smith@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2460. Communities in three Australian states have been ordered to evacuate as torrential rain brings major flooding. Parts of the country have received up to four times their average October rainfall in just 24 hours. At least 500 homes have been flooded, one person has died and another is missing as the disaster unfolds. Widespread flooding across Australia - driven by a La Nina weather pattern - has killed more than 20 people this year. Victoria - Australia's second most populous state - has been worst hit this week. Several communities have been ordered to evacuate, including some in the state capital Melbourne. Floods have swamped roads, forced school closures and cut power to 3,000 houses and businesses. Premier Daniel Andrews said the number of inundated homes was "absolutely certain to grow", calling it one of the state's worst flood events in decades. "This has only just started, and it's going to be with us for a while," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Barry Webster, who lives in Melbourne's north-west, is one of those whose house has gone underwater. "I always said I wanted riverfront views, but not like this," he told The Age. "Going downstairs and seeing the lounge floating it's a bit surreal, kind of like a movie." Many areas received massive 24-hour rainfall totals, but the highest was in Strathbogie, north-east of Melbourne. It received 220mm - more than double the town's average October rainfall, or about a third of London's annual average. Several rivers have also flooded in Tasmania after up to 400mm of rain fell in some areas in 24 hours. It is unclear how many homes and business have been affected there. In New South Wales, about 600 people were told to evacuate from the town of Forbes, where about 250 properties and business were expected to flood. One man died in the state's west earlier this week after his car became submerged in floodwaters. Story continues Rescuers have also been searching for man thought to have been swept away in similar circumstances on Tuesday. More rain is forecast in the coming weeks, placing strain on already swollen rivers and saturated ground. Experts say recent flooding in Australia has been worsened by climate change and a La Nina weather phenomenon. In Australia, a La Nina increases the likelihood of rain, cyclones and cooler daytime temperatures. Over the past year, many Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) insiders sold a significant stake in the company which may have piqued investors' interest. Knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more helpful when evaluating insider transactions, as insider selling can have various explanations. However, if numerous insiders are selling, shareholders should investigate more. While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. View our latest analysis for Bank of America Bank of America Insider Transactions Over The Last Year In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the insider, Dean Athanasia, sold US$5.0m worth of shares at a price of US$45.77 per share. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. It's of some comfort that this sale was conducted at a price well above the current share price, which is US$31.69. So it may not shed much light on insider confidence at current levels. Insiders in Bank of America didn't buy any shares in the last year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! If you like to buy stocks that insiders are buying, rather than selling, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Insider Ownership Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Bank of America insiders own 0.2% of the company, currently worth about US$440m based on the recent share price. This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders. Story continues So What Do The Bank of America Insider Transactions Indicate? It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Bank of America shares in the last quarter. It's great to see high levels of insider ownership, but looking back over the last year, we don't gain confidence from the Bank of America insiders selling. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Bank of America you should know about. But note: Bank of America may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE 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 Bank of Queensland Limited (ASX:BOQ) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend from last year's comparable payment on the 17th of November to A$0.24. This will take the dividend yield to an attractive 6.2%, providing a nice boost to shareholder returns. View our latest analysis for Bank of Queensland Bank of Queensland's Earnings Will Easily Cover The Distributions Impressive dividend yields are good, but this doesn't matter much if the payments can't be sustained. Bank of Queensland has established itself as a dividend paying company with over 10 years history of distributing earnings to shareholders. Taking data from its last earnings report, calculating for the company's payout ratio shows 70%, which means that Bank of Queensland would be able to pay its last dividend without pressure on the balance sheet. The next 3 years are set to see EPS grow by 15.5%. The future payout ratio could be 72% over that time period, according to analyst estimates, which is a good look for the future of the dividend. Dividend Volatility Although the company has a long dividend history, it has been cut at least once in the last 10 years. Since 2012, the dividend has gone from A$0.54 total annually to A$0.48. Doing the maths, this is a decline of about 1.2% per year. A company that decreases its dividend over time generally isn't what we are looking for. Dividend Growth May Be Hard To Come By With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share is growing, which could point to a growing dividend in the future. Bank of Queensland has seen earnings per share falling at 6.3% per year over the last five years. If the company is making less over time, it naturally follows that it will also have to pay out less in dividends. However, the next year is actually looking up, with earnings set to rise. We would just wait until it becomes a pattern before getting too excited. In Summary Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. The company hasn't been paying a very consistent dividend over time, despite only paying out a small portion of earnings. We would probably look elsewhere for an income investment. Story continues Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Just as an example, we've come across 2 warning signs for Bank of Queensland you should be aware of, and 1 of them can't be ignored. Is Bank of Queensland not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks. 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 City bonuses have increased at more than twice the speed of wages since the 2008 financial crash. Photo: Toby Melville/Reuters Bonuses paid in the finance and insurance sector have hit the record high of 20,000 a year, worth almost two thirds of an average workers pay. The TUC said its analysis revealed that City bonuses have increased at more than twice the speed of wages since the 2008 financial crash. Those at the top of the banking and finance sector will receive bonuses that far exceed 20,000, the union said. The TUC said under the current cap, an employees bonus can be no bigger than 100% of their annual pay, or 200% if there is approval from shareholders, but plans unveiled by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in the mini-budget will remove the cap on bonus payments. Read more: The Royal Mint posts record profits as investors turn to gold TUC general secretary Frances OGrady said: Everyone who works for a living deserves to earn a decent living, but ministers are holding down the pay of millions of key workers, while lining the pockets of City financiers. There is simply no justification for lifting the cap on bankers bonuses especially when nurses and teaching assistants are having to use food banks to get by. The analysis suggests that the average City banker now pockets in bonuses alone around 145% of and average teaching assistants pay, 115% of a full-time minimum wage workers pay and 65% of an average nurses pay. This bonus alone could also pay for more than half (55%) of an average teachers pay. In 2020/21 the average bonus in the finance and insurance sector was 14,800, but in 2021/22 it had risen to 19,950 an increase of 5,000. The analysis shows that average City bonuses have doubled in cash terms (+101%) since 2008. Instead of featherbedding the 1%, the government should be getting wages rising across the economy. That means boosting the minimum wage to 15 an hour as soon as possible, funding decent pay rises for all public sector workers and introducing fair pay agreements for whole industries. Read more: Property: Here's your chance to live in a landmark building Story continues The City is already a millionaires playground. It doesnt need another helping hand from the Conservatives. Ministers should be clamping down on this greedy bonus culture by putting workers on company pay boards and introducing maximum pay ratios. The UK is home to 3,500 millionaire bankers nearly three-quarters (73%) of Europes total, according to the European Banking Authority. Watch: What is a recession and how do we spot one? PANAMA CITY The Bay County Public Library is allowing residents the opportunity to meet their favorite local authors. The Bay County Writers Fest invites features nearly 30 local authors for a glimpse into their work. The event will be Oct. 22 at the Bay County Public Library, 898 W. 11th St. A family storytime session runs from 10 to 11 a.m., and book purchases and signings take place from 1 to 4 p.m. The Bay County Public Library will host a Writers Fest on Oct. 22 for the community to meet nearly 30 local authors. Sarah Burris, marketing coordinator for the library, said this is the library's largest event of the year and noted its last book signing event was before Hurricane Michael. "It's been a long time since we've been able to highlight our local authors, and it's hard to find a lot of authors in one place where you can support them," Burris said. "So we wanted to host a day where we could set up booths and share their work with the community." Writers Fest Family Storytime The Writers Fest Family Storytime takes place from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Youth Services Program Room. Six children's book authors will read their books to families. In addition, a coloring table will be set up for kids with featured coloring pages from the authors' books. Local author: Vernon author draws on his own life for children's book series Kevin B. Edwards' first book, "Kevin Turns Fear Into Feat," was published in March 2021. Storytime authors include: Kevin B. Edwards , "Kevin Turns Fear into Feat" and "Kevin's Big Win." Irene Field , "Growing with Delilah: Together We Can." Melinda Hall , "A Seed of Change." Pat Sabiston , "Can't Never Could!" Willie Spears , "Who was Hawk Massalina?" Edee Troncale, "Esmarelda's Shoe." "As a library, we strongly support reading and books, and we encourage authors in their creative endeavors as well. It's always exciting for authors to see how many authors have their books published because it's not an easy thing to do," Burris said. "It's a win to have a book in publication, so it's important to support our local authors in what they've achieved." The six authors will also be featured during the main event. Story continues Bay County Writers Fest The Bay County Writers Fest begins at 1 p.m. in the library lobby and meeting room, allowing attendees to meet the authors and learn about their works until 4 p.m. The Writers Fest will boast a variety of genres, including science fiction, nonfiction, fiction, flash fiction poetry and illustrated books. In addition, Kristen Russell, a Gulf Coast State College writing professor, will be in attendance to share information about the writing programs at the college. Book payment methods vary between the authors; some will accept cash or check payments, while others will have card readers. In addition, author photos, blurbs and book covers will be available upon request. Burris said she hopes to continue the Writers Fest as an annual tradition and grow it to feature more authors. "We strongly encourage the community to come out to celebrate our local authors during Writers Fest and hope to bring it back for next year," Burris said. "The library has a few of the authors in our collection for checkout as well, so there's always that opportunity to read through our local authors' selections." Nearly 30 local authors are expected to set up at tables with their books available for sale and book signings. Here's a look at the authors. The Bay County Writers Fest will feature nearly 30 local authors on Oct. 22 at the Bay County Public Library. Marlene East and Allie Anderson will feature their book "Aquatic Critters: A to Z Along the Shores of PCB." Children's authors Marlene East and Allie Anderson , "Aquatic Critters: A to Z, Along the Shores of PCB." Tomi Saga , "Marsupials" and "Vinny and Chip." Gregg D'Aurora , "The Adventures of Davie the Little Red Hovercraft." Rifk Ebeid, "You Are the Color." Young adult authors Mark Douglas, Jr. , "The Hero's Ballad." Willie Spears , "David's Depression." J. M. Wiseman , "A Dream for Always." Solstice Locke, "Catalyst." Adult authors Kateryna Armenta , "I Know What You Need to Succeed: How to Harness the 4 Seasons of Success to Upgrade Your Career and Your Life." Mark Boss , "Cyborg Hunter: A Spiral Arm Galaxy Story." Jim X Dodge , "Sawblades and Spray Paint & Fool Me Twice." Britt Gonzalez , "We Are All Wildflowers." Milinda Jay , "Annie Laura's Gift and Annie Laura's Triumph." Courtney Jones , "8 Days to Mastering Self-Love: A Woman's Guide to Maximize Her Wealth." David R. Hollenbach, III , "Fireproof: Your Grand Strategy for Transforming Failure into Fuel for Your Future." Ian J. Malone , "Mako," Colonies Lost" and Free Bird Rising." Sandi MarLisa , "To All Who Wander: An Essay Collection for Fellow Sojourners" and "Fire Flurries: Confessions of a Small Town Rockstar." Beverly Nield , "Haunted Panama City." Kenny Redd , "Odyssey of the Enchanter: The Life and Art of Vincent Valentine, Jr." Tony Simmons , "Behold the Storm: Book four of the Caliban Cycle." Victoria William, "Don't Get Suck with a Nightmare: A Brief Compilation of Things to Do Before Purchasing Property." This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Bay County Writers Fest at library allows you to meet 30 local authors STORY: Rare banners of political protest were promptly removed by authorities from an overpass in Beijing, images circulated on social media on Thursday showed. There remained questions over whether and how Beijing will exit its strict zero-COVID policy, as well as rising tensions over Taiwan and high-profile protests over several issues this year. Markets are closely watching how Beijing manages these challenges. The party congress kicks off on Sunday (October 16), with Chinese President Xi Jinping poised to clinch his third five-year stint in charge - a mandate that would secure his stature as the country's most powerful ruler since founding leader Mao Zedong. (Reuters) -Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned Ukraine and the West on Friday not to force his ally Russia into a corner, saying Moscow had nuclear weapons for a reason. In extracts of an interview with the American TV channel NBC released by Belarus's state news agency, Lukashenko said: "The most important thing is, don't drive your interlocutor and even your opponent into a corner. So you mustn't cross those lines - those red lines, as the Russians say. You can't cross them." Concern has mounted in the West that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear weapons since a series of defeats for his forces in Ukraine swung the momentum of the war in Kyiv's favour. "As for nuclear weapons, any weapon is a weapon created for something," Lukashenko was quoted as saying. "Russia has clearly outlined its position: God forbid there will be an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation; in that event, Russia can use all types of weapons if necessary." Lukashenko has no say in Putin's military decisions but his comments served to underline the heightened state of East-West tension as the war nears the end of its eighth month. TERRORISM ALERT Putin unilaterally proclaimed four Ukrainian regions as part of Russia last month, a move overwhelmingly condemned this week by the U.N. General Assembly, and has said he will defend Russia's "territorial integrity" by all means, including nuclear weapons if necessary. Lukashenko said separately he had placed Belarus in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert because of tensions on its borders. He linked that move to his announcement on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine. The Belarusian defence ministry said the "Russian component of the Regional Grouping of Forces" would start arriving in Belarus in the next few days. Story continues Allied with Moscow and wedged between Russia, Ukraine and three NATO countries, Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Its latest troop movements have raised concern in Kyiv and the West that Lukashenko may be about to commit his army to support Russia's faltering war effort. Political analysts say that is an unappealing option for him but that he may not be in a position to refuse if Russian President Vladimir Putin demands it. Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad. (Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Gareth Jones) The National Television Awards (NTAs) marks the biggest night of the year for our favourite small-screen stars. On Thursday evening (13 October), everyone from Love Island contestants to This Morning presenters and Strictly Come Dancing champions descended on Londons Wembley Arena for the event. While some were forced to miss the event, including presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly who tested positive for Covid-19, there were still plenty of stars who graced the red carpet and looked good doing so. Below we chart the best red carpet looks from the NTAs for 2022. Holly Willoughby (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) The This Morning presenter went for the full Cinderella look with this black ballgown from Yolancris. The dress by the bridalwear designer included a strapless neckline and 3D florals cascading down the centre of the dress. Rochelle Humes (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Rochelle Humes went for a monochromatic look for this years NTAs. The television personality wore a look by Athens couture house, Celia Kritharioti, which included a bow crop top and a figure-hugging black and white skirt. Maya Jama (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) The new host of Love Island donned a one-shoulder white gown for the event, with an oversized top and fishtail skirt. Maya Jama was named as the new host of the reality TV series earlier on Thursday after former host Laura Whitmore stepped down after this years season. Katie Piper (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Television personality Katie Piper channelled old Hollywood with her floral gown and with her hair in vintage waves. The dress itself was vintage Gai Mattiolo and she paired it with black Jimmy Choo heels. AJ Odudu (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) AJ Odudu, who is rumoured to be the new host of Big Brother when it returns to our screens in 2023, elevated her little black dress with a shimmering gold cape. The television presenter wore matching gold shoes and dressed her hands with several sparkling rings. Alison Hammond (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) The This Morning presenter looked like the definition of glam in her shimmering maroon gown. She paired the look with a high ponytail for an elegant finish. Story continues Maura Higgins (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) The former Love Island contestant took cut out dress to the next level with this long-sleeved white gown which had just two strips of coverage over her torso. Maura Higgins completed the look with two metallic cuff bracelets and her hair in a messy updo. Gemma Owen (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) This years Love Island runner-up Gemma Owen attended the NTAs with her father Michael Owen on Thursday evening where the pair presented an award. The younger Owen dazzled in an embellished gold gown and with her hair in a sleek loose look. Dame Kelly Holmes (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Olympian and Loose Women presenter, Dame Kelly Holmes, looked radiant in her maroon dress with a thigh-high slit. Emma Willis (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Emma Willis looked gorgeous in her on-trend black cut out dress. The long-sleeved gown featured a high chest cut out and a waist cut out as well as a small slit. Willis paired the look with simple black sandals. Kate Garraway and Darcey Mary Draper (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway brought along her daughter Darcey to the awards where she picked up the gong for her documentary, Caring for Derek. Wearing a stunning silver gown, Garraway praised husband Derek Drapers fighting spirit after she revealed that he was back in hospital with sepsis this week. Alex Scott (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Alex Scott glammed up leopard print with her black strapless gown which she paired with matching long gloves. The sportswoman and television personality accessorised the look with a sparkly clutch and a diamond necklace. Anna Whitehouse (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Anna Whitehouse (aka Mother Pukka) brought Barbiecore to the NTAs with this hot pink ensemble. The Lydia Jackson two piece included a shirred crop top with voluminous sleeves and a tulle skirt. Laura Whitmore (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Laura Whitmore wore a jumpsuit version of designer Filiarmis Dolly dress to the NTAs on Thursday. Debuting her new fringe at the awards, the former Love Island presenter wrote on Instagram: She bangs! (Been watching a lot of the flight attendant series 2!) Presenting best factual ents at @officialntas - can I nominate my bangs! fact: having a fringe is entertaining! (We did it for real!). Rose Ayling-Ellis (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Last years Stictly Come Dancing champion Rose Ayling-Ellis brought the colour to this years NTAs with this sheer green number. Clair Norris (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) EastEnders actor Clair Norris had fun with her NTAs outfit, wearing a baby pink ruffled knee-length dress, white heels and matching pink accessories. Laura Tobin (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Good Morning Britains weather presenter Laura Tobin dazzled in this red sequin gown by Mascara London. On Instagram Tobin described the dress as one of her favourites as she also wore it to the NTAs three years ago. Eyvin Hernandez had been detained for six months at a notorious jail in Venezuela when seven other Americans were released earlier this month in a prisoner swap with the United States. The 44-year-old public defender from Los Angeles saw one of his best friends in prison let go as he, and several others, were left behind. Unlike those freed, Hernandez and the others who remain are still not officially designated by the United States as wrongfully detained abroad, a determination that must be made by the State Department using criteria set by Congress. But the administration is under no legal time constraints. In Hernandezs case, half a year of imprisonment in Venezuelas infamous House of Dreams has passed without the U.S. government making a determination on his case. A wrongful detention determination unlocks critical resources for the families of Americans imprisoned overseas, including interagency attention and access to the office of the presidential envoy for hostage affairs, which takes over the case from the Bureau of Consular Affairs. But repeated appeals to the State Department by Hernandezs friends and family for the designation have been substantively ignored, his family said in an interview with McClatchy and the Miami Herald. At least five other Americans are in Venezuelan custody under similar circumstances. Hernandez is aware that, in order for him to get released, its going to have to be through political negotiations, his brother, Henry Martinez, said. Thats pretty clear. HOODED AT THE BORDER Hernandez had been vacationing in Colombia when his father and brother quickly realized something was wrong. On March 31, Hernandez stopped making his regular calls home. So they asked local police in Medellin to visit the Airbnb where he was staying. Police video showed his belongings sandals, luggage, a briefcase were still in their place. Our hearts dropped when we saw that, said Martinez. April 3 came around, and we were hoping he would come on the plane, Martinez continued, tearing up alongside their father, Pedro Martinez, in a video interview. Obviously he didnt make it. I would have nightmares about identifying his body, or something like that. That was the worst part. Story continues Eyvin Hernandez on a visit to Colombia. They finally received a message on April 4 from a man who identified himself as Hernandezs public defender in Venezuela, informing them that Hernandez had been charged with conspiracy and criminal association to commit crimes against the state. When they were able to communicate with Hernandez in prison, he told them the backstory. He had met a Venezuelan girl on an app, and later in person at a disco club, his family said. With only days left in his trip, Hernandez offered for her to join him in travels around the country. But the girl claimed she needed a Venezuelan stamp in her passport in order to board a domestic Colombian flight. Venezuelan opposition officials living in Colombia contacted by McClatchy and the Miami Herald were not aware of any such requirement. The stamp is a formality and normally is not required by anybody in Colombia, one of them said. Nevertheless, Hernandez agreed to accompany her to get the passport stamp she needed in Cucuta, a Colombian town on the border with Venezuela, traveling over 15 hours by bus to get there. Once in Cucuta, the pair hailed a taxi to reach a border crossing. Hernandez told his family he is unsure where they were dropped off. But once they were, armed men intercepted them within minutes. One of the armed men allegedly tried to extract a bribe from Hernandez, asking for $100 in order to secure him entry into Venezuela. He said he had no intention of entering the country. They were hooded, tossed in the back of a truck, and detained. Hernandezs case is one of several instances of American men meeting Venezuelan women in Colombia before being led to the border and detained. It is unclear whether the cases form a concerted strategy by Caracas to lure and entrap U.S. citizens, but Biden administration officials told McClatchy they are aware and concerned by the potential pattern. Hernandezs family says the girl that traveled with him was arrested as well, and remains in prison. The State Department issued a warning in August to Americans to avoid Colombias border region with Venezuela. A spokesperson for Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said the senators staff has been working on Hernandezs case, was in touch with the State Department and was looking into ways the senator could help. Other representatives for Hernandezs district did not immediately respond to requests for comment. AMERICAN HOSTAGES REMAIN When seven Americans were released on Oct. 1, Biden administration officials proclaimed a victory. Were overjoyed, one senior administration official told reporters. We got all our wrongful detentions all of our Americans who were wrongfully detained back home and heading to the arms of their families. But human rights organizations in Venezuela believe there are at least six Americans still in the countrys prisons. Besides Hernandez, there are two former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry who were caught in a May 2020 failed military incursion by Venezuelan dissidents, called Operation Gideon; Jerrel Lloyd Kenemore, a 52-year-old man arrested in Venezuela earlier this year; Jason George Saad, who has been described as a homeless man living on the streets of the eastern city of Maturin; and Dahud Hanid-Ortiz, a U.S. veteran wanted in Spain for the alleged killing in Madrid of two Cuban women and an Ecuadorian man. Denman and Berry have already been sentenced to 20 years for conspiring to topple Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, but the charges against the rest of the men have not been announced. Americans charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Maduro regime are often held by the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, known as DGCIM, at their headquarters in the Boleita neighborhood of Caracas, a former textile factory transformed into administrative offices with detention cells. Hernandez is currently being held at a sector of the building called Casa de los Suenos, or House of Dreams, which was specifically designed to break down prisoners. It serves as, and in fact they described it as a pressure cooker, said dissident Venezuelan Air Force Lieutenant Luis Lugo Calderon, who was held for several months at the Boleita prison, speaking of DGCIM officials. They place those that first arrive there to soften them up psychologically. Once they are broken, they are taken to other cells. Located in the buildings third basement floor, the 16 cells, measuring six feet by six feet, have very little ventilation. Prisoners held there are subjected to perpetual harsh light that keeps most from sleeping, described a recent report prepared by the Casla Institute, a non-governmental organization that monitors human-rights violations. The political prisoners in Casa de los Suenos have spent long periods of confinement, where up to five people have been in the same cell. The overcrowding effect and lack of ventilation make it very hard to breathe, the report said. Detainees in this place often present respiratory diseases, as well as anxiety and depression, the report states. Despite these conditions being known to U.S. authorities, the Biden administration still has not commented publicly on Hernandezs case. We take our responsibility to assist U.S. citizens seriously, and we will continue to press for fair and transparent treatment and consular access for all U.S. citizens, a State Department spokesperson said. If a U.S. citizen is detained abroad, the department carefully monitors the case and provides assistance where possible. While we have difficulties obtaining access to or confirming reports about detained U.S. citizens in Venezuela, we make every effort to provide the appropriate assistance, the official added. In general, the department regularly reviews cases of all U.S. nationals detained abroad to determine if the detention is wrongful. The Secretary makes a determination after considering information from a variety of sources and based on the totality of the circumstances in the case. The spokesperson did not answer questions on the length of time it is taking to determine whether Hernandez is being wrongfully detained. The president and secretary of state lead a robust team of U.S. government officials who work in partnership with families and nongovernmental organizations to secure the release of U.S. nationals who have been wrongfully detained or taken hostage abroad, the official added. We have no further comment at this time. Sacramento Bee reporter Gillian Brassil contributed reporting. By Jeff Mason and Daniel Trotta PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Oregon on Friday to rally support for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who is in danger of losing in a state where a Republican has not been elected governor since 1982. The race for the governorship pits Democrat Tina Kotek against Republican Christine Drazan and an independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat who is financially backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. All three women are former state legislators. Incumbent Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, cannot run for re-election because of term limits. Biden, who won the state by 16 points over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, is campaigning for Kotek just as recent public opinion polls suggest Drazan has pulled into the lead. The Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia's Center for Politics consider the race a tossup between the major party candidates. Johnson trails in third place but appears to be siphoning votes away from the Democrat. Shortly after arriving, Biden promoted the Democratic agenda at a gathering of party volunteers making campaign phone calls. He sought out Kotek and grabbed her hand, allowing her to briefly share the limelight with the president. "Guess what? What a governor does matters," Biden said as dozens of volunteers cheered. "It matters, it matters, it matters." Biden delivered doughnuts to the volunteers and took part in a few calls himself. Election day is Nov. 8, when 36 gubernatorial races will be on the ballot along with the entire U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate, with the Democrats' razor-thin majorities in Washington at stake. While some Democratic candidates around the country have distanced themselves from Biden, seeing him as a political liability, Kotek is hoping for both a political and fundraising boost. Biden arrived in Oregon's largest city of Portland after making stops in Colorado and California over the last few days. Story continues A Biden adviser said the president would emphasize Democratic policies to protect Medicare, lower prescription drug costs and lower health care costs while applauding Kotek's stance on raising the minimum wage and protecting abortion rights during his time in Oregon. He is scheduled to deliver an address on combating inflation and participate in a reception for Kotek on Saturday. Len Bergstein, a Portland-based public affairs consultant and political analyst, said that Biden could offer the Democrat a needed jolt in Oregon. "The Democratic governor's candidate has got to pull in the kind of voter that normally votes for Joe Biden in a race like this, and energizes that turnout," Bergstein said. "She's losing too many regular Democrats and non-affiliated voters to be comfortable in this race." Kotek has run hard on gun violence prevention, while Johnson has positioned herself as a pro-gun rights candidate who emphasizes supporting police. Drazan, though conservative, has distinguished herself from candidates across the country who have adopted former President Donald Trump's false claims about having the 2020 election stolen from him. After running to the right in the primary to win the nomination, she has tacked toward the center, campaigning on public safety and order in a state that experienced sometimes-violent protests over racial equality and police brutality in 2020 and 2021. Drazan supporters say they welcome the visit from a president they consider unpopular. "With Biden underwater, and with Oregon Democrats less than satisfied with their standard bearer Tina Kotek, this visit is sure to be nothing more than disastrous for the already trailing candidate," Kaitlin Price, a spokesperson for the Republican Governors Association, said in an email. Johnson, too, attempted to play up the idea that Biden's visit would only help opponents of Kotek, who was speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2013 to January this year. "I hope he comes more often so that Portland will finally clean up more of the trash and tent cities that Tina's created between the airport and downtown Portland," Johnson said in a statement, referring to people who are without homes and sleeping outside in public spaces, a phenomenon in many cities in the United States. (Reporting by Jeff Mason in Portland and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; editing by Grant McCool, Michael Perry & Shri Navaratnam) A U.S. soldier from the 4th Infantry Division runs in the street during a patrol in downtown Tikrit, north of Baghdad, on Dec. 16, 2003. The congressional authorization for military action in Iraq, approved in 2002, could soon be ended. (Photo: MAURICIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images) A U.S. soldier from the 4th Infantry Division runs in the street during a patrol in downtown Tikrit, north of Baghdad, on Dec. 16, 2003. The congressional authorization for military action in Iraq, approved in 2002, could soon be ended. (Photo: MAURICIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images) Twenty years ago this weekend, on Oct. 16, 2002, Congress granted President George W. Bush the controversial authority to invade Iraq. That use-of-force authorization is still in effect and has been used as legal justification by several presidents for U.S. military ventures in the region. Now a bipartisan group of senators wants to finally end it. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) introduced an amendment last month to the massive defense budget process that would formally terminate the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) regarding Iraq. By failing to repeal outdated and unnecessary AUMFs, Congress is abdicating its responsibility to provide oversight over military action and leaving these war authorizations subject to abuse, Kaine and Young said in a joint statement on Friday. It is long past time to reassert Congress vital role in these decisions. They also claimed there was a strong bipartisan majority in the Senate to pass the measure and that it deserves a vote during the national defense budget process in November or December. The House passed its own bipartisan version of the bill in June. The bill would not repeal the 2001 AUMF, which followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. and allowed the president to invade Afghanistan and continues to justify military action against terrorist groups worldwide. But the Iraq authorization has still been used for military purposes far beyond what Congress envisioned in 2002. President Barack Obama declared the Iraq War over in 2011 and withdrew all U.S. troops, but he then sent American forces back into the country in 2014, relying on both the Afghanistan and Iraq use-of-force authorizations. Story continues The Obama administration again relied upon the 2002 AUMF for military incursions into Syria, and the Trump administration later expanded its interpretation of the law and claimed it justified threats to, or stemming from, Iraq while relying upon it to carry out the Jan. 3, 2020, assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad airport in Iraq. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Pedestrians are seen in a reflection of Martin Luther King Jr.'s photo in Leimert Park on Tuesday. A leaked recording was released this week of L.A. City Council members and a labor official that includes racist remarks. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Watching the news in her View Park home, Helen Ray sat in stunned disbelief as she listened to the now infamous tape of three Los Angeles City Council members and a labor leader privately strategizing about redistricting. It wasn't the casual racist rhetoric that upset her most. It was the topic: They sounded as if they were plotting a backroom deal to disenfranchise Black voters. This feels like a betrayal almost akin to Jan. 6, said Ray, 76. Donald Trump tried to overturn the election results and discount Black votes so he could be reelected president. Now, I feel the same kind of betrayal coming from City Council members. Its hurtful to know that these people dont care about the whole L.A., she said. To Black residents across the city, the words on the year-old tape hit like a gut punch when the news broke Sunday. Around dinner tables, in coffee shops, beauty salons, bookstores and group chats, they decried the derogatory language on the leaked audio recording and vented about what sounded to them like scheming to weaken the limited political power they fought for generations to acquire. James Fugate, co-owner of Eso Won Books, right, discusses the recording of former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez using racist language, with Clint Rosemond on Tuesday inside the Leimert Park bookstore. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) On a quiet Tuesday afternoon at Eso Won Books, a beloved Leimert Park bookstore that has served as a conduit for the Black community to have conversations about race and other social issues for more than three decades, co-owner James Fugate was talking about the recording with a longtime customer. The real question is, are there people in the wings with the moral fiber necessary to move forward? said Clint Rosemond of Inglewood, as he stood at the checkout counter inside the bare bookstore, which is set to close by the end of December. Cause these [three] are bottom feeders. These people are corrupt, Fugate responded. I think all three of them are going to have to go, he added. Its just a matter of time, 82-year-old Rosemond said, shaking his head. (City Council President Nury Martinez, who was caught on tape using the most derogatory language of the group, resigned Wednesday.) Story continues Protestors holding up signs at Tuesday's Los Angeles City Council meeting inside the City Hall chamber call for the resignations of council President Nury Martinez and Councilmembers Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. Martinez stepped down Wednesday. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Its one of the biggest political [scandals] Ive heard in years, but to me its like, OK," Fugate told a Times reporter. "This is what needs to come out because people need to know. For some Angelenos, the politicians remarks were hurtful to hear, but they took it as the mindset of four people and not a population. Other residents said the leaked audio exposed fissures that many thought were healed decades ago as L.A.s Black and Latino residents and elected officials united to fight problems plaguing both of their communities. Latinos make up half of the city's population but since Martinez's resignation occupy only three of the citys 15 council seats. At the same time, the Black population has declined over the decades to 9% as more people have moved to the suburbs and out of the state for cheaper housing, better schools and job opportunities. Still, three historically Black districts that now have significant Latino populations have elected Black councilmembers to the dais. Kerman Maddox, a veteran political consultant in the city, was getting ready for church early Sunday morning when he received a link to an audio recording. The voices rising from his phone sounded distinct and familiar Martinez, county labor leader Ron Herrera, and Councilmembers Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo, one of his good friends. It was like a stab in the back, Maddox said. Over three decades, the two had joined forces to bring their communities together. This civic call to service brought Maddox and Cedillo shoulder to shoulder at church services, labor events and on the campaign trail. But now there was his friend, on tape, participating in a conversation in which Martinez talked about her white colleagues Black son, saying parece changuito, or looks like a monkey. As she said this, De Leon and Cedillo chuckled and cracked jokes. I was shocked and disappointed when I discovered [Cedillo] was not only part of those discussions but didn't intervene to stop it and reprimand his colleagues for such behavior, Maddox said. The betrayal feels much deeper because it was done by friends you've known for years, not strangers from distant places. Maddox, who is working on Rep. Karen Bass mayoral campaign, said Black politicians work hard to build a coalition with their Latino neighbors. Thats how they have handily won elections in districts where Latino residents hold a majority. "It was hurtful," Anthony Jolly, owner of Hot and Cool Cafe in Leimert Park, said Tuesday after the news of a leaked recording of elected L.A. officials. "I think nobody's surprised. I think there's no surprise to Los Angelenos," he added. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Anthony Jolly, owner of Hot and Cool Cafe in Leimert Park, said its appalling that the three council members mentality is not to move forward in unity with Black and brown [people]. We both have the same fight, he said in his spacious coffee shop. Both communities are fighting for decent wages, a decent place to live and trying to exist in a changing L.A., so thats why its so shocking to hear from that individual, Jolly added, referring to Martinez. Given that the conversation captured on the recording took place last October, Sean Mabry, 50, said he's concerned about the decisions that the politicians have made since then. "Other people suffer behind her comments," Mabry said, referring to Martinez, as he stood in front of a mural of beloved late rapper and community activist Nipsey Hussle and his friend's outdoor pop-up shop called Crenshaw by Nature in the Crenshaw District. Hussle's music blasted from a nearby speaker. "When people vote you in, they're thinking they voted in somebody that's nonbiased [and that] you're going by the rules and regulations of the office that you've been appointed to. Not to mention you being the president," Mabry said. "You're supposed to be looked at a higher plateau than everybody else, and if anybody else has those type of views under you, you were supposed to [have gotten] rid of them ASAP." Reacting to the leaked audio by L.A. elected officials, Sean Mabry, left, said, "These days, nothing surprises you." Mabry, selling Crenshaw By Nature clothing with Trell Woods, is now concerned about the decisions the politicians have made since the October 2021 recording. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Cheryce Cryer was so outraged by what she heard from the elected officials on the leaked recording that she filed a complaint Tuesday with the federal Department of Justices Civil Rights Division. The 42-year-old attorney saw the news that the states Justice Department is investigating the redistricting process, but she worries that political ties might influence that process. I want the real guns to come in and look at this stuff, she said. You cannot allow anti-Blackness to stay, said Cryer, who is a downtown resident. Racism is a cancer and it will taint and disease anything that it touches. So they cannot stay. But more than that what they expressed there was possible gerrymandering. I believe that was the tip of the iceberg, she added. If they are speaking openly, having dinner table conversation in what they probably thought was a business meeting and theres anti-Black rhetoric and theyre talking about redistricting along color lines, can you imagine the other type of conversations or text messages, whatever they might [have] had? Cryer wants to know whether Martinez, Cedillo or De Leon passed or vetoed any resolution or acts due to race during their time on the City Council. At the end of the day, theres a lack of trust. Youre not there to represent the people. Youre there to represent your people. As a political science major who is already wary of high-profile politicians, Nicole Nwankwo said the recording validated her decision to pursue a career in law instead of politics, once she graduates from USC next year. I just feel like I have almost a sense of pessimism toward politicians, she said. I still want to be a realist and be like not every politician is out to just be a crony and sabotage society or whatever, but I dont know. At the end of the day, I feel like politics is a machine and to be able to succeed in politics, you have to play into the machine, and you have to do certain things that your constituency might not always agree with, but its how you get you to the next point. She added, Thats ultimately why morally its just not for me. "I feel hurt. Let down. With her, I'm really disappointed," said Ella Robinson, 76, referring to former L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez on Tuesday at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall. "She needs to go," said Robinson, a retired nurse. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Ella Robinson grew up in a racially diverse neighborhood in Compton in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and doesn't recall being called derogatory names. Now, listening to the leaked recording, the 76-year-old retired nurse said the politicians' comments about Councilmember Mike Bonin's Black son were the hardest to hear. "Its a sad thing for a woman to call the baby monkey," Robinson, of West Adams, said, sitting inside Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall. "Thats a shame. That really hurt me more than anything because when you call him a monkey, youre calling me a monkey." Robinson, whose husband is Panamanian, added, "I hope they lose their jobs because they don't work for the public anymore. They don't deserve to be there." In View Park, Ray is as upset as she was when she first heard the recordings. A retired government worker, she has been having tough conversations with her children and grandchildren about how Black people have fought for representation, or the proverbial seat at the table, so that their concerns, interests and voices are reflected in policies and legislation. She urged them to get involved by voting and participating in government. Maybe my time has passed, she said. But darn it, their time is now, and they need to do something. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. After a Black worker complained about a co-worker calling him a racial slur, the HR director defended the use of the slur saying it was taken the wrong way and went on to harass him, according to a new federal lawsuit. The former HR director for Bartow County, Georgia ordered the pair to shake hands, telling the worker to forgive and forget, court documents state. This took place during a meeting about the workers complaint. However, he refused to shake hands with his co-worker and was fired two weeks later along with his brother-in-law, who is also Black and worked for the county, the Justice Department says. Now the Justice Department is accusing Bartow County of race discrimination and retaliation against both men who were fired from their positions within the countys road department, according to a news release. The department filed its lawsuit on Oct. 13. McClatchy News contacted the county and its road department for comment on Oct. 14 and was awaiting a response. No one should be forced to labor in an environment where employers condone racial slurs and employees are expected to tolerate them, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan, of the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement. The worker and his brother-in-law first filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the release. After the agencys Atlanta office investigated their complaints, it found reasonable cause that Bartow County possibly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and referred the charges to the Justice Department. The case The worker was employed by the Bartow County Road Department, which is in charge of county roads, from 2009 until he was fired in 2019, according to court documents. While working there, he was continuously promoted until reaching the position of a mechanic II. His brother-in-law began working part-time for the department in 2016 before getting promoted to a full-time worker after a few months, a complaint states. Story continues Outside of work, the former county mechanic raises pigs and had texted his co-worker a pig feed recipe on June 5, 2019, according to the complaint. The next day, the man received a text from the co-worker, who is white, that said (racial slur) at work showed me this, I aint tried it, the complaint states. Bartow County has a policy stating workers who believe they face discrimination or harassment must report it to HR, according to the Justice Department. The man complained to a supervisor about his co-workers use of a slur the following Monday, June 10, according to the complaint. He also made it clear he did not want to work with the co-worker going forward. His complaint made its way to the countys HR director, who called the man into a meeting in her office that same day, the complaint says. With his co-worker present in the room, the HR director immediately began defending (the co-worker) and harassing (the man), leading him to believe he had done something wrong by reporting the text message and that it had offended him, the complaint states. She said the man had no reason to take offense to the slur, asserting that the worker listened to rap music that uses (the slur) and probably refers to his friends using the same term, according to the complaint. Then, the HR director searched the slur on her phone and read a definition to him saying You dont think this is you? before adding Why didnt you just call him a cracker and be done with it?, the complaint states. In response, the man said we are all too old in this room to not know why this word is offensive but the HR director wanted him to move on from the issue, according to the complaint. At the end of the meeting, the HR director asked the man if he had told anyone else about the matter, and he said he told his brother-in-law, the complaint says. I wish you hadnt done that, the HR director responded before telling the road department director to keep his eyes on him, according to the complaint. In the days after the meeting, both workers were accused of misconduct in relation to their submitted time sheets and were questioned about their work hours, the complaint says. Prior to the man complaining about his co-worker, the pair had never been questioned about their work before. Two weeks after the man reported the slur, both he and his brother-in-law were fired for alleged discrepancies in their time sheets, according to the Justice Department. The Justice Department accuses the county of wrongfully firing the men in an act of retaliation. Both men have experienced significant pain and suffering, emotional distress, anxiety, stress, and loss of enjoyment of life caused by the discriminatory conduct of Bartow County, the complaint states. Months after the men were fired, the HR director was investigated after a firefighter accused her of sexual harassment, according to the complaint. Instead of firing her, the county allowed her to resign. The Justice Departments lawsuit seeks to recover monetary damages, including lost wages, for the men and demands a trial by jury. Bartow County is 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. Black worker was forced to endure racial slurs and fired for reporting it, feds say Supervisors mocked Latino construction workers for not speaking English, feds say Black veteran hired as technician was called slurs and given degrading tasks, feds say 100 years of the Beeb (Getty/BBC) How do we possibly begin to sum up 100 years of the BBC? It often feels like an immutable part of our country, like tea, or motorways, or oxygen. How do you talk about that? While it has changed and grown enormously over the decades, the BBC has long been Britains defining cultural force, our foremost way of communicating with the outside world, and with ourselves. It is exactly this omnipresence, however, which has left it at perennial risk of being taken for granted both by the British public and by those in charge of it. It wasnt always this way, of course. The British Broadcasting Company Ltd, when it launched on 18 October 1922, was a different animal. On 14 November, it made its inaugural broadcast, on the day before the general election. The day after, it broadcast the results the Conservative party retained power, with Labour leapfrogging the liberals to become their main competitors. (Of course, this was long before the days of the BBCs famous Swingometer.) In 1922, we can already see the DNA of what the BBC is as a cultural project not just a piece of technology, but a set of ideas about how to improve peoples lives, says David Hendy, a former BBC producer and author of books including The BBC: A Peoples History. It was something with a cultural and moral vision. It may have been born in 1922, but many see 1926 as the year that the Beeb came of age. A general strike, held in support of the coal miners, brought the newspapers to a halt. Overnight, the British Broadcasting Company became essential for anyone wanting to keep up with news. At the end of the year, the British Broadcasting Company was dissolved and reformed into what we now know as the BBC. But the strikes, and the BBCs coverage of them, raised new questions about the mission of the broadcaster. Its clearly a moment where we can see the vulnerability of the BBC to the threat of government takeover, says Hendy. And we can also see the BBC acting cautiously and changing the news coverage in response to that threat. So the BBC survives. But it also reveals that the government has the ultimate power to take it over in conditions of national emergency. Story continues Where did the BBC go from there? The BBC Television Service launched properly in 1936, after a few years of experimental broadcasts from the basement of Broadcasting House. Its programming ranged from Mickey Mouse cartoons to the Kings coronation in May 1937 though the channel shut down for the duration of the Second World War. The war proved transformative not just in disseminating the BBCs quickly expanding product around the world, but in allowing the Beeb itself to adopt a more cosmopolitan identity, as European refugees and other immigrants came to London, and began working for it. When BBC TV finally returned to the airwaves, presenter Jasmine Bligh greeted viewers by saying: Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me? As Britain entered the latter half of the century, wartime scarcity slowly gave way to prosperity which had its own ramifications for the BBC. Perhaps the main way this manifested was in the burgeoning market for household TVs. Queen Elizabeths coronation in 1952 was watched by more than 20 million people in the UK alone. (Im sure youd have got some very strange looks if you told anyone watching then that 70 years later, that very same queen would be sharing the BBCs screen with a computer-generated Paddington Bear.) But TV hadnt taken over just yet. The BBCs radio stations continued to innovate, with the 1940s and early 1950s seeing the launch of several of the broadcasters best-loved series. Desert Island Discs launched in 1940, and somewhat incredibly remains one of the worlds foremost celebrity interview series to this day. The Archers and The Goon Show both began in 1951, proving that the BBC could be just as adept at upright dramas as subversive and boundary-pushing comedy. The voice cast of The Archers (BBC) In the 1950s, the Beeb started to spread its wings when it came to TV, through programmes like The Quatermass Experiment (1953), its one-off adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954), or police procedural Dixon of Dock Green. Hancocks Half-Hour (1954 to 1961), meanwhile, proved hugely influential in the development of what was to become the modern sitcom. David Attenborough also began his seven-decade career as a nature documentarian, and was pivotal in establishing the BBC Natural History Unit in 1957. As the decades passed, the BBC continued to enjoy a greater diversity of programming. Attenborough became controller of BBC Two in 1965, being promoted to overall director of programmes four years later. Sir Hugh Carleton Greenes appointment as director-general in 1960 heralded a new era of ambitious and provocative commissions. Greene establishes the idea that the BBC should be engaged in sometimes offending people, says Hendy. He said to his staff, If youre not offending, disturbing, or unsettling the audience some of the time youre not doing your job properly. After a brief spell of being known as BBC TV, the former BBC Television Service was renamed BBC1 in 1964, to coincide with the launch of BBC2. The new channel offered a platform for programming that was a little more off the beaten track from dystopian TV plays like The Year of the Sex Olympics to docuseries such as Civilisation or Horizon. The BBCs primary channel, meanwhile, moved from strength to strength, with the 1960s bringing programmes including Z-Cars, That Was the Week That Was, Top of the Pops, Tomorrows World, Cathy Come Home, Monty Pythons Flying Circus and Dads Army. Plus, of course, a little sci-fi folly called Doctor Who. In the 1970s, the BBC started feuding with a Labour government that first floated the idea of abolishing the licence fee. Funds were slashed. Despite this, the decade introduced many of the BBCs best-loved series: The Old Grey Whistle Test, Porridge, Are You Being Served?, Fawlty Towers, Ways of Seeing, Not the Nine OClock News, Grange Hill and Question Time among them. Behind the scenes, of course, the company was also being tarnished by heinous sexual abuse which did not surface until decades later. Theres only twice, I think, that the BBCs very existence has been challenged Jean Seaton The era of Margaret Thatcher was a notoriously difficult time, with the hard-right Conservative government often clashing with the BBC. Theres only twice, I think, that the BBCs very existence has been challenged, says Jean Seaton, official historian of the BBC. And the first time was Mrs Thatcher, who was actually sort of a BBC supporter. She came in with a theory that it was really a subsidised state broadcaster, and therefore the market would be doing better. The Falklands War further drove a wedge between the Thatcher government and the Beeb. News presenters were reportedly instructed to remain neutral during the conflict, avoiding pronouns such as our in the descriptions of British forces. Thatcher claimed in her memoirs that the BBC, along with ITV, was assisting the enemy in its reporting of British troop movements. Thatchers argument fell apart, however, after the publication of the Peacock Report in 1985. Written at Thatchers behest, the report, devised by a committee, comprised an advisory review of the BBCs financing. Contrary to expectations, however, the committee concluded that the licence fee should not be scrapped, describing it as the least worst option. There has always been an impressive multifariousness to the BBCs non-news programming. It has always been capable of airing some real, grade-A rubbish, of course The Black and White Minstrel Show shockingly enjoyed a 20-year run on the BBC, ending somehow as recently as 1978. But it was also home to genre-defining comedies (shows like Fawlty Towers gave way to later triumphs such as The Office and The Thick of It) and pioneering dramas (Alan Bleasdales Boys from the Blackstuff; Alan Bennetts Talking Heads; Dennis Potters The Singing Detective). Peter Capaldi in The Thick of It (BBC/Des Willie) The BBC has always enjoyed a push-and-pull relationship with overseas TV. American exports like Kojak and Starsky and Hutch became primetime staples in the 1970s, but audiences gradually came to demand the more relatable dynamics of homegrown fare. As the decades have passed, however, the BBC has remained an essential port of call to find many of the best foreign series, from US dramas like The Wire, or Mad Men, to Scandinavian thrillers like The Killing. Outside of this, its also shown itself to be world-beating in everything from sports, to documentaries, to musical events. The variety is, frankly, staggering. It almost defies logic that something like Mrs Browns Boys once described by The Independent as so awful that its physically painful to sit through can air one week, and something like Stewart Lees Comedy Vehicle the next. Any other broadcaster would be accused of not knowing its audience. But thats the whole deal: the BBCs audience is damn near everybody. The key to the BBCs enduring reputation may lie in its pretty much unparalleled continuity. Many of the most popular shows of today have run for decades. Astronomy series The Sky at Night holds the record for being the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history, having been hosted by Sir Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. Match of the Day; Panorama; EastEnders; Have I Got News for You: certain BBC series became a living, evolving part of the culture, something that successive generations all grew up watching, and were able to put their own spin on. Thats not to say its all been smooth sailing. The BBC has endured its fair share of scandals over the years; to some extent, this is to be expected with a media organisation of its huge, unwieldy scale. But no one expected what came to light in October 2012, when veteran presenter Jimmy Savile, who had died a year previously, was found to have been a heinous and prolific paedophile while under the auspices of the BBC. Questions surfaced over a Newsnight investigation, with claims that the BBC had suppressed the story. The whole process was deeply traumatic, says Hendy. It was as if the BBC was eating itself. By the time youve got Panorama investigating Newsnight, you know the BBC is in trouble. Conservative and Conservative-led governments have imposed severe reductions in the BBCs existing capacity Tom Mills While it is undoubtedly the blackest mark on the BBCs reputation, the Savile scandal has been far from the only thing to rock confidence in the BBC in recent years. Since 2018, the BBC has seen public trust in it plummet from 75 per cent to 55 per cent (according to Reuters ), though it remains the nations most trusted news source. The election that brought the Tories into power in 2010 has seen the Beeb squeezed from both sides. For many Conservatives, its a matter of ideology. Back in 2004, a think tank run by Dominic Cummings (an influential Tory adviser before his ignominious mid-pandemic downfall) stressed the need for the British right to undermine the BBCs credibility, deeming it the mortal enemy of the party. Especially since 2019, theres been a cultural element, criticising the BBC for being part of a liberal metropolitan elite and so on, says Hendy. This is an attempt, I think, to make the public fall out of love with the BBC. And so I think that the political climate in recent years is really, again, a poisonous one for the BBC to deal with. The Tories have exerted massive pressure on the BBC, with plans to abolish the licence fee completely set to come into play within five years. Theres been a massive reduction in the BBCs income at a time when audiences are increasingly viewing content online and on demand, explains Tom Mills, author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service. Adapting to this technological shift required significant political support, but Conservative and Conservative-led governments have not only refused to support such a change, they have imposed severe reductions in the BBCs existing capacity. Sian Clifford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag, a BBC and Amazon Studios co-production (BBC) The problem is, the strategy it has opted for can broadly be described as one of appeasement, rather than resistance. Throughout Jeremy Corbyns time as Labour leader, the service drew criticism from figures on the left for perceived bias in its coverage. Among the most substantial complaints was Andrew Neils 2019 pre-election interview with Corbyn which saw the Labour leader subject to a tough, combative grilling, while Boris Johnson failed to appear on the programme in counterpoint. Back in 2016, researchers from the Media Reform Coalition conducted a quantitative analysis of TV news coverage, finding that BBC News at Six gave Corbyns critics twice as much airtime as his supporters, and gave much greater prominence to issues favoured by his critics. While the BBC has of course changed a great deal in the last 100 years, its political orientation hasnt changed nearly as much as you might expect, says Mills. Its still overwhelmingly orientated towards those in and around formal politics. So Whitehall and Westminster; including the lobbyists, lobby journalists, think tankers, political consultants, pundits and so on. And as politics has shifted rightwards, so the BBC has followed. It would, argues Mills, take a very radical shift in the organisational structure of the BBC as well as significant political support to win back the faith of many young left-wing people. That group of people are basically locked out of the formal political system, and that means their interests and perspectives arent well represented in BBC news and current affairs programmes, he says. If you combine that with the shifts in media consumption habits, its a legitimacy timebomb for the BBC. For the BBC, the problem with securing young peoples attention is twofold: not just ideological, but logistic. The BBCs current crisis comes as the future of broadcast TV as a whole is itself in limbo. While the stewardship of John Birt in the 1990s was controversial in many ways, it saw the BBC make savvy investments in the online frontier, to some extent future-proofing the BBC. Of course the BBC will have confrontations... Because its yours. I dont really throw my slippers at Sky News. Because its not mine Jean Seaton Much of what the BBC produces is still vital, and universally popular, even among young people. Attenboroughs nature documentaries continue to somehow reach new heights with each new series; shows like Fleabag and Peaky Blinders have been massive commercial hits around the globe. Few could forget the BBCs astoundingly comprehensive coverage of the 2012 Olympics. There are lots of different routes back to the BBC, says Hendy, for those who say, and act as if, the BBC is not part of their lives. Of course the BBC will have confrontations, Seaton says. Of course it will be blamed by everybody. Partly because you can blame it. Because its yours. I dont really throw my slippers at Sky News. Because its not mine. The BBC is, of course, just one uncertain entity in a country where uncertainty and chaos seem to rule every sphere of public life. As the UK prepares to enter a brutal winter, theres a chance the BBC may be needed more than ever. Look at the BBC during Covid, says Seaton. Radio audiences zoomed up. As we go into the winter, do we think its going to be useful to tell you whether youre going to have any electricity? Or what you do with your son whos on a ventilator? I doubt the governments begun to think its way through any of this yet. Were going to need that kind of public service. With Labour seemingly poised for a landslide victory at the next election, theres reason for cautious optimism that the licence fee will remain, and the BBC will continue to adapt and survive. The problems, however, run deeper than just one government. A hundred years may make for a nice plaque. But the question is where it goes from here. A 13-year-old boy has been arrested for the killing of a 68-year-old Asian American clerk during a shoplifting stint at a liquor store in Highland Park, Los Angeles, on Oct. 6. The minor, whose identity has been withheld due to his age, is among four teenagers accused of the brutal attack at Tonys Market on Figueroa Street and East Avenue 40. Police are still looking for one male suspect and two female suspects who are all believed to be 18 or under. Steven Reyes was working at the store at around 7 p.m. when the teenagers entered and tried to steal a case of beer. As he attempted to take it back, one of the shoplifters took an electric scooter and bashed him in the head, his daughter Nelle told CBS Los Angeles. That assailant is the 13-year-old boy, as per the Los Angeles Times. It was not immediately clear what charges he could be facing. More from NextShark: San Jose man faces up to 30 years in prison for smuggling US aviation tech from NASA contractor to China Footage of the attacks aftermath was posted on Instagram. In it, Reyes can be seen lying in a pool of blood as bystanders wait for paramedics to arrive. Reyes was taken to a nearby hospital, where he eventually died. His attackers, on the other hand, managed to flee with the case of beer. More from NextShark: Man's $35 Bowl From Connecticut Yard Sale Revealed to Be Rare $500K Chinese Artifact A vigil in honor of Reyes memory was held at the store on Monday. The Filipino American immigrant, who moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s, is survived by his mother, four children and one grandchild. Reyes worked multiple jobs to support his family. Prior to his death, he lived with his mother in a studio apartment near the store. As Filipinos, we're very family-centered, Nelle told KABC. We all take care of our elderly. That's exactly what he was doing, he was taking care of his mom, you know? Trying to work another job that he can help around the house financially. Story continues More from NextShark: Price of plane tickets to China have gone up as much as 1,000% since pre-pandemic, report reveals Nelle created a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to cover the costs of her fathers funeral and help their family. As of this writing, the campaign has raised $46,069. Investigation into the case continues. Anyone with information about the remaining suspects is urged to call homicide detectives at (213) 996-4184 or 877-LAPD-247. Featured Image via FOX 11 Los Angeles (left) and GoFundMe (right) Brad Pitt has opened up about his past failed relationships nearly a week after Angelina Jolie made several abuse allegations about the actor amid their ongoing legal battle. While speaking to the Financial Times about his series of sculptures on display at the Sara Hilden Art Museum in Finland, Pitt explained how reflecting on his own relationships inspired some of his artwork. I was looking at my own life and really concentrating on owning my own sh*t: where was I complicit in failures in my relationships, where have I misstepped, he shared. After seemingly acknowledging Jolies allegations of abuse, Pitt explained how his sculpture work was born out of what he calls a radical inventory of self and from taking account of those I may have hurt. The Fight Club actor said he began sculpting six years ago, around the same time as his highly-publicised divorce from actor Angelina Jolie. It was then that Pitt connected with artist and exhibition collaborator, Thomas Houseago, as they bonded over their mutual misery. Out of this misery came a flame of joy in my life. I always wanted to be a sculptor; Id always wanted to try it, he explained, adding that hes found how to walk with the pain I experience. Brad Pitts comments come amid his ongoing legal battle with ex-wife Angelina Jolie over the French winery the former couple once co-owned. On 4 October, the Maleficent actress filed a cross-complaint, which contained allegations that Pitt had choked one of their children onboard a private jet in 2016. The court filings, which were obtained by The New York Times, claims that Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face and grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her. The filing also states that, at one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children. Jolie filed for divorce just days after the alleged fight took place on a flight from France to Los Angeles. Story continues According to Jolies lawyers, negotiations to sell her share of the Chateau Miraval winery to Pitt had broken down after he allegedly demanded she sign a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitts physical and emotional abuse of her and their children. In October 2021, Jolie sold her stake in the French winery to a subsidiary of Stoli Group, which Pitt claims was without his approval and a violation of his contractual rights. Following Jolies most recent allegations of abuse, representatives for Pitt refuted the claims, calling them completely untrue. The actors lawyer, Anne Kiley, added that Pitt had been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation but would not own anything he didnt do. Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done, Kiley said. A Brewster police officer caught on video angrily grabbing a man who wanted to file a complaint against him has been indicted on felony charges that he falsified claims to justify arresting the man. Officer Fernando Quinones pleaded not guilty Thursday at his arraignment in Putnam County Court. On Oct. 28, 2021, Quinones pulled Alexander King over for allegedly using his cellphone while driving. King felt Quinones mistreated him and drove to police headquarters to file a complaint. In the parking lot, Quinones confronted him, asking what King was doing there. King, who had begun recording with his cellphone, told him he was going to see his supervisor. Video of Brewster police office Fernando Quinones' arrest of Alex King does not bear out what the officer wrote in the criminal complaint. The video appears to show Quinones grabbing King by the neck and forcing him to the ground. It did not back up Quinones account that he included in the court documents charging King with attempted assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. The criminal charges against King were dismissed last month. Charges related to an arrest of King following a traffic stop by Quinones earlier that same month are also likely to be dismissed as early as Monday. Confrontation:Video shows officer grabbing man who wanted to file a complaint Body cams:Brewster police lack policy related to body-worn cameras Greenburgh:Police say ex-sergeant tried to coerce officer King, who testified before the grand jury, was elated to learn of the indictment Friday. "It's awesome for me," he said. "For awhile I didn't think anything would come of it. We certainly wouldn't be talking now if I hadn't taken that video." Police Chief John Del Gardo and Mayor James Schoenig could not be reached for comment. Both defended Quinones earlier this year based on what they described as King's aggressive reaction to being ticketed. Quinones' lawyers, Andrew Quinn and John D'Alessandro, expressed disappointment with the indictment. Both have known Quinones for years, D'Alessandro as a colleague when both worked in the Yonkers Police Department and Quinn as the Yonkers PBA lawyer. Story continues A screenshot from a cellphone video taken by Alexander King shows Brewster police Officer Fernando Quinones with his right hand at King's neck during an arrest in the parking lot at police headquarters on Oct. 28, 2021. Quinn described him as a dedicated, well-respected cop who spent more than a dozen years as an emergency services officer, including time working at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "We do not see any criminal conduct whatsoever," Quinn said, regarding Quinones' description of the confrontation with King. A lawsuit filed by King against Quinones and the village alleges excessive force by the officer in addition to wrongful arrest. The Quinones indictment does not accuse him of anything related to the physical confrontation. He is charged with three counts each of: first-degree falsifying business records, offering a false instrument and making an apparently false statement, all felonies. He is also charged with one count of official misconduct, a misdemeanor. Quinones, 58, was released without bail and is due back in court Nov. 22. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted of any of the felonies. He joined the Brewster Police Department as a part-time officer in 2016, four years after wrapping up a 23-year career in Yonkers. He has been out on disability for months over an injury unrelated to the King case. He is the second village cop arrested in the past year. Officer Wayne Peiffer pleaded guilty in April in Brooklyn federal court to accepting sexual favors in exchange for protecting sex traffickers who brought prostitutes to Brewster. Staff writer Asher Stockler contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Police officer in Brewster indicted on false arrest charges People who knew Nicholas Brutcher, the suspect in the killing of two Connecticut police officers, described him as "rowdy" and "always drinking." In an interview with the New York Post, a neighbor of his brother, Nathaniel Brutcher, said that "Nick was the big rowdy one." The woman added that Nicholas, who the Post said was a divorced father, was a "big teddy bear." Another neighbor told the outlet that Nicholas would visit his brother and that he was "always drinking." "I dont know much about [Nicholas], except he drinks a lot," he said. "The dudes always drinking. Hed be around, checking on his brother." 2 BRISTOL POLICE OFFICERS KILLED, ONE SEVERELY INJURED IN PRE-PLANNED AMBUSH The same neighbor described Nathaniel Brutcher as a "man-child" who he claimed was into drugs. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Photos on Facebook show the brothers posing with guns. According to the female neighbor, Nicholas and Nathaniel have two other brothers and an adopted sister. MISSING GEORGIA TODDLER QUINTON SIMON LIKELY DEAD; POLICE NAME MOTHER AS PRIME SUSPECT A preliminary investigation found officers had been responding to a 911 call reporting a possible domestic violence incident between the brothers. Police believe the 911 call was a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene. Upon arrival around 10:30 p.m. ET, the officers were immediately encountered by a suspect and shots were fired. Nicholas was shot and pronounced dead at the scene, and Nathaniel was wounded and transported to a hospital. It remains unclear whether Nathan had shot at officers. Officer Alex Hamzy, 34, died at the scene and Sgt. Dustin Demonte, 35, was taken to Bristol Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Officer Alex Iurato, 26, was transported to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford for surgery after sustaining a severe gunshot wound. Neighbors told The Associated Press that they heard about two or three sets of gunshots. Story continues Police have yet to said who opened fire, who fired the fatal shots or how many guns were fired in all. Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould called the incident "senseless violence," saying his department had been "rocked." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Gov. Ned Lamont ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff in the officers honor. A vigil was held Thursday afternoon for the fallen officers at Bristol Eastern High School Hamzy's alma mater and a "Bristol Police Heroes Fund" has been established through the Bristol Police Union at Thomaston Savings Bank to support the families. The Associated Press contributed to this report. HANNAH MCKAY/Reuters On Thursday, just 37 days after being appointed British finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng was asked if, in a months time, he would still be in his job and Liz Truss would still be prime minister. Absolutely, 100 percent, Kwarteng answered. Im not going anywhere. Less than a day later, he was gone. Truss Friday removal of Kwartengher closest ideological allyfrom the second most powerful role in government so soon after choosing him to run the British economy is easily the worst humiliation among a cavalcade of catastrophes to hit Truss administration since it took over from the disgraced Boris Johnson slightly over a month ago. New British PM Liz Truss First Month in Power Is Officially a Record-Breaking Sh*tshow You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor, Kwarteng wrote in a letter Truss which he shared on Twitter on Friday. I have accepted. After praising Truss vision of optimism, Kwarteng added: We have been colleagues and friends for many years. In that time, I have seen your dedication and determination. I believe your vision is the right one. Your success is this countrys success and I wish you well, the letter concludes. Kwartengs rapid downfall began with his mini-budget delivered on Sept. 23. The statementwhich set out a radical reimagining of British economic policy in line with a radical right-wing agendaincluded the biggest cuts to U.K. taxes in 50 years while also guaranteeing energy prices. It also included scrapping the cap on bankers bonuses, as well as getting rid of the top rate of taxa policy which would only benefit the richest earners. As well as being despised by the electorate, financial markets reacted to the unfunded proposals with horror. The pound collapsed to an all-time low against the dollar and the Bank of England was forced to take emergency action to prevent total ruin for pension funds. Kwarteng and Truss were forced into making an embarrassing U-turn on dropping the top rate of tax earlier this month. We get it, and we have listened, Kwarteng tweeted as he announced the 180. Story continues But as economic chaos continued to roil Britains finances, speculation built this week that Truss and Kwarteng would have to overturn even more of their calamitous mini-budget. Kwarteng was supposed to stay in Washington, D.C., for an International Monetary Fund summit but flew back to London a day early as the crisis mounted. His sacking makes him the second shortest-serving U.K. finance minister in history. The shortest was Iain Macleod, who died of a heart attack just 30 days after starting the job in 1970. With her policy agenda destroyed, Truss will now attempt to replace Kwarteng and cling onto powerpossibly by turning to the policies of her Conservative leadership rivals who said her plans would lead to the catastrophe she now finds herself in. Unsurprisingly, opposition lawmakers and even members of her own party are already demanding that Truss resigns. The question will now turn to how long she can hold on. A scathing article in the Economist this week concluded that her grip on power ended with the mini-budget, and that when accounting for the ten days of mourning after the death of Queen Elizabeth II which overlapped with Truss first days in power, the prime minister actually only enjoyed around one week in power. That is roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce, the piece said. And as news broke on Friday that Kwarteng was returning to Britain early, the Daily Star newspaper setup a satirical livestream of a lettuce withering in real time, asking Can Liz Truss outlast this lettuce? 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. OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) -Burkina Faso's military officials, political parties and civil society leaders on Friday officially designated army captain Ibrahim Traore as the country's transitional president, two weeks after he seized power in Burkina Faso's second coup this year. About 300 delegates are meeting over two days in the capital, Ouagadougou, to outline plans to return the West African country to constitutional rule. Burkina Faso is struggling with a violent insurgency waged by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that began in neighbouring Mali in 2012 and has spread to other countries south of the Sahara Desert. The violence has killed thousands, displaced nearly two million and fuelled political instability. Frustration over growing insecurity spurred two coups in Burkina Faso this year, and two in Mali since 2020. Traore, the captain who led the Sept. 30 coup, was expected to be named head of Burkina Faso's interim government. That was confirmed when the delegates adopted an article of a charter which said the head of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR), the group of officers led by Traore, will be president of the transition, according to four sources in the room. Traore has made a commitment in statements to a democratic transition timeline agreed between his predecessor, Paul-Henri Damiba, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore constitutional order by July 2024. The new junta's proposed transition charter is aligned with the previous one, approved during a similar meeting after Damiba seized power in January. It states that the interim president will not be eligible to run in presidential, legislative and municipal elections marking the end of his or her mandate. ECOWAS is struggling to facilitate a return to constitutional order in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, all of which have seen military takeovers since 2020. The coups, including one in Chad, have raised concern of a backslide in democracy in West and Central Africa against the backdrop of rampant Islamist insurgency. (Reporting by Anne Mimault and Thiam Ndiaga; Writing by Sofia Christensen and Nellie Peyton; Editing by Bate Felix, Robert Birsel and Josie Kao) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Californians are voting now through Election Day on whether to approve a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion and contraception, one of several measures on ballots nationwide this November to address reproductive health care following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Proposition 1 is expected to pass in the heavily Democratic state and was part of a robust legislative package backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure California remains a haven for people seeking abortion services. Legislators placed the measure to amend the constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot days just after the court ruled in June that states could decide whether to allow abortion. Polling shows high support for the measure at least two-thirds of likely voters said yes in two surveys with minimal financial opposition from the California Republican Party and others who call the proposition expensive, extreme and unnecessary. But the measure's supporters want to send a resounding message that abortion is legal and accessible in California, and they hope a solid win will inspire other states also to enshrine the right in their constitutions. The challenge is we had a very short runway, so it really is about awareness. We know when people are aware that abortion is on the ballot, theyre likely to come out and vote for it, said Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, which supports the measure. California joins Michigan and Vermont in asking voters in November to protect the right to abortion. In Kentucky, voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to declare there is not a right to an abortion. A measure in Montana asks voters whether to require medical care and treatment for infants born alive after an attempted abortion. The amendment in California would declare that 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. Story continues Opponents say the measure was put on the ballot to score political points with women and drive voter turnout in favor of Democrats. They also say the measure contains no gestational or viability limits on abortion, meaning a fetus could be aborted late in pregnancy even though it's capable of surviving outside the womb. California law currently restricts abortion to only before a fetus is viable, which is usually defined as around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions in the third trimester are rare, and in California, permitted only if the mothers life or heath is at risk. Californians don't support late term abortions, said Catherine Hadro, spokesperson for the No on Prop. 1 campaign. The measure's supporters say a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion will have no bearing on limits placed on abortions by lawmakers. The constitution has always meant to be a broad framework of rights and the Legislature decides the scope of the laws, this wont change what is in statute right now, said Hicks of Planned Parenthood affiliates. A September survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found 69% of likely voters would support the proposition, including 33% of Republicans. An August poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 71% of registered voters would vote yes. Nearly 40% of people who said they would vote yes said that abortion should be legal in most, but not all, cases, said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. It's not clear how much opponents' arguments will stick with voters, if at all. Thats something people will be asking about between now and Election Day, especially those people who say it should be OK in most cases, he said. Before Roe was overturned, the overwhelming majority of abortions in the United States around 90% occurred in the first trimester or at 13 weeks or earlier, said Katrina Kimport, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. An estimated 1% of abortions occurred at 21 weeks or later, she said. Women who have abortions in the third trimester generally fall into one of two categories, she said. They've either learned new information, such as a serious health issue with the fetus that could not be ascertained in earlier trimesters, or they faced insurmountable obstacles preventing them from getting an abortion earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Dobbs may actually increase the number of women seeking third-trimester abortions, she said. California's abortion ballot measure and new state legislation protecting abortion are all helpful but not sufficient, said Donna Crane, political science lecturer at San Jose State University and Menlo College. That's because Congress can always pass a federal ban and the conservative U.S. Supreme Court is likely to take up new conflicts that could result in more limitations, said Crane, who served nearly two decades as strategist and lobbyist with NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, D.C. and supports Prop. 1. California can pass law after law after law, she said, and the federal law will always trump us. KYIV (Reuters) -Calls by a Russian-installed official for residents to flee the Russian-occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine and go to Russia amount to "deportation", a Ukrainian regional official said on Friday. Vladimir Saldo, who was appointed head of the region by Moscow after Russian forces seized it early in the war in Ukraine, publicly asked for government help on Thursday in moving civilians out. Saldo made his appeal following advances by Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine. "We understand that there can be no evacuation, this is nothing more than deportation that Saldo calls for," Serhiy Khlan, a member of Kherson's regional council, told a briefing. "This 'evacuation' announced by Saldo is an evacuation for collaborators and traitors in the region... they want to take these collaborators to Russia," Khlan said. Most of the Kherson region was seized in the first days of Russia's invasion as it sent in troops from adjoining Crimea. It is one of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia proclaimed as its own last month in a move overwhelmingly condemned by Kyiv and by the U.N. General Assembly. "The occupiers understand that they will not be able to hold on for long, especially on the right bank (of the Dnipro River) and in the city of Kherson," Khlan said. (Reporting by Max Hunder, Editing by Timothy Heritage) EDITOR'S NOTE: This article covers a range of mental health impacts following natural disasters, including mentions of suicide. Crisis hotlines and additional resources can be found at the bottom of the article. As Hurricane Ian carved through Florida, calls to one mental health helpline skyrocketed. Collier County's branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) saw a sharp increase in calls to its "warmline" -- a line usually dedicated to offering early intervention and emotional support to prevent a mental health crisis -- during and since the devastating storm, Beth Hatch, CEO of the Collier County NAMI branch, told AccuWeather. Even when the storm subsided, the calls to the crisis line continued pouring in. The weight of Hurricane Ian's emotional toll continues to ring out across the country as communities in the hard-hit areas of Florida slowly come to terms with the loss of loved ones, homes and futures that, for some, are now veiled in uncertainty. "Everything in the house is a total loss...every square inch of the house [was] full of water," Orlo Vista resident Damion Johnson told AccuWeather National Reporter Jillian Angeline. Located only a few miles west of Orlando, the community saw intense flooding as Ian cut across the state. In areas along Florida's southwest coast, the emotional weight of Ian's landfall continues to unfold. Holly Harmon places a rose into a memorial for victims of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. More than 100 died during the hurricane, with the greatest number in Lee County. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves) "It's horrible. As they say, it's like a war zone," Fort Myers Beach resident Alice Barrett told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell. "Everything that you used to know is gone." A Medical Examiners Commission report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement obtained by AccuWeather reported that at least four men took their own lives after viewing their losses. Three of the men had been from Lee County, where Hurricane Ian first made landfall over Florida, and the fourth had been from Sarasota County. All of the men had been 65 or older. Story continues GET THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP Ian made landfall over Florida as a strong Category 4 hurricane, its powerful winds and storm surge wrecking causeways that connected communities to the mainland, tossing boats ashore like toys and sweeping entire homes off their foundations. The storm surge in Fort Myers Beach, one of the hardest hit locations, was found to have measured at least 15 feet, plus the rough surf and waves, authorities told Wadell. The rising waters made it nearly impossible for Johnny Two Feathers, a resident of San Carlos Island located between Fort Myers Beach and Estero Island, to escape his own home as flood waters rose to his chest. The wind hurled boats around his home, one anchor taking off part of his roof and the bow of another boat smashing into his walls. "I'm lucky," Two Feathers told Wadell. "Like I said, this is the worst hurricane I've ever been in." San Carlos Island resident Johnny Two Feathers tells AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell that Hurricane Ian was the worst hurricane he had ever been in. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell) As the number of fatalities continued to mount in the days following landfall, Ian was recognized as not only one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Florida in recent years but also one of the deadliest. With over 100 deaths confirmed and officials continuing to confirm fatalities, Ian is the deadliest hurricane on record to hit the state since the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane claimed around 400 lives. Destroyed homes, businesses and vehicles presented additional financial burdens for families on top of the already traumatic experience. "We know from studying a lot of storms in the past that about a third to even up to more than 50% of people will have a mental health impact after a disaster," Dr. Jennifer Horney, head of epidemiology at the University of Delaware, told AccuWeather Prime Host Adam Del Rosso. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, insomnia and other kinds of mental health issues are normal following a hurricane, she added. The state of Florida has a crisis hotline, and the federal government hosts a disaster distress helpline for people seeking crisis counseling following Ian. Hatch and her teams have also been going door to door to check on residents and deliver meals in some instances alongside NAMI's community partners. "What happens is that mental health is not the priority at first, by any means. It's that survival state," Hatch explained, adding that when basic needs aren't met, it also has mental health side effects. Cars and debris from washed-away homes line a canal in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. Hurricane Ian confounded one key computer forecast model, creating challenges for forecasters and Florida residents. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File) "As the recovery progresses, we expect people to be able to use their resources to be able to be resilient and bounce back, but a share of the people impacted won't be able to do that," Horney said. "And in part that's because of a lack of access to adequate resources for crisis counseling." The years following disasters more often than not are characterized by navigating the bureaucracy of disaster recovery aid, deciding whether to rebuild or move entirely and focusing on reestablishing basic needs lost during the storm. Short-term crisis counseling is usually available starting 60 days after a disaster to a year, but then funding typically dries up. With less accessible resources, mental health is often placed on the back burner. In a study on suicide rates in U.S. counties that experienced a disaster between 2003 and 2015, Horney and her colleagues found suicide increased by 23% when comparing the three-year period before the event to the three years that followed. Suicide rates jumped 26% within just the first year of recovery after hurricanes before returning to the baseline in the second year. Ian's long-term impact on mental health will vary even among neighboring communities due to the availability of resources, or lack thereof. "We do see resilience in communities who come together to help one another out after a disaster, but that sort of myth of resilience, we also want to push back on that because everyone's not equally able to avail themselves of the resources that are available," Horney said. "So we really need to continue to focus on making sure that people have equitable access to what's available to help them after a disaster." Snowbird William Wellema, who would spend six months a year at his trailer in Red Coconut mobile home park on Estero Island, tears up as he talks about his frustration at not being allowed on to the island to survey what remains of his trailer and recover whatever he can, after Hurricane Ian, in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, Oct. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) Community stigmas surrounding mental health treatment, transportation, language, and finances are a few barriers that may prevent someone from accessing long-term mental health care in addition to mental health facilities not having enough staff to keep up with the demand. These hurdles in access to mental health following a hurricane often disproportionately impact people from marginalized communities, and Rob Todaro, senior communications manager for The Trevor Project, told AccuWeather that this includes LGBTQIA+ youth. "We must acknowledge that the climate crisis will continue to disproportionately burden and displace the most marginalized communities, including LGBTQ young people who already face higher rates of homelessness and food insecurity, along with experiences of discrimination and barriers to mental health care," Todaro said. "It's crucial that we address the negative mental health impacts of the climate crisis, and connect our young people with the support services and care they need to navigate this increasingly uncertain world." Research over the years has strongly indicated that climate change is contributing to more damaging storms, with rising sea levels likely causing higher coastal inundation levels. Also, tropical rainfall rates, the intensity of storms and the proportion of storms that reach Category 4 and 5 strength are projected to increase due to a warming atmosphere, according to current research. Andre McCourt carries water-logged furniture out of his house on Oct. 4, 2022, in North Port, Florida. Residents were cleaning up after Hurricane Ian came ashore. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) This is not a possibility for the distant future, but rather something scientists have already observed. In fact, a study from 2021 found that at least $8.1 billion of Superstorm Sandy's damages in 2012 were attributed to climate-mediated anthropogenic sea level rise and resulted in an additional 71,000 people impacted by flooding. In the article "Forecast: Increasing Mental Health Consequences From Atlantic Hurricanes Throughout the 21st Century," researchers argued that as climate change contributes to more damaging storms, health care systems may expect to see more mental illness related to hurricanes. "The complex effect of climate change on the behavior of hurricanes carries implications for the mental health and well-being of storm-affected populations," according to the article. Another reason people might not be able to fully address mental health problems following a disaster, Horney said, is "because we see so many more and so much more severe disasters these days that people don't adequately have enough time to recover before they are under threat for another disaster." As Ian trekked toward Florida, the cone of uncertainty shifted to include Mexico Beach, Florida, which still bears the marks of Hurricane Michael's landfall as a Category 5 storm. Even four years after that storm, local restaurant owner Michael Scoggins told storm chaser Brandon Clement that the city still wasn't completely back on its feet. He cited the hotels in town that still hadn't reopened, making it more difficult for visitors to stay in town. Both Horney and the plethora of studies that research mental health following natural disasters recommended the involvement of psychiatrists in hurricane recovery and more funding for equitable access to mental health support following a disaster. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 9-8-8, the Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress. Disaster Distress Helpline: (800) 985-5990 The Florida 211 Network: Call 2-1-1 or go to TurnTo211.com for crisis counseling. Florida Veterans Support Line: (844) 693-5838 Crisis Text Line: Text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project: Call 1-866-488-7386, via chat at TheTrevorProject.org/Get-Help, or by texting START to 678678. The Trevor Project's trained crisis counselors are available 24/7. Additional reporting by AccuWeather National Reporters Jillian Angeline, Kim Leoffler, Bill Wadell and AccuWeather Prime Host Adam Del Rosso. Want next-level safety, ad-free? Unlock advanced, hyperlocal severe weather alerts when you subscribe to Premium+ on the AccuWeather app. AccuWeather Alerts are prompted by our expert meteorologists who monitor and analyze dangerous weather risks 24/7 to keep you and your family safer. A man was transported to an area hospital with what police say are life-threatening injuries after a carjacking and police chase ended in Troy. Illinois State Police are handling the investigation. ISP Troopers were advised of an aggravated vehicular hijackings that occurred on Interstate 55 northbound heading into Illinois at 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, according to a release. After attempts to stop the suspect, troopers successfully disabled the vehicle in the 7000 block of Plummer Drive in Troy, the release stated. Police did not say how the vehicle was disabled. Police saw the driver had a handgun and then heard a loud noise, the release stated without elaborating on what caused the noise. Attempts to reach state police for clarification have been unsuccessful. The release said that life saving measures were administered on the driver, who was flown to a regional hospital with life threatening injuries. The drivers identity has not been released. A carjacking victim died Thursday evening during a wild police pursuit in Inglewood, Calif., after they were dragged from the back of their vehicle, CBS Los Angeles reports. Authorities are investigating the circumstances leading up to the incident, which began at around 5 p.m. An incident report said detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department's Gang and Narcotic Division were "conducting surveillance" on a murder suspect when they saw him get into a vehicle and drive away. When they tried to perform a traffic stop, the suspect failed to pull over, prompting the pursuit. It lasted for a short time until the suspect crashed, got out of the vehicle and carjacked another one. The suspect then took off in that vehicle, dragging the victim behind as he fled. The chase ended when the suspect collided with a LAPD patrol vehicle and rolled onto its side. Even after the crash, the suspect refused to surrender, barricading himself in the vehicle until finally being taken into custody at around 7:55 p.m, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department. Police reported that the man is a suspect in a murder, but wouldn't provide further details. Video posted to social media show the car resting on it's side surrounding by law enforcement vehicles. Los Angeles Fire Department officials said two people were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries. It wasn't clear what role they played in the incident. Author Mike Rinder on new book "A Billion Years" documents life after Scientology Breaking down the Jan. 6 committees final hearing Residential areas in Ukraine continue to be hit by Russian missiles NEW YORK (AP) Dolly Parton was jokingly uncharitable after the crowd at the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy ceremony tried singing along with her during her acceptance speech at Gotham Hall. That was terrible, the Grammy-winning country superstar said after a muted sing-along of Books, Books, the song she wrote to support her Imagination Library initiative. That philanthropic program, which provides children under five a free book every month, was one of the reasons she was part of this years class of Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy honorees, as well as her donation to coronavirus vaccine research in 2020 that helped develop the Moderna vaccine. Im very proud and honored to be a part of anything that is going to make the world a better place, Parton said, adding that she was pleased to be celebrated along with Dallas entrepreneur Lyda Hill, Kenyan industrialist Manu Chandaria, and Lynn and Stacy Schusterman, from the Oklahoma investment family. The ceremony Thursday night celebrated the 20th anniversary of the award, which was established in 2001 as the Nobel Prize of philanthropy. To mark the milestone, which was postponed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Carnegie institutions launched the Carnegie Catalyst award to celebrate the transformative power of human kindness. The award went to World Central Kitchen, the anti-hunger nonprofit founded by chef Jose Andres. Stacy Schusterman, chair of the Schusterman Family Philanthropies, said she was proud to accept the award with her mother, Lynn, as the first mother-daughter team to be honored in the awards history. However, she said there is also an urgent need for philanthropy to be more collaborative and to take on more challenges to improve society. The U.S. was founded with ideals we have yet to realize, she said in her acceptance speech. When we say, All men are created equal, it is clear men does not yet mean all Americans, including women, gender expansive people, and all ethnicities, races and religions. Story continues The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation was established in 1987 to invest in systemic change in the United States and Israel on matters of justice and equity. When Charles died in 2000, Lynn Schusterman took over the foundation, expanding its work and becoming an outspoken advocate for inclusion, especially for the LGBTQ community. In 2018, their daughter Stacy Schusterman took over the foundation, which changed its name last year to Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Schusterman Family Philanthropies donates more than $400 million annually in programs that focus on justice and equity in the United States and Israel, as well as work in reproductive equity, voting rights and criminal justice. Philanthropy alone cannot solve these problems, Stacy Schusterman said. But we do have a huge responsibility to be a partner at the table to work in partnership with the people and communities most impacted, to take risks and to find solutions. Lyda Hill believes many solutions can come from science. People will look back years from now and say, One of the things the pandemic did was that it brought science to the forefront and it advanced medical research, Hill told the Associated Press in an interview before the ceremony. But we cant just have half the population doing the research for Petes sake. We need the whole population involved. Thats why we started If/Then Its a program to encourage young girls to go into science so they realize thats a field they can go into. We need different thinking. Manu Chandaria didnt keep the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy around his neck for long. As soon as the photographs of him accepting the award were finished, he took the medal from his neck and put it around the neck of his great granddaughter. In his acceptance speech, he explained that it is important for philanthropists to pass on the reasons for giving to future generations. The Chandaria Foundation was established in 1956, providing scholarships in Kenya, and has continued to expand to the point that now it builds education and healthcare infrastructure throughout Africa. In our giving, we want involvement, he said. Its not just writing a check. And I think that this makes a lot of difference because the people know that these people are not going to just write a check and go away. Were going to be there making very sure that the money is utilized properly and brings results. _____ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. ATLANTA (AP) The Carter Center will provide nonpartisan observers to monitor midterm elections in Fulton County, Georgia, a Democratic bastion at the heart of metro Atlanta and at the core of former President Donald Trumps false assertions that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. The Center, co-founded in 1982 by former President Jimmy Carter and Roslaynn Carter, announced Thursday it agreed to observe Fulton voting and vote-counting at the request of a bipartisan group of Georgia elections officials. The move is seemingly intended to ease partisan tensions over how elections are conducted in the state and boost public confidence in the final tallies. But it also comes as part of a new state law that Georgia Republicans could use to take over elections management in the heavily Democratic county that is home to Atlanta. Elections monitoring internationally has been part of The Carter Centers operations for decades, but it has more recently turned its attention to U.S. elections, as distrust in democratic processes has accelerated in recent years. After the 2020 election, Carter Center officials monitored the audit of the states 5 million presidential ballots that affirmed Democrat Joe Bidens victory over Trump. The monitoring request is the latest turn after Georgia Republicans overhauled elections law after Democratic victories in the state in 2020. Soon after the law was passed in 2021, GOP lawmakers from Fulton County used it to trigger a performance review panel charged with assessing elections management in the heavily Democratic jurisdiction. That prompted an outcry from Democrats asserting that Republicans planned ultimately to oust local Fulton officials and take over local elections administration. The law, however, doesn't exclude third-party monitors, thus allowing the joint request to The Carter Center by the review panel members and local Fulton officials. Officials from both groups on Thursday endorsed The Carter Centers role . Story continues We are grateful to The Carter Center for providing their expertise and believe that it will help lead to an efficient resolution of the performance review process, said Ryan Germany, general counsel to the Georgia secretary of states office a member of the Performance Review Board appointed to assess Fulton County. Cathy Woolard, chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, said the local panel is glad for this opportunity to ensure confidence in our elections process, and she noted the Centers extensive work abroad as a measure of credibility. Carter Center officials, according to the announcement, are monitoring the issuance and processing of absentee ballots, in-person voting during the early voting period and on Election Day, Fulton officials Election Day operations, and post-election procedures in the county. The Center has promised a complete report of its findings by the end of the year. Fulton County accounts for about 11% of Georgias electorate. Biden won nearly 73% of the countys votes in November 2020. He won statewide by fewer than 12,000 votes out of about 5 million cast. The county is about 45.5% white, 44.5% Black and about 7.6% people of Asian descent, according to U.S. Census data. The county again will be key in the high-profile Senate contest between Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, and in the governors race between Republican incumbent Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. The Senate race will help determine which party controls the Senate for the final two years of Bidens term. Since its founding, the Center has monitored 113 elections in 39 countries, according to CEO Paige Alexander. In a statement Thursday, Alexander said the Center was providing objective information about elections processes is part of building public confidence in elections. Alexander explained in a recent interview that rising distrust of the democratic process in America has demanded Carter Center attention. As were encouraging people to come to the polls, its because we want people to understand that the election, the integrity of the election is something that they can trust and that their voice would be heard, she told The Associated Press. So were walking down the same path that we do internationally and domestically. Besides monitoring Fulton elections, the Center has launched an initiative asking candidates across the political spectrum to commit to a slate of fair elections principles. Among them: accepting the results and the peaceful transfer of power. In Georgia, Abrams, Kemp and Warnock have signed the principles, as have Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his Democratic challenger Bee Nguyen. - Associated Press journalists Kate Brumback and Alex Sanz contributed. Charges have been dropped in Santa Rosa County against Marcus Spanevelo, the one-time boyfriend of Cassie Carli and the man Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson implicated as the main suspect in Carli's death. Documents filed with the Santa Rosa County Clerk of Court's Office indicate the 1st Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office believes a stronger case can be built against Spanevelo in St. Clair County, Alabama, where Carli's body was found. Cassie Carli, 37, is pictured in this image provided by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office. "In an effort to prosecute the strongest case, and after communicating with law enforcement officers in both states, the Office of the State Attorney believes that in the interest of justice the actions of Marcus Spanevelo are most appropriately prosecuted in Alabama," the court documents state. The decision did not result in Spanevelo being released from custody. He was being held now as an out-of-state fugitive, records show. The latest: Coroner completes autopsy for Navarre woman Cassie Carli. What we know and what we don't. Headed to trial: Marcus Spanevelo, suspect in Navarre woman Cassie Carli's death, set for trial in October The local charges against Spanevelo were dropped Thursday, just ahead of a trial scheduled to get underway with jury selection Monday. He was facing two felony charges of tampering with evidence and giving false information to law enforcement, court records show. He had also been charged with a misdemeanor for declining to provide a DNA sample. Lyle Harmon, the state attorney in St. Clair County, declined to say what charges might be awaiting Spanevelo upon his arrival in Alabama. "I'm not making any comment right now," Harmon said. "When we have an opportunity to make a statement, we'll make a statement." Harmon said he'd been inundated with calls about the case and he was urging reporters to "respect the process." Ginger Madden, the state attorney for Florida's 1st Judicial District, did not return a Friday afternoon phone call seeking comment. Her spokesman, Frederick Longmire, responded to questions about the State Attorney's Office decision by sending a copy of the court document filed Thursday. Story continues "Consistent with our practice and ethical obligations, we do not discuss the facts of a pending investigation," Longmire said in an emailed comment to follow up questions. "Understanding that the State of Florida is working in conjunction with authorities in Alabama to prosecute Marcus Spanevelvo, no further details will be released at this time." Carli, 37, was reported missing March 27 after she failed to return from a custody exchange with Spanevelo, an ex-boyfriend with whom she shared a 4-year-old daughter. Her vehicle was found abandoned at the site of the meeting with her purse still inside. A week-long search for Carli ended during the weekend of April 3 when her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a barn in Alabama. Following Spanevelo's arrest, Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson expressed confidence that a murder charge was imminent. At a press conference held immediately after Carli's body was found, he said "I think (Spanevelo) is either going to spend the rest of his life in prison or he's going to get the needle. Hopefully the needle." SRSO spokesperson Jillian Durkin has told the News Journal that any murder charges filed against Spanevelo would likely come from Alabama authorities since that was the agency tasked with investigating Carli's death. Neither the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office nor the St. Clair County's Sheriff's Office returned Friday afternoon phone calls seeking comment. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Cassie Carlim case: Marcus Spanevelo to be prosecuted in Alabama A rare and dramatic protest in Beijing that criticised President Xi Jinping has sparked an online hunt for the mystery protester's identity, as well as praise for the action. The protester had mounted Sitong bridge in the Haidian district of Beijing, and draped two large banners calling for an end to China's harsh zero-Covid policy and the overthrow of Mr Xi. While state media have remained silent, photos and videos of Thursday's event have circulated widely online, prompting a swift crackdown by censors on social media platforms and the WeChat app used by most Chinese. Thursday's protest took place on the eve of a historic Communist Party congress, where Mr Xi is due to be handed a third term as party chief, cementing his hold on power. The person also set what appeared to be car tyres on fire, and could be heard chanting slogans into a loudhailer. Reports say one person has been arrested in connection to the protest. Pictures of the incident showed police officers surrounding the person, who wore a yellow hard hat and orange clothing. The BBC has asked local police for comment. Many have praised the lone protester's actions, calling them a "hero" and referring to them as the "new Tank Man" - a reference to the unknown Chinese man who stood in front of tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Online sleuths have attempted to track the person down, focusing on a Chinese researcher and physicist hailing from a village in the northern province of Heilongjiang. A BBC check with village officials confirmed that a man with that name used to live there. He had posted what appeared to be a manifesto on popular research site ResearchGate. This was later taken down, though others have since uploaded copies of it. In the 23-page document, he called for a strike and acts of civil disobedience - such as smashing Covid testing stations - on Sunday. This was to stop "the dictator Xi Jinping from illegally continuing in office, so that China can embark on the road to democracy and freedom". Story continues Some Chinese have congregated on the man's two Twitter accounts, posting what they claimed were his pictures and writing hundreds of grateful messages. "You're a hero and you have my respect," wrote one person, while another said: "Salute to the hero of the people! Hope you can safely return!" The man's name is among material related to the protest that has been censored online. No references to the incident could be found on Chinese social media site Weibo as on Friday morning. Footage and pictures of the protest and related keywords including "Haidian", "Beijing protester" and "Sitong bridge" were quickly scrubbed. Phrases tangentially related to the protest, including "bridge" and "hero", also returned limited results. By Thursday evening all traces of the protester's actions had been removed Although Chinese media have not reported on the incident, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin appeared to refer to it when he tweeted on Thursday evening that the "vast majority" of Chinese people supported Communist Party rule and were "hoping for stability and opposing upheaval". Many Chinese have reported that their accounts on social media platforms or WeChat - China's biggest messaging app - had been temporarily banned after they shared pictures of the protest or posted messages alluding to the protest. The BBC has reached out to Tencent, WeChat's parent company, for confirmation. Such dramatic protest - and public criticism of the government - is rare in China, though China's tough "zero Covid" policy has fuelled growing public frustration. In 2018 a woman who defaced a poster of Mr Xi, saying she opposed his "tyranny", was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The Beijing protester's actions come at an especially politically sensitive time, with thousands of police officers expected to be mobilised across the capital ahead of the week-long party congress. (Bloomberg) -- China may refrain from draining cash via medium term loans for the first time in three months as authorities seek to boost market confidence during the Communist Partys twice-a-decade leadership congress next week. Six out of eight economists and analysts in a Bloomberg survey expect the Peoples Bank of China to offer at least 500 billion yuan ($69 billion) of one-year medium-term lending facility on Monday, as half a trillion yuan of policy loans mature this month. Thats after a withdrawal of 200 billion each in the last two months. The cash cushion could boost market sentiment dented by Beijings adherence to its Covid Zero policy and the crippling slump in the housing market, just as President Xi Jinping is set to secure a third term in power. It could also smoothen out the increased demand for liquidity for tax payments and local government bond issuance. The liquidity gap is large as the tax payment amount is typically higher in October while the local governments are required to finish the additional special bond sales, said Xing Zhaopeng, a senior strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, who expects China to fully roll over the maturing MLF. The PBOC could be motivated to keep cash levels ample after the demand for loans recovered more than expected in September, signaling that the stimulus is trickling through into the real economy. Local government bond issuance thats been muted since July could pick up this month amid an infrastructure push. The State Council had urged local authorities to use up more than 500 billion yuan in existing special bond ceiling limits by the end of October. The PBOC may still need to tread cautiously on further easing. Chinas unexpected rate cut in August triggered the yuans slide, which gathered pace on bets for aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes, and prompted the PBOC to announce a number of measures to slow the currencys losses. MLF rate is forecast to be left unchanged at 2.75% this month, according to all but one of the 15 economists who responded to the survey. Story continues Aside from smoothing out liquidity via open market operations and MLF, theres low probability of a reduction in the amount of cash banks need to hold in reserve as it can add to the depreciation pressure on the yuan, said Shuang Ding, Greater China & North Asia chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc. However, some expect the PBOC to prioritize growth, especially after it indicated that a more market-driven approach to managing the yuan has allowed greater independence in its monetary policy. The central bank may cut its reserve requirement ratio by 25 basis points in the remaining year, Citigroup Inc. economists led by Xiangrong Yu wrote in a note. The PBOC will not shy away from a rate cut, if necessary, but it would be data-dependent and more likely focused on the long tenor, they wrote in a note this week. Here are some of the survey results: More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Christy Turlington Burns is taking her maternal health mission to Washington, saying lawmakers arent focusing enough on the issue due to a lack of political will. The model and Every Mother Counts founder spoke earlier this week at a Glamour magazine event in D.C. marking the Hamilton Hotels 100th anniversary, which brought together high-profile figures from the political, media and nonprofit worlds. Turlington Burns said she first learned about maternal mortality rates after she experienced complications following the birth of her now-18-year-old daughter. I assumed this was something that was happening elsewhere, Turlington Burns said, before researching global statistics opened [her] eyes to what was happening in the U.S. We were ranked 41st at the time, today were ranked 55th. So we continue to fall behind, Turlington Burns, echoing data from the World Health Organization, told Glamour editor-in-chief Samantha Barry. Asked by Barry why improving maternal health isnt as high up on the agenda as it should be, Turlington Burns replied, I mean I always think it comes down to political will, right? When we value the lives of girls and women, then the way that we prioritize everything is elevated, she said. We know how to keep women safe. We know what they need to be able to live healthy lives and to thrive in whatever phase of their reproductive lives they are in. And yet we have these unfair expectations of what a woman, or girl, or birthing person is put upon them, which ultimately has an impact on their lives for the rest of their lives. The 53-year-old Every Mile, Every Mother documentary director made a push for paid parental leave and criticized the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision in June that overturned the right to an abortion in her remarks before the majority-female dinner guests at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington. Urging the attendees to head to the polls for the midterm elections, she said, I really encourage you all to show up. We all have a voice. Among the notable names at the Glamorous 100th Anniversary soiree: CNNs Dana Bash and Abby Phillip, Ashley Biden, Me Too activist Tarana Burke, Michelle Obama communications director Crystal Carson, Education Department chief of staff Sheila Nix, MSNBCs Symone Sanders seen chatting with CNNs Kaitlan Collins, Campaign Zero co-founder Brittany Packnett Cunningham, #1000BlackGirlBooks founder Marley Dias and Paid Leave for All founding director Dawn Huckelbridge. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. When it comes to good cocktails and drinks, New York City and London are known to be the best, and they have been, since 2009 when the Worlds 50 Best Bars list was created. As with most things in life, times have changed, and theres a new city that holds the title of the worlds best bar. Paradiso, located in Barcelona, Spain, has been crowned the worlds best bar according to the Worlds 50 Best Bars list for 2022. This is the first time a bar outside of New York or London has ranked #1 on the list. The ceremony was held in Barcelona this year making it the first time London wasnt the host city. The list is determined from 650 bartenders, bar owners, drink writers, and cocktail experts votes. Related: 7 Fun Gay Bars In LGBTQ+ Friendly Cities Around The Globe Barcelona's Paradiso This Mediterranean-inspired speakeasy ranked number 3 on last years list. To visit, youll have to enter through the freezer door of a pastrami bar in the El Born district of Barcelona. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Paradiso (@paradiso_barcelona) Paradisos co-owner Giacomo Giannotti tells 50 Best, Its a big honor to win and a big responsibility. We will work hard to live up to being the best and stick to our principles. Our cocktails try to push creativity. Barcelona is home to three out of the top 10 bars on this years list. Four bars in Spain ranked in the top 50. New York and Londons rankings The two cities might not have come in at number one on this years list, but 5 bars in London and six bars in New York ranked in the top 50. Related: Bar Bario: Inside The Black-Owned, Woman-Led Bar In Amsterdam Derrick Kachisa and Samuel Moyi, full-stack developers from Kericho in Kenya, noticed that locals didn't have access to the information about traditional finance they needed to invest wisely. So they founded Clixpesa, a payments app that wants to simplify finance. Clixpesa is developing easy-to-understand financial tools for savings, loans and insurance, co-founder Kachisa said in an interview. The app will have elements of Venmo and Web3, enabling peer-to-peer payments and loans as well as interest-bearing savings accounts. Clixpesa is a finalist in CoinDesk's Web3athon. The winners are announced at the I.D.E.A.S. conference Oct. 18 and 19. "When we look at the financial products that are offered now, such as loans, savings, and insurance, these things are complicated since traditional financial institutions are creating them," Kachisa said. "The Kenyan community is deterred from these services because they aren't being explained or implemented in a simplified way that a normal person can understand." Up to this point the team of two has been developing Clixpesa in their spare time, with no funding. As participants in Web3athon (a joint CRADL and CoinDesk effort to support community-oriented crypto projects), Kachisa and Moyi are aiming to have a minimum viable product by the end of the year to test on their local community. At this point, they'll consider how to source funding. See also: IndigiDAO: Bringing Blockchain to Indigenous Communities The projects name is derived from one of the most successful peer to peer but non-crypto payments systems called M-PESA. M-PESA simplified digital transactions in Kenya but has yet to provide more complex financial tools. The first product Clixpesa developed is a digitized version of a Kenyan community-saving tool called a Chama more traditionally known as a ROSCA, or rotating savings and credit association. When a community member has something he needs a lot of capital for, like medication, his peers will come together to save up collectively. Once the target is hit, the person will receive their money and the Chama will start saving for the next person until everyones needs are met. Story continues This is a great way to raise money within a community, but it has issues, Kachisa said. First, once someone has received money from the Chama they could simply leave and never contribute again. Second, who do you trust to hold the funds? Once again, that person could simply leave with all of the money. Clixpesa aims to fix these issues by bringing this cooperative saving technique to Web3. Instead of cash, people can use M-PESA or any of Clixpesas other payment options. And instead of a person holding the Chamas funds, its a smart contract. The funds will be released when at least three participants authorize the transaction creating a trustless Chama fund storage system. In time, Clixpesa will also release a trustless payment system, group insurance fund and implementation for third-party services. However, there is still the issue of someone leaving after receiving their payment. Clixpesa tries to fix this by tackling the reasons why someone may leave. As a result, users are able to skip and break down payments into smaller contributions. See also: I.D.E.A.S.: Investing in the Future of Digitization and Computing This first stage of development was completed during the Web3athon, which will announce winners of the six month-long hackathon at the upcoming I.D.E.A.S. conference. The project will enter its second stage of development at the Celos Mobile Hackathon. Clixpesa's second product will allow Chamas to lend their funds to others for a small amount of interest. This allows Chamas to grow their funds but also makes it easier for regular Kenyans to get loans. "In Kenya lending is very costly. The APY on loans is in the 200 percentile," Kachisa said. "That's why we want to use peer-to-peer so we're able to lower the interest for normal users." As a long-term goal, Kachisa and Moyi want to bring investing in stocks and crypto to Kenya. In the medium term, its all about making their Chamas service as frictionless as possible bringing a traditional investing technique to Web3. Oct. 13Anger, sadness and "general unwellness" have created an undertone of tension on the Colorado College campus in Colorado Springs, which has lost three students in less than six months. Two confirmed suicides happened in April and in May, on the last day of school. A third student died a few weeks ago, with the cause not yet determined, Dean of Students Rochelle T. Dickey said Thursday. "It's just really devastating, certainly to the families, to the friends and for our campus," she said. Two of the deaths occurred on campus; the third while the student was at home, she said. The number is high for such a short period of time and unusual for the small liberal arts campus that has about 2,100 students, Dickey said. "We've definitely seen an uptick," she said, adding that other colleges and universities also are posting increases. Two students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill took their lives within a 48-hour period at school in the fall of 2021, and Saint Louis University, Dartmouth College and West Virginia University reported losing multiple students to suicide during the pandemic. Nationwide, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10-34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The trend is continuing. El Paso County has recorded 15 deaths by suicide in the 18- to 24-year-old age group to date this year, compared with 17 total for 2021, said Dr. Leon Kelly, El Paso County coroner and chief medical examiner. Stressors for the age group include difficulty transitioning into adulthood, lack of purpose or meaning in their lives, substance abuse, intimate partner issues and legal troubles, he said. "Many are carrying those same emotional challenges they had as older kids in school into their early adult years," Kelly said. "That's a very tough period for folks who don't have a support system or who don't engage the support system they have which is likely to be the case in high-achieving kids who complete suicide." Story continues A large group of Black, Brown and White students are rallying for change, three students said Thursday after classes. Because while they can't exactly point the finger at the college, which is known as being as expensive and academically rigorous as Ivy League schools, they say administrators aren't paying enough attention or spending enough money on students' mental health, which they say has worsened to a critical point. "There have been concerns about student mental health and safety for years because there is a lot of pressure and anxiety," said Eve Stewart, a junior studying sociology. Students petitioned for a day of bereavement in the spring but only received a 45-minute pause to process the suicides, she said. A few weeks ago, they didn't know for hours which student had died. "I mentally ran through all of the people I knew who were struggling, and then I went back to my paper," Stewart said. "It seems like us creating the grades that gives CC its elitist status as an institution is more important than our wellness." The student newspaper, the Catalyst, published three and a half blank pages and a half-page explanation in its Oct. 7 edition. Editors wanted to give staff time off to deal with the "emotionally draining and psychologically taxing" period. Some students blame the block plan, a schedule in which students dive deeply into one class for three-and-a half weeks, get a four-and-a-half day break and do it all over. "Everyone has a complex life," Stewart said. "We can't sit here and say CC is the reason those people passed, but we definitely have the belief that CC, particularly the block plan, exacerbates a lot of stress and creates greater pressure and anxiety." Said Kat Falacienski, a sophomore English major, "We are essentially encouraged to push through it." When finals happen every month at the end of a block, "it's normal to be crying all the time and not sleeping," said senior Samantha "Sammy" Ries, who's on a pre-med track. Studies conducted by the campus Wellness Resource Center showed that 16% of students had "seriously considered suicide" in the past 12 months and 41% had "developed a plan." Also, 13% of students said they had experienced "unwanted sexual contact," which students identified as another problem contributing to mental imbalance among their peers. Ries said two of her friends had been raped, and the alleged attacker remains on campus attending classes. Stewart also said she had been sexually assaulted as a freshman and was scared to walk to her dorm the rest of the year. A Title 9 complaint resulted in "consent training" for her assailant, she said. Nearly 900 students, parents and alumni had signed a petition as of Thursday, calling for a study of the block plan's effects on mental health. The college has used the block plan as a distinguishing factor for 51 years. As it stands, the model that essentially condenses a class that normally lasts an entire semester into less than one month of study is so demanding of time that students must choose between academic success and attending to mental health, having a social life and on some days, even taking a break to eat, Ries said. The group of students demanding change has grown to 450 supporters, nearly one-fourth of the campus population. The group issued a list of 10 problems they want changed, including that students can take at least one absence for a mental health day without penalty, the campus develop an anonymous reporting line for unsafe classroom environments and that there be a team added to support survivors on campus. Dickey agrees there's work to be done and says upgrades are underway. "There's always room for improvement, and we want to do better," she said. The campus has several suicide-prevention programs in place, she said, peer-support, training on bystander intervention and a course on Mental Health First Aid, a national program that teaches skills to respond to signs of mental illness and substance use. Administrators are talking about forming a task force on mental health, which would include students, parents, staff and alumni, Dickey said. College officials also are looking at implementing mandatory mental health training, one of the students' requests. The school is working on earning a Healthy Minds designation in conjunction with the Colorado Department of Higher Education, Dickey said. The standing requires schools to complete 10 mental health services and training programs. Colorado College also likely will join the Suicide Prevention Collaborative for El Paso County, she said. "There are things we can do internally, and there are some helpful partnerships we can employ as well," she said. "This is something our whole community has to be engaged in." Post-pandemic, college-age adults are reporting increased anxiety and attention and concentration problems, said Amy Garcia, a licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks in Colorado Springs. The latter can spark feelings of persistent irritability, which can lead to a lack of motivation, social isolation or low moods, she said. "These young adults were entering a transitional period in their lives not only in their roles but their personality building and were taken away from social interaction, influence and experiences that help them gain self-awareness during that transition," she said. Connecting the body and mind in a holistic way can help, Garcia said. Individual therapy, campus groups and call lines also are available. "The most important thing for these young individuals to remember is that they are not alone in this," she said. "There are so many others their age that are struggling after the pandemic or became more aware of how much they were struggling during it." WASHINGTON The Army is evaluating what it will need beyond the latest version of the M1 Abrams tank, according to Army leaders overseeing ground combat systems and next-generation combat vehicle development. The upgraded version of the tank is due to be delivered to the service next spring. Its time to look at what happens after SEPV4, [the latest version of the Abrams tank]. Is it SEPV5? Is it something more dramatic? Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the services program executive officer for ground combat systems, said in an interview with Defense News ahead of the Association of the U.S. Armys annual exhibition here. We started to put money into the budget to deliberately support studies, evaluation and experimentation, Dean said, and the Army has been doing quite a bit to bound whats the art of the possible, what should we be considering? The new NGCV cross-functional team lead, Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, spent the last seven months in Poland with the 1st Infantry Division. We had a great opportunity to work not only with Poles, but with the Lithuanians and other European partners on the Eastern Front, see what was happening in Ukraine very closely day in and day out, he said during the same interview. His observations there reinforced the necessity of having operational mobility, the ability to get your vehicles where they need to be on the battlefield, he said. Weight is a major inhibitor of mobility, Norman said. We are consistently looking at ways to drive down the main battle tanks weight to increase our operational mobility and ensure we can present multiple dilemmas to the adversary by being unpredictable in where we can go and how we can get there, he said. The Army is also considering what are tanks most vulnerable to on the battlefield of today and in the future, he said. The service is finding opportunities to experiment, he added, taking a look at a range of alternatives, putting soldiers in virtual prototypes and getting their feedback, not only on the physical platforms but also operationally, how would they fight [with] systems that have different characteristics than what they have right now? How would they fight formations differently if their tanks had different characteristics? Story continues There are many technologies and concepts considered feasible for a derivative of the current Abrams, Norman said. But there are certain things that we would want to do with a clean sheet tank design. The Army is shaping its recommendations for new requirements as new facts come into focus gained from Ukraine or other battlegrounds. Were in a space where we will likely have information that could be presented to senior leaders within the next year about what the range of alternatives are, Norman said. Were looking forward to tee that up and they may have enough information to make a decision within the next year or they may tell us to continue to experiment and explore the range of options. Dean noted that funding to pursue what could be next for Abrams would likely not appear in a budget cycle until fiscal 2025 at the earliest. General Dynamic Land Systems, which manufactures the Abrams tank, is bringing what its calling AbramsX to AUSA this year. AbramsX is a technology demonstrator with reduced weight and the same range as the current tank with 50% less fuel consumption, the company told Defense News ahead of the show. The AbramsX has a hybrid power pack that enables silent watch capability and some silent mobility, which means it can run certain systems on the vehicle without running loud engines. The tank also has an artificial intelligence capability embedded in the system that enables lethality, survivability, mobility and manned/unmanned teaming, GDLS said. Norman said the war in Ukraine has shown the tank remains needed. Tanks are in certain instances vulnerable, no doubt about it, but trucks are even more vulnerable and soldiers without any protection are the most vulnerable, Norman said. So what we need to do is not figure out what were going to do without tanks, without Bradley [Infantry Fighting Vehicles] or without armored fighting vehicles, but figure out how to best protect them and give them the best mobility possible to present those strategic and operational and tactical dilemmas to our adversaries. (Bloomberg) -- Congress is likely to halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the OPEC+ decision to slash oil production, Senator Chris Coons, a close ally of President Joe Biden, said Friday. I think youll see both the administration and the Senate take action, and one of the most likely actions is to stop any future arms sales, Coons, a Foreign Relations Committee member, said in a CNN interview. His remarks show building momentum in the Democrat-controlled Congress to curtail military assistance as a way of punishing Saudi Arabia for the slash in production targets, which the Riyadh-led cartel announced about a month before the November midterm elections. The Democratic senator called the oil-production cut a punch in the gut that helps Russia fund their war of aggression against Ukraine. Coons, who represents Bidens home state of Delaware, spoke days after Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations panel, called for a freeze of all aspects of the US-Saudi relationship including arms sales and security cooperation beyond what is necessary to defend US personnel and interests. Biden earlier this week announced his administration would undertake a review of its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Biden said the kingdom would suffer unspecified consequences. He did not, however, say whether arms sales could be stopped and did not announce a time frame for completion of the review. Any proposal that blocks additional arms sales could leave room for allowing assistance like support for contractors and spare-part shipments to proceed, without which the Saudis would be unable to maintain their sizable arsenal of US military equipment. Biden could also veto any legislation blocking or limiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, like Donald Trump did as president in 2019. Some national security experts have cautioned against such a move, saying it would hurt the Saudis fight against Iran-backed proxies in Yemen and across the region. Republicans could also allow the sales to proceed if they take control of Congress after the November elections. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Ten organisations are urging the Government to ensure that fraud is tackled through the Online Safety Bill (PA) (PA Wire) Consumers cannot afford to wait for vital protections against online fraud, campaigners and financial services industry bodies are warning. Ten organisations, including Which?, MoneySavingExpert, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and UK Finance have joined forces to write a letter to Prime Minister Liz Truss, pressing for quick and effective action. They are urging the Government to ensure that fraud is tackled through the Online Safety Bill so that people are better protected against devastating financial and emotional harm. Analysis of Action Fraud figures indicates that approaching 5 million is typically being reported lost to scams every day. And, as many scams go unreported, the true amount lost by victims is likely to be much higher, those behind the letter said. Further delays to the Bill will result in the continued perpetuation of online fraud, costing people - many of who are already struggling with the cost of living crisis - dearly, devastating their lives and finances beyond repair Letter to Prime Minister Liz Truss They added that there is the potential to stop millions of pounds-worth of scams every year, by tackling the flood of online adverts which are paid for by fraudsters to scam people. The letter says: As a coalition of consumer groups, charities and financial services industry bodies, we have been delighted to see scam advert protections within the Online Safety Bill progress through Parliament over recent months and strengthened at each stage of the legislative process to ensure they can best address the most widespread form of online harm: fraud. We were pleased to hear your recent comments indicating that the Online Safety Bill will return to Parliament this session. The unrelenting scale of harm caused by online fraud through both user generated content and scam advertising and the rate at which the problem is increasing, means that consumers cannot afford to wait for these vital protections. Story continues Further delays to the Bill will result in the continued perpetuation of online fraud, costing people many of who are already struggling with the cost of living crisis dearly, devastating their lives and finances beyond repair. The Government, under your leadership, must commit to finding the quickest and most effective solution to shield UK citizens from becoming victims of fraud ideally by championing this element in the Online Safety Bill through Parliament as soon as possible. This Government has a unique opportunity to make the internet a safer place for British consumers and to not simply kick this problem down the road. The letter is also supported by Carnegie UK, the City of London Corporation, the City of London Police Authority, the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI), the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association (PIMFA) and TheCityUK. The letter also highlights the cost of scams to peoples wellbeing, saying that in some cases people have shown signs of severe emotional distress. It says: Which? estimates the cost to wellbeing at 7.2 billion per year, while in 2021 Action Fraud received between 300 to 350 reports per week where victims showed signs of severe emotional distress due to being scammed, with some needing emergency services dispatched to their homes. The letter adds: The pandemic only increased the need for urgent action, leading to a huge rise in reported instances of fraud as scammers took advantage of emerging consumer vulnerabilities. The intensifying cost of living crisis now presents fresh opportunities for fraudsters to target struggling consumers. A Government spokesperson said: The Government remains absolutely committed to cracking down on the shameless scammers who are targeting the hard-working British public. Our Online Safety Bill will ensure tech giants take tough action to prevent scams on their sites, with huge fines for those who fail to protect their users. Industry is working closely with law enforcement in the Online Fraud Steering Group to stamp out this terrible crime, and later this year we will publish a new strategy to address the threat from fraud. (Reuters) - Credit Suisse Group AG has held talks with a number of banks about underwriting a potential capital increase in case it needs to shore up its balance sheet, Bloomberg Law reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Swiss bank would prefer to avoid selling new shares at current depressed levels, but is making preparations should it be necessary, according to the report. Credit Suisse declined to comment. Zurich-based Credit Suisse's Chairman Axel Lehmann pledged on Friday to reform the bank after a "horrible" 2021 in which it lost billions of dollars. Switzerland's second-largest bank is trying to recover from a series of scandals, including losing more than $5 billion from the collapse of investment firm Archegos last year, when it also had to suspend client funds linked to defunct financier Greensill Capital. Reuters reported last month that Credit Suisse was sounding out investors for fresh cash, approaching them for the fourth time in around seven years as it attempts a radical overhaul of its investment bank. Some analysts have said that the bank could be left with a capital shortfall of as much as 9 billion Swiss francs ($8.96 billion) in the coming years. Credit Suisse is scheduled to release details of a much anticipated strategic review alongside third-quarter results on Oct. 27. ($1 = 1.0047 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta) NEW YORK Cuba Gooding Jr. capped his criminal case with a slap on the wrist Thursday as multiple women he molested slammed his prison-free sentence and said he got special treatment because of who he is. The 54-year-old actor pleaded guilty to a single harassment charge at a hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan per the terms of a plea agreement. Judge Curtis Farber sentenced him to time served. Gooding, who faced a year in prison, traded his previous guilty plea to forcible touching, a misdemeanor, for the harassment violation. That means he has no criminal record. He secured the deal by attending therapy and not getting arrested for six months. The initial charges he faced in June 2019 related to allegations from three women. At least 30 have accused him of misconduct ranging from sexual assault, rape, and groping in the criminal case and two pending lawsuits. The Manhattan district attorneys office, which has for years come under intense scrutiny for its treatment of high-profile men accused of sexual assault, previously said it wanted to spare Goodings victims from reliving their traumatic experiences at a trial. But women who spoke out on Thursday said they felt the outcome had robbed them of the ability to pursue justice. For those of you who may not know, Cuba Gooding Jr. forcibly grabbed, squeezed, and fondled my breast within the first 10 seconds of meeting me at the Magic Hour Club in Manhattan, said Kelsey Harbert. The neuroscience students police report led to Goodings initial arrest. Early on, the system began making special accommodations for him. Every time I questioned why he was receiving VIP treatment, I was given the same answer: Because of who he is. Harberts lawyer, Gloria Allred, described the case as a prosecutorial gift to a celebrity who is undeserving of such an outcome. Goodings plea deal was unusual. It required him to admit to groping Harbert at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge in 2019 and apologize without actually pleading guilty to any related charges. He also had to admit to pinching a womans buttocks at TAO restaurant in lower Manhattan and again say sorry without pleading guilty. Story continues His plea was connected to a 2018 incident in which he forcibly kissed a waitress at LAVO New York. That woman described Goodings penchant for sexually harassing restaurant servers as an open secret in a statement read Thursday by Assistant District Attorney Coleen Balbert. I wasnt going to come forward until I realized I was one of four women working in my restaurant that had an incident with him, and one of those women was coming out, read the unnamed womans statement. One of the other women was my trainee. That night, and her first night on the job, Cuba licked her hand right before she watched him force his tongue into my mouth unexpectedly while I delivered him drinks. During the pendency of the criminal case, state prosecutors filed paperwork containing allegations from at least 22 additional women they wanted to call as witnesses. One would have testified that Gooding followed her out of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, forcibly kissed her in a hallway, and pushed his hand into her crotch with such force it ripped her tights. Another alleged Gooding told her, I can ruin you when she recoiled from him sliding his hand down the back of her pants in 2011 at a restaurant in Georgia. Judge Farber changed his mind about allowing the women to testify after initially giving prosecutors the green light. Many of the women are pursuing their claims in lawsuits filed in Manhattans state and federal courts, including one which charges Gooding with violently raping a woman at the Mercer Hotel in August 2013 after they met at a bar. As part of his plea deal, Gooding had to agree that his criminal case would never be sealed. He had no comment leaving court. The Daily Star's live stream showing a picture of Liz Truss with a lettuce. (Daily Star/YouTube) When Liz Truss sacked Kwasi Kwarteng and U-turned on her key policy to raise corporation tax, she wanted to establish authority and shore up her crisis-hit government. However, with furious Tory MPs reportedly plotting to replace her, there is already a sense the prime ministers premiership may be reaching its end point - after just 38 days. Even by the standards of major disruption in UK politics over recent years, its an extraordinary narrative. And perhaps the best way of capturing that has been courtesy of the Daily Star, which has made light of the crisis by launching a YouTube live stream asking: Can Liz Truss outlast this lettuce? The stream consists of a table with a picture of Truss next to an actual lettuce, with the Star asking if Truss will still be PM within the 10-day shelf life of the lettuce. Watch: Liz Truss abruptly ends press conference as she's asked 'aren't you going to apologise?' More than 2,000 people were watching the video just after 4pm on Friday. In recent years, the Star has become notorious for its irreverent takes on UK politics and politicians. One cover of its print edition earlier this year depicted Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak as Pinocchios after they were fined by police amid the Partygate scandal. Another front page, in May 2020 at the height of the scandal surrounding Dominic Cummings lockdown trip to Barnard Castle, carried a cut-out mask of Cummings with the text: FREE: Do whatever the hell you want and sod everybody else mask. Now, Truss faces the prospect of her premiership playing out next to a decomposing lettuce. Liz Truss answers questions at a press conference in Downing Street on Friday. (Getty Images) The lettuce live stream is the least of Trusss worries, though. The Times has reported one unnamed MP as saying I am ashamed to be a Tory at the moment. On Friday, it also carried an opinion piece by Daniel Finkelstein, a leading conservative commentator and Tory member of the House of Lords, saying Truss now has no mandate and should resign. Sky News, meanwhile, has reported mutiny on a WhatsApp group of Tory backbenchers, with one, Crispin Blunt, calling for Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt to replace her and provide emergency repair. Story continues Read more: 'I've got cheese that's lasted longer': Ridicule as Kwarteng sacked as chancellor And the BBC quoted another Tory MP as saying Truss's short press conference on Friday, in which she delivered the U-turn on corporation tax, was the worst they had seen in 15 years. Asked at the press conference if she should resign, Truss said: I am absolutely determined to see through what I have promised. COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark's government backed on Friday opposition calls for an investigation into the case of a former spy chief accused of leaking state secrets. In a book published this week and partly written in custody, ex-foreign intelligence unit head Lars Findsen said the government unfairly suspended him in 2020 for political motives. "We need broad political trust in the work of the intelligence agencies and if distrust arises, we think it's sensible to establish an investigative commission," Justice Minister Mattias Tesfaye told local broadcaster TV 2. A majority of parties now support a parliamentary probe. In a security scandal roiling the Nordic country, Findsen spent two months at the start of this year in custody, where he partly wrote "The spy chief - Memories from cell 18". Prior to his arrest in December, Findsen was suspended over accusations of wrongdoings from an independent board overseeing the unit. He says the government attempted to avoid a scandal by putting him and other employees at the agency on furlough. Last month, the state prosecutor charged him with passing state secrets to six people including two journalists over the course of 16-17 months. Findsen denies wrongdoing. (Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) OLENA ROSCHINA FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 12:22 As of 14 October, the death toll following the Russian attack on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia on 9 October has risen to 13 people. Source: Anatolii Kurtiev, Secretary at Zaporizhzhia City Council, on Telegram Quote: "As of now, two more people have been recovered from under the rubble. In total, 13 people, who were peacefully sleeping that terrible night in their flats in this residential building, were killed. May they rest in peace. My sincere condolences to their families." Details: Rescue operations at the scene are underway. 60 people, 10 Ukrainian State Emergency Service appliances, 2 Zaporizhzhia Road Management Service units and 3 equipment units from Zaporizhstal plant have been deployed. The work also continues in the private sector, which was also damaged by the attack on 9 October. Houses are being repaired and debris is being removed. Employees of the local rescue service and volunteers are working at the scene. Three Zaporizhzhia Road Management Service units and one unit from the Zaporizhstal plant are involved. Background: On the morning of 14 October, Russian troops attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia with three S-300 missiles, hitting the infrastructure facilities. Fires broke out at the sites of the attack. Oleksandr Starukh, Head of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration, stated that more missile attacks might be launched today on the city of Zaporizhzhia. Zaporizhzhia has been under attack for the past few days, mostly at night. The Russians fired 12 rockets on the city of Zaporizhzhia on the night of 9 October. Thirteen people were killed, and 89 injured. The Russians hit a residential high-rise building on the night of 9-10 October during another attack on Zaporizhzhia. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) had a raucous audience laughing during a campaign debate Thursday when he complained he had been set up by the FBI. Johnson was responding to an attack by his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, that the senator was once warned by the FBI that the Kremlin was trying to turn him into a Russian asset. Johnson was informed at an FBI briefing in 2020 that he was the target of Russian disinformation as part of a campaign to make him useful to the Kremlin, the senator confirmed to The Washington Post last year. Barnes warned in his face-off Thursday with Johnson, in the second of two televised debates in Milwaukee, We cannot trust Sen. Johnson to protect democracy abroad because we cant even trust Sen. Johnson to protect democracy here at home. Johnson fired back at Barnes wild charge. His claim that the FBI set me up with a corrupt briefing and then leaked that to smear me brought laughter from the debate audience. Johnson accused the FBI of being tainted by corruption, which he said he has been trying to uncover and expose (a point met with more audience laughter). Johnson says the FBI set him up. The audience laughs at him pic.twitter.com/aVlYg0fk0z Acyn (@Acyn) October 13, 2022 His accusation of a setup is one of a litany of wild claims Johnson has made. After the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Johnson in a radio interview defended the attackers as peaceful, calling them people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, [who] would never do anything to break the law. He said he would have been concerned, however, had the rioters been Black Lives Matter protesters instead of a mob incited by then-President Donald Trump. He also claimed recently that he was involved in trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential vote for only seconds last year and really had no clear idea what was going on. He said he tried to submit a list of fake electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence to deny Joe Biden his presidential victory. But Pences chief of staff refused to accept it. Story continues In a Fox Business News interview last month, Johnson said he condoned white supremacy, then quickly changed the word to condemned in what one critic blasted as the all-time Freudian slip. Johnson is widely regarded as the most vulnerable senator in the upcoming election, but he has recently been inching ahead in polls. quite the slip from Ron Johnson here pic.twitter.com/0zweRhruJX Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 20, 2022 This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Defense attorneys in the state case against three men who the prosecution has accused of joining in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continued to challenge the testimony of Big Dan, the FBI's confidential source an Army veteran by going after his record and suggesting he was more than an informant. The defense hopes to create doubt in the jurors' minds about state's case, but also show that the FBI had a hand, through Dan, in directing what unfolded. Moreover, as the trial neared the end of its second week, courtroom tensions became apparent. During questioning, defense implied that Dan was not just the eyes and ears of law enforcement, but an active participant in the paramilitary group the Wolverine Watchmen, training members, taking them to meetings, and, in fact, was its executive officer. "You are not even a month into this group, and you are already adding relevant questions to the vetting process, correct?" Paul Bellar's attorney, Andrew Kirkpatrick, asked Dan. The informant agreed that he suggested questions and became involved in the group. Kirkpatrick also used transcripts of Dan's earlier testimony to try to draw inconsistencies, forcing Dan, at one point, to admit he misspoke. To resolve a dispute from Thursday, Judge Thomas Wilson began court Friday by telling Dan that there were some questions about his military service and asked him to "walk us though" it. At issue was whether Dan who had testified against Joseph Morrison, Pete Musico and Bellar, who are charged with providing material support for terrorism, a felony punishable by up to 20 years should have earned a Purple Heart, an award given for injuries sustained in combat. Dan explained that his injuries were diagnosed later. The cross-examination, which began Thursday, had taken a tumultuous and personal turn. One prosecutor accused the defense of besmirching their witness, while another complained that the defense attorneys were speaking so loudly "its literally hurting my ears," and two defense attorneys, who both said that they were Marines, stood their ground until the Wilson ordered them to "tone it down." Story continues Later, the prosecution asked Dan to detail his military awards and commendations. The high-profile case is part of a larger domestic terrorism case that was tried twice in federal court. The state case in Jackson comes two years after the men were arrested, but also as the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol summarized its findings and sought testimony from the former president, and Whitmer debated her opponent, Tudor Dixon, in Grand Rapids. In a related domestic terrorism case, five more men are expected to face a trial in Antrim County. In many ways, the defense is going back to an earlier strategy, when it argued at a two-day hearing that the defendants were entrapped by law enforcement. At the hearing, Judge Wilson said found no evidence that the government pressured or targeted the suspects. Jurors also heard from a property manager of a mobile home park where Bellar lived, a Mount Morris Twp. sergeant, and another FBI agent, who testified concerns raised about Bellar and the Wolverine Watchmen, but, after investigation, were unaware any laws had been broken. More testimony is expected Monday. More:4 takeaways from the first Whitmer-Dixon debate More:New Air Jordan 2 design is packed with Michigan connections and special Flint message Leonard Ballard, Morrison's attorney, attempted Friday to show that his client was not as involved as the prosecution suggested and that it was Dan who had been encouraging Morrison's association with convicted plot ring leader Adam Fox. Ballard also asked Dan about payment from the FBI. Dan said he was paid $54,000. But the money, Dan said, helped make up for missed pay from work, and after the arrests, sold his home. He said he also had to purchase an watch, phone and laptop to protect his safety and to gather evidence for the FBI in his role as an informant. Kirkpatrick, asked Dan more questions about service-connected injuries and disability and the FBI rules for being an informant, such as assisting the group. The informant said he was concerned about his safety and feared for his life. Later, Kirkpatrick asked Dan about a phone call he had with Fox in the presence of two FBI agents, and he acknowledges that the agents were "giving you ideas" about what to talk about with Fox, and it was Dan who invited Fox to a meeting with the Wolverine Watchmen. Kirkpatrick ended his questioning asking Dan: "The only common denominator in this entire case, is you, right?" Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Defense questions FBI informant in Whitmer kidnapping plot The Biden administration is in talks with SpaceX over who will foot the bill for the critical internet service in Ukraine provided by the companys Starlink after the Elon Musk-owned firm said the systems high cost is too much for it to handle. Well share what we know about those communications and the theories for what prompted it, plus expanded benefits for survivors of LGBT veterans and new worries over Russia. This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, Im Ellen Mitchell. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here. Pentagon in talks over funding Starlink in Ukraine The Pentagon on Friday confirmed that the Biden administration was in talks with SpaceX over who will foot the bill for the critical internet service in Ukraine provided by the companys Starlink. The director of government sales for SpaceX, owned by CEO Elon Musk, reportedly sent a letter to the Pentagon last month stating it could no longer fund Starlink in Ukraine as it is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to keep it running for the next year, according to documents CNN said it obtained. I can confirm that the [Defense Department] has been in communication with SpaceX regarding Starlink, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday. Im not going to get into further details of this discussion just now. But were working with our partners and allies in trying to figure out whats best. Scant details: Pressed repeatedly as to when the Pentagon first began communications with SpaceX, who was involved and the nature of the talks, Singh would not offer details. Keeping options open: She added that officials understand the fragility of the Ukrainian communications system and are assessing our options and trying to do what we can to help keep these capabilities to ensure that these communications remain for the Ukrainian forces. Story continues There are certainly other [satellite communication] capabilities that exist out there, Singh said, when asked if there are any other commercially available alternatives to Starlink. Theres not just SpaceX, there are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what they need on the battlefield. A critical service: Starlink services in Ukraine are critical to the country in its ongoing war with Russia, and losing such a communications system is likely to have a detrimental effect on its armed forces. The Ukrainian military has credited the reliable, lightweight and mobile internet terminals as crucial to military and civilian communication. Musks claims: Musk earlier on Friday seemed to confirm that SpaceX had reached out to the Pentagon regarding Starlink costs when he tweeted that his company must create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to Internet via gateways, as well as defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder. He claimed that was costing the company about $20 million a month. Controversies: SpaceXs communications with the Pentagon come as Musk, the worlds richest man, has faced intense scrutiny over his suggestions for a negotiated settlement to end the war. He proposed that Russia keep Crimea in such a settlement, an idea that was roundly rejected by Ukrainian leaders. And though Musk initially received widespread acclaim for providing the Starlink service to Ukraine at the start of the war, it was revealed that most of the 20,000 terminals in the country are completely or partially funded by outside sources such as the U.S. government, the United Kingdom and Poland, CNN reported. Read the rest here VA expands survivor benefits to same-sex couples The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Friday announced an initiative to expand survivor benefits to survivors of LGBT veterans, many of whom were unable to legally wed before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. Before the Supreme Courts landmark decision, same-sex couples in at least a dozen states were unable to legally marry. Lingering effects: The fact continues to impact survivors of LGBT veterans, who are excluded from VA survivor benefits because their veteran spouse died before their legal union met the departments length-of-marriage requirements. New rules: Under VA guidelines, a couple must be married for at least one year to qualify for survivor benefits and at least eight years to become eligible to receive a higher rate of benefits. But on Friday, the department said survivors of LGBT veterans are now able to apply for these benefits. Eligible surviving spouses who apply in the next year will receive benefits backdated to Oct. 11, 2022, the department said. VA is closing a gap in benefits for surviving spouses of LGBTQ+ Veterans, righting a wrong that is a legacy of the discriminatory federal ban on same-sex marriages, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said Friday in a news release. A larger effort: Fridays announcement is part of a larger effort by the VA to expand protections for LGBT veterans. The department last year began providing benefits to veterans discharged under the militarys Dont Ask, Dont Tell (DADT) policy, which prohibited LGBT military personnel from sharing or openly acknowledging their sexual orientation or gender identity. Read the full story here US nuclear fears at highest levels since Cold War At a moment when the global COVID-19 pandemic is finally loosening its grip on the public consciousness as an object of existential dread, a new fear has swept in to supplant it: nuclear annihilation. Russias invasion of Ukraine in February has stoked U.S. nuclear fears like no other event since the close of the Cold War, according to foreign policy scholars and public opinion curators. In poll after poll this year, a majority of Americans have said they believe Russian President Vladimir Putin may unleash nuclear weapons on Ukraine, as Putin himself has threatened. The level of anxiety is something that I havent seen since the Cuban missile crisis, said Peter Kuznick, a history professor and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, referring to the tense 1962 standoff between the United States and Soviet Union. And that was short-lived. This has gone on for months now. Spiking tensions: Nuclear unease surged with the Feb. 24 invasion, then spiked further when Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert days later. Tensions eased over the summer, as the Ukraine invasion faded from the headlines and Americans grew to accept the lingering war as a new normal. Fears rose again this month amid suggestions that Putin might resort to using nuclear weapons to stem mounting losses. Read the rest here ON TAP FOR TOMORROW The Center for Strategic and International Studies will host a virtual talk on U.S. and Lithuanias Strategic Cooperation, at 10 a.m. The Potomac Officers Club will hold its 8th Annual Intel Summit 2022, at 10:30 a.m. The Heritage Foundation will discuss Cyber Persistence: A New Paradigm for Cyberspace Strategy and Policy, at 12 p.m. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, will hold a discussion on Russian information warfare, at 2 p.m. WHAT WERE READING Thats it for today! Check out The Hills Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you next week! For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.